#i love some feedback

[madpatti]

So I finally finished this fan art❤️ I can't remember the last time I put so much detail into one drawing.

[starcurtain]

One thing I wish I'd see more of among Ratio fans is some thought about how he views himself as a teacher.

Like yes, of course he refuses to compromise on the quality and rigor of the education he imparts, and he would find it unforgivably unethical to lower his standards in order to pass more students who had not genuinely learned the material. This is core to his character.

However, as someone who is a teacher IRL, I know the absolutely miserable feeling setting that kind of standard can cause. There's the obvious disheartening sense of disappointment ("Are students these days really not capable of doing the work correctly? Is our future in danger, if this is the highest level of understanding our current generation of students can achieve?"), but even worse than that is the self-doubt.

"Is this somehow my fault? Am I not teaching this material in the right ways for the students to learn? Is there something I could have done differently to get through to these students? Would a better teacher have a higher passing rate?"

We know that Ratio does (or at least did) struggle with feeling inferior to the Genius Society, so I think it is also likely, as much as he absolutely will not budge on his academic standards, that he has doubts about his teaching ability as well.

This is the man who wants to educate the entire world to cure the disease of ignorance, and yet only 3% of his actual students are able to get there. How can someone who gets so few of his direct students to a state of enlightenment hope to enlighten the whole universe? If so few students are successfully learning the material of a given class, doesn't that mean the teacher is doing something wrong?Would a better teacher--would a genius, maybe--not be able to impart their knowledge more efficiently and educate even the most challenging of students?

As someone constantly struggling with that balance between keeping academic standards high while also meeting the needs of today's students, I think the passing rates of his courses must affect Dr. Ratio much more deeply than I've seen fans discuss. I think he would question himself harshly over his class success rates, and I think he must be constantly trying to push himself to become the best teacher he possibly can be.

tl;dr: I hope one day the HSR fandom will stop sleeping on the fact that Ratio is an actual practicing professor who probably has astronomical levels of teacher angst. 😂

[prismatoxic]

hey if you write in microsoft word, you should get libre office. it's free, constantly updated, doesn't use AI, and has all the features you're used to. there are lots of user guides and add-ons to make it as easy for you as possible, and it's been around for a long time now.

write in google docs instead? try ellipsus. it's in beta and free to join and use. it's being actively worked on and improved, openly opposes AI, and has all the features you need for a collaborative document tool while also being extremely easy to navigate. it's also made by fans, for fans, with a promise that anything you can write is allowed.

i've used both of these programs extensively and can vouch for them, ellipsus especially. ellipsus currently only imports .md files if you wanna move your stuff over, but gdocs can export those no problem and copy + pasting rich text also works fine. (they're also going to add more formats.) ellipsus also has an import to ao3 function that pastes your document's raw html into a new work window as long as you're logged into ao3. remember how gdocs formats weird in ao3 unless you do some html fuckery to fix it? yeah, this makes that a non-issue.

don't give big corporations your money and/or data. you can always start small, and picking a better program to write fic in is a great place to begin. i promise these programs are both way more worth your time than their mainstream counterparts.

[astral-herald]

Jayce Talis' Joycean Epiphany

Tracking the textual similarities between James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Jayce's character journey, specifically in Arcane season 2, episode 7.

As time goes on, my appreciation for Jayce's arc only grows, and I think episode 7 captures the best of the showrunners' narrative concision and cohesion. Within that perfect storm I noticed a lot of similarities between Jayce and James Joyce's main character, Stephen Dedalus, who spends the 1916 classic shedding attachments to the material world in pursuit of ultimate freedom, including monikers of creed and country and friendship, captured in his famous epiphany.

This isn't a perfect mapping, but comparing Stephen's epiphany to Jayce's meeting with Mage Viktor is pretty enlightening/interesting! More below!

The Joycean Epiphany

Stephen Dedalus' epiphany occurs in the last third (ish) of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and happens as follows: Stephen, consumed with anxiety, loneliness, and confusion about his place in the world, finds himself wandering toward the ocean. He steps knee-deep inside and sees the figment of a woman out of reach, who he describes as a "strange and beautiful seabird" who awakens him to "the wild heart of life." The Bird Woman inspires Stephen to shake off material attachments to nationality and religion, as well as to break off personal relationships in order to arrive at his true self, which he must do in isolation. This is the most egregiously brief synopsis possible...

Jayce's journey in Arcane does, in fact, follow a very normal, non-epiphanic arc in general; I'm not merging Stephen and Jayce together here. Instead I want to call attention to the visual cues and specific plot points that truly give me pause and think/hope they were intentionally building this parallel.

