#I SHOULD BE FREE AND MAKE ART AND DO OTHER HUMAN THINGS AND INSTEAD I'M ARGUING WITH A MACHINE

[calnrio]

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[mel-addams]

Get Started Drawing...

...even as a complete beginner!

In my efforts to help some friends who are only just starting to learn to draw (as adults! glorious!! <3), I kept digging around for resources that cover things I remember learning in the various art classes I've taken...but that does a better job than I can of laying it all out in a comprehensive, but not overwhelming, manner. (I am far too prone to rambling as you can see from this post, and bounce around topics as I remember them, rather than in a sensible order.) I've found a few guides here and there that cover one thing or another decently well...but I've finally found a free site I'm really keen on as an overall source if you're just starting out with learning to draw!

It's incredibly clear and concise, whereas many of the other sites and books I found could sometimes be overwhelmingly detailed. It's arranged in a way that reminds me of the flow of art classes, starting at the very first steps--how to approach art if you've never done it before, and the fact that you only need basic tools to begin with. If you go in approximate order, it then establishes that you should start sorting out a solid foundation by practicing simple lines and shapes--the same way you learned to write letters so you could ultimately make words, sentences, stories... This includes some neat little practice exercises with questions to consider while you do them, so you also learn to see and observe things like angles and proportions, which are critical for being able to accurately draw more complex things.

It evolves from there into how to take those basic shapes and turn them into simplified human bodies--and from there, how to consider more complex 3D versions of the shapes to give those bodies a sense of dimension and physicality. It even touches on things like composition, silhouette, negative space, and line of action--all in a quick, straightforward manner. It plants the seed of understanding for these more complex illustration concepts, which you can then research further, armed with relevant terminology to dig up more in-depth resources as they catch your interest!

The style itself is usually simple, but even if your aim is to draw with a more detailed style, this one can serve as a base sketch to add that detail to. (Combine learning this base with photo studies, plus more detailed style guides for wherever you want to take your art, and you could use this as a base for comics, cartoons, anime, realism...the core concepts and skills remain the same!) There's also examples of how to adjust for varied body shapes, so it provides more flexibility than some drawing guides do, which often only focus on one "ideal" body type. (This style can also be used for that, if it's what you want--you just adjust the proportions of the basic shapes as you need! But this provides examples of how to handle variety, which will give you a better foundation for drawing people and characters so they don't all look the same, instead of having to figure out how to adjust for it later on.) The Shape Dolls for reference are also incredibly delightful, and a great cheap way to have a little pose reference mannequin of sorts!

There's also links to sources if you want to dig into concepts more deeply--available both as a general source page, as well as some specific topics including relevant sources at the bottom of their respective pages. There's also a patreon with some extra thoughts that is fully accessible for free, but has a paid option if you want to support Tan for providing such a lovely resource! (Also they have a legit vegetable farm?? How cool is that.)

So yes! If you have any interest in learning to draw--whether you've ever tried before or not, and no matter your age--try looking through this site, and let it guide you through the process!

[yeloenk]

i want to apologize more formally for answering the anon who gave me a false list of proshippers.

ever since making a post asking proshippers to please block me (i had some who were following me), people have been anonymously sending me some lists of proshippers/controversial people in the UTMV fandom.

i have answered a few, but only those that were calling out proshippers that have actually confirmed to be proshippers.

when i received this ask in particular, i just saw someone giving me a list with no ill-intent behind it. so, without giving much thought, i replied to the ask.

my intention with this was to let others know who to block/avoid; not to harass, witch-hunt, etc. i am aware that these kinds of lists can encourage this behavior, which i take responsibility for. i genuinely apologize for using my platform in this way—even if it was done unintentionally, it was still wrong of me to do.

this being said, i do NOT stand for harassment in any way, shape, or form. even if it is directed towards proshippers, that is no way to solve the real issue. proshippers need help, they do not need more reason to need help. purposefully going out of your way to stalk, bully, send threats, or ANYTHING of that nature is wrong.

i made my first apology in a panicked rush, once i saw people telling me that the anon was spreading misinformation. however, in that blog, i did not acknowledge how my actions could have harmed people listed (especially ones who were listed falsely).

if you were affected in any way by my response to this anon, i apologize personally to you. please know this was not my intent: even if you are a proshipper, my only thoughts regarding that ask was "hey! cool, a free blocklist."

everyone is human, and nobody should be treated this way. although i think proshippers are morally wrong, and need help/therapy, they are still real people behind the screen. real people affected by your actions: mine included. the best thing you can do in the situation of seeing a proshipper is blocking them instead of instigating interaction.

i will no longer be doing anything like this again now that i am taking into consideration that some people are using these lists as witch-hunt lists. i should have checked all of the names before replying, especially since the list included no proof whatsoever. in the future, i do promise to be mindful and very cautious when addressing topics like these, especially when it comes to checking facts.

i do hope i can be forgiven, but i understand if not. i understand my actions have consequences, and i understand i was in the wrong taking a hand in spreading false information and encouraging harassment.

the purpose of this apology is to acknowledge what i did wrong, learn from it, and move on. and, to clear up why i replied to the list. keep in mind that it is not an excuse for my actions, but a reason for them. i still made the choice to answer this ask and not at least clarify to block them instead of harassing them.

to the anon who sent that ask: do not spread false information, please. it only hurts those who are involved, nothing good comes out of it for either side.

one more thing i wish to add:

to the grown adults sending me asks, insulting me: what is wrong with you? i am a 16 year old. i am going to make mistakes. it's a part of life, a part of learning. if you seriously think you're doing good by being nasty to a kid on tumblr because of a stupid choice they made, you further strengthen my belief that proshippers need help.

there's also been people just blatantly insulting things about me that are unrelated to the situation as a whole? my art, for example. please stop.

i don't want my blog to be focused on drama, so i'm not going to post much at all about stuff like proshippers anymore. i'll probably just be sharing art for the most part.

[tangibletechnomancy]

Neural Nets, Walled Gardens, and Positive Vibes Only

the crystal spire at the center of the techno-utopian walled garden

Anyone who knows or even just follows me knows that as much as I love neural nets, I'm far from being a fan of AI as a corporate fad. Despite this, I am willing to use big-name fad-chasing tools...sometimes, particularly on a free basis. My reasons for this are twofold:

Many people don't realize this, but these tools are more expensive for the companies to operate than they earn from increased interest in the technology. Using many of these free tools can, in fact, be the opposite of "support" at this time. Corporate AI is dying, use it to kill it faster!

You can't give a full, educated critique of something's flaws and failings without engaging with it yourself, and I fully intend to rip Dall-E 3, or more accurately the companies behind it, a whole new asshole - so I want it to be a fair, nuanced, and most importantly personally informed new asshole.

Now, much has already been said about the biases inherent to current AI models. This isn't a problem exclusive to closed-source corporate models; any model is only as good as its dataset, and it turns out that people across the whole wide internet are...pretty biased. Most major models right now, trained primarily on the English-language internet, present a very western point of view - treating young conventionally attractive white people as a default at best, and presenting blatantly misinformative stereotypes at worst. While awareness of the issue can turn it into a valuable tool to study those biases and how they intertwine, the marketing and hype around AI combined with the popular idea that computers can't possibly be biased tends to make it so they're likely to perpetuate them instead.

This problem only gets magnified when introduced to my mortal enemy-

If I never see this FUCKING dog again it will be too soon-

Content filters.

Theoretically, content filters exist to prevent some of the worst-faith uses of AI - deepfakes, true plagiarism and forgery, sexual exploitation, and more. In practice, many of them block anything that can be remotely construed as potentially sexual, violent, or even negative in any way. Frequently banned subjects include artistic nudity or even partial nudity, fight scenes, anything even remotely adjacent to horror, and still more.

The problems with this expand fractally.

While the belief that AI is capable of supplanting all other art forms, let alone should do so, is...far less widespread among its users than the more reactionary subset of its critics seem to believe (and in fact arguably less common among AI users than non-users in the first place; see again: you cannot give a full, educated critique of something's failings without engaging with it yourself), it's not nonexistent - and the business majors who have rarely if ever engaged with other forms of art, who make up a good percentage of the executives of these companies, often do fall on that side, or at least claim to in order to make more sales (but let's keep the lid on that can of worms for now).

When this ties to existing online censorship issues, such as a billionaire manchild taking over Twitter to "help humanity" (read: boost US far-right voices and promote and/or redefine hate speech), or arcane algorithms on TikTok determining what to boost and deboost leading to proliferation of neologisms to soften and obfuscate "sensitive" subjects (of which "unalive" is frequently considered emblematic), including such horrible, traumatizing things as...the existence of fat people, disabled people, and queer people (where the censorship is claimed to be for their benefit, no less!), the potential impact is apparent: while the end goal is impossible, in part because AI is not, in fact, capable of supplanting all other forms of art, what we're seeing is yet another part of a continuing, ever more aggressive push for sanitizing what kinds of ideas people can express at all, with the law looking to only make it worse rather than better through bills such as KOSA (which you can sign a petition against here).

