#that's right I said it. I'm right

[plantsucc]

pony reflection hours.

I finished Jenny Nicholson's video about Bronycon finally, and decided to check if Equestria Daily still exists. amazingly it's still up. I went to check out the article that featured my art once - I realised THIS MARCH marked 10 years since I had a moment of Horse Fame!! XD

my old username was ArtFlicker and I was featured in an Artist Spotlight. it's nice to be reminded of what people actually see or saw in my drawings. (ignore the she/her pronouns - I was about 14, didn't realise I was a trans guy yet, and wouldn't acknowledge it for a few years at least. :P)

I explored gender through pony genderbends / genderswapping and shipping. it made me ask questions about society and probably made me who I am today. made me ask why does society treat you different depending on what you were assigned at birth? if a character were the opposite sex, what would change in both their body and their upbringing? (I didn't know about trans or nonbinary options yet. I think they call it cisswapping these days?) I also genderbent straight ships gay because... boys. I liked boy characters! and BL. and I got to explore the new dynamic. like if they're gay now, suddenly their relationship is unacceptable to some people, and actually illegal in many places. even though everything else is the same, suddenly it's transgressive? really makes a teen realise that they're living in a society. the whole thing made me think more deeply about gender and in turn stereotypes, inequality and oppression.

(some gay (M/M gay not lesbian gay) Rainbow Dash genderswaps + gay-fied/un-straighted SoarinDash. I drew more of Pinkie Pie/Pokey Pierce but I show them in every post where I mention my Pony Past, so here's a rare selection of Rainbow Blitz instead)

um okay, it doesn't need to be that deep, everyone just seemed to love my cute shippy art, which I really appreciated. I put a lot of work into it and it was great fun. I think I put more work into these than I do my art nowadays... I want to go back to finishing things digitally but I don't know how anymore. it's like it's harder now. then again, 4-legged characters who don't even need clothes were very easy to design, draw and pose. should I return to that??

a nice comment similarly delving into love for my messy art. I guess maybe I'm too obsessed with (even romanticising and envying) the idea of clean line art being superior and my own being permanently "worse" for being a mess.

the date was 12.03.2014 and the Artist Spotlight was written by Calpain. thanks again. :)

The Last Bronycon, the video essay, was kind of hard to watch through, for personal reasons. it's like I'm coming to terms with my cringe past. but I cringed at the brony fandom for years after I left not because "embarrassing to be hyped about the colorful kids show," but because of the oversexualization and homophobia that seemed to plague the fandom.

at first, Equestria Daily didn't even accept M/M shipping fics, because they were allegedly """out of character,""" while F/F or F/M shipping fics AND suggestive fan art was allowed without question. it was meanspirited and conservative, typical for a "cishet dudes" kind of community. very typical for a "fandom originating from 4chan" kind of community... I'm over my hatred for bronies in general but THAT part is what I'm ashamed of when it comes to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

and yet it was a mostly good experience for my first big fandom. I made self-discoveries, lifelong friends and I got a good grade in shipping and art according to the fandom overlords of EqD. normal to want and possible to achieve. XD I didn't even realise the fandom had quieted down. the MLP:FiM fandom was SO prominent, it was everywhere in the 2010s. it was a very 2010s moment and I didn't even realise it until it was over. it's very similar to Homestuck in that way, because I don't see Homestuck cosplays anymore either, but in my mind it still feels MASSIVE even though I was never part of that fandom.

they're not Annoyingly Prominent anymore and the absence feels kind of... bad? painful?

I miss it? it's like, wow, you REALLY don't realise what you have until it's gone.

(looking at my ponysona makes me want red hair again)

now for huge fandoms we have just have fffffucking Gensh- nonono I'll probably feel the same about that one in 10 years, just like I hated Homestuck at first and appreciate them now! I'm self-aware!! I am!

[maeamian]

Part of the reason that Republicans are so desperately acting like they will never lose again is because they are deeply terrified that this is their last real chance to win. The big orange dipshit came in and gutted the party of everyone who wasn't a loyalist, which left it full of nasty little gremlins who have gaping voids where charisma and human decency is supposed to go.

They still hold a lot of power, but if we stop them this year the next presidential election may not be the Most Important One Of Your Life™, that's not a guarantee or anything, but if they don't win here and now their future looks grim, this dipshit is the only guy they have left and he's extremely diminished and has his brains leaking out of his ears at this point. We can beat him into the ground.

