#its fundamentally not about me!!!

[soldier-poet-king]

I think if someone told me I was doing a good job, and I genuinely believed that they meant it, I would simply Pass Out

[uptownthots]

I think if you consider yourself someone who genuinely cares about dismantling bioessentalism and the speaking out about harm it does to society you HAVE to acknowledge that bioessentalism is one of the oldest tools in the patriarchy's toolbox and not something twentieth-century TERFs invented

[arsenicflame]

Bonus round! Do you use a queue tag?

[raptorrobot]

i feel like i'm fighting for my fucking life here

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

Alright, here we go

First and foremost I want to talk about what flying bark's animation has meant to me.

In a world where every day I see 2d animation being rejected for cheaper 3d and puppet animation at every turn, Monkie Kid's animation was the one of the first things that gave me hope for the future of 2D animation. I can't tell you how long I've been wanting a 2D animated show, growing up I wanted one so desperately, I craved good animation amongst the stiff 3D and flat storytelling, so when I got it, when Monkie Kid happened, I was so unbelievably happy. It was everything I wanted in a show, gorgeous animation, excellent voice actors, romance free and friendly to my desperate friendship-craving, romance-overstimulated brain and written in a way I enjoyed so much. I struggle to describe exactly how much I’ve adored everything this show has been up until this point. It truly is a masterpiece.

Monkie kid has kept me company during the lowest and roughest points in my life. I got to such a bad place mentally but Monkie Kid’s fast-paced, snappy, detailed, colourful bright animation brought light into my darkest mental times and not only helped me stay connected with people but kept me creating even when I wanted nothing more than to lay on the floor and never move again. I'm aware most of the flying bark team is active on the bird app and none of them are gonna see this most likely but I still just wanted to say thank you. Thank you so much for animating this show, thank you so much for giving it your all. Thank you so much for giving me something I’ve always wanted so perfectly. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for keeping me company at my lowest, thank you for sharing your joy of animation so I could catch some of those rays of sunlight and feel a little of that joy too. Thank you for your positivity and good vibes, thank you. 

I know so many people have gotten inspiration from flying bark and I have to add myself to the infinite list. My art has improved so much thanks to their inspiration. My style has developed, I’ve had so much fun, I’ve written some of my favorite works ever based off of expressions that the characters make alone. My last amv I made because I was so grateful for the animation that we'd gotten up to that point. I wanted to showcase, to thank, to appreciate. I didn’t know it would be a goodbye. Words can't describe all that flying bark's animation and even their storyboards have done for me. When nothing could make me happy, monkie kid wormed its way into my brain and somehow kept me in one piece. I know that wouldn’t have been possible without the animation that left me at the edge of my seat, breathless and laughing over how incredible it really was every single time. Every new clip, every new episode I’d pause and rewatch again, I’d rewatch over and over, I’d take screenshots of every goofy background character, I’d screenshot every expression I could, I’d go through episodes frame-by-frame, literally one at a time for hours on end just so i could catch every detail, I’d open my eyes wider and wider to try and take in every bit I could in a way I’ve never been able to do before because there is nothing else out there like monkie kid. There was nothing as fun and as joyful as every single frame that flying bark gave us. And I am going to miss that so much.

The fact that season 4 was a sendoff is so heartbreaking to me, it's hard to describe how devastated I feel knowing something that kept hold of my hand when I was facing hard hard things in my life is suddenly gone. I don’t know how to ever express how important this show has been to me, it’s kept me going and helped me get to a place where I could breathe again. It’s connected me with some of the greatest people I know. It’s given me incredible experiences, introduced me to what animation could be and I can’t lie and say it doesn’t hurt having to say goodbye so suddenly. 

I know this isn’t the end of Monkie Kid as a show. I know season 5 is still coming. And I also know Monkie Kid has lost a huge part of what made it unique and special, a huge part of its heart and soul. Without flying bark it feels like half the show is missing and although I hope I can still support the show, no one can deny the cavern-sized hole that is left by flying bark’s absence in it. The animation team has such an incredibly positive atmosphere around them that just absolutely radiates from the things they create. I am going to miss that so desperately in monkie kid. I’m going to support every other show flying bark works on, I’m still going to love their animation wherever it goes, but I am going to miss it in monkie kid like nothing else I’ve ever missed.

