#everybody who doesn't fit into society for whatever reason

[skrunksthatwunk]

man i think part of what fucks me up (/pos) about the wedding scene (klk) is how well it conveys that the fantasy junketsu puts on ryuko is not a romantic one.

like i think it would've been really easy to make it about her wanting to find a man who could take care of things for her or love her unconditionally and when mako busts her out the message is You Don't Need A Man! You're A Strong Independent Woman!! or something (which is a perfectly fine message btw. i bring it up because i suspect that's how some people read it, especially those who see ryuko as straight, in an utena-hetero-girlboss way (yes i HAVE encountered that reading before. head in my hands)). maybe there's a montage of the groom and her at romantic milestones (confession, proposal, dates, moving in, whatever), and mako busts in while they're exchanging rings or leaning in for a kiss or something. they could have done that.

but the show puts SO little focus on the groom, to the point of emphasizing his facelessness and lack of relevance to the fantasy and its appeal (see the door handle knocking him over and ryuko not noticing, too busy looking at mako), that i think it's impossible to read it that way. and that's great bc what's actually there is so much more interesting and thematically relevant.

ryuko wants a normal childhood with a mom who loves her and spends time with her doing typical family stuff, who sticks with her as she grows up. the fantasy is of a normal development and family structure, of assimilation into a typical path of life for a woman, with its typical milestones. that includes getting married to a man. the fantasy is being naturally what society wants her to be, what will allow her to connect most easily to others within it. she's always butted heads with others, never fitting in for reasons she can't really understand, or often because she thinks the rules themselves are stupid. that came with isolation. loneliness.

the fantasy of junketsu's wedding is of conformity. it is also of conformity without effort, without awareness.

she doesn't want to force herself to fit in, because she knows that feels like shit. she wants it to be seamless. second nature. that's what junketsu appeals to. not the fantasy of pretending to be straight or becoming straight, but simply being straight.

(if it isn't clear by now, i view ryuko as a lesbian. this scene is a big part of why.)

it's ryuko pretending to be (and to always have been) something that will never cause her trouble, that will never alienate her. (or junketsu making her pretend that, though i think it caters to a lingering insecurity of ryuko's, that lack of stability, connection, and conformity in her real life).

it's also part of why mako and senketsu's rescue is not about mako being the right one for ryuko, but about ryuko's identity. her core state of being. who she is as a person.

(personally i read ryuko and mako as romantic (and i believe the show does as well, hence, y'know, the date and the mako hallelujah imagery during her asking her out and mako hitting on her and and and. sorry but however you feel about them as a ship they are definitively canon), and the scene does have romantic appeal/a romantic angle to it. but i think that romance comes from mako understanding ryuko deeply, and from calling her back into the person she is, rather than the person she could have been were she to have lived a Completely Different Life, and showing her that she has community and companionship even without this. she can be part of a group without doing all this shit. she doesn't have to fight alone, and this wedding business isn't the only way out of that loneliness. it's a gesture of love and concern for her as a person, one that comes from senketsu and mako together, the people who love her the most.)

ragyo wants conformity. she is a fascist. she wants everybody to wear the same clothes, to be in their proper place in society, and to submit to those who have rightful power over them. A hierarchy with life fibers at the top and humans at the bottom. ragyo designs and distributes the roles (clothes) people ought to wear, talks about clothes that don't suit people, etc. she wants ryuko to conform like she is, and like she has. a feelingless marriage to some man for what she can get from him. fitting in. she wants to have daughters that fit in. she wants to fit in. she wants to fit in because she's fetishized her place above other humans (pigs in human clothing, in roles unbefitting their pig status), her place under life fibers.

it has nothing to do with love, so ragyo doesn't even bother with it. nor does junketsu. even though the guise of love could be a powerful aide here, the staff chose to leave the message unmuddied. it is about conformity.

for ryuko to fulfill this fantasy, she would have had to be a completely different person, with a completely different life.

ryuko could not be ryuko and still wear that wedding dress. so she tore it off to be herself again (something she'd been lamenting/resisting since finding out she was "a goddamned life fiber monster" shortly before getting put in junketsu).

also note that satsuki used this wedding dress for her own aims as well, though she is lucid through it. it pains her. it's a role she takes on to fight against ragyo (fire with fire). but she says she realizes she couldn't win using others like pawns. she couldn't win from inside the hierarchy, the establishment. she couldn't win using a groom and a dress for her own inauthentic reasons, nor using that clout to climb the ranks of something that was wholly rotten just to get closer to ragyo. the whole tree must be felled.

anyway

[hypezombies]

Stranger Things becoming so mainstream is simultaneously the best and the worst thing to happen to the show. The best cause the Duffers got the chance to bring to life the full vision and can expand on it as much as they want. And the worst because this way the audience is full of people who do not understand the show and are most likely gonna throw senseless critics at it, instead of anything actually good. And I'm not even talking about the zero media literacy. It's a HUGE issue in this fandom but it's not the only one.

The show has been advocating against bullying and conforming since the first season and the fandom is filled with people who act EXACTLY like the bullies in the show and shame others when they don't fit their standards of conformity. Believe it or not the Eddie Munson stans that everyone loves to make fun of are the real target audience of the show. Nerds, outcasts, people who like to engage in fandom culture, cosplay, analyse, theorize. Not the people who are used to consuming only shallow media that is meant to be taken for exactly what is shown and nothing more and who never had trouble fitting in in their lives. Not to mention the Eddie stans act exactly like people in every other fandom do, but most people who like Stranger Things have no idea of what normal fandoms are like and act superior for it too.

And shows, movies, books, fandoms and so on, are a form of escapism for so many people, but instead you can't even enjoy a piece of fanart, or character analysis, or whatever, without stumbling upon someone making fun of others simply for having a different view on something and, way worse, throwing homophobic, racist and ableist insults for this same reason. These are people who have always had everything catered to them and are too stuck in their view of the world to even realize that this show is not for them.

