#But seriously though those last few panels | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sonicjustbecause · 1 month ago

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How I got fooled twice by purists of Japan, plus what was like being a purist (this time of America, but is also true for Japan too.

Episode 1 - Fooled by purist of Japan

I started to get seriously interested in anime stuffs when i was 11 years old. I grew up watching both Japanese, American and Italian cartoons (yes, back then Italy did cartoons too. Aosth and Sonic SatAM are Italian/American. Topo Gigio is Italian/Japanese), but I shifted comletely toward Japanese cartoon when I was 11 years old.

Some Sonic Generations vibes, uh?

Unfortunately, I had to wait to be 15 before getting more serious into anime.

I used to read Kappa Magazine (I discovered the serie 'Genzo', recommended as itself, not from KM). There was all I wanted, comics and curious fact about anime, including those I saw in Italy. And once there was one that caught my attention. It was about the last episode of Sailor Moon (episode 200, I think). It describled the censorship and the localization. There were also few pictures, but nothing to compare by my own, unfortunately.

Sorry for the censorship. but I don't want this blog getting the same treatment of my main blog, where I can't even have an avatar.

I stopped to read Kappa magazine when it shifted to 18+.

Years later I could finally watch the episode 200 of Sailor Moon the way it was. Yes it was censored. But a good part about localization was a lie.

Fooled once!

Part 2 - Choose to be a purist of America.

As purist of Japan, I must say I was tame. I was not like the one who call all American enternaiment estimators 'bunch of idots who lack of sense of aestetic and good product'. There are far worse purists around.

But as purist of America I was fierce, even obnoxious. At the point of bordering the troll territory (I trolled with other three purists once and I got banned). All what was outside the circle was shit. I also fought against miself to purge myself from all japanese influcences i had, especially in drawing style

It was fun at first, but after a while it becomes stale, the standards get impossible. This is what a purist feel. At certain point you start to hate your own fandom, I moved from being a purist of Japan to be a purist of America because of this.

Then I chose to be neither. Just liking what I like, regardless. Fuck elithism.

A panel of my original manga. I already stopped to be a purist for a while when I drew this. Usually I don't share my drawing, they're not worth. Do you recognize the place?

The story takes place in 2001, so Key Arena is.

3 - Fooled by a purist of Japan for the second time.

About 2 years ago I came back to Sonic fandom for the third time. I started to follow a blog of a Sonic fan on Tumblr, I still hadn't open Sonic Just Beacuse blog.

This person seemed an expert. She wasn't so extreme at the start. She mostly talked about Sonic's personality, about what she enjoyed, mostly light hearted. She showed her collection of Sonic merchandising, including Archies and IDW comics.

But one day everything changed. 'This blog is Japanese only'. 'SoA Evil!' 'Ian Flynn evil' 'Takashi Iizuka the only god' 'Don't call me SoJ purist, U RaSSists!' (of course not near this level of stupidity, just to show the kind of mentality. The racist one was truly explictily said, though).

Ian Flynn according to SoJ purist

The blog had became a collection of boring repeated posts against Sonic Prime (five times a day, for two week straight), suicidal though because of a umpteenth disappointing Sonic product (maybe even written by her dear Iizuka - it was getting messy), against Ian Flynn (this was damaging, because of her I learned to mistrust Ian Flynn abilities as a writer for a while, she share all the bad examples. I had to go through both his good and bad stories to make my opinion and clean the idea of him I had. This was the worst disservice).

Also, she showed the differences between some lines in Japanese VS English (it was mostly the wording, like Cheers/Thanx/Thank you), completely removed from their context, deliberately missing part, it was close to a scam. And for the racism part, she (like many SoJ purists) describled the SoA members like the tyrannic black arms and the SoJ members like many little confused amnesiac Shadows who can't still properly defend theriselves and are forced to succumb against the tirannical black arms). Half way between paternalism and conspiracy theorist.

I can't picture, for example, Iizuka like that. I'm not a fan of the guy and his views but one thing I learned he certainly is not somebody you can bury or trample. Also SoJ and SoA work togheter for two decades or more nowadays, way before Iizuka. They're not enemies.

Like it or not, they are not enemies!

But if you like, this is also named Takashi Iizuka, and this one will break your bones.

How this ended? This person had a discussion with another Sonic Fan on YT. One who watch Sonic as a whole, Japanese, English, IDW comics, Sonic Prime, everything. One who definitely is not a purist. And contraddicted her vision, using Japanese material no less. At the start she answered to him, the discussion seemed fine, no insults, no trolling, it was mostly like two adults talking about two different point of view. But in the end she first erased all the discussion she had with him. Later she denied the possibility to comment to her post. And finally, after few days, she erased all her blogs, accounts, everything, retreating. Is 6 months and she can't bee seen nowhere. Not really trustworthy, but what I can't truly forgive her is making me hate Ian Flynn when I still had no cleal idea about his writings.

Fooled twice!

No love no hate, Ian has his high and lows, certainly I prefer him other writers, boyth American and Japanese. The one I like most was Shiro Maekawa, but Ian gives lots of satisfactions too. There are downsides but is worth.

A dream team but the picture is not mine.

Conclusions:

Do I still follow SoJ purists? Actually some people i follow are purists. I avoid those that focus only on analysis, but there are a couple of people I follow because they do really cute and enjoyable creative stuffs and they care for the quality. But I don't trust their opinion anymore. I take them as what they are. Opinions.

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joculine · 7 months ago

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DIE Issue #2 Reread (Gillen & Hans)

I was pretty hooked on DIE from the concept alone, but this issue is what showed me the story itself would be something special. Sir Lane, the knight of kisses wraps up everything special about this comic to me into one, horrible little story. I love it. Let's dig in.

Art

Eyes are a big deal through the series, but they're an especially big deal in this issue. Hans is really killer at showing emotion through them here, the guilt Ash feels, the anger Sol & Matt feel, and of course the hate from Sir Lane.

I especially love her fight scenes. They move in broad strokes, not focused on any specific sequence of action, but the specific moments of victory and defeat that occur through the fight.

That's important when you're dealing with a cast as large and unique as the party. Everyone has these super powerful attacks with over the top video-game flairs, so she has to make sure to draw your eye with color and shapes.

I especially like how red is used in this scene, a strong color associated with violent magic from just about everyone. Historically, I've associated the red licks of fire with Ash and her dictator powers, but I think that applies to all members of the party here. Perhaps we are meant to see red as the color of violent magic? Or perhaps just the party's magic?

Isabelle's talks with her gods are another standout for me. These panels are always so interesting, I love to see how each one speaks, how they treat Izzy, and how little she seems to care about them. She keeps her back to them, refuses to meet their eye, but is still shadowed in most interactions. It also looks like a persona summoning scene, which is fun to me.

A special shout out to the cartoonish look of Ash's memory of Sir Lane. So idealized & flat, the perfect way to do this childhood flashback. Everything was so much simpler then... NOT. We'll get into it further on.

Actually, why wait?

This is up there for my favorite moments in the comic. Like I said, this is where I realized what DIE was doing—this is a story about careless people ruining their lives and the lives of others for the sake of "fantasy." And it's a story about the logical conclusions of those fantasies crawling back to you and covering you with awful worms.

What's incredible is the conciseness here. In just 8 panels over 2 pages, we see the entire tragedy. Sir Lane, the Angrian knight of kisses, was a fling for young Ash back in the 90s. Maybe even her first fling as herself:

It's an exciting thing for her, to be kissed as a woman. To be wanted as a woman. But Ash barely remembers this guy. She does recall their last meeting—he joked he wouldn't rest until he saw her again, asked her to use her power to make it true. She did. He died. He never rested. His eyes rotted. A lover's joke became a never-ending curse.

We see here how careless Ash has been with a very serious power. As the Dictator class, she can speak things & feelings into being. If she isn't careful, this power will rewrite reality to make her words true. Sir Lane is only the first casualty of this we see. What other horrors are waiting for them in this world, still reeling from the fickle whims of teenage demigods?

House Rules & The Fallen

Isabelle tells us the party takes this world seriously. They can't know how "real" Die is, so they have to treat it like it is real.

I don't think anyone in this party is actually playing this way though. The proceeding bit with Sir Lane is strong evidence against it, but even just moments before this interaction, we have the party going all out on the Fallen and this nice little explanation from Ash:

You know, some people would call me a trap with legs, but I hope there'd still be moral question to killing me. Anyway.

I was really mad the first time I read this, back in 2018. Orc discourse wouldn't hit its stride for a few more years, but even then I found it frustrating. If we're supposed to believe that these characters are treating Die as real, why are the Fallen different? Are "orcs" not people? Are they not conscious? Perhaps are used as unquestionable fodder in early D&D and LOTR, major influences on DIE, but I feel like we're past that now. The easy answer for the moment is that they are more like zombies than orcs, but that's still not satisfying for me. This whole scene appears to be a weirdly out of place statement for the comic.

Let's hold onto that feeling of dissonance—it feels bad for a reason. Without spoiling too much, Ash & the party's knowledge of the Fallen is pretty sparse at this point. They know them as hungry, diseased automatons. There's a lot more to them. A lot more. As we'll find later, this statement is just wrong.

This is a really important theme for the comic: The party is often wrong in what they think and what they do. Their attitude as 90s gamers will keep butting heads against more modern TTRPG ideas. This past thoughts/present thoughts conflict will continue not just with the Fallen, but in pretty much every aspect of the story.

So What's Up With Sol?

You've gotta love this guy—the dramatics, the get up, the ambush, it's all classic GM shit. Look, he's even having to stop himself from spoiling things here, he's just so excited to see his friends again!

Okay, maybe there's something a little worse than that going on here. Sol is (obviously) a really bad friend here. He's stating that he wants to bring the party back for another game—the war is over, now we're here for fun.

Ash reads this differently. She sees him as furious, furious beyond the point of sanity.

The other players have their own ideas. Isabelle, it seems, might be taking Sol at his word, but she's trying to talk him down. Matt is, pretty rightfully, furious. He's been brought out of his normal life into the worst place in the world. Angela bargains. Maybe she thinks Sol is crazy enough to fall for it.

