lover of puns and soup

I am An Old. I post star wars and trek, doctor who, disney, art, books, and random shit. check out my side blog batsandbeauty if you're into goth stuff

[bookwyrm-in-space]

GeekGirlND->bookwyrm-in-space

[miraclemaya]

this is problematic of me (joke) but i really enjoy the splashing of french into english speech or writing. just adds a pizzazz

[witchofanguish]

*adds a certain je ne sais quoi

[miraclemaya]

see the problem is that despite around 8 years of french schooling the french language has utterly escaped my brain so even the most obvious set up i had created for myself by accident was missed by me. such is life.

[spaghettioverdose-deactivated20]

*c'est la vie

[miraclemaya]

god damn it

[estrogenesis-eeveeangelion]

*sacrebleu

[pocket-deer-belly]

it's like, definitely still mansplaining if the man is dominating the conversation unintentionally and he would totally stop if you asked him to, actually. like, the term exists to describe a phenomenon that arises from the implicit bias that women are expected to simply be less knowledgeable about things. it doesn't matter if he's doing it on purpose or not. he does it cause he expects women to not know things or to not have any input. maybe don't fucking expect women to stand up for themselves every single time they have to have a conversation with a man because that shit happens like daily for a lot of women

[ellohcee]

Eye of the cosmos

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[ekjohnston]

*weeps uncontrollably at 9 o'clock in the morning*

God, I love randos on the internet who just want to be kind.

[magicratfingers]

[lostinhistory]

Solid life advice from Sue the T. Rex.

[waitafrikk]

i hate when a book describes a pause as pregnant. get your dick out of the pause

[lunyselene]

terry pratchett is the only person who actually knew how to use a pregnant pause

[angualupin]

I feel like I need to tell everyone how brilliantly the Globe incorporated a deaf Gildenstern into the 2018 Hamlet and then force all of you to watch it

ok, so Gildenstern is played by a deaf actor, Nadia Nadarajah. he* signs all his lines, and either Rosencratz interprets for him, or the person he’s talking to says something that makes it obvious what he just said, depending. how each character reacts to Gildenstern is completely in-character and often hilarious

Claudius and Gertrude are intensely awkward around Gildenstern. they obviously don’t know BSL so they just gesture emphatically but aimlessly when they talk.

Hamlet, who of course is friends with R&G, *does* know BSL. he starts off by signing fluently whenever he’s talking to them but, as his distrust of them grows, he signs less and less until he’s only signing the equivalent of “fuck off” whenever he talks

Polonius just shouts really loud whenever he tries to talk to Gildenstern

it’s all brilliant and adds another layer of humor and pathos and you should all watch it

*casting at the Globe right now is gender neutral so I’m just going to use the character’s pronouns

[angualupin]

guys I know I’m wittering on about this but the thing I want to emphasize is that there is no tokenism here. they didn’t just shove a deaf actor into a speaking role so they could pat themselves on the back about how progressive they are. they went to the effort of fully integrating Nadarajah’s deafness into the story so that it not only fit organically within the narrative but actually enhanced it. watching Hamlet’s signing disintegrate as his trust in R&G disintegrates adds a depth to that storyline I’ve never seen before. Claudius has exactly the awkwardness of someone who thinks of himself as a good person and therefore thinks he’s being kind and generous with his accommodations for disability, but has never even once actually asked a disabled person what they need, which is so on-point for his character it hurts.

I know Michelle Terry gets a lot of hate mail for her policy of race-, gender-, and disability-blind casting, but fuck all those people. long may that policy continue.

[lostsometime]

the glenda jackson production of king lear on broadway did something similar with the Duke of Cornwall, and it was actually the best part of the play, imo.  because when Cornwall was speaking to Lear or to the Court, he had a sign language interpreter to speak the actual literal words aloud, but when he was talking to and conspiring with Regan, his wife, they were just signing back and forth with no translation for the audience, and it emphasized the intimacy between the two even as they turn against literally everyone else in the play, which was fantastic.

and the best part of it was, by the second half of the play, you were so used to it, that you didn’t even blink anymore when watching him and listening to the spoken words come from the interpreter - you just watched the actor playing Cornwall and let the words come from the other guy, but the guy kind of fades into the background.  it didn’t hurt that the actor for Cornwall was one of the tallest on stage, and had bright red hair - it was easy to watch him, instead of his interpreter.

which is why it was so shocking and so perfect when the interpreter is the one who kills him.

See, they folded the character of the servant who kills Cornwall into the person of this character who had been such a non-entity that you almost forgot he was on stage - until you realize, no, this is another person, and he’s been here, watching all this the whole time, and he finally gets to the breaking point where he can’t stand by and translate anymore, he has to do something to stop the cruelty he’s seeing, and it’s not just a random guy who comes in for the scene and sees them blinding Gloucester, it’s the man whose been by his side for the entire play, the man who was his voice who finally has a line of his own.  who finally speaks on his own behalf to say “no.”

and then, of course, he gets killed, but Cornwall dies in the same scene so it’s not like they need to get a new translator or anything.  but it was the most fucking brilliant choice i’ve ever seen re: casting in a Shakespearean production, and the rest of the play pales in my memory in comparison.

