Once saw a clown say clowns & furries speak the same “silent language” and that stuck with me for some reason
i bet this has to do with something called Mask Work in theater, which focuses on how masks can make a person automatically emote physically in a whole different way.
The one fact about Mask Work that will tell you everything you need to know about why i say this is: people, for whatever reason, tend to behave the same ways in the same kinds of masks.
So for example, people putting on variations on this classic
all have a tendency to push their heads forward, raising their shoulders and curving their back, and to move their heads with a bit of a twisty movement, constantly looking to one side or the other with twitchy head movements when not laser focused on something. This happens the first time a person spends open-minded time in the mask, usually in front of a mirror, and it happens whether or not the person has ever seen someone else wearing the mask.
Many mask designs produce an effect that people sometimes describe as being possessed by the mask, as if the mask has a character all of it’s own that shines through no matter who is wearing it. Some masks make people have a tendency to flounce, other masks will encourage slithery movements.
And people tend to agree that the masks do not talk (that is, people trying to embody the masks do not feel like they can say words and be in the character of the mask) but that they do vocalize – so one mask may seem to make people make a sort of grumbly gibberish, and another will tend to encourage people to make sort of nasally “fnee … fnee” noises.
Anyway, the clowns and furries silent language thing has to do with this i think.
Of course the sentence also serves as a quiet knowing look about the way both groups get similarly unwarranted, visceral reactions from much of the public – a nice play on words from the clown there, who, after all, is an entertainer.
It pours out of him like so much blood, and it hurts just as much, but he can’t stop bleeding and he can’t stop loving people, and he wonders which one will kill him first.
There are so many people he loves, and he resents them just a little for how easy they make it to love them. It shouldn’t be easy, with how much it hurts. But Leon keeps loving them anyway, because if he’s going to bleed either way, it might as well come with the sparks of joy that catch him off-guard, that twist of something that feels like hope that he might survive this.
It hurts, it hurts so much he can’t breathe sometimes, when he lies awake at night, staring at the ceiling, scrolling through the names and numbers in his phone, clinging to them like a lifeline to keep him from drowning beneath the weight of everything that’s happened to him, all the names he couldn’t save. He did save some of them. They’re alive because he did something good. It tastes like sugar mixed with ash.
A photo and a name pop up on the screen, the phone buzzing in his hand. A lifeline. He smiles, easy as he bleeds, and answers.
something bad happened to you, and you died, and you came back wrong.
not wrong all the way. the little ways. you forget important dates, stopped going out with friends. it’s harder to make you smile. you’re apathetic towards things you used to love, afraid of places you used to go to cheer up. quieter. flinching. different.
you came back for love. you’re still here for love. what pulled you back was a brightness so loud that even death couldn’t outshout it. death heard the call and smiled at you and said okay. go home. somebody is waiting for you.
but you came back different. like lot’s wife; you’ve turned into salt. you used to chirp through life in hops and skips; but now you lose skin just standing up. you have to move slower, skimming across this world without-touching-it. most things feel dull – until they’re suddenly all-too-much. life, and being alive just rushes up and over you and you get hopelessly crushed.
you try to explain it to them: it is ugly, but this is what you are, now. the huge golden hoop of your halo now a little bronze ring. you are still watering your plants and wearing the same clothes. after all, you worked hard to come home. this life; so odd and off-color, now that you are wrong.
but they waited for you – it’s just that they wanted the “you” that happened before this. the “you "that could sing in the show and hug people tight and look at a blade without breaking down to cry. the you with a smile in pictures. god, holyshit, it’s like looking at a completely different person, isn’t it. that other-you; the one they actually wanted.
you are the consolation prize. you are the body that forgot the ghost. you are the memory of the bad thing, and the death after; like you are wearing that memory as a banner. you are a fragment, an assembly. simulacrum. you don’t make eye contact in mirrors, afraid the light will glance off and your true nature will flash back at you.
