#it’s been several days

[edenfenixblogs]

Well, tuned into the Drawfee stream...

I promised I'd check it out before determining if I'd ever be able to give Drawfee another chance after this...

Verdict TL;DR: Maybe one day, but not in the foreseeable future, especially not streams. Certainly never through my financial support ever again, unless they are fundraising for a particularly worthy charity (like in the Trans Rigs stream). But luckily, I don't think they give a shit if I watch or not, which is totally fair.

Overall: The Drawfee YouTubers didn't do anything wrong. However, their lack of acknowledgement of any Jewish pain or concerns served to further digital ghettoization and social isolation of diaspora Jews in a way that many (but definitely not all) Jews will probably find painful. Between that and the really bad faith link-sharing from the mods, I'm personally too fragile to imagine engaging with the channel again.

This conclusion is geared toward fellow Jews seeking escapist content or content that doesn't make them feel erased during this time. This is not a prescriptive recommendation for anyone else. It is simply my reasoning, should anyone else be on the fence and need insight.

The Good (There was a lot of it!):

I didn't see any Drawfee folks parroting antisemitic conspiracy theories, which is good. An extremely low bar, but one that many, many people fail to clear.

They kept their tone fun and light and didn't turn anything into a diatribe

They kept their focus on humanitarian aid and an end to violence.

I think they made a few statements generally about keeping chat civil.

They kept chat limited to people who already subscribed to the channel, which was SO smart. It kept bots and bad actors from making the chat hostile.

While they all joked about silly stuff, they never jokes about real issues or the pain of anyone involved in the conflict. This is very important!!!

Chat in general was a very good place to hang out. Most people were just happy to be there and commenting about funny and fun art and it had the (mostly) typical Drawfee vibes, which I miss.

There was nothing performative or disingenuous about the team's intent: They wanted an end to violence. They wanted aid to reach Palestinian refugees. They wanted to encourage voter turnout in upcoming elections, and they wanted people to pressure their representatives to call for a ceasefire. These are all unambiguously good things.

Most importantly: They raised WELL over $100,000 for PCRF, which (despite not being totally perfect) is a very well-rated charity that has no history of its funds falling into Hamas' hands and is geared toward helping children. This matters much more overall than the stream's impact on me personally.

Ultimately, I believe the stream did more good than harm by a large margin.

The Iffy (Neither good nor bad; just things that I noticed):

Basically, none of the actual Drawfee crew did anything antisemitic that I saw. But they had a lot of missed opportunities -- to affirm solidarity and support with Jewish viewership, to acknowledge Jewish pain in any way, to advocate for a peaceful solution that left room for any negotiated peace between Jews in Israel and Palestinians in any capacity (whether that meant as Israel or as a newly formed state of some kind), or to be specific and directed in how they wanted people to approach a ceasefire.

I didn't hear any call to specifically keep the chat free of antisemitism. I tuned in a few minutes late, so maybe I missed it.

No substantial knowledge of the conflict demonstrated. Just that the current situation is unacceptable and should stop. I don't know anyone who disagrees with that (who I consider to be acting in good faith), but no language from the team about how to bring about that end to violence other than demanding a ceasefire.

Mods had a chance to add links to AllMEP charities, A Land for All, and some other Palestinian-Israeli and Arab-Israeli and Muslim-Jewish charities that support either inter-faith healing OR even just solely pro-Palestine charities that have inter-faith or inter-cultural backing. They did not add these to the shared links that I saw. (This would have been fine if they had a rigorous evaluation process and couldn't moderate and evaluate quality at the same time. But based on the links that WERE shared, I severely doubt that was the case)

Someone in the chat was repeatedly giving the very good advice that when writing your representatives to demand a ceasefire, you should demand that the US offer to facilitate a negotiated peace and permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Again, my feed crashed a couple times, so I may have missed it. But I personally did not see any of the mods or the Drawfee crew acknowledge this or mention Israeli suffering or Hamas violence once.

A least one of the mods should have been assigned fact-checking duty. Not many falsehoods were posted, but some were and community-members had to address them.

As expected there were lots of people posting watermelons, flags, and FtRttS. But, surprisingly, nobody was spamming it. I've written before about why the phrase FtRttS is upsetting to me personally, but I'll probably do a larger breakdown about i in the coming week. I appreciate that in general, people did seem to use it respectfully, in good faith, and without clear aggression toward Jewish people. There was some clear aggression toward Israelis (as in citizens not politicians), in general, but not too much or from too many people.

