#of art. it doesn't exist!! and that's okay!!!! just be honest!!!!!!!

[musical-chick-13]

Oh not me avoiding a wildly popular piece of media that I’d probably actually like out of sheer spite.

[thankskenpenders]

Sonic x ...DC Comics?!

We have our reveal of what our new Sonic comic crossover will be, and it's... not what I expected! We're getting a five-issue comic series mashing up Sonic with the DC Comics universe written by Ian Flynn, plus a slew of merch to go with it.

To be honest, I don't know how to feel about this? I don't feel the hype.

Okay, for one, cards on the table: I have more attachment to Marvel's cast of characters than DC's. Sue me. But it's not like I don't also like DC's heroes! I grew up watching the Batman movies and the Justice League cartoons and Adam West's Batman and whatnot. I loved Teen Titans so much as a kid that I was Robin one year for Halloween. DC's cool! People have been comparing Sonic to the Flash for years! So... why does this collab make me feel nothing?

Well, for one, it might be that I would prefer a series like this to be about Sonic and friends meeting the Justice League, as opposed to them being the Justice League. To me, personally, that just seems a little more interesting. Seeing how those characters play off of each other. People have been asking "who would win in a race, Sonic or the Flash?" for years, so that was kinda the thing I was latching onto as the impetus for this crossover. And yes, in the interview they tease the possibility of the actual characters meeting, but they're marketing it primarily via these mashup characters with Sonic and co. cosplaying as the Justice League, so I have to assume that's the main focus of the story.

But I'm also just sitting here like... why DC? Why is this the highest priority crossover to do with Sonic? It seems so arbitrary. Just mashing two random popular franchises together. It doesn't feel like something that resonates so heavily with Sonic that we just NEED this crossover to exist. The DC universe isn't something that has much of a thematic connection with Sonic. Like, you look at the TMNT x Naruto crossover, and THAT feels inspired. That's something you never would've thought would happen, but the second it's announced it seems so obvious, and the sick cover art sells the idea that it's gonna be something fun. (Hell, speaking of TMNT, that feels like a crossover that would've made way more sense to me. No, the single panel of the Archie comics they appeared in doesn't count.)

When the Sonic X DC thing is announced with a series of stock vectors of the Sonic cast cosplaying as the Justice League and the news that there will be a ton of merch for this, well. It just makes it seem like this is first and foremost a collab designed to generate new Funko Pops.

I don't know. I'm sure that whatever the actual story looks like, Ian will do his damnedest to make the comic fun. It'll probably be pretty decent. He's the perfect writer for this assignment. It's just not the crossover I would've requested. Maybe I'm just being a hater here. I know a lot of people are excited, with speculation about what other Sonic characters could take the roles of DC characters. Maybe showing something from the actual comic would've been a better sell. But, well, that's how I feel about it based on the announcement!

[enemywasp]

Alright so someone on tiktok sent me a link to a compiled list of arguments against proshippers and so I wanted to put a sort of brief response of my own thoughts of each point.

Long post warning!

"Proshippers are non-offending minor attracted people in a fresh paint of coat"

What a start, am I right? Okay so first off this is a huge generalisation, not every proshipper engages with or is even comfortable with anything that sexualises fictional children, or ships them with adults. And of those that do ship adult/minor ships, it doesn't always mean they're attracted to the character themselves or gains any sexual pleasure from that.

They then went on to say that although they might be non-offending, they still fantasise about and romanticise children- in the case of proshippers by creating art and stories. And I am not personally educated enough on how people's minds works to go in depth here, but I do know a lot of pedophilic thoughts can be intrusive and unwanted. And I would much rather people engage in this and deal with their thoughts through fiction where no actual children are harmed, than actually go touch a real child or engage is any form of CSEM.

“People can draw and ship whatever they want!”

Here they went on to say that surely to ship and create content you must justify these things in some capacity regardless of them being fictional. And immediately I'd argue, the justification it that they're fictional. And that sometimes you want to read about things you'd never approve of in real life, it's a natural curiosity. And again, regardless of what the dark content is I would take someone engaging in fiction over harming a real person any day.

They compared this to alt-right groups and dark humour justifying racism and transphobia, etc. And whilst I think something we should always be aware of in fiction is stereotypes and how we may be representing people. Youtube videos like this are usually a type of propaganda that AIM to change people's mindsets and turn them against groups. Whereas fiction tells a story, some may have meanings and connections to real life, be a political piece, etc. Not everything is that serious and has a clear distinction from reality.

Think for example, reading/watching about murder and gore. More on that in a second.

"Fiction doesn't affect reality!"

I'm going to be honest I rolled my eyes at this as their main example was slenderman. If you don't know about that, those girls were schizophrenic. Anything could of set off and caused delusions, it just so happened to be fiction. Those girls needed help- not to just read purer content. They also basically brought up propaganda again, which is again deliberate and designed to warp peoples perceptions. Its based of lying and spreading misinformation and passing it as facts. The only thing I strongly believe can be directly harmful is stereotypes if not handled with care. But I think that's something for anyone who writes and consumes content should be aware of regardless of their stances.

Again here they implied that all proshippers are peodophiles. And that they normalise abuse of children. I'd also like to point out that most proshippers I've interacted with online have age boundaries to avoid interacting with minors depending on how graphic or sexual their content is.

"What do you think all stories about murder should stop existing?"

Here they basically argued that killing in media isn't the same as its not romanticised or condoned. YA Novels disagree- mafia stories being the most immediate example to spring to mind. Furthermore, morally grey villains. One of my favourite films is Mr Right. It's about a hitman killing people. Anna kendrick falls in love with him and its framed as a romantic comedy. Funny how its only fanfiction that's criticised like this? I actually have more thoughts on this if anyones interested.

Again they bring up kids not knowing adults pursuing children is wrong, and I'm questioning why children this young are unsupervised on the Internet. How young were you when you were allowed to watch anything with graphic blood or violence? This content isn't made for kids! Especially not anyone so young they can't seperate fiction from reality as most sites have a specific age you have to be to join. And I'm sorry to say it, but on websites and social media where adults can interact with kids, anything can be used to groom kids. (The real thing you should be mad about here is how there's no websites aimed just for children and safe spaces on the Internet anymore cause it can't be monetised as easily)

"Artists are allowed to draw and write about dark people"

They basically said, yes but it's not the same as promoting. Writing something under a romantic light and not saying "Don't do at home!" Isn't promoting. No ones encouraging these things in real life. Or rather, if they are its not because they're a proshipper but rather who they are as a person and their intentions.

The trans example they used is very extreme and honestly something I agree with a little more, fiction can definitely be used as an excuse to say and act out hateful and discriminatory things. Whilst I do think it's something we should discuss and unpack more, I'm not certain of my view on how I would fix this without risking silencing people talking about their experiences.

"Its not my responsibility to look after other people, just block me and the tags"

Here they threw all kinds of accusations. And says that we're making traumatised people jump through hoops to avoid getting retraumatised. I hate this argument, you know people have actual triggers they may not be able to avoid in real life? The world can't bend around you. And I am very sorry if any content online is traumatising to you, but someone could also be traumatised by a certain breed of dog and not want to see it. Should no one post dogs online ever again? A bald man reminds you of an abusive ex? Bald men get off the Internet! You see how this thing can just keep escalating? The tags and warnings are important because they're the best you can get. You can't control the world to protect everyone from everything ever. No ones forcing you to interact, and if you're on any algorithm based content that will encourage that content on your for your page more.

The only thing I think we should take from this is the reminder that warnings and tags are always important.

"You only care about censoring creativity"

Here they defend themselves that oh wouldn't you want freaks out the community! Which again immediately makes me lose respect for you, if you're just going to brand us all as freaks as an argument and generalize us.

