#image heavy posts be like that

[canisalbus]

Hiya! I have a very important question, mayhaps THE most important question on this planet!

What's your favorite animal? I guess that it might be a canid of some kind but I could be wrong.

(You don't have to answer if you don't want to, I'm just curious)

As you already surmised, I like canids a lot! Dogs are wonderful in general but I can't seem to get enough of sighthounds in particular, they're just really elegant and sculptural (makes them very fun to draw) and are so full of character (as a quiet and introverted but mostly friendly creature I find them very relatable).

I also love deer! Reindeer (or caribou, same species) are particularly close to my heart.

And goats, especially those leggy and mostly hornless but very colorful breeds from South Asia.

Cats. All sorts of cats, they're great.

Just so this wouldn't be all mammals, my favorite birds are arctic loon and peacock.

My favorite fish is the coelacanth.

My favorite reptiles are European adder and lace monitor.

When it comes to amphibians, glass frogs are very neat.

There's so too many invertebrates to choose from but I've always liked various mantises and hermit crabs.

[paper-mario-wiki]

Ortho-Fusor

REFERENCE MANUAL

Modern Visual Training

Bear in mind that these polaroids are from 1941, and are presented with as much clarity as I could muster with only my phone camera.

[gophergal]

I keep forgetting to post these! So, here are the Merc paintings I did for class projects lmao

They're mini studies of artists. In order: Nebojsa Zdravkovic, Michael Borremans, Michael Leonard, Odd Nerdrum, and Masami Teraoka

[geospiral]

The stage was always Luka’s world, and everyone else was just living in it.

Luka’s first round in the 50th Alien Stage competition was the fourth round, but really it should have been the second given the predetermined matchups. The Segyein were saving his round for later in order to excite the in-universe audience to the previous winner’s grand return.

(There is no dimmed profile in the second bracket.)

Luka being set up to go against either Mizi or Sua was absolutely intentional; the Segyein knew whoever came out of Round One would be an easy target for Luka’s manipulation, which, in their eyes, would make for a good show. When organizing the rounds, it seems like the Segyein try to go for which setups will elicit the biggest emotional responses out of the contestants. They clearly already knew about Mizi and Sua’s intimate relationship with the fact that the contestants’ profiles are most likely created by the Segyein with little to no input from the humans themselves (probably made with the help of the ever-present camera flowers in Anakt).

(translation)

This would also explain why Sua and Ivan were so certain about Mizi going up against Sua in the competition despite them not being told about the round matches yet.

(Take this with a grain of salt because it is possible they were already told who was against whom before this comic, but given how young they look, I'm thinking that it's probably too early for them to know.)

(translation)

If Luka weren’t in this year’s tournament, they would have probably set Till up against Mizi in Round 5 instead since the Segyein are aware of how much she means to Till. They technically could have still done that with Luka in the competition and had Round 6 be him vs. Ivan, but they most likely didn’t want to save Luka’s signature act until the final round, which the Segyein would have believed themselves to be doing given how they don’t seem to know how important Till is to Ivan (probably intentionally on Ivan's part).

(Text: "Intimacy: 70% It feels like I'm being chased all the time, but I can't find any evidence, so the teachers only suspect me!!! I'm so pissed!! He's always done things I don't like, and I don't understand... Anyway, he's a bother.)

Note: While I think the character profiles were probably made by the Segyein, I don't think the intimacy levels from the artbook are. I'm showing Till's intimacy level for Ivan to highlight his comment about the teachers not believing him when he says that Ivan is constantly following him around.

The Segyein knew the two were friends at least, but that seems about it. Maybe that was enough for them to be a possible sixth round setup if they came out of 2 and 3 victorious, but given the vast potential there was for Luka vs. Ivan after a Mizi vs. Till round, I don't think the Segyein knew the depths of Ivan and Till's relationship and therefore didn't care until it became blatantly obvious after the canon Round 6 and could be capitalized upon for the finale.

From a meta perspective, an Ivantill round was obvious, but my personal opinion is that in-universe I think that matchup was more akin to a happy little accident on the Segyein's part.

This is also all ignoring the huge elephant in the room, which is the Rebellion throwing a wrench into the competition.

I think the biggest change in the direction of the competition (not the results of the rounds but in how the rounds themselves were organized) due to the rebellion was how the Segyein decided to have the finale be mere hours after Round 6. If the fifth round hadn’t been interrupted, I think that the sixth would have been performed right after, like how the first four rounds were. Also, I don’t think they would have tried to aid Luka in his manipulation by throwing up pictures of Ivan on the screens and would have just left him to his own devices like in Round 5. But the Segyein wanted to lure the rebels out to save Till, so basically flashing a big sign that says, "THIS GUY IS MESSED UP FROM THE LAST ROUND AND WILL DIE IF YOU DON'T DO SOMETHING" was probably the best way to do it.

This is all to say that I think it's a lot more interesting if Luka was being set up to be the winner the entire time. Obviously he still had to work for it, but I like the idea that almost everything was set up in his favor; he just had to take advantage of it. The Segyein wanted a good show, and Luka knows how to perform. He did not disappoint them.

