#I'm mad EVERY DAY

[egophiliac]

I was going to wait and poke at this a bit more, but the excitement of Upcoming Episode 7 took over. :') so here's one of my alt ideas for Silver's UM poster! this time with more Diasomnia-appropriate colors (that said, you can tear the pink fluffy clouds away from my cold dead hands)

I also recorded this one, for anyone who's interested in that kind of thing! it includes all my fuckups and changing my mind and spending forever adding details before deciding it looks better without, so, uhhh, enjoy my failures! (I kept trying to draw in his jacket details...it never worked...) also featuring lots of drawing on the wrong layer, forgetting how jackets work, and the black censor boxes of continually forgetting to turn off pop-up notifications. hope you like watching me draw birds!

here it is, combined and compressed down to about 10 minutes long (with a warning for flickering and flashing colors from sped-up zooming/layer changes): [ link ]

[gingermintpepper]

In my Zeus bag today so I'm just gonna put it out there that exactly none of the great Ancient Greek warrior-heroes stayed loyal and faithful and completely monogamous and yet none of them have their greatness questioned nor do we question why they had the cultural prominence that they did and still do.

Jason, the brilliant leader of the Argo, got cold feet when it came to Medea - already put off by some of her magic and then exiled from his birthland because of her political ploys, he took Creusa to bed and fully intended on marrying her despite not properly dissolving things with Medea.

Theseus was a fierce warrior and an incredibly talented king but he had a horrible temper and was almost fatally weak to women. This is the man who got imprisoned in the Underworld for trying to get a friend laid, the man who started the whole Attic War because he couldn't keep his legs closed.

And we cannot at all forget Heracles for whom a not inconsiderable amount of his joy in life was loving people then losing the people around him that he loved. Wives, children, serving boys, mentors, Heracles had a list of lovers - male and female - long enough to rival some gods and even after completing his labours and coming down to the end of his life, he did not have one wife but three.

And y'know what, just because he's a cultural darling, I'll put Achilles up here too because that man was a Theseus type where he was fantastic at the thing he was born to do (that is, fight whereas Theseus' was to rule) but that was not enough to eclipse his horrid temper and his weakness to young pretty things. This is the man that killed two of Apollo's sons because they wouldn't let him hit - Tenes because he refused to let Achilles have his sister and Troilus who refused Achilles so vehemently that he ran into Apollo's temple to avoid him and still couldn't escape.

All four of these men are still celebrated as great heroes and men. All four of these men are given the dignity of nuance, of having their flaws treated as just that, flaws which enrich their character and can be used to discuss the wider cultural point of what truly makes a hero heroic. All four of these men still have their legacies respected.

Why can that same mindset not be applied to Zeus? Zeus, who was a warrior-king raised in seclusion apart from his family. Zeus who must have learned to embrace the violence of thunder for every time he cried as a babe, the Corybantes would bang their shields to hide the sound. Zeus learned to be great because being good would not see the universe's affairs in its order.

The wonderful thing about sympathy is that we never run out of it. There's no rule stopping us from being sympathetic to multiple plights at once, there's no law that necessitate things always exist on the good-evil binary. Yes, Zeus sentenced Prometheus to sufferation in Tartarus for what (to us) seems like a cruel reason. Prometheus only wanted to help humans! But when you think about Prometheus' actions from a king's perspective, the narrative is completely different: Prometheus stole divine knowledge and gifted it to humans after Zeus explicitly told him not to. And this was after Prometheus cheated all the gods out of a huge portion of wealth by having humans keep the best part of a sacrifice's meat while the gods must delight themselves with bones, fat and skin. Yes, Zeus gave Persephone away to Hades without consulting Demeter but what king consults a woman who is not his wife about the arrangement of his daughter's marriage to another king? Yes, Zeus breaks the marriage vows he set with Hera despite his love of her but what is the Master of Fate if not its staunchest slave?

The nuance is there. Even in his most bizarre actions, the nuance and logic and reason is there. The Ancient Greeks weren't a daft people, they worshipped Zeus as their primary god for a reason and they did not associate him with half the vices modern audiences take issue with. Zeus was a father, a visitor, a protector, a fair judge of character, a guide for the lost, the arbiter of revenge for those that had been wronged, a pillar of strength for those who needed it and a shield to protect those who made their home among the biting snakes. His children were reflections of him, extensions of his will who acted both as his mercy and as his retribution, his brothers and sisters deferred to him because he was wise as well as powerful. Zeus didn't become king by accident and it is a damn shame he does not get more respect.

