Thank you for adressing the Cielizzy being cousins topic . As much as people hate it , It absolutely needed to be said .
Getting tired of the american centric " sweet home alabama " comments everytime Cielizzy is brought up , as if the whole world revolves around one specific culture / country and we somewhat have wicked morals If we don't cater to it .
No problem nonny! I’m glad you liked my Cielizzy incest rant. People like to view all ships from the lens of modern day euro-centric morals and it’s dumb frankly. I mean, honestly, the whole thing about cousin marriages being disgusting is a pretty American phenomenon. While slightly decreased in recent years, cousin marriage is still entirely legal throughout Europe. Actually, the only real prohibitions against it are IN America.
It’s seriously not a big deal, but some people are absolutely repulsed by it. And they use the argument that inbreeding is genetically dangerous, but incest and inbreeding are very, very different. Inbreeding takes place over the course of generations with very closely related family members. Cousin incest is very unlikely to produce any real problems. It does run the risk of recessive traits being more prominent, but it’s still not a big deal.
I am turning 24 soon and I can't help but freak out. I know what I am about to say next is going to sound very trivial compared to what is happening around the world now but I can't stop thinking that there will come a time when I would be considered too old to be in a fandom. Like what would happen when I turn 35/45/55?? Won't it be awkward? Would it be creepy if I still read ao3 fics in my 60s? I don't want to go away from the fandom space. It helps me so much to cope in this world.
my advice is to block and mute anyone who makes you feel that way and enjoy posting about batman with the other well-adjusted adults who like to enjoy things on the internet
There are plenty of fandom grandma’s. People who will give you the rundown of ye olde Star Treck fandom. It’s only weird if you make it weird.
@spockslash was 77 when she died. Her children have kept her blog up and all her posts. She had an NSFW side blog for her Kirk/Spock slash interests. She was posting actively on Tumblr right up until like a week or so before her death.
I am 50. I just spent the past half hour folding laundry and singing the songs I wrote for my favorite OC/canon ship when I was 17.
You never age out of fandom. Never. Don’t let anyone tell you so.
I started ficcing in 1995 with a notepad and pen. I started posting fic online in 1999 and I have zero intention of stopping. You know why? Because it’s not about what other people want - it is about me enjoying the thing I love and spreading that love around.
The world will tell you that people in fandom - especially female and queer people- shouldn’t be old. That it’s creepy. That it’s weird. Because queer folk and womenfolk are not allowed to do things they enjoy for fun and pleasure most of the time, but especially not when we’re aging. It’s not socially acceptable. We’re meant to quietly go back to being out of sight and out of mind. Look at modern media. Look at the dearth of older female and queer characters anywhere.
To the people who think that, bugger you backwards with a rusty fork. I love what I love. I will continue to do so. I will continue to embrace my joy and I will continue to share my joy with like-minded people. I’m not letting any ageist/sexist/miscellaneous-ists tell me how and when and why I should stop.
If the sports fandom can cope with having old men in it, the geek fandom sure as hell will have to learn to cope with having the rest of us.
I also have to ask, like, who do you think runs fandoms? Who’s paying for and coding AO3? FFN? Tumblr? Fanwikis? Who do you think is running fandom events like theme weeks and big bangs and watch parties and fic exchanges and holiday events MOST of the time? Coordinating big charity events like the Fandom Trumps Hate auction, or the Fandom Loves Puerto Rico charity auction? Who do you think organizes and makes up the majority of attendees for fan conventions? Who do you think is out there writing gorgeous 100k+ novels full of rich life experience? Who do you think is out there writing knowledgeable, hot smut?
I can pretty much guarantee you that it’s not thirteen year olds, and it’s probably not even 15 or 18 year olds for the most part either, especially when it comes to doing anything with large quantities of money, like paying for servers or doing complex coding or auctions. I remember being in fandom at 13, 15, 18, 20…. the spaces started out for me as “I am aware I am visiting an adult space, which I will learn how to navigate appropriately until I am able to help build with them.”
Like, listen. There’s teenagers in fandom space, but fandom space isn’t specifically a teenage space, and CERTAINLY not a teenage-only space. Fandoms are places where you might get in the door as a teen, but the majority of the residents and creators of the spaces aren’t teenagers. They’re people who grew up here surrounded by the supportive adults that formed the spaces, and that have helped to maintain the community into their adulthood so that future generations can continue to enjoy the same as they did.