I do have some other thoughts regarding the new changes in monkie kid but I wanted to keep that separate from the actual farewell, so that’ll be it’s own post and I just want to end this by saying thanks for everything Flying Bark you’ve been a real one. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You’re already being missed so hard it hurts. Keep those good vibes and keep up what you’re doing. You all really are incredible and an inspiration to artists everywhere. We love this show because of the voice actors, because of the writers, because of the music but a great deal of people loved this show because of you. You’ve inspired a community of artists, you’ve inspired me. Thank you flying bark for everything you've given us, you gave it your all and I’m gonna carry the impact you left on me for the rest of my life. 

LOVE YOU FLYING BARK. Here's to a bright future. Thanks for everything <3 

[mewtwo24]

Not to be That Guy but like.

Am I the only one that can't stop thinking about how Tianlang-Jun says about Luo Binghe that he pretends to be cold-hearted like his mother. The hint of fondness there, the heartache in that utterance.

Like it drives me absolutely insane. Imagining her putting on a front of strength, cold and driven and unrelenting. Why does TLJ say that about her. Did she secretly look for solutions that meant reconciling with demons instead of hurting them when her sect wasn't looking? (I wonder this because I feel like his weird fondness for SQQ would lowkey track if it's connected to the woman he once loved.) Did he mean that she was tasked with basically assassinating him and she fell in love with him instead (re: failed step one)? Did he mean that she was fond and doting in her own way (e.g. conceding he was attractive, paying for his exploits and humoring him)? Did he mean that, like LBH, she thought that power would be the thing to protect her--and that it was disguising a person who was deeply and privately wounded? All four????? I don't need sleep I need a n s w e r s

Did she know about the Huanhua Palace Master's skeevy ass intentions before she met TLJ? Or did those only come to significant light after she fell in love with TLJ? Is that why she never anticipated that level of betrayal, because initially she had no intention of being with anyone romantically? And HHPM just assumed she would be under his thumb forever?? Was she furious at her own indiscretion or did she try to use the pregnancy as a bargaining chip, a way to try to stop the immortals of Cang Qiong Mountain from attacking TLJ (plus the bonus of marriage entrapment no takesies backsies this is where LBH gets it from)? Did she try to use that claim on her to dissuade HHPM from his covetous advances, framing herself as tainted so that she could finally escape? Did she dream of a life by TLJ's side, far away from Cang Qiong Mountain?

Like. Literally every single permutation of what this could mean guts me to hell. Do you ever just cry about tianxi because I--[loud bawling noises]

[natjennie]

cap and kitty's little improv scene... the way they gossip about 90s bands together... the fairy godmother.... that winning smile of yours, now where is it... now our song about clouds is doooooone... the wizard of oz.... when he turns the attention on himself so she doesn't have to talk about eleanor... she pictures her father as him in the flashbacks... agh ants! no, no, they can't hurt you... why would you want to kill time it's meant to be enjoyed.. ah what's the rush, we've got forever... kitty thinks her baby kicked and calls cap over to feel... father christmas is not reallllll-ly in the habit.... no one wants to listen to this old walrus... hang on you made me do something horrible. yes but they're staying... maybe they'll decide to stay. they won't, kitty.

[uncanny-tranny]

At this point, talks about "mutilated bodies" tell me everything I need to know about people's politics. I truly don't believe you can combine the idea of mutilated or degenerate bodies with anything even slightly progressive in terms of autonomy. If you believe yourself to be progressive or anything left of an unapologetic fascist, you frankly cannot truly entertain the idea that some bodies and people are inherently mutilated or degenerate. It is an inherently fascist idea.

[quietwingsinthesky]

it ever hit you out of nowhere that castiel is living in a dead guy's body and the show just does not care. it does not care. jimmy novak might as well not exist the moment he or claire is out of sight. cas stole a guy's body and his face and his life, and we can't ever talk about it or discuss it in detail because of how fucking horrifying it is that sam and dean's best friend just walks around in a dead guy suit. there's not even a human soul in there anymore. it's just a corpse. stone-cold body snatcher indeed.