So what's really going on here? Why did Sol bring them back, why now? We don't get an exact answer here, but I don't think it's anything put forth in this scene. Or maybe a bit of all of it. We'll learn more the next time we see Sol.

Other Thoughts

Well, here we go. We've got our quest, we've got a combat in, even some roleplay. A pretty good first session! I do like how these early bits are all structured like standard D&D sessions.

I already gushed a bit about the art in this issue's action scene, but I also want to call out the way Ash's narration works there too. Everyone's role in the party and their powers are very clear. It's a good set piece to show what everyone can do and why they're cool.

If you're considering reading DIE, I'd try to get through at least these two issues. If you like the tone and the characters, keep going! It just gets better from here.

In fact... next issue introduces one of my favorite bits of world-building in the series... but we'll save that for later.

#die comic #die reread

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thatoneluckybee · 1 year ago

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OKAY THOUGHTS TIME

This should be more coherent than last weeks where I lost my mind since this episode feels more like a lead-up to the drama rather than the drama itself. Which is exciting!

It’s 6:48 A.M. and they’re heading to school…. y��all I keep forgetting it’s been less than 48 hours since Tyler got kebabed. It’s been well over a year real-time so it’s so easy to forget these kids literally get NO break.

They all look so exhausted :(

Rest In Pieces Logan’s Glasses. He looks terrifying without them, but glad he has contacts. Makes me wonder, will they be broken or intact in the Phantom World? I think they’ll be intact since (if I remember correctly been a few weeks since I’ve reread) once they interact with an object in Phantom World, the Real World stops affecting it. Like the jeep. Also, are we gonna get contacts Logan from now on, will he get a new style of glasses, or will he just replace the lenses in a few episodes? (Also that hurt as a Glasses User who does not wear them as often as she technically needs to I don’t like them sensory eueuhhj. They must be SO expensive)

Again, WHERE IS AIDEN’S MADRE?

Ryan following them again… go away sir.

I can’t tell if Mike was glancing back because he notices Ryan’s car following them or if he was just checking on the Graveyard Gang… but I wouldn’t put it past him to notice they’re being trailed. He’s very observant.

Okay little screaming moment… HDJKWHBJKHJIHJWI THAT PANEL KILLED ME (Everyone looks so DONE and ANGRY and EXHAUSTED and the collective “No.” was GREAT. And then we have Ben looking like a troubled cat that’s just… disappointed. It’s cracking me up)

Logan likes french toast and Taylor likes egg and sausage biscuits, noted.

BARRON GET YO CRUSTY HINEY AWAY BEFORE I SMACK YOU WITH A FLYSWATTER YOU P E S T

They all looked SO COOL telling those losers off. It hurts so much to see how resilient they’ve gotten, honestly. At the start of the series they would’ve been scared or crying, now they’re just mildly irked. They’ve witnessed horrors. (Also boy RUN Ben is about to go FERAL on you)

Logan is scaring me. If they are turning into phantoms, he’s turning fast. It seems triggered by negative emotions…. that could be why Logan and Taylor seem the most affected right now?

Ashlyn is breaking my heart but I’m still so proud of her. Sucks HOW she’s learned to open up but seeing her now compared to the beginning is insane. Purposely avoiding ANY human contact and relationships to dead-seriously asking Logan to stay with her. I love how much she’s grown. And her hand was shaking… she’s getting good at being more vulnerable too!

Barron doin’ the little “I’M WATCHING YOU” sign is too funny to me— AND TAYLOR DOES IT BACK UYHIGYHIGYH I MISSED THAT THE FIRST READ

I WAS FEHWJFRIHIGUJ I NEEEEEED THE MR THOMAS LORE NOW. HOW DOES HE KNOW? Okay actually I have a few possible theories:

He is a part of or has encountered the crane organization. I still can’t still if the origami on his desk was symbolism, foreshadowing, or both.

He’s got eye bags. Could be natural (like mine) or… could Mr. Thomas also be in the Phantom World? Or he was when he was younger? If so, he would be REALLY valuable as an asset for our group. If he was when he was a high schooler as well but escaped that could help too. Now I’m just ITCHING for lore

AUGH I love Red’s pacing but it’s so annoying at the same time. I can TELL we as a collective are staring to figure things out (and as a collective I mean everyone on Tumblr and the Webtoon comments) but we literally just don’t have enough information to fill in the blank spaces without wild guessing. And we have SOME answers but we don’t know what questions they answer yet. Does get me SUPER pumped for the future of the series though!

EDIT: BUZZCUT’S NAME IS RYAN THANK YOU @planetarymesss

#rambles #sbg #school bus graveyard

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808err0r · 6 months ago

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0̪̙̙0̦̫͜?̡͓͖.̫͎͓USER INFORMATION LOADING_I̡͚͎N̫͙̺T̘̪͙R̢͓͍O̢̟̼:

heyo! i'm bobbi, crash landing here with my work in progress muse eight ! ( who's yongpal? he doesn't know ). i'm still working out a bunch as you can tell, but i wanted to get up a quick intro to get plots going! i have discord if you'd prefer to plot there but im's work for me too! i'll be slowly updating his pages over the next couple days, but i'm happy to brainstorm and give any info you need ( including his most embarrassing secrets and that one story from the orbit christmas party back in - ) anywho -- please enjoy this ramble!

001. GENERAL-USER-INFORMATION:

# - NAM YONGPAL ( prefers to go by his nickname EIGHT ). your current avatar is registered as PARK JIHOON. you have been logged in for 25 years since 08 AUGUST 2998. your highest ranking stats are ANALYTICAL and STANDOFFISH. please select your playlist from BLANK STARES or CRUSHED ENERGY DRINK CANS SCATTERED ACROSS THE BEDROOM FLOOR for today. last saved activity: working as a GAME DEVELOPER AT ORBIT GAMING. resume your ongoing game for GLITCHED OUT as VOID?

002. SOURCE-CODE:

# - raised an only child by his meditation instructor mother and community garden leader father, and considers them both to have some seriously flawed programming. # - despite their best efforts, eight was never too interested in the family business of life-coaching/candle-making/yoga-retreating/whatever flavor of the month it was, and retreated more and more into himself. # - he found solace away from his parents and their various wellness endeavors in vr rooms, preferring to spend almost all of his time outside of studying playing games and watching the majors. # - though he never felt good enough to go pro, he found himself drawn to development side of things, and thus his dream of working at orbit gaming was born. # - he's worked his way up to a developer role once he'd finished uni but things have been relatively lukewarm since. his initial ideas were shot down, he's barely made any waves on his team, and for the past 6-ish months he's been dealing with a severe case of creative block. # - on the bright side, his team seems too preoccupied with whatever that broadcast was to really discuss his performance...

003. ADDITIONAL-USER-STATS:

# - can be very hot-headed ( although outbursts are very rare ), can be seen taking a few cleansing deep breaths and counting to 10 on most days. # - very soft-spoken ( he's working on it ), there are a number of people around orbit who probably have no idea what eight's voice sounds like. # - fueled by caffeine and his tailored comfort playlists. you'll never catch him without his headphones or an energy drink in hand. # - prefers the late hours of night ( less opportunity for social interaction ), and would live nocturnally if he could. # - has a somewhat photographic memory and incredible recall. can remember even the smallest details from various locations he's seen, easily remembers license plate numbers, and never forgets his shopping list even if he's left the note at home. # - often plagued by nightmares of being in what he considers liminal spaces the likes of which he can't escape... but those are just random dreams that don't mean anything. right... right? # - though he keeps his opinions to himself, he feels very strongly that there is something very off about terra.

003. WANTED-CONTRIBUTERS:

*I'm big on brainstorming to get my plots going, but here's a few ideas to kick us off that i'll probably add to later!

# - eight is rather reserved in his every day life, but finds his voice on various online forums. the two could be bonding over their music tastes, debating film rankings, or discussing conspiracy theories on the forum which shall not be named and eight has no idea what you're talking about. # - you live next door to eight and occasionally are disturbed by the BOOMING VOICE ( he's still getting used to that mod - ) yelling at the panel over some minor inconvenience in the middle of the night. # - vr room buddies that he meets up with regularly, or a vr room nemesis that never lets up on eight and shows no mercy in every game. # - someone that makes it their mission to get him back in the flow state when it comes to ideas for the next big game ( dude doesn't have a creative bone in his body it feels like so good luck with that - )

#008_intro.#ts.intro #( welcome to day 1 of me just throwing words and hoping for the best )#( so hype to bring eight here tho!!! )

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ninthprime · 2 months ago

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hxh 401 post

read the scanlations a few days ago but wanted to hold my thoughts for the official tl….

kurapika bro you’ve been in the mafia too long!! you can’t just solve everything with shooting!!!!!

in all seriousness i can’t believe togashi just added plot 23. well this kind of replaces the existing beyond plot so whatever. more importantly though i can’t believe he got me instantly invested in a character who was a rando last chapter. i feel like we got a lot of who longhi is here…it reminds me when ikalgo came out of nowhere in the chimera ant arc and instantly joined the main cast. i really like how her “i have to tell the whole truth” condition of her nen contracts reflects how betrayed she feels by not knowing the truth of her origins this whole time.

incredible panels. that middle one of beyond obscuring her/taking over her thoughts is so good

currently balancing three theories in my head rn:

tserriednich is the “obvious” candidate for beyond’s kid due to his resemblance to a younger isaac and uncanny nen talent. this also kind of seems too obvious to me. (i do think theta is probably one of beyond’s kids, though- it’s her or one of tserriednich’s childhood friends.*)

duazul has not one but multiple kids with beyond. halkenburg bears enough of a resemblance to longhi that there’s a panel in this issue close up on her eyes that both myself and multiple other people i’ve seen mistook it for him, but tubeppa also has the high cheekbones. on top of that camilla’s plan with her have-nots is basically a copy of beyond’s plan, and she already knew nen. luzurus looks so much like brocco (the cha-r leader) that i figured he was his kid, but who knows. the only thing this doesn’t solve is how they were able to do the seed urn ceremony if they don’t have royal blood, which applies to the tserriednich theory too. which means my favorite theory i’ve seen so far is:

oito is beyond’s child. woble would then be a legitimate contender to the throne by blood and a member of beyond’s family. i don’t think oito would know this, and we know a little bit about her background- she grew up poor with multiple siblings- but i get the impression those are the kind of situations beyond was taking advantage of, unfortunately. oito appears to be in the 25-30 year old range, so the right age for beyond��s plan.

basically all of these have heavy drama potential, so they all seem valid depending on execution.

