#but i think it's fine without context

[marshiemonarch]

I love him so much ;w;

[inkskinned]

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

[chaosordoffl]

Crazy how Targ/Valyrian names can sound feminine or masculine because of their association with a character

[deoidesign]

Someone killed my boss last night and he sent me this I'm so fired

god I can't wait to make this comic.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

One day I’m going to finish that essay or whatever it was in my drafts that’s about the themes of womanhood/relationships/thirtysomething stuff and TTPD but since part of this discussion has been revived on the dash but also it’s Saturday so this won’t ruffle as many feathers, I think one thing that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle in the conversation about the muses and stories in the lyrics is just why the recurring theme of the broken dreams pops up all over the album, and why they permeate the discussion of both muses, if not *all* the muses in the album.

Not to project things on Taylor, but it feels pretty clear to me* that the dreams she’s talking about specifically are about having a family, and that is the through line in the album, and why the successive blows devastated her. (*I don’t want to presume that anyone else feels this way and this is just my interpretation etc.)

The suburban gothic allegory in Fortnight depicting a miserable, lonely marriage. The ring on the ring finger in TTPD making her explode with joy because it was a shorthand for lifelong commitment. “He saw forever so he smashed it up” in My Boy. “I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free” and dying on the sacrificial altar in So Long London. Marrying her wild boy in But Daddy. “Get the matches, toss the ashes off the ledge” in Fresh Out the Slammer (as in, she burned her life down). “You shit-talked me under the table talking rings and talking cradles” in loml. “The deflation of our dreaming leaving me bereft and reeling” in How Did It End. “Promises ocean deep and never to keep” in Peter. The allusion in The Manuscript that the man in question made her think he was in it for the potential of a serious commitment only for her to feel used when he moved on. And there are probably more examples I’m not thinking of off the top of my head here.

But what I’m trying to get at delicately is that from what she’s put down in TTPD, as well as what she’s put down in previous albums (“give you my wild, give you my child,” Paper Rings, Lover, renegade, YLM, etc.) building a life and a family with this person (Joe) was not only something she wanted, but seemingly deliberately planning and working towards. So in the death throes of the relationship, her grief was not just about things like losing someone she once loved, the breakdown of this relationship that was once comforting to her, what she gave up to make their life work, etc. but about this important thing she had dreamed of and what she seemed to feel was on the horizon. What I think I’m trying to say is that it had likely shifted at some point (even just based on the album pipeline) from a hypothetical “one day we’ll have ten kids and teach them how to dream” thing you wonder about with a partner to something that felt a lot more… tangible. (Again trying to be sensitive in my word choice/not project or assume things etc.)

I don’t want to make any accusations or assumptions on main, but I think those kind of life plans feeling within reach not only makes it understandable as to why someone would stay in a relationship whose cracks were turning into fault lines, but on the flip side why giving up on something that felt like it was on their doorstep would be so wholly devastating.

But it’s also why what happened in the two successive relationships *was* so devastating in the songs on the album, and why the Matty thing specifically was so twisted. He’d reentered her life and he’d insinuated himself back into her circle and gained her confidence which in turn led her to confide things in him (the “hostile takeovers” of it all, the whole bridge of The Smallest Man with its honey pot spy mission imagery in which like a mark he sweet talked her into sharing her most vulnerable, compromising “secrets” only to then turn it around to use her and ghost her like a trained operative). And given the way the family thing appears in both presumed storylines, it’s again because Muse #2 used the info gleaned about the life with Muse #1 to sell her a con about an alternate path to what she was mourning so deeply. (And why it’s such an unconscionable act because it’s manipulation, at least going by her own words about her experience of it. It’s as cavalier as the organ donor line in The Manuscript, with the same effect.)

The shittalking about rings and cradles is both of them (if not all of them) because in all cases, they ended up raising her hopes only to not plan on following through. One because he maybe couldn’t commit, one because maybe he was never serious about it. (And the one who did it first who was both 🥴.)

If I had to guess (because I am not Taylor so I will obviously never know any of this for sure besides picking up context clues), the dream was like a carrot dangling in her mind, feeling like this is what the “agony” to quote another one of her songs was for — like, things may be hard, but life is hard, and at least they were building towards *something* she felt they both wanted. And as that dream slipped through her fingers, it created a cascading series of events that crippled her emotionally for a time. So when she mourns that life in her songs, it’s almost like it’s the same dream, just in shifting contexts. The conman selling her dream back to her is comforting at first, but hits doubly hard and leaves her broke when it disappears.

The story throughout the muses on the album isn’t “she jumps to the person who promises her these things,” it’s that it’s a whole life she’s built that crumbles under the weight of reality knocking at the door and a foundation that shifts until it disintegrates. And losing that foundation and the dreams built upon it leaves her searching for answers in the wreckage — and looking elsewhere for clarity for a time. And it’s why it’s so hard to remove one muse from the other (or again, all of them), because that central driving force is used by each of them in different ways to build her up and take her down. And why working through the pain of one situation bleeds into that of another.

