#the hair is great but... challenging

[kiki-eng]

Please enjoy this poor drawing of Dan gazing adoringly at Phil, confused muppet with birthday cake.

[shepscapades]

69. BIG SHOT — Jhariah

I need to know if someone out there's listening How come they don't ever call back to me? Will I ever know you're close or die waiting for your attention? Big shot, think you're a big shot I think you're raveled up in a tangle of did-nots You're always just a bit shy, following behind I think you've spent enough time singing the same lines

UGHHH I'm gonna start biting and tearing fhfjsbfjendfh Every single Jhariah song on Android 24's playlist (on any of the dbhc playlists, honestly) just devastates me /pos. Jhariah's music is so raw and powerful and desperate; there's truly nothing else like it, and it's so so perfect for 24. I'm so excited to draw to more Jhariah in the future >:3 but for now, take my absolute insanity about 24 and how he views himself and Xisuma :-) <in pain

[buggybadhabits]

Grove variety !

[xoxovanillq]

Art Donaldson is the kinda guy to chew on your hair while you guys sleep, or while you’re cuddling. He doesn’t know how it happened, your hair just ended up in his mouth, so he starts to chew and suck. You feel the tugging on your hair, but when you look over and see how content your boyfriend is, you decide its fine.

He starts chewing on his pillow when he sleeps alone soon after.

[arthur-lesters-spinal-cord]

To simulate the burning of the heart -Patrizia Cavalli

I learnt how to make a zine a few days ago and decided to do make one of Noel with the words of one of my favourite poems, which i think fits him rather well.

[cain-e-brookman]

Hey y'all, @creatingblackcharacters has created a challenge for Black History Month and I thought I'd share my entry. I'd like to tag @topazadine @illarian-rambling @mx-ryder and @spideronthesun for the challenge as well!

Uthyr is the main character of my current WIP: The Name, Witch. His is a story of healing, of putting down shame, and of being true to the spirit of what created you, no matter how the world wants you to bend. This is a scene that takes place about 10 years before we meet him in this same garden. Uthyr's greatest victory is always against despair. Uthyr's strength is in his conviction to himself, the culture and virtues that were passed onto him, and his love for the world around him. In my writing, I want my Black audience to see their own resilience in Uthyr. I want to highlight Black men in roles that are softer, but no less strong.

I also sincerely hope that this book can be a long shout out to my Black autistic sibs who are also obsessed with bugs, amphibians, and/or reptiles. I gave my hyperfixation to Uthyr, and I hope you feel seen with it as well. As I said in the comments to a very needed check, joy is just as important as resiliency, and I hope you find as much happiness as Uthyr does in with cold little buddies!

---

perhaps on the crest of each stiff blade of grass hangs the eternal name of someone who was once loved but is now vanished and just another name in an endless field of names that is newly remembered with each return trip of the eager nose...

-Hanif Abdurraqib from "The Crown Ain't Worth Much

The hydrangea bush to the north of his house was the first thing Uthyr put into the soil in his soon-to-be garden. An old witch tradition. The color of the flowers changed with the humors of the soil. Uthyr didn’t know which color he hoped for, just that it grew to be strong. He hoped the plant would grant him the same blessing.

The last thirty-some years of Uthyr’s life had left behind the cooled pyres of his family, and the last two since the death of his mother had left him adrift. The first, a long year where he’d traveled to nowhere in particular, stayed where he found place to stay, and searched desperately for a purpose. At the end of that long year, he realized, exuberantly, there was none. No end to rush to, no greater deed to be done. He would not be rewarded for suffering, would not reach some peak where it became all worth it. He would not find a purpose, nor would he make his own. He would, instead, simply live. Live brightly, now. Live fearlessly, now. He didn't know where he would go, but he knew where he would start.

He practiced his healing for the first time since his father died. A young girl had taken a fall in the small town in which he was staying. He'd gone to her without a thought, placed his hands around the break, and reached out where he knew the magic still laid. The feel of bone knitting beneath his fingers nearly had him in tears. He could hear his father’s warm, heavy voice as he worked:

Bone remembers its home, just not the way back. Remind it gently, and its journey will be painless.

