#I am TRYING

[i-give-u--art]

Challenge >:3

using this picrew make it look like you :D

no magical color eyes

Make it look as much like you as possible

you can do whatever with the background and stuff tho

Tagging: @ranboothesillyartist @raccoon-in-a-dumpster @i-ate-your-children @anonymouscringe @spideygal @seagull-dustin @sotogalmo @maecraft @i-like-cats-and-stars36 @ascendeddd @astertheabbs

@deadpuppetboi @connectionterminated13

[edenfenixblogs]

I was having a rough night so I went to my favorite funny website IsMercuryInRetrograde.com

I’m not a huge believer in astrology, but the website only has two pages:

If it’s in retrograde it says yes, which feels weirdly validating.

If it’s not in retrograde it just says “No, something else must be bumming you out,” which always gives me a little chuckle.

Fun silly website. Yay.

Except this time

YES. SOMETHING ELSE IS BUMMING ME OUT.

The fact that unless I lock myself in a room with only pre-written or pre-recorded material that I’ve already read or watched and know is safe I CANNOT GO TWELVE FUCKING HOURS WITHOUT HEARING ABOUT THIS FUCKING WAR.

It’s killing me. There are no breaks. I open any website or social media app and it’s an immediate bombardment of info about the war. I go watch a YouTube video and then there’s a fundraiser at the end.

I flip through channels and see news about an antisemitic attack or a bombing in Gaza or Rafah.

I leave notifications on and get a text from a friend who sees a “rape is resistance” sticker on her walk home from school.

I go to look for pride merch and see watermelon merch mixed in as if war is some kind of gay accessory. I look through a fandom tag and see cartoon characters in a kids cartoon drawn with Palestinian flags.

It’s fucking endless. It’s insane. I just wanted a few days without having to think about all of it so I could recharge and I haven’t even been able to go a continuous 12 hour stretch without something or someone shoving the whole thing in my face.

It’s not healthy to live like this. I already have PTSD. And I’m trying with all my might not to retreat fully within myself but this is fucking killing me.

And I am someone who is pro peace and pro ceasefire and pro Palestinian welfare and anti-Likud but also anti-antisemitism. I do nothing but promote interfaith and intercultural organizations devoted to fostering peace. I want this war over.

And yet I’m fucking stuck in this perpetual hellhole of awful news and constant imagery about war and death and antisemitism and Palestinian suffering. And it’s too much. Why can’t I even go 12 hours. It’s killing me.

The fucking mercury in retrograde website‽ YES. SOMETHING ELSE IS BUMMING ME OUT AND ITS YOU.

[catgirljaneway]

i'm sorry about this one guys

[yubriamakesart]

I started up Stardew Valley again and got the distinct feeling that I wouldn't get out of it without making fanart this time.

[blushweddinggowns]

“How do you feel?” Steve asked instead of answering, his eyes searching Eddie’s face. For what, he had no idea, “Is… is anything different?”

Eddie’s frown deepened, his confusion getting worse by the second. He felt fine. As normal as he could be. But… now that he thought about it. Steve did look a little different. 

He even sounded different, all in ways that Eddie didn’t quite understand. He took his time in answering, looking Steve over with focus. He was still gorgeous, his voice still like a song. But it was more… normal. Not ordinary, no. 

Nothing about Steve was ordinary. 

Perhaps he was getting used to this strange little creature. Managing some kind of balance between his own odd obsession versus the appreciation for who he really was. Less of a mysterious vixen and more of a… sweet, lost lamb. Happy to be of assistance, desperate to have a life of his own. Awkward but sharp-tongued. Excitable and wanting, yet still skirting around his ever present shyness. He wasn’t made for the life of a royal, especially not one so socially tortured. He belonged somewhere else, free and happy. Surrounded by connections and care, somewhere like here-

Eddie cut the thought off before it could grow, uncomfortable in a way that he refused to examine. A sharp reminder that his interest in the man in front of him was more dangerous than he let on. Then he would ever let himself acknowledge. 

Instead of paying heed to his own internal warning, Eddie brushed a bit of hair out of Steve’s eyes with a content sigh, “I feel fine, darling. What has you so worried?”

