I Dont Mean To Dunk On ENA Fanartists But You Need To Up Your Game In Creating Your Oc Dawg. We Literally

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words w- ow!

Hey wh- OW!!

Dude STOP-

OWshi- OW! STOP!!

I shouldn’t have told you my weakness is sticks and stones-

OW!!

As Gravity Falls reenters the void, and the inevitably of fanfiction begins to recirculate, there is a comment I fear I must send out to the general public.

As a trans man who gets, like, -1 representation in shows that aren’t explicitly about queer people, I often will latch onto characters that inexplicably have The Trans (TM) written into their bones, which includes Dipper Pines. And, as one might expect, I turn to my silly little A03 account to get my fix of representation and enjoyment of many a trans dilemma. Unfortunately, this is where my qualms get given the spotlight.

This is a generalization, but it seems as though every single godforsaken fic about trans!Dipper (I see this in the Spider-Man fandom a lot too, but that’s a conversation for a different day) he loses all his unhingedness, all his insanity, and is boiled down to a weak and sad little uwu trans boy who can’t handle his own dysphoria and falls apart at every slight inconvenience?

You’re telling me DIPPER, the same man who got called weak one (1) time and then disappeared into the woods for a solid 12 hours and came back half naked and rambling about positive vs toxic masculinity and manotaurs, is going to get misgendered and fall completely and utterly apart? You seriously think he’s going to have a run in with somebody who tries to bully him for being trans and he isn’t going to read them to filth? Are we forgetting that this is the same man who spent a whole episode learning about how to live and let live and then STILL told Pacifica her family was a sham with the mic-drop line of “deal with it”?????

Like good lord, please give this man some credit. I’m not saying he can’t have panic attacks, or trauma, or be treated differently by certain people, but it is the year of our lord and savior 2024 and we are STILL infantilizing trans men in fanon versions of media???

All I’m saying is if Mabel gets to keep her unhinged characteristics, you gotta let Dipper keep his too. Let Dipper punch a transphobe, as a treat.

new head cannon. Because horrors eye is not his own it doesn't fit in his head so sometimes it falls out, they will be having dinner and it falls out right into his stew. The others watch in disgust as Horror fishes in his stew, licks the eye clean and puts it back in, continues eating as if nothing happened. Horror can also leave his eye places to either spy on someone or to scare the f outta them. He also puts it in a glass of water by his bed while he sleeps, like dentures.

Lots of thoughts recently. Everything feels plastic.

I could go on and on about why all that AI "art" is bad. I could mention theft, lack of creativity, it's impact on the work field and environment, but countless people have already said all that. I wanted to touch on something that to me is the most utterly wrong about all of it.

Art is more than just something pretty to look at or listen to. It's therapeutic. It's a form of communication. A tool for human connection. It's a pure, human need.

Support real artists ☀️

sorry for bitching and whining. unfortunately i have to or else ill start killing and eating people instead

Uhhhh quick thing to get me out of artblock,,, au where Brothers turn into a tree 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↔️

Next order of business is the final dtiys doodles, and a few silly things I have planned 😳🤭❤️❤️

Hot take (maybe?): Penny’s torture of cigar was a totally unnecessary inclusion and I think speaks to mg’s habit of emphasising shock value at the expense of good writing.

Most of the analyses and deep dives of Penny’s character that I’ve read discuss one or more of the following scenes: her upbringing pre-FAYZ, her cementing of Caine, her attempted coup of Perdido Beach, her interactions and relationships with other female characters in the series, namely her sisters and Diana, and her infatuation with Drake. People have made links to how Penny’s upbringing, which involves witnessing her sisters being sexually exploited and being emotionally neglected herself as a result of her sisters’ sexual exploitation, has informed her self-image and her understanding of love, sex, and affection throughout her time in the series. People have discussed how her cementing of Caine and her poisoning of her sister demonstrates her inclination to react with violence when she feels her attempts to receive the love and affection (i.e. sexual attraction) she so desperately craves are rejected, a manifestation of her low emotional intelligence and lack of healthy coping mechanisms stemming from the neglect and lack of emotional guidance she experiences pre-FAYZ. People have explored how her interactions and relationships with Diana highlight the toxicity of trying to live up to the unrealistic standards of beauty and desirability imposed upon women by patriarchy and how such standards unjustly pit women against each other in their attempt to meet them. And although her interactions with Drake in the series are limited, I have seen people mention that it illustrates how Penny, in her desperation, is willing to sacrifice her own self worth in the pursuit of receiving any type of attention, to the point where she latches on to the most toxic man in their entire series. What all the discussions of these scenes have in common is that the people who have discussed them have done so in a way that substantively contributes to our wider understanding of what it is that I believe Penny’s character is meant to represent.

Of course, Penny’s torture of cigar is one of, if not, the most popular scene I’ve seen mentioned in Penny analyses and deep dives. I’ve seen people say that Penny’s torture of cigar is among one of the most memorable scenes from the series period. But every time it’s mentioned in a deep dive or an analyses, it is usually some variation of this sentence “Penny is an [insert adjective/s] character, but I also hate that scene where she tortures cigar and, as such, I do not defend her actions.” That’s it. For a scene which is supposedly so memorable, to the point where it’s all people remember about Penny, its inclusion begins and ends with just one sentence. It is relegated to being the obligatory “understanding a character doesn’t mean defending them” disclaimer at the beginning of every analysis and deep dive that I’ve read, a disclaimer which is oftentimes shoehorned in to every discussion and discourse surrounding morally complicated and unpalatable characters because people in fandom spaces have little grasp of nuance (a problem which is of course not exclusive to the gone fandom and one which I actually think this fandom in particular navigates well).

I’ve seen people make the argument that Penny’s torture of cigar is meant to highlight the deterioration of her emotionally unintelligent mind up until this point in the series, and the depravity of her imagination (channeled through her powers) as a result. However, if that’s what it supposed to be representing, then I think a scene she has later on in the same book where she demonstrates a new vision to Dekka in order to stop Dekka from pursuing her does a better at highlighting this. Penny creates a horrific vision just for Dekka which she describes as being new, clearly illustrating the depravity of her imagination and the deterioration of her mind up until this point. And it also showcases one of the talking points from earlier, in that it shows Penny’s desperation to seek love and affection at the expense of her own self worth (going to the mineshaft to work with drake and the gaiaphage) and her inclination towards violence when she is denied love and affection (going to enact her revenge on the citizens of PB and Caine by aligning herself with drake and the Gaiaphage following the failure of her coup). On the other hand, if you were to actually analyse Penny’s torture of cigar using the same talking points brought up in discussions of the other aforementioned scenes, you’d realise just how inconsequential Penny’s torture of cigar actually is to understanding who she is as a character.

In fact, the reason I’m writing this at all is because the only contribution Penny’s torture of cigar made to Penny’s character is canonically giving her a foot fetish 💀 way to go mg, sexualising the 12 year old girl that you were using to explore how the sexualisation of young girls can warp their self-esteem and emotional intelligence.

"The nonbinary afab who goes by she/her, dresses femininely, and uses a push-up bra when I—" when you what? What's wrong with her?

Is she not nonbinary enough for you? Is the way she experiences her queerness and how she presents not perfect enough for you? Nonbinary people don't owe you androgyny, right? So why is she the exception? Why does she have to hate herself to appeal to your standards? Why is she any less trans—any less worthy of respect—cause it's "not visible"? Queer solidarity my ass. Don't spout this bullshit on Pride, man.