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jahiera · 9 months

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How To Know If Your Evil Vampire Boygirlfriend Really Likes You (a meta on Astarion's manipulations of Tav deeper into the romance.)

Okay, this was supposed to be a response to this ask right here, and it got so long I decided to just put it in its own thing for slightly easier reading. Thank you again to the asker for giving me an excuse to go off the rails talking about THE BOY. This also got long enough that it needs. Subheadings. And it is [checks notes] 3.6k words long. If you're interested in skipping the act 2 Scene Breakdown and going straight for the character analysis of Act 3 specifically, you can jump to the uhhh 3. Yeah He's Manipulative (Trauma Edition) subheading.

Prefacing that this is just my personal interpretation of Astarion here, the game leaves several moments ambiguous on purpose & I'd be super intrigued to hear what anyone else thinks is going on in this rancid little lad's head. This became more of a process of breaking down what I think he's doing in each scene than anything else, so I hope it's interesting to... you? reader? Since it's a bit long-winded and a lot of speculation and interpretation on my part for his wild ass behavior.

(Also, I haven't played far enough with an ascended Astarion to properly break down the differences between both--he'll have his own playthrough for sure but since I haven't gone far enough in that path, all of this is with no-ritual Astarion in mind) (I also don't have screenshots for everything but hopefully that's alright. just trust me bro.)

Fair warning, I didn't proof-read this & I moved paragraphs around so if it sounds incoherent that's a feature not a bug. Now. Let's get into the EVIDENCE.

1. but did he mean the kisses????

So, before the hug scene, the game leaves us a bit of room to interpret the progression of the relationship. I kind of wish we had one extra scene to sort of solidify his growing feelings in the in-between period of his "I'm just sleeping with you to secure my safety here," era (pre-confession as we'll call it) and his "oh shit I actually kind of care about you," era (post-confession, pre-ritual), but I understand why it wasn't included. Game mechanics & cost aside, the space between these two periods is left entirely up to player interpretation, & has lots of room for HC up to each individual player & Tav.

To address the easiest examples the asker gave, the repeatable kiss dialogues are all ones I'm going to mark under "sincere." Mostly because those are all post-confession, and after Astarion has acknowledged to himself (& the player) that he doesn't want to do anything sexual, but presumably kissing is fine (given that he's enthusiastic about the kisses & will shut down sex/intimacy acts otherwise.)

There's not really a logic to him being slinky here, and I didn't interpret any of his post-kiss repeated dialogues as insincere, much more so playful or coy or cheeky. The voice acting is subtle here, but I found it to be much more playful than his annoying little, for lack of a better word, purring "hello, beautiful" etc etc in act 1 / early act 2. Also, all these dialogues stay the same after the ritual happens, and your romance has been solidified in the grave scene, where he wholly says:

"I feel safe with you. Seen. And whatever the future holds for me, I don't want to lose that."

^ Not a lie. So I think we can mark off those particular dialogue as sincere.

In act 2, there aren't really a lot of places for Astarion to actually get into his manipulative tendencies. He overtly needs your aid with Yurgir (Repeat after me: thank you for helping me. It was very kind.) so he doesn't really manipulate you at... all...? in my opinion? Act 2 shows you his most sincere moment yet in the confession/hug scene. He is not lying. He is more honest in those moments than he has been in the entire game, and it shows in his wording, his body language. He's uncertain of himself, maybe. He doesn't know what to make of the situation yet. He says as much to Tav when you ask him "What are we?" and he says:

"I don't know. But isn't it nice? Not to know. You're not a victim. Not a target. Not just one night it's better to forget. But then... whatever in the world could you be?"

He has no reason to say that without sincerity. He could say you're his specialest babygirl if he wanted to keep up the lie. And other than helping him with Raphael, there's really not a moment where Astarion has an opportunity to manipulate you....

EXCEPT.

EXCEPT. For this moment in particular. which is one of my FAVORITE Astarion ones because it is gloriously bitchy.

2. what if we took over a cult, babe.

Context first: I played a paladin of devotion, rough around the edges but fairly good-aligned Tav. She was a bit of a jerk but she saved people for free, and I adhered to her dialogue roleplay hard, choosing the "destroy the Absolute" dialogues at every turn. I don't have a save for this scene sadly otherwise I'd replay it and compare/contrast answers like a pepe silvia meme, so I'm only able to break this scene down from that particular lens.

Secondary context: This scene is important because it highlights Astarion's manipulative routine while still with a Tav he's very fond of (exceptional approval in this scene) and the way he lays it out is necessary to understand the moments later where he tries to manipulate Tav again, since it has components of the same themes, ideas, and tendencies that go on.

So, Astarion will hit you with this hot take early-ish on.

"You know. I feel a connection between us. Like we're two souls walking the same path (...)" Astarion establishes emotional connection, and a foundation of similarity/commonality/shareed interest. This is pretty standard fare for him. He does the same thing a lot early in act one, where he's almost CONSTANTLY asking you to "trust him," (when you really should not.)

"You might be a little naive in the ways of the world, but I see promise in you. Ambition." - He kind of snidely reveals what he actually thinks--you're a bit naive, you "have a big heart,"--he's hoping that his emotional cloying and little comment and connection with Tav will be enough to sway them over to what he wants to do, and they'll give him what he wants because We're So Similar, See?

"So I was thinking, what would be the right thing do when we get to Moonrise Towers?" - He wields his language carefully. The right thing to do. That's a language he thinks Tav speaks. An interest in doing the Right Thing; so, he adjusts accordingly. He wants to do the right thing too, you see, and the right thing conveniently lines up with what he actually wants, which is real power. Astarion confesses he's not a details guy, yada yada, then--

"If we can take that control from them, imagine the power we'd wield." <- He lets slip what he's actually interested in. Astarion generally can't keep a charade up for too long. His real thoughts always come through, and he reveals his hand in conversations often, but usually in offhanded ways and, well--he's never made a secret really of where his actual interests lie. His attempts at currying your favor and persuading you (and you can really feel the persuasion here) are prettyyyyy overt, but still, he's trying anyways.

"I'm just saying there's an opportunity here. If we can control the tadpoles, we can keep ourselves safe and liberate the world from this evil." <- He brings the conversation back around to what's more neutral than Absolute Power -- keeping ourselves safe. He uses the We and Us language a lot when he wants to convince other people of anything, really. "We're all such good, trusting friends!" he'll say, lying through his FUCKING teeth. His manipulations here are like.... pretty clear, but he still gets an A for effort for trying to align himself with Tav & Tav's perceived goals & see if he can wriggle in his own in the process, put "become god-cult-leader" up as a Reasonable and Rational thing to Want to achieve.

The actual question here: does he care about Tav at this point? Up for interpretation, but I'm going to say yes with... the caveat that I don't think he's fully acknowledged it to himself, and I don't think it's love here. It is high approval though. I do think he cares about Tav, I do think he's including Tav in longer-term goals, he's depending on Tav at this point as an ally he can count on, and he's starting to get chipped away at.

I don't even really think it's a lie that he on some level would like to see Tav safe, and takes their wellbeing into account. He's been with them long enough to worry over their safety to some extent, and to at least partially lump it in with his own (in my opinion). Is that love? I don't think so. "We can finally be safe," is a reoccurring theme in the other scene I'm going to break down in just a second. And it's interesting for a lot of reasons.

And furthermore: you can care about someone and still be manipulative toward them. That's a core thing going on here, I think, with Astarion.

3. Yeah He's Manipulative (Trauma Edition).

"Is Astarion Manipulating Me In Act 3? " YES. A little bit. And here's why it's INTERESTING.

So, the confession scene in act two has already happened. Astarion has confessed some of his big mushy feelings to you. He likes you. You've slammed the "can I kiss you?" dialogue 100 times already because you're really super normal about the vampire twink. He doesn't know what to make of his caring about Tav yet. See: his "what are we??" dialogue.

MOVING ON. Astarion is also, a manipulative little shit, and he will NOT change his ways just because he likes you a lot and giggles when you give him a little kissy kiss.

Astarion is deeply, deeply traumatized, and his trauma has in his own words makes him act out the same cycles of behavior that he did prior to escaping Cazador. In its most obvious format, one of those behaviors was seducing Tav because that was the kind of behavior he knew, and it was the only thing he could think of to secure his own safety. By act 2, he's somewhat aware of the cycle, but--

Traumatic behaviors, like anything relating to surviving abuse & getting out of it, come and go in waves. You'll likely not find a survivor of abuse who doesn't revert back to coping mechanisms at times, especially in moments or episodes of heightened stress, or being put back into the old environment again. ->

Astarion going back to Baldur's Gate--and specifically with killing cazador in mind--is him going back to that same place where traumatic events occurred... almost constantly. Thus, he goes back to his old behaviors. Not to the exact same level, but it is there.

Safety. THIS is a word that comes back a lot with Astarion, it is one of his most reoccurring (if not the most) themes. He wants to feel safe. He associates power with safety, because the safest person in the world--as in, literally safe, not "safe for other people"--in his mind, is Cazador, who is powerful enough to repel any threats to himself & what he owns, has, possesses, and keeps.

Astarion is still, at his core, no matter what, self-serving. He will do what's best for himself first and foremost in almost every circumstance you put him in. Or at least, he will want to--if Tav or someone else stands in his way, and he sticks it out, it'll be begrudgingly. That's a fundamental aspect of his character & to try and do away with it makes no sense.

And in case it got lost, I'll reiterate that I do think Astarion's actual feelings for Tav at this stage are entirely genuine, & deeply felt. It shows, and it's obvious. He's just got several layers of behavior going on in the process.

"But I thought astarion liked me??? why would he consciously choose to manipulate me??" The thing is, once again, you can like someone and still try to manipulate them, pull on their heartstrings, or quite frankly guilt trip them into helping you kill like, a lot of fucking people so you can become godlord supreme emperor of mortals and vampire kind.

Let's get into the second scene I want to break down. Keeping all of what we've established above about how Astarion goes about establishing connection & togetherness & the idea of shared safety to sway Tav over to his side.

So let's set up one thing for sure. It's pretty obvious, everyone gets this scene, but let's set it up anyways.

"What's a handful of the wretch's servants? IF they're anything like me when I was enslaved, they'll all be begging for death anyways." <- apathy toward others, generally motivated by self-interest, lack of empathy for others' plights, a callousness that is fairly unrepetant. He's fairly sure this is what he wants, and--

"After two hundred years of pure shit, I think I deserve something better." Again, Astarion tells us exactly what he's thinking. And what he believes. And he's not wrong! He does deserve something better than what he had before. Or, at least, he doesn't deserve the level of cruelty he endured at Cazador's hands. However.

And then he follows it up with, "I know you do [care]. It matters to me too. I want to be able to protect you too." <- finally, we come back around to the reoccurring theme he'll use to sway Tav over to his side. He sees the soft point of Tav in the conversation--they care about him--and he needles that in; they care about him, he cares about them, they should help him complete the ritual for it, it's what's best for everyone. Except for the 7000 spawn, but. You know.

NEXT IMPORTANT SCENE. let's take a look at the scene that follows after you confront his fellow vampire spawn in the tavern.

I'm keeping the full screencap so I can keep his shifty little look in here. It's not the best format, I wish I'd kept videos, the body language & voice acting adds a lot to this moment, but. Neil you're so good at balancing Astarion's careful shiftiness, his gleeful/vindictive revelry at being so close to his end goal & confronting his siblings without flinching, his coy little pleading, and his near desperate watchfulness. He needs Tav. He cares about Tav, yes, but he needs Tav to help him.

Astarion is, again, fairly callous about the deaths of his brethren. You have to remind him time & again to maybe empathize with their suffering & similarity to him. But each time he reverts back to, "their lives" serving a greater purpose.

