Well. Today I was told that Mardi Gras is pagan. The reason? It’s a spring celebration (?)

Which was followed by Easter being pagan because it moves around. I said that’s because it aligns with how Passover is scheduled and was told that’s because Passover’s scheduling is taken from paganism too (??) (you think the Jewish people built their calendar off of the Greeks/Romans?)

Then told all Catholic holidays are stolen from whatever local pagan tradition because of the Roman emperor (???) (never mind how many were in place before Constantine’s decriminalization of Christianity).

Then told that not eating cloven hoofed animals came from the Muslims (????) (Islam. Which was founded 700 years after Christ and thousands of years after Judaism.)

And of course fish on Friday being because of the Italian fishing industry. Which may hold some merit but still isn’t the whole picture.

And just… there’s so much bad info that’s taken as true because it’s anti-Catholic.

Oh. And humans are a plague on this earth and have no place in the natural order (???????).

Look, I know that a lot of people on this hellsite probably agree with at least some of these, but it was a lot to process in 45 minutes.

Reading moodboard #84430940 (Patreon)

I love how we’re all acting like Sin-yu can just “break up” with his gf and THEN him and Hong ju can be together.

Was thinking a bit deeper on @deadendtracks query https://www.tumblr.com/divinekangaroo/740003125539307520/i-clipped-this-from-your-post-because-its-easier?source=share

Snipped for sex talk, and also to spare any disinterested parties my naiveity on complex matters such as: subaltern/Orientalism/exoticism/Othering/ethnic talk etc

In hindsight I think I answered that query as a ‘possible authorial intent’ - speculatively, to subvert the usual gangster trope by displaying macho-ish behaviours (sex! whores!) but flipping motivation and outcome.

But there's also something else that's been churning away at the back of my head, the term subaltern. "the most powerless people living within the socio-economic confines of imperialism" -- and this imperialist overlay that often assigns the devious, deviant, dark, scheming/conniving/machavellian/feminine characteristics to the subaltern man, too, because it is exotic.

I haven't properly structured an argument around this; I feel a lot of T's approach to sex has that almost woman-coded thing to it, as signifiers of an even-further-disadvantaged man. It nags at me and feels that this also ties into this subaltern, semi-'Orientalist' / exotic layer he has as 'lower than the lowest class' / 'actually so low class he's outside of class' Romani character -> less of a stereotype, more of a conscious consideration of "if you have nothing, you will use everything you can, and sometimes that includes your own body, and guess what here's the bind: that kinda puts you even *lower* in the hierarchy, because women are lower than men and only women use their bodies that way!"

Gut instinct, barely unpacked: there's an imperialist/cultural/ethnic trauma that feels like it can't be detached from Tommy's sexuality/approach to sex any more than the hints of childhood trauma or abuse can be, either. Especially when you consider childhood as his closest time still connected to the living Romani culture, as opposed to by the time we see him on screen when his interactions with his culture are static and based on childhood/broken memories. I was initially put off by the Romani layer because it felt like a stereotype - gangs followed ethnic lines so let's just apply an ethnicity that's ~exotic~ - but the later series re-frame the earlier approach into something that shows it was almost never intended to be a representation of the culture but rather, more like Tommy's particular (distorted, damaged) view.

----

But then also answering the personal side of the question RE: Tommy's character. What does it mean for a person/individual to be so transactional and detached from sex yet participatory towards it?

This gets a little more headcanon-y:

T started having sex or being sexualised (seeing/experiencing sex) really young in a less than affectionate way - more like, here is a thing that must be done for some other action to happen (or be diverted).

Because of this, I can’t ever see him permitting himself to perform that ‘hungry to totally surrender his control and desires to someone else’ role so frequently given to him in fanon. What happened with Tatiana was an exception, not a rule. It’s nice to read for various reasons, but I'm unlikely to personally lean into this take. Not to say he's dominating or must be fully in control during sex, either, just that I think he'd avoid leaning into surrender because it'd be like losing total control of a transaction and becoming far too vulnerable.

Despite that I do feel he has an urge for connection/intimacy, I think he struggles with actually connecting deeply with people, reading sexual cues/flirtation or the like. In some ways, he connects too deeply and therefore holds back? I did have thoughts along the asexual line. He likes certain people, and he mostly enjoys the physical act of sex, and these two things can overlap to ‘I would like sex with this certain person’, but there’s a big gap between the two. Deep connection is unrelated to sex. Can't read flirt cues to the point he leapfrogs straight to the 'do you want to fuck?' almost as an abstraction because he can never decode the in-between steps?

Notwithstanding any deep connection, sex is still considered/framed as duty and obligation. His approach with Lizzie in S6 as case in point; he is conscious of his role and considers it a thing that must be performed to satisfy that role. Even S5, it feels like a 'seal the deal' sex exchange; he knows she likes it, she just told him so and that it's important to her, so all right, he's going to let loose.

