#A mistake that took 3 HOURS.

[rainbowintheclouds]

I did NOT like how this turned out, I shouldn’t have gone for a yellow background-

[taitavva]

the consequences of taking any wayward child with red eyes under your wing ....

(sequel to this + full text under cut)

[cowboys-bones]

Friday at the drive-in!

[mjfass]

[cconfusedkat]

I can never get enough of using these templates HDEJDHSKD [creds here]

They all have widely different dynamics :>c you can probably tell who im most fond of tbh 😭

Leshylamb are probably the most friendly towards eachother, they're in a qpr fun fact!! They bond the most easily but it's quite rare for them to catch up? Leshy is busy on missionary parties and then catching rest for a day, while Allure has to keep up with cult maintenance and usually their own personal crusades- but that explains these two deciding to go on a personal crusade with eachother. 😭 its really funny cuz leshy could be tossing allure up in the air and hes shouting at them like "SO HOW HAVE YOU BEEN DUDE!!!!!!" And allure casually swings a heretic head off and looks back at leshy like "OH IVE BEEN DOING RATHER DANDY!!!!!!!!!"

Lambket is ,, sorta uncommunicative...? Heket doesn't really have a clue on why Lamb likes her so much 😭🙏 theyre too afraid to tell her anything beyond that but thats just their brain still believing shes gonna get angry at anything they say. As much as she is a hothead (she has the hothead trait anyways), it's not like Allure is th subject of that nearly as much-- she's grown fond of Allure like how fond she is of Shamura, nothing can quite compare to that fondness of hers. They both feel like they need to walk on eggshells around eachother, but it's far from that verbatim, the relationship definitely needs more communication LAMFOSFJSL

Kallalamb... ouh. Oh Boy. Oh Man. The real times they "spend" time together are either,, COUGH, apparent Accidental Intimacy, or actually just bullying eachother 💀🙏 allure almost killed kallamar one time during sparring too and it left the two to not talk for what, like, WEEKS? Allure apologized for giving kallamar The Almost Casual Beheading and shi was like "im not fucking forgiving you" (shi proceeds to giggle and kick hir legs when they leave the tailor parlor because shi finds it funny whenever they apologize for something). Buut yeah,, Definitely Enemies,, with. With No Homosexual Intent (BRO ALLURE CAN READ YOUR THOUGHTS !!!!! THEY KNOW YOU'RE GAY !!!!!!)

Lambmura is domestic and theyre literally just like an old married couple- either getting on eachothers nerves (on purpose usually) or spending too much alone time together. Allure frequently asks to sleepover at Shamuras shelter because they like to sleep next to their spouse ,, shamura doesn't rlly like sleeping over at allures leader tent? So ? Theyre so domesticated and silly but Shamuras memory usually gets in the way and they feel like allure is dead if they dont see them for too long. Thats what usually triggers an episode within Shamura ,, so ,, Allures clinginess is a little Worsened because of that- trying to reassure Shamura theyre alive- shamura is the calm and collected one after all ,, they dont like seeing shamura genuinely upset

Narilamb is complex in itself. Narinder is the more or so clingy one, but its a little toxic...? Because hes a bit *too* codependent on them...? The main reason anyways is because narinder doesnt wanna experience death for a second time, he still recalls his original death already being,,, Brutal. ??? SO . HE KINDA HAS THAT RIGHT TO BE AFRAID . but thats the toxicity, because its not like Allure would want to kill narinder ever again?? He has high expectations for them and hes a mortal now. Allure is aware of these high expectations and just shrugs them off, cuz, well, what else are they meant to do in fixing Narinders issues if he isnt able to better himself? Narinder /eventually/ does get better mentally but even so its tough to describe their relationship without it being pretty toxic in the first place

,,, Annd with that , basically narilamb and leshylamb are in qprs! Kallalamb is more of. Like. A situationship? At that? Kallalamb usually has their private moments and theyre well aware of this, and yet they *still* choose to hate eachother LMAOOAOA theyre clearly able to stop putting up this act but at this point it feels Natural to continue this hate phase

But yeah!! They all have complexities, even if it doesnt seem too like it!! Very fun to build these pairings up :>c

[have-you-been-here]

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met), NYC, New York, USA

[secretsofthewilde]

Well. I did say that only one person needed to ask and I'll share. So here you go @raisedbythetv89 @richtea-biscuit

The actual academic essay I wrote and submitted is available to read here (x) for now at least, but as it was written for an assignment with a set word count and parameters, I ended up having to take out the section I had originally written about Cordelia and also there are a lot of references to the set textbook readings I was given. So it might not be the lightest of reading.

