#but this is the first year in many that I've actually been active

[bg-brainrot]

**BANGS DOOR OPEN**

I DO DECLARE IT BE HORNY HOURS!!

What is your opinion on Astarion’s fav positions?

Oh and what about him being a bottom!? (Pegging?)

**RUNS AWAY**

Ohoho! Don't run away, we have horny hour headcanons to discuss!

I do think this depends on spawn or ascended Astarion, so I split this up-- NSFW below the cut! CW: Astarion's past and trauma

Spawn Astarion

I've said it before in my headcanon post and I'll say it again and again and again: Spawn Astarion wants to stare into his partner's eyes during sex. Especially as he tries to grow more comfortable in sex, I think he would be open to trying out a few different positions, but ultimately find that he wants to be able to remain connected to them as best as he can, and that means seeing them, knowing that they're enjoying the experience as much as he is. After some time, he'd grow fond of other positions, but not for a while (see: The Thousandth Time).

That all being said, favorite position: missionary. I know people joke about this a lot but I think he really would enjoy it the most! He'd also be a fan of cowgirl/cowboy, and really any position that allows him to kiss his partner throughout, like sitting in each other's laps. He would hold their hand, press cool kisses to the sweaty sheen of their temple, anything to keep himself in the moment. It would be an active effort for a while, but soon it would become habit, effortless as he grows used to chasing his own pleasure without any thought at all.

Now top or bottom? I am of the opinion that Astarion is a switch with a preference to top at the start of his journey -- this is entirely because of the power dynamics at play. He'd been so used to being "on his back" literally and metaphorically that I think that first time in the woods is a moment of taking charge and one that he'd hold on to for a bit. Eventually? I think he would be comfortable as either top or bottom, and would certainly be willing to forgo some control if that's what his partner wants. It would really boil down to: 'I want us both to be happy in our experiences, let's figure what works for us both best' (so it would depend on his partner)

When the topic of pegging is brought up (either by himself or his partner), he would be cautiously excited at first, especially knowing how much his partner cares for him/his relationship with sex and how good it will feel. He's no stranger to being pegged, no stranger to enjoying the sensation, but it would be the first time in centuries that he actually wouldn't feel used by the end of it. So he enjoys it thoroughly that first time, all of his fears melting away with the way his partner coaxes the pleasure out of him, he may even make some noises he hasn't heard from his own mouth in years. Ultimately, it is one of the many ways he reclaims control and, for that, he can't get enough.

Ascended Astarion

Conversely: Ascended Astarion couldn't care less about eye contact during sex. In his act 3 romance scene, he only briefly makes direct eye contact, and it's mainly to get into a better position. To him, it's not about the inherent intimacy of sex, it's about the sensations that him and his consort both feel, that they both bring each other undone utterly and thoroughly.

So his favorite position? Doggy style. He likes deep penetration, and a position that gives him a lot of control. He sets the pace, the pressure-- he would feel every bit the lord he is while his consort begs for more beneath him. Another favorite position is 69, as he loves how he and his consort slot together so well, each heightening the others' pleasure throughout. To him, the more both he and his consort get out of it, the better, and if he can make them squirm with what a skilled lover he is at the same time? Delectable really.

Top or bottom is tricky here. Because I believe he starts out as a switch before Ascension, as Spawn Astarion does-- only I think his relationship with sex takes a different path than Spawn Astarion's, namely because he doesn't metaphorically lay his past to rest in the same way. As such, for a while he refuses to bottom. He sees it as demeaning, beneath him and, as his consort, his partner ought to understand and be willing to accept their place. Then, as he and his consort have more and more sexual encounters, he finds himself growing detached from sex. It becomes a rote power play in which he's more of an observer than an active participant. That is, until he finally lets go of some of that power. When he finally allows his partner to top, oh he enjoys it. A lot. Certainly more than he's willing to admit, but his consort would be able to tell easily enough, especially when Astarion all but demands it. That's not to say he relinquishes control entirely-- while he does enjoy being submissive to his lover, more than he expects, he certainly harnesses what it means to be a power bottom.

Ascended Astarion brings up pegging first, and it comes across as more of a casual topic of conversation than the excitement of a vampire lord ready to come undone. Again, his consort would know though. He wouldn't be able to hide the lustful gleam in his eyes when his consort agrees, he wouldn't be subtle about the way he whisks them away to their bedroom a moment later. He enjoys it in the moment surely, but is surprised by how little it entices him again. Being submissive is one thing, but he's left feeling oddly vulnerable afterward-- he doesn't care for that uncomfortable aftermath. When his consort next suggests pegging he shrugs it off, deciding to opt for something that focuses more on making sure that they get off instead.

Thank you so much anon 🫰🏽this was fun and hope you enjoyed horny hours!!

[misc-obeyme]

would u consider obey me a dead fandom?

Um. Nope. I sure wouldn't.

If there's anybody out there who thinks Obey Me is a dead fandom, I would say they're probably confused about what a dead fandom actually is.

I think an argument could be made saying that there is no such thing as a dead fandom. But I'm going to assume you mean that fan content is at an all time low.

Friend, I have been in fandoms where the content was like... you get a fic or two every year if you're lucky. This for a media that hadn't put out any new content in decades.

Obey Me? I get an average of five asks per day about Obey Me. I can queue 10 posts per day about Obey Me. I still average over 800 notes a day on this here Obey Me blog. In the past few months, we've had new artists and writers joining the community and posting their Obey Me fan works. The game is still active and updating. There are two apps even.

So no, I personally would not consider the Obey Me fandom to be dead by any means.

It's certainly been more active in the past. I'll never forget the surge of activity that happened when Nightbringer first came out. My Solomon fics seemed to double their notes over night lol.

But we're also in a bit of a lull right now because we aren't getting new chapters. Every time an event happens, there's another burst of activity. And then things die down just a little before they surge again. That's the nature of fandom.

