#background character who was in the book for five pages !

[dolokhoded]

my toxic trait is scrolling over every post talking about andrei or pierre im sorry i cant help it i know some of them are actually very well thought out but i've progressed so far past the need to consume any content about male protagonists whose stories are greatly depended on female characters being mistreated by the narrative and treated solely as storytelling devices to boost the mens' stories thinking about them for more than 3 seconds will piss me off peace and love

[bogkeep]

Would you recommend the SSSS comic? I know little of it beside the very beautiful artstyle and premise

to answer the question of if i would recommend SSSS as a comic: yes, yes i would.

a description for those who don't know: Stand Still Stay Silent is a post-apocalyptic horror + adventure webcomic set in the nordics (norway, sweden, denmark, finland, iceland) that have been isolated from the rest of the world and gone back to their old gods. the the world outside of safe zones is full of trolls and beasts - humans and mammals that got infected by a horrible virus and turned into monsters. the story follows a ragtag crew that ventures into the old world (derelict denmark) on an expedition to collect books.

the comic updated every workday until it concluded in 2022, and consists of two Adventures. the creator had plans for many adventures with these characters in this world, but ended it after two when she wanted to take a new direction with her life.

what i love about it:

- the art is GORGEOUS. it's been a huge source of inspiration for me. open any page and it's a masterpiece, and you will ask yourself "how the FUCK did she update this FIVE DAYS A WEEK"

- the characters are wonderful and endearing. i just, i love them so much. i am so thankful lalli hotakainen exists he is one of my #1 blorbos forever

- the world is so cool. the blend of chunky sci-fi and norse mythology fantasy magic slaps. it goes so hard. i fell so hard for this comic when i got to the big ferry ship with a viking style dragon head prow added to it. it's everything

- it really really gets nordic cultures. it's difficult to explain all the dynamics and nuances but it just gets it. it brings me as a scandinavian a lot of joy to read a story that speaks to my heart this way. the attitudes, the language barriers, the cultural differences... it was so refreshing to me in a media landscape dominated by american stories. when the pandemic hit, i decided to reread the comic because i found such an odd comfort in seeing how it depicted the scandinavian countries reacting to, well, a pandemic.

- there's kittycats

what i don't like about it:

- the most glaring and obvious flaw is that everyone in the comic is white. there's not a single character of color anywhere, not even i background shots or the prologue. there's no mention of the saami people (the indigenous people of northern europe), either. i believe this was done in ignorance more than malicious intent, but the implications are Extremely Bad and it's been bothering me (AND MANY OTHERS) since day 1. that is the number one caveat i will give to anyone wanting to check this comic out. i've been in the discourse trenches and i am not going to excuse this. it's just bad!

- you can tell in the middle of adventure 2 that the creator has kind of lost interest in the work, around the time when she found jesus i guess. like, very few people can keep up work on the same creative project for years and years and years and i think it's fine that she wanted to drop it, but it's a bit sad to see the comic dragged to its end like a limp corpse, and feeling like the creator no longer really cares about the characters.

- minna sundberg has said and done some questionable things, presumably gotten somewhat radicalised over time, and has also converted to hardcore christianity which is what her new works are about. there's nothing about this in SSSS - there is a moment of christianity represented in the story in a sort of mythological sense, just like the other religions, but this was written before minna's conversion. her new works... are a Choice. i have much to say about them, and i have, and im not gonna rehash it now.

SO YEAH hopefully this will help you take an Informed Choice! i got into this comic in 2015 and was deep in the fandom and it's for better or for worse part of my soul foundation now.

i also recommend A Redtail's Dream, minna's "practice comic" before SSSS, based on finnish mythology and the kalevala.

[pfffsfic]

okay. okay this is not a serious theory but every time I think about it I come up with new "evidence" for it. basically the gist of it is TAWOG'S SHAPE PEOPLE ARE EUCLYDIANS. maybe refugees? "but didn't everyone in eucyldia die?" ignore that. just pretend they skipped town before the fire or something, this is not airtight. it's not even close. it's basically a joke treated seriously. i know the shows are not in the same universe but

hear me out.

Part 1: At face value.

point numnber one: these guys are 2D. the gumball universe has 3D people and 2D people, and the Shape People are 2D, or drawn as opposed to modeled.

point number two: physical traits! other than the obvious 'they are shapes', some or all of the Shape People:

Lack visible mouths (mind you, these Shape People's mouths appear when they speak). Bill also lacks a visible mouth but very occasionally gets one (one page of the Book of Bill, a polaroid in the Weirdmageddon intro).

Can have one eye. the rectangle in the top image is a one-eyed shape person, but there's also this familiar-looking yellow one-eyed triangle Shape Person (who pre-dates Bill's first proper appearance, by the way):

They have noodle arms. little noodle arms

this one is hard to explain but the positions of their arms aren't fixed. this applies to all/most Gumball characters but not to all gravity falls characters. how do I explain this uhh

look at how one of his arms is attached to his bottom plane and one is attached to his side plane. sometimes both of them hang down at the bottom and sometimes both are on the sides. POINT IS-

look at that!

in the rightmost image above you can also see a tiny sliver of a 3D edge like Bill has.

Each Shape Person is also a single color.

Part two: Culture.

note: this one only really applies to the three shapeople i've been using as examples this whole post- Ed the triangle, and his black pentagon and rectangle friends? family members?

I know there are other shapes who look less like them and whom these things don't apply to, but we can blame that on interbreeding with Elmoreans/cultural assimilation or something. okay, let me begin.

point number three: Ed's group is implied to not be from Elmore. when we first see him he's mistaking a bus stop for another shape person:

he also-

point four: the Shapeople language includes one spoken(?) system with colorful squares representing it. on the TBOB website the words of Euclydians are written in colorful square substitution cipher. there are also other shapes for the shapeople, mind you.

back to point 3: not from Elmore. The next time Ed's group appears, they're framed like tourists and ARE HAVING TROUBLE MAKING SENSE OF A 3D (well, i guess 2d but in the other way) MAP.

Gumball tries and fails to talk to them in their language, and ends up making a cultural faux pas. and in Ed's final scene there's an interesting line...

my people? He could be talking about his species, but the existence of a culture implies to me that this line refers more to a homeland. in other words the shape people are from the same place, which we sort of knew because they speak the same language. also has bill ever been seen giving a thumbs up or down? i'm pretty sure he hasn't but maybe I'm wrong, someone correct me here.

point number five: grasping at even more straws.

Despite their origin, the one known named shape person's name is Ed, which falls into the same cultural sphere as Bill.

We know that Ed's type of shapeople are physically capable of speaking English because the black rectangle does so at one point.

one of the symbols in the shapeople language is a skull. we see that Bill's mind has a bill skeleton with a skull that also fits the humanoid-ish template.

final point that does not help the theory but is still weird: Bill's baby photo seems to have a live-action background?? and so does the image of teen/preteen bill? look at these. i'm not implying that elmore IS euclydia somehow, that makes very little sense to me as of writing (though i guess it was destroyed and now Bill has a fear of TV static, which, like, maybe I could phenagle a theory here if I really tried but it seems like even more of a reach than this existing theory.) I dunno, maybe Euclydians would have wanted another 'realistic' dimension to flee to.

