Merry Creepmas, and a tolerable new fear 🖤☠️🎄

Honestly, I’m just excited people will finally understand what my handle is referencing.

I’m here (in Salem), I’m queer, I might fall asleep embarrassingly early tonight, but I am super stoked for the #AmericanNightmares symposium to start tomorrow. 🖤💀🐈‍⬛🐦‍⬛ #SSAG #SoStuAmeriGothic

Today is conference prep day, which means I managed to pack my suitcase yesterday but I’m still grappling with whether my presentation itself actually makes sense.

A still from Paranormal Activity that looks like it’s been shot in the dark through a grainy video camera. Katie and Micah, the protagonists, huddle horrified in their bed as Katie points to the translucent figure of Pitbull, aka Mr. Worldwide, who seems ambivalent about being there tbh.

Basically just finished a dissertation chapter draft to look up and remember all the other commitments I’ve made. And they’re fun commitments!! But my brain feels like scrambled egg, so we’ll see how this goes
Anyway, here’s Paranormal Activity if demon was actually Pitbull, because.

(semi-related, I’m trying to finally set up my personal website to have a place to post things, and I feel like the only person alive who finds wordpress has a bit of a learning curve :’D)

I’m gearing up for the National Humanities Center Podcasting Institute that starts next week, and I’m super stoked to be participating this year! 🦇✨

A lot of heterosexual dating problems seem to boil down to the man wanting his girlfriend/wife to be a child and his mother at the same time. He wants to control her but also wants her to take care of him. Fortunately most women have clued into this being a fundamentally Bad Deal and recipe for harm

Idk, patriarchy impacts all, but there are some men who cry about being single that I think could stand to have to dig themselves out of that hole on their own.
Anyway, if you’re a lady, try Jane Ward’s “The Tragedy of Heterosexuality.” It forgets bi people exist, imho, but still makes good points.

Cishet men have spent political eons shit-talking and degrading the gender they’re supposedly attracted to, taking away their rights, and now wonder why so many women are refusing to date them.

terribly annoyed that all the prose writers (derogatory) who describe their work as "ghibli vibes" seem to have missed miyazaki's internal struggles with growing up as part of a fascist system that contributed to one of his greatest fascinations (flying) as well as. well. he feels guilt about it too

Mainstream media and pundits helping Far-Right politicians who have been instrumental in laundering the most extreme, violent antisemitic conspiracy theories launch a full-on new McCarthyism under the umbrella of “fighting antisemitism” - we are so far down the road to a very, very dark place.

THIS.

It's going to take decades to get Texans to trust the Dems again, because they just plain abandoned us. "Why do you keep voting for Republicans?" people ask. "Because the Democrats didn't field, let alone fund, candidates" is the answer, and now people don't bother to vote at all.

If I ever again say I’m going to write about the absence of something in an academic context, I want someone to put me in a jet-powered trebuchet and fling me into the sun.

A screenshot of Lavender Town from Pokémon Red (1996)

Forget it, Jake. It’s Lavender Town.

1. Isn’t/wasn’t Ken on trial for fraud IIRC?
2. Regardless, Ken, you literally have so much other shit you could be doing, speaking as a Texan.
3. Cool. Cool cool cool.

Trans people should be remembered while we're alive & well.
Trans people should be celebrated while we're alive & well.
Trans people should be supported while we're alive & well.
Trans people should be alive & well.

Super excited to say that I’ve been accepted to present at the Society of the Study for American Gothic’s “American Nightmares” symposium in Salem, MA this March! I’m looking forward to a fabulous spooky time with my fellow Aca-Goths! Goth-ademics! Whatever word we decided on!! 🖤💀🦇

are the skydiving babies being airdropped to that Santos guy or what?

(I'm also very good at teaching comp/rhet! :'D)

general update: still working on my dissertation, still working on my fiction WIPs too, still on the job market (#Academic, #AltAc, any) and oh, man :'D what a time.
anyone by chance need a Queer Gothicist/writer who can cover film studies, digital #Horror, and Southern Gothic? (/kidding /unless!)

I've been kind of quiet here, I know, but today I got to give a guest lecture that I had a lot of fun with, *and* I think I got some news I was really hoping for, so this is me going on the record and saying that sometimes good things can happen despite Everything!!!

Today is our donation drive for Texas prisons! Consider donating!!! ghoulish.rip

Ghoulish Books
9330 Corporate Drive
Suite 702
Selma, TX 78154

on an entirely unrelated note, a friend recommended having a playlist of spongebob background music on while at work, and you know what… yeah, it does kind of help. don’t know what that says about my job. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’m just an english grad student, but it feels shady that people are trying to say ch*tgpt “democratizes” writing skills for underprivileged students. they’re still dependent on something external, it doesn’t really address the lack of resources central to that skill gap. it’s barely a bandaid.

was going to set up a substack to get some casual writing out there.
apparently substack is full of fascist shitgibbons.
the eternal platform migration continues apace :’D
(alternative recs appreciated?)

Oh, that’s even more unfortunate!! You’re better off not knowing any of those people, trust me :’D They do mainstream cult-y propaganda movies that normally only the people already in the cult go to, but I guess they decided they wanted to expand by sneaking their stuff into the horror genre. Sigh.

I also got duped by that one recently, and man, was that irritating. Made me very paranoid for a few days that whatever I watched next was going to be the same crap in disguise.
I guess they couldn’t say outright who made it, bc then most people would immediately bin it (I hope) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

once again I go to a meeting about expectations for academic job hunting, and once again, my anxiety moves me to have to try not to puke on camera
(nothing to do with the person hosting, they’re chill, just.
god, this feels impossible.)