#sorry for lack of women

[a-most-beloved-fool]

makes me a little sad when star trek ignores IDIC. like. vulcans are logical. that is true. But 'logical', for vulcans, does not amount to 'without compassion,' and it definitely doesn't amount to 'racial superiority.' Belief in 'infinite diversity in infinite combinations' should NOT result in the weird racist/speciest stuff we're getting in some of the newer treks. It does make sense that some vulcans are discriminatory. They're still flawed. But that should not be common or expected, like it seems to be in SNW. If it is, then it's a race of hypocrites, which. doesn't seem very true to Star Trek's message.

I think TOS Spock does a pretty good job of embodying this. Not always, it was the 60s, after all, but mostly. He was often trying to find non-violent routes, and get by without killing - even if they were in danger or had already been attacked. (See: the mugato, and the horta (until Kirk was the one in danger, lmao. t'hy'la > IDIC), the Gorn ship). Kirk, in his eulogy, calls him the most human soul he's ever known, and I've always read that as Kirk calling out Spock's overwhelming compassion.

It's just so much more interesting when Vulcans get to be radically compassionate. I want them to believe that everything and everyone has value. I want them to respect all ways of being. I want them to find ways for even very non-humanoid aliens to exist unfettered in society. I want them to see hybrids and think that it's amazing. Also, like, disability rep. I want Vulcans to have The Most Accessible Planet and available resources because they want everyone to feel accepted and valued. It makes for better characters and more interesting stories.

[chialattea]

one piece girlies doodles from memory except it’s very easy to see I remember some way better than others

[literallyroselacroix]

Istg if this chapter’s culprit is another woman I will sob hysterically please let it be a man please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please I don’t care which one no offense to Whit and Charles they’re cool but like if I had to choose between either of them and a woman I would choose the woman I’m sorry although I do hope it’s not either of them they’re like 2 out of the 3 drdt men I actually tolerate losing them would be a shame bcs then we’d be stuck with the batshit crazy ones and I hate the batshit crazy ones they’re scary and not even in like a super fine woman way they’re just eugh. Like ick. Like ew. If this chapter’s culprit is a woman at least let her eat up her last moments like Celestia Ludenberg did 😞🙏 Like if it’s Hu like a lot of people are saying it is then I hope she gets to beat David into a comatose state before she dies because she definitely deserves that‼️

[harundraws]

sam carpenter for world domination

[fromtheseventhhell]

One major factor missing from most debates on Arya and Lyanna's beauty is that they're being judged by their society's extremely patriarchal values. In both looks and personality, that context is essential to understanding how others perceive them. George explores the misogyny experienced by non-conforming women, especially with Arya, and it's interesting how he plays with that regarding their physical beauty.

Her mother used to say she could be pretty if she would just wash and brush her hair and take more care with her dress, the way her sister did. (The Blind Girl, ADWD) "You never knew Lyanna as I did, Robert," Ned told him. "You saw her beauty, but not the iron underneath. She would have told you that you have no business in the melee." (Eddard VII, AGOT)

These two quotes offer a nice summation of this idea. With Arya, her supposed lack of beauty is defined by her being a non-conforming wild child. Her hair is messy, her face is dirty, and she's often in "lower class" clothing while engaging in unladylike activities. None of this says anything about her physical beauty but it tells us everything about how she's perceived. Arya could be pretty...If she conforms to society's standards for a highborn Lady. With Lyanna, however, we get the opposite. Where Arya is judged based on her personality, Robert's romanticization of Lyanna is rooted solely in her looks. He doesn't know anything about the person she really was. There is an assumption that, because she looked a certain way, her personality must fit and Robert imagines her much softer and more passive than she actually was.

That Arya isn't pretty or Lyanna wasn't wild are two perceptions that George specifically pushes back against. This is where people miss the brilliance of them being linked as literary mirrors; it is largely about us learning more about Lyanna, but it touches on more than that. The significance of them being written as wild, willful, and with their own beauty is that George isn't writing his female characters around patriarchal expectations. When people debate their beauty, that's often the trapping they fall into. Beauty and non-conformity are treated as mutually exclusive factors when the story itself never makes that point; this is also the logic that leads people to the (incorrect) conclusion that Lyanna and Arya aren't meant to be similar. Arya's self-esteem issues around her looks and being a Lady make this a topic certain to be addressed in the future; George has made it a part of the story. The conclusion shouldn't be that "looks don't matter", but that looks aren't indicative of a character's value, personality, or morality.

