there are people who think bi people don’t have a place at lgbt+pride events
there are people who hate bi people so much that they won’t even reblog a post that says “bi girls and lesbians” without getting rid of the “bi girls” part
there are people who will fight to cut bi people off from support that we need, and who dismiss us if we try and talk about why we need that support
there are people who argue that being forced into the closet is a privilege when it’s a bisexual person being forced, and that we should accept this “privilege” and be happy that people assume our sexuality incorrectly
there are people who think that biphobia isn’t real and that we’re just complaining about characters being mislabeled as gay or straight
there are people who define bi people by the relationships they have and decide our worth as people by our partner
biphobia is a real issue. it isolates bi people, it separates us from the support of communities that we desperately need, and it makes people scared to be themselves in spaces that are supposed to be safe spaces, and it needs to be addressed and dealt with.
Host Vanessa Williams asked, “Some legislators are threatening to shut down the government over federal contributions to Planned Parenthood, even though no federal funds can be used for abortions. Should Planned Parenthood funding be cut off?” So much for “Describe your perfect date” softball questions.
Night at the Museum 3 - We have dinner once a year and talk about it.
The amount of nope on his face in that fourth gif is off the scale
damn night at the museum is quality tho. accurate af castings, seamless incorporation of character backgrounds into the story (especially into the historical “museum” aspect like this scene and the one with Amelia Earheart and the black WWII pilots), all while maintaining a light, funny family comedy vibe the whole time
you guys Ben Stiller is literally half Irish half Jewish
Steve Rogers becoming a famous artist in the modern world, but not in the way anyone expected:
Sketching Bucky and Sam and Natasha on the placemat at a restaurant; the waitress figures out who they are from Sam’s credit card and sells the drawing on ebay
Drawing little monsters on kid’s casts at the Children’s Hospital, until Natasha finds a ‘Florida Man’ article about some idiot who tried to break his arm on purpose
Getting really hammered with Thor and tagging the side of Tony’s newest building with a DayGlo yellow caricature of the team – fifty stories up
Doing commissions for charity once and then never again, after someone seriously offers to pay him $200 for a six-stroke cat doodle
(He does a nice watercolor of their childhood pet for free, and donates $1000 of his own money back to the charity)
Sending dumb doodles to his fans on Twitter; someone actually has one tattooed (insp. x)
+1
Secretly starting a Tumblr and posting whatever he wants, when he wants, as ‘fanart’
at eleven, was described by his teachers as ‘bright’
at the same age, according to the Sorting Hat: “Not a bad mind, either. There’s talent, oh my goodness, yes” and “You could be great, you know, it’s all here in your head”
mastered the challenging Patronus Charm at thirteen and proceeded to teach it at fifteen
resisted the Imperius Curse at fourteen and soon learned to throw it off completely, even when cast by the incredibly powerful Voldemort
also at fourteen, learned to cast a powerful Accio Charm
at fifteen, was training other students
at the same age, under extreme stress, tested as ‘exceeds expectations’ or ‘outstanding’ in every subject that required actual magic (including the dreaded Potions)
same age, cast a briefly effective Cruciatus Curse
at sixteen, became a star Potions student simply by following superior instructions
at seventeen, successfully cast the Imperius Curse on his first try, and used it repeatedly
at the same age, cast a successful Cruciatus Curse
He was able to immediately connect the dots between the package that Hagrid retrieved from Gringotts to the break in based on a news article and Hagrid’s reactions.
He was the one who figured out the motive of Quirrell when he played cards with Hagrid betting a dragon’s egg.
He figured out that it was Myrtle who died when the Chamber of Secrets was opened before and seemed to be the only one who was smart enough to actually ask her about her death.
He figured out that it was Lucius Malfoy who gave Ginny Tom Riddle’s diary (with subtle clues from Dobby) and used it to outsmart Malfoy into freeing Dobby.
He knew that Draco Malfoy was up to something (even though Ron and Hermione didn’t believe it) their 6th year. He also figured out Malfoy succeeded when Trelawney told him she heard a male voice whooping in the RoR.
He was the one who figured out that there was a horcrux inside Bellatrix’s vault judging only by her reactions to their possession of the Gryffindor’s Sword.
He figured out the connections of the Peverells, the cloak, the ring (and the snitch by extension) and the elder wand to the Deathly Hallows. He even figured out that it was Dumbledore who owned it and that ownership was passed on the Draco Malfoy and, eventually, to Harry himself.
These are only the ones I could remember right now but I’m pretty sure there were more instances that showed how perceptive he really is.
how is it possible to love fictional characters this much and also have people always been this way?
like, did queen elizabeth lie in bed late sometimes thinking ‘VERILY I CANNOT EVEN FOR MERCUTIO HATH SLAIN ME WITH FEELS’
was caesar like ‘ET TU ODYSSEUS’
sometimes i wonder
oh my GOD
the answer is yes they did. there’s a lot of research about the highly emotional reactions to the first novels widely available in print.
here’s a thing; the printing press was invented in 1450 and whilst it was revolutionary it wasn’t very good. but then it got better over time and by the 16th century there were publications, novels, scientific journals, folios, pamphlets and newspapers all over Europe. at first most were educational or theological, or reprints of classical works.
however, novels gained in popularity, as basically what most people wanted was to read for pleasure. they became salacious, extremely dramatic, with tragic heroines and doomed love and flawed heroes (see classical literature, only more extreme.) books in the form of letters were common. sensationalism was par the course and apparently used to teach moral lessons. there was also a lot of erotica floating around.
