#rude as hell of him

[whaliiwatching]

How DO you think universe signatures work? I don't think I've seen many theories or discussions on it but I also haven't been looking for them either

HOHOOO UNIVERSE SIGNATURES. ok. as i was rewatching scenes so i could write this, my theories fucking blinked out of existence :) there is as much consistency to universe signatures as there is to the atsv timeline.

alright lets see how incoherent this gets

btw i’m not using the word ‘dimension.’ incorrect scientific terminology in an animated spider man comic movie franchise about the multiverse? couldn’t be me. i already let them keep their holograms*

itsv came out in 2018 and is reported to have taken four years to make. in 2014, we couldn’t have made atsv; the technology hadn’t been developed, because there wasn’t yet a movie to demand it. (usually when the question comes up during production, the team has to invent an answer. like animating violet’s hair in the incredibles in 2004, or water in finding nemo in 2003, or fur for sully in the monsters inc movies, or the entire animation process of 2019’s klaus, or reflections on the cars in cars—) this, combined with itsv being set entirely in miles’s own universe, means that the b team’s (noir, peni, ham) universe signatures changing between universes can be attributed to 1. less worldbuilding than atsv and 2. lack of technological ability in 2014-2018 (no diss to the og animators obviously, itsv is fucking gorgeous)

but that’s a boring doylist analysis. i wonder if we can get watsonian. atsv, which was likely produced from 2017 or so to 2023, explores four more universes, rather than sticking to miles’s. surely it’ll have more answers!

i went through the entire movie to see what changes. not gonna bore y’all with a scene to scene analysis, so i’ll summarize: the only person who substantially differs between dimensions is gwen (abstract in E-65, solid but still pastel in E-1610, slightly more painted in E-50101, abstract again in E-928 during emotional scenes). hobie’s collage changes to match the tone or color palette of the universe around him, but doesn’t take on its signature. other than that, the only effect any universe has on every character is with its light, and the only effect to overpower a universe signature is a portal.

let’s pretend that in an infinite multiverse, such a thing as a standard can be set, and that standard is Comic Style. comparing it to itsv, where peni and ham gained depth from previously 2d-esque universes, it seems as though some things don’t change—general color palette and extreme stylistic divergences from the aforementioned standard, eg when atsv peni is styled in 2d—and some change universally—like universe-specific volumetric light, eg in itsv when E-1610’s halftone-style light gives peni depth and in atsv when E-928’s holographic-style light does the same in a different way.

then portals. they distort the space around them in their style of origin: organic portals always have miles’s universe’s signature because that’s where they were born; any portal opened with an E-928 watch has miguel’s orange holographic hexagon, no matter who uses them or where they open to; portals opened with hobie’s homemade watch are always collage, though they take on the color palette of the universe they’re opened in. that means portals have to be watch-specific, prolly based on the materials’ universe of origin, but in that case, hobie’s would look a lot like miguel’s since he harvested most if not all of the parts from E-928. so it has to be specific to either the person who made it or the universe it was made in.

but neither of those make sense! the degree of separation from universe/person that apparently applies to the watches doesn’t apply to items left in other universes. E-1610’s rubik’s cube retains its color and volume in noir’s universe, but the sweater gwen leaves on miles’s bed isn’t abstract, and the shoes she nicked from E-138 aren’t scrappy. even hobie’s watch is rendered in strangely crisp 3d, brightly colored and noticeably not collage.

and of course, both universe-specific light theory and portals-overpower-all theory aren’t totally consistent. hobie’s only properly illuminated when he’s in his base colors. but maybe that’s a quirk of atsv? he doesn’t glitch like paper in the radius of a portal—renaissance vulture didn’t glitch like paper either, maybe that’s just how glitching works! maybe it’s always that tv-signal-bright blocky mess! maybe there is one concrete rule in all this!!!!!

noir’s universe (during his intro scene, at least) comprises of three solid colors: black, light gray, and white, and volume/shadow is communicated through the intensity of halftone used. in itsv and in atsv he’s always in black and white, no matter the color of the light around him. he’s also the ONLY CHARACTER who glitches differently. noir breaks down in black and white!! when the team is lit up by gwen’s portal in atsv’s final scene he’s the only one not distorting in color!!!!! what the fuck man!!!!!!!!!

there isn’t one cohesive multiversal rule for how universe signatures act and interact with different universes, much as i’d love to have one. it raises too many questions and doesn’t give quite enough evidence to study. the closest i can theorize is color/style generally sticks and lighting/spatial physics generally doesn’t, and since that’s relatively simple, i’ll use it. gwen gets her photo-booth-app watercolors and peni/pav/ham/noir get just a little more rendered.

theories i have seen floating around that i also enjoy

gwen’s universe requires people to be in tune with it, to reflect their emotions—implying that the floaty abstract art during her scene with her father is diagetic. so when she’s not in her universe, she’s not like her universe.

hobie’s universe signature necessitates that he doesn’t conform to any other style

on that note, so would ham’s, because cartoon logic defeats reality logic

hope you enjoyed!! or at least were amused by my suffering <3

*do not get me started on holograms

[iknowicanbutwhy]

Hello, do-not-make-Mirabelle-angry gang, I present to you @ksenya-and-the-artistic-cucumber being really funny with scattered context

[anoant-haikyuu-dump]

NO FUKUNAGA, DONT DRINK THE GENDER FLUID, NOOOO

[cooperative-testing-initiative]

Kind of a redraw

[mrmeepsmadmind]

starscream has normal reactions

no starscream shall escape being haunted by bumblebee and vice versa. primus said thou shalt be married !!!

