#this just came out of me

[warren-keplers-funk-band]

have you learned to trust me ?

[twinktor-frankenstein]

I don't know why I drew this but here's Thierry the AO3 pony @vellichorom

[bettercauliflowersaul]

Rooting for the Anti-Hero: How Taylor Swift and The Once-ler Are Incredibly Similar

I know this is a very cursed post, but bear with me here.

Along with the rest of the world, I've grown obsessed with Taylor Swift's new album, Midnights. By my third or fourth (or hundredth) listen, I found myself connecting songs to The Once-ler. You know, from the 2012 animated movie The Lorax. Starring Taylor Swift. Lead single Anti-Hero stuck out to me the most, with lines like “Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism, like some kind of congressman,” and “One day I’ll watch as you’re leaving, ‘cause you got tired of my scheming for the last time,” stuck out to me. Naturally, once I get something in my head I can't let it go, so I was sent down a rabbit hole of connecting Swift’s music to The Once-ler.  What I discovered is the two share very similar backgrounds and career trajectories.

Both Once-ler and Taylor grew up on farms. Taylor was born and raised in rural Pennsylvania, moving to Nashville mid-childhood. The Once-ler's location is unspecified, but appears to be in the Midwest or deep south. Since they were young, they were strong-willed and focused on success. Taking pride in their individualism, Swift and Once-ler didn't let their many naysayers stop their dreams of their "product" taking off. For Swift, it was her music. For Once-ler, it was the Thneed. Both were strong business people who would stop at nothing to get exposure.

Upon moving to Nashville, Taylor walked up and down record label's offices, with a CD and a pitch. Throughout high school, she was bullied by peers for wanting to be afamous singer. Eventually, she signed with Sony Records in 2004. Likewise, after arriving in Greenville, Once-ler played his jingle in the center of town everyday. He was faced with ridicule by townsfolk, yet he kept coming back until the Thneed gained popularity. After that initial push, both were propelled into stardom. As is the case with most celebrities, soon their image became larger than life. Their fame grew unmanageable as they slowly became a brand, a product, rather than human. Greed became a motivator in every step they took. Taylor put forth constant merch drops with high prices, slow shipping, and low quality. Then the Ticketmaster controversy occurred. Similarly, over the course of the movie, Once-ler slowly becomes corrupted by greed. He needs to keep "biggering"; expanding his factory and making as much money as possible.

Both Taylor Swift and The Once-ler have a desire to outdo themselves. They want to set records and beat them, they want to be the ones on top. However, with fame comes carelessness. For Once-ler and Taylor, this manifested in environmental degradation. Once-ler destroyed the ecosystem in the Truffula Valley, ignoring objections from The Lorax. On a smaller scale, Swift has recently been called out for her use of her private jet. It was reported that she had the worst Co2 emissions this past year. She totaled 170 flights in just 7 months.

Taylor reflects on her feelings about being famous and the stressors that come with it in her documentary Miss Americana. She recalls her journey to fame and what it's like being under the public eye. The Once-ler tells a similar story throughout The Lorax to Ted. He tells the full story of his journey to success and warns young Ted to not make the same mistakes he did. Both stories are politically focused to a degree, Once-ler focusing on environmentalism and Taylor on lgbt rights. Overall, the two share a similar upbringing, rise to fame, and mindset.

Thank you for reading if you made it this far. I could do a whole other post on analyzing Taylor songs and how they relate to the Once-ler so if you want that let me know. Again I hope any of this makes sense I wrote it in a frenzy.

[paintedcrows]

Did anyone tell Ford (bonus doodles: Family Movie Night, 70s Classics)

[tink27]

I love this so much, and these drawings bring so many scenarios to mind. Mainly Captain Eddie Munson kidnapping Steve for ransom. In my mind this could go one of two ways.

either, Steve's parents do not care enough about Steve to actually pay it, despite having a great amount of wealth, and tells Eddie as such. This infuriates him, and when he goes back to the ship he talks to Steve (who is still bound in ropes) and says

"your parents are assholes" keeping a blunt voice as he assesses Steve, now from a different perspective

"tell me something I don't know" Steve spits out, clearly annoyed by the whole scenario and half expecting, without Eddie saying anything, that his parents would not pay for his safe return.

Steve's response makes Eddie's face break out into a grin, as he concludes that Steve Harrington is clearly more than just a rich pretty boy.

So in one impulsive move Eddie cuts Steve free of his ropes and says "ever considered being a pirate Stevie?"

OR

They do agree to pay the ransom, not wanting to give into the demands of a lowly pirate like Munson. But when it comes to return the kidnapped man to his parents he turns to Eddie frantically and says "don't give me back"

"What?" Eddie's clearly stunned, its the last thing you expect someone you kidnapped to say, especially Harrington, who they had mostly left roped up to a pole his whole time, only freeing his mouth to give him food and water.

