#in which always them

[inkskinned]

she's singing in another room and my dog is asleep at my feet. my grandma asked me why i haven't found a man yet and i laughed. oh, you know. i like my house clean.

my girlfriend is also my man is also "my partner" if i'm in a professional setting. yesterday we went to a ren faire and a man mimed at me - you're together? and at my delighted nod, his baffled, you're gay? made me laugh. a woman with rainbow hair said i love the two of you together. you're both so beautiful it's absurd.

my dad introduced my partner as my "..... friend. or whatever" the other day. he knows we're dating. in the same way, i was never able to get my sister's husband to stop saying that's gay like it's 2008. he still uses the word fa***t, and my sister's defense of him has always been well, he's just kidding.

my lover and i dance to old music in a tiny kitchen. we judge new music together and take food critique very seriously. we watch love is blind before we fall asleep and agree that if they had a queer season, it would be bloody but also make for excellent tv. of fucking course queer people would know someone for only 2 weeks and agree to get married. what are you saying.

at a bar with friends, a man puts his hand on my wrist. got a boyfriend? and yes, i do have a boyfriend, she's amazing. i am texting her while i wander around a gas station named after geese. i am visiting a swing state for a wedding. in the candy aisle i overhear: she's actually like a lesbian it's disgusting. two teenage girls with packaged sandwiches in their hands, giggling. no literally, like. i'm not, like. okay with her being there while we're all, like, naked and changing.

my girlfriend and i tailgate, drink gin and cider out of cups. from the frat group beside us, a man corrects himself with one of his friends: bro, i mean, nonbinary entity, and it makes everyone around him laugh, myself included. he razzes his friend the same way i would have killed for at 19 years old - like nothing happened, he continues: you apply sunscreen like an alien. he does a little sassy (and fairly accurate) dance interpretation of the motion. his friend is laughing so hard they're crying.

i am lucky, i live in a safe neighborhood in a safe state. my masc passenger princess comes up from DC. i drive her for an hour to where all the leaves are a violent arrangement of color. we walk along the trails, letting autumn into our blood. in this part of the state, there's a lot of pickup trucks and trump signs. when we chastely kiss before getting into the car, i accidentally make eye contact with a woman holding her child's wrist. she looks disgusted. she looks fucking pissed.

two hours later my girl and i are eating dinner on a patio, soaking in the last warmth of new england sun before the chill of winter sets in. we are giggling and trying to talk through plastic vampire teeth. at another table, i see a young woman sit up straighter. i watch her watch us. she blushes and takes her partner's hand from across the table. shy, like the taste of evening has just become something deeper.

it's worth it for this moment, i think. my lover is still humming the same song she's been singing for four days straight and i don't want to kill her for it. her guitar is beside my bed. her toothbrush is in my bathroom. in a few moments i will make us lunch. we are lucky enough to have found each other. it is lucky enough to be in love.

[liquidstar]

If my mom sees a significant amount of blood she gets lightheaded, and has fainted on some occasions. Once it happened when we were kids, I wasn't there to witness it but I heard the story from my dad. Basically my brothers, around 7 or 8 at the time, were playing outside while my mom was making their lunch, and she accidentally cut her finger. It wasn't anything serious, but it drew a fair bit of blood and she passed out. My dad saw this and rushed over, but he didn't really know what to do so he just sort of started slapping her to wake her up (not recommended, but he had no idea and panicked)

At that exact moment my brothers both came in from playing, and all they saw was our mom unconscious on the floor and our dad slapping her. So, like, without even saying a word to each other they both just INSTANTLY start whaling on him, like, full blown attack mode to defend our mom. Which obviously didn't help the situation, but she did wake up and everything was fine.

Now our dad says that he's actually really glad they attacked him over what they thought was going on, because it means he raised good boys. And I still think that's true, they're very good boys.

[pokimoko]

Asexual bird? Please

How about two asexual birds?

[hinamie]

spiraling

[friedunicornstudio]

We painted a new Shiranui zodiac piece this year featuring all the brush god constellations!