The Irish Coastline, the Undercity Grey

In Portrait, there is great emphasis attached to the sea's physicality as Stephen enters the waters. He's permeated a barrier as the tide wrestles with him:

"In a few moments he was barefoot...and, picking a pointed salteaten stick out of the jetsam among the rock, he clambered down the slope of the breakwater."

Jayce also permeates, with a lot of struggle, pain, and anguish, a physical barrier/obstacles - the Grey, which we see as a thick green miasma throughout the Undercity in this timeline, and the Fissures he's fallen into. Interestingly enough, Jayce also has a pointed stick that's figuratively eaten by the Anomaly. Not salt, by any means, but each character takes up a damaged implement at the onset of their journey.

The Epiphanic Figures

In Portrait, Stephen is drawn into the water towards the woman who inspires his epiphany: "A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea."

Within the Grey, Jayce encounters Viktor as the mage, staring at him with his face obscured. When he turns and leaves, he prompts Jayce into action, thus spurring the epiphany, the necessary movement through the Grey.

Upon his approach, Stephen describes his epiphanic woman: Her long fair hair was girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face..."

"...and when she felt his presence and the worship of his eyes her eyes turned to him in quiet sufferance of his gaze, without shame or wantonness."

In Portrait, Stephen never reaches his Bird Woman; she remains out of reach, just like his ultimate freedom will remain until he commits to his quest for self-discovery. Similarly, Jayce and Mage Viktor never touch, despite Viktor and Jayce's established physical intimacy.

The Quest

Stephen spends the remainder of Portrait systematically shedding what he feels are restraints to his true self. If you haven't read Portrait, there is a lot, a lot, a LOT of syncretic philosophies wedged inside, Platonic, Aristotelean, Aurelian, etc., to showcase Stephen coming into his own intellectually and emotionally. But the way he describes this quest, when speaking to his best friend, Cranly, is key when comparing him to Jayce:

"You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too."

Jayce, inspired by his own Bird Woman, the Mage, sets out on his quest of ultimate solitude, wherein he traumatically relives his past mistakes.

But now, with Mage Viktor's wisdom and an understanding of what's to come, Jayce finally becomes a powerful and independent force. He doesn't rely on his betters or outside approval. He attacks Mel for her past treatment of himself and Viktor as tools/investments for her will. He will leave behind the comfort and privilege of his old life. In order to do what needs to be done to save Piltover, Jayce is willing to make those mistakes, to sustain on his own, etc., when he was never willing to do so before.

"Alone, Quite Alone"

Nobody asked, but my favorite scene in Portrait is the last dialogue between Stephen and Cranly, whom Stephen frequently describes as his closest friend, and whose opposition to Stephen's departure he considers the most. Try as he might to be sympathetic, Cranly struggles to understand why Stephen can't relent and warns him of what will happen to Stephen if he takes on his quest: "And to not have any one person...who would be more than a friend, more even than the noblest and truest friend a man ever had."

Cranly tells Stephen that "you need not look upon yourself as driven away...or as a heretic or an outlaw." He invites him to stay, to return.

And Stephen is grieved by this: "A voice spoke softly to Stephen's lonely heart, bidding him go and telling him that his friendship was coming to an end..."

"...Yes; he would go. He could not strive against another. He knew his part."

In killing Viktor as the Herald, Jayce has fully accepted loneliness and the necessary suffering it incurs on others. Guided by Mage Viktor, his own Bird Woman epiphany, he plays his part in the fate set before him.

In this moment, the Herald Viktor is Jayce's Cranly: "Stephen watched [Cranly's] face for some moments in silence. A cold sadness was there..."

"...He had spoken of himself, of his own loneliness which he feared."

*To note, Stephen's epiphanic realization amounts to isolation for his own benefit, whereas Jayce endures isolation and commits these "mistakes" (killing Viktor) for the greater good - very important difference!

Regaining Cranly

This same idea comes across every time I post about Arcane season 2: subversive endings. And while my opinion of the season has been on the downturn, I will never cheapen the shock and awe of the Mage Viktor reveal, and I will always find new ways to break it down and appreciate it.

In Portrait, Stephen leaves Ireland, his religion, and his loved ones behind. Stephen asks Cranly to clarify what he means by his talk of loneliness: "'Of whom are you speaking?' Cranly did not answer." In the essential modernist way, Stephen seeks out the independent soul amidst the masses.

Jayce, meanwhile, uses his newfound autonomy and sense of self for the greater good. He followed his epiphanic figure as Stephen did, and abandoned his Cranly, for a higher goal than self actualization.

And that's where this comparison just about falls apart.

