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ms-scarletwings · 7 months

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I am sorry to bother you but I have to say, I feel Dib got treated too harshly most of the time. It's the point of the story yes but at times it just feels flat out sadistic for no reason.

It's why the Gargantis Array comic storyline sucks to me, it was just two issues of buildup to make Dib a gross fat joke and humiliate him across space. Jhonen just really seems to love torturing Dib more than anyone and it's rarely even deserved.

Oh, this is the opposite of a bother, friendo!

I actually have a lot of reading to still do on the topic of the comics. I’m woefully only really up to good knowledge about issues 46-49 and a lot of bits of pieces otherwise. If what you’re saying rings true, that is sad to hear, but pretty interesting still. I’ve always in the back of my head been a little afraid that Dib’s karma could be flanderized to the point of making him a butt monkey. Especially when we all know that’s supposed to be Skoodge’s job! (waka waka)

As for the show, honestly? I think they managed the balance just fine. It’s not so much that the show was specifically cruel to him, but that sadism broadly was one of its central themes and there were no efforts made to exclude Dib from that. And why should they have? He’s not an innocent woobie, and in fact is actually in the seat of a very ambitious antagonist against the real main character’s goals. Arbitrary events of misfortune and pain were the bread and butter of the series back then, and almost no one was spared. Jhonen (who cameoed himself in the show just to choke on a fish and die for a joke) also from what I hear injected a lot of his own qualities into Dib, so I imagine it probably IS very entertaining to him to give the boy the works.

From what I have seen of the comics, that looks like a much finer line to tow. And this more of an off the cuff ramble, but you know what I think??? I think they made Dib a touch way too sympathetic actually. There’s so much more focus on just him and Zim’s side antics, and the more time you take Dib off world and away from the rest of the Earth side characters, the fewer reminders they give you about how many of his problems are majorly self inflicted and how much of a disturbance he can be to society. And, for better or worse, a less dark overall tone in the comics means that the moments of overtly black comedy are going to stand out a little more against the modernized background by contrast.

And there’s another elephant in the room that kind of gets to me, personally. As well as I can put it well, the art style change kind of really affects the lens he can be viewed through. Maybe more than most people want to admit. And I’m not dissing the rounded down, brightened up change, it’s not a better or worse direction from the show… but it is a different one with different strengths and weaknesses.

Like, look at Dib’s early season model sheets for a base of reference.

Now compare him alongside the comic and Florpus interpretation of Dib Membrane. OBVS I am simplifying a ton here, there’s a ton of room for more range than these examples.

I’m not here to say he’s a better or worse Dib visually, he’s still Dib to me! But is notable how comic Dib actually breaks a ton of the “rules” of what kind of character they wanted Dib to be. To put it one way, they sanded down some of his edges and he’s not as apparently “skrungly” as he used to be.

What I like about the change is that it actually gives the better impression of him actually being the lil dorkass kid he’s always been. He’s got a slight aesthetic shift that shows off his unique interests and it definitely sets him apart from Zim, who actually retained most of his own show design. He’s still got some funny lookin’ qualities and he’s so much more endearing

One of the downsides of all that, however, is probably that he’s so damn endearing and as a default.

I dunno if you ever watched Little Shop of Horrors, amazing musical btw, but, it’s supposed to have this whole tragic ending where the main character’s, Seymour’s, long chain of mistakes catch up with him and he meets his demise. In the movie, they casted Rick Moranis for the character, and he played such a puppy-eyed, adorkable Seymour that it made audiences suddenly too bummed out to even appreciate the dark ending. They hated it so much that the crew actually just changed the ending completely so that Seymour gets a consequence-free happy ending with everything he ever wanted. Even though he’s literally a serial murderer of sorts. You were always supposed to feel for him, but not to the point where watching him fail just makes you feel horrible.

I think Dib works kinda like that on a meta level.

If there’s any ruling on what goes over that invisible line when it comes to handling his character, I think Florpus Gaz nailed it right on the head. Dib is never supposed to just utterly break under the weight of his world. Can he sometimes crack? Yeah totally, especially in the “brink of madness” sense. Or if it’s funny. The golden rule is not to give him more than he can handle, and Dib CAN handle a lot of bullshit. He may be a frustrated lil squirt but he’s been at this for a very long time, and it’s hype af watching how he’s not slowing down even in the face of that. Dib and Zim’s biggest POSITIVE shared trait is the strength of their spirits against a world that is ultimately callous and cruel at every turn to them.

Every second you write Dib where he’s wallowing in despair or feeling sorry for himself is a second you come closer to that line and it’s what you need to dish out in wary moderation.

So I guess the TL:DR of what i think I’m getting at here is… it’s all about perspective.

But I really should read more of the comics.

#invader zim #iz #dib membrane #iz dib #iz analysis #answering asks #woah I finally have asks?!?#🥹#scarlet talks about things

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fleetwood-cheese · 5 months

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Phantom Thief Outfit Breakdown

Okay so exactly one (1) person asked me abt my opinions on the phantom thief's metaverse costumes (thank you @waywardsalt) bc I mentioned them in the tags of a poll so now you are all locked into my insane rant abt this topic. Originally this was a power point i made to vent but i realized its too long to post in its entirety (its more than 20 slides long) so you get this monstrosity of a post. I'm going to split this into multiple posts discussing each thief's designs bc there's a lot and it'd be too long; will link each post at top.

Ann - Makoto - Sumire - Futaba - Yusuke - Akechi 2

DISCLAIMER: I am not a designer, have relatively poor fashion sense, and these are largely just my opinions on the matter, obviously people are going to disagree. I'd love to discuss this and get feedback on it but if you're an asshole im not going to entertain you.

Starting with the worst (imo), let's begin with Akechi's black mask costume.

This is, from a purely design and visual standpoint, the worst to me because it simply has too much going on, and all of it gets lost in its attempts to be cool or intimidating. This attempt at being menacing, presumably, is lost in translation and mostly just makes it look uncomfortable, edgy, and sort of goofy.

It seems to be pulling on ideas of knight armor, birds of prey, straight jackets, and the general idea of being trapped or isolated, but very few of these things actually come across in the final design. (It also might have some bondage/bdsm inspiration, but I'm not sure how intentional that is.)

Firstly, the bodysuit isn't well executed here, and is complicated by the fact that it appears to also be booty shorts with matching leggings?? but they're all the same thickness?? This is confusing and goofy, and would look much better split into an actual top/pants combo. Additionally, the stripes add further confusion and lack the appeal of Loki's stripes, who I presume they're trying to tie-in/invoke with them; their diagonal direction certainly doesn't help. To fix this, I would keep the stripes on the top, but have them run up and down, and simplify the pants to solid black with blue piping along the sides. I think this separate top with the straight stripes would also do a better job of communicating a straight jacket than the current costume does.

Another major gripe I have with this outfit is the hems, but especially the pant hems. They're what I can only describe as boot cut and its awful; I grew up with the 2000s boot-cut obsession, and they don't look good on anyone except horsegirls who wear actual cowboy boots underneath them. I understand the frayed pant and sleeve hems are supposed to look unkempt and villainous, but it mostly just looks like he's walked on them. To solve this, I would effectively cover them up by adding armor; extend the boots and claws and give him actual grieves and arm guards to make him look more dangerous, sharp, and combat oriented, and invoke the knight aesthetic to clash with the detective prince persona and its white, ornamental style.

Adding additional armor also helps solve the problem of him looking so top heavy. This costume's huge neck guard and mask are super bulky and make you feel like he's about to break his neck; by adding weight to the legs, its no long all concentrated at his head. If you compare it to actual helmets, I think its roughly based off of the frogmouth helmet, which has one, continuous neck piece like the black masks. I would adapt it to look more like a closed helmet or a armet, which have a similar shape but much clearer plating and hinges and thus appear less stiff and might have better mobility.

My last major gripe is the cape, because it is SUCH a wasted opportunity. The torn fabric, while matching his frayed hems, is so boring; a cape made out of feathers would convey the crow idea so much better, and give him a sort of dark knight fantasy vibe that would look wonderful imo. You could even show the iridescence of the feathers, which would tie well into the black-grey-blue palette excellently. Im thinking something like the cape below, or possibly like the crowfeather set from bloodborne if you want some extra drama.

As for the belt, I'm fairly neutral on them; I could take or leave them really. You could remove them if you wanted to simplify the design, or keep them if you wanted an edgier look or to incorporate more bdsm elements, but in that case I would change them to look more like actual bondage belts and not, you know, normal pants belts.

Overall, when ranking these outfits for my powerpoint, I gave this one dead last placement and a solid 2/10 personal ranking.

#goro akechi #persona 5 #black mask #persona outfit critique series #redesign #i don't have the ability to really draw the changes out right now but if that ever changes i'll probably add new designs for visualization #waywardsalt you are getting so much more out of this than you probably expected when you asked me abt this lol #also let me know if you'd like me to specifically tag you in each of these posts or just this first one

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firespirited · 1 year

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I was wondering why Mattel is really on my using Saran or Poly hair instead of kanekalon or nylon. Is nylon no longer being used for dolls? I did see that kanekalon has health risks now, so I assume that is why it is not used anymore? I was just wondering if you had some insights/theories as to why those seem to be the only hair fiber found in their current dolls? Or maybe I completely misread the whole doll hair thing…anyways, thank you for your time. :)

Hi! in 2002 Bratz released a couple of lines with cheap Nylon or doll grade Kanekalon hair and it was speculated that it was because Mattel had bought out the stock of saran PVDC manufactured by Asahi Kasei, Bratz used saran almost exclusively until what was deemed budget lines and clear corner cutting (as evidenced by how simplified dolls were compared to prototypes).

The issue's no longer so clear-cut: multiple manufacturers create nylon in high qualities and many colours. The issues surrounding Kanekalon concern it's human sized fiber and high heat which wouldn't be a problem for doll grade kanekalon which melts on the low temp of a hair straightener if you're not really careful.

