#i have an idea for a real non-parody drawing of them but for now this just made me laugh

[marinersubmariner]

Sailor Moon screencap redraw as Star Wars feat. Ben and Rose

Reference under the cut

[ckret2]

Sooo... did Bill always know that there was more beyond the second dimension? Or did he discover that at some point later in life?

The short answer is yes, he knew about it from childhood. And also (this is relevant) he was raised in a cult.

The long answer is a lot more interesting—but bear with me, because the answer is a combination of New Age spirituality and non-Euclidean geometry. That isn't a joke, non-Euclidean geometry is literally involved.

New Age spirituality

Now, a solid 95% of modern New Age concepts are the five-generations-removed brainchildren of con artists, cultists, perennialists, and white people who like to steal ideas from India and claim they came from aliens; but New Age concepts and conspiracy theories are all part of the body of ideas that Gravity Falls likes to treat as real for the purpose of parody, so let's take a look at 'em anyway.

Amongst the many concepts that have been drawn into the New Age movement, there's the idea that multiple (spiritual) planes exist beyond the physical plane, and it's possible to reach them psychically—via astral projection or out-of-body experiences or the like. Often you'll hear about inhuman or formerly-human teachers that come from higher planes to educate particularly spiritually gifted & enlightened humans.

(For those of y'all that have read Flatland: it's easy to imagine this as something similar to the sphere descending to the second dimension in order to raise up and teach the square about higher dimensions.)

The terms "indigo children" (kids with an aura the color of the third-eye chakra) or "starseed" (alien souls reincarnated in human bodies) get tossed around to describe strange, sensitive, strong-willed, intelligent/intuitive children. These kids are claimed to be "special" psychics and sensitives, destined for great spiritual purposes, and typically thought to have an easier time learning New Age concepts or accessing higher planes. (In reality, these terms are usually claimed by parents who would rather believe their kids are special aliens than admit their kids have ADHD/autism/trauma.)

Now, so much for New Age beliefs! Let's move on to non-Euclidean geometry. Time to learn about biangles.

Non-Euclidean geometry

If a tri-angle is a shape made of three angles (and three straight lines), then a bi-angle is a shape made of two angles (and two straight lines). Draw three random points and connect them and it's easy to make a triangle:

But it's a lot harder to make a biangle. If you draw two straight lines, it just looks like a line instead of a shape. The only way to draw it so that you see a shape is to curve the lines like a football, but then it's not a correct biangle because it's not two STRAIGHT lines:

So, it's impossible to draw a biangle on a flat piece of paper.

But it's easy to draw one on a ball.

Just take a sphere, pick two opposite points—like the north and south pole—and draw two different straight lines from north to south.

In the field of Euclidean geometry—the kind of geometry we all learned in school, with perfectly straight lengths & widths & heights—this biangle is clearly made of two curved lines wrapping around a sphere. But in the field of spherical geometry—a form of math that treats the surface of a sphere like it's a flat surface—those are two straight lines, relative to the sphere's point of view.

You can also draw triangles in spherical geometry.

Now let's talk about Bill's folks.

Flatlanders

If an alien read or watched Lord of the Rings, they'd learn what a human being looks like, they'd observe how sunlight and gravity work in our universe, they'd see mountains and plants and rivers, they'd learn about some concepts humans value like loyalty and perseverance and territory and war—but they wouldn't learn anything about real human history and they'd get a very inaccurate idea about what humans use rings for.

I headcanon that the book Flatland is the same when it comes to Bill's backstory: it gives you an idea about the physics of Bill's dimension and the biology of his species, but it's a bad source to learn about the history or politics.

Nobody was getting thrown in prison for suggesting a third dimension exists. In fact, at the time Bill lived, the third dimension was widely accepted by mathematicians and physicists, and many experiments had scientifically proven the existence of a third dimension by measuring the behavior of light.

(Think Einstein's theory of relativity: even if you don't personally understand what Einstein was talking about, you probably know he was famous for being real smart at physics and other smart physicists think he was right. "There's a third dimension" was not a controversial idea in Bill's time, even if most folks didn't understand the scientific implications.)

And Flatlanders had their own New Age-like ideas about strange, "sensitive" kids born psychically attuned to higher dimensions. And recently, modern medicine identified a condition that let parents medically diagnosed these special kids.

New Age Non-Euclidean Flatlanders

Take a triangle, for instance: if the doctor measured him to have three perfectly straight lines, but also measured the sum of his angles to add up to a sliver of a degree more than 180º... well, something weird was going on here. In less advanced ages one could have said that maybe one of the triangle's sides was curved too slightly for the doctor's tools to measure, or maybe the doctor's measurements of the angles were imprecise by less than a degree.

But modern medical tools were precise enough to eliminate that possibility. Some children, despite having perfectly straight lines, were triangles with angles that sum over 180º, or quadrilaterals that sum over 360º, etc. They're flat shapes, all right—but they're flat relative to spheres, in a dimension where spheres can't exist. Something about these kids... bends into another dimension.

Doctors said being born with spherical geometry was a newly-discovered birth abnormality that was strange, and worth studying, but by all appearances harmless. It had probably existed for centuries, perhaps millennia, undetected due to the lack of tools precise enough to confirm its reality.

Parents deep into woo-woo parapsychology and grifters with self-help books to sell said it was a sign that the child would be a prophet, a prodigy, a guru, a world leader. All of history's shamans and psychics and oracles and spiritual leaders had probably been in touch with spherical geometry, receiving messages from higher tridimensional beings.

In reality, just like humanity's "indigo children" or "starseeds," spherical children weren't special superior emissaries chosen for a spiritual mission to help enlighten the planet: they were just normal awkward kids.

Normal awkward kids who happened to be able to see the dimension that light comes from, but were surrounded by people without the mental framework to understand the sights they described.

It was a cool weird trick, but in terms of how cosmological important this weirdness was, it was about on par with any other random genetic oddity, like having six fingers.

But if you're a kid who can occasionally see a sun that nobody else can see, and adults have told you your entire life that this means you're unique, important, meant for greatness, destined to enlighten the ignorant masses and liberate them from their shallow two-dimensional perspective...

Eventually, all that talk might just go to your little triangular yellow head.

[littlewestern]

Guadalcanal looks a little like the 1940s-era superhero Sparky Watts, as created by Boody Rogers. Idk if this was intentional or not but they seem to have a similar "can-do" personality bordering on the absurd in different ways

I'd never heard of this character! But it's the right time period so I was excited to look him up.

...My god, it's uncanny.

There's a few things going on here, and it's a fun opportunity to talk about the design process, which I'm always happy to explore.

So when I first started working on Guadalcanal, I was immediately drawn to the little detail that he had one gun for defense purposes. It's almost silly, right? This big, imposing aircraft carrier who can't really defend himself at all and has to rely on the destroyer escort, but still carries around a tiny ladypistol "just in case". For that reason, my primary visual inspiration is, no joke:

Doctor The Meme himself from Gundam X. The wiki tells me his name is 'Techcs Farzenberg' which is an absolutely top-tier white-people-in-anime name.

Gonna be honest, I'm mad I didn't look up more pics of this guy before. Now This Is Fucking Character Design.

But he's a little old, right? And that hair just won't do. And I like how serious the glasses make him look, but I need a little more charm. A big boat needs to be the kind of character little boats will want to follow and defend. So we have a basic idea (as silly as it is) but we need to fill out the details.

I'm big on drawing design inspiration from old photos. Not only is this a great way to draw period-accurate outfits, but it also helps with designing more realistic faces. I find that when I draw inspiration from photos and real people, my characters feel more realistic, like people you could actually meet somewhere instead of just lines on a page. So I googled up "wwii navy men stock images" and clicked around.

Oh yeah, this is great stuff. His glasses dovetail nicely with our bespectacled non-combatant idea, and this lad's hair is much more indicative of the time period we're trying to portray. From this guy I pulled the hairstyle and reaffirmed that my decision to give Guadalcanal glasses was the right one. This guy just looks so approachable, and I want that for my character as well. If this is your great-grandpa, congrats, he lives in my head rent-free.

Now to put the finishing touches on him. I bulked him up a lot to give that air of importance and authority, and softened his facial features out to make him even more friendly-looking. His face - particularly his nose and mouth - are heavily inspired by an ex-boyfriend of mine (who I won't show here for obvious reasons lol). I think most designers can't help but draw inspiration from the people around them, so we might as well lean into it. I love the way my lived experiences can be reflected in my work. Now we can put it all together!

The one on the left was the first-pass design and the one on the right was a redraw after some tweaks and a bit of practice. You can tell I struggled with the hair and just phoned it in, but that's what first-passes are for. There's a reason I never posted the first design, lol. The second one I prettied him up a bit and broadened all of his features, focusing on his nose and the ratio of negative space around his eyes and mouth. I think this gives him a more mature look without aging him too much, since we still want him to look young enough to excuse his youthful arrogance. I figured out the hair as well, which was helpful!

"But why does he look so much like Sparky, then?" You might ask. This is a fun example of 'convergent evolution' - where two artists come up with the same result based on different approaches! A thing that's important to note about Sparky is that he was originally designed as a send-up or parody of superhero comics of the time. This informs a lot of decisions about his design.

Sparky has superhuman strength, speed, and toughness. Sound familiar?

But of course, you don't want to step on a copyright holder's toes. And you want comic book buyers to know they're buying a Sparky Watts comic and not a Superman one. Being a parody gives the artist a lot of outs here, ways to make Sparky visually distinct while still poking fun at the types of superheroes the audience is more familiar with.

Where Superman sheds his Clark Kent glasses that make him unassuming and approachable, Sparky keeps them on all the time. Superman has tousled black hair and a costume with his symbol on the front, where Sparky has neatly-parted blonde hair and a normal collegiate outfit that distinguishes him only by way of saying that he's completely ordinary. You can see, then, how they arrived at his design. By making him *different from Superman* they made him the same as Guadalcanal. That's okay, they didn't know. ;^)

Thanks for the ask!

[365days365movies]

January 16, 2021: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

I am a massive comic book nerd. Not unusual these days, to be fair. But I’m definitely up there, as far as my obsession with Marvel and DC go. And, yeah, I stick mostly to those two houses, and their various imprints.

Why do I bring this up? Well...remember this movie?

Kick-Ass was a pretty big deal when it came out in 2010, as it was a Marvel Comics movie that was completely unrelated to the relatively new Marvel Cinematic Universe. Based of a 2008 comic book written by Mark Millar and drawn by John Romita Jr., the film was directed by Matthew Vaughn, and featured a more realistic take on how real-world superheroes would actually work.

Vaughn and Millar by this point at least, were friends. Around 2012, they’re getting drunk at a pub together, and talking movies. The topic of spy movies come up, and how there hasn’t really been a good, non-parody, fun spy movie, and that there should be. And that was the bulk of their conversation.

Enter Dave Gibbons, a legendary comic book artist, whom you may know from drawing the comic book that was turned into this:

Oh yeah, he’s a big deal. Gibbons and Millar end up getting together to write a fun spy comic book based on this idea. Vaughn, meanwhile, is getting ready to direct X-Men: Days of Future Past, the sequel to X-Men: First Class, which Vaughn directed. That’s a good movie, by the way, even if I have...issues...with the treatment of the X-Men in film. Maybe one day I’ll get into that, we’ll see what happens. Ask me about it if you’re curious.

Anyway, Millar goes to Vaughn with this script, and Vaughan looks at it and realizes that he needs to direct this movie before somebody else makes it. So he leaves Days of Future Past, and he signs on to...

I feel like it’s an obligation, as a comic book dude, to watch this film. I should also read the book, but I didn’t do that with Kick-Ass, so to hell with it! Let’s get this recap started! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

Starting off with some Money for Nothing, and somewhere in the Middle East, 1997! We go into a stone temple, where some kind of mission is taking place. A surprise grenade causes the loss of one of the agents. The surviving agents are Merlin (Mark Strong), Lancelot AKA James Spencer (Jack Davenport), and Galahad, AKA Harry Hart (Colin Firth).

Hart, feeling guilty over the death of this agent, tells his wife, Michelle (Samantha Womack) and child Eggsy (yes, Eggsy) of his sacrifice, and gives Eggsy a medal.

From there, we jump forward 17 years, to Argentina where...Mark Hamill?

Holy shit, it’s Mark Hamill! Apparently, he’s playing Professor James Arnold, and being held hostage by a group of mysterious men. Just then, he’s rescued by Lancelot, showing up with some classic James Bond-style swagger and asking for a cup of sugar, sardonically.

He kicks the asses of these guys, but is SLICED IN HALF BY A MAN WITH SWORD LEGS WHAT THE FUCK????

I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was watching the best thing I’ve ever goddamn seen. And as if that weren’t enough, she’s working for Samuel L. “Motherfucker” Jackson, playing Richmond Valentine. I am...I am so pleased.

We go to the Kingsmen headquarters, where Lancelot is being mourned by the Kingmen and their leader MICHAEL CAINE, REALLY, HOLY SHIT

Ahem. Sorry, uh...the star-studded cast has basically caused me to have a minor aneurysm. Caine plays Arthur, the leader of the Kingsmen. Get it? I can dig it, I’m a sucker for a good Arthurian reference. Anyway, now that Lancelot’s dead, it’s time to find a new candidate. Apparently, the man that died 17 years ago was part of an “experiment” by Hart, which Arthur says has failed. Galahad calls Arthur a snob, and says that they need to evolve with the times. \

Speaking of that former candidate, how’s his son doing?

Not stellar, it seems. His mom is dating a very unsavory gentleman, and not really taking good care of her youngest daughter. Eggsy (Taron Egerton), on the other hand, is a carefree delinquent. After engaging in an entertaining backwards car chase with the police (it’s cool), he gets arrested. He refuses to give up his friends, and he instead asks for a phone call.He looks at the medallion around his neck, and remembers that he can use the number of the back to contact someone for help. He uses a specific code phrase, but it appears not to have worked. But then, Eggsy is turned loose with little more than a phone call. That’s when Eggsy meets Hart.

We find out that Eggsy has a high IQ and Olympic-level athletics, but has dropped out of the Marines, and has been arrested for drugs and other illegal activities. After being read out by Hart, Eggsy goes on an anger-filled diatribe about the differences in privilege between the two of them. Although it’s short, it’s a powerful speech.

But that speech is interrupted by the owner of the car that Eggsy stole the previous night, as well as his gang. They’re yearning for a fight with Eggsy, and they threaten Hart. He doesn’t take that well, as he shuts the doors and windoes to the pub. Time to teach a lesson.

Yup, I’m giving this fight the posted video award. It might be short, but it’s also one of the best and coolest sequences I’ve ever seen in a spy movie. And OH, it’s giving me that gadget shit I was missing from the Bond movies.

After one of the most enjoyable fight sequences I’ve seen in a while, Eggsy’s understandably stunned. So is his stepfather Dean (Geoff Bell), the leader of the gang that Hart beat up in the pub. He’s not happy, and he beats Eggsy in their apartment, and that scene is...WHOOF. Much to their surprise, however, Hart’s left a device on Eggsy’s back. He threatens Dean through the device, and tells Eggsy to meet him at a tailor that he’d mentioned.

Once Eggsy escapes from Dean and the gang via nest parkour tricks, he makes his way to the tailor, where Hart officially brings him into the fold, giving him the opportunity to become a Kingsman. He exposits the history of the agency as a private group of spies, meant to protect the world while not bowing to the bureaucracy that plagues government-affiliated spy institutions.

We get to go to Kingsman Headquarters proper, and yeah...yeah, it’s cool. As compared to the other recruits, Eggsy’s pretty obviously out of place. This, of course, is part of the point, as Hart believes the Kingsmen could use someone with different life experiences and background. That would be the experiment mentioned earlier.

Eggsy’s competitors include Roxy (Sophie Cookson), who appears to actually be polite to him, unlike most of the potentials. They settle in for the night...but not for long. Their quarters fills with water, as the entirety of the Kingsmen head towards the showerheads and toilets for air. While they all succeed, Eggsy is the one who actually gets everyone out, by literally punching the window.

Unfortunately, for one of the candidates...it’s too late. These candidates could die in the hiring process. Rough.

Sadly, Mark Hamill also doesn’t quite make it, as Hart finds him, surprisingly freed from Valentine’s capture. As he’s questioned, Valentine is forced to kill him via Suicide Squad implant, and barely escaped from his men. Valentine and his henchwoman, Gazelle (Sofia Boutella) are trying to figure out who the Kingsmen are, to no avail at the moment.

Back with Merlin, who’s training the Kingsman candidates! They’re all told to get a puppy! Aw. Eggsy chooses J.B. a pug, under the mistaken impression that it’s a bulldog. And I’m not a pug person...but that puppy is cute as shit.

Time marches on, and the Kingsmen continue their training. Eggsy’s colleagues continue to discriminate against him, especially Charlie (Edward Holcroft). Hart, who was knocked out by the explosion, eventually wakes up. Valentine goes around to political leaders and proposes his plan to “save the world,” whatever that’s about to mean. Apparently, that includes giving the King of Sweden a surgical implant of some kind. Huh.

This, of course includes some, uh...conflict with Gazelle.

Awesome.

Eggsy’s in the final 6! As Hart congratulates him over this, we finally get some exposition on Richmond Valentine’s plan. See, that implant is the Suicide Squad bomb that killed Hamill, and Gazelle also has one. Additionally, he’s released a plan to the world that will provide free internet and phone data...forever. Not ominous at all, that.

After a cool skydiving training sequence, only three candidates are left. Hart, meanwhile, poses as a wealthy philanthropist, donating to Valentine’s cause. As a result, he’s treated to an extravagant dinner...of McDonald’s. Yes, it is the best product placement I’ve seen in a while, in case you were wondering. That reveal was hilarious.

