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Nina Simone: “I want to shake people up so bad that when they leave a nightclub where I performed, I just want them to go to pieces! I want to go in that den of those elegant people, with their old ideas and smugness and just drive them insane…”
“I’ll tell you what freedom is to me, no fear. If I could have that have my life…”
2 1/2 minutes of pure fierceness.
This woman inspires me every time. Every single time.
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Maybe I want to act because I’m a coward.
I watch media. I watch a lot of media. I watch things for escape. I watch things because I want to be in them. I watch them so the characters can be my emotional proxy. I am ready at any time to sit back and feel anything through these strangers in front of me. It’s safer that way. I can go with them, feel what they feel, and when it’s done, I can exit the ride, turn off the tv, and be glad or sad that I’m not them.
They let me feel things. Emotions are something we have as humans. They’re different for each of us. For me, sometimes they’re terrifying. They’re very intense. They just seem to happen whether I want them to or not. I don’t love anything a little. I love it a lot. The same with anger, fear, and pretty much everything in between. With movies and tv, they give me a safe place to feel them through the people on screen. Even the ones I’ve never felt before are there waiting for me. I get to explore and when it’s over I can put them away because they weren’t completely mine. Safer.
I can’t do that with my own emotions. I’ve tried but they always find a way to sneak out. I hate that I can’t have complete control over them. With characters I can see, understand, and empathize but you can never do that with everyone in real life. With the characters in media, I have an outlet to feel things safely without feeling out of control.
I love exploring characters. I love being them and making discoveries through and about them; finding the similarities between them and myself , or if there are none, trying to find a way to empathize. Yet again the character is a shell. They are a protective shield or form I can wear; my emotional proxy. I can be brave enough to face whatever they have to, feel it, hate it, love it, fear it, despair or even revel in their unbridled joy. I can face anything with or through them. They’re my buffer. I’m willing to experience these things or be these people to entertain and give others what I get from it all: An emotional proxy for when it’s all too much. A focal point so that they don’t have to feel all their own emotions at once. They can identify with certain aspects and I’ll give them the time and space to ponder and feel, but I’m hiding within the character sometimes.
And I act and watch to find a way through and to escape from my own emotions. Sometimes, it just seems easier to feel by proxy.
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hi guys! this is a comic i made for a final in my comics in literature class. we had to do a research paper on a topic we’d discussed in class and then accompany it with a comic with a relevant subject. my paper was about hyper-sexualization of women in comic books, but i decided to broaden it out here as well as personalize it and make myself the subject and discuss something i’ve been subjected to in the convention circuit and on the internet as well as thousands of other women, as well as give a cue to thought about how the comic book industry as well as the video game industry and even just media in general (all of which are male dominated) push such ridiculous pressures onto girls and women.
also, it feels kind of silly to have to add this since i hope it’s obvious, but i am very aware that there are men that don’t subscribe to this attitude, and am incredibly grateful that these issues are brought to light to people other than the ones that are subjected to it.
anyway haha i have literally been staring at this for 9 hours i don’t even know which direction is up anymore. thanks for reading!!!
(via asgardianbrothertouching)
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High-res →
An assignment for Advanced Digital! We were supposed to make a gif portrait of a historical figure. I chose Julie d’Aubigny, 17th century swordsmaster and opera singer, responsible for the deaths of at least ten men in duels, and openly bisexual. After her lover was placed into a convent by the girl’s parents, d’Aubigny took the vows to enter the convent as a novice, then rescued her lover and set the convent on fire to cover their escape. Dang.
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k: On Female Characters
I am tired of being told to like female characters.
Yes, I am going to judge male and female characters differently, I am going to be interested in a wider range of plotlines that feature male characters and, to be honest, I am going to like more male characters…
Okay no. Really how do you think this is going to help anything at all?
Dismissing every female character and justifying it with “sexism” only perpetuates the problem.
We hold female characters to an impossibly high standard while forgiving every male character their flaws, loving them for their angst and their poor choices and their antiheroics, and condemn female characters for similar faults.
This is why movie executives are convinced that a movie with a female lead won’t sell. A lot of that is because of people like you - who justify the hatred of female characters and write these movies off before they’re even released.
Do you have to like EVERY female character? Of course not. But sometimes you have to accept that YOU ARE BEING SEXIST. YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS AND ACKNOWLEDGE THIS IN YOURSELF, FORCE YOURSELF TO BE OPTIMISTIC, AND SUPPORT THESE CHARACTERS DESPITE THEIR FLAWS. OR THINGS. WON’T. CHANGE.
because “HELL LET’S ONLY HAVE MALE CHARACTERS AND THEN SEXISM WON’T BE A THING” is possibly THE MOST FLAWED solution to this problem that I HAVE EVER HEARD
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Helen Mirren
Let’s face it: we all wish we were half as fabulous and sassy as Dame Helen Mirren.
