#the thing is that there is nothing stopping you from infodumping about character design. you are allowed to just do that!

[chiropteracupola]

the gentleman of lies himself!

[flintlock fortress is a collaboration with @dxppercxdxver]

[bitch-spectrum]

PART 2/3

Part 1 ,, Part 3

Ed

Personality Headcanons: He hates tobacco. He hates it when people smoke around him. He's the kind of guy to put out your cigarette for you and you look up at him, thinking you're gonna fight some punk but quickly change your mind. His dad used to make him cut and light his cigars and he hated doing it so much he swore he'd never smoke. The hole that he sleeps in is deliberately cut, sanded, and reboarded. He nests in there. Probably Autistic and doesn't speak much around strangers. Will gladly infodump to his friends. He's in his mid-late 30s ~35-38. In addition to being part of TF4 he also works part time as a steam locomotive driver. After being tied to the train tracks, he kind of got curious about it. He can play an instrument, I'm just not sure which one. Probably a fiddle idk. Physical Headcanons: The tooth sticking out is a broken tusk. he desperately wants to grow facial hair, has tried, and cannot. He's very jealous of people who do have facial hair. ~6'05" Gender: Cis male Pronouns: He/Him Orientation: Straight He's a hardcore ally and loves going to pride events to support his friends. He thinks they're a lot of fun. Post Game: His life carried on fairly regularly afterwards, like Ace. I personally feel like he had more of a connection with Clover than the others though so, he was a little more impacted by their death. Sometimes he'll sit into the early morning with Starlo at the Saloon. Opinions: I'm bias. I heart large men so, points. I would have also liked to have seen more of him. One thing though is that on appearance alone I could so clearly hear his voice when he spoke. His design carries. 3.5/5.

Flowey

Personality Headcanons: Flowey is my favorite character in the Undertale franchise so I'm going to TRY to keep this short. As it stands, he's currently stuck at the maturity level he died at, so around 11-13. Since he doesn't have a physical body (other than a flower) he doesn't really age. I don't think he's a lost cause or even completely irredeemable. He's a terrified, traumatized, kid who's own parents don't recognize him anymore. He's had to try to navigate the world in a body that isn't his, completely alone. Sometimes when he goes through episodes he lies close to the ground to bite his petals and rip them off hoping that somehow it'll make room for his horns to grow back. He both despises his family for splitting up and ignoring him but wants nothing more than to be a family again. He has really conflicting feelings on a lot of things. I feel like if he went through extensive therapy his maturity would probably eventually catch up to what would be his chronological age if he wasn't a flower. He's touch starved but hates being touched. Probably has one or multiple personality disorders. Physical Headcanons: We get a side profile of his nose in his boss fight in neutral. I think that's a genetic trait from Asgore. Has freckles. Not much to headcanon since he's a Flower until the true ending of the OG UT when he ascends. Gender: He stopped giving fucks a long time ago. Pronouns: He/They (DESPISES being called an it) Orientation: Aroace. He's not necessarily repulsed but if asked if he has a crush on anyone he'd say "I'd rather watch someone be crushed to death than think ever think about dating." Post Game: N/A Opinions: I'm a die hard Flowey Apologist. He's such a deep, complex, and tragic character. I love him. I want to hug him. In this specific game too, wow, I love Flowey lore. Love Flowey angst. 5/5.

Martlet Personality Headcanons: Probably AuDHD. Definitely has racing thoughts / scatterbrain. Her first job was babysitting when she was a teen. She only barely got into The Royal Guard because they were desperate after losing a lot of good members in the war. She eventually proved herself to be a good member. Probably in her early 20s so ~21-23. Physical Headcanons: She's pretty buffed because of her job. ~5'10". I don't have too many. Gender: Trans Woman Pronouns: She/They Orientation: Multisexual of some sort with a preference for women. Also ambiamorous. Post Game: She quit her job at The Royal Guard, unable to really take the burden of having to kill a human child for the king. Chujin's words haunt her, what he said about her not being cut out for it. Instead she got a job as a classroom assistant. She bounces around the limited schooling system the underground has. So often times she gets a good reputation with the kids and will get to watch them grow up. Sometimes her job makes her think about how she could have done her best to hide Clover and watch them grow up too. She's a very emotional person by nature so, she would probably take the longest to really have it be in the past for her. But, she got right to *appearing* like she was moving on. By day it was like nothing had happened at all, she puts on a smile for the kids she helps out with, plays games with them. She's good at seeming okay but just shatters every night for a long time. Eventually (RAREPAIR), spending so much time with Dalv became beneficial for the both of them and they helped pull each other out of the rut. Opinions: I wish she had more screen time because she seems like a character the creators cared a lot about. She's very OC shaped and that's a good thing. I love when I can see the care that goes into a character. 4/5.

