#also if the symbols in the background are off i'm sorry i was working off of a blurry youtube video

[that-foul-legacy-lover]

i’m on Kaveh’s side now, the next time i see this man i’m throwing him into the nearest brick wall /hj

[garciaasfluffypen]

omg this prompt is perfect for Emily 😂😂 1- “Don’t look at me, I was still dead at the time.”

could be x reader or maybe even emily x elle 👀🤷🏻‍♀️

don't look at me

pairing: emily prentiss x gn!reader, jelle mentioned! word count: 997 disclaimer: alcohol consumption, weed mention a/n: the way this has literally been sitting in my drafts for AGES becuase life just got so crazy with grad school and work. anyway i finally wrote it and i'm sorry it took so long! also, you're so right bestie, that is very emily coded and you can say it again for the people in the back!!!!!! i'm also not sure how i feel about the ending buuuuut here we are

you had been at the bau for approximately two years before you realized the team had a giant secret they hadn’t told you yet. 

to be fair, you had joined the team right after emily’s departure, however, no one had ever gone into details on what that entailed. considering how fresh it had been when you arrived, you didn’t blame them one bit. you had expected them to be less… nonchalant when they told you what had happened, especially as garcia flung herself into emily’s arms for what appeared to be the first time in forever. that was four years ago. it was now your sixth year with the bau, and approaching your first full year dating the brunette in question.

you had always gotten lesbian vibes from her, but didn’t want to make a move in case you were wrong. jj was the one to push you to ask her out. you could never thank the blonde enough, especially considering you now had ties to dc that would never let you leave. in the past eleven months, emily had made sure to make all the time in the world for you when you were off the clock. she was absolutely amazing at separating work emily and home emily, and you fell more in love with her every passing moment. she always made sure your favorite perfumes were full, or that the sweater you liked to wear around the apartment was always laying on the couch when you got home from cases. it never went unnoticed how she was always there for you and the team. 

that was probably how you found yourself hosting another girls night, with the girls of the bau and jj’s new girlfriend, elle. they explained to you how they used to work together and how jj was there for her after everything happened with the fisher king way back when. it took them a while to realize jj was bi, but when they did they slipped into what it was they had now. you liked elle. she was good for jj. and as a bonus, she got along well with emily as well. it was quite funny how fast they had clicked, considering they both had very standoffish moods when you first meet them. jj joked at one point that they had been stolen from you two, but it was all fun and games considering both girls loved you endlessly. your apartment had become the top hangout spot for girls nights, considering you two had gotten yourself a hot tub after a particularly hard case that caused you to blow your knee out. many a nights were spent in the hot tub, bottles of wine split between the five of you and sometimes edibles if you were feeling adventurous. garcia had been the one to bring up the idea, and frankly you all didn’t have the heart to tell her no. as long as you all didn’t do it too frequently, it was fine. 

the night drew on and the third bottle of wine had been opened, the group shifting to sitting in the living room after three boxes of pizza were split between everyone. a random chick flick was on in the background as everyone laid around, laughing as jabs were exchanged. you had curled up into emily’s side on the loveseat, the two of you sharing your favorite blanket that had been crocheted for you by your mother. it was a beautiful gray to black ombre, with little hints of yellow scattered throughout to symbolize stars. emily had claimed it pretty quickly after you moved in with her, and it had turned into the blanket you two typically used at home when watching movies or sitting in the living room scrolling through facebook. the one rule for this blanket was that it didn’t leave the apartment- you two couldn’t risk anything happening to it. 

“listen,” elle chuckled, jolting you out of your thoughts. “all i’m saying is i would have beat everyone’s asses so hard at beer pong.”

garcia gasped into her wine glass. “have you met morgan? he’s the king of beer pong.” 

“yeah, and we fucked too.” 

jj rolled her eyes. “you and morgan didn’t fuck, my love. he would never have shut up about it if you did.” 

“you know who i think did something?” elle raised her eyebrows mischievously. “emily and morgan.” 

“yeah, hard no on that one. he’s like my older brother.” emily took a sip of her wine. “and he has like ten other girls draping over his arms at any given point.” 

“you’re telling me you’ve never looked at him and said ‘damn’? i don’t believe you.” 

“there’s only one time they ever considered it. it was after derek found out what sin to win weekend was.” 

you looked over to emily. “sin… to win?” 

“and i always win big.” emily smirked at you, winking. 

“wait wait wait,” jj looked over to garcia. “when did derek find out what sin to win was?” 

“uuh… a few years ago? around the time of the case where he thought his cousin was one of the victims.” 

“that would have been roughly the same time as the one sin to win weekend you missed.” elle pointed an accusatory finger towards emily. 

“don’t look at me,” emily jokingly gasped. “i was dead at the time!” 

“you were also overseas,” you pointed out. “enjoying the beignets without me.” 

“to be fair we hadn’t met yet.”

“mm it was close enough to the time we did meet. should have saved me a beignet.” you shrugged playfully. 

“oh shut up.” emily rolled her eyes. “if you hadn’t taken that business trip to france you never would have met me.” 

“mmmm that’s debatable. i would have found you either way.” 

garcia squealed. “oh you guys are so cute! stop being so cute. i hate being single.”

“we’ll find you someone eventually, pen.” elle patted her on the shoulder sympathetically. “i promise.” 

[habunshu]

Hello! Sorry to bother you.

I noticed you are in JTTW fandom and wanted to ask if you know where can I find more info on Sun Wukong's make up and stage performance? I tried to find stuff on my own but quickly realised that I'm just one small weak goblin. I saw some blogs about chinese opera behind the scenes with SW images and couple of videos but that's about it... and since you look like you are way more knowledgeable I came here to beg a favour.

Do you know any videos, documentaries or blogs on this topic?

Thank you for your time ♥♥♥

Hi!

TLDR: Bold text are writings/videos linked to Peking Opera Culture and specifics surrounding Monkey King performances. Post has a mid-length summary of key aspects of his Peking appearances and core thematics. This mainly goes along visual design analysis, as I don’t focus in performance art as much! Read more divide for courtesy

(Also taking a moment to highly praise @/bonesmarinated ‘s Peking opera Wukong pieces!)

The Monkey King/Sun Wukong is a very well covered and well performed character in Peking Opera, I’ll give a short(ish) summary of the key aspect of his design across various performances based on work I can recall from my Undergrad as well as my own experience- and i’ll link any documents/websites/images I have on hand

Wukong’s Lian Pu falls under what is known the Jing role (complex hero) with similar facial decoration also being delegated to the Chou roles in Opera as well.

The dominant school of art in depicting him either on live performers or maskwear, have a fairly universal foundation for his appearance.

The oldest forms of Peking opera stick to Wuseguan (Five Colour Theory) with his Lian Pu sticking to a core 3 of White (Cunning), Red (Bravery), and Black (Loyalty). Even with Modernisation of the Peking Opera and developments in the science behind art and makeup, Lianpu is specific in its purpose of portraying the nature of a character beyond body language and aiding in accessibility for people at the far end of the audience.

The Monkey King’s Lian Pu is reflective of his mischievous and bold nature, combining it with the shape of an Old World Monkey’s furless face shape so that even those “uneducated” in Peking Opera culture can at least see /what/ Wukong is before they see /who/ he is. The White and red placement are linked to yin-yang dynamics relating to the stone he was born from and the energy it cultivated) as well as general themes beyond the tale itself.

Zheng’s “Evolution, Symbolism, and Artistry: A Study on the Colors of Peking Opera Facial Makeup” Discusses this in more detail. ( DOI: 10.23977/artpl.2023.041207) (ISSN 2523-5877)

(General Mask colours in Peking Opera, separate from Lian Pu: The Cultural Connotation and Symbolic Meaning of Chinese Opera Mask Color - Hanbing Tu)

In more modern designs, the key foundation of Wukong’s face doesn’t change much, however some variations do add colour to Wukong’s eyelids- mainly pink or yellow/gold. Both of these relate physically to the ‘whites’ of Old World Monkey’s eyes, with the yellow face paint being representative of “barbarism” or “savagery”. Gold is used on the faces of various immortal creatures from all backgrounds as Silver is.