[suudonym]

so by now everyone knows the returned-to-origin eyes: the sort of winged emblem that forms around the pupils of demons who give in to their evil cycles/wicked phases/insert your preferred translation choice here. we've seen them on atori during the heartbreaker,

on kiriwo during the deviculum (and possibly other instances, this is just the one I remember clearly enough to go straight to it),

and, interestingly, on gyari during the idol games.

however there's also another style of eyes we see occasionally, and given the shape it may just be a pre-RTO thing (takes the < > that constitutes the main wing shape) but given the contexts we see it happen in, so far it seems more like a giving-into-the-thrill-of-desire thing than a giving-into-an-evil-cycle thing. we've seen it just recently on silvia during the meeting with zeze's brother, when his talk about creating gets her fired up,

on sabro during his evil cycle-influenced fight with atori, as he starts to find real joy in the act of savagely inflicting pain,

and, my favorite example, on opera during the second-year re-summoning fiasco, when it becomes apparent that kalego is going to make it as much of a challenge as possible.

it does seem most likely that it's a on-the-very-cusp-of-RTO type thing, but I dunno. the fact that gyari has complete RTO eyes just for a moment but seems to be back to normal later and sabro has partial RTO eyes despite being in an actual evil cycle make it kinda hard to tell exactly what's going on. also the implication that tormenting kalego is so much fun that opera would literally return to origins for it is just hilarious to me

[chororine]

let's talk about Cubert Farnsworth

something nobody said during the production of season 7

The most striking thing about Cubert, to me, is the fact that in the most literal sense possible, he had no childhood.

Well, no early childhood – in “A Clone of My Own”, we see Cubert spring into existence as a fully-formed twelve-year-old, having only previously existed in a “mentally undeveloped” state in a tank in Professor Farnsworth’s basement. This is obviously convenient from a writing standpoint, allowing Futurama’s showrunners to introduce a new character effectively out of nowhere (their original plan to do so in “A Big Piece of Garbage” having fallen through) – but I think it also explains a lot about Cubert from an in-universe perspective, and makes an interesting lens through which to view one of the show’s most divisive characters.

Generally speaking, we as viewers are used to meeting characters and then witnessing their backstory, either all at once or in small chunks scattered across episodes - Futurama itself goes as far back as Fry, Leela and Bender’s births in seasons 3, 4 and 3 respectively – but Cubert is in the unique position of his “birth” (so to speak) also being his introduction to the audience. While most of that audience simply brushed his character off as “annoying” and that was the writers’ intention according to the audio commentary for his debut episode, I want to set authorial intent aside for now and focus strictly on what the text shows us: someone who was artificially created for a specific purpose, like Bender, raised without a traditional family, like Leela, and who entered the world of the 31st century through a glass tube, like Fry.

Despite having a surprising amount in common with our three main heroes, Cubert is markedly different from them in his actual personality, which (at first) is driven largely by reason and logical sense, and that… well, makes logical sense. As with most of the sci-fi concepts Futurama employs in the service of good stories and jokes, the show glosses over the finer details of how Cubert can emerge from the cloning tank with all his motor skills and the ability to form sentences, but it’s reasonable to assume that whatever arcane scientific process the Professor used prioritises imbuing the clone with concrete knowledge over anything subjective. Cubert’s behaviour corroborates this: the very first piece of knowledge he displays is (in a quiet subversion of cloning tropes) self-knowledge, namely the knowledge that he’s a genius.

ok so the park line isn’t strictly relevant but cmon you can’t quote this scene without it

Cubert’s approach to suddenly springing to life with a ready-made body and personality is to engage with the adults around him head-on: said personality is pompous, pedantic and pugnacious (...as in “confrontational”, not as in a crack about his nose). He struts into Planet Express like he owns the place (which, of course, he will one day) right in the middle of season 2, the point where it’s safe to say the audience and characters (even fish-out-of-water Fry) have both adjusted to the show’s status quo: Professor Farnsworth can create anything as long as it’s funny or convenient to the plot (or both); Bender is an integral part of the “family”; Leela can beat up anyone who deserves it. But Cubert, who was abruptly thrust into the midst of that status quo, relentlessly questions it: how exactly would scientists “increase the speed of light”? What use would a delivery company have for a bending unit? Should Leela really fly with just one eye? Audiences and characters alike generally like sticking to the status quo (as this ever self-aware show pointed out back in “When Aliens Attack”), so it’s really no wonder Cubert rubbed people on both sides of the fourth wall the wrong way.

you know someone’s being insufferable when not even Turanga “it’s not his fault he’s an unstoppable killing machine” Leela likes them lol. believe it or not this IS a pro-Cubert post stick with me here

Questioning established norms is no bad thing, but the way Cubert goes about it is very... blunt, and far from endearing: he’s dismissive of the Professor’s “junk heap” of inventions and viciously mocks the Planet Express crew, painting people he’s only just met as incompetent and, later in the episode, calling Fry an idiot to his face. Make no mistake, this is… as we say in my neck of the woods, it’s not on. But while Cubert’s lack of socialisation “growing up" doesn’t excuse his tactlessness, it might very well explain it - along with him lacking the childlike wonder his fellow suspended animation survivor, Fry, felt at being thrust headlong into a world where the only limit to science is imagination. To use the episode’s Arc Words, “nothing is impossible”... except, it would seem, Cubert fitting in with the misfits who make up Planet Express.

