#yeah no thats enough. tags is for talking.

[pansy-picnics]

Not to derail the convo too much but i want to add my own input onto this….it sucks bc there are multiple VERY clear reasons why yong and nuru are both pushed aside, but i feel like everyone is afraid to say the quiet part out loud.

- Nuru is a black girl

- Yong is an asian kid

- nuru and yong werent really pitched as main characters to begin with. Maybe they wouldve been, had the pitch been fully realized, but we can only really make educated guesses based on the little information we have. The entire story was really built around varian and hugo, fundamentally- and yeah, obviously we only have the brief outline, but said outline doesn’t really mention nuru and yong like, at all. Doesnt mention any character arcs for them, any prominent relationships, any development theyd have over the series- not even their reactions to hugos betrayal or their involvement in the final fight. its all just about varian and hugo. We can only ever assume, at any given moment, that theyre just….There. And so thats how everyone writes them- as background characters to varigo.

i dont think its wrong to build a story around one character, i mean kay and anna really just did it for fun and i dont see any problem with that- but when people try to make it into a fully realized story, it doesnt really work because there are basically only two main characters and two guys who are just There. so instead of the VAT7K Fandom we just end up getting The Varigo Fandom. i honestly do think its why so many people come and get hyperfixated on it for a few months and then leave. There just isnt really any content to work with, because there are only 4 characters and people are only fully utilizing two of them.

-Did i mention theyre a black girl and an asian kid next to a yaoi couple featuring White Boy #3567488 and Kind-Of-Racially-Ambiguous-Probably-White Onceler Jr because the implications there are Not Great.

I joke, i love them all, i promise, but it is really something that bothers me a lot, especially since ive been here for so long and i dont really consider myself “in” the fandom enough to like, get super obsessed with any of the characters and make 1000 fics and drawings of them. If anything vat7k is kind of like the tts dlc to me. Im mentally ill about varigo and i love nuru and yong to bits and have SO MANY thoughts about them but they just usually stay in my head because i dont have the energy to expel them in any efficient way LOLOLOL. At the end of the day i consider myself more of a tts fan than anything else.

bc nuru and yong never really had any substance to begin with, people cant usually get super attached to them past a surface level, and it gets REALLY frustrating.

- When it comes to nuru, im like, the whitest girl imaginable so i dont want to talk out of turn here but i do want to mention it bc nobody else seems to be willing to- the way nuru is made into either the mature “mom friend” of the group or the “sassy best friend” is something that makes my blood BOIL, because they both feel SUPER stereotypical considering that shes a 16 year old black girl!!! i’ve talked to my friend, who is black, about it a lot (Id tag him here but hes Not in the fandom so i dont want to drag him into this LMAOAOAO) but weve discussed how black girls are “adultified” by mainstream society and quite literally robbed of their childhood and innocence. they’re treated as “mature for their age” and are expected to act as such…..It makes the way people portray nuru as the “mature one” rlly gross to me 😭. and luckily i dont see that “mom friend nuru��� AS often anymore, but when people dont do that, i feel like they kinda just turn her into the “sassy voice of reason” which just feels like a whole black best friend trope to me…..😭 Guh. I think just the best anyone can do is actually make her a fully realized character!!! She feels so one note so often 😭

- And yong…I feel like he so often just gets made to be the Baby of the group and the comic relief (which is DEFINITELY because hes also a fat kid but thats a Wholeee other can of worms (eye twitching)) And like that can be fun sometimes, but also i feel like the main appeal about team radical, at least to ME, is that theyre all just stupid petty teenagers who are unparented and sent on a little coming of age quest and they all probably immediately start beefing with each other like its fucking lord of the flies. Yong is Twelve Years Old guys. Have you ever met a twelve year old? Theyre at that age where theyre like weirdly edgy and think theyre the Shit and that every adult around them is a fucking idiot. Yong has the potential to be soooo fucking funny past just being the cutesy little baby of the group and i feel like people just arent really willing to explore that. And like he can still be the more emotionally open one too! I feel like he starts out a lot more silly and more of that steven universe type hes usually portrayed as, but the longer he spends with the gang he just quickly becomes equally as deranged as them LOL. Id love to see a much more mischievous yong whos sweet but also a Very insecure 12 year old and kind of a shithead. I think it’s such an untapped market.

