#let them learn

[starlightandsunshine]

Alright 3rd and final Star Wars take of the day that is probably pretty lynchworthy:

Echo should have died/already been dead in the Bad Batch arc in s7. Sorry guys, I love Echo too, but the story would have worked better if he was already dead when they got there.

Like there's a lot of things that could have made this arc better in general that I'm not going to really get into here without touching on the character design or whitewashing and racism around the clones (which many much more qualified people have talked about way more eloquently than I ever could). Like the fact that this arc should have been a Cody&Rex arc rather than writing Cody out so early in or the weirdly dismissive way the writers treated the other characters in order to lift tbb up when they could have just. Not done that. Really very easily.

But specifically the Echo thing: as soon as Rex finds out the possibility that Echo might still be alive, he is immediately ready to jump in with both feet without looking, and Anakin cautions him that they might not find Echo alive and he needs to prepare himself for the possibility that they can't save him. This has huge overall narrative implications, because we, the viewers, know that in a few weeks time he is going to turn his back on the people who love and trust him and betray everything he's ever sworn to stand for bc he is worried about the possibility of not being able to save Padme.

Now Rex goes with tbb and Anakin on a rescue mission that might not be a rescue mission. Tbb are still being very dismissive of the "regs" and Rex, quite understandably, is not handling their attitudes very well.

They get there, it's a trap and so on and so forth, but here's the important part: they don't find Echo alive. The Techno Union found him after the Citadel arc and mined his brain for data through hand wavy star wars means and they had no need to preserve anything else or keep him alive after that.

The rescue mission is too late and they never had the chance to save Echo at all. And Rex breaks. He holds it together for long enough to complete the mission, they escape the Techno Union and protect the village, but once they get back on the ship and head back towards Anaxes, he just shatters. Full on sobbing on the floor devastated bc he was so sure he could save Echo. He was so hopeful that he could save this one person after everything. After Fives and Tup and Ahsoka walking away and Kadavo and Umbara he just wanted to be able to save one person that he cared about. And they were already way too late.

We can see Anakin faced with all of this and the shadow of his future actions that he will do so that he will not have to deal with his own potential grief. We can see the paralells between Rex doing everything in his power to have the possibility of saving his brother and Anakin taking extreme steps to have the possibility of saving his wife.

The shadow of RotS hangs over the entire arc and this then makes the scene with Admiral Trench hit so much harder. Because it's not just the warning of how far Anakin has already fallen, its the spectre of the future hanging over his shoulder in more ways than one, the way that throughout the arc you can see his resolve to never lose Padme hardening so he never has to face that grief.

On the other end of things, tbb are faced with Rex's very real and present grief for Echo and have to acknowledge the love and care that the other clones have for each other. They get to grow as characters and learn to respect the grief of the "regs" bc there is a shared kinship there, they do share more than they don't, and they are all horribly aware of just how easily it could have been them. The arc can end with them learning to respect the other clones and finding a closer kinship with them rather than returning to the status quo just with Echo as a member and they sort of like Rex now. Not only would that have made them more relatable as characters but could have set up a much better conflict for the future in their show rather than the weird thing with Crosshair that we did get and them still not really connecting with any of the other clones in a show centred on the clones.

Like, let the characters fail. Let them lose. Let them have succeeded in their mission without having it be a victory. Let it be bittersweet. S7 is already bittersweet. We know what is coming. We know how close it is. The shadow of it looms over every single interaction in this season. So don't shy away from it. Lean into the shadow of Anakin's choices, lean in to the paralells that you're writing in, let the events have meaning and impact and consequences like so much of the rest of the show.

[seethesound]

Not wearing hijab still gets you smacked around in Iran. Men are still superior to women, and can do whatever they want to them, in Iran. In 2023. Stand up for women and end this brutality

[astearisms]

catalysts, protectors

[talaricula]

Things I've seen tumblr memeing about James Somerton doing à la "How did no one see how bigoted he was!" as if those things haven't been a significant part of tumblr culture for over a decade :

Presenting untrue and bordering on conspiratorial versions of (queer or otherwise marginalised) history without any sources

Completely disregarding and disrespecting any expertise on socio-cultural topics/humanities and distrusting academics and historians (incl. acting as if no academics or historians could be queer or marginalised)

Downplaying the role misogyny played in the historical oppression of queer women and concluding that queer men must have been more oppressed than queer women

Bi women are, at best, not as queer as "real" queer ppl, and at worst, simply equivalent to straight women

Despite nominal trans inclusivity, transmasculine ppl are functionally women when convenient (combined with the above, bi transmascs are functionally straight women)

Despite nominal trans inclusivity (bis), shamelessly attacking, threatening and actively endangering any trans woman who questions them or smth they find important (often by unfairly presenting her as violent or as a threat)

