#At least I thought of one more punchline lol

[heronspeak]

i’m 22 years old. i’m wearing 16 year old me’s shoes today and wondering why the same pair i bought earlier this year never feel as right as these ones do (i know it’s because i’ve worn them into the earth. i know it’s more than that). i put those beat to shit shoes on and miss me so much i ache. its like every tear and scuff and glued-together edge is a memory of a me i’ll never get to be again

#and it hurts and aches and aches and i’m wearing my shoes and smiling because at least i’m still me and at least i’m still here #but fuck #there’s a lot of pieces of me i’ve lost that i still had when i was 16 wearing those shoes #….. #yes this is about my chucks #LOL #a hole on each side of each shoe #soles glued back on 4 times i can remember #written on and bleached #my old name written onto the side #left shark and right shark on the heel of each one #an old inside joke written on the left shoe that i don’t remember the punchline to #and the friend that i shared it with doesn’t talk to me anymore #handwriting from people i miss on the sides #rambles #poetry #???? #more like just my thoughts after wearing those today

[demeterdefence]

time for more thoughts nobody asked for (quick content warning this does discuss apollo & sexual assault)

there's been a growing shift in lo from putting reasonable emotional response to things to "lol comedy" and it's ... not good. in all honesty the entire comic seems to have become a parody of itself - lazy sketches, exaggerated appendages, absolute godawful flanderization in character design - but one of the more egregious aspects is the downplaying of genuine anger and righteous frustration into some kind of 1-2 comedy punch.

under the cut for length and content

i won't say that rachel has ever handled nuance or emotional response particularly well, but in the earlier chapters, there was at least a semblance of effort. when depicting or discussing persephone's rape by apollo, rachel writes eros as being rightfully horrified by what happened to persephone, and while it's not great that the emotional catharsis is more on eros reacting to the rape instead of persephone herself, i'll admit that i really did like how eros responded and validated persephone. as someone who has also experienced sexual assault, the sense of grief, fear, and confusion surrounding the event often gaslights victims into being confused or mixed up over the reality of what happened. eros demonstrates nothing but support and love for persephone, evidenced first by noting how upset she is when she says she had sex with apollo, and then by realizing she can't even find the words to describe what happened. he's actually nothing but nurturing in the sequence.

eros recognizes a major component of the assault is not just the assault itself - persephone is blaming herself both for what happened to her, and for "losing" her virginity, which has been a key aspect of her identity for a long time. eros immediately puts himself on persephone's side, reassures her, and comforts her, and it's not done with comedy or hilarity. he is the god of love - he understands sex and desire, and he is absolutely correct that what apollo did was rape. the conversation is treated more or less pretty respectfully, and without any comedic punchline or distraction. it's two friends, one desperately needing comfort, another providing it.

something to note is that from this point on, eros is furious with apollo, and it shows. he is correct that apollo is the bad guy here, and he does not let up in that reaction. the next time we see apollo and eros in the same scene, it's when apollo has cornered persephone in the room where he raped her, backed her up against the wall, and manhandled her. this scene in particular has ... a lot of bad elements to it, but without getting into that hornet's nest, we see eros come upon the scene in time to see what's happening.

and he's not happy.

particular to note that all the gods get wrath eyes at some point or another - apollo's are golden, whereas eros' are blood red, and the standoff emphasizes this. eros immediately breaks into the room and puts himself in front of persephone, staring apollo down until he leaves.

the next time apollo and eros interact, it's right after pesephone has been charged with treason and is hiding in the underworld. now, i do have some problems with this interaction because, considering the last time eros saw the guy it was when he was threatening the girl he raped in the room he raped her in, and eros' reaction is ... fairly muted. but there's still clear disdain in there, and eros does not necessarily hide it.

the last time we see eros and apollo interact before the trial is when apollo gets hit with the arrow of hate and comes after psyche. eros takes it less than well.

ignoring the fight which turns into psyche and eros sidelining everything, the entire interaction ends with eros getting hit with an arrow from apollo after trying to stop him from killing daphne.

it's a good time to point out that by chapter 227 (MONTHS after their last interaction) both eros and psyche are confirmed to know what apollo did, that he's still terrorizing persephone, and that he tried to kill daphne and severely injured eros. psyche has been given the role of goddess in part to keep an eye on apollo. that's confirmed in the story. that's confirmed by rachel. that's confirmed by eros and psyche themselves. apollo nearly killed psyche when he attacked eros. there is a significant lack of love between the three of them. so how does eros react the next time he and apollo are together?

like at this point in the story apollo:

raped eros' friend and terrorized her, once in front of eros who had to physically stop apollo from continuing

gaslit artemis in front of him, emphasizing his abusive behaviour and reinforcing to eros that apollo would manipulate anyone to get what he wanted

tried to kill his wife in front of him

shot him with an arrow that made eros violently ill

tried to kill a nymph in front of him

plotted to kill eros' grandfather / king of the gods

threatened to kill an innocent woman if eros and psyche tried to stop him

locked eros and psyche in a magical jail

by all accounts eros should be seething to fight apollo. he should be rabid. he should be frothing at the mouth to punch the guy out. instead we get this

this is the sort of thing you say to the dude who annoys you or steals your girlfriend, not a RAPIST who tried to kill the KING and wants to establish a coup d'etat. it's just ... painted as comedic when it's anything but? even how eros is drawn is supposed to be caricature, it's exaggerated and meant to suggest humour rather than the actual serious issue that it is. take zeus and daphne and psyche out of the equation, eros still knows apollo is a rapist. he still knows apollo is obsessed with his rape victim. he has demonstrated MASSIVE rage towards apollo in the past, but now it's like the whole thing is a "haha gotcha!" rather than the very obvious implication that apollo is planning more sexual assault. even if he's worried for psyche in this scene, eros still has the power to attack apollo - he's done it twice before! he has the ability to defend himself, so why the hell is he bantering with the guy?

and this has become a reoccurring problem in lore olympus - the way it takes serious trauma and turns it into some kind of comedy now. hera standing up to kronos and deciding to find hebe? hestia has to make a quip about her smoking. demeter coming to terms that her relationship with metis might not have been perfect? gotta get a dig in about demeter's helicopter parenting. morpheus wracked with guilt for the sleep dive with hades? persephone has to take center stage. it's just acting like no one is allowed to be actually angry or grieving except persephone and hades. we haven't even gotten to see zeus deal with being impaled by his father during the battle in the underworld, and sacrificing himself for persephone??? it's the cheap and lazy sitcom formula - ending everything on a cheap laugh, rather than letting people sit with the emotions and frustrations of a situation. back when eros first finds out persephone was raped, the chapter ended on a soft, optimistic sequence; persephone finding comfort in her friendship, and feeling safe. you didn't need a joke, because there wasn't any - it acknowledged the pain persephone was in, but also let the reader know that hope and comfort could be achieved. you don't need to end on a joke or a pithy comment every time - sometimes it's just important to let the emotions be felt. watering down the anger does nothing but water down the severity of why the anger is there in the first place.

it's another demonstration of how rachel could not give a fuck about anything other than persephone and hades. the art, the narrative choices - the care and love for detail is gone. it's just as little effort as possible, and it shows in the most insulting ways.

#anti lo #anti lore olympus #lo critical #lore olympus critical #i never know how to tag these skghsfg #abuse ment / #i have been simmering on this a lot it's been in the back of my head for a while #and obviously the art and other whammos sidetracked me #but it's just another case of so called feminist rachel prioritizing cheap laughs and benefitting the abuser

[raytorosaurus]

Sorry that this post is long but I would appreciate it if other white people read it and thought about it. I've been reading a lot of posts and the tags on them and I just want to make it very clear that this conversation isn't really about Ray getting 'attention' or his talent getting acknowledged. We should not be minimising this to “we need to acknowledge that Ray is an excellent guitar player” because everyone knows that, all you need is ears. True, it went largely unappreciated by fans at the height of mcr’s fame, but at least that's different now. What we're talking about now is about so much more than that - in fact, part of the problem is Ray getting reduced to nothing but the guy who shuts up and does the solos. We're talking about a pattern of behaviour that has been so deeply rooted in this fandom for so long that it's almost invisible to white people. It's a collective problem but it's perpetuated by individuals and needs to be addressed at an individual level first before it can begin to change.

I will acknowledge that, at least in my circles, things have started to change a little bit this tour in regards to people noticing him and discussing him beyond just his solos. But on the flipside that's only highlighted the larger issue, which boils down to how differently Ray is treated from the rest of the band. This is a consistent pattern. If he's not being ignored, he's behind separated out and set apart from the others - either being put on a weird pedestal or given suspiciously backhanded compliments.

Back in 2020 when I'd be lucky to see three posts about him a day on my dash I used to spend a lot of time scrolling through old inactive blogs to queue Ray pictures. Back in the pre-breakup days, if he wasn't being called "princess fro fro" he was being called ugly or he was the target of straight-up racial slurs. There was a weird narrative that he like, lowkey bullied Frank or took more credit than he deserved for mcr's guitar parts (which is painfully ridiculous and only proves that nobody paid attention to a single word Ray's ever said). Until very recently, the punchline of one of the main "jokes" (quotation marks because the word joke implies it was ever actually funny in the first place lol) in this fandom relied on Ray being at least casually homophobic. And these were blogs that posted Ray - I can only imagine how much worse the people who actively didn't like him would have been.

