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ghostlykeyes · 6 months

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Hear me out

Grunge bf kayn with a hyper feminine gf , like his gf loves sanrio and cute stuff 🫢🫢🫢

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HEARTSTEEL KAYN: ULTRA-CUTE PARTNER HEADCANONS ♡ Gender Neutral ♡ SFW ♡ No TWs ♡ I am so fucking rabid for the idea of this combo...demon bf/ hello kitty reader SUPREMACY

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KAYN

At first, the pairing confuses people, but those that see you and Kayn together recognize that somehow you just work. You soften Kayn's sharp edges in a way that he only lets those closest to him see, and Kayn helps highlight the fact that even though you look innocent and soft, there's more to you than that.

Both you and Kayn recognize how much work it can be to curate and present an aesthetic. That's part of what helps you two mesh so well, even though on the surface, you're entirely different. There's a mutual respect for the other, stemming from understanding.

Though he keeps them stashed in a bathroom drawer, Kayn's got a matching set of soft bunny-ear headbands for when you sleep over. Usually he just bobby-pins his hair back to wash his face, but when you're there, he'll pull out the cute headbands so you can match during your morning/night-time routine. For the sake of his image, please, please don't ever show anyone your bunny-eared, spa-masked selfies.

Kayn has you saved as 'prince/princess' in his phone. Fitting, since you're the patron saint of all things cute and soft, no?

The guys tease him whenever they catch Kayn with your things around the apartment, like when he's washing your pink Starbucks cups or pulling your cinnamoroll pajama pants out of the dryer. "Changing your look, Kayn?" They'll smirk, but he just rolls his eyes and sneers. "It's (y/n)'s, obviously," he bites. He's not really embarrassed, though—truth be told, he loves the way your life has leaked into his enough for others to notice. Besides, those nerds are probably just jealous that he bagged such a fucking perfect cute pastel angel.

Obviously, Kuromi is Kayn's favorite, if he has to pick one. You won him a little Kuromi figure from a claw machine, once, and he actually keeps it on top of his dresser, in full view for everyone to see. (It's probably the cutest thing he owns, and though he might not admit it, he fucking treasures that little figurine.) He sometimes says he's your Kuromi, though not usually in earshot of others. The similarities are uncanny—a proclivity for black, a tendency for mischief—they even have almost the same birthday!

Whenever you're in his room, Kayn sets his LED strip lights to pink for you.

If Kayn's going to be gone for awhile, touring and the like, he always gifts you a Calico Critters set the night before he leaves. "Try to take good care of them, yeah?" He smirks. "I don't wanna come back to the mouse family in the middle of a custody battle."

Kayn stashes a plushie in his underwear drawer, so you'll always have something to snuggle with when you stay with him (besides him, of course).

The visual contrast when Kayn lets you borrow a hoodie or jacket is nothing short of jarring. Here you are, this adorable thing in Mary Janes and a pastel skirt, sporting a bleach-dyed hoodie with a death metal logo. Kayn, of course, thinks the contrast is fucking adorable.

Kayn gently teases you about your bedroom—"I didn't even know this many pink things existed," he'll say"— but the truth is, he loves being in there with you. The softness makes him feel totally surrounded by you. It's gentle. Safe, even. Drinking from Sanrio glasses and slipping underneath a strawberry-printed comforter to spoon you may not be his usual style, but you make it feel so natural. (Sleeping in your bed, though? Kayn doesn't love that as much. He moves around in his sleep enough as is, but now he's got to worry about accidentally shoving your favorite Hello Kitty off the bed? Not fun.)

Kayn's favorite cutesy thing to buy you is sleepwear. Those pastel, soft-fabric cami and sleep shorts combos? Fucking delicious. There's at least three sets of your pajamas stashed in his PJ drawer, and Kayn bought all of them.

#Kayn #Heartsteel Kayn #Kayn/reader #Kayn x reader #heartsteel x reader #Heartsteel #Kayn headcanons #Heartsteel headcanons #Heartsteel/ reader #this pairing is burrowing into my brain and making a home like parasitic worms #I love

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chefkids · 2 months

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Wondering if you have any thoughts on the symbolism of “our mother of victory” line between the siblings. Not sure if it has any meaning behind just reflecting their (probably) catholic upbringing, but I don’t trust anything in this show to not have further meaning so wondering what smarter minds out there mean…

Our Mother of Victory, Pray for Us

The root of this is in the saying Our Lady of Victory, Pray for Us, which comes from a battle that the Catholics won against the Ottoman Turks. It is often used as a prayer before big event, Notre Dame football team says it before football games for good luck. Adding mother instead of Lady places their mother, Donna, in comparison to a literal Saint, the Virgin Mary. Which is ironic and part of their inside joke because as we know she is far from a Saint.

But I actually think this is a reference to a John Hughes movie called The Great Outdoors, a movie about bear attacks believe it or not. In the opening scene the say Our Lady of Victory, Pray for Us.

We already know Chris Storer has said Hughes movies are a big source of inspiration, specifically in season 2. He included songs from movies like Pretty in Pink, National Lampoons Vacation, and he even gave Kevin McCalliper McCallister from Home Alone a shout out.

Yes. Even more Bears and Fish. So bear with me.

The Great Outdoors is about a family from Chicago that goes on a trip to a cabin and the mother's sister and her husband, who they don't really get along with, invite themselves on the trip. At the start of the movie the dad tells them all a scary story about a man eating bear that he saw through the window and shot at but is still on the loose.

The Bear also starts off with a man going face to face with a bear. The bulk of the movie is about the two families not getting along, but by the end of it, the mythological bear appears and chases them into their cabin and attacks them, but they end up scaring it away and then they all get along and things work out between them.

