#and referenced by the characters because thats how people are!! they dont just have stuff happen to and around them and then never

[mejomonster]

i still think about that post that mentioned different levels of reading comprehension... i’m going to look for it to reblog again...

just like. i don’t usually think of adult reading comprehension in ‘levels’. i tend to assume ‘oh everyone can understand when a narration is emotional, its biased and implying information about the narrator’s emotions and biases and is not necessarily reliable’ and don’t realize some people comprehend a bit less, just the face value of ‘narration says X is disgusting, so X is, narrator says Y is true so its true’ and interpret texts based on that. and some comprehend less than that, not noticing there’s even an emotional overtone anywhere, and the writing says X so X is simply true. 

A lot of these skills get taught to some degree in school, when english classes made us do literary analysis of texts. And perhaps more important since it involves factual information, when school would make us evaluate sources for our essays and figure out what bias writers have and evaluate which part of articles is writer’s opinion and which part is actual facts. Critical reading skills we need to determine if something is an ad trying to convince us of something or an informational update, to determine if something is trying to manipulate us, to determine if the information portion we read is backed up by other sources or likely not actually true, to determine the biases of all informational media we consume (because even simple stock updates and history books all have some tinge of the biases of the writer/presenter). These skills help keep us safe on the internet, help us look for information to make decisions, help us recognize when we are being manipulated, recognize various media’s goals toward convincing us of things and still being able to sort through for the facts connected. For example when there is a shooting at X with Y people injured, that’s a fact, and then everything the reporters say beyond that about ways it could be prevented/shouldn’t have happened is their opinion, and how the words they use to describe the facts themselves like if ‘kid’ or ‘criminal’ is used to describe the shooter and what words describe the police and victims etc all are still used to push the writer’s opinion.

I would like to hope, since figuring out facts versus opinions is such a vital skill for simple online safety (from malicious ads, propaganda, dangerous groups) and for simple real life safety (figuring out if a recall for food happened, figuring out if a location in the state is currently unsafe to travel to), that hopefully most people learned that ability to discern. I also realize now that I’m older, how useful that skill is, and how I still have more to learn and practice in being able to do it. 

Well, that skill is vital in discerning fact versus opinion of nonfiction and opinion media. But it’s also a skill needed to understand stories, fiction, and again it just. Surprises me how its not actually a given that readers who find something, watchers who find something, will actually have the full ability to discern the intent and meanings that a creator put into something. 

#rant #i just. idk i think about this and get how people see something like #idk old school Xmen and DONT see how its allegory calling out conservatives making discriminatory laws #i think about this and it explains so much about how media especially perhaps media widely engaged with and #engaged with a younger audience. can get misunderstood. #a person without this skill cant tell rage against the machine isnt actually about hating technology #a person without this skill cant watch Not Me and get that Sean is like he is because of his traumatic upbringing #and that Sean grows and does not start perfect. #a person without this skill may read an mxtx work like svsss and not GET that its satire making fun of and making POINTS about the genre its #referencing. get that its commenting on the black lotus character type. the overpowered harem novel stories. and commenting on webnovel #culture's toxic traits in general. #mxtx fandom sometimes has infighting thats like X is good but Y is bad. and all is by same author #and sometimes i think some of it is a reading comprehension difference depending on different readers #like. even just understanding 'this is a translation. its unlikely to perfectly communicate the original texts intent/style/meaning' is #not always thought about or considered #it always shocks me to remember such a simple thing. #that of course not all people have reading comprehension to the same degree. #because i usually read stuff that requires a high comprehension of whats implied and NOT on the page directly stated. #because even in chinese and french i am so used to looking at that level that i practice doing it in my other languages too #even before i could read perfect. the idea of not noticing the authors style and how it affects their effect/meaning/point #how what tropes they pick and what biases they put in the narration TELL you things. how the things they omit TELL you things. #i guess tldr: if you wonder why ppl dont get a point in media you get? maybe they just are not comprehending that layer #and its always good for all of us to practice critical reading skills #because even when we think we know how to do it. there's real life spheres like news and ads #where their goal is to hide the intent layer of their content. and its important for us to still be able to determine their intent.

[infizero]

also having now actually seen the whole thing adventure time has skyrocketed into one of my favorite shows ever. like for real i liked it as a kid and have always had a fondness for it ever since but rewatching it now has made me realize Just how fucking good it is and how unlike anything else it is. its so good and appeals to ME specifically in so many ways please for the love of god if you haven't watched adventure time WATCH IT. WATCH IT RIGHT NOW

#ALSO. i think i may have mentioned this before but i really do think AT has one of the best senses of worldbuilding and continuity #i've seen in a cartoon. other than like steven universe maybe (gee i wonder how that happened) #but seriously like the fact that its able to be so goofy and weird a lot of the time while still constantly keeping in mind all these thing #and having them inform the story and world in realistic ways is so good it has really blown my mind #nothing is ever retconned nothing is ever forgotten about. even the seemingly most meaningless things will still be remembered #and referenced by the characters because thats how people are!! they dont just have stuff happen to and around them and then never #bring it up again!! but they also dont constantly go ''remember when we did xyz?'' stuff just comes up naturally if it makes sense #for it to do so. and i think thats so fucking incredible and admirable #AT's flavor of weirdness and comedy and raw emotion is something so wonderful and perfectly aligned with how i like my stories #and it really does have a vibe that is unlike anything else. i am going to cry thinking about it #like the closest thing i can think of. and lord forgive me but im being genuine in terms of vibes closest thing i can think of that #i've experienced at least is dsmp. in the way that there are things that are so fucking dumb and strange and things that are so gut #wrenchingly emotional and beautiful and simple and often those things are intertwined. its stupid and weird and funny and sad #its silly its dark its fun its tragic #something about both of them just feels like a representation of the human spirit in its purest form to me. they impact me the most #because they represent all sides and experiences of existing #idk. but ive always felt like this even before i got into AT again. i said a while ago if dsmp was made into a show it would HAVE to #be an adventure time style cartoon. and every time i see fanart drawn in the AT style or whatever it makes me so happy even now #ANYWAYS. sorry to derail but i really have missed the vibes of the dsmp and in a weird way AT felt a lot similar and i really love that #FUCKKKK not me getting emotional over the indominable human spirit. im gonna go saw my legs off BYE I LOVE ADVENTURE TIME #serena.txt

[homarcide-aest]

I'm SO here for your Balkan Dick Grayson takes! I was wondering how you feel about how DC writes or fleshes out Dick's Roma heritage. Are there particularly great moments of representation or particularly flop ones?

*starts shaking*

i honestly hate most of the writing. not only because they arent romani, i mean you can get some basic info about rom culture if you talk to romano people and i understand its a pretty closed culture (like fuck even though im part romani i still dont know most shit, although tbf rom people in turkey is p assimilated) so getting info might be hard, but FUCK dude they look at rom culture in an american pov and its like?????? why.

most rom people resides in balkans, and like bro even if you took some balkani culture to dickies writing or even in is living space itd make sense, since again, rom culture is p assimilated w the country they resides in. like even small things would be enough. a heavy velvety blanket w a tiger or a rose?? him sniffing bottles before drinking??? thats like the universel balkanian experience.

and weirdly enough i prefer the old stuff. like yes they were racist dont get me wrong but at least i was likr "aaah they are talking about it and dick is getting angry about the assumptions" aka that one god awful panel where bruce is like "ye ur kind is hot headed lmao" and dick is like "wtf" (i explain things great i know)

but now??? its used in an awful one-liner. and never referenced again. like what the actual fuck does "beautiful romani smile" means. thats. thats worse???????? thats so much worse than hotheaded cuz its used like "haha guys look i remembered dick is romani haha i know romani culture" and im like no????? shut the fuck up????

at least when people say rom people are hot headed i can be like "ye lmao we do start fights out of nowhere" and again ITS UNIVERSEL BALKAN EXPERIENCE. all balkanians have anger issues. we love chaos. but when its like "haha dick has a beautiful romani smile" im like "oh fuck off" cuz again, its such a narrow minded look at romani people.

i was gonna end it there but fuck it im not done.

rom people are stereotyped as "happy go lucky, have no worries even though the world burning, cant do shit unless a white person is guiding them, hot headed and potty mouthed". besides the last point this is the exact character assasination dickie got. they turned him into a romani stereotype because haha one trick pony robin. he used to be so much more but noo the writers cant actually handle a complex character so lets turn him into this rom stereotype, and say hes romani with a fetishizing ass line!!! i hate dc so much

sorry for long rant lmao im just. genuinely angry at this lmao

anw dick is balkanian now. i can handle mischaracterization of dickie but i will not handle americanization and frenchification of dickie

#again sorry for long rant this shit makes my blood boil #i guess im a hot headed roma hahahaha #ahaha #krilling myself

[feengoid]

do you have any advice for making fancherubs😨😨😨i must consult the cherub master…..

cherub master..?! well, i dont know about that.. i think i can name a few people that are better fitted cherub masters.. but, um..

i dont really follow a general rule of making characters, especially for cherubs (i do for trolls most of the time, but those are just super nitpicks, being an mspa art enthusiast and all), and im also really bad at giving advice, but sure i can try to give some tips.

one that i think is somewhat crucial is defining the dualities and personalities of your cherubs. its not really big design-wise, but knowing how each personality is like can help on that, along just being nice to see what contrasts well or not. calliope and caliborn i see as the de-facto cherubs, one being morally good and the other morally bad and stuff, i think they had a bit more going on but it isnt worthy going into details, but you can do the duality about anything almost, as long as it fits (though its still good to stick to that main principle of good/bad, its a pretty good base). my big main ocs, calabraz and callunia, follow the duality of one being about truths and obsession, while the other is about lies and compulsion.

another one can be about their enviroment and living situations. this one ties a lot more to design when really envisioning it, because it directly affects how much pizazz you can really put into the clothing (or not, if you just dont really care). like, caliborn and callipe had nice clothes and all because they lived in a meteor station, with outside influenc from gamzee nonetheless. if your cherub doesnt have as many resources as that, which it will probably not have seeing that most cherubs are born on dead or dying planets, it will probably have a hard time getting to that same degree of fancyness ! but that still should not stop you from giving it your all on the design. be it robes, tribal wear, space suits, you name it, really try your best to make it stand out and unique to the cherub. bonus points if the outfits can change between personalities, like one part using an extra, removeable piece that the other doesnt, or even some mystical aspects like color changing jujus and the like. go wild, but mindful.

now for actual physical properties of cherubs? i dont really know what to say. if you feel like going for a standard cherub with not much going on, go ahead and just follow the same principles as the cherubs in homestuck, be it caliborn and calliope, lord english, or even their parents (you can study a lot about how cherubs look from that ! just following patterns you see in their scenes on how theyre drawn and other tidbits is really useful). BUT ! i think that you can also just go absolutely insane with the designs, thats something i really want to see a lot in more cherub ocs. different skull shapes, extra limbs, unusual appendages and forms, even different types of skeletal animals, that stuff is always good. just experiment! see what fits and doesnt. id just say to try and still make it "cherub-y", if that makes sense. get their feel first.

if you want any resources on cherub stuff, i do have a google doc and fan cherub subtypes that are totally free to look at and use for things.

