the fall of a sparrow

@reginalds / reginalds.tumblr.com

emily, an idiot from melbourne who accidentally deleted her blog. I stab fabric for a living and like theatre a lot.

I never thought I'd have to make a post like this, but I accidentally deleted my blog (after ten years on tumblr omfg help) so if you post any of these fandoms please like this post!

  • The Witcher
  • Red Dwarf
  • The X Files
  • Twin Peaks
  • Hamlet
  • Shakespeare
  • M*A*S*H
  • Dirk Gently
  • Period Dramas
  • Theatre
  • Studio Ghibli
  • Star Trek
  • Schitt's Creek
  • Lord of the Rings
  • She Ra
  • The Owl House
  • BBC Ghosts
  • Demon Slayer

I need more people to follow, my dash is looking miserable! Even if you're a multifandom blog and only post one (1) of these things I genuinely don't mind!! I just need new people to follow!

someone was talking about the "to be loved is to be changed" meme in the notes of my last nimona post, so I threw this together with two of nd stevenson's sketches <3

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nimona the webcomic and nimona the netflix movie are so thematically different and come from such different periods in the artist's (nd stevenson) life and our lives and I love that?? I love the bitterness and angst and how morally gray the graphic novel was, just as much as I love the hopefulness and compassion and how unapologetically trans the netflix film is. watching his work grow as he grew older and I grew older and more secure in my sexuality, is just - so special. it's a rare thing to grow in parallel with the work of an artist you love, especially a queer artist, and I'm so fucking happy this film got made, especially with all its differences to the original work. something something to be loved is to be changed idk lmao.

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omg a hit tweet

nimona the webcomic and nimona the netflix movie are so thematically different and come from such different periods in the artist's (nd stevenson) life and our lives and I love that?? I love the bitterness and angst and how morally gray the graphic novel was, just as much as I love the hopefulness and compassion and how unapologetically trans the netflix film is. watching his work grow as he grew older and I grew older and more secure in my sexuality, is just - so special. it's a rare thing to grow in parallel with the work of an artist you love, especially a queer artist, and I'm so fucking happy this film got made, especially with all its differences to the original work. something something to be loved is to be changed idk lmao.

“It's taboo to admit that you're lonely. You can make jokes about it, of course. You can tell people that you spend most of your time with Netflix or that you haven't left the house today and you might not even go outside tomorrow. But rarely do you ever tell people about the true depths of your loneliness, about how you feel more and more alienated from your friends each passing day and you're not sure how to fix it. It seems like everyone is just better at living than you are. A part of you knew this was going to happen. Growing up, you just had this feeling that you wouldn't transition well to adult life, that you'd fall right through the cracks. And look at you now, it's happening.”

DO NOT LET SOCIAL MEDIA TURN YOU INTO AN AMERICAN

As an American: Seriously, please don’t

ok well i don't

"Americanization" is a real phenomenon, and how non-Americans should be cautious of it is taught in different countries at school. It's taught in Greece and people from other countries told me their elementary or middle school teachers (using the American grades, to make it make sense to the majority on the site) talked to them about it.

It's common sense here, except for USians, so I'll analyze it a bit more for the dominant demographic here. In a globalized setting, the most dominant culture affects the others and sets the trends. The way our language works, how we think, our levels of politeness and intimacy, and our levels of respect. (flash news, they are going down 😂)

I don't want to imply that there is nothing good in the US. There are plenty of positives in the country. It's just that for the rest of the cultures online it's a constant daily fight to not forget our roots, with the degree US media and brands have permeated our lives. In Greece at least we watch more US American media than Greek media nowadays, and many of our shows are rip-offs of USian ones, with little adaptation to Greek reality and culture.

And to demonstrate the amount of this exposure, a 22-year-old Greek asked me the other day "if something happens we call 911, right?" This might have literally cost them their life, in a dangerous situation! Because all the movies and songs they consumed (not an unusual thing for the Greek youth) were what they knew. And I found a similar comment in this comment thread.

Lots of Americans in the notes failing to understand this post. It's not about not liking the US. It's not about you feeling ashamed or guilty for being American. It's not about you.

It's about American media drowning out native language media all over the world, and workplaces requiring the English language in your repertoire more and more. It's about proper translations and foreign language dubbing of films disappearing because "everyone speaks/should speak English anyway." All of this is leading to the deterioration of native speaker groups of languages worldwide.

In my country, Dutch language courses can't find enough people who want to study the language, while English language courses are overflowing with people who want to study the language. There is even widespread distaste for the Dutch language for being crude or sounding rough or what have you. That's our native language!!! That is our culture in its purest form!!! That is knowledge we inherit from our parents as they did from theirs!!! That is how we learned fairytales and folk stories and myths!!! That is the language that shapes our communication and our way of thinking!!! To hate your native language is to hate yourself at the deepest level.

And yet it's so normalised. Droves of foreigners living in the Netherlands will never learn a word of Dutch, because "everyone speaks English anyway." We are the world's leaders in non-native understanding of English, but it comes at a cost. A grave cost we will continue to pay.

If you're looking to support your non-American friends in any way that is not performatively shouting "I hate being an American" into the void, first of all, unlearn that hatred of yourself and your culture. You are of no help self-flagellating, and there is a difference between holding your country accountable for its issues, and denying yourself your culture because your country is doing and has done bad things.

(I am not going to get into arguments about whether or not US American culture exists. It does, and if you think differently you are welcome to change your mind.)

Secondly, learn about other countries. Learn a bit of Chinese. Take an interest in the Italian political system. Ask your friends about their countries' folklore. Watch documentaries about art from Nigeria. Absorb information that is not fed to you by American media.

And thirdly, quit expecting your non-American friends to communicate in a way that appeals to you. The French and Dutch will always seem rude to you because our way of communicating is far more direct than the way you communicate. People from other cultures may seem vague to you because their way of communicating is far more indirect, and you're not used to that either. Quit being frustrated when you don't get what we mean exactly. Quit assuming we mean the absolute worst thing you could imagine just because you didn't get what we meant the first time. Ask us to explain if you need us to, and learn to accept that we are different from you.

We are already adapting to your culture 100% of the time we are online. It's your responsibility to adapt to us, too. At least do your friends the courtesy of learning about and adapting to them.

This is a big problem in other English speaking countries. I live in the UK, in England no less, and there was a point in my childhood where my brain would bring up 911 as the emergency number. And on top of having our culture's stomped on we have people making fun of the way we do things and justifying it as "well you deserve it because you're English" like the backwater underfunded poverty stricken areas people mock have ever had any power. There's an Americanisation of food, and culture, an import of social justice issues as the American understanding of things is superimposed over our own history by kids who mean well but have learned all their vocabulary from Americans. We share many things but these issues are not the same and treating them as the same can be detrimental to the change people want to bring. (For example our most diverse prime minister's have all been Conservative, and the last one to bring up God while in office was "left wing" Labour. Even the colours of left and right political parties are different here.) Poverty is experienced differently. Class is experienced differently. Race is experienced differently. Racism is experienced differently.

And half the time if you even talk about it you have god damn 19 year olds hopping up and down screaming like toddlers because you're not doing it right for their needs.

@userdramas event 07: identity — a queer character who represents me

“Saying that you would become an adult when you have a family and kids I wonder what basis they have for it. Restricting your children because you can’t let them go is being a parent? Pushing your values on someone is being a family? That’s ridiculous! Forget about trying to understand individuals like us, not even recognising us. ‘Majority opinion is right’, ‘nothing like family’, ‘love for love’s sake’, ‘what I say is absolute’. Any parents who say that begone!” — takahashi satoru, koisenu futari (2022)