already seeing people who clearly don’t understand that a lot of us who are upset about what happened to marwa in this episode aren’t upset about the characters’ in-universe morality but the real life misogyny and racism in the way that this plot was handled lol

I'm sorry if what I say is wrong in any way, I don't mean to offend you, it's just something I'm not completely sure about. Does Adam use he/they or they/them pronouns? I think I saw a post of yours where you said that Adam uses he/they, but it was a while ago and now I'm not completely sure (and I don't want to use the wrong pronouns)

I know you don't mean anything by it, but I am sad that so many of the asks I get start with people saying "I'm sorry, I don't want to offend you" or some variation thereof, followed by completely normal questions. I think I may have been responding too harshly to too many things and given the impression that I'll jump at people for being wrong...

But asking clarifying questions is always okay. I mean, it's also okay to be wrong and even offensive. What matters is if you learn from it when someone points out that it was wrong or offensive. I won't stop telling people they're saying something hurtful if they are, but I don't want that to lead people to be scared of me or something.

Correcting people is always just about correcting them, not hurting them. It's okay to need to be corrected, were all learning new things every day.

Anyways Adam uses he/they, you remembered correctly

everytime i feel like ass and that the quality of work i do is poor/subpar i just have to remind myself that sucking is an act of community service. if i look around and all i see are girlboss slays 💅 who are having boundless personal, financial, creative, and career successes, if i were to join them and also have insane, non-stop achievements then it makes anyone outside of that sphere feel even worse. i feel like the standards for success, especially in a creative sense, are so goddamn high these days that the more mediocre, "just OK" work i put out into the world, the more i can challenge those expectations and make anyone outside of that world feel a little more ok. I flop for the besties.

thinking about how mishandled the herb brides are because like. The Text tells us they're not sexual beings (P1 mentions them being virgins, engaged to the Earth, and not to be touched even by their husbands, almost, for a lack of a better word and to conjure an image more than anything, priestess-types) and that their dances are nonsexual and sacred (all all true and correct) WHILE. giving them detailed / 3D modeled nipples. topless. clothes very conveniently torn [in ways that would be unrealistic for actual dancing like in the fucking moshpit]. all pretty thin hairless white-passing blemishless 20-something women. being already sexualized as white-passing asian women, but if they looked more like other NPC models/members of the Kin like the Kayura models (which to me would make more sense because they are never mentioned to be mixed in the way Artemy, an indigenous man who's blonde blue eyes due to being mixed, is [while still very much being indigenous and it being a central part of his story]), it would be even more obvious and would steer even more into Very Blatant fetishization of asian women. and then one asks, are they white-passing because they're sexualized? are they sexualized because they're white-passing? was it an admission of guilt to not make them look like Kayura model, because it would be too obvious then? or is it an admission of lust for women more white-passing? is it about beauty in the eye of the beholder?

then there's bewildering and dehumanizing lore of members of the Kin being non-humans, through the existence of the Worms (literally half-soil), them being a (more or less literal) hivemind, and that being "less human"/closer to the earth (nice_dichotomy_what_lies_outside_of_it png but also... the game touches on that...) immunizes them to the Earth's disease... and yet the Brides look like women... pretty thin hairless white-passing blemishless 20-something women who someone found wise to give 3d modeled nipples to, still good for the ritual cutting... do you hear how i'm going mad yet...

edit to add because while i was so mad and it WAS in my mind i just didn't have the strength to add it when i first wrote:

and they're bought and traded between the odonghs they pair with (again, closer to cattle or things) ... ladies there's so much. there's too much.

good morning thinking about lockwood's toy mobile which wasn't as old as it should have been (given how young they all are) and the cruel juxtaposition between a childhood toy and the incomprehensible horrors literally waiting for them in the attic and metaphorically waiting for him behind The Door

would LOVE to hear your thoughts on a ty lee x suki situation !!

HEHE ohhhh you. okay. WELL i think they would be really cute together to be honest. their dynamic has a lot of really interesting facets to it to me!!

to me, suki seems to be... not necessarily a Control Freak, but someone who knows pretty quickly exactly what she wants to do, how to do it and what is the efficient way to do so. she has a very analytical and tactical way of thinking, as well as being very team-oriented, which makes sense obviously, but gives the impression to me that she has a lot of pride and security IN knowing what to do, and doesn't like not having this control. she tends to do what she think is best in a situation and take the lead, like at the boiling rock for example. (this is also why i think she gets along with sokka so well imo as the Controller of all the control freaks that he is).

ty lee, at least at one point, represented a very literal manifestation of someone who could take away this control VERY easily. iirc suki even particularly notes/is aware of ty lee's specific threat and takes a lot of care in avoiding her, which beyond the normal like battle acumen of being aware of your enemy's strengths, indicates chi blocking in particular is something she's genuinely afraid of at least imo. this makes a lot of sense to me with what i've already established as a part of suki's character, and is also Very Interesting considering. suki has always been a very confident and resilient character, and something to shake that confidence in a believable way is always interesting to see, even if it's the very literal confidence-shaking of what having a crush is like.

