#its weird i chose not to look up a single reference for spot when drawing him

[belleski]

you'd think considering the fact that this guy is a featureless mannequin of a man he'd be easier to draw, and yet...

Image description: Image 1: Three drawings of the spot from across the spiderverse. In the first - he is stepping away from a black hole in suprise with 'saddest man in new york' written by his head. The next is hunched over awkwardly and drawn in blurred- watercouler-esque pink and blue, with 'Imagine if he changed art syle based on what universe he was in' written beside him. The last is leaning against nothing with faux confidence- and is drawn in bright dripping paint - almost like spray paint. He has 'WHAT?' made up of cut out newpapers beside him.The background is light green with white spots in the corners. Image 2: Two bust drawings of Johnathan Ohn pre- spot transformation. The John on the left is the design pictured in his concept art- with long hair and a beard, with a blue circle behind him. The John on the right is the design pictured in the movie - with a short undercut and clean shaved. He has a orange circle behind him and the rest of the background is white.

[xleafyheartx]

Jix is Not Pickett! and Other Things I Feel I Should Say About My Leafling OC

Just like any other person with an OC blog, it’s been very difficult to get my fandomless OC character off the ground on Tumblr. I expected that. But it’s been a couple years now and I’m starting to realize that part of the reason why it’s been difficult to get activity on here is because people assume that Jix is a shoddy attempt at Pickett, or at the very least, a rip-off of a bowtruckle. He’s neither.

First of all, Pickett is only Jix’s FC. I was inspired to bring Jix to Tumblr upon seeing pictures of Pickett only because I had never seen a tree or plant person done quite in the way Pickett was before, and so I never had a very good FC for Jix. I like to have icons and edits and things for RP blogs, so without a proper FC I didn’t want to bring him to Tumblr. once I saw Pickett, I was like oh cool, a tiny plant person. It was the closest thing to Jix I had ever seen, so I thought he’d be a great FC... even though Pickett really doesn’t look much like Jix at all. It was more about the way he moved and being a plant person that was perfect.

I can’t draw AT ALL, so creating my own FC was not going to happen. (Believe me I’ve tried to draw Jix many times over the years and it was just terrible heh. Like a five year-old had done it, lol.) So I had to find a character that looked even halfway like Jix, and Pickett was the best choice I’d seen in a long time. That’s it. That’s the only reason I chose him as an FC. Jix is not meant to be a rip-off of Pickett, nor is he meant to be a bowtruckle at all. He’s a leafling, which is a creature of my own making that has more in common with the treants of the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop RPG than the bowtruckles of J.K. Rowling’s world.

I did not see/read Harry Potter or Fantastic Beasts materials and then make Jix. In fact, I have never read a single J.K. Rowling book, and I have only seen the first Harry Potter movie and the first Fantastic Beasts movie. Sometimes people claim that I am just ripping off bowtruckles, but nothing could be further from the truth. I created Jix about 12 years ago for a set of short stories in a world of my own creation in which I was working on a book I had some 500 pages already written for. My exact thinking was that if there were giant talking tree people in D&D and in J.R.R. Tolkien’s world, then why can’t there be wee ones? So I made a race of tiny talking tree people that were half plant and half animal in terms of biology and were magical creatures like elves or any other type of fae. Leaflings, I called them. Leaflings are diminutive tree fae. They are not bowtruckles.

I honestly do not even know what a bowtruckle is. Did Rowling get that from somewhere? Is that based on some mythology? Is it 100% a tree person, or does it bleed like a human if you cut it? I know it’s a magical beast, but beyond that, I have no idea. But I don’t really care either? I’m not trying to rip off or emulate bowtruckles because Jix was already created before I ever knew bowtruckles existed. It’s just that I only brought him to Tumblr when the first FB movie came out because that’s the first time I ever saw a picture of Pickett and realized oh hey, I might have finally found a decent FC.

