#extremely nervous about it

[slashbaby22]

sometimes i wanna post myself but i’m so nervous about it

[victarin]

part 1/2(?)

oughhughgghgjghghghhg this has just been . Sitting around ….. no guarantee it’ll be finished but i figured i might as well post what i have since the rest of this might be a couple more pages

[luna-lovegreat]

I want. Four to get appreciation. Because

Four gave a ton of unnoticed help when Twilight was injured

The fight with Wild was difficult, and I know we're all concerned about his negative view of the shadow crystal

But Four did something that no one else really thought of to help- He took care of Twi's stuff

From the beginning he told Twilight to not worry about them

So Four took care of pretty much everything but the others (that Sky and Wars handled)

He took care of Epona

Which is so very important- he took care of Twilight's horse. After her arrival at the stable Four followed up on her

And for Epona, a horse so attached to her human, having some company can help so much for reassurance

He took care of Twilight's stuff

He got Twi's shield- his bags and equipment, and organized it into one place

And he was worried. He obviously found the shadow crystal while handling Twi's stuff, but his negative reactions to it were out of concern.

Also- because of his placement in this scene

I'm fairly convinced Four was ready to start cooking before Wild showed up (since he's beside the counter with food supplies). At the very least he had the basket of fruit out for everyone -but he was literally standing with food behind him- he thought of everything

And he did housekeeping!

Wars payed for the inn, so Four took care of the inn

Realistically these boys were probably not too concerned with tidyness. Four got all of Twi's things on one table, and took care of the room they stayed in

Organizing tables and Twi's things, having food supplies ready, and opening the curtains- overall he was the one tidying up the inn

Four helped in a huge way! He took care of Twi's horse (Epona is so important), his equipment and shield and bag, as well as the other rooms in the inn

Four filled in all the little tasks that others didn't think of. He helped in ways that were needed, but not obvious

There's a lot of problems with the shadow crystal and with Wild, and I don't know what's gonna happen in the future

But don't forget this- don't forget that Four was one who stepped up in an almost unnoticeable way

Don't forget that when everyone was barely holding it together, Four visited Twilight's horse and took care of his things

No matter what develops in the future- this amount of care shown is important ya know?

.

Art and comic from Jojo @linkeduniverse au :)))

[leonardcohenofficial]

i’m moving into my new apartment this weekend and will be starting anew back in new england. it’ll be my first time living without a roommate and first time living outside of student housing. i have never not been a student and so moving to a new place and having to make friends without the built in structure of school is something that i am scared about. i am also more broadly scared about starting a new life so far away from all my friends and connections i’ve made on the left coast. but even though i am scared i am excited to meet the people at the school i’ll be working at and to make my new living space wholly mine and be the best instructor for my new students as i can be

[irawhiti]

kia ora! i would like to suggest the coining of a term that would hopefully help a large demographic of mostly-forgotten-about māori to connect with each other and share our experiences to feel less alone, congregate around a concept regardless of country of origin and upbringing, and organise as activists.

i politely ask as many people to spread this as possible to help indigenous people organise with each other and to get the largest amount of interactions possible.

anyway, with all that being said,

i would like to coin the term "ngāti rangiātea" for māori who do not know their iwi to use.

this is based on the well known whakataukī/proverb, "i will never be lost, for i am a seed which was sown from rangiātea." i chose this whakataukī due to the spiritual significance of rangiātea as a place in māori culture, as well as to emphasise that no matter how it feels, we are not lost, we can find ourselves in each other, we can experience strength and self-realisation, and that we will exist with mana and without whakamā as rightful tangata whenua.

i've put my reasoning, personal experiences shaping my viewpoints on the matter, and various statistics under the cut to make this post reblog-friendly and i would suggest fellow māori read it regardless of whether or not they know their iwi. i also ask for the opinions of other māori, ESPECIALLY AND SPECIFICALLY other māori who do not know their iwi. in fact, i politely ask māori to share this with their whānau and people in general to share this with māori they know, especially any they know who do not know their iwi. a wide reach is what i am going for to get the largest amount of voices, critiques, and opinions on the topic and to avoid this from just becoming a very small thing that stays in an online echo-chamber.

