Tuttle 2016

The politician on the white horse is not coming in to fix everything. Nor should you ever have expected it.

[harriet-tuttle]

Historical fiction: A plausible fictional character is influenced by a real historical figure in a well-documented city, finding their place in History thereby. Or, on occasion, the other way round. (Johnny Tremain, War and Remembrance, Lust for Life)

Alternate history: An obviously fictional character causes a real historical figure to directly contradict history and found a nonexistent city, but they're a time traveler with very thorough knowledge of the original timeline, and it shows. (Lest Darkness Fall, Ruled Britannia, 1632 – honestly the demarcation is so clear you didn't need to be told)

Period piece: An obviously fictional character meets another fictional character in a patently nonexistent village, then they go visit a relatively peripheral historical figure in the city, and it's all mildly contradictory to documented history, but all the major recorded events are mounted in place and heaven forbid you're off by three months on a song or a costume. (The Baroque Cycle, scads of romance novels, any story in which Sherlock Holmes meets Jack the Ripper)

Based on a true story: A halfway plausible fictional(ized) character causes a real historical figure to directly contradict history in a city which is nothing like its well-established documentation. If it catches on, the poor historical figure is going to have to be disentangled from this every time you mention them, so please have the good grace to change the names if you can. (Braveheart, The Sound of Music, and - gauntlet thrown - anything by Philippa Carr)

[harriet-tuttle]

When I first heard that Poe died of drink, not strictly of his own volition, but probably as a consequence of election fraud tactics, I thought it was a Fascinating History Fact. But I've since learned that Baltimore has, since 1812 at minimum, never been anything but “criminally hot under the collar about politics.” Except, I guess, for that late-twentieth-century stretch where it just stuck to “extravagantly criminal.” Not the point. The point is this city had exactly two mustachioed celebrity drama queens to its name and Poe is the one they kill for a political cause.

But I don't grudge the Baltimore Ravens. What athletic thing in those parts is good for a team name?

Wretched hive.

[harriet-tuttle]

PSA: This blog will temporarily be hijacked strictly by things two or fewer degrees of separation from Baltimore in 1861.

[harriet-tuttle]

[swagintherain]

setup and punchline

[lord-kitschener]

The artist is luo li rong

[cecaeliawitch]

The statue doesn’t have big enough titties to have been made by a man.

[radgoblin]

I know I’ve reblogged this before but the schadenfreude is too delicious.

[gehayi]

By the way, the statue is called  La mélodie oubliée (The Forgotten Melody). Luo Li Rong also painted it:

And here she and the statue are in a more formal setting (museum or art show, I can’t tell):

[theepoetspoet]

“Dork ass losers”

[lulu-tan79]

That beautiful statue started from this:

Ms. Luo Lirong graduated from China Central Academy Of Fine Arts. She’s a very talented artist. More of her works:

[scatterations]

Beautiful. Extraordinary talent

[daisyjonesdailylines-deactivate]

Follow her on Instagram luo_li_rong_art.

[redfoxwritesstuff]

one, I’ve never seen it with paint and it’s somehow even better. As are her other works. 

[lil-tumbles]

She’s back, and she’s beautiful.

[child-of-the-wild-woods-deactiv]

This is so hilarious to me because that motherfucker literally thought this was a sculpture made by a white man in the US and that it’s a part of their cultrue ANT IT WAS LITERALLY MADE BY AN ASIAN WIMAN I CAN’T

[harriet-tuttle]

This is Objective Beauty. And don’t any of the race-harried people in this thread forget it.

[johnnyrico]

[greater-than-the-sword]

Friendly reminder that the mainstream media hates you and wants to destroy everything you love

[musicofthe-ainur]

Am I the only person who thought this was really fucking funny

[eleemosynecdoche]

A lot of the really funny moments in Lord of the Rings come from Tolkien playing with language like this, where we have relatively formal, archaic, “high” language responded to with informal, modern, “low” language. 

[modernclaire]

another hilarious example:

[lotrmusical]

my absolute favorite example of tolkien switching registers in this way is

[dukeofbookingham-deactivated202]

[star-anise]

THE SOLUTION TO THE OPIATE CRISIS IS MOTHERFUCKING NOT TO MAKE OPIATES MORE ILLEGAL OR HARDER TO GET

IT JUST FUCKING ISN’T!!!!!!!!!

[the-many-facets-of-folly]

How about stop the kick backs doctors get for prescribing them? Obviously the fact that they’re so readily available is an issue, but there are people that honestly need them for their pain. Are there long term alternatives? Yes, are they affordable in the United States? Probably not.

[star-anise]

Actually, the problem is not that they’re so readily available. They’re selectively readily available.

What started this all was really  OxyContin’s 12-hour dosing problem: Purdue lied about how long it’s effective for. The drug only lasts 8 hours for most people. If someone gets a month of Oxy, and takes a pill every time the last one wore off, they run out of pills on Day 21. And Purdue sued doctors for saying, “Okay, if you need three a day instead of two, I’ll just give you 90 for the month instead of 60.”

