#❝ ;; / no news is good news » replied asks

[link-rejoin]

Do Pip and Steel act like older siblings to Shrimp? How does he handle that? Thanks for creating more content! I loved it!!

Shrimp and Pip:

Pip tends to fall into a natural caring role with kids, while Shrimp is used to being the eldest. They don't get along the best at the start, but once Shrimp comes around, he can appreciate having an elder brother figure to rely on (and annoy of course).

Shrimp and Steel:

Steel doesn't particularly have any sibling-ly instincts and happens to meet the others at a bad time, so initially they're a bit closed off. Shrimp worms his way into their heart through a lot of mischief, and their banter loses its bite eventually. The two squabble a lot, but work together very well and see each other as equals. It wasn't the best decision to introduce him to Ravio, though...

[reasonsforhope]

Heads up/warning that I'm going to start posting articles related to the Israel-Palestine War

I've worked really, really hard to keep my blog about positive news only, and that's going to continue - these posts will be only about good news related to the war.

Of which there really, really isn't much, so I don't know that there will be a lot of posts, but I will be posting articles about humanitarian aid reaching those who need it and actions that will prevent more lives from being taken.

I know that, no matter my position on the war, this is something that would be very controversial and make a lot of people upset, so I wanted to be explicit about my position on this - and my posting policy, which is not the same thing. I also wanted to give people a heads up because I know the war in general is really, really triggering for a lot of people right now, for a lot of different reasons. I'll be tagging all relevant posts, so if screening those out is something that you need to do, you can.

I have worked very hard to make this blog a space with only good news because I know how much it can matter to have just one place, if nowhere else, that you can count on to not give you emotional whiplash with horrible news. To know you have one place you can go where you are guaranteed not to see bad news that will send you into a tailspin. That's why I've had a policy of not including signal boosts or PSAs about tragedies, no matter what they are, on this blog. (I do post about some of that stuff, including the Israel-Palestine War, on my main blog, though. I consider this blog to be me trying to run a public service, basically, and so have specific policies for myself around that, including my editorial and fact-checking standards.)

I'm going to be honest, I was really, really hoping the war would end after a couple of weeks, which has historically not been uncommon for wars with/involving Israel.

But that's clearly not happening, and I can't keep not acknowledging what's happening on here, so, this post.

With that, I imagine people probably want to know my actual stance on the war, since that's what I'll be posting in accordance with.

So, here's the official stance of this blog:

Every time a civilian is killed, it is a tragedy; Every time a child is killed, it is a tragedy, no matter their nationality. I condemn all antisemitism and all Islamophobia.

I support all calls for a ceasefire, as well as demands that Israel immediately stop its repeated bombing of hospitals, ambulances, shelters (including UN shelters), and refugee camps.

There is no situation in which the repeated and/or intentional bombing of hospitals is justified.

There is no situation in which the repeated and/or intentional bombing of shelters or refugee camps is justified.

There is no situation in which the repeated and/or intentional bombing of ambulances is justified.

There is no situation in which the killing of children is justified. Yet more children have now been killed in Gaza than in all global conflict zones combined in each year since 2019.

There is no situation in which cutting off an entire country and/or territory's supply of food and water is justified.

Yes, this applies to every group involved in the war, including countries supplying either side, and any countries or non-state organizations who may yet join the fighting.

The initial Hamas attack on Israel was a tragedy. The continued Israeli bombardment and invasion of Palestine is also a tragedy.

Most of the things I post will be about aid reaching Palestinians or news about tangible, confirmed progress toward a ceasefire. I probably will not be posting good news posts about aid reaching Israel, unless it's explicitly and only humanitarian and/or barring drastic unforeseen changes in circumstance. This is because as of yesterday, November 7, the Palestinian death toll is over 10,000 to Israel's roughly 1,400 (only about 200 of whom have been killed in the past month, starting on October 8, aka outside of the initial attack by Hamas). At least 3,195 children have died in Gaza, 33 in the West Bank, and 29 in Israel.

