hello beloved followers and mutuals. i’ve finally accepted the fact that i’ve gotten into supernatural again after a decade away and made a sideblog. come find me at @kinky-cas if you’d like to watch my descent back into the madness of my youth!
Thank god soulmates (one person destined for you that you will never be happy without) aren’t real but soulmates (people you understand and connect with on a special level, multiple, some of which you havent met yet) are real
“Native Americans arent NOBLE Savages! They had war, they are just Savages”
Like you know that the reason that the Noble Savage is bad (besides that its obviously inaccurate and racist for the reason im about to say) is because its definition describes Native Americans as being “one with nature” and “uncivilized” solely because we were essentially animals and not humans (unlike White Europeans, allegedly), you know that right? You know its because its because of the dehumanization and the Eurocentric thinking on what “civilized” means? You know that the Noble Savage isn’t placing us on a pedestal for our eco-friendly practices and saying we were perfect & you realize that it was the opposite, and insulting us by calling us animals and that our eco-friendly practices were completely by accident and not conscious choices? And you know the solution to disprove the Noble Savage ideology isn’t to say we essentially “deserved” our genocide because we occasionally engaged in warfare like literally every other place on earth?
You know that, right? RIGHT?
in addition to this, I think people miss some critical parts of the original Noble Savage concept which are: 1) it was primarily used as a mirror / foil for European society, and 2) it always had a tragic cast to it, where the tragedy is that these Indigenous people are “noble” in some way but the “nobility” is in spite of the fact that Native people ARE STILL “savages,” and therefore they are inferior and (in some versions) doomed to vanish.
There are some forms of the Noble Savage trope that are primarily about white people trying to defend Native people from literal genocide (Las Casas, some of the reformers of the 19th century US) who basically are like “Native people are the most uwu innocent beings ever” because the Vicious Savage trope was SO strong.
But the Enlightenment version, and imo much of the 20th century version, was about critiquing European society while also reassuring Europeans that their way of living was, despite some flaws, ultimately the best. This is how you get debates re: The Dawn of Everything about whether Lahontan’s accounts were actual descriptions of real Native societies and people, or if they were just him putting his criticisms of Europeans in Native mouths. Ditto 1970s environmentalists or whatever: the Crying Indian ad etc. wasn’t about real Native people, it was about saying “look, these primitive people have some good quality that us decadent moderns don’t! Maybe we can extract that and use it to improve our own lives.”
But critically, in these situations, there’s an addendum that’s like “maybe WE can learn from the Noble Savage, but ofc he’s still a savage, and our way of life is still better even if it’s flawed, so there’s nothing that can be done for him besides maybe extinction or becoming civilized like us.”
There are, in fact, still many people who draw on this trope today, mainly white woowoo people. It is, however, NOT what some people seem to think it is, which is basically “saying anything was good about Indigenous societies is Noble Savage bullshit.”
Something something people not knowing the history something …
I am increasingly of the view that the besetting flaw of modern, internet-based, leftist-progressive culture is the tendency to take concepts that were intended as consciousness-raising, “have you noticed”/“makes you think” moments and treat them as all-encompassing rules for life. The Bechdel test is not a yardstick for feminism and/or artistic worthiness. It’s not a test you were ever meant to apply to any single work. It’s a thought experiment intended to illustrate how the entertainment industry as a whole discounts the interiority, desires, and relationships of women except as they relate to men. But again and again you’ll see people - and perhaps especially people who define themselves as feminists - who treat it as the one and only meaningful measure of a work’s value. In reality, there are feminist works that don’t pass the Bechdel test, and works that pass the Bechdel test that are not feminist, and works with tremendous political value that do not foreground feminism because they’re about something else.
And if the Bechdel test is a relatively old example, this is a phenomenon that keeps cropping up. “Some artifacts in museums were stolen or looted, with colonialism and racism providing a cover for acts that in other circumstances we’d easily recognize as criminal” has become “all museums are piles of loot and stealing from them is righteous even it it’s to melt the artwork down and funnel the profits to organized crime.” “Zoos sometimes abuse their animals and the goal should be to reintroduce specimens to the wild” has become “open all the cages and let the animals out (to spaces where they will almost certainly die/be killed to stop them killing people)”. “Ethnic foods are sometimes treated as more palatable, and sold for more money, when they’re marketed by white people” has become “people should only prepare and eat food from their own ethnicity”. Again and again, it feels like these ideas that were meant to make us think, to pause a moment and notice the unspoken assumptions and elisions that exist in our world, have been turned into catchphrases that shut down thought. I think the reason that happens is that people enjoy the feeling of righteousness that comes from calling out institutions like museums or the film industry, but along the way you can become just as dogmatic and tunnel-visioned as the bodies you were calling out.
its honestly bananas to me that so many on this website seem to assume that someone’s tumblr output is an accurate reflection of their real life priorities and activism and all of their beliefs in order of how hard they believe them. like. idk about you guys but i’m reblogging things that i want to reblog not keeping a minute by minute record of my deepest held beliefs. for one thing my deepest held beliefs are mostly not about star wars
fighting for my fucking life in the work gc because nobody else has curly hair. freaky ted why have you done this to me.
and that marg was good because my boss made a comment i didn’t care for on the monday of that week so i overserved everybody by at least a shot to haemorrhage stock. there was no skill involved i out enough tequila in that to end Your bloodline freaky ted
I think a great way to improve communication with kids (and adults) is to make every yes or no question a this or that question.