Having absolutely fucking wild and reductive takes about ace ppl, the oppression they face and their place in the queer community

Stating that marriage equality is an assimilationist fight while completely ignoring its direct roots in the horrifying consequences of the AIDS crisis for partners of ppl who died of AIDS

Praising western media creators from the past for queer coding even under censure and in the same breath condemning current non western media creators for being homophobic bc their representation isn't explicit enough

Blaming China for all existing homophobic censoring in western media

Assuming all queer media would be better told by western creators and by western standards

Only out queer ppl get to tell queer stories

Heavily criticising almost all queer media created by women or ppl they see as such (see above points about trans ppl) or involving/starring a significant amount of women for any perceived or real amount of "problematicness", but fawning over and praising and negating criticism of queer media created by and starring mostly or even functionally exclusively men (even when it could be argued that, you know, not involving/seriously sidelining women is a pretty clear example of misogyny which should probably be considered "problematic")

And I'm probably forgetting stuff or there's stuff I have internalised myself and don't recognise as an issue

Like idk but I feel like the takeaway from Hbomberguy and Toddintheshadow's videos should maybe be "be aware of such patterns in your communities bc they definitely exist" and not "this guy is uniquely awful" and I feel like a lot of the discussion I've seen surrounding this has been severely failing at that. Most ppl who've spent any significant amount of time on tumblr prob either have internalised at least one of those thought patterns, have had to de-internalise them, or have had to be extremely vigilant to not internalise them (which is done by, you know, seeking out other sources, which also seemed like an important takeaway from the videos)

[oobbbear]

I want to post this here too because I’ve seen it happen a few times

Please understand that there are cultural differences and language differences, if you see this happening let the person clarify what they meant, that person might just not be familiar with words the western side of the internet use

[wombywoo]

retired 🩶

[lunian]

made a couple of posts about Astarion being hilarious gremlin but never made a collection of Gale's silly talks?? I should've fixed it

[s-aint-elmo]

those canaries weren't kidding this dungeon CAN swallow you whole

(ID in alt text)

+ bonus touden siblings side by side bc i had fun figuring out their resemblance w/o making them outright clones

[heritageposts]

The grandfather, who is also blind as a result of severe diabetes, feels isolated despite having his family around him. "If an air strike targets the house or the neighbourhood, I cannot move, not even using the wheelchair. I am completely paralysed, I cannot see and I can barely hear and move my arms. What has helped me is that we evacuated by car when the situation was less dangerous," Abujubein told MEE. . . . "What did the world that has long talked about human rights and the rights of people with disabilities do for us? My granddaughter has a subject about human rights in school. The first time they learned about people with disabilities, she was happy that she could reflect on me," Abu Jubein laughed. "She came to me repeating what she had learned about their rights and how they should be given a special treatment." "Now where is this special treatment? Did the world at least call for the evacuation of the displaced from Gaza until the end if the attacks?" "Even hospitals are targeted. When the Israeli occupation started bombing hospitals and then besieged al-Shifa Hospital, we thought that this would be the start of an international revolution against the occupation, because the protection of patients and children inside hospitals is the core value of human rights." "But, surprisingly, nothing happened."

. . . full article on MME (18 Nov 2023)

[cemeterything]

trying to teach myself emotional regulation after a lifetime of being taught (mostly through violence) that the only mature way to handle my emotions is to not feel them at all is i'll admit a little hysterical. every day i have to hold my own hand and go now are you going to be a big boy and acknowledge your feelings? it's okay if you don't acknowledge all of them but i need you to at least try alright? if you finish acknowledging your feelings we can go out for ice cream shakes later, how does that sound?

[lotus-pear]

god i love skk sm i wish gay ppl were real :(

[seethesound]

681 days since the Taliban banned girls from going to school and 221 days since they banned women from going to university.

This is the Taliban’s barbaric reasoning for why they won’t allow women and girls to study in Afghanistan. Joe Biden and American military leaders need to be tried for war crimes for the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. They have sent billions to Ukraine but done nothing for these girls and women.

A teenage girl ended her life last week by hanging herself at her home in Afghanistan's rugged central province of Bamyan, Anadolu has reported. Her family refrained from disclosing any details about her death, but a neighbour told local media that she was particularly distressed about not being able to go to school, a result of the Taliban administration's ban on education for women and girls.

A day later, in another part of Afghanistan, a 23-year-old woman shot herself. According to local media reports, she took the step as an escape from an abusive household to which she was confined.

Social media accounts of Afghan news outlets are teeming with such reports of women committing suicide. Activists say that there has been a surge ever since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. With concrete figures hard to find, rights groups fear that the issue and numbers are vastly underreported.

