#and shaking it up a whole lot

[camarilla-arts]

A stray thought about all the less often used, or concept art only, Mutant Turtles from throughout the TMNT Franchise lead to this AU that haunted my brain for a week. So here's some sketches from a universe where the main cast never existed and yet four turtle siblings still work to save the world.

[cozylittleartblog]

400% sure he would love steven universe

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

WAKE UP!

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[22plus15]

the face of fotmob's potm....

[velnari]

templars of the white glass

(twitter)

at some point during my gideon re-read last year i became so obssessed w/ the eighth house,,,

[uniquezombiedestiny]

I LOVE YOU

[b1uedcollar]

“seth, what IS cody’s faceclaim?”    i don’t know! the guy at the gas station holding three hot dogs and a bigassicecold diet coke.   just the ugliest pitch around. idk!

[nativehueofresolution]

i find it really interesting to think about the satanic panic possibly having an impact on daniel's murky memories of the first interview. like obviously there are other factors that would play a role in his doubting what happened (memory loss from drug use, general unreliability of memory, possible tampering by armand or louis), but i love thinking about him like. being an early and vicious critic of michelle remembers and pointing out the absurdity of the sudden boom in people having repressed memories of the supernatural (half sympathetic and half condescending at the best of times to people claiming to have unrepressed their memories) and just generally trying to fight against the moral panic through his reporting, following all the trials and such. all the while being eaten up inside that he has memories not unlike the very ones he's scornfully debunking and becoming more and more certain he could never tell another living soul about what happened, quoting his own work to himself if he starts to dwell on the memory until (helped along by the other factors) it's become so dreamlike and non literal in his head hearing the tapes is a shock.

[yarrowleef]

mmm somethings been rattling around inside my brain about queerness in xenofiction (warrior cats centric cause that's obviously mostly what people are talking about in my internet circles) and I know around here I am preaching to the choir but w/e. I feel like i may have made this post before but i’ll do it again until i feel like i’ve crafted all of my thoughts correctly

everyone knows there’s always like. some shmuck on twitter or youtube comment sections, complaining about how gay cats just don’t make sense ~realistically~

and the common argument back is always something along the lines of “these cats have complex society and religion and talk to ghosts and sometimes have magic powers, and being gay is where you draw the line? it doesn’t have to be realistic”

and something just rubs me the wrong way about that argument, not that it’s WRONG, it’s not wrong, xenofiction by definition is all super super unrealistic. I think it’s more like, it oversimplifies it. because honestly when I make critiques about the warriors world building not making sense, I don’t tend to like the argument beginning and ending at “well it doesn’t have to be realistic” because no it doesn’t but it’s still supposed to feel believable.

i think i don’t like that the argument seems to imply that gay animal characters are at all on par with other fantasy things like talking to ghosts and having powers or complex religion. I also don’t like it when people who are being fake-supportive can condescendingly say “well the gay couple may be completely absurd and unrealistic but I guess it’s ok because its just a silly fantasy :) ” cause like. Like its not unrealistic tho. i don’t like the implication that it’s uniquely unrealistic, if this was a grounded story with no magic or religion and the cat social groups were more inspired by real feral cats, it would still be illogical for some queer cats not to exist.

 I feel like it is a more effective argument to point out that straight cats are just as unrealistic, in fact more unrealistic and silly

“cats lovingly and monogamously married-for-life and raising kids together” is the absurdity it should be compared to, rather then the magic elements. Because then the complainers have to contend with the fact that they aren’t bothered by unrealistic relationships between cat characters, they are just uniquely bothered by gay ones. 

I mean...not to get tmi but it seems obvious to me this knee jerk reaction people have to rolling their eyes and scoffing when “gay” and “animal character” are placed in the same sentence is based on their insistence on equating the breeding behavior of animals to the romantic relationships of humans. Y'know, they're assuming that when people talk about romantic couples between anthro characters, that that is the sort of thing they are drawing from. When, certainly when it comes to cats, that is a very very poor equivalent. Cat mating behaviors are not affectionate or long lasting--they actually seem quite stressful, and then the father runs off to find more girls and probably never calls his one-night-stand again.  

this is why I am really not fond of “mate” being used at the go-to replacement for husband/wife in xenofiction. Consider just coming up with a brand new word for your animal character’s version of romance! maybe they have types of relationships and words for them that humans don’t even have! but “mate” feels like. an action, nothing more. It doesn’t inherently imply love. frankly I think more people should be anthropomorphizing mates as simply Business Partnerships where the business is in desiring offspring, as opposed to husband/wife.

