#in this context you is generalized

[polysucks]

In all fairness the text doesn’t actually say that the Tully-looking Stark kids have fairer skin than Jon and Arya and I kind of do side-eye artists who draw Jon and Arya looking like an entirely different race than their siblings. Arya’s chapters have a few lines that make me think she’s supposed to be rather pale but it’s kind of neither here nor there bc I like to see them all being visibly brown. Although I would imagine Arya might spend more time outside and just get more sun exposure. A lot of Arya fans really rally against this and will call it racism and admittedly I’ve seen art of her and Sansa where the contrast in the way they’re drawn makes me raise an eyebrow, but I don’t think most people have racist intentions. In AGOT, Jon is described as dark where Robb is fair. These fans will say that fair is supposed to refer to his hair and eyes, but in the US at least, when we say fair in relation to human coloration, we’re almost always talking about skin, and auburn isn’t strictly a fair hair color either! Idk, complex topic and I think the way some fans fight about it is silly

I agree! To a degree.

Nuance is alive and well!

I personally think that, no, there are no inherent racist or colorist intentions when artists depict the starklings as light skinned or dark skinned. I think it’s unintentional, not malicious. As Americans, racism is literally baked into the very infrastructure of our social system, and even the most educated, radical, and anti-racist of us all have prejudice—me included. It took generations to learn, it will take generations to unlearn.

Of course, this is fiction, and fiction is malleable and subjective beyond the artist’s intent.

Now, as far as colorism goes: I think it’s somewhat okay and kinda fair to assume, and depict, that Arya and Jon have a darker skin tone/hair/features than the children who dominantly take after the Tully side. It just depends on the intent behind the depiction. Is the depiction rooted in racism? Where, as Americans, (and I am speaking from a specifically American POV as colorism and racism and class and etc are literally bred into our social infrastructure) when it comes to indigenous women specifically (but holy fuck every black and brown woman for fuckin real) we judge them based on their body types and skin tone and their ability to adhere and assimilate into westernized/colonized beauty standards. The darker the skin, the more savage she is. The less traditionally feminine the less approachable and breedable she is. And I think that’s something that The Gegrgege might have been playing with when presenting the dichotomy of Arya and Sansa specifically.

I hate to give a cis white man credit, but the man do be writing nuanced women without objectively putting them in the zone of abjection and I fucks with it.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Arya is described as taking primarily after her father while Sansa is put on this unofficial pedestal because she’s seen as more conventionally attractive (as far as westerosi standards go)

Now, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about how attractive Sansa and Arya are (why is the “is Arya pretty?” Discourse constant?) THEY ARE CHILDREN WHO FUCKING CARES. I know you’re not saying anything about the objective hotness of children, but it’s hard to talk about how the starks look without IT BEING BROUGHT UP OH MY GOD

But okay like.

I’m gonna say something controversial.

Different skin tones and features occur in direct family members.

Dude I’m 1/2 Siksika. Everyone on my dad’s side of the family are dark-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed. Very traditionally native looking. My dad came out ginger with extremely fair skin. But body-type, facial structure, physique, that’s a native man. His sister, same parents, both dark-skinned and dark-haired, was also dark-skinned and dark-haired. But other than color, they look exactly alike.

I came out with red hair, fair skin, green eyes. My mom’s side is extremely Italian—also dark skinned, dark haired, dark eyed. Well, as dark as Italians can get. No one EVER on my mom’s side had red hair—and oh my god they be breeding. They’re still white. How did I come out with all the recessive traits? How did my dad come out with all the recessive traits? How did my sister, who is half white, but shares my dad, come out of the womb platinum blonde, but looking exactly like our full-blooded Siksika auntie by blood? Why did her kids come out platinum blonde, too?

These things occur. They occur naturally, too. No one hopped a broom in my family.

And besides, the gegrgegegre likes to play with genetics. The man truly understands that genetics aren’t an exact science but they can be a general rule of thumb.

I guess over all, what I want to say—I have yapping disease and it’s fatal— is it depends on the tone that artists are depicting the starklings. Are they depicting Arya as dark skinned and boyish because that’s how her character is written, or because there is a baked-in prejudice that belies every American that the less a woman (or girl) meets arbitrary westernized beauty standards the more savage brown woman she is? She is abject in the eyes of modern, colonized, white society. While women like me, like Sansa, who present as a more socially acceptable savage, a pliant, subservient, easy to fetishize girl who will help pass on the mǎster race colonizer traits due to the white-adjacency of her ethnic beauty, are depicted in a brighter light.

I think it’s fine to depict Arya and Jon as objectively darker than the other stark children (though they are all visibly brown as far as I’m concerned)

But in what way are you doing it?

Are you demonizing Arya for being considered the western (or in this case, Southron) antithesis of colonial beauty standards? Is your depiction rooted in racism?

Or are you doing her justice by allowing her to not meet those arbitrary beauty and femininity standards because that’s who she is culturally, physically, emotionally, and canonically?