(we also see this squishy rosy-cheeked shaperson baby at one point, make of it what you will).

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for my fanart and how I responded to someone's negative reaction of it?

Okay so some background to start. I'm (genderfluid, 18+) in a fandom that was originally a book and got a live action adaptation several years ago. The adaption is MUCH more popular than the book series and honestly very different from it (a lot of characters have different backstories, the main character doesn't have a brother in the adaption, and ages were changed) but very few people have read the book series. (Admittedly, the fandom is not very big. It's actually the smallest one I'm in, which means I'm kinda limited in the number of people to interact with) Anyways! I'm in a discord (it's 18+ tho I don't know the actual ages of anyone else involved) for this fandom and although they promote themselves as being for both book and adaptation fans, according to the roles I am one of five people of the 40+ people in the server who have read the books, so that's not a lot.

Now, for Valentine's day I made fanart of the main couple, the mc and his wife (they get married in the series. In the books they are already together in the beginning but the adaption wanted drama and decided to not have them be together in the beginning. One of the changes that I very much do not like.) They're the most popular ship in the fandom. I love them. Anyways, I shared it in the Discord for Valentines and did not get a nice reaction.

See, in the books, both characters are white, but in the adaptation the wife is black. (The mc looks different in the adaptation too, shorter and with different hair and eye color, but he's still white) I drew the book version, because that's what I like. They're my blorbos.

Another person in the server took MY art and recolored it so that the wife was black and posted it in the server with a comment about whitewashing characters of color. I told them that I didn't whitewash her and that it was really fucking rude to edit someone else's fanart. They replied that she was black, I was racist, and posted a screenshot of a Google search asking the race of the actress who plays the wife in the adaptation. I replied with a screenshot of the her books' fanwiki page and said that my fanart was of the books and if they wanted fanart of the adaptation they could make it themself. They asked how they were supposed to know it was from the books since nobody read them and they were shit. I replied that they could realize the mc AND his wife looked different, that I read the books, and they were better than the adaptation, and how would they know if the books were shit since they obviously hadn't read them?

Anyways then the mods stepped in and made us break it up. One of the mods (the only one to have read the books) dmed me and told me that they understood my frustration and that another mod was talking to the person I had been fighting with about respecting other people's work but I needed to understand that assuming I was racist and whitewashing wasn't going to be uncommon since the books weren't as popular as the adaptation and I needed to be respectful when people confronted me with this. I replied that if the other person had confronted me directly and not just assumed the worst and edited my work I would have been more respectful. The mod agreed that the other person was out of line, but the whole thing seemed to be one giant misunderstanding so neither of us were getting strikes against us this time.

Anyways, the mods added some rules about not editing people's work and a thing in the announcements channel explaining the differences between the books and the adaptation but everything in the server has been really tense especially since people in the server started vague posting on Tumblr, some people favoring me others favoring the other person. I blocked the person I fought with on Tumblr but neither them nor I were involved in the vague posting.

(also idk if it matters but I'm white, idk the ethnicity of of anyone else involved)

So! Tell me, AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[morningdawnbreaks]

On my reread of, The Hunger Games, the passage where Katniss and Gale come to trade strawberries to the mayor on Page 12 caught my attention.

Madge comes to the door.

Today her drab school outfit has been replaced by an expensive white dress, and her blonde hair is done up with a pink ribbon. Reaping clothes.

“Pretty dress,” says Gale.

Madge shoots him a look, trying to see if it’s a genuine compliment or if he’s just being ironic. It is a pretty dress, but she would never be wearing it ordinarily. She presses her lips together and then smiles. “Well, if I end up going to the Capitol, I want to look nice, don’t I?”

Gale is confused. And Katniss guesses that Madge is just messing with him.

“You won’t be going to the Capitol,” Gale says coolly. His eyes land on a small, circular pin that adorns her dress. Real gold. Beautifully crafted. It could keep a family in bread for months. “What can you have? Five entries? I had six when I was just twelve years old.”

“That’s not her fault,” I say.

“No, it’s no one’s fault. Just the way it is,” says Gale.

Madge’s face has become closed off.

Gale is angry, because it’s usually the seam kids who are reaped for the games since they have more entries in the bowl. And it seems like he believes Madge has no right be worrying about being reaped, since she has less entries and should be safe as a merchant.

But Madge knows from personal experience that merchant kids can be reaped too, because her own Aunt, Maysilee Donner, was reaped in the 50th hunger games and died in the arena.

I just think Madge has so much strength to stay calm in that moment. Honestly, I probably would have slapped Gale for his insensitive attitude. He has no idea of her loss. People only see her as the Mayor’s daughter with the nice house and clothes, and don’t see that she has her own losses and heartaches to deal with. We shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

And her mother, Mrs. Undersee, was so upset by her twin’s death that even 24 years later she spends most her time locked in her room and addicted to morphling. Madge is probably pretty isolated and lonely in her house with her dad busy working and her mom in constant pain.

Madge gives Katniss the mockingjay pin to wear in the games. Her Aunt’s pin. This pin is the symbol of the rebellion. And it makes me so sad that Katniss doesn’t find out until, Catching Fire, who Maysilee is and that the mockingjay pin originally belonged to her.

Madge is a character who is kept mostly in the background and who ultimately is killed when district 12 is fired bombed, but she’s so important and significant to the story.

Also Madge should have been in the movies.

[electronickingdomfox]

"Black Fire" review

Novel from 1983 by Sonni Cooper, and as far as I know, the only TOS novel from this author. This one was pretty fun, fast-paced, and a real page-turner. It's also notorious for being totally nuts, and having Spock going rogue and doing all sorts of crazy things. The intro was written by Theodore Sturgeon, no less. It's also very, veeeery spirk-heavy (and so far, the only K/S novel I've read that seems to get their relationship right, without going over-the-top).

Spock is the central character, and for the most part, the story follows his solo adventures, though Scotty shares some of these exploits in the early chapters. Amazingly, and despite all the unusual stuff that Spock gets involved with, he manages to stay believable. The other characters are all well-written too, even if they take a background place. And the same goes for the original ones, in particular Desus, the Romulan befriended by Spock.

The story takes place shortly before TMP. One thing that surprised me, is that this novel doesn't seem afraid to modify canon in substantial ways. Most of these books are more timid when playing with the characters, and focus on self-contained adventures that have little impact on the whole. Main characters are rarely put in real danger, or suffer grave injuries. Here, on the other hand, we have the entire primary hull of the Enterprise being destroyed and jettisoned in the very first chapter (a year before The Search for Spock blew the ship to pieces). The TMP uniforms are introduced already by the end of the five-year mission. Spock suffers a disabling injury, portrayed with realism, and not resolved immediately and easily with a magic pill. Also, this book gets pretty dark at times; Spock tries to kill himself not once, but twice... And a popular guest character from the series is also killed for real.