to begin, the 2018 aotearoan census shows that, of the 775,836 people identifying as māori in aotearoa, roughly 17% are unable to identify their iwi in the census. this has gone up by 1% since 2006, showing that we are a considerably stable percentage of people. along with this, there are more than 170,000 māori living in australia and, while there are no solid statistics, there are an estimated 8,000 māori living in the UK, 3,500 in the US, 2,500 in canada, and 8,000 in other countries where there's no option for māori or any polynesians on the census.

this number adds up to 967,816 total māori and while there's no census in these countries asking for your iwi, i would go as far as to assume that there's a larger number of diaspora māori who are no longer able to identify their iwi than there are in aotearoa. of course, this is just speculation based on my lived experiences and conversations with other diaspora māori, however even assuming that it's the exact same amount globally, 17%, this is roughly 164,532 māori worldwide who do not know their iwi. nearly one in five māori do not know their iwi.

regardless of the specific statistics, the hard fact here is that there is a large percentage of māori who are unsure of their iwi for whatever reason. it's extremely easy to feel unsure of yourself, lost, disconnected, and uncomfortable speaking on issues regarding te ao māori when you're unsure of your iwi (or your hapū, whānau, waka, or anything else, but there is heavy emphasis on the iwi) and it's very easy for whakamā to take hold, especially when many māori who can recite their whakapapa aren't very polite or understanding about your situation to say the least.

and there are a lot of those people.

unfortunately, i've spoken to many māori who are of the opinion that not knowing your iwi due to colonialism, assimilation, forced disconnection, etc. means that you should not, cannot, call yourself māori. this is a disgusting viewpoint to have and in my opinion it spits on the fundamental concepts of māori culture and worldviews. thankfully this is a small yet vocal group of people, but even so, they add to the collective experience that makes it extremely difficult to navigate a world while full of whakamā and internalised racism. it can feel like there's no space for you, no term you can use, nobody you can relate to, no mana you can claim, nothing. when you cannot recite your whakapapa, it can feel like there's a part of you that's fundamentally missing.

as well as this, even when people mean well, when you are in this situation, you're usually told to just do some genealogy work, do some research, ask your family what they know. sometimes, these steps are simply not possible. other times, we've already done everything suggested over and over and over again. we're generally told "oh, that sucks, but one day you'll find out, keep looking!" in response to our lack of iwi. sure, they mean well, but i have never once been told anything along the lines of "that's okay, some things are lost to time through no fault of your own. don't beat yourself up over something your whānau had to hide to survive, what you do now to uphold your family's mana, what you do know about your whānau, and who you ultimately become is more important than what you no longer know."

and why? why is it seen as shameful to say matter-of-factly that i don't know my iwi? i'm not looking for comfort, i'm not looking to be told that, aww, there there, i'll find it eventually. i'm stating a fact. i do not need pity, i need my mana and voice to be respected.

this concept is what i want to emphasise by coining ngāti rangiātea. some things are lost to time, but we aren't. our loss of knowledge does not mean that we are unworthy of being māori, that we are unworthy of basic human respect. it does not mean that we have lost everything that our whānau knows. it is a scar, a reminder of what colonisation took from us, yes, but we cannot allow it to continue to be an open bleeding wound. we will not be lost to time and we should not bow our heads and act like we do not exist, that we're inconvenient, that we damage the "image" that māori have. in fact, we are an important aspect of māori culture and ignoring our existence does harm to everybody.

and of course we can't speak on some topics regarding te ao māori. this seems to be a topic that comes up frequently as a strawman. yes, there are some topics that would be irresponsible to speak on when we have no experience with them. this doesn't mean we can't speak on anything. having a collective identity, an "iwi" to congregate around even just politically, would help us speak on topics that we are more qualified to speak on than māori with knowledge of their iwi (yes, those topics exist, shockingly.)

