#finally speaking my truth

[areggos-art-dump]

hello cicero dress nation

[po3tictrag3dy]

any fob album past folie a deux is fucking ass and you know it

[lilacerull0]

you need to believe in the inherent beauty and significance of sideburns. this is perhaps the only thing capable of saving us.

[sodaspringz]

one thing about me is that i am just a boy who loves to have her tits out

[cumberbitchhhh]

forever and always (piano version) > forever and always (og)

the lakes (og) > the lakes (album version)

[misasuns]

[anna-scribbles]

❌i hate adrien agreste❌

[justicewasserved]

so I see a lot of people going "hahaha wild that Jon thinks everything (such as the apocalypse) is his fault when it REALLY isn't" and they would be correct but I keep thinking about why it is that he's like that. I think a lot of people simply put it down to "that's just how he is as a person" when I really think it's more of a combination between personality, how he was brought up (not that well) and the web.

in mag 81 he's never that specific about what his grandmother was like, and is very clearly trying to make her sound better than she actually is. but to me it sounds like she instilled a feeling that any and all problems that occurred throughout his childhood was his fault, or made worse by him. I'm thinking something like "I'm feeling so bad right now because I have to pick you up from school every day." and if she did do this, clearly it worked because he is, in his statement as an adult, retroactively pinning the blame for all his childhood problems on himself for being a "deeply annoying child". I really think that it's not normal to think you are to blame for someone else bullying you and that it was probably caused by his grandmother making him think he caused everyone's problems.

the mr spider event shocked him in a lot of ways but one of the main things that shook him was that he felt like he could've prevented what happened and he could've saved the guy's life. obviously this is ridiculous - it's clear to us that the web pulled him down the exact path which would lead someone else to interrupt his reading and get captured themselves. however Jon does not know this and clearly thinks he should've done better. I think that this, along with his upbringing, started the distinct way of thinking that he has where he decides that everything is his fault.

the web knew this would happen and then utilises it to make sure his crushing sense of responsibility causes him to get all 14 marks and then to, unwillingly, play his part in removing the fears from the universe.

[chiefcroissantdeanbanana]

“I don’t like Seamavbo at all!” I say, then I suddenly tripped and fell to the ground, as multiple pictures of Seamavbo fall out of my bag. “Wait!” I frantically cried out. “These aren’t mine!” I quickly reached to grab my pictures. "Don't look!"

[kibutsulove]

(character on the right is by @mugentakeda ))

When you and your arch nemesis are too exhausted to be hateful to each other so you both just sit in silence

[bookshelfdreams]

do it. gimme the Izzy straight-coded meta 👀

I feel like I need to preface this by saying that Actually, Izzy Is Straightcoded would be the inflammatory clickbait title I'd give this if it were written to draw traffic & ad revenue to my shitty website. So don't take that term too seriously.

There has been a lot of ink spilled about Izzy thinking he's in a story where one can only be subtextually queer. Some even by yours truly, but the more I think about it, the less sense it makes. What would be the purpose of queercoding Izzy?

In general, villains* aren't queercoded to show that men being attracted to other men is bad. It's often the outcome; but it's not why the trope exists. It exists because cishet people tend to be (and are encouraged to be) profoundly uncomfortable with gender nonconformity, and so, making a character gnc becomes a quick and easy way to make him appear twisted and untrustworthy. If he** can't even obey the fundamental rules of his own gender (rules that are inherent and unchangeable!) what other rules does he disobey?

Or: If a man is insufficiently masculine, he can't be trusted to have morals. The villain isn't gnc because that's an evil trait to have; rather, the gender nonconformity is a symptom of his evilness. Being evil is what enables him to embrace his feminine side, and embracing his feminine side is what others him and marks him as a villain.

This only really works when he's contrasted with a hero (or heroine) who is Doing Gender Correctly. The villain is foul to highlight how good the hero is. The Hero will be honest and straightforward, brave, physically powerful; the Queercoded Villain treacherous, cowardly, and physically weak. The hero is a Proper Man, a Good Person. The villain an Improper Man, and therefore, a Bad Person.

Of course ofmd fundamentally rejects this. The shorthand wouldn't work, because ofmd simply doesn't think effeminacy is creepy. It's uninterested in moralizing self-expression; it just lets people be how they are. There's a wide range of expressions of masculinity on this show, and none of it is inherently bad. People are allowed to be hypermasculine, flamboyant, and anything inbetween, can express their gender in whatever manner they want, and it's all fine - as long as they are authentic about it. Be however you are, but be yourself, and this is what Izzy fails at. The repression marks him as a villain. The strict adherence to what he thinks a Real Man Pirate ought to be like. He's very preoccupied with enforcing a traditional (and toxic) masculinity on himself and others. It's no coincidence the characters he antagonizes the most - Stede and Lucius - are also the most effeminate ones. And I know, I know anglophones have a much more casual relationship to twat and cunt, those don't nearly feel as uncomfortable for y'all as they do for me, so I don't want to assign too much significance here, but he is the only character who constantly uses this kind of language, and also the one who uses the most gender&sexuality based slurs (as far as I remember).

