#THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HM !!!!!

[bluecatwriter]

I had an incredibly in-depth dream last night about The Beetle Weekly book club: a bunch of us were meeting up in the lobby of a grungy motel with printed-out copies of chapter one, and we sat around eating waffles and counting the em-dashes. @animate-mush had made a glossy multimedia booklet adaptation of the novel featuring Greek mythology references and songs by Jonathan Coulton, and everyone agreed that I should make a papier-mache beetle to be our mascot. I remember looking at the printed-out page and reading the words, "the cult was in the other room BDSM-ing, ba-dumming and ba-hussing loudly," and I was like, "...Wait a minute, what is the word BDSM doing in a Victorian novel? Perhaps this is a dream."

[neverendingcomplaints]

So, LoK has so many questionable messages around women in it. Zhu Li, Katara, Suyin and Pemma(?) are virtuous, patient, great nurturers. Nothing wrong with that, but I feel like their contrast with our "strong" women protagonists is...interesting in a bad way.

But Lin is a "bitter lonely woman" and naturally gets her ass handed to her by borderline tradwife mother-of-five Suyin. Plus the whole former love triangle (ugh) between her, Pemma and Tenzin. Hm.

Both Kya and Korra frequently get their asses handed to them and need saving, which. Korra is the Avatar. Even Asami can be less astute. And then there's Ginger the Hot Bitch who deserves to be kissed and constantly pursued without consent AND crazy girlfriend Esna(?).

Idk, it just feels...like casually sexist Nice Guys made this thing. Not horrible - I mostly like the show - but the unfortunate implications are there.

[sensesdialed]

okay. ONE spoiler actually . only bc it is a little more relevant here

donald glover prowler cameo miles in the next trilogy truthers we are WINNING

[loverboybrightsideghost]

very interesting that the painting of the birth of venus exists in rqg universe but ISN'T called the birth of venus because of the roman stuff, but instead of the cult of ares, they're called the cult of mars

[delicatepointofview]

gonna have to deal with people missing the point of louis singing 1d songs in festivals... don't get me started on the other covers

[thefandomenchantress]

I know I predicted radio silence from me...But I had what I think is a cool idea and wanted to share it before anything gets disproven in the next episode (Brief, singular mention of the Eden!Culprit theory).

So, I saw a lot of people talking about the Arei-Eden parallels, and the Ace-Arei parallels (and differences), and the Min-Eden parallels in the hug scene...Because of that, I started thinking about how Eden and Ace relate to all the others. And then I remembered the very obvious Teruko-Ace parallels.

Ace and Teruko both trusted someone who betrayed them in one way or another. Teruko with...Well, everyone, and especially Min, and Ace with Levi. In chapter two, they're both pretty similar, being closed-off and trying to not care about others with varying degrees of success. And, of course, Ace almost dies just like Teruko did, in an attempted murder.

All those things are fairly obvious, especially them being the only participants to be almost-victims. And I'd always noticed that, but it got me thinking...

In chapter one, Teruko was the victim of an attempted murder, surviving on the pure luck of the knife just-so-happening to miss anything vital in her abdomen. Then, instead of sympathy for her life almost being taken, people are upset with/suspicious of her because they think she was the one who killed Xander. And that fact is no fault of Teruko's, she just had the misfortune of being at the scene of the crime (and Min moving the evidence to further incriminate her). Barely anyone asks if she's okay or shows much concern other than Min, who betrays her, and Eden. She is then forced to defend herself in the trial almost completely alone until finally some others start to come to her defense.

In chapter two, Ace has been put in the position of being the victim of a murder attempt but surviving through the pure luck of Eden and Teruko just-so-happening to come to the second floor late at night. If Teruko hadn't happened to forget her clothes on the second floor, chances are that Ace would be dead. No one feels sorry for what Ace went through, because he was a total asshole to Nico and along with no one taking him seriously to begin with, they think he, in a way, had it coming, trauma and injuries be damned. Now, he is forced to defend himself, presumably alone unless Levi decides he wants to help and be the Eden equivalent. And Ace has been blamed for Arei's death not through any fault of his own, but because he had the misfortune of being at the scene of the crime, where someone else tried to murder him.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it would honestly be pretty cool if Ace finished this chapter going through rather similar events to the ones Teruko experienced last chapter. Some people say that Ace being her parallel will show her during this chapter that distrusting isn't the right way to go, but he doesn't have to die to show her that at this very moment. Hell, it might hit even harder if he manages to go through everything she did, since it would make them even more similar.

