#narrative exploration

[nicholasandriani]

The Creativity Crisis: Escaping the Grind of False Idols in Pursuit of a More Authentic Life: You’re Doing Human Wrong pt. 2

Twitter Patreon GitHub LinkedIn YouTube Wow. The reception from last week’s post has nearly doubled my audience and exponentially improved my motivation. It’s both humbling and electrifying to know that these words resonate with so many of you. This overwhelming response has not only expanded our community but has also injected a fresh surge of inspiration into my work. So, riding this wave…

[juniemunie]

[Abandoned by the Lightners, his heart became cracked with hatred.]

Hitting a lil' too close to home?

[nancywheeeler]

hopeless time loop. the way out isn’t to save everyone. the way out isn’t to save even one person. the way out isn’t to change anything. the way out is accepting how it happened the first time is how it always will be. that’s how you acted, that’s how they acted, that’s how you would have acted every time if you weren’t given the curse of hindsight. the way out is accepting you can’t fix the past; you can only forgive yourself for it.

[zan0tix]

My fav agents of the transsexual empire 🫶😁🏳️‍⚧️

I think personally we should draw them as adults getting to fully indulge in their teen fashion aspirations. (see second image) Callies outfit was inspired by paint splotches and embroidery as if she made her outfit herself :) A true artist!

Third is my updated readings. I say "readings" because i believe theres textual evidence for these and its how i interpreted them from my read throughs. (Only jake has the autism symbol because hes the most explicitly disabled coded in text but all of them to me are neurodivergent)

The gender labels are used loosely bc i think each of them has an incredibly unique journey/relationship with their gender that cant be encapsulated in a small set of words, and i do not think any of them would actually fully use labels either.

I am just using these to simplify down my thoughts into something easily digestible LOL MY THOUGHTS ON THEM AND THEIR PARALLELS + MIRRORS + INVERSIONS ARE SUPER COMPLEX i think about them Genuinely Literally Every Day of my Life. theyd have to be saved for a different time </3 but ya alpha kids trans 4EVER howd hussie cram THIS AMOUNT of queerness into these guys.. will never know

[potato-lord-but-not]

sorrryyyy I needed to draw these guys having half decent communication skills or I would’ve fallen ill

[worfsbarmitzvah]

there’s such an attitude among ex-christian atheists that religions just spring up out of the void with no cultural context behind them. like ive heard people say shit like “those (((zionists))) think they own a piece of land bc their book of fairy tales told them so!!!” and they refuse to understand that no, we don’t belong there because of the torah, it’s in the torah because we belong there. because we’re from there. the torah (from a reform perspective) was written by ancient jews in and about the land that they were actively living on at the time. the torah contains instructions for agriculture because the people who lived in the land needed a way to teach their children how to care for it. it contains laws of jurisprudence because those are pretty important to have when you’re trying to run a society. same for the parts that talk about city planning. it contains our national origin story for the same reason that american schools teach kids about the boston tea party. it’s an extremely complex and fascinating text that is the furthest thing from just a “book of fairy tales”

[grandwretch]

modern au; nonbinary steve

dustin bullies steve into playing their favorite MMO with them. to Dustin's disgust, Steve's favorite part is collecting all the different cosmetic items and making cool fantasy outfits for his avatar. unbeknownst to the party, steve creates an alt account where he can collect the female outfits and wigs, because there's a bigger selection and they're much prettier.

as Steve interacts w people on his new account, he realizes he likes it better-- for one, people pay attention to women in a way he isn't used to. not all of it is good attention, but steve relishes in it. also, he likes that people see him as a woman. he likes that they don't even think about it. quickly he joins a guild and actually starts playing the game in earnest, just so that he has these relationships with people who view and treat him as a woman.

he meets Eddie there. Eddie is charming and flirtatious with everyone, men and women, but it's clear that Steve is his favorite. Very carefully, Steve becomes closer and closer to Eddie-- close enough that Steve is full of guilt.

He feels like he's lying to Eddie about who he is, even though he's told the truth about everything but his gender. Even worse is the realization that he doesn't ever want Eddie to think of him as man-- which is confusing, because steve isn't exactly comfortable with someone he's falling in love with thinking of him as a woman.

Things get even worse when, after Steve drunk texts Eddie after a night out with Robin, they start sexting. Its fun, casual flirtation, nothing too serious, but Strve realizes he likes the idea of sex better as his alternate self. He likes pretending to have tits, he likes imagining what it would be like to have a cunt, he likes talking about wearing lingerie and being Eddie's good girl.

He thinks he can't come clean without losing the best thing he's ever had, so Steve pushes his guilt down and pretends he's not in love.