Astarion then follows that up with "But we're a team. If I become all powerful, then we become all-powerful." <- I think he genuinely does think of himself & Tav as a team, and as a good one at that. More than anything, Tav is the first person Astarion, in his own words, feels he truly cares for. They've killed a few gods chosens together, Tav has given him respect, patience, care. He feels fairly assured of their presence & kindness at this point. And assurance tends to breed............. let's call it, taking for granted?

I believe he's trying to again emotionally bid for their help & loyalty as much as gauge if they're still with him, as he does by going -> "We are a team after all. You're still with me?" Once again, the easiest way to secure aid is through emotional connections; someone's attraction to you, or better yet, their care for your well-being, are easy strings to pull on to try and entice someone to do what you want them to do. It's not necessarily maliciously intended, but it is a kind of manipulation.

"But Astarion just genuinely wants to know you're on his side!" Yes. And he also really wants you to help him with the ritual. ANY arguments against the idea that he's benignly trying to manipulate Tav's feelings, I'm just gonna put up this screencap right here, one of the last times he bids for Tav's affection & loyalty in this, in this particular conversation:

Look at his stupid pouty face and his "You want what's best for me, surely?" and oh god the voice acting. We're smacked right in the face with Act 1 Astarion's slinky, whiny little "truuuuust me it'll just be a taste I promise <3333" voice. That PURE "I'm trying so hard to connive my way into your good will because I REALLY want this." voice.

His strength is your strength. And he will pleading face emoji his way through getting you over to his side if he needs to. It's honestly so funny, how the writing plays out, because SEVERAL times you can choose to fully fall for it, "yes of course I want whats best for you / want you to be safe / feel good" and every time, he's like "I know I know <333 and I want YOU to feel safe too <3333" and I don't even think that's a lie! I don't think it's a LIE, I just think it's the same pattern of manipulative behavior he's exhibited time and again even when he cares for you.

Astarion is still Astarion. He is very willing to kill, lie, and cheat his way through just about anything to protect himself, & all of that makes PERFECT sense for him. And if you're not on board with his plans, of course he will use every tool at his disposal to get you on board. It is, after all, what's best for both you and him. His power is your power.

4. "I'm doing this for you too." He said, lying. Or genuinely believing that but lying to himself too and executing it in the weirdest way imaginable.

So, this is probably my favorite interaction in the entire Astarion romance. Love the grave scene. Love the horny evil vampire turning. But this moment in particular is fucking brilliant, because it illustrates the dilemma here perfectly.

Astarion outright tells us exactly why he is the way he is, and why he cares for Tav while being able to be so cruel and callous about others. "No one ever looked out for me [...] you're the only one." Tav is exceptional--as in, THE EXCEPTION to the rule--because they cared for him in a way no one else ever has. He has ZERO reason to even bother lifting a finger for anyone else besides himself, because in his mind, none of them ever bothered to help him, why should he bother with them. But TAV. Tav he can make promises too.

On some level, I do kind of believe him when he says things like "I'm doing this for you too." -- As in, I believe that he believes that he's taken Tav into account here as well. I do think he genuinely thinks they'll be an even more magnificent duo of glorious bastards together once he's God Vampire Emperor Of Eternity. And on some level, he's probably right. They do take over the world together in some endings, so. Good for them.

However, do I think he's primarily motivated by anything but himself? No. Tav also benefitting from his mega vampire powers is just a bonus in a laundry list of reasons why Astarion wants to ascend at this point in the game. Why Astarion is willing to pull out every guilt-trippy, pleading face to get Tav to help him, if they show even a hint of reluctance. More than anything: Astarion is a survivor, and a survivor of severe abuse that pretty quickly explain why he is the way he is. Does that excuse what he does in the aftermath of that abuse, when it comes to harming other people? Not really. But it explains it pretty clearly.

Because Astarion is back where he came from, he's immediately thrust back into the cycles of behavior that both traumatized him & were what he had to do. The pattern of behavior, coping mechanisms, rooted in traumatic cycles, that he has done time and time and time again that has successfully gotten him, not what he wants, but what he needs to survive. Does his manipulation of Tav here mean he doesn't care? Not at all. It's just that he needs this work. He needs his allies to help him make it work, and he's willing to pull out every stop to see Cazador dead and himself with enough power to never feel so helpless or vulnerable again.

Astarion can love you & still be himself. He will never stop being a bit bitchy, a bit conniving, extremely focused on self-preservation at all costs. He might not seek out active maliciousness, but even in act 3 after the ritual, he still approves of generally being a sneaky bastard, taking short cuts, taking easy ways out. And none of this is necessarily... a problem? It isn't ""moral"", sure, but it's not really a problem. In some endings, he can pursue ""better"" paths, but his general deceivery and typical behavior aren't going away. Feature, not a bug. How each Tav feels about his ... fairly obvious deep romance manipulations is up to each player though, and that is what's interesting for each playthrough.

There are five more essays to write in here. There's the Astarion after the ritual, who agrees that fine, killing 7000 people is wrong. And there's the Astarion after the ascension, who is now fully entrenched in the idea that Power Is Everything, and all that means for him afterward, and his visceral, intense, obsessive controlling dynamic with Tav where they descend into Chaotic Vampire Evil Marriage. And there's Astarion and Tav together finally, honestly, openly, with the heart-wrenching intimacy of the grave scene. And this is almost 4000 words so I'm shutting the fuck up here.

So. I will end this by saying I'm peeling him like an onion rn I'm obsessed with him. He's gods horrible princess and he's never going to die.

#astarion #bg3 #bg3 meta #the fact that I'm sitting here like 'okay but I'm not even taking into account...'#Astarion.. you vainglorious hilarious evil twink. Why are you so complicated. I'm obsessed with you.#if this flops we don't talk about it okay....#also I'm not sure but if you need a tone disclaimer my jokes/insults/teasing is all complimentary. unfortunately #I love him deeply. and want to put him in a bag of rice and shake him really hard.#bg3 spoilers

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bogleech · 5 months

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i keep wanting to draw anthro maggots but they end up looking like beetle larvae instead- any ideas on how one might stylize a maggot person to make it a little more distinctly A Maggot? it's especially hard to me bc maggots are like THE MOST featureless insect larvae.... which i suppose counts as a defining feature in and of itself- but i dunno. im mostly just curious to hear your approach!!!

Yeah beetle grubs, caterpillars and a lot of other insect larvae have armored heads with complete jaws structures as well as six little legs, plus they often have a defined looking "top" and "bottom" with ridged and wrinkles almost like they got soft armored down their back

But maggots are weird! They streamlined EVERYTHING down to where they have no legs at all, not even vestigial ones, and their body segments almost evolved towards something like radial symmetry by being the same all the way around!

Then there's the fact that they sort of lost most of a "head." Not only is there no exoskeletal cranial case (bug skull) to protect it but there are no jaws and never any eyes; there's just a little hole for drinking liquefied food, a pair of tusk-like hooks for gripping surfaces, and a pair of eye-like knobs that are actually chemosensory (noses)

The weird, tiny walrus-face is totally unique! They don't have any chewing mouthparts because they only need to "drink" the particles of rotting matter they live on, and like adult flies, they help this along by secreting digestive enzymes!

Maggots also have these very distinct, furry looking bands at every segment, which help them grip surfaces like a tire tread or the sole of a shoe. If you compare this photo with the one above you'll also notice how the segments can retract in and out like a telescope!

The last special thing about common maggot anatomy is that they are technically semi-aquatic animals, because maggots evolved to be buried head-first completely in their own food as much as possible and rotten corpses are WET. In order to breathe, maggots have a pair of breathing spiracles on their rear ends, which they try to keep exposed to the air!

There are exceptions to all of this, though; there are species that can be fully aquatic, fully terrestrial, herbivorous, parasitic or predatory, and some ancient fly groups (including mosquitoes!) whose larvae still have fully armored heads and even eyes. Everything above is universal to the maggots you find in rotten stuff though, so what most people think of when they hear the term :) When I designed a hybrid human and blowfly maggot for the Mortasheen setting I deliberately made it look like a doofy cartoon Walrus, and I gave its segments large spines that can be seen in some parasitic maggots, including botflies:

And when I made a maggot character for my webcomic Awful Hospital I designed her like a little spacesuit or a parka (the resemblance to Kenny was an accident)

Actually I don't think I ever shared this most recent "main artwork" of Maggie. I don't know what idea inspiration any of this might provide but basically a maggot is a prickly living sock with fangs. Or I guess from a design and engineering perspective, a maggot is a biological drill. The tiny end starts a hole, the rest of the body is just a flaring cone perfectly equipped to keep making the hole deeper.

#biology #animals #nature #science

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mostlysignssomeportents · 8 months

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On September 22, I'm (virtually) presenting at the DIG Festival in Modena, Italy. On September 27, I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine.

It's been 21 years since Bill Willingham launched Fables, his 110-issue, wide-ranging, delightful and brilliantly crafted author-owned comic series that imagines that the folkloric figures of the world's fairytales are real people, who live in a secret society whose internal struggles and intersections with the mundane world are the source of endless drama.

Fables is a DC Comics title; DC is division of the massive entertainment conglomerate Warners, which is, in turn, part of the Warner/Discovery empire, a rapacious corporate behemoth whose screenwriters have been on strike for 137 days (and counting). DC is part of a comics duopoly; its rival, Marvel, is a division of the Disney/Fox juggernaut, whose writers are also on strike.

The DC that Willingham bargained with at the turn of the century isn't the DC that he bargains with now. Back then, DC was still subject to a modicum of discipline from competition; its corporate owner's shareholders had not yet acquired today's appetite for meteoric returns on investment of the sort that can only be achieved through wage-theft and price-gouging.

In the years since, DC – like so many other corporations – participated in an orgy of mergers as its sector devoured itself. The collapse of comics into a duopoly owned by studios from an oligopoly had profound implications for the entire sector, from comic shops to comic cons. Monopoly breeds monopoly, and the capture of the entire comics distribution system by a single company – Diamond – was attended by the capture of the entire digital comics market by a single company, Amazon, who enshittified its Comixology division, driving creators and publishers into Kindle Direct Publishing, a gig-work platform that replicates the company's notoriously exploitative labor practices for creative workers. Today, Comixology is a ghost-town, its former employees axed in a mass layoff earlier this year:

https://gizmodo.com/amazon-layoffs-comixology-1850007216

When giant corporations effect these mergers, they do so with a kind of procedural kabuki, insisting that they are dotting every i and crossing every t, creating a new legal entity whose fictional backstory is a perfect, airtight bubble, a canon with not a single continuity bug. This performance of seriousness is belied by the behind-the-scenes chaos that these corporate shifts entail – think of the way that the banks that bought and sold our mortgages in the run-up to the 2008 crisis eventually lost the deeds to our houses, and then just pretended they were legally entitled to collect money from us every month – and steal our houses if we refused to pay:

https://www.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-58325420110720

Or think of the debt collection industry, which maintains a pretense of careful record-keeping as the basis for hounding and threatening people, but which is, in reality, a barely coherent trade in spreadsheets whose claims to our money are matters of faith:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/12/do-not-pay/#fair-debt-collection-practices-act

For usury, the chaos is a feature, not a bug. Their corporate strategists take the position that any ambiguity should be automatically resolved in their favor, with the burden of proof on accused debtors, not the debt collectors. The scumbags who lost your deed and stole your house say that it's up to you to prove that you own it. And since you've just been rendered homeless, you don't even have a house to secure a loan you might use to pay a lawyer to go to court.