Anyway, their conversation turns from talking about climate change studies and concerns, to their opinion of James Bond movies, in a lovely little piece of meta flavor. At this point, they would appear to understand each other’s role in the play, as it were. Forgot to mention, Valentine’s been kidnapping anyone who disagrees with his goals, while also distributing his free internet cards. So, there’s that. But he’s also trying to figure out what exactly the “Kingsmen” are. Speaking of...

Our three remaining Kingsman candidates are assigned a mission to seduce a young dignitary. However, all three of them make a mistake, and allow themselves to get drugged at a party, by someone wanting to know who Hart and Kingsmen are. When Eggsy wakes up, he’s been strapped to train tracks. Uh oh.

Despite an oncoming train, Eggsy doesn’t give the man any formation. Which, of course, was the point. It’s Hart, helping to give the Kingsman candidates a little loyalty test, which both Eggsy and Roxy pass with flying colors. But Charlie...Charlie’s a coward who immediately gives everything up, including Arthur himself.

Eggsy gets to spend 24 hours with Hart, before being thrown headfirst into a mission. Hart explains that being a Kingsman means being a gentleman, which Eggsy isn’t. Hart, of course, plans to fix that.

They head to the tailor, and check out some spy gadgets. And much to their surprise, Valentine is also there, under the guise of getting a suit. Hart takes the opportunity to recommend a hatter, who gives him a top hat with built in listening devices. I love it.

Eggsy, meanwhile, speaks with Arthur at Kingsman HQ. He’s commanded to perform one final test: kill his pug, J.B. Which...yeah, damn, that sucks. He doesn’t do it, understandably. Unfortunately...Roxy does kill her dog. She succeeds...and Eggsy’s kicked out of the Kingsman candidacy. Which feels like a bullshit play, if I’m honest.

Eggsy steals Arthur’s car, then goes back home. As he’s about to confront his stepfather, Hart brings back the car via remote access, then explains to Eggsy that the gun was filled with blanks, and that Eggsy ended up giving up his shot. He also reveals that the first candidate to die...didn’t actually die! It’s been a ruse all along, meant to test the candidates under the strictest of conditions. Which sucks, obviously, because Eggsy’s out of the program.

And at that point, Valentine says something of note, revealing that he plans to go to a hate church in Kentucky to begin his master plan. Hart heads there, and tells Eggsy to stay put.

We get treated to just...just the loveliest of sermons. Disgusting. But then...

...that’s the point, isn’t it?

Because Valentine uses the SIM cards to create a signal that drives the parishioners crazy. Hart’s also in the church, however, and he also starts going crazy. Which leaves the question: what happens when a highly trained spy goes up against untrained civilians, has a bunch of gadgets...and has absolutely no restraint whatsoever?

A MASSACRE, THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS. And most surprisingly, it’s a massacre that we actually SEE. Hart basically kills almost EVERYBODY in the church. I’ll put the video up, but...y’know, be warned here. It ain’t pretty.

Hart comes to, and realizes exactly what he’s done. He leaves, only to be confronted by Valentine and his men. The Bond metaphor finally comes full-circle, explained directly by Valentine. But instead of explaining his whole plan and devising some complicated way to kill Hart that he’ll inevitably escape from...

He just shoots Hart in the head. Holy shit. And this is while Merlin, Arthur, and yes, Eggsy watch on through Hart’s home feed. Looks like a new Kingsman is needed.

Arthur tells Merlin to assemble the Kingsmen. But Eggsy...Eggsy has other plans. Thinking on Hart’s words about wanting to do something good with his life. He goes to Arthur to talk to him about Hart’s death. Arthur invites him in for brandy. And that’s...when my mind exploded.

HE’S FUCKING IN ON IT?!? Michael Caine, NOOOO! Turns out that Valentine’s convinced Arthur of his true plan: a culling. He believes that the Earth’s temperature because there’s simply too much humanity, like a body trying to kill a virus. And so...he’s going to make the virus exterminate itself. And that argument’s enough to win Caine over.

Turns out that the implant is meant to protect those individuals against a neurological signal emitted by the SIM cards, the same one that went off in the church. Arthur, realizing that Eggsy understands exactly what’s going on, poisons him, then asks if he would like to join them. Eggsy refuses...and Arthur sets off the remote poison to kill him.

But NOPE! EGGSY SWITCHED THE FUCKIN’ GLASSES! I love this movie. Arthur dies, and Eggsy uses the opportunity to dig the implant from his neck. He takes that and Arthur’s phone to Merlin and Lancelot, who realize that they can’t trust anyone at this point. And so, the three of them - yes, the three of them - go to stop Valentine.

And, yeah...I can dig it. OH HOW I CAN DIG it.

Roxy goes up in an experimental vehicle to bring down the satellite, Merlin is flying the plane, and Eggsy...Eggsy’s the one going in disguised as Arthur, in order to infiltrate the mountain lair of Valentine. Here, he and the other beneficiaries wait it out, while the world literally tears itself apart. Now wearing a bespoke suit and playing the role of a gentleman, Eggsy enters the lion’s den.

But as expected, it’s time to hit some snags. Roxy waits juuuuuust a little too long, and one of the balloons in her craft pops. As for Eggsy, he meets an old “friend” of his in the form of Charlie, who’s now working for Valentine.

The missile’s fired just in time, as Charlie’s taken out and Eggsy runs for the plane. AWESOME climax here as Eggsy escapes. I mean it; it is VERY cool. They succeed JUST in time, and the satellite is destroyed. However, Valentine’s still managed to partially start the process, and they can’t do anything about that.

Eggsy’s gotta go BACK in, before Valentine gets another satellite to trigger the signal worldwide. Now armed with Hart’s AWESOME umbrella, he makes his way there under heavy gunshot. They’re also teaming up against Merlin in the plane, so he’s not doing great. And that when Eggsy has the idea...to turn the implants on. ALL of them.

It’s amazing. Violence in fireworks. So, it’s too bad that it doesn’t stop the signal. It works, and people start to tear each other apart all across the world. But only for was long as Valentine has his hands on the desk. Eggsy manages to stop that by laying down some suppressive fire.

That provokes a response.

..This movie is, for lack of a better term, fucking rad.

Gazelle and Eggsy have an awesome fight, worthy of any James Bond movie, seriously. I really want to give it the video post honor, but I’ve done that too much already. For god’s sake, I literally JUST did that.

Gazelle dies (it’s kinda goofy how she dies, if I’m honest), and Eggsy kills Valentine with her prosthetic leg. It’s over, as the signal ends, and Eggsy even gets the girl. Not Roxy, the Princess of Sweden. Not going into it, but it’s funny.

And that’s Kingsman: The Secret Service! Honestly, I gotta say, that was a rad-as-shit movie, and...

Ooh, a mid-credits scene! Eggsy goes back home, to the pub, where his stepfather and mom are hanging out with the gang. And let’s just say...Dean’s gonna get a little comeuppance. Manners, after all, maketh man.

OK, THAT’S Kingsman: The Secret Service! And that, again, was pretty rad. See you in the Epilogue in a few!

[popculturebuffet]

Darkwing Duck Reviews: Darkly Dawns the Duck Pts 1 and 2

It’s a Darkwing Double Feature! Just in time for his ducktales special, I take a look at the introduction of everyone’s favorite Daring Duck of Mystery. In his daring debut we meet Darkwing Duck, an egositical and attention hungry superhero who soon finds himself having to look after a feisty orphan to keep her from getting nabbed by local kingpin of crime Taurus Bulba with the help of his biggest fan. Darkwing owns the night under the cut with decades old spoilers. 

Let’s Get Dangerous.. is tommorow so with that in mind i’m doing a darkwing double feature to refresh myself before the big special. So i’ll be covering both the original series pilot “Darkly Dawns the Duck” and the ducktales reboot episode “The Duck Knight Returns”.  Let’s Get Dangerous Itself because I was so wiped yesterday I didn’t get the other review done and unexpectly got acess to the new episode way earlier than usual so i’d rather focus on that. Got it? Good. Let’s continue past me. 

As usual with a new show a breif bit about my history with it: I watched it years ago, as a friend of mine lent me the first two discs of the season 1 dvd and never found the third one nor asked for them back, nor cared I had them. I thoughtly enjoyed it, had a great time and then it took me a decade or so to actually watch the series again due to a combination of being too stubborn to just buy the season 1 dvd again, a very darkwing move of me in hindsight, and then when disney plus meant I had all episodes at my finger tips I.. sat on them till now.. though to be fair i’ve sat on a LOT of great shows on there including the mandalorian, gargoyles and boy meets world. I have a bad tendency to procastinate, the fact this is coming out so late in the day should be a giveaway. I did read about half of volume 1 of the comic and all of volume 2, so there’s that at least.  Point is this new episode finally made me decide to get off my ass and watch darkwing once again, starting with the pilot and the episodes related to the fearsome four to be ready for tomorrow to see what the differences are (Thoguh I did remember bushroot vividly, so I had that at least).  Something to note before I get started talking about the pilot itself though, is the episode order for Darkwing Duck is a Darkwing Clusterfuck. Now I do understand WHY they aired this way: While some episodes do logically take place after other episodes, you can reasonably pop on just about any darkwing and watch it and enjoy it with minimal need to know what happened in previous episodes, kinda like batman the animated series oddly enough. It was also aired between two networks so on some level I get disney’s confusion here.. but on the other hand it’d take ten minutes, they clearly can call up the creator easily as Tad Stones made a cameo in ducktales 2017 we’ll get to so they could easily get a better order from the creator himself, so they really don’t have an excuse for this, or for slapping the pilot in the middle of season 1. Then again both ducktales 2017 and x-men the animated series were sort of a mess order wise when first put up, so not giving a shit about where episodes are placed for re-watching clearly is a pastime of theirs. 

Now i’ve got that out of my system we can dive into the episode itself and a breif plot synopsis. Darkwing Duck is the superhero protector of St. Canard, a masked vigiliante who takes out crime but wishes he actually got fame and credit for his work. Kind of like Booster Gold but without taking endorsments or as far as we know coming from the future. He also has nothing else as shown by the fact he fights crime, does a training regimine to prepare his breakfast that’s a delight to watch then prepares to sleep. It’s an intresting concept, a hero who HAD a civlian identity once, as the rest of the series would play out, he just no longer needs it. And it’s also ahead of it’s time as batman would explore this idea both seriously with bruce wayne murderer and comedically and seriously with the lego batman movie LONG after this series aired, meaning the writers here figured out what many probably knew about batman and put it into their parody version: Batman is the real identity and Bruce is the mask. Batman only keeps his old self because the bruce id is useful to him: It keeps people away from his company, puts up a playboy facade that draws attention away from him being batman, and allows him to do various charities and what not and help honor his parents in a way that dosen’t involve swooping in and kicking people in the throat. And as seen with bruce wayne murderer when the option to throw bruce away for good came up Batman gladly took it.  This is the same idea: Drake Mallard ONLY cares about crime fighting, has no friends no family, we never do find out jack about his family hopefully if there’s a full reboot series Frank and Matt fix it for their version. He has nothing, and is fine with that. He hasn’t really had a reason to care about anything else than his own glory and works alone not because it’s less efficent but because his oversized ego means he dosen’t want to share credit. IT’s an intresting start and his ego would be a defining bit of who he is and used intrestingly int he reboot but we’ll get to that there. 

His life changes forever though when local crime boss Taurus Bulba unleashes his latest scheme: To steal the Ramrod, a gravity manipulating device created by the late Dr. Quackmeyer.. late because Bulba’s men killed him and were dumb enough not to get the arming code for the ramrod first a year ago. Bulba is also behind bars but in one of my faviorite gags of the episode despite the warden’s constnat gloating, Bulba has taken the “Supervillian makes jail into a base” Or “Jail is nothing to a supervillian who can easily get out trope” to ludcrious machines. He has whole meetings with his minions, keeps the ramrod once he gets his hands on it in the laundry and has a ship SHAPED LIKE HIS FACE built into his cellblock. I’ts just so over the top it’s glorious. But yeah since Bulba can’t go after it at first he sends his three goofy minons, one played by eddie “Mandark” deezen in.. love that guy. 

THey do end up stealing the ramrod thanks to the help of bulba’s cool, non-anthromporhic condor who he uses as his right hand man and as his link to his minons via a small tv aroudn it’s neck. That.. is awesome. Darkwing spots the condor but fails to stop the three stooges or the condor and gets unknowingly blamed for the robbery..and stopped to get glamor shots not realizing the guy thought he was a criminla which.. fair enough. It is a shadowy disguise after all. 

Darkwing ends up grabbing onto the vulture sonic 3 style, but ends up falling off him into a hangar where we meet the original version of Launchpad McQuack, whose apparently quit working for scrooge and has his own hangar now though it wouldn’t be a stretch that scrooge bought it for him.. he does , stingy as he is, appricate hard work and launchpad wanting to start his own buisness and while hte planes were probably all on launchpad, Scrooge would gladly buy a run down buliding for a loyal friend who wants to put in some hard honest work. Plus it’s a free place to store any vehicles he has in the st canard area.. I mean it’s still scrooge. And yes I know the whole “Tad stones said they aren’t the same universe” non sense. I do have the utmost respect for the guy and he seems really, nice but I don’ tlike that, no one likes that and both the comics and the current duckverse with the ducktales reboot entirely ignore that for good reason.While the two shows are diffrent in tone they stil lfit and it’s not a stretch for launchpad to want to spread his wings or failing that scrooge to help push him out of the nest and give him his own buisness or one of scrooge’s to run. 

But while Launchpad does help DW with a propeller plane they fail and while launchpad offers to be his sidekick, DW gives him the old I work alone bit.  However him being alone won’t last for long as Bulba still needs that arming code and since his only lead is Waddlemeyer’s grandaughter who grew up in his lab, he sends his buffonish minons to go get him. Why he never sends his lone female minon with them is because it’s funnier if she dosen’t I guess. Which it is so fair enough.  So thus we enter Goslyn, who the head of the orphanage is fed up with due to her antics. Goslyn is played as most of you knwo by christine cavanagh.. I honestly forgot and it still throws me off a bit she’s using what would later be her chucky finster voice for a character so completely diffrent. Granted it’s not unusual in voice acting, just weird here and only for me personally having grown up with rugrats but not darkwing. The orphanage head is a bit less jarring as she’s played by Marcia Wallace, aka Edna Krabable from the simpsons but A) that show was already running at this point and B), the character is basically a nicer version of edna versus chuckies voice coming out of a tiny if immensly fun to watch hellion. I do like goslyn, sh’es a fun character even in her shadier moments, it’s just something i’d forgotten about i’ll need to get used to is all. 

Bulba’s hired goons come in claming ot be friends of her grandpas and we actually get some really heartwrenching context for Gos’ behavior: While she does act out she actually LIKES THE orphanage.. ti’s just her friends keep getting adopted while no one wants someone “full of spirit”. It’s heartwrecnhing to hear.. and only gets worse when the goons try and kidnap her.  Thankfully Darkwing.. also kidnaps her, but he kindaps her from kidnappers and while Goslyn naturally takes a second to realize he’s the good guy them shooting at him clues her in. Darkwing, in a rare for the series as a whole moment of reason and not wanting to just power though something himself TRIES to do the responsible thing and leave gos with the police where she’ll be protected.. but given they think he’s a wanted criminal they shoot at him.. and the small child in his motorcycle. Yup that’s the police alright. 

So with no other options Darkwing takes gos home, hyjinks insue including her activintg the breakfast thing. But the two genuinely start to bond. While Darkwing dosen’t WANT to keep her around, the whole not wanting connections thing, it’s clear he’s growing fond of the little snot as she holds her own with his trianing course, they have a tickle fight and in the sweetest moment of the episode the two sing little girl blue, a song her grandfather used to sing her to sleep that she teaches darkwing. It’s an utterly heartmelting bit and Cummings and Cavanagh really sell the hell out of it. It also however turns out ot be plot relevant: Turns out just in case Dr. Waddlemeyer hid the code for the ramrod in the song, and when Darkwing sees a photo Goslyn got from bulba’s goons, he realizes this and realizes that depsite thinking she didn’t know it Goslyn had it all along.. and that as long as h’es around she won’t know.  Bulba is naturally livid at his minons failure and decides now’s the time to take this into his own hands and while he actually liked the prison hq setup, as it did make sense as it was the perfect cover and the warden was too full of himself to realize Bulba was still active and too convinced the bull was beaten down when he clearly wasn’t, but instead as mentioned above awesomely converts his cellblock into a flying ship in the shape of his own head.  Bulba.. is a great villian and I only think the show didn’t use him more because he’s a dead serious, deadly dangerous villian in an otherwise goofy but fun superhero parody show. The show later gained Negaduck, so they had a more dangerous threat for darkwing that fit the show’s tone better while still being utterly terrifying, and likely simply didn’t need him till the idea for the steerminator came up. But I love the guy: he reminds me a lot of the kingpin, a threatning villian who uses his sheer size to beat our hero down, is cool and suave and is an utter mastermind at planning. He also wears a nice suit.  And naturlaly he has a plan to take out darkwing since despite the two never having met, as Darkwing disparages when Goslyn assumes their lifelong mortal enmies like in the comics, they know of each other.. and thus bulba knows exactly what trap to spring to get him out of the way and goslyn into his ship: He flashes a message in morris code that he wants to surrender to Darkwing while stroking his ego a LOT. And it works... while i’ts an obvious trap Darkwing’s so full of himself he goes despite Goslyn telling him it’s very obviously a trap.  Naturally everything goes pear shaped as a result: Bulba shows up, revealing gos not only to be right but easily pummling Darkwing. Which makes sense: While Darkwing is a vetran crime fighter and secret agent, Bulba’s been at being a villian longer clearly as he’s built up enough of a rep both for Darkwing to know him out of hand and for the warden to be proud capturing him. Given what univese this is, it probably isn’t Bulba’s first round with a superhero and given at this stage St Canard only has one.. yeah Darkwing is outclasssed and the police grab him while Bulba scarpers. And while Gos puts up a good fight using the trianing course, Bulba’s vulture gets her. Bulba has everything he needs.  Darkwing meanwhile actually bemoans what a dick he’s been, that the first person he’s cared about besides himself in possibly ever is now in the hands of a murderous mastermind, and that he’s stuck in jail with no one to call on for help. Thankfully.. help arrives.. and by help I mean launchpad backing the ratcatcher, Darkwing’s bike, into the prisoin. He DID come just to bail DW out despite his earlier jerkishness, but backed in and Darkwing not beliving superheroes have time for paperwork, decides to just bust out. And to be ifair int his case he’s probably right as you know, a ten year old might die if they don’t get there in time. So off they go.. but with Bulba in the air they need something with wings to catch him. ANd luckily as Launchpad mentioned earlier he’s been working on something special for darkwing.  It’s with this we enter the thunderquack, which is DW”S awesome headshaped plane. It’s just cool it’s got a nice design, goofy enough tof it the universe but cool enoguh to still be fun to watch. Darkwing has really damn cool vehicles, as the ratcatcher is also awesomely iconic. But yeah the thunderquack impresses darkwing and rightfully so and he decides to make LP his sidekick afterall.  So now our heroes fly into the danger zone and attack bulba’s airship with Darkwing landing on the bow and a scuffle insues with darkwing and hte minons.. who use actual guns which for a 90′s kids show is  a suprise, especially one this intentioanlly goofy, but boy is it nice. However Bulba, being awesomely evil, isn’t dumb and instead of fighting darkwing, which he could win but would win him nothing and having gotten nothing out of goslyn, figures the hero might know the code.. and while Darkwing lies and says he dosen’t, Bulba points out .. he’s right.. but he’s always been a gambling man and has his condor drop goslyn to lure drake into telling him , with DW putting in the code and bulba testing it with a bank robbery.. before predictably having his condor drop the girl because he no longer needs her. Thankfully launchpad catches her in time and then they get revenge on the condor with the thunderquack BITING IT.. which is awesome. Hopefully the reboot version does that. 

