#unless you have your own work

[greater-than-the-sword]

This sounds like a great alternative to using generative AI for refining vibes and such.

Hey guys, you know about the Same Energy website right? has someone made a post about that? Cuz otherwise im gonna sing its praises to high heaven for its artistic references

[puppyeared]

learning abt friendship decay and "not reaching out to your friends for months at a time unprompted is not neurotypical behaviour" has me feeling a certain way

[theposhperyton]

All evidence suggests yes

[weatherfey]

I think a lot about the way Dorian used to see Cyrus as the perfect older brother, the perfect prince; the way Dorian felt free to go and find himself because Cyrus was capable and dependable and ready to be a leader. That isn’t the Cyrus we see! But I think it’s a lot more interesting, for both Cyrus and Dorian, to take that seriously. They’re princes, and we don’t know what that means because we haven’t seen their home, but socially a court is an elaborately constructed farce. And of course it can be easier to be competent in any familiar environment, but I also think it’s easier to know how you fit within a court environment specifically because there is an overwhelming number of factors to define yourself against and they all have expectations of you, and if they aren’t suffocating you like some kind of spider’s web then it might be perfect, like being a star in a constellation, or just the right puzzle piece. I think it’s reasonable to think that Cyrus was something like who Dorian thought he was, at home; except that Cyrus, like Dorian, wanted to choose the things he’s defining himself against. And I think it’s meaningful that he got swindled in the immediate aftermath of discarding that constellation of puzzle pieces. He was a fool (beloved), but it happened in the first blush of freedom, when he was just starting to figure out who he was or wanted to be without all that defined expectation, which is also - not coincidentally - the state Dorian was in when the spider queen sunk her fingers into his heart and twisted his alignment. The ‘hello world! uh oh’ of it all is something they had in common.

(Something they both had in common with Opal, too.)

I do think it’s interesting to look at Dorian’s sense of responsibility in light of this. I almost think Orym was a kind of north star for Dorian through parts of EXU prime, and I ship them, but it really felt like one of the things that made him able to reject the spider queen is that Orym needed him to. I think he wanted to be someone Orym could rely on, but I think Orym’s regard mattered to him because they genuinely had that protective urge in common - the pathway the spider queen used to skitter in was Dorian’s desire to protect his friends. And that drive to protect added a lot of poignancy to the in-universe reason that Dorian couldn’t return to bell’s hells after Cyrus’s debts were repaid, not just because Cyrus was still getting his legs under him but also because Opal needed help. That’s responsibility, again - he’s finishing what they started. Duty, obligation, but this time he’s chosen who and what he’s beholden to. Like maybe he’s chosen a new version of a puzzle piece that he might have thought he was throwing out entirely when he chose freedom and walked away from home.

I loved that Fearne’s vision also haunted Dorian; he misses her, and it also feels like a solid way to illustrate the spider queen’s effect on Dorian, that the danger of his own corruption has rarely been something he had the luxury to think about. His friends have always needed him. I don’t know if he had time to process his aborted fall during his time in Zephrah, or if there’s still something underneath, but I think it’s telling that this fear doesn’t look like Opal, the one literally bleeding ichor from her forehead; it predates that, it started before Opal was the one to worry about.

And I think he knows he didn’t fail them - Cyrus, Opal, Fy’ra - accidental thunder damage notwithstanding - but, with the way he felt through that suggestion spell and its aftermath, I don’t really know what to make of his abandoning Dariax. It’s a little hard to look at that and not see a drive to isolate. Determined to leave him with a good memory, but most of all, to leave. He started that one-shot interlude having just admitted to himself that he was longing to be Somewhere Else, but I almost wonder if he still would have gone back to bell’s hells if Orym hadn’t asked.

