Not gay as in happy, but queer as in fuck you

Fuck censorship |Sweden| |1996| |ey/em| Backup blog is at rauaisilme in case this one explodes again

[sonny-shine]

God I wish elections in the fucking US wouldn’t affect literally every other country in the world

[mystery-ink]

forgot to say that, without Howl chasing girls and Sophie resenting him for it, the film completely erases part of the point of Sophie being old.  Wynne Jones is using an idea that Beauvoir talked about - that being an old woman is both tragic (as we lose male attention/attractiveness) and freeing (as we are freed from the male gaze).  the idea is that with being old comes liberation, and the true meaning of what it is to be a woman, as society no longer forces gender norms on us.

Sophie is free from Howl’s attentions and therefore safe from harm (a big part of the book is the fact that Sophie believes he eats women’s hearts, and him chasing girls proves this to her).  she takes solace in the fact that she’s old, and finds it freeing.  when she learns more about Howl (notably: that he doesn’t eat hearts and that he’s not evil), she starts to curse her age and resent him chasing girls.  BUT she remains old OF HER OWN VOLITION - Howl notes that she’s perpetuating the spell by wishing to remain “in disguise”.  there are SO many layers to this, and lots to do with gender politics - if she’s still old Sophie can’t get hurt, she likes the freedom, etc.  but of course on a personal level being old is her denying her feelings for Howl, and also a representation of her low self esteem - being old is a defence mechanism and protection, both on a gender level and a personal one.

and the film kinda… loses this?  the only thing that remains is being old = low self esteem.  which really sucks.  because there’s SO MUCH MORE to Sophie being old in the book (perspective I already mentioned), and a HUGE amount of this is gender politics.  that the film just erases.

[sylvester-malone]

Also there’s the subversion of that in the book. Sophie’s belief that she’s safe from Howl, isn’t quite true because he fell in love with her while she was under the spell (and in the book, there’s no switching between looking young and old. Sophie is looking ninety the entire time, and Howl falls in love anyway.)

Also, her belief that being old means she can’t go to her stepmother or her sisters, that they’d fail to recognize her or reject her, is also unfounded. Fanny almost immediately recognizes her at the end of the book, and hugs her and cries over her and asks why Sophie disappeared. Sophie’s belief that the love of her family, friends and even her romantic interests is somehow conditional on her appearance is shown to be completely false at the end, which I think is absolutely beautiful.

Like, there’s definitely gender politics and commentary going on about beauty and youth and age and the male gaze and male violence going on, but there’s also this message about how love, real love, transcends all of that.

[ellorgast]

I actually adore the movie on its own merits, but I think it absolutely did a disservice to Sophie as a character. When I was doing a reread last month, what hit me was that Sophie is every bit as much of a volatile emotional disaster as Howl is, and that’s pretty heckin’ great. 

Howl is a pissy, dramatic asshole even when he’s at his best. He dissolves into green slime when his hair looks wrong. He deals with his problems by getting falling-over drunk and makes the walls shake every time he sneezes just so everyone will take pity on him. He’s a self-proclaimed coward who has to trick himself into taking responsibility for anything.

Movie Sophie deals with this as well as she can. She learns to look past his drama and sees his tender heart and noble intentions. She becomes the mature one in the castle, fixing everyone’s problems, essentially taking up a motherly role to all the other characters.

Book Sophie does the same… but she does it while dealing out as good as she takes. Howl is chasing after every woman except Sophie? Sophie meticulously cuts up his suit into triangles. Howl floods the room with green slime? Sophie hate-magics weed killer strong enough to melt concrete, and chucks it at Howl’s head. Howl can’t stop avoiding his problems? Meet the queen of avoidance, who clung to her curse to avoid confronting her feelings for Howl. Howl has to basically trick himself into taking action? I would like you to meet Sophie, who was too scared to leave her home her whole life, but the moment she’s under a curse is like “WELP, GUESS I’D BETTER LEAVE HOME RIGHT THIS MOMENT AND NEVER COME BACK.”