Professor Farnsworth is eager to take Cubert under his wing, but also demonstrates where the latter gets that bluntness, being transparent about his intent to have his clone “spend his life finishing his inventions”. With that in mind, perhaps it’s not surprising that Cubert initially attempts to distance himself from the Professor, coldly referring to him as… well, “Professor”.

This is a detail that’s easy to miss or overlook on first viewing of the episode, but it effortlessly and efficiently explains what kind of relationship between the two Cubert initially desired: he acknowledges that they share DNA, but would prefer a “creator-creation” dynamic – perhaps akin to a robot and their maker - over anything familial. He states his disinterest in fulfilling his intended purpose as an inventor without a trace of the self-doubt that plagued Bender upon quitting his job and meeting Fry (or in the face of being replaced by a more up-to-date robot, or of being forgotten, or…), creating the impression that Cubert has a good deal more confidence and self-awareness than even an adult in a similar position to him, but also that he’s – let’s be fair to him – a complete dick, pointedly declaring himself the Professor’s “only half-decent invention”.

But as is often the case in fiction, that complete dickery serves a purpose in creating the catalyst for the episode’s fast-paced third act: the dejected Professor checking himself into cyber-retirement. In a perfect example of the characters’ recently-found comfort with the status quo, Fry immediately expresses a desire to rescue his boss who causes him more problems than he solves (what with the potentially fatal delivery missions and all), but who’s also family - a sentiment his non-blood relatives, or at least Leela, seem to share.

The only person at Planet Express who questions this desire is - who else - Cubert, but Fry brushes off his concerns with a well-placed “nothing is impossible” (the episode’s second use of the phrase). As an implicit reminder of Cubert’s status as a misfit among misfits, he, as a child character among a cast of adults, lacks the agency to avoid getting dragged along on the rescue mission for reasons that aren’t initially clear, to him or the audience.

It turns out Cubert’s purpose on the trip to the Near Death Star is to be both a DNA donor and part of Fry’s 160-year-old man disguise. Our three heroes do most of the heavy lifting (literally in Fry’s case), relegating Cubert to what he initially does best: complaining. While he does express a bit of (at this point) uncharacteristic concern for the comatose Professor, it comes after he airs his grievances about the ridiculousness of Leela’s plan, having to be Fry’s hump and the “stupid robot” – so maybe it’s a bit of well-placed karma that he gets knocked out mid-chase scene by a passing space station door, neatly excising him from the episode’s narrative.

...or so it would seem: in reality, the episode’s final two scenes circle right back to Cubert and his character arc. He springs awake to deliver the episode’s third and final “nothing is impossible”, having finally internalised the truth of it - and the secret of how to fix the ship’s damaged engines - thanks to a conveniently-timed dream (a borderline deus ex machina that may be an allusion to Groening and Cohen’s inspiration for Cubert, Wesley Crusher of Star Trek: The Next Generation – I did say at the beginning I was going to set authorial intent aside “for now”). Despite this apparent 180, Cubert demonstrates that he’s still fundamentally himself by shooting down Bender’s labelling of his discovery about the ship’s engines as “a complete load”. Evidently, Cubert’s nocturnal, almost divine revelation enabled him to use his sharp tongue for good rather than evil, as this discovery and Cubert’s quick repair of the engine is what allows the main trio and Farnsworths to safely escape from the Sunset Squad.

The episode’s conclusion uses a few well-chosen words and pieces of animated-acting to bring many aspects of Cubert’s character full circle. Most obvious among these is the conflict of whether or not he’ll fulfil his intended purpose; the Professor granting Cubert permission not to is a noble but ironic gesture, as the latter admits to having accepted his destiny, but only on his terms: not as a copy, but as a family member. Futurama, at its best, is masterful at showing and not telling; for instance, because Cubert initially addressed his creator as “Professor”, him switching to “Dad” completely unprompted feels like a display of agency as well as love.

And because Cubert had no childhood, him smiling with his whole face for the first time in the episode also marks him doing so for the first time in his life.

Let’s take a brief step back outside the text itself and look at it in relation to the various reactions viewers have had to it, because the episode’s resolution is something that… well, viewers have had varying reactions to. Looking up the episode on Wikipedia, you’ll find a citation of The A.V. Club’s review: one Zach Handlen wasn’t a fan, claiming that “[Cubert’s] shift from “This is stupid and doesn’t make any sense” to “Anything is possible!” doesn’t make a lot of sense”. YouTuber Johnny 2 Cellos seemed to enjoy the episode and Cubert’s character considerably more, but still said of Cubert’s decision to follow in his father’s footsteps that he’s “not sure [it] was the best lesson” - and honestly, they both raise valid points. Cubert’s change of heart is rather abrupt, and a step removed from the typical feel-good narrative of choosing your own destiny and becoming whatever you want… but nonetheless, I do think it’s a plus for his character, and to explain why I need to go back to the very first episode of the show.

