There’s such recency bias in fandom. As an author you post something, get a few reactions, and then it goes off into the bin. As a reader you check the tags, see what’s new, and move on. But a lot of old stuff is really good. It’s just sitting there, gathering dust, waiting for someone to take a peek.
I’m pretty sure that Noah Webster and George Merriam never met in real life, and also, there’s a 45 year age gap. But what if … ? If we allow for some minor historical inaccuracies, we could really get this ball rolling.
[ID: an xkcd comic, showing three people looking at a computer, with one of them at down and typing at it. They type the following:
“Dear internet: We, the current editors of Strunk & White’s "The Elements of Style”, must—with great reluctance—clarify a point of orthography: “Strunk & White” should be used for the style manual and “Strunk/White” for the erotic fan fiction pairing.“ /End ID]
she once called my friend’s deadname “that stupid thing his mom calls him”
I was once talking to my 75 year old Chinese dad in passing about a trans friend of mine not getting along with her family and he asked why and I said err, because she’s trans, dad.
He asked: “Oh, was she the only son or something before *waves hand*?” and I was like, warily, no she has two brothers. And he responded with a great deal of confusion: “Then what’s their problem?!?!”
Later on: “Anyway, even if she WAS the only son, that’s not her problem, that’s THEIR problem. They should have had more sons if they were going to be bothered about it.”
Knowing what I know about chinese culture there’s something so beautifully simple about his logic of “no son to carry on family name/look after them in old age/all the other stuff? Skill issue! Should’ve had more sons! Should’ve kept the family unit strong yourself! Blaming your daughter for your own failure of family planning is W E A K!” and then he learns there are more sons and it completely breaks his train of logic because if yes to more sons then why issue?? You have two others and you’re mad you don’t have three?? Whack. Greedy.
I can already envision him as an ancient lord of a powerful house looking down his nose at the latest messenger bringing gossip from the house of his offspring’s friend and going “now they have a daughter to marry into another family for powerful alliances and two sons to take over her former duties and somehow they’re still complaining about their good fortune? They shall not survive the winter.” and then sipping his tea with all the grim satisfaction of someone about to watch an unnecessary soap opera of drama unfold from a safe distance or something
That’s a funny image for sure, though I think if there’s a typology of Chinese philosophical mentality, there would likely be a spectrum from “Confucian patriarchal lord” to “Buddhist monk / Taoist hermit” and my dad renounced at 18, was a monk for a time, before coming back to work for his family since they were poor 🤷 it was what 3 years after we gained independence from the British so the economy was probs a mess.
When he found and married my mom, he was nearly 45 and they had so much trouble conceiving that he went to a Guanyin temple supposedly “magical” for praying for children. When I was born (not a son, also an only child until now), my mom said, “when you prayed at the temple did you ask for a son?” He said, “Aiya, everyone is asking for sons, so I said any gender is okay. If I asked for a son, maybe we wouldn’t have gotten a child because Guanyin’s son quota is already used up. Do you want that to happen?” My mom laughed for days about “son quota” and continues to tell people about it today, but her honest answer was: “Any child is okay.”
Jokes on them. They didn’t specify a gender, so Guanyin Ma gave them a non-binary child!
More seriously: my dad doesn’t care about sons. When I told my parents that I wouldn’t marry or have children, I thought he might be disappointed, but he wasn’t. Then again, maybe I should have expected that, given he tried to become a monk at 18 🤪 I think he said the thing about sons to poke fun at people who care too much about sons because he frankly thinks it’s all a bit ridiculous. In his eyes, a child is a child, so what’s the point in caring about gender? If the child “changes” gender, does it make a difference?
When I first spoke to my mom about trans issues, still closeted at the time, she said, “I don’t understand why they feel the way they do, but they aren’t hurting anyone so don’t bother them. They are normal people just minding their own business.” I said, “I agree, but on the topic of not understanding: Mom, do you think that when we reincarnate, we are always born into a body of the same gender?” In Buddhist stories, there was a lifetime in which Guanyin was reincarnated as a cow or ox, and in repayment for my birth, my dad does not eat beef till this day. Gender or species isn’t constant in the cycle of rebirth. My mom said, “No, you’re right. Whatever thing that carries on has no gender. I was probably male, human or animal, in one of my past lives.” And she has supported trans rights even more ever since.
This costume was worn by Sarah Jessica Parker as Sarah Sanderson in the 1993 film 𝑯𝒐𝒄𝒖𝒔 𝑷𝒐𝒄𝒖𝒔. When watching the film, it is obvious that several copies of the costume were made for Parker, as the locations of the embroidery on her bodice tend to change throughout the film.