but here’s the thing: due to the greater availability of literature and the rise of comfy furniture (i shit you not this is an actual historical fact, the 16th and 17th century was when beds and chairs got comfy) people started reading novels for pleasure, women especially. as these novels were highly emotional, they too became…highly emotional. there are loads of contemporary reports of young women especially fainting, having hysterics, or crying fits lasting for days due to the death of a character or their otp’s doomed love. they became insensible over books and characters, and were very vocal about it. men weren’t immune-there’s a long letter a middle-aged man wrote to the author of his favourite work basically saying that the novel is too sad, he can’t handle all his feels, if they don’t get together he won’t be able to go on, and his heart is already broken at the heroine’s tragic state (IIRC ehh).
conservatives at the time were seriously worried about the effects of literature on people’s mental health, and thought it damaging to both morals and society. so basically yes it is exactly like what happens on tumblr when we cry over attractive British men, only my historical theory (get me) is that their emotions were even more intense, as they hadn’t had a life of sensationalist media to numb the pain for them beforehand in the same way we do, nor did they have the giant group therapy session that is tumblr.
(don’t even get me started on the classical/early medieval dudes and their boners for the Iliad i will be here all week. suffice to say, the members of the Byzantine court used Homeric puns instead of talking normally to each other if someone who hand’t studied the classics was in the room. they had dickish fandom in-jokes. boom.)
I needed to know this.
See, we’re all just the current steps in a time-honored tradition! (And this post is good to read along with Affectingly’s post this week about old-school-fandom-and-history-and-stuff.
Ancient Iliad fandom is intense
Alexander the Great and and his boyfriend totally RPed Achilles and Patroclus. Alexander shipped that hard. (It’s possible that this story is apocryphal, but that would just mean that ancient historians were writing RPS about Alexander and Hephaestion RPing Iliad slash and honestly that’s just as good).
And then there’s this gem from Plato:
“Very different was the reward of the true love of Achilles towards his lover Patroclus - his lover and not his love (the notion that Patroclus was the beloved one is a foolish error into which Aeschylus has fallen, for Achilles was surely the fairer of the two, fairer also than all the other heroes; and, as Homer informs us, he was still beardless, and younger far)” - Symposium
That’s right: 4th Century BCE arguments about who topped. Nihil novi sub sole my friends.
More on this glorious subject from people who know way more than I do
Man I love this post.
And to add my personal favourite story: after reading Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa in the 18th century, Elizabeth Echlin decided that she was NOT HAPPY with the ending and basically wrote her own fix-it fic. No-one dies and Lovelace (the villain) was totally reformed and became a super nice guy. It’s completely OOC and incredibly poorly written and it’s beautiful.
Also, so many women fell in love with the villain, Lovelace, and wrote to Richardson about it, that he kept adding new bits with each edition to highlight what a hideous person Lovelace was. So it’s almost unsurprising that reading novels in this period was actually considered dangerous because it gave women unrealistic ideas about men and made them easier prey for rakes.
Basically, “I want my own Christian Grey” has been a thing for hundreds of years.
Also a thing with fix-it/everyone lives AUs: at various points in time but especially in the mid 1800s-early 1900s (aka roughly Victorian though there were periods of this earlier as well) a huge thing was to “fix” Shakespeare (as well as most theater/novels) to be in line with current morality. Good characters live, bad characters are terribly punished – but not, you know, grusomely, because what would the ladies think? So you have like, productions of King Lear where Cordelia lives and so do Regan and Goneril, but they’re VERY SORRY.
Aka all your problematic faves are redeemed and Everyone Lives! AUs for every protag.
Slightly tangential but I wanted to add my own favorite account of Chinese fandom to this~ I don’t know how many people here have heard of the Chinese novel A Dream of Red Mansions (红楼梦), but it is, arguably, the most famous Chinese novel ever written (There are four Chinese novel classics and A Dream of Red Mansions is considered the top of that list). It was written during the Qing dynasty by 曹雪芹, but became a banned book due to its critique of societal institutions and pro-democracy themes. As a result, the original ending of the book was lost and only the first 80 chapters remained. There are quite a few versions of how the current ending of the book came to be, but one of them is basically about how He Shen, one of Emperor Qian Long’s most powerful advisers, was such a super-fan of the book, he hired two writers to archive and reform the novel from the few remaining manuscripts there were. In order to convince the Emperor to remove the ban on the book, he had the writers essentially write a fanfiction ending to the book that would mitigate the anti-establishment themes. However, He Shen thought that the first version of the ending was too tragic (even though the whole book is basically a tragedy) so he had the writers go back and write a happier ending for him (the current final 40 chapters). He then presented the book to the Emperor and successfully convinced him to remove the ban on the book.
According to incomplete estimates, A Dream of Red Mansions spawned over 20 spin offs, retellings, and alternate versions (in the form of operas, plays, etc.) during the Qing Dynasty alone.
In 1979, fans (albeit academic ones) started publishing a bi-monthly journal dedicated to analysis (read: meta) on A Dream of Red Mansions. In fact, the novel’s fandom is so vast and qualified and rooted in academics of Chinese literature that there is an entire field of study (beginning in the Qing dynasty) of just this one novel, called 红学. Think of it as Shakespearean studies, but only on one play. This field of study has schools of thought and specific specializations (as in: Psych analyses, Economics analyses, Historical analyses, etc.) that span pretty much every academic field anyone can think of.
(That being said, I’ve read A Dream of Red Mansions and can honestly say that I’ve never read its peer in either English or Chinese. If for nothing else, read it because you would never otherwise believe that a man from the Qing dynasty could write such a heart-breakingly feminist novel with such a diverse cast of female characters given all the bitching and moaning we hear from male content-creators nowadays)
