froggy queen, young and green, tiny slimy thing

With the finale out now I think a central theme that I've recognized and really adore is "all of these characters are more complex than an audience would appreciate." They are all being squished into a child-friendly set of archetypes, be that by Caine, Jax, or metatextually, the fandom. Caine doesn't want them complaining, swearing or having sex, they just have to go on endless, mindless, youtube-monetizable adventures. He's the ringmaster, he puts them in a bright poppy's playtime ass stage and demands for funny to happen. Meanwhile, Jax doesn't want to address the dire reality of their situation and copes by playing along, treating himself and all the characters as flat archetypes with no internality, so that the elephants in the room can safely be ignored. The fandom, meanwhile, is quietly guilty of all the same things. "Why isn't my favorite character acting in accordance with my headcanon? Which characters are flatly evil so we can hate them? Will they achieve my perfect happy ending? Because if not I'll be mad about it."

It doesn't work. Because they're more complex than that. They're people, they need more, they have emotions and traumas and wants and needs. Ragatha isn't always cheerful, she's not just the mom friend, and she's not some manipulator either. She's a person, trying her best, and very often failing. Pomni isn't always anxious, she's a natural leader and she wants the best for everyone, but she's not perfect either. She's a person, trying her best, and very often failing. And Jax isn't just a villain, he's a very complicated ball of traumas whose consistent first instinct is to push everyone away, hurting others so that he won't get hurt himself. He's a person, trying his best, and very often failing. She might even be a girl. Zooble isn't just a grump, Gangle isn't just a wimp, Kinger isn't just crazy. They're humans. And humans aren't always good. They're messy, screwed up, complicated things. They're things that can't be flattened down to archetypes, no matter how much Caine, Jax, or the fandom wants it.

The fandom wanted a bunch of cookie cutter adventures with good guys and bad guys, but what we got is just a bunch of people, stuck together, their traumas rubbing up against eachother until something catches fire and explodes. And I think that's way more interesting. I'm glad the show is that. I understand not everyone feels that way, though. A lot of people wanted something less nuanced. But I don't think the show not matching your expectations is the show's fault. I think people just need to come at it with the right mindset. Meet the story where it's at.

No shirt, no bra, completely bare torso, just like cis men are allowed to

It's about desexualizing breasts and "female presenting nipples" and not being criminalized for our bodies if we want to go topless because it's a million damn degrees out. This was a popular growing movement that was still widely known a decade ago!

For public libraries, one of the ways we secure funding year to year is lending. Governments don’t want to fund more books if they’re not being used and the way we measure use is by issues. Regardless of whether you read it or not, whether you have it for a day or a month, if you issue it to your library card, we get the stats! It makes the library look good!

2026 - 2025 - 2024 - 2023

in spite of it all, happy 2026 pride.

you can download current and past hi-res versions of these over at my ko-fi (ok to print for personal use): https://ko-fi.com/mxmorgan/shop/freedownloads

you can also snag shirts here which go to various orgs: https://mxmorgan.threadless.com/collections/pride

these get reposted a whole lot from here to reddit to twitter to tiktok and on and on, and i don't personally care whether or not i'm credited. i made these for everyone to use, enjoy, and find meaning in them. i appreciate folks who do credit me, but if able, please at least link to the threadless shop in the previous post - folks can get an official shirt where 90% of earnings go to trans led orgs focused on mental health (which is an important matter in general, but very personal to me) and not from a scam bot site selling AI-churned maga garbage where you probably won't get one anyway. i also suggest downloading the files from my ko-fi - they are free/PWYW and you can use them to make your own shirt, patch, embroidery project, whatever. tips are always nice, cuz i do like a pizza now and then, but never required for download.