Despite his reassurances, Steve still looked uneasy. He sat up, staring down at Eddie as he gnawed on his bottom lip, “But… how do you feel about me?”

Eddie furrowed his brow at the words. What an odd question. How deeply could he see through him, asking something so apt. His feelings for Steve were disquieting, enough so that Eddie really ought to start putting some distance between them, sooner or later. He would have to go with later, considering how much he wanted him. A desire that was nowhere close to being quenched as of yet.

It should have been obvious how Eddie felt about him, so obvious that Eddie decided to answer him in actions instead of words.

Eddie reached out for him, long arms wrapping around the back of his neck to pull him back down. He kissed that worried look right off of him, slipping his tongue inside his sweet mouth when Steve gasped. He tasted just as lovely as he had the night before, maybe even better in the brightness of the sun. 

Eddie let an arm slip away from his neck to trail down his spine. Stopping to palm at his ass, grinning into the kiss when Steve only moaned, doing nothing to stop him. Gods, he wanted more. But all too soon Steve was pulling away. 

Eddie let him, but he didn’t let him go far. He kept a hand on the back of his neck, keeping him in place. With just enough room to speak.

Steve stared down at him, already hazy from a simple kiss, tailormade to drive Eddie insane “You still want me?”

Eddie blinked at him, the words not quite processing. It was such a ludicrous thing to say, how could Eddie not want him?

“Have you gone insane in the night?” Eddie asked with a tight laugh, “You’re lovely. Of course I still want you-”

Eddie barely had time to finish his sentence before Steve was back on him, kissing him with uncoordinated fervor. He didn’t waste any time returning it, taking the time to flip Steve on his back without a second thought. 

His lips were so soft, plump and perfect. It made Eddie want to bite them, an urge he couldn’t help but give in to. He drew his bottom lip between his teeth, pulling it back just to watch Steve squirm. He gasped at the movement, his hands clutching at Eddie’s shoulders.

Steve was fazing up at him wide-eyed with red, bitten lips. Eddie let his eyes trail down his body, smirking at how hard he was. The poor thing looked overwhelmed, clinging to Eddie’s arms as he stared up at him, lips parted as he panted. 

All Eddie wanted to do was make it worse.

from the newest chapter of this fic

[lousydrawingsforgoodpeople]

[capitano-marina]

Marina + Tropes (in.sp)

For @wicked210

[theroundbartable]

Me: *writing* He looked at him and wanted to fuck.

Me: *100% convinced* That's sexual tension, yes?

My gf: ...

[gaybuttyogurt]

i cant explain it but youre like a villain that has a whole army of henchmen obtained by just. being nice. like you gave everyone cookies and now there’s a bunch of little freaks following you out of shared interest

this is the best way to describe it oh my fucking god you nailed it . i swear it is the most entertaining part of my day reading through people's reblogs, like that one time SEVERAL people were talking about mithrun's boobs (the sogged post) and i genuinely almost threw my phone into the fucking sun /j.

opening tumblr to multiple notifications about mithrun's breasts is certainly an expirence

my army, i will feed you cookies if you like the soggy man. we all love that wet ass man, and i will be feeding you oats by hand. you freaks

my bestie can confirm that everytime i check my tumblr notifications i say something along the lines of "what the FUCK are they up to", it's like i'm running a zoo but all the animals are in my kitchen cooking some sort of diabolical breakfast and i'm studying them. a duck is cooking scrambled eggs, and it's raining in my house

i've never ran a public account like this before, and jesus christ you're all just like me it's so strange and SO funny

[klorophile]

Arcane and food

There is a subject that’s been turning and turning around my head for quite some time now and that I really wanted to analyze because it’s just a detail and yet it gives me Feels Of Beautiful *o*, and it is: food in Arcane. But bear with me because we’re going to take detours that might be unexpected? (I want to mention air jails and pomegranates)

So, I’m not gonna teach you anything when I say: food is important. In real life obviously, but in fiction too. What I have in mind here: in real life you can’t survive without food, so it’s something that you do everyday, so it is a very mundane and daily thing… which is precisely why, in fiction, it can be very absent (the heroes have to save the world/prove themselves/find their identity/solve a big mystery/… = better things to do than what we do in our daily lives because it is a story to get us out of our everyday lives) or on the contrary very meaningful (ex: In The Lion King, Simba is a carnivorous lion but he accepts to get used to eating bugs when he meets Timon and Pumbaa and decides to live with them, it’s a symbol of him leaving his lion life behind).

