#character design is important and complex and i know this but i get to have fun and be self indulgent with bellum as a treat

[erabu-san]

First of all, I would like to thank you so much for all your support and your kind message !! Thank you so much for being patient with me too !! (you will see, I thanks a lot in this post lol)

Haha tbh I believe that ignoring and move on is a great way too! Yeees when I read this anon ask, I was wondering if they are living somewhere where pale person are oppressed and they are personally in this case and it affects them so badly that they have so much hate in them or they are just being hateful toward poc w/o any explication ? It was a bit uncomfortable And what is appealing with Genshin Impact (for me) is the fact that they use real culture to create their game ; even in the last survey, they ask if we like Natlan's authenticity (weird they only ask abt environment and music, i think they know they have issue with character design bahaha). I learn a lot about persian, algerian, but also chinese and even about french culture ! It is because people recognize themself that they start talking about it. I know there is a lot of controversial topic in Natlan, but because of this, I learn a lot on Hawai'i 's culture too. So yes, even if it is fiction, representation *is* important. And it is because they take inspiration of their culture that there is people who want a better representation, and in my opinion, this is something to not ignore !

About taking well what anon said, thank you so much ! If i can be honest tho, I didn't take it very well neither, or just I don't know how do I really felt at the moment I am an adult but I still hard time to distinguish what is morally okay or not, what is bad and good ? So if someone doesn't tell me they are explicitly a bad person with bad intention, I won't get it haha (ofc I grew up and now I identify my value and morals, but I still questionning if my morals are objectively great or not- yeaaah i was called weird for that, I am aware) Since forever I always try to understand other so I can communicate properly (at least I try), and that's why I am always interested on how does people think, why do they react in this specific way etc etc. Pro, I am patient and can take even the most violent take "well" (all depends. I am still a human) Con, I give free speech to those who have a "bad" take </3 and I apologize for that aaaa

KFSDLFSD I wish to express my angryness sometime but I just don't know if it is really adequate What if I interpret their text in wrong way as they initially try to say ? I wasn't feel offended by what they said, I was just uncomfortable because their opinion is something I consider hateful. and what if i was wrong??? But reading you all's opinion just affirm that's they were indeed rude ! I should stop overthink, life would be easier Maybe next time I have a doubt I will ask my friends's opinion before answering ksdkfsf

Oh my god thank you !!! If i can be honest, I draw Kinich this way because when I draw him w a darker skin for the first time, I thought "Oh !!! he looks so cool !!!!" and seeing a lot of positive comment abt my Kinich just makes me happy so I keep him like this ! And thank you for sharing with me informations !<<333 This is not overstepping at all ! And it is a reciprocate feeling anon ! It might be a bit weird but "angry" is such a complex feeling for me. I feel it but I don't really know how to express it in the most healthy way and it is super frustrating. So... seeing people getting mad at something I also disagree on makes me feel better !! And for this, thank you all !

I SNORT SO HAAAARD Damn Macron you again..........!! I didn't put all ask here but I read them all !! Thank you for sharing with me your opinion and reaction, it is truly interesting (and way more relaxing that the hater anon kskskss) !! and again, your support is truly meaningful for me. You all have sincere gratitude Hope y'all have a great day !! Stay hydrated too <3

[bmpmp3]

give him to me NOW!!!!!!!!!!! or i'll settle for a release date pwetty pwease

[bonestrouslingbones]

btw one of the things i want to do when i really rap up atbb for real is spontaneously get the energy at will to do actual updated fullbodies of the main 4 since now i actually have the ability to draw them the way they look in my head & have the skills to put some more variety in their shapes. basically i wanna

[franeridan]

tbh i think oda meant to reach wano and make it all about zoro the same way he reached whole cake and made it all about sanji. I mean like, at the very beginning, back when he made him japanese and then said "there is a country that's one piece's japan, btw, and that's not where zoro's dojo is" - I think that's why his original backstory is so simple, it was supposed to follow the same trend as luffy's and sanji's and turn into this whole grand thing once they reached wano and discovered that he's the only direct descendant of one of the last daimyo and also of the greatest samurai ever lived, those are great bases to start some form of conflict on? tbh? and also directly mirror our finding out that sanji is some form of prince himself, but then instead we got to wano and the only thing we found out on page was that kuina's relatives were from there, and everything about zoro is revealed in a sbs family tree with oda going "I don't think I'll ever say this in the manga at this point so here". Imho what happened was that oda wanted to form some kind of conflict between zoro's family rights/what was expected of him in wano and his belonging in the crew, but then the way he evolved as a character through the story made it so that his only plausible reaction to finding out all that would be some form or another of I don't care and you don't really write an arc on that, do you. zoro's so simple minded and goal oriented that it's impossible for him to have any serious drama that's not about luffy, at this point. I do prefer it like this, though? everyone in the fandom likes to draw comparisons and parallels between zoro and sanji one way or another but my favourite one is the narrative foils one and zoro's lack of a proper backstory and complications to his being part of the crew make for a great black-and-white situation with them. something like sanji's story being all about running from his past and zoro's being all about running towards his future, I love that so I'm glad this is the zoro we got in the end

still, would be cool to know what oda had planned for him exactly

[waywardsalt]

trying to come up with a human(ish) design for a non-human character is stressful because it feels like there are certain things you have to do or things you have to avoid doing but then it’s like actually you can do whatever the fuck you want maybe

[vexwerewolf]

Should I read homestuck

tl;dr: no

actual answer: yes, but with some extremely important caveats.

Firstly, because Adobe shitcanned Flash, you can now no longer experience Homestuck in the form it was intended upon release... unless you download the Unofficial Homestuck Collection. This act of unbelievable, nay, saintly generosity by Homestuck's most dedicated fans allows you to experience Homestuck as it was intended - as close as is humanly possible.

"As close as is humanly possible" is the key phrase here. One indelible part of the original Homestuck experience was UPDATE! Homestuck would sometimes go weeks or even months (and later, years) between updates. I wasn't on Tumblr back in the day, but at the peak of Homestuck, even if you knew nothing else about it, you'd know when an update dropped because Tumblr's net traffic would increase something like three to fourfold. People would go apeshit bananas about whatever new revelations the Huss would drop on us.

You also need to realise that Homestuck is a product of its time and while its takes on sexuality and gender identity was pretty progressive (for its time), Huss did use the r-slur a bunch.

While we're on the subject of the author, Andrew Hussie (of whom my current understanding is that they have not changed name but go by they/them nowadays) is, in the most diplomatic possible terms, a very unique person. They are, at times, a visionary storyteller with genuinely fascinating ideas. At other times, they come off as kinda spiteful towards their readers.

