#and yes these are pictures of the screen bc fuck streaming services

[dalbitpotion]

[transxfiles]

I originally followed you for Lumberjanes and because you felt like a friend, but after seeing so much about Star Trek...I’m curious. What’s the premise and where can I watch it? (Explain it to me like you’d explain it to a child, I don’t watch live action TV)

I want to start out by saying that this ask is so sweet and it made my day, so thank you so much :D 

Star Trek is a bit hard to explain in a sense simply because there’s so much of it. I’m gonna stick to what I know (and what I post about) which is The Original Series (other people will abbreviate it to TOS, I abbreviate it to STOS bc I think of it as ‘Star Trek Original Series’) which came out in the 1960s, and I'll briefly explain Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST: TNG or just TNG), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9), and Star Trek: Discovery (often simply referred to as Discovery, ST Disco, Disco, etc.) bc I post a bit abt them too, though not as much.

The Original Series is what I mainly watch. It’s about a crew of people from all over Earth (and some other planets, but mostly from Earth) who are traveling in a spaceship called the Enterprise. They’re supposed to be finding new worlds and species, but really they just fuck around and find out. Most of the time they don’t even follow basic lab safety, which gets them into many shenanigans that will have you yelling at the television abt how stupid they are. 

This is Captain Kirk. He’s a Human from Riverside, Iowa and his job on the ship is basically to be dumb and pretty. In a good way. He comes up with some good plans and some bad plans, but no matter what he’ll pretty much always divert an entire mission to save his First Officer, Spock. He’s a romantic who likes flowers and antique books, and doesn’t know what black holes are. 

This is Spock! He’s in charge of Science with a capital S (we don’t really know specifics, but he’s really smart...) and he’s Captain Kirk’s first officer. He’s the only main character who’s an alien - he’s half-Human, half-Vulcan, and was raised on Vulcan by his Vulcan father and Human mother. Vulcans are a species who, unlike Humans, follow a strict philosophy of logic, which means that Spock often appears emotionless and unfeeling to his Human coworkers. Every seven years after hitting puberty, he goes into a mating frenzy when this logic leaves him and he has to have sex or he’ll die. He really likes playing chess, hanging out with Captain Kirk, and the word ‘fascinating’. He does not like McCoy, which is reasonable, because McCoy is basically space racist.

This is McCoy, sometimes referred to by the nickname Bones. He’s the Chief Medical Officer of the ship, an old country doctor from Georgia, and it’s implied that he’s working in space because of his divorce back on Earth. He spends a lot of time with the main crew which will make you question who’s actually on ship taking care of the Medbay. He likes hyposprays (super fast space shots that work like a charm) and drinking hard liquor on the job. He’s an old friend of the Captain. He’s incredibly xenophobic; he does not get along with Spock, and often refers to Spock using words that in-universe are essentially slurs against Vulcans. 

These two guys are Sulu (on the left) and Chekov (on the right). They navigate the spaceship. Sulu likes fencing, botany, and messing with Chekov. He’s friends with everyone on the ship. At one point Space Madness causes Sulu to run through the ship with a fencing foil shirtless and cackling. Chekov’s Russian and won’t shut up about it. He claims that everything was invented in Russia, including but not limited to the book Alice In Wonderland and the invention of the Warp Drive. One of his best lines is “Oh yes, I’ll live, but I won’t enjoy it.” 

In this photo, we see Uhura (on the left) and Scotty (on the right). Uhura’s in charge the ship’s Communications Officer and is a xenolinguist, which means she’s a master of pretty much all known alien languages. She likes big earrings and has a beautiful singing voice. Scotty (on the right) is the ship’s Chief Engineer, who fixes all the problems when Kirk or aliens break the ship. He’s Scottish and you won’t ever forget it. He and Bones are probably drinking buddies.

This is Nurse Chapel. She runs the Medbay when Bones is dancing around on the Bridge or various alien planets. She’s pretty chill and has a little crush on Spock that sometimes causes problems. She and Uhura hang out sometimes.