It's not solely that the usurers want to cheat you – it's that they can make more money if they don't pay for meticulous record-keeping, and if that means that they sometimes cheat us, that's our problem, not theirs.

While this is very obvious in the usury sector, it's also true of other kinds of massive mergers that create unfathomnably vast conglomerates. The "curse of bigness" is real, but who gets cursed is a matter of power, and big companies have a lot more power.

The chaos, in other words, is a feature and not a bug. It provides cover for contract-violating conduct, up to and including wage-theft. Remember when Disney/Marvel stole money from beloved science fiction giant Alan Dean Foster, whose original Star Wars novelization was hugely influential on George Lucas, who changed the movie to match Foster's ideas?

Disney claimed that when it acquired Lucasfilm, it only acquired its assets, but not its liabilities. That meant that while it continued to hold Foster's license to publish his novel, they were not bound by an obligation to pay Foster for this license, since that liability was retained by the (now defunct) original company:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/30/disney-still-must-pay/#pay-the-writer

For Disney, this wage-theft (and many others like it, affecting writers with less fame and clout than Foster) was greatly assisted by the chaos of scale. The chimera of Lucas/Disney had no definitive responsible party who could be dragged into a discussion. The endless corporate shuffling that is normal in giant companies meant that anyone who might credibly called to account for the theft could be transfered or laid off overnight, with no obvious successor. The actual paperwork itself was hard for anyone to lay hands on, since the relevant records had been physically transported and re-stored subsequent to the merger. And, of course, the company itself was so big and powerful that it was hard for Foster and his agent to raise a credible threat.

I've experienced versions of this myself: every book contract I've ever signed stipulated that my ebooks could not be published with DRM. But one of my publishers – a boutique press that published my collection Overclocked – collapsed along with most of its competitors, the same week my book was published (its distributor, Publishers Group West, went bankrupt after its parent company, Advanced Marketing Services, imploded in a shower of fraud and criminality).

The publisher was merged with several others, and then several more, and then several more – until it ended up a division of the Big Five publisher Hachette, who repeatedly, "accidentally" pushed my book into retail channels with DRM. I don't think Hachette deliberately set out to screw me over, but the fact that Hachette is (by far) the most doctrinaire proponent of DRM meant that when the chaos of its agglomerated state resulted in my being cheated, it was a happy accident.

(The Hachette story has a happy ending; I took the book back from them and sold it to Blackstone Publishing, who brought out a new expanded edition to accompany a DRM-free audiobook and ebook):

https://www.blackstonepublishing.com/overclocked-bvej.html

Willingham, too, has been affected by the curse of bigness. The DC he bargained with at the outset of Fables made a raft of binding promises to him: he would have approval over artists and covers and formats for new collections, and he would own the "IP" for the series, meaning the copyrights vested in the scripts, storylines, characters (he might also have retained rights to some trademarks).

But as DC grew, it made mistakes. Willingham's hard-fought, unique deal with the publisher was atypical. A giant publisher realizes its efficiencies through standardized processes. Willingham's books didn't fit into that standard process, and so, repeatedly, the publisher broke its promises to him.

At first, Willingham's contacts at the publisher were contrite when he caught them at this. In his press-release on the matter, Willingham calls them "honest men and women of integrity [who] interpreted the details of that agreement fairly and above-board":

https://billwillingham.substack.com/p/willingham-sends-fables-into-the

But as the company grew larger, these counterparties were replaced by corporate cogs who were ever-more-distant from his original, creator-friendly deal. What's more, DC's treatment of its other creators grew shabbier at each turn (a dear friend who has written for DC for decades is still getting the same page-rate as they got in the early 2000s), so Willingham's deal grew more exceptional as time went by. That meant that when Willingham got the "default" treatment, it was progressively farther from what his contract entitled him to.

The company repeatedly – and conveniently – forgot that Willingham had the final say over the destiny of his books. They illegally sublicensed a game adapted from his books, and then, when he objected, tried to make renegotiating his deal a condition of being properly compensated for this theft. Even after he won that fight, the company tried to cheat him and then cover it up by binding him to a nondisclosure agreement.

This was the culmination of a string of wage-thefts in which the company misreported his royalties and had to be dragged into paying him his due. When the company "practically dared" Willingham to sue ("knowing it would be a long and debilitating process") he snapped.

Rather than fight Warner, Willingham has embarked on what JWZ calls an act of "absolute table-flip badassery" – he has announced that Fables will hereafter be in the public domain, available for anyone to adapt commercially, in works that compete with whatever DC might be offering.

Now, this is huge, and it's also shrewd. It's the kind of thing that will bring lots of attention on Warner's fraudulent dealings with its creative workforce, at a moment where the company is losing a public relations battle to the workers picketing in front of its gates. It constitutes a poison pill that is eminently satisfying to contemplate. It's delicious.

But it's also muddy. Willingham has since clarified that his public domain dedication means that the public can't reproduce the existing comics. That's not surprising; while Willingham doesn't say so, it's vanishingly unlikely that he owns the copyrights to the artwork created by other artists (Willingham is also a talented illustrator, but collaborated with a who's-who of comics greats for Fables). He may or may not have control over trademarks, from the Fables wordmark to any trademark interests in the character designs. He certainly doesn't have control over the trademarked logos for Warner and DC that adorn the books.

When Willingham says he is releasing the "IP" to his comic, he is using the phrase in its commercial sense, not its legal sense. When business people speak of "owning IP," they mean that they believe they have the legal right to control the conduct of their competitors, critics and customers:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

The problem is that this doesn't correspond to the legal concept of IP, because IP isn't actually a legal concept. While there are plenty of "IP lawyers" and even "IP law firms," there is no "IP law." There are many laws that are lumped together under "IP," including the big three (trademark, copyright and patent), but also a bestiary of obscure cousins and subspecies – trade dress, trade secrecy, service marks, noncompetes, nondisclosues, anticirumvention rights, sui generis "neighboring rights" and so on.

The job of an "IP lawyer" is to pluck individual doctrines from this incoherent scrapheap of laws and regulations and weave them together into a spider's web of tripwires that customers and critics and competitors can't avoid, and which confer upon the lawyer's client the right to sue for anything that displeases them.

When Willingham says he's releasing Fables into the public domain, it's not clear what he's releasing – and what is his to release. In the colloquial, business sense of "IP," saying you're "releasing the IP" means something like, "Feel free to create adaptations from this." But these adaptations probably can't draw too closely on the artwork, or the logos. You can probably make novelizations of the comics. Maybe you can make new comics that use the same scripts but different art. You can probably make sequels to, or spinoffs of, the existing comics, provided you come up with your own character designs.

But it's murky. Very murky. Remember, this all started because Willingham didn't have the resources or patience to tangle with the rabid attack-lawyers Warners keeps kenneled on its Burbank lot. Warners can (and may) release those same lawyers on you, even if you are likely to prevail in court, betting that you – like Willingham – won't have the resources to defend yourself.

The strange reality of "IP" rights is that they can be secured without any affirmative step on your part. Copyrights are conjured into existence the instant that a new creative work is fixed in a tangible medium and endure until the creator's has been dead for 70 years. Common-law trademarks gradually come into definition like an image appearing on photo-paper in a chemical soup, growing in definition every time they are used, even if the mark's creator never files a form with the USPTO.

These IP tripwires proliferate in the shadows, wherever doodles are sketched on napkins, wherever kindergartners apply finger-paint to construction-paper. But for all that they are continuously springing into existence, and enduring for a century or more, they are absurdly hard to give away.

This was the key insight behind the Creative Commons project: that while the internet was full of people saying "no copyright" (or just assuming the things they posted were free for others to use), the law was a universe away from their commonsense assumptions. Creative Commons licenses were painstakingly crafted by an army of international IP lawyers who set out to turn the normal IP task on its head – to create a legal document that assured critics, customers and competitors that the licensor had no means to control their conduct.

20 years on, these licenses are pretty robust. The flaws in earlier versions have been discovered and repaired in subsequent revisions. They have been adapted to multiple countries' legal systems, allowing CC users to mix-and-match works from many territories – animating Polish sprites to tell a story by a Canadian, set to music from the UK.

Willingham could clarify his "public domain" dedication by applying a Creative Commons license to Fables, but which license? That's a thorny question. What Willingham really wants here is a sampling license – a license that allows licensees to take some of the elements of his work, combine them with other parts, and make something new.

But no CC license fits that description. Every CC license applies to whole works. If you want to license the bass-line from your song but not the melody, you have to release the bass-line separately and put a CC license on that. You can't just put a CC license on the song with an asterisked footnote that reads "just the bass, though."

CC had a sampling license: the "Sampling Plus 1.0" license. It was a mess. Licensees couldn't figure out what parts of works they were allowed to use, and licensors couldn't figure out how to coney that. It's been "retired."

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/

So maybe Willingham should create his own bespoke license for Fables. That may be what he has to do, in fact. But boy is that a fraught business. Remember the army of top-notch lawyers who created the CC licenses? They missed a crucial bug in the first three versions of the license, and billions of works have been licensed under those earlier versions. This has enabled a mob of crooked copyleft trolls (like Pixsy) to prey on the unwary, raking in a fortune:

https://doctorow.medium.com/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-licenses-has-enabled-a-new-breed-of-superpredator-5f6360713299

Making a bug-free license is hard. A failure on Willingham's part to correctly enumerate or convey the limitations of such a license – to list which parts of Fables DC might sue you for using – could result in downstream users having their hard work censored out of existence by legal threats. Indeed, that's the best case scenario – defects in a license could result in downstream users, their collaborators, investors, and distributors being sued for millions of dollars, costing them everything they have, up to and including their homes.

Which isn't to say that this is dead on arrival – far from it! Just that there is work to be done. I can't speak for Creative Commons (it's been more than 20 years since I was their EU Director), but I'm positive that there are copyfighting lawyers out there who'd love to work on a project like this.

I think Willingham is onto something here. After all, Fables is built on the public domain. As Willingham writes in his release: "The current laws are a mishmash of unethical backroom deals to keep trademarks and copyrights in the hands of large corporations, who can largely afford to buy the outcomes they want."

Willingham describes how his participation in the entertainment industry has made him more skeptical of IP, not less. He proposes capping copyright at 20 years, with a single, 10-year extension for works that are sold onto third parties. This would be pretty good industrial policy – almost no works are commercially viable after just 14 years:

https://rufuspollock.com/papers/optimal_copyright.pdf

But there are massive structural barriers to realizing such a policy, the biggest being that the US had tied its own hands by insisting that long copyright terms be required in the trade deals it imposed on other countries, thereby binding itself to these farcically long copyright terms.

But there is another policy lever American creators can and should yank on to partially resolve this: Termination. The 1976 Copyright Act established the right for any creator to "terminate" the "transfer" of any copyrighted work after 30 years, by filing papers with the Copyright Office. This process is unduly onerous, and the Authors Alliance (where I'm a volunteer advisor) has created a tool to simplify it:

https://www.authorsalliance.org/resources/rights-reversion-portal/

Termination is deliberately obscure, but it's incredibly powerful. The copyright scholar Rebecca Giblin has studied this extensively, helping to produce the most complete report on how termination has been used by creators of all types:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/04/avoidance-is-evasion/#reverted

Writers, musicians and other artists have used termination to unilaterally cancel the crummy deals they had crammed down their throats 30 years ago and either re-sell their works on better terms or make them available directly to the public. Every George Clinton song, every Sweet Valley High novel, and the early works of Steven King have all be terminated and returned to their creators.

