“Davey – Day, c'mon, y’ain’t makin’ any sense…” Jack says gently, rubbing his hand across Davey’s shoulders. “I mean, d’ya just not like her? ‘Cause there ain’t nothin’ wrong with that, sometimes a girl just ain’t the one-”

“But she was.” Davey insists, and he feels all the more like a child for it. “She – she was smart, a-and funny, and beautiful, and if there was ever a girl I could’ve liked, could’ve – could’ve been with, it’d be her, b-but I… I just…”

He takes a painful breath, his voice crushed - like shards of glass - into his throat.

“Jackie, I don’t…” He whispers as hot tears scald his cheeks. “I think there’s something wrong with me?”

His voice pitches up at the end like a question – but he knows the moment the words are said, the moment the thought is finally put into existence, that it’s not. There’s something wrong with him. He knows it. He knows it. And now Jack does, too.

Following up on this excellent post from @nightgoodomens, it really is astonishing to see so many people in the GO fandom misunderstanding the characters/personalities of Aziraphale and Crowley. While I by no means am against people having head canons or differing interpretations, it has become frustrating to see people pushing their ideas about Aziraphale and Crowley onto others and declaring them to be official canon, leaving no room for any kind of discussion.

One of the things spoken about in the above linked post is the denigrating of Crowley, which seems to be a near constant in the fandom at this point, particularly in relation to the "apology dance" scene. (Which, to be fair, is chock full of soft!Dom Aziraphale vibes--thank you, Michael Sheen.) What seems to keep getting missed is that the entire apology dance routine is something that Aziraphale and Crowley do to each other. There is just as much of a possibility that Crowley sat there with a similarly smug look on his face and let out a guttural, snakey "Very nice" when Aziraphale did the dance in the years he listed off, because they play this game together.

Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship is one of equals, and I think this is also something people seem to not understand well. It seems as though a lot of fans who project themselves onto Crowley want to be taken care of, and so they want to believe the same of Crowley, and that the reason he wants to be taken care of is because he is broken. But someone doesn't have to be broken to want someone to take care of them. Sometimes the people who are a shambles on the outside can be dominant, just as sometimes the most buttoned up, put together people can also be submissive. And sometimes the people who look in control on the outside can feel not at all that way on the inside.

But this nuanced thinking seems to increasingly be difficult for many GO fans, particularly those who spend a great deal of time on social media, a place where people are either blindly praised or denigrated and torn down, and where such behavior greatly reinforces that binary, black-and-white mindset. We so badly want the world to be clear-cut--good vs. evil, heroes vs. bad guys--but very often that just isn't how things work. And it is exactly what Terry and Neil were trying to speak against in the GO book (and subsequently, the TV show).

The other thing that I think influences a lot of fans' perceptions about Aziraphale and Crowley is their chosen corporations (i.e., Crowley being thin and Aziraphale being plump). There is an automatic assumption that thin somehow equals more vulnerable, and for all of the emphasis that is placed on Aziraphale and Crowley being genderfluid/nonbinary/not subscribing to traditional gender roles, it's Crowley who seems to be viewed as more androgynous/femme, and is therefore looked at as inherently vulnerable. Meanwhile Aziraphale is thicker and viewed as more masculine, and therefore he is somehow inherently not vulnerable. Yet if the body types were reversed, it seems highly likely that fans' attitudes toward them would be much different.

(It also saddens me that this seems to mirror the fans' treatment of Michael and David, where Michael serves as a target for the fans' venom and is seen as less desirable/more threatening because he presents more traditionally masculine, while David is not targeted or attacked and is seen as more desirable/less threatening because he presents much more androgynously. Consequently, many fans find it easy not to sympathize with Michael, and when you can readily disregard someone's feelings, it becomes easier to see them as "less." In the case of Aziraphale and Michael, it leaves no room for either one to be vulnerable and is unfair to both of them.)

What I have always taken away from Good Omens--and from Michael and David's portrayal of Aziraphale and Crowley and how deeply they both understand these characters--is that Crowley doesn't need to be a perfect angel for Aziraphale to like him. He just needs to be a little bit of a good person. And Aziraphale doesn't need to be a perfect demon for Crowley to like him--he just needs to be enough of a bastard to be worth knowing. Neither one has to fully subscribe to the other's outlook or point of view to listen to what they have to say.

