#Longish Post

[littlestarrys]

I JUST SPIT OUT MY TEA 🤣

Inktober #2: i noticed that i keep drawing the shapeshifter taking off his trenchcoat like that lady in Anastasia

[jesncin]

Happy Pride! Now that Lunar Boy (our middle grade graphic novel) is out, we wanted to share our thought process behind queer vocabulary in media. The constant censorship, imposed western biases on queer culture, and what it means to introduce queer vocabulary to a young audience.

Check out Lunar Boy wherever american graphic novels are sold, or check it out at a library!

[sp1resong]

behold. the results of a category 5 autism moment (had hollow knight thoughts and saint thoughts simultaneously)

dialogue is ofc adapted from hollow knight!!

[hailruth]

Do you have any book recommendations for secular Jews? I feel really disconnected from my culture/racial identity/other Jews, but I’m not religious beyond cherishing the practices of our tradition, if that makes sense.

hmm.. i personally think that there can be no difference drawn between the culture, ethnicity, and religion of judaism. so, i don't see how a book about jewish culture could be written without reference to religion. i haven't read or encountered such books. but as a deeply religious person i haven't sought them out, so maybe others who see this can give suggestions. however, i'll try and provide some that might be what you're looking for (also quite a few of these are available on the internet archive)! i will be posting a more extensive reading list later on, so keep an eye out for that if you'd like. books marked with an asterisk are endorsed by the rabbinical council of america.

if you are completely disconnected, i can recommend these introductory books:

TORAH!!! (half-joking)

To Be a Jew: A Guide to Jewish Observance In Contemporary Life* by Rabbi Hayim Donin (my top recommendation)

Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People, and Its History by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin (also crazy good)

Essential Judaism: A Complete Guide to Beliefs, Customs & Rituals by George Robinson (like 600 pages and textbook-like but this means that there are very thick sections on what could be described as the secular stuff)

Living a Jewish Life by Anita Diamant ("descriptive rather than prescriptive," quite liberal and a light read)

here's some stuff on specific religious subjects that may help you simply learn, whether or not you engage with the practices:

Waters of Eden: The Mystery of the Mikveh* by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (a mikveh should be built before a synagogue in a community which has neither, so i think jews should learn about them even if they will never use one)

The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning* & The Jewish Way in Love and Marriage* by Rabbi Maurice Lamm

Shabbos: Tasting Eternity* by Rabbi Daniel Travis

i think folklore is super important for more jews to learn about as it often reflects the collective psychology of what we were going through at the time. it's why i think it should be read/understood alongside general jewish history. i'll probably devote a separate post to info on folklore later. food and diaspora all mixed in here too:

People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn

A History of Judaism by Martin Goodman

The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words by Simon Schama

The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York by Claudia Roden

Divination, Magic, and Healing: The Book of Jewish Folklore by Rabbi Ronald Isaacs

Miriam's Tambourine: Jewish Folktales from Around the World by Howard Schwartz

okay, i think i've given a good outline. i mostly read religious-specific books so my strictly historical/food-centered recs are sparse, i apologize. it's also been forever since i've read many of these so they may have issues i don't fully remember. check on the replies/reblogs for any info about that or general corrections. i hope these helped! if i misinterpreted your ask, you can always come back to my inbox.

[kyogos]

Andy Murray + posts from my drafts

[selkiemaidenfae]

spuffy fans-- if you're looking for a book ship that makes you feel like spuffy does, i'm telling you now.

look no further than long live evil by sarah rees brennan.

the main ship, rae and key, have such strong spuffy vibes it's insane. rae is basically buffy if she acted as mean as she deserves to, and key is such a murderously loyal little gremlin just like spike.

ex:

rae's thoughts about key: "this was a habit formed from childhood. he committed horrors out of a desire to please. the lonely nightmare child never understood why he was being cast off every time."

is that not spike?? continuing,

key: have you ever had the sense-- someone was important, even thought they weren't? that you wanted to belong to them, and not have them throw you away?

rae: have i ever... loved someone?

tell me that's not an alternate universe spuffy conversation.

key talking to rae: "i don't care if people are good. i only care if they're good to me. i'll kill her if you ask.”

and about her: "you don't need to tell me where she is. i always know where she is.”

and he also tells her, "i'll keep my word. i'll be yours if you care to keep me. i'm so happy to belong to someone again." after telling her that he didn't mean it when he swore himself to her the first time. (he was fully planning on betraying her.)

it's spuffy!!! it's so spuffy that i'm very tempted to write it as an au.