Some spoilers below the cut:

The Enterprise is in a routine mission, training cadets fresh from the Academy, when a massive explosion in the bridge leaves the primary hull destroyed, Kirk in critical condition, Spock with a splinter lodged near his spine, and many cadets dead. The primary hull has to be evacuated and separated, while the rest of the ship limps back to a starbase. In the following investigation, Starfleet declares that everything was a mere accident. But neither Spock nor Scotty are satisfied with this answer, since nothing on the bridge could cause an explosion of such magnitude. Therefore, they travel back to the jettisoned hull to find clues.

Spock is suspicious of some new yeoman, who entered and left the bridge shortly before the explosion. In her abandoned quarters they find two clues: a piece of paper with dots, which seems to be a star chart; and a ton of depilatory cream. However, Starfleet isn't convinced by this flimsy evidence. So Spock starts the first of a long series of reckless actions, and steals a small ship with Scotty, to travel to the star system depicted in the paper. Spock is in severe pain (and having suffered a similar injury in the past myself, I can testify: he IS in pain), but leaves nonetheless before undergoing the necessary surgery (I told you Spock is nuts in this novel). Meanwhile, Kirk's still recovering and has no clue of what's going on.

When Spock and Scotty arrive at the only habitable planet of the star map, they find out that a Romulan and Klingon ships have also been lured to that place by similar maps. Everything was a trap, and all of them are captured by the Tomariians, and brought to their home planet in an ancient rocket. The Tomariians are short, stocky and very hairy aliens, living in an extreme cold environment. Being poor and primitive, they've turned to scavenging, adapting the most disparate technologies to expand across their sector of the galaxy. Spock and the others meet the Tomariian leader, Ilsa. The one who disguised herself as a yeoman to plant the explosive in the Enterprise (hence all that depilatory cream). And she takes a liking to Spock, just as every other woman in this book.

The Tomariians plan to test their captives' strenght by sending them to different battlefields. This way they could determine the weaknesses of Federation members, Klingons and Romulans, in order to expand later through their territories. Spock's injury worsens, to the point that he's left immobile from waist down. But due to her attraction for him, Ilsa spares his life. Meanwhile, Kirk has found clues about Spock and Scotty's whereabouts, so finally, the Enterprise rescues them in the nick of time.

Back in the ship, Spock has to fulfill the promise he made to the Romulan woman captured with him: to warn the Empire of the Tomariian threat, should she not survive. After this, Spock has to face a court-martial for all his offenses: stealing a starship, and above all, establishing secret communications with the Romulan and Klingon empires. Charged with treason, he's sent to prison, where he meets and befriends the Romulan pirate Desus.

I won't spoil anything more (this is about halfway through the novel). Suffice to say that, after this, Spock gets involved in a prison break. He becomes a pirate by the name of "Black Fire", and gains a following of fangirls that write love poems about him (an amusing parody of real-world fandom). And finally defects to the Romulan Empire, creating massive drama with Kirk. Of course, there's a satisfactory explanation for Spock going amok, at the end.

Spirk Meter: 10/10*: Kirk and Spock are separated most of the time and have little physical contact, but the story truly reads as a break-up/reconciliation one. Specially with the introduction of Desus as a rival for Spock's affection. In the first chapter, Kirk is partially healed by a mind meld with Spock, and sighs his name upon waking up. Then Kirk anguishes over Spock's disappearance, and risks the entire ship to go rescue him (well... and Scotty). And there's a lot of commentary about how Kirk is Spock's only close relationship, and how his defection to the Romulans is a particularly painful blow for Kirk. The whole issue of Spock's treason has Kirk on edge and in a foul mood, to the point that other crewmembers are afraid of bringing the subject in his presence. As other books with a lot of spirk content, it's difficult to pinpoint single scenes, since it's a general theme all over the place. Add to this, Spock's absolute indiference towards all the women swooning around him.

Then there's, of course, Spock and Desus' extremely close friendship, said to rival that with Kirk. At one point, Desus reads aloud some of the love poems that Spock has inspired as "Black Fire". And one has to wonder if he isn't adressing the words to Spock himself.

McCoy doesn't appear much in the novel. But still gets some McKirk and Spones. In the beginning, he's devastated by Kirk's serious injuries and his inability to cure him, crying about the prospect of losing "the man he both admired and loved". Then, at the end, McCoy asks Spock to sign his book of love (and erotic) poems dedicated to him (!!!???), as an excited fangirl. "To belong to this man of fire, if only for a moment. - My flaming love." he reads aloud. And Spock even gives him his pirate earring as a gift. The novel closes with these lines: The black jewel gleamed its strange luminescence in McCoy's palm, but it was no match for the gleam in Spock's dark smiling eyes.

*A 10 in this scale is the most obvious spirk moments in TOS. Think of the back massage, "You make me believe in miracles", or "Amok Time" for example.

[ikatakoirl]

We need to normalize criticizing our favorite works, pointing out shortcomings in representation while simultaneously celebrating how far that representation has come. I’ll go first.

The Riordanverse (Percy Jackson and its spin-offs) is hands-down one of the best examples of mainstream queer representation for kids. It was probably the biggest formative element of my early queer journey, and I am so grateful for everything Rick Riordan has done for the community. I will continue to support him and his works with all of my heart.

That being said, he has a problem with squeezing his representation into the very last pages of the book, confirmed but not explored. We have three confirmed queer relationships involving demigods:

Nico and Will, confirmed in the last chapter of the series

Piper and Shel, confirmed on the very last page of The Burning Maze.

Magnus and Alex, confirmed in the last chapter of the series (they did kiss a bit earlier)

P.S. I forgot about Lavinia until just before posting, but her entire lesbianism also is introduced and concluded in the span of about a page.

As you can see, it’s extremely consistent. Like I said, these are the only three examples of queer teenage relationships over Riordan’s five series, and they all happen right at the end. We also find that most of the straight pairings (Percy/Annabeth, Frank/Hazel, Jason/Piper, Tyson/Ella, and even things like Hedge/Mellie are confirmed in the middle of the series and given room to grow our at least be referenced back to.

It’s unclear whether this was a conscious or unconscious decision. Perhaps Riordan felt constrained by his publisher. Perhaps he was afraid that he didn’t have the proper background knowledge to accurately write the details of a queer relationship. Both of these are understandable and valid, if a bit disappointing, and I would much rather that he wrote them as he did than not at all.

However…

The good news is that it seems like he’s trying to fix it! He sprinkled in enough of Will and Nico in the first book of the sequel series Trials of Apollo for me to forgive him for their lackluster confirmation in Heroes of Olympus. But then he surprised us all by making Nico and Will two of the five main characters on the Trials of Apollo’s finale (The Tower of Nero), and I can tell you that the fandom ate it up!