Nowadays, I post a lot of Ray content so I see a lot of tags from people outside my circle of mutuals. Let me tell you, there are Patterns. First of all, there's the classic "tags that completely ignore Ray to make the Ray post about Frank and/or Gerard instead." But more and more often what I'm seeing is if he's not being infantilised, he's being treated as some hyper-masculine, omni-competent, suave sex god or something - each of these things are equally reductive and dehumanising - and each of them are different manifestations of racist stereotypes and common fandom attitudes towards people of colour. Sure, Frank also gets weirdly infantilised a lot, but in a very different way - Frank is woobified in the way people often treat their fictional faves out of affection and horniness, whereas Ray is just reduced down to a personalityless nice guy - something that is also very common with fictional characters of colour. Then there are people who act like he's some kind of long-suffering untouchable genius who puts up with the little weirdos in his band because they worship his talent or something, as if he's not on equal footing with them as their peer and creative partner. And then you get the people characterising him as some kind of rough macho domineering dude because he's…tall? I guess? And plays guitar with confidence? Or is it just because he's brown.

I just..genuinely want you to sit down and think about a reason Ray might be singled out and separated from the rest of the band like this.

Is it because he's quiet in interviews? Mikey was always quieter. Also, Ray has done a lot more interviews than you think, they just haven't been circulated by fans as much. Also, he's literally the second-most featured band member in lotms - you know, the almost sole source for their fandom-driven personalities back in the day.

Is it because he's less feminine than the others? Both Mikey and Frank regularly present as more traditionally masculine in their fashion choices and mannerisms etc. The only thing “more masculine” about Ray than the others is...his body type I guess. There’s a whole conversation there about the intersection of gender and race and racist perceptions thereof.

Is it because he's private and keeps out of the public eye? So does Gerard.

Is it because people historically found him less attractive than the others? I shouldn't have to explain that that was the racism all along (yes, I know there's no accounting for taste, but Ray was regularly and actively mocked for his non-white features, and noughties beauty standards, especially in the alt music scene, were overwhelmingly white and racist. I regularly get tags to the effect of "when did Ray get so hot???" and honestly it's pretty telling that he's only widely acknowledged as attractive now that he's lost weight (whole other important discussion on fatphobia in this fandom here btw) and his hair has changed texture and beauty standards have shifted so certain racial features are fetishised rather than mocked.

Is it because he wasn't involved in one of the iconic bandom boylove duos? News flash, all "ships" are made up fan theories. Rpf and/or tinhatting is based on what fans notice and what rumours they perpetuate. Besides them kissing on stage a few times to make a point over 15 years ago, you know frerard lore because people talk about frerard lore. You know petekey lore because people talk about petekey lore. The truth is nobody cared enough to pay attention to Ray back then. (To be clear, this isn't me trying to tinhat anything about him, I'm just once again pointing out the obvious disparity in how Ray is treated compared to the others.)

I consistently see people acting baffled at how he's been behaving this tour - skipping or bouncing around the stage, eating his solos up, being physically affectionate with his bandmates. I can tell you he has literally always acted like that. Sure, this tour is special - he's certainly a lot more confident than he used to be and seems happier than ever, but really the biggest thing that's changed is now we get full footage of every show so it's literally impossible to overlook.

I also see people acting baffled when others point out the way Ray's been mistreated by fandom - being shocked that anyone would crop Ray out of band photos etc. I guarantee you that almost every single one of you has reblogged pictures where he's been actively cropped out, because some of the most iconic Frank-and-Gerard pictures that constantly get passed around on here are just that. "But how would we know" - sure, it's not your fault, but it's a small example of the way the more blatant Ray erasure from the past gets passed down to new fans and perpetuated by them unknowingly in turn. Cropping him out of pictures is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how his talent and personality and significance to the emotional heart of the band has been overlooked. I can't tell you how many iconic well-known quotes from interviews or paragraphs from Not the Life it Seems directly precede facts about/quotes from Ray that nobody seems to have heard.

So again, this is not really a popularity thing - it's hard to measure but I'd say in the past few months Ray's overtaken Mikey in terms of mass popularity, at least on tumblr. You don't need to performatively post once a day about how Ray Toro Is God or how much you want him to rail you or how much you want him to rail your white fave because "he's the only one who can top" (you Realise how this sounds right?). I'm just asking you to confront your internalised biases and the external biases ingrained in the culture and history of this fandom, and start treating Ray the same way you treat the rest of the guys. He's not an untouchable god and he's not a sunshine cupcake, he's just Some Guy who's really fucking good at guitar. He's a proud stay at home dad, he's cringe as fuck, he loves to cook, he listens to podcasts about fucking Apple products for fun, he writes (very) shitty poetry, he takes his sons to women's rights marches, he invests in bitcoin, he cries when his mom sends him postcards, he drives a douchey car, he loves children's cartoons, he's a corny liberal just like the others, he loves his friends wholly and openly. Just…please acknowledge the history of racism in this fandom, think about how you as an individual might knowingly or unknowingly perpetuate it, and try to do better. And please just treat him like a human.

#at least we're HAVING this conversation it's so so much worse on twitter #anyway. i've discussed and complained about a lot of this stuff on discord and that's my bad for not talking about it more publicly #like. i don't want to come off as just bitter about my fave or something because it's a much deeper problem that #but that just means i need to be very clear abt my point #hopefully you give this post the time of day i know it's long but i do think it's important #ray toro #racism #ref #** #gonna pin this for a bit too

[ddarker-dreams]

Patiently waiting for your thoughts on Fontaine’s new archon quest 🫡

oh man. i do have some thoughts to share.

(warning for spoilers to those who haven't played through the latest archon quest)!

OKAY, so — overall? i enjoyed it. the fortress of meropide section felt a little tedious at times, i'm begging mihoyo to abandon those awful 'stealth' 'gameplay' sections. aside from that though, i was always interested enough to keep moving ahead. i especially like how they wrote navia. the story of her and her father got me emotionally invested in her as a character, i actually teared up at one point.

i was glad they avoided their infamous 'introduce a character and have them betray you' shtick. idk if that was a quota they had to reach before and that's why they did it so often, but in any case, it made for a refreshing change. the reveal of fontaine's history, the serial disappearances, focalors and furina; there were lots of intriguing story beats. furina's story might somehow be one of the saddest in genshin yet?? the execution of the reveal and the final conversation between focalors and neuvillette packed a strong emotional punch.

onto my gripes...

childe. why. why'd they do my man like that. the buildup was so interesting! the cutscene where he helps neuvillette subdue the space whale had me frothing at the mouth. him in his foul legacy armor ... his leitmotif playing... him growling and grunting.... oh, how happy i was, naïve thing that i am. i was a bit confused how they dedicated a total of three seconds to traveler and the floating fiend going 'oh wow there's childe ig.' like ??? at this point in the story, i thought they were sorta buddies??

the space whale's execution confused me. i expected it to be deeply tied to fontaine's past, or at the very least give some abyss bread crumbs, but it just kinda flopped around and stuff. the fight was cool, don't get me wrong. but the whole 'yeah this whale is some dude's pet lol' bit just felt odd. i get that they want to prove the Big Important Name Fella is suuuper important and suuuper strong but c'mon. at least make the space whale a creation that ran rampant or something.

i could've forgiven the space whale shenanigans if we got a nice conversation with childe at the end. how did he feel in the abyss? was he fighting the whale to keep the people of fontaine safe, out of bloodlust, or something in between? what was it like seeing skirk again? how much time felt like it passed when he was in whale abyss prison? does his vision resonate with him properly again?

instead, we just get a few throwaway lines that he's back in snezhnaya healing up. did they run out of budget to book his VA?? i get they have to be selective with lore drops, but there are so many ways around that.

my last major gripe is how they went about furina's character quest. maybe i'm just an oversensitive weenie (i definitely am), but the traveler and flying creature's interactions with furina... i was physically grimacing. how did they seriously think it was a good idea to ask the person who has been tormented by acting for 500 years to give the stage another shot? imo, it would've been fine if they tried that, furina rejected them, and everything played out about the same. but those bits where traveler + the imp kept pressuring furina felt so weeeeeeird. i genuinely didn't want to click the dialogue options. if this was framed differently, that would've also been fine, but it's kinda a 'haha :3 epic paimon says teehee te nandayo reddit gold' light.

tl;dr i liked the overall experience but someone needs to delete paimon from the game + treat their characters as more than a punchline.