* edit: actually i’m thinking about it now and i’m like 75% sure that what’s going to happen is that morena is going to kidnap and use one of tserridnich’s childhood friends like she threatened to and that friend is going to just happen to be the one that’s beyond’s kid. and then everything asplode

#hxh personal tag #hxh spoilers

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reborrowing · 1 year ago

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siblings and secrets (Stranger Swap)

For GT July - Secret

I live on the west coast! I have 15 minutes left of day three!!

Hollow secretly checks in on his outcast younger sibling when he has the chance and finds out Val has been keeping a much more dangerous, exotic secret from the local borrower colony. Word Count: ~1800 content warning for fear and hand stabbing, I guess. Stranger Swap main post

Hollow snuck along the attic rafters to the far east end of the apartment complex. Whenever he was supposed to go out and meet with traders, he got up early to run this errand first. He didn’t think anyone had ever noticed. Val certainly hadn’t, even though it was Val that he was checking on.

He dropped down and followed a pipe to the cavity overhanging the kitchen. It was a comfortably cramped space, kept at a good temperature by an overhead duct and had easy access to both a water pipe and the most important space in the inner apartment. Some day he or Chai or someone was going to have to talk to Val about installing real security, but for today he just took advantage of how easy it was to get into the loft.

He slowed as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. Val had left an electric tea light flickering on the table. A cap full of crushed mint gave a pleasant smell to an otherwise musty space. The pantry shelves were satisfactory, though the contents were bland. No perishables, nothing too fresh, and not particularly balanced, but Hollow wasn’t concerned with any of that. He wasn’t trying to ensure his sibling was living in luxury, he just wanted to make sure the runt was keeping themself alive.

In the next room over, Hollow had expected to find his sibling curled up in the corner, given the early evening hour but the bed was empty. His hackles rose as he swept through the loft more carefully, checking every nook a nervous borrower might choose to curl up in. He found Val’s bag slung over a cork stool and a knotted harness hanging on the wall, but no Val.

He tried to convince himself that it was nothing to worry about. Val didn’t need to be home, they were free to live life on their own weird, daytime schedule if they wanted. But Hollow had a gut feeling that he couldn’t ignore, that something was wrong. It had been just a few months since Val had said they’d been discovered, hadn’t it? Those tenants had left, but what if it had happened again? Or worse.

Hollow followed a stapled ladder down into the apartment and squeezed through a hole carved into the back of the cupboard. The sounds of the apartment grew less muffled and he paused. Someone was home, he could hear them chattering and moving around. They weren’t close, but they were here. It would be smart to simply come back later once the lights were off. But he was already here on the wrong side of the complex, and he had other plans for the night that he couldn’t put off without someone asking what he was up to. And he’d gone dumber places to do dumber things, really.

He picked a careful path through the cupboard. It was such a tightly-packed mess that it was difficult to maneuver through, even at Hollow’s size. He wove around haphazardly balanced packages towards the door panel and forcefully shoved his shoulder against it to get the latch to disengage.

He froze as the conversation in the apartment picked up again. The voices were still distorted, but they were much louder. A large shadow passed over the thin line of light where he’d cracked the cupboard open and Hollow drew back. How had he missed the footsteps drawing so close?

“Seriously, it’s not that hard, I promise. Kids do it, you’ll be fine” a woman said.

“You bought a fire extinguisher after last time.”

Hollow’s stomach sank. That was Val. He didn’t know what they were talking about, but that was Val’s voice. They didn’t sound afraid or hurt, at least, but that only mattered so much. Too much of anything was dangerous. And humans were too much of everything. Even their kindness could smother and crush.

Not to mention that the colony would probably kick them out of the complex if they found out Val was breaking the main rules again.

The woman with Val laughed.

“I should’ve had one before! But besides, this is basically just boiling water, you can’t mess it up. It’s barely even cooking,” the woman said.

“You said that about the eggs.”

“And now I’ve had second thoughts about how much you’ve never had to know, and came up with something easier.”

A set of fingers dug behind the door just below and Hollow staggered back into the mess of the cupboard. He dove into an empty space as light flooded into the compartment. In his rush, he tripped over a bag of chocolate chips, sending a box overhead teetering and crashing into the newly opened space where the human stood.

Val grunted and Hollow automatically leaned forward with concern. It wasn’t enough to get himself seen, but thought he could steal a look at the tenant and what the human might be doing with his sister. At first, all he saw was a downturned head of curls.

“Sorry! I keep meaning to clean that out, especially since…well, you,” the woman said.

“It’s fine,” Val sighed.

The face tilted back up to scan the cupboard and Hollow jerked backwards in horror. It wasn’t just the idea of being discovered, he was still sure that he hadn’t been seen. It was…His thoughts kept shattering before they could finish the very impossible thought.

He knew that face. He recognized it. Or, flashes of it, because it refused to add it up to a whole. The dark curls, the angle of their jaw, the tawny skin, the unusual golden eyes. Their mothers’ nose, the same shape as Hollow’s own.

As he edged further into the shadows, his elbow rubbed against the same bag he’d tripped over a few seconds ago. The rustling sound was soft, barely noticeable. Those golden eyes flicked right towards it. Right towards Hollow. His heart skipped a beat as they focused on him and flashed with recognition, then shock. The two stared at each other without moving for several long seconds.

“Hollow?” whispered the thing that looked like Val.

This wasn’t happening, this wasn’t possible.

This wasn’t worth getting caught over.

Whatever had actually happened to Val, whatever this thing was, Hollow would deal with it at another time. He bolted and if something wasn’t between him and his escape, he didn’t care to think about it. He went much quicker now that he didn’t care about knocking things over or making noise.

“Wait!”

Humans’ speed was always surprising, given their size, and Hollow could swear that this thing was even faster. They hopped onto the counter for better reach. Massive shadows danced overhead as they tore apart the contents of the cupboard.

“Woah, hey! What’s hollow? What are you doing?” asked the woman he’d heard earlier.

“There’s someone in there,” they answered as they dragged away a plastic bin that had been just in front of Hollow.

Hollow stopped suddenly, his stomach twisting with dread. They weren’t ripping away pieces of cover at random. They knew where Hollow was going. They knew more about how to get back into the walls of this unit better than Hollow did and they had a good headstart getting to them.

“Hollow, I won’t hurt you. It’s just me,” Val said softly.

They could hardly be just anything if they had figured out how to turn themself into a human, let alone just Val. He didn’t want to know what someone would have to do to become such a monster.

“You know them?” the woman asked.

“We’re siblings,” Val said.

There was a pause.

“They live here too?” the woman asked, sounding guarded.

“Not here-here, no, but closeby. I don’t know what he’s doing here,” Val said. “Hollow, could you please at least answer me? Can we talk?”

Several seconds passed. Hollow felt his throat drying out and swelling shut, he couldn’t imagine what he was supposed to say. The two weren’t close anymore. He didn’t know how he was supposed to reconcile his memory and mental image of timid, fawning Val with the giant standing in the apartment. He grit his teeth and tensed to try and keep himself from trembling.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Val said.

Too late, Hollow realized that it was a warning.

His stomach lurched as Val’s fingers wrapped around the box behind him. He panicked at the idea of being exposed, at being grabbed again, and rammed the blade of his prosthetic into the nearest finger.

“Ow! I’m not grabbing you, shithead, just the—you don’t have to stab me!” they snapped.

They flinched backwards, yanking Hollow off the stable floor of the shelf before he could manage to free his blade. He smacked against the side of the box as Val knocked it over. He landed against a paper bag that showered him in a cloud of sugar for a few dazed seconds. Val—it wasn’t fair—runty Val had just flung them across a cupboard. Reflexively. His chest tightened as he pushed himself back up to run while they were dealing with their hand.

“He stabbed you? Are you okay? Is he okay? Oh my god, you’re bleeding!”

“No kidding!” they hissed.

Hollow risked a glance back. Val pressed on the wound with their other hand, graciously giving him the space he needed to make it to the hole in the wall and escape. Val took a breath and squeezed their eyes shut for a moment to keep their temper down.

“I’m fine,” they said. “And he’s…shit, stop! Hollow!”

There was a long, defenseless moment when Val could’ve easily grabbed him. That crack in the wall was narrow and it took time to squirm through. His heart hammered in anticipation as he fully expected to feel something clamp down around his legs and pull him back into the light. He flopped safely onto unfinished wood. His heart kept racing as half-expected those massive fingers to try to pry their way into the walls.

He didn’t sit around to wait for that to happen and got up to sprint for the ladder. He stopped to catch his breath once he reached the loft and ended up sinking to the floor in tears as he tried to make sense of what just happened. He had just wanted to make sure Val was safe. He wasn't sure how to answer that now.

The wall of the loft shuddered as something on the other side tapped against the drywall. Hollow slithered in the opposite direction.

Of course.

Of course Val knew where their own damn loft was.

“Look, I don’t know what you're doing here, if you're spying on me or... I get it if you don't want to talk with me like this. Just, don’t tell anyone about this. Please,” Val said.

As if anyone would believe me.

#g/t #gtjuly #gtjuly2023 #giant/tiny #gt #giant tiny #gt writing #my writing #stranger swap #oc: hollow #oc: val #oc: phoebe #hhhhh I feel way more anxious posting writing I'm not sure about than visual art I'm not sure about #which is wild because art almost always gets put in front of more eyes #also I hate posting stuff at this time but I want to keep up the streak whoops

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popculturebuffet · 3 months ago

Text

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Boom! Retrospective: Issues 4 and 5: The Power Rangers Explode!

