a[n abandoned] nest full of junk

ezra, 30s, they/them flew off to twitter

[shamirworm]

so i dusted off my old art tumblr, deleted almost everything in the archive, updated the url to @sheydgarden & will try??? posting art there again?? because nobody knows how long twitter is gonna last.

i’m not deleting this blog because it would make me cry to lose the archive but i probably still won’t be here much? might make an aesthetic sideblog on my art account because that’s what i mostly miss about tumblr, collecting nice pictures. anyway go follow me over there if you still want Ezra posts :’) 

[shamirworm]

okay i DO now have an aesthetic sideblog (@sleepworker) & i also made another sideblog to just. be myself quietly & reblog fandom shit & chat it up like old times (@owlbelly) because it feels like folks are really moving back here, at least for now!

i just can’t be assed to log in to 2 separate accounts (that’s one thing i like about twitter, it let you switch between multiple logins super easily) & also there’s a whole decade of my life here i don’t necessarily want new people fumbling around in, so this one is going archive mode again. same deal with @owlbelly as here it’s like. my semi-private one as in i won’t ever link it anywhere publicly. but if you’re following this old thing you’re cool to follow that one! see you over there maybe! <3

[shamirworm]

so i dusted off my old art tumblr, deleted almost everything in the archive, updated the url to @sheydgarden & will try??? posting art there again?? because nobody knows how long twitter is gonna last.

i’m not deleting this blog because it would make me cry to lose the archive but i probably still won’t be here much? might make an aesthetic sideblog on my art account because that’s what i mostly miss about tumblr, collecting nice pictures. anyway go follow me over there if you still want Ezra posts :’) 

[oneheadtoanother]

[shamirworm]

this is a much better photo than @prawnlegs​ & i managed to get of this exact car while i was driving with tears in my eyes from laughing so hard. absolutely bizarre to see it pop up on my dash from my friend halfway across the entire world

[shamirworm]

update: today we pulled up next to them at a red light & complimented their (custom!) stickers, mentioning that we’d seen the car before & screamed about it. they said “i feel like this is an in-person Lex missed connection” 

anyway if you want your own stickers it’s https://www.etsy.com/shop/RippedPigeonStickers

[oneheadtoanother]

[shamirworm]

this is a much better photo than @prawnlegs​ & i managed to get of this exact car while i was driving with tears in my eyes from laughing so hard. absolutely bizarre to see it pop up on my dash from my friend halfway across the entire world

[hypokeimena]

i always think it's so fun to be like ~okay well what keeps a vampire away if you're not christian :3 would a magen david do it for a jew haha*~ but i do also frankly think it's like. like... moderately deep sigh. we all KNOW why it's jsut christianity that keeps the blood-sucking fiends away, right? like we're all on the same page about what the bottom line here is, right? we all get it? before we have fun and get silly... do we all... like... does everyone actually know why we're here?

[hypokeimena]

#*it would not bc that's not how cultural differences work. cannot simply copy-paste jewish necklace over xtian necklace & get same result.

and i have said a lot in the replies of this post that i just want to consolidate but essentially: this is not just that (as in the tag) you can't just copy paste one symbol with very specific cultural connotations to replace another one with very different ones, this has to do with e g what cultural anxieties vampires embody. so like the vampire is a very literal amalgamation of literal beliefs about jews (that they drink the blood of christians, that they are attempting to infiltrate the upper class or that they are in fact already dispersed invisibly throughout it and thence forth exert undue influence, etc) in addition to other cultural anxieties around (in the case of dracula, eg) reverse colonization and concerns around immigration and xenophobia (...in this case: towards eastern european jews), as well as cultural anxieties around sex and sexuality (...not for nothing but this is often a component of antisemitism from medieval times well into the present day)

so like i think it's fine to be doing this kind of fun thought exercise it just really feels like it's missing the point to sit down and be like how would a jew fend off a vampire when a vampire Is a jew, in the sense that a vampire is an embodiment Of antisemitic stereotypes and canards and so forth and so on. the horror of a vampire is "jews exist and are out there, invisibly preying on good christians and trying to infiltrate the echelons of power"; that IS the thing that is overpowered by the crucifix (a sign that christianity Is the true religion). the crucifix is "solving" that cultural anxiety around the jewish by positing the supremacy of the christian. that's its function in this mythology, which makes it doubly ineffectual to simply replace it 1:1 with a jewish religious symbol - the vampire is inherently an interfaith monster in many ways, it is about (among other things) the interplay between differing religious groups, and any kind of Take has to at least partially take that into effect or at least think about these things.

what does it mean that (for example) willow rosenberg, a jew, put a crucifix on her wall to keep out vampires? there's something to be said there about assimilation, so like i do Get why it's more fun to be like, well what if she could just use a magen david instead, right? but that doesn't in any way grapple with what the Source of the horror of vampires is (i.e. the sexual and religious other who preys on the faithful and can be overpowered by christian religious authority).

imo a more interesting Take is, like, the vampire existing In the social space Of antisemitism; the horror of vampires from a jewish perspective being for example the looming threat of violence and retaliation and antisemitism; being forcibly identified As a monster against your will; seeing the living (un-living) stereotype as what it is and being unable to communicate that. something more in that space.

like, this is not to say that jewish folklore doesn't have these kinds of undead spirits and monsters - obviously, it does, and i am also interested in vampire Takes that draw more on a jewish worldview and existing folklore. but part of the Fun or Impact of the vampire Is its cultural omnipresence and legibility as an extremely Recognizable kind of monster, and playing with the ... underpinnings and understandings Of that very specific cultural, like, milieu... is part of. the fun. so i like a jewish take on vampires i am jsut... less compelled by trying to figure out what the 1:1 jewish equivalent of holy water is than i am by trying to actually tweak on Themes and Resonances

[tragicallyphosphorescent]

Wait I'm confused here. What reverse colonization? Also myths of vampires have existed in Eastern Europe for a looong time and didn't have anything to do with Jewish people. I fact modern day vampire mythology is quite based on the Albanian one.