And finally, this is Yeoman Rand. She and Sulu hang out sometimes. She also vibes with Uhura. I’m not really sure what her exact job is - she delivers food to people sometimes, but she also eats it when no one’s looking. She has the wackiest hairdo on the show. I love her so much.

As far as plot goes, in The Original Series, there isn’t any. They run around on alien planets and sometimes little paper mâché rocks are thrown at them from offscreen. Sometimes they fight Klingons, which are their main enemy (though that doesn’t happen a lot). Sometimes they end up on a planet that’s entirely composed of gangsters from the 1930s and 1940s, sometimes they end up on a planet that’s actually run by the Greek god Apollo, sometimes they end up on a planet but all the people on it are being eaten by space ravioli, sometimes they end up on a planet and a space ghost is killing people to eat their fear, etc. 

You can watch The Original Series on Netflix, and you can generally find copies of it in various Google Drive folders or on video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo. There are also six movies: The Motion Picture, The Wrath Of Khan, The Search For Spock, The Voyage Home, The Final Frontier, and The Undiscovered Country. But really you can stop watching after The Voyage Home if you want.

Star Trek: The Next Generation is basically the first series but with more plot, and we have some more aliens plus an android in the mix. Also the characters aren’t nearly as stupid as they are in The Original Series, which makes for less yelling at the screen. (You can watch this on Netflix)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine focuses on a group of people who work on a space station instead of a spaceship. There are some humans in the mix, but this crew also has a bunch of aliens. There is a bunch of plot, and religion, and the aftermath of war and colonialism. (You can watch this on Netflix)

Star Trek: Discovery has the most plot, and follows Spock’s adopted sister, Michael Burnham, after she accidentally starts the war between the Klingon Empire and the Federation. She ends up serving on a spaceship called the Discovery, where she starts working to discover the secrets of the ship and those who work on it. (You can watch this on CBS’s streaming service but it’s not worth it to get a streaming service just so you can watch one show so I recommend just buying the DVDs on sale at like, Target, if you really wanna see it).

Sorry this ended up being kinda long, I hope this is helpful! The main takeaway is that The Original Series is mostly just a bunch of science fiction short stories in TV episode format. 

[theresa-of-liechtenstein]

an art by em year in review!

2020 was frankly awful but, on the bright side, this has still been a year of firsts: the first year i’ve consistently done art, the first year i actually intentionally explored different art “styles” (frankly i’m still hesitant to call them styles, if only because nothing’s changed except the way i outline and color), and the year i bothered to figure out autodesk sketchbook

some unsolicited commentary below the cut

january: i’m amazed that’s theresa like GIRL u are unrecognizable. so blessed that she moved past her fiona from shrek phase ❤️ i still like the tiara though that took ages for me to do

february: ah yes, the meme picture of the 13th doctor and sacha dhawan master that made me slightly famous on twitter (we don’t talk abt it.) it’s still funny but the inconsistency in line thickness is. oof. i’m glad i caught that later on

march aka when it all went down: first lineless art! barbara is so cool like wtf,,, i remember not touching the first doctor’s run initially bc one of my friends back in c*tholic sch**l had something against him (i literally don’t even remember what at this point) so naturally, not having had access to streaming services at the time, i thought he must not be too good but then i watched it during the phase of the pandemic where everything seemed like an early spring break and barbara reminded me of my favorite english teacher so i—this isn’t even about the art at this point wtf. anyway this took me a long time and really helped me understand layers let’s move on

april: another lineless! this time theresa! the jewelry is literally the same as january’s portrait lol but i switched the dress. i don’t know why but i’ve always gravitated to having her wear blue green. i’m trying to break out of it though. anyway i thought she looked too orange but i had already finished so there wasn’t much i could do about it, but looking back it doesn’t look so bad. only thing i’d fix is that i can’t see her nose if i squint (same issue with many of my other lineless drawings, so i should really get on that)

may: oooo hello aileen, otherwise known as the politiciansona! (god i’m never typing that again) tbh i think this ones a step back from the progress i made in march and april with regard to lineless art, and it shows; after this i started gravitating toward line art again

