..So talking to @/elevenhigh I did come up with a sort of unique concept for a Jack O’Lantern/Mad Jack villain design as suggested [here].. the thought of a black paper lantern head with pink/red flames was just too good for my little mind. So I just had to do a quick sketch with some color + some additional stuff about the whole paper lantern head, too!

[Chōchin Obaké] inspired!

Local siblings too doomed to function

it is hard to explain without sounding vain or stupid - but the more attractive others find you, the more you're allowed to do. the easier your life is.

i have been on both sides of this. i am queer and cuban. i grew up poor. for a long time i didn't know "how" to dress - and i still don't. i make my sister pick out any important outfits. i have adhd in spades: i was never "cool and quiet", i was the weird kid who didn't understand how "normal" people behave. i was bullied so hard that the "social outcasts" wouldn't even talk to me.

i got my teeth straightened. i cut my hair and learned how to style it. i got into makeup. it didn't matter, at first, if i actually liked what i was doing - it mattered how people responded to it. like a magic trick; the right dress and winged eyeliner and suddenly i was no longer too weird for all of it. i could wear the ugly pokemon shirt and it was just "ironic" or a "cute interest."

when i am seen as pretty, people listen. they laugh at my jokes. they allow me to be weird and a little spacey. i can trust that if i need something, people will generally help me. privilege suddenly rushes in: pretty does buy things. pretty people get treated more gently.

i am the same ugly little girl, is the thing. still odd. still not-quite-fitting-in. still scrambling. still angry and afraid and full of bad things. of course it became my obsession. of course i stopped eating. i had seen, in real time, the exact way it could change my life - simply always be perfect, and things can be easy. people will "overlook" all the other things. i used to have panic attacks at the idea others would see me without makeup - what would they think? even for a simple friend hangout, i'd spend a few hours getting ready. after all, it seemed so obvious to me: these people liked me because i was pretty.

i worry about how much i'm being a bad activist: i understand that "pretty" is determined by white, het, cis, able-bodied hegemonies. if i was really an ally, wouldn't i rally against all of this? recently there's been a "clean girl" trend which copies latinx aesthetics: dark slicked-back hair, hoop earrings. i almost never wear my hair like that; i can hear the middle school guidance counsellor advising me that i might fare better if i toned it down on the culture.

the problem is that i can take pretty on and off. that i have seen how different my life is on a day where i try and a day where i don't. i told my therapist i want to believe the difference is confidence, but it's not. and when you have seen it, you can't unsee it. it lives inside your brain. it rots there; taunting. i get rewarded for following the rules. i am punished for breaking them. end of story.

pretty people can get what they want. pretty people can feel confident without others asking where they got their nerve from. pretty people can be weird and different. pretty people get to have emotions; it's different when they get aggressive, it's pretty when they cry with frustration.

of course people care about this. of course it has crawled into you. of course you want to be seen as attractive. it's not vanity: it's self-preservation.

🤫

i really do hate how "inclusive language" has just looped back around to gender essentialism in so many cases. i had my women in art professor say the words "there are things that men-identifying individuals will never understand in the way women do." and it's clear she wanted to say cis (het, white, upper class, neurotypical, able bodied, etc) men (which is another conversation entirely), but in her attempts to be inclusive she's fully missed the point. there are plenty of male-identifying individuals that understand, be it trans men or multigender people or nonbinary individuals or what have you. using gender inclusive terms does nothing when all you do is further alienate and erase people's experiences/identities

I see aplatonics talking about how people assume not having friends means you're an unlikable person and how harmful that can be and it just reminds me of how people will point to assholes and say they don't have friends as an insult but like...I know a lot of assholes with friends. Their friends also tend to be assholes. someone not having friends is not a moral failing. Assholes have people who like them and will hang out with them while the nicest person you know may have no friends at all. so y'know, I'm with the aplatonics and platorepulsed ppl on this one.

TYPECAST: First Kanaphan edition

who wants to hear my absolutely stunning ideas for atla soap opera aus

Go kitty go!!!

bonus in spanish lmao

First official Tumblr post! Hope y'all like 😋

i made you a cookie but i eated it .........

Birthday boy at the bottom of an ancient ocean

LOIS SMITH and JAMES DEAN in a wardrobe test for East of Eden (1955) dir. Elia Kazan

ummmmmm I caught up on last night's 911 and.....hello!?!?!?!?!?!? I AM HAVING THE TIME OF MY LIFE

he lived, he served cunt, he got put in a psych ward and probably some other shit but I've been too busy looking at all the domestic fluff to figure out the lore