It’s actually really funny how many cultures have fox spirits and how many mostly consider them Complete Assholes, whether actively malicious or just dickheads that trick people
You’ve got the Kitsune that can be anywhere from incomprehensibly evil and powerful to doting mothers and good wives,
You’ve got the Huli Jing in China which were believed to be entirely female and needed male energy to survive, and did so by corrupting high-level politicians- and the Jiuweihu, the big girls that took to leading souls away from Dharma,
You’ve got the Gumiho in Korea, who just straight up eat people’s livers or steal their life force,
In Scandinavia, specifically Finland, fox spirits were believed to be the cause of Aurora Borealis, revontulet, the “fox fire”, as well as just usually messing with people, and then also the Brunnmigi for the Norse which poisoned water because fuck you,
The Celts also attributed them to be wily little bastards that existed to make fools of hunters and apparently that’s where the word “Shenanigan” came from, originally being sionnachuighim, “I play the fox”
in irish gaelic,
In Europe you’ve got Reynard the asshole baron,
and from what I’ve seen a lot of native american tribes also just consider them dicks on the level of coyotes
Some 12 year old girl is going through her anti bts phase rn the same way I was going through my anti one direction/Justin Bieber phase at that age and whoever she is I hope she’s having fun <3
I saw some #discourse go by about how adults shouldn’t be in fandom writing about younger characters because it’s uncomfortable and gross to younger people to have adults ‘thinking about them’ in romantic/sexual terms.
1, This is not a restriction that any writers in any other venue have to deal with, wtf, or the entire YA genre would be banished; 2, Excuse you, children of Tumblr, no one is thinking about you.
If other people in fandom are older than you, by definition, they have been your age. When fans write about younger characters, we’re not peering through a keyhole at young people now and creeping on them.
We are drawing on our own experiences, thoughts, feelings and memories of what it was like when we were that age.
No one has the right to ask older writers to cut themselves off from their own past just because young’uns don’t want to acknowledge that people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, all of them, were also young once. I’m 41, but I remember vividly what it was like to be 14. If I write a high school AU, it’s about my high school experience, even if I were to set it in the present day and decorate it with some (probably comically out of touch) Stuff The Kids Are Into Now. If I write a high school AU with sex, it’s because I remember that too! I’m not thinking about kids today, why would I– I have my own experiences to draw on. And honestly, sometimes there are things about being young that you don’t really understand until you’re much older and have some perspective– and that’s worth writing about.
If someone is genuinely a creeper, you’ll know, because they’ll ask you questions about you. But people who aren’t even directly interacting with you, who are just expressing themselves in fiction, are not a threat to you, and it’s not creepy for them to draw on their own experiences and their own past to write about younger characters.
Some responses from younger people here, and in other similar discussions:
1) We’re making them uncomfortable by writing teen characters
2) there are all these adult characters we should be writing about instead
3) they’re here for escapism and don’t like being reminded of ‘things like that’
To which it must be said:
1) if you’re uncomfortable, stop reading it. It’s not our job to babyproof fandom for you. It’s your job to recognize personal boundaries and protect yourself. Fandom is a shared space. Get used to it.
2) we write about the characters we find interesting, same way you do. Age has very little to do with that. I know you don’t believe me now, but I also know you’ll understand when you’re older.
3) We’re here for escapism too, buddy, and if that means imaginary harking back to a time before cholesterol tests and taxes, so be it. Not our problem you can’t handle reminders that older people had young lives just like yours, and that you too will be one of us soon enough.
Plucking any one memory from high school out of my past just makes it sound so funny to hear teenagers rallying against sexual content.
“You can’t write about your own life before 30 because it makes me uncomfortable.”
So like… what do gatekeepers… DO in the real world? Like if they’re at an LGBT+ event and a bi woman is like “Hi I’m Emily and this is my boyfriend,” do they like… confront her? When a person at a support group says “I’m asexual” do they just sit silently and stew in their own rage? Like how do you people function in the real world??
An enormous amount of gatekeepers don’t interact with local queer groups and communities at all. The younger ones don’t have access, and the older ones got black listed a long time ago for being vile.
That lack of access, for the younger ones, is why they are so easily targeted by older radfem types, and is why the age of gatekeepers is so skewed towards young people, btw. They have no way to experience actual queer communities, so they get sucked into this awful, dangerous parody of it.
That was a rhetorical question but this is a damn good answer
I keep thinking about that post about the whole genre of movies about a white guy getting into an asian philosophy, matrial art etc and then proceeding to surpass his teacher and be the best ever at it, and I started thinking about the opposite of it.
I want a movie about a chinese dude who comes to Finland, downs an entire bottle of Koskenkorva, tries to fight a nearby cow and ends up lying face down in a ditch while sobbing about his ex wife and having like 5 finnish dudes staring at him in awe like
“That’s him. That’s the chosen one.”
The 5 finnish dudes bring him home with them. The next day, the chinese dude wakes up on the couch with a mighty hangover. He turns on the TV and for the first time in his life sees Moomintroll. Instant spiritual bonding experience. Overcome with emotion, he begins to sing an ode to Snufkin in a high clear tenor voice. The 5 finnish dudes hastily call their live-in wise old mentor. “Yes,” says the mentor after watching chinese dude for a few minutes. “The prophecy was true. This is the chosen one. This man…will be our 2020 Eurovision act.”
