#i'm& Very Tired

[imaginarianisms]

okay so. this is kind of a vent ive& been meaning to talk about for a while & this isn't directed at any of my moots y'all are fine. ok @ the general majority a.soiaf rpc. take my hand. ok. good. walk w/ me for a sec. gotta have a chat w/ y'all as a native mun.

this is what most of the arctic hemisphere is for white fantasy authors & let's be honest many of the predominantly white asoiaf fandom & rpc: russia, scandinavia & iceland (& of course it's always white scandinavians or northern europeans bc ofc it is & conveniently ignoring the many, MANY indigenous peoples of russia & scandinavia, particularly the sami people who were, y'know, literally always there in norway, sweden, finland & the kola peninsula of russia & are literally Always left out).

this is what the ACTUAL entire arctic hemisphere looks like in reality. that includes not just white european scandinavia but also all of northern russia including siberia which btw russia has MANY indigenous peoples, the sami people of norway, sweden, finland & russia, iceland which has no indigenous population but there are theories supported by genealogy & anthropology studies that indigenous peoples accompanied norsemen vikings to iceland, greenland which has the indigenous population of the greenlandic inuit before danish settlers came, canada which itself has MANY indigenous peoples & alaska which Also has MANY indigenous peoples including the inuit, several first nations communities & alaska natives.

so why is it that Every Single Fucking Blog i& see that has a northern/free folk character - whether canon or an original character - theyre literally Always white european coded, always having blonde hair with blue eyes if it's an original character "skin and hair as white as the snow and eyes as blue as the ice", all that shit. that's a rhetorical question. i& know why. you know why. it's because whiteness is considered the default in our lives & even in our stories & nonwhite arctic peoples or anywhere near the northern hemisphere are considered lesser than, considered an afterthought if even at all. bc y'all would rather have your perfect white instagram model northern characters rather than having diverse characters & actually doing & putting in the fucking work to incorporate nonwhite northern cultures into your fantasy stories despite claiming to be inclusive of everyone. to clarify, there's nothing inherently wrong with having white characters who live in the north but i& need y'all to ask yourselves Why its so overwhelmingly prevalent. bc as an INDIGENOUS mun it makes me& fucking insane.

"b-but a.rcana its in medieval europe!!!!!! :'CCCCC so of course the northerners are european northerners!!!!!" man you wont believe who lives in the arctic europe irl, it ain't white scandinavians, they aren't even indigenous to those lands, it's the sami & the karelians who're the indigenous peoples of arctic scandinavia & the kola peninsula. lmfao. now that's not to say there Aren't ANY people with blonde hair & blue eyes, but it's. really uncommon, even moreso people with red hair and blue eyes, especially historically speaking. the point of this post isn't even saying "there are no pale skinned people in the arctic so dont do that in fantasy", the point is "why are there ONLY white skinned, blue eyed, blonde haired people in fantasy arctic groups when the real arctic consists of so many more ethnic groups than that and why are there so many people just okay with indigenous erasure". the arctic is an extremely diverse place with THOUSANDS of ethnic groups in it & to keep writing & rping your character as all white characters especially if they're blonde is. extremely racist & its throwing aside indigenous folx & asians bc the arctic indigenous peoples look VERY diverse.

above are several different nations ranging from the sámi, to northern asia to indigenous peoples of siberia like the sakha to the tuvan to the chukchi to the nenets to the mongolians to alaska natives to the métis (basically, mixed white, mostly french, english & scottish settlers & indigenous people who're their own distinct indigenous people who, while not from there originally as their homelands are very diverse, historically also travelled up to the northwest territories) & several first nations in the subarctic region like the anishinaabe & cree. hopefully y'all now see what i& mean when there's literally SO MUCH DIVERSITY in the arctic, subarctic & otherwise northern regions in our world with a variety of different skintones from different shades of brown to pale & physical features & hair colors from brown to black to blonde & eye colors to choose from from shades of brown to blue to green. there's SO MANY ideas to choose from & y'all will STILL erase nonwhite peoples.