The aforementioned “choosing your own destiny” narrative is so prevalent that Futurama itself has played with it from the beginning – and I do mean “played with”, not “used wholesale”. This is, of course, a fantastical show, but it always keeps a degree of emotional realism close to its heart; part of that realism is Fry’s one-way trip into the future not being the straightforward wish fulfilment he initially expected, as his new life still involves having a job, and it’s nominally the same dead-end job he once longed to escape. But Fry isn’t resigned to this: instead, he accepts the hand the universe has dealt him and makes it work for him…

…in fact, the theme of accepting one’s fate on one’s own terms is a theme that runs through Futurama all the way to the end of the original run.

And right in the middle of that run lies Cubert, perfectly exemplifying that nuanced theme with little more than the word “Dad.”

That choice to – again - show and not tell the change in how Cubert views his creator-father is something that I feel mitigates the suddenness of his change of outlook: wanting to emulate one’s father is a different feeling than wanting to emulate one’s creator, and a very human feeling... as is having sudden, eye-opening experiences in one’s preteen years. Cubert’s arc in this episode could be seen as a microcosm of growing up, and as a story of someone who thought he knew everything realising he still has growing up to do… and about a season later, we get to see him do some of that growing up.

Much like Cubert himself was initially intended as one thing and grew into another (on both meta and in-universe levels), I started this post with the intent to analyse him as a character but it ended up more focused on “A Clone of My Own” specifically – I might as well continue on this path and analyse “The Route of All Evil” as well. However, I don’t feel the need to do so quite so meticulously simply because Cubert is a far more straightforward character in the latter episode - and that in itself speaks volumes about what’s going on under that ginger muffin-shaped haircut.

This episode provides an explanation of Cubert’s absence throughout the second half of season 2, a glimpse into the life he’s been living off-screen at boarding school and something any good character needs: a companion to bounce off of. Dwight has less distinct characterisation than Cubert (partly as a result of having one less episode worth of development at this point), but I do think what he does have is worth analysing. I won’t do so too deeply, at least not here, simply because it’d be outside the scope of this post, but I will touch on the aspects that are relevant to my point: the ways in which he complements and contrasts Cubert.

Cubert and Dwight are similar in their intellect, precociousness, love of retro video games (really retro by the year 3002) and in being besieged by a bully, but the latter is less talkative and more chilled-out (as exemplified by him having no visible reaction to his best friend being sent flying by a mail tube), yet more business-minded: his immediate reaction to being presented with something new (always a fun way to tell us about a character) is to question its value as a product… while Cubert’s reaction to the same new thing is to use it for a prank.

As he demonstrated with Bender at the end of “A Clone of My Own”, Cubert hasn’t lost his fire in gaining respect for his father’s line of work: again, him addressing the Professor as “Dad” says a lot with few words, and remembering the context of his debut episode makes his “useless contraption” comment feel more like playful ribbing than genuine dismissal. Indeed Cubert spends much of the first act of this episode causing annoying-but-ultimately-harmless problems for the adults around him, along with Dwight, who evidently shares his interest in pranks. That interest of his wasn’t explicitly shown in his debut, but feels like a natural offshoot of his sarcastic sense of humour... and could also be chalked up to the change from the ultimate sheltered upbringing to a “normal” school environment. That in itself is a refreshing approach for the show to take: while probably done for simplicity’s sake, it shows that Cubert’s clone status is no barrier to him enjoying a normal childhood, as Leela’s orphan status was to her, or Bender’s robot status sometimes is to him sharing his adulthood with his organic friends (but the specifics of Cubert’s school life are more within the realm of speculation and headcanons, so I won’t dwell on them here).

Of course, the main thrust of “The Route of All Evil”’s plot is Cubert and Dwight’s business endeavour: Awesome Express. Again, I don’t need to analyse their motivations for founding their own delivery company too closely, because… well, Dwight outright states them in the episode.

Most people can relate, on some level, to wanting a loved one to be proud of them; a desire so universal is a perfect demonstration of Cubert’s newfound normality. It’s a sharp turn from his apparent superiority complex over his father and future employees in “A Clone of My Own”, but clearly one that made him happier: the permanent smug grin of his debut episode has given way to laughter at Hermes’ expense, casually sharing Dwight’s game console, celebrating their victory over Brett Blob (or rather his window)… I could list more, but you get the point. Enjoying the childhood that started twelve years too late without really dwelling on it feels like a natural evolution from where we left Cubert in season 2 – but not a wholesale change, as he still possesses the spark of madness he inherited from his father.