No comment on that first line when you can easily argue antishipper do the same.

"Proshippers are not remotely innocent of targeted harrasement" Neither are antis. There's people who take things too far both sides and I'm not going to defend either for that.

"Real kids get assaulted and all you care about is censoring people online!"

Here they shout "oh I can care about both!" But what I don't think they realise is censorship can make it difficult for kids and to learn about how to speak up and to look for signs, or to speak up about their experiences. How do you plan on removing the topic from the Internet whilst also letting victims speak up? And people may want to write fiction based off their experiences. Who are you to go through it and proclaim what is too far, what romanticises it too much? More on this later.

"Antis are reducing my trauma"

They compared this to saying "date rape victims are reducing my trauma because they weren't taken advantage of in the same way as me" which is a disgusting parallel?? Date rape is still rape. Someone writing about something isn't the same as it happening. Although it can be used as harrasment, grooming, etc if directly addressed to you or being constantly sent to you, written about you. But the content existing in general? No.

"I'm coping"

Compared it to self harm, and such. Poetry and diaries are also used to write about your experiences and unpack trauma. Some of which may write it in an unrealistically positive light cause that's how they want to unpack it or explain those thoughts. And yes these things get posted online.

I can't imagine a single therapist or professional psychiatrist of any kind disapproving of creative writing because, again, it's much better than any alternatives of doing real harm to yourself or people around you. Although I do agree that if something is traumatising for you to read about and just upsets you further, be aware of your own boundaries but not everyone is the same so how are you going to police people's own thoughts and emotions.

Also I can't remember who or where as it was years ago now, but I have heard of people who actually realised they were being groomed or abused and just how bad it was through reading about it in a fanfic and seeing it in an outside perspective.

They also say to do it in private, but doesn't everyone on the Internet now have an understanding of finding a community and looking out for eachother and sharing experiences?

"There's more nuance here than just calling proshippers peodophiles"

Here they say no matter what it still comes down to whether it's ever okay to sexualise minors in certain contexts. And again, not every proshipper does this or is even comfortable with engaging in this kind of content. And further, no one is sexualising real minors in this context.

"I'm a proshipper and a minor tho!"

I'd agree minors should be wary of the spaces they're in but proship spaces aren't always necessarily sexual, graphic or 18+. Saying they're being groomed feels like you're watering down that term. I was a proshipper at age 13, I didn't interact with anyone online about it though, I didn't even know that was the term. I just came to the conclusion that it's just fiction all on my own. Minors aren't idiots.

At then end they talk about their own experience being groomed and I'm obviously not going to nitpick or criticise their experiences. I will point out that one person being bad and taking advantage of you and using content to do so doesn't mean everyone is like that. I am sorry to anyone who has been taken advantage of by someone who claims they're a proshipper though. There are people who have turned out to be horrible on both sides.

I am ill and it's late but I want to get this up sooner rather than later so please ask for clarification on anything. I'm always up for a discussion on this topic as I do believe some of these points do have merits at times and that this whole topic is not black and white

[cherrielatte]

genuine question do you even understand what a proshipper is ? like youre okay with people romanticizing pedophilia and shipping minors and adults ? you think thats okay?? GENUINE question.

Hello! Judging from the way you worded this - I'm gonna be honest: I don't think you know what proshipping is. I was very close to not answering this because it was sounding a bit in bad faith ( and this isn't the first time I've gotten belligerent asks on the same topic) But well, I decided to give it a shot and give benefit of the doubt.

 I know it's common ground to jump onto proshipping with the idea that it means you romanticize pedophilia, abuse, toxicity, etc. It's the typical high ground taken when people hear that dark fiction enjoyers exist. But that's not actually what it means. It just means that YOU, as an individual, understand that a drawing is not the same thing as human being. Written characters are not the same as human beings. Harassing REAL people over a non existent character because they put them into situations that make you uncomfortable says more about the harasser than the writer/artist. Proshipping is about taking personal responsibility for your experience online. Not long ago, the idea of a proshipper was just considered having fandom etiquette (ie: Don't like; Don't read type of tag lines. ) I'm a proshipper and there are plenty of things I don't like & make me uncomfortable. But I also understand that I can easily not engage. I can filter tags so I don't see it. I can block people that make that kind of content. I can refuse to click on something clearly labeled as the content I don't like. I can control what I see. And I can also understand that that if someone draws something I don't like it doesn't mean anything about them in real life nor what they enjoy in real life. Besides, a lot of people that consider themselves proshippers are victims of abuse or have had to endure traumatic events in their lives. Engaging in what you might consider dark fiction allows people to cope and navigate through complex emotion/trauma and express themselves in ways they are not allowed to or haven't allowed themselves to. I've seen some people say "I've been through trauma and I don't engage in proshipping." And okay, I'm happy for you. But not everyone copes the same way you do. And no one should be held to the same standard. If we were all carbon copies of each other, maybe I would understand that argument. But that's not the case. I should also mention, that it's become a bit standard for people to only excuse those that have been through trauma to make dark fiction. But only if they publicly acknowledge what kind of trauma they have endured. I am 100% against this way of thinking. I do not think it is anyone's right to demand an account of my or anyone's personal traumas just to validate the existence of certain piece of art. No one is entitled to anyone's abuse story. If a person is willing to share, because they want to, that's the personal decision of the individual. But look, much of the horror genre (movies, books, tv, etc) wouldn't exist if we put these high censorship rules onto art as a whole and unfortunately, I see this happening more and more these days like discussed in this post about someone's experience in publishing gothic horror.

Going back to an earlier point, you have to really understand that the characters are fake. 100% fake. If I ship Sora ( KH) and Ash (Pokemon) neither of them are going to be upset about it because they don't exist. If I draw them kissing, it is a drawing of anime looking characters kissing. That's all. They don't look anything like real human people. Wasting energy fighting over fictional characters is just that. Wasting time and energy. Who are you saving? Ash? Sora? They don't need help, because they aren't real. Fight for real people that actually exist. I have seen people outside of the Soriku fandom genuinely upset about people shipping Riku x Sora because they are underage! Mostly because they are both male but without fail, they always slap on the argument: "they are kids, you sicko!" But you know why they go to that? Because assuming the moral high ground wins over arguments quickly. People are eager to be superficially perceived as morally good. I have seen people ship Riku x Ansem SOD, which could fall into that age gap - problematic shipping you referred to in your ask. But you know what? I get it. I see people interpret their relationship as one of abuse, metaphorical SA, manipulation, etc. I completely understand and see that interpretation and where it stems from. And unfortunately, there are many people in fandom that have had this exact experience. Honestly, without me needing to ask anyone specifically, I KNOW there are people in fandom projecting their experiences onto Riku and Ansem as a means to replay it with a bit of actual control. And even if there are people who don't. I'm not going to ask, because it's none of my business. So again, as a proshipper I am completely in control of my online experience. I can block, mute, filter, and not engage with the things I don't like or things that trigger me. But as long as it is fiction, it remains as just that : Something I don't like between characters that dont exist. I don't have to harass, bully, nor threaten people over fiction. Of course, there are bad apples in every circle. But to me, whether someone is a bad person or not is expressed through action toward real people and the intentional harm done onto them, whether it be through inappropriate interactions, abuse of any kind, exposing personal information, harassing family/at work, or encouraging harm. Those are real actions on real people and engaging in these actions is what counts to me as markers of a bad person. Not someone drawing two fictional characters that haven't aged in the last 20 years kissing or having sex. 

[pyjamaart]

Every time someone complains about Fully Charged Airmans design, my love for him grows even stronger.

