#i know i don't usually share things

[when-the-music-fades]

This is one of the few videos I took because I wanted to be present in the moment as much as I could, so my phone was in the back pocket of my jeans most of the time.

[barghest-land]

drawings from paleo expedition to dagestan, done right on the trip. sometimes messy when it was cold and rainy, but i won't correct it. i think it's cool to leave it just the way it was done, and not retouch it after. there will be more drawings later, but those will be done from home

[pixiemage]

Holy crap I completely forgot I attempted to download the entire Unus Annus channel right before it got deleted. I just found an old hard drive in my desk I forgot I even had, and like - dude. I have no idea how many videos are on here but it HAS to be in the triple digits, including thumbnails. This is friggin' insane.

[saradiation]

Here's something a little different today as I tried to draw my fiancé ❤️ I’m really struggling to draw real life people in general so it ended up being not super accurate haha but he still liked it! 🫶😊

[imerian]

I have a thought that is nagging me and i hope very much that I'm wrong but it's still there

The thought is that lately loscar mentions feels kinda pr? I'm not sure how to describe it but it feels like teams saw how positive people react to them mentioning eachother and went "hey can you do this a bit more? I think crowd gonna eat this shit up"

Like I HOPE that I'm wrong but it has a bit of a feeling to it lately

[datastate]

thank you scalpho for tagging me in wip wednesday!! apologies it took so long, but i appreciate it very much 🫶 i also have no idea how to do these bwehaha

here is a sneak preview of the "deliver us from evil" prologue!

The sunrise is beautiful. Somber darkness bleeds through to reveal a mellow orange in the skies above. The frosted mountains peer down upon the sleeping city nestled in its valley. Its presence blends this newfound light with a gentle blue hue, finally bringing life to these muted layers of snow. How peaceful it seems. Each role is fulfilled with such grace, nearly untouched by human turmoil. The morning wind bites. Its teeth fiercely graze Kai’s cheeks. Every inhale aggravates his scarred throat, still sorely scraping against his lungs after sprinting to the Chidouin residence. Tending to the family within had allowed him a brief reprieve, but standing in the crisp air again lights the tender wicks aflame. Once the door behind him opens, a familiar stride hits the wooden patio and echoes through the hollow floor beneath—for as deliberate as it appears, Kai notes a slight weight upon the right leg. A hand suddenly meets his shoulder, and only then does he glance beside himself. Master Chidouin settles at his left side, finally resting his briefcase before the stairs. With his hand free, Hikari pulls out a cigarette pack and takes one for himself, offering another for his assistant. Shaking his head, Kai instead asks: “Is Atsuko ready?” “Just about,” and the words scarcely leave his lips when he ignites the lighter. “She’ll be alright,” Kai promises, tentatively raising his hand to rest upon his elder’s—firmly clasped upon his shoulder, as though he fears to lose his support. Ever slightly, Kai inclines his head Hikari’s direction. “In a half hour alone, she has regained her strength.” Hikari exhales, letting the smoke trail off in a bitter whisper. The acrid taste stings Kai’s tongue, though he quickly suppresses the rising cough. It disperses into the cold dawn, its source clear as the day to come: this is the second seizure Atsuko has had within four days, meaning they cannot hold off on their intended appointment with Asunaro any longer. It is only natural for Hikari to rely on this habit more than before, even if it betrays the unspoken worry eating away at him. The sight is a painful one, knowing aloud the most he’ll ever allow is: “I know.” Though the phrase exists as an effort to reassure, those few words plant an inexorable dread in Kai’s chest. Even so, when Hikari lets go of his hand to bring him into a half-hug, Kai finds it difficult to cling to anything but the warmth of his embrace. “Asunaro’s got it handled.” As if an ember has broken from his hearth, it burns upon Kai’s chest with abrupt guilt. His fists curl around the railing.

i am evidently extremely normal about their interactions few and far between. one of the only chapters that hikari is still alive...

in any case! i'm tagging (no pressure) @its-captain-sir , @dyke-mecha , @corvidcrowned , @starrycluster , @logicroute , @room-of-lies , @strawberryjamsara , @riggedbones , @azurehaiku , @aforgottenballad , and @aueua if you'd like to! along with anyone else who wants to do this <3 (it'd probably be best to make your own post though, so this doesn't get too long :D)

[icewindandboringhorror]

boy in silly sitting positions compilation

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

This is not prepared at all, so it's likely going to be messier than usual, but I was in the shower earlier thinking about the Golden Girls (as one does) and I drew a couple of conclusions on the topic of how many children does Blanche actually have? that I wanted to share with you all.

