#and she knows what she is doing

[yeepof]

Local PHD student at wizard school HARRASSED!! FOR SHAME!!

[tin-tweezers]

This fits so well into the series’ ongoing critique of empire.

Imagine: You’re a poor kid in a backwater region. You have no money, you have no opportunities, you’re told you’re a burden to society, the clothes on your back and the food you eat have been resentfully bestowed by your social betters.

How do you get out? You join the military.

Hiding the rest beneath the cut, because this got long.

In America, joining the military means you get money, healthcare for you and your family, assistance buying a house, a subsidy for a college education, a chance to see the world. When you ship out, your town installs banners on the street lights with your face, name and an American flag in the backdrop. And if you live in an American territorial holding (Samoa, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, all the others) the military is by far the best pathway to citizenship. You don’t even need to be a permanent resident. If you want to vote for the president who sends you off to war, you have to join the war. Your body is the collateral that jumps you to the front of the line.

(Here’s a poem about it by afakasi Samoan poet William Nu’utupu Giles.)

The thing is, you might not survive to reap the military’s benefits. You might die - and even if you do make it back alive, you might be different. There was a guy in my high school, we’ll call him Prince. He was an asshole - he bullied smaller kids, skipped class, homophobic comments. I lost track of him after graduation - I had shit to do and also wanted to get as far away from that place as possible.

Five years later, I see Prince on the MetroNorth commuter train platform, and almost don’t recognize him. His hair was short, because he seemed smaller, held himself more still than the aggressive kid I graduated with. I called his name, because I was far enough away from high school now that it didn’t hurt as much. When he turned and walked over, he had a limp. A really bad one. I asked him what he’d been doing since graduation and he told me he’d joined the Marines.

I, queer artist and budding socialist, neutrally asked him how that was going. First, he shrugged and showed me his leg. I awkwardly nodded and asked, “How did that happen?”

“It was shrapnel. It killed my best friend.” No preamble. He was on convalescent leave, visiting his family.

We got on the train together and he showed me some videos of the chopper he and his division manned on his phone. I told him a bit about my life, how I’d been to art school and how I was freelancing in the film industry. In my memory, he listens politely but we don’t really have much to say to one another because our lives are different now. And we weren’t friends in high school, so we didn’t have the good old days to fall back on. But, I don’t actually remember how we acted after that initial surprise. Maybe it was awkward, or it could very well be me projecting in hindsight.

We arrived in Grand Central and parted ways at the clock. I gave him a hug, and headed off towards the subway downtown (I had a gallery opening to go to.)

I realized later that my awkwardness stemmed from the fact that I had no military family members, or friends, or colleagues. Not even acquaintances. My long-dead grandfather had been an engineer in WW2 - after that, he got a full time at Bell Labs and helped design communications satellites. Never left, and never spoke about the war around me when I was little.

I mentioned that disconnect to a friend later, who grew up in rural Wisconsin. “Well, of course you didn’t have any friends in the military. Your family’s rich.” I didn’t think of us as rich, but I suppose we were rich enough that no one we knew enlisted. While I had never noticed, it was quite obvious to her.

I don’t know what happened to Prince after we met on the train. I’ve met other veterans since then, of course. Some of them had very nice houses paid for the GI bill, one became a playwright I worked with on a project, one lived in public housing and begged for food on the street in a wheelchair. (I never talked to that last guy, Ed, until my working class Trinidadian friend brought him coffee on one of our walks. After that, I said hello whenever I went by, and he talked about losing his legs in Vietnam.) As for the others, the ex-Navy Seal with the big GI Bill house in Florida flinched at loud noises, and the playwright writes about PTSD.

Anyway. That idea in The Locked Tomb, of sending your kid off to war so they escape the cycle of abuse/disenfranchisement/poverty? And having them come back different? Dead, even? And of course, Aiglamene herself has a wartime injury. Permanently disabled, invalided home. She still knows the Cohort is the only way out for Gideon Nav.

Sure makes you think.

thinking about Aiglamene. Like, so

a child crash lands in town. mystery where she came from. the mother is dead. this tiny redheaded thing has no one in the world. the town takes her in because what else are you supposed to do with a orphan dropped on your doorstep, but they don’t love her. the reverend family needs an heir, so they kill every single child on the planet- wait, scratch that, all but one. this one kid is alive, she’s alive, against all odds. so naturally, everyone’s scared of her. everyone hates her. out of all the children to survive why was it the one no one cared about. but they move on, everyone does, and the kid grows. and she starts asking questions. you start answering them. you start telling her stories, and it’s nice to be listened to, even if the kid is just a twerp. you start teaching her, she’s a natural with a sword, but you don’t tell her because it’ll go to her head. you’ve never had a maternal bone in your body, you aren’t mothering her… but she’s got nobody. and neither do you. you train her, you teach her, you tell her she can get out, get free from this place, if she works hard enough, fights good enough. she works hard. she fights well, better than you ever did at her age. she tries to get out. she gets caught. she tries again. and again. and again. and eventually, there’s a chance, a real chance. you’re the only person in the world who could get through this kid’s thick skull, and you tell her: this is your chance, this is it, you’re getting out, you’re leaving me, you’re never coming back, you’ve going to live, you have to get out now. and she goes. she goes, and she doesn’t come back. she doesn’t come back, and then she does… and she’s dead. she’s dead, and she’s back, the two things you prayed wouldn’t happen. she’s back and she’s dead and this is your child, you raised her, and you sent her off, promising a bright future, and it killed her.

