#which might appeal to more people than this

[comicaurora]

A bit of a strange question, but if there were any of your videos you were to "remake" today for any reason (ex: you feel like you misrepresented the original text or spread misinformation), which would it be and why? None of them is a perfectly valid answer

Again: bit of a strange question, but I've been thinking about my own creations and how I could have done so much better with some of them, but I also know that is a sign of my growth and constantly chasing "what if I did this instead" isn't always healthy for nurturing a creative mindset, and I was wondering what your opinion might be as a Creator of Things with a bit more experience than I

There's been a few trope talks where I've thought later of other angles I could've explored that might warrant sequels or part 2s, but I don't dislike any of the summaries enough to justify a rework.

I always find "I could've done this better if I made it now" to be a bit of a fallacy. I'm only better at making things now because I made all those earlier things. If I knew everything I'd learn from making a project before I started the project, it wouldn't come out the same.

I think when it comes to the "rework remake perfect" instinct, it helps to zero in on what the impulse is really grounded in. In my experience, more often than not, it's not actually about making the art better, except incidentally. It's usually about showing that you are better. It's demonstrating your competence and your higher standards and your skills, and more importantly it's overwriting the proof that you were once less than perfect. If people look at your old work and think that's all you're capable of, they'll be judging you poorly!

If that's the motivator, it's a very unhelpful one. You can't control for being harshly or incorrectly judged. It's a fruitless effort to stave off potentially upsetting outdated criticism, and it's not even going to work. Fear of critique is an unreliable and untrustworthy motivator.

If it really is about making the art itself better, perfecting your magnum opus with your newly leveled-up skills, that's a little more solid. But from where I'm standing, it's always better to use those skills to make something new instead of polishing something old. The older, unpolished work has already acquired its audience that finds it appealing for reasons that might never occur to you. Trying to bury or overwrite it just deprives that audience of the thing they like, and maybe makes them feel bad for having liked it in the first place. Also, usually when you look back on the older work, you'll conclude that the problem is everything and it'll need to be torn down and started from scratch. I know when I revisited the first three chapters of the comic, when I let my critic brain spin up, it wasn't shading or lineart I wanted to fix - it was panel composition, overall pacing, the entire structure of the chapters as a whole. I would've had to make them all over again to be happy with them, and they wouldn't be the same story by the end.

I've been thinking a lot about the Discworld through this lens lately. It ended up over 40 books long, but everyone agrees that the first two are not what you should start with, because they're the worst ones. They're entirely parodic, purely referential of at-the-time major fantasy series, and borderline mean-spirited in places. If you haven't read Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and Dragonriders of Pern, you're not gonna understand like a full 50% of The Colour Of Magic.

It's clear that when he started in on them, Pratchett was entirely focused on taking the piss out of a genre he found mostly shallow and unimpressive. But the Discworld wouldn't leave his head, and everything he made fun of he clearly eventually found himself overthinking. He'd make little one-off jokes in the early books about Dwarves having no women and a hundred words for gold, and then twenty books later he'd have a Dwarf gender revolution make waves across the Disc, and then he'd write Thud!, a book that delves deeper into the nuances of Dwarf societal structure than Tolkien ever did.

If you look for them, there are continuity errors everywhere in Discworld. In his introductory book, Carrot defused a dwarf bar full of rowdy brawlers by guilting them all into writing to their poor lonely mothers back home. Shortly thereafter, Carrot will be outraged at the mere concept of an openly female dwarf. Pratchett even eventually wrote Thief of Time, a book that loosely explains that the Disc makes no sense because history has been broken and put back together incorrectly twice, and therefore any continuity errors are because of that.

He's the writer. He could've gone back and fixed it, edited the reprints to be less disruptively discontinuous with the later books. Instead he continuously moved forward and allowed the world he made to grow without cutting it off from its roots. And because he didn't bury his older, far worse work, we have the privilege of following the Disc's evolution from the very start, and seeing how this shallow, stock fantasy world parody became something incredibly rich and complex without ever pretending like its early installments never happened.

Anyway, that's why I think it's better to move forward. You make more good stuff that way.

[jennaflare]

So You Finished Disco Elysium and Don't Know What to Play Next

You may have seen my other games rec post (if not, there are a lot of recs there). But I have since played many more games that, if you love Disco as much as I do, you might also really enjoy! (Many of these are on sale for the Steam Winter Sale until 1/2/24, go check them out! Some are even as little as like 2 USD!)

A House of Many Doors

This one was mentioned very briefly in my last rec post, but I think A House of Many Doors deserves more words dedicated to it. This game is set in The House, a strange dimension of huge rooms that pulls things and people from other worlds into it, trapping them forever. You play as one of the house's denizens, and you are on a mission to escape.

If you enjoyed the concept of The Pale in Disco, I think a lot of aspects of The House will appeal to you as well.

Norco

Norco has been on my wishlist since I made the last post, but I finally got around to buying and playing it a few months ago. Norco is an RPG set in the oil town of Norco, Louisiana, and paints a beautiful and strange picture of the rural-industrial south. It contains heavy Christian themes and absolutely stunning pixel art. One of my favorite games I played this year.

Clickolding

Cickolding is a very short horror game in which you play as a person getting paid to click a clicker while the man above watching. It's weird and highly sexually charged, though no actual sexual content occurs. I can't say too much about this but it is an experience, for sure.

The Pale Beyond

In The Pale Beyond, you play as the first mate aboard The Temperance, which is bound for the Antarctic in search of a missing scientific vessel. Things, as you might expect, do not go according to plan. You must keep your crew alive, relatively healthy, and in good spirits.

This one's also a strong recommendation for fans of The Terror, for obvious reasons. (Side note: if animal death is a trigger for you, I'd recommend playing this with caution, or not at all.)

Inscryption

Inscryption is the game that changed my mind about deckbuilders (I used to really not like them), which opened the door to my current addiction (Balatro. If you haven't bought it, don't. Your friends may never see you again).

Inscryption is a horror deckbuilder roguelike that is by the same creator as The Hex and Pony Island, both of which I also recommend. It's an incredibly fun game, and I recommend not looking into the plot too much because it's way more fun going into it as blind as possible.

