#hops off my soapbox

[yoggybloggy]

hi buttons whats the 17776 rp and tma rp crossover animatic. just a casual question im asking unprompted

cracks my knuckles. well you asked

heads up: 1) this will get long 2) i'm summarising a lot here so even though it's a lot i can't exactly describe all the nuances 3) trigger warnings will show up when relevant

phil is mimi's (@/thatsmimi) character from DSCP, which is an rp based off of jon bois' 17776 story/series. in short, it's set in a world where everyone became immortal for no reason on april 7, 2026 (an event called the moment), and also space probes have managed to gain sentience over time and are people now. the DSCP stands for deep space communication program and is a NASA program (made up for the rp) that basically acts as a big group chat for lots of probes.

phil is the head researcher of the DSCP (NASA staff is practically non-existent at this point, really). he's usually pretty uptight but also snarky - or even asshole-ish, but that's more of a defense mechanism he's eased up on over time. he has a whole arc with nancy (a sentient probe), where he was the first person who talked and bonded with her as she processes being a person, and - actually this is too hard to summarise but he leaves the DSCP at some point due to Conflict and Turmoil but he comes back. they have a very strong bond and she helped him see that he's not just some asshole but really, deep down, a good person.

sicily is mim's (@/coatcandy) character from a TMA rp (or TMARP)! i, uh, am not in this rp and do not know much stuff about TMA. but she's like, 19, an archive assistant (US not british) and got sent off to a very harrowing mission by an archivist AKA her dad to a 19th century ship thats perpetually stuck in the arctic that has several avatars on it. but she actually makes friends/bonds with the whole avatar'd crew and they find a way off.

(tw: mentions of child abuse, murder and death in the next paragraph)

and also she kills her piece of shit abusive adoptive father who only her took her in after her mother was murdered (an event that caused her to become slaughter-aligned) to train her up for Archive Things. yknow, when you're nay but a teenager and a bubbly kindhearted girl who deeply struggles with her humanity <3 (harold deserved it tho)

and then she becomes the assistant to a different archivist, isidore and they're actually friends etc.

and these two RPs are within their respective RP canons not connected at all. but! mim wrote a series of crossover fics that are basically just phone calls between phil and sicily that purely occur by accident due to multiversal avatar-y bullshit and they share anecdotes/some #struggles with each other cuz both of them got something fucked up going on with their universes (phil - everyone's immortal and no one can die, sicily - your regular TMA fare)

and THEN. mim wrote a fic which you can actually read here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40544313/chapters/101577525

in brief: phil gets transported to sicily's universe due to more avatar-y bullshit and they have to figure out how to get him back to his home universe, which involves going to the apartment he used to live in. but, yknow, in this universe. alternate selves and such. (phil from his original universe doesn't live there anymore - DSCP takes place in 20022 currently and TMARP is essentially present day). #shenanigans and #deep conversations ensue.

(tw: death, suicide mention)

when they get to the apartment it's like... all fucked up by avatar bullshit, and they find that phil in this universe is actually now a ghost who's being trapped in the apartment due to lonely avatar stuff (he didn't become an avatar he's um. dead) phil manages to make it back, but uh, yknow. he struggled with depression and suicidal ideation before the moment (still does sometimes, some ways, that kind of stuff is tied up with his self-perception issues). in his own universe he never made that choice (and then the moment happened so he's been living for thousands of years in world where no one can die), so seeing a timeline in which he did... yeah. i'm not elaborating on it here but it hits in a way.

this isn't in the fic, but there's also a parallel in these crossover universes - in the way that phil didn't survive in sicily's universe, sicily also didn't survive in phil's universe, because the avatars don't exist there, she didn't become slaughter-aligned when her mum was murdered, so she didn't survive that attack either. and she was 14. so there's this... thing we've got here, with two people who meet and connect, and their lives crossover, and the connection is over. and that person is dead in your own universe, and you couldn't have met that person anyway because they'd be a different person, but still you have to mourn them because you've had that connection and.

