#History of the Taxxons

[steakout-05]

i drew my babygirl Jon Arbuckle :)

his ass!!! it haunts me!!!! i tried to draw him taller but he just kinda ended up looking really stocky and i don't know how that happened,,, man's like 6 foot canonically. i think i was too focused on his ass and making his legs look cute lol

speaking of ass, i don't know why Jim Davis decided to give Jon such a dumptruck but i'm so glad he did. ever since the very beginning of Garfield in the 'Jon' strip, he's had a fat ass and i absolutely love that. it's just a cemented part of his character now and always has been XD

i drew 1978-1980 Garf from memory!! one of my absolute favourite things about classic Garfield is just how arch-shaped he is. he's just a fat little cat guy and i love him :) i always make sure i draw the arch shape when i draw Garfield sitting cause that's one of my favourite parts about drawing him

also here is Gnorm :) for those unaware, back in the very early 1970s, before Garfield was created in any form, Jim Davis made a little comic strip about bugs called 'Gnorm Gnat'. it was mainly about the little bug dudes getting into silly relatable little antics with snappy punchlines. it's got a few characters like Gnorm, a fruit fly named Freddy, a slug named Cecil, a smart worm called Dr. Rosenwurm and Drac Webb to name a few. for something so early, it actually has quite a few familiar aspects of what would later become Garfield. the same writing style, a similar art style to early Garfield/Jon, occasional references to Peanuts (a comic Davis grew up with), the German doctor character who later appeared in the 'Jon' strip, heck there's even a goofy bug named Lyman! additionally, the name "John Arbuckle" shows up in a strip where Dr. Rosenwurm reads a piece of poetry written by him (which was recycled into an actual early Garfield strip where Jon Arbuckle reads the same poem). in fact, it's so mildly familiar that the entirety of the September 9th, 1978 Garfield strip was recycled twice, first in Jon and then in Garfield!

unfortunately, Gnorm Gnat only ended up getting published in the local newspaper, Pendleton Times, following several rejections from various syndicates for the fact that bugs just aren't as relatable or funny to a lot of people as Jim Davis thought they were. of course, i think Gnorm Gnat is something very special to the history of Garfield and i quite like it for its significance. i think it's a cute little bug comic and i hope it gets rebooted someday :)

[evertomorrowart]

Best of YouTube 2023

Yes, I did spend the first week and change of January on this. I wish I could have had it done for New Years, but too many people came out with incredible work in December, so waiting turned out for the best.

What these creators do are a huge influence on my life, I would honestly have difficulty doing what I do without them. That isn't to say that my favorites of the year are *only* on this image--It was almost impossible to narrow down my favorites. Many creators I wanted to include couldn't fit on a single page, and too many of them made more than one video I wished I could draw too!

But, to all of you, thank you for what you do. You're an inspiration.

For those who don't know, further is an explanation.

At the bottom center is an artistic masterpiece by Defunctland: "Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History." Over the last several years, Defunctland has risen from delightfully-entertaining commentary on decommissioned theme park attractions to occasionally dropping profound statements on the creation of art itself. "Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History" is worth treating like the cinematic experience it is: No second screen, you sit your ass down in front of a TV, set down the phone, and then you *watch it.* Any Disney, theme park, or independent film fan needs to pay attention to this one.

Bottom left is Caelan Conrad with their piece "Drop the T - The Deadly Consequences of Gay Respectability Politics." While I do think they've done more visually or artistically-daring pieces before, "Drop the T" is one of the most important videos released on YouTube in today's current climate of hate. We as queer folk (and our allies) need to understand how integral every identity of the queer experience has been since the start of the Civil Rights movement (and before!). While we are not identical, we *are* inseparable, and we deserve having our real history easily accessible.

TERFs and other conservative mouthpieces need not reply. Your opinions are trash. 😘

I cannot stop watching and rewatching this video by @patricia-taxxon, "On the Ethics of Boinking Animal People." It's not just a defense of furry fandom and its eccentricities, it's a thoughtful and passionate analysis of what the artform achieves that purely human representation can't. Patricia goes outside of her usual essay format to directly speak to the viewer about the elements that define furry media (the most succinct definition I've ever heard) and just how *human* an act loving animal cartoons really is.

As an artist who can draw furry characters, but never really got into erotic furry art, this video is a treasure. Why did I choose to have her drawn as a Ghibli character, hanging out with one of the tanukis from "Pom Poko?" Guess you'll have to watch, bruh.

Philosophy Tube continuously puts out videos that I would put on this list--I'm not even sure that "A Man Plagiarised my Work: Women, Money, and the Nation" is the best work she released in 2023. However, this video got many conversations going between myself and my partner, and the twist on the tail end of the video shocked us both to such a degree that I had no choice.

At the very tail end of the year, Big Joel released "Fear of Death." On his Little Joel channel, he described it as the singularly best video he's ever done, and I'm inclined to agree. However, for this illustration, I ended up repeatedly going back to a mini-series he did earlier in the year: "Three Stories at the End of the World." All three videos are deeply moving and haunting, and I was brought to tears by "We Must Destroy What the Bomb Cannot." While it may be relatively-common knowledge that the original Gojira (Godzilla) film is horror grappling with the devastation America's rush to atomic dominance inflicted on Japan, Big Joel still manages to bring new words to the discussion. Please watch all three of the videos, but if, for some reason, you must have only one, let it be "We Must Destroy What the Bomb Cannot."