Idk i dont think that if you just Can’t get attached to nuru or yong that you’re like…Bad or like. racist or whatever Thats not what im saying at all!!! bc i do think that kay and anna for all their amazing work on the pitch did kind of contribute to the problem bc of the way nuru and yong are shown, or, well. not shown in said pitch lol. And i also think that everyone should consider the implications these characterizations have and like…Try and challenge themselves to branch out a little more!! and i also feel like a lot of people who ARE nuru and yong fans already arent very loud in the fandom, cuz like, with how varigo centric the community is i think its just assumed by default that nobody cares….and if thats you i want to encourage you to please PLEASE speak up and make more content about them bc people DO care!!!! it is a niche that so many people are willing to invest in!!! Especially me!!! Please please please please im on my knees plea

Guys I NEED to rant about my thoughts on Nuru because i love her <3 ramblings ahead

Like I feel like in almost every fic i read, she's just like, a side character that's there to make whitty remarks to Hugo and be the levelheaded one. If she has an insecurity or problem it's usually pretty surface level and solved quickly, or only mentioned once or twice. I think there are SO many aspects of her character that are so cool.

Okay first, I think we sometimes forget that she's a nerd just like the rest of the gang. Yes, on the outside she's definetly the most 'normal' one, but I think we should concider the fact that she's the only girl in the group, and she's literal royalty. She was raised with a completely different set of standards than the other three. I don’t think I've really ever seen anyone cover that. I feel like she would get called "mature for her age" when she's only 15/16, and almost always gets critisism when she talks back with her own ideas (like her concerns about the meteor shows for example). I feel like out on her journey, she would finally get the freedom to just be herself, and be a kid and be able to rant on about her intrests with the rest of the group. It could be a struggle at first, but it would be awesome to see her getting more comfortable with the group the longer they spend together! Nerds encouraging nerdy rants lol

Since she is a kingdom figurehead, you could also argue that she always has a lot on her hands (especially since she's very proactive when it comes to science and solving problems). This could bring up a need to be productive, or always feeling like she needs to make the right decision, even for the littlest things.

I also feel like a lot of the time she's potrayed as the "right" one, who is 100% right when it comes to stuff like arguing with Hugo. Since they're opposites when it comes to class, they often are compared through that lense. I think it's cool just having Nuru tell Hugo off for judging a book by its cover, but I feel like they have a lot more in common than they realize. I think it would be interesting to see Nuru judging a book by its cover too. Maybe not to the degree that Hugo does, but I feel like calling out both their judging would not only call out character flaws, but it also enforces that even though they hate eachother and would never want to be like the other, they have a lot of the same flaws.

Also, being sheltered in a palace her whole life, I think she might think kind of black and white sometimes, and while she knows when people are just being mean as an act, she might struggle when it comes to people like reformed criminals.

Maybe she's able to be meaner to Hugo because she justifies it by telling herself he's criminal, and therefore bad, possibly glossing over the reasons he might be like that (maybe it crosses her mind, but she tells herself it's not a good enough reason, because stealing is still stealing, and he literally steals EVERYTHING. Even little trinkets and stuff he definitely doesn't need!). When they find out about Varian's criminal history, maybe she reexamines her views on morality and how she used to see people, because by her standards, Varian is a 'bad guy' who's caused harm to SO many people, but he's also the kind, caring, helpful friend that she's been traveling with who would never willingly hurt anyone.

Moving on to Amber x Nuru, I honestly never find myself liking the ship because Amber isn't developed enough which is fine. I don't think every character has to be a magnificent work of art. Side characters are side characters, but their romance is usually written like: "wow that girl is cute! I have a crush now!" Which is cool, but then that's about as far as it gets, then timeskip! Or offscreen they're a couple now. I know it's a side couple so it won't have as much devlopment as something like Varigo, but I never really see their dynamic play out in different situations. Like I don't know how to explain it, but it feels like they solely exist to be a couple? Amber sometimes just feels like an extention of Nuru, and their relationship feels surface level a lot of the time.

