#Ignore how inconsistent my design for Face is

[rojomarker]

MOTHER gave him the ugly :(

[danauschaewon]

my thoughts on dimension 20: fantasy high junior year ep 19 ragenarok Discourse™

⚠️ spoilers! ⚠️

from a watsonian perspective, the bad kids don't know of any way to cure a rage star. if any of the characters were stressed enough sufficiently to be angry (rage token), porter seems to be able to immediately control you so even not directly being controlled by a rage star seems to put you under ankarna's domain. there's no reasonable watsonian expectation for them to believe the ratgrinders could be redeemed, notwithstanding whether teenagers would show other teenagers who hate them that grace.

additionally, the Discourse™ seems to forget that there's ultimately a choice between following porter or not. lucy frostblade's sacrifice was extremely poignant because she chose to die rather than go against what she believed in. buddy dawn's immediate switch perfectly aligns with how religious fanatics believe/claim to believe whatever is convenient for them without any internal consistency. that doesn't mean that they weren't groomed by porter but there's really no ground for some of the moral absolutism I've been seeing here.

that also leads to something that I haven't seen people discussing; kipperlily and oisin straight up murdered buddy (their own party member, who they secretly treated as a pawn the whole time) by slitting his throat to try and keep the bad kids from being revived??? it's implied they also killed lucy and covered it up for so long that she is almost beyond reviving just so she couldn't snitch on them?? even if you liked the ratgrinders, they're much more ruthless than bad kids are, even if you take riz and fabian's comments into account. also, if the entire school was in fabian's house, they essentially tried to kill all 500 other students in their school + jawbone to beat a magical loophole to ascend porter.

and the obvious being: if you are fighting to end the world (remember they did bring down fig and gorgug, even if they are uncoordinated in pvp), don't be surprised when people fight you to save the world.

from the doyleist perspective, others have already pointed out that dnd is a combat focused game. if you fail a persuasion/intimidation/deception roll, regardless of what makes more sense for the story or the themes or your character, you probably have to fight to the death. this isn't a story written with a single overarching vision from one mind, it's real people being filmed in real time playing a game designed around roleplay AND combat. combat is gonna happen.

secondly, this is a world where powerful individuals have the ability to directly control the universe (magic). "might makes right" is a terrible moral system but that's also how reality works (laws are only (as strong as) their enforcement system, the police are an occupying army, etc).

human beings are social beings and our intelligence/creativity allows us to imagine a world where no individual or socioeconomic group can use might to make right. but our imagination also is limited by our own inconsistencies, ignorance, socialisation, habits, etc. and most importantly, our stories about the world mustn't confuse us from how the world actually is. not everyone can be redeemed, even if you want them to be.

if you want the world to change in a certain way, you have to gather enough strength to change it. the more it deviates from the status quo, the more strength you need. that's not just martial or economic power, there is social power that can be influenced by a collective moral or intellectual sense. however, those with the power to directly eliminate your existence will need to be sufficiently worried about consequences to not use that power (e.g. american police know they face no consequences for executing black people in cold blood, that's why they actually do kill instead of simply want to kill like other non-police racists).

if the ratgrinders want to kill the bad kids and ascend porter to godhood, they have to actually have to develop their skills to do so. that's why they exp levelled, they tried taking advantage of the last stand, one of them sent their grandma to kill the entire school at one kid's 18th birthday party. and correspondingly, if you don't want your 18th birthday party to end with your death + your entire school's deaths + the ascension of your teachers as the new god of rage, you gotta kill some grandmas and poorly coordinated exp levellers.

[suffarustuffaru]

Hey, how are you doing? Firstly, i'll understand if you choose not to answer this ask since the subject is controversial and kinda heavy

We currently have at least two pedos in the story, like, actual pedos (the guy obsessed with Liliana and the creepy butler that i forgot the name) and then tappei's writing in some things is just... weird?

I get that subaru and beatrice are supposed to have a sibling relationship, but it just weirds me out

And he keeps adding loli characters with questionable designs too

What is your opinion on this? Its something i manage to ignore, but it still weird me out a little

hi anon!! :o thanks for asking how im doing pfft im doing pretty well - though i am a college student and its This Time of Year (end of semester) so im hanging in here lmao 👍

also ok as for the topic at hand!! yeah no i 100% hate it. ive been thinking about rezeros flaws lately because the further you get into watching/reading rezero the Clearer it gets. its mostly fine at say, arc 1, but by the time you get to arc 5 or arc 8 its like. What the hell. This again?? so yeah its 100% understandable to be weirded out and uncomfortable by it because tappeis writing is frankly Gross sometimes.

(okay also yes this ask has minor or major arc 5+ spoilers yes and also. You know. detailed discussion regarding rezero sexualizing children.)

yeah so tappei writes problematic things into rezero regarding both women and children especially, and while theres exceptions its like. very Prevalent in rezero. i talked about it a bit in my last ask if youd like to check that out!! but yeah like. i hate how children are treated in rezero. its very Problematic a lot of the time.

tappeis writing follows very similar patterns regarding treatment of children and women that you see in a Lot of other anime/manga/japanese media - and media in general, really, but im sure most anime watchers / manga readers will know what im talking about because its unfortunately That common. we're all seen this. like fan service shots, lolis and shotas, etc etc. but rezero is a little more insidious i think, just because tappei is capable of writing good characters regardless of age or gender. and theres Less of stuff like fan service - or at least rezero is a little less obvious about it or its just seen less in rezero, but thats also because media in general is so in your face about it and Unfortunately Common so rezero looks like a tiny bit of paradise in the middle of a barren desert.

i mean look at the amount of people who've thought rezero was a harem anime until they watched rezero - rezero seems like an outlier but thats only because its just a tiny bit less gratuitous and it still has a lot of good writing. and also because i am pretty sure the bar for media like this - especially media in rezeros genre (isekai) is Extremely Low. like depressingly low. and despite rezero being a deconstruction of isekai, rezero also contradicts its own damn messages sometimes about treating others like the People they are, respecting others Personhood, treating women well, etc. and its easy to see that the moment you look at some of otsuka's artwork and designs for rezero or if you look at all the rezero merch mainly based around the girls and Sexualizing the girls and its like. my god this is a little depressing to look at. rezero is just a tiny step in the right direction away from say, misogynist shounen/seinen media thats also weird about kids or something, but then rezero trips and falls on its own face after taking several right moves.

the problem is that these problematic aspects are still there, theyre still clear to see if youre paying attention, and often character arcs start well but then fall flat despite the good foundation. and then the problematic aspects hammer the already Poor/Inconsistent Writing into the ground which it makes it Even Worse.

like louis is a great character. shes fascinating, really. and then you hit arc 7 and she regresses immediately into the mind of a toddler so we only get to see her amnesiabaru/Suffering From Rbd arc in arc 6, her confrontation with subaru, and then BAM its arc 7 time and now she is an entirely different person????? i remember raging the further i got into arc 7/8 and realizing she hasnt gotten any development, she just changed instantly. it just feels lazy to me!! unless tappei proves me wrong and writes her developing but right now louis has spent two goddamn arcs being subaru and rems loli prop/daughter prop/a plot device to use in battle, basically. okay sorry i got passionate there but i SWEAR it gets on my nerves a bit. the louis/spica conflict now would feel so much more thrilling if she didnt have her weird half assed arc 7 development.

like if i was really in the fantasy world, of course i wouldnt vote to kill spica, shes innocent now. she doesnt know shit about her crimes, shes a whole other person now. she didnt do those things. she is an innocent child. i did a poll on this a while back actually haah and yeah a lot of rz tumblr, including myself, voted to let her live for this reason!! but also like. narratively speaking. i do not care about spica at all. shes a blank slate, shes just there to move the plot, she is taking up space in the plot right now and she does not need to be here forever. i 1000% want her dead hah. yeah shes this cute little kid now, but again, she got zero development. why should i care about her?? all the interesting things about her in arc 6, all the potential that couldve happened out of her gradually going from her arc 6 self to someone who genuinely cares about rem and subaru is gone. If we actually saw this change, personally id care more about spica and be invested in her character but as it stands im really Not. and i think if we saw her actually Develop a lot of us readers would be more invested to see this conflict out - not only because our Favs are fighting over it, but also because we’d actually care about spica. Like. im not sure how many people actually care about louis past arc 6, but yeah thats just my personal thoughts on it.

And also the Other big flaw with louis’s character is tappei once again being creepy regarding kids and. Okay im gonna show an excerpt from the arc 6 WN (iirc ch60 to be exact?) and yeah fair warning because it is once again sexualizing a child (louis). But also im putting it here in case anyone wants to see some vivid proof of rezero being weird about kids. Im not sure if this was cut from the LN version or not but the fact that it exists At All makes me want to put tappei on a watchlist.

And okay i know you might be thinking about how louis represents the sin of gluttony anyway and gluttony includes sexual or romantic desire too and how having louis, who looks like a child, say this makes it even more Offputting - like. Yeah. but is it Necessary? because making louis, WHO LOOKS LIKE A CHILD, say all this and then use descriptors like “expressed a bewitching smile unsuited to her age” - is this Actually necessary? You have to be careful writing this sort of thing, because a child/character who looks like a child saying things like this due to being, you know, Mentally Unwell, is different from Emphasizing What Theyre Saying By Sexualizing Them via the narration and descriptions. And why is the sexologist line there?? its just frankly uncomfortable, to an unnecessary extent, i think. I just dont think we need all this emphasis on louis’s body, louis’s apparent “arousal”, or how her smile is “unsuited to her age” (this is the narrative once again sexualizing a child), and plot-related sex/sexual content in rezero is kept to a minimum anyway so you could also literally just have louis be weird about “loving subaru” without the sexual aspect. Because she literally just said that she was aroused by him. she looks like shes twelve at most and then in the arc immediately after this one she regresses back to having the mentality of a toddler!!! and then shes subaru’s daughter there.