The little girl hadn’t even cried. He’d pulled a dandelion seed that had stuck itself on his cloak and grew it into a miniature sun before placing it behind her ear for bravery. The Sun Goddess rarely answered his beckons for fire, and his stubbornness never won out over the Stone’s, but neither skill brought about the smiles of gratitude he’d seen in all his time healing. He wished it hadn’t taken him so long to appreciate that part of himself, that part of his father’s influence.

Then, after a long while of fighting with his own head, he finally chose himself. Two weeks in a temple to the God of the Golden Moon saw him leaving behind the word “daughter,” to be replaced with a name that held responsibility to no one but himself. Uthyr of the Asphodels, First of His Name. His mother’s now held nothing a burden of failure on his shoulders. He could have been better for her. Should have been better. But he could not make the dead proud, so he cast off the guilt. It no longer served either of them. 

He changed his hair. Spent a long day removing neat rows of braids from his head, combing and washing then rolling his hair like he’d seen his uncle do so many times. At the end of it all, he had sore arms and a deep satisfaction. The start of those locs still stuck oddly from his head in their awkward stage.

“Ugly stage,” his mother used to tease Uncle Callum when they recounted stories of their youth. His uncle would always raise an eyebrow and inform her in no uncertain terms that he’d never been ugly a day in his life. Uthyr planted snapdragons by his window for them both; their favorites. Yellow for his mom. Purple for his uncle. The seeds had been expensive for the paltry savings he’d kept from his brief stint of odd-job healing around the surrounding towns, but the memory of the two exchanging plants on their shared birthday had Uthyr lightening his coin purse without a second thought.

He continued with a few more plots around his house. A smattering of pansies for color, some herbs for healing, then some more for cooking… 

A single row of daffodils by his doorway. For his father. His birthday would be soon. Uthyr would cut one and light a candle. Pray the Death God pass on his love.

I’m alright, he’d tell his father. It’s hard and I’m tired, but it’s alright. I’ve got good soil under my feet and good hands to dig.

The anemones he planted on the shaded side of his house were for himself, though. They were delicate things, but right now so was his heart and that needed just as much care. He’d stay strong for them and they’d do the same for him. Water and sunlight. The start, his uncle would say, to any life worth living. 

And hope, Uthyr thought. Half of it was always hope.

When Uthyr finished for the day the sun was drawing long shadows across the forest floor. All but his pansies would not see color or flower for a long while, but as Uthyr dusted soil off the dark skin of his hands and forearms, he could already see the future it held. He would get some roses. Maybe not this year. He needed to plant his vegetable garden first. Maybe splurge on a fruit sapling. Tonight he would sit in his mostly empty home, cook a small pot of soup with ingredients from a garden that wasn’t his, and plan recipes for when his own produce grew. But as for now, he felt the waking breath of spring on his face, the softness of the grass under his legs as he dug his toes into the cool earth below him. 

A tentative peace was forming in his chest, walking haltingly like a newly born fawn. He’d found a creek not far from where he sat. He wondered if the tadpoles had yet grown legs.

---

And now, my excited rambling: the title of the poem before the cut is Notes On Waiting for the Dog to Find the Perfect Place to Take a Shit While Morning Cuts Through the Sky, Fresh From Another Darkness, which is quite possibly one of Abdurraqib's best titles and also a wonderful poem. I saw When I Say Loving Me Is Like Being a Chicago Bulls Fan posted on facebook at one point and I've been in love with his poetry since. The way he weaves pain and hope with his anger and his love in a way that criticizes a society that doesn't value himself or people like him, while celebrating his identity is both masterful and cutting. Listen to the man and buy his books! His essay collection, A Little Devil in America: In Praise of Black Performance is going to be my read for my essay collection square for the 2025 book bingo, and I'm really excited to finally get to it!

[golden-girl-daisy]

It’s Ralph Wiggum attack time!

[thatonecrazysidekick]

Art trade with @annie-issilly! It was pretty fun to draw your OC--he's very green, so finding all the different marker shades was a journey loll

Here's him without the background:

[reineyday]

shanks, four years younger than mihawk, is usually granted the "starry-eyed crush on the cool older boy" trope (with good reason!), so i was thinking it'd be cute to grant that dubious pleasure to mihawk in an age swap au instead.

mihawk, scrappy nine year old, gets picked up by roger for a trip on the oro jackson to the next island (roger just wants to feed the kid lol), and gets sweet talked into it by dangling a duel with rayleigh, the current world's greatest swordsman, as bait. when mihawk gets there, rayleigh says mihawk has to be able to beat his apprentices first, and gets his ass summarily handed to him by a thirteen year old shanks, who both impresses and embarrasses mihawk, as shanks beats him without even trying but he's so cool when he does it.

and so mihawk declares himself shanks's rival, and when he wins, shanks will have to listen to a request. and years and years later, when mihawk finally does win, that request--which he's never changed his mind about--is permission to start formally courting shanks. charmed, and absolutely having seen this coming after years of observing an obvious crush and slowly warming up to it as mihawk grew and changed between their meetings, laughs and just kisses mihawk straight-up.

[moonfromearth]

~Anything you can do I can do better.~

Decided to spend waaaay too much time on @tricoufamily's Duo Challenge instead of writing. This was an awesome challenge and now I want to make a couple of scenes with these sims! 😆

[more info below!]

The Plot:

Half-siblings Dillon and Addy have spent their entire lives in competition with each other. The children of infamous crime leader, Leigh Caldwell, they've devoted themselves to earning her favor, and becoming criminals worthy of the Caldwell name (although they constantly fight over how to go about any mission they share).

Dynamic: Sibling Rivalry Genre: Crime

Sim 1 - Dillon Levin-Caldwell

Trait: Gloomy Hair Color: White Hair Length: Extra Long Extra: Long Face (did my best 😅)

Sim 2 - Addison "Addy" Diaz-Caldwell

Trait: Kind Hair Color: Unnatural Hair Length: Long Extra: Vitiligo

[thestressedsimmer]

In all fairness, it was mostly John IV's idea to make this day special for the women of the house. His wife was his soulmate through and through and he couldn't imagine letting another holiday go by without making it special. Especially since wives barely ever get proper appreciation.

He knew Isabella was still struggling with her fear of fire, so he was careful when he arranged the "picnic" area (a little bit of fruit hardly counts as a picnic) but overcoming it would be good for her.

She squealed with delight when she saw all of the rose petals. For someone usually subdued and introspective, it was amazing to see her so happy.

"My father knew what he was doing, betrothing me to you." Isabella said, after they had been laying in front of the warmth for a while in silence. Just basking in the glow of each other's presence.

"Wasn't it my sister's doing?"

"She put the idea in his head, of course, but I had many suitors. Some with more diplomatic advantages. But one thing about him was that he loved his family and wanted his girls in good houses. It was so important to him that he put it in his will."

"I remember."

"He said you would care for me and you have."

"I have the honor of being married to a princess. I had best live up to that honor."

"You have more than lived up to it, John. You have been faithful, you have been loyal, and you listen to me even when my worries seem inane. You haven't gotten angry with me for how long it has been since I had another child nor that I had a girl --"

"Deredere is my world, Isabella. We have time for an heir."

"There. Exactly my point. I have the most amazing husband in all of the world's kingdoms."

"I --"

"Hush and take the compliment." Isabella said, her tone turning stern.

"Yes, Princess."

"Good. Now I must ask, do my scars not bother you? I have healed well, but. . ."

"Your scars are barely even there. However, they show just how much of a warrior you actually are and make me admire you even more. Just like the stretch marks you fretted about for so long."

"John Comyn IV! There was no need to bring that up!"

"I am just saying," John said quickly, tone apologetic, "that you are the most beautiful woman in the world and no small scar would do anything to change my opinion."

Their hands intertwined as they fell to silence. Isabella just staring at her husband. Her wonderful, amazing husband. He put in so much work and spent such money to ensure she had a good Valentine's Day, she must do something to. . .