& that's just the first men in the NORTH (which are the place with the most people who're first men & btw the north is MASSIVE & that's not even including the MANY peoples from beyond the wall so combined they're canonically the largest & oldest of the seven kingdoms), there's technically other families such as house blackwood, house bracken & the now extinct house strong in the riverlands, house dayne, house wyl & house yronwood in dorne, house redfort & house royce in the vale, house westerling in the westerlands, house gardener in the reach, the mountain clans, & the people of crackclaw point claiming descent from the first men groups that could be interpreted as OTHER indigenous groups living in westeros before the andals (aka white european people) invaded & intermarried with the first men & the rhoynar came to dorne & later the valyrians, notably the targaryens, velaryons (who, in house of the dragon, are black) & celtigars (who i personally interpret as east asian, mostly han chinese, due to the yellow god-emperors of yi ti which is ancient china in the paternal line & a valyrian noblewoman who married him but that's besides the point) came to westeros. obviously there's no 1v1 comparison & most people in southern westeros are mixed between the andals & the first men according to grrm but y'all get it.

"but a.rcana!!!! grrm said its loosely inspired by the wars of the roses!!" .... ok and? asoiaf, like our world, still has many different peoples & cultures. using that as an excuse to not include characters of color in your writing in btw a fantasy series? ew. istg y'all will use any excuse to erase or ignore any nonwhite people even in the rpc.

"but a.rcana!!!! there's not very many indigenous fcs!!!" unfortunately that's very true but like. although it's great to have 1 you don't Need a fc do you. use your imagination.

i& can't tell you how angering it is to find that the vast majority of the rpc just. doesn't even entertain the idea of their favorite (yt) stark faves POSSIBLY being indigenous. if there can be black, brown & east asian valyrians there can be indigenous first men. just like the valyrians, there's literally ZERO lore saying that the first men exclusively had pale skin & btw their skintone, just like the native valyrians was literally NEVER described. yall wanna be racist & gatekeep fantasy SOOOOOOOOO fucking bad. please unpack & discard that white supremacist ideology bc science, history & nor fantasy or literally any other genre of literature & television is compatible with it.

g-d forbid j.on s.now be brown skinned & look visibly indigenous like his mother & uncle & being an indigenous man struggling to do the right thing in a world stacked against his cultural values & trying to save his people & the world from literal ice undead (which, by the way, as an indigenous mun in some of my nations we already HAVE creatures like the others, the giants & the children of the forest in our folklore, we don't need to make it up) & having an indigenous man being one of the major heroes of the story. g-d forbid everyone's favorite l.yanna s.tark be a visibly indigenous woman who's as skilled in the art of swordplay & embroidery & be named the queen of love & beauty & being taken from her home & having to mourn the loss of her father & brother who died trying to find their missing daughter / sister & depending on the verse dying in childbirth or living to become a woods witch & warrior & fighting in her nephew r.obb s.tark's army. g-d forbid r.obb s.tark who's white presenting be the noble prince turned warrior king who slaughtered every lannister soldier he saw for the capture then murder of his father & him struggling to do the right thing & trying to be what the king of the north should be, the first movement for indigenous independence in centuries since the targaryen dynasty fell & being tragically murdered. g-d forbid s.ansa s.tark be lightskinned & have red hair & blue eyes & still be the epitome & pinnacle of femininity beauty standards in king's landing who's considered just as beautiful as any white woman, struggle with the genocide of her people & be forced to use her wits & smarts in a place that didn't value honor or kindness & being used as a hostage by the very family who slaughtered her people & being viciously physically abused & sexually harassed by a white blonde haired green eyed tyrant boy king & his mother & no one blinked an eye & then being forced to marry another member of said family to the point of being bodily dragged to the sept & being forced to assimilate in order to survive & being oversexualized & objectified by white men & she's not even treated like an actual person & finally escaping & eventually taking her homeland back as queen of the north in her own right.

g-d forbid a.rya s.tark being brown skinned & being told she looks like her aunt l.yanna be genuinely angry at what happened to her people & learning about other people along the way & becoming a ruthless assassin for it & trying so hard to remove her culture from herself the further away from westeros she is but knowing deep down she'll always be a.rya s.tark & knowing that one day she'll avenge her family & her people. g-d forbid b.ran s.tark be white presenting & be a MORALLY COMPLEX PHYSICALLY DISABLED character who's literally just trying to save the world while being so far beyond the wall that everyone thinks he's dead & he & his (also indigenous) friends m.eera & j.ojen r.eed & hodor have to fight ice creatures & the undead. g-d forbid r.ickon s.tark who looks so much like r.obb being so young when all this happened & doesn't even remember what most of his family & own home looks like & all he knows is the (also indigenous) woman osha from beyond the wall who's his mother figure & his black direwolf shaggydog who's never abandoned him & he has to learn to fight & survive & thrive on the island of skagos where most don't even dare to tread bc of the supposed cannibalism & unicorns & him coming back to avenge his family as a fierce warrior even as a boy & arguably acting more like someone from the free folk than someone in the north.