Another common fandom thing is people coming and going. I've been here for almost two years, but there are others who have been here for four. And then there are some people who've only been in the fandom for a couple months. And then there are the people who were here at the beginning, but have since moved on. Maybe they only stayed for a few months before moving on. Maybe they're only casually in the fandom, dipping in now and again. This is also just the nature of fandom. There's no right way to do it. And it doesn't reflect on whether a fandom is alive or dead.

Hell, we even have plenty of discourse and toxic stuff in this here fandom, too. More of that when there's nothing else to do, I think, which is unfortunate, but also kinda... just part of fandom.

And all of this is just how it is on Tumblr. I know there are active Obey Me communities on Twitter/X and Instagram, too. I'm just too old and tired to maintain that many socials. I actually have accounts on both of those apps but I rarely use them.

And lastly, I'm a big proponent of being involved in fandom no matter how active the community is. By this I mean, if I still have an Obey Me hyperfixation in ten years when the apps are closed down and nearly everybody else has moved on, I will still be here posting fic. Because I won't leave a fandom until I am ready to move on from it, dead or not. (Sometimes this can mean you are one of the few people still creating for said fandom, but you might be surprised at how many people will still enjoy what you create.)

[matan4il]

Hey, I just felt the need to vent and see if you or your followers had any advice for me because I feel so stuck.

I don't have any relatives or friends in Israel so sometimes I feel I have no room to talk on the conflict. I'm in the US, I'm 'safe', my family is safe, but I still feel so hurt and the grief from everything happening to 'my people'

I was talking to a friend and I know we have conflicting opinions on everything happening. I just feel so heart broken by him as we were discussing things and he cuts the conversation when I said "Hamas is a terrorist organization". I don't know how I can trust him anymore when he can't even see that. I love him so much. He's essentially my best friend. It hurts so much and I don't know what to do. At this point I just keep quiet but there is resentment building and I hate it.

Any advice would help. Sorry for rambling. I'm just emotional.

Hi Nonnie! I totally understand, you're being legit in how you feel, and I'm sending you many hugs!

I believe I've answered a similar ask at some point since the war, I'm just not sure how to find it, because Tumblr's search option sucks. Maybe through the ask tag, IDK. If anyone's better at handling this site, and can find it and link it in the comments, I'm sure the anon (and definitely me) would appreciate that!

I think that ask was more generalized though, so here I'll refer more specifically to yours.

First of all, if you're Jewish, you have family in Israel. All Jews are one big family, one tribe, and I consider every Jew a part of my extended family. That said, there's actually a good chance that, given enough genealogical research, you'll find that one, two or three generations ago, the family tree split, and there's a branch where people returned to Israel, so you have distant relatives you weren't even aware of here. If you're interested in looking into this, a good place to start is to contact the Anu Museum, which delves into the history of the Jewish people, and also keeps extensive genealogical records for Jews.

Hamas is a terrorist organization, that's not an opinion or debate, it's a fact. People tend to claim that resistance can be seen as terrorists or freedom fighters, depending on one's opinion, and it's true that at times the term "terrorists" has been abused, but there's actually a very simple way to figure out the matter. If an organization intentionally targets civilians with violence, including lethal violence, for the sake of achieving some sort of a political change (and that includes political change in service of an extremist religious cause), then we're talking about terrorists. The differentiation between a regime as a legit target for a struggle, and innocent civilians who should never be targeted with violence, that's the difference between freedom fighters (whether we agree with them or not) and terrorists.

The exact date of Hamas being established as a terrorist organization is not known, most believe it was Dec 1987 (it announced it was joining the First Intifada on Dec 15, when it started on Dec 9. Hamas escalated it considerably, as it did the Second Intifada), while the son of a Hamas founder (Mosab Hassan Yousef. He was repeatedly jailed by Israel for terrorist activity in the service of his dad's organization, but as a teen in prison saw how Hamas was torturing Palestinians. He decided to flip and help Israel in order to save his own people from Hamas) says it was actually slightly earlier, in 1986. Either way, by the end of 1989 (just two years after its first public statement), Hamas was already so brutal and violent, that it was outlawed here. Soon, especially as it started carrying out extensive suicide bombings (the very first one was on Apr 16, 1993), it was also recognized as a terrorist organization and outlawed by multiple governments (including the UK, the US, Jordan, the EU, Japan, Norway, Iceland, Canada, Australia and Paraguay).

Not only is Hamas clearly a terrorist organization since its very first act of terrorism, after Oct 7 it is also one of the most successful ones ever (second only to Al-Qaeda after 9/11, though if you look at the number of fatalities per population size, then Hamas have surpassed Al-Qaeda as well). To not recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization is to not recognize terrorism, and that it is fundamentally wrong, because nothing ever justifies killing civilians to affect a political change, and THAT is an incredibly disturbing position to take.

On top of that, Hamas is Islamist, it wants a world ruled by an Islamist regime, and sees the eradication of Israel as a first step on the way there. It will only condemn other Islamist terrorist organizations for digressing from this plan of eradicating the Jewish state first, before taking on the rest of the world. Hamas is also genocidal towards Jews. Its founding charter declares this explicitly, that Judgment Day will not come until all Jews are exterminated. Its leaders have continuously and repeatedly expressed themselves in similar ways, calling upon "true believers" to kill Jews everywhere around the world, and in fact since Oct 7, several Hamas terrorist cells have been exposed as operating against Jews outside of Israel.

Someone who can't even admit Hamas are terrorists will likely not recognize the genocidal, antisemitic and extremist Islamist nature of Hamas, either. If you're Jewish, what that means is that your "friend" is willing to turn a blind eye to the declared statements of those who wish to kill you simply because you're Jewish. And if you ask me, that's not a friend at all. But even if you're not Jewish, I think the willingness to allow Hamas' genocidal antisemitism by denying the nature of this organization is morally despicable. I would kind of get it if your friend lived in a non-free country, where he can't get the true info on Hamas. But if you live in a free society, and your friend can get online, and go to one of the sites that share info on Hamas, especially the footage from Oct 7, but he's still denying what this terrorist organization is really like? I think you're very right to be upset by that.