Darkwing meanwhile saves the day, his new daughter and the city by simply sneaking over to the ramrod and mashign the keys till it overloads, silly, but undeniably awesome and effective. Bulba TRIES to finish off darkwing this time for foiling his plan.. btu the ramrod explodes and while bulba’s minons and goslyn and launchpad are safe... bulba and darkwing are apparently dead and it’s effective.  A few weeks later Goslyn’s back at the orphanage utterly distraught and broken at being basically orphaned again. Naturally though Darkwing’s alive, having taken his old identnity back since now he has something worth using it for and adopts her, hinting at who he is so she goes with him. And Drake has changed.. sure he’ll still be as egostical and impuslive as he was here.. but he’s no longer just darkwing.. he’s drake again as he has someone worth fighting for.. two someones in fact. He has a friend, a loyal partner to help him fight cime. And more importantly.. he has a loving daughter. And both needed each other: Goslyn needed someone who understood her despite her manic energy, and Drake needed someone who needed him and not darkwing, a reason to be a person outside the cape and cowl and outside the attention again. He needed a reason to live again... and he’s got it. And it’s going to be great. 

Final Thoughts: This pilot is excellent. Well paced, plenty of laughs, tense action and great introductions for everyone involved as well as a hell of a vilian> This is how you do a first episode: it introduces the main themes of the show, both comedically and dramatically, introduces the cast and gives us a one off , or rather two off it’d turn out, villian whose compelling and intresting. IT’s really damn good stuff and I can’t wait ot see what frank does with a simlar story tommorow. Until then, stay safe, and happy hallowen. We’ll be back shortly for The Duck Knight returns and then Let’s Get Dangerous tommorow. 

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Fu Manchu

(WARNING! This analysis contains DISCUSSIONS OF OUTDATED RACIST STEREOTYPES! This analysis does not support or condone such things whatsoever and merely is here to analyze the cultural impact of the character!)

"Imagine a person, tall, lean, and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the resources, if you will, of a wealthy government—which, however, already has denied all knowledge of his existence. Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man."

— The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu (1913)

I think it really goes without saying that the late 19th century and early 20th century were deeply, incredibly racist. One such manifestation of the racism and xenophobia of the times was the villainous archetype known as the Yellow Peril. The so-called “Yellow Peril” is a caricature of eastern cultures, portrayed in a villainous light; the characters are diabolical criminal masterminds who tend to be geniuses, know kung fu, have mystical powers, command barbarian hordes, and dress like the most stereotypical dynastic noble you could imagine. Just think of every single cringeworthy Asian stereotype you can imagine, stuff it into one villainous package, and BOOM! You have yourself a Yellow Peril villain.

You’ve most definitely seen villains that fit some semblance of this trope. Lo Pan of Big Trouble in Little China and Long Feng from Avatar: The Last Airbender are notable examples (and ones that aren’t particularly problematic, as their works don’t rely on some white guy saving the day and instead have Asian heroes). But we’re not here to talk about them, oh no – we’re here to talk about the grandaddy of them all, the villain who codified the idea of a Yellow Peril villain to such… er, for lack of a better word, “perfection,” that even though he has somewhat faded from the public consciousness he has managed to continue inspiring villains up until the present day: Fu Manchu.

While not the first Yellow Peril villain, he is pretty much the face of it. He is what comes to mind when you envision such a villain, which may be because his cultural impact runs so deep – characters such as Batman’s nemesis Ra’s al-Ghul, the Iron Man foe The Mandarin, and James Bond baddie Doctor No among many others all draw inspiration from this legendary Devil Doctor. So what exactly is his deal that has made him such a problematic icon?

Motivation/Goals: So Fu Manchu’s goals started with him being a Chinese nationalist but eventually he moved into your standard world domination, with him developing over time into becoming a sort of noble criminal, a diabolical mastermind with some level of ethics, class, and standards; the man sent his nemesis gifts on his wedding day and always stuck to his word. This doesn’t seem like much now, but you gotta remember, this guy was one of the first big literary supervillains; you’ve gotta cut him a little slack.

Performance: So it is time to discuss the elephant in the room… not once in his long and storied history in film has Fu Manchu been portrayed by an actor of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Indian descent. Fu Manchu has always, always been portrayed by the worst possible option in every single case: a white guy in yellow face. Christopher Lee is perhaps the most well-known white man to play him in a serious work, portraying him in a series of films, though Boris Karloff portrayed him as well. 

Peter Sellers portrayed Fu in his last major cinematic appearance, though unlike most other examples that film – The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu – was a parody, which does at least take away a little bit of the bad taste.

The only valid white man portrayal is, of course, from the fake trailer for Werewolf Women of the S.S. As said fake trailer is a ridiculous sendup of exploitation films and trashy cinema in general, the inclusion of a white man playing the fiendish doctor is pretty much part of the joke – but it’s who they got that’s the real treat. We’ll get to that shortly, but before that…

It is honestly really disgusting that in the long history of this character, he has never once been portrayed by an Asian actor. You’d think at some point that someone might at least just cast any sort of Asian due to the unfortunate tendency to view Asian actors as interchangeable, but they couldn’t even do that.

Final Fate: Fu Manchu is notable because he always gets away, even if his plans are foiled; in fact, he’ll sometimes have plans within plans, so even when he loses, he still wins to some degree. But enough about his in-universe fate; let’s talk about the real world fate of the character, where Fu Manchu has a very odd legal status in terms of public domain.

While the first three books are in the public domain, some characters from later books are not considered part of the public domain, which has lead to situations such as Marvel’s Master of Kung Fu not being able to be reprinted for years. On top of this, as the character’s creator Sax Rohmer died in 1959, Fu Manchu is not in the public domain in Europe; this has led to him appearing but not being directly named in Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, where he is only referred to as “The Doctor” (amusingly, he goes up against Moriarty in that comic, the character he draws inspiration from).

Best Scene: In what is one of the very few non-offensive uses of the character, Fu Manchu is given a brief cameo in the trailer for Werewolf Women of the S.S. that shows up in the Rodriguez/Tarantino double feature Grindhouse, and he’s played by… well… just watch:

Final Thoughts & Score: Fu Manchu is an absolutely fascinating villain born out of incredibly problematic places.

There is absolutely no denying that Fu Manchu was created from a deeply racist place. It’s an unavoidable fact. There is no getting around it. Fu Manchu as a character was meant to demonize the Chinese, to the point where production of films based on him as well as the novels was halted in times of war when the Chinese were allies. These books, these stories, are all extremely problematic by the standards of today.

But with that being said… who, exactly, is the title character? Do you know, without looking it up, who the hero who Fu Manchu antagonizes is, the Holmes to his Moriarty? This is Fu Manchu’s series, and throughout it he projects an air of intelligence, sophistication, and even honor that you wouldn’t expect would be afforded to a character such as him. As far as racist propaganda goes, an extremely charitable person could be able to call this “progressive” in some regard. Positive discrimination is a step up from regular discrimination, right? Again, there’s really no getting around the glaring problems with the character and his origins, but the fact Fu Manchu is one of the first supercriminals in literature and manages to just be unflinchingly cool to the point where you’ll probably end up rooting for him over the bland white protagonists says something for how utterly racism fails when it manages to make the object of its derision infinitely cooler than the race it’s trying to prop up as superior.

By my own criteria, Fu Manchu could only be an 11/10. I can’t deny how much of an impact, for better or for worse, the fiendish doctor has had on pop culture, to the point where he gave his name to and subsequently killed off a variety of facial hair, a feat only matched by Hitler. But this comes with a disclaimer: I cannot stress enough that Fu Manchu is deeply and inherently problematic on a conceptual level, and that despite how genuinely cool and fascinating he is in the right hands it doesn’t and cannot erase that his original purpose was to demonize the Chinese and Asian cultures. He also managed to help perpetuate yellowface and helped to popularize cliches that have plagued Asian villains to this day. While many in his wake have still managed to be cool and engaging in their own right, it really cannot be said how this character has a very complex history. Has he done more bad than good? That’s not for a white guy like me to determine; I’m merely here to determine the overall quality of the villain and determine their impact, and Fu Manchu undeniably has impacted culture. It would be wrong and disingenuous to break my own rules to give him a lower rating due to his problematic elements, but at the same time I cannot sit here and pretend they do not exist.

I would love to see the day where Fu Manchu can be reclaimed to some extent. Look at Shang-Chi, for example; the (at this time) upcoming Marvel film is set to feature the Fu Manchu-inspired Mandarin as a major character, and he is set to be played by Tony Leung Chiu-wai, a Hong Kong actor. If one of the characters inspired by him can get portrayed by an Asian actor, perhaps someday in the future Fu Manchu can be reclaimed from his racist origins and given the respectful treatment he deserves. Fu Manchu is a character that is in many ways accidentally incredible and iconic. Born from horrendous racism, and yet the racist screeds depicting him always somehow manage to prop him up as the best character in the lot… it’s the paradox of racist thought, to go so far in demonizing their target they manage to make them more interesting and engaging than the generic protagonists. Fu Manchu is a truly great villain mired in the problems of the time he was created; in the right hands, great work could be done with him.

Bottom line is: Rob Zombie, get Nicolas Cage on the phone and start filming Werewolf Women of the S.S.

[skylights422]

@ace-and-aro-wlw-positivity created a Q&A for aspec authors/writers, and as an aspec author, I am excited to participate and answer as many of their questions as I can. Under a cut since it became really outrageously long.

1. What was your inspiration for your character(s)? Are they modeled on yourself, a person that you know, or a character that’s already been established?

Typically I’d say my characters are a mix of general inspiration from other stories/characters and then bits and pieces taken from myself. I try not to make any of them like a clone of myself or another character, try to mix it up, possibly with mixed success but that is the goal.

2. How much, if any, has your character(s) changed since they were first created? What caused this change?

Oh wow, okay I have characters I still use from grade school and middle school, and those characters have changed/grown a lot. Most notoriously (to me) though are my two fellas Euphranor and Kadri. I created them while daydreaming in middle school while watching those science videos in class about how I could make a more parody-like version of said videos, Kadri being the energetic and comically sadistic teacher and Euphranor being the constantly irritated and foul-tempered student. The core of their designs and personalities haven’t totally changed (Euph is still a hot-head and Kadri still likes to troll him), but they’ve become far more nuanced as characters as their story become more involved and serious. They’ve also become softer characters, with Euph having a Heart of Gold and Kadri being a bit morally grey but generally compassionate and friendly. I think the cause of this change and others comes from a mix of things, for one I simply got older and what I wanted out my characters changed a bit. But also I think it’s because I spent so much time with those characters in my head that I couldn’t help but develop them more fully, which in turn made me want to give them a good story. Also, everyone is definitely more queer now then how they started, largely because I became more aware and comfortable with my own queer identity and spent more time in queer spaces (though with Euph I actually just realized he had to be gay because I every het relationship I envisioned for him fell totally flat and yet imagining him as having crushes on guys just seemed to work better/make more sense, and that was an earlier decision).

4. Do you intend on publishing your story one day? Why, or why not?

I definitely do! I have many, many stories I want to publish, as books or comics or tv shows or films. I’ve always wanted to publish some of writing since it’s one of my main passions and have always taken inspiration from the stories I consumed. I just love writing and would want to be able to do it as my main career, the key will just be figuring out how to focus on one project long enough to finish it. xD

5. Surprise fact! Give a random fact about your character(s), whether it’s their favorite color, food, or even song!

Euphranor loves to sing! He hums to calm himself down and even full on sings to vent his feelings sometimes. Kadri loves literature and video games, and blackberry pie is his favorite food.

6. Admit it, you have a folder on your computer of the various types of picrews you’ve created for your character(s). Would you mind posting a few (or five)?

*VIBRATES* MY TIME HAS COME. I absolutely have way too many picrews of my fellas so I won’t post them all, just two each for the core four of my main novel project. First, Euphranor:

(yes he is a Hufflepuff)

Kadri:

(also since I dragged the Hogwarts houses into this Kadri is Ravenclaw)

Ena:

(I put her in Gryffindor)

And finally, Fiera:

(Right now I have her in Slytherin. She could also be in Ravenclaw though)

7. Time to get serious for a bit. There’s been heavy debate on having non-human characters identify as ace, aro, non-binary, etc., but never actual humans. As someone who’s aspec, how would you explain to someone who’s allo why this can be and is seen as hurtful?

I mean, as a sci-fi fan I definitely love if the non-human characters are queer coded, but it’s definitely important to include human representation as well, and I think there are a few simple reasons for that. One is that queer people are, in fact, humans, and therefore our stories deserve to be told as they are in reality as well as how they could be in fiction. The other is only writing us as inhuman implies you consider our identities as fictitious or too strange for a human to have, and queer people already have to deal with other forms of erasure and invalidation in real life. (Also, not everyone is a fan of sci-fi/fantasy, and they should still be able to read stories where they can see themselves)

8. It’s a sad reality that many stories in mainstream media don’t have characters that are aspec, not to mention without resorting to harmful stereotypes. Besides there being nothing wrong with IDing as aspec, why did you choose to have your character ID as such? What would you tell other authors who’re interested in writing characters that are aspec, but are afraid of offending the community?

I have a huge list of aspec characters, which definitely started happening more once I was aware of my own asexuality (and later, aromanticism), since I realized that I could make my own aro and ace characters and then just went wild with it lol. It’s also easier for me to write since I can actually draw from personal experience somewhat for it. Beyond representation having aro and ace characters also allows you to explore more facets of human emotions/the human experience, so that’s always fun.

As for how I would advise allies looking to write a-spec characters, my main advice would be to remember that we are an incredibly diverse group of people, and so while no one a-spec character will resonate with every a-spec reader, an a-spec character written in good faith will definitely speak to some of us. Write them as an character first, and when it comes to things like how their attraction does or doesn’t work and what they want out of relationships, figure out what works best for them. Really, if you’re concerned your character would be offensive in some way you can always make a post asking about it, many of us are happy to offer constructive advice and appreciate that someone is wanting to put in the effort to write about our experiences. Reading or listening to anecdotes from an array of a-spec people is also a good way of getting ideas of how to portray us, and there are various resources for that (the tags, AUREA collects anecdotes from arospec individuals, and probably more than I can think of offhand)

9. If you’re comfortable with sharing, what is your characters’ identity? Do they use any microlabels? Does theirs reflect your own?

Unsurprisingly I have many characters who are aroace (Fiera is one of them), and Ena is bisexual and gray-aromantic. Kadri was originally supposed to just be bi/pan but has become increasingly aspec, will they end up gray-aro as well as grey-ace? Will they end up as a pan oriented aroace? I don’t know yet, but they sure are a pan a-spec. My most recent project has exclusively aro-spec protagonists, Valentine is aroace, Cedar is demiromantic, Raelene is cupioromantic, and then Clematis and Hadyn are presently just Aro and might stay that way. My aroace characters are often styled after my own aroace experiences, while other a-spec characters aren’t as much.

11. Why do you think that not just representation is important, but GOOD representation? Can you offer any examples?

Well, I think there are a few ways to make ‘good rep’. There is the ‘this character helps bring awareness/educate about the community’ and then there’s ‘this character just resonates with certain a-spec people a lot’, and the main reason I think it’s important is because rep should be for the people they’re representing. So if rep hurts the community or totally fails to be relatable to anyone who’s actually a-spec, then it missed the whole point and is doing just as much to leave the community feeling left in the dust as no rep. Of course things do get complicated when the community is divided on whether the rep is good or not, which I imagine will be a common occurrence, and many examples of rep probably fall into the grey area between Good and Bad, but generally people should aim to tell stories that will help more than hinder the people you are telling your story about. (Although I also think that the long term end goal is to get to the point where there is enough representation that it doesn’t matter if some of it is ‘bad’ or not, since I feel like that is the true state of normalization, but that is sadly not yet the case)

12. What’s the genre of your most recent story? Do you always write in this genre? If so, what other works do you have? If not, why did you pick it?