I can't explain why Mattel has chosen to go with poly hair which feels unpleasant and doesn't hold up to brushing, why Hasbro systematically undermined their own products with terrible nylon that made even Disney princesses with straight hair unbrushable. MGA seems to be favouring Qiyue Kiwi hair (but not on LOL OMGs), is some kind of exclusivity contract why other dolls don't use it? DongGang make a very nice nylon, why hasn't Mattel gone with them? None of it makes sense. Maybe there's a good reason and I have no clue.

Maybe the reason is the same as the short sack-dresses and skirts designed to fit multiple body types: they've chosen to invest in face-molds, accessories and body diversity over makeup, clothes and hair. Maybe there's been a supply chain issue or unknown chemical instability?

It's baffling that we have more direct access to designers than we have in a long time and no-one seems to know about the hair. I'm not sure we will ever get an answer, we never did about the glue-head syndrome. The disconnect between what the designers want to create for people and what a company is willing to produce is wide: we know from pleather and glue head issues that many dolls are not manufactured to be long term collectibles. Some aren't really supposed to be redressed and restyled: the clothes are sewn on and the bun comes down to reveal a nub of hair or an empty head.

I wish things looked like they did in 2002 where the excuse for hard to brush 'Style It' dolls was potential corporate meddling, by 2008 you were lucky if the doll didn't come with a rat's nest on her head. Nowadays, we have these confounding decisions to stick badly rooted coarse hair on expensive collector dolls, on dolls with an implied collector value as long-lasting items and then other dolls priced seemingly at random (collector Rainbow High ranged from $40 to $100 for no discernable reason). It's not even clear when profits are being reinvested into the toy lines and we speculate that some toy lines are operating at a loss to get a foothold in the market.

Let's just say that a bunch of companies have shown they don't even have the sense to invest in brand loyalty with quality product recently, the media companies have exhausted so much goodwill it's embarrassing to anyone who's ever cared about running a business. Even banks can't seem to think five years ahead. It's why I'm delighted MGA is getting sued, yeah it's frivolous and far-fetched but we might get some insight on how they're running things and what the design process might be. It is absolutely not the "collaborative" Monster High/Barbie mermaid "voting process" we've seen on social media and more of a "Oh shoot, we gotta make the Krystal Bailey doll darker skinned, people are furious!"

TLDR It could be that whoever's running these divisions knows nothing about dolls, let alone hair. They just look at numbers and make decisions on numbers, short term ones too, no long term projections or testing.

#dolls #dollblr #I don't even see that many prototypes posted anymore #doll hair #This morning i heard a cool scooby doo cartoon with the hex girls got tax cut destroyed. Because art is just assets.#Does anyone at Mattel outside of design love Barbie? Is that even a qualification?

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adventuresofdragos · 6 months

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Project Outcome

This project was enjoyable and it went by so quickly. I learned many new things about 3D modelling and Photoshop and even did some research on art history and talked about the psychology of colour language. We had a few sessions to work together and do some collaborative work alongside solo working sessions which I think was really useful to me as it allowed me to get other people's perspectives on my work.

In this final week, I added some lights to my model and rendered it out and made it look as presentable as possible and here is my final piece. When I put my cannon next to the original Sea of Thieves one, I would say it looks very similar. I didn't get to use another app to texture it and make it look how I wanted it to look but I would say it still looks really close to the original one. I got my inspiration to make a cannon after seeing Johan Lagessons' work on Sea of Thieves. He really inspired me and I just wish I had more time to be able to make a different version of the cannon to make it look like it belongs to one of the skin lines in the game.

The other piece of work that I got done for this project was in Photoshop. It was a drawing of a character of our choice but in Lou Romano style as well as using color and shape language to portray the character's personality. As I mentioned previously, I chose Pinocchio and I am proud to finally be able to show off Pirate Pinocchio! A side-by-side comparison of my Pinocchio compared to the original one. Since I had to work in Lou Romano style, I had to really break down the character and keep it as minimalistic as possible. I chose to keep his peanut body and his long and skinny legs to show that he is still a kid. Moreover, his small rounded shoes show us that he can be quite clumsy and fall down easily. The reason for making his head look so big is to further emphasise that he can be toppled over very easily, the combination of the big head with his little feet signifies that he is very clumsy, further portraying his childlike stature. I added a bandage on his foot to show that it was already broken and taped a flag to it since he was trying to be a pirate after all. He loooves hot chocolate but unfortunately, I could not add hot chocolate anywhere in this scene so instead I just made him a chocolate pirate hook for him to enjoy, which he clearly does :) His bandana on his head tied over his eye and with a little ribbon on the side implies that he is just a kid and he doesn't really know what he's doing. All of the decisions I made when creating Pirate Pinocchio were deliberately done so as to make him look like a child since he is one. He is not a mean and scary character, he is small, frail and quite clumsy so I think that his design here is very fitting and true to his character. I would say that I stuck to the Lou Romano style quite well, considering that Pinocchio as a character is already simplified, it was hard to simplify him even more. I tried to mess around with proportions and shapes, like his head and legs and kept a consistent colour palette that suggests a friendly and calm demeanour. I kept him a nice wooden colour and gave him an orange bandana that signifies friendliness and innocence. I made the background quite friendly looking using bright colours to further show that this is a happy character in his own happy place and that nothing can bring him down.

From this project, I learned a lot about how shapes and colours can affect an image or drawing. Other than looking at Lou Romano and working off of that, it was very important to look into other artists who could help me with my journey, such as Hannah Hoch and Tommy Ingberg. Researching into both of these artists along side David Hockney really helped me gain a better understand of montage work and how it can tell a story. From 2 different periods of time, these 2 artists work in very different ways with their own unique reasons and motives, and yet they both have the same outcome, they both paint a picture for the viewer and tell their story. The beauty of it is that the story can be different for everyone.

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merlinjor01 · 7 months

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Week 3- [Continuation Of Shape Language]

In this lesson I had taken what I had started in the week 2 of shape design lesson and thought about it further and expanded on within this day. In the beginning, we first tried out the brush tool and its settings along with having a go with the clipping mask that enables you to draw on the layer below only without it having to be merged.

After, we had looked more in depth of 'shape language' giving us a clearer view of what it is and how it effects character design in all sorts of media. Shapes within character design can show your audience the main features within the character and tell your audience a lot about said character without having to say much. We had looked at a few examples of this and determined that softer, round shaped characters were passive and nice and characters that had bold shapes and spikes were more aggressive, yet this isn't always the case within some characters.

TOMATATORO- Artist we had looked at-

We had a short section where we had looked at the work of an artist called Tomatatoro, mainly looking at their simplified versions of overwatch characters. The main reason why we had looked at their style was because they were able to take these extremely complicated designs and simplified them down to just a few shapes and two or three colours. These shapes would mainly be spiked, rounded, or blocky- representing the type of character it may be. To me this style is very interesting, mainly because of the way he uses shape design to his advantage, creating these many drawings of simplified characters. Even to the point of combining shapes for bigger more complicated designs. But with each simple design he still manages to keep a easy to define silhouette there which is very important within character design.

Overall, I really enjoy his work as it has many simple qualities we are aiming for and I do see why we were recommended to look more into his work to gather examples of these qualities and try it out on our own.

For the task that we were given, we had to choose a character and simplify them to their basic qualities. Looking back at the first character I had done (Simon from Adventure time) I was very reliant on the shape tool but it wasn't working as well as I had hoped, so I had chosen a different character to practice on for this lesson and would also be using a stylus and tablet. I had chosen Marceline from 'Adventure time' and began by selecting her main shapes such as her big hair and long body. These I would exaggerate in the drawing I had done after deciding what I would make bold shaped and what I would make soft, considering personality wise she has a rather hard shell but is a secretly soft person. Because of that I chose to make her head round compared to her other spikey features. After I had finished the first drawing of her I was given feedback for her to be simplified further which is what I had done in my last two drawings of her, where she is simplified to just basic exaggerated shapes but still showing what kind of character she is.

Simplified further ⬇️

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cake-n · 1 year

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From what I've seen and searched, xenogenders choose their gender based on vibes and stuff they like, I saw some with a huge list of their gender, including, springgender, pupgender, lemonpiegender.

Well, for me, certain concepts, abstractions & themes are important to my identity & gender, as well as important to me as a person, but not everything that's important to me as a person or my general identity is related to my gender. I conceptualize my gender to be in relation/tandem with those things, I assume it's similar for others as well. Beyond that I also have a "normal" core gender identity, though, but even that is confusing to most people, as others perception of gender is more simplistic and trinary, so I simplify it even further.

Also, I searched and I've never seen or heard about an old person using these. Have you seen a 70 year old queer identity as a lemon pie? A 45 mother identify as a male puppy?

Well, they wouldnt "identify as a male puppy". If you phrase it in another way though... "How would you describe your gender with only things that are abstract?" then you might actually get answers.

I don't understand why you feel the need to include that in the LGBTQ community if you just like clouds

It's not "just liking so-and-so"; you can like something without it being conceptually a part of your gender, as I do with many of my interests that are dear to my heart but dont have anything to do with my gender, but, it's considered LGBT because this identification is considered to be a specific form of non-binary — not a boy, not a girl. Most people who identify as xenogender are additionally and/or at their core, trans and/or non-binary. Though I've seen people be cisgender & xenogender, but even those people tend to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, etc.

Anyway, on pronouns, why call it pronouns if they're nicknames between friends? Because they want to feel special and have a community.

Pronouns (refering to "he, she, they, it" and words of a similar function) are words to address someone without using their name, and replaces their name, for ease of convenience and to make sentences go smoother. Always using names sounds a little... clunky.

Instead of saying "he, him, his, himself", you'd say "xe, xer, xem, xemself"; you wouldnt use the same grammatical conjunctions with a nickname or name.

