#glad not to deal with that tbh

[aprillikesthings]

There’s that line from Save the Cat, “some creatures are destined only for destruction,” yeah?

It’s from Romans 9:22, and there’s a great meta essay about She-Ra and allusions to Christianity and especially the Calvinism Nate grew up with that I reblogged here.

And just now I was like, wait, fuck, and went on a website with the lectionary* the Episcopal church uses and looked it up, and to my UTTER RELIEF it’s not ever used as a Sunday reading.

There’s never going to be some random-ass Sunday where the Epistle is gonna make me think about Catra falling to her (temporary) death lol

Whew.

(*lectionary: like a lot of denominations, which bits of the Bible get read out loud any given Sunday is on a pre-determined calendar, more info here)

[angronsjewelbeetle]

Sangiee 🪿🪿

[megpricephotography]

1 picture a month... Flynn in 2023!

Happy New Year!!

Wishing all our Tumblr friends the best for 2024!

[yume-fanfare]

it's great that enstars is taking such a clear anti-ai position and educating their players about it, but at the same time it sucks that makoto had to be the plot device to introduce the topic again

[thecouchhhhhh]

Redraw of an art I did almost 3 years ago! I’m happy to see how much I’ve improved.

Comparison with the previous art and different colors below

Jan 2021 ~ July 2021 ~ March 2024

Different colors

[uygfiug]

sometimes my parents make me want to commit violent crimes

[alukaforyou]

oh em gee the weather is getting warmer can i finally start wearing my spring-y sunglasses????

& on an unrelated note, recently i discovered Thee most delightful little thing, not to get too much into it 👉👈 but its related to one of my fave anime boys💗 and i've been soooo happeeeee like im suuuper glad i didnt kms b4 when i was depresso 🤪 b.c life is sooooo much better now and i cant imagine having missed out on this experience uwu 💕

[coredrill]

oh also headsup to everyone that i will be TRYING to see if i can’t catch the new bravern ep earlier than i usually do tomorrow so y’know. beware the Posts

[ingravinoveritas]

Crowley and Aziraphale always came off as romantic to me; both in the book and in the show. They have so much more chemistry than anyone else. And I always second guess me reading their relationship as romantic when I see the general public's takes. So then I go back over like, okay, if this was a man and a woman, how would this read. They do couple things all the time. They use pet names. The show leans more into pining but in the book it feels like they're already married. Both the narrator and other characters refer to them as a couple and its never contradicted. Is that subtext or just plain text. I wouldn't call it queerbaiting, but queercoding or representation doesn't feel quite right either. Are we reading too much into it or is media literacy dead.

Hi there! Thank you for sharing these thoughts in response to my post from the other day. What you've mentioned here (how this would read if it was a man and a woman) is something I have thought about as well--both in terms of Aziraphale/Crowley and Michael/David, as I have shipped them outside of the show for some time now, and especially given the increasingly fuzzy line between them and the characters (which both Michael and David themselves have talked about in multiple interviews).

I think what we're seeing is neither queerbaiting nor queercoding/representation, but instead a sort of incongruity between what was put on the printed page when Good Omens was first published and what was brought to life on screen when it came to TV. What I mean by that is I often see a lot of people point to the line "gayer than a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide" as proof (almost typed "poof" there--hello, Freudian slip...) that Neil/Terry meant for the characters (specifically Aziraphale) to be gay. But from what Neil has said, the main intention here was for this to be a play on words--so, "gay" as in homosexual, but also "gay" as in happy, which was the original meaning of the term. I'm then led to think that in the minds of two cishet men in the late 1980s, "gayness" conjured a particular, unserious image, which they then brought into the writing.

Fast-forward to thirty years later, and you have Good Omens finally becoming a television show. Terry Pratchett (Gnu) had sadly left us, and so the task fell to Neil to write the screenplay and honor Terry's last wish by faithfully adapting the story. And while Neil wisely decided to cast Michael for his goodness and angelic-like nature, what I think he didn't count on was Michael's long-held beliefs and ideas about the character of Aziraphale and how he would portray him, or his profound penchant for playing numerous queer characters over the last several decades. The gayness of Aziraphale on the written page was something that Neil could control, but he couldn't control the gayness of Aziraphale as interpreted by Michael.

So that led to Neil having to address some things that I don't think he was quite prepared to address, both about the show and inside himself. Mainly, that if we are to extrapolate that what we see in season 1 is a reflection (to some degree, anyway) of Neil's views on relationships, a straight couple with little to no chemistry can jump into bed together without any hesitation, but a gay couple with tremendous chemistry and who share a deep and profound connection can't express that, either physically or by simply saying "I love you."

Much discussion has been made about how it's not necessary for someone to say "I love you" to convey such a sentiment. But what I've noticed missing from this discourse is the age/experience of anyone who has been in a relationship where that wasn't said (or conveyed) by one partner and how painful that was for the other partner. And as I mentioned in my other post, even once gay/queer people started to exist in media, they still weren't allowed to fall in love. (The phrase "the love that dare not speak its name" even came into being because of this taboo, for crying out loud.)