[kagoutiss]

as if it was never there at all.

[possamble]

do you have any particular thoughts regarding marcille being a half-elf? its interesting to me considering the fact that she seems self-conscious about being a half-elf, but denies it when its brought up

i remember marcille looking visibly uncomfortable over laios simply asking her how old she is, which i think the only reason she might feel nervous about this is because it might reveal her as a half-elf to him.

she's never corrected anybody whose called her an elf either.

never mind the circumstances of the reveal, in which thistle goes on about how half-elves are inferior and accusing her of wanting to become full blooded elf, she seemed particularly upset like he struck a nerve-

i wish the half-elf thing was built upon more. also, underrated marcille line:

okay so i revisited this sequence just to make sure I could back myself up and it's just... man. there's a lot going on.

the first reaction we get from Marcille is this huge panel that takes up half of the page

she is viscerally affected. flushing to the tips of her ears with the intensity of it. and we see it again, a few pages later

so it might seem like she's embarrassed about it and lying to herself, but... I really think it's just that Thistle is accidentally hitting sore spots. If you really look at what he says to get these reactions

"you'll live out your entire life [...] and die that way too"

"a hundred years from now, nobody will be there"

Hear me out. I think, if he stuck to harping on about her inferiority without bringing up how terrifyingly long-lived she is, she wouldn't have been as bothered. But right now, Thistle is accidentally hitting all the marks on Marcille's deepest fears-- and this is after the Winged Lion promised her that her dreams could come true in an extremely vulnerable moment, so it also hits her slightly guilty conscience as well.

I do truly believe that Marcille isn't bothered about being a half-elf the way that people assume she'd be bothered by it. To her, the biggest problem with being a half-elf is that it's isolating.

On one hand, it's not hard to imagine why she'd distance herself from elves in the west. A lot of them can clock her as a half-elf on sight, unlike other races, and therefore she's always branded with this weird stigma of being Othered -- I would even say that she considers herself lucky for being born outside of elven culture instead of having to grow up in it. I mean, just... look at the way elves talk about her.

Skipping past the uncomfortable implication of what 'not tolerating the existence' of half-elves would actually entail, this is incredibly fucking annoying. You can see why she wouldn't want to be around elves much. You see a lot of Marcille reacting badly here, but honestly, almost all of it can be attributed to her freaking out that her bluff completely failed. She's honestly more paying attention to Izutsumi's footsteps and trying to coordinate an opportunity to escape.

And in the end, you see her built-up frustration at being asked if she wants to be a full-blooded elf like 2-3 times in a row.

Yeah, yeah, "the lady doth protest too much," and all. But we know Marcille. We know that she's a lot more embarrassed and horrendously unconvincing when she's being prodded about something she's actually self-conscious about.

Moving onto the flipside of things, it might seem weird that she "pretends" to be a full elf around other races, but it's not really that strange if you think about it. Again, people are weird about her being infertile or whatever, and a lots of them don't even know much about what sets half-elves apart from everyone else. I mean, look at how uncomfortable Laios is just asking her about it

and look at how exasperated and resigned she looks

And like... she's right. Where would that come up in normal conversation? Why would she go out of her way to tell them? She's functionally a normal elf to other races anyway -- got the ears, the abnormally long "childhood", and the huge mana capacity. Unless it's directly relevant or important for people to know, I don't think it's all that strange or indicative of insecurity that she prefers not to bother with it.

(This combined with her sense of being an "outsider" to elf culture also explains why she thinks elf superiority is embarrassing. She sees the way elves treat short-lived races from the "outsider" perspective nonetheless, and thinks it's obnoxious; especially more so because she usually has to play the elf around short-lived races and deal with the reputation of arrogance that elves have built up.)

The sad thing is, this all means that... she doesn't actually fit in anywhere. She doesn't like going out West much because of how elves treat her. But she's also an outsider in the continents she was born in, treated like this exotic long-lived alien choosing to live among short-lived races for some reason. She is always an outsider, the Other, no matter where she goes. Add in the fact that she'll live longer than literally anyone she knows, and it's honestly kind of heartbreaking.