I feel like too often she's just watered down to the nice, smart, grounded friend, and I don't know I just think there’s so much more to explore with her. She’s not just some side character. She's literally part of the main cast! Even in fanart I feel like she doesn't really get a lot of stuff besides funny art and just like, pictures meant to look pretty. Unlike something you get a lot with characters like Varian or Hugo.

And honestly I get it. Some characters you just don't take an intrest in. I know I find Varian, Hugo, and Nuru more relatable than I find Yong, but I feel like part of that is developing their characters rather than just seeing them on a surface level. Ofc there are exceptions and there are some stories that dive deeper into Nuru's character out there! I just happen to see this A LOT.

Wow i said "surface level" a lot didn't I 😭😭

Anyway thank you for reading my rant i wanna know what you guys think!!

[velvetvexations]

Since we're talking about forcefem, here're most of the forcefem-related asks I've had in my inbox, some of which are a few days old on account of technically going in the vexatious tag if not exactly kink asks. I wanted to answer one from today on it's own which I'll get to later but I wanted to get to the older ones and also get to a few of the others from today while I was at it.

i just saw a post where a trans guy was showing some messages where someone was (unconsensually) basically roleplaying forcefemming him. despite him telling them that he did not want that and that it was very much transphobic, and he atill got a message boiling down to "you're not a man, silly, you're a girl :D" and. to be honest. this was the thing that stopped the brainworms of "what if the whole concept of transandrophobia is actually transmisogynistic and i am entirely wrong" bc at least some of these people will just say the most bog standard transphobic shit to trans guys and not register it as transphobia. so why the fuck would they be right about anything transmascs experience also on that note thank you for being so outspoken in favour of transmascs getting to discuss their oppression. it's really helpful to see trans women stand with us here, especially when it comes to aforementioned brainworms

congratulations to that transphobe for creating a new transandrobro

the 'forcemasc isnt revolutionary' shit is the most annoying iteration of stupid tumblr discourse. like im going through the tag trying to read some horny shit and oh look. theres someone being stupid and hypocritical. in my horny tag.

people are getting tribalist about kinks and it's depressing

Every time people are saying that trans men & mascs cannot possibly fathom being objectified & fetishized, I think on all of the posts I’ve seen that did that exact same thing. And yeah, some of it might have been kink, so no hate no judgement I dabble in that tag too, but I’ve also seen “get in the dress” type posts that seem to be genuinely calling for trans men to be more feminine, untagged & in the wild, enough where I’m like — am I just imagining this? Like am I crazy? Am I missing something, or was that extremely detailed post about why I MUST stay feminine — or become more — for someone else’s benefit being 100% serious? And, again — if it’s kink, all the power to them, I love that for them, I even occasionally love that for me. But I have encountered enough people who were dead serious that I sometimes want no one but trusted friends & advisors to ever witness me again. And then I look at statistics & feel genuinely ill. And yeah, I’m gnc — and there’s the rub, because while I feel genuine joy being fem as well as masc, I want it to be a Choice, not something forced upon me.

people need to be fucking normal

Yh like ik a lot of shitposts don't have any tags but people have. Really gotta tag forcefem. I've blocked a large amount of people making these jokes + filtered their names n I still see it

I'm sorry, anon. <3

Fuck thank you so much for talking so openly about forcemasc. I’m so dumb I thought there wasn’t a name for that kink that I’ve been into for years, albeit my version is way more weirder. It would be like a… forcemascfem??? Like first it’s forcemasc and then it turns into forcefem and then right back to forcemasc…. And then back to- Idk my gender is weird and my kinky fantasy for that is weird

Cross as many boundries as you want, that sounds rad. Forcefem has a lot of infrastructure to jump off of.

