#notart

[petricorah]

Having icons on the dashboard increases community. I don't take the time to read every username, but with a quick glance, I know who posted something. It means I can associate what they posted with them. Otherwise it's just Stuff. (It's also fun to see the icons. It's a unique personalization that makes people happy, and their prominence makes tumblr unique.) It doesn't take up space. Why take that away?

it's honestly alarming that they're making this shift to depersonalize and disintegrate community.

part of me feels like this is the progression they want:

can't tell who posts -> don't care who posts -> no connection to who is on your dash -> FYP/algorithm

and it's horrible that they seem to be taking such a beloved website and sending it in these directions. probably overreacting but it's sad and frustrating to watch it go

anyway. it's a good reminder to reblog the posts you love, because that's how the website can keep functioning like it does

[wishing-well-art]

Violence duo

[gertritude-art]

Are You A Gamer.

This is what the "Gamer Police" would ask me in a twisted YA Dystopian novel where video games are outlawed and I, Atarii Nindo, am a shy yet clumsy teenage girl who harbors a shameful secret (I have a birthmark in the exact shape of a PlayStation controller) and have just been caught inside the ABANDONED AR_ADE (missing letters on the sign) past curfew. After this, I will be rescued by a mean yet handsome teenage boy who will lead me to the underground Gamer Rebellion, where I will be sat in front of a tv and forced to play super mario bros as part of my initiation. I will play the game perfectly, with zero deaths, and the boy will go "tch... lucky break for a noob like you," and I will spend the next twenty chapters unable to comprehend what a "crush" is before we invade the capitol and the president, kneeling before my wiimote lightsaber, reveals I am the reincarnated spirit of shigeru miyamoto

[ratgirlexe]

It feels almost weird to me that I really struggle to compute HDG as a horror-adjacent setting like so many others do. I know that there is an inherent power imbalance in the vast majority of relationships within the setting, and that can easily lend itself to a feeling of dawning horror when the protagonist realizes that they are inherently powerless against whatever is about to happen to them, but ultimately the setting just... isn't very scary to me in the way that it seems to be for so many others.

Maybe it's because I haven't read as many of the more extreme horror-adjacent entries, or maybe its because the other settings in which I write are so much more bleak, but its just not why I come to HDG to write. Ultimately when I'm writing in HDG, there's an inherent positive slant to what I'm writing, because there's this idea that ultimately by the end of the story the characters will be in a better place than where they started. It might take forced drugging or brainwashing or any number of potentially horrific things to get them there, but at least in my estimation its ultimately going to be for their own benefit?

And again, maybe I just need to read some of the darker things folks have written, I know there's a handful of works by certain writers that are apparently much more extreme in how the dynamics between characters work, but ultimately HDG as a setting is one of wish fulfillment, both for submissives, dominants, and those in between. I can't see it as anything but hopeful, even if sometimes the big plants are quite scary.

[gingermaple]

*sticks mic in your face* start rambling about the roleswapverse plz?

with pleasure!!!

the entire premise is (as the name would suggest) that all the characters roles are swapped. scar and grian are no longer the heros hotguy and cuteguy, and instead their roles are filled by pearl and gem (hotgal and cutegal). as such, scar and grian now fill their previous roles as the villains spectacle (scour) and bleeding heart (bleeding hart). while the roles are all swapped everyone keeps their original mutations.

pearl is still a journalist, but now she also takes matters into her own hands as the vigilante hotgal, alongside her trusty sidekick gem/cutegal, a soldier who feels she finally has something worth fighting for.

funny enough, their first meeting/general dynamic goes a lot smoother than it does for the boys in canon, with their first meeting being pearl saving gem instead of shooting her (looking at you hotguy)

scar (spectacle) is a villain who believes everybody should be able to be their 'true self'. he's very flashy, changes his costume with every appearance, and doesn't like to get his hands dirty. instead he has a ton of henchmen he calls 'stagehands' to do things for him.

grian (bleeding heart) is his primary stagehand. originally a stone-cold killer who only knew how to follow orders, spectacle gave him the opportunity to have fun and express himself.

they have a very 3rd Life coded dynamic in which grian uses his position as scar's lackey to cause chaos and do what he wants with the excuse that 'he was just following orders' and scar uses grian to do his dirty work.

this au (of an au) exists in collaboration with a bunch of my fellow hgcz contributors and we're all collectively going insane over it.

[rikouto]

[sparkskun]

Silly little rich guy goes brrrrrrrr

[kaisermakes]

When the local cloth is about to throw hands

Tightly cropped to avoid spoilers, but this dialogue had me howling.

[glimmerpearl]

I just read a comment on TikTok that said Ford “had to put in effort to hate Stanely but loving him was a reflex” and now I’m crying

[riddoodles]

?

Blank image:

[knightsiscrabs]

in case anyone was wondering what i do between classes at art school. im making a cardboard cutout of boba fett for my studio. im going to use him to hang my apron when im not using it

[labyrinth-guard]

I got sick of going to fandom everytime I needed a reference so I compiled all the references I could get I apologize for how messy this is, it was organized until i started doing the demons I know the quality is going to be thrown out the window by tumblr and idk how to fix that, apologies

[wishing-well-art]

IMPULSE?????

[gertritude-art]

truly is great to have a character who would naturally says sentences like "he's the pumpkin king, you know. he's even stronger than the devious oogie boogie."

[ratgirlexe]

To wrap up my thoughts on HDG as horror, now that I’m no longer in severe pain and writing my thoughts at 3 am:

I think the best summary of it all is that it’s hard for me to go into any given story and feel truly horrified, because I know on a meta textual level that everything is going to work out in the end, and the characters will likely be happier than when they started. I don’t know how to suspend my disbelief in the idea that ultimately things will work out, so even if the main character goes through any number of acts which are horrifying in *theory*. I almost empathize more with the affini putting them through that experience, more so than the character who’s point of view I’m seeing things from.

Are you a rebel feralist being put through awake surgery for your haustoric implant? It might be the scariest experience of your life, but that just means you get to be a floret now! You’ll have someone to care for and love you forever, and you’ll never have to be alone. Give it a week and you’ll be thanking them for doing so.

How about if you’re a terminally ill patient at end-of-life, or in excruciating pain that even the affini can't somehow solve? That's okay! We'll get you on a nice tasty regimen of class-O's, and you'll never hurt or be afraid again. There will be nothing but unending bliss, and you won't even realize that you're hurting. Not all suffering can be prevented, and eventually it all has to end, but heaven is real, and we've placed it inside you. Even in that last situation, which is the most personally scary to me, there's a certain level of bitter sweetness to it all. Maybe it's just the pain I've been in, but there aren't quite as many ways to end someones life that are as kind as bliss never-ending.

Ultimately I think it's just the fact that I know the affini are benevolent within the story, which makes even the most harrowing or scary events take on a more lighthearted tone for me. Yes, getting to where you want to be, where you *need* to be can be really scary. I'm autistic. Change is terrifying, change is death, and some changes can feel too monumental to ever surmount on your own. But to me HDG is a true escapist fantasy that says "Even if this change is scary, even if you can't choose to change for the better, even if the process hurts or makes you feel like you're dying, I'll be here with you to hold your hand and guide you through it. You don't have to go through it alone, and by the end you'll be able to blossom into who I know you can be."

And to me that's just not scary or horrifying. That's something that I yearn for each and every day.

[glumby]

my sleeping hamster using her sister (completely stone cold sober awake) as a pillow