Slay the Princess

In Slay the Princess, you are the Hero. You must slay the princess. If you don't the world will end. That's all there is to it. Why would you do anything other than slay her, after all? You don't want the world to end, do you?

Slay the Princess is a time loop game where your choices affect the next loop -- I don't want to say too much on that because it's a fun thing to experience yourself.

80 Days

Inspired by the Jules Verne novel, you play as Passepartout, valet to Phileas Fogg. Your employer has entered a bet to race around the world in 80 days. In this text-based adventure, it is your job to balance his budget and health, and to plan your route.

There are so many ways to make this journey, and enough different events that I'm far from having seen it all despite how many times over I've played it. Highlights for me include: falling in love with a man while we nearly died in the arctic, getting jailed in Russia for nearly a week because I made some poor choices, and abandoning our mission to become a jewel thief.

Other Games You Might Wanna Check Out

Jalopy, Overboard!, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, Yes Your Grace, Buckshot Roulette, A Date With Death, Fields of Mistria, Obscura, Tavern Talk, Killer Frequency, Not For Broadcast, The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante, Bastion

[room-surprise]

This is a topic that is very near and dear to my heart, but I'll try not to write too much about it right now. Elf gender studies indeed!

I go into this to the best of my ability in my giant Dungeon Meshi Essay (Real World Cultural and Linguistic Influences in Delicious in Dungeon) and there will be more detailed discussions of the subject as I complete each chapter. You can except a more comprehensive section on the subject in the chapters about the dwarves and the elves, with some minor mentions in other upcoming chapters.

Right now I have a very brief overview in chapter 3, in a section titled "GENDER, MAGIC AND SOCIETY IN DUNGEON MESHI."

Gender presentation and society is a topic that comes up in many small ways in Dungeon Meshi, despite never being directly addressed. It's difficult to discuss sometimes because a lot of it relies on:

Knowledge of gender norms across multiple real-world historical societies, and how gender norms have changed between ancient times and the modern world.

Lots of small clues Kui has left us.

Things which we must intuit from Kui telling us what isn't normal or good, without telling us what the actual socially desirable behavior is.

Cithis is a particularly fascinating case, and @dunmeshistash hits on multiple key points in their answer that I'll discuss once I get to the elf chapter. Sorry it's taking me so long to finish 😂

Before I go, I'll just throw this out there: these two outfits are considered unisex by the elves. These outfits are also very much like a "ethnic national costume," and other elven fashion seems to be based from this starting point.

To the elves, these tunics are like a plain T-shirt and denim jeans are to us today. Most likely every elf has one of these, and many elven outfits are built on a base that starts with this, including the Canary uniform.

Kui intended for the Canary uniform to be unisex, and worried that it came across as looking too feminine, but I think she did a fantastic job of designing an ancient world military uniform that doesn't just look exactly like something that exists in the real world, while still feeling plausible and grounded.

Ancient world clothing will always look feminine to modern eyes, because modern ideas of what makes clothing masculine or feminine is rooted in the cultural divide between the Greco-Romans and their barbarian adversaries, the eventual gendered division between dresses and trousers, and The Great Male Renunciation, where western men's fashion began to exclude the wearing of bright colors, patterns, and many other elements of fashion, which all then became associated with women's clothing.

The most masculine, macho dudes of the ancient world would look like "guys in weird dresses" to many of us today.

I would actually say that the feature that's the most unusual about Cithis and Misyl's clothing is their modesty. Kui tells us elves don't wear a lot of clothing, to the point that the queen goes around nearly naked at times. This suggests that Cithis and Misyl are counter-cultural rebels who wear their clothes in an unusual style. Cithis also wears much, much more makeup than any other elf, which makes her stand out as someone who doesn't care about what elven society thinks of her appearance. She's being different on purpose... And unlike Benichidori, she doesn't care if people see her without makeup. She's not trying to hide anything, she's trying to communicate something else.

I would say that Cithis' presentation, to elves, probably seems like a cis woman doing female drag. She's emphasizing her feminine qualities in a way that elven society might find tacky or distasteful - too much, too far. It may also be designed to target and appeal to other races, who have a stronger sense of gender binary... Since the Canaries do travel outside of the elven empire and deal with non-elves regularly.

So then, the gender-swapped Cithis is also dressed "modestly" for a male elf (knee-length tunic), and presenting himself in a more stoic, stern way. This may mean that Cithis is presenting an "overly masculine" male elf, like a cis man doing male drag. Stoic and aloof might be some of the things elves consider attractive in a man.

But because elves have such strongly unisex gender presentation, most likely the traits overlap, and many elven women also present themselves as stoic and aloof, and many elven men probably present themselves as smiling and coy. I imagine somewhere in the middle is what is considered "ideal elf-like behavior" for both genders, and deviating too much either way is seen as weird.

Anyway, time for me to get back to work 😊 I hope this is helpful for you, though.

cithis's overtly feminine presentation is so fun to me... the long dress and the cleavage window and the makeup and the fact that she's the only one who changes super noticeably in the genderswap is just . Idk its cool, esp with how androgynous all the other elves are

It is very cool! Cithis has a very overt gender presentation that we don't really see in other elves, even Otta who makes a point to present as male doesn't read as super masculine to the level of "hyper-feminine" that Cithis is

Elves seem to have their own fashion preferences independent of gender (from what we can tell from the gender swap)

Which makes sense, Lycion himself wears a very feminine hairstyle even in the original, so Pattadol also keeping the same hairstyle while she's a man is consistent! Meanwhile Cithis seems to be way more conscious of her own gender when dressing?

I wonder if presenting more feminine is more common than presenting more "masculine" for elves? Would a male elf dressed like Cithis be strange? I don't think Cithis is completely unique in how feminine she is cause we do see a few other elves with similar traits. Flamela has a exposed cleavage, Mysil has a long skirt, Daltian clan "Aunt Uranesse" seems very feminine with makeup and adorned hair, Cithis has it all at once but the pieces aren't unique I guess is what I'm saying

They say that for the most part there isn't much difference between male and female fashion but even here we have an elf in what we would call a "feminine" looking long dress

I wonder if those are things that male elves could wear without other elves finding it strange too 🤔

I wonder if there's an equivalent for "very masculine" in elf fashion, tbh I don't know what that would even look like, male Cithis just wears a very average looking version of the uniform (minus the boots and arm armor) even the neck piece is on instead of her choker. Otta does "dress like a man" to the point other elves get her gender wrong tho so there must be an equivalent? (besides the fact she wears the male uniform) Or maybe is her behavior along with the fashion that makes them read her as masculine and the fashion alone wouldn't?