The Bad and Pretty Ugly (This is why I ultimately have to step away and other Jews might have to as well. At least for awhile):

Honestly, for all the care that people put into this stream, there was a general apathy toward and invisibility of Jewish people suffering in this crisis. Like I said, nobody on the on-screen Drawfee team did anything antisemitic. That was nice. Unfortunately, it didn't really seem like any actual effort was put in to determine what links were worth sharing. It was more of a "the mods like this one so it's allowed" sort of thing. Even cursory research on most of the links shared involved blatant instances of antisemitism, historical revisionism, or that just in general fell apart on any inspection whatsoever.

They could have made a lot of Jews feel seen and heard by mentioning the hostages even once, acknowledging 10/7 even once, acknowledged even once that Israel continues to be bombed from Hamas and Hezbollah daily, acknowledging that this is a war with two sides that both require an end to violence...literally any ONE of those things would have made a difference. But it was all just ignored, which is far too common when dealing with this conflict. This is especially painful for Jews who, like me, have experienced social isolation and digital ghettoization during this time. I think a lot of Jewish viewers will struggle to reconcile how this echoes a lot of the erasure that we all feel in our daily lives and in our digital spaces and in our hybrid digital and in-person communities. (<- Reblog 2 contains the accounts of The Jewish Experience of antisemitic erasure and ghettoization)Like, I do understand the argument that this is about providing humanitarian relief, but I also don't know why so many creators (and this is NOT unique to Drawfee) pretend like Jewish suffering is not relevent to ongoing discussions.

The mods posted links that supported UNRWA and some chatters spoke up in support of the UNRWA without any consequence. (All links here are verified as highly credible with high factual reporting standards via Media Bias/Fact Check and represent analysis from left-leaning, right-leaning, and least-biased sources)

One mod also posted a link to decolonizepalestine(.)com (not including the link because i don't want to support blatant propaganda). I have shared information about this terrible, bad-faith website before but there's so much more to pick apart here that I will reserve an evaluation of it as a source for a whole post of its own, unrelated to Drawfee. This website does cite its sources, but it provides no mechanism for readers to evaluate those sources. They are not hyperlinked and each individual citation must be looked up individually. I don't even have remotely enough time to do that right now. But if any of my bookwormish allies wish to tear apart those sources or the website in general, be my guest. Tagging y'all for visibility, but do not feel like I am actually asking you to do this work. It is simply something to add to the list of bad sources that we'll have to tackle at some point. cc: @comradevo @the-road-betwixt @faggotry-enjoyer @arandomshotinthedark et. al.

The mods also shared arab.org a few times. It is weird to me that they could have recommended AllMEP, which routinely emphasizes interfaith and intercultural and international cooperation and peace, but instead chose this much less evaluate-able source that excludes any efforts to find cooperative peace between Israel and Palestine. I had not heard of Arab.org before this stream and when I started to look into it, I fell into a bit of a rabbit hole:

So, first of all, Arab.org is a charity? organization? network? based in Beirut, Lebanon. I can't find them on Charity Navigator. The homepage didn't have a clear mission statement, so I navigated to the About Us tab. That gave me a little more information.

There, they state that their vision is to, "Empower people & organizations to do good." - Vague, but inoffensive. OK.

They state that they have three objectives:

Raising awareness, which they define as, "Civil society’s active role and through active collaboration." -- Vague but inoffensive.

Raising hope, which they define as, "Enabling the use of technology to innovate ways of contributing to the wellness and welfare of society." -- Vague but inoffensive.

Raising standards, which they define as, "Education, Reporting, Communication to & from civil society in the Arab World." -- Unclear, but inoffensive. Are they trying to raise the standards of these listed items within the Arab world or are they trying to raise international standards to be more inclusive of these listed items that originate from within the Arab world. And how do they define increased standards? Whose standards? IDK. This doesn't tell me anything really, but it also doesn't tell me anything bad, necessarily?

So what about their principles? Well, they list 5:

"Collaboration: Only together as a collective, can we bring about real change and betterment to society." -- OK, fine, but this still tells me nothing.

"Transparency: We conduct our business with a high level of transparency and a simple development model and we publish our impact publicly." -- Great! Excited to explore that!

"Innovation: We use our skills and creativity to make the world a better place. We want to make it possible to both inform and take action to solve the problems we discover." -- Intriguing, but how?