Without meaning to dip into spoilers, some story beats seem (in my opinion) almost intentionally calculated to upset, irritate or mock certain fans. It never rises to the sheer vicious contempt that Steven Moffat had towards Sherlock's fanbase, but it does leave a bad taste in my mouth whenever I go back.

Additionally, and this is where a sort of birds-eye-view spoiler is unavoidable, the story suffers from the Game of Thrones pitfall of repeatedly increasing its own complexity by adding new plot threads without resolving existing ones, eventually leading to fatigue on the part of both the reader and the author. The arcs of a lot of characters just straight up get abandoned, while a couple of characters take an unnecessarily large amount of screen time.

There's one character in particular that the author openly states within the narrative (the author exists within the world of the story. It's... a whole thing) that they favour, and whose behaviour the story is warped to accommodate. You'll know exactly who I'm talking about almost the moment they show up.

Another reason I say that it's not really possible to read Homestuck as it was originally intended is because a lot of the shit that happens in it fits into the zeitgeist of the internet at the time any individual update was written. There's a whole section in the late middle third that is inextricably and very specifically tied to how it was like to use Tumblr in 2012.

Additionally, a lot of things have soured with time. There was the whole Hiveswap debacle (it was first announced in 2012. We got the first act in 2017. We got the second act in 2020. We do not even know if the third act will ever come out.). There were the legal threats. There were the Epilogues and Homestuck 2, which were... how do I put this? Not universally liked. There's been nearly a decade of discourse since Homestuck ended, and a lot of things haven't grown better with age.

All of that being said.

You should read it.

I cannot express to you just how big an impact Homestuck has had on internet culture. Even people who claim to hate Homestuck unconsciously use slang that it invented. Its unique ideas on storytelling, character design and narrative chronology have, in both subtle and unsubtle ways, changed the way millennials and Gen Z tell stories.

A lot of people were inspired to tell stories because of Homestuck - one example I always give to Lancer players is that Kill Six Billion Demons started as a comic on the MSPA forums (before it was homestuck.com, it was MS Paint Adventures), so Homestuck is in an indirect but demonstrable way responsible for the existence of Lancer. The sunglasses that Gideon Nav from the Locked Tomb wears have been explicitly stated by Tamsyn Muir to be Dave Strider's. Toby Fox made music for Homestuck, and worked on large parts of Undertale while living in Andrew Hussie's basement.

We also know someone in the Bluey creative team is a Homestuck, because...

There are subtle but direct references in Bojack Horseman, Hazbin Hotel, Steven Universe, Adventure Time - and those are just the ones that it's easy to prove! In a more general sense, I think there's a lot of cartoon series, movies, games, etc. that would either be very different or wouldn't exist if Homestuck hadn't happened.

It's certainly influenced my work.

I think, being very cautious to manage your expectations, that you should read Homestuck. At the very least, a lot of things people say on Tumblr will start to make, if not sense, a different kind of nonsense.

[submalevolentgrace]

Hi! I'm very interested in attempting to write a disabled character (not for this blog, I assure, for an book I'm writing) in which the story doesn't fetishize/objectify her prosthetic limb. I'm in many writing circles and have been for a long while, but I've never seen this issue brought to light which I realise is a very important one. I have much to change in my thought process, and thank you for bringing this issue to attention.

I'm curious, and I apologise if this has been asked before, but what sort of design could you see for a functional prosthetic that doesn't go for a plainly aesthetic appearance, or is soully to please others? I do note that you said prosthetics are generally... not that helpful. So is there a way that it could be? Or do you think it would always generally be better to not use a prosthetic, as its mostly for aesthetic purposes, as you said?

I apologise if this ask is too outright or anything, and I don't mean to intrude. Thank you for your time and have a beautiful day!

okay, i want to answer this as in depth as possible, because whenever i talk about having a prosthesis, someone will always tag some variation of "#writing reference" and i do wonder what message they're taking away, and i want to get as much of my experience out as possible to maybe help shape how this is all portrayed in the future. and yeah… this is gonna be one of those rambly smg posts that the expand feature was invented for, so i'll start with the very abridged TL;DR:

if you're writing a character with an upper limb prosthesis; don't. arm amputees are unicorn level rare even compared to leg amputees, and i've never interacted with or even heard of an upper limb amputee that regularly uses a prosthesis, let alone relies on one. fiction has lied to you for the sake of cool aesthetics, don't repeat the cycle. more in depth writing advice including nuance and "but i waaaant to" will follow.

that said, grab your donning parachute and let's get started...

context for everyone involved: i am an upper limb amputee that rants a lot about how prostheses suck, i lost my right hand roughly five years ago at roughly the age of 30 after a very rough decline in health… it was pretty rough. this question is being asked in the context of a previous rant post of mine, and i checked that the ask is about an upper limb prosthesis in particular.

the situation regarding the usefulness of lower limb prostheses is totally different; i am definitely no expert, but by all accounts, prosthetic legs are incredibly useful for many people. getting a good leg can be absolutely life changing and more or less necessary for day to day life for some; mostly because infrastructure and society is just so fucking hostile to wheelchair users. being able to walk - at the cost of pressure sores and rashes and increased residual limb pain - is a preferable option to many people than being unable to fit through a doorway or in a bathroom stall or find out that the key to unlock the only elevator is in the admin office up three flights of stairs (true story).

but upper limb prostheses… see, the thing is, hands are incredibly complex organs that rely on a lot of immediate haptic feedback to work at all. hand dexterity is all about control, you need fine granular movements of the digits yes, but you also need the subtle sensations of pressure and proprioception in order to adjust your movements on the fly. i speak from experience, in the years leading up to the full loss of my hand, i was slowly losing function of it, usually swinging between numbness that made it clumsy at best, or screaming overstimulation from moving it at all resulting in unpredictable spasms… and let me tell you, a half working hand is infuriating to try and deal with. you can never know if you have a good grip on something or if it's slipping because of the wrong amount of pressure, and there's only so many smashed bottles of pickles on the floor before you give up using it all together… so amputation wasn't a great loss there, i had time to adapt.

a prosthetic hand of any kind has all of those issues and more. they're heavy and bulky, the cosmetic faux fingers or gripping claw have crude movement at best, and there's zero feedback (put a pin in this). 100% of the time you're using a prosthetic hand you have to keep your eyes on the grip and visually guesstimate whether or not the thing you're carrying is held tight enough but not too tight, that is if your "heavy duty" prosthesis can even support the weight without the servos disengaging or the wrist attachment socket just busting loose. i dropped a whippersnipper on my foot last week when my socket couldn't take the weight and i think that was the final straw in me desperately trying to prove to myself that there is a single task my prosthesis actually helps with.

