#honestly this is why it's so frustrating

[itsclydebitches]

Re: RWBY outfits in v9: Hey wow it's strange that Jaune gets a completely new helmet and hairstyle and altered face AND his armor is significantly retextured to the point of looking completely out of place with the flat-colored outfits the girls have in shots where they're together. I'm sure this has nothing to do with where the narrative focus of the Volume actually was. But it's fine if we don't at least partially take the girls out of their cold weather gear???

This!

Also, people frequently fail to acknowledge how much this snowballs.

RWDE: Why did Jaune get the new texture and hairstyle? Push-back: Duh, because he's the one who's been living in the Ever After for decades. RWDE: Yeah... and why did he get to do that again? Push-back: Because he killed Penny and the story needed him to have a significant arc in response to that. RWDE: Uh huh, and why did he get to do that? Push-back: Because Jaune is the one with the super important healing skill that beautifully contrasts their violent career! RWDE: ... are we not sensing a pattern yet?

Putting aside the fact that Ruby could beautifully fit any of these emotional beats with a bit of tweaking (she falls early, finds the time tree, the emphasis is on the contrast of Penny's first friend having to kill her, silver eyes are somehow significant to that moment, etc.) I think too often fans get caught up in not only the supposed necessity of any one scene —treating the RWBY gang as real people bound by the whims of fate, rather than characters 100% controlled by the writers — but also the ways in which, yes, past work does have an influence on what occurs later. If you make Jaune a team leader equal to Ruby, if you give him a big arc at the very start of the show, if you make him OP in regards to energy, if you give him the most useful skill in the entire group (given that they're fighting humans more than grimm nowadays, silver eyes are all but useless in most fights. ESPECIALLY when Ruby will randomly not use them against Cinder), if you make him the emotional focus of Pyrrha's death, if you give him the revenge quest, if you have him kill Penny... yeah, you're setting up future scenarios where he "has" to remain in the narrative spotlight. That's the problem: not only that RWBY refuses to pull back from Jaune's position in the story, but that it started that trend so early that now they have built-in excuses for why it "has" to continue. We knew going into Volume 9 that Jaune would be a problem because Volume 8 had already introduced the problems of a) having him kill Penny and b) having him fall with the title team. We're going in circles and continually winding up in scenes like, "Well, Jaune has to have an emotional breakdown that detracts from Ruby's because he's the one who has suffered for decades and he's the one who just lost an entire village to deliberate drowning. Not giving him that focus would be bad writing." Yeah, I know it would, hence the frustration that RWBY keeps backing itself into that corner!

The design issues are a like a mini-example of that. You're right, it would be ridiculous to have Jaune living in the Ever After for most of his life and somehow coming out of it looking exactly the same... but if you're going to continue capitalizing on the focus he got all the way back in Volume 1, at least give the girls equal treatment. I don't like that Jaune had a breakdown that undermined Ruby's, but given that I also would have disliked the story ignoring his clearly traumatic experiences lately, I'm glad they at least gave Ruby her breakdown alongside his (even if, as stated elsewhere, there are additional problems with how it was framed). The clothing does the opposite where Jaune gets his logical change AND the story does nothing to try and bring Team RWBY up to speed with him.

Chucking onto that pile: the fact that so many were expecting/hoping for Ruby to come out visually changed from her time in the tree, but she simply reverts back to where she was a few episodes ago with her rose pendant. Jaune, meanwhile, leaves the Ever After as the only one with a visual cue that he's undergone any growth.

[lecinea]

Listen, both Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian were shitty parents that fucked their kids (& wwx) up in various different ways. But I will forever be more sympathetic to a frustrated woman in a patriarchal society stuck in a toxic marriage than to the man who has power and authority to change something but refuses to do it because he doesn't like conflict and pretends like nothing is wrong.

[public-trans-it]

Man, I genuinely owe my life to FtM Girlies. Without them I wouldn’t have figured out my gender shit anywhere near as well and would probably still be going “Yeah I’m a trans gal. That’s… close enough. I’m happier as that than a Cis guy so I must be, right?”

Without them I wouldn’t have really taken the time to sit down and realize just how fucking weird gender can be, and the kind of things you can do with it.

I will forever remember the moment someone I was chatting to was discussing their pronouns, and pulled out a damn FLOWCHART. It could more or less be summed up as “Cis people: I am a trans dude, I use He/Him pronouns. Binary trans people: I am nonbinary. I use They/Them pronouns. Everyone else: Use whatever weird shit you think applies best to me.” and looking at it forced my third eye open and allowed me to realize just how vast the potential of gender was as a means of self-expression and identity, and how much of our identity rests in our relationships with others.

