#also i added alt text description to it and i'm gonna try to remember to add it to my posts regularly

[squishescommishes]

opening up 2 more slots for #2) hugz! because i realized i forgot to post it on instagram yesterday and I wanted to give anybody on there a chance too haha

Been so busy working on examples I haven't had much time to do other stuff, but I wanted to get some things out to celebrate pride again <3

Patreon exclusive deal: patrons get 20% off For all: any species, any gender, including humans clothes are optional/not required Flag detail customizable to flag of your choice NO hateful/harmful flags Some details can be added/removed (face paint, pins, patches, binders etc) sketches will have minimal shading, lines will have soft cell shading

1) Suck On That: 2) Hugz!: 3) Flag: sketch- $20 sketch- $35 sketch- $20 lined- $45 lined- $80 lined- $45 slots available: 3 slots available: 0 slots available: 10

4) Remembrance: 5) Treat your friends: 6) Pride cheer: sketch- $25 sketch- $50 sketch- $35 lined- $60 lined- $100 lined- $80 slots available: 4 slots available: 3 slots available: 5

◈ Expressions may be changed, just let me know when you inquire about them ◈ The ice cream in #5 can have additional scoops or be swapped out for other treats as well!

Reblogs are appreciated!!

[kirby-the-gorb]

reply roundup!

thank you to @cherrycreamsicle for adding an [image description] to a recent kirb! I did see the note in your about asking that people add the descriptions to their posts, I have added it as alt text. I am aware of the fact that this does not meet all needs, and do have plans to address this on a blog-wide scale. once I'm actually able. (conflict of needs, unfortunately.)

and thank you to everyone who sent well wishes and stuff while we were waiting for the news/when the news turned out to be bad/while my wife was in the hospital/etc <3 I saw them when they were relevant and I appreciated them. (and I still appreciate them now it just feels silly to try to respond to them directly now) (and I love how the responses to [little kirbo] are pretty split between "oh no :(" and "Give Him Grease lol")

on [the last roundup] @macro-microcosm said: i don't remember when I made that reblog but I think things might be better! i had a nice birthday weekend at least <3

good! at least it's something.

on [the last roundup] @ceylonsilvergirl said: Hope the roundup means you’re feeling a little better

it basically never does but I appreciate your optimism! (although I am actually doing better right now this time but that is unrelated to whether or not I would do a reply roundup, it just means it's not as difficult.)

on [abacus] @ceylonsilvergirl said: NINETEEN HUNDRED!? HOLY CRAP! Well done

there are so many Little Guys in my computer, someday I will figure out what to do with them

on [-_-] @ceylonsilvergirl said: just a moment. just a moment to breathe. all you need to do right now is breathe. it’s difficult, but you are going to be difficulter. I’m going to cry and take a nap and get mad, then I’ll get back up and try again. it’s ok to give up, I give up all the time! but then I go back and try again later. sometimes you just need a break to let your mind and body rest, and you can try a new angle. running head first into this wall isn’t working, maybe there’s a way to go over the wall. our bullets aren’t working! keep shooting!

yeah, yeah, that's definitely true. sometimes you can't necessarily find an opening to rest, but whenever you can it's almost always gonna be a constructive thing to do. and giving up isn't inherently a bad thing! people call it "giving up" when they stop a bad habit, too. (there was a really interesting article I read a while ago about how giving up is kind of an important part of being disabled, not just because you have to cope with missing out on things but also because seeking treatment is hard and painful! sometimes it's not actually constructive to keep trying! and you need a break or a breakthrough and it's better to just. not. for a while. I've definitely had times like that too.)

on [box] @chaosinanutshell said: that should be me in that box 😐 hope you've been well >:)))

I have not but thank you! sitting in a box can be a comforting passtime but don't hurt your knees!

