lez-keep-it-lit

[soaring-trash]

Mine all mine

[kind-of-human1]

I may be late to this, but I feel like it says a lot about how analog horror is covered at least on Youtube when Angel Hare, which is one of the most hopeful and wholesome analog "horror" series' I've seen, has videos talking about it that look like this:

Like, yeah it has dark elements, but it's not this horrifying dark show that corrupts children. Jonah wasn't manipulated into becoming a serial killer by Gabby, that's a fandom AU not what actually happens.

I may just be overreacting over something minor, but it annoys me that a genuinely fresh and kind take on the "dark children's show" trope where a guardian angel protects a child from their abusive father and comforts them through a TV show is treated almost exactly the same as Generic Spooky Face Jumpscare Tapes #57. It's all about the dark elements that accompany the story, and not the story itself.

Angel Hare actually tells a coherent and complete story about children's entertainment and escapism, which just so happens to have dark elements to it while still being a comforting series. At least acknowledge the story being told, not just the disturbing elements of it for the love of Angel Gabby.

[theminecraftbee]

incidentally for the people who aren’t zedaph watchers I have to express just HOW MUCH the crevasse is a step forward for zedaph building. season six he. didn’t have a base really if I recall correctly. in season seven he had an undecorated cave he put silly machines in. season eight he at least DECORATED but it was sure still a hole in a mountain. season nine it was a base he did a BUILD with! still a hole in a mountain. season ten is a STEP UP it’s a hole with NO MOUNTAIN REQUIRED,

[orbch]

the glasses gays and those obnoxious twins

[rookeryyy]

REINVENT

YOURSELF

tumblr HATES my 44.1mb image swag so it has SO MUCH COMPRESSION and downsizing here. :') peep the actual intended size & quality (or as good as i could get it exported)

post-return Q!Tubbo :] Tee hee.

un hamburgesa para tubbo (he lookied ungry)

[corviiids]

akechi goro vs light yagami: fight get weird with it (feat. @alsahm)

[squeakadeeks]

"I am but a grain of sand in an ocean of stars" 💫🪐✨⭐️

JESUS H. CHRIST

Stardust Cookie's cosplay is finally done _(:3」∠) to tell true this costume was actually pretty quick in the grand scheme of things, but it felt like eons. Which is largely due to the nature of this costume, Stardust has two 3/4 circle capes with multiple layers of trim that I ended up calculating to be around 160 feet of hemming....AND a whooping 610+ LEDs (100 in the wig alone) smashing my previous LED record from Wadanohara.

This costume was a huge gamble since I dont like making big things like capes and Stardust's design was not an easy one to translate IRL (he also took over my entire bedroom). I was griping the whole time on this project BUT I really like how this costume turned out. I'm seriously so happy with the outcome!!

[luna-loveboop]

Ok ok yes new Zelda game, but can we please talk about the fact that A Link To The Past | Four Swords is on switch with online multiplayer

Because. I'm excited :D

[sforzesco]

SO this! is about this specific entry in Burchard's Diary--

The Diary of John Burchard, trans. A. H. Mathew

--and the APERITIO ORIS rite (the mouth thing they keep talking about), but it's also a little about Ascanio's friction with the Vatican and the della Rovere-Ascanio rivalry

Politics and Dynasty: Underaged Cardinals in the Catholic Church, Jennifer Mara DeSilva

Popes, Cardinals and War: The Military Church in Renaissance and Early Modern Europe, David Chambers

Ascanio Maria Sforza: la parabola politica di un cardinale-principe del Rinascimento, Marco Pellegrini

[johnslittlespoon]

Tough And Sweet (Like You And Me)

Ch. 7/? – 'In Your Heart, In Your Head, In Your Hands'

[WC: 90K | Gale Cleven/John Egan, College AU, The Bikeriders AU, Age Gap, Emotional Slowburn, Hurt/Comfort, Porn With Plot, Set in 2005]

College student John Egan ends up in an old pub on the other side of his small town, where he has a chance encounter with biker and mechanic Gale Cleven. Unconventional circumstances be damned, John is a lovesick fool.

[AO3 LINK]

[xreanimatedcorpse]

Making up for some missed days,,

Also! I don’t know how to show it but I feel like Inland Empire would have a monument valley feel to them… and Dramas design was from when I first started the game so I need to redo that 😭😭

[14dayswithyou]

[12 May 2022] I just played the demo and let me tell you I had such a visceral /pos reaction to that seggsy scene I am barking, growling and howling over this man 😤💘 kudos

Okay now that I got all of that out of my system AHEM so was Ren really a virgin or did he just say that to test the waters? I honestly could not tell if he was being genuine or not xD

Everyone is going feral for this man after that scene I'm caCKLING 💀 But thank you sm! I'm glad you enjoyed the demo!! 💕💕

In the old 2017 version, Ren only said he was a virgin because he was still leaning into his Haruko/"Ren" persona (and figured that it was what MC wanted/preferred). But in the 2022 version however, I got annoyed with his constant whiplash of emotions during the woohoo scene, so I just made him sincere throughout the entire thing lol

So yes, he was being genuine at that time ^^

[clonehub]

The Clones, Kamino, and Relationships

I've long speculated on what the clones' values would be as a people regarding every type of relationship they could possibly have with others around them -- antagonistic, romantic/sexual, professional, platonic, familial, etc.