I feel like most people are mad that he isn't blue. Like back in 2014 when people complained that Sonics arms were blue in Sonic Boom. But I honestly don't think it's that big of a deal.

But if you see Fully Charged as an alternate universe to the classic series (which it is), then I don't really get why you'd have to complain about Airman not being blue. I think it's good they tried something fresh with the robot masters. They didn't have that much personality in the classic series, to be honest, compared to Fully Charged. I just think he needed a little more screen time to focus on his character. Just like many other robot masters on this show.

Okay, I have to admit, I did change around his colors a bit for a joke that would have gone along the lines of "Just hire fans, lol", but it actually ended up looking pretty cool, so I can't really make that joke anymore……. Really shot myself in the foot with that one. Anyway, here's blue Airman:

I still think that an episode featuring an air race would have been really really cool. They could have introduced a robot master like Gyroman as his rival. Maybe losing that race could have been the start of his character arc where he finally confronts his inferiority/superiority complex. Along the lines of "Flying is all I have left! If I can't have that, what else am I supposed to do?" Well, now that we're already in headcanon territory, I might as well tell you about all my other ones involving Airman. I believe his family is suuuuper rich. All his siblings have well respected careers and probably make his parents buckets of money. Meanwhile Airman is like the youngest sibling who dreamed of becoming a professional racer, which his parents didn't support at all. Kinda reminds me of another robot master under Lord Obsidians command whose dreams were crushed by his parents......

And as we've seen in that one episode, Airmans siblings are assholes. They just pretend he doesn't exist, like he never belonged to their family at all. Like they're ashamed that he's such a failure.

Oh damn that got dark again, sorry. But just like Drillman, he gets better in the end. While Drillman gets Woodman to look out for him, I've had the headcanon for a while that Airman gets taken in by Blastowoman, since she's also a flying robot master like him. Maybe she even gets him a job as a cargo bot alongside herself. I feel like he really needs someone supportive who's not afraid to call him out on his bullshit in his life. And because I have another headcanon that Blastowoman actually has an adult child (Blastman, lol), she's like the perfect woman for the job. ;)

Coming back to Airmans design, I did change some things about it for this particular piece of fan art. When I was trying to come up with an awesome pose to draw him in, the first thought I had was "Damn, I gotta give this man some heels." And that's exactly what I drew.

Sorry for not posting anything for 2 months btw. I got addicted to Metaphor ReFantazio ;) If that doesn't become game of the year, I'm gonna be real mad.

Jenny out.

[hadesoftheladies]

if you're a radfem (or feminist in general) chances are you're dealing with these: repressed anger and the effects of gaslighting

if you're exhausted a lot (without strenuous physical activity and lack of sleep), find yourself having outbursts of strong emotion, feeling desperate for a form of escape, fantasizing about drastic measures, anxious and "forgetful" about memories you have, nervous about speaking about your experiences . . .

here's some tricks on how i've been coping:

-boundaries. if you can cut off people (irl or online) that cause you to spiral into hate, frustration, anger at their ignorance/malice, do it. even if it's a musician whose one song you like. or your brother or dad. limit time as much as possible with them. the less access they have, the less relevant they become, the more energy you conserve.

-do art! create something, it doesn't matter what it is. express those emotions! make sure you're doing it in a judgement-free zone. it's important you don't become a critic at this time. do messy, honest art (sometimes i write short scenes of gay/lesbian characters to cope with the homophobia in my life, and it makes me feel MUCH better and less cynical, sometimes you need to create beauty to remember it exists in the world)

-get out! get out into nature, if you can. if you can't immerse yourself in some form of it. try watching a potted plant for a while or watch insects. take interest in the mundane aspects of life. see that leaf curl? that ant? you're part of that. when you see the clouds, remember they are part of the cycle. the earth grows into its beauty as you do. the moon is the sky's cycle tracker. you belong to this world. you belong in it. this is your home. revel in it.

-if you can, and if you want to, hang out with animals. animals are great companions with none of the misogyny, internalized or otherwise! they don't mind if you cry, either. seriously, if you need non-draining, non-complicated companionship, animals are a good option. it's also good to remember you're a simple animal sometimes, with simple needs. sometimes all you need is a nice belly rub and a little treat.

-cultivate female friendships where it's safe to rant and also not all about ranting. your friendships should be a comfort, not a chore. you need irl community. if you can access it at this time, if you can find a way to cultivate it, please do. it may save you

-it is okay to enoy things despite the evil in the world. you don't have to be an activist 24/7. go watch your favorite movie. listen to your favorite comedian. and let down your guard while you're enjoying that little something. it's important you don't fall into analyzing things.

-for the gaslighting, start having conversations where you make it explicitly clear that you want the other party to ONLY listen. also, JOURNAL, even if it's just a paragraph or two sentences. write down the small important facts of your day. you'll either build a more reliable memory or come to see how reliable your memory is. just don't hang out with people that are constantly testing you. that is not an environment where you develop healthy trust in yourself.

-fight back! these are some ways to heal from the bruising of the world, but honestly? you need to acknowledge how RIGHT and GOOD your anger is. and one of the best ways to do that is to fight back! do something that addresses part of the injustice your heart is screaming about. it doesn't have to be big, it just needs to help someone and address the situation. address the alarms in your brain telling you something isn't right and you have to do something about it. scratch that itch! do that something. you will feel really good

please feel free to add any other tips you guys may have for cultivating joy, hope and energy, because we don't have to be miserable while/for doing the right thing

[twst-hottest-takes]

I recently read your post about the Halloween event, and I realized that Jack Howl doesn't have many SSR cards. I tried to think of a reason why, like maybe he's hard to dress up for an SSR card, or his muscles are hard to draw. Though that doesn't seem to be a problem with his SR or R cards.

So I feel like the problem is the game just doesn't really know Jack, so they don't know what to do with him. Which to be honest I feel like they do for Deuce. To twst Jack only wants to work out. And Deuce is always just trying to be an honor student to twst.

To focus more on Jack for a bit, I completely forgot he was even in the Stitch event because of how little they paid attention to him. I wish they would do more with their characters.

Careful, Anon, you could be flying too close to the sun there.

Do you really want to know why?

WARNING: We are about to tread into waters that I am dangerously invested in, so forgive me, but you may get a response a lot longer than you might have been expecting. I love Jack Howl and I refuse to keep my mouth shut about the constant injustices done to this character. I can get as heated about Jack as I do about Vil, but for the opposite reasons. While Vil is an awful character that gets blatant favoritism, Jack is awesome and gets treated incredibly poorly. The current Culinary Crucible is proof enough of that, so expect to see a decently lengthed post about that by the end of the event.

You're correct that his body type doesn't affect how difficult or hard it is for art to be made of him, but it is one of the reasons why he's so ill favored by the developers and the fans. I guess I'll put a bit of disclaimer here--

WHAT I AM ABOUT TO SAY IS PURELY CONJECTURE AND ONLY AN EDUCATED GUESS AT BEST! (I have just convinced myself that it is fact at this point, so there's going to be a lot of conviction behind this next statements.)

Anon suggests that the game doesn't know what to do with Jack, AND THAT'S BECAUSE THEY DON'T! Jack is a placeholder of a character. Jack was invented because Yana wanted to make a buff wolf-guy to add to the animal-man dorm. Jack exists purely to act as the major assist character to the MC between Books 2 and 3 of the story. Jack is so much of an afterthought of a character that whatever Disney inspiration he was "twisted" from HAS NEVER BEEN CONFIRMED! I am willing to bet there isn't one! The best guess is that he's a reference to a HALF-WOLF from an era of LIVE ACTION book adaptations by Disney. I DESPISE THE WHITE FANG THEORY! There are a dozen wolves in animated Disney films and shorts throughout the studio's history, including a generic "BIG BAD WOLF" but we will never actually know.