And just like the other forms of censorship before and alongside it, AI content filtering targets the most vulnerable in society far more readily than it targets those looking to harm them. The filters have no idea what makes something an expression of a marginalized identity vs. what makes it a derogatory statement against that group, or an attempt at creating superficially safe-for-work fetish art - so, they frequently err on the side of removing anything uncertain. Boys in skirts and dresses are frequently blocked, presumably because they're taken for fetish art. Results of prompts about sadness or loneliness are frequently blocked, presumably because they may promote self harm, somehow. In my (admittedly limited) experiment, attempts at generating dark-skinned characters were blocked more frequently than attempts at generating light-skinned ones, presumably because the filter decided that it was racist to [checks notes] ...acknowledge that a character has a different skin tone than the default white characters it wanted to give me. Facial and limb differences are often either erased from results, or blocked presumably on suspicion of "violent content".

But note that I say "presumably" - the error message doesn't say on what grounds the detected images are "unsafe". Users are left only to speculate on what grounds we're being warned.

But what makes censorship of AI generated work even more alarming, in the context of the executive belief that it can render all other art forms obsolete, is that other forms of censorship only target where a person can say such earth-shaking, controversial things as "I am disabled and I like existing" or "I am happy being queer" or "mental health is important" or "I survived a violent crime" - you can be prevented from posting it on TikTok, but not from saying it to a friend next to you, let alone your therapist. AI content filtering, on the other hand, aims to prevent you from expressing it at all.

This becomes particularly alarming when you recall one of the most valuable use cases for AI generation: enabling disabled people to express themselves more clearly, or in new forms. Most people can find other workarounds in the form of more conventional, manual modes of expression, sure, but no amount of desperation can reverse hand paralysis that prevents a person from holding a pen, nor a traumatic brain injury or mental disability that blocks them from speaking or writing in a way that's easy to understand. And who is one of the most frequently censored groups? Disabled people.

So, my question to Bing and OpenAI is this: in what FUCKING universe is banning me from expressing my very existence "protecting" me?

Bad dog! Stop breaking my shit and get the FUCK out of my way!

Generated as a gift for a friend who was even more frustrated with that FUCKING dog than I was

All images - except the FUCKING dog - generated with Dall-E 3 via Bing Image Creator, under the Code of Ethics of Are We Art Yet?

[gancegancerevo]

Zwillingstürme im Herbst Thoughts

ZT to me, is a story of endings. Not just the factual endings of eras, Arts, and songs. But also the great question of "What happens after the end?"

Each major character faces an ending in this story. Leithanien faces the end of both the Kaiserinnen and the truest finale of the Witch King. The Liches end their stay in the country. Viviana comes to terms with her Leithanien heritage, Ebenholz frees himself from all of his demons, and Arturia, well, we'll get to Arturia.

One of the most notable things is how this story treats hope and the indomitable human spirit. Unlike other stories, it does not praise humanity and treat them as some unstoppable limitless force by virtue of their emotions. Instead, it takes a very nuanced approach that's informed by how powerless these characters can actually get. Sure they can charge forward towards their goals but they'll still die and they'll still be faced with darkness and regrets. Even still, we should embrace our emotions and the turmoil they bring.

The Genesis Horn and Kagenreich are such interesting ideas but it can feel weird that much of the climax is emotional conflicts made manifest. Viviana's is the most obvious. The constant doors to possible new lives culminating in her real one. She comes to let go of the past and stand for herself which is nice. It's also nice that it was Margaret's light that helped her fight back the darkness. An exquisite call-back to the Radiant Knight.

Ebenholz helped to paint a very unique lesson in my opinion. That suffering doesn't NEED meaning. Even after promising Kreide that he'd live and fight fate, he's still plagued by headaches and Witch King Remnants. The revelation that whatever was in his head, the Voice of Mundane, was just a mundane voice upends many of the things we've (us and Ebenholz) assumed about his life. That his suffering was tied to the Witch King and that his conflict would culminate in a big fight against the man whose shadow terrorized him. Instead they have a heart to heart and the Witch King challenges him to look back on his life and realize that "the night itself is meaningless." It is totally fine to have a terrible thing just be a terrible thing and moving on doesn't have to involve a great trials to overcome, sometimes your enemies kill themselves and you just walk away.

Arturia is the most interesting but I'm afraid I can't do her full arc justice. In contrast to his accommodating spin with Ebenholz, the Witch King challenges Arturia at every turn, questioning her motive and why she wants what she does. It comes to a head when he forcefully dives into her and sees that there is only one thing that stirred her own emotions. Everything else is a mirror of someone else. He ultimately gives her the answer she's looking for and the natural doubt that comes when the answer she found didn't meet her expectations. But her bouncing back as chaos descended was beautiful and I might reread this and Hortus just to really grasp her character.

Cora and Brandt, Hildegard and Lisellote (no idea how to, spell the Kaserinnen's surnames), Michel, Lessing, and the Liches. All sorts of stories come to a close as new beginnings emerge. And the most troublesome of them is definitely the makings of the newest source of conflict: the Disaster, the encroaching of chaos upon reality and the return of the supposed Creator.

It's quite likely that that may be the angle of the next major story arc, especially with the role Nearl's light played and the fact that Laterano is trying so hard to unite the nations.

This event was great and I recommend it. Not sure if I have any major notes or ideas to share but I really liked it.

One last thing: seems people are kinda wary of Lisellote, the Eternal Grace. I love it when the supposedly fluffier one has the greater potential of evil

[springlock-suits]

Hey there followers and friends passing by! I made a dtiys!

This isn't really a celebration of anything, I'm just a fan of draw this in your style challenges, and I haven't really seen any in awhile! Though I guess if I was celebrating anything it'd be over 60 followers on here and 220+ on my Insta! I'm glad so many like to stick around for my silly little aus and art :]

The Draw This In Your Style v

You can change the perspective, lighting, background, etc! You don't have to go for the camera filter like on the first image, and while I did use my Dave design for the drawing, you don't have to make it my version specifically ^v^

Rules, prizes, and extra versions of the art (base colors and maskless) v

Rules and Prizes v

@ this blog,( @springlock-suits ) with your finished drawing! If I don't reblog it in a day, feel free to hit me with a dm, or try some other way to contact me to make sure I see your entry!

This will be cross-posted on my insta, @ darling.dolly.darlene so you could also post your entry there instead!

No stealing art that isn't yours, tracing, ai, or anything along those lines

The deadline for this DTIYS is November 15th! But I am willing to extend it if enough ask for extra time

You can change pretty much anything in your redraw; scene, outfit, lighting, pose, perspective, etc. But you gotta make sure it's still recognizable! I'd say keeping purple guy tied up to a chair in some Freddy's location with the Springbonnie mask somehow included is all you need

And not a rule, but feel free to ask as many questions as you may need! I will answer as best I can, my asks and anon asks on here should be open ^v^

I did a poll earlier about whether or not this should have prizes, and the answer was overwhelmingly yes! How many people joining will affect how many winners, but right now I'm thinking there will only be one

As I can't offer much else, the prize will simply be digital art by me! If you win and don't want the prize, just tell me and I'll ask a runner up instead ^v^

Since my art requests are always open anyway, to make the prize special for DTIYS winners I've decided they can request I draw things I don't usually do for art requests, like their Ocs, their own designs, added backgrounds, and/or I design a character or fusion that they can own and use

Extras v

Since I did a bunch with the lighting and bluring, here's versions that show it without! This was my first time doing such strong perspective, so I did try to hide it a bit, but I think it turned out pretty alright :>

And here's a maskless version! Mostly I made this for fun at the last second, but I imagine some artists out there would prefer to draw a human over an animatronic, so feel free to do a version like this instead! It includes Springbonnie simply in the form of some shadowy ears

This was vaguely based on a panel from the tse graphic novel! I'm a big fan of the "I am one of them" scene

[prince-steele]

for oc ask game ⭐️🌈🎉🖍

⭐️ Tell us about your favourite OCs!

AAAAA ok so recently I've been Obsessed with my open original species I made, SYNTHS! *infographic here

Here's some of my favourites, and some little character profiles ab them 😊

🧿 SHIMMER

Shimmer is interesting bc I actually have two canons for her! I originally made her as a demaverse OC but I also have an original story for her that I'm creating with @silkysong <3

🌈 Shimmer is bisexual and A Creature first and foremost. Gender is incredibly incedental to her and her pronouns are She/It.

DEMA STORYLINE

☆ Shimmer is a Bounty Hunter ("Compound Representitive") in Dema who works off the books to capture escapees and bring them home. Synths are not allowed to hold positions of power in Dema so she tries to clutch it wherever she can.

☆ Due to the suppression that her society forces upon her, she despises humans and sees the presence of humanity in her biology as a defect. She works with a shady doctor (owned by @polarized-disguise ) who does strange genetic experiments on her to try and suppress that human part of her.

☆ She's very isolated and closed off, and doesn't like to open her heart to anyone. She only cares for her brother, Skye, who is the only person she respects at the start of her story. Over the course of it, she meets Iona (owned by @silkysong ) who troublemakes her way into a begruding Shimmer's life.

ORIGINAL STORY

☆ Similar to above, Shimmer is a representative of a power station in a small town, of which has far too much influence and power over its citizens.