Plus, if Eden is the Min parallel, and Ace is the Teruko parallel, that's pretty dang cool! Of course, if Ace does all the Teruko stuff during the trial, it makes sense for Eden to have done all the Min stuff...And I mean, the episode seems to be saying that's depressingly possible, so maybe.

So yeah, I just thought Ace and Teruko's similarities continuing into the trial would be fun. After all, he's been pretty consistent about following in her footsteps so far, so you never know. Like imagine if he says a protag line or something it'd be hilarious. Especially if all his points during his defense are like Teruko's, but with an Ace-y twist that makes them more funny or stupid or whatever. Fun!

Or who knows, maybe Ace will just hire David as his defense attorney, since he's the only one to have successfully defended Ace so far. /j

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

PLEASE MORE BUTTERFLY HOWDY CONTENT HES SO FUCKING SILLY

OKAY HERE'S A COMIC SHENANIGANS THING

[aroaceleovaldez]

non-exhaustive list of canon powers Nico di Angelo either has shown or is heavily implied to have:

Shadow-travel

Manipulation of shadows/darkness (also possibly use of shadows as a pocket-dimension a la Magicians using the Duat in The Kane Chronicles)

Becoming intangible/shadows

Complete control over skeletons/bones (dead or alive, including summoning, reanimation, and/or changing shape of them) and being able to sense their presence

Summoning, reanimating, commanding, and dispelling the dead/undead (Skeletons, zombies, ghosts, etc & varieties) and being able to sense their presence

Ability to understand/communicate with the dead/undead and potentially other beings of the Underworld

Inherent complete comprehension of Latin

Ability to perceive the usually unperceivable/possibly look upon a deity’s true form without repercussion (at least moreso than the average demigod, though possibly is restricted to chthonic beings) (ex: Tartarus, potentially also interacting with his parents, etc)

Interacting tangibly with ghosts (implied to be a Ghost King thing rather than a Hades/Pluto thing)

Partial or complete immunity to different effects of the Underworld/things within (can consume food/drink of or in the Underworld without repercussions, effects from the Lethe wear off over time instead of being permanent like usual for mortals, etc)

Astral projection/”Walking in dreams”

Dream manipulation and projection (Sending dreams to others, etc.) (presumably includes sharing/projecting dreams with others) alongside inflicting sleep upon others even from a distance.

Illusions

Manipulation of emotions/aura that inflicts specific emotions on others (ex.: radiating fear/death onto enemies)

Projection of emotions and memories onto others (can be so forceful it causes physical damage like a shockwave)

Geokinesis (all forms but also specifically generating black marble) (presumably also specialized control over precious gemstones & non-paper currency)

Temperature manipulation (seemingly only lowering temperature)/creating frost)

Control/manipulation of souls, including living beings (ex: ripping out Bryce Lawrence’s soul)

Perceiving/reading/judging of souls (most likely also a Ghost King thing over Hades/Pluto thing, but possibly both)

Converting living into dead/undead, aka instakill (ex: disintegrating monsters to bone with one touch)

Lowering or manipulation of own vitals (breathing, heart rate, etc)

Death Trance/pseudo-hibernation (possibly also general control over states of consciousness at least for self, in combo with control over vitals & dreams)

Sensing death (impending or when it occurs, sometimes receiving dreams/visions of it occurring)

Able to sense other children of Hades/Pluto (potentially also other chthonic beings in general/able to identify based on sense alone) and also just living beings in general, such as mortals (possibly via souls).

Improved navigation underground/in the Underworld and ability to traverse restricted or normally unnavigable parts of the Underworld

Enhanced strength/abilities when in the Underworld

Inherently unnaturally quiet (possibly able to silence sound on a designated target)

Hiding/shielding self from being perceived (seemingly related to shadows/silence)

[maulfucker]

Ok so. This is less concrete thoughts and more scattered ideas but.