And again, i know that the whole point of this scene is to be off-putting and disturbing and wrong in all sorts of ways (and also subaru tries to kill louis a page later so like.) but i think if youre going to keep the appetite=sexual desire detail (which IS a good point about gluttonys nature, on its own), then this scene absolutely needed to be handled better than what we got when the character saying this is a child. you can write a child sexualizing herself because shes frankly Unwell or Doesnt Know Better, because this is fiction and you can write sensitive topics like this with proper care, but if you, the author, are sexualizing this child, then that is a Whole Other Thing.

or you can entirely dodge this whole debate over whether or not this is actually okay to write by making louis look older. but tappei went with this route once again in a sea of rezeros various child characters despite the fact that tappei then decides to link sexual desire to the sin of gluttony, which is a sin occupied in rezero by three children. I know ley has a very traumatic backstory, and the specific details are escaping me but iirc he was likely a slave or something along those lines, with implications that hes been abused by adults, so you could delicately handle what kind of abuse he Couldve unfortunately had to go through, and also of course roy and louis are clearly not okay in the head either, but. Once again. Children in rezero Not Being Sexualized in some way is a rarity. Unfortunately.

you see this pop up again and again and again. petra? Yeah iirc theres a side story where shes weird about subarus underwear. Correct me if im wrong on that but also i would not be surprised if that was a real side story. Unfortunately. Also theres Uncomfortable lines regarding petras chest.

according to rezero wiki, schult is… well iirc al makes creepy comments about schult being a shota (and of course this isnt really called out in canon), and theres also these two details about schult:

also regarding sin archbishops who look very young, capella represents lust and yet she also looks like a child. i know the point of her design is to make her a bit grotesque, but you can get that point across without making her look fifteen years old at most. this is the sin of lust too. and shes already called “Mama” in canon—she doesnt need to look that young!!**

also side note about pandora. she also looks like a child, which—its okay with her, except for the frankly lazy outfit design imo?? why is she wearing a bedsheet??**

** another edit: its easy to see capella and pandora as women also, but again, tappei and otsuka In General keep mixing up short/young women and Children and it should be easy to tell if pandora and capella are children or young women or not. but i dont feel that its clear enough given tappei and otsuka’s Track Record.

and typhons design with the see through skirt is so creepy and disturbing that im Really glad the anime fixes it most of the time. heres the fixed version:

but also the anime Really doesnt fix it as much as it probably should, because her dress is Still see-through in some shots. you can even see a bit in this shot—we dont need to see her lower body area like That!! this skirt doesnt need to be see-through!! and the bar was already in hell anyway because otsuka makes typhon’s skirt Really see-through.

theres also this photo of typhons design and its Way better without that see-through skirt.

granted, there is some good child character designs—felt’s arc 1 design frankly sucks though purely because of the way her outfit is handled. like its Really bad. it takes only like one look to see that. but her arc 5 design is a Huge Improvement:

characters like meili, schult, child subaru, etc have good designs too, but you know, this doesnt change the Creepiness regarding children, because this also applies to subaru and Some Lines about him in arc 8 iirc. if i find them again ill talk about it another time (or if someone else finds it feel free to add on to this post?) but yeah just. urgh.

regarding felt again, theres a scene in a felt camp side story where she wakes up naked in bed, post arc 1, after reinhard kidnaps her to his mansion. and yeah, the whole point of the scene is to show reinhard is kind of dense and bad at reading social cues because hes still trying to talk to her very civilly while shes covering herself with the bedsheets and she Literally just got kidnapped by him, but, say it with me, she doesnt need to be naked. she couldve woken up in bed in her usual clothes and the point still wouldve come across!! WHY is she naked??? shes fourteen.

and also like capella, liliana looks like a child. and of course theres kiritaka, as anon said, whos obsessed with liliana, and then theres clind, the creepy butler. and of course tappei has “deniability” because lilianas not Really a child (she STILL looks like one), and clinds not Really a pedophile, he just likes youthful souls!! (this is literally disgusting.) and clind may have interesting lore or whatever about how hes kind of involved with the sin archbishop of melancholy but i just dont give a shit about him when hes a pedophile that tappei keeps excusing.

also mimi? mimi is a Special Case.

the thing with mimi and her brothers is that its implied in the kararagi girl and cats eye side stories that kittypersons (??) are fully grown by age 1. theyre rescued from dying on the streets but they insist theyre “fully grown” (at age 2-3). they havent changed physically at all. and they dont change physically at all later, because now in the Present Day they all look Exactly the same as they did when they were 1, 2, 3 years old. did they grow mentally???? theyre like 14-15 in the main route. and then you look at aganau route from the lost in memories mobile game which takes place around twenty (??) years after arc 3, and mimi is a grown woman and she looks exactly the same as she did when she was 14 or 2 years old. and then this makes her romance with garfiel a little weird because hes a normal fourteen year old??? but mimis been fully grown all this time??? what??

this is mimi. yeah, she and her brothers look EXACTLY this age their WHOLE LIVES.

and meili? yeah shes definitely one of the better child characters, though she does have an Extremely Traumatic backstory and has had a habit of copying elsa. this on its own is fine and understandable. elsa was her only support and shes a child, of course shes gonna copy elsa. though iirc she also copies elsa’s “flirtatious” aspects, which is honestly also understandable given elsa is a Questionable Influence, but this detail about meili’s character gets worse when you think about it in the context of all the other child characters—

why is it that all the children tappei (and otsuka) keep sexualizing are in the same age range? theyre about 9 or 10 to 14. louis stops being sexualized when she reverts to being a toddler and becomes subarus daughter. felt stops being sexualized when she turns 15 in arc 5. emilia is the main love interest to subaru and shes apparently “mentally 14”?? and shes tappeis favorite character too? but also mimis case is so weird because shes been “fully grown” since the tender age of ONE YEARS OLD?? well also i sure hope im wrong on this point but given the amount of child characters that fall in this age range and also how Often theyre all sexualized and also the majority of them are Young Girls—yeah its. its not a great look.

(and again a side note about meili again—tappei uses similar descriptors that he used for louis: that its “inappropriate for her age” and that she’ll “attract many men in the future”. tappei stfu. please.)

subaru’s lolimancer title is kind of funny. maybe. until you remember rezero being creepy about kids. and also like—i dont like the idea of tying a word like “loli” to the literal main character of the story anyway skdnd. theres just Connotations to it.**

**EDIT: i was told that “loli” is apparently a fan translation thing, while in japanese its “little girl user”, but in an inoffensive way (like Jojo’s “stand user”). make of that what you will!! (not great that the fan translation makes rezeros already poor treatment of kids Even Worse.)

and also—was subaru, al, medium, etc turning into children really necessary?

like in subarus case, its so he can have more ego, more confidence, more recklessness while being nerfed a bit and being mistaken as the emperor’s son—but at the same time, this just feels like a watered down version of the amnesiabaru arc to me where he has more ego, more confidence, more recklessness, and hes nerfed, but then he learns to love himself more. it just feels too similar to the amnesiabaru arc imo. him turning into a child feels very unnecessary imo and it doesnt look great when you remember tappei and otsuka’s fixation on children. literally arc 8 would be exactly or almost exactly the same if subaru was back to his usual 18/19-year old self. but he has to keep being a kid right now because Plot, apparently. then again if anyone disagrees with me on this feel free to explain your stance!! but yeah as of rn i just want subaru to be back to his usual age.

also tappeis weird about young priscilla/prisca and lamia but i havent read the ex novels about them yet so i cannot go in depth 👍 but just know you get nice lovely lines (sarcasm) like “flirty way she caresses her own thighs”. great!!! thanks tappei for fanservicing underage teenage girls once again!!

and again, treatment of child characters / characters who look younger than they are in rezero—this is so so creepy also as someone who does in fact look younger than my age. and im also Very Short (4’11) too. so like. thanks tappei and otsuka!! i feel very comfortable right now 👍

and women are often infantilized in rezero which you can. Easily connect to the pedophilia, yeah. theres also age gap romances in general, and i mentioned emilia already (yeah. emisuba is an age gap romance.), but theres also ram and roswaal, frederica and clind, anastasia iirc gets described Weirdly sometimes because shes a short flat-chested woman, and recently theres been madeline and balleroy having a small moment (that feels. Romance coded. iirc.) in an arc 8 chapter.

they look like this by the way:

thanks tappei and otsuka once again for the creepy writing and designs that actively work against all the good parts of the damn story 👍

on a lighter note, i think beatrice in general + beatrice and subarus relationship is one of the better parts of rezero—iirc theres nothing creepy about it, and beatrice and subaru are very easy to read as a sister and brother relationship. theyve helped each other out in many ways, and theyve grown Very close by the time we see them in arc 5!! you could. Technically see their relationship as a father-daughter one too, but i dislike that take—not for bad reasons, but just because i feel like it doesnt fit them.