The first Bear attack after their prayer was with Mikey and Donna

The second Bear attack was with Carmy

But this time, they were actually victorious. Because of Sydney. She managed to get the Bear away from them so they could keep going.

She is their miracle. Right before Sydney ever appeared there was a Virgin Mary figure. Sydney is always portrayed like Mary with light behind her, even with her hair always covered and in blue and white. Mikey is viewed as a Jesus like figure, he died so that they could all fix their sins and the restaurant. He is this ghostly figure whose memory is everywhere. Sydney and Mikey tied together, and she is the one that takes on his last words. Let it rip.

Carmy views Syd as a miracle, he could barely even look at her when he said it. Finding the money in the tomato cans was a miracle, it allowed her to come back and be with him. Her coming to work for him in the first place was a miracle, she came in at the perfect time when he needed her the most. Their Mother of Victory was not their mother at all, but Sydney.

#the bear #the bear meta #sydcarmy #sydney adamu #carmen berzatto #the bear fx #john hughes #the great outdoors

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biceratops7 · 11 months

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*Wakes up in a cold sweat*

Ed and Stede give eachother exactly what they need. It’s the way Ed looks at Stede and the way Stede says Ed’s name. They share these rituals together in a way neither dreamed possible.

There is a running visual motif of Stede being looked at. In these moments we’re placed (literally, talking about the camera here) in his point of view, where we can feel how… confronting it all is for him. His father glaring down at him with dissatisfaction that’s long since boiled into anger. His wife staring at him in an awkward silence like the frustration of being lost in emotional translation isn’t even worth a comment anymore. Nigel’s mocking gaze, Izzy’s calculated focus, It’s all to make you feel how unflinchingly exposed he is… but not vulnerable. He doesn’t get that because in order to be so you need to be understood. Stede lives with all eyes on him, but is not seen.

Then there’s Edward, who essentially has the same crushing issue but with a different presentation. His motif is his name, and what the other characters choose to call him is indicative of if they know him, or just know of him. Blackbeard is what he answers to most, but it’s not something he identifies with in the present, at best he has a very complicated relationship with the person that name represents. The greatest sailor who ever lived, the devil pYrate, a persona he perfected that has flown to the tallest mountains dragging Ed behind him. The only characters that call him Ed/ Edward unprompted or unironically are Stede, and interestingly… Izzy. We’ll come back to that later.

Now here comes Ed, sauntering out of the hell fire and into Stede’s life like the patron Saint of leather daddies. And here we see that same familiar pov shot, and boy does Ed fucking LOOK at him. The last sight Stede sees before he conks the fuck out is this beautiful man who’s heard so much about him at his… well, Stede-iest, and is gazing at him like the loveliest thing in the world right now would be to know him even more. Ed’s heart eyes are no joke, they’re famous for a reason. Each time he looks at Stede, it is giving, it is wanting, it is a deliberate act of love.

Of course in the same sense Stede fills the hole in Ed’s life as well (not that one shut up), the desire not to be revered, but beloved, known. To just be… Edward.

Stede used to have no noteworthy opinion on the matter of Blackbeard, enthralled by the legends as anyone else… until he met him, saw this kind and excitable man who loved all the things everyone else found silly. And suddenly now it’s none of his business. Stede doesn’t push, gets offended when information is revealed to him without Ed’s consent. He treasures all the ways he can get to know Ed, and holds space for whenever he can’t. He still admires Blackbeard sure, but only because he’s one of many facets that create someone far more interesting: Edward. From Stede, Ed’s real name is spoken with love, playfulness, simple familiarity, returning the warmth of the way Ed looks at him like another fine thing he deserves. Even when he’s not actually around to hear it, the natural thought process in Stede remains.

I think it adds nuance and depth to each relationship that this is presented in foil with Izzy, because Izzy uses Ed’s real name as a commodity. It has value only as a threshold of hierarchy for Blackbeard’s inner circle, which as the previously sole member, Izzy is preoccupied with keeping exclusive. He’s possessive of a concept, and the more he learns just how different “Ed” is from it, the more the simple notion of Ed becomes ridiculous. Though both call him “Edward”, it’s only Stede that does so as an unconscious demonstration that he accepts Ed’s autonomy of personhood and is adoring of whomever that is.

The last time we hear Izzy say “Edward”, it’s mocking. To him the name now only represents the pitiful death of a greater ideal “Ed” decidedly is not. The last time Stede says it, it’s when he’s confessing to Mary that he loves him. One instance treats Ed’s name as a mask of his true self, and an inferior one at that, and the other is quite literally revealing.

The image he holds when he tells Mary he’s in love is Edward looking up at him smiling, breaking bread, completely un-pedestaled and joyful to be so. And Stede knows understanding now, being wanted, vulnerability, comfort. He calls those all Ed.

#our flag means death #ofmd #stede bonnet #edward teach #blackbonnet #gentlebeard #meta #analysis #episode 10 #biceratops

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invisible-pink-toast · 1 month

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web-weaving: sapphic christians + love between women being holy

Sappho (attributed) / Gonzalo Orquin / Zolita “Holy” / Kelly Latimore “Ruth and Naomi” / The Bible “Ruth 1: 16-18” / tumblr user: thebichristian / AMES “Hymn For Her” / Warrior Nun / Yellowjackets / God Friended Me / The Expanse / Kittredge Cherry “Brigid and Darlughdach: Celtic saint loved her female soulmate” / Angela Yarber “Perpetua and Felicity” / Alice Walker “The Color Purple” / The Color Purple (1985) / Kittredge Cherry “The Two Rebeccas: Queer black pair founded Shaker religious community in 1800s” / As/Is “Can You Be A Queer Christian? • In The Closet” / Felix d’Eon “Sor Juana and the Countess” (Sor Juana y la Virreina) / The Bible “1 Corinthians 15:10” / Fly View Productions “Couple kiss during wedding ceremony in church stock photo” / Joe Mikos Photography “Cape Cod Wedding With Chinese and Italian Elements” / Sabrina Lee “A Perfect Rainbow on our Wedding Day” / Javicia Leslie “Actress Javicia Leslie says ‘God Friended Me’ isn’t a religious show. It’s about human connection.” / Zolita “Bedspell” album cover / Mary Lambert “She Keeps Me Warm” / Galawdewos “The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros: A 17th-Century African Biography of an Ethiopian Woman” / Maria Cristina “Felicity and Perpetua: Patrons of Same-Sex Couples”

bonus+

#christianity #christian #sapphic #wlw #lesbian #queer #lgbtq #gay christian #my post #web weaving #webweaving #religion #ruth and naomi #the color purple #qspirit

