they/them
Don't expect anything specific from me, I have one blog and it all goes in the kitchen sink
Autistic, ocd, white, ace, gay(ish)
Astronomy Major/Researcher
Aprendiendo español como segunda lengua
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I do want to be clear: my posts have specifically been about Cinderella Boy, but lack of/poor representation for poc is a huge problem across webtoon and the media landscape in general. I specifically called out Cinderella Boy because I really enjoy it and have been thinking about it a lot given that weâre almost to the season two finale, but this problem goes way beyond a single webcomic. Yet by discussing a single webcomic, we can start to understand the problem as a whole. Iâd say Iâm sorry to anyone white who felt offended, but honestly Iâm notâif your first reaction to someone pointing out racism is to get defensive, then you have work to do.
If you are truly interested in making the world a more equitable placeâwhich includes making it so poc have a proper and respectful place in mainstream storiesâthen I recommend you follow the blog @/creatingblackcharacters. If you donât actually care, then donât bother. I have learned so, so much from this blog. In particular, the book club is an excellent way to educate oneself, so I recommend reading all of the past books (White Fragility, White Tears/Brown Scars, Mediocre, and currently, Medical Apartheid) as well as following along when we start our next book in August(?), Beloved by Toni Morrison (and reading the book So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo for good measure)âa task I myself am still working on, because learning is never finished.
I am saying all of this simply because it is the right thing to do. And Iâm not trying to say the work that we allâincluding meâneed to do will be easy. In fact, like me, you will probably also feel really uncomfortable, upset, and guilty. And you have to just sit in those feelings and feel them without saying anything, and it wonât be fun, but itâs the only way youâll learn to put them aside, listen to the needs of poc without making it about you, and focus on how to actually effect change in the world. And one of the small ways you can begin to help is to point out implicit racism, however slight it may seem to you in your privileged eyes, and have discussions like the one weâve been having. Iâm not a perfect ally, Iâve certainly fucked up in the past and Iâm sure Iâve fucked up in some way without realizing during this situation. The only thing we can do is try to better every day.
Because our discussion has centered around webtoon, I want to end this post by uplifting six webtoons that do feature people of color as main characters, which are
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I hc that Vaggi can read Alastor way better than she shows it. Of course not perfectly, but she understands his need to be seen strong and his hatred to being pitied, and refusal to accept help, because she was like that, but she learned to be more open and that it's ok to rely on other people.
And she cares about him. In her own way. She would be upset if he died, she now finds out that seeing him very obviously in pain is harder than she thought it could be.
And now she can relate to him even more, and she wants to help him and ease the struggle she's familiar with on a personal level.
Anyway i need more Vaggi and Alastor interactions, PLEASE. not like in a ship whay, but like coworkers/friends stuff.
I notice White users on tumblr are also MUCH less likely to reblog posts they'd otherwise agree with, but the post is a racialized person expressing anger about racism from white tumblr users. They're more likely to reblog the post if the post is less specific about who is doing the racism or if the language seems to "coddle" them more or express sympathy to them
âI saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera.â â Gordon Parks
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I think the issue is that people are describing this as a bad TV season, but it's really much deeper than that. The final season of Sherlock was a bad season, the final season of Game of Thrones was a bad season. TVL / IWTV 3 is anti-Black. It is misogynistic. It has an open and glaring disdain for its Black and brown characters, and chose to be virulently anti-Black in a time of increased anti-Blackness. You are watching the corpse/ghost of a Black girl hurl racist garbage in a time where Black people are regularly being called slurs for simply existing. You are watching a Black man be branded... BRANDED! You are watching the whitewashing and babying of an unquestionably racist white man who beat his Black partner / helped lynch (yes, lynch, not stone) his Black daughter. You are seeing this done at the expense of a brown man.
Keep in mind, the characters are not making independent choices, you are not watching a documentary âyou are watching the deliberate choices of an all white writers' room and a white show runner in a period of time where seventeen Black people have been lynched this year. In a time where countless Black people have been murdered in cold blood in June and July 2026 alone. This shit doesn't exist in a vacuum and pretending it does only adds more insult to injury. There is no turning your brain off in the midst of a slow genocide of Black people in america.
"Stop scrolling and please help me spread the word, because if I've landed on your page you're most likely either a black woman or someone who cares about black women and the simple phrase I'm about to share could help save a black woman's life.
Doctors are to black women what police officers are to black men. That may seem controversial but I believe it to be true and I speak from personal experience.