the thing with beatrice though is that shes simultaneously A Child but shes also like. 400 years old. so i do wish the narrative balanced that more post-arc 4–not in a creepy way of course. god no. but in the sense that shes mature in a lot of ways!! shes familiar with death and suffering!! shes intimately known Isolation!! that sort of thing. shes the one whos closest to subaru because of how he helped her in arc 4 (“choose me”), and also because she knows about his self-harm and heals his injuries. shes someone who can deeply understand subaru in a lot of ways in this sense, at least. the way they support each other feels more like a sibling bond to me and not a Parent-Child one just because youre not Really supposed to be leaning this much on your child for support. theres a power dynamic to a Parent-Child relationship, and beatrice and subaru are Equals.

plus echidna gaslight gatekeep girlbossed both of them, so theyre also siblings in that sense hah…

but yeah correct me if im wrong on that though regarding beatrice and subaru and im missing something?? but yeah as far as i remember and as far as i can tell, i think theyre actually one of the least creepy parts of rezero hah :,)

and then because this sort of thing is Unfortunately so common in media like rezero, we’re kind of conditioned to try and ignore it so we can keep reading or watching because its Everywhere. i still enjoy some of rezero, but its hard to ignore All Of This. and i think its important not to turn your brain off to it and recognize whats Wrong here, yeah. (unless it makes you so uncomfortable that you have to stop looking at rezero, which is very understandable.)

but yep. thats rezero for you.

[tamaruaart]

What was zhao's character designing process like?

Hello! Thanks for asking, I'll try to keep this as simple as humanly possible-

-the beginning stages of Zhao's character

(Ignore the bad quality of the pictures, I was lazy-)

I've actually had Zhao for quite a few years now, but I think these drawings I made like 9 months ago are the oldest ones that I could find. As you can probably see, in the begging she was a primarily jttw OC, I remember being super into OSP (which I still am), so when I started watching their jttw series I immediately got to making an OC because I really liked the world and all.

There's not much to say about the design honestly. But I will say why the hair changed, back then, her hair was very tiger-y but why has it changed so much if she's still a tiger? Well it's because back then I actually really liked the hair, but as time went on I thought it was way too much. However I really got attached to the whole "Cursed for disobeying your family so that you can never forget about them when you look at your own face.", so I decided to keep the orange hair just remove the details.

However a lot of the drawings you will see still have the stripes, but you'll see how they became more and more simple over time.

(note: All of the drawings you will see of her old design are pretty old so my art skills have improved-)

When I just started watching lmk I already knew I wanted to change up her character a bit. So I did a mini re-design. Again not much to say about her design except that I wanted it to look very demon-y (because she actually used to be a tiger demoness)

However I felt she was too "soft", so I changed up her character a bit to be more cold and "mature", because I wanted her to have a bigger contrast in personality with Sun Wukong. I'll get into that later :>

And as you can see I was still experimenting with certain designs but in the end I ended up with the last one for a while.

Then something awoke in me and I was finally like: This hair is mad complicated let's simplify this sucker-

So some (a lot of) experimenting:

(as you can see I've got a very inconsistent style)

And with that I eventually got this kinda design:

As you can see, this is was the start of a ✨new era✨

(you can still see these drawings up on my blog if you scroll down enough-)

And this design stuck for a while until I made a certain drawing for a certain @/camhues 👀

At this time I have started reading Circe and was very inspired by her character :0

She changed from being cold to more motherly. She's still mature but more clever, compassionate and caring. (yet still pathetic in my eyes). One of my friends here on tumblr @/doppel-doodles explained her PERFECTLY- "A fierce tigress in the body of a gentle mother cat" (like who gave them the right-), this explains her character very well because despite being very peaceful she's still a strong sorceress-

Now, Zhao is still kinda quiet and reserved considering her unhealthy past. But that ties a bit more into her connection with Wukong, which I'll get into in a bit.

I wanted Zhao to seem more "out of place", back then she just seemed like a basic bish girlboss OC and like someone who would make a good background character-

I also decided to give her a full name (because my dumb ahh realized Zhao is a Chinese SURNAME-) so I decided on Zhaoyan, also funfact Zhao's father used to call her "Zhaodi" because that name means "requesting a brother" (Because sexism yaaayyyyyy-)

My Zhao design is also heavily inspired by @/gigizetz Circe design, and her hair is very much inspired by Rapunzel from tangled-

And so yeah, then we got to her current design

While I can't really give anymore specific references, I can tell you a bit on how I settled on this design :D

Note: I wanted her to have a more exotic, tropical and ancient vibe if that makes sense. She is a spiritual maiden, sometimes even described as a sorceress, and considering the role I settled on giving her in the story it makes sense she would seem like "something new" or something out of the blue if you will. Even though she's a Peach Maiden, she doesn't exactly look like one, which I honestly think is really exiting to work with-

There's still some lore I haven't spilled yet that would say more about her design, but I hope to reveal that in the future!

Now, all the lore of her current character ties to one specific thing, aka her most important role in lmk- her connection to Monkey. Now as I mentioned, Zhao and Wukong were made to be opposites, or well to seem like opposites (one is chaotic and one is calm). Also the mear fact that the Chinese monkey zodiac and Chinese tiger zodiac are specifically referred to as not being able to get along so well.

But in reality they're quite similar, both get over looked because of their unthreatening personalities despite being really damn powerful. Both kinda stand out in physical appearance too compared to the other characters, and look alike in a way (same ginger hair and golden eyes). And not to mention they both push others away from them because of their pasts despite caring a lot.

A fun part about writing Zhao's character is she also serves as a way to find out more about Sun Wukong and jttw as a whole while still being her own character.

So yeah, that's basically it! Sorry for this being so fricking long I like rambling about my girl- (no I do not have a favorite lmk OC wdym?)

Fell free to ask more questions they're always fun as hell to answer!! :D

[werrrrrd]

CHARLES XAVIER X OC

Part I

PLEASE GO TO PREVIOUS CHAPTERS ON MY BLOG FOR WARNINGS!!!!

AN:Hey again! Here's the first non prologue bit. If you skipped to here that's ok. I'm gonna mention again that it doesn't follow the plot very much, setting and timing is off, I lowkey just made up stuff so that I could write the story how I wanted to haha. Just ignore that yeah? Anyways here you get to see a lot of Mays power development which was so fun to write and also you get some CHARLES action FINALLY! Once again please ignore plot holes, cut me some slack, I really don't care enough about fixing them haha, some things that happen were not really supposed to be possible in the movies but FOR SAKE OF THE STORY i made them possible. Also her power limitations are very vague and inconsistent, I know but once again, it's for the plot! Obviously that makes things not make any sense but here we are and it is what it is. 

“May, are you listening?” Frost asked me. My head snapped towards her and Shaw, who was threatening Hendry out on the deck of the boat, making sure no one else had been told of the deal they had made previously. Shaw paused to look at me.

“Sorry,” I said. Shaw tisked at me. I stifled a worried feeling that rose up in my belly as he fiddled with the ring on his pointer finger. One touch on the dial that was hidden in the intricate design of the ring and my shock devices would go off. Usually he didn't care when I wasnt paying attention to him but if I caught him in a bad mood he would be happy to indulge in a little pain. 

I zoned back out once Shaw began talking to Hendry and had taken his thumb off the ring. So much time had passed. I had come to realize pretty quickly I would not get out of this situation on my own accord. Something had to happen in order for me to be able to get away. I used to watch for opportunities constantly. After years of nothing presenting itself I had grown weary and lost faith in even the hope of escaping Shaw's control. I was on a very short leash and probably would be until Shaw was killed (which didnt seem likely with his powers) or until Shaw killed me. 

You had better believe that when I found out Shaw was a mutant I was furious. How could he do all that he did to his own kind? Of course when I tried to have a go at him he only turned the dial up until I was brought to the ground.

I jumped at the loud sound of an explosion. Shaw was containing it until he absorbed it and shook at the new energy he consumed. Hendry looked at him in disgust and horror. Soon after Shaw killed hendry in a blur of light and soon it was just us on the sunny deck of the yacht.. 

Things settled down, Shaw offered us all drinks and we all sat on the boat as things got dark. They, mostly Shaw and Emma, chatted while I stayed quiet as the sun set. 

***

After a couple hours of sitting and thinking out in the warm air, I felt the heartbeat of someone coming closer towards us from further off in the ship. I would have waved it off as a crew member or hired guard of shaws, if the heart wasnt beating so painfully quick and catching my attention. I sat up as I felt the persons blood inch nearer to us.

“What is it May?” asked shaw, noticing my concerned face

“Someones here.” I said. Shaw didnt seem worried at this information, He thought he was untouchable. Unfortunately so far, he had been. 

The body got closer and Shaw sat and waited for who ever it was to present themself. 

“Herr doctor,” 

We all stood defensively as a man came around the corner holding a knife. Shaw waved us off and spoke to him in german calling him Erik Lehnsherr. He had murder in his eyes as he approached shaw and Emma confirmed his intentions that he wanted to kill Shaw.

The man fell to the ground in pain as Emma invaded his mind. Shaw spoke more and Emma defended him as Erik threw his knife through the air with impossible precision. She caught the knife and then threw him off the boat. We heard a loud splash but then we heard the loud sound of a boat horn and flares being sent into the sky from behind us. The U.S coast guard announced itself and demanded that we dont move our ship.