[hinamie]

10 years later

[thatrandomblogsays]

Annabeth: I, a child, had to earn Thalia’s love, that’s how the world works! I have to earn my moms love. Love is transactional, you gotta be worthy of it first silly :)

Percy, listening to this on the train

[vraska-theunseen]

DID YOU ALL KNOW THAT YOU CAN DO WHATEVER UOU WANT WHEN YOURW MAKING ART ISNT THAT WILD

[chloesimaginationthings]

The true meaning behind FNAF princess quest

[inkskinned]

the thing about some men is that they want you to remember, at all times, that you are underneath them. that with one word or look or "joke", you will stay beneath them. that even "exceptions" to the rule are not true exceptions - the commonly cited statistic that one in eight men believe they could win against serena williams.

women's gymnastics is often not seen as real gymnastics. whatever the fuck non-euclidian horrors rhythmic gymnasts are capable of, it's often tamped down as being not a sport. some of the most dominant athletes in the world are women. nobody watches women's soccer. despite years of dancing and being built like a fucking brick, men always assume they're faster and stronger than i am. you wouldn't like what happens when they are incorrect. once while drunk at a guy's house i won a held-plank challenge by a solid minute. the party was over after that - he became exceedingly violent.

what i mean is that you can be perfect, and they still think you're ... lacking, somehow. i hope you understand i'm trying to express a neutral statement when i say: taylor swift was the possibly the most patriarchy-palatable, straight-down-the-line woman we could churn out. she is white, conventionally attractive, usually pretty mild in personality. say what you will about her (and you should, she's a billionaire, she can handle it), but a few things seem to be true about her: 1. she can write a damn catchy song, and 2. the eras tour truly was a massive commercial success and was also genuinely an impressive feat of human athleticism and performance.

i don't know if she deserves the title of "woman of the year," i'm not debating that in this post. what i am saying is that she was named Woman of The Year, and then an untalented man got onstage at the golden globes and made fun of her for attending her boyfriend's football games. what i am saying is that this woman altered local economies - and her dating life is still being made into a "harmless" punchline. the camera panned, greedy, over to her downing a full glass of champagne. congratulations taylor! you are woman of the year! but you are a woman. even her.

fuck, man. write better material.

a guy gets onstage at a college graduation and despite the fact like half the crowd is made up of women, he spends a significant proportion of it warning these people - who spent possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars on their education - that they were lied to. that the "real" meaning of femininity is motherhood. that they shouldn't rest on the laurels of that education-they-paid-for but instead throw it away to kneel at a man's heel. imagine that. sweating in your godawful polyester gown (that you also had to pay for!), fresh out of 4 years of pushing yourself ever-harder: and some guy you've never met - who knows nothing about you - he reminds you this "win" is a pyrrhic one at best. you really shouldn't consider yourself that extraordinary. you're still a woman, even after years of study.

god forbid you are not a pretty woman, but if you are pretty, you must be dumb. god forbid you are not ablebodied or white or cis or straight or good at swallowing. you must be beneath a man, or else they are not a man. the equation for masculinity seems to just be: that which is not a woman or womanly (god forbid). anything "feminine" is thereby anathema. to engage in "feminine" things such as therapy, getting a hug from a friend, or crying - it is giving up ones manhood. therefore women need to be put in their place to ensure that masculinity is protected.

this is something i have struggled to explain to terfs - they are not doing the work of feminism, but rather the patriarchy. by asserting that women and men must be (on some secret level) oppositional and in conflict, they also assume that being a woman is akin to being another species. but bigotry does not stem from observational truths or clarity - that is what makes it bigotry. there was nothing in my childhood that made me fundamentally different from my brother. we are treated differently nonetheless. to assert there is some biological drive that enforces my gender role is to assert that women have a gendered role. men do not see women as equal to them not because of biological reality - but instead because the core tenant of the patriarchy is that women aren't full, realized people.

we are told from a very young age to excuse misbehavior as a single man's choice - not all men. it is not all men, just that one guy. all women are gold-digging bitches who belong in the kitchen - but if a man is mean, bigoted, or violent to you, it's just that particular guy, and that means nothing about men-as-a-whole. it is only one guy who got mad when you gently rejected him. it is only one guy who warns her this trophy is heavy, are you sure you can hold it? it is only one guy who smashes her face into the cake. it is only one guy talking into a mic about hating our bodily autonomy.

i have just found that they often wait until the moment we actually seem to be upstaging them. you sit in a meeting where you're presenting your own findings and he says get me a coffee? or you run to the end of the marathon and are about to finish first and he pushes your kids out in front of you. you win the chess game and they make some comment akin to well, you're ugly away. we can be the billionaire and get the dream life and finally fucking do it and yet! still! they have this strange, visceral urge to say well actually, if you think you're so great -

it's not one just one guy. it's one in eight.