Y'all. Let me confess something. I hate football. I hate watching it, I associate seeing it from the stadiums with some of my worst childhood experiences, I despise collegiate and professional football (as institutions that destroy bodies and offer up children at the feet of its alter as a pillar of American culture)--

I. L o a t h e. Football.

But.

F.D. Signifier could get me to watch an entire hour-plus essay on why I should at least give a passing care. AND HE DID IT. I might think "F*ck the Police," the two-parter on Black conservatism, or his essay on Black men's connection to anime might be "better" videos, but this writer did the impossible and held my limited attention span towards football long enough to make a sincere case for NFL players--and reminds us that millionaires can *in fact* be workers. That alone is testament to his skill.

Sit down and watch "The REAL Reason NFL Running Backs Aren't Getting Paid." Any good anti-capitalist owes it to themselves.

CJ the X continuously puts out stunning, emotional videos, and can do it with the most seemingly-inconsequential starting points. A 30 second song? An incestuous commercial? Five minutes of Tangled? Sure, why not. Go destroy yourself emotionally by watching them. I'm serious. Do it.

Their video Stranger Things and the Meaning of Life manages to to remind us all why the way we react to media does, in fact, matter. Yes, even nostalgia-driven, mass-media schlock. Yes, how we interact with media matters, what it says about us matters, and we all deserve to seek out the whys.

Folding Ideas has spent the last few years articulating exactly why so much of our modern world feels broken, and because of that his voice continuously lives rent-free in my brain. While the tricks that scam artists and grifters use to try to swindle us are never new, the advancement of technology changes the aesthetics of their performances. Portions of Folding Ideas' explanations might seem dry when going into detail of how stocks work in This is Financial Advice, but every bit of it is necessary to peel back the layers of techno-babble and jargon and make sense of the results of "Meme Stocks."

Jessie Gender puts out nothing but bangers, her absolute unit of a video about Star Wars might be my new favorite thing ever, but none of her work hit so profoundly in 2023 than the two-parter "The Myth of 'Male Socialization'" and "The Trauma of Masculinity." There's so much about modern life that isolates and traumatizes us, and so much of it is just shrugged off as "normal." We owe it to ourselves to see the world in more vivid a color palette than we're initially given.

Panels drawn after Kate Beaton and "Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands."

"This is Not a Video Essay" is one of the most intense and beautiful pieces of art I've ever put into my eyeballs. Why do we create? What drives us to connect?

I don't even know what else to say about the Leftist Cooks' work, it repeatedly transcends the medium and platform. Watch every single one of their videos, but especially this one.

The likelihood you are terminally online and yet haven't heard of Hbomberguy's yearly forrays into destroying the careers of awful people is pretty slim. Just because it has millions of views doesn't mean that Hbomberguy's "Plagiarism and You(Tube)" isn't worth the hype. Too long? Shut up, it has chapters and YouTube holds your place, anyway. You think a deep dive into a handful of creators is only meaningless drama? Well, you're wrong, you wrong-opinion-haver. Plagiarism is an *everyone* problem because of the actual harm it creates--the history it erases, the labor it devalues, the art it marginalizes--which you would know if you watched "Plagiarism and You(Tube)".

Watch. The damn. Video.

In fact, watch all of them!

Thanks for reading this if you did.

[wolfdog-weatherman]

Intro Post (remaster)

Please read!

Hello! My name is Phil, or Wolfie. I use He/it pronouns.

I’m 14, from the US, I’m possibly on the spectrum but I am currently undiagnosed.

I’m a huge nerd about a lot of things.

I am comfortable with people of all ages interacting, as long as you’re not weird (a creep). Nsfw and semi-nsfw accounts please don’t interact.

My inbox and dms are always open, I’m a very chill and approachable dragon. I’m sorry if it takes me a while to respond to tags, asks, or dms. All of your messages matter a lot to me, I just need some time, so please be patient.

Please follow/ interact if you like any of the following:

Special Interests:

-Groundhog Day (the movie and the musical)

-Wings of Fire (the book series)

-Animals/stuffed animals/zoology/anything to do with furries

Other Interests:

-Bill Murray/ Murrayverse

-Footloose(1984 movie and the musical)

-Little Shop of Horrors

-Ghostbusters

-School House Rock

-Mike Dodds (SVU)

-UtDr

-Fnaf

-John Mulaney

-Internet culture/history

-The Peanuts

-Christmas movies

-Saw

-Don’t Hug Me, I’m Scared

-Musicals

+more

In terms of music, I mostly listen to Patricia Taxxon, movie/ musical soundtracks, Will Wood, Jack Stauber, Nat King Cole, and a bunch of random inconsistent songs and artists.

I don’t have a dni. If you follow me, 97% of the time I’ll follow you back. If you make me uncomfortable for whatever reason, I’ll block.

I’m sorry if I ever come off as rude or blunt. I promise I really do care about what you’re saying. I try to use tone tags to clear things up, and I would appreciate the use of tone tags with me.

I can get very defensive/talkative/intense about my interests, ESPECIALLY Groundhog Day (I’m very pretentious about ghd). I’m sorry if this ever gets overbearing/ a lot.

I post art! You can find it all in the tag “adamz art”.

IF YOU SEE ANY OF MY POSTS MADE BEFORE 2023 PLEASE IGNORE THEM. THEY PROBABLY DO NOT REFLECT ME NOW.

