#<- kinda? it’s art but not necessarily my art
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#this was an incredible read#i have always enjoyed morris' designs#its so wonderful to see how his views on art capitalism and machinery align with my own views#and thankyou so much op for sourcing your quotes#id like to read more of morris' essays now#long post
I mentioned this in my previous morrisposting spree, but there's a great freely available archive, with basically all of Morris' writing. I meant to link all the texts I quoted, but forgot :D But I can do that now so if you want, you can very easily find and read them!
Art and Socialism The Art of the People The Lesser Arts How We Live and How We Might Live Art and the Beauty of the Earth
I recommended Art and Socialism before as a good starting point for Morris' writings. Morris was very prolific writer so the archive can be pretty overwhelming. Art and Socialism gives I think pretty good overview of Morris' ideology on art and politics, but it is pretty long.
I will note that Morris was still a Victorian middle class Englishman, The Worst Kind of Man, so his texts will have the occasional sexist, racist and homophobic remark. He was not ideologically bigoted, he was very much anti-colonialist and he did align himself with feminist and queer liberation movements, even though he didn't necessarily talk much about those issues himself. I like to think he was more ignorant than malicious. For example in How we live and how we might live, he discusses the evils of global capitalism, the British Empire and colonialism, but as he does so he calls colonized peoples "savage" and "barbarous". These were at the time regularly used terms to dehumanize colonized people, but he uses them as a more neutral or even positive descriptors, given he did often talk about how the so called "civilized" cultures were kinda bad actually. I think there's a bit of the "noble savage" trope there, but he did truly advocate for self-determination of colonized people so for him it didn't seem to take the paternalistic tone (since noble savage trope was often used as excuse for the "civilized white man" to "help" the colonized people to "grow" out of the "childhood" into civilized men). I've come across more ignorant takes by him than this too. This is just to say it's good to keep in mind that he indeed was a Victorian middle class Englishman and his perspective was therefore limited.
Also thank you very much, I appreciate a lot that you enjoyed reading this!!
The Morrisian case against fast fashion
Today I discovered that H&M made a William Morris collection some years ago. The heath death of the universe can't come quickly enough. We can stop now. Satire is dead and we killed her.
It's not just the whole concept of H&M using William Morris' designs for their fast fashion which is insanity inducing, but also the critical response it garnered. Like sure, people did realize this is insane and there was a lot of think pieces about it at the time, but I read several of them and they all seem to still miss the point in spectacular way.
The basic premise of these think pieces go along the lines of: "Would William Morris spin in his grave with a speed of light because of the H&M collection of his designs? A difficult question indeed. William Morris was a complicated man. He wanted art to be affordable to everyone. Isn't H&M affordable? That kinda fits. Though probably he would have some concerns about H&M's practices."
On the surface - yes - but like in reality - fuck no. There's no nuance in this particular issue. He talked about many times what he though of the H&Ms of his time, the retailers selling poor quality industrially produced "fashionable" bullshit. We know exactly what he would have thought of H&M. Here's couple of quotes from his 1884 lecture "Art and Socialism", which makes it very clear.
"It would be an instructive day's work for any one of us who is strong enough to walk through two or three of the principal streets of London on a week-day, and take accurate note of everything in the shop windows which is embarrassing or superfluous to the daily life of a serious man. Nay, the most of these things no one, serious or unserious, wants at all; only a foolish habit makes even the lightest-minded of us suppose that he wants them, and to many people even of those who buy them they are obvious encumbrances to real work, thought and pleasure. But I beg you to think of the enormous mass of men who are occupied with this miserable trumpery, from the engineers who have had to make the machines for making them, down to the hapless clerks who sit day-long year after year in the horrible dens wherein the wholesale exchange of them is transacted, and the shopmen, who not daring to call their souls their own, retail them amidst numberless insults which they must not resent, to the idle public which doesn't want them but buys them to be bored by them and sick to death of them."
He is describing the birth of consumerism, which was taking form during his lifetime in the late Victorian Era, which fast fashion is the extreme logical conclusion of, and he fucking hated it. He specifically railed against endless consumerist products, which H&M is the perfect representation of. It was definitely not the art and beauty he believed everyone required and deserved. He makes the distinction often.
