#I've gotten TWO asks like this

[roboobin]

how old are you?

more than 13 less than 18

[flightyalrighty]

Hi?

I understand if it's none of my or anyone's buisness but if you're down lately are you okay?

As much fun as this comic is if you're depressed and pushing this comic out isn't helping, please don't push it. If you're having trouble also there are professional therapists.

h

hello?

[blondeaxolotl]

I wonder what kind of reaction Francis would have with Mrs Michaelis like would she call her and her son “unkempt” or would she have a slight bi-panic bc strong, tall lady 😭🙏🏼⁉️…

Francis thought she was alright until Mrs Michaelis hit her with those silly nickname bullshit (Mama Michaelis is the type after 2 conversations she immediately jumps to nickname basis for people) Also according to Francis, only Alexis has the green card to call Francis cutesy nicknames

[waitineedaname]

One thing I love about that scene is how casually SQQ pushes Binghe around and manhandles him. Book 2 was heavily defined by his complete terror of Luo Binghe, and now all that fear is just gone. Binghe is even enraged with jealousy, but it doesn’t even threaten him anymore. Nothing has changed but his perception of the situation and it makes all the difference. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

that's so true!! I think that really says something about how far they've come, especially taking into account the two previous scenes. like you said, Shen Qingqiu spends so much of book two terrified that Luo Binghe wants to kill him, but by now he's figured out Binghe's feelings for him and is realizing that Binghe doesn't actually want to hurt him. before the Tent Shenanigans, there's the scene where they're fighting before SQQ's soul gets yoinked out of the plant body, and then there's Holy Mausoleum arc. there's a lot to unpack in their fight in the plant body but I think most relevant is that SQQ is less Scared and more Pissed Off, and as many people have pointed out, Binghe did not intend to actually hurt him in that scene, he was just trying to scare him because he thought he was fulfilling a role SQQ wanted him to play. and he was Also Pissed Off.

and then there's the Holy Mausoleum, which is just. so much. Holy Mausoleum I love you, best arc in the whole damn series. but SQQ spends most of that arc carrying Binghe's unconscious body around and protecting him, and they have their Moment when they're both sobbing at each other. at this point, SQQ is really coming to understand Binghe's feelings for him and that Binghe doesn't truly want to hurt him. plus this scene in the tent starts with Binghe kissing him and SQQ snapping at him to kneel and Binghe fucking DROPPING to his knees! this might be the first point in the story where they are truly Equals, especially in SQQ's understanding of things. Binghe might be the terrifyingly powerful demon emperor protagonist, but SQQ has the authority to shove Binghe around and the security in knowing he's not going to be dismembered for it

so yeah, he can manhandle Binghe as much as he likes! Binghe even enjoys it, even if he's also angry that someone else is daring to look at Shizun

[alongtidesoflight]

i swear my stepdad is so illogical AND stubborn it hurts

[sysig]

Enecomimi Banzaiiii (Patreon)

[pynkhues]

I think you explained something I've been pondering over for a while, namely why so many loustat fic writers hates lestat lol. Like I'm always taken aback by how often lestat is written as louis' sex toy who only exist to serve him and fulfill his (self-insert) fantasies or an evil patriarchal abuser who needs to be punished (or both). There's so many other ships they could pour ttheir energy into, if they truly see him as an evil racist abuser and louis as his helpess victim why even ship them. I'm actually fascinated by this fandom Christian-like obsession with punishment, paying for your sins, martydom and having an redemption arc. I find it interesting that people who consider themselves to be atheists and are anti-religion still succumb to this mentality. The prevalence of fics when louis needs to punish lestat (apparently killing him wasn't enough), make him suffer, lestat has to grovel at his feet, stop killing humans and only then he will deserve pure moral louis and then they will be "even". I find this attitude to be so immature, like this is not how relationships work irl, and yes it's a show about toxic vampires but, in my understanding it was never loustat dynamic to begin with. Something about moral purity in a show about vampires is just so funny to me.