[edit: one thing i forgot to mention was that knowing that other universes where the fears and avatars and all that dont exist also hits sicily pretty hard in ways. because she doesnt know who she'd be without all that. and phil reassures her of course. you're a kid it'll get better. but then. she actually is dead in his universe. so. </3 cant figure out how to articulate what this story is really exploring but its a lot! i recommend mimi's directors commentary in the video 👍]

(tw over)

look obviously i could never explain in a single post what all the emotions and narratives and relationships mean here. that's wrapped up in phil and sicily's own stories, which ultimately belong to no one else but the people who told those stories, and the people who got to experience those stories. and i'm gonna get sappy here - yes, it's just something really special to an incredibly selective group of people, but really that's the point. the point isn't to create some grand narrative you get acclaim and praise for, it's just to create a story, just for you and your friends, to connect through that work of creation.

and mim (along with everyone else who co-created these rp universes which led to this crossover) really created something so emotionally engaging that even if other people's wouldn't fully get the entire story at play, because the story wasn't ever made to be understood by more than a few people - even then, i can't help but want to share it. because i love it! it's incredible. something about me is i will always want to share the things i love no matter how incomprehensible.

and of course, i'm a motherfucker who loves talking and explaining shit that doesn't need to be explained.

so finally, the animatic:

if you've made it this far (or just scrolled straight to the end really), well, you don't have to watch it, but i can't recommend it enough, and yes its because i'm in a obvious position of bias, but even if you understand nothing about the story it's just genuinely. a really really good animatic. i love mimi's art and this animatic is just incredibly well drawn, in terms of character, boarding, pacing, emotions, storytelling, connection to the song's lyrics-- [i pass out from running out of breath]

just. watch it ok! ok. thanks

and that's the 17776 rp and tma rp crossover animatic

(and also follow mimi's art @/enderscribbles with any luck she'll post the animatic there too and her art's just really good ok bye)

#thank you mimi #thank you mim #thank you andy for asking i don't know if you knew what you were getting yourself into but ummm this is my blog and i do what i want <3 #i am not cringe!!! i am free!!!!!!!! #hops off my soapbox #friendos #sorry to mimi and mim also for probably butchering your characters i just shouldnt have tried to explain. but i wanted to try. sorry </3

[ouranian]

queer creators should also be allowed to write whatever queer content they want. also. as soon as you are like “well all queer media should be happy otherwise it makes us look evil” to who? straight people? so you think gay shit should be happy... for straights??? even though our lives are not always happy and sometimes bad shit happens?

Like I’m sorry but a gay person should like idk be able to write a story about abuse in a same sex relationship without being lambasted we’re fucking people with diverse experiences. Our media should not be created for homophobes to see how “good” we are like newsflash some happy stories about gay people being happy is not gonna suddenly make homophobes love us or something.

#this has been a rant for sure #hops off my soapbox #abuse mention #but the abuse mention was a real story i heard about in college from my comics professor bc we were complaining about this exact thing

[discountsoysauce]

I don't understand the idea that Victor has no backstory. Like- yeah, his backstory isn't as horrifically tragic and detailed as Eli's is, but we do know a good bit about him from what he's said so far.

His parents are pretty successful, so we can assume he grew up rich. Victor states that they write all of these books about family but have never taken time out of their day for him, even saying something along the lines of the last time they put aside time for him was his birth (not exact quotes, I don't have the energy to look back through the books rn), so we can assume that they were incredibly neglectful, most likely leaving him at home for days, weeks, maybe months at a time and probably not paying much attention to him even in times when they were home. Whether they paid someone to take care of him in that time or he had to learn to be self-sufficient is debatable.

I personally don't think they were physically abusive, and there doesn't seem to be any evidence at present that supports that idea. Verbal abuse is more likely, but I still don't think it was the case. It doesn't seem like they were around him long enough to do either. I don't think those things really need to be a part of his backstory to make it interesting or compelling. His parents were neglectful, and it shaped pretty much everything about who he is.

The biggest and most obvious one is Victor's obsession with attention. There are multiple references throughout the books of Victor craving attention from those around him, namely Angie and Eli. More than anything, Victor wants to be seen. He wants to be a part of something. He wants to be remembered and acknowledged and thought about. He craves the attention his parents never gave him. He doesn't want to be left behind or forgotten.

