I feel like people don’t understand what fetishization really means & it has a lot of well intentioned lefty types like afraid of being attracted to people
Like you’re allowed to be attracted to marginalized people lol … you’re allowed actively think certain traits they have are beautiful. You can even think they’re hot. This isn’t inherently objectifying. As long as you’re treating them like people it’s fine. You don’t have to like, pretend you don’t know what somebody looks like lest your attraction be Problematic
Remember: sexual attraction in itself is morally neutral. And my crazy take is that if you’re respectful about it it’s actually cool and good to find beauty in different kinds of people & being horny about it doesn’t negate that. Peace and love on planet earth
Sorry for spamming y'all with posts today but literally what is the point of democracy if our elected officials don’t give a shit about what we want? The people of Atlanta don’t want Cop City. The people of the US don’t want to fund a genocide in Gaza. Protest movements and polling numbers make that absolutely clear. So why are we doing it? Why are we here?
I think what really bothers me about fanon!Astarion isn’t just the woobification. That happens to every problematic white boy. It’s annoying, but not news. It’s that almost every trait that the fandom assigns him is something that is already explored through a different character in this very game
You want a character that’s too focused on the task at hand to want to stop and help innocents? That’s Lae'zel! Astarion is cool with dicking around, but Lae'zel spends most act 1 actively in a panic about the tadpole and pushes you to just find a cure already
You want a trauma survivor that is mostly self-serving but can’t help but care about people in a similar situation? Well, Astarion disaproves of you helping slaves, but Shadowheart really wants you to look out for kids! Even when she gets tortured for it!
You want someone who is prone to sympathizing with the monstrous? Despite being a monster hunter, it’s Wyll that has that covered! Astarion doesn’t even like you sympathizing with a recently orphaned goblin kid
You want a proper courtship with a prince charming? That’s literally Wyll’s romance!
You want a character that tries very hard to be bad, but deep down enjoys doing the right thing, and starts to accept that over the course of the game? Shadowheart again! A massive part of her story is just that
You want the angst of a character still having been a minor when entering their abusive situation? That’s the case for literally everybody except for him and maybe Karach! He was an adult with a job
None of this is meant to be an attack on Astarion as a character, but pushing all those traits on him does the game a massive disservice. All these character’s storylines exist in conversation with each other, they all benefit from the existence of the others. To instead pretend all those things apply to one character, is just
The artist is Clay Bennett, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a veteran of his craft. Here’s some more of his work:
The wire hanger one hit me like a ton of bricks.
Can someone explain the last one to me
@t3sticles it’s a reference to coat hanger abortions, because defunding Planned Parenthood doesn’t stop abortions, it just means that people are forced to seek dangerous back-alley solutions
A Curated List Of My Favorite Skeletons (and Skulls!)
We shall start, of course, with the obvious: Stringray!
Followed neatly by pufferfish!
gila monster skull (shh they are sleeping)
moving on to flamingos bc they have so little to work with but they stretch it so far
veiled chameleon skull (plus art by Elena Barbieri so you comprehend the importance of the sclerotic ring bone!) (bc some eyes have bones! some eyes have bones and that is so so valid)
love us a good old-fashioned mole
the tucan, always a fun classic
in conclusion, a few dainty gibbon skeletons to calm you soul, bc why the heck not <3
(yes the last one is a real vintage postcard sold in real Natural History Museum gift shops, before for some reason they reconsidered this marketing decision)
I give you boxfish skeleton
Skeletons are already awesome in their dry and preserved state but I want to put forward cleared and stained skeletons!
It is possible to make the body of an vertebrate translucebt and stain all the bones bright red and cartilage blue with the help of some chemicals and a lot of time. This staining procedure is known as clearing and staining and can give some stunning results!
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Couple of years ago I visited a traveling exhibition that was all about looking at cleared and stained fish. Fish also are very diverse wuth their skeletons and that made it easily understandable for anyone as you can still see the body shape of the fish!
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This procedure has also applications beyond being artistic as it helps scientist to understant how the skeletal system of fish is organised because quite a lot of it is still cartilage. Some forms of cartilage can be prepared like bony skeletons (looking at you shark skulls, also there are seven types of cartilage!) But the cartilage that is found in bony fish will be lost by traditional preparation. Also cleared and stained specimen can be moved so you can see for instance how the bones of the jaw interact when the mouth opens!
So this kind of staining is awesome if you want to understand the weird morphology of fish but be warned it still takes quite a lot of effort and time to make them! Also very important: the the credit for the exhibition goes out to Timo Moritz and his team at the Meeresmuseum Stralsund and the University of Jena. I can only imagine how much work went into that exhibition and so I think it should be credited properly!
I hope that I could make somebody excited for the world of clearing and staining!
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