Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo

In a nutshell, it’s much more efficient to sell things to people if you can divide them up into tightly defined subcategories that have no interests in common; that way, you never risk accidentally competing with yourself.

This is why children’s toys (and toy sales channels) are actually much more strongly gendered these days than they were forty, thirty, even twenty years ago: one of the basic market segregation splits they’ve decided to use is “boys versus girls”.

Ever wonder why you see Avengers t-shirts that leave Black Widow out of the group shot, or Guardians of the Galaxy action figure lines with no Gamora? That’s market segregation in action.

The upshot is that shows with crossover appeal can actually be cancelled for being too popular with girls; they’re viewed as “stealing” the female market from the specifically girl-targeted media that rightfully “owns” it.

This is the sort of thing folks are talking about when they say gender roles are socially constructed, by the way. The gender split in media merchandising? It’s not just artificial, it’s deliberately imposed as a top-down marketing strategy. When folks try to justify it by saying “this is the ways it’s always been” or “this is just what the market wants”, they’re lying through their teeth - this is, in fact, the merchandisers dictating to the market what it wants in order to sell stuff more efficiently.

Paul Dini, a writer/producer said this on a podcast: “ That’s the thing, you know I hate being Mr. Sour Grapes here, but I’ll just lay it on the line: that’s the thing that got us cancelled on Tower Prep, honest-to-God was, it’s like, ‘we need boys, but we need girls right there, right one step behind the boys’—this is the network talking—’one step behind the boys, not as smart as the boys, not as interesting as boys, but right there.’”

Cartoon network and Warner brothers deliberately made the conscious decision to dumb down their female characters because they want to push female viewers away. In fact, Tower Prep was cancelled because it had too many female viewers because the writers made too many well written female characters.

So shitty representation of girls isn’t something that just happens. It’s the result of deliberate planning just so the execs can make more money.

And it’s not just cartoon network. I mean, why do you think Nick fucked over Korra so badly? Remember them telling Bryke they didn’t want a female Avatar? Why do you think there are no Korra figurines or action figures?

kyoshi: sometimes some murder is OK

kuruk: just punch people that disagree with you

This Guy Pets His Dog Everywhere He Goes

Luke didn’t come to Crait just to save the Resistance. He came to Crait to save Ben Solo. Luke distracted Ben long enough to give the Resistance time to escape and prevented Ben from doing something he would end up regretting when his hurt and anger burned off. He gave him a target for that anger and rage and in doing so, allowed Ben to come to the realization he needed to grow. It was Luke’s final lesson to Ben.

When I was a child, from the time I was about four and could understand things, my mom told me and my brother that we should have a secret word. That way, if we were ever in trouble or felt unsafe and we didn’t want the people around us to know we needed her to come get us, we could let her know. So she let us pick the word and my brother and I chose the phrase “peanut butter cups.” (I’m happy to share the phrase now since both my brother and I are adults now). 

I used the phrase twice in my life. Once, I was at a friends house when I eight years old. Her dad got really drunk and was throwing things against the wall. I was really scared and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself on the phone when I called my mom to come get me because I didn’t know if he would get more violent if I asked her to come get me. So I called her and was calm and after a couple minutes I asked “Hey mommy, did you get me those peanut butter cups from the store?” And she said “I’ll be right there.” And she came and got me within minutes. 

Second, I was a teenager spending the night at a friends house. Her brother and dad were drinking and they started talking about things that made me uncomfortable - ie: what they liked to do to women. My friend didn’t seem perturbed and said that was normal for them and that I shouldn’t worry. But I was worried because they were really drunk and I was 15 and the only ‘woman’ around that wasn’t related to them. I went in my friends room, told her I needed to call my mom and say goodnight. Before I hung up with her I asked “Next time we go to the store, can we get some peanut butters cups? I’ve been craving them.” And she came and got me, just like that. 

Okoye loved a man too, but her story wasn’t ABOUT him.

He didn’t have to teach her a damn thing

She didn’t give anything up for him.

She didn’t go evil for a quick second and go on a rampage, losing herself, because she lost him.

She didn’t entertain, for even a miliisecond, compromising herself for him

She wasn’t crying over him

Their relationship wasn’t shoehorned in for no reason other than “there has to be a romance”

Most of her scenes had nothing to do with him

Except for the last point, all of that applies to Nakia too… but in addition

When he interrupted her work, she was angry and allowed to say something along the lines of “you ruined my mission!” unapologetically

She continued to do her job

She continued to thrive separate from him

Love for a single man didn’t outweigh her love for humanity and it wasn’t something she had to agonize over. It was a simple decision that wasn’t considered a real conflict for her.

In general, love didn’t make these heroes and warriors weak. It didn’t make these women vulnerable in a way that didn’t fit their personalities or compromise their duties.

First look at Ainbo, an animated film by José Zelada at Tunche Film (Peru).

Ainbo is a girl born in the Amazon rain forest. She is protected by Motelo Mama, a gigantic turtle and the most powerful spirit of the forest. Her life changes when Yacurunu, an ancient demon, threatens her home.