Often times when making headcanons along these lines, people tend to project their own social upbringings onto the clones with or without realizing; they rely heavily on a reality that doesn't exist for the clones and then try to justify it with the same reality. Their analyses and theories and hcs end up flawed (and, for me, really annoying to read).

I'm sure you've all heard the fanon/headcanons that clones don't have the necessary and nebulously-defined "life experiences" that are required to mark them as adults. People think the clones lack a certain amount of knowledge about themselves and their bodies, and then others' bodies and how those work. They think the clones have no social awareness; I even saw someone say that clones wouldn't have had rivals, frenemies, or any negative interaction with other clones.

This long form and hopefully structured rant is going to lay out everything I think about how the clones were raised, why they're raised that way, and what that means when they interact with one another and with non clones.

Antagonistic Relationships

The clones argue. They fight. They disagree. We see this repeatedly in The Clone Wars and all throughout the Bad Batch. They disagree with superiors, both Jedi and non Jedi.

Disagreement within a group helps foster social bonds, can strengthen critical thinking/reasoning, and has a few other benefits I don't feel like listing out right now. Regardless, managing disagreements in a group requires conflict resolution skills.

The General Relationship Structure on Kamino

The clones must be taught to be loyal, to be amicable, and how to resolve conflicts within squads and bigger and bigger groupings of clones. The clones are going to war. They're trained soldiers. They have to be able to work on a team. Team work isn't just following orders and it isn't just being friends. That also means swallowing pride, setting aside ego, and even speaking up.

They can get jealous, they can be envious, they can have a whole host of complex feelings and emotions that they need to work through. The Drill sergeants would thus be instructed to be aware of and teach the clones who to work through this (whether they choose pats on the head or a fist is up to them).

I'm saying this to say that fandom often takes clones' "guns n battle" education a little (waaayy) too literally. They're not just given a gun at 2 and told to start firing. They need to be told that you can't turn that gun on your brother just because he said something annoying or you think he's dumb.

The Galaxy Outside Kamino

The clones learn about the galaxy outside Kamino. They get a heavily censored and propagandized history of the galaxy that plays up the Republic and absolutely villainizes anyone else, but they definitely do learn about the galaxy in general. They learn about other species, where those species are located, etc.

I say this to say that people like to act like the clones are so sheltered that they basically gawk at the mere existence of anyone who isn't a clone (so like....racist via ignorance?) which....I don't understand, really. The Kaminoans want to deliver a functioning and high quality product. They can't do that if they don't tell the clones that there's people out there that look different frmo you and speak a different language. A lot of clones are bound to interact with civilians; what sense is there in not prepping them for it?

These history lessons wouldn't even take too long to learn or anything like that. Some people like to headcanon that the clones' education schedule is so tight that they can't learn about "unnecessary" things (i.e. anything that isn't about guns n battle). But the clones are also fast learners. I think they can handle like two days of lessons about the galaxy's species.

Learning about the galaxy also requires --

Social Awareness

I've often seen headcanons that the clones, in one way or another, lack social awareness. "Non clones are basically an alien species! They're bound to ask loud, rude, ignorant, offensive questions! They're not shy, so they'd totally just strip in public if they need to!" (yes, I saw someone say this)

This comes from people infantilizing the clones and refusing to write or see them as the adults that they are. This is also severely shortsighted; again, being aware of the fact that the Kaminoans want a product that can do its job, who is helped by the clones blundering through greater society and destroying the genpop's trust in and comfort with them?

The clones get taught the basics of social politeness. They wouldn't manage the intricacies of cross-cultural interaction from two like high level senators, but that's not their job. They're polite, they're professional, they're aware of what is and isn't rude. They're self aware. They're adults.

Personal and Bodily Awareness

Sorry to the people who are weirdly misogynistic, but the clones also get comprehensive sex ed. It's inevitable that some clones are going to sleep with a non-clone. It's bound to happen! Rather than pretend it never does, the clones are told in detail about two things:

The human reproductive system.

Basic contraceptives and STI prevention.

part of maintaining the health and safety of any given population is making sure that they don't get sick. STIs are a way of getting sick. Part of maintaining the health and safety of a given population is managing unwanted or unexepcted pregnancies. Condoms prevent that. I think the medics have them and distribute them as-needed when they go on leave planetside.

So they get consent training (they'd have to, in order to learn how to interact with anyone ever in a normal and healthy way). The contours of consent would interact with their lifestyles in a contradictory way because they're also rather explicitly told they don't have the right to give/revoke consent over their own bodies, but they're at least told about other's bodies.

But here's the thing. The clones rarely. RARELY. Do end up having sex or a relationship because of two reasons:

They rarely interact with non-clones who are viable for sexual or romantic relationships (as in, most of the non-clones they're in contact with are COs and Jedi)

They themselves do not value sex and relationships to the extent that we do in our society.

for the first point: they're in battle a lot, and when they go on leave they face a society that does not like clones. There are anti-clone protests, 79s is one of the few bars that allows clones in, and when they're at battle they're notably not interacting with civilians for obvious reasons. The average jedi and non clone CO is not going to seek a sexual or romantic relationship with a clone.