In the process of running Awesome Express, Cubert and Dwight make both upstanding and underhanded decisions: they have the prodigious business skills to quickly become more profitable than Planet Express, and rather than frivolously spending their earnings, they put them towards fair wages for their new employees Leela, Bender and Fry… and the absolutely vital flame decals for the ship.

Not all their decisions are that ethically sound or badass, though: Cubert and Dwight ultimately kick out and fire their fathers, respectively. Professor Farnsworth becoming homeless (though Hermes and LaBarbara are willing to at least temporarily put him up) as a result of his son’s hubris is another time I can see where Cubert’s haters are coming from, along with his moments of ableism directed at Leela’s vision problems and Fry’s… er, That Brain Thing – but karma swiftly comes down upon him and Dwight when they grow overconfident with their workload, leading to the first time we see Cubert cry on-screen (one of only two unambiguously canon times in the entire show) and the aforementioned admission of their motivations.

Luckily for the boys, their fathers recognise the purity of their motivations enough to forgive them for their questionable behaviour, and are quick to “do a little father-son weaselling out of this”. Professor Farnsworth and Hermes prove their love for their sons with actions, not words, solving their problem with the former’s arsenal of gadgets and the latter’s perfect aim as a “paper-man”... and ultimately put themselves through the ringer by attempting to fight the father of their sons’ bully, Mr. H. G. Blob. This one-sided “fight” results in slapstick humour, but also a show of Futurama’s emotional realism shining through its often cynical sensibilities.

This episode’s ending focuses more on “three fathers, enjoying a day out with their sons” as a group than Cubert or Dwight as individuals, but that in itself is a nice way to bring this duology of episodes full circle: Cubert is Professor Farnsworth’s son, no different from how Dwight and Brett are Hermes and H.G.’s sons. Perhaps he does fit into the abnormal, non-traditional family that is Planet Express after all.

fun fact: “Planet Espresso” dropped while I was still writing this post and it made “The Route of All Evil” hit different now I know Hermes in particular was working extra hard to end the cycle of parental neglect. not relevant to the whole “Cubert good” point but still interesting, at least to me

Now, you’re probably thinking that this is the part where I talk about “Bender Should Not Be Allowed On TV”, and… yeah. You’re technically right, I will briefly touch on it – but it won’t be complimentary.

Someone being “out of character” is a common complaint when it comes to TV show writing, but I’ll be completely honest: in my opinion, having Cubert, a character whose whole deal used to be questioning the status quo and authority figures (and in “The Route of All Evil” trying to surpass them), open the episode by admitting he and his equally precocious best friend want to mindlessly emulate what they see on TV goes beyond “out of character”. Cubert and Dwight’s intellectual-yet-rebellious nature would’ve served this plot perfectly, as it would’ve provided an opportunity for the writers to call attention to them not acting like themselves as a result of Bender’s influence – but the key gap between idea and execution is that the adults around them don’t treat their mindless viewing habits as something out of the ordinary for them. A simple “this isn’t like you” from the Professor or Hermes would’ve gone a long way, but as it is, it feels as though the boys’ past characterisation was intentionally ignored in order to more easily execute a storyline that could’ve been done in The Simpsons, with Bart and Milhouse succumbing to the allure of a newly-famous Homer’s bad influence.

In particular, the line “we can celebrate the day I extracted you from the cloning tank” kind of breaks my brain: we’ve seen that day in the show, and the more I go back to this episode, the more I feel like there’s nothing left of the Cubert the Professor extracted from the cloning tank – the one I just spent five pages analysing - in this specific Cubert (or the Dwight who crushed Planet Express with Dwight Lightning in this Dwight, for that matter). No scientific skills, no use of his trademark snort, no biting-but-good-natured jabs at his adult companions… nothing. To be fair, the episode does have a few nice ideas (the concept of a Growth Scraping Day itself, Tinny Tim becoming the third member of the kids’ friend group and them getting to do a little crime as a treat), but they’re so thoroughly surrounded by… well, everything else that I personally choose not to incorporate this episode into my mental picture of Cubert (or Dwight).

I’ll be the first to admit there are a lot of duds and weird writing choices among the post-revival episodes of Futurama, but I also think fans of the show have a tendency to put the Fox era on a pedestal while completely dismissing the later seasons - even though “Bender Should Not Be Allowed On TV” (along with “Bend Her” but that’s a rant for another time) proves that even season 4, often touted as the show’s peak, can be as guilty of bad characterisation or formulaic plots as the Comedy Central or Hulu eras. Conversely, season 6 in particular was flawed but did plenty of things right, and one of those things was using Cubert in interesting ways: “The Late Philip J. Fry” is the most famous example, but “A Clockwork Origin” and “Overclockwise” are both notable for succeeding at building on the foundation laid out in “A Clone of My Own” and “The Route of All Evil” - where Cubert’s last outing of the original run failed.

