So Rel-art-able

Naturally, a D20 quilt was in order. As if sewing blocks into a rectangle wasn’t hard enough. And because of who I am as a person, I decided that they needed quilt blocks with sharks, sea life, dinosaur constellations, and space donuts.

Made some metal stamped tags today! These are gonna be either bracelet pieces or keychains.

Me, downstairs with a hammer and metal stamps: ALLOW ME TO PLAY YOU THE SONG OF MY PEOPLE

And then it’s like $184 worth of art supplies, 43 hours, and most of my curse word vocabulary later...

Playing with resin! Silicon candy molds with the gloss interior work great for this!

Did Shredder's nails too

Did Michelangelo's nails

It happens.

Cascade

Photography, no edits or filters

2019

My glorious collaboration with Michelangelo - behold our beautiful mermaid child!

All opinions expressed are my own. They come from the privileged perspective of a white, female, first-world, middle-class person living in 2019. I try to be objective, but I know my background influences my view. If you have a more in-depth perception than I do, please comment to let me know! I would love to be corrected. I always try to broaden my view by listening to those who know better.

1) Matchmaking is the only way Mulan is allowed by society to bring honor to her family, a sacred duty, aka be meek and perfectly silent enough to marry as good of a man as you possibly can or the family is publicly humiliated

2) Defending her dad's obvious disability (caused by previous military duties) brings instant shame to the man she was trying to protect and gets her publicly humiliated

3) Mulan is the only person for much of the film to see anything wrong with these things, so she risks the ultimate shame to her family, as well as beheading, of being found impersonating a man in the military

4) Mulan never once outwardly wonders about her gender or sexual identity. Maybe she didn't have the language or the understanding of herself to question it (apart from generally not wanting to see naked men, but honestly same most of the time). Mostly, it's just never what she's worried about - the Avatar, I mean her honor, is her main focus, as well as saving lives and defending her country like a true warrior.

5) She proves she can keep up with the other recruits in boot camp after never being expected to fight a day in her life.

6) She crushes hard on the guy who determines whether she's allowed to stay in the military for a chance to bring honor to her family

7) She makes friends with the other recruits despite really bad advice from her guardian (thanks for nothing Mushu) and manages to pass as masculine somehow (tell me your secrets - you don't even spend any time changing your cute face)

8) She uses her brain to outsmart the enemy instead of allowing her compatriots to needlessly lose their lives

9) She is injured in saving the life of her commanding officer, only to be told that being allowed to live is her reward for doing so

10) Her compatriots miss her and were silently appalled at her treatment

11) She runs immediately back to same man whose life she saved to provide sensitive intel that he promptly ignores based on her gender because of societal norms

12) The emperor is kidnapped and threatened because her former commanding officer ignored her

13) He reluctantly works with her to rescue the emperor

14) Her compatriots are willing and eager to dress in drag and act as women for a distraction tactic but commanding officer does not take part whatsoever

15) Obviously because women are allowed to fight in the Hun military, Shan Yu has no reaction to Mulan's gender and is only, rightfully, angry that she's smarter than him (who wouldn't be)

16) The emperor is way more progressive than his supporting government officials and bows to Mulan as an equal, thus forcing China to see her as his equal

17) He offers her whatever job she wants and she refuses lol gurl has it made

18) Li Shang finally realizes that he's been hypocritical towards her and awkwardly doesn't know how to act. This might have something to do with the fact that he's #1 IN HIS CLASS EXTENSIVE KNOWLEDGE NERRRRRRRD WHO HAS PROBS NEVER TALKED TO A GIRL IN HIS LIFE (never getting over this, Shang)

19) Mulan appreciates that he doesn't make a move and leaves him there to stew in his questionable sexuality and awkwardness.

20) Mulan presents the proof of her honor to her father before even greeting him, knowing that those things are what society deems most important.

21) He sweetly tells her that she brings him the most honor just by being in his life, but unwittingly throws the symbols of what she's worked hard to attain (risked her life, her honor, etc.) for him on the ground without acknowledging them.

22) Grandma knows what eye candy is. Lol go get 'im Grandma

23) Mulan knows that what she has accomplished is the exception and not the rule for her life and isn't dumb enough to throw out the man who could possibly be her only suitor. She is still expected by society to be married off so she can rear children and serve her country by serving a husband.

24) Mulan was given the highest honor, an honor that no other human has been given, and certainly no man. She has changed history and become an inspiration to other women. At the same time, nothing has changed. Other women will have to fight just as hard for possibly not the same result. What she has given them is hope that things can eventually change.

25) Things do change. In the second movie, which y'all are sleeping on, I swear.

This has been Discourse with Leonardo. Tune in next time for The Princess and the Frog

Inspired by all the lovely artists on here, so I decided to jump into using my drawing tablet. It turned out really well for basically my first real drawing with it!

https://munette.tumblr.com made me too inspired - I just had to!