"Do You Support Israel?"

Me at the function (House of the Dragon watch party) sharing what I learned from this open access book chapter about authority in Game of Thrones

When I was younger and more abled, I was so fucking on board with the fantasy genre’s subversion of traditional femininity. We weren’t just fainting maidens locked up in towers; we could do anything men could do, be as strong or as physical or as violent. I got into western martial arts and learned to fight with a rapier, fell in love with the longsword.

But since I’ve gotten too disabled to fight anymore, I… find myself coming back to that maiden in a tower. It’s that funny thing, where subverting femininity is powerful for the people who have always been forced into it… but for the people who have always been excluded, the powerful thing can be embracing it.

As I’m disabled, as I say to groups of friends, “I can’t walk that far,” as I’m in too much pain to keep partying, I find myself worrying: I’m boring, too quiet, too stationary, irrelevant. The message sent to the disabled is: You’re out of the narrative, you’re secondary, you’re a burden.

The remarkable thing about the maiden in her tower is not her immobility; it’s common for disabled people to be abandoned, set adrift, waiting at bus stops or watching out the windows, forgotten in institutions or stranded in our houses. The remarkable thing is that she’s like a beacon, turning her tower into a lighthouse; people want to come to her, she’s important, she inspires through her appearance and words and craftwork.  In medieval romances she gives gifts, write letters, sends messengers, and summons lovers; she plays chess, commissions ballads, composes music, commands knights. She is her household’s moral centre in a castle under siege. She is a castle unto herself, and the integrity of her body matters.

That can be so revolutionary to those of us stuck in our towers who fall prey to thinking: Nobody would want to visit; nobody would want to listen; nobody would want to stay.

Actually, you know what? This just pisses me off a bit too much to let slide. I know intelligence, integrity and antisemitism don‘t usually go together but you might remember how after a „valiant group of arabic freedom fighters“ by the name Al-Qaeda „targeted infrastructure and military targets“ on US soil, America alongside NATO allies invaded two seperate countries, one of which demonstrably had nothing to do with any of the previously mentioned „liberation effort“ and murdered approximately six times the number of civilians Israel has killed combatants and civilianscombined.

Also Gaza prior to October 7th had a very rapidly growing population, which usually is not an indication of a genocide going on. I can assure you Jewish population did not increase during the Holocaust.

It’s so funny seeing pro-israelis try to defend Israel with the excuse of ‘Israel protecting themselves’. or that it’s ‘Not Israel’s fault because Hamas is hiding with civilians’ etc etc.

Like please. The USA has managed to kill !THREE! leaders of terrorist groups without killing tens of thousands of innocent people. Turkey has killed ISIS militants and hit targets without killing tens of thousands of people.

They also prove how they’re completely ignorant how violent Israel has been towards Palestine before. This has been going on for way longer than October 7th 2023. There is absolutely NO justification for what Israel is doing. If you support genocide simply say so.

"Uhm hair colour is not proof of the boys parentage, it's not that important of a detail."

EXCUSE ME FRIENDS NED STARK WOULD LIKE TO TAKE A MOMENT TO EXPLAIN TO YOU THE PLOT OF A GAME OF THRONES

On the subject of Alicent and the accusations of hypocrisy, I'm not really interested in delving into what societal taboos she actually is and isn't breaking. Don't care, have fun, girl.

What does interest me is how the popular framing of Rhaenyra vs Alicent as feminist girlboss vs woman for Trump prevents people from acknowledging what the show explicitly told them in season 1.

Simply put, I never understood why people were interpreting Alicent as someone who honestly, genuinely wants to enforce the values of duty, honor, and sacrifice as a social norm to combat "sexual immorality" (??? I guess???), instead of hiding behind them as the only available coping mechanism for her horrifying personal situation.

Mind you, Alicent isn't just subjected to what the standard for Westerosi noblewomen is, i.e. being sold as a bargaining chip for loveless breeding while expected to have no say in it. She gets a particularly nasty version of this by being sold to an old creep at 15 and put into an extremely exposed position as a queen who is, to reiterate, 15 and thus unable to tweak any personal space, power, and advantages in this marriage until after child number three. And as a plus, she gets mocked both by her husband and his incompetent idiot of a brother (for whom she went to bat, btw), discarded by her only friend, and her children being ignored and neglected by the very man who made sure she'd have them—starting at 15.

So it's the least surprising thing in the world that she would reframe her powerlesness in a way that'd give her some sense of active involvement, i.e. she made a sacrifice and she made that sacrifice in the name of duty.

