#surprise surprise I'm still emotional

[ryuki-draws]

My favorite J-Decker boys... Shadowro and Kagemaru...

[tosteur-gluteal]

Again, gouache painting I made to relax

[kindalikerackham]

okayyyyy fine (I say to the maybe 3 people interested) I'll talk about Dr. Tanaka, and the show's (Bones 2005) response to them

[disclaimer: my perspective is someone late 20s, white, & nonbinary, as well as biased to see the good in this show. I may not have the same perspective on these examples as someone else]

[also I wrote this for fun! so it's not like an airtight argument or anything]

so.. I wasn't surprised by the team's reaction to a person who doesn't conform to gendered standards (obsession with figuring out if they were really a man or a woman, culminating in a hug just to feel their chest), for 2 main reasons:

I. Bones is a show about awkward (usually contextually privileged) people with good hearts, and it expresses this core sentiment over and over again using microaggressions:

The little person from the State Department (Alex Radziwill) is called a midget, and Bones ignorantly accosts him about how he approaches his job. It's done in the context of Booth and Bones reacting weirdly to him. By her saying ignorant things that force Booth to confront his own weirdness, they eventually reach an equilibrium with Radziwill, where they treat him like a normal contentious coworker. It's really uncomfortable, and Radziwill has to sit through them getting over themselves.

The He in The She. Do I even have to mention more than the episode title? It takes forever for the cast to wrap their heads around Pastor Patricia Stephenson, a woman whose bones suggest a male, but whose anatomy suggests a female!! Oh no! Booth struggles with using her correct pronouns, and many characters flip flops between, often settling on the masculine pronouns. And yet, the show itself gives credence to how Patricia lived the last parts of her life. It finds the beauty and honesty in how she lived, and we get to see that honored. But not necessarily through the characters, especially the main squint squad.

Arastoo Vaziri. This poor man is just a Muslim who works in the lab. Bones expresses disdain for him being visibly religious. Hodgins straight up discriminates against him, tells him to his face that he doesn't like Vaziri because he's Muslim. Vaziri has to actively attempt to bond with Hodgins to overcome this bias. Cam barely steps in here, and ultimately Vaziri has to suffer the ignorance of those around him. He has to push back about his people being associated with bombs, because white people are terrorists too! He brings out a list!

And these are just main plot points. There are definitely other examples of how these characters awkwardly microaggress their peers and civilians.

II. The interpersonal logic of Bones is predicated on gendered relationships

I cannot count the amount of times a character on Bones said "It's a woman thing," or "It's a guy thing," or "Alpha-male." The more socially adept a character is (Booth, Angela, Cam, Hodgins), the more they lean on these constructs for explaining personal relationships and the more they use gendered constructs for what's permissible in their relationships. Brennan, Zach, and other squints are often actively taught what's okay to do based on gendered rules. "She's a woman," Angela says to Zach, who doesn't understand why a girl isn't calling him back. "It's a guy thing," Angela says to Brennan, confused about something Booth is doing. "It's a guy-hug," Booth says, manipulating Bones into accepting comfort by explaining a gendered rule that he's making up.

In an environment so saturated with these rules, the characters have no idea what to do with the interpersonal reactions they have to Dr. Tanaka (as Clark has established, the characters are constantly using their interpersonal lens at work). So, this mystery makes Dr. Tanaka into a site of intrigue. I'd say both Hodgins and Angela interpret this intrigue as attraction, based both on their desire for/interpretation of Dr. Tanaka as a woman or a man, respectively. The surprise/rethinking that occurs after feeling up Dr. Tanaka's chest is consistent with this mystery/intrigue/psychosexual anxiety of not knowing a gender. (To digress a bit, it's reactions in this vein that created the Trans Panic Defense for murdering trans people).

I'm also unsurprised at Sweets. From his defense of Dr. Tanaka presenting as they want to him standing alongside the hug onlookers out of curiosity, he's the part of the show that's looking forward. He's the planted seed for this episode: that people who don't want to share their gender, it's not your business, even if it's hard to resist the part of you that thinks that.

