still thinking about "decolonising" missionary work.

the way you decolonise missionary work is by not doing missionary work

the way you decolonise missionaries is like this:

"but it's part of my religion to evangelise"

🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆 infinite jaguar attack

"but we need to go to Ethiopia (one of the oldest christian countries in the world) to make them the right kind of christian!"

🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆

jaguars

"but..."

🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆 jaguars

Rattata -- Mitsuhiro Arita

(Note: reprint card with the same art as the Base set Rattata. But also, I just learned Arita did a second Rattata card:)

Also, researching this is how I learned my favorite Pokemon card artist from childhood (Kagemaru Himeno) is still making cards in current sets.

We still see this language in the modern world where it's full-scale bullshit. In a period or pseudo-period context it's doing some of that but typically reflects the (deliberately disenfranchising) legal norm that he owns the farm or the inn or whatever it is, and she doesn't and can't because property rights are gendered; maybe as a widow she could own it or maybe she couldn't, but she's a wife, and that's her actual legal status.

if you avoid that language without altering that underlying structure of the scenario, you aren't necessarily doing anything but sanitizing and erasing it. applied carelessly, labeling this kind of language as 'bad' and solving it by 'getting rid of it' is worse than useless; you just get worse art and vaguer history.

so ideally we check in with ourselves like, in this specific sentence, is it useful or desirable to perpetuate and/or invoke that paradigm by using this language, or not?

my grandma listed her vocation as "pastor's wife" because that was/is a goddamn full time job. and also distinct from the job of pastor. shit's complicated.

All three of these takes are subtly different and true.

Hey! Here’s a little five page comic I did about boot blacking and kink. I had a lot of fun with it, and talked to some really cool people.

love shakespeare. did a hamlet run tonight, looked someone dead in the eye to say “am i a coward?” during a speech and the fucker shrugged and nodded

we literally ruined society when we invented the fourth wall. let’s bring back call and response. heckling, even. fuck you hamlet you dumb piece of shit kill your uncle or shut up

"When we took Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” into a maximum security woman’s prison on the West Side… there’s a scene there where a young woman is told by a very powerful official that “If you sleep with me, I will pardon your brother. And if you don’t sleep with me, I’ll execute him.” And he leaves the stage. And this character, Isabel, turned out to the audience and said: “To whom should I complain?” And a woman in the audience shouted: “The Police!” And then she looked right at that woman and said: “If I did relate this, who would believe me?” And the woman answered back, “No one, girl.”

And it was astonishing because not only was it an amazing sense of connection between the audience and the actress, but you also realized that this was a kind of an historical lesson in theater reception. That’s what must have happened at The Globe. These soliloquies were not simply monologues that people spoke, they were call and response to the audience. And you realized that vibrancy, that that sense of connectedness is not only what makes theater great in prisons, it’s what makes theater great, period."

Oskar Eustis on ArtBeat Nation

I was in the front row of a Hamlet performance where the "Am I a coward?" was directed at me and I, being a no-impulse-control gremlin, hollered back "Yes!!" (they'd primed us ahead of time that audience interaction was encouraged). Hamlet got right up in my face as he kept talking and just kept going until I gently pushed him back; I forget what line it was on when it happened but he took the direction of the push and reeled away across the stage.

This meant that I had marked myself as someone willing to be fucked with, and so during the graveyard scene later he approached me again. "Here hung those lips that I have kissed--" he booped my mouth with the skull's "-- I know not how oft."

I have stories related to me from those at Blackfriars, the American Shakespeare Center (they play in a replica of the original Blackfriars, with modern safety conventions like lightbulbs in the chandeliers, but a great dedication to the way structure shaped the original work in the original Blackfriars. Their house is only about 45 ft deep (roughly 15 m I think), which is about the max distance two sighted people can be from each other and still make eye contact. They play with the stage and house equally lit, they talk to the audience, they enter from the audience, they whip up crowds from within the audience. It’s fantastic. But anyway, on to the stories.)

#Oh I have SO many stories from peak audience moments at the American shakespeare center#I have been to plays there that legit felt more like rock concerts#And I don't even mean the parts of the show where the cast is also a live band and they play#Covers of songs relating to the show#Fair maid of the west with Ginna Hoben#We were all SO on her side we absolutely lost our whole shit any time she even entered or exited#Knight of the burning pestle where Rick would pick a random audience member to be his lady love he was fighting for every night#And one time (I saw it thrice) he picked an older lady#And there's a part of the show where iirc he like gets almost defeated?#And he calls out to his lady love to like inspire him to keep fighting smth like that#And she Got Up Out Of Her Seat and went over to him and kissed him on the cheek#And no one was expecting that least of all Rick#And we all lost our shit whooping and hollering#They did a hamlet where...I forget who was polonius that year but there's a line where he's like 'what was I gonna say again'#And he paused SO long on that line you were legit unsure if he the actor had actually forgotten it#And once someone in the audience called out the next line and he was like 'oh that's right' and carried on#It was scripted though there were other nights no one said anything and we all sat there#In wonderful horrid awkward silence#Until he resumed#Please go if you get a chance#And sit stateside (via @rootingformephistopheles)

I forgot Cassie Animorphs and I am so so sorry

rigging & power lines r like siblings i think.

these r like brothers to me.

having an oc you havent drawn / written about publicly yet that only exist as a concept is so funny. i have special access to this limited edition guy from my brain

So one thing I’ve noticed is that people’s DnD characters may vary but there is usually an underlying thread that they all have in common. This thread is typically related to what that person struggles with the most.

For instance, my betrotheds DnD characters: a bitchy warlock we had to bust out of two different pacts, a sassy barbarian, a reformed drow cultist, and a sunshine fighter cleric.

All these characters were wildly different but at their very core struggle was them grappling with their self worth. My betrothed struggles with their worth a great deal and even with different facets showing their characters all have that too.

Mine all tend to contend with different themes of loneliness and acceptance. Surprise, surprise, the little autistic gremlin yearns to have been met with more love and lasting friendships.

So we’re at breakfast. I am meeting a new friend of my betrotheds for the first time. It’s been twenty minutes since I’ve met this man. I say my theory. He laughs. He starts to describe a few of his characters but specifies that he often has healing aspects. He gives a very broad overview of their character arcs.

I ponder for a moment then said, “Would you like to have my assessment?”

He laughed, “Sure!”

“We’ve just met. It’s gonna get real.”

“Bring it on.”

“I think your struggle is that you feel you must offer something of value or service to people to be worthy of their love.”

His jaw dropped. His fork froze midway to his mouth. A potato fell. He stared into space as this sank in. Quietly he said, “Oh.”