The best tweets from Graham Norton so far
Tag: long post //
Imagine how much historical knowledge wasn’t written down because our ancestors thought: “What idiot isn’t going to know this?”
So ancient Egypt’s best friend basically was called Punt. They traded all kinds of fun stuff with them; ebony, incense, gold, silver, myrrh, leopard skins, baboons for pets… and the Egyptians wrote a lot about the land, the people living there, what their houses looked like, records of trading expeditions to there (like, robust, oceangoing ships with thousands of men); they wrote down everything imaginable about this place… except for where it actually was.
We still to this day have no geographic fix on this ancient empire’s whereabouts, because what idiot wouldn’t know, right?
Until the 1850s British condiment sets came with bottles for oil and vinegar, and three spice containers for salt, pepper and…nobody knows. Potentially mustard, but it’s just a guess because no one ever wrote it down.
And this is why historians love, really love, those incredibly dull people who write in their diary every day about what they wore and what they had for dinner and how many miles away their friend Mr So-And-So’s house is in that one village. Because they are the only ones who *do* write down what was in the third spice jar, how many miles away this now-nonexistent village was and so on. Seriously, the diaries of really dull people are HISTORICAL TREASURES OF OTHERWISE LOST MINUTIAE.
Somewhere out there there is almost certainly a diary that would expose the true contents of that third spice jar because of the one time it was low and this person had to have a quiet word with the butler or something and it was the most interesting thing that happened all week so they wrote it down. And I hope that diary is found someday because now I really want to know.
That’s weirdly heart warming. Like, even if you are incredibly dull and live a normal boring life, you still might be the most interesting person to some historian some day
The thing that gets me the most about critics of Terry Pratchett’s novels who say they’re not important or “literature” because they’re “not realistic” is this:
By what yardstick are we supposed to be measuring “realism”?
See, I’m willing to bet that the yardstick these critics use is that oh so popular model of “the real world is really a terrible place, so the world of this piece of media is full of barbarism and grotesque cruelty.”* And Terry Pratchett never, ever fell into that dismal trope. He didn’t hunt his characters for sport. There’s no gratuitous sexual violence (no sexual violence at all, that I can think of). Even if a death or an act of evil is senseless from an in-world point of view, it isn’t random and senseless from a narrative perspective, thrown in to shock or to remind readers/viewers that “that’s reality.” The Discworld isn’t a happy rainbow place all the time. But it’s not a bleak pit of despair, either. There are bad people of all stripes, from literal torturers and megalomaniacs to regular folk who perpetuate the kind of small mundane badness pretty much every human is guilty of at one time or another. But there are good people too. And sometimes some of them die along the way, but ultimately the good people win and the world is changed for the better or at least doesn’t get any worse. Is that really “unrealistic”?
Terry Pratchett didn’t write a bunch of books about people being brutal to each other because “that’s human nature.” Terry Pratchett acknowledged–often, even–that humanity is prone to base acts. But what his books are really about, is humanity’s ability to rise above that. Terry Pratchett wrote about protagonists who are imperfect, doing good in the world often against their first instincts. He wrote about situations where it is hard to be good, but where his protagonists choose it anyway.
- Rincewind is a coward who craves only boredom, but he steps up to the plate and saves the world whenever it turns out no one else can.
- Sam Vimes is a bitter, cynical recovering alcoholic who is desperate to be a better man and to do what’s just for everyone.
- Granny Weatherwax is an aloof, blunt loner who finds “being the good one” a burden, but she works tirelessly to protect and serve her steading, just so everyone else can be free to go about their normal little everyday lives.
- Brutha starts off blindly believing that “purifying” sinners is necessary, but he learns to think for himself and when later on he has the chance to kill the worst of the Quisition’s torturers? He carries him through a desert, instead, and ends up reforming a religion.