I started doing it when after brain surgery my husband had trouble forming responses to questions for a while, and realized that the habit was helping my students engage more truthfully with me.
Some examples:
Yes/No: “Did you clean up your room like I told you?”
This/That: “Did you clean up already, or do you still need to do that?”
Yes/No: “Are you going to sit quietly?”
This/That: “Are you ready to sit and do our quiet activity, or do you need some time by yourself first?”
Yes/No: “Are you doing anything fun for your birthday?”
This/That: “Are you having a party on your birthday, or are you going to relax?”
I think many children (and adults!) are averse to telling adults “No,” especially when a command is implied. (“Did you clean your room?” “Are you going to sit quietly?” Hmmm if I say ‘no’ I will be in trouble with the adult.) So they are actually pretty likely to just lie and say what they think you want to hear.
Presenting a this or that question provides an alternative to lying, a ‘no, but’ scenario where they are presented with the reasonable consequences of a No (“if you’re not ready to sit quietly, you cannot do our quiet activity with us yet.”)
I find it useful professionally with adults too - “Did you have a chance to finish that project, or is it more of a next-week item?” When done sincerely (rather than passive-aggressively), it gets over rough ground lightly: it gives the other person a solution you clearly already find acceptable, so they don’t have to flail around trying to defend/excuse themselves, they can just take the solution and everyone can move on.
oh my favorite trope? two people who go through something so unique and agonizing and entirely beyond words that they have no choice but to create a bond that transcends all other types of love, thus acting as the sole point of understanding for the other person in a world that cannot fathom what they’ve been through
remember when I made that post that basically said “don’t forget about a southern hemisphere when worldbuilding” and a lot of people said “ahhh but what if my fantasy world is flat or shaped like a kia sorento? checkmate I Write What I Want” and then you go and find out that people actually forget that the southern hemisphere exists in real life, like right now here in earth
my worldbuilding posts have two key components:
here’s a thing you should think about to make your world more believable and cohesive :) it could really enhance your plot and characters and it’s also fun to think about it, when you know how the real world works you can make more vivid fantasy worlds!
and you also should think about it so you think about something else that isn’t your own fucking hemisphere pedazo de gringo imperialista
So half of the fantasy planet needs to be experiencing summer when its winter in the north? Is that the endpoint of this post? An episode of the magic schoolbus?
I don’t know what to tell you. Read the post again.
I’ve been thinking recently about that feeling when you’re alone at home in the grips of some intense emotion and you’re like “am I faking this? am I performing this?? am I just fishing for attention from no one???”
I think it’s at least partially because like,,, especially if you spend a lot of time masking those emotions, letting them possess your body DOES have to be a deliberate choice. that doesn’t make any of it less genuine, you just might be out of practice releasing emotions physically so it feels awkward and unnatural.
it was something I literally had to practice in therapy, the whole process of “where is the emotion in my body, what does it feel like, what does it make me want to do”, and then intentionally doing the safest version of that urge (punching your mattress, screaming into a pillow, stimming, dancing, scribbling, making weird faces, you name it).
I guess what I’m getting at is, it’s fine if it’s weird and awkward and feels fake. it’s good for you anyway, in the same way that even if you can’t sleep, lying down and closing your eyes is better than staring at your phone.
I’ve been thinking of the “Can Granny Weatherwax beat Bugs Bunny” question and this is my full take for Discworld characters:
Vimes - Cares too much, too easy to piss off. Has the innate chase instinct that makes characters run into walls with realistic tunnels painted on them. Might get to arrest Bugs Bunny but the beast will just slip out of the handcuffs to help him lock them, then walk out of the jail cell to have a union mandated coffee break.
Ridcully - Classic hunting season scenario, but has enough charisma to probably still get a few good shots off before the inevitable.
Rest of the wizards - No survivors, only Bugs.
Carrot - The intense near-magical narrative aura of well meaning innocence should make him immune, Bugs will likely be forced to be the villain of the episode.
Lord Vetinari - Flattened by a comically large anvil in the first few minutes of the episode, unclear if it was all a part of his long term strategy or not.
Moist - Has the ‘lovable trickster getting away with it’ energy, but nowhere near Bugs level. Already fell for the “old lady who swallowed a fly” scenario with the stamp slugs once, won’t fare any better here.
Death - Definitely one of those “character is trying to avoid death” episodes, would go back and forth. Might actually get to end Bugs but his spirit will reappear in Death’s domain and ruin his garden.
Nanny Ogg - The ultimate in anti-Bugs technology, a gleefully annoying old lady who doesn’t give a fuck and definitely won’t be the first to instigate the plot bearing conflict. This is a full sweep, he’s the episode antagonist.
Granny Weatherwax - Too win-motivated to not lose. Would have to break the story to have any chance. Might do it.
Magrat - Will have sappy ideas about helping the poor animal which honestly has the 50:50 chance of either getting slapsticked or Bugs ending in a ye olde stroller&pacifier gag.
Colon&Nobby - Designed in a lab to be totaled by Bugs Bunny.
Tiffany Aching - A child that also has a large pan that is the perfect thing to hit someone over the head with and make a BOIOIOINGGG sound, so great odds.
Making a new rule for straight creators along the lines of “don’t kill off your lesbian couple it’s homophobic” but this time it’s “if you’re going to put a lesbian in your show you can’t make her a cop”
Fun fact for our international followers: If someone in Australia cuts down a tree on public land to improve the view from their house, the local government will install a sign to block that view again
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