Being left behind is another big fear for him (I'm mostly speaking about Lockland here, as he becomes a bit less dependent after he becomes an EO, though there can still be an argument made about him latching onto Mitch and Sydney and Dol and Dominic in a kind of makeshift family he never had). He hates seeing Eli succeed because it feels like he's being left behind. He wants to be so intertwined with another person that they can't possibly forget him. He wants to form a connection so deep that it's impossible to sever. To Victor, there's a connection between 'success' and being left behind. He doesn't want to just be an expendable sidekick or an accessory. He wants to be an integral part of someone. Victor's life revolving around Eli is a symptom of his upbringing.

His social skills and general demeanor are also something that can be analyzed. From the beginning, he's set up as the antithesis to Eli, from social class to backstory to appearance to demeanor. They're the same at their core, but opposites in nearly everything else. Compared to Eli, Victor is a total recluse. He hates being around people, he avoids parties, and we barely see him interact with or pay attention to anyone except the people he genuinely cares about unless he absolutely needs to. His demeanor is off-putting, and he doesn't really make an effort to hide that, although he does just enough to make sure he isn't a complete social outcast. Victor grew up in one home with no siblings and parents who were hardly around. Compared to Eli, who was carted from home to home, meeting new people and learning how to blend in all the time, Victor likely doesn't have much in the way of social experience. He didn't have to hide who he was nearly as much as Eli did because there was no one there to see it anyway.

This being said, he is described as being a good liar and able to fool those around him, although notably worse at it than Eli. This one is more of a longshot, but I don't think it's improbable. Victor's parents were successful published authors who garnered their success based on the books they wrote about family. It's possible that Victor had to make press appearances at some point when he was younger, and learned how to lie for the cameras, or he just spent so long out of the company of others that he started seeing other people as more objects to use and less real living people, making it easier to learn the motions of manipulating them. Either way, Victor learns how to do or say the right thing to get someone to believe him, but he states that Eli is much better at actually faking emotions than he is. This is because while Eli spent his life following his father's death surrounded by people and thus learned how to change his entire self to appear more presentable to the general public, Victor only learned how to manipulate people through speech or actions. He can tell you exactly what you want to hear, but he can't put on a fake persona the way Eli can because he never needed to.

In conclusion, Victor does have a backstory, and it informs every aspect of his character, including his relationship to Eli.

#this isnt me defending victor this post got away from me a bit lmao #a not entirely serious mention of the idea that his skewed morality could also be a result of his upbringing #i mean #the man had no role models #and was pretty much raised on crime dramas #cmon #hopping off my soapbox now #i got tired near the end can you tell #Victor's backstory isnt explicitly outlines the way Eli's is but its There #i came up with most of this as i was typing #vicious ve schwab #vengeful ve schwab #victor vale #villains series #eli ever #eli cardale #vicious #vengeful

[odessa-castle]

NLTS might just be one of my favorite fics of all time. The characterizations, the banter, the tension - it's all 10/10 (and I loooove all the little nods to Shakespeare).

Your Cazador is truly menacing and has such a looming presence for a character who doesn't appear much on the page. You mentioned in an earlier ask that you deliberately built Cazador and Astarion's dynamic on the emotional language of intimate partner violence (which I think is so heartbreakingly accurate). If you feel comfortable, could you talk a little more about that choice, why you made it, and/or how it shaped your writing?

Beyond excited for part two!!

Thank you so much! NLTS has come to mean a lot to me, and I'm glad this story means something to other people, too.

As far as Cazador and Astarion's dynamic and IPV goes, I think I did mention in the tags that I had a lot to say on the subject, and I do, but I'm going to put it under a cut for fairly obvious reasons. Read on at your discretion.

So! Vampires. You can do a lot of things with vampires, and with the sire-childe relationship in particular. I'm not going to do a whole scholarly review here or anything, but suffice to say that it is inherently, to some degree, a relationship based on power and control, and the transgressive nature -- the blurring of boundaries between parent and lover, the interplay between sex and death, etc. -- is part of the horror and part of the appeal. Also, biting is sex, and the issues of consent arising from the former are extrapolated onto the latter. Again, there's a lot of room to play with metaphor here, depending on the story you want to tell, but if it's not kinda fucked up, then why even bother?