"Now if we are to have popular Art, or indeed Art of any kind, we must at once and for all be done with this luxury; it is the supplanter, the changeling of Art; so much so that by those who know of nothing better it has even been taken for Art, the divine solace of human labour, the romance of each day's hard practice of the difficult art of living."
"And here furthermore is at least a little sign whereby to distinguish between a rag of fashion and a work of Art: whereas the toys of fashion when the first gloss is worn off them do become obviously worthless even to the frivolous—a work of Art, be it ever so humble, is long lived; we never tire of it; as long as a scrap hangs together it is valuable and instructive to each new generation. All works of Art in short have the property of becoming venerable amidst decay: and reason good, for from the first there was a soul in them, the thought of man, which will be visible in them so long as the body exists in which they were implanted."
When he thought of popular Art he thought of the craftsmanship of the common people. The art people have made from useful everyday objects with skillful handicrafts. This is what he means by "divine solace of human labour". It's not reverence of Puritanical work ethic, on the contrary, it's the reverence of creation, of the earnest joy people feel when they get to express themselves through their creative pursuits. He certainly didn't believe in work for work's sake, work needed to be worthwhile and enjoyable. He summarized his own position on what labour should be thusly:
"It is right and necessary that all men should have work to do which shall be worth doing, and be of itself pleasant to do; and which should he done under such conditions as would make it neither over-wearisome nor over-anxious."
He urged his middle class audience to reject consumerism (the lecture was for a very much middle class atheist society):
"For I say again that in buying these things: 'Tis the lives of men you buy! Will you from mere folly and thoughtlessness make yourselves partakers of the guilt of those who compel their fellow men to labour uselessly?"
I think it's glaringly obvious H&M and fast fashion in general is what he would consider luxury. Rags of fashion that are just churned out and discarded without thought and produced by compelling people to labour uselessly. It's not popular art that's made by workers and craftsmen, who are able to express themselves through it. There's no agency for the abused workers in H&M's sweatshops, they are not expressing their joy of creation, they are simply labouring uselessly.
Morris didn't shame workers for buying affortable things even if they weren't Art with big A, because that's the problem he despised the whole economic system for, for taking away the popular Art from people, making it inaccessible, and selling back mass produced products with very little practical or aesthetic value. So I don't think he would have problem with people who can only afford fast fashion today. They are the victims of capitalism too, because Art has been taken away from them. But the idea that some of these think pieces had that perhaps the H&M's Morris collection can be good actually if you squint, that H&M has the capacity to bring the art and beauty Morris advocated for for the people, is level of stupidity that's hard to express in words.
Morris didn't believe anything made with exploited labour could be truly beautiful, truly art. In his 1879 lecture "The Art of the People" he put it like this:
"That thing which I understand by real art is the expression by man of his pleasure in labour."
The way I understand this, is that art is communication. Through it we communicate feelings, ideas and thoughts, that is it's purpose. So for that communication to work, for it to be imbued with message, the person making it needs to feel passion and love for it's creation. How can there be love and passion if the hands making the garment belong to a tired exploited worker who has no egency what so ever in their work and can only think about survival to the next day?
Beyond the fundamental exploitativeness of H&M and fast fashion, this collection would still get zero points on aesthetic values from Morris even with his own designs. Because the work itself was such an important part of art for Morris, good design was nothing without good craftsmanship. Good design in his mind was always relative and dependent on it's purpose.
"For everything made by man’s hands has a form, which must be either beautiful or ugly; beautiful if it is in accord with Nature, and helps her; ugly if it is discordant with Nature, and thwarts her; it cannot be indifferent." (The Lesser Arts, 1877)
Here when he says nature, he means the nature of the thing that is made - basically it's purpose and function - and the nature of the materials it's made from. Basically, the design must always be made to bring out the function of the art and the qualities of the material it's made from, not fight against them. This is because he believed handicrafts were uniquely suitable for expressing the love of creation, therefore superior labour, and to really bring out the qualities of the craftsmanship and enjoy the creative process, the design should be suitable for that craft. The other side, which was the joy of using and experiencing art, required the craft to be selected for the suitable purpose. Using poorly functioning furniture for example is not very enjoyable, nor is using clothing that's made from materials that are not suitable for the climactic conditions it's supposed to be used in.