Anyway it is very interesting!!! But I have no idea what to make of it!!!! Elf gender studies when

[rockybloo]

With it nearing the end of the year, I feel like it's a good time to just have some real talk about why I create art.

At some point during in high school, during those years where you are pressured to figure out what you want to do when you grow up and what you want to major in when you go to college, I had wanted to go to art school after high school. I decided against it ultimately because I just didn't see a true appeal for me. I started to realize that I enjoyed my art so much more when I didn't have the pressure on me to create something for a fancy final product. Yeah, I could go but then I'd have to change aspects of myself I didn't really want to change but had to because that's what the world says I gotta do if I want to be a good artist.

And that's the thing I sort of hate the most about being able to create anything. You have to be good. Otherwise you are wasting your time. You aren't allowed to just make stuff for fun and for a hobby - you have to constantly be striving for improvement at a pace others have set for you. You can't just have it as a hobby. If you make art then it's expected that you make good art.

You're not allowed to be satisfied with being mediocre.

I've been actively posting my art online since I opened a Deviantart account way back in middle school. I'm 26, on my way to becoming 27. And as someone who has spent a solid decade online, I feel more certain than ever that I am a hobby artist. Having a fulltime job DEFINIATELY has helped me come to that conclusion but even before, I knew I liked to draw for fun. I don't like to stress about what I am sharing to cyberspace, I like just having this digital archive of stuff I've made and stories I've written.

I call myself a self indulgent artist because I'm incredibly selfish draw things I want and write stories I'd enjoy.

That's not to say I don't care that people enjoy my work and feel represented at times. I love it when people share how happy they feel when they see my OCs and read my stories. I'm happy I can fulfill some niches for people. Honestly, it'll always be crazy to me when I make something so damn specific that I wanna see and share it just for some other people to get excited. There are benefits to having a public digital archive your art and reactions people may have are one of them.

But ultimately I don't create to make others happy. If I did focus my art on just doing that, I promise you that my online presence and art would look DRASTICALLY different.

I share my stuff online because it's a whole lot easier to archive all my art as well as being able to share my stuff with the world and occasionally make some friends. Posting my art shows I was alive so MAYBE JUST MAYBE I will not be watered down when recalled in memories and people will always know I was insane about my OCs.

I'm pretty satisfied with be a mid artist. My finished work makes me happy, and what I care about is managing to create something of the fellas that reside in my head because seeing my OCs makes me happy...AND I'M THE ONLY SOURCE OF CONTENT FOR THEM SO I GOTTA COOK MY OWN FOOD AND EAT IT TOO--

ANYWAYS I am in no rush to level myself up. I'm 27 and human lifespans are pretty long. Even though it's slow and subtle, I have def been making improvements in my work...but mainly because there are aspects about my OCs that I occasionally realize I am struggling with and pull a "Do it for her" as I work on what I am having a hard time with. SURE they might not be improvements others would like to see but they are improvements that make me happy. And I am excited to see how my art develops over my existence on this planet.

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...I am also excited to see if my black ass can finish any of my webcomics before I die. I KNOW I CAN DEF FINISH ONE OF 'EM I JUST DUNNO WHICH ONE IT'S GONNA BE! IT'S A RACE TO SEE WHO MAKES IT TO THE FINISH LINE BEFORE I KEEL OVER

[sirsagrell]

While I'm usually critical about Veilguard, and will probably continue to be critical, I want to switch gears for a bit and engage in some positivity. Because there are things in it I liked and I don't want to lose sight of them.

So this is a collection of random Veilguard positivity rambles about some things I genuinely liked:

The entire character of Davrin: Davrin and his confusion about sacrificing himself as was expected of him but surviving, Davrin and his complicated but constructive relationship with his heritage that informs everything about him. Davrin knowing what is and isn't a monster, and giving Isseya her name back. Davrin is just very Dragon Age to me. Also holy shit, hot.

Generally, most of the stuff that surrounds the Wardens - the Hossberg Wetlands, the siege of Weisshaupt, the wardens Ivo, those records about the first qunari Warden, the First Warden trying to take the sacrifice of killing Razikale upon himself, the fucked up fortress for hiding fucked up stuff, the surviving wardens saying fuck it post-Weisshaupt and turning the joining into a blight vaccine.

The flowers in Hossberg quest (or was it a hidden quest?). Loved that. Flowers starting to bloom on previously blighted land was a plot point in that DA fic I outlined in my head 10 years ago and never wrote.

While I'm on the subject of plants, Harding's greenhouse was just stunning. Went to just stare at it multiple times regardless of Harding having anything to say to me. And it's thematically resonant too.

Neve as a concept seems like a character designed specifically to appeal to me personally in every way possible. If I was a Dragon Age character I would want to marry Neve. In my actual playthrough Neve never quite stuck, but I wasn't playing myself, I was trying to play a character who fucking hates Tevinter. So I am actually considering doing a separate Neve appreciation playthrough, and I have never replayed a game just to get more of one particular character before. You are too alluring, Neve.

Taash is interestingly and realistically flawed. People like to critique their coming-out scene because Shathann wasn't even really rejecting them, rather trying to understand them through concepts familiar to her, but I like it as written. You get so used to your mother being relentlessly critical of you, you work up the courage to have this important conversation because you know that is the right thing to do, you come prepared to stand your ground, you've been imagining everything she will say and rehearsing what to say back, and when she's honestly trying to understand and reach out, you don't even really notice it and lash out anyway, because you expected this conversation to go badly. This is very human.

Also, I vibe with Taash a lot. I too am socially challenged, sometimes unintentionally rude, surrounded by things that are certifiably messed up, struggle with cultural shit, and think dragons are the best.