[shannonsketches]

I just wanted to play with color on Toyotarou's art and I these panels spark the most joy

[millenniumscreampuff]

Two baby Bakuras! Baby Roos?

[yangjeongin]

when he

[scissorcraft]

you are not happy about the state of it!

[hes-sunshine-im-midnight-rain]

A fair alternative for nightmare passes is having the option to get the card for free after doing in-game daily stuff.

PB actually had it done right with Leraye's long hair S-card. I obtained it from doing the daily log-ins and missions

For example:

Free option: login daily for the duration of the event and play nightmare dungeons etc (PB could add the option to watch ads for extra AP like what OM does) and get the card on the last day of the event

Pay option $: user can skip a couple days from the login but still do mission and stuff

Pay option $$: user can get the card earlier by doing half the in-game daily tasks

Pay option $$$: user gets the card right away (like straight up buying it)

[neopronouns-in-action]

So can we start calling this the progress trans flag and using this, or is that too radical a concept for people in 2023?

[ID: A version of the progress trans flag with eight horizontal stripes of: purple, black, blue, pink, white, yellow, black, and brown. In the center are concentric circles of black, dark purple, and gold. End ID.]

Explicitly include nonbinary and intersex people in the trans pride flag. Not just “including nonbinary people” as a single single white stripe for people with “neutral” genders that 99% of people don’t even know is for nonbinary people, and instead think is there to represent transitioning.

If you want support nonbinary people, one small step is to explicitly include us in the trans pride flag, and not just by lumping all of us together into a single “neutral” category that seems like it’s only there to separate the pink and blue stripes.

I’m tired of binary people, both cis and trans, promoting exorsexism and erasing and speaking over nonbinary people. If the pride flag can change to explicitly include and support trans people and people of color, then the trans flag can change too.

Being trans is not just for binary men and women. It’s not just for perisex people or white people. It’s 2023. How about we put the most erased parts of our community front and center in the trans community, and how about the rest of the trans community be proud to fight with us?

There are three main versions of this flag, with the most simplified version up top.

Symmetrical version:

[ID: Three versions of the trans progress pride flag, both with symetrical horizontal stripes of purple, black, blue, pink, yellow, white, yellow, pink, blue, black, and purple. The first version includes a brown sideways chevron, followed by a gold triangle of the intersex flag, with the dark purple circle in the center. The second version has a brown diamond in the center, with concentric circles of black, dark purple, and gold inside it. The third version has only the stripes. End ID.]

The white and yellow stripe on this six-striped version are reversed so that the white stripe, like the black, is easy to see against all background colors.

[ID: Two versions of the six-striped version of the trans progress pride flag, with stripes of purple, black, blue, pink, white, and yellow. The first version includes a brown sideways chevron, followed by a gold triangle of the intersex flag, with the purple circle in the center. The second version has a brown diamond in the center, with concentric circles of black, dark purple, and gold inside it. The third version has only the stripes. End ID.]

Here is the web archive link where you can download the HD versions of these flags, including the symbols:

“https://archive.org/details/progress-trans-flag”

Do not add images to this post unless they include a plain text image description in the body of the post directly below the image.

ALT text is not accessible for everyone who needs an image description. Plain text image descriptions are the most accessible option. That’s why I used an image description and not ALT text.

Please also do not suggest replacements or variations of this flag that leave out the black, white, purple, or yellow. They were all chosen for a reason. You can add other colors if you want, but removing the purple, yellow, black, or white is just as egregious as removing the blue or pink would be.

The black, white, yellow, and purple all represent forms of identity outside the binary. Combining the black and white into grey erases so many people and completely misunderstands the purpose of those stripes.

These are the baseline colors for the flag, you can customize them via less saturation, darkness, ect, when making art or using it for your own purposes. You do not need to color pick directly from this flag any time you use it.

Edit 12/10/23: go read this post too.