[bellacatt-art]

Lighting practice with Thirteen bc I love her!! 💫

(And yes, this is basically just another episode of Belle drawing their fictional crushes to learn how to shade stuff properly 😭)

Apologies for not posting in a while, but please tell me what you think! ♡♡

[jessamine-rose]

*lovingly tackles Aine*

Read my Yandere! Pierro longfics first ♪( ´▽｀)

Last week, my beloved mutual @ainescribe surprised me with Savior! Darling fan art and AHAI9232@2-!/! CRYING SCREAMING I WANT TO LOOK AT THIS ART AND WORSHIP YOUR VERSION OF SAVIOR THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BLESSING ME WITH YOUR ART—

*clears throat* Anyway, now that I finally have the time to properly sit down and comment on the fan art, I’ll do just that. Feedback will be in the tags and it will be unhinged. Once again, thank you so much to Aine for drawing this <3

[iguessweallcrazyithinktho]

Are y'all just really young and stupid?! Like no shade but Why do y'all believe everything y'all read especially when it's for the Sun or anything closely similar to that

[utilitycaster]

I just want to say, that I agree with almost all of your Critical Role takes and you have 1000% better and more nuanced takes than all of Twitter and I greatly appreciate it! The takes over there regarding Liliana and the gods are just wild and you bring some much needed sanity to the content I see

Thanks! I hope you don't mind because I've been thinking about this re: the Twitter takes but the thing about Twitter and Liliana specifically that I've seen is that there's this really bizarre fetishization of like, the fact that she is a (white) southerner (this also weirdly happened for Birdie though to a much lesser extent, and the person who spearheaded that wasn't even American so I have to assume this is a specific corner of Twitter Culture At Large). And like, here's the thing. It's true that fantasy tends to be very British in its accents, and it's also true that accents in a fantasy world are used to convey the same things we'd assume in our world - RP British for educated, southern American for rural, Cockney for rougher types, etc.

It's also true that laying the exact socioeconomic parallels from our world onto, say, Liliana and Orym (who reads to me as non-regional but I, like Liam, am from the Northeast originally) is a recipe for disaster. Or rather, it's not, but it is going to reaffirm your own biases, some of which are dangerous to reaffirm.

There was a popular post on Tumblr a while back, probably not long after Trump was elected, of someone talking about how they were convincing a relative with the confederate flag towards socialism by appealing to the idea of "isn't in unfair how uneven wealth distribution is and how a small group has so much control" and a number of people were rightfully like "uh, maybe you should focus on the racism" or "hey OP ask your relative who they think that small group in control is because I'm getting a really bad feeling they're going to say it's The Jews." And I feel that a lot of the empathy for Liliana from those spaces feels like that OP. Or in other words: I get that you see your relatives in Liliana. Unfortunately, I cannot help but see me and mine in Orym.

You see someone trapped by circumstance and desperation in a dangerous ideology. I see the fact that I haven't gone to a synagogue in easily 6-7 years without there being a security guard present and usually, the doors locked with someone looking through the window to let you in, and then in the sanctuary there's been an installation so that you can quickly bar all the doors in case an alarm goes off or you hear shots in the lobby.

I think there's a great case for seeing yourself in Imogen, who is in a painful struggle with the fact that her mother does love her very much but is in dangerously deep and has done a number of incredibly terrible and harmful things. That latter point is important, incidentally; I get that cult members sometimes rise through the ranks but all but the leader are being manipulated. But the fact remains that a brainwashed person can still commit atrocities, and in this story, they have, many times over. It's especially true because like...sure, plenty of people are like "I lost my relative to a cult and I just want them back and I couldn't harm them," but also, as we've seen, this cult can and will harm Imogen! Plenty of people are also like "yeah I gotta cut them off, it hurts but unfortunately my horribly bigoted and violent relative, while a victim of brainwashing, is a threat to me too." It's not even the full picture of the Temult side of things, let alone the picture that includes the Vanguard's victims.

I also think the Southern gatekeeping is unhinged because it's like. guys there's QAnon members and other cults across the country; the Confederate flag example above was actually notable in that OP wasn't even Southern so you couldn't even write the flag off as deeply misguided heritage but rather was explicitly being used as a hate symbol. It's awfully presumptive to assume all southerners have the same experience (especially since the Temults are portrayed, physically and in accents, as white southerners, not that the experiences of white southerners aren't also incredibly varied). It's awfully presumptive to assume that people find Liliana threatening because they have no personal experience with people like her; often, it's because they have all too real experience with people like her, and it says something even worse about you if you can say "but you guys, I see me and my family in Liliana" when people are telling you that they see them and their families in Orym. I would not, personally, publicly admit that one's empathy extends to the people who remind you of your family but runs out before it reaches their victims. Nor would I publicly admit that I assume everyone who disagrees with me clearly has never had personal experience with this topic.