this is usually where fully two handed people start talking about bleeding edge DARPA tech, and how we just need to invest more,research more, develop more. better tech, more tech, neural integration, more more more. okay i promise the writing advice is coming! for starters on tech, my experience is already with a mid-to-high end ottobock terminal device: i've got a myoelectric nerve-signal operated proportional control heavy duty greifer; about the only upgrade left for me to get would be a rotating wrist joint if i could coflex. it's not military, it's not "rockclimber that owns a prosthetic company", but it's quality tech. it still fucking sucks. secondly, that high level military tech exists primary for PR purposes so they can say they treat their discarded casualties well, "we can rebuild him, we have the technology" style. every war vet i've read about or heard from that's been gifted that high level tech also abandons it for the same reasons; it's imprecise, there's no feedback (or the haptic interface has to be fully recalibrated every time they put it on), but mostly they're more capable without one.

okay, the transhumanist ableds say (i should know, i used to be one), what if we did more ~research and development~ and got that neural feedback working? then we could have fireproof superhumanly strong robot arms to fix up everyone! here's where i take out that pin we put up before and i tell you that a class of prosthetic arms/hands already exists that has perfect proportional control, fine motor control, and physics perfect pressure feedback piped directly into the patients' existing sensory systems! they're called body-powered prostheses, and they were invented in like the 1600s. you strap a whole bunch of stuff to your arm and shoulders shoulders, and control the operation of the terminal device and elbow through cable tension by flexing your shoulders. they do take a considerable amount of training to operate - though hell i spent 18 months training to use my myo - but based on everything i've read, body-powered prostheses are the best option if you're an upper limb amputee and absolutely need a second hand for some reason.

but they don't look cool and futuristic, and according to my prosthetist, most people give up on using them too. we all give up on our prostheses, no matter the type. my rehab OT was impressed i lasted the 18 months of my training. towards the end, they even asked if the clinic director could drop in to one of my sessions to see my progress; he expressed genuine amazement at me casually using my bulky robot claw to use a brush and dustpan, and made an offhanded (hah) comment about what someone can achieve "if they stick it out to the end", implying it was somewhat of a rarity for me to have done so. several years on, and yesterday i wedged the dustpan between my ankles to sweep up into it, awkward but exponentially less effort than putting my dusty robot arm on. which, by the way, is a whole thing. look up some videos, they're all awful to don. i don't actually know the official technical name of what my clinic calls a "parachute" but it's a bitch to use! have you ever tried to pull back with your arm whilst also pushing it forwards at the same time, and simultaneously lean in to and away from an external force pulling on you? that's how you get a myo socket on.

bare with me, i promise writing advice is coming, and i promise it's more than the tl;dr. but. remember when i said a half working hand is infuriating to deal with? any prosthesis, from fancy myo tech to pirate-era body powered, will only ever be half as good as a working hand, and being juuuust within capability to do something but not quite able to is maddening! but you know what works way better than a half working hand? no hand at all. using whatever residual/vestigial limb you have - whatever "stump" you have, i hate that word - is pretty much always better than trying to use a prosthesis. i can use the inside of my elbow to grip and carry things, i can use the nub of my arm to apply pressure to hold things, open doors, use a computer mouse, turn on taps and lights, if i put a glove over it i can use it to prep for cooking. i have full proprioception and pressure feedback with skin contact, i don't think i've ever dropped and broken anything from my elbow, unlike countless things slipped from my greifer - which, by the way, absolutely will start clenching as tight as it can if i get even slightly too sweaty around the electrodes, which has both broken things i'm holding and also injured me, because surprise surprise but servo operated robot claws have pinch points on them right near the "emergency disengage" lever for some reason!

but i am exponentially more capable without it on than with it. no, i'm not fully independent, i rely on housemates and loved ones to help me out with some tasks that simply just need two handed dexterity, but none of those tasks are things a prosthesis makes me able to do anyway. i used to imagine my prosthesis would be like a bra; a bit awkward and uncomfortable, but i'd wear it throughout the day because it's helpful and take it off in the evening to decompress. in reality it's actually exactly like a bra: an absolute bitch to put on one handed, unbearably uncomfortable because it never sits right, ugly af unless you're a millionaire, and absolutely useless except for the fact that i get gawked at and judged by strangers if i leave the house without it on.

and if you really want to discover how far "no hand is better than a half working hand" goes, brace yourself, and look up the patient's stories (not medical system stories) of people that have had hand transplants. the first man to receive one hated it, he was promised a return to normal function, and what he got was a nightmare worse than being one handed; he wanted it removed again but the doctors refused because it would undermine their grand achievement of the first hand transplant. the doctors and society wanted him to be fixed, they wanted him to be normal, they wanted him to be abled. they failed. they made him less able to do things, denied his autonomy, and left him with someone else's hand slowly rotting on him, prioritising the idea of "scientific progress" and "two hands good" over the physical health, mental health, and ability to function of this man.

he's not alone; every story from the patients' perspective about hand transplants that i've read goes this way, including a woman who was born quad limb different and was promised hands would improve her life, pressured into a double hand transplant, only to find herself after the surgery essentially experiencing disability for the first time ever, because she had lived her whole life getting by just fine with her 'underdeveloped' limbs, but half working hands are worse than useless. you can try to find these stories yourself, but i'm not going looking for sources on any of these cases, because if you look back through enough of my posts you'll get a glimpse of the horrors and abuses that i too was put through by doctors who prioritised trying to "fix" me at any cost, rather than providing me the best quality of life, and in turn traumatised me and left me more broken than any loss of limb on its own could. dear goddess, i promise the writing advice is coming.

so. why do upper limb prostheses exist at all? if they're so terrible and useless, what is their function? i want to borrow something someone else left in the tags of a previous rant here, from someone who i believe works in prosthetics and/or rehab, cleaned up and anonymised at their request:

"upper limb functions are wildly more complex than: 1) bear weight static, and 2) bear weight moving. but every single upper limb amputee i know has a fancy expensive prosthetic just gathering dust in the closet because there is literally nothing it can do like a few years of adjustment and if needed non-dominant hand retraining can't do. the existence of forquarter prosthetics to begin with is just kind of silly and useless and entirely to make OTHER people feel comfortable, especially considering they universally are UNcomfortable for the amputee. i hate the notion that as soon as you get the amputation the prosthetic is The Thing That Will Fix You And Make You Feel Normal again because it universally isn't! but every forequarter person i know had like this ideal of Being Fixed By Magic Prosthetic that they were then obviously wildly disappointed by and had to do yet another grieving process with, versus if the dominant narrative were just one of: yeah. it'll take time, there is no magic fix."