[buttercupshands]

just some LoV sitting in the long lost bar in Ultra Impact in clothes that they didn't wear yet

[seaofreverie]

Sparkstember Day 18: Balls (Bullet Train)

Sometimes (oftentimes) it's true that all you need are Balls. I personally absolutely love Balls. I'm a big fan! Ekhem. Today I'm using the help of (I mean, copying most of the passages from it) my earlier Balls rant that I have written down after my first listen of it back in January. I really love this album and I don't want to completely skip over saying a couple words on it at least but I really don't think I have the headspace to write anything very good for it today. I'll still try though!

So yeah, Balls. It's a great album, fun and chill (in my sense of what I call and consider chill anyway), consistent, as Sparks albums tend to be, and as I suspected / hoped it does fit this specific vibe of driving around at night somewhere city-like and illuminated. Or being on a train deep at night and looking at the world zooming by (if you'd even see much of it on a train at night anyway.....). And I do think that it's not so dissimilar to Gratsax (I'd say now that it's definitely darker and moodier than its predecessor...). So it's interesting to think about how it's considered to be one of the "weak" ones (by music reviewers at least) while Gratsax is so beloved in comparision.

I will admit, I don't really know what the big problem with this album could be. As I said, it's fun, it has the melodies, it has the energy, it has the theatricality (I like seeing how more and more orchestral instruments such as strings are being incorporated into the music, in a way the jump into Lil' Beethoven two years later doesn't come of as THAT much of a shock because of this. The evolution of sound here is fascinating!) I really like the intense beats, just as much as the more laid-back and moodier pieces. And there's lots of gold to be found in the lyrics department as always.

One more thing I wanna say is that at some point I wondered if this music sounds older than it is. Maybe it does? But then I remembered that this was 2000 and honestly when I think about it, there just IS something about this album that fits so well with the Y2K image and vibe and all. Sparks 2000 and all that.

Favourite songs (and other highlights):

Balls: I mean. It's Balls.

Scheherazade: absolutely LOVE this one and I had the strangest impression of it sounding very familiar when I first heard it. Months later I found out that it was just briefly featured in TSB so I think that explains it (I will talk more about my TSB viewings on TSB day. EVERYTHING has to be explained in excruciating detail, lmao)

The Calm Before The Storm: bugsonas 4ever. Song itself is amazing too

How To Get Your Ass Kicked: how can a song about getting your ass kicked be so pleasant and relaxing, it always keeps cracking me up, how perfect that is actually

Bullet Train: I love it how introducing the topic of the song with a "It's the [topic of the song]" is a reoccurring theme on this album. Thank you Sparks for this ode to technology and art (these lyrics always have me giggling). And also it just goes hard as heck

It's Educational: a perfect fusion of / sequel to I Thought I Told You To Wait In The Car and Progress (it's mostly the vocal delivery that reminds me of the latter)

The Angels: such an odd one here but I still like it a lot, I apparently said that it sounds "surprisingly mainstream for Sparks but somehow in a positive way". It's very sweet and I absolutely love how Russell sings here, it's so different from what we're used to but that only makes it hit you even more in the feels, lol. And I actually prefer the alternative version of this song that's featured as a bonus track, and I do think that's in big part because you can hear Russell better on it (or that was my first impression of it at least and it kind of stuck)

[asoulwithadream]

Day 12: Scene (from OFMD) that made you laugh

"So we're having a thing on- OH GOD I'M SO SORRY"

"There's a sock on the door!" "ARE YOU A FREAKING IDIOT!?"

"I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!"

"Uhm- we're having a thing on deck for Captain-"

"GET OUT!!" "CLOSE THE DOOR!" "Sorry-"

"Hey Jim. Glad you're back!"

[nattousan]

when

whe you, when You were just trying to put i n some extra effort to try adn improve yoursel f and it got misinterpreted as malicious n u get yell ed at

[shannonsketches]

I just think Toei gives Vegeta a lot of shit for a guy who's maintained his rank within the top ten most powerful beings in the mortal realm since he was like five years old.

[monsterkirbo36]

💚🍄

[atopvisenyashill]

wait omg i saw people blowing up about people referring to alicent's behavior towards her kids as "emotional incest" again on twitter and someone was like "cersei also talks to joffrey about fucking whores and dictates his wardrobe" like bud....do you think cersei and joffrey had a normal, healthy relationship???