Essentially the essay poses the argument that for all the supposedly progressive feminist intentions of the show, we regularly see gender and sexual stereotypes still being reinforced within the show especially through the way that the women are treated for their relationship with sex. That is to to say that while the ‘Scooby gang’ typically seems to contest gender norms, with the male characters often appearing as submissive to Buffy and the female characters themselves each threatening gender norms in their own way, the intimate relations between the characters often undermine these initial contestations. In my essay I explore this through comparing Faith and Buffy's relationship with sex during the early seasons of the show.

Below is my section on Cordelia which unfortunately didn't make it into the essay, followed by a summary of my essay points on Faith and Buffy. I'm mainly sticking to seasons 1-3 for this essay because while I do mention season 4 at one point briefly, the introduction of Riley and Tara mark a change in the nature of sex and what it means in the show.

Part 2 (which is a look at Willow) has also now been written and can be found here (x)

Cordelia Chase

Cordelia starts out as a mild social antagonistic force to our Scooby gang, she is a bully. As the show progresses though she slowly starts to build connections with them, however she isn't allowed into their group until she is depicted as having romantic feelings for Xander, rather than just sexual. When it comes to Cordelia and Xander's relationship she is the dominant one. She has more social power than him and the Scoobys, as well as being more financially and academically stable than him. She also is the only one with a car, meaning she is the one who drives them to their dates. And while this at first seems to be challenging gender stereotypes of powerful men providing for an attractive but weaker woman, the problem is that she isn't allowed or accepted into the Scooby gang until after she sacrifices her social privilege to commit to a public relationship to him. Prior to this sacrifice any relationship or attempt at casual sex we saw Cordelia make was framed as shallow behaviour from her to be scorned or done for comedic effect. We see both her and Buffy seek intimate relationships in these early season, but only Buffy's attempts are framed as sympathetic. It was only when she expressed an emotional connection to Xander that she was presented as a sympathetic character to the audience.

Buffy Summers

Buffy and Angel are the first intimate relationship we see explored in the show and so it's the one that sets the audiences' initial expectations for intimacy. While Buffy is dominant within her social groups and her general use of violence to defeat enemies is something that we would say challenges gender norms, she rarely maintains these traits (or at least they are made much weaker) in scenes that explore her relationship with Angel. Once she's romantically interested in him she routinely takes a submissive role in their relationship; she goes to him for help and advice, places his well being over her role as a slayer, and waits for him to be the one to define and initiate their relationship.

 Unlike Cordelia’s early relationship with Xander, the audience is meant to be invested and sympathetic towards Buffy and Angel. From the get go we have it established that the two love each other, but despite their doomed fate we are meant to want to see them together and therefore we are sympathetic to Buffy's attempts at intimacy with him. When they do have sex and Angel loses his soul, these painful consequences is sometimes seen to be done as a punishment for Buffy having sex, but I think it's more to do with the tragic nature of their gothic romance rather than that - because Buffy and Angel did have the emotional and psychological connection that the show requires in order for their intimacy to be viewed as 'good'. In contrast though, once they break up we see Buffy try to have sex casually with other non-supernatural students but this only results in her getting hurt. When she and Parker have sex he dumps her the following day after using her; which is her punishment for attempting to have sex with something who she didn't really love like Angel. Buffy's also interesting in that her attempt to have a not only loving but sexual relationship also sets her apart from the other slayers - Kendra doesn't have sex, Faith doesn't do emotional intimacy, but Buffy tries to have both.