It's morphin time once again you happy ranger. TLDR iv'e been covering Boom Studio's Power Rangers for my good patron brotoman.exed in between transformers reviews. This will be the last for a while as I have Transformers One Next month, possibly Transformers: The Movie after, and Transformers: More than Meets the eye returns after. But the power will protect us again in 2025.

For now though we wrap up the round of mighty morphin with a giant cliffhanger and a flashback. And get used to those clliffhangers as Mighty Morphin, both during this run and when Ryan Parrot takes over tends to be one big continuous story. But rather than just.. do power rangers then get back to more than meets the eye in a few years, we're going back and forth so expect a lot of cliffhangers from both.

So to breifly recap for those just joining us, i'll collect the link to this arc in one post later, in an arc set in an alternate timeline where Mighty Morphin takes place in present day but green with evil still happened Tommy laser eyeing bulk and skull into a trashcan and all, Tommy is dealing with his ptsd in the shape of a rita ghost haunting him and hid it from everyone, while the real rita plots her hideous revenge using a mysterous black crystal powered by the green energy. As for everyone else Billy and Trini are hanging out and being good buds, Jason has doubts about tommy, Kimberly is thirsty as hell and Zack is

Constantly bitching about "WELL MAYBE TOMMY'S EVIL GUYS". And spoilers despite being called out on it he only gets worse in this one now he thinks he's been proven right. And on top of all of this, Rita has hyjacked the dragonzord and sent it the rangers way. And shit's only gonna get worse as we see how our heroes save the day only to still loose while we find out WHY Zack won't shut up.

So we begin the issue with the dragonzord having wrecked a cruise ship. There were some surivors but scorpina defintely just killed some people. Unless that boat was just haunted then the ghosts are fine.

Point is shit is bad as the dragonzord is headed for land and our heroes head to stop it.. minus tommy who Jason benches.. not unfarily given you know, the untreated ptsd he just confessed to and the fact the one strategy Tommy does have, telport into the cockpit, isn't available.

The rangers strategy after a badass looking half page of the zords

Such a cool panel. I've given this comic's art some crap but it's megazord art is incredible. So their solution is rather than you know, form the megazord since last time they fought the dragonzord it was on par with it they ... use their zords to drag it into the sea to hang out with godzilla and cthulu.

Rita is actually ready for this as she NEEDS the dragonzord to kill people so she has finster... send a bunch of generic shark monsters and make them grow because.. rita can do more than one at a time now?

Look i'm not the kind of nerd who goes nitpicking every minuta of a plot. I like to analize stuff yes, find deep meanings, character arcs, that sort of thing. I'll poke fun at stuff I don't like, i'll call it out but I try not to nitpick. There's stuff in power rangers like "Why don't they just call the zords right away", "why dosen't rita make her monster grow right away" i'm willing to handwave or can be explained in a more grounded take like this. This very comic , in the only issue i've read besides this arc pre-ryan parro, has a great issue we'll get to in a few years i'm sure that explains WHY Zordon picked 5 teenagers with atittude instead of experinced adults. I'm not saying it's not fun to try and fill said holes with your own theroes, but it's weird to mock a show with a pumpkin rapper. Some later power rangers series do deserve more praise and scruitny but mighty morphin is camp personified so it can get away with weird lore swings.

This series takes it seriously.. and thus really can't jus tsay "oh finster could always make more and didn't because shut up" I dont' mind saying he can do that.. but you have to explain HOW. Rita building a new dragon dagger made sense and they gave it the limit of being far more unstable. This is just plot convience and the comic just proved with said dagger twist it can do better.

So with Rita pulling out the cheat codes, our heroes are in a bind, angle grove's about to be attacked and Tommy is getting impatient.. and for the final time has a confrontation with his PTSD Ghost... and it's confirmed that I was right, I had genuinely forgotten but yeah.. PTSD Rita..is just that.

It's a great scene and pays off the PTSD Ghost rita well: doe sit mean all of Tommy's problems are solved? No. It isn't that easy and I don't think the comic is implying "oh well solving your PTSD is just as easy as confronting it". But it is right in that simply burying trauma.. dosen't fix it and from personal experince same with self loathing. The only way to deal with it is to face it head on. It's.. honestly inspired me a bit. I may not like this comic on the whole.. but it has it's moments of greatness.

So Tommy decides fuck it, he's going to ingnore jason's orde rand go to help. Zordon.. isn't so sure, partly because he knwos damn well this will rattle the stick firmly planted up Jason's ass, and partly because he's worried about the ptsd ghost. Granted Tommy could've given him more than "I'ts handled now", but what I like is this isn't Tommy trying to prove something entirely. This isn't a one side thing: Zordon is right this is going against his friend and commander and that's going to have consequences.. but Tommy's right that if he CAN save lives, he has to. No question.

So Tommy ports in directly on top of the dragon zord to try and control it proving Tommy Oliver being the biggest badass of any reality he's in is a multiversal constant. This gets him bucked off the thing but kim catches him in what I feel's also a sweet moment. While Sure Tommy could've just been winging it, given his next step it feels like he KNEW kim could catch him and tells jason he has a plan to just trust him. Jason reluctantly agrees and Tommy... well TOmmy tops himself

FUCK YES. The climax here is awesome as the rangers take down generic shark man while Tommy takes down scorpina. She does the normal villian bragging "It's too late" "our plans can't be stopped" and tommy just.. breaks her dagger stopping the zord while the rangers can this fish.

Back at the center though.. it's sadly not a happy ending. Jason at his limit with Tommy is pissed he defied him. Tommy does make a valid point: he wona nd had no hallucinations.. but he is being a bit of a dick basically saying "We won shut the fuck up" instead of being apologetic that he broke orders.. but still making his point. Still he does try to walk away, and while dickish it PROBABLY would'e solved things. The divide would've festered a bit... but cooling down and not biting each others heads off was the right call. Jason however.. just can't let it go saying we're not done. Which they arne't, Tommy is being a dick but as i've learned when your getting into a really heated fucking argument sometims it's best to take a break and circle back later. Don't ignore it, running away, as we established in this arc, dosen't help either, but the two of them bickering over whose right isn't going to help anyone. Unfortunately.. SOMEBODY DOSEN'T AGREEEEEEEEE

I will lay into this bitch in a second, but as a DIRECT RESULT OF HIS ACTIONS, Jason and Tommy resume their fight, Tommy is a petulant ass saying jason isn't a good leader, which apart from not adressing the zack thing better, isn't true, and Jason wonders if they really need 5 while Zordon begs his kids to stop fighting.. and as they prepare to throw hands.. the crystal is fully powered. The villians have won: the black dragon.l.. is awake and the comman dcenter explodes as Jason has the rangers put their helmets on and we meet the big bad this has all been building towards , the black dragon

Yeah while he is intimdating to a point... his deisgn is so damn generic and clashing with power rangers as a whole , like the other monsters it feels like a let down. We'll see if he gets better next year.

For now though... let's circle back to why this is Zack's fault and why i'm tired of his bullshit. Tommy was walking away. Tommy was a doucheballon, I havne't sugar coated it, but he was walking away.. ZACK is the one who grabbed him and ZACK is the one whose been doubting tommy, constnatly assuming he's evil, being a prized asshole. Jason's only leadership failing is not recognizing that and reining it in, telling Zack it's okay to have some doubts but to TRY or having the two talk it out. The last part's a bit understandable given how much has been going on, but Jason KNEW Zack was constantly being a dick to tommy, was saying shit behind his back, being passive agressive as fuck did nothing, and then ends up fighting his new friend because of that. Zack didn't START the fight, both tommy and jason share blame, tommy for his ego, jason for not accepting tommy made a good call and sometimes the rangers need to make a hard call by themselves. Being a team means both respecting your leader AND knowing when to break rank if it saves lives. On those two arguing it's well done: Tommy seroiusly rankled Jason by not telling him then disobeying while Tommy solving his issues dosen't solve his tendency to lash out, he just switched targets from himself to Zack, who deserved it and Jason, who didn't entirely.

But Zack's petty grudge against Tommy, his refusal to belelive tommy was a victim and not evil because of his own backstory, his own moment of weakness we'll get to caused it to escalate. It's fine to be wary, tommy was hiding serious hallucinations from everyone and his own doubts, and while he had reason to, he shoudl've been honest. Tommy did get cocky and did defy jason. But Zack isn't doing this because he's jason's friend he's doing this becauasse he WATNS tommy to be evil, wants to pick a fight with him and has ever since zordon recurited him. Billy and Trini have doubts, but genuinely tried to be welcoming: Billy apparently also put Tommy in their group notifications and Trini had that nice heart ot heart last issue. Kim is the most welcoming due to her crush but tried. Jason has clear doubts that explode here, but tried. Zack didn't give a fuck, was a petulant toddler and now the whole team is going to pay for his bullshit. The character gets way better under Ryan Parrot thankfully and will HOPEFULLY get some development from this debacle, but for this first Arc zack is easily the worst part: I don't mind having a ranger doubt tommy, but they take it WAY too far with Zack who spends the entire arc being a giant dick then caps it off by causing the next one. Fuck.. this.. dude.

Now I will say this last issue of the arc proper.. is pretty damn good. The conflict that ultimately leads to the bad guys winning is well built up and I like it more on this read through: Jason has shown to be way too far up his own ass in trying to be leader, and Tommy has shown to have a loner streak, so both's actions, Jason taking Tommy's last ditch move personally and Tommy being a spiteful dick and then getting utterly pissed Jason keeps having Zack's back all feel natural. Zack still sucks, the three sharks thing makes no sense.. but the rest of the issue IS pretty great and does give me hope when we get back to power rangers, i'll enjoy it more. That Higgins simply needed time to sort things out or was building his story slowly.