My most recent story (with Valentine) is fantasy, inspired by shoujo style anime series like Cardcaptor Sakura, while Euph’s story is more dystopian urban fantasy? His exact genre has shifted around a lot and will probably continue to do so. In general, most of my works are fantasy in some way or another. A few are more sci-fi or horror based, but definitely the majority are fantasy whether that be magical girl type stories, urban fantasy, superheroes, or dark fantasy.

14. What’s a brief biography of your character? Is their history, personality, and/or looks similar to your own?

I’m going to go with Fiera here. The short version of her backstory is that she and her older brother were born to neglectful parents, and while their grandmother was attentive emotionally she also lived far away. Her brother discovered magic, long thought forgotten, but killed himself shortly after, leaving Fiera alone and confused. She then made a point to dedicate herself to studying the theory and history of magic in the hope that she may someday understand why her brother would take his own life so suddenly like that. She has a down to earth personality and is very observant, and has a great deal of ambition and focus for tasks. She naturally has a more lighthearted and curious personality, but has become more somber since the death of her brother. While she always struggled with sustaining personal relationships, it’s only recently she started using her power of observation to be more manipulative and always keep a cool, pleasant demeanor. She has a love for fashion and sewing, as well as an interest in chemistry.

She isn’t really based on me at all backstory or appearance wise, and only slightly takes after me personality wise. Our main similarity is that we both can be quietly observant and don’t tend to get outwardly angry very often, and that we are both aroace. But I am nowhere near as focused as her, am terrible at lies/manipulation, and have different interests. I’m also way more prone to energetic rants and blunt statements than she is.

15. What are the themes of your story? Is it a lighthearted adventure, or are we talking deep, ocean-sized levels of angst? Why, or why not, did you choose them?

The tone of Euph’s story is kind of all over the place due to how often I’ve tweaked it, but there are certainly oceans of angst for all the protagonists. There’s just also decided remnants of the wacky humor from when the story was predominantly a comedy, and a lot more scenes of the characters just relaxing or goofing off than might be typical in a high tension drama adventure. My story with Valentine is generally much more lighthearted, though there will be some deeper moments for character development (and also because I want it to have a slightly gothic vibe, just Because)

16. How long have you been writing? Has your style changed from when you first began to now? What are some tips you’d give to those who’re interested in writing a story of their own, be it professionally or as a hobby?

I’ve been writing in some capacity just about as long as I can remember, and so my style has definitely taken various shifts depending on how old I was and what I was taking as my main inspiration at the time. Sometimes I went for more sarcastic and whimsical narration regardless of the events happening of the story, sometimes I went for a more quick modern-ish style, sometimes I would focus more or less on descriptions or dialogue. I don’t really know where I’m at right now though.

What I would advise to anyone wanting to sit down and write is to be patient and kind with yourself. Nine times out of ten what sounds epic in your head will come out at first as clunky and all over the place. But that is pretty much the whole purpose of first drafts; the clunky first draft crawls so the second draft may walk so the third draft may walk a little faster so the final draft may run. The other thing I would advise is to absolutely experiment, and see what works best for you. There is every kind of writing advice out there imaginable, much of it contradictory, so really you just have to mess around with styles and perspective and dialogue and see what happens, which stuff you liked and which stuff you didn’t.

17. What’s your process for writing? Do you plan your story out first, write whatever you want then edit later, or both? How might this help others?

My writing process is pretty much a mishmash of writing whatever comes to me, then planning, then writing, then using a bunch of character building exercises to have fun but make no progress in the plot, then neglect the project for months, then write some more or maybe plan. I don’t know how much this would help others, though I have found when I set goals with deadlines and some external pressure (nanowrimo, reward system implanted by friends, etc) I am far more productive, so perhaps that is something others could try if they struggle with staying on track?

18. Your book’s become quite popular, easily reaching the New York Times Bookseller list, and now, you’ve been picked to lead a writing workshop. It goes swimmingly, and afterward, someone comes and tells you that your book not only inspired them to write a story of their own, but also helped them discover and accept their identity. What’s your reaction?

Mostly I would just be flabbergasted, but also extremely pleased and honored to have been able to provide any kind of help or assistance to my readers.And I would feel very happy for the person, since that sort of inspiration is great to come by.

19. Are there any published stories out there that feature aspec characters that you also read? Do you have any suggestions?

Unfortunately not that I can think of! I am peripherally aware of some ace characters, but they aren’t in stories I personally consume. I hope to find more though!

20. Just for fun, write down a paragraph of your most recent writing. It can be an action-packed scene, some witty dialogue, or a colorful description that you really enjoyed. (Be sure to properly tag any possible triggers!)

Well, my most recent finished work would be the clunky first draft of my novel. So, here’s a silly conversation that entertained me to write:

Once they had bought the food, they went back to the park to eat. 

“You know, Fiera, I have come to a realization.” Kadri said.

“Oh? What’s that?” Fiera asked.

“Store snacks are not as filling as restaurant food, nor as refined, but they are decidedly addictive.” he said, munching on Twizzlers.

“Yep. That’s what makes them store snacks. Plus, I couldn’t get any really nice stuff. I’m not made of money.” Fiera explained.

“Which brings me to my next question, how exactly are you financing our meals? You don’t seem to work a job of any kind.” Kadri said. Fiera was almost surprised that he knew about jobs, but decided not to ask about it. 

“You’re right, I don’t. But my parents leave me about sixty bucks a week so that they can do what they want without me starving to death in their absence. After yesterday and just now, I’m down to like eight bucks, and the next payment comes in three days, so after this stash goes it's dollar store snacks only.” Fiera explained.

“I see. Fascinating. And these drinks you bought us, why are they vitamin drinks?” Kadri said,looking over a vitamin water curiously.

“Because we definitely aren’t going to get any vitamins from chips and candy.”  Fiera said simply.

“There is logic to that, I suppose.” he said. There was silence for a few moments.

“Um… Kadri?” Fiera said after a while.

“Yes, Fiera?” Kadri said.

“You know you can’t eat a whole bag of Twizzlers in one go, right?”  Fiera said.

“I don’t see why not. If it is not going to give me the nutrients I need, it may as well provide me with the maximum level of pleasure it is capable of.” Kadri said.

“Yeah, but you’ll get sick. And we have limited supplies.” Fiera countered. Kadri looked at the bag of Twizzlers in alarm.

“These are poisonous in large doses!?” he exclaimed.

“What? No, not poisonous, they just make you sick because they’re candy. All candy does that if you keep eating it.” Fiera said.

“Commoners lead dangerous lives, it would seem. I shall never forget this betrayal.” He said to the bag of Twizzlers, putting it down and taking the vitamin water instead. 

[toomuchawesomenessforyou]

Thank you @ifindus for tagging me 🌼 and sorry about the 9. question: I couldn’t describe the situation wtih any less words 😅. Still, I had fun with all of this!

🌸🌸🌸

1) What’s your favourite place in the world?

Stony shores and raised bogs: just a good broad red-coloured raised bog full of cranberries and hare's-tail cottongrass and if you bother to look a little closer then you’ll notice the tiny pink sundews glistening in the sun. And the smell of both the raised bog and the sea is just the best. So soothing.

2) What’s your favourite book?

“Pokuraamat” (“The Poku Book”) by Edgar Valter probably XD Idk but it was my fave as I was a child and the aesthetic is still deeply engraved into my heart <3 I actually adore “Memoirs of Ivan Orav or the Past as Azure Mountains” by Andrus Kivirähk as well. I love history so a good parody about our tragic past is just my jam. I mean what else there is to do to just laugh about it all and move one. No one cares about the little nations anyways. 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

3) What’s a guilty pleasure you have?

I wouldn’t deem it that guilty of a pleasure since I’ll always stay a child in my heart (I promised Pippi!) but anything “childish”, if you may, I still enjoy even though I’m a grown up now. Like playing on a playground or tag with friends. The only tragic thing is that I don’t have anyone to “play” with since everyone is too busy being “grown up” and thinking about their image in front of strangers. Well, at least I know how to still enjoy life. 😛

4) What’s your favourite snacks?

Blueberries, blackcurrants and gooseberries. Sadly it’s the type of snack you won’t get fresh the whole year.

5) Do you have any musicals you like?

To be honest I haven’t seen that many but the most recent ones I adored were Hamilton and Les Misérables. The last one I got to see in real life and damn the actor for Javert and his costume were hot! (Guess his songs helped to create this chilly atmosphere full of authority)

6) Do you have any games you like?

Since it’s me we’re only talking about board games. I love Dixit a lot. There’s like four extensions to it on my shelf. 

7) What are you most looking forward to do after this pandemic is over?

Since my time during the quarantine was dedicated to Zoom seminars and writing my thesis I’m planning on resting when I’m finally finished with the latter. I’d like to go hiking and dedicate more time to drawing and writing fanfiction since I’ve come up with so many new ideas for stories over this time under quarantine.

8) What’s your favourite disney movie?

🐉🗡️ MULAN !!!!!! 100% NO questions asked! It always was and always will be my favourite. Still, an honorary mention will be given to Atlantis as well.

9) What are you most proud of in your life?

In the 7. grade I went to the German Department in my school which basically meant that all the main subjects were in German with German teachers from Germany. So the 7. grade me was quite shooketh with the sudden intense German 24/7 and when my Math teacher asked me a question and I didn’t know the answer to it I went red in my face. The teacher noticed it and with a loud voice told the whole class “Haha, your face is as red as a lobster!!” ...okay, teacher. It happened once more only this time it was “Haha, your face is as red as your deskmate’s sweater!!” Since that day I decided to hide my emotions from that teacher as well as I could and never speak in his class or else he’s gonna comment on something that I can’t really change in front of everyone again. I mastered the art of “I have no emotions” and actually never spoke in his class again. The thing was that this type of handling the teachers I soon started to practice in other German subjects as well because most of the teachers happened to be difficult persons which meant that the perfect way to deal with them without any problems was silently obeying. I mastered that as well. Now, the problem was that for Germans speaking is apparently a very important part of the class. 50% of the grade of one subject consisted of only speaking in class. And I HATED that. Still do! Because it didn’t matter if you perfectly and carefully summed up everything in one sentence. The only way you were valid in the eyes of the German teachers was when you talked a lot, even if it was just straight up bullshit. I’ve never been the type of a guy to just talk about something, I need to get straight to the point and that didn’t go well with the teachers. Basically, everyone thought that I just wasn’t good enough in German so that’s why I never talked.

Now fast forward to the end of the 12. grade where we were taking our Abitur and specifically the speaking part of the German exam which consisted of 20 min non-stop talking about a literary piece we were handed 15 min prior. No doubt no one had any faith in my German skills because I had never talked in the class that much. And boy how everyone in the room was shook when the results were announced and I actually was the second best with my score in the speaking part in the whole class full of literal geniuses. My German Literature teacher seeked my out twice, once even during the after-party of our graduation, to ask “How did you do that?” The second time he asked I decided that I’ve had enough with playing this obedient silent student and told him that I started learning 3 days before the exam day (which was outrageous by the standards of my German teachers) and that I actually never read more that one chapter from one of the four books that were chosen for our Abitur because I hated it so much. And you know how he answered? He said a tiny “oh” and walked silently away. No comments. No nothing. I felt so empowered. So alive suddenly. It was the last day I had to see those teachers in my life  and I actually threw away my shackles and for once said what I actually thought into their face. I’ll probably always deem this moment as the proudest moments I’ve ever had.

10) What makes you happy?

🎶 Singing. I have been in a choir since I was 3, for two years I was in a school band and every now and then I would perform during public ceremonies in school or for the important guests there. I’ve never officially learned singing anywhere but experience is a good teacher as well :) Singing is one of the few things that always helps me forget my problems and makes everything feel so much better.

Hiking in nature makes me content as well. I dare to say that I am quite a nature loving person. Just hand me my camera and the normally 30 min long stroll through the woods will turn into a 3 hour long session of capturing the tiniest details the forest has to offer.

Travelling is a passion of mine as well but I’m not rich so yeah there’s that… 

🌸🌸🌸

I’m tagging @justajojokejobro, @kakashis-kunoichi, @sand-rose, @succulentbutt, @who-let-the-deans-out-doctor-who, @louiserandom, @hokutodecuisine, @raven1aris and anyone else who wants to participate!

My questions for you can be found under the cut:

1) What is your favourite kind of cake?

2) What language would you want to magically learn overnight and why?

3) What do you think about Eurovision? (Do you have any favourite performances?)

4) What is the best food your mother/grandmother makes/has made?

5) Do you have any people in your family tree whose history is interesting or about who you know a funny story you would like to share?

6) Do you collect anything?

7) What are you good at?

8) What is something you are trying to achieve or master at the moment?

9) Is there something weird/uncommon that you like/do?

10) What makes you happy?

[taffystake]

The Wicked + The Divine - Adaptation of Archetypal Creatives In The Wicked + The Divine

Now then, before I start, I would like to be very clear: This is not meant to somehow establish that the characters of Wicked and The Divine are basic character archetypes. The characters of Wicked and The Divine are extremely unique, nuanced, and each have unique narratives. All I aim to do with this piece is to establish the archetypal creatives that the gods of Wicked And The Divine are modeled after. I was inspired to this after seeing the most recent issue and the story developments there.

Secondly, while I will be picking a chief style of creative person for each of the gods, this will not be the only one they represent for the most part. It's just the one they draw most heavily on and informs the way their story plays out within the comic.

And finally, I will be avoiding spoilers for the comic until the end, after outlining the creative types that each god embodies. Then, I will explain why these things are so notable and what they mean for the storyline as we approach the end. So with that mostly sorted out, let's get down to brass tacks. Order in this case will be mostly by how easily I can place each character as a specific sort of creator.

So, let us start off with the one whose creative type can be seen in who he takes his design from: Baal. Baal’s ability is taken directly from his own belief in his superiority, that he is better than everyone. So, as he believes this and gains fans who also believe in it, he has to act grander and  more exceptional to match the superiority that his fans have granted him. And to avoid spoilers, I will say nothing about how this ties into the events of the latest issue beyond saying that this is entirely why he only says the two phrases, no justification between. Because he believed he was the superior and that made him what he was. And yes, most of this also applies to the man from whom Baal’s look was taken from: Kanye West.

Next up, let’s take a look towards the one-time lover of Baal, Inanna. With Inanna, we have someone whose abilities are taken from their want, their need, to stand out amongst the crowd. And so he channels that energy into his looks, what he creates, and makes it his persona. Makes it so everything about him is to be the unique one, the one who does things that seem outlandish in order to gain some attention. And it shows in the musician chosen to be his inspiration: Prince, a man whose most notable things outside of his musical talents were his unique outfits and his temporary name change to a symbol called the “Love Symbol”.

Thirdly, we have the mobile rave himself: Dionysus. Here, we have a person who finds himself driven and almost dutybound to brighten and help people. With his particular talents, how he accomplishes this is by helping them out of the dreariness and lack of contact that the regular world has and welcoming them into the small collective that he creates with his talents. He takes this selfless want to help people to the extreme, shown in how his own abilities prevent him from going to sleep and how he keeps using them despite this eventually deadly side effect. And while there isn’t as easy a one to one for the sort of person he was inspired by, it’s simple enough to consider him a broad strokes interpretation of many DJs.

Next on the block is Tara, the most hated of the Pantheon despite her own best efforts. And she draws her powers from her efforts to be normal, to act like the people she is playing to. This even extends to the point that she attempts to perform for an audience without her natural abilities but instead from something she created outside of her persona’s talents. But, even with all these efforts to be ‘the normal girl’, Tara still believes herself to be superior to her audience. She flipped out when her effort to create music without use of her talents bombed, and blamed it on the audience before ending up ostracized by the fans of the Pantheon for ‘wasting’ her talents on her own efforts to create something else. Now, while her style and that are not as easily pinned down as with Baal and Inanna, her attitude and general personality archetype can be identified to general females in pop music in the modern day. But, to give a strong example, Tara’s hatedom and her own ‘girl next door’ schtick are most likely lifted from Taylor Swift.

The Morrigan is our next stop on this tour of the Pantheon and their multitude of creative personalities. And with her, we reach a creative type that tends to end up romanticized in fiction but that is not typically as great in real life: someone who draws their creativity from mental illness. In The Morrigan’s case, its her shifting between her three selves that stands in for most mental illness rather than a more direct attempt to represent Bipolar Disorder as might be assumed by the trio setup she has. And from this, we see how she draws her creative efforts from her mental illness, allowing her create her own thing with this persona. But it’s not like she only has a mental illness in order to facilitate her having some talent, with her illness resulting in many scars and other issues for our next one to be covered. Would give a real life music example but…..that doesn’t exactly seem cool, so….let's give the example everyone jumps to when they think tortured artist: Vincent Van Gogh.

Baphomet’s entire creative type is the non-believer, someone who considers themselves utterly lacking in the talents to create whatever it is that makes them so powerful and known. In Baphomet’s case, this is due to the circumstances that granted him his godhood being so inextricably linked to The Morrigan rather than anything that he would consider having made himself. With this creative, they typically end flipping between more on large bouts of introspection and self-pity and extroverted efforts to distract away from this tumultuous internal life. One major concern with this type of creative is the fact that they will typically remain close to whatever abuse it is that granted them their ability to be creative, which can result in a great number of issues that will be covered at the end of this massive write up. I would give a real life example here but….that feels a little slimy.

And now we reach Urdr, the closest this list has to a midway point. And here, we get an interesting creative that….ends up hard to define concretely mostly due to their presence being mostly built off of being against things. With Urdr, we have a creative who aims to point out the problems with the field they are skilled in. With Urdr in specific, that means proving that the miracles each god performs is a sham. And with this method, the creative ends up in a cycle of attempting to disprove themselves by….doing the things they are trying to disprove. For the prime example of this mindset and creative output in action, it might be best to look at the earlier musical work of Ke$ha, where she was parodying party girl songs to the point it could be easily read as just more party girl songs.

