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Embrace

Amber Spindel

from the website: “Embrace was inspired by the warmth you feel when families gather. The symbology of the bear is protection and giving strength to families, each ring a layer of love and support. At the heart a child, children bring with them the hope of a brighter future and a better tomorrow.” - Amber Spindel

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Map of all proposed new passenger rail lines in the US, the map was made by @ThunderWolf08 on Twitter

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I heard a raw line from Guilllermo Del Toro the other day about monsters being the perfect way to express human failure:

“…monsters, I believe, are patron saints of our blissful imperfection, and they allow and embody the possibility of failing.”

And i was wondering your take on this quote in relation to things like vampire and werewolf and other semi-monster subtexts. “Monstrous” humans that are ironically allowed to act more human more often than… humans. I just find the attempt to make an outlet for imperfection while still at large criticizing it fascinating.

I mean, yeah, there's a long history of interpreting monsters through queer, anti-colonial, feminist and other Outsider lenses for exactly those reasons. The monster is the Other who is vilified by the in-group, which represents all that the in-group hates. The monster must, by its nature, fail to live up to the standards and expectations of the in-group, which is why it must be destroyed. But that also means the monster is free from the standards and expectations of the in-group, including oppressive and bigoted ones.

So, as an example, if you're queer, and rhetorically treated as inhuman and monstrous and diseased anyway, or eugenically classified as a deviant mutation or sub-derivation of "real" people, there is real appeal and a real sense of resistance in claiming monsterhood, in embracing it and glorying in it.

In part, that's what the rallying cry "we're here, we're queer, get used to it!" meant and still means. It is a reclaiming of monsterhood as a source of strength and community and pride, rather than shame. Slurs are used to Other queer people, to set them apart from "real" people and mark them out as a monstrous deviation from the virtuous norm - slurs are used to call us monsters. And thus a lot of queer people find a lot of power and freedom in reclaiming them, in turning their Othering into a flag to rally around.

And I think that's still a big part of the appeal of the monster, honestly, that freedom from being what someone else thinks you ought to be.

If you're a monster, you don't have to have the perfect body, you don't have to suppress your lust or your love. You don't have to shave your body hair or dress correctly for your assigned gender, or have a white picket fence house with a spouse and 2.3 children. You don't have to sit primly at the dinner table, you don't have to repress your emotions, you don't have to hate the foreigner or despise the gays or fear the trans agenda. You don't have to have a small, straight nose or perfect cheekbones, you don't have to wait to fuck until you're married, or pretend you want to fuck at all. You don't have to want to get rich or be a CEO, you don't have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps or be on your grindset, or cheer when the cops clear out a homeless camp.

To be a monster is to be free from the inhumanity that is forced on us by white supremacy, by fatphobia, by heteronormativity, by imperialism, and by the interests of capital. To be a monster is to be human in all the ways that are inconvenient to oppression.

... but I went off on a tangent there a little bit - vampires and werewolves, right. I have no theoretical or academic basis for any of this, so this is entirely a personal hot take, but I think vampires are perhaps a bit more about "passing" as a fantasy. Not necessarily in a gender sense, but the ability to keep your true nature undetected by the "normal" folk, while the secret things that make you different also make you dangerous and powerful. Surviving by stealing sustenance from a world that hates you, on terms that are entirely yours to dictate. "I will survive even if it kills you," that kind of vibe.

Werewolves, on the other hand, feel more like a defiant, angry embrace of the monstrous. Transforming into something vast and powerful and furious, growing out of your skin, out of your form, out of your boundaries; howling your nature to the moon and mauling any motherfucker who has a problem with it. Giving in to all the beastly unnatural urges, and diving into the horrible monstrous wants and desires that boil inside you (which, remember, include things like Not Wanting To Fuck or Wanting To Hold A Girl's Hand In A Lesbian Sort Of Way). Less the "I outfoxed your social game and drank you dry" slick vampire power fantasy and more the "call me a slur one more time and I'm going to wear your entrails like a fucking scarf" power fantasy.

Again, that's just personal hot takes, everyone's understanding of the monstrous in relation to themselves is different. I've seen a number of genderfluid and nb people use monstrousness as a way to defy occupying a shape that can be gendered for example.