Leaflings look like miniature trees. They mimic tree species according to what type of forest they were born and raised in. Take an entire tree, shrink it down to about 1 foot in size, allow it to walk on its roots, and give it the ability to speak, and you have a leafling. Really the only great things Pickett has going for him as an FC are his body shape, the climbing and walking on his roots and hands, and the structure of his face and eyes. They resemble Jix’s very much. HOWEVER... Jix’s body and face are not green like a fleshy plant, but rather are brown and bark-ish like the hard wood of trees. Also, he does not just have a couple leaves here and there, he has a full head of branches, complete with leaves just like you would see on a white oak tree, which happens to be the species of mundane tree that Jix mimics. Setting aside Pickett as an FC, if you want to see what Jix looks like, I will refer you to this absolutely gorgeous, amazing, spot on, perfect fanart that @simactire drew for me. It more accurately depicts Jix’s appearance, both in coloration and morphology. I am pasting it below, but the original post is here. As you can see, he is an entire tree, not just a little green leafy twig. (Nothing against Pickett, btw, I love him to bits, haha.)

To further distinguish my OC and his race of leaflings from Pickett and the bowtruckles, I have gone through the trouble of creating a chart that illustrates the differences between them:

And there you have it. I just needed to make these points, since this keeps coming up as an issue and I feel like being upfront and explaining more about Jix and how I came up with him can help dispel this stigma that he has.

Having said all of this, I would love, love, love for a Newt Scamander muse to RP with Jix. I think Newt would be really fascinated by leaflings. Maybe he would think they were cousins of bowtruckles in some way. But regardless, I think he would be floored by their level of intelligence and their language skills, which is something he does not often encounter with his magical beasts. If there are any Newt Scamander muns out there willing to RP with my OC and to treat him as the separate creature he is and not just some weird bowtruckle, I welcome you with open arms and please message me. If there are any other FB muns who want to RP with Jix too, that’s great as well. What I don’t want is: a) to have him be treated like a bowtruckle, and b) to be snubbed by FB muns solely because they think I’m attempting to rip off J.K. Rowling’s creature.

Okay, I’ve said my piece. Jix needs more love. He’s a very social little guy. So taking all of this into account, hit me up if you would like to write with me!

[imagine-loki]

Two Tutors

TITLE: Two Tutors CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter One AUTHOR: SassyShoulderAngel319 ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine somehow obtaining magical powers and watching Loki and Doctor Strange fight over who gets to take you as their apprentice. RATING: K+/PG NOTES/WARNINGS: No warnings to speak of except for a single reference to Thor: Ragnarok without being too specific. As well as police stations and daggers if anyone is uncomfortable with either of those. Side note: Tumbler is actually a last name that is, apparently, on the brink of extinction?(I’d have to fact-check that but that’s one of two reasons I chose it.)-(Oh MAN it’s been a long time since I wrote for this blog! Good to be back!)

^^^^^

I sat boredly on the chair in the police station and stared straight ahead at the wall opposite me, chin in my hand. I was just grateful they hadn’t handcuffed me. The officer sitting on the other side of the table repeated his question. “Where were you the night of the meteor shower?”

I glanced at my other hand, which was resting on the table. “Yes,” I said.

“Yes?” the officer challenged. “Yes what? You’re finally going to answer?”

“Yes, I understand that I have the right to remain silent,” I replied coolly.

The officer growled in frustration. “Look, the night of the meteor shower, a lot of weird stuff started happening. And it hasn’t gone unnoticed that a lot of it seems to happen around you. This is a small town, Miss Tumbler. Everyone knows everyone and people have seen that you’re at the center of the blackouts and the auroras and that explosion. Now where were you that night?”

“Under the stars,” I answered sarcastically.

The door burst open and two men strode in, wearing suits. They were… remarkably similar. Tall, slim, pale, black-haired (though one’s was long and the other’s was graying at the temples), blue-eyed, with sharp cheekbones and the same arrogant expressions. They even dressed similarly. Though, to be fair, most professional men did. Men’s suits didn’t generally have a lot of variety to them. That being said, the man with the longer black hair—that fell to his shoulders—was wearing a sharp black suit with a black shirt and narrow black tie. The graying-haired man’s suit had a white shirt and a tie so dark blue it was almost black. He also wore leather driving gloves.

The officer looked up in surprise. “Who are you?” he snapped.

“We’ll take it from here,” the longer-haired man said in a snobby British accent.