id also suggest looking at other artists that do it well ! not evne on the fancherub department but just cherubs in general. my main inspo for a lot of years were sketchoodles, lystheni, imac and quite a few others (and they still are ! really good artists that are worthy checking out). but keeping in mind to not just outright steal from them. referencing in moderation is key, always.

and thats it ! at least what i can type out. i hope this isnt too much, or too nonsensical even, i feel like other people can give better advice on this probably. but its what i can do ! so i hope it helps <:)

#ask #homestuck #cherubs #fancherub #resources #idk what to tag this #HOPE IT HELPS!!! really #.txt #really long post

[cyberkiss2uu]

ok ill keep the brainrotting to a minimum but someone pleaaaase ask me ab these guys im so normal ab themm ahahahhahaa

theyre twins the boy is Xueshe and the girl is Puzui… they r Liyue characters :3 specifically illuminated beasts!

they r so tragic i think ive talked ab them a bit before but buddy ive written a like 4000+ word Ongoing masterdoc of their lore and design analysis. with several playlists. im not fucking around with these guys

basically they were. mitosis’d by Cloud Retainer and fought in the archon war and the cataclysm and ended up being Khaenri’ah sympathizers so Celestia astrally projected them into the Abyss for 500 years until they both nearly went insane and the Puzui DID go insane and lose all her memories and they break free during the upcomimg lantern rite so 😜 cant wait to see 4.4 play out and alter their lives

Xueshe’s design is waaay less thought out than Puzuis tbh i dont feel that he looks like a genshin character and i know i could do more to achieve that but. ykw xiao can have all the visual complexity in their relationship idc. um he kinda maybe has a hanfu shirt. his shirt could be tied up like hes doing archery but hes. a sword character. also hes supposed to have the same glove that Xiao does to hold their visions because i loove when matching/swapping/sharing items is used as a visual representation of a relationship idk. and he has a little fox friend named Nezha because hes a protection deity

Puzui’s has a lot of choices based on forget me nots (also called scorpion grass which influenced her hair) and me genuinely referencing hanfu and qipao.. altho ive come to the conclusion her qipao looks way more like an ao dai with the pants LOL um also her Huadian (forehead makeup) is supposed to be a forget me not and the dots on her brow and dimples are called Huadian or MianYe :3

the pibo (the silk behind Puzui) and the lingzhi (Xueshe’s headpiece) are used in folklore art and opera respectively but i thought that they would be a really interesting way to call back on how theyre like from a diff time period yk. even tho just their outfits do that but WTVRRR also the lingzhi is used for good looking generals in opera and ykw. he IS a good looking general.

theyre also classing pyro and cryo siblings yaaay overall theyre just designed to be opposites yet very similar you know how it is. when your sibling is your narrative foil when you and your sibling are doomed by the narrative

um their illuminated beast forms were also deisgned with chinese mythological creatures in mind… Puzui’s is loosely based on the Fuzhu and Xueshe’s is even more loosely based on the Tianma.. i just wanted a clydesdale ill be honest

YEAA thats def not their entire story ill circle back when 4.4 drops im just queuing a bunch of stuff rn in december. hi future people waoww

#genshin ocs #liyue #genshin impact #adepti #artists on tumblr #my ocs #jammy ocs

[penguin--person]

16 and 24 for Kozlov

31 for nastya

The characters are more suggestions!! Be free do what you want 🤩💥

ty for the ask!! ask game

16. What kinds of people do they have arguments with in their head? everybody on the planet of earth ever 💥💥gabriela, probably? i don't think their relationship is Awesome No Worries.. so sad! but in general - people that think they know better than him, i guess .. or are just mean to him

24. Did they take a cookie from the cookie jar? What kind of cookie was it? i think this question is referencing something but im not sure what sorry .. i think he'd like cookies with fillings:) or those cookies that go with coffee

gonna put the nastya one under cut bc its big

31. When do they feel the most guilt? How do they respond to it? Wowww you give kozlov easy questions but you want nastya to DIE!!!!! as it ought to be 🫡god i have to think a lot about this one.. killing me too generally she feels guilty for being a mutant, for bad grades, for not being good enough, that kinda stuff - but even then, its not really guilt? its more like shame.

with specific actions.. tbh i don't think she feels that much guilt outside of things concerning her? when she stabs dasha, she wont feel guilty bc, in her eyes, it was self defense and dasha deserved it. no reason to feel guilty. being mean to zhenya and those 'lesser than her' is fine because shes better than them, she can do whatever she wants. this is no reason to feel guilty. in the au where she grows into a scientist, she doesnt feel guilty much then either - just ! depressed. stupid. angry at her younger self for throwing herself at the facility. ashamed. not guilty because its not her fault. its 13 year old nastya's fault.

as to how she responds to guilt - like to any other emotions she deems negative, bottle that thang up!!!!!! express it through anger and frustration at those lesser than her and suck up to those better than her for love, for forgiveness!!!! yeahhhh!!! thats how she responds externally💥💥💥internally she's just.. idk man shes a freakkkk i dont know what you want me to say ... this is kinda explored in her nastyura fic !! how she reacts there is how she reacts at her worst.. its like, it depends a lot on how shes feeling in the moment. she Will blame you most of the time. she wont always try to stab you. she wont always yell at you, she might just go "Uhhh who cares?? Lol" or just laugh at you. shes just a goofff

#ask #kozlovcore #nastyacore #i think its funny when people fall for nastyas mask .. yea shes mean and shit. but she hasnt said anything thatd get her to hell i think #also shes a kid (in like 99% of her aus) so i think she should be forgiven everything in her life ever Ok #same goes for dasha and everyone else ever to be clear #THE LGBTQ COMMUNITY FORGIVES DASHA AND NASTYA ❤️

[michaelmilkers]

Out of curiousity why precisely is it such a bad idea

ok like. i am a very avid fan of horror movies and particularly slashers. my blog icon, in case you were unaware, is literally art of michael myers from halloween a follower made for me years ago.

the slasher genre is defined by (among others) the fact that it is not serious or deep. as far as horror movies go, it usually edges more towards camp. there is gratuitous and gruesome death involving the main cast and related secondary characters because its scary and its a spectacle. the story isnt super deep, and the emotional connection you have with any main characters is usually shallow, because the point of it is to be entertaining and scary and cool to look at. i dont have to explain that conversion therapy is an awful traumatic experience that people still go through, there are lgbt kids at conversion camps right now. to take a genre like slasher films and apply it to this topic is at best tone deaf and at worst cruel.

also, it is very obviously supposed to be derivative of friday the 13th because it was set at a summer camp, camp crystal lake, which spawned a whole subgenre of slashers in this setting like sleepaway camp, the burning, cheerleader camp, etc. theres a way these kinds of movies go. the majority of the cast are going to be lgbt teens who were sent to a psychological torture camp by horrifically bigoted family and we are going to watch them get murdered in creatively gruesome ways. someone at some point wanted to do a spin on friday the 13th and decided it would not only be appropriate but somehow ironic or something to change the setting from a regular summer camp to a conversion camp. thats just so fucking idiot and braindead.

like dont get me wrong, horror can ABSOLUTELY be a GREAT genre to create analogies for or explicit stories about stuff like this. get out was about the white moderate's objectification of black bodies, rosemary's baby was about abortion, candyman was about the fetishization of black peoples trauma, american psycho was about materialism and the soulless facade of the corporate world, the thing was about the red scare; all of these very good movies very effectively communicating what they want to say about their subject matter. i keep seeing people bring up "the inherent horror of conversion camp" but when you think about horror films that are serious and about serious topics, do you think of slasher films? do you think of black christmas, or a nightmare on elm street, or scream? when you think of a suitable horror movie to portray conversion therapy with the care and respect it deserves, do you think of a parody of friday the 13th with a pun for a title?

also the title in this context pisses me off. if it were a slasher movie with almost any other setting i would be in the same boat as everyone else of thinking the title is genius and hilarious. but given what we know of the plot, either the title is referencing they/thems getting slashed, in which case, cool title about trans people getting brutally murdered, or the slasher is nonbinary, and in that case they made the villain trans in a horror movie about conversion camp.

like unless they pull a total fast one i can't see how this won't be a total disaster, even if it has a message or lesson at the end of "conversion therapy bad", why the fuck even make the movie like this in the first place

#sry for the infodump of an answer but this is actually a subject im well versed in

[bye-bye-firefly]

Helloo! So, I’ve been wondering, how do you like to take notes? Like, what’s your note taking style in general? And how do you like to write your character and language study stuff? I’ve been kinda curious about it for a bit since you mention that you have these things and stuff sort of often. Like I think it’s been in the back of my mind since that time you mentioned in your notes that you write character studies in a journal. My mind kinda just latched onto that specific detail, most likely because I think physically writing stuff down is really cool and I could never.

(Hopefully this doesn’t sound too awkward? I’m really sleepy and my mind has been very jumpy today but I tried to sound normal, not sure if I succeeded)

no its so totally chill so basically i have like. MADNESS. im cutting this post up because i basically did a brain dump and its so long.

its pure and utter madness in this fucking journal there are clear notes and bullets and i mostly just dedicate pages upon pages depending on the length of the media, the complexity of the character, the amount of change throughout the series like. okay. for example. in my succession character study i have it set up so every character has 5 pages because theyre all pretty static and dont require a lot of notetaking because what i can observe from them is almost always set in stone, a base reaction from the character. drv3 however each character got 10 pages because 1) drv3 is long and its a lot of fucking text to go through 2) characters, even past their death, are referenced and spoken about and have things revealed about them a lot AND 3) the characters are REALLY dynamic and lots of events happen that change the characters in either slight or big ways that i need to note down and explain to myself WHAT EXACTLY caused this change and what the change was. other than these big moments i like to put down moments that i think are interesting or stand out to me upon revisiting the piece of media so when i first go through something it might not stand out because i dont have the knowledge that something is going to happen but upon rewatch or replay im like Wait a second. and this is why i never go into something and immediately start doing analysis because if i did that i would never notice the things that im meant to notice when doing a deep dive into a character

but on length again it really depends what im going into right. if youre going into a text-based 100+ hour game then you probably want to dedicate a lot of pages and time to understanding the characters than if it was like. a 5 season show with 10-14 episodes that are each an hour long. of course this also depends because breaking bad and succession are a similar length but breaking bad has way more dynamic characters than succession. in fact breaking bad is ALL moving parts so making a character study about breaking bad i would probably put all the characters down and dedicate like 8-10 pages per character and that might be overdoing it for some.