H&M of course utterly fails in this. They use Morris' designs in fully unsuitable ways. They print patterns made for example for wall papers on poor quality fabrics with synthetics dyes they weren't made for. This line from one blog post I came across really got me: "Therefore, without cheapening the artistic value of Morris’ designs, H&M’s collection offers an unparalleled potential for accessibility to them." No. Fuck no. They do in fact cheapen Morris' designs in every single way possible. Literally this is atrocious.
Despite the popular depiction, Morris wasn't in fact against industrial machinery or industrial art even, or at least he wasn't once his views on art and politics matured. He did think technology was useful, but he thought the people should use industrial methods for the benefit of all, not be enslaved by the industrial machine.
"I have spoken of machinery being used freely for releasing people from the more mechanical and repulsive part of necessary labour; and I know that to some cultivated people, people of the artistic turn of mind, machinery is particularly distasteful, and they will be apt to say you will never get your surroundings pleasant so long as you are surrounded by machinery. I don't quite admit that; it is the allowing machines to be our masters and not our servants that so injures the beauty of life nowadays. In other words, it is the token of the terrible crime we have fallen into of using our control of the powers of Nature for the purpose of enslaving people, we care less meantime of how much happiness we rob their lives of." ("How we live and how we might live", 1887)
However, he thought that the designer should approach it the way they approached any craft, by designing for the strengths of the machine work.
"But if you have to design for machine-work, at least let your design show clearly what it is. Make it mechanical with a vengeance, at the same time as simple at possible. Don't try, for instance, to make a printed plate look like a hand-painted one: make it something which no one would try to do if he were painting by hand..." ("Art and the Beauty of the Earth", 1881)
He did use some machinery for fabric and wall paper printing, but he was very intentional about their use. Still his designs weren't made for the type of methods these modern H&M machinery uses and he did for example use natural dyes. Particularly insulting is that some of the H&M clothes are made from viscose, rayon made with viscose method. Viscose method is extremely toxic and is known to cause long term health consequences for the workers and the people in surrounding areas. This has been well proven knowledge for ages. William Morris' wall paper factory in the beginning used the typical method used at the time which involved arsenic, but once he learned this could pose risks for the workers, he changed the method. Many of the new synthetic dyes were toxic at the time, which is the major reason he so favoured natural dyes, known to not cause health issues for workers or pollute the environment.
The question many of these think pieces about the H&M Morris collection posed was, would Morris disapprove and should we care? The first part of that is very easy to answer. Yes. Of course Morris would disapprove. He is currently powering the whole of British isles with purely the kinetic energy his grave-spinning produces. Should we care though? If you care about Morris' art, if you want to see more of that kind of art in this world, you should care. Morris' art is not about the superficial qualities. Copying his designs and aesthetics and styles, will only lead to hollow imitations, that are exactly what he described the rags of fashion to be; as the shininess of novelty wears off they will reveal themselves to be soulless, useless and utterly empty. This collection is just that. To see more of the kind of art that makes you feel like his art makes you feel, not just something that reminds you of that feeling, you should focus more on the way the art is made and less on the specific aesthetics. If his vision of labour and art was realised, all art produced of course wouldn't be loved by every person, but all of it would be loved by someone, even if that someone was just the maker. And that would be more worthwhile than every single rag of fast fashion.
I will stop William-Morris-posting now and return to my thesis.
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COLLAB W/ MY BESTIE @0citrix0
My digital art skills have improved once again😈
Fun fact, I purposefully didn’t add Chuuya’s gloves cause skk related reasons. The reason why(I think) that Chuuya wears his gloves is like a way to block or separate himself from arahabaki. And since Dazai cancels Arahabaki, I made it like Chuuya felt it was fine to take his gloves off. Though this is kinda just different analysis from different people put together, so it’s not necessarily accurate but idc🥰
Also the art of jst my pookie Chuuya🥰
#bungou stray dogs#bungou gay dogs#bungo stray dogs fanart#collaboration#art collab#artist collab#soukoku#chuuya nakahara#dazai osamu
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Umm idk if you're taking suggestions but... And idk what gender (is any) you consider santana and miki but I was thinking about.. Umum... Lesbian sanmiki? Or fem appearing sanmiki? (I hope the wording is okay!!)
