Dodsfaldsdottir

Every friend group should include...

the actual message of Tragic Villains is (almost) always “people who are never taught or given any healthy, constructive outlets for their emotions will often find unhealthy, destructive outlets.” it’s that people who are traumatized and never learn how to cope with that trauma can become a danger to themselves and others. the message isn’t “trauma makes you evil!!!!” or “genocide is okay if you’ve been sad before!!!!” it’s “people need compassion and help to recover from trauma instead of becoming increasingly angry and harming themselves and others in the process.”

this site takes an alarmingly behaviorist and punitive approach to everything and it’s literally the most annoying thing. y’all have this concept that “if we just punish people hard enough, if we just scare them enough, if we just make them feel guilty enough.” that people just Do Bad Things Because They Do Bad Things, I Guess, and Because We Didn’t Threaten Them And Shame Them Enough. but humans are an innately social species. at our very core, we need compassion and kindness. we need healthy relationships with other humans.

someone once told me - actually, many people have - that lgbt content isn’t appropriate for children. any content. not just kissing. i’m drowned in questions: “won’t the parents have to explain it?” “kids shouldn’t be thinking about sex at this age, or do you think differently?” “what will the kids think?”

at six i saw disney movies. people kiss and get married. i didn’t ask “what does that mean.” i didn’t ask “are those people going to have sex?” i didn’t ask anything, because i was six, and no six year old thinks twice about these things. nobody ever “explained” being straight to me, it was a fact, and it existed, and i was fine with that. why would being gay require a thesis, i wonder.

someone once told me that the one of the reasons people hate lgbt individuals is because they can’t see us as anything but sexual. we’re not people, so much as sinners. that they don’t see love, they see sex. just sex. it’s perversion, not a matter of the heart. only of the body.

i think i was in my early twenties before i saw someone like me. 

how old were you, though, before you saw violence? before you saw sexual assault on tv? i think something like that is only pg-13, and if it’s implied, they can get away with anything. i remember watching things and learning about blood, but knowing sex - sex was what was really wrong. sex was always rated r. sex was always kind of a bad word. i was told a lot that i wasn’t ready.

i had a dream last night that i made a site where people could ask any question they wanted about sex and get answered by a professional. it was shut down in moments because 15 year olds wanted to know if it should hurt, if “double-bagging” was a real thing, if this, if that. we shudder. don’t let the children know about that! 

but at thirteen i had seen enough violence it no longer struck me. i couldn’t say “fuck” but i knew that if you break your femur, you can bleed out internally in under half an hour. in school i wasn’t allowed to write about loving girls because what would the administration think - but i could write about wanting to kill myself and people would say how lovely, how blistering.

i have thought a lot about censorship. sometimes people on this site try it with me: don’t write this, don’t be so nasty. some of it is intrinsic. we know as people with a uterus not to complain about “that time of the month”, we know better than to talk about sexual assault (how shameful), we know that talking about a vagina is somehow scandalous. i can say “dick” and nobody questions me. some people only refer to the bottom half of me by “pussy”. they won’t wrap a mouth around “vagina” like it’s poison to them. even discussing this, that the language halts, that there’s an intrinsic desire to say “girls” instead of “women” - feels naughty, illicit. not for children.

the other day someone suggested i make my blog 18+. i said, okay, it deals a lot with depression and other problems that might be for a mature audience. oh no, they said, that’s not it, i think that’s helpful. i said, okay. so what is it then. well, you’re gay. you write about loving women. and i said, i don’t write about sex often and they said. it’s not about the sex. but wlw isn’t for a general audience. teenagers aren’t ready.

oh.

lolita is recommended for high school and up. i think about that a lot. i know girls who love it, who say it speaks to them on a deep level. it’s beautiful prose, after all. that was the whole point of the novel. something that looked like a rose but was intrinsically awful. i think about how if i was a model they’d want me to look young, thin, prepubescent. how my body would be sold and how through the mall i walk by images of barely-clothed women while mothers cannot breastfeed in public without fear of retribution. 

i think about how i can write a novel about violence and it will be pg-13 but if my characters say “fuck” twice it’s inappropriate. i said fuck three times so far in this post, which makes it only appropriate for adults. 

i think about that, and how my identity is something that people suggest lines up with a swear word. that people shouldn’t talk about it. that it’s a vulgarity. bad for children, harsh, confusing.

Morga: Don't worry, I've got a few knives up my sleeves.

Vulgora: I think you mean tricks, dude.

MC: She did not.

Overdramatic? Absolutely, but it’s fitting.

So this… thing… is just something I started making for fun and personal use, but I figured there are more folks out there who might get a kick out of it, so I’ve polished it, threw in some commentary, and am now releasing it into the wild.

Tumblr hates links with passion, so I’ll add it into replies, and you can find it on my “Resources” page.

Additional notes:

When dealing with mouth versions, you might want to clean up the base layer, because there are some differences in jaw heights. Sweat and blood extras have two jaw height versions for the same reason.

Plague eyes are a separate layer in the “Extras” folder.

It doesn’t all layer perfectly, but most combos should work fine.

Seriously, I don’t own anything in there, I did some edits but it’s still 99% original sprites pulled apart or stitched together. So you can do with the file, or products of the file, whatever is fine with the Arcana devs.

“I hurt you...in another life, didn’t I?”

We’ve all read of the refreshingly crisp cocktail known as “Golden Goose” served in the Royal Palace of Vesuvia- but have you ever wanted to try it? Well now you can make it, with this “Golden Goose” inspired recipe!

Golden Goose:

Ingredients:

2 cups of Apple Moscato

2 cups of Champagne

2tsp of Gold Luster Dust (We used Bakell, Gold Wine and Champagne Glitter)

(Optional) Sliced Lemon, Orange, or other Fruits for Garnish

1.) In a Glass Pitcher or Preferred Container, Pour in the Apple Moscato, Champagne, and Luster Dust

2.) Stir carefully, taking care not to excessively disturb the carbonation, but enough to mix in the food safe pigment.

3.) Place in the refrigerator for about an hour, and stir well to move the luster pigment about again. Serve chilled, or over ice, and enjoy!

Optional: You may wish to make this Non-Alcoholic, which you may do substituting the wine and champagne with Sparkling Cider instead! You may also choose to add sliced citrus fruit, or other garnishes of your choosing! Can be kept refrigerated, with an air tight seal, for about a week.

You probably wanted this to be cute but.... their marriage didn't end early for normal reasons. Dying from the plague and having to haunt the palace, watching your children grow up from a distance, or falling into a three-year coma and completely losing your memories of them are pretty tragic circumstances for new parents.