“I said, who are you?” the officer retorted.

The men glanced at each other. “Hard way it is,” the graying man muttered, his accent distinctly American.

The man with the all-black suit flicked his wrists. Daggers fell into his hands from his sleeves.

I leaned back in my chair. “What the h—!”

“Silence, mortal, let us handle this,” the man with the daggers interrupted.

“Mortal?” I demanded.

“Don’t mind him,” the man with the blue tie remarked, his hands making shapes that I thought were sign language at first—and then realized weren’t as light in intricate patterns appeared at his fingertips. I gasped.

“Who the f—” the officer began, only to be cut off by the man with the daggers shoving him against a wall.

He moved as though to stab the policeman, but the man with the light around his hands grabbed his wrist. “No mess, remember? We’re here for her,” he pressed. My heart started pounding. Here for me? Were they going to stab me too? What was the light for? How was that even possible? The light was just there, following the man’s movement.

I scrambled out of my chair and as far away from the weirdly-similar men as I possibly could.

The longer-haired one hid his daggers back in his sleeves and approached me with his hands out in truce. “We’re not here to hurt you,” he said.

“Forgive me if I don’t have too much confidence in the word of a man who just called me ‘mortal’ the way someone might hiss in frustration at finding gum on the bottom of their shoe,” I retorted, edging down the wall away from him,

“Loki,” the graying man warned, grabbing the longer-haired man’s suit jacket. “Stop. You’re scaring her.”

Panic hit my system. “Loki?” I exclaimed. “As in the Asgardian who tried to take over New York a couple years ago?”

“Get off me, Strange,” Loki snapped, jerking his wrist out of Strange’s hand.

Strange looked thoughtful. “Mmm… more than just a couple years now.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But it doesn’t seem like that long when parts of the city are still recovering from it.”

Loki looked irritated. “We’re not in the city, for Valhalla’s sake!” he snapped before looking at Strange—which I thought was a bizarre name—in exasperation. “Let’s just grab her and go before the whole station realizes what we’re up to!”

“Best idea you’ve had all day,” the other man replied. Strange pulled an odd two-fingered gold ring out of his pocket, slid it onto his hand, and started drawing circles in the air with his other hand.

With a shriek, I fell through a hole in the wall that had not been there before.

I landed hard on my back, nearly smacking my head on the floor.

I stared at the fiery circle now in front of me. Around the outside of its edges I could see dark wood and horrible old wallpaper, but inside the circle was the police station. “What on Earth…?!” I breathed, sliding back on the hardwood floor as best I could as Loki and Strange stepped through the spinning circle as casually as going through a doorway.

Strange offered me his hand, not removing his gloves. I took it warily and let him help me to my feet as the circle spiraled out of existence, leaving behind just the dark wood and old wallpaper.

I gulped. “Okay, who are you two and what is going on?!” I demanded.

“Have a seat, Miss Tumbler,” Strange invited.

Suddenly we were in a different spot, sitting down on armchairs.

I hadn’t even moved—I was just there.

Strange steepled his hands together and regarded me over the tops of his fingertips. Loki had crossed his legs with his ankle on his opposite knee, looking bored and a bit frustrated.

“My name is Doctor Stephen Strange,” Strange began. “I am a master of the Mystic Arts—or, magic, if you will. I am also nearly the Sorcerer Supreme.” I had no idea was he was talking about, but I was too freaked out to say anything. “This is Loki, Prince of Asgard, and himself a gifted sorcerer.” Loki narrowed his icy blue eyes at Dr. Strange, expression thunderous.

“What… what do you want with me?”

“Well, it has come to our attention that you have magical abilities, likely stemming from the meteor shower.”

Loki scoffed. “You mortals are all the same level of ignorant. That wasn’t just a meteor shower,” he snapped at Dr. Strange. “It was Asgardian Bifrost shards entering the atmosphere and burning up, dispersing their particles into the air around where they burned. My brother and I had a fight in the Bifrost with… an enemy, and shards went spiraling off into space. Since we were coming from Midgard, that’s where most of them ended up. The Bifrost has more magical properties than most Asgardians do, and some mortals are predisposed to harnessing magic.”