So that's what we're gonna fucking do. We're gonna break these fucking fash. They will crash upon us and we're gonna break their fucking necks. When they come for us they will lose because they're fucking losers and we have each other's backs which is something they fundamentally are incapable of comprehending.

[egophiliac]

still ruminating over Lost In the Book With Spooky Skeletons Part 1, so here's a selection of some of my favorite little bits! (...some more loosely paraphrased than others) (I just feel like Idia has no room to criticize in general, okay)

anyway, I'm sure we're just going to have a fun time celebrating Halloween and nothing bad is going to happen whatsoever! :)

[yaoisquidbob]

serious gaming

[tittyinfinity]

I was hanging out at the karaoke bar, chatting with a beautiful woman, and we were really hitting it off. I threw a couple of flirtatious comments her way. She giggled nervously, but abruptly stopped and looked at the floor.

She told me that she was too nervous to hit on people because she's trans and worries that people will view her as a predator and that she might get hurt.

My heart sank. I let her know that she could hit on me in whatever way she wanted and I would LOVE it. We spent the rest of the night hanging out and flirting. We ended up making out. It was great.

But I can't stop thinking about how that wasn't the first time a trans woman has said that to me. About how unsafe it is for some women that they feel the need to give out fucking disclaimers to have normal interactions with people.

We have GOT to make the world a safer place for trans women. It pisses me off that there are men at the bar who are openly predatory towards me without fear of consequence, yet a trans woman is too scared to even fucking call me pretty. And that's because she IS more likely to face worse consequences for lesser things! Like what the fuck!

You need to always check on your internalized biases. Being queer yourself doesn't absolve you of transmisogynistic thoughts and behaviors. Being bi/pansexual doesn't mean you don't hold those biases either! If you feel differently about a trans woman hitting on you than you feel about a cis woman or a man hitting on you, you need to evaluate that.

Trans women, I love you so fucking much. You should be able to express attraction and love as freely as everyone else. I hope you can always feel safe around me. And I'll never stop fighting until you can feel safe period.

[a-rabbit-obsessed-queer]

Aspec men deserve much more respect and recognition in the aspec community than they receive. They often face a different form of aphobia specific to them ("men are naturally sexual they can't be ace" "all men are unromantic that's not unique") this rhetoric is spouted by many, even members of our own community and I hope for a day where that is no longer the case. As an ace and demiro woman (demigirl but that's beside the point) I want to encourage folks to take the time to give the aspec men in their lives support and to the aspec men reading, you are who you say you are no matter what people say and you deserve the world. I'm sorry for the ways in which toxic masculinity has harmed you. You are a valued member of the aspec community and the queer community as a whole. No ace or aro person is broken and neither are you. I'm sorry if anyone has ever told you otherwise.

[biracy]

[weekend-conspiracy-theorist]

given cass's canonical love of reality tv, I am absolutely certain that every year babs has to go into cbs's recruitment email and delete her survivor audition video

[dykephan]

we're cooked

[doberbutts]

I always think it's funny whenever I post about an issue that directly affects me and someone responds with "you're an idiot that doesn't know what you're talking about" and I have to be like. Hello. This is my demographic. Do you see this label here? Guess who falls under it OH RIGHT it's me. Maybe I like. Have some amount of idea of what I'm talking about considering this is sampled directly from my life experiences. Just a thought.

[exoexid]

was watching khadija mbowe's reaction to "not like us" so these are some of my favorite comments of people theorizing about what j. cole might be up to these days:

[gordonfreemanspussy]

happy october :]

@scienceteamtober day 1: before the game

with lovely beautiful awesome forever character art by @winkreallyisntable goes CRAZY!!! full art below the cut.

[pretend-wizard]

THE VIDEO

[teaboot]

You're kind of annoying but make some funny posts so I still follow you

don't?

[blamemma]

say it with chest martin !!!!!!!!!

[somecunttookmyurl]

the "all customer service people are trained by management to be illiterate apes you can never get any resolutions by design dont be mean about it" crowd would faint to know there is a guy at my bank RIGHT NOW attempting to resolve an issue that would normally take a week

see. i tried to order food (having nothing of note in the house, and too much pain currently to get down 3 flights of stairs about it) and the payment failed on just eat's end.

but it went through fine on my bank's end, so the funds are tied up in "pending"... for a week. my available balance is now 95p so i can't just do it again

the bank cannot typically do anything about this until the normal time frame for collection passes and they funds just release automatically. just eat have zero contactable customer service

but it is for FOOD and there's no more MONEY and i am a DISABLED CUSTOMER so BY FUCKING GOD not on zeeshan's watch