#lock plays genshin #answered #Anonymous

[insufferablemod]

do you have any tips for like... paneling? your lil comics, if i could call them that(?) with Dave are well made (to me at least) and I'd like to get into making comics! or if you know any resources that helped you. :') - sincerely, a beginner.

sorry to be answering this so late, wanted to try and give some kinda proper advice haha so what i do is i just make my posts as long as possible so that it takes up like all of ppls dash, this means they are forced to look at it and engage with it! no ok but for real, first off this is just how i do things and by no means any sort of proper tutorial or anything, most of this is prob kinda basic and intuitive stuff, but its good to be reminded of the basics and to notice why you might be doing said things intuitively so you can start doing it intentionally so how i approach things is by picking a focus panel whats the Punchline/Emotional pay off for the page/comic? and then i try and build the rest around that for actual Comics not every page is gonna have one of those ofcourse and thats fine i tend to often have to many focus panels,,,, lmao(which is why my posts end up so long,,,,) i try to group similar panels and make them smaller, it saves space, makes it so the attention goes to the more unique panels and makes things feel more sequential(or u can do like me and have too many similar panels and think, what if i just make it an animation, its just a few extra frames right,,,?<- clueless(i have done this twice now,,, the second is still a wip,,, )) heres one of my posts deconstructed using all this, id do more of them but i dont wanna make this even longer asdsd, but i think its pretty obvious to pick up on once you know the formula lol

after that i think its mostly just clear composition and flow so things dont get confusing(like what panel(also applies to text) youre suppose to read next and such(thats easier with this cus its usually just individual panels and not full pages)) edit: oh and resources that helped me, i mostly just looked at other comics, paying attention to how the paneling was effecting the story and mood! some comics ive looked at for paneling inspo are houseki no kuni, how they play with contrast and stuff, idk theyre all just very striking, i looked at ajin at some point as well for help with some action stuff, most action shonen are also great for that 2 so yeah, just find a comic scene that has the same vibe that youre trying to get and see how they did it, finding a few and comparing and contrasting what you feel works best thats my thought process while doing stuff at least! i hope this helps at least a bit haha

#another thing a teacher told me at some point is to make things Look Intentional? in this case they were referring to comic panels #and how if you have one of those classic slanted dividers(i dont remember what theyre called.. n am 2 lazy to look it up) #make sure its not just slightly slanted as then often gets misread as a mistake like you just messed up a straight line #so basically go big or go home #like art has no rules so u can do whatever you want and different things work better depending on the piece but its advice i try and follow #also paneling for ask blog stuff is a lot easier then actual comics its prob a good place to start to practice this kinda stuff #timing is also important? timing is why im doing 2 animations....... #they just werent working as panels cus they felt too slow? cus it needed 2 many panels that were all quite similar #so they took a lot of space and took 2 long to go through #which is why i was like ill just animate it!<- does not like animating #the things i do for this blog u_u #rambles #advice #anon #art

[jezmmart]

Chamomile Comic Trivia #31

#159 - Notice

It's Sam! I wish I had written down more about my decision to add her, although at this point I'm fairly sure I wasn't certain she was going to become a main character - in fact it was RIGHT around the week this posted that I began work on the first proper cover art for the series which of course did not include her.

Her design was based off this old one-off pin-up girl art from 2017, technically making her the first ever major Chamomile Comic character to exist, sort of.

She was named after Sam Lloyd, likely known for his portrayal of Ted the Lawyer from Scrubs. The news of his death had recently broken and I had just recently begun listening to Fake Doctors, Real Friends, the Scrubs rewatch podcast, as my go-to background entertainment when colouring the comic specifically each week. It still is now, albeit intermittently since they don't always produce an episode each week and I no longer have a backlog to catch up on. Now granted, I don't love the podcast as much as I used to - can be a bit cringey at times as these two hollywood actors chat about utterly unrelatable anecdotes from their lives - but it's overall been enjoyable and it'll be weird to find something new to accompany my colouring if it does come to an end or stops being enjoyable once they permanently pivot into... whatever they plan to do after they run out of Scrubs episodes. It's been part of my colouring process for the comic for longer than it hasn't been now, haha. So... yeah it felt right to honour that connection to my comic with Sam's name, on top of the fact that Scrubs is just straight-up one of my favourite TV shows and Ted was always a character that gave me big laughs.

Of course... I realised after that I'd introduced yet another character to the comic ending in "-a"! ...But whatever, it's a common thing. Not so long ago I had 5 co-workers simultaneously whose names also ended in -a, lol.

The decision to have had her always be around simply came from not having any strong ideas to introduce her and preferring the idea that at least some of the cast already knew her. The gag's been done before, but I thought it'd be extra funny to introduce her with a scene in which she is specifically announcing her departure from being a regular face in Cammie's life, which typically would mean the same for the audience in most works with actually established characters.

Final little bonus note - in panel 1, Cammie once again is entering with a handful of steaming coffee.

#160 - Official

I didn't really mean for it to be so small it's barely legible at web size, but the little sign on the panic alarm button behind the till says "Real emergencies only Cammie!", in reference to #50.

#161 - Before

All that Scrubs talk regarding Sam is kinda fitting, because they did the "this character was always here!" gag there too. For their one, they edited her in on various memorable shots and pretended the main character didn't notice her being present, here I obviously extended the frame on the end of several punchline panels from previous comics.

Here's a gif that shows the original panels compared to the new ones, showing both the new and old art isolated as well so you can see exactly what I drew to extend the older panels which naturally weren't drawn originally knowing that I would one day be extending them!

The second of the three Sam flashbacks is just a nice little bridging one, but it did take me a while to decide for sure which way around I wanted the first and third flashback panel. For the first: while there's been a little bit of mild bad language in the comic once the seal was broken here, Sam's "bitch" is the first time such language has appeared so it amused me to place it in a scene that has already happened long ago just barely outside of the audience's perspective. For the third: the joke is of course that the reveal of Sam's additional dialogue is particularly adding nothing to the scene whatsoever - like, as if Cammie making a fool of herself would even be remark-worthy at this point. I felt both these two goofs had a good punch to them in their own way so yeah, I remember being conflicted over whether I had chosen the funniest possible flow of these three gags.

Of course, the final joke of this one, in case it wasn't obvious (I could see it being subtle for some), is that Mimi's whole running gag is she's a side character who also has existed in the comic for long before her first on-screen appearance, yet Cammie never remembers her.

#162 - New

The art and dialogue structure of the first two panels here is identical to #160. I think it being a time-saver on my workload for the week was definitely a factor - for whatever reason I needed it at the time - but I also remember going for something with that choice beyond just that... But I can't for the life of me remember what. I don't think the parallel between the two comics adds anything reading them back now.

Anyway here's Newt! I really thought at the time that he was going to be as significant an addition as Sam, and I did come up with the idea of introducing a regular male character at the time I chose to bring Sam in, with Sam's introduction - and exit - being an amusing way to introduce a surprise new character.

...Then I proceeded to never really get any super strong story ideas for him lol. More detail on that in a second. I haven't forgotten him though, frustrates me that he keeps getting sidelined!

#163 - Training

Standard behind-the-scenes retail frustration humour here. I can neither confirm nor deny how much is based on my current employment. A little detail of authenticity/flavour is that they're watching a DVD intended for widescreen on an old non-widescreen TV that's clearly been in their staff room for at least a decade. Such was the case for my painful training videos too! (It's all online now as of a few years into when I started, so some progress has been made I guess).

#164 - Huh

It's not made clear yet, but the new status quo that Sam is a receptionist at a primary school is established here - the coloured hanging letter signage on the wall that is too perspective'd to read says "WELCOME TO OUR SCHOOL".

I chose this as a job for her based simply on the fact that my Mum has often worked in school offices for most of my life. She wasn't a receptionist but it was the sort of job where I have some... vague enough memories of the "behind-the-scenes" enough to draw something along those lines when I needed to show Sam at work.

Getting back to Newt, obviously the goof here is that Cammie is just being a sore loser about her friend leaving and Newt is about the most cool-sounding interesting person you could imagine meeting. Unfortunately that involved specifically coming up with fun sounding stuff that are not super common to do or know people that do, so despite the super interesting combo of cave-diving, stand-up and polyamory these are all things I feel like I'd have to do thorough research on to represent in the actual comic accurately... which is something I'd like to do but, time is finite and I have so much pre-existing experience with being a silly nonsense person. Would you believe it, there's another character in the comic for whom that experience lends itself very well!!

Speaking of whom, the first appearance of the bell on the door in Repeat 1 Records was only a month after Cammie got the job. She works fast!

[Trivia Archive | Browse from most recent]

#jezmm #chamomile comic trivia #art insight

[aihoshiino]

hello! I really enjoy your way of looking at oshi no ko so I wanted to know your pov on something that's been bugging me throughout the manga! do you think Miyako remembers the twins being 'gods' early in their lives?? I feel that as much as her character has evolved past the whole 'i'll sell Ai's secret for money and fame as revenge' it's still weird that she, as someone who clearly was witness to something supernatural for AT LEAST a year doesn't like... bring it up at all? or seems to actually remember even...

like I can see it being explained away as 'oh maybe as they grow up they forget, so it makes no sense to bring it up now' but also I'm just curious as to when the twins stopped using that as a way to get whatever they wanted lol.

like idk I know that bringing up that bit of silly lore from volume one into the world of the movie arc is out of place at best but also! I just feel like Miyako either gaslighted herself into thinking she was delusional for a year or she's too afraid to bring it up because then she'll sound insane.

this piece of silly lore will chase me to the grave if it isn't brought up again and I need someone else's thoughts cause sometimes I feel like it was quietly retconned.... I'm rambling. anyway! I love your Tumblr!