That’s all, have fun be safe don’t get in trouble. I love you guys.

P.S, if you need to contact me, leave your message in the bank of your local creek. I’ll get back to you.

Check out my blog!:

[sharp-rosee]

child sexual abuse content sharing communities have a high correlation with communities that share animal abuse content, sexual or otherwise. People are delusional to think pedophilia is about attraction. It's about sadism, that's the true commonality among all pedophiles, and this level of sadism is caused by entitlement etc like you said. It's also why some pedophiles think they're not that bad and compare themselves to pedophiles who injure children more, they're claiming virtue because they're less sadistic than they could conceive to be. Sorry if this is weird to share, you get these insights by understanding Internet history and how these communities form, are caught, etc, even though very few people make the connection of what it's about. But next time you're unfortunate and see a pedo being arrested or something notice how their behavior fits this. Meek in front of authorities but often brazen and smug if they think they got away with it for example makes sense if you understand they're sadists, and not that there is some unrelated personality defect in all pedos like being cowardly

THIS 100%

As someone who is also very online, this addition isn't weird at all and honestly I would love for this to be reblogged on my post as this is an excellent addition, and sums up better than what I was trying to say.

Society has always endorsed abusers and abusive like tendencies. It's why the patriarchy has survived for so long and why misogyny has existed in every culture. The creation of porn is a direct result of this, and from porn consumption, it puts society's teachings into motion, which is why these paraphilias are often seen developing through frequent pornography use. And because the nature of fetishes and paraphilias always escalate, as any addiction does, soon the furries become zoophiles, soon the loli-consumers become pedophiles, and as because they all coincide with another like you say, it's why most trans identified men are revealed to be pedophiles/consume pseudopedophilic material, and are also furries. It really is all major taboo fetishes all in one. Most notable TIMs on Tumblr, like patricia-taxxon and assignedmalecomics, have been exposed to have all three fetishes/paraphilias.

It is no coincidence, then, that we see furries and other paraphilia-havers being pushed to be accepted as "Queer", same with kink and even that post going around trying to make kink be "non-sexual" as well, because most trans identifying males are these things too, and they want to be able to normalize further abusive/sadist tendencies they have.

We have real societies in history to look at to see the normalization of pedophilia, like Roman men who raped young boys, the normalization of child rape amongst Christian nations (and even seen today in the Vatican ignoring child abuse/rape scandals). I have to wonder, if men succeed in dominating "Queer" ideology with their kinks and paraphilias, would we also see a resurgence in accepted cases of child abuse?

My apologies anon, I kinda rambled here lmao. I just find this acceptance of male degeneracy so disgusting and yet amazing, how we all as a collective have seemed to accept it as normal. It drives me insane.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

So regarding A-Town, how do the people working on it feel about it? Everyone has to make a living, but are any of them uncomfortable making a low budget show that somewhat trivializes the people who save the human race?

I think they would say that the history of comedy has always been the history of mocking the unacceptable and exposing the taboo. All in the Family responded to the Civil Rights era by creating the world's most bigoted bigot and then inviting everyone to laugh at him, even knowing a nonzero percent of viewers were going to agree with him. The Chair and Abbott Elementary are 2020s efforts to point and laugh and cry at terrible current events. There's specifically a tradition of "war is absurd" as a comedy premise: Catch-22 for World War II, Blackadder Goes Forth for World War I, Dr. Strangelove for the Cold War, so on.

So part of why Marco appears on A-Town, why Tom doesn't mind the show, why some Santa Barbara residents watch it, is that it's letting you laugh at something that would otherwise make you scream in horror. Blackadder Goes Forth has a scene where a WWI general sets a 12"x12" square of sod on a table and says "took a lot of turf today"; the conversation reveals that the square foot of grass on the table is the entirety of the ground taken that day. It's mocking a horrific reality — that the British regularly sacrificed 1000s of lives for a few yards of battlefield, and that "winners" of WWI battles often had to be determined with a yardstick — but it's making a sharp critique of the powerful, and it's a solid bit of shock comedy.

Most people watching A-Town know that Daisy A. fixing her manicure in line to be reinfested, only to be sent home due to a paperwork error, is not an accurate depiction of being a controller. But its point, about the yeerks' kidnappings being arbitrary and their leadership being incompetent, would land well with a lot of ex-hosts. And the fact that the show takes the time to distinguish that Daisy and Zeptron 420 are two completely different people — something that I suspect some other postwar movies would neglect — is at least part of the reason for Tom's tolerance for the show. It's not great that the show chooses to convey that point with the Girly = Evil; Goth = Good trope, but at least the dramatic costume changes convey that Daisy's personality is not Zeptron's.

That said, Jean and Jake and everyone else who hates the show also has a point. Jean especially finds it so upsetting because half the jokes rest on an enthymeme of "Obviously Jake Berenson's parents are the most clueless idiots ever to breathe air." A-Town aspires to, like The Americans, show the hollowness of the suburban American ideal — that's why its sets look straight out of Leave It to Beaver — but that leaves Dr. and Mr. A mostly being the butt of the joke for their negligent and incompetent parenting. For Jean, that hits a little too close to home, in a way it wouldn't for Marco watching his fake-self fight taxxon puppets by holding up a stuffed skunk, or Tom watching his fake-self swap lipstick colors every time someone new controls her body.