Astarion and Cazador's relationship is likewise one where a number of different lenses can come into play, depending on what you're interested in exploring. I do think one of the draws of Astarion's story is the way that it takes certain conventions that pop up around vampires and strips the layer of metaphor away -- Astarion's sexual abuse is explicitly a part of his story in a way that I (and many others) didn't expect to see presented so frankly. And I knew I wanted to do some of that metaphor-stripping myself when I wrote this.

The fantasy/supernatural elements let you really go to some extremes when you're writing about Astarion's abuse, and Cazador is awful enough that almost any horror you can come up with is something he'd plausibly do to Astarion. And there are some evil geniuses in this fandom. The things I've seen people do with torture and body horror, with mind control, with sheer sexual depravity -- chef's kiss. I love you guys. I don't think that's where my strengths as a writer necessarily lie, though, and it wasn't quite what I wanted in terms of either theme or tone for this story. I wanted both Wyll's and Astarion's loneliness and low self-worth to be grounded in something really emotionally recognizable, in part so they could recognize these things in each other, and I wanted to show off the...quieter moments of their trauma, almost. The critical voices they've internalized; their self-censoring and self-deprecation; the things they've normalized that really shouldn't be normal, actually.

I'm not going to get too deep into the nature of my interest in IPV. Suffice to say that I have both personal and professional experience in that area, and that like all artists, I bring pieces of myself into the things I create. What I can say is that I don't think I've ever encountered an IPV survivor who didn't experience some form of emotional abuse as part of that power and control relationship, and that a lot of survivors have talked about how that can be the hardest thing to recover from, because it gets so deep inside your head. It warps the way you view yourself; it distorts the way you see the world. You carry your abuser's voice with you, whether or not they're there. And it's not easy to make it go away. It's not easy to make the emotional conditioning go away, to disentangle the survival mechanisms you've had to develop once you no longer actually need them to survive. These things hold true with, like, basically every form of ongoing abuse, they're not necessarily unique to IPV, but they're a big part of IPV nonetheless. (And they're certainly things we see from a lot of the companions in-game, Astarion very much included. Gotta love how his immediate response to you initiating the breakup conversation is "did I do something wrong?")

I do know that discussions of the exact nature of Cazador's abuse of Astarion can get, uh, fraught. I do think Cazador's sexual objectification and possessiveness of Astarion are, well, text, and Cazador certainly uses other people as proxies to enact sexual violence on Astarion. I didn't include, and don't plan to include, any outright sexual contact between them on-page because I think the point comes across clearly enough without it (and because jesus, enough stuff happens on-page in NLTS, there needs to be a balance if I don't want to turn the story into one giant downer). For me, the crux of their dynamic lies in one of Astarion's first descriptions of Cazador: a man obsessed with power -- not political power, but power over people.

Cazador might think of himself as rational and in control of his own actions and passions -- a lot of abusers will tell you that they're just being logical, you're the one bringing your emotions into everything -- but in reality, he is obsessed with his control over Astarion. When he feels like that control is being threatened, he sees it as a direct assault on his own self-image and power and masculinity, and he takes it out on Astarion to convince them both that Astarion still belongs to Cazador. I don't think Cazador wants Astarion's love, necessarily; I don't think he knows what love actually is, anymore. I think he wants Astarion's true submission -- and he's never going to get that, because Astarion obeys him out of fear, not trust, and trust is what submission actually requires. (As is choice, which is also a thing that Cazador does not and will not give Astarion.) Basically, the closer Wyll and Astarion get, the more Cazador gets caught up in these dominance games, and those are ultimately him pissing on a lamppost rather than him accomplishing anything.

And I do write him as fixated on Astarion to a degree that he isn't with the other spawn. He doesn't really care about Dalyria taking Branwyn as a lover, for example, because whether rightly or wrongly, he doesn't perceive that as a threat to his control over her (or as a threat to his own self-image); he could tell her to stop, and she would, without him needing to compel her obedience. But Cazador doesn't feel as secure of his ownership over Astarion, for good reason, and that plus his sexual obsession makes him act Totally Normal about all this.

