lurking...

👻 for art go to ravennowithtea.tumblr.com  

[ravenno]

This personal blog is for posting my various art / fanart projects to tumblr from 2013 and on. Find me also on Twitter, etc, in the links below. ♥ 𓄿

_(┐「ε:)_ 💕・*✲ﾟ*｡✧ 𓄿

just in case someone ended up here unintentionally.... 

the above link [RavennoWithTea] is where all my art gets posted. 

[ravenno] is where all the social, reblogging, ooooother stuff ends up.

[existennialmemes]

The crux of the anti trans movement is a war on bodily autonomy. They don't want you to have any agency over what you look like, how you dress, who you date, whether to have kids, etc.

They want total control over you. Not just trans people. Not just queer people. You. Everyone.

Trans people are just a scapegoat. They want total control over everyone's self expression. They want the right to mold you into their perfect little cog in their dehumanizing machine.

Happy Trans Day of Visibility. Our rights are your rights. Our destruction is your destruction.

[our-trans-punk-experience]

10/10 post bringing it back for 2026

[shabbytigers]

[dinosaurcharcuterie]

I've lived in Germany for 14 years so far. This discussion comes up at least once a year.

A summary of the most common points that come up.

Most Germans do not consider toast bread (i.e. wonderbread) bread.* It is a product you finish baking at home. I have eaten it untoasted many times** in front of them, and a significant number of people*** react in horror.

"Ungetoastetes Toastbrot" is a popular phrase that sounds as insane in German as it does in English to all who hear it, but the reason it sounds insane depends on if the German in question believes it is ethical and proper to consume it untoasted. Alternatively, there is the even more strange but not that uncommon "rohes Toastbrot" — raw toast bread. Which isn't the same as dough.**** Truly die-hard toasters will refer to the bread itself as "Toast" in all forms, as if that will manifest it as the only possible destiny for every slice in existence.

Toast bread is only unilaterally fit for consumption after it has been sufficiently toasted. There are discussions about what shade of toastage makes it "genießbar", but the general consensus is that it's toast the second it gets a crunchy crust through the application of heat. This might be achieved in a toaster, but using it to make a grilled sandwich in a pan, toastie maker or a contact grill is equally acceptable. Just letting it go stale does not count. The application of cheese, mayo or butter to the outside does not influence the becoming-toast process in either direction. The cooling down of the toast does not reverse the status change; not even if the toast is exposed to circumstances that revert it to its previous softness, or even make it soggy*****.

One more or less acceptable exception to toast bread needing to be toasted is when one orders 1) currywurst 2) without fries from a 3) street vendor who does not 4) stock white bread rolls and 5) does not advertise the currywurst as coming with a roll. Any deviation from those 5 points negates the toastbread clemency and is a legitimate reason for grumbling******. The toast bread also has to be of a generic brand, white and cut on the diagonal. One triangular half is an acceptable serving, but two marks a more generous******* vendor.

*They, incidentally, are joined in this sentiment by Norwegians. The Norwegians, however, sort it into the same category as baguette and loff (white bread); bread products with little flavor, vitamins, minerals, or fiber, and thus not really something you'd include as a major part of a "proper" meal.

**all standard issue German bread is cursed to go rock hard within 24 hours after baking unless it is hermetically and tightly sealed in plastic. There are many Germans who claim this is untrue and a bread box suffices to not make it so. I've got "proper" bread from other countries to compare it to, I've made my own bread to check, and can confidently say the German bread box enthusiasts are either hopeful and delusional, malicious and lying, or dentists with a mortgage to pay off. I'm guessing the nation as a whole offended Hestia at one point, and all offerings to appease her thus far have been insufficient.

***If you have friends who believe it needs toasting, them regularly trying to convince you to do so is a sign they care about your well-being and never give up hope for your self improvement.

****German toast bread philosophy has more layers than a croissant in that way.

*****This was a very heated debate between two of my coworkers, one of whom had wrapped a lightly toasted ham and cheese toastie in aluminium foil for lunch. She was accused of eating untoasted toast bread by one of her fellow toast-must-be-toasted fanatics and did not take kindly to what she perceived was an attack to her moral and dietary integrity.

******Serving currywurst without any bread or fries, however, is madness on par with eating hot soup with your bare hands.