“I’m doing a kink in a non kink way so it’s not kink blog!” Sorry this pisses me off It’s still a kink. Like. If someone made an I-suggest-BDSM blog and tried to claim it wasn’t a kink blog I’m sure more people would see how silly this is but because it’s the transfem approved virtuous forcefem they just let it slide??? Like. You are engaging in a kink and thats fine. You can say there won’t be anything explicitly sexual! But it will still be a kink blog because it’s a blog about a kink! A kink blog if you will! It doesn’t matter if you’re not getting off to it, it’s still a kink! That you are participating in! On your blog about that kink!

It SHOULD piss you off! It's extremely fucking scummy!

what the hell? for like one solid minute(longer than that but i like saying it this way) all the forcefem on my dash was tagged and i could blissfully not have to see it every other post and then just today i had to unfollow a buncha people for an assload of untagged forcefem :/ like im transmasc i think its understandable that i do not wish to see that anyway hope your day is goin well miss velvet

yeah it's praxis to not tag kink anymore

trfs are perfectly aware what the "force" bit means when forcemasc comes up in conversation

strange how that works

[randomartsideblog]

CW: Bright Colors

Doodle to entertain myself 💬

[meamiki]

mira !!! :]

[bandtrees]

they would get divorced in one universe just to find eachother in another one

alternatively titled: sometimes you're the level-headed token flesh-head impulse-control-and-polycule-member of a stubborn, eccentric, and hearty telephone-headed drug addict, and there's cruelty in the world you deem fit to suicidally fight, and that either goes about as well as you'd expect it to, or you learn about love and the value of your life and junk along the way

[zrllosyn-art]

Synchronicity - Kaiju No.8 comic Kikoru and 4 talk about dreams.

Inspired by @izfaish's fic. archiveofourown.org/works/55577173

[the-kipsabian]

[thedrotter]

not-yet-dead-person

silly comic of a conversation in-game i thought was too funny not to make something proper for instead of a doodle ww

(timelapse + wip images (thus silly process commentary in read more if you like artist commentary :3)

i think the sketch looks silly and goofy and funny so i find it important to share with you the mere presence of the faces i drew on it. i drew it on top of the boxes without staying inside its borders because i find my proportions can get wonky if i draw them cropped in a restricted space. and I feel trapped otherwise and i will draw BAD!!! give me spaceeeee to go wild!!!!

the head circles are there for emotional support

very low res speedpaint because truth is the canvas was much bigger than the space where my comic was placed. i didnt account when exporting my timelapse in 720px that that tiny space would look so pixelated ... but it's able to be percieved, so its okay.

(i will now comment on my process and it is not brief sorry)

usually i would try to clean up my sketches and figure out what goes on top before jumping into linework, but since there are multiple panels and drawings i chose to jump into inking right away for the sake of brevity. i just went in with a brush that uses pen pressure and drew what was needed. i added extra line thickness and contrast in areas around the face because it helps direct your eyes there more easily that way.

according to her equipment rei has a chain belt but i only remembered it existed once I was going to color, and i did not like that discovery... I chose to ignore it to maintain my peace. i already have the color palettes for these characters figured out, and i didnt really want to think about a new element at the moment www I tend to overthink those things a lot so i skipped it

the rest is rather straightforward! not that anything else wasn't, but in here i could turn my brain off and sing. linework and sketching require mumbling so i cannot turn my brain off. just block in the characters with a solid color so i can have a mask (something along those lines,) where the color can stay inside. then just color in !!!

Base colors just had slight cell shading on the skin, and for the hair i airbrush a bit of the skincolor in low opacity near the forehead... I'm not sure what it means, but i can look at the faces easier with it somehow. i like the gentle subtlety it adds even if you cant really tell. it makes things look nice.

background was just me blocking in the color of the wall and floor, shade the wall a bit, then slap a noise and free use wood texture on top. work smarter not harder ! yet it took a bit to make it look stylistically fitting with the characters, and even now i think bottom middle panel looks odd. whatever!!!