june: you can see that here! i tested out two new brushes and decided to ditch the realism bent i was treading towards, and i still think it’s really cute! ALSO apparently i didn’t realize eyelid creases were a thing til this month,,, no wonder everyone used to say all the people i drew “looked asian” they just all had monolids apparently

july: the infamous hawaiian shirts cp fanart. i was supposed to color in carolyn’s sunglasses but by the time i noticed i had forgotten to do it, the post had blown up so...i just didn’t fix it. anyway that’s the most people i’ve drawn at once and it was a labor of love

august: here we see the proto-notions of cp characters being filipino in my head, starting surprisingly with herc. my reason being him saying “what a ridiculous dog” about snoopadoop in ottery when he and carolyn meet up. like no “hello, how are you, are you doing well?” he just goes straight to calling snoopadoop ridiculous. that’s got the most filipino vibes. this was verified by my dad

september: ah yes, the politicansona again. i included this one bc i liked the detail work i had put in on the robes,, no i won’t provide context i’ll just say that was for practice,,yes just for practice,,stinky bitch fuck ofF

october: i really liked this picture when i drew it and i even put it as a widget on my phone screen but honestly i’ve fallen out of love with it,,, there’s a lot that just looks awkward. looking back i think this is the point where i realized it may be time for a redesign (reconceptualization? is that even a word????) of the cp fam

november: my first work with my new tablet! otherwise known as theresa doesn’t know how to cook (may be projection idk). anyway it was good practice for expressions. yes that’s a ratio test behind her, because i thought it provided maximum comedic value and also i loved that part of single variable calculus

december: i think this is the best thing i’ve drawn this year. and since this year is the best i’ve been yet, this drawing is probably the best i’ve done so far, ever. i returned roaring to my lineless art and improved my coloring by using references instead of the preset colors in the app. like those are better skin colors. so much better. it makes me choked up a little, because that’s what my skin looks like. that’s MY skin color. i used to be so ashamed of being darker and loved winter bc i looked more light skinned in winter but now i’m so proud to be morena, even when my fam in the philippines are shocked that i’m not pale and skinny like american actresses (i’m not joking my father’s godmother literally said “why,,, are you dark” and i was like “....sun.”) and drawing barong tagalog is so special to me because all the representation we get are crumbs. CRUMBS. if we see someone who looks vaguely southeast asian, let alone wearing a translucent shirt, we go WILD. so this is also one of the most self-indulgent things i’ve ever drawn because i drew carolyn like family. THAT’S MY MATERNAL GRANDMOTHER’S FILIPINIANA. THAT’S MY PATERNAL GRANDMOTHER’S HAIRSTYLE. i never met my paternal grandmother and everyone tells me i look like her. so filipino carolyn looks a lot like her, and also maybe me. and it means so much and hfhrheheuejeh this was going somewhere but uuuuhhhhhh i’m crying looking at my own art it feels so silly but here i am!!! i love being filipino!!! i love cabin pressure!!! i love herc and carolyn!!! filipino herc and carolyn loving each other!!! yeah!!!

happy new year. here’s to getting out of one dumpster fire and being told to put out another. stay safe, happy, and healthy. and let’s do this with love.

[professional-anti]

Chapter Eight: Weapon of Choice

Heyyyyy!! Sorry, life has been cray, and it’s never gonna change, unfortunately. But guys, dw, I am dedicated. Also, weirdly, doing this has made me appreciate books even more? It’s so much fun to talk abt books, and I learn so much, even if it’s a book I hate. Okay, getting started (pray for me):

We last left off with Clary jumping thru the surprise door, like one does. Jace lands on top of her, yay, OTP moment, gag me. There’s a nice little detail where “Clary coughed hair (not her own) out of her mouth” which kind of captures the chaos and would be cute if it were an actual good ship. I hate when that happens. Jace criticizes Clary, FINALLY for a valid reason.

It turns out they’re at Luke’s house. Oh, classic, he lives in Williamsburg, the gentrified hipster paradise. Where else would a man who wears flannel live? Even more classic, he lives behind a bookstore. Clare is obviously one of those heavy-handed authors who has exactly two professions for her Intellectual Men™: bookseller and evil Giles.

