#i might devour it

[pandorem]

Okay so I don’t feel the most qualified to talk about this, especially to make any value judgements on how any of this was handled, so I would love other people to add in if they feel like it, but this is eating my brain actually so.

Esther Finch is a funny villain. She’s a joy to watch on screen, even if part of that joy is in hating her. But there’s something that feels very deliberate in the fact that the only two girls (barring in the animated flashback) we see her target are black girls. Becky Aspen and Crystal. I don’t think we’re supposed to infer from this that she only ever targets black girls, but the casting of Becky feels deliberate. While there’s plenty of in universe explanation for why she wants to use Crystal to feed to her snake afterwards and doesn’t ever say, specifically target Niko, it’s still there. And though Niko was just hurt because she got in the way, she’s also another woman of colour we see Esther hurt.

And then at the end Crystal, who many have pointed out has been a voice for women throughout the whole season, stands in front of Lilith, the goddess of wronged women, and screams to her about who gets justice for all the little girls Esther hurt. And then Lilith, played by a black woman, is the one to drag Esther away.

Crystal says to Esther that she knows how anger can poison you. Esther says she learned to be predator instead of prey a long time ago. Do I think that the show literally wants us to think that Esther is a racist who deliberately targets black girls? No. Do I think the casting choices that they made bring up themes of the kind of people who, because they have been hurt or marginalized, want to push others down to have others that they can have power over instead? Whose problems with societal oppression is not that it exists, but that they aren’t the ones who get to benefit from it? I think so.

[s-lycopersicum]

[mattodore]

don’t worry about me when i’m away because i'm usually just doing this and going on walks

[souldagger]

happy trans day of visibility, i wanna share my favourite books i read for the trans rights readathon!

fiction:

fierce femmes and notorious liars: a dangerous trans girl's confabulous memoir by kai cheng thom (magical realism YA - a dark, humorous and surreal subversion of the "trans memoir" genre; trans MC+author)

a lady for a duke by alexis hall (cute historical regency romance; trans MC+genderqueer author)

the brides at high hill by nghi vo (fifth novella in the exquisite singing hills cycle; nonbinary MC; comes out may 7th!)

the salt grows heavy by cassandra khaw (weird (<-complimentary) and gory gothic horror novella about a killer mermaid and a plague doctor; nonbinary love interest+author)

nonfiction:

none of the above: reflections on life outside the binary by travis alabanza

readme.txt: a memoir by chelsea manning

[goldenwaves]

miss oranje disco dancer

[zetta27]

"Albrecht and his cavia"

my submission for this year's tennocon community showcase. I have thing to say about this piece but I will reserve it for some other day

[kritischetheologie]

Happy New Year, my beloveds. I think about where I was, a year ago, and where I am now, and it's the same type of dizzying as thinking about the size of the milky way galaxy. I wish I could wrap my December 31, 2022 self up in a blanket and tell her how 2023 goes-- that it's the hardest year of her life, in so many ways, but also the best. That no matter how scary the prospect of motion is, it's better than stasis. That she's brave enough and strong enough for all of it, so much braver and stronger than she thinks.

That's what I wish for you all, for 2024: I wish you a year full of life. A year of occasions you have no option but rise to, of the clarity that only comes in the aftermath of action, of being surprised by the things the world confronts you with when you open yourself to it. A year in which you choose, wholeheartedly, instead of lingering in the waiting room of your own lives.

You are so much braver and stronger than you think, and you are capable of so much. Let yourself shine, and see how far you go when you're traveling at the speed of light.

Here's to 2024.

[kinokoshoujoart]

silly devouring his salad

my twitter mutual drew a BUTCHER VANITY Rock and caused me to irreparably have a cannibalistic rock living in my head, this is but one escaped consequence of that

[hi-i-just]

What if Crowley kisses Aziraphale gently, gently. Soft. Reverent. Like he is a pleasure to be savored, adored, to be treasured as long as possible.

What if Aziraphale kisses Crowley passionately. Savage. Carnal. Half-starved, mad with thirst, unsatiable, like he could never have enough of him. What if God killed me then

[thetopichot]

Honestly, when are we gonna call Vampire Auron an overgrown mosquito? I need to hear it. I feel like it needs to happen. It's like it's a canon event to me for some reason. I don't know why, but if it does happen, I will be clowning on Vampire Auron for the rest of my days.