but other than characters its also important to recognise that the characters are in a setting. so what causes them to behave the way they do in this setting and do i know what best replicates it. drv3, theyre in a killing game. kokichi ouma would not act the way he does if he wasnt in a killing game and this is extremely important to recognise. kokichi mostly acts like he does because hes in a life-or-death situation and the way he behaves is him coping and keeping himself safe from other people. however, its also him hiding what hes planning so that things can go off without a hitch and without anyone stopping him because ultimately, he wants to end the killing game. he thinks that working with people is way too much effort and its way too complicated and it makes things harder and worse but most importantly, its just not for him. like hes ultimately fine with other people working together, but fuck the notion that he should work with anyone. hes boy genius and also thats so much work ON TOP OF doing the amount of work he was already doing. but outside of the killing game, this whole thing would just drop like theres nothing to work towards anymore. sure hes going to keep lying but maybe not be so cagey or brattish or rile people up as much as he does or as HORRIBLY as he does because theres no point to it. hes not in a life-or-death situation anymore so that act should just crumble. it would take a bit of work but yeah that facade should fall away and leave this joking prankster teenage boy. and a lot of people who dont like kokichi (not most not all just a lot) did not pay attention to the game and took everything at face value much like shuichi and i dont BLAME them i mean its kind of hard to read kokichi and figure out what the fuck hes talking about or what he means by the things he says like it took me a LONG FUCKING TIME to TRULY get kokichi. i had to do my character study before i actually truly understood him and now hes just in my head forever. like i will never let go of him. hes the best and i love him. but yeah you have to think about these things like why is this character like this and what IN THE SETTING causes this or AMPLIFIES this. likeeeee this is kind of a spoiler but tom is super into acting big and macho and very masculine right? at work he acts like The Man and he very clearly wants to play archetypal 1950s husband to his housewife, shiv, but shiv is never going to BE that. he knows this but he doesnt WANT to recognise this so he seeks this elsewhere through his work with greg. thus the tomgreggers win BUT ALSO we get to see two sides of tom: tom when he is sensitive and emotional and tom when he is playing up his machismo because he cannot stand NOT DOING THAT. thats like tom's THING. he is a midwestern boy who is in his 40s who grew up on this dream that he was the man of the house and therefor he was the most specialest man in the whole wide world to this wife that would make him dinner and fuck him and do whatever he pleased but he DIDNT get that and he is NOT THAT GUY. tom is INCREDIBLY sensitive and you can visibly see when he is anguished or excited to see someone (mostly greg) or depressed. he wouldnt be this way if he wasnt in this setting (running a right-wing news network that THRIVES on these values) or with the people he was with (most notably, a father in law who he wants to show respect to and receive respect from for the ENTIRETY of the show)

okay so character and setting and its impact. other than that WHAT ELSE. so a lot of the other stuff that i then look through is like. extra tidbits that i notice. my current succession character study has a list of chapters. so i have each character and their pages listed out for quick navigation (yes this means i number the pages) i have a 2 page tidbits section and then i have an INFINITE AMOUNT of researching pages. because nothing ever just stops at The Character Study no no no. i have researched:

shakespeare and what makes something shakespearean (took like. a few days? really wasn't that hard it was a well researched topic)

succession speak (i did this while i watched the show so i did some multitasking while doing character studies. updating kendall's page while also talking about his usage of buzzwords)

cops (fic specific dont worry its all bad as expected)

for drv3 i researched a lot of mental disorders, i did research into trauma, specifically for nameless (because that was ALWAYS what i was gearing up for) i originally did a lot of research into fbi and catching murderers so a lot of reading but then i pivoted and did research into non-euclidean structures, the language of horror (meaning i just read a lot of horror and took notes), and then i did The Action Plan.

The Action Plan brings everything together and is specific to me this is not necessarily essential for understanding the characters nor is the extra studying that has nothing to do with the piece of media. like succession requires that i research shakespeare and how they talk but it doesnt require me to know how the police work or what they think of themselves. the action plan is mostly for me to figure out what the hell i actually want to do. the action plan is also the place where i put down a final answer as to how i want to end the BIG FIC that im planning. for the drv3 character study, i do in fact have nameless' planned ending written down and it has surprisingly not really changed all that much aside from the weird bullshit that i wanted to throw in on top of the weird bullshit that is already going on in nameless. a lot of the time the action plan contains what i want the fic to end on.

right here im going to delve into writing advice because i love this shit and i know that people struggle with this okay If you. DON'T. Want to go into a story blind and want to plan it through and want to start with the ending (always what i recommend). Do NOT. Write the ending in the abstract. what i mean by this is like an ending to a story is almost always an arc. like. everything everywhere all at once the ending is a very drawn-out sequence taking place across a bunch of universes but ultimately are leading to the same thing: evelyn keeping joy around, and this means two things: keeping her in her life or alive at all. this is not an abstract ending. this is set in stone and pans out beautifully with the mixture of universes all in play. the ending is that evelyn gets to keep her daughter, joy, around in her life and saves every single world in existence. a different more abstract way to view the movie is that it begins with evelyn filing taxes in a stressful environment, extremely bitter and feeling alone on her father's birthday. it ends with evelyn doing taxes with her family. I may not remember this right so dont correct me this is what i remember BUT!!!! thats not the point the point is that its an incredibly abstract way to view the movie when thats not what the point of it all IS. the point of the whole movie is for evelyn to realise she fucked up A LOT and that doesnt make her a horrible person but it does mean she has to apologise and that joy DOES deserve an apology and joy DESERVES to live and she has to save her because she is her mother and she loves her and she is willing to be better if it means that joy gets to live or stay in her life. THATS the point but you miss the point when you frame it in that abstract way so endings always have to be very set in stone and multiple events, an entire ARC because that determines how you're going to write THE ENTIRE THING and what things you choose to include or remove. like if nameless ends with kaede killing everyone and the world exploding theres no reason for me to include these really hopeful messages and send the reader off course or to include symbols of love and immortality because that doesnt make sense when it ends the way that it does. even if it DID make sense it sends a WHOLE other message. even through hope, it is hopeless <- not the message i intended but because i wrote the ending the way i did, people are going to interpret it this way. this is also why im not a fan of my older work, propaganda, having like. multiple endings. because there really truly honestly is no reason why i decided to make it have 3 different endings other than I couldn't decide on one because I didn't plan the ending out before I started writing the story.

This is why the action plan exists. my osomatsu san character analysis is lacking this action plan most likely because i kept it somewhere else probably online but it doesnt matter because i dont REMEMBER it existing so it probably DIDNT exist. i can remember my nameless action plan that was 2 years ago (yes i went and checked to make sure) i didnt even remember i wrote other drv3 fics other than the multichapters out now and a good song never dies SO WHAT IS GOING ON THERE. if i am not referring to the action plan then im clearly not going to have a good grasp on what the hell is going on in there

of course those that may know me are reading this like "you dont plan. your stories" And they're right. I don't. the action plan section is solidifying how i view the characters, what i think should happen with them because i LOVE juggling plot lines, but most importantly, the ending. a solid REAL ending not an abstract version of it or an idea i mean like REAL SOLID FOUNDATION. as an example for the nameless ending IM NOT ABOUT TO TEL LYOU HOW NAMELESS ENDS DONT WORRY i have it set up so that i have the setting, the major event that happens, the effect of this, the aftermath with all the characters, and then if i want a key detail in there that i think is important. this comes FIRST. ALWAYS. i can only ever start with the ending when im planning a story because otherwise i have no idea what to do with all the other moving parts and i add too many variants and then i end up with 3 different endings and i cant choose because im indecisive and ive put out TOO MANY SIGNS there are TOO MANY WAYS this could end for the readers.

but yeah. i mean i make it sound way more complicated than it is but i mean this so seriously doing character studies are so fun. i love immersing myself in a piece of media. this is a real fucking story i got so deep into drv3 character study that i started laughing like kokichi. and that lasted for a few weeks or something i dont remember. but really doing character studies is all up to how YOU do it. its important to note that when im going through a piece of media for analysis, i first comb through the parts that are most important for me to understand a character. so drv3 the character hangouts, their chapters where they shine the most, important scenes that i can remember off the top of my head, and then i go through the whole thing over again. im doing this with succession right now though its kind of hard because succession is a very all killer no filler show so choosing the MOST IMPORTANT episodes is based entirely on who is important and what important moment happens and if that affects EVERYONE. i will have to watch through succession again and i will have to see what i missed, if i missed anything, which is likely a no. you can do whatever notetaking style you want, whatever works for you, but i love doing brain dumps and then going back and highlighting what is important to me for quick reference. im just not a very organised person and im not ever going to become one so i might as well embrace it and work around it right if plans bore me i might as well do things on the seat of my pants because thats the only way to keep me engaged

VERY sorry this was so long but i love talking about this stuff and i love dumping my brain out. this is very therapeutic for me i think

#fae's asks #authorisms

[coyotevallie]

Oh you listen to TMA?, well would you recommend it?

i did listen :D!! not much anymore haha but i was real into it back in like 2020 (: and well . that is a VERY layered question bc i have very mixed feelings about tma as a podcast sorry anon im sure u were hoping for a cut and dry yes or no but alas .... i ramble

so basically short answer is that if you want to get into non-dnd fiction podcasts and be an active member of fandom for them i would highly recommend you listen to tma not even out of tmas own original quality but just because its So popular and its made Such an impact on the fiction podcast landscape . i would recommend wtnv for a similar reason but also just because wtnv is just great and a wonderful listen (and my special interest lol) - SOOO many people around you are gonna be referencing tma and referencing the entities and listening to at leaset a good chunk of it at least once will make your experience in the fiction podcast fanbse more enjoyable because when people say stuff like . idk "sydney would be a corruption avatar" youll understand wtf theyre saying . so just on a very functional level id recommend you listen to it just so you understand the references that people around you make (:

whether i would recommend tma based on its own merits is .... more complicated . because tma is one of those pieces of media where the good attributes are REALLY INCREDIBLY GOOD and the bad attributes are very noticeable, and some of those can even be the same thing - for example, while ive had many in depth discussions about how poorly implemented i think the entities system is and how frustrating it is that theyre so poorly balanced throughotu all the episodes, i still think its one of the most genius pieces of world lore ive seen and does an AMAZING job at accurately encapsulating every single fear you could think of.

so basically, while i would recommend tma both because it has some VERY amazing aspects and because it had such an Impact on fiction podcasts that itll be tricky to avoid it if u wanna keep getting into narrative podcasts, i would recommend you examine it critically while you do so. like by all means have fun its GREAT the horrors creepy its popular for a reason!! but also make sure youre able to examine the writing flaws, both the ones that are just writing issues (like the pacing problems) and the ones that probably come to mind more when you think of "examining media critically" (like the narratives Very odd relationship to the police) . basically i would recommend checking it out and i think its very likely youd enjoy it but dont get too attached to it that you cant handle valid criticism because there is a LOT of valid criticism to be made

also ive heard stuff about ethics issues with the production company itself, im not really caught up on which parts of that are real and what the accepted appropriate ways to handle it are (like i said im not actively keeping up with tma anymore so i dont really know much about the good or the bad rn), but basically i wouldnt contribute to the the magnus protocol kickstarter (its got enough money as it is) and would instead support your favorite smaller podcasts instead (: theres loads to support if u wanna support a podcast financially!! blue mayfield (creator of camp here and there) in particular is struggling quite a bit, thats a good place to support (:

but again to wrap it all around this isnt a post dissuading you from listening i WOULD suggest you listen to it to understand what other people say about it in podcast spaces as well as because it genuinely has some really good creepy episodes and strong compelling characters w interesting dynamics and some really good examinations into themes like what it means to be human or the nature of fear and where it comes from . its definitely an enjoyable listen and one id recommend listening to at least once to anyone who wants to get into fiction podcasts and interact with the fanbase in any way!! i loved it in 2020 and i still adore many of the characters now (: i just have a lot of emotions about it lol im sure this is a way longer and more convoluted answer than you were hoping for whoops </3

#basically id recommend it but like #get into other podcasts too yk yk

[the-sunshine-dims]

I posted 3,597 times in 2022

That's 2 more posts than 2021!