Troy was shoved to the ground and humiliated in front of the whole school for being homophobic and got a broken arm for being ableist. Similarly, Angela got her nose busted for being ableist. This is what the creators of the show think of garbage people like them. And instead we have people like some Mlvn shippers who are openly homophobic, racist and ableist to Bylers, simply because they don't like their little heteronormative, already seen a thousand times before, ship. And then they turn around and throw the senseless ableist and sexist accusations whenever someone doesn't agree with them on Mlvn being endgame or doesn't like them as a ship. This is the literal real life version of Angela making a presentation on Helen Keller, pretending to give a shit about disabled people, while bullying and humiliating El for her disabilities. And this is NOT me saying that you shouldn't ship Mlvn or stuff like that, this is me saying that that part of the fandom is more often than not the problem. And, again, it's because the majority of them are the people who always fit in and always have everything catered to them. It's not a coincidence that they are the ones not willing to even consider other possibilities.

And like, EVERY protagonist in the show is an outcast who doesn't fit in society's standards for one reason or another (let's ignore Steve for a moment). And while people who are like the protagonists get shamed in the fandom, they get rewarded in the show whenever they are themselves and don't try to conform.

The show reached an audience that was never in the mind of the creators, who are so used to always being the target of everything and are actively making the experience worse for everybody. And you just know they're most likely gonna say the dumbest shit when s5 comes out, instead of bringing any good criticism to the table, because they're incapable, or simply REFUSE to see the show and it's themes for what they are meant to

[lunarsilkscreen]

The Person other people think you are

As a child that liked cartoons, video games, and anime, I drew a lot, and a recurring moniker I would use is "Zero". Which was a common Manga/Anime protagonist name at the time.

Some Girl convinced me to change the "z" to an "x" cuz "x" is cooler. I later found out it was likely because she liked Linkin Park, who used 'Xero' as their proto-band-name.

My mother loves that Maxis game [The Sims]. And in it, one day she showed off one of her Sim Characters she had named "Xero", which was a Green Alien woman.

This isn't one of those defining moments the me, not something that "deeply confused younger me and that's why I'm trans".

At the time; I was very offended. She spent my life trying to ensure that I fit in as a normal little boy, something I deeply hated. I had to my hair short, wear boy clothes, just be a boy.

And here; in that moment--she had affirmed my gender without either of us really knowing what that meant.

People see the person you are, but sometimes... They also see the person they want you to be.

This is called the Anima (or the Animus, cuz GENDERED WORDS) the Anima includes this depiction of person the world thinks you should be; the difference between anima/Animus is feminine/masculine....so the separation doesn't matter. Just that; women tend to be stereotype under the Social Anima(expectations) and men tend to be stereotypes under the Social Animus(expectations).

If you're born a men. The Animus expectations is how people see you, and if you're born a women, the Anima is how people tend to see you.

Whatever *that* archetype covers in whatever society you live in, because societies are different.

There's a handful of other archetypes that Jung uses; The Mask(persona), The Shadow(the extra that isn't you), and the True Self(the self without the Anima, Mask, or Shadow.

The Mask is the character we play to the world. This is influenced by anima, the popular culture, our idea of the person we would like to be. But it is more like a tattoo over skin. It's cool, but it's an act.

The shadow is the darkness we cast when the light hits of us, some could call this reputation, or pre-concieved notions.

It isn't real, but it creates this character of who we are based on perceived actions and behavior.

So the Mask, Shadow, and Anima(Armor might be a better modern word) create this other person we are not really. And some people, like trans people, hide their true self behind these things.

Because all too often; our true selves are so... Dissident with societal expectations, that revealing them is akin to [ritual of life].

This isn't *only* true for trans people, but it's the easiest to deacribe.

So Jung, and by extensions; Jordan Peterson acknowledges this concept as a thing that trans people experience. despite online clips often cut to suggest that Trans people are this [Menance].

And they acknowledge it because it's a thing everybody experiences it. But here's the thing; trans people can't take of that armor. They can never take it off, that's what makes us different. Because our Armor may as well be our flesh.

And so this person, this false identity created by the combination of Mask, Armor, and Shadow; this *becomes* the person other people think we are.

And for some god forsaken reason; when it's revealed that it's not true; because it's not true for anybody. This causes a sort of grief among people who know you. Relatives, friends, acquaintances whatever.

This is the reasoning behind "Don't meet your heroes" because they are never the person you think they are. *That* person only really exists on the stage. And is fabricated by articles, PR, costumes, and a necessity to separate work from reality.

We aren't often the person we dress up as for Halloween.

When trans people come out as trans; other people have to experience this ego death from the character they've created about them in their head.

As if they were [Insert Famous Pop Idol here] and recently had several back to back sex scandals.

This is why everybody likes Miku, Miku isn't real and can't hurt you in that way...though... Her studio sure could.

Tyler Durden Voice; "You're not your height. You're not your genitals... You're not your fucking chromosomes."

[mylevisdontfitanymore]

i think a lot about a fat nat. maybe where she has started gaining weight (maybe a lot of weight) and can see her stomach really beginning to grow. stretch marks line her sides and now moving around is getting a little more difficult. well maybe nat decides to lose the weight for whatever reason. maybe she's embarrassed. except now she has loose skin and she hates it. i picture her deciding that she wants to fit back into her skin. now she's back to gaining and soon she has outgrown her old size. maybe she has some support from a feeder.

Same!

I am always thinking about fat Natasha 😮‍💨😮‍💨 there's just something so good about her

And I love your idea!! I think it's a great idea, she probably (because of the way society is 🙃) would feel embarrassed or upset about gaining weight. Like, as everybody knows, society is especially shitty to women that aren't stick thin or who don't have curves in the "right places". And then, the idea of fitting back into her own body, despite what others may say is so sweet.