you hear them talk about it in their hushed, desperate whispers. sometimes they even admit it to your face; harsh and violent, acid thrown at christmas dinner. god, can you just fucking be normal again. you do not remember what normal is. you had to climb so far to get back here; you are far too exhausted.you want to open the glass door of your heart and show all the gears. can you help resolve whatever got messed up?
you try so, so hard. you came back for them. because you believed they would love you, even when you were so horribly broken. because you believed they would be patient. because you believed unconditional meant "without exception.” you cannot do things the same way. you just get tired too quickly these days.
you want to put them on a couch and pour them the tea with hands that shake more than they remember. you want to line them up and draw them a map of where you have had to wander. you want to show every bruise in a backsplash; the little helpless ant of your soul carrying all that weight, over and over. you want to say: yes! it is different! but i did it for love!
you want to say: “i’m not the same, but i’m yours and i’m here. can that be enough?”
Miles came into the apartment, his arms full of groceries. He shut the door behind him with the back of his heel.
The lights were off, and there was a stink in the air that set Miles’ teeth on edge.
Narrowing his eyes, he picked his way through the mess to the kitchen, where he found Nick slumped forward on the kitchen table, head in his arms, beanie limply falling over his face.
There was an empty bottle on the table next to him.
“Tch.” Miles looked down his nose at the drunkard, and placed the bag of groceries heavily down beside his head.
“Nhhh,” Nick complained, but he didn’t raise his head.
Miles sighed, and knocked Phoenix’s beanie off his head, grabbing a fistful of his dark hair, and using it to pull him up to look at him.
“Oh, hi, Miles,” Nick grinned at him sloppily.
Miles stared at him, still holding him tightly. “You’re drunk again, Wright.”
“me? Drunk? Psssh. No.”
Miles made a thick noise of annoyance in the back of his throat. “Is that so? Let’s see.”
He bent down and pulled Nick roughly into a messy kiss, all tongue and mushy lips. Nick tastes strongly, and distinctly of wine.
He pulled him away and let his head drop back into his arms on the table.
“You taste like wine, Wright.”
“Oops.”
Miles shook his head and leaned against the table. “What the hell are we going to do with you?”
Wade had been following him around the city for blocks. Peter wasn’t even sure how the hell he was keeping up. Every time he swung by a window or over a rooftop, Wade was there, usually waving. And of course, running his mouth.
Peter was starting to feel like he understood why some people thought he was annoying. He was quippy, sure, a fast taller, but he didn’t compare to Deadpool.
Peter was perched currently on a large, looking gargoyle overlooking the city, trying to take a moment to regroup, and come up with a plan.
And Wade. Would not. Stop talking.
That’s when Peter had a bad idea.
Deadpool loved movies, and cliches.
And what could be more cliche than the idea Peter had in mind. He’d basically have to play along, right?
It was worth a shot at least.
“Hey, DP?” Spidey said, pulling up the bottom of his mask.
“Yeah, SM?” –Peter immediately decided he hated that, but he was committed now.
“C’mere.”
He grabbed Wade’s mask in a quick motion and pulled it up, immediately pressing a kiss to the other man’s mouth.
Wade kissed back.
To late, Peter had a sudden realization. Oh shit, he’s into it.
I know I’m naive but I am genuinely shocked to see someone– even on anon– in fandom spaces, which I consider broadly progressive, being openly anti semitic.
I’m gobsmacked
I know we point out a lot that fancops are inherently part of the conservative, puritanical hate machine, and the conservative puritanical hate machine is openly anti semitic.
But like.
I’m sorry.
Wow. Just wow.
I’m never going to believe again that fancops even *believe* they’re the kind ones and we’re the sick ones.
thing is it’s a very easy logical leap to make in the mind of the anti-cult-addled mind. antiship/fanpol ideology are largely based on conservative christian (evangelical protestant or fundie catholic) thought, although secularized to an extent. the same ideas (in re: sex, thought crimes) don’t really exist in jewish culture and theology, at least not to the same extent. so it’s very easy to see jews as ‘the enemy’ (which happens in progressive and leftist spaces to a disturbing degree as well)
You’re right and I hate that you’re right.
I’m so disappointed. The future was supposed to be better than this.