(Left: Chu Luhao as Monkey King, stedling divine peaches and wine in celestial realm, Kaohsiung ) (Right: Monkey King Wukong in Beijing Opera Journey to the West at Liyuan Theater)

As with Taiwans branch off in culture, This Lian Pu on the left shows the eyebrows as the top of the eyelid makeup, contrast to Chinese style and other Sino-influenced regions. This works in Chu Luhao’s production as it plays towards the character Wukong is before he’s sealed under the mountain and begun the journey- hence more “wide eyed”.

Mentioning Yellow within the Wuseguan, this is why most of his earlier outfits have such a heavy bias towards yellow cloth, barbarism being represented across his whole body (his form, as a monkey over his soul that achieves enlightenment) with costumes later down his hero’s journey adding more black, blue (simplicity).

(Left: Performer playing Monkey in Journey to the West, Chinese Opera performance in Singapore) (Middle: Chu Luhao’s production, Sun Wukong arrives at the Dragon Palace of the East Sea) (Right: CANTON, CHINA – CIRCA JULY 2019: Beijing Opera performance of “Monkey King Making Havoc in Heaven”)

Key Read -> The Artistic Symbolism of the Painted Faces in Chinese Opera: An Introduction, David Ming-Yüeh Liang. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43560653

Book -> Chinese opera: Images and stories, Peter Lovrick, Wang-Ngai Siu

Book -> Drama kings: Players and publics in the re-creation of Peking opera, 1870-1937, Joshua Goldstein. https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=XT_1fZ9Jp18C&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=info:49R3XREYwVoJ:scholar.google.com/&ots=3OF1F4SILK&sig=gQyW7bGJzgnxG62Y2TxU01ZPazQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

This analytical paper on Monkey King: Hero is Back showcases modern animated links to Peking Monkey King designs - https://fslmjournals.taylors.edu.my/wp-content/uploads/SEARCH/SEARCH-2024-16-1/SEARCH-2024-P5-16-1.pdf

A blog site I found interesting was an interview with Yao Yudong, the successor to colourful Peking Opera masks, where he discusses creating the mask designs (with a Wukong mask as a recorded example) and a more in-depth written post. He expresses the key two styles of Wukong’s red markings known as “Upside down Gourd” style, and the less complex “Upside down Peach” style attributed to a different art school. In which his mask is directly attributed to items that come into contact with his face.

Jiao Feng, Peking Opera Facial Makeup: The Art of Face Painting: http://www.chinatoday.com.cn/ctenglish/2018/ich/202001/t20200117_800190202.html

Connected is a video of an Opera performer who does his own Lian Pu, which depending on the time period could take up to two hours. Although this design is significantly more contemporary in the use of gold on white sections as markings like black paint. https://x.com/chinadaily/status/1365730927133958144?s=46&t=06bYiE12l6qVJUxPCBuvvQ

In regards to Wukong’s combat performances, he falls into the role of a Wusheng (武生), which is the strand of stage costume used in representation of his staple armour.

(Monkey King in Journey to the West Performance, Beijing Opera)

In this costume, Wukong’s Phoenix feather cap is mirrored by Lingzi (翎子) or Zhilling (雉翎), which likely play back and forth with influencing eachother as time progresses, due to Wukong’s theatrical personality being heightened by the Pheasant tails and their movements as actors play their roles. In his Wusheng roles, he is more likely to be adorned with gold eyelids to highlight his layered immortality and connect to the golden armour he wears. The trait of biting the pheasant tails as a theatrical act of frustration is seen across adaptations, most recently in Black Myth: Wukong’s Chapter 6 Animation.

This animation’s design seems to relay the Lingzi strongly due to the way the studio details the lowest connection points to the crown ornament.

As stated in Bond’s writings “BEIJING OPERA COSTUMES: THE VISUAL COMMUNICATION OF CHARACTER AND CULTURE”, Wukong’s in-game Suozi Set and various adaptations Dragon Palace armours split similarly to the Kao (Armour) on Peking stages, with the falling of the frantic drastically increasing the size of the actor and his silhouette.

Qing-era flags on the costumes of Wusheng were used to express social standing, gender, nature, and ranking. The image above showcasing them has them match the Kao pattern of the clothing, other flags often held zodiac patterns- with the monkey showcasing vain, egotistical, inventive and tricky individuals; and the peach included in a flag hinting towards immortality.

(Ching Dynasty Year of the Monkey Flag used in the Peking Opera) Zaricore Flag Collection: https://www.flagcollection.com/itemdetails.php?CollectionItem_ID=943

Due to the History of Lian Pu, and Wuseguan, despite modernisation of Opera arts vastly widening the colours and complexity of costumes; Wukong sticks to a key 5 colour scheme, with a emphasis on the original trio of red-white-black, and gold being reserved for Wusheng/Wuxiaosheng to showcase immortality and strength. The prevalence of Opera alongside fictional theatre means that the two constantly play off of eachother in mannerisms and influence, both at the time of JTTW’s writing to the 21st century. But as Opera is a physical performance, all aspects of Peking costume design is meant to make the emotional and psychological aspects of characters physical, to a large audience space needing to see facial expressions heightened and clarified by Lian Pu.

Read -> Cultural-based visual expression: emotional analysis of human face via Peking Opera Painted Faces (POPF)

[anshelsgendercrisis]

I appreciate learning from your blogs (both transmasc stuff and Jewish stuff), so if it's not overstepping, I am interested in your thoughts on something. Knowing that the terms Zionism and Zionist are being misused so frequently, I did some introductory reading from a few sources, one of which was the ADL. I've found their Hate Symbols Database helpful in the past, and I was looking into their anti-bias training resources since the school I work for has been failing (spectacularly) at such training. Reading their page on Zionism answered some basic questions, and their Myths and Facts about the ADL page also mentioned that "anti-Zionism equates to antisemitism".

Knowing that you (if I am remembering the specifics correctly, sorry if I'm misremembering) are an anarchist and against the existence of all states (including a Jewish one, thus you have explained you are neither Zionist nor anti-Zionist), I was wondering what your general thoughts are of the ADL's perspective on Zionism, and on the ADL as an organization. I hope this question doesn't come off negatively; I know I'm lacking a lot of knowledge, so I'm very grateful to be corrected on anything I said that's wrong/hurtful/ignorant/naive.

Once I get my recent medical stuff figured out, I look forward to signing up to your Patreon and giving more consistently than here-and-there Kofi donations :)

a little background on the adl: it was founded after the conviction and lynching of leo frank. its original purpose was to pressure media and businesses who engaged in antisemitic discrimination or defamation (hence the name). some of the things they engaged in early on were boycotts, demanding prior review of theater productions to screen for antisemitic content, and pressuring advertisers who relied on antisemitic stereotypes. this was in the time leading up to the holocaust, when violence and discrimination against jews was surging all over the world, so it makes a lot of sense why an organization like this was founded.

in terms of the modern organization, i have mixed feelings. i think their hate symbols database can be helpful, and i think some of the data collection is good as well, but there are a lot of stances they have and statements they've made that i really do not agree with, and some of which i think are harmful. that, for me, is why i don't generally use the adl as a primary or sole source for any news or info. i always double check multiple sources and try to use pages like myjewishlearning for educational things.

the adl is also very explicitly pro israel, as in supportive of the current state and government of israel, which is something i'm very much not. as you mentioned, i am an anarchist so i oppose the concept of states in general, including israel, and i'm also highly critical of the current israeli government.

their page on zionism is...accurate from their point of view, and from a lot of progressive zionists' points of view. but i think it paints a rosy picture of zionism that avoids any of the problematics or history of political zionism, which is just not helpful at this point. they're correct that for most people, zionism means advocating for jewish statehood in eretz yisrael, and that there has absolutely been a sort of "yearning for zion" in the diaspora for hundreds of years. and they are correct that there are many zionists who do not support the current israeli government or who advocate for a two state solution.

i also staunchly disagree that antizionism is in and of itself antisemitism. i think it is an ideology and movement that does very easily and too often fall into antisemitism, just because of the nature of how intertwined the conversation is with jewish identity and the jewish people, and we have seen many examples of this over the past month. however, because of the nebulous nature of the definition of zionism, the definition of antizionism is also going to be nebulous. if someone says "i'm a zionist", unless they elaborate i'm not going to know if i'm talking to someone who thinks that jewish people should be able to live peacefully in eretz yisrael alongside other indigenous people or to someone who wants a sovereign jewish state where jews are the ones in power. if someone says "i'm an antizionist", unless they elaborate i'm not going to know if i'm talking to someone who opposes the current state and government of israel and the occupation or someone who thinks (((zionists))) control the media and the banks and that jewish people as a collective are killing palestinian babies for fun. so for me, the terms "zionism" and "antizionism" are kind of useless unless the person i'm talking to further explains their stance, which means trying to label either zionism or antizionism as entirely inherently Bad is counterintuitive to any goal.

so to wrap this up, for me, an unwillingness to tackle the problematics is why i tend to clash with a lot of zionists and zionist institutions and organizations, and it's why i don't generally trust the adl on anything related to israel without other sources to verify.