But... I've been having my own thoughts™️ about fat Natasha recently that I need to get out, so, I'm using your ask as an excuse. I hope that's okay! 😅 Don't think your idea isn't good, because it really really is! I just need an excuse to ramble lmao

Unbeta'd, as always. Warning: for romanogers (Natasha × Steve) belly kink with all-day-stuffing, bloating, tight clothes, dom/sub dynamics (dom Nat/sub Steve), feedee Natasha, feeder Steve, vibrators, etc.

I cannot stop thinking about dom feedee Natasha paired with submissive pre-serum Steve.

Specifically, I've been in the mood for trans Steve lately. Idk why, but, I've been thinking about him 😏

He's a fucking spitfire with everyone but Natasha. He trusts Natasha, he knows she sees him as the man he is and his deeply buried need to submit doesn't change his manhood. He can submit to her and he can submit hard.

Beyond submitting to Natasha, Steve enjoys feeding Natasha - he can't bake or cook for shit - but he will go and get anything she wants or needs. He will order anything. He will drive her to any restaurant and pay for the massive amounts of lavish food she desires, no matter how expensive. He will do anything for her. It's to the point that Natasha will smile wolfishly at him, tell him she's feeling peckish, and instantly Steve is asking what she needs, practically begging to be told so he can bring it to her.

Seemingly with every snack, meal, or dessert he brings her, she becomes plumper. She grows rounder. She turns lazier. She becomes even more demanding, unwilling to do things herself when she could have her good little sub do it for her.

Steve adores these changes.

And Natasha adores them too.

So, as often as they can, they make a day of it. Steve submits and feeds his girlfriend at her beckon, listening to her every order.

In the morning Natasha will pull herself clumsily up into a sitting position, the sheets pool around her, revealing her soft, soft, soft body. Already, she's huffing and puffing some under her body weight, unused to having to haul it around because she has grown so fast. Nat moves (a little inelegantly, thanks to that extra weight 🥵) until her back rests against the headboard. Meanwhile, her belly rests on her soft thighs and her tits rest on top of her belly. She went to bed naked, so she's still naked now.

She is beautiful. Big and beautiful.

This early in the morning, her belly isn't yet taut and hard from being stuffed, although it is still gurgling from all she ate the day before, especially dinner and a few rounds of rich dessert, her body trying to figure out what to do with all that extra food.

Natasha is more of a morning person than Steve, so she waits - smiling to herself, her back to the headboard - until Steve wakes up. He drools a little in his sleep. It's cute.

When Steve finally wakes up, he makes a sleepy noise of interest and presses himself against her plush side eagerly - he knows what they have planned for today and cannot wait. Steve's naked too. Already, he can't help but react to her so soft and fat. His t-dick swelling, growing slick between his legs, as hot blood rushes south. Yes.

Natasha hums, letting him pull himself tighter against her side, enjoying the feeling of her fat against his lean muscle and bone. But, before long she grabs her fat belly and runs her fingers through Steve's short, golden hair with her other hand, "I'm hungry."

Steve is instantly scrambling to get up, he knows that's his cue.

"Wait."

He stops.

"I didn't say you could go yet," she murmurs, she doesn't need to be loud to be heard.

"Yes, right. Y-yeah," he nods, still frozen in place, "'m sorry, 'Tasha."

"It's fine." She pinches his cheek then taps it a little, a mock slap that doesn't even hurt, "I know you're just excited to help me grow."

Steve blushes too hard for just having started. Grow. Yes. He wants her bigger. Please.

"Before you get me my breakfast..." she pauses, "why don't you sit in my lap, hmm?"

Steve nods frantically and squishes himself as close to her as he can, moaning a little at the weight of her belly and tits against him. Plush. Soft.

Fat.

"Good, good boy." She purs, running her hands down his shoulders and back, scratching nails over his skin until he shivers. Eventually, she reaches his ass and pinches him there too. "I know you normally fill me up, but I want you full today too. Can't have you starving all day while you stuff me."

Steve gasps. Shifting in her lap. He's grown even more wet now. God.

Natasha doesn't say anything more, just raises an imposing eyebrow at him.

"Yes, yes please, I- anything you want, I want you to, to, mmm, yes, d-do that-" he stumbles over his words even worse as Natasha runs her fingers between his cheeks, over his asshole, and to his wet entrance. Her fingertips just tease him. Then. She pulls away. Oh, God, he gasps.

She leans over enough to access their bedside table and pulls out one of their vibrators. Steve gasps again, not in complaint but in anticipation. The vibrator is not the biggest one in there but... one that could stay in for a long time. Smooth and just thick enough without being too thick. It's a powerful vibe too. Not one to play around with 🥴

Natasha asks him if he wants it.

Steve does. He really does. His core throbs with want. He wants to be stuffed full like that while he works hard to stuff Natasha with food to her liking. Her command.

Natasha moves forward, pushing them both down onto the bed. Steve under her, herself on top.

Steve moans, flattened under her.

He feels smothered into the bed under her weight.

Quickly, her hands cleverly find his entrance and tease him with the vibrator until he can take it in one smooth, slow, deep slide. She knows he's wet enough and he likes the way the stretch feels. Burning. Obvious.

Oh, oh, ohhh.

Natasha gives him only a minute to process the feeling before digging her hands into his hip and ordering him, "breakfast. I'm hungry, baby." Lifting off of him. Giving him space to clumsily roll off of the bed and go and fetch her too much food, all the while clenching because although he wasn't ordered to not let the toy fall out... he doesn't want to chance disobeying her.

Too much food. Steve fetches her all the food she wants - enough to make multiple trips needed, multiple full breakfast trays.