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centuriespast · 3 days

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Saint Mary Magdalene at the Sepulchre about 1530s Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo (Italian, (Lombard), active 1506 - about 1548) On view at Getty Center, Museum North Pavilion, Gallery N205

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niallhoranhasthat1thing · 6 months

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I just finished watching All The Light We Cannot See and I need to rant cause I’m loosing my damn mind.

First off, they took the character names and minor plot points and created their own story with them so at that point just crest something else and if you cannot handle showing the nuance of Werner’s character then you are not the right person to adapt this.

This is going to be filled with spoilers so be warned now.

Werner is a German boy who lives in an orphanage with his younger sister and one day he stumbles upon a radio and falls in love with it. He fixes it and him and his sister Jutta start learning about science and what Germany is actually doing by listing to a French broadcast. Two boys in his orphanage join the Hitler youth and Werner scared for his and Juttas safety destroys the radio which leaves Jutta furious with him. But it’s already too late. His entire town knows how capable he is with a radio and the nazis come for him to put him in a school. Werner who is very much living in a fantasy world in his head believes he will go to this school and will learn and learn and learn and by the time his finishes the war will have been lost and he will never have to contribute to anything, he may even win a noble prize. Jutta still furious with him has this conversation with him

and that’s the last time she ever sees her brother. Werner leaves willingly and you as the reader understand why, you know that if he were to refuse but him and his sister would be killed. You understand it and you even justify it.

Once at the school he meets Frederick and you instantly don’t want to like any of those other boys because they’re not like Werner, he’s there without having a choice. But you learn that Frederick is there only because his father is a high ranked nazi and his mother is waiting for the Jew up above them to be taken away so they can get the top apartment and they made sure he got into the school despite not being able to pass the tests to get in. One night the boys at the school are sent outside in the cold winter to torture a prisoner with cold buckets of water. When it’s Werner’s turn, he does it despite not wanting to and you understand it. He doesn’t have a choice. He would be killed if he refused. Once it’s Fredericks turn he refuses to throw the water. He’s beat and beat and beat. Everyday he is beaten worse and worse until he gets brain damage. Frederick had a choice. He chose the possibility of dying over throwing away his morals. Werner didn’t do that. Because of that your views on Werner begin to change.

Werner ends up going into the field to find illegal radio broadcasts, and while he himself never kills anyone he is directly responsible for many deaths. He ends up being sent to Saint-Malo to find Marie-Laure and her uncle and tracks them down instantly and upon seeing her he decides he’s not going to turn them in. To speed this along Werner ends up saving her life during the siege and they spend a few hours together where in his head he creates this fantasy of them living happily ever after which is juxtaposed with Marie-Laure allowing this German boy to wear her uncles clothes but knowing damn well that he’s not going to be able to hide his German accent. They part ways with Marie-Laure not giving him a second thought because she only wants to go find her uncle. Werner ends up dying a few days later.

You then go over to Jutta who along with the other girls form the orphanage have been sent to Russia to help the war efforts and when Germany looses the Russians take it out on the German women. She learns of Werner’s death and it doesn’t phase her. You fast forward to the 70s and Jutta is a married math teacher with a son, who is so deeply embarrassed and ashamed of her brother. A German man shows up at her door once day with a bad of her brothers belongings and it takes her weeks to open it. Upon opening it she finds the very notebook she had sent Werner to remind him of who he was. She opens it and is reminded of her brother’s innocence and decides along with her son that she is going to go to France to find out what happened to Werner. Jutta eventually finds Marie-Laure and her first thought upon seeing her is that her brother hurt her. Through the conversation Jutta is finally able to mourn her brother and realizes that it’s a lot more than bad vs good. But Marie-Laure is still conflicted with her thoughts on the German boy who saved her life. He doesn’t fit on either sides of the war.

You then jump to 2014 where Marie-Laure finally comes to terms with her thoughts on Werner.

Jutta and Marie-Laure’s feelings on Werner are also the readers feelings on him. The show completely stripped those feelings away. Werner in the show is a perfect human being and everyone forgives him within minutes of meeting him. Marie-Laure even kisses him and then fears for his life and wants to sneak him out of the city and meet up later so that they can spend their lives together.

Werner is such a complex character who you are so desperately rooting for while also feeling completely torn on him. The show is not willing to crest that conversation and beats you over the head with how good of a person Werner is, they rip Juttas character apart in order to make Werner more likable.

I don’t understand how this was made the way it was, I’m honestly still in shock. I had to laugh multiple times through out watching. I knew this show was in trouble as soon as I seen it was only 4 episodes. I hope one day this book gets a second chance and is made by people who understand the material.

#all the light we cannot see

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flishlish · 7 months

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I'm almost done season one and I cannot stop thinking about the fact Darryl Wilson goes to confession weekly. As someone who grew up in a middle class white catholic family, this changes everything about how I view this man.