Steve rolls his eyes, as if Eddie is being the unreasonable one here. "Don't give me back"

His eyes are flickering to the door that will lead him to his parents "look I can be useful okay, just let me stay, I can be a.... pirate or whatever"

Now Eddie wasn't one to say no to the chance to corrupt another bored soul into a life at sea, especially not one as pretty as Harrington, but he felt as if he couldn't make it too easy.

Even pirates had standards.

"hmmm" Eddie pretends he's contemplating the offer as the rich boy glares at him impatiently "okay Stevie, you can come aboard, but only if you help me take those rich parents of yours for everything their worth first"

Steve's glare immediately turns into a almost vicious smile "okay big scary pirate, lets put on a show" he then begins to mess up his hair and pull at his shirt, allowing it to expose part of his shoulder, as if he had been manhandled (God, Eddie wishes he could)

"you're devious Harrington, we might make a great pirate out of you yet" and with that he grabs the boy by the scruff of the neck and delivers him to his uptight and cold parents. Knowing full well that once he received the money he would arrive at Steve's bedroom window, ready to show him the world.

hmm

[churroach]

Full of Desires

[ariazou]

“Well? Don’t you want to save your friends?”

Iconic moment with Iguin and Coco 🪄 So excited to see how that storyline goes

[starcurtain]

Please someone redraw this with Dr. Ratio and Aventurine because this is the exact vibe they have in my head post-Penacony.

[toughbunnyforever]

the beginning and the end

[raphaerolo]

Zack and Cody (2005)

[chloesimaginationthings]

This is Scott Cawthon’s biggest regret in FNAF..

[mightaswelljxmp]

hm ok so interestingly, bdubs’s courthouse is built on an odd number of blocks. note the roof of the facade coming to a point, but more importantly, the nine pillars….

you don’t use an odd number of pillars. like ever.

let me get this out of the way first: i get why you’d build with odd numbers in minecraft. i usually do it myself, to not run into problems like double doors or two-wide pointed roofs or frustrating spacing/symmetry between decorative elements. however. to not even out the design of something so unequivocally done in every other example of columns and pillars…. fascinating implications…

every other example guys. every other building with columns like this has an even number of them.

doing so sets the line of symmetry at an invisible point between two pillars, an even number on each side. but an odd total number of pillars makes the central pillar itself the line of symmetry. this does a couple things.

one, it upends the sense of community and equality. which i know sounds crazy, but really, a group of columns are all put there to hold up a structure. there’s no focus on one because they are all are working as supports.

symbolically, at least when first used in ancient greece, pillars represented people. and it makes sense for courthouses, especially, to want to show an even, fair, equal number of people on each side. no focus on any one, no inherent bias right off the bat just looking at it.

with an odd number of pillars, though, one will always be placed front and center.

and THEN. and then you walk in the courtroom itself (also odd-numbered blocks) and you are immediately opposite the judge, bdubs, located exactly centrally. and true, courtrooms are often set up like this anyway. but bdubs ups the ante and reaffirms that no, focus is on him by staging it all as a daytime court show, boom mic just over his head, cameras pointed in, spotlights on him.

literally by design, it was not built for justice. it’s built for show, for entertainment. and just look at the credits to know exactly what sort of message you’re supposed to be getting from this show.

the biblical story he used, with king solomon. it’s about king solomon. isn’t really about the trial itself, or the babies, or the women. it’s about showing (off) how wise and just he is. that’s the point. hm. interesting.

now, getting to the second point that etho also picked up on: it feels like a prison.

it’s not just the color palette. when your eyes naturally draw to the center point, you aren’t seeing an open space. instead of feeling like an arch or gateway or otherwise some kind of opening, the pillar there makes it feel closed off. the overall effect is that of prison bars. not pillars lining the entrance to a place of order or a temple. bars of a cage, a cell.

imagine the lincoln memorial were set up with 11 or 13 pillars. he’d look so much more trapped in there.

having a central pillar blocks the entrance. it’s not welcoming. you have to go around it; it’s immediately inconveniencing you. and when you go to leave, it’s there blocking you again.

this courthouse was not designed and built to be fair, nor accomodating, nor equitable, on any terms. even if unintentional, i wouldn’t call it so much coincidental as i would… subconscious.

after all, y’know. form follows function.

[hinamie]

spiraling

[gay-otlc]

A very strange feeling that comes from being a trans man is like. I am fundamentally the same person after coming out that I was before coming out. There are some differences (I'm happier and more comfortable in my own skin, for instance, and everyone changes a little bit over time) but overall I still have the same personality traits, same values and morals, etc etc. But after I came out, people who thought I was a perfectly okay and decent person switched to thinking I'm dangerous and untrustworthy, even when nothing about me had changed except the gender label they know me as.

[transthatfag]

should've hate fucked ngl.

[lemon-bread-slice]

edit: i've been reminded in the tags that False also won the Grian Head Hunt so pretend that's scribbled at the bottom of False's list