I say it's used between friends or those who can adapt, because there's no other option, it's not because "people want to feel special", it's not like you can force someone to use your pronouns. It's a niche community as it is, so there's a smaller amount of people able to/understanding enough/open to using them in the first place, so you'd have fewer people (as compared to the wider population) to address you with neopronouns.

It's only within those already niche circles, because anyone outside of it would likely be unable to adapt, ignore, misunderstand, belittle, mock or assault you for it. There is not really another choice.

In daily life, I usually refer to myself with my neopronouns in my head... I dont feel special because of it, it's just a different kind of identification. I havent done so recently, but if I participate in the community, I do so because I like to be surrounded by like-minded people — people who will not viciously mock me for my identifications, who are more likely to refer to me with neopronouns (as I dont tend to do it publically), etc. I also like to share things about myself (to some degree... I favor anonymity & privacy), my creations, etc. It also ties into my interests... I have an interest in poetry & writing (describing genders is very similar), I enjoy artwork, symbolism, and working with colors (designing flags), and I find etymology and neologism (creating new words) fun.

About cis people I'm not concerned about their validation fr I do not care and they probably think my gender is fake too (I'm nonbinary and uses they them) but I do care about the safety of my fellow trans people, they are being murdered and discriminated against, obviously xenogenders aren't the reason but they do contribute to the stigma of trans people who existed since the dawn of time.

Yeah, it must seem silly and a foreign concept to the average person who's not used to approaching/thinking about gender in abstract/tangible/atypical terms (or, in your case, if you completely lack gender LOL), but respectability politics will not decrease violence against trans people. If you're unfamiliar, respectibility politics refers to people consciously setting aside things that are deemed as disrespectful for the sake of being paleatable to more people — so "a small portion of trans people should not express themselves to avoid contributing to propaganda, (which is already warped as it is)" is a form of respectibility politics. They will use anything deemed unusual as transphobic propaganda. They will take their assumptions and run with it.

I've seen and experienced xenogender people calling trans people (myself included) transphobic, ableist and got send death threats because of our concerns and opinions.

Reactionary people are an... issue, yes. This isnt exclusive to the MOGAI community though, you see this stuff in every communify.

It's not inherently ableist, persay. NT people can be xenic. More prominent and common to be ND (seemingly), but not exclusive. It's a common misconception for people think its ND-exclusive, though.

Trans people can still be transphobic, though.

But still they should use nicknames like everyone, my username is cake since I love it but it isn't what I am.

People do use several names, me & many others. Pronouns are conjuncted differently than names.

If there's something different about someone, they shouldnt be expected to conform, especially like, online, in the privacy of their own home. People should not face violence for not conforming because it's "socially unacceptable", especially for expressing such online, where you can express yourself with less restraint.

People can use whatever pronouns they like. Sometimes words dont "fit" or "click" as names but work with pronouns, or vice versa. Most people who use neopronouns give auxillary (alternative) pronouns to use in daily life and/or for people who cannot adapt (i.e. language-processing issues, english as a second language, etc)

Also... Yeah, you have different facets of identity. Some may or may not correlate with gender identity, and it just doesnt in your case.

Having a strange/atypical identity does not contribute to stigmatization. Misunderstandings or a lack of understanding, assumptions and transphobic propaganda contributes to stigmatization.

thank you so much for you answer 😊 I'm gonna me quick. but they are not part of the lgbt community if they only uses differents pronouns. xenogenders are not genders in my opinion, since their xenogender is abstract stuff or based on feelings they should not speak up as trans people if they are not , if a cis straight male identify in his mind as something poetic or some kind he is a cis straight male and should not speak as a trans person and try to integrate lgbtq spaces and make 9000 flags . it is personal, you can write about it and it can be beautiful in my opinion but trying to pass this as a sexuality or gender is a big no. it should be an aspect that shouldn't be categorised and again I'm repeating not be a part of the lgbt community, it can be influenced or be a part of many queer People but shouldn't step up in these spaces

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mrarchewannabe · 3 years

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First Contact and it's Complications

THE FOLLOWING TRANSCRIPT IS A DOCUMENTATION OF FIRST CONTACT OF THE ZEATIKIAN RACE TO HUMANITY 500 CYCLES AGO TRANSLATED INTO COMMON BY THE FEDERATION OF SYSTEMS

Entry 1

Cycle date, 890, Rotation date, 197, at 1300 Ticks

This is head researcher Bea'zikal making a reports on the situation of our scouting of the outer arms of the Galaxy called Geaitza-7, I am unaware how fast these reports will be sent back to HQ, but you've given us premission to proceed how we see fit

Contact, we've made contact with an alien empire that refers to it's self as USH or United Systems of Humanity we absolutely didn't expect contact so soon and especially not a sapient and technologically advanced species such as this; as for the designation for the species itself it refers to a name called 'Humans' which translated to common Zeatikian is 'Huamein' or for the proper scientific term which is dubbed by themselves 'Homo Sapien'. They are quite physically imposing specimens standing 4 to 6 units in height on average and around 30 to 70 Mass Increments in weight and many capable of lifting 2 to 4 times their weight on average with some being recorded lifting 10 times their weight. They are mammals, warm blooded, and come in many different permentations in hair style and skin pigmentation which I have to admit is quite beautiful in its variation. I know this is brief but the crew is excited and worried so I will most likely be busy for quite a awhile doing research and studying, so signing off.

Entry 2

Cycle date, 891, Rotation date, 13, at 200 Ticks

To call the Humans a interesting bunch would be a vast understatement; they are socially rich and vast, containing thousands of different cultures, religions and traditions that have been held for thousands of years. First contact was more or less awkward as you could expect as we had different languages in every conceivable way down to speech, body language, and symbols of mathematics. We spent half a cycle deciphering and trading languages with a ship call the 'USS Omaha' which was a warship and was very plain to see what it's purpose was; we started slow with communication, showing images and photos to convey concepts, places, actions, which of course they provided as well. We managed to get a form of communication going and so far it's working well, we can ask and answer basic questions and we both had quite alot.

Entry 3

Cycle date, 891, Rotation date, 34, at 500 Ticks

Its almost time for both of our ships to dock and meet "face to face" as the humans say, a saying meaning to interact with honor, respect, and business. However there were multiple issues that were obvious and it was that both of our species evolved and lived in two vastly different habitats and therefore exposed to different microorganisms and bacteria; to combat this extensive testing was done in our labs; natural bacteria and microorganisms from our respective homes were exchanged as well as DNA to study the effects the bacteria and microorganisms did to the living cells. Thankfully the complications were few and after a few minor inoculations and another half cycle of waiting it was finally time to make a mark on history; I can't believe it's already been a cycle and a half but I believe it will be worth it.

Entry 4

Cycle date, 891, Rotation date, 35, at 1000 Ticks

The docking procedure went well, mostly due to the special coupling adapter that had to be worked on just outside our ships so that they actually could couple together without something breaking or crumpling. I waited in front of the Airlock with acting Captain Gae'Taek who was rightly paranoid; we still didn't know the humans true intentions but I simply told myself and the crew that they probably felt the same way...hopefully. Gae'Taek was big among our species as he weighed 20 Mass Increments and stood around 2.5 Units tall, truly a massive Zeatikian; but when we met the Humans inside the Coupling bay he looked as a mere child compared to the extremely intimidating size of the Human Captain and his two crewmates who I was told also happened to be researchers themselves in which I found a odd comfort in. The human Captain spoke up "I am pleased to finally meet you in person Captain Gae'Taek" his voice was deep but robotic as they were wearing what seemed like a mix between a hazard suit, environmental suit, and Military Grade Combat Skin, this didn't surprise me after all as the vessel was a warship and a research deck "I am also pleased to meet you as well Head researcher Bea'zikal" he Extended his limb and body forward slightly with his claws- No "Hand" as they called it, open for what Humans called a "Handshake" which was a traditional Greeting that implied respectful and Civilized Behavior. Captain Gae'Taek Hesitated slightly before taking his hand and shaking it lightly, he then reached over in my direction and wished to receive one from me as well, my hesitation was clear but I had mustered the courage to take his hand, I would not be lying if I said I was terrified he would accidentally crush my Claws carapace and all with his powerful hand wrapped in a combat skin. (Note: Humans have the most complex musclar system I've ever observed; layers of various proteins organized into elastic bands stretched over what they call a Skeleton which functions like a Carapace but for the inside and acts as a scaffold for the muscle to latch onto and function) But surprisingly he did not crush my Claw like I thought he would and was actually very careful, who knew that with so much raw power that Humans Fine Motor Control could be so precise. Captain Gae'Taek responded in a respectful tone as well " I am also pleased to meet you as well Captain Maer'ceis I hope we may learn much from one another" (Note: Maer'ceis translated to the Human Language results in Marcus, which he will be refered as the rest of the report) Captain Marcus Bares his teeth which is a sign of happiness and acceptance "I wish the same as well" he spoke "come let me give you a tour of our ship, or atleast everything you've been giving authorization to see" And with that he gave us a tour of the ships facilities which were mostly what they called "recreational" which to me seemed horribly dangerous and would have definitely breached safety regulations back home; that aside I'm excited for what will be coming up next as I hope it will lead to a strong partnership.

I've simplified my previous reports due to the amount of work we've had this past cycle it's been quite stressful, I plan to report on their culture, traditions, history, and economic status; it should be full of details, but I just need time, if something pops up I will let you know - Head Researcher Bea'zikal

(this is the first ever short that I've decided to publish so I apologize if my grammar is off I hope you enjoy and please give me and tips or advice you feel would help improve my writing)

#sci fi/fantasy #aliens #humans #spaceship #humans are space orcs #humans are terrifying #humans are fascinating #sci fi #space ship

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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Rewatching RWBY there's this chilling lack of empathy through the volumes that I used to just wave off. Yang has no empathy for Tai, Blake is just entirely about what Blake needs, Weiss almost kills a woman at a party and her takeaway is 'my dad is mean so I'm going to run away'. Qrow sinks hard into depression in vol. 6 and Ruby's reaction is to yell she's never needed him. No one has EVER helped a civilian. It's so prevelant. Knowing how 7&8 go really changes the earlier writing.

