Gotta tell you guys something wild in the Chinese fan sphere
So some fanartist drew a “sexy” (read: booby) version of a (cartoon) character who is traditionally very non-sexualised. Fans of the character got mad about it because it’s kind of groundbreaking how that character is written and portrayed and this art totally ignores the entire point of the character. They demanded the art be deleted. In response to that other people said, well what the fanartist did may be distateful but they have every right to draw what they’re into. The two sides fight for days and each starts a harassment campaign and even report their “opponents’” accounts.
So far so typical. But things eventually come to a head and they decide that this will be settled by votes - not through a poll. Through donations to a children’s education charity via each side’s portal. Whoever can get the highest amount of donation wins.
And that is how this charity received over 1 million in donations in three days lol. Oh btw the “freedom of expression” side won by a landslide (960k to 40k)
the television program buffy the vampire slayer is absolutely nooootttttt about the power of friendship. its about the tragedy of being surrounded by people who are too uncomfortable with your painful reality to be willing to meaningfully engage with you
I mean, in some very interesting Technically Correct ways, they didn't actually die? Now, they're very much no longer alive. But the forces involved are such that they didn't get any of the usual cellular processes of death, they simply went from biology to physics in less time than it takes a signal to travel down your optic nerve.
I'll always talk up internet radio stations because I don't think the average person is aware that they're free, can run in your browser (or in any program that can connect to them), work on your phone, run better than a youtube tab, and give you a much better selection of music than you could get from a general algorithmic playlist
(also lots of them have live shows which you can tune into for free)
if u like folk and/or roots music: wumb.org !!! it is AD-FREE it has ZERO MORNING TALK SHOWS it is on air at 91.9 FM in the BOSTON AREA but streams WORLDWIDE on the WEB it is perfect.
Maybe niche but for any Irish speakers or learners out there, Radio na Gaeltachta streams online and is a great way to listen to some Gaeilge without YouTube.
All of these resources are fantastic, but I wanna give a specific shoutout to Raidió na Gaeltachta streaming online - and I say this as a person who works in Irish-language visual media - if you wanna gainna better grasp of spoken Irish and how the language is used in casual settings, Raidió na Gaeltachta is the way to go, not visual media 😬📻😁
nobody had skirts???? and long unbound hair??? we're communist we cant be letting girls wear skirts and have long hair without it being put up.
mine were fugly yellow and green and everyone had short sleeve and shorts for summer and long sleeve and long pants for winter. altho we didnt have to wear it more than once a week on Mondays. the rest of the time we got to wear our own clothes.
and you may say, "Spacey, there are lots of characters who have the dehumanized living weapon thing going on. you can diversify and you can enter into a larger number of fandom envrionments that could benefit from your sicko genius brain. maybe even fandoms where the source material doesn't suck unbelievable amoutns of ass!"
but no. is not. the SAME.
is there another character with the sexy murder strut of the Winter Soldier. no. is there another character with such a cool and badass and iconic design who is inhabited with such phsyicality and swagger. NO. THERES NOT. is there another character whose appearance is framed with such Paralyzing dread like a looming revenant or horror movie monster whose motif in the score is an eerie shrilling created by stretching and warping the sound of human screams into something metallic and mechanical??? and whose combat gear includes a chest harness and leather straps and a muzzle-like mask hinting at his characterization as a violent animal in need of domination and control??? and who rips cars to pieces and throws a guy into a jet engine???
he's the mutilated undead corpse of a human being whose personhood and identity have been brutally torn and scraped out of what's left of his body and he has an adorable emo pout and the biggest wettest saddest eyes in existence because he is so confused about everything except how to kill large numbers of people incredibly violently
Bucky Barnes is The poor little meow meow. No one does it like him. No one can do it like him. No one will EVER do it like him.
Nature Documentary: these deep sea creatures can withstand crushing pressures of thousands of pounds per square inch!
Me: they’re not withstanding a goddamn thing. The pressure is a part of them. Their interiors and exteriors are equalized. Just because your respiratory system is built around a pair of fragile poppable bubbles-
in the contemporary world, the most fundamental human right - and, it often seems, the least protected one - is "being both Allowed and Able to go Somewhere Else." the rest is commentary.
the torments of prison are predicated on Not Letting You Leave. the most terrifying and degrading aspects of childhood are predicated on Not Letting You Leave. misogynists wail and moan and fearmonger about divorce and equal opportunity employment because they Allow Wife To Leave. borders and immigration restrictions exist, in no small part, to Prevent People From Leaving countries where they will be exploited and/or oppressed. fuck you for trying to leave. fuck you for exerting any control over your life whatsoever. that makes you the one at fault, actually.
“This means… of Rocky, possessive. Of the speaker.”
“My.”
“Correct. But only for names.”
“So you’re calling me…?”
Rocky repeats the word: “My Grace. Yes.”
“Are there other Graces? Why do you need to specify?”
Rocky considers this, tapping his xenonite-encased claws idly against the floor.
“No other Grace,” Rocky says. “We just do this.”
“Like an honorific,” Grace guesses. “It goes before everyone’s name? Everyone you know?”