@vincentus asked: do you know what platform squeak squad or amazing mirror was released for?? i cant be bothered to look it up :")

you almost definitely got tired of waiting by now lol but squeak squad was DS and amazing mirror was GBA! (I played both of them when they were new, the battery in our first copy of amazing mirror tragically died after a little while and we had to get a second one so we could actually save the game)

[wherestoriescomefrom]

[Click on the image for the image description. I'm not actually sure how the alt-text works on tumblr though, so let me know if I should add the ID in the body of the post]

maryam here is gonna have me spilling every thought in my brain and then watch how fast the cancel police comes after me. @aliens-correspondent take responsibility for your actions!!

anyway to be honest this is something i'd had in my drafts for a while, because like i said, i have very many thoughts. i thought i'd make a separate post instead of reblogging the ask and adding to it though, it felt more sensible.

i really do enjoy both the book series and the tv show, but very differently!! when you read the book series though, you can actually tell that the author is starting out, especially when you compare it to six of crows. it's got those standard YA writing tropes, a chosen one, interplays with dark and light, weird love triangle with an obvious right answer, one (1) cool and fun girl who is inexplicably mean to the main heroine; you know, the usual things. the book is inoffensive in the way it pulls of these tropes, kinda meh at times. i think the problem with the book lies in the central character, or more importantly, in her framing in re grisha racism.

bardugo actually does something cool with the grishaverse, in that she doesn't try to explicitly frame racism against grisha people along the same lines as real life racism. she makes it clear that the grisha are alternatively deified and vilified, and some of the patterns of discrimination repeat themselves. i've always always ALWAYS hated depictions of magical discrimination that do the "this is a parallel to racism" because it never makes sense. real life racism has no reasons for it to exist whatsoever, but if i met someone who could control water and lightning, i'd be scared. i'd think of them as a superhero if they were good, but i'd very much be a little scared. these representations (things like x-men, or superhero universes) lean very hard on parallels to immigration, homophobia or family friendly racism to make their point, and its always stupid. i like that grishaverse leans harder on witch-hunting parallels instead, its far more logical - this has played out in real life as well. bardugo also weaves some amount of neurodivergence coded traits into her grisha characters - again, things that make sense, given the history of neurodivergence connected to witchcraft and otherness. and it works! the grisha are hunted like witches, and eventually assimilated like gods or saints.

what doesn't always work is alina, actually. bardugo did something super weird with her, with people like mal telling her she should be queen because she would be able to represent the common people. but that's the thing - even within the world of the first book, it doesn't hold up. a lot of the grisha come from small families, and there's this argument that they forget their parents but even that isn't true! zoya goes for the trips across the fold so she can meet her aunt! a lot of them remember their brothers and fathers and sisters. even alina chose the orphanage over life at the little palace all those years back didn't she?

the grisha are supposed to be elite army of witches, glamorous and gorgeous. however, even within the world of the novel everyone who makes up the army are orphans and peasants, and everyone in the country is tested for grisha powers. in fact, the world the darkling has created was explicitly done because he saw how the grisha were hunted and abused. he made them indispensable to the king, made them strong and a powerful faction in the country.

alina's character really suffers thanks to the weirdness in this framing. she's supposed to be the orphan from keramzin who can really reform the army - but she isn't the only one who was lonely and orphaned even within the army. moreover, it's never actually clear what she would like to do with the grisha army - beyond the superficial changes of seating arrangements. there was this one moment where she sees the first of nikolai's flying ships and thinks "yeah this is what i want. magic and tech to work together!" but you don't actually find out how she wants to do it. nikolai does have a vision, and he has ideas to execute it, but alina really doesn't. plus i just. i just never got the sense that alina enjoyed being a grisha.

don't get me wrong, i know her whole thing is about the price of power and how much she starts to hunger for power, but i just. never saw her having fun with her power??? show alina does tho, and that's something that's really cool, but i'll get to her in a moment. here's the bottom line: it never feels like alina has consistent motivations or clear character foundations. i don't even get the sense that she is that committed to ravka really, just that she wants to defeat the darkling because it also means a slow rise of power for her. she just doesn't feel as realised a character because there are hints of what she wants and dreams of but it all gets really overshadowed by the angst she has over not belonging and then by feeling like she's becoming a more terrible person thanks to the entire power thing idk.