Sahkmet stands as an inverse to Baphomet. Whereas Baphomet draws his creativity from embracing and wallowing in his abuse, Sahkmet’s creative type instead embodies someone who draws their creative drive from their efforts to avoid whatever abuses have befallen them. Which is why her character is so associated with practices that amount to rampant hedonism, with extreme amounts of sex, drugs, and liquor that all end up being how she creates. If you want to see this sort of mindset in a musical artist, the best example would be to look at the character Ke$ha played during her earlier albums. While it may not be accurate to the person she actually is, the character represented there is someone who very much hides away from any pain in the world through party girl antics.

Amaterasu, the God in this iteration of the Pantheon who is a very special case. Mostly because she takes her exceptionalism to heart much like Baal, but takes it to heart in a very different way. With Amaterasu, she represents a creative who gains their creativity from their own beliefs and uses her works as a way to convey her specific beliefs to people. And because of this, an innocent belief in the superiority of their spiritual ideas generally develops within the creative, whether they acknowledge it or not. While I am not particularly familiar with precise real life examples for this type of creative that are agreed upon, I do know that they exist out there.

Lucifer, the eternal rebel. And yes, Lucifer’s creative type is that simple: she represents the rebels, the people who derive their energy and creativity from going against the grain of society. Whether it be against the time’s cultural norms, a specific political system, or simply rebelling against what's mainstream, going against something is what they end up known for and what they usually make their best work in response to. While you could theoretically point at any number of punk bands and find an okay example, the top example would be Green Day. To be specific, the band during one album that is still hyped as their best work, American Idiot.

And now let’s cover one god who you don’t encounter until much later into the comic series, Persephone. Who…..you probably already know where she comes from if you look into the comic with even a casual glance. Well, let’s go. Persephone represents a creative type that is similar and different from the everyman that Tara is: the fan ascended. Someone whose most notable work before becoming empowered with creativity was following and being a fan of another creative to a massive degree. They tend to draw their creativity initially from borrowing ideas that the person they were a fan of has or had done creatively. To find this sort of person, you can typically look towards someone most famous for doing covers of other peoples’ songs or who are most known for directly using someone else’s style.

Woden. If you know the comic at all, you may have just inadvertently rolled your eyes because….yeah, Woden is a slimeball. And good news, the creative he embodies definitely ends up usually being a creepy slimeball like this. Woden’s creative type is a manager or producer who does not have a great deal of musical talent, but has the ability to make sure others are empowered to be creative. Y’know, within the boundaries he sets for them. So while he may not be the one making his art, he is at least able to generate exceptionalism within others. For an example of this that….isn’t as slimy as Woden can be, you can look at producers like DJ Khaled for a person whose exceptional skill is getting exceptional people together more than it is being personally exceptional.

And to round out our collection of gods and goddesses, we have Minerva. Now, while it isn’t shown well in the first few issues, Minerva occupies what I would consider one of the creative types that is quintessential: the legacy creative. Someone whose talents and exceptionalism are inextricably linked to her family to some degree, rather than being exclusively their own. And they get their creative energy by drawing on this history in order to best implement what has come before into the current age of creative endeavours. And for an example here, you can look at...pretty much any son or daughter of a musician who went into music, although it's usually most directly represented by those who go into the same genre of music as their parents.

So there we go, all of the wide variety of creatives represented most prominently by the gods and goddesses of The Wicked + The Divine. To all those not interested in spoilers, you may exit this post at this time.

Seriously.

This will be major spoilers for the most recent issues.

Like…...will shatter how you see the initial issues level of spoilers.

Just making sure all y’all who want to read on regardless understand what’s happening here.

Okay?

Okay.

So, why are all these creative types so important to the Pantheon in the most recent issues? Simple. Because the 2 year time limit on their lives is not a set timer for when their godhood burns through them and kills them. It's the average amount of time it takes for the personas that their creative types represent to become more of their personality than what personality they possessed before their godhood. And once a god or goddess buys into their own hype to that degree, their actions slowly become more reckless and self-destructive until their own godhood ends up killing them not through burning them out, but by their god-enhanced nature making them commit to actions that get them killed. The best example of this conclusion can be seen in the special comics that have been released over the years, with the 1300s Occurrence comic demonstrating it most clearly with the nun Lucifer who vastly exceeded the typical 2 years a god lasts.

And the god’s godhood consuming and killing them in this manner is what allowed for the relinquishment of their powers in the latest issue. By acknowledging that they are actual people with their own personalities and that they are not simply the personas that their creative types are engineered to display, they become able to move beyond their godhood and all the things it grants. You can even see through their creative types why it is that they said what they said when each relinquished their power and can even infer that Persephone was the first to do so because of being a fan of the Pantheon and being able to see this perspective once she was able to experience what being part of the Pantheon is actually like.

So yeah.

Also, this is my insight/neurotic ramblings. None of this is confirmed. Hell, Kieron Gillen might spot this post and call it out for how ridiculously wrong it is because I missed something or ended up focused on an aspect of a character that wasn’t as represented in the comic as I remember it being. But it feels very fitting for a comic about fame and creativity to have its massive storyline end with a story that acknowledges how to move beyond your own hype and internalized ego to continue being creative and improving your art. So that’s why I will stand by this as a decent interpretation of events.

[fragiledewdrop]

High school Newspaper Shenanigans

I don't have a lot of good memories about high school, but today I found a dusty copy of what passed for a "newspaper" in my school and it brought me back to when I was 16.

The girl who had been running the school newspaper for as long as I could remember was graduating that year, so she had to prepare for the final exam and university and she did not have time to edit anymore. My friends B., C., and I, in what was probably a fit of madness, decided to try our hand at it. And so I found myself co-editor of a newspaper. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but it would be one hell of an adventure.

The paper was called "Up!", after the Disney movie, for...some very creative reason I cannot remember. The first thing we did was change the title to "Up patriots to arms!"

One of the first things we had to cover was a very important, popular, yearly student strike,which would have been fairly easy, if not for the freaking tension between the two student organizations in our city. The biggest one, the "Rete" , was basically left wing - although many people didn't know or care about their affiliations- and they constantly butted heads with the student block, a group of self proclaimed neofascists who dressed in all black, used smoke bombs during protests and were always surrounded by the police.

We decided it would be a grand idea to interview the respective leaders to get both opinions on the matter.

The president of the "Rete" came to meet us after school. The highlight of the interview was when he said that his was a "non political organization", at which point we looked at each other in disbelief and asked him:"Really?"

The answer was "Yeas, although of course many of us are registered in different parties along the whole spectrum, such as..." and he started listing all left wing parties in the country, from communists to centrists, because apparently that's what he meant by "variety". Anyway.

It was time to interview the leader of the Block. He told us to wait in a square until someone would come get us.

B. and I were getting very nervous.

A guy with a shaved head and a black leather jacket came towards us. "You the journalists? Follow me"

We followed him to the lair. I mean headquarters.

(By the way, we realized we knew this guy. He was a lamb. I had no clue what he was doing there.)

The headquarters' walls were legit covered in swastikas and pictures of Mussolini. Yikes.

The leader was also very nice. Didn't stop me wanting to throttle him when he said that poor Mussolini was just misunderstood.

I had to ACTUALLY stop B. from doing something rash. No picking fights with the fascist dudes in he fascists's lair, please.

They straight up told us, I shit you not, that they were a brotherhood and, as a very effective bonding experience, they put on music and danced in a circle while whipping each other with leather belts. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. Maybe they were, but it didn't seem so. That didn't make it into the article, but it's forever etched into my brain.

I was shaken, but the double interview turned out great. #journalism

A while later we were sitting at a school assembly in the local movie theater. Everybody was complaining about the fact that our gym's roof had collapsed the year before and nobody was doing anything about it. We were taking the bus every week to a public gym, but we had to pay for it and were Officially Not Happy About It.

It was then that B. went : "You know what would be great? If we could interview the mayor about this"

I lit up. "Oh my god! We could ask him so many things! And not just about our school, but about the Linguistic High school that had to be evacuated and about [all the other schools that were literally falling to pieces. You know, Italian things]"

But the consensus was that, while we could try, it would be almost impossible for us to get an interview. So we sighed and sat back.

C.cleared her throat. "Guys." "Yes?" "You know how the mayor is a lawyer?" ".... Yes?" "Well, my dad is a lawyer. He knows him."

We dragged her to the bathroom

"We are not leaving here until your dad gets us an appointment" (poor guy)

He did

For that same night. At the town hall. At 8 pm.

We cleared our afternoon to come up with pertinent questions and practice and freak out.

At 8 we were at the town hall.

There was a red banner on the balcony with a slogan on it, that would be there for months afterwards, because...

... that same night a group of workers had occupied the town hall to demand better pay and better working conditions

Good for them

Bad for us

We were about to leave, but they assured us the mayor would be with us shortly

We waited three whole hours

During which, obviously, an old council member came to talk to us about how, if we wanted to do some real journalism, we should investigate the presence of the Illuminati in our town

Not gonna lie, we were kinda interested at that point

Around 11, the mayor called us in

I am going to concede that he must have been tired

But he was still a slimy son of a bitch

Extremely condescending

When we brought up our problems, he told us our schools were the Province's responsibility

(the Province would of course later tell us we were the Mayor's responsibility)

It was a train wreck

But eye opening

The article we wrote was extremely passive aggressive

He told C.'s father that he really liked it

I don't know if he was impermeable to sarcasm or just a politician.

Fast forward a few months. While our math teacher was talking, a giant piece of plaster fell from the ceiling, missed her by millimeters and crashed on the floor. We went on, business as usual, but that was kinda scary. And it was not the first incident of that kind to happen in our school.

We decided to do a reportage

Armed with notebooks and a camera, we went from classroom to classroom, asking students and teachers about problems with the building.

It was like opening a can of worms.

We got everything from "Oh yes, don't you see those huge holes in the ceiling and in the floor?" to "Yes, every time it rains the classroom gets flooded" to "See this giant wooden piece of tent rod? It fell on my shoulder last week. We don’t even have tents!"

Everyone had something to complain about. The teachers. The janitors. It was scary, to be honest. Especially considering we were repeatedly told ours was the safest school structure in town (what with having been standing since the end of WWI and all)

One day, while we were trying to get on the roof to evaluate its conditions, the headmistress called us in her office.

She said that she had gotten wind of what we were doing (duh)

And she hoped that we wouldn't give a bad impression of her "to parents and important people"

Because after all her hands were tied

It was the responsibility of the Mayor and the Province

(Just who the fuck was responsible for us?)

She smiled sweetly, leaned in towards us and whispered "You'll be careful now, won't you?"

She looked at me and said my name

Hoping I'd be the responsible/most easily intimidated one

(I had beef with that woman, mmmkay? But that's a story for another day)

I smiled and I told her: "Of course. We are just taking pictures of what we see. We'll let the truth speak for itself"

We did

No commentary

Just very objective descriptions and pictures

We really felt like heroes of the free press and free speech, at the service of the people despite the threat of power. (Yes, it sounds dramatic. It's because we were teenagers)

And then there were the other, less momentous adventures:

That one time when, after days of editing, we had to fill a little blank space at the bottom of the last page and nothing fit. We were frantically searching through our notes, the articles other students had sent us, drawings, everything, and we were slowly losing hope, until B. unearthed one of my notebooks and said : "What is this? 'Requiem. In memoriam termosifoni malati, ego ista verba pronuntio..." I was horrified. "NO" I yelled. "That's just a joke. We are NOT publishing that. NO WAY!" It was really a silly thing, you see. There was a radiator in our classroom that didn't work very well. Sometimes it was scorching hot, sometimes (on the coldest days, obviously) it was icy. So my friend E. and I had decided that the radiator was "sick", and we wrote its last will, its epitaph, parodies of famous poems like "La fontana malata" (The sick fountain) by Palazzeschi or "All'amica risanata" (To the healed friend) by Foscolo (can't find translations, sorry). It was fun. B.had found my silly attempt to write a "Requiem" in...kinda dog Latin I guess? But the grammar was correct. In any case, IT WAS NOT MEANT TO SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY. But we were desperate, so I relented. On one condition: it had to be ANONYMOUS. And that was the best decision I ever made in my entire life, because when we distributed the newspaper I saw a bunch of Latin teachers analising the fucking thing in front of their classes. "Mmmmhhh I am not sure an accusative was the best choice here. I would have gone with a dative." Then write your own pastiche poem, Marta! One of them had even copied it on the blackboard and was trying to figure out the metric! That was the equivalent of a 3am shitpost, not fucking Catullus, people! I have never been so embarrassed in my life! At least my friends were having a field day with it. Oh, and my Latin and Greek teacher figured it out. She read it and told me : "This was you, wasn't it?" I wanted to disappear. But she said it was funny, and that was the end of it.

All the times we had to edit what other students gave us and it was WILD, you guys. The grammar alone...The choice of topics....We got quite a few articles about UFO sightings over our town, so that was a thing. (We got to see a lot of really interesting and creative stuff, though)

The times we absolutely lost our cool, because it was hard work, okay? "Federica, your Isabel Allende analysis is a bit too long. Maybe if we cut the Scheherazade comparison..." "YOU ARE NOT CUTTING THE SCHEHERAZADE COMPARISON, B." "But.." "That is the backbone of the whole thing. The structure would collapse without it." "It's only a metaphor!" "No! I won't sell myself and my principles for a chance to be published" "Guys! CALM DOWN! It's just...essentially a book report." "SHUT UP C."[........] "I think we need to eat something" "Yeah. Should I make pancakes? With chocolate chips or without, B.? "

The time we got stuck at school because it was snowing, and C. wrote a beautiful piece called "The agonizing mesmerism of snow", and our friend P.,who was a wizard with a pencil, made an earie and amazing drawing for it that almost made me cry. Coincidentally, it was the day pope Ratzinger resigned. We thought it was a joke while still at school, then later on agreed that it was the reason it had been snowing in the first place. None of us wanted to write about the pope, so we asked the guy who was always sending us articles about the occult and arcane symbols hidden in churches. It turned out great.

The time a bunch of our more "troublesome" classmates started making hilarious dirty jokes based on Catullus' double entendres and B. promised them we would publish them (anonymously) if they wrote them down. They did, and the result was a page titled "Surrealism" full of the dirtiest "poetic" stuff in existence that made everybody laugh themselves unconscious, with the exception of some teachers who somehow didn't get the jokes.

The time we interviewed our student representative (a classmate of ours), whom B. had always thought was too full of himself and needed to be brought down a notch. So we "accidentally" misspelled his name in the article. Nobody noticed except him. He was fuming and it was glorious (not my proudest moment, but what can you do)

The time another brilliant classmate wrote a piece called "The pathologic mysoginist" that absolutely enraged some of the guys in our school. I stan her to this day.

That time I wrote a long article for Woman's day about the abuse and mistreatment of women in our country and across the world. I thought it was nothing special, really, but then Maria the janitor (the sweetest lady in existence) stopped me in the corridor and teared up a bit and said that she hadn't known about a lot of the things I had discussed, but she thought it was important to talk about them and that she felt represented as a woman and that she wanted to bring the paper home to read it to her husband. It touched me so deeply I still get emotional when I think about it.

Anyway, all of this and more happened in one year. Then we, too, had to worry about university admissions and exams and we passed the burden on to "aliens and occult" guy (who was amazing too)

But I remember the passion we poured into it, the willingness to take risks, the feeling of defying authority for the "greater good". We were idealists, all of us, and so full of hope and a will to change things in every way we could. Maybe a high school newspaper means nothing in the great scheme of things, but it meant something to us. It made us brave when we didn't think we were. It made us defiant. I wonder if that part of me is still sleeping, somewhere deep inside.

[lbibliophile-mcu]

Tony Stark Bingo 2019 Masterpost

Masterpost for the @tonystarkbingo

I got a blackout!

And far more fills and fill types than I expected when I started, including trying several new art methods (ie. drawing with tongs - DUM-E’s Drawings).

Overall I did (some fills with two types):

Fanfic - 8

Drabble - 4

Poem - 5

Art /craft - 7

Gifset - 2

Picset - 5  (moodboards and screenshot collections)

Links and details for each of the fills are below the cut.

Thankyou to the organisers/mods for encouraging and spreading so much great content!

Babysitting

S1 - WTF Link/s: AO3 Tumblr Fill type: Fanfic [500 words] Characters: Obadiah Stane x Tony Stark Tags: Pre-IM1, young Tony Stark, pillow fort, Obadiah Stane’s B+ parenting Summary Obadiah looks at the construction before him and suppresses a sigh. Apparently, it’s going to be one of those days. Carefully ensuring his jocular ‘Uncle Obie’ tone is in place, he approaches.“Hey, Tony, how ya doing in there?”

Everything and Nothing

T1 - Jealousy Link/s: Tumblr Fill type: Fanfic - drabble Characters: Tony Stark Tags: Public image, retirement Summary: People think Tony Stark has everything. But their ‘everything’ isn’t what he wants.

Arm Catalogue

A1 - Shopping together Link/s: Tumblr Fill type: Image edit for Veto Power Characters: Bucky Barnes x Tony Stark Tags: Bucky Barnes’ metal arm Summary: Tony is maky Bucky a new arm, and has so many ideas for the paintjob. A pity Bucky doesn’t like any of them.

Understanding

R1 - Cannon: MCU (Pre-CA:CW) Link/s: Tumblr Fill type: Gifset Characters: Pepper Potts / Tony Stark Tags: Iron Man 3, PTSD Summary: She tries, but she doesn’t understand what it’s like. And that’s good. Because if she understood - truly understood - that would make her as broken as I am.

TON-E’s Valentine [DUM-E’s Drawings]

K1 - Arc Reactor Link/s: AO3 Tumblr Fill type: Art  Characters: DUM-E x Tony Stark Tags: Tony Stark has a heart, method drawing Summary: DUM-E was learning about Valentines day. He knew that you gave a card to someone you care about. He knew that it was supposed to show a heart. So that’s what he drew.