Aziraphale and Crowley meet in the middle. In the place that becomes their side, and where they take care of each other, fight with each other, and love each other. And that's more than most of us could ever ask or hope for...

Normal life trial attempt #1

Oh, I dread to think what affect this will have on the kids. It could turn them into thieves… liars… fugitives on the run like your lot.

04-Feb-2019

This girl STIMS when she gets a date! Do you think this is normal?

I think that the idea of Carmen thinking she and Ivy are dating while Ivy laments the fact that Carmen will never be able to know of her feelings is the peak Carmivy dynamic btw

Bonus points if Carmen refers to Ivy as her girlfriend and Ivy is like “wuh huh???” and they have to have a Whole Conversation About It

One of my fave interactions with people--friends, mutuals, or otherwise--is always having someone be like 'wait, you wrote/ drew that thing i liked??'

It gets me every time. ♥

guys help the passage of time is really screwing with me today

Holy crow I just realized with that last rb that I'm enjoying Shakespeare again!!

And recently I've been looking forward to writing in my spare time!!!

Nature is healing :D : D :D

hey, sending this anonymously because i try to avoid the prying eyes of the weird fe fans when i can- but stumbled across your blog recently and had to tell you i appreciate it! you have a lot of the same insights to the games (both old and new) that i do, and it was a relief to find someone who can see through a lot of the bullshit writing/localization in games like fe16 and isnt afraid to point out how ridiculous the treatment of some characters and story lines are. i got very seriously harassed on fire emblem twitter during 2019 when 3h released and i was vocal about my disdain for edelgard and her route, so finding this corner of tumblr where people don't pull any punches calling out the racism and antisemitic vibes of the whole thing is refreshing.

No worries anon!

It's kind of sad we can't exchange or talk without going all "anon" like, and while I want to say it's exclusively because of the FE16 wank, imo it's a deeper current in the fandom, where some people just don't know how to enjoy things without ruining other people's enjoyment anymore!

Like sure, if there's something you disagree with, usually you'd make a reply, and then they're would be discussion, and ultimately everyone would part ways and joke about memes or something stupid, but now it's full on insults, spam asks and harassment...

I remember an old meme around circulating on SF that would be posted each time someone started a topic with "am i the only one who thinks X is better than Y" or something, and each time there'd be a person going all "yes you're the only one of the millions of internet users around the net lol"

But sure, in 2019 it was a bit, uh, complicated to have dissenting opinions because everyone bought a certain narrative and refused to consider anything else no matter where you went, so at least I thought on Tumblr I could post whatever I wanted without attracting the downvote pogroms from redshit or that one posted who posted each day for several weeks a post on the 3H topic about how Supreme Leader is good ackshually - but apparently even Tumblr isn't a safespace anymore, since people were harassed out of the general FE community!

Still, fwiw, I'll still be there to enjoy the things I like about the Fodlan verse, and let others enjoy the things they like about the Fodlan verse, and that's it and make fire jokes

Lizards BaD and the reason why Fodlan sucks, and actually the meta reason why every FE world sucked at one point?

Have that instead :

Modern!AU where Seteth accepted to house his siblings for a few months, but ends up kicking them out when Indech drinks all of his milk and puts the empty bottle back in the fridge, when Rhea gave the keys of Seteth's newest car to Willy, or when Macuil told him to shut up because he was watching cartoons with Flayn.

i cant believe donte divincenzo moved to the knicks from the warriors and stole klays jumpshot to bring with him

just booked Frank Turner tickets for next year !