"but selkie," you say, "i love my spuffy angst. this doesn't sound angsty enough."

oh my sweet summer child. read the book and get ready for it.

[idekki]

Whiteboard Homestuck stuff

Dave was not drawn by me, but I did draw the John

[abracazabka]

In sophomore Spanish, there was a trans guy in our class. I want to tell a story about him.

The teacher just really seemed to target him. She always deadnamed him, always referred to him with feminine language, always, always used him as an example during lessons so as to misgender him. It was awful, but. But.

Nobody in class fell for that shit.

We all referred to him correctly in Spanish, even the kids who did not give a shit about learning the language. It was aggressive allyship in that classroom and it pissed off my transphobic teacher to no end.

If paired with him, we wrote masculine words on our work. We all did. She couldn't mark down all of us. And God knows I was a nerd, so if she marked me down, I would have made a scene.

I was willing to make a scene for him, and so was just about everyone else in the class, despite him not being great friends with anyone, or even talking very much. It didn't matter; it was the principle of the thing, it was his human rights.

We all told her to fuck off without using said words, despite the clear power she had over us. So, the moral of the story for students, especially high school students, is:

Protect your peers. There are more of you than there are of your asshole educator. Trans folks don't need to be your friends for you to stand up for them, quietly or loudly.

Teenagers/students tend to follow the leader; so be a leader, and don't take shit from adults/instructors who would use their power over you to disrespect you, and to degrade you. Don't let them do that to your peers.

You can have an army of sixteen year old allies from all walks of life if you (within reason and safely) take a stand. Don't lose hope, and don't lose agency.

[fairmerthefarmer]

Some warm up sketches cause I have a whole lot of ideas for HTTYD illustrations/fanart but I need to remember how to draw these guys. (Hiccups hair is so baffling to me to figure out the shapes and have it look right)

My sister and I have very suddenly decided to rewatch the spin-off shows for HTTYD (not that weird new one, just the ones set in between the first two movies)

I love so much how they expand on the dragon lore but also on the side characters!! Ive got my things about the shows I’d critique, but overall it’s just such a good time.

Also I first watched RTTE in highschool (I remember finding it, binging all the episodes available in a night and being left right at the cliffhanger in season 3) and I was embarrassed about it. I think mostly because the animation style is visibly cheaper than the movies? So it looks more made for children (I mean the target audience still is kids, but also probably young teens so me at the time) (also watching it now despite the budget limits I’m loving the lighting in particular) (rtte improved visually a lot over RoB especially.)

It’s always fun to go back to the things you liked when you were younger and maybe embarrassed but then it’s like “oh actually I had good taste sometimes this is fucking great”

[jazzymusicorn28]

Just thinking about the brilliantly crafted yet subtle symbolism with the seasons in the Rebellion OP, and how the seasons present perfectly coincide with their respective characters and their wishes.

Like, we start off with Madoka in the spring. This definitely correlates with her wish to reset the corrupt system of magical girls and witches. She creates a new design for the system and gives herself and the other magical girls hope with the new start, heavily leaning into the themes of rebirth and hope tied to spring. Spring also represents transformations, and it nicely conveys Madoka using hope as a propelling force to her becoming a goddess.

When Sayaka enters the scene, it's summer. It represents her initial hopes and optimism toward becoming a magical girl, and her overall innocence. Her desires for romance and passion tied to her wish to be with Kyosuke also embody some of the core symbolic ideas associated with summer.