At the end of the day, how you deal with it is up to you. It sounds like this person is really important to you, and I get it. At the same time, it sounds like you're having a hard time living with his views of Hamas, which is beyond justified. If your friend is willing to overlook this, what else is he willing to allow? I guess the question is whether you feel like you can have a talk with him, where you put this all on the table, not just Hamas being a terrorist organization, but also the genocidal, Islamist and antisemitic nature of it, and explain to your friend that it is personally distressing to you, that he can act as if Hamas is a legit organization? Do you feel like you can talk to him, and if he understood what it means to you, he might be more willing to listen? If you don't talk to him about this, do you feel like you can live with his views?

I'll be honest, I personally would not want such a person as a "friend." I would never feel like I could trust him. That doesn't negate all of his other good traits and what he can and does give you as a friend, though. I get that. I understand that it is a loss, if this ends your friendship. And that's why I say that it's up to you. It's up to what you feel is in the best interest of your well being. Do you still trust him to have your back despite his views? Do you think you'd be worse off to lose everything else about your friendship? Or do you think he values your friendship enough to listen? Do you feel like the distress of knowing what he supports is too much, and is bad for your well being? At the end of the day, only you can answer these questions.

Just know that no matter what you decide, you're not alone. There are others who feel like you do, and who would accept you, all of you, anti-Hamas views included, and will be true allies and friends. You def have a friend here. I'm wishing you well with whatever you decide to do, and if you feel like sending follow up asks, please don't hesitate to! Much love, Nonnie. xoxox

(for more of my posts regarding Israel, click here)

If this is a person who you define as your best friend, but they're cool

[genuineformality]

I posted 1,210 times in 2022

That's 1,178 more posts than 2021!

115 posts created (10%)

1,095 posts reblogged (90%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@taralkariel

@marycontraire

@totchipanda

@elle-rosewater

@saritasoyyo

I tagged 1,036 of my posts in 2022

Only 14% of my posts had no tags

#fanfic - 142 posts

#six of crows - 142 posts

#kaz brekker - 90 posts

#vitally important bird content - 72 posts

#please keep bird tags coming - 61 posts

#inej ghafa - 59 posts

#about the author - 54 posts

#writing - 39 posts

#febuwhump - 33 posts

#kanej - 31 posts

Longest Tag: 107 characters

#no shit i spent my first decade of bird watching with a pair of $40 binoculars and an inherited field guide

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

I posted my second SOC fanfic yesterday and I have been gauging the response of this one vs the last. Acknowledging that I have a sample size of two and making some assumptions based on time and date of launch, word count, and changes in POV, I have come to the following conclusion:

The Six of Crows fandom greatly prefers stories involving the main character performing a grisly murder and does not prefer noodling about the realities of launching an anti-human trafficking nonprofit in a modern day Ketterdam.

Which, okay. I can see that.

I’m still 100% going to keep writing about Inej’s anti-human trafficking NPO progress, but maybe I’ll try to work a few more grisly murders into the plots. Goodness knows, as an NPO professional myself, I’ve certainly fantasized about being able to solve problems with murder, so maybe this will be cathartic for everyone involved.

28 notes - Posted January 7, 2022

#4

Old Gods of Appalachia continues to do a fascinating piece of storytelling, where the listener is introduced to something bone chillingly terrifying as the preamble and then introduces something that is significantly worse and scares the bejeezus out of the haint whom we have just gotten to know. It is both a brilliant way to introduce multiple types of creatures and also show the relative hierarchy of the things that go bump in the night.

38 notes - Posted July 4, 2022

#3

Me, working on my SOC Modern AU: “What would a city created by nearly unfettered capitalism with an actual prosperity cult look like in the modern day?”

Also me, someone living in USA: “OH.”

44 notes - Posted January 9, 2022

#2

There is nothing that makes me feel as connected to my ancestors as being on my weekly Shabbat call and forgetting which prayer I’m doing in the middle of it.

“…Asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav-“ look down at the bread in front of me, “-FUCK.”

49 notes - Posted January 7, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I have finished Season 2 of @thesiltverses and I am deep in my feels about the nature of faith and how we incorporate it (or not) in our daily lives; the pervasive perniciousness of capitalist propaganda; how the only good cops aren’t cops anymore; the incredible storytelling at work to showcase a world that is both incredibly alien and yet entirely familiar; and how to write people who are Not Good in such a way as to make them extremely sympathetic and relatable. (There’s a longer maunder about the nature and relativity of good and evil in the context of worlds that have significantly different cosmologies, which I’m likely going to have a lot of feelings about later.)

Absolutely incredible work. If you are into horror radio dramas (and don’t mind a *lot* of body horror - like *a lot*), I 100% recommend. Please join me in this absolute obsession. Just cannot get over how good it is.

86 notes - Posted October 22, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[kyouka-supremacy]

Mmmhh...

[vetyr]

hi, i ireally love your work and i don't know if you've answered this before but, what kinds of studies do you do or how did you learn color theory? i wanna get better at rendering and anatomy but im having trouble TT TT

Hi! Long answer alert. Once a chatterbox, always a chatterbox.

When I started actively learning how to draw about 10 1/2 years ago, I exclusively did graphite studies in sketchbooks. Here's a few examples—I mostly stuck to doing line drawings to drill basic shapes/contours and proportions into my brain. The more rendered sketches helped me practice edge control & basic values, and they were REALLY good for learning the actual 3D structure behind what I was drawing.