☆ She has intense romantic tension with Iona who she begrudgingly begins to befriend over the course of the story.

☆ Female Rage Incarnate <333

🩵 SKYE

I literally only have recent photos of him and Shimmer together MFMSKD do not separate!!!

🌈 Skye is pansexual!

♡ Skye is a club owner in Dema who puts up a front as an empty headed, vacuous party boy but he secretly hides depth under his charming veneer. He aids the banditos by arranging escapes and supply drops, and tries his best to inspire FREE WILL into others, and encourages them to make their own decisions, whatever they may be.

♡ He and his sister oppose intensely in ideology but love each other deeply because they're all each other have really had for so long. Both of them think what the other is doing is dangerous, but would support each other in an instant if things were dire.

♡ He's constantly haunted by the fact that, due to being a Synth, he will never truly be able to connect with other humans. He often feels lonely and like a ghost, putting up a front to try and get through life. Where this instilled a deep longing in him, it prevented his sister from forming empathy.

♡ He's just a sincerely kind person :) <3

🦭 AQUAMARINE

Pictured: Ultrababy of forever

🌈 Nonbiney creature. She/They

◇ Aquamarine is a young plucky turquoise synth that loves to play and draw.

◇ She was plucked out of her life - from school, from her home and all she knew - and placed in an Incarceration Compound... To guard and monitor an unstable Empty Synth, 199 (owned by @silkysong ). She, despite her diminutive size, is physically very strong and good at helping calm others emotions, which is why she was selected.

◇ She's exposed to horrors beyond her comprehension and is forced into a role of responsibility that she should never have been given, but despite it all she loves her job and 199 and would never trade him for anything. She's selectively mute and chooses to sign her words!

⚔️ BLADES

HORRIBLE vile stinky man. art by the lovely silkysong <3

🌈 He's into anyone he can use to further his nasty little agendas

♤ Blades is another Compound Representitive that works in Dema alongside Shimmer. He's soooooo sucks <3 He very rarely actually does his job, instead choosing to hole up in his living quarters and do absolutely nothing to help Shimmer. He only makes a move when he absolutely has to, or if he has something to gain by doing so.

♤ He actually does the exact opposite of his job, distributing banned material to the inmates of the compound in exchange for "favours" or high prices. He's selfish and opportunistic, and is allergic to any form of responsibility for anything.

♤ He essentially never truly formed connections with others due to isolation, and therefore doesn't really have a working concept of love or empathy for others. This leads him to do terrible, irredeemable things, and hurt people who could possibly save him from himself.

❤️‍🔥 AEFRID

One of my NPCs from my DNDema campaign! She's so awesomes...

🌈 Aefrid probably likes women but she hasn't really thought about it

♡ Aefrid is a young, elite vialist priest who works directly under the bishops in the main towers. She is part of a secret experiment which attempts to strip synths of their autonomy and steal their augmentations, in her case, pyromancy.

♡ She is immature and overconfident due to being told how amazing and elite she is her entire life, and she fully believed her own hype. However, when she was finally faced with conflict from a source outside her sect, she IMMEDIATELY had her ass handed to her, and was dismissed from the sect.

♡ She has a deep bond with her sister, Maeve (Staunch vialist but with a warriors spirit - I also love her but dont have her art yet), who always tried to keep her feet on the ground, however, these lessons never really permeated.

♡ When Maeve was defeated, Aefrid jumped to save her from death and was mortally injured herself. The party members decided to save her, to which Maeve, who is a warrior above all, pledged her debt to. Aefrid is Resentful and Furious that Maeve would EVER help them and doesn't understand why her life is valued this much. She's currently very begrudgingly being sent to Trench so she and Maeve aren't hunted down and Glorious Gone'd.

🐺 FENRIR & 🫎 ANTHELION

These two r actually the cutest... I love them so dearly. Or should I say deerly B)

🌈 Fen is bisexual and Anthelion likes Fenrir :3 Fen is He/Him and Anthelion is They/Them

☆ Fenrir is another vialist priest in the same sect as Aefrid and Maeve. He is, however, completely unimpressed by the role and only got there because he scored incredibly high in all of his aptitude tests. He feels immense pressure from his family, his city and the Bishops to persue his intelligence and somehow ended up in with the Elites.

☆ He's a reliable, intelligent person that deeply cares about others despite his flat affect. He often guards himself because he doesn't believe in the teachings of Vialism, however he's in an Elite Sect within the church where any known dissent would lead to immediate death so he just keeps up airs despite being resentful of the entire practice.

☆ He longs to be free and immerse himself in Trench. He almost escaped a few times but always had second thoughts and returned to the towers every time... Until he both realised the horrible things they wete doing to synths through his new friend (and crush) Anthelion, along with meeting again with his old schoolmate (and crush) 199, who helped inspire him to fight back and leave the sect.

♧ Anthelion is a tender loving person who has not had much exposure to the world, due to being a Generation 3 synth. They were created as a purposed synth to be used in the experiments by the sect, and their abilities are related to Decay and Rot. Their focus is on plants, where their abilities allow them (and Fenrir when they are interlinked thru psychokinesis) to cause plants to decay instantly, and bloom again from the nutrient rich soil. People often mistake their abilities for controlling Plants when they really control the rate of decay and bloom within those plants.

♧ They and Fenrir are deeply tied to one another, due to the fact they were the only ones who treated each other with kindness and understanding while both were trapped within the towers. They trust and rely on each other to protect one another, and have spent a lot of time in each others minds bc of the psychokinesis, so they know each other very well.

♧ Anthelion is neurologically disabled! They have a speech impediment and have slowed reactions, and they need some extra help sometimes to understand the intentions of others, especially when they are bad ones.

BONUS QUESTIONS

🎉 Which one has the most growth over the course of their story?

I feel like they all have similar amounts of growth, be it progression or regression, but I think I've worked on Shimmer the most out of all of them!

🖍 CAN PEOPLE DRAW YOUR OCS? <3

YEAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSS

(others ocs and art owned by @silkysong and @polarized-disguise )

[roo-bastmoon]

Incredibly lucky to even be here

I just realized, exactly one year ago today (May 11th) I was diagnosed with endometrial stromal sarcoma and given less than a 34% chance of survival. I'm incredibly, miraculously lucky to be well and cancer-free today. I owe that to my amazing doctors, and also in a small way to BTS.

The moment I got told I had cancer, I immediately decided to only entertain thoughts of complete health and victory. It was a pure and immediate defense mechanism and I stuck to it. So no sad songs or movies or TV shows. No online drama. No negative nellies or naysayers. No stressful projects at work. No arguments, no entanglements, no regrets.

For months, I would focus only on laughter and quality time with loved ones and things that brought me joy, even as I had to deal with practical stuff like creating a will and a pet trust and filling out life insurance forms and undergoing test and surgeries.

BTS (and Jimin, as my "recruiter") gave me moments of grace and beauty and art and warmth and giggles--and kind ARMYs gave me a sense of belonging and community, especially during a dark and terrifying time, when in the quiet of the early morning hours, the sense that my own body was my worst enemy would eat at all my mental defenses. I could switch on my phone, go to the timeline, and ARMY and BTS would be there.

If I seem to be very Pollyanna-ish or boringly polite these days, it's because I decided one year ago to focus on what I want instead of giving energy to what I don't. I know bad things are very real and they need to be confronted--of course! But I also know that depression, anger, and fear can erode the myelin sheath wrapped around our nerve endings and weaken the walls in the chambers of our hearts; that toxic emotions can bleach our hair of color and rob our nails and skin of suppleness; that negativity can lengthen our immuno-response times to bruises and cuts.

So if other folks get a thrill, a hit of adrenaline, from drama and trash talking in our fandom, more power to them, I guess. It must serve them in some way I don't understand. Me? I find meanness and pettiness draining and damaging. So I'll never do that. I'll never rudely call someone out in public or go on their blog to rant or snipe openly about members or fellow ARMY. I will just keep myself to myself and do my best to be authentic and kind and hard working.

Doesn't always work. I'm human. I will absolutely make mistakes (case in point--the campaign idea yesterday that could have really harmed Jimin. I didn't think about all the consequences and I'm so grateful to the people who patiently set me straight.) Please know that if you ever feel strongly I'm going in the wrong direction, you can always speak to me--I'll ask a million questions, I'll hear you out, and I'll try to be flexible in my mindset. You don't have to hide behind throw-away accounts or talk to others about me. I will do my best to always be kind and act in good faith with everyone. (But I'll likely still make some mistakes, because my intentions are good but I myself am not perfect.)

By and large, I feel I'm just really astronomically lucky to be here. I know the kind of cancer I had is very sneaky and could come back at any time. So how I spend my time left in this life matters to me. I want to be a source of good in the world, help other people, experience bliss and celebrate good things. I don't want to be selfish or destructive. If I start to go that way, I know good friends will gently call me back.

Like BTS, I want to connect with people and help build something worthy. So if you're on board with that, let's be friends. And if you're not, let's part amicably.

I just... figured I should probably say that... out loud. So that's that on that.