"Inclusion: We champion the inclusion of everyone in society, whether it is part of civic inclusion or charitable inclusion." -- This sounds really promising!!!! I'm excited to learn more!

"Leadership: We believe in taking the lead whenever wherever required by empowering individuals and organizations to influence others towards common goals." -- Gonna be honest, this just sound like vague buzzwords to me, but if they actually accomplish what they set out to do, great.

Luckily, each of these principles was clickable.

Let's start with "Collaboration"!

This takes me to a weirdly vague page with a gif of various men helping each other climb out of frame. The text below it says "We are currently on the look out for the following technology/platforms/businesses relevant to civil society" and then a list of pretty random things, some of which have checkmarks near them. Why is the formatting so strange? Why don't they all have checkmarks? Why is only the indicated section clickable but none of the other things? Where is more info about any of these items?

But fine, lets click that one clickable link about online marketplaces.

It doesn't actually take you to a marketplace but a page where artisans in the Arab world can submit their information. Submit heir information for what? Well, this is what the website says:

We understand how difficult life is for craftsmen & craftswomen to compete with mass-producing giants. We’re here to change all that. We are creating a win-win-win relationship whereby all sides benefit from our new platform “Shop to Help"

The "Shop to Help" is not clickable. I have no further information on what this is.

Fine, there's one more thing to click on this page: a list of Arab.org's partners.

First up: The Arab Institute for Women at Lebanese American University. Clicking on the info there takes me to the AIW:LAU website. Arab.org says the organization used to be called "Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World," but I couldn't find anything on Charity navigator for them either. Cursory research on them shows they've been around for 50 years. Fine. I'm not doing an evaluation on them right now (anyone who knows anything about them feel free to comment. I just don't have time) I was just investigating how they partner with Arab.org. I didn't find anything about that aside from a list of AIW's partners, which lists Arab.org amongst them. Clicking the link to Arab.org just takes me back to the homepage. I've learned nothing.

Next: They list Bayt.com, which is a job search site. Clicking that link takes me to the Bayt homepage. I couldn't find that addressed partnerships of any kind was their affiliate links page? But becoming an affiliate helps the affiliate make money, not Bayt. So I'm unsure what's going on or if this is even related.

Third: Building Markets. As far as I can tell, this is a real organization. I also cannot find them on Charity navigator, nor can I find any information about how they partner with Arab.org from their website. They do clearly share their financial information, though, which is great. I neither endorse nor condemn this organization. I'm not investigating them right now.

Fourth: Takreem Foundation. I CAN FIND THEM ON CHARITY NAVIGATOR! But they aren't rated. A search of the Takreem website shows no affiliation with Arab.org or accessible financial information.

Fifth: #GivingTuesday Woohoo! They are on Charity Navigator and have a pretty high rating! However, there's no evidence of a link between them and Arab.org, and the organization claims to have no list of official partners or participating organizations. Odd. Did Arab.org run a #GivingTuesday campaign and highlight #GivingTuesday instead of the organization they were giving to? Idk. And I don't have time to figure it out.

Sixth: CSR Engine. It's just a website with nothing on it except the statement "World’s first business for good solution to assign & align CSR activities seamlessly using AI and blockchain technology," which is the same text available about it from the Arab.org partners page. It does show it's affiliation with Arab.org...by listing Arab.org as a customer and then linking back to the Arab.org homepage. WHAT IS GOING ON.

Finally, and buckle up for this one cuz its a doozy, Greenpeace: I'd actually heard of this one, but I don't really know anything about it. Clicking Greenpeace doesn't even take you to the real Greenpeace MENA site. It just takes you to Arab.org's really weird write up page about Greenpeace. So, instead, I searched for Greenpeace on Charity navigator, where it got a 100% rating. Awesome! I clicked the charity navigator link, which took me to the Greenpeace Fund website. But wait a second. What's their connection to Arab.org? Well, there was no search function on the GreenpeaceFund website. So, I typed Greenpeace into google and uh?????

What?

That was surprising. I clicked the link and...

It showed me a totally different website...

Than the one I was just on...

Mods and the Drawfee crew stopped people from sharing links unless those people were mods. That was a super good choice which I fully support. But why did the mods share THESE links?

Well, I had the websites both open in side-by-side tabs.

That's...odd... So I studied the URLs more closely...

The lighter green G that's less pixelated? THAT ONE is the Greenpeace Fund. That is the one with penguins and a 100% charity navigator score.

