Whitepill Of The Day. Chances Of Divorce Drops Down To Less Than 10% If

Bernadette Banner made a video on how to make a pirate shirt THAT’S BEGINNER FRIENDLY so I might just have to learn how to sew so that I can live my pirate dreams

I think it’ll be important to remember that Athena, the god with the best PR, would be/was the goddess of propaganda…  

She’s the goddess of “smart war”, and propaganda is definitely part of this. I mean, just look at Arachne: the mortal make a piece of art that deviate from the “authorized” narrative, and bang, changed in a spider so the gods get the last word on what is true. 

Likewise, with Medusa (reminder: before Ovid, Medusa was born a monster and wasn’t raped by Poseidon/Neptune), she silence a victim of abuse of power by dehumanizing her and putting her in the category of monsters. And pull the “But she did it to protect Medusa”, because latter she’s the one guiding Perseus to murder Medusa, and mount her head on the aegis. If that was a protector, you wouldn’t need enemies. 

Ovid being himself an exile because he made a poem the emperor didn’t like, it wouldn’t be a far stretch that Athena in the Metamorphoses is meant to represent his patrons who abandoned him the instant the emperor got mad. A goddess that is supposedly a protector of the artists, but really just ensure that arts follow the narrative of the gods. 

snail cat

Level 1: Prophecy proclaims that no man can kill villain; killed by woman.

Level 2: Prophecy proclaims that no weapon can harm villain; pushed down stairs and dies.

Level 3: Prophecy proclaims that villain will be brought low by no mortal hand; kicked to death by angry mob.

Level 4: Prophecy proclaims that no power on Earth shall be villain’s undoing; fatally distracted by sun in eyes.

Level 5: Prophecy proclaims that only power of laughter can defeat villain; beat up by clown.

[images: photos of the genjimonogatari art/card deck showcasing 1) the cover of the mint tin container; 2) the mint tin open with back of card lying on the lid and Flower of Purple card on the top of the pile; 3) rows of the cards laid out neatly; 4) the cards with Moon Above the Gate card on top; 5) a hand holding the cards from the side to show their edges and the trim of the art]

It’s here!! Yaaaay!!

Years of reading, rereading, drawing and obsessing later, I’m super excited to be able to say that the genjimonogatari card deck is a reality!

It’s a portable mini-art deck featuring all 55 illustrations I created in the Genjimonogatari series from 2018 to 2022 in ink and watercolour and comes in a cute little mint tin. You can enjoy it as a straightforward visual art deck, or use it as a tool to help deepen your understanding of the many fascinating themes and relationships in the Tale of Genji - and as a playable deck for fun minigames!

If you check out the product page, there’s a companion PDF booklet - for free, you don’t need to buy the physical deck to be able to download and read it!

It includes:

A high-level introduction to the Tale of Genji and why it’s so amazing

Ideas and examples for using the deck as a tool and to create/play an assortment of simple Tale of Genji-themed games

An overview of all 55 cards by illustration accompanied by my amateur attempt at compressing the richness of every single character down to one very short paragraph each to help you get to know them

A big thank you to @ancient-trees (who creates a wonderful fantasy adventure webcomic called Tamuran) for helping me to review the booklet. (Any mistakes are my own. If you find any horrible glaring typos/issues in the booklet, let me know and I will do my best to update/correct where possible. I have spent way too long flipping back and forth on footnotes and commentary and references… so grateful for Royall Tyler’s detailed footnotes and appendices!)

A - Z Challenge: @ibuzoo​ vs @lxcuna​

[ D ] uyong: mermaids from Malaysian mythology, their basic shape - the upper body of a human woman paired with a fish tail - comes from the legend of Atargatis, the Assyrian goddess of the moon and fertility. Unlike western mermaids, they tend to be of a mournful nature, a behavioral trait also derived from Atargatis.