I think there was a great deal of well-written empathy in the early volumes — after all, this cast was designed as the kind, well-meaning heroes — but that care was expressed almost solely within the group itself. Ruby sits by Jaune in the hallway and says "Nope!" to his self doubt. Weiss offers Ruby a hand up after she fails to kill the death stalker. Yang seeks out Blake and gets her to open up about what's bothering her. Now, I want to emphasize that there's nothing inherently wrong with this. It actually makes perfect sense. These are our main characters and they're written as peers co-habiting the same space. Of course whatever emotional growth we get, which automatically includes moments of compassion, would be directed towards each other. Similarly, the dynamics originally introduced — that of teachers and parents — likewise (rightly) puts the burden on the adults to provide the comfort, not the other way around. Port snaps Weiss out of her arrogant mindset. Ozpin reassures Ruby about her leadership worries. Tai is there to support his daughter when she's recovering from a lost limb. That's the natural order of things, so to speak.

The problem, to my mind, begins to occur when the group exits those dynamics. They're no longer students, they're licensed huntsmen. They're no longer kids, but equals who never needed adults in the first place. They're no longer doing things for themselves and their friends on personal downtime, they're doing them for the community at large as a profession (to say nothing of the world-altering war they've insisted on shouldering responsibility for). That's what a huntsmen is meant to be, a defender of the people, not someone who uses that power for personal interests alone. All of this is a huge change from where we started out: cutesy kids going off on comparatively low-stakes adventures because one or more of their teammates are invested, only just beginning to realize that they're signing up for a job where their desires come second (that fireside conversation at Mountain Glenn).

This change invites — demands, really — that the audience read them differently too. Qrow's spiral in Volume 6 is a good example of this. If Ruby is demanding to be treated not just as an equal in terms of maturity and experience, but also as the primary leader of this group, then the viewer expects her to treat her uncle as an equal too, not dismiss his hardship. I've seen numerous fans defend that arc with some version of, "He's her uncle. He's supposed to take care of her. He's failing" but that, according to the show, is no longer the dynamic. Qrow is now just a member of Ruby's team, someone she's responsible for as their leader. It's easiest to see the problem if we switch out Qrow for any of the other members. If Blake developed a drinking problem, do we think Ruby would just shout at her until she magically got over it? If Jaune endangered the group, do we think they'd all be angry about it, rather than trying to figure out the source of what caused the mistake? We don't even need to think hypothetically for that one because we saw it on screen. Jaune attacked Oscar and drove him off, not just threatening him, but arguably endangering the whole team by requiring a search party. Fans have long insisted they had to steal that airship right then because being in Argus was too much of a risk, but if we buy that reading (which I personally don't, but), then that means Jaune made things exponentially worse by forcing them out into that super dangerous city, rather than allowing everyone to stay hidden inside. He made a massive mistake which, according to the logic of Qrow's arc, should be met with frustration, disdain, and eventual demands to get over his anger at Ozpin or ship out. But, of course, he received nothing but concern. Yang was worried about him, not Oscar. The search becomes about his grief for Pyrrha and his team's willingness (as well as Pyrrha's family member) to provide more comfort. Suddenly, the tendency to express care solely towards those within the group becomes a flaw the story won't acknowledge.

And then it spirals. The thing to remember is that no single act here is bad on its own, especially when we consider that yes, we want flawed characters. Rather, it's about the pattern. Ruby is allowed to get mad at Qrow for his behavior and chuck her scroll in frustration. She's human. I'd be crazy frustrated too. However, if Ruby is meant to be written as a caring, sympathetic character, she should not only respond to the situation with frustration, yelling, a refusal to listen, and demands that he follow her lead, no questions asked. We can, and should, acknowledge that Weiss was the victim during that party. Her father was hurting her, the woman was beyond insensitive, Weiss was triggered in regards to a horrific event, and her power acted on its own. However, if we want to write Weiss as a compassionate, mature huntress to-be, she should acknowledge that she nearly killed someone — even an asshole someone — and vow to work on her control because she's not willing to put someone in danger like that ever again. Both of these moments have a "They could have been handled better" response attached to them — the former more-so than the latter imo — but these moments are made far, far worse due to later events in the show, events where the characters are cruel without any justification attached. Weiss didn't mean to attack that woman, but she did mean to ignore Whitely and threaten him with her weapon. So once we see that, it informs our understanding of what came before it. "Oh. The fact that Weiss never reacted to nearly killing someone isn't just a bit of missed potential, it's an early indicator that she... doesn't seem to care. If she endangers people, threatens people... that's fine with her." The group has a right to be frustrated with Qrow. The group did not have the right to magically steal Ozpin's entire life story, assault him, and blame him for the world's problems until he felt his only course of action was to run from them. So when we see that it becomes, "Oh. The fact that the group treated Qrow so poorly isn't just a one-time mistake born of a stressful situation and young adults being out of their depth in regards to alcoholism. They really will just abandon anyone the moment they start making mistakes." Anyone outside of their group, that is.

To say nothing of how all of these moments interconnect. Yang's recovery isn't just about getting used to not having an arm, it's about getting used to having a new one. Weiss' party isn't just about nearly killing someone, it's about not committing manslaughter because someone else stepped in. The Volume 6 arc isn't just about trying to escape with the Relic, it's about trying to get it somewhere safe. Fans frustrated with Ironwood's treatment don't harp on these details out of some desperate attempt to make him look good post-murder spree, rather, they recognize that he's a character that's been around since nearly the beginning, originally written as a good guy, and thus has accumulated a number of key connections with the cast. So when none of those connections are acknowledged during an arc about trust... that makes the group look very uncaring. Yang doesn't care that he gave her the arm, Weiss doesn't care that he saved her from hurting/potentially killing someone, Qrow doesn't care that he's trusted Ironwood for years (in a rival-bros way) and that they've been heading towards him this whole time. And when Ironwood begins to spiral, they don't do anything to try and help him, let alone acknowledge that their own choices, that lack of trust and empathy, had a hand in getting them here. "But it's not their responsibility to fix him!" Isn't it? Even a little? Just as human beings seeing an ally struggling under horrific decisions and circumstances? Sure, they don't have to try... but that doesn't make them look very heroic to my mind. And we can't even shrug that off by simplifying things with, "Well, Ironwood is evil now so who cares about him." They simultaneously don't care about finding Qrow who is missing, then captured. They don't do anything to try and find their missing teammates, with the exception of sending May to do it instead. They don't help the army fight off the grimm. Don't try to make sure Pietro and Maria had portals to escape through. Barely hesitate when the newly resurrected characters goes, "Kill me. That's the easiest thing for everyone." And these are just a few of the big ticket moments. It doesn't even begin to cover all the details we get that paint a picture of, "Wow okay. They just really don't care about people outside the group, huh? I mean, they say they do, in a life-or-death way, but they're not putting forth effort to show it on a daily basis."

And if you pick up on all that, if you acknowledge how much the group has changed based on where they started out, you might wonder when in the world that started. Surely we didn't just flip a switch around Volume 6. So you re-watch early stuff and, sure enough, there are moments that feel like setup for what's to come later. Not intentional setup (quite obviously), but a lack of care towards details across the series that, once the dynamic changed, became far, far more pronounced. Characters should be at least somewhat recognizable from start to finish, especially characters who have only experienced about two years of in-world time, so if we now get to see Ruby blandly commenting on all the people who are dying, or Weiss using her weapon as a means of coercing her little brother into doing what she wants, or Yang and Jaune dismissing Ren until he gives in to their point of view... we're going to look for the beginnings of that behavior early on. As you say, we were able to wave all those little details off due to a number of important factors. Now though? Now they feel like they hold a lot more weight, simply by virtue of that early material proceeding what we have now.

#rwby #rwde #mymetas

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emmys-grimoire · 3 years

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Hypothetical OM! Angel Hierarchy

Not official or completely factual. 90% my hypothesis/conjecture supported with evidence of varying levels of confidence.

It might be helpful for those who may find it difficult to keep track of who falls under what rank and what those ranks may mean, because it’s definitely confusing. Aaaand we’re likely to get more lore dumps if Season 3 is meant to give us insight on what happened before, during, and immediately after the Great Celestial War.

There will be spoilers.

(It’s here if tumblr resized it to make it unreadable gg guys)

A magnificent MS paint chart and a hot take: ranks = jobs/roles, and one is not necessarily considered better than the other. Compared and contrasted with this.

Explanation/Conjecture/Theories tl;dr

The ranks outside of the Seraphim may be categorical - therefore lateral - and determined more by the nature of an angel's power or talents when they are born more than the amount of power or potential each angel possesses (as explained by Luke in Lesson 43). This would explain how you get Lucifer and Michael placed in the Archangel rank, which is typically the second to last rank in the traditional angel hierarchy, when they're both clearly much more powerful and hold much more authority than the rest of the angels (and, at least in Lucifer’s case, has three pairs of wings -- a trait associated with Seraphim). Their talents lie in combat, so they're filed under "Archangel".

Other possible explanation: the Archangels are typically low level grunts but Lucifer’s/Michael’s/Simeon’s status as Seraphim as well elevate them higher in status than they normally would be.

There does seem to be hierarchies within these hierarchies, too: Levi is a general, which implies greater authority than your average soldier, and Lucifer and Michael are clearly the head honchos. Michael is the current leader of the Legion. Hopefully this isn’t terribly relevant in the future lest things get even more convoluted.

The Seraphim are clearly the 'ruling class', but they're promoted from the lower ranks, and it seems by recommendation. Beelzebub, a Cherubim, is rumored to be recommended for promotion by Lucifer (though he dismisses it). Think of it like giving the Attorney General a seat at the Important People Table; he still keeps his title and job.