Dr. Strange raised his hand slightly. “Myself included,” he observed. His voice was considerably deeper than Loki’s, something I was only just picking up on because my freaking out was slowing down slightly.

Loki rolled his eyes and looked me directly in the face. “You, I assume, are one of those mortals. Your instincts have been wreaking havoc over your town; and without proper training, you could do serious damage.”

“And that’s where we come in,” Strange interrupted. “We’re here to teach you.”

“Well, I’m here to teach you,” Loki corrected.

Strange knitted his eyebrows together. “What? No. I’m teaching her as well,” he said.

“Don’t be a fool, healer,” Loki snapped. “Earth’s wizardry is nothing like Asgardian magic, and now she has Asgardian magic.”

“Mind who you’re calling a fool, you snake. She’s human. A human should teach her how to use human magic because Asgardian magic will be more strain on her physiology.”

“Do I get a say in this?” I asked.

They ignored me.

I narrowed my eyes as the two continued to argue, getting fed up with their attitudes really quickly.

I clenched my fists and slammed them on the arms of the chair I was sitting in. “SHUT IT!” I shouted.

The bookshelves rattled and a vase on a table wobbled.

Loki and Dr. Strange both froze and turned to look at me.

“I don’t care who you two think you are. I’m an adult with a free will and you will not talk about me like I’m not here when it’s my life you’re talking about. You’re both lucky that I even believe you. If my sister was in this same situation, she’d call the psych ward on you two. She doesn’t believe in magic. You should consider yourselves lucky that I do. But I will not let you carry on without listening to me.”

“But, you see—”

“Clearly, if you must make a choice—”

“Nuh-uh! I’m still talking,” I snapped, raising my hand.

There was a weird shimmer of greenish-gold light, and Loki and Dr. Strange both had a wardrobe change. Loki was in black leather with green accents and gold armor. Dr. Strange was in some weird blue outfit and a red cape.

“What the… what just happened?” I asked.

They looked down, seeming to realize the change. Then they looked at each other—and then back at me. “You’re stronger than we thought,” Loki remarked in his British accent.

“What do you mean?”

“You just revealed our actual clothing. The other outfits were an illusion,” Strange explained.

I cleared my throat. “Oh. Uh… okay cool,” I muttered.

“So?” Loki pushed impatiently. “Who do you want to tutor you?”

“Um… I, uh… don’t know,” I admitted. “Can’t I… have both?”

Strange scoffed. “Of course you would say that,” he muttered.

“Okay, so why not?” I challenged. “Because you both have a point. The magic I have is Asgardian, so Loki teaching me how to control it would be wise, but I’m not Asgardian, so having Dr. Strange help me with the human part of it would also be a really good idea—because I don’t have the endurance of an Asgardian. I think it’s a decent idea.”

The men glanced at each other, and then back at me.

Strange relented first. “She has a point. And I’m willing to concede. I still want to teach her my ways but Asgardian magic is different to mine,” he said.

Loki sighed and rolled his eyes. “Fine. We can both instruct you,” he relented.

I grinned. “Fantastic. When do we start?” I asked in an actually-decent-imitation of Loki’s British accent.

Loki smirked slyly. “We already have.”

[britneyreviewed-blog]

"Gimme More”

Dignity, Dirty Dancing, and Defending Britney Spears (Also, Conspiracy Theories)

Released 10/5/2007 Directed by Jake Safarty Rating: 3.75/5

Previous posts: “Toxic” “Womanizer” “From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart”

This blog has turned out to be darker than I expected. I guess I just didn’t pay attention when I was younger, but Britney got so much hate. I watched the infamous Chris Crocker “Leave Britney alone!” video, and honestly, it isn’t that funny in 2018. “I know it’s hard to see Britney as a human being, but trust me, she is,” he says at one point, and like, he’s not wrong. Yes, the tears are overwhelming and excessive, but when reading an article like the one by Alec Hanley Bemis I discussed last week, the vitriol is overwhelming and excessive as well; it was an absolute avalanche of derision that spanned at least a decade. I’m not sure if we are necessarily any kinder to pop stars today, but I’d like to think that we wouldn’t do that again.