But in case that wasn’t enough, soon after the release of The Tower of Nero, Riordan announced The Sun and the Star, now set for release this May! In this book, Nico and Will are the protagonist and deuteragonist, meaning the story will be entirely focused around them! And just to make sure Riordan absolutely knows what he’s doing, he’s decided to co-write it with a gay author Mark Oshiro to make sure they can represent the characters accurately!

And… and the best part… Riordan has done his fair share of novellas and short stories, and ever since the announcement I had assumed that that’s what this was, but no! It’s a full-length book with 480 pages! To compare, that’s strangely enough the exact same page count as The Tower of Nero! I’m so blown away by how much Riordan has gone above and beyond with this book, and I’m insanely excited for it. Sorry this turned into The Sun and the Star propoganda, I didn’t know that the publication date was so close or how long it was until just now.

Anyway, where I’m going with this is that I have extreme respect for a creator who’s willing to listen to feedback from the kinds of people he is writing about and constantly grow from those mistakes! He’s still by far my favorite author of all time. Love you, Uncle Rick!

[yuurei20]

Hi! I saw how some of your more recent posts discussed TWST more on the production side of the game and I was wondering if you knew anything about the artists who work on the game? Like the people behind the cards, backgrounds, and the models. I really love the art in the game and I've always wanted to know who the people behind it were.

I've been especially curious about the artist or artists behind the Broomquet cards regular and groovy art, but I wasn't sure where to find that out.

Hello!

Yes! If you visit the credits page in-game, there is a list of the names/aliases used by Yana's five creative assistants!

・Hioki Jun

Information: "Affiliated with creative studio D-6th. Responsible for writing/supervising event scenarios and vignettes for the game app 'Disney Twisted Wonderland.'" (ref: hmv.co.jp )

Hioki is also the author of the two Twisted Wonderland novels.

A search for "Hioki Jun" does not turn up any other work that they've done outside of D-6th, so this might be a pen name.

・Hazuki Wakana and Kowono Sumire

Information: Yana explains that Hazuki and Kowono "...are staff members involved in art production for background settings, cards, and more in the Twisted Wonderland app," in addition to being the illustrator and designer of the Heartslabyul and Octavinelle arcs of the ongoing manga series.

There do not seem to be any SNS accounts or other published works associated with the names "Hazuki Wakana" or "Kowono Sumire," so they might be aliases for use in their work with D-6th.

Yana says that they are both also staff members that have been working with her on her manga, Black Butler, for many years, and Hazuki is listed (along with Hioki Jun and Sorano Tsuki) in the credits of that manga. (There is a reason why "Hazuki" is being spelled "Haduki," but that would get into a looot of language talk.)

The two artists will sometimes have messages to fans posted through Yana's Twitter account, like at the conclusion of the Heartslabyu arc and the start of Octavinelle.

・7

Information: Was not able to find any information on the creative assistant using the pen name "7."

・Sorano Tsuki

Information: In addition to being a Black Butler collaborator and filling an unspecified role in the Twst game, Sorano is also one of the artists in the second anthology manga (far right, the story featuring Stargazer Trey and Deuce). I was not able to find anything else published under the name "Sorano Tsuki."

The Bloom/Broom Series

Yana says that she participated in concept design, costume design, and card art direction of the Bloom/Broom series, but the flowers used were special bouquets designed specifically for each character by a professional flower artist.

It is not specified that the flower artist was someone on the D-6th team, so it might have been someone that they brought on specifically for that one project.

In an episode of Twisted Radio Station it was explained that each bouquet is physically crafted and then reference photos are taken. They said that the illustrations are very detailed, with every petal and leaf individually drawn.

Bonus - Osakabe Wataru

Twst's logo designer / user interface designer / emblem designer / icon designer (etc) Osakabe Wataru designed the characters' personal emblems and club emblems that can be seen on their letterman jackets in the Birthday Jacket series.

They also contribute to the novels and manga (both serialized and the anthologies), other published works such as all three visual books and the Design Note, designed the logo for Twst Channel and anniversaries, the logo and emblem for the Night Ravens music group and do the monthly rotating advertisements in Tokyo Station.

Osakabe is a prolific graphic designer and, unlike Yana's assistants, their other work is very easy to find. Their website and portfolio are here:

[maddcactus-art]

COMMISSIONS INFO

How do I work: Message me here, note the kind of drawing you want, explain what exactly you want me to draw, provide with references if possible. If I agree to work on your commission, I'll give you a link to my Boosty page, where you can use a donation pool (PayPal\bank card payment), to pay for a commission.

What will you get: A small sketch preview of your commission with an option of One free fix - if something is not quite right or bothering you - I’ll fix it. (Next three fixes will cost 5$ for each fix. Over three fixes the price will get raised on 5$ for each subsequent fix.). When picture is done completely I’ll send you a PNG file, full size.

How to pay: For now the only way for me to get payments is through Boosty (it's like an alternative to Patreon). You can pay full price or half of it at the beginning, and other half - after looking at the small preview.

Notes:

All the prices are listed without backgounds. For head shots backgrounds are free. For pictures of a half body backgrounds will cost from 15 to 20$. For a full body pictures backgrounds will cost from 20 to 30$. The more details - the more the price.

The prices are listed for a single character. For every additional character the price will grow by this formula - original price minus five bucks. (for example: a half body with a flat colour (35$) + additional character (30$).

What I WILL draw: Fan characters, OC’s, game\movie\book\cartoon characters, animals, etc. What I WON’T draw: Gore, porn, mecha, etc. I have the right to reject your commission if it’s out of my comfort zone, has questionable themes, or something I do not like\can’t really draw. If you have questions - feel free to send me an ask. 

Why Boosty and not PayPal?: due to PayPal blocking all of russian accounts, I can no longer work through it. Unfortunately it means there's no invoices and a different website I can process payments through. All payments go through my page on Boosty, through a donation pool. The payments can be made through your PayPal account or a bank card! (If an instruction or any help will be needed - I'll provide an instruction with screenshots. The platform is safe and is used by many artists, who has been dropped and left out by PayPal or Patreon). At the moment Boosty has some issues with PayPal and probably the only method of payment avaliable is by a bank card. Boosty is trying to resolve the issue. There's also a Hipolink as an alternative... If you need any reassurance in my trustworthiness - you can see a bunch of previous commissions I've made for a lot of people here, or on twitter }: )

[justforbooks]

Middle England by Jonathan Coe

Reactionaries and remoaners clash in a meditation on anger, loss and the passing of time featuring the characters from The Rotters’ Club

At one point in Middle England, a couple attend a marital counselling session in which they are each asked to explain why they are so angry that their spouse voted differently from them in the EU referendum. One complains that the other, by voting leave, showed that “as a person, he’s not as open as I thought he was. That his basic model for relationships comes down to antagonism and competition, not cooperation.” Her husband answers that her remain vote made him realise she’s “very naïve”, “lives in a bubble”, and that it gives her “an attitude of moral superiority”.

The therapist’s verdict is: “What’s interesting about both of these answers is that neither of you mentioned politics. As if the referendum wasn’t about Europe at all. Maybe something much more fundamental and personal was going on. Which is why this might be a difficult problem to resolve.”