In NLTS, Cazador is, generally, not reacting to what Wyll and/or Astarion are actually doing. He's reacting to perceived threats to his ego, whether or not those threats have any basis in reality. Cazador breaks Astarion's rib because he wants to break Astarion's rib. It's not even sensible as a punishment, but it makes Cazador feel powerful, and it makes Astarion feel worthless. As I mentioned in an earlier post, he makes Wyll's gift to Astarion all about himself instead because it's a way of soothing his ego, and because, at that point, he's still thinking of Wyll as an easily-controlled dupe. Things change once Wyll duels Lord Andoril -- Cazador's proxy and mouthpiece -- over Astarion, and wins. It doesn't matter what Astarion did or didn't do. It matters that, to Cazador, someone publicly challenged his ownership of Astarion and got away with it, and Wyll is the kind of threat that (at this point) Cazador can't simply have killed and be done with it. The fallout for Cazador's business prospects isn't great, sure, but it's also not really what he cares about most. But really, the thing most getting in the way of Cazador's political ambitions in this story is...Cazador himself. Even if he'd tell you otherwise, because Cazador's not exactly self-aware.

This is also the point where Cazador being low-key annoyed that Wyll wants Astarion for something other than his body turns into Cazador becoming Big Mad about that fact, because Cazador cannot handle the idea of Wyll laying claim to some part of Astarion that he himself doesn't have access to. (Yes, this is a really fucked-up way for him to frame the fact that Wyll, you know, sees and values Astarion as a person. But well, Astarion is not and never has been a person to Cazador.) On some level, Cazador isn't wrong about this, either -- Wyll genuinely is a threat to his control over Astarion. But because Cazador is a petty, jealous little tyrant of a man who doesn't understand love, he catalogues this threat as Astarion offering his submission to another man. Astarion having his own autonomous wants and desires is, obviously, not something that crosses his mind. When Wyll is exiled, Cazador fully gives himself over to his inner green-eyed monster, and abandons all pretense of self-control or calculation. Cazador forcing Astarion to enjoy -- or well, take physical pleasure in -- his own rape is, among other things, Cazador trying to brute-force Astarion's submission.

The thing about power and control relationships is that the abuser never really feels secure in them. Nothing is ever good enough; everything can become a new ego threat. Cazador is alone, and he's miserable, and really, he's made himself that way.

One commenter really hit the nail on the head in Chapter 14: I was like "oh now wyll won't be a useful political tool," as if Cazador was some kind of evil political mastermind, rather than an evil horrible monster. There is, indeed, an evil political mastermind in NLTS -- but it's Enver Gortash, not Cazador Szarr. Gortash does more in half a chapter than Cazador does in basically the entire fic. In NLTS, Cazador is not a monster because he's a powerful and terrifying supernatural being -- although he is also that. He's a monster because he's a jealous tyrant who can't see past the tip of his own nose. And honestly, I think that makes for a scarier villain.

#the ask and the answer #butnodamage #nothing like the sun #cw for frank discussion of ipv dynamics - although i think the nature of the ask itself makes that fairly clear #this post was more draining to write than i expected but it is also full of things that i very much want to say #and now i'll hop off my soapbox

[crushofdoves]

I agree about the “old dogs” post BUT if they have grey hair in the art then CLEARLY they’re in their 60s or older so …

friend, i hate to be the one to break this to you but lots of people go partially if not completely grey in their 20s. especially if they’ve had, say, an entire life full of trauma and near-death experiences. people who have been abused or fought in wars, just as an example.

it’s also genetic, and ya know - genes are a crap shoot. i’m 33 and have a grey hair here & there. one of my sisters is in her early 50s but has been 100% grey since she was 25. it’s totally possible and completely normal to have lots of grey hair at a young age.

#i’ll hop off my soapbox now

[f1-birb]

They really tried to start the "#LandoNorrisIsOver" party like something straight out of F1twt, only to have to pop the balloons and recognize that the cake was just like, super dry and had no taste. 💀

not the first time they've tried to paint the narrative and probably won't be the last either 🙄

Lando will never be over, he had an impressive Rookie season, him and Carlos dragged McLaren to P3 in the constructors in 2020, 2021 was a cracking delivery from him, he carried the team last year by a large margin and I couldn't be fucking prouder of him this season

Sky can chat shit all they want, the actual people whose opinions matter (*cough* multiple former drivers/champions and also the ones on the grid now *cough*) know how good he is

#lando norris #i'll hop off my soapbox now #birb speaks

[iknityounot]

My classroom for the past 2 years has been right next to our school's resource officer's office, so he and I got pretty close. I was always knitting at work, especially when I was covering the front desk for the secretaries. Our SRO would always swing by to ask me what I was working on, tell me the same knitting-and-police joke, and then tell me about how his mom used to knit him a pair of socks every year.