I’m going to shake Clary. She doesn’t know why they’re here, despite having thought “I want to go where my mom would have gone” right before jumping. Like, bitch??? Do you have a brain? I’m cryingfff

Clary decides she wants to leave, even though there’s cleary something super sketch abt Luke. He’s so obviously protecting her, so he must know something, right? Well, Clary rubs her two brain cells together and decides, nope, nothing to see here! Time to go home!

Jace, being reasonable for once, is like, yo, maybe we should stay. They run into Simon, so you know there’s gonna be Dramaz. Jace and Simon apparently devolve into primordial wild dogs driven by the intense urge to fight for the girl dog so they can screw and produce puppies that are as annoying as they are. Here is what everyone is doing:

Clary is fixing Simon’s hair bc she’s a Woman Simon is pushing Clary’s hand away bc he’s Annoyed Jace is using his stele to file his nail bc he’s Not Paying Attention

There’s some horrible forced tension between Simon and Clary, where he’s all, “Clary, you ran away from me, I thought I and my dick upset you,” and Clary’s all, “Never, Simon, I love you,” and Simon cums. Not actually, instead he slut shames Clary:

“Yeah, well, you clearly also couldn’t be bothered to call me and tell me you were shacking up with some dyed-blond wanna-be goth you probably met at Pandemomonium”

On the one hand, draaaaag him, Simon!! Jace IS a peroxide blond who listens Evanescence (I almost wrote MCR before googling it and learning that if I wrote that, about a million punks would stream into my inbox in tears).

Simon’s eyes are “dark with suspicion”. which is just annoying. Yes, I would be so fucking annoyed if my friend ran out on me and then disappeared and then reappeared with a blond guy. But I’d also do some more questioning of the situation. Is she okay? Why is she with such a rude guy? Is he hurting her? Was she kidnapped? Is she being held against her will? Is this a drug thing? Does she need my help? Why did Luke cover for her? Is something deeper going on? Instead Simon is all possessive Nice Guy.

Apparently Simon spied on Luke packing a duffel bag of weapons. So he couldn’t give Clary any benefit of the doubt? It sounds like her family is caught in a bad situation! Maybe she had to hide for her life! Simon, use your brain!!

kajlkfaklsdjfalksdflk Clary tells Simon everything, and Simon asks if they kill all these different magical creatures, and Jace says ONLY WHEN THEY’VE BEEN NAUGHTY a;dlfjals;kdjfl;asdjfl;aksdjf hahahahahahahah This image that Clare is going for is just sooooo overdrawn. This dialogue, omfg.

Simon loses his mind and excitedly compares everything that’s been going on to D&D. Let’s totally forget abt the fact that Clary’s mom is missing, or that Luke just filled a duffel bags with murder sticks, shall we?

Jace and Simon have a bizarre conversation, and then they walk. In. The. Back. Door. Bc Luke doesn’t lock his back door. Bc that’s totally not something that someone who fills a duffel bag with weapons would do. At least the door to the bookstore is locked, though Jace opens it pretty easily with his stele. Why didn’t Luke have Jocelyn fix up some wards or something?

Simon asks Clary how she stands Jace, and she’s like “he saved me life” and he’s like “huh?” even though she told him everything that happened. Why is Simon so dumb. I guess all his blood is in his dick? Wouldn’t surprise me.

They find manacles in the wall, so either Luke and Jocelyn have (even more) hidden depths, or Luke practices

Luke’s apartment is filled with books. Of course. Look, I love books. I have about 500 in my room at this moment. I buy them constantly, I get from the libarary, I read and read and read. I think most of us on booklr do. But when every single Good Character in your book has books, it’s boring. And no one has unique book taste. What if all of Luke’s books were nature books? Jack London? Travel guides? That would paint a picture. Instead he has a bunch of fantasy and other fiction. That’s boring. I learn nothing, bc every goddamn person in this goddamn book reads fantasy. It’s so fucking generic. I totally approve of “good” characters admiring and liking reading bc that’s how you get ideas, and that’s how Lemony Snicket rolls, but there are more books than fantasy and mystery (the other main type that Lucas has) in the world. Justice Strauss has an inexhaustive library. Uncle Monty has all those books about snakes. Lucky Smells just has that one history of Lucky Smells. Already, you know so much abt each person (and place) by what books they have. We learn nothing about Luke.

