How long have we been on this rock? Five weeks? Two days? Help me to recollect…

The Lighthouse (2019) dir. Robert Eggers

Here are two lil’ poster about the same ol’ Detective idea

This just in:

💞💝💖RAD IS BABY💖💝💞

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but really, this scene was so sweet!

I just absolutely GALAXY BRAINED and none of you can handle it.

Little buddies that’ll be available as originals at Japan Expo nest week !

new job.

journey

_

slammed together some super duper fast fanart based off of this fic by @salted-potato i think?? if im sourcing wrong lmk//  fullsize of it all + some detail shots of the boys as blobs ✨

the mighty nein: *set a trap for Essek to figure out how the fuck he walks, fully understanding that they could injure him*

Essek: :3

I love Nott differentiating between how it feels for other people to accept you, how it feels not to like your own body, and how it feels to feel wrong in your own body. Because those are, each of them, three different things, which I think is at the crux of everyone’s interpretation of Nott/Veth’s situation. The Mighty Nein, and Yeza, see a person—a loved one—full of self-loathing that often locates itself onto her physical form. Understandably, their response is always to comfort and refute her own negative self-talk: you’re not ugly, you’re very pretty, not all goblins are evil, i accept you no matter what, etc. And that’s all very well and good! It’s important! But it doesn’t in and of itself solve either problem two or three. Other people can find her goblin form attractive—or at least non-repulsive—but because a lot of Nott’s self-loathing actually has very little to do with her appearance (her appearance is more a reflection of her internal self-loathing, in her eyes), it doesn’t get too far past the surface.

But she’s been traveling with the group for a long time, and one of the two people she was most scared of rejecting her did not. She’s also met a few more goblins, and as such has received a wider perspective of who and what they can be. She’s met goblins who are nice, goblins who are just doing their jobs, and, goblins who are a little bit strange—but hey, so is she. For so much of her life, goblins were associated with fear. Either fear of them, or fear of others’ reactions to her. Being in Xhorhas has not only expanded her idea of goblinhood, but also provided her first opportunity since being turned into a goblin to live and exist in the world without (as much) fear. She doesn’t have to hide her face just to leave the house. She doesn’t have to worry about being killed on sight for the body she was forced into.

And I think it’s sometimes under-appreciated (in the world at large), how much being forced to hide some part of who you are can itself turn into hating and fearing who or what you are. Nott already hated herself, and hated being a goblin, but even with the Mighty Nein’s support, the culture of the Dwendalian Empire as a whole taught her, and continued to reinforce, the idea that goblins were nothing but monsters to be feared. Being in the Dynasty has helped Nott accept her goblin form, not just because her understanding of “goblin” is wider now, but because she was able to live as one without shame there.

But as much as Nott might accept or at the very least not loathe her appearance as a goblin any longer, that doesn’t been that her current body feels hospitable or right to her. Her issue with being a goblin isn’t just one of self-hatred or insecurity, it is a more fundamental matter of who she is. She is not a goblin. She was born a halfling, in a halfling community, in halfling culture, with a halfling husband and son. Maybe she was born and grew up in a town of people who didn’t accept her, but it’s still a community she feels an affinity toward. And just on a pragmatic level: halflings and goblins have very differerent lifespans. She’s effectively had three quarters of her potential life stolen away from her. Nott’s desire to return to Veth’s body isn’t about being pretty or acceptable or attractive again (she never thought she was any of those things to begin with). Nott’s desire isn’t even fully to become something more “palatable” to her family (though that’s certainly part of it for her). Nott wants to become a halfling again because anything else does not feel like herself.

Nott giving her mask to Yeza was a big thing. It was a promise of her (intent to) return. It was a declaration of her moving toward a specific goal that she felt she needed to accomplish. It was a reflection of her making steps toward accepting the parts of herself that aren’t “easy” or “palatable”—the parts of her that are weird, that are Nott. But I love that her giving up the mask—and her giving it to Yeza—is not about her suddenly being okay with being a goblin. It marks an important step in Nott claiming who she is, without shame, but it is also her proclaiming that she is not fully her true self yet. And it is okay for Nott to be locating a sense of self-hood and personhood in her body, and her body’s appearance. Our corporeal forms inform a lot of how we move through the world, and understand the world, and interact with the world. It may not be all of who Veth is, but it is an important part of who Veth is, and if she has the opportunity to get it back, than of course she should be able to pursue that.

There are important stories to tell about monstrosity in stories, and what it means, and how it is attached (through metaphor, allegory, or otherwise) to various other identities. There are important messages to be conveyed about monstrous characters, and how they choose to exist in defiance of conforming to a non-monstrous norm. Those stories are important—and we actually are seeing it played out with Fjord. But It’s not—and never really has been—Nott’s story. And I love that too. I love that here we have a story of dysphoria, and self-loathing, that is dislocated from any one neat analogy for our world. None of this is possible in our world—race, and species, and death don’t operate in the same ways, so when all three of them get mucked around with at once, all of our metaphors and allegories become confused. It makes perfect sense that both trans fans and fans of color connect with Nott so much. So many of her experiences map onto our own experiences of dysphoria or internalized racism. But it’s also impossible for her narrative to fall neatly, and completely, into either paradigm, because the story she’s living just can’t happen in our world. Instead we get something in the messy middle—we get someone who is (slowly) unlearning their own racism and oppression (which has suddenly become something akin to “internalized” racism); who is also working through issues of self-loathing, and self-image; who is also still seeking to be changed into a form that feels more like them. And in all of that I think there have been a couple of narrative/representational missteps. But on the whole, Nott’s story has continued to provide a kaleidoscopic view of the complexities of identity and selfhood. And within it, I continue to find my own messy middles.

SO YALL HOW WE FEELING

ARGH

In many ‘Spaghetti Western’ films, a broad sub-genre of American Western films that emerged during the 1960s in the midst of Sergio Leone’s film-making success, many of the vuglar roles Native Americans were hired to act in forced them into offensive portrayals with little attention paid to authenticity, with emphasis only placed on painting them as “simple savages.” As a result, many American filmmakers paid little attention to actually translating the indigenous languages for what they were saying on screen. As a result, many actors were able to say what they really felt.  

Reel Injun, Documentary (2009) 

it’s on netflix right now for anyone that wants to catch it

This is such a good documentary, guys. I try and convince all my students to watch it. It was made by Neil Diamond, a Cree filmmaker, and it’s an utterly fascinating look at portrayals of indigenous peoples in North American cinema. 

for this wondering where to cop. I work with my hands and regularly get cuts and scrapes and I love these

they also come in mid tones.

This is nice :)

There’s also a black owned company called Browndages!

They come in a number of different shades as well 🥰

Rebloging for the black owned company

more.

LOTS OF CATS! and a girl

mmmmore studies