Also, the instant a doctor suspects their patient has become addicted to the drugs, they have to cut them off cold turkey. If someone just wants the drugs too much–say, they come in and say, “I’ve run out of those painkillers you gave me, they worked great but I went through them too fast”–a doctor can be legally prosecuted for writing them a scrip, because Drug Addicts Don’t Deserve Health Care.

Opiate withdrawal is quite literally hell. It is UNBELIEVABLY painful. When people are ALREADY in pain, and then go through the ACTUAL HELL of withdrawal, they get two choices:

1. Suffer

2. Buy black-market opiates, which are probably unevenly-diluted fentanyl or carfentanil, and risk dying of an overdose.

Option 3, which is missing: THE DOCTOR JUST GIVES THEM AN EXTRA PILL A FUCKING DAY.

Option 4: The doctor gives them a different, lesser opioid, and helps slowly wean them off opioids. (That whole “pharma companies that caused this problem are now selling drugs to solve it”? Literally the least part of my worries. Buprenorphine saves lives and should have been routinely available to begin with.)

Option 4: We just accept that people who are addicted deserve safe, legal drugs, supportive environments, and shouldn’t be treated like fucking criminals, and if we do that they’ll either live okay lives or actually take themselves off the drug when they’re ready to.

[sonnabug]

Also addicts that are just addicts without chronic pain still deserve to be treated like humans too

[star-anise]

Yes! Although honestly longterm addicts overwhelmingly have brain conditions rooted in early childhood toxic stress and trauma that means their brains basically aren’t able to self-soothe and self-regulate (abilities that drug use further atrophies), so they’re constantly marinating in the neurotransmitters that communicate “pain”. Even when nothing’s “physically wrong” with them.

Now, there are different KINDS of drugs that are better or worse for helping them live happy lives—opioids have some massive drawbacks so it might be better for their longterm health to find something different—but it’s not as though addicts without Chronic Pain™️ aren’t actually in chronic pain or don’t have conditions that non-negotiably need treatment.

So it’s all kind of uh… yeah. We need to stop criminalizing addiction and treat addicts like human beings and get them the healthcare they need, which ISN’T a 12-step group and Finding Jesus and “being clean.” We need it desperately.

[swolerbear]

Yeah @star-anise touches on an important note that is not talked about much - our model for addiction is completely wrong. The reason we don’t correct it is because our opioid epidemic is essentially an indictment of our entire system. Trauma that often results in addiction is baked into our society. The opioid epidemic is directly the result of capitalism, and it will continue to take lives until capitalism is abolished and replaced with a system that prioritizes human dignity and not greed.

[harriet-tuttle]

Why, then, is the Third World selling drugs to us rather than each other? Do they lack for trauma and devaluation of human life?

[heedra]

maybe this is just the ‘growing up relatively poor’ speaking but like why do some people like NEED disneyland to be open to simulate an area where they can enjoy themselves. just grab a popsicle from the gas station and go hop around on some abandoned piles of concrete behind the softball pitch smh

[rem-ir]

“happy endings” this “sad endings” that– you can debate the relative merits of each till your mouth goes dry and it’s still not a meaningful binary. Is the ending coherent and emotionally appropriate for the story? Cool.

[rainhadaenerys]

#^this#does it match the tone of the story? does it do all characters justice?#does it reaffirm the themes of story instead of undermining it?#that’s how you know whether the ending is appropriate or not (tags via @eldritch-crone)

[primus01]

Yeah that’s fair, but I’d also like to point out the difference between a sad ending and a soul-crushingly bleak and depressing ending, or that theme in general. My best recent example is Game of Thrones. My wife and I tried to watch GoT and it was AWFUL. Was it well written? Sure. Was it interesting and eye catching? Yeah, at times. But it was just so fucking endlessly miserable and removed all hope of anything ever being good in the whole show, so tell me why that’s entertaining.

Every character we liked died horribly. The Starks (Ned, Rob, Cat), Khal Drogo (btw he doesn’t r*pe Daenerys in the book, he’s actually really respectful and never touches her until she explicitly asks for it, wanna tell me why they changed that?), even Arya’s swordfighting teacher, who is just a fun, lighthearted character dies. This teaches me that good people only suffer.

Every good situation ends in a complete reversal and turns terribly sad. Red wedding? Daenerys trying to save her husband and instead her child also dies? Sansa getting to live at the main castle (i don’t remember or care about the fucking name of the place) only to be treated like an object by everybody there and told her family are traitors and scum? This teaches me only to expect bad things to happen to me, even if a situation looks good.

All of this that I’m talking about happens within the first 3 seasons (2.5 really, we didn’t even finish 3 because it was so hard to watch). No plotline was happy, or hopeful, or anything but a setup to just knock you down again later. You can have a sad ending, but make sure you aren’t just an asshole trying to make your viewer suffer.

[rem-ir]

“happy endings” this “sad endings” that– you can debate the relative merits of each till your mouth goes dry and it’s still not a meaningful binary. Is the ending coherent and emotionally appropriate for the story? Cool.