This first arc.. still has issues but their more structural: boom shoudl've just started from scratch instead of trying to dance between the raindrops of ranger history, though it does a decent job of it and would sustain 100 issues, so it worked out in the end, but I still feel the fresh start their doing now is a good call. Let them use the wide canvas instead of just the most profitable one. But it's not as bad as I remembered.. which I know, it's faint praise, but there's a lot more good character work than I remembered: Zack aside, the other rangers all feel like distinct well built indviduals building their sterotypes from the show out into something: Jason is a scott summers style leader, good at what he does tactically, carring for his men, but also with a tendency to expect military precision and obdience when that's just not always fesable. Kimberly is sassy, won't hestiate to confront her friends on their shit, but warm and kind. Trini is the team's heart, helping both billy and tommy with their self doubt issues and wanting to help the world as a whole. And Billy is the brains but is self concious, knowing he's the only one in the team whose not a trained martial artist or gymnist. Zack is an ass but at the bare minimum the next issue gives us context for that, showing he has a deep well of resentment and is quick to anger. It's not good still, and I hope the character grows and I prefer Ryan Parrot's take, but I appricate fleshing these 6 teenagers with attitude out as people. I've been hard on this book and might be again, but I respect what it does right and hope it fixes what it does wrong.

So onto our last issue. It's a flashback that takes place one month before Tommy arrived. The prime minister of italy is speaking out against Rita.

Now THIS... this is really neat. I like this idea: that while yes Rita tends to target one american town's abandoned warehouse district constantly, other countries probably WOULD have throughts on giant fucking monsters being real. Honestly it woul'dve been neat if we saw how other countries responded, maybe saw some try to make their own rangers, though that last part at least DOES get used much later in the continuity. But this little snippet is still fun as is Rita's response. After sending more generic monsters with no real creativity previously we FINALLY get a goodun.

That my friends is leonado da vinchi's vitruvian man, which I and you likely know better as this

See THIS is the kinda camp we were missing. I'm not asking the monster break tension, but i'm asking for some creativity. Just throwing a generic monster or a shark, and I love me some sharks, at the rangers is boring and you could do better. now throwing a fucking da vinci design at them spouting out generic quotes Squatt and Baboo got off the internet as it attacks italy with twin swords and a crossbow. Fuck yes. And it's still intimdating. Rome is still in deadly danger and this thing still comes off dangerous. But you can have fun and make a threat for your heroes. It's what I love about superheroes; you can have dark gritty stories dealing with police shooting a masked criminal they unleahsed to cover their tracks and getting away with it or a ghostly highway man who hates the poor who has to be defeated by batman using a magic ritual with alfred's help. BOTH of those are plots from the recent series Batman Caped Crusader, which slaps by the way, and both work swimingly. Even in a moody work you can have camp and when your heroes are the power rangers.. it's kinda demanded. It's why I hope while this new reboot seems serious it still has some fun with it.

Our heroes head to italy to fight the giant naked man.The finish is also awesome. The Vitruvian man is about ot kill the prime minister so jason leaps out of the cock pit, also a nice parallel to tommy leaping in last issue, and fucking stabs the bitch. Tommy may be the supreme badass of all power rangers universes, but Jason is easily #2. Carter Grayson is #3 of course.

Zack also gets a moment of triumph out of this, piloting the zord, and I like the touch that it's shown doing so isn't easy, it requires them all working in concert and thus zack filling in for both himself an djason with a killer swipe is impressive. Sadly.. he gets no credit and stews a bit as Jason did the flashier heroics.

So as Goldar admits they already have a sequel in the works, Rita decides nah... she notices Zack's quiet stewing.. and has an idea. So the next afternoon Zack is kidnapped by putties and brought to fog machine dimension from Green with Evil. Rita is being nice.. which can't be good and it's not: She tries to play zack admitting she only did so because he wouldn't likely come to hear her out willingly and wants to show him her place. Which is creepy given she's a grown ass woman and he's a teen, but I feel the predator vibes are intetnional without overplaying them or making them actual text.

Zack to his credit.. dosen't buy her sales pitch that she's misunderstood, the world would be better than her and Goldar's entirley bs claim she didn't start growing monsters until Zordon pulled out zords. Especially since... most rangers are linked to some set of Zords. While zordon didn't build his, most ranger teams are both some sort of ancient force and have zords attached from the get go or linked to them in some way. I mean there are wild ones from wild force wondering the world at this point. So Rita, especially since they fought before, KNEW Zordon had them and Zordon knew she could lkely make them grow. it was an even repsonse and Zack figured it out without any of that evidence.

Rita does try to make a good pitch: that yeah she wants to conquer the world.. but to make it better. Is it really that good without her? It's a great sequence too as she tempts him, shwoing a vision of him and the green ranger. She even sympathizes: she knows what it's like to be an underated second in command, a nod to Zed before he properly debuts after the time skip and something I like: while working in the confines of the original show limits the series slightly... it also means they have the whole map: everything that will happen and things they never built up to because the show was only lightly seralized: having strong continuity but only occasional story arcs before season 3. They ddin't plan for zed, master vile or rito. But they can hint at that, hint at dark specter or other future events and other rangers.

Zack things about it and decides.. nope. not going to betray his friends and tries to yoink the dragon coin away. Zack does go straight to Zordon which explains why the others didn't know during green with evil. I'ts also why again I wish they'd adapte dit: it would've been a decent starting point and while most fans know it, ther'es a lot you could do to deepen the character and stakes. Still it works:W hile Zordon is midlly stupid for not telling them about the power coin.. it makes sense he'd be careful.. and is also being respectful knowing Zack's probably ashamed they came to him. Zack in turn is honest: he WAS tempeted by the power and the good it could do for the world, and Zordon assures him, as a good mentor should that he's only human: of course he considered it, what matters is he didn't and zack honestly wants to DO more, again setting up the peace confrence that'll never happen here. And Zordon to his credit agrees they should, he just has to think it over. Unintended consequences and all that.

So I do like this explination: that zack was offered the coin, reseted and thus resents tommy as he probably assumes he wasn't so easy and is projecting his own insecurties about nearly saying yes. It dosen't fix things: Zack is still a giant ass even with that explination as he's projecting all his bullshit on tommy instead of empathizing with him and using this incident to help assure his new teaamate. Zack still sucks.. but this does show the potetial for the character when given some more depth and that he could be fleshed out well if given the chance.

It ends sweetly though... Zack goes to meet the others who welcome him and praise him for what he did, making it clear their a team... Jason may of gotten the glory but they needed each other. A shame neither jason nor Zack remembered this lesson, but it's some good irony. We also end on another om inous hook, the black dragon talking to rita saying the green ranger will fail.. and when he does.. he'll be waiting as Rita plans to grab tommy.

So now for Bulk and Skull which to my delight is not ending after 6 issues. We pick up from last time as trini and Kim despatch the putty.. as they shoudl've. Like again your martial artists, it's fesable. But they use baskeptball. and spot bulk used some of the same streamers on the putty as he did on himself, so not only are the girls pissed.. but our heroes.. get arrested.

We gloss over Bulk and Skull go to jail sadly, but it's compesnated for by something truly awesome I forgot happened a sthis was the last issue I read monthly before giving up. (I also tried the trade later and thus didn't even get this far). So the judge sentences our heroes to 1993 hours of community service, a bit excessive.. but also a fair punishment given their jackassery would've gotten someone who wasn't a power ranger hurt bad and I like said judge, the principal's brother, 's logic: thedy want to be heroes, they get an actual shot at it. And their officer monitoring this? LT STONE

For those who forgot him, Lt Stone was Bulk and Skull's boss in season 3. Our heroes joined the junior police to meet women, and Stone thus served as their straight man. Stone would actually last a shockingly long time, being their boss still in Zeo and running a juice bar in turbo for some reason. So it's a neat way to get him in early, with Bulk still afraid of him this early, clearly havnig met him before. It's a fun way to bring in a character from later that makes perfect sense and frankly our heroes having a straight man does help their comedy. They work fine without one, but with the rangers kinda busy unless your giving them a bigger story, putting stone against them is great.

So that's MMPR for now. We'll be back I assume next year for more, and i'll see if it improves. For now may the power protect you and thanks for reading.

#mighty morphin power rangers #jason scott #tommy oliver #green ranger #kimberly hart #zack taylor #trini kwan #billy cranston #zordon #alpha-5 #comics #boom studios #megazord #rita replusa

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babytarttdoodoo · 1 year ago

Note

Since you're at work, any advice for job applications/interviews?

Oh, that's a bit out of left field! I have sat on interview panels before so this will hopefully be helpful - bear in mind it will be very UK-centric, though!

(Yes, the whole job hunting song and dance is performative bullshit. It helps to know the steps, though.)

Applications

When they ask for a cover letter, CV and/or application form, don't just regurgitate the same information over and over.

Cover letter: Pick out keywords from the job advert and frame those things as skills you have or opportunities for you to develop. Example: "I see my project delivery experience as being a real advantage in this role, and look forward to expanding my skillset with management responsibilities." CV: Keep it brief and for the love of god make sure it's easy to read. Set it out like [Job Title] > [Company] > [Years] > [List of relevant responsibilities and successes]. If you've had a lot of different roles, keep it to the last five or so. Application form: Questions about skills/experience are looking for anecdotal/situational examples of you applying those skills. Take every chance you can to mention professional development or learning opportunities i.e. all that stuff you do that isn't actually in your job description.

If you're asked about salary expectations, I normally round my current salary up and then add 10-15%. For example, if you're making £24,675 then set £27,500 as your minimum level for a new position. If you make £102,825, that becomes £115,000. Make sense?

Interviews

Being super early is almost as inconvenient as being late. 10-15 minutes ahead of your interview is plenty. If you're running behind, don't be afraid to call and let them know - they will appreciate it and might be able to push your slot back.

Take examples of your work if possible. At the interview for my first job, I took along some video projects I'd worked on as a student. In the interview for my current job (six years later), I whipped out a powerpoint summarising my input into the last project I'd worked on. Even if it isn't requested ahead of time, prepping something is worth it.

There's no way to predict everything they're going to ask but if you come with a few strong answers ready to go, things will go smoother. Look at the job description and make a few notes on any correlating projects/experience/achievements you have. Specifics are great and you can absolutely refer to what you've written down as you talk.

Expect to be asked about challenges you've faced professionally or failures you've overcome. It's fine. Frame your answer around what you learned from a situation that went wrong. Make it sound like you saved the day if you have to. They're not looking for you to self-flagellate - they want to know you can handle pressure and problem solving.