I'd use reference images that I grabbed from fitness forums, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and some NSFW places, but you could find adequate ref material from figure drawing sites like Line of Action. LoA has refs for people (you can filter by clothed/unclothed, age, & gender), animals, expressions, hands/feet, and a few other useful things as well. Love them.

Learning how to render digitally was a similar story; it helped a lot that I had a pretty strong foundation for value/anatomy going in. I basically didn't touch color at all for ~2 years (except for a few attempts at bad digital or acrylic paint studies), which may not have been the best idea. I learned color from a lot of trial and error, honestly, and I'm pretty sure this process involved a lot of imitation—there were a number of digital/traditional painters whose styles I really wanted to emulate (notably their edge control, color choices, value distributions, and shape design), so I kiiind of did a mixture of that + my own experimentation.

For example, I really found Benjamin Björklund's style appealing, especially his softened/lost edges & vibrant pops of saturated color, so here's a study I did from some photograph that I'm *pretty* sure was painted with him in mind.

Learning how to detail was definitely a slow process, and like all the aforementioned things (anatomy/color/edge control/values/etc.) I'm still figuring it out. Focusing on edge control first (that is, deciding on where to place hard/soft edges for emphasizing/de-emphasizing certain areas of the image) is super useful, because you can honestly fool a viewer into thinking there's more detail in a piece than there actually is if you're very economical about where you place your hard edges.

The most important part, to me, is probably just doing this stuff over and over again. You're likely not going to see improvement in a few weeks or even a few months, so don't fret about not getting the exact results you want and just keep studying + making art. I like to think about learning art as a process where you *need* to fail and make crappy art/studies—there's literally no way around it—so you might as well fail right now. See, by making bad art you're actually moving forward—isn't that a fun prospect!!

It's useful to have a folder with art you admire, especially if you can dissect the pieces and understand why you like them so much. You can study those aspects (like, you can redraw or repaint that person's work) and break down whether this is art that you just like to look at, or if it's the kind of art that you want to *make.* There's a LOT of art out there that I love looking at, probably tens of thousands of styles/mediums, but there's a very narrow range that I want to make myself.

I've mentioned it in some ask reply in the past, but I really do think looking at other artist's work is such a cheat code for improving your own skills—the other artist does the work to filter reality/ideas for you, and this sort of allows you to contact the subject matter more directly. I can think of so many examples where an artist I admired exaggerated, like, the way sunlight rested on a face and created that orange fringe around its edge, or the greys/dull blues in a wheat field, or the bright indigo in a cast shadow, or the red along the outside of a person's eye, and it just clicked for me that this was a very available & observable aspect of reality, which had up until that point gone completely unnoticed! If you're really perceptive about the art you look at, it's shocking how much it can teach you about how to see the world (in this particular case I mean this literally, in that the art I looked at fully changed the way I visually processed the world, but of course it has had a strong effect on my worldviews/relationships/beliefs).

Thanks so much for sending in a question (& for reading, if you got this far)! I read every single ask I receive, including the kind words & compliments, which I genuinely always appreciate. Best of luck with learning, my friend :)

[bettsfic]

one of the best decisions i've ever made was to stop arguing.

i'd always been an arguer. i was defensive about everything and mindlessly contrary. it wasn't all my fault; i was (and still am) talked down to and patronized a lot, and when you live your life that way, you become kind of a raw nerve and dedicate a lot of energy to trying to prove yourself. someone even told me once, "it's just fun messing with you. you get so upset."

at 23, i was working in an environment where about a half dozen middle aged conservative men were always telling me what to do and explaining things to me. i either argued with them when they said heinous things or stewed about it for hours or even days. and so my new year's resolution one year was simply: no arguing.

it felt a little like defeat at first, like i was no longer standing up for what i believed in, even though no matter how right i was or how much proof i had for my claims, no one had ever been swayed by anything i told them. part of that was because they had no respect for me and didn't take me seriously; the other part was the simple truth that arguments are almost never productive. when someone says something and you immediately reply with, "you're wrong and here's why," a wall goes up and nothing can go over it.

i couldn't just let these men talk at me though, so i started asking questions. not leading questions, not with an intention to prove a point or walk them into a corner. i genuinely wanted to understand how they came to shape the opinions they held. i realized that understanding and agreeing are two different things, and just because i seek to understand doesn't mean i condone.

a truly fascinating thing happened: these men walked into corners all by themselves. it turns out nobody had ever actually tasked them with speaking their opinions aloud to a neutral audience. no one had ever been sincerely curious about them and their views. sure, their loved ones probably asked, "how are you doing?" all the time as a show of affection, but that's much different than, "what do you think?"

knowing what i know now, i think that's true of everyone. how many people ask you for your opinion and listen to what you have to say without speaking their opinion back to you? without judging you? how many people actively and intentionally try to understand you?

it's been over ten years since my resolution and i think i can count the arguments i've gotten into on one hand. one finger, even. it's amazing what happens when someone tries to rile you up, pick a fight with you, and your only response is, "can you elaborate on that?"

you can work someone into a very open and vulnerable state when you ask questions. they eventually run out of their usual talking points and move into the personal. when i do this, it's not like therapy; i'm not trying to help anyone. and it's not like teaching; i'm not trying to educate anyone. i just want to understand how people reach the conclusions they've come to. even after all these years of asking questions and not arguing, it still amazes me how few people in this world feel understood, and how easy it is to get them to open up when you say, "i want to know what you think."

[headspace-hotel]

How people in the USA loved nature and knew the ways of the plants in the past vs. nowadays

I have been in the stacks at the library, reading a lot of magazine and journal articles, selecting those that are from over fifty years ago.

I do this because I want to see how people thought and the tools they had to come up with their ideas, and see if I can get perspective on the thoughts and ideas of nowadays

I've been looking at the journals and magazines about nature, gardening, plants, and wildlife, focusing on those from 1950-1970 or thereabouts. These are some unstructured observations.