Love you guys,

Roo

[honeysucklethornsandalligtrhorns]

Lex's List: Truths, Advice, Quotes, Mantras, & Words to Live By:

Fuck it, we ball.

Take it easy, but take it.

Life is not measured in a series of wins and losses; some things just are.

Don't approach a horse from the rear, a cow from its side, or a fool from any direction.

Perform random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.

Be gentle with yourself. You are still learning.

Be gentle with your past self. They were still learning.

Treat yourself as you would treat your daughter.

We all die, you either kill yourself or get killed.

Fuck around and find out.

To accept queerness, disability, neurodivergence, mental illness, differing religions, differing cultures, and a differing world, is to accept 'weirdness' and learn how to properly educate yourself on new (sometimes only to you) ideas, subjects, concepts, ways of life, etc..

One essential way to properly educate yourself on new ideas, subjects, concepts, ways of life, etc., is by listening to the stories and experiences of people who are of that specific group, from them themselves.

"Because I'm sexy! And chubby, man." "Why aren't you on a diet?" "Because I like to eat, is that such a crime?"

There are two types of anger-- explosive and implosive.

Intrusive thoughts are not from you, your brain is a wrinkly hunk of fat with lightning in it and it doesn't always know what it's doing. Just let them pass on and don't dwell on them.

Maybe they're just new at it.

You need to love yourself before you try to love others.

Saying sorry doesn't guarantee forgiveness. It's an offering, not a fix-all.

Trust, like respect, is earned.

In that sense, respect & trust can be given and taken away. They are privileges. You have to uphold them.

Phases are a natural part of life. Embrace them.

Everybody talks.

Whatever you do, there is a child out there doing it better than you.

Comparison is the thief of joy.

Everything is a social construct because we live in a society.

Family is not just blood or genetics.

It's okay to need help, but clean up your own messes.

If you leave towels crumpled up instead of spreading them properly, they won't dry correctly.

If you leave issues untouched instead of addressing them and communicating, they won't dry correctly. They will fester.

Water damage is real. Clean up your spills.

This is your only body. Take care of it.

At the end of the day, it's only meat, fluids, electricity, and bone.

You have free will for a reason.

Homosexuality is present in over 1,500 species. Homophobia is present in one.

Never make assumptions.

Fact check everything.

Do not get involved in drama that isn't yours.

It's just fabric, get over yourself (in regards to judgment of others' clothing).

It's just fat, get over yourself (in regards to judgment of other people).

It's just skin, get over yourself (in regards to judgment of other people).

Admitting you were wrong takes more balls than arguing over who's right.

Ask first.

Mean what you say and say what you mean.

Use deodorant.

Vaccinate your kids.

If you can afford it, go to therapy.

Don't expect rewards for basic human decency.

Healthy, safe, and well-informed sex education is vital and should be taught in schools.

Don't purposefully walk into a strip club and then act shocked and offended to find strippers.

The axe forgets, but the tree remembers.

Your ancestors looked like you, and they all managed to get laid. There's hope.

Spite is the world's greatest motivator.

Do it bored.

If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.

You are the light. It's not on you, it's in you. Don't you ever in your motherfucking life dim your life for nobody. Don't you ever stop being who you are and dimming your light for none of these motherfuckers out here.

Art should calm the disturbed and disturb the calm.

Thousands of years ago, ancient peoples got bored.

There's a likelihood that you are not the first in your family line to be queer.

Nine days before the Wright brothers' flight, it was predicted that man would not achieve flight for another million years.

To love and be loved-- that alone is what makes this lifetime bearable.

Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

Language is fucking weird and accents are natural.

To laugh is to feel such joy you cannot contain it.

90-year-olds still go on dates. You will find someone.

Don't put metal in the microwave.

Taking 'unnecessary' precautions is favorable to getting unnecessarily hurt.

You can switch religions whenever you want.

And the universe said I love you/ And the universe said you have played the game well/ And the universe said everything you need is within you/ And the universe said you are stronger than you know/ And the universe said you are the daylight/ And the universe said you are the night/ And the universe said the darkness you fight is within you/ And the universe said the light you seek is within you/ And the universe said you are not alone/ And the universe said you are not separate from every other thing/ And the universe said you are the universe tasting itself, talking to itself, reading its own code/ And the universe said I love you because you are love.

To be willfully ignorant is to welcome death.

The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.

Coercion is not consent.

Make sure you have a safe word set in place.

Grief does not disappear. You simply grow around it. You live with it.

Your conscience is a triangle. It pokes you when you do something wrong. If you ignore it enough, it'll smoothen out and become a circle. You won't feel the pokes anymore.

To live is not to survive.

Change your perspective, even if you think you're seeing clearly.

Don't be a dick to kids.

Money may not buy happiness, but it buys comfort.

First, you have to forgive yourself.

Don't panic. Panic drowns thought.

Carelessness is to die.

Your art hot like potato chip.

Remember to take your meds + drink water + eat a snack + unclench your jaw.

If you wouldn't take their advice, don't take their criticism.

'Bad' art that's made with passion is better than 'good' art that has no soul.

Hate is a learned trait. No one is born intolerant.

Love was the law and religion was taught.

Arrive early.

Just because someone looks like you does not make them a friend; just because someone does not look like you, or is unfamiliar, does not make them an enemy.

There are different temperatures and steeping times needed for different types of teas. If you get it wrong, your tea will turn out flavorless or bitter.

Don't store raw meat next to vegetables.

You can't 'just cut the mold' off of soft cheeses, fruits/veggies, or most dairy products.

Boiled water is not the same thing as boiling water.

Bake flour to remove the bacteria. Boil water to remove the bacteria. Put toxic things (such as tarantulas) in boiling water and boil for at least an hour to remove the toxins.

If you don't take yourself seriously, neither will others.

Defeatism is to die.

We are made of stardust.

Never make generalizing statements.

If small things bring you joy, fill your home with small things.

To be cringe is to be free.

Punch 'em in the throat.

[tamas-and-the-clowns-sol-left]

Hello, you've made it. You reached the Rubyverse.

What is the Rubyverse, you may ask??

the Rubyverse is an alternate universe for Aiden Thomas' The Sunbearer Duology that I, Tamas, have been creating since August 6th, 2024.

This is going to be more detailed after my small info bit, boundaries, and trigger warnings.

What is the point of this project??

This is my place to add as I wish and have content to my desires. From character pages, headcannons (that are subsequently cannon for this universe), or being my indecisive self, I am using this to express my creative freedom in hopes of finding some audience who cares enough about it

What are the boundaries??

My boundaries aren't designed to be difficult, but if you find them in such way than we are not for eachother's interaction.

I will not tolerate anything NSFW about myself, my characters, my ideas, or my posts in all. I am an asexual guy and my comfortability isn't with that stuff about me or my creations. Every creation of mine has some of me in them.

Feel free to ask questions, but think before you speak. I'll respond as much as I can and when I can, but I am a human, I'm going to be treated as such. Creating and sharing my creations doesn't lessen or add to my humanity and that's something I see many people struggle with.

No discrimination against me or my characters. this includes use of: Slurs, homophobic/transphobic comments, racism, ableism. If you are grown up enough to be on the Internet you should be grown up enough to not discriminate and keep your inside thoughts inside.

Use tone tags for sarcasm and jokes at minimum. I struggle with tone often and take everything at face value especially the less there is for me to analyze. I speak at face value, I don't use jokes or sarcasm without clarification that it is such so others can know. /j means joke and /sar means sarcasm.

What can you expect from this series??

You can expect characters that are more than just beauty standards and stereotypes. I may fall into some tropes or pairing types(such as loser boyfriend x absolutely stunning girlfriend) but my characters all have some sort of difference. They're not all perfect beings.

You can expect many, many spoilers for both The Sunbearer Trials and Celestial Monsters, aka the whole Sunbearer Duology.

You can expect changes to the trials and to the world building. Fear not, I haven't wrecked too much chaos upon this world's setup.

You can expect even more queer and trans characters, as well as some more disabled characters!! Not only do they have a soft spot in my heart, and I find representation largely important, I myself am a disabled queer trans person and love having characters like me.

Be prepared for some art style inconsistency and some writing that will *hopefully* get better over time. I'm not the most beginner of all beginners but I'm definitely not what I'd call a very seasoned artist and writer. (I also use a few different mediums for art, I stick to pencil to paper, watercolor, and digital art more often than not but I still like trying new things and having fun.)

Be prepared to read tags as this gets posted onto Ao3(And ONLY will I post on Ao3) and be prepared to read the trigger/content warnings for any thing I post here, especially writing.

Many things are based off of my own experience!! They may not be your experience, they may never be your experience, quite a few I truly hope aren't amongst anything anyone must experience. However on the flip side of the token coin I have put forth research to make anything and everything that is not written with my own experience is going to be as authentic as I can make it.

What are some trigger and content warnings I can give right off the bat??

For the sake of separation, each one is a bullet list instead of a paragraph, and I added everything planned that is something I think could risk triggering anyone.

Spoilers for all of The Sunbearer Duology!!

