#and the fact that it's TRADITIONALLY DRAWN?

[zephyrus-gremlin]

Blessed by a Deity.

[arom-antix]

A Viktor sketch that ran away with me

Yuuri spotlight

Full drawing

[leguinning]

one reason i love ile-rien so much is that illias's experience of violation and stigmatization by his community and subsequent fear of being undesirable are usually tropes applied to female characters while tremaine's ruthless nihilism is something you usually see with male characters. nothing like a good trope-gender swapping

[erigold13261]

Haiii Eri!! I don't know much about your ocs but I'd love to hear about them!! Do you have any little fun facts for us? 🫶 any of them at all I adore each and every one

Oooh! Yeah sure! I can ramble a little bit! Don't know if characters like Ex-Jay or Doki Doki Mermaid Club count as OCs since at their premise I didn't create them, but I know some people count their version of Ex-Jay or DDMC as OCs.

So for this I'll stick with just OCs I actually made without a design from in game. (Also just gonna stick with NSR OCs as I don't even do anything with my other OCs I basically abandoned lol). Will also put pictures of each I talk about under a cut so I don't make this too long.

1). First up are my actual first NSR OCs known as Timbre Ocra and Hydrar Gyrum. They are one of the lower NSRtists that help power each district when Megastars aren't playing. Their band is called "Amarus Amares" and they play in the Metro Division district.

Timbre is a natural object head (she's like one of those LED photography lights but can change her colors) while Hydrar is fully human except for cybernetics she got when she was young from being in a car accident. Both of them heavily look up to NSR, especially Neon J which is why they are so happy to be playing in Metro Division and hope to one day play along side 1010.

I should have more for them but I honestly don't since I've been thinking about redesigning them for a while now. Keeping the same story they have but just updating their looks/colors.

2). I think next would be Egeg. She is one I use even less than Timbre and Hydrar, as I made her based off of another person's species. I am definitely going to redesign her as I have made more rules and stuff to how species work in NSR, but she is going to stay an object head as a space orb similar to DJ.

I had her as having a crush on Eloni and she was supposed to be my first ever OC x Canon character, but I sorta scrapped that. She is the manager of Amarus Amares and helps them create songs and manage shit otherwise the two would be missing deadlines every other week.

She had a rough breakup from an abusive relationship. That is when she met Timbre and Hydrar who took her in and she became their manager as a way to pay them back for helping her in her time of need.

3).

Oooh! Yeah sure! I can do that! I have quite a few NSR OCs that I can talk about! (since I have basically abandoned any OCs I have that aren't NSR related lol).

I need to make more of my OC content at some point, so I'm just gonna list all my OCs off and then give some fun facts about the more relevant ones! (and so if anyone wants more fun facts about specific characters I can give them).

-Hydrar Gyrum, Timbre Ocra, and Egeg (Amarus Amares) -Dew, Carna, and Maragold (younger siblings to 1010) -Martha and Aria (Neon's ex-wife and not bio-child) -Esther and Braam (Mama's parents) -Nova's parents (still working on their names) -Alyona and Matvey (Tatiana's Parents) -Ilma (Tatiana's 1st cousin once removed) -Bunny (Rei's girlfriend)

I'm sure there are more but these are the main ones I can think of. Now for the facts! :D

1). Hydrar and Timbre (with Egeg as a manager) are lower NSRtists that help power each district when Megastars aren't playing. They play in Metro Division most of the time, which works for them because Timbre and Hydrar greatly look up to Neon J. Hydrar because his cybernetic program is what allowed her to get cybernetics at an affordable price when she was a child in a car accident, and Timbr because he is a screen object head like her (though she doesn't realize he wasn't born like that).

2). Unlike the rest of 1010 and Dew, Carna and Maragold have no war bot code in either of them. The two basically "died" as kids so when they were brought back as MK-Kid Units there was no war bot code to combine them with. Which is different from 1010 and Dew who were all combined with a warbot's code when becoming MK-1 units.

3). Speaking of warbots, Dew used to be a robotic diver that would repair the hull of ships. The bot he was, wasn't the greatest but it was one of the sturdiest, so it was allowed to continue working during fights while the better ones that were more fragile only worked during times when the ships were in ally waters.

4). Dew is also really good friends with Yiruk and Kayane (actually thanks to you talking about Yiruk lol!). Him and Kayane were crushing on each other hard at first, but they quickly found out they would be much better as just friends. Yiruk is always dragging them into trouble or trying to get the two to join their band but they always decline. However, they do share and listen to its music whenever a new song comes out! Dew has been thinking about asking Neon if there is a way to get Yiruk and their band a good stage to play on one day as like a surprise.

5). Ilma does competitive sword fighting as a hobby and side job. She is pretty good, especially when she goes into higher skilled competitions that allow for natural powers to be used.