The discourse about spraying poisons on everything in your garden/lawn has been virtually unchanged for the past 70 years; the main thing that's changed is the specific chemicals used, which in the past were chemicals now known to be horribly dangerous and toxic. In many cases, just as today, the people who opposed the poisons were considered as whackos overreacting to something mostly safe with a few risks that could be easily minimized. In short, history is not on the pesticides' side.

Compared with 50-70 years ago, today the "wilderness" areas of the USA are doing much better nowadays, but it actually appears that the areas with lots of human habitation are doing much worse nowadays.

I am especially stricken by references to wildflowers. There has definitely been a MASSIVE disappearance of flowers in the Eastern United States. I can tell this because of what flowers the old magazines reference as common or familiar wildflowers. Many of them are flowers that seem rare to me, which I have only seen in designated preserves.

There are a lot more lepidopterans (butterflies and moths) presumed to be familiar to the reader. And birds.

Yes, land ownership in the USA originated with colonization, but it appears that the preoccupation with who owns every little piece of land on a very nitpicking level has emerged more recently? In the magazines there is a sense of natural places as an unacknowledged commons. It is assumed that a person has access to "The creek," "The woods," "The field," "The pond" for simple rambling or enjoyment without personally owning property or directly asking permission to go onto another person's property.

There is very little talk of hiking and backpacking. I don't think I saw anything in the magazines about hiking or going on hikes, which is strange because nowadays hiking is the main outdoor activity people think of. Nature lovers 50-70 years ago described many more activities that were not very physically active, simply watching the birds or tending to one's garden or going on a nice walk. I feel this HAS to do with the immediately above point.

Gardening seems like it was more common, like in general. The discussion is about gardening without poisons or unsustainable practices, instead of trying to convince people to garden at all.

Overall, the range of animals and plants culturally considered to be common or familiar "backyard" creatures has narrowed significantly, even as the overall conservation status of animals and plants has improved.

This, to me, suggests two things that each may be possible: first, that the soils and environments of our suburbs and houses have sustained such a high level of cumulative damage that the life forms they once supported are no longer able to live, or second, that our way of managing our yards and inhabited areas has become steadily more destructive. Perhaps it may be the case that the minimum "acceptable" standard of lawn management has become more fastidious.

In conclusion, I feel that our relationship with nature has become more distant, even as the number of people who abstractly support the preservation of "wilderness" has increased. In the past, these wilderness preservation initiatives were a harder sell, but somehow, more people were in more direct contact with the more mundane parts of nature like flowers and birds, and had a personal relationship with those things.

And somehow, even with all the DDT and arsenic, the everyday outdoor spaces surrounding people's homes were not as broadly hostile to life even though the people might have FELT more hostile towards life. In 1960, a person hates woodpeckers, snakes and moths and his yard is constantly plagued by them: in 2024, a person enjoys the concept of woodpeckers, snakes and moths but rarely sees them, and is more likely to think of parks and preserves as the place they live and need to be protected. Large animals are mostly doing better in 2024, but the littlest ones, the wildflowers and bugs and birds, have declined steeply. It's not because "wilderness" is less; it seems more because non-wilderness has declined in quality.

[aptericia]

Not proud to be here.

--

Ok, here goes draft like 5 of this fucking post. I spent 4 hours tossing and turning in bed last night thinking about this, and then this morning I found a tumblr post that really helped me understand what I was trying to say.

The post talks about how aromantic "advocates" claim that "aros don't take up resources, so there's no reason not to include them!" And if that's actually what people believe, I think I can finally articulate why it is that I feel so alienated in queer spaces.

It's because aspecs in general aren't "welcomed" by much of the queer community. We're tolerated. We perhaps get the luxury of not being contradicted on our own identities, or not being specifically kicked out of LGBTQ-only spaces, but that's the whole point: what we get out of the queer "community" is people NOT doing things, not actually doing things FOR us. And that, frankly, is not enough. We deserve conversations about us. We deserve to have others consider our feelings, even when making lighthearted jokes. We deserve varied, respectful representation in media. We deserve the active deconstruction of amatonormativity in society. We deserve to have space made for us, rather than at most being told we should "go take up more space!" ourselves.

Of course, the reality is that my being aspec is a personal matter that does not inherently affect anyone else. But the same can be said for literally any queer identity. Your being gay doesn't say anything about me, so of course I shouldn't hurt you for it, but why should I help you either? Because your happiness and comfort are important. The same goes for aspecs.

And most of the time, I don't even need anyone to make space for or expend resources on me; I can live fine in everyday, non-queer-specific places without mentioning my identity at all. But it's the queer community that claims it will make that space for me, doesn't, and then acts defensive and morally pure if I call out the hypocrisy because "we're queer too, you can't erase our identities to advocate for yours!!!!"

Again, this post isn't about specifics. I have queer friends who are incredibly thoughtful and supportive about my identity, just as I have non-queer friends who are. I find more solidarity in aspec-only communities, as well as trans/genderqueer ones, although there are still many exceptions. This post is also not about amatonormative ideology, which is extremely common from queer and non-queer people alike. This post is about the reason I've felt so betrayed by the queer community.

--

On a personal note, I remember being so excited when I started identifying as aromantic (and later asexual). Fitting myself into labels has been a lifelong struggle for me; to this day I still can't confidently say if I'm White or PoC, neurotypical or neurodivergent, abled or disabled, cisgender or not cisgender. I continue to struggle making friends because I don't fall into social cliques. To discover that I officially, certainly, was LGBTQ+ lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. And now I'm just so sad to find that despite that, I'm still stuck in the middle. I didn't get rewarded with a community. I still feel alienated from both queer and non-queer people. I know it was silly to get my hopes up when there's such vast diversity in both groups, but it really was a disappointment. Going to my first Pride parade last year was really the moment where I realized this.