All of this while being clearly, obviously queer himself! I do not feel like I need to explain this; his flustered reaction when Lucius asks him if he's ever been sketched speaks for itself. The fact that he meets Stede and immediately slices his shirt off of him, speaks for itself. And so on.

Izzy isn't straightcoded in the sense that the story wants us to believe he's exclusively attracted to women. Much like a queercoded villain doesn't need to be shown to be attracted to men (and can even be shown to be attracted exclusively to women!) to still be queercoded. He's straightcoded in the sense that he's a stand-in for restrictive and toxic gender roles that society enforces on people. He buys into the idea that there's a way of Doing Gender Wrong, and this is presented as a tragic character flaw. Something he has to overcome to be able to do the thing that actually marks a hero in this show: express himself authentically.

Part of why I found his death so moving is because it enables him to set right the toxicity he spread. His rehabilitation arc was about himself; about finally allowing himself to be, accepting love, accepting community. His death was about taking responsibility. About fully recognizing the hurt he caused. Looking death in the face enables him to finally abandon the last shreds of that toxicity, to apologize and be granted forgiveness. In the end, he was not beyond saving, and the harm he has done will be healed.

*Izzy is introduced as an antagonist to both Stede and the central romance of this romcom. I'm not gonna debate this; if you disagree, fine, but you clearly have such a fundamentally wrong different view of the show that it's pointless for us to try and convince each other.

**of course Queercoded Female Villains exist s well, but they are a whole different can of worms and less relevant to this discussion

[branules]

Why do you like aeriseph, sorry if this comes off as rude but I'm generally not too involved in any fandoms so I can't figure out for myself why ppl like this that's just my dumbass lmao

ok i've sat on this one for like a week debating if i should answer or not but sure. i'll preface this by saying that there is no canonical basis for aeriseph in ffvii. like i can't stress enough how much i am making shit up because i like to have fun. but anyway.

the short answer is:

1. sephiroth and aerith are my two favorite fictional characters. 2. i like to draw my two favorite characters lezzing out, because i am a lesbian, and because my sephiroth is transfem. it makes me smile.

as for the longer answer:

i like how much aerith and sephiroth parallel and contrast each other. i like the idea of aerith of having a secret affair with the evil dead woman she is duty-bound to save the world from. not to mention this evil dead woman's ties to zack and the incident that took him from her. i like the idea of the planet's steward and calamity's child going against their natures because they can't resist each other, and it becomes haunting and tragic knowing aerith's eventual fate and the sort of eternal damnation that waits for sephiroth afterwards for doing something so unforgivable, considering she goes from godhood to immortal planet parasite unable to pass on. i find it soooo compelling to think that despite their feelings for each other, aerith ultimately loved the planet and her friends more, enough to do everything in her power to stop sephiroth with Holy, and that sephiroth chose an extraterrestrial brainworm masquerading as a mother over a kind-hearted woman who offered her genuine love. i like the idea of aerith drawing out all the human parts of sephiroth that sephiroth tried so hard to exorcise herself of. i could go on about this for forever but basically i just like doomed yuri.

some necessary addendums:

first, a lot of people like to imagine aerith and sephiroth as siblings. that's fine and cute and i totally get it, but that's not what i'm trying to do. i don't interact with a lot of aerith and sephiroth content that views them with that angle, even if it's cute, precisely because i don't want to cross those wires or make anyone uncomfortable thinking i'm trying to come at this from an incest or underage angle.

second, i want to add that i really don't fw the other aeriseph content i've seen out there lol. i just think i'm into aeriseph for fundamentally different reasons, considering i have no desire to depict them as a het pairing or create gooner noncon content and the like. it isn't that i'm better than anyone, i just don't want to be associated with what goes on in that pairing tag on ao3, and i can't blame anyone who doesn't like aeriseph for that very same reason. i have yet to see someone go about aeriseph in the same l way as i do (sighhhhhh </3) so until then i'm just going to continue playing with my barbie dolls in my locked ivory tower. i am delusional but i am free. hope this helps <3

[katalist]

I had some thoughts on the finale.