6). And speaking of sword fighting. That is how Alyona and Matvey met! The two were in a sword fighting competition and Alyona kicked Matvey's ass because it was a no-power competition and she is more skilled technically with a sword than Matvey is. He fell in love with her that day as she held her sword to his chest with him on his back.

7). Alyona also wanted to have a lot of children while Matvey did not. It was lucky Alyona was even able to have Tatiana, which was a surprise pregnancy. Unfortunately Alyona's health went downhill and soon she died leaving Matvey with a child he did not want.

8). Bunny has been doing her own piercings well before she ever got an actual job as a piercer. She is also the main piercer for Ex-Jay and any other friends they have (obviously they pay her, though Rei gets free piercings). As long as someone pays and is of age, she's okay piercing them wherever they want. She has done genital piercings before (Cyril lol).

9). Bunny is also thinking about either getting elf ears or permanent sharp canines one day as body modifications. She has her tongue split and wants to do more stuff like that.

10). Some more Bunny thoughts are the fact that she makes fun of Cyril's arm tattoo that is literally just a blank sleeve of ink. She finds it silly he just got a blank sleeve. He intended on putting white tattoo ink over it, but over time decided to keep it blank and just put white henna over it since he could never think of a permanent design to have. After seeing him with white henna over the tattoo sleeve she stopped making fun of him (especially if it was some of DK West's designs which she fell in love with).

11). Not so much a FUN fact, but Martha has been married 3 times. First to Neon, then to an abusive asshole who she divorced, and then to a third guy who ended up dying (probably in an accident). She regrets ever cheating on and divorcing Neon because he was the nicest guy that was ever in her life, but she stands by her decision because she could never truly love him like he did her after what was years of feeling neglected by him.

12). Nova's dad's head is actually a small black ball of like dark matter or something. The nebula around his head is just something that happens in everyday life which shows emotions. There are very few times where the nebula is gone and that is in extreme depressive episodes that sometimes occur. Otherwise, he always has some kind of nebula around his head!

13). And Nova's mom's head always has a scarf or something else at the bottom of her droplet tail. It's less for safety and more for comfort. Unlike a real Prince Rupert's drop, he tail is not fragile and won't explode her head if it gets hit. She can actually move it a bit and have it be fluid, but it is sharp at the end so to avoid poking people or herself she uses a scarf to hide the end.

13). Braam and Esther did their best to send Catherine to a good school. Once she showed talent and skill in music, she asked to go to a music school that was close by. It was more expensive but they were willing to do whatever it took to keep their little girl happy. Esther picked up an extra job or two outside of the farm and Braam did more side jobs for friends and townsfolk so that Catherine could go to the music school and hopefully play harp professionally.

15). And I guess as a final little fun fact. Neon's brother has stars for pupils! Kinda like Mayday's flower-like pupils, Neon's brother has stars. I still have to draw him, but both him and Neon had something going on with their eyes that had no connection to their parents which their parents hated. They wanted their kids to be perfect and conform to societal expectations, but couldn't really do anything about their kids' eyes.

That's all I got so far! Hope it's what you were looking for! I really need to make more content for my OCs. Actually I need to redesign a few of them, like Hydrar, Timbre, and Egeg since it's been a bit since I drew them and they could go for a retouch-up.

[pleb-the-original]

Mangrove by SabertoothSketch

Funfetti by PrismaticStarz

Cyber Bee by beenary

Reaper Knight by SabertoothSketch

[roserefrain]

trying to get back in the swing of drawing,,,,

[fernsnailz]

my comic from the @neverturnbackzine! truly one of my favorite zines i've been a part of :]

some extra insight/fun facts about the process of this piece below the cut 💥💥💥

posting pieces from collaborative zines is always something i struggle with because i look back and think of how i would do things differently now, but i learned a lot working on this comic and even developed some style techniques that i still use!

Fun Fact 1: the panel where shadow Fucking Disintegrates That Guy is technically traditionally drawn! i couldn't get it right in clip studio so i just started frantically scribbling in a notebook and got it eventually lol

highly highly recommend scribbling stuff out in a notebook, scanning it on your phone, and then dropping it into a canvas to edit later if you ever have trouble sketching something.