Nuance. Is alive and well.

Thank you for your input :3 I think these are important discussions to be having in fandom!

[mynnthia]

was talking with a friend about how some of dunmeshi fаndom misunderstands kabru's initial feelings towards laios.

to sum up kabru's situation via a self-contained modernized metaphor:

kabru is like a guy who lost his entire family in a highly traumatic car accident. years later he joins a discord server and takes note of laios, another server member who seems interesting, so they start chatting. then laios reveals his special interest and favorite movie of all time is David Cronenberg's Crash (1996), and invites kabru to go watch a demolition derby with him

[egophiliac]

Since book 7 part 5 (the part where we meet Meleanor/Maleanor 👀) is coming to EN this month, i would love to see your take on lilia’s proposal to meleanor! i mean they were like little kids right? it couldn’t have been that serious…i think the only reason she even brought it up again is because she could tell lilia still genuinely loved her…(even if he didn’t realize it himself?) but, oh well! Let’s think about silly childhood shenanigans to numb the pain! ^_^ (orz)

oh shit?! get ready for a doozy guys, it's comiiiiiing ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

I chickened out of posting the whole thing (look, I get VERY carried away when it comes to these wacky kids and their Tragedy), but I do believe that it probably ended with Lilia getting embarrassed and just shoving the first thing he sees into his mouth to try and cover for it.

(we're just lucky it wasn't a frog this time)

[meatgrinder-0]

something that ive found myself thinking about a lot recently is the loss of autonomy that you have over your identity and what makes you "human" when you die.

(as has been said before by multiple different people) technically ford does not die when he goes through the portal, but as many have said at this point--in a metaphysical way when he goes through the portal he is dead in the eyes of his dimension, so i find in the narrative he experiences a similar loss of his humanity and in the same way that might've occurred with his death, his memory for any that have access to any form of it constructs him into an idea rather than a person.

and really anything can be said and done with him by the people who are still "alive" when this occurs. since he is in all aspects dead people can use him to justify their actions, as a figure in their concepts, and imagine him up to be whoever they want him to be for as long as he remains dead. the audience of course also partook in these same things prior to his reveal by theorizing about what type of person he was or how he might fit into the narrative as a person but to be more specific to examples of this idea in the show is how stan and dipper see ford as an idea.

due to being absent ford had no possible way to influence what stan thought he would want him to do about the portal outside of his existing warnings in his journals so stan is able to twist ford into a justification to work towards opening the portal, and during the length of his work on it according to alex's statements about stan "expecting ford to be weak and in need of help when he came out of the portal" (i feel the likely useless need to say whatever a creator says about their work is always only as canon as one wants it to be but this is worth mentioning here and i think it makes sense contextually within the text) the ford who comes back is so jarring because in his "death" he's become an ideal of what stan wants to see in him to play into his hero fantasy and hopes of earning back his appreciation

and of course as i think about a normal amount of times per day--the duration of the show presents the author as a figure that is wrapped up in a concept of ford while presenting him in a much more mythical format--another one of gravity falls' mysteries. pretty much every main character that isnt stan views him in this mystical light throughout the show with dipper being the prime example and uses the idea of "the author" as a driving force to pursue the questions that the town begs them to ask. there is something to be said about how creators of the show refer to journal 3 as "its own character" in a way that clearly separates it from it's author. even outside of the universe of the show itself, even in the show's own writing team ford--somehow despite being already being only a concept by virtue of being fictional--is stripped of humanity and becomes an even further abstracted concept.

but even to the ford who is alive the self who had gone through the portal is also a concept. i know this idea isnt explored much in canon if at all but bear with me here while i make shit up for fun--in a way, we ourselves the way we are now are dying near constantly. when we wake up each morning we of course have access to the same memories and the same body and the same experiences as the self we were before we fell asleep, but if we were to get existential, how can we be sure that we are the same consciousness that we were before?

even if this is a bit too absurd of a concept to be applying to a messy braindump "analysis" of a fictional character theres something about how extreme change in a person (often from trauma as ford has experienced for Obvious reasons) or even just the passage of time leaves the former self as nothing more but a memory to even the body that it once inhabited.

as i said theres not much to connect this to in the canon of the text, but i do believe that ford does see his past self who wrote the journals as an idea just as much as anyone else in his life did.

[millportisntreal]

Jean Moreau Insult Generator

Hello everyone and welcome to your very own Jean Moreau insult generator!! Spin this wheel for the adjective and this wheel for the noun and PLEASE share your results <3

[tangledinink]

theory, (or stating the obvious?) the reason Leo’s shell is now a gardening project is his real one was horrifically damaged and needed a full makeover to not die. Hooray for Fay magic!

Bonus points if my wild more speculative guess of Leo having memory loss (not including JJ trivia) including the invasion and his family to some extent being on the money, lol.

full marks on the theory~ but alas, no bonus points or extra credit this time...

leo very much remembers the invasion and the events leading up to his displacement to the feywilds. and he is very much aware of the absence of his brothers.