g-d forbid indigenous men (rickard stark, brandon stark then eddard stark & robb stark) being brutalized & then murdered in front of crowds of cheering (mostly white) people & no one blinks an eye but ofc that doesn't mean anything (/s). g-d forbid the starks & the northmen are literally compared to literal animals & called savages doesn't mean anything race related despite the fact that savage is literally an antinative slur. g-d forbid the b.oltons (for the most part, not all of them ofc, its basically only r.oose & r.amsay) be indigenous villains bc there really aren't any native villains because we're always seen as the noble savage or these always good elf beings bc we're people just like anybody else & people can *GASP* do shitty things to each other & oppress their own people & native people aren't excluded from that. g-d forbid indigenous women being like the mormonts, dacey mormont & lyanna mormont & spearwives being strong & powerful native women & girls. g-d forbid w.yman m.anderly being a fat indigenous man be constantly underestimated by his peers but is actually a vital player in the northern restoration & his brave granddaughter green haired indigenous w.ylla m.anderly boldly standing up for the s.tarks even in front of the frey colonizers.

g-d forbid there be intracommunity issues between the northerners & the free folk bc like irl we clearly all got along so well (/s) like we didn't have enemies in the past & we had conflicts & fights like everybody else. g-d forbid there be indigenous people who look different & are just as diverse as dorne is. g-d forbid the north & dorne don't look at each other & find solidarity. g-d forbid the starks & northmen as indigenous peoples fighting to get their traditional homelands back from usurpers, traitors & colonizers to restore the north, castles, cultures & land back into indigenous hands.

[ardri-na-bpiteog]

Also increasingly aware that a LOT of people "manage" getting through the 40+ hour work week by sleeping less than is healthy and relying on stimulants like coffee and energy drinks to keep them going.

For people who are unwilling or unable to do this...work really does just dominate your life. Like we really should not have to rely on unhealthy practices just to have a social life or keep on top of housework or whatever.

I know I post about this a lot but I'm so TIRED all the time and it's just so depressing that this is how we're expected to spend the one life we have.

[druid-for-hire]

[images ID: three images of a comic titled "one must imagine sisyphus happy" by druid-for-hire. it is a visual narrative beginning with someone with wrist pain (depicted by bright orange nerves) working at a drafting table. the reader is shown the same wrist as the person uses it for many everyday tasks such as carrying a grocery basket, pushing elevator buttons, typing, and doing dishes, until the pain dissolves all the panels into chaos. the person then performs several physical therapy exercises until the pain subsides. they sit back down at a desk with their laptop, sigh, and begin typing. a small spark of pain reappears. end id]

a fun little piece i made during the semester and submitted into our school comic anthology! (which you can buy at the Static Fish table at MoCCAFest in NYC ;] ). it's about artists and injury

[mythicalcoolkid]

You don't wish your disability was worse or more visible, you wish your disability was taken seriously. Please stop confusing the two, I guarantee you would not get the support you need JUST by being more severe or more visible. Please listen to visibly disabled people when we tell you it isn't better on our side

[krysmcscience]

Call this the Whoopsie AU (it's barely an AU)

I mean. Narinder never explicitly SAID the Lamb would stay dead... :3c He probably should have been more specific. >:3c

Part Two:

Well. The Lamb tried, but...sorry, Nari, the crown hates you now. Shouldn't have been so quick to lend it out, I guess. :D

Aaaand Part Three:

'Isn't he just adorable?' -The Lamb, probably, while their followers smile and nod and internally scream at the brand new hellcat they now have to share living space with...