[horseshoemybeloved]

wait i am really intrigued with your versions of the suitehearts i love the designs and seeing your take on them so please infodump about them to me about this obscure fob au that i’ve been insane about for years

It is now time for my long ass ( my version of the ) suitehearts masterpost * wiggles fingers *

Keep in mind!!!

So basically first things first, my versions of ‘em are Completely different characters. Some draw/view the suitehearts as fob in silly costumes ( which is super chill ) but my versions are very different. So when I say “ Benzedrine is a repressed gay wizard obsessed with abba“ I am in no ways implying that Patrick is a repressed gay wizard obsessed with abba. There are some similarities between people but it is never intentional. ( also I’m constantly changing stuff nothings set in stone lol )

Da world!

The world is kinda like a purgatory, everyone there has died but could move to another plane. Thusly there are people from all different decades. Magic is very common here, a lot of people can do small basic spells. But it takes years of practice to become a wizard, and decades to become a good one. There are 5 main,,, species? Races? I’m not quite sure how to label em. But we have:

your average human, nothing really of note here

elemental benders ( they are born with a cavity in their chest relating to what “ element “ they control. Some control water some Disco music! )

Pixies/sprites, they usually have abnormal colored skin, pointy ears, and the ability to float around. They naturally have good connection with spirits and can summon them when needed ( if they’re good at it )

Angels, they’re naturally fun colors, have magical hair, and vaguely cow like ears?. Angles can use their magic to make themselves look like normal humans tho. They usually live together and provide comfort for people. But there has been a rebellion happening and now a lot of angels try and live life not for the sole service of others but now for themselves ( is allegory 4 womanhood moment )

And then of course furries xoxo

Now the reason you even started reading this, info about the suitehearts!

Dr. benzedrine is vaguely narcissistic and full of himself, but in an oddly charming way. Personality wise hes a mixture of howl ( hmc ) without Any of the swauve, mostly just the dramatics, and aziraphale ( good omens ). Hes a middle aged man who Will Not admit hes gay, he is Incredibly repressed. He was apart of the huge royal academy of wizards, best one they’d ever had. But had a falling out with the leader in charge and now just has his own little wizard store. He befriended Donnie at a little diner because he made a reference to a Kate bush or Fiona apple song, or something or other. Him and sandman do Not get along, sandman often visits the store just to annoy him. But they have more similarities than they know, they just need to stop bitching at eachother!

( also he was born like 5’ something but the spirits in charge of transferring people to this plane were like “ I’d be mad funny if we made him really short he’d be so mad “ )

He is my autistic little meow meow 😔🙏

Horseshoe has a regal flowyness to him, semi-oblivious to his own charm, and loves to dance the night away. When everyone around him is disheveled and falling apart, he still manages to look fantastic. He appears to be the dumb blonde of the group, which he definitely doesn't mind and loves to indulged in the trope. ( he may not know where or even what Sweden is but at least hes pretty ) But he is a deeply creative person, and that in its own special way shows an intelligence. He works at a small local craft store ( bcus then he gets first dibs on all the cool new art supplies :D ) he is an angel, but chooses to focus his little magical power on constantly disguising himself cus he doesn’t wanna be bothered lol.

Donnie is very nurturing and kind, yet extremely energetic and bubbly, think kinda like,,, super sweet valleygirl. He’s slightly based off YouTuber Garret watts. He is very big solid guy. He has a bit of a problem with feeling like he Needs to take care of everyone, like it’s job ( he’s workin through it in therapy ) Like I mentioned there are people who are like elemental benders, Donnie is one of them. He has a little terrarium with either a mushroom or a daisy, and can make vines grow from his hands and legs. Donnie is also autistic ( heavily based on my experiences with it, he’s also just kinda heavily based off of me ) He's from da 60s, during the whole hippy thing.

Sandman is your typical bitchy mallgoth, who goes around calling everyone a " poser" and everything " poser shit " they put up a bitchy angry front but deep down theyre an insecure sensitive little guy. Sandman is a Pixie so that means they can summon these ( usless ) spirit guys ( they’re not very good at it ) shes also kinda Super into typical """ cringey """ stuff from 2015 ( ie undertale, fnaf, the lving tombstone, mlp ) Sandman is semi kinda not really it’s complicated openly non-binary, but still seems to repress quite a bit and just push away all deeper feelings. I thought it would be interesting to experiment with a character who is a trans femme gay guy, kinda like a reverse trans masc lesbian I guess. Idk lol don’t get mad at me

Anything else kiddo?