[plan-3-tmars]

Goodbye, My Danish Sweetheart.

Hey I think the framing of this scene is really fucking cool and I wanna talk about it because I haven't seen anybody do that. yet so. yahooo!! let's get into it

BUT FIRST. Symbolism:

an empty chair can symbolise the absence or memory of someone dear who has passed away. This is very obviously meant to represent Hinako in this scenario

In my interpretation, this scene is Kazui saying goodbye to Hinako and apologising for the circumstances of her death.

The lyrics that play are:

"I’m sure nothing will change and we’ll laugh together and call each other stupid names, so many things I wish i hadn't known, I'm just a coward."

The first part of this verse sounds like he's wishfully thinking about what could've happened after he told her the truth - if anything a bit naively.

Kazui wanted (and still wants) to get the weight of his lies off his chest, but he wasn't ready to face the consequences of that confession, most likely making Hinako's death hit even harder.

Here, he bows to the chair before turning around leaving, a silent goodbye.

~

But what about what's going on in the background of this scene? Well!

As Kazui leaves, these two scenes flash in the background. On the table in the first shot is our good friend the green apple, and Background Kazui picks it up, analyses it, before biting it.

So let's go for another symbolism refresher!!

Green apples can sometimes represent platonic relationships, like friendship, but in Kazui's case this takes the form of a sin - as not loving Hinako romantically is what he's lying about - making it a reference to the Garden of Eden story.

Going from that, biting into an apple can represent feeding into temptation.

My interpretation of this scene is Pre-Marriage Kazui indulging in his 'sin', which in my opinion is the fact he's gay.

Let's go back to that lyric shall we:

"I’m sure nothing will change and we’ll laugh together and call each other stupid names, so many things I wish i hadn't known, I'm just a coward."

So many things you wish you hadn't known huh.. Not knowing you were gay would sure make lying to your wife a whole lot easier wouldn't it?

"What I gave up a long time ago, why is it questioning me now? So many things that I should now have known, I'm just a coward"

Woohoo evidence for Background Kazui being Pre-Marriage Kazui!!!

I think this scene is the last time Kazui let himself be free before marrying Hinako. This could possibly have been when he noticed she had a crush on him at their work.

He's indulging one last time. Embracing his sin instead of hiding it away one. last. time. before giving it up for good, almost like a. goodbye.

~

So. I think this scene is framed this way in order to show the parallel of Kazui giving up his sin, and Kazui mourning Hinako's death.

As established, they both have a "goodbye, I'm sorry things turned out this way" atmosphere to them. Kazui is apologetic, in a way, that he has to give up on being his true self and he is apologetic of his lies murdering Hinako, so Milgram conveys this by showing the two scenes posed the same way in front of one another.

This framing also gives the scene a Beginning Vs End feeling that I think is really cool, and the use of Dark Vs Light colours only heightens that! (Though that's slightly off topic rip)

Conclusion? I love this scene it's awesome and amazing and super cool

[jaylienpotter]

October 5th @prongsfoot-microfic prompt "chain"

Instagram post

Potter scrolled through Instagram, liking all of Starsirius_art's posts. Black really had it in him. He used coal, watercolors, digital drawing using different styles and techniques (realism, cartoon, semirealistic...), even did some abstract paintings sometimes, although not as frequently.

The viewer took in one of the posts. It was a digital drawing of a pale boy with light blue eyes and short black hair (he assumed it was a self-portrait of his younger self), underwater and tangled with chains, a hand reaching up.

«I love this one. It's very powerful. Does it have any meaning?» He decided to shoot him a DM. Maybe it would be a good way to approach the gorgeous man in a low-key way.

«yeah» Good, he only took 16 minutes to reply- Not that James was counting.

«my little brother committed suicide when he was 18» Shit.

«its him in the drawing. he drowned himself, the chains are a symbol of how he felt trapped in his body and in our household. also like a weight pulling him down»

«Oh my god... I'm so sorry, that's terrible...»

«How long has it been, if you don't mind me asking?»

Typing. Seen. Typing again.

«2 years ago»

«Fuck... My condolences mate...» He probably doesn't want to talk much about it...

«thx»

«how's padfoot?»

«He's good! He liked you.»

«You're doing commissions, right? Could you draw him? You capture emotion so well, and he has a tough background. I found him young next to a road, abandoned. He was too thin, limped really badly and was afraid of everyone. I took him home, fed and bathed him and went to the vet. He had no chip and so I kept him. Slowly he started trusting me and now he's my best friend.»

«awww! yeah ofc! i'd love to! what style??»

«Up to you! I trust your work.»

«thx James x»

James.

It was his name, nothing special about that word. But it seemed intimate from Sirius. It felt like the two had grown close in those few exchange of texts. Potter hoped to get closer. He just had to find a way to talk to him without coming off odd.

[crushingcasanova]

im so sorry for the late reply, my dear… in all honesty, there was so much writing i got overwhelmed… BUT i am now here and ready to write for you!!

i also absolutely love talking about musicals, and theatre in general. i could talk about epic for .. a long time. since you haven’t seen it i won’t spoil anything in the story, but the writer is so incredibly smart. ever character has a instrument dedicated to them, and its so interesting to hear the background music, and HEAR what its telling you! there’s certain motifs that tell you different things throughout the story, and humans always have less electric instruments, while gods have electric instruments!! the way he sets everything up is so wonderful.. and the lyrics!! my god the lyrics .. they tell a story unlike any show ive ever seen. the way he alludes to certain things with his lyrics, brings back lyrics that were sang earlier in the show, the way he sets everything up to tell a perfect story, to give you the exact feelings he wants you to feel.. i could yap so much more.

omg, that’s so nice of you to make jewelry for other people!! im not surprised, you are kind beyond expectation <3 im sure the jewelry you make is absolutely beautiful. ughh im pretty good at math .. but that doesn’t mean i like it.

im so glad you’ve had people to help you through it, and that you’re working through all that!! that warms my heart. :) of course i care to talk to you!! i quite enjoy talking to you , excuse me .. hmf >:( /silly

i always think of buying things as “giving them a home”… especially my stuffies. i have many. they are very happy with me (i hope)

we actually dress pretty similar!! that’s so cool hehe:) i also would consider myself hyperfem and maximalist!! also, what?!? i didnt know you were in love letter!!! .. i may or may not be on there too ..

OMG your doggie sounds absolutely adorable omgggg!!! ughh i can’t give myself away now that i know you are in love letter .. i will just say i have a few dogs ..

also don’t worry, yap as much as you’d like!! i love to listen <33333 i truly adore it!! now .. i have a few questions !!

i do NOT mean this in an ignorant way .. i apologize if it comes off that way .. :,) your beloved and your darling, are you all .. together? or is it platonic…??? if you are all together … are you looking for a fourth?