Getting to be 25, 35, 45, and on, that’s not you overstaying a welcome in a place you don’t belong. That’s you settling into a neighborhood that was built for you, one you have probably helped to build, and one you will continue to help shape through whatever time you desire to stay.
I love that teenagers are here, I love that they’ll get to share experiences similar to my own when I was a teenager, forming friendships and having access to a huge number of stories and art and a vast, diversely populated and largely loving community that just isn’t available in most real-world spaces and communities. I’m So glad they have these resources. But I also hope that those teenagers remember that they’re in a space that, while welcoming to them, was not made specifically for them, and that it certainly is not a space where they can come into and say to the folks who built it or grew up in it before them: “you don’t belong here anymore.”
Because that’s not true, and it’s not acceptable behavior.
I want you to reblog this if you believe that two people can be very close and physically affectionate with one another, but still have a completely nonsexual, non-romantic relationship.
Even if the two people in question are capable of being sexually or romantically attracted to one another.
Because the friendship I share with someone I consider family in a way that transcends blood has been typecast as a romantic relationship ENTIRELY too many times, and I’m beginning to get sick of it.
hey I love your blog, you seem like an awesome patient lovely person :) I was wondering if you had thoughts about/an opinion on the British Museum and their refusal to return... many many things, considering you’re an Egyptologist who lives in the UK, so you’ve probably encountered this? If you just don’t want/cba to talk about it, or start drama or whatever that’s chill, I hope you’re doing well!
I do have opinions, but Tumblr is not a place for nuance and I think that getting people to understand who actually holds current ownership of the objects and how that influences certain discussions would be an exercise in pain.
So here’s a simple list:
Yes I do believe that certain objects should be returned (in particular the Benin Bronzes, the Rapa Nui statue, and the Parthenon marbles)
Yes I acknowledge the museum’s colonial past and I’m absolutely not a fan of it. A lot has been stolen.
No I don’t believe every object should be returned because there are such things as ‘partition agreements’ that used to exist between archaeologists and governments of countries. This split the finds from a dig in half, with the government of country the dig was in taking first pick and the archaeologists being allowed to take the rest back to their own countries. People don’t like hearing this because it conflicts with the ‘everything is stolen’ narrative, but it is a thing that happened. Quite a lot of museum collections are built on partition agreements.
Most of the time, when there are specific repatriation complaints it is in regards to only a handful of objects from a certain part of the collection. Sometimes it is more. It is never the whole collection being asked to be repatriated. Most countries, barring a specific circumstance, do not want everything back.
For the British Museum specifically, the British Government actually holds ownership of many objects, including the Parthenon marbles. When you hear the British Museum say ‘We can’t give these back’ it’s actually not their line but that of the UK Government, even if those in the museum feel differently. Their hands are sort of tied. Take for instance the aforementioned Parthenon marbles. When Elgin took those marbles there was actual outrage in the UK, and 4 years after he stole them the issue was brought before Parliament to decide what to do with his ‘ownership’. Parliament stripped him of the marbles, and instead of giving them back to Greece said ‘yeah they’re ours now’ (which still pissed people off) and then handed them to the BM and said ‘look after these for us’. The BM do not own them, nor do they control if they go back.
The UK Government controls the board of trustees for the museum, and keeps appointing people who will toe the line with regards to this. The Museum actually went against them last year when they appointed Mary Beard, whom the government had rejected as being too ‘liberal’. Mary Beard supports repatriation.
They have been, and still are, repatriating objects! Repatriation takes time, and is incredibly complicated due to the laws that are in place surrounding deaccessioning objects (something museums have no control over, again this is the government and if they don’t want to do it they won’t). Archaeological law was, of course, written to favour us. Museums and Historians are working to undo some of it, but the government doesn’t like budging on laws that benefit it.
This is why you’ll see objects going on ‘permanent loan’ as a means of repatriation because it’s one way to circumvent the laws surrounding deaccessioning objects. Yeah it’s not great, but they’re trying.