[ ⚘ clover crown ⚘ ]

[cowardlykrow]

"That is where you are wrong, my boy!"

@ratb4stard3 and I deliver another Cowardlyghostbro's(™) collab ✨💛

[nomlioart]

yeah, here's the comic from december 31st that i mentioned, a little angst/comfort to make your day, enjoy <3

[katabay]

”—ah. seems like mother goose has been playing around in your egg salad. if you won’t dance to that tune, I got others.”

honestly, the would you kindly scene is whatever to me*, code yellow is the more interesting violation/betrayal of the body because of how beautifully it escalates the Fontaine reveal/betrayal and shows how ugly some of those ‘locks and keys’ that Tenenbaum mentions are. not only have you been a tool in another man’s hand this entire time, it goes deeper. your body is not your own.

*there used to be a meandering thought here about the would you kindly scene, but it was really just talking around the fact that I spent way too many years seeing people discuss it in the most insufferable and reductive ways possible when it’s a combination of three or four other things that make that moment compelling lmao

collage credits: heart one/heart two

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app / tip jar!

[rorydrawsandwrites]

I wish someone would look at me the way stupid sauced Ragatha looks at her stuffs

[jewishbarbies]

ethel cain is actually so funny and by funny i mean stupid bc what do you mean Kamala “got on that debate stage and said israel had the right to blow the levant to smithereens”? are you just dumb? is that what it is? I genuinely don’t understand where she got that from bc it doesn’t even sound like we watched the same debate. if you take “israel has the right to defend itself from terror attacks (as all countries do)” to mean “israel has the right to blow everyone up indiscriminately bc why not” you should probably refrain from public speaking, bc that’s embarrassingly intellectually dishonest.

[bloodsbane]

a criticism ive seen leveled at zenshu multiple times since finishing the show and reading others' comments about it is the claim that it doesn't do much beyond making references to old media, as if the context in which those references are made doesn't matter at all. and im not here to argue that the anime is secretly a masterpiece or anything, but like, i just saw a post saying it was essentially doing the same thing marvel movies do?? and i simply cannot think of a more reductive view of what the show is trying to convey!

the ENTIRE point of zenshu's themes is about the power of media we engage with. it is about how falling in love with a piece of art can literally change your entire life.

i hate to make arguments that sound like "well you just don't get it because of xyz", but based on what i've seen, i really do feel like a lot of what zenshu is actually trying to say is getting a bit lost on its more general audience; if you're an artist, or anyone who was inspired to create something because you discovered art that was very meaningful to you, the way zenshu chooses to engage with its own influences makes perfect sense.

it's not just "and for this episode, we will reference THIS cool thing that people know and like!" it's "the character is drawing something referential because art and animation are her life, and these are the things that came before her, which she studied and draws inspiration from." it's meant to be a bit cheeky and referential, yes, but it's not JUST "hey remember This Thing?" it's paying homage to real great works of art that inspired the REAL people making the show - the ART - that you're literally in the process of viewing! it's artists celebrating the art that made them fall in love with creating things and become artists themselves

[aftg-and-random-things]

When Cat said to Jean, “You already know you’re right, why couldn’t you trust your work?”

And Jean responded “I could have been wrong”

Maybe I’m latching on to this scene too emotionally as it is, but it really does speak to the lack of control Jean has with his own decisions. He needs everything to be green lighted, nothing he decides personally can ever be right. Before he had Riko, Tetsuji, Kevin, and everyone telling him what to do. So even now when he’s separating himself from the Ravens, there’s still a voice in his head telling himself he needs to double check his decisions with someone who has more authority than him.

“You know what you’re doing. Trust yourself, okay?”

Lately I’ve had to keep thinking about this scene and repeating what Cat said when I make my own decisions. There’s something about the way that Cat reassures him that is so comforting even if it barely feels enough to suppress the urge to check again. She’s a really good friend for phrasing it this way, and I feel like no matter how many times Jean needs to hear this, she’d repeat it.

[tcoaal]

the sheer extent of what you miss in this game if you're a serial clicker and explore everything continues to astonish me because i JUST saw this for the first time streaming this for two of my partners what the FUCK do you mean Ashley tried gardening at one point.

"Never did get them to bloom, though. Most things don't work out for me, honestly... but hey! They might not have bloomed, but they didn't die on me either!"

screaming crying throwing up i care for her so much

[silverwhittlingknife]

dick vs. apartment organization, a story in three parts

new teen titans 10, new titans 65, nightwing: target

"i can't believe this place." "i thought you were moving." "you live like a slob."

everybody's a critic dsfsfdsf

[xxplastic-cubexx]

i can't stress enough how this is probably like top five interactions between scott and charles for me its so silly

[X-Men Unlimited #1: "Follow The Leader"]