Satorui's Tumblr

[4herforever]

✨disney✨ is my culture and that’s kind of horrifying

I’ve been watching movies like Coco and Encanto, and I started wondering something that hit harder than I expected:

Why do I — as a white woman in America — feel like I have no real culture?

No traditions. No sacred rhythms passed down. I don’t even know anyone past my great- great-grandmother, and I barely know anything about her. There’s no lineage in my hands. Just a vague sense of being American, and that’s… nothing. That’s Walmart and McDonald’s points and $900 a pill and losing my Medicaid while the president builds a ballroom.

Then I look at these Disney movies — filled with grief rituals, family altars, magical houses tied to memory, and I ache. Because I never got that. And it makes me realize:

Disney has been the only consistent thing speaking emotional truths to me my whole life.

And also?

It’s a megacorporation.

Built to keep me consuming.

It teaches me to cry, to believe in something bigger, to love my family;

but also to buy.

To keep scrolling.

To go to Disney World and call it a core family pilgrimage.

And lately I’ve been playing Dreamlight Valley, and my boyfriend was playing Kingdom Hearts, and I wanted to re-download Toontown of all things — because those are the only spaces that ever felt like magic.

Not family dinners.

Not church pews.

Not old stories told around a fire.

Just… digital Disney.

Fantasy as inheritance.

A carefully designed nostalgia machine as my mythological anchor.

I guess what I’m saying is:

I’m 32 and grieving the culture I never had.

And Disney, weirdly enough, is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a tradition.

Which is both beautiful… and terrifying.

[gay-irl]

[judgejudyofficial]

yeah u freaks up north look and sound exactly like this when u pretend that us southern queers are perfectly complicit in our own eradication - for the heinous crime of not living in a liberal population center.

[hoshikostar]

[glitterygolem]

I keep this image on hand for whenever I see similar sentiments.

[porterdavis]

This would get my vote

[flea883]

And refund the money they stole back to the American people.

If we don't import oil, get off Opec prices.

[depsidase]

[the-richie]

If you love America you can’t be trusted.

[satorui20]

in my case, it’s less love and more Stockholm syndrome because I don’t qualify to immigrate to another country

[satorui20]

if Guy Chapman from Hunter, the parenting had an L style detective mode theme I think there would be two versions of it

one version for when he’s high on Vitae that’s basically a sound alike of the L theme and the other for when he’s a terrible sober detective going through withdrawals that’s the same theme but played on kazoo.

[march-gay-shipping-madness]

SEMI-FINALS:

Bumbleby (Yang Xiao Long/Blake Belladonna) (RWBY) vs. Mittens (Marckus/Kitten) (Hunter: The Parenting)

Bumbleby

Mittens

Voting ended onMar 24

[satorui20]

mittens is the queer neurodivergent representation we need and deserve. Vote mittens, and if you haven’t watched Hunter the parenting yet, do yourself a favor and go watch it on YouTube.

[march-gay-shipping-madness]

SEMI-FINALS:

Bumbleby (Yang Xiao Long/Blake Belladonna) (RWBY) vs. Mittens (Marckus/Kitten) (Hunter: The Parenting)

Bumbleby

Mittens

Voting ended onMar 24

[starnetz]

based off funny twitter meme

original by @/featherleafern on twitter

[shutoffthelights]

to me, there's an innate horror in tradwife content. it's always a pretty young girl in her late teens, early 20s. she's so young. she's basically a baby herself. maybe she's about your age. you just watch it happen. you can't save her.

either way, she always has at least three kids, sometimes more. you don't want to ask when she had them, but she had to have them young because her youngest had to have been born when she was at least seventeen based on how time works. you just watch it happen. you can't save her.

she's smiling but there's something missing in her eyes - a spark that should be there. there's no passion, there's just the movements of the day. sometimes she'll give an interview where she says she barely feels like getting out of bed, and other times she says nothing. you just watch it happen. you can't save her.

her world isn't real - it's neat kitchens and made from scratch cheese. she tells you how she doesn't need feminism because she likes this life, she likes wearing pretty dresses, don't you dare pity her. you just watch it happen. you can't save her.