*******Price for a 24 large slice loaf with no ends from my supermarket of choice: 2,19 €, including 7% tax.

[timidsketch]

It's still so strange to me how apparently taboo it is to like a post on someone's Instagram from a month ago when there are posts still circulating on Tumblr from 1550 BCE

[roolsilver]

If he didn't want it circulating in 2022 he should have sold better copper

[witchofanguish]

[mahead-ithurt]

Always remember that the EU did a study in 2013 about the effects of piracy on media publishers and found that there is no correlation between piracy and sales! (And then they tried to hide that study bc that's not the result they wanted)

So piracy is at worst not even a problem, and at best it's free advertisement.

Source: (the link to the actual study is in the article)

EU withheld a study that shows piracy doesn't hurt sales - Engadget

In 2013, the European Commission ordered a €360,000 ($430,000) study on how piracy affects sales of music, books, movies and games in the EU

[rabbitindisguise]

Plus this one:

Study Again Shows 'Pirates' Tend to Be The Biggest Buyers of Legal Content

A new report out of the UK once again deflates the common narrative that pirates are exclusively looking to obtain free stuff.

[frankhermann]

actually annoyed by long distance friends again. i want to go for a walk i want to get drinks i want to sit in the grass and write i want to go to the fucking store together

[zroem]

A Candle's Fire, artfight revenge for the great @/nuggetcereal

[frodo-of-the-nine-fingers]

it is always narratively correct to make your characters sleep together before they sort through the hundreds of lies and misdirections between them. make things worse make things worse make things worse #i love betrayal #i love lying #i love people feeling bad about themselves

[whatbigotspost]

The "elder millennial" "xennial" age group had such an interesting relationship to tech growing up. We just kept rolling w/ the changes that have been nonstop, but our earliest days were pre digitial.

Like I remember when the only way friends could contact me was the old shared house phone...probably the last generation in mainstream US life to say that. I remember the internet arriving and being INFINITELY more competent at using it than adults and fucking around on AIM and chat rooms. I remember pagers and adults having them but wasn't old enough for one until they were already obsolete.

I was taught how to formally handwrite a letter and address the envelope. Followed by mandatory keyboard typing classes and "computers" starting as a "specials" in elementary school.

The first cases of cyberbullying started in my generation. Adults had no idea how to address it.

We were at the front end of cell phones and texting becoming the norm, by my late in my HS/early college times. I remember owning totally separate pieces of tech for digital photography, playing music, watching video, playing video games, GPS/navigation, scientific calculator, an alarm clock, flashlight, etc. many replaced by smartphones. And I remember being an early smartphone adopter in my late 20s.

I remember the screeching hell of dial up and how fucking pumped we were when much better DSL/cable internet started. I remember sometimes having to print out papers for college to some professors and hand them in person and for others, having to submit them by email or online uploads instead. In my early career, I remember having to fax paperwork as much as I emailed it.

My home has physical media in VHS, DVD, and Blue ray formats. I remember when VHS was officially phased out as the standard format.

I had more cellphones with gimmicks across the years than I could count. The old Nokia brick. The tiny phone SNL mocked. The sidekick full keyboard that flipped out. The Blackberry that was my first time getting email on the go. The original Droid. Early iphones.

I'm Mark Zuckerberg's age...aka of the generation of women he was ranking hotness of in this pre-Facebook days and the target group he rolled out The Facebook for...I was on it when you had to be at an invited college.

Idk why I'm writing this. it's just interesting to me. I think part of why my generation is so adaptable to new tech is that we've always had to be...unlike my niece who is starting high school and has literally ONLY ever known tech on a phone or tablet. But also unlike my 87 aunt who didn't interact with tech much until she was in her 40s and older.

[screampotato]

Suddenly struck with a need to explain to you how boat pronouns work (I work in the marine industry).

When you're talking about the design of the boat, you say "it".

When the boat is still being built, your say "it".

When the boat is nearing completion, you can say "it" or "she".

When the boat is floating in the water you probably say "she", unless there is still a lot of work to be done (e.g. no engine yet) then you say "it".

When the boat is officially launched and operating, you say "she". If you continue to say "it" at this point you are not incorrect but suspiciously untraditional. You are not playing the game.

If you are referring to a boat you don't really know anything about you may say "it" ("there's a big boat, it's coming this way"). But if you know its name, it's probably "she" ("there's the Waverley, she's on her way to Greenock").

If you are talking about boats in general, you say "it" ("when a boat is hit by a wave it heels over")

If you speak about a boat in complimentary terms, it's "she" ("she's a grand boat"). If you are being disparaging it may be it, but not necessarily ("it's as ugly as sin", "she's a grotty old tub").

If she has a boy's name, she's still she. "Boy James", "King Edward", "Sir David Attenborough"? The pronoun is she.

If it's a dumb barge (no engine), you say it. But if it's a rowing boat (no engine), you say she.