Now Mami enters the scene in the fall, which is often associated with themes of adulthood, maturity, and death. This pertains to her resourcefulness and maturity that stems from her dealing with the aftermath of her parents dying in the car crash. Mami also made her wish to avoid death.

Next we have Kyoko, with some of the most blatant symbolism with her ties to winter here. Kyoko made her wish to prevent her family from living in literal squalor, and the foundations of her wish were based upon her not wanting her family to have to endure such hardships and tough times, which winter is commonly connected with. After her father went ballistic, Kyoko was able to survive and live through the most difficult times in her life while sustaining herself as a magical girl and person. She also adopted the "survival of the fittest" mindset too, further representing her ties to the winter imagery shown here.

And lastly we have Homura entering in the spring! Her wish is based on saving Madoka and her initial hopefulness in doing so. She wanted to have a fresh start, a chance to redo her meeting with Madoka, which became the driving force of her life. Spring is heavily tied to new beginnings and transformations, which certainly embodies her change in personality and demeanor with all of the timeline resets.

Homura entering during the spring also foreshadows her transformation into a literal devil; this significantly parallels when Madoka enters in the spring, which is representative of her transformation into a goddess. Currently obsessing over these parallels btw.

[i-may-be-an-emu]

Kiss Stats

decided to count how many times each of the guys have kissed (on stage) that we know of

AJ

AJ + Luke 3 (1 fringe, 1 old show not posted)

AJ + Sam 6

AJ + Tom 7 (2 fringe)

Luke

Luke + AJ 3 (1 fringe, 1 old show not posted)

Luke + Sam 13 (2 fringe, 1 irl show not posted)

Luke + Tom 4 (2 fringe)

Sam

Sam + AJ 6

Sam + Luke 13 (2 fringe, 1 irl show not posted)

Sam + Tom 6 (2 fringe, 1 old show not posted)

Tom

Tom + AJ 7 (2 fringe)

Tom + Luke 4 (2 fringe)

Tom + Sam 6 (2 fringe, 1 old show not posted)

(Fringe means that that’s how many times they kissed at fringe this year and that we don’t have any footage (apart from a couple of photos taken by audience members) of it (yet(?)). Irl show means that someone in the audience at one of their shows saw it, and old show means that it’s something we only have a screenshot of, from a show from early sfth days.)

Note: the stuff in brackets is included in the main number- for example AJ and Luke have kissed three times, and one of those two was at fringe. So there’s 3 kisses, with 1 at fringe.

EDIT:

was looking through my photos and realised I missed two

anyway I missed a Sam and Tom kiss and a Luke and AJ kiss (pictured below because these aren’t really known)

the above stats have been edited with this info.

[toobbolive]

Hear me out: Pac is just as afraid of intimacy as Fit is. Pac has a specific idea of what being close to other people will entail, and that's why he situates himself by the violent, unstable men.

They'll be exactly what he expects them to be, they're familiar.

That's why he still seeks out Cell during purgatory, and how he's decided to stay with him and try to walk him back to being Cellbit regardless of what Cell's done to him and his friends (including those who did not end up respawning or escaping.) Cell is already close to him, to his body and mind and Pac is afraid to lose that closeness no matter how ugly or unhealthy it is.

Any attention, any intimacy is still intimacy. A hand reaching out to harm you still has to touch your skin.

Meanwhile, Fit is from an environment that paradoxically prevents and ensures closeness, the bond between warriors, the conditional loyalties of where you lay your head.

Fit is aware that getting closer, getting what he wants will hurt him, and he still wants it anyways. I think he's prepared for the pain waiting for them both if he'll just reach out for it. As well, Fit has Ramón, a job, a mission, people who need him, other connections to the people around him. Pac doesn't.

And we see Pac keep people at an arm's length so that he won't have to risk the pain of being left behind by the people he cares about.