Aftermath

S2 - Writing format: Unreliable narrator Link/s: AO3 Tumblr Fill type: Poem and moodboard Tags: Avengers (2012), collateral damage, outside POV Summary: When real life superheroes saved New York, it was like a something out of a story. But then the cleanup began. And continued, and continued... New York, Greenwich, Sokovia, Lagos. Suddenly, superheros are a lot less exciting. Rubble all looks the same, whether it was made by the heroes or the villains.

RUI (Rescued Under the Influence)

T2 - Confessions under the influence Link/s: AO3 Fill type: Fanfic [1300 words] Characters: Bucky Barnes / Tony Stark Tags: First meeting, rescue, non-consensual drug use, drugged confessions Summary: When Bucky entered the base, he expected to find Hydra agents (to be destroyed) and computer files (to be copied if useful, then also destroyed). He was not prepared to find a drugged Tony Stark. Nor was he prepared for Stark's reaction to seeing him. How does he deal with someone being excited to meet him?

Lab-yrinth

A2 - Labyrinth Link/s: Tumblr Fill type: Art / Puzzle Characters: DUM-E Tags: Maze, Tony’s workshop Summary: Help DUM-E find way through the lab to get TON-E a smoothie.

Avalanche

R2 - Sharing body heat Link/s: AO3  Fill type: Fanfic [1600 words] Characters: Steve Rogers x Tony Stark Tags: Steve Rogers needs a hug, nightmares, touch-starved Summary: Sometimes, all it takes is little things. A minor annoyance that leads to another and another and another. Until it all comes crashing down and you are helpless to stop it or escape.Waking up in a new century was hard, but Steve thought he was coping. (He wasn’t.)

Befriending a Cat

K2 - Cat!Tony Link/s: AO3 Tumblr Fill type: Fanfic - drabble sequence  [600 words] Characters: OG6 Avengers team x Tony Stark Tags: 5+1 format, Domestic Avengers, metaphorical cat Summary: Befriending Tony Stark, the Avengers decide, is rather like befriending a cat.

He loves me, he loves me not...

S3 - image [’Proof Tony Stark has a heart’ plaque] Link/s: Tumblr Fill type: Art Characters: Pepper Potts / Tony Stark Tags: IM1, pining, arc reactor Summary: Pepper Potts knew she was falling in love with her boss, and tried to find subtle ways to show it. What she didn’t know, was if he liked her back…

Flashbacks

T3 - Sickfic Link/s:  Tumblr Fill type: Poem and moodboard/image edit Characters: Tony Stark Tags: PTSD, mentions of torture and near-death Summary: PTSD flashbacks are never fun, and now his brain has a whole selection of scenes to choose from…

Iron Man themed braid

A3 - Free Link/s: Tumblr Fill type: Craft Tags: Iron Man theme, weaving Summary: Tablet woven braid made with crochet cotton. Iron Man colours with pale blue triangular ‘arc reactors’.

Shoot for the Moon

R3 - Galaxy Link/s: Tumblr Fill type: Image edit / gifset Characters: Tony Stark Tags: Quote, story arc Summary: “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars “

DUM-E’s list of what not to put in a smoothie  [DUM-E’s Drawings]

K3 - Historical Link/s: AO3 Tumblr Fill type: Art Characters: DUM-E Tags: DUM-E at MIT, method drawing Summary: It took a while for DUM-E to get the hang of the whole making (edible) smoothies, so he left himself notes as a reminder.

Honestly, Pepper

S4 - Writing format: Non-linear Link/s: AO3 Tumblr Fill type: Fanfic [960 words] Characters: Pepper Potts x Tony Stark, Avengers team  Tags: Dialogue only, non-linear narrative, domestic Avengers, disaster Avengers, crack Summary: Pepper Potts, CEO and sometimes superhero-wrangler, walks out of the elevator onto the Avengers Tower common-floor and stops in shock. How is this even her life? And why is she not surprised?

Cuddle Pile (Whose limbs are these?)

T4 - Puzzle Link/s: AO3 Tumblr Fill type: Poem and moodboard Characters: OG6 Avengers team (including Pepper Potts and Bucky Barnes) Tags: Avengers family, romantic/platonic OT8, song parody Summary: After a hard day/night/fight, nothing is better than curling up in a pile with all your friends… at least, until someone has to get up

Hey, Remember Me?

A4 - Amnesia Link/s: AO3 Tumblr Fill type: Fanfic [560 words] Characters: Scott Lang x Avengers team Tags: Based on the Endgame teaser trailers, time travel, post-Snap, amnesia, open ending Summary: The Snap didn’t just kill half of all life, it erased it from existence; first the physical form, then their more intangible presence. For those who remain, it’s hard to maintain the drive to fix things when you don’t remember what you’re missing…

TON-E’s Hero [DUM-E’s Drawings]

R4 - Tony in workshop Link/s: AO3 Tumblr Fill type: Art Characters: Dum-E x Tony Stark Tags: Tony’s workshop, DUM-E’s fire extinguisher, lab safety, method drawing Summary: TON-E is not very good at remembering about lab safety. That is why DUM-E has to be ready to protect him!

Curse of a Superhero

K4 - Clint Barton / Hawkeye Link/s: Tumblr Fill type: Fanfic - drabble Characters: Clint Barton x Tony Stark Tags: Family, angst Summary: Sometimes Tony wonders how Clint did it; managed to be both a father and an Avenger, balance duty to his family with duty to the world.

No Shit, There I Was, Undercover at a Gay Bar...

S5 - Undercover in a gay bar Link/s: AO3 Tumblr Fill type: Fanfic [1200 words] Characters: Clint Barton / Tony Stark Tags: Pre-slash, identity porn, undercover as gay Summary: No shit there I was, undercover in a gay bar... and you'll never guess who I ran into and how.

Legacy

T5 - Confessions in desperate situations Link/s: AO3 Tumblr Fill type: Poem and moodboard Characters: Pepper Potts / Tony Stark, James Rhodes x Tony Stark Tags: palladium poisoning Summary: Tony is dying. It's an inescapable fact; the clock ticking down with every burnt-out reactor core. He tries to tell them, but the words won't come. He can only give them pieces of his legacy, and hope they forgive him.

I Came Out to Have a Good Time...

A5 - image [bruised Tony in the F1 racing suit] Link/s: Tumblr Fill type: Gifset Characters: Vanko x Tony Stark Tags: Iron Man 2, Monaco race, car crash Summary: Tony is Done with villains interrupting his days off.

Status Report

R5 - Last chance Link/s: AO3 Tumblr Fill type: Fanfic [1300 words] Characters: JARVIS x Tony Stark, OG6 Avengers team Tags: Dialogue-only, Major character death, heavy angst, self-sacrifice, AVALON protocol Summary: Iron Man is a superhero, but Tony Stark is only human. And sometimes, what is asked of a superhero is more than a human can give. So Tony makes contingency plans. He makes the AVALON protocol. He makes sure that Iron Man is able to help the Avengers even when human Tony Stark… can’t.

Faith, Against all Logic

K5 - Robots Link/s: Tumblr Fill type: Poem - drabble Characters: FRIDAY x DUM-E x U, Tony Stark Tags: Post-IW, bot feels Summary: Tony is lost in space, and Friday doesn’t know what to do. Her big brothers give her some advice.

[tumblunni]

Man i really should like... Meticulously go through every single thing i ever watched as a kid and try and find out if there are any other faves i forgot about. It could be fun to draw an ensemble piece of all the science villains in my bigass loving heart! I think warpnik would probably be the most obscure of those tho.

OH wait maybe i just abruptly remembered him cos Maddiman kinda vaguely reminds me of him, sorta? Both got the same weird not-white-guy-pink-but-literal-pink skintone, goofy hair, nasally voice, being strangely adorable, etc.

OH MAN i even remember the plot of his damn episode now! He was robotnik's non evil cousin that he banished to an alternate dimension that ended up turning him mad so he ended up a villain too. SO THATS WHERE MY SQUISKER AND MCKRAKEN HEADCANONS MUST HAVE COME FROM!

And i cant remember anything else about the episode except that even as a kid i found it annoying and rude how they made fun of his speech impediment. Like do you ever hate those voices? Voices where its clearly a badly done parody of some actual voice of some demographic they look down on, and its hard to articulate that you hate the voice but not the real thing its based on, and you also hate the fact theyre mentally associating this intentionally annoying voice with that demographic and reinforcing the idea that their normal voices are also inherantly horrible and funny? I felt that way about this dude and his lisp cos i also have a lisp, but its more often done with the 'cartoon simpleton voice' aka downs syndrome/other disability stereotype, and of course the 'sassy independant black woman who aint need no man' and the 'scary deep voiced black man thug' and the 'ching chong high pitched generic all asian cultures at the same time' goddamn thing. Why was this treated like the height of humor in the 90s and why is it still around today??

Oh also i remember that this dude stuck in my memory so much cos even though he was an antagonist he wasnt really the bad guy. Like he had a very legit reason to hate robotnik and it was just 'whoops sonic and co got caught in the crossfire'. Made me kinda sad that in the end they never set him free from that warp prison dimension place, but he still kinda 'wins' the episode and that was very memorable to me as a kid. Sonic manages to escape while leaving robotnik trapped, and warpnik is like "HELL YEAH REVENGE TIME" and thats just where it ends. So its not really ACTUALLY a proper sympathetic villain plot or anything but it was like baby me's first introduction to the concept of sympathetic villains? I was always used to my fave characters being bad and hated, but this time the guy kinda got a mildly happy ending sorta. Vaguely. Robotnik is just back with no explanation in the next episode cos that show kinda didnt care about sequential storytelling. But hey that leaves room open for me to headcanon that warpnik also managed to escape and he's off somewhere now being like "oh my god i missed the grass and the stars" and yeah maybe he's still kinda 'warped' from the experience but he has a chance of recovery now. Cos seriously even as a seven year old i could see that this dude was a stereotype of mental illness. Like just.. EVERY mental illness. Man, 'comic book crazy' is another trope that i never understood why it was funny and im glad its died.

OH maybe i relate to mad scientists cos i guess the way theyre treated by other characters felt similar to how adults treated us autistic kids???

I dunno man. Maybe theres no reason and i just wish i had a cool science dad/uncle/grandpa cos thats Objectively The Greatest Thing. YOU COULD HAVE SO MANY ADVENTURES TOGETHER!!! and heal his broken heart from traumatic backstory appearances cos WHY DO I KEEP TAKING MINOR FUNNYMANS AND MAKING THEM SAD oh yeah cos Yokai Watch(tm) validated me with that actually being canon for once EVERYONE GO PLAY YOKAI WATCH OK

Dr maddiman best

Dr warpnik almost as best

Its like that 'X walked so Y could run' meme

U gots to wotch the shows of not be screentime to they science gramps tp someday find the thing that do!!!

Man im fuckin hyper

[momestuck]

Let’s read Hiveswap Friendsim - volume 10!

We’re over the halfway mark. Nineteen friends. This time, Of Faraway Lands and Nearby Pals.

Our trolls are going to be...

These two.

Incidentally, I haven’t commented, but every troll select screen has a different drawing when you mouseover the troll. Usually they’re just the same troll with a light shining on them, looking more enthusiastic, but you gotta see Tegiri’s one...

In addition to the Jojo-like art style, that’s the katakana character ゴ ‘go’ repeated. For some reason, katakana is commonly used over hiragana for sound effects in manga, such as laughter. So yeah. We’ve finally found the mall katana guy mentioned waaaaay back in Polypa’s route!

Oddly, while ‘Tegiri’ would be valid romaji (although not, I checked, on lists of Japanese names I could find... I wouldn’t want to guess at a pseudo-’translation’, there’s a few possibilities), ‘Kalbur’ is decidedly not, and would be turned into something like ‘karuburu’ if it was transliterated into Japanese. That might be significant...

But that’s as far as my rudimentary Japanese knowledge can take me. We’ll come back to Tegiri shortly. First of all, it’s...

...beloved The Magic Roundabout character, Zebedee!

I really hope that’s not a coincidence.

Zebede

Zebede is the third and final troll by Magdalena Clarke, author of Vikare and Elwurd. Well, I enjoyed Elwurd, so that’s a good sign... hopefully...

This begins with getting a chittr notification. God, push notifications, am I right?

The name suggests we’re going to deal with the bees that made Sollux’s ‘mind honey’, granting goldbloods fantastic powers. (The game seems to have decisively chosen ‘gold’ rather than ‘yellow’, so I will defer to this.)

Who is this new friend? It seems to be someone who knows Cirava...

Their speech quirk seems to be using z in place of s, but not always.

Zebede invites us to download a video chat app...

Surprisingly, this does not result in our phone getting inducted into a botnet. Apparently the app we downloaded is called ‘grype’.

It’s weird to have so many Skype jokes given that Skype has pretty much given way to other messaging apps, at least in my experience...

He’s really excited to hear about how we know Cirava, and we tell him. He lets on rather unsubtly that he’s lonely and would appreciate a visit. Apparently he lives a long way out, for the sake of the bees.

We get our first choice...

Honestly no idea which one is the instant death option here. Probably asking if it’s really fine, but the ways we die are so random in this game, who knows?

Let’s go with asking where he lives.

We mention we went out to visit Skylla in the countryside, which leads him to... more self-deprecation. Wow, this guy sure is insecure.

And he decides like... we’re not really interested in visiting him. ‘A wall has been raised’, as the game puts it.

Dude, no wonder you don’t have friends.

OK, well, that was a short branch. Let’s try asking about his living situation and his lusus, whether it’s really fine.

Ah yes, play on his feelings of resentment. Get him to complain and wheedle in that way. That’s our narrator.

This guy’s face is so... pointy... I don’t have much commentary to add.

This leads us to a non-choice of saying we’ll go visit him immediately. This seems like a really healthy, non-manipulative friendship we’ve got going on here.

Apparently Zebede’s got some of whatever concentrated loneliness and fetishisation of friendship our narrator is suffering.

The narrator goes through a few friends to try and figure out who to get a lift from... and after rejecting Tagora, Amisia, Zebruh (oh god no), taxis and public transport, they decide the only option is to do crimes. Hey, I can get behind it.

By crimes they mean, finding an unlocked car and nicking it. Unlike Konyyl, they can’t punch locks off.

Apparently we know how to turn on the auto-pilot in a troll car. Not sure when we figured that one out!

Fittingly, Zebede’s hive is full of bees.

Inside, too, it’s a nice rustic bee farm.

We get a text message from... Cirava, it turns out. I wonder what they want...

We have the choice of ignoring it or letting it go to voicemail. Wow, we’re getting a lot of phone calls in this episode! Let’s try chatting with Cirava, maybe we can invite them over and all chill here...

It’s nice to see Cirava again. The protagonist’s weird obsession with collecting more friends instead of spending time with the ones they’ve made is highlighted...

What’s up with that?

The matter of Cirava’s clothes comes up.

Oh right so that’s what happened to Cirava’s clothes... I honestly forgot.

Anyway, Cirava’s a little worried when we say we’re hanging out with Zebede, who they know by chittr handle if not by name. They are worried that we’re tight, and we say we’re working on it.

Called out!

Anyway, Cirava warns us about getting too close to Zebede, and links... his fanfiction. OK, sure. It turns out to be... RPF. Of Cirava.

Oh dear, we’re gonna get into the RPF discourse in this episode, huh? That is something I generally want to stay a long way away from.

Anyway, Zebede comes back while we’re reading one of his fics.

That sure is an expression.

Anyway, when we explain that Cirava linked this, Zebede decides we’re not prioritising him after all, and clearly Cirava is more important than him.

I’m really not sure we want to be this guy’s friend.

He breaks down crying at the perceived slight of mentioning that we have other friends.

The protagonist starts feeling like a dick. There’s a poke at the blurry line between inner monologue and spoken dialogue on the protagonist’s part...

But anyway, that’s that for Zebede’s route.

So, how do we actually befriend this guy? Trick seems to be to pretend we care about literally nothing other than him, I guess. So let’s go back and ignore Cirava’s grype call.

Instead of answering the call, we work on our chittr profile. God, that’s hard enough irl, let alone when you’re on an alien planet...

So, we assure Zebede that we weren’t about to take a call in the middle of a hang sesh, and he starts showing us some pirate films. Then, switches to space pirate films. Poor guy’s really thrown for a loop by our indecisiveness.

The narrator is sympathetic, but unhelpful. Honestly narrator, just pick something. Fake some enthusiasm. If you really want to be friends with this kid...

We suggest watching the last thing he watched on grubtube. Which... seems like a shitty suggestion to me, since like, if it’s the last thing you watched...

But to Zebede, that seems to be something much worse.

You promise you absolutely won’t judge him. We may regret this.

Mostly, it turns out to be videos of Cirava. Yeah, we get it, he’s got a crush.

He shows us some music videos of a group called hatched2dance. I’m guessing this is a KPop (or perhaps JPop) parody, especially given the whole RPF angle...

Honestly like I probably couldn’t stand this guy in real life but I have some sympathies for his whole awkward gay teenager reading fic thing.

Anyway, seeing themselves reflected in Zebede prompts some reflection in the narrator.

The narrator has kind of a freakout on realising how offputting they’ve been - that they’ve been ‘a big phony’.

We’re saved from an existential crisis by someone showing up to reclaim their scuttlebuggy.

The narrator decides they should probably go out and face the music before this troll carves their way into the hive. This wins over Zebede even harder.

We learn that Zebede’s psychic power is... controlling bees. Using the bees, they drive off the troll outside.

And so we chill with Zebede, and the protagonist takes notes on ‘not being such a desperate piece of shit’.

We’ll see if this whole change of heart actually lasts.

The Alternian text in the picture says ‘ALTERNIA K-POP ALL-STARS’ in the Hiveswap version of the alphabet. Just in case you had any doubt what videos he’s into.

Tegiri

And now... time for things to get anime. This is the debut of David Turnbull.

The protagonist notices the edges of sunrise, and concludes they need to make a friend before daybreak. At that moment, someone accosts them.