The game doesn't do anything with Jack because THEY DON'T WANT TO! Jack has a narrow role and is left to the side as much as possible because no thought went into him, and there are so many other characters that the developers are okay with just ignoring him and trying to work around him so they can do their best with the characters that actually matter to the story instead of trying to actually develop him and give him any kind of depth. They don't want you to take Jack seriously, so they treat him as a joke whenever possible. They do the bare minimum to say they haven't completely forgotten about him, but don't even want to give him meaningful interactions with the MC despite being a part of the Freshman class that SHOULD BY ALL MEANS BE FORMING A FRIEND GROUP AROUND THEM!

Jack is intentionally designed to not be popular. He's not a fair-skinned-pretty-skinny-bishie-boy, so the core audience doesn't find him as attractive as most of the other characters. A big part of his personality even focuses on honing his strength, and the story goes out of its way to focus on that as much as possible despite him having other fun character traits. The developers don't care to let anyone see beyond that, so the superficial audience doesn't care if he doesn't actually have a character to explore or not. ANY AND ALL NEGLECT OF JACK HOWL IS 100% INTENTIONAL ON THE WRITERS' PARTS AND I AM CONSTANTLY FUMING OVER IT!

This is why I have been saying the JACK needs to have the dream card in the next Book 7 Story Update. Jack needs more time to shine. The parts of the story that he was a part of were short and poorly written. He needs to be given a chance to really be the center of attention again WITHOUT BEING MADE INTO A JOKE! But that is probably just wishful thinking. (The blog owner signs dramatically.)

Okay, that's my thesis on why Jack suffers so much as a character. It's not his fault, it's just that almost literally no one cares to do better by him all these years, and the game has gone to no efforts to prove otherwise. I am not done. Much like the essay on Vil, this is only the start, but you can expect to see more of it as soon as I have finished reading the Culinary Crucible Vignettes from this round. Until then. . .

Thank you for the ask!

(I am so sorry if this is more than you asked for, anon. I let myself get set off. I love Jack so much. I hate that he's just left in the dust all the time. Deuce is treated much better by comparison, so also apologies for not touching on that element of your ask!)

[therabine]

We've got some new cover art and as someone who works in digital media and deals with AI content on daily basis this new cover for Troy Saga set off an alarm in my brain. Naturally I sank into an analyzing spiral, because that's just how my brain works.

"Looks like an AI art with repaints on top" I thought to myself, but to be sure I've checked it with different AI recognizing software (remember kids, if you use AI to generate your art, other AI can reverse engineer the process and identify it!). But so can a human eye most of the time. Pay attention to the combination of these identificators:

- weird blur

- different lines of horizon in one image

- bonkers anatomy/construction errors

- high contrast

- a lot of nonsense happening in the background

The results of AI checkup on the new Troy cover art were mixed

"Okay, let's check out the original Troy Saga cover, I like this one"

Yep, it has no out of place blur, the wooden horse's anatomy doesn't weird me out, the backgrounds look nice, deliberately painted with attention and care, I can make sense of the individual strokes. Good to know that my eyes are still good for something.

"Just to be sure, let's check out the Cyclop's Saga"

Okay, now it's proper weird. Maybe the Hive is off caliber? Wait five minutes, let me make a quick AI Thunder Saga cover art.

Nope, still works. What about other covers?

Fascinating! To be honest Circe Saga cover art doesn't look like Ai to me (all three animals are drawn with nice proportions and the lion is probably drawn with the help of Symmetry tool in Procreate, AI is surprisingly shitty at doing perfect symmetry).

Maybe it's the style of the artist that's confusing to the AI detector? Zwist seems to be particularly fond of whirlwind designs in all of her artwork (bad AI art often does weird stripes and whirlwinds, especially when you're trying to generate something which doesn't have a lot of references for it in the dataset that AI is trained on). Let's run Hive on her original artwork with a lot of whirlwinds and a wonky tree.

...okay. Now that is weird.

Look, I'm not saying that Zwist is a bad artist or something, using Ai isn't against the law and she clearly can paint better than I do. She is talented, go show love to her original artworks that are not Epic related. Hell, I can't even prove with 100% certainty that AI was used at all. Just because I don't like the new Troy cover art doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy it too.

But the whole situation is fascinating to me. A lot of people on insta ask if the new Troy cover is AI, only to be shut down by fans who scream "no, that's just her artsyle and X confirmed that it's not AI, you are just haters".

YOU ARE NOW IN THE UPDATED PART OF THE POST

Special thanks to the people who shared the link to the new Troy Saga cover art speedpaint for erasing my doubts and providing a respectful conversation in the comments.

Watched through the speedpaint a few times, trying to figure why the end image became unsettling enough for a lot of people (myself included) to assume it's AI.

My guess is that Zwist has developed for herself an intricate decorative style, but isn't very familiar with so called 'academic' art.

Why do I think that? Well, I wanted to see how artists of the past depicted the wooden horse, and do you know what image you see when you type up 'Trojan horse' into Google? That's right, it's the giant prop from the movie Troy (2004). And you know, no shame here, using references to draw something you've never seen before is good, I'm just shocked I didn't recognize this design sooner it's very cool. What I really like about it is that it really looks like it's been made rather fast from the scraps of the broken down ships and yet it still resembles an actual horse. Look at the cute pointy ears! Look at the mouth of it! This gorgeous posture!

What's even better, it still exists somewhere in Turkey (well maybe not the actual prop, but the full size replica of it), so there's a ton of photos from different points of view. My best guess is that Zweist used this one as a reference for the new Troy Saga cover:

And here's a problem - this is a very complex structure to draw. Not only that, but Zweist also uses two light sources - moonlight from above and the light of the fire below, which means that we have two different sets of shadows emerging from these light sources.

Unlike all other covers that are very decorative in nature, this one is attempted to be very realistic, almost cinematic in its use of lighting. With all that extra complication it's easy to set yourself up for failure and get too much in the details while losing the larger shapes.

Unfortunately in her simplification of the original reference Zweist completely neglects all the intricate shapes and planes that make up the wooden horse. She forgets that wood cannot bend in circles like that, or that unpolished wood is a low-reflective surface (which means that even the lightest spot lit up by the firelight will be darker than the light on the sand/marble/metal coming from the same light source). It seems like she doesn't analyze the shape of it at all, so we lose the majestic posture and the shape of the horse head.

Just for the fun of it I used 1,5 hours of my time to photobash the reference photo into the original Zweist background. It's very rough (I literally painted everything using nothing but a standard Photoshop round brush and a computer mouse), but I think it gets my point across.

I'm too tired to redo the background and this post is already ridiculously long. But I think that it suffers from the same problems - lack of research and care. Those are just some random shapes taking up space. I get that it's supposedly a burning Troy we see around, but does it look like anything to you? I mean really? Again, it's just a shapeless mess. And all of that could be avoided with a bit of extra research and analysis. There's more to the ancient ruins that the same set of columns over and over.

So, what is can we learn from it? What is the conclusion?

Zwist is a talented young artist, but painting "realistically" isn't her strongest suit. You may like her style, or you may not, but I think there is a difference between "doing it your way" and "trying to succeed and failing". She may try to learn from this situation in two ways: 1) work around her stronger sides making the next covers with simpler designs and less intricate lighting or 2) practice the more realistic style and get better at it.

I don't know the exact reasons why the AI recognizing software flagged some of her work as AI generated. But I think that if it's not just your audience who starts to wonder if you used AI, but you somehow manage to confuse the very program that detects AI, then you've got a problem with your art.