The format id choose to express this story would def be a movie. Uhhh… I can’t really think of much else right now, but feel free to ask questions I luv talking about em :3

[abd-appleboxdog]

I would like to show some process or writing my comic story thingy that I’ve been working on for almost four years now!

So my main story, not Out of Bounds, is called SELINA, that’s about it.. it’s about a multiversal being going on a rampage and destroying a bunch of worlds/universes. Now a group of fools gotta stop her, basically it.

I made a first version of a comic in early April 2021 (plus some paper outlines the year before). There were a lot of things wrong with this but I’m going to focus on one aspect, the main character.

The main character was a man named Edd, who had a deep, deep past with the villain Selina. He was basically her best friend in every reality and world, almost like her sidekick. My first comic version already had a problem right from the beginning. I started it with “I don’t know how long it’s been, possibly two or three years… the day all the worlds were doomed..”

BOOOORING!!

Where’s the interest in that!!! Where’s the flavor!!! World info dumps at the beginning of a story? Worst move you can make!! And I did it.

See, the problem is that Edd has SO MUCH background with Selina and literally just in general that it’s hard for someone to connect! He goes on all like “we moved on… here’s a reference no one is gonna get….. I’m gonna kill her!”

So after 3 long boring chapters of a poor fast paced comic, I made half of a chapter with some improvement. This time Edd had no inner dialogue in the beginning and there was a HOOK!!

No story infodump, plus points for Apple. Anyways I ran into other problems with this version too. Although I fixed plot holes with the villain, there was no motive still. Edd still knew too much and the other characters kept talking about him which was more difficult, he’s such a fleshed out character with so much lore, how is it possible for someone to connect with that with zero knowledge? This is a multiverse story, Edd has lived thousands of lives, there would be too much for even flashbacks to show as a main character.

Now as a side character or second main character? I could work with that. Instead of the reader struggling to understand what this dude was on and what his deal was, he was just the mysterious character who he lore. It’s like if you started a show with the antagonists point of view. If my hero academia started with Todoroki or whatever his name is. Instead it’s Izuku, pretty much a blank slate!! Name one thing cool about him before he got his power. Nothing! That’s the point!!

For me, I needed a main character who was aware of Selina but didn’t have a deep past with her, someone who would be asking questions the reader might have, someone who is easy to see yourself as while still having a complex character backstory and design!

Behold.

Venus is a space traveler who travels the galaxy with her best friend Apollo in a space plane during a space zombie apocalypse. She’s immune and is going around the universe AND the multiverse/realities to help heal people with a cure made from her blood. She barely knows about Selina, she has questions, and the reader will still have questions about her!!!

When I talk about needing a “blank slate main character” I don’t mean just an insert, or that your main character should ALWAYS have questions. This is all only how I do it, and maybe it will change! I won’t know, but currently it’s easier for me to figure out a story with a character who has no clue what’s happening!

This story is a BIG work in progress, characters are still being made, storyline, plot, backgrounds, all of it. But I will be posting here about it, including Out of Bounds stuff!! If you see an OC of mine and are confused on which story they’re in, look for tags! You may ask anything (I’ll try to not spoil too much). I hope to see you there once I’ve made progress on this creation.

[randomnameless]

Some of the stuff that FEH has put out makes me wish Trial Maps were a thing again. It'd let fans use enemy characters without breaking the story.

Eh,

As a concept, I loved the Larva (Epi?) paralogue in Nopes - you are basically playing as Larva, going to help his genocidal "allies" to run away from the Empire and the CoS, to the point where you fight against Cethleann, Cichol and Seiros.

And Larva in this map, is nothing but obnoxious, calling everyone beasts, mocking the Empire for not knowing why they fight, sprouting platitude about "fighting for his fwends" (the same ones he just dissed seconds ago) while deshumanising the Nabateans all along, calling them beasts and such -

Given the backstory between Agarthans and those specific Nabateans - the survivors of a massacre he knows of, hell he calls the main perpetrator an "ally" - there's little to no doubts that Larva here is being a big ball of, uh, prejudice and bias - ergo we're playing as the enemy!

However, because the Fodlan games are, the Fodlan games where only people belonging to factions from the latest feh banner are challenged and contested, there is no payback, no result from this paralogue. No Barney wondering why the eff was a Larva like fighting against Saint Seiros and people familiar but with a different hair color, no reason/justification behind this random battle, where lo, Larva fights/defeats survivors of a massacre he, uh, "didn't agree with" but totes supports given his views, mocks people for not knowing why they fight for but never reveals the audience or even Barney what this dream was about (I was helping Goneril run away from Cichol with Cichol's sister's knee plate, the one he obtained after vivisecting her and eating her liver!).

So, in a nutshell, I think you can make a game where you play as "the enemy" and call it a vilain route or a "bad ending" route and remembers Fates?