If you've seen this TikTok you know that a 2016 study showed that 50% of medical students and residents thought that black people couldn't feel pain the same as white people.
And we learned from this video that because of a 1999 study, to this day, there's a black correction factor for the creatinin levels in black people's kidneys, meaning we're less likely to recieve a kidney transplant if needed.
So if you go to a doctor, feel you aren't getting proper treatment or they refuse the treatment you've requested, say to them the following:
I will need you to document on record that you are refusing the treatment (or medicine) I've requested, and the reason you are doing so."
This works. I have used it in other situations. If medical staff have to document and take responsibility and be on the hook legally for doing shady shit they behave much differently.
If you werenât already going to spread this advice because black women are at risk, then spread it because itâs applicable to everyone else as well, including you reading this.
But particularly women, and especially black women.
So many amazing Black women put so much work into the math and engineering behind rocket science as we know it today, and humanity might never have reached the stars without them.
You can make a movie with where the only white character is a man named Ray Cism whose one line of his 16 seconds of screen time is âI seriously hate women and minorities.â and youâll find fifty bajillion reader x Ray Cism fanfics and renaissance style drawings of him with a halo of golden light
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Just a reminder that Saudi Arabia is responsible for one of the world's largest and most severe man made humanitarian emergencies. Their blockade of Yemen, which prevents food, water, medicine, and fuel from entering the country has caused a significant death toll. Emphasis here on man made as these were preventable.
Yemen relies on most of its food and medicine via imports and this blockade (land, sea, and air) has created an environment where 80% of Yemen relies on aid for survival. It's lead to so many people, mostly children, dying of starvation.
The rate of child malnutrition in Yemen is among the highest in the world with 2.3 million children under 5 requiring treatment for acute malnutrition. At one point a child died of starvation every 75 seconds.
Nolanâs Odyssey thoughts. I brought in a notebook and filled 9.5 pages of scribbled thoughts throughout the three hours I was suffering. I hated this movie and I really tried to go into it with an open mind as much as possible and damn it really sucks. This movie really put the no in nostos.
(obviously spoilers ahead)
Random big thoughts
This movie felt like it was made for high school English teachers to show but then 95% of the way through making it, they were like actually nevermind and added in some f-bombs and a few (like 2-3 nonsexual nudity) shots of asses to solve the problem.Â
Odysseus hates the gods and at times barely believes in them, but also refuses to push back against anything that could be seen as a prophecy. Itâs so fucking weird because itâs equivalent to a modern atheist being like âChristianity is dumb and probably a crock of bullshit, also donât lie because itâs a sin and God will be madâ.
I wrote this down verbatim, âAn Odysseus that hesitates about returning to Ithaca is like the sun hesitating to riseâ and I do believe I cooked with that. Same is true with a Penelope that doubts Odysseus and a Telemachus that doesnât need a father, which this movie has.
Hereâs the thing, up until Odysseus lands in Ithaca, the movie is fine. It isnât good, it isnât horrific, itâs a little cringe and a little irritating for me as an enjoyer of the Odyssey, but it wasnât bad. If I turned off my brain from know-it-all Greek mythology enjoyer Asha to action movie enjoyer Asha, I think I could have had a decent time. However, it all falls apart when Odysseus returns home, any ounce of characterization is crushed to bits and it just sucks and makes no sense. Reminder, I honestly enjoyed the Troy: Fall of a City miniseries so accuracy is not always my hill to die on but god, I would like the hill to at least be in eyesight.
Random little thoughts (in no order)
UGLYYYYYYY ass costumes like I knew they were bad but itâs such an eyesore. There was not a single outfit that I was like âthat looks niceâ.
This is one of the first movies Iâve ever seen where I wanted MORE gore and MORE things that made me sick to my stomach. Like, show me Odysseusâs men starving, show me blood spraying down when men are taken by Scylla, show me more soldiers drowning.Â
They massacred the characterization of every woman (fork found in kitchen, Nolan canât write women, but still)
Thereâs a lot of things in this film that changing from poem to movie was pointless. My most memorable example of this being that Eumaeus is visually impaired, Eumaeus also at one point says Odysseus was like a son to him. These arenât huge deals and donât affect the plot but to those amongst us who enjoy the Odyssey, itâs just annoying.
Iphigenia is sacrificed by Agamemnon before Odysseus leaves Ithaca?????????
Thereâs a lot of time and plot spent centered on Argos (yeah the dog).