Ah. A woman's secret weapon.

"Now. How about we. . . spend some time together? See if it sticks this time?"

"You do not have to convince me to lay with you, Your Highness. My answer is always yes."

[goon-account]

born to be a grossnasty dyke who doesnt remove any body hair and doesnt shower. forced to shave a hand and forearm bc my joints fucking hate me and after daisy[headmate] typing too much too fast ereyesterday the wrist and thumb Still haven't stopped being hurty and they probably won't stop being hurty anytime soon if i don't stop using them exactly as usual with zero additional support

[callistos-posts]

30 Day Breadwinners Challenge

Day 4 — Fav pairings

I love them so much

[theshoegirldiaries]

A Year Of Shoes

Day 81/366 @irregularchoiceshoes 'The Great Gonzo’ from The Muppets collection back in October 2017.

[erin-gilberts]

The person with autism currently hyperfixating on Barbie was absolutely the correct person for my grandmother to ask to solve the mystery of what her childhood doll was. All she remembered about her was that 1) she wasn't a Barbie, because Barbies were expensive when there were eight kids at home, and 2) she remembered calling the doll Teresa, but was unsure if that was a brand name or just the personal name she gave the doll.

I said, "if we find the outfit, we'll find the doll" and I was right. This is a Tressy wearing her "Black Magic" outfit. My grandmother's sister on the left is holding a Tammy doll who appears to be wearing a Tressy "Sophisticated Lady" dress.

[cairdine]

In the past fifty years, fantasy’s greatest sin might be its creation of a bland, invariant, faux-Medieval European backdrop. The problem isn’t that every fantasy novel is set in the same place: pick a given book, and it probably deviates somehow. The problem is that the texture of this place gets everywhere.

What’s texture, specifically? Exactly what Elliot says: material culture. Social space. The textiles people use, the jobs they perform, the crops they harvest, the seasons they expect, even the way they construct their names. Fantasy writing doesn’t usually care much about these details, because it doesn’t usually care much about the little people – laborers, full-time mothers, sharecroppers, so on. (The last two books of Earthsea represent LeGuin’s remarkable attack on this tendency in her own writing.) So the fantasy writer defaults – fills in the tough details with the easiest available solution, and moves back to the world-saving, vengeance-seeking, intrigue-knotting narrative. Availability heuristics kick in, and we get another world of feudal serfs hunting deer and eating grains, of Western name constructions and Western social assumptions. (Husband and wife is not the universal historical norm for family structure, for instance.)

Defaulting is the root of a great many evils. Defaulting happens when we don’t think too much about something we write – a character description, a gender dynamic, a textile on display, the weave of the rug. Absent much thought, automaticity, the brain’s subsconscious autopilot, invokes the easiest available prototype – in the case of a gender dynamic, dad will read the paper, and mom will cut the protagonist’s hair. Or, in the case of worldbuilding, we default to the bland fantasy backdrop we know, and thereby reinforce it. It’s not done out of malice, but it’s still done.

The only way to fight this is by thinking about the little stuff. So: I was quite wrong. You do need to worldbuild pretty hard. Worldbuild against the grain, and worldbuild to challenge. Think about the little stuff. You don’t need to position every rain shadow and align every tectonic plate before you start your short story. But you do need to build a base of historical information that disrupts and overturns your implicit assumptions about how societies ‘ordinarily’ work, what they ‘ordinarily’ eat, who they ‘ordinarily’ sleep with. Remember that your slice of life experience is deeply atypical and selective, filtered through a particular culture with particular norms. If you stick to your easy automatic tendencies, you’ll produce sexist, racist writing – because our culture still has sexist, racist tendencies, tendencies we internalize, tendencies we can now even measure and quantify in a laboratory. And you’ll produce narrow writing, writing that generalizes a particular historical moment, its flavors and tongues, to a fantasy world that should be much broader and more varied. Don’t assume that the world you see around you, its structures and systems, is inevitable.

We... need worldbuilding by Seth Dickinson