#it makes it hard to want to participate

[rubiatinctorum]

whenever i see 2020s-style '2000s' VHS tape aesthetics i feel like i'm not quite the right age to be nostalgic or especially anemoic for them. i grew up with them and then stopped using them when the VCR broke, so it was easier to use DVDs because the DVD player worked. They never ever felt vaporwave to me. They never felt Y2K. They were a thing that I used until I didn't anymore. I feel nostalgic when I see VHS tapes being used through the visual signifiers of reality, and when I see the ones that I personally used. But, as prevalent online as the simulacrum of VHS and early 2000s nostalgia/anemoia as represented by a pink wash and TV lines and vaporwave 2 and chromatic aberration is, I kind of just find it annoying, because the 2000s didn't look like that to me. The thing about 2000s technology I encountered in real life was that it either looked bright and futuristic in that vivid plastic way (think something you'd see in a Future Shop flyer or a TV ad, or like the pink CRT television I had), or it looked beige and crusty and old as hell (the computers, speakers, keyboards, and mice your school and family members had. there were still balls in the mice for god's sake). Sometimes i can't tell if the people making things themed with the simulacrum version are old enough to remember but know their young market will eat this shit up, or if they genuinely weren't alive in the early 2000s or maybe any of the 2000s at all to know that it didn't look like a few glitchy tiktok filters. Personally, for 2000s technology aesthetics, I'd like to see people lean more into that 'futuristic' brightness or the older more neutral-toned and boxy tech models, or if we want to try something different, the aesthetics of early digital camera photography. in another timeline flash-induced high contrast and red eyes in photographs became the symbol of soooo vintage and popular. but as long as people condense the early 2000s into this far off distant liminal space where the world exists only in cool-toned pastels and everyone's every VHS has bad degradation, i just really don't think that's going to happen :P

(as a slight digression on that photography note, but at least the vintage-themed insta filters of the 2010s sometimes tried to replicate the lighting and saturation or lack-thereof of vintage photography, a medium that actually would have looked somewhat like that at the time because of how photos were developed. on the other hand, if your VHS tape in the 2000s looked like these faux-VHS rental aesthetic filters do, there was probably something wrong with it. The difference between approaching the past with the quirks of the mediums of the past as they'd usually occur — red eyes in early digital cameras, for example, which would be on the photo from the moment it was taken and was extremely common — and approaching the past with the defects of the same technology 20 years on — like VHS tape degradation that shouldn't be on a tape fresh out of the case in the 2000s — is the difference between approaching the past as it was and approaching the past as The Past.)

i think aesthetically approaching most decades from the lens of it being in the past is going to create an aesthetic that operates with the assumption that it always was the past. what most faux-nostalgic aesthetics that don't replicate the mediums of the time but instead dial them up to 11 and then slap a bunch of filters on miss is that each new decade is the present leaning into the future, in the time that decade is current. if you approach the new millennium aesthetically by taking an image and adding generic instagram or tiktok digital-vintage filters over it to show how vintage it was and always has been, you miss a lot of what made much of the decade, especially the early part, what it was.

[jnpje]

🥳it's his day you guys!!! 🥳

[bonicedemandarina]

Orufrey week day 8: Free prompt

I wanted to make something soft and cute for this one but my hand slipped, so now i'm ending the orufrey week with angst

[werewolf-w1tch]

finally finished the dtiys that @ask-the-cat-cafe is hosting! honestly wasn't sure i'd make the deadline with finals crunch lmao

[doodleodds]

Happy Valentines, Akira. Happy Valentines, Asshole.

If you can’t read what Akechi’s secondary inner-dialogue says cause I obscured it too much behind his regular dialogue, here’s a transcription in panel order: Hello, you fucking- Ah- Hello, Akira! Fuck off, why should I tell you- Just a soda- there’s a new flavor.

I don’t want your shitty gift. Oh- haha! You’re so sweet.

I hope I choke. They’re lovely, thank you.

Like hell. Likewise. There’s no way it’s just a coincidence. Still though, it’s a funny coincidence.

[liminalpsych]

A very, very roughly sketched, unedited scene that wouldn't leave me alone this morning and demanded to be written (....oh hey @queer-ragnelle! I accidentally made a Lusty Month of May / May Day Parade contribution!):

The week they arrive at Sorelois. Perhaps even the day. Guinevere is half-mad with rage and grief, reeling from Arthur's betrayal, the loss of her marriage, of her court. It's the usurping of her entire life.