These are just a few of so many examples. And are they “unrealistic”? Is the idea that imperfect beings can choose to do good even if it is difficult “fantasy”? Is it really too hard to believe that maybe even if the nature of humanity inclines toward selfishness and greed and all that terrible stuff, humanity can also do better than that, if individuals choose to?
Because, wow, to me that’s an awfully uninspiring view of “reality”. It’s kind of a boring one, too, when it comes to media. If all you’re going to show me is a series of escalating cruelty for shock value, because “in the real world good people suffer” or whatever edgy thing you think is “realistic”, I’m not interested, sorry.
Give me Terry Pratchett’s world, where readers can think that if a screwup like Rincewind or someone as bad-tempered as Granny can do good maybe they, the readers, can do good too. That if Vimes can turn his life around and work for justice, and if Brutha can question authority and stand up to oppression, maybe they could help change things, too. Give me that “fantasy” any day.
That’s the kind of “literature” I want.
*Either that or they just see books where magic is real and immediately put on their “I’m a grown up, grown ups don’t believe in magic” hats and roll their eyes, sure in the knowledge of their superiority, because what value could there ever be in having a little imagination, right?
But more to the point… I mean… the Discworld is hella realistic. The world makes sense. People act like people. Imps with a good eye and perfect memory are used in cameras and watches. The clacks rapidly goes multi-national after being invented and is soon a part of everyday life. What’s that quote from Night Watch…
Reblogging especially for that second part, and yeah, seriously. I’ve never seen a work as realistic as Discworld in terms of the solidity and reality of things like “where does the food come from” and “where does the sewage go” and “what do people with no connection to the main characters do all day?” Ankh-Morpork has pencil factories and a slaughterhouse district and a garbage mogul and cloth-production sweatshops and seed salesmen and hairdressers and milkmen and stationary manufacturers and rat catchers and runway fashion designers and all-night takeaway restaurants, and at one point the top candidate for the Patricianship was a guy from the Guild of Leatherworkers who ran a sex shop. The greasy details of candle manufacturing are a plot point in Feet of Clay, as is paper availability in The Truth and the murder of a condom manufacturer in The Fifth Elephant. I’ve seen plenty of fantasy novels that talk about noble ladies having expensive cosmetics, but Discworld is the only one I’ve ever seen with a passing mention of someone who makes them.
There are guilds of thieves and assassins and beggars, yes (which started, for the record, as a parody of old-school heroic fantasy where underground Guilds of [Criminal]s would often be the only organization present in the narrative besides something like the City Guards), but there are also guilds of clockmakers and bakers and teachers and engravers and laundresses and town criers and exotic dancers. I’ve never seen anything that so well shows the scale and diversity of a society as Discworld.
The first point is so important though because so often ‘gritty’ and ‘realistic’ are treated as synonomous. And mindless cynicisim is not just unplesant to consume as a reader/watcher, it’s vastly unrealistic. We havn’t just discovered tolerance and morality in the last ten years, people abd socieites have always conained much that is admirable and much that is bad. Terry Pratchett acknowledgeds al the facets of human nature and their best and worst expressions in society. He doesn’t pretend, for instance, that sexual violence never happens. He has a whole subset of books following the police force of a large chaotic city – sexual violence is acknowledged and treated with suitable seriousness. But he doesn’t revel in it, and doesn’t act like rape is the definitive narrative for girls and women.
And what is more, he allows the practical nature of the Discworld (the fact, as described in the second and third post here that the Disc actually operates on practical lines and we see the mechanics) to influence the narrative. He doesn’t ignore the practical difficulties of ‘being evil’ in order to show just how nasty he can be.
For instance, In Discworld, as in real history, war is ended by winter or by running out of resources. Or ordinary citizens who have had enough pressure applied eventually rise up or run away. The actions of the characters, how ever powerful, are dictated by the practicalities of the world they live in. The nameless background characters are not just NPCs who exist to demonstrate the cruelty of the mob, but haven’t the artificial intelligence to flee or rebel because that would upset the narrative of war and power-struggles between the important folks.