And honestly, I think that's kind of the core to it.

Bones is a show about privileged professional folks who are often ignorant, but it attempts to plant seeds in their moderate liberal audience about cultures and subcultures. It planted the seed that Radziwill (a little person) was just a coworker using his own advantages, and it's important to treat him like you would another coworker. It planted the seed that Patricia (a trans woman) was right to transition and live her fullest life. It planted the seed that Arastoo (a Muslim) is just a coworker, one who has his own religious life, and Hodgins was the one acting irrationally.

Finally, it planted the seed that Dr. Tanaka is just living their life, and the awkward must-know-their-gender drive didn't really mean anything in the end, except for the team feeling weird about it.

[jarakio]

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[shirogane-oushirou]

🦦🐠 Aquarium Birthday Date🐠🦦

i want to take ren to the ATL aquarium so badly 😣 i remember going with my roommates during a summer break trip and i want to baaaack it's been so loooong!!! there are so many cool things there that i think he would go nuts for (beyond the obvious otter exhibit. duh.)!!!!! i want to take him for his bday and go to dinner afterwards. it's HIS day and i WILL spoil him!!! 💕

(shirt pattern one and two)

[anxiousapplepie]

Some Envy vent art I still quite like from a few months ago! It's not often this guy has such big emotions that it makes me want to kick something, but when he does you bet he makes it everybody's problem too

[dont-offend-the-bees]

Fuck I hate being an adult. I need a more adult adult to help with the volatile emotional situation.

[danganronpa96]

*takes a firm bite out of a lawn mower, (no salt, obviously)*

I just wanted to say how much of an impact Dr69 and Dr96 has had on me. Your work has had a nice cozy place in my mind ever since I found it back when Dr69's chapter 3's trial was just posted. (That was 2020 or something, right? Oh how the time flies. I can already see the retirement center.)

Your stories have inspired me so much to write some sort of crossover game myself (Haven't decided if it would be DR-styled or YTTD-styled. I have a lot of random ideas written down.) They're also the reason I got into Parappa and Breaking Bad in the first place, and I've been thinking about giving Yuppie Psycho a shot.

So yeah, thank you for writing something that had a genuine impact on me. Give yourself a pat on the back, please. Are you ever taken back by how much your stories have resonated with people?

Oh, BTW, for getting me emotionally invested in the Family Guy dog, please repent for your sins.

^ me rn

I will say it's honestly crazy to think it's been four years now since I've been working on these fics. From going "haha what if I made a crossover killing game for funsies" to "haha how fucked up can I make these bitches" is. well it's surely something

I'm happy to hear I've inspired you to create your own work as well! Whichever type of death game you go for, I'm sure you'll enjoy working on it ^^

(also please please please play yuppie psycho it is my life it is my blood I spread it like gospel please pleas eplase pleas /nf)

And regarding your question at the end... all the time, really. I'm a bit of a perfectionist at heart, and lately I'm focusing harder on trying to write things I can be proud of. So... it's nice to know you guys are here to support me :-}

[silvermoon424]

Cynical Reviews just dropped a video on an anti-choice propaganda film called "Unplanned" and I cannot believe the balls they had to blatantly lie like this. Actually, I can, because pro-lifers will eat up any anti-abortion propaganda you put in front of them.

I love how this movie deifies the protestors who stand outside of Planned Parenthood and scream "WHORE!!! MURDERER!!!" at teenage girls who are just there for a pap smear or whatever. All while making PP staff look like heartless monsters who laugh about dead babies and force abortions on unwilling girls. I honestly have nothing but disgust for propaganda like this.