AHHH im so sorry if that question comes off rude at ALL im sorry im sorry im sorry forgive me forgive me 🧎

NERVOUSLY SIGNING OFF … 🎭

I'm sorry if I overwhelmed you with my yapping, dearie!! I'll make sure to keep this one a tad more concise :) It sounds like there was a lot of dedication in Epic! I've read the original myth, so you can always spoil it if you'd like :) I love when artists use motifs and symbols and draw things from previous works, it makes a much more cohesive piece and allows for everything to flow together so nicely! The continuity is awesome! I actually run a little jewelry business, so I make stuff to sell to people when I have free time (I haven't had a lot of time this summer or this fall, so it's been a little dead, but I'm hoping to make some stuff eventually!). I like making inspired pieces though, so it is usually gifts :) I made my school friend group a nice set of key chains / necklaces for last Christmas, actually! They were all color coded :D I appreciate you saying that you like talking to me, Cheshire; it means a lot :) I also have a lot of stuffed animals, so I get the whole thing about giving them a home. I have a few really special ones that I've done that for especially :) Also, yes! I've been in love letter for almost a year now, I think. I'm not so active right now, but I used to write lots of fantasies. I now usually use it for reading (I like to observe conversations and such) and for gushing or sending letters to my beloved and darling, who are both in the server. I'll keep an eye out for you now that I know! (But I won't look too hard, in case you'd like to remain anonymous!) it's cool that we both have dogs!! And our fashion styles are similar :0 I have to actually figure out an outfit for this thing I'm going to tomorrow... so I have to go through my closet a bit, haha. As for your question about my loves: I'm not together with any of them, but there's a level of devotion akin to that with my darling and they are my main priority (and i have full intention of continuing my bond with my beloved forever, though it's not inherently romantic and there isn't commitment in that sense) that would be something to consider. I'm not inherently against gaining another darling and the only other person I'm 'pursuing' would be Venus (Hi when you see this, little cloud! I miss you!!), but I'm not sure I could guarantee anything because I'm aromantic (cupio for specifics) and take a while to really consider people one of my darlings or one of my favorites. I have a bit of an issue with getting really close to people, mainly because I'm afraid of being judged or too vulnerable, so it would definitely be a long time. If you're interested in getting to know me otherwise, that is also okay :) I really only end up with those who I finally feel really care about me and who give me a certain amount of security in their life, but I am still quite affectionate with my other friends too! It was not rude at all, I don't mind clarifying things for you at all so long as it helps you :) I hope that answers your question!

[hollowfaith]

tossing you three questions for unanswered questions lots bc im lazy to check which you did before this sorry bb

Mun Communication Preferences

(ok since i answered the wrong memes for Sunny imma balance out the universe by answering the wrong...memes for you, therefore getting 3 Qs for each—oh my god im overthinking this)

🐣 Is there anything you're new at, just now learning, or practicing when it comes to RP?

yeah i wanna write more fight scenes but that's still a work-in-progress, the hardest part is describing the play-by-play moves vs. time skipping to the next set of punches, i can't grasp flow good enough without it getting stilted in places and i really admire ppl who can write legit shounen battle scenes on my dash!

or to put it in other words: pls more ppl come beat my muses up (i need the practice LOL)

🩵 Do you have any apparent flaws when it comes to RPing/interacting? Be gentle with yourself!

i feel like no matter how different my muses are i still like to follow the same "format" of posting replies for them? usually it's Dialogue/One-Sentence Observation > Introspection/Description > Dialogue > Ending (Muse 1-liner or another One-Sentence Observation). i guess there aren't really many options to write otherwise but it gets samey after a while

and when i'm sleepy my styles between muses tend to bleed (not in dialogue but in desc sure) so it reads even more similar b/t them which annoys me

i wanna try a different voice somewhere down the line, where the muse's personality leaks into the description part of the reply too.

also idk how to describe but i tend to use the same "plot twists" for threads, like—sudden appearance of NPCs in distress, unexpected interruption during an important line, using the background setting as a convenient character to symbolize double meaning of a character's words during a reply, etc. these are my tropes for RP replies and i think they sometimes get pretty stale? LOL

🔦 Connect the dots between you and your muse. Ways that you're the same, different, last time you thought about them, etc.

we both like Klaus a loooooot if i isekai'd into Aurlaus world Aury would stand no chance Klaus and i are running off into the sunset together

Aury is more self-disciplined and consistently well-dressed than me (i like dressing up but not every single day) and...yeah ok he's definitely more direct with his opinions, and more of an asshole, and a big biased idiot etc...

everyday i think about him because i made the fatal flaw of basing his FC off a fav character who i RT fanart of 24/7 so yeah, he's always in my face (positive)

but the differences between Aury and SHJ is very clear in my head, like i adore SHJ enough to have him do whatever he wants in a heartbeat because he's a paradox of dangerous but charming while i'm beating Aury's butt if he takes a single steps out of line

[spamtoon]

DCRC Week 7. I'm so close

I'm so close to catching up. time for an earthquake! I know that from puffy's various jokes about it something happens with the west coast in this one hoo boy calisota is gonna be in danger tonight! I'm so close to catching up. So inanely close. oh wiat hold on lemme get in club pen.guin again

ALRIGHT okay interesting first panel. i like the colors here and the sound effects. sorry these panels are so bright paperinik's style...

my favorite standard font title replacement so far i think

i like how the money symbol is there so we can tell its mcduck enterprises

im so mad i love how he's ploping the bear into the coffee. hot chocolate. something like that

the little crackers surrounding the coffee mug as theres a rainy scene in the background. the color contrast... hi one you look so silly today

i love how uno's just floating today usually they try to show his little chord or him attached to something but he's so silly

im so mad. get uno's ass donald

hes so silly though... the way donald rattles off all the things and uno's just like shut up please. he thinks he's onto something btu he's literally onto nothing

im so mad. do you know how to ride a bicycle this is not that

divorce (they argued for two seconds)

hello girl. i dont know who you are but your design is everything to me

im so mad shoutout to when comics do this. more heroes should be federal criminals and evade taxes. i love the way he's like Oh Fuck! I'm a Criminal Now! glad the government gets on pk's bad side too RIGHT after the time police nonetheless

she... i might have her job someday. imean not LITERALLY like i dont wanna go into security but i do want to work in an environmental department. i love how uno is just really into snooping on the fbi and honestly who wouldn't be Donald. be peer pressured into getting yourself into more trouble with the govenrment come onnn

physical antiviruses... ugh code wall so cool im. the way they're battling on the us fbi logo

IM SO MAD i actaully laughed at them getting angus fangus. if he blamed this on the duck avenger randomly he would be right and he could convince them so this could have been the worst play ever but its also the most cathartic

hello mary ann flagstarr...

cog donald's little red eyes... the digital and the real are blurring for a moment but i guess the fbi's security system is so complicated it has. air vents. or he's in the real fbi nevermind

holy shit guys its MEEEEEEEE yeah i never told you guys i was in pk the whole time. its insane

I LOVE HOW HES JUST LIKE. BEATING UP FEDERAL AGENTS NOW AND IT SLIKE OKAY things are only going to get worse im . this is a you call yourself a superhero moment but also the government is the government so!

odnald duck really did think nobody would show up at 3am

hes so fucking smug

ah the pangea project! surely that doesn't mean good things for calisota! ah okay they're not painting the whole government as evil just this guy specifically that makes a little more sense for a disney comic

she's so sad... ooh this is gonna be a ba.xter stockman situation isnt it (SORRY i have seen 1 episode of 2003 and it was. the banned one in call with everyone). she's just like oh my god you're fucking dying and he's like my plan... you must do it... it was my wife's definitely

WHAAAAAAAAT NOOOOOO... HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN IN MY DONALD DUCK STORY? (sarcastic)

sorry this was like the one thing i knew about this comic beforehand. other than like. uno existed. sarcasm aside i do love this panel

i like they Try to give a reason as to why the govenrment is doing this "out of good will" despite the evil laughs and such as like. a climate change backup--land we haven't messed up yet. but like this should be a last resort and not an immediately executed plan and i get you cant evacuate the whole west coast but california has so much of what the us is known for the us would be stupid to let those countless tourism dollars go to waste--especially when new land may not immediately go to claim of the us and Wars might happen over it. sorry im not nitpicking or anything i'm just saying my thoughts. like st canard is a massive city and so is duckburg and--sorry

and uno is sad because he doesnt know whether the sacrifice is worth it which. alright! yeah! but everything's not gonna be peachy keen just because we have some new land to work with. its got to grow naturally and as its arisen from the sea unless its all completely man-bulldozed its going to be rock, dead coral, and lichen for a while before anything grows naturally. the thought process of a scientist who can see everyone as getting in the way, climate change disaster as inevitable unless there are serious changes in human behavior or just straight up more resources and time (and who HATES calisota because he lives there), sure. believable enough for a silly comic like this

IM SO MAD AND THEN IT JUST CUTS TO

HIS STUPID PLANE its beautiful.

