#sorry its a wall of text

[cyhaino]

also i just found out that i'm picking up my aunts which i don't even want to do because i hate the orlando airport so much yall i hate it!!! but one of my aunts had called my mom and asked her about it and my mom, knowing who i am, was like "that's weird why would she do that she hates driving there" and APPARENTLY my dad is the one going around telling everyone i am going to scream i'm taking my cousin with me he can suffer in that car ride with me with our aunts and grandma also my prima alma is coming with them she rented a car last time why won't she do it again is it because she knows the traffic is horrible from her last visit im pretty sure thats what it is and like i already will have to go the day before to drop off my parents and sister unless my cousin is willing to do it and ahhhhhhhhhhhh

[clouvu]

Cooking up an older Clervie outfit design so I don't have to keep drawing her looking like her child self but Long

[beescake]

PLEASE PLEASE MEGADUMP THE ARASOL!!! PLEAAASEE MR BEESCAKE I AM ON MY KNEES BEGGING YOU

HFHGHD GLADLY aaa i’ve been adding notes to it here and there for months but just hesitant to post it bcs im 🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂

also this is just my own takeaway of the events, it doesn’t necessarily comply to the Ultimate Truth of Canon-Alignment or represent the actual facts of what hussie intended! v sentimental smh but hopefully its still interesting to read

i love when characters inform each other by proximity, it's one of my fave things to see in media :') it feels even more significant when two characters deliberately choose to stick together, so that when one operates, you can tell the other is similarly aligned in associative solidarity.

sollux is a keystone of this trope — whoever he aligns with is a wordless statement, a nod of approval. this stood out to me bcs the main four humans were alr friends by default, but once you reach hivebent you realize the trolls can actively choose who they want to hang out with.

and as we all know, after assessing every troll's biases/loyalties, sollux is the only one who maintains his selective preference for innately Good 👍 people.

aradia is such a beautiful character honestly, she evokes such incredible feelings in me. she might not have been consistently written with care but the best parts of her character are truly stunning. i think it's easy to remember sollux as the self-sacrificing one bc he's so open about it (and his friends frequently react to his Moments) but when you compare him to aradia, it's always struck me

how much more. raw it is

to be so alone as an agent of time, having to orchestrate immeasurably harrowing events nobody understands or gives a fuck about

with your role painted in the story as one who must tend to the needs of the narrative, responsible to match every next note

because when you're given the capabilities, it becomes your duty to carry it out.

it becomes expected of you to keep experimenting and arranging the machinations to work for everyone, dusting off hundreds of necessary failures to keep going

and having to be so unwavering in your drive knowing miserably that there's no one who can help you but yourself.

or alternatively: to make things fun! so other people won't think twice about letting you go off on your own.

sure she's had some very good buds, notably thanks to Team Charge v Team Scourge antics.

and yet, at the end of the day, the one friend that kept choosing her time and time again was the friend with the highest standards.

i can see why people like to define arasol as moirails/matesprits but surprisingly i find the nondescript, unlabeled aspect of their relationship more straightforward to understand.

there's no shortage of people who would accommodate sollux. most of the surviving trolls are his oldest friends bcs he’d chosen them well. his transparency with his feelings had built him strong friendships that won’t falter or break, regardless of how much of a dick he can be. they’ve already seen and accepted him at his worst, and they still like him for who he is.

contrast that with aradia, who'd been so approachable, friendly and reliable in her exchanges it was super fun to talk to her. but the moment she became depressed, all her connections broke down.

her friends became hesitant to interact with her (until she became god tier, “happy” and amicable again) because her gloom and resignation didn’t serve them. she dealt with it alone.

there’s def something of note here abt the disparity between the way male & female characters are written+perceived in homestuck (esp parallel arasol with davejade) but i won’t go into that lmaoo

with this in mind i like to think of sollux as a gift to her, a loyal companion given to complement and commend her resolve. she's capable of doing so much alone but hussie took the time to build her and sollux's relationship as one of a unit; a set.

the ambiguity of their status does complicate things, but i do believe it makes sense with their characters. aradia's relationship with romance is a rocky one, the dubious stringalong equius had with her is a pointed reminder that her feelings of attraction are ultimately controlled by the author writing her.

unlike the other trolls who can openly address and own up to their crushes, aradia had romantic emotions forced upon her (especially when hussie implies 'she kissed equius back on her own volition'). and it seems like her character is so intrinsically neutral abt attraction that even when forced by the almighty powers above, she's unable to retain it wholly.

however, looking back to pre-game when she could actually "choose" her own feelings, she did have a crush on sollux.

their soft spots for each other were so obvious to the point where other people could see it.

taunting aside, when vriska comments on their unit as bf/gf it actually informs the audience that arasol's relationship is romantic in nature despite not aligning with the quadrant system.

even while dead, aradia could still describe her care for sollux, expressing that she would like to see him happy. if they had more time to explore their relationship on alternia, it's possible they could've settled in a quadrant once they grew older.

but going back to the lack of labels, their dynamic was affected once more when aradia became god tier.

to me, her ascension was both the perfect culmination and possible closure of her character. it's the light at the end of her journey toiling through countless of timelines where she had to actively assess and participate. that's why it's cool to see her being silly and having fun giving guidance, passively exploring and watching other people do their parts.

and yet the joy of her freedom makes it hard to explore further introspection. if we take her by her word, she'd already come to terms with the hurt she's been through and forgiven those involved.

i can't help feeling attuned to how impersonal and detached it can be, to devote and meld your identity so completely with your designated position as Maid of Time until you've become hard for your old friends (and even some readers!) to personally connect to.

idk post-canon but i assume there’s some degree of similarity to be bridged here with aradia's god tier and how the hs2 humans' Ultimate forms was described as a consolidation of all their possibilities. since aradia's classpect is inherently of service to Time, going god-tier may have elevated her beyond personhood with the "game construct" possessing her entirely. sollux doesn't realize the extent of it bcs he's still mortal, but a part of him may have subconsciously understood this.

i think there is a core aspect to aradia that was lost to the dehumanizing glory of god tier — a core aspect that may have contained an element of why sollux enjoyed talking to her in the first place.

to him, aradia hadn't just been a nice girl, she was a cool girl. despite not having much in common, he's still willing to chill next to her so she's not alone while she does what needs to get done.

back on alternia, they held a mutual and equal-level regard for each other that could've definitely settled into something permanent. but now, he's placed himself in a position where he can be kept around or left behind at will. the parameters of the relationship are largely in aradia's court, so any label she suggests to identify their relationship with he's likely to accept.