Copyright termination should and could be improved. Giblin and I wrote a whole-ass book about this and related subjects, Chokepoint Capitalism, which not only details the scams that writers like Willingham are subject to, but also devotes fully half its length to presenting detailed, technical, shovel-ready proposals for making life better for creators:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

Willingham is doing something important here. Larger and larger entertainment firms offer shabbier and shabbier treatment to creative workers, as striking members of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA can attest. Over the past year, I've seen a sharp increase in the presence of absolutely unconscionable clauses in the contracts I'm offered by publishers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/27/reps-and-warranties/#i-agree

I'm six months into negotiating a contract for a 300 word piece I wrote for a magazine I started contributing to in 1992. At issue is that they insist that I assign film rights and patent rights from my work as a condition of publication. Needless to say, there are no patentable inventions nor film ideas in this article, but they refuse to vary the contract, to the obvious chagrin of the editor who commissioned me.

Why won't they grant a variance? Why, they are so large – the magazine is part of a global conglomerate – that it would be impractical for them to track exceptions to this completely fucking batshit clause. In other words: we can't strike this batshit clause because we decided that from now on, all out contracts will have batshit clauses.

The performance of administrative competence – and the tactical deployment of administrative chaos – among giant entertainment companies is grotesque, but every now and again, it backfires.

That's what's happening at Marvel right now. The estates of Marvel founder Stan Lee and its seminal creator Steve Ditko are suing Marvel to terminate the transfer of both creators' characters to Marvel. If they succeed, Marvel will lose most of its most profitable characters, including Iron Man:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/marvel-artists-estate-ask-pre-trial-wins-superhero-copyright-fight-2023-05-22/

They're following in the trail of the Jack Kirby estate, whom Marvel paid millions to rather than taking their chances with the Supreme Court.

Marvel was always an administrative mess, repeatedly going bankrupt. Its deals with its creators were indifferently papered over, and then Marvel lost a lot of the paperwork. I'd bet anything that many of the key documents Disney (Marvel's owner) needs to prevail over Lee and Ditko are either unlocatable or destroyed – or never existed in the first place.

A more muscular termination right – say, one that kicks in after 20 years, and is automatic – would turn circuses like Marvel-Lee/Ditko into real class struggles. Rather than having the heirs of creators reaping the benefit of termination, we could make termination into a system for getting creators themselves paid.

In the meantime, there's Willingham's "absolute table-flip badassery."

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/15/fairy-use-tales/#sampling-license

Image: Tom Mrazek (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:An_Open_Field_%2827220830251%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Penguin Random House (modified) https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/707161/fables-20th-anniversary-box-set-by-bill-willingham/

Fair use https://www.eff.org/issues/intellectual-property

#pluralistic #fables #comics #graphic novels #dc #warner #monopoly #publishing #chokepoint capitalism #poison pills #ip #bill willingham #public domain #copyright #copyfight #creative commons #licenses #copyleft trolls

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intheholler · 10 months

Note

i like what you said to the other anon, 'whos to say it's even misspelled? it's our language.' because as someone who loves languages and studies them in my freetime I've been saying stuff in that vein for years. Language is man made, and by men it will continue to be made and remade-- even in ways you don't like. You just have to get over it.

Idk why so many English speakers get so up their own ass about speaking 'proper english' even when what's being said is perfectly understandable. It's these people who turn their nose up at dialects typically associated with the poor, the marginalized, and the not-white and don't see any problem with it. Like do you actually care about the fact they spelled it 'dieing' or do you just want to take cheap shots at those backwards hillbilly redneck racists or whatever you think youre doing?

i also love languages and study them in my free time! i can talk myself blue in the face about capital L "Language" as much as i can about appalachia. how cool to meet you.

my passion for language joins forces with my love of the region and its dialect often, and it's why i find myself defending it this loudly.

like, i write for a living. i KNOW proper spelling and grammar. i have a fine grasp on it because they fuckin pay me for it.

and frankly, even though i know the "proper" way to say things, oftentimes i simply Do Not. why? appalachian dialect is easier, more natural to me.

its easier to say "them things" than "those things." it's easier to say "that" sans the "th-" when it follows a word ending in a consonant. "it don't matter" as opposed to "it doesn't matter" just feels better in my mouth. "ain't" is a word, because we speak this word and use it to communicate, and therefore it is so.

appalachians and southerners alike get accused of being lazy with our language, and so what? i love that our dialect reflects the slow way of mountain living, the freedom and ease that comes with it. it's a feature, as they say, not a bug.

sociolinguistics is absolutely a thing, as you know, so while that sort of thing gives me the liberty and wherewithal to speak in my dialect even though i """know better,""" unfortunately, there's a flipside. meaning i can't help but to think the answer to your question is in the latter half. no, they don't give a shit. but it makes them feel morally and intellectually superior over them damn uneducated hillbillies to tell us when we say shit or spell shit "wrong."

all the more reason for me to wanna do it.

this got long and out of hand. sorry. languages. appalachia. excitable. etc. thanks so much for this ask, i love the topic you introduced.

#asks #appalachian culture #appalachian dialect

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twistedtummies2 · 6 days

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Top 10 Portrayals of Renfield

The time has come to cover our last supporting player in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I’m skipping over Arthur Holmwood and Quincey Morris, on account of a lack of really great interpretations for either, which means our next major character of note is Renfield: the deranged lunatic who acts as the Count’s mortal servant.

Renfield is interesting in that, much like Van Helsing, his role has become more pronounced over the years. In fact, Renfield caught on as a major character EARLIER than Van Helsing, as even the very earliest Dracula films included a Renfield character of some sort, and many movies that don’t have ANY of the other characters from the novel rather frequently feature either Renfield or some sort of “Renfield surrogate.” In the book, however, the madman is actually a relatively peripheral character: he doesn’t really DO a whole lot, in the grand scheme of things, but rather acts as a sort of “warning siren.” Renfield’s psychic connection to Dracula makes him a sort of living bookmark: someone who can track the vampire’s moves throughout the novel, even when the other characters aren’t physically near the Count. He also acts as an interesting counterpoint to Dracula and his Brides: they are powerful, seductive, grandiose figures of evil who represent a sort of decadent “gold standard” of vampirism. Renfield is a disheveled psychotic who scavenges for bugs and other small animals to feed his growing appetite, worshiping Dracula in a cultist-like fashion. He is the bottom-feeding parasite in comparison to the Satanical power Dracula seems to exude. Over the years, creators have built up Renfield’s character in a variety of ways, expanding his role in the story and giving him more depth and focus. It makes sense, when you think about it: if any character is going to be as memorable as the great and powerful King of the Vampires, it’s going to be his scurvy little henchman who eats insects in-between bursts of mad raving. For actors, it’s a great role to sink one’s teeth into (no pun intended), as Renfield allows a performer to go wild in ways other roles can’t provide, and make some interesting choices through. There are lots of vampire familiars to go through, so let’s waste no more time: these are My Top 10 Favorite Portrayals of Renfield!

10. Roland Topor, from Nosferatu the Vampyre.

In the first remake of “Nosferatu,” French artist Roland Topor was cast - in a rare acting role - in the role of Renfield. I don’t know much about Topor or any other work he may have done as a performer, beyond this movie, but I will say this, he doesn’t do half bad! His Renfield is delightfully creepy and yet rather funny at the same time. I love the way Dracula just sort of shrugs him off, clearly irritated with his sycophantic servant, in the scenes they share together. My only problem is that Topor’s Renfield just sort of vanishes from the movie after a certain point; we never find out what happened to him by the end of the picture. For all we know, he could still be out there…dun-dun-dunnn…

9. Tony Haygarth, from the 1979 Film.

Among other roles, I know Tony Haygarth for voicing a rather depraved version of the Mad Hatter, in the movie “Dreamchild” (which came out six years after the Frank Langella picture). I don’t know who decided to cast this man as two of literature’s most famous maniacs, but I’m glad it happened. In the film, Renfield first appears as a dockyard worker, who has a grudge against the Jonathan Harker and his family for past injustices. This makes him all the more fitting a stooge for Dracula. As the film goes on, Renfield grows increasingly insane, visibly changing from a relatively rational human to a broken mess before his final destruction.

8. Pablo Alvarez Rubio, from “Spanish Dracula.”

Much like its English-language counterpart, the Spanish version of Universal’s acclaimed 1931 “Dracula” conflates the characters of Renfield and Jonathan Harker: Jonathan still appears, but it’s Renfield who visits Castle Dracula, and then returns to England with the Count aboard a doomed ship. This works as a sort of origin story for the character, which several other versions have taken influence from. Rubio may not be as iconic as Dwight Frye’s scene-stealing Renfield, but he’s not a bad interpretation, either. However, I think the Spanish version makes some choices in edits that ultimately hinder his performance, and bring it down in the ranks.

7. Nicholas Hoult, from Renfield.

In this movie, the partnership between Dracula and Renfield is hamfistedly examined as a study in toxic relationships. More of a dark superhero film than a proper Gothic Horror outing, Hoult’s Renfield eats bugs not out of an urge to consume life, but because munching on insects and arachnids gives him superhuman abilities for brief periods of time. While not by any means the definitive version of the character, he is fun to watch and Hoult turns in a spectacular performance.

6. Samuel Barnett, from Penny Dreadful.

In Season 3 of Penny Dreadful, Renfield goes beyond simply being a vampire’s familiar to slowly being transformed into a vampire proper. He starts off as a seemingly mild-mannered, proper Victorian gentleman…but when Dracula learns of some dark secrets in Renfield’s life, he uses that to his advantage and snatches Renfield up to act as a spy against his enemy. Barnett’s Renfield is deliciously creepy, mercurial, and runs the gamut from somewhat sympathetic to utterly detestable. He was easily one of my favorite parts of Season 3.

5. Klaus Kinski, from the 1970 Film.

In this Jess-Franco-directed adaptation, Klaus Kinski - who might be the only actor to play Renfield who was probably insane in real-life (seriously, Kinski was…QUITE the piece of work, as a person, behind the scenes) - plays a mute Renfield. While he never speaks a word, and does relatively little throughout the film, he steals every scene he’s in, and is given a more sympathetic portrayal; this Renfield often seems more like a scared, confused child than anything else, and has a tragic backstory behind his madness. At the same time, he’s still dangerous, even trying to strangle Mina while under Dracula’s command at one point. Apparently, Kinski had no idea he was even in a Dracula movie during the making of the film, which seems a bit far-fetched to me…but if it is true, I guess there were worse ways to handle it than just giving this utterly demented individual free reign to just…do whatever the heck he wanted for a while. :P

4. Alexander Granach, from Nosferatu.

Referred to as “Knock” in this version, Renfield is given a role that is in some ways expanded upon from the novel, and yet also somehow still very peripheral. He’s in a lot of the movie, but much of what he does is totally separate from the main plot of the film. At the start of the movie, the character is already clearly on an uneven keel, and is indicated to already be working for Count Orlok (Dracula): the Harker character is actually his employee, and Knock sends him out fully knowing what horrors await him. As the movie goes on, Knock goes increasingly more insane, desperate to find and reconnect with his Master. While delightfully over-the-top, there are actually a few legitimately creepy moments with the character too: at one point, he gets hit in the head with two stones, thrown by angry villagers, and…just…doesn’t even REACT to them. I don’t know why, but that particular moment always unnerves me when I watch it.

3. Tom Waits, from the 1992 Film.

While Tom Waits is no stranger to acting, it was still surprising to see him pop up in this star-studded adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. This version seems to take some subtle cues from the Universal films of 1931, as its indicated Renfield preceded Jonathan in doing deals with the Count, and returned to England a changed (and deranged) man. While his role is, once again, relatively set to sidelines, Waits is memorable every time he shows up, ranging from a relatively reasonable-sounding gentleman to a raving, bloodthirsty psycho at the drop of a hat.

