#i should make a scene like in the barbie movie where drew can go all ken and play MC a song on the guitar

[banyangulf-if]

I'm changing drew's secret special talent from cooking to playing the guitar because as I write banyan gulf I have LOVED giving drew cooking fails. dude is NOT a cook and hall is already a chef.

im also making lorelei 24 and drew 23, and oscar 23. flip flopping the ages a little because i'm creating some plots that require it :)

[valley-of-the-lost]

I don't know if you watched BPA, but.. I have a question, that I don't know if you can answer this, but it's been nagging at me (this is a multi-part ask, this will be a quick rundown): A blog that used to be interested in Barbie claimed that BPA has some racist undertones; this is because, as they claimed, due to the antagonist (who has, as they put it, brown skin) tries to take over the kingdom of a white princess/queen. 1/?- Barbie Multiverse Anon

Okay, so, a quick explanation. This ask has been sitting in my inbox for a few days, and I sincerely apologize to Multiverse Anon for making them wait this long for me to weigh in on this. When I received this ask I was neck-deep in part of an art challenge that wore me out and I had not watched BPA (which I assumed was Barbie Princess Adventure) at the time, and I felt that this was the type of ask that I needed to chew on for a couple days and talk to some people before I was certain of my thoughts on it.

Now, I have done some cursory research, watched Barbie Princess Adventure myself, and bounced it off some of my friends for their take as well. Thus I will attempt to answer this to the best of my ability.

I do agree with the unknown blogger in question that Prince Johan is a brown-skinned character, and that the plot has racist implications due to the combination of this, him being the antagonist, and the fact that his kingdom lost a war to Amelia's prior to the plot to drive his motivation hence why Amelia is taking over the rule of both her own and his kingdom. However, I disagree with them that this is an ongoing theme or that there's a pattern of racist undertones in previous Barbie movies. At least from my own knowledge. 

(under a read more because I don’t want to clog people’s dashes, this is not a simple topic to unpack + the movie did some weird things I wanted to explain too)

Before I really delve into the meat of why I take this stance, I want to quickly discuss why I had to even assert that I agreed that Johan is a brown-skinned character as its own point on the off-chance someone else encounters the same initial weird impression I did. You can skip this part if you want, I'll put a triple asterisk where this ends (***).

Prior to watching BPA myself, I did some cursory research on the Barbie Movies wiki, prompted by this ask. I put together that Johan was probably the antagonist that was being referred to, but when I was on his page, his wiki picture was just this.

This was all I had to go off of at this point, because he didn't have a screenshot gallery for me to cross-reference him throughout different points in the movie. So the conclusion I drew at the time was "he just looks like a tan white guy". This impression was reinforced by his light eyes and recycled Ken face model. I cross-referenced this with some friends, and we came to the conclusion that at best he looks racially ambiguous, with no reason to think he was a character of color unless there was other indication about his race in the movie itself.

And then I watched the movie. And changed my mind when I saw what he looked like in these scenes.

Johan looks noticeably darker than he did in his single wiki picture, especially when next to other more obviously white characters like Barbie and Amelia. His skin tone is closer to Alphonso whom I would call a brown character pretty confidently in the same movie (I wanted to minimize comparisons across movies to eliminate the possible different variables that would come with it).

While this might not be as noticeable to other people casually watching the movie, I found this a bit jarring myself because I was focusing on his skin tone in particular due to the subject of the ask and my initial impression from the wiki picture when he was arguably at his lightest in the whole movie, as well as when he was introduced he was at his darkest because it was set at night. Also the way the animation team decided to shade him to convey that its nighttime confused me because he looked a lot darker than I thought someone of what I assumed his skin tone would look. And then the next scene with him and Barbie further confused me, because he suddenly got this reddish undertone that really highlighted their difference in skin color.

(Barbie’s hands are on the left and Johan’s are on the right for sake of direct comparison)

Finally, in his last scenes in the movie, Johan's skin tone is most like that of his wiki picture's. Darker than Barbie's when they stand in the same shot but light enough that he could've passed as a tan white guy. What cemented my confusion is that he still looks like this in the throne room, where he was before when dancing with Barbie so it should reasonably have the same lighting and bring out that reddish undertone, but no he still looks like that. So my final conclusion on him was that since he looks like a brown-skinned character in around 2/3s of his scenes and there's a 2D painting of him in the bg when Barbie and Amelia are kidnapped, that he is indeed a brown-skinned character and the animation department probably fucked up their lighting which messed with how uniform his skin tone looked across scenes. ***

Now that I've explained my process of confusion and then final agreement that Johan is indeed brown-skinned, let's discuss how this compounds with other elements to create a rather unfortunate picture. I'm afraid its a bit worse than Anon described.