I honestly liked the hair. Especially those luscious curls on Teia. This might be the first game I played where hair wasn't some kind of a distracting eyesore. I kid you not it improved my immersion.

I don't actually remember if it was like this in previous games, but I am very glad they labeled the flirt/romance dialogue options in the most unambiguous way possible. I played Baldur's Gate 3 recently and the most seemingly innocuous dialogue options led to flirting all the time. I realize this may be a me problem (see above, socially challenged), but having the options labeled and never having to reload because I'm not trying to flirt with you dammit is very relaxing. Which reminds me.

I think, that despite all its flaws, and weird narrative decisions, and wild shifts in theme and tone, Veilguard still made a better attempt at saying meaningful things than everyone's game of the year 2023 Baldur's Gate 3 did (runs away and hides under a rock).

[just-some-guy-joust]

Hello voters c: I hope you are enjoying round 2! (there is SO MUCH yelling in the tags for matchups I DID NOT expect)

If you liked the art for Xena and Cardamon from round one, good news! My Patreon has drawing requests open and I also have commissions. You could, I dunno, legally require me to draw you a silly guy you like. A tournament contestant I killed perhaps. Or maybe your own personal guy 👀 the possibilities are endless

(I am in fact only putting this here because I do genuinely need the support rn, feel free to ignore as well I won't blame you!)

((I'm also a day late but shoutout to aromantic visibility day! If you would like to help out a fellow aro then c: haha that's me))

[danielnelsen]

so if you romance and ascend astarion you can kick him in the balls when he tries to turn you and it’s just very funny, he’s so pissy about it. so much for the most powerful vampire of all time or whatever, he stamps around like a toddler and then leaves forever

[maliro-t]

as a bona fide vaxleth lover i am more confused than ever about how they are portrayed on the animated series i'm not gonna lie 😭

[honestlyvan]

The main feature apps like this offer are QOL improvements like different layouts, fonts, reading statistics and timers, and the aforementioned download features that are already a part of Ao3.

And if you want to use an app for those features -- honestly, I don't see why not? But be aware that Ao3 supports user-created skins that can look like literally anything you want (and although you do have to know enough CSS to make a theme yourself, lots of fans out there make AO3 skins just for fun -- you just gotta talk to one of them to ask how to make the changes you'd prefer and most likely they're happy to help out) and there are userscripts that act as site extensions that provide all those features and more (with, again, people actively developing them that you can ask help from to write your own if you don't like any of the ones available)

If you don't want the hassle of finding this stuff out or talking to people to ask for these features, you do you I guess. But don't ever pay money for one of these apps, no matter what it does. If it's showing you adds, if it's asking you to buy it, DO NOT, they're asking you to pay for features other fans have already provided for free through other methods.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS

WHO IS USING THIS

AN APP??? THEY HAVE A FUNCTIONING WEBSITE

THE LAST FUNCTIONING WEBSITE

[unproduciblesmackdown]

payoff of being embedded in a unit of authoritarianism since birth is sure then being able to go like "wow this is just like dynamics & phenomena i experienced up close & personal, repeatedly, in many contexts & configurations in my first two decades of life" plus also beyond that in abuse culture world & the noncoincidence that even interactions beyond the confines of the home(tm) reinforced / did not contradict the hierarchy & concomitant abuse within....but then like hey yeah also the Larger Units of hierarchy & abuse / authoritarianism (ft. their logics & practices necessary for continuously & continually shoring up that hierarchy) can also make it like hey yeah the Two Parent abusive nuclear family more like the Two Party [the US is also a one party state but in typical american extravagance they have two] where right wingness is defined by the degree of directly embracing white supremacy & "left wing" is "anything else" hence like wow The Left is always infighting (everyone with any ideas besides "umm christofascist white ethnostate?" so like yeah there are many other ideas) vs The Right's admirable cohesion (simply re: the white supremacy idea which also necessarily embraces all other Out Group / Nonperson paradigms & practices b/c that's what all already has been necessary for shoring up the [when has the US been a nongenocidal non white supremacist non oligarchy])

like obviously individual experiences & contexts vary but like narrowing in on [the Family as immediate relations ideally cordoned off into nuclear households] ft. [Parental Authority the top priority of which is preserving that authority, ideally patriarchal, an abusive mother e.g.? hey, that ought to be the father] times it's like, think people tend to struggle re: having the "nicer" / "safer" parent who was also shitted on as well but also at the end of the day would always side with the "meaner" "more dangerous" parent, even in whatever terms most sympathetic to the abused parties, with the underlying logic that we're always just going to have to deal with them so some secret strategic mitigation is the best that can be done, perhaps the equivalent of being sent a ":(" after an Onslaught Of Expressed / Enforced Authority(tm) event....the tendency to see the best in any lack of actual intervention / protection on the assumption That Could Never Happen Anyway & forever At Least that the one parent isn't as bad as the other [the Not That Bad / Could've Been Worse infocation, like free bingo square in manifestations of minimization if not outright abuse denial] & all the sympathy for, you know, being human & doing their best(tm) &c which sure might all be true but the abused parties (oft children, more vulnerable than adults, by virtue of being children i.e. considered legal property of some specific adults & theoretical property of any adults in general (the paternal logic in any "protect [xyz]" like maintain one group's supposed ownership / control over [xyz] "for their sake" then? great) & also generally smaller & newer at being alive in this world) but who are liable to not extend that sympathy to themselves (or certainly not be extended that sympathy....when is "they're doing their best / they're only human / they mean well or whatever / they love you, they're family" successfully deployed the Thwart an abusive parent like it is to tell an abused child to not be too resentful of this situation, when is it actually deployed toward the abusive parent at all really. & again in the lack of boundary between the authoritarianism within many individual family households & that of the state they exist in (here re: the US) like that naturally one encounters the logic of abuse expressed just as "common knowledge" & the Assumptions of other people, e.g. the rejection of a parent having zero access to a child, the reinforcement of automatic apologia deployed for whatever a parent could possibly do, argued for "family", yet not deployed the same way to automatically defend anything thee child(tm) could do, thinking emoji lol....see: like the non boundary between [the Patriarchal home/family(tm)] & capitalism when uh oh capitalism the system of continuously maximizing exploitation Needs various forms of labor to be unpaid, uh oh another lack of boundary when white supremacy is used to also shore up the patriarchy that shores up the white supremacy, e.g. that even if in some "inferior" class it's treated as More Important that at least you're not that And black, the theoretical ideal/normal white man is a person while a white woman is a woman while a black woman is black, white women could have any legal property via chattel slavery which needed white women's participation to help enforce, the specter of sexual violence all coming from nonwhite & especially black men & it's up to the genteel white man to Protect Women (see prev, implicitly white or you'd have to specify otherwise)

