Do NOT see the new Spiderverse movie if you have any form of epileptic condition or conditions affected by bright lights and rapidly changing colors.
I will not be spoiling the plot or anything happening in it, but it is important that people know, because ohhh my god the AMOUNT of flashing lights and rapidly changing colors from beginning to end was so rampant that even I, a non-epileptic autistic person, got a severe headache and wild overstimulation. They do not give a warning in theaters at all that this movie is NOT epileptic friendly from the literal beginning with the beginning credits - which is so, so sad!
This is a beautifully made film, it’s wonderful, it’s amazing, but unfortunately, it’s not a good time for anyone super affected by bright flashing lights in rapid succession, especially those seizure prone.
I wanted to put this out there BECAUSE there are no theater warnings. Idk if anyone else has put it out there, but it is SUPER IMPORTANT!!!
I wish you all a lovely day and hope they eventually have a remaster that will be much more friendly to epileptic and other people affected by bright, flashing lights.
[plaintext: Do NOT see the new Spiderverse movie if you have any form of epileptic condition or conditions affected by bright lights and rapidly changing colors. /end plaintext]
As part of my Online Fandom class this semester, I recently deployed a survey (mostly shared here on Tumblr!) that asked about a number of topics that students were interested in (which is why there were questions about very specific fandoms, as well as some about fanworks generally!). A group of undergraduate students explored “lifecycles” in fandom, focusing on how new canon (or the end of canon) influences fanworks. I wanted to share an interesting finding!
In looking at the relationship between two of the questions - how often respondents write fanfiction and when they are most likely to write fanfiction - we see that people who write fanfiction more often are less impacted by new canon, and people who write less frequently are more likely to be inspired by new canon.
Perhaps this is an intuitive finding, but in our survey data, people who write fanfiction most frequently were more likely to say that the release of new canon doesn’t impact when they write fanfiction - or to say that they write more fanfiction before new content is released. Whereas infrequent fanfiction writers were more likely to say that they write fanfiction after new content is released.
Looking at open answer responses reveals that frequent fanfiction writers are sometimes afraid of being jossed, so they write things before, for example, there is danger of their favorite Game of Thrones character being killed off. Or though they pay attention to new canon, their fanfiction production is just always pretty steady. Whereas for people who write less frequently, one big reason they might write when they do is because they’re inspired by new canon.
Of course, there was also a lot of variability in responses, and I think one of the big overarching lessons from our survey is that fanfiction writers have very individualized experiences!
Feel free to chime in with how well you think this tracks to your own experiences! There are a few more findings from this survey that I’ll be posting about as well, so stay tuned!
Once, I was really concerned with following canon. Screw that.
In the Philippines, “terno” refers to a woman’s ensemble that consists of matching colors/patterns. … By the late 1940s, the terno’s meaning and silhouette evolved into any Western dress with butterfly sleeves attached to it.
The Waiter Dagger is a butterfly limited to the neotropical realm in Mesoamerica and South America. They obtain their nutrients from the nectar of Crodia and Croton, animal excrement and from damp soils.
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Photo: Almir Candido de Almeida
I wrote a short vaguely historical vaguely spooky ghost story about Jews and burial rites and I have to justify it existing so here it is.
“Are you the leader of the Jews?”
There was no good that ever came from that question. Rabbi Jacob stood in the doorway, one hand on the knob and the other on the frame, ready to yank it closed at a moment’s notice.
“Well, not all of the Jews.”
The man at the door made a frustrated little grunt. He was clad almost completely in dark grey clothing that seemed to fade into the shadows of the darkened street behind him. The collar of his coat was pulled up so high that it was impossible to make out more than a pair of sharp grey eyes beneath the brim of his hat, and the cloak he wore over the top of it concealed most of his body. There could be any number of guns, knives, or angry mobs hidden under there.
“But the ones in this town, yes? You are their priest, you lead prayers and weddings and so on?” the man said impatiently.
“Rabbi. Yes. I’m the rabbi, that’s correct.” Jacob said, stiffening his posture and assuming the most neutral expression he could manage. Being completely ignorant didn’t exclude someone from being completely dangerous–if anything, that heightened the risk. “What can I do for you?”
“Rabbi,” the man repeated, as if to seal it into his memory properly. One gloved hand squeezed the pommel of his walking stick. “And you preside over the funerals of your people, and perform the rites to send them to the next world?”
“Yyyyyes?” Jacob shifted his weight to his back foot, poised to slam the door in his face. This sounded unpleasantly like an opening for a death threat.
“To any of them, regardless of the sins they carried in life?” An eagerness entered the man’s voice.
“Of course. Though sin as a Jewish concept differs from the Christian…mm. Yes, of course.” The scholars of old might have debated the nature of the evil in men’s souls until the crack of dawn but Jacob had no intention of doing so at half-past midnight with a complete stranger.
The shadowed man took a half step forward and Jacob leaned back to maintain the distance between him. “What about a gentile?” the man pressed. “Would you tend to his corpse too?”
“Huh?”
“There is a man needing to be buried tonight who requires absolution. He is not a Jew, but a Jew’s prayers may be close enough for what is needed.”