The Palestinian death toll is nearly 8 times the Israeli death toll. The number of children killed is 110 times higher in Palestine than Israel. (Source for death toll here, ratios via calculator.) Every single one of those deaths is a tragedy - and there have been far, far too many tragedies this past month.

(On a related note, Israel stands very, very little chance of actually eliminating Hamas with this war. The US has attempted this same strategy and failed many times: the US failed to eliminate the communist/North Korean regime in the Korean War, which is technically still ongoing 70 years later; failed to eliminate the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War; failed to eliminate numerous groups of Iraqi insurgents in the Iraq War, which triggered Iraq's civil war; and failed to eliminate the Taliban in the Afghanistan War, even though that war lasted for literally 20 years. Afghanistan is once again under total Taliban control.)

The last thing we need is another 20 year war. The last thing we need is more civilian deaths. Bombing civilian settlements, as well as hospitals, shelters, and refugee camps are war crimes under international law, meaning that both Israel and Hamas have committed war crimes.

It's time for the war crimes to stop.

Humanitarian aid reaching civilians is good news, and I will be posting accordingly.

Ceasefire now.

[timeausterrors]

i had the most infuriating interaction on twitter. so i want to have more productive and interesting conversations about homestuck now. tell me things you find unique or interesting with homestuck's writing/characters/themes etc! or tell me criticisms you have about it, its character choices or writing choices, etc! (pls dont come in to just say act 6 is bad or vriska did nothing wrong etc ! you can have those opinions but i want to spark conversations and debates around new and interesting topics or topics that don't get brought up as much!!) ALSO PLS NO HS2 i just want to talk about Homestuck as it is because i think there's still so much to dissect and explore!

[princesskealie]

taking my mom to the doctor again tomorrow~ please send any good vibes/prayers/thoughts her way that all goes smoothly! 🙏🙏

[katyspersonal]

ARRRRGHHHH YOU DO KIIIIIIINDA MAKE A POINT, BUT WELL, YOU SEE MY DEAR FRIEND GOTH CHICKEN, there are SPECIFICS as to how much Izunia is guilty and why -_- He does a LOT of things, right! He spams my inbox with plin plons when I as much as BREATHE in Gwyn's general direction. He randomly fills my inbox with cursed sexual asks asking my takes on sexual organs of Demigods as if I KNOW the darn depth of Rykard's snake pussy or whether Malenia's dick will grow back like a mushroom after the rain. He EVEN attempted to groom me into simping for Ganon so he doesn't feel lonely!!!

But all of that is tolerable, and you know why? Because that shit pales in comparison with one TRUE offense above ALL of that. You know what it is? You want to know what it is??

THIS. FUCKING. SHIT!!!! AAAAA

@izunias-meme-hole STOP SPAMMING ME WITH SEPHIROTH LORE, STOP GETTING CROW TO HELP YOU, AND FOR THE LOVE OF GWYN'S GREEN EARTH, STOP CONSTANTLY SINGING SEPHIROTH'S THEME IN MY INBOX AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!

......... so yeah my point stands, the fact that of all methods of torture this sick sadist came up with yet Sephiroth ones bother me the most proves that Sephiroth is guilty. Case closed (but unfortunately my inbox isn't 😭)

[flingza-roller]

i like dissociated for a month and now its my birthday. 4 am good morning

[mad-hunts]

@divingdownthehole

────────────────────────────

as barton was left to his own devices in the kitchen, it only then just occurred to him how the seven-fold bistro had a tv in the side of their lobby. and that could potentially be very bad if they weren't talking about the latest humdrum gossip in relation to bruce wayne or something — so, he would have to find a way to not appear suspicious and also, turn it off if they were talking about the death of the two guards already. barton sighed to himself as he pushed a chunk of the chicken on his plate to the side. he really had his work cut out for him here, didn't he?

