#Asks answered

[achromatophoric]

Hey you. It’s me. It’s also ma birthdee todee 🎉🎂

Can you write me a smexy birthday incorrect wenclair?

Pwetty pwease? Thank yew.

-blueisred

Enid shares one of her favorite smut scenes from a battered romance novel. Wednesday reacts to the writing much as one would expect.

Enid: Hey, I happen to like that line!

Wednesday: *scoffs* That line—no, the entire scene—reeks of fanciful idealization. It is trite and, quite frankly, ridiculous.

Enid: Well, I happen to think it’s hot AF! Someone being driven to the very edge of sanity by unrelenting pleasure? Then being pushed past that?

Enid: *bites lip* Goddess above, just thinking about you losing your mind, not being able to tell red from blue, not even being able to form words?RrrRrowl!

Wednesday: *arches eyebrow* Me, losing my mind?

Enid: *blushes bright* Oh! Gosh, I don’t—I mean I didn’t—

Wednesday: Hush, mi lobita. Consider me intrigued.

Enid: Wh-What?

Wednesday: Why don’t we play out the scene? You may take the opportunity to prove to me that this— *holds up book* —is more than mere droll analogies and farcical dialogue.

Enid: Um…

Wednesday: Or… you can acknowledge that this entire book contains more pulp than the paper it is printed on. *disdainful sniff*

Enid stares at her beloved book as it dangles from pinched fingers, held with the same disdain as one would a rotten banana peel. Then, with eyes hinting gold, she meets her girlfriend’s cool gaze.

Enid: You’re on.

– Some salacious hours later. –

Wednesday: *rasping shriek* R-Red is blue and b-blue is—blue is red! RED IS BLUE AND BLUE IS RED!

Enid: *cheerfully relents* Aw, that’s perf!

Wednesday: *sags in boneless relief*

Enid: Or it would be, if you weren’t still so articulate, babe.

Wednesday: Wh-What?

Enid: Aw. Did you forget? We’re not stopping till your ‘pretty little brain drips out from between your thighs’.

Wednesday:

Wednesday: *whines* B-But that line, it’s—it’s so ludicra— ludocri— ludacru—

Wednesday: *shakes head* I-I mean very stupid.

Enid: 😈

Happy birthday, Blueisredandredisblue!

[hopepunk-humanity]

Another affirmation: Sometimes, by asking someone to help you, you actually make them happy. Because they know that you trust them, that you trust their knowledge and abilities. Because they know you aren't struggling alone.

"People are inherently selfish--" wrong. People crave being helpful. They get sad and feel unfulfilled and unwanted when they're not allowed to be helpful. Especially when it comes to those closest to them.

[world-of-iridensia]

@paeliae-occasionally @an-indecisive-nerd @thelovelymachinery @mysticstarlightduck @illarian-rambling

@thecomfywriter @the-letterbox-archives @sennasanthia

Send 📂 for facts about my OCs.

[saintsenara]

why do people portray walburga and her relationship with sirius in such an exaggerated way? like torture??? i get that we don't have a lot of information about what went down, but its such an extreme choice

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

unsurprisingly, the answer to this is under the cut, because it comes with a trigger warning for discussions of physical and sexual abuse.

my interpretation of things is that it's a really interesting bleed-through into fandom of two real-world views a lot of people have:

firstly, that it's uniquely horrifying when a woman who is also a mother is cruel to children [or, indeed, when she's anything other than completely self-sacrificing and nurturing].

grimmauld place is a dozen different gothic literature tropes in a trenchcoat, and the text hammers that home with absolutely no subtlety whatsoever. it is walburga in the portrait - haunting sirius, serving as a physical manifestation of the rot of blood purity, making grimmauld place seem as much of a prison as azkaban - rather than orion because the reader wouldn't find it anywhere near as disgusting or frightening to see a man in that role, and the narrative meaning intended by the portrait therefore wouldn't come over as clearly.

[the subtext to walburga's character - that the portrait and the house are liminal spaces between life and death, a hint at the extraordinary grief she carries which will be revealed in deathly hallows - would also be interpreted very differently by the reader if they belonged to orion. walburga's grief - for both sirius and regulus - is inextricable from what the series thinks is "true" about motherhood and womanhood.]

and this - i think - is why, even though sirius does talk about the emotional abuse he experienced coming from both of his parents, the fandom is laser-focused on walburga. she's a bigger presence textually and she's a bigger presence textually entirely because she exists in defiance of deep-rooted societal opinions about how mothers should act.