I love Sanmiki so much, and this brings me to another question, would you be comfort with me using your art as a pfp on here? (I'm gonna unintentionally expose myself the moment I use it eheh...)
This is random and just me rambling so you dont necessarily have to read this part but we're a system and we have a Mikitaka fictive, and he loooves youre art sm, he loves sankiki too 🥺 hehe
i do take requests!!! it’s just i tend to do those that i can easily do or answer when convenient cuz i tend to be kinda busy 😅
I WANTED TO DRAW FEM SANMIKI TOO THO LOL and yah go ahead u can use my art as ur pfp as long as u credit me >_<
Tysm btw!!! ^_^ that means a lot to me :D im glad u like it!!
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c!wilbur + the death of a star
art credit: @wadds-detour, sad-ist, @rgbheart, @pixethena, @that-sweet-jester, @fibi-draws (if you’d like your art removes lmk!) happy november 16th!
#i’ve had this ready for WEEKS sorry it too so long 😐#mcyt#dsmp#dream smp#c!wilbur#c!wilbur fanart#dsmp web weaving#web weave#10pieceart#<- kinda? it’s art but not necessarily my art#wilbur soot#wilbur soot fanart#november 16th#pogbur#sad ist
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Headcanon that Steve was tall as a kid and bragged about it a lot, only for literally everyone in the gang except Johnny to end up taller than him
Totally not projecting or anything I would never
napoleon complex gang where ya at
#the outsiders#the outsiders 1983#the outsiders fanart#steve randle#sodapop curtis#the outsiders sodapop#the outsiders steve#my art#sodapop x steve#stevepop#<- I mean not necessarily but that’s the target audience lol#ignore how I clearly have no idea how to draw 10 year olds. I tried#look I was like 5ft tall when I was ten. all my friends were a solid few inches shorter than me and I mocked them for it a whole lot.#so it’s kinda karma that I only grew six more inches after that I GUESS. still.#cas’s newsprints
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Texting the homies for help because you fell asleep and got turned into a living body pillow
#UTDR#UTMV#Cross Sans#Killer Sans#Epic Sans#Kross ship#Kinda? Not necessarily but y'know#Once again Pigeon's tags on my silly posts have me inspired#Just Cross waking up utterly trapped and all he can do is text Epic for help#(Epic will not help he just sends him stock images of pillows and says ''this you?'')#To be fair Cross kinda feels bad waking him when Killer's sleeping this deep so Epic can't help anyway#I like to think he has a folder on his phone of pics Cross has sent him when he's stuck like this#Either Killer on his chest or holding him or a bunch of cats sitting on him#He's just got that pillow energy lol#Now imagine this with krepic where he wakes up trapped on both sides and who will he text now#My Art#<Remembered last minute lol
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what are your thoughts on Harumi x Kuai Liang (I need to see them in your art style)
To be completely honest with you, I’m still neutral to them- but he looked pretty happy in the recent trailers!
