Finally Finished This One After Working On It Incrementally In My Spare Time For The Better Part Of A

You never wanted to be my friend in the first place.

1st Year in This Corner of Tumblr: (Some of) My Fav Reads (so far)

This list was supposed to be a part of a very simple round-up but then I got stuck on a plane with some time to kill and decided to expand it with a commentary. It's the festive season after all, let's spread gratitude. I limited myself to 10 pieces, each by a different author in no particular order.

#1 Asian Honorifics & BL - a quick & dirty guide, with examples by @absolutebl

After the revelation of December '22 that brought me here, I spent the better part of January educating myself on Asian BLs. Honestly, where better to start than this master post. In particular, I want to mention the Asian honorifics guide, without which I would be so so lost. Thanks for maintaining the BL syllabus P'ABL!

#2 BL and it’s Shoujo grandma by @nieves-de-sugui

Now digging deeper, this piece along with any follow-ups like A Quick History of BL is straight-up fascinating. I am quite familiar with the evolution of genres in music but never knew how literary genres are building off each other. And it all has been happening not so long ago!

#3 The Eighth Sense and Missing Pieces by @ranchthoughts

Oh, the times when T8S was airing were wild. The post Ranch wrote seems almost academic and I love it for that. Apart from the obvious logical arguments on the topic, it encapsulates the joy of collective experience where everyone can chime in. Every voice and take is valid and you can source your friends like a reputable scientific magazine - now that's just too cool.

#4 This isn't about Wang by @respectthepetty

We all know and love the author for colour analysis but my favourite of RTP's posts is the 180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us meta. After watching the series, I desperately needed someone to unpack it for me. It was such a blessing to have those key moments and analogies broken down and explained in words. I yelled yass! after every paragraph. I do not want to go into details (spoilers!), but the bridge metaphor is still fresh in my mind.

#5 Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: I Told Sunset About You (ITSAY) Edition by @waitmyturtles

If there was a Spotify wrapped but for reading meta Turtles would be my number one artist, that's for sure. And I still haven't read half of the stuff she made for the GMMTV challenge. The sheer amount of words she produces is shocking. How does she write so much? so cleverly? while being so busy? The ITSAY piece gave me so much context on Phuket's communities, their history and the setting in which the story is told. It enriched my experience twofold.

#6 The Knowing: Being Queer in BL by @bengiyo

Now this one, this one is very precious to me. After reading the piece and looking through the collection of characters presented there I realised that I've always been drawn to the characters that experience the Knowing. Or at least since I watched C.R.A.Z.Y. all those (16!) years ago. The need to fit in but feeling distinctly different was always something I empathised with a lot. Maybe that's actually why queer stories tend to move me so much. So thank you Ben for my 'oh' moment.

#7 Moonlight Chicken is For the Queers by @wen-kexing-apologist

MLC is my favourite series of this year for various more or less objective reasons and one of them is tackled in this text. No other trope in any drama gets me more than found family / friendship group that suffers together through thick and thin. The way WKX presents these themes through a queer and very personal lens is deeply moving, and honestly, a privilege to read.

#8 To My Star - Music by @iguessitsjustme

I have a thing for music in general, and above all else, I love discovering new songs and genres. And if it's through dramas? Even better. But I could never dissect the whole soundtrack the way Rae does. Everything clicked when I read the post on To My Star music. It was delightful to revisit the series and catch all the references with a new set of ears, so to speak. I also recommend the Old Fashion Cupcake analysis which was the final push for me to watch the show.

#9 10 Things I Love About 3 Will Be Free by @lurkingshan

I would watch an absolute garbage of a series if Shan pitched it to me. I love it when she writes in the list/short paragraphs format, where each part has excellently laid out arguments. It's always such an easy and insightful read! The piece mentioned sold me on 3 Will Be Free and I am VERY grateful. My second fav out of Shan's pitches would be this kdrama recommendation list because she made it based on my parameters *blush*.

