testchamber19:

ncrrington:

did u kno that st valentine is not only the patron saint of love, but also beekeeping, epilepsy, and the plague

#surprise your loved ones with bees and pestilence

(via cicerothewriter)

sad-eyed-lady-of-the-low-lands:

hands down, my favorite thing about deep space nine is that everyones reaction to Julian and Garak being shipped is just “yeaahhhhhhhh” instead of like the frantic “NO HOMO” I’ve come to expect from supernatural

(via tinsnip)

sad-eyed-lady-of-the-low-lands:

i don’t know why but, I really want an episode where the universal translator’s like broken or something and they’re all just sort of frantically yelling at each other in different languages. Except for Julian and Garak, those two could totally carry out a conversation in two different language, plus I get the distinct impression they’d both be REALLY fascinated with listening to each other talk in their native languages. 

I WANT THIS REALLY BADLY I THINK ABOUT THIS FREQUENTLY.

(via tinsnip)

amaranthuscaudatus:

ladyyatexel:

When you were young and in school and your class won a contest or sold the fuck out of some hyper expensive candy and festive tins of popcorn, what did you get as a reward?  A pizza party.  

People getting together for movies? “Hey, man, yeah, come over, we’re ordering pizza.”  Yes, there will probably be chips, and maybe even a festive tin of popcorn, but the draw is the pizza, the motivator is the pizza, the pizza is the only thing that is mentioned.

Having a staff meeting, and you want to encourage attendance? Pizza.

I don’t think I have ever been asked in my entire life whether or not I like pizza, only what kind.   And I fucking love pizza.  I literally just ordered some minutes before I began typing this and I ordered one for like four people so I can eat it as leftovers for DAYS.

So maybe what you need to do here is imagine (or reflect on your own experience) that you do not really like pizza and are kind of tired of every event being ~*~*~*~PIZZA~*~*~*~

Because this is kind of what being somewhere on the asexual spectrum is like, and it’s definitely applied in fandom, where I’ve seen porn used as a reward, as an incentive, and to encourage participation.   It’s also often seen as an expected default in certain circles.  

I feel already like I need to get several things out of the way to dive into this:

• I am not shaming your enjoyment of porn.  Fuck knows women get some serious shit for liking anything - if you don’t like porn you’re girly and prudish and childish, if you do, you’re somehow less female and ‘nasty’, virgin or whore dichotomy etc etc, shit is gross.  I’m not about that turning this into that, I’m just relaying some experiences and thoughts I’ve had.  If porn has been a great transformative thing in your life, rad, but the place for that is not here, thanks! 
  
• I’m not complaining.  People make what they make.  This is just stuff I’ve experienced and just some things to think about for a minute or longer. I’m just kind of illustrating the way some things are for me. Everyone is different, etc etc etc.
• I really don’t like being called ‘ace’, so if you’re planning to reply to this or reblog it or whatever, please don’t refer to me that way.  I’m not entirely sure I have a label for how I roll, and so I don’t really go into a description of my particular preferences and freakouts, but it’s on the asexual spectrum, so ‘asexual’ is fine.  Just please no ‘ace.’  I don’t like that as a nickname for asexual in general, but I know some people use it to refer to themselves and really like it, so please just don’t use it to include me.  Thanks.
  

 That said:

Read More

I have been following this threads about your art and asexuality and I’ve wanted to write, but it’s taken me a few days to collect my thoughts. Don’t worry they’re nice thoughts.  I hope I’m not speaking out of turn as a stranger telling you these things, and I apologise a priori if I am.  I feel like, as someone who lights up every time I see your art on my dash, it’s important to tell you about it instead of enjoying it and giving nothing back.  I also apologise in advance for the length of this brain-dump monstrosity.

Your art is lovely. Don’t ever doubt that. And I’m not just referring to your colours or compositions.  Those are lovely too, and you clearly have the technicalities down.  No, I’m referring to the charming simplicity of the little moments you capture.

Your work tells stories which can be a bit ambiguous, I suppose, but I like that. The one of Londo and G’Kar sleeping for instance. I don’t know the context of that yet. I only saw a few random episodes when the show was on and I’m still waiting for the season 1 DVD.  But if I were to guess from that image alone, I would say that days (for one or both of them) are spent in a kind of stately terror and refined anxiety - always hidden from everyone, of course - and in this soft blue night, buttoned up, tucked in together and exhausted, they know some peace.  It’s just a few hours a little less brittle than the rest, but it means everything.