So if A-Town aspires to be Blackadder Goes Forth, it lands closer to being South Park: sometimes funny and pointed, sometimes lending support to the bigoted views it tries to critique. Like South Park, the conversation about it will probably acknowledge its real social contributions (exposing Scientology, excoriating nationalism) while also showing the real harms to vulnerable people from the show's brand of comedy (turning "gay" into a catchall insult, resurrecting antisemetic myths). Like South Park, A-Town tries to mock things that need mocking, but it also spends almost as much time punching down as it does punching up.

[celibateweedeater]

There was a time, in this great nation's history, when you could hear Patricia Taxxon music in a Summoning Salt video. We need to retvrn

[vidreview]

VIDEO ESSAY ROUNDUP #1

[originally posted october 11th 2023]

so, i watch a lot of video essays.

i started this blog with the intention of reviewing video essays at length, in the hopes of highlighting best & worst practices, discussing the history of the form, and using them as a jumping off point for personal/political introspection. but as time has gone on, i've found myself encountering more and more videos that i didn't have a whole lot to say about, but that felt worthy of a spotlight anyway.

WITH THAT IN MIND, welcome to video essay roundup, an occasional list of stuff i've watched recently that i think is worth your time. enough preamble, let's get started.

"Self-Discovery Stories | Video Essay" by Glouder Glens.

are you watching Sylvia Schweikert? i know you're not because its numbers are disastrously low. her video about it/its pronouns is a genuine work of art, a video essay about the dehumanization of trans people that seamlessly transforms into lesbian werewolf erotica. this newest video is just as beautiful and strange, not least because it's rendered in portrait mode like a tiktok. it's an honest, far-ranging and personal essay whose sub-300 views is genuinely criminal. seriously, seriously, Sylvia's an essayist you NEED to be paying attention to. it's making the kind of stuff that simply does not play well with the youtube algorithm, and that's the stuff that i live for. watch her videos and share them with your friends. give it money on patreon for gods sake! also definitely go watch her short film "Self Centered," it's a haunting and masterful work of art.

"More unremarkable and odd places in Mario 64" by Any Austin.

i stumbled across Any Austin a couple months ago and he's quickly become one of my favorite "it's time to relax" creators. his "unremarkable and odd places" series scratches an itch i never knew i had, as someone who loves exploring the least interesting corners of any digital world i find myself in. his other series involves calculating the unemployment rate of video game locations by talking to every NPC and deducing their employment status. the editing is calm, his tone is measured and matter of fact, and his sense of humor ties it all together. this is the kind of thing that used to be the bread and butter of video teams at outlets like Cracked or Polygon, before they were summarily laid off or pushed out. it's good to see someone else picking up that mantle in a way that seems relatively sustainable and isn't under the umbrella of a layoff-happy corporate enterprise (except for google of course, but we're all in that boat together aren't we?)

does this count as a video essay? i think that's a reasonable question. i'm inclined to say yes, with the understanding that there are many different types and genres of video essay. but that's a conversation for another day.

"On the Ethics of Boinking Animal People" by Patricia Taxxon.

i should do a full vidrev on this one honestly, but i can't do a post like this and not include it. if you play around in any sort of furry-adjacent fetish space, have opinions about the sexual proclivities of furries, or are otherwise prone to pearl-clutching as an outsider, this is an essential watch. Patricia here does a great job drawing attention to how even well-meaning defenders of, say, feral furry porn, often give up unnecessary ground to opponents with fallacious devices like the Harkness test. i've talked to a lot of fellow kinky furries who came out of this essay exalting in the joy that finally, someone said it! many of the arguments made here, especially in underlining that all furry porn is immaterial and imaginary, are thoughts i've had since i first made a furaffinity account in 2007 or 08 (though i swore up and down i wasn't a furry until 2019) but was always too afraid to express.

this is scary, sensitive territory, but that's what makes this such an essential intervention. this is the perspective of an autistic transfem furry who just wants to have an honest conversation without all the moral fearmongering and shortsighted kneejerk cliches that come up when a topic skirts dangerously close to taboos that we just, generally, refuse to talk about like adults. these are conversations that, in my experience, only ever happened among friendgroups with a long-established repartee and understanding of each other's boundaries, if at all. otherwise, even progressive supposedly kink-positive spaces can encourage a sort of cop-brained punitive attitude towards imaginary sex acts that very easily bleeds over into puritanical takes on, say, kink at pride. frankly, i'm sick of the language & rhetoric of Respectability, because saying "no, most of us aren't like the freaks" only ever results in a liberal block decrying the deplorables and subjecting them to further marginalization and abuse. it takes a lot of guts to make a video like this and i'm so, so glad that Patricia Taxxon stuck the landing.

"Who Is Killing Cinema? - A Murder Mystery" by Patrick (H) Willems.

i've already written two separate vidrevs on Willems, but what can i say? this most recent stretch of work focusing on the business and philosophy of cinema in the streaming era is good stuff. nothing in this particular essay is new per se if you've been paying attention to the business of hollywood for the last ten years, but it does a great job assembling the broad strokes of a lot of different-but-common arguments into one far ranging thesis. much like the prior two videos, i think this works as a solid introductory primer to a more materialist understanding of these trends for folks who aren't necessarily familiar with materialist theory. bonus points for wasting no time getting to the point, unlike his otherwise excellent video on the word "content."

alright, i think that'll do it for this video essay roundup! enjoy :)

ROUNDUP #2 ->

[NOTE: as i'm migrating the archive, links between roundups will direct back to cohost. i probably won't get around to changing that until i write a new one.]