While he gathers the fixings, Natasha slips into an easy mini-dress. She doesn't bother with a bra, but she does slip on panties. Mostly because she knows it drives Steve crazy to see her panties when her dress starts to slide up as her belly demands more and more space. Also, because she's almost too big for this dress and she feels like growing out of it while wearing it.

Steve delivers breakfast, walking into the bedroom with a tray in his hands. Natasha eats it, sparing just enough food for Steve to have his own breakfast. She tells him exactly what to eat and he does. She tells him when to grind down and when to clench on the toy and he does. He already wants to come but she won't let him.

Not too long after the multi-course breakfast is done, Steve delivers snacks, walking into the bedroom with handfuls of family-sized share bags. Natasha destroys them all. She only starts panting at the tail end. Her capacity never fails to astound Steve. He can't imagine what it feels like for her to be so, so stuffed full. A huge boulder of fat and food attached to her middle. Steve thinks, a little, about grinding into it and has to stop himself. He throbs. He aches. But he can't. Natasha hasn't said so.

Eventually, Steve delivers lunch, walking into the bedroom with another tray. His arms are shaking, he doesn't understand where this is going to go and how it's going to fit in her 🥴. Natasha packs it all away. Jesus. But... as she eats, she turns on the vibrator inside Steve. So, Steve sounds like he's the one struggling. Panting, biting down whimpers. Squirming. Dripping. His connection between pleasing Natasha, feeding Natasha, and his own sexual pleasure is fully reinforced.

Steve brings her more snacks later. And...

By the time dinner comes, Natasha is full.

Full. Full. Full.

Natasha's gut is no longer soft and gurgle-y because it's not stuffed and so hungry. Now, Natasha's gut is rock hard, stuffed taut, and gurgle-y because the food inside her is trying and trying and trying to find new space, knowing that Natasha is not going to stop eating and it should get out of her way.

Steve is different too. He's no longer walking in and out of the bedroom where Natasha is parked, fat and full, on their bed.

He's ordered dinner from Natasha's favorite restaurant and he's holding the bag of it not in his hands but between his teeth. He's holding it in his mouth. Because. He's on his hands and knees.

Crawling.

Steve is crawling now.

He can't fucking stand. His legs are shaking and his head is swimming as he vibrates with arousal from watching Natasha laze about and grow and grow, fuller and fuller, all the while Steve gets to lay by her side like a beloved pet. Steve is also literally vibrating with arousal because he's still got the vibrator in. And the rumbling is controlled by the remote at Natasha's fingertips. On and off. On and off. On on on. Off. On.

Steve has to crawl. He's too strung out. He's dripping. He can hardly contain himself, watching Natasha huff and puff and force down the last of her food. She moans and complains about her skin. It feels so tight. And it's only going to get tighter...

Dinner just came.

She's not letting the food go to waste. She's going to eat it all. And Steve has to rub her tight, full belly for her as she stuffs her face. She would order him to feed her, but the vibrations trembling through him mean he'd spill everywhere anyway. Plus, she jokes that Steve's shaking will be like having a massage chair for her belly rather than her feet. It'll feel good. Steve doesn't need any more encouragement. He wants to get his hands on that belly. Now.

He does. She feels unbelievably good. Hard. Fat. Hot.

Natasha can't even burp anymore. She's so, so full. There's no gas or air. It's an entire ball of food attached to her. Stretching her fat out to look a little less thick. Her stretch marks are even more red than normal under her dress. Straining.

Steve is not painfully full, but he's whining like he is. He is this close to rubbing his t-dick against her taut gut now that he's close enough too. Sitting in what's left of her lap, rubbing her gut. And her gut...

Oh, God.

Steve doesn't understand how she's still squeezed into her mini-dress. She looks like her fat should he popping the seams, spilling out like Pillsbury biscuit dough. How?

Her mini-dress... Steve imagines that the fabric of her dress would feel so nice against him. It would be the perfect type of friction on his t-dick and the soaked surface of his thighs and between his thighs too. 🥴🥵 He can already feel it. It makes his head spin. He barely restrains himself from squeezing her as hard as he can, trying to not spontaneously orgasm right in her lap, completely untouched.

And, fuck, as if reality is bending to the fever-hot thoughts that are rushing through Steve's mind, Natasha's dress is FINALLY rolling up more and more as she stuffs her face. Moaning, groaning, burping as much as she can around the desperate mouthfuls. She's scarfing down like she hasn't seen food in years. Her panties are fully exposed. Steve would be able to see them if he moved his head, looking around - looking under - her massive tummy.

Then there's an inch or two of her gut on display. The dress is so, so tight that the part of her belly that is exposed pushes out a few inches from the part of her gut still constricted. Steve cannot imagine how fucking massive she's going to be once her dress is forced up to her tits, resting just under them. Leaving her gut fully bare.

Natasha sucks down her soda through a straw, gulping, gulping, gulping. It's so much. So much that Steve swears he can see her expanding.

She's making sounds that he's never heard before. It's indescribable. She's clearly overfull and struggling. Pushing her own limits. Steve wants to go back to rubbing her but he's frozen, hands hovering, as her dress rolls up her gut.

He'll be able to rub himself against her taut, bare flesh soon. And she'd get so slick with his wetness, leaking out from around his vibrator. Steve uncontrollably shudders, imagining her breathy, exhausted voice commanding him to completely lick his mess off of the globe of her belly. His slick and his come. Clean it with his tongue. Leave her gut shiny and clean. No hands allowed.

Oh, God.

Steve whines like he's dying. The sound just gets worse - louder - when the dress screams. The seams want to split as Nat keeps pushing herself further and further. Fatter and fatter. They don't split. The dress rolls up faster than Steve could snap his fingers and her gut spills the rest of the way out.

Her gut hangs out.

Tighter than tight. Bright, hot red. Her stretchmarks have little pin-pricks of red dots around them. She is getting more stretch marks. Right now.