Major character death

"Human"(semidiós) sacrifice

Injuries

A character with hypermobility that experiences real struggles (aka not dumbed down to "oh I'm super flexible!!")

depersonalization/dissociation

self put pressure

Symbolization of needing accommodations for a disability and how society will reject or even mock thoes needs and overall will refuse to accommodate without harassment

Forced Assimilation (forcing a culture to rid their culture in order to fit into the other culture)

bullying/discrimination

abuse(parental)(physical and possible mental/emotional)

war and past war of high significance

manipulation/deception

this gets religious seeming as all main characters are dióses and semidióses (gods and demigods) however it is not a place to spread religious beliefs, no matter how good or ill intentioned

unsafe binding

Past self harm/self harm scars/non graphic current self harm

Struggles with eating (Arfid sensory type in specific)

I MUST EMPHASIZE. IF ANY OF THESE MAY BE TRIGGERING FOR YOU, KNOW YOURSELF. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED BY ME NOW, YOU WILL BE WARNED EVERY TIME ANY TRIGGER WARNING IS APPLICABLE. If you choose to skip triggering chapters or sections that's up to you, if you're looking at this and going "oh this may be not for me" feel free to keep scrolling because your health is more important than one more reader will ever be to me.

Welcome to the Rubyverse

In the world there are three godly races, The Golds, the Jades, and the Obsidians.

The Obsidians and their monsters are trapped in the stars, Jade and Golds now are the only Dióses in Rino De Sol. Right??

What if I told you there's one more set of Dióses??

Ruby red blood, the "weakest" of Sol and Tierra's godly children.

Follow eight dióses and their semidios children through their rediscovery, their "grand reveal" to all of humankind.

[xxlady-lunaxx]

Stories about you | {KaiGyu}

Theme: Fluffy I think

Note: This ship is a little tricky because of their silly deaths but imma jus roll w/ it. Gyutaro and Daki did die same time, same place, Kaigaku became demon same time as well, not changing that shit which is going to make this tricky but yk-

Also THERE IS SO LITTLE KAIGYU ART 😭 atp i should just draw the less popular ships bc there's barely any art of them </3 

This is short, sorry, bit hard to write Kaigyu when there's so little to work on both of them being from diff times as demons.....

Kokushibo would tell Kaigaku about the Uppermoons sometimes, including the deceased ones. He would tell him all sorts of things and Kaigaku would hang onto every word in fascination. He never realized there was so much to know about demons besides that they killed. Like, how often the Uppermoon two and three often argued and how Upper five was constantly obsessed over his pots—though Upper four and five had recently died. He learned all about Uppermoon four's clones and how long each Upperranked demon had been in the 12 Kizuki. But most of all, he love hearing about Upper 6 and the two siblings. Specifically Gyutaro. Kokushibo had showed Kaigaku pictures of each Uppermoon and, for some reason, Kaigaku found himself rather attached to Gyutaro whom he took an interest on through Kokushibo's stories.

So, everytime after Kokushibo decided that their training sessions were done, Kaigaku would go up to him and ask for another story as if he was a child. They would sit down and Kokushibo would tell him another fact about the Uppermoons.

Eventually, Kaigaku grew more comfortable asking about Gyutaro. He was careful, of course, asking about the other Uppermoons as well. But he grew bored of them and started focusing more on Gyutaro to the point Kokushibo noticed and pointed it out.

"No! I'm just curious because he was the same rank as me and... uh... you know!" Kaigaku insisted, whining. 

Kokushibo cocked an eyebrow, giving him a sort of teasing look. "Could you be so invested in Gyutaro, though he's dead?" he asked. 

Kaigaku shook his head. "No, I'm not, I swear-!"

Kokushibo laughed. "Alright then. Let me tell you about the first time he and Daki were introduced into the Upperranks."

~~~

This continued ceaselessly and Kaigaku learned more than he ever would if the Uppermoons were alive about Gyutaro. It was so interesting and captivating and he found himself dreaming what it would be like if he'd been a demon at the same time Gyutaro had lived.

It was so wonderful to love someone—though the constant reminder that Gyutaro was dead was sad. Kaigaku couldn't help making up a sort of world in which Gyutaro and he could be together. There was no saying that Gyutaro would actually like me, rather Kaigaku almost appreciated the fact that the Uppermoon had died because he was pretty sure nobody would fall for a demon like Kaigaku. Nevertheless, Kaigaku fell into a daze, sometimes, and Kokushibo had caught him several times as he thought about Gyutaro.

"You're blushing again!" Kokushibo said, pointing to Kaigaku's flushed cheeks. 

"I'm... cold!" Kaigaku lied. 

"Demons aren't affected by the cold in the same way humans are, Kaigaku," Kokushibo said, sighing. "Do you like someone?"

Kaigaku shook his head rapidly. "Nope! No! Never!" 

Kokushibo shook his head. "Fine. But don't let me catch you unfocused again or I'm going to lock you out into the sun!"

Kaigaku crossed his arms. Well, if he died he'd be with Gyutaro, no? "Fine! I'll stop!" 

Needless to say, he was more careful. He mostly thought about the deceased demon during his free time instead of during his training. Which was for the better anyways. 

~~~

Kaigaku had been looking around in Kokushibo's house—a small one-story place in which Kokushibo lived in solidarity during the day time. There was one room Kokushibo had, where he'd said there were pictures of the Uppermoons. Kaigaku had been interested so he'd been permitted to go there.

In the room, he found the box Kokushibo had spoken of. There were a lot of pictures, a third of them being of Muzan, and the other two thirds of the Uppermoons. Including past ones, such as the ones that were before even Akaza had become a demon. Kaigaku even found one of himself in the box.

The ones of Gyutaro and Daki were cute, both siblings being so close to each other. Kaigaku traced Gyutaro's face, marveling at the way his hair framed him perfectly. 

"He's so pretty," he whispered.

Kokushibo entered the room. "Who is?"

"What?! Nothing!" Kaigaku quickly stuffed the picture into the box.

Kokushibo raised an eyebrow. "Sure."

"So, uhm... Why's there so many pictures of Master here?" Kaigaku asked, trying to change the subject.

"Oh! Uhm! You know! I've known him longest than anyone else," Kokushibo said, a bit too quickly to be the full truth. 

Kaigaku smirked. "Do you like him?"

"No! Well! Yes, but not the way you mean!" Kokushibo exclaimed. He snatched the box and closed it tightly. "Let's... let's go train now."

