#stories live on
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
lol. I am living for the comments under the official trailer video.
#mcsm#minecraft story mode#minecraft#minecraft live action#minecraft movie#Steve#Jack black is Minecraft Steve
36K notes
Ā·
View notes
Text
I once had a landlord offhandedly mention that his mother had set this house on fire before. He and his wife lived on the first floor, and i rented the third.
Apparently his mom didnāt like his wife. So she set their house on fire. The house i was living in.
He assured me that everything was fine now and that this was years ago, just kinda laughed, smiled, and said āYou know how moms areā
Yes. I know how moms are. I know how fucked up moms are as well. I have known many fucked up moms and fellow children of fucked up moms.
Attempted murder through arson is not typical mom behavior, even for a fucked up abusive mom
Oh, and his mother lived next door š
#story time with sair#i might follow up with more#that was a wild living situation even for me#family owned#two neighboring houses of six units total#all of them one family/lived there decades#except the one unit rented out to me
42K notes
Ā·
View notes
Text
If my mom sees a significant amount of blood she gets lightheaded, and has fainted on some occasions. Once it happened when we were kids, I wasn't there to witness it but I heard the story from my dad. Basically my brothers, around 7 or 8 at the time, were playing outside while my mom was making their lunch, and she accidentally cut her finger. It wasn't anything serious, but it drew a fair bit of blood and she passed out. My dad saw this and rushed over, but he didn't really know what to do so he just sort of started slapping her to wake her up (not recommended, but he had no idea and panicked)
At that exact moment my brothers both came in from playing, and all they saw was our mom unconscious on the floor and our dad slapping her. So, like, without even saying a word to each other they both just INSTANTLY start whaling on him, like, full blown attack mode to defend our mom. Which obviously didn't help the situation, but she did wake up and everything was fine.
Now our dad says that he's actually really glad they attacked him over what they thought was going on, because it means he raised good boys. And I still think that's true, they're very good boys.
#i think about this story sometimes like yeah I'm proud of them for that too actually. good job baby brothers#they're not babies anymore of course they're turning 20 next year which is crazy#but they're still the type of people who'd do something if they saw something of this sort happen for sure#respectful of women and everyone else too. they're good guys#I'm glad I ended up with them living in my house against my will for like 14 years#anyway i have no idea where i was for all this but my best guess is probably a friends house given the time period#i was always at my besties house lol#i hope she's doing well too actually. haven't spoken in forever...#bestie from greek elementary school... if you're out there... let's get muffins and fanta at the bakery across the street again someday šā®ļø
61K notes
Ā·
View notes
Text
I love nautical and seaside town horror stories. Tell me more about the fog and water that eats people
#living by the sea also is an experience#cus i love th3 sea so much dude swimming is my fav activity ever#but since tahts my reality i dont experience the horror of it#and some fics and stories really puck a punch#OHHH#rare rambling
24K notes
Ā·
View notes
Text
bad dating stories time: the shoe incident
so in highschool, my best friend wasnt allowed to go on dates unless there was another couple there to keep an eye on him. part of this was his parents being insane, but also, part of it was him being insane. in a problem with no reasonable parties, there are no reasonable solutions.
at some point in my junior year, my sorta-gf broke up with me, and i just wasnt feeling dating, which was bad for my friend, because he had a good thing going with a girl he met in court.
he kind of hounded me about it. kept pushing me to just put me feet back in the dating pool and i wasnt real thrilled about it, because i knew he was pushing me for his own benefit, not mine, so i kept telling him to fuck off, and after a few weeks of being told that i would date when i was damn well ready, he eventually said: okay. what if i paid for the date AND found you a blind date AND all you had to do was show up?
and i shouldve said no, i know, but i let him wear me down, and i will own my fault in that. a date starting on such a stupid premise could never have gone well.
but he still managed to find a way to make it worse.
i dont know how long he tried to set a blind date up. it couldve been multiple attempts. he couldve stooped to this immediately. but what happened in the end was that he called a girl from the ward he attended - a girl that he knew had a giant, mushy crush on him - and he said: hey! how would you feel about going on a date this weekend?