we will never be lost, for we are a seed sown in rangiātea.

by identifying as ngāti rangiātea, i wish to emphasise that it's important to accept that sometimes, someone just won't be able to find every piece of information. loss of family knowledge is literally one of the primary goals of forced assimilation! we all went through it as colonised peoples, why must we continue to attach shame to those of us who were forced to obfuscate our history to keep our children alive? it's not a personal flaw, it's not a dirty secret, it's a fact of life that must not continue to be kept quiet out of shame, and the sooner we can focus on healing this subsection of our community, the stronger māori as a whole will become.

so, this is why i'd like to coin a term for māori who are unsure of their iwi. this is what i intend to achieve by giving us a name, our own "iwi" to congregate around, to identify ourselves as. instead of hanging my head and saying "i'm not sure what my iwi is, i'm sorry", instead of feeling inclined to beg like a dog to be treated with respect, i would like to look people in the eye and tell them that i am ngāti rangiātea. i would like this label to be synonymous with strength and not shame, that i refuse to let my whakamā swallow me, that i am just as worthy of calling myself māori as anyone else, that there are many others in my iwi (or lack thereof). i would like other people to have that as well and i would like those like me to feel less lost when all they've been told is "well, you'll learn your iwi eventually!" as if that's going to help someone feel better if they can't find their iwi.

and even if a person finds their iwi eventually, it's absolutely disgraceful that people are treated that they're not allowed to access many basic parts of te ao māori until they discover something they are not even 100% destined to find. i think that this view contributes to a lot of people who eventually find their iwi becoming unnecessarily arrogant towards those who truly cannot find this information, that they're just not putting enough effort in. if a person finds their iwi after identifying as ngāti rangiātea, they are fully welcome to continue to identify as this political label along with the iwi they now know they belong to as i wish for it to be a term that describes your experiences, your upbringing, and your community. you don't suddenly lose your whānau or your lived experience when you discover your whakapapa.

finally, this hopefully goes without saying, but ngāti rangiātea is not meant to function as a real existing iwi does. the term will hopefully be used as a way to identify yourself and other people and organise but i don't expect nor do i want this to be treated like a coordinated iwi. i expect and hope for this to be a decentralised way of identifying and experiencing community to make it easier to organise as a people. think of this the way the terms ngāti kangaru, ngāti rānara, ngāti tūmatauenga etc. are used.

-----

so, the tl;dr is that i feel like coining a name for a phenomenon that nearly one in five of all māori experience in quiet shame, to make it easier for us to congregate and find each other, speak on our experiences, organise as activists, feel less lost, and ultimately give us the ability to regain our mana as a community with shared goals and experiences. i have spoken to many māori who feel this way and my suggestion for this term is ngāti rangiātea, to show homage to the well known whakataukī, "i will never be lost, for i am a seed sown from rangiātea", to give us a community to work with, and to give us an "iwi" to list when asked instead of fumbling for words and feeling whakamā.

i would like to take the emphasis off of constantly looking to the future for what you may or may not even find with this identity. we are not broken, we are not lost, for we are seeds sown in ngāti rangiātea.

tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou katoa, and if you got this far, thank you for reading.

[medecineformelancholy]

[mysticalcats]

fellas. my friends said they ACTUALLY want to watch cats 2019 with me and i was SHOCKED because like. who would. want to do that. i am delighted. HOWEVER it will take everything in me to not pause it and clarify every five minutes about my opinions on the movie

[fistfuloflightning]

some sketches for an old au of mine, where Maeglin survives Gondolin and flees from Morgoth’s forces hunting him. He has a run in with the Feanorians in one of the elven cities and is recognized as an Angband thrall/spy. To save his own life, he bargains with his ability to recreate Angrist and to share what plans of Morgoth’s he’d been privy to.

Vibes partly inspired by this track from Rurouni Kenshin

[deoidesign]

.

