that-soft-earth

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caving as an extreme sport is sooo unfathomable to me why are u as a creature of the daylight doing that. were u born without the dread in ur bones or something

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"i would die for you" this, "i'd walk through fire for you that"

what about "i'd live for you" romances? what about "i never thought i'd be worth the work it would take to piece myself together"?

what about "i don't believe i'm worth it, but for you i'll try"

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Hypothetical question:

There is a book that is 200 pages long. If you read the entire book, you will 100% get a neurodegenerative disease and die in 1-5 years. Everybody knows this. There are studies. Every reputable organization, even very pro-free-speech ones, are like "no this specific book WILL literally kill you."

There are no consequences to reading the first page of the book. There are studies. The only risk is that you might be interested enough that you'd like to read the rest (especially if you didn't know about the effect.)

(More details: The effects of reading past Page 1 are hotly debated - you do need to read all 200 pages to get the disease, but some kind of compulsion kicks in over time and makes you much more inclined to finish the book. Reading to page 10 is a little dangerous, reading to page 50 or past is very dangerous, but it's kind of unclear how much. The compulsion is NOT measurably present from the first page.)

Every government has banned this book, but it's pretty easy to find copies online or (with a bit more work) in person. By all accounts, the writing is quite beautiful. It is even easier to find copies of the first page, since everyone agrees it's not dangerous.

(this is curiosity / idle research for a fiction project)

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had a dream last night where I took a uquiz called "what do you serve?" and at first the questions were standard but as the quiz progressed they became more and more highly specific to me personally and the answers became more and more similar and I realised the quiz Knew me and was forcing me into being honest by giving me no other option so I tried to click out but it just went to the next question which was "are you the spider? or are you the web?" and it had an option for each but I didn't click either so it then turned to a text box and I typed "I think I'm the fly" and the quiz paused for a while and then took me to a results page that said "you serve truth" and the description just read "what you know will kill you but you will die laughing" so like. good morning everyone I guess :/

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A horror trope that I very much enjoy is the "haunted book" -- a book that affects the reader in some way, like the Necronomicon driving people mad, or Dr. Mabuse's book that hypnotizes its reader into doing his bidding. It recently had a nice moment in the Magnus Archives, with the Leitner subplot, and there's even a hint of it in Frankenstein, when Victor reads the work of a scientist that his professors dismiss as nonsense and becomes obsessively deranged studying the subject matter.

So it's not that I think it's time for a revival and lord knows the word "reboot" has begun to stink of soulless profit (I think we're one, maybe two flops from a reboot of the MCU). I'm not the most current on horror media in any case so maybe it's been done, but if not I do think we oughta start considering the idea of a haunted phone app.

Apps are already designed for this, anyway. In our current era, a lot of retail "apps" are just reskinned browsers that load an optimized version of the company's website, and the goal of most apps and websites is to keep you in the app/website. (Which is why the google mail and tumblr apps both have internal web browsers.) A lot of phone games are designed to keep you in the game and continually redirect you towards microtransactions, and even apps that aren't games often gamify use; "gamification" has come to be a polite euphemism for "creating addictive circumstances".

Alongside this, a lot of recent cults and cultlike organizations have determined that straight religion is not the best way in anymore, and are coming in sidelong through MLMs (Nexium), wellness and dietary orthodoxies (Bikram Yoga, a number of insta/tiktok orthorexia gurus), or political movements (Qanon). So you get a cult, set up like a business, with an app you use for your business -- or even a cult with a "wellness" app that monitors your sleep, eating, location (wait, that's just FitBit) -- and slowly it gamifies you right into attempting to raise a Great Old One using the power of your downstream or a nice big helping of olive oil coffee.

Although I hate those thinkpieces/art pieces that are all about "you're so busy on your phone you can't appreciate the world around you, remember when we read real paper books" so I would require that the protagonist defeat the evil also using a phone app, or at the very least blind the evil using the flashlight function. Locking the book away in a library app and then putting the phone on airplane mode is a nice resolution, followed perhaps by it lighting up even though it's offline with a message "someone is attempting to locate this phone" as the post-credits stinger for the sequel.

This thought brought to you by Duolingo, which recently fed me, in succession, the task of translating from Italian the phrases

Who do you see in the mirror?

We open the curtains and see the light.

The pillows and blankets are red.

[that-soft-earth]

*seductively* doomed by the narrative all by yourself, handsome?

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2 genres of fanfiction:

1) put that guy into situations

2) take that guy OUT of situations for the love of GOD let them REST 

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!!!!!!!

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couple’s t-shirt idea

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Edwardsiella andrillae, an Antarctic species of sea anemone that lives upside-down, burrowing into the sea ice and projecting its tentacles into the frigid water below.

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Just thinking about the intimacy behind a very soft and gentle "Let's get you home."

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y’know as much as self-sacrifice gets made out to be super noble and shit in a lot of fiction, i am. very much more in favor of the message “you can live. you can want to live. it is a good thing to want to live, and it is a good thing that you are alive. you don’t have to feel guilty for being alive.”

idk it’s what i really needed to hear when shit got bad and honestly it’s what i still need to hear sometimes and it’s what i want the people i care about to believe about themselves.

[that-soft-earth]

sir, that’s my emotional support black sheep of the family with otherworldly powers and questionable coping mechanisms

[that-soft-earth]

Challenging Fatphobic Language in Writing: Some Alternative Vocabularies

So I’m currently working on a short story for an explicitly fat-positive anthology, and it’s making me realize just how little language I have readily at hand for describing large bodies in positive terms! 