That was the moment that made me take a step back and go “Well now hold on a second. DO I want to be a girl? AM I a girl at all?” Sitting down and questioning “If I was AFAB, would I be cis?” And realizing that the idea of being a cis girl was just as revolting to me as being a “cis” guy for so much of my life was. Had I been AFAB I absolutely would still end up as trans! Which got me thinking about what my transition goals actually WERE.

Even now years later I stilled haven’t explored the full extent of my gender, and the potential that still lies within it. It’s become so tangled up in my relationship to DID as well as my views of animism. It’s something deeply personal, and I’m not sure if I’d ever even be capable of sharing the full extent of it, though am happy to try for the curious.

The more I talk with friends, the more I realize I’m not alone in this. Bespoke genders are AWESOME and incredibly common actually! Even my ‘cis’ friends that I’ve talked to, when we really explore it, and up saying stuff like “Yeah I’m like 90% cis. There’s certainly SOME complex stuff there but it’s small and not worth the hassle”, but even as they say that I can see that bit of joy of not HAVING to bottle up that tiny bit anymore. And it’s beautiful!

EVERYONE should be comfortable exploring the full extent of their gender. Everyone should take pride in that little tiny sliver of gender fuckery dwelling inside them!

Fucking… reply or tag this post with what your own personal brand of genderfuckery looks like! I wanna hear it! I wanna give everyone that outlet!

[purupurple]

Day 3 - Alternate job

emmet got the spotlight on day 2 so today i just drew ingo today. he's an office worker~ 💼 the tie is my favorite

[brookheimer]

i feel very mixed on shiv's ending, particularly her choice to return to tom -- i think it makes sense from a thematic/character arc perspective and is a powerful yet devastating indictment of both shiv and the world that created her as well as showing that the cycle of abuse will always continue to cycle, that shiv will become her mother etc, but i also think it does not make sense from a character/internal logic perspective. it's a choice that makes sense from the writers, but not from shiv, not yet. it could've been a brilliant ending to her character, but is tainted for me by the less-than-ideal execution of it, which felt very rushed, making shiv's final submission to tom feel forced by the show rather than forced by the situation or honest to her character. the ending is not inherently misogynistic from the writers' side as i've seen some criticisms claim (it is a dark but real portrayal of misogyny within capitalist society and how it's internalized within the white women who end up at the hips of the CEOs who run it), but i do understand how it could feel that way. the show fails at building up to (and thus convincing us) that the version of shiv we currently know would so immediately subject herself to her mother's fate, so instead of it feeling like shiv's hand was forced by patriarchy to place herself into her worst nightmare, it instead feels like the show itself was the thing that forced shiv to take that route, which does leave a sour taste in the mouth. it doesn't feel like the result of a choice shiv would make or the impact of patriarchal society bearing down, it just feels rushed and thus wrong. shiv would've benefitted immensely from a few more episodes or even just a few scenes dedicated to teasing out her newfound willingness to subject herself to immense disrespect in order to remain close to power, but given that her entire character has always been defined by her inability to do just that unless forced to (which i don't think she was in this situation as she could've easily not waited in the car for tom, not put her hand in his, but she did), her return to tom feels hard to comprehend, and her near immediate submission to him hard to stomach.

(read more under the cut because jesus christ did this get long)