Additionally, Beel is one of the weaker brothers in term of power... unless he somehow got a power downgrade after he fell and became a demon. Until there’s some indication of that, though, I’m confident that rank =/= how powerful the angel is, at the very least.

Admittedly calling it a promotion implies he’s changing his rank instead of just getting a new batch of responsibilities/more status. But re: what I said about Lucifer/Michael, it just might put Beel ahead of the other Cherubim in status and authority.

The Archangels are likely given more influence than they traditionally would because the Celestial Realm is in perpetual war with the Devildom until Diavolo takes over. I can see them getting more clout and status because they are in charge for most of that time, and that's likely why most of the Seraphim listed are also Archangels.

Mammon went from Archangel -> Throne, and it seems to be a duty change and little else. He’s called the “Fallen Warrior” so it makes sense. It also makes sense for Lucifer to appoint him to an administrative job underneath him instead of keeping him an Archangel if the warring has ceased in the foreseeable future.

I've placed an * next to the characters whose ranks haven't been explicitly stated in the story yet, but they're placed where they're most likely to go based on descriptions so far. Raphael is the archangel associated with healing: it's a little strange that he's being depicted as a hunter with a spear, but he could be the Legion's equivalent of a head medic or something. Levi is clearly stated to be a general, so he's in the Legion, and likely remains there in some capacity even if he’s angsting no longer getting to fight.

There has been no official "council" confirmed, but the game has hinted that Michael has been in meetings and Belphegor is chastised for sleeping in and missing a meeting, so I suspect the Seraphim operate like one anyway... or there’s just meetings for different angel departments. Who knows? I’m calling them the Council of Assholes for now.

We still don't know what Asmodeus or Belphegor are, though the former seems to work under Raphael. This doesn't really mean much: Simeon clearly works for Michael when they're technically both Archangels and Seraphim.

We haven’t heard anything about the Powers or Virtues yet. Maybe that’s where Asmodeus/Belphegor fall but idk. Their job description may be more dubious as a result.

Father clearly sits at the top of this ladder, but the game gives us precious little insight on how he operates or what his motivations are. There’s probably a reason why he designed things this way, but that has yet to be revealed. Not sure if the Devildom has anything that would be considered this equivalent and we’ve hung out there for two seasons now.

I 100% expect some of this to turn out to be wrong and I'm gonna have to make some corrections/edits. The fact that Mammon mocks Luke for his low rank (before he clarifies that he’s actually unranked) makes me think it probably isn’t all lateral job assignments and even this is way too simplified.

But this is where I’m at. Cheers.

(Also Luke doesn’t technically exist in the past timeline)

#obey me #obey me!#obey me spoilers #obey me cosmology #obey me celestial realm #obey me angels #theories #analysis #lore #theory

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lizisshortforlizard · 3 years

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Living Dangerously - Chapter 7

Jurassic Park’s animal handlers: none of them ever mentioned by name in Michael Crichton’s original novel. Who were they? What were their lives like on Isla Nublar? Did any of them survive the disaster?

A year in the life of those responsible for the care of the dinosaurs. Many people would kill to have their jobs.

But would they die for it?

Jurassic Park novel/Jurassic Park film (1993)

Viewpoint: 3rd person female OC

Warnings: language, 1st f-bomb

Word count: ~11.4k (7 Chapters) [incomplete]

Tagging: @howlingmadlady if you want to be tagged let me know!

Read on Ao3

Chapter 6 | Chapter 8

Killing in the Name - Rage Against The Machine

“Ah, yes. Everyone, this is the Jurassic Park game warden, Robert Muldoon.”

Lizzy wasn’t a stranger to game wardens. She’d worked with a few, pretty closely in the past. They were always relieved to have the extra help keeping an eye out for poachers, not just for the elephants. It was simple: let us do our research and we’ll help guard your land.

Not only that, she’d lost count of the times over the years she’d had to radio for help and have a warden come tow her and some frightened students out of a ditch or a mud pit. They were a good bunch, in general. Usually they put on a show of being grumpy but they’d be more than happy to lend a hand.

Muldoon looked like every game warden she’d ever met. They all bloody dressed the same, talked the same, acted the same��until you got a few drinks in them and then their real characters came out. Always the ones left standing at the end of the night, a good laugh.

Lizzy looked him up and down. Yep, she could break him. Easy. She’d never failed before.

She kept watching as he leaned back against the wall, then eventually dragged her eyes back to Richardson. The name was so familiar, how did she know it, from somewhere other than Jeff? He’d only ever referred to him as ‘my mate’ in front of her.

Then she remembered, she’d only been bloody reading about him in newspaper articles for years . When she was comparing her wild herd with studies on elephants in captivity, who had designed their enclosure? Robert Muldoon. What was the quote she’d read? ‘Unparalleled knowledge and skill’, suddenly she was fizzing with excitement. This guy was good. She and him should definitely be friends. They would be friends, it was decided. Lizzy glanced around at her peers, there was a flicker of recognition from some, but nothing compared to what she was feeling.

“Take a seat.” Richardson gestured.

“No thanks.” Muldoon shook his head and refused.

“Huh…right.” Richardson shuffled the sheets of paper in his hands, quickly recovering. “Anyway, you might have noticed during your interviews that we were pretty vague about the livestock. We thought it would be easier just to show you, so after we’re done here we’ll go for a drive around the island on the maintenance road. All will become clear very shortly, so no questions about all that just yet please.”

“Damn.” Kathy whispered.

“All I can tell you for now is that the park our scientists have created is the first of its kind, and all our species were made in the lab using gene sequencers. We don’t breed our animals, we grow the embryos artificially and then hatch them…that’s about as simplified as I can put it. But once again, it will all make sense by the end of today.”

There were a few gasps and what the -‘s from the small crowd gathered in front of Richardson while he paused for effect.

Lizzy understood now. Genetic modification. Creating ‘designer’ animals with new traits, different colour morphs, that was what made Hammond’s park so special. It wasn’t a natural population and they’d never known life in the true wild at all. They had been created in the lab solely to populate the park. To exist for human entertainment.

The phrase ‘playing God’ springs to mind here.

At the same time, she wasn’t really surprised. Genetic engineering was the next big thing. Companies had already been experimenting with modified crop plants. The next logical step was moving on to animals. But it was an arms race: who could make the most impressive changes in the shortest time? She remembered hearing about a company getting in really hot water a while back because they involved oblivious humans in their trials…it was Biosyn, or Biosync, something like that. The trouble with this technology, was that new developments were being made all the time so there was no established code of ethics. Bioengineers were making up the rules as they went, and then promptly breaking them.

Hope to God that isn’t happening here. She was jumping to conclusions, she knew, but she’d studied ethics and autonomy for her PhD, and Lizzy would be making damn sure the animals on the island were cared for properly. They weren’t any less alive because they were created in a lab.

The word ‘hatched’ was confusing though. From what she knew, bird and reptile genetics were much, much more complicated than mammals…Richardson had misspoke, surely he meant ‘born’?

“…we’re going to split you into two groups, alphabetically for convenience. Group A will work with the herbivores for three weeks, while Group B will work with the carnivores, and then you’ll switch. At the end of the six weeks once we’ve seen how you operate we’ll sort you into your permanent teams. We also have two higher positions available. Team Leader Carnivores and Team Leader Herbivores. Effectively, whoever we choose to fill those positions will be joint place for third-in-command.” Mike finished grandly.

And who is first and second out of you and Muldoon I wonder? From the way he had walked in, Lizzy knew who she’d put money on. If he wasn’t, then he should be.

Kathy nudged her arm. “You and me. Team Leaders.” She whispered.

“Dibs on Herbivores.” She whispered back.

For the next twenty minutes Richardson went through the housekeeping rules. Lizzy tried her hardest to pay attention but even she was losing interest by the time he was done talking about the safety protocol for the park.

“Anything you’d like to add?” He finally stopped talking and turned to look at Muldoon, who shook his head.

“Think you covered it all. Can we get moving outside now?”

“Right. Does anyone have any questions or something they aren’t clear on so far?” Mike concluded. “Feel free to ask as we go along over the next six weeks while you complete your training. No such thing as a stupid question.”

Lizzy’s hand shot up. She had already seen possibilities and was planning out future research projects.

“Yes-“ Richardson checked on of the many pieces of paper in front of him. “-Elizabeth?”

Jesus Christ, there were only two women here. Lizzy really hoped that the paper he was looking at didn’t have Elizabeth - white and Katherine - black on it, but she really wouldn’t be surprised.

“I prefer Lizzy, sir.” She felt bad for correcting him, but she wanted to rectify the nametag confusion as soon as possible. Maybe he just didn’t know.

“Well, I don’t do nicknames, Elizabeth. What’s your question?”

Lizzy felt a stab of hot anger. That doesn’t make any sense. Lizzy is so much quicker to say! Her cheeks flushed at being showed up and she vowed to keep calling him Michael to his face until he relented. She glanced at Muldoon and caught him rolling his eyes.

“I was wondering how you’re staggering the age groups if the animals aren’t breeding naturally. At least with the herbivores are you modelling it on wild populations, for example elephants, so you’d have a matriarch...?” She tailed off as Mike held up a hand to silence her. Fuck, let me finish! Can’t I do anything right by this man?!

She caught movement in the corner of her eye and noticed Muldoon shifting around restlessly. He was shaking his head. She very nearly opened her big mouth to demand what the Hell his problem was, it was a good question, when something made her stop. She realised in the nick of time that whatever he was doing wasn’t directed at her, it was directed at Richardson. He wasn’t happy she’d been cut off either.

“That’s a bit complicated for now, Elizabeth. We’ll have time for those sorts of questions later.”

“Oh...it’s just-?” Did he really just blow her off? What happened to ‘no stupid questions’? She wanted to know. And now she looked like an idiot. She heard a snort from somewhere behind her from one of the other guys. She had a pretty good idea who it was. Tom, I swear to God I will end you…

There was an awkward silence. Kathy reached over and softly squeezed her leg in sympathy.