[manjaro-official]

the more patricia taxxon videos i watch the more youtube recommends me absolutely vile pop-history sam-o-nella knockoff videos with wojak thumbnails and i do not understand this At All

[big-ol-bookwyrm]

Teeth

Read @patricia-taxxon's Therian HRT stuff a ways back. As a wolf therian (and, strictly speakin', the only therian of this system) it got caught in a fun way that I had to write about. What follows is a story about therian joy in a world that could be.

I keep a box on our dresser, where I can no longer reach. It's filled with my old teeth, chipped and broken things that gave way to new fangs erupting from changed gums. We keep them for...sentimentality, I suppose. A little, rattling box of memories of times before. You'd think I'd want to be rid of them, to throw off any reminder of the tattered remains of my humanity and run free, but no. It shaped me, is part of my history. I've removed myself from humanity, but I will always be connected to it.

The transition was in some ways harder than the time before. Dysphoria was a known factor, easy to handle in its familiarity. The changes were not. They hurt, most days, growing pains writ large as my body danced to a new song with each injection. My legs alone knocked me down for a month and a half, confined to bed or a hacked together wheelchair donated by my kin who had taken the leap long before I. My teeth were the most welcome change, falling out one by one in exchange for their deadly replacements. The worst was the fur, awkward puberty peach fuzz spread across my entire body, itchy as hell to boot. I was fired pretty quickly, turns out hairy paws are bad for food prep and a face stuck halfway between muzzle and mouth scares customers away. Good riddance.

The fear mixed with eagerness until I could no longer tell them apart. Joy at the new texture of my hair mixed with fear that it will never spread. Joy in how my nails sharpened and became dense claws mixed with fear that my paws will forever straddle the line between man and wolf. The anticipation of running in the woods, smelling of autumn and prey and family of all kinds, exacerbated the restless fear that I would never run again.

And yet, now I sleep curled at the base of his bed, proud in the change. Long, lithe muscle, beautiful in my simplicity. Soft fur belying sharp claws and hungry fangs. As long now as I was tall, massive and terrifying and graceful in ways I could never have been before. My intelligence is still human, but the undercurrent of instinct roars louder than ever, easy to lose myself in whenever I wish.

There are always dangers. Both to being other and also to being a predator. Fearful eyes see my teeth, my claws, the way my muscles move beneath my fur, and instead of beauty see danger. The fear is manageable. On better days, I provoke it playfully, offering approximations of grins and breaking into runs to show off. On worse, I ignore them, protected by law and the crowd. Worse are the pitying, the ones who look down. The ones who cannot believe I would choose this or who treat me like a pet dog to be played with. I wear no collar or leash, barely bending to "public decency", and at these people I snap. Growling, lips pulled back to reveal the fangs I worked so hard for, until they pull back or walk past.

I trade freedom for comfort most days. A warm bed and prepared meals in exchange for a harness warning the fearful and modified clothes for the embarrassed. A job to support my pack, culling deer populations when they begin to grow too numerous during the season. My pack is...broader, now. Encompassing human, wolf, therians, others. Nontraditional, to be sure. A melding of instincts, producing a creature that pack-bonds with ease and frequency out of both necessity and affection. Running with my kin for work and play and survival. Protecting and caring for my humans out of love and loyalty. Taking in my people as I was taken in before. A web of relations, centered on me, who I gather and love and celebrate my new life with.

And always, the reminder sits on our dresser, where I can no longer see it. Out of sight, in the past, yet ever present. They, like my humanity, were part of me, shaped me, but aren't me any longer. I am something new, something beautiful, something that revels in its own strangeness. I am a wolf, and I'll always have the fangs to prove it.

[absinthe-and-alabaster]

doing the song user name thing

A - astronaut by amanda palmer B - black blade by blue oyster cult S - saline the salt lake queen by rasputina I - i've seen footage by death grips N - new invention by i dont know how but they found me T - touch peel stand by days of the new H - head like a hole by nine inch nails E - even flow by pearl jam A - ana ng by they might be giants N - nth degree by morningwood D - desperation song by carbon leaf A - ara resurrected by tigran hamasyan L - lost lander by patricia taxxon A - arisen anew by joren tensei debruin B - browser history by graham kartna A - atomyk ebonpyre by toby fox S - synthesized by the epoxies T - temple of love by sisters of mercy E - eternal nausea by black dresses R - raspberry by i mother earth

[nosecondivelived]

my favourite video essays!! (except i don’t know what qualifies as a video essay and am horrible at summaries. just go with it 💯. i think? tws are quite obvious from the video thumbnails, but if anything needs to be edited lmk.)

This wikipedia article hides a sorrowful secret- Lily Alexandre

A video about two things, a poem found within an old version of the wikipedia page for the fermi paradox, and the creator’s own grief dealing with her grandmother’s death. They may not seem related, but to me they were.

Abortion and Ben Shapiro - Philosophy Tube

Essentially a breakdown and refutation of Ben Shapiro’s anti-abortion argument. Honestly just anything by Philosophy Tube tbh. She is actually hilarious at times and makes bomb ass videos with an absurd amount of research behind them.

