fishonthetree

[fishonthetree]

There are two basic arguments for shutting the fuck up about cishets at Pride.

First: What if a trans kid asks their parents to show their support by attending Pride with them? What if a lesbian can only attend pride if she gets a ride from someone and the only person willing and able to drive her is her straight brother? What if a bi disabled person can't attend a large outdoor event without hands-on assistance from their straight partner? What if someone just wants to bring their fucking friends? What if, contrary to popular tumblr discourse, most queers don't inhabit perfectly pure social bubbles populated only by other queers? What if it's none of your business?

Second and perhaps more important: If you think you can tell that someone is CIS, let alone HET, by LOOKING at them, you are a cop and an idiot.

[fishonthetree]

Slow train journeys in rural England sure are an experience. You're going ten miles and it takes a day and a half because it stops at every lamp-post and the announcement says "The next station stop is Ferretley" or something and you think "I didn't know that was a place" and you get there and it isn't

[fishonthetree]

Mt St Helens eruption 1980

[fishonthetree]

Sometimes two languages have a lot in common because they come from a similar origin point but sometimes two languages have a lot in common because one tried to eat the other at some point

[fishonthetree]

There's something hilarious about how so much subsequent media has positioned Vampires and Werewolves as, like, binary opposite entities, and then you read Dracula (1897) and realize that wolves are that guy's preferred solution to every problem. You'd say something to Dracula about "ah yes, werewolves, vampires' great eternal enemies," and he'd just be like "you mean my subcontractors?"

[fishonthetree]

really & truly the only thing we know about odysseus' war prize as mentioned in the iliad is that... there is one, and it's probable that she would be an enslaved concubine comparable to chryseis and briseis, since that is the context in which agamemnon mentions potentially taking odysseus' prize as compensation. that's it. as far as i'm concerned (and no one is forcing you to listen to me) anyone has room to headcanon whatever they want.

however. sleeping with slaves was not a crime or a taboo; it was normative, normalized, and encouraged. the text may leave details out, and sometimes we are more comfortable with characters for whom it is easier to ignore certain aspects of their context that aren't front and center. but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, especially when you ask yourself: what would the intended readers of the iliad have assumed about the purpose of this character, who isn't named, who is barely touched on, except as a substitute for another enslaved concubine? exceptional cases are often noted: agamemnon explicitly saying he didn't touch briseis, for example, or the odyssey's detail that laërtes never slept with eurycleia. but how laërtes behaved doesn't prove shit about what odysseus did or didn't do during a war. they are different people in different circumstances.

you can use that to build a headcanon all you want. but you're coping, and you have to know you're coping.

[fishonthetree]

Thinking more about historical arranged marriage and how it's portrayed in media and I think I've come to a final conclusion. The problem is that the woman's emotions are often not explained. It's a default assumption from the writer that every woman thinks "arranged marriage = bad" no matter their circumstances, era, culture, or personality. It's bad writing and bad characterization of women (shocking! that never happens)

I was just watching a show where the daughter is abused by her stepmother. She has a marriage arranged and the guy seems sweet. The girl attempts to run away. At no point are we told her thinking as to why she doesn't want this. But like, why? Her family is awful to her. If she is a runner, why has she not escaped from her abusive family? It would have taken 20 seconds of air time for her to say to someone, "I got a bad vibe from that guy/I don't trust this because Stepmom seems happy/devil I know/whatever." But they didn't do it, because of course arranged marriage is always automatically bad, right?

Another show I watched did such an excellent job explaining why a woman was unhappy with her arranged marriage. She had been spoiled and indulged by her entire family for her childhood. She knew she'd be marrying within class (high nobility/royalty), but she thought her family would allow her to pick from the very limited options (literally 4 men are eligible). Then she learns, and scolds herself for not realizing it sooner, that (almost) everyone in her family actually intended her to marry the crown prince for political reasons. Her emotions made so much sense! She was a teenager; she understood the world imperfectly and was disappointed. Her unhappiness felt like something a person in her era and social position would think, not a transplant from the 21st century. She made sense as a human and a character.

In conclusion: write women as people

[fishonthetree]

me, unloading a fitted sheet from the dryer: *squinting* what's that you've got in your mouth

fitted sheet: nothing :)))))))

me, prying open its twisted jaws: na-ah!!! give it to me RIGHT now!!

fitted sheet: *resentfully spits out a wad of 3 very damp dishtowels, a pillowcase, and a pathetically sodden washcloth*

[fishonthetree]

Italian Nirvana

[fishonthetree]

How did ancient Chinese tombs set up mechanisms to deter tomb robbers? (This is just a basic demonstration - in reality, it was far more complex. The mausoleums of Qin Shi Huang (259-210 BCE) and Empress Wu Zetian (624-705 CE) remain unexcavated to this day because current technology cannot safely handle them.) Cnetizen say "No excavation needed - mercury level testing suffices. The Records of the Grand Historian documents that the First Emperor's underground palace used mercury to simulate rivers and seas. Being highly volatile, the mercury would have largely dissipated over time - not just since Xiang Yu's era 2,200 years ago, but even if Huang Chao's rebels had breached it 1,000 years later. Yet modern instruments detect severely elevated mercury levels at the site!" This confirms the mausoleum has never been substantially breached. While we cannot rule out that a few tomb raiders ('touching gold captains') may have entered, none could have survived - the instant mercury vapor exposure would have been fatal." Qin Shi Huang is revered as the 'Ancestral Dragon' in China, so people never joke about him - it’s believed to bring bad luck (a superstition tied to disrespecting the 'Dragon Emperor'). This might also explain why no one has dared to open his mausoleum to this day.

[fishonthetree]

First lemon from my lemon tree! (penny for scale)

[fishonthetree]

[fishonthetree]

One of the most important things to unpack and unlearn when you’re part of a white supremacy saturated society (i.e. the global north) and especially if you were raised in an intensified form of it (evangelicism, right wing politics, explicit racism) is the urge to punish and take revenge.

It manifests in our lives all the time and it is inherently destructive. It makes relationships and interactions adversarial for no good reason. It undermines cooperation and good civic order. It worsens some types of crime. It creates trauma, especially in children.

Imagine approaching unexpected or unacceptable behavior from a perspective of "how can this be stopped, and prevented" instead of "you’re going to regret this!”

Imagine dealing with a problem or conflict from the perspective of “how can this be solved in a way that is just and restorative” instead of “the people who caused this are going to pay.”

How much would that change you? How much would that have changed for you?

[fishonthetree]

Bug's babies! Already attached to her, and totally chill about being picked up and loved on by me. I hope they recognize my voice, considering all the talking to them I did before they hatched.

[fishonthetree]

New writing rule: Checkov’s friend

If you introduce a named character with a relationship to a protagonist, their character arc must be resolved in a way that feels reasonable and satisfying

Which is to say: they can’t just dissappear when they’re no longer a convenient plot device

[fishonthetree]

Chicago Tribune, Illinois, September 7, 1913