I hope this has cleared things up so that you may not be in danger of misgendering floating objects.

[glitched-out-mess]

[theramblingvoid]

Hit "view post" and lost it

[kunosoura]

my number one woman behavior is saying i’m fine with any pronouns and silently ranking people in my regard based on what they do with that information

[deirdreskye]

This is George Costanza behavior

[windex-for-blood]

GEORGE, at a function: Pronouns? Oh, you know, anything. Anything fine. It’s the twenty-first century, right?

-Cut, establishing shot of Jerry’s apartment, bass riff.-

GEORGE: He/him, Jerry!

JERRY: No, they just him’d you?

GEORGE: HE. HIM! I gave them a BUFFET, and they went for plain white bread. Genders as far as the eye could see! Something with an X in it!

JERRY: The X ones are fun…

[theygender]

GEORGE: If they can’t appreciate a good xie or ey… Then that’s it. I’m swearing off pronouns for good. No more pronouns for George Costanza!

JERRY: No pronouns?

GEORGE: No pronouns.

JERRY: No-nouns?

GEORGE: No-nouns.

JERRY: Alright, well, if that’s what you want…

GEORGE: Oh, it is! I’m living the pronoun-free life, starting now. The buffet is CLOSED, Jerry. From here on out I am George and only George!

-George storms out of the apartment and into the hallway. Enter Elaine, baffled and unaware of the conversation that just took place.-

ELAINE: What’s his problem?

-Muffled screaming is heard from the hallway.-

[charlesoberonn]

And they said you couldn’t do Seinfeld in the modern day.

[goth-queen]

[taylor-titmouse]

on setting up audience expectations, and either satisfying or defying them

i told myself i wouldn't write an essay about tadc, because i should have got my fill of trying to argue with people on bluesky whose critical analysis starts and ends with 'the creator said so'. but i unfortunately do feel very strongly about storycraft, so i'm going to write an essay anyway, focusing mainly on one scene from the finale and how it creates an expectation it does not satisfy, nor meaningfully subvert.

i'm going to be discussing how tone, visuals, and familiar tropes work together to create an emotional expectation, and what could have been done differently to support what is the supposed intended read. while the essay is going to be taking the stance that this scene failed in what it was trying to do, my intent is not to diminish readings that it succeeded. if anything i'm only using tadc and the scene as an example to talk about the greater concepts of narrative catharsis. i'm not here to convince anybody how to feel about the work itself, just make a point. it's educational. i like talking about writing and visuals. it's not a review and there's no moral stance being taken about what is good or bad.

okay?

and to be clear, i'm not going to be referencing or including anything the creator has said, because i've not read any of it, i'm not going to, and i don't need to. 'the creator said so' is a rhetorical dead end that stops discussion in favor of a solid single answer. i'm not interested in fandom discourse surrounding the creator. that's not what this is about. my reading is based entirely and exclusively on the text of the work itself and my interpretation of it.

okay?

okay.

and obviously this will contain spoilers for the final episode

we're going to talk about jax's final scene, 31:30 up through 36ish, conveniently timestamped. for those of you that don't want to watch the whole six minutes again, i'm going to lay out the major beats. in pink, i'm going to point at the musical cues, visuals, and dialogue that i want you to pay attention to.

pomni confronts jax in the center of his psyche after reaching into his abstracted mind to find him. he pleads for her to leave, claiming nobody is supposed to care about him, or love him, and that she's making it harder by being there. gentle, insistent string music sweeps to a crescendo as pomni approaches.

pomni embraces him. jax claims it's too late, that there's no coming back from abstraction. pomni entreats him to talk to her, and he turns and kneels to hug her. the music remains soft, gentle, and sweet.

jax says he doesn't want to go, and starts breathing heavily. pomni tells him to stay with her. he begins glowing bright white.

we cut to a montage of jax scenes, set to a cover of stevie wonder's Isn't She Lovely, a song about the birth of his beautiful baby girl.

pomni keeps holding on to the glowing white body of jax as the music continues, ending on the lyrics isn't she lovely, made of love. the screen goes entirely white.

zooble and the others pull pomni out of the glowing white body of jax. they lean over her and say "you weren't going to try and take care of him all by yourself, were you?" and "i'm glad we weren't too late" and "like you guys keep saying, we're all in this together."

the song continues without the lyrics as they put jax in a pillow fort tent.

those are the basic facts of the scene and the musical cues. yes, there are more details, but these are still The Basic Beats between pomni finding jax, and the end of the scene. two characters emotionally embrace, the music swells with hope, one of them starts glowing white, the most joyful, loving song of all time starts playing, and the whole cast shows up, eager to help, happy they weren't too late, reminding us that they're all in this together.