Y'know, I actually think the main reason I've taken a big step back from reading fic and checking ao3 is because a few months ago, I opened two or three Lestat x Louis fics in a row that all had an author's note where the writer said that they hated Lestat. The concept of that alone honestly baffles me - not the hating Lestat part, I don't care what characters people do and don't engage with on the show - but the idea that you could write fic - and fic where Lestat is one half of a relationship - while hating the character is just wild to me. Why are you writing characters you don't like? Why are you shipping characters when you don't like one of them?

I just - - it really shocks me. As someone who's been writing fic for literally 20 years at this point, I can honestly say I've never written for a pairing where I haven't liked one of the characters, and it generates a lot of questions in me about the current state of fandom, the projection, the virtue signalling, the purity culture, and what that dictates about how people are willing to engage with stories.

But yeah, I guess more to your point, I don't disagree. I actually don't necessarily think it's unique to this fandom though? In the last fandom I was super active in - Good Girls - the main ship was a straight one between a gang leader (Rio) and a 'housewife' / mother of four (Beth) who'd resorted to a life of crime and found she had an aptitude for it after her husband lost their house, and there was an enormous sense of Beth needing to be punished sexually and otherwise in fic, especially after she shot Rio in the (admittedly underwritten) s2 finale.

It's kind of funny in that sense, because I have largely put the GG scenario down to internalised misogyny, especially given the volume of fans who watched the show exclusively for Rio, and who ended up feeling like Beth didn't 'deserve him', but it does feel different with IWTV. Not entirely maybe - I do think there's a sense of Lestat needing to 'earn' Louis back for instance which isn't necessarily tied to gender, but tied to a very shallow view of what relationships are, just as I think there is a cultural load and systemic connotations brought to scenes of violence, particularly intimate partner violence, when the person perpetrating is white (i.e. Beth shooting Rio, who is Latino, carries different weight than Rio shooting her white husband, and kidnapping her white sister, same with Lestat dropping Louis vs Louis slitting Lestat's throat + bashing a white man's head in after projecting Lestat's face onto him).

I think that's all important to talk about and to consider and reflect on, just as I think the insane amount of gender essentialism, TERF rhetoric, and feminisation in a gay ship is, but I agree that it feels married to a degree of moral purity and - I'd argue - it gets twisted up simultaneously with fetish, kink and fanon to make a bit of a melting pot of Stuff that feels difficult to reduce to any one thing.

I don't know if I think it's steeped in immaturity exactly - the people I know of writing some of the things that perpetuate a lot of these tropes and who have harrassed me and others I know are mostly in their late 20s and 30s - but I do wonder how much of it is tied to an isolated perspective of relationships and the world? I really do think you can tell when people don't often hear perspectives outside of their own in their day-to-day life, or, hell, I think people tell on themselves more than they realise in how they might phrase things, even on anon. I still joke with my sister about the doxxing attempt I got where one anon asked me if [my sister's first name] knew I wrote BDSM, which was meant as a clear threat, when my sister had literally sent me excerpts of the werewolf porn she was reading that day, lol. We also both talk about sex a lot, so like.

It wasn't an issue for me, but y'know, the sense I got was that the anon obviously thought I should be ashamed and my sister would be disgusted, and like - - I don't know. Most of my friends have read the smut I've written, man, and my sister doesn't care (my brother either now - given I told him what I wrote in the process of all of that, and he now finds it very funny to ask me loudly about my erotic fanfiction when we're on the train, so y'know, haha). It just felt very telling to me about how people like this think, how they feel about sex and smut, and also the relationships they have in their personal lives because, well, I guess from how they act, they wouldn't be talking to people in their real lives about any of this.

Is that Christian puritanicalism, is that immaturity, is that isolation, is that inexperience, is that something else, I don't know! It does feel wide spread in this fandom in particular right now, but I do think it's kind of everywhere, and I think the nature of this show having adapted this story as something both outright queer and diverse is pulling a lot of people towards it who might actually be more interested in the optics than the content.

[alienfailboy]

feeling unwell over thor and bruce again

[lemonadeslice]

hello i may be coming to the end of my reserves of sibling horror movies that i can draw vague thematic through-lines through! i would love suggestions if anyone has more!

ideally they'd be stories where the focus is on the siblings' relationship as opposed to just having siblings in, but i've bent the hell out of that rule myself, so tbh i'll accept anything. basket case is on my list. this is a lawless place.