For one that is like seriously devout. He would have a a flask of holy water in his glove box. There should be a saint Christopher medal in the odyssey. He would say his 3 hail marys any time they drove anywhere. There's a high chance he has an in memorial card from his dad funeral in that car too. He probably goes to wednesday mass with the little old ladies. This is a guy who invites his parish priest to family BBQs. He has prayed to st anthony over lost tv remotes. Shocked this man is not a paladin.

For two, that man is mentally ill if he feels he has that much to confess. There is no way his priest has not told him to go to therapy. If he hasn't taken that advice it's because he's hard core bottling things up. At least he's getting some of it out by talking to a priest about it I guess?

#darryl wilson #dndads

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iamafanofcartoons · 1 year

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We need to address how media, and media critics, portray female characters poorly. What can be done about it? What are examples of media works that portray complex female characters well? What are writing tips for people trying to write complex female characters? Why do media critics hate on women?

Its just something I noticed.

Male writers drop the ball with female characters all the time. They'll give the men all the good lines but women get weak roles and no sense of humor. When we complain they then make a female character who has too many boyfriends and too much ego and too much power but no resourcefulness, or she's super powerful but still needs a man to save her, and of course they make her complain about everything and fight with everyone who helps her. I could go on and on.

A lot of people are incapable of viewing female characters as anything other than an innocent saint or a portrait of pure evil. Arguably the best characters are morally ambiguous ones who live in the gray area between good and evil, but women are much less often afforded that distinction than their male counterparts.

I'm been having a huge problem connecting to media. The only women around are very young or very old and their main defining feature is usually motherhood. If a woman my age exists who isn't a mom she's usually either obsessed with men or desperate to have a baby (or will be once the right dude comes along).

Fanfiction has great female characters , but you keep running into people who will only write a complex woman who's tied to a male main character.

Michael Burnham from Star Trek: Discovery . POC Female Protagonist. You probably have heard or seen a lot of hatred against.

Korra from The Legend Of Korra. Sequel Series to ATLA. POC Female Protagonist. Despite losing fights and suffering extreme trauma and making mistakes, critics passionately bash the show, calling her a Mary-Sue, and accusing the show of being Protagonist-Centered Morality.

A lot of the time if there is a military high ranking female character or just female leader that is masculine or butch she will be the villain to be defeated by the traditionally feminine or at least more feminine heroine/love interest of the hero. I hate this because it basically implies that a woman can only be good if she’s conventionally attractive or a love interest. It’s saying being butch is bad/evil.

Even movies trying to be feminist, like “Contact” which I had to watch for homework? With Jodie Foster from the 1990s told the brilliant, focused woman scientist to not be so “confrontational” (as two male characters stole credit for her work right after they stole her funding) and to be happy with “small moves.” They continued to pat her on the head and tell her to be quiet through the whole movie. The one time she even spoke to another woman was to ask where she could find a really pretty dress. This was supposed to show growth in her character arc.

If I recall correctly, one of the playable characters in the next release of the grand theft auto series is gonna be a women. People online were flipping out over this saying they are being too "woke", among other things. Its funny to me because there has been 5 gta games with only male protagonists, and now there's 1 female in it and suddenly its a problem. Its like these people think there are only 2 genders in games, male and woke.

Heck, people love basic trope laden protagonists..... until they are women.

People love unreasonably over powered characters that are loved or feared in equal measure by the entire cast..... until its a woman.

Then all of a sudden, she's a Mary-Sue and the show/game/book is "Protagonist-Centered Morality"

Some characters who are torn apart for their initial naïveté like Sansa Stark or Usagi Tsukino (Sailor Moon) are immediately written off as stupid girl characters. Never mind that one becomes a political powerhouse and the other routinely saves the world. People just write their characters off as too “girly” or “annoying” before they even have the chance to redeem themselves in their stories.

Feels like at it's core, people don't like women trying to build self confidence and play out power fantasies. The only difference with the original Mary Sue was that she was imagining being liked by everyone, which was every woman's dream back then and to a certain extent, now. The power was being well liked, and that made her annoyingly boring because there was no struggle for her. Men think struggle is needed, even in fantasies and dreams, but it isn't.

The term Mary-Sue gained a new popularity by shaming female characters (such as Rey, Galadriel, Captain Marvel,…). I am not saying the term is not used towards male characters as well, but it is more rare, and it is rarely as violent as when it is used to characterize a female character.

More importantly it is used against female characters unevenly compared to male characters, its accepted as a genre trope for a male character to be extremely capable or to acrue experience and ability rapidly throughout the narrative. But when it's a woman suddenly "realism" must apply, a real person doesn't simply gain strength and talent through endless perfectly leveled hardship. In simpler terms, Batman can launch a thug across the room with a single punch and it's awesome, Black Widow, however, is breaking the laws of physics when she does her famous around the neck takedown.

Neither are realistic, arguably any grown man launching another grown man bodily through the air with a casual punch is less realistic than a woman pulling off a skilled takedown, but the unequal application of standards says all that needs to be said about the critic.

Writing a "mary sue" to be male often results in a praised character that people don't really worry about. Like Goku or Kirito. People are fine with it. Enjoy it. And there's massive amounts of rather popular fanfiction taking random male characters in series and sue-ifying them, making them the protagonist over the actual main characters, and slapping in poorly developed romance arcs. It's "mary sue" 101, but hardly anyone talks about them in that light.

Meanwhile a woman shows a level of competence similar to another character in the same series (e.g. Rey to Luke or Anakin) and the accusations are everywhere.

Calling these characters one-dimensional is one of the dog-whistles of the modern [whatever]-gate colony creature.

They know that they'll get savaged if they come out and say they're mad because this character is a woman, so they couch everything in these subjective terms. She's one-dimensional. She's flat. She's badly written. She's a mary sue. I just couldn't relate to her.