(you know, implying it was with him, but never actually saying it.)
and she said YES WOW I WOULD LOVE TO and he said great! and then he called me up and said he found me a date.
i did not learn about his crimes until several weeks later. i will die swearing before god almighty that i would never have allowed this travesty to happen if i had known.
that was on a monday. the date of the date rolled around that friday evening, and im sorry to confess, i really phoned the whole thing in. i showed up in my favorite comfy outfit, which was also a fashion crime: basketball shorts and flipflops and a baja hoodie. it was super comfy but it made me look kind of crazy. i picked him up first, and then i picked up his date next, and then we went to pick up my date, and thats where you're gonna get the play by play.
i arrived, walked across the yard, and knocked on the front door. she opened it almost immediately, like shed been waiting right by it, and i could see her expression go from OMG IM SO EXCITED to super disappointed, then disgusted and finally pissed. and because i didn't know about my friends sins, i thought it was from my outfit. which seemed... harsh. like, hey, im allowed to be quirky, fuck you. also its a blind date, i thought the deal was that we were both going to be sad broken sacks of mortality.
anyway, we looked at each other for several seconds before she slammed the door in my face.
i looked back at my friend. he was sweating bullets. i dont know what he expected from this, but there was this big long pause where we both tried to figure out what to do, and then the door opened up, and her dad invited me in, and he said she was gonna need a few minutes to finish getting ready, and that in the meantime we could sit and talk.
we did not talk. we did sit. i sat down on the couch, and he sat down in a chair across the couch, and then instead of talking he cleaned his pistol on the coffee table. i wasnt actually sure if it was a threat, or if it was just a fidget thing for 40+ year old republican men, but when i tried to help he got snappy so i just watched him put a pistol back together.
he was okay at it.
eventually my date came downstairs, still mad as hell for reasons beyond my ken, and i felt pretty guilty for being such a mess because i thought that was why she was so angry. i tried to make up for by walking her to the car and getting the door for her, just generally trying to be extra polite, but before i could make it back to the drivers side, her dad called me back to the door. so i flipped around, went to the door, and immediately regreted my decision.
soon as i was within range, her dad got waaaay too close to me, leaned in, and said "whatever you do to her, i will do to you," and my brain went into overdrive making three consecutive realizations.
realization one was, damn, the pistol thing was a threat. that sucks. what an asshole. realization two was, wait, im autistic and even i know theres a 0% chance me and my date even hold hands, least of all boink. does this guy actually think there's even a 1% chance of anyone in that car getting laid tonight? is he an idiot? and then realization three went through, which was wait, is this guy threatening to fuck me? and unfortunately, with my brain doing so much processing, my mouth was left to run amok, so somewhere between realization 2 and 3, i said:
"i can't get pregnant"
which, i swear, wasn't actually me trying to be a smartass, it was just me pointing out that he couldn't actually follow up on that threat. it just wasn't possible. we do not live in the omegaverse and im not scared of you.
still, it was an insanely catastrophic thing to say, and the moment we both heard it, we bluescreened. that single sentence obliterated both of our momentary streams of consciousness like a saltine in front of a sand blaster. problem was, he'd probably gone his whole life not even realizing someone could say something that stupid, and making that realization was going to cost him a lot of thinking time. me though? i had been saying shit like that for 17 years, i didnt have to rewrite my expectations of human nature, i just had to plan an exit and start striding. so i was already halfway back to the car before i heard "hey. hey come back. Hey. Hey. HEY. HEY WAIT. HEY GET BACK HERE. HEY-"
and then i was in my car, and i drove away.
if this happened today, he'd have called her, and the whole thing wouldve imploded then and there, but back then, there were still a decent number of teenagers without cell phones. especially the teenagers of insane, gun toting parents. so she just said: whoa what was that all about? and i said: dont worry about it, he'll tell you about it when you get home.
and she said: ok and went back to staring daggers at me and my friend.