Based on the heart rates of everyone it was something we were concerned about. I shook out my arms, suddenly feeling a rush of adrenaline. Soon enough people were running about, people who werent from our crew

AN: If you couldnt already tell the story goes off course here and I kind of do my own thing because it would be boring for me to write a story so closely based off the plot line of the movie.

The costal guard boat had come up next to our ship. Our own crew ran around at Shaws orders to get the submarine prepared.

are they… attacking?? I could hardly tell with so much commotion.

“Grab Shaw!” someone yelled. Now I could tell they were fighting. But I couldn't tell where Shaw was, I whipped around trying to make sense of things, my team was all over the place fighting different people, some unofficial looking military soldiers were mixed about with a few people in more casual outfits. Shots were being fired but none at me.

I stumbled out further towards the action without getting too close. Then I saw Shaw running at me, at least three people chased behind him and as my own team noticed they  followed too. Shaw pointed at the ring on his finger menacingly as he approached, as a reminder of what he could do to me. I took a wide stance after Shaw placed himself behind me and felt the blood of everyone in the vicinity. I picked out the ones that I wanted and stopped them all using my hands to get better control. The ones who stayed in motion were from my side. They came and surrounded Shaw defensively and raised their own hands in case I lost control. I didn't lose control these days. I could hold at least 25 people at once and I didn't nearly kill them while doing so. I had seen my powers grow at an exponential rate for the last few years. I learned I could do more than just hold on to blood and move it. 

“What's happening?” One of the other team said. She was a blond girl who seemed like she hadnt expected to be in combat based on what she was wearing and the fact that she didnt have any weapons. “Whos is doing this?”

One of the men spoke. I hadn't noticed him before but now I got a good look at him and something inside of me shook at the sight of him, a resolute look on his face, determined, but nothing evil or malicious. He was also seemingly unprepared for combat. Two fingers were frozen pressed on his temple and a subtle wince was on his face.

He gave me an expression that I couldn't read. Suddenly I felt a slight pressure in the back of my skull near the shock devices that were implanted in my neck and on my spine. Something was in my head and somehow I knew it was him. His brows furrowed in focus and I felt him rifle through my mind. A thought came into my mind about my mutation and I knew that he was searching for my abilities. 

“Its her, in the middle” he said “It's our blood that she can control,” He spoke with something that almost sounded like wonder in his voice. He let out a curious breath and blinked at me

 I widened my eyes at him before trying to push him out. I felt him move on from just reading my thoughts and felt him get control of my actions, My brain suddenly wanted to let him go. I recognized that he was responsible for this thought and felt the anger coming on because he was overriding my powers. I did my best to resist his advances. I felt him hesitate before pushing harder. Then I felt the slight buzzing of my shock devices. The man's actions stuttered as he must have felt the electricity threatening to increase if I didn't do something quickly. I yanked the man's hand away from his head in order to halt his powers and he didn't react quick or strong enough to stop me. I felt the connection break and my mind was occupied by only me.

Shaw praised me by patting my arm as he came to stand in front of me now that the danger was gone.

I turned back at the man who now looked at me just as intensely as I had been looking at him. There was a sharp clarity in his eyes I had not seen before in anyone. My gut twinged inside of me and I didn't know why. Shaw started speaking to the group about how he could not be stopped with his incredible team of mutants but my eyes stayed locked with the strangers. Everyone else's attention was on Shaw. He stayed watching me. He had been in my head. Not even Emma had been in my head, Shaw saw no need, knowing he had total control over me.

I expected to feel violated by someone else in my mind, a space only I had ever been inside. But this man had entered my mind with what felt like… respect, or reverence? He didn't go as far as he could have and I knew that it was intentional. My eyebrows furrowed as I tried to understand. And now, even though he wasn't in my head, I could feel my brain reaching out to him, to be connected to his.

 I shook myself out of my stupor just in case I could actually make contact with him without his hand on his temple. I felt embarrassed that my mind wanted him to do that, I knew better. I couldn't make sense of the reaction I was having right now. So I tried to focus on Shaw’s speech which seemed to be droning on more than necessary. The things he was saying were horrible and I felt a slight guilt wash over me at the things I was helping him to accomplish. I hoped that these things wouldn't happen, but I also knew that I had no control over helping him. I had started to go numb and detach myself years ago. This was my life and there was nothing that could be done. 

I glanced back at the man. He was still watching me. My heart rate sped and when I reached out to feel his blood and heart rate, mine only quickened. He somehow knew that I was listening. His expression changed oh so subtly. It was barely noticeable. He almost smiled at me. Quickly I stopped listening to his heart and looked away. I felt my mind reach out to him again and I snatched it back up before it could get there.

Suddenly there was a commotion happening in the water next to us. Shaw took this moment to get out and went for the hatch to the submarine. I stood for just a second longer and glanced at everyone before resting my eyes on the man whose eyes now flashed between mine and the anchor that was levatiating above us ready to smash down. I widened my eyes before sidestepping to follow after my team who took off. I held everyone in place while getting some distance between us and them. Once I got too far I couldn't keep my hold on their blood and they were let out of my control. The ship was crumbling as I went down the steps and hallways catching up with Azezel and getting ushered into the hatch. 

We took off, but something was slowing us down, the submarine was already rather slow. I realized Erik must have been able to control metal, from the way he was able to throw the knife, and he must have been the person with the anchor who was tearing up the yacht we were just on. He must have been holding on to the submarine as well. 

Shaw didn't seem worried that he would be able to stop us though. Finally I felt the sub move ahead with no restraint. We got a ways away before I gave myself a moment to think. 

Who was that? I didn't understand why I felt the way I felt when I looked at him. It was only a moment after that that I felt him reenter my brain.. I stopped suddenly, my eyes going wide and mentally clamoring to figure out how to get him out of my head. Also onfused at how he could reach me from this distance. We weren't incredibly far but we were at least 100 meters away at this point. 

“Don't worry,” I heard his voice speak. It was soft and smooth with a nice accent and I liked it. I didn't like that I liked it. I whipped around wondering if he had somehow got onto the ship or if he was just saying these things in my head somehow

“I wont mess around with your thoughts or memories, I just want to see where you are going,” He explained. I gulped walking towards the main room behind the team.

“You did good today. Keep it up,” Shaw pulled me toward him by the arm. I saw him grinning out of the corner of my eye. His teeth glinted in the light before I pushed off of him

Shaw had noticed my face. “Is something the matter?”

I could tell them that the man was reading my mind and he could do something to make it impossible for the man to find where we were going. Or Emma could figure out some way of stopping him from reading my mind, but I somehow knew she wouldn't be able to control him with the distance, somehow, I knew that it was just me and him who could. I was more worried Shaw would make me kill him. If I got close again I could shut everything off, his entire body, and he would die. I hated to kill people for Shaw, but I found out quickly that refusing didn't do anything but harm me as well as kill them in more gruesome and painful ways. If I didn't do it he would beat me and shock me to teach me a lesson after ending them himself. I shivered, even though this man had tried to manipulate my thoughts, I didn't want him harmed, especially not killed.

“No, everything's fine. I'm good.” I responded shortly

Shaw looked at me suspiciously before turning around to go. I kept walking to my private room on the sub. I still felt weird about letting the man find out where we were going. I didn't want to put myself in danger. But I couldn't think of a better option.

“Do you usually betray Shaw or should I be flattered?” I heard his voice speak in my head again again. I frowned and tried not to say anything.

“Ill take that as a yes then?“ he questioned

Shut up!” I whisper yelled. It came out just a tad louder than I had hoped. I looked around to make sure no one had heard. It was empty so I continued “You don't know anything!!”

I could practically feel him smile. My nostrils flared in annoyance, but somehow, I wasn't angry. 

“You're right. I don't know anything," he said honestly. My annoyance fizzled out and I was left with a content feeling I wasn't expecting. Was I giddy?  My stupid head was buzzing with him connected to it. I tried to force that feeling out. I hoped he couldn't tell. He didn't say anything about it if he could

 “You don't really want to be there do you?” his voice sounded gently in my head

“Okay,” I said frustrated again. Why was this guy questioning me. He should just mind his business at this point. ”who even are you?!” I asked louder now that my door was shut and I wasn't worried about someone hearing me talk to myself.

“Excuse me for not introducing myself,” He said like he was actually concerned that he hadn't shown me any manners. “I'm Charles Xavier.”

I looked around confused and almost amused. Baffled by this mans actions.

“And you…?” he asked carefully

“You didn't go through my memories to find out?” 

“No, I only do that when I absolutely need to.” He said his voice revealing to me that he was smiling again

“Well that's a surprise,” I say before taking a seat on my bed.

“I assure you, I wouldn't do that.” He says and somehow I believe him. 

I think for a second wondering whether there's a way to get him out of my head. I can't think of anything and for some reason I don't take a very long time to come up with something. Before I even register it It slips out

“May. That's my name.” I almost gasped when I heard myself. I hadn't meant to tell him.

“It's lovely to meet you, May,” He spoke. The way he spoke it though… made my heart slow and my mind quiet. Made me want to close my eyes and sigh. I swear the air in my room stilled. 

I cleared my throat “ahem, it's uh.. nice to meet you too.” There was another brief pause

“Well, May, I… I suppose I should say goodnight, As pleasant as this has been Im afraid our time is nearly up.” Charles said. I could feel it too, our connection losing strength as we got further from each other

“Yeah, goodnight Charles.” I said, for some reason, reluctantly. 