Everyone can be a hero in their own eyes, sure!

But with the Fodlan games, especially Nopes, given how hard the AG gang beats themselves for "maybe we're bad for invading the Empire to stop the war after it starts to hunt its randoms for funsies but trufax Randy is very nice and kind he let a random soldier escape while he was busying destroying a village" - you have the feeling that the "everyone" from the earlier maxim is just, the SB and GW and with that paralogue, the Slither gangs.

FE16 gave more "heroic tunnel vision" to each of its factions through each route, even if SS was a bit more nuanced - but you know who doesn't get any "heroic tunnel vision" or pov in those games?

And only gets an infodump at the end of the most superfluous route ?

Ultimately I'm not too keen on the Trial Maps designs (you're talking about the maps where if you finish the game 5 times you get a free unit right?) because I think that if you have a character you should write a plot that can accomodate for that character's presence without breaking it - but again, Trial Maps were the only ways KT found to give us playable Nabateans (Rhea'n'Sothis) and lines, since the main game refuses to do anything with them, like letting them talk in the microphone.

Short story, long story : a good story can fit "enemy characters" and have them follow their own plans (maybe in a gaiden) to give more insight on them, what they think and/or why they are thinking this, but it should be integrated in the game and shouldn't demolish it because "everyone's story is equally valid", or, and worse, shouldn't bank on the game not giving a voice to the last faction that is piled on by every other without even being able to reply.

[ac-liveblogs]

Deadass first thought when I saw jing yuan and blade was "bitch, cut your bangs".

As much as I love Yanqing for trying to solo The demigod, most infamous and divisive political hot potato in his culture, AND an immortal ranked at the top of the IPC's most wanted list, AT THE SAME TIME, blade and dan heng's first encounter being them fighting /together/ wasn't a good look, given their history and dan heng canonically having nightmares abt the dude.

Then again, most of the hsr fandom probs comes from genshin, with the lack of critical thinking that entails - exhibit A, see the most popular ship for dan heng in ao3...

Also with jingliu I was like "...weren't you dead...?" Bc I, like a fool, watched the animations before playing the game, so I thought the Imbibitor Lunae transformation would be a lot cooler than it was and that Jing Yuan actually put down his mara-struck master. Knowing she's a playable character completely ruined the dramatic tension in the "A Flash" animation for me lol

I liked Jing Yuan's design but his role as 'moral upstanding always right hero guy' really started to grate on me. It was in pretty sharp contrast to Herta and Bronya as the previous 'leaders' of their worlds. Disappointing downgrade.

I mean, Blade did still stab him. That's still a thing that happened. The issue is more that him doing that ... wasn't really about Blade and Dan Heng. It was about Imbibitor Lunae.

And when you've got-

"that man [Blade] only has a killing intent toward him [Dan Heng] — even the spaceships he had traveled on were all annihilated."

-plus. You know. Blade's lore...

Based on Blade's handling in everything I've seen so far (bear in mind that I don't go to HSR's YouTube page or watch any shorts or trailers so whatever information is conveyed there is a mystery to me), I never would have guessed anything even remotely close to that level of intensity was going on with them.

Which is really like... the issue...

I don't think, necessarily, that the first fight with Blade being against Yanqing is the problem in isolation. It's that it muddies what Blade and Dan Heng's actual dynamic is. If Blade's introduction had been him, I don't know, attacking the Express to get to Dan Heng and the reason they stopped in Xianzhou was for repairs (absolute bare minimum of establishing conflict), they would've set up what's up with them and the team-up would've been less damning later on.

Just less. Still not great as Blade's first playable fight. But. Less. I assume they wanted a playable NPC Blade for that patch since he just dropped and because they also wanted DH:IL ... eh...

But because Blade is almost completely out of focus in XL, when he shows up his conflict with Dan Heng loses impact due to the team-up and his role in it is just to reveal Imbibitor Lunae and then he leaves... and the lore is 1) buried in Character Stories and 2) infodumped after the fact...

The man is utterly lost in the weeds. He's a hologram. He's off-screen. He's standing to the side while Dan Heng does cool things. He's locked in a room while Kafka and Trailblazer chat about their shared past. He's absent while Jingliu explains his history with Dan Feng to Dan Heng. He's nothing. He does nothing.

I don't even buy he's that crazy. Him or Jingliu. They can have the scary eyes in their Ultimates all they want, I don't believe it, they're both way too rational for that.

In my opinion, Blade doesn't bring anything to the table right now (like, at all, the Quintet's lore wasn't really structured in a way that makes the best use of him or his hatred for DH or... the themes of Abundance vs the Hunt... grrr).