She could actually pop.

Fuck.

Natasha moans the way she does when she comes. Ragged. Almost growling. Completely whiped out and satisfied.

Steve can't make a sound. He can't move. He can't breathe. If he does... anything he does... it's going to set him off. He doesn't know if he will explode or if he will come or if there's a difference.

Natasha snaps her greasy fingers and gestures frantically toward her pussy, or, more accurately, she gestures past her gut, "face. Get, unngh, get your face, uh, uh, ah-against my pussy. Lick me. I wanna come. I don't think-I can't move. God."

Steve can do nothing but obey. He wants to lick her. He wants to drink her in. Every fat, stretched-to-the-edge-of-her-capacity inch.

Just as Steve dives in, impatiently pulling her panties to the side, she turns the vibrator on high and permits him to orgasm, touch himself, and even hump the fucking bed, just so long as he doesn't fucking stop eating her out until she tells him to. She wants to come. She wants to come a few times. Helplessly turned on by how huge she has managed to get.

[meanwhileinstasiville]

A word for preparing yourself for all situations

"She bought a several thousand dollar mountain bike in Florida" there are no mountains in Florida; my friend's mother in law way back when.

A woman I worked with forever ago, *dumped some Microsoft stock* to climb mountains in Australia. She's an expert; the best example I can come up with.

Extremely technical decisions happen and it's not something for everybody. Training and conditioning, and equipment choices. So that people who can afford it can show up with gear for ten or twenty different climbs and routes because they treat climbing like a monolith. An ice ax on dirt? Crampons on dirt. Body armor (I didn't know bouldering involved that before) where *any fall is expected to be fatal*. Snow is dry and "it's raining all the time where you're going" etc.

And my mom was a master seamstress; there are a *a lot* of different kinds of stitches. Straight stitch goes a long way for sewing in general. So you *pick* zig zag stitch for something at random because you want to? Stretch of fabric, tension on stitches, stitches per square inch, all these things factor in. Cotton or nylon, acrylic like polyester, blended? A person who "gets the thing that does the best or the most of everything" can't see the decisions. Some very expert decisions in there.

What you need vs what you can use in a pinch is lost on it too.

Whatever the word is for that, I think that's where we're going as a society. A utility belt you wear as you climb into your SUV. A bike, roller blades, and a skateboard "in the back" by the spare. You've got wrenches and stands and a jack and sleeping equipment and medical kits piled up to where you can't see.

I had a veteran try to sell me a combat knife at army surplus (where they'd retired to) on the pretense "what if you encounter a bear?!?!!". An army of one. Me, I asked him for iodine tablets for fresh water "or you could do that...". Settled for his advice that modern "straws" as they call them work remarkably well. And I *really tested this* drinking from puddles of pasture runoff during the dead of summer. Stinks. Water with dissolved solids stinks anyway *but I didn't get sick*. A technical decision. A rattlesnake between me and a water source in the mountains? Combat knife doesn't do much.

Social media is what I'm talking about, where it doesn't sleep and has expert solutions to all situations *at the same time*.

Automatic only driving history. So you (born in a world with google) see that stick shifts are beyond millennials (not all of them). And if it has a stick, it should have a "grabby clutch" like a racecar or something. And you're from automatics. So you, who have gotten your first real car, you can't expect more than a burned out clutch or several. A car that you can't drive for several different reasons; something that a "consumer reports" would taut with a near perfect report card. So I'm wondering what it says about us.

A "gadgetmobile" (don't laugh) is the best fit solution that doesn't exist. An SUV that becomes a sports car that has automatic/manual in case you feel like shifting, self driving *unless* you feel like driving it. Becomes the best on corners after becoming the best on straight stretches. A few really clear ways to describe this problem exist and that cartoon is one of them. And it's not all those things, not at once. The best at turning into a boat *unless* it's driving on ice. Gadgetmobile has no tradeoffs.

[t1oui]

An official introduction to the Galactica wip

Hey everyone! So I've finally gotten my notebook with all the Galactica character & magic system information in it back, which means I can now make an official intro for this wip! I don't know if I'm going to take down the original post yet, but take the information in there with a grain of salt. Enjoy!

In a nutshell....

Galactica is like my tWoA wip in that it takes place in a universe where humanoids live on more planets than just Earth. In Galactica, this is on a smaller scale (for reference, in tWoA, the beings on planets from many solar systems are focused on), with the focus being only on our solar system (known as the Copernican system). The planets are Venus, Mercury, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto, and Dea Tacita. (In this universe, the moons of gas giants are inhabited, and there is a ninth planet which is not a gas giant.) Galactica focuses mostly on the lives of the rulers of these planets/the kingdoms on these planets, particularly the lives of rulers on Earth and Tacita.

Characters & their purposes/roles

The characters that are focused on most are Ayden Kalper, Louis Hynes, Zach & Etta Jettlan, and Jayden Morrown, but there are quite a few more supporting characters.

Ayden Kalper is the king of the only kingdom on Earth not part of the Green Ships, an alliance somewhat like the United Nations. He never wanted to rule Archeon, but now that his dad has suddenly disappeared, he's forced to. Louis Hynes is Ayden's best friend and the general of Archeon's army. He's also my first aroace character. Zachary "Zach" Jettlan has only recently been released from juvie after nearly killing a teacher at his old school in an altercation. No one knows much about him other than the fact that he's Etta's older brother. Rosetta "Etta" Jettlan is a timid person that everybody knows, for whatever reason. They aren't mean to her, exactly, but they definitely pushed her around more than they should've - that is, right up until Zach started going to school with them. Jayden Morrown has been the king of Tacita since his parents died in an incident while returning to their home planet when he was 12. Everyone knows him, but they don't know much.