i think it's a very funny thing where, for plot reasons alone, ty lee met the kyoshi warriors minus suki, and taught them chi blocking, purely because suki just wasn't there and didn't get the chance. additionally thinking of the dynamic at play at least initially of suki being separated from her group for this length of time time who have now since reunited with her after absorbing this other, new member, who was previously a threat that suki is WELL aware of the scope of, but one that is also trying to do her best and make amends (which is, we know, also a weakness of suki's in particular, even if sokka's situation was on a... less dramatic scale. lol), and the tensions of that may rise from there...

and like. well. c'mon. PRIVATE LESSONS involving touching the other person's body + the added tension of suki's potential insecurities regarding this... c'mon.

i also think it's really fun that they're pretty much always presented as a pair (which i know is just because ty lee is like, the only established and known other character in the group, but. gift horse, etc). plus, i have always enjoyed the dynamic of leader + second in command and the complexities of trust/duty/devotion that exist there... idet the kyoshi warriors have an established hierarchy like this but honestly being second-in-command in everything but name is even better. they're always front and centre!!

staying up on GUARD DUTY together... !!!

i think ty lee is one of the most interesting female characters from the fire nation full stop and it drives me CRAZY the way people almost... sand her down, i guess? they sort of tend to fall for the bubbly, perky loosey-goosey positive Ty Lee of it all and forget to incorporate how she's a master martial artist and seemingly the only person on fucking earth who knows how to chi block people, something she also, you can assume, taught herself, as well as being emotionally, politically and tactically brilliant and incredibly combat-able and competant otherwise. beyond the obviously ripe two-nonbenders-in-a-bending-world of it all, i think suki would of all people be able to admire these traits as something she can relate to and more than anything be able see ty lee as the complex and multifaceted individual she is, which is obviously something that would be super signficiant and touching for ty lee.

it's also kind of like, wild that people DO seem to forget this, as well, or they just don't think about it too deeply i guess, because to me while i don't think ty lee is in any way like, excessively inauthentic i do think the combination of being one of azula's only, trusted friends and the political landscape she grew up in as a child of a noble herself results in a character who very much so knows what she's fucking doing. i think she happily takes advantage of the way people perceive her as a pretty obvious bait-and-switch situation where they underestimate her and then she brutally and efficiently takes them down, something which those who do know her are both aware of but somehow fall for at the same time. while i don't think ty lee is MANIPULATIVE, or even malicious at all in that regard, i do think she's very keen in this way and i for one don't underestimate that.

(something that comes to mind is the whole bit where azula was trying to recruit her and the like, "the universe is giving me some pretty big signs [to join you]" thing. i think the perception that she says this because she truly believes a net being set on fire is some sort of mystical sign from the universe is... truthfully insane to just believe w/no second thought, personally, when it's pretty clear to me she's recognising that she needs to do this in order to keep herself and her newfound livelihood let's say... in line, and is able to fall back on that predisposed perception of her in a way that doesn't raise azula's (master manipulator that SHE IS) guard like, at all, which is very impressive imo. while i do think she is her very authentic, true to life self, i think she also uses this as a sort of mask between both her and the real world, and possibly her and her real feelings on things. i think this is why she's so offended when people regard her as airheaded, bc everything she does is planned out, even down to having a boy use his own body to block the sun from her eyes. and, like with when she chose mai, when she knows what she needs to do she just... does it!)

going off of that, i think the assumption that ty lee is just a naturally gifted acrobat is also incredibly insane to me. we already know that re: her sisters, ty lee herself choose acrobatics as a hobby to create a sense of individualism, also creating a unique nightmare where her acrobatics ability is tied up into her sense of self, her quote unquote usefulness to azula and in part the FN itself, and also at one point is her only way to protect herself. i think the skills she has are very obviously something she trained hard for for a long time, and the abilities she possesses seem to be an entirely unique to her way of fighting along with incorporating something that is, again, genuinely very scary to a lot of people, and the idea that it all is just something that comes naturally to her is like, kind of insulting...? we literally see her CONSTANTLY stretching, too.

i think suki OF ALL PEOPLE can definitely admire and relate to this, as someone who follows a strict traditional style of martial arts that she trains probably every day and has a lot of personal pride in. (as well as, pretty obviously, them both being proficient in nonbender combat that highlights unique abilities, i.e. fan VS chi blocking). who are they, both of them, beyond being a warrior? i also well highly doubt the environment ty lee grew up in both allowed mistakes or lack of dedication, and didn't exactly foster being something of a team player, which is something that could create some Potential Conflicts as she's settling (i think there's even a bit in the more recent comics where azula says ty lee's uniform is slowing her down, and i KNOW that would frustrate the hell out of her, really)... the strange loyalty of azula, mai and ty lee, who existed as a group but not, princess and her weapons, childhood friends who weren't allowed to actually be friends, three individuals together with their own distinct traits but not actually Together, until ty lee chose mai, are... not exactly the tight knit group and well-oiled machine that are the kyoshi warriors, despite appearances. what ultimately leads to azula's breakdown was the hollow facade of it all. :(

suki's distinctive position as the capital L leader of a class of highly trained warriors is also really interesting to me for a lot of reasons, specifically to do with how i think she views herself, as both part of the group and separate from it entirely, and the unique way that she seems to me at least to actually be a very self-reliant person despite of course loving her girls and relying heavily on them. it's just an compelling character juxtaposition is all... i think ty lee is also, in a way, like this, if only as someone who could never truly "rely" on azula, and, up until she knew she could, even mai. on a lighter and related note, ty lee definitely has been Known to crush on people who boss her around LMFAO, and i also think it's very funny that they both at one point had a crush on sokka 😭.

