#is so difficult to comprehend

[saltpepperbeard]

genuinely think i might grey out if we see ed and stede making out in the waves lmao

[inblackwoods]

Protective

[batmanego]

trying my best to believe that it is not morally corrupt to enjoy things, or to have fun, or to want things, or to want people to do things that you enjoy, or to generally live your life as an active participant with wants/needs/desires instead of a featureless slab for others to inscribe their wishes upon

[suffersinfandom]

Okay. At the risk of sounding really petty... I think that you can be critical of OFMD with little to no chance of being called a hater or a racist if you're not being a hater or racist. I would argue that calling the indigenous lead "a homicidal psycho" when he is not shown to be that isn't not racist or hateful.

Ed is not a psycho who tortures his whole crew for fun.

Big "Ed needed to be put down like a wild dog" energy.

No, that is not the message the show was sending.

Everything else was hate for David Jenkins and disdain for the "GBs" and their cult-like behavior.

Like, girl (gn). Friend. Have you considered that people are calling you a hater and racist because of the things you type? That maybe this is not something that everyone who is critical of OFMD faces? You go on and on about how the show and David Jenkins are abusive, racist, and ableist while grossly misinterpreting everything about Ed's character in season two in a way that feels kinda racist.

For the record, I have nothing against people who just don't like OFMD in a normal way or have actual, substantive, genuine criticisms to offer. Unfortunately, most of the criticism I've seen comes from people who have decided that it's "racist zionist slavetrader yaoi" or people who were obsessed with it up through S2E7, but then decided that the whole thing is morally reprehensible after the final episode dropped. There's nothing to be gained from entertaining people who hate the show without watching it or people who, like this individual from Twitter, demonize Ed in a way that canon absolutely doesn't support.

[pekoeboo]

ugh. some thoughts.

really been trying to find the joy in drawing/writing again and honestly it's been such a challenge. friends have told me it's most likely depression that's making it hard to feel motivated and tbh they're probably right.

hoping to get back into being creative in the way I Want to be at some point tho. I miss it. there's still so much with my stories and characters that I haven't been able to share or explain and I wish I knew how without it feeling like this daunting, impossible task.

I don't know when I'll get around to actually sharing art again (or writing, if ever). was hoping that I'd manage to get some of my mental and physical issues in check recently for just long enough to get back into the swing of being creative, but that hasn't seemed to work. everything feels bad, both artistically and physically. I'm struggling to keep up with the frantic pace at which my brain comes up with story concepts and intriguing character interactions, even tho everything in me wishes I could turn it into tangible artistic expression so I can get it out of my head and share it. it used to be easy. I don't know why it's not now.

I'm just . tired, I guess.

[sheryl-lee]

"gifs = art" could you please elaborate on that besides the skill that goes into it?

🫥 i have no idea why people are looking to me to explain something that has been repeated by many gifmakers and content creators for *years* and should be common sense anyways but...

beyond the skill that goes into gifmaking (the time it takes, the practice required, etc.) the different colorings, typography, blending and other proccesses that some gifmakers use in their creations absolutely can and should be considered an artform. look no further than the gorgeous gifsets some of my very talented mutuals have made:

@yenvengerberg becca's colorful sets are art as far as i'm concerned! like just look at this. she transforms the media she gifs and makes it look completely unreal in terms of sheer beauty and creativity.

@sith-maul one of the best creators on this site. nik is just so so talented. everything she creates is so stunning; you can't look at a set like this, for example, and tell me that it isn't art.