Always, always tell the interviewer that you're speaking to other potential employers. It's a good thing to throw in at the end like "Oh, and just so you know, I am interviewing elsewhere so my availability might change". (In my experience, this has resulted in a faster answer on whether an employer is seriously interested.)

Feel free to message me if you want advice on anything more specific! I'll do what I can :)

#ama #just don't work the hours I do kids #I got away at 7pm woohoo #work advice

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feekins · 1 year ago

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on to Trigun vol 2!!! and right off the bat, we have a lot of translation discrepancies - so here are those and some of my other thoughts and things as I re-read ch 1-2

(NOTE: I'm reading the Dark Horse [physical] and Overhaul [online] translations side-by-side)

(Dark Horse on left, Overhaul on right)

more translation weirdness and confusing speech bubbles, what with Dark Horse making it seem like it's just Vash begging in this panel, while in the Overhaul, it's clear that there's some back-and-forth between Vash and the shoemaker. yes, it's a little thing, but now I understand this exchange better.

then, just a few pages later, while Vash is lounging on that bench, Dark Horse has him going "The sky looks like the deep blue sea" whereas in the Overhaul, it's "You can really lose yourself in that blue sky..." 🤨

another instance of super-perceptive Milly! for some reason, though, Dark Horse has her going like "Just now, Vash looked so seriously sad..."

a subtle difference, but an important one, I think...

...and then, there's how Vash talks about Knives a page or so later. in Dark Horse, it's "The one thing that has kept living for so long..." but in the Overhaul, it's "It's the one thing that has kept me living for so long." like. dude. there's a difference. 😑

(Dark Horse on top, Overhaul on bottom)

😑

BUT THEN!!! WE HAVE LEGATO'S COIN COLLECTION!!!!! OH MAN, OH BOY 😈

and more translation weirdness right at the end of ch1. Dark Horse has Legato saying "Did you think it was the drunken rambling of an old man?" which. always confused me. until the Overhaul cleared it up for me with "Did you think it was just the drunken ramblings of your old man?"

then, right at the beginning of ch2, when the sheriff is explaining why, in his mind, Vash isn't innocent, Dark Horse has him saying "Listen, we have witness testimony that places him at the shoe store. He was also closest when the husband's body was found" which?????????? so, once again, the Overhaul makes MUCH MORE SENSE, saying "He's also the last person who saw the deceased alive and in one piece."

then there's this weird little discrepancy at the beginning of Vash's flashback with Rem. Dark Horse has bby!Vash saying "It's just you...you and me, Rem" while the Overhaul has "It's just...us and you, Rem." W H Y.

and THEN! the explanation for how the Fall started! Dark Horse is all vague at one point like "The program started acting strange, plotting a new course and sending orders through the neural network to all of the ships" which uhhhhh what program? 😑 so ty, Overhaul, for the much more clear "An unknown program started infecting the fleet's neural network, making the ships' AI stop responding as it changed the course."

and...ugh. I could go on and on, but I feel like I'm spending way too much time describing Dark Horse's weird translation shit SO ANYWAY

👀

I.......y'know what, 🤷

perceptive Milly again!!!!!

...that tristamp scene with Vash and Rollo... 🥺

#trigunbookclub #text postan 2k23

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flightlessribbons · 2 years ago

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Everyone's honorary little brother, Nate (I just realized they're out of order, it's read with the 1st one, the 3rd, and then the 2nd 😭😭)

dialogue transcript under the cut (and in order, unlike the panels, my bad)

Touya: Woah Nate! You found this yesterday?

Nate: Yep! That and a few pieces of gold and silver. Thank you so much for recommending Undella Bay- the Abyssal Ruins were seriously insane! Jet and I had so much fun!

Touya: Well, only experienced divers can really explore the ruins, so that’s a major accomplishment!

Nate: Ah, it’s nothing, man. I’m sure a lot of people can do it- they just haven’t tried.

Touya: That is incredibly false- I nearly died down there. That reminds me- have you given any thought on the offer?

Nate: O-oh…The Research group one?

Touya: That’s the one.

Nate: It’s a really good offer…but I don’t know if I could accept. Heroes and Researchers…I don’t think I qualify for either of those. Heroes protect people- and if a legendary happens to like the way they do it- bonus points. And researchers bring new discoveries and theories to the group. They get things done…I can’t do what you guys do- in either regard. I can’t explain the mysteries of the world- and I’m no hero. R…Reshiram would’ve woken up if I was.

Touya: Nate-

Nate: She’s just here as a ROCK in my bag. She shouldn’t even be with me- I don’t know why N trusted me with this-

Touya: Nate.

Nate: S-so I’m so sorry I can’t take your offer-

Touya: NATE.

Nate: Ah…

Touya: You don’t have to join- I wouldn't hold it against you- but if the reason you don't want to join is because you think you’re not good enough- I can’t let that slide. You’re one of the most talented trainers I’ve ever seen! You can deny it all you like, but you’ve done so much for everyone. And you think you don’t contribute to our theories and solving the unknown? Look at this. We need these- artifacts and clues to help us piece it all together. We can’t get these without you. You’re on the field getting these to us in one piece. Your skillset is flexible and broad.And about Reshiram. N entrusted her with you for a reason. Just because she’s still in that rock form doesn’t mean that you’re any lesser of a hero than any of us. It’s just not the time for Reshiram to awaken- but you can’t wait for her to be ready to start validating yourself. You’ve always been enough- Even when you first started your journey, that little kid was already more than enough. You don’t need a legendary to be a hero, Nate.

Touya: Whew…Sorry for dumping all that on you right now. You’re just my little brother in my eyes, so I just wanna watch out for you and stuff. Anyways, it’s a slow day today- so you can take the day off and just get m e the gold and silver pieces tomorrow-

Nate: I’ll do it.

Touya: …huh? Is it because of what I said? Don’t force yourself just because of me- I totally understand (don’t lie to me, bro)-

Nate: Touya, relax. You’re not forcing me to join. But…you’re right. I can’t wait for Reshiram to awaken to realize I’m useful and good. And besides, I love diving and helping you guys out at the museum. Joining your group sounds like I’ll be doing what I’ve been doing, so that’s cool. (I’m not lying)

Touya: YES! This warrants a celebration!! LENORA- WE’RE GONNA GET CASTELIA CONES- DO YOU AND HAWES WANT ANYTHING?

Lenora: WE’RE GOOD, T- YOU TWO GO HAVE FUN!!

Touya: OKAY!!

Touya: Wanna race to Castelia?

Nate: No way. I just beat you in last week’s race to Opelucid!

Touya: Bah- old news! Castelia though- isn’t Rosa doing some filming there?

Nate: What- you wanna try recruiting her too?

Touya: Nah- she’s already in.

Nate: SERIOUSLY?!

Touya: Yup- as soon as I mentioned it to her, she yelled at me to “save her a spot!”. So I did.

Nate: Sounds like her…

#gen 5 #unova #nate #touya #invitation comic #my art #pokeverse 108

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joculine · 6 months ago

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DIE Issue #4 Reread (Gillen & Hans)

Welcome to Glass Town, let's hit the bar. I seriously forgot how much of this issue takes place in a tavern and how little of the actual city we see.

It's actually a bit disappointing, but we can get into that later. First...

Art

I mean, look at that dome though. God. What an evocative scene. The twisting, shimmering colors. The milkiness of it. Stephanie Hans is fucking amazing.

It evokes the shimmer from Annihilation, the film of which released a few months before this issue. I think there's an interesting comparison to be made between that and DIE actually—both involve the journey to a strange place, strange elements from the protagonists' pasts appearing in this new area, and the breakdown/merging of the self with the world around them. We see a good amount of the latter with Izzy this issue.

Also important to note: this magical barrier is a swirl of several colors. I can see pinks, blues, purples, and even yellows & greens towards the bottom.

The architecture of Glass Town itself is somewhat undefined (dream-like, in fact), yet what is there paints a clear picture. I especially like this establishing shot of the city streets:

There's a clear distinction between the "high" and "low" city here, buildings where the regular citizens of Glass Town live & structures that are marked as more regal—perhaps places of political or religious work. Lot of statues of Sol around as well. He looks a lot better than he did in the wasteland!

What actually is Glass Town?

It's a fair question. We don't actually know too much about the place—the party never visited on their first journey into Die. So here's what we've got:

Glass town is the first city of Die. Ash describes the formation of the world as follows: a planet of clockwork armies fighting without reason -> the appearance of Glass Town (for reasons unknown) -> development of other towns & kingdoms -> The wars continue, though with new political powers & actual objectives.

If you know a bit about the history of TTRPGs, you may be noticing something interesting here. Hold onto that, we'll get to it soon.

Isabelle tells us that Glass Town is politically neutral with an impenetrable border. The place is also called the "Ancient Confederacy of Glass Town" by a guard. We know they've got at least one religious temple, but maybe more.

All this is to say... Glass Town doesn't really make sense.

And it isn't supposed to either. How does such a massive & decadent city exist as a political hub in the middle of a warzone? Some GM made it happen. In fact, Glass Town is sort of the perfect example of a not very well thought out city, one that really just exists for the players to come find cool quests. Every race is here, special temples for your gods, cool architecture of your GM, everyone treats the players like royalty... it's a giant toy set.

A toy set, which unfortunately has people living in it.

Isabelle & The Mourner

Several of those people are followers of The Mourner, one of the gods Isabelle has to wrangle with. She's brought up earlier in the issue actually, as Isabelle is unable to get any healing miracles from her. (She was hit pretty bad by the Steel Dragon last issue) She tells us that she still owes the god for granting eyesight back to Sir Lane.

Izzy is the Godbinder class, which is a mix of a cleric and a demonologist. Outside of the Master, it is the real "caster" of DIE. The Godbinder works by managing the debts they owe and favors they can cash in from a varied pantheon of gods, effectively operating as a sort of summoner magician.

So Isabelle owes The Mourner and she needs to make amends quick, in order to get fixed up. She ends up in the temple of The Mourner and we get the standout panel of this issue.

I really love this panel. Normally, Izzy has had her gods behind her, illuminated with power and ephemeral. I've talked about it being like a Persona in the past.

