#standard normal

[fauchart]

I miss being able to make art and post it. And I miss when doing those things brought you interactions and friends

Idk, someone recently liked an old piece of mine from a bygone era where even sharing an OC of all things had people react. It brought me back to those days where you'd make a whole community and happily include newcomers and draw for each other and send asks etc, all for simply existing on this platform

Now it feels like you post in an empty room and the best you can hope for is a vague echo in return. People will see your art and move on without barely touching it at all

Why have we gotten so stingy with our comments and interactivity?..

[moliathh]

like this is kinda cute how alucard imitated integra when he needed to look "good" or somewhat "beautiful" in his standard (like he intentionally dressed up even integra said he looked "different than usual") he looked so much like her here just inverted in colour palette 😭 as if tying their ties in the same style wasnt enough

[inkskinned]

no, but really, we need to talk about the casual objectification that has become the fallback discourse of the internet: if you're pretty and dressed nicely, you're a slut. and if you're even vaguely outside of their body standard, you're fucking disgusting.

too-frequently, people position sex workers as being "the problem". they sneer you're addicted to pornography, you don't know what a real woman looks like. but real women are in pornography. the real bodies on display are not the issue here: the issue is that other people feel extremely confident when commenting on someone's physique.

2000's super-thin is slowly worming its way back into the public ideal. recently i saw someone get told to "go for a run", despite the fact she was on the thinner side of average. not that it would ever be appropriate to say that: but it's kind of like sticker shock when you see it. people think that is fat? holy shit. do they just have no idea about things?

but what are you going to do about it? that's the problem, right. because chances are - you're a normal person. we can say normalize carrying fat on your body, but we are not the billion-dollar diet industry. we are not the billion-dollar fashion industry. we are just, like. people. who are trying to make content on the internet, without being treated shittily.

as someone who has been on both sides of things: you are treated better when you are thin and pretty. this is statistically correct. i am not saying that you cannot be bullied for being thin; i'm saying there are objective institutional biases against certain bodytypes. there are videos of men and women who lost weight all saying: i now know for a fact exactly how much worse you're treated. in the comments, some asshole inevitably says something akin to you deserved to be dehumanized when you were fat.

which means that ... the easiest thing to do is be pretty and thin. it is the path of least resistance, because of course it is, because any time you post a picture of yourself without a thigh gap, someone immediately comments something like you need to try a diet.

the other half is also dehumanizing though, huh, just in a different way. when i put on makeup and nice clothes, i am told i slept my way to the top as a professional. do you know how many women in STEM have told me they purposefully dress to "unimpress" because they already struggle to be taken seriously and if they're ever considered pretty - it for some reason takes away from their authority.

so they make it seem like it's your fault. you, existing in a body - it's your fault! if you didn't want shitty comments, don't have a body. they position us against each other like chess pieces; vying for male attention we don't even need.

and i can be an authority on this unless you think i'm fat and unattractive. when i am pretty and thin, i'm an activist. when i am just a normal person who makes a good point: i am immediately dismissed. nobody fucking believes you if you're not seen as attractive. you literally lose value. you cease to exist.

but the whole time, it feels like - is anyone actually grounded the fuck in reality? the line of "pretty and thin" keeps shifting. nobody seems to understand what "a normal weight" even looks like, because it's not something that exists - you cannot tell a person's health by looking at their body. even if you think you could tell that, even if you're sure a person is dangerously overweight - people are not your dolls. they do not need to be dressed up or displayed properly to soothe your aesthetics. you aren't concerned for them, you're stealing their agency. you don't get to say if they're "allowed" to take pictures and post them on the internet - you don't get to tell them how to exist.

people hide behind "the obesity epidemic" without any actual qualifications. they crow things about "normalizing unhealthiness".

but it's bullshit. i have visible abs. there is a pair of parallel lines on my body, even when i'm relaxed; where my obliques meet my abdominal wall. i am proud of this because it means i'm strong, because i overcame an eating disorder only to be ripped as fuck. it is genetic and physical luck that i even get any definition, i'm pleased as punch.

but it does mean that my abdominal wall sticks out a little bit. the other day i posted a video of myself dancing, and, for a moment, my shirt slipped. you could see a little bit of my stomach. i was cartwheeling to the floor. moments before this, i'd had my foot over my head.

a guy slid into my DMs. a row of vomiting emojis prefaced: you should really lose some weight before you think about dancing.

i stared at it for a long time. there was a time when i would have been triggered by this, where it would have encouraged me to starve myself. i would have ignored the fact i'm flexible, agile, good at jumping: i would have lost the weight for a stranger's passing comment. i would have found myself and my body fucking disgusting.

and for what? to please what? because why? so that he can exist in this world without an unchallenged eyeball? what would my self-hatred even accomplish? usually i write paragraphs. obviously. on this particular occasion, in this body i've been at war with for ages: i just felt exhausted.

it shouldn't be even worth saying. it shouldn't be hard to explain. all of this emotional turmoil when he cannot even comprehend the most basic truth: i am not an object on display for him.