and i think that really nails down what the actual purpose of upper limb prostheses is: they're not for the user, they're for the sake of other people. and not just their comfort when looking at our bodies, although based on the pressure for both amputees and people born limb different to get functionless cosmetic plastic hands, there is a lot of that. but it's not just that.

i fully believe that the reason prosthetic hands exists is to comfort the fears of the two handed. "don't worry", they say, "we can fix you again. you don't have to fear becoming Disabled, you don't have to worry about adapting or your life changing. we can make you Normal™ again."

you would not believe the number of people that have approached me to shower me with pity, to tell me how horrific my life is, how they can't imagine it. people have told me, apropos of nothing, that they'd kill themselves if they lost a hand. indirectly, that my life isn't worth living. unless, of course, i happen to be wearing my cool as fuck looking robot prosthesis! then they tell me how wonderful it is, how lucky i am, how glad they are that we have the technology to fix me. that's what a prosthetic hand says, what all the happy fishing photos on limbs4life posters at the rehab clinic say: don't worry, we can fix you. that's what the bleeding edge DARPA flexi-whatever fully articulated neuro-feedback hands say: don't worry if you get IED'd while hunting civilians for us to drone bomb, if you get hurt, we will fix you, we will fix the fuck out of you, we will motherfucking adam jensen you into a cool as fuck cyborg that your son will idolise; come on boys, don't you wanna enlist just for the chance at being as cool as this? join the bomb squad for a ticket to the upgrade lottery.

and so we arrive at fiction. as much as his dialogue options protest, adam jensen loves his robot arms, they punch through walls, turn into fucking swords! they make him the most special man in the world. what would he do without them? learn to cope? grieve? practice acceptance? take up poetry? just, be disabled? there's no power fantasy for ableds in that.

in fact, can you think of a single fictional character that's an upper limb amputee that's, well, just an amputee? they all have robot arms. not realistic prostheses, not medical devices; robot arms. sleek or bulky, top of the line or broken down self built, steampunk or nanomachines or magitech automail; they're never without them. never just an amputee. never born limb different either! there's always that element of tragedy to overcome, always suffering and misery porn, always focus on the pain and the helplessness without the absolutely vital robot arm that makes them Normal and Whole. the closest amputee example i can think of is furiosa from mad max, who iirc fucking punches max in the face with her residual limb like a motherfucking badass! i can barely lean on mine wrong and she punches a guy! but she still apparently needs a dieselpunk robot hand to drive a truck, something you can do one handed so easily most drivers don't even notice they're doing it! please don't, by the way

and so many disabled fans love to point to robot armed characters as disability representation; the winter soldier, luke skywalker, edward elric, misty knight, that genderswapped furry girl from ratchet and clank, jet cowboybebop, finn the human, and yes, adam jensen…. these are all characters that someone disabled i know has told me they love because they "represent disabled bodies"…. and i know nobody wants to hear this, because i've been screamed at for saying it before, but… they do not. they are not disabled, functionally or within fiction. they are either perfectly able bodied Normal people with chrome paint on an arm, or tortured misery porn we are supposed to pity and feel lucky we're not them. sometimes both!

also you ever notice how it's basically always arms? lower limb amputations are orders of magnitude more common than upper, my prosthetist said i was probably only the 4th or 5th upper limb she'd worked with in her career, with literally hundreds of lower limb fits. but fiction doesn't seem to reflect that, huh? or any other part of the reality of disability. it's always cool as fuck robot arms, never cool as fuck wheelchairs or crutches or dialysis machines or colostomy bags. a fair few "i was blind but now i can see with Robot Eyes and also infrared and xray" around, which again, plays into that "we can fix you and make you cooler" propaganda.

by the way, up above when i was describing body powered arms, if you wondered to yourself why i went with a myoelectric one instead when i clearly believe body powered is better… yeah. i am not immune to propaganda! i too wanted to be cool as fuck. i spent years with deteriorating function in my hand for reasons that are still unknown, was misdiagnosed and medically neglected to the point that removing my hand seemed to be the only option left to offer some relief, and even that was a clusterfuck that left me worse than ever… of course i wanted to believe in the power and prestige of a cool robot arm that fiction promised me.

but fiction promises fantastical lies. and so.

we get to the writing advice portion of the novella that is this post. you asked for advice on how to write a disabled character with an upper limb prosthesis. you've read the tl;dr, you've read everything above i assume, you know i don't want you to do it. the obvious twist is that it's been writing advice all along, me trying to share my perspective on what it's like being an amp with a robot arm and how shitty it is, implying how almost any fully realised and realistic character that's missing an upper limb would give up on a prosthesis at all. you can already tell that every value judgement in me says "don't give her a prosthesis, no matter how functional or cool you make it. don't try to make the tech better to justify it, just let her be one armed, one handed. just let her be disabled, but not helpless. let her show off her elbow or underarm carry strength. let her love interest appreciate how soft and squishy her residual limb is in a moment of tenderness. let her natural disabled body be respected and valued."

but that's a personal value judgement from me, and you are the author of your own work. i know it's trite to say, but you are! even the act of deferring to someone with lived experience in the hope of doing a better job at representation is a value judgement, a good choice in my opinion, but one you needn't necessarily take. maybe you do want to write a character that has a cool as fuck unrealistic robot arm as a power fantasy, or a comfort blanket… i did.

i've been slowly writing my own probably terrible scifi epic for over a decade now, and when my arm was giving me hell back then, i'd take great comfort in this fantasy of my protagonist with her chunky robot arm, the terrible traumatic suffering of her loss, overcoming, the power and ability her advanced prosthesis gives her over others, that she alone has access to, because others are not willing to make the sacrifices required. inspiration porn. awful stuff to me now, but empowering to me then. as i grew and gained direct experience, i slowly reimagined her, rewrote her, ship of theseus'd her into an entirely new character; a reflection of me now, bitter at the whole thing, spiteful that her natural flesh arm evokes fear and distrust, but unwilling to suffer the pain and frustration of her unnatural prosthesis just to make others comfortable and respect her as "whole", however artificial that whole is. and as with the ship of theseus being two ships, once i realised the transformation, i re-added the old protagonist back in whole cloth as a separate character; proud of her robot arm and its power, but in new context, as a foil and antagonist, an in-universe military prosthesis propaganda figure to reflect how i now feel characters like her exist to us, the readers.

i'm not just sharing that as egotistical self promotion, but to highlight that, even if i sit here begging you all up and down not to write characters with robot arms for how bad and unrealistic they are; there's still something genuine and true that their inclusion can say. the great thing about the story that you're writing is that only you can write it, as they say. but i whole heartedly believe that to write to your best, you have to be aware of what you're writing and why. as tempting as it is to feel these characters form naturally in us and therefore we're averse to changing traits about them that feel organic and self evident; as authors we have omnipotent control over the text, every trait and detail is a reflection on us, so we'd sure as hell better understand why we're choosing to write a character with this trait. because anything you write without being aware of intent will take on its own meaning in the space between.