Considering old Fuga Impossivel 2 lore (which could be canon! they've been using parts of it) Pac and Mike are orphans, only fully having each other. The single constant between their adventures. Pulling capers, spending a long time in prison and then on a boat with other dangerous escapees, with whom they're now a twisted kind of family, but Richas has other dads, and people like Forever and Cellbit both have their own partners and demons right now.

So Pac during the Happy Pills arc? Walter Bob could be dead. Mike is in deep sleep, and Pac doesn't turn to anyone else for help. He doesn't reach out to the morning crew. He's self-sacrifically on his own, he goes on the drugs alone, and he begins to develop the antidote alone and what he says is that he doesn’t want to be sad again but he isolates himself in fear of it.

Let's think about the Pac who's openly affectionate to cover up the Pac who knows that no one needs him around and who's intelligent enough to know that challenging that understanding could destroy him.

That's why Pac won't confess either.

Pac avoids every concrete escalation because changing a relationship means risking losing it.

[jesncin]

The Golden Boy and the Other Thomas Constantine.

Fan comic exploring dead twins, survivor's guilt and Hellblazer characters dreaming of other realities.

[creationandcalamityau]

Ink Beast Andrew Harper ref

(Long-ish explanation under the cut because I must yap about my boy)

Andrew Harper's ink beast form is a rather shocking thing to see for the first time. Many may believe he's the actual Ink Demon himself if they don't spot the obvious differences first. However, most usually tend to run the second they see him, so they never get a chance to look at him in all his inky glory.

Andrew's beast self may appear violent and vicious in nature, however he is usually the complete opposite. Despite his devilish features, Andrew's beast self is far more akin to a big, lazy dog than a demon. He's more keen on laying down beside his wife, Delilah, letting her pet him or lay on him if she wants. He also enjoys eating. He's got a big appetite, which makes sense, considering his larger size.

He is much smaller than the Ink Demon, though still big enough to be mistaken for him. However, despite being smaller height-wise, he is a lot bulkier than the ink demon. He is afraid of the demon, even in his beast form. He'll be out of a room in no time, with his tail tucked between his legs if he ever crosses his path.

However, he isn't always gentle. He can be aggressive if provoked. If you dare hurt his friends and or wife, he will attack you with zero hesitation. Along with this, he will also attack if you attack him. He has very sharp claws and often bites and scratches to defend himself. He has also been known to kick with his hooved legs, which will hurt. Think of it like being kicked by a horse. He can also headbutt like a goat. His horns are pretty sharp, so it is best to watch out for them as well.

Andrew is fully capable of speaking in this form. His voice is a bit more inky (Think like the ink demon's voice but a lot less creepy) He does struggle a little with his teeth in the way, so he doesn't talk too much usually. He growls and snarls at things instead. He also whines like a dog if hurt or scared.

He got this ability gifted by the dark puddles themselves. Due to his connection to Bendy and The Ink Demon, not only because he worked on the cartoons, but because he was turned into a failed clone of Joey originally, but it didn't really work. He came out with some of Bendy's features, like his horns and tail. He also came out bearing fangs, and claws. In his first few days into the cycle, the puddles gave him the ability to turn into a beast version of himself.

He used this form not only to defend himself but also to get his anger towards Joey Drew out. His beast form has been through many fights, judging by how many scars he has. A lot of these scars were caused by him getting attacked by other residents of the cycle, some believing he was The Ink Demon himself.

Andrew is by far one of my favourite OCs I have made for this AU. He was intended to be evil originally which now I could never see that, since he'd never want to put someone through the pain he went through.

[mylittleponyauprompts]

I’ve been thinking about cutie marks recently and I think it’s really weird how ponies view them when things like bad luck are an option for someone’s destiny. Couldn’t a destiny like that be considered a disability? Couldn’t Starlight Glimmers spell be altered to have positive medical effects in cases like Trouble Shoes? I just think Trouble Shoes shouldn’t have to live with bad luck for the rest of his life because destiny/fate dictate it and a mark on his butt say so. A pony with a cutie mark and destiny that might as well be a curse to them shouldn’t have to live with that.