[starredforlife]

i feel like im living the bachelor life . badly in need of a haircut. wearing nothing but white tanks and sweatpants and eating food standing up at the counter. licking sauce off my fingers. dropping it all over me. quickly changing into a shirt that i put on backwards. and then i decide that wasn’t messy enough so i hack open a watermelon and eat it outside so i can stare at the cars. and now im going to lift weights while watching an adaption of a stephen king book. jesus christ

[welcoming-grey]

Omg, omg....OMG!! I just can't comprehend the fact the nobody(probably? I haven't seen it yet so,,,) has thought about DP x FNAF...Like can you imagine the horror on Danny face when he realizes his part-time job at a goofy pizzeria is not so goofy anymore when he sees dead children just float about, obsessing over screwing over this one man and his family. Him realizing that said man in question is Springtrap. Him name-dropping the animatronics dead names when they try to scare them. Him going ghost and the others either thinking 'There's another child that Afton fucking killed??!!' or going 'Holy shit, what is this eldritch horror?'... Imagine him realizing that now he can't even quit because he's in too deep. So much so that he neglects Amity Park (ik about the protection obsession hc but please) and now the Fentons are looking into a more larger scale and finds out about FNAF somehow, identifying that Phantom is now there. Think about the dead children reactions when a random couple enter the place, only to fight their new companion. What about said dead kids realizing that their companion and their new watcher are the same person, I could 100% tell you that somehow Charlie or Springtrap are going to try to manipulate Phantom/Danny to do their bidding. Ughhh, so much yet soo little.

[destinywillowleaf]

what if they had matching charizard hoodies. charizard trio real.

[Leon: 'ello Pikachu!]

[Ash: Pikachu says you have depression] [Alain: I know.]

[saturdaynightghostclub]

The Many Lives of Arthur Llewellyn

You know how sometimes you can look at a person and just know, instinctively, that they came from some cosmic elsewhere? Their face, their clothes, their speech—it all belongs somewhere specific, somewhere other than where they are. Every now and then you come across a time-traveler, an astronaut, a lovelorn Victorian in the body of a twentysomething city-dweller. Your Arthur is one such curiosity, you think. A cursory glance would place him on a street-corner in Greenwich Village, or smoking a cigarette beneath a gas lamp in San Francisco. He’s got that foggy beatnik thing going for him. That he exists among the long-haired, strong-armed Seattleites of 1995 must mean that someone out there in the galactic mist is looking out for you; by all accounts, you should never have met this walking anachronism.

But you did, and against all odds he’s currently sitting at your dining room table and using a set of nail clippers to mend the clasp of a necklace his mother insisted was too broken to continue wearing. He suggested she take it to a jeweler, and her subsequent “Why bother” had riled him up to the point that he insisted on fixing the damned thing himself because, in his words, “Why bother? Why bother buying anything if you’re not going to take care of it? You just throw your clothes away when they get holes?”

“I can feel you staring,” he says now, without looking up. Guilty as charged, you hide your smile behind the copy of Howards End that you’re pretending to read. Maybe he’s a weary ship’s captain, taking meticulous care of what few possessions he has that remind him of his faraway home. Maybe somewhere he’s stowed a pair of red boots, made from fine Spanish leather, for safekeeping until he returns to his aching sweetheart on the shore. Maybe you have an overactive imagination.

Aunt Juley is sick, and Helen won’t come home to the grieving Schlegel family, and won’t she reconsider ending her engagement to Paul? Who cares, when Arthur Llewellyn is carefully slinking toward triumph in the battle against his mother’s gold chain? You turn a page without reading it, your eyes still trained on your boyfriend’s long fingers until, with a soft and disbelieving gasp, he holds the chain up for you to see. The clasp looks brand-new, and even if he did only fix it to spite his mother, your heart flutters with pride—he’s a sensitive one, whether he likes it or not. You happen to know that the necklace was given to Mrs. Llewellyn by Arthur’s father: an emerald pendant, her birthstone. The Llewellyns are not sentimental people (with the exception of their son, that is); according to Arthur, he’s had to practically beg them not to donate his great grandmother’s china sets on more than one occasion. As a consequence, his own apartment is full of antiques and souvenirs he couldn’t bear to see thrown away.

You move closer to him under the pretense of inspecting his work, rising from your chair to stand beside him.

“Very nice,” you say, “are you sure you want to keep going with this teaching thing? I think you’ve got a real future in jewelry repair.”

Arthur tilts his head back to look at you, placing the necklace down on the table. You run a hand through his hair, letting your palm come down to cup his face. He leans into you like a man deprived. You sometimes wonder if his immediate family’s stoicism did a little damage to the part of him that now seems to need your touch like oxygen. “Funny,” he says, “I was thinking the same thing. You think they’ve got good benefits?”

