Powerpuff Girls Was Actually A Show About A Group Of Small Children Crushing The Patriarchy And No One

This is probably weird to ask, so here it goes. Where there ever any heroes of Egypt like Herakles, Bilgamesh/Gilgamesh, Arjuna, or Jamshid? I noticed that I have never really heard of any heroic epics out of Egypt and I was curious as be to why that may be.

Culturally, heroic epics simply weren’t a genre within Egyptian literary tradition. I think the closest you can come to such a “hero” within the Egyptian body of literary works, is the character of a magician, like Djedi or Si-Osire, or Isis herself.

There are for example the Demotic stories with protagonist Setne Khamwas (based on the fourth son of Ramses II, Khwaemwaset). Setne Khwamwas has two adventures: one in which he finds the Book of Thoth in the tomb of a prince called Neferkaptah, and another in which he meets a magician from the time of Thutmose III, aforementioned Si-Osire. Of course since these are Demotic texts, they’re very late in Egyptian history. The copies we have are from Ptolemaeic and Roman Egypt respectively.

Then there’s the Westcar papyrus, which is a Middle Kingdom text that includes a few “miracles” the 4th Dynasty magician Djedi performed during the reign of king Khufu. This text wasn’t meant as an heroic epic either; rather, it’s one in a tradition of programmatic texts. They reflect the outlook of the class and time in which they were created, but they are also literary works.

But like almost all Egyptian literature, the subjects of these works are either fully mortal (think the protagonists from The Eloquent Peasant, Sinuhe, The Shipwrecked Sailor), fully divine (e.g. the giant snake on the island of the shipwrecked sailor, the two brothers in Tale of the Two Brothers), or the spirit of a deceased person (Neferkaptah in Setne Khamwas). And like most Egyptian literature, there’s a greater lesson to be learnt from the narrative. E.g. in the Shipwrecked Sailor, the sailor admonishes the official he serves to speak the truth of what happened, and The Eloquent Peasant imparts on the reader the importance of good speech.

“I’ll take my leave of you, Kassandra.”

It would’ve been a lie to say that those words didn’t cause her shoulders to drop.

Kassandra had gotten used to Brasidas’ presence during their days in Arkadia that she’d almost forgot he wouldn’t be accompanying her to Boeotia, returning to Sparta along with her mother instead. She watched as he did a small bow as a parting gesture, like the gentleman he ever was, and tried not to let her disappointment show.

But then Brasidas glanced up at her—those soft, gentle honey eyes she would never have expected to find in a battle-hardened Spartan man before—sending her a certain look. And just like that, she understood the unspoken words behind them, and found herself returning his smile with one of her own.

I’ll be waiting for you back at home.

Because Brasidas bowing to Kassandra before they part ways in Arkadia always makes me soft.

I know Steve is really talented with his shield and is like an expert with it 

but just imagine him smacking it in his face 

or tripping over it

or waking up in the middle of the night and he shuffles off to the bathroom only to step on the edge of the shield and it smacks him in the shin and he curses loudly enough to wake up the other Howling Commandos who just sit up and start laughing at the way Steve is holding onto his leg and swearing 

When Apollo is rampaging out of your door, and you have no Auntie Hestia at home, ready to pamper you with cuddles, comfort and a safe cleansing with fire that will kill one by one each germ… Well, what to say, maybe it’s really the time to stay put at home.

Especially if you’d go to meet some very mortal, very sensible to disease-bringing arrows friends.

(you were wondering how come our Hestia is not a jerk as her family? Well, she kinda goes by the rule “Manners maketh the man”. She’ll snap her fingers and incinirate you with zero regrets if you get on her bad side, but with a smile on her face and saying thank you and please can you just move away from that rug it looks like it’d be a mess to clean like the polite lady she is.)

Steve and Tony + the foreign concepts of “family” and “stability”

for no particular reason and certainly not because of a certain shitbag author publishing yet another shitty book, here’s a list of science fiction/fantasy books by marginalized authors.

with special focus on trans, indigenous, jewish, asian and/or disabled authors because these are groups she-who-must-not-be-named has been particularly shitty about!

note: i got the idea to do this from @queerpontmercy​​​ - hope you don’t mind! i’ve read most of these, and i’ve tried to organize them by subgenre. now go read!