Clary finds the overnight bag she leaves at Luke’s and changes clothes. I mention this only bc she puts on “a blue tank top with a design of Chinese characters across the front” bc of COURSE she is That Bitch. I hope it translates to something like “Radishes” or “Bridge”.

Luke’s bedroom has a shelf of “Indian statues and Russian icons” which, idk, makes me a little uncomfortable. These sound like things that are holy to someone. But I think the worst part is that Clary says, “Luke collects stuff. Art objects. You know … Pretty things.” I just googled it, and Hindu statues, like the one Luke has of Kali, are seen as actual avatars of gods. Clary is diminishing someone’s god to a “pretty thing”. It’s not a nick-nack or a trinket. (If you know more abt this, like if I’m wildly off-base, feel free to send me an ask!)

Jace finds the Metaphor known as a smashed picture of Luke, Jocie, and Clary, which Clary threw at the Ravener in her apartment, so realize that Luke went back through the apartment. Jace says that Luke must have gone through the Portal-potty last, so it brought them here. I’m still team Clary Asked to Go Where Her Mother Would Have Gone and Therefore the Portal did What it Was Supposed to Do and Brought Her Where She Wanted.

Luke and some warlocks show up, so Clary and co. hide behind the super convenient silk screen. Jace uses his sonic stele to make the screen transparent and we get this gem:

Jace shook his head at them both, mouthing words: They can’t see us through it, but we can see them.

Bc mouthing works that well. You don’t mouth compound sentences!! You mouth something simple like they can’t see us. Simon and Clary already know they can see Luke and the warlocks bc they’re looking at them right now! And this spell or whatever that Jace did takes the tension in the scene waaaaaay down. If they can’t see Luke, then everything becomes more tense. Are the voices getting closer to the screen? Is somebody about to reveal them? Instead, all the tension is drained in a dumb quick-fix.

Bc Clare thinks we’re stupid, she adds “It was frightening even though [Clary] knew [Luke] couldn’t see her, that the window Jace had made was like the glass in a police station interrogation room: strictly one-way.”

GD ARE YOU THERE??????? STOP THIS.

Jace realizes that the warlocks are actually Shadowhunters dressed as warlocks. Idk how he can tell, but whatever. He conveys this by whispering, so I don’t know what the mouthing nonsense was earlier.

The Shadowhunters are named Blackwell (redhead) and Pangborn (gray mustache). What sorts of names. It’s like Clare used a fantasy-name-generator. Who are we kidding, that’s totally what she did. Pangborn picks up the Kali statue and this conversation happens:

“Ah,” said Pangborn, taking the statue from his companion. “She who was created to battle a demon who could not be killed by any god or man. ‘Oh, Kali, my mother full of bliss! Enchantress of the almighty Shiva, in they delirious joy thou dancest, clapping thy hands together. Thou art the Mover of all that moves, and we are but thy helpless toys.’” “Very nice,” said Luke. “I didn’t know you were a student of the Indian myths.” “All the stories are true,” said Pangborn, and Clary felt a small shiver go up her spine. “Or have you forgotten even that?” “I forget nothing,” said Luke.