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

that last one kind of reminds me of the (possible urban legend) about the use of kuruko as assassins in some kabuki plays which eventually led to the romanticization of the image of the black clad ninja. the idea being that the kuruko were mentally designated invisible because you saw them holding up scenery or acting the parts of puppeteers

[necrodivergent]

I believe that one’s real. Fictional ninja clothing is way too visible for actual stealth, but does closely resemble the full-body black clothing used by stagehands in kabuki. The effect is incredible when done right, because the stagehands are on stage pretty much all of the time, and the actors (and the audience) completely ignore their presence. They are treated as literally invisible, so suddenly having one jump out and murder a character is a great surprise, especially if done late enough into the performance that the audience has subconsciously edited them out of the action as just another bit of scenery.

[the-knights-who-say-book]

SGKSGKSGK MA’AM

[coolcurrybooks-deactivated20230]

1) This is hilarious

2) Her work is all really awesome! And she’s got a ton of short stories available for free online. Some of my favorites:

“Bluebeard’s Wife” -- what would happen if a woman Bluebeard married just didn’t look in the room?

“The Dryad’s Shoe” -- an aroace Cinderella who has zero interest in the ball or the prince but does love gardening

“Jackalope Wives” -- takes the skinshifting conceit of selkies and applies it to jackalopes (folkloric horned rabbits) in the American Southwest. Also stars the absolutely iconic Grandma Harken, whose left to clean up the mess when her grandson tries to catch himself a jackalope wife. This one won a bunch of awards and there’s an audio version read by LeVar Burton.

“Sun Moon Dust” -- a young farmer inherits a sword bound to the souls of three warriors, all ready to teach him to be a hero... but he has no desire to be anything but a farmer. A very sweet M/M story!

The rest of her free fiction is linked to on her site. She’s also got some great novellas and novels, including a f/f “Snow Queen” retelling!

[comicreliefmorlock]

omg she wrote "The Seventh Bride" which I love you tricksy woman!!!

[the-haiku-bot]

omg she wrote

“The Seventh Bride” which I love

you tricksy woman!!!

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

Duncan is such a nothingburger of a man I'm sorry

[chubby-elf-hux]

Lady Macbeth trying to persuade her husband to commit regicide

[wonderstruck]

If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading

[eilooxara]

Oat milk was discovered much more recently than you may have known. Like many now-familiar technologies, it was found by accident during the Apollo program when NASA learned what a zero-g environment does to goat milk.

[wenchyfloozymoo]

[water---damage]

Dr. Gachey with foxglove, 1890

[dovewithscales]

Some of Van Gogh’s best work was done during a period of his life that he spent in a hospital being treated for his mental health problems. I could be wrong but I think Starry Night was among those.

This is consistently the case. Creators tend to do their best work when they are in a healthy place and receiving proper treatment and not being self destructive in their efforts to cope. Go figure.

All our experiences, good and bad, inform what we create, but suffering is not the price of great art. Suffering is what prevents artists from completing great art.

[redshoesnblueskies]

(I bring to mind this @tkingfisher / Ursula Verson quote about once a week <3)

[undergroundwubwubmaster]

I wanted tot draw a princess cone, and then the idea got away from me.

[hbmmaster]

I always thought smoke detectors should be called fire distinguishers

[pmamtraveller]

Mammal in a Sunday Dress, by Georgina M. Cox, 2026

[originalaccountname]

Mammal in a Sunday Dress explores the uneasy relationship between femininity, civilisation, and the animal body. At first glance, the figure appears modest and withdrawn. Her posture is composed, her gaze seemingly lowered towards her bare feet, recalling the conventions of nineteenth-century portraiture where women were often depicted as passive objects of observation. Yet as the viewer moves closer, the illusion collapses. Her eyes are not lowered at all. She is looking directly back. The delayed eye contact transforms the encounter. The viewer approaches believing they are safely observing a woman; instead, they realise they have been observed themselves. The work refuses the traditional power dynamic of portraiture, denying the comfort of anonymous spectatorship. Looking becomes a reciprocal act. For Cox, the painting considers humanity's persistent desire to separate itself from the rest of the animal kingdom. The title quietly undermines this distinction. A "mammal" is not another creature—it is us. The Sunday dress, rich with cultural associations of femininity, morality, and respectability, becomes an attempt to distinguish ourselves from nature. Yet clothing cannot alter biology. Beneath lace and ritual remains the same vulnerable animal body. The work also reflects on the historical relationship between women and nature. Across art, religion, and philosophy, women have repeatedly been positioned as closer to instinct, emotion, reproduction, and the body itself, while men have been aligned with reason, culture, and civilisation. Mammal in a Sunday Dress does not reject this comparison. Instead, it questions why proximity to nature has so often been treated as something lesser. Chiaroscuro isolates the figure within darkness, allowing the luminous dress to symbolise the performance of civilisation while the bare feet quietly return the body to the earth. Neither is presented as more truthful than the other. The painting exists in the tension between performance and instinct, refinement and biology. Mammal in a Sunday Dress ultimately asks a simple but unsettling question: if every layer of culture were stripped away, what would remain? Not a king. Not a saint. Not a gentleman or a lady. Only another mammal, looking back.

source

[littlestpersimmon]

the evening and the morning