Alicent's moral framework is such that it encompasses the totality of one person. It's actually astonishing how little of it she applies to others. She empathises with Rhaenyra not stepping up and "doing her duty" by marrying whomever her dad throws at her, and seeks to give her options. She's outraged at Rhaenyra not because she can't stand the idea of a girlboss winning, rather because it's physically painful how little Rhaenyra cares about the precariousness of her political position. She doesn't turn against Rhaenyra because the latter had extramarital sex; it's because she lied to her fucking face. And even when gunning for her bastards who are the textbook definition of usurping and a succession crisis waiting to happen, she allows for one bastard as a freebie.

So no, Alicent's "where is duty, where is sacrifice" isn't her demanding that an immowal girlboss corrects her behaviour right now, young lady. It's a cry of a person breaking because she can no longer ignore that her cope was ever just that, that she was made to give and sacrifice everything while fuck-ups who sacrificed nothing and demanded everything are now going after her children, the fruit of a life she never wanted to live.

Now, why was she made to live that life? Because Viserys.

Why was she made to have those children? Because Viserys.

Who created the situation to which adopting a coping mechanism became a matter of survival? Viserys.

Well, Vizzy? Is fucking dead. Tragically he wasn't given the Drogo treatment of having an urgent meeting with a pillow but he is indeed toast. So the whole reason why Alicent reframed her awful life as an act of dutiful sacrifice? Is gone.

So it doesn't surprise me whatsoever that the moment she became a widow she decided to do something very much undutiful and unsacrificial and jumped on Criston's dick, or that the old programming where she isn't allowed to have anything at all would always immediately bounce back.

(Why is Criston, apparently, pursuing the relationship, I still have no earthly clue)

I know it’s not hard to point out reactionaries hypocrisy when it comes to like safe spaces or hug boxes or whatever but genuinely how much of an echo chamber do you have to exist in for you to think this is a reasonable thing to say

Can't afford art school?

After seeing post like this 👇

And this gem 👇

As well as countless of others from the AI generator community. Just talking about how "inaccessible art" is, I decided why not show how wrong these guys are while also helping anyone who actually wants to learn.

Here is the first one ART TEACHERS! There are plenty online and in places like youtube.

📺Here is my list:

Proko (Free)

Marc Brunet (Free but he does have other classes for a cheap price. Use to work for Blizzard)

Aaron Rutten (free)

BoroCG (free)

Jesse J. Jones (free, talks about animating)

Jesus Conde (free)

Mohammed Agbadi (free, he gives some advice in some videos and talks about art)

Ross Draws (free, he does have other classes for a good price)

SamDoesArts (free, gives good advice and critiques)

Drawfee Show (free, they do give some good advice and great inspiration)

The Art of Aaron Blaise ( useful tips for digital art and animation. Was an animator for Disney)

Bobby Chiu ( useful tips and interviews with artist who are in the industry or making a living as artist)

Second part BOOKS, I have collected some books that have helped me and might help others.

📚Here is my list:

The "how to draw manga" series produced by Graphic-sha. These are for manga artist but they give great advice and information.

"Creating characters with personality" by Tom Bancroft. A great book that can help not just people who draw cartoons but also realistic ones. As it helps you with facial ques and how to make a character interesting.

"Albinus on anatomy" by Robert Beverly Hale and Terence Coyle. Great book to help someone learn basic anatomy.

"Artistic Anatomy" by Dr. Paul Richer and Robert Beverly Hale. A good book if you want to go further in-depth with anatomy.

"Directing the story" by Francis Glebas. A good book if you want to Story board or make comics.

"Animal Anatomy for Artists" by Eliot Goldfinger. A good book for if you want to draw animals or creatures.

"Constructive Anatomy: with almost 500 illustrations" by George B. Bridgman. A great book to help you block out shadows in your figures and see them in a more 3 diamantine way.

"Dynamic Anatomy: Revised and expand" by Burne Hogarth. A book that shows how to block out shapes and easily understand what you are looking out. When it comes to human subjects.

"An Atlas of animal anatomy for artist" by W. Ellenberger and H. Dittrich and H. Baum. This is another good one for people who want to draw animals or creatures.

Etherington Brothers, they make books and have a free blog with art tips.

As for Supplies, I recommend starting out cheap, buying Pencils and art paper at dollar tree or 5 below. For digital art, I recommend not starting with a screen art drawing tablet as they are more expensive.

For the Best art Tablet I recommend either Xp-pen, Bamboo or Huion. Some can range from about 40$ to the thousands.

💻As for art programs here is a list of Free to pay.