you scroll up to an ex tradewife in her forties talking about how her husband divorced her and left her for a younger girl, leaving her destitute and penniless and twenty years out of the workforce. you scroll again to a pretty young girl saying she doesn't need a job, her husband will take care of her. you scroll again. you just watch it happen. you can't save her.

another woman, this time in her early thirties, talking about how she just managed to leave her abusive husband and has nothing and he took the kids, warning and pleading young girls to not fall for tradwife lies. you scroll again to a young tradwife girl saying that would never happen to her, and you're just jealous of her. you just watch it happen. you can't save her.

you scroll again. a teen girl tells you that she'll just track her period, she doesn't NEED a toxic chemical like birth control. you scroll again to an obgyn pleading with young girls to understand birth control is just hormonal, and that period tracking isn't effective. you just watch happen. you can't save her.

you scroll again, and it's jd vance saying how women belong in the homes and shouldn't be allowed to vote. that their husbands should decide how they should vote. you scroll again to a domestic abuse counselor telling women their vote is private and they can lie to their husbands. you just watch it happen. you can't save her.

she doesn't want you to save her. how dare you pity her. you just watch it happen. you can't save her. a horrible feeling washes over you. you just watch it happen.

[shutoffthelights]

[vexwerewolf]

Tradwife culture and all of its surrounding paraphernalia should be outlawed and I'm not fucking joking

[satorui20]

as bigender person who likes that sort of 50s house wife, aesthetic when in female mode , is appropriating the aesthetics and making them a queer kink thing acceptable?

[bdalak]

the more i talk w/ leftist friends the more i start to realize that they think culture is only defined by food or "traditional" (i.e. "ethnic") garb and nothing else

mentioned how white americans do in fact have a common culture and they genuinely thought i was joking. culture isnt something only granted to the Cool People of Color. just feels like among progressive groups there's this dichotomy created in which only the virtuous oppressed minorities have culture and anyone who is privileged some sort of void cultureless being

[satorui20]

I think the OP and most of the other folks in the reblogs and replies are kind of missing the part where a lot of white American culture stuff that does exist is stuff you can’t really participate in or is ruined for you if you’re trying to be anti-racist, so that’s a big part of why a lot of white leftists feel like they don’t have a culture. It’s not that the culture doesnt exist, or even the “white American culture is just seen as the default to them” thing which to me is also missing the point

It is that the culture is off-limits to them unless they’re willing to be racist in some ways.

[strollsroyce]

also, apropos of nothing, i just want to point out that

"(white) america has no culture"

is not the same statement as

"white american culture is so deeply rooted in white supremacy + white patriarchy + white christianity that once you, a white person, have found yourself outside the hegemony (by choice or not), it becomes impossible to participate in nearly ALL of your former culture, because there is so little left untouched by bigotry. not only that, but if you attempt to reconnect with your pre-colonial ancestral culture/s as a white american, you are very often perceived (a) as celebrating whiteness specifically, due to certain cultures being plundered by nazis for symbolism; and/or (b) as a wannabe/faker, unwelcome in "authentic" non-american cultural spaces, bc white americans trying to claim xyz heritage are often talked about as being the most annoying people on earth. which isn't even false! they ARE really annoying!!"

and when you walk into that second discussion assuming that it's the first, your condescending ass just looks stupid. we all know white america has a culture, we're frustrated because being anti-racist, anti-patriarchal, and non-christian usually means that we're cut off from it. and queer culture, while rich and diverse, is incredibly fractured, diasporic in a unique way, and for many people it cannot fill that gap.

so maybe instead of telling white americans that they're stupid for feeling like they don't have a culture, you could acknowledge the gap that exists here and the grief that needs to be felt for it.