Some side characters include:

Isabella "Izzie" Raith, Etta's best friend Ada Bell, Archeon School of Magic's star student Willow "Willa" Morrown, Jayden's younger sister Cloud Rooney, another one of Etta and Izzie's friends.

There are a lot of characters listed in my character sheet, and while I have already decided to remove some of them from this story (to give them their own story that they fit into better), I honestly can't remember where most of these characters fit in which means they will most likely be abandoned or repurposed later.

A basic guide to the magic system

In Galactica, there are many different magic types, with angels being the default. Here's a list of all the types below:

→ Angels ↪ Angels are the most basic/common magic type in the Galactica universe. Their color is sky blue. ↪ Izzie and Cloud are both angels. → Demons ↪ Demons are no longer really found outside of Archeon, which is made up by a majority demon population. By now, most demons have had kids with non-demons, making other magic types such as fallen angels. Their color is red. ↪ Ayden is a demon. → Fallen angels ↪ Fallen angels are one of the most common magic types, with one angel and one demon parent. They used to not be accepted by society, but now that they're more common this doesn't really happen. Their color is black. ↪ Louis, Jayden, Willa, and Ada are fallen angels. → Shadows/dark angels ↪ Shadows have largely undocumented powers and are considered dangerous and unpredictable. They have one fallen angel parent and one demon or blue angel parent. Their color is maroon. ↪ Etta and Zach are shadows. → Green angels ↪ Green angels are somewhat rare but harmless people who have power over nature &, usually, animals. (As in they can speak to them, not that they can control them.) Their color is green. → Light angels ↪ Light angels, like green angels, are uncommon but harmless. They have power over light. Their color is yellow. → Blue/dark light angels ↪ Blue (or dark) light angels have powers over light you see at night, such as moon and starlight. They also have control over creatures that emit light, such as fireflies. They are close with a society of light creatures known as the Valo. (Valo means light in Finnish.) → Blue angels ↪ Blue angels are similar to fallen angels, though much more rare. They have one angel and one fallen angel parent. ↪ Etta's mom, Gina, is a blue angel.

(A possible) book one synopsis

On planet Earth, two opposing forces have reigned for as long as anyone can remember: one being the Green Ships, an alliance of hundreds of kingdoms notorious for their hatred of anything evil, and two being the "anything evil" found in the small, secluded kingdom of Archeon. 19-year-old Ayden has never hated his home, exactly, but he's never wanted to rule it. But it's been two months since his dad has disappeared without a trace, and Archeon's people are getting restless. Ayden's their only option, no matter how much he wishes he wasn't. Then, in the last place he expects, he finds a friend: Louis Hynes, a student at the local college in the very much Green Ship owned kingdom of Spry. Louis is normal and completely unlike anyone Ayden's met at the same time - and he might just be the answer to Archeon's unbalanced leadership.

Thanks for reading! This wip definitely has a long way to go before it's an actual story, but I think it has potential, especially if I keep working on it in the background. More coming soon :)

Credits: ⋆ sun divider by @firefly-graphics ⋆ stars & dots divider by @cafekitsune

[wanderinginthestarlight777]

Do What You Love

Do what you love, just for the sake of it. Just because it makes you happy. Not for somebody else, or for attention or appreciation, though its okay if you do it for those purposes. My point is, these days, that's almost always all we ever do. Whenever we indulge in something we love, especially of it's through a social platform, we often find ourselves in a tiring pursuit of likes, or appreciation or recognition of value, and so on. It has become the norm to always be able to derive some sort of benefit- monetary or otherwise, anything that propels you forward in the eyes of the world. I feel that many of us fall into this exhausting trap that eventually takes away from the real reason why you loved doing something in the first place.

Fame, fortune, recognition, acknowledgement in any form, can be so addictive. You can't deny the lure of it. You might find yourself experiencing that sudden thrill, rush, happiness when you receive some sort of acknowledgement for what you do. That's good when it happens. Revel in it, relish it, but don't rely on it. Don't let that ever be the sole reason for you doing what you love. Cause these things are often fleeting. They come and they go. Your happiness takes precedence. So let the main reason of you doing what excites you, whatever lights up your heart, be your happiness itself. Paint the colours you love, sing your heart out, dance until you run out of breath, write like there's no tomorrow. It doesn't have to be neat or perfect. It doesn't have to fit in those ridiculously small boxes that society draws for us. As long as you love it, as long as it has made you happy or relieved you of your feelings in any way, that is all that matters. Don't do it for everybody else. Do it for you. And if you happen to be documenting your journey online, don't worry if you see that your profile is not taking off or doing well in terms of engagement. Keep going, keep posting. The people who truly cherish your work for what it really is will find you in time. It doesn't have to be overnight to be special. Slow and steady is also remarkable. Just enjoy the journey and do it for yourself. You only have one life. Don't waste your time, energy and passion seeking the validation of others. It's your life. Do what you love.

[flameraven]