“Night,”

After that I could feel him disconnect from me. My mind felt fuzzy from the sudden break in contact. My thoughts reached out for him again but seemed to realize the distance and drew back. I shook myself out of my stupor and smacked my head a few times. 

I stood to take off my jacket, first emptying my pockets and unholstering a couple concealed weapons I kept on me just in case. Then, I sat at my desk and took out my hair. I took a few seconds to massage my head, trying to get the feeling I got when he left to go away. Then I dragged my hands down my face, thinking about how long the day had been. I sighed and went back to bed. I kicked off my shoes, not bothering to take off my pants or shirt. It would be an early morning tomorrow and usually I didn't have the time to get ready before I was needed. I pulled the thin sheets over me and rolled onto my stomach before putting my arm under the flat pillow to give my head some more support and closing my eyes to sleep. It was early for bed but I didn't have anything better to do and I found that sleep was the-

“Thank you” His reconnection startled me out of my thoughts as I felt the, not unpleasant pressure, return to my skull. It was dim and the message was soft and distant but I could still feel it. “For not ratting me out I mean. I know you could have done something to stop me and you didn't.”

I stayed quiet for a while. Was he trying to make me feel bad about betraying Shaw or did he actually mean it? What was he getting at?

“Sorry um… goodnight again.” He said. He must have understood my confusion and hesitance to answer. I felt him going to disconnect again but I didn't want him to. My brain cried at the thought of him leaving and I didn't think quick enough to stop myself.

“Wait no! I- well, you're welcome I guess. It's not….” I stumbled out before he could fully pull away. I couldnt think of how to explain myself, I didnt really feel like I should. Shaw would be absolutely livid if he knew I was talking to the enemy

“Im a little confused i think” I finished not knowing what else to say

I heard him breath out a puff of air and then speak “about what exactly?”

“Well, you I suppose.” I said honestly “and maybe just… everything.”

He hummed “that must be tiring.” he said understandingly and sympathetically. I rolled back on to my back and put my hands over my eyes. 

“It can be.” I said. I didn't really want to open up to Charles, and yet, at the same time I REALLY wanted to. I couldn't understand what this urge was. Maybe he was messing with my mind, convincing my subconscious to trust him. But would that really be so bad? Shaw was a bad person and if talking to Charles was going to help his team take Shaw down, maybe that was a good thing. Regardless I didn't feel like Charles would do that. Somehow I trusted him. More than I had been able to trust anyone, at least, since Lou. 

No matter how much I wanted to help Charles and no matter what this unexplainable reason for that was, I needed to survive, self preservation was my main goal. If that wasnt the case I would have died a long time ago. If I was going to communicate with Shaws enemies I had better be careful about it.

“Are you alright?” Charles’ voice said softly in my head. I thought for a second. I wasn't, no. But things could be worse. Shaw had not shocked me too terribly today. He didn't beat me either. I didn't feel hungry and I wasn't as exhausted from using my powers as much as I could be some times.

“Yeah. I'm alright.”

He hummed again. I could tell he was not convinced with that answer but he didn't push it.

“Thanks… for asking.” I said softly and still slightly confused. It had been a long time since someone had asked me that and seemed to actually care. It filled my heart with a warm feeling. I had seen this man for the first time in my life only an hour ago and he cared enough to ask me if I was ok. 

What was his angle though? If he just wanted to see where we were going for as long as he could he could have just done that, felt what direction we were heading in and then disconnected once he knew enough. But he was talking to me, asking me if I was ok. He didn't seem smart for that.

I waited, for a response, my eyes closing and sleep starting to come to me. He didn't wait much longer before speaking pulling me slightly awake again.

 “Sure love. Any time.” His voice became more muffled with the growing distance, I knew soon we wouldn't be able to communicate. hearing his words I couldn't help but smile in my drowsy state. I think maybe I even blushed, but I didn't care and I doubt he even knew. After that I must have fallen asleep because I don't remember feeling him detach from me.

 I slept so well that night that when I woke up I thought for a second that I was in my childhood room on a Saturday morning without a care in the world.

[stopthatfool]

You said don't get you started on Ice's helmet or you'll be mean... please be mean. Please be mean to him. What is so disastrous about his helmet design?

my time has come. i will be mean to him. (thank you for getting me started on this. it bothers me every time I watch top gun.) this is also gonna be so long. yippee!

stopthatfool's issues with Tom "Iceman" Kazansky's helmet! aka this bad boy right below. (I'm sorry if anyone loves Ice's helmet, it's just not for me)

The placement of his name. WHY is it on the side? Both him and Slider have their names on the side. That makes me think it's a squadron thing? (the VF-213s) but regardless i don't care cuz i think it's stupid. (again sorry if someone thinks its genius. ok i'll stop apologizing)

My biggest issue with the fact it's on the side is that it creates this uneven weight distribution. The side with his name feels considerably "heavier" than the side without.

And the thing i don't understand is that Ice's name is evenly numbered!! He could fit 3 letters on either side of the line that comes down the helmet! the letters wouldn't be unevenly distributed, so I don't know why he felt the need to put it there!!

Here, I have "annotated" his helmet and provided other viewpoints of his helmet!

The font/typeface! Ice.. is that ARIAL?? and it's not even bolded??? so not only is his name to one side and weirdly small... it's skinny and unbolded. (like you're THE Iceman. Don't you want your name big and bolded? I shouldn't be searching for your name when you're Mr. Iceman!)

Looking at his helmet head-on, part of his name isn't even visible.. like ok ICEM!

And then! There's this weird switch up in the shapes and line types that he used-- the angular and sharp points of the lightning bolts and the half circles surrounding the squadron logo (is it a logo?? idk im gonna call it a logo)

What i think Ice is trying to do here is create a "connection" between the circular part of the logo and the lightning bolts as the bolts go all the way to the back of the helmet... but in my opinion... it's not working. like at all.

The comparison between the harsh lines of the bolts and then the curves is just kind of hard on the eyes (for me anyway). I just don't know where to look. Should i be following the leading lines of the lightning bolts? Or the curves of the half-circle things? Or should I be following the line of the lightning bolt in the logo?

And all throughout that... i barely end up seeing the name on the helmet.

Continuing off the logo... for Top Gun 1986, Ice and Slider are in the VF-213 squadron, but the movie switched the logo to the VFA-25s that looks like this on their flight suits-

(yes that is the best quality image i could find from the movie my bad) So why does the logo on his helmet look like this???

WHY do the fingers look like that. they look like hotdogs im so sorry. (logistically it was probably easier for the decals to be printed and then applied like this. but. we're not talking about technicalities here. right now i'm tearing apart the entire composition of Ice's helmet.)

I like version of the logo on their flight suits soooo much better! It's got more "rhythm" and flow to it that the lightning bolts lack! Plus no hotdog fingers.

Ok ok, now on the colour scheme. The harsh and bright blues I don't mind. Like yeah, you're The Iceman, punch me in the face with blue. I can forgive that. The thing that really bothers me.. is the silver/grey base of the helmet.

It's this really harsh grey that really doesn't help with the already harsh blues. I think he should've continued with the blue he has going. cuz this grey ain't working, king.

Ok, anyway. Since I should be studying, I'm obviously doing anything but studying. So i redesigned ice's helmet. ya idk.

it's kind of wonky.. but whatevs (ignore how the lightning bolt on the side view doesn't line up with the front view) (and ignore the inconsistences in the lettering. i was lazy and did it by hand)

I also didn't want to completely change/get rid of the aspects of Ice's helmet. So the changes aren't huge (except for maybe the name placement/"font")

ok I changed the background colour (finally, it's less all up in your face now) I continued with the blues and lessened the intensity just a little bit. I really wanted his name to be front and center!

Now the colour scheme is also consistent. No random black lettering (again, in arial???) there's now black in both his name, the outline of the lightning bolts and the logo!

Now his name is evenly distributed! See how it fits on either side of the line that comes down the center of the helmets from '86? See how you can actually see his whole name? See how it's heavier and fits the whole "iceman" theme better? (at least in my opinion)

Come on, Ice! You should've used the leading lines provided by the lightning bolts to guide people to your name! There's now a fun little overlapping moment!

(ignore how i forgot to dot one of the i's in distribution whoops)

No more weird half circle things! No more conflicting leading lines! But! I decided to extend the arm of the squadron logo to continue the line of the lightning bolt as it moves backward. I think this makes the circle of the logo fit better, while simultaneously creating that "connection" he was trying to get in his actual design.

The lack of half-circle things also allow for the logo and lightning bolts to just "be." There's no distraction. it's not overly "busy" anymore (like maverick's helmet). It's simple, but he's The Iceman! He doesn't need it to say/have more!

And the use of the "actual" logo seen on Slider and Ice's flight suits creates that sense of movement that was absent before! Plus no hotdog hands!

Is this new proposed design perfect? Absolutely not! The logo and the lightning bolts still create a weird point of almost intersection that still bothers me. But I think fundamentally, there's always going to be issues with these two components: the circle will never quite fit in, and the lightning bolt the hand is holding will always "cut" the whole thing in half, creating a weird separation in the helmet, that will always bother me.

Anyway, this was a lot of fun! (I love being mean to these guys. they need their egos brought down a couple pegs!)