#kuairumi#kuai liang#harumi shirai#mortal kombat 1#I kinda always saw Kuai Liang as a lone uncle kinda character#so I think I need to get used to him being a different guy in this timeline#look if they can write him and harumi good.. then no problem I may start enjoying them#but for now it’s more like ‘oooh two pretty people they look nice together’#which isn’t a bad thing necessarily but it makes it hard for me to make art when I don’t have enough info on them as people/individuals#IM RAMBLING AGAIN#SORRY BYE#doodle#my art
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some silly guys!! the silliest guys around!!!!!! :)
#obey me#obey me nightbringer#belphegor#omswd#beelzebub#obey me belphegor#obey me beelzebub#belphie#beel#obey me art#my art#omg so a story related to this drawing#my 7 year old little sister loves walking into my room while im drawing to ask questions#belphie is kinda iconic to my sisters in that they dont know who he is necessarily but they both know of him as 'emo cow'#he has no name he is just emo cow#so she sees me drawing belphie and shes like omggg is that emo cow?? whos that next to him?#“oh thats his brother” “HE HAS A BROTHER????” “yeah he has 6 of them” “WHAT?????????”#cue like 50 questions about who his brothers are “are his brothers also emo?” “are his brothers also cows?” “are his brothers also animals?#then she gets to “so what animal is this guy next to him?” “a fly” “PFFFFFT HAHAHAHAHA EWWWWWWW WHY IS HE A FLY HAHAHAHAHA”#“next youre gonna say he has little wings that go bzzzzt” “....yeah he does” “PFFFFFT HAHAHAHAHAHAHA WHATTTTT”#she saw me drawing asmo yesterday so i pulled him up and i said hes a scorpion and she thought he was the coolest >:DDD#unrelated but mourning the fact that i accidentally covered beel up so much that i couldnt draw his muscles :( someday someday
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idk how many of these captions i can just make "completely normal guy who does not kill people" but cub really is the completely normal guy who is not a cannibal guy
#hermitaday#cubfan fanart#cubfan135#hermitcraft fanart#hermitblr#my art#cub#i usually am not a fan of “this guy is secretly not human” headcanons but in cubs case that's kinda. yeah.#i get to be a hypocrite once in awhile it's fun#i like to think cub is pretty chill about being a vex. he's not hiding it necessarily he just forgets to tell you#and one day he's like oh yeah that's the blood lair. yeah that's the lair where we keep the blood. yeah the blood lair for the blood magic#and then he'd apologise for the mess and casually move on to showing you the living room#idk why these tags have turned into a reader insert cubfan house tour
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I think the world is so wonderful... (Patreon)
#My art#Handplates#UT#Papyrus#I have not been able to get this idea out of my head for like - days now lol#It's only solidified the more I read! Heck!!#I dunno if I was necessarily hoping that reading further would point me in another direction but no now this is one of his songs lol#I really like Rugrats Theory actually :) The song of course it's lovely but I even have some nostalgia for the creepypasta haha#Been a while since I read it tho so that's probably just the soft haze of memory talking lol#But the song is still great! I'm partial to the English cover but I like the original as well :)#There are just so many fun lyrics! Especially for Papyrus specifically#''Everything I've been told I believe and yet people that I love just leave'' Gasterrr#''I think I'm old enough to understand so there's no reason to hide from me'' Sanssssssss#Once I returned to the scene of Sans trying to lie to him I just fjdslahfd these lyrics would Not leave me alone lol#I'm also Extremely partial to the second verse surrounding blindness and willful ignorance - his vision problems literal and metaphorical!#I wasn't planning to start a Handplates playlist but I guess by this point it's kinda too late haha#I also tried a different style of shading for this one ♪ Trying to style match a bit hehe#It's fun! Scratchy - tho some of that is from still using my usual brushes lol#I was Very inspired by watching the comic creation playlist - so cool! Very fun to watch and pick up ideas hehe#I knew I forgot something lol dang it - forgot the dash between WDG-2#S'what I get for using pre-plates references :P#For just a quick little thing I'm fairly pleased overall tho :)
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short people problems but they’re both short and one of them is pretending to be tall
#i wish this wasn’t from personal experience#ravios standing on a stepstool or something#this was supposed to be a doodle#consistency? i hardly know her#anyways#im trying to be cleaner with my stuff bc i tend to leave a lot of things unfixed#which isn’t necessarily bad just kinda annoying to me#anyways have a great day :)#froggtogs#art#fanart#linked universe#linkeduniverse#linked universe fanart#legend of zelda#lu legend#lu ravio
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There is something rotting inside of you