anyway that is to get around to pointing to the Two Parent System wherein so shockingly the results are the same as the One Parent System re: abuse maintaining The Family (properly, i.e. unquestionable & certainly undeniable parental access to children, & "ideally" ofc again the patriarchal Father as ultimate authority w/ownership over the Mother, who in turn is theoretically honored for that motherhood (at least you own your children, insofar as it doesn't contradict w/what the father wants to do with his superior claim to ownership) & then finally all the obviously shittiness from being in that position in a patriarchy is in turn dumped on The Children who are ungrateful & owe the mother everything Because of what the broader society & immediate personal expressions of that abuse have done to her. see also ofc that two adults likely don't have the resources to raise a child in time or money or energy, maybe there's only one but also even an extended family's worth of adults aren't enough, is it enough when a child is sent to school for some other adults to be in charge most of the day, or even if someone is hired to look after them beyond that, all this ofc with the assumed premise that a child is always limited to the various Domains of The Adults In Charge, & from there i segue into how naturally being in gay baby jail unless & until adults are no longer recognized as Legally In Charge Of You (the grand like 5 minutes it's relatively been since the ideal timeline of a woman's life wasn't being legal property of her father until asap passed along to legal property of her husband. still considered ideal ofc but like with "maybe you can have a bank account" now & "maybe you can become 29 before you're in Old Maid danger" Maybe, i said, Maybe....anyway that obviously adults(tm) being divided up (atomised. spritz) into Households isn't even supposed to be enough to live on their own, re: necessitating Marriage, much less uh oh having kids who are stuck with their parents who are stuck with them, but then all the obvious actual problems & abuses inflicted on Adults to have to have their family households & exploited jobs are dumped on the children who Must appreciate & be loyal to the parents (i.e. never Deny Access) while yknow kids have Fake Problems they're whining about, the one Real Problem of having to pay a bill gets the payoff of leverage to tell your children to shut the fuck up or perhaps the more vulnerable spouse

hm didn't segue right into "so shoutout to like The Ratchet Effect diagrams lol, the "Two" Party System where its supposed left wing Blocks Movement To The Left, right wing Moves Everything To The Right" but even that is like, mm, conferring a passivity to what democrats do in the continual movement to the right (won an election? lost an election? the lesson either way is The Right Is Right; exact same logic as in "winning or losing" "the war on crime" like the collection & analysis of whatever statistics show the trend of some "crime" is increasing in frequency or magnitude? show that it's decreasing? the lesson either way is Cops Need More Power) like the institutional effort of democrats to push a candidate nobody wants through primaries (did we even do that this time around. oh great that the assumed candidate even graciously agreed to not force themself as The Candidate, & now like 5 min left with the Next In Line candidate dumped on everyone now with the lesson for the left(tm) to shut up already lol) & then it's up to Grassroots Voters. it's up to Unity & well we all Need to listen to the white supremacists, points were made, in the "elections" with voting as limited as possible & with the electoral college & supreme court as Safeguards against democracy & here's the senate, eternally thus, & again the conclusions will always manage to be moving To The Right, paraphrasing from twitter like democrats are about to be or already at the point of "in the name of unity we will no longer be running against republicans; it's too divisive :(" which yknow is already The Statements of all of yesterday from various like "i'm the republican official white supremacy agree-er now" after also the entire campaign of "no, I'm the fascist" where like wow shocking that the appeal to the fascists didn't win a) the fascists who will ofc want the even more overt fascism, why wouldn't they or b) the people who want antifascism actually, and do not want fascism; who could have foreseen? & it's always the fault of being Too Antifascist for the actions of the fascists or the Diplomatic Comprimises the other party makes with the fascists &/or their Failure to thwart them....the Nicer, Safer party in power is surely doing their best & at least they're not the Meaner, More Dangerous one but at the end of the day they'll always side with that party over america(tm) & those bearing the brunt of the actions of State Power can be told to keep their chin up or else to stop acting out b/c how do you expect that state power to respond, cmon, you bring it upon yourself, & you Have to work with them & understand all their feelings & your role in resolving those feelings by being lesser inferior property, you do Have to understand, b/c in the end this is All About Family, surely Good & Necessary, whoops i mean in the end this is All About America

anyway yeah i'm like damn my "nicer" (also shitty) father who was also the even more sexist & racist (& certainly no Less ableist, queerphobic) parent was basically the democratic party of the Two Parent System of Family Government lol. b/c we Need to perpetuate this Family, no other logics much less actions are acceptable....& people struggling with the Parent / Adults in their life like that who were the "safe" & "protective" ones who markedly failed to protect & minimized the harm afterwards but also in general, never to confront the reality of the situation, or do damage control like "aw some points were made at all :( ah i see you have Feelings about this :( hmm yes the Parental Power is gonna have to make some changes" & then as soon as possible (assuming reeling in the party who was deviating too much) these changes(tm) are already compromised or diminished if done at all, & then oops things incrementally might be right back to how they always were, no guarantees it won't be Worse b/c the Power is even more insecure / aware of weaknesses, & the only way this is thwarted is if the Wayward Parties can actually leverage new boundaries / less vulnerability, not b/c the supposedly sympathetic parties, who never came through where it counts & likely would also become overt antagonizers / wielders of whatever power within the Family hierarchy / turn on the more vulnerable parties to Get Them In Line, actually came through. movement Away (more disruptive to the maintenance of The Family, The State) is blocked, incrementally only ever moving everything back, & then Further....& despite this being what the power structures are, & do, the Disruptive parties liable to be scapegoated lol, can't believe the scapegoat child is ruining everything for everyone, this Family would totally improve & start being everything it could be otherwise & we ignore who actually has the power & is actually enforcing the hierarchy harming everyone to point to that scapegoat; can't believe thee left is destroying america (republican voice) can't believe the left is destroying america (democrat voice) So You See? The Undeniable Consensus. just like how i believe it was my fault my family unit was Like That & i had those experiences, according to the vast majority of Input from that family & even others who, knowing nothing, would say how Lucky i was to be relatively close to home, or just of course that oh well parents love their children & mean well & try their best. just like how i believe that being treated like i've been generally as a neurononconforming person, i.e. hated & the interpersonal abuse & bullying & ostracization & [attention possibilities: ignored, responded to but negatively, interacted with to get something from] & actually rewarding interactions or just actions being liable to get Deluxe authority responses as disruptive(tm) & ofc disobedient(tm) like hell fuckin yeah lol. just as i don't think that other people who have similar experiences or ones i don't have, i.e. assessed race being automatically seen as wrong / inferior, being isolated & undermined from all around? well gotta be their fault then, cmon lol....Abuse is actually normative, not extraordinary, in every Arena of interactions, & so are the logics / apologia / assumptions

