#okay im done now thank you

[the-gayest-sky-kid]

'lumine is the canon abyss twin' 'aethers the canon traveler' KILLING AND BITING YOU UNTIL YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A PIECE OF BLOODY PULP

[deathricedrawn]

i'm ready to try

[plnetl]

duality duo horses... very lazy drawing from tonight... thank you duality duo... for... being here....

[jasperyourmutt]

hi everyone <3

I have a bit of a life update. To make a long story short, last week I was diagnosed with PTSD. I have been having a... very hard time coming to terms with that. For most of my life I believed I just had a bad anxiety disorder, but I am now realizing that is unfortunately not the case. The past couple months I have been in a near constant state of fight or flight, fear, panic, whatever you want to call it- without really realizing it. and man. it has been exhausting, mentally, physically, spiritually. I just thought it was normal to feel like this all the time. i assumed everyone felt like this. my therapist has helped me realize I am in a lot of pain right now and it is not normal. so. the good news is that there is an intensive trauma therapy that I will be doing for the next couple months that is going to really help me recover. i love and trust my therapist with my whole heart. there is a light at the end of the tunnel. i am finally getting the help i need. so. unfortunately I am going to step away from tumblr for a bit. i dont really want to do this, i love being on here. i love interacting with all the friends i've made here. kink has become a very important and healing part of my life. but it is just a little too much for me at the moment. I'm not sure when I will return, could be a couple weeks, a couple months. I'll return when I feel right. I feel like this may be a little odd to share here, but it's important to me to acknowledge and share that I have been having a really hard time. i tend to downplay when i'm in pain. i feel like people usually don't care about me (i know this is very very much not the case. im trying to convince my brain of that too.) its really hard for me to tell people when i am struggling, especially in my real life. so i am taking baby steps and starting here. so, until I return- chase your tails for me, roll in the grass, bark at the squirrels. take care of yourselves. if you are struggling, know youre loved. get the help you need. i will be curling up in my dog bed and taking a nap in the sun. ruff ruff. wag wag. much love to all of you.

[demisexual-eddie-diaz]

GUYS I’M GOING TO THE MIAMI GRAND PRIX

THE SPRINT RACE AND QUALIFYING

THIS TIME NEXT WEEK I’LL HAVE SEEN THEM

[mamawasatesttube]

okay. making myself a to-do list of writing and related things i wanna get done in the coming month or so.

finish my "how to fix the tt03 retcon" ppt (task for tomorrow!!)

lois & tim snoopery (shortfic) (for tomorrow?)

karanat bangfic (oneshot)

timkonbart kryptositting shenanigans (shortfic)

cissiecassie big feelings (shortfic)

kon & the steels (shortfic)

kon gets fucked up (shortfic? oneshot? need to choreograph)

and then for "sometime next month" we've got:

finish halloweenfic from last year (before halloween... lol...)

[hella1975]

hiiii haha. hello. exceptionally awkward introduction bc idrk how to start something like this so let's just jump right in. im taking a break from this account for a bit. i know i said i wanted taob out before halloween and currently im fine sticking with that deadline, but if i decide i need longer away then i will take longer away. every time ive reassured people that id never abandon a fic and updates will always come eventually i never once considered that my writing and ability to feel safe and comfortable on this site would be actively taken from me, so im not even going to apologise. i dont want this either and more importantly i dont fucking deserve it. i dont know what it is in the past year, if ive hit a certain amount of followers or 'popularity' that's made it so the natural ratio of positive to negative interactions must in turn go up, but there's been a serious uptick in weird asks for me. the annoying part is that a very small amount of them are actually objectively mean and hateful, the rest are just weird and invasive from people who seemingly dont realise that's what they're being. ive reached a point where i dont care if the intentions are good. it's not my job as a 20 year old tumblr user of all things to defend the morality of someone who couldnt even bother to come off anon. unfortunately, after blocking only one or two anons, the weird asks have decreased substantially, which says all you need to know about the fascinating and exhilarating lives led by these people, but ive also gone on to turn anon asks off entirely. this is something i actively fought against doing and had to be pushed into by my mutuals (who have been the coolest people on planet earth during this entire thing). turning off anon was a big deal to me even if it sounds silly. i felt betrayed and like id been backed into a corner because it was so vehmently something i DIDNT WANT that to feel like i had to do it anyway for my own mental health??? that sucks. so even though ive 'fixed' the problem, im still kind of reeling and uncomfortable every time i come on tumblr. i hope it's just something i need time to ease because i'll truly be devastated if this becomes 'ruined' for me. tumblr exists as the only place in the world where i am honestly every facet of myself without shame or hesitation; losing that would be insanely harmful to me. and to the people who cant appeal to the actual human behind the post, let me put that in words you can understand: we wouldn't get any more writing 😦😦😦 riots and fires and sirens, i know. so yeah. to anyone who has sent me an anon ask and you're now wondering if you were part of the problem, im firmly of the belief that you'll know if you are. when i say 'weird asks' i dont mean 'you sent me a para about your personal life just to vent or ask for advice' or 'you sent me a really deep emotional compliment about the impact me and/or my writing has had on you' - i love asks like that, so much that i put off taking a break and turning off anon solely for the joy they bring me. im sorry that it might feel like you're being punished too bc of the actions of what in reality is a HANDFUL of weird people, but this is what i feel like i have to do to feel safe and not go insane every time i log in. love you guys, hopefully ill see you soon x

