stephansbugz

[stephansbugz]

do shrimp farms really tear off female shrimps' eyes to make them breed faster or is that just more peta nonsense. i mean they also claim that keeping pet dogs is slavery or that sheep are skinned alive for wool so idk what to believe anymore

oh has peta gotten ahold of it now? it's a real practice, unfortunately

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[stephansbugz]

Always a good time to burn down yet another village!

Patreon

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[https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/106955503] Black Bush Earwig || Nala lividipes Observed in Australia

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Biodiversity can be achieved through executive dysfunction!

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Perisex people, set a reminder to look back at the post in one week. Reblog for reach please.

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i like my multiples of 3s. 6. 9. 12. 24. 48. A bit basic, I know. But tried and true

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it's really such an experience to go from "oh this is really cool wow" to "aw man i like this so much i need to eat glass about it" i cant even pinpoint when it happened

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Self indulgent art based on Ravenous, my favorite movie :> Used my drag persona as the Boyd-like figure in the center, and wanted to capture his resistance to perpetuating systems of violence (the Ives figure feeding him).

I love the way Ravenous tackles themes about colonialism and power, and they do an interesting job of connecting gender roles/ gendered expectations to why these systems perpetuate. I feel like this is most seen with Boyd: for the standards of the time, he is seen as feminine and weak (mostly due to his discomfort with violence in the military), but that really is his strength, as he fends off Ive’s temptations to give into colonialist systems (symbolized through rejecting cannibalism).

I think that this idea can often be especially pertinent to transmasc individuals, due to the way trans boys/men have to find their own standards of masculinity in a society where masculinity is often associated with violence or exertion of power.

Anyway, I used Ibis Paint to sketch and my Notes App (yes, the Apple notes app) to render.

[stephansbugz]

There are so many things I love about Ravenous, and I could talk about all of them. But that’s a lot of typing so I’m just going to focus on one thing:

Part of what makes Boyd’s ending in the bear trap so great is that he never explains himself. Of course he can’t, he’s half dead, that would be impossible. But I do recognize, throughout the second half of the movie, he wants to feel understood. He’s constantly scapegoated for the murders of his traveling party by other people, and he wants people to understand that he is not the monster, Ives is. And this is why Boyd is easy to identify with as a character: we have all had a situation where we were misinterpreted, leading to us feeling isolated and lost. No matter how large or small of an event it is, it always feels frustrating. We want Boyd to explain himself, to be believed, to have someone have his back.

However, if this happened, and people believed Boyd, especially a character like Martha, it would not work thematically. Martha has no reason to trust him: in fact, it’s Boyd trying to explain himself that first establishes this distrust. He says he didn’t kill her brother, but really, why should she believe that about him? He already admitted to eating people. Any person in Martha’s shoes, especially an indigenous woman who has seen both the curse and the corrupting force of colonial power first hand, would be suspicious.

So, Boyd doesn’t need to explain himself. He doesn’t need to die feeling like Martha understands he’s the “good guy”. He can just die knowing that sacrificing himself was the right thing to do, even if it is never recognized as sacrifice. And that’s a beautiful thing. Because the whole story is Boyd balancing these two motivations within him: self preservation and morality. This bear trap scenario of “eat or die” is the ultimate choice, and he chooses morality! With no benefit to himself other than feeling like he still has a soul as he is drifting off to his death! And that can mean something for us, something for people: if you’d rather explain that you’re a good person than do the right thing, you should rethink your priorities!!

God, I love this movie so much.

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ME AS A BUG, she/her

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Look at my video essay collection 🫵

^ some ones I can remember being specifically good

A lot of the time video essay recommendations I see are of the same couple of youtubers so I thought I'd share this ::3 The playlist has videos from a ton of different youtubers and covers a ton of different topics so if you like video essays there's probably something in there for you. (Also note I've had this playlist for. Several years. And I probably don't agree with everything on this playlist by now)

[stephansbugz]

Recently watched Cabaret (1972). It’s still on my mind… feels very relevant, the rise of fascism and people ignoring it, living in blissful ignorance. I don’t know how people could laugh at the end of “If You Could See Her”.. it’s so eerie, and so pertinent to how comedy and propaganda can be used as a weapon to dehumanize. And people are laughing at it again…

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Hi i'm a regular Frankie fan so i HAD to draw THAT scene... 💋✨