CAN I BE HER WHEN I GROW UP?!?!?!
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![sonofbaldwin:
siddharthasmama:
ybgk:
England’s Smartest Family is Black:We won’t hear about this in the news…..England’s Smartest Family is BlackMeet the “First Family of Education” in England . They are black.Peter and Paula Imafidon, 9-year-old twins from Waltham Forest in northeast London , are a part of the highest-achieving clan in the history of Great Britain education. The two youngest siblings are about to make British history as the youngest students to ever enter high school. They astounded veteran experts of academia when they became the youngest to ever pass the University of Cambridge ’s advanced mathematics exam. That’s on top of the fact they have set world records when they passed the A/AS-level math papers.Chris Imafidon, their father, said he’s not concerned about his youngest children’s ability to adapt to secondary school despite their tender age. “We’re delighted with the progress they have made,” he said. “Because they are twins they are always able to help and support each other.”To Peter and Paula’s parents, this is nothing new. Chris Imafidon said he and his wife have been through this before: they have other super-gifted, overachieving children.Peter and Paula’s sister, Anne-Marie, now 20, holds the world record as the youngest girl to pass the A-level computing, when she was just 13. She is now studying at arguably the most renowned medical school in the United States , Johns Hopkins University , in Baltimore .Another sister, Christina, 17, is the youngest student to ever get accepted and study at an undergraduate institution at any British university at the tender age of 11.And Samantha, now age 12, had passed two rigorous high school-level mathematics and statistics exams at the age of 6, something that her twin siblings, Peter and Paula, also did.Chris Imafidon migrated to London from Nigeria in West Africa over 30 years ago. And despite his children’s jaw-dropping, history-making academic achievements, he denies there is some “genius gene” in his family. Instead, he credits his children’s success to the Excellence in Education program for disadvantaged inner-city children.“Every child is a genius,” he told British reporters. “Once you identify the talent of a child and put them in the environment that will nurture that talent, then the sky is the limit. Look at Tiger Woods or the Williams sisters [Venus and Serena] — they were nurtured. You can never rule anything out with them. The competition between the two of them makes them excel in anything they do.”
Black excellence, y’all!
They keep pretending like black people can’t be geniuses. But they know who we are. #ErykahBaduSoldierTeas](http://25.media.tumblr.com/889d0b4a1b1f868b6d680f8f51197735/tumblr_mj4domgkmp1rl3vhho1_400.jpg)
ybgk:
England’s Smartest Family is Black:
We won’t hear about this in the news…..
England’s Smartest Family is Black
Meet the “First Family of Education” in England . They are black.
Peter and Paula Imafidon, 9-year-old twins from Waltham Forest in northeast London , are a part of the highest-achieving clan in the history of Great Britain education. The two youngest siblings are about to make British history as the youngest students to ever enter high school. They astounded veteran experts of academia when they became the youngest to ever pass the University of Cambridge ’s advanced mathematics exam. That’s on top of the fact they have set world records when they passed the A/AS-level math papers.
Chris Imafidon, their father, said he’s not concerned about his youngest children’s ability to adapt to secondary school despite their tender age. “We’re delighted with the progress they have made,” he said. “Because they are twins they are always able to help and support each other.”
To Peter and Paula’s parents, this is nothing new. Chris Imafidon said he and his wife have been through this before: they have other super-gifted, overachieving children.
Peter and Paula’s sister, Anne-Marie, now 20, holds the world record as the youngest girl to pass the A-level computing, when she was just 13.
She is now studying at arguably the most renowned medical school in the United States , Johns Hopkins University , in Baltimore .
Another sister, Christina, 17, is the youngest student to ever get accepted and study at an undergraduate institution at any British university at the tender age of 11.
And Samantha, now age 12, had passed two rigorous high school-level mathematics and statistics exams at the age of 6, something that her twin siblings, Peter and Paula, also did.
Chris Imafidon migrated to London from Nigeria in West Africa over 30 years ago. And despite his children’s jaw-dropping, history-making academic achievements, he denies there is some “genius gene” in his family. Instead, he credits his children’s success to the Excellence in Education program for disadvantaged inner-city children.
“Every child is a genius,” he told British reporters.
“Once you identify the talent of a child and put them in the environment that will nurture that talent, then the sky is the limit. Look at Tiger Woods or the Williams sisters [Venus and Serena] — they were nurtured. You can never rule anything out with them. The competition between the two of them makes them excel in anything they do.”Black excellence, y’all!
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The Carnival of The Random: It's not the video games, violent films, or porn: taking responsibility for ourselves
Repeat after me, “Correlation is not causation.”
(TW: Discussion of rape, pornography, gun violence, intimate partner violence, rape culture, misogyny, and cultural perceptions of mental illness.)
Similar to the way in which the US Congress and UK Parliament keep trying to convince us that…