[b4kuch1n]

I actually for real feel like my phone's scanning quality has dropped monumentally while I was away on thing so that's a fun thing to figure out now. anyways

[dipplinduo]

Chapter 7 of Bet You'll Fall In Love With Me is Out!

This one...LMFAO. When I tell you I had to stop myself from making this a double chapter. Unfortunately need to go to bed. Wouldn't it be funny if a bed showed up this chapter?

Yeah this chapter is unhinged more than anything but I just dialed it up to like 13% of the rollercoaster we're going on LOL. Very unique vibe to BYFILWM. The type of vibe of why you started reading the fic in the first place. Suffer. xDDD

Anyways, dipplinshipping content will be coming at you hard next week. Your only warning about that is here. :)

ENJOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY~

[istherewifiinhell]

IS FLYING GENDERED?

On the masculine default, typifying gender in genre, and women as the other in the transformers cartoons.

question for the ages

once again i said back in the halcyon days of watching g1 (aka 5 months ago) i was like. Nooooo, decepticon is NOT a gender that's Silly. It's funny, but as a Read Of The Text, I thought it largely unneeded. (The concept came about, as a joke, involving dismissing the bad guys using the same language you would abt women (sexistly) that they're emotional [heh, flighty], vain, and shrill) after all. If in the 80s era there are 5 whole named/speaking woman tfs, its only ever gonna get better from here right? (<- booboo the fool)

anyway

Let's consider the axiom that the assumed default gender is male, that maleness is often seen as LACK of gender, and femaleness and gender variance are the PRESENCE of gender. In certain reasoning and worldviews, of course (See Androcentrism). Then add that, for transformers, the assumed default thing a transformer turns into, is car. (Autocentrism, if you will)

(The most general term for what a tf turns into is "Alt mode" as some of them are not vehicles at all. The other mode is "Robot Mode", whether its humanoid or not)

So I will be laying out why I believe the cartoon iterations support: non standard alt modes = non standard genders. This is in spite of the fact that FIRST lady tfs were all cars. Sleek cyber cars, but still. For whatever reason, (possibly, the reason for everything in tf, toys) they might as well not exist for how woman tf characters presence in the cartoons progressed over time.

And, to be clear, this is a reading of how these works of fiction are created, not a new unified bioessentialism but for robots aliens I'm proposing for like. In universe lore reasons. I hate that idea.

That said, alt modes in order of most to least gender: Spider, motorcycle, flying (in general, with rotors, jets), tank, and then FINALLY, car. (water and space crafts are already too marginal to rank, but they too can be assumed in relation to default maleness, AND that in making one a woman, would still qualify as othering her).

The NUMBER one reason for this is the bizarre need to have an ESTABLISHED woman tf character before making new ones. AS YOU MIGHT IMAGINE. With a g1 gender ratio something like.... (counting even the most marginal cases for the ladies) 9:120? (That's a rough count from a quick scanning of the tf wiki g1 char list) Shits dire out here.

