Dress

Elsa Schiaparelli sundress ca. 1948-1949 via The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Coat

Alexander McQueen, 2008

1stdibs.com

MYTHOLOGY MEME

1/5 OTPs: Rama & Sita

Let us be very clear: Hamas breached international law on the 7th of October. Hamas targeted innocent civilians in the most callous and inhumane manner, and their actions have been rightly condemned by right thinking people across the world.

But we should also be very clear, Israel has breached international law, not just every day since October the 7th, but virtually every single day for decades.

Israel occupies Palestinian land, against international law.

Israel blockades Palestinian territory, against international law.

Israel builds and expands illegal settlements, against international law.

Israel enforces an apartheid system that restricts the movements of Palestinians and denies their fundamental rights, against international law.

And Israel regularly and systematically attacks and kills Palestinian civilians, against international law.

So the question that must be answered by all of us in political life is this: How does the world respond to flagrant abuses of international law when it comes to the horrendous war crimes of Hamas? The response was very clear and very consistent. World leaders queued up to say Israel has the right to defend itself. One after another repeated their words the great and the good, including our government.

“Israel has the right to defend itself.”

Repeated in statement after statement, tweet after tweet, despite the full knowledge that those words have become contaminated. The words, “Israel has the right to defend itself” means in practice that Israel takes that right as license to bombard civilians, to bomb schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure. And it has now been taken as license to enforce the displacement of 1 million people from one end of an open air prison to another. To deny food, energy, medical supplies to a besieged civilian population, to actually deny them water, to ensure that children, the sick, the disabled, the elderly will literally die of thirst.

“Israel has the right to defend itself” has now become cover for, “Israel has the right to commit genocide.”

Right in front of our eyes. How come we never hear the words, “Palestine has the right to defend itself”?

Not when a humanitarian flotilla bringing essential supplies to Gaza is met with a military assault and the murder by Israel of nine unarmed activists.

Not when Palestinians march in peaceful protests against illegal blockade and are met again with a military assault and the murder of 300 of them.

Not after the countless bombings of Gaza by Israeli forces.

Not even when Israel targeted and murdered four little Palestinian boys playing football on a beach.

And not when Palestinians were dragged from their homes and forced to watch as those homes were destroyed to allow for new illegal Israeli settlements on lands that are clearly defined in international law as part of Palestine.

And not after the countless offensive attacks by Israel against the people of Gaza or the West Bank, have we or any heard anybody in this house or any Western leader uttered the words, “Palestine has the right to defend itself.”

And why not?

And by the way, I'm not asking you to say those words. And in fact, it's just as well you don't. Because we all know that the people of Palestine can't defend themselves, not against one of the most powerful military forces in the world that is backed up by even more powerful military forces.

The truth is that the people of Palestine, just like the innocent people of Israel, don't need the international community to tell them that their leaders have the right to inflict more bombings, more pain, more suffering. They need the international community to say, “Stop.” To release the hostages, to say stop the bombings, the siege, the slaughter. They need the international community to tell Israel to stop the blockade, stop the apartheid, stop the annexations, to stop the genocide.

And they need countries tarnished to lead the way. And Ireland should be one of those countries that leads the way.

We know colonialism.

We know oppression.

We know conflict.

But we also know conflict resolution.

We know peace building.

We know nation building.

And because of what we know, what our history has taught us, our call tonight must be clear, immediate, full and unequivocal ceasefire fires and a decisive international intervention that leads to negotiations and to a lasting and just peace settlement and to, at long last, to a free, sovereign and independent Palestine.🇵🇸

i think what turns me off, really, to a lot of late preboot stories is that they’re just so damn cynical about everything - i don’t love superheroes because i’m infatuated with the idea that Everything Sucks And Everyone Is An Asshole To Each Other All The Time, i love superheroes because i want to believe the world can be fixed. i love cape comics because they elevate characters who have idealistic worldviews above those that don’t, i love cape comics because it’s a world where idealism is never a lost cause.

i’ve talked about this issue before, but there’s a reason my favorite batman story of all time is detective comics #500’s, “to kill a legend.” in it, phantom stranger offers batman the chance to go save his parents’ lives in another dimension, and batman accepts. as batman and robin investigate the world they’re in, they discover that this earth has no heroes, not even fictional ones. they’re in a world that can’t even conceive the idea of a hero, much less actually harbor them. so robin makes the argument that maybe they shouldn’t save batman’s parents, because this is the only shot the world has at having a hero - and doesn’t the good batman will do outweigh the price of just two lives?