Faith Lehane

Faith gets to be the sexually free and explorative girl that Buffy is unable to. While she does struggle to do so, within the first three season Buffy does successfully create and sustain a heteronormative relationship that is both sexually and emotionally intimate. While Buffy might flirt with other guys that aren't Angel, she's still easily the "good girl" who cares more about the emotional connection with a guy than sex; in comparison Faith is someone who presents very confident in her sexuality and actively seeks casual sex without any emotional connections. If Buffy is seen to be masculine because of her traits as a slayer than Faith can be seen as hyper-masculine. So she challengers gender stereotypes in that her seeking casual sex and her dominant flirtatious behavior are traits typically reserved for a stereotypical "bad boy" type of character.

When Faith is first introduced to the show as an ally to our Scooby gang, her sexual confidence and behaviours are initially something that Buffy herself wants to replicate. The only time that we actually see her engage in sex on screen however is when she initiates sex with Xander, which coincidently also marks the last episode where she is considered to be someone trust worthy. Faith is the one to initiate sex with Xander, and she remains in a dominant position of control of the scene that we observe. The moment seems to subvert the trope of the confident male "deflowering" the inexperienced and submissive women (who in this scene would be Xander). However the scene is immediately cut with Faith kicking Xander out of her apartment after he tries to initiate an emotional connection with her, and this is framed for comedic effect. By framing their whole sexual encounter as comedic, it's undermining how Faith's sexual confidence seemed to challenge gender roles and instead framing deviations from expected heteronormative behaviours as something to laugh at.

It's also important that the very next episode (Bad Girls) is the one where we clearly see the descent of her mental stability as her reckless behaviour (both sexual and violent) in one-night results in her accidentally killing someone. What was initially seen as traits of a sexually confident woman, and therefore challenging gender roles, then becomes depicted for the rest of the season as signs of her mental instability and her eventual role as an antagonist. This is her punishment for engaging in casual sex; for not having the emotional or psychological connection that is needed for sexual actions to be accepted or approved of by the narrative.

Conclusion

Within the first three seasons of Buffy we see that the female characters are able to challenge gender roles in many ways, however this isn't extended to sex. They can enjoy and seek sex out at times, however they will suffer as a consequence if they don't fulfil certain heteronormative conventions during those times.

Buffy and Faith are allowed to be powerful slayers who are in charge, but in order for their power (and how they challenge dominant ideologies) to remain acceptable it needs to be limited to their battles in the streets rather than in the sheets.

[prism-forgone]

happy december, have a snowgrave i doodled in class

[theroundbartable]

It's been a while since I drew anything. I am so happy with how this turned out.

I really needed the art break ^^

You can follow me on instagram. I post only art there. ^^

[enviousbug2]

I worked on this so fast omg

[gemisbored]

pov: the god who just murdered a dozen mortals in the matter of seconds is asking you for directions

fanart for @ruthlesslistener 's fic to capture a foreign god :D

[tsukasalover]

give a boy a mechanical pencil and art kit and see what he does with it. (i made my own fucked up tsukasa paper squishy)

you can see the stuffing sticking out and theres a lot of wonky stuff abt it but uhm. that is something i do need to fix but i just Dont Care right now. Who is tsukasa tenma if he isnt weird and ugly. /aff on the first night with him i kept throwing him around and squeezing the life out of him bcs 1. Fun 2. got too excited so its pretty much my fault.

[kelpimelpi2]

my favourite funny guys

[fox-mulder-gets-pegged]

Gave myself a fake office worker adrenaline high by setting a timer on my phone and seeing if I could edit and prep a particularly tricky fillable PDF in less than 20 minutes. Which. Did it in 17 minutes and now I feel like I can punch a bear.