The second is, ofc, character design based. cis people [stand in phrase for the hegemonic world view] are not okay, and their opinions about how tf gender must need be depicted visually is. uh? Im not a fan. Size and shape dimorphism in general is a given, and specifically having women tfs as far more humanoid and curvy in specific. Also general cartoon lady face syndrome but, whatever. I think there's exactly one character here who doesn't have "lips" or "lipstick" as a distinguishing factor. I'm so tired.

Third is generally, the idea of The Girl Of the Team. When there's The Girl, she often isn't JUST a normal character, who happens to be a girl. See, of course, the Smurtfette Principle. But in my view there's also a trend to give The Girl "special traits" on top of "Girl", maybe even to directly combat the idea that the Girl Character has no other traits? To stop this from being a General Primer on Woman in Media, my explanatory focus is things specific to the tf franchise.

(A phrase I use for thinking about normative modes [in general, not just the Alt ones] in within the tf universe is "unique transformerdom" or, even more clunkily, "A transformer of unique transformerdom". The excessive verbosity is amusing to me personally. All I mean by it is to have an umbrella term for any of the ways tfs can be made unique from their peers in the non allegorical realities of the fiction).

I could, and do, and greatly want to, speak about this AT LENGTH. But it keeps spiraling away from me. So I'll say for now were looking at ways a character is being depicted different from her peers, not because she is the only woman (which she likely is), but cause she's a different kind of transformer, AND if she's othered for it.

(IN SOME forms of the lore. Being a transformer woman, IS A UNIQUE KIND of transformer unto itself. Let's just say I hate it and move on)

Fourth, is the gender of villainy. There is much to be said about gender presentation of villains, the ways they are allowed to be aberrant. We will get to it. There is also all the tropes specific TO evil women, and the modes of villainy open TO female characters. But a general thing I think impacting the gender ratios of the factions is the how "Good" and "Evil" female characters are written. I'll generalize and call this the "Damsel vs Temptress" dichotomy. (See concepts like the Madonna-whore complex). Transformers, is by and large, an action franchise. Unless special reasons are made, characters who can impact the action– have more screen time, and likely more memorable, and iconic presences. A villainous woman can be unchaste, violent, aggressive. While a heroic woman, even if not a literal damsel are more likely to be in a support role. The secretaries of the action genre: medics and techs.

(Another factor is that tfs are giant robots, and the good guys are often friends with tiny squishy little humans. These make very good damsel fodder, and can be taking up the spots on the roster that might, in a different franchise, go to women. Additionally, while woman characters in transformers overall is an interesting topic. When I say tf women, I'm referring to ones that are in fictionally, transformers.)

SO, now understanding our points of attack/obstacles for getting woman into transformers. (Getting established, gendering the designed, uniqueness of existence, and general villainy). Lets go over those alt modes, and the characters that have em, in more detail.

Spiders

The "Beast Era" (1996) intro-ed the spider ofc. And what don't we have with this one. She's a villain, but shes also misunderstood, the era and design style let to these more organic shapes. And they used them to make sure she was very sexy. She's genre aware, she's quippy, she's an absolute icon. So naturally. She gets ported to other later shows. Which means we just have sexy spider ladies running around when everyone else is a fucking truck and shit.

Her own origin is, well think of her as a "Bride of Frankenstein" to the resident evil scientist, also a spider. She was designed for, and manipulated by him in multiple ways. Her protoform (A blank robot base), was supposed to be one of the good guys (a Maximal), but was reprogrammed into a bad guy (Predacon). Even then, she eventually joins them, for her own reasons. She's not even the first predacon to do so, the difference? Well the characters are a lot more NORMAL about his autonomy. Both of these characters stress that being a predacon is an identity they still see as important. But only the woman is told that really, she is was was always MEANT to be a maximal. And while that's true in a sense. There's also a plot were she's forced (by plot contrivance, not the other maximals) to get corrective robot surgery for it. And when they think she died from, everyone's more sad for her boyfriend than for her. Ouch.

The second spider, in the 2007 show, is now one in a world where she is the only "techno-organic" transformer, hence, she is spider, everyone else is a vehicle. Similar to the first, her narrative is very gendered, but less in the way were, like, I do literally think the first was was experiencing in universe sexism from other characters. Here, they really focus on the "techno vs organic" narrative, and the tragic circumstances on how that happened. In this case its just real world sexist writing.