Odysseus only has 3 ships the whole film, holyyyyy budget cuts.Â
On Calypsoâs island, Odysseus forgets everything because she keeps drugging him with lotus flowers. He doesnât remember how he got to her island, doesnât remember his family or Ithaca until she like⊠weans him off and he starts to remember that. He basically feels none of the time pass.
Half of Helenâs face is physically scarred from the Trojan War, itâs implied that Menelaus mutilated her. Thereâs a disgusting line where Menelaus says, âthis is the face that launched a thousand ships, although now it would maybe be five-hundred.â GROSS
The Laestrygonians look like cybermen and no I will not elaborate.
There is a scene where Athenaâs temple is destroyed in Troy and itâs implied that whatever happens to the temple, happens to the god. (like a soldier wacks off Athenaâs statueâs head, it switches to a scene of Athena being held down and nearly decapitated) Itâs a neat idea but in a movie where the gods are ridiculed by the main character, it just doesnât work.
No Achilles or Anticleia in the underworld SIGHHH
No Nestor or Peisistratus SIGGGGGHHHHHH they hate to see yappers represented.
Telemachus and Odysseusâs reunion is so ass, like thereâs no bout of emotional resonance at all, theyâre two worlds apart.
Telemachus sucks as a character Tom Holland you are British how did you make Telemachus so fucking American. No one talk to me about Telemachus he sucked so fucking bad in this movie.
No wedding bed anything insane and might I add fucking crazy. Again, this is classic Odyssey stuff.
At the end of the movie, Odysseus and Penelope travel west(?) and leave Telemachus as king of Ithaca, to honor the fallen soldiers. This is the Greek mythology equivalent of retired American couples moving to Florida I think.
The Cyclops
The cyclops doesnât speak to Odysseus (the men donât even know itâs a sentient being until after they stab it in the eye) which means we get no âNobodyâ scene which is already a travesty because I fear thatâs classic Odysseus. And I do feel like the cyclops being more of a monster ruins the whole point of it being about breaking xenia. If Polyphemus is just an unnamed monster, what makes him any different from Scylla or Charybdis??? Â
Small thing to be pissy about but to get past the cyclops they tied hay to their back instead of hanging from the bellies of the sheep.
We also get no scene of hubris from Odysseus, again this is classic Odysseus.
The Suitors
Antinous called beggar Odysseus a âplatelickerâ and then after a few times I swear on my life he said âplatelickaâ it was insane and I wish I was jokingÂ
This movie creates a lot of Antinous lore that I think is fairly unnecessary since Antinous already had lore (Eupiethesâs pirate background) but let me explain the Antinous lore to the best of my memory.
So Odysseus holds a lottery for his army. A young Antinous and a younger Sinon draw lots and Antinous draws the lot that indicates he will fight. Sinon, maybe 13 years old, swaps their lots because he wants to go to war with Odysseus. Antinous (probably 16-18 years old) tries to protest but Odysseus wonât let them change back. Antinous interprets this as âOdysseus knew he might not come back and wanted me to be in charge of Ithacaâ.Â
Penelope is in the hall right before Odysseus starts killing, inaccurate but why I mention this here is because she doesnât let Melantho come with the women to safety. She leaves her in the hall to die in the slaughter. Now if you know me you know I am an Melantho ENJOYER and so I hate to see my girl done badly (maybe the Melantho shit will be itâs own rant).
Antinous x Melantho I CALLED THAT THEY WOULD DO THAT A YEAR AGO
In the end, Odysseus doesnât kill all the suitors (although he does kill Antinous). Insane because to make things right in Ithaca Odysseus HAS to kill the suitors. Itâs the reason that he kills the 12 disloyal maids in the poem because if they live, they represent his own failures blah blah blah whatever I hate it here.
The gods (or lack of)
Athena is the only god with form we see and Iâm going to be real honest with you, I didnât have the brain power to try to figure out what was going on with her.Â
Zeus does destroy the ship after the sun godâs cows thing and let me just say if you canât handle flashing lights this is not ur film because the lightning goes CRAZY and not in a good interesting way but in a âmy retinas are burned outâ way.
No Hermes and no Aeolus sorry my plot scaffolding kings.
âAsha, did you like anything in this movie?â
Probably surprising but yes. When Odysseusâs men are turned to pigs by Circe, she has to physically mold them from man to pigs so she like⊠rips their hair out and pulls their ears and pushes up their noses until they turn to pigs which was so fucking fascinating to me. I hated the Circe scenes with her and Odysseus but goddamn Nolan you cooked with that body horror. Like, if the ending of this movie wasnât hot garbage I would recommend it for that scene alone.
