We're still having fun

you're definitely in too deep with an oc once you start coming up with hypothetical tumblr posts about them

stage i: fan playlists

stage ii: fanfics and fanart

stage iii: fan songs and animatics

stage iv (terminal): fan fan discourse

Meowthman - Mothman with Cats by StupidAnimalShop

Kikimora, illustration for "Regalia for the wretched" zine

A friend sent this to me today and I feel attacked😅

...Remembering Dave Gemmell telling us that the surest way for him to know that he was having a writer's block was when he found himself scrubbing behind the toilet.

Youthful modern outfit pairing beautifully painted tabby cats obi, with a cute kimono with yarn ball-like shibakusa (grass) and sprinkled small flowers

A brief moment of rationality from the bird place.

Back in the 90s, there was a story in the LA Times that a boy sent me, saying it was right up my alley. This was the only good thing to come out of our relationship. Full link below (ignore the bible tag; it's the only site I could find it on), but this part always stuck with me:

"Whenever possible, life should be a pattern of experience to savor, not endure. I'm trying to recognize these moments now and cherish them.

I'm not "saving" anything; we use our good china and crystal for every special event-such as losing a pound, getting the sink unstopped, the first camellia blossom. I wear my good blazer to the market if I feel like it. My theory is if I look prosperous, I can shell out $28.49 for one small bag of groceries without wincing. I'm not saving my good perfume for special parties; clerks in hardware stores and tellers in banks have noses that function as well as my party-going friends.' "Someday" and "one of these days" are losing their grip on my vocabulary. If it's worth seeing or hearing or doing, I want to see and hear and do it now."

Over the years, remembering this story has made me braver. That's led to all my good adventures, even the ones that ended is disaster.

Some day is today. Book a flight. Ask someone out. Make your art. See a play. Drink the good coffee/wine. Order dessert first. Connect with people, no holds barred. Life is too short for anything other than an unfettered yes. Care fiercely. Love wildly.

**walks back into the room like Columbo**

And another thing!

This quote from Ted Hughes, in a letter to his son, Nicholas:

“The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't live boldly enough, that they didn't invest enough heart, didn't love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.”

He's right. And that's been something I have carried around for years, too. Hughes is one of my favorites. (I have his book of collected letters, and it's incredible.)

Invest your heart. <3

I got actual work done this weekend but more importantly I drew PAM WHO DEATH FORGOT

I love thinking “huh I’ve never really drawn a ton of Fallout fanart over the years” and then I remember her

Bothering the beast

i want to share with you some of my favourite graffiti from Pompeii

I’ve always loved these. Humanity has never fucking changed.

the guy who wrote “if anyone does not believe in Venus, they should gaze at my gf” drank XTREME respect women juice

Reblog with your score

HOW?

Women are allowed to do this.

Classic hammerphobe response.

I love you angry characters I love you revenge arcs I love you protagonists who kill people and don’t feel bad about it I love you manipulative heroes I love you gray morals I love you terrifying protagonists I love you characters who hold boiling grudges I love you characters who reveal that their perceived harmlessness was just patience the whole time I love you stories about atonement and rage and vengeance that don’t end in forgiveness or guilt I love you stories that explore the healing power of incandescent rage

I just remembered that when I was like 6 I had a dream where I heard a very tiny “hello!” and I looked and it was this tiny white puffball and it looked like this

I'm collecting these. where is this damn kitchen

Building online businesses

"I'm eating ancestrally!" I chirp in my hyper-modern white kitchen as I pour borax into sour milk and chug it

Does the bovine tuberculosis also reverse pharma damage or

"It's a neat marketing trick from tradwives to position themselves as a dangerous threat that feminists are desperate to take out. It helps sell the central, lucrative fantasy to credulous audiences: That female submission is a woman's natural desire, one that's being stolen from them by sinister feminist forces. And that you, male viewer, would be gifted with a compliant helpmeet of your very own, if not for those dastardly feminists. But these brave women of YouTube, with their picture-perfect make-up and slender-but-curvy physiques, will stand up to those bitches and restore your birthright: A smoking hot 22-year-old housewife who never talks back, never gets tired, never says "no," and never gains weight, no matter how many children she has.

...

The tradwives claiming otherwise on social media are playing a shell game. They sneer at feminists for working, but creating online content is work, and often quite lucrative for those who snag huge fanbases. They deride feminists for having ambition, but of course, building an audience in the competitive world of online influencers requires a striver. They want to sell themselves as humble, but the whole "tradwife" genre is built on being aggressively opinionated — and reaping major rewards, both in terms of attention and money. Most "tradwives" online are far more # GirlBoss than even the most outspoken feminist. Their viewers are just too gullible to know what they're consuming is a toxic fantasy."

I have very little sympathy with the "male loneliness epidemic" but I wanted to see wtf they're doing that could be making it worse.

Answer: Exactly what it looks like. They're cheerfully talking about how Real Women Want To Be In The Kitchen And Smiling While They Make Dinner For You, A Real Man, and that is... not true. Men who buy into their propaganda wind up looking for women who don't exist and getting upset (and lonely) when they can't find a pretty, cheerful, 22-year-old partner who will never doubt, anger, or leave them.

I suspect it's a case where 90% of their women viewers/subscribers are aware it's a fantasy - like romance novels; they want to see charming videos of a life they can pretend is actually possible, but they know damn well is not how life works for actual people. (The other 10% are trying hard to figure out how to Do Womaning Right to become one of them, sigh.)

But the men who watch their videos... think it's real. They think they can just look around and find one of those women and the reason they haven't is... feminists have been hiding them, or the evil liberal media has duped all the women in their school/workplace into hiding their true nature, or they need to get out of the city, or something like that.

I continue to lack sympathy for the problem of "buncha guys decided to believe a story that's obviously faked for the camera, and tied themselves into emotional knots over it." But it was interesting to read.

The Kelpie Pond by Jaimie Whitbread