The moment of Howl and Sophie getting together in the book isn’t “Sophie fixes everything through her inherent goodness.” It’s “Sophie realizes that Howl has been secretly scheming to fix all her problems exactly the same way that she has been secretly scheming to fix all his problems because neither of them is a normal functioning adult, and they both look forward to yelling at each other for the rest of their wonderful lives.” And losing that, losing all of Sophie’s flaws and ridiculous moments as well as Howl’s efforts to fix her life as much as she’s trying to fix his, means that we’re left with a typical romance trope of a woman having to fix all of a man’s problems and be the perfect, mature one in the relationship, while he can coast purely on charm. The revelation that half of Howl’s antics were actually schemes to break Sophie’s curse or even just make her happy is important because for once it goes both ways. Not just “woman fixes man with her love,” but “people fix each other with their love, sort of, except for all the parts that will never change and that’s okay because flaws can be just as attractive as virtues, and if he laughs when you throw weed killer at him then he might be the one.”

[sylvester-malone]

Omg YES

[okayyoureacab]

Hexagon Quilt

[rumade]

This is the second time I've seen a video of this technique and this explanation is so clear! It does use more fabric than English paper piecing (EPP) but you end up with a double sided hexagon so don't have to source fabric for the backing.

I'm doing EPP at the moment but I have a hole punch to make the papers and just use leaflets and junk mail, so it doesn't feel wasteful. I don't think it's difficult either- in the video she mentions it's not for beginners, but I don't have that much experience with hand sewing or EPP and I've been finding it pretty easy so YMMV

[lindstromm]

I saw this video yesterday and was seized with the need to try it out immediately. Lookit my cute lil' hexagon baby!!

Here is what the backside looks like. OP notes this takes more fabric than paper piecing, but that excess fabric makes it already triple-layered. Besides not needing backing fabric, I don't think you'd need batting for this quilt at all. It's already thick and soft just from folding all that fabric into a hexagon.

[lannamichaels]

Hexagon quilt tutorial video by tiktok user camelscrafts. Method:

Each hexagon begins as a 6" circle. camelscrafts does this by creating a paper template using a compass. According to the video, a 6" circle will create a hexagon that is 2.5 inches tall.

These hexagons are hand-sewn. Thread the needle.

With the fabric right side facing, find the center of the circle by folding it in half right sides together, then folding it in half again (wrong sides are facing). The top of the triangle shape is the center of the fabric circle.

Make a small stitch into the center of the fabric. The wrong side is still facing.

Unfold the circle. There will be a small stitch in the center.

Now the hexagon is created by folding the circle into itself: Take the needle to one of the edges of the fabric (it doesn't matter which one). Pull the needle through and pull the thread tight. This will fold down the fabric and create an edge of the hexagon. Crease the fold with your finger.

This fold has two corners, one at the top and one at the bottom. Put the needle into one of the corners and pull the thread taut. This will create another fold.

Continue this going around the circle until all of it is folded down, creating the hexagon. camelscrafts notes that the last corner pulled in may be a little bit "wonky" (no precise point in the corner) if the corners were not done precisely. However, that corner is pulled into the back, so is not visible from the front.

The hexagon is now formed. Sew around the folds in the middle of the circle to hold the folds in place. Tie off and cut the thread.

Attach hexagons to each other along the sides. With right sides together, whip stitch the sides together.

[tepkunset]

Since Canada is currently trying to sell itself as an "ethical alternative" to Iran's oil, I would just like to remind folks / share some quick information:

More than 50% of Indigenous communities in reserve areas in Canada are at high risk of pipeline spills. When there is a spill, reserves are disproportionately impacted.

The National Energy Board and Supreme Court of Canada has a history of declaring the "public interest and economic interests outweigh Indigenous and treaty rights." Basically, Indigenous peoples don't count enough as "public" to matter.