in my mind, at least, i've always understood shiv as being respect-driven rather than power-driven -- she wants power, yes, but more than anything she wants to be taken seriously and respected and seen as a legitimate player, and time and time again we've seen her blow up situations that would've been very advantageous long-term because she felt disrespected and needed to speak up and force people to take her seriously (which, ironically, typically results in the opposite). shiv's overarching goal is power, but her immediate necessity is always respect. her dignity is her number one priority at any given moment, even when it shouldn't be, even when it stops her from attaining the success and power she wants. i can kind of understand shiv going against kendall because of this -- she's always had a very, very narrow lens whenever she feels like she's being disrespected, and even though it is infinitely more humiliating for your (somewhat ex) husband to betray you and boot you out of the CEO position behind your back at the behest of your supposed closest ally (and for you to still vote for them after that!!!) than it is for you to magnanimously allow your brother to be CEO (which would publicly be seen as a choice, as telly etc said - sibs need to stand united behind one chosen CEO - rather than shiv being out of the loop and fucked to infinity), the narrowness of her vision upon seeing kendall about to win makes it impossible for her to think about that legitimately. it's not just jealousy, it's indignity: shiv feels she earned CEO through her machinations with mattson and feels genuinely sick seeing the loganified kendall grinning at the head of the table, hearing his "that's fucking right" and witnessing his cocky entitlement to the job that belonged to her. so, she does what she always does when she feels disrespected, when she feels her dignity is at stake, and impulsively blows everything to fuck, including her own best interests. that makes sense for shiv, at least somewhat -- i still think that as much as she wouldn't want ken as CEO she'd feel like at least w that outcome she'd be seen as a player and a deciding factor, whereas with mattson/tom she'd be viewed as a pathetic fucked-over nothing woman pawn etc (a situation of unparalleled indignity imo), but i can rationalize her choice to go against ken anyways as being part of the narrowed field of vision she always gets upon feeling disrespected by men in her life that makes it impossible for her to think strategically (and i guess even though the disrespect was greater and more humiliating from tom/mattson than ken, ken was the most recent most present and most lifelong source so that's all she could focus on; seeing him like logan was too much to bear). it's hard to imagine shiv publicly throwing her vote behind two men who publicly fucked her as humiliatingly as mattson and tom just did, even if the other option is kendall, but i think that's part of it -- it's fundamentally illogical, even from her disrespect-lens, because there's just something about kendall specifically being in charge that she's never been able to stomach. it's visceral and impulsive. it's not meant to make "sense." it's just what she feels she has to do to preserve her own dignity, even though it works directly against those same interests realistically. it wasn't executed very well, making it hard to entirely buy it given just how publicly humiliating the alternative is, but it can still be chalked up to her historically one-track-mind when it comes to indignity by the hands of kendall in particular. it's a last-ditch attempt for shiv to at least feel like she's maintaining her dignity, her self-respect, as counterintuitive as it actually is. it makes sense. i can stomach it.

again, shiv's fatal flaw (in logan's eyes and aside from her original sin of being a woman) has always, always been her inability to shut up and make the smart move in situations where she feels she's being disrespected or not taken seriously. if shiv stayed quiet during that dinner with the pierces, maybe she would've been logan's CEO, but no, she couldn't stop herself, she needed to feel she was being taken seriously, she burst out 'cmon, dad, just tell them it's going to be me.' she is unable to play it smart, to keep quiet, to win when winning means perceived disrespect. she's allergic to it. even on a personal level, she shoots herself in the foot constantly because of this: she is unable to let herself have the things she wants because she can't put herself in positions that open her up to disrespect and perceived inferiority. she can't be vulnerable because she needs to be respected. tom asks her if he could 'try to make love to her' in episode one of this season, and even though she clearly wants to, she says 'no, i don't think so, tom.' tom tells her he 'wants her, wants this' back in episode six, and even though she clearly wants that too, she draws back and says 'well then you shouldn't have betrayed me.' shiv is fundamentally incapable of allowing herself to remain in possibly advantageous situations when she feels at risk of being seen as lesser, of being disrespected, of being perceived as weak. that is her response to patriarchy. when patriarchal forces bear down, shiv is unable to grin and bare it -- she has a short fuse, a sharp tongue, and an inability to entertain even a second of being treated like The Woman, of being looked down upon, especially when it's for her gender. it's the one thing she cannot do, cannot let herself do, and it's why she fails to "win" over and over and over again. she shoots herself in the foot the second her patriarchy disrespect sensors tingle. she makes the wrong choice, the dumb choice, the one that makes her feel like she stood up for herself in the moment but ends up leaving her powerless and helpless in the end. that's the only explanation for why she chose to vote against kendall (the clearly better option for her long-term as she'd 1) be respected as part of the decision, as someone who helped choose the CEO rather than a Woman who got fucked over and had the door slammed in her face by her husband and close ally simply because she possessed a womb, and 2) probably be head of ATN or some other area of waystar, she'd have actual power within the company and be respected as a legitimate source of power rather than the CEO-to-be made CEO's humiliated wife -- if she was capable of making the smart, selfish choice in terms of power instead of having a hair-trigger reaction to gendered disrespect and cocky male superiority, she would have voted kendall. but she is not capable of doing that. she never has been. so she voted tom and mattson.