WHICH SURPRISINGLY isnt even how the story ends.
we went to an improv comedy show, and it was a disaster. it shouldve been like, 7/10 tops, but between my date being mad, and my friend having a good time, and me having the existential terror of knowing that a guy with a pistol was probably waiting outside his house for me to come back, it was easily 11/10. i laughed way too hard at everything. especially the jokes that flopped. id sit there in this mostly silent room and laugh until i dry heaved a little, and my date was absolutely disgusted, and even my friend was a little embarrassed, which would just make me laugh harder. i laughed so hard that night i could barely talk the next day. and then the show ended, and my friend said, you know, that was a good time, but i think we should maybe do something a little chiller? who wants to walk around the park? and his date said yeah, and my date said no, and i finally had mercy on the poor woman so i said, look, im gonna drop you off. and i am so, so sorry about this, but im dropping you off like a block away. super duper sorry.
do talk to your dad about the pistols thing if you dont want this happening more in the future tho.
and she said: okay. so i dropped her off, and she walked a block down, and that was that.
then i drove my friend and his date to a park that was good for wandering. i figured they wanted something more private, so instead of following them around point blank, i chose a park with this 30 foot rope tower, and i climbed to the top and i said: hey i can see you anywhere from up here, you are officially chaperoned from a distance. get panopticoned idiot. except my friend really is an idiot, and he didnt really get the whole 'now i dont have to third wheel so insanely hard with you guys' thing so he climbed up the tower too, and then his date followed behind him, so there are three people basically sitting together on top of a telephone pole.
and then they started making out.
i was close enough to hear it.
i didnt really know what to do so i was just kind of sitting there, dissociating, when some college kids came around and started shaking the tower. my friend's date went aaaaaaaaaa im afraid of heights :( and my friend went oh, dont worry, ill hold you tight ;) and i went hey, im gonna climb down and ask them to stop.
so i did climb down, and i did ask them to stop, and they flipped me off, which i wasnt even mad about. at that point i was i was like yeah, it would be weirder if this wasnt a mess. gods plan has been to fly this day like a 747 into my metaphorical twin towers and brother he is close enough for me to see him grinning through the cockpit window. still, eventually the college students got bored, so they climbed up the tower, which gave my friend and his date a window to climb down, and together we walked back to my car.
now, i cant explain why this is, but sitting back in the drivers seat was my carriage-back-into-a-pumpkin moment. i'd been chill about all the chaos, just rolling with the punches, but sitting down made me realize how much of a shitshow the day had been, and while i couldnt go back and fix all of it, i could go back and fix one thing.
so i told my friend and his date, hey, you two, stay here and don't do anything weird. don't. then i walked back to the rope tower, and i started picking up the shoes the college students had left at the base in order to climb.
about halfway through this, i realized that if i took all their shoes, they might think i was in it for the money, and i actually wanted them to know i was in it specifically to spite them. fuck those guys. so i put all the right shoes back, gave myself a 100 foot headstart, yelled "nice shoes, assholes", did a little jig, and started running.
my advice to everyone is that college students are faster than you think. even with the headstart, and the whole climb down the tower thing, i was still only fivish seconds ahead of them by the time i got to my car. i flung the door open, looked in the backseat, didnt see anyone, flung the stolen shoes in the backseat, heard two "ow"s, took that as proof of presence, jumped in and pealed out of the lot.
my friend and his date popped up a few seconds later. they were, uh, doing something weird in the back seat. my one request - obliterated.
they climbed up to ask where the hell all the shoes had come from, and i was like yeah i stole them from the college students, and they were like oh. cool. hope you had fun. and i was like, i did. i did. but speaking of fun, what were you doing back there?
and for the first time in my buddies life, i think he was actually embarassed.