Pipelines are built without proper consent from the Indigenous Nations they choose to occupy. Keep in mind I say choose, because this is the case even when alternative pipeline routes are suggested that could avoid reserve land. This is a direct, constant, and often violent threat to Indigenous sovereignty.

The MMIW crisis is funded by the oil industry through the creation of worker's "man camps" near reserve land. These "man camps" are nothing but pits of sexual violence and human trafficking of Indigenous women and girls. I am not exaggerating; this is well studied and well documented.

Resources & Sources:

To become an ‘energy superpower’, Canada wants to bulldoze Indigenous rights (START HERE!)

Indigenous Resistance to Alberta Oil and Gas Development Report

When the environment is destroyed, you're destroyed: Achieving Indigenous led pipeline justice

First Nations Consent Ignored as Canadians Asked to Subsidize LNG Expansion

Oil pipelines and food sovereignty: threat to health equity for Indigenous communities

Is Violence against Indigenous Women in “Canada’s interest”? Liquified Natural Gas in B.C., Sexual Violence & Narratives of Terra Nullius

The colonial playbook never ended, Canada’s pipeline deal proves it

Stand together: Alberta's First Nations and non-Indigenous unite against Big Oil

[kvothes]

a good thread

[egberts]

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Voting ended onJun 27

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[curioscurio]

[autisticbisexualsokka]

32,287 votes

[toastbutteregg]

[mysweetoddbird]

[partywithponies]

Strange racists and homophobes on the internet seem to have access to an alternate way cooler version of TV than me. "every white character on TV is in an interracial relationship" "every show has a gay couple in it" "main characters keep having to secretly be bisexual and nonbinary" "every show has gratuitous full frontal nudity" like damn promise?? What channel???

[urlocalpyshcopan]

as a black gay person real like where y'all be finding this stuff pass the name

[brainsforbabyjesus]

for real though, those DO NOT WATCH OR YOU'LL CORRUPT YOUR CHILDREN lists put out by conservative christian family groups is where I find all the stellar tv shows. Like, shit I didn't know half of those existed, thanks for finding them for me, gonna go watch 30 hours of gay tv now!

[infamousbrad]

I think I know how this works.

For personal context, before I went to the '98 Burning Man festival, one of the things I'd read from a couple different journalists was that "everybody" runs around naked. Which, fine by me, I'd already spent a lot of time in clothing-optional spaces, I'm not fanatic about it but it's nice.

So I got there early and set up a public shade structure on one of Black Rock City's main roads and spent most of each afternoon just watching the crowds go by. I don't remember seeing more than one actually naked person the whole week. I think a topless woman passed by my intersection maybe every half an hour, sometimes once an hour. So why in the hell were people, normally pretty smart and observant writers, coming away with the impression that everybody was naked?

Then I remembered an unrelated passage from Joel Garreau's great book about the history of the outer-ring suburbs, Edge City. Mall developers told him flat-out that they tried to keep the crowds in their malls less than 5% black. Not because they themselves were racist, but because they had determined, experimentally, that if more than 5% of the people in the mall are black, the median white shopper will wrongly describe the mall as at least half black, as mostly black. And not a few of them would describe it, at 6% black, as a mall where "only black people go." Why?

Because, emotionally, they were still upset over the last one when the next one came into view.

Same as the journalists describing Black Rock City as all naked. Same as the right-wing religious culture warriors describing television as entirely mixed-race and gender non-conforming. Not because it's even vaguely true, we know that, but because they haven't gotten over their discomfort over the last one by the time the next one comes along. The anger, not the stimulus, is the part that's continuous, so their mind lies to them that it's "all" the thing they can't get over.

[kagedtiger]

Similar effect for the presence/proportion of women in things, by the way: https://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/perception/how-17-equals-496-the-amazing-multiplying-women.htm

[jayalaw]

What’s the solution then? Or if there’s no solution, should we make things even queerer and more diverse?

