sweden deporting an openly gay football player to uganda after years of persecution from ugandan press and authorities and who will absolutely be murdered on the spot just like his ex… bc his story was “too vague and not believable”
there’s a price on his head. he’s openly gay. his boyfriend comes to all his matches and practices. his ex boyfriend is DEAD bc they got outed.
fuck migrationsverket. support Partick Mulyanti.
tw: homophobia, suicide
please take a moment to sign the petition letting Patrick Mulyanti stay or keep him in your thoughts. He’s considering taking his own life if he gets sent back to Uganda.
Non-Boring Environments that need Fantasy Representation
Tropical Rainforests
Scrubland/Dry Forests. For extra effect make them the sort that burn very often; some native plants never germinate until after a fire, and some animals not only rely on fire to smoke out prey, but may even start them themselves.
Savannas/Tropical Grasslands
Temperate Rainforests. I almost didn’t include this bc New Zealand is covered in them, and that’s where they filmed Lord of the Rings. But tbh, no one really knows about them, so it belongs here
Taiga Forests
Barren Tundra, perfect for some extreme seasonal dichotomy
Polar Ice Sheets
Desert-Grasslands (arguably the same as Scrubland but Australia’s good at adding its own twists)
Barren Desert
If you like Cacti, look at American Deserts like the Sonoran
Salt Flats
Soda Lakes and Alkaline Lakes
Madagascar’s Karst Limestone Formations
Madagascar’s Spiny Forests
Madagascar’s Baobab Forests
Madagascar’s Subhumid Forests (Madagascar is cool as hell ok)
Danxia Landforms
Badlands/Mountainous Deserts
Steppes and Highland Prairies
Flood Basalts
Newly-Formed Islands, still rife with Volcanic activity
Now for Underwater Environments, sure Coral Reefs are cool.
But there are SO MANY other kinds of environments for aquatic settings, it’s unbelievable:
Seaside Cliffs
Archipelagos. Not just Tropical Island chains like Polynesia (Moana anyone?) but also Coldwater Archipelagos like the Aleutians.
Tidal Flats
Bayous/Cypress Swamps
Tropical River Basins, AKA Seasonally Flooded Rainforests
Mangrove Swamps/Deltas/Beaches
Kelp Forests
The Open Ocean
Coastal Seabeds
Rocky Beaches with Tidepools
And there are a LOT more I could name but this post is already obscenely long as is, if you’d like to toss in your own go right ahead, but my point is if you limit yourself to European Deciduous Forests you’re a wimp.
I just love the myth of Persephone, i mean the real, original version of it, because it’s not like she got kidnapped, no, this bitch was la-de-da-ing in a meadow and she just happened to find an entrance to the Underworld and she was like “Imma check this out”. And she just wanders into the Underworld and discovers that hey this place ain’t too bad.
Meanwhile Hades is in the background “????? UM??? PRETTY GIRL??? WHY ARE YOU HERE?????? YOU AREN’T DEAD???”
And Persephone (who was originally called Kore just a little fyi) just looked at him and said “I like it here. I’m staying.”
And Hades kinda just went with it, until Demeter started throwing the temper tantrum of the millenium upstairs and Zeus had to intervene because this shit was getting out of hand and its actually his job to be admistrator of justice. Which considering the shit he gets up to is kinda histerical but that’s another story there.
And basically Persephone wasn’t a prisoner or kidnap victim at all she just really loved the Underworld and her (eventual) husband, and the Greeks feared her arguably more than her husband because Hades could be reasoned with but Persephone was the one laying the smack down on sinners, and really, who wouldn’t be at least a little scared of someone who’s name means something along the lines of “the destroyer”
Basically, Persephone is amazing and everbody needs to get on her level
i think the best part of that myth is that Zeus decided to change Kore’s name to Persephone (basically “the one who brings chaos”) only because she wanted to stay in the underworld and SHE WOULDN’T FUCKING LISTEN then Zeus, all-mighty king of the gods, kinda gives up and goes “fine, but you’re going to visit your mom” “also, I changed your name” “get rekt”
Also, if I’m not mistaken, Kore means “little girl” so imagine going from that to “chaos bringer”
I mean, going from little girl to chaos bringer sounds like a p solid deal to me, sign me up.
This may not be the version of the myth that’s commonly known and taught. But is is the original, from before it was altered to scare Greek/Roman girls into submission. Persephone was a badass bitch.
I will say, though, that pomegranates are really fucking good
So I have this theory, after hearing a lot about false equivalence coming up in discussions about female portrayal in comic books. Every time women talk about being sexually objectified, there’s always at least one dude who shows up to whine “BUT MENZ ARE OBJECTIFIED TOO, LOOK HOW UNREALISTICALLY MUSCLEY THEY ARE!” Attempting to point out the difference between a power fantasy and a sexual fantasy – to say nothing of pointing out that both fantasies are portrayed by men, for men – is typically useless. The two are firmly conflated and no amount of actual logic will penetrate.