You can argue with them, you can point out that, say, in Star Wars, that Rey's ability to handle weapons intentionally established in the early scenes of TFA, that we see the setup for the skills she's going to display later in the movie/series, and that her first win is against a badly wounded Sith apprentice. By contrast, Luke successfully fights his way through a huge space station against professional soldiers, then hops into a starfighter he's never flown before, outflies a bunch of experienced pilots, and pulls off a physically impossible shot to save the day.

But sure. Rey is the one who strains credulity.

You can point all that out, but none of it matters. They're not arguing in good faith. They're just mad that there's a girl, and know better than to say that out loud.

He pulls off the shot because he has a throwaway line about murdering animals the size of a camel for fun in his civilian craft that just so happens to have controls similar to the military superiority fighter because they were manufactured by the same company. Because that doesn't strain credibility. Also guess which parts were filled in later by novel writers who were like, "holy **** that makes no sense at all"

Sailor Moon and Sansa Stark are two female characters that start out as whiney cry-baby girlie girls who evolve into political powerhouses and heroes in their own right. But most people write their characters off immediately, because they’re disgusted by their girlish-ness.

While our media gives male characters a chance to grow, female characters are generally written off unless they either show masculine traits, or are used for fan service. It’s why women in movies and TV are usually a kickass tomboy or a girlfriend character.

So anyway, I guess my point is that there are amazing kickass women characters who are well-written and evolve and grow, but their growth tends to be written off as frivolous and not as cool as their dude counterparts.

Imagine an anime where the woman is the main character and she's strong, smart, and not sexualized ?

How about Guardian of the Spirit (seirei no moribito in Japanese)? The MC is a mercenary woman who fights with a spear. She's a complex character, maybe somewhat emotionally stunted because of growing up on the road. She meets a wonderful, compassionate male healer and I love how they break stereotypical gender roles. There's also a complete badass old lady with magical powers and a temper. One of my favourite characters in any genre.

But I'd like to add SuleMio to the list.

Some people did not like that Gundam had its first female protagonist last year, or that she's engaged to another girl, or that they have a romantic moment where Miorine makes Suletta "promise to be with me forever".

It's my first Gundam show and I was nowhere near the fandom, but even I heard the howls of rage from the otakus over that show while it was airing.

“ I highly recommend reading Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. Strong female main character with a supportive cast of male characters. His Skyward series is also good for this. Sanderson is great but there are some female fantasy writers that do this even better IMO. NK Jemisin has tons of great female characters. Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series has a majority female cast and I’d say 4 or 5 of them are in the top ten most interesting and complex female characters I’ve read. “

You heard of The Bechdel test: Two women have to talk about something other than a man. There is no time window. It came up in a 1985 comic Dykes To Watch Out For and although it is not a great indicator of more feminist content, it's a wonder much media fails to pass that test.

Have you seen

Arcane? That is a wild crazy masterpiece with awesomely complex awesome characters. It's animated, yeah, so what? But I mean, to say "it's animated" is a heavy understatement. Have you seen Jinx? Have you seen her portrayal of psychosis and godknows what else was happening in her head? No one in history came even close to that.

Queen's Gambit? Anya Taylor-Joy brought Beth Harmon flawlessly through immense complexity of the character

Mare of Easttown - Kate Winslet there is, I kid you not, the best acting I have ever seen. Her character is going through complex situations and emotions and learning to deal with her human side. Bryan Cranston raised the bar ridiculously high with Walter White, but Kate Winslet pushed it further up, set explosives on it, and walked away like a badass without looking at the explosion. No one is topping that anytime soon.

I'm sure there are more examples. But what I love about these, and a big part of what makes them perfect is that they are their own characters and aren't defined by men around them. Their greatn

I wish female characters were given better in terms of development and characterization. Honestly, I feel like a lot of people hate female characters simply because most male dominated media does such a poor job of writing women, and those characters aren't given the same excuses as poorly written male characters.

Anyway, yeah, sorry for my rant. Having grown up on Anime, Harry Potter, Star Wars, you name it?

I later in life realized what was missing, what is needed, and really needed to hear other people's input on this stuff.

I never understood the need for every main character to be only a cishet white guy. I had already come up with several characters of my own, all of them LGBTQIA+, and half of them women, and several also POC. But my writing and art skills are poor so I can't visualize them properly...

We need more female authors, and we need to promote the ones that are out there more!

(there are plenty of really, really good female authors, in all genres, but often they get less attention, because, well, misogyny)

Edit: If you want an example of how the double-standard towards women and LGBT is applied? Go watch RWBY or Legend of Korra. Both involve a deconstruction of tropes. Both involve women standing up against an authority that demands respect based on being authority, not based on respect. Both shut down the white male savior trope so hard, that men and women who love the patriarchy despise both shows.

But of course, anything that Team RWBY or Korra does is immediately held to a double standard and ripped into for anything that they do NOT because they’re flawed or because of writing decisions. Its because they’re LGBT women that they’re held under a microscope. Or have you noticed that every fixit fanfic for both series involves defending the Patriarchy while supporting toxic masculinity and trying to revive the White Male Savior trope that both shows have tried so hard to bury six feet under?

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railwayhistorical · 9 months

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Tower of History

After visiting the locks, I took in the Tower of History in Sault Saint Marie, Michigan. Ostensibly about Catholic missionaries in this part of the world, I was drawn to the tower for its Brutalist architecture and a chance to get a nice view. The structure opened in 1968 and is 210 feet tall—you can read more about it here.

I have a couple of views from the top of the tower above: one looking west, toward the locks, and one toward the east.

The former shows, in addition to the locks, a wonderful city hall (right foreground) and the distant international bridges (one for the Canadian National Railroad, and one for highway traffic). I have a previous post about the railroad bridge here. One can also see smoke coming from Algoma Steel mill over on the Canada side.