I’d be really exited for a Discworld TV show in any case, but I particularly hope one gets made soon because I think there’s a growing appetite for true sophistication in fantasy stories. Game Of Thrones introduced a mass audience to the idea of a rich fantasy world, but I think many people are getting bored of its flat characterisation and reliance on shock value instead of real complexity. Discworld could be the perfect solution for an audience looking for something more intelligent and honest.
It’s autism acceptance month so I thought it was a good time to do another one of my doodles. Functioning labels are something that’ve been bothering me for a while.
As always, I’m sure there are spelling/grammar mistakes, despite checking it 3 billion times I’m sure something will have escaped my notice.
This is a very popular view in the autistic community but I don’t claim to represent the views of all autistic people.
Going from memory I think @butterflyinthewell @neurowonderful and @autisticliving have a lot to say about functioning labels so I’m just gonna hopefully wave my bad doodle from a tiny blog at the cool kids 😀
broadwayandfandomsandfeelsohmy:
A group of Slytherin students camping outside the common room because the password is something bigoted and they refuse to say it
a group of Slytherin students having a sleepover in the Hufflepuff dormitory because the Hufflepuffs found out
A group of ravenclaw students trying to magically change the doors password when the hufflepuffs tell them
a group of Gryffindors trying to forcibly remove the door when they finally find out
“#im so into the idea of the ravenclaws being like #‘we tried every spell we could think of and we cant get it to change the password or let us in without it’ #and the gryffindors are just like #‘ALRIGHT EVERYONE STAND BACK WE’RE EITHER GONNA JINX THIS DOOR INTO OBLIVION OR BLOW IT THE FUCK UP WITH LITERAL EXPLOSIVES BUT WE ARE GETTI #*GETTING IN WITHOUT THAT PASSWORD ONE WAY OR ANOTHER’” (via: detectivejoan)
All while the Hufflepuffs provided the Gryffindors with the explosives (who are confused because these little puffballs have explosives? But also very impressed because these little puffballs HAVE EXPLOSIVES), along with cookies and words of encouragement for every house. And the Ravenclaws are munching cookies in the Puff common room while they work with the Slytherins to write a strongly worded letter to the head master.
@emilianadarling @enscenic @tennfan2 @zanythoughts @darthkyra @lizzidoll
I am here for your all your Hufflepuff sleepover, cookie, and explosive needs.
Kyra please write this story!
Ok. Given that it’s been ten years or so since I’ve read the books and I’m sure I have details wrong and this probably isn’t strictly conforming with what’s above… Yes, I wrote a story.
———-
“Pomona, what in Merlin’s name is going on here?”
Pomona Sprout turned to Headmistress McGonnagall. "Well, Minerva, it appears we have a bit of a rebellion on our hands in Slytherin House, and the other houses have rallied behind those who feel wronged.“ She smiled at her Hufflepuffs, who were scattered around their common room, intermixed with Slytherins, Gryffindors, and Ravenclaws. The largest group was at one of the tables, working on a letter to the Headmistress. Others were working on homework together.
And then there was that one group, in the corner, who were mumbling and occasionally looking over at her furtively. She ignored them, suspecting that she knew what her badgers were up to and feeling it was best that she didn’t actually have knowledge of the specifics.
All of the groups had cookies, and as Pomona watched, another house elf appeared with a fresh plate for the group in the corner. One of the Slytherins thanked her, getting a shy smile from the house elf.
“What sort of rebellion?”
“Headmistress?” A first year Slytherin approached, all wide eyes and nerves. "Please don’t make us go back to our common room. We don’t want to have to sleep outside the door, it’s nasty.“
“Why in the world would you sleep outside your common room, child?”
“Because the password…” She bit her lip, tears welling.
“It’s all right, dear,” Pomona said. She leaned forward to Minvera. "The Slytherin password was changed to,“ she whispered it into Minvera’s ear. The Headmistresses eyes widened.