This difficulty with 'is this connection? not sure?' is one reason why I think he is mostly about family (he can take connection for granted and has had a really really long time to build it). He also has a surprisingly large *respectful* but superficial network (he knows the right behaviours but rarely gets personal), very few close friends (honestly is this just Alfie? Maybe, once, Freddie and Barney? even Johnny Dogs and Uncle Charlie are subordinate). Which lends itself very effectively to leadership, to be honest, but also loneliness: again it feels like he's performing connection.

I really struggle with picturing him feeling much physical attraction without consciously focusing on it. He seems to spark for people (or maybe situations/dynamics - classy women?) not their physical, and when I’m in headcanon mode, it’s familiarity that builds his fondness for certain aspects of a person's physicality, rather than their physicality attracting him initially. So either he wants sex (release) and it's not really relevant who with, or he wants the person and sex is acceptable/better with that person. And there's a conscious switch in his head like, "ok now paying attention to physical attraction because must have sex" or "switch it off not important right now"

getting gnc with it out & about at math meetup (or wherever)

ADHD is so fun I love having a remix of N64 Mario Kart music mixed with the Dora the Explorer theme song stuck in my head on a loop for 3 days straight

Oh what's that? You're asking if I really have spent my work day just reading "Lucas on the Line" on my phone? Well that's funny you asked because yes. Yes I have. And now I'm an emotional wreck.

Every summer I feel like i've grown a lot and I'll do better this time around but then the Autumn hits and the specific way it makes me feel has changed and grown and compounded too and now like every year im sitting here with so much homework feeling so lost and uncertain. And I want to make cookies

i hate that this apartment has paper thin walls i can't even cry in peace bc im afraid everyone will hear me

i don't have words to express how much wrestling i watched today and how much i love it how was i ever capable of just not watching wrestling i feel sick at the thought!!!!

Ok me realizing I first joined tumblr early 2012 in vocaloid fandom

Speed running through homestuck for a year. Then getting into persona December 2013. Which would then proceed to take over my life for the next like 9 ish years

Man.

(Ophelia) are you cyberstalking your little sister/j

…only a little bit—

listen. did I specifically peer over her shoulder when standing behind her to watch her scroll and confirm it was tumblr? yeah. did I wait to watch her like a post? yeah. did I then look at the url of the person who made that post and find that exact post on their blog and then go through the recent likes until I found my little sister? yeah

when I put it like that it sounds a lot worse. hmm. i will proceed to say nothing about it and pretend I know nothing and pretend like I didn’t go through the exact sequence of social media to get here that she’s going through

feeling SO SO NORMAL about the beloved BLADE GUNNBLADE

You ever wish you could blacklist tags in your own head? Cus while the experience was necessary to become the Whovian I am, I want to block all Outpost Gallifrey and Gallifreybase stuff automatically from my mind unless I click to open each individual thought.

mcr "i know you dont work here anymore" except its about me emailing my old indigenous studies prof because I decided that maybe I will publish that paper he wanted me to except im hashtag afraid and want his advice (he does not work at my college anymore)

This is just a personal pet peeve of mine but i feel like a lot of online art tutorials overstate the importance of stuff like guidelines to get “correct” anatomy every single time and while those are typically really good handgrips for beginners we should also tell beginners about gesture drawing. Like maybe i’m being too animatorbrained here but being able to pump out a pose in anywhere from 15 seconds to 2 minutes and quickly move onto the next drawing without lingering on every little mistake is a really really good way at getting good at drawing people proportions quickly. If you make mistakes fast you learn from them fast. So here’s a little exercise:

Sit down, grab some reference images, draw ten poses in twenty minutes (or do ten poses in ten minutes if you’re feeling adventurous or confident) and take a step back and look at your work after the fact. Be sure to move from drawing to drawing quickly once your timer is done. Pretend you’re in a model drawing class and the model has already changed pose whenever your timer hits - finish up whatever lines you were drawing, move on to looking at what the model is doing now.

You will make a lot of shitty drawings, of course, but that’s not so bad. You only spent a minute or two making each one. Focus on the drawings you do like, and look at them as a whole.

Look at all the drawings together and how they fit together on the page. Look at little details and lines you’re proud of. Take note of things you found difficult to get right in such a short time. Take note of the things you liked doing. Do the exercise again, and focus in on the things you want to improve or explore.

Maybe you want to focus on how the torso conveys its weight on the legs. Maybe you want to focus on how shoulders and arms bend around the neck. Maybe you want to focus on how to convey depth on the torso. Maybe you can learn something more about how to draw a body if you only draw using sharp lines and angles. Maybe you can learn something more if you only draw using squiggly, overlapping lines. Maybe you can learn more about how to draw a body if you only fill out the shadows with thick, quick lines. Congratulations! You’re not just learning how to draw a body, but you’re now also exploring your tastes!

This is a fine exercise to do alone, but it’s a lot more fun to do as an activity with a small group so you get to discuss the art you made together.