Clip Studio paint ( you can choose to pay once or sub and get updates)

Procreate ( pay once for $9.99)

Blender (for 3D modules/sculpting, ect Free)

PaintTool SAI (pay but has a 31 day free trail)

Krita (Free)

mypaint (free)

FireAlpaca (free)

Libresprite (free, for pixel art)

Those are the ones I can recall.

So do with this information as you will but as you can tell there are ways to learn how to become an artist, without breaking the bank. The only thing that might be stopping YOU from using any of these things, is YOU.

I have made time to learn to draw and many artist have too. Either in-between working two jobs or taking care of your family and a job or regular school and chores. YOU just have to take the time or use some time management, it really doesn't take long to practice for like an hour or less. YOU also don't have to do it every day, just once or three times a week is fine.

Hope this was helpful and have a great day.

FABIEN FRANKEL TALKING ABOUT ALICENT AND CRISTON COLE'S RELATIONSHIP.

as expected, now that ep 1 with b&c will be aired in 2 weeks, people are getting weird.

please keep your "b&c wasn't that bad" shit takes out of the general tags <3 mind you, these are the same people that have been whining about "misogyny" for the last 2 years, but are now apparently ok with an innocent woman being tortured to the point of literally becoming a shell of her former self & a 6yo girl being threatened with rape.

and to all of the pro-b&c weirdos saying "bUt iT wAs aBoUt AeGoN", so 1. b&c is justified because aegon threw a party? 2. daemon also threw a party when his nephew and sister in law died, but y'all don't want to talk about that. 3. even if aegon was the one to kill luke, it still doesn't justify what daemon did to helaena and her kids - you're actually justifying a woman being punished for the crimes of her male relatives - and it doesn't matter if it's aegon or aemond.

Now I know this is purely a headcanon, but Alicent‘s rage at Aegon would make a lot mire sense if he and Aemond shared a room. We see Baela and Rhaena share one so it isn‘t completely unreasonable.

If that were the case Aegon _should_ have noticed Aegon sneaking out and either prevented it or gone with him. But he didn‘t because he was pass-out-drunk.

people on tiktok and twitter are the most purposely obtuse people that i have ever seen.

and with the things people keep saying about blood & cheese, it has only gotten worse. now if what people are saying is true i am going to be unhappy, but people are still using it to misconstrue the past events of driftmark when aemond lost his eye.

people have started placing blame on alicent and criston for not being there and while i do agree that the adults have a lot of blame in this incident it is not there. alicent was not there because she was in bed. where the kids were SUPPOSED TO BE. just because she is their mother does not mean that she needs to be awake 24/7 watching them. notice how viserys is not getting any of the blame there?

people are saying that since criston’s a kingsguard he should’ve been there since he is supposed to protect the whole family, and that is partially true. he is supposed to protect the whole family, but he is sworn to ALICENT, which means that when she is asleep he is supposed to keep watch over her. he cannot possibly watch every single member of the family at once, which is why there are multiple members of the kingsguard. this means that there should have been another member of the kingsguard assigned to the kids unless viserys never bothered, which i would not be surprised by.

now onto alicent asking aegon where he was. i do not agree with her here, but people are not understanding why she did this.

1. all of the children besides aegon and helaena (and joffrey) were there, so why wasn’t aegon? because he was drunk and passed out. now that doesn’t mean that he should be punished for being asleep like he was supposed to be, but when your younger son lost an eye when he got 4 v 1’d it might be a little irritating that the reason your oldest wasn’t there is because he was passed out drunk. still not his fault.

2. alicent has been trying to make aegon see the danger that he and his siblings are in and trying to make him take responsibility to protect them as the oldest and he has resisted and now he has “failed” and aemond lost an eye. agree with her actions or not, but she is trying to save her children’s lives even if it backfires.

now rhaenyra and daemon. people get upset that rhaenrya gets blame when alicent doesn’t. and while i get that since they both shouldn’t have to watch their children sleep to make sure they don’t get up to anything after they’ve been sent to bed, i do think people need to remember that their situations are a little different.

alicent sent her children to bed and wasn’t there because she also went to bed. rhaenrya sent her children to bed and wasn’t there because she went to sleep with her uncle at his wife’s funeral. let me repeat that. SHE AND DAEMON FUCKED AT HIS WIFE’S FUNERAL. THAT IS THE PROBLEM, at least for me. maybe i would be more sympathetic there if laena was cold in her damn grave before they did the horizontal tango.

now all in all i hope you all realize that this situation is a little more complicated than people act like and that if you’re going to blame anyone blame, viserys because really this is all his fault.