you have not begun to see the horrors of love

my art comm info middle eastern artist | 1995 | europe | cis lesbian | no aI 🚫 | multifandom/ocs | 🌻trans rights are human rights | commissions open bluesky

[rhywhitefang]

Hello everyone! You heard me say that I was gonna finally streamline some sort of commission process in the new year... well now that it's March I finally succeeded. You can find all the info you need here!

[hezekiahwakely]

While his trans identity is not a major factor to his story arc in the text, Faulkner being a trans man is integral to his overaching character as someone desperate to be taken seriously and infuriated at being perpetually infantilized and humored by those around him. His desperate need for others to see him as he sees himself (not so much a man at the time we know him in the podcast, but as a prophet) parallels the trans experience of public perception and rejection. But in his desperation and reliance on the opinions of others to form and reinforce his identity, he consequently slides down the path of lies and self-delusion that trans people are often accused of when choosing to live as their true gender. In this essay I will

[save-the-child-qamar]

PLEASE DO NOT SCROLL PAST A POST OF STARVING CHILDREN ...

[save-the-child-qamar]

A mother’s worst nightmare is watching her children wither away from severe malnutrition and extreme hunger. Inside our fragile tent, my children, Qamar and Omar—including my 3-month-old baby—struggle with agonizing skin rashes and harsh hunger every single day. Since my husband suffered a head injury, I have become the sole provider, but my hands are completely tied. We have no backup plan and no other escape; this campaign is our last hope for survival. Any dollar can secure milk, bread, vegetables, and the vital medical treatment for my little ones' skin.

Samar's Urgent Plea: Save Qamar and Omar

My name is Samar. I write from a fragile tent in Gaza, a mother who loves her two little children with all her heart. My husband is severely

Vetted#53

[save-the-child-qamar]

Your contribution is our only lifeline today; donate now to save them before it is too late. Every passing second comes at a price.

[michealredpath20]

GO DONATE TO THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[save-the-child-qamar]

Please, please, guys, donate and share to reach more people who can help us.

[nooomagnus]

you know how cig smokers get cigarette breaks? lesbians should get that but for taking off your shirt and screaming a little

[nooomagnus]

[rhywhitefang]

Finally finished this piece

[theartofmadeline]

happy pride to the gay people in my computer <3

[ex0skeletal-undead]

Ethereal Wyrm, Photoshop illustration by Ben J

[rhywhitefang]

Finally finished my refs for the awakenings crew

[ezuzi]

no, the bombing and deaths of thousands of palestinians, lebanese, yemenis, iranians, iraqis and people in west asia and africa are not 'distractions' for the epstein files. we get it you see our lives as less but it's just not. we matter.

[monacellipress]

Jellyfish mosaic tile piece, Havana, Cuba. From Great Houses of Havana.

[chichitoitsu]

my pages for @theunwantedguestproject ! it was such a blast seeing everyone come together for this and everyone's interpretations of the characters and story. I feel like I learned a lot from this experience!

please go check out everyone else's work at the official website here!

[midandevil]

Poor cousin Tabitha. 😔 I just want to give her a hug… even though I know she’d hate it.

[wizardjail]

the thing that bewilders me about a lot of fantasy readers is that they read about settings and plots featuring imperialism, war, and slavery and then call the inclusion of violence, abuse, and sexual exploitation "edgy" and "gratuitous" and it's like what did you think was happening. why were you under the impression that you were going to get a cozy story about fascism or something. far be it from me to criticize anyone for not wanting to read about torture in their spare time, and there are certainly cases where heavy subjects are poorly executed, but is it not equally insulting to sanitize them for a feel-good adventure.. like no one put a gun to your head and forced you to give your fantasy novel an enslaved protagonist. sometimes writing is supposed to make you feel bad

[ivytea]

false lanternberry

[rosenkranz-does-things]

@theunwantedguestproject is now live!! a bunch of artists took part in illustrating Tamsyn Muir's play The Unwanted Guest. here's some cover variants I designed just for fun :') you can check out the project here 💜

[aguacerotropical]

what annoys me the most about Robin Hobb (and many other writers) teasing queerness and queer themes but not following through is knowing they know better, and also the fact that their intricate wonderful worlds feel so much poorer for their ultimately not including it. Queerness is everywhere, even the most repressive society is queer because they are zealously afraid of gender and sexual fuckery. A fantasy society without it is just not believable. This is something Ursula k Le Guin understood implicitly, and it’s why her works have stayed so relevant. And that is probably why Robin Hobb has largely faded into obscurity for younger sff fans, and will continue to do so. She didn’t have to make Fitz and the Fool a Thing, but I’m willing to say she missed an opportunity to, for example, contrast them with a bisexual Althea and Wintrow in Liveship Traders. Those two are frustrating because they’ve been set up as queer in relation to patriarchy, only for that queerness start to be watered down as the novels continue. (At least by the first half of the Mad Ship.)

[shimmersroundyourskull]

Fitzloved is queer beyond queer, because they love each other fully, having worked past their own interpersonal barriers and especially everyone else’s need to understand how TF that works.

Hobb fully intended their love story, she wondered what love would look like without revolving around sex or gender. It’s not teasing queerness, it’s so far beyond our norms that it’s extra super queer 💞 They are whole together.

[aguacerotropical]

I wasn’t speaking about the main ROTE series, but Liveship Traders. Liveship Traders pits two of their main leads, Althea and Wintrow, against patriarchy and then makes them straight. She's aware of queerness, she makes several jokes about it, but she doesn't include a single queer relationship. It's queerphobic and thus sloppy in its worldbuilding, which was my point, because the real world has out queer people.

Plus, I specifically said that the Fitz and the Fool didn't have to be a couple, but she missed an opportunity to have queer couples as foils, perhaps. I haven't read the main ROTE series, so I don't want to comment too much, but after several conversations with other fans, the consensus seems to be that they read as queer, but Hobb never seriously admitted or confronted that reality. It's a giant hole in her writing. (And yes I am aware the Fool/Beloved is genderfluid. That, if anything, strengthens my argument that she knew but chose to straight-fy her world.)

And I don't really have any reason to give her the privilege of the doubt. The fact that her track record in Liveship Traders is of erasing queerness makes me very suspicious that she's "exploring love beyond sexuality and gender" rather than refusing to call a spade a spade. And loving someone in the way you mention is not queer, it's merely being human. Even if it was, keeping people closeted and insisting your world is straight is still not being “beyond queerness." It's bad writing within an already sloppily constructed world that ignores Caribbean colonization while clearly basing itself on it, something I've discussed in depth in previous posts.

And just to clarify, there were good writers tackling queerness in the 90s-2000s. She was actively reading and complimenting Lynn Flewelling who crafted pretty much the best queernom world I have ever read, who emphasized throughout her books that Alec and Seregil love each other and fuck dirty and that their love goes beyond the romantic. So no, Hobb knew better. She chose not to do better.

[rhywhitefang]

More colored sketches