#very glamorous

[balleralbumcovers]

EPIC ALBUM COVER #53

SOPHIE - OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES

Released: 2018 (MSMSMSM, Future Classic, Transgressive)

Bubblegum bass, deconstructed club

Suggested by anon.

[eli-zab3th]

My childhood dream of becoming a librarian has come true

[cityzenchick]

Es ist wie eine Szene aus einem Bond-Film @sandy007 – schön zu sehen, dass ich nicht der Einzige bin, dessen Haare an meinem Lipgloss kleben, wenn es windig ist!! 😉

@cityzenchick Guten Morgen ☕️🥐Einen stressfreien Dienstag wünsche ich dir 🫶🏼

[fumifooms]

I should have touched on dark elves in my beauty standards post... Let me just slap this on here real quick. So as we went into there, beauty standards can show political dynamics and sort of reflects the politics of who get to be seen as human, who get to be seen as desirable and promoted within a society. So like, beauty is power right, in the sense that beauty standards are highly influenced by the ones in power, the ones who have the time & resources to look a certain way and the power to present that look as desirable to large groups. It’s complex and diverse but generally beauty standards are upheld by the elite, the influential.

By the former 'time & resources' thing I mean stuff like clothes, health, makeup or even cosmetic surgeries, or even simply the freedom to only go out in public when you look your best— Meanwhile the latter, the power to present that look as desirable to large groups, usually applies more to situations where it’s about a whole category of people like an ethnicity that was uplifted as the ideal. Not just in a political or economic dynamic, but discrimination on a systematic level without regard for individual appearance or action.

For example in the former, not all people who wear makeup are rich, and while makeup did historically help signal status, if you’re poor and wear nice makeup you can still touch some of that beneficial association with the beauty standards that makeup helps you attain. In the latter……. Well you get, "no, all elves are good! So the elves who do bad things must be something else!". Where, in trying to have uniform standards for a whole group, you kinda just get erased or othered if you don’t conform to expectations. The elves especially put effort into giving off this air of perfection, which they've successfully made tallmen populations believe. So, for those people, the answer that "But elves are inherently good and beautiful and perfect?" asks, isn't "well elves mustn't be inherently perfect", but instead is "there must be bad ones too, innately too." A similar phenomenon happens with the reverse too, where people will say there are "the good ones" within a group that's seen negatively.

"But Fumi, in this case the difference is purely linguistic and perceived, there’s no visual difference!" Yeah, and there being little visual distinction between two groups has never stopped people from being discriminated tbh. Different types of christians seeing each other as heathwbs for example, or the deep british vs irish hatred that has existed. A tidbit of history I find fascinating was the infamous use of "speak white" from english-speaking canadians against french-speaking canadians especially, because complicated history aside, last century as the business owners the anglophones had the power over the majoritarily francophone working class and a lot of political sway even though they were the minority in the Québec region. There’s a different cultural and ethnic identity there, and language was the most important difference between the two groups- and I suppose the most noticeable one.

The way we as social creatures and social groups categorize people and the groups they form is complex, interesting and very important to our society and the way we approach both the world and social interactions, and that's what leads to discrimination. We decide what’s important and then we decide it’s what people should be judged and distinguished by. Belonging to a group is a show of status, and can be a weaponized both ways, for and against. If you’re not worthy to be an elf, a "good" elf, then you’re not.

Interesting especially because looking at the elf portraits page there seems to be many different cultures within the elf race, so yes "good elf" vs "dark elf" is considered something like a race rather than an ethnicity or culture presumably. There's definitely a "main" elven culture since it seems pretty uniform whenever it's brought up in the adventurer's bible and the story, though, wether the differenr cultures form different communities in different places or live together as one nation. But maybe more treated like a mental illness since it’s acquired, or sometimes slang? It's not completely clear wether it's thought of as fully innate or something learned, a chosen moral failure like sin is, but with how they speak about it they do sound very essentialists, even Chilchuck seems to get a chill considering Marcille could be one. Quoting Kui's lore comic, "There are two kinds of elves, nice holy elves and evil elves bewitched by darkness". It’s just considered like an innate thing that separates them from the concept of elves... 🤔 But this sort of category being vague is often a feature and not a bug, because then they can be a boogeyman to bring up just whenever is convenient, that can fit whoever, like calling a kid a "fairy's child" for whatever behavior in the olden days, because if you don't precise a lot what a dark elf is then it can apply to whoever you see fit, and it doesn't need to be coherent or consistent. The sort of discrimination headspace that leads to the classic fascist "the enemy is both strong and weak" type rethoric.

"Dark elves" is interesting within Dunmeshi because it's about people trying to fully separate elves from the concept of bad and untrustworthy people, even though they look the same. "Elf" isn’t just a beauty standard, it is The ultimate ideal of perfection both in appearance and morality, and if something threatens that perception and reputation it has to get rationalized and compartmentalized. Those are coping mechanisms to avoid having your whole world view challenged or shattered. To tallmen who practically worship elves, it’s a huge deal!! To them that makes it make sense! Some elves are born good and some elves are born evil, simple as! No world view re-examination needed!

So for Marcille for example... It’s interesting because she has an outside view of elven society despite being elven herself. She was raised amongst tallmen, aka the people who idolize elves to this intense degree. It had to have affected her dynamics with others— not unlike the academy students, mostly gnomes and tallmen, who looked up to her as some natural-born genius, even though she did do research and study to get her skills and grades. It also had to affect her relationship with having a role model growing up (having none around except for her mother who pretty much renounced her elven culture, a novel series that sensationalizes and glamorizes elves), her dynamic with being elven itself, because even though she doesn't feel like she fully fits into it she's interested in elven culture, and she herself enforces the beauty standards around elves and acts elitist about it- as seen when tallmen actors playing Daltian Clan opera, when men are very masculine rather than very androgynous like with Laios, having long hair, having no facial or body hair. With this angle, all of this behavior of hers is very "internalized high standards that were my bible to follow growing up and so others must follow them too and these high standards must be worth upholding".