[rainhadaenerys]

#^this#does it match the tone of the story? does it do all characters justice?#does it reaffirm the themes of story instead of undermining it?#that’s how you know whether the ending is appropriate or not (tags via @eldritch-crone)

[ch-cago]

also worth mentioning that people should be wary of literary critiques that suggest an ending is “anticlimactic.” publication culture for creative writers demands that endings fit the proper trope, either offering an exaggerated amount of closure or wrap the story up on a cheesy cliff hanger. when editors, publishers, and critics call an ending “anticlimactic,” try to look at why. is it because it isn’t easy enough to hype up and profit off of? describing an ending as anticlimactic should be reserved for stories that don’t properly align with the preceding events. what most critics call an anticlimactic ending is actually just a suitably unresolved and discontinued story for something that could have no other ending without being entirely disingenuous.

[harriet-tuttle]

In other words, the rest of the story was probably equally pointless. Definitely true of the indie films I've seen that fit this trope. What I really want to know is how the 1951 Browning Version stacks up against the '90s one by this measure; I've only seen the latter.

[rem-ir]

“happy endings” this “sad endings” that– you can debate the relative merits of each till your mouth goes dry and it’s still not a meaningful binary. Is the ending coherent and emotionally appropriate for the story? Cool.

[rainhadaenerys]

#^this#does it match the tone of the story? does it do all characters justice?#does it reaffirm the themes of story instead of undermining it?#that’s how you know whether the ending is appropriate or not (tags via @eldritch-crone)

[nonasuch]

me, helping a little girl pick out a locket at the shop: do you usually like to wear goldtone or silvertone?

little girl: I like silver because of Artemis, the goddess of the moon and the hunt and also she’s a warrior and she never got married.

me, internally: never let the world change you

[nonasuch]

btw this was only a partial listing of the many Artemis facts imparted to me by this very good small child. I told her Athena was always my favorite so she also told me some Athena facts. 

her dad gave me a look like ‘thank u for being patient’ and I tried to convey with mostly eyebrow moments ‘oh please I WAS this kid, only for ancient Egypt and also Marguerite Henry books’ but i’m not sure it got across

[jabberwockypie]

I just blocked at least three people in the notes on this for being snidely superior calling it fake.

REALLY? Really?

It’s that fucking difficult to believe “a child who was interested in Greek Mythology talked about it enthusiastically with an adult who was paying attention to her”? And then the parent appreciated that the other adult was nice to his kid?

THAT’S your cut-off for unbelievable?

Do you know zero children, or are you just being a dick on purpose? Or were you just a boring-ass kid? OR are you just a dick to children who try to engage with you?

[fandomsandfeminism]

My husband teases me because I will unintentionally make friends with children in public ALL THE TIME. LITERALLY all it takes is if a kid says something to you, even of you already know about it, you go “wow, really?” And smile and nod while they excitedly gibber away.

Most kids aren’t used to adults listening to them. If you show (or feign) genuine interest with what a kid is talking about, letting them feel smart and knowledable for a few minutes, you have won them over FOREVER.

[the-beehive]

That sounds really damn creepy. Not gonna lie. You’re an adult you have no right talking to strange children.

[fandomsandfeminism]

I don’t really know how to explain to you that not every interaction between adults and children is inherently predatory? Like, for example, standing in line next to a family in Disney World and having a kid talk to you about Oswalt the Rabbit while their mother stands next to him isn’t “really creepy.” It’s a normal human interaction, particularly if you view kids as, like…people? Sometimes kids will try to talk to you, even if they don’t know you, and there are appropriate and normal ways to respond to kids when they do. 

But, if YOU feel like YOU can’t interact with children without being creepy, then by all means, please avoid doing so. 

[ruggaboo]

in JUST Disney World I would just GIVE kids Trading Pins that I bought in bulk on line. Like, in line to meet Phineas and Ferb two kiddos were eyeing me and my SO’s lanyards and we traded pins (they wouldn’t let me just give them pins). There was a kiddo who was in front of us for the rivers of Pandora ride who was legit freaking out. Her parents were just screaming at her to be calm. I knelt and asked who her favorite Disney character was (it was goofy and I said she had good taste) and I told her I’d give her a pin, any except the like two I’d gotten that day that I was VERY attached to, if she promised to be brave and ride the ride with us. she rode, she was brave, she got a pin, and she didn’t scream or cry anymore.

Most kids get talked to like they are dumb. If you treat kids like they aren’t complete dummies they become so fulfilled! I was that kid. I was MILES smarter than other people I knew, and my mom to this day tells her friends that “[I] has a fun fact for everything”. Sharing and learning things are so important and treating kiddos like what they say matters is even moreso.

[is-this-url-ok]

The comments be like

[inappropriatehistory]

[cherubicghost]

Tchaikovsky was inspired to create the piece, ‘Swan Lake’ after watching the film, ‘Barbie of Swan Lake (2003)’. Close friends of Tchaikovsky reported him saying it was, “one of the most emotionally thrilling and aesthetically divine” films he’d ever seen.

[harriet-tuttle]

Mark Helprin is best Swan Lake. I realize that ballets do not usually draw comparison with J-fiction novels, but then J-fiction novels are not typically written to be a deep font of ethereal beauty so there you go.

[not-annefrankjuulpod]