2. Jack Shepherd, from the 1977 BBC TV Film.

While this television production mostly sticks to the novel, one of the more noteworthy deviations it takes is with Shepherd’s portrayal of Renfield. In this version, slightly more focus is given to Renfield’s relationship with Mina, and the character actually goes through a sort of redemption arc. At the start of the story, he is Dracula’s bloodthirsty slave; more like a sort of two-legged dog than a human being. As the story goes on, instead of going more crazy, Renfield begins to regain his sanity and morality. Instead of helping Dracula and being slain by the Count as a way for the vampire to cover his tracks, Shepherd’s Renfield stands up to his Master in the end, effectively sacrificing himself to try and help the other characters. Eat your heart out, Nicholas Hoult: the BBC got there a lot sooner, and STILL made him crazy. XD

1. Dwight Frye, from the 1931 Film.

For me, just as it’s next to impossible to separate Bela Lugosi (and Christopher Lee) from Dracula, it’s impossible to separate Dwight Frye from Renfield. In some ways, I actually think his performance is the best in the entire movie, trumping even the work of Lugosi and Edward Van Sloan as Van Helsing! Frye’s Renfield is legitimately scary, even by today’s standards, but is also a very sympathetic and tragic character (and at times genuinely funny, too). You really feel sorry for Renfield: an initially innocent man driven mad by Dracula’s corruption, who has to struggle between his loyalty to his Master and his desire to keep his soul clean of guilt. Frye maneuvers through all of Renfield’s moods and modes, from sane and gentlemanly to absolutely freaking off his rocker, with great aplomb. Without a shadow of a doubt, he is My Favorite Renfield.

#list #countdown #best #favorites #top 10 #dracula #renfield #actors #acting #film #movies #tv

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understandableparadox · 5 months

Text

The Grand homestuck oc tournament poll! Round 3 winners!

the results are tallied, the dust has settled, its time to see who is left standing!

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Auiwyn Trasyl

The silliest, most self deprecating emo you’ll ever have the displeasure of meeting. His favorite movies would be the troll twilight saga, and they would make fanfiction of his rainbow drinker oc and Troll Edward. They have such a large obsession with rainbow drinkers that it’s consumed almost everything in his life. They would geek out if they ever met Kanaya, it would be so bad they’d probably faint. Would bite people to taste the blood and then gag when it tastes bad.

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zalium azoran

Zalium is a rogue fuchsiablood who was raised by an axolotl lusus away from the prying eyes of the alternian empire. eventually he was able to find community in the lower bloodcastes of alternia and here he learned about alternian history from a true perspective.

he gathered an aliance, heavily inspired by the sufferer's rebellion, and rises up against the empire. being a highblood he held a greater chance against the empress and gl'bgolyb, and after a strenuous battle he manages to take down the horrorterror and the empress in turn

i don't even care if he's bad i love him so dearly

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Anomal Conspi

One of the most brilliant, anxiety ridden queens on her whole planet. She’s so paranoid that she has a backup plan for just about anything. She predicted the world was going to end via meteors and had a ship fully ready to go for several years, and had a mental breakdown when she ended up being right. Overthinking is her strongest skill, making plans for her plans just in case something she didn’t think of happened. Her ship, despite being made of old and ruined tech, is so heavily equipped with safety features that she should probably be in charge of OSHA because ain’t no one getting hurt on that thing. Would go outside in a hamster bubble.

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Viiveh Telore (Now with new and improved art!)

Viiveh is a fuchsia blood in an abusive relationship trying to forge his own destiny. He tries to stay positive and is unlearning some classist traits. He goes to the surface and hides his blood color by dressing like a robot. He really loves tech and the mechanics of it, since the seadwellers can mainly only use bug-based tech underwater. He takes the name Vexxin during his hiding. Don't get him started on troll Daft Punk.

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ALERT: bLOCK 5 HAS ENDED IN A TIE, ONE DAY TIE BREAKER ROUND TO OCCUR SOON

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Atroxx

Atroxx lives in a swamp full of boiling tar, lurking in the dark and serving as something of a dark legend to the locals. They fear her and often leave her sacrifices, believing her to be a monster or some sort of demon. She just likes getting free things out of it and sometimes toys with the minds those who wander a little too far out of the torchlight, taunting them from within the darkness. If you survive an encounter with her, she's not very eloquent, and is quite stubborn and impatient, unpredictable and almost wild in behavior. She is also, however, incredibly resourceful and clever.

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Lollie Gravez

Your name is LOLLIE GRAVEZ and you use ne/nem/nir, sh3/h3r/h3rz and h3/h1m/h1z. You are a SCENE KID first and foremost, and a troll second.

You love COMICS, CARTOONS, and SHIPPING, and listen to way too much ALTERNATIVE MUSIC. You send a lot of your spare time SEWING CLOTHES, both for yourself and your PLETHORA OF PLUSH FRIENDS. You spend way too much money on VIDEO GAMES, that you never get around to playing. When you aren’t hiding in your room away from the world, you love watching shows with your friends, then making self inserts for all your friends. Your squad loves the troll anime SUGIO QUEST FOR KOKORO, despite it being outlawed for rebel imagery.

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Orfeus Etimio

Orfeus is soft spoken, docile and as weak as a troll gets, but people tend to fear them because of the horde of ghosts following them everywhere, even for those that can't see spirits the presence is overwhelming.

They constantly give more than they can for the ghosts and have ended up emotionally drained, not properly reacting to most situations and appearing emotionless. İf you grabbed them and took them home they'd only say "ok" and let it happen.

They like playing minecraft with their moirail also

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Persep “Perse” Rhiali

She streams, she draws, she always has a knife on her, with a small size and big personality Perse WILL either be your friend or A Problem (TM)

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?????? Achlys

19 yo Mage of Void hemoanon, Achlys is a air-headed party girl who likes to take it easy, life is definitely too short to be worried about every little thing. She's quite friendly for a troll and always knows what to say to please people. She changes quadrants pretty often.

However when SGRUB begins she seems to know just where to look to learn all the rules and easily makes herself the leader before anyone notices. Not to mention her fake lusus and dreamself that seems to be puppeted by horrorterrors…

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#homestuck #polls #tumblr polls #winners #fan kids #fan charubs #homestuck oc #ocs #fan trolls

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stevie-petey · 11 days

Note

hello your honour (m), me and my partner, val @southelroy would like to take this opportunity to defend our client, one steven marie harrington. we intend to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that his behaviour and actions are born from a place of genuine trauma, that his intentions, while marred in teen angst, are clear, and finally, that his bearing is better than certain past, shall we say........bonds.......cough johnathan cough.

idk how longer i can keep this bit going, but seriously, guys c'mon cut the guy a break, all steve and bug have been doing since midway season 1 is drive their car to struggle citadel and pray at its pews. Also m this season is so crazy delicious i will get into singing your praises in a minute, after i prove my case with evidence. thank you.

firstly, i'd like to establish a baseline from which we can work upwards from. frankly, steve clears. he has been worshipping the ground bug walks on since the day he saw her, and he made clear his high regard of her the moment he got to develop some sort of friendship/relationship with him. even just taking these last three chapters, the amount of outward steve shows bug, completely unabashedly, is ridiculous. it was the most physical, outward admiration bug has gotten out of her peers, aka, the teen boys her age. I'd like to point to one moment in particular, "You exhale deeply, wrapping your arms around his body, and Steve nuzzles his face into your neck and presses a gentle kiss there.". This parallel to johnathan and bug ending their closeness at the end of season 2, as well as the phone call/car ride johnathan takes in season 3, posits steve as the new "love interest", the new What-if/maybe of bug's love life. However, his romantic intentions are much more straightforward than johnathan's ever were. The end of season 2, he very clearly stated that he wanted to, eventually, be in a relationship with bug, that he would need some time before it happened, and bug understood this, and agreed to it. This is drastically different from Not Talking About It for years on end. I would argue that bug herself knows, at least to some extent, steve's feelings for her. She certainly knows the care he feels for her, "You know he doesn’t want to scare you, that he’s always trying to make things easier for you, so you tilt your head at him and nod slightly; you want him to tell you." The ease with which they kiss each other's cheeks is an openness bug did not experience in season 1, especially when shit with nancy and johnathan started becoming #real #deep. there is a certainty that is present in these interactions that bug and johnathan did not have until they were literally doing a friend break up.

Now that we've established the evidence of steve's background, i'd like to move the jury to view evidence of motive, with your permission your honour (hi m <3). As stated in the opening statement, bug and steve are getting stamps on that struggle card like their featured on tlc classic, extreme couponing, and baby they are making cashback! Bug's daddy issues are well documented, as are steve's. In fact, they are so well established, that the defense would like to claim that throwing a gren@de at mr. harrington's car would be an all round net positive to society. We know that steve thinks highly of bug, including post spring summer of '85, and that while they have moved past it, o would argue that a fear of abandonment is not unfounded in the young man's mind, particularly when his own self image is currently being shredded by a medieval torture device known as mr. harrington. Steve is being beaten down, it sounds like quite frequently, "He hadn’t turned into who had expected to become, something that you know his father reminds him of every time he comes back from some business trip. ", and it's showing in his relationship(?) with bug, "Steve leans into your kisses and smiles at the praise, relieved that you don’t think he’s some idiot." We see this when he rants to robin in episdoe 1, he is an, ultimately, scared and insecure teen, who is getting requited affection for the first time in a long time, from a person whom he deeply respects, admires, and holds dear in his heart, and, unfortunately, was unable to maintain a relationship with him during the beginning of their friendship. I ask you, the court, were we not understanding of bug then? Could we not see the place where she came from? While we disagree with her actions, did we not see the ultimate place she was coming from? Surely we can extend that grace to mr. harrington.

I'd like to perhaps bring in a new angle, that steve and bug's tiff at the end of episode 3 is not their fault expressly. We know bug has a giant guilt complex that makes my religious background look carefree. We know she has a very real fear of having a relationship pass you, due to someone whose name rhymes with bonathan, and is perhaps more sensitive to being strung along than she otherwise would be. We know steve's battling daddy issues, a need to prove himself with a great opportunity right in his lap, and a fear of relationships changing because of someone noticing his inadequacy (very incheresting to me that he's relieved that bug doesn't think he's an idiot.........he's my unmedicated undiagnosed adhd baby.....we're twins in that sense. also in the sense that we like women :P), which could happen when they are in a full blown relationship. Him not knowing how to ask bug out is valid, he's on a new man journey of shedding his old self off, he feels like he's batting way out of his league (he is), and he has a girl who fell out of love with him on his scoreboard, and a girl who used to be in an intense codependent friendship with a boy who is now currently dating said ex. That is a situation to be in!

While me and my partner understand bug's frustrations and empathise fully, and make clear our support of her, we only ask the jury lay the blame not at our defendant steve's feet, but rather the circumstances that have brought them here. And if they really want a target, feel free to aim towards one johnathan byers and mr. harrington, local triple f, (flop failure father).

The defense would now like to play offence. Johnathan, what the hell are you even doing here???? Get out of our family's business! What in the good lord's name are you doing ringing up a girl's number in the dead of the night??? The one you were a hair's breadth away from dating if you hadn't strung her along for a marathon length of time at that???? And then venting YOUR relationship problems, the very relationship you strung her along for, about a girl you left her for!!! The audacity of mr byers!!! While we understand this to be an affront to Ms. Henderson, we posit this is an affront to Ms. Wheeler as well. We ask you, the jury, how comfortable YOU would feel if the guy you were dating, told HIS ex best friend-turned-complicated-situation-turned now friends with boundaries all about your relationship problems while driving around at night, a deeply date like activity? While you may posture and say "oh, well, if it's a girl like Bug!". Girls..... That would make it worse. AS IT SHOULD! We maintain this isn't bug's fault as it isn't her relationship to protect, but mr. byers!

