#(If we're mutuals and you like it ask me about it!)

[certifiedsexed]

hi, I’m asking for some clarification on the idea that Virginity is a social construct. the thing I actually understand and AGREE with the points and explanations on why, but aren’t those just the connotations around being a virgin, not the actual concept of being a virgin. I wholeheartedly agree that being a virgin shouldn’t be seen as more “pure” and “innocent” but like, what’s wrong with “person that has not had sex before”?

Hi! So, you've practically invited me to ramble, Anon, I'm so excited. T_T

To be clear, this is a great question!! Thank you so much for being interested in learning!

Let's start with the fact that "virgin", by definition, has not ever meant "person that has not had sex before".

It's a term that's specifically, repeatedly, worldwide, has been used to refer to women and girls who have not had "sexual intercourse", specifically "PIV" sex. It's still used that way, in many places, all over the world.

It has many, many definitions, I don't deny that. The closest it's got to what you're talking about is "person who hasn't had sexual intercourse", which is not the same as "person that has not had sex".

There are many ways to have sex without having intercourse. Masturbation, for example, is a type of sex and yet, people who have only masturbated still count as virgins. In fact, in many places, you can give and receive blow jobs, anal sex, oral sex, mutual masturbation and still count as a virgin!

As a Sex Ed Scholar, I think it's very important to acknowledge that things like masturbation, oral sex, etc, are all types of sex. Not just because it's misogynistic and cisheteronormative to claim they aren't but because we live under a culture that encourages rape and general sexual abuse.

To not be clear about what is and isn't sex is very dangerous and plays into rape culture.

I also think it's important we ask ourselves why we need the term virgin. Do we? What purpose does it serve? Do we want a word for people who have not had sex, or people who have not had sex with others? Why?

[Maybe to talk about STI/Ds? Except people who haven't had sex at all can still have an STD! So. not that.]

Maybe you want it for some type of research! But why virgin specifically, a term with a million and one bigotries dragging behind it? Why a term more insult than objective? Why a term that many people will not identify with, or even want to be involved with?

Why not create a new term altogether?

To be clear, I don't think anyone is evil for using the term virgin. But I think maybe we should consider if we're past the point where we need to be using that word at all and asking ourselves what use it even has.

Okay, I hope this helps explain a little more, Anon. If not, feel free to ask me to ramble more. I love discussing this shit, you've hit the jackpot, so fr, if you didn't understand or wonder more, knock yourself out. <33

[bracedfangirl]

Fatal mistake

So uh about 5 years ago I sent an anon ask to @lloydskywalkers (whose writing was a major major source of inspiration for this) about an S5 Lloyd dies AU idea, and promised to write it one day... And while I did do so back then, I figured it was time to rewrite this old trope (shoutout to @wassupninja for proofreading all of it and holding my hand while I suffered through writing this)

But first, I shall summon some angst loving mutuals: @goldenavenger02 @thesoundofmadness @rosiehunterwolf @fishybehavior (I probably left out some people... It's 1 am...)

This situation has definitely been in one of his nightmares, Kai's sure of it. To be fair the past weeks as a whole have been a nightmare come true as well. Still he should've expected it... Of course Morro would resort to using Lloyd as a... As an ultimatum tool? Or whatever fancy words Zane would use...

Either way this sucks. If they don't give that greasy dickwad the crystal, he'll kill Lloyd for sure (Kai's seen that disgusting murderous gaze of his), but there's zero guarantee that he won't, even if they do, plus there's also that whole "gonna curse all 16 realms" thing too-

"Stop stalling! Give me the crystal, or else-"

"We're not stalling, we're thinking!"

Kai really, really hopes that Morro believed that, and that he doesn't hear their frustrated banter either. How the fuck are they gonna get out of this, they have nothing-

The ground slightly shakes, responding to Cole's frustration, and suddenly Kai's confidence comes back out of the void.

Let's see how you hold up playing hot potato, fuckface-

"Time's up, I told you to quit stalling!"

Before Kai has any chance to react, he's struck by an overwhelming sense of wrong. He whips around with speed comparable to Jay's strikes, the word 'wait' already on his lips-

His world freezes in place.

Lloyd stands on the ledge, bent back in an awfully unnatural way, red glossy blade sticking out of his middle, eyes wide open in shock.

Skewered, that fucker skewered him-

He's seen this before. Multiple times in slight variation over the years in his nightmares. But none of those even compare to the horror and dread of this because this is fucking real.

He doesn't hear the cries of panic coming from Jay and Cole, or the disgusting eerie chuckle coming from Morro. He doesn't even know if he himself has made any noise.

No he only hears the choked gasp Lloyd gives as he's kicked off the ledge, and makes a run for it. He gets there only a second after Lloyd lands on the ground with an awful crack, hands pressing on the wound reflexively.