THANK U FOR THE LOVELY MESSAGE, ANON!! I feel like i say this every single time but it really does make me so wibbly to know so many people vibe with my OnK takes to this degree lol

tragically... I do not have a clever answer for this one, unfortunately!!! Funnily enough though, I did have a bit of a chat about it recently with my friend Silvie (@relares) who has been watching the anime for the first time with me, and it kind of rattled some of my thoughts about the scene loose.

I think a lot of volume 1, while it works really well in isolation, has a lot of what me and Silvie ended up calling 'clunk' in hindsight where it's clear that Akasaka was just... not quite writing the Oshi no Ko that the story ended up becoming, if that makes sense. This is understandable given that at that point, he and Mengo were literally not working on the Oshi no Ko we ended up getting! The decision to kill Ai and re-adjust the series trajectory is one that was made during serialization and it meant the two of them had to course correct a lot of stuff extremely quickly. For the most part, I think they did a shockingly good job of handling that genre shift to the point where a lot of the more jarring elements actually just help in making that shift feel more effective - it makes the horror of Ai's death feel just as sudden and shocking and life-altering to the reader on a storytelling level as it does on a very literal one to Aqua and Ruby.

Unfortunately, it also means there's a lot of choices made in terms of like... punchlines and characterization decisions that I don't think Akasaka would necessarily have made if he had the benefit of foresight and I think Miyako is definitely a victim – or I guess more of a prime example of that.

Miyako as she ends up functioning in volume one is both shockingly different in terms of characterization compared to the Miyako we get from volume two onwards and also pretty transparently kind of just a vehicle/plot device to give the twins an adult ally without revealing themselves to Ai prematurely. The twins manipulating Miyako in such an overtly silly way is also exactly the kind of absurdist problem solving that works fine in a comedy, where your suspension of disbelief is a lot different. I think Akasaka was still very much in Kaguya-sama mode while writing those early chapters and that kind of comedy beat as problem solving bit would feel really at home in an Oshi no Ko that was more tonally in line with Kaguya-sama... but that ultimately isn't the Oshi no Ko it became, so it feels weird.

In a lot of ways, the timeskip between volume 1 and 2 is sort of a soft reset for the series in terms of tone and genre and it allows the manga to sort of smooth out a bit of that clunk going onwards. This is why I think the Sweet Today arc is the best post-timeskip arc in the manga because it's the one that best balances the comedy, drama and industry commentary in a way it never quite managed again - not that all the other arcs are bad, but they generally tip pretty far in one of those three directions in a way that leaves the others high and dry.

TO UH, ACTUALLY ADDRESS YOUR QUESTION THOUGH... I honestly think this aspect of the story has been retconned! Or at least, that Akasaka is purposely not addressing it because he realizes it was a misstep and so he's just quietly pretending it didn't happen lol. It isn't addressed even in places we would expect it to be and Miyako herself never even once mentions it even when we get peeks directly into her head, so I honestly think Akasaka kind of wrote himself into a corner with it and decided to just ignore it.

That's nowhere near as fun as an in-character explanation though so I like to think Miyako thinks it was just a tripped out dream she had once and since Ruby and Aqua don't remember it, it's just never come up again. If she got drunk enough around them, though, she'd ramble about it to them while Ruby and Aqua lock eyes with each other and just have a moment of silent sibling communication like. oh my god. did we really do that????

For as serious as it is a lot of the time, Oshi no Ko is a pretty silly manga when you get down to it, eh....

#oshi no ko #oshi no posting #miyako saitou #saitou miyako

[mythica0]

Sunshine

🎂: ROTTMNT (slowly becoming my main fandom lol-)

🧁:Mikey, Leo , Donnie

🍫: Raph

Summary: All three of Raph’s younger brothers have the giggles . Raph “helps” (read as: makes it worse)

A/N: I am aware this is similar to my last fic but let me project shhhhhh. Kinda a short one, hope it was sweet! (Edit; I added a small something in the middle that I think would fit there.)

Sunshine

Something was going around the lair. Raph wasn’t sure why, but all of his brothers have a severe case of the giggles.

He couldn’t go five seconds without at least one of them bursting into fits of laughter, sometimes with no apparent cause.

It was like they were feeding off of eachother! One would get going, then the other two would sound off as well, stuck in a giggly loop for at least 2 minutes.

It was honestly kind of adorable.

Leo, being himself, was trying to tell joke stories, but he couldn’t get through the punchline well because he kept laughing!

The other two, because of course, thought this was endlessly hilarious.

“Ahahand! Ahahand theehehn!

“C’mohohon Leeheheo! Spihihit Ihit ouhout!”

“Ihi chahant! Ahahah!”

Raph looked on at his giggly brothers with fondness.

He thought of something that might be fun for everyone involved…

So, he feigned annoyance,

“What’s got you three so giggly?”

“Ihi dohont knohohow!” All three said at the sine time, which they seemed to, once again, find hysterical.

“Well, if you three like laughing so much…” He spoke in a low voice before scooping them all up in a massive tickle hug, “why don’t I help you get them all out!”

“Ehee! Rahahahaph!” Mikey squeaked a bit

“Yes, that’s my name?”

They laughed even more at Raph’s fake-confused comment.

The three of them seemed to be having fun, just like he planned.

They weren’t protesting, they were just lying down and taking it, laughing their heads off even more than they had all day.

“So~ how’s this~” he sings, disguised as a way to tease them by saying ‘can’t handle that, can ya?!’ But was actually more of a ‘having fun~~?’

The disaster twins don’t say anything, but Mikey does reply, “tihihicklyhehe! Ihin aha gohoohood whahay!”

Raph internally cooed at his youngest brother’s words. He assumed that’s how the others felt as well.

They were all so giddy! Light and loud laughter filled the entire lair, seeming to light it up with the bright noise.

After Raph stopped, the others still didn’t stop laughing.

And Raph couldn’t be happier to hear his brothers laughter fill the room with sunshine.

———THE END————————————————

#parrotwrites #sfw tickle community #rottmnt tickle #lee!mikey #lee!leo #lee!donnie #ler!raph

[thestupidhelmet]

That ‘90s Show Reviews

Okay, throw out what I wrote in this post. I watched “That ‘90s Pilot,” and I did an organized stream-of-consciousness analysis-reaction. I can’t separate That ‘90s Show from That ‘70s Show, but I was able to think about T9S on its own terms as well as its connection to T7S.

In summary, watching the first ep of That ‘90s Show was like seeing a fanfic turned into a TV show. Some aspects feel right and emotionally satisfying. Some aspects feel totally upside-down and throw me out of the fictional dream. The series has potential to be enjoyable. It has canon character elements, but this is a future that extends from season 4 of That ‘70s Show, no further—excepting a few details taken from seasons 7 and 8 for coherency’s sake. Coherency’s sake sounds strange, considering how the T9S universe is cobbled together. But cobbled together is what the T9S universe is (and T9S creators / showrunners’ interviews essentially admit to this fact by how they described creating the show). As individuals, Kitty and Red are largely in-character but not fully. They’re a little off-model (an animation term). I’ll be interested to see how they interact with the new kids. Below the cut, you’ll find my detailed, spoilery thoughts on “That ‘90s Pilot”.