how is the scene setting your expectation for what comes next? what sort of feelings do the music choices lead you to? where have you seen similar scenes play out, and how did they end? the music is hopeful and positive. the characters smile tearfully, and speak words of encouragement. the character in crisis glows white when embraced by a friend who refuses to give up. obviously the answers to my questions are subjective, maybe you hear isn't she lovely kick in and you come to the immediate conclusion jax is dead forever and get sad. but the answer i'm trying to lead you to, and that i would argue all of these elements combined are leading you to, is a positive resolution. you're led to believe something good will happen to jax. that the power of love will overcome the abstraction, and jax will come back from the brink knowing that he--or she, as the case may be--is loved. isn't she lovely, made of love?

but that's not what happens. we leave this scene and move to a montage of building a pillow fort tent, into which the abstracted jax is dragged like an animal and left. nobody joins pomni in her attempt to pull jax out of abstraction, seemingly all they're glad to have done is not lost pomni in an explosion: "i'm glad we weren't too late." but they were too late--for jax. the character we've spent the past two episodes and thirty minutes examining under a microscope, the character who was in crisis, the character who needed help, and never ultimately got it until it was, factually, too late. the world state of "jax is abstracted" did not change. we, and pomni, understand him better for having insight into his mind. but no change occurred. if you're standing outside of all this, pomni went into a room, turned off the lights, and then was pulled away from an abstraction that glowed white and then...never stopped being an abstraction. nothing has changed. there is no positive resolution beyond "nobody else got hurt worse".

this is tragic. it is a tragedy! and i do sincerely believe it's meant to be tragic. but everything outside of the literal facts of the scene, the music, the tone, the way the characters talk, directly contradicts that. it is not presented as a tragedy. an instrumental of isn't she lovely continues playing as they build the tent and put jax away, but it's an entirely straightforward cover, still upbeat, still positively coded. there's no contrast between the use of the song and the way the scene is presented that would make it "bittersweet", nothing in the way it's shot tells me this is sad. the situation is only logically sad--if i feel sad, it's because i know i'm supposed to. i'm not being made sad.

and that's where the issue is. if the scene is supposed to be sad, if it's not supposed to make you think 'the power of love and friendship can save you', then it's not using the tools at its disposal effectively. it can still make you sad, but is it doing it the best way that it could? everyone's familiar with the old sarah machlachlan ASPCA commercials. images of sad cats and dogs in shelters, while she mournfully sings in the arms of the angels, to make you think about the fact that many of these animals will be put down without finding a home. the imagery and the music cues are working together to make you feel sad. now go mute that commercial and play grover washington jr's just the two of us overtop it. how does that combination make you feel? maybe it evokes hope, maybe it makes you want to adopt a pet. just the two of us, we can make it if we try. adopt a dog, you can make it if you try! it's a far cry from sarah's plea.

obviously this is a commercial, it's trying to sell you on an idea (however noble an idea it is), but that's not really any different from a story. the story is trying to sell you on the idea it wants to convey, and how it wants you to feel, and it's using music, visuals, and dialogue to achieve that. by the way, if you intend to respond to this essay in a reblog to argue with me, turn one word blue, otherwise i'll know you didn't read it closely all the way through and just wanted to fight. anyway if the scene is meant to make us go "oh my god i thought it was going to work out but it didn't" then it needs to convince us it believes it didn't work out. because as it is, it presents putting jax in the pillow fort forever as the positive resolution, because that's what the music is telling us.

so what do we do about this, if we want to ensure the audience comes to the "correct" conclusion? number one is, of course, the music. isn't she lovely is a great pick if you want to lead us to a trans girl jax ending, but if it's supposed to be tragic... you have to change the tone. you have to make it sad. jax doesn't get to live as a girl, make me sad about it! bring down the tempo, change the key. if it's meant to be mournful, it has to sound like it. and the music surrounding it, the music in the void as pomni and jax embrace--that too should not be so hopeful. bring in the cello, bring in the piano, take out the steven universe plinky synths. we know what sad music sounds like. make it sound sad! or at least contrast it with the visuals. if you want to use an upbeat song for dramatic irony, that's fine, but irony requires going against expectations. i expect an upbeat song to be accompanied by happy hopeful visuals. make pomni scream and reach for jax and be held back while the song plays, make her suffer. make it contrast.