The one with the lime green, pixelated G? That's Greenpeace International, a conspiracy/pseudoscience website with low crediblity.

But hey, the Greenpeace International website says there's a MENA-based branch. And, upon closer inspection, the Greenpeace International MENA website is the one that was linked on the Arab.org page. Maybe that one was better?

Clicking it took me to the Greenpeace MENA site...

which gave me another blinking Conspiracy Alert Icon from Media Bias Fact Check.

Just to be safe, I typed Greenpeace MENA into google, and fam... it is not better.

PS: searching ANY Greenpeace website for Arab.org showed no results.

In one last-ditch effort, I checked the Transparency page, where Arab.org claims to be "leading by example" in sharing all their documentation for charitable donations. And y'all it's fucking weird.

Let's stick with Greenpeace cuz they're already open tabs on my computer.

First of all, Arab.org's "leading by example" financial disclosures...

...are literally just the "Thank you for donating" receipts that you get whenever you donate to any cause. It's fucking weird.

And yeah, you read that right. For all of the 4th financial quarter of 2023, Arab.org donated just $109 TO THE ORGANIZATION WHICH THEY CALL A FEATURED PARTNER.

"OK," you say. "Well, there was a fucking lot going on in the fourth quarter of 2023. They were probably more focused on Palestine." Sure, lets check out their donation history to UNRWA (which, btw, is still a not great charity)

In case you don't want to click another link--Spoiler alert, they only donated $380. For the whole quarter.

And before you say, "But Eden! You must have missed it Arab.org is another organization called The Olive Tree (The Olive Tree SAL). That must be where the REAL work takes place!" Look at the mission statement of that one! The call themselves, "A mission-driven social enterprise startup making an impact for the common good.''

No.

The Olive Tree SAL is not on Charity Navigator. It's just another nothingburger website that links back to Arab.org and has no search function or further information.

This is the entirety of the website:

And a weird little LinkedIn logo that takes you to the organization's business page on LinkedIn.

From what I can tell, Arab.org just uses Ad revenue to generate minimal donations for charities and organizations of varying credibility that mostly don't even seem to know that Arab.org is even doing anything related to them. And that are designed to make people who are basically uninformed on the whole topic feel good for clicking on a link.

IDK, color me unimpressed. But I'm frankly a little mad that I spend so much fucking time trying to promote charities and organizations that promote peace between Palestine and Israel with actual detailed financial reports and disclosures that seeing this really makes me upset. Maybe if people actually listened to Jewish people with a lifetime of experience dealing with this conflict and trying to help solve or even Palestinian people on the ground who are affected by all this, they might instead focus their energies on one of the many organizations that are actually doing something to help alleviate suffering, increase empathy, encourage education and interfaith dialogue, learn to use language that is respectful of everyone undergoing and who has survived trauma, or build a peaceful future.

Whatever.

Donate to an AllMEP Charity:

And the craziest thing is that I'm gonna be the one who gets hate for this--even tthough I've been so driven out of most fandom spaces and discourse spaces that I can't even tag Drawfee here, let alone I/P, Palestine, or (G-d-forbid) Israel and get this to reach people who this could actually hep.

Because every time I try to engage, I'm inundated with messages like this:

[ysabelmystic]

Having chronic physical and mental illness is fun because it means you might have to cancel meetups and sometimes when you do your friends get snarky and then straight up ghost you. Im going back and forth between feeling like I deserved it/should’ve expected this because no one wants to be friends with a depressing, boring flake but on the other hand it feels kinda bullshit because I also don’t want to cancel events because I’m experiencing pain. I’d rather just go do the thing.

Like sorry I didn’t want to drive 3 hours to your house when I was actively suicidal and severely sleep deprived. I definitely orchestrated this to spite you personally /s

[fynneyseas]

Sometimes u gotta stream the emotional support rat movie with your sister to calm down

[firefly464]

Is this anything

[bonetrousledbones]

fuck it since my birthday is in like one day i'm gonna use my birthday wish to tell y'all to look at the shit going on in southern Appalachia right now after Hurricane Helene. look at it and talk about it and spread resources about it like wildfire because nobody else fucking is and it feels like we're on our own out here.

there are people who are stranded in hazardous areas that are still safer than trying to leave by driving on the increasingly hazardous roads. i'm personally going into my third day without electricity at this point, and haven't been able to get any gas for a generator to even keep our fridge working. there are very few places with power or running water, and cell service has just barely been restored in the last hour. ground crews are working hard to repair things, but there are many, many areas that are entirely inaccessible that may not receive these fixes for several more days if not weeks. i'm afraid my own neighborhood might become one of those areas if repairs don't get to us soon, and since we're much more rural i have a difficult time trying to be optimistic about it.