It’s hard to delve into this more without crossing boundaries or whatever, but it’s just such a palpable open wound in the album, but also why working through the pain in different contexts on TTPD brings to light all these different kinds of hurt but also the emotions that go along with them.

Anyway. That other essay will write itself at some point idk.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

sheesh speaking of psychic damage, bro is trying to kill himself with his mind here

[idontmindifuforgetme]

Started my morning off by indulgently reading a book about Palestinian history for two hours straight when I should have been studying instead….. and it was so peaceful

[starfilled-galaxy]

Niko OneShot gif bc I was bored (and procrastinating)

[dyemelikeasunset]

this is kind of obscure but like. Now that I have comics out in the world and people are starting to see my storywriting, I feel like I have a little more confidence in myself and the sensitive-but-serious stories that I want to tell.

And it just bothers me sometimes that the same people who enjoy my storytelling-- and tell me that i'm very conscientious and aware and delicate with the subjects i'm breeching-- also turn around and tell me i'm too critical of other media. Like… lmao. Why do you think my stories come across so thoughtful? Have you considered that you enjoy them because I'm fucking aware and careful? And I think a lot about the media climate that we live in? That I write stories because I want to see something different?

Like don't just take in my content without a second thought of all the shit i think about behind the scenes to make my storylines as careful and sympathetic as possible

[mikesbasementbeets]

it’s a little frustrating sometimes to watch people try to “debunk” gay mike evidence by quibbling over things that are. kind of beside the point? like arguing that mike’s consistently negative (or even neutral, if you want the benefit of the doubt) reactions to girls aren’t “disgust” therefore they don’t mean anything. but like 1. yeah i agree, cates gate isn’t about mike being “disgusted.” mike’s face when el kisses him isn’t “disgusted.” mike’s reaction to el, to max, to girls in general doesn’t really read to me as “disgust” either. so 2. what DOES it read to you as? incredulity? confusion? discomfort? those…. still aren’t positive reactions.

the point is that mike actively and blatantly Does Not react positively toward el kissing him. and he also Doesn’t react positively to dustin’s description of a girl being “hotter than phoebe cates.” he asks “is she cute?” with maybe preemptive incredulity (in line with will's question "girls go to science camp?") over a girl who goes to science camp being cute, or perhaps just a neutrally curious state over dustin's new girlfriend, but then dustin doesn’t say “she’s hotter than phoebe cates.” he says, “think phoebe cates. only hotter.” that’s a prescriptive statement. you want to know if she’s cute, mike? think about phoebe cates, and then imagine someone hotter than that. and mike’s expression doesn’t improve in the slightest. think about someone hotter than phoebe cates, dustin tells mike. and mike? remains confused and entirely unintrigued. no, he’s not disgusted, but the point is not his negative reaction, it’s a complete lack of any sort of positive reaction. if he’s listening to dustin, he should have, in that moment, thought of phoebe cates. and his reaction?

nothing.

(but. this is also just to say... i don’t even think it's fair to call most of mike’s facial reactions “proof” of his sexuality in any argument… i think they’re fun little easter eggs that add an extra visual element to his gay characterization. but. it’s not WHY people think he’s gay. it's funny to point out BECAUSE he's gay)

[edit: AND this is not even to mention the direct line drawn to this in season four via stobin's discussion of fast times, linking phoebe cates to 'people who like boobies.' #notmikewheeler]

[jichanxo]

how it started:

how it's going:

[mokagachas]

As someone who knows nothing about Oberon but loves your art: where do I start if I want to understand your love for the man?

oh man. oh jeez ( wheezing ) haha okay. uhm. erhm. i didnt expect to get this far uhm ( shaking )

so here's the problem: oberon is from lostbelt 6, a chapter in hit gacha game fate/grand order. you can play f/go if you want and chug along to lb6 - which is unfortunately a chapter 6~ years into the game's main story. but i cannot with any sort of conscious recommend a gacha game to people.

so playing the game is one option. option two is checking out atlas academy database, a website that has all of fgo's stories and such conveniently catalogued! click 'main story' on the top of the page and it'll give you just, well, the main story.

if you want to watch the stories themselves - which at least for lostbelt 6 i highly recommend because the OST is amazing - there's also this commentary free LP on youtube that i've linked to people!

that being said that is still a lot of words to get to lostbelt 6, so- if you don't want to read everything pre-lostbelt 6, i recommend going to the typemoon wiki and reading the summary on each story pre lostbelt 6 ( so, up to lostbelt 5.5 ). just click on the link in each chart and you can find a detailed beat-by-beat summary of each chapter.

i've been told that, in all honesty, that lostbelt 6 is still enjoyable and easy to understand without full context for the outside story beats. it certainly reads like a fairly self-contained story outside a few things needed to understand why some characters are here in the first place, so i've been considering writing up a summary on just those key points / the premise to the lostbelts so that people can read that and then jump right into lostbelt 6 and love oberon...

hopefully this was helpful in any sense of the word heehe ... if you need clarification with anything feel free to send another ask !!!

lets all love oberon!!! lets all think about oberon!!!!!!

