masala-and-thunderstorms - Tumblr blog

[masala-and-thunderstorms]

Recently, while staring far too long at a potato chip, it occurred to me that the ridges could possibly be used to create a lenticular effect. So I got out some chip dip (and the smallest paint brush I have) to test it out. I started with a simple 2-frame illustration of a football and a basketball, then I painted a little sour cream and onion dip bird. 🥔🕊️ - via my new @brockdavisart instagram

[masala-and-thunderstorms]

bring back tumblr ask culture let me. bother you with questions and statements

[masala-and-thunderstorms]

star wars, but it’s just the memes

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU

[masala-and-thunderstorms]

If your goals basically amount to "after The Revolution everything will be great because people will all have the Good Ethics and work together in my Perfect System and the Evil People with Bad Morals and Bad Behaviour who are making this world bad will be gone (killed/imprisoned/exiled/all converted to agree with us when they see our Perfect System)" then that's just fascism. I hate to say it but you've put a gay socialist hat on fascism.

[masala-and-thunderstorms]

happy first of Dracula to those that celebrate

[masala-and-thunderstorms]

I see where you’re coming from but tbh rich people are some of the most tortured and mentally ill people I know. In fact I think one of the main reasons Americans are so deeply, deeply depressed and so desperate to see ourselves as victims (and especially the reason this desperation gets more and more intense the more privileged you are!) is that we know our lives are built on other people’s backs.

[masala-and-thunderstorms]

taylor swift’s work wouldn’t be nearly as insufferable if she wasn’t constantly trying to present herself as some sort of tortured underdog. like, okay, she has endured hardships, and a lot of people, especially white men, are shitty towards her for purely misogynistic reasons. that sucks, i agree. but she’s never been an underdog before. she was born to well-off parents who did everything they could to start her music career when she was barely even a teenager, an opportunity that lots of people would kill for. now she’s extremely famous and wealthy, and everything she releases is destined to sell millions of copies and receive glowing reviews in nearly every publication. she is not an underdog, and i have trouble believing she’s particularly “tortured.” she’s not even an alcoholic, despite claiming to be one on the opening track of her new album! people like to defend her lyrics by saying she’s just playing a character, which i don’t believe for a second, but even if she was, i don’t think i want to listen to someone like swift play the character of a tortured underdog, not when there’s so many musicians out there who are actually tortured underdogs. it comes across as hollow. “you wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me,” sung by one of the wealthiest, most famous, most critically acclaimed musicians in the world, who was born to loving parents who personally helped her start her career, who once said she’d never been to therapy because she “just feels very sane.” if you’re going to play a character, maybe pick one who we’re not supposed to pity.

[masala-and-thunderstorms]

MONKEY MAN (2024)

[masala-and-thunderstorms]

iwtv + text posts part 49

[masala-and-thunderstorms]

Spectacular edit OP, 11/10

LDPDL, our delulu king ♥️

[masala-and-thunderstorms]

The Cruel Prince — Holly Black

[masala-and-thunderstorms]

[masala-and-thunderstorms]

I had a very interesting discussion about theater and film the other day. My parents and I were talking about Little Shop of Horrors and, specifically, about the ending of the musical versus the ending of the (1986) movie. In the musical, the story ends with the main characters getting eaten by the plant and everybody dying. The movie was originally going to end the same way, but audience reactions were so negative that they were forced to shoot a happy ending where the plant is destroyed and the main characters survive. Frank Oz, who directed the movie, later said something I think is very interesting:

I learned a lesson: in a stage play, you kill the leads and they come out for a bow — in a movie, they don’t come out for a bow, they’re dead. They’re gone and so the audience lost the people they loved, as opposed to the theater audience where they knew the two people who played Audrey and Seymour were still alive. They loved those people, and they hated us for it.

That’s a real gem of a thought in and of itself, a really interesting consequence of the fact that theater is alive in a way that film isn’t. A stage play always ends with a tangible reminder that it’s all just fiction, just a performance, and this serves to gently return the audience to the real world. Movies don’t have that, which really changes the way you’re affected by the story’s conclusion. Neat!