[strollsroyce]

and too, i see some people talk about white americans as if everyone has clear ties to one specific european heritage, and like... are you stupid? genuine question. i'm lucky that the majority of my heritage happens to be in the same general area (scottish, irish, and english) but those are still very different cultures with complex relations between them. my mother's english ancestors sacked the castle of my father's scottish ancestors and last i checked that town's population is around 300. i'm immensely lucky that i even know this information and can bring it up as a funny story at parties. but my decision to engage with any of those cultures is fraught. maybe i don't even want to. maybe i feel very little connection to them, since my family has been in america for several generations on all sides. maybe i feel grief at being cut off from those cultures due to the forces of assimilation and yet feel no desire to return.

[strollsroyce]

i think it's important to acknowledge these nuances for many reasons, but in particular because it's a big factor in cultural appropriation. not the only factor, but one of many that create circumstances in which it is desireable to steal and whitewash and gentrify and profit from non-white cultures. and i think if we name the grief and allow it to be felt and encourage ourselves to see the situation for what it is without judgement, maybe it would become possible to move through that gap towards something productive instead of perpetuating harm. just a thought!

[strollsroyce]

also, apropos of nothing, i just want to point out that

"(white) america has no culture"

is not the same statement as

"white american culture is so deeply rooted in white supremacy + white patriarchy + white christianity that once you, a white person, have found yourself outside the hegemony (by choice or not), it becomes impossible to participate in nearly ALL of your former culture, because there is so little left untouched by bigotry. not only that, but if you attempt to reconnect with your pre-colonial ancestral culture/s as a white american, you are very often perceived (a) as celebrating whiteness specifically, due to certain cultures being plundered by nazis for symbolism; and/or (b) as a wannabe/faker, unwelcome in "authentic" non-american cultural spaces, bc white americans trying to claim xyz heritage are often talked about as being the most annoying people on earth. which isn't even false! they ARE really annoying!!"

and when you walk into that second discussion assuming that it's the first, your condescending ass just looks stupid. we all know white america has a culture, we're frustrated because being anti-racist, anti-patriarchal, and non-christian usually means that we're cut off from it. and queer culture, while rich and diverse, is incredibly fractured, diasporic in a unique way, and for many people it cannot fill that gap.

so maybe instead of telling white americans that they're stupid for feeling like they don't have a culture, you could acknowledge the gap that exists here and the grief that needs to be felt for it.

[strollsroyce]

and too, i see some people talk about white americans as if everyone has clear ties to one specific european heritage, and like... are you stupid? genuine question. i'm lucky that the majority of my heritage happens to be in the same general area (scottish, irish, and english) but those are still very different cultures with complex relations between them. my mother's english ancestors sacked the castle of my father's scottish ancestors and last i checked that town's population is around 300. i'm immensely lucky that i even know this information and can bring it up as a funny story at parties. but my decision to engage with any of those cultures is fraught. maybe i don't even want to. maybe i feel very little connection to them, since my family has been in america for several generations on all sides. maybe i feel grief at being cut off from those cultures due to the forces of assimilation and yet feel no desire to return.

[strollsroyce]

also, apropos of nothing, i just want to point out that

"(white) america has no culture"

is not the same statement as

"white american culture is so deeply rooted in white supremacy + white patriarchy + white christianity that once you, a white person, have found yourself outside the hegemony (by choice or not), it becomes impossible to participate in nearly ALL of your former culture, because there is so little left untouched by bigotry. not only that, but if you attempt to reconnect with your pre-colonial ancestral culture/s as a white american, you are very often perceived (a) as celebrating whiteness specifically, due to certain cultures being plundered by nazis for symbolism; and/or (b) as a wannabe/faker, unwelcome in "authentic" non-american cultural spaces, bc white americans trying to claim xyz heritage are often talked about as being the most annoying people on earth. which isn't even false! they ARE really annoying!!"

and when you walk into that second discussion assuming that it's the first, your condescending ass just looks stupid. we all know white america has a culture, we're frustrated because being anti-racist, anti-patriarchal, and non-christian usually means that we're cut off from it. and queer culture, while rich and diverse, is incredibly fractured, diasporic in a unique way, and for many people it cannot fill that gap.

so maybe instead of telling white americans that they're stupid for feeling like they don't have a culture, you could acknowledge the gap that exists here and the grief that needs to be felt for it.