PLEASE dont kill of mary ann i love her already

im so glad she doesnt shoot either of them right away like its a massive ??? situation. you cant shoot donald duck

uno feels so bad for dipping for a second for being unsure :(((( poor guy...

this ending panel with the seagull is so good but oh. hohoh. are we gonna get more uno lore next issue ANYWAY yeah! good comic i see why this one is a lot of people's favorites. im glad im having fun reading paperinik again... that sure was a terremoto and boy oh boy... the west coast DIDNT sink? thanks to donald duck? wow. incredible.

[luckystarchild]

We all know One Piece is absolutely PHENOMENAL, but nothing is perfect, so as a writer, what would you say is your biggest pet peeve or least favorite part of One Piece as a story?

My biggest issues with One Piece are largely the same issues I have with my own work. And that makes it hard to discuss because I am hyper-aware that these critiques either make me a hypocrite OR make it seem like I'm comparing myself to Oda, which is egotistical AF and equally as obnoxious. Either way, I'm screwed.

That being said...

Narrative bloat vs. subtle foreshadowing. The story is long. That length can put people off of the story and make it feel super bloated. It's a huge barrier to entry. Some stuff that takes place over just a few days in-universe takes hundreds of chapters to convey to the reader. And I'm sorry to say that some of it doesn't feel necessary to the story (here's lookin' at you, Thriller Bark) and can be a bit of a drag.

Some people defend the length and say everything matters and that even small details become relevant later, but IMO, those details/foreshadowing pieces are often delivered in such minor ways that you can't remember the foreshadowing when the plot actually, finally drops. The length of the story and the subtlety of the story are at odds, and that's sometimes a shame.

(Also, Oda did NOT plan everything in advance. He just didn't. Some things are missing foreshadowing that would've been there if he'd planned ahead. He absolutely capitalized on early plot points and expanded them later in the story, but that's not the same as foreshadowing or planning ahead. Oda is a great storyteller, but he isn't a god, and I wish people would recognize he's fallible and stop with this whole deification shit.)

(Also as a person who has an unfinished work over a million words long, and who takes many chapters to show a single day/hour, and who puts in TINY foreshadowing no one can remember after so many words, this is what makes me a hypocrite. Either that or I'm very self-aware. Either way... sorry lmao.)

The other issue I have is the handling of the story's characters, and this once again relates to the length of the story and the problems that length causes.

Much as I love the Straw Hats and think their backstories are all pretty epic, it feels like the characters get their Shining Moment in the Sun when those backstories are introduced before being pushed to the backseat for hundreds of chapters/entire arcs at a time. Then they get pulled forward again for a little while (Sanji in Whole Cake, for instance) before getting shoved into the background yet again to make one-off remarks here and there. It sometimes feels like they get more development in their backstories than they do in the actual narrative, which is... not great, in my opinion.

Example: It feels like Zoro hasn't had anything meaningful to do except fight since he was introduced. He gets some moments here and there (like in the chapter where "nothing happened"), but it's not substantial, and I truly feel like I don't know Zoro all that well even after all this time with him. And that's sad.

Also, the forays into the side characters in other crews are INTERESTING, sure, but sometimes they're just distracting and pointless. Example: Ace's big flashback with Oars Jr. stands out to me as tear-jerker-porn that didn't add much to the story overall. "But that's how he learned to make straw hats!!" I hear people screaming but--I don't actually give a shit how he learned to make them. I'm sorry. I just don't. Take out that whole thing. It's not needed. I simply do not care about the Oars Jr. and Ace friendship that is only relevant for 5 minutes before both of them die. Similarly, Ace also feels like a giant symbol and not a person. I was sad FOR LUFFY when he died, but I shed zero tears over his death itself.

Long story short: There's just not enough narrative to go around to develop EVERYONE properly, and I have New Character Fatigue, and I wish we'd stop meeting new people at this point. (Where TF is Smoker, I ask you? Please, I need him back, it's been like three arcs without him...)

Overall, I just wish the narrative would tighten up for the sake of the plot and the characters. The live action version actually does a good job of this, which I appreciate a TON.

And again, I recognize these same issues could be said of my own work, so go easy on those tomatoes you're getting ready to throw, please!

[sexualassbutts]

I feel like it's been long enough that I can post my thoughts about the Full Moon episode for Helluva Boss.

Warning: SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED IT YET

Now, I'm gonna talk about the whole Stolitz situation cause I've been seeing A LOT of hate towards Blitzo. In my opinion, Blitzo didn't really do anything wrong in this.

Let's take the fact that Blitzo saying that Stolas just dropped the 'feelings shit' on him seems to be completely accurate. In the song When I See Him, we see Stolas talking about how he's been dealing with the divorce. Blitzo, on the other hand, even straight up said "Are we okay? Can't really say!" meaning Stolas hadn't communicated anything with Blitzo about this AT ALL before dropping it on him that night. Not even a quick "Hey, we need to talk about something important." Blitzo also said he hadn't been doing his side of the transaction because STOLAS GAVE HIM AN OUT on it for MONTHS. Meaning Stolas had MONTHS to say ANYTHING to Blitzo but chose not to. Instead, left him in the dark. Blitzo cannot be at fault for choosing not to when Stolas gave him the option to say no. And the fact that Blitzo apologized IMMEDIATELY for it during the confrontation breaks my heart. Cause Blitzo shouldn't have had to been sorry for saying no when he was given that choice to.

Stolas has always been in control in this relationship. Not only for the fact that he's royalty, but the fact that the book was Blitzo's one way to do his work, take care of his employees (who are like family to him), and his daughter and Stolas had the power to take that all away in a snap of his fingers at any given time. Blitzo had always been backed into a corner because of this and what happens when you're backed into a corner? Fight or flight. Blitzo chose to fight.

in the song When I See Him, we see Stolas trying to hide in the fridge while saying "I'll die alone if this doesn't work" which is extremely toxic in thought, for one, but that carries over to the confrontation at the end. When the conversation isn't going how Stolas had hoped it would, Stolas' first reaction was to run; to shut Blitzo down completely and stop listening to anything else he had to say. Which was why Blitzo said Stolas was treating him like one of his butler imps...Because Stolas was. He was completely dismissing him.

Then, the line when Blitzo said "I can do better" breaks my entire soul. Given his background, it's safe to say he had to say that A LOT growing up. Always being the lesser between him and Fizzarolli, he always had to strive to be better. It was a complete trauma response.

When they were going into the other room, (symbolic in that's where their connection started and they 'broke up') Blitzo straight up said "Can you give me a minute to think after all the shit you've put me through?" and Stolas wouldn't even give him that.

And finally, Stolas had NO right to ask Blitzo why he makes everything about sex. NO RIGHT. Because the one who made it all about sex to begin with WAS STOLAS. Think back on the first episode. Stolas called Blitzo and ignored when Blitzo said he was busy while Blitzo was running for his life and Stolas kept talking about sex, even after Blitzo dropped his phone. Then, again, during the episode when Blitzo and Stolas first reunited. Blitzo was just there for the book. Stolas was the one who pushed for it to be a sexual encounter. Stolas was the one who made their arrangement sexual. So he had ZERO right to throw that on Blitzo.