“Professor Dunklekirk refused to change it when we asked, said we could either say it or sleep outside the common room,” the first year added.
“How long were they sleeping outside their common room?” Minerva exclaimed, getting the attention of everyone in the room.
“A week, Headmistress.” Guenifer Tostall, the Hufflepuff prefect said, standing from the corner that Pomona had been ignoring. "When the Fat Friar informed me, I called a meeting of the Hufflepuffs and we voted to offer our common room to any Slytherin who was affected by the situation.“
Pomona was rather proud of her badgers for offering their nest to those who had lost their own.
“That doesn’t explain the damage that Professor Dunklekirk has complained about.”
“My sister will not be forced out of her home by bigotry,” one of the Ravenclaw students declared. His sister was a second year Slytherin, if Pomona recalled right. The girl sitting next to him, judging by their similar features. They were part of one of the study groups that had a mix of all four houses in it. "When she told me she was sleeping here, Ravenclaw decided that we would force the door to change the password.“
“It was really cool, watching them work,” the first year Slytherin girl… Marnie, that was her name, Pomoma remembered, said from by the Headmistress’ side. "I don’t think I’d heard any of those spells before, and my family have gone to Hogwarts since the founding!“
“The door wouldn’t be budged, so the Gryffindors decided to assist with physical removal of the door,” Pomona said diplomatically.
Minerva was not fooled. "Yes, I’ve heard complaints about the jinxes and hexes and every other type of enchantment used to try to remove the door. And I beleive a muggle screwdriver was involved as well.“
The group in the corner shifted, and Pomona watched as they nonchalantly made their way to the door of the common room. Minerva’s attention was on the Prefects of the four Hogwarts Houses, who approached. Except for Guenifer, they’d all been working on the letter, and the Slytherin Prefect handed to the Headmistress. That provided a distraction for the corner group to slip out the door, and Pomona said a little prayer to Merlin that they wouldn’t bring the castle down around their ears.
“Headmistress, this is a petition from the members of Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Gryffindor Houses to outlaw the usage of certain words and phrases that can only be considered bigoted and used to provoke extreme emotional responses in students of this school, in passwords and pass phrases and as casual epithets in the classroom.” The other three prefects nodded behind Anthony as he stood his ground under Minerva’s gaze. "Just because they were considered acceptable in the past does not mean that we, as a school, have to continue to condone that type of behavior and thinking.“
Minvera unrolled the parchment and read it through. "I will take this under consideration, Mister Dawes. In the meantime, I agree that the password cannot be allowed to stand if it results in students being locked out of their dormitories and unable to access their belongings.”
“Oh, some of the Slytherins that aren’t as bothered have been retrieving items so that we aren’t in trouble with the teachers,” Marnie said softly. "But it would be nice to sleep in my own bed.“
Minerva opened her mouth just as the room shook violently and an explosion sounded. The two adults looked at each other and hurried for the door, the students following.
In the basement, outside the Slytherin common room, the group from the corner stood outside the gaping hole where the door used to be, surrounded by splintered wood and grinning like loons. The seventh year twins (Theodore, in Hufflepuff, and Winifred, in Ravenclaw) were high fiving each other.
"What in Merlin’s name happened here?” Minerva demanded, as Professor Dunklekirk peered out from the Slytherin common room. "You could have injured students!“
"They were all out before we started,” the lone Slytherin in the group said. "I made sure of that, ma’am.“
"And we all know that the doors answer to the Heads of House and the Headmistress, and there was no guarantee that another horrible phrase wouldn’t be used as soon as you turned your back, ma’am,” one of the Gryffindors declared, crossing his arms and glaring at Dunklekirk. He was probably lucky he was a sixth year and not taking Potions for his N.E.W.T.s, Pomona thought idly, as the look on Dunklekirk’s face promised revenge.
“Where did the explosives come from?”
Theodore and Guenifer smiled innocently. Somewhere behind the adults, a student whispered, “Dude, I never realized Hufflepuffs were so bad ass!” And was immediately hushed by others.