Hi Amy, I'm the cursed anon who asked Neil lol (and I guess I'll stay anon for all my life after what happened today). I just wanted to thank you for what you wrote. I was sure my ask would have reached your blog somehow, alas. I don't know what to say, I'm mortified, it's been a rather hard day for me, since I felt completely misunderstood and belittled by someone I looked up to. I'm sorry because I must have phrased my ask in a weird way, an even "creepy" one, it seems.. By the way, I'm so glad you didn't find anything creepy in that, because I don't know for the life of me what I said that was perceived that way. I spent the entire day thinking about it and, at the same time, I tried to distract myself from shame. I don't know how to describe it, but this answer made me question so many things, about my mental health too, and I definitely didn't need that. He could have just said that he didn't quite understand what I meant, instead he only made me feel stupid and fed me to the lions. I mean, of course I know that season 2 is wrapped for example, I just wanted to tell him that maybe this sort of casting might be a future problem for season 3, and that I hope it won't be an issue for season 2, even though I saw many people turning up their nose already. (As I also bloody know that David Tennant and Michael Sheen are actors playing a part, evidently this is not what my concerns were!) I really don't know how to better explain it, English is a hard language to convey things sometimes. Neil doesn't speak any other language than it, and it shows honestly, because he doesn't know how hard it is for someone who is not native; me asking that might have been an impulsive decision, but I really tried to do my best with the language, it was hard, and it's like he pretended he didn't understand nevertheless. I don't know, I'm so disappointed by such a response. I thought it was more likely that he just read and didn't answer, but that condescending response? I didn't expect that. I'm sorry that I made him so sour/sharp/harsh (I don't know which adjective is the more appropriate in this case, and it drives me crazy that it can take so little to be misinterpreted, that's what I was referring to) because evidently I must have offended him or hit a nerve, which was not my intention. I might have been stupid to ask that, but if the ask was so annoying to him, it's not like he was obliged to answer it and being so cruel at the point to completely distort its meaning. Do I regret it? I do, but maybe without all of this, I wouldn't have ever seen this side of him, and I'm for the truth, even if it always tastes bittersweet, so.. Good to know, I guess. 

Sorry for ranting! Oh my god, I didn't realise, it's just that it's still an open wound to me. Coming back to you, I wanted to tell you that even if you might not agree with me (you have all the right not to), your response is actually the kind I expected from a man of power who is twice my age (just saying). Thank you for always being so considerate and tactful, you really did made me feel a little better. I wish there were more people like you in the world, I mean it.

(Sorry for the disappeared ask, I deleted the account after sending it, thinking that it would have stayed in your inbox once it was there.. Well, I was wrong haha. I'm going to delete it after you answer then, I had reactivated it just because you turned the anons off and I wanted to thank you instantly <3)

Hi, Anon. Oh, I am so sorry for what you went through yesterday. I'm also floored to have you reach out to me, as I didn't even realize you were aware of my blog, but I thank you for doing so and sharing your thoughts/feelings with me.

It saddens me so greatly to know how much Neil's response has hurt you, and how it has affected your mental health. If the comments on my post about what happened are indication, however, you are definitely not the only one who felt that his response was not okay. What you said about feeding you to the lions was something one of my followers also mentioned, and whether Neil intended it or not, I would have to agree with that assessment.

The fact is, Neil is a writer. He knows how powerful words can be, and how suggestive. So by calling your question "creepy" in that first sentence, he is creating the lens through which the reader is going to view your question. And so what I would say is that two things can be true here, which is that 1) You have every right to feel the concerns you do, but trying to engage Neil about it was probably not the best idea; and 2) Neil has the right to feel/say what he wants, but deciding to answer your question the way he did instead of simply ignoring it was also probably not the best idea.

I don't know if you've been on his blog at all today, but Neil actually went into a bit more detail about his rationale, re: the use of the word "creepy" in the comments on this post, as part of a back-and-forth exchange with another fan who again brought up the issue of nepotism. I thought I would highlight these two comments in particular:

What I was struck by in the comment on the left was two specific things: 1) Neil's mention of the "undertones" to your question. Going by what you wrote, Anon, as well as the message that you've written here, I do not think there were any undertones to your Ask--with the possible exception of calling Neil's character into question (which, if he was hoping to squash that, it is now beyond ironic that his response to you has achieved the exact opposite); and 2) That someone who has been described as "so Tumblr" and "Neil gets it" would somehow be oblivious to how venomous people can be on social media, especially when encouraged by the creators of their favorite works, and why someone would therefore not want to make themselves a potential target. In just the first sentence of his response to you, however, Neil proved exactly why you were right to use a burner account.

In terms of the comment on the right, we see Neil draw a false equivalence between your question and people criticizing him for casting POC actors in Sandman. This was (in my opinion) Neil doing this fan what he did to you, which is twist around what they were saying as a means of deflection and avoiding answering the question that was actually being asked, which was about nepotism. The other irony for me is him talking about people accusing him of having a secret agenda, while he was the one doing the same thing to you. The only difference is that his assumption ended up having serious consequences, as we are now seeing.