Kaigaku laughed. "Alright then."

~~~

(this is so sudden, I'm sorry-)

Kaigaku was dying. Fuck Zenitsu and his stupid new form. Fuck thunder breathing and the world!! Why the hell was he going to die?! Bet he was the first Uppermoon to die tonight. Stupid. Useless. Weak. 

And then he was gone.

It was black. 

Was this hell?

He looked around.

Light. 

Step towards the light.

No, he didn't belong there.

Heaven was for people who did good. Kaigaku didn't belong amongst the good.

He turned away from it, though he ached with curiousity to see through.

He went further into the darkness. It seemed to grow darker with each second that past by.

And then he was there.

Hell.

Was this hell?

He saw demons there too.

And then one.

His eyes focused on two demons. Previously Uppermoons. Upper 6.

Kaigaku stumbled forwards, a smile growing on his face.

Gyutaro. It was Gyutaro and Daki.

They turned to him.

Gyutaro smiled and Daki grinned.

Kaigaku moved forward, closer, until he was right in front of the two.

"Kaigaku..." Gyutaro murmured. "Nice to meet you, Kaigaku."

Hell... was going to be wonderful. 

{Word count: 1009}

WAHH THESE TWO ARE SO CUTE BUT THE TIMESTAMPS OF THE ACTUAL MANGA MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO PUT THEM TOGETHER.

also the second to last sentence I must explain :33

Gyutaro had seen Kaigaku from above, watching him, because Kaigaku had been wanting so badly to meet Gyutaro that he'd sensed it. So, he'd said "Kaigaku" because he already knew of him, and "nice to meet you" sort of a "I met you yet I know you already" kind of line?

i love writing sm

[alliumdykes]

Omg hi ur so sexy and awesome hahaha talk about the game How Fish Is Made hahaha

Omg wow hi person who totally isn't me I'm going to talk about How Fish Is Made and its semi-sequel/next chapter The Last One Then Another.

Spoilers under the cut, this is very long.

Ok so I just LOVE this game sm. Like I am luring you in with haha funny joke for my long-ass essay rant explination thingy.

But I love this game. The feeling of being in the machine. It's both organic and mechanical. It makes the machine feel biological and man-made at the same time. But also neither. It feels wrong. All the fish you meet NEED to know if you choose up or down. It's the most important choice you make. You MUST choose up or down. It leads into a debate about if you should choose up or down, fishes telling you to choose up while another yells at you to choose down because their so smart they were stuck.

You find a fish whos in fear, they can't choose up or down? Do they go up with their best friend? Or down with the rest of their family? They need you to choose for them. You fall down flesh tunnels, fish seeing frozen fish and calling it art. Its so disgustingly human in some way. At one point you need to open a gate, but a fish is stuck in the gears, thinking there was a way to beat choosing up or down. And technically they did. But not through escape. but from being killed by you, you have to kill someone to progress. And you have no choice.

You enter a room full of water, but you can't swim. you can never swim. you must flop.You meet a fish whos tongue had been devoured by Cymothoa exigua, who sings you a cheerful song about how you just have to live with the bullshit that you are put through. After you are put through the song full of parasites there you must continue on your journey. You enter a room full of fish eggs everywhere and you are forced to stop. you get a dialogue text saying "Why do you deserve it? Will you be able to live with it? Try and try and try and try and try again. Ah, those double action hinges have always been there, just for you, right? You'll come back. Everyone does. Weak. Or you'll go looking. one way or another, right? Weak." Before your forced to keep walking, thinking about what you were told. I like to think its some meta-commentary thing, about how we will go look for another ending of the game, if you do something different you will get another, better ending.

This can also be interpreted as how in life if we make a choice, we could choose one. but in the end we will always want to see what happens if we choose something else. Maybe if I did this instead it'll of end out better? Maybe if I do this in this way instead of that it will be better! but it doesn't matter.

You enter a room, with lights and a fish in the middle. They say this is about conviction. But also. They're just a fish in a room with intimidating lighting, they acknowledge this. How do we know that they know it? They just look smart.

When you finally make the choice a fish whos seen the amount whos gone up and down. You ask the fish to go up or down, they say that whatever one they go through that they will tell you what they see. but you don't.

You go through. You get a message that I transcribed here. I like to think that the monologue is about the selfishness that comes with grief. That you feel that you've had it the worse, what you have gone through is worse then what everyone else has gone through. no one else has gone through the same suffering that you have gone through. but its not true. its rude and selfish.

You can get two endings, a large blob when you go up and you become apart of a sandwich if you go down. I think this is meant to be that no matter what you choose, their as bad as each other. But you have a choice, the only good thing is that you have a choice.

Ok now onto The Last One Then Another.

This takes place after the first, and your in a large blob no matter if you choose up or down. You free the blob and start to (quite literally) consume bits of dead fish around you, gaining enough to burst through a shut door. a fish asks to come with you. you can say yes and consume the fish, or you can just leave. this is the only time you can do this, the only time you don't have to consume.

You go to a boat or bathtub (I'm unsure) and you follow the light to a bloody bandaged head where you can only see an eye and the mouth of the man. You can rather leave or consume. You aren't large enough to consume though. so you must leave. You go through this fleshy tunnel where there's a fish feasting on a birthday cake. You have the option to leave or consume. Although but you have to consume to progress. You go back to the main area where a whole is opened in the middle. You go down to see just the eye of the bandaged man after consuming a small fish.

The man tells you a joke that goes like this "Three men are in the hospital. The first man cries 'I lost both my hands, they told me I'll never work again!' The second man wails 'I lost both my legs, they told me I'll never work again! The third man? He rejoices 'I lost my hearing, they'll never be able to tell me I'm fired again'" before laughing and just sitting there.

You go through a thing where it's only able to fit a specific size, you go into a room, with fish parts, a bunch of mouth wash and a fish covered in mouth wash. The fish cries for you to take them with you. Saying that choosing up or down was stupid. or was it left or right? They can't remember. So you take them with you. You go back to the main area and go up to the bandaged and what do you do? You consume him. You have no choice. You must consume.

You then change into a first person perspective cutscene, your a person on a ship giving pain killers to a bandaged man without both hands, without both feet and with no ears. A Deaf man who has no hands and feet, like each of the men in the joke. You feed the man painkillers with the first option being the same mouthwash in the room near the bathtub boat thing. You feed the man the painkillers then get an ad for mouth wash. and then the Cymothoa exigua in friend-os mouth appears asking you to wishlist the game mouthwash.

I like to think the second part/chapter is about over consumption. You must consume consume consume. And the choice you made that was extremely important doesn't matter, because all you must do is consume.

Anyways thats my thoughts :3

[keysimash]

fuck it. Cringe ass Magolor post from yours truly.

I've wanted to write a proper fic where the tables are turned and instead of Reader petting kitty Magolor, magolor pets and gives physical affection to the reader, but burnout and writers block and embarrassment have mostly stopped me but iys cute and its fluffy and whatever I'm throwing this into the wind, outline and.general thoughts I've had

Cringe incoming

Magolor is always happy to recieve pets from a trusted human with their giant warm hands with long, dextrous fingers that can scritch and pet in ways his own hands cant,

The first time he reciprocates would probably be around 4 - 5 sessions, citing that he "doesn't accept it for free" and that its polite to reciprocate and he wants to look at and examine your weird humanness more closely

OR

if he gets Jealous of His Human coming into his vicinity smelling like Other Fucking Carnivores. Originally in my deleted/reuploaded mag/reader fic this was gonna be a whole thing where the reader was friends with a bunch of Scarfies, and he got PISSED and basically marked the reader by getting super cuddly all of a sudden, the reader doesn't know because humans cant smell like that, and they try to hang out with their Scarfy friends who are like. Staying at least six feet away like "Ummmm. Did you get a boyfriend??? You've got DO NOT FUCKING TOUCH scent all over you lol"

I mean. I've been around mag/reader fics since I was like what, twelve? That sounds right, I dunno I can hardly attach a numerical age to kid memories ANYWAY I've SEEN. how many ppl write him as super possessive and jealous ESP fuckers who are horny for the crowned version you are all sinners none of you are free from sin. This cat is not well adjusted. Anyway

He'd start with your hands, taking them in his gloves, then he'd take his gloves off himself. His hands are smaller under his gloves but still pretty big compared to his own body. Still, though, I think they'd be about the size of a human hand, if Magolor himself is about the size of a backpack, since in official art it seems like his hands are half the size of his body?

I picture them soft and brown, scarred, with squishy pink paw pads on the soft parts of the palm and the last pads on his finger tips. He flexes them, and dark claws come out, relaxes, they retreat: repeat this a few times before he places his gloves neatly somewhere nearby, putting them there without looking or turning, hes already seen the room: hes looking at You, big yellow eyes, glowing a bit. White pupils all wide, taking you all in, making his eyes look lighter.

When he actually starts touching it would be more curious that affectionate, hed definitely be bending fingers and gently moving your elbows, not painful, just Examining, his skeleton is so different after all, and he has no limbs to speak of. he presses deep with his hands until he feels the bones underneath, puts his hands in different spots, on your shoulder, asks you to move and feels the bones move with. Takes a claw and runs it under your fingernail, just barely pressing in, not enough to hurt, just enough tto scrape out any dirt, remarks on how dull your claws are.

The readers own reaction would definitely affect his a lot. He really needs input from others to figure out how to compose himself, a calm and composed yet pleased reaction would fluster him more than anything as he would start to get embarrassed himself doing something so focused on another and yet, he would want praise very badly.

Teasing him would get teasing back:

He would call you silly names making fun of your human features if you teased him lol like "foot-haver" or "magicless loser" etc (he would immediately stop if you seemed actually upset)

but it wouldnt take much to make him into mess ;)

Any flusteredness or embarrassed behavior he will latch onto and tease relentlessly in order to feed his own ego and false confidence, somethin like:

"Hah! You should see your face" "does it feel that good? I havent even done anything yet"

If he gets called out on making petting seem .. less innocent he will accuse you of being the one with a dirty mind lol