Of course he gets caught out, eventually. Dustin and Eddie become friends in real life and Eddie isn't an idiot. Steve is mortified and distraught, but once Eddie is sure that this wasn't all a cruel prank, he's quick to assure Steve that nothing has to change-- Knowing that in real life Steve has broad shoulders and a square jaw doesn't make him any more of a "man" than his online avatar makes him a "woman". Not if that's not what Steve wants.

So Steve doesn't have to give anything up. He gets to keep his amazing, supportive boyfriend. He gets to keep his pretty clothes and avatar. He gets to keep experimenting in the bedroom, finding out what makes him happy instead of what he thinks he should be doing.

And he gets more, things Steve never even dreamed of having: He gets to start buying pretty clothes in real life, too, and they hang next to his polos like they belong. He gets to grow out his hair. He gets to slowly find out what he likes, how he wants people to think of him, how he wants to think of himself.

[viveela]

I'm curious about your Lucifer design, I'd love to read notes about it 👀

Thanks for asking! I actually would love to talk about it, I can include my concept art as well:

My thought process is I see all angels using birds as their basis for their comprehendible forms! So his is meant to play off a cockatiel since his cheeks and hair already remind me of one! I pushed that further with the tailcoat looking like feathers, giving him more feathery hair, and his mouth having curvature similar to a beak

But also I see him being visually stuck as a snake as a punishment for what he did before becoming fallen, a reminder of what he's done and why he's where he is now...so the two features mix into his look! His face and body have scales, his eyes are more narrow, and his coat's hood is meant to look similar to the one of a snake as well

As for the colors I wanted to go little further with it! I felt it'd make sense if he was more cream and brownish red to symbolize being the one to cause the 'bite of the forbidden fruit' aka 'the apple'. When apples are bitten and left alone they oxidize, so I took inspiration from that for the changes. Meanwhile his staff is a literal depiction of this act, his colors a more subtle one, it's all tied together ^^

[flashhwing]

i love the kirkwall squad because they all have such protagonist energy. any of them could be the main character. except for varric but he did that on purpose. any of the rest of them could be the main character

[sunlit-mess]

Does your Michelin stars au alastor have auto cannibalism?

Only habits like biting/gnawing his fingers/hands. Mostly anxiety induced.

[imminent-danger-came]

I am seeing some of the WORST takes about tdp season 4. Sweet, sweet tumblr users. This season was a lot of set up, not everything was supposed to be explained or resolved, or even "should" have been. Season 4 had to do the heavy leg work of re-establishing characters and arcs and the plot moving foreword. It just needs a little time to be able to act on everything it's now established. It did a good job building off of arc 1, and now we are fully indoctrinated into arc 2!

[generic-sonic-fan]

Metal Sonic being voiceless and that being played for the horror, but less in the way of "he doesn't physically have a voice box" and more in the sense that he's voiceless metaphorically.

Not only does he not possess the voice box, but he doesn't have any tools to communicate. He's never offered pen and paper. Never given the opportunity to write digital reports except with only the briefest of words. Never taught even a scrap of sign language, as crude as such a communication would be due to his lack of facial features.

If you handed him a speech generating device, would he even know what to do with it?

[fullcolorfright]

Sketch collage inspired by the 1897-1899 Belgian Antarctic Expedition, after reading Madhouse at the End of the Earth (Julian Sancton, 2021) and My Life as an Explorer (Roald Amundsen, 1927)

[ferrouswheel11]

The moment that made Bruce the man he is today was the moment his parents were murdered in the alley. He thinks that that moment for Tim had or will have to do with the deaths of his parents as well, like it was for him, for Dick, for Jason, all children whose lives were changed forever by tragedy. He doesn't realize that that moment for Tim was a decade ago at Haly's Circus.

Bruce thinks that he and his mission are the poison, that prolonged exposure will eventually drag Tim down into the darkness he resides in (or worse, like it did to Jason). He thinks of the child he once was, remembers that he became the Bat so that no other child might be suffer that same loss, that same transformation that he has. He doesn't realize that Tim's path was set from the very first day he can remember.

Tim doesn't know how to be any different. How to be anything other than a boy who deduced Batman's secret identity by accident. A boy whose heroes inspired him to become a detective, to pick up computer skills, to learn to fight. A boy who cared enough about two strangers at the circus to risk his life for them a decade later.

Becoming Robin was just the culmination. Becoming Robin is when everything that made Tim Tim started to make sense. The night in the alley was the night Bruce’s life changed, but that night at the circus was the night Tim’s life began.

[averlym]

fairest of the fair

[im-still-watching-anime]

sasuke: i’m still glad we made up and all but….

naruto: …..but?

sasuke: us killing each other would have been SO romantic

naruto: i was JUST thinking about that—