It makes her bold. It makes her want to be cruel. It makes her want to strike back or to take what she wants or to rebel in some small or large way. It makes her want to hurt Arthur in turn, or transgress since she has already been spurned from society and convicted for something for which she's innocent.

"There is something I wish to see," Guinevere says, there in the somber quiet of the receiving room with Lancelot, Galehaut, and Lady Bloie of Malehaut. An announcement to the air, undirected.

Lancelot responds first, of course, as expected. He kneels before her, the picture of earnest devotion. "Whatever you wish, my queen, I will strive my utmost to bring it to you."

Across the room, towering nigh to the ceiling even leaned against the wall as he is, Galehaut watches her with a carefully neutral expression. Unblinking, unsmiling, and there's the barest tightening around his eyes. He is wary of her still, and senses her mood.

The Lady of Malehaut is a different kind of unreadable entirely, lounging next to her with a spot of embroidery to keep her clever hands busy. Her full mouth is always a breath away from smiling, like she carries with her a trove of private amusements at all times. She observes from beneath half-lidded eyes, her needle flashing through cloth more by touch than sight.

Guinevere lifts her loyal knight's chin with a touch of her finger. His lips part, eyes wide and wondering. She smiles. "I want to you to give Galehaut a kiss."

Ah, if only she dared to watch Galehaut's expression in that moment! Yet she must keep her focus on Lancelot. His face pales. His breath catches in his throat. His pulse thrums against her finger like a trapped and frantic bird. "M-my queen?" he stammers, gaze darting side to side as if for an escape.

Her smile sharpens, serpentine. "Do you not wish to?"

"I— I am not—" He's breathing rapid and shallow now, on the edge of panic. It's a pretty quandary she's put him in, one with no known safe answer, and he's reeling under it.

(She feels more steady by the moment, her control re-establishing in the small sphere she still possesses.)

Galehaut steps forward. There's the edge of fury in his warning, in the creak of leather and the rattle of maille. "My lady," he rumbles.

Now Guinevere looks his way, and she lifts a graceful eyebrow at the storm in his countenance. Lancelot quivers beneath her touch, unmoored by the loss of her pinning gaze. "Will you tell me truly that you don't want this, Galehaut?"

He halts. His jaw works; the stormclouds thicken. He glares, proud and silent.

Guinevere laughs. It's a free, bell-like sound—as playful as a day a-Maying. Lancelot stills and his breathing steadies, soothed by her apparent merriment. She makes a show of taking pity on him, releasing his chin to stroke his cheek. "Do you wish to kiss me?" she murmurs, leaning closer.

His breath catches again, no different than before. He nods.

She kisses him, sweet and soft; he returns it with a small desperate sound against her lips. (It tastes like power.) He's breathless when she pulls away, and she smiles down at him, indulgent. "I know Galehaut desires a kiss from you as well," she says, "and he is the one who brought us together, yes?"

Another nod, and Lancelot seems more dazed than panicked now. Swaying towards her, and glancing shyly towards his boon companion, who draws a sharp bracing breath.

"It is not as if he's a lady," she says with a wink. "So it is not being untrue to me. And it is my request, is it not?"

"Y—yes, my lady...?"

"Do you not want to kiss him?"

"I..." Those expressive eyes flicker from her lips to Galehaut's and back again. His breath quickens again, but this time it is a little less panicked. "My lady, you ask hard questions," he says at last, helplessly.

She laughs again, darkened with satisfaction. "Kiss him, then," she commands, "and then tell me if you want to do it again."

"My lady," protests Galehaut, strained—oh, and there is longing so sharp that it is agonized, bare and naked in every rigid muscle and the aching furrow of his brow. He looks at Lancelot like a man starving. He looks at Guinevere like a man betrayed.

To give Galehaut what he so desperately desires, when he knows it is something she can take away at any moment? To receive a kiss from his Lancelot, but only on the order of Lancelot's lover-queen? For Galehaut to touch his companion in the way he desires, but only so long as Guinevere allows it, never knowing truly if Lancelot would have initiated on his own, never being certain of Lancelot's desire?

It's a power like none she's ever wielded before.