193 posts created (5%)

3,404 posts reblogged (95%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@emphasis-on-the-oopsie

@stillebesat

@theatresweetheart

@djpurple3

@spinaroos-47

I tagged 544 of my posts in 2022

#fin speaks - 147 posts

#toh spoilers - 121 posts

#toh - 53 posts

#thanks to them spoilers - 40 posts

#the owl house - 34 posts

#the worm house - 30 posts

#jwcc spoilers - 26 posts

#fin liveblogs - 23 posts

#self reblog - 20 posts

#jwcc season 5 - 19 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#even if people have the oportunity to see my past fandom sins (*cough cough* south park *cough cough*) i just dont like moving all my stuff

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

three seconds

After months of inactivity i present you a fic for a different fandom becuase it emotionally wrecked me

ao3

Words: 1355

Summary: Hunter runs from the owl house

Contents and Warnings: hollow mind spoilers, hunter angst, ambiguous/open ending, implied/referenced child abuse,

_____

It took exactly three seconds for everything to crash down onto Hunter.

 Every horror, every emotion.

 And the terrifying realization that his unc- Belos, wanted to kill him.

Three seconds and he couldn’t breathe. trying desperately to get air in his lungs but it just didn’t work , he felt like was choking and he ripped his cape off- the cape he had held beloved only mere hours earlier- and just stared at it in abstract horror, the sudden taste of bile mixed with dirt overwhelming his senses.

 He needs to run.

 He needs to hide .

See the full post

48 notes - Posted June 2, 2022

#4

i grief ordered a flapjack plush right after thanks to them aired from the mystery shack and its so funny because

man looks like everyone did, we all coping dhdh

51 notes - Posted October 20, 2022

#3

ah yes, the episodes after kings tide, their actually my favorite <3

85 notes - Posted October 6, 2022

#2

what kind of monster

Ao3

Words: 5.8k 

Summary: “Sometimes people just aren’t good”

Hunter, knew that,

 But what did that mean for him, who even after everything, still missed belos?

(or: Hunter, after thinking about it for a while, asked Eda a question, and then promptly internalized the answer. but eventually, it all comes to a head, and he gets comfort and some more answers that he may not know what to do with, but will help him cope in the future)

Contents and Warnings: minor injury, hunter angst, lots of mentioned child abuse and manipulation, panic attacks, abuse mindset, hurt/comfort, happy ending, post-season two finale, minor character death (belos),

______

“Sometimes people just aren’t good”

That answer had repeated in Hunter's brain on loop for days.

 He still didn’t know how to feel about it.

See the full post

91 notes - Posted August 2, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

i’m never ganna stop crying about the fact that becuase eda never taught king to call her mom litterally everytime he just calls her her name it has the same meaning, like at least at first he probably learned her name through other people calling her it, and then her calling herself that, so little baby king was just like “:] yeah that’s eda” with the same weight as “:] yeah that’s my mom” becuase thats how kids work, to him eda is just interchangable with mom, becuase eda is his mom, and his mom’s name is eda.

and that is what she is to him, she raised him, she always looked out for him, she always protected him, she even managed to get a human to help her out when king lost his burgerqueen crown, becuase it mattered to king, so she did everything she could to get it back.

she is his mom, she just doesnt call herself it, so king never calls her it. also even once he realizes ‘yes he once had a biological parent’ he only even considers his dad, he doesnt even acknowledge that he probably had a mom too, becuase in his mind, that role’s taken already.

like shes literally just his mom, she raised him since he was a hatchling, she always took care of him, she even had one of those ‘becuase i said so’ moments in season 1 with him acting like a son would, groaning and pouting before going along with it anyways  also i know this is already probably pretty well known becuase he literally changed his name to king clawthorn which from the scene has the weight of adoption.

but still, everytime he calls eda ‘eda’ its the same as him calling her ‘mom’ and that is making me emotional. 

104 notes - Posted May 10, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #false #fin speaks #it is halarious to me that i have posted exactly twice more then last year

[lettheladylead]

If ducktales was still on going what would you like to see in season 4? Main theme of it? What path would you choose for Goldie, cause I'm assuming we all want more of Goldie

of course there'd be more Goldie! Allison Janney finished up with Mom and has more time for voice acting so Goldie can appear more often, lets do it

so obv my ideal scenario would be to take what we had of s3 and stretch it out into two seasons, BUT since thats not an option lets say we're starting right from where we left off. season 3 would need to do some fun stuff like:

awkwardly address Webby and Scrooge’s relationship (& Beakley's of course)

bring back Goldie and Louie's relationship and give us some good content

continue with the Darkwing Duck/Negaduck storyline

soooooo. okay. new big bad for season 4: Shere Khan (from Talespin)! he's a super corrupt business rival of Scrooge's. they dont work together often 'cause they're from very different parts of the world, but they've crossed paths a few times. Khan has decided that McDuck Enterprises has gotten in the way of his own business too many times and he's going to try and destroy Scrooge and ruin his business

he'd recruit some villains from other seasons who managed to escape to help him with his plans. people will do anything for money and he has a Lot of money

the big character arc would focus on Scrooge (with some Webby and Huey to make up for last season) and Scrooge learning to accept the flaws in the people he loves and just because their decisions don’t always make him happy doesn’t mean they don’t love him. or whatever something like that.

ok here ive put together every episode because i felt like it and i’m a completionist. i tried to make it seem like regular DuckTales except with a little bit more Goldie for my own joy and pleasure

CLICK HERE FOR A SPREADSHEET WITH CHARACTER APPEARANCES

4x01 - No, Wait, There’s More!: 

(Plot A:) Scrooge and Webby and Beakley content. They just talk about things mostly (beakley apologizes for lying to webby and for not telling scrooge that webby was made by fowl. ‘you didnae know she was mine?’ ‘no, i had no idea, i just knew she shouldnt be raised by those criminals’) and they go on a tiny little adventure together. Ends with Webby deciding to continue to call Scrooge ‘Uncle Scrooge’ because ‘Dad’ feels weird for her (scrooge feels uncomfortable with her decision but doesnt bring it up cuz beakley tells him to leave it be).

(Plot B:) The villains who escaped from FOWL and are trying to get their shit back together 

Ep ends with quick scene of Shere Khan being annoyed while watching the news

4x02 - School of Ducks:** 

(Plot A:) School episode! Lena and Webby both learn about the joys of public school. Violet and BOYD are there, too. A cute ep with little school shenanigans. Maybe they all get detention or something. Also there's like short clips of all the adults doing boring adult things (cleaning, taxes, Della @ therapy with jones) while the kids are like "this is so boring I wish I was a grownup doing whatever I want!" and it'd be funny

(no Plot B)

4x03 - On the Open Sea: 

(Plot A:) Donald and Daisy & May and June on the open seas and they see the Mervanans and have fun boat adventures!

(Plot B:) Della & Penumbra get into some shenanigans in Duckburg and fight the Beagle Boys together and it’s kind of a double parallel to the Don/Daisy stuff and also referencing the Webby/Lena stuff from S1.

4x04 - First Contact With Khan:

(Plot A:) Scrooge is looking for a new money manager storyline ft Webby with a brief mention/appearance of Goldie (scrooge makes some reference to being webbys dad just to see how she reacts, she does not). Shere Khan contacts Scrooge about them merging or collaborating on something blah blah.

(Plot B:) Huey & Della travel to Grandma Duck’s farm to help Huey learn better ways to express himself? or maybe Huey wants to earn a farming badge lol

4x05 - Depends On Who You Ask:

(Plot A:) Fenton & M’ma are interviewing all of the captured F.O.W.L. agents about their roles in what happened, all of them tell wildly different stories about how innocent they are (captured people...Steelbeak, Rockerduck/Jeeves, Don Karnage).

(Plot B:) Webby goes camping with the Sabrewings!

Ep ends with Shere Khan paying Don Karnage’s bail. (Rockerduck also gets out of jail because of his own money, but Steelbeak is stuck for now)

4x06 - The Sounds of St. Canard:

(Plot A:) Launchpad and Dewey visit St Canard and there’s an adventure with Gosalyn and Drake where Negaduck/Jim shows up and goes cwazy (several dwd villain appearances, including morgana!).

(Plot B:) Muddlefoots being completely average normal citizens but they’re funny

Ep ends with the plots colliding when Honker and Gosalyn and Dewey meet and they all become buds

4x07 - The Duck Cousins:

(Plot A:) Huey Dewey Louie and Webby are getting into some shenanigans which reminds Scrooge of Della Donald Gladstone and Fethry. Cue an entire flashback episode about Della Donald Gladstone and Fethry as older teens! This episode includes: Duckworth, Quackfaster, the Caballeros, Goldie, & if you squnt there’s a brief appearance of Daisy. 

(no Plot B)

4x08 - Another Tale to Spin:**

(Plot A:) Kit and Della have kept in contact since the end of S3 and he and Molly come to visit. They have some kind of crazy adventure involving flying or whatevs I’m sure it’s exciting also Beakley and Launchpad are there! 

(Plot B:) Baloo and Rebecca are on vacation and they’re staying at a hotel up in the Dawson area. Fun fact this is Goldie’s hotel and we get to learn a little bit about how Goldie lives her life away from Scrooge. 

Ep ends with Kit and Molly overhearing Scrooge talk about Shere Khan and they’re both like UHHH....

4x09 - The Midas Touch:

(Plot A:) Magica is attacking Scrooge, trying to get her hands on his dime. The episode involves a lot of standard characters and feels like it jumped right out of the comics/the 87 series (but with Della instead of Donald). The boys and Webby and Della are trying to help in the fight against Magica, but the Beagle Boys are making their way towards the Money Bin! The ep ends with Scrooge’s victory, and then Ludwig Von Drake closes a book and talks to the audience like ‘vell zat’s how I remember it!’ 

(no Plot B)

4x10 - It’s a Hard Knock Life:

(Plot A:) Glomgold and Gibbous try to recruit all the Moonlanders to work for Glomgold Industries and its a mess because obviously Penumbra knows about Glomgold thanks to Della. Also I think it’d be funny if one of the Moonlanders had a baby with an earthling. 

(Plot B:) Fenton and Gandra are showing Huey how to fight and they talk about being a little crime fighting team. 

Plots converge when Penumbra shoots a laser at Glomgold and accidentally sets a building on fire, so FGH show up to help.

4x11 - A Tale of Two Kitties:

(Plot A:) After the warnings from Kit and Molly, Scrooge feels weird about business with Shere Khan. Against his better judgement he reaches out to Goldie, who has also dealt with Khan before, and Goldie shows up and they tell a story about Shere Khan to Louie & Webby. 

(Plot B:) Shere Khan is telling the same story to his assistant & Don Karnage, but obviously it’s a very different version where he’s justified in everything he does. In his story, he breaks Splatter Phoenix out of prison (takes place in the 60s, Splatter Phoenix is old now).

4x12 - Just Another Day:**

(Plot A:) Takes place on the same day at 4x13. Huey, Violet & BOYD are having a giant multi-step relay race/battle/I don’t know/brains vs brawn thing against Dewey, Gosalyn, & Louie (Louie shouldn’t be brawn but he really doesn’t think HVB can win). It ends when Launchpad and Drake crash land in the middle of the field and announce that it’s time for Gosalyn to go home. 