Fun Fact 2: a lot of the overlay/background effects were made in Kid Pix Deluxe 3D. i created a whole collection of various textures/abstract effects for this comic that i've been using in my art since last year. you can even find them scattered through my team dark zine lol. here's a few of them:

similarly, the background at the bottom of page 2 is actually a warped photo i took of a bunch of headphone wires. this is the original:

Fun Fact 3: i made this comic during a very busy and wild period of time last year so this is what the final panel looked like for a while before i fully finished it LMAO

ok yay thanks for reading bye

[lua-stellar]

What is Your Next Lover's Love Language?? ✨ Tarot Divination

reading was done via tarot cards, lil side note i (personally) find the concept of love languages recessive and rigid. Most people including ur guys' next lovers will likely show all 5 love languages. However i think its rly fun for tarot readings and for communicating what ur future lover is like enjoy :)

consider tipping me on ko-fi if you liked this reading :))

pile 1

cards drawn: reversed page of pentacles, the hierophant, reversed four of swords

so I get the vibe that your next lover will have a problem, or problems in the past with commitment, or they have been in relationships with people who were not very into commitment which can hurt someone. But i feel that this person, it takes alot for them to actually want to commit to a relationship. I think the commitment thing ties into the fact that they want to feel very safe and comfortable in a relationship,they want to be with someone who is a good choice for them, someone who they can be themselves around and be in control around. They are someone who wants to spend alot of time with someone and get to know them before 100% committing to a relationship, because although commitment is a big topic in this reading as in its scary for this person, the truth is they want nothing else except commitment. They want to be with someone in the long term, ideally, they want to be able to go to the next step with someone they truly love, like marriage for example. Like i get some polarizing energies from this person like a real all or nothing vibe. There is a chance that this person might even be arospec, like im getting demi-romantic vibes you know. This person's love language might definently be strong on quality time, possibly acts of service and recieving gifts but quality time is STRONG in this one tbh. You will likely spend alot of time with this person before eventually becoming their lover, they might even be a future friend first (or a current friend maybe?? if the shoe fits >w>)

pile 2

cards drawn: page of wands, reversed strength, judgement,

this person is someone who wants to take you out on dates, they want to spoil you and they are someone who in the future will likely be very attracted to you and realllyyy like passionate about you i feel. They are someone who is all in commitment wise, and they are ready to take things further with you, they are however incredibly insecure person. Like strong acts of services vibes but also this person will likely also be big on words of affirmation because they are so insecure, you will likely have to 'affirm' them as this person is very insecure to a fault. They are big on communication which is a big plus, even though they are very committed to you they will want to know if you are as well and they will want to be able to work out any potential problems you two have, they are someone who wants to communicate, take things further, etc etc. The main energy i get from your next lover is that they will be big on acts of services and words of affirmation because they want to communicate with you and they want to know if you are as committed as they are.

pile 3

cards drawn: reversed the sun, the emperor, reversed eight of wands,

I feel as though this person may not know what they want out of a relationship, so they may not see the good things right away and get bored easily. This person would honestly, probably require quality time because if not they will get bored, they are probably emotionally immature. This person however, even if they can't see the good things right away, feels very stable with you. In the future its obvious that they will like you alot and even be protective of you! Big acts of service vibes just for that protective energy they have, im getting a vibe that this person most likely will be male, but they can be any gender they might just have some traditionally masculine qualities. I'm not sure what love language this falls in but this person wants to take things slow, they probably feel anxious or unsure when they feel things are moving too fast they want things to move slowly, and it's probably better that way with this specific personality as they will need time to see the good things. They probably focus ont he negative alot, but give them time to warm up to you basically.

[drchucktingle]

do you have any advice for writers who are trying to get their first book published?

as usual i will preface this with the reminder there is no 'correct' way to make art. i am not universally 'right' about any of this, but i can let you in on my thoughts and things i have noticed if that helps

more than anything what i would recommend to any artist is to find joy in the TROT, not the result. set goals that are in the action of doing, not in some future ending where you have 'become' something.

in other words, i have never dreamed of being a writer, i dream of writing.

its not about being an actor one day, its about a life of acting. its not about being a painter one day, its about a life of painting. its not about being a singer one day, its about a life of singing. if you can find joy and gratitude and RESONATE WITH THIS TIMELINE through the act of creation, then there really is no stopping you because you are not relying on any external systems to reach your goals you are fueled entirely from yourself. this also accounts for the fact that LUCK AND CIRCUMSTANCE are a huge factor in many of these big dreams, but they are rarely a huge factor in your ability to simply create. you are already a creator, we are all creators

when you do this the timeline will bend to you, not the other way around

as a BUSINESS BUCKAROO i will never do anything that is me BEGGING AND PLEADING for attention from a larger entity (publishing company, tv studio, what the heck ever). i am not over here worried and biting my fingernails. anything that feels like a LOTTO TICKET where i say 'please please please pick me' is not how i operate. instead i love working with buckaroos who see me as an equal entity and the discussion is 'you are cool, we are cool, lets trot together'

how did i get to the place where this is a mutual conversation instead of chuck begging for crumbs of attention? i focused on LOVING THE ACT OF CREATING not the desire to be a creator.

chucks big five publishing deal happened because i wrote a horror novel myself and then tweeted out 'would anyone like to traditionally publish this book?'. no query letters, no agent, THATS IT.

but that is ALSO the short version. the long version is that i spent a decade creating and publishing my own stuff BECAUSE I LOVE CREATING AND PUBLISHING MY OWN STUFF