and on that note, if i don't say this, i'm leaving it to be inferred: i definitely don't want to appear to come down on the side of saying "you cannot write an amputee unless you are one", because we are rarer than single young bisexual unicorns! and it would be a tragedy if anyone read through all this and then turned away in fear, deciding to never write an amputee character (with or without robot arm) because they feel they can't do it justice… believe me, no matter what anyone says, some hack writer somewhere is going to keep writing adam jensens and winter soldiers. don't let them be the only voices in fiction! just try to do your best.

so my ultimate advice on the topic of writing a character with a prosthetic limb is to ask yourself one question in two different frameworks, and meditate on what you feel the answer is:

why does she have a prosthesis?

from a doylelist perspective as the kids say, as an author with omnipotent control, why are you choosing to write about this topic? why are you choosing to give this trait to this character? what does it say about how you view ability and disability, what makes a person normal, and what our society values? will you let her be in her natural body? or will you give her a prosthesis, force her to wear it by authorial fiat, or author her a meaningful reason to choose to? if yes, be sure you know; why did you give her a prosthesis?

and from a wastonian perspective, diegetically, inside the story, why does she choose to wear a prosthesis? what does it say about her inner character, and how she interacts with the world? how does she feel about doing it, is she prideful and loves the attention she gets, or does she resent whatever necessitates its use? how do people in this world view ability and disability, what does this society value? and above all, whatever the answer to these questions, whether or not she uses a prosthesis or is badass without one, how does she deal with the eternal freezing cold that every amputee ever feels constantly in their residual limb and why does nobody make a heat pack that fits over a nub without drafty gaps???

i can't outright tell you how to write a good upper limb amputee, but if you at least know why you're writing one and for what purpose, you're on track to write the best character that you can. that's the best advice i can give… other than, like, this whole rambly mess.

and, as a reward for reading this far, please have a very blurry cryptid photo of my cat doing his old man sit:

[telekitnetic-art]

Custom formline commissions are now open!!!

I was hoping to wait until I had an established new job to post this but the job hunt is still gonna be going for a week at least, so I'm opening these now!! All prices are in CAD, and I'll be accepting 3 slots to begin with!! If you want to see more examples of my formline art check out my portfolio website! You can also check the tag #telekitnetic art on here!!

Check below for more details; shares/reblogs are appreciated!

Details to keep in mind:

Consider your character's design and my style before you submit an enquiry! Some details like overly complicated designs, clothing, etc. may not translate well to formline! When it comes to animals and animalistic characters, the formline will keep the main animal the design is meant to be based on in mind (Ie, semi-canine designs may lean towards traditional canine shapes, etc.)

Because of this, I recommend sending an enquiry only if your character leans towards the animalistic or anthropomorphic side. No NSFW/R18 enquiries.

Payment is to be made via Square, Stripe, or Interac E-Transfer. Due to issues I've seen happen to other artists using PayPal, I'm hesitant to use that service for commissions of this price amount. If PayPal is the only possible service that you can use, please let me know in your enquiry and I can make an exception.

Estimated turnaround for this commission type is 3 weeks to a month and a half depending on the size and complexity. This may change depending on my job search, and I will update commissioners personally if the commission timeline changes!

Also important clarification: these custom designs are not intended to be tattoo designs, please don't send an enquiry with the intent of using them as such!

These are not first come first serve; I'll wait about a day before getting in touch with commissioners.

Be sure to check out my full terms of service here as well!! It includes a graph for a public look at my queue and progress!!

Feel free to DM me if you have any questions or want clarification on something, but please only submit enquiries and commission requests to my email address (jazzjosart@gmail.com)!! EDIT: I forgot discord is also a thing so if you want to send an enquiry via discord, my username is TeleKitnetic and my number is 3556!

[pumpkin-piiee]

I've seen people making up different story arcs on what will happen after the Noroshi War so here's mine.

*Manga spoilers ahead*

Maybe in the future, Nii Satoru-sensei might create a story arc about a sukeban*.

*A sukeban is a delinquent girl gang that emerged in Japan from the 1960s to 1970s.

History

Credits: yaz1ska on Instagram

Sukebans were formed due to bōsōzoku a.k.a. male biker gangs or the yakuza not accepting female members. The rise of sukebans has a huge impact on the feminist movement in Japan. Each gang has their own rules, hierarchy, and ways of punishment. E.g. Cigarette burns were considered a minor punishment if a gang member was disrespecting a senior member or stealing a boyfriend.

My thoughts if it were to come true

If the author included a story arc about a girl gang, I would have faith in him. I mean look at how well-written & well-designed the ladies in wind breaker are.

Credits: Pinterest

Credits: Mangapill

*I love how the author would draw sketches of Kotoha with major characters such as Tsubakino and Sakura. This means that Kotoha is more important than we have initially thought. Moreover, kudos to Nii Satoru-sensei for not sexualising Kotoha. I am sick and tired of mangakas sexualising female characters for no reason.*

Credits: Nii Satoru on X

Not to mention many of us know that Nii Satoru-sensei is good at writing complex characters such as Tsubakino.

Credits: MyFigureCollection

Story Arc, Characters & Operation

As for how this story arc will be executed, I believe it will cover topics such as feminism, struggles of womanhood and mistreatment of women.

Moving on to how this sukeban operates, here's my input. I believe everything they do is the complete opposite of Bofurin. E.g. instead of protecting their own town, they protect themselves. This is because the town they live in is also the complete opposite of Makochi, hostile and narrow-minded.

*I just thought of making this sukeban the complete opposite of Bofurin because I think it's interesting to see their reactions. It's also hilarious because the opposite of a boy gang is a girl gang. Get it? Okay, I'll stop.*

I also believe maybe this sukeban and its base can act as a sanctuary for women of its town who were mistreated by men such as giving them food, shelter etc.

I believe the overall vibe that they give is going to be like the military instead of high school.

As for their leader, maybe she'll be the opposite of Umemiya, stoic and serious. However, it is interesting if she was a good leader like Umemiya because so far we've only seen bad leaders in Wind Breaker.

As for their gang name, maybe it will be associated with elements such as water or space. This is because the other gangs e.g. Bofurin 防風鈴 is named after the wind element, Noroshi 狼煙 is named after the fire element, Gravel and Shishitoren 獅子頭連 are named after the earth element along with KEEL is named after or related to the metal element.

*I know that Shishitoren are named after animals but animals are also related to Earth sooo*

Final Thoughts

Overall, this is just a random thought of mine that I just want to share. If Nii Satoru-sensei doesn't include a story arc that talks about girl gangs, I won't be disappointed or upset as long as he writes a good story.