of course, there might be a chance that jervis could handle it, he thought. but the last time he had handled something, he'd done it by sticking pins into someone. barton suddenly found himself standing up as if he was startled by the very thought of something like that happening to ravi. he had to create some sort of plan, for he couldn't just bust out of those doors, even if nothing was going on on that television. he tapped on the cold steel of the table below him with his sharpened nails as he contemplated what to do. maybe he could just stick by the almost saloon style doors of them for a bit and listen in on what exactly was going on out there.

just as ravi and jervis had made it to the front of the restaurant, his feet were carrying him to push his entire body flush against the doors, but with not enough pressure to actually open them. he thought he could hear jervis's voice now, but it was very distorted by the wall between him and the rest of the bistro. so he would have to get closer to the outside if he actually wanted to hear anything. while barton was now stressing, ravi honestly couldn't have looked more relaxed, as any friend of barton's was a friend of his. ( except they weren't really friends at all... but i digress. ) he smiled slightly whenever he heard him mention the soup out of approval, ❝ ooh... good choice. i love our mulligatawny soup, but it usually has rice in it, rather than on the side. but i could always request that our chefs put it there instead if you want. ❞

he shrugged nonchalantly and nodded, knowing that the kitchen would be more than willing to do something like that for jervis. ravi could feel his ears perk up and barton's ears did the same exact thing as a breaking news alert popped up on the tv. alright, well, he was not going to be waiting inside the kitchen any longer for something to happen — that was for sure — and so he opened up one of the doors in such a way that it wouldn't attract much attention. barton seemed to materialize out of quite literally nowhere, at least from ravi's point of view, before he was grabbing him by the opposite shoulder a little aggressively but not too much.

barton had played this off as him trying to playfully scare the other but what he was really aiming to do was turn the tv off. and that's exactly what he managed to do with the remote below the counter while ravi was too busy with being shocked, but then laughing in response to barton's 'cheeky' behavior as he spoke to him in between laughs and pushed him away from him, before punching his arm. ❝ oh, my god. you scared me! you jerk, why did you do that? don't tell me that this is you still being bitter that i beat you last time we sparred or something. ❞ ravi was still laughing, so he obviously didn't mean anything that he said in a malicious way as barton himself tried to catch onto the other's wrist before he punched him, but failed.

barton chuckled a few times before nursing the spot where ravi punched him with his arm. he made himself look guilty, only after winking at jervis whenever the other party wasn't looking, as if to say ' you're welcome ' and said, ❝ ahh, you caught me. but scaring you totally satisfied my need for revenge after you beat me. so, at least there's kind of a positive side to all of this. and just to keep you in the loop, jervis, me and ravi sometimes spar together because we're both boxers, ❞ barton gestured to the other man with one hand while ravi came down from his laughter. he made a playful ' shoo ' gesture towards barton, then. ❝ hey. me and your friend, who is also my friend now, by the way, were having a rather rousing conversation about his interest in the mulligatawny soup before you came along. so if you wouldn't mind... ❞

ravi left barton to fill in the lines of what else he was going to say before the blonde raised his hands in feigned surrender and sat down across a few seats away from them behind the counter. ravi laughed, making a ' come hither ' gesture towards himself, ❝ i was just joking, barton. you don't have to sit so far away. but anyway, i'll put in your order for the soup, if there are no objections? ❞ barton moved silently closer to ravi in particular, setting down his curry in front of him. he seemed oddly a bit protective of ravi based on the look he gave jervis.

it was one that said ' you better continue being nice to him or i'll kill you. ' and trust me, barton would do it, too.

[nosygay]

hm btw remember the "once it's all ok I'll bake a cherry pie" post I was talking about the other day. ive decided my metaphorical cherry pie is cramming in as much new music as I can into a day so does anyone want to drop their suggestions ✌️

[freckliedan]

I’ve seen a few people in recent times being all like “don’t assume dnp to be anything but best friends unless they say it outright they’re a couple you’re making them uncomfortable” or whatever and I can’t help but think… switch out one of them for a girl. If this were a het pair we were looking at I bet these people wouldn’t hesitate to think differently.