Just like....ok if you’re going to use the real behavior of animals as at least the loose inspiration for your anthropomorphic character’s behavior, surely pair bonding would be a smoother translation to what we view as a romantic couple?? not mating?? because pair bonded animals are the ones having consistent pleasant interactions, and being physically affectionate, and working together in life, sometimes even raising each others kids together.  

And keeping that in mind, frankly you could argue that gay-coded cats should be the norm. (not that I think pair bonded creatures should always be interpreted as a romantic coded relationship, you could interpret some as platonic or familial or simply allies needing to survive. The point is no matter what route you go, you are projecting some human experience onto animals who’s minds and feelings we cannot ever actually understand. So to make it coded as a gay romance is just as reasonable as making it an adopted found-family sort of affection. You can go any route and be the same amount of unrealistic.)

If these losers actually want reasonable cat fiction, no one should have romantic affection for anyone! and if two cats have kittens together, it should be treated more like a short-lived antagonistic business partnership where you part ways immediately after. If you only criticize one type of romance for being “unbelievable and silly because these are CATS for crying out loud 🙄” but you don't feel “distracted” or “taken out of the story” about the other type of romance, then this aint about realism my guy, sounds like you just have some baggage to unpack.

I am beating people over the head with a very big sign that reads “Whether you’re writing about cats or birds or aliens or fantasy people or whatever, you cannot grant any creature the ability to love without all the variety and complexity that **naturally** goes hand in hand with those messy emotions. If the creatures can fall in love at all, then there must exist the possibility for some of them to be queer about it. And if you view queerness as unnatural, then we don’t have a writing disagreement, we have a fundamental moral disagreement about life. And I can’t help you there, that’s your problem! But I refuse to let people benignly hide behind a “simple desire for more realistic-feeling fiction uwu” as a defense!! (gay people are real. It’s true! I checked!!)”

[phoenixcatch7]

If there's one thing I like more than time travel it's crossover reincarnation, so.

Botk link reincarnated as Damian Wayne.

An incredible weapon master of all types, but especially prodigious with a sword - he was beating knights at the age of 4 and with his memories as intact as they get for him I can see that goalpost moving even further (probably with traps and tricks, a 3yo doesn't exactly have great bodily control).

He's an excellent survivalist, agile, strong, durable, cunning and creative. He can move like a feather in the breeze, strike from behind with ease. His first kill, an animal, did not stir him as it did the other children. With his poise, grace, skills, obedience, he ought to be ra'as' finest assassin in the making, a jewel in the crown of the league.

Except he never speaks a word. Half his targets escape unscathed. He skates by true punishment on the merit of his skills and achievements in other missions. Testing has shown it is not a physical deformity that prevents his speech, but not even talia has been able to coaxe a word from him past his second birthday.

It is a defect ra'as is growing more and more frustrated by, as each attempt to fix these two final flaws ends in resounding failure. Less extreme solutions are running dry.

Talia fears those solutions. Her child does too, she knows. For them, there is a possible solution, more extreme than anything ra'as would tolerate.

She sends him out of the league. To his father.

To Gotham.

[ehatnow]

ITS STARTING

(19 is seven right? I was never good at military time or whatever the hell u call it)

[airbenderedacted]

What was the beta s2 villain design? I haven’t heard or seen abt that one n im curious

,,,,Bombshell my bbygirl,.

[tankgotstuckinthecircusgate]

they just didn't have to write him as "a great philanthropist"; "a generous benefactor of the empire bay planetarium"; "frequent officer of the empire bay press guild"; "a frequent target of political slander and false arrest because of generosity towards the press"

and at the same time write him as the first of the others to organize drug trafficking; a man who tried to kill all his competitors; "a shady bastard, even for guys in this business"; "ruthless modernizer"; a man who secretly views his close friend as a liability; "the man who killed his own boss" to take his place

"few will moan moretti's passing" from the lost heaven's newspapers and there's nothing like that in the cut-out news reports about carlo's death

[questwithambition]

Chanting to myself, as uni results and my degree classification are being published in 5 minutes: *your grades do not define your worth. Your grades do not define your worth. Your grades repensent such a tiny thing of who you are and your skills*

[lesbiancolumbo]

[voidrots]

im NOT making a doctor who blog in the year of our lord 2023 but i just want u guys to know im having so much fun rn