we're very far inland. i guarantee you damn near everybody here was expecting a little more rain and wind like we usually get during hurricane season, if they even heard about the hurricane beforehand in the first place since most people only got about a twelve hour notice before landfall- after several major areas had already been flooded. our terrain protects us from most major weather events- most locals have never encountered a single tornado or legitimate tornado warning in our entire lives. nobody i've talked to or heard from about it seems to have had any idea that it would be this bad. everybody's wishing that they took it more seriously, but we've never, ever had to before. i've seen people comparing it to Hurricane Katrina and honestly i'm not sure if that's all too inaccurate. today while looking for a single working gas station i drove by a military helicopter parked in front of the elementary school i went to when i was little.

please for the love of god, talk about us. talk about the good memories you had here or the beauty of our mountains, and talk about how devastated we are as we watch historic structures, buildings, and entire towns get wiped from the face of the earth like they were never even there. stop dismissing us as uneducated hicks and rednecks and hilllbillies and fucking help us.

r/Asheville resource/updates megathread (Asheville is the largest city in western North Carolina)

How to set up disaster roaming for cell service

WLOS Live updates

Duke Energy power outage map

WNC Landslide Map

Hotels accepting locals

Emergency shelter locations

I live in western North Carolina so all of my own resources are centered around that. If anybody from the other impacted areas has additional sources they'd like to add, please don't hesitate to do so.

[koburger]

[aliencatart]

a summary of mochi mayhem minus the mochi mayhem

[krysmcscience]

It’s finally done, guys – five whole pages of Narilamb AU comic AND MORE be upon you! (If you have trouble reading any of the text, view the full-size! These pages are huge!)

Yeesh, this took forever. <:)

There’s probably a ton of inconsistencies and anatomy/perspective wonkeries, but this was mostly just comic practice, so Oh Hekkin Well, Lol <:D

(Yes, I am aware the Gateway’s door isn’t present in the Afterlife, and the actual way in is just a pentagram portal. Yes, I put the door in there anyway because Artistic License, i.e. it felt more impactful for there to be a prison door of sorts to walk through to freedom, rather than just a bland boring portal on the ground. 😠)

anyway, i hate backgrounds so much lmao

Alternate ending and a buttload of bonus art under the cut, followed by goofy AU rambles and headcanon stuff:

I’m calling it the Revival AU. It’s not all that creative a title, and someone else has probably used it already, but I am too lazy to really care, LOL

Alternate ending page, which you will Definitely need to view the full-size for, Whoopsie Daisy:

The alternate ending was actually the first ending I finished things off with, because I had a brief badbrain moment where I forgot the emotional beat I initially wanted the comic to end on, and I tend to write comedy, anyway. I later remembered and drew out the proper ending, but I preserved and finished this one, too, because it still makes me giggle.

They had to go back for the followers off-screen in the AU’s real ending. And by ‘they’ I mean just the Lamb, because they weren’t about to ask three newly freed cats to go back into what used to be their prison. The Lamb DID spend some time watching Narinder and the bois enjoying the outdoors first, though:

In other news, here’s the Lamb and me making fun of my anatomy-drawing ‘skills’:

Meanwhile, if you’re wondering why the Lamb is just a-okay with how things went down vis a vis Their Murder, this bonus comic should answer at least some of your questions:

Ah, yes, also this is how they get engaged outside of the alternate ending. Forgot to mention that bit. XD (I already refuse to believe that Narinder is capable of flirting normally, so why would his initial marriage proposal be any better???)

Oh, and before any of them get a chance to actually head back to the cult grounds, there is one potential problem:

And by ‘problem’ I mean something Narinder intends to ignore for At Minimum a thousand years. Cuz he’s a petty bitch like that. :D

what do you mean i drew the lamb too tall compared to the background? clearly they’re standing on top of baal and aym lmao, why else would you think those two aren’t in this one??? (aym and baal got way too excited about finally being outside, you see, and their silly modes are nothing to sneeze at)

And, speaking of heading back to the cult grounds, I’m sure y’all would love to know how the Lamb’s followers felt about the brand new change in management:

It all went better than expected. <:D Tiny ramble now, feel free to skip down to the next comic.

Before you ask, no, the Lamb does not have any actual powers anymore, other than the immortality Narinder definitely grants them. The Red Crown just thinks it’s funny to suggest otherwise, and Narinder does nothing to discourage this. Also, the Lamb and Narinder aren’t actually married here yet, but, uh. Pretty safe to say that particular ritual directly follows the events of this comic. XD

Given how quickly he mellows out in canon, Narinder probably chills out a lot in this AU once he’s in charge of the cult, too, if only because 1.) He’s finally free, and 2.) He’s equally smitten with and distracted by the Lamb. He’s definitely in charge at least 95% of the time, though, because the Lamb never actually wanted to be a cult leader and, now that their time as a vessel is done, they just want to be a normal(ish) sheep who’s wholly devoted to their hot new divine husband.

Some followers do still have some valid concerns about these two being together, though, which I’m sure at least a few of you might share…

Unfortunately for any such concerns, the Lamb is a bonafide masochist in this AU. :D

They’re also 100% a sub, obviously

Anyone at all: Your relationship is problematic and potentially toxic

The Lamb: fuck yeah it is, it’s so hot~ OuO

Here’s just the last panel, made transparent for whatever nefarious purposes y’all might have for it:

Additional exchange Narinder and the Lamb have at some point, probably after the Lamb does a fatal whoopsie while out on a mission trip or in response to things getting a little too sadistic in the bedroom, ahaha:

Look, there is a very important distinction between life and death, and if you don’t understand that, then you’re probably not worthy of being the God of Death, anyway. (At least, according to Narinder, and ONLY Narinder.)

Last but not least, have these shittens:

~Such creative naming conventions I have utilized, lololol~ :D Anyway, there's a few deets on them in the rambles down below.

The rest is all ramble, so before I get to that, I’ll just say – likes and especially reblogs are very much appreciated!!! :D If you happen to really really REALLY like my stuff, meanwhile, I do have a link in my bio to my ko-fi page, where I’m accepting commissions and donations if you’re especially generous… ÓuÒ

Now, BE FREE IF YOU AIN’T DOWN FOR READING MY GOOFY RAMBLES

First ramble is re: Baal’s question of ‘Did it really work?’, since I didn’t feel like expanding on it in the comic proper, and it’s arguably pretty vague? He doesn’t ask because he doubts Narinder or his capabilities, exactly, but because neither Baal nor Aym have ever actually seen their god at full power before (he’s still technically not at full power here, either). It’s not expressly stated how soon the brothers were brought to Narinder after his imprisonment, but whether it was early on or after a length of time for Shamura to (somewhat) recover from his attack, he must have already been weakened, since I have no doubts that there was a huge battle that accompanied the Bishops working together to trap him. So, between that fight with all four of his siblings, sharing his power with a variety of vessels over time, and being chained immobile for a thousand years, he must have been severely weakened by the time he lent the Red Crown out to the Lamb, which would have only weakened him further.

I like to think this is how the Lamb is able to defeat him if they refuse to be sacrificed, despite how it took all four Bishops working together to subdue and chain Narinder in the first place.

All that aside, the three cats have been trapped in the Afterlife for so long that Baal also wanted verbal reassurance that they are all, indeed, actually able to leave it now – something that I headcanon isn’t possible without a significant amount of power (i.e. the Red Crown’s cooperation with its bearer/vessel).

(On a semi-related note, I don’t headcanon Aym and Baal as twins. I like sweetheart big bro Baal and snarky little goth bro Aym too much to have them be that close in age.)

Ah, teeny thing: If you noticed I switched up the art style for Narinder on the second page, that was intentional. It's sort of a visual indicator that there has been a Big Change for him - that being, how much power he has after sacrificing the Lamb. As for why I changed up his arms in the grass rollin' pic, I don't really subscribe to the notion that his arms are spooky bones because they're horrifically injured (beyond chain-chafing scars, that is), but rather just because he's the Bishop of Death, so he can change how normal-to-spooky they look at will. At some point I might doodle out how I imagine his appearance to range between least to most eldritch... 🤔

Next ramble, regarding Narinder’s feelings towards the Lamb...he was initially too focused on being freed from his imprisonment to form any real attachment to them. They were a tool for his use, first and foremost, but he did notice their intense devotion towards him. It was impossible not to notice, because the Lamb was always very happy to see him, even if it was because they died during a crusade (yet again). He wasn’t originally planning to revive them once he was freed, either, because he saw no real point to it – after all, they were already dead when they first met him, just as any other mortal would be when meeting him in the Afterlife, so death has very little real consequence in his eyes. But, once the chains were off, and it really sank in that he stood to lose the most devoted follower he’s ever had, he decided…why put their soul to rest for good or leave them stuck in the Afterlife when he could just as easily revive them again? And why not reward them for their hard work, anyway? Not only would it cost him nothing by comparison, but the future devotion that could come of it would surely make up for his (bare minimum) effort in reviving them.