Wake up babe new fish dropped

Kikyo Gate (Kikyomon), from the series “Twenty Views of Tokyo (Tokyo nijukkei)”, Kawase Hasui, 1929, Art Institute of Chicago: Asian Art

Gift of Oliver Statler Size: 38.9 x 26 cm (15 5/16 x 10 ¼ in.) Medium: Color woodblock print; oban

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/87304/

I never hear people saying "manic pixie girlfriend" as a compliment to a piece of fiction... What is it you like about that trope? 👀👀👀

girls being girls unapologetically!!!

thanks for asking bc this was a LOT of fun to think about and answer and it ran kinda long but uh THERE’S A LOT TO COVER.

like, yea, ok, there’s a legitimate literary complaint to be made when women are used repeatedly as a vehicle for a man’s exposure to a more exciting life, but actually, the complaint isn’t ‘this woman doesn’t have autonomy’, but more like...Well. the quote at the top of the tv tropes is just about perfect.

(not to mention, no trope in and of itself is bad - its the execution and overuse of tropes that can be bad. so even the actual ‘give women more autonomy instead of making her a plot element for a dude’ complaint is only partially valid. and sometimes its just straight up to personal taste! one person likes oranges, one person likes apples. so they eat different pies. that’s just fine. doesn’t make one objectively worse.)

it’s that whole ‘leave white girls alone about pumpkin spice’ thing, like, sometimes people can just like things and have personality traits. 

let girls be manic! let them like polka dots! let them wear tutus over jeans, paint their nails different colors, and wear glitter every day! let them mix combat boots with floofy skirts! let them wear double pony tails!

let girls be naive, let girls be childish, let girls be dreamers! and u know what!! let them pull other people into their dreams, laughing and singing and dancing and being so unapologetically full of the gift from God that is life that they show others what a wonder it is to be alive!!!

there is nothing wrong with being so wonderfully manic that you make those around you a little less lethargic. 

or - sometimes it can be wrong, and that’s a great set up for what motivates stories: conflict! what happens when your extrovert girlfriend wants to go to a different event every night and you, the tired introvert boyfriend, just wants to sit in and watch a movie with her? how do you compromise and fulfill each other’s needs? is it even possible? is it worth it? what happens when the adventure that manic pixie girl drags the boy into isn’t what the boy wants, or is more than the boy can take, or is only fun when the girl is there and apart from her isn’t worth it? what happens when she annoys her best friend because she blows glitter all over the room? what happens when she drops off the face of the earth for a month and misses school? 

explore the trope!! don’t write it off, don’t never eat a pumpkin spice latte because people make fun of white girls for liking pumpkin spice lattes. pumpkin spice lattes are great. 

for an example of a FANTASTIC manic pixie dream girl with excellent conflicts, look at pinkie pie from mlp:fim. like, literally. she’s off the walls energetic and drags everyone into her shenanigans and its WONDERFUL!!! she breaks into twilight’s home to throw her a welcome to town party on the day they meet! first episode and she’s already trying to cram twi into a brighter lifestyle! absolutely iconic. there are times when she’s obnoxious and upsets those around her with her mindless, manic energy, and there are times when her unending optimism and bright personality save the day. she’s given serious moments, sad moments, and determined moments, and all of these are just strengthened by her manic pixie girl personality. (i do think she’s not recognized as a manic pixie girl because she doesn’t have a romantic interest, but aside from not dragging her boyfriend or a local sadboi into stuff...she’s a manic pixie dreamgirl.)

Also, tons of respect to the guy who originally coined the term:

Rabin would later disown the term, because instead of creating awareness of the "lack of independent goals in female characters", the concept was misunderstood as a condemnation of ALL quirky and fun female characters.

IN CONCLUSION.

manic pixie dream girls get written off because sometimes they’re just used as vehicles for the male protag, and sometimes just because they’re a bundle of girlilsh traits that aren’t appealing to certain people, and sometimes because their blindingly bright outlook is seen as bad and/or unrealistic.

and that’s a crying shame.

I like pumpkin spice lattes, I like glitter, I like characters that are so ridiculously over the top energetic and bright that that rubs off on their friends, and I’m going to write so many fun, quirky girls who are unapologetic about their ‘girly’ traits and encourage those around them to Live. :D