And I think that's the crux of it. Marcille really doesn't act like she's at all self-conscious about being a half-elf because of any feelings of inferiority or being half-made or whatever. She considers herself a perfectly legitimate being and might even, in some ways, consider herself superior to normal elves because she's not blind with elf supremacy or whatever. (And whatever "elven biases" she displays, all of them are born more out of the fact that she's kind of bad at conceptualizing how other races age and mature compared to herself, not that she actually considers herself better or more mature simply for being an elf.)

I think that whatever self-consciousness Marcille has about being a half-elf is, instead, related to terror and loneliness. The reminder that it ensures she'll never truly belong anywhere for the rest of her very long life. The reminder that, in truth, even she's not actually sure how old she is by other races' standards (hence the discomfort when asked how old she is). She doesn't want to not be a half elf, or be a full elf or full tall-man-- in her ideal world, she's still a half-elf. She just gets to live out her life at the same pace with the people she loves and doesn't have to say goodbye again and again and again until she dies.

and one last very important panel, right after Mithrun tells her that all her desires would be devoured

In her ideal world, she's still a half-elf and reality magically starts marching at her pace. But failing that, the second best thing is that she's still a half-elf-- but one who is able to accept reality and let go of her fear.

(But the rest of the story pans out the way it does because, to Marcille, taking reality apart and reshaping it was less scary than simply and fully reconciling with it.)

[gutterprophet]

A 10-point chronic pain scale:

0 - Theoretical, unimaginable, and fundamentally unattainable to the living. Heaven or perfection. The transcendental state of immateriality one reaches when pain is so severe the soul separates from the body and floats away to watch it convulse from across the room. The honeyed caress of God. As a teenager I used to press lit cigarettes against my forearm and endure until the hot ember killed all the nerve endings, so that the small circle of burned skin no longer registered pain and never would again. Fantasized about drenching myself in gasoline and burning everything, until there were no living nerves left. The end goal of this fantasy is a zero on the pain scale.

1 - Just as fantastically unattainable as zero, but play-acting at pragmatics. Feels less like theory and more like being mocked. The sensation of digging my fingernails into my palm to briefly pull my attention away from a numerically larger pain elsewhere in the body.

2 - This is the number I say to the emergency room triage nurse when she asks about chronic pain unrelated to the current medical emergency and I am afraid that if I answer honestly she will write me off as drug-seeking. Two is a non-answer. Two is "don't worry about it, that's not important right now."

3 - A pain scale infographic on the wall in the emergency room describes a three as "Noticeable pain. It may distract you, but you can get used to it." This is less than useless. This describes all pain. It might be more precise to specify how long the adjustment period lasts before you no longer find pain distracting. A hangnail-- seconds or less. A dislocated shoulder-- weeks, initially, but with enough repetition, only as long as it takes to suck in a breath and twist it back into place. This is where any pain scale falls apart. Pain becomes practice, practice becomes routine, routine becomes background noise. It still hurts.

4 - Four is the standard baseline of a good day. At a four, I can hold things with my hands and walk on my legs. I am free to indulge in earthly delights: washing dishes, checking the mail, folding laundry. Every pair of socks I don't drop is a little joy. I make it through the whole hamper. I limp through the garden. At a four, no one needs to know I am in pain. By sunset I am exhausted but the morning is made of endless possibilities.

5 - At a five, pain seeps into my dreams while I sleep. Not nightmares, necessarily, but I spend the whole thing distracted, tugging at the sword I dream is inexplicably stuck in my shoulder like some Arthurian legend. Important dream-plot happens around me but I miss half the exposition and zone out through the whole mystic prophecy. I can't keep my hands off that damn sword. The oracle is so offended that she kicks me out of the castle and I sit down in the mud outside and fiddle with my hilt, no goddamn clue what I'm supposed to do now. When I wake my jaw hurts from clenching my teeth all night.

6 - The body is a wet bag of raw meat and sharp objects. I drop things a lot. Against my will, I cry out when the car hits a bump and sharp pain lances through my spine. It's hard to eat. My sentences trail off halfway as thoughts evaporate off my tongue.