First off, the added context of the history between Amelia's kingdom of Floravia and his kingdom of Johanistan. Prior to the movie proper, these two countries fought in a war and Johanistan eventually surrendered to Floravia. The two countries signed a treaty that said that after her coronation, Amelia would rule both Floravia and Johanistan.

There is a severe lack of critical details about the war itself, such as what caused it in the first place, which really works to the film’s disadvantage, since the absence of clarity does little to clear up the questionable implications of what is known about the relationship between Floravia and Johanistan.

Amelia’s kingdom is the one that took over Johan’s initially, since they won the war and Johanistan would be ruled by Floravia’s queen, with the implication being that she’d depose Johan’s family, the original ruling family. While the lack of details makes it so it can’t quite be said that Floravia is colonizing Johanistan, it also means that it can’t be said that Floravia is not colonizing Johanistan. What is known about the war is very broadly reminiscent of tactics white people have used to colonize other countries, such as using a war to depose the original royal family for the colonizer’s own gain (the US colonizing Hawaii by staging a coup against their ruling family because the white plantation owners got mad) and putting the other country in a disadvantageous position with a treaty (Opium Wars). This would probably just be viewed as normal Kingdom vs. Kingdom politics if... well Johan wasn’t a character of color.

Combined with viewing this movie through the lens of real-life racial biases (which people are predisposed to do because we're inherently based in reality), the likely conclusion drawn is that this white ruler (Amelia) is effectively ousting a character of color (Johan) and his family out of power and force-assimilating his country, and there's simply not enough clarity about previous events before the movie takes place to dispel it sufficiently.

This also poisons the plot proper because Johan's motivation is to take advantage of the law that the rule of both kingdoms falls to him if Amelia doesn't show up to coronation and regain rule of his own kingdom and Floravia as a nice plus. The intention was probably to show him as greedy for wanting lone rule of Floravia and Johanistan, taken together, it honestly comes across as the movie villianizing a character of color because he wants to regain sovereignty of his own kingdom from a white ruler. Its completely understandable that Amelia wouldn't want to lose her own kingdom especially coming off of war, but also her kingdom is also the one ousting out the previous royal family of Johanistan without giving any good reason why they can't compromise.

The effect would be somewhat mitigated if another character of color had a similarly prominent role as Johan on the side of Barbie, but there's really not. The closest I'd argue would be Alphonso, but he doesn't have equal plot relevance. This does, in my opinion, make Barbie Princess Adventure's plot give off racist vibes like that unknown blogger said. But I do not agree with them that there's a "pattern" of racist undertones in other Barbie movies.

Due to the lack of details of what exactly they meant by a "pattern" of racist undertones, I am assuming they mean a consistent pattern of racism across the movies, for example the movies consistently dipping into anti-Asian sentiments with their villains, or their plots inherently having racist vibes woven into them like I just talked about in BPA.

Despite the Barbie movies occasionally dipping into offensive territory, in my personal experience I have not observed a pattern of racist undertones or consistent racism targeting a specific group. I acknowledge that I could fully be wrong and a lot of things could have slipped past my notice, especially since I have not seen all the movies, but from the ones I have seen I have not observed a pattern with regards to this. However, I will point out the offensive/iffy things in the movies that I know of, with varying degrees of detail depending on how much I can remember. This is by no means a full compendium of all the problematic stuff Barbie films have touched on but these are the ones I am aware of at present.

Barbie of Swan Lake - Antisemitism. There was a TikTok on this somewhere that discussed this more in detail that I can't find but will link if I do, but what I do remember was Rothbart was given an extremely large nose which is reminiscent of the "Jewish nose" ethnic stereotype. Also there was something about his name and Tchaikovsky himself being antisemitic and those views being reflected in his ballet. I don't remember all the details I'm sorry and google wasn't giving me much.

Barbie in the Princess and the Pauper - Antisemitism. Preminger hits a couple of antisemitic stereotypes in the movie, such as having a noticeably larger, hooked nose compared to the other male characters which is reminiscent of the ethnic stereotype of the "Jewish nose" and being greedy and corrupt (literally mining every singe piece of gold out of the mines) which is a stereotype of Jewish people. His name is also of Jewish origin which by itself wouldn’t be a necessarily suspicious thing but combined with those other tropes it does add up.

Barbie Diaries - Tia, a black woman and also the only one with curly hair in the cast, making an iffy comment about "getting the tangles out of her hair". POC with different hair textures have gotten a lot of racist shit for their hair so even though this is a small oneoff comment seeing Tia talk about her hair like this in a negative manner rubbed some of my friends with curly hair wrong.