Lancelot stumbles to Galehaut on unsteady legs with a last hesitant glance over his shoulder. Guinevere smiles encouragingly and nods her approval. One last nudge—and still, Galehaut could refuse Lancelot. Galehaut is sworn to neither Guinevere nor Arthur; he needs not obey her. Galehaut could save the last unconquered edges of his heart and maintain this last barrier of distance. He could still refuse himself what he wants so badly.

Galehaut tenses, and Galehaut wavers, and Galehaut's heaves great draughts of air as if he's in the thick of a melee.

Lancelot reaches out, and Galehaut surrenders.

[slime-hoe]

Stranger Summer Week 9

Alternate Meeting/ Where it all started + Sapphic Hellcheer

Short fic to come in the mean time enjoy some mood-boards for our girls and the covers that Inspired me.

(Two covers of Dirtbag I think are great below)

[fumifooms]

Marchil March 2024!

A ship week event for the Dungeon Meshi pairing Marcille x Chilchuck! It will run from Monday the 18th to Sunday the 24th, in about a week.

The themes for the days are:

Explosion / healing

Fairytale / role swap au

Fashion / modern au

Hair / race or species swap au

Teasing / genderbend au

Gifts / date

Free prompt / food

You’re welcome and encouraged to put a twist on the prompts, pick either of them on any given day or mesh them both into the same piece, stick to them as much or as little as you want. For example, the race swap prompt mainly refers to elves, half-foots, etc, but you could just as well use it to draw them as cats if you’d like! There are essentially no rules, this isn’t inktober and there’s no pressure, feel also free to make things for it in advance rather than day to day. This is a ship week, but feel free to depict them in a platonic or queerplatonic way rather than romantic as well! This week is to celebrate them as a duo, and every work is welcomed: fanart, writing, edits, anything. Join the festivities!

Tag your posts for it "marchil march 2024"!

I’ll be hosting it on the @feedmarchil blog, I intend to reblog every piece made for the week there. Ty to Pupucachi for heavily inspiring the first ad card!

[cannibology]

temperature sensitivity is such an annoying part of my disability. what do you mean i can’t go out in colder weather or warmer weather because the cold gives me allergy-like symptoms that last for days and makes my hands stop working but the heat makes me lightheaded and headachey and too exhausted to think? what do you mean i can’t be in direct sunlight or direct contact with cold without breaking out in hives? why must i have the physical constitution of a sickly victorian boy?

[capricioussun]

Decided to sketch some of those YCH ideas for warm up but they kept getting smaller as I went

Finished the papyri and then went “ok, time to do some sanses!” and stared blankly at the canvas for like six minutes

[themoonunderstoodmydadjokes]

I hate that the answer so often given when someone voices their loneliness is to “rely on yourself” or “be your own best friend” “start a hobby” or some other variation of loving yourself and keeping yourself busy, as if either of those are a substitute for connection and community. Yes they’re important, but they should be in addition to feeling connection in community, not as a replacement.

[calicoartie]

I HATE MY ROOMMATEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[squeakadeeks]

if i had a dollar for every time a religious missionary knocked on my door to "spread the good news" while i was actively in an acute mental health crisis i'd have 2 dollars, which isnt a lot but also. how many times does this have to happen before they stop coming.

[fionnaskyborn]

Was tagged by @oceancamp to post my current five favorite songs! (They should invent a stages-of-grief-esque model that encompasses and accurately describes both types of anguish I had to go through making this list - the one of limiting myself to only five songs, and the one of trying to put as little videogame music on here as possible so that I don't end up looking like an absolute goddamn geek, which... I am... Oh well!)

Thank you so much for tagging me - here are the songs!

Heaven Pierce Her - War Without Reason

Tatsuro Yamashita - Love Space

This specific arrangement of Death And Republic + Meet Again

Winger - Junkyard Dog (Tears On Stone)

The Protomen - Light Up The Night

Is it courtesy to tag other people after you've been tagged in a post like this? If that's the case, I'll tag @spiralled-fury, @solradguy, @swamppossum, @five-by-five, @northstarring, @ineedmoredragons and @tbonechessor!

[wonho-ssi]

[dreamwinged]

any other nonsharing self shippers feel like yume communities are kinda like a minefield sometimes… idk maybe this only applies if your f/os are mainstream characters or maybe im just especially deranged but i’m nonsharing for comfort reasons and sometimes trying to talk about it online feels like more trouble than it’s worth >_< bc i always run into things that affect me…. i dunno