[pixelatedraindrops]

RAINCODE SICKFIC FINALE (SPOILERS)

My awaited finale to my RainCode Sickfics of the Heart Series is finally done at last!! This took me a couple of months to put together but I figured since I mentioned it months before and delayed it, I had to get it done as my next project. It's the MakoYuma sickfic where Yuma takes care of a seriously ill Makoto.

This fanfic is officially my longest RainCode fic to date, even beating HIWTHI's word length, so make sure to read it only if you have time! It's the final sequel to that fic as well.

Be Warned: This fic is on the angsty/extreme side with a few trigger warnings. Such as Vomiting, Psychological Trauma and Implied Suicide. Please take caution/care if you read!

__

Also yes! This is the second commission I received from FTAngel! (if I'm gonna commission someone for official looking work, then I'll ask for both my targets getting cared for hehe :3) This illustrates a scene toward the end of Chapter 7 (the fic will feature it as well)

There are actually a few people I'd like to shout out/credit for this fanfic's creation. So thank you all for unknowingly inspiring me ^-^

@gardenofskeletonss

Your art and thoughts of Makoto's past as a test subject were very helpful fodder to make this fic super angsty and tie to how much this poor thing has likely suffered. Helped me write down some good dialogue for the hallucinations and freakouts in the delirium stage. So Thank you for that!

@alfiely-art

Your small fic where Makoto age regresses when he got stressed gave me some good thoughts for writing Makoto's delirious behavior. Although I'm not a huge fan of age regression, reducing Makoto to a vulnerable and needy child-like state when super ill was a lot of fun! I love the idea of him being reduced to that since he never could be a child (and he is 3 freaking years old lmao)

@shiut

Those sprite edits you made really fueled my juices to continue wiring this fic. Having a picture in my head of what a vulnerable Makoto looked like was such an inspiration boost so thank you for taking the time to make those edits! I hope you don't mind me using some of them in the fic's 5th Chapter. Also your theory and thoughts of homunculi not being able to die from illness was briefly mentioned as well.

@draconicsparkle

Thank you for being my beta reader. I usually don't trust others to read my work but given how well your reading does with the community and in general, as well as you being a Makoto superfan, your encouragement really helped me feel more confident in continuing and getting this done. Thank you so much again.

With that out of the way, I hope you all enjoy the story!! I will still write more sickfics for RainCode, but this is the final one that I consider to be canon/post canon.

So I hope it delivers well!

Eat up RainCode and MakoYuma fans!

Hope the meal is to your liking~ ^-^ ♡

[skunkes]

i have soooo much more i cld say abt him, and have explored more thru other doodles, but quick summary of talon's whole deal, which is subject to change still as he's only almost 2 yrs old as an oc

[beanghostprincess]

Sanji snapping at his dearest most beloved Nami-swan just because they don't know where Usopp is and he's worried sick makes my mind go to places I didn't know it could

[aeb-art]

cringe is dead or whatever so… here's a super rough comic about geo getting smooched at a new year's eve party o7 (the mall toons of course belong to @8um8le)

happy new year, go kiss a robot xoxo

[fleouriarts]

yet another person has fallen victim to my furry beam... ericdoa is now in the hmfcu (hivemind furry cinematic universe) as a ring-tailed lemur. i was so stumped on what to make him and then i realized i've never given someone a lemur sona or even made a lemur oc despite really liking them. i had to remedy that

also when i asked people if they had ideas for his sona literally everyone said 'make him something tiny with huge eyes'. lemurs are small enough and their eyes are pretty striking. works for me

originally finished 4-18-2024

[anotherpapercut]

today a 7 year old at work asked me if I was a boy or a girl and I said I'm actually neither and one of the other kids said "so you're nothing???" and I went "yep I'm nothing. isn't that crazy?" and I heard my coworker snort lmao

[smoocheys]

hi i need to be insane for a moment (its art/a drawing i promise)

smile. nsfw link of course. nutsack preview and commentary.