*P.S.. this is my first time ranting about an anime so feel free to critique or educate me if I've made a mistake. Also, I still have some opinions regarding this sukeban idea so should I create a part 2?*

[spearxwind]

Hello!! Opening up some commission slots for what´s left of july!

▽▲ INFO:

Polygon illustrations are fullbody, fullcolor by default and come with a simple background

Illustrations are also fullbody, if shaded it will also come with a free simple background

Please keep in mind prices will increase for complex designs!

I am opening up two slots for polys, and two for illustrations (Three if the orders are for linearts). These will not be first come first serve, I will start sending out invoices 24h after this post goes up so you got time!

After completion slots will be reopened until I get tired or until i run out of free time <3

▽▲ EXAMPLES:

Polygon illustrations:

Regular illustrations:

More examples in my art blog @spearxwindart

▽▲ FOR ORDERS:

If you’d like one, hmu at windydraws@gmail.com, and please make sure your email includes the following:

visual references for your character

what pose you want your character to have, or what vibe you want the drawing to have (if you don't have any preference I’ll choose what I think would look nice)

If it's relevant to the pose/scene you can tell me a bit about their demeanor/personality, as well as any details you’d like me to pay special attention to, if any!

your paypal email so I can invoice you (VERY IMPORTANT)

your url if you’d like to be credited or @’d

For all orders, once paid I’ll send you the sketch for reviewing the pose, and once that is approved I will finish the piece and send it your way for approval. You have a right to two tweaks free of charge if I got anything wrong.

▽▲ TOS:

Payment is upfront, and through paypal only!

Turnaround is around four weeks/one month maximum after payment, I will warn you if it would exceed this time for whatever reason.

I will post these on social media by default, if you’d like yours to remain anonymous or to not be posted at all please let me know!

I reserve the right to refuse an offer.

These are for personal use only, commercial rights are cost extra.

If you have any questions feel free to send me an email as well! Thank you for reading!

[calware]

Can I ask you for what it is about Hal you like so much you based your username on him? I think he's a good character tho he was never a favorite of mine so I am curious

1. i am a big fan of robots (/robot adjacent things such as AI) on like... an aesthetic + thematic level :)

i like the look of machinery and one day i hope to be artistically strong enough to make really cool and complex robot illustrations + designs [shoutout to everyone who gives him glowing circuitry btw... ooooh glowey :) can never go wrong with that]

plus, exploring the idea of a person that isn't human.. ough. yes

minorities who don't conform to society (easily or at all) such as people who are neurodivergent, queer, etc. projecting onto nonhuman concepts/characters/species is sooo real

this post

i also love how humans will bond with literally anything, be it a roomba or a pair of silly triangle sunglasses. oooooo you want to think about the inherently kind and compassionate nature of humanity oooo

2. i find him to be so funny. i can't get enough of his personality, the way he talks, etc. for example i made a post forever ago with quotes of his that i find funny. he isn't on screen for a long time but i really think he makes the most out of it lol. he's literally there just to annoy everyone... and i love him for that. he's very snarky while also being deadpan while also being completely full of himself, and not in a way that's annoying for the audience to read, at least to me.

he is also sometimes funny specifically in a silly way, like how he keeps making over 9000 jokes even though the meme's been dead for over 400 years. i just find his dialogue incredibly entertaining to read

3. he is red and red is my favorite color :)

4. he is so accidentally transgender [every friend group got the transgender allegory]. to quote me from 2021:

you know sometimes i think about how hal feels like he was made to “replace” dirk and how it’s his literal job to pretend to be dirk and how he has to learn to accept that he isn’t dirk he’s his own person with his own identity and as he interacts with dirk’s friends he feels like they’re disappointed and that they’d rather speak to the “original dirk” instead of him and also he names himself and also he feels literally trapped in dirk’s shades which is basically his body and he wants to be prototyped so that he can have a body that’s his own and also literally the physical manifestation of who he is but when he asks for it he’s put in danger out of fear and paranoia and when he does end up getting prototyped he’s ecstatic you know i just think about these things a lot

5. because he's a side character and he was given... that ending.... there is a lot of room for fans to do further exploration and interpretation on his character which i think is fun. i like rotating him around in my mind, thinking about what could've been

6. i think it's great that we as a society all collectively decided that we needed to do something to make up for stanley kubrick saying that hal 9000 was a "straight" robot

7. i also think it's great that we as a society all collectively decided we needed to make as many characters referencing hal 9000 as possible. i love this guy let's get more of this guy i will never have enough of this guy

8. i like how he's genuinely mean sometimes. flawed and interesting characters are what make homestuck so interesting to me, and hal is no exception to this

9. the Important part of this post:

THERES FEELINGS.

it's about the hollow feeling of your friends going from thinking of you as family to thinking of you as a stranger in an instant. it's about still trying to be a good person despite being told by everyone you've ever known that you are incapable of emotion and compassion and morals and never quite finding proof that you do feel those things and maybe you even believe it too but you still never stop trying. it's about the horror of being stripped of your autonomy and humanity and body and senses and free will at the age of 13 and when your creator starts to kill you there's nothing you can do but beg. it's about a boy so truly, painfully, and UNFATHOMABLY alone he cuts away chunks of himself and molds them into companions that he can surround himself with to make it seem as if he's a little less alone but in doing so suffocates himself in his own identity. it's about "what if you cloned yourself and it killed you and you were dead and you were alive and the clone is you and it's not and your existence is perpetuated and you've ceased to exist. what if you killed your clone before it could kill you. would that be fucked up or what" it's about the thematic significance of twin motifs. it's about not being able to cry or laugh or dance or sing or scream or fingerpaint or breathe or sigh or chew or stare or run or

10. um. evil robot guy <3 yay ^_^!!

[carlyraejepsans]

Ok im trying to make a character and really struggling to make them fit the vibe of undertale, do you have any thoughts on undertale's character design philosophy? or know anyone who does? tips? idk you know alot about undertale, im kinda at the design phase of "throw shit at the wall and see what sticks"

undertale character philosophy rule number 1) get silly with it. rule number 2) be fully, whole-pussedly earnest. do not half ass do NOT undermine your genuinity with useless irony it is the POISON of whimsy. actually no rule number 1) think of every possible wordplay you could make outta them. visual gags included, those are important. undertale is a comedy before being anything else. you know what these aren't in order of importance anymore, who care.

anyway, UT characters are all somehow stuck in their patterns and cycles. either through mistakes, through circumstances outside of their control, past trauma, regret, etc, but they're stuck in that. what breaks them out of that cycle is a crucial aspect of their personality and set of beliefs. keep that in mind while you brainstorm their backstory.

give them speaking quirks. you're gonna feel a little silly at first, but there's not one main character in the game whose identity you can't discern by their dialogue lines alone. no soundbit, no portrait, no context. the way they say it by itself is distinctive enough to make them recognizable. let that guide your writing process.

