Will you break down Oralie’s character perhaps? Pretty please with a cherry on top?

I can certainly try! There's already some stellar Oralie takes out there, so I am one of many. And to me, she seems like someone who tried to have everything. She wanted a family and to be a councillor, unable to give up one dream and trying to make both work when it does nothing but hurt everyone in the process

She has her position and the daughter she always wanted, but if that daughter is ever discovered as hers she loses it and that daughter isn't hers in anything but blood. Sophie wants nothing to do with her and they don't get to have a family life, no connection. She tried to have both and now has only half of each.

Not to mention her relationship with Kenric and how they danced around each other, denying themselves what they wanted to keep their positions and losing their chance in the process. It shows a certain level of restraint, though certainly not well hidden. And a grief like hers shapes any character, making her see with more clarity the value of taking leaps and opportunities. because nothing is guaranteed to last

There's also the matter of how she's written, which has taken a turn for the unsavory recently. Her high femininity has been notable throughout the series, but so has her power. She is strong for her compassion and listening, for her grace and kindness, not in spite of it. She enacts change and stands for her beliefs while enjoying pink and glamour and frills. Femininity does not counter or bolster her strength, it simply is.

But recently in Stellarlune, we see her shed it to be more serious. Her taking off her dress and fun colors when she really gets to work, which is a disappointing writing choice. Of course, it's not like she always has to be 100% pink and feminine and fancy all the time, but it does lessen her distinction from other characters. Others have pointed this out, but a lot of the female characters are written very similar, feminine but powerful, loves sparkles but can also fight! Looks gentle but is underestimated and is secretly a total badass! And characters like those are great, but there's so many of them; Oralie stood out from that in her embracing her pink and sparkles and glamour. The sudden reveal that actually she's secretly got more to her (as if her before wasn't enough) makes her more like everyone else, and it's just not as interesting anymore--to me, at least.

I've barely scratched the surface of her--her selfishness to try and have both when she's not the only one affected, her resilience and influence, how she's written. So there's certainly more to be said, but I hope that's at least partially satisfactory :)

academic bias is so funny because you’ll be reading about the same historical event and one person is like “Despite the troubles that befell his homeland and near constant criticism of the court King Blorbo remained strong in the face of adversity” and the other one is like “after letting his people carry the brunt of his cringefail decisions Blorbo the Shitface refused to listen to any reason and continued to be a warmongering piece of shit. Also he was ugly.”

just some designs mainly created because I wanted to draw hakama and then it spiral out from there

bald zuko under the cute

listen there really was just something about how in the book, snow’s 3-page descent from hesitant lover boy to deluded psychopath happens entirely in his mind. lucy gray gives him no indication whatsoever that she suspects him, that she’s going to leave or betray him. he’s just sitting quietly in the cabin waiting for her to return when that seed of calculated suspicion, which he has needed to survive the capitol, takes a hold of him and chokes the life out of any goodness left inside him. it really drives home your terror as a reader that “oh my god did he kill her? did she escape? what happened to her? why would he even think that?” in a way that when the movie had to adjust for visualization it lost some of that holy shit this guy has lost it emphasis.

In light of increasing anti-trans and anti-abortion laws in the United States, I am once again humbly requesting you inform yourself about jury nullification, your ability as a juror to vote against convicting people being prosecuted under unjust laws. Nullification was instrumental in legalizing abortion in Canada - it informed jurors can use it to help protect healthcare workers and protesters in the US, too.

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

brave hobbit

little kiki kaka redraw

it just so happens that today, April 13th, a young man is banging out the tunes

cursed construction core hi vis bra that came to me in a dream

In the dream I saw it in the window display of a hardware/DIY/trade shop, implying it was meant to be a practical garment designed for actual female constructions workers in a Female Armour level missed-the-brief attempt at gender inclusion

The practical support from the visible underwire combined with the hi vis implying it’s not meant to be worn as an undergarment, I just-

I blame my binge-reading ND Stevenson’s gender comics talking abt masculinity and femininity incl the one abt Victoria’s Secret lingerie yesterday for this monstrosity x’D

some angel lore because they make me happy : )

i've considered having their form be based on some sort of angel hierarchy - it's been a lot of fun reading how they've been classified in different religions - but i'm not sure if i want to use that after all! for now, they're all equal.

the angels quickly realized that most creatures would fear them less if they looked similar to them. while the results weren't perfect - the "reshaped" angel would still be made of the same substance and glow - it was enough for them to approach most animals. humans were an interesting case. while many required the same treatment as other creatures, some didn't seem to mind their real form - and some were even interested in seeing it.

i do hate that the frequency of boring relatable protagonists has caused many readers to become affronted when met with a protagonist with like different values and interesting flaws. like ok be mad at that literary device like it's a real person. i am eating them though

Apparently much-needed reminder that reposting artists' art (by saving the images or screenshotting them and reuploading them yourself) on other platforms without the artists' expressed permission and without credit is theft and an insult to their passion and craft. You are profiting (in views, in attention, in feedback) from someone else's work and ideas, who do not get that feedback for sharing their creation.

If you are an art reposter, you are a thief and I have no respect for you.

i heart these rivals so much. maybe they'll kill each other. maybe they'll kiss. maybe they'll make ou

some panel redraws with young just us

The grandfather, who is also blind as a result of severe diabetes, feels isolated despite having his family around him. "If an air strike targets the house or the neighbourhood, I cannot move, not even using the wheelchair. I am completely paralysed, I cannot see and I can barely hear and move my arms. What has helped me is that we evacuated by car when the situation was less dangerous," Abujubein told MEE. . . . "What did the world that has long talked about human rights and the rights of people with disabilities do for us? My granddaughter has a subject about human rights in school. The first time they learned about people with disabilities, she was happy that she could reflect on me," Abu Jubein laughed. "She came to me repeating what she had learned about their rights and how they should be given a special treatment." "Now where is this special treatment? Did the world at least call for the evacuation of the displaced from Gaza until the end if the attacks?" "Even hospitals are targeted. When the Israeli occupation started bombing hospitals and then besieged al-Shifa Hospital, we thought that this would be the start of an international revolution against the occupation, because the protection of patients and children inside hospitals is the core value of human rights." "But, surprisingly, nothing happened."

. . . full article on MME (18 Nov 2023)