#blorbo is a new word for me

[renonv]

Spamano Week Day 6: First Kiss 💋

i know there is no light (in a room where the sun is missing)

I got the greatest honor to collaborate with the amazing @mangofresca and draw the first of the 5 (well, 6 :3) kisses that these two idiots shared over the decades.

Do yourself a favor and give this fic a read!! it’s so good, amazing, wonderful, stupendous, and had me running on the walls of my enclosure… in short I am fucking OBSESSED

The textless version :3

@spamano-week

[artifeast]

guy of all time

[loud-whistling-yes]

so as literally everyone following me in the past 24 hours knows, im fucking obsessed with her. take her shes everything i have

[ebbpettier]

the most important aspect of my trixie the pixie fanon characterization is that she is, MOST of the time, so close to being right. she is deeply intelligent and perceptive, she can match penny blow for blow in an argument and her critical thinking skills are a finely-hewn edge the likes of which you could use to slice through a mountain like butter

and if she ever used those critical thinking skills. well then maybe something would get fucking done around here. alas.

[stephantom]

I’d need to watch it again to confirm this, but I’m pretty sure that Thomas Becket is the only character who independently initiates touch with Henry?

There are plenty of people whom Henry touches, and it’s almost always possessive or threatening: the villager woman in the first flashback scene, the Saxon peasant girl (and possibly the old man? I think he prods at both of them with his riding crop), Gwendolen (holding her shoulders/neck), the French prostitute (kissing, leaning over, sitting on, slapping her butt), his sons (pushing and kicking them), the bishop (strangling), his barons (clutching onto one, tapping one’s head to indicate his vapidness), and Thomas too—(clasping his shoulders when he realizes Thomas is hurt, holding his hand to put on the chancellor ring).

Interestingly, I don’t think we ever see Henry touch or be touched by his mother or his wife. There’s the moment when he grabs/kicks their needlework, and later on he knocks all the plates off the table, possibly vaguely in their direction—so there are two physical interactions which are violent but still sort of… distant? And still the direction is just Henry to them (in terms of physicality, anyway—verbally, they do initiate conversations/fights with him).

Does anyone touch Henry? There are the monks who whip him in the end, but Henry has ordered them to do it. Likewise, there’s the servant/valet/page who begins to wipe him dry in the bath scene, but again, that’s someone performing a duty. Thomas Becket though, cuts in and takes over the drying, and the dialogue tells us explicitly that he’s not expected to do this, and doesn’t have to (“You’re a nobleman—why do you play at being my valet?”) but Becket seemingly wants to do it, and he knows Henry likes how he does it: enthusiastically, confidently, warmly, and freely (“No one does it like you, Thomas”). He towels Henry’s head, helps Henry put on his boots, and then casually uses Henry’s legs to push himself up to stand.

There’s the scene in Henry’s tent, after the French prostitute has left and the two of them are sitting on the bed: Becket sort of leans in and briefly clasps Henry’s arm where it’s lying in his lap, casually and warmly.

There’s also the getaway horse ride, where Becket is holding onto Henry, arms wrapped around him, and they’re both laughing and smiling. Henry’s shirt actually falls open a little and Becket’s hand winds up on his bare torso.

And then there are the thwarted attempts at touch, after the split: the two scenes where Henry accuses Becket of not loving him. Both times, Becket moves toward Henry and reaches out to touch him, and both times, Henry moves away and tells him to keep his distance.

They’re quick little things, but if they are actually the only instances of anyone touching Henry affectionately (or even of their own volition) that we see over the course of the movie, it does support an impression of Henry as fundamentally isolated—maybe there is truth to his claim that Becket is the only person who’s ever loved him.

What’s tragic is that 1) Henry doesn’t really know how to express love himself (see: Henry expressing nothing but violence and entitlement to everyone else around him, and even to Becket for the most part), and 2) Becket’s love, albeit huge in Henry’s world, is conflicted and unfulfilling—for both of them.

Becket might be the only person who’s dared to reach out to Henry and meet him on something close to a human level, and Henry loves him for it, but why does Becket do it? Part of it may just be an instinct of Becket’s to fulfill a need where he sees one, if he can, and if it benefits him. I think it’s so interesting that Henry seems obsessed with the question of whether Thomas really loves him, when it seems the truth might be that Thomas actually doesn’t know; maybe it’s an unanswerable, even nonsensical question to him. Like, what else could he do? I don’t know. “Insofar as I was capable of love, yes I did [love you].” But the fact that his last words, unwitnessed and private, are, “Poor Henry.” Fuck me up.

Ok, that last paragraph got away from me and now I can’t stop. Tempted to draw comparisons to “Beauty and the Beast” (this is a sad version where no magical transformation happens… unless you take a particular Catholic stance and consider that both of them maybe took real solace and meaning in Thomas being made a saint and that Henry maybe found real absolution through his penance).