anyway lol re: like yeah people struggling with the like betrayal of the "nooo i'm on your side, i sympathize, i'm the one who's nicer & you Need so that things aren't even worse" party, not even One Big Novel betrayal, but rather that that's what's Been done the whole time & doesn't stop. that supposedly if you have Any sympathy for that party you have to be like aw :( keep doing your thing (necessarily reining everyone in) or if you have Any sympathy for the people who also want things to improve but blame & take it out on the more disruptive parties (more disruptive to an abusive family e.g., btw. & not like i see Cohesion as necessarily some Good rather than neutral? when i'm autistic / my existence is supposedly antithetical to this? or when i'm able to look at a zillion hypothetical or actual situations & recognize how "cohesion" isn't the best goal / a destructive one / a vague concept anyways like cohesion Between Whom? on what basis? recognized & pursued how? why? up next: same as vague shit like "family" or "community" &c) then it's like yep gotta be Responsible for their feelings too if you're at all sympathetic & capitulate, The Only Possible Action, vs the idea of those in power actually making things shit stopping, much less being stopped / having to stop in the various ways that can happen....one way being "oh no, adult children who choose to be no-contact with parents" which is seen as A Tragedy, & sign of a Deteriorating Society, take me back. ah jeez oh no, look at the divorce raaates....Oh No, twentysomething women aren't pursuing marriage enoughhhh....again the undetectably identical echo when people peak vaguely talk about "conflicts" that thwart "community" or whatever, ugh nobody will date anymore, commit anymore, be friends anymore, hang out as coworkers anymore, talk to me if i want to talk to them anymore, &ccccc....

the real tl;dr is like wait ""two party"" (one party) US electoral system, just like ""two parent"" maintenance of thee family lol. ratchet effect raise your hand if you've only ever experienced Movement Away from the abusive family blocked, forever incrementally ratcheted back in to the desires & pursuits of those most in power / top of the hierarchy / thus of course most invested in the abuse, that's what the power & hierarchy is made of, sustained by, perpetuates....sorry doing our best :( sorry that's just all that's realistic, no other choice Really. cmon. kind of Your Fault if you don't agree to that & whoops now Everything is the fault of whoever doesn't agree & cooperate enough :( now look what you've done & brought upon yourself :( & we'll just forget the eruption of violence suppression happened & will happen again & be the overhanging threat all in the meantime

[pyrriax]

zam + 8 and roshambo + 5 for the ask game!

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

Honestly? I can't really pin the exact thing I despise about what the fandom does with him, but there's little things here and there that I can't stand. I think they forget sometimes exactly what route he takes with his paranoia, and they make it a bit too... Generic? At least from my read. But also I read him differently because of my understanding of certain things.

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

Problem: I think of two songs at the same time.

I blame associating both with him because of individual fics & arcs. Now one is arguably more of a... Stretch. Than the other. But I'll leave that to you to figure out.

==================

ask game!

[axolotlclown]

I am a little concerned that people aren't actually going on the candidates websites and reading their issues pages. Trump has branded his as "Agenda 47" and effectively lays out 47 key issues he wants to address during his presidency. It looks quite awful for the Palestinians and muslims living in the United States currently. It also looks like he's going to crack down on protests and make it harder to organize in support of Palestine.

Here are some pieces I took from his plan that should concern anyone supporting Palestine right now:

Biden banning Tiktok was a direct attack on our freedom of speech and ability to share information about Palestine. However, Trump is promising to bring back his muslim travel ban (which would succeed under his conservative Supreme Court). He will make it just about impossible for any refugees to get into America. It's already difficult for refugees to gain entry, but this is just opening the door to dangerous rhetoric.

American imperialism cannot be fixed in one presidency. That $95 billion foreign aid package that included $26 billion to support Israel was passed by Congress, with support from democrats. Biden signed it, but that's not something he can do by himself. If we want real meaningful change, we're going to have to vote for a whole lot more than just the president. Campaigning for third parties is going to have to maintain its momentum outside of election years.

Still, both candidates are supporting this war currently. They are both piss poor choices for a ceasefire. However, they are NOT equal! A Trump win could be devastating, not just for the Palestinians still struggling in the Middle East, but for the Palestinians living at home now. With the courts behind him, Chevron overturned, and a clear plan for Schedule F in place, I cannot seriously humor anyone saying that a Harris would be "just as bad" for Palestine.

"You're so privileged for caring about genocide" is not a take actually.

[fozmeadows]

there is no ethical consumption under capitalism

Years ago now, I remember seeing the rape prevention advice so frequently given to young women - things like dressing sensibly, not going out late, never being alone, always watching your drink - reframed as meaning, essentially, "make sure he rapes the other girl." This struck a powerful chord with me, because it cuts right to the heart of the matter: that telling someone how to lower their own chances of victimhood doesn't stop perpetrators from existing. Instead, it treats the existence of perpetrators as a foregone conclusion, such that the only thing anyone can do is try, by their own actions, to be a less appealing or more difficult victim.

