Silly fitz & the fool animatic inspired by assassin’s quest <3
in that last dance of chances
we shall know each other's minds
I’m sorry but imagine writing a gay love story and then going “it’s not gay”
Le Belle Fool Sans Merci - December 2022
My last piece from 2022, in which I tasked myself for some reason to a redraw of la belle dame sans merci with my favs. Closing off the year with this art piece was a little major for me (backgrounds ugh) but super excited to get into 2023 with renewed creative vigour!!
Fellas is it gay to have a magical bond that is more intimate than a kiss and deeper than a knife thrust amd that you feel yourself turning and opening to it like its your lover's mouth upon yours but you do not know if youre the one devouring or being devoured with your best friend
Fitz and the Fool—The Rooster Crown
it took a long time but here we finally are. To the terrible and tender scenes that traumatized us all 💀
To recognize TERFs, anti’s, fash, incels and other internet shitstains, one pattern you need to recognize is this:
- They take some normal human behavior
- Explain it in the darkest, most bad faith way possible
- And then ignore any other, often more realistic, explanation.
A simple example:
- A lot of adults watch TV shows about high school relationship drama.
- Dark bad faith take: all these adults are obsessing over teenager sex lives because they want to fuck teenagers.
- More realistic explanation: a lot of adults have memories of their own high school relationship drama that they like to relive, process, etc through media.
- Another realistic explanation: People can empathize with the stories of hobbits, dragons, defense lawyers, plucky detectives, space rebels, talking dogs and teenagers in high school without always having a desire to fuck the characters involved. It is possible to just enjoy a story as a story without it fulfilling some emotional of sexual need.
Like, when you take a tiny step back, it becomes clear that the jump from ‘adults watch high school dramas’ to ‘they all want to fuck teenagers’ is absolute moon logic.
This logic only works if you assume the absolute worst possible things about the group you’re talking about. This logic works if the only lens you can see a group through is ‘predator’ and you do not acknowledge that they are completely humans who can just do non-predatory things like ‘enjoying stories’.
And assuming the absolute worst possible things about a specific group while denying their complexity and humanity… well, that is absolutely key to what TERFs, anti’s, fashos, incels, etc. do.
Someone asked me in private why I grouped ‘TERFs, anti’s, fash, incels’ together. Do I think anti’s are as bad as fash?
Short answer: no, anti’s are not as bad as fash. They’ve done some pretty despicable things. Spreading false accusations, doxxing, suicide baiting, trying to get people fired, stalking, etc. But they’re not trying to gain political power in order to commit genocide. So on the shitstain pyramid they’re a few tiers below fash.
I grouped these in a row here not because they’re all exactly the same amount of terrible, but because they’re groups to watch out for. If you’re a queer person trying to exist safely online, you do not want to interact with any of these groups. If you do not enjoy being brainwashed into a hate group, you do not want to interact with any of these groups.
It’s also notable that TERFs, incels and anti’s all have a tendency to fall down the fash radicalization pipeline because they already share some basic ways of thinking. Assuming the absolute worst possible things about a specific group while denying their complexity and humanity is an example of that shared way of thinking.
ancient humans were also just some guy, if you got a baby from 60,000 BC and raised him in the 21st century he’d just be another teen boy named logan who tech decks off your arm
this boy from tom björklund’s art WOULD own a minecraft creeper plushy
YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ok ok ok I’m so sorry but I HAVE to talk about this
there’s something so loving about what tom björklund does and just- fuck I’m foaming at the mouth here
facial reconstruction isn’t a new concept (see the Kennewick Man/Patrick Stewart incident) but it’s difficult to find people that are truly good at it! genuinely there is a big gap in this field because there just aren’t a lot of people who do it professionally!
facial reconstruction, especially from bone or bone fragments, is such a fascinating intersection of art and science, and a tremendous amount of care is put into determining what these people might have looked like.
with that said, it’s VERY easy to screw it up
configuring muscle attachments and fat distribution is genuinely *very* difficult to do, and when you do it badly, you get this (pictured above). by adding too much muscle, they gave this 600 year old man a VERY interesting jawline (notice that the bottom of the chin doesn’t match up with the bone at all!) and they *really* made him look older than he was. would you believe me if I said that he was estimated to only be 46 years old?
basically I’m just REALLY excited about Tom Björklund’s art because it’s amazing work, just from an anthropology perspective
just look at this!!!
facial reconstructions aren’t just an artsy thing that you can just say “oh, that’s cool!” to
by giving these people faces, even if they aren’t always accurate, we open the doors for the average person to connect with the past at a very human level. sure, looking at bones is cool, but looking at art of someone that lived thousands of years ago is *incredible*
looking at a picture of a boy that lived thousands of years ago and thinking “yeah, he would’ve loved Minecraft” is EXACTLY the reaction that these pieces are meant to elicit
nobody will ever get me the way john singer sargent does
gayronan
like. are you kidding me
Okay so his portaits of people are my favorite! Pre-photography, portraits were mostly memetic, or life-like; you got a portrait because you wanted people to know what you look like (or maybe a little bit prettier).
But! Not Sargent’s portraits!! In his portraits, you often can’t even see the subject’s whole face, like in the 4th and 5th paintings above and in this one here (The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (ID in alt text)):
Edward Darley Boit spent a lot of money to have his daughters painted, but I still have no idea what that girl leaning on the vase looks like! Despite that, I’ve learned things about her. Between her and her sisters, she’s probably the introvert: she’s hiding her face and wearing darker colors than her younger siblings. Almost certainly none of these girls enjoyed sitting for this painting, but she’s the only one who looks like she doesn’t even want to be there.
That’s what Sargent’s portraits do! They show you something about the personality of the subject(s), even though they don’t always show you what they look like. And on top of all that, the paintings are simply beautiful to look at!
[Image ID: A drawing of a fat person pulling up a sweater to show off top surgery scars. The sweater has a trans flag on it. He has short spiked hair, and stretch marks on his stomach and thighs. He wears boxers. There are wavy trans flags surrounding him, and the text to his right reads "Fat people deserve trans healthcare." His facial expression is enthusiastic and happy. /.End ID]
💗
Please remember that fat trans folks experience increased medical discrimination and decreased access to life-saving medical transition.
It's very common for surgeons to have upper weight limits measured by BMI (body mass index), an outdated and bigoted system that many healthcare professionals have spoken out against as flawed and medically inaccurate.
Doctors often cite potential weight gain as a reason to deny trans people HRT (hormone replacement therapy.)
It is also common for trans people to be asked to lose weight prior to surgery. This is dehumanizing and abusive to the patients.
Fat trans people are often silenced in discussions of their own health. They are exposed to higher rates of medical abuse, inappropriate medical conduct, and bigoted medicine practices.
Fat trans people are often unsafe and unable to advocate for themselves in medical settings.
Furthermore, finding medical professionals who will work with you instead of on you is time-consuming, draining, and costly, on top of the preexisting difficulties of transition.
Advocate for and protect your fat trans friends, particularly your fat trans friends of color, and help prevent medical abuse. Having an ally in a doctor's appointment can be the difference between access to life-saving healthcare and a note to lose weight.
In short, remember to help fat queers where you can, and especially those in the medical field, challenge your colleagues when they reinforce fatphobia. It can be the difference between life and death for a patient.
Parents with fat children, speak up for them. You might not remember it, but your kids can recall each and every time their doctor noted their BMI and you didn't say anything.
@ fic readers who write play by play comments that highlight your favorite passages and why you like them, please know you are the best humans to exist and please don’t stop what you’re doing