Whether that foundation was laid down intentionally or simply as a compromise between multiple creators, writers and directors that happened to meet a particular subjective reading, to me it’s an incredibly strong one: a fish-out-of-water who was abruptly thrust into the chaotic world of the 31st century but survives and thrives in his own funny, interesting, slightly unhinged way, just like Fry, Leela or Bender. Cubert isn’t for everyone, but I hope I’ve demonstrated why he resonated with me so much when I watched the show at his age, and why thinking of him as simply “the annoying kid” was… well, impossible.

This post is long enough as it is, so rather than analysing “The Late Philip J. Fry” (well, enough people have analysed that one already that I don’t really need to) and the two “clock” episodes of season 6, I’ll leave you with the suggestion to (re)watch them yourself with an open mind… and to keep an eye out for Cubert in the Hulu run. As I alluded to at the top of this post, season 7 conspicuously pretended he didn’t exist outside of one dubiously canon skit, so maybe it’d be too much to hope for future seasons to explore him in detail… but as a wise old man and his son once said, nothing is impossible.

Not if you can imagine it.

THANK YOU FOR READING (or at least skimming) ALL THE WAY TO THE END OF THIS POST!!! as a reward for indulging my autism please treat yourself to a nice turducken spread with your found family. merry hulurama to all and to all a good night

[coridallasmultipass]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BESTEST WIDDLE SNAKEY WAKEY.

I can't believe my son is 18!! I estimated a birth date for him to be about a month before I got him in fall of 2006, since he was such a widdle month-old baby sneky. I always try to get a good birthday pic of him - especially after he eats and gets the good yawns in.

Pretty soon, he'll be off to snake college, for snakes. Dunno how we're gonna afford those ssssnudent loans.

Image description below the cut:

First photo is an albino corn snake (species name: Pantherophis guttatus) peeking out from behind a fake flower on a rocky hide (a house inside the tank where reptiles can feel secure and hidden). The snake is flicking his tongue out. Only his head is visible in the photo. Caption on the photo reads: Demo's 18th birthday. August 9, 2024.

Next photo is the same snake, but in a clear, close-up, detail photo. Each scale is clearly defined. He has red eyes and pink cheeks, and pale white patterns on an off-white body. The scales on his head are shaped to follow the different planes of his face. The scales on his neck (and body, not shown) are uniform and scallop-shaped.

The next three photos are sequential. The same snake appears with his mouth barely open. Then, his mouth is wide open in a yawn. His cheeks look so smooshy. His head is shaped the way a snap hairclip opens, curved upwards, and it's funny and cute. His mouth has ridges inside, but no teeth or fangs are visible (because his teeth are too tiny to be photographed politely, and he does not have any fangs). The last photo in the sequence has the snake with his mouth still open, but the top of his head is a normal shape again as he begins to end the yawn.

[aroaceleovaldez]

i mean it when i say we've gotta bring back askblogs. bring back making character chat posts with poor choice text colors over random backgrounds. bring back blogs dedicated to what outfits you think characters would wear.

fandom is an ecosystem, not a numbers game. these types of blogs/posts/etc still exist in concept, because people still want to make them and they're a great way to get your thoughts of an idea out in a simple format, but most people make them on like tiktok or instagram reels and that's where the problem lies. Those videos don't go anywhere. The format doesn't allow for the discussion to spread through the community and they're less likely to be engaged with in general. And to make them most people have to either show their face or figure out editing software, so the barrier to entry is higher (editing) and/or they have to forfeit an amount of privacy.

those types of posts/blogs are the first rung of the ecosystem. they're the perfect environment for younger members of the fandom to begin safely interacting with the larger community and putting their own thoughts and ideas out there. roleplay is the other major spot for that and those communities are diminishing as well, honestly (if you know of an rp forum board site, cherish it. and if you can make one, make one). they allow younger fans to begin engaging with the source material on a different/deeper level, but still at a very low barrier to entry, and begin conversations with other fans, which also helps them build skills which in turn may encourage them to pursue other avenues within the fandom (fic writing, other formats of askblog - which itself usually leads to art, cosplay, also fic writing, etc). Without those places to build those skills, they might feel discouraged from trying to begin when surrounded by curated people who have built their skills up for years.

And those conversations they foster also in turn help the community, by offering ideas to artists or fic writers to extrapolate on or building community jokes. And that text/blog format specifically is extremely beneficial, because it allows younger members of the fandom to remain anonymous and keep their privacy without concerning themselves with having any platform or having anything attached to them (very important for young fans figuring themselves out and navigating online community spaces for the first time, since they can remove themselves from spaces easily if they decide they don't like it and they're protected, rather than PUTTING THEIR FACE ON THE INTERNET). And those posts they make will spread a lot more into the community since they're in a significantly easier format to be reposted (few people are gonna be reposting tons of random short-form videos versus spamming their instagrams with reposts of 10 random fandom images yoinked from tumblr, or reposting to pinterest or something). Like, don't repost art, at the VERY least don't repost without credit, but also I am not ignorant to the fact that my art is not just the first google image result for "pjo pride" and related searches, but also the 4th, the 6th, the 9th, the 10th, the 11th, etc etc., and pops up in the search results before the official ReadRiordan does simply because people reposted my work more (most with credit, thankfully).