(Plot B:)   A day in the life of Gyro Gearloose. From the perspective of Lil Bulb! Also the Rangers live in Gyro's lab currently so they show up too

4x13 - Just Another Day, The Musical!:

(Plot A:) Takes place on the same day as 4x12. Scrooge, Webby & Lena were on an adventure in some magical Crystal Cavern, meanwhile Fenton & Gandra are also at the Crystal Cavern but as a date. Also Goldie is at the Crystal Cavern because she heard Scrooge was going. Shenanigans happen and they all get split up: Goldie, Gandra & Lena on one side, Scrooge, Fenton & Webby on the other. Also it’s a musical episode where everyone sings except maybe Gandra, I think she’d be the character that refuses to sing until the end. 

(no Plot B)

4x14 - Ladies On the Town:

(Plot A:) Matilda McDuck comes to town! Scrooge is busy so he asks Beakley and Quackfaster to show her a good time. It’s an old ladies episode. Hortense is brought up in detail. There’s some plot with bank robbery or guns or something really intense and funny and violent. 

(Plot B:) Scrooge publicly announces that McDuck Enterprises will no longer be working with Khan Industries. Khan saw this coming and takes it in stride, but also we find out that he’s broken Akita out of prison and is recruiting him for his own nefarious purposes.

4x15 - Homesick Seasick:

(Plot A:) Donald getting homesick, they get to south America and meet daisys sister Donna and her daughter April. they're hitting it off but Donald can't stop thinking about HDL when he watches the girls hanging out. 

(Plot B:) Gandra visits Steelbeak in prison. it's just an awkward time but we get some context for their relationship when they were in F.O.W.L. and Gandra says when he gets out maybe he could try being a good guy and he's like meh

4x16 - The McQuacks in St. Canard:

(Plot A:) Darkwing stuff with Negaduck. Drake finally adopts Gosalyn after they realize with full certainty that they're never getting her grandpa back. Some background St Canardians and DWD villains...Splatter Phoenix perhaps 

(Plot B:) Launchpad’s family is also there? Mcquack shenanigans in St Canard

4x17 - The Magic Man:

(Plot A:) Magica, Lena, Gene, Gladstone, Duckworth, & Djinn are all taken somewhere by Merlock. Gene has bad emotions about it because Merlock was one of his old terrible masters. Lots of magical emotions and Lena being a magical badass. 

(Plot B:) Phantom Blot and Pepper content but idk what they're doing. Probably wanting to plot but having no money so they have to get regular jobs. That’d be funny actually it’s all about them trying to hold down normal retail/office jobs

4x18 - Not Just the Klondike:

(Plot A:) Valentine’s Day ep!!! Lena and Violet come over and Violet’s like “I promised Hubert we’d hang out” but she’s lying actually she’s just trying to give Webby and Lena some alone time. She joins HDL and finds Huey begging Scrooge to tell the story of how he and Goldie first met. She’s interested, Dewey’s interested, Louie’s pretending not to be interested but he’s listening in. 

(Plot B:) Lena has something to tell Webby but then they see Beakley sneaking out and obv Webby thinks it’s a date so they follow her! Along the way they pass by lots of couples like Fenton/Gandra and Launchpad/Drake and Della/Penumbra and then in the end they find Beakley visiting a grave. Beakley’s like ‘my daughter, the woman who i told you was your mother, was born on feb 14 so this is where i always go’ and then Webby and Lena and Beakley just kind of sit together and it’s somber, very different from the Scrooge n Goldie shenanigans

4x19 - Good to Have You Back:

(Plot A:) Donald and Daisy return from their boat trip! May and June aren’t with them, they talk about how they really hit it off with Daisy’s sister so they’re going to stay with her for a bit and try going to school where no one knows who Scrooge McDuck is, then they can come back to Duckburg for the summer. Flashes over to Donna and May and June and Donna’s daughter April hanging out. 

(Plot B:) Akita is working in his brand new lab financed by Shere Khan. His lab assistant is...Sara Bellum? But she’s not a villain! Or is she? What’s going on? Le gaaaassspppp, we just don’t know! But she’s definitely acting a little off. Very cooperative. Shere Khan comes in to observe a few times. He blasts Don Karnage at some point who starts acting like a monkey and being generally weird

4x20 - Dewey’s Day Off:     

(Plot A:) Dewey gets in trouble and can’t go with the rest of the family on some trip, but somehow ends up spending the entire day with Boyd. They have a lot of fun and bond over literally everything and his punishment ends up not being much punishment at all lol  

(Plot B:) Magica uses Bradford-bird and a lot of resources and blahblah using time travel she ends up finding Poe and brings him to the future. She tries to change him back to a duck but he only gains the ability to talk, not to do magic or anything. Now Magica has two cool birds

Plots don’t converge but there’s some visual parallels

4x21 - Sharp Luck:

(Plot A:) Goldie and Louie and Gladstone. I'm thinking Goldie needed Louies help for something and either she tells a story about getting Gladstones help in the past or Gladstone runs into them and they all work together. And Goldie wears green! 

(Plot B:) Fethry and Gyro and Gandra and Fenton are doing sciencey things together. 

Ep ends where Gyro finds out Akita is no longer in prison and then the screen fades over to Akita’s lab where we see him doing bad shit

4x22 - Musings of a Bengal Tiger: 

(Plot A:) All about Shere Khan, how he became who he is. Some of his history with Scrooge and Baloo and Rebecca and the previous Don Karnage, but mostly focused on Shere. 

(no Plot B)

4x23 - Of Ducks, Dimes, and Destinies:

(Plot A:) Beginning on the end. Shere and Akita use mind control ray to gradually make all the people in Scrooge’s life go absolutely bonkers. They’re all acting in ways they should not. Scrooge’s stockholders start pulling out of the company and Scrooge is losing money FAST. They did not use the mind control ray on Scrooge ‘cause they want to make sure he’s fully aware of whats happening. Glomgold is super excited about becoming the richest duck in the world but then Shere Khan comes into Duckburg and Glomgold realizes Shere Khan is richer than him. Shere Khan references their bet from S2 and says he didn’t care about it nor is he a duck so....”go away, worm” and Glomgold slinks away angrily

4x24 - Of Ducks, Dimes, and Destinies: 

(Plot A:) Scrooge and Huey and Webby work together to find out how to fix everyone. Gyro becomes the Mad Ducktor. Goldie is like NegaGoldie. Donald is Paperinik/Duck Avenger. Della thinks shes a successful astronaut. Then suddenly Huey is the Duke of Making a Mess. There’s a whole bunch of these, you get it. They cant fix everyone til Akita’s device is destroyed. The device did not work on Boyd so hes helping too and there’s some Boyd and Gyro emotions

4x25 - Of Ducks, Dimes, and Destinies:** 

(Plot A:) Talespin cast help out (also Steelbeak because he should come back around). How does the end go??? Uhhh everything goes back to normal and Shere Khan is outed for cruelty and villainy and hurting children maybe. Something about loving and accepting people as they are. This becomes a big Scroldie thing but also ties to Scrooge being a little put off by Webby not wanting to call him Dad in the first episode 

Season ends with a lot of hugs and talking and then Goldie introduces Scrooge to Dickie this kind of goes into the honesty/accepting people thing lol Goldie’s like “if you want something to accept then boy do i have a treat for you”

** - Dickie appears in this ep

CLICK HERE FOR A SPREADSHEET WITH CHARACTER APPEARANCES

#ducktales #shere khan #scrooge mcduck #della duck #goldie o'gilt #webby vanderquack #ducktales season 4 #mcsteamyby #carro answers

[dyketubbo]

yknow . people on twt claiming ran n jackie are like cc!beeduo is concerning not just bc. theyre wrong. but also bc that implies any characters played by the ccs are equal to the ccs which not only becomes concerning because it heavily blurs the line between c!beeduo (married and have a child) and cc!beeduo (friends that joke around), but also has like. very unfortunate implications about. how these people manage to engage with the dream smp and similar things by the creators, as well as roleplay content in general?

because see, the fact is is that some characters are more like the ccs than others, and that yes, shipping can be fucked up if the ccs dont consent, because the characters started off based after the ccs relationships and some still keep this aspect (techno and phil for example have a similar dynamic in and out of character), while many others.. dont. they actively play into different dynamics, ones that before certain developments would look kind of fucked up (c!tubbo and c!ranboo have a distinctly different relationship than the ccs, as do c!karlnapity vs the ccs). theres a difference between putting two or more characters with an established purely platonic relationship in a relationship that isnt friendship, and acknowledging that two or more characters are canonically established to be something other than just friends. yes dsmp being the way it is makes this line something that cannot be treaded because of how the ccs traits and personalities can shine through their characters, however.

that is purely because (most of) the characters are actively inspired by the ccs in some way and often share names. otherwise, the dream smp is just a normal roleplay. series connected to it like tftsmp are completely roleplay and very rarely have characters directly inspired by the people playing them. karl, connor, and glatt are the only characters who are from the dream smp storyline. all other characters are simply connected to the world, but may not even be in the same timeline. they are intentionally played to have different personalities, names, stories, and usually appearances differ as well, with them only referencing the dsmp characters/ccs, even their voices are often different! and the thing is, itd be ridiculous to say "these characters are basically just like the ccs" because, well.... ranbob isnt dream, yeah? helga isnt quackity, porkius isnt techno, laggius isnt fundy, geneviene isnt niki, crops isnt corpse husband, so. ran isnt ranboo, and jackie isnt tubbo. simple really.

yes, please do keep creator boundaries in mind when interacting with characters from the dream smp, but when it comes to stuff like tftsmp, thats just.. normal roleplay. it only comes off as concerning to act as if theyre Just Like The CCs, especially, yknow, considering the fact that the episode was about murder? jackies skin is tubbos cogchamp skin and rans name is from ranboo and both of them are voiced by beeduo but.. thats where the similarities end. they have different personalities, jackie flirts with ran and actively shows an attachment to him, ran is, much more aloof than ranboo is, theyre from a completely different time and setting, etc etc. tubbo and ranboo have expressed that the shipping boundary is about irl shipping- and that fictional content is okay as long as it doesnt go too far.

and well.. it concerns me that a simple kiss is enough to be considered Too Far? even pushing aside the general discussion about boundaries, theres one concern in particular that pops out to me. and thats the "theyre minors, so shipping them is wrong" argument. i have many many complicated feelings about this argument, but what i dont like about it is the implication that minors cant be in relationships. theres a difference between putting minors in sexual content, especially young ones (of which is not okay because minors cant consent) and. having two teenagers (one of which is 18 and the other turning 18 soon instory- and again, another reminder that ran and jackie arent beeduo) kiss briefly and not going any further after one flirts with the other throughout the fic and the other starts realizing they care and reciprocate.

queer minors deserve to have representation. queer minors deserve to be acknowledged. the relationship in the fic may be romantic leaning, but is also free to see as queerplatonic, its complicated and not even the main plot of the story, just the plotline that helps get the story to its climax. its a narrative device, which is what relationships in fictional media should be. the point isnt just. shipping two minors (which isnt inherently bad unless theyre either like. little kids, framed in a sexual way when the og content isnt like that, or sends some uncomfortable message in any other way), but it doesnt. really matter that its happening.

and see, its a fictional story inspired by fictional characters from a public roleplay thats vaguely connected to some other public roleplay, and.. people are acting as if its directly connected to two of the people behind the roleplay that the other roleplay is loosely connected to that the characters that the story is inspired by are from is just so. weird because even explaining how this connects to the actors outside of just "theyre the actors" is a goddamn mouthful that cant be as easily simplified into "romantic shipfic of the actors" because it just isnt.

overall its just. truly baffling that people who are fans of a roleplay where the bigass abuse storyline is played by Dream Was Taken Him Goddamn Self as the abuser cant wrap it around their heads that giving more life to practical background characters is in fact Not equal to shipping the ccs. twitter is a hellhole full of brainrot ig

#long post #discourse #negative #abuse ment #rpf ment #knifetrick #mask mews #sorry tak to bring discourse here but twitters character limit is frustrating and i need to Talk #a lot of this is probably disjointed and doesnt make that much sense but thats bc i. didnt feel like filtering my thoughts lol #this is so much. whoops #twitter frustrates me ok

[mcd-ms-rants]

I wrote the whole post and TUMBLR DECIDED TO DELETE THE WHOLE THING

anyways it’s finally here

take

STUFF I DIDNT LIKE ABOUT MYSTREET SEASON 4:

• ok but the animations here are great. actually tho they're so fluid and clear. Credits to whoever made them!!