I chose “Gimme More” this week because it seemed like an obvious next choice in terms of the direction of the blog. To start with, Chris Crocker made that video following Britney’s performance of Gimme More at the 2007 VMAs as a response to the huuuge backlash she received for a supposedly lackluster performance. Rewatching it as I write this blog, I honestly don’t think it’s that bad. Definitely not so bad to warrant the amount of notoriety it has and had. Critics called her listless, dazed, lumbering. Part of me wonders if they hated it so much because she wasn’t rail thin and still dared to put on a bikini. Anyway, you can watch it here if you’d like to refresh your memory.

“Gimme More” also pairs nicely with last week’s discussion surrounding “From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart.” As I previously wrote, back in 2000 Bemis was horrified that Britney had worked with a director who had formally made adult films; he predicted that she would turn into a porn star herself. Now, roughly seven years later, she was starring in a music video as a stripper! I wonder what he’d have to say about that? (Just kidding, I’d rather not know--the thought of how smug and righteous he’d be makes me gag.) 

The thing is, I think Britney is being ironic in her choice to play that role. And it was her idea! Like other music videos, the concept for “Gimme More” was Britney’s. According to the on-set makeup artist Mikal Sky, Britney “sabotaged the director by refusing to perform and follow the script,” which I find a bit strange if she came up with or at least significantly contributed to the script, and additionally according to Wikipedia Britney handpicked director Jake Sarfaty, but whatever. The point is, it seems safe to assume that Britney had some control over playing a stripper in this video, and I think it’s actually subversive. But I guess I can get more into that when I go over the video itself.

One last thing before we get started: there’s at least three different versions of this video floating around: two or three “official” versions with varying levels of censorship in terms of how much skin is shown, and a director’s cut from 2011. There’s also this really weird Internet rumor/borderline conspiracy theory about an unreleased version, which sounds interesting and something closer to what Britney herself would come up with for a video than what was released publicly. It’s something like, Britney goes to a funeral except it turns out she’s in the coffin and she’s burying her old self and starting anew, predating Taylor Swift’s zombie “The old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now” thing for “Look What You Made Me Do.” It’s believable but I found no credible sources supporting it. However, I’ll link to a YouTube video at the bottom which has leaked stills and such and builds a somewhat convincing case, although it’s poorly made and if anything just serves as an example of how intense the rumors were about the video. I’ll also link to the comparison of four different “Gimme More” videos, which features three “official” versions and the director’s cut. The "official” versions are all so similar that I didn’t have the patience to watch all the way through.

The director’s cut is similar enough, but there are some key differences: the club goers (which I will talk about below) have been edited out and replaced with shots of Britney lounging on a bed and walking down a sidewalk in black and white. It’s often referred to as the “funeral version” because these new shots were filmed for the alleged “original” version of the video. With all the rumors swirling around the filming of the video, I can see why there would be a new version released four years later, but I find these shots to be boring. They don’t contribute anything, and overall this version seems to focus on being titillating more than the official version. This is an important difference because I argue that in both the song and the video Britney is not trying to simply arouse but also to draw attention to you as a voyeur. OK, let’s just roll the video!

This song is the origin of “It’s Britney, bitch.” And honestly, while spoken word stuff in pop song usually makes me cringe, here it’s pretty badass. As the song opens, we see Britney in a blonde wig (having shaved her head just eight months prior to the release of this video) laughing with some friends at the bar. We get a quick get to Stripper Britney in a bowler hat and fishnets sitting on a couch, who says, “I see you,” and causes Blonde Britney to look over in curiosity.

I find this exchange between the two Britneys interesting. While the song can is very much about media scrutiny, she cuts out the media (and the male gaze) in the video by making it a performance dedicated to herself, from herself. I think this is one of the most subversive things about it. Blonde Britney is fascinated by and attracted to Stripper Britney--a bit heavy-handed but given the context of 2007 a poignant metaphor for loving yourself.