(God, the suggestion spell. The way they processed it was hurtful to me personally. Dariax immediately shifting from ‘won’t leave Opal!’ to ‘let’s go! Opal has a plan’ kind of broke my heart, and I actually think that the spell could have worked on Dorian by just making what was really happening feel reasonable - the last shred of your friend is trying to save you, and you can’t save her from anything except becoming your murderer, so you should do that. But the spell can’t make sense out of abandoning Cyrus’s body, so Dorian just goes numb with grief and rage. Mass suggestion is 24 hours. That is 24 hours of numbness, and rage, and walking, and walking, and walking, and every once in awhile Dariax’s voice, friendly and steady and sure, ‘Opal has a plan.’ And at the end of it the ability to feel returns, but he’s so tired, and he hurts, and everything hurts too much to think about, and poor Dariax probably stops in his tracks, just ‘Dorian? What was Opal’s plan?’)

And he really was so angry. It’s interesting to wonder if that’s still under the surface. He immediately turned to levity - for their sake, and his own - but that moment where the group tells him who killed Will and Derrig, and Robbie instantly wrote down Otohan’s name, didn’t just read like a player taking notes, to me, it read like Dorian putting a name in a ledger. I think it’s easy to let that go because he learns that she’s dead in the very next moment, but I think Dorian felt a weird kind of relief for that half-second, because so much of his anger at what happened to Cyrus and Opal was from being forced to acknowledge that there wasn’t anyone easy to blame, except perhaps a god; and blaming a god is like blaming the universe. What a relief, however short lived, to be faced with a problem you can solve.

[elllteo]

Creators I love you but it's time to wake up

Among rumors about our tumblr user data being sold off to Midjourney/Generative AI, recent Extremely transphobic events (that have been ongoing) coming to a head, another extremely concerning internet censorship bill being pushed in upper levels of government, and a general air of frustration over how the site belongs to and is operated by perhaps the second stupidest CEO (second only to twitters own) of our age, I'm very done with the last few vestiges of what the old internet held for artists.

And if you're reading this, you probably are too.

I know we're tired. We are all tired. It is not always viable to pack up shop and move, again and again and again.

From tumblr to twitter to anywhere else we've ever grown up posting, things no longer work. Our audiences are kneecapped by aggressive and hostile algorithms, our reach is abysmal - if we aren't shadow-banned or silenced for one (transphobic) reason or another, we're thrust into an ever growing pit of hostility where the only thing that drives clicks is fighting and contention.

We're tired. We're so fucking tired. We aren't businesses, we aren't content mills, we cannot keep this pace that modern social media has set for us, to wring every ounce of creativity out of us to profit from and leave us rotting.

The key to staying afloat here, and I cannot stress this enough, is to stay connected to your peers.

Pack up and move as units if you must. Exodus from the sites that are killing us. Push your entire friend group of artists to move from one site to the next that promises you a kinder experience.

Art drives movements, it drives change, it is all that encompasses being human. If you take that away from the shitty places, they will be left with nothing but a cesspit of inhumanity and the people who follow you will be more incentivized than ever to move with you.

Yes, this is terrifying. There are no guarantees. There never was, and never are, and never will be.

But stay connected. Stay human.

Support each other and be willing to hold hands and jump when we all - as a group - need to jump from the flames we're all trying to convince ourselves wont kill us before rescue comes.

Rescue isn't coming, rescue will be found hand in hand with each other. I'm offering you my hand, please take it. There's always a new start, there are always helping hands reaching for you. You have to look up from the doom-scroll long enough to see and take them.

[isa-ah]

one of the best things about getting older is hitting the point where you look around and realize you arent legally bound to be nice to anyone. it doesnt matter if youve known someone all your life or if you met them last week, if you decide someone is too immature, unevolved, annoying or just plain uninteresting to you, you can simply tell them you dont want to talk anymore. you can just break it off and walk away. you dont have to stay in meaningless or frustrating friendships or relationships. you can decide you dont like someone and it doesnt have to be moral it can be any reason you could ever think of and you can simply say hey. i dont think were compatible and id like to go our own ways. and then you can clean your hands of it and never have to stress about it again. its fantastic.