#dating stories#anecdotes#long post#funny story#babylon#im really bad at dating#like i can do a lot better than this but also it just was kind of a nightmare for me#shit like this did make the whole thing easier tho#like#every date after this i could go you know ive seen how bad it can get#and i lived#didnt even get shot#writing
14K notes
Ā·
View notes
Text
just having some fun with interesting fantasy imagery! Give it a reblog, if you play, please? And tell me WHY you picked what you picked if you want?
#fun stuff#fantasy#polls#it's always fun when the magic in a story leads to some REALLY interesting living constructs of creatures right?
20K notes
Ā·
View notes
Text
What was that you said about memory? "A monster," was it?
#iwtvedit#iwtv#interview with the vampire#louis de pointe du lac#armand#lestat de lioncourt#daniel molloy#anyway obviously these are at different periods and contexts in their lives but nonetheless#i'm fascinated by the different versions of characters we see filtered through who is telling the story at that moment#how they remember themselves and how they remember others#and the gaps in this set are just as interesting! season 3 maybe i can do a follow up#how does lestat see himself. how does he see armand or louis#how would daniel see him? etc
13K notes
Ā·
View notes
Text
listen I know it's heartbreaking that Claudia dies and it's understandable to wish she didn't, but let's please not accuse the writers of fridging her. to do so is a fundamental misunderstanding of the story and is frankly insulting to the intelligence and skill of the writers of the show.
Claudia's death, and the overwhelming grief and regret her parents experience because of it, is quite literally the point of the entire story. she dies because Anne's daughter Michele died of leukemia when she was five years old and there was nothing she or her husband could do to prevent it.
writing IWTV was how Anne coped with the unimaginable loss of a parent losing her child. she created a story about a little girl that could not die and then killed her anyway. Claudia's death is a senseless, unavoidable tragedy, just like Michele's was. the grief that haunts Louis and Lestat for the rest of their lives is the same grief that haunted Anne and her husband.
so when you're accusing people of killing Claudia off to benefit a story about two men, please remember that in real life sometimes parents lose their children. please remember Michele Rice.
she's the reason Claudia exists.
she's also the reason Claudia cannot be saved.
#interview with the vampire#claudia de lioncourt#iwtv#lestat de lioncourt#louis de pointe du lac#saw some rancid takes on twitter and i just can't not say something#like how do you encounter a story so clearly about the fathomless grief that comes with losing a child and blaming your partner and yoursel#and somehow finding a way to live again after years and years of suffering--not forgetting NEVER forgetting--but living and loving again#and go 'the writers just hate women. claudia should never have died'#like you're right that Claudia shouldn't have died. Michele shouldn't have died either.#but she did. and so Claudia did. and her parents will never stop grieving her.#iwtv spoilers
17K notes
Ā·
View notes
Text
The Afton kids deserved better in FNAF..
#myart#chloesimagination#comic#fnaf#five nights at freddy's#fnaf fanart#michael afton#elizabeth afton#dave afton#David Afton#cc fnaf#fredbear#fnaf helpy#afton family#fnaf pizzeria simulator#fnaf 4#KEEPING yall on your toes itās time for an angst comic#if I think too hard about Michaelās story I will sob#Michael is defined and driven by his own guilt/regret#mean everything he does in FNAF is to free his siblings#and also get rid of his father#and in the end decides to rid of himself too#I just gotta believe he just misses them#wishes they all could of had better lives#full stolen childhood#nobody can make me hate you Michael Afton
9K notes
Ā·
View notes
Note
Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?
I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?
In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut fĆ¼r Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".
Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.
This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.
Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.
The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.
[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]
There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.
This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.
[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]
As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.
But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?
Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.