That dynamic is changed in this panel. The Mourner cradles her, Izzy's armor stripped away and floating in a fetal position. She is now in the hands and home of a god, a frightening place to be.

The people in this temple watch a miracle from their god and are stunned. Isabelle is brought into the congregation hall of their church, where a book waits for her. The Mourner tells her the price to be repaid.

Shit is right, Izzy. What does it say that the person who became a school teacher feels like she shouldn't be listened to? That her words are not worth teaching or following? Take a look at the first excerpt we get:

And that's all she needs to recognize it as her diary. Yikes. It's bad enough to be put on the spot in front of all these people, being coerced into bearing your heart & sharing something so personal. For it to be so dark, so self-destructive... I don't think I realized how important that sense of shame was to Izzy's character on my initial read.

Which makes sense! Especially for her, a character who's power revolves around debts and owed favors. Remember, she was also the first to bring up the house rule of always treating the people of Die like real people. I wonder what Isabelle was like during that first adventure to make her feel this way...

As for The Mourner herself, I find her a very interesting kind of god. She seems to be a sort of life god, as she's able to give healing miracles. And yet she is so... depressive. She claims to love Isabelle, she probably loves all her subjects, but that love is a longing pity. She seems to be as much a god of sorrows as life.

Another Careless Spell

So we meet some dwarfs in the tavern. Dour and Delighted. They're so great. Dour tells us a story about a wizard who accidentally kills his own children.

You see, the wizards seem to have rebelled against Sol. In turn, he changed a rule: Wizards lose a memory when casting a spell. When one wizard had his children stolen and turned to a Hydra, he tracked them down, using every spell in his arsenal to reach them. Upon finding them he had lost the memory of his children being turned into the monster itself. As Dour puts it, he did what heroes do:

Lot of heavy moments in this issue. There's a lot going on here. I see echos of Ash's Sir Lane once again—an action from a "Paragon" (we learn the party are known as Paragons in this issue) causes a very horrible thing to happen, though in this case it seems intentional on Sol's part. The paragons aren't alone in the blame though. The mage knew the consequences and used his spells carefully until his children were in danger. Then, he acted too rashly and forgot their condition. He acted too rashly again and lost them in the process.

Power, used for "good" or for "ill" is a very dangerous thing.

Matt's Bravest Moment

We get a story from Matt here too. Everyone gets some time to shine! He tells us about a medical procedure his daughter had to go through involving anesthesia. It's a traumatic thing for Matt, given his mother passed away in a 1-100,000 case of an operation gone wrong.

This is the first look at Matt's core drive as a character. I think (at least in this moment) it is love. A love that is so strong, it makes him bury his emotions to protect others, be it fear, grief, or anger.

He's been used for that purpose in issue #2, when Ash uses her power to supercharge him. He asks her do that again in issue #3, though this time he wants it. A conscious sacrifice of his own mental health to help others.

After all, that's what his class does. The Emotion Knight harness a core emotion and can transform it into violent potential. Matt's emotion is grief, so he's very used to feeling awful. We'll learn later that Emotion Knights can also steal their emotions from those around them (it has been said in the author commentary that released with each issue, so it's not really a spoiler.) Matt is literally taking on the burden of others' grief to help protect them.

Take note of the colors in this flashback too, pinks and purples. We'll finally get to talk about the colors more in depth next issue. I read ahead and found something that clicked things into place, so I'm quite excited for that.

Angela Deflects

In the middle of a breakdown over her ex-husband, her absent girlfriend, the loss of her kids, and the loss of her arm, she gets her robot dog back and finds a moment of joy.

A dog that will end up dying if she doesn't feed it a piece of Fair Gold every day. Ah, that's the real curse of the Neo—everything that's good for the class will vanish without a regular payment. I'm not really a dog person so the personal impact here is lessened, but I get it. There really isn't a lot of good things going on for Angela, but at least she has Case. He is a momentary reprieve from the constant awfulness of Die. But he's also a distraction, and a pricey one.

And distractions & dead dogs are how Angela ended up in the game in the first place. It's a sweet scene, but forecasts more bad times ahead for her. None of the actual problems are solved.

What's Up With Ash?

Man, I've been waiting for this. Chuck is the one to break it. He asks Ash straight up: Hey man, are you gay? Isabelle follows up with a more "woke" angle (as her students would say.)

This scene is so great. Ash avoids the question. Isabelle corners her again. Ash monologues about it a bit, tells us there isn't a simple answer for why she's her. She tells us being Ash is easy. That it gives her the freedom to do things she wants. And just what are those things? We don't get it here, not yet, but it's not hard to put 2 & 2 together.

Cards on the table, Ash helped me realized I was trans. I don't think I realized it was happening in the moment, but the timeline adds up. The end of volume 2 comes just a month after my lightning bolt moment, which will be pretty telling when we get there.

And like Ash, I felt things were not simple at the time either. And they aren't. But they're simpler than I thought.

What I see here is this: Here's a woman that got to be a teenage girl for 2 years and do all the stupid things a teenage girl does. Then, she had to go back to the "real world." She had pretend to be a boy and pretend to be a man. She had to get a job and a wife and ignore those 2 years of freedom. Somewhere in that time, I think she lost herself, if she was ever able to actually find it during her first trip in Die. She believed the lie she had to live. Now she's back and everyone sees her as she is, except for the people she's closest to. That's fucking hard. Why wouldn't you keep quiet? Besides, it's not like she's going to be here for long. Soon, she'll be back in the fucking UK. It's what everyone is working towards. God. Ash. I'm so sorry.

I think Isabelle's choice of words here is interesting: "We didn't have the words then. We do now." Especially in context with Ash's reply:

There's something going on between these two. We don't have specifics on the relationship between Ash & Isabelle in the first incursion to Die, but we know it wasn't great. They were distant before the game, both wanting to see be around Sol, and they were very distant after the game. We get another hint here. I don't think these girls were good to each other.

Who's this "we" Isabelle is talking about? Her and Ash? The party as a whole? And what does she mean that they didn't have the words then? Were they too young? Is it a generational thing, as she mentions in issue #1? I don't think either of those are true though. I think this is a deflection of guilt on Izzy's part for how she treated Ash. And the way Ash talks back is calculated. Izzy calls her out on it too, calls it a "good-one liner [she's] been waiting to use for years." That's the sort of thing your formulate when you want to hurt someone. It's "what happens when thoughts curdle," to use Ash's turn of phrase about Sol from Issue #2.

We love a toxic friend group. We'll get more soon.

Other Thoughts

What a great issue! After a lot of action, it's nice to get some "roleplay" and boy oh boy does a lot happen in a short time. We're starting to see how Die is tailored to make these people miserable and how little it actually needs to do that in the first place. This party is not one of good friends.

I also want to give a little shout out to the Glass Town admin and his rod of seven parts speech.

What a great joke. A railroading GM is a lot scarier when he's railroading you into staying in fantasy land forever. This is also an interesting point towards the people in Die being NPCs... I mean, he's literally giving a GM monologue here. I don't think the comic comes down hard on an answer as to whether the people of Die have a true will of their own, but some of them have moments like this that are just... eerie. There is a horror in the way his words follow a script.

Next issue: Premise Rejection. It's a good one.

#die comic #die reread

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moodywyrm · 1 year ago

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it’s perfectly fine honey!!! and yay!! happy almost birthday :o 21!!! you can gamble and drink and get a pilot’s license !! isnt that exciting :o

in all seriousness i’m soso sorry you’ve been having a bad week :( hopefully it’ll all get better when school starts back up n everything <3 and omg!! how has crocheting been? :o

i’m good!! preparing for school to start even though i basically still have a month 😭 and we’re starting plans for the wedding omg that sounds so weird .. im still not used to it 😵‍💫 but she’s decided we’re practicing our first dance Now instead of doing anything else so . i mean ive already been looking at dresses,, i’m too excited!! and i finally finished circe!! i’m trying to decide between one last stop and shadow of the gods </3 i think i might go with one last stop since i’m already a couple pages in ?

how’s your day? :)

- 🩷

ahhh hello!! 21 in like six days?????? odd.

hopefully!! I start school in like three weeks? a lil more? It’s been so fun!! I love crocheting, I’m working on a hexagon cardigan rn!! I’m so excited to work on it more, it’s really soothing

Same!! And oh my good wedding plans!! You’re a fiancé and you have a fiancé!!! I’m so happy for y’all!! The first dance!! That’s so fucking sweet!! Dresses!!! Wedding dresses are so pretty, I hope the search is going well!! Did you like Circe? I restarted the audiobook like yesterday!! Those both sound great but my vote is for one last stop 😎 bc sapphics 😎 on a train 😎 I’ve been listening to the audiobook a lot and I really love it 😭

The last few days were also odd but my sister comes back tomorrow!! So I’m just pushing through today, hopefully finishing one panel of my cardigan!

How was your day?

#moodythoughts #🩷 anon

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callgespenst · 2 years ago

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My Ohayocon 2k23 Writeup

Every time I go to a con and I think “wow, so much happened, that was fun” and then it all blends together with every other con I’ve ever been to after a few weeks. This will be the first of hopefully many convention diaries/life updates so I can look back in a few years and -not- wonder where the time has gone.

THURSDAY: while the con had events (mostly badge pickup, really) on Thursday, we elected to skip out to go see the Reincarnated as a Slime movie before the weekend really got started. Good movie! Got cash out for the con and some last minute supplies (more E6000 glue for my boot covers).

FRIDAY: My wife and I both had to work in the morning but as soon as that was done we got our costumes on and got out the door! I wore my Paptimus Scirocco cosplay, which I haven’t taken the chance to do since ANYC 2019. (There haven’t been a whole lot of anime cons since then, or at least, not ones I’ve felt safe going to). Got in, bought our badges at the door (almost glad we didn’t pre-reg, the line for that was much longer) and went straight to the dealer’s room. Ran into a few friends, went to our long time favorite vendors of Otaku Joseph and Megaroad, and didn’t actually spend a whole lot of money because our collections are already massive and out of control. I got a lot of small stuff (my last daily photo) going through some dealer’s bins and chatted with a guy who was also looking through for cool robots. After that was dinner with friends at the local pizzeria, and a panel, and then we left early.