[strollsroyce]

thinking about this again. this wasnt the best-phrased post in the world but i do stand by what i said.

since i wrote this post, i've been trying to intentionally notice pieces of culture that feel authentic to me, no matter how small, to better identify where i'm from and where i'd like to go.

and, as part of that, i've been able to articulate that a big part of my frustration comes from the fact that i don't share very much, culturally, with a vast majority of americans my age. because i was raised in an abusive household which aimed specifically and explicitly to deny me access to the culture of my peers. like, that was the primary driving force behind every decision my parents made, and they told us this often. thus, what can be considered my culture, as an individual, is an extremely limited palette--and it's all bad. like ~100% of it, give or take a few hundred-thousandths of a percent.... it's white evangelical christian supremacy all the way down, baby. i have incredibly little from my first 20 years that i can hold onto as a piece of my early self that i actually want to bring into my current self.

and it frustrates me to see no acknowledgement of this experience. it frustrates me to hear that a white american struggling with a dearth of cultural identity must, in all cases, simply be blind to their own culture like a fish that doesn't realize it's wet. i promise you i am hyper-aware of the water around me.

[jerry123i]

Please... there must be someone.... It could be so cool....

[faeric-ephemerality]

So I’ve been reflecting on why I don’t seem to gel with the fifth editions of the World of Darkness games. Specifically, I think it has to do with the fact that I am just as much a fan of the Chronicles of Darkness games as I am the WoD ones and thus, when I see the attempts to jury rig the mechanics of Chronicles into the WoD 5E games it’s a little jarring in a way. Like the mechanics were meant to blend into the lore of their former, and while there are justifications as to why they exist in the latter, it feels untested and hard to connect with.

Masquerade is, to me at least, more a game about impersonal horror. Like yes, you are an undead horror and it’s a difficult and tenuous thing at the start to try and keep your humanity amidst the whims of the Beast. But, the issue is that there is the Metaplot, the constant warring of ancient sects and the influence of elders who were reborn centuries before you ever came along. Elders who rule with iron fists, whose immense power keeps the world of night running as they want it to be. You have modern technology they don’t and refuse to understand? You’re dead. You have something they want? You give it, or you’re dead. In that, it’s hard to not focus on the external threats over the internal ones because your survival instincts are going to be kicking in overdrive. A very human thing, and that which is human keeps you human. Or close enough anyways.

Requiem on the other hand is very much about the personal horror. Due to the game’s flexibility, it’s easier to imagine your character having to worry about the decay of their sense of self. You’re not always beholden to the machinations of your fellow kindred, often times you can do your own thing and end up paying for it since even using disciplines can freak you out if your humanity is high enough. Wanna use Dominate? Geez it’s creepy how people just do what you want. Resilience? Ugh, your arm can not be in that position. Asphyx? Being a cloud of toxic gases is jarring, isn’t it? Everything claws at your humanity, threatening to leave barely holding yourself together. And the mechanics reflect that. In Masquerade, the 5E additions using the scavenged mechanics comes off as doubling down in an attempt to increase the hardship without actually addressing the other aspects of the game that they ended up shaving down in an attempt to compensate.

I could explain about W5, but I will reblog something that explains those gripes in a better way than I can

[wodconfessions]

I wish that Chronicles of Darkness was more well liked and supported by white wolf. It was a magnificent system for mixed supernatural groups and for political intregue.

[huntunderironskies]

The worst thing about Recent Cultural Touchstone I Won't Name Because Its Fans Are Batshit and I Don't Want Them Finding Me by Tag Searching is that this might be the thing that rehabilitates the image of commercialized flat racing in the US (can't speak to other places) after a lot of headway had been made in calling attention to its systemic abuse issues. All it took was moeblobs, apparently.

I had other tags to elaborate on my thoughts but they gave too many context clues. I try to stay away from discourse but a past job has put me adjacent to the issue at hand enough to feel very strongly about this and the feelings are not positive. Plus I think a lot of arguments made in favor of The Recent Cultural Touchstone are disingenuous but let's not go there.