Tegiri also gets chiptunes, in common with our other anime troll. I think it’s a remix of one of the tracks elsewhere in Homestuck. But it could easily fit in with a genuine 8-bit game.

Reassuringly, Tegiri concludes that since we’re an alien not a troll, he doesn’t have to cull us.

His typing quirk is that he replaces the letter ‘L’ with slashes.

And his character trait is, sure enough...

HUGE WEEB. Though, glass houses, stones, etc....

Naturally, the initial instant death choice is...

Unusually, we get three choices.

I can assert with 100% confidence that if I click anything other than ‘subs’, I will be executed by katana. So let’s try... both are good.

He casts us out for our indecisiveness.

The Alternian text here reads ‘PATHETIC.’ The drawing here recalls a particular anime meme... after some digging I was able to identify it as a screencap of Asuka from eva:

Think this is probably from End of Evangelion? But I can’t really recall.

...god I’m not helping my case for not being as much a weeb as Tegiri here, am I?

OK, let’s try subs now.

...lol, I’m wrong. He prefers dubs. What kind of weeb is this guy?

However, even though we’re wrong on the Most Important Question, we get to come back to his hive.

We can see body pillows around his recuperacoon, an improbable number of katanas, a bunch of figurines... the text above his bed says OPPAI, which is, well... Japanese for boobs. Yeah.

If you look closely at the anime figurines, I’m sure you can identify a few.

But except for Luffy in top right, I’m not sure about the rest. Someone who knows more about anime, feel free to fill me in. Bottom right might be a machine lifeform from NieR Automata, but that seems too recent, and wouldn’t 2B be a more in-character one for him to have?

Anyway...

I like how this casually assumes that the reader knows what an otaku is, but then again who reads Homestuck without knowing that I guess.

The narration says Tegiri has sorted his merch by blood colour, which is like... contradicted by the illustration which clearly has a bronzeblood troll at the top, but who cares I guess.

This guy is just too quotable lol.

Anyway, we get to meet a lusus again. This time, the lusus is actually drawn, not just a filtered stock photo!

It’s also mildly terrifying :D

It’s called Tadashi Inu, which means... well it kind of doesn’t mean anything (‘however dog’???), but if it was Tadashii Inu, it would mean Correct Dog.

Anyway, naturally what does an anime club do but watch anime?

He’s presently in the middle of watching ‘Philosopher’s Half-Iron’, which I’m guessing is a joke about Fullmetal Alchemist? Instead, he proposes Schoolfed Heroism (BNHA maybe?) and Kismet:Stuck Morning (no guesses for this one... I’m a fake weeb).

It’s also interesting that we’re watching on DVDs. If they wanted to go full weeb, they could put in fansub jokes here... but then this guy prefers dubs to subs, so maybe he likes to buy official releases.

Naturally, we run into translation issues.

He wanted the first edition and ‘paid extra for it’. So rather than enjoy the rest of the episode, we set off to have a word with the importer...

I have to ask... how does the troll economy work? There’s hints at a capitalist economy, money is mentioned and we had the guy running the club just now, but none of the trolls seem to have jobs. They seem to just get issued money according to their blood colour?

Speaking of which, we get some comments on troll retail...

So yeah, we’re gonna find another weeb I guess.

If that’s the billboard in the background, it's too small and blurry to work out what it says, unfortunately.

He seems pretty opposed to any ‘rebel sentiments’. Which of course he discusses with the weebiest metaphors. Alternia balances on...

He goes on about katanas for a while, like he’s going down a checklist of orientalist tropes. Naturally it’s a prelude to a challenge to ‘dance’.

We say swords are cool and this gets a little rant about bushido. You know, that self-serving horseshit some guy in the late 1800s fabricated as nationalist mythology...

We arrive at the anime store.

More text to transcribe, oh joy. At the top of the store it says the name of the shop, mentioned in dialogue, ‘SUPER TOPATO IMPORTS’. Above the door behind the counter it says ‘EMPLOYEES ONLY’.  On the bookshelf full of manga it says something too squished to easily read.

Anyway, we’re having a look around, but Tegiri starts kicking up a stink.

It’s basically the navy seal copypasta, slightly modified to be more trollish.

Meanwhile we’ve accidentally knocked some anime and manga out of someone’s hand.

Still not getting these references, unfortunately.

The troll with a pink sign is apparently against troll law - ‘depiction of nonstandard hemological attributes’.

This is all going over my head at this point. The references, I mean. Obviously the text - that Tegiri is an entitled douchebag - is clear enough.

Oh, this one I get - Ace Attorney, of course.

Anyway, this is where we get a choice. Do we stop Tegiri straight up murdering someone for peddling the wrong kind of anime?

Obviously we will try. Even though this seems like a great way to end up dead ourselves.

We speak up for the shopkeeper, and manage to convince Tegiri not to straight-up kill him. This leads to... a story, of a previous time he showed mercy, in contradiction to the law.

Of course, we know who this baby - who should have been culled for lacking a lusus, by troll law - would have been. God, I’d sure rather be hanging out with Polypa than this guy.

The narrator, of course, has one thing on their mind...

We suggest that the law, and what is right, are maybe not the same thing...?

The hard decisions such as ‘do I murder this baby?’

The narrator decides they know something about bad ways to manage loneliness...

The narrator manages to divert his rant by asking about his eyes. Which are... any guesses? Contact lenses. For cosplay.

Before we can make the error of accusing him of breaking the law by cosplaying a nonexistent blood caste, who should show up but...

Oh thank god. Save us, Polypa.

Of course he says 何 nani instead of ‘what’. And as for 後輩 kōhai, that’s basically the counterpart to senpai, the junior partner in an informal hierarchy within an organisation, dictating the use of certain honorifics. If my reading of the wiki article is right, he’s using it quite incorrectly.

Polypa lets on that we’re moirails. This causes Tegiri to be a little taken aback. The narration has some fun.

Tegiri claims - despite his huge stack of body pillows and figurines - that he has no time for quadrants.

‘Were it not for the laws of this land’ is most commonly associated with a meme from a Ghanaian film, not anime, but the sentiment surely fits.

Polypa tries to talk some sense into him.

So we end up doing an anime sleepover...

The dog is saying ワンワン (wanwan), which is standard Japanese onomatopoeia for a dog barking.

The text in this screen says... ‘Ore wa kaizoku-ou ni naru otoko da!’, which is a One Piece reference, meaning ‘I'm the man who will be the pirate king!’.

So, Tegiri may be insufferable, but at least with Polypa around we can keep him more or less under control.

There’s a few more options to explore. What if we’d picked dubs, not subs, near the start? He praises our choice, but otherwise, the story proceeds in the same way. I think that’s actually the first time we’ve had branches merge.

Now, what if we let him kill the shopkeeper?

Shockingly, he’s not as much a swordsman as he makes out. And the shopkeeper, it turns out, is psychic, and zaps him before legging it.

I was under the impression that psychic abilities were rare in goldbloods, but what do I know?

We ask like... was that really necessary?

Well, he’s certainly a tool, he got that part right. (Sorry.)

We go to report the shopkeeper’s terrible crimes to the drone, but unfortunately... it seems that the protagonist has a rap sheet themselves!

They can’t pin it on us! We’re innocent!

God, the ‘everything happened’ approach to continuity is still fucking with me. Did we make friends with Remele? Did we not? Earlier, the narration mentioned making ‘between 1 and 19′ friends. What if someone didn’t obsessively explore and replay every branch? They’d be so confused!

But despite his ineptitude with a sword, our attempted escape over an overpass leaves us...

Dead.

I’m sure this shot is also an allusion to an anime meme, but I can’t say which one, so yeah.

That’s Zebede and Tegiri. Not the best friends we’ve made, but I enjoyed the chance to be a huggggeee neeeerrrd in this post. (>implying that I could be anything other than a huge nerd on my homestuck liveread blog)

[dragonkeeper19600]

Bendy and the Ink Machine: The Big Questions

Yo!

There’s only one chapter left of Bendy and the Ink Machine, which means the story will most likely conclude sometime this year. So, as we settle in to the long wait for Chapter 5, I’d like the chance to go over some of the bigger mysteries that I feel need to be addressed before the story ends.

1. What, or who, is Bendy?

Bendy, the game’s main antagonist and mascot both in and out of universe, seemingly emerged from the ink machine when Henry turned it on. But, what is he?

When I first played the game, only the first two chapters were out, and by the time I had played through both of them, what I thought was going on was that Bendy was a real demon. Like, an actual, honest-to-God, hellfire and brimstone demon that had been summoned through the cartoons produced by Joey Drew Studios. The pentagrams on the floor in Chapter 2, commonly associated with pop culture ideas about satanism, are what led me to this conclusion. This idea was partially based on the hysterical fears of fringe evangelicals in America who were obsessed with the so-called satanic imagery in cartoons.

This book is not a parody.

However, subsequent chapters have made me rethink this theory. If Bendy were indeed a demon summoned to our mortal plane, that wouldn’t explain the existence of the other ink creatures. It is true that Bendy seems to be the most powerful and terrifying out of all of them. This theory could still work if Bendy’s demonic powers included the transformation of the studio employees into monsters and the rest of the tomfoolery that happens in the game. But, what much of the fandom, including myself, is beginning to suspect is that the Bendy monster actually has the same human origins as the rest of the ink creatures.

The Lost Ones that debuted in Chapter 4, as well as the first Alice Angel, Norman Polk, Jack Fain, and Sammy Lawrence are all characters that we know for a fact were once human. We also hear an audio log of Grant Cohen’s transformation in Chapter 4, and if Jack Fain’s transformed form looks identical to a swollen searcher, then it’s logical to assume that all the searchers are former humans.

So, if Bendy is a transformed human, then who is he?

The man the fandom widely accepts as the most likely candidate is Joey Drew, the CEO of the company and the man who invited Henry to the studio in the first place.

P.S. Bring booze.

Joey is the character most frequently mentioned in the game’s audio logs, and even though he (maybe) has yet to appear in person, his antagonistic role seems to be as great as Bendy’s. He is the one who insisted on the implementation of the ink machine as well as the placement of the six items needed to keep it running. His unsound business practices and total disregard for his employee’s well-being is strongly implied to be what ran the studio into the ground, if only in the sense that his prioritizing the ink machine above all else led to the above-mentioned tomfoolery. TheMeatly recently released a new trailer for Bendy updated with all the game’s current content, and said trailer includes several lines in a row from various characters complaining about Joey.

“Where’s my paycheck, Drew?”

But, Joey shares more than just an antagonist role with Bendy. As has famously been analyzed by many a fan, in Chapter 3 Henry is presented by a fork in the road between two options: the “Angel’s Path” and the “Demon’s Path.” Taking the Angel’s Path will lead players to an audio log from Susie Campbell, Alice Angel’s original voice actor and the woman who turned herself into the monstrous Alice from the chapter. Taking the Demon Path will lead players to an ink filled room from an audio log from Joey Drew, the first time in the game his voice is actually heard. Considering the first voice of Mickey Mouse in real life was Walt Disney himself, it’s plausible that Joey was the voice of Bendy within the game, considering all the other parallels he shares with real life animators.

Fans also compare Alice Angel’s fearful insistence that she “will not let the demon touch me again!” to the game’s implication that Joey Drew had an affair with Susie Campbell. 

Finally, there are a few damning pieces of evidence at the end of the very first chapter. When Henry steps into the pentagram at the end of the chapter, he appears to have a series of visions before collapsing. The first depict the ink machine, the second depicts a wheelchair, and the third depicts Bendy emerging from some kind of bright space.

The idea that that wheelchair belongs to Joey and that he used the machine to turn himself into Bendy was an idea floated at least as early as Chapter 2, famously represented in the comic dubbed below. 

What I haven’t really seen anyone draw attention to - and this was only brought to my attention by TV Tropes - is if you look at Bendy’s character model, he has a twisted leg.

Despite his speed, Bendy walks with a noticeable limp. This is pretty suggestive, since it supports the notion that Bendy used to be someone who once needed that wheelchair. 

The properties of the ink may be able to reconstruct a non-functioning limb to enable someone to walk again. Chapter 4 confirms that ink can be used to recreate solid objects such as pipes and coffee mugs, and Joey’s audio log in Chapter 3 contains the line, “With enough belief, you could even cheat death itself!” All this, the theory goes, would lead Joey to turn the ink machine on himself through some misguided attempt to attain immortality, turning him into Bendy. 

The only thing that trips me with this theory is that nobody, not a single audio log or line from Henry, ever mentions that Joey needed a wheelchair. And that seems like a pretty big omission, especially since, to put it frankly, the studio doesn’t seem handicap-friendly. Thomas Connor complains in one audio log how the elevator is unreliable and dangerous to use, and some areas, such as the break room, are only accessible via stairs. 

It’s possible Joey didn’t always need the wheelchair, if it is indeed his, and only needed to use it after some kind of illness or accident, hence motivating him to use the machine.

But, here’s the thing. As of Chapter 4, Joey has become a character that’s a little bit harder to get a hold of. The first three chapters portrayed him as a sort of eccentric Wonka-like figure. Someone fascinated with the occult and unconcerned with practical matters. His devotion to the ink machine made him seem an otherworldly or dreamlike figure, and his audio log in Chapter 3 gave him the voice of a man whose wife probably asks him not to talk in the bedroom.

However, in Chapter 4, we find out it may all be a front, as we get an audio log from Joey about overcoming your failings before he switches to a cynical, decidedly unwhimsical tone. 

It may just be my own personal interpretation, but that kind of barking CEO voice doesn’t seem to jibe with what we know of Joey’s behavior. The slow unveiling of who Joey is has been a major focus of the narrative up until now, and it’s clear from this audio log that he’s not who he appears to be. Instead of a quirky dreamer who’s mind is too big for this mortal world, Joey just seems to  be an asshole.

Here’s another thing: Joey has been a red herring at least twice. When Henry first sees the dissected Boris, his horrified line, “Oh my God. Joey, what were you doing?” led many players to assume it was Joey who had dissected Boris. It turns out it was actually Alice Angel. 

And again, the pentagram at the end of the first chapter led some players to conclude Joey was participating in occult activities. However, unless I’m remembering wrong, those pentagrams are only visible in Chapter 2 and the end of Chapter 1. Since the latest version of Chapter 2 has a pentagram around the post where Sammy was planning to execute Bendy, that would lead me to conclude that Sammy, not Joey, is the one who drew all those pentagrams. 

So if Joey didn’t dissect Boris, and he didn’t draw the pentagrams, then what else has he not done? Is all the evidence pointing to Joey being Bendy just another red herring? If so, then whose wheelchair is that? The only one who might know that is Henry.

2. What does Henry know?

Henry’s behavior has been weird since the first chapter. Who the hell, when entering an abandoned studio with a mysterious satanic machine, has the immediate impulse to turn it on?

“I want to touch that.” - Henry, presumably

Henry was not at all prompted by Joey’s letter to turn on the ink machine. In fact, the letter doesn’t mention any such thing. And yet, Henry seems to already know what it is. In previous versions of Chapter 1, Henry’s line upon entering the machine room was, “So this is the ink machine, huh? Wonder how you turn it on.” This line would imply that Henry didn’t see the ink machine while he was working at the studio but already knew about it somehow, which is weird. Interestingly, that line has actually been removed from the most recent update, instead replaced with, “Let’s see what you’re hiding down there, old friend.”  So, it could be that someone caught the error and changed the line

Even outside of that weirdness, the game likes to hint that Henry was more involved in these events then he’s letting on. A hidden audio log in Chapter 3 implies that Henry is actually the creator of the Bendy character, and if Bendy truly is a real demon, then the reason that’s problematic should be obvious. But even if that theory is false, it could mean that the game’s famous quote, “The Creator lied to us,” is actually referring to Henry. 

We have no idea what it is that made Henry leave the studio. The rough working conditions would be enough to drive anyone away, of course, but in that case, it seems weird that more people didn’t walk out. Thomas Connor vowed not to do anymore repair jobs, but his audio logs keep cropping up, which would lead me to believe he ultimately stuck around. Wally Franks also frequently promises to quit but he stuck around at least long enough for the park assets to get put into the warehouse, a part of the building that apparently didn’t exist while Henry was working there. Why didn’t more people quit? Why was Henry the only one? 

It’s also hard to pin down exactly how long Henry was working at the studio. The Chapter 1 update has Henry smugly remarking it must have taken several animators to replace him after he left, which would indicate that production continued for a while after his absence. But, Henry is recognized by both Sammy and Alice Angel. That Alice recognizes him is particularly weird since Susie claims she was only working at the studio for two months before being cast as Alice. It leads one to wonder how much of Susie’s mental breakdown Henry was present for. Was he there when Alice was recast? Was he there for her obsession with becoming Alice? What is the exact timeline for the employees’ descent into madness?

When she recognizes him, Alice shouts, “I know who you are, Henry! And I know why you’re here!” Maybe I’m overthinking, but “I came here because Joey invited me,” doesn’t seem like a dramatic enough reason for Alice to be shouting like that. Henry’s wandering though the studio doesn’t seem to have any purpose at this point except “Escape!” but Alice’s line implies there might be another reason Henry is here. But, does Henry know what that larger purpose is or is it solely the doing of Joey Drew or whoever it was who really sent that letter?

There’s also the matter of Henry’s visions. I already went over the glimpses of the wheelchair and Bendy’s creation. If those images are flashbacks, then Henry might know better than anyone what Bendy truly is. The images continue in Chapter 4 after taking a break for two chapters, with Henry getting an image of hands flailing in a hallway before they all vanish.

I really have no answer as to what any of this means. The wheelchair could at least be understood as a flashback, but the hands have no context that I can understand. All this is made even more confusing by the fact that the effect that accompanies the hand vision also appears over events that are definitely happening currently, such as the fight between Bendy and the Projectionist.

The only thing that hints at an explanation is the name of the achievement on Steam for finding Henry’s hidden audio log in Chapter 3: “Long Forgotten Self.”