THIRD SPIDER, (2010), instead of misunderstood and tragic evil, this ones just super mega likes to cause pain evil. She also occupies a strange place between the typic vehicular tfs, and the insecticons. This is because she has a helicopter alt mode, and her robot mode is just, a lady with spider characteristics. And, more than just a passing bug like similarity, she has the power to control the insecticons (you know, cause evil woman mind control). However, she doesn't fit in with them either, as the insecticons are at the most insect like they've ever been, in look, living in hives and that most don't even speak.

They may vary in exact character, relationship to the story's moral conflict, and design. But they stay comfortably established, dimorphised, flirty and flirting with villainy. And bonus points, always, for black widow spider trope.

SO. SPIDERS. Established: ✅️ Gendered designs: ✅️ (Extremely!) Unique: ✅️ Othered: ✅️ Villainy: ✅️

Motorcycles

Tooooo my knowledge the first bike lady was in 2004, and fairly minor, in the actual plot, but rest assured, they did go the previously established woman route, by being pink, though, which one shes named after varies by language. But neither were previously motorcycles. (And yes, there is also this problem of mixing together or swapping out one woman tf for another. As if we have the ladies to spare). Even though motorcycle men also exist, this one just stuck for a bit. Maybe something to do with Those Movies. I think the Gendered Existence of a motorcycle is pretty evident though, general sex appeal, being smaller, the mode of riding a motorcycle is different, more physical and intimate. Mainly this ranks so high for the level of grossness they can pack in. Just how objectifying it can be, particularly with two instances where the human rider is an annoying teen boy. Naturally, I've also never seen a male and female motorcycle in the same room, but the approach to design tends to be different. And yeah most of em are Arcee, who's first alt mode was cyber car, but it's not just her.

Established: ✅️ Gendered designs: ✅️ Unique: ✅️ Othered: Depends on iteration, I do NOT like the way one gets called "tough, for a two wheeler". Villainy: ❌(they wouldn't need to be motorcycles if they weren't making them the Special Girl Autobot, after all)

Flying

General: It just tends to stick out when your one girl is only flyer in the group, even she's otherwise tactfully done. Only flyer of the Maximals, a falcon, only flyer of the dinobots, a Pteranodon.

Rotors

I can barely even figure this one. Maybe it's just a general, aesthetics and use case of the actually vehicles, the associations? None of these ladies (and special case) are very connected otherwise. As previously mentioned, the spider helicopter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A big one for this is the preschool demo shows, which are rescue team focused. In the first one the only woman on the human response worker team pairs with the helicopter, they mention she does medical at times. The helicopter is male, like the other tfs. But also he's afraid of flying, and while not the first case of a flyer with a fear of heights, their personalities are, pretty different. As he's both fearful AND effeminate, fine as character traits go but, with the tone of humour used, marks him as Other.

In the second, Whirl (pointing to icon) becomes a girl for the first time, now with standard humanized face. I assume as move to keep with the previous show of having a girl one, as there's no human team mates. She's also the only one who really likes rescue school. Aaaand that's all know of her. What more do you want from me.

Helicopters: Unique: ✅️ Othered: ✅️ (milder than some)

But why'd I call this section rotors instead of helicopters? That would be because one of the latest Sole Female TF we just put in everything™ is a VTOL jet with rotors. She'll tend to be the only jet of her type, which is also smaller than the type of jet used for the villains.

And, of course, aside from alt mode, the thing that makes her stand out most in the cartoons? That she's very clearly a comics character. (I find the emphasize that she's "fan created" over done, as it only controlled minor aspects, and irrelevant cause tfs get completely overhauled in new versions all the time). From her design, which is a bit busier than most characters she stars with. And also uses Japanese aesthetic signifiers in ways that I think are a bit misappropriated and untactful. (VERY USamerican comics). Also, when she stars next to a guy, also from comics employing Japanese aesthetic, you can tell its not deployed in the same manner. (E.I she has hair and makeup, he has armor). Either way, her depictions have her either as badass sword lady on mission from god who's constantly getting hit on by an annoying guy. Or have her be from a different planet and has special telepathy.