The two possibilities here are either his human partner gets more flustered, which might go something like:

he starts purring at the reaction to his own touch, starts running one claw lightly along your arm. Presses up close, close with his head under your chin, purring purring purring, you can feel it and hes like a little furnace. Because he floats he can press his whole weight against a human with little effort, he presses and nuzzles then his hands find the back of your shirt and knead. His face he rubs along your shoulders and neck

OR the tables get turned on the cat egg:

Pointing out his purring, saying something like "you seem excited to do this, dont you? :)" Or commenting on how cute or lovely he is and keeping on doing it, hitting that reward center in his brain so starved for attention -- hed probably make a cute little sound at that -- or if a human touched him and started petting him while he was trying to give affection, that reciprocation would make him pull his scarf down and lick one long stripe up your arm.

I was thinking about Halcandran tongues: carnivores, yes, so barbed like a cats to lick the meat off bones, but: they're not exactly flexible like a cat, they can move but not as freely, they're not exactly egg shaped but still. So grooming would become, either something one did with ones own hands or, a communal activity, social bonding.

He would feel scratchy, his face soft: a lot flatter than a normal cat, he still has a bit of a muzzle but not much. The whiskers tickle, he pauses at the crook of your elbow, looks up at you, licks a few more times, pulls away a bit.

"You taste salty..."

If allowed to continue he certainly will, kneading and laving over the crook of your neck, nibbling curiously at collarbones before nosing into the dips they make under your skin, etc etc. He will examine the shell of your ear with a paw, purring close to it, will lick through your hair if it's short, it would be like fur to him; long hair he would comb through with fingers, hovering around you to nuzzle the back of your neck, purring all the while.

Eventually, he might get to your hands, and he would, well. I should stop before I make a post tha would get me banned from.tumblr, lol.

[summerstrash]

having complex feelings about the x-factor 2024 announcement.

pros:

Pyro and Frenzy are there. Be Gay Do Crimes Twink + The Giant Woman I Always Want To See = Good Shit.

The guy who's writing this book is well-known for his one-shot rewriting the Hanna-Barbera character Snagglepuss as a mid-century homosexual playwright. Considering that Pyro is here, this is promising.

Alex is no longer wearing the classic costume, which reduces the chances of him being forced into the Goblin Gown significantly, forcing his arc to rely less on his sexual objectification.

The solicit seems to imply that social media will act as either a framing device or a plot point, which I like the sound of.

Alex and Frenzy serving on a team together rockets her to the #1 spot on the list of Potential Alex Summers Sex Mistakes, since she's a slightly bitter Scott ex with BDSM inclinations.

My longtime Twitter mutual Gail Simone called it a gem of the line, and I'm inclined to trust her judgment on many things.

The writer specifically namedrops Alex and Frenzy as characters he's excited to write, which implies they'll see at least some focus.

The artist is Bob Quinn, a guy I quite like and who sent me free art once for my birthday when Knights of X was delayed.

As someone who hasn't read much X-Factor from the 90s due to my ongoing feud with a particular writer from that era (iykyk), I'm kind of looking forward to seeing what X-Factor as a government team is like, as opposed to X-Factor as an investigating body.

cons:

Alex in a leadership role is never a good sign. Bad things happen to Alex when he leads.

Not a huge fan of the fact that the current known roster includes three white guys and two WOC, with one of the WOC also being a visible mutant who has fur instead of human skin, and the other being a medium-to-dark-skinned black woman famous for being buff and angry, and the three white guys are all blondes, ranging from "dumpster twink" to "hunk"

Alex working for the U.S. government feels like a microagression against me personally, as I've been very vocal about thinking that Alex needs to finally come to terms with the fact that clinging to mainstream institutions and dominant social groups will only ever hurt him, and I was hoping the Hellions or Limbo could be that for him in the Krakoan Era

The marketing seems to imply a different tone and genre from the domestic/workplace horror-comedies Alex has been part of for the last five years, and I don't know how I feel about that yet.

Greg Land is doing the covers, and I hate that for me.

"Who will die?" Of the characters we have announced so far, Alex is the most expendable. He's one of three blond white guys, and while Warren seems to be taking center stage as the Face Of The Team, and St.John's movie counterpart is returning to theaters this summer in Deadpool & Wolverine, so I doubt they'd kill him off in comics at the moment, Alex feels kind of superfluous as a co-leader, and he also is just...less loved, I think.

"Who will fall in love?" Again, worried for Alex because one of his, like, three recurring stories is "gets picked up by the scruff of his neck by a girl way out of his league so she can use him to self-actualize while playing at transgressive forms of heterosexuality." We don't really have similar core recurring storylines for other announced characters.

"Who will be the first to sell out?" Honestly I feel like St.John might be the answer to this question. He's a novelist. Novelists have egos. He's worked for the U.S. government before, under Mystique. And I guess this kind of makes me sad.

The fact that the whole cast hasn't been announced yet fills me with fear that Lorna will be in this, mostly because a fair chunk of FTA seems to be focused on catering to nostalgia on some level, and Alex/Lorna is very 90s. And frankly Dr. Dane should be doing better for herself than the man that left her at the altar for a gay man's girlfriend.

So yeah, I have complex emotions about all of this and will be watching with a fair amount of suspicion as we draw closer to the release date.

[copperbora]

Introduction

Here be mine list of information sources that I often use for arguing with people who genocidally hate wolves (and other wildlife,) based on misinformation, anti-wolf propaganda like 'Smoke a Pack a Day!' (yes, wolf haters literally say inflammatory hogwash like this,) and centuries of uneducated fear based upon the very few times in history (actual accounts forgotten) that (likely largely habituated) wolves have been less than friendly to humans. (And I was going to include a picture of one of these 'smoke a pack a day' things but urgh... honestly they make me want to vomit.)

🐾Please note that I will be constantly adding to this list and updating it as I find new ammunition - er, sources, with which to argue with/informationally support my ongoing work on my science-based graphic novel, Knife Edge. (Which production is a bit slow on at the moment because I am spending most of my time outside.)

⚠️Important to note: wolf scientists can be a bit hard to talk to at times due to the fact that some of them have literally received death threats from wolf haters and people in the livestock industries who erronously believe based upon hearsay (i.e. no actual science,) that wolves are a threat to their top dollar. That's why the typically great podcast Ologies had trouble finding a wolf scientist for its lupinology episode - because people who hate wolves tend to hate people who say that they need to stop killing wolves because how dare they be wrong. (I'm still peeved about how bad that lupinology episode was by the way; it didn't even mention trophic cascades. Sigh. (That's why I haven't linked it here, and why I hope that Alie Ward will redo it someday, or that the podcast Science Versus will do a wolf episode instead someday.)

I myself am not a wolf scientist, (although this was my dream as a little girl which I gave up on due to painful dyscalcula,) but I am striving to be as expert about lupinology as much as a non-scientist can be, especially so that I can do wolves proper justice in my story Knife Edge as well as other future wolf advocacy projects that are percolating in my deranged little mind. My stunningly crappy brain for math may have prevented me from studying to become an actual wildlife biologist studying wolves in the field but it isn't going to stop me from helping wolves with my art by attempting to educate and dispel misinformation about them. I can do my best to be a science communicator and do wolf outreach through my work. Hopefully I won't get lynched for it.

Please feel free to use the following links should you decide that you need them. This post is linked in my pinned post so that it can be more easily found especially by me.

Why I Advocate for Wolves

- Because it's the right thing to do: wolves are sentient, highly social beings who live in closely knit family groups much like our own human families complete with parents who impart generational knowledge - such as tactically how to specifically hunt particular prey (for example: elk) - upon their offspring who either go off eventually to start their own families or stay put in their natal pack with their parents, helping to raise their younger siblings. No animal has been more horrifically scapegoated over the centuries of our coexistence than the wolf, which some people are still trying to eradicate even though no science supports this.

- Because I dream of a world where predators are protected, where all killing of them is banned, because they are simply too important to our planet to destroy. They are deeply critical to rewilding our planet and helping our own species survive, because where wolves are, wetlands and forests thrive, helping cure drought, prevent wildfires, facilitate natural carbon capture through the bettering of these ecosystems, and clean the water that we humans also drink, all by preventing cervid species like deer from overgrazing and destroying baby trees. Wolves cause trophic cascades which promote the survival of hundreds of other species from charismatic scavengers like bald eagles and red foxes to the freshwater trout that anglers love to catch whose health is aided by the beavers which are able to create expansive water meadows whenever deer are prevented by predators like wolves from eating all of the beavers' food.

- Because unshockingly, killing wolves greatly damages their genetic diversity, hindering their ability to survive as a species. (I can't believe that there are actually people surprised by this.)

- Because before we ruined everything, the presence of wolves and lack of human interference meant that pre-colonial biodiversity was unimagineably greater than what we see today and I for one would like to see this amazing biodiversity explode again within my lifetime.

- Because wolves and humans have a lot in common; they too mourn their dead and exhibit joy at the introduction of new babies to their families. Recognizing this isn't anthropomorphism; we too are animals, afterall.

"We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be – the mythologized epitome of a savage ruthless killer – which is, in reality, no more than a reflected image of ourself.” - Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf.

🐺Wolf Specific Citations

- Wolves as scapegoats for human evil.

- No statistical support for wolf 'control' (culling) and maternal penning as methods for helping endangered caribou in British Columbia. (Actually, erase the word culling - what they really mean is wolf genocide.)

- The plight of wolves in America (features an absolute textwall of citations!)

- New document suggests British Columbia is using Judas Wolves for aerial wolf cull.

- Account of use of Judas Wolves in British Columbia

- BC Wolf Cull: documents reveal cruel methods of killing wolves. (You can bet your butt that I am furious at my province for this.)

- Wolves do not require human 'help' to control their numbers.