so what i still cannot for the life of me understand is what would compel this shiv, the one who cannot stomach indignity even when power's on the line, to immediately return to tom's side the second he beckons her, which is like five minutes after he becomes CEO (the job she was promised) by mattson (who gave it to tom instead of shiv because 'why get the baby lady if i can get the man who put the baby inside her?'). it makes perfect, cruel, devastating sense from a show perspective, and that's what most people are talking about, understandably. it's a devastating yet unavoidable, inevitable outcome. she's left with no other choice once she makes the decision against kendall, and patriarchy compels her to play the good wife to stay close to power. except, like... she does still have a choice. she does not have to go back to tom's car. she does not have to sit patiently waiting for him. she does not have to quietly congratulate him on his victory. she does not have to place her hand in his. these are all choices she made very voluntary. they're choices between maintaining her dignity and self-respect at the cost of future power versus maintaining the potential for future power at the cost of her dignity and self-respect -- the classic siobhan roy conundrum. she's been faced with it time and time again (even just five minutes prior with kendall) and she has never, not once, chosen the latter of her own volition. she hasn't been able to. that's her fatal flaw. maybe i could stomach her going back to tom if she didn't congratulate him, didn't place her hand in his when he expectantly held his out -- then some dignity would be preserved, maybe. but her complete and total submission for the sake of future power does not make sense with her lifelong inability to do just that. it makes sense that this would be her eventual endpoint, but we have seen nothing that implies shiv would so willingly subject herself to this feminine submission of wife and mother before person or source of power, to the complete and utter humiliation of being the quiet wife at the side of the man who knifed her in the back (and notably handed said knife by the man she thought her closest ally) in order to steal the job she fought for her entire life and, in her opinion, had earned. maybe she would come back to him eventually, for love or (more likely) for power, but it is incredibly hard to believe that shiv 'impulsive when faced with indignity' roy would be capable of immediately and publicly playing the role of the good wife after such intense and public humiliation at the hands of her husband.

really, the way i feel about the shiv ending is similar to how i feel about the daenerys ending -- unlike most people, i really wasn't that against the daenerys outcome. i thought it made a lot of sense and was interesting, devastating, and fascinating. i thought there had been a few signs all along and that that ending for her would make sense and be far more interesting than a Hooray ! Girlboss ! ending. however, it was poorly executed -- it was rushed. it did not make sense from where daenerys was at that point in the text. it could've worked, it could've worked brilliantly, but it needed more time to build and fester in order for her ultimate turn to feel earned rather than forced for the sake of the point the writers wanted to make. that's kind of how i feel about shiv. i get the ending and i don't think it's inherently bad or misogynistic or anything, but it feels like the writers saw the possibility for a shiv 'mommed' ending and immediately took it, with little regard to what actually made sense for shiv herself to do in that moment. outcome > character. that's frustrating for me particularly for succession because my like number one reason for adoring succession as much as i do is their consistent refusal to operate the way most media does (using the characters as instruments to achieve the plot/outcome the writers want), instead prioritizing following the characters themselves in a way that feels honest and real. it's character-driven, not plot or ending driven. i think that this fell by the wayside a few times in the latter half of this season simply because there was so much that needed to happen in such a short space of time (especially during the finale), but in my opinion, at least, the most egregious case is shiv. given more time, more development, more build-up, the last shot of her hand in tom's would've struck the chord the writers wanted it to -- and for some people, it did anyways! but for me, it rang out and fell nauseatingly flat. it felt hollow and wrong and unearned. shiv could end up becoming her mother, that feels entirely possible, but not in this particular sense, not yet. in what world would siobhan roy willingly choose to be seen as nothing more than a woman hanging off her husband's arm, especially when said husband had publicly humiliated her and ruined her entire life just five minutes prior? when, just five (metaphorical) minutes prior, she was the one poised to be CEO and everyone knew it? when now everyone will see her on tom's arm and whisper and gawk? she has become her worst fear, yes, but unlike kendall, it does not feel earned. it does not feel like she has actually become her worst fear. it feels like the show forced her to. not patriarchy or the situation or her own desire for power, but the show itself. that's what feels so shitty.

i wouldn't necessarily call the writing misogynistic as a result of this, as it's less a flaw of misogyny and more a flaw of bad, rushed writing that could happen to any character. it's the same as with daenerys -- although (somewhat unlike succession) there were many, many aspects of GoT's writing that were deeply misogynistic, especially in the last season (just look at fucking brienne), the core issue with the daenerys plotline is not one of misogyny but of time. they did not give daenerys the time needed to become the version of herself seen burning down the city. that could've easily been a focus of previous episodes, but it wasn't. they simply did not develop her enough for that turn to make sense yet. it could make sense, hypothetically, at some point down the line, but at that point it felt sudden, off-putting, and wrong. shiv could easily become her mother. that's been made evident especially regarding her relationship to pregnancy/children, love, and vulnerability (or the lack thereof). but for this ending to make sense, we would have needed to see signs of shiv imitating her mother's willingness to be relegated to the sidelines, to bring out the food while the men eat and make deals, in order to remain tangential to power. that is a concession shiv roy had never been willing to make prior to the last five minutes of the entire show. other signs of shiv imitating caroline or falling prey to patriarchal norms throughout the show are not enough to undo shiv's fundamental refusal to weather gender-related indignity even when doing so would benefit her. in my opinion, that's why the final five minutes of shiv's plotline were so unsatisfying.

shiv could become her mother, and her ending could be a devastating portrayal of the inability for even rich white women to escape their original sin of being a woman in a man's world, as well as a dark, ironic criticism of both women like shiv and the patriarchal world that breeds them into existence. but because the show did not develop shiv in this particular direction and because her entire character thus far has been defined by her self-destructive insistence on being respected at all costs, shiv's ending did not land the way it could've, or should've.