Now, what I CAN say that Stolas did right was, obviously, giving him that freedom with the Asmodeus Crystal. And the fact that he said his feeling straightforward at all. And how he got down on Blitzo's level and even took off his crown when confessing to him, making it more of that he was on Blitzo's level during that. Other than that, however? Nah. Blitzo even went out of his way to get a bunch of stuff for their time together. Near the end of what we see from his shopping spree, it was clear that it wasn't JUST about getting it on in order to keep the book anymore. It was because Blitzo genuinely wanted to make Stolas feel good and do anything he possibly could to do better.

So yes. I'm 100% behind Blitzo on this.

[liverobinreaction]

“Thank you so so much for reading and enjoying it so much!! Though I'm curious, do you have a favourite scene?? Let me know!!”

Ohhh I have a BUNCH of scenes that I really loved!! I loved pretty much everything going on in the last chapter- it was touching to see Tim share so many intimate moments with his family. Something I love about his character, and something that I think you captured really well, is that he’s. Y’know. He’s definitely an unreliable narrator! Throughout your entire story, he saw himself as very “other.” Separate from his family, separate from his friends, separate from death and, so he thinks, from the trauma that comes with it- and in that last chapter we get to see his family say “no actually, you are loved whether you like it or not!” The entire chapter just captured this really nice, quietly hopeful tone- I loved it!

Another thing that I really loved (but was more of a like… background thing?) was Tim’s relationship with the violin. I think it’s just. Ugh I’ve thought about this a lot and am looking for words. I love how it can symbolize his relationship with his parents- it’s this thing that they are abstractly proud of (in a bit of a “look how gifted our heir is” way) but for Tim it shifts from a way to make his parents look at him into something that he actually, genuinely loves. The way that his mother, in particular, absently asked him to learn pieces for her only to never listen is heartbreaking and such a clever way of representing their relationship as a whole- of Tim putting in hours of effort, and of his parents thinking of him only passingly.

The violin also feels like one of the first things that Tim really LOSES as a result of all of those deaths. Or at least- one of the first things he registers the loss of. After Titan’s tower, when he comes back but his fingers are broken- UGH! Throughout the entire story, he minimizes his own pain- brushing it off as not real or as something that doesn’t count because he never DIES. But this is a real, physical wound that doesn’t heal- this is something that his death’s have taken from him- because his pain IS real and DOES matter. Chef’s kiss.

(There is also, of course, that throwaway line from Jason’s pov about how Jason had only ever heard Tim playing the violin badly. Jason doesn’t know that Tim once was very good! And that Jason is the reason he now struggles! My poor fucked up boys <3 )

First of all, sorry it took me so long to reply to this, I've been savouring it in my inbox as extra inspiration and encouragement, because your analysis is just. Chefs kiss. I'm so so glad you enjoyed so many scenes and picked them apart!!! It's always so so nice to see how someone reads a scene and interprets it. Delicious.

YESSS I loved writing the intimate moments between Tim and the Batfam. I love deconstructing a relationship between two characters to put it under a lens and see how exactly it functions and why. More than that, I'm so so happy to see you enjoy the unreliable narrator. It's one of my favourite devices to use, because it just adds that hint of uncertainty. Tim loves his family, but he's seen himself as 'other' for so long (you were SPOT on) that he can't help but distance himself. To him, he's not quite a human (and I actually have a story in the works that looks at this even deeper) and therefore isn't allowed to suffer in the same ways as a human. He is, you see, deeply stupid. So having his family, and Cass especially, confront him and tell him how harmful this view is not only to himself, but the people he loves, kicks his ass into gear!

THANK YOU! The violin was actually going to play a much bigger role, but my hands began wandering, and it fell to the wayside. It's very much a symbol of Tim as a child and caught between the wishes of the people he loves and his own desires. You are once again spot on in your observation of it symbolising his relationship with his parents. In the epilogue that I'll someday get to writing, he picks it up again as a way to reconnect his turbulent childhood and impossible expectations, with the love he feels for the instrument and the audience surrounding him that is willing to listen. Something, something, a family that doesn't expect him to play but still wants to listen, something, something, parallels with Jack and Janet.

And YES YES YES, the violin IS the first thing he really loses as a result of his powers. Or more accurately, it's the first thing he really views as 'worth something' that he loses. There's a paragraph I didn't include in the main story where Tim recognises how he's not angry about dying, and isn't even that mad about dying as Robin. The thing he can't forgive Jason for is breaking his fingers. I used to play violin and cello, and let me tell you, stiff fingers make it incredibly difficult to play. So Jason has taken away the one thing that Tim made his own, without even knowing it. And yet he doesn't have the time to mourn it. Not really.

Your addition KILLED ME, because I completely forgot about that part. YOU'RE RIGHT. He never knows how talented Tim was with the violin, and unfortunately due to the lingering damage to his fingers, Jason may never know. It depends on how much I want to torture these two idiot boys <3

As always, thank you so so much for this ask, it's absolutely GLORIOUS

[drawingpad-studios]

I think I've got things processed in my brain so I am gonna start getting back on here. I'm not gonna start back up the work of my projects fully yet though, because I'm not fully moved into my new place yet. but I recently(aka today, lmao) got some ideas for something I think would be fun to add to As Thin As Paper for extra content.

Basically my idea is, since I have SPR OCs, a possible like "boss rush" you can unlock after getting all the endings. The thought process of this idea was just: "what if while making the game, what affected the original characters secretly seeps into an au of mine and made some of my OCs suffer the same fate. As I would have to make a uncorrupted copy of the effected and seal away the originals so it doesn't spread throughout the au" (don't know if I will use my Paintonian OCs since that species isn't cannon to the original game, but if I do it would be interesting in my opinion)

I haven't fully decided if I should do it or not, so I thought I'd run it with y'all and see what y'all think.

Here's some of the inspired ideas that started this thought(I don't have my art supplies back yet, so these are all just quick sketches)

1. Altuo Tenwor(Greed shop)

Basically I just took one of the sins he is supposed to be and amplified it. I choose greed over lust, envy, and sloth as you can probably tell because of the obvious inspiration from this Binding of Isaac fan song by Manontheinternet

And I also added a bit of inspiration of the Snake(technically increasing Envy sense Snakes usually are symbolism of envy) from the Adam and Eve story, with him encouraging you to buy from his shop after every battle of the boss rush until his own battle, with each thing you buy ending up causing a bad effect on you and your party for his battle.

2.Discord(Calm to Storm)

I wanted to use his "full power form"(the form you'll read/see in Hundred Year Symphony in the final act), mainly due to his inspiration of the Snatcher from Hat in Time that came from this song:

And also, he's a Crevon, those are said to be "musical demons". And demons tend to make deals with people. Basically at the start before the first battle and after the cutscene when you first enter the boss rush mode, He will offer you an increase of health and defence(or something don't really know yet) but doing so will increase the difficulty of his own battle. So you get a decrease of other battles' difficulty, but the decrease gets put into his battle as an increase. Though of course you don't have to sign it, the battles will be normal if you don't sign his contract.

3. Reverend & Brace(Cage and Mantis)

No song inspiration for this. Had this idea for them before I returned to the idea of a boss rush mode. But originally Reverend would just be playing in the background to keep Brace passive(original Brace was a fountain statue similar to the Harmonian random encounters). But I decided to make Reverend heal Brace every now and again(White Witch basically) and change Brace to be similar to Base Cleph(sense they're related in my au[Hundred Year Symphony, since the Harmonians don't have hair]). But instead of a spider, I had Brace into a Mantis. Because the females tend to bite the heads off their mates.

I had Reverend have a cage body, because the heart/soul inside him is Brace's. Basically as Brace was slowly turning, she had him promise him to keep her heart safe so she doesn't fully change. You know because they're lovers and don't want to lose each other.

Feels good to be back, I am sorry for having to go on Hiatus. Anyways, Input on the "Boss Rush" mode idea would be appreciated. Would y'all think this would be interesting and fun as extra end game content?