So, first of all, let me sum up the controversy. The issue lies with one of Blanche's statements in S3E3 Bringing Up Baby, when she's trying to convince Dorothy to keep the Mercedes she bought with the money they'll supposedly get after Baby's death:

"I want that car, Dorothy. I will give you anything. [...] I'll give you one of my sons. I have given this a lot of thought. I have had four kids, I have never had a Mercedes."

Ok, everything tracks so far. Blanche has had four kids, some of which are sons. We meet her two daughters, Janet and Rebecca, a few times during the series, so the natural conclusion is that Blanche has four kids, two sons and two daughters.

Which is great, except... her next line in S3E3 is this:

"What do you say? Which one do you want? Biff, Doug, Skippy? No, don't take Skippy, he's got asthma."

She names a Biff, a Doug, and a Skippy, so... three sons. Which, in addition to the two daughters we see in the show, makes for a grand total of five kids. Huh.

Alright, we know that Blanche wasn't the best mother ever, but I find it hard to believe that she forgot how many children she has, so: what's going on here? The obvious explanation is, as always, that this is a continuity error (although it's a really egregious one!), but you folks know I prefer to find a Watsonian explanation wherever I can, so let's see if we can figure out anything interesting.

One thing that struck me when I first realized this discrepancy is her use of the words 'I have had four kids'. Not I have, I have had. Why does she use the past tense here? The sentence flows better with it, but it doesn't make a lot of sense in-universe -- unless you think that she's using 'to have a child' to mean 'to bear a child'. If that's the case, then what she's saying translates to 'I have physically given birth to four kids, I have never had a Mercedes.'

I'm sure I don't have to point out the implications of this, do I? If the number of kids Blanche has given birth to is four, but her total number of kids is five, then that means that one of her kids is not hers in the strictly physical sense, i.e. one of Blanche's kids is adopted. This would solve the discrepancy without breaking the canon elsewhere (as far as I can tell, at least).

For a while, this idea remained in the back of my head to examine at a later date, because it still has a number of issues to work through. For one, why would Blanche (and supposedly George) adopt a child? They had kids of their own apparently without any issues -- why adopt another child, instead of, well... making another child, if they wanted one more? I guess it's possible that fertility issues might have arisen at some point, but that seems unlikely for a number of reasons; that kind of problem is generally genetic in nature, and it tends to be diagnosed upon first try, not after four successful pregnancies. So, then... why?

I was stuck on this point for a long while, until I suddenly remembered this conversation between Blanche and Virginia, her younger sister, during S5E11 Ebb Tide:

"I remember when you were 16 and didn't come home for Father's Day." "I was away at school!" "Oh, yes. The Good Samaritan Academy for the Knocked-Up. Two, four, six, eight, all us girls are three months late."

It seems Virginia got into a spot of trouble when she was 16, and was away 'at school' for a while to take care of it. While this might imply that she was sent away to have an abortion, there's also space to hypothesize that she was sent away to carry her pregnancy to term and actually have a baby to then give out to adoption. If this is the case... I wonder if this baby is the one that Blanche and George adopted?

While an adoption seems a bit out of character for young!Blanche (to me, at least: she wasn't interested in her kids, why would she agree to adopt another one?), I think there's some space to consider it. For one, George might have convinced her! We don't know enough about the man to draw clear conclusions, but he did send money to the one child he had out of matrimony (see S5E18 An Illegitimate Concern), so maybe he feels more responsible towards kids near him than Blanche did -- and, well, if he'd asked, Blanche would have agreed immediately, of course. I feel like Big Daddy might have also played a part in this scenario: he could have wanted to keep the child in the family (a Hollingsworth is still a Hollingsworth!), and asked the youngest married couple among his children to take on the responsibility, to shield Virginia from the shame.

Note that this theory has a few issues anyway. For one, while Virginia is Blanche's junior, according to Wikipedia she's only one year her junior, which would put Blanche at 17 when all this happened -- and we know she met and married George much later, when she was already a university student (see S6E9 Mrs George Devereaux). However, I can't find any confirmation for this difference in age in the show itself, so I feel like the hypothesis still deserves some consideration.