Barbie in a Mermaid Tale 2 - Polynesian racism. Another friend of mine who is Hawaiian brought this up in Mermaid Tale 2, when Merliah and co decided to have a luau (which is a traditional Hawaiian party or feast usually accompanied by entertainment) in Australia. My friend found it a bit iffy they were doing this when most everyone is white, but what they found worse was when poi was being served in the luau. Poi is a traditional Polynesian dish, but in the movie they claimed it was an Australian and Hawaiian dish, which its not, there’s no Australia in its origin. And then there was a "gag" where the people eating the poi were gagging on it, so essentially this movie was making a joke out of another culture's aesthetics and food.

Barbie Princess Adventure - Reread the above text.

Maybe my sample size isn’t big enough but I’m not seeing a pattern or a trend here, which in my opinion would be a larger cause for concern because for these movies their issues are largely contained to their specific movie, and a pattern would be indication of a wider problem. Maybe you see a pattern I don’t, that would be completely valid.

Now, do I think this means you can’t enjoy Barbie Princess Adventure? No, I’d be a bit of a hypocrite if I said that because I still enjoy some of the Barbie movies I listed above that I just said also have problematic elements (Swan Lake and Princess and the Pauper specifically). But I do think it is good to at the very least be aware of it, hear it out, keep it in mind. At the same time I understand why people would be turned off by this topic because they’re here to have fun riding the serotonin of childhood nostalgia and not delve into discourse.

But I hope I answered your question to your satisfaction Multiverse Anon! I’m going to go take a nap now I’m tired 😭.

[miss-spooky-eyes]

OC Inspirations: Devinahl & Indy

I was (delightfully) tagged by @vespertine-legacy​ a while ago and I’ve hesitated to do this because I knew I was going to talk WAY too much - but it was weighing on me, so I decided to open up about the sources from which I stole, that is, drew inspiration for Devinahl and Indirae.

What three fictional characters is your OC a combination of?  

This doesn’t apply to every OC - not even mine - but its certainly true for a few : Many of our characters are, to an extent, inspired by characters we see in movies, books, games, TV shows, etc.

Does this apply to any of your OCs? Was it a conscious decision on your part or not? Is your OC a combination of three (or more) fictional characters?

If so - post some GIFs / pics and tell us about them! What does your OC draw from other characters?

Too much Devinahl & Indy chat after the cut.

DEVINAHL

The truth is that when I came to creating my Imperial Agent Devinahl, and in particular fleshing out her backstory in far, far too much detail, there were some sources that I went to extremely explicitly and deliberately. And chief among them was ...

1. Garak, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

That’s right. Garak from Deep Space Nine. Plain, simple Garak. Outcast. Exile. Spy. Addict. Perennial liar. Patriot. Terrorist. Would-be genocider. Very good tailor.

(If you haven’t seen DS9, then you need to. It’s like Star Trek, but if it was actually good? And Garak is a big part of what elevates it.) 

Is it weird to compare my ancient video game Barbie/gorgeous sex bomb badass assassin and seductress to a cold-blooded space lizard who spends his days hemming pants? Possibly. But there are aspects of Garak’s character that, consciously and unconsciously, I made parts of Devinahl’s DNA. 

Firstly, Garak is a patriot. He loves Cardassia so much that despite seeing its flaws with absolute clarity, despite having been exiled and reviled by it, he would die without question to serve it (of course, he’d much rather make someone else die). And while seeing that as a weakness, despite knowing that the Cardassia he has committed to serving is disappearing before his eyes, there is still a part of him that believes that that commitment - that neverending sacrifice - is noble. The only noble part of him. That’s central to Devinahl’s character (which is, in turn, the way I made sense of the IA storyline). That while hating and despising the Sith, she would nevertheless believe in the Empire - not so much believe that it is good (at best, I think she sees it as order and stability where the Republic is corruption and chaos) as believe that her commitment to it is the only redeeming thing available to her.

Secondly, the way that Garak will take his needs, vulnerabilities, sincere emotions and package them in ways which gets him what he has to have to keep going, without ever giving up full control? Particularly in the extraordinary episode The Wire, in which a dying Garak tells Dr Bashir a series of lies about himself in order to elicit Bashir’s forgiveness, because he needs to be sincerely forgiven but without ever telling the truth?

Out of all the stories you told me, which ones were true and which ones weren’t? My dear doctor, they’re all true. Even the lies?

That is everything I tried to do with Dev, particularly in my fic about her and SCORPIO, particularly when it comes to her and Arcann. To know what she needs, as Garak needs absolution from Bashir, and tell just enough truth - put herself into just vulnerable enough a position - to get it, but never without reserving something, holding something back, whether it’s the knowledge that she can maneouvre herself out of SCORPIO’s clutches at any time or her real name? That’s a fucking survivor.