(Shiranui themself is in front of the Hanagami, but we did paint them. They're still there. It counts)

[egophiliac]

was this anyone else's first thought, or

[kiiwiidrawer]

Spin the bottle kissing game against a group in which half of them are gay? Im sure the fates will be on your side....

[malacandrax]

I've been collecting pottery shards from the fields and woodland since I moved to the countryside a few years ago, I have so many now that I think I'll relocate them to containers, but it's nice to get a proper photo first.

[stil-lindigo]

the fox god.

a comic about a trickster.

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creative notes:

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all my other comics

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[idontmindifuforgetme]

One thing I’ve noticed about people in or entering their 30s is they don’t make as many compromises anymore. If someone doesn’t meet them halfway, is not up to standard, is just not where they’re needed to be, they’re just like “ok cool” and they move on from the person. Which is not to say they’re less empathetic or understanding, but more that they have learned that time is their most prized possession and they’re not willing to make massive compromises on it. They are not obsessed w the idea of fixing someone (bc the concept of fixing a person doesn’t really exist). They simply move on to someone who is up to par. I want that. I want to always move w the awareness that time is my most priceless belonging and I can never buy it back. Ever. So I have to use it wisely

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Look what we've become.

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[inkskinned]

in internet posts it is easy to cut them out of your life. they are hurting you! they aren't listening to you!

they held your hair back. they lent you lipstick. they held your hand at the train station and got you home safe. they rounded on your bully, got loud, said get fucked, spitting-mad in your defense.

they also cut the hair off again. told you that you should really think twice before wearing something like that. took you for granted. took your insecurities and threw them in your face again.

you know logically it should be easy. all the internet advice comments always read it will feel better. like an equation - if a person is rotten, you just remove them. you pull the tooth that's hurting.

but it was never a big flare-up moment. you don't live in a sitcom. they never tried to take your boyfriend or steal from your apartment. they showed up to birthdays and they wrote songs about you and bring you water without you asking. once you found out they carry an emergency inhaler for you, even though you haven't had an asthma attack in years - just in case.

where is the line? people fuck up. sometimes they fuck up badly. sometimes people have raw personalities, like a powerline, and being around them is dangerous. addicting. sometimes they can't help themselves, but you know they're trying. sometimes they are just rough-around-the-edges. sometimes they don't even realize how they sounded when they said that. sometimes it's just - you've both loved each other for so long now, the way this thing hurts goes back to the root.

and that's the fucked up part. you have pushed your fingers against the sweetheart of memory. things these days are electric, tense, harrowing. they didn't used to be. there were a lot of good days in there. sometimes you want to just close your eyes and say can this be over yet? do we still need to be fighting?

doing that would give up any chance you get of getting an apology, but you don't always know that you need an apology, you love them. once they flaked on your birthday party. once they told you to get over it, people are always dying. they also let you crash on their couch for a week after the breakup, handfeeding you when you were so sad you couldn't eat. they are also judgmental about everything, occasionally react to banal statements with an attitude that is weird and fiery. they also love you like a lighthouse sometimes, so strong they cut the storm like lightning.

but the problem is that you might be storm. you might be the thing that needs breaking. what if you are two forces who are desperately, horribly drawn to each other, shaped by the other person's passions, and both good for each other and bad in equal measure.

what if you're both just people, and you're no saint neither.

just cut them off! swallowing the saltwater, you catch yourself in the mirror. you've been shaking more than usual. there's an ache in you that is oblique, loud, impossible to soothe. is this what it looks like? when life is "easier"?

your mouth will always have a hole, is the thing, if you remove the tooth.

[illusioncanthurtme--art]

Thrift store ahegao t shirt lookin-ass

I only just realized how this looks now that they're all compiled here on a tumblr post....what. who drew these🧍🏻‍♀️

This is from something on my patreon. But dang it, these Ford expressions are too good to not share as a preview.

[thetoyboxs]

As the oldest of four I say I'm qualified enough to say, close enough!

[langernameohnebedeutung]

ngl, I'm beginning to take issue with how in conversations about anti-intellectualism almost automatically, the face of girls and women will be slapped on the problem.

[sandushengshou]

Interview with the Vampire 2x04 | 2x05 | 2x08