@hoe-biwan again, everything that flo posts is beyond incredible. i don't even watch star wars and i still silently nod my head and gape in awe when one of her sw sets is on my dash. just scroll through the comic book-inspired sets flo's made!!! that's art <3

@buffysummers ok alexandra is such a talented creator and a HUGE inspiration for me when i started giffing years ago. her eye for coloring and scene picking is out of this world! this is a recent set of hers that i particularly adore.

these are just a few examples, but if you scroll through my own blog or the various edit tags for fandoms, you would see more of what i'm talking about. there are so many talented gifmakers and editors on this site who take time out of their busy lives to create for us, and it breaks my heart when their work is discredited or disregarded or underappreciated. for their work to be invalidated and not considered art when it very much is? not only is it rude, it further demotivates creators from contributing to the site and makes them feel like nothing they create is good enough - believe me, i know that feeling all too well.

i've made extremely detailed and color-specific sets before like these, and it took me 3-4 WEEKS. EACH. i'm not exaggerating in the slightest. and since posting them, they've already been reposted here on tumblr and on other sites like pinterest, twitter, instagram, etc. if you even have like a shred of empathy you can understand why that would anger and upset me.

i don't know why people assume that gifmakers copy and paste the same 5 settings on their gifs, export them, and call it a day - it's not that simple at all. so much more goes into making gifs, and the majority of people on this site continue to laugh in our faces, steal the edits we spent so much time and energy on, belittle our work and claim that it isn't art (and friendly reminder! we do this free of charge and ask for nothing in return beyond clicking the reblog button, and so many of you can't even do that much). i shouldn't have to sit here and validate any of that - the creations should speak for themselves. you consider fanvids, fanart and graphics "art" - so why not gifs, which make up the majority of the edits on this site and, in theory, help foster/sustain discussion and fandom?

reposters all run up and down claiming that gifmaking "isn't that difficult" with zero experience... yet if they tried it themselves, they would know that's so far from the truth. and they DO know that deep down, or they wouldn't steal our gifs from us in the first place if gifs were that easy to make 💀

[husbandhannie]

out of all the things that could've happened on this trip, did not expect a make-out session with a woman to be one of them

[dnangelic]

(finally able to put a floaty thought i've had into concise words) thematically it's great that dark isn't an actual angel because then he really does become undefinable and incomprehensible to everybody else. an angel is generally recognizable and readily digestible as a concept in people's minds and dark gives off every impression of one; the wings, the inhuman aspects, the grandeur, and yet he's still not one, which plummets him from any graph of divinity and the religious to the realm of the beast; the mysterious and the monstrous.

in other words, there isn't really ever an apt descriptor for what he is apart from vague ones, (let's see you try to encapsulate 'live artwork ripped in half whose out of control magic ended up imbued into the body and bloodline of humans as an entirely second set of DNA and second self' into a defining species---) and when people ask what he is, dark himself only calls himself a thief. he doesn't dare to try to call himself human (with his wings? his teeth, his eyes his talons?? he's obviously "not", and he's acutely aware of the fact too,) yet he doesn't want to go so far as to ever call himself a monster either out of respect for daisuke; his body and heart. (even if he can't stop others from judging or declaring him a monster, anyways.)

when it comes to dark and his 'existence' as something nonhuman, without counting company that gets close to either side, (for example, the rest of the arts like towa or argentine and baku, who are 'pure' live arts,) dark and daisuke truly do exist 'alone' as the sole members of their 'species,' excluding only hiwatari who can be in a friendly or antagonistic space, or other niwa ancestors like daiki or taize, who were once prior but no longer 'are' dark. "satan has his compansions and fellow devils to admire and encourage him, i am solitary and detested -" bittersweetly enough, the closest thing dark and daisuke ever are around others is either a strange monster or a strange human.