THAT is how i would recommend approaching these things. YOU are doing your cool as heck thing and when that starts to resonate with this timeline others will be drawn to it. if that means sending out query letters to agents and all that then HECK YEAH go for it bud, just so long as you maintain the MENTALITY that you are looking for an equal partner not a one in a million ticket BECAUSE YOU WILL BE MAKING THIS INCREDIBLE ART ANYWAY, AND IF THEY WANT TO COME ALONG AND RIDE WITH YOU THEN LETS TROT, AND IF NOT LETS STILL TROT BECAUSE YOU ARE A VALID, WORTHY CREATOR REGARDLESS

so i guess thats my publishing advice

[zan0tix]

JAKE AND TRANSFEMININITY: PART 1

IVE ALWAYS WANTED TO TALK ABOUT THIS im gona make a series of posts about jake because. Im crazy and i like writing (will also help me with writing my scripts bc im bad at doing that but im good at yapping on social media lol)

This first post will be about Grandpa Harley because yknow he was the foundation for Jakes text later.

(Take these with a grain of salt bc this is skaianet archive stuff) but Its stated over and over that HIC in both universes Despised Jake because he was a boy and saw him as an annoyance. (The reason he is even named Jake is because HIC just swapped a letter from Jane to make a male name) and this started a pattern of jake being waved off and disregarded.

Already day fucking one as a baby Jake isnt doing gender right😭 his name is a reminder that he isnt what people want him to be.

So he left home and sought off to find adventure at age 13. His shitty home-life already left him with a fraught relationship to his autonomy and control over his life (Again skaianet archives grab that Salt) But he gets groomed and taken advantage of by an older man. I believe this only further Jakes feelings of helplessness and desire to exert power over something.

Grandpa harley would then proceed to try so hard to embody the Old most admirable western masculine archetype to a T. The wealthy globe trotting adventurer/entrepreneur/inventor with female lovers galore and nothing tying him down! A mans man who isnt afraid to get his hands dirty, wrestle a few animals. Wield violence to exert power and control (hunting animals) I see this as his outlet to exert autonomy and establish an Identity for himself but its at the expense of innocent lives. But its how you are seen as successful and powerful living under patriarchy and imperial capitalism.

Though while being this stereotype of old timey masculinity, he has this fascination with a specific brand of femininity. A delicately composed vision, a photoshoot, a performance. Something unachievable.

Its something he brings everywhere he goes. The blue ladies photos and imagery litter both his Hauntswitch house and Jades island house juxtaposing all of his Trophies (taxidermied animals that he obtained through overtly violent masculine means) With his self titled “Beauties/Daughters of Eclectica” (IF THAT ISNT THE MOST OLD GAY MAN THING YOUVE EVER READ. BUT ANYWAY)

Hussie always describes it as “Haha old man jake is horny for blue ladies” but i think the fact he views them as aspirational figures, and holds them in such high regard, Telling Jade that She should aspire to be like them and maybe one day she could take a place amongst them in their elegance and beauty I believe was him projecting; where he believes he isnt able to emulate them because he is a man so he tells jade to instead. (then we see teen jake who is living in more progressive times with his blue lady equivalents and he Directly attempts to Emulate them)

I think theres something more happening here guys nerm..

A. Claire was a Ballerina, A performer of a very traditionally feminine art that is calculated, asking for pin point accuracy with your body as the instrument. The fact he was her “Biggest fan” I assume he went to see alot of her performances and greatly admired her for her beauty and performance skills.

Ive said it before but I dont think he was attracted to her sexually, I think he wished he could be what she was. Embody a finely tuned image of femininity he was barred from ever exploring, so he was drawn to women who could do what he couldnt. And i believe he conflated his gender envy with attraction (teen jake does this too really hard but well get there later) because they didnt have the terms for gender envy or anything back then. Jake grew up in the 1920s. I assume he believed his feelings were average hetero attraction and not something deeper.

I feel like its an elaborate gag that Jake made himself into a straight up Caricature of the burly gruff Adventurer Man. His houses are overflowing with hunting trophies and weaponry like hes over compensating Its insanely comical when you know Really on the inside hes a gay man with a great affection and identification with the effeminate and is actually really loud about it but everyone brushes it off as “Haha what a kooky old geezer!” OBVIOUSLY ALL OF THIS FUNNY. Homestuck is a tragicomedy, everything is simultaneously one huge elaborate gag but also offering commentary on what its pointing and laughing at, in this case its cisheteronormativity (thats the same for an ungodly amount of cases with this work)

I find it tragic, poetic, and endlessly hilarious that his final moments were spent Roleplaying Heterosexuality with a doll He dressed up and put makeup on; made with his image of femininity, and he dies by his own gun, the same kind of weapons that he used to exert violence upon innocent animals in attempt to posture his masculine persona. The ones he arrived to earth with, he was pushed and destined to embody this image of masculinity because of the world he was sent to and the connotations of violence instilled into those weapons by society and reality by Lord English; a being his alt universe self played a great part in shaping. Who too wields a Gun as one of his signature weapons.