If we want to beat AI companies in their game and stay relevant as professional artists we can no longer produce mindless art. We can no longer afford to produce sloppy work. As sad as it is, within next 10 years there is going to be a large shift in understanding and producing art as we know it. If the art we create can be easily replicated by AI or will look like it's been made with AI, then no one would bother to commission art from you. We have to adapt, to find new ways of exploring our creativity, perhaps even to create a new visual language of expressing ourselves.

In the end of a day human art always beats AI art. You know why? Because AI is not really Artificial Intelligence. It's just a very complex algorithm that is good at recognizing patterns. That's all it is. It doesn't have a conscience, it has no context for the human experience, it cannot think, and most importantly - it cannot invent.

So I want to end this post on the hopeful note - the art will survive. The artists will survive. And if we can learn anything from this situation is that kindness and open dialog is the vest way to deal with confusion. Once again I want to thank everyone who was kind enough to comment on and engage with this post. It grew out of love for something that is deep and personal to me (Epic) to a larger discussion of the changes in the world of visual art (something I love and care for even more). Hope this update spawns more nuanced and respectful discussion on the topic!

[iztea]

How do you get the ideas for your backgrounds?

mmm ideas.... sometimes i draw the background directly from a photo reference (the happy case) so there's not a lot for me to change and i can have a rather peaceful painting process

othertimes, the BG is tied to the subject/concept/scene I'm thinking of, so it only makes sense that i have that as the background

for example, for this fem skk art, i knew i wanted to have chuu kneeling in a crater after destroying a city so drawing that background was just a logical follow-up because i already had the entire idea in mind

Here, I wanted to have Akiangel sit on a building, watching over the city. The ominous sign with "the day of salvation" and crow came later after I found this picture on Pinterest, so they helped further develop the concept, but the main idea was there and so on

The third background option happens when my painting doesn't depict a certain irl scene or landscape, nor do i have any particular references i can use. In that situation, I first and foremost think about the general composition, the shapes, how they flow with each other, how I can tie them to my main theme and what sort of symbolism or little easter eggs i can throw in there just to keep it fresh and interesting for the viewer ( aka the person reading this aha ;;) :-* )

For this piece, i started with a big circle for the background, and then I started breaking it up in pleasing, cloud-like shapes and swirls that constantly keep your eye moving around the picture (i mean hopefully lol). The composition was inspired by a) Dazai's Mayoi card ofc, that trad Eastern illustration style with the circle and then branches of trees, and also .. kazuha's splash art ok i admit it bshsj

for this one, the roses came much, much later. Again, I added that sort of golden arcade to better frame the focal point or the main subject of the scene which was ofc her face and/or outfit. Then, since it still felt rather empty, awkward, and directionless, I tried finding a pleasing, spiral line that would compliment the already existing shapes and that would, again, move your eye all around the composition. I figured since her outfit already had those small roses stuffed in her belt, those curvy lines could become some bloody, spikey roses and boom! here are the theme and elements for you: blacks-roses-blood-deadly-sharp-gold etc. I then had her crush some of those roses in her right (ik it's the left hand shut up) hand to balance out the busier left side

and a last example, sometimes I draw multiple character poses in one piece and they sort of become my background. Yet I still have some blank spaces left so i gotta figure out a way to fill them out. Here, since the pose where he's all curled up was inspired by the TDIPUD light novel, i drew him as a "corpse" in a pool of blood, and contrasted it with some nice flowery-ish patterns and swirls that sort of come from within that bloody mess ( someone also mentioned it looks like a womb which I found very interesting as well ). The cats also helped fill out the space. On the left side, i added that swirly black sun that drips into three squares that gradually fill up with straight blackness and raindrops falling below inspired by the "a conviction that the sun will never rise again" line. I don't think I should go into detail with the symbolism cause it's pretty obvious and not that deep so i won't but yeah, and that's my BG all filled up!

I do this with most of my BGs, it's mostly just abstract shapes; I'm very fixated on making the overall composition look okay and for the piece to send a message ( most of the time ), so i don't think of backgrounds as a separate entity, they are part of an already existing idea, generally speaking.

This kinda turned into a composition discussion midway......... sorry about that....... To be completely honest with you, I have plenty of BG ideas, they kinda just spawn in my brain so i'm not exactly lacking in that department. Having to draw them and finding refs is the hard part for me

[adobe-outdesign]

could you review some of the neopets as animals outfits, like the fennec kacheek, red panda vandagyre, and cockatiel pteri? (those are examples, choose whichever you like!) thank you <3

(Note: I included a random selection of outfits in this post, but feel free to send in asks if anyone wants to see a specific outfit I didn't cover.)

I'll be honest, I'm personally not super big on the "outfit that resembles a real-world animal" trend. First, I play Neopets for the cool fantasy creatures; even the most true-to-life Neopets species have some pretty fantastical colors. I feel like making pets just look exactly like actual animals kind of defeats the purpose of them being Neopets. I get why people would like it and I'm not saying it's bad; it's just not my thing.

Also, the other reason I'm not always big on these outfits is that a lot of Neopets have colours that already resemble real animal patterns. Not only do the outfits blur the colour/customization line quite a bit, but usually I like the colour ones much more, as they keep the actual design of the Neopets in place and just change the patterns and colors, rather than covering up the fun fantasy elements. This also helps them avoid the uncanny valley effect, which I talk about more below.

Also I might be over thinking this but who is making these outfits. None of these animals seem to exist in-universe as far as we're aware. what are the shopkeepers basing these off of. the colours at least have a magic as an excuse

Examples that I think are okay:

Feathery Pteri Outfit: This one's nice! I like the layered patterning on the wings and the high-contrast colors. Most, though, I like that this sticks fairly close to the actual pet, mostly just changing up the tail shape. This almost could've been a paintbrush colour, but then again what colour is up in the air.

(Side note: the eye clipping over the beak is a rendering issue? I think?)

Bouncing Zafara: This one definitely strays farther from the actual pet than the Pteri, but it's a fitting animal choice and it doesn't fall into the uncanny valley, which is all I care about. The body is still somewhat recognizable as a Zafara in terms of shape, and the Miamouse as the joey is super cute.

Freshwater Lenny: Kind of the same case as the Zafara; not super one-to-one with the actual pet, but it's still recognizable as a Lenny and isn't too uncanny. The legs are a particularly nice touch, actually changing the pose to look more heron-like (though they are also the part that strays dangerously into being too detailed).

Please don't:

Adorable Kacheek: Sorry to the fans of this one, but this outfit just resides deep within the uncanny valley to me—like it's a mascot suit instead of just a normal pet. The artstyle is way off from Neopets, looking much more Subeta-ish (except Subeta's art usually isn't so off putting). It's not a bad artstyle, mind you, it's just not very Neopets-ish. I also feel like a fennec fox was also a bad pick for this one, as it's basically unrecognizable as a Kacheek at all.

Feathered Eyrie: Speaking of the uncanny valley, this is another pet that lands squarely there due to having entirely too much detail in the shading and weirdly realistic fur textures. It also just doesn't look very good aesthetically—the beak doesn't fit the face, and the wings are an absolute trainwreck (not only is the perspective wrong, but the left wing is coming from the middle of its back!). On the plus side, you'd be hard pressed to not recognize this as an Eyrie, and it's a fantasy creature instead of a regular animal, so I guess that's something?

Furry Meerca: Hmm... no. This one also suffers from an overly-detailed artstyle and way too much realism, which is especially jarring when placed on top of the Meerca's heavily stylized body shape, resulting in a perfectly round animal with hyper-realistic animal eyes. It's also particularly bothersome because we already had a chipmunk Meerca design in the form of the striped Meerca colour, which is just this but less soul-haunting:

Which is what I meant at the beginning when I was talking about colours vs outfits. The colour is a Meerca that looks like a chipmunk; the outfit is a chipmunk that looks like a Meerca. Big difference.