He wasn’t expecting to get a full dose of that devotion and a smiling face so soon after killing them, though~ :3c (because the Lamb is a bonafide freak, and not-so-secretly into the fucked up power dynamics going on here, lol)

I should mention here that I am firmly of the belief that any non-god/vessel who crosses through the Gateway and into the Afterlife just straight up dies. So, Aym and Baal? Also straight up dead, from the second Shamura brought them through. Their souls were just never put to rest so that Narinder could have some company – if only according to Shamura. Narinder kept the two around mostly out of bewilderment, because honestly, who are these kittens, and what is Shamura’s game here, anyway??? They never even explained anything, they just tossed these kittens into the Afterlife and LEFT!!! At any rate, Aym and Baal being dead is how I explain why their souls apparently become lost in the void if they’re killed, along with the added complications required to revive the two because of it.

So, with those deets in mind, and given a bit of time, if Narinder hadn’t chosen to revive the Lamb, and also hadn’t chosen to put their soul to rest, they still would have woken up at some point, despite being as straight up dead as Aym and Baal. Who, don’t worry, were also properly revived while Narinder was waiting for the Lamb to wake up. Because I am also firmly of the belief that, first, the dead cannot leave the Afterlife without the use of a ritual/relic (and can't stay in the living world for long regardless), and second, dead followers’ devotion isn’t anywhere near as potent as that of the living, given how much more the living stand to lose.

Final ramble, regarding the Lamb’s feelings towards Narinder, and why they’re so devoted to him…

Well, you don’t spend most of your life on the run with your steadily-dwindling herd, trying to evade the ongoing genocide of your species, without becoming a little fucked up in the head. Maybe a lot fucked up in the head. Life is suffering, so might as well have fun with it, right? Maybe start finding death and pain to be kind of hilarious, even a little bit hot, once everyone you know and love is dead and gone, leaving you all alone? And maybe after that, there’s something comforting in how, despite the cold, cruel uncertainties of life, at least you can always count on the inevitability of death, patiently waiting for you until your very last breath? Who knows. Either way, as soon as the Lamb was killed, and they learned that the literal God of Death was offering them a second chance at life and vengeance via effective immortality, they were 100% ride-or-die-devoted all at once. Turns out death is kinder than life – go figure. (Of course, it helps that Narinder is 100% their type.)

They weren’t put off by Narinder’s thinly-veiled sadism or manipulations, either – they’re not too different in those regards, albeit opting for vastly different methods. It’s a very ‘two sides of the same coin’ sort of deal. In order to stay alive once they were made the last of their kind, the Lamb had no qualms with using others to their advantage, and that did not change once they were revived and expected to run a cult. They didn’t care for the position of authority, though – being a sheep and all, they’re much more of a follower than a leader, and thus greatly appreciated Narinder’s need for control. With how they had to keep on their toes for so long, the Lamb was also pretty good at reading people by the time they died, so they could recognize that a lot of Narinder’s posturing was just that – posturing. Dude’s 95% bluster and only 5% bite. He could obviously be vicious when he wanted or needed to (the Bishops' injuries were clear proof of that), but underneath his outer layer of cruelty was a generous layer of tsundere, and underneath all THAT was a soft squishy middle sibling velcro cat in desperate need of attention and affection.

(Which, for the record, he Did Not feel comfortable getting from Aym and Baal – Narinder still has no idea why the fuck Shamura sent them to him, beyond acting as keepers at best or trying to sabotage his attempts to escape at worst. Which, he thought HE sabotaged in turn, by guiding the kittens into being his devoted disciples instead. He thought he was very clever for it. ‘I outsmarted Shamura!’ he thought, despite that there was never anything there to outsmart. ‘What do you mean, Shamura sent your kittens to me for company?’ he demands of Forneus later. It may or may not lead him to pull Shamura out of Purgatory just so he can shake them and scream about how they should have Fucking Explained that!!!)