[ultfreakme]

Sorry, but I need to say something I've been thinking about for a while. I found geto's death forcing. 1.he loses to a boy with no experience and the power of ''love''. 2.he was stronger and had more knowledge and experience than the boy yuta. 3. It seems that the author just wanted to get rid of geto so that this annoying villain Kenjaku could come. 4. In my opinion, Geto is the best villain. I don't understand why the author didn't want to continue with him. 5. His death was forced because Saturo already had a change in character and personality. What I'm trying to say is that in the film, Satura is already different, he's no longer that immature young man. 6. the serious work was much more dramatic if geto had survived saturo blow he would have become stronger and returned as a villain again with sukuna. Sorry if it's big, but I have these doubts that such a good and well-constructed character had a horrible ending and very little.

I understand your frustration anon, it's really unfair but I do think Geto's loss was somewhat explained and fully planned even before the start of JJK. There's a lot going on in JJK0 and the lead-up to his death.

Kenjaku explains that the only reason Geto lost was because he was actually kinda fighting every sorcerer in Tokyo and Kyoto at the same time as Yuuta and Rika. A majority of his curses were in the Night Parade. Geto was also going somewhat easy ont he rest of the students, Gojo says he could've killed them off but he chose not to.

My next point is possibly subtext, but Geto didn't seem like he wanted his plan to succeed. He told Gojo exactly where he'd be, when he'll start the attack and gave Jujutsu Tech ample time to relocate non-sorcerers. He could've done this with no warning, but he put them on some kind of even grounding, gave them advantages even.

He had perfect evacuation plans for all his family, but not for himself? How come? He could have wanted to die, it honestly seems like a suicide mission. If I were him I would have wreaked havoc on Tokyo and Kyoto and not told the only guy who can kill me exactly where I'd be after invading his territory. I think Geto didn't value his life much from the moment he left. It's complicated honestly.

He should have won, easily, but it almost feels like a personal choice that he didn't. Also the power of love? Geto says he fights for justice but he doesn't have nearly the same conviction as Yuuta. When he fired Uzumaki, I think he was emotionally faltering and that's why it didn't take down Yuuta. He was, in his heart, cornered and vulnerable.

Geto's a very good villain, I would have loved to see more of him but I think his death serves a symbolic purpose for Gojo and the cast of JJK. It's not only about Gojo's character development and change. Geto represents all the worst parts of being a sorcerer and having CE. He's the figurehead for how damaging Jujutsu society is. Sorcerers, no matter how powerful, are bound to break and die young. Geto is a ghost, a haunting in the story of JJK. He's dead before the story begins but because he represents everything wrong with Jujutsu society, he lingers in the background because everything that made Geto what he is hasn't been fixed. He had to die to show that whatever Gojo's doing now, whatever the jujutsu society's doing now, isn't working.

Kenjaku took advantage of these problems and used all of it against the sorcerers in Shibuya Arc.

I don't think Geto would have allied with curses, especially Sukuna. I think he'd have fought against them and eventually became an anti-hero and work beside Gojo during Shibuya Arc and Culling Games. He hates non-sorcerers but he hates curses more. Would have been interesting to see what Geto would have done if he lived in the main JJK storyline though(Junpei probably would have survived since he was the one involved in making Mahito use Junpei as bait, Shibuya Arc wouldn't be as severe because Gojo wouldn't be imprisoned, etc)

[capybaraonabicycle]

Hi, i'm here with my blank page!

So it's not entirely blank, it's whole spread and i already did something on the left side (it's a movie ticket from when i went to see Twice Upon A Time in theater, with some packaging taped on top because i've noticed that the writing started rubbing off over the years, and the background is the inbetween bits from some stickers for some visual interest, because as a junkjournaller i don't throw anything away lol)

The prompt on top says "if a Time Lord is a sum of their memories, write down the equation" And there is this fun grid pattern with some numbers in the corner and another number in the other corner (hi Twelve). I feels like it wants something maths-related, but i'm hopeless in maths. I know that you like maths. Maybe you can help me, like with a smart math trick, and/or something related to Twelve, maybe a quote that might be fitting or just a nudge in a certain direction. It doesn't have to be an equation as the prompt says, but the main themes i'd like to reflect are memory, maths (science as poetry perhaps?) and Twelve's story/character to tie in with the ticket.

Any thoughts? No pressure to come up with anything big or deep tho, even just a hint might be helpful to figure it out

Firstly, thank you so much again for giving me this chance to talk about maths ❤ Also, I feel so honoured I get to contribute and spark ideas (hopefully?) for your beautiful, beautiful art project!!

Also, very sorry, but this will be very maths heavy, obviously. I'll try to put many pictures so you don't really have to understand anything; you can just go with the aesthetics.

That said, if you really do want to understand something, I will probably not put enough info here to do so. So, just ask, I can go in small steps and explain it from the start. Like, I love doing that. My mum regularily has to indulge me and let me explain higher mathematics until she (kinda) gets it.

But, I mean, most of these things I'm about to mention, you learn about after at least two semesters of intensive mathematics studies at uni, so...they're not that easy to understand.

Also, I will assume, that you only know high school maths, I hope that is alright? I don't actually know your level, please forgive me if you feel like I am treating you like a 5 yo. (I will basically explain this like I would for my family).

I'm gonna put this under the cut again :)

Sum Formula by Gauss

This is probably the simplest bit of maths that I am going to mention, so let's put it first.

'A timelord is a sum of their memories' obviously lets you think that you'll have to include a sum, somewhere. In mathematics, we normally use the greek letter Σ (capital sigma) to show that we are doing summation. All the things you want to sum are put after the letter and the start and finish are marked on top. Then

would be the sum of all (natural) numers 1 to n. If n=4, the above would read 1+2+3+4, f.ex.

Here, we want to sum over memories. So, obviously, we could find some sort of symbol or artistic interpretation of 'memory' and put it behind the sum, where the k is.

Or, what I would propose, we concentrate the 'memory' into the 'name' or rather number of the different regenerations. Because then, if the memories of the timelord 12 are the timelords Doctor 1 to 11, which would give us the above sum with n=11:

Here, I am just pretending, 'Timelord' is a function on natural numbers, defined by the sum on the right.

(Sidenote: A function is like a rule that takes some input and gives you an output, f(x)=x-1, for example would be a commonly known one or f(x)=x^2, or f(x)=sin(x). We often see them called f or g or something in school and make them work with numbers but technically they can work on any set and have any name and do anything. Quite cool :) )

The proper definition of the function would have to come first and could look something like this:

Which just means Timelord is a function that takes a natural number and gives you a result in the Universe. Which does not mean much mathematically, except for that you can plug only natural numbers into the function and get an element from the unknown set 'Universe'. Actually, the result would be another natural number, of course.

Now, there is a well-known formula for this specific sum, namely

that is all natural numbers 1 to n summed together gives n times n+1 divided by two. So, 1+2+3=3*4/2=6 for example. So you could definitely include that with like a little extra equation.

Also, you could obviously change this whole thing up a bit, because for now, we have not included the war doctor at all. Or the fugitive Doctor. Or any other forgotten Doctor or spin-off Doctor or or or - although admittedly, the Doctor IS missing those memories, so...?

But, there is one more neat thing with this formula, and that is that there exists a nice geometric visualisation:

So, here the idea is, that we want to add the numbers 1 to n and those are the green squares from top to bottom. See? there is one in the first row, then two in the second and so on and n in the bottom row.

And all together, the green squares are exactly half of the number of the squares in the right rectangle, which are n times (n+1) many.

Or, to see it another way: you could always add up two of the rows to get a full row of green squares. The top row with the last but one row and the second and third row. And then you always either have n+1/2 full rows (, i.e. n*(n+1)/2, like here) or n/2 full rows and one half row ((n/2)*n+n/2=(n/2)*(n+1)).

So, I think there are some themes and images here you could work with :)

Affine Transformations

Okay, so, this one is my favourite because of the WORDS :D (Also because I am taking discrete geometry right now and affine transformations are important there.)

So, first, let's have a little look at LINEAR transformations. Slightly simplified, those are functions between vectorspaces that fulfill certain properties.