This also presumes that clones don't sleep with other clones. I'm not giving ground on this. It's clear within canon that the clones view each other as true family. "Brothers" is not just "brother in arms", but quite literally a familial term for them. Fives' "same heart, same blood" speech in season 3 is evidence. Sister being called/naming herself Sister is another (her being transfem alone isn't enough; if they didn't view their familial relationships as fundamental to who they are, they would have given her a regular name, not Sister). They also refer to one another primarily as brothers, even when there's bad blood -- like Slick insisting that he did loves his brothers. Not comrades or friends or squad mates. Brothers. The entire 501st.

Frankly, the "they're bound to do it" view that many people seem to have is very bizarre to me. Who cares about proximity? What are their values as a people? What have they been taught? What do they believe? Why assume that any given clone would do that? Plenty of people spend a lifetime around their families without ever developing a desire to sleep with them. Who you grow up with can absolutely influence who you're attracted to, but not to this degree.

The assumption that clones MUST sleep with one another relies on a rather wide series of assumptions that just do the thing I complained about in the opener, which is rely on our own culture's values to write the clones. Which ties into point #2 up above:

The clones don't value sex or relationships as something they need to seek out. Yeah, they'd get horny. They're adults. It happens! Part of life. But what's socially considered an appropriate release of those feelings would be different from what we see in today's world. The drill sergeants wouldn't impress upon them the importance of having a partner, because how does that help them? How does it benefit the Republic, the civilians, the clones?

The clones are soldiers who were bred for war and are focused, first and foremost, on fighting and fulfilling their duty. Their most important social values are fighting, duty, and loyalty. Hierarchy, warfare, survival, etc. Can a clone seek out sex? Yeah! Is that even like, remotely common given the points I made above? No! Does the average clone chase civilians or even dream about relationships, sex, etc etc etc? Nope. They weren't taught to value it.

(This isn't to say that wanting these things makes a clone bad at their job, or that having sex means they're breaking a rule somewhere. They're not. it's just like how the majority of college students go for the most common majors because they're taught that those are valuable and desirable things to learn in school. You'll get one or two who have a concentration in something you've never heard of. They're not wrong for that, but they're definitely outliers)

So the average clone is a virgin that doesn't even think about it because it doesn't matter to them. They know about both male and female reproduction, and they know how to interact with civilians.

They're definitely sheltered. I highly doubt that any clone is given the skills necessary to manage like, romantic relationship problems, especially the really gritty ones. They're not told about their rights as beings, their ability to say no to most situations that involve a military CO. But they know about saying please and thank you, solving interpersonal conflicts, and about pads and tampons. They know about boundaries, appropriate behavior in public, and how to use a condom. They know about girlfriends and boyfriends and partners, they just don't generally care about them. They're rare -- not socially shunned, just rare. like the niche college concentrations.

A really good meta to read that I personally love is written by @canichangemyblogname and linked in his pinned. @saga-ordsmed also has a few interesting metas floating somewhere on her blog. theyre not about this topic in particular, but she's got interesting insights into the Republic.

I hope this was coherent enough. I wrote this mostly because I saw a contradictory post that pissed me off and I was yelling about it with friends in discord lol. Basically, the clones are adults, but don't presume that they have the same values that we do, or that the poeple in charge of their care and upbringing share our values either.

[squiddosss]

hi! i’d love to request an Ice doodle <3

also i am OBSESSED with your art!!

the one and only! (+ mini mav)

ALSO THANK YOU <3

[ammaterasu]

VICTORY! The Jewish National Fund of Canada’s (JNF) charitable status may be revoked because the JNF used its donations to support the Israeli military.

This week, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) announced its intention to revoke the charitable status of the JNF following a years-long audit that revealed the JNF utilized donations to develop infrastructure for the Israeli military, a foreign army, contravening Canada’s Tax Code.

Canadian grassroots Jewish organization Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) writes, “This is only possible because of the tireless efforts of Palestinians, IJV members and their allies who for decades have been denouncing the greenwashing, the dispossession and violence that the JNF enable on the Palestinian people and their land.”

According to reports, the Jewish National Fund controls 13% of illegally occupied Palestinian land. JNF’s policies prevent the sale or lease of land to non-Jews, a practice considered illegal under international law. These land acquisitions have been linked to heightened violence from settlers and the forced displacement of Palestinian families, further entrenching Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.

The JNF is known for seizing Palestinian land as a façade to cover the displacement of Palestinian communities. For example, “Canada Park” was built over three destroyed Palestinian villages, which displaced over 9,000 people.

The potential loss of the JNF’s charity status could mean that the JNF will receive a significant decline in their funding, highlighting the global concern for JNF’s illegal land seizing and greenwashing activities in the occupied West Bank. This is just the beginning. Now, we have to keep up the pressure to ensure the JNF loses its charity status when the CRA’s decision goes to court.

Follow @ijv.canada to stay up to date on this story.