[ace-and-the-rpg-horrors]

absolutely crazy to me that there's people who genuinely think that Crystal is the meaner one when it comes to her arguments with Edwin

at one point, my girl opened up about how she felt trapped by the demon who had violated her, and Mr Edwin Payne over here was like, "well, now you know how we feel!1!1!" in regards to the poor lass just having to tag along with them because she's got no memories, no clue who she is, and nowhere to go. be fucking for real

[callme-l]

Everyone is slepping on the possibility of Shinichi and Aoko friendship and I REFUSE to let that slide

[intotheelliwoods]

Here to announce that I for one love the future design for donnie in the comic ✋🥺

[a-most-beloved-fool]

absolute travesty that there are NO royalty-au spirk fics centered around the overwhelming amounts of devotion and loyalty between the two. WHERE are my fics with Spock on his knees pledging fealty to King James Kirk????

they're all about princes falling in love and arraigned marriages and political intrigue and YES that's GREAT and i do love them, but what if i want kings???

I need a fic about the bond between a king and his loyal advisor-slash-nobleman which has been slowly developing for DECADES before anyone involved gets their shit together, or a fic where Spock has practically taken on the role of King Consort before either of them notice simply because Kirk trusts him so much, or a fic where it slowly becomes apparent that King Kirk's loyalty is first to his kingdom, yes, but second to Spock alone, and he will go to war for him.

I need crazy stupid devotion, that's what I need!!!!

[rollforjackass]

look we all know that aziraphale is mr. fiddlesticks-not-fuck and dearie-me-good-gracious, but my favorite thing about him is that there is also, at all times, a fuck-shit little bastard inside of him just begging to be let loose. he's petty, he's passive aggressive, and the Second he decides that playing by heaven's rules isn't going to help anybody, it's all "i know who you are, you idiot!" and "you STUPID man" and "FUCK"

[dykedvonte]

See like the only reason I think the others seriously believed Curly may have crashed the ship is cause he basically had a 30 Rock "I lie to myself" momentary breakdown in front of them after one too many mocktails and like completely forgot about it.

[foxy-kitsune]

oh i'm down bad for him like it's actually not funny anymore

[blue-eli]

Skuld in quantum design :)

[romanticatheartt]

Lucien's color skin

Recently, I've been seeing discourse around Lucien's heritage/skin color and it seems artists in this fandom can't agree on one skin color and feature (like archeron sisters' hair color💀) so I wanted to give my two cent on this, based on canon and sjm herself.

Feature:

So back in 2017, which is the year acowar was released, Charlie Bowater was commissioned by sjm to do a coloring book for acowar, mentioned in this post that sjm imagined Helion as Persian/Iranian.

And normally Persian feature contain strong, straight nose and most of the time with a bump at the top of the nose, definitely tick, black brows (unibrow are a symbol for Iranians and if you look at their traditional art style most of women and men have unibrow), and cat like eyes or as Charlie said tilted eyes.

I've seen so many artist draw Helion/Lucien with Black feature, which are not the same as Persian feature.

note: In these arts, there is a huge chance that they have the wrong skin color due to the belief that lighter skin color, the better or more beautiful. The classic racism... This idea isn't that potent in Iran anymore.

This is what Helion looks like based on that post and how sjm pictured him:

Thick brows and strong nose. It was also mentioned in the books that he uses kohl for his eyes which imo gave him away as middle-eastern.

Skin color:

Now this is what we have on Helion's skin color in acowar ~ chapter 43:

A golden cuff of an upright serpent encircled one powerful bicep, offsetting his near-glowing dark skin, and a radiant crown of golden spikes—the rays of the sun, I realized—glistened atop his onyx hair.

Acosf ~ chapter 41:

His dark brown skin gleamed over the strong muscles of his bare thighs and legs, ... ... and the spiked golden crown atop his shoulder-length black hair.

And for Lucien which we're gonna use the description in acowar ~ chapter 47 and not the one in acotar since sjm has retcon it:

Look at him. The nose is the same, the smile. The voice. Even Lucien’s skin is darker than his brothers’. A golden brown compared to their pale coloring.

Let's see Persian's skin range color:

Helion being dark skinned can mean many range of skin color. But sjm saying he is a middle eastern, it narrows down his skin color pretty well.

White-passing?

I also wanted to address why he's not white-passing since there's no such thing as white-passing. Even if Lucien's skin were white as paper his feature would've been pretty obvious. Do you call a black person who has Albinism, white or they're white-passing? It is clear that they have black parents/heritage but because of their condition their skin might not be the same dark skin as their parents.

The same can be said about Lucien. If his skin was the same as his brothers', his face would've betray him anyway but still sjm retcon it and turned his skin to golden brown. All the more reason that Beron is aware of him not being is blood son.

note: people are free to have their own interpretations ofc but I tried to prove this based on everything we have at hand :)

[waitineedaname]

I love that xie lian is generally pretty outwardly polite even if he's rude in his head, but there are two people who he will just be bluntly rude to, and that's the person who's been the biggest source of traumatic torment in his whole life, and his shitty cousin

[qoldenskies]

are dms allowed instead of asks to talk to you (just chat)? or is that just mutuals /genq

its only open for mutuals for now! just out of worry of getting anything rude (i have already gotten a few aggressive asks before lmao) + im very easily overwhelmed and would rather stick to a small pool of people at the moment