Putting aside for a moment the whole debate over HAES and fat positivity and everything else – and if you clown on this post, I’m simply going to block you, that’s not what we’re here for – sometimes you just want to write a story with a fat person in it and you need some adjectives/descriptive language that isn’t overtly gross and/or fetishistic. 

Well, I’ve got you, fam. I have compiled this handy list of descriptive terms and phrases for describing big bodies with positive connotations.

Why am I doing this? 

Because this:

And this: 

And frankly, we all deserve better. So let’s go. 

Positive (and Neutral) Adjectives for Fatness

Abundant

Ample

Big

Broad

Buxom

Considerable

Curvy

Full

Generous

Heavy

Large

Luscious

Plentiful

Plump

Replete

Robust

Round

Rubenesque

Soft

Solid

Stocky

Substantial

Thick

Voluptuous

Zaftig

Movement Verbs Evoking Fatness

Amble

Bounce

Lope

Mosey

Pad

Plod

Pound

Ramble

Scoot

Shuffle

Trundle

Some Points to Keep In Mind

A big part of challenging fatphobia in writing is inverting or subverting stereotypes. Here are a few lazy/played-out tropes and things to think about: 

Fat = Greedy I think we can all agree at this point that there are better ways to show greed – such as excessive wealth, entitlement, selfishness, and so forth. There is really no need to use fatness or gluttony as a metaphor for these concepts. Just write your greedy character doing greedy things and resist the urge to make them also be fat. If you need a strong visual metaphor, go for opulence and wealth instead. 

Fat = Gross  A ton of media, especially horror, loves making fat people slovenly, smelly, covered in food stains, farting and belching, etc. etc. So if you want a more positive representation, just presenting the character as clean, well-dressed, tidy, etc. actually goes a very long way. Consider playing against type by making your fat character dapper or fastidious about other elements of their appearance, like their hair, or wearing very nice custom-fitted clothes (or even just “dressing up” a bit more than everyone else). 

Fat = Out of Shape Yes, absolutely, many fat people are also out of shape couch potatoes. But so are a lot of skinny people. And fat people absolutely can be athletic – go google “fat athletes” for several lists of them if you don’t believe me! Sure, you probably won’t find a ton of fat long-distance runners, but you’ll definitely find plenty of hefty weight lifters, fighters, folks with physical jobs, etc. A lot of super muscular people are also carrying extra fat, and that is in fact way more common and natural than the super-defined, well-cut muscles you see on TV. Keep that in mind the next time you’re writing an army of strong hand-to-hand combatants – they’re likely to be physically big, not in a bulging muscle He-Man way but more of an “absolute unit” way. Keep in mind, too, that even regular folks packing extra pounds will often tend to be a lot stronger (on account of spending every day carrying extra weight!) You can be fat and graceful, fat and strong, fat and with endurance. Just something to keep in mind. 

Fat = Pig  Pigs have a reputation for being huge, dirty, smelly, garbage-eating slobby creatures, and “disgusting fat pig” and “porker” and their ilk have been insults against big people for a long time. Of course, in reality pigs are also super smart, highly social (and fucking terrifying) but that’s not usually waht gets invoked when people think of them! Really, avoiding animal language when talking about people is often a good idea (since animal comparisons can be dehumanizing), but if you are going to evoke an animal, go with something else. Like a seal (super cute, very graceful in its natural environment) or a bear (big and solid and intimidating) or a bull elk (thick and majestic). 

Fat = Ugly  Fat people can be beautiful. I mean, sure, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and inner beauty is a thing and all that – but that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean that fat bodies are great! They’re warm and soft and huggable. They’re big and solid and comforting. They can be strong and protective. They can be super-feminine and curvy. Cute as a button or powerful and demanding with their presence. 

Obviously dismantling fatphobia is a whole big (ha, ha) topic all on its own, and there’s a ton more to think about. But this is at least something to get you started! 

Context matters a whole lot in description – words can be positive or negative based on how they’re utilized! But these are at least some terms intended to be a bit less loaded with negative baggage than those often used in less flattering descriptions. 

Have you read a book with a fat character who had a great or interesting description? Please reblog, I’d love to see how other authors have handled it! 

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This right here.

As a mexican woman, I love to see movies with latino characters, and I adore to finally see latin america as the setting of mainstream movies in a positive light without all of these harmful stereotypes about us and our countries.

However, why do latinos only matter when they're represented by the United States? Why is it only worthy to be watched and made popular if it's made by north americans? Why does it need to be americanized to be taken in consideration?

Media made by latinos EXIST. Many people like to say there isn't, but as OP said in the thread, what they mean is that there's a lack of latino media in first world countries. If you search, you will find.

We make our own movies, shows, animation, books, music... It might not be internationally popular, but that's because like all other non-american media, it's incredibly overlooked.

Everything american is put above like if it's more deserving and worthy of attention just because it's from the USA. Just look how many american remakes of non-american media get so popular.

Remember about how much Villainous (a mexican CN cartoon) struggled for years to be green-lit as a full series? Why do you think it is? Because it's made in latin america, by latinos.

As Bong Joon Ho said “Once you overcome the 1 inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to such amazing films"

Quoting OP's thread:

“Even with the economic problems, a lot of great art exists here, and new art is created constantly. Our region should be more on the center of anything related to our media.”

If you want to support latin american animation made by latinos, I highly recommend Villainous (Villanos) and Frankelda's Book of Spooks (Los Sustos Ocultos de Frankelda) both in HBO Max. There's also so many content made by latinos than you can look for. We live in an era of globalization and internet, so if you want to support latino art, it might be a Google search away.

Also, there's this thread on twitter that shares more latin american animation if you want to check it out.