#poetic pop

[local-lover-boy]

Isn't it crazy and beautiful how we learn stuff and grow, because we've loved? I know who p1harmony is because I had a crush on a girl who was really into k-pop. I studied Norse mythology because I desperately liked someone who thought it was interesting. I know who Jonnie Gilbert is bc my partner loves him. I learned about ley lines because I liked a boy who thought they were interesting. I know every word to about 20 mitski songs because I wanted to relate to a girl I was into so badly. I know MHA lore like the back of my hand without having seen it in years because a past lover of mine cherished it deeply. I love cherry coke because it was suggested to me by a man I was infatuated with when I was 11. I found out bunnies can scratch you because I liked a girl who had a scar from her bunny under her eye. I studied color blindness because I wanted to impress a boy I was in love with. I take pride in my birth name because a boy I loved liked the sound of it. I hold all of these things and wonder if I am really a person or a body trying to preserve love.

A/N Since I wrote this poem, I fell out of love with someone and reconnected with someone else, this life has my head spinning

[rhaenin-time]

No, House Targaryen is not inherently "doomed" by the very same flaws (and themes) that doomed the civilization that they left.

No, they're not fated to succumb to the Doom that they survived specifically because of the foresight that set them apart from everyone else who perished. Not only would it be terrible, simplistic writing, it would also endorse a terrible, simplistic worldview.

People choosing to make House Targaryen a representation of and thematic successor to not just the civilization that they differentiated themselves from, but the power structure that they chose to leave, literally divested from, and actively worked to prevent from rising again in another form... really rubs me the wrong way.

Why isn't this projection and generalization done for any of the families that come from the cultures that are not coded as other? Why is it only the family that's been separated from their cultural context? Why do the other families each get to be unique, complex manifestations not just of different aspects of their cultures, but of their own specific histories?

Why is the foreign degenerate family both a representation of everything wrong with the culture they come from, and a scapegoat for everything wrong with the system they assimilated into? How is it they represent everything bad about what they left behind, and also everything bad about the land they came to? Even though all those flaws are not only shared by the system as a whole, but are flaws that predate their arrival, that they were punished for resisting, and that they are demonstrated to be incompatible with. Why is it always both?

It just rings so familiar to the way so many people view the other in real life. Because the Targaryens are overtly, and intentionally written as the other. It's the reason so many people identify with them, and it's the very same reason that other people vilify them. They're not just the in-universe other to the 'default' culture established in the text, but they're also given characteristics that we, the reader and audience, can recognize as other and even sometimes anathema to Western Christian culture.

Perhaps the old tales were true, and Dragonstone was built with the stones of hell

A Storm of Swords, Chapter 25, Davos III

I want you to ask yourself: Why is the idea of "fire and brimstone" evil?

To paraphrase the annoying people that love to cite Ramsay when they feel like it: If you look at a morally complex family surrounded by other morally complex families in a morally complex world in a story that's famed for seeking to challenge your underlying assumptions, and think that their association with fire and brimstone is meant to signify their singular satanic evilness, rather than say... challenge that very Eurocentric assumption, you haven't been paying attention.

This vilification mindset where the Targaryens are the singular evil of Westeros is so common to people who seem to want to consume ASoIaF without engaging with the criticisms of the Eurocentric worldview of history at the heart of it. And they end up using the convenient “others” to project all the wrongs of that world onto so they don't need to examine it any deeper.

This is the part where I so often get crucified!

This is the take that so often gets me crucified for "trivializing real world bigotry" in an attempt to "moralize interpretations of fiction" by an onslaught of people with troubling ideologies who then ironically steer the onslaught to moralizing their interpretations of fiction in a way that seeks to either mask or justify their troubling ideologies.

The worldbuilding of ASoIaF is an almost unparalleled projection of the Eurocentric worldview. That's what makes the world feel so rich. That's why GRRM and even the readers and audience are able to craft so many details that feel intuitive. But that also means that how you choose to interpret that world is often driven by underlying biases and ideologies that relate to that worldview — especially if you're not willing to challenge them the way George RR Martin does and encourages you to do.

It means that certain potential biases and ideologies people might balk at outwardly expressing in the real world are recontextualized in a way that feels more comfortable to indulge in.

There are countless examples from countless parts of the narrative. Honestly, you could fill books on the matter. But the one I'll point to right now is how the vilification I pointed out earlier is so emblematic of how the Eurocentric worldview often seeks to project their own flaws onto the other or choose scapegoats for systemic issues.

It comes from the same place with how someone pointed out that the baffling bastardphobia that would have medieval peasants giving the side eye is so often people jumping at the chance to “cosplay” as bigots who base their arguments in misogyny and bio-essentialism. Because it's an acceptable channel to indulge in that mindset in a way that they'd often otherwise question, or at least hold back from expressing out of caution.

And there I go again. "Moralizing fandom" for pointing out that fandom is so often used as a 'safe space' to build communities that share and spread troubling ideologies that you're not allowed to criticize because those ideologies have been 'appropriately' decontextualized from their real-world parallels, even though those parallels are still very much there.

