whoops I think I accidentally sent a question but without the question. anyway I was just trying to ask about the little guys (the forgotten)

Always down to talk about My Boys

My writer’s block has been really bad lately, but recently I’ve been mulling over some ideas again, specifically about Lionel. I feel like I could be doing some more interesting things with him. He’s the point of view character and the narrator but he often feels like a bit of a passive character, like a vessel for other people’s stories. I might lean into that and have him develop enough to start claiming his own agency. And I’ve been thinking about the plot trajectory in general. Im trying not to worry about that and just WRITE but in the words of Steve Coogan in Hamlet 2

You know I used to think "tumblr's absolute refusal to actually engage with the Trolley Problem in favor of insisting that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is just a short-sighted idiot is really fucking annoying, but I guess it's not actually doing any harm".

Anyway that was before we asked tumblr at large to decide between "guy aiding a genocide but making progress elsewhere" and "guy who would actively and enthusiastically participate in a genocide and would also make everything else much, much worse for everyone elsewhere" and the response was that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and that anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is a short-sighted idiot.

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

"aphobia doesn't exist"

bitch literally not that long ago an aroace youtuber animator was insulted by almost half of its community for being it

It runs in the family

look this site really is awful for ppl with OCD so i just wanna reassure anyone that you are not Tainted Forever for consuming a piece of media with questionable content. the fact that youre able to recognize it speaks to your critical thinking skills, which is good, certain depictions should be critiqued. but you dont need to ruminate on it to the point where you begin to feel guilty for simply witnessing gross or creepy writing choices. you dont have to vindicate yourself to the fictional tumblr discourser inside your head, saying that youre now a bad person bc you watched the wrong anime. your actual response to it still matters of course, but thats that and this is this. just seeing it is neutral, you didnt commit a thought crime. its literally fine.

IF YOU ARE USING THIS POST TO ONLY FURTHER YOUR STUPID PEDANTIC BLACK-AND-WHITE DISCOURSE TO GET A "GOCHA" OVER THE OTHER SIDE YOU ARE THE PROBLEM. DON'T USE OUR DISORDER TO VINDICATE YOUR BEHAVIOR. THOUGHT CRIMES ARENT REAL BUT ACTIONS STILL MATTER. PEOPLE WITH OCD ARE CAPABLE OF THINKING CRITICALLY ABOUT OUR ACTIONS AND RESPONSES, EVEN WITH INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS AND RUMINATIONS. TREATING US AS IF WE CANNOT, ONLY TO FORCE US TO USE YOUR STRINGENT UNNUANCED DISCOURSE OPINIONS ABOUT "PURITY CULTURE" (TRIGGERING TO THOSE WITH OCD) AS THE ONLY REASONABLE GUIDE DOES MORE TO EXACERBATE OUR OBSESSIONS THAN HELP US. YOU ARE THE ISSUE AS WELL. YOU ARE ALSO THE TUMBLR DISCOURSER INSIDE OUR HEADS. DO NOT USE US FOR YOUR DISCOURSE. WE ARE PEOPLE, NOT HYPOTHETICALS TO USE TO EXPLAIN IF YOUR FROZEN INCEST FANFICTION IS OKAY OR NOT. TREATING US AS IF WE CANNOT AUTONOMOUSLY HAVE OUR OWN OPINIONS ON WHEN MEDIA IS TANGIBLY HARMFUL IS ABLEIST. FORCING US TO ABIDE BY YOUR IN-GROUP'S SET OF UNEQUIVOCAL MORALS IS ABLEIST. ACTING AS THOUGH THE ONLY SOLUTION FOR US IS MINDLESS MEDIA CONSUMPTION IN WHICH "EVERY DEPICTION OF XYZ, NO MATTER HOW POORLY DONE OR EXPLOITATIVE, IS ALWAYS OKAY AND IF YOU DISAGREE YOURE ACTUALLY AN EVIL 'ANTI'" IS ABLEIST. THOSE ARE THE SAME BLACK-AND-WHITE MORALS THAT SEND US INTO OBSESSIVE SPIKES, BUT FLIPPED. A SET OF MORALS IN WHICH QUESTIONING THE IMPACT OF A PIECE OF WORK MAKES YOU AN "EVIL CONSERVATIVE PURITAN "ANTI"" DOES NOT HELP MORAL OCD.

YOU ARE THE DAMN TUMBLR DISCOUERSERS MAKING THIS SHIT WORSE FOR US! YOURE THE EXACT SAME BUT WITH FLIPPED BUZZWORDS! YOU'RE MISSING THE WHOLE DAMN POINT!

pelican town, ‘72

The thing is, you don’t have to have a diagnoses to make simple “unmasking” changes that make your life easier. You don’t even have to self-diagnose! You are not appropriating anyone’s culture or struggles or hijacking anyone’s movement by allowing yourself to sway in line at the grocery store or buying a weighted blanket or using study or household hacks intended for people with ADHD. If you start favoring the needs that make your brain and body unique over the arbitrary norms of society, you’ll be better off, and you’ll be expanding the norms. It’s a win/win.

cleaning out the files, sonic sketch edition

one small step for. kitties

Bribed with Chocolate. The way it should be.

Part 22 || First || Previous || Next

--Full Series--

More to come as this is a two-parter. But you know how I am with schedules.

Bonus:

I think this was an equally possible reaction from Chara.

so the good place is widely lauded on this site for its takes on morality and capitalism, which i totally agree with

but i think it should get more recognition for the line "all humans are aware of death. so we're all a little bit sad all the time. that's just the deal. we don't get offered any better ones. and if you try and ignore your sadness, it just ends up leaking out of you anyway. i've been there, and everybody's been there. so don't fight it. in the words of a very wise bed bath and beyond employee i once knew - go ahead and cry all you want. but you're gonna have to pay for that toilet plunger."

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

Harrow got so unbelievablely horny dreaming about Gideon's rolled up sleeves exposing her lean, taut muscle, a little dewy with sweat and steam but you know what.... thinking about it. Gideon does not disrobe basically ever, except in private to bathe. A tantalizing glimpse of forearm may legitimately be the most Harrow's imagination has to work with

Not all who wander are lost. Some who wander, however, are extremely, extremely lost.

can you even call it a warm up if I'm going to bed without drawing anything big

and a sketch I made while sitting in the park today