Okay we rest our case.

M, I apologise for this stupid essay above, but omg omgo omg omgogkogmogmgomgm I am EATING!!!!! YOU ATE!!!!!! This was so crazy delivious yummy!!!! Love love love the way steve and bug are interacting, all the casual affection has me giggling and kicking my feet like they're everything hehehehe. All the cheek kisses are so so so cute and making me crave affection like a motherfucker. All the flirting vibes between them is driving me up the wall...."So you admit you're flirting with me?" BITCH! I MIGHT BE!!! I am cheesinggggg. I remember you said that season 4 is going to be stug struggle era and my stomach is in knots already becasue the brief glimpse of unhappiness they experienced at the end of episode 3 made me want to cut my heart out of my chest, you have made them too lovable i fear.

SPeaking of cutting my heart out of my chest, may i say, you served with robin. Like. The struggle of being a closeted person really hit well. Not to get heavy, but the crushing weight of it was so subtly put into robin, it got to me alot. "She hates that you’re purposely excluding her and taking Steve’s side in this. You wish you could tell her the truth." This genuinely is sooooo fvnnvbvknsnbfe. I want to shake her through the screen like girl do NOT fall for your friend whose attracted to boys that is NOT a situation that ends well and you will NOT leave unscathed!! It felt like a lot like high school, when its a big thing you have no one else to tell, and there's too much at stake to say it. and omg. this part, "When Robin sees his wink, she only clenches her jaw and turns away before releasing your hand.". Devestating. If I were robin, i would have had a crush on both bug and steve and witnessed carousel kissy face gate, it would have turned me into the joker, i would have no choice but to pull the nastiest stunt this small town has ever seen. I feel absolutely awful for her, and it makes me kinder to my younger self. Just, omg, really excellent work.

Apologies for the length of this, but just on a final note, i really wanted to say thank you for writing this great story. it's been a tough couple of years, and my brain has gotten worse on me and i really have a lot of trouble concentrating on anything, including things i enjoy, and your story is one of the few guaranteed things i know i can sit down for and fully because i know i will love every minute of it. Wishing you luck and love wherever you go and always rooting for you <3!!

u bringing up bug abandoning steve first ,,, oh ur so right and i WILL be addressing that (steve finally asks for the entire reason ,,,, trust)

and ur so right about how grim of a situation it is. steve and bug reflect the hurt nancy and jon gave onto them. steve is afraid of being lead on again and not being enough (nancy lied about loving him and he wasnt enough in the end). bug is afraid that love itself isnt enough, that theres more than just loving one another that goes into a relationship (jon loved her and yet in the end it wasnt enough).

both babies are hurt :((((

LEAVE JON ALONE THO MANS NEEDED TO VENT TO HIS BESTIE AND BUG WAS ENTIRELY OK WITH THIS !!! SHE NEEDED TO VENT AS WELL !!! (nancy wont be ok with it tho lmao)

and im happy everyone is loving robin <333 i have a cute and sweet scene planned between her and bug later that im so excited to share :')

the final part of your ask, im so so so happy my story means that much to you and i am sending you a million kisses my love <3333 im always rooting for you as well and youre such a sweetheart

#procrastinationprincesses #ask #m speaks #nyas insight #also some phrases in this made me GIGGLE #read it earlier just after waking up and i was delirious and happy

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beegswaz · 9 months

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OK WOO!!!! JEREMEJEVITE DESIGN BREAKDOWN! KINDA!

This may end up being A long post, so it Will be tagged as such for filtering :) ONWARDS!!!!

Starting this off with her Initial concept sketches! I was trying to figure out what her face should Look like, and I think the left image Was closer to what I wanted, both in how her Hair looks and how her face Looks (even if it's A bit simple)

The singular head horn stuck Around throughout the Entire design! You'll see some attempt passes at Giving her more spikes to fit with Cleos original design, as featured above the sketches :) (the gems were All decided right when I made the document, so Any relation to other fusions is Just a coincidence!)

You can see it in The left sketch, but Originally I tried to Give Jeremejevite Pearls' almost crescent hair swoop, which Stuck around for a good while :) This is the Only other time Jeremejevite will have Long hair too, which goes to Show how little attachment I had to it..

Originally she was Going to be in a sort of Suit, as seen somewhat in the right sketch. This idea instantly fell through, but The pattern on the collar accidentally makes A resurgence in her Final design!

Her technical first finished design! This is where I ironed out a lot of ideas you'll See later on, like gem placements, rough colour scheme, limbs, and Her split-dyed hair!

...As noted to the right of her, this Design was WAYYYY too Cleo-heavy, I was basically just Turning her MC skin into A gem! I hastily tried to Make up for that with Scotts' coat-thing and Pearls' sleeves, which..... Somehow made Jeremejevite look MORE like Cleo..???

This is the last time you'll Ever see her with long hair, or With two eyes on Her faces left half, among some other things (Like the Shirt from Cleos' MC skin)

Right after this I made a test sketch before Asking for help from my mutuals/followers.

RIGHT HERE was when I decided she would have Short hair (That... Ended up getting Shorter the more I drew her..?)

The fur collar goes Kind of hard, I won't lie, but I am still very happy with What I ended up with. Around here I was still trying to mix Pearl, Scott, and Cleos' designs, which had... varying Success rates.

AND HERE IS THE DESIGN MY FRIEND @biggitybugs MADE! You all should follow it btw, he helped me A ton with figuring out this design, and also its art is amazing <3

You can see a few things that made it Into the final design! Namely the top, the hair and skin Colour, and the Boots! This was also when I realised I used too much red/pink in The original design (Though I don't believe I remedied that in The final design..)

A sketch of her second design! (Third, if we're Counting bugs design) I started straying away from Mixing the three gems designs and instead I started making her seem Like her own character.

Some things ended up in the Final design, and you can See I swapped the Side that was "dyed", which is Also carried over to the last Design :)

I ended up turning to Pinterest and Looking up "Alt Fashion" which, barely Helped me, but it Kicked off the Jacket and the weird undershirt gloves! I also looked up "Steven Universe OCs" to see some Other design conventions, but I just ended up scrolling and Looking at the cool Designs..

I did a designing Stream a few days ago where I tried to get more outside Input, and Kayden (@spottedside) ended Up saying she should have chains And a cropped jacket + crop top. Which. Oh My God. I forgot those Weird cropped cut jackets existed and it Changed. Basically everything.

There's not much to Note in these sketches, aside from the small right one being the Most similar to the final design. You can even see the neck Chains!

Aaaand the final design! I still believe I overdid the red and maroon, but I think this design is ACTUALLY the better of the 3 (4?). I could still stand to Edit this design, but I am currently happy with where I am. However, I implore anyone who wants to To edit this design with their own tweaks! Just, yk, credit me Somewhere for the initial design :)

And no, the chains and cuffs Don't mean anything, they're just dope. (Do you see what I meant about the First sketches collar design Making a reappearance?)

#long post #gemcyt #<- only Main tag getting used btw #uh oh God do I tag this with my rant tag??#yk what #i will #rad1o rants #BTW SORRY FOR THE @'S BUG AND LYNN IM SAWRRY u guys Just deserve the thanks for Helping me

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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 11 months

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tuesday again 7/11/23, timezone change edition

the last time i wrote one of these things, i was not quite fully packed up in ma. now, i am technically temporarily homeless in houston, bc the apartment i originally signed on was completely unlivable. crashing in an acquaintance's guest room for a bit while i have a very bad time with apartment hunting round 2

i have lived in south florida, staten island, and various shithole student housing. i understand seasonal bugs in hot places and things such as different kinds of roaches and palmetto bugs. when i say that apartment had the worst roach infestation i've ever seen i fucking mean it. in theory i will get my full deposits back, but they're taking their sweet fucking time about it.

but having that full yes-i-know-about-seasonal-roaches conversation with new acquaintances and leasing agents takes too long so i've resorted to saying it had a horrific bedbug problem, which everyone seems to go Oh Okay Yeah Reasonable For You To Leave much more quickly.

listening

a lot of early aughts dance pop standards, to chase away the agonies as i drive to and from apartments only to get ghosted, find they were rented a week ago, or find that they look absolutely nothing like the pictures. i was really torn on which britney song to pick for this week until my sister sent me Twin Flame by Maude Latour, which i can only describe as "douchebag get the girl back song but for lesbians". spotify

also how do we like the "featured link from bandcamp or soundcloud with additional spotify link" format? in an ideal world i would buy all my music directly from the artists but realistically i use spotify 90% of the time. i don't know what your life is like, tell me if this is helpful or not.

reading

my best friend made sad faces at me until i read The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary, and it was a little nice to see someone else's dire housing situation get resolved neatly and with thematic consistence in several hundred pages. it was also nice to text her snippets with "WHAT?????" every so often. this is a reading experience i don't have very often bc our current reading tastes don't overlap even a little bit.

i don't have much to say about it bc i didn't have particularly strong feelings and don't really read mainstream straight romance, so i can't point out what this did differently or well compared to its peers. if nothing else, it was a fluffy bit of distraction, and i think that's kind of the point?

(image from Tor) also read Saad Z. Hossein's Kundo Wakes Up novella in a waffle house while eating some of the best scrambled eggs i've ever had in my life.

this novella was the closest thing i've ever read to "aging English professor has an affair" without actually containing any of those elements. generally i enjoy his work, but this was sort of a way to check up and tie off many characters from previous works with a sort of light frosting of "my wife left me and i don't know why [ rot13:v pna znxr fbzr thrffrf ohg gurer vf ab zbzrag bs frys-ernyvmngvba, bapr ur svaqf uvf jvsr ur whfg perrcf ba ure sebz nsne naq nsgre qrgrezvavat fur'f abg jvgu nalbar arj znxrf gur gerzraqbhf fnpevsvpvny qrpvfvba gb yrnir ure nybar op fur'f zhpu unccvre jvgubhg uvz. gurer vf ab zbzrag bs frys-ernyvmngvba nobhg jul fur zvtug unir yrsg uvz. xhaqb arire trgf bhg bs uvf bja shpxvat urnq bapr.]"

while The Gurkha and the Lord of Thursday novella (TREMENDOUS) and Cyber Mage book (fun but with some dire pacing issues) are fairly standalone, i cannot imagine you'd get much out of Kundo Wakes Up if you haven't read the other two. for some reason none of the libraries i have access to have his other book Djinn City, so we'll have to procure that elsewhere.

watching

the dnd movie, the day after i broke my lease on the roach apartment. i don't remember a ton about this movie. do generally like a heist. michelle rodriguez was hot

playing

genshin. listen. it is a free and familiar way to turn my brain off by doing open world exploration and puzzles but CRUCIALLY! most of it is completely new to me. i have not played this game in a year and a half. i have not played this game since right before enkanomiya. there was no chasm. there was no Sumeru. i have absolutely no idea what’s happening lore-wise.

i pulled for the fancy ice claymore lady and got a catboy archer (at least i think it is a catboy? the ears do give a pharaoh hound vibe... he is distinct from the extant dogboy archer). not terrible but not my vibe.

youtube

i have been enjoying the shit out of the temporary summer event carnival space. they really did pull out several stops by introducing a ton of genuinely interesting and innovating little new mechanics and mini games. delightful!

making

altering the worst shorts ive ever seeeeeeeeen with a demure little two-inch side slit on both legs bc my thighs simply will not quit. mens shorts are so much better than womens shorts in nearly every way except for the catastrophic physical fit issues.

when i got ghosted by two different apartments on saturday i bought myself a spoon ring so chunky it makes my other chunky rings look positively delicate by comparison. not very comfy to drive in but fine to wear while tippy tappying on the spreadsheets

a girl i saw for one singular awful date in 2016 called my hands "coarse but honest" and i think about that every time my hands are in a photo. what did that even fucking MEAN, [REDACTED]?