Anyway, nothing says 'Dead To Me' like following a person around to loudly remind them of how dead they are to you. Right? Right. Narinder's got this all figured out. <:]

[bixels]

this is coming from the position of a student, so don't take my word as gospel, but i want to strongly encourage people to prepare for the coming years and look outward to find communities in real life. this can be big like getting involved in fundraisers or organizations or small like going to poc/queer/art social spaces and talking to people. making friends and connections will help you and others build support networks, something you will need as we enter the new term. i know talking to strangers in real life can be scary, unfamiliar, or difficult (depending on where you live especially) and it may take a lot of compromising and work –– and i don't want to condescend –– but we have to try starting now. this is about your safety and welfare, as well as the most vulnerable people's.

if leftists/progressives/minorities want to survive and beat back what's coming, we need to do our work offline too and take up space. an example of getting involved would be (if you're an artist) reaching out to fundraising organizers and making prints of your artwork to donate for raising funds.

[nouverx]

Pov the cannibal overlords are judging your outfit (or discussing how they're going to cook you tonight, your choice 👀)

Based on very cool outfits for them I saw on twitter! Here's Alastor and here's Rosie

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

i vote that next year instead of reading Dracula we do a Jeeves & Wooster Book Club. those two never got the rabid tumblr shipping fandom they deserved (disqualified for the sheer technicality of being published a century too soon). we must correct this injustice

[sandflakedraws]

posting here mostly for posterity, partly because i just want to have it on my tumblr. still proud of the color palette for this one

newcomers, you can read the full story right here.

[hinamie]

bunch of portraits

[tazmiilly]

hugs I meant to draw for July 29th ...... but we're always celebrating that here

[everythingisliminal]

I did it. I called my parents, told them they need to use they/them for me for us to have a healthy relationship, and it worked.

My dad said his love for me is unconditional and he's invested in getting this right. My mom asked in a strained tone how this affects my relationship with my husband, how she's supposed to refer to me with people in her life, etc. (best case scenario given how abysmal this convo went with her a year ago). And we ended it all with our life updates and "I love you"s.

Since it took a lot of research to find articles more suited to adult children coming out as trans/nonbinary, here's the list of (primarily non-aggressive) resources on terms and mindset I texted them in case they can help anyone else:

Itchy sweaters: An ally’s guide to understanding late-in-life pronoun and gender changes (new pronouns = softer sweater metaphor)

Your adult child just came out as non-binary. Now what? (terminology)

The Wonderful World of Gender: What It Means to Be Nonbinary (terminology)

What Does It Mean to Misgender Someone? (terminology)

8 Things I’ve Learned Parenting a Non-Binary Kid That Might Help You (acknowledges parent's emotional response)

Edit:

OMG Y'ALL MY MOM JUST TEXTED THIS

"I know I was quiet in today's conversation but you are my child and I love you and support you. I want nothing but happiness and a healthy life for you!!!😉😀"

[expelliarmus]

[plumadot]

little sketches/thumbnails of the lads looking cool and stuff hehe,,,

[temperamentalaquarius]

Ugh the way fanon Jason calling Tim replacement v.s. canon Jason calling Tim pretender flattens Jason's motivations and the whole Jason and Tim relationship. 'Replacement' directs all of Jason's anger to Bruce. It makes Tim and Jason allies in victimhood. 'Here is this callous man that views us as interchangeable, can't you see that we're nothing to him?' 'Pretender' though... that holds Tim accountable for his role in making Jason's death meaningless. 'You saw everything I was, all that I gave, and you used it as a springboard to become what I should have been' is a lot more complex, and a lot more thematically accurate to Jason's whole deal. It's a larger gap for the characters to bridge, especially when Tim is coming from the perspective that his becoming Robin was not only right, it was necessary.

[stealerofthe2ndbraincell]

There's an aspect of Original!Elias Bouchard that makes me so sad to think about in a weird kind of "meta" way.

And that's the fact that he has to be labelled as the "OG" not as Elias.

Technically speaking Elias has been dead for years. It's Jonah that's taken over - literally having his eyes removed and replacing them with his own and living as him (he even seemingly keeps his "old fashioned haircut" on Elias' hair).

And yet we as the audience don't often call that form of Jonah "JONAH". Instead it's Elias, cause he's been Elias for 4 series at this point.

"Elias started the apocalypse", "Elias beat that old man to death with a metal pipe" when it was never really Elias in the first place.

He's been so robbed of his own identity that not even death can spare him; all of Jonah's actions in his body are recognised as him.

(Btw this isn't me saying you can't call Jonah!Elias straight up Elias, I do that regularly ofc. I'm just being emo rn lol)