#adding to this also

[pookapufferfish]

[velvetcloak]

The Olympics but high fashion by Wisdom Kaye

[vasira96]

my snowflake opinion is that subtitles should always be on by default, and their incorporation should be considered an essential part of the design process tbh

[fly-chicken]

A Pragmatic and surprisingly comforting perspective about the Trump 2nd Presidency from the ACLU

***Apologies if this is how you found out the 2024 election results***

Blacked out part is my name.

I’m not going to let this make me give up. It’s disheartening, and today I will wallow, probably tomorrow too

AND

I will continue to do my part in my community to spread the activism and promote change for the world I want to live in. I want to change the world AND help with the dishes.

And I won’t let an orange pit stain be what stops me from trying to be better.

A link to donate to the ACLU if able and inclined. I know I am

[spoopup]

number 1 werehog fan

[cheswirls]

i might have to put tsdf (hs au) on a delay. moving next month and this one has been so crazy (actually the past uhhh since end of nov has been insane) that i haven't edited anything. no way it's coming out before the month is over

but also like uhhhh in my downtime between everything i may tear the next chapter to shreds bc i have nothing else to do. so! i don't wanna say march bc it may very well be next month sometime in the middle. usually i'll get manic and edit what i want to be the next chapter in a couple days, and do p much nothing else until it's finished. so if and when i decide to work on it, it'll be done quick (?? i say that but this chunk has soooooo many scenes so maybe it'll take longer than the rest)

anyway idk it's 1am this is just notice that ik it's been over two months since last chapter but it's not coming this month unfortunately

[idon-twannabeperceived]

If you choose other it's gotta be along the lines, like that game where you have to paint a map and the same color can't touch, don't come to my house all like "uhhh i played pinball"

Also there's no "none of these" option bc if you didn't become obsessed at some point with a kinda nerdy easily addictive offline game that will suck your soul until you can't think about anything else but the game for weeks then you are a fucking pussy and I don't respect you

[gibbearish]

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

[stantanly]

[onbearfeet]

A conversation at a wedding, beside the gifts table. There is a large box wrapped in violently purple paper sitting beside the table.

Guest: That's a big box. Wonder what's in it.

Me: A custom handmade quilt on an oak quilt rack.

Guest: Really?

Me: Yup. Wanna see?

Guest: Sure.

Me: *shows pics on my phone*

Guest: Wow. You made that?

Me: Yep. Finished it last night.

Guest: That's amazing. Very purple.

Me: Yeah, (bride) asked for that.

Guest: Oh, she knows about it?

Me: I worked with her on the design. But she hasn't seen the finished quilt yet. It's a surprise.

Guest: So you take commissions? Could you make one in, say, two weeks?

Me: That depends. Do you have ten thousand dollars?

Guest: What.

Me: Materials, labor, overtime to make that deadline--yeah, it would start at 10K. Might be higher if you wanted expensive materials or some really fancy technique.

Guest: That's a lot of money!

Me: It is.

Guest: Did you charge (bride) that much?

Me: No. Hers is a gift.

Guest: A ten thousand dollar gift?

Me: Well, to the extent that I am part of a quilting tradition at all, the tradition I'm part of is that quilts can ONLY be given as gifts. Anyone who could casually afford to pay for the amount of work involved in a quilt is probably not someone to be trusted with art.

Guest: Art?

Me: ART.

Guest: ...

Me: I also made her a nice satin dressing gown, which she wore for hair and makeup earlier.

Guest: Is that art, too?

Me: I mean, it's got pockets.

[monkesupreme]

ref

a satisfactory answer for Selina

[irregularbillcipher]

most frustrating thing in the world is when you really like a character who sucks, and you know they suck, so you’re chill with people who dislike or even hate them because… well they suck, you get it. but then a whole bunch of people hate them for things that just aren’t actually accurate or canon to the character and just treat these inaccurate and awful character traits as a given, so then you feel like you gotta be this scumbag’s defense attorney. free my man, he did so much awful shit but he didn’t do that

[kianamaiart]

"Pretty Pretty Please I Don't Want to be a Magical Girl" Bios!

NAME: Aika (she/her) AGE: 15 Main Protagonist CV: Anairis Quiñones

BIO:

Aika is an easily excitable and energetic girl. She's generally optimistic and very friendly. She's always eager to try new things as long as it's not her fulltime job of being a magical girl.

As soon as her magical girl duties are brought into the picture, her demeanor changes. She checks out, and often looks for the quickest solution to solve the issue. No flashy transformations and special moves here. She's good with a metal baseball bat or a rocket launcher.

All Aika wants is to live a normal life, make friends and go to school. Unfortunately, like every main protagonist, trouble manages to follow her wherever she goes.

___________________________________

NAME: Zira (she/they) AGE: 16 Love Interest Best Friend CV: Bennett Abara

BIO:

Zira is everything Aika wants to be. Painfully average, under the radar and a self proclaimed loser.

She's a smart girl but has a hard time applying herself. Instead of paying attention in school, and doing extracurriculars, Zira would much rather be reading her favorite magical girl manga "Moon Sailor".

After Aika forces her friendship upon them, Zira now has to tag along on all of Aika's escapades and experiences new things. Ew. However, they admire Aika deeply and admire her even more after Aika's magical secret comes to light.

