#this post is a social experiment...

[waffleboyy]

Hazel loves to fidget and has a chew necklace , that's what that top one is lol

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The Yiling Band Tour!

[lykoiii]

but it's a necessary evil

[chamerionwrites]

Need to invent a word for the specific unpleasant experience that is (1) someone making the assumption that you are one of The Ingroup (2) and, therefore, a safe person for them to vent their most absolutely rancid opinions to while expecting zero pushback

[bertoyana]

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (2011) dir. MATTHEW VAUGHN

+bonus. erik looking up and down at charles and charles looking smug as hell. which could mean nothing.

[xitsensunmoon]

My first ever comic con! And first cosplay too. Of course it's gonna be my boy :] Ramblings about the process are under the cut(Let me know if?? You would want me to elaborate with process images for any of the steps?)

The costume took me forever to make, as I've never done any machine sewing, sculpting, fabric dying or spray painting before but learning all of these was so fucking fun!! I never realised just how many different skills go into making a cosplay but it was so worth it!!!

Almost all of the clothes(except the hat) were purchased first as bases, but all of the detailing was added by me. All of the fabric used was originally just scraps that I was given for free so I needed to learn how to dye and dye all of the stars, they were originally white.

The sewing machine was its own beast that brought me tons of frustration from the lack of skill and knowledge (it was devastating to find out that 95% of fuck ups were my fault and not the machine's lmao). But as a result, a hat sewn from scratch, all of the fur trims, embroidery on the corset, stars and the collar(which is very hard to see on the pictures unfortunately) was all added manually. The stars and the stripes(on the back of the cape) were attached using heat-and-bond adhesive (I WISH I knew about such thing just when I started working on this. It would save me so much time and nerves.)

Then I found out about polymorph(mouldable plastic) and it has become the next thing I wanted to learn, to sculpt the claws and the fangs(yes, they're handmade jfksjs). The claws I then primed and painted in trillion coats because I wasn't satisfied with the colour of the spray paint. The fangs I moulded to my own teeth and then stained with tea to match the colour of my teeth :)c

As for makeup, I used Mehron Paradise water activated paints. At first I wanted to try to save money and bought myself Snazaroo instead, which unfortunately turned out to be a waste. Snazaroo didn't hold on my face for longer than 2 hours, cracking and peeling awfully. Mehron on the other hand survived 11 hours of me smiling, talking, emoting and such and didn't even crease at the smile lines(I'm actually shocked about that). It obviously works like any other makeup which means your skin texture and wrinkles won't go anywhere but Mehron's elasticity pleasantly surprised me. It did obviously smear from sweat and saliva(if you're eating and licking your lips) but if you don't touch the skin it just dries again, self setting. But if it's dry it's fully smear-proof. Highly recommend!

And last but not least, I've decided against painting my hands as it was very risky that I will stain everything I touch at the smallest hint of sweat. So instead I got myself gloves-tights(? Not sure how they're called but it's made from the same fabric as tights) and painted them with normal acrylic paint(did you know you could dye fabric with acrylic paint? I personally didn't), then heat set with an iron and voilà, they're reusable, my hands are not stained after an exhausting day and I don't stain everything I touch. It worked wonderfully which honestly was a surprise as I was really sceptical that acrylic paint will somehow stay in place.

I think this whole thing took me minimum of 6 months with big-big breaks for my school and life in general. But I'm really proud! This project taught me so many new skills and I couldn't have been happier about learning new knowledge, even if it sucked to fail in the meantime.

Everyone at the con was really nice and gave me a large confidence boost even tho it was my first time and I had no idea what I was doing. Taking photos with other people was really awkward/new for me as I hate cameras so I really had no idea how to pose/behave in front of one. But that's okay I think. This whole experience definitely made me want to do this again, so I think that will come with experience. Thank you for reading this far, hope you enjoyed this little summary :)

[spellboundcities]

firefight

[fumifooms]

I don’t like minimizing the importance and gravity of Laios and Toshiro’s fight into just being a childish squabble, even if to a degree it is framed that way, because to both of them it has a lot of personal significance and emotional weight and runs very deep to their characters… The fight isn’t nothing it’s a LOT, they made up but it’s not something easy to express and to get over for either of them which makes it all the more meaningful! I’m on both sides but there very much are sides, there’s no "they’re both having a ball, Toshiro and Laios hand in hand yay" side to the fight, that comes after

The fight with Toshiro WAS very scary to Laios, almost existentially so, but it’s moreso the "I thought I’d made a friend!!" bit and my god. My god actually

Like it’s not "just" about oh his friend liking him less than he thought, THAT IS SO MUCH. It’s a bond he thought he had being a lie it’s all the time and moments spent together either being a lie from his perspective or marred now looking back. It’s not only being upset at Toshiro for lying but upset at himself that he’s so easy to fool, it’s being upset that there’s something so wrong with you that you can’t even tell if your "close buddy" even actually likes you or not, it’s like. Holding my head. He can’t trust his own vision of events that happened do you see. There’s always this film of distrust that it could be a lie that should be there when he interacts with people there’s always this sense of cloak and dagger to expect backstabs out of nowhere because you CAN’T see it coming you CAN’T you CAN’T there’s something about you which makes it impossible so you CAN’T-

He’s so scared of not being able to read people. He knows it’s a weak spot he has, he’s always known. All of these bits are centered around social expectations and betrayals, the assumption that he doesn’t belong either in society or with other humans.