Take all the 2009 tweets/dailybooths, the vday vid, the living together for years, going on vacations together, having all the traditions & jokes they have. All the times Dan goes to see Phil’s family. The fact they’ve never been around another human enough for anyone to assume they have a different partner (who they’d never have time for anyway when dnp literally make a big deal of how much time they spend together) Dan literally confirming their relationship was more than romantic (at least at some point) in his coming out video. The double dates they go on with other confirmed couples. How casually they’re talked about as a pair by other people/YouTubers. Slip ups confirming ‘the bed’ ‘the bedroom’ ‘don’t worry guys only I saw Phil’s butt in the mirror not the people on my zoom call” it being known they stayed in a place with 2 bedrooms with another couple in Australia. Posing for naked photos together. One being a literal biological uncle and the other one literally being referred to as a uncle too by the baby’s mother.

The genuine love and affection they have for each other. The way they can’t shut up about the other. Being each others biggest fans. The way they have talked hypothetically about getting a pet together (and had a bloody fish) and the main kicker…. Literally been thinking and designing a FOREVER HOME together since 2017 and now live in it. Together. 😱

If this was a girl & boy no one would think different but bc it’s 2 men people be like… we’ll actually they never said it explicitly so blah blah blah. What a weird heteronormative world some still live in

genuinely yeah. a huge part of it is just straight up homophobia, but i think the average person who doesn't really pay attention to them/is completely unfamiliar with them DOES actually look at all that and take away the idea that they're a couple at this point in time.

i think an aspect of it with people who are the most vehemently "they're just friends" is like. a lot of the time that's coming from people who did follow them at some point in time, who were involved with the fandom—and who now are acting from a place of shame and unfettered cringe over their past actions & making that everyone else's problem.

sometimes it is really funny to me when people Just Don't Get It though like... dan and phil aren't FOR them. it's not about people who don't get it and that's not the audience dan and phil are prioritizing. and i'm utterly fucking delighted for them that they've pulled off this level of ambiguity for so long even after coming out.

[dye-it-rouge-et-noir]

"For particularly important things, it's always more reassuring to write them down like this." - Zhang Beihai

[ID in alt text]

[liquidstar]

ok based on what im seeing from cohost it actually seems like the best alternative if you actually wanna be able to make whatever kinda posts you want. so like for my purposes it HYPOTHETICALLY works best. its also pretty similar to tumblr in terms of layout though im not a huge fan of the design of the site? hopefully i can customize it more though- theres a waiting period of about a day or two before i can really post or do anything so i really cant say 100% if im on board

but if tumblr went down i might try to use cohost for my oc stuff, and honestly i would like it if enough ppl used it so that i could just stay on there, but if i have to use twitter to keep in touch w ppl so be it. i really hate how public twitter feels though, i like it better on smaller sites like here and, well, hypothetically cohost, where it doesnt feel like i could be subject to the public eye at any point.

so yeah ill tell you all how good or bad it is once the waiting period is over and hopefully if its good enough for me and maybe some of you we can make accs to move to, if the time ever comes. but for now im happy with my stuff here and i hope i can keep it here. if you already have one my username there is the same, tho obvs its empty. anyway im going to watch k on

[ofliterarynature]

Booklr, your LGBTQ+ book club recs please!

What are your favorite backlist, underrated, or obscure LGBTQ+ reads? The more diverse the better!

I’m part of a patron-led LGBTQ+ bookclub at one of my local libraries, and after a full year our book list is in need of a refresh. I’ve proven very bad at helping with this, as I’ve either read all the things or am too impatient to wait for it to get picked, lol.

The group is 18+ and open to all genres, but we are specifically NOT looking for YA, romance novels, or books with lots of queer trauma. Self-pub is also out for library-access reasons. Some of our favorite picks so far were My Volcano, Genderqueer, The Song of Achilles, and The Heartbreak Bakery. It doesn’t need to be a 4-5 star read, as long as it can foster good discussion!