The latter photograph shows the Cloverland Electric Cooperative Hydroelectric Plant, straddling the spot where the Edison Sault Power Canal rejoins the St. Mary's River. You can read more about the plant here. Also in that picture, one sees the Museum Ship Valley Camp—more on that here.

Three photographs by Richard Koenig; taken July 27th 2023.

#towerofhistory #saultsaintmarie #soo locks #cloverlandhydroelectricplant #brutalist architecture #brutalism #stmaryssteelmill #musumshipvalleycamp #algomasteel

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blessedarethebinarybreakers · 2 months

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What does it mean that you're a catholic presbyterian? What are your views on Church authority and predestination?

I like to imagine myself as a tree with Irish Catholic roots, a Presbyterian/Protestant trunk, and agnostic/ecumenical/interfaith-reaching branches.

I need all parts to be whole. All parts rely on Divine warmth, water, breath for life. All parts depend on a rich soil of scripture, story, and the wisdom of those who've come before me for nourishment and grounding.

___

The roots:

I was baptized and raised Roman Catholic. My family (and a large number of families in the area I grew up) has a proud history of Irish Catholicism in particular. My childhood church was Catholic, and I was passionate about participating in that community's life all through grade school.

Some of my earliest religion-related memories are of reading Saints' stories, establishing relationships with those who most spoke to me. Mother Mary has had my heart as far back as my memories go.

As I discovered my queerness in college and gradually realized the need to seek fully welcoming community, I did not leave behind those things I held most dear from Catholic spirituality.

Over the years, my connection to the Roman Catholic Church as an institution has fractured more and more; last May it splintered entirely. But I refuse to let Rome have a monopoly on Catholic faith, or on Mary and the Saints.

...Especially because Mary and the Saints were my greatest spiritual supports in college: with delighted wonder, I came to recognize how very queer my closest Saints were! They helped me embrace my queerness as a holy gift; I carried them with me into a little PC(USA) church that my then-girlfriend, now-wife found near our college campus.

The trunk:

The Presbyterian Church (USA) denomination holds me up in sturdy community: this is the denomination I'm currently "officially" part of — got my Masters of Divinity at a PCUSA seminary, got married in a PCUSA church, am on this denomination's ordination path.

This doesn't mean I think the PCUSA is the best religion or even the best form of mainline Protestantism. They all have their strengths and their flaws. But the PCUSA was the one that first came into my path, and I'm currently satisfied with my decision to commit myself to it — so long as it continues to make plenty of room for my Catholic roots and ecumenical branches.

The branches:

Though Louisville Seminary is a Presbyterian institution, when I attended from 2016-2019 at least 40% of my classmates and some of the staff there belonged to other denominations (or in a few cases, aren't Christian at all).

The opportunity to learn alongside folks from a variety of traditions was invaluable to my continued spiritual growth. I learned so much from them! I grew into my sense that all individuals and faith communities have something to teach us the Divine and about what it means to be human in relationship to Divinity and to Creation.

Then there's the agnostic part of the "branches":

Over the years I've also experienced more and more seasons where I'm just not sure that the Trinity, the Incarnation and Resurrection, and all that Christian-specific stuff is "real." But whether or not it is, I choose to remain committed to this path I'm on — with openness to fresh insights — because I do draw spiritual nourishment here. I do believe that the story of the Trinity and the Incarnation can guide us into living for Goodness, Justice, abundant life for all beings.

...Basically, I don't know whether it's all "true," but I do believe it holds powerful Truth; I remain committed to the Story.

(Also the bible has been my main special interest since i was like 6 so it's one of the main lenses through which i view the world so i'm stuck here for better or worse lfadfjalfjdalk;j! )

I believe it's imperative for Christians living in Christian supremacist cultures to practice humility above all else — to accept the fact that we don't have all the answers, that we're not the Most Right, that we don't enjoy unique favor with God. For me, identifying as agnostic reminds me that I don't know everything about God by any means, and may actually know very little at all. It reminds me to remain humble, open, and curious.

The fruit:

My hope is that this little tree that is me yields good fruit. I don't care if I have all the right answers, so long as I'm glorifying the Divine in some small way; easing suffering in some small way; bringing joy into this world in some small way. That's what matters to me.

________

I imagine the above implies my views on Church authority. If it doesn't, well, I'll just say I'm kind of an anarchist about church as much as anything else! The Church should never have come to wield as much power as it has. And whatever the "role" of the Church is in the Divine Story, I remember learning somewhere in seminary that the ultimate future of Church is to dissolve — that when we've experienced the full in-breaking of God's Kin-dom, there will be no more need for Church.

________

Not all Presbyterians hold to predestination — and for most I know who do, it's not really a central part of their faith life.

But sure, you could say I believe in predestination: I believe we are all predestined for participation in God's Kin-dom! :)

________

Further reading:

My tag of LGBTA patron Saints <3

My first podcast ep explores some of my spiritual journey

My queer and Catholic tag

Some other semi-related tags — good fruit tag; religious pluralism tag; evangelism tag; church hurt tag

My PCUSA tag, which includes a post with some old class notes about predestination

OH ALSO there's a podcast called "Called to Be Multiple" that interviews folks who draw from multiple faith sources. Cool stuff!

#about #avery speaking

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mask131 · 2 months

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Arthurian myth: Morgan the Fey (1)

Loosely translated from the French article "Morgane", written by Philippe Walter, for the Dictionary of Feminine Myths (Le Dictionnaire des Mythes Féminins)

MORGANE

Morgane means in Celtic language “born from the sea” (mori-genos). This character is as such, by her origins, part of the numerous sea-creatures of mythologies. A Britton word of the 9th century, “mormorain”, means “maiden of the sea/ sea-virgin”, et in old texts it is equated with the Latin “siren”. A passage of the life of saint Tugdual of Tréguiers (written in 1060) tells of ow a young man of great beauty named Guengal was taken away under the sea by “women of the sea”. The Celtic beliefs knew many various water-fairies with often deadly embraces – and Morgane was one among the many sirens, mermaids, mary morgand and “morverc’h” (sea girls/daughters of the sea).

