#the bad signs

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

#yeehaw #1k #5k #10k #posts that got cursed. blasted. im making these tag updates after... 19 hours? #also i have been told it should say speech loss bc nonverbal specifically refers to the permanent state. did not know that! #unfortunately i fear it is so far past containment that even if i edited it now it would do very little. but noted for future reference #edit 2: nvm enough ppl have come to rb it from me directly that i changed the wording a bit. hopefully this makes sense #also. in case anyone is curious. though i doubt anyone who is commenting these things will check the original tags #1) my friend did not do this on purpose in any way. it was not intended to distract me or to hit on me. im a lesbian hes a gay man. cmon now #he felt very bad about it afterwards. i thought it was hilarious but it was very embarrassed and apologetic #2) “why didn't he use 🫵🏼?” didn't exist yet. “why didn't he use 🆗?” dunno! we'd been using a lot of hand emojis. 👌🏼 is an ok sign #like it makes sense. it was just a silly mixup. also No i did not invent 👉🏼👌🏼 as a gesture meaning sex. do you live under a rock #3) nonspeaking episodes are a recurring thing in my life and have been since i was born. this is not a quirky one-time thing #it is a pervasive issue that is very frustrating to both myself and the people i am trying to communicate with. in which trying to speak is #extremely distressing and causes very genuine anguish. this post is not me making light of it it's just a funny thing that happened once #it's no different than if i post about a funny thing that happened in conjunction w a physical disability. it's just me talking abt my life #i don't mind character tags tho. those can be entertaining. i don't know what any of you are talking about #Except the ppl who have said this is pego/ryu or wang/xian. those people i understand and respect #if you use it as a writing prompt that's fine but send it to me. i want to see it #aaaand i think that's it. everyday im tempted to turn off rbs on it. it hasn't even been a week

[emberglowfox]

birds of a feather

#totk #loz #link #tulin #totk spoilers #my comics #my art #it is almost 8 in the goddamn morning and my hand is cramping SO bad but if i didnt make this i was going to die #anyways link's signs: page 2 panel 1 he's signing “danger” and page 2 panel 4 he's signing “important/significant” #also idr where i got the “hair braiding is significant to the rito” probably from the reva/ink i used to read back in the day #(censored so it doesnt show up in the tags just in case lol) #theyre everything to me. if you couldn't tell #they have a brother dynamic 2 me but its open to interpretation #idk wtf happened tonight. two long comics from me back to back is absurd #broke this one up also so its more viewable too #sparks art

[secondbeatsongs]

for anyone too young to know this: watching The Truman Show is a vastly different experience now, compared to how it was before youtube and social media influencers became normal

before it was like, "what a horrifying thing to do to a human being! to take away their autonomy and privacy, all for the sake of profits! to create fake scenarios for them to react to, just to retain viewership! to ruin their happiness just so some corporate entity could harvest money from their very humanity! how could anyone do something so evil?"

and now it's like, "ah, yeah. this is still deeply fucked up, but it's pretty much what every influencer has been doing to their kids for a decade now. probably bad that we've normalized this experience"

#the truman show #sbs rambles #I keep thinking about how children on popular youtube channels should probably have laws to protect them #social workers assigned to them maybe #I dunno #they did not sign up to have their lives sold for profit #but here we are #tho #I guess none of us signed up for it #and our data is harvested more than ever #god #high-tech capitalism sucks turns out #OH WAIT because tumblr is bad at getting context sometimes #let me specify: #I am not saying that the movie The Truman Show is bad or that it normalizes this #like all good sci-fi (because it is kind of sci-fi) it's there to warn us of what the future could hold #and it did that in a very good way - it's a beautiful movie #I could see someone with a bad faith take assuming I meant that it was part of the problem #it absolutely wasn't. it didn't normalize this; we did #youtube did and social media #it's us that's the problem #or more specifically: big corporations and a lack of regulation #that's the origin of most modern problems

[originalartblog]

Apparently much-needed reminder that reposting artists' art (by saving the images or screenshotting them and reuploading them yourself) on other platforms without the artists' expressed permission and without credit is theft and an insult to their passion and craft. You are profiting (in views, in attention, in feedback) from someone else's work and ideas, who do not get that feedback for sharing their creation.

If you are an art reposter, you are a thief and I have no respect for you.