[heretherebedork]

Mhok just had a whole ass nightmare and woke up on the verge of panic and we still didn't get to even have a moment of Day comforting him or taking care of him or even knowing about it?

Why am I being denied this!? Why is the universe against me!?

Why is Day never allowed to see Mhok panicked or worried or anxious? Come on show! You can do this! I swear! You really, really can. I believe in you!

I swear, you can show me Day taking care of Mhok! You can! Please do!

Why have I watched Mhok have basically two panic attacks about Day and then, both times, watched him not have to rely on Day at all but instead solve everything himself.

Auuugh. Why?

[uncanny-tranny]

Honestly, going into your WIP pile to actually go through it and see what you actually want to finish can be really helpful, especially when you don't judge yourself and try to learn why that piece became a hibernater in your WIP pile

Some questions I ponder when I look at a WIP is:

Is this project turning out how I want? If not, what about it don't I like?

Do I or did I have fun when I was starting it?

Will I actually use it or enjoy it when I'm done?

Do I like the material now?

Do I see myself enjoying the product after it's done?

Were there, or are there, time restraints preventing me from finishing?

Is this out of my current skill set, and am I okay with that?

If I could change one thing about the WIP, what would it be?

I know plenty of people won't incorporate this into their own WIP and crafting journey, and that's okay. But I know so many people who hibernate their projects for many reasons and feel guilty about it. I hope this might give people ideas about why they hibernate projects to prevent that type of guilt from eating away at their conscious. This (creating) should be fun, and if you're spending a lot of time feeling guilty or ashamed, it can be hard to continue doing the things you like.

[arsenicflame]

the thing is, right, if izzy WAS evil i would still absolutely love him. hes a fictional character, i don't care about his morals if hes compelling.

but the frustrating thing is that hes not evil, hes not even the antagonist anymore by a long stretch, hes arguably more liked by the crew than ed at the moment, but people still insist that we are reading the text of the show wrong and its going to completely 180 and turn him into a cartoon villain when there is absolutely no sign of that in the show, from the cast and crew, anything!!!

its so ridiculously annoying that i feel i have to defend my stance on a character because some people are so determined to cast him into the roll of a villain he is not, and think that we are the wrong ones for simply reading what the show is putting out

[craycraybluejay]

its rly fascinating that when i want to talk about a specific brand of transphobia im an asshole for not phrasing it like a PR team.

but when baeddels are actively transphobic its "just talking about the transmisogyny they face" and its actually just fine that they use slurs meant to degrade and misgender to refer to trans men + use porn terms to talk about us despite saying that using porn terms to talk about them is transphobic and evil + oh they didn't mean it like that.

if i try to talk about transphobia its immediately "piss on the poor website" where every word is under criticism. but on the opposite end even using slurs or being openly transphobic earns some cheers and, well, rare opposition.

i didn't even tag my post with common searchable tags,, y'all just want to be mad because it's a lot more comfortable to see trans men under attack.

if you criticize a few trans women for transphobic behaviour that makes You transphobic for criticizing them. if they call you slurs and other above mentioned things they are not transphobic bc ofc its impossible to be transphobic to trans men.

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

ARCTIC MONKEYS 25/06/23

okay now that i've had some time to (slightly) emotionally and physically recover from yesterday, i need to flail about the highlights:

1) meeting one of my absolute favourite humans who i would never have got to know if it hadn't been for this little corner of tumblr - and then getting to share the excitement/nerves/elation/exhaustion rollercoaster of seeing am with them was just - there aren't even words for it. so special 💖

2) learning how to navigate rain ponchos

3) impulse buying too much merch (but also not regretting it. the glasgow tour poster is going to be the first thing going on my wall in my new flat)

4) the mirrorball starting to twirl just before they all came onstage and sending the colours of the afternoon sun everywhere

5) the sheer rush of the moment they all walked onstage together (also that was pretty much the only time i got to glimpse nick and matt at all 💔 from where i was standing i could mostly only see alex and jamie)