Thirdly, the relationship between Devinahl and Sifter (the spymaster who finds her as a traumatised child and grooms her for Intelligence) and specifically, the deathbed scene I wrote in Riddle was directly inspired by Garak’s relationship with Enabran Tain and that death scene. 

Yes, Devinahl was not Sifter’s actual daughter, but in every real sense she was formed by Sifter - and had Sifter had just one day with Dev like Tain had with Garak, Dev would have been lost. She would have turned herself into a carbon copy of Sifter, and she would have died. But the bittersweetness? The acknowledgement that the parental figure you love will never, not even now that they’re dying, love you as you want them to?

‘I should have killed your mother before you were born. You have always been a weakness I can't afford.’ ‘So you've told me. Many times. ...’ ‘Elim, remember that day…in the country. You must've been almost five.’ ‘How can I forget it? It was the only day.’

(The love and infinite sadness with which Andrew Robinson says that line, ‘It was the only day’? I’m crying just thinking about it. Anyway, it was everything I was thinking about and wanted to achieve in that scene.)

Oh ... and Devinahl’s ambiguous relationship with her implants? Well, Garak also has an implant in his head. And that’s all I’m saying about that.

2. Oryx from Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood

A novel character rather than from TV or movies, I hope that’s OK. And I know that there are ... very problematic elements to the way Atwood writes about Oryx, her family, her culture, her background. But she was one of the strongest elements that went into creating Devinahl and her backstory.

There were specific aspects of the story Oryx tells to Jimmie - particularly the parts about being told to scream and make a fuss if a man tries to take you away to a hotel room, and then being told not to make a fuss when a man tries to take you away to a hotel room - that became part of Dev’s story. But there was also a general attitude and way of looking at life I wanted to capture and incorporate. Oryx’s philosophy of value?

Of course (said Oryx), having a money value was no substitute for love. Every child should have love, every person should have it. . . . but love was undependable, it came and then it went, so it was good to have a money value, because then at least those who wanted to make a profit from you would make sure you were fed enough and not damaged too much. Also there were many who had neither love nor a money value, and having one of these things was better than having nothing.

I wanted to create a character who could look at life and suffering and abuse, even her own, and view it in that dispassionate way which horrifies someone from my middle-class Western background - and then I wanted to test that idea, to bring it up against SCORPIO and have SCORPIO try to break it down with torture, to see if it was just a cool facade/necessary illusion. I wimped out of really testing that belief, instead having Dev always know that she could get out of her situation/having her find a way to be loved without truly having to sacrifice her protective patterns ... but if I was a little braver and better, I’d have tested it to breaking point. How far can a character go who thinks like that while still remaining, on some level, compassionate/human/likeable?

3. Saffron (Firefly)

I could have gone Black Widow (definitely the inspiration for Dev’s aesthetic in terms of outfit etc). But the plain truth is that I thought more about Saffron while dreaming up Devinahl/writing her backstory than I did about Black Widow (yes, Widow turned her weakness into strength in a manipulative fashion all the time, but Garak did it better, and other than that she mainly looked after boys in a way that I did not want Dev to be limited to). 

Firefly, for a show that had - what - 13 episodes? - exercises far too much of a hold on my imagination and Saffron, especially in the first episode in which she appeared, was such a tremendous character. The way that she found exactly the triggers to turn each member of the crew inside out? (And if she’d had more time, it absolutely would have worked on Wash and Inara, too - it only didn’t because she had to hurry.) Dev has that. I can’t write it, because I suck, but she has it. 

Oh, and nobody will ever know Devinahl’s real name (apart from you, if you read my fic about her backstory) and she’d die before letting you know it. That’s straight from Saffron. As is, I suppose, the man who would accept her just as she is without needing to push to know her secrets, except it worked out a little better for Dev and Arcann than it did for Yolanda and Durran Haymer because Dev and Arcann will always have pegging.

INDIRAE

(This will be a lot shorter than the section on Devinahl, I promise.)

1. Steve Rogers, Captain America (and whatever else)

I have never been super into the MCU, but the key reference I used to find a way into Indy’s character, back when she was nothing more than a cool-looking Cathar Bounty Hunter, was Steve Rogers. (November can attest to this)

Indy’s physical size - she’s six foot if she’s an inch, and big - is key to her personality, but equally key is the idea that she would always experience that size as uncomfortable and slightly alien to her. Like Steve Rogers, she started out as the scrawny kid always getting beat up by everybody ... And when she got her strength (with a hefty assist from the toxic waste run-off into what was her family’s only source of water) and suddenly got TALL and STRONG? She did not like bullies - which was what led her to help Coda out of a jam at the spacesport and started them on their road.