[inkskinned]

she's three years younger than i am, and i put on cascada as a throwback, cackling - before your time! i've been borrowing my brother's car, and it's older than dirt, so the trunk is like, maybe permanently locked. when the sun comes through the window to frame her cheekbones, i feel like i'm 16 again. i shake when i'm kissing her, worried i won't get it right.

in 2003, my state made gay marriage legal. where she grew up, it wasn't legal until 11 years later - 10 years ago. if legal protections for gay marriage were a person, that person would be entering 5th grade. online, a white gay man calls the fight for legal marriage boring, which isn't kind of him but it is a common enough opinion.

it has only been 9 years since gay marriage was nationally official. it is already boring to have gay people in your tv. it is already boring to mention being gay - "why make it your entire personality?" i know siblings that have a larger age gap than the amount of time it's been legally protected. i recently saw a grown man record himself crying about how evil gay people are. he was begging us, red in the face - just do better.

i am absolutely ruined any time my girlfriend talks about being 27 (i know!! a child!), but we actually attended undergrad at the same time since i had taken off time to work between high school and college. while walking through the city, we drop our hands, try not to look too often at each other. the other day i went to an open mic in a basement. the headlining comedian said being lesbian isn't interesting, but i am a lesbian, if you care. as a joke, she had any lesbian raise their hand if present. i raised mine, weirdly embarrassed at being the single hand in a sea of other faces. she had everyone give me a round of applause. i felt something between pride and also throwing up.

sometimes one thing is also another thing. i keep thinking about my uncle. he died in the hospital without his husband of 35 years - they were not legally wed, so his husband could not enter. this sounds like it should be from 1950. it happened in 2007. harassment and abuse and financial hardship still follow any person who is trying to get married while disabled. marriage equality isn't really equal yet.

and i don't know that i can ever put a name to what i'm experiencing. sometimes it just feels... so odd to watch the balance. people are fundamentally uninterested in your identity, but also - like, there's a whole fucking bastion of rabid men and women who want to kill you. your friends roll their eyes you're gay we get it and that is funny but like. when you asked your father do you still love me? he just said go to your room. you haven't told your grandmother. disney is on their 390th "first" gay representation, but also cancelled owl house and censored the fuck out of gravity falls. you actively got bullied for being gay, but your advisor told you to find a different gimmick for your college essay - everyone says they're gay these days.

once while you were having a hard day you cried about the fact that the reason our story is so fucking boring to so many people is that it is so similar. that it is rare for one of us to just, like, have a good experience across the board. that our stories often have very parallel bends - the dehumanization, the trauma, the trouble with trusting again. these become rote instead of disgusting. how bad could it be if it is happening to so many people?

i kiss my girlfriend when nobody is looking. i like her jawline and how her hands splay when she's making a joke. there is nothing new about this story, sappho. i love her like opening up the sun. like folding peace between the layers of my life, a buttercream of euphoria, freckles and laughter and wonder.

my dad knows about her. i've been out to him since i was 18 - roughly four years before the supreme court would protect us. the other day he flipped down the sun visor while driving me to the eye doctor. "you need to accept that your body was made for a husband. you want to be a mother because you were made for men, not women." he wants me to date my old high school boyfriend. i gagged about it, and he shook his head. he said - "don't be so dramatic. you can get used to anything."

the other day a straight friend of mine snorted down her nose about it, accidentally echoing him - she said there are bigger problems in this world than planning a wedding.

[noxtivagus]

mhmmm starlit waltz.... sometimes i find my mind just wandering back to that. lil thing i wrote years back. from time to time. i really want to rewrite it soon before 2022 ends ><

[genderqueerdykes]

small observations for people who are just starting testosterone HRT

If you suffer from chronic fatigue, chronic illness, or mental illness, you may notice that your energy levels dip down very low after first starting T. this is due your body needing extra energy to process the extra hormones, not anything long lasting. after your body adjusts, this fatigue will go away, and you may actually find that you have way, way more energy now

Beards love to be patchy and mustaches love to be invisible or nonexistent at first. if your beard is patchy at first, or if you just can't grow a full mustache, this is also normal. it can take years of testosterone HRT for beards to become full, especially if you had low T to begin with. moisturizing your beard regularly can help reduce this, and also any potential itchiness from being too long. beards will get itchy for many if they get long.

The acne (should) go away after your body adjusts, and you will not be greasy forever. you will find that your natural body odor smells different, though. this lasts as long as you are on T, as far as i'm aware for most people, but it's only noticeable for me when i get very sweaty after a lot of exertion, or illness.

You may find after you adjust that you have generally a bit more stamina or ease with starting up or adjusting to new physical activities after you've adjusted. it may be easier for you to work out now because you don't become fatigued as easy, for example, or you may find it is easier for you to put on muscle density.

The mood swings will calm down in time- they are most severe right after you start T, and then taper down as your body adjusts. it doesn't turn you into a "rage monster". you just go through normal pubescent moodiness. it's manageable, especially if you have good coping skills like physical activity, journaling, or art while stressed.

Libido goes either way, i've noticed. many people see a huge spike in libido at first, sometimes it stays for a long time, other people don't notice any change whatsoever. also, T for most people will not change what gender or type of person you are attracted to, however it can change how you view yourself in relationships and lead you to changing your identity labels, or questioning things. it generally doesn't make people change their identities overnight, though

Periods do stop for the vast majority of transmascs. it can take a long time, but they do stop if your doseage of T is right for you. if yours haven't stopped and you do not have reproductive health issues, you likely just need a higher dose to see this effect.

