#cultural ideal

[sohannabarberaesque]

Just imagine Scrappy-Doo appearing out of nowhere, as the old deus ex machina even, spontaneously preparing to expose shows such as these as Frauds and Deception Upon Especially Vulnerable and Less-Sophisto Audiences Otherwise Expected to Regard the Branson Music Shows as the Exemplar and Ideal of American Cultural Heritage, Identity and Folkways, and a More Logically Natural Ideal Therefor ... with Scooby-Doo and crew left to unmask all involved and expose the broader deceit.

1950s-1960s Spook Shows

[genderkoolaid]

give it enough time and there will be people online who will read about how ancient athenian wives weren't allowed to attend meals with men they weren't related to and comment omggg we need to bring this back!!! men are so scary the only way women would ever be safe is if we had our own special room in the home and never had to interact with men at all. i love feminism

[k01ku]

something i've loved thinking about recently is just hunters in general and their general sort of culture bc i think it's one of the coolest things in destiny i love it

like they're sort of folksy and superstitious and probably have their own little version of guardian sea shanties and little good luck rituals they do before hunts or before missions

like i can so imagine 'you gotta slap your left pauldron three times before you leave the ship so your gun doesn't jam' or 'if your cape gets stuck on something in the first hour you're out it's bad luck' and stuff like that

imagining hunter dens in the city in little derelict weird places bc only hunters can get to them and they only tell each other about them

i have a recurring image in my head of a little gaggle of hunters in the wilds around a bonfire and one has a beat up little guitar and they're singing and having fun

idk! just hunters !

[utilitycaster]

For what it's worth, I think Campaign 3 suffers when compared to, to put it bluntly, pretty much anything else Critical Role has ever put out, as well as most actual play that I've watched/listened to. But I think it uniquely suffers when juxtaposed with a narrative that says "if you do not make rapid decisions you and others around you will die; if you spend too much time whining about how it's unfair that you are called to make these decisions, including ones that might challenge you, you and others around you will die; and if you do not above all prioritize community and deal with threats to that community - and expand your understanding of community to be a very broad one - you will be destroyed." It was jarring and hypocritical to watch Campaign 3's defenders who had been calling for the gods to be slaughtered for much of the campaign suddenly spin around and praise Bells Hells for finding [having handed to them] the nonviolent option because that's actually always the best one, don't you know; and I think EXU Divergence challenges not just that ideal but the concept that there's a universal solution. Sometimes the right thing is to hide; sometimes it's necessary to commit violence to prevent further violence. Sometimes the right thing is to secretly eat some of the cheese yourself to prevent you from dying; sometimes it's to be on the lookout for someone trying to take more of their share in a resource-limited community and to stop them. Sometimes the right thing is to carry others; sometimes it's to give them to someone stronger and more able. And above all, many of these choices will be extremely unfair and difficult and put you at risk, and you do still have to make them, and soon.

[jessicalprice]

Sorry, Christian atheists, but “Christianity traumatized me” is not a get-out-of-accountability-free card for upholding Christian supremacy through your treatment of members of minority cultures, reiterating Christian evangelism and colonialism but for your WASP brand of atheism, promoting Christian purity and hierarchy but with the serial numbers filed off, insisting that the Christian model of culture is the only one that exists and shouting down members of non-Christian cultures about their own cultures and experiences, etc.

Oh, you don’t like members of non-Christian cultures pointing out the ways in which your behaviors continue to normalize and uphold Christian hegemony?

THEN MAYBE STOP ACTING LIKE CHRISTIANS.

[qcoded]

I do NOT trust Luz Noceda haters. Some of y'all looked at this neurodivergent, teen girl and claimed she was a bad character?? and a mary sue??? LEAVE MY DAUGHTER ALONE 💔

[mid-nighttiger]

the entire leslye headland collider interview is a hot mess but this exchange especially is driving out of my mind. in what galaxy are these people living?? in any other work, someone forgiving you even as you kill them would be the ultimate expression of compassion and unconditional love. that is so, so good! it's delicious and heart-wrenching, i love it!

but to these people, it's... taking away the killer's agency?? what??? so now luke skywalker throwing away his lightsaber and telling darth vader that he won't fight him in return of the jedi (1983) is taking away vader's agency? adding insult to injury? and not, i don't know, the other third guy in the shadows making them fight in the first place?

also, IN WHAT UNIVERSE ARE KILLS SUPPOSED TO BE SATISFACTORY. THIS ISN'T A VIDEO GAME!!!

[bee-menagerie]

...it begins.

[madbard]

So many stories about constellations focus on their permanence - the idea that someone or something was transformed and placed in the sky, immortalizing them. This can be an eternal punishment or warning, but so often it is an honor. A mercy. After all, constellations are beyond the reach of death and pain, and the people and creatures they depict live on in the stories told about them.

These stories are foundational to so many mythologies, and to the forgotten island, with their apparent love of astronomy, these tales would be all the more precious. I think most children from the island would be raised on those stories, myths about the sacred stars and constellations that guide lost travelers home.

Forgotten now, all of them. But the stories we are told affect us long after they have faded from our memory.

And the King was raised on stories where the greatest blessing was a final transformation into a flawless, eternal image. And Siffrin was raised on stories of unchanging constellations that repeat their passage across the sky, year after year, dutifully providing guidance and light long after their stars have burnt out.

Those stories are long forgotten now. Still, they left their mark.

[vaguely-concerned]

the cardassian 'arguments as flirting' thing makes a whole lot of sense to me the more I think about it honestly. finding someone you not only feel safe to disagree with but can completely enjoy the company of even while you disagree seems as good a metric for chosing a life partner as any haha

[potatus-et-molassus]

what do you guys think the elves think about premarital sex

[thisisthinprivilege]

Is it xenophobic or racist to bring up East Asian beauty standards regarding thinness and how many lives were lost to restrictive eating disorders on a post about body image and shaming? Especially because many people think they’re “healthier” when in reality it’s actually damaging. I know many other countries are like this, especially if they have a “fashion capital”.

On the contrary. It is important to understand the genesis of cultural mores that incorporate fatphobic beauty standards and observe how cultures all over the world have evolved fatphobic beauty standards. It is even more important to understand how fatphobia is itself tied to racist or "purist" racial ideals. Anti-blackness, for instance, manifests in how many aspects of fatphobia are realized in American/USian/Western beauty standards.

I think sources matter on this, and that observations and accounts from folks who are a part of the culture should be elevated above other discourse.

What do other folks think about this?

-ArteToLife

[sergeant-bucky]

Shuri makes her way down to the docks. It’s the middle of the night. She walks down to the end of the dock and takes off her sandals. Before putting her feet over the water and waiting.

She throws a pebble in. And after a moment she hears someone surface.

“Technically I am not in your ocean.” She sasses.

“And… I come bearing gifts.” She smiles. Scooting over a bit and putting the dock beside her. Before reaching into her bag.

“I bet it’s been a while since you had chocolate. And it probably tastes different than what you are used to…” she rambles bringing out a chocolate bar.

“Would you like to try it?” She asks.

@did-he-freeze

Namor sits down next to her, glad to see she's not trying to jump in without her beads this time. "Chocolate, as you call it, when I was young was a form of payment, only to be consumed by the rulers or priests... We never had any in the water, so we relied on other things to create the same system..." He explains a bit awkwardly. "Yes, I would like to try some... My mother always said the smell of it was something to soothe the soul..."

[watcherintheweyr]

desperately need people to understand that alicent is a victim but she’s also an abuser and a perpetrator

that she actively makes choices to harm other women because of jealousy and envy and the greed deep in her bones because submitting to suffering didn’t get her what those women fight to grasp for themselves.

she is absolutely a victim, in show.

that doesn’t change that she abused rhaenyra and her children, her own son, most likely helaena given how she flinches every time her mother touches her, and is actively weaponizing the patriarchy of westeros against other women- rhaenyra primarily, but also mysaria and dyana.

she isn’t the moral, righteous force of good that even she thinks she is, she’s a wounded woman directing all of the rot, pain, and fury inside her at the wrong people and forces.

[alackofghosts]

wolbert week day 3: home

where i'm meant to be - next to you

[baejax-the-great]

this is super late but I think of you as THE Achilles pov writer. the way you weave his mythology and humanity, arrogance and vulnerability, selfishness and generosity so effortlessly and IN HIS HEAD has made me cry so many times. Thank you thank you!

Ahh, thank you!!

It's funny, because I tend to default to writing from Pat's perspective, and I think I only have a few fics where Achilles POV gets to shine (Sunset, Agua Caliente, Numbered Days... that might be it).

Achilles really is such a fascinating character to me--a spiteful child and a great leader, generous and unyielding, calm and respectful to the men who take away Briseis and the Embassy while also purposefully causing the deaths of hundreds of his own side... And then, of course, there is his all-consuming grief (the only reason I read the Iliad if I'm being honest), grief so big it changed the course of the war, it changed the very landscape, it changed history--and it changed absolutely nothing at all.

He's just so... (I was going to put an emoji, but is there one for staring off into the distance for fifteen minutes thinking about the futility of the journey of grief, how it is long and winding and necessary and required and yet never leads you to a place beyond the grief because it will be with you forever, it simply cannot be undone, and the strongest, fastest man in history cannot outrun it and he cannot bear it so all there is to do is accept the crushing weight that his life has come to nothing and everyone in his entire culture was complicit in this conclusion...)

Anyway, I am working on an Achilles POV one-shot right now, but it's basically pwp so I don't know that any of that character analysis will realllllly be in there 😂