#learn basic internet etiquette i am begging but also holding a knife. yes i'm mad. more about others than myself. #do you know how many artists i have seen leave social media because their art started being reposted all over? #tip: way too fucking many #i've had many people tell me about people reposting my art on tiktok #no one ever asked to repost my art on tiktok. ever. they just save super fried bad crunchy jpegs of my art and repost them #they get 20k likes and don't even bother naming me #also a reason i started signing my name more legibly and why my blog web address is always there but apparently no one can even read that #a few people got an ok for translations on other platforms though #i'm going to be annoying with this post and reblog it a few times to try to catch the people who apparently need to be told #tiny skk adventures #nawy's comics #nawy's doodles #apparently those are reposters' favourites so here look at this

[itsxroxannex]

He looks VERY happy💅👗👠

Princess Slaymare belongs to Jokublog Killer belongs to RahafWabas

#utmv #undertale #sans #bad sanses #killer sans #murder time trio #nightmare sans #maid dress #nightmare didn't sign up for this #he had to wear them so that killer would shut up about it

[coralsnake]

We mustn’t give up on him.

#star wars #the bad batch #tbb #bad batch #Crosshair #Omega #star wars the bad batch #clone #clones #CoralSnake art #fan art #digital art #procreate #I’m sorry I forget who was getting a Michelle Ang signature and she said this to them when they said she could sign over Crosshairs face #I’m really proud of this #thank you to all my friends and the Crosshair stans and bad batch artists sharing their gut wrenching beautiful art

[future-crab]

It's been said before, it will be said again, but it's still worth saying: the fact that art centering on straight romance is allowed to just be bad, but art with queer romance in it always has to be indicative of A Serious Problem With the Way We Tell Queer Stories makes being a queer person making queer art deeply stressful

#just saw smthing about red white and royal blue #and like i never watched/read that one so maybe everything ppl say about it is true #and i never watched heartbreaker or love simon so maybe those ones are also genuinely a sign of a serious problem #but idk. the fact that this happens every damn time makes me think that maybe queer stories are being held to different standards #and it's exhausting writing stuff while having a chorus of voices in the back of my head saying i'm misrepresenting my own identities and #making the whole community look bad by writing mediorcre romance #and knowing that even though i'm neither straight nor a girl there WILL be ppl calling me a straight girl fetishizing queer relationships #lgbt #queer community #writer stuff #idk what else to tag this #asexual #bisexual #nonbinary #venttag

[wizzard890]

So there’s a trend that I absolutely hate in online discussions of (non-satirical) genre, particularly genre that’s influenced by the gothic. This trend makes my eyes roll back in my head until I can see through my own skull. It makes me want to bite a car in half. It makes me want to step into the jellyfish tank at the New York Aquarium and beg for the sweet sweet annihilation of a thousand stings. 

I call this trend: Oh Just Be Sensible, and it goes like this:

“Why do vampires always end up covered in blood when they feed, I don’t spill soup all down the front of my shirt when I eat dinner. Real toddler energy.”

“Why do people always cut their hands to swear oaths, everyone knows it would hurt way less on the [insert body part with fewer nerve endings]”

“Vampires shouldn’t be feeding from people’s wrists, it damages the tendons, if doctors don’t take your blood from your wrist, vampires shouldn’t either! No one will be able to flex their fingers the next day.”

(This comes up a lot with vampires, I mention, as I stride purposefully into the glistening mass of jellyfish.)

There are direct answers for some of these when it comes to the practical visual language of a particular medium (for example, you cut your hand on stage / on set because you can hold a blood pack in there, and even if you don’t have an effect, the gesture and its purpose can be discerned from the nosebleeds) but what really gets me is how thematically boneheaded this sort of observation is. 

Like, let’s go down the list here. 

Why do vampires end up covered in their victims’ blood? Well Scoob, do you think it could maybe have something to do with their bestial, inhuman nature? Or with the erotic and sensual abandon with which they can approach violence, now that they’re untethered from human morals? 

Why do people cut their hands to swear oaths? Aside from what I mentioned above, do you think maybe it’s because it adds a layer of gravity to see two people swearing an oath to one another with blood dripping from their clasped hands? Do you think it’s maybe to evoke a unity of body, something greater and more primal than a unity of word? Or maybe to remind us of the dire consequences of breaking a blood oath?

Why are authors having vampires feed from people’s wrists if it damages their tendons? Damn, maybe that’s because it’s where the pulse is. You know, the pulse? The heartblood, the thing that races when you’re scared or turned on or both? The thing that stutters when you’re close to death and could, should the author choose, ring in the vampire’s ears like a chime or a great pounding thunderclap. Maybe in a story about undead beings who drink blood, we can sacrifice a bit of sensible reality in order to enforce the emotion and thematic heft of a scene? 