[jichanxo]

how different is your creative process between writing and drawing (and in which areas)? do you have a different approach in each artform? if you have an idea, you first think how you'd write it or draw it?

This is definitely going to be long so. Cut.

Just to preface, obviously both writing and drawing are a form of art, but I tend to use the word “art” when I mean illustration or drawing, so that’s what I’m going to do here. And of course a disclaimer that I’m only speaking to my subjective experience.

Tbh I don’t think my approach to both is that different from each other, which is odd, because I’m used to thinking of them as very different processes. Probably because the mediums themselves are so different. But like with my writing, I tend to improvise. Feel it out, see how things go, throw ideas at the wall. I would probably say that I’m more willing to experiment with/scrap my art than my writing. Probably because I’m more confident with my art than my writing, so I find it easier to make judgments like that, or because I’ve made so much that throwing stuff away when it isn’t working is very easy. I get a bit more precious about my writing. I always want to keep it or at least try to adapt it into something less bad, lmao. I’m also just not as confident in my ability to judge what writing is worth keeping or worth permanently deleting. I just haven’t polished that skill for writing as much as I have for art.

With regards to planning my art – I definitely do sometimes, because I consider art my Serious Hobby, which means I do like to have a go at more serious projects as opposed to just improvising all the time (a contrast to my writing where my only “serious project” is senseific, and I fell into that by accident). The things I plan out are the idea/s I want to convey, and what imagery would express that. (like this IW art, and the second one in this umineko post) Or sometimes the imagery gets stuck in my head and I work from that. (yagami’s hair clinging to his neck here)

I actually find that planning too much can be detrimental to my art process. That is to say, not in terms of figuring out ideas/themes, but doing too much drafting. I find it very difficult to do things like clean lineart unless I’m having a Weirdly Good Art Moment, so I just don’t. Hence a lot of my art is very sketchy. I’m just not good at capturing the same looseness with “proper” lineart than with my sketches, so I keep them. Not worth fussing over. This is what works for me.

(even in this, and the first image here, you can see a lot of breaks and incomplete looking lines. not to say necessarily that this is a bad thing of course, but you can see that even in what I consider my “polished” work, I won’t use “proper” linework, but instead a high quality/detailed sketch. I imagine some other artists would have their proper linework stage after these sketches, but i choose to stop here)

this probably reads like I’m talking myself down, but that’s not really what I’m meaning to say – my point is that I don’t figure out details even for my bigger pieces, and that with drawn art I have a better time judging where my time is best spent. I don’t think I have a strong understanding of my writing by comparison, so I can’t decide how to play to my strengths or anything like that, I just have to see how i go.

For writing, either it’s “i’m in the mood for it” or “i’m not in the mood for it”. For art, it’s “today is a good day/bad day”, “today’s a painting day”, “today feels like masking”, “today I just want to sketch”, “today I’m too loose for what I want to work on”, “today I’m too stiff”. You can see the difference in my ability to judge, yeah? So a big difference is to do with just my own (relative) inexperience with writing as opposed to drawing.

I think the other major factor is the differences in the mediums themselves. A fanfic is sequential. There’s a change in time. Illustrations are by nature a single moment in time. Big difference there. Of course, there are comics and animatics and other art that’s both drawn and sequential, but since I don’t do a lot of that, just count that as exceptions for now (and in a way, those are kind of like a combination of writing and illustration, aren’t they?) I find there are some ideas that are conveyed easier or better through writing, and others where the better option is art.

So to answer your last question, often ideas come to me pre-packaged as a “writing idea” or an “art idea”, rather than having to decide that separately. In the case that a sequence is better conveyed with a visual element, that’s when it’s comic time. The gorillashipping comic is a great example of this. The punchline is at its best when it’s not explained in words, and the expression of the final panel does all the heavy lifting. I pitched this idea initially in words (as a joke on discord), but the comic version has more punch.

Comics are also great for when you want to avoid explaining context, and for when you want to force the reader to take a specific pace. Here’s the example I’m thinking of.