So, with the help of some coworkers who did some recon for me, I knit him a pair of socks to show my thanks to him 😊

The pattern I used is called "Winter Bicycle Socks"

I have only made one other pair of socks before, but I found this pattern pretty easy to follow along with!

#knitting #joy knits #pattern #sock #socks #sock pattern #knitting pattern #craft #crafting #diy #handmade #im going to talk a little here #so #acab #but also this sro changed my mind on having police in schools #he really values education and makes a point to form a relationship with all of our students #if we could put a rule in place that all sro's had to be like him #i think it would be a really powerful tool for schools and teachers #anyhoo #ill hop off my unrealted soapbox lol

[raspberryjellybrains]

I think we should start stoning politicians. bring back assassination in powerful colonialist governments. I need to shed blood.

#this situation in palestine is unfucking acceptable #and i know this is how colonialism works. i know its happening elsewhere. and that makes it all the more disgusting. #the fact that this system of brutality is the one we live within and is so strong that WIDESPREAD INTERNATIONAL OUTCRY is not enough to stop #or even slow the war machine is pretty fucking bleak. #i am genuinely at the point where i think we need to scare these motherfuckers in power. i think we need to remind them who they work for. #which i realize is dangerously radicalized thinking but i am so so done with being calm about this #this should not be allowed anywhere let alone everywhere. #sorry hopping off my soapbox now. #raspberry rambles #us politics

[likesunsetorange]

i think the one thing i hate about with characters like snow, is that people think that just because like them it negates them being able to see their negative trates. i’ll never understand why people get in such a tiff about people loving villains when it’s perfectly okay to enjoy well written characters even if they’re “bad”.

we all know snow becomes an evil person who literally sex traffics children and sets them up to murder each other for his own amusement, we watched/read the trilogy. but that doesn’t take away from what suzanne wrote in the prequel either.

coryo is a good character because he was perfectly set up to not choose the path of evil but he still opted on the road of self service and selfishness. he betrayed the closest thing he had to a friend and basically killed him in hopes it would lead him one step closer to returning to the capitol where he felt he belonged. he had a million and one opportunities to be a good person but he chose not to and that’s what makes him interesting. everyone believed in him and was willing to look past his failures and shortcomings but he still screwed them over to put himself first.

and in regard to lucy gray, i think he probably did love her, but he had never been around many examples of love and he was also 18 so how much can you expect lol. it was definitely not a great love, and probably stemmed from a level of obsession and was certainly not healthy but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t love nonetheless

#vic chats #coriolanus snow #tbosas #he’ll always be my favorite villain and suzanne deserves her flowers for making him because he’s so well written she can do no wrong to me #there’s probably more to say but i just saw something that inspired this so yea #and also tom blyth is hot sue me if that inspires me liking coryo! #*hops off soapbox* #thg #snowbaird #everlark

[septictankofdreams]

I have a lot of least favorite things about the spn fandom but I have to say one that never fails to show up is how many people are legitimately mad at Sam for getting himself out of an abusive, negligent situation when he had the chance.

Like say what you want about how Dean had it worse, fine, but when did we decide it was the job of his younger (teenage, at the time) brother to get him out when he wasn’t trying to get himself out??

I’m sure Sam could’ve handled the situation better, but he was a child. A literal child.

#like yes John was horrific to Dean #and I hate that Dean felt he had to stay for Sam #but that doesn’t mean that Sam has to continue the cycle by staying for Dean #who does that help #anyways #I’ll hop off my soapbox now #but I’m sure I’ll be back soon #supernatural #Sam Winchester #dean winchester #John Winchester #John Winchester was a terrible father

[autistickaitovocaloid]

So after watching the first season of mp100 I've picked up that this is an anime about a guy who's super power is that he's autistic

#art talks about stuff #this is /hj obviously please don't take this post seriously #mob's so funny to me like yeah he's a super powerful psychic guy but he's also just a little guy. you get me? #also yeah yeah i know autism =/= psychic powers but the first few times i saw him go 100% my legitimate first thought was #''oh so it's kind of like a shutdown/meltdown. huh'' #anyway i'll hop off my soapbox now. no spoilers for s2 please