[crazy-pages]

The solution is societal change, not giving into this shit wherever you have any say, and knowing how the effect works so you can push back against it most effectively. And that's frankly been effective, though we could be doing much better.

Also thank you @infamousbrad, for the framing of bigots still being pissed off by the next time they get pissed off. That's really helpful for understanding exactly how the mindset works.

[elisecairo]

[katherynefromphilly]

As someone who was alive when Bob Ross (and William Alexander before him — that’s where the approach is from) was on PBS, I can 100% testify that you can paint along with him.

You may need to learn how to set up your paints and such… but this is what people did, live, while the show aired. That’s what the show was for. I had family members create lovely works of art they enjoyed, which I still have on my walls, because William Alexander and Bob Ross both said:

SCREW METICULOUS CLASSICAL ART PRACTICES — JUST GRAB A PALETTE KNIFE AND BIG OLD BRUSH AND PAINT!

They freed a whole generation of people who were taught to paint detail and realism and exact representation of reality — people who largely gave up this kind of thing because it got tedious.

I watched the joy of family members as they rediscovered art as a messy fun spontaneous half hour activity.

Give it a try.

[11990904]

[keybladesoras]

A CINEMATIC MASTERPIECE!

[crawly]

just learned about a building in london that is so poorly designed it becomes a death ray that melts cars and creates a downdraft effect with wind so powerful that it knocks full grown adults to the ground

[crawly]

[crawly]

imagine being knocked over by a gust of wind from this ugly ass building and then being cooked TO DEATH by the sun reflection like what a way to go

[millenniumitem]

i learned about this like last year or somethign and this building is literally th satan come alive. building that tries to fucking kill you and fry you like an egg

[super-metroid]

this is some shit out of a final destination movie

[captain-penguin]

I knew about the death ray, but the draft is new to me

[hickeywiththegoodhair]

@whenwinterfell i support him in his evil quest to build his giant magnifying glass in order to fry brits and americans like they’re ants

[macbethwitches]

his name is rafael viñoly and here are some extremely funny things he said about it. regrets? none.

“phenomenal” indeed

what!!!!

(source)

[willgrahamscock]

do straight people know that they can get divorced..?

[lustcannibalism]

conservatives are so afraid of being queer that they’d rather suffer through being married and hating their partner, like the amount of “I hate my wife/husband” jokes they make among their friends and in public and everyone just laughs it off? YOU’RE A VICTIM!

[willgrahamscock]

“he’s the most insufferable person on the planet“ “He thinks the same about me” FREE YOURSELVES

[moki-dokie]

so. a couple years ago i ended my 15 year relationship right. it wasn't that we hated each other or anything, we just kinda grew into different people needing different things from a relationship. it was at the point where either we could have kept going exactly the same (since we'd already tried to resolve our issues multiple times with no success) which would have definitely resulted in us hating each other... or we could end it before that point, continue to love each other in a way that doesn't also cause each other harm, and stay friends.

it was an amicable split. yeah, it still hurt, but it was just a small temporary hurt. and it took a bit to adjust to life like that while still living together, but we did! we rearranged our portion of the house so that the office could become my own bedroom and slowly worked through divvying up most of our things and deciding on we'll share expenses on and all that good stuff.

and honestly? nothing much really changed, except that neither of us were so pissy about things anymore. even walking around naked didn't change, cause why should it? like, we spent all those years having already seen each other naked countless times. the fact our relationship status changed didn't make that any more or less true. and it's just nakedness anyway, so who gives a shit. about the only thing that did change was physical affection being lessened.

to both of us, this way of splitting up seemed perfectly fine and normal. and yet, quite literally every single person we've talked to about it has reacted the same way. bewildered, confused, uncomfortable, borderline disgusted. even my brother who is like one of the chillest dudes out there made a comment like "I don't think i've ever even spoken to a single one of my exes." and i'm just??? i stayed friends with all but one of mine until life inevitably carried us apart. every comment made started off so negative by friends and coworkers and family and it was honestly just... fucking weird to us the way everyone was behaving. and then we got to talking about it a bit and realized like, no one we know has ever ended a relationship on good terms, or even at bare minimum neutral terms.