• and now let’s do the real thing

• ok so first off this is where the actual plot starts. I know that some people were getting bored of the monotony of the slice of life episodes so they liked it. Again there’s nothing inherently wrong with having it but you have to remember that these characters most likely weren’t written to be in a plot and I say this because their personalities are funny and lighthearted. Their clearly meant for comedy. This also makes them redundant for plot since most of them a few characters barely have any development which is probably why like half the cast was dropped. im not sure how far back jess had planned the plot but needless to say most of the characters wouldn‘t be able to fit there. Travis, Katelyn, KC and the sk’s just dipped for the whole season and even when kc, Travis and Katelyn do show up in s5 their personalities really took a beating

• WHERE DID LAURANCE AND DANTE GO?? We never see them after s3. its probably because their personalities were too funny for plot but laurance was a shadow knight in mcd and since the whole of mys is so hyped up on the whole ‘mcd and mys are connected’ thing by all means he should’ve been there too

• it makes sense that since the lodge is jointly owned by the Ro’meaves and the Lycans, Garroth, Zane and Aaron- and by extension, Aphmau- would come along. it make sense that they would ask Lucinda for help- she’s a skilled witch and has been their friend since high school. theyre literally neighbors. it makes NO SENSE to being Kim- a girl whom they’ve barely ever interacted with and whom they barely know- to a place meant for close family to go to. Ok from a plot perspective yes Kim needed to be there but Aphmau logically doesnt know that yet.

• how does ghost/emmalyn even exist?? We’ve seen emmalyn and kenmur in s1 and they’re ok. not dead or anything. Yes I know that this is mcd emmalyn and she is directly referencing mcd Zane when she says that’s the only name she remembers from when she was alive but that raises two questions- first, how can both mcd and mys versions of her exist at the same time?? and second, what exactly happened between her and mcd zane?? It sounds like she either hates him way more than she loves kenmur (or she’d remember him too) that it’s the only name she remembers or its Stockholm Syndrome.

• I feel that since the plot demanded a ghost vessel thing that was the only reason Aphmau brought Kim. it’s pretty clear that Dante and laurance wouldn’t fit the role because of their personalities so she just remade an older character and changed her completely right down to her skin to fit the plot. her whole personality changes with it- look at her I mean she even becomes more open when she talks. Again this only happened because none of the existing characters could fill that role because IT WASNT MEANT TO HAVE PLOT

• no one likes you michi girl take the hint

• seeing liochant brings back meMoriEs

• what was that potion that lucinda made and which Garroth threw on Zane?? its clear that it cured him from the effects of the forever potion but the bigger question is WHY DONT THEY USE THIS IN S6?? Ok yes in s4 Aphmau gets freed by the power of love(TM) but that doesn’t mean you do that for everyone

• as someone who liked Laurance’s character I miss him :(

• ok there’s WAY TOO MANY PROBLEMS with Ein and his villain shtick. Ein is basically some obsessive werewolf yandere boy who has an unhealthy obsession with aphmau and hates Aaron. and the cherry on top is that Aphmau is his HALF SISTER. THATS INC*ST. That’s GROSS. What is it with Aphmau antagonists and not having a clear motive or backstory?? mcd Zane and Ein both suffer from this and it shows. there were definitely better motives to give him- he doesn’t have to be centered around Aphmau all the time!! And even if you don’t want to go to all the trouble of rewriting the plot you could at least make it so that Ein knows that he and Aphmau are related. Maybe he wants a perfect sister instead and he’s willing to go to any lengths to get her there. it would still be dark and serious but it would be SO MUCH BETTER than the current plotline. Also showing the contrast between his pdh and s4 self and then not giving any semblance of an explanation really makes it difficult to imagine where it all went wrong. yes Michael definitely had something to do with it but to what extent?? How much is Ein actually in control of?? Is he under the influence of a forever potion when he turns Zane, Lucinda and Aphmau to his side?? Is he still under its influence when he fights Aaron?? look I get that they can’t reveal everything but leaving out THIS MUCH and not even revealing it in s6 makes it very difficult to accurately nail Ein’s character.

• how is Aaron even revived?? is that Irene?? how is she here and what is she doing here?? Can we have answers pls. also it makes no sense that she saves Aaron TWICE- once in s4 and second in s6. How does death even work here if Irene can just swoop in and bring them back to life. i feel like none of the villains ever count as threats then because you know that a cryptic mysterious goddess who somehow looks just like your girlfriend will revive you.

• how did Aaron even survive?? No seriously how?? We know that there’s no service or wifi up there at the lodge so using their phones is out of the question. i don’t think Lucinda would be able to conjure up a whole medical team for Aaron. and they're on a MOUNTAIN. It takes precious time to get down from it. for context, even if they sent Garroth (since he’s the fastest) down to get help they’d have to wait for him to reach the village area at the base of the mountain, get a phone, call for help, wait for said help to arrive and get Aaron to a hospital. meanwhile Aaron is bleeding out from multiple gashes on his chest made at like point black range that are critical at best and fatal at worst. (his only saving grace is the snow he’s on which would help to numb the wound because its cold but he has like FIVE deep chest wounds and the snow isn’t even on his wounds.) Ya sorry I don’t see how he manages to survive.

• did I mention that I miss Laurance?? • Why is Aaron not at a hospital I don’t even see a ventilator or oxygen mask near him. Listen I’m not a medical expert but those gashes landed straight on his chest which means straight on his lungs and dangerously close to his heart. how is he alive. how is he not choking on blood right now. we know he’s bleeding out- I’m pretty sure one of the doctors even says “Mrs Lycan, we need to draw more blood for your son.” yes he’s bleeding out why is no one trying to idk stop the wound through pressure with a cloth or something?? (Note: it’s been a while since I’ve watched s4, so if I do get anything wrong thats why!!) also why are the werewolf doctors so chill about Aaron’s ultima eyes? like yes they’re doctors they could’ve been sworn to secrecy or maybe they work for the Lycans but Derek is shown to be really paranoid about anyone finding out about Aaron being the ultima. how does he know they won’t tell it to someone else??

k imma head out now-

thanks for reading!! <3 <3

#zane ro'meave #garroth ro'meave #aphmau #aaron lycan #lucinda #aphmau kim #mystreet #s4 rant #ya this one is longer than the others but I feel like the more the plot the more the inconsistencies

[meteorherd]

☕️ knuckles and/or tikal :]

ohhh girl help this literally just devolved into a rant about sega/sonic team but echidna-themed this time HDFHKJHDJ such are the woes of being a sonic fan u_u

OKAY knuckles first...he seriously has some of THE coolest lore in the franchise i think and ultimately that's really what draws me to him. i feel like much like sa2's plot is so reliant on shadow's lore, sa1 is reliant on knuckles' lore. like you genuinely could not have sa1 without knuckles and his relating plot elements in it and UGHHH. i miss when he had that much of an importance on the plot in sonic games. i think the era from adventure 1 to heroes had the best characterization of him, where he's still serious and determined and a little bit of a grump because knuckles is always at his best when he's just a little grumpy i think. that's honestly one of my favorite things about sonic heroes, it's basically his first time off the island that doesn't have to do with the master emerald and he's just complaining about how bright and loud everything is i love him. king.

and his progression from a reluctant ally with sonic to an actual friend who wouldn't really admit he's sonic's friend (just singing "i have no such thing as weak spots" out of absolutely nowhere. "this partnership is only temporary" so cool knuckles...no one asked but thank you) to officially being a part of team sonic is SOOO good...i feel like in the adventure era knuckles easily had the most prominent character development out of the cast, and the only one you could really argue was on that level of going through an arc was shadow.

WHICH brings me to my opinion that the moment shadow became a breakout character is the exact moment when sonic team decided to botch knuckles' writing to make him differ from shadow more, since at that point in time they both fell under "stoic determined foil to sonic" and then they just. effectively ended up ruining both the characters' writing in the process. great job sega. i think in a way shadow effectively became the new knuckles after his introduction if that makes any sense? both in terms of becoming the more prominent "foil" to sonic and in terms of popularity compared to how knuckles was super popular in the classic era (like to this day knuckles and shadow are the only characters aside from sonic [and tails if you count tails adventure] to have titular games w/knuckles chaotix and shth...and so much early knuckles stuff advertised him as "cool" in the same way sega tries to market shadow as cool...it's just very interesting to me).

i think sega has this very weird mindset that in order to be someone's foil you have to be their rival or enemy. -_- and i think it's the most evident with how quickly they changed how they wrote knuckles to become a comic relief character once they decided shadow was sonic's new foil, and then how quickly they jumped on shadow being sonic's edgy rival because of the same decision. so i feel like all bad writing shadow and knuckles face is always gonna be intertwined with the other.

i feel like a lot of people's "solution" to this is that knuckles just shouldn't be allowed to be goofy, ever, but i feel like that's kind of ignoring the problem with his inconsistent writing too. because i like when knuckles is a little silly! one of my favorite moments of him is actually from the racing overdrive short where he mocks rouge as he drives past her DHFHKJDHK its so good. but i think what makes it good is that that's actually knuckles himself choosing to be silly in that moment? whereas a lot of sega deciding knuckles is the comic relief stems from making him the butt of a joke and him being unaware of it. and i think that sucks :( because i actually think knuckles being gullible or more naive in trusting others is actually a REALLY good part of his character and reflects how different his background is to the other characters. but it's just at the point where it's so obvious sega doesn't think that's interesting pertaining to him, it's just about how they can make another unfunny scene surrounding it about him being "stupid."