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

hot take maaaybe but imo the core tragedy of satoru is that he’s not a god, he’s literally just a normal guy who got godhood pushed onto him by other people . a god would be able to handle eternal solitude no problem but satoru isn’t one so he suffers for it

[girltalkcollectives]

The Dark Side of ‘Boys Will Be Boys’

I still remember sitting in the principal’s office, knees scraped and uniform dirty, trying not to cry while explaining why I pushed Tommy back on the playground. For weeks, he’d been pulling my hair, chasing me during recess, and ruining my art projects. That day, he’d grabbed my favorite hair ribbon and thrown it in a puddle.

The principal’s response? A warm smile and those words I’ll never forget: “Oh sweetie, he’s only mean because he likes you! Boys don’t know how to show their feelings at this age.”

I was six. That was my first lesson that my discomfort was less important than a boy’s feelings.

And before anyone jumps in with “boys will be boys” or “it’s not that serious” — let me tell you how that lesson played out over the years.

By fourth grade, I stopped telling teachers when boys would snap my bra strap because I was tired of hearing “that means they think you’re pretty!” I learned to be flattered by harassment before I even knew what harassment was.

In middle school, when Jake wouldn’t stop following me between classes and grabbing my backpack, my own mom said, “He probably just doesn’t know how to tell you he has a crush!” So I stopped mentioning it, even when it escalated to him “accidentally” running into me at my locker every day.

“But they’re just boys!” people say. “Stop making everything so serious!”

Okay, let’s talk about how “just boys” grow up.

That same Jake who learned his harassment was “just showing affection”? By high school, he was the guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer at parties. But hey, he “just liked me,” right?

Tommy from first grade? Last I heard, he had multiple harassment complaints at his college. But I bet someone’s still saying “boys will be boys!”

And me? I spent years unlearning the idea that love is supposed to hurt. Years figuring out that someone making me uncomfortable isn’t a compliment. Years understanding that my instincts were right all along — I wasn’t being “too sensitive,” he wasn’t being “sweet,” it wasn’t “just a crush.”

To everyone saying “it’s not that deep” or “stop overthinking” — you’re part of the problem. Because while you’re dismissing these “little” incidents, girls are learning lessons that follow them into adulthood:

When my first boyfriend threw my phone because he was “passionate?” I heard: “He’s only mean because he likes you!”

When my college classmate wouldn’t stop asking me out after ten nos? I remembered: “He just doesn’t know how to show his feelings!”

These aren’t separate issues. They’re the same lesson playing out over years.

We’re teaching girls that love looks like discomfort.

That harassment means attraction.

That their boundaries matter less than boys’ feelings.

That being hurt means being loved.

And to those saying “not all boys are like that” — you’re missing the point. It’s not about all boys. It’s about what we teach ALL girls about what they should accept.

Because that six-year-old girl with scraped knees grew up to be a woman who had to relearn what love actually looks like. Who had to realize that real love doesn’t pull your hair, push you down, or make you cry.

So no, it’s not “just boys being boys.”

It’s not “making a big deal out of nothing.”

It’s not “too serious.”

It’s the first chapter in a book too many girls have to unwrite later.

And maybe if we stopped telling little girls that harassment means love, we’d have fewer women trying to convince themselves that abuse means passion.

[orb-weaving]

Recognition

[haunted-xander]

When this Mimic stuff eventually gets resolved I think she should kill that fucking octopus

[theborzoiarebackintown]

SUSPICIOUS

[canisalbus]

The little Courage the cowardly dog-esque paws on this drawing just sent me for some reason I'm so sorry I just had to quickly doodle a little Machete the cowardly dog XD

.

[copepods]

you know its kind of crazy that the standard college experience is to expect to be driven insane with work and experience breakdowns regularly and develop a dependence on caffeine or some other worse drug and its just like, normal. kind of weird if you ask me

[reasonsforhope]

"Enviornmental campaigners have welcomed Labour’s decision to lift the Tories’ ban on new onshore wind developments.