Now of course, I could be reading my own fascinations into it and be entirely wrong. I see tragic aliens in everything because, much as I hate to admit it, probably deep down I see myself as tragic and alienated. I’m not sure investing ourselves in the art we make or consume is entirely avoidable and I’m fairly certain it wouldn’t be wise.  Even if that story I told myself is wildly inaccurate, and it probably is, I still think it’s interesting, real, and ’human’ if you’ll pardon the speciocentrcity of the word.  

Please don’t be ashamed of that image (or any other).  It’s beautiful.  It’s just completely perfect exactly as it is.  Don’t be ashamed of your self-investment in any of your art. It might not be full of sexual content but it so, SO full.  There is no void, omission, or incompleteness.  Your life experience is 100% valid.  The way it comes through in your artwork is 100% valid.  You don’t need to like pizza to sit at the table.  You don’t need to use it as a lure to get people to attend the meeting.  Anyone who tells you otherwise directly or by implication is a giant ass and can go back to barn.

I must confess I am a little surprised in all this.  I am not well versed in the terminology, but I suppose I am a sexual person albeit one who is, according to the current cultural standards on the matter, pretty damned apathetic about the whole thing.  In any case, porn doesn’t bother me. I don’t seek it out, and only actively try to avoid it when it’s purple prose that makes an otherwise well-written story into a an unintentionally comedic mess.  What surprises me though is that I really didn’t know there was a sort of push or drive in fandom for the production of pornography. I never imagined there being outright requests for it from an artist whose body of work shows no tendency in that direction.  The asking for it of someone who clearly doesn’t produce it strikes me as far more vulgar than pornography itself.

What I have seen of your work (Garak/Bashir, Londo/G’Kar, DD9) struck me as romantic, kind, temperate, loving, sweet, intimate even. It does have an innocence to it, but I never thought of it as childish, and sexuality or absence thereof never really crossed my mind. People bond over all sorts of things, from taking tea together and arguing about books to irritating a someone by wearing silly hats and laughing about it. Pornography, in its blatantness, would I think, undermine the stories you tell.  

Several of your pieces remind me obliquely of my favourite scene in all of DS9.  Garak, in the internment camp, has just had his very bad panic attack and Bashir has fetched him out of the crawlspace.  He pulls a blanket up over Garak who stares mutely at the wall.  It’s such a beautiful, powerful scene, so perfectly simple, yet it reveals so much about the both of them.  It was that moment that made me realise that Bashir really does care about everyone, regardless of what they’ve done, and that Garak doesn’t really like himself all that much and that he was probably forced, cajoled, coerced, or conditioned to do things that left to his own devices he would never have done.  Turning that scene into porn would cheapen it beyond redemption.  

Perhaps I labour under the misapprehension that shipping is about the romance, the connexion between characters.  Sex does make sense on the continuum of intimacy, if the characters involved are perceived to be sexual, but it’s not necessary to a satisfying story, and certainly not necessary to have a play-by-play account of it.  A fade-to-black at the right moment is a one of my favourite literary devices.  I think if I were in your shoes and someone asked for illustrated porn, I would have a terribly difficult time resisting the temptation to fill a canvas with black and save the file as ‘that-pr0n-you-wanted.jpg.

Apart from the aesthetic, on a personal philosophical level, I am also relieved to see your work isn’t pornographic.  I have a friend who got me started lurking on tumblr a couple of years ago.  She belongs to a fandom which I shan’t name but is very large, very prolific, and possessed of a shockingly large number of artists who are very, very, good at taking likenesses.  They use those likenesses to produce vast amounts of hardcore porn.  The problem I faced was not one of a reaction to the pornography as such, so much as a personal ethical crisis.  

Just happening upon that pornography felt like I was violating the actors portrayed therein.  They were not consulted on their inclusion in pornographic media. They weren’t offered a contract they could turn down.  If one uses the media they have agreed to appear in as a benchmark, one finds no pornography.  But, and it’s an important one, even if they had done porn, agreeing to be in one pornographic film does not mean agreement to appear in all pornographic media. For whatever reason, their lack of choice in the use of their likenesses in this way disturbs me deeply.  As you happen to be very, very good at taking likenesses, I’m relieved to be able to enjoy your artwork without having to peak at it fearing a moral crisis is just behind the next link. Now I feel I should drop in the disclaimer that I don’t judge the artists who do make make that particular brand of pornographic art.  I judge myself for consuming it - however accidentally - and I maintain to my dying breath my right to do so.

So… the tl;dr version: Your art is far and away not ‘just tolerated.’  It’s a wonderful contribution to the fandom and very much appreciated just as it it is with your unique investment into it.

 A response for you under the cut wow hi livejournal Read More because this already pretty long, ja?

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(via paso-liati)

I have inherited some high octane nerdery.