And the thing is, ever since the assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, I've kept on thinking about how, in this day and age, CEOs of big companies often have an equal or greater impact on the day to day lives of regular people than our elected officials, and yet we have almost no legal way to redress any grievances against them - even when their actions, as in the case of Thompson's stewardship of UHC, arguably see them perpetrating manslaughter at scale through tactics like claims denial. That this is a real, recurring thing that happens makes the American healthcare insurance industry a particularly pernicious example, but it's far from being the only one. Because the original premise of the free market - the idea that we effectively "vote" for or against businesses with our dollars, thereby causing them to sink or swim on their individual merits - is utterly broken, and has been for decades, assuming it was ever true at all. In this age of megacorporations and global supply chains, the vast majority of people are dependent on corporations for necessities such as gas, electricity, internet access, water, food, housing and medical care, which means the consumer base is, to all intents and purposes, a captive market. We might not have to buy a specific brand, but we have to buy a brand, and as businesses are constantly competing with one another to bring in profits, not just for the company and its workers, but for C-suites and shareholders - profits that increasingly come at the expense of workers and consumers alike - the greediest, most inhumane corporations set the financial yardstick against which all others are then, of necessity, measured. Which means that, while businesses are not obliged to be greedy and inhumane in order to exist, overwhelmingly, they become greedy and humane in order to compete, because capitalism encourages it, and because there are precious few legal restrictions to stop them from doing so. At the same time, a handful of megacorporations own so many market-dominating brands that, without both significant personal wealth and the time and resources to find viable alternatives, it's all but impossible to avoid them, while the ubiquity of the global supply chain means that, even if you can keep track of which company owns which brand, it's much, much harder to establish which suppliers provide the components that are used in the products bearing their labels. Consider, for instance, how many mainstream American brands are functionally run on sweatshop labour in other parts of the world: places where these big corporations have outsourced their workforce to skirt the already minimal labour and wage protections they'd be obliged to adhere to in the US, all to produce (say) electronics whose elevated sticker price passes a profit on to the company, but without resulting in higher wages for either the sweatshop workers overseas or the American employees selling the products in branded US stores.

When basically every major electronics corporation is engaged in similar business practices, there is no "vote" our money can bring that causes the industry itself to be better regulated - and as wealthy, powerful lobbyists from these industries continue to pay exorbitant sums of money to politicians to keep government regulation at a minimum, even our actual votes can do little to effect any sort of change. But even in those rare instances where new regulations are passed, for multinational corporations, laws passed in one country overwhelmingly don't prevent them from acting abusively overseas, exploiting more desperate populations and cash-poor governments to the same greedy, inhumane ends. And where the ultimate legal penalty for proven transgressions is, more often than not, a fine - which is to say, a fee; which is to say, an amount which, while astronomical by the standards of regular people, still frequently costs the company less than the profits earned through their unethical practices, and which is paid from corporate coffers rather than the bank accounts of the CEOs who made the decisions - big corporations are, in essence, free to act as badly as they can afford to; which is to say, very. Contrary to the promise of the free market, therefore, we as consumers cannot meaningfully "vote" with our dollars in a way that causes "good" businesses to rise to the top, because everything is too interconnected. Our choices under global capitalism are meaningless, because there is no other system we can financially support that stands in opposition to it, and while there are still small businesses and companies who try to operate ethically, both their comparative smallness and their interdependent reliance on the global supply chain means that, even if we feel better about our choices, we're not exerting any meaningful pressure on the system we're trying to change. Which means that, under the free market, trying to be an ethical consumer is functionally equivalent to a young woman dressing modestly, not going out alone and minding her drink at parties in order to avoid being raped. We're not preventing corporate predation or sending a message to corporate predators: we're just making sure they screw other worker, the other consumer, the other guy.

All of which is to say: while I'd prefer not to live in a world where shooting someone dead in the street is considered a valid means of redressing grievances, what the murder of Brian Thompson has shown is that, if you provide no meaningful recourse for justice against abusive, exploitative members of the 1%, then violence done to those people will have the feel of justice, because it fills the void left by the lack of consequences for their actions. It's the same reason why people had little sympathy for the jackass OceanGate CEO who killed himself in his imploding sub, or anyone whose yacht has been attacked by orcas - it's just intensified here, because where the OceanGate CEO was felled by hubris and the yachts were random casualties, whoever killed Thomspon did so deliberately, because of what he did. It was direct action against a man whose policies very arguably constituted manslaughter at scale; a crime which ought to be a crime, but which has, to date, been permitted under the law. And if the law wouldn't stop him, can anyone be surprised that someone might act outside the law in retaliation - or that regular people would cheer for them when they did?

[asidian]

So, everyone's seen the theory that the dolls in the Doll House are Edwin's old bodies, right? But if you want to break your heart a little more, take a look at the doll placement.

They line the corridors, but there are noticeably more of them in two particular spots.

First up: by the exit door.

This one makes a lot of sense. In disasters, people in a panic find it hard to get through doorways, especially inward-pulling doors, in a rush. It's a dangerous chokepoint for people who are panicking, which Edwin definitely would have been, being chased.

Add that to the fact that there isn't an actual door here. This is a hole in the wall; who's to say if it was even open when Edwin first found it? He might have had to break his way through, initially, which takes time, and time means getting caught.

But that leads us to the second spot, which isn't so obvious.

It's this spot by the window.

There's no cover here. There's nowhere to hide, to make it appealing for a boy seeking safety. There's no door or anything else to slow Edwin down. So why did he die here so often?

If the window was breakable, Edwin would have figured that out early on, so it wasn't that. But he kept coming back here anyway, over and over.

There's only one thing that makes this spot unique.

It has more light than anywhere else in the Doll House.

I propose that he died here, again and again, over seventy long years, doing exactly what he's doing when Charles finds him: seeking what comfort he can in whatever little light is available to him in the depths of hell.

And then Charles comes to get him, and he brings a lantern.