Morgane, the fairy of Arthurian tales, is the descendant of the mythical figures of the Mother-Goddesses who, for the Celts, embodied on one side sovereignty, royalty and war, and on the other fecundity and maternity. In the Middle-Ages, they were renamed “fairies” – but through this word it tried to translate a permanent power of metamorphosis and an unbreakable link to the Otherworld, as well as a dreaded ability to influence human fate. The French word “fée” comes from the neutral plural “fata”, itself from the Latin word “fatum”, meaning “fate”.

There is not a figure more ambivalent in Celtic mythology – and especially in the Arthurian legends – than Morgane. She constantly hesitates between the character of a good fairy who offers helpful gifts to those she protects ; and a terrible, bloodthirsty goddess out for revenge, only sowing death and destruction everywhere she goes. Christianity played a key role in the demonization of this figure embodying an inescapable fate, thus contradicting the Christian view of mankind’s free will.

I/ The sovereign goddess of war

It is in the ancient mythological Irish texts that the goddess later known as Morgane appears. The adventures of the warrior Cuchulainn (the “Irish Achilles”) with the war-goddess Morrigan are a major theme of the epic cycle of Ireland. The Morrigan (a name which probably means “great queen”) is also called “Bodb Catha” (the rook of battles). It is under the shape of a rook (among many other metamorphosis) that she appears to Cuchulainn to pronounce the magical words that will cause the hero’s death.

The Irish goddesses of war were in reality three sisters: Bodb, Macha and Morrigan, but it is very likely that these three names all designated the same divinity, a triple goddess rather than three distinct characters. This maleficent goddess was known to cause an epileptic fury among the warriors she wanted to cause the death of. The name of Bodb, which ended up meaning “rook”, originally had the sense of “fury” and “violence”, and it designated a goddess represented by a rook. The Irish texts explain that her sisters, Macha and Morrigan, were also known to cause the doom of entire armies by taking the shape of birds. Every great battle and every great massacre were preceded by their sinister cries, which usually announced the death of a prominent figure.

The Celtic goddesses of war have as such a function similar to the one of the Norse Walkyries, who flew over the battlefield in the shape of swans, or the Greek Keres. The deadly nature of these goddesses resides in the fact that they doom some warriors to madness with their terrifying screams. One of the effects of this goddess-caused madness was a “mad lunacy”, the “geltacht”, which affected as much the body as the mind. During a battle in 1722 it was said that the goddess appeared above king Ferhal in the shape of a sharp-beaked, red-mouth bird, and as she croaked nine men fell prey to madness. The poem of “Cath Finntragha” also tells of the defeat of a king suffering from this illness. The place of his curse later became a place of pilgrimage for all the lunatics in hope of healing.

The link between the war-goddess and the “lunacy-madness” are found back within folklore, in which fairies, in the shape of birds, regularly attack children and inflict them nervous illnesses. These fairies could also appear as “sickness-demons”. Their appearance was sometimes tied to key dates within the Celtic calendar, such as Halloween, which corresponded to the Irish and pre-Christian celebration of Samain. Folktales also keep this particularly by placing the ritualistic appearances of witches and of fate-fairies during the Twelve Days, between Christmas and the Epiphany – another period similar to the Celtic Halloween. Morgane seems to belong to this category of “seasonal visitors”.

II) The Queen of Avalon

In Arthurian literature, Morgane rules over the island of Avalon, a name which means the Island of Apples (the apple is called “aval” in Briton, “afal” in Welsh and “Apfel” in German). Just like the golden apples of the Garden of the Hesperids, in Celtic beliefs this fruit symbolizes immortality and belongs to the Otherworld, a land of eternal youth. It is also associated with revelations, magic and science – all the attributes that Morgane has. Her kingdom of Avalon is one of the possible localizations of the Celtic paradise – it is the place that the Irish called “sid”, the “sedos” (seat) of the gods, their dwelling, but at the same time a place of peace beyond the sea. Avalon is also called the Fortunate Isle (L’Île Fortunée) because of the miraculous prosperity of its soil where everything grows at an abnormal rate. As such, agriculture does not exist there since nature produces by itself everything, without the intervention of mankind.

It is within this island that the fairy leads those she protects, especially her half-brother Arthur after the twilight of the Arthurian world. Morgane acts as such as the mediator between the world of the living and the fabulous Celtic Otherworld. Like all the fairies, she never stops going back and forth between the two worlds. Morgane is the ideal ferrywoman. The same way the Morrigan fed on corpses or the Valkyries favored warriors dead in battle, Morgane also welcomes the soul of the dead that she keeps by her side for all of eternity. Some texts gave her a home called “Montgibel”, which is confused with the Italian Etna. The Otherworld over which she rules doesn’t seem, as such, to be fully maritime.

The ”Life of Merlin” of the Welsh clerk Geoffroy of Monmouth teaches us that Morgan has eight sisters: Moronoe, Mazoe, Gliten, Glitonea, Gliton, Thiten, Tytonoe, and Thiton. Nine sisters in total which can be divided in three groups of three, connected by one shared first letter (M, G, T). In Adam de la Halle’s “Jeu de la feuillée”, she appears with two female companions (Arsile and Maglore), forming a female trinity. As such, she rebuilds the primitive triad of the sovereign-goddesses, these mother-goddesses that the inscriptions of Antiquity called the “Matres” or “Matronae”. In this triad, Morgane is the most prominent member. She is the effective ruler of Avalon, since it was said that she taught the art of divination to her sisters, an art she herself learned from Merlin of which she was the pupil. She knows the secret of medicinal herbs, and the art of healing, she knows how to shape-shift and how to fly in the air. Her healing abilities give her in some Arthurian works a benevolent function, for example within the various romans of Chrétien de Troyes. She usually appears right on time to heal a wounded knight: she is the one that gave a balm to Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, to heal his madness. In these works, Morgane does not embody a force of destruction, but on the contrary she protects the happy endings and good fortunes of the Round Table. She is the providential fée that saves the souls born in high society and raised in the “courtois” worship of the lady. However, her powers of healing can reverse into a nefarious power when the fée has her ego wounded.