(If there’s a better way to play the BH storyline than as a stone-cold mercenary with an utterly unwilling heart of gold ... then I don’t know about it.)

2. Xena, Xena Warrior Princess

I’ll be completely fucking straight with anybody about this (so to speak): I love Xena, I had an obsession with it as a teenager I’m still unpacking, and the show tends to feed into my characters in an ... odd way.

Indy is physically imposing like Xena, is the main thing; and her dynamic with Coda owes a lot to Xena’s with Gabrielle (although Coda is as big and tough as Indy, she is the fast talker/smooth operator to Indy’s laconic strongman). I wanted Indy to dominate action scenes the way that Xena does, be that kind of a force of nature; and watch her struggle to find ways to channel that charisma, to need Coda’s help to understand how to do it.

3. Dottie Henson, A League of Their Own

OK, first of all, I do not want to hear any kind of mockery. This is, unironically, one of my favourite films of all time.

Again, we come back to the core theme of a character struggling with her own greatness/potential. That’s what is the most fascinating through-line of A League of Their Own: Dottie, this unbelievable baseball player/physical presence (yes, she’s very tall, just like Indy) who is so terrified to admit that she wants anything more than her smalltown life and dreadful husband, even while the evidence of her talent and passion for the game is burning up these ... fields? Diamonds? I don’t know baseball apart from this film.

Indy certainly hides behind not wanting to be a bounty hunter. She doesn’t believe in any Mandalorian nonsense about romanticising what is an unglamorous job. She’s just doing it for credits and afterwards, once she’s secured her family’s future, she’s totally going to go home and settle down in some acceptable, domestic way. Being on the Mantis with Coda, it’s absolutely just a means to an end. She doesn’t want to be there, she doesn’t care about it, it’s not who she is, she doesn’t need it. This life, the adventure, the freedom, the fighting for survival, it’s certainly not what gets inside her and what lights her up, no, not at all. 

Oh, and Dottie is also a reluctant leader. She doesn’t see why her talent should put her in the position of telling other people what to do - but then, on the other hand, she sees so clearly what they need to be doing, and when she says to do it, they listen. She doesn’t want to carry this team, but they’re only a team so long as she carries them.

(Don’t worry, Coda’s not going to let her lie to herself for too long.)

[thecorteztwins]

how do you feel about the "mainstream ideal" in comics then, if you're drawing ideal body types too?

Well, I’m probably opening up a lot of worm cans with this, but here’s my opinion: I don’t think idealized bodies are inherently a bad thing in comics, specifically in superhero comics. Superhero comics have always been escapist fantasies, and part of that is people who look like our fantasies, be they what we desire sexually or how we wish we look ourselves. I’m okay with that. That’s not my problem at all. My problem is I feel like a lot of comic book artists handle this in a very limited way that is actually detrimental to this fantasy aspect, as well as detrimental artistically in general. I’ll elaborate on what I mean under the cut, but that’s the TL;DR answer. Here’s some more specific points:

- Haven and Anne Marie are both ideals, but they look VERY different from each other, and I don’t draw ALL women as looking like them. As it is in mainstream comics, there’s generally just one way all the men are drawn, one way all the women are drawn. I realize that everyone’s personal tastes are personal and vary widely, so you can’t appeal to every single niche preference, but I feel like if your goal is to appeal to people’s fantasies, it would be better to put some variance in there and thus appeal to a wider audience. Especially since there’s more than enough characters to do that with. As an example, I’ve had different people say they find Fabian, Delgado, Chrome, Sebastian Shaw, and Shinobi Shaw “hot” the way I draw them, and I draw them all as pretty different from each other. Again, I get that there’s no way to account for everyone’s tastes, but adding a few other options is still a good idea if “hot people” is your goal.- Also it’s the ideal of some people to see normal-looking, non-ideal people.For some people, their fantasy is to look at their heroes and see people who don’t look like a fantasy. And the Marvel Universe is huge, comics as a whole are even bigger, so I think there’s room for Emma Frosts and Starfires, but also for Havens and Anne Maries, and for any number of other types, idealized and non-idealized. I don’t want to take ‘sexy’ characters away, I just think a few different definitions of sexy could be added, and that not everyone needs to be ‘sexy’ either, and I think both these things would appeal to a lot of readers.