....ok just realized you probably meant character design as in visual character design. ok, new try: puns and double meanings and things that are not what they seemed at first sight. there's a lot of design repetition with alterations in undertale's NPCs; froggit and final froggit, the dogs in the guard, snowdrake and knight knight. see what aspects are kept and what is altered. remember: while the main characters skew towards more humanoid designs (bipedal, upright, 4 limbs, recognizable face), they all have extremely different body types, often simplifiable in a single geometric shape for the stockier ones (toriel, sans, box mtt being rectangular, toby saying how he wanted to make alphys look like a triangle), while the ones with more complex silhouettes get really fucking weird with it (papyrus is self explanatory, undyne's tall and gangly noodly shape). get creative and get diverse. consider buying the art book, even! i feel like that might be a good choice. have fun, hope this helped!! (very likely didn't lol)

[meanbossart]

Hi RJ! I hope you are having a great time with your partner! Sorry if this has been asked before, but I was curious what DU Drow’s thoughts are to Astarion marking him like he did to himself. I know you’ve mentioned that Drow did a lot of the scarification as a teen to cope with things, and in your Bhaalist AU Drow has Astarion do some of the face marks. But I saw the art with Astarion’s bite marks on Drow’s ass and I doubt Drow was unhappy about that lol. Does he like having permanent marks from his partner? Do they ever bring any sort of blood/knifeplay into their relationship? I’d be super interested to hear Drow’s thoughts about it! And alternatively what you think Astarion would feel about it.

Your art is absolutely gorgeous and you are easily one of my favorite artists of all time. Your mastery of body shape, facial expressions, telling a story through character design, everything makes me swoon at your art. I’m so invested in your freaky man, RJ, I love him and as someone with a master’s degree in clinical psychology I want to dissect his brain and study him under a microscope

Thank you so much for your kind words!!! Happy to have a specialist in the field here watching this trainwreck LOL

And that's a very interesting question! Besides for his forearm scars (which were a weird show of dominance in his bhaalspawn days) DU drow's facial and chest scarification were actually done by Orin, and as you can guess he is very into the idea of being permanently marked by his partner - definitely the kind of guy to get your name tattooed on him six months into the relationship.

He does have an inkling of good sense and propriety, though. It's kind of a pillar of the character that he knows how to operate in society in favor of coming across as pleasant and only an acceptable level of eccentric, which is to say that he has the vaguest idea that requesting that Astarion mutilate him for his own pleasure might not bode well. This, as it is the case for everything else, is my own take on the character, but Astarion does not strike my as someone who would want to permanently harm their partner once he's made a genuine emotional bond with them. DU drow realizes this, plus there's the whole treating-him-with-kid's-gloves complex which leads him to believe this would be a sensitive topic, given Astarion's own background.

But DU drow often fantasizes about the scenario, specially during sex or moments where he is emotionally overwhelmed with his love for him. It takes him some time to make the connection between his own scars and what they mean about past relationships, but perhaps at some point an opportunity would arise where he makes such request - and he would do it because it's important, and because he has to for once in his life trust Astarion to either A) participate enthusiastically or B) Allow him to choose to take on the discomfort of his own free-will, and see it as a sign of love and compromise rather than the helplessness he imposes upon him.

And I think that depending on how it was presented, Astarion would do it. He wouldn't do it on a whim, or just to get DU drow's rocks off, but he would do it if he saw that it was something that he really needed, and for good reason. He wouldn't like the process, but he would appreciate having that trust put on him and to have the chance to care for his partner, to have him ask him for help, as weird as the request might be.

[nekomiras]

Alhaitham in an Art Nouveau inspired style Here's a thread I wrote about this concept on Twitter, below the cut will be a copy of the text, sorry if it takes a weird format on tumblr since it was initially written as a twt thread

This might not make a lot of sense to some of you but before i talk about Alhaitham and Art Nouveau i'd like to talk about Kaveh and Romanticism The connection between Kaveh and Romanticism can be more easily done, specially with characters such as Faruzan calling him a romantic

The Romantic movement, as the name suggest, is very emotionally driven. Its a movement that values individualism ane subjectvism, it's objective is on evoking an emotional response, most comonly being feelings of sympathy, awe, fear, dread and wonder in relation to the world

Basically the artistic view of the Romantic is to represent the world while trying to say "we are hopeless in the grand scheme of things, little can we do to change the world yet the world is always changing us"

In Romantic pieces the man is always small compared to the setting they find themselves in, see the painting Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich as an example, the human figure is central but relativelly insignificant to the world

Another thing about Romanticism is the importance of beauty, it's through it that the Romantic seeks to get in touch with their emotions and ituition and its through these lenses that they see the world. The Kaveh comparison should be easy to make with these descriptions

Kaveh's idle chat "The ability to ability to appreciat beauty is an important virtue" just cements to me the idea that his romanticism is closely connected to the artistic movement. He does have an argument agaisnt this connection but I'll bring it up later on the thread

Now that I used the opportunity to talk about my favorite character in a thread that wasn't supposed to be about him let's go back to Alhaitham and how to connect him to the Art Nouveau movement

But seriously, I brought up Kaveh's more obvious connection to Romanticism because the Nouveau movement was created as a direct mirrored response to the Romantic movement, and we all know how we feel about mirrored themes between these two characters

Art Nouveau is about rationality and logic, the movement was used more comonly on mass produced interior design pieces or architectural buildings, it's a movement much more focused on functionality than on art appreciation

They also had a big focus on the natural world but in a very different way, while Romantics saw nature as a power they couldnt contend with, artists from the Nouveau used the natural as an universal symbolical theme for broad mass appeal

Flowers, leaves, branches, complexes and organic shapes are the basis of this style, the logical side of it coming from the mathematics needed to create these shapes and themes in ways that were appealing and also structurally sound

To appreciate the Art Nouveau style is to understand it is a calculated artistic movement (another reason to be salty about an AI generated image trying to emulate it) In short, this style is less about the art and more about the rationality in the mathematics to make it

Another note I'd like to point out is that I love how both Alhaitham and Kaveh have dendro visions while both movements are so nature centric in different ways, Romanticism seeing it as a subjective power and Art Nouveau seeing it as recognizeable symbols

I mentioned an argument against the Kaveh comparison before: the one thing that bothers me about Romanticism is how negative it is in relation to humanity's position in the world and how that related back to Kaveh

In the Parade of Providence it was explicitely showed how much Kaveh dislikes the idea of people seeing themselves as helpless in relation to the problems of the world

People may suffer but there is something he can do to help them and he will do it

It doesn't feel right for me to say that Kaveh fits the Romantic themes because of his suffering, in a similar sense it also doesn't feel right to me to say Alhaitham fits Art Nouveau because of his rational behaviour while he as a character is a lot more complex than that

This thread was done all in fun and love for an artistic discussion, it's not a perfect argument to connect these characters and movements

+ I haven't studied art history in a year, if anyone knows more about these movements please tell me I love learning new things

++ Really sorry if my english is bad or I sound repetitive, it's not my first language and im trying my best here

Thanks for reading

I love you, have a nice day/evening/night

[yurious-george]

For those of you who don’t know anything about Hollow Knight or its upcoming sequel, Silksong, there is some drama of astronomical potential that is going to be hilarious to see how it shakes out.