One version of the costume appears to have gone on to be used on an extra in the 2001 film 𝑯𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝑰𝑰: 𝑲𝒂𝒍𝒂𝒃𝒂𝒓’𝒔 𝑹𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒈𝒆, though the bodice is worn backward!
What are you wearing for Halloween? Let us know on our website or comment below: Bit.ly/SciFi030
It recently came up in conversation with my toddler that some birds can talk, and this has caused her great concern.
See, we were talking about how movies are pretend and how in real life, animals don’t talk. I mentioned that there are some birds who talk a little bit, but not like the animals in movies, and she just looked at me like “???”
So I informed her that some kinds of parrots can copy sounds that people make, and can learn how to say words. I thought this would give her a giggle, as fun new facts often do, but she was just deeply perplexed and a little worried about this.
“Birds can talk?” “Do they ask questions?” “What do they say?” Why do they talk?” “Do chickens talk?” “What about Blue Jays?” “Why do some birds talk?” “How do they talk?” “Birds TALK???”
We showed her a video of a parrot doing the “Hello, pretty bird, give a kiss” thing, and she was dead silent the whole time, hugging her comfort pillow with her knees to her chest. We asked if she wanted us to turn it off, and she shook her head. But we also asked if she wanted to see another one, and she shook her head even harder.
I don’t know why it has distressed her so greatly to learn that some birds can mimic human speech; but then again, I don’t know why it doesn’t distress the rest of us more to know that some birds can mimic human speech.
I keep thinking about that post that’s like “The first person to hear a parrot talk was probably Not Okay.” Because that’s exactly what happened. She had never been introduced to the concept, and her entire worldview got SHOOK.
Part of why Ravens are considered Spooky Bad Things We Associate With The Faeries is because they can and do mimic human speech - but much, much better than a parrot. With a parrot, you can tell something is off about the sound. You can tell it doesn’t belong to a human. Ravens don’t sound like that, no, cause they’re overacheivers. (And passerines). They sound EXACTLY like the voice of whoever they are mimicking.
But more importantly they love the sound of human laughter. No one knows why. But it is totally, 100% possible, and it happens to this day, to walk along the paths in the Black Forest and suddenly hear a strange kind of giggling sound, or maybe even a very clear, definitely human sounding “hello?” “Hiiiii!” Or “let’s go!”.
However, it takes a lot of practice for them to copy sounds as perfectly as they do, so you’re equally likely to hear something that definitely sounds human-like, but the words make no sense and the sound is unlike any language you know.
Ravens at the Tower of London do this all the time. Theyre pretty sociable with humans though, so they do it quite openly. I have seen videos of people, mostly Americans, look absolutely spooked out of their skins when a big ol’ raven (mind ye, these are birds that are 2 feet tall with a 5 foot wingspan) comes waltzing up on the deck and starts talking to them.
And ravens, especially the ones there that have been bred and raised by humans for centuries, don’t just imitate - they have one of the same language processing genes we do, and they understand the way a toddler might that things, places, and individuals have names, and can string together basic sentences much like an african grey.
I know because I used to work with one, Darlene, who knew, quite well, what she wanted and how to ask for it. If you were preparing her breakfast, she would hop on up and investigate. She used to be an illegal pet, and had been taught “manners”. That is to say, if she went for something and you told her, sternly, “mind your manners missy!” She would stop, look at you, perhaps for up to a minute, and then point with her beak to what she wanted. If that did not work, she would ask, in plain English, “grape?” Or “Darl have grape?” And lord help you if you gave her anything less than what she asked for. She would throw it at you, and try to bite you, sometimes while saying “No!” In the same tone as I imagine she was reprimanded in her home.
So yeah. Parrots arent the only ones.
WHAT
Was anyone gonna tell me that ravens can talk or was I meant to read about it on a tumblr post?!
Talking Ravens has been a trope in fantasy for so long that people forgot that it is based in fact.
I’m watching Splash (1984) which is a romcom about a guy who falls in love with a mermaid, and when she chooses a human name she chooses Madison and guy says “that’s not a real name, but alright” which seems to imply that Madison was not a name until at least the 80’s and all girls named Madison are actually named after the mermaid. thought you should know
Jesus, look at the size of that thing. Bloody hell. His pumpkin now.
It took some time for my brain to parse the antlers, and until then, I thought this was a bear.
So the first time I saw this, I thought the moose was really short with a weirdly big head, because it was the height of the mailbox. I’ve now realized it’s kneeling and am once again afraid of just how /big/ moose are.
I like how the pumpkin at the base of the mailbox looks like it’s watching this attack and screaming in horror.
Being Canadian is amazing because you get to watch everyone else not comprehend the utter size of moose
Halloween Moose is one of the holiday cryptid group that Sasha the Christmas Tiger belongs to.
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