So when we then look at the countless tweets from Neil about how Good Omens is a love story while considering the vastly different ways in which that love is regarded when it's straight vs. when it's gay, his words start to ring somewhat hollow. And if he repeatedly has to emphasize that something is a love story, then maybe it isn't coming across as a love story in the way he thinks it is. Maybe Neil being more comfortable with casual, meaningless sex than a deep commitment speaks to a larger issue on his part. Or maybe Neil was fine with the abstract idea of a gay love story, but suddenly less comfortable with the concrete, three-dimensional reality of it.

If I had to use a word to describe it, then, from a media/cultural standpoint, I think I would call it "queerplaying," which I would define as roleplaying queerness on a surface level without actually delving into the complexity and messiness of what it actually means to be a queer/non-cishet human being. (To be clear, I am applying this to the writing/the original GO text, not to what Michael and David ultimately brought to the roles as actors.)

I hope this all makes sense. Again, the second season could come out tomorrow/Friday and prove me completely wrong about everything I've just said here, which would be wonderful. But I'm glad that other people have felt similarly about what we saw (or didn't see) in the first season, and the disconnect between the perceptions of fans/the perception of the public vs. Neil's authorial intent. Thanks for writing in! x

[atsu-i]

[megaclaudiolis]

柄本 佑 || 「光る君へ」 (2024) · 第三十四回 「目覚め」 ​​​​​​

[toastsnaffler]

anyway yeah relevant to that post abt being deaf/hoh and ppl excluding u from conversation bc of it (even unintentionally), that's smth that's been really deeply bothering me lately bc there are a few ppl I routinely have to deal with who do it a lot and it Pisses Me The Fuck Off I've lost all patience w them. giving up and calling it ableism and walking out idc anymore 🚶‍♂️

[monstriiss]

.

[yakamozarda]

It is also funny how im taking meds to lower my T while thinking about if i wanna go on T in the future. Amazing amazing

[ereh-emanresu-tresni]

.

[sibillascribbles08]

20

20. A Massage

Donatello wasn't always the best when it came to his posture. Sometimes he got a little too invested in his work, too focused, and he forgot that sitting properly or, at the very least, having a good stretch every thirty minutes would save you a lot of pain later.

It's something Raph lectured all of them for often, but Donatello got i the most. His shell allowed for more flexibility, but that often meant him sitting in ways he shouldn't be for too long.

The bright side was, Raph taught himself a lot of massage therapy and taught his siblings plenty of tricks too. Donatello knew how to stretch his shoulders, his back, and if it got bad enough he could always turn to his siblings for some additional help.

It was things like that, that made him very aware when it was happening to someone else. For example, this was the fourth time in the span of seven minutes that Jase leaned back in his computer chair, bending his arms back to arch his shoulders, and then slump back onto his desk. His shoulders were tense, raised almost all the way to his jaw, and his hands hovered way too high off the keyboard which they always did when he typed that fast.

Donatello put away his own laptop and climbed off Jase's bed to step over and look at what he was working on.

Code, not surprising, but it did still sometimes surprise Donatello just how fast his friend could churn it out considering he preferred the engineering aspect to robotics over the programming. It just helped to be familiar with both, he supposed.

"Need to take a break?" Donatello offered.

"What for?" Jase said, just as he leaned back once again, like he was trying so hard to make something in his spine pop but it wouldn't.

"Your shoulders hurt." Donatello crossed his arms.

Jase blinked, fingers going still. "Wh-- well it's not that bad. I'm almost done with this."

"Uh huh." Donatello straightened up. "I know you're usually the one to try and lecture me about my health, but you're posture is going to wreck your shoulders." He physically tugged the chair away from the desk. "Go lay down for a minute. Do you have any massage oils in your bathroom?"

"Wh-- Massage WHAT?"

Donatello jumped a bit from the volume of Jase's voice. He glanced back at his friend. Were his cheeks going red?

"Massage oils? You know? To help with a massage?"

"Y-you don't need to do that." Ah, the nervous Jase stutter. Been a while since that came around. "I mean that's... a little personal right?"

Donatello tilted his head. "No? My brothers and I do it for each other all the time, keeps us healthy and in shape." He held up a finger and smiled. "Besides, it's just the shoulders, maybe a bit of the neck and upper back? If I do anything you really can't stand then I can stop."

"I..." Jase's gaze darted around before it settled on the floor, his toe digging into the plush rug. "G-guess we could try."

"Great." Donatello clapped his hands. "So... massage oils?"

"Not sure we have anything, but you're welcome to look for anything that might work."

"Great. Get on the bed then and take your shirt off."

"Huh?" Jase screeched again.

Donatello adjusted his headphones to get rid of the ringing in his ears. "Relax. Do you expect me to rub your shoulders through your shirt? That's not going to work at all. I'll be right back."

