the-pumpkin-qu33n - Tumblr blog

[the-pumpkin-qu33n]

[the-pumpkin-qu33n]

If widojest isn’t real then how come Liam-

[the-pumpkin-qu33n]

If widojest isn’t real then how come Liam-

[the-pumpkin-qu33n]

Hello,I just wanted to say that I absolutely love the logo design you and Angela McCain did for An Exandrian Musical (and the artwork there in general, for that matter), and I was hoping I could ask a couple of questions about it.I got myself a die cutter machine, and I'd really love to do a cut in vinyl of it. Would it be possible to get access to original files/high resolution of sorts to get the best quality in this?This is a two parter, as I would love it just for personal use, but I'm al

Aww thank you that's really nice to hear! I could see about getting you a high res version. Dm with the details!

[the-pumpkin-qu33n]

Just finished mocking up a new icon. I'm probably still gonna tweak it but this is where it is now and I'm fairly happy with it.

[the-pumpkin-qu33n]

I've been listening to the Steven Universe soundtrack a lot recently in anticipation for the movie (4 days!!) and when I listened to Love Like You today, instead of connecting it with all the tender su ships I normally do, my newly widojest-obsessed brain heard "if I could begin to be half of what you think of me, I could do about anything, I could even learn how to love", gasped, yelled "LOVE LIKE YOU IS A WIDOJEST SONG", and proceeded to go absolute apeshit

[the-pumpkin-qu33n]

Part one of my Critical Role tarot series! Caduceus as the death card.

[the-pumpkin-qu33n]

Breaking in Procreate with a new painting of my divination wizard, Ire.

[the-pumpkin-qu33n]

I think the Hunger Games series sits in a similar literary position to The Lord of the Rings, as a piece of literature (by a Catholic author) that sparked a whole new subgenre and then gets blamed for flaws that exist in the copycat books and aren’t actually part of the original.

Like, despite what parodies might say, Katniss is nowhere near the stereotypical “unqualified teenager chosen to lead a rebellion for no good reason”.  The entire point is that she’s not leading the rebellion. She’s a traumatized teenager who has emotional reactions to the horrors in her society, and is constantly being reined in by more experienced adults who have to tell her, “No, this is not how you fight the government, you are going to get people killed.” She’s not the upstart teenager showing the brainless adults what to do–she’s a teenager being manipulated by smarter and more experienced adults. She has no power in the rebellion except as a useful piece of propaganda, and the entire trilogy is her straining against that role. It’s much more realistic and far more nuanced than anyone who dismisses it as “stereotypical YA dystopian” gives it credit for.

And the misconceptions don’t end there. The Hunger Games has no “stereotypical YA love triangle”–yes, there are two potential love interests, but the romance is so not the point. There’s a war going on! Katniss has more important things to worry about than boys! The romance was never about her choosing between two hot boys–it’s about choosing between two diametrically opposed worldviews. Will she choose anger and war, or compassion and peace? Of course a trilogy filled with the horrors of war ends with her marriage to the peace-loving Peeta. Unlike some of the YA dystopian copycats, the romance here is part of the message, not just something to pacify readers who expect “hot love triangles” in their YA. 

The worldbuilding in the Hunger Games trilogy is simplistic and not realistic, but unlike some of her imitators, Collins does this because she has something to say, not because she’s cobbling together a grim and gritty dystopia that’s “similar to the Hunger Games”. The worldbuilding has an allegorical function, kept simple so we can see beyond it to what Collins is really saying–and it’s nothing so comforting as “we need to fight the evil people who are ruining society”. The Capitol’s not just the powerful, greedy bad guys–the Capitol is us, First World America, living in luxury while we ignore the problems of the rest of the world, and thinking of other nations largely in terms of what resources we can get from them. This simplistic world is a sparsely set stage that lets us explore the larger themes about exploitation and war and the horrors people will commit for the sake of their bread and circuses, meant to make us think deeper about what separates a hero from a villain.

There’s a reason these books became a literary phenomenon. There’s a reason that dozens upon dozens of authors attempted to imitate them. But these imitators can’t capture that same genius, largely because they’re trying to imitate the trappings of another book, and failing to capture the larger and more meaningful message underneath. Make a copy of a copy of a copy, and you’ll wind up with something far removed from the original masterpiece. But we shouldn’t make the mistake of blaming those flaws on the original work.

[the-pumpkin-qu33n]

[the-pumpkin-qu33n]

Barbie is ageless and unknowable. She exists beyond our feeble mortal conception of time. She always was, and she will always be.

[the-pumpkin-qu33n]

“Scholars of the brain are fond of saying “what fires together, wires together,” which refers to the brain’s tendency to form neural networks (pathways in the brain that form certain thought, feeling and behavioural responses) that become stronger and stronger every time they are used. Trauma theory holds that traumatized inviduals — and, I would hypothesis, queer and trans community as a whole — have well-worn neural networks shaped around the deeply held physical sensation that we are constantly in danger, that we are bad and unloveable, that others are untrustworthy and violent. Every time we are abused, discriminated against or neglected, those neural networks become stronger, while our neural networks associated with safety and loving relationships atrophy. We become physically less capable of imagining a world where being with others is not synonymous with being unsafe.”

Read the whole thing.

[the-pumpkin-qu33n]

My trainer and her darling buddy Eveelyn

[the-pumpkin-qu33n]

Some dndoodles from one of my personal game

[the-pumpkin-qu33n]

Turned the Reani sketch into a full piece

[the-pumpkin-qu33n]

Nott’s brand new item from the Ancient Dragon Horde

[the-pumpkin-qu33n]

Some silly little Critical Role doodles from episode 74