I believe it’s the Human Tissue Act of 2004 which makes it difficult to repatriate human remains unless they’re going to a relative/descendant. Makes it a long and difficult process. Again, that’s a government thing not in the museum’s control.
The Rosetta Stone isn’t actually special. It’s only special because it’s the object that was used to decipher hieroglyphs. There are at least 3 other versions of it (to my recollection) that are in better condition that are still in Egypt. Hawass was grandstanding off the back of actual colonial atrocities. I don’t like saying that, but that’s what he was doing.
Believe it or not the British Museum actually has a programme called the International Training Partnership, where interns from all over the world come every year and learn techniques for looking after and studying museum collections. Not only that, but this also builds a network of museum workers with which the BM is familiar with, and in training them allows them to take those skills back to their own countries. In doing so they can work on repatriating artefacts back to these countries, because it negates the tired argument that ‘these people can’t take care of these objects’ because yes they can, we trained them in the latest techniques.
They’ve actually been helping Syrian and Iraqi archaeologists repair sites like Palmyra and Nineveh. Money from exhibits like the Ashurbanipal exhibit, contributed to the efforts to rebuild these sites. This is part of the work of the museum that most people don’t know happens. But it does.
The British Museum has, since it reopened after lockdown, relocated the statue of Hans Sloane, the guy that gifted his collection to the ‘British Nation’ (i.e. the government), a collection he built on the back of slavery and colonialism. The statue now sits in a display about the exploitative effects of the British Empire and Colonialism. The Museum has also created a tour of the museum that includes objects that have been stolen, explaining how the came to be in the collection and the the people that were behind the theft. It’s a start, and not enough yet, but they’re acknowledging it. Also they’ve had a ton of grief for this from people who don’t believe in BLM…so…they’re angering the right people in this instance.
Repatriation happens quietly and behind the scenes since it takes so long. They don’t make a big deal out of it because it’s 100% guaranteed that they’ll get grief for ‘needing praise for something that ought to be done’ and they’d be right. So it happens quietly, and people complain because they can’t see it happening. Kinda a vicious circle.
So yeah, those are some bullet points about it. Do I think the museum is perfect? No I don’t. Do I think they’re trying to right some of the wrongs of their past? Yes I do. Do I think they’ve got a long way to go? Absolutely yes. Again, a lot of the time it’s not the Museum itself, it’s actually the British Government who say ‘no’ to things and laws put in place by said government, so I can’t always fault the museum for it since it’s often not their decision to make. They’re just the convenient scapegoat for government to sidestep responsibility for this country’s colonial past. It truly sucks, but that’s what it is.
One final thing I should mention, because in these discussions it irks me, is that the BM, and many other European countries/museums, get rightly pilloried by the internet for their colonial past and stolen objects within their collections, but US museums do not. Sure I’ve seen them get blasted for being disrespectful and racist towards Native American collections, but not for the colonial looting of other countries. The US may not have had an Empire like Britain’s, but they definitely had slavery and US sure as hell benefitted from that and from wealthy americans financing illegal digs in places like Egypt and stealing the artefacts which ended up in US museums. So while it is absolutely ok to lambast European museums for their colonial past, that argument should also include US museums. Also the Hobby Lobby, because…wow.
This was longer than I thought it was going to be, but I had to work through some frustrations with the narrative that’s so often presented. It’s not as nuanced as I’d like, but I hope I’ve presented some things that make it clearer as to why things happen the way they do. People are free to disagree with me on this, but all I ask is that it’s done respectfully.
Weighing in on yet another round of “fan spaces are youth spaces” (aka “go home and knit, old lady” or “You’re old enough to be my/someone’s mom! gross!” )
Consider these thoughts:
There’s a whole set of interests and behaviors that you might become interested in as you grow from child to adolescent to young adult and take greater interest in the wider world.
You might like horses, or dolls. Or building models. You might play soccer, or follow baseball every summer and learn about box scores. You might follow the college football draft, or love a pop band. You might deeply admire a rock band and learn to play the guitar. You might love superheroes and see all their movies. You might love space opera and collect paperback books. Maybe you collect trading cards of your favorite team players – or movie moments. You probably get t-shirts and posters of teams, or media outlets. You might get deeply into a social or political cause.