which is the second problem. y'all know why people don't like mal? no for REAL do you know? not because he's a teenage boy who's entitled with his crush, that's nothing compared to how manipulative the darkling is. the REAL reason this is such a debate is because the writer fucked up! barudgo kept framing the love triangle as a choice between more power and living a normal life, and that's the whole problem!!! mal himself is at best a little irritating, but no worse than other love triangle heroes. but because this is a YA story where the choice given to young, presumably female readers is to give up your cool powers because your boyfriend feels like its taking you further and further away from him - or unaccountable power, terrible power even with a hot villain to boot. which would you choose? i know which i would and i am fully cognizant of how manipulative the darkling is. that's literally why it doesn't work, because alina has to make this ridiculous choice and it feels stupid even to outline it!! why couldn't she have kept her powers?? unlike the darkling, they were actually natural and not a result of dark magic.

it's really sad because i 100% believe this whole problem is the reason why people seriously overlook how well leigh bardugo wrote the darkling as a VILLAIN. as a love interest, sure, but she just wrote one of the most menacing villains on page and we all forget about it because everyone's busy writing think pieces on whether mal is worse than the darkling. from the beginning, there's this sense of power that the darkling evokes every time he's on the page. the first time he meets alina he acts as an amplifier to bring out her power, he commands people, he commands armies. and the more time you spend with the book, the more bardugo rations his presence: appearing at the right moments, never pushing the boundary and becoming an active villain. yet there's this malcontent about him that's so much in the vibe of the man. he's called the darkling and he promises to rid the world of the fold. he thinks alina is the answer but would rather use an amplifier on her. i think about halfway through, before baghra's reveal - i just knew this man was trouble.

she did such a good job with him!! the darkling we meet is someone who's already at the end of his "you either die a hero or live long enough to be a villain" arc. he was a hero! he saved the grisha, but eventually his quest for power has made him hungrier, with less morals and fewer reservations. he's much crueler in the books, much more manipulative, so much more FUN. the show really missed out, because they focussed on making the darkling human and real - and they really fucked up, because even tho ben barnes did a really good job he was missing a lot of the edge and sharpness of the darkling. naming him early is just one of the problems, giving him the most basic back story is just another. i think the closest he felt to the book!darkling was when alina was attacked by fjerdans, and theres that out of focus shot of him coming with the cut. absolutely chilling. we stan. but thats the last we see of this darkling right up until he makes her the antler necklace and that panty dropping line, "make me your villain." generally i think both kaz and the darkling are a bit softer in the tv show, which is strange but i was so pleased with the changes to alina's character and the casting of inej that i let it slide.

the show does a really good job of giving alina proper characterisation!! i like that they made her half asian (they could have toned down on all the racism a little tho). and the worldbuilding done with the world war era inspired posters was really good!! at least this way all of alina's angsting has a reason. plus they retconned her to make her someone who fights more, against the world she's in and it makes sense. it really feels like even the adult alina just wants to be free. plus MAL, my beloved!! you can actually see his character development from a more timid young boy to someone who has dedicated his life to alina, to making the world a love letter to her specifically. the show fucked up on a bunch of lore things, but on the whole i think the bones of the book were good enough that they could pull of a really GOOD tv show.

the last thing i love about the tv show is how it lavishes attention on things young girls like reading. like it really leans into fantasy fiction in that sense. i never cared much for tolkien but in the last few years i have latched onto female written fantasy like a burr (side note, everyone please read Sword of Kaigen). its nice to see people care so much about women as a primary demographic in consuming fantasy fiction. increasingly, fantasy fiction is becoming more and more mainstream tho, which means i have to suffer through my friends (wrong) opinions on shadow and bone tho.

anyway all i want to know is who is going to be cast as nikolai. please hes my favourite character and he was already ignored so much in his own duology.