Blows smoke off the red hot irony pistols! 😉

PART 2 WILL COME SOON (will add link when it does)

[gb-patch]

Saw an ask about an apparent problem of people drawing Qiu whiter than he is and whitewashing. With that in mind, I think you should hold the same standard for Tamarack for artists that draw her darker than she is to outright black. Tumblr and Twitter in general have an obsession with coloring traditionally white/pale characters the complete opposite race or adding details like kinky/coiled hair and see no issue with it but raise hell the moment a poc is one hue lighter. It erases their identity just as much as everyone says whitewashing does but everyone constantly falls back on the "only whites can be racist so changing their identity in art is okay!!" pipeline

Tamarack comes from a German family and is white, so please take the same level of importance when artists "blackwash" her or any other character in your series.

You know generally, I don’t like to use this blog to as a place to act like I’m the best, most correct person in the world and respond to things where I’m simply telling an anonymous person they’re wrong. I’m just someone who has people following me because they like the stories this company makes.

However, this is something that people should know. If our POC players draw our characters having a darker skin tone than they do in-game and/or give them a different hair texture, that’s alright. I’ve fallen off on reblogging stuff on Tumblr but it’d still be liked or reposted on Twitter.

Whitewashing means far more than the literal act of a single individual making someone look white in a fanart. If a trans player wanted to headcanon a cis character was trans, that’s one thing. If a cis person decided to take the only trans character for miles and insist they are, in fact, cis, well that’s another matter entirely. Your experience with your race and your experience based on sexuality or gender aren’t the same things, it’s not a one-to-one comparison at all. But can people who don’t get it at least start to see how there can be a difference in impact here?

The people who are oppressed in this country aren’t hurting you by trying to enjoy the media that most of the time intentionally excludes them. POC weren’t the ones dehumanizing white people in horrific ways. The overwhelming majority of stories and representations of heritages out there have been and still are white people’s already. Anyone reading this who was thinking along the lines of what’s in this ask need to get comfortable understanding and accepting that. And if you don’t, maybe you should find another game because I’m not going to “protect white identities” from being drawn as people of color. In fact, I think it’s actually really nice if our characters are fun and comforting to people of color so much so that they’d like to imagine those characters being included in their own culture. I think it’s strange that someone would be angry about it.

[pascalcampion]

Winslow Homer 1836-1910. American

When I see an unfinished sketch, or an image that feels drawn by a hand, I experience beauty. I don’t know why. I think it is beauty. It is a feeling I appreciate. I want to hold on to that feeling, Or at least draw it out. It feels like a musical note that doesn’t end. It’s dynamic, not static. It feels pure but I am not sure why. Is the experience of the emotion detached from the image? It needs to be right? Otherwise, everybody would be feeling that same emotion. So,what is it? What is it about a drawn line that makes people feel that,

I look at Homer’s watercolors and I am always caught off guard by that feeling of beauty and awe. Is it the fact that I see a boat, I feel the heat,I sense the passage of time and yet, I am fully aware that my brain is deceiving me? That I am not seeing any of it but just imagining it? I wonder if I read his work through my knowledge of life and that is what creates the feeling of beauty?

Homer's work helped me realize that a body of work is a conversation the artist is having with themselves. Exploring the world and trying to make sense of what is important to them. Homer’s work starts with illustration of war and nostalgic life style images. As he progresses in life, the need for plot devices fades away. It frees his mind to focus on what keeps drawing back to art. Homer still paints everyday scenes but the emphasis is on the relationship between nature and man. The power of one, the place of the other. No commentary, just observations

Themes that were present in his earlier work but hiding by the needs of traditionally accepted beauty, the works that sell. The funny thing is that Homer was broke for most of his life. He only became comfortable in his mid fifties when he would focus on these conversational paintings. Technically,his work gets better, pictorially, it becomes simpler, more bare. There is something reassuring and inspiring about Homer's path. The older he got, the stronger his work became. It seems to go against the thought that artists are like athletes. They go through their heyday first and live to remember them. Homer's path is more like a wine that gains in character as it ages.