[twistedappletree]

sorry but i’m actually just gonna start blocking people who put zhuiling hate in tags bc yall will ship every incest ship in the book then trash on the one ship where they’re genuinely NOT related and it’s getting so fucking old

[detectiveneve]

sorry I'm gonna cringepost again.

there's something I need to expel from my brain in terms of how astarion grapples and feels resentment/disgust/derision toward the concepts of heroics and ""good"" people and the way that emrys craves deeply to be good but will ultimately always fall short of the mark (in her own mind, at least) because she's too angry + too violent + too impulsive + too outraged (toward injustice, cruelty, in the world), the paladin ideal will never be met. and how when they're put together in the same room they line up to smack each other RIGHT in the thing theyre sensitive about. astarion lays out clearly the failures of the very foundations of her belief systems, makes her grapple with the things that are too extreme, whats long since become burdens to her, and she forces him to endure the fact that there are at least a few people in the world that are willing to fight with him and for others. and they're both? scrappy people, really. and go hard in the opposite directions but on the same wavelength of... interaction; both snarky, stubborn, toe to toe on everything, admirable of resilience. sort of forced together by circumstance, but completely filling in the gaps the other's got going on. it's just where he's got the lying and the charades and the bullshit and she is so Brusque and bludgeoning through at all times that the charade is moot. completely antithetical to everything he's been doing for the last 200 yrs, which is as irritating as it can maybe be refreshing. and he makes her laugh. WHICH IS NICE.

[danlous]

Today is World Children's Day, meant to commemorate the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child and promote children's welfare globally. Since October 7 Israel has killed at least 5500 children in Gaza and injured at least 9000. A further 1800 children are missing. One out of every 200 children in Gaza has been killed. The surviving children suffer from severe psychological trauma. The number of killed children in one region and in a short timeframe has been unprecedented for modern conflicts. Israel's war in Gaza is a war against children and breaks every international law and convention.

[suckinitup]

i dont think that dakota would get into fiber arts on his own but i DO think that knitting could fix him

[philosophicallie]

ok time to try to blame someone else instead of me

[szappan]

also today me and an exchange student i became tentative but earnest friends with over the semester realised we're probably never going to see each other again it's all so strange how quickly you can start missing people

[fisheito]

friend fish!!! do you have any super specific headcanons for nucarni you'd want to post about? like from the serious to the silly. im talking from like how did little yakumo deal w humans and snakes hating him and then his grandparents loving him to who are the left handed mfs and who are the right handed mfs. how did kuya handle huey disappearing vs can garukaru wink. i like your brain and i like the very specific little things that come from everyone's brains and just wanted to see if you wanted to post any sillies or seriousies :3

why, friend anon, it seems like You are the one bursting with ideas... if u wish to share with the class i shan't object ohoho

MMM>....UUHHHHH boy ain't it just appropriate that once u hand me the microphone, my mind blanks hmmm........ ............(leaves ask and comes back in several hours)

OH I got one!! yakumo and chickens

s o one day, i wished to draw yakumo holding a chicken. just snekboi holding an absolute buff orpington orb of chicken, because it would be, how u say,... grotesquely adorable, yes??

but before i could, i wondered.. is that possible? do chickens like yakumo? or would they sense his snakeyness and hate him? was it ever discussed in the story?

my immediate thought was of those chickens who get hypnotised into a catatonic state when u draw a straight line in front of them. u know all those gifs of the chickens that just go [plop] with HARD FOCUS on the line? and as soon as line was erased, chicken blinked back into existence/Killer Peck mode?

i remember ppl hypothesising that it was bc the lines reminded them of snakes and the chickens were like shhhhh play ded the snakes will want nothing to do with us.

i can;t remember if they ever actually found the answer to that behaviour. i wish i knew. but i don't. so instead i imagined eiden placing a 🧍‍♂️yakumo horizontally in front of a chicken to see if the trance could be replicated

the whole thing made me think about yakumo's relation to animals, especially farm animals, bc idk if his grandparents ever farmed animals or if it was JUST produce. the story so far seems to say vegebls only but *I* want *FARM ANIMALS* and *YAKUMO* ***toGETHER*(*(***** so we continue the train of thought

yakumo has pulled Princess-Snow-White-shenanigans in the past (Idol Fest). those forest animals didn't have a problem rolling up to yakumo just to listen to him sing. i don't remember if exact animals were mentioned in the story, but i'mma assume it was lil guys like rabbits, birds, rodents, deer. i mean... snakes have been known to share habitats with these guys... so it would make sense for some of them to be scared if yakumo's energy is more snake>human.