Blade's entire situation here is. It's just bad writing. I was pulling for him because I knew he was connected to Dan Heng and he's a stupid useful support character, almost got to hard pity, and then stopped pulling because the man bored me to tears!

Then again, most of the hsr fandom probs comes from genshin, with the lack of critical thinking that entails - exhibit A, see the most popular ship for dan heng in ao3…

I'm a little surprised that you're surprised by that, given those two being popular makes sense if you're accustomed to fandom. It seems like their lore would've resulted in a lot of speculation and (depending on what's in all the lore books I haven't read or animations I haven't watched) theorycrafting, plus Dan Heng being a playable MC with a rival team counterpart (guaranteed future interactions in a main story capacity) with whom he has a dynamic, drama, a mysterious shared past...

No real shock fandom latched on. Them even being the most popular makes sense, since it's not like there's a whole lot else on that level in HSR at the moment. At least not that I've seen, and especially not with the main team (setting aside whatever's up with Welt and Luocha). Fandom loves filling in the gaps and 'fixing' things too. So. There's that.

...God, you really would've expected their dynamic to matter?? Christ a moment of silence to anyone that got invested in that what a shit payoff, I've been here for a week and I'm mad? You could completely remove Blade from this chapter and the only change you'd need is a different reason for Dan Heng to leave the Express to go to Xianzhou. My guy deserved better than this??? How come Trailblazer and Kafka get so much time and attention but Dan Heng gets shit all with his counterpart in his own chapters??? Atrocious, absolutely atrocious.

I have no idea what to think about Jingliu. The High Cloud Quintet's handling is weird. I suppose it's still better than Genshin's Adepti-obsession given 4+1/5 are playable but. Why she was brought back here, and for this, is beyond me.

[pedotism]

animation meme autism (gives you war flashbacks)

I HAVE SO MANY ANIMATION MEME IDEAS BUT LET ME MAKE A LIST OF OLD ANIMATION MEMES I LOVE LOVE LOVELVEOVELVEOVEL AND HOPE TO MAKE ONE DAY

THIS ONE THTHITHSITHSITHISH OK SO I HAVE SOMETHING IN MIND FOR LAVENDER. SO LIKE. more like some backstory-ish stuff so like aging her up till shes the person she is now but still with her inner child. thing i have in mind is to start off with the questions from her parents, friends till deshaun.

honestly this is either for lavender or advil because i can easily see advil working with this too. personally going from like. every they know so like. near, copy, deshaun and ryuk(i feel like they should know ryuk) but im not completely sure, i feel as if its either ryuk or kaito (i am establishing that they actually know eachother right now)

IM GONNA BE SO HONEST RIGHT NOW THIS ONE IS JUST BECAUSE I NEED A LITTLE BIT OF HAPPINESS IN MY LIFE. im thinking that like this should just be sunflower ship animation. why? because my brain is rotted. its either that or rudy x tobias!! its like same thing different font at this point! nothing special to say about this one (the animation is also just really fun and cute)

OK OK LOOK. ok no dont look this is just. a really good song.. thinking it should be like maybe tobias for this im sosadf tobias is the only in mind for this like genuinely

OKOKOKOKOKOKO THIS ONE IS JUST TOO ICONIC!!! this one should just be my sona with either molly or your sona (maybe even both! no reaver though because he doesnt really have a sona ref or snything.,,,,) i just cant do this iconic one i remember replaying this a shit load of times

ANOTHER ONE THATS JUST BECAUSE ITS CUTE mostly thinking about advil for this one just cuz advil needs more art also i love advil so much

OKOK THIS ONE THISIHTISHTIS I JUST WANT TO INFODUMP ABOUT JUNICHI (THE MC OF PHANTOMS AWAKENING!!) i love thinking about them so much

IM SO CRINGE I KNOW BUT I WILL NEVER NOT THINK ABOUT THIS ANIMATION MEME!!!!!!!! this one could be with anyone ill be so honest but youknow. i can defo see this as an emilio / omori thing if i do make it omori themed id make it more pointing towards my future au design

CHOICE!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS ONE I WANT TO MAKE THIS GENTLE SKIES THEMED I WANT THE MAIN CHARACTERS TO BE CENTERED IN THIS EXP RAY AND CLOUD i adore writing their fucked up little sotry so much its insane

but tbh animation memes like hotmilk, time lapse and hottudoggu still plaque my mind. i dont think ill ever stop thinking about them!! but thats fine.. holds hand out..

lets be cringe about animation memes..... together holds hand out

[dribbonart]

My big Honorverse complaint bag

First thing: I didn’t give Honorverse a proper chance. Once I realized the Haven sections never intersect with the Honor/Manticore sections, I just skimmed them. I’m told this is a mistake, but it’s too late now. I read nine books, now I’m done. I wanted a Horatio Hornblower book, not a series of captains that blow up without ever interacting with the protagonist.