[thinkingofausername]

Micah Bell headcanons:

He's only ever seen sleeping after he's gotten drunk so I imagine he has nightmares (aside from the fact he has extreme trust issues and can't let his guard down enough to sleep)

He didn't have a relationship with his mother or she died when he was little or she was abused by her husband. He never mentions her, we don't know anything about her. We know what his view on women is like. I imagine he got it from his father. He definitely wasn't born out of love

He took the majority of his father's wrath. We know firstborn Bells are traditionally named the same, so I believe there was a lot of pressure there

He's actually not all that cynical. He wants to be. All that talk of "nothing matters" is him trying to convince himself

He secretly wants companionship. It's been confirmed that he wanted Dutch to be a part of some sort of family of his. I don't think he's as much of a lone wolf as he wishes he was

He has abandonement issues. His brother left him and made another family and it affected Micah. It's seen in the fact he wrote to Amos as well as his behavior after his brother's answer. After Amos cuts ties with him for good he says "I want tomorrow to mean more than today. I want this whole damn shitshow to have some kinda meanin I haven't understood". He secretly resented his brother for doing what he never could - make a connection. He can only talk to people if he's riling them up

His father definitely forced him to perform his first kill. Probably when he was very young, so he would "toughen up"

In theory, I can see him having a somewhat good relationship. If his partner was tough they would have his respect. Trust would definitely take a while, vulnerability even more so, but I think he would show care in his own way - being posessive and protective, letting them handle his guns and horse (peak trust). We know how much he cares for his belongings. There would probably be passionate, adrenaline-filled sex after action, patching up wounds, cleaning guns together. A "partners in crime" sort of thing

He'd probably like bites and scratches during sex. Marking up his partner as well

He gave into the "hardened outlaw" life because he believes those are the cards he was dealt and the only ones he would ever have. He probably never thought he had a chance to be anything else

He definitely has a phobia of dogs or something similar. He very avidly reacted to Cain every time he got close, he even flinched one time

He genuinely laughed with Javier when they were drunk. He even said "I love you fellas". There was definitely a humane side of him, very deep down

His father never held any pride for him, god forbid praise. He craves hostility because it's the only thing he knows. He purposefully riles people up and laughs off every insult he receives

He obviously held genuine respect and admiration for Dutch. He wasn't just using him or manipulating him or buttering him up for betrayal. I genuinely believe he was looking for a place of his own. He never really showed an authoritative side or desire to lead. He said it himself that he's a survivor. It wasn't ambition, it was just searching for shelter and stability. That's why he ratted - the stability was gone

He died miserable. I could go on and on about his death but the main points are - he calmly accepted getting shot, he shrugged and silently fell to his death. That was not a man who saw a future for himself

I left the most biased headcanon for the end. Not to be the "I can fix him" girl but I genuinely believe a softer side of him could've been drawn out. I believe he could've had a "ride or die" person of his own. Two survivors, watching each other's back, suspicious of others but not each other, enjoying the uncertainty and freedom of life, two loose ends but tied together

[max1461]

I didn't know rationalism of the online rationalists was not the same as the one that has the Wikipedia article. When I first saw the term on Tumblr I went to that article and skimmed it and decided I don't really get what those bloggers' perspectives are. After your post I now have even less knowledge than I did before.

The following is an oversimplification, so for those who have quibbles with the history here, well, forgive me.

Online rationalism was founded by two guys named Eliezer Yudkowsky and Robin Hanson on the blog LessWrong. Of these two figures Yudkowsky has been much more influential. The ideology that Yudkowsky promoted is roughly as follows:

humans are, relatively soon, likely to develop a superintelligent AI which has the capacity to self-improve by rewriting its own code. This will cause the AI's intelligence to rapidly explode beyond anything we can imagine, a process which rationalists onomatopoetically call "FOOM".

This superintelligent AI, if it could be harnessed and controlled, could cure death, and possibly revive all already-dead humans in a simulated world, leading to a technological utopia in which humans have merged with machines; this is called "the singularity" (the idea of the singularity predates the rationalists, and is a broader transhumanist trope).

However, it is almost certain that a superintelligent AI could not be harnessed and controlled; in fact, if such an AI was created, there is a very high probability that it would end the world (in rationalist jargon this is called an "x-risk"), perhaps usurping all of the accessible matter and energy on earth, then in the solar system, then in the galaxy and beyond in pursuit of its inscrutable goals. Thus, humans have a responsibility to make sure we never create such a superintelligent AI (in a recent op-ed in Time, Yudkowsky went so far as to say that the US should use drone strikes to destroy any datacenter found to be training a large AI model).

The reason that people do not recognize the truths above is because people are too irrational to see them. Therefore, people need to be taught to be more rational, by Yudkowsky via the blog LessWrong. The tenets of being more rational are laid out largely in a series of blog posts known as "The Sequences", later published as a book. The main take-aways are: (1) use Bayes' Theorem all the time to estimate the probability of things, and (2) to eliminate one's various cognitive biases, as outlined in The Sequences.