--Before Leia enters, the Red/Kitty scene, including when there’s a knock on the door, is spot-on. Red and Kitty’s interactions with Eric can be seen as in-character. But since they haven’t seen him since Christmas (i.e. for six months), I think Red would actually be less aloof toward Eric. If they saw each other every month or so, I can understand the agreed-on lack of hug, but in the context of not seeing his son for half a year—we see on T7S that Red does show his love for Eric, including hugs, in important moments. This was punchline over characterization. A more in-character and funnier way (to me) would’ve been them having a very awkward, blink-and-you-miss it hug and them acting like they hadn’t hugged at all right after. (And, yes, Eric looks like he’s barely aged. Point Place Time™, man. Maybe he looks older when he’s not in Point Place. It’s magic.) --Kitty talking about how Leia’s breasts are growing (“Your buds are blooming”) as her second sentence to her granddaughter’s arrival is both OOC for Kitty (she wouldn’t be inappropriate and creepy like that, especially in front of Leia’s father and grandfather. She would talk to Leia about this in private in a more respectful way, about how Leia’s becoming a “young woman”. This line was for the laugh. Punchline over characterization. --Glad that Red gives us the exposition that Leia is athletic like Donna. Also, Red’s joke in giving us that exposition is a solid burn on Eric. --Donna carrying all the suitcases upstairs herself is funny and in-character. --Eric mentioning that Leia now gets her period. Leia’s fourteen, on the later end of normal, for her to start having her period. So this choice is obviously for the reason of setting up how Leia is changing and growing up. --Donna NEVER called Kitty Mrs. F on T7S. Never. This is totally OOC. I can’t see her calling Kitty Mrs. F after calling her Mrs. Forman her whole life since she could talk. Yes, this could change in fifteen years, but I just don’t see Donna making that choice. Kitty: I wish you would call me Mom. Donna: I know. … Someday. Kitty: This weekend. Donna: Okay. Punchline over character. --I like that Donna became an author. At least that part of her character hasn’t been forgotten. --Eric being a professor of The Religion of Star Wars. Well, those of us who kept up on spoilers knew about that one already. Just continuing the long-running joke from T7S. At least his career involves one of the two passions the T7S writers gave him, lol. --Donna stepping, at Leia’s request, in when Eric goes overboard with his geekiness = absolutely see this as true to Donna and Eric’s potential parenting dynamic. --Gwen’s introduction / Leia and Gwen’s introduction to each other: Leia sees a freedom in Gwen that she doesn’t feel herself. She has Gwen-envy. (Gwenvy?) She recognizes parts of herself in Gwen she herself hasn’t yet expressed, and not e v e r y  relationship has to have a romantic element (nor should it). I’m all here for platonic intimate friendships  … Like Eric and Hyde’s. Which this friendship is clearly set up to emulate. Gwen has definite aspects of Hyde to her. The fact Gwen lives in Donna’s old room is a nice touch, and it leads to her making a very Hyde-esque joke / burn on Leia about how Leia’s parents probably used to have sex in Gwen’s room. We learn that Eric, Donna, and Leia live in Chicago during this scene. We also meet Nate, Gwen’s brother. He’s got some sexist attitudes. It’s a characterization choice that creates tension between him and Gwen, but it’s also for the “laughs”. --Tension between Leia and Eric shown through her rejection of Star Wars. Eric partly parents her through Star Wars … not sure if any of that needs commentary beyond the observation of it. I like that Leia and Red’s connection is shown in this moment, though (when Leia burns Eric about Yoda being a puppet, etc.). Still, I hope Leia and Red’s connection isn’t solely based on a mutual frustration toward Eric. --Nikki gets one line then kisses Nate, letting us know they’re a couple. --Okay, yeah, Jay gives me the creeps right away. Yikes. I’m sure this will fall away as Leia gets to know him, but *shudder*. --Oz. Punchline-giver. Like Fez became in T7S’s later seasons. Hope there’s more to him than that. --Hell. Nate to Nikki: “Jay’s had my back for the last twelve years, and you’ve got my front for the last six months. I can’t choose.” That’s … something. So bromance established between Nate and Jay. T9S has two Michael Kelso instead of one. We’ll see if that evolves. But, finally, Kelso gets to be in a relationship with himself? And this episode is taking “The Keg” (1x06) plot from T7S. --The first “circle” scene of the show. I liked the red herring bit with the smoke (I knew Red and Kitty wouldn’t be smoking up with Eric and Donna). I also like Red is in Kitty’s corner with Donna calling her Mom, but to use the show’s own joke: that minor subplot feels forced. --Oz’s line to Nate, “Kid vs. beer: it’s a tale as old as time,” is ripped straight from Fez’s voice (not accent, character voice). --I’m glad Nikki is written as an intelligent, savvy character. Maybe not in love (choosing Nate as her boyfriend is a detail we need to understand the reasoning behind in order to understand Nikki better). --Love seeing Leia’s strength come out with the woman who wouldn’t sell her the tap for the keg. She tries Gwen’s sneaky plan first then goes the direct (blackmail) route using logic. This is not Eric. This is not Donna. This moment shows us Leia is Leia. --Gwen’s optimism is an important, unique aspect of her character. It differentiates her from Hyde, who’s a pessimist. Gwen is also the obvious leader of the friend group (though not a dictator … from what I’ve seen so far). The fact Leia never felt free until her interactions with the Point Place crowd over this twenty-four hour period is sad and implies that Eric and Donna are controlling parents in some way. It’s also sad that she’s spent her first fourteen years of her life not feeling free (which isn’t uncommon). Leia’s dynamic with Gwen, so far, mirrors Eric’s with Donna and Hyde. Donna and Hyde both help Eric find freedom from the internalized discipline and control of Red in season 1 of T7S. --The fact Gwen isn’t put off by Leia’s declaration that she wants her and Gwen “to become best friends” is interesting. Leia is earnest and desperate to gain the freedom she sees in Gwen (her Gwenvy™ is showing) through becoming close with Gwen. Further, Leia’s declaration of wanting her and Gwen to become best friends mirrors Fez’s own to Hyde in a “Class Picture” (4x20) flashback that Hyde is his best friend. Upon their first meeting, Hyde essentially pledges to be Fez’s protector from bullies, which prompts Fez to believe Hyde is his best friend now. --This exchange … Eric: Leia Tattooine Forman -- Donna: Her middle name is Anne. Eric: I never agreed to that. I laughed, but wow is T9S leaning hard on the Star Wars jokes. Hence, Leia’s name. Leia’s middle name is the same as Kitty’s middle name, so nice connection there. Same as Eric’s middle name is the same as Red’s middle name. But where is Donna’s, “You chose Leia as our daughter’s name when I was too hopped up on the epidural during childbirth to disagree”? --Kitty and Red enjoying Eric and Donna’s struggles with parenting = totally in-character (but T7S!Kitty would likely try to intercede at some point). Donna being the disciplinarian (and Eric letting her / encouraging her to be so) is a detail I’ve discussed with a lot of fellow T7S fans over the years. The consensus is that we think this would be in-character. But that Donna pulls a reversal in Leia’s particular circumstance (not only supporting her kid’s choice to stay in Point Place for the summer but also praising her for it) is also in-character. --Eric acting like Red given certain stressors with his kid is another topic I discussed with fellow T7S fans over the years. His reaction to Leia and his foot-in-ass threat is in-character for him as a parent in this circumstance. Red’s reaction to Eric’s reaction is funny and, yeah, in-character. --Eric and Donna’s scene together on the hood of the car is very sweet and has depth. It tells us about Eric’s relationship to Leia, his relationship to Donna, and how Donna trusts Leia. I would’ve liked more Donna/Leia moments so we could learn about their dynamic, but the little we do get gives us an idea. --OK, I LOVE THAT ERIC IS KITTY TO LEIA (in some ways). He tells Leia he loves her without it being a struggle (totally in-character), and the smelling hair payoff (Kitty smelled Eric’s hair earlier in the episode) totally works and shows us how deeply Eric loves his daughter (as do all their interactions in this episode and Eric’s reactions about Leia to other characters). --Dude, Eric called Donna babe. On T7S, Eric never had good pet names for Donna. Never. It was even an on-going joke in one episode of T7S (season 7). Even though Eric calls her babe in this episode, it still sounds weird. It’s just not … Eric. --This ep overdoes Kitty’s infantalization of Eric. On T7S, it’s funny-uncomfortable. This is uncomfortable-cringe. --Red hugs Donna before she and Eric leave. Not Eric. Never Eric. No sign of true connection between Red and Eric at all. Just schadenfreude on Red’s part for Eric’s difficulties with Leia and contention except for Eric’s sarcastic, “I love you, too, Dad.” One moment between Red and Eric to establish their love for each other, like the awkward super-fast hug like I described above would’ve done it. --Donna calls Kitty Mom before leaving the house. Very sweet. But also contrived. This issue could have (and probably would have) been resolved long before now. But TV SHOW. Not real life. --Red’s utter fear at Kelso jumping into the kitchen and shouting, “Burn!”—hilarious but also awful. --Okay, okay … JACKIE IS ALLOWED TO BE EFFING SMART. Kelso: “[Jay]’s got his dad’s looks and his mom’s brains. He got all straight As last year.” T9S erases and cuts up T7S and rearranges what it wants. Jackie’s season-1 characterization of being a good student is returned to her, but so much more is taken away. BETSY would’ve been described the same way by Kelso as Jay. Captain Obvious: It would’ve been more in-character for Jay to be Brooke’s son, not Jackie’s. Brooke is characterized consistently on T7S as highly intelligent. It’s a consistent part of her character. I don’t ask for too much; I ask for what I’ll never get. Speaking of Betsy: does she exist? Will Jay ever mention his sister, who would be seventeen in 1995? --Kurtwood is clearly trying not to break during Kelso and Jackie’s scene. The laugh is being tightly held in. --*sigh* Jackie and Kelso’s second remarriage. At least that wasn’t a surprise. --The Jackie of T9S is who the Jackie of T7S season 4 would have become without ever dating Hyde. Canon-divergence utterly confirmed. --Where do Jackie and Kelso live so that Jay lives in Point Place and has been best friends with Nate for twelve years? Since they were both three or four? Point Place, obviously. Nate is Red and Kitty’s neighbor, which means Jay has been going there for twelve years. Which means Red and Kitty would very likely know who Jay is and that Jay is Jackie and Kelso’s kid. They’d also have seen Jackie and/or Kelso the last twelve years (at least). Make it make sense. --And Jay Kelso just made a sex joke to Kitty. Red: What is wrong with you? He’s a Kelso. --Eric’s Candy Land stash is no longer money. It’s pot. Except Kitty knew Eric hid money in the Candy Land box, so she would’ve checked that thing years ago for anything Eric might’ve left in there.

--Onto the next episode.

