#it's social commentary

[master-sass-blast]

I HAVE MADE MORE SEVIKA ART!

BEHOLD IT WITH YOUR EYES!!!

Say one word about the ugly curtains and I will do unspeakable things to you sdlkfjsldfjsdlkfjldsfjk.

Close ups and artist commentary beneath the cut!

God, I struggled on this one. I started this piece back in July of this year. It did spend some time sitting while I stared at it in a deep state of ennui, so it's not like I was actively working on it for *counts on fingers* three-ish months.

This is what I get for trying to make a whole fucking scene instead of just drawing a character with no background.

I am pleased with how everything came out, but I still have a lot of frustrations with this piece. A lot of the perspective is off, the floorboards got lost because I noodled with them too much and you can't erase marker, and the rug is just bad sldjfdslkfjldskfjdlskjf. Still, I had fun (mostly) doing it!

A close up of our lady! (The colors got really washed out on my phone, but the warm filter made everything too red, so *shrugs*.) I wanted to stick her in clothes and an environment that was a complete antithesis to her character -soft, feminine, opulent. The baby pink was my first choice, and while I don't regret it, I had second thoughts (after putting the color down, naturally) about picking green instead because of its association with money. I think baby pink, however, was the right choice in the end.

I went with body jewelry like I did for her formal look. However, I stuck with something less opulent this time because I wanted more focus to be on the lingerie and lace. The glove she's wearing was supposed to be sheer -like her stockings-because I thought it was cool, but it didn't translate well on paper, alas.

I was so excited to do her scars, but they got lost/muted in the shading/shadowing under her arm. I tried to use some acrylic paint to boost them up, but they uh... got too boosted sdlkfjdslfkjldskjflskjf.

Arm close up! I hated drawing and detailing this! There's a reason I hid her arm under a cape in the first piece I drew of her!

I didn't want to just draw her "pre-explosion," though, because there's a lot of prosthetic erasure in fandom (in general) already. The highlighted bits were done with metallic gold paint. Also pls appreciate the lil fiddly scenery details I worked very hard on them sdlfkjdslfkjdslfkjdslf.

Materials used: water and alcohol based markers, colored pencils, and acrylic paint for highlights and details.

Lessons learned: spend more time plotting the background before jumping into drawing the character dslfkjdslfkjdslkfj. Also, pick a color palette first.

Tagging @abitohoney and @sevikasleftpussyflap. Also, Professor Flap has requested that I draw something of Sevika spanking a Reader insert. I've never drawn NSFW art, so I don't know if I will, but it did make me think about what y'all would like to see. I can't promise I'll take every suggestion/request, but if you have ideas, feel free to send them my way and I'll see what I can do.

[triaelf9]

I'm sure some people online could spend their time better

[jaradraws]

DISCLAIMER: the blood is a feature, not a bug 🩸☎️

[heritageposts]

tumblr citizenship test (uquiz)

[fella-lovin-fella]

currently thinking about how when we saw barbie and it was at the point where it said "and all misogyny and inequality for women was gone. at least that's what the Barbies think." and all the women in the theater laughed while all of the men were dead silent

[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.

[p-paradoxa]

dorohedoro + witch hat atelier + dungeon meshi my holy trinity of “what if magic felt as weighty as it should. what if the process of doing magic didn’t exist in a vacuum, and there were costs—social, economic, and environmental—to using it. there are consequences but ultimately it’s just a part of the greater system that governs people and life. so what happens when people who feel like outsiders in that system push against it by testing the boundaries placed on magic”

[fancywordology]

It's also not about making the movements anti-man, anti-white, anti-straight. Very important to remember.

And it's NOT ABOUT YOU AS AN INDIVIDUAL either if you're a part of these groups. It's about the GROUPS.

[queerism1969]

[filmnoirsbian]

I do think it's funny whenever film reviewers who clearly don't enjoy horror as a genre are forced to review a horror film and fall back on the tried and true "well it's no [insert classic horror film that is not similar in any way to the film being discussed but is one of the only ones non horror fans respect as a work of art in itself]" method. Like, you're right, this movie ISN'T Dawn of the Dead 1978. Léon the Professional is also not Holes. What has that got to do with anything.

[ketchupmonster52]

I don’t care is he’s a villain, he’s a villain with CURLS

[sunbeamedskies]

Hating nazis does not mean you’re not prejudiced against Jews. Posting about how you’d love to punch a nazi is not your get-out-of-accusations-of-antisemitism free card

[catgirl-kaiju]

it's so funny to think abt how the dystopian levels of surveillance and data collection we are subjected to every day without consent, and sometimes without awareness being done primarily for the purpose of advertising goods and services to people. targeted ads that so often get blocked and ignored because everyone hates ads.

just... the hilarity of a vast network of machines dedicated to spying on everyone in the world, straight out of the mind of a deranged conspiracy theorist, which exists to let you know that shoes are 10% off at wal-mart, and which doesn't actually make you want to shop at wal-mart

[secretmellowblog]

The thing is, Jean Valjean’s “nineteen year prison sentence for stealing a loaf of bread” from Les Mis isn’t actually unusual….not even today! I see people talking about it as if it’s strange or unimaginable when it happens every day.

In modern America — often as a result of pointlessly cruel (and racist) habitual offender and mandatory minimum laws— people are routinely sentenced to life in prison for minor crimes like shoplifting or possession of drugs.