It's good to broaden your horizons for making a living off art beyond the internet, but I want to offer some words of caution, because not being online doesn't mean The Hustle is any easier. I grew up sitting with my mom while she did art fairs and visited galleries etc, and I myself attempted a career in children's books at one point, as well as doing a lot of anime/comic conventions, before eventually realizing an art career was not for me. -there's a difference between local art fairs and craft fairs. Craft fairs are usually geared towards very cheap purchases - people are not interested in your paintings, even on the low end, they tend to buy soap and candles and things like those cutesy sourdough ornaments that you can personalize with your family member's names. You can make money at them but you need to know the market. I was most successful selling magnets because they're $4 each or 3 for $10 and a lot of parents were willing to buy them for their kids so they felt like they got something. -Art fairs tend to be on the higher end of sales audience, depending on your area. Many of them require people to pay admission ($15-20). Good news: you get a lot more rich people willing to shell out $500, $1000, more to decorate their house. Bad news: art fairs are fucking EXPENSIVE to vend at. You will need to buy a tent, with weights to keep it steady ($1000+), plus walls or other display hardware to hold the art, plus a chair for you/an assistant, at minimum. That's a big investment to start off with. Oh, and if you're doing paintings, you're going to have the cost of framing all of them too so they're ready to display. Booth space for these big fairs also tends to run in the hundreds to $1000+, and you usually have to submit an application to a jury before you can attend. You'll need a car that can carry all that stuff and your art, and you'll need to be able to set all that up on a Friday or Saturday and tear it down again on Sunday. Also, they're generally outside, so you have to deal with weather. You might bake outside in summer heat, or have to sit through rain and wind, both of which will probably mean a lot less people show up to buy stuff. Art fairs also tend to be on the more conservative, fine art side, so whether they are a good fit for you or not tends to depend a lot on what kind of art you're making and what the local area is like. You can make some really good money at art/craft fairs, but you also have to be prepared for the absolutely miserable feeling of sitting there for an entire two days and selling basically nothing, knowing that all the money you sank into booth fees, travel, etc was wasted. It's a real crap shoot. The artists who make a career of it tend to do it full time, which means a LOT of travel, driving all over the country to go to the different fairs. It's not for everybody.

-Galleries DO take a cut, and it's usually higher than you think. 25-30% is common. I've seen up to 50%. Generally I just mark up the price from whatever I was asking in order to cover that, but that also means you may be less likely to sell in the first place. Whether you sell or not is a crap shoot, again. Depends a lot on the gallery and the local market, but many times you won't sell anything. You're also, again, going to have the cost of framing your art to make it gallery-ready. If you do oils or acrylics, there are ready made frames that are reasonably cheap, but if you need glass or a custom size, you'll have to go to a framer, and that's probably going to cost at least $150-200 per piece. -Children's books! This is also a specific career that is hard to get into. Everybody and their mom thinks they can illustrate kid's books, but it's a specific art that can be hard to get established in. The advice is usually to join your local chapter of SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writer's and Illustrators) which hosts meetings and seminars to help you network and give tips/portfolio reviews. From there you're interacting with the publishing business. If you follow any authors I'm sure you know how fun and uncomplicated that industry is. /sarcasm If you get a contract for a children's book, you'll be paid an advance. Or part of an advance. And then you have X period of time to do the illustrations for the book, with rounds of revision. When I was looking about 10 years ago, an advance could be anywhere from $10,000-30,000 total, which sounds great until you realize that 10-15% of that is gonna go to your agent if you have one (you should have one) and probably another 20-30% needs to be set aside for taxes, and also the remainder needs to last you for 6 months or a year, however long you have. You may need to do multiple books simultaneously to pay the bills-- Xiran Jay Zhao has a great TikTok on how difficult that can be. TL;DR - art is a super hard thing to make a career out of no matter how you do it, so get a day job and use that to pay your bills while doing art on the side until you can make reliable income from it. (You may never make more than spending money from it.)

I think at some point in time we need to sit down and start explaining to artist who want to make a career out of art that there are FAR more options than just "living off of commissions" and "posting my art online and praying I get paid for it".

[moontheoretist]

Some random thoughts about ending of BNHA chapter 264.

The last few panels of newest BNHA chapter shows very well how much detached from reality heroes are... and as much as I love Hawks, he is one of those heroes as well. He cannot possibly understand the pain and sadness of being rejected by the society, the struggle to get by every day in a place which hates your existence so much it wants to erase who you truly are... that’s why when he says to Twice “I will help you start over” it is so insensitive and insulting to Twice, as Hawks just proposed him to erase himself, to be someone who society wants him to become and forget about everything he suffered through. That’s also why it activated Sad Man’s Parade, as Twice due to his golden heart understands the most how much wronged they had been by the society and how much they deserve to get their happiness in the way which doesn’t try to make them part of the system which wronged them, which doesn’t make them remake themselves for everybody else’s good. It really hits very close to home for people like me, who hear we are broken when we do not act/feel as society wants, people who aren’t like the majority, but are expected to be, blend in and forget who we truly are for the sake of not burdening others with our weirdness.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

i KNOW the clothes-swapping bit in episode 4 is like So Funny and an iconic blackbonnet moment but like. i really don't think ed was just innocently goofing off when he asked stede to switch clothes

yes ed is having a lot of fun that episode, exploring the ship and talking with the crew of The Revenge and generally goofing off, but also... he is holding everyone hostage. when they ask if they're gonna be allowed to live, he doesn't reassure them or anything, he lets izzy go back to yelling and ivan go back to beating up pete.

in episode 4, ed's just met stede. he's still operating in gritty pirate world. he's letting himself relax a bit bc stede is so ridiculous and fascinating to him, but also bc stede is not a threat. he knows the crew is amateur and that their captain doesn't have a clue. he's having fun hanging out with stede and whatnot, but he's still thinking like a pirate.

he's not making friends, he's just in varying stages of fucking everyone over.

blackbeard wants what stede bonnet has (wealth, luxury, comfort), and blackbeard takes whatever he wants. he's playing nice for now, because he's tired of the violence and the hypermasculine posturing, but imo he fully plans to do One Last Bit Of Violent Piracy (killing stede and taking his identity) before leaving it all behind

he puts on stede's clothes to see if they fit. he offers to teach stede piracy in return for lessons in being a gentleman so he can fit into high society once he takes stede's identity. does ed want to kill stede? fuck no! there's a reason that the last shot of the episode is ed turning away from izzy and his face immediately falling into exhaustion. he's so fucking tired of being a pirate. but at this point, it's all he knows, and it doesn't matter if hanging out with stede is the most fun ed's had in forever. however much he likes stede, he still only knows one way of doing things.

