Month: March 2021

chaotic-carnifex:You know, if I had to describe my experience as an aromantic in one word, I think…

chaotic-carnifex:

You know, if I had to describe my experience as an aromantic in one word, I think I’d go with “alienating”. Let me explain:

Imagine you’re aro and watching TV. There some kind of SciFi show on and they are debating the personhood of an AI.

The AI shows curiosity and a thirst for knowledge. They have desires. They have strengths and weaknesses. None of this convinces the doubters.

The AI makes friends. They take up hobbies. They talk about their hopes and dreams for the future. Surely this is enough to relate to them as a person? It’s not.

The AI is shown to fall in love. This is framed as the ultimate proof, the one thing that must humanize them even to the staunchest denier of their personhood or else that person is irredeemable.

You change the channel.

There’s a children’s cartoon on. “What is this?!” the villain cries, pointing at a couple. Their inability to understand the romantic love between those two is framed as stemming from the fact that somebody so deeply evil simply cannot understand something as pure and good as romantic love.

You change the channel.

There’s a sitcom on. Two characters are discussing a third character. “He’s really not that weird,” says one character. “He hasn’t been in a relationship for [x] years!” the other refutes. Cue the laugh track. The implication is clear: If he’s not in a relationship, it must be because he’s too weird.

You change the channel.

There’s a Christmas movie on. The main character is a successful businesswoman. She’s shown talking to her friends and family regularly. “You need a man,” her mother says as they bake together. The daughter denies this. The rest of the movie is all about proving the mother right, as suddenly her career, her friends and her family are framed as not being enough for her to lead a fulfilling life.

You change the channel.

It’s some show aimed at young teens and tweens. “Ew,” one character comments as the idea of them having a significant other one day is brought up. This is treated as a sign of their immaturity.

You turn off the TV.

Your experiences aren’t enough to humanize a non-human character. You’re the villain. You’re a weirdo. Your life is incomplete. You’re immature.

You’re tired.

There’s a reason it was an aro who coined the term voidpunk.

“Fairy tales are women’s tales. They’re bent-backed crones’ tales, sly gossips’ tales, work-worn…”

“Fairy tales are women’s tales. They’re bent-backed crones’ tales, sly gossips’ tales, work-worn mothers’ tales and old wives’ tales. They’re stories shared, repeated and elaborated on over mindless women’s work like spinning or mending or shucking corn. These stories are the voices of those who were, within a social and cultural context, so often voiceless; they’re women’s whispered desires and fears, neatly wrapped up in fantastical narratives filled with sex, violence and humour. Fairy tales speak of the things that women most hoped for – a prince, a castle, a happy ending – and those that they were most afraid of – that their children would be taken from them, that men would hurt them or take advantage of them, that their family wouldn’t be provided for.”

- Anne Thériault, “Fairy Tales Are Women’s Tales”, pub. in The Toast.

hornedchick: Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig….

hornedchick:

Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.”

vanessagillings: vanessagillings: I was so honored to join the…



vanessagillings:

vanessagillings:

I was so honored to join the Pixar Dream Destinations show opening today at Gallery Nucleus!  Here’s my piece for the witch’s cottage from Brave – it’s available for sale here.

Exciting news, everyone!  You asked and Disney listened: this piece is now available as a limited edition of 50 prints @gallerynucleus (available for purchase here)!  Thank you so much for your support, it means the world! 💛

How to start a war between fans of the Arthurian legends:

professorerudite:

morgauseoforkney:

Ask them what they think the single most important factor was in the fall of the Round Table.

I could go on about this for ages and I’d rather just link you to my book… but that would be self-serving. Instead, I’d just casually mention that the fall of the Round Table is the chivalric ideal itself.

After the wars are won, the Table Knights fall into what T.H. White refers to as ‘games mania.’ They have nothing to fight for because the wars are over and the knights inevitably begin to fight each other. The battle against Mordred could have been against anyone. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s Arthur’s inbred son, jealousy amongst the knights, the Lancelot/Guinevere affair–which is of later tradition–or any of that; eventually, someone would prevent the eternal peace of Arthur’s kingdom because we, as humans, are flawed. The chivalric ideal is a concept that cannot be maintained without an outlet for the knights’ inherent violence and the imperfection of human nature.

“The Dark and Middle Ages! The Nineteenth Century had an impudent way with its labels. For there,…”

“The Dark and Middle Ages! The Nineteenth Century had an impudent way with its labels. For there, under the window in Arthur’s Gramarye, the sun’s rays flamed from a hundred jewels of stained glass in monasteries and convents or danced from the pinnacles of cathedrals and castles, which their builders had actually loved. […] Did you know that in these dark ages which were visible from Guenever’s window, there was so much decency in the world that the Catholic Church could impose a peace to all their fighting - which it called The Truce of God - and which lasted from Wednesday to Monday, as well as during the whole of Advent and Lent? Do you think that they, with their Battles, Famine, Black Death and Serfdom, were less enlightened than we are, with our Wars, Blockade, Influenza and Conscription? Even if they were foolish enough to believe that the earth was the centre of the universe, do we not ourselves believe that man is the fine flower of creation? If it takes a million years for a fish to become a reptile, has man, in our few hundred, altered out of recognition?”

- T.H. White, The Once and Future King.

Happy St Patrick’s DayRemembering the St Patrick’s Battalion, “Composed primarily…

Happy St Patrick’s Day

Remembering the St Patrick’s Battalion,

“Composed primarily of Catholic Irish immigrants, the battalion also included Germans, Canadians, English, French, Italians, Poles, Scots,  Spaniards, Swiss, and Mexicans, many of whom were also members of the Catholic Church.[2] Disenfranchised Americans were in the ranks, including escaped slaves from the Southern United States.[3] ”

—Wikipedia: St Patricks Battalion

Lyrics

“My name is John Riley

I’ll have your ear only a while

I left my dear home in Ireland

It was death, starvation or exile

And when I got to America

It was my duty to go

Enter the Army and slog across Texas

To join in the war against Mexico


"It was there in the pueblos and hillsides

That I saw the mistake I had made

Part of a conquering army

With the morals of a bayonet blade

So in the midst of these poor, dying Catholics

Screaming children, the burning stench of it all

Myself and two hundred Irishmen

Decided to rise to the call


"From Dublin City to San Diego

We witnessed freedom denied

So we formed the Saint Patrick Battalion

And we fought on the Mexican side


"We marched ‘neath the green flag of Saint Patrick

Emblazoned with "Erin Go Bragh”

Bright with the harp and the shamrock

And “Libertad para la República”

Just fifty years after Wolftone

Five thousand miles away

The Yanks called us a Legion of Strangers

And they can talk as they may


“From Dublin City to San Diego

We witnessed freedom denied

So we formed the Saint Patrick Battalion

And we fought on the Mexican side


"We fought them in Matamoros

Where their volunteers were raping the nuns

In Monterey and Cerro Gordo

We fought on as Ireland’s sons

We were the red-headed fighters for freedom

Amidst these brown-skinned women and men

Side by side we fought against tyranny

And I daresay we’d do it again


"From Dublin City to San Diego

We witnessed freedom denied

So we formed the Saint Patrick Battalion

And we fought on the Mexican side


"We fought them in five major battles

Churubusco was the last

Overwhelmed by the cannons from Boston

We fell after each mortar blast

Most of us died on that hillside

In the service of the Mexican state

So far from our occupied homeland

We were heroes and victims of fate


"From Dublin City to San Diego

We witnessed freedom denied

So we formed the Saint Patrick Battalion

And we fought on the Mexican side.”

— St Patrick Battalion (David Rovics)