This brings me to my first issue: (Below the fold)

Black Box Haven

Weber has this weird belief that hostile forces simply do not communicate at all. From book one to the end of book nine, Honor briefly interacts with Cordelia Ransom, and that’s it. Despite lots of opportunities for communication, (The Haven captain in book one literally thinks how useful it would be to send a message to Honor’s ship!) they just… don’t. It’s as though there’s an impermeable curtain between Honor’s story and the Haven story. A couple characters cross, but not words. This takes away one of the best things in spaceship stories, the part where the hostile captains face each other on their viewscreens and try to reach some kind of understanding or leverage against each other. Instead it’s just hammering on ships that might as well be staffed by robots. 

Since the bad guys almost always explain the details of their plans to each other, this means that we have to learn about them twice. This is one of the main reasons I stopped reading the Haven parts, I’d much rather find out what’s going on just once from Honor’s perspective.

We’re given dozens of pages about some Haven captain only for them to be destroyed by Honor’s forces without even being aware that something is happening. What’s the point? When I’m told about a character, I want some kind of pay off in proportion to the detail I’m given.

Even the Haven leadership, while suffering enormous losses from a superior foe intent on their extermination, never tries to extend any kind of embassy until the end of book nine. Why? They have nothing to lose by sending an ambassador to ask, “Hey, why are you so intent on killing all of us, and is there anything we could do to dissuade you?” Remember, Manticore has no public war aims! It is a war of extermination, and neither side even tries to gain an edge by the most common thing in international conflict, words. 

When Honor is sent on a mission with an ambassador, everyone treats him as insane for suggesting that they should pursue a diplomatic solution. When he’s talking, people can’t even look him in the eye. He, very sensibly, points out that Grayson and Masada would be better off if they were friends, and the Navy people seem to think that “they hate each other” is proof that peace is impossible. But what’s the Navy’s plan? Have they been reading the chapters that lay out the impending Masada attack?

Info Dumps

Even people that like Honorverse admit this is bullshit, so I’d just add that he infodumps about things other than tech. The history of the Grayson constitution does not need to have an interlude just to have an excuse to give Honor some prize. 

Oh also, someone eyeballs a space battle and says, “our tech people say that Haven has closed the tech gap by 15%, but this looks more like 20%,” which might be the most insane thing in the entire series.

Honor Harrington, you’re right again.

What I would give to have Honor do something, anything wrong. The one thing that’s clearly illegal, (beating Houseman to serious injury) is affirmed by her superior officer as a necessary, but impolitic act. When he says “You did the right thing, Honor Harrington,” he may as well have been giving the series a subtitle. Her only “weakness” is being “bad at math,” which means that when she has to estimate the number of people that can survive in a ship not designed for it, she estimates 1300, instead of the “correct” 1350. (This is genuinely treated as an example of her being bad at math. Possibly the only one?)

Instead of mistakes, Honor makes money. And ranks. And titles. And superpowers. And powerful friends. She’s jumped up three ranks all at once, at a political cost, just so she can be a double admiral, which doesn’t even matter in that book! This is one of the many ways that Honor is an evil mirror of Horatio Hornblower. Horatio is never the greatest guy, he has to struggle to make it in a world that doesn’t care about him. It makes him relatable, and it makes it more interesting to see how he deals with problems that are larger than him. Weber seems to think that this is an error, and a good protagonist is one that gets a new superpower and ten times as much money for every new book.

She loses her first battle in book eleven.

Even before she knows how to use cosmetics, she’s universally seen as unconventionally attractive. Cosmetics let her sand the edge off that “unconventional” and eliminate one more thing that makes her interesting.

Honor becomes a child of two worlds, a very old standard sci-fi concept, but it too is reversed. Instead of Honor being torn between two loyalties, her two nations simply become two separate sources of goodies to make Honor wealthier and more powerful. She’s become an admiral in two different navies, clearly an untenable situation, but no one even seems to think that’s an issue.

Very early in the series, Honor has so much power and prestige that she should be a major player in society, but she’s oddly passive. She still acts like a mid-level soldier that simply reacts to the scenario put in front of her. She barely has likes or interests outside of the military. She likes cocoa, that’s all I can think of.

To make sure that Honor is never wrong, the story has to set up situations so that they align with her desires. When Honor refuses to follow an ambassador’s orders, there happens to be someone else in charge of the mission to countermand those orders. Her duel with Pavel Young is a great example. She decides to shoot Pavel even though he is helpless. This would be an interesting character moment! But! Honor cannot be allowed to be questioned, so the laws of dueling are such that Pavel would have been summarily executed anyway, so she’s not actually doing anything wrong.