The ACLU did a report in 2013 detailing the lives of various people who were sentenced to life in prison without parole for nonviolent property crimes like:

•attempting to cash a stolen check

•a junk-dealer’s possession of stolen junk

metal (10 valves and one elbow pipe)

•possession of stolen wrenches

•siphoning gasoline from a truck

•stealing tools from a tool shed and a welding machine from a yard

•shoplifting three belts from a department store

•shoplifting several digital cameras

•shoplifting two jerseys from an athletic store

• taking a television, circular saw, and a power converter from a vacant house

• breaking into a closed liquor store in the middle of the night

And of course, so so so many people sentenced to life without parole for the possession of a few grams of drugs.

And we could go on and on!

Gregory Taylor was a homeless man in Los Angeles who, in 1997, was sentenced to “25 years to life” for attempting to steal food from a food kitchen. He was released after 13 years. The lawyers helping to release him even cited Les Miserables in their appeal, comparing Taylor’s sentence to Jean Valjean’s.

And there’s another specific bit of social commentary Hugo was making about Valjean’s trial that’s still depressingly relevant. He writes that Valjean was sentenced for the theft of loaf of bread, but also that the court managed to make that sentence stick by bringing up some of his past misdemeanors. For example, Valjean owned a gun and was known to occasionally poach wildlife (presumably for his starving family to eat.) . So the court exaggerates how harmful the bread theft was—he had to smash a windowpane to get the bread, which is basically Violence— then insist the fact that he owns a gun and occasionally poaches is proof that he is habitually and innately violent. Then when Valjean obviously becomes distressed traumatized and furious as a result of his nakedly unjust sentence and begins making desperate (and very unsuccessful/impulsive/ poorly thought through) attempts to escape…. the government indifferently tacks more years onto his sentence, labels him a “dangerous” felon, and insists that its initial read of him as an innately violent person was correct.

And it’s sad how a lot of the real life stories linked earlier are similar to the commentary Hugo wrote in 1863? Someone will commit a nonviolent property crime, and then the court insists that a bunch of other miscellaneous things they’ve done in the past (whether it’s other minor thefts or being addicted to drugs or w/e) are Proof they’re inherently violent and incapable of being around other people.

A small very petty fandom side note: This is also why I dislike all those common jokes you see everywhere along the lines of “lol it’s so unrealistic for the police to want to arrest Valjean over a loaf of bread, there must have been some other reason the police were pursuing him. Because the state would never punish someone that harshly and irrationally for no reason. so maybe javert was just gay haha”. (Ex: this tiktok— please don’t harass the creator or poster though, I don’t think they were intending to mean anything like that and its just a silly common type of joke you see made about Les mis all the time so it’s not unique in any way.) because like.

As much as I don’t think Les Mis is a flawless book or that its political messaging is perfect….the only way that insanely long unjust sentences for minor crimes is “unrealistic” is if you’re operating on the assumption that prisons are here to Keep You Safe by always only punishing bad criminals who do serious crimes. And that’s just, not true at all. Like I get that these are just goofy silly shallow jokes, and I’m not angry or going to harass anyone who makes them. but it feels like there’s an assumption underlying all those goofy jokes that “this is just not how prison works!” “Prisons don’t routinely sentence people to absurd laughably unjust pointless sentences!” “Prisons give people fair sentences for logical reasons!” When like…no

Valjean being relentlessly hounded and tortured for a minor crime in a way that is utterly ridiculous and arbitrary in its cruelty is not actually a plot hole in Les mis. It’s a plot hole in …..society ajsjkdkdkf. And the only way to fix that is to fight for prison abolition or at least reform, and (in America) stand up against the vicious naked cruelty of habitual offender and mandatory minimum laws.

But yeah :(. I hate how Les Mis opens with a prologue saying the novel will be obsolete the moment the social issues it describes have been resolved— but two hundred years later, the book is still more relevant than ever because we’re dealing with so many of the exact same injustices.

[katierosefun]

pyramid game is such a perfect little drama for the sapphics because you've got a whole demented psychological thriller going on about high school girls creating a whole fake social class system that results because one bored little princess bitch thought it'd be funny, and you've got all these dynamics that can only be boiled down to some kind of love story because like. ye lim and eun jeong's dynamic? the princess idol and her athlete bodyguard. soo ji and ja eun's dynamic? the cold mastermind and the compassionate heart. even whatever da yeon and seol ha have got going on? typical hitter and loyal dog dynamic. the list can go on.

[silvermoon424]

I hate how much of the obesity "debate" basically boils down to "fat people don't have any self-control and just need to put the fork down to get me to respect them. Because then they'll be thin."

Hardly anyone actually wants to confront the systematic causes of obesity; it's always about "personal responsibility." And like yeah, I don't deny that that plays a part, but God forbid you ever suggest there are factors outside of people's control too, then you're "glorifying obesity."

I've legit heard some fatphobic people say that Japan has such low rates of obesity because of their national attitude of shame towards fat people, ergo we need to start viciously shaming fat people worldwide. They never seem to mention that Japan has an abundance of fresh, healthy, easily available, and cheap food; you can literally walk into a corner 7-11 and buy a fresh and nutritious meal for a few bucks. There's just nothing like that in the US. Many parts of Japan are also very walkable, encouraging people to ride bikes, walk, etc instead of driving everywhere.

Idk, it just really bothers me how so many people act like fat people are solely responsible for their weight when entire policies are the result of food companies lobbying the government to influence the way food is made and distributed. Very often not for the better. Not to mention how these decisions and obesity in general disproportionately impacts the poor and BIPOC.