What is a vectorspace? Some mathematical thing (Sidenote: also a very nice word, vectorSPACE :) ) where vectors live in. Vectors for our purposes look like numbers pressed between brackets, so for example:

would be three vectors. All from different vectorspaces because they have different lengths or as we like to say: DIMENSIONS :)

Vectors can also lie sideways like v=(1 , 2, 0, -3), but I am not a fan of that. And technically the difference is not big and unimportant for our purposes.

Okay, now the vectorspace we are interested in is called R^n, which is vectors of length n. So in the above picture, v is in R^2, w in R^4 and u is 'the origin' of R^3.

Then a linear transformation is a function from R^n to itself (it could go to another vectorspace, too but let's not overcomplicate that) which we write as:

And the linear transformation fulfills the rules:

(1) means, that if I look at the output of a function of the sum of two vectors, I get the same as if I take the sum of the output of both vectors on their own. So, L(3)=L(1)+L(2), for example.

(2) means if I look at the output of the function on the multiple of a vector, then that gives the multiple of the output of the function on the vector. So, L(2)=2*L(1), for example.

If the function fulfills this, we call it linear.

We often write linear functions as MATRICES. So, L could look like this:

which we often write more generically as

And then applying this function to a vector is a matrix-vector-multiplication, which again works with sums :D

Okay- this last bit is probably to much, sorry for that. The takeaway: We 'multiply' matrices and vectors with specific rules and then that fulfills rules (1) and (2) and gives us a LINEAR transformation.

If the matrix is INVERTIBLE - don't worry about what that implies - then we call the linear function BIJECTIVE.

Now, what is an affine transformation? It is a linear transformation with a fixed vector added and looks like this:

Look familiar? Yes, it's exactly the same as before, just with the vector w added! This actually comes from a linear transformation made simpler, where the linear transformation looks like this:

If you were to calculate this you would see that Lv with the little tilde thing really resulted in the thing in the brackets. Point is, if we forget the 1s, we get the affine transformation from before but like this we have one linear transformation again.

And now I am coming back to Doctor Who:

Affine transformations describe rotations, translations, scaling and like slight bending of the space.

And if the underlying linear trafo (gonna start using our neat little shortening from uni) is bijective, INVERTIBLE, you can retract it to where you started from.

And that sounds like memory? Like regeneration? We could assume L is an invertible transformation - regeneration or ourselves becoming different people throughout our lives? - so we could technically go back to who we were or that is still part of us and we can follow it back to the start, aslong as we retain the memory. BUT there is the affine part, too, that little vector w added. What if that was time? The part of the transformation that makes the trafo not linear anymore (at least unless we go to a higher plane of existence in R^(n+1)). What if that vector somehow prevented us from actually going back?

(That is not how it works in maths, I don't think, you could just subtract it, but let's imagine we can't)

Wouldn't that be some beautiful metaphor of changing and remembering and becoming something new? While moving through space and time? (You could technically also split that vector up into a space and a time vector if you liked :) )

Maybe you can do something with that?

Lie Geometry

My favourite part, because Geometry, but now we are entering the part of maths where I have to look stuff up as well. So, I'll try to keep it short and just give you some concepts and images.

Just, let me say that I love this because

Rule 1: The Doctor lies

This is all about spheres in ORIENTED CONTACT

Circles are 1-dim spheres, so CIRCULAR GALLIFREYAN?

Also they look funny, a little like hedgehogs:

So, ask me if you really want to know why but I'm not going to explain it here and I would have to look that up, too, but apparently we can represent 'normal' spheres (Möbius spheres to be precise) by their center c and radius r as the vectors

Don't worry about why the brackets suddenly are sharp, there is a meaning but it's not too important right now. It's still a vector. Then, c is a vector, too - giving us the n-dimensional point of the circles center - so this actually has more than 3 entries. (c,c) is the standard scalar product, just imagine this as the length of the vector c or how far away from the origin we are.

Takeaway here: Spheres are defined by their center and radius. Now that doesn't sound so bad, does it?

Now you may have noticed the radius r only appears as r^2. Lie spheres have an ORIENTATION however, that means they can have negative radius. Hence, we have to add an extra info (how long is our radius and does it go inward or outward?) as another coordinate:

If r>0 we will draw the arrows in the first picture outward, otherwise inward. Or the other way round. Honestly, that's just convention, it doesn't really matter. This is now a lie-sphere. They make up the points in the Lie quadric, defined by the Lie-scalar product. So they are all the points y fulfilling:

So we want that weird angly thing (Lie scalar product) on the left that translates to that rather long sum (yes, you could write this as a sum again, too) to sum up to 0.

This is all very difficult and confusing, I know. But pretty formulas?

Anyway, the thing called 'oriented contact' works with that angly thing, too. It means that two spheres meet tangentially - in exactly one point - and they meet such that their arrows point in the same direction at the contact point:

Like this, those are in oriented contact! (Please ignore my inability to draw circles)

The mathematical condition for that is:

Okay, what was all that? So, first the definition for the lie scalar product works slightly differently for two different vectors, but it fits together with the version we saw earlier.

And then I did some math tricks (or rather my professor did). It all just says in the end: For oriented contact, we need that the distance between centers is the same as the difference between radii.

And the y, y' are defined as:

Idk. I am not expecting you to get super into Lie geometry and its theory now. Rather that you might want to draw some circles with arrows?

What is also interesting is that these circles are often seen as gears. Because the radius orientation can represent a wheel that can only turn one way and then the oriented contact means if the other wheel touches on the outside it has to turn the other way and if it touches from the inside they will turn the same direction.

This also has a relevance to the problem of Appollonius if you want to namedrop, but I won't go into that now.

Markov-Chains

You asked for quotes as well (so sorry, I'm not going to explain what Markov Chains actually are, just know: Stochastics) and I really liked this quote characterising Markov Chains in 'normal' language:

In relation to the present the future is independent of the past.

Or something along those lines. I unfortunately don't actually remember the exact quote. But the above was the spirit.

Other symbols

Imo it is always a good idea to randomly write 'Let Ɛ>0.' somewhere or put little arrows like ⇔ or ⇒ wherever. Or put the little lightning bolt contradiction thingy:

(funfact, my ao3 name is 'hvis-og-bare-hvis' because that means 'if-and-only-if' translated, a phrase we use SO MUCH in maths and that is often abbreviated to 'iff' or written as ⇔)

Conclusion

I know this is all very MATHS now and also I didn't really explain anything properly. Except for the first point maybe. Feel free to ask any question about any topic, I would love to elaborate. I just can't promise it won't take weeks again to answer.

But I had a blast and I feel so honoured I get to weigh in on your art book! Thank you so much!! I hope I could help you a little!

[it-couldbe-worse]

Hi, sorry it took me some time to get to this, I saw the tag about the gray missing from the progress+ pride flag, and I wanted to talk about my reasoning and hear how people feel about it since I am technically recreating the eye-strain version of the flag (I haven't forgotten or abandoned, simply on hiatus for health and life circumstances)

When I made the flag originally, it was a bit spur of the moment but I still wanted to be respectful of all of the elements present (not covering up any preexisting symbolism). I did research both flags. The result I got for the disability flag was that the "gray" background was a muted/faded black, symbolising remembrance and rage. The preexisting (full intensity) black stripe on the progress pride flags is also remembrance. These are both similar to how someone would use a black loop ribbon for remembering a tragedy or disaster of a sort.

In the end I did end up going with the one black remembrance stripe for symmetry, but I've honestly questioned it on and off since.

I would love to hear takes from people from both communities, but especially disabled queer folk.

Also, yes, the flag is cluttered. I know. No I don't think I can fix that. No I won't stop making flags, they make me happy, but unless there's a specific reason to stop work on this flag design, I probably won't. I'm sorry lol

HAPPY DISABLED PRIDE MONTH EVERYBODY!!!!

♿♿♿♿👩‍🦽👩‍🦽🧑‍🦼🧑‍🦼👨‍🦽🧑‍🦽👨‍🦽👩‍🦼👨‍🦼♿♿♿🩼🩼🩼