#10 The Biting Spectrum: Ranking QL Chomps from Cute to Sexy to Feral by @sorry-bonebag & Office BLs Ranked by Their Ability to Maintain the Veneer of Appropriate Workplace Behaviour by @itsanidiom

Ok, so most of the posts mentioned before were on a serious note so let's finish up with something that just made me cry with laughter. Both of these rankings are the only ones that matter this year. I love how half of fandom content is essays on important topics and the other half is just unhinged analysis, wild theories and snarky comments ♡

Obviously, what I mentioned is only a small and very biased sample so I want to reiterate - big thanks to all the writers out there for giving me so much to read and think about. You made my year better!

Reblog to kill it faster

The Untamed behind the scene | Moment before Xiao Zhan’s sleeping picture was taken

The voyage west at the end of Return of the King is extremely funny to me, because just look at who's on board. You've got:

Frodo Baggins, hero of the Shire, in need of healing but also excited to see Valinor and meet the legendary elves who live there, a gentle soul

Elrond Halfelven, as kind as a summer, looking forward to peace west of the sea, probably wants to go chill out in a cottage with his wife for the next thousand years

Which seems fine. And then we get to everyone else.

Gandalf, cheeky bastard who's gotten so used to being a weird old wizard in Middle-Earth that's he's forgotten what Maia are supposed to act like, will immediately cause problems

Bilbo Baggins, noted storyteller, definitely planning to break into Aule's halls to see his dwarf friends, will ask all the elves weird questions and then sing about their lives and deaths in front of them, will immediately cause problems

Galadriel, who came to Aman half for Celebrian and Elrond's sake and half to taunt all her cousins about being the only one of them to survive the First Age, enjoys causing problems, will immediately cause many problems

(Also, to be clear, these are not three isolated problem-causers, they absolutely spent the entire trip to Valinor actively planning to give Amanyar society and the Valar an aneurysm.)

I just love the idea of Elrond, now reunited with Celebrian, and Frodo happily having tea with Elwing and Earendil, with nothing to interrupt them but the gentle sounds of the tides.

Meanwhile Galariel, Bilbo, and Gandalf are collectively bullying Mandos into releasing Maglor Feanorian from the halls because:

Bilbo wants to read him his translation of the Noldolante, which is written as a cheery Hobbit drinking song

Elrond always complained about how Gandalf and Maglor were both insufferably vague about advice and Gandalf needs to make sure he's more infuriating than Maglor as a matter of his wizardly pride

He still owes Galadriel money

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

Calls for Justice for Aurora’s Violinist Elijah McClain Grow

Elijah McClain was a kind and gentle 23 year old who worked as a massage therapist in Aurora, CO. On his lunch breaks from work, Elijah would go to the animal shelters and play violin for the animals because he thought that they were lonely in their cages and thought that the music would calm them. 

In August 2019, Elijah went to the gas station to buy some iced tea for himself and his cousins. Because he suffered from anemia he would often wear a ski/ runner mask over his face to stay warm. On his way home, the Aurora Police department were called to reports of a “suspicious man.” 

(Warning: for violent description) Elijah was apprehended by a group of three cops, despite committing NO crime and being unarmed. A struggle occurred, and he was held in a very dangerous carotid hold around his neck while he cried for help, cried out that he couldn’t breathe, cried out that he was nonviolent and couldn’t even kill a fly, and was repeatedly throwing up. Elijah weighed a mere 140 pounds. You can hear on the audio footage, an officer instructing another to move their body camera out of view.

While 3 Aurora Police Dept officers violently restrained him they called Aurora Fire Dept, who injected him with ketamine (a powerful drug used to tranquilize horses or in surgeries by a trained anesthesiologist and illegal to be administered by anyone else) even though he was already cuffed and calm.

He went into cardiac arrest , slipped into a coma, and his family was advised to take him off life support 6 days later.

The cops were transferred to another department but never received charges. 

HERE’S HOW YOU CAN HELP:

DONATE 

Click this Link to call these Representatives and DEMAND JUSTICE!!

Especially call these numbers:

Call CO Governor Jared Polis (303) 866 2471

Call Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman (303) 739 7015

Call District Attorney Dave Young (303) 659 7720

Source / Police Video (Trigger warning) 

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whoever invented cozy in bed was a genius. and whoever invented getting up should be burnt at the stake