I figure it all ties back into some of same concepts that underwrite “fake” geek girls, friendzoning, rape apology, and other things of that ilk: namely, that men think the sexual fantasy is a power fantasy.
When creating a powerful woman, men seem to have this automatic jump to making said powerful woman a sex object, because they truly think sexiness is powerful. For them, that’s what female power is: power over men. This is behind all the guys howling that sexy geek girl cosplayers are “preying” on male nerds; this is behind all the men who say women deserve rape for what they wear; this is behind all those “friendzoned” guys who insist they can’t possibly break off the “friendship” themselves because they’re helpless before the objects of their affection. It allows them to disclaim their actions as coerced, shunt away responsibility, and blame women when things don’t go as they like. They “couldn’t resist” the power of attraction.
In comics, men both don’t understand that their male power fantasies aren’t sexy for women (horrendously muscled, bodybuilder physique is NOT typically a sexual ideal), and don’t understand why women don’t derive power fantasy from the sex appeal of the female heroes. “Look,” they’re saying, “you are portrayed as powerful, and men are portrayed as sexy!” This also slots in with the idea that women are only in anything ever because of men – that their desire to attract men is one of the principal driving forces of their existence. That, therefore, the power to attract men should be important to them in a “strong” female character.
I’ve thought about this too much today and it’s goddamn depressing. It’s the same bullshit which says a woman’s only power, her only worth, is in her physical attractiveness, that women are only powerful in relation to men. I don’t really think I can safely contemplate it more right now.
Guh. Need kittens.
MOAR.
(New ILU)
Sorry to reblog myself but okay there’s more. I had to go back to work after I posted this earlier and there’s nothing to do at work but think (monotonous job is monotonous) and even though it’s depressing I couldn’t think about anything else once I got started. /storyofmylife
So inherent in all of the above is the basic concept that men are sexy because they are powerful, and women are powerful because they are sexy. This is predicated on the notion that men have power stemming from something about them as people, whereas women have power stemming from how much they deserve the attention of men. Men not only provide power to women, but they do so by losing power themselves. You guys, maybe this is why men think power is a zero sum game: because they think that women only have power when they are overpowering men with their sexy sexiness.
Fake geek girls, specifically, have an element of dominance issue to them. Look at those hot girls, swanning into fandom, taking away not only attention and material goods (limited fandom resources, such as collector’s editions and etc., has been discussed elsewhere) but also stealing their very wills from them. Better put those girls in their place, because otherwise they’ll be the ones with the power, on account of they have mammaries, and unlike those chicks in comic books they’re not safe paper-and-ink mammaries created solely to be ogled!
Also, since this is all about false equivalence, may I go on a tangent here and talk about realism? Because comics, at least American comics, portray physical dimensions/characteristics for men that are outrageous and close to impossible. Professional bodybuilders can do it but it looks freaking unnatural. No reasonable person expects all men to actually go out and try to become that. However, the way women look in comics is still the way most men, including many who consider themselves quite reasonable, expect women to look. Male superheroes are escapism for men, so they can be as unrealistic as they need to be; female superheroes are also escapism for men, so there’s a limit on how unrealistic they can be. Although niches exist for all kinds of physical-dimension fetishes, women in comics are idealizations of what the men reading/writing those comics would want to have sex with, and so they’re kept pretty close to society’s ideal beauty standards (which, while unrealistic also, are not considered to be such by most men). Let me put it this way: a drawing of a crowded street in which you replace all the men with bodybuilders would look bizarre and ridiculous; a drawing of a crowded street in which you replace all the women with models or even well-dressed porn stars wouldn’t make most people bat an eye, except maybe to wonder what city it is or to make appreciative comments. Women are supposed to look like that, says society. Not just a few, exceptional women – all women, at least if they want to be worth anything.
The above paragraph exists to punctuate this point: when women complain about how they’re drawn in comics, it’s not about realism. The body dimensions of male superheroes are metaphorical representations of their power over whatever they’re up against, whereas the body dimensions of female superheroes are meant to be literal depictions of their power over men.
IDK. This post has wiped me out today and I think I’m done with saddening feminist musings for a little while. Still need kittens and now possibly also schnapps.
Can’t believe I discovered this post just now. It was literally written before I started this blog!
What a nice writeup on false equivalence! Puts the subject of power politics in portrayals of gender we discussed here more eloquently than I ever managed. Possibly my favorite part is:
“So inherent in all of the above is the basic concept that men are sexy because they are powerful, and women are powerful because they are sexy. This is predicated on the notion that men have power stemming from something about them as people, whereas women have power stemming from how much they deserve the attention of men.”
It also occurs to me that Female Power Fantasy that are sexy and/or attractive, their attractiveness is kinda secondary, like Wonder Woman and She-hulk for example are beautiful, yes, but they’re also very strong and awesome, their attractiveness is secondary to their strength and personality
And this is a very historic issue. Obviously I’d be the one to point this out - I always am - but fucking CLEOPATRA was a victim of this, specifically the points raised by OP. And she still is today.