#transgender#trans history#transsexual#transphobia#Magnus Hirschfeld#holocaust#holocaust denial#book burning#j.k. rowling#jk rowling#just in case you missed what i mean by all this: go fuck yourself anon :)#trans people have always existed#and we will always exist#if you really wanna pick a fight with me over well-documented history then you better bring in some sources to back your shit#queer history#queer#lgbt+#lgbta+#lgbt#lgbt history#edit: i finally got around to those damn image IDs. i am so very sorry for totally forgetting that's my bimbo moment of the month#also real quick i thought about adding an image of the actual building but the only one i can find has a Nazi parade in front of it#it was taken the day of the book burning raid and honestly if i were to include it then i'd add it to the first few paragraphs#and i think the story's better told when you uphold the hope Magnus Hirschfeld and all the researchers he worked with had#also keeps being brought up: yes Hirschfeld was a eugenicist. it was a popular belief set that was only discredited after WW2#Hirschfeld died in 1935. he literally didn't live long enough to see science turn against those beliefs and practices#considering how he changed his mind on transitions i like to think he would've changed his mind on eugenics too if he'd lived
17K notes
Ā·
View notes
Text
Alright letās run down why this trailer sucks.
First upā¦ this is not how Minecraft terrain generation WORKS. I understand theyāre trying to push the blocked aesthetic of the world, but this just looks like bad world edit creation with these massive block shapes making up the arch here.
This is not how trees in Minecraft look. They donāt have branches like that.
What is the crafting recipe here? A couple iron ingots and some sticks haphazardly placed on a crafting table makeā¦ what is that? Two buckets on a chain??? What the fuck item is that? Why isnāt it a familiar Minecraft item? Why is the recipe not important? Why does he say Jack Blackās panda Poās catchphrase while crafting it?
THIS is the only accurate thing in the trailer so far. A tree floating and its component piece hovering in the middle. Thatās accurate. Good job.
Why are we doing piglins invading? Why are they not zombifying in the sun? Why are they shown multiple times in broad daylight raiding villages when we have actual RAIDERS IN THE GAME we could be using instead?
Hereās the magical mcguffan. Probably how they get into the world and how they get out.
And finally the creeper. I know people like to assume the creeper is made of grass, but given the texture of the poster I have a feeling this is legitimately 100% how the creeper looks in movie too. Itās justā¦ grass. Highly detailed dense grass.
That is not how I envision creepers.
Thereās sooooo much wrong with this film I am BAFFLED at how bad it is. How do you get Minecraft THIS WRONG???
10K notes
Ā·
View notes
Text
just had SO much fun with the fallout tv show... i love you missus okey dokey
#fallout#fallout tv show#my art#lucy maclean#i was not expecting it to be so good but it was!! delightful#i think i like video game adaptations better when they do their own thing with it lol#such a relief to instead of seeing something regurgitated mindlessly for profit#its actually just a completely fresh story but in a familiar setting. cool balm on my skin#i guess that's where i'm at in the remake hell we all live in rn#ella purnell has the sweetest biggest eyes i've ever god damn seen
14K notes
Ā·
View notes
Text
we'll do fine.
#fionna and cake spoilers#what hits me a little is how similar fionna and simon's stories are in the case of finding nuance in their lives#when both have gone through their separate but still valid pain no matter the extent it had been#and its that they met each other they get to see how it compares and they're no less worth of the peace and fun they dreamed of#even in the form of simplicity and just being normal#āi wouldn't have met THE fionna and cakeā āwe wouldn't have met THE simon petrikovā#it hits me harder that after the dandelion scene would've been their last time seeing each other physically#and how assuring simon sounded when fionna didn't know what to do with the literal world in her hands#tho im sure prismo isnt that much of a rule jerk lol i still drew out the revelation anyway with this tiniest addition#also the fact fionna's world is influenced by simon's thought processes and conditions so now things are a little better for both of them#fionna the human#fionna campbell#simon petrikov#qiiarts#the lil flashback of#betty grof#fionna and cake#adventure time
36K notes
Ā·
View notes
Text
These two kids are Hamza (the oldest) and Qusai (the youngest).