[scriv3lloirl]

Y'all best behave. (read tags.)

[galaxythixf]

I reblogged ONE meme-

[brackenferns]

3, 4, and 12 for the book asks <3

hiiii, thanks 🖤

3. What were your top five books of the year?

answered here :)

4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

yes!! robin wall kimmerer became one of my few auto-purchase authors this year. other authors that are not auto-buy but i'm still very interested in reading from include: katherine arden, heather fawcett, m.l. rio, tamsyn muir, alix e. harrow, and nghi vo

12. Any books that disappointed you?

unfortunately i'm more often disappointed by books than satisfied with them, so i won't list all the disappointments here, but the most unexpected one was a memory called empire by arkady martine. a book reviewer i generally trust recommended it, so i went in with higher expectations, and while it definitely wasn't bad, it kind of felt like one long prologue to me? i'm interested in finishing the duology just to see where it goes, and there are some really unique ideas in it, but i just didn't enjoy it as much as i'd hoped to

i also read uncultured by daniella mestyanek young, and while it feels sensitive to critique an autobiography of someone's very real, traumatic life story, it read like two separate books to me. the first half is about her upbringing in the children of god cult, while the second half is about her time in the military; she studies high-control groups and clearly tried to make that the through-line of the book, but it just didn't quite work for me—i think because the messaging got muddled (her answer to the cult that raised her is total institutional dismantlement and punishment for those who caused harm, but then she still seemed to feel a lot of loyalty to the military, despite identifying clear parallels between it and her upbringing? idk, i was left a little puzzled)

see the original post here

[ohbo-ohno]

i made the horrendous mistake of watching the start of an old rdr2 playthrough while taking a break from writing and it was possibly the worst decision i've ever made

[afamiliarsword]

The things you have done for the drawfee community. Letting us be free and creaturefying them. We can now draw them as fucked up little guys. And all thanks to you we would have never had the courage without you.

Thank you! Is that a thing? I was kinda just practicing and needed some audio haha

[roomwithanopenfire]

The poll question wasn't asking who you want to be endgame but who you genuinely believe will be endgame. Some people probably are voting by popularity and it'd make sense that the fandom that had six years to develop would be dominant. I'm sure others voted by what they think the show will actually do. Those answers may not be the same.

In order to vote for Buddie, one has to believe there's a reasonable chance that a network show will give a coming out arc story to both of its heart throbs and they will fall in love. Even if I hated BuckTommy and loved the idea of Buddie, I wouldn't believe in that happening. I happen to love Buck and Tommy but I don't trust the show is ready for Buck to permanently give up his single life so I couldn't vote for them either. That left me with "neither."

sure! i can see why you'd think that!

but i do think there's genuinely a case for buddie to be endgame. tbf i *still* haven't caught up on the show yet (i only started two weeks ago but i have been watching WAY TOO much tv today so i only have two episodes left now loll).

I remain cautiously optimistic because i do get what you're saying, and while I would not be surprised if they get together, i also would not be surprised if they don't because of all the reasons you said.

but anyways, i think the way they framed buck and tommy's last argument is kinda telling (keep in mind that the last episode i've seen is 8x11), bringing eddie into it all, having buck say outright he's not in love with eddie, maddie asking if that would be so crazy. the way buck reacts to eddie "leaving him behind", i mean i think they have a fair shot. idkk man, a lot of these scenes would make a WHOLE lot more sense with a buck realizes he's in love with eddie arc

[reactionimagesdaily]

quick update

Hola everyone!

Just writing a thing to say I SEE all the messages that've been sent to my inbox and I'll promise I'll get round to them soon! I've been doing National Novel-Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) this year (as well as some job-huntng lolol) and it's taken up a lot of my spare mental energy. Low-key it feels like all I can do to make sure that the queue doesn't run out of submissions xD

Next month I'll get to everyone's image requests - promise! - and also to those 10K celebrations I mentioned a little while ago! (I've been cooking some stuff up behind the scenes for that milestone, don't y'all worry)

And. Yeah that's about it from me. Stay tuned, thank you for your patience, love y'all, adios <3