I also thought the scenes pre-Trojan war in Ithaca were cute, newlywed OdyPen and Odysseus being like a father figure to the younger men of Ithaca (maybe 2 mins of screen time altogether, not much to write home about but I enjoyed the scraps we got).
Soundtrack was good occasionally
Thatâs all I wanna write about for now. Who wants to start a GoFundMe for Homer to get a gun and a time machine to kill Nolan?
I am hoping that this is some sort of exaggeration or oversimplification because this is just blatant erasure of a major element of Greek culture and replaced by a more Christian version and I want to bang my head into a wall. Thatâs not what xenia is, and you just erased a major part of the Odyssey.
My late father was the one who taught me to be cynical about advertising, for all that putting up ads was literally his whole job. He taught me from a very young age that advertising is expensive, and they tack that cost onto the price. That if something is heavily advertised, you can count on the fact that there's an identical product out there, usually even manufactured in the same factory, that's cheaper because they don't spend all that money on advertising.
A German friend walked me through Lidl, turning over items to show the factories where the items were manufactured and what expensive brands they correspond to, we did taste tests on some of the more pricey food things later and they were the same product. learning about food manufacturing was a hobby for her.
European glasses and sunglasses are made in the same Italian factories that make the luxury ones, they have the same quality control and warranty. You are paying âŹ100 for a logo.
Some things cost more because they are actually made with better quality materials and where the workers are properly compensated, others are the same product as the off brand version with the brand name markup. It takes a lifetime to learn the intricacies which is why consumer advocacy associations and legal protection by (truly) independent agencies is crucial.
the fact that people are in the odyssey tags criticising the nolan movie for its changes to the original myth (valid) only to then turn around and recommend epic: the musical of all things as a âmore accurateâ alternative is hysterical like please. letâs be serious now
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Okay, you know what? Given that over the last week I have seen at least one of the common myths of "things you should not do in the heat" come over my dashboard, let us quickly go over this:
If it is hot, you will need to drink more than normally because you are sweating. You can drink too much, though usually your body knows how to regulate it.
Yes, if it is liquid and not alcoholic it counts to your drinking intake. Yes, drinking lemonades, coke and whatever counts. All of it is still mostly water with some sugar and flavors added. It is fine. Be careful about taking in too much caffeine though, as it is a mild diuretic (means it makes you pee more and hence lose more water).
Yes, you also need electrolytes as you sweat them out. But you do not need to drink sports drinks. Eat some yoghurt with fruits, or some watermelon with salt, or maybe cold soup. It will refill your electrolytes.
No, it is not dangerous for you to sleep in front of a ventilator. This is a complete myth that has absolutely no basis in science whatsoever and literally originates with an Urban Legend. Especially with the recent heat wave in Europe for a lot of people the alternative is the possibility of heat stroke. It is fine. Sleep in front of that ventilator. Just make sure you are not getting too cold.
No, using sunscreen does not stop you from taking in Vitamin D, unless you are permanently using super high standard sun screen and are reapplying it every 6 hours as intended. And let's face it: you are not. Your skin gets enough UVB to make Vitamin D, don't worry about it. Skin cancer is worse.
Yes, switching between a very hot outside and a very cold context (be it super high AC or just jumping into cold water) can be a danger for your cardiovascular system, though unless the weather is very hot or the water very cold making the contrast very extreme, it is normally not a danger to people who do not have otherwise issues with their cardiovascular system. Though being a bit careful and allowing yourself to acclimatize is not a bad idea in general.
Yes, you should definitely not leave any living thing in a car while it is hot. Just don't. Cars heat up while standing very quickly and will become a death trap. If you leave an animal or a child alone in the car for even just 5 to 10 minutes, they might die. Don't do that shit.
Yes, you need to be extra careful about your medications. For once, most medications are not meant to be stored at above 25°C (don't ask me what this is in American units). But also a bunch of medications - especially psychoactive medications - will make your body worth at temperature regulation. So be careful.
Yes, you need shadow. Ideally the shadow of trees, because there is indeed a difference between that and the shadow of a building. But any shadow is good, especially during extreme heat.
In the same vein: be also careful about drugs during heat waves - like, the recreational type. Some of them work differently when your body is warmed up like that. Just... ideally read up online on possible side effects that might occur/be worse if taken during the heat.
Generally speaking: stay hydrated. Stay cool. Try to do it as well as you can in your respective situation. Stay safe.