- From an artistic standpoint, being able to draw just two models is crap. If the only way I can tell characters of the same gender apart is their costume/hairstyle, there’s a problem. That’s just basic fucking character design 101, man. Even if you need to make everyone a supermodel for some reason, at least don’t make them clones.- It can also create storytelling problems when everyone is drawn looking like identical supermodels. For instance, Emma Frost and Storm are both supposed to be exceptionally gorgeous women. This is a part of their design and character, and it comes up in stories via remarks from other characters, or sometimes even as a plot point. Their appearance and how they are treated for it is important to who they are. So like...how do I, the reader, know that they are gorgeous if every single female character is drawn just as gorgeous, and gorgeous in the same way? Their beauty can’t be exceptional if they’re every other Marvel woman with a palette swap. Similarly, if a character is meant to be homely and plain, but is drawn looking like an impossible Barbie same as all her peers, then it comes off as ridiculous rather than sympathetic when she bemoans her appearance or other girls pick on her or whatever. - Many canon artists are poor judges of when realism should win over aesthetics. Comics, like movies, are visual mediums, so a lot of times aesthetic do win, and that’s okay. Hair, for instance. In real life, anyone who sees combat needs to have a sensible haircut, because long loose hair is a liability in a real fight. But I don’t demand every superhero/villain with long hair get a crew cut. Hair flowing during a fight looks cool, and can also be used to convey movement/direction, plus more hair options means more character design variance (though as mentioned before, different hair is not a substitute for different facial features, bodies, etc.) I think the inherent suspension of disbelief that comes with reading a superhero comic can allow for long hair, and it can serve an artistic/aesthetic purpose. So it’s a good choice there.Now here’s an example of the opposite, where aesthetics over realism was a bad choice. There’s a part in X-Men Forever where Fabian is discovered in the clutches of an anti-mutant organization that has kept him as a tortured lab rat. At this point, his body is extremely weak and emaciated. He looks like a death camp victim. Yet he still has a six pack. This isn’t just unrealistic, it’s ridiculous. It zips the reader right out of the scene in a way that long hair doesn’t. Rather than adding to the scene, it detracts from it. The horror ad disgust the reader should be feeling is impeded by going “wait, what?” The trauma is broken by the absurdity. And you can’t even justify it with the “sex sells!” excuse because like...who is this supposed to appeal to? I know I just said everyone has different taste, add variance, etc., but I feel like “anorexic but with abs” is not a fetish group with too many members in it. It’s not hot, it’s just WEIRD, it makes no sense realistically *or* aesthetically. But I guess whoever drew this just didn’t know how to draw a man without abs...which goes back to my point about how “if you can only draw people this one way, you’re not much of an artist and comic books shouldn’t hire you”- Dat anatomy. Many comic book artists employ varying levels of stylization in their work. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, I think superhero comics often work better if they’re a little more stylized than realistic, due to their fantastical nature. But some artists simply take it too far, and often that’s done in the name of “hotness”. Y’all KNOW what I’m talking about. I’m sure you’ve seen it. Stylization is one thing but then there’s WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING HERE?! To be frank, I don’t even understand how anyone finds these certain extremes hot anyway, they’re so far removed from anything approaching human anatomy. If you have the violate the laws of physics to achieve a certain look, reconsider.As a note, this all applies to comics that are not about sex first, or even at all. Stuff like the X-Men or other regular superhero comics. When it comes to superhero comics that actually are intended for sexual titillation of a specific audience, like Vampirella or Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose, then that’s entirely different in my opinion. I think they’re okay as they are, they’re aiming for a specific market and not pretending to be anything else. But that’s something very different from what the X-Men and Teen Titans and the Avengers are. Basically...don’t draw for a regular comic the same way you would draw for a porno comic, is what I’m saying. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. Especially since I think most fans, even if they like the eye candy, aren’t picking it up just for that.

[thefavouritechild]

COPYWRITING ELECTIVE - DAY ONE

WHAT IS COPYWRITING?

INTRODUCTION:

To introduce us to the topic of Copywriting, guest lecturer and Copywriter Paul Burke talked us through his ideas about writing, how he got to where he is, his practices, and some of the projects he’s worked on. One of my favourite things about this industry is the people - in Fashion, everyone was a Certain Type of person, and you felt like you had to be the same Type to be accepted. Everything felt fake, but I guess that you inevitably end up walking like a Barbie with a stick wedged up your ass at all times. In the advertising industry, I’ve yet to meet someone that isn’t just themselves, unashamedly (even if sometimes, they should probably be a bit ashamed) - it makes the advice they give so much more valuable, because you value what they’re saying and them as people. Their experiences seem attainable, not isolating. 

For the most part, Paul’s advice revolved around the process of writing - how to gauge timing and pace, how to know when you’re finished, and the basics like knowing correct grammar. 