and isn't that fucking tragic? that this is the acceptable norm in our society, to just fucking suffer each other until you're full of bitterness, rage, and resentment and it all comes to a destructive end? isn't it so legitimately sad that the status quo doesn't value love enough to try and salvage it?

like, i very much believe this chick and her man do actually love each other, but it hasn't even occurred to them that they can simply love each other in a different way, from a distance, in a way that means they can still keep being friends and look back at what they had fondly.

and this isn't just conservatives. this isn't just the cishets. our circle of friends are quite the opposite. but the idea that a romantic relationship MUST end like the most gruesome trainwreck imaginable is so fundamentally ingrained that even they gave us the same weirded out and shocked reaction. its so disgustingly default to nurture hatred and smother the thing that made people fall in love to begin with that it's almost instinctual it seems like. of all of our friends combined, rowan was the only one who was just like, fucking normal about it. one person. that's tremendously fucked up, yall.

like, fucking hell i know things have come a long way in the last 50 years or so as far as, yknow, marriage counseling and therapy and whatnot goes but there's still a massive ocean of things left unsaid and emotions being repressed and needs not being addressed when it comes to relationships. and idk just maybe if folks weren't harboring so much animosity and vitriol and hostility, especially during the most formative years of their lives, they'd be more well-adjusted. maybe if our default was to respect and cherish the love and fondness that brought people together enough to keep it in tact at the end, we might just be a kinder people. (the nerd in me is suddenly reminded of the bajoran rite of separation from star trek ds9 and how actually lovely a thing it is to celebrate the ending of a relationship as a joyous thing. star trek stays winning.)

i don't know what my overall message here is since the vast majority of us on tumblr are not the status quo and to most people amicably splitting up before shit hits the fan seems like the most reasonable and healthy thing to do. i guess like, realize this is as much of a systemic problem as so many other things. it's definitely not even unique to western society, either, but i think perhaps this particular flavor of it might be. maybe try to break out of the cycle if you find yourself in it, or help someone else realize they can break it too. idk man.

[dogpuppy]

[lakemojave]

You know that whatever character did those problematic things isn't like. Real, right?

[lakemojave]

You are aware that a fictional character is just a rhetorical construct designed to fulfill a narrative/thematic purpose right? That their actions are written by an author who wants to use them to explore complex ideas and moral gray areas within the safe confines of fiction right? That they aren't a real person who has killed real people right?

[crapbirdphotography]

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[Crap-O-Meter Rating Explanation]

Crap-O-Meter Rating

Grade AA Crap Bird Photo

Grade A Crap Bird Photo

Grade B Crap Bird Photo

Average Bird Photo

Maybe it's not crap, but I like it anyway!!

Voting ended onJun 25

[kedreeva]

It's very fast!

[thegunlady]

love the trope where an authoritative side character pointedly pretends not to help the hero they’re not supposed to be helping by saying shit like “well I can’t just let you wander around up to the THIRD FLOOR where you could just FIND THE THING YOU NEED in the FIRST ROOM ON THE LEFT. And under no circumstances should you USE THE KEY FROM UNDER THE MAT. I wish I could help you, but I CAN’T. Now excuse me, I need to take this phone call for the next 37 minutes EXACTLY.”

[seraph5]

My doctor did that for me once. I had to get an expensive brain scan and she was like ‘do you smoke?’ and I was like ‘no’ and she was like “well that’s a pity because the government will pay for this expensive brain scan if you had been a smoker so - do you smoke?” 🤣🤣🤣 I was like ‘yes’ and she’s like ‘oh wow then this scan will be free’

[x-authorship-x]