That, perhaps, is the sore point a novelist taking on Brexit as a subject might be expected to probe. There’s a truth here – that the Brexit vote was experienced and has continued to be experienced as a matter of personal identity. For a novelist, this is where the action is.

Middle England is the third novel featuring the characters from Coe’s 2001 novel The Rotters’ Club and 2004’s The Closed Circle, and sees an excellent writer making an enjoyable, absorbing and less than completely successful attempt to find the sweet spot of that sore point. The action runs from the spring of 2010 to the autumn of 2018, and the newsreel that unrolls in the background takes in Gordon Brown’s encounter with “that bigoted woman”, the coalition government, the London riots, the murder of Jo Cox, Nigel Farage’s notorious “Breaking Point” poster, the London Olympics and all the rest of it. And in that respect, of course, we know what’s going to happen because we’re living it. This is a book that foretells the present.

It also has a good deal to tell us, oddly, about geography and local transport. Coe has frequent resort to the melancholy poetry of place. On page four we read that the hero is driving “through the towns of Bridgnorth, Alveley, Quatt, Much Wenlock and Cressage”, and 40 pages later he’s taking the route in the other direction: “Cressage, Much Wenlock, Bridgnorth, Enville, Stourbridge and Hagley”. A garden centre isn’t just “midway between Shrewsbury and Birmingham”: it’s “not far from the M54 and considered such a geographical fixture that it had its own official sign on the motorway”. A pub is “tucked away in a hard-to-find corner beside the Suffolk Street Queensway in Central Birmingham”. At one point we meet characters “driving out of Birmingham along the A3400”; at another contemplating the “rail replacement service between Kettering and Nuneaton” “‘Rail replacement service’, ‘Kettering’, ‘Nuneaton’. Were there five more dispiriting words in the English (or any other) language?”

In its politics, just as in its gripes about public transport, this is a great big Centrist Dad of a novel. It lives largely in the world of the media, academia, politics and (peripherally) the City. Benjamin Trotter is a failed novelist who in late middle age finds himself longlisted for the Man Booker prize; his old friend Doug is a well-heeled centre-left newspaper columnist; his niece Sophie is a university lecturer who becomes a minor TV don. The book has a wide cast of characters, though the ones we’re invited to sympathise with are pretty much all remainers.

And yet it’s never stronger or more convincing than when it’s furthest from political events. As the novel addresses the rise of populism, for example, we meet reactionary oldies in golf clubs moaning about “political correctness”; a lunatic conspiracy theorist buttonholing a publisher with a manuscript about the EU’s “Kalergi Plan” for white genocide; a porcine chancer funding the referendum through a dodgy free-market thinktank; an elderly former car worker uncomprehendingly contemplating the site where the Longbridge plant used to be; a privileged Corbynite student lodging a complaint against a lecturer after hearing (at second hand) that they’d said something to a trans student that could be taken the wrong way. They tell us, in caricatural form, what we already know – or at least suppose we do.

One problem is that the historical scaffolding is so familiar, and yet will date so fast; this means that certain passages of exposition feel clunky. The reader in 2018 has no need to be told the following:

Jeremy Corbyn had become leader of the Labour Party in September. The surprising – even astonishing – election of this obscure but long-serving, rebellious backbencher had been seen by many, including Sophie, as a welcome sign that the party was planning to return to the principles it had abandoned under Tony Blair.

The reader in 2028 might welcome the reminder. The reader in 2038 will struggle to give a damn. The reader in 3018 may eke a PhD out of it.

To give Middle England its due, it doesn’t aim to cover everything, recognising wanly that, in drink, the conversation will broaden out “to include Brexit, Donald Trump, Syria, North Korea, Vladimir Putin, Facebook, immigration, Emmanuel Macron, the Five Star Movement and the contentious result of the Eurovision song contest in 1968”. So the American elections are dispatched, wittily, in two lines:

Finally, Benjamin said: “I don’t like Trump, do you?” “Nope,” Charlie said. “Can’t stand the bloke.” Benjamin nodded. With the political discussion out of the way …

And it is when the political discussion is out of the way that the novel becomes richer and less schematic. There’s Sophie’s odd-couple relationship with her driving instructor husband Ian (they met on a speed awareness course) and the way she thinks and rethinks an adulterous near-miss at the beginning of their marriage. There’s Benjamin’s relationship with his sister Lois and his long-lost schoolfriend Charlie, now working as a children’s entertainer and locked in a feud with a rival clown. And there’s Benjamin’s journey towards self-understanding and acceptance. All these are done with real style and feeling.

Coe’s writing is as smoothly accomplished as ever. His comic set pieces – funerals, dinners, clown fights – and scenes capturing the affectionate and ridiculous sex of middle age, and a relationship between a journalist and a Yes Minister-style government adviser, are very funny.

Yet this is also a surprisingly sentimental book, beginning and ending with Benjamin listening wistfully to Shirley Collins’s song “Adieu to Old England”, which is not to its disadvantage. It is an autumnal novel, and a sad one: poignant about the passing of time, the wishing for what has vanished, the decades lost to obscure hatreds, misplaced loves and unsatisfactory marriages – and about what, washing up on the brink of old age, we’re left with and what we can or can’t make of it. That a river, or two, runs through it is no accident.

And in this context the national stuff just sort of bubbles up. The Midlands landscape of Benjamin’s childhood, a landscape at once familiar and remembered and transformed and imaginary, is the real middle England of the novel. And what is lost and gained goes far beyond the referendum in 2016. To quote that therapist again: “Something much more fundamental and personal was going on.”

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[kimberlyannharts]

So I may have been slightly hyped for this book the past few months

For the three of you who haven't heard about this, MMPR: The Return is a story set in the future of an alternate universe of the MMPRs; one where Jason, Zack, and Trini didn't give up their powers upon the eve of the Peace Conference, and thus the team stayed together even after high school. But fast forward twenty-two years later, and the team has broken up due to some sort of tragedy - we know from the Re-Imagine prologue in the 30 Year Anniversary book, Zordon and Alpha were destroyed by Zedd and Rita. But other stuff seems to have happened too. What is that stuff? I guess we're about to find out!

Oh, and I should mention this was written by the original Pink Ranger herself, Amy Jo Johnson. (and her partner, Matt Hotson.) That might be important to know.

It's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Return #1!

= Three pages in and Jason's already getting his ass kicked. You're forty-five years old, man, you should be at the club

= I know this was debated a bit when the book was announced - how it would line up with Thuy and JDF's passings, especially after coming off the heels of Once and Always, where the focal point was Trini's daughter taking up her powers after Trini's death. (For what it's worth, this book was first conceived pre-pandemic, long before OaA. Making comics takes a long time.) And while Tommy is still a bit up in the air (despite what we'll see in a few pages) Trini does seem to have definitively passed due to illness.