LASTLY, ty lee's reluctance to be part of a matched set and then... joining a group of people who are a matched set is something i think about all the time, esp bc i know in the comics she LEAVES the group and then later comes back (which suki is very happy about... heh...). i know a lot of people think it's like, lazy writing, but i think it's ultimately very sweet that ty lee seemingly is working towards overcoming her insecurities regarding falling into the crowd, especially because of the way the kyoshi warriors seem to rely ON their uniform and inability to tell them apart in the heat of battle to their advantage. much like the way ty lee would use the way others perceive her, may i add. i think her working through this could also add another layer to their relationship, as well as the old "i'd know you even if your identity WAS obscured" trope.

anyways. basically i think they could work really well together. for some more like dot point reasons, i like the bubbly exuberant x levelheaded analytical dynamic as well as the subverted expectation that suki is the quote unquote more dangerous one when ty lee is the actual guard dog, and how they both share those traits when necessary. also just on a lesser note i think it's fun that suki has the whole headcanon of earth-kingdom-but-blue-eyes, possibly water tribe descended thing + fire-nation-with-grey-eyes, ty lee being possibly air nomad descended. "i may be a warrior, but i'm also a girl" applying to them both.

i like how duty and pride plays a big part in both of their characters, and the potential of ty lee reworking and reframing what this truly means to her through training with suki... i like the idea them being devoted to each other the way a knight is devoted to a princess as a subversion of the clouded, duty-and-fear driven dynamic of ty lee and azula's childhood dynamic, the way a leader is devoted to her people and therefore how this love is returned by suki, how it equalised through their devotion to each other through simple friendship. if suki is perhaps doomed or maybe just destined to always be seperate and Other, how ty lee is now able to stand WITH her. i'd like to maybe see a situation where suki maybe steps DOWN as leader and what she would do other than being this role that is such a big part of her, how she'll never stop BEING a kyoshi warrior but how she's also just a teenage girl who needs time to heal TOO.... well. in conclusion. Yuri wins forever.

future edit: if anyone wants additional reading this as well >:)

Can you tell me what you want, love? What you need me to do? You know I'd make your every wish come true if only l could, let me try? You know how good l am at helping you relax, at clearing your mind when there's no resistance because we both crave it so deeply. You know how good it feels to have all your attention trained on me, to serve me, to worship me. Because when you ask for whatever you want, this is what you ask for, each and every time. Do you want to submit to me, my love? Do you need to? It's okay, just ask, l promise l can make that wish come true

my strange intense attraction to voices (i dont know how to refer to it at this point) gets me constantly dreaming about going on T exclusively so my voice deepens and maybe i end up with a sexy voice. but then i also get irrationally worried about what if my voice gets deeper but it doesnt sound nice. but also i have no idea what makes me attracted to a voice it just kinda happens. much less can i predict what would happen to mine. so its a gamble really. i hope i sound like gianni

i’m gonna be real….if they don’t have marwa change back into herself before the end of the series i’m going to feel Some Type Of Way about it. that’s just not going to sit right.

Probably gonna be a hot take, but- art competitions are anti-art.

Competition kills art. Inherently. The second you start comparing people’s works and labeling some as “winners” and “losers”, you trivialize it.

So many young or beginner artists completely give up or don’t even try because they don’t believe they’ll ever be “good enough”, and competitive attitudes reinforce ideas of what is “good enough”.

It’s just overall- really yikes, imo.

it's bizarre to me how homestuck fans always talk about how like. you've got to go a little deeper than surface level to fully understand the characters and how they are. and then these same people will go on and on about how dirk is some uniquely terrible master manipulator and abuser. like. cmon man

finding an artist who draws your blorbo exceptionally well but also exclusively specializes in a ship that squicks you out for deeply personal reasons is. its own kind of hellish, if minor, inconvenience

my job makes me understand how europeans feel when they say that americans "smile too much" and it makes them uneasy

pro-tip btw. as someone who's been approached by a lot of people younger than me. please don't tell people about your home life a week into talking to them. just do Not volunteer that information at all!!!! not even if they ask!!! you're setting yourself up for a lot of danger. and it's terrifying that this has happened more than once. i know we're in the age of "internet friends are not strangers, they are my best friends" but you still have to exercise precaution towards people you've never seen before in your life

extremely important to me that my satyr is completely sweet and naive and gentle and innocent and is still a satyr who loves to drink and do drugs and have as much sex as possible, likewise extremely important to me that my goofy little kooky mad scientist archetype wizard with a silly voice and funny eccentricities is also unironically beautiful and desirable and capable of sincere attraction and love, extremely and equally important to me for different reasons that are the same reason