Those are all expressions of interest in the world, all with associated social aspects, many with associated creative actions.
And then you get older. And here’s the thing about that list. The things on that list that are “for boys?” Are also “for men.” But the things on that list that are “for girls” or “for nerds?” Are only “for children.”
Adult men wear brightly colored team clothing and paint their faces without shame. They join fantasy football leagues and hang out online. They follow Phish (or continuously talk about how they did when that was a thing). They spend vast sums on tickets to bowl games. They get excited all over the internet about Geddy Lee’s greatest hits. They spend long afternoons on the golf course, playing very bad golf.
No one tells them to grow up
An adult woman who turns a childhood dollhouse into a beautiful scale model of a real Victorian home is “eccentric.” An adult man who builds a vast HO train layout in his basement is a “train enthusiast.” An adult woman who displays her favorite Bryer horses is “odd,” an adult man with a shelf of signed baseballs is “a collector” or even “an investor.”
Adult women making fanart of attractive movie stars is “creepy,’ while adult men decorating their garages with calendar art of scantily-clad very-young women is “just what guys do.”
Interests and hobbies that were feminine and are taken up by men become acceptable. When The Beatles were greeted with mobs of fainting teen girls, they were a “boy band.” When young men discovered them, they became Serious Musicians.
Over and over, across fields of interest, things that girls like are “toys and games and childish” and should be left behind by adults, while things that boys like are “hobbies and sports” that are lifetime pastimes. And acceptable “hobbies” for adult women? Most are things that could be coded as household chores, but generations of women have worked to turn into enjoyable pastimes: knitting, sewing, quilting. Home decor. Baking. Many adult women (myself included) enjoy doing those things in their free time and have elevated them to art forms. But that doesn’t change the fact that they’re rooted in utility, while “men’s hobbies” are, by and large, rooted in leisure.
Look around you and follow the pattern. And then, before you ask “Why are adult women in fan spaces,” maybe ask “why do I feel like adult women don’t get to have fun?”
To this I’ll add that adult women created fan spaces, but I digress.
I was approaching a 90s concept of middle age (my late 20s) when I really came into fandom. At the time, it was my first interaction with women my mother’s age who were definitely not my mother or her friends. In some respects, fandom offered the most level playing field I’d ever been on, and my fandom community was almost 100% women. And, by and large, with some super rad exceptions, it remains that way (both cis and trans, straight and queer). But at the time, this was a new experience for me.
Fandom was the place where I learned that you don’t really have to outgrow anything or stop liking it. That there was no right time for “grown up” interests. The area where this was most salient to me was looking at women of all ages, experiences, and abilities and realizing that growth, engagement, love, and desire never stop. (Take the word desire how you will.) There is no off switch for growing, needing, or wanting. There is also no off switch for the enjoyment of stories, or the need to tell them, which is indeed one of the things we do most often in fandom. We take stories and make them make sense for us, and show new pieces of them to others, learn to look at characters, situations, entire worlds in different ways that are informed by experiences that are not our own. That’s super important. And it’s ageless.
Reblogging for the addition. And for the tag “aspirational croning” which I plan to steal and shamelessly use.
I also really found online fandom in my 20s, in the 90s. And yeah, it was multigenerational and full of the most fabulous storytellers. It was where I learned that other people were buzzing with inner narration, with headcanons and AUs and fix-its. That other people mentally wrote missing scenes and better endings in the shower and came up with extended worldbuilding during boring meetings. That people are full of stories and that there were places to share them.
And then I dropped away, I lacked time and energy — I had my kids, and my free time and mental capacity had to go to other narratives for awhile (someday I need to write down my Thomas the Tank Engine Meta). But that drive for story and the chance to share it doesn’t go away just because you’ve gotten older or become someone’s parent. You can’t just replace it with soccer and the PTA.
There’s absolutely a correlation between little girls needing to “grow out of” having fun —–> media designed for and loved by teenage girls being regularly shat upon, first by adult men and then the wider populace once it’s been deemed worthy of derision (looking at you, Twilight haters) —–> the expectation that adult women don’t belong in fandom.
We made fandom. We shaped fandom. We’re allowed to love it and participate in it for as long as it brings us joy. This is our space too.
Anonymous
unpretty
thatlittleegyptologist