The video kicks off, and for the most part it’s Stripper Britney swinging around on the pole. A lot of people complained about how unsexy or unskilled her pole-dancing was, which to me is the epitome of how Britney Can’t Win, because you can bet your butts that if she’d put on a “proper” routing on the pole, everyone would be clutching their pearls over how Britney was still on the road to destruction. This was the first single that had come out since her breakdown, and so all eyes were on her.

I don’t really analyze the lyrics on this blog, because it’s more about the videos, but I think they’re really important in this case. “Feels like the crowd is saying, ‘gimme gimme more, gimme more,’” is so spot-on. While some of the lyrics point to this being a hot-and-heavy love song, to me it’s a song to the media. “Every time they turn the lights down, just want to go that extra mile for you,” sounds a bit sarcastic when the “you” is more literal--YOU, the person watching this video, the person watching this woman who just had a very humiliating year and is now performing a strip tease for you. “They keep on watching.” Her lack of enthusiasm or skill or sexiness or whatever you want to call it just draws further attention to the viewer’s voyeurstic position, and what your expectations are. More, more, more.

The first 45 seconds of the video are just Britney dancing on the pole, but the cuts are really fast and the colors change a lot, so it’s visually interesting enough.

At a certain point, she starts dancing against the nearby wall mirror, which I think only further underscores the dual concept of self-love and voyeurism. Then the bowler hat comes off for certain shots.

With her hair down, her dancing does get noticeably more suggestive, with more shots of her body, especially her butt and legs. 

It was hard to get any flattering or even clear screenshots of this video, because the cuts are so fast and both Britney the camera moves around a lot.

I think Britney with the bowler hat is an interesting choice for a couple reasons; first, on its own, it gives her a masculine appearance with clashes with the stripper aesthetic, and second, it is then juxtaposed with her long black hair flowing, which is much more feminine. It’s like she’s playing around with her appearance since she shaved her head. It gives her more flexibility and again it toys with the viewer’s curiosity--since she shaved her head, what’s under that hat? Overall, though, the video is shot in a gritty style, even in black and white at times, including her feminine shots, which further subverts your expectations of what Britney as a stripper would be. The blur effect that is frequently used obscures her body, once again making the viewer self-aware as you are frustrated by your attempts to visually consume her body.

Blonde Britney returns to the screen, still watching from the bar.

I think it’s interesting that Blonde Britney appears to gossip about the performance with her friends, laugh, and makes a face, but she’s still watching.

Then out of nowhere, this guy appears on screen!

There’s no explanation given about him--they just show his face and go back to Stripper Britney. Obviously he’s like a bar patron or something, but he serves no purpose other than I guess to hetero the place up a little bit. Can’t have Britney love herself too much without a man showing up!!

Back to the pole, where Stripper Britney is joined by other dancers.

Then the song shifts to the middle spoken word part, where Britney says, “They want more? I’ll give them more,” and she takes her top off!

Then the rest of the video cuts together all the different shots: her dancing alone with her top on, dancing alone with her top off, and dancing together with all the other dancers. The last minute of the video is pretty unremarkable, just a repeat of what we’ve seen before. Britney seems to be having fun, and there’s a couple nice shots of her smiling, particularly when Danja says in the outro, “The legendary Miss Britney Spears.”

The random man from before shows back up, again just for a few seconds, this time not even seeming to be watching Britney at all. I think these shots build the strongest case for that alternate unreleased version, because they seem so out of place. 

The final shot is of Blonde Britney, still laughing, but still watching.

This is a great song. I remember finding the chorus a bit annoying when it came out, but now I think it’s quite good. On top of that though, the verse melody is a jam. The synth production is dark but still poppy. And I like the video, too. I can understand some criticism of it, but I think the layered meaning intended or not really saves it. However, it’s still really repetitive and the visuals get old fast, and regardless of what the truth is about the funeral version or not, there’s something off about the way the crowd is shown in relation to Britney. Because of that, I give this video a 3.75 out of 5.

After all that, I want to do something a little more light-hearted. The more I research for these videos, the darker this stuff gets, so I could use a week off. Stay tuned next week for “Criminal.”

Resources “Gimme More” official music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elueA2rofoo Comparison of four different versions of “Gimme More”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjTrfPVGsZs “Gimme More: The Story of the Unreleased Video”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTKtgqfm3Sc