Their mother shares this video and bids them goodbye. They were both killed by Israeli bombardment 5 days ago. She says:
[Two days before Hamza and Qusai were killed, hamza asked me: "mom, when we die, where will I go?" And I told him: "you will be a bird in heaven, my love." He said: "and Qusai?" "Just like you inshallah."
And indeed, two days later, he left and took his brother with him. It's like he was preparing me for saying goodbye to both of them. Heaven is more beautiful than any place on this Earth, habibi. We will meet and be reunited one day, me, your dad and you two].
Our kids don't deserve to die already thinking about what will happen to them, they don't deserve to die already terrified, anticipating their death because the world failed them and decided their lives mean nothing. We are not numbers. Remember their names and their stories.
#if any of you have information/ a story of a Palestinian live lost send it to me and i will share it too#we have to keep their memory alive with us#Palestinian lives#palestine#gaza#israel#important#current events#free palestine#ethnic cleansing#free gaza#gaza strip#gaza under attack#gaza under genocide#usa#america#joe biden#video#we are not numbers#free palestine šµšø
34K notes
Ā·
View notes
Text
the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"
just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible
#due to the Great Data Decay academics write viciously argumentative articles on which episodes aired in what order#at conferences professors have known to engage in physically violent altercations whilst debating the air date number of household viewers#90% of the couch gags have been lost and there is a billion dollar trade in counterfeit ālost copiesā#serious note: i'll be honest i always assumed it was english imperialism that made shakespeare so inescapable in the 19th/20th cent#like his writing should have become obscure at the same level of his contemporaries#but british imperialists needed an ENGLISH LANGUAGE (and BRITISH) writer to venerate#and shakespeare wrote so many damn things that there was a humongous body of work just sitting there waiting to be culturally exploited...#i know it didn't happen like this but i imagine a English Parliament House Committee Member For The Education Of The Masses or something#cartoonishly stumbling over a dusty cobwebbed crate labelled the Complete Works of Shakespeare#and going 'Eureka! this shall make excellent propoganda for fabricating a national identity in a time of great social unrest.#it will be a cornerstone of our elitist educational institutions for centuries to come! long live our decaying empire!'#'what good fortune that this used to be accessible and entertaining to mainstream illiterate audience members...#..but now we can strip that away and make it a difficult & alienating foundation of a Classical Education! just like the latin language :)'#anyway maybe there's no such thing as the 'greatest writer of x language' in ANY language?#maybe there are just different styles and yes levels of expertise and skill but also a high degree of subjectivity#and variance in the way that we as individuals and members of different cultures/time periods experience any work of media#and that's okay! and should be acknowledged!!! and allow us to give ourselves permission to broaden our horizons#and explore the stories of marginalized/underappreciated creators#instead of worshiping the List of Top 10 Best (aka Most Famous) Whatevers Of All Time/A Certain Time Period#anyways things are famous for a reason and that reason has little to do with innate āvalueā#and much more to do with how it plays into the interests of powerful institutions motivated to influence our shared cultural narratives#so i'm not saying 'stop teaching shakespeare'. but like...maybe classrooms should stop using it as busy work that (by accident or designs)#happens to alienate a large number of students who could otherwise be engaging critically with works that feel more relevant to their world#(by merit of not being 4 centuries old or lacking necessary historical context or requiring untaught translation skills)#and yeah...MAYBE our educational institutions could spend less time/money on shakespeare critical analysis and more on...#...any of thousands of underfunded areas of literary research i literally (pun!) don't know where to begin#oh and p.s. the modern publishing world is in shambles and it would be neat if schoolwork could include modern works?#beautiful complicated socially relevant works of literature are published every year. it's not just the 'classics' that have value#and actually modern publications are probably an easier way for students to learn the basics. since lesson plans don't have to include the#important historical/cultural context many teens need for 20+ year old media (which is older than their entire lived experience fyi)
24K notes
Ā·
View notes