LessWrong attracted a lot of people who did not agree with Yudkowsky about AI, but who liked the Bayes' Theorem stuff and the commentary on cognitive biases. There is a joke that "anyone who has ever disagreed with Yudkowsky is a rationalist". The people who settled on LessWrong were largely drawn from the milieu of Bay Area tech workers, economics blog enthusiasts, and sci-fi fans. They would come to be known as LessWrongers, rationalists, or aspiring rationals. From this group, two major subgroups worth mentioning were spawned:

First is the Effective Altruists. Effective Altruism, to my knowledge, isn't a strictly LessWronger phenomenon, and has also been influenced majorly by philosophers like Peter Singer. However, they have been so intertwined with LessWrongers throughout their history that I think they are worth mentioning as essentially an offshoot of rationalism.

Effective Altruists believe that, in order to do the most good in the world, one should use one's money in a way that does the maximum amount of good per dollar. Rather than e.g. donating to charities willy-nilly based on what feels important, one should use quantitative methods to estimate how much impact each dollar is making, and donate in a way which maximizes that. The Effective Altruists are split along one main ideological line: neartermism vs. longtermism. The neartermists are basically focused on what we would traditionally think of as charitable activities: fighting disease, giving people clean water, that kind of stuff. I think neartermist Effective Altruism is pretty sensible, and I think they've done a lot of good work evaluating charities and so on. GiveWill is an essentially neartermist Effective Altruist organization, and I think their activities are very worth supporting.

The longtermists, on the other hand, are focused on "the long-term interests of humanity". They are, well, in my opinion, basically a bunch of people trying to turn their sci-fi fantasies into a reality. They are often very worried about AI x-risk, like Yudkowsky, and they're often pro-singularity, and sometimes pro-eugenics, and a bunch of other stuff. Remember Sam Bankman-Fried, the guy who committed the largest act of financial fraud in human history? Well, he was an Effective Altruist with some longertermist sympathies. Some of the money that he stole he actually gave to worthwhile charities, but some of it he used on stupid longtermist sci-fi fantasy shit. His girlfriend Caroline Ellison, who helped him do a bunch of that fraud, was a member of rationalist tumblr. Some of my mutuals were mutuals with her.

The other major group spawned out of LessWrong were the Neoreactionaries, or NRx. These guys, too, weren't a purely LessWronger phenomenon; they were also majorly influenced by people such as the philosopher Nick Land (former student of Baudrillard, who took a far-right turn in the 2000s and started advocating for "hyper-racism") and blogger Curtis Yarvin a.k.a. "Mencius Moldbug". These guys are a rag-tag group of authoritarians, eugenicists, and racists, who are interested in rationality insofar as they view it as a path that leads to their desired sci-fi-inflected far-right future.

Oh, right, last but not least I should define the term "rat-adj". It means "rationalist-adjacent". Uh. So, I was never a LessWronger, and as I think my description makes clear, I find like 90% of this rationalist stuff either goofy or actively harmful. But I have, somehow, ended up basically acquainted with a bunch of people formerly or presently part of the LessWrong milieu, and in light of this I am what one calls "rationalist-adjacent". I talk to various rationalist bloggers somewhat often. And most of them are much more normal than all this would suggest, part of the rationalist discursive sphere but not really believers in the imminent AI apocalypse. Uh. So, there you go.

[another-chaotic-bisexual-vampire]

when drawing / picturing / imagining R.M Renfield, let's look at today's text for some clues:

wrenched out a window with his bare hands

scaled a high wall that Seward needed a ladder to climb over

described as "immensely strong"

took three to four other men (plus Seward?) to restrain him

So while Renfield has been traditionally cast and costumed and drawn, etc. as a scrawny, crazy l'il guy... what if in fact he's more, like... pick any of your favorite 40-something / 50-something movie star with a superhero physique?

[maxdibert]

The sad thing is that we don’t even get to see any uncomplicatedly happy memories of his innocent childhood friendship with Lily. There’s this pervasive sense from the start of that chapter that JKR thinks that even 9 year old Lily was too good for him (the horrid judgemental use of the word ‘greedy’ and that quote she once gave where she said Snape’s tragedy was that he was drawn to but couldn’t emulate Lily’s innate goodness makes me hurl - what was so innately different about them aged 9 other than her good looks and middle class parents?) and so every single scene is her chastising him for something or other. Like she couldn’t allow saintly Lily to be seen as genuinely choosing and enjoying the company of someone as prickly and offputting as Snape, so she time skips 5 years and just tells us instead of showing us that they’re best friends. Unfortunately by failing to show any gentle, unspoiled moments the whole thing comes off like Lily sees him as a charity case she condescends to hang out with on occasion, while Severus fails to get the picture that clinging hard to someone who doesn’t want that is always going to end in a toxic place for both parties. Sorry for the super long post! It’s just rare to find someone who doesn’t buy into JKR’s intended reading of the Potter parents.