Rocky whirs in surprise. “No, no, no. Not at all.”
“Okay, then who? What makes me qualify?”
Rocky is silent for a moment.
“...Does this offend Grace?” he asks, voice lower.
Grace blinks. “No! I don’t think so. Is there a reason to be offended?”
“Good,” Rocky says, relieved. Grace is starting to recognize what Eridian relief sounds like. “No, no reason.”
“Who else do you call that?”
“You don’t have this on Earth?”
Grace considers. What for, friends? He couldn’t call Marissa “my Marissa.” That would be weird.
“I still don’t know what it means,” he settles on. “So I couldn’t tell you.”
Rocky groans in frustration. He’s a very impatient tutor. “We just say it.”
“Are you my Rocky?” Grace asks. He hits the two keys to make the my note.
“I don’t know!” Rocky says. “You decide this.”
“I decide? Who do you use it for?”
“You. Adrian. I will use it for my pebbles.”
Grace blinks. “So few?”
Rocky shifts. “I am… you do not have the word yet. Eridian who works alone often, not close to many other Eridians.”
“What, mechanical engineer?”
Rocky chitters with amusement. “Acceptable.”
“Is Adrian your only friend?”
Rocky draws back, like he’s taken offense. “I have friends. Coworkers. But different.”
So just Adrian. And him.
“This worries you,” Rocky says.
“Adrian is your mate,” Grace points out. “I’m not your mate.”
“Correct. You are not. You do not like to be a mate.”
Grace isn’t sure how to respond to that, so he ignores it.
“I’m your friend,” Grace says.
Rocky hesitates, for a second. “...Correct.”
“Like your coworkers.”
“No.”
Grace sighs, rubbing his hand across his face. Okay, maybe that’s fair. It’s not like he felt about any of his coworkers like he feels about Rocky.
“Best friend,” Grace amends. “You’re my best friend, too.”
Rocky hums. “Acceptable.”
“Just acceptable? Now you are offending me. Can you just explain?”
This makes Rocky fall silent for a minute longer than usual. Grace is half-ready to apologize and to say let’s move on and to retype his own name without the superfluous my.
“The Earth ‘best friend’ is not strong enough,” Rocky says finally. “It does not translate this way.”
Grace runs his fingers through his hair, a little nervous, for some reason. “Okay.”
“It is…” Rocky pauses. He has to pause more often, now that they’re not using the translator, to simplify his language. “It means that I am not Rocky without my Grace. You are part of… of the whole. When I wake up, I think of you. When I work. When I eat. When I think I am going to die.”
Rocky speaks slowly, but it’s still a lot of Eridian for Grace to grasp all at once. Even as he works out the sentences in his head, he can feel hot tears rising in his eyes.
“It means that when you are sick, I am sick,” Rocky continues. “And it means I will take care of you, because taking care of you is taking care of myself.”
Grace bunches up his sleeve, wiping it across his face, blinking furiously.
Rocky’s voice is soft. “So Grace is part of Rocky. Grace is like a cell. You see? My Grace.”
Grace is quiet, for a moment, trying to get himself together. When he speaks, his voice is shaky.
“...Oh.”
Rocky hums, pressing his carapace gently against Grace’s arm. “You are leaking. Does this make you sad?”
Grace shakes his head, sniffing, crossing his arms across his knees and resting his chin on his sleeves. “Not at all.”
“Good, good.”
“I feel like that,” Grace mumbles. “Just like that. Just exactly—exactly like that.”
“About your old mate?”
“Don’t act stupid. You know I’m talking about you.”
Rocky hums, burrowing closer. Grace curls one arm around his carapace. That’s not enough, so he leans over, dropping his head down so his forehead presses against the xenonite.
“My Rocky,” Grace whispers in English.
“My Grace,” Rocky echoes in Eridian. Grace can recognize the note at the start. He will add it when he plays Rocky’s name.
“How long have you called me that?” Grace asks. “Must’ve been a while. I didn’t notice it change.”
something that i DO find fascinating abt both phm and interpretations of it is when folks say things along the lines of “the point of grace’s lack of attachments isn’t that he’s aroace, the point of grace’s lack of attachments is that he’s refused to open himself up enough to form ANY close bonds because he’s a coward” because like. not only is it very possible for both to be true, i think that reading both as being the case continues to enhance the story AND speaks a very honest truth about how being aroace might have affected his life?
like. imagine you are grace. you have a life you enjoy where you get to teach kids you’re fond of about a subject you love. you’ve been hanging out with your friend marissa weekly for years (!) and you have a lot of peers on project hail mary who you respect and even have fun with. but! you’re also like 40, and you know how the world works - at the end of the day, at the end of the project, all of those people will go back to their parents and families and partners. the people whose names are on their emergency contact forms and birth certificates and marriage licenses and apartment leases. no matter how much you care about them, and no matter how much they care about you, there is always someone else in their life who is Above you, and Before you, because That’s How The World Works.
so like… yeah. lmao. aroace grace not opening himself up all the way because he anticipates pain and wants to avoid that is a kind of protective hedging that i find very likely for him to engage in? even if he opens himself up to the people around him, the fact is that most of those people will only reciprocate to whatever degree they/society deem acceptable for friendship, even if they like him a lot.