Dathomirian Zabrak biology speculations/thoughts!

While at first glance it looks like males are the only ones who have different skin colors and the females are all pale, we do see at least one Nightsister with darker skin (the one whose facial markings are white and resemble a skull), meaning skin pigmentation is present in both but manifests differently in males vs females!

(This is much like birds where the females are the neutral-colored ones while the males have more vibrant colorations and are expected to impress the females to be picked as a mate)

And it's very curious to me that iridonians have very human-like skin tones, while dathomirians ended up having two extremes, either having very vibrant skin ranging from yellow to red, or very pale skin ranging from white to dark gray, both outside the human (and iridonian) range

I think if a transgender dathomirian had HRT their skin color would gradually change with it (much like how birds can change coloration depending on their hormones)

The fact that males have no hair and females have no horns seems very random to me and I will not be thinking about the hair thing but I will say:

Have you looked at Mother Talzin's head shape. Have you seen how strangely tall it looks. What if. What if females "lack" horns because instead of growing at just a few specific points their entire skulls grow and elongate over their lifetimes.

This makes sense if you consider that they live in a "dense jungle" type environment where things (fruits, branches, predators..) can fall on their heads all the time. Having a thicker skull would probably help avoid a cracked skull from constantly getting hit in the head by falling stuff

(No idea what about the hair thing though. Maybe it's something to do with gene interactions. Like whatever gene makes their skin so saturated also deactivates the "have hair" genes. or maybe nightsisters are all wearing wigs and none of them actually grow hair)

Speaking of the geography of the planet, I think it's pretty sad that we never really get a good look of what the Nightbrothers' region looks like outside the village and some mountain terrain around it. Is it more sunny than the Nightsisters' side and that's why their skin adapted to have more color while the females' adapted to lose color? Or is it a seasonal thing and we just never got to see another season in the shows? Or is the village just built in a place that's so high the mist doesn't reach it? We get the sense that it's cold, at least at night, so why are they dressed in such light clothes? In fact, is it hot where the Nightsisters live, or is the entire species more adapted to colder temperatures and that's why they all wear so little?

What would happen if you crossed a dathomirian zabrak with a species that also has non-human skin tones but not linked to sexual dimorphism. Like what if you had a pantoran-zabrak cross, since pantorans are on the opposite side of the color wheel. Do you think they'd be an extremely vibrant blue or yellow-orange-red, or a middle ground, like green? Or perhaps an extreme outside both species' range, like purple? Do you think the "no saturation" gene would take over and make them gray no matter the gender?

[onebizarrekai]

this winter, I sort of want to try actually making a temporary merch store; I'm not really good at this kind of thing (business management), I have been kind of dancing around it and avoiding thinking about it, but I do want to give it a try to see how I feel about it, at least for a bit. like order a small stock of some items, hopefully sell them until they're gone. I'm just worried that the things I've designed are too niche, haha

[slyandthefamilybook]

asking people their pronouns is the bare minimum of trans acceptance and it's something we've had to drag cis people kicking and screaming into doing. where the fuck do you get off throwing all that progress out the window because you like it when people are mean to you actually

[insertsomthinawesome]

I'M BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!! Okay so honestly I have been very very inconsistent over the years with just disappearing for periods of time due to various things 😂 So it probably seemed pretty normal to most people.

But it felt different on my side, so I'm excited to be back in business. I took a month long hiatus! 31 days of not drawing digital art. Its not something I talk about on here? But I've been suffering from some serious long term Art Burnout for.... a really really long time. Long enough that I should've taken a break probably years ago. It finally got so bad that I could barely draw. I was scared to do it (cause it always looked "bad" in my eyes [i'll come back to that]) and doing it was exhausting and disheartening.

I talked it over with somebody and realized that the fear and anger and frustration I felt towards my own artwork was uh. Not Normal or Healthy. And I finally committed to taking a real break for once.

I still drew a little bit by hand? Traditional art has always felt like it has lower stakes for me (i don't often share it online, and sometimes I don't even share it with friends) so I did some of that when I felt like it. But Digital art was completely off the table.