Images like these communicate what is happening between two characters, not just the events that are transpiring! No one making stories forgot to consider ~sensible~ little observations, because it would be absolutely inane to consider an observation with the creative value of a wet paper towel. This stuff is part of our visual language for a reason! Themes also need to be communicated! 

God, like, okay, I’m exhausted and the aquarium staff keeps yelling at me when they find me here, but let me just wrap up by saying that relationships, character and meaning are expressed in so many ways beyond dialogue or internal monologue, and those expressions are so rarely sensible. 

(Also all this shit looks cool as hell, do you really want your protagonists swearing to die for one another by dabbing their slightly bleeding elbows together, grow up.)

#me: don't make me tap the sign #sign: fun allowed #(thematic clarity and character relationships should trump sensible realism every time) #(realism is fine! but monocle popping smirky little 'hmm I think dan brown was an idiot' smugness is just....bad!) #(it's bad and it makes for bad writing!) #my thoughts about books

[rookrock]

You cannot quit the Archives even if there's an apocalypse and you die and get exported to another universe. You still gotta read statements.

✨job security✨

#the magnus archives #tma #tmagp #spoilers #the magnus protocol #I'm tagging both because it straddles like an alligator over the river #you know? #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonah Magnus #maybe #is it a bad sign that i would still rather have that job?

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

He was just being a silly little guy!

[First] Prev <–-> Next

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #jin guangyao #wen ruohan #nie mingjue #lan xichen #JGY's character is the zigging and zagging guy of all time #We love a little meow meow that can bite and scratch and kill you. #We also love a little meow meow that can mewl pathetically! #'He's evil now and torturing his former friend?" ZAG TIME: He's a spy and feels soooo awful about it!! #ZIG TIME: He (probably) didn't need to go that deep into the role and kill as many people as he did. #Something I really love about the sworn brother trio is how they reflect how our feelings distort our perception of others. #Lan Xichen represents how when we love/care about someone -anything they do can be endearing. They aren't manipulative: they are clever. #Its less about rose tinted glasses and more about reframing every look you get of them. The constant justifications you make for them. #They just need a space to be loved! “They care for me so I will stand by them no matter what to show them I'm there for them!” #While NMJ represents how when you dislike someone - Everything they do is an affront or proof of their foul character. #Everything is a sign. Everything is 'proof' they are just as awful as you want them to be. Every 'good trait' is twisted. #The problem is that most people are just human. They are flawed and they are capable of good and bad things. #Meng Yao's motivations are very complex. Yet he's extremely human all the same. He isn't the saint nor the monster of the story.

[leupagus]

On Voting in America

So one of the most profound comments on routine chores that I've ever encountered was, hilariously, the Pickle Rick episode of "Rick & Morty," where (after a lot of shenanigans have already ensued) this therapist absolutely lays Rick out:

"I have no doubt that you would be bored senseless by therapy, the same way I'm bored when I brush my teeth and wipe my ass. Because the thing about repairing, maintaining, and cleaning is: it's not an adventure. There's no way to do it so wrong you might die. It's just work. And the bottom line is some people are okay going to work and some people, well, some people would rather die. Each of us gets to choose."

I think about this at least once a week — usually while I'm doing my laundry or sweeping or some other task that needs doing and won't get me anything more than clean clothing or a dog-hair-free floor. There's no Pulitzer for wiping down your microwave or scrubbing your toilet; no one's awarding you for getting all the dishes out of the sink. At best you have the satisfaction of crossing it off your list.

Voting is very much the same (and I'm talking about the US here, as an American). Sure, you sometimes get a sticker; but nobody's going to cheer for you. There's no adventure here, no potential for anything more than crossing something off of a list. It's a chore, something that needs doing in order to repair, maintain, and yes even clean. So I get why people don't like doing it.

And I've decided I don't give a shit.

Do it anyway. Your country takes astonishingly little from you — taxes, the once-in-a-blue-moon jury duty, and a theoretical draft that hasn't been used in over half a century and likely will never be again — but it asks you (asks! not requires! not demands!) to vote once a year. It's not always easy; especially in conservative states, the impediments to vote can be ridiculous. But it is once a year and unlike in our nation's all-too-recent past, you will not die if you do it.