Breast tissue reduces in density when higher levels of testosterone are in the body, so it is very likely that you will see your breasts become flatter or even "Deflate" a bit. this is entirely normal. my chest has been like this my entire life due to very high T from hyperandrogenism & intersexuality

Balding can definitely happen, but this is generally only if you have a genetic predisposition to it. i have actually not seen many transmascs bald, although for many of us, our hairlines do shift upwards, but it's not noticeable unless you compare how you look now to older pics of yourself, and generally it takes years for your hairline to migrate anyway, which is natural for AMAB people later in life anyway. even if you do bald, you can speak with your prescriber and have access to medications to help with balding. it's not the end of the road and many respond very well to medication.

[velnna]

I'm curious to know how you mastered anatomy? I mean, look at the subtle shadows around Roy's shoulder or the details along Staeve's arms or even the ups and creases on Astarion's face, I am truly amazed and see it and it makes your art style so good but I can't understand how you do that...

I know I lack that specific little details in my own art style but idk how to comprehend it, so did you actually study anatomy? Or did you like, vibe around? Or try to feel and visualize while drawing what the body feels like?

Amazing amazing artist you are mate, love you for sharing this with us!

It's honestly just been a matter of actively trying/learning to recognise muscle groups and joints over the years (plus a lot of my biggest artstyle inspirations are HEAVY on anatomical lines and accuracy). Also, as I've mentioned a bunch of times, I've always been involved or interested in high performance sports, acrobatics in particular, which made me pay a lot of attention to people's bodies from very early on (in a purely artistic way lmao)

These days a lot of it comes intuitively, but if I'm ever struggling or need a fullbody/more dynamic pose my first step is to outline the muscles in the sketch to see if anything's out of place. To aid me in this I sometimes have écorché (skinless) references either as pictures or in 3D. This sort of thing:

There's a lot of online resources for this as well! I personally love this one

In my head things get converted to a puzzle of sorts, kinda like what these study notes look like (not mine, artist handle in the pictures):

And then it's a matter of weighing in how thick a character's skin is (indicator of a bunch of things including age) and what the fat-muscle ratio looks like, to decide which structural lines stay and which ones go or become less prominent.

And yes this also explains why I have so many fit/lean characters. I get a kick out of drawing muscle groups lmao

All that being said! I'm still very far from my anatomy goals haha it's a work in process for all of us. Hope this helps!

[wiisagi-maiingan]

I cannot actually believe I have to say this but older events are not irrelevant to modern issues when those events caused widespread damage to countless people and left permanent impacts on the populations targeted. Historical context, especially in the case of violent persecution and its lasting impact caused by bigtory and hate that are deeply ingrained in society, IS important and needs to be talked about.

The Trail of Tears took place in the mid-19th century, almost 200 years ago. The 13th amendment to end slavery was ratified in 1865, more than 150 years ago. Are those events suddenly irrelevant to current society because they happened so long ago? Is the expulsion of indigenous people from our lands no longer important? Are we supposed to forget slavery? What about things like European colonization that happened hundreds of years ago? Is that too old to care about?

Of course not, because we know the reality is that even if those events are "over" and have been for a long time, their impacts are likely to going to be felt forever and the bigotry that led to them happening in the first place is built into our societies and cultures and actively still hurting the groups affected. But it doesn't escape my notice that the "it happened so long ago, just move on" is being weaponized against Jewish people specifically, especially by leftists who would never even dream of saying that to any other marginalized ethnic and racial groups (and many other groups who AREN'T affected by generational trauma).

The Holocaust is still relevant. The global expulsions of Jews from countries all over the world are still relevant. The pogroms that devastated Jewish communities all over the world for hundreds and even thousands of years are still relevant. Acknowledging that doesn't mean approving of or justifying the Israeli government's actions, just like acknowledging other historical events doesn't mean accepting or justifying the bigotry and violence of other marginalized groups. It's not about justification, it's about understanding and remembering so that we can move forward without repeating that violence.

I'm just absolutely blown away by the callousness and cruelty I've seen from people and their absolute refusal to acknowledge the fact that antisemitism is a real and very active danger. If you think that people just talking about ongoing antisemitic violence is propaganda, then you have some serious and deeply-held bigoted ideals that you need to be acknowledging and working on.

[xavieryaa]

The Reddit Blackout, #196, And Being New to Tumblr

okay i've seen a lot of people in the past ~24 hours or so confused by everything going on with Reddit & Tumblr from both sides - people new to tumblr who don't know how to use it, and tumblr users who don't know what's going on with reddit and why many of its users have joined up here i know this isn't really related to my blog but fun fact about me: i was up until recently a very active reddit user and even mod a subreddit, but I've also been on tumblr for about 3 years now on different accounts, so I think I can see pretty well from both sides of this and explain what's going on this post will be split in 2 sections: what happened with reddit (and what #196 means), and a guide for new users

1. What The Hell Is Going On With Reddit?

The thing that's caused all this ruckus is a major change to Reddit's API, which is what Reddit provides to people so they can pull directly from Reddit to make third-party apps or tools.

The change is that Reddit is changing its previously free API to be paid. Which on its own kinda sucks for developers, but it's not unexpected. They need to make money somehow, right?

The problem is that the API pricing is WAY TOO FUCKING EXPENSIVE. The developer of the most popular 3rd party Reddit app, Apollo, says it will cost him $20 million a year to continue running the app as normal.

Essentially, this pricing forces almost everything third-party to shut down, which causes 3 major problems:

Third-party apps cannot keep running, which sucks for normal users because Reddit's official app is awful. It's slow, its video player is a thing of nightmares, it doesn't have many useful features third-party developers have made.

It sucks even more for visually impaired users because they can't use the official Reddit app at all. Reddit's official app does not work with iOS's native text-to-speech function. Third party apps, on the other hand, often do. So Reddit is forcing blind users away.

Third-party moderator tools cannot keep running, which sucks for moderators because many rely on these tools to properly moderate their subreddits. And moderators are often necessary, because without them subreddits get banned and hate speech and even CSA can often run rampant.

So you see why this change is bad.

Reddit users were PISSED.