- Wolves are extremely important for environmental health as they cause trophic cascades.

- A wolf, abruptly noticing a human, runs away in fear. (Example of typical human/wolf interaction.)

- Are wolves dangerous to humans? (Spoiler alert: they're statistically not.)

- Killing wolves is unnecessary: wolves naturally limit their own numbers.

- Wolves are not a significant threat to livestock. What is a genuine threat to livestock generally? Free roaming dogs (in fact, farmers in Scotland are allowed to outright shoot dogs who they notice bothering their animals,) dystocia (birthing complications,) and inclement weather - issues which could be aleviated at least a little if ranchers would just use some range riders - aka, cowboys.

- US government data shows that wolves have a negligible effect on livestock losses.

- Killing wolves actually leads to more livestock losses, not less.

- Alberta Rancher Using Non-Lethal Predator Control (hasn't 'had' to shoot a wolf in years.)

- Livestock Guardian Dogs Reduce Losses by 11-100% (utilized correctly they are extremely effective!)

- Livestock Guardian Dogs Reduce Predation (according to Texas A&M University.)

- Please note that the wolf ranking terms 'alpha/beta/omega' have been debunked and are no longer in reputable scientific use. I wrote a thing about it here. Wolf packs are families, not militant groups of marauding monsters.

- All about why we don't use the wolf ranking terms alpha/beta/omega anymore which is why I depict Larch's natal pack in Knife Edge without these terms.

Recommended Books & Films About Wolves

- The Homeward Wolf by Kevin Van Tighem (a great account of wolf behaviour including detailing how wolves have generational knowledge and typically only hunt what their elders have taught them to except in rare circumstances such as in the case of a melanistic male in the Canadian Rockies who started hunting mountain goats instead of the elk that he had been raised on.)

- The Last Wolf by Jim Crumley (goes over the extirpation of the wolf from Scotland and over the misinformation surrounding wolves in great detail; an inspiring read.)

- In the Shadow of a Rainbow by Robert Franklin Leslie (a novel telling the story of a remarkable friendship between a man and a wild wolf which also gives evidence to lupine pre-genocide culture.)

- Island of the Sea Wolves published and streamed by Netflix, which gives an interesting account of a wolf family that has two breeding females in it, who amazingly help each other raise their pups!

- The International Wolf Centre's wonderfully long list of wolf books and media. (Doesn't include everything though.)

Other Wildlife Citations (Mostly About Cougars, Honestly.)

As a wildlife advocate you have to pick your battles so most of my focus is on predators, particularly wolves, cougars, coyotes, and sharks with a small measure of focus on spotted hyenas. I do also have a soft spot for beavers, however, as they are personally sacred to me and also extremely important to the environment, being an unusual keystone species that is a herbivore rather than a predator. Generally predators are the most influential animals in a habitat but beavers - and bison - are novel exceptions. (And actually, squirrels are too. Every animal is an important facet however without natural predators ecosystems crumble. Humans are not a replacement; compared to predators like wolves humans typically do an outlandishly terrible job of positively influencing the ecosystem.)

- The importance of predators (many more useful citations!)

- Why We NEED Predators (ScienceNews)

- Unmasking the myth of wildlife 'management.' (Yet more citations.)

- USDA's war on wildlife (again super well cited!)

- Cougars are NOT a threat to public safety (and more facts about these adorable large dog-sized purr machines.)

- Cougars also cause trophic cascades (in fact many predators do this.)

- Cougars are actually extremely social.

- Cougars are TERRIFIED of human chatter!

- Cougars are the bigfoot of cats. (Also as they are technically 'small' cats - and they honestly are very small compared to actual pantherine big cats like tigers and lions - we need to stop calling them big cats.)

- Want to solve wildfires and drought? Leave it to BEAVERS!

- How beavers restore wetland in deserts.

- Coyotes under siege and misunderstood.

- Why killing coyotes doesn't work.

- Starving bear mercifully euthanized; autopsy reveals plastic impaction in its intestines.

- Disease precautions for hunters.

- The ecological effects of livestock guarding dogs (LGDs) on target and non-target wildlife.

- Impact of clear-cut logging on forests.

- Ojibwe Spirit Horse - here before colonization? Plausible, yes considering horse remains found in the arctic.

- Is shark repellent a real thing? (Yes it is, and it's being developed in modern times to save sharks from humans.)

- To underline how very little top predators want to hurt us much less eat us, watch this video to see a tiger shark (one of the most infamous species of shark,) happily cuddle with her human researcher friend and recognize him after not seeing him for years!

Other Wildlife Books & Films

- Lethal Control, produced by Predator Defense (an organization which does an amazing job of thoroughly listing their information sources) and is a film about M-44 cyanide bombs which kill wildlife and pets alike.

- American Coyote by Dan Flores (be warned, some of the information in regards to wolves is incorrect but it is still an extremely interesting and illuminating account of the coyote, Canis latrans.)

- California Mountain Lions: The Legends of California by One Health Institute (ecology of cougars and why they are threatened.)

- The consequences of sport hunting - hundreds of cougar kittens die by orphaning every year. (Hunting predators is NOT sustainable!)

Favourite Information Sources & Organizations to Support

- Predator Defense

- International Wolf Centre

- Wolf Conservation Centre

- The Fur-Bearers

- Raincoast Conservation Foundation

- Northern Lights Wildlife Wolf Centre

- MountainLion.org

My Silly(?) Pet Peeves About Wolves

- How many Etsy stores flatout copy that silhouette of Kiba from Wolf's Rain howling with the moon behind him in their designs. Damnit, learn how to draw!!

- The whole moon association with wolves - no, they do not howl at the moon, they howl because it's fun, to communicate where they are/where prey is, to mourn, to locate family members, to express hunt victory (or alternatively "Come and get it!") Wolves probably do not give a damn about the moon.

- When people call baby wolves 'cubs' instead of 'pups' or 'puppies.' No. Wolves are a species of wild dog and baby dogs are puppies, therefore baby wolves are also puppies. Grr. 'Cub' to me implies a baby bear, or, heaven forbid, a pantherine kitten like a baby lion or tiger. Maybe hyenas too.

- Wolf haters, and how ludicrous it is that they've made something so simple so political. Wolves, like human uteruses, should not be political.

- Trophy hunters.

- How every wolf story is extremely fantastical instead of based upon any science.

- How no company ever makes accurately patterned wolf plushies. Even fellow artists mess this up and it's kinda heartbreaking for me; most notably giving wolf plushies a white tail tip instead of a black one. Wolves are not foxes: white tail tips are extremely rare wolf markings! Most of the time the 'white' tail tip is just the result of a black wolf going silver as they age.

- How cartoon wolves rarely look at all like real wolves.

- The fact that their common name is 'grey' wolf when at least in North America they commonly come in black too. I propose 'timber' wolf as a much more accurate name, as they are usually found in forests.

My Silly(?) Pet Peeves About Other Wildlife

- Trophy hunters. Please find a different way to prove that you have disposable income and that you are manly.

- When people call cougars/pumas 'mountain lions' because cougars are only very distantly related to real lions - they're on opposite sides of Felidae. Their closest relatives are jaguarundi, followed by cheetahs. Lions belong to Panthera along with tigers and leopards while cougars belong to the genus Puma. Additionally, cougars and puma are indigenous names while mountain lion is colonial. (Pumas are found in South America, cougars live in North America; same species but different subspecies due to differing habitats and prey.) 'Cougar' is derived from an indigenous Tupi (Brazil) word, çuçuarana.

- When people misuse the word 'cougar' to describe women. Ugh. Stop.

- The name 'black bear' because black bears come in a whole rainbow of colours including white (spirit/kermode,) glacier (it's like blue roan for bears,) cinnamon, blonde and chocolate.

[meidenzone]

My Boundaries

LINK PTBR

As the amount of players who contact me - publicly or privately - grow, I find it important to write down some boundaries I have. Please respect them.

I love interacting with fans and players of my games. I can answer questions about your favorite characters, listen to your feedback, give you advice on how to get started as a game dev, and much more!

However, I've had some interactions that have legitimately made me very uncomfortable. So, I'm putting my foot down on a few interactions.

- Do not come to my DMs flirting with me or asking for pictures of myself.

- I am not your friend and you do not know me personally, so try to think about what kind of jokes or 'edgy' comments you make when interacting with me as a fan. Although I put a lot of myself in my games and am open about experiences I've gone through, that is not an invitation to talk to me as if you personally know me.

- An as an add-on to the above: asking me to make a game with you when we don't know each other (as in, we have never interacted before ever and you randomly come up on my DMs) is not going to happen and it's a bit weird, unless it's an actual business invitation - e.g you have a project you want to hire me for or a game jam. I really only do collabs with friends I've talked to a few times before at least.

- I am an adult.  If you are a minor, know that there are topics I will not discuss with you for your safety and our mutual comfort. I will not discuss NSFW topics or respond to inappropriate jokes from minors.

- IMPORTANT: I am open about being a clinical psychology major and intern. This does not mean I can have an impromptu therapy session with you, or that I am comfortable with traumadumping in my DMs/e-mail when we don't know each other. I am not your therapist! This might sound harsh, but it has happened more times than I am comfortable with. The most I can say is that you should look for professional counseling near you.

- Please don't compare my games to other devs' games. Things like 'this is so much better than X' or 'this is just Y but worse' make me very uncomfortable.  The same goes for my art, writing, etc. 'Your art is not as good as Y' or 'your writing is better than X'...

I don't see it as a compliment, even when it's a 'positive' comparison, as it ends up being a negative comment about the other game/dev you're comparing me to. I love my fellow devs and I don't want this in my space.

- Please abstain from asking about updates/more content for other games I made on posts/videos/devlogs about a game that has nothing to do with that other project. E.g: Asking when a new Y update will come out when I'm sharing a new game I've worked very hard on. Or giving feedback about X on a trailer for Y.

This is something that has been bothering me a lot and I find it upsetting when I pour hours of free labor and love into a new game or update but the only response I get is 'I love X, when are you updating that one?'; to be honest it makes me not want to work on X, so it doesn't even help an update come faster!

There are spaces for giving feedback on each individual game - the itchio page, for example, or you can email me about it instead.

-----

I might add more to this post in the future. Overall, just treat me like a human being, please.

If you've done any of these before you read this post know I hold no ill will towards you. Just in the future, remember these boundaries when contacting me!

- Meiri