But, getting back on track as to why the Lamb was so willing to be sacrificed, I cannot stress this enough – if you pay even a minimal amount of attention to what he’s saying, Narinder is REALLY NOT SUBTLE about his intentions. ‘Death is of little consequence.’ ‘Followers are for you to use to your advantage.’ ‘Sacrifice a follower to absorb more power.’ So, yeah, the Lamb knew exactly what would be expected of them once the other Bishops were dead. They knew Narinder would expect them to die for him one last time. But, after all, death is of little consequence (not to mention hot), so when the time came, they wanted to see him freed, even if it meant oblivion for them in the end.

He’d given them a second life, and the ability to avenge their kin, and they felt indebted to him for that – so, while they were still pretty glum about the possibility that they might not get to see him free of his chains, nothing beyond their devotion and debt to him mattered. They never wanted all the drama and expectations that came with the Red Crown’s power, anyway, so, better for Narinder to have it back so that he could deal with it. What he did with the Lamb afterward would be up to him, and seeing as he was their god, they’d accept his decision gladly.

Were they in love with him by that point? Oh, obsessively so, but only in the devotional sense – romance was nowhere on their mind nor radar. That is, until he unexpectedly revived them again, told them he still needed them, and then offered down his hand to help them up.

The Lamb fell HARD for him in that moment. :3c

And now, a tiny shitten ramble. Lu and Li are twins, because sheep tend to have those a lot, and are conceived not long after the Lamb and Narinder’s marriage ceremony. Lu is the minutes older one, but Li is much more mature. I have put no further thought into these two, other than that they are utter menaces, birthed by the Lamb, cling hard to both their parents but especially Narinder (who spoils them rotten), and they are both genderfluid, using whichever pronouns/names they feel like at any given time. They are also both intersex, same as the Lamb, who was initially infertile up until Something Something Vague Magic, which I have also put no further thought into ¯\_(シ)_/¯

oh, and before anyone tries to suggest i headcanon this AU’s lamb as trending more female due to them giving birth or whatever, no, no, a thousand times no, they might have a vag, but they've also got a dick, and even if it's not as big as they'd like, they still know how to use it

Finally, the very tentative name for the Lamb in this AU is Yazdi, which is really just another name for the Baluchi breed of sheep XD (Not that the Lamb is this specific breed, I just didn’t like any of the other sheep-related names I found, ahaha...)

THAT’S ALL FOR NOW (collapses into an exhausted pile of goopy limbs)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Heartfelt Reunion.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[tesscourtes]

silly stuff from my silly Human Bill AU (in which his punishment after weirdmageddon is that he is just a guy now with no powers)

MAN drawing these was so much fun, I love drawing them ... the sillies ...

[anastacialy]

guys, i think the hermits are going to accidentally start a prank war again. because just like last time, a game of telephone has begun. first, false made iskall's build into ''false beans,'' her shop from the previous season. however, to give herself plausible deniability, she signs it with "love, Joel. x" due to his username, smallishbeans.

next, iskall sees this, and completely believes it. he thinks it was joel who pranked him, and as he says to pearl while showing off the sign, which he kept even after tearing the prank down, "joel gave me a kiss." in his most recent video, he pranks joel by sending him loads of anonymous messages in order to completely spam and fill his inbox, preventing him from getting any more mail, with notes such as "thinking about you. x"

of course, joel is going to have absolutely no context for this, because he didn't make the initial prank. so who is joel going to assume sent him all those messages while he was away on holiday? well, i have a guess.

etho.

[dragon-spaghetti]

I'm feelin soft 🥲

(Please click for better quality!!)

[hajihiko]

I had a dream the other night

[dailymanners]

When entering any place of business, such as a store or restaurant, if a staff member greets you, then acknowledge them and greet them back.

Although for many jobs it's a required part of their job to greet you, especially retail workers, receptionists, and restaurant workers to name a few, that doesn't make it feel any less dehumanizing to say "Hello!" to another human being only for them to ignore you. Acknowledging staff members and greeting them back is important for acknowledging their humanity, they are, after all, a human being, and not an automated machine.

This is also important when going to check out at a store. If you approach the cash register, and the cashier greets you, you should acknowledge them and greet them back. Cashiers already have to deal with being dehumanized enough. The least you can do is help humanize them by acknowledging them when they greet you and speak to you.

[this-is-specifically-for-art]

Doomed yuri in every timeline is crazy shit 😭

[skunkes]