#We Can't Study

[oratokyosaigunda]

Bokutachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai series banner

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

You keep telling yourself that Namari.

[golyadkin]

was gonna do 2 but it's bedtime so maybe some other time

[palskippah]

Hi!

I drew this because I was feeling really sad, but it works as a Bowser's birthday thing too woooo!!

[backjustforberena]

Rhaenys + her slight smirk Steve Toussaint: What she does [...] there's always a slight smile playing on [Rhaenys's] face in scenes that I always find interesting. Like a sense of being amused at the situation. If you go back and look at Season One, it's quite a consistent thing.

[gingermintpepper]

In my Zeus bag today so I'm just gonna put it out there that exactly none of the great Ancient Greek warrior-heroes stayed loyal and faithful and completely monogamous and yet none of them have their greatness questioned nor do we question why they had the cultural prominence that they did and still do.

Jason, the brilliant leader of the Argo, got cold feet when it came to Medea - already put off by some of her magic and then exiled from his birthland because of her political ploys, he took Creusa to bed and fully intended on marrying her despite not properly dissolving things with Medea.

Theseus was a fierce warrior and an incredibly talented king but he had a horrible temper and was almost fatally weak to women. This is the man who got imprisoned in the Underworld for trying to get a friend laid, the man who started the whole Attic War because he couldn't keep his legs closed.

And we cannot at all forget Heracles for whom a not inconsiderable amount of his joy in life was loving people then losing the people around him that he loved. Wives, children, serving boys, mentors, Heracles had a list of lovers - male and female - long enough to rival some gods and even after completing his labours and coming down to the end of his life, he did not have one wife but three.

And y'know what, just because he's a cultural darling, I'll put Achilles up here too because that man was a Theseus type where he was fantastic at the thing he was born to do (that is, fight whereas Theseus' was to rule) but that was not enough to eclipse his horrid temper and his weakness to young pretty things. This is the man that killed two of Apollo's sons because they wouldn't let him hit - Tenes because he refused to let Achilles have his sister and Troilus who refused Achilles so vehemently that he ran into Apollo's temple to avoid him and still couldn't escape.

All four of these men are still celebrated as great heroes and men. All four of these men are given the dignity of nuance, of having their flaws treated as just that, flaws which enrich their character and can be used to discuss the wider cultural point of what truly makes a hero heroic. All four of these men still have their legacies respected.

Why can that same mindset not be applied to Zeus? Zeus, who was a warrior-king raised in seclusion apart from his family. Zeus who must have learned to embrace the violence of thunder for every time he cried as a babe, the Corybantes would bang their shields to hide the sound. Zeus learned to be great because being good would not see the universe's affairs in its order.

The wonderful thing about sympathy is that we never run out of it. There's no rule stopping us from being sympathetic to multiple plights at once, there's no law that necessitate things always exist on the good-evil binary. Yes, Zeus sentenced Prometheus to sufferation in Tartarus for what (to us) seems like a cruel reason. Prometheus only wanted to help humans! But when you think about Prometheus' actions from a king's perspective, the narrative is completely different: Prometheus stole divine knowledge and gifted it to humans after Zeus explicitly told him not to. And this was after Prometheus cheated all the gods out of a huge portion of wealth by having humans keep the best part of a sacrifice's meat while the gods must delight themselves with bones, fat and skin. Yes, Zeus gave Persephone away to Hades without consulting Demeter but what king consults a woman who is not his wife about the arrangement of his daughter's marriage to another king? Yes, Zeus breaks the marriage vows he set with Hera despite his love of her but what is the Master of Fate if not its staunchest slave?

The nuance is there. Even in his most bizarre actions, the nuance and logic and reason is there. The Ancient Greeks weren't a daft people, they worshipped Zeus as their primary god for a reason and they did not associate him with half the vices modern audiences take issue with. Zeus was a father, a visitor, a protector, a fair judge of character, a guide for the lost, the arbiter of revenge for those that had been wronged, a pillar of strength for those who needed it and a shield to protect those who made their home among the biting snakes. His children were reflections of him, extensions of his will who acted both as his mercy and as his retribution, his brothers and sisters deferred to him because he was wise as well as powerful. Zeus didn't become king by accident and it is a damn shame he does not get more respect.

[collophora]

Found a cool color palette. Might finish it later. (Probably not.)

[gideonisms]

Please check your covid info sources omg. Just read a post that said the vaccine does not prevent you from getting covid, only from getting bad symptoms. The truth is it Can prevent it but does not Always. According to 5 sources I googled immediately after reading the post. come on guys

[welcometogrouchland]

(ID in alt) trips and falls and three more stephanie brown redesigns spill out from my pockets. Oopsie!

[mossmx]

YOU KNWO WHAT TIME IT IS!!! Merlin wips sharing time!

@lauravian @papysanzonew @artstelle @lemissingmask @artchael @chipinabag @knightswaypoint @starrieisdelusional @cadvix @verdiris @mr-merlin @irishyuri @msphagime @izzyghostsstuff @resu-w-ana @wowallnamesaregone @lamiascales @vi-visected @magicalmischel @places-across-time @alikat-art @kairennart @echolocalia @trinkh0rn @emberheartbeat @ispaintingcalmly @keyartie @worthyprnce @pyjamacryptid @kissme-withyour-cherrylipstick @miraimaym @butchjesus @whamber @gyrhs @guiltyscarlet @noodles-and-tea @mirrgred @hedgiestail @werewolf-transgenderism @schweet-arts

& everyone else, share a Merlin doodle or WIP ✨😍

[flore01]

If we don't have a Carcar podium in Abu Dhabi, next year I'll knock on Williams' door and tamper with that car!!

[neversetyoufree]

She can't keep getting away with this

[happyk44]

Jason who immediately loses respect for people who don't own up to their mistakes vs Annabeth who would rather die than admit she made a mistake

[the-way-astray]

you could theoretically read the series in the order 8.5, 9.5, 9 instead of 8.5, 9, 9.5 because books 9 and 9.5 take place parallel to each other but also sophie and keefe never interact between them so hypothetically there should be no difference (and no spoilers either way).

another thing you could theoretically do is alternate between reading books 9 and 9.5. a chapter here, a chapter there. it would be like reading a longer version of unlocked, with the povs alternating between sophie and keefe.

in fact, in theory, there could be a possibility of even less spoilers if you read it 8.5, 9.5, 9. for example, if vespera makes an appearance in unraveled, and you didn't know she would die yet, it could be a really cool way to see her last minute and have an extra layer about her before her death. whereas if vespera makes an appearance in unraveled and you already know she's going to die, it feels a little more empty. not completely meaningless, but like. kinda empty. like if vespera hints at a larger plan or something in unraveled and you didn't know she was going to die, you'd be super excited to see this plan shake out, but now that we know she's going to die something like that wouldn't hit as hard.

[autisticlenaluthor]

hello rory. you should tell me all about lena's apartment because you never did even though you promised to :( so now i am making you tell all of us.

i can't share ALL of the thoughts on here bc a lot of them are top secret

BUT

i can share these slides:

[bookwyrminspiration]

there are so many words that I have only ever heard from my professor's mouth. if he hasn't told us and it's not in the two (2) pdf sources his institution has provided, i'm fucked