Do we see how both her gender AND the cultural signifiers are having affects here? That the main woman tf in a series can be a literal alien even among our alien robots, with cultural signifiers they don't have?

Ratings Established: ✅️ (made the comics to cartoon jump) Gendered designs: ✅️ Unique: ✅️ Othered: ✅️ (SO SO EXTREMELY, using methods in fiction and real life)

Jets

I think my association of jets with tf gender is stronger, than some of the above examples, even if there's less reason to it. And why is that? Well, lets get socratic. Here's another question.

Is This All Starscream's Fault?

No. He's not real, he can't do things. But. His legacy as THE main stay transformers character that gets to subvert gender? Yeah. (Sure, the G1 autobots have their own effete, but he's not in every single cartoon they ever made now is he? Plus now that I think about it, he is a FLYING car...)

From the get, he's not a Man's man. He's shrill, he's manipulative and duplicitous, petty and emotional, cowardly and wheedling. He is, of course, the Perfect character. Now naturally, the 80s cartoon was not concerned with your paltry logics. Starscream and his ilk are the jets, but every decepticon can fly. The gun, the cassette player, the camera, the cassettes.

And each to a last, more masculine than he is. Vocally or behaviorally, physically. Every one of them fit the gender expectations more than he does. Even being a small time grunt, is a masculine trait, after all, more so than unchecked ambition. So its not femininity from flying, from jets. But direct relationship, reference, and descendancy from Starscream that makes it. I've yet to see female versions of Jet fire and or the aerialbots, for example.

So what to do when an effeminate male villain was less maltese falcon and more that man has effeminate hips? Well. We had to start getting his ass for being effeminate, explicitly. They made the female clone of him, which yeah, is an offensive joke stemming from the various The Gender Anxieties. (Transmisogyny, homophobia and sexism. General relation toxic masculinity. A heady mix of all and more).

But I mean. It's free girl tf... Once given a name in extra canon materials, she start's showing up in other things. Once you're in books, video games, comics, and most importantly, toys, you're real. And then eventually, her first non clone appearance in a cartoon, and how her presence shaped it.

That being, Cyberverse. Which is a cgi show, you need to know this for reasons of production. Making new models is expensive. This has always been the reason you just make recolours of Starscream and name them different things. Chicken or egg on this one, I don't know, But because CV has Slipstream, and the only difference between her and the generic "male" decepticon jet, is a more feminine face; Suddenly, any random decepticon goon can be a woman.

An absolutely revolutionary take for striving to populate a fictional world with gender parity. By at large it also means they're way more lady villains, and specifically flying model of villain. The show has other woman, but none who get the same androgynous body mold treatment.

Established: ✅️ Gendered designs: Mildly to NO. Unique: By design, no. Othered: Yes for the clone, and Screamer himself, I suppose. No, otherwise. Villainy: ✅️(That's, the whole idea)

Tanks

It needs to be said. Sometimes, when doing things that transgress a norm, anteing up is less subversive. This is another reason why gender variance, female agency and overt sexuality are more common traits of villains. When already defying strictures of society. What's one more.

That's Right. TANKS ARE THE BUTCH WOMAN OF TRANSFORMERS.

Alright. Let me back up. Strika is the stone cold knock out undefeated champ of lady tf designs that, actually has a reoccurring cartoon presence. She is, admittedly, only a reoccurring to minor character.

Her introduction is in another show with techno-organics, this one involved in the struggle between well, the techno and the organic. Strika as we see her, and as the design that will go on to be iterated, is not in her normal transformer body. She has been transferred into a 'vehicon' body. Without a preexisting essence contained in one, vehicons are not considered alive, in the way a transformer is. Visually, they lack the more human body plan, a standard face, feet and hand like appendages.

To further contrast Strika against the two techno-organic woman. Both of them are tall, and slender. Their softer organic shapes designed towards elegance or beauty, whatever your subjective opinion of that result might be. They both have romance subplots too. By the way. Or honestly one subplot and one main plot. Strika. In contrast. Is built like a brick shit house. Her face is. Minimal. And her goal: protecting her planet... by terminating the heroes.