for the middle panel i thought itd be funny if the background was a solid silly and colorful one to contrast the next panel's sketchy black one. a contrast to how the word widow is seen. on that note my handwritting is not pointy. i gaslighted my hand into thinking that it was indeed pointy in that moment so i could write "not-yet dead person" in letters that didn't seem cute. my hand did not fall for it but it complied anyway

that's basically it! I'm not sure what else i could say that doesn't feel barebones because it really is that straightforward. if you're curious I used clip studio paint for this. only special brush used was for linework (a brush named Lemon Brush), the rest used were just the default. my computer gets the least credit. it was trying to convince me a 20mb file was going to nuke it all the time and hardly let me save multiple times so i do not appreciate it

[triglycercule]

all i have been able to think about today is that silly little knife game where you stab the spots between your fingers and try not to hurt yourself and how that silly little game is SO horrorkiller. i cant explain it it bothers me so much that i cant explain it but it just does its so them

they play it when theyre bored. because when in doubt bodily mutilation and the risk of hurt and pain is always an appealing one. and when i mean they i just mean killer because horror wouldn't wanna just hurt himself on the fly like that for funsies. he likes to see others hurt because hahaha FINALLY some damn entertainment!!! but hurting himself???? nononnno hes already got enough body pain as it is oh and killer has already grabbed his hand and started playing (and now horror can't back out because killer's got him sucked in the game)

they sing the silly little song. horror has all his fingers the knife goes chop chop chop if killer misses the spaces in between horror's fingers will come off! and they are both enraptured and both captured in this childishly morbid game. it's so anticipatory because they both know its all up to killer to decide if horror gets hurt. hes more than precise enough to keep the game going for hours long without ever hitting horror but would he want to keep it going for that long? horror doesn't know how long killer would want to wait before getting to see him react to getting hurt

and killer does eventually do it even after theyre sung the song over and over countless times and tried different harmonies and finally killer decides to end this little song and dance and stab into horror's hand. maybe he decides to do a finger. maybe the palm if he really wants to piss horror up. its sudden its surprising and GODDAMN is it painful!!!! horror's trying not to show it but with all the sweat and the way his fingers are twitching killer can see that it hurts him. it's a bit amusing :3

and then horror grabs the knife from killer and they do it all over again but this time horror's the one doing the stabbing. he's not as precise as killer. he hits him a lot more than killer hit him but goddamn it he is in PAIN and wants to let it out because hes annoying and irritated and goddamnit would killer just stop looking at him with that blank smile while he's bleeding out from his hand???? yeah horror's pissy

horror's annoyed and trying to get some form of petty revenge on killer (he likes it when he finally manages to get that stupid smile to falter just a little bit) and killer's watching horror desperately try not to just stab the knife through his oh so very exposed soul that he could very easily hurt if he really wanted to hurt killer. anyways the game finally ends when either one or both of them get bored! but thats fine!!! killer will get bored again and horror will end up escalating it to a messier point than it was before and the only thing that'll get hurt is the surface that they use to stab between fingers. oh and eachother of course :p

[spark-circuit]

veteran HSR player, Genshin co-op buddy and irl bestie convinced me to try out HSR Easter Sunday night because I was free and I was telling him Aventurine was trending on tumblr (he's a Raiden/Acheron main and beat Aventurine pre-nerf) - only for him to show me, a Certified Childe Main, the official artwork tweet.

so naturally we made joke edits of it lmao.

[hauntingblue]

Alucard becomes a father, belmont dies and hector and lenore have a tragic ending???? Alright

[blissfulalchemist]

OCs as Colors

Got tagged by @lilywatt to do a silly little uquiz that actually read my kids to filth sadly. Anyway! Tagging in turn @shallow-gravy @chyrstis @shellibisshe @strafethesesinners

@murdockdevil @adelaidedrubman @florbelles @unholymilf @confidentandgood and anyone else that wants too! taglist opt in

Alma

Sunflower Yellow Hello :] I have a feeling that you might enjoy using little faces like that, so I will, too! You've likely had a bit of a rough life, even if you don't share that with others too often, or if you do, it's so other people know they're not alone. That's admirable, but it's also good to talk about the things that trouble you for your own sake, as well. I know that you're strong, and you should be proud of yourself for how far you've come, but don't forget that it's also okay to step back for a bit, that it's okay if you're not put together. Regardless, you're someone that people tend to find comfort in, and you're a good, cheerful person to be around. It's a bit hard to come across someone like you nowadays- be proud of yourself, and if anyone tries to tell you that you're wrong for enjoying the small joys in life, just be happy that it's obvious you're truly living life.