which is why, imo, the very careful portrayal of grace and rocky’s friendship in the phm film reads as extremely aroace-coded. because it’s not “rocky specifically is Special and Likable in a way which fixes all of grace’s hangups and allows him to open up” - it’s “rocky has a partner to go home to, but on multiple occasions, puts grace Above and Before that in a way which grace is unused to, because grace comes from a society which culturally and legally devalues the types of relationships he wants and holds most dear.” and once rocky shows that he is willing to reciprocate friendship and care to a degree grace could never expect from anyone on earth, grace no longer needs to maintain the kind of emotional defenses he always has. grace likes rocky and wants to be friends from the moment they meet, of course, but only lets himself form SUCH a close bond after rocky demonstrates that he, too, does not place an earth-society-style limit on the strength of their friendship. and they’re both better off for it!
[Video Description: An ad with piano music over it all, showing an elderly woman in her home, knitting, when two younger men walk by her window, which catches her attention. She stares out her window at them as they kiss each other while walking, the old lady staring in disbelief. Cut to the old woman approaching a residence with a broom in hand, staring up at the second floor window where a small rainbow Pride flag is hanging. The old woman stares up at it and mutters "Ridiculo", before getting up on a ladder with her broom to remove the flag. Focus on the flag fluttering to the ground as church bells chime. The scene then cuts to the couple from before, approaching their home with grocery bags in hand before one stops and stares at the second floor, stopping his partner who then drops the groceries as he too stares up. It's then revealed that the small pride flag had been replaced with a gigantic, hand-knit pride flag. It then cuts back to the old woman's home, where a tin of rainbow-colored yarn sits on her table. The hands of the old woman are holding and fondly touching an old black and white photo of two young smiling women, leaning against each other. Cut to the old woman's face as she stares out with a look of happy pride on her face. At the end of the video, the name "Idealista" appears on screen, followed by "buon pride" along with a rainbow. End VD.]
The old lady is not in her home. She is at work. She's meant to be what in Italian is called "la portinaia", aka a cross between a doorwoman and cleaner of a residential building. She's in her small "office" space, at the entrance of the building, from where she can survey the coming and goings of the inhabitants. It's a job that has mostly disappeared, but is culturally very clear to us as having the connotation of "potentially gossipy, one-million-percent judgmental woman who sees everything that goes on in the apartment complex, knows everyone and their secrets, and has Strong Opinions™️".
In this case, thankfully, the Strong Opinion™️ is that those two men are ridiculous with their teeny tiny flag for ants.
This post is a zombie. 🧟♀️ Pick one of the answers to see if you were bit or not. (There are 5 bite results out of 12 under the cut.) Best of luck. My deadeye is awaiting to meet any infected at the entrance of camp.
I do not agree with veganism as a moral standard. If it is your personal moral stance, that is fine. If you think humans eating meat is inherently immoral, I don’t want to deal with you, you’re hopeless. Vegan ideology behaves more like a sect of evangelical Christianity than a dietary choice.
Veganism is better for the environment, but claiming that it's a morally superior choice ignores cultural and economic factors that make people eat animal products.
It is not inherently better for the environment. That is the thing. When you begin trying to explain that local, sustainably sourced animal protein is better for the environment than imported plant proteins that are farmed 3,500 miles away using slave labor, they start tuning you out. Down is better for the environment than polyester stuffing, leather is better for the environment than pleather. We should work on making animal agricultural practices more sustainable instead of trying to shame everyone into eating plant products that are also farmed unethically and unsustainably.
Children near a magical wood catching bugs and their family are like. Please do not catch pixies and small fae and bring them into our home. They are sentient and they are intelligent
And the kids are like "but they get into our bug traps" and "we didn't catch him he followed us home"
And their parents are like. Please i do not believe that 6 fucking pixies smuggled themselves into our garage on the underside of your bicycle saddle and then set up shop in the old dolls house. These are living beings they're not toys it's not kind to treat them like this
And the kids are like we are NOT treating them like anything you said we're not allowed to trap them and they always get into our traps so we always run away when they see us and then they follow us and get inside our backpacks and stuff
And the parents are like
Stop lying!!!
And then they set up wildlife cams and not only can pixies apparently do all of that and are very desperate to hang out with these human kids (who have fun life-sized toys and are covered in wonderful things like glitter and are a free source of fresh bugs and pop tart crumbs)
But they can also like. Fully just pick locks and shit.
Setting up little cameras and having to come to terms with the fact that not only are these small fae initiating every interaction with the kids but have also taken their cat's side in the war against pigeons and keep riding it into battle
The fae quickly realise the camera is a camera, and just as quickly invent silent movies
Each intertitle card has been crafted from words cut out of other writing, so a piece of paper looking like a ransom demand states "BuT Hoo wil SAVE the Dams3l?" is pulled away to reveal a doll tied to train tracks
stormborns
yousharknotpass
2087
ellievsbear
vaporwave
gracieabrams
blakekathryn