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem

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stardustizuku · 11 months

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Woah I absolutely love you analyses on MLB. What do you think of the female friendship in MLB?

This took way longer than originally planned.

Here’s the thing

I don’t think that MLB was that bad in season 1. And arguably, season 2 still has some leg to stand on.

And that carries on to friendships.

You see, we can break down friendships in this type of show into four.

1.- The vague friend group

This is one we see in most stories that DO NOT focus on team dynamics or getting to know a bunch of superheroes. Sakura Card Captor, for example, has the best one of these. They’re not meant to take center stage, but more like provide a sense of unity and calmness around the craziness that’s going on.

And while I cite CardCaptor, Creamy Mami also has it. And Sailor Moon has it in the very first season. Tokyo Mew Mew has two characters that fall here too.

This is where I say most of the characters in MLB fall to. If things had stayed here, I do not see a problem. The lack of depth isn’t a bug but a feature. While we can connect with them, their purpose, narrative wise, is to create fun scenarios and plot outside of the others superheroes.

But as things progressed they tried to make this sort of already bland group of characters into a cohesive united team. And it was never going to happen. Maybe if they had competent writers it could have worked, but it’s still unlikely a competent writer would have tried this.

The way you introduce characters is extremely important in the way that they’re perceived by an audience. If they entered the scene as a Vague Friend Group, it would be so hard for them to change into anything else. This is also why redemption arcs are so hard. It’s forcing your audience to accept a sudden change in the status quo. If that’s what you’re trying to do - it works. But if you’re doing it just to sell more toys…well it falls flat on their face. Not to mention, the classroom is not exactly filled with particularly interesting or cohesive characters. Their attitudes, relationships towards each other and Marinette change drastically from episode to episode. The only noteworthy rships are often time m/f, and the only f/f friendship we have that’s any sort of consistent or interesting is Juleka and Rose…who are dating.

I’m not gonna be the first to shit on a wlw couple specially when it’s probably the most interesting thing in this series - but it’s kinda weird how the only type of decent rship that the writers can do are ROMANTIC ones. Friendship seems like a fucking joke to these people.

Also they’re a LOT. Working with dynamics between characters is super hard, and the less characters you have to juggle with, you’re able to create better and closer relationships with each other. Having such a HUGE classroom be the center of superhero dynamic is plain lunacy. Unless this is the focus, and was intended as such since day 1, there was no way this was gonna work or be a natural transition from the 1:1 chat ladybug dynamic.

They work as a vague group of friends, but utterly fail as anything more. Both because of its size and lack of cohesion, or depth.

2.- The Friend (?)

This one is the civilian friend. The one who supports the heroine but never truly knows the identity of their friend. They’re there to provide support before the rest of the cast comes into the picture.

This is the Molly in Sailor Moon and Hitomi from Madoka.

They’re not really meant to be besties with the MC, even if they are so in name. It’s more of an extension of the aforementioned vague friend group. They mostly provide plot beats with a slightly more personal stake since this is someone the heroine has spent so much more time with.

THIS is where Ayla from Season 1 falls, and why I did not think she was too bad of a friend. She’s here really for providing comforting words when Marinette is down and a fun side story that doesn’t feel too disconnected from the main story.

However. The reason why these two worked was, precisely, because the focus of the show was the LoveSquare and Chat and Ladybug’s dynamic.

Sakura can have a relatively bland side friends (although they’re all fairly entertaining) because the main focus of the story ISNT them. It’s her Card Journey and interpersonal relationships with Tomoyo, Syaoran and Yukito.

Likewise, Molly is allowed to be a not so great friend, because Usagi has other friends.

If you want these characters to be the bulk of your interpersonal rships, you have to adapt them. Kaito St. Tail had only one friend, who actually falls with the Civilian. However, she plays a huge part of her story by being the one to send her on the missions. While her biggest rship was with Astro Jr, Seira provided a huge amount of emotional support and was given enough dramatic weight to be able to earn herself a recognizable spot. In any promo art that features the characters, she appears! Because she’s important!

But what they tried to do was expand upon these characters in a…less than ideal way.

First of all they tried to shift Alya from Friend (?), to Friend (tm)…

3.- The Friend (tm)

A Friend (tm) is the best friend. The gal pal. The one who is always there and even if it’s not outright stated - we know they’re the first one the MC will turn to if something happens.

Think Winx Club and who’s Bloom’s Best friend? Stella. Shugo Chara, who’s Amu’s friend? Either Nadeshiko or Rima (depending the season). They are part of the friend super hero group so the MC Can whole heartedly confide in them. Any problem that arises is one they instantly tell their best friend and they’re the mature one who help them get through.

And Ayla is not this.

Even as she transformed into superhero she did not know Marinette’s identity, so all emotional support she could have provided in that front was essentially flushed down the toilet. If at the very beginning, Ayla had been made aware of it, there wouldn’t have been an issue. After all, it would have cemented her as someone Marinette places a lot of trust into, perhaps even more than Chat, either bcs she was there when he wasn’t or only the fact she knows the “real” her.

Anyways, since that did NOT happen, Ayla failed as a Best Friend (tm), narratively speaking. If they had let it die there, it would have been awkward but not terrible.

But then in season 4 Marinette confesses she’s is Ladybug.

At this point, there’s no real connection with Ayla. Chat is someone who deserves to know her identity more, and someone who’s supported her for far longer in many more forms. It just doesn’t make sense for her to confess.

Except, of course, trying to shoehorn the Best Friend (tm) too late into the series.

This is all entirely from a narrative perspective, and does not begin to touch the fact that Ayla isn’t exactly the /best/ of friends.

Someone who trust Lila rather than her friend she’s known all year, someone who jeopardizes her best friend’s identity over her fucking boyfriend, who in her darkest hours isn’t there for Marinette, and that breeched her friends privacy to satiate her own curiosity over her secrets.

She has no leg to stand on to be the Best Friend (tm).

4.- Rival Friendship

Yeah this was sort of what I talked abt in the big Magical Girl Essay. This is actually, what I would argue, the most important friend character there can be in a magical girl setting. Not only does it serve as playful banter but as a contrast to the main character’s ideals and temper.

I tend to include any character that has a rivalrous rship with the MC, be it the villain or a fellow superhero. They don’t have to be the best of friends or be on super friendly terms, the only condition is that when one is in trouble the other jumps in to help.

Again, Utau from Shugo Chara, Rei from Sailor Moon, Mint from Tokyo Mew Mew, Fate from Lyrical Nanoha, Meimei from Sakura, Rue from Princess Tutu, they’re all good examples.

They bring balance. In some cases the MC already has a vanilla friend who’ll cheer them up by giving sweet advice. The Friendly Rival serves to knock some sense into our MC and give harsh but necessary advice.

This absolutely should have been Chloe, and it’s a role that I do believe is necessary in this show.

The way characters treat Marinette is…weird. In non-Lila episodes, in their eyes, Marinette can never do something wrong. Every decision she makes is the best she could have taken, it’s always correct. Only when Lila comes into the picture is she the one in the wrong to them - but not by the narrative. The narrative is always on her side, even when she’s done stuff wrong. Truly, Lila only serves as emotional torture porn, which is its own Can of worms we’re not touching today.

This is strange because even in Sakura (the most wholesome Can do no wrong MC) has moments where she has to apologize, or is in the wrong. When she fights with Kero, for example, it’s very much portrayed as an unreasoned response from both parties. And while Kero is being portrayed by the narrative as the one blowing it out of proportion, in the end it’s Sakura who makes a compromise by gifting him new “room”.

Marinette does not have this which makes it very annoying that she keeps getting away with things that are creepy or straight up wrong. The narrative is never willing to portray anything she does as anything other than ideal or silly. This is where someone who doesn’t coddle her, but rightfully calls out her actions from a place of love and care SHOULD come into play.

When Usagi doesn’t want to study, Amy happily tells her she’ll help, but Rei is the one telling her angrily that she has to. When Usagi is about to give up, it’s always Rei that yells at her to snap out of it.

Chloe should absolutely be this character. Someone who will tell her she’s wrong, especially in situations or arguments where Chat Noir can’t be the voice of reason - aka who she loves or her secret identity.

The fact that no such character exists is already making the story too saccharine sweet towards her. Even Sakura had Mei Mei, when Syaoran or Kero couldn’t be the ones to tell her to snap out of it (And also, Yue was particularly cold towards her but we’re focusing on girls rn shhh)

But because they ruined Chloe’s character we don’t have this.

And I do believe it has to do with the sexism of Thomas. Unable to picture friendship between girls as anything but unconditional kindness. I’m sorry but I’ve had extremely complex and fun friendship where we are both kinda mean towards each other. In fact, saccharine sweet friendships are the weird ones in my culture. It doesn’t help that the shows tends to portray the world in good or bad, depending on a singular action. You’re either a good girl or a mean girl. Any complexities are thrown out the window (although he’s more than willing to make adult men complex characters with good and bad in them so, yay, sexism!)

They tried briefly with Kagami too…but they fumbled it and it never gave anything. She was a love rival, they were friends, Adrien and her got together, they broke up, Marinette tried to help her and then…I think she joined a cult? I’m not sure I’m not up to date with the series. But it gave us so little of their actual friendship that it almost slipped my mind this was what they were trying to do.

That leads me to the most atrocious example of female friendship.

5.- The Devoted Lesbian

This trope didn’t have a place in Ladybug. None at all.

So, everyone knows the devoted lesbian. It’s the extremely queer coded friend that’s willing to do anything for the MC. Tomoyo from Sakura, Homura from Puella, to a degree Nanoha from Lyrical Nanoha, to a lesser degree Seiya from Sailor Moon Stars.

It serves a purpose to highlight the goodness of a MC, kind and nice to the point people fall in love with them. Sakura is the best example, but the devotion Homura has for Madoka also serves to highlight her status a goddess. In Nanoha, Nanoha’s obsession comes from the belief that Fate is a good person and deserves a better futures. And in Sailor Mook Stars Seiya offers an alternative to the loyal and devoted Usagi who’s still waiting for Mamoru. (I have to say maybe Utena has this too OBVIOUSLY but tbh I haven’t seen it yet so)

This is often a queer story. Even if Sakura and Usagi have heterosexual romances - Sakura isn’t straight and neither is Usagi. The stories play with gender and sexuality, and it’s ultimately about the relationships people have that deviate from the perceived normality.

Yeah, Ladybug has neither.

And they’re trying to introduce Zoe as this. Which is. Weird. Again, she’s supposed to substitute the Rival Friendship Characters, why on Earth is she a devoted Lesbian?

The reason why I call her this, is because inside the narrative she very much is - even if the writers are sooooo bad at writing women that it doesn’t come across as one to the audience.

If we still assume that Ayla is supposed to be the Best Friend (tm), and she still falls for Lila’s tricks - only someone who’s utterly devoted and believes wholeheartedly and unconditionally in Marinette can see through those lies. It’s something as crazy as fighting off Akumatization.

You can either see this as the writers trying to make Zoe the new Best Friend (tm)…but that’s somehow worse. It’s changing dynamics that have been here for close to 5 seasons. And AGAIN because of the weird way the writers see female friendship…I do believe it’s coming off as the devoted lesbian trope rather than the Best Friend (tm). Especially with how what’s little left of the fandom, are all obsessed with shipping Zoe and Marinette. This does not happen with the Best Friend (tm). It almost never does. Because competent writers make it clear that they’re just friends. You don’t ship Madoka with Sayaka or Mami (well you can but it’s not the majority) you ship her with Homura. And you don’t ship (I do but shhh) Usagi with Makoto or Mina, you ship her with Seiya.