[blaiddfailcam]

Saw a post drawing attention to the details that artists tend to overlook/ignore when drawing Blaidd and desperately wanted to chime in, but I'm shy and didn't want to hijack their post lol. So I'll make my own.

Obviously, there are no rules in art and you can alter details to your preference. For me, though, Blaidd's features are what actually drew me to him in the first place, as I feel they make him stand out among the masses of anthropomorphic character designs that have become highly standardized. (Honestly, I thought he was a step back in From's creativity when he first appeared in trailers, before I got a closer look at him.)

I may not be an exceptional artist, and my style is inconsistent, but these are features I like to keep in mind when I draw him!

Head details

Eyes are angled upward, snout downward. This gives him a more relatable, anthropomorphized face.

Eyes are violet! (The Black Wolf mask has different colored eyes, appearing a generic yellow-white.)

Both eyes are open. His left eye is "wincing," but it's still open. He is one of few characters who never blink.

His scarring isn't deep like lacerations, but broader and mostly about his snout, particulary on his cheeks, consistent with abrasion. His eye is not scarred. (Again, the Black Wolf mask differs with its much more grisly wounds.)

His lower fangs give him an almost boar-like appearance, lol.

His neck connects behind his jaw; his cranium is smaller than you'd expect, as his mane sticks up quite high.

Mane is silver and appears light and wispy.

His fur is rather scant and patchy, though he has these sort of "mutton chops." The fur above his left eye is furrowed.

His snout has a cute "bump" just beneath the browline.

Body and proportions

Blaidd is actually quite slender! His cape makes him appear bulkier, coupled with his robust cuirass. (When the player wears it, their chest looks twice as thick.)

His arms and ankles are noticeably narrow.

His head is rather small for how tall he is, which also makes him appear more built.

He's got big-ass feet, but he's plantigrade.

He does not have a tail.

Lore accuracy

Blaidd, like many characters we meet, is potentially thousands of years old, and his age shows on his battered face. Perhaps when he was younger, his head was fluffier, his mane shorter, and his eye uninjured.

Oddly enough, his cape's item description seems to suggest he lacks fur below his neckline, or at least it's too scant to protect him from the cold.

As such, his cape appears to be the pelt of one of the blue dire wolves used as mounts by the Albinauric archers, and an immense one at that.

Since his cape was fashioned to resist Ranni's frost, I find it less likely that he wore it prior to the disposal of her Empyrean body, fully becoming a frost witch.

The crest on his armor appears to depict two feminine figures holding hands.

Most importantly

None of this matters in the end. The point of art is to have fun, and for me, my fun is derived from achieving accuracy while testing what stylization will allow. :)

He has a weird head.

[fukia]

Fionna & Cake final thoughts , opinions and nitpicks lol

This will be unorganized and random and stinky, sorry

• great pacing first 2 eps

• good ideas

• ignoring multiverse saturation, is p decently done here!

• I miss Neil Patrick’s take on Gary/gumball- he sounded so freakin princely :(

• marshall sounded kinda less mischievous than he used to? Like vocally more down or something- I’m super glad he had the same actor tho lol Donaldddd

• I miss old Prismo voice too but I know why these didn’t work out

• Hunter’s voice either could’ve gone for a deep gravely stoicism or could’ve just been w/ the same actor as Huntress Wizard

• Scarab is ehhh- decent design but feels kinda out of place for adventure time- voice is similarly the same offness too, reminded me of kinda bad anime dub voices, it doesn’t feel intentional to the right extent —- either make a more surreal villain or a funnier one, his presence was rather generic

• the spooky faces and scurrying beetle of scarab was kinda funny

• lemongrab. Why justnonce roiland.

• I will end my life a million aeons over for Orbo - bluey’s dad: “say goodbye to your legs!”

• mmmarceline dress

• bubblegum mmmmilitary

• I wish we saw the fucking MOON vampire

• MOON vs STAR (super cool naming if the uh tarot thing is carried on here I legit don’t know if star is an actual tarot card lemme check)

• ORGALORG WHYYYYYY

• marshall n Gary was sweet- but I really wished they played up the bitter exes part before they did just the fluffy dating, bring a bit of parallel consistency

• fionna was good acting! The crying bit made my heart ouches- Character herself was a tad frustrating at times admittedly

• cake is great still - cake and vampire king hilarious

• why no “the star”’s actual dad :(

• BETH SHERMY GIBBON YES YES YES- back to old adventure time: I love the intro theme for Beth and shermy, it’s so melancholic and desolate, cold, with backgrounds that make this so fascinatingly depressing a turn for the land of oo (happy endings impermanent- life goes on kinda deal, so cool, so consistent with adventure time’s own concepts & “everything stays”)

• Simon and Betty made me emotional

• uhh how old was Betty when she starting dating simon? Just offhand lol I’m sure it was fine

• Golbetty had beautiful scenes

• way better simon and Golbetty than that weird adventure time published comic I’m sure some of you read

• the animation is great on some places, other times while well made, feels out of place for adventure time; like it’s trying too hard to be pretty (not the Ice Prince song, stuff like that made sense for adventure time)

• like some bits reminded me of Steven universe’s inconsistencies (same bits that made me really really dislike some of adventure time distant lands’ execution)

• [funny nitpick incoming] like there were points where the characters had really big eyes even tho they r supposed to be dots (not when exaggerating certain emotions cartoonishly, I meant prolonged); adventure time’s deal is keeping them small and kinda hard to decipher

• some bits were just a tinnny too anime that it bothered me, just some! Anime is cool!!!

• I was really expecting or hoping for a Korra styled multi-season just with lesser episodes

• the resolution was… kinda haphazardly handled

• same with some of the final themes, like w/ simon n betty

• adventure time is kinda known for being almost ambiguously optimistic so the whole super happy thing was kinda strange to me

• I know like it shouldn’t have to be the same as adventure time obviously, but that was the general identity of adventure time; the cosmic ambiguity with absurd humor delivered nonchalantly

• like I think of patience st pim’s ice domain during elements and the melancholic quietness of it - also PATIENCE ST PIM WHYYYYY I LOVED YOU (patiencevstheempresscough)

• ORGALORG COME BACK TO MEEEE

• yes it was a great thing to have this miniseries I enjoyed many parts

• the music was fucking fire!!!

• where was the dr two brains reference ? -3-

[the-lunar-library]

TO THE RAVENS

Alexandros the Peregrine, a dashing, cutting, irreverent prophet with a tame god.

When it comes to the inspiration for this character, that's easy: He's based on the real life prophet Alexander of Abonoteichos, the subject of Lucian's famous essay “Alexander the False Prophet”. But Lucian fans will also notice some references to Peregrinus, a lesser known but still colorful prophet whom Lucian also skewered on the end of his stylus. They're both interesting figures, and it was a lot of fun combining them into my Alexandros, the second most important character in the novel.

Read more to learn about this very pretty trickster.

Out of all of the characters, Alexandros most closely mirrors his real life counterpart (though even there, not very closely), so in that way he was an easy character to develop. And engrossing to research for. He's a false prophet who throws together his own religion. Religion as a subject fascinates me. Even before starting this project, I was pretty familiar with a number of niche religious movements, both those that would be considered cults and others that would more neutrally be called unique. So along with looking at Alexander of Abonoteichos' traits (as thoroughly criticized by Lucian), I also drew from these other references, though hopefully not too closely; I want the details of Alexandros' cult to ring true to real-world movements without sounding too derivative.

I think one of the things about Alexandros that required a lot of thought was setting the tone for his personality, the way he talks, the things he does, and overall his impact on those around him. On the one hand, we're talking about a cult. You can't realistically write about a cult and ignore how serious they are. But on the other hand, I still wanted to play around with humor. Religion – and I'm not writing this as any kind of skeptical or atheistic statement – is inherently funny. It's an important thing, and important things often have very funny elements to them, partially because of their very importance. According to Lucian, the real life Alexander made some extraordinarily ludicrous (and daring) gambles, and I wanted to play with that. Play with that, have fun with it. But – at the same time – you can never shut off your brain and pretend all of this is just funny.

As far as his design goes, Lucian tells us Alexander was handsome, even “godlike”. With my Alexandros, I decided to make his features almost uncannily ideal. We only ever see him directly in the heroine Akantha's pov, and when she meets him she's had very few men in her life who take her as seriously as Alexandros does, befriending her, caring about the things that hurt her, taking her into his secrets. So she's dazzled by him. It's arguable whether his dazzle is objective or comes more through her perception of him, but I do want him to have a beautiful, almost godlike quality at times.

I decided to throw in a small cheek scar. Sort of a permanent dimple, as well as a hint that at some point in his reckless and quicksilver past, things didn't go according to plan. It's supposed to be on his left cheek, though it appears on his right cheek on the book's back cover – I wanted to include it but he was facing to the right, so I'm guilty of a deliberate inconsistency.

I love writing Alexandros. My hope is that the reader finds him intriguing – perhaps funny and charming, perhaps perceptive and intelligent, perhaps some other things – and, above all, is never bored when he's on the page.

[transhawks]

yeah it is true, what you're saying about the league, but even if that is the case, the heroes winning this fight (even if they do wind up saving the villains) is the worst thing that could happen in bnha with everything we've been shown so far in the story.

Especially if shouji's ''solution'' to the issues facing the mutants is any indication of things to come. Trauma based politics does have a lot of faults, and afo and the villains come with all their own problems but the heroes 'right way' ineffective solutions to the issues presented in bnha (a practically suicidal ideal in shouji's answer) could doom everyone even worse than any destruction the villains could bring.