7 - Seven is the immediate aftermath of a botched surgery. Seven is the ICU nurse offering me a little paper cup of tramadol and me shaking too badly to take it. Seven is touch me and I'll scream. My friends stop wanting to drive me anywhere because my crying in the car distresses them. My sentences are short and staccato, four words or less, and I still lose the thread of them halfway through. I can't understand what's being said to me. I can't hold on to anything. I can't bear to sit alone with the pain but I can't do anything to distract from it, can't hold a pencil, can't hold a conversation, can't hold my eyes on the TV. My whole body trembles. My teeth chatter. Cold sweat soaks through my shirt. My spine is a row of kitchen knives. I grit my teeth and endure. Seven is the upper limit of normal. I know I can handle this. "Take courage, my heart, you are a soldier and you have seen worse sights than this." Eventually, either the pain will subside, or I will get used to it. It ends or it doesn't. There are only two possibilities. No apocalypse either way. A person can get used to anything. It ends or it doesn't. Pain becomes practice becomes routine becomes background noise. It still hurts.

8 - I stop caring that anyone is horrified by my sobbing. I stop seeing through my eyes. I want the world to be small and dark and quiet. I want to unmake the universe. I hate the big bang. Thinking of the noise it must have made makes me furious. The noise of an ambulance siren makes me furious. I am incoherent. I no longer remember or care that it ends or it doesn't. There is no moment but this one. I tell strangers in scrubs that I want to die. I don't know why. Later I will only remember confused bursts of sensory information, and none of them are pain. Light, sound, texture. Smooth orange plastic of a stretcher in the back of an ambulance. IV bag swinging as we take a sharp turn. My revolving ceiling fan. Blood and vomit. Blanket. I don't know how to store the memory of this pain. It is too big to fit inside me. It enters wholly and leaves wholly. Every time it happens it feels like something I have never felt before. It is the very first time over and over and over. My previous statements were false; I cannot get used to this. I am shocked every time. I cannot remember it. I cannot comprehend.

9 - Nine is the cigarette and gasoline burning down through layers of skin and fat and bone. I forget about my distress and ascend into desperate hilarity. I only have to endure for a few more moments, until--

10 - I stop feeling anything. I am a glowing psychopomp bathed in the theoretical, unimaginable, and fundamentally unattainable to the living. There is no more body. It doesn't respond. I'm glowing to have shucked it. I melt into the honeyed caress of God.

[flickerintwilights]

on the road to hell

[babblingeccentric]

Sanji + gender play (fem reader) for kinktober! Wanna ride him while he's all dolled up in lingerie with a vibrator in his ass 🤤

I didn't quite capture the letter of your request but I think I at least got the spirit. I wrote this in half an hour tipsy on mulled cider and I think I got possessed by the spirit of a novel writer from the 1860s

Kinktober 5: Gender Play, Sanji/Reader

Contains: Sanji's fucked up thoughts on gender, feminization, humiliation, lingerie, cross dressing, hand jobs

The kitchen door is locked, and most have gone to bed. But here on one of the chairs Sanji sits disheveled and full of shame and lust. You’ve removed his tie and jacket a long time ago, and tugged open his shirt and slacks to the soft sweet prize that’s been waiting for you all day beneath stiff wool.

It’s a set of lacy pink underwear, a matching bra and panty set that you bought with Sanji under the pretext of wearing it yourself. So consumed by thoughts of you in lacy bralettes and bikinis spinning through his head Sanji had neglected to notice they didn’t match your measurements (which he had of course memorized, as any good shopping companion should).

The long hours since you had connived him into the set this morning with soft kisses and softer touches had become tortuous, with Sanji hyper aware of the soft lace against his cock, and then comfortably forgetting, before swells of guilt at the thought that he was so little a man he could forget such a humiliation sweeping over him in turns throughout the day. 

Finally, finally, you had come flouncing into his kitchen long after the dishes were done, eyes full of mischief to offer relief to him.

And that’s how he had ended up here, eyes tearing as you stood between his legs softly stroking his cock through delicate pink panties until he came and soaked them through as you called him, “Good girl~”

[weirdmageddon]

sorry for liking davejade in 2023 btw its in a cool way though

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

you know, if i was funny, my blog mascot/sona would just be a hand sticking out of a bog - sock puppet style