(Source: shanaxdawn)
Ruby Rhod is one of my favorite characters in sci-fi ever because he is Luc Besson’s vision of the hetero sex symbol of the future: a flamboyant, emotionally labile man who wears skin-tight leopard print or decks himself in roses, a man who accessorizes with big jewelry and dabbles in cosmetics. And the ladies love him. Everything about him screams “gay” according to our stereotypes, but he’s portrayed as a 100% straight sexual dynamo.
Besson is one of the few directors I’ve seen who actually recognizes that our ideas of sexuality and gender performance might have changed drastically in the future.
(Source: tokiyas)
(Source: ForGIFs.com)
Summer commissions are open! Here’s some updated samples.
See my info & rules here for…info & rules, as well as slot information. My e-mail is [amandascurti [(at)] gmail [(dot)] com], please contact me if you’d like to talk through your idea if you’re interested. Don’t rely on fanmail or my inbox, please!
Also feel free to browse my art tag to see more examples of my work.
Spreading the word will help me immensely, as I’m in between jobs right now. Thanks guys!
Ooooone more time
noon:
i dont think you guys understand the level of pain
Shingeki no Kyojin’s progress today. Done with all the leg “bondages” and the small patches. Still have to upload the jacket photos though :3
(Source: kimikuru)
You know, the one that gives housewives/full-time mothers a pension— wages for housework?
It’s ONLY A HUGE VICTORY FOR FEMINISM, SOCIALISM, AND WOMEN OF COLOR. Not a big deal or anything. Tumblr is mysteriously silent about this.
http://rabble.ca/columnists/2013/05/venezuelas-new-labour-law-best-mothers-day-gift
Drugs found to both prevent and treat Alzheimer’s disease in mice
Researchers at USC have found that a class of pharmaceuticals can both prevent and treat Alzheimer’s Disease in mice.
The drugs, known as “TSPO ligands,” are currently used for certain types of neuroimaging.
“We looked at the effects of TSPO ligand in young adult mice when pathology was at an early stage, and in aged mice when pathology was quite severe,” said lead researcher Christian Pike of the USC Davis School of Gerontology. “TSPO ligand reduced measures of pathology and improved behavior at both ages.”
The team’s findings were published online by the Journal of Neuroscience on May 15. Pike’s coauthors include USC postdoctoral scientists Anna M. Barron, Anusha Jayaraman and Joo-Won Lee; as well as Donatella Caruso and Roberto C. Melcangi of the University of Milan and Luis M. Garcia-Segura of the Instituto Cajal in Spain.
The most surprising finding for Pike and his team was the effect of TSPO ligand in the aged mice. Four treatments—once per week over four weeks—in older mice resulted in a significant decrease of Alzheimer’s-related symptoms and improvements in memory – meaning that TSPO ligands may actually reverse some elements of Alzheimer’s disease.
“Our data suggests the possibility of drugs that can prevent and treat Alzheimer’s,” Pike said. “It’s just mouse data, but extremely encouraging mouse data. There is a strong possibility that TSPO ligands similar to the ones used in our study could be evaluated for therapeutic efficacy in Alzheimer’s patients within the next few years.”
Next, the team will next focus on understanding how TSPO ligands reduce Alzheimer’s disease pathology. Building on the established knowledge that TSPO ligands can reduce inflammation—shielding nerve cells from injury and increasing the production of neuroactive hormones in the brain—the team will study which of these actions is the most significant in fighting Alzheimer’s disease so they can develop newer TSPO ligands accordingly.
Take a facet of crime, and then look at television shows/movies that feature those criminals as protagonists.
White mobs.
White pirates.
White serial killers.
White political corruption
White drug dealers
I mostly want to talk about this as a TV phenomenon, but pick a crime, any crime, and Western media has probably made a movie/TV series/play/etc. with a white person that romanticizes the criminal activity. No matter what, a white person can do whatever terrible crimes and still have a TV/movie fanbase that loves them.
When you see black or brown people committing crimes on screen, you are to see them thugs and criminal masterminds and people to be beat down.
When you see white people committing crimes on screen, you see a three-dimensional portrait of why someone might commit that crime, how criminals are people too, and how you should even love them for the crimes that they commit because they’re just providing for their families or they’ve wronged or they’re just people and not perfect. This is particularly a luxury given to white male characters, since there few white female criminals as protagonists.
If and of the above shows were about black or brown folks, there would be a backlash of (white) people claiming that TV and movies are romanticizing criminals and are treating them too much like heroes and that it will affect viewers and encourage violence and “thuggish” behavior. And yet fictional white criminals get to have a deep fanbase who loves these white criminals, receive accolades and awards, get called amazing television that portray the complexities of human nature. Viewers of these characters see past the atrocious crimes and into their humanity, a luxury that white characters always have while characters of color rarely do. The closest that mainstream TV has come to showing black criminals as main characters is probably The Wire, and even then, the criminals share equal screen time and equal status as main characters as the police trying to stop them.
The idea that crime can be so heavily romanticized and glorified to such a degree is undoubtedly a privilege given to white characters. The next time you hear someone talk about Dexter Morgan or Walter White in a positive way, it may be an opportunity to rethink how white people can always able to be seen as people no matter what they do, while everyone else can be boiled down to nothing but a criminal.
Excellent point, and as someone who was glorifying Captain Jack Sparrow just a few posts ago, I should reblog this, too.
(Source: daughterofmulan)