This is quite an interesting topic because even years ago, when I re-read the series at 19 or 20 and was quite involved in political groups and unions at university, I got the impression that Rowling creates a world where classism is constantly justified unless you are on the side of the bad guys. That is to say, Draco being a classist is wrong because he’s Draco, and he’s bad, and he’s Slytherin. But then you have quite a few characters who have clear classist attitudes and nothing happens because they are part of the heroes of the story, and so we’re going to completely overlook it. For example, Sirius is a classist; he always has been and even has nothing against slavery and treats his house-elf like rubbish. He doesn’t even consider him a conscious and independent living being; he’s just a bug to him. The Weasleys have a clear class resentment; they are humble and are sold to us as open-minded and tolerant people, but the reality is that if someone doesn’t fit into their narrow standards of “goodness,” they shut down and are just as petty and prejudiced as any blood supremacist. The best example of this is how the Weasley women treat Fleur simply because, instead of being a humble pick-me girl, she’s posh. But the fact is that Fleur has done absolutely nothing wrong for Ginny and Molly to treat her that way; her only sin is being beautiful and feminine, end of story. It’s supposed to be a story to learn that prejudices are wrong, but Hermione spends her life labelling other girls like the Patils or Lavender (before Lavender gets involved with Ron) as frivolous because they like doing things that are traditionally classified as feminine, which reveals that Rowling has quite a few prejudices against certain groups of women and their attitudes, stemming from a clear internalised misogyny that is present throughout the novel. You only have to look at how she glorifies motherhood as the pinnacle of female fulfilment and the real way to become a moral and brave example within the saga (Lily and Molly, Narcissa being redeemed ONLY because she loves her son) compared to the female characters who either haven’t seen motherhood as a dream come true (Merope Gaunt) or who have no children (Bellatrix), who are portrayed as little less than the worst of the worst in the story.

What I mean by this is that Rowling has quite a significant cognitive dissonance when it comes to establishing the moral values of the story. Because this is not A Song of Ice and Fire; it’s not a multi-voiced story with various perspectives from which you can develop your own complex criteria. It’s a story told from a single point of view where the dichotomy between good and evil is a central point of conflict, but is often blurred by quite a few contradictions that have no explanation, not even theoretically. I mean, the social themes in this story are terribly mismanaged and portrayed in a very superficial way. In the end, the conclusion you draw is that Gryffindor’s mission, the Order, or Harry’s is basically to defeat Voldemort to continue preserving the same status quo in which the magical world has always been immersed, with no intention of going to the root of the problems and taking action for real change. But well, we’re talking about a story written by a woman who turns her protagonist into the magical equivalent of a cop. I mean, LOL. I mean, ACAB, what can I say.

I say all this because when we talk about James and Lily, all of this applies in the same way. James and Lily make no sense. James and Lily are an example of what should NOT be done when writing a script, for instance. In screenwriting, the premise is always show, don't tell. But Lily and James are purely the tell. Lily and James are known for what other characters tell us about them, totally subjective characters, especially those who were friends with the couple. They are presented as great heroes when the reality in canon is that they did nothing. They joined the Order, were in it for a year, and then spent a year and a half holed up at home with their child, then they died, and that’s it. They can be treated as something tragic, but heroic? I wouldn’t say so.

They are also shown as paradigms of "the good ones," of the "correct morality," especially Lily, who is basically the Virgin Mary of this story and seems to have no flaws at all. But the reality is that if we go to canon, everything Lily does is a constant failure. Lily is condescending to Severus from the very beginning, probably because he is poorer than she is. Then she treats him as a charity case, which is already annoying her because he’s too geeky, odd, and marginal, causing her problems in her social circles. Then she half-smiles at his abuser while he is mistreating and humiliating him in front of the entire school. And then she marries that abuser. You can tell me whatever you want about Lily Potter, but what you’re showing me is rubbish, and if you show me rubbish but tell me wonderful things, there’s something that doesn’t add up, and for me, that’s the greatest failure of all.

If I have to be honest, I go back to what I mentioned before: for me, Lily had a huge inferiority complex. She felt inferior in the Muggle world because perhaps she wasn’t poor, but her family didn’t live in a good area either; they were probably lower middle class, without status or a promising future. At Hogwarts, she felt inferior for being the daughter of Muggles, so throughout her life, she secretly wanted to be part of the elite, to stand out, to be popular, to be seen as something important. That a boy like James Potter—handsome, wealthy, popular, with pure-blood status—would take an interest in her never displeased her. Deep down, she liked it; it was what she wanted. In the end, she gave in and married him, and she was probably very happy with her decision because that way, she ended up at the pinnacle of the social ladder. Of course, she liked James deep down for a long time; as Rowling once said. She liked what James represented, what he could mean for her. She would no longer just be the good student, pretty, nice, and popular; she would also have one of the most popular boys in school as a partner, who was also rich and of pure blood. I think that deep down, she and Petunia are quite similar in that regard, both seeking social ascent, each in their own way. After all, they were sisters.