[which we also see in the fandom's responses to petunia versus vernon and molly versus arthur...]

the second real-world view which bleeds through into the fandom's treatment of sirius' childhood is one which lots of people hold and which therefore has major, major repercussions for people in abusive households and relationships: the idea that abuse which isn't physically extreme [or, in the case of children, but much less often adults, sexual] isn't "as bad" as abuse which is.

and part of this is that the social norms we live by treat extreme physical abuse [and child sexual abuse] as objectively wrong, but treat abuse which doesn't meet this threshold of extremity much more subjectively.

a parent who beats their child so badly that they almost die will inspire outrage from all quarters. a parent who hits their child with a belt once across the backs of the legs as punishment for misbehaviour, but claims this is a form of reasonable physical discipline which doesn't cause their child any lasting harm, will find plenty of people willing to defend them as well as plenty of people willing to condemn.

and - of course - societal prejudices connected to things like gender, race, class, and so on play a big part in these splitting of opinions. a man who rapes his five-year-old child will be - in public, at least - unambiguously regarded as a criminal by everyone in a community. a man who rapes his female partner will find plenty of people willing to argue that it's her duty to provide him with sex and he was merely requiring her to fulfil that duty. a man who rapes his male partner will find plenty of people willing to say that gay men are all hypersexual and the victim loved it.

this subjectivity of response is also one of the reasons why emotional abuse, financial abuse, coercive control, stalking, and other forms of non-physical abuse still aren't taken as seriously as they should be. there's a widespread perception - and not just among police - that they're not dangerous in and of themselves.

from the fandom perspective, then, it seems to me that the writing of abusive situations often focuses on extreme physical violence as a way of authors offering "proof" to their readers that they take the fact that the character was abused seriously.

there is a worry - i think - in many authors' minds that if they wrote walburga never laying a hand on sirius, they would be accused of claiming his childhood was normal, his experience was fine, his parents' treatment of him was justified, or that he shouldn't be thought of as someone who was abused.

but - of course - something it's crucial for us to do in real life is be alert to just how complex and individual abuse is, and how poor our pre-conceived notions about what it is and what it isn't tend to be. i think the same is true in fandom, and it's why i think portrayals of non-physical abuse which take that abuse as bad enough are so important.

[niyana-the-ambiguous-mobian]

I swear, Sonic and Knuckles ate the teamwork s'more like gremlins

Yeah, that s'more was uh....quite the spectacle. At least they enjoyed it for what it was worth.

"Knuckles, how could you!" Boy, if you don't stop blaming him for stuff-

[venomous-qwille]

Forgive me, but if Nova doesn't get an epic chase scene straight out of Short Circuit 2 while blasting "I need a hero" sung by Bonnie Tyler I will riot XD

Hehehe I feel like this should just be how he traverses the house on the regular!

[akito-shinonome-daily]

Can you send Akito to a Roblox obby? ^_^

➥ chibi akito is going to a roblox obby!

➥ oh no, he’s falling! oh–! oh–!

[wildemaven]

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNewJJPLy/

This music teacher kinda looks a little like Pedro from the back with the hair and glasses and can you imagine Joel helping with music stuff for Sarahs music performance and planning this little bit with the kids and when they’re practicing he’s always sneaking little glances at Sarahs cute teacher and ugh it’s giving romcom vibes???

I loved that video when it came across my FYP the other day!! It was so funny and cute!!!

This is such a sweet idea. I personally think Joel would be a little too introverted to take all that on in front of all those people.

I could definitely see Uncle Tommy wanting to jump in there and have fun with Sarah’s class. Because he sees it as a way to draw in all the single moms— which happens to be way more than he planned for but he’s not complaining either.

Joel is completely embarrassed but can’t blame Tommy for putting himself out there like that. He’s blushing and rubbing at his neck while he’s standing next to Sarah’s teacher in the back of the room watching this all unfold. He tries to apologize for his brother’s behavior, but she’s having none of it. She waves off his apology and tells Joel that there hasn’t been this much excitement during a recital in a long time.

Joel finds a burst of confidence and tells her how he’s the one who actually taught Tommy how to play guitar when they were younger. That his little brother picked it up quickly and used it to his advantage to get all the girls in school.

