Your local artist, witch, and vulture culture enthusiast. Cat (and dog) dad! Powered by ginger beer and spite Business (sort of) instagram @ArtbyArtdesigns He/him Pfp is my cat being floppy in a heatwave
Tag for my pagan and witch-related stuff- possum’s shenanigans
Vulture culture tag- Gem&co
Personal tag/ when i be yapping- art speaks
Tag for things that make me really happy and might make you really happy- for when you might need it
About me-
Fandoms-
Sherlock & co/ holmes in general, Dan and Phil, MCR
Music-
MCR, Wrongchilde, Gerard Way, some musicals, Rabbitology, NOAHFINNCE (saw him live november of 2024!!)
Interests and hobbies-
Drums and violin, ice skating, drawing, writing, the macabre (such as taxidermy, insect pinning, bone processing). I also make videos (usually they go up every Saturday at 8am UK time provided I’m on schedule) and it would be really cool if you checked them out! My youtube is art-becausewhynot
I also have a cat and a dog who make frequent appearances on my blog!
Trigger warnings-
Potentially triggering posts are usually marked like this
⚠️Trigger warning- (x)⚠️
with the triggering content under a cut.
Potentially triggering content-
Animal bones
Vulture culture
Gore
Slight gore
Dead animals
Bones
Taxidermy
Insects
I’m aware that no one pays attention to this sort of thing, but please DNI if you’re a purely sexual/mature content blog. I’m not interested in that sort of thing and you will be blocked immediately.
I am also a student with no source of income, so please don’t ask me for donations/ money. I’m sorry, and I hope it gets better for you if you are in that situation, but I am not the person to ask for help. Unfortunately I will block people who ask for donations as I struggle to tell what is real and what is not, and for my own safety it is easier to deal with it this way.
what are people's favorite niche ice cream flavors. mine are superman and blue moon (specifically from the midwest like michigan/indiana/wisconsin), van leeuwen's royal wedding cake, and jeni's wildberry lavender
hi! Happy pride month to you too! I’m doing alright, in a bit of a fatigue flare up but I’ve been working hard to make stock for craft fairs. How are you?
I wanted to share some more of these, specifically trans women of color. The images I'm posting are from a project called To Survive On This Shore and it's an interview project. I am only posting a handful so it's so worth checking out!
This is Linda, 60
Alexis, 64
Helena, 63
Kendrah, 72 (!!)
Tasha, 65
It was deeply healing to me to discover this project. The site has selected photos and attached interviews and it's definitely worth your time. I didn't include any because the focus of this post imo is transfems but there are a lot of beautiful interviews with transmasc people too if you're interested! But that'll have to be another post 💖
A long yap about You’re No Better and A.J White in general
(Abbreviations-
AJW- Andrew Joseph White, the author
TSBIT- The Spirit Bares its Teeth
CF- Compound Fracture
HFWU- Hell Followed With Us
YNB- You’re No Better
YWMTBH- You Weren’t Meant to be Human)
First and foremost, before we get into literally anything else about this, I want to make it abundantly clear that I am a fan of A.J White’s work. He is possibly one of my favourite writers, and if you asked me to tell you my favourite book I would, without a doubt, say The Spirit Bares its Teeth. But this does not mean I think he is the best writer ever, or that his books are groundbreaking faultless works. In fact, you’ll probably find that I think quite differently as you read this. Now onto the rant!
(Surpass the cut is you so dare)
I was given Hell Followed With Us as a Christmas present two years ago and since then I have read and re-read all of his other YA works. I have not yet read YWMTBH as it focuses largely on pregnancy and parasites which are two of my worst fears (yay me!) and I haven’t yet managed to fight off my anxiety enough to summon the courage to read it. So when I refer to ‘all of his works’ or something similar, I mean the three YA novels.
With YNB coming out soon, I thought it would be a good time to gather my thoughts on AJW and his novels, and put it all into some vaguely comprehensible ramble for anyone interested to read. I’ll start with what I love about AJW’s work, then what could be done differently, and finally what I hope to see in YNB
What I love-
AJW’s writing style is one of the most viscerally disgusting and beautiful styles that I have ever read. The way he describes gore somehow just sticks in my brain even when I’ve long finished the paragraph, and it has largely influenced my own writing as well. I’ve found myself shivering with how wonderful and lyrical it sounds at times. His portrayal of trans kids fighting their way through a life that desperately wants them gone and will do anything to do so is something that resonates so deeply with me, and it’s the type of story that is so needed at this time. Being able to read a book where these kids go through such horrors, events that change them as a person and how they view the world and the system they’ve been brought up in, and still get a happy ending? It’s something I’ve very rarely seen before, and maybe I’m not looking in the right places, but my point still stands. That’s another thing, actually. Seeing that fighting for your future is actually worth it, and that people like me can be happy and can have lives that are wonderful and full and joyous has really helped me at times when fighting has felt futile.