but that's why it's so difficult to label it. because god tier aradia may not necessarily Want quadrants or relationship labels. rather than the initial romantic attachment, their commitment to each other had evolved into one fundamentally of companionship.

no label? ok fine. no matter what, he still thinks she's a good soul worth latching on to. the best, actually. aradia > everyone else.

even if it gets stilted at times. there's an unexpected struggle to connect when sollux's go-to default for talking points is his feelings about things, and aradia may not want to talk about emotions all the time.

not to mention god tier aradia became an observer, especially of chaos. but sollux's avoidance of involvement comes partially from his innate pressure to get involved if something goes wrong. and he can't always tell when something goes wrong, because aradia doesn't mind if things go wrong anymore.

it's a non-negotiable preference that causes them to take the occasional time apart, a new boundary that wouldn't have existed before the game and aradia's god tier.

but just like how his friends tolerated his moods, sollux accepts aradia as she is. with no quadrants, their connection doesn't break down because there's no implicit romantic expectations to be disappointed by or resentful over.

sometimes when i see hs content that deliberately distances sollux from aradia, i assume this is the dissonance people might have felt. people might find it "easier" to be cynical about them bcs of this strange tension.

but idc lmao. grab that shit by the neck

lack of easy resolutions and cleanly tied ribbons is pretty standard of homestuck and imo it doesn't make arasol's dynamic any less incredible. with the right affection and consideration, there's still so much potential to develop the nuance of their relationship outside of the popular quadrant-based depictions.

hs has a lot of really great character compatibilities but the way aradia and sollux are in their own special orbit is why i can write this much about them in the first place. it's that frail innocence between first loves that makes it so sweet to me, two kids who grew up too fast playing guesswork without being clear where they're going.

ultimately i do think you're meant to feel a little tragedy for just how much they care for each other, even if they can't quite establish it in simple terms.

maybe they keep taking breaks to progress their own paths. maybe they remain as anchor partners while seeing other people. but even if you decide to separate them, they're still (awkwardly) texting each other updates all the while. and when they reunite it feels like coming home.

and well. more than anything, i like to believe that they do want to be exclusive.

they're just afraid. after all, they're still learning how to love, beyond the projections of the foursquare quadrant system they had inadvertently distanced themselves from since young.

they might not have everything figured out, but they'll get there eventually if you just hold them together and write them there.

optional post-canon segment:

one of the limitations of main hs is that (monogamous) relationships are often written as the go-to solution to wrap up character growth; it's an easy "patch" to imagine characters getting their happy ending because they have a partner, and those who don't end up with someone don't get that closure (most notably jade).

hs2 reaffirms this by suggesting that aradia's character cannot progress without letting sollux go, because happily settling in a relationship automatically locks your potential.

that pathetic panel of sollux staring emptily into the sky is still my fave hs2 spoiler ngl i find the impact of their parting so emotionally provoking precisely bcs they were written in original hs to be each other's forever, coming back together again and again

but now, they're subject to the decisions of the post-canon authors who might choose to deviate from that.

it's not new for them to part, but now there's an underlying worry that her dropping him off this time might be the last time. while i think the prospect of shattering their stability to make them grow separately sounds fun on paper, no amount of me desperately hoping for a good execution is gonna guarantee it

idk. i guess prediction-wise im expecting sollux in classic dramatic-hs2 fashion to tell dave to back off aradia LMAO. otherwise it's just gon be sollux and karkat pathetically watching aradia and dave from a distance swimming in their unresolved feelings for narratively-powerful time players smh obvs it sounds corny as hell but who knows its still plausible

srsly tho i hope they take the opportunity to develop arasol's relationship in a fresh direction that doesn't hurt me too badly...... and i hope they force sollux out of his comfort zone. i like watching him struggle :-)

[baalzebufo]

some additional doodles and a Lot of Headcanons... sorry if im spamming these a little bit. ive got so many thoughts in my head, lmao

theres my older pacifica- after weirdmageddon, her and gideon become friends. theyre both sort of ostracized from the town as a whole bc of their past attitudes/actions so they cling together and become buds. its nice having someone else who 'gets' it.

pacifica moved out as soon as she could to get away from her folks and has a job at a local mall. gideon enables her to enjoy at least SOME of her old luxuries by taking her shopping and to get their nails done together and stuff. also his prison buddies help ''kindly persuade'' her parents not to break her enforced no-contact rule from time to time. i know the two have the bitchiest gossip in the entire town together. sometimes when its hard to be 'nice' they know they can at least vent to the other and they wont get judged for it, yknow?

also some backstory doodles! he was a Normal Kid, Once. or close enough to it. gideon was a sickly child and was sheltered and homeschooled for most of his life. the gleefuls moved from texas to oregon when he was about seven (yes i know this breaks canon a little. its fine shh.) and he found journal 2 shortly after. things went downhill from there

other notes. he's always kept his hair long, but used to either let it down or tie it into a long braid. he very briefly attended a public school and he didnt fare very well there (fat kid + albino + 'girly' + general weird interests is basically painting a massive target on your back) he used to stay up and watch late night televangelists when he couldnt sleep in hospital and copped his aesthetic from there

sorry this post is so long i have a lot of thoughts about him </3

[bread-wizards]

Love Laudna wanting Orym to be the one to cut her down if need be because she feels he can make hard choices, and Travis like "uh hello? What about Chetney? You want to put Orym through that anguish? I am right here" like damn, he right tho

[froschli96]

You know what, fuck it, I have to speak my truth! (this is gonna be a rant, so anyone who actually likes assassin's creed revelations and/or the secret crusade, be warned or maybe don't read this at all)

remember how altaïr talks to king richard at the end of ac1, and richard is like "[humans] come into the world kicking and screaming, violent and unstable. it is what we are. we cannot help ourselves."? and how altaïr answers "no. we are what we choose to be." and how that ACTUALLY has meaning bc he himself was "violent and unstable" at the beginning of the game but he has learned and is now CHOOSING to be a better person who cares about others and humanity at large? remember how his calmness and gentleness was something that he ACQUIRED over the course of the story?

and remember how in revelations they then suddenly had a PRE-AC1 altaïr say about the first of his targets "no man should pass from this world without knowing some kindness." and be all wise and calm and collected during a nice little chat with al mualim, who suddenly acts all fatherly? (like, this is suddenly supposed to be a positive relationship? what??)

also, during the confession the target says to altair: "you put too much faith in the hearts of men, altaïr. [...] humans are weak, base, and petty." and altaïr answers: "no. our creed is evidence to the contrary." KJASJFJDKL???? like, it’s almost insulting how close this exchange is to the one with richard. you know, the one that was actually earned after a whole game of character development. like WTF??? cool congrats now that development means nothing. like, apparently that was just altaïr reverting BACK to being the exemplary assassin who understands and believes in the creed that he was apparently just born as. (i also hate how having a young inexperienced altaïr saying this implies that altaïr's faith in humanity is a sign of naivete instead of a sign of the wisdom he has gained after being confronted with counter arguments for a whole game, and also something that distinguishes the assassins from the templars who use humanity's supposed wickedness to justify controlling them like in AC1, but whatever)

altaïr’s development in AC1 mattered BECAUSE he is not NATURALLY a good person, it actually said something about humanity's capacity for both bad AND good and how humans don't have to be forced to be good through mind control bc they can by their own free will choose to be better when taught how and when allowed the freedom to grow. but no. apparently altaïr has just always been calm, wise and gentle. and he just sort of forgot about that during AC1 bc…. ? bc of adha?? bc of abbas???

oh don’t get me started on the whole abbas thing. (it doesnt even make sense that abbas is so hung up about his father and "his family’s honor", like what about the whole point of al mualim not allowing parents to be close to their children bc it would make them weak? like, my dude, you’re not supposed to HAVE any family aside from the brotherhood)

they used the throwaway character that had like 5 lines and made him into altaïr’s main antagonist in revelations… like, abbas wasn’t supposed to be this ONE dude who had personal beef with altaïr, he was just supposed to show how while altaïr’s revered by many, a lot of his brothers also hate him, bc 1) altaïr is a shitty person at this point and 2) bc there’s no real feeling of community and family in this version of the brotherhood, but just a pervasive sense of competition and jealousy — these assassins don’t care about their goal of safeguarding humanity bc they’re too hung up on petty squabbles and divided by rivalries (you know, the things that made malik hate altaïr even before solomon’s temple and that he overcomes in the end which enables him to forgive and to reconcile with altaïr so they can work together and stop al mualim? (you ever just think about "we are one. as we share the glory of our victories, so too should we share the pain of our defeat. in this way we grow closer. we grow stronger." and cry? bc i do. all the time. malik, the man that you are))

and now abbas is altaïr’s childhood best friend turned lifelong enemy?? like, bowden bent over backwards to come up with an explanation for why altaïr is an arrogant ass at the beginning of AC1, when the explanation is right there: he was raised to kill without asking questions and was constantly praised for how good he is at murder, which resulted in him becoming arrogant and disregarding human life. like, it doesn’t have to be some shakespearean family feud type shit. and guess what, this "simple" explanation actually plays into the story’s themes, who’da thunk!

(like, abbas might not have been a "fleshed out" character in AC1, but he had a specific function and now that function is gone. mr bowden, mr mcdevitt, you know characters are allowed to simply exist to tell us something about their worlds and the systems they live in and sometimes that’s more important and also more interesting than having every single character have a detailed backstory to explain all their behaviors, right?)

with all of this revelations loses all nuance in regards to the levantine brotherhood and also the creed in general. like, altaïr being a master assassin at the beginning despite being a terrible person and not actually understanding the creed is a criticism of the brotherhood and the creed itself. like, it said something about the order that someone like altaïr was able to get that high in rank, simply bc he's good at killing, which also tells us what is considered important in the al mualim era assassin order. when you make altaïr’s arrogance the result of his personal conflicts instead of how we was raised by a brotherhood that only valued one's ability to kill, you lose that characterization of the assassin order itself!

and by suddenly making al mualim a semi good "father figure" you also downplay his manipulation of not only altaïr but all those under his care. (altaïr says something about al mualim being "as a father" to him exactly twice in the codex, but he doesn’t mean by that that he WAS a father to him, what he means is that he was the CLOSEST THING he had bc HE DID NOT HAVE PARENTS, not because his mother died in childbirth and his father was executed when he was young btw, BUT BECAUSE IT WASN’T ALLOWED, like his parents actually lived but weren’t allowed to be close to him, he says he came to view al mualim’s "weak and dishonest" love as enough and even better BECAUSE HE HAD NOTHING ELSE, BECAUSE AL MUALIM ISOLATED HIS ASSASSINS FROM THEIR FAMILIES. al mualim "loved" him bc he was good at killing people for him! hm, i wonder if this could be trying to say anything about cults and indoctrination and the inherent contradiction in fighting for peace and free will by taking children away from their parents and raising them to become killers?? like, altaïr wasn't ~the special orphan boy~ taken in by al mualim bc his father died a hero's death, it was "the way of the order" to have al mualim be the closest thing to a parental figure for everyone to ensure absolute loyalty! altaïr saying al mualim was like his father is not supposed to make you go "oh, he must have actually been a good guy for altaïr to consider him a father", it should make you go "oh that's kinda fucked up that he considers the dude who made him into a killing machine and who manipulated him a sort of father figure"!)

and then in revelations they suddenly portray that relationship as positive and healthy??? like, it would be one thing to give it some nuance by delving into the psychology behind al mualim’s "love" and maybe showing how al mualim did care about altair in a complicated, fraught sort of way (like, you know, there’s a lot of interesting things you could say about al mualim at several points addressing altaïr as "my child" in AC1 and how that parallels Garnier referring to the people he drugged and abused as his "children", and what that says about how the templars view the people who they say they want to save and in whose best interests they supposedly act (in any case, al mualim doesn’t use that phrase because he has any real parental feelings but rather to patronize and to invalidate any objections, like in a "mother knows best" way))

but they even fucking DARE to parallel that relationship with that of altaïr and darim in revelations, by having the reflection in the puddle of darim hugging altaïr showing altaïr hugging al mualim…. like their relationship wasn’t inherently abusive but just tragically cut short because al mualim was just "corrupted by the apple"… like WHAT???? so it’s not the very real problems like grooming, manipulation and indoctrination and the hierarchical structure of the brotherhood itself (all of which are antithetical to the assassin ideology), it was just the evil apple all along. great. that’s DEFINITELY a lot more interesting.

god im sorry i really dont want to spread negativity but this is driving me INSANE. like, somebody please tell me im not crazy bc i feel like somehow most of the fandom is in agreement that revelations and the secret crusade have better storytelling and characterization than ac1.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, can we talk about how, even IF we completely ignore AC1 and treat revelations altaïr as his own character…. the narrative still doesn’t really work?

basically, the whole point of his story in rev is that "he gave his whole life to the brotherhood", this obsession led to him not using his time with his family which has him ending up dying alone in a dark library and this in turn makes ezio reevaluate his life choices…. except. he doesn’t? neglect? his family? or whatever? like, his devotion to the assassins is sort of painted as this tragic flaw that leads to a lonely death bc it supposedly comes at the cost of his family, but… his wife has joined the assassins, (at least) one of his sons is in the brotherhood and even when he goes to protect the assassins against the mongols, he takes his family with him (except for the son who stays behind bc he has a family of his own and who, ironically, ends up dying bc of that)… like, you can’t describe altaïr as a good husband and father in the database and have his son tell him that "everything that is good in me began with you, father" when they say goodbye, and then want to make us believe that he put his family behind the brotherhood and that that is a character flaw that leads to his tragedy.

because you HAVE to have a character’s tragedy be the result of a character flaw. like. that is how tragedies work. otherwise it just becomes tragedy for the sake of tragedy which is… boring bc it has no purpose. and we know it is SUPPOSED to have purpose bc ezIO FUCKING QUITS BEING AN ASSASSIN AFTER WITNESSING IT!

it’s like they want to have their cake and eat it, too — they didn’t want to actually make altaïr a bad husband/father, but still wanted to make his life a tragedy where he loses his family which is why instead they outsource all responsibility to abbas who now has to be the reason for ALL the deaths.

like, they try to make at least maria’s death kind of sort of the result of altaïr’s rashness or whatever but like… these guys KILLED THEIR SON and TOLD HIM THAT ALTAÏR HAD ORDERED HIS DEATH. like, altaïr losing it in response to that is not rash, it’s fucking logical and justified! if anything the scene made me angry at maria for trying to stop him. like, GIRL, he was YOUR son too??? but god forbid we give female characters actual real emotions, she has to fill the role of "voice of reason who dies for altaïr’s man pain" i fucking guess.

like, it’s this weird mix where his tragedy is simultaneously painted as his own fault but also not really bc abbas is the one responsible for all the shit that happens. it just… it just doesn’t really go together.

the only way to make his story make sense narratively and to give it actual purpose is by looking at it in the context of ezio’s story, bc the things he sees in altaïr’s memories are supposed to be a revelation (ha!) to ezio specifically. and i guess that’s maybe the crux of it all — altaïr’s story in revelations was conceived of first and foremost to support ezio’s story and development. which is probably also why many people maybe don’t notice bc, having skipped ac1 and started with ac2, the majority of people mostly care only about ezio and only really appreciate altaïr’s story in as far as it serves to push ezio forward. (tho i’ve also seen a few people say that ezio is also written kind of weird in rev, but i’ve never really been an ezio girly myself so i can’t speak to the truth of that)

like, altaïr dying alone in the library doesn’t really have to make sense for his character, i guess, bc it’s only really supposed to be a cautionary tale for ezio.

so, i guess, for once, they actually had a MAN dying for another man’s character development, which is pretty woke actually. ubisoft, i take everything back jksdsfjhgdsahfhsdhfghfdsgjhsdgjh

[maliciousalice]

@thresholdbb omg tumblr ate your ask but thankyou for asking!!!!

👕Character whose fashion you like.

Phoar! Startrek really isn't a show I associate with being fashionable. It's very camp isn't it? In theory a lot of the wardrobe is really cool and they wanted to gain that retro-future aesthetic. Did it work? I'm not sure. However it does make a statement. The Startrek aesthetic is really recognizable and that's important! I think that's where modern trek kind of looses the plot. It's not as careful about the unique visual design as a whole anymore and as a result it doesn't settle in our minds. Is it bad artistry? No but it's not as stringent. What I mean by that is older trek cared about nuance. For example every haircut was done the same way on men, or suits were tailored in a way to look sleek but practical (they weren't). Gaudy patterns were important to denote things like status. It looks ugly on the outside but when you're watching the show it envelops you and makes you feel welcomed into the universe.

I digress.

To answer this, the most fashionable character, hands down, is Quark! That mfer always looks good, and has the finest drip in the galaxy. Love that.

🥲 ST moment that makes you cry.

There are two moments that make me particularly sad. Kate's acting in the climax of Resistance is incredible. I read somewhere she had a special-wink-wink- relationship with the Director in the early seasons and she was being tested by this episode in some regard. I think it paid off. I treasure any time her captain-hood is removed, and the extreme vulnerability of Janeway is on display-MWAH MWAH poignant. This episode is beautifully intimate, particularly this scene. It's overall gorgeous and unique in how she whispers to him, as if there is nothing more important than to secure his peace of mind as he dies, and it's heart rending when it ends with her just crouching there, emotionally alone. I love how Janeway is forced into the father-daughter dynamic between her and Caylem, one that she would ordinarily resist (heh themes) because I think it inherently weakens her status. The back and forth throughout the episode of them taking care of each other's welfare is so it's terribly sad when it's torn down and we discover the truth behind Caylem's family. If you've dug around her character you know that her Admiral-Father has had impact on her life. She's haunted by him in both a figurative way by being a Captain, and literal sense later on in Coda. Much like Caylem, she looses her father in a violent manner that she has to carry around while she forges ahead. It also reflects well on Kate's relationship with her actual father, she recently revealed that she was never able to get him on her page, but in spite that she adore him with all her might. So a scene like this is really revealing-I believe she was able to draw upon those feelings and that's kinda neat to be so raw as an actor. SIGH.

This one just straight up made me cry fr because Prodigy s1 is a really mature, well done piece of (Startrek) media. Holo Janeway has an irony about it where in the end she is program designed to be a teacher, and she didn't expect to develop a strong bond with the crew. Her final moments are of displaying a huge amount of selflessness and courage to help the kids get out of trouble, similarly to how Janeway would approach dire circumstances. The music swelling and the ship activating is just OOOOF!!! I love how it parallels Dal's initiation of the first Protojump in a Moral Star. By that means It suggests how proud she is to get to do this for them. As a character she is really interesting to think about, in a way I can't entirely articulate. A lot of her moments are quite sad in general, she has to keep an active role so she isn't ignored, and help where help is needed, but at the same time she has constraints, one being that she manipulated by the antagonists. And In contrast to that, the kids do their best to help her feel like she is important and more than a command program to be used insincerely. She grew to love the Protostar crew, that's evident in her body language in this scene. She has a lot of depth overall. Equal to the real Janeway she deeply feels love, guilt and pain, but importantly she is transformed by the her time on the Protostar and while active, learns and grows with Dal, Rok-tak, Zero, Jankom and Gwyn. It's REALLY sweet that they care all care about each other.

I love her and I love JANEWAY!!!!

🥹 Favourite behind the scenes picture.

Ooooh I love all behind the scenes stuff. My brother in Christ It's super difficult to just name one thing and I'm very greedy!! I wish we had more BTS content for Voyager but sadly, it's a matter of grab what you can, however you can. Anyway, I have an inherent interest in seeing the cogs behind the wheel. I chose these samples because I think they're charming.

The continuity polaroid's are so fun and a lost technique, I like to think about assistants having to pull the actors aside and asking them to take those. How daunting! Kate's grin in the one where she is offset is SO cute. So she must have been in a good mood, super Cheeky!

Following that is a screenshot from a video of her having her makeup done. A rare catch. I like this because she often sooks about how much time hair and makeup was spent on her to become Captain Janeway. I get it's a huge time-sink, but love or hate it, the full irony is that her early season appearance is really iconic and in it's own right adds to Captain Janeway's sensibility. Silly goose Kate! Besides that, she looks hot checking herself out, haha.

Moreover, I love on-set editorial photos of actors in costume. While we did have heaps of them in the Starfleet uniform, I wish we had a larger collection with clearer releases, it would have given an opportunity to see in things of interest better detail. Particularly the lower half of unique costumes. For whatever reason special outfits weren't often established or framed for us to see the legs in the show, so a nice big photograph would have solved that. Also I love that these style of pictures capture an impression of an episode without giving it away.

Similarly, fly on the wall on-set photos are cool. They're way more intimate and candid than anything else and it makes me feel as though I am spying on the actors, but they're also a good way to document how things might have been on set.

The Timeless one is interesting too because it's of a deleted scene, we never see Chakotay look at a dead Janeway (how deliciously macabre!), but at some point in time it was in the script and they filmed it.

Hmm this bts picture of Janeway in the Cardigan is adorable! I believe it was worn by Kate for a Charity but look how cute she looks? Makes me wish we saw her mess around with things like that more because 7 Years is a long ass time to be in uniform everyday ( coming from someone who went to school in a Uniform and enjoyed it for the most part). Casual Fridays anyone?

I love this gif. It's from the first shoots of Caretaker and Kate looks so radiant! Her smile is is breathtaking! Whenever I see this gif I get a sense of delight. Poor thing had no idea what she was getting herself into, haha. Really though, check out the original Caretaker photos, they're super-cool. The history behind it is fascinating; I'd love to see more footage from that version of the pilot episode. Unfortunately, it's probably not preserved well, much like lots of Paramount's historical material.

On a similar trend, it's fun to see this set of pictures too. It's for the First Contact film / maybe the Universal studios ride, when she reprised her role as Vice AdmiralJaneway. Kate was genuinely delighted to do this cameo and it shows. As per her operandum she put her whole self into this small segment and that's so darling. It makes me wish we had more of this Janeway at that point in time. I love post Endgame chubby-Janeway. In a fictional sense it denotes that she is comfortable or stressed to be an Admiral (sadly it's the latter in real life) or whatever and I love that for her.

These kind of pictures are fun because it's been said that at times it was the most playful set to be on. There are tales that the cast were not that serious all the time. You get that impression here, and it's probably why the majority of them are still good friends to this day. They're like a family bros!!! Having worked in media I know that wrapping up after working on something for a long time is really rewarding and I bet they had a good time at parties.

Apropos previous, the opposite can be said. While they had fun, the hours were long and the scripts intensive. Kate was around for all of the episodes of Voyager in one way or another, and still managed to bring her A-game each time. She is truly admirable! Seeing her so exhausted is charming. She had a lot of weight to carry for the franchise and did an exemplary job performing her way through 7 years of weird and wonderful material. I wonder how often they fell asleep on set? I know I would. Get some rest queen!

Finally, I've been following Prodigy bts as best I can, and because of my career in animation I get pretty interested in Production art. I love seeing the fast metamorphosis of a visual style. It's really impressive how much attention they applied to the designs, maintaining the older stuff, while adapting a new frontier. One of the lead artists made some pretty neat observations to get Kate's appearance right. It's so cool that they documented that journey, because from my dabbling I know she has a very beautiful, distinct face that isn't easy to capture.

ANYWAY Thankyou for reading my fat thesis fellas. tl;dr i love this stinky Startrek Voyager and by extension the franchise.

[umbrvx]

i like ur art. its great and interesting!! i really like your artstyle and i really like the way u draw hsy, yjh, and kdj. you captured them so well in terms of vibes/character. also i was wondering do u have any advice to improve on drawing anatomy/poses/faces?

wahh thank you so much...!! i feel like im still trying to figure them out in a lot of ways but i do really like ironing out my visual interpretations of them so im really happy to hear if people like what im coming up with

also anon you super activated the part of my brain that cant help but yap about art theory... i spent some time writing as many tips as i could think of. unfortunately i dont think i have the time currently to do a fully illustrated guide, but ill still try to include some visual examples:

[incoming wall of text lol]

ANATOMY:

to preface i think that like 100% of the time you should reference a real life photo for anatomy rather than other artwork or drawn references. the best way to learn the body is by… well, actually looking at the body! but also artwork is informed by a person's own artistic ability/stylization choices/sense of idealism, so while looking at art can help give you an idea on how to break down forms, i think you would be best served observing real life references. i labor on this point because i do think that having over relied on drawn reference material and avoiding photographic references on the basis of not being interested on realism hindered me as a largely self-taught artist as a kid, so i want to encourage live or photographic reference since anatomy is one of the foundations from which everything else is built on. that being the case, all of my doodles i'm doing for this are going to be for the sake of example rather than to strictly say how you should or should not be drawing something

-> when you are doing a study of a photo, just try copying it as best as you can. pay close attention to the natural lines and shapes of the body -- the S-curve shape of the leg, the triangular shape of the forearm, the trapezoid shape of hips/thighs when they sit, and so on. note where the body folds or squishes or pulls; how mass will shift to accommodate a certain position. if a form is hard to visualize, focus on the negative space and carve that out, rather than strictly drawing the positive space.

don't expect to get it perfect the first time. in fact, iterate on it multiple times to build understanding. try doing it to a timer of 15, then 10, then 5 minutes. doing this will force you to have to prioritize the most important shapes. you can help reinforce this by using a thicker brush or a brush with no pen pressure (no joke ms paint works great for this) to force you to be loose and not become preoccupied with details.

-> pinterest is a great resource for finding and compiling photo reference material

-> organic shapes are curved, so embracing/emphasizing that (particularly for the extremities) can help make your drawings look more natural or fluid

POSES: -> it all begins & ends with contrapposto… you've probably heard of the line of action, which is related. if you're offsetting the shoulders & hips, it: makes poses more natural, more dynamic, and helps the pose sort of "draw itself" -- the legs will follow the direction of the hips, and you can use the arms to reinforce the angles

-> context is key. don't ask: what pose should i draw? instead ask: what do i want this character to convey? what does happiness, anger, sadness, and so forth look on this particular character? how do they express that? consider these drawings: these are both ostensibly the same pose, but look at how changing just the shape of the spine recontextualizes it.

for more on pose design i recommend watching Tracer & Pose Design 101 - The Animation of Overwatch by New Frame Plus (i promise this is a genuinely super informative video).

to expand on this, in general, all of the components of a piece (background, composition, pose, etc.) are best considered in conjunction rather than separately. it is difficult to choose a pose and then choose a background because they are missing the context that would make a piece cohesive. when you are planning a drawing, try to begin with your general concept/idea/prompt and then do several thumbnails -- small and quick doodles that should take no longer than 5 minutes each -- developing it: you may find that the pose and bg will naturally fall into place.

-> silhouette: the degree to which you need to push this varies by style but generally speaking the pose needs to be readable; i.e. instantly recognizable. try to keep important elements of the gesture outside of the silhouette. for example, if the character is pointing, keep that arm out of the interior of the body. the same pose can be more or less readable or dynamic depending on where the character is pointed in relation to the viewer

-> exaggeration!! goes along with the previous point. push the pose as much as you can (and what makes sense for your style) to communicate your pose as clearly and as intensely as possible.

FACES: -> i highly recommend the app Handy Art Reference Tool by Belief Engine for all things related to drawing hands/heads/feet. its on both android and ios. it isn't free -- it costs around $3 -- but that is seriously such a small price to pay for the amount of utility you get out of it: the hands models are fully poseable (there's also pose presets), you can rotate the head models however you want, and there is 3-point customizable lighting. it is really helpful for getting those super tricky and hyperspecific head angles that you just can't find a real life reference for. that being said given that there's only a few different head model variants, bear in mind how differences in features can affect what exactly a face will look like in those angles.

-> i still recommend doing studies of real people. as with anything else, learning generalized proportions is important, even if you are going to later on bend or break this depending on style

-> as for my own approach... it kind of depends on the style i'm doing at that particular time. for my paintings (what id consider my main style) i approach a character with a few real-world features in mind and then apply them to the best of my ability. it usually will take a few iterations to land on an interpretation i really like as i try out different things. a lot of the face also gets developed during rendering rather than through my initial sketch too, as i adjust for lighting and correct proportions on the fly

(look how much this image changes between sketch and render lol)

if i were to recommend anything, i think it would be to nail down your most distinct features first -- the ones that will make your character's face recognizable, and could apply regardless of art style. in my case with kim dokja, i knew when i first started drawing him that i wanted to give him a longer face and down-turned eyes. when i decided to do the disco elysium inspired set, in which i was breaking out of my comfort zone by letting go of any idealizations focusing on conveying characterization/making them feel "real", i landed on some more specific traits (defined lower lids/perpetually tired eyes/eyebags(?) the crease there idk how to describe it) which i continue to try to evoke even if im drawing something much more cartoony

(pictured are my first kdj -> disco elysium style -> my post de-style kdj)

as a side note, this very same process changed yjh much more dramatically

(^ that first guy is mad someone else)

those handful of key features will be the thing that you can then take into a simpler style and simplify or exaggerate to whatever degree suits you. you can also play with shape theory (square = sturdy/solid, circle = natural/smooth/welcoming, triangle = energetic/dangerous). shape theory doesn't necessarily need to be so rigid -- you can combine shapes as you please to convey whatever vibe you're going for -- so please think of it as a tool that may help rather than a rigid law you must abide by.

-> expressions: exaggerate them. thats kind of it!! make it big!!! you wanna be able to really feel those emotions. the principles of squash & stretch help here: think of how the muscles move when you, say, open the eyes or mouth really big. as one side of the face stretches open, the other side squashes to accommodate it

even without changing the position of the jaw here, moving the nose and scrunching the eyes will sell the expression

you can also play with squash/stretch to break proportions to sell a feeling more

since expressions are just, well, poses for the face, everything else for poses applies here (and facial expressions & pose should also be considered in tandem). while the term contrapposto itself just refers to the offset of the shoulders & hips, the similar principle of asymmetry also carries here as that will help make the expression a bit more dynamic.

and i think... that's it!! all i can think of at least. i hope it helps anon!!!

[felixfeliccis]

hiii so english isn't my first language and i'm learning more about gender and trans stuff and if i might be trans or something (i've been told i sound agender?? but that feels wrong), and something that confuses me, so i'm asking around abt it… "woman" used to simply denote afab, right? like a body type of ppl with a biological (not surgical) vagina & estrogen puberty. like a female dog. ppl say that it reduces women to their genitals, but what about with other animals? like female cat, female horse, etc, just bc we say "oh she's a girl" or "oh i have a male dog" doesn't mean we're saying they're only their genitals in that case, right…? a bitch is just a female dog, that's why it's a misogynistic word. misogyny is based on how ppl see someone without a penis as lesser, bc they don't have the power to forcibly penetrate and feel genital pleasure for it, they can't impregnate, they're "just a hole" etc. like so much of misogyny is just body-specific. the misogyny transfems experience seems terrible but also conditional? bc if they're found out to be amab they're treated as creepy men, so they then stop experiencing misogyny, they just face usually homophobia. meanwhile bio women (and transmascs who don't transition) have no exit door to the misogyny unless they transition and pass perfectly as male or something, and historically that wasn't an option. to me man & woman have always been neutral body types until i came across trans stuff, and i think the idea of gendered brains sounds sexist af. like gender seems like bullshit, i see me being a woman as just like being a female cat, i don't have ~womanly~ vibes in my brain, i was just born female and that's the least important thing about me, but male society made it weird. why should gender continue to be a thing? what does gender actually mean, if sexism was to be eradicated? is it bad if i view my womanhood as just a body type? most cis people i've talked to view their "gender" like this, as just a body type, like any other animal. they don't "feel" like one, they just have the body and aren't dysphoric about it. they might not always like it, but they don't have dysphoria about it, so they just… are. is that transphobic? i've heard mixed thoughts about it from trans ppl & activists, i'm just curious. feel free to ignore this lol ;;

first of all you, can define your gender however you want and there's no need to put a label on yourself, you can just be you and thats enough. You can view yourself however you desire, there's no thought police.

second of all, gender identity was made up by humans and I doubt animals give a damn, call them whatever you want for all I care.

Also I don't think im qualified to speak out about misogyny and transphobia tbh. I have experienced both but I doubt it was to the same extent as others. Also I know nothing about the transfem experience as you can guess

[jazzzzzzhands]

Ok FOR REAL Theory Time!!! Gonna be massive spoilers plus mention of bugs/fungus! So I'm calling this the Mold Theory And what is the Mold? It's the black stuff under Home! (Mold under a house is very suiting, right?) The Mold has contaminated Every single thing that the Restoration team has found! The team talks about the envelopes, the antiques, and the artwork found for Welcome Home and how it is alwasys Wet and covered in Grime. The stuff that is "Growing" all over the found items... Staff must wear gloves or they will get covered in it

You can see it all over the gloves, the Walls, and even the Website Itself! It's also been shown on the restored art prior to the update. But one unfortunate person seems to have touched it. and that is.. The Question Answerer! (The head person of the Restoration team is also most likely infected) Now what this Mold does is, It seems to have an effect of the person's mental state. Causing them to see and hear things, as well as having lucid nightmares and an overwhelming urge to draw spirals. From the very moment of contact, it seems to have effect "When I Unwrapped the first letter, I felt it. I heard it. Open Open Open. I want it out, I'm Going to get it Out" Instant Hallucinations and Obsession! Now I'm going to be Comparing this Mold to a Real fungus called Cordyceps, or the Zombie-Ant Fungus. It is a fungus that can control BUGS (familar themes right?) and take over their minds, forcing them to act unnaturally and wander far in order to spread itself! ~Similarily~ this Mold can take control of the Host's mind as well. The "Spores" that it is trying to spread are the drawings of the spirals/eyes. And the more eyes are Drawn, the more Wally can SEE. Wally has made it truly apparent that he can see us through any rendition of his eyes. "I've seen you every time you've looked into my eyes" "I have more eyes than I did before, you know how to draw eyes You draw mine, many times. I know it is thanks to you, Neighbor.. That I can see.. but it is still.. I can't see" He is giving us instructions.. "You have work to do" -Giving us instrustions on how to draw an eye... "Please Open, Let me In" Now I find this last instruction very funny He doesn't say "Let me Out" No... He says "Let me IN" Into What? What are we Opening? Our doors?Our EYES? our Mind? our Heart?? I think that could be exactly it!!! Letting him.... into You!!! (The collective You) Isn't that Funny? A Funny little thought?! The Puppet becoming the Puppeteer! ooh hee hee hoo hoo I think I'm very clever about that! But there are so many themes of Strings/Control/Scripts That I simply couldn't help myself! Now does that mean I think Wally is Evil? Absolutely NOT I LOVE Wally, and hey, what's a bit of mind control between Neighbors? <333 I'll borrow a cup of sugar and you can borrow my sanity! That's what Neighbors are for! <3 Jokes aside, No I Do NOT think Wally is Evil!! No, he might become a Puppeteer over the Real world... (and It might be for good reason, to save his friends and himself) but he is still very much a Puppet himself. Literally and Figuratively, And the Real Mastermind behind the strings is... Home!

Afterall? Isn't that where the Mold is coming from? From Down Below? Below Home?

This image gives me BIG TIME Obediance vibes Reporting/Worship/Subjugation I very much see Wally as the Lure of a very big Angler Fish.. The bait, the perfect little puppet that has captured our hearts and led us by the hand into Welcome Home. Isn't that very much how it has gone in real life? (Oh I KNOW I got the Mold BAD!!! ahahaha) (I can't stop drawing himmm!!! :3c ) But this is where my rambling stops, Until Next Time! I will just say that: The Relationship between Home and Wally (And by extension, YOU) Is a Strange one for sure! And I cant wait to see it further! And Just one more extra note on this whole Fungus thing.. Did you know that the BIGGEST Organism on the entire Earth.. Is a Mushroom? It is because they are connected through their Roots... (Down Below) and Houses kinda are shaped like musrooms... I will Leave it at That! Ahahahaha!

[iwanttorundirectlyintothesun]

okay i need to know if anyone else has been devastated by a creature having different defining features in dungeon meshi than like childhood stories

bc i adore this series (i am showing So Much restraint not reading the manga and watching it with my family as it comes out) but the kelpie my beloved

her hooves were not backwards and its killing me (kelpies were the closest i got to being a horse girl as a kid)

the seaweed is very nice and accurate (i say this as if ive seen a kelpie (not the dog) in real life) relating to the stories where the kelpie is made of seaweed or the shifter stories where it becomes a handsome young man with an unsettling amount of seaweed or sand in his hair

and the tail is a very cool nod towards it being a sea (limnistic? is that a word? relating to rivers and lakes) creature but the defining traits are that shes got backwards hooves and shes probably sticky when you pat her

like ik itd probably be hard to animate backwards hooves but aaaaa (expression of misapplied and disproportionate injustice and disappointment)

look at how fancy they are (((right picture from ben-the-hyena here on tumblr they did a whole series of drawings of mythological horses as carousels and its so pretty))) (image on the left is described as a nykur which to my knowledge is a similar icelandic water spirit )

((also vaguely disappointed she didnt try to get the others on her back to show off her cool elongation abilities for maximum snack collection but thats not the point i was trying to focus on here))

[sugarsnappeases]

Hi

hello!!!! you did not ask but i’ve been getting emotional recently about hogwarts…. jen said ‘heart of wizarding britain’ and yeah oh my god it makes me fucking crazy. like. imagine you’ve just been through a year of all-out war. everyone you know is fighting for their lives or in hiding or dead and you don’t know who’s alive and you haven’t spoken to anyone bc you don’t know who you can trust but you get word that the final battle is happening. and not only that but it’s happening at hogwarts. and hogwarts is a place that was always safe and holds so many happy memories and is HOME for so many people and now it’s under attack and so you go, maybe not even necessarily bc you particularly support either side but bc it’s HOGWARTS and hogwarts is HOME and so much love and the crux of so many people’s lives and you just have to go and help where you can. the thought of people piling through that tunnel from the hog’s head makes me fucking insane. like the amount of love in that room. the reunions. the people you thought you’d never see again. and you’re all there joined together to defend the place where you met, where you grew up together, where you became the people that you are today. and maybe you’ll die but hogwarts is home. you couldn’t possibly let it go down without a fight.

i’ve also been thinking about the death eaters who are there ATTACKING the castle. and maybe some of them called it home as well…. like even tom called it home at one point in time and although he’s way too far gone by that point and his memories were probs kinda soured anyway by dumbledore etc there must be some of his death eaters for whom hogwarts was always safety when they were students but now they’re THREATENING that safety. tainting those memories. like do you guys think they felt remorse??? guilt??? horror??? idk it’s just so interesting to me. the fact that the war proper starts (w dumbledore’s death) and ends at hogwarts. it’s really the centre of everything. even without taking the war into consideration it’s the centre of everything. it makes me CRAAAZY

[sunflowercider]

Tossing these fic sketches onto tumblr to keep them for myself but allowing me to toss the paper finally lol

[saintadeline]

Lately ive been feeling like im progressively becoming more and more completely unable to word my thoughts and sound coherent at all, my whole brain is foggy and it makes it hard to make sentences when i cant remember how i started them, and its even worse irl ive been stuttering a LOT and i'm starting to get really self conscious about it since i know people have trouble following what im saying and take me less seriously. Idk. So bear with me etc

[synthaphone]

What's your process for your sculptures if you don't mind breaking it down? They look really good!

Thank you!!! I'm not sure if my breakdown will be much different from what i show in posts like this, but i can try my best!

Uhhh lets see. there's some variation depending on what i'm sculpting, but in general my process goes like this:

Decide what I want to sculpt, and gather/draw any necessary references

Create a rough armature out of wire and tin foil for the 'base' of the sculpture- this is usually the body, with wire for limbs, necks, and anything that i think needs support. Doing this helps establish how the sculpture will balance! Its easy to forget how much space the clay will take up and make the armature too big, so i try to undershoot the size i want by a little bit.

Put some clay on the base and get it into roughly the shape I want-again, usually a little smaller than the intended final if I know I'm going to want to add details or texture. Since I like to bake my sculptures multiple times during the process to avoid squashing finished parts, its WAY easier to add clay later than it is to subtract baked clay.

Flesh out the load bearing limbs- making sure it can stand is a big priority!

The base for the head comes next- this is often the second heaviest part of the sculpture after the core body, so getting it positioned correctly and making sure it can stand with the head attached is important. I usually do this as a tin foil ball with a small amount of clay around it, and keep it smaller than I intend the final to be so that I have plenty of space to add the facial features. Sometimes baking at this stage bites me in the ass, if I don't predict how far I'm going to want to carve into the clay to etch in mouth details, but I prefer it to the risk of squashing the whole head out of shape once the details are on (its SUPER hard to fix at that stage)

Then I do more details for the head + limbs, trying to work in an order that will make it easiest to sculpt said detail without squashing it/elements getting in the way of other elements. Turning the sculpture to see it from different angles is really helpful for keeping things symmetrical! Lately, my process for mouths has been carving in elements like the line for the mouth, baking it once I have it where I want it, and then building up sculpted muzzle, lip and cheek mass around the guidelines so that they feel more dimensional and less like a drawn on feature.

Whenever I bake the sculpture, I like to sand areas that feel like they could be smoother- I feel like this step has helped a lot with making my sculptures seem more professional, because its very hard to get smooth surfaces with just your fingers. Using isopropyl alcohol on the still wet clay is another way to smooth things, but its better for smoothing out very small scratches and textures than larger ones.

UHHh and then once I'm happy with it and i've gotten all of the elements on and baked and sanded how I want- I'm done sculpting!!!

my painting process is more straightforward-

Put a coat of gesso on the sculpture so the paint doesn't scratch off easily

Paint a base coat in a color that's a little darker than I want the final colors to be- make sure to get this coat into every little crevice in the sculpture!!

Layer lighter colors on top, leaving crevices and areas that would typically be in shadow darker, until it looks how I want. This is a long and tedious process, but I really like the final appearance so I do this every time. I usually go too dark for my base color, underestimating how it will look once the lighter one goes on, and my paint is cheap as hell so it takes like one billion coats. I try to apply the lighter colors by dry brushing, but it doesn't always work how I want due to different paint having different consistencies, lol

Apply a couple coats of matte varnish onto most of the sculpture, and gloss varnish to eyes + any elements I want to be shiny. I try to use gloss sparingly because that makes it pop more where I do use it. This is also why I don't paint any bright highlight shines onto my eyes- its personal taste, but I think it looks SO cool when the natural light against the gloss varnish applies that bright highlight on its own.

Hopefully some of this is helpful! I have more WIP photos of older sculptures in my 'sculpture' tag, and also in my 'wip' and 'wips' tag (I'm really bad at remembering what tag to use so I've used both over the years, whoops)

[deltaruiner]

AGHGFCCV LISTEN.

I have a theory-----

So it always bothered ne how despite there being so many witches in Mitakihara, there only seem to be Mami (and kinda Homura) as magical girls in the city at the start of the show, like surely these witches come from an equivalent amount of magical girls right???

Welll what if- magical girls and witches cone in some sort of "waves" of despair- basically, kind of like highs and lows in stuff like market economics

Heres how i think it might work- Kyubey reveals himself to a girl, and there are 2 options-

1- She is a lonely person and has therefore a higher likelyhood of witching out or dying without a support network, or-

2- She has, to some kind of degree, close friends she can talk to about stuff like being a magical girl.

If option 2 happens, then even if the girl herself is the only one out of her friend group (or out of whoever is eligible in it anyway) who becomes a magical girl, then eventually when she inevitably enters into a dangerous situation, Kyubey will manipulate any eligible friends she has into making a wish for her (which constantly happens in the show)

Then, if a wish wasn't made, a new witch or at least dead magical girl wouldve been created without any friends joining as magical girls

The more likely situation i suspect though, is that a wish DOES get made, and then, when one of the friends gets into a dangerous situation again and none is there to make a wish to save them (which will inevitably happen because being meguca is suffering)-

One of them will die or witch out, starting a chain reaction because well, your friend just died in front of you, probably brutally, or instead went the non gorey (if nothing else) way of becoming a witch- both highlighting the futility of your cause AND making you use energy to defeat a new witch in an already bad for you situation.

Both cases are highly likely to make the entire friend group witch out this way, because of the collective downward spiral.

And again, lonely girls are known to be preyed on because they do not last long.

In short i suspect the show takes place right after these kind of "chain witchification" happened to many magical girls in Mitakihara, which Mami was not affected by because she is a lone veteran (despite her efforts)

Basically, I think Gertrude, H.N. Elly, Elsa Maria, and maybe one of the other less significant witches (not Charlotte tho we know what happened There...) were part of a magical girl squad that fell to despair

Heck, this chain reaction is even shown to happen in alternate tinelines the Quintet was together, Sayaka witches out, Mami breaks down bc of it and kills Kyouko and then dies (to Madoka), and then Madoka becomes a witch, and so too would have Homura if she could not time travel most likely, resulting in net 0 magical girls and only witches for a short amount of time.

Mitakihara could also just actually be really small and all the witches immigrate from Kazumino or something. idk. that would be boring though