[nihilismtrcit]

introducing...eden louise “edie lou” ferraro 

gen 1: aries for the another zodiac legacy challenge by @acuar-io

since childhood, seeking out attention was a constant in eden louise ferraro’s life. her parents didn’t engage with her, rarely made her feel wanted. so she became the type of person who would seek out any attention, positive or negative. she’s a needy girl with an almost pathological desire to be noticed. of course, her hot-headed temper and mean attitude (that especially rears its head when eden feels vulnerable) make it difficult to maintain friendships, let alone romantic relationships. 

after making the move from sandy oasis springs to the spice district of san myshuno, eden decided she’d get the attention she so desperately craved by any means necessary. now an internet personality with aspirations of becoming fabulously wealthy, eden louise - self nicknamed edie lou - spends her days: 

trying to turn her social media career into fortune

cuddling and dressing up her bby chihuahua, clover (bites)

gaming, streaming, vlogging

keeping it tight to flex on social media 

seeking out validation in the form of romantic relationships and/or money

&& generally oscillating between being an overly attached lover and a messy gal ;)

[kaisollisto]

don't go where i cannot follow (aka table au pt 2)

Home is something Beatrice has grappled with. A word that sits on her tongue unyielding, it sours the inside of her mouth. The taste lingers and there is no reprieve for breathing. She does not care for a place in the world but something inside her needs it. The thought shames her, to need something so desperately. (To want on the brink of desperation and longing, to search for an answer only to be scorned tramples her heart). The need sweeps through her and she is helpless to do anything but let it pass. (And yet she cannot stop looking, she is not human but she hopes wildly like one). 

Beatrice has always felt rigid, a tension in her bones that shadows her. There's something inside of her that coils, it twists and twists and Beatrice sees no end. A hole inside of her that swells to the size of her heart. It’s all encompassing and Beatrice cannot escape. She is a mouthpiece to pain and it is clear to her how much it is just Beatrice and the expanding absence of Beatrice. 

There is nothing but time for Beatrice, she holds it heavily with tight hands. She was pressed from a weeping willow, crushed, squeezed to an unbearable degree of pressure that Beatrice can’t remember how to let go. (She dreams of it, hands pressing insistently against her, shoving her back into the absence of herself). She holds a tight relationship with time, it passes and she holds on. 

She remembers everything and nothing at all but the only thing that has mattered to her was pain.

It is what makes her Beatrice. The pain leads her down a path, it becomes her. There is no Beatrice without pain. She cannot find herself amidst the sensation, she cannot separate anything memorable without pain. She doesn’t know who she is without pain. She is shaped by the people who have hurt her and she wishes she could let go, (but the scars stay permanent and she is still a table). 

There is no god, Beatrice doesn’t believe in such trivial things. But when you’re a table all you have is time. She entertains the thought, some deity, a higher power pulling strings, a fate predetermined and she hates the idea. She would pull them thread from thread, vein from vein with her bare soul. She would claw her way to the heavens to rip the tether of pride between gods and watch them fall.

But there is no place for bitter resentment in her heart so she tucks it away. A feeling never to be touched but always too close for comfort. She fills her day falling into habits. She’s particular about her routine, she spends the first few hours of dawn sitting inside of herself. If she were a tree it'd be easier, freeing, but confined to the shape of a table she feels wrong. A loss she doesn’t want to dwell on for the fear of being consumed. (She doesn’t know grief directly, but she knows this feels something akin to it). 

It’s taxing to be okay with where she is, there is no life here. (Some days she wakes up with a deep rooted fear that she was dying herself, a willow tree rotting from the inside out and how do you even begin to save yourself?) But she has to move on.

Beatrice never stays in one place too long. She's seen quite a few places, each one different than the last. She thinks she must be an ugly table to be passed around in different hands (and yet they all still seem to treat her with care).

Her current stay hurts her eyes. Everything's a bit too bright for her even with her fuzzy vision. She can make out shapes and objects she recognizes but it's still straining. 

She doesn’t notice her at first, Beatrice spends an obscene amount of time tasting the environment. It’s clean, albeit a bit suffocating but there’s airflow, proper ventilation and if she closes her eyes she can pretend. She likes the muted buzz of other voices, she can’t understand them but it comforts her knowing they’re there. 

She finds her slotted in between ungodly times of the day, she always seems to be in the midst of something. 

There is something about her that bothers Beatrice. She can feel her vibrating, there’s something palpable there, something tangible there that will burn her. And Beatrice, (who has only known pain), has never wanted it so bad.