In fact, the worst outcome from voting these days is that the person or issue that you vote for loses — but you won't know if they lose until after the election. Polls are less accurate now, for a whole host of reasons; you cannot know until after the election who or what will win. This makes your vote more valuable than possibly ever before.

Use that power. Not because it's exciting or even rewarding, but because your vote is what keeps our country's metaphorical teeth from falling out and our metaphorical ass from stinking.

Brush, wipe, vote.

#ok the metaphor may've gotten a little gross but rick & morty chose it not me #anyway if voting didn't matter then rich people wouldn't do it #and I can assure you: they do #also: please don't think of voting like a reward for the person you're voting for #or as a punishment for the person you're not voting for #my mom's advice was: #think about the most vulnerable people you care about and vote for the person or issue that will make their lives better #and you'll rarely go wrong #yes there are often two bad options but if you're old enough to vote you're old enough to understand the difference between bad and less ba #anyway that's all the political lecturing I'll do this year #except maybe to complain about the 18-hour day I'll be having on Tuesday #oh also SIGN UP TO WORK ELECTIONS WE NEED MORE HELP #thank you #politics!

[emberglowfox]

i dont think the sages are distinctly aware of everything their avatars are doing, but i imagine some things probably bleed through

#totk #loz #link #tulin #teba #saki #totk spoilers #(minor) #my art #my comics #this... started off rough and bad and got better as i went on. which is the opposite of what usually happens ? #anyways! the sign in links panel is “nice/clean” #it's supposed to be kind of flatter / more level but i couldnt draw it at that angle :pensive: hopefully it reads #n e ways i loooove tulin so have some silly fluff #(literally. lol) #sparks art

[gunstellations]

its shadow's turn now

(the thrilling conclusion to this post, he never really hated it)

#sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #sonic #sonadow #my art #sonic constantly up in shadows business and the moment shadow expresses 1 (one) sign of affection he shortcircuits #thinking abt that one part where he was essentially speechless when shadow shows like...normal interaction behaviour ONCE #shadow isnt necessarily only shy either hes just. bad at showing it but i think sonic simply doesnt think much when hes pushing it #till he does one normal thing in response and sonics like ?????

[suja-janee]

(Mostly) Harumi centric doodle page for a friend

#mortal kombat 1 #mk1 #mortal kombat #harumi shirai #tomas vrbada #mk smoke #kuai liang #mk scorpion #hanzo hasashi #I still don’t know how to feel about her and Kuai Liang #unless nrs releases more content #I dunno I think they have potential to be a cute couple but for now it’s still sus #also! I love to hc that harumi got Tomas to open up to kuai #cause uhhh the Lin Kuei kinda killed his family #so harumi is like ‘ey bro they’re not so bad when you get to know them… except for bi Han… fuck that guy’ #bi Han would highkey make a tree house and put up a ‘no girls allowed’ sign and she never forgave him for that #if bi Han ends up being the reason she dies in this timeline it would kinda be funny cause he’d be like ‘I never liked you’ #and she’d be like ‘me neither you stupid boy’ #and he’s like ‘yknow what this isnt even about kuai liang anymore- screw you’ #doodles #my art

[uldren-sov]

the reality (not the expectation) of what it's like sleeping with Seven Lawless. - Camy Rose ~dated five years ago~

Comm'd the amazing and talented @aevari tysm bestie!! Of yet another meme of my OC Camy and @infamous-if 's most divisive clingy sleeper Seven Lawless

Blank version under the cut!

#Infamous IF #Seven Lawless #Infamous OC #OC: Camy Rose #The better times the warning signs and all the moments between #OTP: We could make a good thing bad #Yes its an old Misfit Alley shirt #Yes ask me about all the lore i thought up for her PRS guitar #and yes I have only comm'd memes because everything else is just TRAGIC lolol I need some fun with them #My favorite detail is their notes in the notebook and the Cool S LOLOL

[spacebugarts]

Neurotypicals will never know the experience of seeing a person wearing big headphones or stimming with something at the store and taking out your own stim toy to try and gauge if they're neurodivergent too or just vibing, while also trying to telepathically communicate that you are also neurodivergent.

Thats true solidarity

#this just happened at the store and I was trying so hard to convey that I was a friend #like 'hi hello i am also stimming! i see you and i understand!' #but also the fear of misreading the situation or making them uncomfortable is. bad #i saw a tiktok where someone came up with a sign for that exact situation but i mean. what are the odds they also saw this one video yknow? #anyways that was my day #autism #autistic #actually autistic #audhd #actually audhd #adhd #neurodivergence