#That 70s Show #That '90s Show #That '70s Show #Red x Kitty #Eric Forman #Spoilers #That '90s Pilot #T9S 1x01 #My Meta #My Essay #Meta #Essay

[fractualized]

I guess this is just a thing I'm doing now. Commentary on The Man Who Stopped Laughing #3!

(Spoilers and lotsa gore below the cut.)

You know, between whatever is going on with the two Jokers in TMWSL, the DNA gremlins in The Deadly Duo, and the multiple Jokers in Bruce's head over in Zdarsky's Batman, there are a lot of Joker clones running around these stories right now!

But in this story, we come back in to Jason attacking Protagonist Joker, who isn’t much upset about it.

This made me think of that bit in the Arkham Knight game, when Joker talks like he and Bruce are Jason’s parents.

Poisoned > shot, thinks Joker.

Jason says his intention is to kill the clown, but he sure doesn’t get it over with. Here it seems like he plans to do some interrogation first.

"I don't really understand, no" and "but you asked me a question" are my readings. lol

Anyway, all the hubbub gives Joker the opportunity to trick Jason into thinking Batman has shown up to keep Joker alive as usual.

Escape time! Joker uses the OG Harley bust to help him sink under the cover of the water. And maybe I’m thinking too much about this, but it comes off as symbolic? Joker clinging to a past version of Harley to keep him alive, which she used to happily do. And if you read it like that, of course he ends up losing the bust too. lol

Meanwhile, Possible Clone Joker tries to get back in with the Legion of Doom, but he can’t help but be kind of a dick about it.

Joker stops the confrontation from descending into a gunfight, and Luthor says this.

A clue that this is Definitely Clone Joker? Maybe!

Ultimately, the Legion is not impressed with Joker and tells him to get lost, and what's weird about this is that Punchline has the same sentiment.

Punchline has been around for so short a time and DC is already dropping the ball on her. I've read Joker War, her origin story, her B-side story in the Joker 2021 issues, and the two issues of The Gotham Game so far, and there's been no moment where her obsession with being Joker's acolyte and spreading "his message" converts into not caring about  him and worrying only for her own self-interest. Does that make sense as a transition? Sure! But I'd like to see that transition! The last time Punchline talked to Joker, it was strongly implied that her mass manipulation of the public during her trial was part of some scheme they'd worked out together, so when she sees him again and just drops him like this, it’s super strange. I guess it’s possible that's part of some other plan? Or I missed something? Meh. She's still written so flatly and it's getting to me.

Anyway, both Jokers have no friends and they are sad. :(

Meanwhile, Protag Joker washes up on shore.

Poisoned > shot > drowning, thinks Joker, before he heads to the hospital.

More positive words for Jason! Maybe Jason will be his friend? :(

Joker gets the doctor into a back room and persuades him to give him treatment.

A clue that this is Not The Real Joker? Maybe!

I’m highlighting this because 1) I'm glad Joker managed to hang onto some fun boxers and 2) This is my preferred Joker physique, wiry, near skeletal. And filled with bullet holes, I guess. That’s the lifestyle!

The doctor patches Joker up but says that he thinks there's still a bullet in Joker's brain. Joker says take it out, because of course he does.

And then. I mean. This page is, frankly, amazing.

No one is surprised at Joker’s choice of foreplay.

So I thought when the bullet was removed, we’d finally get some kind of revelation, like Joker remembering what went down pre-getting shot in the head. Alas, this chapter ends soon after this.

And we're still left with no firm clues as to who is real Joker. You can't distract me with the horny brain surgery, Rosenberg!! Or with this poor woman who appears to have given birth outside in the snow with only a blanket for cover??

I have questions and no answers!

So then we get the Silver Age-y B-story, which also takes place at a hospital, at least after Joker gets sliced in half by a train.

So I guess there’s also two Jokers here, heyoooo

Joker continues to be hopelessly hapless at the hospital.

This is also an amazing panel.

The hospital staff flee the chaos, so it's up to the henchmen to get Joker help, with this fun gag.

I’m not sure if Professor Pyg is actually a doctor in some capacity, but he "helps” Joker just about how you’d expect.

So this B-story is not about Joker’s failed personal relationships like the first two, but about seeking medical assistance to become whole, and not at all finding the care he needs or was even seeking. In fact, the treatment ends up severing the minor, consistent relationships he does have. Some hidden fear he has about actually cooperating with Arkham staff? Maybe! Am I over-reading? Maybe!

If you’re also reading Zdarsky’s Batman, you’ll see in #130 that the main story features Batman using compassion to fight Failsafe, and that compassion is also significant in the B-story, where Bruce reinforces that Joker is included in his desire to help people. And that could so easily tie into TMWSL, with Bruce again reaching out to Joker... I can’t help but wonder!

#the man who stopped laughing #joker #batman #my jibber-jabber #spoilers

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

would love to hear more about your tes characters if you'd like to share :)

omg hello! well. since you asked!! adjusts my spectacles in a scholarly fashion. under the cut to save dash space!

Skyrim: Kharish gra-Shatul (Orsimer)

tall! buff!! femme!! ...who lives in Winterhold and so nobody ever gets to see the beef because of all the layers required by the cold :( (<-sad face mine bc I love women's muscles. she does not particularly care whether they are visible as long as they remain effective.) Kharish joins the College of Winterhold a few years prior to the game questline, first just as Urag's general assistant, then as the library's acquisitions specialist following the successful retrieval of a particularly interesting scrap of Shalidor's notes. she takes her position very seriously and has developed a correspondence with some other notable libraries (under the pen name "Violetta," because she's found some of her pen pals professional contacts are less likely to respond dismissively if the letter is not attached to an obviously Orsimer name). specializes primarily in alteration because it's useful for conservation of old texts, but knows her way around some conjuration as well. has a VERY BIG VOICE which is unfortunate in a library setting but she's working on it. trying very hard to learn how to tell a joke but just cannot get the hang of it. (Enthir has attempted to teach her some standard formulaic jokes but she laughs too hard to tell the punchline right.)

she also has an unrequited crush on Colette, who has no idea that's what's going on and is in fact convinced her life is being threatened every time Kharish looms awkwardly over her like HELLO MISTRESS MARENCE. AS I HAVE SOME UNOCCUPIED TIME I THOUGHT I WOULD COME TO HEAR YOUR LECTURE TODAY. I HAVE NO DOUBT IT WILL BE MOST ENLIGHTENING! and then stares at her from the back row of the classroom with a goofy smile and her chin in her hands.

her favorite color is blue :)

Kharish is not the archmage, which is probably best for all involved as she does not have the kind of interpersonal savvy required of a leadership/administrative position lol. Mirabelle survives (though never really fully recovers from the injuries sustained during questline events) and gets to be Archmage Ervine :')

Oblivion: Molly Cadoret (Breton)

Tamriel's least magical Breton. erstwhile barber hailing from Kvatch. having the worst time of her life. wears the Kvatch armor through everything and initially took it off the corpse of a cute lady guard who flirted with her sometimes... beat her first daedra to death with a rake in sheer panic and never really stopped the panicking part. because she's from Kvatch she never met the emperor and Baurus is the one given the imperial mandate to deliver the amulet and find the heir--he initially tries to sneak Martin out with the intent to send Blades reinforcements for the city, but Martin won't leave unless everyone in the chapel can and Molly in her (stolen? borrowed?) guard armor gets put on a small team of fighters sent into the gate to try to find how to close it. as the only survivor Baurus asks her to come with them so she can provide an account of what the interior of the gate looked like etc to the Blades. she does not understand how she keeps surviving the gates, surviving, surviving, surviving. Martin doesn't survive; why did she?

the door in Niben Bay is a gate, or close enough--she goes into it hoping, just a little bit, it might be the last one for her. and it is, but not for the reasons she expected. the first time she meets Sheogorath she offers to trim his beard for him in a panic (she's gotten very good at panicking by now). she doesn't pick up on the fact that she's being positioned as his successor until pretty late, at which point she has a lot of intense but mixed feelings. the passing of the torch, so to speak, leaves her with unprecedented control over her own mind at last, and being able to literally shut off the terror center of her brain means she sleeps all the way through the night for the first time since the destruction of Kvatch. she eventually loses herself to the mantle, but the tradeoff is she doesn't feel like a rabbit in a snare 24/7 anymore. it's... not the healthiest of recovery strategies (understatement of the era lol).

I named her after Molly Grue (my love...), and while she's a very different character I definitely was thinking a lot about the kinds of meta-narrative questions Molly Grue presents in the context of my Molly--specifically her choice to lose her own identity in mantling Sheogorath as a parallel to the Molly Grue/Maid Marian dichotomy + the desire to exchange the unfavorable reality for a beautiful dream (WHICH I am dutifully restraining myself from rambling about again as that's not really the question here).