___________________________________

NAME: Hoshi (any/they/them) AGE: unknown Magical Sidekick CV: Christine Marie Cabanos

BIO:

Hoshi is a magical star being sent to Earth to find the chosen one. They made a great choice with Aika, as she's amazing at her job. The only issue is she hates it and is often trying to dodge responsibilities (and Hoshi).

When Aika first started, and still had her heart in it, Hoshi was definitely more neurotic and acted as your typical mentor/magical sidekick. But over time, they gave up on trying to tell Aika what to do and also became a little more apathetic. Aika was getting the job done at least, so what's the problem?

Hoshi still has to make sure Aika doesn't completely give up on being the Star Guardian: Guardian of the Stars, which Aika finds annoying.

___________________________________

NAME: Eclipse (he/him) AGE: 15 Minor Antagonist CV: Aleks Le

BIO:Eclipse is a flamboyant and theatrical individual whose showmanship is out of this world. He refers to himself as

"Eclipse: Servant of Darkness".

He was a D-list antagonist that Aika and her team would fight on occasion. Mostly just saving citizens from him being a nuisance. Eclipse has deluded himself into thinking that he's Aika's rival, main antagonist and love interest. Their love is simply forbidden as he's chosen the path of darkness and her, the light.

After Aika ran away, he managed to find her again. However this time he actually has powers??? Where did those come from? It's as if he's made a deal with darkness itself.

___________________________________

NAME: Lady DeVoid (she/her) AGE: Old Main Antagonist/Big Bad CV: Shara Kirby

BIO: Lady DeVoid is darkness itself. She's a mysterious being with an incomprehensible amount of power. Power that is currently weakened and that she actually has no idea how to use. She can't seem to remember for some reason...

All she knows is that a long time ago she was defeated and banished by a Star Guardian and that she now wants revenge. The only power she has at her disposal is creating particles of darkness that she can use to possess animate or inanimate objects to create monsters. She prefers others do her dirty work.

She enlists the help of Eclipse to spread these particles with the hopes that it'll eventually destroy the Star Guardian.

___________________________________

NAME: Miss (she/her) AGE: 39 Side Character CV: Michele Knotz

BIO:

Miss is Aika and Zira's very tired teacher. Looking at her, you might assume she hates her job, but it's quite the opposite. She pours everything into her work and into her students, leaving very little time for her personal life.

She's recently started trying to get it together (after her ex-wife left her) but is still struggling to find that work-life balance.

Prior to Aika enrolling, Miss was Zira's only friend at school and, though she'd never admit it, Zira's probably the closest thing she has to a friend also (oof). She's subsequently become a secret Moon Sailor fan too.

[specialagentartemis]

My feelings about queernormative worlds in SFF is that I can often enjoy it, but I rarely believe it.

Almost everything surrounding gender, sex, and sexuality, and all the different social norms and expectations that different cultures build up around them, derive ultimately from the various realities of sexual activity and pregnancy: who can have it, who can’t, for how long, who does have it, who doesn’t, and what that means for society. I’m not being bioessentialist here, because human bodies are all quite different and different cultures develop different ways to react to that, and rates of and reactions to fertility can be different, and what different sexual and gender roles mean in different cultures and who can and can’t embody them can get extremely different. (Hell, how pregnancy itself even works can be different depending on where you live, what your lifestyle is like, and what your diet consists of!) But like, the reason gender even matters, historically, has been because of reproduction. And the reason reproduction matters, in agricultural societies anyway, has very often been because of property ownership and the need to work on farms.

So I’m totally here for queernormative worlds. But to interest me you have to answer the questions of: okay, but how does your culture work though, and how is kinship structured, and how is reproduction seen, and how is property inheritance understood, and how does gender fit into all this, for me to feel like you’ve actually tried. (And don’t say that there ARE no norms, so no one falls outside of them. There’s no culture where that’s true.)

Sci-fi worlds can get away with this easier than fantasy worlds, imo. Partially because they can posit that it is our future but we’ve gone through all of the Social Justice Struggles already and solved them, but also because technology can really alter all of these topics. The Vorkosigan Saga, for instance, makes it clear that Beta Colony is as gender-egalitarian and free-love as it is because of contraception and uterine replicators, which FULLY decouple “the ability to have children” from “the need for anyone to be pregnant.” This is huge, and the Vorkosigan Saga treats it as appropriately so! Ancillary Justice is another one that thinks a lot about how the genderless culture that decenters romance as a core social organizing principle works. But I read so many low-ish-tech fantasy worlds that are happily queernormative and gender doesn’t matter and they just feel shallow. I don’t believe this world. I don’t dislike it, exactly, I just don’t believe it, I don’t believe people would be like this because you’ve put no effort into imagining a world that works like this makes any sense.

Which is totally fine for people’s D&D games and cute oneshot comics and personal works and such, but when you want me to take your worldbuilding seriously, you’re going to have to convince me! And a lot of it is not convincing.

[evgar]

having death on her knees... crazy stuff only agatha harkness could do

[henryscapon]

how to ask the demon you've been smitten over for 6000 years to dance: an angel's guide

bonus: