#she's just such a cryptic and vague character that literally no one but this obscure group knows what her parents were like

[mangotelevision]

Okay so I think I'm pretty solid on my Katelyn backstory for my rewrite so I figured I'd share it. I say pretty solid and I'll probably edit it or do something funky with it in like a week but here you go

I was really torn on wether or not I wanted to give Katelyn the menphia relic and I'm still not positive about it but here's what I've got so far. Okay so this really out there and all that but it ties Elizabeth with hyria and the Demon Warlock so I think it's pretty cool

Liz in my rewrite is a witch that trained under Hyria during the times of Irene, something idk the full thing yet but Irene was looking for people to wield her newly made relics and because Liz was the apprentice of hyria she was top of that list, but because she was friends with Micheal/the demon warlock she wasn't given the relic and instead it was menphia. some tai lung and master shifu type shit breaks out, her and hyria get into this big fight about how Elizabeth didn't deserve the relic and it's this whole big thing

This is the event that broke the relic that was used for the jury, this is also how Liz was put into the other dimension with her ally Micheal

Years later something happened that reopened the portal, I haven't decided what yet, but Liz and Micheal are free they go and cause some chaos, this is where Travis and Katelyn come into play. They still don't meet until season two, but their stories are somewhat similar

Katelyn is Elizabeth's attempt at making the perfect host for the relic, the training until her bones broke and all that, the constant use of fire magic that burned her from the inside out kind of stuff. Erik has fire magic and Liz is a witch from the human wyvern war, so she was really hard on Katelyn and all the training stuff because she wants Katelyn to wield the relic to spite hyria and the dead divine warriors who started the war that killed her wyvern friends

It never happens, hyria finds out about the Katelyn training and the magic experiments and fights liz again, this time putting her in the hands of the elves so they can keep an eye on her and keep her away from her children

Katelyn is sent to her father but stuff happens Liz escapes and goes after Katelyn again, the house gets burned down, Liz wants to fill Katelyn with rage a fire her own harsh training hasn't been able to do, to help her wield the fury relic, she sets the house on fire effectively killing everyone and making Katelyn believe it was all her fault and all that, really just giving this kid more trauma then what she needs

(later you find out Kasey's alive and working for the king of tula but that's not until season three)

Garte was already sent a letter by Erik to ask to train Katelyn to use her magic for good (this is before he gets manipulated by shad and Zane). This is also how Katelyn ends up in okhasis and this is the start of the jury trials, I also wanted her to know garroth and the romeave brothers before the events of season one, she doesn't know them well but at least they've interacted

I want her being a compatible relic holder to be a big plot point, she was trained from a very young age to be it's keeper but that just makes her not want to use it, it's this whole thing and I haven't made up my mind if I want her to use the relic or not yet, so yeah. I'm currently leaning towards Lucinda wielding the relic as of right now

This is all I got so I hope it was understandable, sorry I'm typing fast and don't feel like re-reading this. I'll probably elaborate on this whole trainwreck when it's not midnight

[knochengeier]

Drawfee Classpects???

I set a while ago to spitefully Classpect the Drawfee crew because they rightfully made fun of homestuck.

PREFACE:

I should state clearly that this is not meant as an attack on any members of Drawfee, and that I will be leaving out the majority of the negative aspects of the analysis. It should also be mentioned that this is more of an analysis of their online personas rather than who they actually are.

I did mention that I would leave out most negative things, but some things are core to a persons persona something they consciously and willingly put out into the world; again, this is not what I actually think these individuals are like, and is not a reflection of how I feel about them as a person. Things like "Julia doesn't know media" and "Jacob is the bad boy of Drawfee" that are explicitly stated as part of the persona is free game.

So, without further ado

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Caldwell, Prospitian Muse of Breath:

A Muse is the embodiment of and the inspiration to others through their aspect. The Muse class is one in a pair of incredibly powerful and rare classes known as the “master classes.”

Breath is the aspect of individuality, drive, optimism, and most importantly freedom.

As the Muse of Breath Caldwell inspires others to be themselves and be free, motivating creativity and driving others to pursue their dreams. Caldwells unbound optimism and resolve is a force to be reckoned with, in fact he so embodies freedom and enthusiastic ambition that he left Drawfee to pursue his own creative endeavors on the west coast.

Caldwell commands not only the forces of Skaia, but Skaia itself; his inspiring aura would be strong enough to end the war between Prospit and Derse in an instant, and even those that opposed him would find it hard to stay committed to their cause for long.

Caldwell would have the power to: a. control the wind, weather, and possibly even lightning by freeing the electrons from their atoms (though that might be an active ability) b. bypass any restraints, physical or otherwise, by any means necessary which c. Also means that he can most likely teleport at will and d. Probably turn incorporeal.

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Nathan, Prospitian Sylph of Hope:

A Sylph is a person who passively invites the healing and generation with their aspect.

Hope is the aspect of possibility, inspiration, and positivity.

As the Sylph of Hope Nathan is the light that helps others with his positivity and inspiration, not only does he help people but he inspires them to create their own hope. A Sylph of Hope would be able to see the potential for positivity in everything, and seek to be as amiable as possible, in turn helping others do the same.

Drawfee is as much a show about success as it is failure, it’s something that people can watch and say “These people make mistakes just like me” and they inspire hope for those down on their art.

One of the longest held of these humanizing aspects of the show is the apology at the end of every episode, which only became a thing after Nathan disliked a drawing so much that he was compelled to apologize, and it stuck. As much as that drawing might have sucked it inspired others who weren’t happy with their art to keep at it, and we are reminded of that after every episode.

Nathan is one of the first members of the crew to assure somebody that even if the piece didn’t come out the way they wanted, that it still looks good and is impressive nonetheless.

Nathan is the glue that holds this session together; with the presence of a prince, a bard, and a lord this session should have been doomed since the start, but Nathan’s pure awe inspiring hope promoted the best in everybody.

Nathan’s powers would include: a. A buff akin to bardic inspiration that could affect people to fight harder b. Healing abilities c. Probably an energy beam d. Manifestations of other’s hopes and dreams in the form of glowy specters like a JoJo stand.

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Julia, Dersite Lord of Void:

A Lord is the embodiment and commander of their aspect, not through inspiration but rather assimilation and domination.

Void is the aspect of confusion, secrets, and doubt.

As the Lord of Void Julia is the sovereign of secrets; unpredictable, unknowable, and the proprietor of unknown knowledge Julia uses her runes and studied knowledge to summon hideous abominations creatures from the void.

Void players have an inextricable link to the furthest ring; the furthest ring is the incomprehensible and unnavigable space that exists outside of the universe. The furthest ring acts as an impassable border between universes inhabited by massive eldritch gods called the “Horrorterrors.”

Julia would not only have the ability to traverse the furthest ring and visit other universes, but she would also have the ability to bend the horrorterrors to her will. She would be able to switch in and out of grimdark mode at will, and most likely would not be adversely effected.

Julias powers would most likely include: a. The creation and manipulation of black holes and the general desperation of physical matter b. The ability to turn invisible and probably teleport c. The ability to erase peoples memories and mute their senses, and d. The ability to speak, read, and write the language of the horrorterrors.

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Jacob, Prospitian Prince of Rage:

A Prince is a destroyer of and with their aspect.

Rage is the aspect of fate, defiance, and rejection.

As the Prince of Rage Jacob is the destroyer of and through failure, negativity, and rejection. Jacob forged his own path, he destroyed his fate as a writer and destroyed the limits and expectations for what an artist could be, and he got a job at college humor despite the odds.

Jacob is also, or was, a punk; a subculture that is predicated on the destruction of barriers through rebellion.

Even though he can use Rage for good he often doesn’t; he is well known for stirring discourse, his particular brand of Rage elicits anger and hatred thanks to his flaming hot takes.

He is also known for his infinite petty anger at dumb things ex. “see animals shouldn’t live under ground,” “lizards shouldn’t have to lick their eyes,” “muppet is short for man-puppet,” “mayo is food lube,” and “if god’s ever been mad at anything I’ve said, he hasn’t done shit about it.”

Jacob’s abilities would be: a. Becoming physically stronger the angrier he gets, or somebody gets at him b. The ability to create and control lightning c. The ability to pacify or remove the anger from somebody d. The ability to make people fear him or e. turn against their own allies.

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Karina, Dersite Knight of Heart:

A Knight is a person who precisely uses and exploits their aspect as a weapon or a tool.

Heart is the aspect of emotion, passion, and identity.

As a Knight of Heart Karina uses feelings as a weapon. Not only does Karina use her powers to literally use the emotions of her characters (see Schmidt and Nando) as a tool to effect others, but she also has deep passions like Neopets, Digimon, and Yugioh that she uses as a weapon to torment the Drawfee crew.

Karina is passionate about her identity, never missing a chance to mention any of her favorite things like Beelzemon, Seto Kaiba, catboys, or her Texan roots (Bucky’s).

Karina would have honed impulses, knowing when and where to act and how to do (or draw) something challenging. She also has the ability to hype up her friends, strengthening their resolve.

Karina’s abilities would be: a. She can create a powerful glowing weapon by materializing her soul b. She could find out the weaknesses, emotions, and insecurities of enemies c. She could split into multiple versions of herself to create a veritable army of clones, and d. Enter a soul form where she is basically impervious to most attacks.

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David, Dersite Maid of Time:

A Maid is a person who heals and regenerates their aspect or with their aspect.

Time is the aspect of machines, music, and endings.

As a Maid of Time David heals time; more often then not time is not an abstract thing, and the responsibility of time players is to keep the timelines in order and fix paradoxes.

David, as the chief editor for Drawfee is responsible for taking whatever dumb shit the crew gives them and edit it to make the video palatable.

David is also interested in theater (see “Artists Draw Posters for Musicals (They've Never Seen)” one of the only episodes in which they appear) which is related to time through music.

An interesting thing to note about Time is that it is often equated with heat, fire, and lava, something David has experience with, revealed in the episode “Drawing What We're Thankful For In 2019” in which Nathan depicts David with an overheating external drive (something that is also mechanical).

David could: a. Essentially freeze time, making moments last for hours b. Heal paradoxes in the time line c. Fix events so they go favorably, or d. Speed up time to heal a wound

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Tristan, Prospitian Mage of Light:

A Mage is a person who understands their aspect by experiencing it.

Light is the aspect of fortune, luck, relevance, and knowledge.

As a Mage of Light Tristan has an innate and personal understanding of lore; Tristan, through his interactions with pop culture, knows a lot about said things.

Mages often experience their aspect in a negative way, seen in the frequent possession of Tristan by the Lore Librarian, and his burden of knowledge about absurd and obscure facts about nerd media.

Tristan is one of the only people on the crew who understands how the game works and what the final boss’s deal is, but you know he’s going to be cryptic and vague about it because it’s funny. Tristan would have the uncanny ability to know what something is without having seen it before.

Tristans abilities are: a. Foresight, he can tell exactly when and where something will happen and manipulate them in his favor b. He can give people luck or take it away c. He can manipulate light and probably use it as a projectile, and d. Know exactly what has to be done at any moment.

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Willie, Dersite Bard of Blood:

A Bard is a person who invites the destruction of or with their aspect

Blood is the aspect of bonds, stability, and unity.

As the Bard of Blood Willie actuates the severing of bonds and the dissolving of stability.

Willie is a change maker, he breaks down the stable and familiar structure of the established group dynamics in Drawfee often in an antagonistic way; Willie is well known for his hatred for Jacob, and his very presence elicits the rage in both of them.

Videos in which Willie appears are marked by hostility, but through him new and interesting things get made.

Being a bard isn’t all bad, Bards of blood are not one sided; A bard of blood has the ability to destroy using the bonds they have, uniting a group of people under a cause to destroy something, like rallying the crew against Jacob.

Willie, like a lot of the crew, has a lot of buffing abilities; utilizing his bonds he can make others more powerful and fight harder than they could otherwise.

Willie’s abilities are: a. Control of literal blood b. Group sync, he acts as a conduit through which the coordination and damage output increases, and c. Dismantle, he can break the bonds of atoms and make physical matter crumble away.

[theconservativebrief]

So far, HBO’s Sharp Objects has meandered through its small-town murder mystery at a deceptively slow pace. On its face, this gives us time to pause and look around and enjoy the scenery: the bucolic locations, the flawless acting, the gorgeous imagery.

But as we’ve observed before, Sharp Objects is also giving us a much deeper interrogation below the surface into small-town politics, gender dynamics, and power structures. And while episode four, “Ripe,” may have seemed to be giving us very little by way of plot, it was actually imparting a parade float-load of information — just not in conventional ways.

At this point in our story, Amy Adams’s boozy journalist Camille is done with the initial pretense that took her back to her hometown. Her story on Wind Gap’s two young murder victims, Natalie and Ann, has been filed. Now, still on orders from her editor, she’s just hanging around looking for follow-ups — but for the time being, she’s doing very little writing and a lot of listening.

The amount of intense listening Camille does in Sharp Objects is overshadowed by the amount of blurry, disorienting remembering she does, which is again overshadowed by the amount of talking other people do.

But all these things should tell you something very important about how this show is unfolding not only its plot but its underlying agenda, which is to explore how women in repressive cultures like the small-town South learn to manipulate gender expectations and systems of power. As we saw in episode three, the men of Wind Gap are constantly underestimating the town’s women, but as episode four steadily unwinds, we start to understand that the women are using their own separate language to stay far ahead of the men.

The show itself gives viewers a huge tip-off. As Camille shows Detective Willis around town — exchanging information for information — she tells him that the way of Wind Gap is to “find out all your secrets and then use them against you later.” This sounds like a cliché, but much of the truth about what’s happening in Wind Gap is masquerading behind platitudes — like the idea that the women are all talk, too gentle and passive for murder.

In “Ripe,” what we start to see clearly, if we pay close attention, is that the passivity is a huge tool. When Camille listens to everything the other characters are saying, she’s stockpiling information, because she knows well that in Wind Gap, information is power — specifically, information about the past, and secrets.

And while Sharp Objects started out being full of literal sharp objects, in the forms of knives, pins, needles, and possibly even the venom of one prominent spider, as the series has gone on, we’ve seen less of those and more of the kinds of weapons that wound in different ways. In this episode, listening to what characters were saying and doing, I began to piece together that the real sharp objects of Wind Gap are all about knowledge and who controls it.

Camille’s ahead of me. She’s already figured out that if you want to know who killed Natalie and Ann, you have to start by figuring out who’s weaponizing what against whom.

Here’s a rough rundown of all the “clues” we know so far pertaining to the actual murders:

The murderer removed the teeth of both victims but staged the bodies in very different ways in different locations.

The local police chief is investigating out-of-town truckers and local migrants, but Willis believes the killer knew the victims and is someone local.

A local boy reported seeing a “woman in white” dragging Natalie into the woods.

Ann’s father, Bob Nash, is a suspect but suspects Natalie’s brother, John Keene, in part because of something suspicious he knows about what John was doing at the plant Camille’s mother owns.

There’s a probability Camille’s mother knows about this too, since she abruptly fired John shortly after she likely overheard this conversation between Bob and Camille.

John’s girlfriend, Ashley, noticed a blood spot under the couch at John’s house (where his mother had recently been seen reclining) and cleaned it up, presumably to protect him.

Natalie and Ann were frenemies — and as John tells Camille in this episode, her sister Amma was close to them and often kept them from fighting.

Natalie, Ann, and Amma have a connection to the creepy hunting shed in the middle of the woods that recurs in Camille’s memory. Though we’re not sure what this is all about yet, it’s clear this is bad news.

When you add all this up, it’s really not a lot. But when you add up everything else that’s happening, through either cryptic conversations or implied suggestions about the past, things that don’t ostensibly seem connected to the murders start to seem ominous.

The most blatant example we see of this in “Ripe” is a conversation between Adora and Chief Vickery. In the middle of what seems like a heavy flirtation, he suggests canceling “Calhoun Day,” a festival day Adora personally oversees, because the murders haven’t been solved yet. Adora politely reminds him that she could have him removed from office. In response, Vickery replies, “We need to talk about your girls.” Later, he goes to Adora’s best friend Jackie and tries unsuccessfully to get her to talk to him about “the Preaker girl” — which could be a reference to either Camille, Amma, or Camille’s other deceased sister, about whom we (so far) know very little.

Though these exchanges may not seem substantial, they illustrate vividly how power works in Wind Gap. Sex is a tool to gain access to information — because true power depends on knowing secrets, and knowing how to deploy them. Vickery’s no fool; when Adora threatens his power, he threatens hers right back, by implying that there’s something about her girls to be uncovered.

And though he describes Amma and Camille as being alternately “dangerous and in danger,” he doesn’t specify which is which. Adora has already told Amma that Camille’s the dangerous one, and Amma seems young and vulnerable. If we look at who’s deploying more “sharp objects” to gain power and control over the people around her, however, Amma seems to be the winner. She knows how to manipulate her friends, she’s working on deploying her sexuality as a weapon, and she seems to be a vast repository of secrets. How much of this makes her vulnerable rather than empowered is difficult to say, but what’s clear is that she’s using the tools and speaking the language that all the women of Wind Gap use: sex and secrets.

Sharp Objects makes it clear that the women of Wind Gap all have a huge advantage because their weapons are passive-aggressive rather than actively aggressive. The narrative of the murders as being acts of random aggression obscures the reality of the crime and the reality of the two male suspects. The narrative around Bob Nash is that he’s violent and troubled, but he’s also a homemaker who’s perpetually shown doing domestic chores as he raises his three remaining children. The narrative around John Keene is a homophobic one that paints him as too sensitive and “unnatural,” but this punishes him for going through the natural process of grieving his dead sister.

Meanwhile, all the women either have something to hide or know a secret that someone else is hiding. John’s girlfriend, Ashley, seems to have all kinds of intel on John and his family dynamics that she’s keeping to herself, which puts her in a powerful position. Jackie’s in a safe position for now because she’s not giving up whatever she knows about Camille’s family. Adora’s physical and economic power is enhanced by the fact that we have no idea what she knows and doesn’t know, but we suspect it’s a lot; and Adora’s lifelong housemaid may wind up having more power than anyone in town because she’s been absorbing information about the Preakers for decades.

This longevity is also crucial to the game, because as Camille notes, the trick is to save what you know and use it “later.” The past is never dormant in Wind Gap; it’s a turbulent hotbed beneath a calm surface, and the more access you have to the past, the more power you have over the present. In one scene in “Ripe” where Amma tries to seduce one of her teachers, the two have a strange conversation about history: He reminds her that you can’t change it, and she seems to reject the idea. Like her mother, she understands that whoever’s in charge of the narrative controls history.

Camille understands this as well; while giving Willis a guided tour through Wind Gap’s wooded criminal hot spots, she keeps vague on details and vague on her own traumatic sexual history, to maintain both her nebulous control over it and her growing control over him. Though most of Camille’s actions in Wind Gap are designed to appear passive, when she has to, she can deploy both sexuality and information to gain power.

In essence, Sharp Objects is putting its crime-solving methods directly in front of us — listen to what people are saying, notice who knows what and who’s weaponizing sex and knowledge of the past against whom. We’re expected to discount the entire apparatus as just gossip, exactly as Vickery and Willis are currently doing. The only one who’s not, so far, is Camille.

And so when Adora flings this week’s jaw-droppingly abusive insult at her, telling her she “smells ripe,” it’s a layered moment. Her mother just called her a trashy, alcoholic slut, yes. But the moment also suggests that just like all the women in Wind Gap, the things about Camille that cause everyone to overlook her will be the things that allow her to gain the most power and information in the end.

That said, Camille’s past is also a weapon, a sharp object of its own. Sharp Objects’ director, Jean-Marc Vallée, loves to play with color symbolism, so it’s no coincidence that the entire color scheme of this episode is a notoriously tricky red/green palette most famously used in Vertigo. This is a time-honored color code for jealousy, obsession, and, as in Hitchcock’s masterpiece, a nebulous past/present overlay presented by an unreliable narrator. Camille may be in the position to do some murder-solving, but first, she’s going to have to regain control over her own narrative.

Otherwise, recalling Vickery’s words about the endangered and dangerous, she might find herself in plenty of danger of her own.

Original Source -> In Sharp Objects, secrets are the sharpest weapons of all

via The Conservative Brief