Morrowind: Haldryn Elora (Dunmer)

trans lesbian. gap between her two front teeth. short twiggy lil thing with the wimpiest arms you ever saw. Haldryn (Hallie to her ma and her friends) was raised in Chorrol by an Argonian woman, Vakka-Ei (Sun-in-Her-Eyes), next door to an elderly gay Dunmer couple. her neighbors cheerfully answered whatever questions she has about Dunmer culture she had growing up--she loved stories about the Tribunal the most and considers herself fairly devout, though once she gets booted over to Vvardenfell she learns there's a lot more to... everything, and her attempts at home at acting out traditions and culture she didn't really know were (predictably) not quite the same. but it's a learning experience! and she is eager to learn! this is her big adventure!

she sees the golden ghost of Nerevar pretty regularly from a young age, though he doesn't say much and never introduces himself, so she refers to him as "the gold man." her ma assumes this is an Altmer imaginary friend, which she thinks is a little weird, but the whole thing seems harmless enough. he talks a little more as Hallie gets older, and she finds him standing silently over her shoulder many times throughout the events of the game. she grows to resent him--she gets the feeling sometimes, standing in front of the gods, that they don't really see her.

and, well, they don't.

the confrontation with Almalexia in particular absolutely shatters her. she primarily fights with a pair of bound daggers and doesn't summon them for the majority of this fight, desperately trying to say the right thing to fix it instead. she ends up summoning a pair of bound swords instead of daggers at exactly the wrong (or right?) moment.

she never sees Nerevar again after this. she wishes, very hard, she'd never seen him in the first place.

the only place I've really publicly shared art of them so far is on artfight (along with a bit more prose-y summaries) but I have,, a number of things in the art blog drafts waiting for the Right Time(TM). watch this space as they say!

#Mouse talks! #Kharish gra-Shatul #Molly Cadoret #Haldryn Elora #thank you for asking ajghfldksfj I am EXCEPTIONALLY FLATTERED ;u;

[wendytestabrat]

i’ve been rewatching a lot of powerpuff girls episodes like i’m honestly determined to watch every episode at this point bc i got sucked in when i was only watching like one or two LOL and boy i have THOUGHTS. for some reason i hardly remember any of these episodes even tho ik i’ve seen them all a bunch of times on boomerang so it’s felt like i’m watching them for the first time with my adult lens. i love all 3 of the main girls they are rlly interesting characters and what i love abt the show is how they balance back and forth between all this crime fighting shit and the girls just living normal lives as preschoolers or whatever bc it can def feel like a slice of life show sometimes in those more laid back episodes not that the superhero shit isn’t fun to watch too bc it is!!!! it reminds me of jimmy neutron a bit how jimmy will have to save the day and shit but he still acts like a normal kid with normal kid problems at the end of the day bc powerpuff girls has that same feel to it which i like where the girls still will act like normal toddlers or whatever and it’s cute & endearing af. ok i’m just gonna flat out say it idk if this is an unpopular opinion or not but blossom is my fav character she’s definitely way more interesting and nuanced than the other two girls while bubbles and buttercup are more one dimensional bc bubbles is just the sweet one and buttercup is the mean one LOL. i like blossom bc she has the traits of both her sisters combined but she’s more balanced out so she can have good chemistry in scenes with either sister whether she agrees with bubbles on something or with buttercup on something. bc blossom knows how to be nice like bubbles in some situations and in other situations she’s more snobby and mean like buttercup. which makes her a good leader too bc of her being complex like that and understanding both sisters. but she’s also flawed too bc she can be stuck up and bossy and vain at times but it makes her interesting imo. bubbles is prob my second fav like she’s cute af and relatable too bc she’s super sweet until u cross her and then she’s like scary and dangerous af LOL. (she’s also a huge meme too) i feel like bubbles is everyone’s fav and it seems like bubbles got the most episodes about her and the most screen time but it kind of bothers me that we didn’t get more blossom episodes considering she’s like technically the main one and it feels like bubbles got all the spotlight just bc she’s funnier. but yeah it bothers me when shows focus too much on the comic relief character. buttercup is my least fav and i remember liking her least growing up too LOL but i’ve grown to like her more rewatching the series bc she’s kind of complex too in her own right she’s super aggressive and tomboyish but she has her soft moments too which makes her interesting. but overall i prob enjoy buttercup the least bc she’s just a bitch for no reason most of the time lol. so yeah my ranking of the girls is

1. blossom

2. bubbles

3. buttercup

and then when we’re looking at the villains of the show that’s a whole different story LMAO. i still have a lot of episodes to go to fully form an opinion on this but HIM is def the breakout villain in the show by FAR. ik mojo jojo is considered like the main villain or whatever but HIM is way more intimidating and you’re like oh fuck whenever he shows up. mojo jojo is hardly that threatening he’s honestly more of just a punchline and u always know the girls are gonna take him down right away by just punching him LOL. whenever HIM shows up it feels like there’s way more at stake so imo he’s the real true #1 villain of the show. mojo jojo is basically darth vader while HIM is emperor palpatine. also princess is the most annoying character ever don’t @ me. i’ve always been a nickelodeon hoe and not a CN hoe but powerpuff girls will always be one of my top 5 shows on CN bc the writing and humor and animation and shit is pretty on par with some of Nick’s greatest stuff. also with tom kenny voicing everyone like he does in spongebob too it gives the show that perfect comedic feel to it that’s nostalgic of early 2000s cartoons. i love craig mccracken’s style bc FHFIF is also one of my favs too for similar reasons.

anyways which powerpuff girl is ur fav i wanna hear ur thoughts

#powerpuff girls

[sch-com]

Fuck it. I'm going to share my thoughts on suicide in here, since chronic suicidality is like, the main symptom of my brain being fucked up.

So, TW: discussion of suicide.

I thought about suicide long and hard. I've read, and I've researched, and I talked to therapists. And, what I found, is that in my unique situation, I haven't yet found a convincing argument for why I would be wrong to kill myself.

That is not to say that I will - I have my idiot survival instinct and plain old fear to thank for that. Trust me, if I were to kill myself, I would have a thousand times now. But, I'm too much of a coward and also too anhedonic (lol) to actually do it. So please - I'm not in danger, all is fine and dandy ok? Let's try to treat it as an intellectual riddle. Entertainment, sponsored by my silly brain vomit, if you're into that sort of thing.

Is there a good argument against suicide?

Let me first start with some answers that do in fact make sense to me:

a better question to have asked might be "what are the arguments to continue living" and not necessarily "what are the arguments against suicide"

I do find convincing the argument from risk - we have no idea what is after life (at least, I, as an atheist don't) so why risk it?

Now, let me respond (briefly) to (brief) summaries of common agruments I see as a response to this problem:

You will hurt others by dying.

I acknowledge and own to that. Trust me, I personally have no wish to inflict harm on people and it is a dillemma for me. However, I think it's dismissive to only consider the other people's feelings and not the suicidal person's. I still think it's more selfish to expect someone to give up their right to life (and by extension - the right to end ones life) just because it would make others feel bad if they are no longer here.

Suicide is an impulsive decision, a "permanent solution to a temporary problem".

I agree that it can be the case in many cases. Maybe even the majority, I don't know. However, if even for one person (myself) it's *not* an impulsive decision, but rather something you've been contemplating for your whole conscious life, that means that impulsivity is not always the case. While wiritng this post and replies I am *not* in a crisis state. I am far from it (and trust me, I've been there so I know the difference for me). This is what I'm thinking when I'm in a clear state of mind. So, I find it insulting that my thought process is being dismissed on the basis on "you're Ill".

Things might get better.

What do I care. I would be dead. And also you don't know that, things might get worse too.

Appreciate the little things.

The way I feel about this is that life for me is like a cake made of shit, sprinkled with tasty golden dust. Would you eat the shit cake for the golden sprinkles?

Appeal to god / spirituality.

I am not religious, nor spiritual. I don't find those values appealing for me personally.

I don't have a punchline or a nice ending. Make of that what you will.

#tw suicide #cw suicide #suicide #suicidal #personality disorder #schcomtalk #i guess what im saying is that i really want to die and i have every reason to do it #or rather - i have no reason *not* to do it #but im a littke bitch and a coward ⭐⭐

[spongebob-connoisseur]

Hi what’s your favorite and least favorite SpongeBob episode and why? I’m curious

Least favorite spongebob episode. Hmmmm that's tough. I feel like it would be hard to pin which would be the worst. I know definitely from the middle seasons.

I feel like you could pull out the worst episodes of the middle seasons and I know for sure I wouldn't like them lol.

Maybe yours mine and mine? Or stuck in the wringer. If you asked me a while ago, I'd probably would've said a more gross out episode like a pal for Gary or Pet sitter pat. They are nasty but gross out doesn't bother me as much anymore.

But what does bother me is the exceptionally mean spirited tone of these episodes and their painful slowness. Stuck in the wringer is just infuriating to watch. It drags out so long and it is so so cruel for an episode idea. Similar issue with Yours Mine And Mine. I just can't stand when the characters are so mean. And overall the one thing that always stopped me from rewatching the middle seasons is their painful slowness and stiffness. I'd rather watch molasses drip than rewatch those two episodes.

Both these episodes have the same theme of exceptionally stupid to the point of maliciousness Patrick. Which makes it hard to watch. If it isn't super boring. Then it is incredibly infuriating.

I'm being massively dramatic here. I know. But it feels so weird because it doesn't fit the show at all. I know the show constantly changes and evolves. But I can never get around how mean everyone was in the middle seasons. Their inherit maliciousness towards spongebob and the obliviousness to their own harm and their general dead air.