One of the pieces of advice he gave in his talk that stuck with me the most was the following:

"Always make the most of the brief, get the brief as early as you can and work as late as you can. You should finish when the brief is finished." - it counters everything everyone has always taught me throughout school about not going to the wire (not that I ever listened to that in the first place). If you don’t use all the time available to you, you never know what could have been, you’ve never produced the best work you can because you’ve settled on the first good idea. 

FIRST TASK: INTRODUCTION TO TONE OF VOICE The first task we were assigned was to choose a brand to semi-personify - to do this, we were to extract key aspects of their ethos and turn them into personality traits under the prompt of ‘Your brand turns up at a party - what tone of voice would they use?’ My group chose Apple, because we’re clearly generic as fuck with limited imagination. 2-3 other tables also chose Apple, but just know that we definitely chose it first, I can prove that, 100%.

For our homework, we were tasked with making a portrait for our brand - in all honesty, I didn’t do it, because I’m shit at drawing and everything I drew didn’t look like Apple the brand at all. It did, however, look vaguely apple-the-fruit shaped. Vaguely. If you squinted. 

My ideas for Apple’s dirty little secret stemmed more from physical things about their products. I chose ‘low battery’ to translate to low-social battery, a direct correlation between the fault of their products where the battery is fucking shit and dies before you have a chance to wait for your app to load. All those movies where the call cuts out in crucial scene and the poor protagonist doesn’t get to say goodbye to their dying love? That’s because they were using Apple phones.

My second idea for Apple’s dirty little secret was ‘exclusivity’, which could extend to being a bit bitchy and cliquey, only hanging around certain kinds of people. This pertains to Apple’s ever growing agenda to make their product solely compatible with other Apple products, such as removing the headphone jack, and making it so that only Apple headphones are able to be used on Apple phones, unless you buy an adaptor. 

SECOND TASK: ELECTION SELECTION

Our second task was also group based, looking at the difficulty of naming in branding. We were told to create a Prime Minister candidate as groups, giving them a full name, and a personality. Our group went with Theodore (Ted), and completely fucked ourselves over with that name choice (which I suggested, whoops) - Ted is an American name, a lot of people in the UK wouldn’t get behind him, he doesn’t sound British (which I mean, Ted Heath anybody? Maybe it’s just ‘Theodore’ that was the step too far). Paul’s advice was that if he was an Ed, he’d have been much better. Other than that he was a solid candidate. As his mother, I feel ashamed for ruining his chances with my naming abilities. 

It turns out that naming things (and people) is fucking hard - the slightest mistake (such as a T) can completely change the vibe of your product/person/brand, and can unravel everything else you’ve succeeded at. Your successes aren’t worth anything if the name doesn’t work, you need that stamp on the package to tie everything together, and if it’s wrong then the contents don’t happen, because it won’t get delivered. 

[celinamarniss]

Visual depictions of women in the Thrawn Trilogy comics; or, how much I hate the effing catsuit

As you may have noticed, I bought digital copies of the Thrawn Trilogy comics, and reread the series (though honestly? I skimmed a lot. Most of Dark Force Rising). 

I HAVE NO REGRETS. 

The thing about the series that interested me the most was the art. There are three artistic teams across the series, each with a slightly different style. Here's the gang:

  I can't say enough good things about the background work the first artistic team does. Gorgeous planets, interesting interior design, fun page layouts. BUT. I have some of issues when it comes to the way the artist who drew the issue draws people. ESPECIALLY with their depictions of women. Get ready for my feminist killjoy rant on how comics are terrible. 

Let's start with Leia. 

Part I: PUT SOME DAMN CLOTHES ON LEIA.

Leia is one of our lead characters, obviously. And how she's depicted isn't all that bad, most of the time. In Heir she seems to be wearing some sort of black catsuit covered with a weird yellow vest, but she's more clothed than a lot of the other characters. But thennnn the comic will put her in situations in which she isn't wearing anything at all. 

Of course you had to manufacture a situation in which your female lead wouldn't be wearing any clothes. 

Then there's a whole scene where she runs around wearing only her underwear:  

This goes on for six pages. 

She INTERROGATES A PRISONER IN HER UNDERWEAR. There is no good reason this should be happening. 

WHY. COMICS WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS. 

It’s less of a problem in the following books, especially in The Last Command, where she wears a variety of formal and casual outfits, and doesn’t loose her clothes for no reason at all.  And then we come to our second female lead, Mara. Part II: THE EFFING CATSUIT

According to what I've heard from fandom, these comics are the first appearance of Mara's catsuit. I have no proof of that, but the catsuit is never described as what Mara's wearing at any point in the original novels (in fact, if described at all, she tends to wear long sleeves to cover her holdout blaster). 