She’s asks Joel what his thing was. He gives her a puzzled look and she phrases her question— What had the girls fawning over you in school? He gives her sheepish grin and tells her he didn’t have a thing. He was too reserved to get much attention from anyone. She smiles at him sweetly and gently bumps his shoulder with hers when she says, Well, you’ve had my attention for a while. 😉

Thanks so much anon for sending this in! And thank you @gnpwdrandsnshine for aiding in this little thing 💕

[primetime24-24]

You're too skinny

Parentless behaviour. Clearly, you weren't taught not to comment on things that people can't, or struggle, to change.

Get fucked.

[reds-skull]

I'm still thinking about your "Dogfighter" piece

Conscience is the dog that can't bite, but never stops barking

The way you captured him is so often the way I rotate him in my mind. Glaring, bloody, unremorseful. But restrained and confident. Like you know that the only reason you're not hurt is because there's a hand on his leash. And he won't bite, but if it was up to him, he would.

I'm glad you liked it! I'll be honest I feel like I could've made Soap more feral, but I was going for him like after a fight, after he got kicked out of a bar for punching people

(I wonder if Soap is the conscience that never stops barking, or does his own conscience do that)

Also hairy man!!!

[hopepunk-humanity]

I saw the hopepunk gnocchi and they slay and I also wanted to share hopepunk feta cheese. 

I experience suicidal thoughts and while I believe I’m quite good at keeping myself alive, I obviously don’t enjoy that state of mind. The problem is talking to other people about it is always a kind of gamble. 

We were doing Secret Santa and being mostly focused on surviving I couldn’t come up with anything I’d like to receive, the one and only idea I had was feta cheese and my friends knew about it. 

And one day I was particularly not having fun, my friend caught on and we had a very sweet and non-judgmental conversation. Despite her best best intentions she kinda didn’t know what to say, so she was like: can I help you with anything? would you like some feta cheese? and honestly that was the best reaction bc it had this underlying message of: you’re still human and the same person I know, and that’s very sweet.

So yeah, she got me feta (even before the Secret Santa thing)

Pasta with spinach and feta: cook pasta, defrost spinach on a pan, at some point add feta, stir a bit, add the cooked pasta, meal, even more beautiful with pine nuts and/or pumpkin seeds

This is so sweet. "You're still human and the same person I know", thank you for verbalizing a concept I couldn't quite express. And thank you for the mini-recipe!

[destiel-wings]

Are you incapable of making your own post? Why did you add on to that poor persons Merlin post when they dont care about Destiel? And youre too lazy to make your own gifs lol okay. Please dont add on to posts that arent yours. So fucking lazy and annoying.

Hey, if you're the op who made the post, I sincerely apologize. If you don't want that kind of addition i can delete it, no problem.

I love merthur and i love destiel too, and I added that scene from spn to make a comparison between the two ships. It wasn't meant to take anything away from the original post, but my intention was to give it a new light in addition (as people do on this site) by drawing a parallel with another piece of media. A lot of destiel fans love merthur too and i thought the op could get more reblogs and likes on their gif this way (reaching another fandom too).

I know how to make my own posts, I did plenty of them, actually.

What i don't know how to do is gifs, and i have deep appreciation for people who make them, and it is my understanding that they like exposure for their posts, so that their hard work can reach more people.

This is why i reblogged it.

My tags on the reblog were about both ships, i didn't deviate from the original post ignoring it to only talk about another ship (which would've been rude), so i didn't think it could be offensive in any way.

[saintsenara]

what are your thoughts on the mini prefect plot in OOTP regarding ron and his relationships with harry + the weasleys? was he really suited for the role?

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

neither harry nor ron should have been prefects - justice for dean, i say - but the revelation that ron has been made one serves a very important narrative purpose and i can't think of anything which could have replaced it...

order of the phoenix is the book in the series which is most explicitly a coming of age story - and it's not only a coming of age story in that it's the book where harry has typical teenage experiences like sitting exams and pulling for the first time and realising that he wants to be a different man from his father, but also in that it's the book where harry transitions from being a member of a trio who get up to shenanigans as a team to being the chosen one, who is superior to his disciples, ron and hermione.

this is an important aspect of why harry spends the beginning of the book fuming that ron and hermione aren't telling him anything about their work with the order - he's not just pressed that he's not being given information, he's pissed off because he thinks that ron and hermione aren't behaving correctly, since they should recognise his authority over them by virtue of his centrality to the fight against voldemort.

hence harry's thought process after he learns ron has been made a prefect:

He was no better than Ron in lessons. But what about outside lessons? What about those adventures he, Ron, and Hermione had had together since they had started at Hogwarts, often risking much worse than expulsion? Well, Ron and Hermione were with me most of the time, said the voice in Harry's head. Not all the time, though, Harry argued with himself. They didn't fight Quirrell with me. They didn't take on Riddle and the basilisk. They didn't get rid of all those dementors the night Sirius escaped. They weren't in that graveyard with me, the night Voldemort returned... And the same feeling of ill usage that had overwhelmed him on the night he had arrived rose again. I've definitely done more, Harry thought indignantly. I've done more than either of them, But maybe, said the small voice fairly, maybe Dumbledore doesn't choose prefects because they've got themselves into a load of dangerous situations... Maybe he chooses them for other reasons... Ron must have something you don't...

but crucially, harry's conclusion - which dumbledore affirms at the end of the book, when he says that the only reason he didn't make harry a prefect was because it would be too much additional stress - is that ron doesn't have something over him.

after his initial flash of malice, harry comes to understand why being a prefect [with all the status it confers] would matter to ron - and this is an example of self-growth, since, in goblet of fire, he's incredibly dismissive of ron's jealousy over him being selected as triwizard champion - but, in doing so, the lesson he learns is that being a prefect is important to ron because ron isn't as special as he is, whereas it's not important to him because the authority he has as the singular focus of the anti-voldemort cause - which is shown in order of the phoenix through his leadership of dumbledore's army - is what actually counts.

[niyana-the-ambiguous-mobian]

I personally don’t care about spoilers so I HAVE admittedly watched a few recorded clips. One that gave me major feels was when (it looks like after the climax) Knuckles activates one of the rings and holds Tails and Sonic tightly as they fall in. And he’s still holding them close after they landed. Awww

I STILL get teary-eyed to hell at the way they show how much these guys care for one another.

He's just coming in hot and catches them both, but he makes sure that he's on the ground for the impact so he can protect them better-, I'm just...

[venomous-qwille]

Hi Qwille!

So I was wondering because I’m struggling with this myself- how did you continuously improve with art when you were first still building upon your skills? Like to get to a level that could be professional?

And I think I mean this in more of a mental capacity way. I tend to get angry at the fact that I’m not better by now and feel like I struggle by the skin of my teeth to improve from where I’m at every time, even if objectively speaking I’m already better than people would expect me to be.

I just feel like there’s a better way to go about it than being fueled by anger or spite. I enjoy art, and I’m proud of my work, but I don’t know how to *not* be angry at myself for not being better at it. How do you accept self criticism with grace when it comes to your work? Or how did you, when you were younger? If that’s a question you’re willing to ask, of course! Thank you <3

Hiya! So, I'll start out by saying that this is absolutely the hardest part about learning to draw/paint. The continuous failure and discontent with the work we produce is a constant struggle that is, I believe, the main reason people stop trying to learn at all.

It's okay to get angry and sad, it's okay to be dissatisfied. It's a very cruel joke that, as artists, our eye will improve faster than our ability to draw. We are constantly chasing a carrot that is being pulled further away from us. For me: my improvement was not constant. There were several points where I didn't draw for years, because of other life factors and because the art I was creating brought me no joy.

Things had to change when I decided that I wanted to do art professionally. I needed to improve and improve fast, so I bent a lot of time towards studies. I found that the things I got better at the fastest were the ones where I found studying to be really fun. I really enjoy copying master paintings- especially the nineteenth and twentieth century realists. Finding fun in doing them for the sake of doing them really helped me improve fast because it wasn't stressful- I was just creating art I liked, even if they were copies.

I think accepting that the main joy of art is in the creating, not the result, really helped me be at peace with my artwork. Also, becoming a professional artist and realising that I didnt own what I created- and that I was subject to the (often questionable) tastes of my commissioners/art directors/stakeholders really allowed me to unlatch my emotional self from my work.

Every piece is a step, sometimes you will hit your bellcurve, make the best thing you are currently capable of making- and fuck that feels good- but often you wont, and you wont know why you dont like it. Learning to enjoy the push towards those small moments, the slow improvement as you gradually grasp new skills, learning to love learning, that is the most curative thing. Once I started to enjoy failing, because it meant I was learning- and once I started forgiving myself for not picking everything up straight away- I was much, much happier.

It's okay for it to be hard and your emotions are valid. Forgive yourself for having them and try to find something you enjoy about the process. Recontextualise your mistakes as what they are: not a failure, but just another step up the giant mountain of your art journey. There is always a higher peak. The journey never ends. Stop looking at the top and just enjoy the view and the mountain air. (And for fucks sake don't compare yourself to other people. They're not even climbing the same landmass.)