Then, like the voice of God from the wall nearest her: “That’ll be the case for the herbivores eventually, Lizzy, and we’ll have as natural an age range as we can manage, but we honestly have no idea on longevity yet. The bigger carnivores will be kept in their own paddocks but with the smaller ones we might try and integrate them, especially if they’ve been raised together.”

Muldoon had stepped up and answered her question. She could sense the waves of annoyance radiating off Richardson from where she was sat, and she liked it. Sweet, sweet validation.

“Ah- that’s great, thank you very much.” She gave Muldoon a megawatt smile.

He just nodded at her and resumed leaning against the wall in silence.

That seemed easy enough, why had Richardson been so evasive- Oh my God, it’s because he didn’t even know. Shit.

Richardson cleared his throat and asked stiffly: “Any more questions?”

Nobody else dared raise their hand.

“Out front to the Jeeps then, please!”

***

“What did I tell you! Don’t piss anyone off on Day One!” Kathy exclaimed as they walked outside again, safely out of earshot of Richardson.

“I’m the one who should be pissed off!” Lizzy couldn’t see how she’d done anything wrong. He’d got her name wrong and shit all over her perfectly valid question.

“Y’know…fair point. I’m actually with you. But be careful. Looks like you’re gonna have to do some serious sucking up if you want to be Herbivores Team Leader. At least he won’t forget you in a hurry now.” Kathy fidgeted with one of her braids as they walked.

“Maybe not in a good way…” Isaac added.

Lizzy became aware of a presence behind her as they stopped near the Jeeps. She wheeled around, grinding gravel underneath her boots and slowly looked up before finally being met with keen blue eyes.

Muldoon had followed the three of them outside and was standing at the back of the group.

Lizzy was uncharacteristically tongue-tied, so grabbed at the first thing that came into her head. “Thanks for fielding my question-“

“Your last paper was good.” He interrupted her. Normally she would have minded, but after how rude Richardson had been she didn’t care so much.

“You read that?” Lizzy was amazed, and if she was totally honest, a little bit in awe. A big name in wildlife had just sort-of complimented her work. “Eh, and what the Hell do you mean only ‘good’? It ended up as one of the features in Nature!”

“Didn’t think much of the co-author. I nearly wrote in.”

Jeff was the second author for her last paper on sibling behaviour. Oh, you cheeky… She fought, so very hard, to keep a straight face.

“Uh-huh.”

They both squared up to each other, Lizzy stood with her hands on her hips, managing to still look intimidating despite being the shortest person in the group.

Kathy shivered, something was definitely up. The air around them was, different, very close. She glanced at Isaac to see if he felt it too. Like her, he was quietly observing with a kind of morbid fascination. Neither of them felt they should say anything.

Lizzy broke first, her face going from stoic to absolutely beaming. “So you’re Jeff’s contact out here, eh?”

“Good to put a face to the name at last.”

She suddenly cackled with laughter. “Likewise, and I thought it might be Richardson to begin with! Oh God…hilarious. So yes, I’m Lizzy and I’ll be tormenting you for the foreseeable.”

“Not Elizabeth?” He said dryly.

“You can call me whatever you like.” Lizzy replied, shrugging her shoulders. “Just not that.”

“I knew it was you even before you spoke up. You have that traumatized look of someone who’s spent too much time around Blacklaw.”

“Don’t tell him that, he’ll be thrilled he’s finally got to me. Do you know, it’s amazing we’ve never met before?”

“It is. Your name’s been popping up on my radar more and more often over the past few years. Jeff told me you’re remarkable.”

“Remarkably loud?”

“That too. I’ll be interested to see if he was right about you.”

“What exactly did he say?”

“You don’t want to know. But he did apologise for sending you my way.”

Kathy was staring at them both blankly, waiting for a lull in the conversation. “Am I missing something here? You two seem familiar with each other or…?” She let her sentence trail off, waiting for an explanation.

“Only by association.”

Lizzy explained. “We’ve never met, but if you work with wildlife in Africa everyone knows everyone. At least Jeff knows everyone.”

Muldoon shook his head. “Correction: Jeff is known to everyone, not always for good reason. I could tell you some stories, but we’re going back about fifteen, twenty years now. You aren’t going to be as mad as he is, are you?”

“There’s a reason we get on so well, let’s just leave it at that.”

“Christ. There’s two of them.”

Lizzy shrugged again. “I’d say he’s a bad influence, but I was already like this. I’m from Glasgow, you see.”

“That explains a lot.”

Kathy still looked thoroughly confused. Why was Lizzy chatting so comfortably with their superior when her first encounter with Mike had not gone well? You’d think she’d be tiptoeing, but that clearly wasn’t her style.

Kathy had just witnessed something visibly click between the two of them, it was totally bizarre. She suddenly had a worrying thought. Oh my God, is this how Lizzy flirts with people? But she’s got a ring on her finger…when I said sucking up this is definitely not what I meant…

Did I make a mistake in becoming her friend if she’s going to to be like…this, to get that Team Leader promotion?

Kathy really hoped Lizzy wasn’t that way. If her and Richardson hadn’t clashed so much then she’d already be pretty damn certain of it.

Prove me wrong girl, please.

Okay, okay, I gotta slow down…Lizzy’s just friendly, and I like her. I keep telling her it’s Day One, but its Day One for everyone. Hell, who’s to say the guys aren’t above all that either? Grandma would be mad with me, judging someone so soon…anyway, it doesn’t exactly look one-sided. He’s doing it too. It’s probably harmless…

Kathy carefully watched Muldoon as Lizzy used her left hand to push her hair back out of her face. Her new friend didn’t seem to notice that his eyes followed her engagement ring, lingering just a fraction too long on the metal band with something which, to Kathy at least, looked an awful lot like disappointment.

Uh-oh.

***

Thanks for reading!

Notes at the end of the Prologue!

So in my head Kathy and Issac (at least, there are more, María is canonically) are poc. I am not. If I get anything wrong, please PLEASE let me know. It is meant to be slightly jarring if its a white characters inner monologue speaking, because it was the 90s and things were much worse equality-wise than they are now. But I might make mistakes. I can assure you - not intentional.

“She could break him. Easy.” Oh sweet sweet Lizzy. You have no idea. Definitely misplaced confidence.

He’s gonna break you

#jurassic park #jurassic park fanfiction #jurassic park oc #my fanfiction #my writing #jurassic park female oc #welcome to jurassic park #eventual romance #eventual smut #robert muldoon #robert muldoon x female oc #kathy

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grumpyoldsnake · 4 years

Photo

[Brief image description: A series of illustrations of Gerou teaching in front of a blackboard. The illustrations repeat, each in a different art style; at the end is a collection of doodles mixing the art styles and a few notes reflecting on the exercise. Full description and transcript starting at the heading below the cut. End ID.]

Part one of some recent style studies I’ve been doing, featuring Gerou struggling with student teaching!

I wanted to explore how different artists that I like handle stylization and simplification in comics, and when I asked around several people gave me permission to post the results. I recommend checking them out!

1) Harbourmaster is by @waywardmartian.

2) Never Satisfied is by @ohcorny.

3) Broken is by @yubriamakesart.

4) @doodledrawsthings makes a lot of content that is posted to tumblr, most recently a fair amount of A Hat in Time fanart.

Thank you all for the permission to post! ^_^ I'm having a lot of fun with this.

Side notes:

I genuinely thought that the Harbourmaster style would be easiest for me, since it contains roughly the same amount of detail as my own style and since I’m like 75% sure that reading it as a younger teen informed a lot of my own style and character designs. Turns out it was actually the hardest! Perhaps because, since there aren’t as many blatantly fundamental differences, I had to pay more careful attention to proportions and specific forms? .

Never Satisfied was interesting! Alongside the work of Doodledrawsthings it’s definitely the furthest from my own style, and choosing Gerou for this honestly doesn’t do that difference full justice. I looked a lot at Fidelia, Sylas’s mom, and Thierry in trying to figure out how Gerou’s facial features would translate. Part two of my plans is to explore different character designs that might make fuller use of the difference in style, heh. (In other news: Colored lineart looks very neat and studying how it’s handled in NS is the first time I’ve been able to carry it off in a reasonable time frame, hah.) .

Broken is just... very pretty, y’all. xD I don’t think it really saved me any time or much ease of drawing over my own style, but it’s very nice to look at. And I think the style differences and specific simplifications do lend themselves very well towards creating more consistency than I ever manage in my own art. Noticing the patterned way of drawing ear details was a fun moment for me, I’d never really thought of codifying anything that way before! .

I did the first drawing in Doodledrawsthings’s style (the 3/4ths view in the turnaround) and thought “Oh goodness this is lovely and quick and feels nice.” It’s very nearly the first time drawing something in a cartoony style has ever come easily for me. But... I struggled much more with every other drawing in that style, ahah. Still, it was comparatively quick and I do love the expressiveness of the stylized eyes. :D This is another style where I think I’ll need to explore a wider range of character designs, though. I think it’s also worth thinking about how character design is fundamentally changed in some ways by the change in style; some of what I would think about designing a character specifically for that style is very different from the details I would normally think about when designing a character.

[Detailed image description:

A series of images repeating the same content in different art styles, followed up by a page of sketches and a page with text notes.

The repeated content is a turnaround of the character Gerou as well as a short two-panel comic showing Gerou as a student teacher in front of a blackboard. Gerou is a thin white man with sallow freckled skin, a large hooked nose, long wavy brown hair, and glowing orange-yellow eyes. In the comic, in the first panel he gestures animatedly with a wide smile and says, “Oh, that’s easy! If you just--” then breaks off. In the second panel he holds up a hand as if asking for a pause, and says, “...wait,” with visible consternation.

The sketches feature continued style experimentation with Gerou making a number of expressions and gestures, including: absolutely failing to maintain a good pokerface; looking stressed; various smiles, from tired to nervous to wide and happy; sighing tiredly; sticking out his tongue with arms crossed huffily; arguing with someone; drinking tea; and fighting off a dizzy spell.