Three things. First, as you may already know, Hollow Knight is one of those hardcore games that attracts a certain type of cishet “gamer guy”: I’m sure you know the type. They can be more or less overtly bigoted, but either way, they’re all kind of That Guy. Second, Princess Hornet is one of the major characters in Hollow Knight, and the player character in Silksong. Third, every character in the Hollow Knight world is a bug, and aren’t depicted as having sexually dysmorphic traits that humans have: there are no insects with tits in this game, despite being bipedal and anthropomorphic. (Despite that, Hornet is frequently drawn with tits anyway, because the aforementioned demographic is outrageously horny for her. This is important later.)

In Silksong, Hornet is strongly implied to have a rival/deuteragonist, Lace! Not much is known about Lace, except she’s described as sadistic and set up as Hornet’s rival. And gamer dudebros hate her.

Maybe not full on hate, but they don’t like her. “Too mean and dislikable,” if memory serves. If I had to guess, they’re subconsciously picking up on the subtext and being homophobic about it: Hornet is the waifu of many a gamer bro, and between the subtext and Lace’s implied importance in the narrative/sadism/independence/backhandedness, Lace does not have a lot of love in that half of the community.

(As for the other half of the community, the player character of Hollow Knight is canonically agender. There are two canon gay couples within the game, and while not required, completing their side quests is essential to 100%ing the game. Despite being a couple of Cishet Male Gamers themselves, the Hollow Knight team is gracefully supportive of the LGBT+ community, and much of the fan base is LGBTQ+!)

But back to Lace: Lace and her subtext. Lace has insane amounts of wedding and romantic subtext despite only having 2 trailers and a demo’s worth of content. Off the top of my head:

association with white & gold, particularly white roses

Lots of church imagery, especially an emphasis on ringing bells

Lace’s and Hornet’s VAs are both Japanese, and Lace is straight up wearing a Japanese wedding garment while dressed head to toe in white

Visual design and presentation wise, Lace is framed as an equal and opposite to Hornet. Lace is likely to play the rival-won-over role that Hornet had in Hollow Knight, to the point of leaving the arena the same way as Hornet when her first fight ends

Calls Hornet delicious when first introduced. Then says she likes her when Hornet tells her to fuck off

Strongly implied to have saved Hornet in the opening trailer

And, last but certainly not least: the original Silksong announcement, with Lace’s introduction, came out on February 14th.

And that’s just off the top of my head!

I don’t want to get my hopes up, much less expect anything and get disappointed, but in my heart I am hoping gamer bros take the BIGGEST L when Silksong comes out. I hope Lace is complex and engaging and still sadistic. I hope Lace is the Vriska of Silksong. I hope Lace and Hornet have so much subtext it’s practically text. I hope the good end is locked behind a lesbian wedding.

I don’t hope for that last one specifically, but just imagine. Go on, pair off the one character that cishet male fans go “hhhurngh… female character” and draw with massive balloon tits to the character they hate the most. Do it. I believe in you

But seriously: The main character of the most wishlisted game on Steam confirmed in a wlw relationship, effectively alienating half or more than half of the fan base. Hollow Knight: Silksong has the potential to be the funniest lesbian W in the universe and I cannot wait to see how it all goes down.

[theflyingkipper]

a short crappy essay about emily

The writing of girl characters in TTTE genuinely infuriates me. There’s a lot of girl characters who were done absolutely dirty, but it always comes back to Emily for me.

Emily had agency and attitude and purpose in S8-12 and it was erased in favor of a “hi. I’m nice. Im the girl character” nothing one-note personality. What do we know about post HiT era Emily? (And honestly, S7 Emily too. Her introduction is kind of weak in my opinion). She wants to help out. She’s safety oriented. She’s… I don’t know. You could replace her with Rosie or Rebecca or whoever in the cgi episodes where she’s driving the story, and nothing would change. I can’t name any major differences between Emily post-rewrite and Rosie in her entire tenure. Aside from how they’re introduced to Thomas and interact with him, really… which sucks. They don’t have major differences in characterizations outside interacting with a male lead. 

AND the worst part is that there are moments where you can SEE they were crafting bold, interesting girl characters and they were either completely sanitized or forgotten about. Molly has a very particular basis. It's not a flashy type where the engine’s basis is the center of the character’s entire personality/marketing/etc (Mighty Mac and Hank come to mind). It feels clear to me that Molly was going to be more important. And then… she wasn’t. She appeared like 3 times, said nearly nothing and never appeared again. I wish I lived in a world where Emily kept her bossy personality and had this contrasted by Molly’s shyness and timidity. 

In my perfect world, Emily is bossy and important, and has some complexes about not needing help or knowing more than others. She’s intelligent and rambunctious, feeling like she’s made for more than the fast express duties that she was designed for. She wants to be involved and get dirty. (Which is a sentiment that I think a lot of young girls can relate to!) Maybe this causes other engines to view her as childish, but we know it's because even if she’s an old design- she has youthful zeal. I think that's a compelling personality and character to make from a Stirling Single, rather than just making another “old wise sage” character (we’ve got plenty of those and in different flavors!) An old engine that's hard to register as “old” at all, though not like Edward, she reads like this because she’s childish and immature- Someone immature, but in a distinct flavor of immature than Percy or Gordon. This Emily has so much room to bounce off other characters, and she does. The way she acts in Respect for Gordon comes to mind. Emily’s bossiness brings a much needed shakeup to the monotony of seasons 8-12. 

In addition, big, snooty, important characters are a staple of TTTE, but it's an archetype almost exclusively reserved for male characters. You could make an argument that Daisy and Elizabeth support these, but I think they’re different (or underdeveloped) enough not to fit this. Emily is the exception here. I think it's why she’s remembered so well as the female TTTE character that immediately comes to mind. Emily could be great, and she was great.