I remember watching these episodes as a kid and thinking I'd rather kermit sudoku than be in the position Sponge is in (dramatic I KNOW xD but I had a weird thought process as a kid) there is no punchline. Just punches. It felt so soulless.

Around the time these episodes were airing, I just fell out of love with the show and didn't want to watch it anymore. So you know, they were bad enough to make me stop watching the show for years so they're pretty bad in my book.

I kinda want to rewatch them now 👀

#Ask #spongebob #spongebob squarepants #the spongebob connoisseur #sb #spongebon squarepants #spongebob meme

[tuiyla]

hope you don't mind my (way, way too long) input as a Klaine Fan™️ - you don't have to post/answer if it's too much for you, I just wanted to share my thoughts - but I feel like Klaine was one of the few things that Matthew Hodgson didn't completely fuck up. in almost the eps he's written, the Klaine parts have been relatively okay and even good in some cases.

I know Glee, Actually is a dud for the most part but I really enjoyed the Blaine/Burt/Kurt family dynamic in their portion of the episode. it could've been better, since our fandom was expecting the mature conversation about Blaine's cheating that we were promised in 4x08 instead of that being overshadowed by Burt's cancer diagnosis, but I blame that on Ryan Murphy (since he admitted to including Burt's cancer storyline as a way to cope w/ his own father's death from cancer) and not on Matt Hodgson. for what he was given to work with, the man did a pretty decent job with the Klaine storyline in that ep and I was more or less satisfied with it.

I'd say that Transitioning was even better. IMO it was by far Klaine's best episode in season 6, because it completely did away with so much of what bothered me about their storyline in S6 (namely Sue's interference in their relationship + the way that she was used to mock fans) and instead it went back to the roots of why they loved (and liked) each other in the first place. plus it included a bunch of fun callbacks to the episode in which they had their first kiss, which I really appreciated. somehow it even made me feel okay with Blainofsky, and that breakup scene in 6x07 was what cemented to me that Karofsky really had grown and changed into a better person and that there were zero malicious intentions in his relationship with Blaine. I'm honestly impressed that the same clown who wrote IKAG managed to pull off an episode like that.

it's kind of odd that Matt did such a good job with Klaine in his eps while completely fucking over everyone else in the same episode (see Glee Actually and the Bram wedding 🤮 compared to Klaine's sweet family storyline), and even in IKAG Klaine got a whole-ass duet while Brittany stayed mute and wasn't allowed to talk to her girlfriend. he gave Kurt and Blaine the best in his eps and didn't give that care to anyone else on the show. hmmm...y'know what, I've solved the mystery - maybe Matt is the evil Klaine anon 🤪

(but then again, Puppet Master exists, so maybe everything I've just said is completely invalid and Matt Hodgson is just the worst as a whole...two decent Klaine eps are not enough to make up for all the atrocities he's committed 🥴)

This is much appreciated!

Klaine (+ Burt) are the saving grace of Glee, Actually for sure, and I think Transitioning is okay for what it is. Haven't watched it in a long while but like, it was alright, and I agree that the Klaine parts were good, even. I'm not sure if there's a reason he did a surprisingly good job with Klaine - I forgot to make this point earlier, but I genuinely believe he's just a bad writer. That doesn't mean he doesn't have good moments, but by putting together his portfolio we can see that there's a theme of completely butchering, well, theme lol and characters for the sake of stupid punchlines or just some random ass plotpoint. I think he's the type of writer who's annoying because they think they're being sooo clever and funny.

Anyway, so whatever the reason may be, I agree with you and I appreciate this perspective. I think he can tap into some good stuff, like the NY stuff in Glee, Actually, while also getting carried away with his own BS. I think it could be fun - well, cathartic at least to properly go through his stories and examine why exactly he's a flop. Except for IKAG because, ugh, shuddering at the thought. And you know I do feel like disclaiming that this is all just about his work 😂 He's probably a decent dude, whatever, I've just had anons trying to make things personal with him and I don't believe in that. I'll leave the man's character alone but I will maintain that he's a shit writer with occasional good moments, and credit where credit is due his handling of Klaine was okay and even good in places. Maybe that's because he is EKA 😌

But yeah, Flopson is still a flop but he gets a "not as much of a jerk bad writer as he could have been" badge. Nothing will ever fully redeem him but he didn't completely suck in his handling of Glee lol. And hey, an actual Klaine discussion instead of whatever EKA is, yay 😂

#i didn't know that about rm that's valid i think #makes me wonder why he wasn't the one to write it then but yeah rm can have that one #the matthew hodgson thread #i'll begrudgingly also admit that saturday night glee-ver is also okay #until it isn't because then it becomes AWFUL #but he had an okay 25 minutes or so #glee asks #klaine asks #hopefulobjectmiracle

[jezmmart]

Chamomile Comic Trivia #25

#129 - List

A bit of a convoluted setup, but I wanted to do something a little less directly halloweeny for October’s comics in 2019 and came up with this idea - I always have been a big fan of the ghostly-voices-heard-in-a-recording trope.

It’s only barely visible in the earlier panels with a speech bubble covering it in the one shown above here, but Cammie’s hair clamp from #117 is resting next to her bedside table.

#130 - Ghosts

For story arcs, I’ve always tried to make every single Chamomile Comic’s context possible to piece together even if someone hasn’t read the ones that came before it as best I can, but in this case the previous comic was so particular and unusual that Cammie would literally need to describe the entire scene that late readers will have just read, so I made a joke out of it instead, almost serving as a marker where I made the decision to not get hung up on it anymore when it’s too hard, lol.

#131 - Whispers

I didn’t choose Layla at random, it’s an important note that she’s the one who bought into Cammie’s nonsense here. It’s never really been the subject of any focus or story arc but I do think Cammie and Layla’s friendship has an unspoken flavour to it that feels a bit different from Cammie and Brianna’s, even though Cam and Bri are besties.

Having said that it presented me with the decision of whether to depict her without her hijab, and at this point in time I leaned away from the idea. Being brutally honest, I kind of expected people to make a big deal out of seeing her without it - it’s sort of an unfortunate but understandable downside of also being a femme-focused pin-up artist, having a cast of women, and drawing it all in a cute art style. A lot of people are here who admire cute feminine character art and I’d be a hypocrite to say there’s anything inherently wrong with that when that’s literally what half my art is! I think I was right with this judgement too, because I definitely did get a comment or two from folks who were all “aww I thought we were gonna get to see her hair”. I know there’s tons of people who like me would shift their mindset to think nothing of it, but I know the folks who don’t would kind of bug me, so I think it’s easier to just not.

Having said all of this, I can’t deny it was a really fun artistic challenge to come up with a way to hide her lack of hijab in the nighttime scene without it feeling intentionally like an Austin Powers prop censorship gag - at least that was my hope!

Realistically I don’t think she would be wearing a cap around Cammie in the morning scene - in more recent comics of course we had another scene where Cammie and Layla shared a room, and I decided to go for a middleground where the point of her hijab is still kept for the audience but I was a little more relaxed about it, since I’ve read threads from folks who wear hijabs who feel it’s misrepresentational to depict them being worn 24/7.

#132 - Accent

Not much to say here.  I swear there was a story or inspiration behind the gag of Cammie’s sleeptalking, but it’s gone forever now! I did enjoy deciding that the pure and innocent Cammie has horrifically unsettling dreams that she thinks nothing of.

#133 - Cereal

This was just a one-off gag I had in the idea bank for a while that I never quite knew how to do. The punchline of “all these cereals have expired” was always there and this could have just been a Cammie at home talking to herself strip, but somehow said punchline didn’t feel as funny talking to herself as it did to another character, no idea why. This arc was a perfect opportunity to finally use it even though it doesn’t tie into the actual story of the arc whatsoever (which is fine of course, it’s November by now).

Cammie’s cereals are:

Sugar Crunch (with added Vitamin), a broad parody of sweet cereal Moist Nuts, which is just some funny words Frog Flakes, with regular JezMM mascot Frogy of course Mostly Bran, a parody of All-Bran Wheated Bix, a parody of Weetabix Corny Puns, both a parody of Corn Flakes and one of many silly cereal names that showed up in my old comic Phantasm Dyad, in the episode where they were tracking down the cause of a gaggle of inanimate object ghosts found on the beach - a Cereal Killer.

Funnily enough, another cereal in that comic was “Corned Flakes”, which is basically the same joke as Wheated Bix. Mr. Burns saying “I am enjoying this Iced Cream” in The Simpsons was one of those humour-defining moments for me as a kid I think.

#134 - Dark

Just complaining through my characters here.  I hate when the clocks go back and would always rather have more light in the afternoon than the morning.  Having the daylight end at 4pm is so depressing, but waking up in the dark and having it get light as your day begins is sort of romantic to me.

I do like how this one has sort of unique lighting - very few comics that take place exactly at dusk like this and I tried to capture that vibe even though it’s just a standard blurry background.

[More Chamomile Comic Trivia] (Above link may not work correctly on tumblr app)    

#jezmm #art insight #chamomile comic trivia