Also, in the classical tragedies, there is the rule of grandeur: the main characters have to be princesses and kings and never your common citizen. And princesses and kings will not be shown doing stuff like peeing or eating in this genre, because it is too down to earth for the beauty that’s being displayed.

So, eating = down to earth, concerns your everyday living people ; not eating = what people that are more akin to queens and deities will do, celestial. And that’s a distinction that I really feel in Arcane…

Vi

Vi eats (like a pig) when she gets out of prison, and she very much says it: « we’re here because I’m hungry ». When she eats, she eats. She puts fuel into her stomach and that’s it, it’s a very earthy and mundane thing, it’s not a metaphor like tobacco can be (tobacco = power in the Undercity). Vi just eats like we all do and that’s it. 

…Or is it? Well, at least that’s what she says to Caitlyn. Caitlyn was following Vi in hope of being led to important clues, and she gets pissed when she sees Vi stopping for food, because that is definitely not what Caitlyn got into the Undercity for… Because Caitlyn, as a Topsider, is not hungry. She had breakfast this morning, she will have dinner tonight, it’s whatever, her needs are met and she doesn’t need to think about it, and the viewer doesn’t have to think about it. But Vi is the opposite: As a prisoner, her needs depended on the decisions of the people in charge of her prison. She most probably didn’t get to choose what when or how, and most probably got the minimum and a look of disdain with it. In my head, I really like to make this cute comparison: you know how pet owners take their animals, like a dog for exemple, and they lift them above the ground when they have been naughty, and it’s « no, you’re in air jail now ‘cause you’ve been a bad dog so as a consequence you’re not allowed to dog anymore for a fitting amount of time » and it’s not a slap and not a hug and not a game, and the dog is just up confused with her legs dangling straight like IIII° <oh no what now? and they can’t do anything because air is not their element, the ground is, proven by the fact that they have all of four legs which is a lot of legs when you think about it and all of them want to touch the earth, so quadrupeds are like very ground dependent I guess. So the idea of air jail is that the pet can’t do anything and all that’s left is thinking about their existence and the choices they made and how it led them into not being able to choose anything anymore, and to be at the total mercy of their air jailer who happen to have only two legs that need to touch the ground, and two damned other that can remove you from your daily fulfilling life. And I might put a little too much thoughts into what’s basically cute a meme, but I think that is what is behind the air jail, and that is why it is so funny and cute when you do that to your pet (I’ve only seen it done with love), but yeah here is the thing: that is exactly what Stillwater is, but without the funny and loving part.

All of that detour to say that when Vi was in prison, she was basically in air jail. She wasn’t ‘just imprisoned’, she was removed from existence, and that aspect is accentuated by the fact that a) the prison is called “still water”, as in ‘you’re not allowed to move anymore’, b) it’s on an island that’s removed from both Piltover and the Undercity, and also: c) the time-skip.

The time-skip is very meaningful, because it makes us feel like everything was stopped and stuck from the moment Marcus took Vi away to the moment Caitlyn found an interested reason to get Vi out. We don’t get to see Vi in prison because it is literally a time out. It’s not her life she’s living during this time skip, it’s just her being removed for years and having no control over it.

When she gets out, she eats because it’s an earthy thing, and she was in the air all this time. She reclaims, not even her life, but just a life. This is why it is very important that we see her eat, because it shows us how she feels like she can finally move around and have an impact on the world. She is back.

At first she says to Caitlyn that she brought them here simply so that she could eat, basically to express to her that she is not going to just be used yet again by a Piltie, no, she’s here to reclaim something too and Caitlyn doesn’t have a choice in letting her have that or not, because Vi, as someone who grew up in the Undercity, is more adequate for this quest. 

And then she gets the tip from Jericho.

Food is connection, both to the place and the people. Vi eats because that’s what you do when you get home.

And she does it like a pig because she knows that’s not what a Piltie does, and she’s definitely not here to please Pilties.