Goretober day one: Rotting
#goretober 2024#Goretober#2024tober#this was so much fun!! I genuinely kinda just had fun and lamo that’s the point of the tober prompt lists so yipppee!!#yeah it’s so funky and I love it#yeah I dunno who this is but I’d be damned if this wasn’t a trans allegory#evil art style challenge#because I think it’s funky#artists on tumblr#art#finished piece#illustration#my art#digital art#2024 art#All the prompt lists are probably going to be a day behind because I’m drawing them day of so it’ll just work out I post them the day after#or hahaha much later!!#but that’s ok because I’m cool#Inktober#but hahaha lmao barley as it’s a digital colored piece <3#not sure if the tag is needed but#cw body horror#but just in case#art challenge#hehehehe I really do like this piece#I know it’s Goretober but I think I just wanted to do some horror not necessarily gory gore
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peppino studies...hes got such a cute face and i feel like im straying away from it
#pizza tower#peppino#arts#mine#i have a thing where i make something curved and draw it very fast#and that makes me draw his nose so small compared to his sprite bc im trying to make the nose in one stroke#so i revisited some old concept art n sprites on the wiki#the one where hes in a fancy suit and he looks kinda confused??? i love it so much it lives in my head rent free#i want to capture that in my art for him#i should do some sprite redraws then to help#hes got like#not necessarily a square jaw but hes got a big jaw and chin; lots of space between his mouth and the bottom of his chin#and that just does not mesh well w the way my brain WANTS to draw him#so i think. bigger eyes and nose and more space than i usually allow between his chin and mouth#i SHOULD just sketch in my book to help w making my lines more natural again but weughh#anyway peppino is cute and i wanna go back to the way i drew him back in my pepperman comic bc i can feel myself slackin
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Lil messy comic I made for the shits n giggles
#I made this in black in white and then added color gradients over top of it#I should do that more in my art it’s fun and easy lmfao#Milo’s last name is Maddison btw#Milo doesn’t necessarily like people calling him that due to it reminding him of his father but Hazel likes teasing him#my comics#my comic#myart#art#artwork#procreate#Milo likes to not show his true emotions around people his whole thing is lying to manipulate people and to like. Make people like him more#He acts very charming but he’s a very angry guy with a lot of hatred in his heart#He has to keep his business afloat somehow though so tricks it is#Obviously not all of his personality is fake in public eye but like MOST of it is LMFAO#Hazel on the other hand is just deadpan angry 24/7 he doesn’t care to hide much of his personality#Besides being sad or showing weakness#Hazel and Milo have a very strange relationship#Hazel doesn’t care to push Milo’s buttons even though Milo could fire him at any time#But tbh Milo likes how Hazel won’t work well with him at times. He likes being pushed back (well most times anyway Hazel CAN get annoying)#Milo tends to be around a lot of yes men so Hazels a nice change of pace for him#It’s kinda why Hazel is Milo’s right hand man and bodyguard of sorts#doodle#doodles
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doodled Stayn from living with magicians webtoon... I like him :) (just felt like drawing random webtoon characters fsr lmao)
#living with magicians#독신마법사기숙아파트#stayn#idk his last name lol#my art#im like 100% certain theres nothing in those tags either#I've been keeping up w this webtoon but I havent said anything abt it bc i dont necessarily rec it..?#i mean its decent so read if u want but i dont have brainrot for it so dkfjdj...#except for this guy he's fun :) love when stories have a blonde guy and hes kinda fucked up <3#he's like a cross btwn milk cookie & clotted cream cookie but more of an asshole than both of them KDJDK#(can i just say i rly prefer his design from ep 1 tho..... girl why'd u straighten ur hair... 💔 glowdown)#oh also he fits 1 of my fav tropes... asshole healer :)#anyway yea i dont necessarily rec it ITS NOT BAD BUT NOT 1 OF MY FAVS IS ALL... 🤧#(try to only rec webtoons i feel strongly abt bc i want u guys to trust my taste dkfjdk)#BTW IM NOT DISSING IT AT ALL its a nice webtoon!! if u also read it and like it then yaay#ok i do highkey love stayn tho hes the only 1 i have brainrot for. i <3 2 faced blonde bitches
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That one moment in the pilot woke something in me
#ninjago#kai#cole#cole & kai#ninjago kai#ninjago cole#cole Ninjago#kai ninjago#lego Ninjago#should i tag lavashipping?#i mean i do ship it but this is not necessarily a ship post#erm idk#gojna go w kt anyway#lavashipping#my art#toki drawz#<i feel kinda awkward tagging my one minute long doodles as 'art'#but oh well
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