As for which of Blanche's children is adopted, well... we can for sure rule out the boys, since she mentions them all by name in S3E3. This leaves her two daughters, Janet and Rebecca. All throughout the series Blanche has a rocky and painful relationship with Janet, even more than she has with the rest of her children:

I would love to have a chance to raise David. I might make up for the mess I made with Janet. [S1E6 On Golden Girls]

Well, honey, I really do want to see you. I think we have a lot to talk about, Janet. I've been thinking a lot about you, lately. [S2E16 And Then There Was One]

"I just talked to my daughter, Janet, and she and my granddaughter, Sarah, are coming to visit in a couple of days. Oh, I've never been so happy!" "Janet? Isn't she the daughter who hates you?" "[...] She doesn't really hate me, Sophia. We just don't see eye to eye." [S7E23 Home Again, Rose: Part 1]

As for Rebecca, while we know they stopped talking for a few years due to a disagreement, she seems remarkably closer to her:

We were always so much alike, and so close, just like Siamese twins. [...] I have missed her. She's always been my favourite. [S3E14 Blanche's Little Girl]

Although Rebecca herself seems to have a different perception on their relationship:

You're not happy, Mama. You're doing it again, you're telling me how to live! [...] Nothing's ever enough for you. I had to be the prettiest, I had to be the most popular, I had to be the brightest... [S3E14 Blanche's Little Girl]

I think there's two possible theories here, neither of which paints Blanche in a good light (but hey, we love these characters because of their qualities as well as their faults, don't we?). If Janet is the child she adopted, I think it's possible she might have been especially neglectful towards her (especially in her first few years); she might have taken her frustration with being convinced to adopt her out on her, as a lack of affection when compared to her other kids. This would explain why the relationship between them is so fraught (certain wounds last a lifetime, I'm afraid).

If Rebecca is the child she adopted, on the other hand, she might have wanted to overcompensate for her abandonment and sort of one-up Virginia ('see, how well I can take care of your daughter? aren't I the better mom?'). She might have showered her with affection (and with expectations, judging from what Rebecca says!) to the detriment of her other kids, which would explain the issues in her relationship with Janet as well.

I don't know. It's obviously very clear that, for all her faults, Blanche adores her children and is deeply pained by her mistakes as a mother; she often expresses regret for her actions and wishes she'd been a better mother:

I realized, too late, that I'd put myself ahead of my children. I've never made up all the time I didn't spend with them. [...] deep down, I wish you were really mine. So I could try again with what I now know. [S2E16 And Then There Was One]

For all that might have happened in the past, it's evident that Blanche loves all her children equally and considers all of them her own, so she's clearly gotten over any issues she might have had -- but that doesn't excuse her past actions, of course.

There's a whole lot that could be said about Blanche's approach to motherhood, how it connects to the way her parents treated her as a child and to her own internal issues, but as for the question of how many children she has, I feel like this is a satisfying possible answer. It's not airtight by any means, and I'm sure there's other ways to explain the discrepancy (they might have adopted a child from George's side of the family, for one, which would change a lot of dynamics); this is just the one that occurred to me. As always, I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts, so do let me know your ideas about all this!

[do-you-know-this-queer-character]

Do you know these queer characters?

Pyra & Mythra are Polyamorous and WLW and both use she/her pronouns!

[miodiodavinci]

I made a Vocaloid channel but I'm having trouble getting views. I like making covers for fun but I wish I could get more than a handful of views, especially since I haven't even gotten 5 on my latest ones. I use Vocaloid 6, which may be the problem since not many people talk much about it as much as the older versions

Would you have any advice as to what I can do?

m m m m m , , , , , , i feel like it's hard to say—back in the day when i was doing UTAU work, most of the interaction i got with my work was from my friends from UTAForum. we all sort of just shared our work with each other and supported one another doing our fun little hobby. though the sort of forum culture that spawned that sort of friend circle has kind of disappeared by this point , , , , ,

but honestly, even still—find folks whose work you like and get involved!! share your work on other sites and shout out people you like!! support the folks around you and establish yourself as part of a community

(of course like. don't treat it as a transactional thing. if there's one way to ensure No One interacts with your work it's to. comment on people's things or shout people out and then get passive aggressive expecting a response back. doesn't work like that. you support people because you love them and their work—not because you want something in return.)

