rambling-wanders

[rambling-wanders]

OK OK ONE MORE - Introducing more uses for nautilus shells, new decorations and (specifically harp) seals!

[rambling-wanders]

The Glory is hilarious because you have Moon Dong-eun who, while she gets her revenge, never kills anyone. She encourages others to murder, but never kills anyone herself.

Then we have Joo Yeo-jeong who has a whole scene fantasizing about killing his father's murderer, and while the show ends with his revenge just starting, he never kills anyone in the show either.

Then you have Ha Do-yeong, straight-laced father and businessman who didn't hesitate to kill a man who was harassing his daughter.

Like, of the three of them the two you think would have killed someone didn't, and the one guy you wouldn't suspect has. I love it for them, honestly.

[rambling-wanders]

also please check out scavengers reign, I love these two so much it physically hurts me

[rambling-wanders]

So one day a dwarf is talking to a human and finally realizes that when humans say woman, they generally mean “person who is theoretically capable of childbirth” because for whatever reason, humans assign social expectations based genital differences. (What a fucked up culture, the dwarf thinks.) But hey, better communication! So the next time the dwarf introduces theirself, they say, oh, by the way, I am what you call a “woman.”

And the trade negotiations just stop. They just stop cold. The tall people insist on speaking to the man, they insist on talking to the lady dwarf about all sorts of irrelevant bullshit, like recipes and childrearing and perfume

so the dwarf goes back home, enraged

and is like “BTW guess what happened, we’re all just going to be men forever now as far as the tall ones are concerned”

and everyone is justly horrified at this barbarism but they all agree to do whatever  it takes to squeeze those tall bastards for all the resources they are worth

and the dwarves get surlier, and the trade agreements less generous

and the tall people are all “what a miserable and greedy race”

but really they’re just still nursing a grudge about how goddamn backwards and sexist the tall people are

because their best negotiator, one of their sacred cave people, got snubbed the instant she said she was capable of childbirth - and a mortal insult like that can never be forgiven

[rambling-wanders]

Way way back I drew a comic explaining what we really mean by ‘The Autism Spectrum’ and posted it here back when Tumblr was Huge. Then the comic really blew up!! Last year I did a remake of the comic, with some updated language, and using Mia, a character from a graphic novel I made. Figured I’d share for Autism Acceptance Month!

[rambling-wanders]

Me: I should write something

me : … or I could spent 78 hours straight making a miniature library with a working LED chandelier

[rambling-wanders]

𝐎𝐦𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐧!☀️

[rambling-wanders]

⚠️ spoilers for The Poppy War ⚠️

I just finished reading R.F Kuang’s The Poppy War and I am disappointed.

The first half of the book, before the aftermath of the siege on Sinegard, was an excellent peasant girl through force of will gets a place at the elite school where she has to struggle to succeed, but from there it goes downhill.

There are a few aspects I take issue with (Rin’s lack of character development, abandoned plot lines with Venca, Rin’s crush on Altan…) but what absolutely ruined it for me was Rin literally murdering all of the people on “Mugen” aka Japan. Literally tens of millions of people, if you consult Japan’s population during the Second Sino-Japanese War. I looked at the summaries for the sequels, expecting to see a protagonist shift, where we now follow along as a new protagonist has to take down Rin, who’s morphed into an unrecognizable villain (which would be so cool), but instead we’re supposed to root for this genocidal maniac? I know it’s art, and it’s an exploration of dark themes, but it just makes for un engaging material if you’re not invested in the protagonist’s success.

The second issue, that was troubling me from the first page, is the choice to change all the historical names. The Poppy War is obviously set in China, revolving around the aftermath of the Opium Wars and the progress of the Second Sino-Japanese war. However, instead of making this into a really cool historical fiction/ fantasy story, Kuang decides to change all the names. For example, the “Poppy Wars” are the Opium Wars, the “Nikara Empire” is China, ext. Unfortunately, this goes from an annoying trope, to seriously disturbing with the events of “Golyn Niis.”

In the second half of the book, our protagonists discover that the “Mugen” (Japanese) army had attacked the southern war time capitol, “Golyn Niis” (Nanjing). Then, the book goes into gruesome detail into the events that transpired there. The only issue is, this was a real tragedy, the Nanjing Massacre.

⚠️ Content Warning: mention of sexual violence ⚠️

This massacre, also knows as the Rape of Nanjing, was a horrible infliction of war crimes on the civilian population, something that Japan still minimizes to this day. An estimated 200,000 people lost their lives and at least 20,000 were raped over the course of 6 weeks.

In my opinion, it does not sit well to fictionalize this real life tragedy, to give it another name, and still go into such gruesome detail of the atrocities committed by the Japanese army. I am incredibly concerned that readers would assume something this horrible could not have historical background. Instead of respecting the thousands of lost or ruined lives, The Poppy War benefits from the shock-factor and does nothing else.

In addition to the Nanjing Massacre, the Poppy War also touches on Unit 731.

⚠️Content warning: mention of torture ⚠️

Another real war crime commited against the Chinese people by the Japanese army, Unit 731 was a unit of the Japanese army that experimented on Chinese civilians to develop biological and chemical warfare. The unit killed an estimated 250,000 people.

———————end of content warnings

In all, I think that in trying to explore dark themes and the psychology of the antihero, the Poppy War unknowingly profits of real atrocities committed against the Chinese people, without even naming the events.

#the poppy war #spoiler warning #content warning sexual assault #content warning torture #china #the nanjing massacre #unit 731 #war crimes #fantasy #historical fiction

[rambling-wanders]

“we’re not catholic here” [this post]

idk who needs to hear this rn but suffering is not noble. take the tylenol

[rambling-wanders]

[rambling-wanders]

tumblr being all adults nowadays is so funny because my mutuals are either unemployed chainsmokers or Ezra, Bioengineering PHD Candidate at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

[rambling-wanders]

i love when they draw a carrot on top of the carrot cake just to remind you this aint no ordinary fuckin cake youre dealing with

[rambling-wanders]

Dandelions have a symbiotic relationship with little kids who make wishes

[rambling-wanders]

The ICWA is not a hypothetical. So many Native people have lost aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings to the foster system. So many people Native people are disconnected from their cultures and tribes because their parents or grandparents were stolen from their families. So many Native people, even under the ICWA, were removed from their families and placed into foster care.

So many children today, right now, are being removed from their families, tribes, and cultures.

All it takes is one generation to kill a community, to kill a culture. We've lived through this before. We're still living through this now. We know firsthand what it means to lose our children and we know what will happen to us, to our families and our tribes and our cultures and our bonds with each other, if the removal of indigenous children from their families becomes the law of the land again.

[rambling-wanders]

i went to a tiny counterserve diner once and accidentally poured sugar instead of salt all over my hashbrowns and was eating them sadly anyways. the waitress took them away and started making me another one and I tried to protest, but she just snorted and said "we're not catholic here". now every time i'm doing something painful out of obligation i think about how that is not repenting, this body is not a catholic establishment, there is no nobility in suffering.

[rambling-wanders]

strawberry snake

[rambling-wanders]

#i love this #but the caption lololol