Theodore Herlz, father of Political Zionism: Yeah, it's colonial

Ber Borochov, father of Labour Zionism: Yeah, it's colonial

Ze'ev Jabotinsky, father of Revisionist Zionism: Yeah, it's colonial

David Ben Gurion, founding father of the Settler state: Yeah, it's colonial

Small bean fandom Zionist: Umm, lol, it's literally not colonial???

Rare belly shot of the boy! Really darkening up, at least half of him is solid now , I feel like his chin will be the last to turn black. This is what his tummy looked like when I first got him!

[Image description copied from alt: A photo of a polymer clay sculpture of a stingray. It looks really cartoonish with simple shapes and big round eyes resembling googly eyes. It's wings are slightly bent upwards. It's underside is white and the top side is dark blueish green with specs of black and shiny flecks. The background and the grey sting are mostly blurry. End ID]

The idea that aac fixes everything for everyone is kinda annoying. Because most nonverbal nonspeaking semiverbal people’s speech problems root further from just verbal voice.

Not understanding have right communicate. Not understanding how work. Not understanding how to say what feel or want or think. Not understanding certain words or phrases so say one thing and mean another. Many have speech or communication disorders, it’s not just the inability to speak, aac won’t fix everything for everyone.

Even if some get aac, an option to communicate, they just can’t. Sometimes no matter how much want to, just can’t.

Dw i haven’t forgotten my ptutu roots

Something I don't see acknowledged directly very much when it comes to writing minority representation is this: you have to be okay with messing up.

A lot of the time when talking about writing representation, we talk about the importance of doing research, and rightfully so: research is, obviously, absolutely integral to writing good representation. But research has its limitations; when this is acknowledged, we talk about how important is it to find sensitivity readers and talk to actual people in the minority group you are writing about. Which is also true! This is good advice! The point of this post is not to counter or argue with this advice. The key aspects of writing representation are research, and listening to the people actually part of the minority group you are portraying. Ideally, everyone writing any minority has done extensive research and gotten sensitivity readers for their project.

In practice, however, it's more complicated than that. Research takes time and energy, and on top of that, requires learned skill to do properly. Chances are, you won't be able to find a person from the minority group you're representing to interview/talk to, and sensitivity readers might cost money that you don't have. Furthermore, not every writing project is created equal; a novel manuscript intended for professional publication is not the same as a fanfic one-shot, and while the first may justify (even require) years of research and paid sensitivity readers, the second doesn't.

And even if you think you're doing everything right, you might not be. As I said, research requires skill; it's very possible that you will be under the impression that you've researched thoroughly, only to realize that, actually, you were researching the wrong things in the wrong places and have based your writing on inaccurate and/or limited information. You might start a project on a time limit, thinking you can do the research, only to run out of time because you underestimated the amount of research after all. Your sensitivity readers are human, with opinions and biases and limitations in their life experiences; their feedback reflects the opinion of one person, and cannot be taken as the word of an all-seeing god. You might publish your story and realize that they had blind spots that affected the representation in your story, or that their opinions are not actually nearly as universal as you believed, and now a not-insignificant portion of the people you'd tried to portray is uncomfortable with your story.

The truth is, there is no magic cheatcode to doing representation well. Hell, there are a lot of ongoing debates on what it even means to do representation 'well', or what 'representation' even is; these are not stagnant, universal concepts. I'm not going to go further into that because I don't think it's particularly relevant to this post, but y'know, even if you DO actually manage to do everything perfectly, you won't please everyone. You have to be okay with that.

So, once you realize that despite your best intentions and efforts you are imperfect in ways you cannot meaningfully rectify, you can chose between two options: cut the representation entirely, or accept the possibility (or even the certainty) that you'll mess up.

This choice is going to be context dependent; I cannot make it for you, and there is probably not going to be an objectively correct answer. As a writer, you have to make choices, and as previously discussed, those will not please everyone.