Clídna

Coral Pink You don't have to fight so hard to be perfect all the time, you know? It's okay if you don't know the answers to someone's troubles, or even your own. You don't have to hold on to everyone's grief, and no one is going to blame you if you have to be quiet for a while. I know that it's hard to feel like you're more than what people need you to be, but you can step back. You try your best to be kind, and welcoming, and you definitely show it well. Compassion comes a lot more naturally to you, and although you like to be understanding, you're also pretty stubborn. You can't watch out for everyone else all of the time; how will anyone else know to care for you if you don't even show that you need it? Don't blame yourself, but don't always blame them, either.

Stasia

Orange You'll have to let go of it someday, you know that, don't you? Don't be afraid of that. It's something that has to happen, just as troubles will be forgiven, actions will be remembered, and just as the time will pass regardless of whether you are taking a step forward, or back. You've got a strong personality, and I admire you for that, along with your lack of hesitation when finding an answer for yourself and for what you want to do. Knowing what you want in life is very important, and although it's good that you know that, it's also important to consider what other people want in life, too. You're bright, and you're fiery, and emotions are something that you feel a bit too much of sometimes, but I understand. Don't lose yourself in the path of moving forward, or you'll end up right back at the start.

Conner

Lilac Purple You're soft, even if you're quiet, and people tend to find you as someone who is calming, if not a bit awkward, or standoffish. You handle your grief in silence, your kindness in silence, your anger in silence, your sympathy in silence, your joy, in silence. I know that it's been hard, and that it's difficult to keep yourself in the moment, I know that it's hard to know yourself. You can't hide away from your life forever, and although you certainly don't have to expose your entire self to the world, and you don't have to know yourself entirely, it's good to express yourself, even if you're afraid of being 'too much'. You will never know what people will love about you if you don't give them a chance to learn in the first place.

[im-smart-i-swear]

drops this at your feet and disappears for two weeks

[zymstarz]

yeah sure that's how i'll [re]come out

[windypuddle]

dear diary today i tripped and ate shit on the stairs (hurt my knuckles a little bit) on my way to tell my friend i think general grievous and obi wan kenobi should fuck nasty. she was leaning over the stairway wall from the second floor and i collapsed in hysterics

[softness-and-shattering]

Question for anyone who's had top surgery, or any emotionally similar kind of surgery, not necessarily gender-affirming surgery. Did you film your reactions afterwards, waking up, taking off the dressings, first time putting on a regular shirt kind of thing? Im sort of in two minds, because its always good to see people feeling joyful in their bodies. Feeling right, the relief. On the other hand, its always so intensely emotional that it feels like it should be private. And what about if its not emotional, if you're just exhausted or you dont have a very obvious external reaction or you're not sure - or are sure - that you dont like it actually. Has anyone made recordings and not shared them, just kept them for yourself?

What about taking before/after pictures to share with other (+-trans) people, other people looking into the same surgeon, that kind of thing?

And whatever you did or didnt do, how do you feel about it now? Would you go back and do things differently if you could? Including if you'd rather you didnt get the surgery done at all, Im open to a variety of perspectives. As long as you're not transphobic about it, which I dont expect but feel I should probably say to cover my bases. For context and transparency I'm just a person trying to figure out how I feel about it for myself, what I might want or not want to do. Personal reasons. Im not a journalist and I promise Im not writing some article I want juicy quotes for. (And if it seems weird that I would clarify that, I've heard stories of people asking to interview trans people as though sympathetic, and then twisting everything in publishing to demonize us. Its a farce of journalistic integrity and I wouldn't blame anyone for being suspicious of questions like this.)