I also want to compare all of this to “The Lion in Winter”, where it feels like, rather than a story about one lonely monster in a castle full of people he sees as objects, it’s a whole microcosm of traumatized and power-hungry people, reaching out for power and security and love and stabbing each other in the back, over and over. (Like, of course his mother and wife and kids have complex feelings for him—some of which involve love!) I think that depiction is better and less myopic, more true to life and probably a more accurate portrait of the historical figures involved (even when it comes to Henry and Becket—Becket was of that world too, after all), but I think I’ve rambled enough about all of this, so I’m going to end this post now. I’ll just say that there’s something nevertheless appealing about the boiled-down fairytale melodrama of “no one else ever loved me but you!”

[miyukisluv]

he’s so silly (he is insane)

[morgana-lefay]

@dandysnob, @marimayscarlett and @franwikema tagged me to do this. Thank you all! 🖤

Big mood 2023

Rules: Create a mood board for your 2023, using 9 pictures to reflect on the year. You don't have to elaborate or use any personal pictures (you can if you want) - you can create your board using pictures of your blorbos/screen caps/memes/aesthetics/etc. to show your vibes, thoughts, memories and moods throughout the year.

5 of these are mine, 1 is a screencap and the rest are borrowed from the Internet. 2023 was a bit of a rollercoaster year...There's many (and mostly) happy and fun moments with friends; turning 40 and having a bit of a hard time dealing with it; Rammstein making me very happy that day in June and then being unsure on how to feel because of all the mess; coming back to Tumblr and being able to share my new obsession with you all and laugh with all the silliness going around in this fandom and, unfortunately, losing my guy, my little 🐱 moustached gentleman, companion of 16 years, last month. Letting him go was the hardest decision I've ever had to make in my life and it still doesn't feel real that he's not around...but it's like the song says "Die Zeit mit dir war schön". Wishing everyone a Happy and Healthy 2024! 🖤🤘

Sending it right back at @liftme-up-letme-go, @in--my--tears, @pixxxpwd and @uniquefartreview, if you feel like going for it. 😉

[allhailthefrog]

hot take thatll probably get me bullied off this platform but those drawing where people draw their favorite fictional charcters with signs that say “free palastine 🍉” are just “hello kitty says acab” rebranded

[hawkzeyez]

WELCOME BACK

Thank you 😭 I’m hoping I can get my OG account back still, but if not I’m glad I was able to find a good portion of the ppl I did follow before. I appreciate you for making a post for me 🫶

Plus now I get to post all those things about Clint, Ollie, and Vic ALL OVER AGAIN

[red-dia]

new chapter is out. crying and throwing up

edit: now out on m*ngadex by the usual team!

[luci-in-the-stars]

Luci Inspiration || Poetry weaving

"While Luci was curious about a lot of things, she couldn’t find that she was a master of very many of them when she didn’t need to be. Outside of science she couldn’t say she was especially outstanding in anything. She had been the president of debate - but it was mostly that no one else wanted the position. She had also been pretty good at track and field, but she hadn’t won many meets. It had all been just enough to make her competitive, and nothing that she had been especially interested in being great in. Instead she was just happy that she could play with Ariadne."  From Check Mate

"Luci wasn’t good at words, not when they really mattered. It was why she always wrote everything down, practiced hard things to say. Showing someone though, that was always a lot easier for her so when the professor seemed to not only understand what she was trying to explain but why she was doing she relaxed and nodded her anxiety dissipating. She had been hopeful the other would understand, even if she really shouldn’t have had that faith. After all, Milo had said there were monsters everywhere." From Magical Accommodations  

"The girl’s smile was bright and her excitement was palpable and Cass decided that she was going to do anything and everything in her power to make sure the two of them became friends because she liked that. So many people were afraid to get excited about things, as if opening yourself up to excitement was opening yourself up to disappointment. And that was true, sometimes… but not always." From Crystallization

"How long has it been here? Was it just coincidence Luci had dreams about it, or was it calling out for the young alchemist for help? Even if she hadn’t noticed the goo - the people seemingly losing themselves to a venus flytrap of rock and misery - she would have felt the need to help the mine. What was happening now wasn’t nature with its rules of growth and decay - but a tragedy of something absolutely wrong. It was a subversion, an abomination of the beauty and horror of nature. Startled for a moment, she realized it reminded her of her own alchemy - of something outside of her control that seemed to want to bend and break rules that created the cosmos. It was overwhelming, and made her realize maybe she was like this broken earth, leaking pain she couldn’t put into words but knew was fundamentally wrong. 