6) seeing alex a few metres away in real life after months of looking at his beautiful, dorky little expressions in photos/videos was surreal in the best possible way- there's just something so different about the way you get a sense of someone's energy when you're in the same space with them?? and as someone who's endlessly interested in people, i'm fascinated by how alex simultaneously gives off really reserved, self-contained vibes at the same time as being such a dynamic and captivating performer - like he’s so good at tapping into emotions without letting them be a door into how he’s actually feeling (if that makes any sense, my post-gig brain is not very articulate) i guess that all very much makes sense with all the stuff he's said about personas/performing, but it was still so interesting to get to really feel that sense of his presence in live time. he's definitely very much in control but in a very understated kind of way

7) a bunch of birds circling overhead on one side of the crowd, alex seeing them and dramatically declaring 'release the rest of the birds' 

8) me and the lovely human i went with turning to each other with expressions of sheer joy when the opening bars of crying lightning were played (and don't sit down. and four stars. and arabella. and - you get the picture. getting to share the sheer delight of your favourite songs being played is just the loveliest feeling 💗)

9) alex doing a quirky little 'ha ha' laugh in the middle of body paint 

10) mirrorball coinciding with the most beautiful pink dusk and half moon just above the stage, and getting to witness alex’s piano playing at the start of it

11) body paint. just. body paint. i think my soul left my body.

12) how much energy and enthusiasm alex seemed to have throughout the set - especially after the last week or so it was just the loveliest thing to see him messing about and having fun. and his voice sounded SO good. how anyone manages to sing like that (let alone sound like that less than a week after cancelling shows due to laryngitis) is an absolute mystery to me

13) alex's theatrical hand gestures for crying lightning (the one for gobstopper was a particular favourite)

14) hearing 505 when dusk has just fallen and you can see the smudged moon behind the deep indigo clouds is the only way anyone should ever hear 505 

15) alex and matt having a giggle about something mid set

16) obviously i was aware of how stupidly talented they all are - but there's something about seeing it unfold in front of you in real time that makes it really hit you. the sound wasn't great where i was for some of the time so i don't feel like i got the best audio sense of everything, but i was just so struck in particular by matt on the drums and also alex with his guitar playing. i feel like when i'm just listening to their records i'm so busy listening to alex's voice that i forget how incredible a guitar player he is and - wow. just. yeah. it honestly took my breath away.

17) getting the distinct impression that it provides alex with a sense of amusement to deliberately do that thing where he sings the lyrics at slightly different speeds to trip the crowd up

18) even though i ended up being in significant pain for the second half of the set and had to go find somewhere a little further back where i could lean against the railings (chronic pain conditions and standing for 6+ hours apparently isn't the best mix), nothing could dull how magical it was hearing all the tracks from the car that they played closer to the end. standing there in the dusk and feeling so much about everything is something i'll never forget. it truly brought home to me so poignantly everything about why am's music means so much to me and how much love i have for them 💜

19) being in the exact line of direction alex blew kisses to at the end

20) the hazy post-gig walking in the dark under lit up green trees with the lovely human i went with and our conversations about am and creativity and the courage of sharing music 💖

[carefulfears]

thinking about how the ammunition that phoebe uses against mulder in fire is a childhood nightmare that he had shared with her, and how the world only has so much held over him because he shares so generously with it

[foxgloveinspace]

Ahhh. Sleep token gets so much hate cause the fandom is full of women and queers (affectionate I am said queer), I get it now.

[goldenhypen]

IMPORTANT POST - PLAGIARISM

it was brought to my attention recently that my works are being stolen yet again :D guys. do you think finding that our works are giving other people credit behind our backs makes us cheer and jump around in joy??? do YOU find joy in getting credit for other people’s creations and hard work??? because for those who do, wow, i applaud you thinking like that and living a life that YOU clearly are making for yourself 👏🏻 cheers to that 🥂 (please 💀)

boys and girls and everybody outside and in between, i’m speaking as someone who has gotten their work stolen over and over and over and over again and has had it happen to me again just now. experiencing this just reminds me how much seeing someone ELSE gain credit for something that’s mine and that i put so much love and hard work into makes me want to just quit posting all together, honestly. sorry if that sounds extreme and sudden. but truly, expressing my deep and honest feelings, i don’t want to keep posting if in the end my works will just be posted by others as their own. ESPECIALLY without giving credit. IT IS POSTED EVERYWHERE on every writer’s blog TO NOT PLAGIARIZE, COPY, STEAL, ETC ANYBODY’S WORK. and honestly, it doesn’t matter if you give credit when we never gave you permission in the first place. can you not just use your brain, use your common sense and think about how it would make us writers feel to create and share something that we poured so much love into, only to find someone else gaining credit for it? we work SO HARD to put out works for people to enjoy and we do it for FREE. and believe it or not, but that doesn’t give you permission to just go and share it on other platforms as your own. can you not just have a little respect?