“We declared war on the door, Headmistress, Professor Sprout. Once we’d done that, we were seeing it through to the end,” Guenifer said.
“The streak could not be unbroken.” Theodore crossed his arms.
“Minerva,” Pomona said before the Headmistress could speak, “at that point, it was a matter of pride. After all, no one has heard the Hufflepuff war cry and lived, and that includes this incredibly rude inanimate object.”
“We took measurements and the house elfs very nicely helped us make a new door for the opening that is ready to go.” Winifred smiled at the elf that appeared, broom and dustpan in hand. "Oh no, don’t do that. We made the mess, we will clean it up.“
As Winifred argued the (losing) point with the house elf, Minvera looked at the students who were already fitting the new door into place, adjusting the hinges, one of them commenting that he did this every summer with his dad’s contrusction firm. "Destruction of school property cannot go unpunished. However, in light of the circumstances, detention will be served every Saturday for the next two months with me, personally. And there will be no attending Quidditch matches,” she added. Pomona knew well none of the explosive conspirators were on the teams, so that wasn’t as much of a blow to their houses as it could have been.
“In addition,” Minerva added, “all House Common room passwords must be approved by myself or Deputy Headmaster Flitwick to ensure this situation does not happen again.”
That elicted cheers from the collective student body gathered. Dunklekirk looked angry, but subsided when Minerva glared at him. "Now, everyone who isn’t cleaning up, back to your common rooms. Yes, Slytherins, you may stay in the Hufflepuff common room tonight if the door is not properly fixed in time, and if Professor Sprout allows.“
"Oh, they’ve been wonderful guests, it will be nice to have one last night to properly say goodbye,” Pomona said with a smile when her badgers looked at her imploringly.
“Very well, then. Mr. Filch,” she addressed the caretaker, who had just arrived, “please oversee the clean up and replacement of the door. Students, back to your common rooms. Professor Dunklekirk, I expect you in my office in one hour.”
She turned and left, and Pomona herded her charges back to their common room before hurrying to Minerva’s office herself. The Headmistress was behind her desk, a cup of tea at her elbow. A cup that Pomona suspected had been liberally laced with medicinal whiskey that Madam Pomfrey would not approve of. "It could have been worse,“ Pomona offered as she took out her own flask of vodka.
"I do not see how,” Minerva said, taking a sip.
“Potter, Granger, and the various Weasleys could still be at Hogwarts.”
“Oh dear Merlin. You are right, it could have been worse with those luminaries here. Then again, Severus at least knew how to keep his house in line, and not try to fan the flames too much.”
“What will you do to Dunklekirk?”
“I’m about to inform the Governors of what happened and that I will not accept him back next year. I have no doubt they will agree with me. I may not be able to fire him, but I can limit the damage he can cause.”
“I’m fairly certain one Governor will want to fire him.”
Minerva took another sip. "True, and if anyone could get him fired on the spot, it’s Molly Weasley.“ She set her cup down. "I think I will call her now.”
“I will leave you to it.” She tucked away her flask and headed down the stairs, humming the Hufflepuff war cry under her breath.
As Dunklekirk was about to learn, no one messed with her students, no matter what House they were in, and survived the wrath of the Mother Badger.
This is delightful.
It’s kind of amazing to me that Terry Pratchett started out writing novels that don’t even pass the Bechdel test and ended up at books like Equal Rites and Monstrous Regiment. I truly believe that the best writers end up being the ones who pay attention, educate themselves, notice flaws and patterns, not because someone yelled at them for not being social justice-y enough, but because they want their writing to really connect with people. Part of me is glad I’m only just beginning to get into the discworld novels, because I feel like Terry Pratchett had a lot to say about the world, and that I could spend MY entire life listening to him and what he said with his.