But here’s what’s really cool: I asked my dad (who is a dramaturge) what he had to say about it, and he pointed out that there is actually an equivalent technique in film: the blooper reel. When a movie plays bloopers while the credits are rolling, it’s accomplishing the exact same thing: it reminds you that the characters are actually just played by actors, who are alive and well and probably having a lot of fun, even if the fictional characters suffered. How cool is that!?

Now I’m really fascinated by the possibility of using bloopers to lessen the impact of a tragic ending in a tragicomedy…

[masala-and-thunderstorms]

Not Asian (Latino) but dear god I’m so sorry white people are being shitheads on your post.

Thank you so much. it gets exhausting sometimes and messages like this mean the world to me. <3

[masala-and-thunderstorms]

Okay, having received one thoughtful message from a hijra and approximately two hundred hostile and ignorant messages from white people, I'll clarify further:

1) Hijra are at once an incredibly specific and incredibly diverse community. There are plenty of trans, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming Indians (myself included) who are not members of the hijra community. There are plenty of hijra who do not identify as trans women.

This is because the term trans, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming are Western terms. Most Indians who use these terms for themselves are either immigrants or are wealthy enough to have studied in Western schools.

(Note: this does not mean that BEING what a Westerner would call trans, nonbinary, or gender non-conforming is a Western construct. Just about every culture in history has had people who did not fall into what we think of as standard binaries. But the terms themselves are Western, and therefore rarely used by those who have not heavily been influenced by Western culture.)

Prior to making this post, I had exclusively heard from hijra who feel deeply insulted and erased by the way Westerners insist on calling them "trans women" rather than respecting that hijra identity cannot be summed up by Western queer theory.

THAT SAID, I have now been informed that there are people who identify as both hijra and trans women. So it was wrong of me to say "hijra are not trans women," because that erased the people who are in fact both.

I am deeply sorry for that, and deeply grateful to the woman who took the time to correct me.

What I should have said was, "Some hijra identify as trans women. Most hijra do not. Trans women and hijra are not interchangeable, and to call all hijra trans women is to erase hijra identity."

2) That said, I'm really struck by the sheer number of white people who are frothing at the mouth to tell me in all caps HIJRA ARE TRANS WOMEN and I'm a terrible terrible person for thinking otherwise.

I reiterate my above note: I am a nonbinary Indian person. I am not a hijra and I am not a trans woman. I am more than happy to accept correction from those who are members of or who have a deep understanding of the communities I am speaking about. I am profoundly grateful to the person who provided that.

But when you, a Westerner who is eagerly jumping on the "someone is wrong on the internet" train, start screaming HIJRA ARE TRANS WOMEN, you are erasing the vast majority of the very communities who you tell yourself you're defending. Which is, in fact, the favorite hobby of Westerners. So consider why your idea of social justice is just to replicate the same systems of oppression and silence that you think you're fighting against.

I'm so glad that y'all are so into Monkey Man and the badass hijra priestess army, but friendly reminder that hijra are NOT trans women. Hijra are their own distinct gender; trans women are women. India has both :)

[masala-and-thunderstorms]

(me, my parents, my sister, and the baby are sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch)

baby, pointing at the light fixture over the table and signing "on": o.*

my sister: we actually can't turn that light on right now, because the lightbulb inside is burnt out! it needs a new one.

baby: ighbu.

sister: yes, lightbulb! granddaddy said after we eat he's going to climb up there on a ladder and change it, and then the light will come on!

baby: gadada! adda, uuu! ighbu o!

sister: exactly!

baby, signing "on" and pointing at the light and then my dad, with increasing urgency: GADADA ADDA UUUU. O.

my sister: we're going to finish eating first though, ok?

baby: nonono. O. gadada adda uuu.

[a split second goes by]

baby, pointing to himself: ba. adda uuu. ighbu.

me: you're going to climb the ladder and change the lightbulb yourself?

baby: dzyeah. *pointing to the buckle where he is buckled into the high chair* ububu.

me: unbuckle you? so you can change the lightbulb?

baby, highly businesslike: dzyeah.

*pronounced like "on" without the n