I also love horror, especially when it relates to spirits and death and rotting stuff, and getting all of that plus some good trans rep and autism rep is amazing! I really like how the character being trans is not the focus of the story, they are trans and it is relevant to the plot, but it is not the entire story. So many books I’ve read centre around the MC being trans, which is still good but can get boring after a while.
So those are the good things. Now, onto the criticism. (I might sound mildly pissed off in a bit of this, I still love AJW, there’s just a couple things that really need to be better!)
Things I dislike/ could be better-
WHY ARE THERE NO POC CHARACTERS OH MY GODDDD BROOO
ok there we go. Yes, one of my main issues with AJW is that there are barely any POC characters in his novels. Now, HFWU is an exception, many people of different ethnicities and religions and cultures were portrayed in that, but none who were hugely relevant or described as more than ‘the hijabi doctor’ or ‘the Black transfem fighter’ and such. I myself am a passing white Malay/English person, so my understanding of what it means to be a POC in this world is very little, but both my sister and dad are darker, and I’ve seen and heard various forms of racism against them. Now, I understand that writing POC as a white person can be tricky, and trying to make sure you get things right while still making the character feel like a genuine human being is sometimes hard, but this is what research and sensitivity readers are for! Just because representing different races didn’t go too well for you the first time (I believe he experienced some backlash due to the portrayal of some POC characters in HFWU) doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try again! Representing trans and queer POC is so so important, especially when they are a community that face much more prejudice than white trans folks! Because yes, being trans is much easier when you are white (not saying that it is easy, but it is easi-ER). My other issues are that, at their cores, HFWU, TSBIT and CF are incredibly similar books. Yes, they have different settings, bad guys and premises, but the formula is the same: autistic trans boy forms a ramshackle group of kids and takes down a system that has been fucking them over for years, ft. lost of gore and references to the MC’s special interest. Now, it’s a great formula and has made for three incredible books, but after a while, it gets a little boring.
This leads me nicely onto my hopes for YNB.
Firstly, I hope the side characters can be fleshed out slightly more. CF did this very well, especially with Paul, Noah and Eddie, and this being the latest book of his I have read, I hope it comes from him becoming a better writer and figuring out how to do these things while still keeping things clear and consistent. In TSBIT and HFWU, the side characters are reduced to little more than a few physical characteristics, a handful of personality traits and a measly amount of backstory (or none at all). The side characters in CF genuinely intrigued me and made me all the more interested in reading how the novel would unfold, so I’m hoping this will continue into YNB.
Secondly, I hope to see more POC characters. Obviously! At least one nonwhite major character with some form of character development would make me very happy.
Thirdly (and probably finally, unless I decide I need to yap more, in which case strap in buddy) I hope the plot is different to the previous three. Now, from the premise, I believe it will be- instead of kids fighting against a group of people, the MC is instead trying to piece together his past and convince himself that he will not become his father simply by being a man. I’m hoping it will deal with confronting your past while proving to yourself that you are not what you have done, learning forgiveness towards a younger, more vulnerable version of you who did things they thought they had to so they could survive, and coming to terms with being transmasculine when you have always associated being a man with being your father (who, in the MC’s case, is a serial killer). And also that the ‘formula’ will have changed, at least just a bit. Oh and also please can there be a POC character? Like actually please.
Anyway, that’s all for now! I’m so excited to read YNB when it comes out in October, and it’s such an interesting premise for a novel. I love AJW and his writing, and can’t wait to see how it might evolve and improve in the future.
calling mcr fans! Which of these combinations screams danger days to you most? This will be the back of a ‘trading’ card in future (I will show pictures when I’ve finished them all) and I can’t decide myself.
calling mcr fans! Which of these combinations screams danger days to you most? This will be the back of a ‘trading’ card in future (I will show pictures when I’ve finished them all) and I can’t decide myself.
Thanks for the tag @earthenremains ! (and sorry for the incredibly late reply, life just caught up with me for a bit)
When you get this, list 5 songs you like to listen to. Then, send this list to 10 other bloggers.
Boy division- My Chemical Romance
God King Google- Rain McMey
Freeze your brain- Heathers the musical
Total eclipse of the heart- Bonnie Tyler (blame my mum for this one!)
Resistance- Muse
Tagging: @forgottensomewhere @lokijiro @thegodofpigeonsblog @freyadoesart26 ( @th3wr1t3r ) @scarsforsupper @red-string-of-phate and anyone else who wants to join as I can’t think of 10 people!