If you’ve read any of his biographical essays, he talks about that a bit, and not having the knowledge or the language (which we might scoff at but look how rapidly language and terminology changes today then try to remember the earlier books came out in the 80s when some tropes and words in use are now regarded as straight up slurs) to really deconstruct the things he wanted to go into. He even mentions at one point how his wife going to feminist empowerment meetings helped him to understand the things he knew to be an injustice, but just wasn’t a part of his dialogue so he tried to deconstruct it through tropes instead. So you have the fat wizards and their fancy magic who are basically incompetent and bumbling but tolerated by society because they are men, but the women who use practical magics and are good at it, are always living on the verge of poverty and exile, not because their magic is less powerful or to be feared, but because they are women.
By no means is his work perfect when it comes to issues of gender or sexuality, but it’s really, really, interesting to watch his style evolve to reflect his changing thought processes over the years.
Can we talk about Nation for a sec? Pratchett said it was the best book he had ever written or would ever write, so it’s definitely worth talking about, and it feels like nobody ever does.
I’m going to have to spoil it a little bit, sorry, I’ll try to make it vague. Nation is set in an alternate history and it’s about the aftermath of a tsunami in the South Pacific. Mau, an indigenous South Pacific islander, is the only survivor of the wave that wipes out his people. Daphne, a young British girl, is the only survivor of a shipwreck. They meet, and as refugees begin to come to them for help, they build a new Nation. Much of the book is a deconstruction of colonialism and an argument for humanism. It deliberately inverts a lot of “Lord of the Flies” (especially with the pigs) and Swiss Family Robinson / Robinson Crusoe tropes.
There is a powerful scene where Mau and Daphne have made an incredibly important archaeological discovery on Mau’s island, a piece of evidence shows that far from being “primitive” or “savages” they have always had a deeply rooted culture. (this is obvious, of course, but this discovery is something that, say, Europeans will appreciate as evidence of their scientific advancement.)
Now, although the book has been deconstructing Daphne’s colonialist heritage and viewpoints, when she first sees the discovery she unthinking blurts out that it must be evidence of European influence on Mau’s people.
Mau says no. White people have never seen this before. How does he know? “Because it is still there.”
And when Daphne says that it has to be shared with the world, Mau says that the world is welcome to come and look at it, in its context, on his island…
Anyway, here’s what Pratchett said about Nation.
He shoved everything he had at it – everything he knew – every scrap of
science and folklore and language and culture and power he had. It took decades of living and remembering and thinking and navigating his culture to make this book happen.Maybe the best character development he did was his own.
@tmohzone LOOK! THOUGHTFUL AND NUANCED DISCUSSION OF NATION!
There’s this weird sensation you get (or at least I got) when you’re kind of figuring out your place in the world that whatever thing you are bad at is going to be the absolute most important thing you need to succeed. Like, I don’t even remember the train of thought it took me to get there but I remember in high school, despite getting top grades I had myself completely convinced that because I was bad at phys ed I wasn’t gonna get anywhere in life, as though my lackluster dodgeball skills were shooting my chances at a future career in the foot.
When I was at Sheridan I felt like they were always pushing illustrative painting skills and lifedrawing, and because I had no patience or aptitude for painterly rendering and didn’t have a good grasp of that buttery smooth Sheridan Life Drawing Style™ I would never get hired anywhere. I was sincerely convinced by some combination of my own neuroses and a handful of profs who taught as though their chosen path to success was The Only Way To Find Work that being a decent sequential artist who could write reasonably funny jokes and make people laugh was a worthless industry skill next to stellar painting and life drawing.
But then I get out there and find out the guy who paints really well worries that all the jobs are going to sequential artists, the guy who animates really well worries they aren’t a contender for high profile jobs if they can’t prove their writing skills, the one who has those top tier life drawing worries that skill doesn’t obviously translate into any part of the production pipeline. Everyone is convincing themselves that the set of skills that come the most naturally to them are easy for everyone else to get a handle on as well, and focus on their failings and insecurities while disregarding the honest, sincere assets they bring to the table.