The quirk singularity being the biggest elephant in the room that the heroes won't even acknowledge, something only the worst of the villains have accepted and tried to beat, true in there own evil way but still they are the only ones trying, there is no one else.

The series can't end with shouji and the hero kids being right and the final answer to things, because that'd be a bad story with all the inconsistency we've been shown, and an even worse message. Hori couldn't do that even in a shonen jump series.

*cracks knuckles* Aight, Imma go in.

what you're saying about the league, but even if that is the case, the heroes winning this fight (even if they do wind up saving the villains) is the worst thing that could happen in bnha with everything we've been shown so far in the story.

Babe, we're reading My Hero Academia, not My Villain Academia. I hate to appeal to "it says it on the tin" but it does tho. Like.... What did you think was going to happen? Deku's the protagonist. He tells us the story is about people not being equal - AND THEN how it's about him becoming the greatest hero. We still don't know what that means, but it doesn't mean All For One getting to become Supreme Ruler of the world like he wants. Nor does it mean the League get to go off in the sunset at the end of the day. That doesn't resolve their issues either.

Especially if shouji's ''solution'' to the issues facing the mutants is any indication of things to come. Trauma based politics does have a lot of faults, and afo and the villains come with all their own problems but the heroes 'right way' ineffective solutions to the issues presented in bnha (a practically suicidal ideal in shouji's answer) could doom everyone even worse than any destruction the villains could bring.

You're right! You've done it! You've found the contradiction in liberalism!!! Amazing!! Now go read this and think about why an inherently flawed ideology produces inherently flawed ideological works. The leftist critiques here are all relevant - you can't have principles that promote equality in some societal spaces and ignore others. The hero system works on that concept (outside of the HPSC murders to maintain societal peace).

For real, there's a reason I get repeating this is an issue with politics and polemics. You can call it "bad writing" all you want, but it's actually the cognitive dissonance on behalf of liberalism thinking reforming a system designed to be oppressive works in removing oppression. As long as there isn't a horizontal structure of power, there's no real solving these issues but most liberals consider that too utopian to contemplate and, in all honesty, the amount of violence it takes to create those systems seems like its not worth it (even if there's an argument that it's proportional to the violence the state and capitalism enact to sustain themselves).

It's not "bad" writing inasmuch as it's a writer not able to square away his writing with political realities and the understanding that any attempt at anything more radical will not be fit for publishing.

I've brought this up to @haleigh-sloth and she pointed out to me that one of the issues here is that people like me who wanted the radical ending wanted a plot-driven story where the world is prominent instead of the character-driven story it is. The story is more about individuals changing. Now, is the society going to change? Yeah. But not to the extent we want because that's a different story than the one Horikoshi is writing.

Again, I keep reiterating - this story is not written for people who think like me or even you. It's written for mass consumption for a Japanese audience of young boys. Even when the real demographics of BNHA/WSJ are different than the targeted audience, remember - preteen Japanese boys. This story is written and edited and published with them in mind.

The quirk singularity being the biggest elephant in the room that the heroes won't even acknowledge, something only the worst of the villains have accepted and tried to beat, true in there own evil way but still they are the only ones trying, there is no one else.

So, my approach to this is either - one the quirk singularity is closer to Malthusian thinking and is overblown OR idk, my theory about All For One doing this all to stop the Singularity a la Adrian Veidt trying to stop the Mutually Assured Destruction and Nuclear Armageddon by killing millions of people is possible. Or Eri does something. Whatever the solution, Horikoshi has it in mind already. This plot point is like the one I'm least worried about because Horikoshi has been setting it up.

The series can't end with shouji and the hero kids being right and the final answer to things, because that'd be a bad story with all the inconsistency we've been shown, and an even worse message. Hori couldn't do that even in a shonen jump series.

First off, that's how it ends.

Let's get that clear.

Likely there will be surface changes - HPSC disbanded or something, the ranking system ended, and perhaps a lot of reforms stopping Heroes from getting into it for the money and fame. Probably a redistribution of resources so citizens feel more comfortable intervening in situations like Tomura's instead of waiting for heroes. Heck, laws might be even loosened about quirk usage so it's not just heroes.

But...

I'm gonna break it to you, whatever our epilogue, that won't be the focus. We'll be told these things or shown some pages, but ultimately what Horikoshi wants to show is where the characters are. If that means seeing a Todoroki family dinner with the Todoroki boys collectively slurping soba at their father while Rei laughs and Fuyumi gets annoyed, so be it. If that means Deku and Shigaraki going shoe shopping in the mall, so be it. If that means Ochako and Toga and Tsuyu having fun together in some way, so be it. That's the ending Horikoshi has been trying to write.

It's bad if you were hoping for other things. I posted that post to get you to stop hoping. And for your last line, because I have experience with this being in that fandom 2013-2014...

Have you ever read Naruto?

[psablog]

PSA: Be conscious of biased algorithms!

By: SUMMER

I recently read “A Sea of Data: Apophenia and Pattern (Mis-)Recognition”, a chapter in the book Duty Free Art by Hito Steyerl. She discusses the growing issue that data analysts face in a world where there is an overwhelming amount of data to go through - how to differentiate between signal and noise. She argues, “Vision loses importance and is replaced by filtering, decrypting, and pattern recognition”.

I thought that her idea applied to us as media consumers and social media users on an everyday scale in a similar way. We’re being hit with so much information at all times that our brains sometimes go on autopilot, constantly deciding what’s worth paying attention to and what has to go. On social media, we end up curating a stream of content that perfectly caters to our interests and shows us what we believe is important - that’s us separating signal from noise.

Who does social media actually care about? Steyerl references a mythical Ancient Greek story in which “affluent male locals” produced actual speech, while “women, children, slaves, and foreigners” were just noise - annoying and irrelevant. I thought of our last Digital Humanities class, where we talked about how social media platforms function and whose interests they prioritize. While we do have some control over what we want to see on our feeds, we concluded that biased algorithms maintain feeds that are dominated by people who are white, able-bodied, conventionally attractive, etc. Some of my classmates noted how marginalized communities, like LGBTQ+ folks, are being censored and shadow-banned on social media. It sounds an awful lot like a modern-day equivalent of that Ancient Greek story.

TikTok users speak out about their posts being wrongly shadowbanned and flagged for violating Community Guidelines.

Not to burst your bubble... “Dirty data” is a term that Steyerl uses, which can mean inaccurate and inconsistent data, but should also be understood as “real data” that “documents the struggle of real people with a bureaucracy that exploits the uneven distribution and implementation of digital technology”. What she means by this is that entire groups of people are ignored - “not taken into account” - because these digital and social structures simply do not work in their favor. We're at fault here, too - the downside of having that control over curating our feeds is that we tend to trap ourselves in a bubble. We make connections that reinforce our existing worldviews and cry “dirty data!” at the stuff that doesn’t fit the mold that we’re comfortable with. Organizations like Logic are recognizing this issue and making plans to use their platform to amplify the voices of typically silenced groups of people, like trans and Indigenous writers. Action like this is important in broadening our perspectives and making room for content outside of the bubbles that we and our biased algorithms have worked together to create.

Data vs. reality What are the dangers of relying too heavily on these algorithms to analyze data? To what extent do the patterns they find correspond to actual reality? In the chapter, Steyerl talks about automated apophenia: computers perceiving connections in data where there aren’t any. She prompts us to consider the real-life consequences of making decisions based on these phantom patterns. In recent years, tenant screening technology used in selling and renting homes has been threatening housing equality due to its programmed bias. This article from Curbed explains how the problem boils down to tech experts designing these systems “in a vacuum”, without any knowledge on civil rights or social implications. The NSA’s SKYNET program that Steyerl references in his chapter is the same type of issue on a larger, deadlier scale.

I won’t deny how important technology is for our everyday functioning, but it isn’t perfect or limitless by any means. Supposedly objective and fact-based algorithms often become reflections of our own human biases. But if we’re the ones who wrote them, then we can be the ones to recognize their flaws and work towards fixing them!

[cassyapper]

okay im in the once in a lifetime mood to talk about my ocs so i will talk about ai (wip name)

most of this is old art forgive me but this is roughly what she looks like. her design is also still a wip but these r her basics. ignore the scar placement inconsistency

so her personality uh. She’s Got Issues. she was always a little funky (i think she has a personality disorder but im still figuring out which one) but things can really be traced back to the fact her home is raided during a war and she loses her baby brother (or so she thinks)

her brother got separated from her and their mother during the raid and despite her wanting to look for him her mother just picked her up and ran. her mom’s reasoning was she didnt want to lose two kids. like. it was an impossible situation. if they stayed they wouldve died, if they left ai hates her but at least shes alive. so she made a choice. ai never really forgave her for this. she misses her brother and has been searching for a decade to find…something. some sort of closure. a body or sign he made it or SOMETHING. he did survive btw (hes the guy next to ai in the first art) but this post isnt about him

anyway ai joins crusades/medieval military bullshit to basically use as a means to travel around trying to find said closure. shes been in it for a long time but she isnt very high ranked cause she just sucks at obeying orders lol. if shes under your command you better hope you get along cause otherwise she can be such a bitch

its not so much that she has issues with authority so much that she has issues with uh everyone. lol. shes very blunt and very smart and very antisocial so shes like impossible to deal with cause shes smart enough to figure out what annoys people and shes inclined to shamelessly act that way so people leave her the alone. she is crazy

that being said some people fall between the cracks of this and she gets really. hm. “friendly” isnt the right word but its the closest i can think of. with them. she has a little buddy named adelia that reminds her of her baby brother and a girl named Arha shes in a weird “im kinda in love with you kinda not” thing with (shes the mermaid in the second pic. debating if shes an actual mer person of sorts in canon. idk how fantasy-esque this is world is gonna be in the end)

ai’s story is kinda about. starting to live for yourself instead of a romanticized past esp once you get closure re that past. she’ll never become like. warm per se but she learns how to properly appreciate the people in her life such as adalia and arha. she learns how to let go and how it huuuuurts and how the tug might pull other parts of her loose too but shes not a fragile cliff face and she can survive it and more than thar she can be happy again

but she is always a bit of a bitch. cause its funny

uhh. yeah. heart

[4dmc]

CorridorCrew's AI project has been around for days. My thoughts are that:

The idea of an intense rock paper scissors story as a sample for this show is entertaining, that's not bad at all. Overall, ignoring janky details, there's a certain edgy and over-the-top aesthetic to it.