Just imagine how much more interesting it would have been to have Honor choose to kill Pavel, when he otherwise would have lived! Character is about choice!

Honor should have been forced to choose which ship to save in the assassination attempt on the Queen. Put the ruler of Grayson and Manticore on different ships, make her choose. But that would mean her decision could be criticized, so it can’t be allowed.

The weirdest part of Honor’s superpowers is that most of them don’t actually change anything in the story. They’re just to make her a “better” character in a childish, “Well, my character is super-strong and a super-genius!” kind of way. Her telescopic vision is used in a way that affects anything maybe once? Her photographic memory that works even when she’s not paying attention is mentioned but never affects the story at all. Her psychic powers could literally be replaced by looking people in the eyes. (This would also be better for the story since it would give us more details about people instead of scanning their brains for emotions. Show, don’t tell.) 

Show, Don’t Tell

There’s showing, where you experience something that happens directly.

There’s telling, where you’re told about something.

Then there’s Weber-ing, where the narrator goes off on their own to directly transmit the data directly into the reader’s brain without anyone in the book interacting with the information at all. Maximum abstraction. Please, just use an appendix! If no one in the story has a reason to talk about or experience something, that’s a hint that you don’t need it in the book!

If we must have endless descriptions of missiles’ statistical chances of encountering the enemy, at least put it in a character’s thoughts. Have Weber stare at a radar screen, frantically calculating the odds! Put us in the room, not in the manual for a missile!

Grayson Is Nothing

Why do people like Grayson? The best thing you can say about their culture is that they’re not as bigoted as their neighbors who seem to be specifically designed to be the “bad” people to contrast with the “good” Graysons. There doesn’t seem to be a single good Grayson that actually believes in their religion. They have a state religion that has, for centuries, maintained a lower status for women, and they just fold on it instantly! Every prominent Grayson thinks that their misogyny is antiquated, at best. When a priest points out that misogyny is a big part of their whole thing, and he doesn’t think a woman should be in a position of enormous power, he’s brutally beaten and expelled from the church! 

When the idea of instant equal rights for women is introduced, the wise people of Grayson say, “that sounds good, but let’s not be too hasty, women aren’t really ready for participating in society.” This is exactly the position of real people fighting against civil rights, but Honor agrees! Could you look someone in the eye and say, “yeah, my type can’t be given their rights all at once!”

And what, other than the parts no one believed in, is the Grayson religion? They mention going to church once, but it doesn’t seem to actually affect anyone’s behavior.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to think of an analogy for Honor’s position in Grayson society. I don’t think there’s anything in history that matches it, because it’s completely bananas. Here’s my best attempt:

Imagine the Mexican-American war turned bad for America, and Mexico started making territorial gains into the US. Then a dashing British navy officer led a defense of an American port city that turned the tide of the war. This British officer is rewarded with a private state of Texas. He’s the permanent Governor, and is put in charge of the American Navy. But the “American” Navy is in British ships, staffed by British officers and financed by British loans. This Navy is pulled away from the defense of the Union for British military operations. The British Permanent Governor of Texas also has a patent on all railroad construction and gets so much of a percentage of railroad spending that he becomes the wealthiest person in the country. He also rejects the idea of Democracy, but says he won’t actively oppose it.

Reasonable people would say that, hero or not, they do not want the US turned into an extension of the UK! But the idea that Honor’s equivalent position makes Grayson an extension of Manticore is treated as absurd!

Why does Grayson have more details about its history, politics and constitution than Manticore? That’s weird!

Economics

Everyone hates the weird economic moralizing of the Honorverse. I’m surprised there’s not more complaining about how bad it is in its own right.

The conversation about Manticore’s economy was error after error. They genuinely say, “We don’t have an income tax! We believe in free trade! That’s why we get all our income from tolls!”

Haven tries to achieve deflation during a war. Incredible.

Haven’s economy is treated as a garbage fire because they have a lot of debt (Although Weber doesn’t seem to realize that they must owe that debt to another entity, instead it just exists in its own right as a floating negative number at the bank,) but there are riots when they suggest that they stop increasing the basic income more than inflation. This means that the basic income, and therefore standard of living, have been going up for all of living memory. That would make Haven the most successful economy of all time.

Haven conquers planets to exploit them, but then reflexively turns them into social welfare states like Lemongrab turning candy seeds into more candy people. They should have considered not doing that.

Anti-Politics

I suspect Weber would describe his politics as “centrist” or “reasonable” or “non-political”. I think a better title would be “Anti-political.” Everyone in the Honorverse that engages in the basics of politics, delivering benefits to their constituents, is treated as a naive buffoon wounding the nation at best. He genuinely does not believe in popular control of government.