THE PANEL: Went to a guest panel for Shin Kurokawa, who worked on the AnimEigo Macross release in the early aughts. I’ve learned a lot about early anime fan culture (exchanging raw VHS tapes, some of the first cons, etc), but never really heard anything about working from an official perspective at that point, so that was fascinating. Used to be a lot harder to make DVDs, that’s for damn sure. Kurokawa revealed that the release of the DVD set got pushed up, after being delayed for a while, because 9/11 happened, a lot of people cancelled their preorders, and they wanted to cut their losses. So then someone at the end of the panel, starts to ask “So, if 9/11 hadn’t happened...” and everyone starts laughing because, what a way to open a question about anime.

SATURDAY: Our friend Koji came up for the day so a lot of our Saturday was showing them around the dealer’s hall, artist’s alley, and taking photos (I was Gamlin on Saturday, and my wife was dressed as Nekki Basara all weekend). We got lunch at North Market during the only lull in the ramen place’s line, and managed to show Koji around and have a good time. Took those two back early and then went back to the con center on my own.

KARAOKE: Fumbled my way through Totsugeki Love Heart, I usually do a lot better but I felt weirdly self-conscious at the time. The funny part was before karaoke, when we were sitting outside the room in line. The hosts were doing a sound test, and it sounded suspiciously like “The Borderline” by Sharon Apple. So I turn to my buddy next to me in line and say “Hey, isn’t that The Borderline?” and he says “I don’t think it is”. So I go up and open the door just to confirm, and I was right! And in my con-powered enthusiasm I turn around and shout “IT -IS- THE BORDERLINE, FUCK YOU ANTHONY!” to the confusion of most of the other people around us.

SATURDAY EVENING: Went to go get pizza again with a slightly different group of friends. Met a Quattro cosplayer who seemed pretty cool. Ended up sitting around for three or four hours just bullshitting, which is always good. Got tired and left just before midnight.

SUNDAY: Designated Mahjong Day. Most of the rest of my usual group didn’t show up until one, so I played some DDR (did awful) and some Initial D (did alright). I think that was the exact motivation I needed to get back into playing DDR more seriously, accidentally put on a ten-footer (on basic mode!) and got most of the way through it even though it wasn’t a song I was familiar with. Just gotta build my stamina back up. Then I helped with a mahjong teaching session, which was a nice confidence booster, I felt like I was doing pretty well with three players who were mostly unfamiliar with the game. We had -both- genders of Americans interested in riichi mahjong, “played it via Yakuza”, and “played it via FFXIV”. The game room closed early due to snow, and then we went home.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS: the literal, honest to god barbershop quartet that was there on Sunday. I don’t think they were there as attendees, they just went to entertain a crowd, and they were pretty damn good. Their group name was “The Fourskins”, and you can “follow them on nowhere”.

All in all, I had a great convention! No drama, no bullshit. Fewer of the lads made it this year than usual, but those who did come, I got to have a good time with, which is what counts. For my next convention I really need to submit some panels, cons don’t quite feel right without them.

#gespenst updates

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sassypotatoe1 · 2 months ago

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Literally so many super practical accessories were replaced with elastane, and I mean so so many, but also different clothing design elements that are not only gorgeous, but super practical and also comfortable, were replaced by elastane, and now if you see those elements in clothes it's "aesthetic" and no one realizes the function these elements had.

Corsets and stays were the precursor to bras because they support breasts, but they had a different and arguably more important function: keeping up all those layers of skirts and petticoats. The whole corsets cause injury and deformity thing is a total myth by the way, I mean modern mass produced corsets probably cause injuries because they're ill-fitted but back in the day they were fitted to your body, not sewn off of pattern blocks. They were pretty damn comfortable, if you wanted to tight lace it was about as uncomfortable and harmful as really tight shape wear or pants, and any injury caused was similar to wearing a chest binder for too long.

Mostly what corsets did was distribute the weight of your skirts and petticoats from your waist across your pelvis, which if you've gone hiking before you'd know that backpacks have a strap across the hips for the same reason, which is that redistributing weight like that takes it off your core and onto your legs which are typically much stronger. But you don't want your skirts to start on your hips because they'll ride down all the time.

Smocking is another thing, when I discovered it (I was browsing through a huge open source database of traditional skills and trades with antique training materials that I've since lost) that I went HOLY SHIT! because not only can it he incredibly incredibly gorgeous and intricate, seriously go look at smocking patterns on pinterest you'll go insane, they were the elastic trims of clothes before elastane. When I'm rich with a lot of free time one day and get to make all my clothes it'll all be smocked, not shirred, because fuck elastane and also it's so much prettier.

Pleats? Yeah functional. In several different ways too! Pleats serve as a way to shape garments, to give them volume and help them lay in a way that's elegant and comfortable, but they're also sometimes there to make clothes adjustable. You ever see those vintage shirts that have vertical pleats all along the front panels? Yeah those were there so a single item of clothing could be taken in or let out easier as humans naturally fluctuate in size. Was it their main function? Idk probably but it was a function and an incredibly useful one!

Lacing has been making a comeback in fashion these last few years and I think y'all can guess the purpose of it easily enough, it's pretty obvious, making sure your clothes are snug as a bug without having to take it in or let it out every time you lose or gain weight or get bloated or take a huge dump. You also typically don't have to tailor clothes if it has lacing panels, because those are responsible for the fitted look, and if the creases under the laces bother you, you can get or make a little panel that goes between the laces and the fabric. I forget what it's called, but it was used with stays iirc to both provide extra support to the front and make everything seem neater, though it's entirely likely I'm remembering this tidbit wrong so if you have the correct information you're welcome to correct me.

Gloves used to be such a societal norm that there were codes for which types to wear in which settings, what fabric signified the class you were in, and wealthy people used to literally just toss a pair and buy a new one if they got dirty or damaged apparently. Now we mostly wear them as protection when working manual labor or crafts, or from the elements, or in medical settings.

Gloves have more uses than you'd think though, and I personally would love to see a resurgence of gloves in popular fashion. Gloves protect you from the cold sure, but they also protect you from the sun, from disease, from injury. I have a pair of lacy fingerless gloves just for driving because in the summer months my steering wheel gets so hot I can't touch it with my bare hands, and the backs of my hands almost always get sun while driving, so I figured why not get a little protection from both and look elegant as fuck while doing it? It worked! And I look elegant as fuck doing it.

Head scarves are a bit of a doozy, much like masks, because of the cultural associations with both. Masks obviously due to the pushback in the last few years due to enforced covid measures, but head scarves due to racism. Y'all remember those vintage pinups with women wearing head scarves and victory rolls (I think that's what it's called)? Yeah they wore them because they had to take over manual labor during the war and their hair kept getting in the way. Later we developed better headbands and pins and they became more in fashion, and then women were all forced to be housewives where stronger hold and protection wasn't necessary, and then when we entered the workforce again we had gel and mousse and hairspray and elastic hair ties.

Head scarves not only keep your hair out of your face, they also protect intricate styles (whether longer term protective styles or shorter term styles for specific events). Ask any black person why they wear a bonnet (in good faith) and you'll get a delightfully detailed explanation, which includes but isn't limited to the fact that it protects their braids, locks and hair in general. That's because it reduces friction on the scalp and hairstrands which often leads to scalp irritation, breakage and hair loss.

You wanna know how head scarves help on finer, straighter hair textures? When the wind threatens to destroy your million pin and half a can of hairspray updo, you tie your scarf up over it loosely, and boom your updo is safe. I've used it a couple of times before going to fancy events, and gotten a lot of looks because they're all conservative white Christians (I grew up around them didn't have a choice) and they were uncomfortable with it looking a little (but not really at all) like a hijab.

There is so much gorgeous, intricate and beautifully useful history to fashion, and people seem to really take it for granted due to fast fashion and consumerism and planned obsolescence. There's so so much you can do to make your clothes fit better, look better, be more comfortable, have more function, and I truly wish everyone had the opportunity and resources to learn about these things.

You know what, since I'm thinking about it anyways, let's talk formalwear accessories. Most of these are traditionally menswear but a bit of gender fuckery is good for the soul, and frankly most of these are about making your mass-produced clothing fit and lay properly without having to go to the tailor.

Shirt stays: these go around your thighs to hold your shirt down, so that it stays smooth and tucked in. They're usually elastic, with 1-3 clips, and if you wear skirts frequently this is a GREAT way to make sure your top doesn't ride up. The clips will be visible if you're wearing something tight, so loose pants or skirts are where these do best. There's also an insane version that clips to your socks, but that is for lunatics. If you wanted, you could also use one of these clips to hold up thigh-highs.

These do a great job of smoothing and narrowing the waist area by keeping your shirt from bunching there.

Sleeve garters: usually metal, leather, elastic, or silk. These are usually worn with button-down shirts to adjust where your cuff falls on the wrist or hand. They're properly worn on the upper arm, and you pull the fabric of the sleeve above the garter until you cuff is where you want it. Because this creates a puff of sleeve at the bicep, it also broadens the appearance of the shoulders. It's great if you're working with your hands or if your sleeves are often too long for your preference.

Waistband clip or belt adjustment clip/buttons

Three different ways of tightening the waistband of a pair of pants or a skirt. You're not going to get more than an inch or so tighter without weird bunching, and for most of these you'd want them to be hidden under a shirt or jacket, but they do the job if that's something you're having issues with.

Collar pins: There are so many fun ones out there, both with and without chains. They're not terribly practical, though the slight weight may help keep your collar where you want it. Also consider collar tips, which pin (surprise) to the very tips of your collar points.

Sweater clips/guards: meant to hold your sweater or cardigan mostly closed. Great if your cardigan doesn't button, or if you don't like it to be buttoned all the way.

There's tons of other stuff out there like this--etsy is a great place to find this stuff. A lot of these are old solutions to the very modern problem of mass-maufactured clothes not being as one-size-fits-all as advertised, but they're also a fun way to put a bit of personality into businesswear.

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