There's a lot of people saying that labeling their AI video as "anime" is wrong overall, saying the style can't be anime, etc. Personally anime is such a nebulous term all on its own. Literally it's a Japonized way of shortening the term animation to anime. But away from that, I think the fact they used AI, people just don't want to associate CorridorCrew's recent video to animes. And that's understandable. For me, simply looking for "style" as a marker for what constitutes as anime is very narrowing/limiting. Anime has taken on various stylistic designs, there's no one true anime look, but there are trends that stay for a while. Visually/presentation-wise, the biggest problem it has is...

...the fact that the AI images/frames they've used to create this film is just so inconsistent! It's "rotoscoped" so badly on top of their movements. I did say overall it doesn't look bad, but there ARE so many obvious inconsistencies! Their faces don't stay in the same style and expression, even when the character is still! Lighting flickers in and out of their face, like they're glitching on the skin rather than dancing across their skin! There's more, but oh my god...

And it's odd. They had a video that showcased a lawyer/attorney talking about the new waters our outdated copyright laws must now navigate with this technology! The attorney stresses just how serious and unethical this is legally, etc., how our laws need to be reexamined and change to make a clear line with AI tech scraping media across the internet....and then they make THAT video afterwards?!

I get that they want to try what to do with it, for content, okay... But this inevitably makes them participate in the unethical issues surrounding how AI apps and tech scrape artists' hard work and copyright materials.

[literallyjustscrollingthatisit]

The Process For "Proceed"

These are going to be pretty long posts but I thought I'd include a bit of commentary in between each. Starting with this one... Honestly, I was just testing out my iPad since this was the first time I'd ever attempted drawing digitally before. It was a really rough sketch with no true detail and just a little bit of color testing. (The quality on the images is pretty rough since for a while I would just take a picture of my screen rather than screenshot. I stop doing this eventually!)

Once I got my bearings and tested out my brushes (I use ProCreate by the way!), I started actually going in with more details, mainly Noelle's hair. I also tried to make her cloak more cloak-like? I think it worked anyway. I had a reference image for both Noelle and the Vessel as far as poses go because at the time, I had no experience and had taken zero actual drawing classes. (I'm in two right now!)

Now Noelle was really coming together! The base color was put in and the rest of her body (specifically ears and antlers) were added. I usually like to do base color for all the characters before ever touching shading. I'm not really sure why. But I did add a bit of shading on the back of Noelle's cloak here so I guess I just contradicted myself!

Unlike Noelle, I ended up drawing and placing the base color on the Vessel in the same day! (I forgot to mention it earlier but I mark my progress with how much I've done by the end of the day. And said progress is very inconsistent.) I remember getting stuck on the Vessel's hair for a while since there is no concrete hairstyle for them as it's the player's decision based on the options you are given. I ended up picking a really basic design as a placeholder and then never changed it... (Whoops...)

Remember when I said my progress was inconsistent? Take this one for example. Leaping from the last progress update where I completed the Vessel all in one go, here I simply added Noelle's face. Though I will admit, it took a while to nail down her expression, specifically her mouth. I remember playing around with an open or closed mouth design before landing on this one since I thought it made her look anxious and scared. At the time, I didn't know how to properly make mouths so that's why it's not matching the perspective...

Aaaaaand here's the final product! The final day primary consisted of me figuring out the blending tool in order to shade Noelle's skin and hair. I finally switched the background to the final color and added the text box with the Soul. I couldn't figure out where to find Deltarune fonts or how to import it into ProCreate so you got stuck with my attempt at decent handwriting instead! At this time, I didn't sign my art so there's no signature on this piece. Later I signed with my name and then I recently switched to my logo!

Well, this is the format I'll be using for the process posts. It's very long form so feel free to just look at the images and completely ignore the walls of text. I've never done anything like this before so explaining my work is pretty hard... Hopefully I'll get better with that too!

Next time, we'll be following the process for "Heart Behind The Strings" which is yet another long one. (Longer than this one!)

[liliallowed]

How did you make the design for your red charater

the clothes design actually belongs to @fateswind0wseat!

I mainly wrote ideas about crimson's personally and how they'd act, what desperation lead them to resort to a time loop to solidify their identity to being the bad guy... because well... heroes are forgotten but people always REMEMBER villains.

I didn't really have a vision except maybe them also copying dust's hood and maybe being more on the grayscale side. didnt really think much about how they'd look since they're ... well technically formless and can have any vessel! I just pictured them as a heart but like with an extended aura of a body/person.

the default is just a bald mannequin humanoid figure. but they modified it a bit to be more... immersive.

like until I saw fateswind0wseat's interpretation I just imaginedvthem as vaguely frisk/Chara looking but taller and a black screen like face.

they still have the screen like face it's like an LED screen. it can emote and even display a ":3" instead of an actual face.

but yeah. the clothes and cloak design goes to fates. the biological headcanons are still mine that developed over time!

there might be some inconsistency there if you find my earliest posts about dusttale player because they didn't always go by the name crimson.

that name was actually given to them from a small ask box comic I did called LV triangle. (it's a ship between reader, dust and his nemesis crimson. very dramatic very fun.)

after that I decided to call the player crimson. its simplistic and a neat nickname. but yeah they're just dusttale "player"/anomaly personafied into the context of the fictional world.

kinda like if a being from beyond a black hole went: "hey about I manifest myself in this fragile physics obedient realm? wouldn't it be neat to break spacetime and troll the mortals there?"

Cthulhu but like... goofy. more playful less menacing and more uhm... random and derpy. they're violent and dangerous alright but there's a silly goofy nonchalant charm to them that's kinda adorable if you ignore the in universe war crimes they've committed.

I love crimson. it's not just my oc but the result of the interaction between me and the utmv community my moots and the ideas that have developed over time.

crimson is very special to me. :3

feel free to ask more!

[extendedrealitykkg]

Week 5

Lecture

This week we learnt about interaction design for VR.

We learnt about navigation and wayfinding in VR environments/using VR systems, and UI/UX design for VR.

We also learnt about design thinking, and how to use an iterative process when designing something instead of going straight from a problem to a solution, ignoring the many factors that need to be considered when designing such as user needs.

We also focused on the users (primary, secondary, and tertiary), and learnt about how design involves almost co-creating with the users, as you need to observe, talk to, and/or put yourself in their shoes to understand their needs, and get feedback at multiple points in your iterative design process while you attempt to solve a problem with design.

We also learnt about prototyping and going from a concept to a demo, and evaluation, usability testing and gathering data about the designs.

Image: Some notes from the lecture

Self-Portrait

This week I decided to finish up my self portrait so I could export it to Sketchfab.

I quite liked the arms I had removed from the design last week, and remembering the feedback I had gotten to add more elements to the box to make the design more balanced, I added them back.

This time, I also drew up cartoony hands and added a fun bracelet in each wrist, to keep in line with the youthful, childlike image of the jack-in-the-box.

I saved the file as .fbx and used Landing Pad to upload it to Sketchfab. After doing so, I realised the thumbs on the hands were not facing the correct way, so I went back to fix it.

Images (above): One thumb facing the wrong way

Image: Corrected thumbs

I also took this time to look closely at the design from different angles and fix some minor mistakes I had missed. and clean up some areas such as this extremely uneven border and pom poms.

I also added a wind-up key to the back of the box so that no matter what angle it was viewed from, there would be some interesting element there. The front shows the full face view on the clown, the sides show the clown side profile and its arms sticking out, and the back shows the wind-up key.

I also brought back the streamers from a previous iteration of the jack-in-the-box, in order to see why they were not working and how they could be changed or improved.

The problem is that the brush strokes used to make them are spiked at the tip, which clashes with the rounded shapes used almost everywhere else in the design. There is no consistency or pattern to how they are place in the 3D space, and some of the sizes are drastically different. It looks very inconsistent and chaotic compared to the jack-in-the-box design.

In the following re-design, I used the same flat ribbon-like brush to draw the streamers that I used for the frills around the clown's neck, so the two elements are similar and there is some more consistency in the design. I also used a looping brush stroke instead of having a straight line, to match the arms and to make the streamers look more like they would in real life if they were falling.

Lastly, I checked over the design to see if it looks alright when viewed from various different angles.