You smile, running your thumb across his sharp cheekbone. He’s been frustrated, you know, in the days leading up to the start of the school year. The school’s curriculum, which he says is “unbearably boring,” leaves little room for creativity, but he’s trying his best. He’s starting his students with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy this year.

Arthur is flexing his hand repeatedly, probably working out a cramp from his delicate operation with the nail clippers. You perch on the edge of the table, sliding back to a full sit, before taking that hand in both of your own. Slowly, gently, you massage the tension out of his fingers while he looks on in awe. “You want to get out of here?” You ask, “It’s a gorgeous day. Take a walk with me?” He nods, allowing you to lead him out of your apartment and into the midday air, perfumed with lilac and salt.

Your building is on one of those dreadful Seattle hills, the ones you don’t realize are as steep as they are until one day you put on your favorite sundress and realize your calves look absolutely stunning. You lead Arthur up the block, ignoring his halfhearted protests until you’ve made it to the top of the hill. There, he lets his hand go to the small of your back, keeping it there as you continue to walk. After a moment’s silence, he leans over to kiss your temple. “I love you,” he says. Casually, like he has so many times. Like it’s a way to fill the silence instead of a world-bending declaration, like he couldn’t bring you to your knees at any moment with it.

“I love you too,” you say, knowing it carries the same weight for him.

“Can I be so corny for a minute?” He asks, his hand moving gently up and down your back as you walk.

“You can be as corny as you want,” you reply. Never in your life have you seen this kind of earnestness in a man. Never in your life have you even wanted it—never, until you had it.

Arthur takes a deep breath. “I’m really happy,” he says, his voice hoarse, “I’m so fucking happy.”

“Sounds like it,” you tease, nudging him.

“I am,” he finally smiles, “I am. It’s scary though, you know? I’d kind of reached a point where I thought happy was a myth. Or, no—not a myth, I just thought it was something for other people, right? Like, when they’d talk about how happy they were, I thought either that they were exaggerating or that there was something wrong with me, because I didn’t know what they were talking about—does that make sense?”

You stop walking for a moment, turning to Arthur. “You’ve thought about this a lot, huh?”

“Yeah,” he says. You respect his lack of sheepishness. “I’ve had to, you know? It’s like I’m experiencing this whole new facet of human life I didn’t know existed. Like maybe I thought I knew, and you’ve just turned everything upside down.”

You’ve got no choice but to kiss him. There, on the street corner, where it’s nothing short of edenic, you wrap your arms around his shoulders and press your lips to his, hard and sweet. He gasps against you in that way that you love, that way that lets you know you’ve taken him by surprise once again. His shock is only momentary, however, and within seconds you’re wrapped so tightly in his arms that he’s all you can feel, all around you.

“Arthur,” you say, coming down off your toes and letting your hands drag down his chest, “if this is all it takes to make you happy, then neither of us has anything to worry about.”

The boy is grinning in earnest now, eyes fixed on your face. “Oh, fuck,” he says, shattering the illusion that he is anything but a west coast twentysomething, “Jesus, honey…”

He’s running a hand over his face now, like he’s trying in vain to wipe the smile from his features. “What?” You ask, grinning something awful yourself.

“I just saw the future, that’s what,” he says, sweeping you once again into his arms, “I saw my entire life in your face, it’s all you. All you, forever.”

You can’t help but to laugh, a stunned expulsion of joy you weren’t expecting to feel. “Oh god, you’re stuck with me then?”

“There was never anything else in the cards for me, to be fair,” he says, “and just to be clear, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Arthur’s a bit of a mystic about things like that—souls and stardust and past lives—it took you by surprise at first, but you’ve grown to realize it’s maybe the thing that makes the most sense about him. Of course your out-of-place, out-of-time alien creature of a boyfriend thinks—knows, if you ask him—that the two of you are cosmically entwined. And you, for your part, know that you would rather die than deny him these little fantasies. After all, it’s you who sees a thousand lives in his face, each more complex and profound than the last. Between Seattle and England and outer space and the Pacific ocean, you find yourself hoping against your own iron-clad logic that the two of you will find each other again after this life (and after, and after, and after).

[the-nothing-maker]

Hey your art is amazing??? I LOVE your use of color! Can I ask what brand of pencils you are using? :D

Thank you so much !! :D I primarily use Polychromos pencils, but I also use some Luminance shades (three, actually : white, pale yellow and light cobalt blue). They're much waxier, so they're great to blend colours you wanna make a little lighter, or to draw fine light details on top of darker colours !

[takonei]

New DoG sprite just dropped