While I definitely get the frustration of Thuy's passing essentially sealing Trini's fate - especially in a comic book, where you don't have to worry about actor restrictions - I'm a little more generous towards it here because Amy and Thuy were close friends and she actually dealt with her death personally compared to how the OaA writers, well......didn't. And this issue is clearly paralleling Kimberly's motivations and feelings to Amy's real-life ones, so this just feels like another part of that.

(Also to contrast OaA's handling of Trini - a) her passing here isn't caused by a graphic onscreen explosion, proving the whole "well they HAD to show it onscreen for more impact!!!" was bullshit b) her friends AND THE WIDER COMMUNITY are actually grieving and talking about her impact on everyone as well as using the non-actor-restriction to SHOW it and c) The book actually gives her a JOB. TWO jobs!!!!!!! Yeah OaA why the fuck did you send ZACK to Congress WHEN IT CLEARLY SHOULD HAVE BEEN TRINI

also I like her middle-aged design. prettyyyyyy)

= onto lighter topics HEYYYY IT'S THESE GUYS!! Bulk and Skull are married and you just can't see the ring through Bulk's gloves, it's real and true

= speaking of which this whole flashback is adorable and nostalgic but I want to point out some background details

= Ernie is just trying to run a fucking business here

= go white boy go

= ZACK/KIM HAS FINALLY COME BACK TO ME MY FUCKING BELOVEDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! God, when WAS the last time they actually talked one-on-one in the main series

= FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

= so along with some other stuff I'm definitely taking this as foreshadowing that Trini wasn't cut off from Kim like the boys were. That's the power of WOMEN (and also if we get Aunt Trini flashbacks with Olivia I'll fucking CRYYYYYY)

= Absolutely obsessed with Billy's face here

= D:

= So besides the Trini stuff I want to the keep the Once and Always comparisons to a minimum but it's very funny how both storylines involve Billy using a company as a front for his embezzlement schemes. At least his telecom company PROBABLY isn't war profiteering

= also Alpha's rose <3

= so anyway Jason's gone rogue and was pretending he's the main character until he suddenly went missing, as shown in the first few pages. And Billy and Zack want to become Rangers again to try and find him.

= but the thing is guys, Kim has won the idgaf war. She's depressed, she's traumatized, she spent twenty-two years raising a child with Tommy's genes all by herself, she's tired. She does NOT want to be wrapped up in Jason's midlife crisis drama

= Zack getting so mad and wanting to risk it all for Jason hell yeah those are my Jason/Zack crumbs

= Mysterious shadowy figure watching the old people drama from a distance, you are just like me fr

= OLIVIA THAT'S FUCKING OLIVIAAAAAAAAAAAA and she already sounds so CUTE. If you go back to the diner scene you can see the phone constantly buzzing until Kim finally puts it away. She's like mom. mom. mom. MOM

= also just because the tragic Tomberly family storyline already makes me want to kms do you think that ring is kind of small and plain because Tommy and Kim were so young when they got married and it's all Tommy could afford. And Kim still wears it to this day. I want to die

= It's already been confirmed that Selena is indeed referring to Sylvia here, so I won't talk about that. What I DO want to talk about is Kim's casual momwear. Those sweatpants!!!!!!!!!!

= It would be really funny if Kim just. immediately slammed the door shut

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

OC Origins

Thanks @mundanemoongirl for the tag!

Rules: post the origins of a few OCs!

These will be long because I over-explain, so I'm just doing Lexi and Maddie.

Lexi

Lexi was the first character I made for TSP back in Spring 2013. Her name was originally Alexia Redinés and she looked exactly like me but she had longer hair (which she wore in braids). She wore a red dress and was 10 years old. TSP was originally a school project where we had to write a 2+ page fictional story in the first person. We planned the story alongside the narrator, so that's why Alexia was created first. She didn't have much personality to speak of, but you can find the original TSP here. Alexia was a bit of a Mary Sue, as typical of self-inserts especially considering how young I was. Her surname became Morgan in just Draft Two, she started to occasionally be called Lexi in Draft Three, and the nickname became permanent in Draft Four. However, in the weird time between Drafts 1-2, I think her surname was Sparks. She always had teleportation, though it originally appeared as pink, not teal - it wasn't teal until Draft Four. Lexi was aged up to 13 in Draft Three, where it stayed until technically Draft Five where her birthday wasn't until the end of Part One. I also got rid of her glasses. Lexi began to gain more personality in Draft Four, where she slowly started to deviate from her original Mary Sue self-insert, until Draft Five where she got a complete makeover in her personality. Now, she's more extraverted, organized, confident, and observant - some of these traits happened in Draft Four during her Drift, and were just not emphasized until Draft Five. Draft Five is also when I changed her design: I tweaked Lexi's race to give her Sector 9 heritage (equivalent to Native American - in her case Cherokee and Comanche backgrounds), I grew out her bangs and gave her braids to play with instead, I changed her magenta hoodie to a yellow one (at least what she wears for most of Part One - the magenta one does make an appearance, and it was heather gray at one point), and gave her boots and gloves.

Maddie

Maddie was created a short time after Lexi. In Draft One, she was a minor character - Lexi's 8-year-old sister named Kelly. Kelly would have been the central character in the second installment - then called The Next Sorcerer, though I haven't found this yet. Kelly looked like my own sister with longer hair (which she wore in a high ponytail) originally, and she also didn't have much of a personality. I think she wore a regular T-shirt and shorts which was her wardrobe for a while. Her original powers were a specific form of telepathy where she could create telepathic links between two or more people. In Draft Two, my sister objected that "her character" was named Kelly and recommended the name Zarina (which they got from Tinker Bell Pirate Fairy movie) which I immediately shut down. So they went with Madison. I settled on the name Maddie almost immediately. Although she originally requested telepathy, she now wanted Maddie to have animal morphing, which I obliged. Maddie was aged up alongside Lexi to be eleven in Draft Three, her surname became Morgan at the same time Lexi's did of course, and she didn't have much personality either until around the same time. Draft Two Maddie, who narrated the second book, was actually a little whiny, though I'm not sure how intentional this was on my part. In Draft Four, I tried my best to write Maddie in a different way, though deep into writing Part Two, I realized Maddie was a Mary Sue - much more than Lexi used to be. I realized Maddie received no consequences for her actions and rewrote a large chunk of the book to include it. Draft Five, whose biggest difference from Four was character, was where Maddie saw a huge shift in personality. Obviously her ethnicity changed, and I also gave her much longer hair. Her hair became longer than it used to be in Draft Four, but in Draft Five I had it down past her hips. Her glasses disappeared in Draft Four I believe. Her wardrobe switched to overalls, though she kept boots and her color palette. Personality-wise, Maddie became more scientifically-minded, more physical, more inquisitive, etc. I also made her autism-coding intentional.

And there you have it, folks!