But too often I see writers avoid writing minorities entirely because they're scared of messing up. They stick to very narrow minority groups (if they incorporate any at all), and abandon attempts at representation at the first real hurdles. They realize they messed up in previous attempts (either due to self reflection or outside criticism) and get so overwhelmed by guilt and panic that they avoid ever trying again. The possibility of messing up scares them so much that they convince themselves they're better off not trying at all.

I'm here to tell you: not only is it possible you'll mess up, you WILL mess up. If you commit to trying to write outside of your lived experience, you will mess up at some point. You'll write a scene on a farm that will have farmers laughing their asses off at the inaccuracies. You'll make confident statements about dinosaurs that will have paleontologists rant to anyone who'll listen. You'll write a trans character that will make trans people roll their eyes back into their heads.

The solution here is not to avoid writing about farms, dinosaurs, or trans people; the solution here is to do what you reasonably can to be accurate, and accept the flaws caused by ignorance. Make note of your mistakes and do better next time. If you avoid writing anything you're not absolutely 100% confident writing about, you won't get to write a whole lot, now will you?

Stop being scared of messing up and make your peace with it. You are not doing yourself or anyone else any favors by refusing to write outside of your own experience out of fear.

Brightly Falling Comets (2022) oil on wood panel

Instagram: @suhaylah.h Shop: suhaylah.bigcartel.com Patreon: patreon.com/suhaylah_h

one of the most annoying things people do on the internet is discover that a "seemingly wholesome" youtuber/celebrity is actually kind of a shitty person and than come to the conclusion based on nothing that that MUST mean that people who act overtly edgy are actually inherently morally pure for seemingly no reason other than "if wholesome people are secretly mean sometimes than that must mean the opposite is ALWAYS TRUE" which just like. makes no real sense honestly.

Writers suffer from tinker bell brain they need constant applause or they start believing everything they’ve written is horseshit

I see you talking a lot about homeric heroes and how it relates to terror and it seems like such a nice topic, can you recommend me books or articles that discuss it?

(this is the post in question)

ok shockingly enough there is zero scholarly literature on homeric heroism In the terror. 

some stuff on epic heroism:

the mortal hero: and introduction to homer’s iliad - seth schein

the epic hero - gregory nagy (in a companion to ancient epic) (this is the chapter that i went batshit over to realise that death is a necessary precondition for immortality)

you may also be interested in:

the meaning of meat and the structure of the odyssey - egbert j. bakker (i have Issues w this book but also it’s sexy and almost agrees w me that Odysseus Ate The Suitors)

disguise and recognition in the odyssey - sheila murnaghan (im About to read this for uni so idk if it’s actually any good yet)

Watch This Space for incoherent posts about my Actual Uni Essay on how the terror and the odyssey are Exactly The Same in their approaches to how identity is based around eating, because the word limit is Small and i could scream about this for approximately Ever

[Image: digitally drawn fanart of Link from Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. He's drawn from the hips up, leaning back slightly with a surprised expression, two floating pink bunny ears drawn above his head. End description.]

i was about to ask why the hell you're in class until 9pm before i remembered timezones XD for requests maybe some alttp link?

bunny 😁

We missed last year due to personal issues, but we're back at it! AhiRue Week 2024!

Whether you like them as friends or as lovers, we just want to share content of these wonderful ladies being together!

Day 1: Whispers ~ May 19 Day 2: Paint ~ May 20 Day 3: Mythical ~ May 21 Day 4: Feathers ~ May 22 Day 5: Leather ~ May 23 Day 6: Marionette ~ May 24 Day 7: Lantern ~ May 25

Please tag all submissions as #ahirue week and #ahirue week 2024

C2 duck

She is sunshine I would commit crimes for her

Twinkle Bloom 🌸

2006 Pegasus Pony

❄️ スノーフレーク １９８６🍧

Snowflake travelled South for the festive season, but she’s still munching her favourite Christmas candies!

G2 Cupcake :)

Discord banner for @narmello!!! Sorry I forgot to post them for a long time qwq

Commissions OPEN!!! Message for more info or click here for prices!!

it would really help if you can reblog! Thanks 💙