I had put such an immense pressure on myself to make my digital art perfect, to make as much of it as quickly as possible to satisfy something. It wasn't fun anymore. I'm proud of what i've made over the years! But for a long time now the stuff I've been making was made while hating every second of making it. With some rare exceptions.

I hated my art! It was a combination of Perfectionism, taking in too many external expectations, and the burnout. If you hate doing something its kinda hard to love it even when you want too lol. It wasn't "Bad" in the sense that the quality was low and it was ugly! It was "Bad" in the sense that it was unhealthy for me to keep doing it at that point in time.

I'm glad to report though, that with my hiatus officially over as of Wednesday last week: I am once again. In Love. With doing art, and being an artist :)

I put off taking a break for years cause I was scared that taking a break would mean that I would never achieve all the things I wanted to do with art. I was scared it was a stupid and lazy thing to do that would mean I'd never achieve my dreams. And Also even though I kinda hated drawing, I also loved making art. Its a weird duality that I can't even really explain??? I hated it but I also loved it. I wanted it but I also wanted to run from it. It wasn't until I was more mature and had more clarity and insight (and unfortunately also until the problems got worse) that I was finally able to let go of those fears and just do it.

And I'm really really glad I did. It was everything I needed. And I hope to strike a better balance in the future with art. Taking more breaks when I need them, or just when other things have my attention like reading or Video games (Some star rail got played during this time xD)

From the outside things probably aren't going to be that different?? At this point I don't really have any sure plans to post anything I've been drawing since my Hiatus ended. I might or I might not xD I'm still a hobbyist artist taking things at her own pace, but I hope that it shows how much happier I am :)

Whumptober 2023 is being officially put to rest by this post btw! I was in major burnout when that event started, and I'm ready to just, move on from all the past expectations I'd shoved on my shoulders. If I feel like filling any of the prompts or going back to any of the ideas I'd come up for it I will! But I'm not going to worry about doing it unless the desire sets in. Thanks to everybody who's been so kind to me throughout my time on here as an artist! Ya'lls tags and screaming and kind words, the fanfic, the asks and the responses? Its been fantastic :) You guys have made me laugh, smile, and cry tears of joy. I hope from here that things only get better and sweeter! And if I have bad days again, that's okay too.

Here's to 2024 and whatever it may bring ya'll :D 🎉🎉✨✨🧡💜

[uncanny-tranny]

You know... it's okay to trust your body. If you are separated from your body to such an extent you feel you cannot trust it, I truly from the bottom of my heart empathize and feel grief for you, but you can trust your body.

It's okay to listen to your body and to heed what it is telling you. I wish you (and your body) well wherever you go. You deserve the peace of mind to feel able to do what you want.

[epickiya722]

I feel like every time now Yuji gets to have some kind of glorious moment someone just has to be like "Well, I think Yuta should have been the MC..."

HE WAS!! HE WAS THE JJK MC!! JJK 0, EVEN GOT A MOVIE ADAPTATION!! HELL, EVEN GOT COOL MOMENTS IN THE MANGA WHEN HE GOT BACK INTO THE STORY!! CHARACTERS (like Todo) EVEN BRING HIM UP TO PRAISE WHAT HE'S CAPABLE OF!

It's just so crazy to me that Yuta is brought up whenever Yuji gets moments like this in the story but I haven't seen it vice versa.

If Yuta was the MC of JJK, exactly what growth would have been done if he was already an established, fully completed character by the end of JJK 0?

[vulpinesaint]

listen i am geralt of rivia hater number one but one thing i actually CANNOT stand is when the fandom mischaracterizes him. took one look at this man who speaks very straight-forwardly and matter-of-fact and is a little recalcitrant with his words sometimes and went "haha he communicates in grunts! man who only says 'hm'!" and then won't even write him to speak in full fucking sentences. hello???? hello???????? yes the netflix show was a bad influence on everybody because they were trying too hard to depict geralt as a stoic manly badass but we CANNOT let that distract us from the REAL thing to make fun of geralt for. which are his Constant Unprovoked Monologues

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

job applications: this is entry level! anyone can apply!

job applications: ...as long as you've done at least six months of highly specific work, or have this exact degree, or if you kissed a chicken during the last moon of 2012-