Tagging @starlit-hopes-and-dreams @eccaiia @the-golden-comet @ceph-the-ghost-writer @space-writes

+ ANYONE ELSE

TSP intro

TSP tag list (ask to be +/-): @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @finchwrites

@nebula--nix @literarynecromancy @honeybewrites

[chuthulhu-reads]

I absolutely INHALED this series over about three days, and good god it was fun. Becky Chambers has such a flair for sci-fi worldbuilding and continually tantalizes you with distinctive, fully realized worlds and societies that, with few exceptions, you only ever scrape the surface of. This is because Chambers, with her clearly towering worldbuilding skill, is putting all of that towards telling rich character dramas, easing you further and further into her universe with each one. The first book follows a ragtag crew of space miners becoming a found family, with four of them being humans of different backgrounds learning to live with the different alien species that inhabit the GCC. The second follows an AI in an illegal "bodykit", learning to be a person and what that means for her--in a refreshing twist on "AI being a person" stories, she's not trying to be more like humans or other sapients, but simply wants her personhood recognized for what she is, without forcing herself into a bodyshape that's uncomfortable or a way of living that doesn't suit her. My autistic ass is LIVING for it. The third dives deep into the Human culture of the Exodans, nomadic humans who still live on the ancient spaceships that once carried them away from the dying Earth, even though they no longer need to be nomadic now that they've found the GCC; it's a lovely exploration of the value of different ways of life, tradition, connection, and, ultimately, choice. And then, after three books of immersing you in her galaxy, the fourth book features no humans at all; instead, five members of four species are trapped at effectively the space gas station due to a satellite crash. They learn more about each other and each others' species, overcome prejudices, form bonds, and share their disgust and horror when learning about the bizarre human delicacy of cheese. (3/5 of those present aren't even mammals and find the concept of milk at all pretty gross; the other two are just "if it's made of milk, it's a children's treat, right? Wait, they put WHAT in the milk???" It's a DELIGHT of a scene, has me howling.)

The character drama is first and foremost, always. There's a war going on in the background of most of the books, but we are spending no more than a few pages there, we have an interspecies romance to explore the intricacies of. A ship explosively decompressed, killing thousands? Yeah that's not the plot, it's a thing that's gonna happen when you're still flying a 200+year-old ship. There's no dramatic plot there, what we're focusing on is the grief, shock, and terror of Exodan society. Spoiler, but the satellite crash in the fourth book is no diabolical plot, it's just a space infrastructure issue, and there's no bad guys to fight except for our own racial prejudices and clashing political opinions. It's great, and I want five hundred more books of it, and WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE FOURTH BOOK IS THE LAST Q_Q

[seekers-who-are-lovers]

Dissecting the last few scenes bc it makes me emotional again.

Like the first scenes off the first episode the main characters, Yukiya and Wakamiya, who are now grown up, found themselves again at the boundaries of Yamauchi where Shiranui threatens to engulf the country. Naturally, when not patched the whole place tends to feel like one is in another dimension. Dizziness occurs. The sense of balance is disturbed and the reason for Wakamiya’s remark when he looks at Yukiya, who’s probably still sleepy. I mean, really? Who’d wake up their trusted person like that? Wakamiya of course. (In the book, before his impending departure from the Northern House’s mansion where he was treated, he went to Yukiya’s room and woke him up.) So the added dialogue as a continuation made sense at all.

And this additional dialogue too.

Methinks that little smile Wakamiya gave Yukiya after the latter responded, “You must be joking. What if something happened to you” makes him feel elated. Yukiya, after finding out the truth about Wakamiya from Hamayū, wouldn’t let the young master out of his sight. So it seems.

For the sake of clarity, Wakamiya didn’t reveal that he was the mysterious raven that saved Yukiya and his little brother Yukichi five years ago. Perhaps it’d become a key to future developments of the series and in order not to preempt Chisato Abe’s narrative this is not discussed at all, which is understandable.

All in all I truly appreciate the anime crew bc by adding some dialogues it has amplified Yukiya’s desire to become Wakamiya’s protector and to stay by his side changing the tone before and during the emotionally charged scenes of the allegiance/vow.

Yukiya: Guarding you means guarding all of Yamauchi, my home included. That means staying to support you is the best choice I can make.

Wakamiya: Yukiya.

Yukiya: Our true kin'u can do his duty, but he's got no clue how to take care of himself. I can't risk leaving him.

Wakamiya: (Huh? Dumbfounded. Surprised. Elated. Speechless. [ bc really what is that feeling?] )

Yukiya then kneels down, taking a vow. Wakamiya losing the grip on the lamp, eager to put his hand on top of Yukiya that turns into a wing. “True Kin’u” is playing in the background.

The rustle of a wing opening blessing his page, his servant, his will-be protector, his adviser, his future commander. He utters his proposal. Yukiya confirms his subservience. Wakamiya is silent, yet satisfied. But not happy.

Then there’s the cliff, the wisteria blooms and the promise made under the moonlight as their witness.

Yukiya says goodbye to his childhood endeavors. His life is going to revolve around serving the true Golden Raven from now on. And what a life it will be.

[squarebill]

Continued from here So, the Little Golden Books thing reminded me of a Little Golden Book I had read involving Winnie the Pooh. Not that surprising - there are many Disney properties (and others!) that get turned into Little Golden Books. But maybe I was thinking about it because I was thinking of the silly little blurb in the newspaper (the one that pulls up when you type WEIRDMAGEDDON into the computer). It talks about how Soos gets his head stuck in a clay honey pot. So silly! This is obviously a Winnie the Pooh reference as Winnie the Pooh is often getting his head stuck in honey pots. It's cute and silly, but also... Kind of odd? But that's Soos for you. And then, I was thinking... Wait. Soos is the one who fixed the thisisnotawebsitedotcom. FIXINIT1 also cuts to a supercut of scenes with Fixin It with Soos (unrelated, but that cuckoo clock looks like Bill?), the L IS REAL 2401 password that you can put in the computer leads to Soos making a little "Doo doo doo" to the Mario theme, the "BOOBERRY" code pulls up a question mark symbol with a rant by Bill that's titled "The Meaning of Life." The question mark symbol has always been associated with Soos. And I thought to myself, well... Maybe I should just... Go take a look at Winnie the Pooh's wikipedia page.  Now We Are Six (1927) - Hmm. Okay. That could be nothing, though. Ashdown Forest. Valley of Ashes??? Coincidence, probably.

Ahahaha. Little triangle/pyramid thingies in the background. But hey! Triangles are a common shape! It's fine. And then, I read this on the wikipedia page From the front lawn the family had a view across a meadow to a line of alders that fringed the River Medway, beyond which the ground rose through more trees until finally "above them, in the faraway distance, crowning the view, was a bare hilltop. In the centre of this hilltop was a clump of pines." Hilltop. Clump of Pines. Okay, okay, maybe I'm just stretching here.