Defunctland: The bizarre Garfield dark ride - Defunctland

A video essay exploring the history of and behind a now closed Garfield amusement park ride. The first of two Garfield related videos to make me cry on this list <3

John Mulaney: Could we see this coming? -Ro Ramdin

A video exploring why people were shocked when John Mulaney essentially condoned a transphobic act as his opener. (sorry if that summary is inaccurate, i did not watch clips of the event itself and it has been a while since i watched the video above.) Again, anything by Ro honestly, she is one of THE funniest people on youtube.

These videos traumatised children: The dark legacy of Elsagate - wavywebsurf

I clicked on this video purely out of nostalgia, but it was actually surprisingly entertaining! Spiderman-Elsa videos define who I am as a person and it’s really neat to find out what actually was up with them looking back.

A look inside the war on Pokemon - hazel

A video discussing the reaction to Pokemon when it first debuted. Mostly focusing on the ‘satanic panic’ side of it.

The autistic horror of Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared - Patricia Taxxon

DHMIS is one of my favourite horror-ish series, and while it unsettled me, I never found it scary per se. I love seeing how people’s brains and life experiences affect what they perceive as frightening, even if it’s not ‘scary’? I’m not explaining this well, but it’s a dope ass fucking video. Might not be the best way to describe it considering the tone of the video, but I don’t know what else to say

Every Zelda is the darkest Zelda - Jacob Geller

A video discussing the ‘darkness’ of the different games in the Zelda franchise, how ‘darkness’ isn’t measurable by ‘most to least’ and having something be ‘dark’ doesn’t make it good. Cried at the end 👍 10/10

What the internet did to Garfield - Supereyepatchwolf

I feel like the thumbnail and title is pretty self-explanatory? But it’s a video analysing Garfield, why it’s so popular, and (surprise) how the internet changed it. Made me cry. Also I religiously rewatch the lasagna cat section of this, it was what led me to the analog horror genre! (Though I don’t know if lasagna cat is horror exactly?)

The mythology behind Hades - Ludiscere

I love you, Hadesgame. Supergiant I’ll sell you my left kidney if you let me have Hades 2 now

[balladofthewhitehorse]

Tagged by @oumaheroes

3 Ships: ScotFra, PortEng & GerEng (I love them all, and really I'm pretty open to most historical ships, LOL!)

1st ship: FrUK (But that's since changed, given Eng and France are more like *family* in my most recent HCs)

Last song: Cilantro by Patricia Taxxon

Last movie: Wendell & Wild

Currently consuming: Cream Soda (my beloved, my heart, my soul)

Currently watching: N/A (Or IG, I'm obsessed with Tasting History by Max Miller on YouTube, very interesting videos)

Currently reading: Company Of Liars by Karen Maitland

Currently craving: Burger! Burger! Burger! (I do have some burger patties that I'm going to cook with chips n kale! Yippee!)

Tagging: @koolkat9

[seewetter]

It's really easy to solve this dilemma by asking people in what sense they mean words.

I find it really hard to believe that we can only have trans women in one sense of the word.

The first group discussed who just want to "free the labels" use the word "trans woman" in only one sense: as an up-for-grabs label that anyone can use with zero political history.

The second group discussed who just want to "discuss trans women's struggles" use the word "trans woman" in only one sense: as a useful label to describe the specific bioessentialist targeting that happens to a bioessentialized group of people and no one else.

Let me point out some more things:

The second group is excluding people from a label. This exclusion also affects some smaller parts of the intersex community who don't have an easy or clear way to get away from transmisogyny because of how their intersex condition works and are thus directly affected by transmisogyny on a regular basis, not as a product of a brief misunderstanding. Don't get me wrong, most intersex people probably are cis and trans in the exact conventional sense that dyadic people are, but it's clear that some intersex conditions cause society to simply mistreat the intersex person in every possible way (To provide an example: people with androgen insensitivity syndrome are, according to bioessentialist discrimination considered men but most of them would be according to street harassment rules considered women and I'm pretty sure if someone with AIS calls themself both a trans man or trans woman, there might always be some truth to that duality.) When people create rigid bioessentialist rules about who can use the label "trans woman" they are coercing and policing other people.

Why is everyone having problems asking "in what sense do you mean the word trans woman?" Because this is going to be the only ethical way to (1) preserve people's freedom to safely explore all labels and express belonging without being gatekept while (2) not muddling an important political distinction between people whose biology (amab or some forms of uaab and even some intersex faab people) causes them to be targeted by society as trans women.

The reason people in the Punkitt camp seem to ignore the struggles of trans women is because they are. The reason people in the Patricia Taxxon camp seem to be policing trans women as an identity as if they were terfs is because they gatekeeping as if they were terfs. The reason both camps are so dismissive of each other is because each camp is committing a moral wrong and each camp doesn't want to accept that and each camp is pointing fingers at the other camp.

I'm sorry, but you have to learn to distinguish in what sense people mean words and to casually clarify that in conversation, otherwise you are always going to be either erasing trans women's struggles (and thus isolating trans women and eradicating them from queer spaces, thanks Punkitt & friends) or gatekeeping who gets to be a part of the trans woman community (even when this is ridiculous gatekeeping, thanks Patricia Taxxon & friends).