[somecunttookmyurl]

all the while society conflates "being an adult" with "having a proper job" and "having money to make arbitrary Adult Purchases" disabled people who can't work - or can only work part time or can only do entry level baby jobs - will never be 'allowed' to be adults

you can say "being an adult is looking after yourself you don't have to have a job!!!" all you want but most people who say that will still assume anybody who doesn't either can't or won't 'look after themselves' actually. and every 'marker' of 'adulthood' that's observable and thus actually counts or whatever loops back around to... having a job and 'contributing' something

[icewindandboringhorror]

sometimes looking at like Self Help Strategies lists for the symptoms I'm having is always just like:

thing that I already do

thing I have tried 10 times

thing I already do

thing that I don't have the money to do

thing I already do

thing I've been doing since I was 10yrs old to no avail

thing that is impossible given my situation

thing that doesn't apply to me

thing that I already do

thing I have already tried

hrmm, oh wait, maybe finally- OH, yeah.. okay. thing that I already do but it was just phrased slightly differently

thing I have already done

[kennyomegasweave]

Beam's parents taking everything but the cat from Jim is direct commentary on why gay marriage needs to be legal everywhere. It's not just a piece of paper. It's legal protection in the event of a tragedy.

But let it also be a lesson to never let another person have EVERYTHING in their name, especially if it was both yours, married or not. You gotta have your own stuff y'all. There's no reason Jim should have been left with NOTHING after years, marriage or not. Unless he just let Beam put only his name down and that's not a good move ever.

[spinnysocks]

heyo spinny!! whats some of your favourite tlg ships? or just any you like in general

EHEHEHE rubbing my hands together. evilly. hehehe

well, kiburi is my pathetic wet cat blorbo and i happen to love all the crackships for him. kiburi x makuu? funny as fuck. kiburi x ushari? love them in nikki's pirate au they keep me up at night. kiburi x janja? the outlands brotp ever. my favourite character's stupid ships my beloved yknow?

in terms of other ships: reirei x goigoi obviously. baobabfruit ofc (thanks to you :] /pos). jasiri x kion because yeah. and as you could never tell (/sarc) i love poly ships so banzai x shenzi x ed, tano x nne x madoa, & kiara x tiifu x zuri are ones i really enjoy too. oh and i'll say timon x pumbaa too since they were my first tlk ship i suppose :]

[secretariatess]

.

[iniziare]

Consider Yelan's facial expression to be my own in reaction to opinions shared on both X and Tumblr, and I guess I'm in the minority of the 'loud ones', but I'm pretty excited for Natlan since that trailer, actually. The previous teasers left me a little 'eh', but this definitely got my hopes back up, and I'm back in the right spirits for it (and ready to catch some Pokémon.)

Now I wouldn't be me if I didn't touch on the salt that I've seen scattered across the dash, so here I go. Listen, I read people's objections and I see what you're all aiming at, but in that light want to note that it's often incredibly easy to point fingers (arguably too much so) at others while being, quite honestly, hopefully rather aware that many of our own countries, cultures, and its populations across the board (and no, I'm not excluding anyone here) would likely be just as easily guilty as MHY is with these things. And no, I'm not blindly defending them, but I also won't point fingers at only one without pointing them everywhere else as well, including those you might think would 'never do such things', because I'm absolutely certain that they would. /continues on in the tags.

[catgirlxox]

does anyone else who writes ocs ever get petty asf about the fact that animated series are always being released with debatably bad new characters meanwhile you’ve just got these detailed, fleshed out, meaningful ocs that are more likely to be seen as cringe by some internet moron than ever be in a production of their own where your vision for them could be realized or is it just me

[manda-kat]

Just a reminder that unless your manager/supervisor owns the business or is paying you themselves, they are NOT your employer, they are just a coworker with a specialized role in the company and if they abuse whatever power that role may convince them they have, then they are not very good at their job.

[princessmyriad]

.

[betweenblackberrybranches]

I just need to rant for a second :)

Screaming into the void please dont judge me