please be careful because your actions can be so damaging to others and/or yourself. don’t think you can just so easily take other people’s work and use them as your own; there will always be consequences.

creds to @/rlcswo on tiktok for stealing multiple works of mine that i loved a lot and making me feel disgusted (cuz of the plagiarist, not me) about them now and possibly for the rest of my life :D and! for pushing me to quit posting works in the future 👍🏻👏🏻 they also stole so many other creator’s works and posted them as their own. guys, please report them and find the original authors to let them know as well <3

feel free to reblog to spread the word <3

[gravebeetle]

Ceramic Hornet and knight from Hollow Knight!

This is my actually second time trying to make ceramic HK figures. The first set I made didn't turn out great for a number of reasons (using the wrong glaze, using too little underglaze, legs breaking off when loading the kiln, general dissatisfaction with the shapes and proportions, etc.), but I'm much happier with these two.

And here is a more straightforward picture of the figures, as well as a comparison between the two sets. I am so glad I did three coats of white underglaze this time, it was absolutely necessary. The old ones look even jankier in person.

[miraphoenix]

Right off the bean, this is not a callout post. I'd talk to the person this is about 1-on-1, but a) he's had me blocked for 4 years, and b) it's mutual. This is me venting on my personal blog, something that he decided to vague about me doing back when I had my first blog.

With that out of the way. I'm really fucking tired of people stealing from Valenth/Revecroir, and from its creator.

Years and years ago, when they were a literal child, my bff/queer life partner--for the purpose of this post, their name is Leupai--made lizard-critters with hands on their tongues and called them leupaks. Eventually, they ended up splitting off from Subeta where they worked at the time, making an affiliated petsite called Valenth where the leupaks featured quite prominently as creatures in a fantasy-meets-steampunk world.

Unfortunately, their boss was a piece of work, and following a rather large kerfluffle involving another petsite lifting other elements of my partner's work (namely, a dragon concept and a companion concept), my partner was fired by the Subeta head boss. The leupaks were renamed into leupai, and Valenth expanded into Revecroir. This was in 2014, give or take a few months.

Through about half of the Valenth era and into the Revecroir era, Leupai was dating someone else, who went by Sixar at the time, later Kismeti, and the two had a long-distance open relationship. Kismeti also did a fair amount of site art for Valenth, and described himself as Leupai's biggest fan; when he'd met Leupai originally, his username referenced leupaks, he had a bunch of leupak characters, and a leupak sona. I met both of them in 2013-2014, right around the close of Valenth, and started chatting with them both. Leupai was more responsive, Kismeti was more reserved, but I did the best I could.

Over the years, I kept trying to reach out to Kismeti, but found that Leupai was honestly more willing to talk with me, so I did become better friends with them. Note that I was friends with Leupai, and trying to be friends with Kismeti. We chatted, we sent memes, we played World of Warcraft, I bought folks pizza across the Pacific Ocean, you know the drill.

Through this, I became really familiar with Leupai's world, at that point named Revecroir. I got to know their lore, their worldbuilding, their current projects, and the leupai creatures themselves.

The leupai were--and are!--still fat lizards with paws on their tongues, who can open portals between worlds with acid in their claws, who transfer their consciousnesses to other bodies if one is destroyed, and whose strength comes from the realm of dreams and creativity. In the early days, in lore that wasn't publicized, leupai were roaming around to find a world to live on after Valenth. This was a project that was supposed to be worked on with Kismeti, but nothing really ever came of it. Eventually, Leupai kind of moved on from that storyline to write more about Revecroir itself.

At the same time, I tried asking Kismeti about his worldbuilding, because he had characters and allegedly a world of his own, but didn't really get a lot in the way of answers. I saw a lot of Sonic fanart, I saw a lot of homestuck, I saw a lot of MLP:FiM, I saw a lot of Captain Planet. Eventually, I kind of... Gave up asking? And that's on me, but frankly, if you ask someone to share their stuff and they don't share their stuff, I figure that's the signal to stop asking.