Because Jayce and Viktor are "inextricably bound," the fundamental crux of the epiphany - its independence - isn't possible. Jayce guides his Cranly away from "his own loneliness which he feared." He invites Viktor to partake in his epiphany and they complete the quest together.

the end <3

I'm excited about this comparison! And I know I'm offering a very cursory read of Portrait here. I actually wrote about it for my latest conference CFP so it's fresh on the mind. And a lot of these comparisons can be chalked up to Joyce's just General Narrative Influence, that he refined this exact mode of quest -> self discovery -> loneliness, but we're here to have fun, not to submit to a journal lol.

[laauranenn]

I cannot stress enough, how important I think this scene is for Endo and Takiishi's relationship

Because Umemiya has just told him "the trick to being with someone who'll change your world". Hes told him to start calling people by their names, to awknowledge them, to show them that he sees them. Because that is the way you let someone affect and influence you, by first awknowledging that they exist.

He then proceeds to immediately follow this advice, and in my opinion sort of test it out, and call Umemiya by name.

Now, what I think is so incredibly important, is him calling Endo by name. Him actively and consciously choosing to awknowledge him and his existence, and show him that he's looking at him.

Because he could've just, not done that. Or he could've done it later. But I think it is incredibly important that he does it immediately. He makes the decision to show Endo that he sees him, something that Endo likely hasn't experienced even once in their years together.

And I don't know, maybe I'm just stating the obvious or something..

But it's just such an important little scene, because this wasn't something Endo thought he was ever going to get. He was fully ready to keep on going as usual, doing and working towards what Takiishi wants, to find Takiishi interesting people so he can use Umemiya's advice on someone other than him.

But in just this small moment, hes validated Endo's entire existence, that he does mean something to Takiishi, and that maybe he can have the things he truly loves.

I also really don't think that Endo has expressed what he wants or needs to Takiishi, like ever. They really do not communicate well. But this scene shows us thta they're going to get better, that they are going to start understanding each other more.

[freaky-flawless]

It's black history month and I wanted to draw some black monsters, particularly ones that don't get enough love!

ID in alt!

[ghostofsnails]

so did you guys know theres this character called tristan vik disventure camp and

[nyssasatelier]

My scrapped Hermes designs :

VS the one that won🏆 :

[mischiefbuckley]

no one could ever make me hate Bobby like you have this man so excited to participate and compete over a haunted house at the fire station for kids and he’s all dressed up as a vampire doing the voice and narrating for the children as “Cap Dracula” as they enter the 118’s version of their own spooky haunted house with Hen, Chimney, Eddie and Buck also participating because Bobby is competitive and wants to be better than all the other firehouses and it gets ruined by Bobby’s pseudo son of all people yk ordering an actual dead body as decor and then he’s convinced he has a curse like again this show is something else I swear lmao

[lemorgo]

[butchkaramazov]

new post out !! this time it's on teenage crushes & other almost fucked up things, like the distance b/w yr tongue & the light on the roof of yr mouth/yr closed first & yr heart that is the size of yr fist.

[lustrecannon]

fuck it. formal time

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Taking a snooze.

[joffyworld]

Dead Lamb's Hand

Two aces and eights.

Two twine covered fates.

'Neath the lights and the gates, the rhinestones do gaze;

They follow the haze, the mist and the daze,

As they waltz on in, with a crafted fake face,

Two eights and two aces,

In here of all places,

The starlet's sweet naissence, into rich patrons graces.

They stride with such patience, their face never changes,

No matter the cards dealt, it's off to the races

The red queen of our hearts,

They rise, so they part,

The times come at last; One final dance.

With a move of the wrist, the dealer does flick,

The cards on the table, they wager the risk.

Declared with a grin, "I'm going all in"

The cat's astonished but sings,

"So am I my sweet thing,

The casino is yours if you win,

I'm all in."

Two pairs of two pairs,

The crowd is silent and stares,

The winner undecided, the kicker declares,

The cat has a six,

The lamb has a queen,

Stunned silences fill the casino to the seam,

The ewe's debonair but it drops fast as a hare:

She cheated her way, manipulated with care,

In order to be the winner of this sordid affair.

Now crowned the leader, the winner,

The cat's cause of despair.

The cat straightens her back almost sharp as a diamond,

Begins with a laugh, her eyes struck with lightning:

"Very well my dear Ines, I see no point in fighting.

You've won the game as I feared, it is luck you were striking.

But I will return, one day when you yearn,

For what's rightfully yours, my heart I'll confer."

The cat turned with a pace, and so struck up the band,

To sing the tale and the story,

Of the Dead Lamb's Hand

(Based on @lagomorphics's Lucky Card au)

[quarriart]

The Darkroom. Part 5. End. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)

[the-lonelyshepherd]

jackieshauna drives me insane btw