Silco

Silco does not eat. He is a “kingpin”, he is very close to a classical tragedy figure (I mean… Agamemnon and Iphigenia… That’s his conflict). But he also has a mug painted by Jinx on his desk, with a lid and all, for coffee and stuff. But we don’t see him use it (sadly). He only drinks alcohol, which is akin to tobacco: not necessary to live, on the contrary, especially for tobacco which feels the lungs with noxious smoke when there is already so much suffocating people in the Undercity; when a character takes to it, it’s a symbol of being rich and/or powerful in the Undercity. 

So, with the painted by Jinx mug, the earthy thing is here, but Silco decides to not be seen using it. It’s here and not here. And that’s because it’s precisely Silco’s story: It’s him trying to be all but a deity, the founder of Zaun, and fatherhood creeping up on him whether he wants it or not, to the point of him choosing to be a dad with a child instead of a divinity at the head of a city. He doesn’t want to be earthy, because to bring a city towards its independence you probably need to be more than human, but he is earthy and human in the end.

Jayce (and Powder)

In episode 1, Jayce had left two sandwiches on his desk next to his dangerous forbidden work. It has tomatoes and lettuce, it's fresh. It’s a sign of how easy he has it at this time, because he can just leave food around his work, food is not precious, he doesn’t need to eat it right away. Then Powder comes into the room, and she’s starving, so her eyes light up to what is a random sandwich to Jayce, but an out of ordinary meal for her. 

And Powder eats, because at this time of the story she is just a child playing around. She is being earthy. She is not concerned by all the stakes yet, she lives the life of a human (we can't exactly say the same about Jinx, who is more akin to a spirit).

There is also very much a thing to say about how Jayce puts his stuff on his desk, and then Powder/Jinx takes it for herself. She did the same with Hextech. (Though, I note that Powder took a bite from the sandwich and didn’t say anything to the others, she didn’t share. While we can argue that her stealing Hextech is helping Zaun, she’s kind of sharing the power with her community. And I’m just here wondering…: Why didn’t Powder share the food? What does this mean about her? Was this done intentionally to say that she’s always been on the selfish side?)

Caitlyn

Caitlyn is nicknamed “Cupcake”. We don’t see her eat, but we see her being called the food. I see it as a way to make us feel how rich and privileged she is, and how Vi feels that and tries to make Caitlyn feels that too. I mean, of course “Cupcake” is a sweet nickname, and the most important meaning is that Vi likes Caitlyn (and also that it can be a reference to one of Caitlyn’s abilities in LoL), but still, a cupcake is a cupcake: a frivolous pastry. A cupcake is not food you get to survive, it’s something you can go without but you get it because it’s yummy. It’s superfluous, but someone from Piltover can afford them regularly. And Caitlyn is beyond that, she is the cupcake. She is a symbol of being rich. And people in the Undercity would want to eat her, but also Vi wants her for other reasons now…

Powder 2

In the « Enemy » clip, Powder plays with her food but does not eat it. She is distracted, and to me it feels like another sign of her being meant to turn into Jinx, a character straight from a tragedy. Something more akin to a deity or spirit of rebellion rather than a little sister. (The clip is all about the seeds of Jinx in Powder, which is why I feel like it is relevant to analyze that scene as one too.)

*big sigh*... Jinx

In the last episode, Jinx brings a cupcake to the table, with the gemstone she stole on top of it. And omg does it bear meanings.

First of all, there is the fact that there is only one cupcake when she invited 3 guests (Vi, Caitlyn, Silco), along with her two brothers who are always with her, maybe we can even count Vander since she did put a plate for him, and herself. With seven people and only one cupcake, we have to wonder: who is going to have the cake? This brings so much tension to the scene: all the people around the table, and only one prize that they have to fight over… And the twist is that no one wants the same thing (Vi wants Powder, Silco wants Jinx, Caitlyn wants the gemstone), and yet they can’t share anything.

Second, the fact that it is a cupcake. Of course it’s a cupcake. Because Vi calls Caitlyn "Cupcake", and it’s all about Jinx wanting Vi to choose her, her zaunite little sister, over her shining new topsider enforcer of a girlfriend. To Jinx, Caitlyn “Cupcake” is a big problem, and that is why she is going to put it on the table.