It’s like a barbarian getting down on themselves for not being able to cast healing magic. Bro, you’re a barbarian, the clerics can’t hit things really hard a bunch of times as good as you can, their Cure Light Wounds spells don’t diminish your value to the group.
I guess I’m just saying, to all the kids graduating college and going out to look for jobs now, it’s scary but you have skills that are unique to you and the best thing you can do for yourself is embrace what makes you an asset and avoid getting too hung up and the parts of your stat tree that you didn’t fill out, no one gets enough points to fill the whole thing, that’s why it takes a team to do a job.
This is super true in every field, FYI.
One last post on the subject, and then, I promise, I am done. 8)
One last question.
Imagine a girl. Who loves Captain America 2, even though she never saw the first one. Or who has been watching Battlestar Galactica reruns non-stop for the last couple of months. Or who found that old Orlando Bloom folder and thought about PotC movies for the first time in years.
Imagine that girl, having an idea. How awesome would it be if Peggy time traveled to the present to help Steve? Or if Starbuck was a Cylon? or if Elizabeth’s best friend from childhood showed up and they ran off to be lesbian pirates?
What if.
What if she could find herself, find a place for herself in a world, in a place that she loved? What if between work and school and family and friends and afterschool activities and a thousand other things, what if that girl wrote her story? HER story. One unique to her, even if it was every trope in the entire world, all rolled into one monstrosity on FF.net.
Maybe she wants to be a writer someday. Or a filmmaker. She wants to create comics. Or tv shows. Or run websites. Or maybe not any of that. Maybe she wants an audience. Maybe she just wants to share this one story with a community she loves.
But she writes it and she posts it and someone says, “Mary Sue.”
And if she knows anything about fandom, if she’s been on the internet, she knows that’s bad. She knows that means she’s failed somehow, that this story, this fun thing that she’s thought so much about, is somehow unacceptable.
She’s told that her female characters are unwelcome. Her story is unwelcome. She is unwelcome.
Maybe she shrugs it off and keeps writing. Maybe she conforms, writes fewer ‘Mary Sues,’ and more canon white het males. Maybe she grows up and becomes a screen writer and carries a life time of ‘girls don’t belong’ judgments into everything she creates, perpetuating the cycle.
And maybe she just stops trying to find herself in that world. Maybe she internalizes it. Maybe she keep dreaming, but never posts another word.
I am adult, with experience, and a job, and something of a readership. And let me tell you, the first time that landed in my comments, it hurt. There was a drop of shame in my stomach, a little roll of nausea. That I had created A MARY SUE.
My first thought? How to devalue the character. How to lessen her. How to strip her of the things that made her funny, made her clever, made her loyal and strange and amazing. Because my readership, I thought, didn’t want amazing.
Amazing was a failure, somehow.
I caught myself doing it. I caught that thought before it got too far. I caught myself thinking, “does she really need to be here?” when I never thought that about any of the male characters. I caught myself.
And then I got angry.
I got angry with myself, that I was so easily browbeaten. That I had almost let one anonymous voice, one mocking, disdainful voice, change how I saw this character. That I almost let someone do that to her.
That I had come so close to writing her out. Because she was a Mary Sue.
I don’t care if you use the term as gender neutral. It’s not. It carries connotations in fandom. It carries shame. It carries the unspoken weight of ‘fake geek girl’ and ‘codebabes’ and ‘I like my fangirls like I like my coffee, and I HATE coffee!’ It is another attempt to shame and silence, and I am done with it.
And if my niece grows up in ten years, and gives me her fic, about how Angelica Perfecton gets engaged to Spider-Man and saves Tony Stark by fixing his armor and teaches Steve Rogers how to paint?
Then I will be so overjoyed that she is a fan. That she is a fan who CREATES. Who makes the space safe for herself. Who dreams big. Who wants to be the center of the world she loves so much.
Because it is her right to do that without shame.
