Playing anything after playing assassin’s creed for a month: why the fUCK can’t I climb this
assassin’s creed was the first video game I ever played, and I finished the first game in a weekend more or less without pause. then I went to work on Monday and, being totally unfamiliar with the Tetris effect, was extremely taken aback by the immediate impulse to reach my teller station by vaulting over the counter. I mean, I didn’t even question it at first. I made it maybe two long purposeful steps forward before my brain caught up and I spent the rest of the day doubting my own actions.
One time I played so much Bioshock at the weekend that on my walk to uni the next day I saw a vaguely rectangular bit of trash out the corner of my eye and automatically thought “better pick up that first aid kit”
When fallout 4 came out, I played so much of it that when I saw a pile of wood near my house, I tried to scrap it and was perplexed as to why it wasn’t selectable.
after playing the sims i mistakenly thought i was alive and had feelings
So my dad used to teach human evolution at the University of Minnesota, right? And his favorite thing was discussing Native American cultures and bashing misogyny.
So he’d start off class by going “Raise your hand if you think you know why men hunted and women stayed back in the settlements” and most kids would raise their hands. He’d list off a few various reasons and kids would slowly start participating. Then he’d go “How many of you think it’s because men are stronger” and of course most of the males would raise their hands with a few girls. He’d then proceed to rip apart the patriarchal views they had all been taught. “No,” he’d say, “It’s because if five men went out and three or two came back no one would bat an eye. They’d grieve sure, but society would go on. Now if five women went out and three or two came back you know what would happen? Society would collapse.”
And it was true. For many Native American cultures the only reason women did what they did was because the men couldn’t do it. We are (usually) taught a twisted, self-aggrandizing form of history despite evidence suggesting the complete opposite of it.
This was present in a lot of cultures in the past before white colonization (see: imperialism and genocide)
In Australia the Aborigines believed that women were more powerful than men and closer to gods because of their ability to give birth, and men would make themselves bleed just to be like women when they came of age
In the Philippines many people held practices which celebrated a woman’s first menstruation, encouraged free sexual exploration before marriage for young men and women, and believed women to be spiritual leaders, so that the only way a “man” could be one was to become a woman (transwomen were able and even encouraged to marry, and were identified as women within the community)
Also in the Philippines economic structures defined power, so a man who was poorer than his wife would take her name, and daughters would inherit and become heads of the family if they were the eldest
Westerners love to flout how great they are at women empowerment when it comes to other cultures that treat women badly, but actively try to hide the fact that there are thousands of other cultures who treated women better centuries ago than they do even today
And that’s a fact.
I would also like to add that in pre-colonial Philippines, women can divorce their husbands and get abortions. It angers me that now, a Filipina can do neither.
Also, fun fact. The Spanish friars noticed that men had penis pins which were damn painful to put on. They asked the men why. The women FLATLY REFUSED to have sex with them if they don’t have any of those. The men also said it increased the woman’s pleasure.
shethority #shethority has officially arrived! We want to bring you guys into our female power circle so we can all lift each other up. If YOU want to be featured make a video sharing something you’ve learned, overcome, or answer some of the questions we’ll be answering ourselves. You can also interview people u know who’s story should be told. when women support each other magic happens ❤️ @caitylotz @emilybett@candicekp @melissabenoist @chy_leigh@talaashe @maisiersellers @dpanabaker
George Barbier, Illustrations for Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos De Laclos, 1934.
During his life, George Barbier was one of France’s most acclaimed illustrators and designers, a forefather of the art deco movement. But after his death in 1932 he quickly sank into obscurity. It’s only in the modern era that his work has been reappraised.
George Barbier, Illustration for Les Chansons de Bilitis by
Pierre Louÿs, 1929.
Barbier is notable for his bold depictions of female sexuality, and an aesthetic in his design work that a modern critic called ‘a kind of lipstick lesbian chic’. Many of his illustrations have a sapphic subtext, featuring women together in intimate poses, or women embracing people of ambiguous gender. Some show women dancing or being affectionate with figures that appear to be male but on closer inspection are clearly women in drag.
George Barbier, Le Feu (The Fire), 1925.This illustration shows a woman reclining in the arms of a person of indeterminate gender.
In his illustrations for Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Les Chansons de Bilitis, this
subtext became outright text, with women naked together, kissing or making love. For the time, these illustrations were extremely daring and
verged on the pornographic (even if they seem quite tame by today’s
standards).
George Barbier, Illustration for Les Chansons de Bilitis by
Pierre Louÿs, 1929.
Little is known about Barbier’s personal life in his hometown of Nantes, but we do know that in Paris he moved almost exclusively in homosexual circles. He was an intimate friend of the dandy and poet Robert de Montesquiou, and mixed with gay intellectuals like Marcel Proust.
George Barbier, Les dames seules (the single ladies), 1910. This early work is particularly striking for its apparent depiction of a butch/femme subculture among gay women in Paris.
His sexuality gave him access to the underground gay scene in Paris, and his knowledge of it filters through into his work. Although many of his illustrations are fictional, fantastical, or historical, here and there we see glimpses of the hidden lives of queer women in
fin-de-siecle Paris.
It also makes his work particularly notable, IMO, because unlike many of his straight male contemporaries, he did not depict sex and romance between women for the titillation of the straight male gaze. His women are complex, resisting bland stereotypes or didactic stories of innocence and fallen virtue. They are beautiful, sensual, dangerous and daring. Even idealised, they seem like real people. They have a self-possession that resists objectification. Their sexuality belongs to them, not to the viewer.
Question of Smoke 