Third, she put the gemstone on top of the icing. And, visually, that’s what immediately tells us that the stakes are very high, and that we’re very much talking about both the past (the gemstone that killed Jinx and Vi's family) and the future (the key to 'progress' stolen on Progress Day), what we can keep from before and what’s going to have to happen next from that. Also, it feels very irreverent that Jinx puts the symbol of progress on a cute pastry. She is not scared of dirtying what is both a treasure, leverage, power, a weapon, … The gemstone is so much, and Jinx puts it into cream because she can. Because she wants to question it. Because she wants to be the one who decides what is going to happen with the gem. She makes a display of how this moment is a turning point, and how she is the one who is going to decide where we’re going from here. Basically, what is so scary about that episode is how much power Jinx has into her hands, next to how emotional and affected she is by every single word and eye twitch she gets from her guests.

Also, I might be seeing too much into it, maybe, but I still think that the reference is relevant: the cupcake with a gemstone on it is a pomegranate.

It does look like it: the gemstone is visually akin to a blue pomegranate berry, and it is on a cupcake that serves as the husk of an actual pomegranate that holds its berries. With the differences that in Jinx’s tea party the cupcake is the less important because it’s edible while the stakes are less about who is going to get food and more about who is going to leave with the gem of power, while in the pomegranate mythology it’s straight about whether you eat it or not, so the berries are the most important because they are edible (Persephone). 

Also, in ancient Greek mythology, the pomegranate is related to death. It’s “the fruit of the dead”. And for Jinx, those magical stones are definitely all about death, since that is what she killed all her family with, whole family that she invited at her table. There is just this vibe around her gemstone crowned cupcake that I feel is the same around the pomegranates in mythology. It’s all about death, choosing to eat, staying underground (Persephone spending time in the underworld, Jinx shooting to make the Undercity an independent Zaun, Vi choosing Topside if we refer to her LoL affiliation). It's all very much about choosing underground/aboveground, and staying with the dead or not.

And the gemstone is only one berry while there are always several in the pomegranate, but I would say that that’s precisely because what is at stake with the tea party is choosing a person over another (Vi choosing between Jinx and Caitlyn, Jinx choosing between Silco and Vi, Jinx choosing to be Jinx or Powder) in a case where one choice has to exclude the other. So it’s a pomegranate with only one grain, and that is what makes us go even more « oh no… », because it's all about choosing, and we know that the ending cannot not be a tragedy for at least one character (joke’s on us, it ends up being a tragedy for absolutely everyone ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ).

TLDR: Arcane is a tragedy, Vi tries to get out of it by eating greasy food with her fingers while Silco says he’d never do that while doing that, and then Jinx puts one single pomegranate cupcake on a table with seven people around it and waits for them to fight for it, but they all bicker about other stuff than the food she baked herself, so she judges that no one is deserving of it and she destroys the world as a logic consequence. Arcane is all about how easy yet complicated it is to eat.

[andillwriteyouatragedy]

december: you have to see a lot of people in a very short span of time and you will NOT have a consistent routine while it happens

me:

[spectatingspectacle]

Mimimimimi 💤💤

Now that school's come around there's gonna be more traditional art rather than digital

Also, I'm working on a comic/fic about Shamura and their childhood self since they have been rattling around my brain for a good while now, curse that damn-near-braindead spider

[mydetheturk]

your requested reminder to post knives going nuclear on zazie when you can :)

ok so im going to be reblogging this to the body horrors week later cause. uh. well. knives. quite literally goes nuclear?

all of these screenshots are from the overhaul project cause i haven't managed to catch the dark horse digital editions on sale yet, though i'll provide the dark horse translations where i can because i have physical copies, and the dark horse translations are imo clearer here.

there are ids in all the alt texts for the photos, it's why this took several days longer than i'd originally planned -finger guns- alt texts might look a little weird in the first set btw - tumblr started eating the photoset and i had to spend an extra half an hour fixing it -finger guns-

the pages are volume 11, pages 90-92, and 114-17, because a lot of the pages in between are leadup pages and also have the zazie control worm. thing.

pages 90-2 are the distant explosion (you can click on the first image and see it in the photo viewer, if for some reason it will not view in dashboard mode. But it does exist!)