For fandom to be a community, it needs to perpetuate itself. There needs to be engagement with one another and conversation. If that bottom rung is cut off, then new fans won't be able to grow into the other niches of the fandom, and the fandom will be solely reliant on the source material and die out extremely quickly, and there won't be a community. There's no conversation! There's no reason to stay beyond the original material! But if you don't have points of entry for new fans, they won't have any way to build the skills needed to move into those niches, or engage with the community in a healthy way.

tl;dr: Bring back askblogs and character-based text post blogs. They are vital to fandom ecosystem.

[thefreshprinceofjunes]

reading about kh3 gameplay mechanics on the khwiki (cuz i didnt do shit fuck with 99% of them when i played it) and like

the shotlock for oblivion is called ‘dawn eclipse’ in japanese, while oathkeepers is ‘sunset bright’

and i realized

kairi is associated with sunsets, which in kh (and in real life) are symbolic of endings

while riku is associated with dawn/sunrises, which are symbolic of new beginnings

also, dawn eclipse? like the dawn being eclipsed by something?

and sunset meaning the loss of (day)light, while sunrise means the return?

[lunarharp]

things.. uh... Gentry era au

[sallymew4]

i am dying.... take these fem Ritsu s off of my hands (i pas awuay immedaietly)

[lordsmaf]

I feel like future generations need to know exactly how much Gundam Wing official promo art was just handsome boys in fancy outfits hanging out looking like weirdest anime boy band you’ve never heard of

[icewindandboringhorror]

Pictures and things

[daisiesonafield-blog]

Louis Tomlinson is sequestered in the executive boardroom of a swanky hotel in suburban London, and is treating it the way a pupil might a classroom when the teacher’s popped out. He’s leaning back on his chair, feet up on a radiator, hands clasped behind his head and a cigarette on the go. “All right?” he says, grinning impishly.

Despite huge global success with One Direction (70 million albums sold), which prompted a fanaticism that made Beatlemania look tame, he seems remarkably unaffected and far more normal than one might expect from someone with 35.8 million Twitter followers. He’s a 31-year-old so unassumingly bloke-next-door that the bloke next door wouldn’t look twice.

“I’ve always had a problem with ‘ego’,” he says, “and I’ve always been worried about being one of those people in the public eye who just loses all sense of reality, and becomes an arsehole.” As if by way of explanation, he adds: “I’m from Doncaster.”

And so while his former 1D bandmate Harry Styles, a superstar, floats through life like the fashion world’s favourite clothes horse, Tomlinson kits himself out in JD Sports: Kappa T-shirt, black sweatpants, Adidas socks, scuffed trainers. When he tells you he often frequents his local pub unmolested, you believe him.

“If someone does come up after an hour to ask for a selfie, I won’t say no and I won’t run away,” he says, “’specially if I’m three pints deep!”

Of the five members of 1D, Tomlinson has had the slowest start to a solo career. There are compelling reasons for this — family tragedy for one — but he’s also had to figure out who he is without the band around him. “With this job,” he says, “there’s so much room for overthinking, you know? Someone from the record label will tell you they like your stuff, but you find yourself thinking: yeah, but do they? It’s the fans that help you really believe in yourself.”

In the band, Zayn Malik had the best voice and Styles had the best everything else. While the other three — Tomlinson, Liam Payne and Niall Horan — were hardly driftwood, each has nevertheless had to dig deep to carve out a solo persona that would compel beyond the bubble.

“I do miss the boys,” he says, “and I do definitely miss being one of the five, but I like doing my own thing too. It was time.”

It’s a bright winter’s day, and the man in sports casual is enjoying special dispensation here in the hotel: permission to light up. Had this been denied, there might well have been a problem, for Tomlinson chain-smokes with the wild abandon of Mad Men’s Don Draper.

After the release of his second solo album, Faith in the Future, in November, he adds another necessary notch in the belt of any self-respecting pop star next month: the documentary. All of Those Voices is a routine behind-the-scenes look at 21st-century celebrity but stands out for the multiple crises of confidence Tomlinson feels any time he’s not on stage.

“This is a confidence game for anyone,” he says earnestly, “and there’s been plenty of moments of vulnerability throughout the entire process.” An overriding concern of the documentary is not just whether people would be interested in him, but whether they’d take him, someone discovered on a TV talent show, seriously.

When Styles won his Grammy awards this month — he collected two and won four Brits — he used his acceptance speech to say that “this doesn’t happen to people like me very often”. This was swiftly ridiculed across social media because of course white men tend to win quite a lot. But what he likely meant was that it doesn’t happen to the product of manufactured boy bands, many of whom have the use-by date of a pint of milk.

“Only Harry knows what he means there, it’s hard to speculate,” Tomlinson says, “but we all came from relatively humble beginnings, and now we are where we are.”