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi. Young adult SFF written by a black nonbinary author, with a black trans girl main character.

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger. Young adult speculative fiction written by a Lipan Apache author. Main character is an asexual Lipan Apache teenager.

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan. First book in a YA fantasy series in an Asian-inspired setting by a mixed-race author of Malaysian descent, featuring a F/F romance.

Blanca & Roja by Anna-Marie McLemore. A young adult fantasy about two sisters in a cursed family, written by a Mexican-American nonbinary author.

Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones. A contemporary, coming-of-age fantasy about a boy and his werewolf family, written by a Blackfeet Native American author.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo. First in a high fantasy novella series by an Asian-American author, featuring a queer cast including a nonbinary main character.

The Black Tides of Heaven (Tensorite Series) by JY (Neon) Yang. A fantasy novella series with nonbinary and lgbtq+ main characters, written by a nonbinary Singaporean author.

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey. Pulp Western science/ dystopian fiction novella with an all-queer cast, written by a nonbinary author.

The Golem & the Jinni by Helene Wecker. Historical fantasy combining elements of Jewish and Arab folk mythology by a Jewish author.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. Fantasy by a Jewish author with Jewish main characters.

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders. Fantasy about witches and scientists trying to save the world by a trans author.

Jade City by Fonda Lee. First in a fantasy series in an Asia-inspired setting written by an Asian-Canadian author.

Bone Universe trilogy by Fran Wilde. Fantasy trilogy featuring cast of disabled characters written by a disabled author.

Parable of the Sower (Earthseed series) by Octavia Butler. Science fiction / dystopian series written by a black disabled author.

On my departure from Discord

I’ve been having a rough few weeks of doubts and strife in my online and fandom life, and I’ve decided to step down from Discord in an interactive sense for the time being. Saying that the decision was painless or easy on my part would be an understatement. The realization of this need for escape came on with sudden clarity, and took even me off guard.  That’s why I wanted to explain a few factors that led me to making this drastic decision.

Discord has been a social beacon for me in the time of Covid and lockdown and instrumental in getting me back in the writing groove since early 2019. I’m immensely grateful for the people I got to meet and the conversations I had, but as life reopened its doors for me, I started to become more aware of all the ways in which the platform chafed at my being and mental health.

Gradually, over time, Discord had turned from a convenient safe space into a dependency that fostered a constant need to interact, to be aware, and to perform to stay relevant. It’s all the things I hated about high school but ten times worse because I actually like the people I interacted with. To make matters worse, I noticed that this constant need to stay relevant was interfering with what truly mattered to me: building my future and fulfilling a duty I feel I owe to myself and the world.

As my resentment with the platform grew, I became more hard-line and less compromising in my communication. I’m not saying that Discord is a toxic platform, but simply that it can cause negative or toxic behaviours towards yourself and those around you. I did not like who I’d become under Discord’s influence, so I decided to step away and re-examine which values and activities I wanted to hold onto for my personal development and mental health journey. Maintaining a presence in the Discord fandom did not fit into that, so I decided to cut myself off in the most drastic way possible.

As soon as the next day, I began to feel better, like a weight of responsibility had dropped off my shoulders. Suddenly, I had mental room to breathe again, to explore the world around me, and to put words down on the page. I felt freer and more independent than I had in months, and I knew I had made the right decision.

Still, as I’m closing the metaphorical ledger, I feel somewhat obliged to apologize to those I might have hurt with my sudden departure, but I felt that putting myself first was absolutely the correct thing to do in that moment. (If only to spare everyone from my inevitable downward spiral.) I don’t know if the space is healthier or better without me there, but at least I’m taking care of myself and others by removing myself from it. It was the right decision, even if it’s still hard.

To all the people that I have known: I wish you well. Maybe our paths will cross again.

Judy The Dreamer

(Boy, does it feel good to have this off my chest.)

Ya know how in Watchmen, Dr. Manhattan exists in all times at the same time? That’s what watching this felt like. I am both in 2020 and 2005. Who is this intrepid time traveler???

I love how many Golden Age “World’s Finest” covers are basically just Superman and Batman taking their adopted son Robin out for fun activities like good supportive parents (though not above a little harmless fun at each other’s expense).

You ever invite your coworker to watch you give birth just to spite a racist