The visual space dedicated to the fighting forces you to take time to process, and that time is important for the buildup to the punchline. This wouldn’t work as well if we cut this down to, say, the four panels of the last example. So yeah, timing. And then my other point – context – why are these two fighting? I don’t know. Where are they? I don’t know. It’s not necessary for the joke. The same is true of the gorillashipping joke. How did the relationship between kiryu and kaito happen to make this even remotely possible? I don’t know. But I don’t need to explain it in a joke comic. With writing I find that it feels more necessary to make context clear to the reader so they understand what’s happening, but with illustrations, it’s a lot easier to skip over that. Obviously this isn’t impossible in a written format, but that’s just my personal opinion.

Admittedly I think this second example is doable with just pure writing (replace all the panels with descriptions of the fight that take long enough to simulate the time it takes for the reader to digest the build up, then make the punchline a wham line, yknow), but it varies on a case to case basis. Also I would not want to write fighting. Lmao. I’m not… any good at that. So I guess it is also just in part about playing to strengths.

Anyway, enough comic side tangent. I’ve already started talking about it there, but was going to do a comparison between writing and art as mediums. The main thing, I find, is that they have different strengths. More than strengths/weaknesses though, the mediums themselves convey some things with ambiguity, and other things with detail.

Like I first mentioned, time: it’s easier to convey the passage of time with writing than with illustration. And like I said before with comics – conveying context – because an illustration captures a single moment in time, it’s a lot easier to avoid context entirely, while it’s harder to avoid in writing. I’ve drawn kuwagami cuddles before, and there’s no background, nothing discernable as to the lead up or any other detail. And that’s great! I don’t want to have to invent a plausible reason for them to end up hugging. I can just do it, right? But sometimes it’s the context that makes things significant, so you do want it there. A better job for writing. Writing allows you to be detailed with your context, while illustration leaves it ambiguous. Different strengths. You just pick which best fits the situation.

It’s a similar case for a lot of different factors – they're conveyed differently through both mediums, and depending on your idea, some results are more desirable than others. Rather than explaining, it’s probably better to do a direct comparison. (If it makes any difference to your curiosity, I did the drawing first then the writing. You’ve caught me on a good art day, what a nice sketch…)

I’ll try not to talk too much because I think the comparison and table say enough, but you can see how, despite depicting basically the same thing, these two things feel pretty different from each other. The mediums do different things. The mood of both is similar, but not quite the same. It’s these differences that inform the choice of mediums instinctually. (but again. points at disclaimer. as is true with all “rules” about art, none of these are absolute. you can make an illustration that conveys a strong context. you can write fic that favours describing facial expressions and leaves the intended emotion ambiguous. i’m generalising to make a point here.)

I guess the other thing is that it’s pretty easy to do writing in bed on my phone compared to my art setup, lmao. Convenience and timing also play into it probably.

[timeausterrors]

i had the most infuriating interaction on twitter. so i want to have more productive and interesting conversations about homestuck now. tell me things you find unique or interesting with homestuck's writing/characters/themes etc! or tell me criticisms you have about it, its character choices or writing choices, etc! (pls dont come in to just say act 6 is bad or vriska did nothing wrong etc ! you can have those opinions but i want to spark conversations and debates around new and interesting topics or topics that don't get brought up as much!!) ALSO PLS NO HS2 i just want to talk about Homestuck as it is because i think there's still so much to dissect and explore!

[sodrippy]

besties its that time of year again! sodrippy dot blog is asking YOU 🫵 for song recs! anything you like but if you have songs to drive on empty highways to or a summer fave, then even better. mwah thanks!

[milkbreadtoast]

me having entire conversations in the tags of posts w ppl by going "#prev ..." has the same vibe as me passing notes back and forth to someone in class that the entire class reads before the notes get there

edit: ...alternatively having convos w someone by like. writing a message on the blackboard or sidewalk and then checking later and someone else has added to it while i was away...