There’s a cutie mark disease for crying out loud. Cutie pox is getting too many cutie marks. I think cutie marks are an important magical phenomenon that happens to ponies and it can have good or bad effects. And has magical illnesses and mutations surrounding it. Sometimes a pony can get something like bad luck as a “destiny” or get to many cutie marks, and maybe not get any at all.

Ponies view cutie marks as such an important part of being a pony that not having might as well be not being a pony. Don’t worry you’ll get one eventually! Or suck it up, it is your destiny chosen for you! I think Starlight Glimmer discovering the ability to remove cutie marks, and thus the magical powers it gives, probably changes many ponies views a lot. “I don’t have to live like this? There’s an experimental treatment?” And many probably look down on this. It causes magical fatigue. Your magic skills lower. Your ability to do anything in that field basically becomes nullified.

But if you had bad luck as a “destiny” or had multiple cutie marks where the only known cure for that was extremely rare and hard to get, wouldn’t Starlights spell be promising? Magical fatigue and some skills lost seems preferable.

And my biggest thing with this, is that Trouble Shoes got arrested for having bad luck if I’m remembering correctly. His destiny got him put in jail. And the solution is for him to become a rodeo clown? I just think it’s insulting to him. You’ve been getting arrested for property destruction and vandalism because of your destiny? Go to the circus! Become a clown! Trouble shoes deserves better

[knifegrrrllll]

so i feel like how aspec sexuality connecting to abandonment trauma and personality disorders is not talked ab enough, well it is by ppl with personality disorders but i wanna talk ab it basically w my experience w bpd and being aro/ace spectrum

and i know fellow bpd havers know the feeling of being unlovable very well. For me i'm demiromantic and it would take literal years for me to actually develop a genuine romantic attraction to someone, and if when i do, that person would straight up become my fp and it would be torture pain and suffering (for me mostly)

Like romantic feelings for me is nothing fun, because its linked to my mental issues inherently i feel. And i still want a romantic relationship one day but that feeling of being unlovable and like, i'm just not suited for it (in the sense that i couldnt handle it i feel) is like,, i will just not try there is no point. I will suffer for another person always wondering do they hate me will they leave me, ofc they will there's not much i can offer even. I will end up hating the person i love and then go back to loving them and then hating them etc etc.. Not to mention amanormativity (idkkk if thats how u spell it or if thats the right term) but basically i assume people want something from me that i simply cannot give. I will never be able to have sex with someone, i will never want to, I actually just wouldn't put myself thru that for someone else and because i feel like thats all anyone would actually want from me i will just probably never want to be in a relationship. Like for me personally i'm supperrr asexual like u have no idea i've known i was ace since i was literally 10 yrs old and nothing has changed i will always be like this, and i dont mind doing *some* suggestive sexual stuff if its fun and chill but the second a line gets crossed i just want no part in it and i refuse to put myself thru that.

And i'm also very fine w being single like i only ever feel like i want a gf once in awhile but i feel completely whole just by myself and my life is objectively easier and more relaxing without romance. For me i don't think i'll actually be ready for a genuine romantic relationship until i feel like i am and that will be hopefully when i'm older lol

Idk i feel like because of the stigma against aro/ace ppl and also the experience of bpd, it enhances the feeling of being unlovable. But I want to make it clear to ppl reading this post that i'm aware that i actually am lovable, this is just a feeling. And i didn't write this to complain, and if you have the same experience as me or a similar one, that doesn't mean there is no hope for you or for me. The world is so much bigger than how my brain perceives everything. Like i do want to stress that these feelings are mostly a symptom of my mental illness lol and if you have bpd or a pd it doesn't make you unlovable, bc everyone is lovable by default yknow.

Even people who's hearts are a mouthful, like mine. And even if ur reading this and you don't have the experience of having a pd but you still have feelings of being unlovable or like, there is no hope for you in romance because you are arospec or acespec or both like me, well there is hope for everyone because the world is so much bigger than societies stigma and people are as diverse as the stars.. But lmk if you have a similar experience anywayz ppl <3