To be clear, I usually use trans woman in the bioessentialist Patricia Taxxon sense. If you see me talking about trans women, that's who I am (almost always) talking about. I also don't think that asking in what sense someone is a trans woman is something everyone will get used to, perhaps it is too impractical for people to adopt. But people need to understand how irrational each camp is. If you don't understand that one side is trivializing transmisogyny while the other side is gatekeeping community, then you'll for ever be at each other's throats while also always being in the wrong.

other trans women can put it better than me but there's this, tension, between "radical genderpunk you can be whatever you want forever-ness" and "trans woman as politicised identity"

one views any engagement with your assigned gender at birth as like, being trapped in a prison of your own making,? as using the tools of the enemy or whatever. and the other is "yes my assigned gender is a prison, it is a prison the outside world is constantly enforcing on me and i would like to be able to talk about that a little thanks"

so you get this tension, where one side (made up of predominantly people who aren't trans women) says "the ideal world is one in which you can be whatever the fuck you want forever! so call yourself anything you want as long as it makes you happy, you can be an afab trans woman if you want it's all made up :)" and the other side says "hey hi yes i broadly agree with you on the whole ultimate gender liberation front, but we do not live in an ideal world and transfemininity is uniquely demonized even as far as trans identities in general go, so i would appreciate it if maybe you didn't act like our identity and oppression was something made up that you could just put on and take off whenever you like? we sure as fuck can't do that."

and then the other side goes "hey all these trans women are invalidating us! why are they gatekeeping and being so exclusive! assigned gender at birth shouldn't matter so why are you acting like it does!?"

and they say this while we live in a society where your assigned gender at birth very much does matter, and if you're a trans woman it is borderline impossible to escape that.

it's like an is-ought problem where since we're not acting like we already live in a gender utopia where one's relationship with assigned sex and gender is completely arbitrary, we're treated like the enforcers of the gender binary.

this is where you get stupid bullshit like people calling trans women radfems

[sunnyevermore]

"I want you to stop looking into my friends" FUCK YOU IDC of course you didn't want me to find what I found. plus Taxxon has a kiwifarms thread so it's free game for a lolcow. maybe don't become friends with an internet celebrity with a trackable history of sending PORN TO MINORS IN A DISCORD WHO TALKS ABOUT HIS PEDOPHILIA INCEST KINK ONLINE

[tqila-sunset]

Content Warnings / DNI

My pages are all-ages spaces BUT :

I am a 22 year old and my interests tend to be pretty common for that demographic

Things I consider "inappropriate" for minors I reblog to a NSFW sideblog

I re/post adult-oriented content but it should all get marked/tagged as such by the appropriate systems

As long as you've got your tags and settings set up you should be fine but I do not regularly tag posts for content/trigger warnings, so block me if that would make your life easier

Demographic Information / About Me:

I live and work in Magandjin on the lands of the sovereign Yuggera and Turrabul peoples who have had their land stolen by the British Imperial colony of Australia

Anarchist-Communist / Libertarian-Socialist

Nonbinary / Genderqueer Transsexual

Butch Fag

Bisexual & Polyamorous Kinkster

Disabled by neurodivergences related to mood + sleep disorders, anxiety, trauma, and AuDHD

blogs: personal - @tqila-sunset, art - @pinkopansy, writing - @faggot-dykeism.

Opinions:

Land Back is one essential part of the decolonial post-capitalist world we must build in order to protect life on earth from climate change and fascism

Systems of oppression intersect heavily thus all collective struggle must be informed by intersectionality & the communal knowledge + practices of those who live at the margins of society

I'm pro-Abolition of: capitalism, authoritarian states, nation-state borders, whiteness/white-supremacy/"The West", prison, police, family, British-American Empire, gender/sex binaries, psychiatric interment.

Kink and sexual deviance should always be at the heart of Queer Liberation and LGBTQ+ Pride

Online subcultures including fandoms surrounding creative media, political leaders/ideologies, and queerness are highly vulnerable to manipulation by capitalists, imperialists, markets, and other bad actors - enjoying a few pieces of art shouldn't be the basis of your entire social circle and we all must organise socially and politically both off and online

Interests:

Politics - particularly Anarchist & Communist theory & history

Natural diversity + social deviance (including sexuality and disability)

Philosophy & Theology

Media analysis, history & theory

Essays - including video essays

Counter-culture subcultures

Specific Art/Media:

Games: Elden Ring (+DLC), Disco Elysium, Dark Souls 3 (+DLC), Pokemon (Soul Silver, Black, X, Sword), Legend of Zelda (Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom), Bloodborne, Sims (2, 3, 4,), Animal Crossing New Horizons

Film: Godzilla, Parasite, Snowpiercer, Cutie Honey, The Nightingale, Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio

TV: Bojack Horseman, Breaking Bad, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Steven Universe, Doctor Who

Podcasts: The Anthropocene Reviewed, Crash Course: The Universe, My Brother My Brother and Me, Dear Hank and John, Welcome to Nightvale, 99% Invisible, Sawbones, The Besties

Specific Artists:

Video Creators + Essayists: Trixie & the Golden Witch, FD Signifier, Jacob Geller, Natalie "Contrapoints" Wynn, Sophie from Mars, Patricia Taxxon, Lindsay Ellis, John & Hank Green, Abigail "PhilosophyTube" Thorn, Thought Slime, Cold Crash Pictures, Hbomberguy, Shaun, Verily Bitchie, Ro Ramdin, Mia Mulder, LextraYT, Leslie Exp, Foreign Man in a Foreign Land, Thomas Flight, Kat Blaque, Big Joel, Adam Conover, Broey Deschanel, Jim Stephanie Sterling, Noah Samsen, oliSUNvia, Shanspeare, Princess Weekes, Professor Flowers, Fab Socialism, Tirrrb, The Storyteller, Andrewism, lil bill, Thinkpiece Tribe, Philosynoir, Renegade Cut, Herby Revolus, Empire Wreckers, Dan Olsen, Nickolas Nameolas, Every Frame a Painting, Lessons from the Screenplay