I think you did hit a nerve, Anon, but--as strange as it may sound--I don't think it had anything to do with you. My feeling is that there is something going on with Neil and he is using Tumblr as an outlet--much in the same way that Michael used Twitter as an outlet in 2019/2020. So I do not think you are "cursed" or "made" Neil be salty/harsh--I think he was already this way and took whatever is happening with him out on you. Because if everything was absolutely fine--if what you were mentioning in your question was totally ridiculous and Neil was entirely unbothered by it--I do not think he would have answered it, nor would he still have been engaging this fan about it for hours afterward.

I know this probably won't be of much comfort, and I am sorry. English is not my second language, but I am autistic, and I relate very deeply to what you described about searching so hard for the right words (which is probably why it takes me forever to answer my Anons) because of not wanting to be misunderstood. And I know very well what it's like to have someone you so greatly admired turn out to be not at all what you expected, especially when everyone else's perception of that person is so wildly different.

It is for that reason that I can understand fans on here and Twitter rushing to defend Neil, not wanting to feel that someone they love could possibly do anything wrong. "Neil is a human being" is a comment I've seen frequently...but if we are going to say that Neil is human, then that means he is imperfect. It means he makes mistakes. And it should not be controversial to say this. I've also seen people in the aftermath of this saying how kind Neil is to the fans...but his response to you was unkind. Setting someone up to be a target is not kind. Neil has so many people who write into him who are dealing with mental health issues and concerns, and at best his response to you was thoughtless...but at worst, it sends a message to other fans that they, too, could become targets for absolutely no reason. And while I do not believe that Neil owes the fans anything, having an awareness of the power he wields and a sense of basic human decency does not seem like much to ask.

You do not ever have to apologize for ranting to me, Anon. I'm so glad that what I wrote in my other post helped you to feel better, even if just a little. I am by no means perfect--far from it--but I've been in enough fandoms and had enough heartaches to know that I would want to do anything I could to spare someone else from going through the things I went through. The shame here is not yours for asking a question that yielded a disproportionate overreaction from Neil--the shame belongs to the people who piled onto you because of it.

I want you to know that I was truly touched by your compliments, and that you felt comfortable enough to be so vulnerable with me here. I'm sending you lots of love, as well as the hope that we can continue to have honest discussions about these subjects. A lot of people are with you, and believe me when I again tell you that you are not alone. xx

Woe, Teridax be upon ye.

2019-2020 works, featuring a few commissioned pieces.

looping on a tuesday night? god youre pathetic.

alternative title: "nothing in life matters" vs "nothing in life matters!!"

... its been like. three years since ive drawn kidd. woe. kindergarten be upoe ye. maybe im stuck in a timeloop and its 2019 again.

What’s your pov on her pregnancies? Of the body or surrogate?

I'm opening Pandora's Box tonight in honor of the eclipse.

I'm 80/20.

20% of the body because:

There are tiny skinny-Minnie people in my family who didn't gain any weight during their pregnancies except in their faces and in the baby bumps (as photographs of Meghan depict), so I know it's possible.

That one appearance of Meghan where she accompanied Harry but hid backstage until he cajoled her out. She was not looking her best that day (very puffy, bloated face) and seemed a bit angry, to me, at being called out/forced onto the stage to stay hello.

Padding the bump - which some celebs do, especially when their bump isn't the typical "cute" baby belly - can explain the difference in sizing day-to-day.

How early it was announced.

How long it took Meghan to lose the baby weight - she was still carrying a lot of extra weight at Trooping 2019 (and the weight gain was amplified for me by poor styling choices with her hair, hat, and outfit).

80% surrogacy because:

There was no PR about Meghan's pregnancy compared to Kate's, and Meghan has always done the "anything Kate can do I can do better" PR competition every chance she could. If Meghan had terrible morning sickness, it'd have been all over the tabloids about how much worse than Kate Meghan's morning sickness is. If Meghan didn't have any sickness, it'd have been all over the tabloids about how much better and hard-working Meghan is during her pregnancy.

The excessive belly-groping and coat-flicking. Yes, she was doing that on purpose to get all the cameras and attention, but IMO she was doing it so excessively that it crossed into "the lady doth protest too much" territory for me.

The bending over and squatting down with knees and feet together. I've never been pregnant but I am a bigger girl who carries her weight in her midsection and who also cannot bend or squat down with knees, ankles, and feet together.