OKAY SO MUCH WOW UMMM so i dont have too much for tikal in comparison solely because she just isnt around as much as knuckles, but i REALLY wish they'd continued to reference her...i feel like it wouldve been pretty easy, maybe just lines here and there about knuckles (or hell. even sonic) hearing her spirit? i think about her so much because her fate just makes me really sad :( plotwise her story was super cool to add in sa1 though. i think one of my favorite things thats referenced in sa2 is tikal's prayer about the chaos emeralds...even though he doesnt directly say her name, knuckles uses the same prayer to nullify the chaos emeralds and i really miss that sort of continuity from previous games because it really showed that knuckles still cared about tikal and remembered her words :')

oh and also. i just think tikal should have spiked knuckles too. she deserves it and sega are cowards

#THANK YOU RAF :) #oh and benny if you are reading this i am still going to talk about knuckles in your ask too ^_^ #i will never turn down the opportunity to talk about knuckles #werehog #mailbox

[ectonurites]

Batcest shippers read comics, actually. And they write them, and draw for them. Please continue to make a fool of yourself pretending otherwise.

i got ranty here so the tldr: yeah no shit, you’re taking something i tweeted entirely out of context, i’m well aware of those facts and im not ‘pretending’ anything lmao

onto my full response:

i see you must have come from my twitter! and yeah, i’m unfortunately aware there are people who ship batcest working for dc, its super upsetting! the person who designed the current red hood outfit just posted j*ydick on their twitter today, which is horrifying to see.

like listen im not... im not gonna go out and harass people for shipping batcest. I literally do not have the energy, and I know I’m not gonna be convincing anyone of anything bc the people who chose to ship batcest have made their choice there.

but I’m always gonna advocate for like, those people TAGGING THEIR SHIT so that especially minors but also anyone else who doesn’t want to see fuckin’ incest doesn’t need to. And like, the creation of lists of what creators are making that stuff so people can block and move on? I also think that’s good. Like I don’t think people should go harass anyone over this because its just... theres no point. But letting people who don’t want to see it know who to block so they can move on? that’s a good thing.

The comments of mine I think you’re specifically talking about were about a specific but common type of fanon batcest shipper, because like... immabe real! its very clear a lot of the batfam community on here in general don’t read the comics, (like, as in many people will OPENLY ADMIT that they don’t) and thats not even an inherently bad thing, like people are allowed to interact with media how they want to! But when people get so divorced from canon by only reading fanworks or versions of characters that have been altered and their relationships altered, its easy for misconceptions about all of it to spread, and people to be shipping pairings that literally bear no resemblance to the canon versions/relations of the characters. This isn’t even exclusive to the people shipping batcest. However with the people shipping batcest like... its when those relationships in canon get blurred by just a fanon game of telephone that it becomes easier for them to justify shipping it, you know? That was the point I was trying to make on twitter (i think it was last night? this morning? i dont remember. its 1am rn time is fake)

but like, i’m sorry but in current canon Jason, Dick, Tim, and Damian all consider each other siblings (and Jason had even made a comment at one point in rhato about having four brothers, meaning he probably includes Duke too!). That is... canon. You can see multiple instances of this if you’re reading current comics. And while they have complicated relationships with Bruce, they do all consider him a father (even when Jason says he doesn’t- he literally flip flops on it depending on how he feels in a given day because of his trauma and stuff, but like there will be times only a few issues apart where he will or won’t admit Bruce is his dad). All of these characters have been adopted (or in Damian’s case obv adoption wasn’t necessary) by Bruce in canon at different times (and Cass also, but that’s only in pre new 52 as of right now)

If you are chosing to ship any of the siblings together (or any of them with bruce) you are chosing to ship incest. That is an active choice you are making, and you have to accept the consequences of that. Any judgement/backlash you face for shipping incest is something you are accepting by chosing to ship it.

And if you go “oh but they’re only adopted siblings not REAL siblings-“ you’re an asshole, because adopted siblings are real siblings. I don’t care if they didn’t grow up together, do you realize how invalidating that is towards like, real life people? The amount of people I’ve seen who are adopted themselves get insanely triggered and upset by that kind of content (not just in this fandom btw!) because it just shows people don’t see those familal bonds as being real? It’s not insignificant.

I know ‘media affects reality’ is a controvercial topic, and like obviously ‘i see this thing in media thus i will do it’ is NOT how it works, but the things you normalize/glorify in media you consume says a lot about your thoughts on the topics. Framing matters. Like obviously ‘haha i watch hannibal, gonna go eat people now-‘ is not the case. especially because that media doesn’t frame it as a good thing. That’s the thing I think people miss in these discussions a lot of the time. If you are like ‘i am going to explore how traumatizing incestual relationships could be through these characters’ with batcest? like go off! that could be interesting honestly, and that’s not glorifying it. But acting like ‘omg i just think its so romantic ❤️’ with stuff between characters who canonically are siblings... again you are accepting the judgement that may come your way by publicly doing that.

anyways, i’m well aware of how prevalent batcest is both in the comics industry and around here, i’m aware plenty of them do read comics, and you definitely missed the context in my tweets of me saying things like “a lot” “it feels like many” etc when saying batcest shippers don’t read comics. Context matters my dude ✌️ (also wanna point out, a lot of really gross people work in comics. Racist people, antisemetic people [even today there was some controversy abt that in some hulk comic i believe?] these people being in those industries is... not a good thing even if its normalized???)

But really I think its kinda funny to uh call me a ‘fool’ for something you think I’m doing because you took my words out of context. And maybe you weren’t trying to come off as smug but you absolutely do here and it just strikes me as very funny that you like... are acting like you’re smarter than me or better than me for being okay with incest being normalized in a fandom for superhero comics, a type of media that MANY KIDS READ AND PARTICIPATE IN DISCUSSION ABOUT, while I’m bothered by it.

I don’t talk about this stuff much on here because again, I don’t want to fight about it, I’m not gonna go out of my way to try to change people’s minds on any of it because I know that won’t accomplish anything, I much prefer to just... ignore the content I don’t want to see, maybe warn other people especially minors who also don’t want to see it, and move on with my life. You really didn’t need to bring this to my inbox here, but like go off I guess 🤷

editing this quick just to add in the tweets i made i think this anon is referencing that i very clearly started with ‘so many of them’, not me saying it applies to all of them

#long post // #incest tw #anonymous

[springfieldblues]

my long ass review for S32E03 Now Museum, Now You Don’t

warning: LONG because i rambled about history more than i thought i would

id been looking forward to this one because i like art history, especially after seeing how they tried their best to stick to historical accuracy in the previous episode I, Carumbus. this time however….they didnt try that hard. i dont know why i thought theyd go through that sort of trouble again LMAO

but its okay, i dont really expect the simpsons to be the paragon of historical accuracy or anything. especially in anthology episodes told through a particular character's lens (in this case, lisa, whos already feverish so whatever)

first i just wanna say that this is, i guess, less of a review and more of an accidental list of history fun facts. so im just gonna get my general thoughts out of the way first.

the episode was fun! to me at least haha. i mean it got me to think and do a lot of research on my own so that must count for something. besides a couple of really weird ones, the jokes were good. anthology episodes tend to be….not that good but i thought this one was one of the better ones so far. idk.

anyway on to lisanardo da vinky its the renaissance! jesus christ the italian accents in the beginning of this segment were annoying as hell but i also feel like that was the joke lmao. ill be real i kind of tuned out for a second there when grampa started rambling so idk what he said.

i told myself i wouldnt get nitpicky with historical accuracy if the jokes were funny (final edit: so that was a lie) but this meh bit with the pizza guys and mascots was really not worth ignoring the fact that its impossible for italy to have any tomato-based food in the 15th century (tomatoes were brought to europe from the americas in the 16th century, and pizza as we know it today—flatbread, cheese, tomato—originated in the late 18th century)

oh this next part was kind of legit tho. lisanardo, like the real leonardo, became andrea del verrochio's apprentice at his workshop. i loved this next bit:

"Whoever paints the sweetest cherub will have the honor of having MY name signed on their work. That's what great artists do!"

SO YEAH as it turns out, lisanardo painted the sweetest cherubs. the painting here is called The Baptism of Christ, and the real leonardo assisted verrochio in finishing it. specifically, he painted the cherubs in the corner.

this causes verrochio to quit and go someplace with less talented people: a music school (yes, verrochio did quit painting after getting owned by young leo and his mad angel painting skills. he never did anything with music tho, he was more of a sculptor)

alongside lisanardo, in mr largo-verrochio's workshop we have barticelli (botticelli bart), dolphatello (donatello dolph), ralphael (raphael...ralph) and mediocrito (no one that i know of. sorry milhouse) (and kearney i guess but they dont refer to him by name). botticelli and donatello are said to have also been apprentices at verrochio's workshop, but raphael came a couple of decades later so he couldnt have been there. and donatello was too old so that claim is a bit questionable. but anyway

it IS true that leonardo's peers envied him, to the point where he was anonymously and purposefully accused of being gay (a major crime punishable by death in 15th century florence) while he was still working at verrochio's workshop

we are then treated by what im pretty sure is the fourth time the show has used 'at seventeen' by janis ian, this time sung by a dejected lisanardo (man they really do keep making yeardley sing these days huh) who only wishes to be appreciated and not envied.

"I'll show them all! I'll show them all in a secret diary that no one will decipher for 400 years!"

some of lisanardo's future inventions. who wouldve known

so after barticelli, for some reason (revenge??? or something?? what was his plan here idgi) steals lisanardo's diaries full of blueprints of her inventions and takes them to mr burns who i have to assume is pope alexander VI here, they decide to use her inventions for war.

"With these, we can kill the most evil people in the world!! ....Slightly different Christians."

leo actually did this of his own accord. im surprised this is what they decided to do with lisanardo instead of talking about leo's love of nature and vegetarianism (not a single mention of that in this episode? come on...) then again, trying to do good only to end up indirectly making things worse is a very standard lisa storyline. i guess they didnt want to miss the chance to have evil pope burns (very fitting, especially for that era since they were all about money and controlling the people)

so lisanardo decides to leave for france, unlike the real leonardo who was more or less persuaded by his ultimate fanboy king francis I to move to france.

"Lisanardo, I have many questions. Why are you hitting yourself? A nerd says 'what'? And how is it possible that I am rubber and you are glue? Et cetera, et cetera."

that line may seem a little random, like hes just nelson saying nelson things (and i mean, obviously he is) but the real francis also "had an unquenchable thirst for learning, and Leonardo was the world’s best source of experimental knowledge. He could teach the king about almost any subject there was to know, from how the eye works to why the moon shines." so yeah, he did have many questions and lisanardo, finally being appreciated for her intellect, was happy to answer them all. its very interesting how lisa assigned this role to nelson in her retelling of da vinci’s life :^)

and so she lived the rest of her days in france, nat king cole's 'mona lisa' plays because duh, and they make a da vinci code reference because duh. and the segment ends. and not a single time did they show the actual mona lisa painting. the fuck?

(ngl i was fully expecting bart to say 'leonardo da vinky' for a second here)

so this next segment is about french impressionist painters, most likely the batignolles group, a name adopted by the early representatives of impressionism. its much more vague than the lisanardo segment since no one here is referred to by name (except moe, more on him in a sec) but i dont feel like it really matters in this case. bart is prrrrooobably claude monet but its hard to say, this segment is kind of a mish-mash of a lot of things. also i gotta say i really liked how lisa introduced the story to bart with an 'if you hate the formal study of art' and not 'if you hate art' because thats exactly my headcanon. i LOVE the concept of artist bart and whenever its referenced it just makes perfect sense to me.

anyway the segment opens in 1863 at the école des beaux-arts (back then it was actually known as the académie des beaux-arts), preserver of traditional french art styles. skinner reviews his students’ paintings one by one. praises the plain, unimaginative paintings depicting your typical european countryside landscapes. very run-of-the-mill (haha get it...cuz theres….a windmill) (although the real académie didnt approve of such basic stuff, they wanted artists to draw epic historical and mythological scenes) then he gets to barts painting and he gives him an F- because the painting made him think.