Now, existing as a character that can be referenced for other media, and given the detail that she was a "Famous general", it's off to the races. She makes a wonderful big tank menace that can fill out a background shot, too.

Without her I hardly think we could have Clobber, also from CV. Who is. The true goat. The finest thing, the achievements of all we could ever hope for. A big fuck off woman, gender swapped from a previous male design with minimal faff, with now even more personality and show presence. Friends, wants, desires. Emotions. Thank God for Clobber, Thank Clobber for Clobber. Thank Randolph Heard and Mae Catt for Clobber.

Established: Depends if you want to count that Strika had so much swag they kept drawing/modeling her Gendered designs: FUCK NO Unique: ✅️ Othered: only originally Villainy: ✅️

Cars

So now you have the final piece of the puzzle. In transformers, Autobots are Cars. Yes, there are plenty of autobots that are NOT cars, and there are cars that are not Autobots. But they're exceptions, they're aberrances. They're unique. And Autobots are the norm. They oppose the Decepticons. Decepticons are Villains. And Decepticons can fly. Modal simplified binaries and false dichotomy abound!

And the thing about those original Autobot woman, the one's who largely did not influence all of this? They were cars, it's true, but not like how the men where cars. They've not been designed from transforming car toys, with a shellac of humanoid gender over top. Their designed in the way of human gender. With the car on top.

When the preexisting clause leads to the original designs to be revisited, which, has largely only happened in more recent years. They aren't car woman robots. The cars are literally not part of their bodies, they are additional. Instead of a unifying identity of a robot who is a car, its Arcee and her backpack. Parts of cars get grafted onto their petite lady bodies, and placed anywhere out of the way.

In order to make a transformer a woman, they have to give her a gender, not understanding that that's always been the case. And to give her a woman's gender, she's got to LOOK like a woman, not a transformer. And to look like a woman, she's got to act like a woman. She must be heroic but reactive instead of active, or else, villainous, conniving and or self centered. To be a woman, we must have some other previous woman to explain her presence, or else explain it anew with her unique, strange, or exotic origin. How could she ever be a woman if she simply, existed, looked average, talked average. How could she be a woman if her body is hunks of ungendered car. How can she be a woman if she's everything we expect a transformer to be.

A woman is transgressive, a woman is not normal. Autobots are normal. Autobots are heros. Autobots are men. And Autobots do not fly.

[zymstarz]

yeah sure that's how i'll [re]come out

[seneon]

hihi i’ve come with a gift

i don’t feel like i got your face right but i used ur insta for reference 😓

i js did unscarred toya bc rockstar au why not

elle i i ellie i e

[volivolition]

has anyone considered the fact that im the most tired boy in the world.

[dan-whoell]

what are some phancoded songs?

@fryday has covered this a ton recently, but some I doubt anyone else will say:

How Far This Can Go by Bowling for Soup. The chorus??

Let’s take it fast to slow Hold our breath and jump into whatever this is Grab a coat and let it all rain down If we never stop believing, it’s gonna be alright But if we don’t try, we may never know How far this can go

It's very early days, but also every adventure they've had??? Like even as recent as resurrecting the gaming channel, if they hadn't taken the chance on doing that we might not be in the middle of whatever the phagenda is now. I also think about Dan being 18 and still not having coming to terms with his own sexuality, but still jumping into whatever was going to happen with Phil.

By the time the curtain's falling There'll be standing under and screaming out our names Can’t you hear the future calling Will go all the way and never be the same, yeah

I mean. Self explanatory. Makes me cry to think about everything they've built. And I love the love the audience has for them. I can't think about it too long or I end up a pile of goo.

Come Monday by Jimmy Buffett. I grew up listening to this man, I've done a list of some favorites. But this one specifically gives me dnp vibes.

Come Monday, it'll be all right Come Monday, I'll be holding you tight I spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze And I just want you back by my side

Again, I think about them in the early days, hanging on every visit and always trying to get back to their bubble together. But also Dan on tour. I wish I could remember who it was that made a post about why now as far as a potential rebrand/launching so hard into joint content again, and the tldr was after wad, Dan coming back and and being like 'Okay. I've done it solo, and I've realized I don't want to do this without you.' And that's the same vibes I get with this song. Being away from each other sucks, and I just want you back by my side.