I should also note that, as I've noted a number of times before, that these are fictional characters and not real people. Twitter seems to be really fucking bad at grasping that. Like, yes, this is the other thing; I do not think that OP should kill their Confederate flag-toting relative, whereas if Imogen did so to Liliana I'd be like "hell yeah." The former is a real person who I do hope gets deprogrammed, just, you know, maybe adjust those priorities; the latter is a fictional character in a story.

[worshipfulmercy]

i have so many thoughts about his gender and how he's kind of textually a woman and/or abinary (read tags if interested)

[asclexe]

the house md fandom would be fixed by more femlash

[cestacruz]

Drawing the messiest sketches is actually so good for my brain

[mittenhater]

i think shakespeare wrote a play just like this

[mountain-in-springtime]

the cody ko allegations going on make me so sick

[boyfridged]

i’ve been thinking a lot about what is so unique and appealing about 80s robin jay’s moral standing that got completely lost in plot later on. and i think a huge part of it is that in a genre so focused on crime-fighting, his motivations and approach don’t focus on the category of crime at all. in fact, he doesn’t seem to believe in any moral dogma; and it’s not motivated by nihilism, but rather his open-heartedness and relational ethical outlook.

we first meet (post-crisis) jay when he is stealing. when confronted about his actions by bruce he’s confident that he didn’t do anything wrong – he’s not apologetic, he doesn’t seem to think that he has morally failed on any account. later on, when confronted by batman again, jay says that he’s no “crook.” at this point, the reader might assume that jay has no concept of wrong-doing, or that stealing is just not one of the deeds that he considers wrong-doing. yet, later on we see jay so intent on stopping ma gunn and her students, refusing to be implicit in their actions. there are, of course, lots of reasons for which we can assume he was against stealing in this specific instance (an authority figure being involved, the target, the motivations, the school itself being an abusive environment etc.), but what we gather is that jay has an extremely strong sense of justice and is committed to moral duty. that's all typical for characters in superhero comics, isn't it? however, what remains distinctive is that this moral duty is not dictated by any dogma – he trusts his moral instincts. this attitude – his distrust toward power structures, confidence in his moral compass, and situational approach, is something that is maintained throughout his robin run. it is also evident in how he evaluates other people – we never see him condemning his parents, for example, and that includes willis, who was a petty criminal. i think from there arises the potential for a rift between bruce and jay that could be, have jay lived, far more utilised in batman comics than it was within his short robin run.

after all, while bruce’s approach is often called a ‘philosophy of love and care,’ he doesn’t ascribe to the ethics of care [eoc] (as defined in modern scholarship btw) in the same way that jay does. ethics of care ‘deny that morality consists in obedience to a universal law’ and focus on the ideals of caring for other people and non-institutionalized justice. bruce, while obviously caring, is still bound by his belief in the legal system and deontological norms. he is benevolent, but he is also ultimately morally committed to the idea of a legal system and thus frames criminals as failing to meet these moral (legal-adjacent) standards (even when he recognizes it is a result of their circumstances). in other words, he might think that a criminal is a good person despite leading a life of crime. meanwhile, for jay there is no despite; jay doesn't think that engaging in crime says anything about a person's moral personality at all. morality, for him, is more of an emotional practice, grounded in empathy and the question of what he can do for people ‘here and now.’ he doesn’t ascribe to maxims nor utilitarian calculations. for jay, in morality, there’s no place for impartiality that bruce believes in; moral decisions are embedded within a net of interpersonal relationships and social structures that cannot be generalised like the law or even a “moral code” does it. it’s all about responsiveness. 

to sum up, jay's moral compass is relative and passionate in a way that doesn't fit batman's philosophy. this is mostly because bruce wants to avoid the sort of arbitrariness that seems to guide eoc. also, both for vigilantism, and jay, eoc poses a challenge in the sense that it doesn't create a certain 'intellectualised' distance from both the victims and the perpetrators; there's no proximity in the judgment; it's emotional.

all of this is of course hardly relevant post-2004. there might be minimal space for accommodating some of it within the canon progression (for example, the fact that eoc typically emphasises the responsibility that comes with pre-existing familial relationships and allows for prioritizing them, as well as the flexibility regarding moral deliberations), but the utilitarian framework and the question of stopping the crime vs controlling the underworld is not something that can be easily reconciled with jay’s previous lack of interest in labeling crime. 

[mylambandmartyr]

There is some absolutely sinister shit going on in the boardwalk empire tag on ao3 good lort‼️‼️