(the paintings in this scene arent real famous paintings as far as i know but they are inspired by real paintings enough to get the point across)

in comes barney dressed as bacchus as a model for the students to sketch, which i just loved:

barney: “You prefer robe open or robe off?” skinner: “Just cover your privates with this walnut shell.” barney: “Whoa!!! So roomy!”

skinner gasps in horror at bart’s sketch, which “looks nothing like him” and bart explains that “it shouldn’t; we’re making the art that we feel because we can’t compete with a camera.” damn, you go bart. take that, realism. draw what you feel!!

(also no, you didnt need to hold still for 17 hours for a daguerreotype. 30 min tops.)

nelson haw-haw of the week: FOIE-gras!

so here they are at the moulin rouge (“enjoy it before baz luhrmann ruins it” hey shut up. i love that movie), which wouldnt be built for another 26 years, but it is the most widely known gathering place for bohemians in the public consciousness so i can understand why they went with the moulin. nelson delivers this anachronistic line:

“This époque keeps getting beller and beller!”

which alludes to la belle époque, the golden age of france usually dated from 1880 to 1914. made me snort so ill let that slide

and heres moe! as henri de toulouse-lautrec, who was actually born a year after the year this segment is set in. yo moe szyslak he was just 1

toulouse-moetrec introduces himself as the chronicler of the demimonde (not an actual job). an iconic figure associated with the moulin rouge (largely due to his affinity for alcohol and prostitutes), toulouse-lautrec was also a painter, having illustrated a series of posters for the moulin himself. he simply had to be in this segment, anachronisms be damned, just because they decided to include the moulin. cant have one without the other.

and yes he did have a walking cane where he kept his liquor.

i love how everyone drinks absinthe in this place. theyre bohemians what else would they drink

toulouse-moetrec points out that barts paintings are the greatest thing hes ever seen (and hes seen like five things!) and that hes a genius. milhouse realizes that they should stop doing what the teacher says and use their own minds to instead...start doing what bart says lmao. to the easels!

next we have skinner hyping up chalmers about the art his students made for the salon de paris, an art exhibition that the emperor of france will attend. he assures him that none of these paintings will encourage debate, provoke thought or be out of place at a dentist’s office. when they unveil the art, theyre both SHOCKED at how scandalous the paintings actually are.

this reaction was kind of accurate. impressionism was severely rejected at the salon de paris, due to paintings not looking finished enough to them, they thought they were ugly and vulgar for depicting nudity in a contemporary setting (historical and mythological nudity was fine). these impressionist paintings were sent to the salon de refusés, which is. yeah. the place where they sent the rejects. the salon de refusés does not make an appearance but this scene makes a reference to it when the artists get expelled from the royal salon. also:

“What about our student loans?” “Oh they’ll be refunded. We are not barbarians, I mean, come on.”

(god if only)

so the painters are down because they want the emperor to actually see their paintings. toulouse-moetrec pipes in once again with an idea.

“There is one thing the emperor loves more than anything.” “France?” “No, he hates France.”

apparently the emperor really loves cheese, which makes sense since its napoleon III (who loved cheese) and homer (who loves cheese.) so the painters roll into the salon inside a giant wheel of cheese (obviously.) as lenny said, “Eh, you know French cheese. Very runny.” napoleon III chases after the wheel into a room, where the wheel falls apart after getting chomped on by the emperor. now that they got his attention, the painters proudly show the emperor their impressionist art, which he couldnt be more indifferent about because he just wants to eat his cheese dammit, and he awards them with the royal medallion just to kind of get them out of his way. skinner immediately starts kissing ass (as he does) until marge’s like ‘hey wait a minute. you expelled these students from the royal salon’ and an executioner immediately starts ominously measuring skinners neck.

“Uh, sir...is your tongue sticking out because you’re dead or because you’re mad at me?”

and thats the end of that lmao (gore in this episode, gore in the last episode, and next week we’re getting gore too cuz its THOH, what the hell is goin on)

we get a short intermission with maggie, who wants a story for her too! lisa tells her that renaissance artists loved to put babies in their paintings, especially baby angels.

here she is showing her The Triumph Of Galatea by raphael:

King David Playing The Harp by peter paul reubens:

and a very simplified version of pretty much any depiction of hell by hyeronimus bosch lmao:

not much else to say about this one, really. but i really liked that sky!

the last segment is about frida kahlo and diego rivera. or as bart puts it ‘the one about a fat guy whos wife is too good for him.’ i was REALLY looking forward to this one because i love frida and i thought itd be a cool opportunity for animators to go bonkers and do really cool shit with her art as inspiration…..but the segment is not about frida, its about diego and his selling out to capitalism. and its also yet another story with homer and marge drama. no funky cool animation here. sigh i guess i’ll take it

the story begins in 1929 at la casa azul, frida’s home (now museum dedicated to her life and work.) frida and diego are getting married. this courtyard definitely did not look this way yet back in 1929. also theres something very cringy yet funny about lovejoy saying spanish words the way he does, i honestly cant decide how i feel about that one

the writers know theyre being cringy with their gringoness so they go along with it.

moe: “Spanish for ‘best wishes’!” mel: “Spanish for ‘congratulations’!” bumblebee man: “Spanish for ‘muy bueno’!”

OH YEAH BUMBLEBEE MAN this is his new voice actor, eric lopez! hes not mexican but its still great to finally have a latino actor voicing a latino character and hes very excited to be part of the show so i hope to hear more of him!! im rooting for him

el barto/zorro makes an appearance which i am very confused about. he has jack shit to do with frida and diego and mexico in the 20s-30s. el zorro was set in the spanish california of the early 19th century. their use of the original theme song makes me think they just wanted to flex their disney privileges tbh

lets not talk about that that whole scene was bad

anyway diego announces he and frida are going to new york, without even asking her first. frida is obviously pissed.

“Don’t worry, as a woman, you’ll be treated with much more respect in America.”

so in new york, diego is having a bit of a business meeting with mr burns as one of the members of the rockefellers, who is commissioning him to draw a mural for the rockefeller center. its kinda funny how he refers to him and frida as socialists even though they were very much communists lmao its okay you can say it. ok so far, but then frida says ‘yes, we hate the capitalists! right now, a young socialist is being born who will take them down! mr. bernie sanders. i hope hes quick about it’ and that was a simple enough joke and couldve been left at that but then its immediately followed by this weird as fuck family guy-esque cutaway gag to bernie as a baby:

“Getting a cootie shot should not cost your lunch money. And if you don’t listen to me, listen to the Bernie Babies! What? Everybody’s got goons.” *larger babies start beating up this other baby* “I disavow that, and welcome it.”

this confused me so much that i had to ask one of my american friends to help me understand, but even she was like ‘uhhh yeah thats a weird joke,’ especially now that hes been out of the race for months (then again these episodes take almost a year to produce. i guess they couldnt be bothered to replace it with something more relevant.) whatever that was weird and confusing and unfunny moving on

frida is pretty irked that diego is going through with this deal. after all, it goes against everything they believe in. im not sure how the real frida felt about diego doing the mural, but she did feel a bit of rage during her visit to the united states, especially the obvious disparity between rich and poor. she hated having to interact with capitalists and found americans very boring. in this segment, frida seems to be acting more like the american communist party, which diego got kicked out of for accepting commissions from wealthy patrons. in any case, frida is pretty upset about this whole thing.

and finally we get the first and only kind of surreal frida moment. kinda. maybe. its more cartoonish than anything but im desperate ok

interesting how they felt like they had to add a “don’t smoke” in big letters after showing patty and selma flying away on their giant cigarettes. i wonder if this is something theyre making them do now? i remember hearing something about them toning down patty and selma’s smoking

diego comes home to frida, drunk as hell, followed by the marx brothers. i cant believe they didnt make a marxism joke come on it was RIGHT THERE. THE MARX BROTHERS. KARL MARX. COME ON

frida paints her feelings.

this makes diego realize that frida is a genius and he is not half the artist she is. he proclaims he will now show his awe of her by sleeping with other women, starting “an hour ago.” to which frida replies, “and i will start sleeping with other women, starting two hours ago.” yes this was pretty much their relationship. though im just wondering how the hell did diego not know frida was this kind of artist until now? i know homers an idiot but jeez. art was how frida and diego met, diego knew from the get-go that frida was an incredible artist. i guess the fame got to his head or something. again, homer just being stupid.

“well enough already, while the art is still deco, okay?”

its time for the mural diego painted, Man At The Crossroads, to be unveiled:

rockefeller examines it. good and great so far, and then...uh oh

“Who’s that fellow…? With the beard, and the bolshevik smile…” “That’s the founder of Soviet Russia, Lenin!”

“B-b-but he’s a communist!” “Oh he just attended a couple of meetings.”

rockefeller will not have this communist in the temple to capitalism that is the rockefeller center, so he orders diego to paint over it. diego stands his ground and refuses. despite rockefeller’s threats, diego says that theres only one person he wants to be proud of him no matter what and in true homer & marge fashion, frida is touched by this. they happily leave the rockefeller center.

now, the real story of Man At The Crossroads and the rockefeller center was actually not that different. as soon as the rockefellers found out diego had snuck in a portrait of lenin into the mural, they ordered him to paint over it, to which he refused. diego even offered to include abraham lincoln and even american abolitionists in the mural as a compromise, but the rockefellers simply did not want any references to communism whatsoever. they did not complain about the hammer and sickle, though. yes, they did know diego was a communist and hired him anyway. what did they expect? lmao. diego said:

"Rather than mutilate the conception [of the mural], I shall prefer the physical destruction of the conception in its entirety, but preserving, at least, its integrity."

so they decided to destroy the mural before it was even finished and they never talked to each other again.

diego then repainted the mural at the palacio de bellas artes back in mexico, this time known as Man, Controller of the Universe. this new version included even more communist leaders and a depiction of john d. rockefeller jr. drinking at a nightclub, right underneath a depiction of syphilis bacteria. cue nelson haw-haw:

this was the version they used in the episode also, since the original was, well, never finished and also destroyed. only a black and white photograph of it exists, taken by diego before it was destroyed so he could remake it.

right so, homer!diego then pulls a Barthood and finishes the episode with a large mural summarizing the entire episode. he says some rick and morty thing i didnt get because i dont watch the show idk idc

the end

ALRIGHT NOW ITS TIME FOR THE STORY OF VINCENT VAN MOE

#if you read all of this bless you #the imageless gdocs version of this is 8 pages long #hope you...enjoy?!?! these art history fun facts?!?! #dont let me do something like this again but also let me know if i should do something like this again #i was really only motivated to do this because im already passionate about the subject so idk if i could do it otherwise #anyway. this took me all day yesterday because the power kept going out #but im finally done #bye