Lloyd's eyes are wide open, his teeth clenched, and it takes Kai far too many seconds to realize that the horrible, garbled noise coming from him is his breathing. He can faintly hear Jay scream something again, but none of the words actually register. He presses his hands on the wound harder, earning an awful noise of pain from Lloyd in response. The panic has ebbed enough that Kai finally turns to look at Zane, waiting for whatever medical instructions he's whipped up-

But Zane's just staring. He's staring with that awful, horrified and saddened look, and Kai's blood runs cold.

No-

Lloyd's equally soaked hand suddenly grips his wrist, and Kai whips his head back to look at him.

His eyes are only half open now, but he's looking Kai straight in the eye.

"H-Hey... It's gonna be f-fine... Even g-got the power part handle-"

Lloyd suddenly chokes on his words, blood squirting from his mouth as he coughs. Seemingly realizing how little time he has, he reaches for Jay's shaking hands, turning to look at him and the others.

"Don' ya dare eve' s'op makin' jokes 'kay? Y'all gonna nee' jokes. Don' s'op till ya kicked the ass o' every ghost ou' there-"

Lloyd weakly spasms as more blood spills from his lips, his hold on Kai's wrist weakening. His head stills again vaguely in Kai's direction, eyes glossed over and barely open.

"Go'a s'ay a'some a'ight? Like... Vo'ca'o..."

His eyes are already closed somewhere mid sentence, and Kai scrambles to respond in panic, realizing he's been rendered silent the whole time-

The fire in Kai's heart sputters out just as Lloyd does, hand sliding off of Kai's wrist.

And Kai falls apart.

He cries and wails, begging his littl brother to wake up, to stay, even though he knows Lloyd can't hear it.

"I must admit I'm touched. But I do wonder, which is more pathetic? The fact that you even dropped this in your haste to reach him, or that he seemed the least scared out of the five of you."

Morro's sly, gleeful voice echoes through the cavern as he eyes the realm crystal in his transluscent hands with a disgusting grin before he disappears into one of the tunnels, likely leading to the surface.

As pathetic as it is, Kai doesn't immediately scramble to his feet to chase after him, to wipe the grin off his face by pressing it into water and wrangling that wretched crystal from his hands. He just stays rooted firmly into place, along with the others. It's as if all of his strength left him, leaving him to tremble in silence, clutching his brother's dead body, unhearing and unfeeling as Cole and Zane try to hold Jay together as he crumbles behind him with loud cries.

As if only a second had passed, Zane appears at his side, telling him they need to get going with an eerily monotone voice. He shifts his hold Lloyd's body with trembling hands, before shakily standing up. It feels like he's moving on autopilot, not even registering the climb to the surface. He can't feel his soaked gi sticking to him, or the wind coming from the exit of the cave or any of the bruises and cuts he's picked up. There's just this empty, numb and cold feeling right where his power and heart would be, the punishment for his failure to do the one thing destiny tasked him with.

That's not entirely true... He still has Nya left. He's going to have to work extra hard to keep her safe, failing her too is something he can't afford.

But unless he figures out some sort of magical plan real soon, he's going to lose not just her, but everyone else he loves as well.

[greypetrel]

Art Summary 2023

Now that it's 2024.

This year has been probably one of the most in terms of growth ever since I was in university and attended art school in the evenings. It's been a difficult year, and horribly unproductive for my original projects, BUT! New friends, new things and look, I can colour now in a way that doesn't make me scrunch my nose. These are few of my favourite works in terms of quality and in how much fun I had when doing them.

Plus nasty face reveal don't mind the "deer in frontlights" expression I'm not comfortable on that side of the camera, but I'm actually threee seagulls in a trenchcoat and they aren't that good at impersonating a human.

Thank you to everyone who's here, old and new, it's been a pleasure and I hope it's been nice having me around for you too. . <3

[coquelicoq]

gurathin, thiago, indah...starting to get the sense that if murderbot didn't have any specific person playing the role of "someone i deep down respect who i'm convinced hates me" at any given time, presaux would have to assign someone, for enrichment purposes

[torchickentacos]

Very rarely I'll (accidentally) find someone who's blocked me on pokemon tumblr, and realistically I know that they probably saw one of my posts too many times and just got sick of seeing it or I simply annoy them or whatever. But part of me really wants to believe that my pokemon anime opinions were just too much for someone. I want to believe that someone saw me say 'The absol scene needed better build-up to justify Drew talking to one of his pokemon like that, it goes against everything we've seen of him imo' or whatever and they just put a hand over their heart, wounded, and clicked the block button while cursing my family for several generations, past and future. I really want to think that I had a lukewarm enough drew opinion that someone blocked me about it

[b1gwings]

mutuals what are your fav pokemon (& why if u wanna tell me)? it's so important to me that i know this

[jup1tersparx]

Random “I think you’re cool” anon!!! Because I said so!!!