The alleged deal she had with Trevor that if she had a baby, he would pay for a personal trainer and a nutritionist and a nanny so she could whip her body back into shape. That's not someone who wants to be pregnant (but of course, people *can* change their minds. But still.)

The "rules of engagement" that Meghan and Harry sent to their Windsor neighbors/community about how the neighbors couldn't speak to the Sussexes or take their photographs.

The inconsistencies between what Harry reported in Spare and what the Portland Hospital's actual procedures are and the people who were involved.

Meghan choosing to deliver at Portland instead of Lindo and refusing to serve the baby on a silver platter after birth. The Lindo photocall is one of Diana's five* iconic photos. Are you telling me that Meghan happily copies Diana's outfits, copies Diana's pregnancy woes (emotional/mental distress to the point of self-harm), copies Diana's complaints about the BRF and the grey suits, copies Diana's second pregnancy announcement, and copies Diana's Panorama makeup...but she draws the line at copying Diana's Lindo photoshoots? And has a controlled photoshoot with one television camera and one photographer instead?

Meghan's birth "stories" matching more of the American Hollywood stereotypes than actual British practice.

Just one papwalk during all of her second pregnancy.

Hiding her belly with a giant-ass purse during the NYC baby shower after having spent the evening partying with friends, including Markus Anderson.

Harry's first appearance after Archie's birth being in the horse stables at Windsor instead of around the hospital (as William and Charles had been) and also Harry's "babies change so much in two weeks" comment.

Tacky social media influencer games with Archie's first photos under the guise of "privacy" - showing us the back of his head first, or his hand or his foot. Just show us the damn baby. No one cares about him that much.

Editing Archie's birth certificate.

Sara Latham bungling the media strategy for Archie's birth announcement. (Let's be real here. It's not Kensington Palace that fucked it up. It was the Sussexes' own people giving KP the wrong information in the first place.)

In the same vein of Meghan's "anything Kate can do I can do better" PR competition, there have been no stories about how Meghan felt of the early baby days. Kate and her family/friends have gone on record about how difficult the first few weeks with George were. Where is Meghan's equivalent? If Archie was a terrible newborn, then where are the stories about how much worse than Kate Meghan had it? Or if Archie was a happy, easy newborn, then where are the stories about how easy Meghan found motherhood? Instead the only story we got was "oops, it's feed time. Gotta go. Peace."

How early the pregnancy was announced.

How quickly (and suspiciously) the clinic/practice that Meghan used for her second pregnancy closed soon after Lili was born.

On that note, I don't subscribe to the theory that a lot of you may have (and which has ended up in my inbox quite a few times) that Archie doesn't know who Meghan is because he didn't smell her milk in South Africa and had a reaction. First off, PLEASE stop sending me that. I REALLY don't want to read about Meghan's breasts anymore.

Second, I don't think the Sussexes having nannies to help care for Archie is the kiss of death that many of you think it is. Some people just aren't baby people or little kid people. Some people like the older years better, when the kid can talk and is a little more independent and mobile. I've always suspected that that's Meghan and Harry, because all of their PR about wanting kids or liking kids has alwas featured older school-aged kids. They're not baby/toddler/early years people. And that's OK. That's not something to condemn them for.

And I don't think it's fully fair to call them out on their hypocrisy of what they said they wouldn't do as parents before they had children. Some of the hypocrisy is deserved (like the comment about not dressing their kids as Victorian ghost children but then turning around and giving Lili a Victorian ghost child dress for her 1st birthday photo), but they do deserve more grace than they're sometimes given; people just don't know how hard parenting or having children is until the baby is here. Yes, ding them for saying they'd never have a nanny but then turning around and hiring two or three, but also let's acknowledge that they know they can't (or don't, or won't, however you want to say it) care for their own kids themselves and hired responsible caretakers.

Finally third, I don't think Meghan ever breastfed those kids. Maybe she tried in the beginning with Archie, but if she did, she gave up pretty quickly. Those kids are formula babies. That's OK! So I don't buy the theory she was taking hormones and her weight gain was hormone-induced. Again, it's because of the missing "anything Kate can do I can do better" competition here.

*Diana's top 5 iconic photos are (in no particular order) the wedding dress portrait, the Lindo photos, the Taj Mahal photo, the Panorama photo, and the Revenge Dress photo.