(on page 90, dark horse is a lot more specific, with "the northeast sky is glowing" instead of "the whole sky is glowing". the other two boxes with text read "what is--?!" and "oh my..!" respectfully as if they were cut off mid sentence.)

so uh.

knives went uh.

literal "nuclear bomb exploded just above a town"

because he kind of did. Unlike a true nuclear bomb, he did not form a mushroom cloud, but the metaphor is still there. that is a nuclear metaphor

per pages 114-117 (pages are from left to right, read the pages right to left. sorry)

(legato's speech bubbles on page 114 in the dark horse edition read: Survival of the fittest is the law of nature. What is about to happen now is a just a logical extension of that. Be very afraid. You are in his presence. Did you not notice, Leader of the Sand Worms?

It reads very differently, imo, more like Zazie was caught up in their own plots and schemes to realize the control worm didn't work. Legato is also telling Zazie that Zazie should be afraid of Knives. Okay? Not asking if Zazie is afraid. Telling Zazie to be afraid. Like some sort of reverse "Be Not Afraid" from the bible.

Zazie's thought bubbles on page 115 are translated as "the dark hole is swallowing the poison" which reads more like knives made a black hole. given the visuals? that sounds more likely. Black holes, as a real life thing that we know about and have tried to study, are often referred to as swallowing things that pass too close. knives made a mini black hole to eat the poison from the sand worm venom. knives has consumed the dependent plants.)

the fact is, as a metatextual read, plants are nuclear reactors. independent plants are walking nuclear bombs. Nightow did this on purpose. We're meant to read them as something nuclear.

This is, as i was saying to @needle-noggins the other night when i was working on it in an attempt to get more of the alt texts written, a casual display of power. Knives is throwing a hissy fit! Knives is throwing a multi-megaton display of power because Zazie tried to take him over with the control worm. Page 91 had needle-noggins and i speechless because on the low end that tower of debris from the explosion is (if we did the very, very rough math right) THIRTY MILES TALL. Twice as tall as the tallest mountain in the solar system, Olympus Mons! or roughly five and a half times as tall as Mount Everest. On the outside, because we figured its anywhere from 25-30 times taller than the cloud cover, it could be up to thirty seven miles

Over halfway to space on earth.

like.

I know we love the independent plants and all. But Holy Shit. just.

holy shit

[dozyrogue]

Ok tubbo being one of the few people who didn't trust forever again after he was cured of the happy pills and when forever saw sunny he showed N.I.N.H.O but even then tubbo pulled sunny aside and said we would make their own safety measures

He doesn't have the memories of forever at his best like the other islanders have. Blurred memories of when he first joined and then the happy pills and him completely shutting down when the children first disappeared. So yeah to him why the hell would he trust him. From tubbos pov forever probably seems like a joke.

On top of that tubbo is fresh out of purgatory, kidnapped and taken from his daughter and forced to play that eye's game again. And unlike last time he didn't try and play the game fair, this time he actually lost his shit, grabbed chainsaws and decided to hunt down other teams and take them all down with him cuz he lost.

Hes different so yeah of course his way of solving the problem is to just take down forever for good especially when in his head he rather be taken out and know sunny would miss him then be alive but know he hurt sunny or any of the kids

For the most part tubbo has always had to rely on himself.

Then we have phil, hes seen forever at his best sees him as a close friend....or whatever u wanna describe their relationship LMAO. He knows how loving and caring and how good of a man forever is. And no matter what phil will support him and pull him from the depths of hell to get him back.

Yes he went crazy in purgatory but hes back with his family now and he remembers softness. His kids making a bed for him because he doesn't have one, finding and making new nests with his children, meeting the new eggs and spending time with tubbo, fit, and his other friends, having rose on his side.

He knows he has people to lean on and would help them no matter what.

So yeah it makes sense that these 2 fought and Phil was pissed at the idea that tubbo doesnt want to help forever specially if phil himself was in this position.

For phil, You help and stand by the people u love and fight like hell to keep them with u.

For tubbo, you put the safety of the ones u love first even if that means u go down as well.

[taurusicidal]

it’s never wrong to put yourself first when you’re in a low point of life. whoever doesn’t understand doesn’t even deserve you when you’re at your highest!

[peachesofteal]

Does Ghoap Hades have a title? No. But it has a ✨ board ✨