[another-random-paradise]

Hiii! I saw ur account is open to Twisted Wonderland requests and I do hope I can make one request!

Maybe a request for Mozus Trein with an S/O(ofc they’re the same age as him) that is shy and timid but was once an outgoing teenager when they were young and how the two bond now that they’re seeing each other again with both of them knowing that both of them obviously had a crush on one another since teens but separated due to familial circumstances(def didn’t inspire this by an oc of mine, hahahahahaaa-)

Thank you so much for the request!! and yeahh, many of my ideas are based of OC's- Since you didn't specify, I decided to write this as a short fic, since i've been wanting to write one for quite a while now, i hope that's okay!! (tbh I'm so used to writing headcanons, that if you really want to, you can also read this as headcanons) Hope you enjoy :) Also, i refuse to take Treins girl dad privilege's so i simply turned his marriage into an arranged one-

---------------------------------------------------------

Trein and Childhood crush!Reader reconnecting after years apart

Characters: Mozus Trein

Format: Short Fic (972 words)

Warnings: None that i can think of

Trein was rummaging through some old stuff, with his wife's death a few years ago, he decided to declutter, when he stumbled upon an old box. An old box, filled with memories of his time as a teenager. Many of them included pictures of the two of you, how could they not, when he used to spend most of his time wishing he could spend every waking moment with you. Trein has always been an orderly person, perhaps that's why he loved you, you and your outgoing personality, never shying away from anything. If he was completely honest, he still does, and there is nothing he regrets more, than not marrying you.

He still remembers the day like it was yesterday, when his parents told him he was to be married, to a woman he didn't even know, once they were both eighteen, how it broke his heart. Of course, it had to be the same day he planned to finally confess to you. So, when you met him at your favorite spot, instead of a carefully planned speech about his feeling, one he knows he would have messed up anyways at the sight of your smile, he blurted out that he's engaged. He had never felt more pain, than as he watched your heart break, seeing the pain in your eyes. He only wishes that you were able to see how it hurt him too. And the two of you coming from a generation before phones existed made it hard to stay connected, so, in the end you lost sight of each other. Oh, how he wished he could have rebelled against his parents, he still wishes he did, but he always followed the rules his parents set, believing they only wanted the best for him, so how was he supposed to just stop? He is truly happy with his life, there is nothing he loves more than his daughters, and yet to this day, you have never left his heart. To this day, it wishes it were you with who he lived this life.

And it seems that his wishes were heard for once, as the doorbell rings. He is confused at first, the person at the door seems familiar to him, he just can't quite pin point it, at least not until the familiar stranger speaks-

"Long time no see, Mozus"

No matter how much you've changed over the years, the way you speak his name as you smile at him is something that remained the same, something that he could never forget. He invited you inside, the shock of seeing you so long painted clearly on his face. The two of you sit down at the coffee table, as he hands you your drink. He has many questions, and he can only assume you do too. It doesn't take long before you two are talking as openly as you did when you were younger, reminiscing about the older days, discussing what each of you did during your time apart; he tells much about his lovely daughters, talking about each of them as if they're a piece of art, before asking what you did during your time away. He noticed rather quickly that you spoke much quieter than when you were young, holding yourself back during stories instead of making them as big as can be, where he wouldn't have gotten a word in when you were young, he was now leading the conversation. But he couldn't say that he minded, it was only normal to change with age, and he's afraid his aged body wouldn't be able to handle the adventures attitude you had as a child; the change is welcomed with open arms, just as you welcomed everything that changed about him. The conversation lasts well into the night, it is already dark out when the two of you finally become tired. Being the gentleman that he is, and always was, he invites you to stay the night, perhaps even a few more if you have travelled from afar to meet him. As he goes to sleep, he feels a warmth he hasn't felt in years.

It was an early morning, when the sound of meows awoke you. It seems it didn't take long for Lucius to warm up to you either, as the tuxedo cat lets you pet him, albeit only for a few minutes, before elegantly walking of to eat breakfast. Deciding to follow suit, you get dressed and make your way to the kitchen. When you arrive, Trein is already making breakfast, wishing you a good morning, before returning his attention to the eggs. He is already dressed to a tee, you can only imagine how early he woke up. You decide to help him, carrying the finished food to the table, as you started to properly wake up. "Didn't you say you work at a college? don't you have to go to work soon?" you ask as you both sit down at the table. "Luckily, you visited me during the holidays, I have three more weeks before i need to return to work." He responded, a smile on his face. Very quickly the two of you made plans for these weeks, to reconnect.

And reconnect you did. Your plans very quickly turned into dates, as the two of you realize that neither of you ever got over your feelings. You finally do all, or rather all the things that you can do at your age, that you wanted to do as teenagers. Eventually, you even meet his daughters, who luckily seem to like you. They know their parents marriage was arranged, and seeing their father happy with you, makes them happy.

It may have taken many, many years of longing, but it seems that, in the end, fate still had a happy ending in mind for the two of you.

Very fun to write, very happy that i finally had the chance to try and write a proper fic!!

Feedback is welcomed, just be nice please :)

Hope you have a nice day/night!

[redswaberkez]

You said you could write a whole essay on the design choses of P1 and P2, could I see that? 👀

time has come and so have i 😈 (and english isnt englishing gonna use translator ahaha sry)

First, i wanted to express their difference between one of them is alive, which is p1, while the other is already dead man walking (p2) For i used p2 - cold tones, like a corpse , for p1 - warmer colour palette

and also them being blue coded bitch and red coded bitch. y'know)

speaking of p2. I like to portray him more dead than alive as i said before. he is pale cadaverous in colour with spreading acrocyanosis (blue fingers, nose and ears). because of this, his hands, his skin, his entire being are cold. don't even try to warm him up. it's useless. he shot himself and the gaping hole in his skull wont stop bleeding, and all his body functions have slowed down significantly. that's why the wound doesn't heal.

the racoon eyes symptom (reaaally dark circles under the eyes) and intraocular hemorrhage (which isn't there, just slightly red eyes instead) are appears in patients with skull fractures and i think gunshot wound also matches the description. also empty lifeless look in faded-green eyes.

p2's nose and goatee are more spikey and straight bc i feel him more sharp-shaped than p1. p2 is like an explosion havoc and spikes 💥💥💥 he WILL show with all his appearance that he is a thorn and dont touch him ot you are dead, BUT he isnt shy, or meek, or sissy and etc. it's hard NOT TO notice him. yes he IS dry, but he likes to annoy people by his existence and the bullet damaged his brains so this also will act up sometimes. Thats why his pose with gun is open with a maniacal smirk. He will shoot u for fun lmao. I gave him earrings and grown hair just bc i wanted to. no hidden meanings in there And honorable mention. his pin is dead too

P1 NOW

his palette is warmer because he is alive. fiery red hair gives an even more dangerous look (like a fly agaric). disterssed black nail polish bc he is the one who is listening to alt nu metal music. imo he would paint his nails. his eyes sparkle with hatred and madness if u look REAALY CLOOSE ((and same is on my the fiiirst art of him))

okay, we zoomed too close. Now you can see his asymmetrical glasses, they give him an even more absurd and virulent look. Something that acts on our subcortex of consciousness and tells us that something is wrong. (aaand i forgor abt p2's sunglasses ooop💀)

p1 appearance isnt too sharp-shaped bc for me. for me. his isnt an explosion like p2. p1 is a predator that will wait for you for HOURS. no sudden movements, everything is precisely calculated. His world is a havoc, but he is the one who will solve this problem. He wont spoil anything in seconds. thats why his posture is closed and strict as opposed to p2. u seee.. they are the opposites.... oooo

his gaze is heavy, he looks at everyone with disgust and distrust. medium-thick eyebrows only add heaviness, unlike p2, his eyebrows are thiiin. p1 is SICK of everyone's bullshit to be honest.