I can't help it, honey You're that much a part of me now Remember that night in Montana when We said there'd be no room for doubt?

You know. Their lives are so intertwined. Phil literally said our life. They own a house together. They have their own fucking language. They know each other so well. I've said it before but although I don't believe in soulmates, they are the exception to the rule. As for the second half... I mean. Early days. Jump in. See how far this can go.

I hope you're enjoyin' the scenery I know that it's pretty up there We can go hiking on Tuesday With you I'd walk anywhere

It's the idea that everything they've done for 15 years, and everything they will do, they'll do it together. In the sense of a joint endeavour, or just supporting one another in solo projects. Them doing shit they'd never normally do on their own, but they have their soulmate by their side so how bad could it be?

(This one is depressing so apologies in advance)

Haunted by Spanish Love Songs. Sort of a Phil perspective on Dan's struggle with depression.

You're not haunted You just miss everything You're not a cautionary tale So don't you vanish on me

And you're not haunted It's just the devil in your skin It'll be this bleak forever But it is a way to live You're not alone You just miss everything When you're feeling like a ghost Would you come haunt me? Please come haunt me

I'm not gonna say a lot here, but I know what it's like to love someone so fiercely and be heartbroken that they cannot see themselves for who they are. I've also been the person who can't see it. I think a lot about Phil always being there for Dan, and I'd love to hear him talk about the experience of love in those situations. (And if he never does I totally get it, it's private and it's not really our business. Just from a relatability standpoint.)

This is in the same vein but Washington Square Park by The Wonder Years, specifically this:

She said, “I let this slide when we were younger You know you don’t have to write like this The whole world’s full of losers If you get a chance to win, (you should) take it!”

Like. Phil always trying to get Dan in colors. Dan face down on the floor and Phil being there to pick him up and distract him. I love a love song as much as the next guy but this is my bread and butter.

To end on a happier-ish note, Love Will Keep Us Alive by The Eagles.

I was standing, all alone against the world outside You were searching for a place to hide Lost and lonely, now you've given me the will to survive When we're hungry, love will keep us alive

Early days??? Phil being the first person that made Dan feel safe??

Don't you worry Sometimes you've just got to let it ride The world is changing Right before your eyes

Coming out??? Meeting so many queer fans on tour and that being a push to come out themselves?? HELLO??

Now I've found you There's no more emptiness inside When we're hungry, love will keep us alive

I think about the state of things now, how fucking happy they've been since coming back. How different it feels from when they started. There's always been laughs, always been fun, but there is so much joy now. I'm sure I've said it but personally my heart feels so fucking full when I see how far they've come. When I see what they've built for themselves.

Anyway I could go on and on about songs that make me think about dnp, especially stuff that's not top 40's pop or is 30+ years old, but I think I've yapped enough on this particular post.

[synthshenanigans]

Man its hard to have a second favorite when they're all insanely good augh

[simmyfrobby]

I love your posts and I read a lot of poetry, do you have any recommendations? Like anthologies, authors, etc?

Hi!! Yes!! Of course!!

If you read a lot of poetry and are on Tumblr I'm assuming you've already read Louise Glück, Richard Siken, Jack Gilbert, Danez Smith, Kaveh Akbar, Ada Limón, Anne Carson and Mary Oliver. There's a lot of their poems circulating on here, so I'll try to rec poets I've not seen as much of.

In no particular order:

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER Carl Philips, Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020

Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces

Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic

Paige Lewis, Space Struck

Wisława Szymborska, Monologue of a Dog

Hanif Abdurraqib, A Little Devil in America

Craig Santos Perez, Habitat Threshold

I've also really loved Anna Akhmatova's poems, but haven't read a full collection of hers. I'd recommend reading The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry edited by Ilya Kaminsky & Susan Harris, which features some of her work.

If you're just looking for a good way to discover poets you might like, check out the various collections posted by the editors on poetryfoundation.org. I like this one in particular.

And finally, not a poet, but one of my all time favourite theorists and a speech I keep coming back to: Judith Butler's talk on rage and grief. It's only about 10 minutes long and it might just be my favourite thing in the whole entire world.