As time went on, though, I was seeing some cracks forming in the 10-year relationship between the two, and I was helping Leupai through a lot. I watched as he yelled at my best friend for not responding to messages fast enough. I watched as he made plans with Leupai and then fucked off to do other things for hours, leaving Leupai in the lurch and worried about his physical safety. I watched as he gaslit Leupai about their ability to use a computer. On one memorable instance, when Leupai's internet was unstable while we were all playing WoW together, Leupai left the voice call to go reset the router, and Kismeti decided that it was a great time to shit-talk Leupai's intelligence to me. For a half hour straight. Until Leupai rejoined the call.

Eventually, I visited Leupai in person and watched as they were broken down to tears by Kismeti failing to respect their boundaries for literal hours, until Leupai caved to Kismeti's preferences. That was a rough night, and I remember wondering why the fuck my best friend's partner was treating them so badly.

About a month and a half after I visited Leupai, they decided to break up with Kismeti, because they'd had enough of him verbally berating them for not responding fast enough to memes sent over instant message, among so many other things. He, to put it mildly, lost his shit.

(For the record, I know what went down, because Leupai had me read the messages sent back and forth, to make sure they were grounded, and were reading things right. I've seen logs going back 10 years. His original vague accused me of not knowing what I was talking about, but boy howdy I was either there, or have read the raw logs.)

Anyway, he begged for Leupai back. Leupai gave him a chance that he fucked up within a day. Leupai said goodbye and blocked him. He then started messaging me about this on discord, clearly trying to use me as a go-between to get to Leupai.

At the time, I was going through some Complex Feelings about my own abuse by various people in my life, triggered by his behavior, so was reblogging a lot of support stuff on my original blog. I guess he decided this was vaguing about him, because he made a vaguepost accusing me of not knowing all the details (unbeknownst to him, I'd read everything) and finally blocked me.

I figured this chapter in my life was done at this point, and moved the fuck on. Made a new blog because I didn't feel like getting all his shit off my old one, moved across the country, got a new job, the whole shebang. Leupai and I entered our odd QPP/partners/bffs/???? phase, and I genuinely didn't think much about him, unless I was helping listen to Leupai talk about stuff they'd gone through with him.

Until this year. When I saw some comment of his break containment and end up on my dash, under the name "riftclaw". I had a bit of an inkling, so I broke my "don't look" rule and looked at the linked toyhouse to confirm it was really him.

Turns out, riftclaws are... Lizard creatures. Who open portals between worlds with acid in their claws. Who are looking for a new world to call their own. And who have some divine properties, that may involve body switching.

And all of Kismeti/riftclaw's old leupai characters are now riftclaws.

Oh, and he was planning to make them into a closed species. To make money off them.

Now, leupai were decently popular back in the day. I still have leupai characters, and make some periodically from time to time. There's a tag on tumblr and everything; if you're reading this, there's a decent chance you remember Vee yourself, as a fair number of my followers were there too. People still talk about Valenth from time to time. Leupai still has a folder of old fanart from back in the day with some 800 pieces of art in it. They were, by all accounts, successful until they weren't.

But the height of popularity was back when Vee was still around, in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The only new stuff in the tags is from an archive blog of old Vee assets.

Despite that, though. And I know this from messages between the pair, I know that Kismeti tore into Leupai repeatedly for "being more popular" and "having more eyes on their work". Even though "those eyes" didn't keep Leupai fed or housed, or really give them any income. Even though "those eyes" meant getting 50 notes on a tumblr post as opposed to 20. Even though "those eyes" just increased thievery and the constant pressure to be a Content Creator(tm), and were a major part of what drove Leupai off the internet entirely starting in 2018.

So imagine. Imagine for a moment. Being so hungry for clout and attention. That you steal your ex-partner's species concept that they've had since they were literally 8 years old, barely file off the serial numbers, and then make that your entire online persona four full years after your partner broke up with your ass twice for being an abusive piece of shit over a 10-year timeframe.

To borrow my own tags from this post, which got me thinking about all of this again?

#This is all to say; if you're jealous of someone else's success? Fine. Go have your emotion. But don't lift their shit.#Your emotions are valid; your actions aren't.

(Oh, and this is the smallest thing in the world, the least important piece of this? Riftclaws are already a thing from a game released in 2016 called Grim Dawn.)

[princecosmosanon]

Keep seeing so many “hot takes” about Zukka in particular that basically boil down to “this ship isn’t logical because the characters don’t interact enough” and all I gotta say is…

Shipping has nothing to do with canonical interactions.

If you are limiting ships to “do these characters interact a lot” then fella, I gotta say, you are invalidating so many ships and limiting your imagination to embarrassing extents.

It’s fine if you don’t like a ship. It’s fine if you don’t get a ship. Clearly a ship you aren’t interest in isn’t for you.

But no ship is invalid just because there isn’t much or any interaction between the characters.