Turtleneck turtleneck... I just like turtlenecks and also character must have a wardrobe with different clothes in it, right? oh and ofc. their crosses. i explained it here

and for the ending AS I MENTIONED BEFOOOORE i gave p1 klayton's (the one w red mohawk) facial traits ON PURPOSE. but for p2... for him i unconsciously gave blue stahli's facial traits (pink one) and when i relized it it was kindaaa eye-opening SJDHFSKJD. circle is closed now. also check out their music its sooo sick i cant

[maykitz]

obviously i am by no means a professional or even a Good artist myself lol but as an art appreciator the entire ai thing just leaves me so unfazed because every ai piece i've seen so far had that exact same ultra smoothed stiff lifeless attempted-but-not-quite photorealistic look to it that i just don't find exciting at all. admittedly i don't go looking for ai art but i have seen quite a few (most of which were samey pin ups) and it's all just been like, okay. acknowledge but scroll past without much of a glance. it's like the fast food of art, and not the indulgent stuff either. the kind of image that, if i'm honest, is supremely uninteresting to me from a real person too. meanwhile every artist i've actually been interested in had a unique stylisation or fluidity or nonrealistic palette or interesting linework or memorable designs or storytelling or humour or what ever original spark in there that ai just doesn't even get close to. and i doubt it ever will because by nature it can only copy what already existed and in practice it's mainly trained and used for boring shit. i can understand the fears of career artists (although tbh the horses have left the barn on that one) but acting like ai threatens real people artistically or threatens some sort of integrity of art and going all crisis mode about it is like saying home-cooking is threatened because there's now a lot of boxes of cold mcdonalds fries on the ground outside. idk

[hope-bagels-for-life]

you gotta love when something like artfight of all fucking things starts putting in place absolute asinine rules such as:

all art that gets submitted must "clearly display effort" ( saw someone say this rule has been there for forever but that doesn't make it any less asinine )

"premade brushes are okay but excessive use and it needs to be filtered as no background".

not to mention the new guidelines they input about suggestive content. theyre not just tweaking the filtering system, no no no, theyre outright banning and heavily filtering fetish gear " such as collars " but lingerie is allowed! as long as it's lightly filtered of course and if it's not "portrayed in a suggestive light" which, lets be honest, how the fuck are you going to know if it was meant to be suggestive or not??? how do you monitor this???? and how are you going to allow literal lingerie, but a collar is crossing the line?

exaggerated proportions also fall under potential fetishes?? i vaguely understand where this is coming from but again. how do you monitor this? how do you decide when it becomes a fetish? what about extreme cartoonists??

not only are these rules currently extremely vague on the website, but this is going to curb a lot of different groups of artists. how do you decide whats not clearly displaying effort? what about younger, beginner artists? will their work be taken down just because someone else decides it's low effort?? not only does this feel really mean spirited but it feels vaguely ableist, too. you can't tell how much efforts been put into something just by looking at it. what you perceive as a simple doodle could take someone else hours.

how are you going to run a website/event thats meant to encourage all kinds of artists to join and have fun and then potentially curb half your audience? how are you planning to monitor this? how do you plan on deciding what's low effort, how are you going to enforce the new rules regarding kinks/fetishes without alienating your userbase and without offending people when you will absolutely cast the wrong judgement?? there were already filters in place to keep people from seeing content they dont want to see. it didn't need to get more specific than what's already in place and more things certainly didn't need to be outright banned.

i get that it's a site with a huge userbase and filtering and monitoring is necessary but none of this was needed. no-one wants to draw and be worried about whether or not their art submission will be taken down because someone decided it was low effort, or because the character is wearing a plain collar, or god forbid their tits might be a bit bigger than average.

crazy too how these changes were made and added into the complete bottom of their announcement about the theme reveal too btw. no mention of these changes in the title of their news post either, btw. they just shoved it in the very bottom of the post when, lets be honest, most people will see when the theme reveal is and back out of the post. they're not going to assume anything else too important or grand is being put down all the way at the bottom with no clear indication that hey, you might have to completely re-filter your already existing characters on the site ( when again, the new rules and guidelines are really fucking vague!! ) a lot of people also do not seem to be aware that these big changes that could potentially get their attacks or art removed have taken.

idk. people have put it more eloquently in the comments of the art fight news post, but this feels extremely scummy.

[yogorlhilanne]

BREAKING MY SILENCE

I'll probably make this on Twitter also, though I doubt it'll really attract (on both Tumblr and Twitter) many people but OH MY FUCKING GOD. THIS NEEDS TO BE SAID.

I know OTHER people have probably talked about this (or maybe not)— plus the Harry Potter fandom is probably dead at this point or maybe still thriving somehow in ways I don't really know but LILY FUCKING EVANS MADE THE WORST DECISION POSSIBLE AFTER ENDING HER AND SEVERUS' FRIENDSHIP.

Look, she was like practically a minor character yet was kinda important to the plot but honestly she deserved to be with someone better than James Potter. No hate or dumb reasons are gonna be thrown at Lily but girlie was dumb as fuck entirely for having a kid with her friends bully who made his school life HELL.

It's been on my mind the more I think about Severus' past and James and Sirius bullying.

I genuinely like Sirius as a character but bro cannot be bullying Snape, like sweetheart we know your an inbred rich child but that doesn't mean you should bully someone who's the LITERAL opposite of you. (expect for neglect and abuse)

James was a fucking jock.

LISTEN & IMAGINE. A friend of yours who you've know for maybe about 6 years calls you the worst insult ever, in a fit of rage, you break the friendship and ofc, leave. That's genuinely completely understandable to one who has common sense.

BUT THEN, after that, you go on to marry your ex friends bully that HAS MADE YOUR EX FRIENDS SCHOOL LIFE MISERABLE AND SHITTY.

Sure it's COMPLETELY understandable how Lily can be mad at Severus for calling her a "Mudblood" because that's a canonical slur against muggle-borns, really, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN SHE HAD TO MARRY SEVERUS' BULLY WHO BULLIED HIM RELENTLESSLY, and that's so fucked up in many ways. And YES. As far as I'm concerned, Lily seemed to only like James because:

He wasn't strongly associated with the dark arts

Wasn't associated with future death eaters/followers of Voldemort

I don't think it's confirmed how long James and Sirius had been bullying Snape but it makes me SOOOO fucking livid that like... HOW THE FUCK DO YOU ACTUALLY LIKE A CHARACTER IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THEIR FLAWS AND HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS? (*Cough Cough* James and Sirius "fans" *COUGH*)

If I'm being 100% honest, I've never seen anyone say "James/Sirius is better than Snape" ever and not even ONCE in my lifetime being in the Harry Potter fandom.

There's really not much on Snape's past during his school years but in all honesty, Lily Evans was dumb as fuck for dating her friends bully like okay, MAYBE James and Sirius did take accountability at one point and confessed to Lily. JUST MAYBE. But I don't remember nor heard anyone saying that was true nor JK Rowling saying anything about them taking accountability.

AND I DON'T THINK THEY EVEN APOLOGIZED TO SNAPE EITHER. (Maybe regretted it but that's not taking accountability for one's actions, perhaps Remus did but never heard anyone saying that was true either because it's probably just a headcannon and Remus probably didn't even bully Snape at all)

Lily Evans... I love you and all and I don't hate you... You just disappointed me.