but even more than that, honestly just keep doing what you do and the love in your work will come across in heaps and bounds, and someone will be bound to listen. people also tend to get interested the more you put your own spin on something, whether it's creating your own PVs, adding your own harmonies, sharing some of your files, or linking multiple covers together as part of a kind of overarching story. if you make it yours, it'll be yours for good.

like, at the end of the day we can all agree that views are just a number on a screen and are kind of meaningless and no one should base their worth on them, but also yeah it kind of wears you down after a while to keep sharing things you've put a lot of love and effort into with no response.

i'd just like to encourage you not to lose your passion for it—views or not, there's a lot to be gain by pursuing something you love. your VOCALOID endeavors are only just beginning, and who knows where you'll end up ! ! ! ! take the journey as far as it'll take you, and have fun all the while ! ! ! ! ! ! !

also send me your work i want to listen 👁 👁

[birlwrites]

one of the things that i've accomplished due to the low barrier to entry in writing fanfiction is writing novel-length stories as a matter of course. like, i used to think of writing a book as this massive, monumental task - and in some ways, it is! but in other ways, it's still just a story. and it feels much more approachable to me now that i've done it multiple times, posting chapter by chapter because that's something you can do really easily with fanfiction. i didn't go into it believing i could do it - i found out that i could by just giving it a try and seeing what resulted.

there's also a certain wild creativity you can find on ao3, the result of people just doing whatever they feel like doing - sometimes it results in incoherence, sometimes in incomprehensibility, sometimes it falls flat, but there's so much variety in storytelling forms, if you look for it. people will deep-dive into anything. 'marketability' is laughably far from being a concern. what is a story, anyway? people will strip the idea down to its bare bones and rebuild it in infinite ways if they have the space. that space doesn't exist in barnes & noble.

i'm a firm believer that you should read the types of stories you want to write, and that you should also read broadly, because that's how you avoid getting stuck recycling the same handful of ideas over and over. i think the same thing applies to writing. write what you want to write - but also, experiment. try other things, even if they seem silly or impractical or irrelevant, even if you don't think they will work. even if you don't think you can make them work.

if you don't feel like you have creative freedom, then you'll fall back on the tried-and-true. you'll recycle. it won't feel like your voice, because it's been filtered through layers upon layers of 'acceptable' and 'marketable' and 'reasonable' and 'broadly appealing.' the only way to understand your own creative limits is by testing them, constantly. you can't truly believe that you can write whatever you want until you prove it to yourself.

and even if your voice turns out to be acceptable and marketable and reasonable and broadly appealing after all - if you try all sorts of things and find out that's where your creativity flows best - you still know it's yours. you still know you're writing the truest possible expression of your own creative abilities. you owe it to yourself to find out what it feels like to write unfettered.

write something weird.

[sskk-manifesto]

!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lususnatura]

okay, buttt blamore purposely trying to find ways to be kind of 'over-the-top' and/or inventive with its bone manipulation is something that i live for, if i'm being honest + this is because it ABSOLUTELY suits his personality. like imagine another muse having no freaking idea what blamore's doing during a fight because he threw a bone seemingly nowhere near them... but then the bone implodes and turns into shrapnel.

and it does this with the objective of either injuring this muse heavily or killing them — as it can do this with multiple bones at a time, after all, which would send a bunch of sharp and dense bone fragments flying across the room. like OMG. i can't say that that wouldn't be extra, but it also has the capacity to be really kind of scary to have to try to dodge LOL. and that definitely makes blamore more of a threat. for, i feel like bone manipulation is already such an underrated power as it is, but with someone who can use it creatively?

ahh, well, all i have to say is you better strap in because you're in for one hell of a fight LMAOOO

[sidestriker]

sorry it's been quiet over here ; i'm honestly still very nervous about large, populated rpcs so sometimes being on this blog can get very overwhelming for me. i'll try to do more with striker since i really do enjoy writing him!

[glitzybunny]

There's something so so nice about eating a warm meal at a small, almost hidden, local restaurant...

The people are so nice, the food is amazing despite being on the cheaper end and I always leave with a happy feeling mixed with a sweet sadness that its gone followed by the freshness of knowing you'll probably be back soon.

It's oddly... sentimental💕

[motherstone]

Question to fans: We don't know much about Emily, how would you develop her as a character?