Pausing for a moment to catch her breath she nodded resolutely in what she had to do. Just like her own magic, she was going to save this broken earth and stop this ache - or at least make it more manageable. She could do that at least, like she would for herself when she figured out how her own rules were broken. " From Sluginators vs. The Goo Goo Jerks

"Then she realized what she was looking for in other people’s eyes. She was trying to find her siblings. She was trying to find her sister’s eyes looking at her and telling her it was okay. She wanted to see that easy smile that crinkled at her eyes as Gen tousled her hair. She was trying to find the amused eyes that seemed to be surprised by everything she did. She was looking for her brother to try and understand what this feeling was in her gut. She wanted an explanation of what she was feeling that she couldn’t put words to. She was trying to find the people she’d always trusted instinctually in a sea of people that made her unsure of herself." From and I looked up and saw the Sun

"Half-breathing, half-choking, a strangled laugh escaped from his mouth at the statement. It caught him off guard and it was so very Luci that it just sucker punched him in the guts. There was a swelling of energy, the air between the two siblings suddenly feeling charged, a calm before the storm. Clutching at his hair, Milo forced himself to breathe until the current seemed to dissipate. But the calm didn’t last very long." From On a Wire

Credits (in order/ characters may be incorrect) @ariadnewhitlock @wonder-in-wings @magmahearts @magmahearts,, @gossipsnake , @alan-duarte @escudofracturado

Quotes (x)

[yumeyleo]

i will mold and shape my personality to become more like jax’s

[odetoviscera]

tfw you're 12k words deep into writing and realize you are not even halfway through act one of this roughly five act fic

[findusinaweek]

Is it baby girl/boy-ification or is it just the pet names I call my cats? 

[krsonmar]

but also, OP, I really do have to ask about the horse RP community

This is a dangerous sentiment for me to express, as an editor who spends most of my working life telling writers to knock it off with the 45-word sentences and the adverbs and tortured metaphors, but I do think we're living through a period of weird pragmatic puritanism in mainstream literary taste.

e.g. I keep seeing people talk about 'purple prose' when they actually mean 'the writer uses vivid and/or metaphorical descriptive language'. I've seen people who present themselves as educators offer some of the best genre writing in western canon as examples of 'purple prose' because it engages strategically in prose-poetry to evoke mood and I guess that's sheer decadence when you could instead say "it was dark and scary outside". But that's not what purple prose means. Purple means the construction of the prose itself gets in the way of conveying meaning. mid-00s horse RPers know what I'm talking about. Cerulean orbs flash'd fire as they turn'd 'pon rollforth land, yonder horizonways. <= if I had to read this when I was 12, you don't get to call Ray Bradbury's prose 'purple'.

I griped on here recently about the prepossession with fictional characters in fictional narratives behaving 'rationally' and 'realistically' as if the sole purpose of a made-up story is to convince you it could have happened. No wonder the epistolary form is having a tumblr renaissance. One million billion arguments and thought experiments about The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas that almost all evade the point of the story: that you can't wriggle out of it. The narrator is telling you how it was, is and will be, and you must confront the dissonances it evokes and digest your discomfort. 'Realistic' begins on the author's terms, that's what gives them the power to reach into your brain and fiddle about until sparks happen. You kind of have to trust the process a little bit.

This ultra-orthodox attitude to writing shares a lot of common ground with the tight, tight commodification of art in online spaces. And I mean commodification in the truest sense - the reconstruction of the thing to maximise its capacity to interface with markets. Form and function are overwhelmingly privileged over cloudy ideas like meaning, intent and possibility, because you can apply a sliding value scale to the material aspects of a work. But you can't charge extra for 'more challenging conceptual response to the milieu' in a commission drive. So that shit becomes vestigial. It isn't valued, it isn't taught, so eventually it isn't sought out. At best it's mystified as part of a given writer/artist's 'talent', but either way it grows incumbent on the individual to care enough about that kind of skill to cultivate it.

And it's risky, because unmeasurables come with the possibility of rejection or failure. Drop in too many allegorical descriptions of the rose garden and someone will decide your prose is 'purple' and unserious. A lot of online audiences seem to be terrified of being considered pretentious in their tastes. That creates a real unwillingness to step out into discursive spaces where you 🫵 are expected to develop and explore a personal relationship with each element of a work. No guard rails, no right answers. Word of god is shit to us out here. But fear of getting that kind of analysis wrong makes people hove to work that slavishly explains itself on every page. And I'm left wondering, what's the point of art that leads every single participant to the same conclusion? See Spot run. Run, Spot, run. Down the rollforth land, yonder horizonways. I just want to read more weird stuff.

[drev-the-procrastinator]

i can't believe.... it's been... very nearly ten whole years... ten whole years near to the date.... for a sec i was like oh yeah i'm over that whole thing... and then there's a couple new chapters.... and the thing is as if it never left.... ten years of this brainrot...... ei perkele......