According to local channel Tolo News, there were 250 suicide attempts in the country last year; 188 of them were women. Maryam Marof Arwin, who heads Afghanistan Women and Children Strengthen Welfare Organisation, said that the local NGO receives reports of at least nine to eleven suicides by women every month, many of them young girls. However, the actual number could be in the hundreds, she told Anadolu.

“Most of the suicides are in places such as Takhar, Kunduz, Bamyan, Badghis, Faryab, Mazar-i-Sharif, and other rural areas," said Arwin. She cited two main factors for the underreporting of the issue: reluctance on the families' part and pressure from the Taliban. "The Taliban tries to suppress reports of suicides. Most of the time it doesn't allow the media to publish these reports. But we are seeing an increase in the number of suicides, and we are worried about the situation of women, especially girls."

The main reason for the spike in suicides among women is their deteriorating living standards in Afghanistan, say activists. Depression is rampant, they claim, particularly due to the ban on education and employment, which is aggravating the already dire economic conditions of scores of families mired in poverty. Other factors include forced marriages, domestic violence and the general lack of any social life.

The former deputy speaker of Afghanistan's Parliament, Fawzia Koofi, told the UN Human Rights Council last year that Afghan women were taking their lives out of desperation. "Every day, there are at least one or two women who commit suicide for the lack of opportunity, for the mental health, for the pressure they are under," she said. "The fact that girls as young as nine years old are being sold, not only because of economic pressure, but because of the fact that there is no hope for them, for their family, it is not normal."

More recently, a June report by UN-appointed rights experts warned of systematic "gender apartheid" and "gender persecution" in Afghanistan under the Taliban. "Grave, systematic and institutionalised discrimination against women and girls is at the heart of Taliban ideology and rule, which also gives rise to concerns that it may be responsible for gender apartheid," UN Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan Richard Bennett told the council in Geneva.

The interim Taliban administration, however, rejected the claims. Spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid accused the "UN and some Western institutions and governments" of spreading "propaganda that does not reflect reality."

However, activists disagree. Due to the curbs imposed by the Taliban, they say, many women, including widows and those with no men in their families, have been left with no means to earn and survive.

“These women were actually responsible for supporting their families. The Taliban took away their jobs and they are now jobless," said Hamid Samar, the founder of ZAN TV, the first channel to broadcast specifically for Afghanistan's women. "They're at home now and worrying about how they will feed their families."

[astearisms]

but it ain’t called love without a little tragedy 🍁

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 185

No one could get into contact with Constantine. 

Now usually that wasn’t that big of a deal, the man constantly disappeared for a few days at a time doing something or other, but he’d been completely silent and unseen for months. Usually he’ll at least answer a call to tell them to fuck off or something. 

And they really need his expertise and are getting incredibly worried for their grumpy team member. Yes he’s an asshole, but he’s their asshole, y’know? And he has a habit of getting into Situations (sure he also usually gets out of them, but what if he didn’t this time?!) 

So they’re desperate. Kind of really desperate. Desperate enough to use the summoning sigil they found on his fridge. They’d checked it, multiple times, and it should summon the hellblazer. 

“You’re not Constantine.” . 

The white-haired teen in the circle yawned, stretching and blinking at them blandly with familiar blue eyes before sighing. “Actually I am,” he stuffed his hands into his hoodie as he looked down at the summoning circle. “Well, technically just one of the many Laughing Magicians currently in the Realms.” 

He gave a grin, looking more amused than annoyed. “Pretty much every one of us is in the Realms right now for family reunion lol. (Did he just say lol out loud??) So like, you’re gonna have to specify which of us you’re tryin’ to summon. Honestly perfect timing for me thanks, the fruitloop keeps flirting with John and it’s horrific so.” 

… That was probably their John, wasn’t it…

[nerdpoe]

Jason Todd is stealing the tires off of the Batmobile, when a man walks up on him doing it.

The man stares at him, nods, and just says "I'll keep a look out, man, go go go!"

So Jason does, and he gets all four tires with the man's help.

The man introduces himself as Danny Foley, and asks Jason if he wants to go get some burgers.

Danny, meanwhile, has decided that yes. This is the child he will adopt. He just has to convince the kid of that.

Batman has to call in Alfred to bring around his backup vehicle with spare tires, and little Timmy gets some wonderful shots of Batman having to replace his own tires.

@simplestoryteller

[zellk]

Githyanki doodling on post-it notes that I cleaned up a lil bit Lae'zel from memory on the first (im only happy with the profile tbh), and Anma and Mitas on the second (It was SO easy to fit them in BG3 lore it's insane... I even have a whole storyline roughly figured out for them and it came together in like 30 minutes on my walk home from work.) I don't have any energy to draw nowadays except on post-its, but it's better than nothing.