[seventh-district]

again and again i find myself lamenting that audio roleplay isn't taken more seriously by some people. like yeah, they often have a romantic element, and by nature they usually directly involve/address the listener- and i totally get that those things aren't to everyone's taste. no art or entertainment is universally appealing, and that's okay! but.. it still makes me a lil sad that the "cringe" reputation of asmr/audio rp precedes it. there's a whole lot of talent and creativity being poured into these audios by so many people that i feel goes unrecognized and/or disrespected simply due to the medium that the stories are being told through.

[vaguely-concerned]

we've had a death in the family (a long expected one, to be clear, but sad nonetheless :( ) and the funeral is across the country on the day after veilguard releases, so my wait now has a few more days added to it. oh well if I've waited ten years I can wait until the monday after launch haha

[autisticburnham]

While Michael's tragedy obviously isn't the same as Book's in that she still has a number of loved ones with her, I'm surprised there isn't more textual acknowledgement that neither of them can ever see their families again

[indelicateink]

they're not gonna push that broken man off that tower to shatter into a million pieces are they. they blew their fall device wad in s1e5 didn't they. assuming per s2e5 louis and lestat won't think each other dead after paris after armand lied to each of them, will they. i'm going to have to wait for all that in the year 2045 reboot aren't i.

s'alright. our new story is just as good, sometimes i just miss things that stay in the book

pouring one out for the pathos of pathetic injured blood-hungry delirious lestat showing up on armand's doorstep and pissing him off and all that subplot entailed.

[nostalgicatsea]

A few years ago, @cathalinaheart recorded two podfics of my fics, and I encourage everyone to give them a listen.

Podfics are so cool once you get over your embarrassment and shyness of being seen, especially in a way that you're not used to lol. It's magical to hear your words come to life, in the voice of someone who enjoyed your writing enough to read it aloud to others and back to you.

Somehow, it makes it even realer that there's another person out there who opened my fic on their phone or computer and spent time with it. It feels more intimate like it's just that reader and me and the words I excavated from someplace deep inside existing in the space between us.

All this is to say, these podfics are special to me and even more so because they're the first two I ever received! For some reason, I never imagined someone podficcing any of my fics.

WOW, I'M DIGRESSING. WHAT ARE THE FICS AND WHERE ARE THE LINKS TO CAT'S PODFICS, YOU ASK? Here they are:

"The Burning of Flowers" - 616 Hickmanvengers Steve/Tony Hanahaki AU

"In My Hands and Gone Again" - post-Endgame Steve/Tony amnesia AU

THANK YOU FOR MAKING THESE, CAT!<3

[k7tt1]

[ rubs gremlin hands maniacally because nobody is here to witness my ramblings, ]

[lunapwrites]

Generational trauma is weird sometimes.

Like, I have never in my life seen let alone experienced a tornado. But both of my parents lived through a nasty one, and so now any time we get so much as a watch, I've got leashes and collars on the dogs and my bag strapped on with my ID and sturdy shoes (even if I'm otherwise still in my pj's) and my water bottle refilled and I am READY. All because I grew up on the story of my mom having to walk barefoot to the red cross station after her house got blown away around her.

Anyway, this comes up now because last week was the 50th anniversary of the inciting event, as it were, and my mom actually told her story straight for once instead of roundabouting it.

Pictures/info/TLDR version of the stories below in case you were curious.

Clocked in at half-mile wide. Multiple vortices. Wind speeds estimated between 250-305mph. 32 killed (plus two firefighters due to a subsequent fire) and 1,150 injured.

On the ground for 39 minutes, traveling about 32 miles. Downtown Xenia pictured at center, Arrowhead subdivision on the far left at point of touchdown.

The Arrowhead subdivision was the first hit - my mother's neighborhood. All that was left of her house was the hallway she was sheltering in with her younger brothers, and the closet where she'd stashed the family cat. They were home alone at the time. She was 14.

Image of the damage in downtown Xenia, where my dad was. He survived thanks to a passing couple who dragged him off his bike and to the nearest cover - the stairwell of an elementary school. It was partially destroyed, and he almost lost a finger to a flying brick, but he lived to tell about it. He was 16.