[hypokeimena]

look dude i am not trying to be mean here but this post IS asking you to use your brain a little and if there's a phrase you haven't seen before i do have a tip and a trick which is --

vampires have existed in many cultures for a long time as sort of generic boogie men. i am talking about the way in which they became mainstream monsters in western culture, i.e. through popularization by 'dracula', an extremely xenophobic, orientalist, and, yes, antisemitic novel. The Vampire now - like The Werewolf or The Zombie, or Whatever, the archetypical version of the monster - draws so heavily on other cultural adaptations than the "original" folklore; dracula's version of vampires has been influential and it's worth looking at how those discourses shaped the image of the vampire.

there's obviously been a ton of interesting work done on the Origin of vampires and, like i said in my post above, they often reflect social anxieties; jewish folklore has a vampire equivalent that is all-female, cannot be stopped by religious artifacts and which steals children. other versions of vampires have a lot to do with the horror of something that was supposed to die and won't stay dead (have read some interesting articles about how this correlated with increases in medical science and better understandings of the human body).

but bram stoker wrote a vampire that is close to an exact list of antisemitic stereotypes during a time of hugely increasing british antisemitism and xenophobia and it's worth looking at that.

[shamirworm]

i’ve come back again for Dracula Daily fandom... this is my first time reading Dracula & the memes are deeply enriching my experience

[tiktoksthataregood-ish]

[prawnlegs]

to say that I’ve enjoyed this show is……………… an understatement

[shamirworm]

withthingsunreal 

I WOULD HAVE BEEN FINE IF THE FINALE WASN'T LIKE THAT

withthingsunreal

i mean i would've been feral but not FUCKING HAUNTED

same, i was completely unprepared for that ending & i had previously been expecting to think “oh gosh that was lovely i’m so glad this exists” after it was over rather than “R.I.P UNABLE TO FUNCTION” 

by the way we literally JUST watched Black Sails a few months ago & i kept meaning to message you somewhere & tell you that, because you were the one who recommended it in the first place!! we loved it of course & then we found out Taika had a pirate show coming out & thought “oh this’ll be a good little dessert after that it’s probably funny” L M F A O destroyed

augustales

omg hi!

hi hi!! sorry i like...only live on twitter (and discord) these days :’) i hope you’ve been well

[shamirworm]

hi if you notice me suddenly liking your posts it’s because i crawled back again due to being FULLY INSANE over OFMD & this is where the dopamine lives

[shamirworm]

3dspacejesus:

Welcome back to The Hellsite! I am transitioning and have a bunch more tattoos now!

no no this is the PEACEFUL pornbot wasteland, birdsite is hell. congratulations!

it appears i can’t unlink this blog from the things i wanted it unlinked from without deleting it, but i don’t want to delete it because i’m sentimental about my archive, so. i may just let it sit longer. ugh

[shamirworm]

thinking again...about returning...it’s so peaceful here

[shamirworm]

i’m back!!!

[shamirworm]

i should really just delete but...my archive...also i like to still come here as a ghost & read things occasionally! 

[shamirworm]

L M A O i literally don’t post on here anymore but somebody hacked me to post...sunglasses ads...thanks 

[anneboyer]

what resembles the grave but isn't

Always falling into a hole, then saying “ok, this is not your grave, get out of this hole,” getting out of the hole which is not the grave, falling into a hole again, saying “ok, this is also not your grave, get out of this hole,” getting out of that hole, falling into another one; sometimes falling into a hole within a hole, or many holes within holes, getting out of them one after the other, then falling again, saying “this is not your grave, get out of the hole”; sometimes being pushed, saying “you can not push me into this hole, it is not my grave,” and getting out defiantly, then falling into a hole again without any pushing; sometimes falling into a set of holes whose structures are predictable, ideological, and long dug, often falling into this set of structural and impersonal holes; sometimes falling into holes with other people, with other people, saying “this is not our mass grave, get out of this hole,” all together getting out of the hole together, hands and legs and arms and human ladders of each other to get out of the hole that is not the mass grave but that will only be gotten out of together; sometimes the willful-falling into a hole which is not the grave because it is easier than not falling into a hole really, but then once in it, realizing it is not the grave, getting out of the hole eventually;  sometimes falling into a hole and languishing there for days, weeks, months, years, because while not the grave very difficult, still, to climb out of and you know after this hole there’s just another and another; sometimes surveying the landscape of holes and wishing for a high quality final hole; sometimes thinking of who has fallen into holes which are not graves but might be better if they were; sometimes too ardently contemplating  the final hole while trying to avoid the provisional ones; sometimes dutifully falling and getting out, with perfect fortitude, saying “look at the skill and spirit with which I rise from that which resembles the grave but isn’t!“ 

[shamirworm]

is this really gonna be how this site goes down, honestly??

in any case i’m on twitter & discord (i don’t really know how to add people on discord, just message me somewhere else & we’ll figure it out)

i’ve been here since 2012 this is kinda sad but also i can smell freedom

gonna have to figure some shit out for my art though. i do want to keep running @queerkeitcoven here but if my main gets nuked for a stray nipple i’ll have to figure that out too

deep sigh