Zoe is the Devoted Lesbian right now. The show absolutely does not need her. In fact I would say, it perishes what little hope there was for girl friendships in this series. It again hammers home that the only friends you can have are those who coddle you, adore you, or think you can do no wrong. And anyone who disagrees with you, even a little, is a terrible horrible monster (Lila), has the potential to be one (Kagami) or evil incarnate (Chloe)

I love girl friendships to death, and I’m always down for a good wlw story. But these characters are neither complex enough to have friendships with each other in a way that feels genuine, nor do the authors know how the hell girl friends work. Much less queer ones.

They should have never given center stage to them, not only bcs that wasn’t the focus of CHAT NOIR AND LABYBUG but also bcs they have no idea how to write compelling friendships.

To be honest, if they had been good enough to make this premise work, that’s to say the Chat Ladybug dynamic, there’s a high chance they could have created compelling friendships too.

Like, if they couldn’t pull of a romantic m/f rship with an entire fandom backing them and hyping them up? They could have NEVER pulled off anything. Period. It’s like failing Middle School Maths and trying to solve College level Calculus homework. The problem isn’t the equation, it’s that’s you’re bad it. And even if it were the equation, no one can tell because you filled the goddamn notebook with scribbles.

#miraculous ladybug #mlb salt #askloli #TLDR I hate how they write friendships lol #too sweet and cute for my liking with not enough queer subtext to make it palatable

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sporesgalaxy · 11 months

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well, while i certainly have More to say and more "evidence" to provide, going all "ack tually youre completely wrong and heres all 100 reasons why" on you doesnt sound like a fun time for either of us! its just that for me personally watching a show about two equally sad and jerkish kids duking out out sounds more fun than "full grown adult man manipulates, bullies, is obsessed with, and tries to murder 12 year old boy for 46 episodes"

i cant say anything on shipping or the grooming through thereof though i forgot thats what the point of your post was sorry

Ah, I definitely understand the appeal of two kids equally wronged by their society misdirecting their frustration at each other. But I think shying away from looking at Zim as an adult who bullies kids means shying away from some very fun philosophical implications of Zim being That Much of a Terrible Person...

Er. I was originally just going to post this so your stance on zadr is on the record, but I got carried away lol.

By no means am I trying to claim you're "wrong" by continuing to ramble about my point of view here, btw. I think that, so long as shipping is NOT involved, arguing that Zim might be a kid by Irken standards is just another way to analyze the show, and I don't doubt that you've read it that way for your own reasons.

•••

But see the POINT of my reading is that it's terrible and pathetic and reprehensible that Zim, as an adult, would stoop so low as to bully a literal child for 46 episodes, and not even succeed every time. It is a feature, not a bug, so to speak.

Zim would do something that awful and ridiculous because he is oh-so-enthusiastically chugging Irk's fascist kool-aid. Hs is therefore willing to take any victory he can get for the sake of counting it towards collective Irken superiority-- and the only victories he can actually get are against an Actual Child.

This reading is dear to me because the reality of fascism is that it rewards hyperloyal, incompetent, incurious jerks like Zim. A lot of fascists are and were very, very stupid.

So in the Adult Zim reading, fascism and hypernationalism are the butt of the joke! Yippee! Those ideologies ARE ridiculous and stupid, so true!

Now at first glance this reading seems very uncharitable to Zim. And it sort of is. But reading Zim as someone who's held onto hypernationalism into adulthood can also be nuanced and interesting! It can be used to explore how trying to become a part of the in-group can appeal to marginalized people who are simply desperate to escape the reality of their arbitrary exclusion (in Zim's case, he can easily be read as neurodivergent, as well as being the fictional Irken marginalized status of Short). My favorite Zim fanfiction is usually about him realizing Irk sucks, for this reason :) So yeah that's my pitch!

#asks #iz #syd writes an essay

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nimbus-bugs · 11 months

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Nim Sketch Dump

as promised, here's a big sketch dump of my sona/oc nim! this isn't gonna be a popular post and I don't care 👍

I didn't originally intend to post these so I've referenced some art works heavily but I've written the name of the artist and I'll type it out too! if any of the artists see my references and is uncomfortable with it please let me know and I'll remove it from this post :D

dump under the cut!

the first ideas for his "modern design" (he's been around and recycled for a loooong time). the pose in the top right hand corner is taken from @/hiraethminds! they are a very cool artist and inspire me a lot. though the grey-ish tones as the major colour goes away I still really like the centipede tattoo, centipedes are rad as fuck and you can't tell me otherwise

I started to play with the idea of a goat design for him here! which is strange because like. that's not even his main design or motif or anything, I just really liked the idea I guess LMAO also Aurelai belongs to my mate of the same name! she's not on tumblr (yet) but you should still like her because she's cool and awesome

a treat for my qsmp enjoyers!! an unfinished short comic I sketched on the day tallulah lost her first life. the other characters in this are my old ocs, don't even worry about them

I straight up just have the image that inspired me in this one. its by @/sss-eriema and it was a gift from GOD. I was trying to sort out the colours and wanted to incorporate both orange (my favourite colour) and green (my close second favourite colour) but wasn't having much luck. eriema's artwork showed me that it can work in a more muted way and it was very very helpful!!

maid dress. sorry. also slimecicle

I started to get the colours down in the bottom right corner!! I really like this sketch page honestly. some bonus self portrait sketches because I wanted to try and put some more of my own features into his design as my sona! also in the notes I was debating between the two eye shapes and I'm still thinking about it. I think the bottom ones fit his personality more and are way more expressive but I just like the Vibe of the top ones

a lot of little drawings with varying styles! also more slimecicle. I am adhding so hard for him right now, it's concerning.

t. this one is the reason for the blood tw in the tags. I just really like drawing blood. as a treat. don't come for me this is my self-indulgent safe space leT ME BE EDGY </3 also the writing is a little hard to read so I've put it in the alt! and more qsmp doodles!

I'm starting to ditch the goat design but this one is my last hurrah. basically settled on the general colour scheme now! and more qsmp stuff. its literally gripped my brain I can't escape it, even in my personal work

then I realised. nimbus-BUGS. bugs! what if bug? this was a really fun study for using more creature features that I wasn't used to! loving the mandibles tbh

my most recent sketch as of posting! I might update this later, but this sketch page is probably the most gratuitously referenced, the expressions in the bottom left and top right were basically ripped from @/microwavablesquid so if you like those please check them out! the basic design structure of the full body was referenced from @/aresonist, retroactively I realised a lot of my design choices. uh. they also made LMAOOO so if my design in General tickles your brain, follow them!

as for his lore and basic information for what he actually Is, uhhh. ??? I don't know HAHAHA he's a little guy! he's creature! is he human? probably not but no one could say for sure! is he bugs? is he 1000 bugs in a trenchcoat? sometimes he's goat I guess??? I can never decide on a design and I think that aids his cryptid-like habits. he shows up sometimes, vibes and can't die in a way that matters! he has a running motif of my fake-God-thing, the centipede ouroboros, so I was like "what if he was a harbinger of the ouroboros, what then." and I like to imagine he has video game logic where when he dies, he basically respawns. also weirdly it's worked out in a way where he has lots of biblical motifs, like my name is literally nimbus, like the halo, and he's a messenger of a god like some fucked up blorbo angel. also lily of the valley is my favourite flower and I like drawing him with it, it also has lots of symbolism in the bible?? wild.

I sincerely doubt it but if you guys have any questions about nim or want to draw him or anything I would Die. I would just keel over. you'd take me out.

thank you so much if you got to the end of this btw!! this was a lot. seriously though, it means the world if even one person would like to see my little guy <3 have a great day and take care of yourself!

#my art #nim rambles #nim ocs

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steampaul · 5 months

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i've started a little series of weekly posts documenting every MoC i made (digitally) over the last few years:

Week 6: the first half of 2020 (and a bonus)

some Cyberpunk-y stuff, more youtubers, revisiting that robot dog, a really cool movie, some contest and some of my first digital MoCs rendered

i made these hover-vehicles IRL building with my little Sister and her LEGO. I don't like LEGO friends because i hate how minidolls look like polly pockets, but i think the more patel colours of those sets are really pleasant

"der Weltall. UnENTliche weiten..."

there's a german Youtuber called "Coldmirror". she was one of the first youtubers in germany and she made some pretty funny animations, including StarStarSpace, a kind of parody of Star Trek, Star Wars and some other sci-fi stuff.

Adam Savage made a Rickshaw to be pulled by boston dynamics' Spot. I saw that build, remembered the minifigure scale Spot i built in the year before and added his rickshaw. i made two versions. the simpler one i made after seeing the teaser on twitter and the more complex one i made after watching the build-video.

i posted the simpler version on reddit, which got the attention of Adam savage's team and later of adam savage. they contacted me and i mailed them the instructions of the simpler version, felt bad for the inaccuracies of the build, built the more complex version and also mailed them its instructions.

Adam later build the simpler version on a stream that i sadly missed, but i was really happy that a maker i admire liked my MoC.

Fanart for TomSka and Friends' CONTENT table. i still kinda like it, even though i thought it would be hilarious to make their legs skin-coloured.

this was actually featured in the "trial by trolley" video they made in feburary 2020.

Newelementary did a contest featuring the then new Green Lantern Part from the first series the DC collectible minifigures.

i built these two ships with the part as engine details, the W45-P Stinger and the 0G-L13 Leapfrog. i submitted them both and for some reason the people from Newelementary switched up the names of the works.

anyway, i did not win.

just a digital version of the Old Factory i posted back in week 2.

i tried imitating some more logo-like stuff.

i don't think arstotzkan Flag turned out really good, but i really like the way the Blood Machines Title looks.

speaking of Blood Machines, i had recently watched this really cool movie and had to make some sort of MoC inspired by the really cool ship designs found in that movie. i first tried to make something more Minifigure scale, got overwhelmed, and just made the mIcro scale

the Star Wars Helmet series also started that year. i rebuild the Boba Fett helemt and modified it it to represent Jango Fett and the Mandalorians found in the Mandalorian battle pack that also came out that year.

i don't really remember why, but i tried remaking set 7310 Mono-jet from Life on Mars as a more modern set. i made a colour-accurate version and a version that actually can be built IRL.

i had the fun idea to remake some Lego city-style Vehicles as cyberpunk-y hovercars. i tried making some different styles of 0-G-generators/repulsor lifts to make the vehicles feel like they've been built by different manufacturers.

also, Stud.io had a weird bug/feature where you had a coloured gradiend as a background if you put a part on the ground that is out of frame and have the rest of the build "hover" over the ground.

another Contest, this time for Lego Ideas. they had a Star Wars x Christmas thing, so i had the (kind of uncreative) idea to make a gingerbread TIE fighter, based off the Imperial TIE fighter set from 2018 and the little polybag from the same year.

this also did not win.

Bonus: some of my first digital MoCs i made.

i found them again.

the Dalek Emperor from NewWho. this was basically the first MoC i ever made on a PC, back when LDD still worked on my laptop.

i had to tweak the colours a lot when i rendered this one, because the way they were represented in LDD was very different to the way they look in stud.io or even real life.

i struggled quite a bit with redoing this one in stud.io because it handles flexible a lot different than LDD. that is also one of the reasons why i never finished this MoC.

i think i'll have to split this year again, but hopefully only in two parts. i dislike that 30 image limit for tumblr Posts.

first week last week next week

#lego #lego moc #doctor who #tomska #coldmirror #starstarspace #undertale #omega flowey #boston dynamics #adam savage #blood machines

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