LIKE IF I WERE IN LILY'S SHOES I WOULDN'T GET TOGETHER WITH JAMES BECAUSE MY FRIEND HAS ALREADY LIVED A HARD LIFE AT HOME, (she probably didn't know but I would've ask Snape what his home life was and would've saved him unlike Lily) AND JUST BECAUSE SNAPE WASN'T RICH NOR GOOD LOOKING DOESN'T MEAN YOU GET A FUCKING PRIVILEGE TO BULL HIM. OR JUST BECAUSE HE FUCKING EXISTED.

Also I get that Lily was mainly mad at Severus because of his Slytherin friends and that he called her a "Mudblood" BUT IGNORING THE FACT HE GOT BULLIED RELENTLESSLY, NEARLY DIED TO A "prank", LIVED IN AN ABUSIVE HOUSEHOLD (she didn't knew that but imma just put it there anyways) AND THAT HE HAD HOPED THAT HOGWARTS WOULD HAVE MADE HIS LIFE BETTER BUT IT GOT DESTROYED, IS UTTERLY DISAPPOINTING AND FLABBERGASTING TO ME.

No hate to people who genuinely ship James and Lily (love the fanarts) but Lily deserved better than that. Perhaps she also knew about the werewolf incident but if I were her I would've BITCH SLAPPED Sirius to remind him of being inbred and stupid as fuck BECAUSE WHAT????

A prank—as far as I acknowledge, shouldn't put someone's life in DANGER and in a LIFE OR DEATH situation SIRIUS 'INBRED' BLACK.

I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYONE YET TALKING ABOUT THIS AND SHITTING ON LILY (for being flawed ofc yet dumb as shit). Lily in general is a good person but she had flaws that needed to be talked about and HERE I AM.

James & Sirius bullying was ignorant and really unjustifiable, Peter and Remus should've known better but I don't ENTIRELY blame them but they should've known fucking better. Lily WAS understandable up until she got together with James and I kinda wanna bitch slap her right now.

Honestly if I were Lily, I genuinely would've gotten together with Snape and ACTUALLY helped him like any person with COMMON SENSE would do.

And to end it off with a cherry on top. James and Sirius bullying Snape should be talked about more and we should shit on them for their flaws yet ignorance actions that they didn't even try to take any single OUNCE of accountability for. Just because you learned from your bullying mistakes and "becoming a more mature and better person" isn't justifiable and shows your blind fucking ignorance to your affects of bullying to other people you dumb dipshit fucker.

(Will possibly edit this again but I'll post this now bc it's been in my drafts for some time and it NEEDS to be sent out rn)

[florelia12]

do you have a fancast? like perfect irl people that remind you of florelia (and the rest) not necessarily actors but people in general. tbh it's hard to find the perfect tan girl with green eyes. sometimes it's easy when people aren't in your ear telling you flora is latina bc she might be but it's hard to find latinas with flora's physical traits. and helia to me he's not asian he just has cat eyes. though I have to admit I like it when in fics people say helia and musa are cousins.

okay there is a lot to unpack here.

First of all, no, I actually don't have the perfect fancast for Florelia or any of the Winx characters really and its not something that really bothers me. I don't want a live action (not everything needs to be made live) or a reboot, I want them to fix the mistakes they've done in the actual show and bring back quality content.

Secondly, I am that person in your ear telling you Flora is a Latina and that Helia is Asian.

Not because she might be, but because it has been explicitly said since forever that Iginio was inspired by Jennifer Lopez when creating Flora. The WHOLE POINT of the characters Musa, Aisha and Flora being designed the way they were was to include diversity.

The proof is coming out with the original designs for Musa and Flora where they are both clearly white. What other reason would Iginio have to change their features and the colors of their skin if it wasn't to be inclusive? And what is wrong with him doing that?

When people say Flora is Latina they obviously don't mean she is a Latina, Puerto Rican girl living in an alien world. Her character is inspired by a Latina woman. Hence, her features and skintone (when doing art or fancast) and possible stereotypes (when making hcs or writing fanfics) need to be taken into account.

When you say it's hard to find Latina's with Flora's traits, it's not because Flora's not a Latina or girls who look like her don't exist, it's because there is not enough representation of darker skinned Latinas. THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT. Especially if you're looking for it on pinterest, like you search girlhood in there and all you get are white girls?? Where the hell are the rest of us?

Also Flora having green eyes is directly related to the fact that she is the Fairy of Nature (they literally glow when she powers up) but that doesn't mean Latinas can't have green eyes. One simple google search will show you.

You can argue for Linphea since it doesn't look like Puerto Rico but it also a realm of Nature and that doesn't leave as much room for them to work with as they got to with Musa and Melody (even that has its issues of lumping in all the different cultures) and lets be honest we barely got a glimpse into Linphea's actual culture as it was.

Then we have Helia. Yes his character wasn't explicitly said to be Asian. But his design doesn't leave much doubt, especially the moment someone points it out. His features are inspired by East Asian features, he shares similar design characteristics to Musa and other asian characters.

The fact that you said he just has cat eyes already proves how you view Asian features. And also the fact that you identify he has Asian features but don't want him to be Asian is because of whatever prejudice you are holding onto.

The joke is so fucking old, it was never, ever funny.

Also I want to pose this question to everyone, not this person since they didn't say they think he's white. Why is it that if a light-skinned character's inspiration isn't explicitly stated, they are just by default white?

And anyone pointing out the possibility of them being otherwise makes people think they have the free-reign to just to ignore because the character is light-skinned?

When Helia's background is left for interpretation it makes more sense to explore the hundreds of Asian cultures that exist instead of ignoring all of that and jumping straight to him being white. Like there are East Asians and there are Southeast Asians and no these aren't just two cultures they are a number of different countries with different cultures.

I am South Asian. No, I do not look like Helia or Musa, I look like Nabu.

Hell, I thought Flora was Indian and Helia was white when I was NINE. It took one person casually pointing out "hey they're not" to realise oh ya they actually aren't.

I don't know if this was a targeted ask because I have posted in this account about how i find the Helia and Musa being cousins hcs uncomfortable.

But yeah, I find it uncomfortable because where I'm from (I can't speak for every single Asian country though I don't think this is an isolated experience) it is a joke to ask any new Asian person you meet if they are related or if they know this other Asian person that you know. Again it's an old joke, it's not that funny, it never was.

It is also a joke to say yeah all Asians are related, or they all cousins. It may seem harmless, but I'd say it has deeper roots of incest accusations/stereotypes like marrying your cousin or whatever. Even if I'm wrong about that (if i am please someone who is a poc correct me, white people shut up), it's still a stereotype you are perpetuating. (and no I'm not just talking about older fanfics that were probably written by 11 year olds where everyone is always related, i'm talking about the ones written by adults.)

Why is it never Sky and Stella being cousins? Or Riven and Tecna? They have similar features. Why not them? Why is it always only Musa and Helia?

But that just brings us back to you saying you don't think Helia's Asian. Musa is clearly Asian (if you're going to say she's not then you are just plain ignorant). But, Musa's Asian and her "cousin" Helia just has cat eyes ???If you like that hc then why can’t you accept that he is clearly Asian?

Before white people get defensive about poc calling out racism that you claim isn't intentional, stop and think WHY. It has been said time and time again, racism is not always inherently overt or 100% intentional. It can come out in even as something as 'small' or 'not as serious' as cartoon characters. But it is serious because we poc exist in these spaces too.

Also you can be POC and still be racist. Funnily enough, that was the very first direct interaction of racism I experienced in this fandom. That also does not mean white people get a pass (it's sad I even have to add that as a disclaimer)

I don't even know if you bothered to read this far, but I hope you've learned something.