Filmmakers: Jordan Peele, Bong Joon-Ho, Akira Kurosawa, Hayao Miyazaki, Hidetaki Anno, Guillermo Del Toro Lily & Lana Watchowski, Wes Anderson, Kristen Stewart

Actors: Dev Patel

Musicians: McCafferty, The Front Bottoms, Crywank, Sarah and the Safeword, Crass, She/Her/Hers, Against Me!, Flobots, My Chemical Romance, The Amity Affliction, Beartooth, PVRIS, Ludo

Writers: Errico Malatesta, bell hooks, Susan Stryker, Karl Marx, Zoe Baker, Julia Serano

Visual Artists: Junji Ito, Van Gogh

Game developers: Hidetaka Miyazaki, Hideo Kojima

[wurmeatworld]

omg yes! Ive already seen a bunch of these and they are super amazing (2, 5, 7, 9)

For anyone looking to get into more video essays, here's some more I reccommend!

A Full GamerGate Retrospective | DEEP DIVE by Savy Writes Books - A deep dive chronicling every detail of GamerGate, from the events leading up to it to its impact that lasts to this day.

Anti-Whiteness Is Good, Actually by Philosynoir - An essay explaining Whiteness as a construct designed to oppress people of color.

Hogwarts Legacy, JK Rowling, and Trans Advocacy by Ro Ramdin - A look at the ethics of buying Rowling's merchandise given her rampant transphobia.

Do You Remember Marble Blast? A "Series" Retrospective by Patricia Taxxon - An review of the mechanics and design of Marble Blast and its biggest mods.

Debunking Matt Walsh's "What is a Woman?" by Jessie Gender - A thourough rebuttal to transphobic rhetoric that explores some of the deeper connections it has to fascism and racism.

The Evolution of Vampires in Pop Culture by Shanspeare - A history of the vampire and how the trope has evolved over time in pop culture.

The Romanticization of Problematic Content by Mia Cole - An examination of how creators can still thrive after being called out online.

Billions of Dead Genders: a MOGAI retrospective by Lily Alexandre - An essay examining MOGAI and why so many genders that have been coined have faded away into obscurity.

The Path - Psychological Horror in the Woods by Izzzyzzz - An analysis of a niche psychological horror game about girls in the woods.

The Lies of the Satanic Temple by Dead Domain - An exposé of the fascism and corruption of the founders and leaders of The Satanic Temple, and their attempts to cover it up.

The Neurosis of Cat Valentine by CJ the X - An analysis of the character traits and development if Ariana Grande's character in the Disney Channel show "Victorious".

How Fat Went Black by Foreign Man in a Foreign Land - A history of public perception of fat, and how racism turned it on its head.

Is it Okay to have Genitalia Preferences? by Kat Blaque - A nuanced take on genital preferences by a trans woman.

How "Anti Vaping" Ads Manupulate You by Maggie Mae Fish - A comparison of anti vaping ads to the war on drugs, and what that could mean.

Line Goes Up - The Problem With NFTs - by Folding Ideas - An in-depth look at cryptocurrency, NFTs, and Web 3.0, and their unsustainability.

ROBLOX_OOF.mp3 by Hbomberguy - If you havent watched this yet what are you doing. A deep dive into the true origins of the Roblox "oof" sound that descends into chaos once certain facts about a certain man are uncovered.

some recent very good video essays <3

James Baldwin and the Annihilation of Gender by Anansi's Library - stunning essay about gender, sexuality, and Blackness in the works of James Baldwin, and Moonlight (2016).

astronomy has a colonialism problem by Dr. Fatima - Libyan-American and former physicist Dr Fatima discusses the links between colonialism, scientific academia, and the Palestinian liberation movement.

Saltburn: The Tumblr-ification of Cinema by Broey Deschanel - fun essay on how Saltburn is a cheap rip-off of The Untalented Mr Ripley and refuses to admit it, and how such pastiche is a growing problem.

How Shirley Jackson exposed the horror of home life by Books n Cats

This Video Isn't Just About Taylor Swift. It's About You. by Alexander Avilla - a juggernaut of an essay about how so much of Taylor Swift's success is just about the weaponisation of whiteness in marketing.

Time Travelling While Black by Aishyo - comparative essay about media that portrays Black characters who time travel.

Why We Can’t Build Better Cities by Philosophy Tube - Abigail Thorn investigates the ideological links between gentrification and the 15-minute-city conspiracy theory.

Why Sci-fi Can't Fix Its White Savior Problem by Princess Weekes - an essay about how white supremacy and white feminism is baked into science fiction.

Eminem and the White Rapper Problem by F.D Signifier - a retrospective on Eminem's impact on rap, for better and worse.

Why YouTubers Hold Microphones Now by Tom Nicholas - a fascinating piece about how the slow corporatisation of YouTibe has impacted content creators' aesthetics over time, and how this is also a wider trend on the internet.