The text image is headlined Thoughts and reads as follows:

Think less about reducing details and more about streamlining said details into shapes that are easy to repeat consistently?

Experiment with different ways of rendering mouths and eyes; they can change the feel of an expression

There are no rules; vary style as needed with panel size/detail, emotion that needs depicted, etc. Prioritize information conveyed.

Increasing detail on teeth beyond your baseline makes them look gritted/tensed/bared

Sometimes low contrast is nice

Emotion backgrounds are fun!

Gotta learn to loosen up (though I knew that already hhhh)

Simplified hands are lovely. (So, so much easier. Not sure I’m gonna go back anytime soon except for anatomy practice sketching, heh.)

End image description.]

#I have been hyperfocused on this for a week straight whoops #art #style study #artists on tumblr #style experiment #comics #my art #my stuff #sketches #Gerou #Imperfect Science #image described

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sanstropfremir · 3 years

Note

some thoughts and questions:

about kingdom - seeing peniel join the mix of ateez and skz was odd for me lol that threw me entirely off and i think is the large reason why i’m personally not a big fan of it. i watch peniel’s stuff outside of kingdom and he’s just a v chill dude overall; even in btob’s performances, he’s not a big standout and is there and does his job. whereas for ateez and skz (i don’t watch skz enough but this is based on the kingdom content), their energies match very well with each other in terms of performance. ateez definitely wins in stage presence compared to skz but their sounds and dance compete, if that makes sense. what did you think of peniel in this performance (aside from the krumping mentioned in your long review, if you have any more thoughts)?

i also think wolf is such a bold song choice. it’s one of the sm staples - really only sm groups can pull off these songs and concepts because it was designed literally for them. e.g. snsd i got a boy, rv rookie, fx/tvxq/ nct songs. there’s a uniqueness to them that can’t be replicated imo. if a non-sm group is going to cover it, it’s almost always a fail (or is missing v important components to the song/performance that it lacks in comparison).

also, what do you think of the stages overall? like, in terms of variation. there’s nothing wrong with serious, dark, and/or thematic performances. but i feel like all of the groups are sticking to it because it makes their stages ‘valid’. if that makes sense. to simplify it, i wish groups did more ‘bright and fun’ concepts and played around more. ikon and btob are groups that do this but for these kingdom stages i don’t get the same energy.

about kpop in general - in your review of the recent kingdom ep, you mentioned that you can only think of 2-3 groups where most of (or all) members of the group have great stage presence. what groups do you think have this quality? off the top of my head, i think of shinee and seventeen. every time they perform, each member makes themselves known and carry their part. even for a large group like seventeen and some members get only like 3-5 seconds of screen time. when a member is missing it’s painfully obvious too.

this is so long and thoughtful, thank you! i’ll try to answer everything but if i miss something just let me know! i’m putting it under a cut because long.

ok to start: peniel. i agree, there is quite a bit of dissonance having him in with a group that’s comprised of 98-01 liners, and especially because he does have a very laid back personality. i do think he stepped it up pretty well in the stage, even if his energy wasn’t a perfect match. and he clearly did put on a different performance than he usually would, if eunkwang and minhyuk’s incoherent and hilarious screaming at the end of the stage was any indication. it was a smart choice to position him as the ‘alpha’ wolf of the stage. when there’s that large a gap of performing experience with idols, no matter what you do, it's going to show. even if he wasn’t a chill guy, his stage presence is just gonna be different. same thing with minhyuk in the rap stage. i know having a low member number puts them at a bit of a disadvantage, but btob (and subsequently ateez and skz) actually kinda lucked out in that regard for this stage. say for example, the full group was competing and they sent multiple members to the performance unit like the other two groups did. because ateez and skz are the same age and have relatively compatible performance styles, they can make a cohesive unit, but now you have multiple performers who have an incompatible style and will stand out from that group. how do you thematically bridge that gap within the performance itself? when you only have one unhammered nail, you can capitalize on that nail being unhammered. hence making peniel the alpha wolf, or making minhyuk the ‘boss’ at the end of the rap stage. there just isn’t enough time with this show to actually do the rehearsal to make a truly cohesive unit, so the best thing to do is highlight the difference.

my position on covers is that it's futile to try and match the original perfectly, so match the energy but make it your own. one of my all time favourite covers is kings of leon’s dancing on my own. yes, the robyn song. also the 1975’s cover of thank u, next. rtk features a few stages that i think got the right idea, with pentagon’s follow and their collab with onf for kill this love. sm songs are tough for this for though because yea, they are pretty tailored to their groups, and the groups themselves have very unique signatures and theyre often so famous that it's hard to separate them from their contexts enough to pull off a more abstract cover.

honestly the variety of themes hasn’t been the worst? obviously i’m a person who likes narrative and thematic elements though so i'm going to be a little more biased towards those types of stages. i think people keep using the term ‘dark’ to describe any concept that’s vaguely thematic and has moody lighting. i wouldn’t describe any of btob’s stages as dark, or ikon’s, and i wouldn’t describe ateez’s wonderland stage as dark either. i do want to see more variation in aesthetics, especially in the costumes. really only ateez and btob have got this one down; you can tell the group’s style and that it's the same designers/stylists, but there’s been enough variety that none of their looks have felt the same. tbz and sf9 have only worn embellished suits so far, ikon has not made much effort with their costumes all, and skz have just been alternating one stage black one stage white in like, exactly the same outfits. boring!!!! where is the drama!!! so yes, i would like to see everyone having a little more fun on stage and with their concepts, but i also dont know if i'm willing to risk the 60% chance that it will be school uniforms for the younger groups. because i really Do Not want that.

and as far as groups where all the members have great stage presence, i'm so sorry but i suspect you were typing this while i published a post where i detailed the exact reasons i dont find seventeen compelling, please do not be offended. i guess i can say they have good collective presence? the ones that i was thinking of are shinee and tvxq. shinee for obvious reasons, and tvxq is just two dudes, so they both have to have stage presence or the whole thing would have collapsed in 2011. oh, by default also superm, because sm cherry picked seven of their best performers and slapped them together in a group. honestly baekhyun is probably the weakest link in terms of stage presence but he makes up for it in screaming so i forgive him. if we wanna count 50%+, where the group has good presence as a whole but not all the members, i would say ateez, got7, mx, and vixx. vixx is a weird one because 50% of their stage presence is hakyeon, jaehwan, and hyuk being pretty normal charismatic dudes and 50% of it is leo’s absolutely incomprehensible cryptid vibes. why is he like that. we'll never know.

#kingdom #thank you for these thoughts and questions anon!!#i got stuck in a youtube hole watching bbc radio 1 covers while writing this #if you read my taemin favourite song list and was confused about me listing final dragon and 2kids in the same tier #and are now seeing a kol and a the 1975 rnb cover here #yes my music taste is wack no it does not make sense to me either #got7 has had the wildest changes in stage vibes over their career #watching their rookie stuff is so funny when compared with their most recent comebacks over the last two years #mx just grew up very well #vixx.........man i dont even know #i think anyone would be hard pressed to explain how vixx works #kpop questions #text #Anonymous #kingdom asks

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0poole · 3 years

Text

Soul

Breaking news, everyone: Pixar made another slapper.

I’m gonna get it out of the way first, but the only (and yes, only. Not like someone trying to say “only” even though they have many more nitpicks that they just don’t want to talk about) problem I had at all was that the super high realism of the settings of Earth kind of made the more cartoony faces of the people look a little more off. But, it’s kinda like the same thing people were talking about with that cat in Toy Story 4. It looks super real, which is impressive, but I feel like it was almost too real compared to the faces. Obviously it was too real compared to the supernatural settings because that was intentional, but yeah. It’s not even a big problem, it’s just the only one I can think of. I do think the realistic renderings of hair, light, water, etc at least work with cartoony stuff, but apart from that it looked almost like it could’ve been a photograph, with no exaggeration in the buildings or anything else.

I mean, I love the faces, so I definitely wish they went the extra mile showing extra personality and character in the buildings, as faces do with characters. Considering the faces matter like a bazillion times more, I still think they knocked it out of the park on the visuals. People with more investment and knowledge into the topic already said that the faces of any of the people of color felt cartoony and unique while also being true to life and respectful (My family recently stumbled onto some old animations from the 30s and lemme tell ya... We’ve come a long way), but seriously the characters that sold me on the visuals were the Picasso-esque beings who may or may not be the Gods of the universe maybe?

Spoiler boundary of course. It’s definitely worth a watch.

And that’s honestly what made the realistic world so much better. When the accountant guy went into the real world to set the count right, it was one of the most fun I’ve had just watching something. The sheer contrast between him and the world was so much fun, and it even solidified that those beings weren’t even acting in a different dimension or anything. They’re literally just beings that exist, meaning that all the other parts with the unborn souls and such are just as real as Earth. Or, even better, they’re the ones who can just casually rip a hole in dimensions. As far as depictions of Gods go, if they are even Gods at all, I think they’re one of the best I’ve ever seen. They feel like they could actually be how Gods actually exist, since all the commonalities of Gods involve supernatural power, which would suggest they’re supernatural themselves. I mean, I have a story with Gods in it too and they’re basically just that although admittedly a lot less imaginative.

With those guys being my favorite design, second place definitely goes to the lost souls, although obviously for more subjective reasons. 1) They’re purple, 2) They have one eye, 3) That eye is yellow which I always think is the best compliment to purple, 4) Tentacles, 5) Creepy in a kid’s movie. Franky, I would’ve made them a lot creepier, but even then they’re super creepy, if not visually then in their behavior. They’d just be kind of sad if they were just mumbling around, but since the first introduction to them starts charging at the main characters like a deranged monster. Considering how weird everything in that dimension is, finding something that isn’t nearly as innocent as everything else instantly invokes fear, since you have no idea what that thing can and wants to do to you. Sort of similar, I would’ve also made the “In the Zone” moments a bit more crazy and colorful, like when Joe fell through the void between the road to the Great Beyond and the You-seminar (is that how it’s spelled?), but these “I would do it differently”s might just be a fault of my design ideas or just subjective interests. I would’ve watched 2 hours of pure, nonsensical abstract worlds like the You-seminar with no explanation to how they work.