But while Styles is a once-in-a-generation talent and knows it, his erstwhile bandmates — and this one in particular — need convincing.

Louis Tomlinson comes from a big family — his mother, Johannah Deakin, married twice and had seven children — and was a hopeful child actor before in 2010 auditioning for The X Factor. This is where 1D were created, “masterminded” by Louis Walsh. Deakin, who had Tomlinson when she was 19, was his biggest fan and they’d always been close. When, for example, Tomlinson lost his virginity, it was she he told first, not his friends.

In 2016, a year after One Direction split, she died from leukaemia, aged 42. Two years later, his 18-year-old sister, Félicité, who’d been struggling to get over her mother’s death, accidentally overdosed on cocaine, painkillers and an anxiety drug. The combined loss hit him hard. Aside from the single he wrote about his mother’s passing, 2020’s Two of Us, his mourning has been largely private.

He squints through a veil of cigarette smoke. “Some of the things that have happened recently have been quite drastic, yeah, but then so much in my life seems to have been pretty extreme, one way or the other.” In 2016, at the age of 25, a brief relationship with a Californian stylist, Briana Jungwirth, resulted in a son. “There’ve been challenging times, definitely. It’s funny, but I couldn’t even tell you how many years ago my mum passed, I just blank it out. But for the first 18 months, I’d take any form of bad luck personally. I’d feel every tiny thing. But now I genuinely feel I’ve come out the other side. I feel more empathy for everything and everyone these days.”

After his 2020 debut album, Walls, failed to set the world alight, Tomlinson called time on his relationship with Simon Cowell. “It was mostly amicable,” he says, nodding. “Simon always had my best interests at heart, and I liked him. He had his faults of course, like all of us, but it was always inevitable I’d have to go off and do my own thing.”

His new record, then, was a leap into the unknown and he elected to write not with professional songwriters but rather fellow creative artists: Theo Hutchcraft from the band Hurts, Joe Cross from the Courteeners and the singer-songwriter James Vincent McMorrow. “And that was a big difference, huge. These are people who live and breathe music. It’s the first time I felt really comfortable doing my own stuff, you know?”

Previously he’d been encouraged to sing like a nice young pop star should, without regional inflection. “When I was in the band,” he says, “working with professional songwriters whose entire aim was to write the hit single, they’d tell me that singing in my natural accent wasn’t commercial. Sorry, but what a shit idea! Who wants to sound like everybody else? I dumbed down a little bit in the band, because you do, but I’ve learnt who I am now.”

The album, which has its inspiration firmly in early Noughties indie, sounds more Kaiser Chiefs than One Direction. A risk, then. But when it came out, it debuted at No 1. While this did wonders for his confidence, it’s clear from the documentary that he still needs people — a support group — around him. He actively courts the friendship of his touring band, not necessarily a given among solo pop stars, and he seems almost always sociable. It’s when he’s not up for group activity that people worry. There’s a revealing moment in the documentary of him having just appeared on James Corden’s US talk show. Backstage Corden, an old friend, pleads with him not to go quiet on him afterwards. “You vanish, you change your number, no one knows [where you are],” he says.

Until recently Tomlinson lived in London with his long-term girlfriend, the model Eleanor Calder, but recent reports suggest they’ve split up and he’s dating another model, Sofie Nyvang. Life, clearly, is complicated. Perhaps that’s why he smokes so much. He says, though, that he feels finally relieved of the myriad pressures that once clung to being a pop star whose fanbase was predominantly teenage. Such as?

“Well, being a role model for one. I never wanted that. I always had to worry whether it was OK if, say, I was seen here or if I could get away with smoking a joint there, before concluding: hmm, probably not. But I never wanted to be the perfect pop star, especially in the climate of Instagram. I don’t want to put an artificial world out there. I think it’s important that people see your scars, your flaws.”

It’s never easy growing up in public and Tomlinson had no choice. “When One Direction split up,” he says, “I was mortified, I was absolutely gutted. I was a bit bitter, I suppose because it just felt like another loss to me. But I’ve a better understanding of things now, and there’s not as much anger. It is what it is.

“Getting back together at some point is hard to imagine right now,” he continues, “but I’d be surprised if we lived out our lives and didn’t have a moment where we had a reunion, or whatever you want to call it. I’d be up for that.”

When I ask what it’s like watching Styles’s ascendance into the biggest star of his generation — something that might delay such a reunion — he blows out a long plume of smoke.

“Well, it’s not a surprise is it? We were always aware that Harry fit that mould, and it’s been an amazing thing to watch. Envy? At the start maybe, when I was trying to find my feet, but it’s never healthy to cross-reference your own success with others is it? These days I’m learning to elevate myself in those moments when I have to. I didn’t know how to do that before, but now? Now I know I f***ing can.” All of Those Voices is in cinemas from March 22,  allofthosevoices.com

-Full article. Feb 23 2023. Link here. Free link here.

[deus-ex-mona]

up next on chapter 36 of idol sengen… _(:3 」∠)_

[ocevomit]

volgin's face when the boss throws him