III/ The fatal temptress

In the prose Arthurian romans of the 13th century, Morgane can be summarized by one place. After being neglected by her lover Guyomar, she creates “le Val sans retour”, the Vale of No-Return, a place which will define her as a “femme fatale”. This place transports without the “littérature courtoise” the idea of the Celtic Otherworld. Also called “Le Val des faux amants” (The Vale of False Lovers), “le Val sans retour” is a cursed place where the fée traps all those that were unfaithful to her, by using various illusions and spells. As such, she manifests both her insatiable cruelty and her extreme jealousy. Lancelot will become the prime victim of Morgane because, due to his love for Queen Guinevere, he will refuse her seduction. The feelings of Morgane towards Lancelot rely on the ambivalence of love and hate: since she cannot obtain the love of the knight by natural means, she will use all of her enchantments and magical brews to submit Lancelot’s will. In vain. Lancelot will escape from the influence of this wicked witch. In “La Mort le roi Artu”, still for revenge, Morgan will participate in her own way to the decline to the Arthurian world: she will reveal to her brother, king Arthur, the adulterous love of Guinevre and Lancelot. She will bring to him the irrefutable proof of this affair by showing her what Lancelot painted when he had been imprisoned by her. The terrible war that marks the end of the Arthurian world will be concluded by the battle between Arthur and Mordred, the incestuous son of Arthur and Morgan. As such, Morgan appears as the instigator of the disaster that will ruin the Arthurian world. She manipulates the various actors of the tragedy and pushes them towards a deadly end. It should be noted that any sexual or romantic relationship between Arthur and Morgane are absent from the French romans – they are especially present within the British compilation of Malory, La Mort d’Arthur.

Behind the possessive woman described by the Arthurian texts, hides a more complex figure, a leftover of the ancient Celtic goddess of destinies. Cruel and manipulative, Morgan is fuses with the fear-inducing figure of the witch. Despite being an enemy of men, she keeps seeking their love. All of her personal tragedy comes from the fact that she fails to be loved. Always heart-sick, she takes revenge for her romantic failure with an incredible savagery. Her brutality manifest itself through the ugliness that some text will end up giving her – the ultimate rejection by this Christian world of this “devilish and lustful temptress”. “La Suite du Roman de Merlin” will try to give its own explanation for this transformation of Morgane, from good to wicked fairy: “She was a beautiful maiden until the time she learned charms and enchantments ; but because the devil took part in these charms and because she was tormented by both lust and the devil, she completely lost her beauty and became so ugly that no one accepted to ever call her beautiful, unless they had been bewitched”. In this new roman, she is responsible for a series of murders and suicides – and as the rival of Guinevere, she tries to cause King Arthur’s doom by favorizing her own lover, Accalon. Another fée, Viviane, will oppose herself to her schemes.

The demonization of the goddess is however not complete. Morgan appears in several “chansons de gestes” of the beginning of the 13th century, and even within the Orlando Furioso of the Arisote, in the sixth canto, in which she is the sister of the sorceress Alcina. She is presented as the disciple of Merlin. Seer and wizardess, she owns (within Avalon or the land of Faerie) a land of pleasure, a little paradise in which mankind can escape its condition. At the same time the Arthurian texts discredit her, she joins a strange historico-pagan syncretism, by being presented as the wife of Julius Caesar, and as the mother of Aubéron, the little king of Féerie.

After the Middle-Ages, the fée Morgane only mostly appears within the Breton folklore (the French-Britton folklore, of the French region of Bretagne). There, old mythical themes which inspired medieval literature are maintained alive, and keep existing well after the Middles-Ages. Morgane is given several lairs, on earth or under the sea. In the Côtes-d’Armor, there is a Terte de la fée Morgan, while a hill near Ploujean is called “Tertre Morgan”. There is an entire branch of popular literature in Bretagne (such as Charles Le Bras’ 1850 “Morgân”) where the fée represents the last survivor of a legendary land and the reminder of a forgotten past. She expresses the nostalgia of a lost dream, of a fallen Golden Age. True Romantic allegory of the lands and seas of Bretagne, she most notably embodies the feeling of a Bretagne land that was in search of its own soul.

However, it is her role of “cursed lover” that stays the most dominant within the Breton folklore. The vicomte de La Villemarqué, great collector of folktales and popular legends, noted in his “Barzaz Breiz” (1839) that the “morgan”, a type of water spirits, took at the bottom of the sea or of ponds, in palaces of gold and crystal, young people that played too close to their “haunted waters”. The goal of these fairies was to kidnap them to regenerate their cursed species. This ties the link between these “morganes” (also called “mary morgand”) and the Antique “fairy of fate”. Similar names, a same love of water, and the presence of the “land below the waves”, of a malevolent seduction – these are the permanent traits of Morgane, who keeps confusing and uniting the romantic instinct for love, and the desire for death. More modern adaptations of the legend (such as Marion Zimmer Bradley’s novels) weave an entire feminist fantasy around the figure of this fairy, supposed to embody the Celtic matriarchy.

#arthuriana #arthurian myth #arthurian legend #morgane #morgan #morgan le fey #fée #french folklore #folklore of bretagne #celtic mythology #irish mythology

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