[motleybirdbones]

So this’s where I’ve been-

Recently I Unearthed some old art and found these two little Skittles (whom I had pretty much a whole Epic planned for- but sadly nothing ended up going past the Drafting Stage lol) This was only supposed to be the Re-Draw, but once again I May Have let my hand slip a little too haphazardly ^^; 

But I’ll tell you - it’s absolutely strange and wonderous how History ends up repeating itself; I wasn’t even aware of the two Younger One’s existence when I was first toying with the concepts of Amos and Tolbert - but I think I might start to incorporate more nods/details to their predecessors in the future because I Can

#ok im done #hop off my little soapbox here #digital art #redraw #original characters #Character Design #art dump #sketch dump #old characters #old vs new ocs #Furry Art #Anthro art #character study #comic #redesign #tolbert the hare #amos the lion #crossover #theyre not really a family #more young meets old #the last panel pretty much sums up each of their relationships

[firewoodfigs]

(another-nonsensical-ramble-in-the-tags-time) 

#gearing up for another poetry submission tomorrow and the end of next week and. good Lord. the fear of rejection is so daunting #I haven't been able to write anything remotely sensible this weekend bcs I just keep thinking about how anything I produce will be awful and #worthy solely of rejection lol #feels like a different ball game whenever money comes into the picture too #I feel like capitalism is so deeply drilled into me that I struggle to conceive of anything that comes from me as good #unless I win a prize or a prize money of some sort #see also: the perils of external validation #someone once told me I have to delink the approval from the art but it is so difficult bcs in some ways sharing my poetry #feels even more intimate than confessing to some straight insensitive male who will just spout callous rejection without second thought #** more intimate and terrifying #and yet it's all just a marvellous fallacy designed to beguile is it not? #for starters I'm paid to work and I still think I suck at my job LMAO #jhkajksldas my brain's a mEsS im gonna tear my hair out at this rate #anyways I just needed to get this off my system but I am off to scribble and scrawl and make sense of the murk #*hops off da soapbox* <3

[clericofgale]

I didn't expect to get fucking actual literal triggered by a godsdamn IGN article and yet here we are.

Gale's arc is about finding the will to live, that suicide isn't the solution, that there's always a better way. You are worthy by your own merits and not your talents or what you can provide. So many Galemancers I've talked to or read of talk about their struggle with depression & SI, self-worth problems and how Gale has really help inspire them to hold on. My mental health has much improved since my darkest days, so I really didn't expect to get so upset.

Chrystal Ding, Lead Writer: On a very human level, you have the guy who starts off annoying everyone, he's constantly asking you to give him your most treasured possessions to eat, otherwise he's in trouble, and at the end, he gives himself for the world.

NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. If you have a character with depressive characterization and brimming with suicidal ideation tendencies...Don't mix in the 💣 ending framed as a selfless act! That's a call to the void to people walking on the ledge. Gale has literal WillingtoDie flags! It's major yikes all around. At the brain stem Tav is either talking someone who isn't suicidal anymore back into killing himself, or allowing a suicidal person to do it. "Feels like the right ending to me"? Nooooo thank you interviewer.

I actually like the 💣 ending in a tragic "My choices ran out and I failed to save Gale" way. Never ever, will it ever feel the "right" ending.

Asking for help takes COURAGE, especially from someone who isn't used to it. Gale asking you for items is literally because he's in so much pain he can't function anymore. He has no other choice. If asking for help for your pain is selfish, then I don't ever want to not be selfish.

Gale was never annoying to me. If they tried to make Gale the annoying, selfish, asshole who redeems himself in the end. They failed.

I'm mostly mad at the interviewer, to be honest. But oh man the devs didn't help.

I'm hopping off my soapbox now. Thanks to anyone who read it. And yes I did my therapy shit and am calm now.

Oh and remember, there's always another way, and that way is never, ever, EVER the "right" way. Seek and you shall find me.