[islamqazal]

Hello, my name is Mohammed Nihad Ghazal from North Gaza. I have ambitions, dreams and a love for life like any young man in the world. I am supporting my family of 15 after my father was martyred in the cursed war that destroyed everything, but it seems that I will not be able to achieve my dream because of the brutal war on the Gaza Strip, which completely destroyed our home, and despite the harsh war, we did not leave North Gaza under inhumane conditions. We have suffered from illness, cold, hunger and drinking polluted water for more than 11 months, which we have suffered greatly from the loss of friends and relatives who were killed in the war for 330 days. I am appealing to you, the global community, for help. I have started a GoFundMe campaign with the goal of raising $20,000 to enable me and my family to find safety in Egypt. Evacuation fees change from time to time; we currently expect a cost of between $4,000 and $5,000 per person. Any additional funds generated will go to support my immediate needs and those of my family. There are many obstacles that we will face on the other side, and I hope that we can make things a little easier for us. I would like to share with you the situation now that the war has intensified. We are fine and safe, but life has become very difficult now around us, and people are suffering more and losing their loved ones every day. As a family, we have literally lost everything we own, our homes, ourhttps://gofund.me/f3e7e3c2 Hey there! I’m reaching out because my family and I are in a really tough spot, and any contribution you can make towards our evacuation from Gaza would mean the world to us—each donation brings us closer to safety and a fresh start. If you could click the link below to help or share it with others who might want to support us, it would make such a difference in our lives. Thank you for being so compassionate during this challenging time!

businesses, and we lost the dearest thing to us, my father, but we are trying to stay optimistic by thinking about evacuating and we heard good news today that the borders may open soon. We pray that this is true. Once we are evacuated, we will try hard to rebuild a small part of what we lost in Gaza. If we can achieve our ultimate goal, we will have the money to start a business to support our entire family. We want to be able to start over and not suffer anymore in Egypt. If everyone can help us with a small donation to achieve our ultimate goal, we will be able to rebuild our lives after everything was destroyed. All the positive words cannot express how generous you are in sharing my posts to inform other donors about the people of Gaza who are still suffering from the terrible conditions caused by the unjust war on Gaza. Please continue to support the just cause in the world either by donating directly or by sharing the link to other media. Do not hesitate to help people in difficult and miserable times until the dark days are over.

https://gofund.me/f3e7e3c2 Hey there! I’m reaching out because my family and I are in a really tough spot, and any contribution you can make towards our evacuation from Gaza would mean the world to us—each donation brings us closer to safety and a fresh start. If you could click the link below to help or share it with others who might want to support us, it would make such a difference in our lives. Thank you for being so compassionate during this challenging time!

[vetyr]

hi, i ireally love your work and i don't know if you've answered this before but, what kinds of studies do you do or how did you learn color theory? i wanna get better at rendering and anatomy but im having trouble TT TT

Hi! Long answer alert. Once a chatterbox, always a chatterbox.

When I started actively learning how to draw about 10 1/2 years ago, I exclusively did graphite studies in sketchbooks. Here's a few examples—I mostly stuck to doing line drawings to drill basic shapes/contours and proportions into my brain. The more rendered sketches helped me practice edge control & basic values, and they were REALLY good for learning the actual 3D structure behind what I was drawing.

I'd use reference images that I grabbed from fitness forums, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and some NSFW places, but you could find adequate ref material from figure drawing sites like Line of Action. LoA has refs for people (you can filter by clothed/unclothed, age, & gender), animals, expressions, hands/feet, and a few other useful things as well. Love them.

Learning how to render digitally was a similar story; it helped a lot that I had a pretty strong foundation for value/anatomy going in. I basically didn't touch color at all for ~2 years (except for a few attempts at bad digital or acrylic paint studies), which may not have been the best idea. I learned color from a lot of trial and error, honestly, and I'm pretty sure this process involved a lot of imitation—there were a number of digital/traditional painters whose styles I really wanted to emulate (notably their edge control, color choices, value distributions, and shape design), so I kiiind of did a mixture of that + my own experimentation.

For example, I really found Benjamin Björklund's style appealing, especially his softened/lost edges & vibrant pops of saturated color, so here's a study I did from some photograph that I'm *pretty* sure was painted with him in mind.

Learning how to detail was definitely a slow process, and like all the aforementioned things (anatomy/color/edge control/values/etc.) I'm still figuring it out. Focusing on edge control first (that is, deciding on where to place hard/soft edges for emphasizing/de-emphasizing certain areas of the image) is super useful, because you can honestly fool a viewer into thinking there's more detail in a piece than there actually is if you're very economical about where you place your hard edges.

The most important part, to me, is probably just doing this stuff over and over again. You're likely not going to see improvement in a few weeks or even a few months, so don't fret about not getting the exact results you want and just keep studying + making art. I like to think about learning art as a process where you *need* to fail and make crappy art/studies—there's literally no way around it—so you might as well fail right now. See, by making bad art you're actually moving forward—isn't that a fun prospect!!

It's useful to have a folder with art you admire, especially if you can dissect the pieces and understand why you like them so much. You can study those aspects (like, you can redraw or repaint that person's work) and break down whether this is art that you just like to look at, or if it's the kind of art that you want to *make.* There's a LOT of art out there that I love looking at, probably tens of thousands of styles/mediums, but there's a very narrow range that I want to make myself.

I've mentioned it in some ask reply in the past, but I really do think looking at other artist's work is such a cheat code for improving your own skills—the other artist does the work to filter reality/ideas for you, and this sort of allows you to contact the subject matter more directly. I can think of so many examples where an artist I admired exaggerated, like, the way sunlight rested on a face and created that orange fringe around its edge, or the greys/dull blues in a wheat field, or the bright indigo in a cast shadow, or the red along the outside of a person's eye, and it just clicked for me that this was a very available & observable aspect of reality, which had up until that point gone completely unnoticed! If you're really perceptive about the art you look at, it's shocking how much it can teach you about how to see the world (in this particular case I mean this literally, in that the art I looked at fully changed the way I visually processed the world, but of course it has had a strong effect on my worldviews/relationships/beliefs).

Thanks so much for sending in a question (& for reading, if you got this far)! I read every single ask I receive, including the kind words & compliments, which I genuinely always appreciate. Best of luck with learning, my friend :)