He headed out of Jase's bedroom and to the upstairs bathroom. Honestly, what had the guy so nervous? Maybe he'd just never gotten a massage before and didn't know what to expect. No worries. Donatello certainly knew the difference between a light massage and a deep tissue one. They could start easy and get more intense if needed.

Shame they didn't have any of Raph's extra equipment here--some of which Donatello built based on what he could figure out from devices they couldn't get hold of. Whatever, he could make do.

Once in the bathroom he began to dig through the cabinet. Sometimes it surprised him the amount of things in the bathroom considering Jase and his father were the only ones living here. Facial cleansers, lotions, a few tubes of eyeliner and even one for mascara, dry shampoo, a lot of wrapped mini soaps taken from hotels, over a dozen small tubes of toothpaste, and of course a handful of scented lotions. Lotion wasn't ideal, more on the greasy than the oily side--yes there was a difference.

But opening the cabinet over the toilet yielded better results. Among the bath soaps, salt scrubs, and even an odd container of crayons he found a half used bottle of massage oil. The light layer of dust indicated it hadn't been used recently, but the stuff lasted. Just his luck.

Donatello went back to the bedroom and found Jase on the bed, face down, shirtless. A muffled scream hummed through the room, the pillow probably absorbing most of it.

"Wow, does it hurt that bad?" Donatello stepped closer and started taking off his gloves.

Jase spoke, but once again it was barely audible.

"What was that?"

"Nothing." Jase muttered after turning his head. Yeesh, his face was still red. Was he starting to feel sick?

"Alright." Donatello cracked his knuckles and put the open bottle on the nightstand. "Let's see what the damage is."

The second he put his hands on Jase's shoulders, his entire body went rigid.

"Jase," Donatello gave a soft laugh. "Relax. I promise this isn't going to be as bad as you think."

He muttered something else into the pillow, but bit by bit the tension left his shoulders.

Well, sort of. Pressing his palms and thumbs along the muscles running from the neck down to the shoulder blades, it was easy to notice just how tight everything was. You could probably break a rock on some of these.

Donatello lingered for a second, not just to figure out where everything was, but studying Jase's skin. What were all these odd colored spots on his shoulders? Not freckles, he knew what those looked like. They almost seemed to be scars of some kind.

Whatever, he wouldn't ask.

"Got my work cut out for me it seems." Donatello let go to grab some oil. "But no worries. I'll start simple. If it hurts some, that's normal. If it hurts a lot then tell me to stop." He opened the bottle and flinched as the strong aromas hit his nose. Peppermint was good for sore muscles but god did it reek when it was this concentrated.

They didn't usually use scented oils at home. With how their skin was built it never got absorbed the same way, so there wasn't much point. Oil just helped reduce friction.

He kept himself from gagging as he dumped some on his hand and put the bottle back. The scent kept burning his nose, so he held his breath now and then and got started.

The first few minutes were fine, gentle rubs to ease some of the tension, but when he pressed down harder to start forcing the knot out, he could feel Jase holding his breath.

"Does that hurt really bad?" Donatello decided to check in, in case his friend was trying to tough it out.

Jase turned his head to speak. "Little bit, almost burning kind of?"

Donatello hummed his acknowledgement. He went a little bit lighter for the first few rounds, focusing on one side before going to the other.

He kept it up for about thirty minutes, not wanting to overdo it. He finished it off with a few more gentle rubs and pulled his hands away, keeping them a fair distance from himself to avoid the smell or spreading the oil anywhere else on his person.

"There, how's that?" He asked with a smirk.

At first, no response.

"Jase?"

"Huh?" His friend half snapped up, as if coming out of a daze. "Wh..."

Donatello snorted. "Not falling asleep are we?"

"Ugh just, zoning out." He sat up all the way, rubbing his eyes.

"Don't feel bad, Mikey always falls asleep during long sessions. I've timed it before. Our record so far is ten minutes and twenty three seconds."

Jase hummed, then smiled, still rubbing his eyes before passing them over his now very messy hair. He looked so different without his glasses. And he looked sleepy and--

Adorable.

Donatello's heart twisted in his chest so fast it forced him to clear his throat. "Anyway, I'm going to wash my hands. Be back in a minute."

It took a few rounds to get all the oil off his hands--damn this hand soap for not being strong enough. By the time he got back to the bedroom he found Jase still on the bed, laying down, evidently he'd just fallen asleep.

Donatello smiled and tugged the blankets free on the opposite side of the bed before tossing them over his friend. Work shopping was done for the evening it seemed. He grabbed the stack of sticky notes on his desk to leave a good bye message. He glanced over at Jase as he did, watching him grab the loose covers and curl up tighter.

Then he glanced back at the sticky note, realizing he'd drawn a few hearts at the bottom.

Donatello cursed and ripped it off, chucking it in the trash before starting over.

Just what was he doing?