this is something i have been thinking about basically since i got back into fandom and it feels especially relevant right now with some of the posts i've seen floating around
something that's very common to hear in fandom is "there's no ______ explanation for this" (fill in the blank with straight, normal, platonic, non-sexual, etc) and i get it, we're all guilty of it, i do it all the time, i think it's part of the fun of fandom is having a space to go insane about something and that's fine!
but i think it's also really really important to remember that there is literally endless ways to interpret something because no two human beings are the same, and the same thing can mean different things to different people
let's use me as an example. in my last relationship with my ex, we would regularly tell each other that we loved each other and wanted to spend our lives together and in that context, it was a very romantic sentiment. however, in my current relationship, we tell each other constantly that we love each other and we want to spend our lives together and there's not a single ounce of romanticism in either of us, because neither of us want or express romance to each other. most of my friends are convinced we're boyfriend/girlfriend, because to them our relationship WOULD be dating, but that doesn't mean we are
the same can be said about fandom. you can take a scene that is VERY romance heavy and one person might genuinely see that as a sexual expression, and someone else might genuinely see it as a platonic expression, and someone else might genuinely see it as a hateful expression, and i think it's really really important to remember that all of these takes are valid.
there's no one right or wrong way to interact with fandom (unless you're deliberately being harmful and hateful towards the characters and the community at large but that's a different topic of conversation) and i think people get really hung up on their takes and headcanons and forget that there's always going to be endless ways of interpreting fiction and that other interpretations are just as valid.
and this isn't to say you can't go insane about your blorbos or ships and you can't say they're obviously in love or whatever, because that's half the fun of fandom!! i just really wish people would realize that, no, there are actually multiple ways to view that scene or relationship and that's entirely valid
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People against piracy fail to realize that no, I can’t just ‘buy it.’ They stopped making DVDs and Blu-Rays. They’re barely offering digital copies for download. I am not spending money I could use for food or bills to pay for a subscription service just so I can always have access to a beloved piece of media. Especially not when the service will remove media on a whim without concern for how the loss of access to that piece will make its artistic conservation nigh impossible.
For example, I recently learned that Disney+ had an original film called Crater. It’s scifi, family friendly, and seems cool - I would love to buy it as a holiday gift for my little brother! But: it’s exclusive to D+ and THEY REMOVED IT LITERALLY MONTHS AFTER ITS RELEASE.
The ONLY way I can directly access this film is through piracy. The ONLY available ‘copies’ of this film are hosted on piracy websites. Disney will NEVER release it in theaters, or as something to buy, and it may NEVER return to the streaming service. It will be LOST because we aren’t allowed to purchase it for personal viewing. If I can’t pay to own it, I won’t pay for the privilege of losing it when corporate decides to put it in a vault.
So yes, I’m going to pirate and support piracy.
Edit: if you are able, use $5 you would otherwise use for a streaming subscription to donate to a GazaFunds campaign.
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people will hear you talk about struggling with mental illness and say “you can do anything if you just put your mind to it”. brother what part of the body does the mental illness happen in. what do you think is the problem
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lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)
if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.
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no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.
I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.
I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.
If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.
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[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled "immortality” after the poem by clare harner (more popularly known as “do not stand at my grave and weep”). the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]
a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”
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had a fucking hilarious dream that tumblr replaced the "block" function with the far funnier "glock" function, which did the exact same thing except whenever anyone blocked you a random bullet hole, like a png of a bullet hole, would appear on your blog. discourse blogs were unreadable bc you'd go to the page and the sheer amount of bullet hole pngs stacked over the blogs obscured everything. I woke myself up laughing
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