I definitely have a relief with the story, mostly entirely revolving around 22′s character. I was kind of worried she’d be too childish to really enjoy, but I feel like she was done really well. All the major historical figures’ remarks on how hopeless she were both funny and also really tied into her character “flaw” at the end as she was a lost soul. It might not be the most unique character archetype of all time, but it definitely makes sense, with all the people bringing her down implanting in her mind that she was an anomaly, and after a while was just sort of following it. Plus, she seemed genuinely interested in Joe’s weirdness, instead of being super mindlessly irreverent. And her being able to expand Joe’s understanding about his own world, like with the barber and his student, brings her up as more than a whiny, bratty child in the scope of the story. She didn’t JUST learn.

Even though I kind of expected it from the get-go, I’m also relieved that the movie didn’t shy away as much with the dark elements of death. It was kind of suggested that this wasn’t going to be a perfectly casual romp through a magical afterlife like Inside Out was with the mind because of the unborn souls unabashedly saying “Hell” in the TRAILER of the movie. I feel like that alone made the story super interesting, because it shows they’re actually going to be a bit more serious with things instead of just simplifying the unknowable complexities of the before & afterlife. Even with the dead souls going into the Great Beyond, it was a mix of being weirdly peaceful for some and super scary for others. My family thought it was peaceful for the most part, but my mom specifically though it was terrifying, and even though it’s a lot more peaceful than almost all other depictions of death, I can’t blame her. The souls were just kinda accepting it, like they’d been brainwashed or something, but still acknowledged that they were dead and were going into the afterlife. Plus, Joe, being the main character who we are supposed to sort of reflect in a way, was super freaked out by it, so that could easily suggest it’s to be afraid of and the other people are the weird ones.

I think the true message of the story being so strange was better too, because it would’ve been so boring if it fell into a super basic message we’ve heard millions of times. I feel like it has a similar sentiment to the basic messages, but is at least a more interesting way of saying it, if it is even like that in the first place, because it’s also somewhat vague in a good way. I think my brother/mother misinterpreted and simplified things a bit too much, where they thought it was sort of like a happier way of saying “accept your lot in life and don’t change it.” I could probably go on a full other rant about why I think this is wrong, but part of it is I don’t really know how they came to this conclusion in the first place, considering with that scene with that guy who threw the computers off his desk as his lost soul was cured (I guess you could call it that?), who obviously realized he wasn’t okay with his lot in life and was destined to change it. I think they sort of misinterpreted “the spark” and other things it as a 100% for-real, this-is-how-the-real-world-works sort of way, and not as much as a fictional way of saying things. Not necessarily symbolic, but I guess symbolic also? It has some of the same weird logical problems as the Cutie Marks from My Little Pony, except they’re obviously better since Cutie Marks determine your life down to your very job some of the time, while “sparks” are more vague and seemingly up to you. They’re more like when an unborn soul realizes there’s something on Earth they want to figure out, not necessarily their hobbies or jobs. For example, they kind of cited the barber character as the one who supported their point, but I think he does the complete opposite. He wanted to be a vet, but he ended up being a barber. But, they sort of assumed his “spark” was to be a barber, and that his personal interests didn’t matter because the “spark” forced him into a less favorable job. But, in reality, I feel like his “spark” is more his interest in love for the people around him, which is why he decided to get a more practical job to support his daughter (wife? one of the two) when he really needed to. Plus, he still enjoys being a barber because his devotion to love lets him connect to people as he cuts their hair. After all, he seems to be succeeding in his goal, since Joe was just like “Hey, let’s go see this guy he’s the exact guy we need!” People who don’t show love and interest for others don’t make that kind of impression in people’s minds. I feel like if we knew each story of everyone’s life down to the last detail we could fully determine what the mechanics of the world and its people are meant to say from a fictional context, but with such a limited selection I don’t think you can say something so sure. Sure, every choice in a movie is made specifically for a purpose, but I feel like if a movie tries to hard to be like “Oh but don’t worry here’s an exception” a million times it gets bogged down by its own attempt to make the message as obvious as possible.

Anyway...

There are also a lot of neat little details I loved, like how even though they did this for basically no other point in the movie, they made sure to include people from all around the world in that mess of dead souls, firmly sort of putting in the idea that the entire globe is in a sense one single entity that leads to the same place. They could’ve so easily just made everyone speak English for that throwaway scene, but I feel like including people from all around the world was very beneficial. Even the EXTRA little things, like the path to the Great Beyond looking like the neck portion of a guitar with the metal bits that separate the notes, or the facial features of the Gods blurring when they turned their heads in the other direction.

But yeah, who would’ve guessed Pixar made another good movie, right? Even then, Soul’s in the upper echelon of Pixar films. I really hope they (and Disney) realize they can go bonkers with a movie and still benefit/survive from it, since they’re so damn rich and inherently profitable. I think AAA animated movies like this that are the perfect amount of artsy are few and far between, and we need more of them. If anything, I hope they get more artsy, but I guess I’ll still never say no to a fun fantastical romp either. Basically, Pixar has looped me into watching any and everything they produce because it’s never “bad” I think. In the grand scheme of quality, even their worst work (Cars 2) is still not “terrible,” per se, even if it feels like it exists more as a cash grab than a genuine tale.

#soul #pixar #christmas #disney plus #disney+#poole #opinions #rant #rambling #review #thoughts

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himboskywalker · 4 years

Note

Hi! I’m learning a lot about ABO from your fic and other asks. How do women usually fit into things? Do they get/give mating bites? Do female alphas and female omegas have relationships? Or like a female alpha and a male omega? ABO is a genre I’ve always shied away from but you’re fic has made it much more approachable and now I have questions lol

Q and A time a/b/o edition! Once again the entire over arching answer to these questions is the very annoying,it entirely depends on the author and fic,because there’s a lot of variation of the concepts. In general,as far as women go in a/b/o universes is that they don’t differ too far from the men. Mating bites is not something just between men and an alpha female and omega female could absolutely have a relationship *cough* Like Satine And Padme. And a female alpha and a male omega could totally get together! Typically in a/b/o you’ll see that the gender of couples is irrelevant compared to the designation. In some a/b/o a female alpha can impregnate a male omega or other women and a lot of times you’ll see that a female alpha has fertility issues just like male omegas often do. So a female alpha could get pregnant,it’s just usually difficult.

In my cmwia verse a female alpha would be able to impregnate a female beta or omega and that’s where the intersex question comes in. This question has me half shrugging because a lot depends on your definition of things because the very foundation of a/b/o is the turning on its head of gender and gender roles. While technically I would label a female alpha’s ability to impregnate a beta or omega woman or omega male or a male omega’s ability to become pregnant as intersex I don’t think that quite fits the bill of what you mean. To answe the main question,no Anakin does not have a vaginal canal. I know I said I like the more biological details but even though he technically has a uterus and that would mean it connects to his anal tract, this my friend is where I wave my hand and declare the right of suspension of belief.

Now in some verses you will see more intersex elements. Once again,it depends on the author! I’ve read some terrific intersex a/b/o where male omegas have vaginas as well as a penis and testicles and where a female alpha has a vagina but also,usually internal testicles and means of insemination. Others,like mine,the intersex elements that allow impregnating and childbirth are internal. I’ve never personally come across an author dealing with trans characters in a/b/o in any detail outside of a oneshot or two,though I’ve always found that element to be very interesting when the very core of a/b/o is to tackle gender,gender roles,and the societal structures of gender.

I will say in my verse I think I’ve leaned more towards a/a b/b a/b a/o o/o b/o pairings through a sexuality lens than most other a/b/o verses. In most fics I’ve seen the main topics approached to be gender,the very element of a/b/o itself,where I have been more interested in the nuances of a society of essentially 3 “genders” (I am grossly simplifying here please understand,gender is a spectrum I do understand)to incorporate in a messy and difficult tangle of sexualities,both societally approved and not.

Now as far as heats go,haha what do you think the answer is? It depends on the fic! I’ve seen some approaches that do handle it from the more animal aspect,you’ll see it being called bred and mated in these approaches and usually if an omega is ‘bred’ during a heat they will be pregnant. Too you’ll see in these verses the omega usually carries more than one baby and they’re often referred to as pups. In my own fic I’m walking my own tightrope between incorporating the animal elements that make a/b/o what it is,like heat,with the more human elements. In my verse an omega having sex during a heat does not guarantee pregnancy,merely that it is a time of peak fertility for an omega. Think hitting ovulation every six months and being just stupid stupid horny for a few days. The unique thing about a/b/o is that authors are esntially combining the biological breeding imperative of two species,humans and dogs,so you see a lot of give and take of what authors decide to incorporate. In most a/b/o you’ll see knotting,not in mine solely because I’m trying to keep it as human as possible or interpret these foreign elements as human. It’s why I’m trying to translate Anakin’s omeganess in hormone and fertility cycles,because it’s human and something we understand.

And finally mating bites and the Jedi Order,which is an excellent question. A mating bite would not be approved amongst the Jedi because even more than marriage it would be an extremely weighing attachment. How could a knight be truly self sacrificing if they had a mate they were instinctually and biologically driven to put before anything else?The council allowing Anakin to marry was an act of desperation and one made partly because it was a political marriage and it would be a relationship they thought Anakin could balance with his Jedi duties. The reasons marriage and mating bonds are frowned upon isn’t because the Jedi think love is wrong,rather,like the Templar’s or other historical orders,it is so a knight’s loyalties are not torn and so they are not forced to choose between duty and love.

#conceal me what i am #my fanfic stuff #anons #a/b/o dynamics #omegaverse #mpreg #long post

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