Considering everything, elves being looked up to as a role model in appearance and behavior, plus them having the reputation of being great at magic, and Marcille having grown up amongst mostly tallmen, we start understanding that there was IMMENSE pressure on Marcille to conform to that idea of an elf. She has a lot of pressure and a very high beauty & behavior compass to conform to. She also has an idealist and rigid sense of justice and morals, like how Namari is a heartless traitor for leaving instead of coming along to save Falin, and she needs people to believe she has noooo facial or body hair. She probably WAS afraid of being seen as a dark elf, aka fundamentally evil, for her dark magic research. You don't want to be a letdown, do you? You don't want to be the ugliest elf, do you? You don't want to be a dark elf, do you? You don't want to be one of the bad ones.

Shave your facial hair and deny you have any body hair. Take care of elven traditions like hair-braiding and have pride. Be the kind, smartest model student. Do magic by the book. Never do dark magic. Ah shit-

And so she hid the domain of her research, and so she hid being a half-elf.

[creekfiend]

big fat moth very angery at me. look at its little FACE

[canisalbus]

If your still undecided about what modern au Machete would have as a job, I would like to nominate him as a niche fashion model. Not like a popular celebrity, because he's not conventionally attractive, but he has that aura. He can Walk (in heels!!!)

I want to give him an excuse to wear all different kinds of fancy clothes, basically. He deserves to be dressed to the nines and glare down at an audience from the runway.

.

[sciderman]

Do any of the boys wear jewelry?

Wade seems like the type to have those grandma box full of jewelry but Peter would probably have one pair of earrings for the occasion?? 

they're too broke for any kind of jewellery save for the edible kind

[lollytea]

I need to watch Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure to reach my final conclusion on if she's even attracted to men

[utilitycaster]

I have this on my mind due to Midst/Unend especially, but also for both TLOVM and Critical Role and what I've heard from friends about Dragon Age and the media landscape at large and I think a really interesting challenge is that sequels and adaptations are not inherently bad as concepts. I love a massive doorstopper fantasy epic series as much if not more as the next person. I think the problem is that a lot of fans do just want The Same Story But Again, which is an ever diminishing return; but also telling a new story does not guarantee the new story is any good either.

I also think that modern fandom has prioritized a very blorbo/shipping-centric model of enjoying fiction, and so while I personally think a lot of the most successful continuations of a series are new stories in a beloved world, the blorbo/ship crowd doesn't handle this well because their blorbo or ship is no longer a central focus of the new story. And in Midst/Unend in particular, I think the fandom's been quieter in part just because it's early days and we're getting our footing, but also it is genuinely an extremely different kind of story. It's a great story, but if you were attracted to the original because it can be made to fit in a roughly Uwu Messy Sad Blorbo model (even though it is much more than that, obviously, as witnessed by the fact that it's good), an adventure/exploration story that does not have that same initial character-driven focus does not fit that same category.

Anyway: I think it can be difficult to separate out the cries of "ugh it's just more of the same", "noooo it's NOT the same", and genuine critical analysis of the story in ongoing, multi-part narratives and it requires a lot of confidence in your own abilities without constantly falling to whoever in fandom is yelling at you the most; I don't think the structure of modern fandom makes it impossible, but the Please Please Validate Me culture is certainly a detriment to this analysis. Anyway I think the point of all of this is to understand why you like something. You don't have to be able to articulate it to enjoy it! But if you can't, then don't try to analyze.

[dreamyren]

Quartz and everyone's favorite tressym, Slobberchops!!

[mariocki]

Jacqueline Pearce guest stars as fashion model Leonie Peters, but it could be she's mixed up in bank robbery and murder in New Scotland Yard: The Banker (1.10, LWT, 1972)

[girderednerve]

i installed open video downloader, a FLOSS utility for ripping youtube videos, which is such an easy to use & convenient program, & it reminded me of the campaign i went on (completely unsuccessfully) a couple years ago to get clickless mouse added to the patron computers in my public library, because i had watched multiple older adults struggle immensely to double-click on our computers, went looking for an easy solution for them, & found that someone had already thoughtfully written an elegant & adaptable little program, initially intended as an accessibility tool for a particular friend of theirs. this is why i love FLOSS projects so much: they're usually personal passion projects, at least at the outset, & they reflect such powerfully pro-social values that even when they have nothing to offer me in particular i am delighted by them. thank u to all FLOSS devs <3

[articwolfclawartist]

Bit of a shame that OCD gets categorized as the “neat freak” disorder when the stronger cases are basically a (slightly) less intense version of schizophrenia

Or how ADHD seems to be treated as the “hyper focused” and “unable to sit still” disorder when its rather about repetitive memory loss and the feeling that your insides are constantly exploding

I feel most people these days understand autism a lot better but its siblings get heavily misunderstood. Did you know OCD is an anxiety disorder? Did you know ADHD can cause severe meltdowns? You should.

[weepylucifer]

i wanna write a post abt how sad the crab man is, but my brain is so full of thoughts idk where to start

[creekfiend]

I had a dog as a kid, who would kiss me enthusiastically whenever I laughed, and it took me years to stop covering my face with my hands (I love dogs but dog tongue in the mouth is not good)

My current dog gets all wiggly when I laugh, which is adorable

oh yeah Glimmer broadcasts her intentions very obviously so you always have time to prepare yourself to avoid Dog Tongue. which is considerate of her I think

[scarlett-bitch69]

Elegance is the only beauty that never fades. 🌹 ✨ 💋