it’s the sort of moral dilemma that we see fairly often today, but ‘tec #500 shoots it down ruthlessly. batman, of course, saves his parents, and the waynes of that dimension remain a whole and happy family. you’d think that batman had just selfishly saved his own parents and cost the world its last chance at a hero. but bruce wayne becomes batman anyway, because 'tec’s argument is that it is never a bad thing to save someone’s life. the lives batman saves will go on to save other lives. the great ouroboros of comic books isn’t infinite sadness or infinite dickery, it’s infinite potential to do good. batman raises robin who becomes nightwing who will become batman who will redeem another robin, and morrison’s run told us that batman and robin will never die, which means they never fail; their belief in doing good never once fails them. the lives they saved always turned to save more lives. to quote batman #700, “no matter when. no matter where. no matter how dark.”

i love cape comics because the very concept of them rewards hoping against all hope. superheroes by nature reward the idea of genuine belief; believing enough in a cause that you will splash it across your chest and put yourself on the line to make it happen. and in a world where everyone is competing to see who can give less of a fuck, it’s a very powerful thing to read about being praised for believing in “naive” or “childish” ideals like hope and truth and justice. i’m not here to read about how everyone really hates each other and everyone is the worst and everyone dies and everything is bad forever and ever. i’m just not.

Fan Bingbing for Harper’s Bazaar China

So it’s known that I am crazy about mythology, and I couldn’t find a graphic challenge of any sort, so I decided to come up with one instead. So yeah, here it goes:

1 Mythology (greek, norse, roman, etc) 2 Mythological Objects 3 Locations 4 Titans 5 OTPs (Hades/Persephone, Thetis/Peleus, Loki/Sigyn, etc) 6 Muses and/or Nymphs 7 Norse Gods/Goddesses 8 Lengendary creatures 9 Greek Gods/Goddesses 10 Movies/Books based on mythology

If you do it, make sure to tag it as mythology meme (or link me to it, cause I’d love to see it)!

this was my ask! :D :D :D your post about potential metas (and also your lovely dick grayson timeline) was one of the things that inspired me to dig up my old tumblr and finally start using it (the other being my need to rant about dick grayson and circus). i don’t really have anything to add other than i miss this dynamic and i have definitely been ignoring the modern stuff and reading 90s comics. and just ugh! siblings! family! 

the dick and tim meta was not long (ok, it was but it was great) and you should definitely talk about their relationship! (if you feel like it) (i just want dc to let them be brothers again i miss it) (this is the void again btw, that's who i am now i guess 😂)

GOD i got this lovely ask way too long ago to have not responded yet, but I was trying to sort out if I had a well thought out meta for you. I don’t. I just wanna give a very unordered ramble.

Dick and Tim were really the first close sibling bond either of them had. Dick of course had Jason as a brother first, but at the time Jason was Robin, Dick was off being a predominantly Titans character in New York, and not vibing with Bruce, so even though they got along they weren’t close.

But Dick and Tim!! True sibs. The best boys.

Here is Dick calling Tim his little brother long before they’d become actual adoptive siblings [Secret Origins 80-Page Giant]. I love one (1) man.

Dick had his own life going on outside of Gotham, but he still became Tim’s mentor almost as much as Bruce, and his confidant far more. The number of times Tim and Dick hung out and Tim got big brother advice is...so many.

[Robin #61]

And they were Batman and Robin together the first time Dick donned the cowl, where they worked together perfectly and also had a fun time doing it. Plus, Dick lived in the Manor and made Tim learn household tasks

[Robin #12]

And also!! I get emotional! About them being so connected so early on!! Tim’s introduction was all about Dick, not about Bruce. His backstory was from Dick’s, and the first person he sought out in his introductory storyline was Dick, before he met Bruce at all.

Tim got a hug from a kid at the circus when he was a tiny tim and then saw that kid’s parents die, and that set the whole course of his life. He remembered details of that for yeeeears and it’s what led him to figure out Batman’s identity.

Obvs Dick’s backstory is defined by losing his parents, and so they both come from this same event which completely changed them in different ways, and then led them back together and I :’)

Dick genuinely means so much to Tim. That’s his idol, the Robin he looked up to, the kid he attached to so thoroughly, and then his older brother and mentor and confidant and partner. And Tim is Dick’s little-brother-by-choice, the first one he mentored to be Robin, worked with as Batman, could and would beat a clown to death to protect.

And then for like 15 years Dick and Tim were this tight trio along with Bruce (Babs and Steph having their own families, Cass being as much under Babs’s mentorship as Bruce’s, Jason being dead, and Damian not existing yet) and closet not-but-basically siblings, and great, and I love them.

[Gotham Knights #8]

In conclusion, current DC should stop sleeping on them and also everyone should read comics from the 90s which was the best batfam era, the end.

Favourite Designs: Poem Bangkok ‘The Return of Persephone’ Resort 2022 Collection

MYTHOLOGY MEME

1/4 Titans Mortals: Helen of Troy

The wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, Helen was the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris, prince of Troy, brought her back with him, starting the Trojan War. Some stories say Paris kidnapped her, others say she went willingly, but either way, Helen is a woman whose beauty burnt an entire city to the ground.