And Laios’ level of awareness is actually sort of complex to analyze, but it’s there, there’s how out of him and Falin he was the one sensitive to the ~aura of hatred~ he felt from the townspeople, there’s of course his nightmares whispering to him about the mocking looks, and how yeah actually he realizes that his gold stripper coworker was taking advantage of him. There’s of course the Winged Lion speech about his trauma and how he fundamentally mistrusts/dislikes humans to some deep seated degree, this distrust that he still keeps under control always. There’s how pre-canon he often wanted to suggest eating monsters but never worked up the courage to bring it up with the others. There’s how he comes across as stoic when he isn’t being enthusiastic…… We don’t know how aware and wary he is exactly in the moment but we do know he has some anxiety around social stuff, and looking back he does notice and aughh augh, the sense you have to hide yourself to not get hurt, and be on your guard and shit and.

When you don’t know what to look out for and when to look out for it, the general ‘common sense’ of not always trusting people or noticing when someone’s messing with you becomes hypervigilance in social settings

"Man they really know what you hate huh." Being socially unaware literally plagues him, he knows, he knows it so well.

It’s so quick that it’s almost hard to digest how literal and blatant Laios summoning his monster to crush all the people who’ve hurt him is. His literal go-to coping mechanism for comfort in his literal monster-induced emotionally intense nightmare, saving him by taking away the upsetting element (the humans)

"Monsters are his coping fantasy, where they can whisk him away from humanity, all the hurt it’s caused him and its arbitrary rules" with the subtlety of a brick. Monsters are his comfort safe zone "because they kill humans" yes but no it’s because he pits them as the guardians against humans who to him are in the role of the agressors. To him they represent freedom from the shackles of what it means to be part of humanity, a fundamentally social species

[hydrachea]

I've been thinking about it for a while, but the Mihoyo games fandoms are... Really less than courteous when it comes to spoilers.

I'm a loyal consumer of leaks myself, but I swear the fandom at large acts like everyone is - and not just is, but apparently should be.

There's been fanart in the HSR fandom regarding a certain character and a certain boss' relationship for weeks when not even the 3.1 main mission has touched upon it - because it comes from leaks regarding the future of the story. With the change in Genshin drip marketing schedule, it's quite literally impossible to find out who the new characters are officially because they're leaked at least a week prior and fanart (of course, untagged) starts flooding social media. There were also edits of the new 5.4 CGs everywhere as soon as the preload hit the servers, spoiling essentially everyone who wanted to wait for the version to, you know, actually be out.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but it makes for a very poor fandom experience when everyone acts like you're expected to follow leaks or you're the one responsible for getting things spoiled for you. It costs absolutely nothing to tag your leak-inspired or preload-datamined stuff as spoilers.

[dayas]

This post contains spoilers for Wicked (2024) and the Broadway musical!

A word on Cynthia Erivo’s performance as Elphaba in Wicked: Phenomenal.

In regards to the critique that she plays her too timidly: in my opinion, she plays her exactly as she is meant to be played. Watching Elphaba navigate Shiz University was so clearly a parallel to how Black women have to operate in Predominantly White spaces. Every single time her powers went out of whack, she was labeled as dangerous, and at the end, the Wizard and Madame Morrible immediately painted her out to be monstrous, vicious, and angry. Seeing her poster produced a visceral reaction in me — not because it was terrifying, but because it reminded me of those old fashioned racist posters 💀 which! Isn’t a bad thing, I think it speaks to the larger message of making Elphaba out to be the Wicked Witch, despite her only crimes at that point (that we know about) being attempted Animal Liberation and further Civil Rights movements. To me, watching Elphaba at Shiz was watching another Black woman try to fit in despite knowing she will never truly be like those around her, and to not draw any more of their ire and to not fly off the handle and be labeled as ‘angry’ or further outcast. When she sings I’m Not That Girl, it hits harder having been in that position and truly understanding what it means to not be desired or considered pretty or beautiful by anyone around you while your friends are. Honestly, it adds more in my opinion. I think Cynthia Erivo’s performance carried an excellent nuance that speaks specifically to Black women and our experiences. While it is perfectly okay to have a differing opinion, it would be a major disservice to overlook that very intentional lens painted by the film. As many have noted, having Elphaba be played by a Black woman adds so much depth to the character. It also shifts and adjusts how she presents herself when her Broadway and Book counterpart may be considered bolder (which begets a whole other essay on White Women, oppression Olympics politics, and needing elements of Whiteness to appear in oppressive narratives for the sake of ‘relatability’ despite them coming off, in my opinion, more disingenuous than not). All of this to say: Elphaba is still fierce in her own right. She stands up for herself, sets her own terms, but she does so within the realm of what is socially acceptable for a reason. I’m gonna need y’all to think a little more critically ❤️

[weatherera]

Some sketchbook pieces from August and September

[thankstothe]

[choodraws]

I JUST ORDERED SOME OF YOUR STICKERS AND THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY GLORIOUS

I’ve been following you for so many years on this blog and I adore your work so much. Now I have little stickers to caress lightly and put on all my notebooks and scare/confuse my relatives with 🥲 Thank you, keep shining xxx

thank you so much! i really appreciate it, i love hearing about and seeing what people have been putting my stickers on! 😭💖 i hope they continue to be a fun addition to your stuff and confusing to your relatives.

[anistarrose]

"sex and love are what make us human" well luckily for your pathetically limited worldview, i don't actually mind roleplaying as an elf. fetch me my ancient and gnarled magical staff, boy

[ztrashblog]

not hot enough for tiktok fame

not naked enough for insta thirst

not mean enough for twitter clout

not cool enough for tumblr legacy

not nice enough to be loved IRL

stuck in a liminal space between aesthetics and irrelevance.

Fed go the algorithm like digital roadkill

posting anyway tho !! RAWR XP

[ronnierosest]

Zakkura "So he never initiates, never asks, and waits." - inspired by a fanfiction we're friends, right? (very adult) by totosheadset