OKAY MAYBE I'M CONSPIRACY-ING TOO MUCH! (Found in the newspaper picture) In the Milne books, Pooh is naive and slow-witted, but he is also friendly, thoughtful, and steadfast. Although he and his friends agree that he is "a bear of very little brain", Pooh is occasionally acknowledged to have a clever idea, usually driven by common sense. <- Sounds like Soos. Pooh makes it a habit to have "a little something" around 11:00 in the morning. As the clock in his house "stopped at five minutes to eleven some weeks ago", any time can be Pooh's snack time. <- Around 11:00... like how Alex Hirsch is apparently supposed to go through a maintenance update at 11:30 AM? And the clock being stopped... Like how in FixinIt with Soos, Stan notes that the new and improved cuckoo clock seems to be permanently set to 1:50. Again, maybe stretching here. Maybe not. Now, here's something that gets interesting. That I think might be a theme we've seen thus far with the Book of Bill and now, perhaps this as well. A. A. Milne's U.S. copyright on the Winnie-the-Pooh character expired on 1 January 2022, as it had been 95 years since publication of the first story. The character has thus entered the public domain in the United States and Disney no longer holds exclusive rights there.  Winnie the Pooh is in the public domain. Along with the Great Gatsby (which was referenced in the Book of Bill). And what else? Remember Alex had a display set-up of Bill infecting other books? Books that were in the public domain. I'm not through yet. If you scroll down much further on Winnie the Pooh's wikipedia page, there's this: 1960: Shirley Temple's Storybook on NBC: Winnie-the-Pooh—a version for marionettes, designed, made, and operated by Bil and Cora Baird. Bil missing a letter L. Marionettes are basically puppets. I decided to take a quick detour to Bil Baird's wikipedia page and...

IS THAT THE INSPIRATION FOR BEARO?! Baird grew up in Mason City, Iowa. <- MASON?! "Flannel Mouse" the Villain "Ronald Rodent" OKAY! Back to Winnie the Pooh - Winnie the Pooh has inspired multiple texts to explain complex philosophical ideas. Benjamin Hoff uses Milne's characters in The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet to explain Taoism. Similarly, Frederick Crews wrote essays about the Pooh books in abstruse academic jargon in The Pooh Perplex and Postmodern Pooh to satirise a range of philosophical approaches.[90] Pooh and the Philosophers by John T. Williams uses Winnie the Pooh as a backdrop to illustrate the works of philosophers, including Descartes, Kant, Plato and Nietzsche. WAIT, WAIT. WINNIE THE POOH?! PHILOSOPHY?! PLATO?!

[syrips]

oc/pc ask game!!

i love these and im like WAIT i can make my own!!

disclaimer, these may contain stuff weird, suggestive, and/or potentially dark so feel free to make your own version if u want but yea here u go

sections: Personal, Aesthetic, Music, Pleasure, Pain

Personal

🧼 Soap - Does OC have good hygiene? What is their routine or methods?

💰 Money Bag - Would OC donate the change in their purchase to a charity that a company claims is benefiting those in need?

💸 Money With Wings - Would OC commit tax evasion?

🐛 Bug - If OC was a worm, would anyone love them? How would others treat them?

🎮 Video Game - What would OC's gamertag/username be?

🔗 Link - What tags, blogs, pages, discord servers, and/or subreddits would OC follow on social media?

👀 Eyes - What would be in OC's search history?

✍🏽 Writing Hand - Your OC is given five seconds to edit/alter/adjust something about themselves (or their story). What do they try to change?

📈 Chart Increasing - What company/nobility/etc. would sponsor OC?

🎯 Direct Hit - Is OC "Wanted" in any village, kingdom, etc.? Dead or alive? What is the reward for them?

Aesthetic

🎨 Artist Palette - If OC was a color (or palette), what color would they be? Would others assign them the same color?

💻 Laptop Computer - What theme would OC's device, book, belongings, etc. be? What would their background, parchment, decorations be?

👔 Necktie - Does OC dress Modestly? Skimpy? Classy? etc. Do they have a dynamic, loud, quiet, etc. style?

👑 Crown - What textures are part of OC's clothes? Fluffy? Spiky? Leathery? Puffy? Feathery? What about shiny, silky, lacy, etc.?

👕 T-Shirt - Does OC prefer to wear vibrant colors or muted colors?

🐬 Dolphin - Would OC be a JJBA character?

💄 Lipstick - Does OC enjoy fashion? Would they enjoy styling others?

🎭 Performing Arts - If others wanted to join a cult devoted to OC, what choices would OC (or you) have in the style, theme, design?

🧣 Scarf - How often does OC change their style? Daily? Weekly? Seasonally? etc.

🧵 Thread - Does OC mend their clothes (or have them mended)? Does their clothes have tears, patches, alterations? How do their clothes get worn out or damaged overtime?

📖 Open Book - Share a moodboard you associate/made for OC!

🛒 Shopping Cart - OC suddenly has a lot of money. What is most likely the cause of this? What do they spend it on?

👒 Floppy Hat - Share a (sourced) picrew you made for OC!

Music

🎼 Musical Score - Share an OC playlist you associate/made for OC!

🎧 Headphone - Does OC have a large or small range of music they listen to?

🎤 Microphone - Share a (sourced) quote, lyric, poem, etc. of something that you associate to OC.

🎸 Guitar - Someone hands OC a guitar and tells them to play Wonderwall. What do they do?

🎶 Musical Notes - A Bard is inspired by OC and makes a song about them. What instruments, sounds, melodies, etc. may OC's theme song have? What would the mood of the piece be?

Pleasure

👂🏽 Ear - What sounds does OC enjoy? If OC likes ASMR, which types of ASMR?

🎲 Game Die - What would OC's favorite (pc/console/mobile/etc.) game be?

💠 Diamond With A Dot - What is something OC indulges in, publicly vs. privately?

✨ Sparkles - What is OC's comfort activity?

💋 Kiss Mark - Is OC promiscuous? Do they have a lot of lovers, partners, and/or friends with benefits?

😏 Smirking Face - How freaky is OC? What does OC do that they believe is freaky?

🥄 Spoon - What is OC's guilty pleasure food/treats?

🎓 Graduation Cap - OC is giving a motivational speech. What do they say? Who are they saying it to?

🧻 Roll Of Paper - OC is plotting an elaborate, mischievous prank. What is their plan and who is their target?

🥰 Smiling Face With Hearts - What do you love about OC? What events, art, work do you love to put OC in?

🤗 Hugging Face - How does OC make others happy? What do they wish they could do, or plan to do for others?

Pain

👩🏽‍⚖️ Woman Judge - Why don't some people like OC? What did they do?

🚩 Triangular Flag - Is OC uncomfortable with any topic, trigger, item, or event?

🧱 Brick - What is/would OC be traumatized by?

💢 Anger Symbol - What is OC's pet peeve?

💀 Skull - Is OC cursed? Haunted? Possessed? Fated to tragedy?

🩹 Adhesive Bandage - What is OC's worst type of pain to experience?

🔮 Crystal Ball - OC has witnessed a dark omen. What is the omen, superstition, or message that is witnessed?

🪓 Axe - What tragic/dark events, art, work, do you love (or love to hate) to put OC in?

😈 Smiling Face With Horns - How does OC make others sad/suffer? What do they wish they could do, or plan to do to others?