“Um. It’s not usually a request I get.” Jacob tried to keep his voice calm and soothing. There was some kind of entrapment lingering in the conversation, he just knew it. That or a giant box of crazy that had managed to dress itself stylishly. Gentiles asking Jews intrusive but urgent questions never turned out well for their target–a day-long case of irritation was the best outcome the target could hope for.
The man’s hands pressed together as he completed the full step forward, making Jacob back up into the doorframe. Desperation was in his tone and Jacob was forced back over the threshold just to stay out of his grip “All I need is someone to accompany me to the cemetery to consecrate the body and pray for its soul. Barely an hour of your time. I cannot pay you with anything but my gratitude, but you will have it eternally.”
“And you came to me?”
The man sighed. Even the top hat seemed to slouch slightly as his body slumped. “I have asked every holy man in the city, Catholic and Protestant alike, and they have refused to come to the cemetery,“ he bemoaned. “The last one told me to visit you. Likely a ploy to make me leave faster, but you are all I have left.”
“What did this man do, that so many people refused him? Who was he?”
The man at the door hesitated. The sharp eyes vanished as his eyelids slid down, and then appeared a few moments later.
“Must you ask?” he said quietly. “Is it not enough that it is a corpse which can do no man harm any longer, and you will lose nothing but a half-night of sleep?”
The inside of Jacob’s head was ringing with warning bells like the frantic clanging of gongs announcing a fire. He swallowed and tried to ignore them.
“You say he wasn’t Jewish?”
“He was not…much of anything. He felt God had no interest in him, and returned a lack of interest in kind. Perhaps if he had been more attentive he wouldn’t lie in a pauper’s grave…or perhaps he would have not changed a whit.” The man’s voice was bitter and the sharp eyes briefly looked away from Jacob, to Jacob’s deep relief.
“Who was this man, to you?” he asked.
“Close. I would prefer to say no more. Please, rabbi. It must be done, and it must be tonight.”
Seminary did not prepare me for this, Jacob thought, and then thought again. There is absolutely something in the Talmud about this and I’ve just forgotten it, because I’m an idiot and I’m half asleep and there is a goy on my doorstep asking me to go out to the cemetery with him at midnight to bury a man whose name he won’t tell me.
“Look, I’ll need someone to help dig the grave.”
“Of course.”
“And a coffin. A plain pine box. And I’ll need to get my supplies from the–”
“But you’ll do it?” said the man excitedly, standing up even taller. “And do it tonight, before the cock crows?”
Jacob held up his hands to keep the man from getting even further into his personal space. “Fine. Yes. Give me half an hour and a lazy rooster.”
The cloak almost seem to inflate as the man gasped for joy. He grabbed Jacob’s hands and shook both with enthusiasm, sending Jacob stumbling. “Thank God for you, my good rabbit! Whatever God there is, thank God for you!”
The man ran off into the shadowed streets and was out of sight almost immediately.
Jacob’s hands slowly fell back to his side as he mumbled, “Rabbi,” to the darkness.
My wife is going to kill me if whatever’s at the cemetery doesn’t.
WARNING: new spidey movie has flashing lights and bright colours
The animation style (stunningly beautiful as it is) of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has a lot of bright colours/fast movement/sudden flashing etc. often accompanied by discordant or ‘glitchy’ sound effects. This begins in the title screen without warning and occurs frequently during plot critical scenes.
The cinema I attended did not have a seizure warning for photosensitive viewers before the movie, so please take care of yourselves and each other, and share this information if you can.
This is apparently the Brooke Swan Car. I struggled to find a primary source to explain it, but the Vintage and Classic Car Club of India and this article in the Telegraph seem pretty confident that it is an actual object and not a fevered dream, and they agree that the swan head had glowing eyes and could spurt hot water from its beak, in order to clear people away from the streets ahead of the car.
The Vintage and Classic Car Club of India has a passage that powerfully evokes the emotions of this car more effectively than I ever could:
The amber lighiting of the car, glowed dissonantly in the dark, coupling
the level of un-comfortableness with the multi-note Gabriel exhaust
horn and an hot water spray in the swan’s beak that enabled the
chauffeur to clear passage through Calcutta’s crowded streets.
And the Telegraph adds an extra dollop of detail:
It was in the fashionable Maidan Park, where Calcutta’s elite promenaded
in their carriages and cars every afternoon, that Scotty displayed the
Swan Car’s most outrageous feature. A dump valve inside the car dropped
splats of whitewash on to the road from the Swan’s rear end - just to
make it more lifelike.
Apparently a keyboard in the back allowed the owner to “play chords and bugle calls” on the horn. TOOT TOOT MOTHERFUCKERS.
You’ll know it’s Mad Max time when I come tooling and screaming my way towards your home in this car, wreathed in blasts of steam, menacingly honking “In the Hall of the Mountain King” out of a rubber horn concealed in a carved swan head, and artistically shitting paint everywhere. I’ll peel to a halt in front of you and say “Can you play the keyboard” in a sexy way, possibly looking over my cool aviator sunglasses. It doesn’t matter if you say “yes” or “no,” I’ll just look at you approvingly and say, “Get in.” You’ll leave your life behind and climb in and just smash the keyboard in a cacophony of magnificent toots, while we drive off through the apocalypse and into the better world.
I’d say “Fuck the keyboard, I have experience in both falconry and jousting, you want me as your chauffeur.”
You’re fuckin hired buddy, because guess what: I can’t drive stick