I don't know who's to blame for that decision, if it was the artist's choice or someone on the creative team or at Lucasfilm. I wouldn't be shocked if it was the artist's decision, especially the lack of sleeves, considering the fact sleeves are pretty scarce in general: 

Space is cold! Don't these space people want to be cosy???

Like I said, I don't have proof that the sleeves catsuit originated here, but ...I would not be surprised. I am fully prepared to lay the blame on this anti-sleeve artist.

(side note: Luke looses his sleeves a LOT in these comics, and you could argue some level of objectification there, but not at the same degree as the women, and the context is different, anyway. 

Know who never looses his clothes at any point? Han Solo.)  

The first appearance of the catsuit: 

(she’s a charmer!)

It's not just what she's wearing. She's nearly always posed in ways that bring her boobs and butt to attention. 

She's literally reduced to tits and ass in this frame: 

I'm like ....really? REALLY?

The art team switches in Dark Force Rising and again in The Last Command, but the problem remains consistent. 

She's a barbie. 

Just...look. Breasts don't do that in a skintight suit, unless she's wearing a push-up bra underneath, and why would she do that???? 

We don’t see Karrde’s ass featured in every frame! 

She even assembles weaponry... without her clothes on. OH COME ON. 

There's the pose again. 

And yeah, I know, this is how women in comics look. That doesn't mean I want it in my Star Wars, or that I can't go into a frothing rage every once and while. I know I’m probably overreacting, but this is the image that’s defined Mara for so long, and I resent that.  First of all, the catsuit is meant to objectify and over-sexualize a female character. That's straight up what's going on here. Someone looked at this complicated female character who had a prominent role in the series and decided they needed to make her more palpable to male fans by making her "sexier." It's misogynistic. 

(yes, women can enjoy looking at other women in catsuits, but the machine behind star wars has always been more interested in catering to what they perceive the male fans want.)

I hate the catsuit so much. 

Not only does it objectify Mara, it drives me crazy how out-of-character the catsuit is. Mara was trained to operate from the shadows, and not to draw attention to herself. She blends in. A skintight catsuit is way too flashy, in a universe where skintight catsuits aren't the norm. It just doesn’t make sense for her character. 

Most of all, Mara’s practical, something a catsuit is not. How is she supposed to move in that thing? How does she hide her holdout? How does she pee? 

You know what's practical and pretty common in Star Wars? A flight suit! But that doesn't seem to be what they're going for here. 

A practical flight suit! With pockets! 

This is what I imagine Mara wearing a lot of the time, or the pants/shirt/jacket/boots outfit that a lot of the other characters in the movies wear. You know, to blend in! 

(I might buy an argument for her wearing a black jumpsuit when running secret missions, but not so much working as a smuggler on the Fringe!) 

That first appearance of the catsuit in the panels above? She's having a meeting with her boss. A business meeting in which she makes clear that she won't use her body as leverage to gain a promotion. She holds positions of authority throughout the books, and I can't help but suspect that that catsuit is undermining that authority (something Mara would never stand for!) 

The catsuit might be justified if Mara was the type of character to use her sexuality and physical appearance to get what she wants, but that's not something she ever does in the novels. (In contrast to Shada, for instance, who does use her physical appearance as a smokescreen). 

And the lack of sleeves just BUGS me. Mara's signature weapon is a holdout blaster that she hides up her sleeves. It's a plot point! GIVE HER SLEEVES. 

The catsuit isn't mentioned in her debut appearance in the Thrawn Trilogy, and isn't described in most of the books (it starts to show up in one or two books written long after it was established as her signature visual). 

Relatedly, Mara's figure is often compared to that of a dancer's, and if that's meant to evoke a ballet dancer, which I think it is, that's a very distinct body type that tends to be lean and muscular, and very much not voluptuous. Apparently the artists of the comics didn't get that memo. (Can we stop with the balloon boobs? please?) She's also usually depicted with her hair down, which also doesn't strike me as very sensible, especially going into a combat situation! 

Almost all art of Mara features the catsuit. It's all over the place, in official and fan art. When people google Mara, that's what they see. Occasionally, the suit is rendered in a way that isn't too objectifying, but there are some pretty egregious examples of the opposite. I won't post any examples; they're easy to find. Many of them are of her during her career the Emperor's Hand, when Mara was about 16-21. She was a teenager. 

Ew. 

Obviously, there's nothing I can do about the catsuit and the fact that it's permanently linked to Mara's image. I just try to keep it off my blog (I don't reblog images of Leia's slave outfit either, for the same reasons). I would love LOVE to see new art of Mara that didn't feature the catsuit. There are so many good artists doing fantastic new Star Wars art out there! Give my girl some love. PS. Club Jade has a similar article on the catsuit, with a little more detail on the catsuit's history and some discussion in the comments worth looking into.