but then KUYA??? he's a fox. yet he's got parades of adoring forest worshippers everywhere he goes, regardless of predator/prey status. so maybe the vibe of Yokai overrides whatever trophic chain dynamics are supposed to exist in this world. So instead of EEK! A SNAKE/FOX! the animals be like Yokai=cool nature powerbeing let's hang out ?

but then i wonder if the Yokai Vibe is moderated by Yokai expertise. bc kuya of course has way more experience as yokai... he's more likely to embrace his foxy traits than yakumo with his snakey traits (what is this.... a competition of self acceptance now??).. so maybe the animals all trail after kuya bc of his confidence,,, but would they do the same for yakumo who hasn't yet transcended to that Power Strut Aura?

which relates to childhood yakumo. to surrounding animals, what was his vibe? snakey? human? yokai? did it matter? he mentioned that the other snakes used to bully him .. and that people also used to chase him away... so his vibe was. what? like the king cobra who eats other snakes, and can bite people? at this point, it's not like yakumo has the self-control or self-acceptance to consciously manipulate his outward appearance. his vibe is his vibe.

so, in this unsure, untrained, scared snake-self stage of his life, he still appeared as a Threat to other snakes (and probably other animals that typically fear snakes). i imagine that if i were to introduce yakumo to farm animals at this point, they would react like they saw a potentially dangerous snake. chickens angy. cows might stomp u. goats might eat u

and yet Grandma and Grandpa , like many humans, promptly threw convention out the window and went [lol what threat?? he scared. let's give him some soup]] -> for further proof of ppl being like that, look at. any dangerous creature. cute as heck. i'll fawn over apex predators. angry bear incapable of empathy? deserves my respect. sure i'll share my room with a snake if it looks like it's crying . self-preservation? why would i care about that if i have the chance to make the snake less sad??

i mean, farm animals are domesticated so they're supposed to be pretty chill. i like to think that once yakumo spent more time on the farm with a loving family, his energy became more stable and more human. and surely with daily exposure, those farm animals would acclimate to yakumo's presence. maybe even grow to like him if he takes care of them.

THAT IS TO SAY even if the animals initially shun him or treat him like Danger... they eventually associate his energy with the good times. and yakumo would learn how to act around each specific animal so as not to upset them (just like any good zookeeper!!). As both parties build upon their experiences, the likelihood of positive interaction between yakumo and another animal goes up up 🆙☝!!!

IN THE END, ALL THIS MEANS is that, simply bc i like animals, i'm gonna pretend that yakumo's grandparents also farmed creatures (dang, an undertaking for 2 elderly ppl. i know. but this is gay fantasy isekai). ok, maybe more believably, a neighbour farmed animals and yakumo was the only young'n around to help. and because of all that, yakumo has experience dealing with animals.

according to my made-up timeline (😄) if i drew him at human age ~7, it would make sense if it was a pic of a cow chewing on his hair (being bullied by ungulates. he's crying), or chickens pecking him en masse

and if i drew him getting ALONG with those same animals, it would more likely be a yakumo at human age -- well- older than that. he's got some working experience at that point.

(slams fist on table) SO I CAN JUSTIFIABLY Draw A FLUFFY CHICKEN RESTING HAPPILY IN YAKUMO'S ARMS AND IT COULD BE IN-CHARACTER.

i crave interspecies friendships. humans do nonsensical things to befriend other critters. why can't the chickens override their snake fear for this one special boi. it is what i want to see and i will twistturn canon until i see it.

[arthyritis]

Don't give in to the drama unnecessarily, don't let them think they've won.

Take a break, clear your mind. Don't let it get to you.

I don't know what to say, tbh. But yeah I guess this is a good reminder for a lot of people. Thank you 💚💚💚