[akanemnon]

I don't like this place. It's turning everyone edgy and sad.

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[squidsmeister]

dungeon meshi is my favorite road-trip comedy film

[ochiody]

the odyssey

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

[bixels]

Learning that fans hated Applejack and called her "boring" is crazyyy to me because I genuinely, unironically believe AJ's the most complex character in the main six.

Backstory-wise, she was born into a family of famers/blue collar workers who helped found the town she lives in. She grew up a habitual liar until she had the bad habit traumatized outta her. She lost both her parents and was orphaned at a young age, having to step up as her baby sister's mother figure. She's the only person in the main gang who's experienced this level of loss and grief (A Royal Problem reveals that AJ dreams about memories of being held by her parents as a baby). She moved to Manhattan to live with her wealthy family members, only to realize she'll never fit in or be accepted, even amongst her own family. The earlier seasons imply she and her family had money problems too (In The Ticket Master, AJ wants to go to the gala to earn money to buy new farm equipment and afford hip surgery for her grandma).

Personality-wise, she's a total people-pleaser/steamroller (with an occasional savior complex) who places her self worth on her independence and usefulness for other people, causing her to become a complete workaholic. In Applebuck Season, AJ stops taking care of herself because of her obsessive responsibilities for others and becomes completely dysfunctional. In Apple Family Reunion, AJ has a tearful breakdown because in she thinks she dishonored her family and tarnished her reputation as a potential leader –– an expectation and anxiety that's directly tied to her deceased parents, as shown in the episode's ending scene. In The Last Roundup, AJ abandons her family and friends out of shame because believes she failed them by not earning 1st place in a rodeo competition. She completely spirals emotionally when she isn't able to fulfill her duties toward others. Her need to be the best manifests in intense pride and competitiveness when others challenge her. And when her pride's broken, she cowers and physically hides herself.

Moreover, it's strongly implied that AJ has a deep-seated anger. The comics explore her ranting outbursts more. EQG also obviously has AJ yelling at and insulting Rarity in a jealous fit just to hurt her feelings (with a line that I could write a whole dissection on). And I'm certain I read in a post somewhere that in a Gameloft event, AJ's negative traits are listed as anger.

Subtextually, a lot of these flaws and anxieties can be (retroactively) linked to her parents' death, forcing her to grow up too quickly to become the adult/caregiver of the family (especially after her big brother becomes semiverbal). Notice how throughout the series, she's constantly acting as the "mom friend" of the group (despite everything, she manages to be the most emotionally mature of the bunch). Notice how AJ'll switch to a quieter, calmer tone when her friends are panicking and use soothing prompts and questions to talk them through their emotions/problems; something she'd definitely pick up while raising a child. Same with her stoicism and reluctance at crying or releasing emotions (something Pinkie explicitly points out). She also had a childhood relationship with Rara (which, if you were to give a queer reading, could easy be interpreted as her first 'aha' crush), who eventually left her life. (Interestingly enough, AJ also has an angry outburst with Rara for the same exact reasons as with EQG Rarity; jealous, upset that someone else is using and changing her). It's not hard to imagine an AJ with separation anxiety stemming from her mother and childhood friend/crush leaving. I'm also not above reading into AJ's relationship with her little sister (Y'all ever think about how AB never got to know her parents, even though she shares her father's colors and her mother's curly hair?).

AJ's stubbornness is a symptom of growing up too quickly as well. Who else to play with your baby sister when your brother goes nonverbal (not to discount Big Mac's role in raising AB)? Who else to wake up in the middle of the night to care for your crying baby sister when your grandma needs her rest? When you need to be 100% all the time for your family, you tend to become hard-stuck with a sense of moral superiority. You know what's best because you have to be your best because if you're aren't your best, then everything'll inevitably fall apart and it'll be your fault. And if you don't know what's best –– if you've been wrong the whole time –– that means you haven't been your best, which means you've failed the people who rely on you, which means you can't fulfill your role in the family/society, which makes you worthless . We've seen time and time again how this compulsive need to be right for the sake of others becomes self-destructive (Apple Family Reunion, Sound of Silence, all competitions against RD). We've seen in The Last Roundup how, when no longer at her best, AJ would rather remove herself from her community than confront them because she no longer feels of use to them.

But I guess it is kinda weird that AJ has "masculine" traits and isn't interested in men at all. It's totally justified that an aggressively straight, misogynistic male fandom would characterize her as a "boring background character." /s

At the time of writing this, it's 4:46AM.

[araneapeixes]

silly comic idea I've been chipping away at :) welcome tomy shadowheart poly shipping propaganda show

[thefrsers]

#when you know your kids so well

[nadjasnandor]

What We Do in the Shadows | 6.01. - "The Return of Jerry"