Some fans have used the title of this achievement to theorize that Henry is suffering from some form of amnesia. If that’s the case, then his true purpose is a mystery even to himself.

Yay.

3. What is the true nature of the religion surrounding Bendy?

Sammy’s devotion to Bendy, drawing pentagrams and sacrificing coworkers to him, is what initially convinced me that Bendy was a real demon. But, whether Sammy is indeed worshipping a demon or a cartoon character, like many of us losers on this website, the wording of the phrase, “He will set us free,” implies that Bendy has more than one devotee.

Well, as of Chapter 4, that seems to be confirmed.

These lovable chaps are called the Lost Ones in the game files. Unlike the hostile searchers, they are not aggressive and able to speak, although none of them seem to feel they have anything worth saying to you. There was a time when I assumed Sammy was mutating into a Boris clone the same way Susie turned into Alice, but now that I’ve seen these guys, I assume that Sammy is just another Lost One who found a mask and overalls to cover his shame. Because if he still has a fully-formed human torso, then there’s no basically no chance that he doesn’t have some kind of ink dick. 

Please hold that image in your mind.

Anyway, while the don’t attack you, the fact that they have the same mad scribblings on the walls in the room where they hang out as Sammy has in the music department leads me to believe the Lost Ones are more followers of Bendy, convinced that Bendy will free them somehow. How exactly they came to that conclusion is still a mystery, but let’s take at what they could mean by “free.”

Sammy’s wording about what exactly he wants Bendy to do is a little unclear, so much so that when I first played Chapter 2, I assumed that what Sammy wanted was to be killed by Bendy. His talk of being swept into Bendy's “final, loving embrace,” seemed evocative of Christian talk of “joining with the Lord” after death. However, Sammy’s pleading and screams while Bendy comes after him led me to rethink that conclusion.

Instead, Sammy seems to expect Bendy to turn him human again. Again, I have no idea why he thinks Bendy can do that, but let’s take a minute to look at what Bendy actually did to Sammy. 

“Don’t spill me!”

In the first release of Chapter 2, this is what players saw after the credits finished rolling. This, presumably, is all that’s left of Sammy. With the release of subsequent chapters, this image is no longer shown, but the implication that Sammy was turned into a puddle is still present in the most recent update for Chapter 2, which has a small puddle of ink forming under the door Sammy walks through to meet Bendy.

Sammy’s transformation into an ink puddle is weirdly evocative of Alice Angel’s monologue in Chapter 3, “Do you know what it’s like living in dark puddles?”

In fact, all of Alice’s dialogue in Chapter 3 is fascinating, if you can get behind the stilted theatricality of it all. She mentions how she was “born from the ink” twice, once as a blob and the second time in her current form. She also expresses a fear of “being pulled back” through encountering the Butcher Gang, even hysterically siccing Henry on them to prevent “being dragged back to the darkness.” It seems that Alice fears, not death, but returning to the hive mind of the ink, which she describes as a “buzzing, screaming well of voices,” where “bits of your mind swim like fish in a bowl.” Alice wants to remain an individual, separate from the primordial ooze of the ink.

The idea that Alice doesn’t fear death is supported by her line about heaven. “I don’t think I’ll ever get to see it.” This could mean that she’s done such terrible things she can't enter heaven, but I always took it to mean she’ll never reach heaven because she’ll never die.

Recall, once more, Joey’s line about “cheating death itself.” Do ink creatures truly die when you kill them? Their death animation involves them melting into puddles. You get it? They get pulled back. 

I propose that ink creatures are locked in a permanent state of death and labored rebirth. Rather than find peace, ink creatures that lose their form return to the ink, losing what little sanity they had in the process. 

This is the fate that befell Sammy at the end of Chapter 2, the fate that Alice Angel most feared. He wanted to be free, but instead he got sent back. Sammy Lawrence isn’t dead, but he might have preferred he was. Hell, maybe that’s what he truly wanted from Bendy. Not to be human again but to sleep at last. 

Which brings us to the next question. Why did Bendy punish Sammy?

Other than jealousy of his sweet bod, of course.

Well, to answer that, let’s see if we can look at why Sammy tried to sacrifice Henry to Bendy. If you recall, after the fight with the Projectionist in Chapter 4, Bendy drags his corpse out of the room through a wall. We haven’t found out where he was going with that body, but Alice’s obsession with collecting body parts might hint at an answer. It is possible that Bendy is gathering the bodies of ink creatures for some kind of purpose, either to augment himself as Alice has done or for something else. 

Bendy’s other followers may be as devoted to bring Bendy bodies as Sammy was. Remember the shot of Sammy’s remains after Chapter 2. Well, Chapter 4 has its own post-credits image.

Yup, those are the Lost Ones, gathering around Alice’s body. I could be wrong about this, but I’m guessing they’re going to bring that body to Bendy. The believers must honor their savior, after all. 

If all this is true, then it could explain why Bendy lost his temper with Sammy for trying to sacrifice Henry. Henry is human, not an ink creature, and thus useless to Bendy’s purposes. It could also explain why he discarded the Projectionist’s head after he tore it off. The inky part is what interests him, not the mechanical part. 

Speaking of mechanics, there’s one final question I feel needs to be addressed before this story ends:

4. What’s the deal with Wally?

Wally is the only character to have at least one audio log in every single chapter. His audio log was part of the first chapter before we even knew his name. He was there before Sammy, before Susie, before Allison, before Joey, before we even saw Bendy. At the dawn of time, there was not light, but Wally. 

Wally has been a consistent and soothing presence throughout the game, and I always look forward to his adorable Brooklyn accent and comic relief amidst the madness of the studio and the other employees. But here’s the thing, Wally seems a little too cheerful. Susie, Norman Polk, and Grant Cohen all had audio logs detailing their descents into insanity the chapter after they debuted. Sammy Lawrence jumped aboard the crazy train the same chapter we met him. But Wally, so far, has shown no signs of the mental deterioration the other employees have suffered. He even comments on the fact that everyone seems to be going crazy around him: “Everyone’s walking around here like grandma just died!” Everyone else is morose and suffering because of the terrible conditions at the studio, but Wally, though he’s definitely annoyed by the situation, isn't losing his grip the way everyone else is.

His immunity to the maddening effects of the studio gets even weirder when you take a closer look at the blueprints on the ink machine.

Look in the lower left corner: “attn: Wally Franks”

Wally is the attendant of the ink machine, which is mind-boggling to me. The ink machine is the source of all the supernatural occurrences at the studio and the engine that drives everyone’s madness. So, why the hell is the attendant of the machine, the person who would presumably be around it the most, show none of the negative effects the machine causes? 

The obvious, joking answer is that Wally is so lazy and hapless at his job that he actually isn’t attending to the machine, so he’s not actually near it all that much, but that doesn’t seem to fully answer the question. Grant Cohen’s job wasn’t to look after the machine, and neither was Norman Polk’s, but that didn’t seem to save either of them. What is it that’s protecting Wally?

Another question: The ink machine was off when Henry arrived. Henry had to turn back on. The machine was presumably on in all the time Wally was working there. In fact, I’ve seen YouTubers claim they can hear it running in the background of his audio log in Chapter 3. Since Wally was the machine’s attendant, is Wally the one who turned it off? Why did he do that and why not sooner?

All of this speculation about Wally leads me back to his last line in the most recent chapter of the game. “If these guys don’t start realizing who the real genius is, I’m outta here!” 

What are you hiding, Wally?

[drchristineputnam]

Okay, you've probably already gotten him, but 003 for Justin Lazarus from An Unnatural Vice. If you have already gotten him, then 003 for Maggie Parkhurst from the Whyborne & Griffin series.

Actually youre the first to ask me so thank you for sparing me having to publicly beg someone to ask me about him yes

JUSTIN LAZARUS:

How I feel about this character: HOW DO YOU THINK. I mean apart from the fact that I keep waxing poetics about him (as you probably noticed), I literally finished the audio at work today and genuinely felt chest pain over how much I love him, because at this point, I’m just a parody of myself

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Well Nathaniel, obviously, but tbh I’d be open to him having a Thing with Mark too. Idk about actual relationship, they might kill each other, but they also might not? It would definitely be hilarious. I just can’t get over everyone mentioning “yeah he looks like an asshole weasel but also I’d absolutely fuck him.” But like. Nathaniel ALL THE WAY THEY’RE PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER OBVIOUSLY don’t make them not be together

My non-romantic OTP for this character: JUSTIN/MARK DETECTIVE BROS FOREVER AND EVER

My unpopular opinion about this character: Uhhhh Justin never did anything wrong ever in his life ever??????

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: PLEASE KJ GIVE ME DAD JUSTIN CONTENT. GIVE ME THAT CHRISTMAS EXTRA WITH EVERYONE SPOILING SUKEY AND EMMA. PLEASE KJ GIVE ME OLD FARTS JUSTIN AND NATHANIEL DADS IN THIS NEW TRILOGY. IF SUKEY CALLS THEM DADS I WILL ACTUALLY PERISH FROM A HEART ATTACK PLEASE KJ PLEASE

my het ship: tbh I’d love to know about Bess, the woman he loved. She must’ve been awesome tbh

my OTP: NATHANIELLLL

my OT3: Justin/Nathaniel/eternal happiness for the old farts with their two daughters and a giant dog

my cross over ship: Well I will draw him hanging out with Gil Lawless from Unfit to Print one day!! I WILL. They’d be such great friends. Pls KJ

my kink: ummm excuse don’t make me kink at my beautiful and precious angelic son okAY MY KINK FOR JUSTIN IS HIM CUDDLING ON A SOFA WITH HIS FAMILY PLAYING GAMES OR READING NOVELS SHOO

a head cannon fact: A fact is that he’s a wonderful and fun dad who one days leaves the girls with Nathaniel as he has to travel for a business and comes home to find the girls (or like, Sukey lets be real) badgered Nathaniel into getting them a PUPPY so now he has a husband, two daughters and a GIANT DOG all of which want to sleep in the same bed with him. He grumbles about it but secretly he loves it

my gender bend: not a gender bend but lately I’ve been thinking about the idea of trans dude Justin and I loove it

[vintage1der]

What separates these works from the Harry Potter fanfiction you find online may come down to snobbery. There is an undercurrent of misogyny in mainstream criticism of fanfiction, which is widely accepted to be dominated by women; one census of 10,500 AO3 users found that 80% of the users identified as female, with more users identified as genderqueer (6%) than male (4%). Novik has spent a good deal of time fighting against fanfiction’s stigma because she feels it is “an attack on women’s writing, specifically an attack on young women’s writing and the kind of stories that young women like to tell”. Which is not to say that young women only want to write about romance: “I think,” Novik says, “that [the popularity of fanfiction amongst women is] not unconnected to the lack of young women protagonists who are not romantic interests.” Devotees of fanfiction will sometimes tell you that it’s one of the oldest writing forms in the world. Seen with this generous eye, the art of writing stories using other people’s creations hails from long before our awareness of Twilight-fanfic-turned-BDSM romance Fifty Shades of Grey: perhaps Virgil, when he picked up where Homer left off with the story of Aeneas, or Shakespeare’s retelling of Arthur Brookes’s 1562 The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet. What most of us would recognise as fanfiction began in the 1960s, when Star Trek fans started creating zines about Spock and Captain Kirk’s adventures. Thirty years later, the internet arrived, which made sharing stories set in other people’s worlds – be they Harry Potter, Spider-Man, or anything and everything in between – easier. Fanfiction has always been out there, if you knew where to look. Now, it’s almost impossible to miss.

In the last few years, fanfiction has enjoyed something of a rebrand. Big-name authors such as EL James, author of the Fifty Shades books, and Cassandra Clare, who has always been open about writing Harry Potter fanfiction before her bestselling Mortal Instruments series, have helped bring it into the mainstream. These days, it’s fairly common knowledge that some people just really like writing about Captain America and Bucky Barnes falling in love, or Doctor Who fighting demons with Buffy. The general image of fanfiction has brightened somewhat: less creepy, more sweetly nerdy.

But the divide between fanfiction and original writing holds strong. It’s assumed that if people write fanfiction, it’s because they can’t produce their own. At best, it functions as training wheels, preparing a writer to commit to a real book. When they don’t – as in the famous case of Fifty Shades, which one plagiarism checker found had an 89% similarity rate with James’s original Twilight fanfiction – they are ridiculed. A real author, the logic goes, having moved on to writing their own books, doesn’t look back.

“Here’s the thing,” Naomi Novik explains over the phone from New York. She is the bestselling author of the Temeraire books, a fantasy series that adds dragons to the Napoleonic Wars, and Spinning Silver, which riffs on Rumpelstiltskin. “I don’t actually draw any line between my fanfiction work and my professional work – except that I only write the fanfiction stuff for love.”

In between writing her novels – or indeed during, as she admits that fanfiction is one of her favourite procrastination techniques – Novik is an active member of the fanfiction community. She is a co-founder of the Archive of Our Own (AO3), one of the most popular hosting websites, and a prolific writer in the universes of Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Merlin and many more.

And she’s not the only professional at work. Rainbow Rowell, the bestselling author of Eleanor and Park and other novels, once told the Bookseller that between two novels, she wrote a 30,000-word Harry Potter fanfiction. “It’s Harry and Draco as a couple who have been married for many years, and they’re raising Harry’s kids,” she said. “It’s them dealing with attachment parenting and step-parents and all these middle-aged issues.”

The divide between a fanfiction writer and an original fiction writer can look very arbitrary when looking at authors such as Michael Chabon, who once described his own novel Moonglow as “a Gravity’s Rainbow fanfic”. Or Madeline Miller, whose Orange-prize winning The Song of Achilles detailed the romantic relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, and whose latest novel Circe picks up on the witch who seduces Odysseus in the Odyssey. Miller said she was initially worried when one ex-boyfriend described her work as “Homeric fanfiction” but has since embraced her love of adapting and playing with Greek mythology. The tag could also be applied to classics such as Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, reworkings of Shakespeare by the likes of Margaret Atwood and Edward St Aubyn in the Hogarth series, and a spate of parodies: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, or Android Karenina.

What separates these works from the Harry Potter fanfiction you find online may come down to snobbery. There is an undercurrent of misogyny in mainstream criticism of fanfiction, which is widely accepted to be dominated by women; one census of 10,500 AO3 users found that 80% of the users identified as female, with more users identified as genderqueer (6%) than male (4%). Novik has spent a good deal of time fighting against fanfiction’s stigma because she feels it is “an attack on women’s writing, specifically an attack on young women’s writing and the kind of stories that young women like to tell”. Which is not to say that young women only want to write about romance: “I think,” Novik says, “that [the popularity of fanfiction amongst women is] not unconnected to the lack of young women protagonists who are not romantic interests.”

Others may find it odd that published authors would bother writing fanfiction alongside or between their professional work. But it’s all too simple to draw lines between two forms of writing that, in their separate ways, can be both productive and joyful. Neil Gaiman once wrote that the most important question an author can ask is: “What if?” Fanfiction takes this to the next level. What if King Arthur was gay? What if Voldemort won? What if Ned Stark escaped?

“I believe that all art, if it’s any good, is in dialogue with other art,” Novik says. “Fanfiction feels to me like a more intimate conversation. It’s a conversation where you need the reader to really have a lot of detail at their fingertips.”

For writers still wobbling on training wheels, fanfiction offers benefits: the immediate gratification of sharing writing without navigating publishers; passionate readers who are already interested in the characters, and a collegial stream of feedback from fellow writers.

“There was an audience of people who wanted to read my writing,” says young adult author Sarah Rees Brennan, who wrote Harry Potter fanfiction in her teens and twenties before she published her own novels, the latest of which, In Other Lands, was a Hugo award finalist. “Here were all these people online who wanted stories about familiar characters. Audiences were pre-invested and waiting.”

For writers, whether already published or on the path to being published, this instantaneous readership functions as a writer’s workshop: Novik calls it a “community of your peers”. Spending hours thrashing out the details of Draco Malfoy’s inner life can’t help but function as a crash course in character motivation. And the limits and constraints of working within a pre-existing world, with its own characters and settings, is a unique challenge.

“Fanfiction is a great incubator for writers,” Novik says. “The more constraints you have on you at the beginning, the better. It’s why people do writing exercises, or play scales. That kind of constraint forces you to practice certain skills, and then at a certain point you have the control to bring out the whole toolbox.”

Once some writers get those tools, they never look back. Rees Brennan no longer writes fanfiction. “I had a friend say it’s like the difference between babysitting kids and having children of your own,” she says. “With a world you built yourself, and characters you built, there’s this sense of deep, overwhelming love.”

But Rees Brennan is still a fan of collaborative writing and shared universes, as in the short stories she writes with Cassandra Clare about characters from Clare’s Mortal Instruments universe. “It’s amazing to gather around a kitchen table and yell at each other excitedly about what’s going to happen to mutually beloved characters,” she says. “I want that for every creative person – a chance to find their imaginative family, wherever it may be.”

Novik scorns the idea that published authors should turn their back on fanfiction. She recalls being on a panel where one member said he couldn’t understand why someone would waste their time writing it over an original work: “I said, ‘Have you ever played an instrument?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, I play piano’. I said, ‘So, do you compose all your own music?’”

“When I was first published, I deliberately went to my editors and said, ‘Yes, I’ve been writing fanfiction for 10 years. I love it.’ It was non-negotiable for me. As soon as you do that, by the way, it turns out that like half of the publishing industry has read or been involved in fanfiction,” she laughs. “Shockingly! It’s amazing how all these women who like storytelling have some connection to the community.”

For Novik and many other writers, fanfiction is a fundamental a way of expressing oneself, of teasing out new ideas and finding a joyous way to engage with writing again after the hard slog of editing a novel. The journey to become a published writer isn’t a straight line; it’s a spiral, as we grow older and continue to explore the characters and tropes we love. There’s so many stories waiting to be told – perhaps one or two of them could involve getting Captain America laid. God knows he needs it.