So the Shadowhunter mythology is that all religions are true? Inch resting. I vaguely remember this. Idk how I feel about this. The Shadowhunters are still gonna be super Christian no matter what lip-service Clare pays to other religions. She has angels! And demons! She’s trying to be inclusive, but it’s never really gonna work, bc she’s doing it in name only. But at the same time, I wouldn’t want her to mess with any religion but Christianity or, sigh, Judaism. Christianity bc it’s the dominant religion and can’t be marginalized (different denominations can be, but not Christianity as a whole) and Judaism bc she’s Jewish. There’s not very much Jewish in these books, though. Yeah, there are angels in Judaism, but it’s not really the Jewish Vibe. A book influenced by Judaism would have a lot of magic based on specific wording, and arguments, and Hebrew and Hebrew-derived languages. This book uses Latin and is into angels. It’s Christian-influenced, which is fine, I guess, but the lip-service to other religions doesn’t ring true. But also, saying “Christianity is the one religion!” is super upsetting and she shouldn’t do that. I don’t really know where I’m going with this, I’m literally thinking on the page. Do you guys have any thoughts on this? Please hit up my ask box or talk about this in the notes! This discussion really interests me, and I want to get diverse opinions.

Luke asks if Valentine sent them (he did) and if their clothes “are official Accord robes” “from the Uprising?” (they are). Wow. The Uprising. What a descriptive name! We don’t call things “the Uprising” in real life. It’s more like, “The French Revolution.” “The Cultural Revolution.” “The Revolutionary War.” “The Civil War.” Am I being unfair?” I guess someone right after one of the French Revolutions might just say “the Revolution.” But something about The Uprising is so boring. And aren’t there more than one Uprising? There should be. The Warlock Uprising. The Vampire Uprising. It doesn’t have to be all internal. Any organized group would rise against the Clave. The Clave is legit the worst.

It turns out Luke’s real name is Lucian AND. I. AM. DYING. Luke is Lucius Malfoy, confirmed!! Let’s do a list of what we know so far:

Clary: Ginny Jace: Draco Jocelyn: I’m getting Bellatrix vibes? Bc of the whole in-love-with Voldemort thing? Valentine: I don’t know?? I can’t think of who he could be??? We’ll have to leave this blank for now I guess :/ Hodge: Giles. Not a HP character, but this is a crossover event with Buffy. Isabelle: Pansy Parkinson Alec: I actually don’t know here. He’s the GBF. Simon: Does Harry make sense? They’re both boring nice guys (don’t @ me!)

This game is getting boring, let’s move on. Luke apparently used to fight with B and P, so we know he’s a Shadowhunter (or, if you’ve read this book before, you know he used to be one). Then he tells them he doesn’t know where the Mortal Cup is (they think Jocelyn hid it).

CLARY IS SO FUCKING DUMB OMFG. P and B talk about how Jocelyn hasn’t regained consciousness and Valentine wants to see her again (using her name) and Clary goes:

Jocelyn? Can they be talking about my mother?

NO THE OTHER FUCKING JOCELYN. CLARY HOW RU STILL ALIVE.

CC must think her readers are really dumb and can’t figure anything out on their own:

“I’ve never felt any way about [Jocelyn], particularly,” said Luke. “Two Shadowhunters, exiled from their own kind, you can see why we might have banded together. But I’m not going to try to interfere with Valentine’s plans for her, if that’s what he’s worried about.”

He might as well have said, “Jocelyn and I were both exiled. EXILED. We were exiled. We were exiled as fuck. Do you get it? Reading context clues is hard, so I’m saying WE WERE EXILED.” The quasi-warlocks should have responded like, “Yeah? We know you both were exiled? We were there?”

Blackwell refers to Jocelyn as “that bitch” bc institutionalized mysoginy is the absolute best! I love when vicious sexism is included for no reason! Bc also these guys aren’t any worse than Luke! Bc may I remind you that Luke was basically a supremacist! Just like them!

For some reason, these idiots believe Lucius when he tells them that he’s not close with Jocie. Then please explain why you both live in Brooklyn.

P and B threaten to make Luke stay in the city, and Luke threatens them, and somehow they let this happen? In other news, Clary is still dumb as rocks. She’s super hurt that Luke said that he doesn’t care about Jocie bc she has about 0 critical thinking skills. We’re talking none. She could have someone whispering the answers in her ear and still bomb the SAT.

Jace thinks that P and B think Luke “knows more than he’s telling” so why would they let him go???? Then Jace reveals that P and B murdered his dad, and this chapter is OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Someone bring me a Bloody Mary. It’s how I feel inside.