#gale of waterdeep #gale dekarios #tw sui ideation #cw: depression #bg3 spoilers #IGN #baldur's gate 3

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for breaking up with someone over fishkeeping and cat food? I know how the title sounds but hear me out. This happened a couple years ago and I'm still friends with the people this happened with but it still weighs on me. So I have always been kind of militant about husbandry when it comes to the animals I keep(autistic, it' a special interest) and I don't really like to deal with people who don't take caring for living creatures they willingly bring into their home seriously. I sold a fish tank to my, then, partner J who wanted to get into fish keeping. J and D, our other partner, lived together. After taking the tank home and cleaning it up we were throwing around ideas for what to put in it. It wasn't too big but also not small, but he kept throwing out species that would far outgrow the tank or species that would fight and kill each other. Every time I shot these species down J took it well, realizing the space was either too small or they would die and didn't want the fish in improper conditions but D kept telling me not to "squash his creativity" and he could "do whatever as long as it made him happy". At this I obviously hopped on my soapbox about how it's our duty as animal owners to give the animals we keep proper conditions and D went absolutely off on me and mentioned how I care "too much" about how other people keep their animals and had always made her feel bad about how she feeds her cats and now I was doing this. For context my cat eats a raw diet. I did a lot of research and talked to my vet and he's doing wonderfully while one of her cats is extremely overweight to the point he waddles instead of walking and the other two are getting there as well, both of which I've brought up concerns about but I have NEVER shamed the way she fed her animals. She had been interested in the interest I had taken and had ASKED for better quality food recommendations, so I gave them, but NEVER told her she had to feed them a certain way. A majority of our conversations were just me info-dumping and her being happy to listen and ask questions occasionally. Anyway J kind of backed out of the conversation at this and D and I went back and forth a bit before D finally said "I don't think this relationship is going to work out if you won't let this go"(This being I have pointed out one of her cats is grossly overweight a couple times and it's extremely unhealthy, especially since he's aging now) so I said "Yeah I think so too. This is something I clearly care a lot about and I'm not going to be with someone who puts their own or their partner's feelings over the well-being of the animals they are responsible for"(referencing when she said a few times when talking about the fish that it was okay if the fish killed each other or died from improper conditions as long as J was happy with how the tank looked and "it's not like we're putting kittens in with sharks, they're Just Fish") and we broke up there and then. Since then we've still stayed close friends after a short break from each other(I'm actually her Man of Honor in her upcoming wedding to J!) and she's actually made moves to better the quality of the food she buys her cats and is working on getting her obese cat's weight down and J's fish tank hobby is going very well(with proper keeping standards!!). But the situation at the time still weighs on me and even though we're genuinely too busy with work and life to make a relationship work anymore anyway and that was also a factor of the breakup.... AITA for beginning a breakup over animal husbandry?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

[muffy-heeler]

One thing I disliked about the sign was Brandy's pregnancy. While it's fantastic in theory, I think they really lost an opportunity to make adoption a discussion in the show, or better yet to show her coming to terms with her infertility. In my boyfriends words "it made onesies feel pointless" and I almost agree. My hope is that she is a single mum and they can have that discussion at least. Obviously I'm not mad about a kids show but it just.. felt a little bit like a cop out. Of course I'd love to hear other opinions, that's just my two cents!

Edits to add what some other people have said:

an anon recounted a story of a woman who experienced infertility and then a miricle baby, and the person they saw was very sppreciative and loved Brandy's pregnancy, and that makes me really happy! I want Bluey to bring joy first and foremost

@this-is-a-love-story-isnt-it points out that good things happening to a person don't negate their negative experiences, which is suuper true and really shifted my perspective.

@annamalla pointed out the fraught history of adoption in Australia, which I didn't even know about and totally makes sense for why they might not touch on it in Bluey, since it's so entrenched in it's culture

@darkmasterofcupcakes raised a point that the pregnancy would have been better recieved if Brandy got her own episode again and that puts it into words better than I ever could. I wanted to see her joy at discovering she finally gets a baby. I wanted to feel the triumph with her, and I think we feel robbed of that.

lmk if you'd rather not be tagged but I wanted to give credit where credit is blue for these AMAZING points! I hope no one thinks I'm not happy for Brandy because I AM!! I'm so excited to see Bluey interact with babies too!

I'll hop off my soapbox now

#bluey #you cant like EVERYTHING about something yk? #bluey the sign #the sign #bluey spoilers #the sign spoilers #bluey the sign spoilers