I always look forward to seeing your tags on my posts because you always have the most interesting stuff to contribute and it always makes me smile really big. You make words good and have corrects takes about characters. It’s pretty cool and I’m glad you’re my mutual

HFJSKJSFHALHDKFKAJDHJS THANK U SO MUCH?????

im figuratively pinning this to my fridge to look at when im sad

augh o(-(

[synthetic-sonata]

i should probably make ( or remake ) a friendgroup hangout server for tumblr mutuals adn the like but i am so fucking sapped of energy that i dont feel like it and am overly paranoid ab stupid friendgroup drama happening Again . also my trackpad being half broken all the time prob doesnt help

[edns]

Smiles

Art trade for @blaiddydbrokeit

[maddy-ferguson]

talking to new people again is making me realize that (this is gonna sound dramatic) i haven't lived in five years but what i have done is watch a lot of movies and read a bunch of books and believe it or not that actually makes me an interesting conversationalist in some ways (?)

[umbane]

gets down on my knees

[jabeur]

im still kinda new to tennisblr and kind of intimidated by you but I think you're cool as fuck. your username slaps and everything you post is always on point. anyway, have a good night!

aw anon you're so kind! i understand being intimidated at first, it's the same for me usually, but just letting you know if you ever want to shoot me an ask, a dm, reply to my posts, tag me, anything, i really am totally chill with it. i am so not cool, like have you seen me have 1.5 breakdowns a day gjfvj that's nice of you to say tho but yeah, i'm chiller than i seem i guess and i'd like you to feel welcome here and not intimidated <3 have a good day or night!

[mainfaggot]

the last time i felt emotionally fulfilled in a friendship was when i was 15, and before that when i was 13. im turning 21 next month

[blakbonnet]

-

[tenebriism]

☀

Salty AF Munday Meme - [ ACCEPTING ] ;; ☀ What's your rp pet peeve?

// Oh dear, I must choose only one? Well, alright. Uhh, I guess people who act like they're owed attention and either get pissy at people who don't give it to them ( for valid reasons ), or threaten to delete/disappear every 5 minutes because they're not the star of the dashboard. Don't get me wrong, I, personally, am absolutely horrible at divvying up my attention and cannot hold multiple conversations, so I understand getting discouraged if it feels like some folks, like myself, are being neglectful, but there's a difference between the blogs that don't get a lot of love and deserve it, and the blogs that DO get a lot of love and start convulsing when the spotlight isn't on them for a bit.

I don't like attention hoarders. We all have lives, we all have limits. Sit down and breathe, your mutuals still love you, you're not hated because you lost one follower, etc, etc, etc. :I They may just not be in the right headspace, or their focus is on other things. Tumblr is a hobby, not a job.

[bleachbleachbleach]

This map isn't, but I'll bet the maps of each *Rukongai* district (even the East/West ones) are vertical.

In Japan, you'll see maps in Japan where the country is oriented horizontally, and it always bends my mind because I'm used to thinking about it in the traditional World Map vertical configuration.

I don't actually know why it's horizontal so often (because it fits better into our world of horizontally-oriented TVs and monitors? or is there some other other, less mid-20th century reason? I assume there's a much more ~originary, "we were an island nation before the rest of that globe place mattered" reason, since clearly the map above is way older than TV). I guess I can't really say it's a "Japan thing," because every other country in the world has fewer reasons to show any map of Japan at all than Japan itself does. So there's a paucity of data for comparison. But I feel like every other country thinks of Japan relative to where it exists on that World Map, so it's probably always vertical.

And I figure there's also no real reason why it should be rendered vertically, but for the regimented, cartographic "World Map" insistence that this is how the world is oriented, and how it should exist in your mind. (Similarly, I think it's more convention than necessity that measures of distance would be presumed the objective default for orienting one space to another. And it's often colonial convention that draws maps, or other relationships that are dependent upon exercising/asserting power/domination). There are plenty of cultures where maps that measure distance are not the "objective" default. Relative orientations in space, for instance, might be visualized not in terms of distance but as a function of time--how long it takes to get from one place to another. 100 meters on a road is different from 100 meters up a mountain, or through sand, etc. But setting that aside and thinking solely about distance as the thing a map is, uh, mapping:

I'm saying this because even though Rukongai is named by cardinal directions and, say, West 1 is probably less west than West 80, I feel like the maps might be vertical. As in, South 1 would be rendered at the top of the map of South Rukongai, and South 80 would be at the bottom, to give it that sinking hellscape feeling. But the maps of East and West Rukongai are vertical, too, rather than extending further right or left, respectively. And also North--so Seireitei's North Gate / North 1 is displayed at the top of the map, and North 80 at the bottom, and it's basically upside down from how it would attach were the render part of a larger map of all of Soul Society.

And the whole reason is so that the maps match with the sense that the low districts are lightest and brightest, and the high ones are where the deep sea, weird shit eventually all settles.

NB: This is in reference to maps of Rukongai drawn by the Seireitei Cartography Guild (and the Gotei's Military Map Services, also known as MMS, pronounced Mmmmmms, because the maps are finger-lickin' good, they say). Rukongai itself probably doesn't produce all that many full-area maps due to issues of mobility, but many districts probably make use of some form of space-mapping at the local and hyperspecific levels!