But the problem is that it's impossible to simply 'channel' bigotry and leave it in an 'acceptable' space, because bigotry doesn't work like that. It's not a static object you can carry around in your pocket to play with when you think it's safe to do so. It's a blight. A living poison that feeds and grows and spreads. And if you give it a 'safe space' and continue to feed it with 'acceptable' fuel, it will always find its way out.

[justplaggin]

kawanishi takumi stop impersonating anime characters challenge (failed spectacularly)

[dizzyizzystiddies]

When Fig meet Ankarna I started weeping at the exact moment they showed the art of her for the first time.

[marzipanandminutiae]

please. for the love of god. talk to your kid who enjoys reading classic children's literature about phrases like "pride comes before a fall" and what they do and do not mean

or else they will end up 30 and mentally ill and convinced that being Too Content/Confident/Happy will make bad things happen to them or their loved ones

[stargayzerlily03]

People often talk about being haunted by the ghosts of the past, but what if you are being haunted by the ghosts of the future?

[agblend13]

It's a portal. It's a mirror. A dimension simultaneously outside time and inside every living being, the patterns that connect us: Daze and deviation. ✶✦✹

This painting is the first of my Pattern Cats series on a larger scale, at 12x12 inches on a hand shaped aluminum panel. The cat's checkered fur is repeated in the check patterns of a golden Betta fish, glowing caterpillar, orchid-like flowers, and fuzzy moth, while the remaining plants and creatures reveal soft stripes and dots.

I wanted the scene to live at the very edge of gentle calm and buzzing excitement, as if we are on the cusp of seeing the fish complete its lazy rotation while a gust of wind sets the plants in motion, startling the moths into flight. Clouds will shift, whiskers will twitch, and the snail will complete its slow journey to the next leaf, all in perfect balance and harmony. I hope you see it too!

♡ Anka

This painting is currently available through Poetic Tiger Gallery in Boise as part of the gorgeous "Enchanted Kingdoms" group exhibition, on-view for the rest of October! ✨

[artistsoftheunknown]

(A)blaise

peck at scars until wisdom dawns. quick! palm my life before anyone notices. nurse passion with secretive gestures, for attentiveness to love's curvature is but a long-lost art sought by those who claim possession of it. most nights are spent in transgression, reeling still from tragedies inflicted passively upon the flesh in spite of this being our bastion; the rubicon before descent into a once foreign despair becomes total.

[imogen-fae]

Say John Mayer Lyrics

Say what you need to say

[spotl3ssmind]

tidal

[shortnsweet-emailsicantsend]

Taste

originally, "Taste" by Sabrina Carpenter

Oh I leave quite an impression

Five feet to be exact

He's wondering why half your clothes went missing

My body's where they're at

Now we're done but you're still layin'

Next to me, after the separation

I heard you're back together and if that's true

You'll just have to text me while he's next you

If you want forever and I bet you do

Just know you'll taste me too

Uh-huh

He brings you down on a basis

With hatred in his tone (La la la la la la la)

You're funny now, all your jokes hit different

But where'd you learn that from?

Now we're done but you're still layin'

Next to me, after the separation

I heard you're back together and if that's true

You'll just have to text me while he's next you

If you want forever and I bet you do

Just know you'll taste me too

(La la la la la la la)

Every time we close our eyes

I feel your lips you're feelin' mine

And every time you breathe his air

Just know that it's way better here

You can have him if you like

We've been through this like once or twice

And singin' 'bout it don't mean I care

Yeah I'll share if that means you're here

Well I heard you're back together and if that's true

You'll just have to text me while he's next you

If you want forever and I bet you do

Just know you'll taste me too

Taste me too, ow, (La la la la la la la)

You'll just have to text me when he's next to you

You'll just have to text me while he's next to you

[mothertreesap]

batteries not included

Little toy train

Running out of steam

Rolling around the christmas tree

Stocking hung

but none that match it

No fire no wood

not even a hatchet

Hot chocolate gets cold

Santa grew old

and I'm wondering if am too

Quiet turned to silence

louder than sirens

Peace on earth is preached from the riots

Jingle bells the ringing swells

Melted snow turns to rain

Little toy train

running out of steam

Another year around the Christmas tree

[topaztintin]

a million of me

[supernova3space]

Greatest of the Greeks, grieving

Let me lie down with you one last time

On our bed of firewood and oil

Let the flames of your pyre consume me

Before the inferno in my chest reduces me to ash

Cast aside the laws of the Immortals

What good have they ever brought us, my love?

Your restless soul was void of peace

And now it will never know it, will it, dove?

Your breath was my music and now

Where has it gone, my sunlight?

Your eyes would dance, I lived in them

Won't they look again at me, my flame bright?

Did he make you cry in pain

As he brought upon your end

An end meant for me, my North Star?

Had I destroyed my own world when I sent you away?

As your blood baptized the ground on which you lay

I kindled my soul as firewood for your pyre

I gave you my heart and now,

It burns with you, what do I have left now?

[remusfinglupin]

Something insightful about Leonard Cohen blah blah blah 😭

[egberts]

girls wake up there's a new worm bike playlist in progress

alana said the new one is way more funky, I've noticed a lot of punk bands are piggy dippin in a funk/punk sound more than a pop/punk sound and honestly? I'm so obsessed.