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Worlds - Submitted by owlzshitshow #512A4F #826D8A #A197B7 #AABDDC #9BBEDE

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Which is Stronger: the Stone or the Wave? - Submitted by SeesawSiya

#5c9ab3 #a0bfc1 #e9d6d0 #a57398 #51455d #756361

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The tiger He destroyed his cage Yes YES The tiger is out

"The Tiger" by Nael, Age 6

Prints

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70 or 100, it’s all part of the journey and we’re along for the ride.

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Redditors crashed the website with donations over $25k and 0 wishes left. via /r/MadeMeSmile

Click here and follow to get more daily positivity on your dash!

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Amazon is being sued by the FTC and 17 states for being an illegal monopoly

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Adorable tiger! I had MUCH LOVE for this sona

twitter | commission info | business email: batsoupart@gmail.com

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Spirit: Stallion of The Cimarron & the Indian Boarding Schools/Residential Schools allegory

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What has been your favorite part of Lackadaisy? (I must say I ADORE the animation with the visible sketch lines. It gives such a welcoming homemade feel to the show!)

I think my favorite part was getting that dang pencil to finally look right. Idk if most people here know this, but I built from scratch the brush used to line the characters as well as the early pipeline for how the look of the characters would be handled in cleanup.

My goal was to create a line texture for Toon Boom that looked like the Xerox Era of Disney animation. This was where the animators would take their rough pencil drawings and use basically an old school printer to copy and darken those lines so they looked like finalized cleaned lineart. This was done to cut costs so they wouldn't have to draw AND line every single frame because Disney wasn't doing so well financially back then (crazy to imagine now I know), but the end result was a really unique aesthetic!

Obviously we went a touch more clean than these. I just wanted to show some really nice and crunchy examples. Even so, funnily some people thought that was a mistake instead of a throwback to a long gone era of animation haha I don't blame them tho. People are much too used to hyper clean/crisp lines and we wanted to bring that dirt, grime, and TEXTURE back in for a nostalgic vibe. I'm still proud of how these early tests came out and the further refining the rest of the team did to get that final look is incredible.

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Hello! Where did you get your leather punches? (The ones in the shape of a heart/triangle/tear drop.)

Oh gosh, that was so long ago lol. I'm pretty sure I got the heart and tear drop punch tools at a Joann's Fabric in their meager leatherwork section, and the triangle one was part of a set I bought off amazon and the listing disappeared practically a month after I got em. It looks like Springfield Leather Co has some options

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a comic about different types of storytellers

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Orange shirt day tomorrow. Once again, I’m of mixed feelings. Happy that we have a day that let’s non-Indigenous people know.., but sad we even have to make a day to be noticed or cared about.

Trying to spread awareness and love.

🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡

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content warning: residential schools //

as Orange Shirt Day / The National Day of Truth and Reconciliation nears [September 30] I want to give a bit of context to those internationally who might not know that this day is.

Orange Shirt Day was started by Phyllis Webstad and others in 2013. This is a day to reflect and promote reconciliation, as well as uplift and support the victims and communities impacted by the Canadian residential school system. This is also the origin of the Every Child Matters movement.

The National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, as it's known by the Canadian government, was only formed as an official national day in 2021 after 200 unmarked graves were discovered on the property of the former Kamloops indian residential school that same year. Currently there are estimated thousands of graves on residential school properties; many of which have not been properly addressed.

Kivalliq Hall was the last residential school in Canada and closed in 1997. This is not some far-off distant history thing, many people alive today were sent to residential schools as children.

If you want to give support, consider donating to the Indian Residential Schools Survivor Society, or Orange Shirt Day. The IRSSS does fantastic work, offering counselling and numerous support lines - including one for 24/7 crisis support. I'd also like to mention Reconciliation Canada, as they also do good work.

This is a small personal anecdote here, but I'd like to recommend checking out Indian Horse; a novel by the late Richard Wagamese that follows the life of a boy going through the residential school system. There is also a film adaptation by the same name. This book [and its film] offers valuable education on the dark history that is residential schools.

I'm always happy to have additional links and educational material added to my posts, so please do not hesitate to add onto this. thank you.