“I don’t care if you use the term as gender neutral. It’s not. It carries connotations in fandom. It carries shame. It carries the unspoken weight of ‘fake geek girl’ and ‘codebabes’ and ‘I like my fangirls like I like my coffee, and I HATE coffee!’ It is another attempt to shame and silence, and I am done with it.”
please start questioning why you call bad people “psychotic” or “crazy” or “nuts” or “insane”.
please start questioning why your automatic response to someone who is visibly symptomatic is to dismiss them as “crazy”, roll your eyes, and mock them as though they are subhuman.
please start thinking about why you associate mental illness with being evil or cruel or mean, why you use words like “insane” or “crazy” to mean something that bothers you, something you don’t like.
this shit matters. words matter. slurs matter. this isn’t about people choosing to “get offended”.
the semiotics involved in continually associating badness with mental illness is what leads to mentally ill people getting killed by police, abused by their family members, losing custody of their children, going to jail instead of getting treatment.
It leads to losing our jobs and our friends, to our partners infantilizing and invalidating us.
it leads to being associated with mass murderers, to violent and horrific acts being explained away by mental illness, to reputable news sources calling for taking away our privacy and forcibly institutionalizing us.
STOP USING THE WORD CRAZY IF IT HAS NOT BEEN USED AGAINST YOU IN AN EFFORT TO TAKE AWAY YOUR RIGHTS OR INVALIDATE YOUR HUMANITY
In case anyone finds themselves confused about how using words like crazy or insane can actually be very harmful, even if it’s not “intended” to be.
the noodles are boiling
@why-animals-do-the-thing is this safe for the ferrets? are they okay?
Well, I’m going to preface this with that we’ve determined with past posts that ferrets are my weak spot. So before you take me at my word let’s get some ferret-follower input.
I think it looks fine, honestly. The eggs are larger than their heads so there’s no ingestion risk, and it looks like good enrichment. Those motions are happy weird ferret play movements. My only question would be if there’s a problem with that many being in one place – I have no idea how ferret social structures work past bonded pairs – but I don’t see any red flags, so at least this instance looks good.
Somebody check me?
This is the BEST (people honestly worry about the weirdest things with ferrets haha what is there to worry about here??? Why are people worried???)
Anyways, plastic eggs are perfectly fine in play bins like this. I’d personally tape them shut because some ferrets pop them open and then chew on them, but ferret owners need to know their ferrets.
I counted ten ferrets, which is fine for a playgroup. In general for HOUSING ferrets you don’t want to get past six in one adequately (read: BIG) cage. This could very well be two groups of ferrets that play well with each other. And trust me, you cannot have two ferrets or gods forbid two ferret groups that hate each other out tgether – anarchy and possibly carnage WILL happen. It doesn’t happen often, however because during the process of domestication humans have bred for ferrets that have more kit-like personalities. Wild polecats become solitary as they age, but our domestic ferrets have been bred to be social critters. That’s why they get along so well with each other and why they can bond so well with humans. Occasionally you have throwbacks to the solitary temperament, and ferrets have differing personalities, but usually you can put groups of ferrets together for playtime with little issue.
I wouldn’t exceed 12 ferrets in a playgroup, however, mainly because of size constraints. You’d need plenty of room to roam, play, and also have room for the ferrets to go when they’re tired and want to get away from the others. Ferrets get cranky and larger groups make it harder to provide enough room for both play and rest.
Anyways, plastic eggs are great as they are plastic, not easily chewed unless you have a plastic chewed, and colorful so they really are a treat for the ferret’s vision. (Ferrets see red especially well from what I remembr, and also contrasting colors, like White and black stripes or such). Other good choices for playpens are edible/digrstible packing peanuts (ONLY UNDER SUPERVISION if the ferrets start eating them they need to be taken away, plant matter is not good for ferrets), ping pong balls (these are especially great in water pools) and rice for dig boxes (smelly ferrets smell nice and fresh after a dig in the rice box).
queerhomestuck 