[jinxed-sinner]

Alright here's my full (possibly hot) take on redesigning Hazbin Hotel characters and making a video showcasing those redesigns while you criticize the official designs.

First and foremost, you are redesigning someone else's OCs. Hazbin Hotel is, in essence, a passion project for Viv. How she talks about it makes that incredibly clear to me. The only difference between Hazbin Hotel and, for example, the story I'm developing surrounding some of my D&D OCs is that Hazbin Hotel got picked up by a streaming service and is significantly more popular than most passsion projects get.

Personally if someone wanted to redesign my D&D OCs, I wouldn't mind it, in fact I'd probably think it was really cool that someone would want to redesign one of my OCs to be closer to their tastes in terms of what they like to draw. I would, however, be made incredibly uncomfortable if someone made a video redesigning them where they also pointed out everything they thought was wrong with the designs. I didn't design these specific D&D characters to be 1-to-1 accurate to their classes in D&D or to look professionally designed. I designed them how I wanted them to look for the story I'm telling because I don't plan to ever play them in a campaign. The main character Avlan is a paladin, and I can acknowledge that his design might not look exactly like a paladin. One of the tabaxi in the story (Ice) is a bard and the other (Spark) is a ranger, and I acknowledge that their classes might not come across well in their designs. The single tiefling I've designed for this story (Tragedy) is a cleric but might not come off as one in their design. But I specifically designed them to be easy for me to draw because I want to be able to tell this story through my art. Having someone say "oh, Avlan's armor isn't paladin enough!" or "Avlan's fur colors and patterns should be closer to a wild rabbit's because harengon shouldn't be based on domestic rabbit colors!" would fucking hurt (especially because I'm so attached to Avlan, but it would hurt just as much if similar comments were made about Ice, Spark, or Tragedy). I am so passionate about these characters and being told their designs are bad or wrong in some way would be like a stab in the heart, and it would still feel like a stab in the heart if this story ever got a massive fandom behind it. Giving Avlan more complex armor because you think it'd look cool or just want to see what it'd look like? Sure, if I could draw more complex armor I'd give him more complex armor too. Giving him more complex armor but also shitting on the armor I decide to draw him with? My motivation to draw him in his armor, potentially draw him period, would be dead for WEEKS.

Why is it suddenly okay just because someone's passion project was picked up by Amazon Prime? Why is it suddenly okay to be "fixing" someone's character designs just because the project has a much bigger budget than most artists get and is on a popular streaming service? It's not. I don't care if you're a professional character designer, or think a specific character would look better with certain traits, or just don't like the character designs.

Hazbin Hotel is still Vivienne Medrano's passion project, and redesigning her characters and making videos talking about everything you think is "wrong" with them is, honestly, disgusting. You can make videos explaining your choices in your redesigns without putting down the designs that already exist, whether you like them or not. Me thinking Lucifer looks better with his tail not restricted to his full demon form doesn't suddenly mean I don't like his official design, because I fucking love it. If you wouldn't do it to an artist whose passion project is just a webcomic here on Tumblr, don't fucking do it to an artist whose passion project got picked up for a cartoon by a big streaming service (or any company for that matter).

[quietwingsinthesky]

oh, yeah, another thing i noticed that was odd about s5 in comparison to earlier seasons was how much they relied on like. not the history of the doctor, exactly, but the image of that history. whether from little easter eggs of the first doctor’s picture popping up everywhere to i think the two(?) times in the season we get a montage of past doctors. and i honestly can’t remember anything like that happening earlier (with the exception of the time crash short, which felt more substantial to me and was also like. 7 straight minutes of david tennant being allowed to fangirl.)

and i say ‘the image’ because hell knows the RTD era was pulling from doctor who past left, right, and center, but it rarely felt like a moment of ‘look at this old thing, you remember old thing? old thing was cool and so are we for continuing it.’ and more like ‘here’s a species/character/etc from classic who. and here’s how they’ve changed and fit into the new world we’ve built for the show.’

I guess, the difference here for me is that. i haven’t watched classic who. s5 shows me a slideshow of doctors and to me, those are the guys i once ranked by how sexy i think they are. and not much else. i don’t have an emotional connection to an image. but take, say, school reunion? an episode that was my favorite even back when i was a kid specifically because i adored sarah jane? i had no idea who she was then, i only just figured out a little bit ago which doctor she traveled with, and exclusively all i’ve watched of her is that episode in s2 and the sarah jane adventures. and yet, that episode, without the context there for me, managed to make sense to me. i’m sure it was probably even more impactful to fans of sarah jane from classic who, but it didn’t lose its impact without that knowledge.

so, that’s a shift. i don’t want to say it’s a negative one, exactly, because maybe people who have seen classic who like these references and i’m missing something. but, to me, it feels a little more shallow.

[yannfredericks]

being online rn is such a fucking nightmare oh my god!!!

[thenamessparkplug]

every second i spend not making a twisted psychological horror is a second wasted