So over the past week and a half or so, they have been working on organizing a site-wide blackout. The majority of the most active subreddits have now gone private. Some are only doing it for 48 hours, others (such as r/196) are doing it indefinitely.

That's why you can't access most of Reddit right now, and that's why many users have come here.

You're probably still wondering, though - what is this #196?

Well, as you may guess, it's connected to that subreddit r/196 I just mentioned. r/196 is a subreddit which only has one rule: every time you visit, you must post before you leave.

That's it, that's the subreddit.

The thing about r/196 that set it apart from most other subreddits - and what lends the subreddit's users perfectly to Tumblr - is that it was dominated by queer and leftist users.

So now they've come here and set up shop in #196 and r/196 so they can continue their merry little shitposting.

There's a ton of lore related to r/196, actually, but this is already a long tumblr post and quite frankly I cannot be bothered to write about it at the moment.

2. I'm Here From Reddit, What Now?

Hello there, random new user. As a double-citizen of Reddit and Tumblr, let me show you around this place.

First off, there are some other people who are better at explaining that I am who have made some really helpful things. Watch this Strange Aeons video as a guide to Tumblr culture and functionality and read this post which directly compares Reddit and Tumblr.

Assuming you've done that, here's some additional advice of my own:

Do you miss sorting subreddits by top of all time/the year/the month? Well, you can do something very similar with tags! If you go to a tag at the top of the screen you can select top, and then at the dropdown that says "all time" you can select different time periods! Even 6 months, which Reddit hasn't ever had.

Tumblr has a lot of cool customization features! Even outside your icon/banner/bio, you can change you blog colors and on desktop you can have an html theme (which has its own thriving community here). That customization is part of what sets Tumblr apart from everywhere else - I think you'll enjoy playing with it.

Notes will probably confuse you at first. Unlike the different numbers for upvotes and comments, notes combines the total number of likes, reblogs, and replies into the same number.

Outside of organizing your own blog, when making your own posts tags are what help other people find your post. Use them! But don't abuse them, because then people will just block you.

There are three ways of people finding your post: if someone follows you, if someone follows the tag(s) assigned to your post, and if someone is just scrolling through the tag(s) assigned to your post (and also the secret 4th way no one uses, which is finding it on the trending page, but even if people did use it no one will find your post initially that way)

tumblr is no longer The Discourse Website. And unlike what Reddit wants you to believe for some reason, it is very much alive still. Most of the people seeking fights have moved to Twitter (though some have also moved back here again). You will not get any brownie points for being a dipshit like you do on some subreddits.

So there, welcome to the hellsite (affectionate), you'll pick up on all the in-jokes eventually, for now just try not to be a nuisance and soon enough this'll be your new internet home.

[relaxxattack]

okay because of the differing opinions on @calware's post i had to go and check for myself. after all, we've all heard info passed down the fanon grapevine over the years. so, here it is:

is dave strider right or left handed?

obviously, this being homestuck, character sprites flip like every half a second, so i'm trying to take that into account here. alright, let's plow through an entire comic's worth of dave panels.

in his very first appearance, dave uses a katana from his wall to slash through his name command left-handedly.

he proceeds to use his left hand for many actions he takes in his apartment, including typing.

he then uses his right hand to fistbump cal, open the attic, pick up a sword, and escape the puppet pile. his computer is also set up for his right hand.

so already we've got a lot of switching going on, as to be expected with homestuck. i'm going to just try and focus on "main" shots now and not minute sprite details, since those seem to switch constantly.

dave climbs the staircase after picking up the sword with his right hand. however, when beginning the strife with bro he switches it to his left.

during that fight his sprite (and dominant hand) flips many times. while he is laying on the floor beaten he texts john with his right. once he gets up, he resumes typing with his left. [EDIT: he pretty much always uses his left hand when texting; there are very few panels where this sprite is flipped.]

during the [s] enter, dave is famously seen drawing a sbahj panel with his mouse right-handedly. he does this again talking to tavros later. his computer setup seems pretty consistent in this way.

during [s] accelerate, dave flips his sword between hands multiple times both in sprite and hero mode.

then, for no apparent reason except for that he probably hates me and wants me to suffer, dave switches his main hand back and forth repeatedly for the entire rest of the comic.

he frequently carries his sword in his right hand, except for stray panels where, when actually using the sword, he favors his left (panels 5 and 8 above). however, this isn’t a case of him only carrying with his right and then using his left to actually wield— because as you can see in panel 9 above, he also uses it right-handedly.

he uses his left hand during the entire fight with jade and bec, but then, switches back to his right during cascade.

during meteorstuck he seems to use his right hand for most activities, including drawing and writing, except for the penis ouija scene, in which he uses his left.

he takes all his selfies with his right hand, then confronts jade with his left hand. his watch is also positioned on his left wrist, which is traditionally an indicator of right-handedness; and he holds his sword in his right again as he absconds.

during the dogfight he makes most of his attacks with his right hand, and switches to his left to parry bec. when he dies in game over, he's holding his sword in his left.

he's using his right hand in essentially all of the non-sprite shots in collide, except for this last big red one.

that's all i've got.

conclusion: ????

in all honesty, he seems to switch between either hand frequently enough that you could make an argument for almost anything. hooray, everyone's headcanons are valid!

though i will say that he definitely uses his right hand more frequently in panels. if you only count panels where he's actually using his sword, it's closer to an even split, but i'd still tentatively say that he favors right more often than not.

the widespread fanon concept that he canonically only uses his right hand while drawing and otherwise uses his left, is unfortunately mostly cheryypicked in terms on panels. but that's not to say it's necessarily wrong. there's too little consistency in the art to definitely call it false

considering he's been seen both writing and swordfighting with his left, you can headcanon whatever the fuck you want! (and let's be honest, he has leftie vibes).

that's all! hopefully this helps someone. this took way too long to do help