In one of the new government’s first acts, the department for energy and net zero confirmed that future projects will be treated in the same way as other planning applications.

Energy secretary Ed Miliband said: “The onshore wind ban has been in place for more than nine years. We’ve been in government 72 hours, we’ve lifted it.

“That’s the pace we’re going to move at. We’ve got to become a clean energy superpower for energy independence, to cut bills, to create good jobs and tackle the climate crisis. We’re getting on with it.”

“By harnessing the country’s vast renewable power potential, the new government is staking its claim as a global leader in the green energy transition.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed the change as she also announced major changes to the planning system to allow the building of more homes as part of the government’s moves to boost economic growth."

-via HuffPost, July 8, 2024

[splickedylit]

Bestie pls tell me all of ur indigoblood and clown church headcanons!! :o)

I always have trouble pinning this kind of thing down to a list! Everything I can name feels either too vague or too specific. But I'll try!

longtime readers will know I'm absolutely into different facepaint designs having different meanings, and the intimacy/sanctity of the Bare Face eue

I really enjoy the concept of the church as a group being weirdly supportive and protective of each other compared to most trolls. like they'll still kill each other, but trolls of other colors find their comparative attachment to each other deeply unnerving.

Religious practice is largely by The Vibes both for the practitioners and also for me the author lol. Church services? sure! Confession? I guess! Patron saints and saint prayers? If you like that kind of thing. Ritual sacrifice? Yeah man! Orgies and mass intoxication? Why not?

Seadwellers have the monopoly on gold jewelry as a sign of status--highblood fashion is rainbow fabric/stones, silver and jet. Gold on a clown is usually a quadrant symbol from a seadweller--a fairly rare event because:

(I feel like this is at least partially textual but) violet seadwellers and highbloods have a contentious relationship and frequently clash RE: who's the bigger top bitch. Despite the hemospectrum being in the seadwellers' favor, this is a pretty evenly-matched contest (see: Dualscar vs the GHB)

The GHB position technically comes down to deadly combat, but there's a certain amount of democratic input in that if the church or empress don't like you, you can definitely win and then promptly get quietly assassinated.

Despite "candy/mutant red" and "lime green" as blood colors both being taboo or carrying baggage in some way, those colors are often represented in holy art and paintings, because those are the colors of the Messiahs--red for rage and green for mirth. Spirals, smiling/snarling masks or faces, and twining snakes also feature heavily.

Finally, I'll point you toward this post, which covers a lot of less general stuff not covered in this list lol.

[were-wolverine]

okay but imagine jason like. not knowing that the Allblades aren’t a normal thing and thinking some people just have magic swords that appear in the presence of true evil. cuz like if aliens and metahumans and magic exist surely it isn’t that weird, right?

and then as Hood he uses them one time and everyone is like “what the FUCK? are those magic flaming swords??” and he’s like “yeah? what about it?”

everyone just stares at him like “what. WHAT.” and jason’s just like “cmon guys, magic and metas and aliens exist, is this really that surprising?” and the goons are all “fair fuckin point” and move on

[filurig]

june sillyness

[starcurtain]

I have this small, deeply personal headcanon that after his grandmother's passing, Alhaitham's home was so unbearably quiet that he started--just barely, just one or two words--to speak out loud to her as if she was still there.

"I've been accepted to the Akademiya, Grandmother."

"I passed my promotion exams."

"I debated with Haravatat's sage."

Just that, and quiet again.

But one day, it's: "I met someone strange."

"He keeps showing up when I'm trying to study."

"We don't agree on anything. Still..."

"I made a friend."

"Today, Kaveh and I were researching--"

"It's already dark. I didn't realize we spent so long in Razan Garden. Kaveh wanted to hear about my article--"

"He's going to be furious when I tell him the whole point for his portion of the lecture is based on a false predicate--"

The house where his grandmother used to be gets a little louder again; the noise lasts a little longer.

Until one day, when there's no words at all.

One day, when there's just the sound of a single sob, and then a long, long silence.

[markscherz]

Hello Mr Scherz! I don't know how you feel about receiving images, but I would like to show you my young man. This is Pancake. He's a pacman frog. He likes locusts and trying to bite me. Thank you for your time.

Yup, sounds like your bog-standard Ceratophrys to me.