(and then he falls in love with stede and whoops there goes that plan)

also imo none of this is a particularly deep or insightful take, but i feel like the general fandom attitude towards episode 4 is "love at first sight!!" "ed asking who mary is bc he wants to know if this feverish handsome pirate is single" "if i had a lame boyfriend i would hype him up so much here comes the specialest boy everybody better scream and clap or im blowing this whole place up" vibes, which honestly isn't wrong but like. i personally find it so much more interesting if you pair all that energy with this undercurrent of "ed is 100% planning to take stede's identity"

[cc-morgan]

basil :o for all characters

basil :   does your muse have a love - hate relationship with anyone or anything ?

⚜️ Informal content for a small audience | Please don’t reblog ⚜️

Oh thanks! I'll talk about Rook & Sparrow, Morgan the minor god, Vera the queen/goddess, and Eustace the hero.

Rook and Sparrow are basically mouthpieces for the 'order vs. freedom' struggle, with Rook being more comfortable with order & Sparrow being more comfortable with freedom. Naturally, they're both wide open to the negative side of an unbalanced approach. Rook has trouble thinking for himself, & gets judgmental easily. Sparrow has trouble organizing his life, feeling grounded, or fitting in, anywhere. So they don't hate themselves or their chosen 'side,' but there's a lot of "me @ me why are you like this" when they have to navigate these real consequences.

Readmore for length

Morgan has a love/hate relationship with their role as the God of the Forgotten. They help people because they sympathize with the logic like, "If there's a god & they can just do whatever and they actually care, why did they let bad things happen to me." They're trying to connect, trying to be responsible, trying to participate as a reasonable member of society. But you can't do that as a 'god' without mortals jumping to conclusions and creating a religion around it. Morgan doesn't dislike their followers or think they're childish or foolish, but Morgan is an atheist and would rather people just take the support & follow their own path. And it's just awkward when people who don't know you create a mythos about you and get strong opinions about who you are and what you like and what you want. I feel like Morgan keeps trying to communicate with their followers & gets mixed results. The reason Morgan stays so hidden is bc they're really introverted & they absolutely need boundaries between having a quiet personal life & fixing peoples' problems. And when they're not the only 'god' out there, & definitely not the strongest, they could invite some danger by threatening to shake things up too much.

Vera has entirely too much on her plate. I still have to decide if there are other kingdoms (kind of need those for plotlines about armies and war). But within her own kingdom, she's basically one of the only ones who is sincerely taking responsibility for anything, and she's becoming the one letting everybody down. Can't protect her kids, can't protect her people, married an asshole to get support she needs to help her people & he's just making everything worse... she really gets a good look at the dark side of trying to take care of people, and that's why she eventually just leaves.

Eustace likes being treated like the hero who's going to save everyone, but the faction that's telling him about the quest seems to run on shallow, inauthentic politics. The kingdom fell, and anybody will tell you that the former king was a terrible person & that it's great that he's gone. But there's a lot of gross stuff about the culture that king created that's still very much alive in this faction's leadership, and they don't seem to see it. There are quite a number of lurking alienated rebels who feel that this isn't what they fought for. So Eustace knows he can win a trophy, he just doesn't know right away what it will be worth.

[calledchaos]

b-but being masculine isn't a trait inherent to being male you know... this kinda gives off the vibe that every masculine butch is potentially trans? kinda tricky..... like, there's no way of telling how it "feels" to be a man or a woman. you said that you didn't feel FEMININE, which is also not an exclusive female trait. women can be masculine too. it must be awful being made to feel uncomfortable in your own body by being naturally rough and masculine in a social environment that looks down at women who have these traits. same goes for gay men who are extremely feminine. masculine, feminine, soft, rough, that's all just gender talk. you felt masculine, but not all men you see are masculine. so how can you tell this apart from a "feeling"? i've been on TRA circles since forever and im just starting to get so, so confused, and i don't mean to be disrespectful, but it's hard to stand by something when you're not sure of what you're even standing for anymore. im still on because of people close to me, even when i started questioning some things, but things i was told just don't make sense at the end of the day. too many contradictions. my brain can't keep up. any of it, and you bet this is gonna have backlash if any of my friends (which 2 are trans) found out that im going off the rails. wat th fuck is going oooon

ok sorry im rambling now i just needed to vent im sry :(

I never said I realized I'm trans because I was always masculine, I just pointed out it as an example of one of the reasons why I started questioning myself. It was just a very VERY summarized way to answer that other question. When I tell you I cannot detail it to you what I felt I mean it. Realizing I was trans was the most complex thing I've ever experienced and I believe it must be pretty subjective for each individual, because you're totally right: being feminine or masculine doesn't mean you're trans. And you don't need to want to fit into a cisgender default to be trans. Many trans women don't feel the need to shave off their beard or have a boob job; just like many trans man don't have top surgery or take hormones. Not to mention non binary people who do whatever and are still nb. People just want to be who they are and what's comfortable for me might not be for another trans dude and that's okay, as long as everybody's happy.

Idk why you're questioning it so much, honestly. I think I'll repeat myself, but that's pretty much where I'm at: I don't care about labels or coming up with reasons why people are they way they are. I think we should just do whatever makes us feel good and not worry so much about what it means.

If you're a butch lesbian (or not even a lesbian, just butch) masculine as fuck and you see yourself as a woman... Good. Your physical appearance doesn't dictates who you are, how you feel does.

Also, careful when you say "it must be awful being made to feel uncomfortable in your own body", because it sounds like you believe being trans revolves around wanting to please other people's idea of what we should be. My transition has absolutely nothing to do with anybody else, I couldn't care less if society thinks I should be tall, strong and whatever other stereotype they put on cis men. Everything I've ever changed in my body was for myself. The way you put it, you invalidate the trans experience. And if you're not trans and don't understand it, it's okay, just don't assume we're any kinda way for any kinda reason.