then there's the visuals. the glowing white light. embracing somebody who's glowing white can be considered neutral, but, in tandem with the music, it leads to a reading of a coming transformation, a rebirth. something new is going to come out of that white light. rewatching the scene, i guess it's supposed to be a literal explosion triggered by the abstraction creature stepping on the grenade, but like... c'mon? c'mon. it's not ABOUT the grenade. it's about jax falling apart and losing himself fully and pomni trying to hold on.

and if that's what it's supposed to be, make his model start going abstract when he enters his panic attack. make it absolutely clear that we're losing this last piece of jax and can't get it back. turn the model black, make it warble, make it grow the eyes. the fact that we don't see jax abstract on screen originally, that it's just something that happened elsewhere, is another problem i have with the finale, but is not the point of this post. if the story doesn't want to show it the first time, that's fine! but if it wants this to be the moment when jax goes to the point of no return, it should make sure we know that's what's happening. a glowing white light is hopeful. a growing black shape is not.

and finally, the dialogue/the way the characters behave. i am not convinced by jax saying "there's no coming back from this" because i'm not convinced he knows that. of course he would say that! of course he would believe it! but that line is a band-aid over the problem of WE don't actually know that. we've never seen it tried. we don't KNOW that all of your friends coming together and genuinely caring about you isn't enough to bring you back. much like we don't KNOW exactly what causes it or makes it so irreversible, because we don't see it happen. i'm absolutely on board for abstraction being a metaphor for this or that, but because it is still a literal event in a world that isn't built exclusively on metaphor, we still need literal information about it and its rules. this is a problem with science fiction. you can do plenty with metaphor and analogy in the genre, but you can't metaphor the hard facts that make up the world. those of you who've been here long enough know how much chobits makes me insane because it acts like the reset button being in her pussy is happenstance in service of a metaphor for sex changing you and not a choice her freak roboticist father had to make in the lab when he built her. some things you do have to address.

anyway. i'm getting off track. if the story wants me to think jax really can't come back, i need to know that's impossible in order to be sad about it. and if i don't get to know that until this exact moment in the story (which is fine!) then i need to know it through failure. if everyone is going to walk up like thank god we're all here! we're not gonna let you try alone! i... need the group to actually try, and i need them to fail. otherwise, everything else being exactly as it is, hopeful music and all, i'm led to believe friendship could've save the day--if they'd just tried. but for some reason, they don't try. they just put jax in the tent and i'm left questioning why nobody else tried to hug him better. the expectation that something could be done was set up, and then not followed through on, nor subverted. if they failed, that would have been a subversion, the narrative playing on my expectation that love conquers all in order to make it more impactful when it says 'no, it doesn't.'

that's what i think it wants to say, anyway. that is the logical conclusion, based entirely on the events, and ignoring all the narrative devices surrounding them. but i'm unsatisfied by the logical conclusion. i don't want to have to examine cold facts when trying to deduce a story's conclusion. i want the catharsis of having my expectations raised, and then either met--which is still good storytelling--or subverted. a story doing exactly what you think it's doing is not inherently bad, it means you heard what it was saying. i don't think tadc would be worse if pomni and the gang loved jax back from the brink and she was reborn into an avatar with a cute bow on her head and started making an effort to be better. and i don't think i'd be unsatisfied by a narrative that said no, you can't save everyone no matter how hard you love them, if it said it clearly and confidently.

it just doesn't successfully do that.

phew. did you make it all the way down here? do you understand what i'm trying to get at, even if you don't necessarily agree with it? i hope so. if you read all that and want to yell at me for saying the cartoon clown show could have been better, please consider: nobody would spend their sunday writing an essay about a cartoon clown show if they completely hated it. i must have liked it well enough. i just want it to be better. you should always want better from the work you take in, and for the work you make. tadc already exists and can't be changed, so this essay is ultimately for YOU 🫵 to think about your own work and how you can use the tools you have to elicit the feeling you want in your audience.

that's one of the reasons for critical analysis. if you can identify what doesn't work in somebody else's story, and can identify how it would improve, you will be better at identifying these things in your own work, and your work will be better.

i want you to make good work.

please make good work.

[ccattnipp]

Act like a ’90s anime villain power couple.

[boybeetles]

I need to stop jokingly calling people changing to be ‘normal’ as ‘detransitioning’ because I just said “did you see guy fieri detransitioned” to a friend who didn’t know about me doing that in a joke way

[katelyn-danger]

Fallout 3 power armor mechanic and his duplicitous twin brother who says the word "uncivilized" too much.

[teaweltzer]

Attack 20 (revenge!!) on @bubblyernie

[taylor-titmouse]

oh to be a unicorn who knows nothing of literary analysis