[shima-draws]

What the FUCK Furina’s backstory is so fucking sad??? The absolute TORTURE she’s been through. Shit dude,

[primeillust]

mouse girl from wuwa i love you

[holocene-sims]

next // previous

september 1, 2021 6:15 p.m. basil's restaurant

ten minutes ago

[ktmurphy86] i might be a few minutes late, but i'm almost there.

grant scrolls through the metric ton of messages piling up in his notifications until he reaches the very end, and with a lump in his throat, opens it to respond. or like it. or send a thumbs up like a cool cucumber.

baby steps, he tells himself. one task at a time. the responses to all the messages from family, friends, and former co-workers inquiring about his exam results will come later.

just meet your sister first and–

“you seem different.”

he nearly jumps out of his skin as kelly’s high-pitched voice supersedes his thoughts.

“hopefully in a good way,” grant replies, looking up as he slides his phone off the table and into his back pocket.

it’s been nearly a decade since their last encounter, and he’d still recognize her from a mile away.

kelly’s hair is dyed platinum blonde like always, but now it’s twice as long, and her natural brunette locks–peeking through at the root–are streaked through with shocks of silver. her ice blue eyes are just as piercing, only underlined with tiny wrinkles. she’s still thin, too, but rather rail thin; her sweater dress seems to wear her more than she wears it.

“yes, in a good way.” kelly pulls out the chair opposite him and sits down with her arms wrapped across her waist. the candle between them casts a strange yellow glow over her wiry features. “you look better, much healthier.”

“uh, thank you. you look great as well.”

she half-smiles. “it’s just hair dye and botox. i look old. i didn’t inherit the ageless ó súilleabháin genes, so i'm going grey very early like all the callahans. by the way, you weren’t waiting long, were you?”

“oh, no, no, not at all. i have my car, but i didn’t want to deal with traffic, so i took the subway, but then that also kind of took a while. i pretty much just got here.”

“okay, good.” kelly pauses for a moment, her lips pursed. “well. i thought about what i'd say to you the whole ride over here, and now it’s all gone.”

for a moment, they exchange no other words. they drown in the silence, staring into each other’s eyes and into the past.

she’s surprisingly warm, all things considered. the last time they’d been in the same room–

grant is distracted again from his thoughts, watching as a strange sadness falls across her face. she reaches up at the collar of her dress and tug at it like it’s choking her, and her eyes then drift away to stare at an indistinct point on the table between them.

“it’s weird to see you again,” she admits suddenly, her gaze still fixated far away from him, “i didn’t think you’d message me back a few months ago.”

“to be honest, i didn’t mean to. i replied by accident one night and then just decided to follow through with talking to you. and now i'm here. yeah. um, anyway, why’d you reach out to me?”

“i was on facebook a couple months ago, and one of those ‘look at what you posted this day years ago’ things came up. it was a picture aunt bridget tagged us all in. it was the whole family at one of your high school hockey games, i think your freshman year state championship game.” kelly shrugs. “i didn’t even know any of those pictures were still there. that was a real surprise, given i unfriended and blocked everyone i'm related to on there when i left home after high school.”

grant nods. “a picture of me probably very sweaty and gross with helmet hair made you want to reach out to me?”

“not quite. my kids were with me at the time. we were in an airport coming back from vacation, so they were bored and nosy. ‘is that you? who are all these people?’ i was then immediately caught in my lie; i'd been telling them their whole lives i had no family left, and their only extended family was their dad’s parents.”

“yikes. i'm sure that was awkward.”

“it was,” kelly says plainly, “my oldest kids weren’t happy with the news. they’ve been, um, a little jealous of their friends for having lots of cousins and big family events for the holidays, and it didn’t go over well when they figured out they do have a big family. besides, they rightfully did see it as a betrayal of their trust. if mom lied once, what else might mom be lying about? the tooth fairy? santa claus? the easter bunny? yes, those, too. sorry. also, if you didn’t already guess based on my new last name, i married jack, and…”

“i figured you married him. you’d already been together a really long time even when i last saw you. we all grew up together, and you guys were middle school and high school sweethearts and all.”

“he’s a good guy. as i was about to say, though, jack is very partial to you. he always liked you. he thought you were a sweet kid, and he won’t let me forget what happened between us. so, after the facebook incident, he encouraged me to contact you, if only for the kids’ sake. after living in a huge family, i don’t think it’s all that fantastic, but he has a bit of a chip on his shoulder being an only child, and he doesn’t want the kids to have no one besides his parents in their lives. don’t get me wrong; i will never ever get involved in callahan or ó súilleabháin bullshit again, but i will consider reconnecting with you and letting you meet the kids.”

grant bites into his lip as that nagging anxious lump returns to his throat. “well, why me? why bother getting involved with any of us again after everything? even if it is for your kids, what's your motivation?"

kelly outright ignores his question. “tell me what you’ve been up to for the last, what, eight years? nine years? i don’t remember how long it’s been. you're at least talking to our dad, i hear.”

"how do you know that?"

"my in-laws may not know anything else about you these days, but they've seen you with him around our hometown."