He thinks the problem with a military dictator is the culture clash between people accustomed to a democratic process.

The only legitimate political act in Honorverse is supporting total war against an enemy without a casus belli. The queen even insists it’s not political! “I have not asked you to abandon your principles. I have not asked you to embrace or pretend to embrace any ideology offensive to you or your party members. My only concern is…to win the current war and establish a lasting peace."

As though a war of annihilation did not concern principles or ideology!

The War 

The war between Manticore and Haven is weird. Haven thinks it’ll just wipe out Manticore and its neighbor so it can retire its Navy since it won’t have a dangerous neighbor any more, apparently unaware that there would just be more dangerous neighbors on their new borders. Haven does a few border raids that would be casus belli, but Manticore seems to think it would need to be able to prove their case to justify such a declaration of war, even though there’s no space UN to appeal to. 

Then, once Haven does an act of war so provocative it cannot be denied, Haven’s entire government is decapitated, resetting relations between the two countries. Except it doesn’t, and Manticore starts a war of annihilation against a country that just started that year. The very existence of a country called Haven is treated as an existential threat, regardless of who's in charge. (I’m told the new book Toll of Honor has a whole section justifying this, I don't care. The idea that they don’t even send a letter is ridiculous.)

From the formal beginning of the war in book five, Manticore is the aggressor. It’s undeniable, they’re making massive inroads into Haven’s territory. First they have the goal of seizing Haven’s major shipping lane, then they move on to the capture of Haven’s core worlds and capital. Yet Manticore must not just be winning the war, they must also be the most sympathetic. This means that Every. Single. Battle. we witness is a perfidious Haven attack against a Manticore planet. Manticore is seizing planets by the dozens, but that might make them look bad, so instead they are shown defending their homes.

In case anyone doubts that Manticore must be seen as a victim even as it plots the destruction of its enemy’s capital, Weber makes it explicit: “In a crazy sort of way, the fact that we keep winning battles only makes it even more acceptable to the Sollies. It’s almost as if every battle we win somehow turns the Peeps more and more into the ‘underdogs,’ for God’s sake!”

In the Honorverse, being the underdogs is good, so Manticore are underdogs. The fact that they are winning is irrelevant.

Weber also gives every colonist's rationale for colonization apparently without irony. Manticore doesn't WANT to hold basilisk, they're innocent of those desires. But the colony makes so much money they MUST hold it forever.

No Contest

Honorverse is the only story I’ve ever encountered that gives the good guys easy wins. More than once an enemy thinks, “There’s no way we can win this.” That’s not good for drama? I don’t know what you can say about this, it’s so obvious.

Let's not forget the much maligned pistol duel. Here's my live reaction.

And the sword duel was even worse.

Paul’s death being off screen was a weird choice too.

One Perspective

All good people agree. Even the bad people secretly agree, they just can’t overcome the shame of disagreeing with the objectively correct position.

Everyone says “Manties” and “Peeps.” 

In the first book, Honor thinks, “I’ve gotta be hard on this crew so they toughen up” and another perspective character thinks, “I’m glad Honor’s being hard on us, it’s toughening us up.”

When she meets Alfredo Yu, she thinks about how awkward it is that he killed her mentor. Then he immediately brings it up in conversation. 

When Ransom decides to execute Honor for her murder conviction, even Haven people think it’s outrageous.

Haven had eight years of political purges and official minders for political loyalty, but there are no loyal Haven military officers because all military officers are good and upright people.

Missiles, Missiles, Missiles

Honorverse is all about tech advances. Except it’s hard to think of new technology, so we have to suffice with one new tech, FTL communication, and endless iterations on “More Missiles.” Missile pods, little ships carrying a few missiles each, these are not interesting!

Like Honor’s wealth, the number of missiles multiplies by ten per book. The Grayson Defense fires an impossible 12,000 in a battle, then Manticore fires 111,000 in another instant win, and I’m told the Battle of Manticore has 700,000 missiles in the first wave.

Misc.

How dare he not include the scene where they asked Honor’s mom to get pregnant while everyone was still in mourning.

The first book clarifies that Honor isn’t gay, and that seems to be universal in the series. C’mon, it’s the 2020s, include a gay.

Why is one guy kind of named after a real guy, (Robert S. Pierre), but Saint-Just is the same name as the real guy.

Furry Contralto

“that’s the beauty of hindsight: it always has a lot more to go on than you did when you had to make the decision the first time around.”

The story of genetic engineering in Honorverse is the exact same as Star Trek.

Sure are a lot of women being raped.

The bad members of Honor’s bad crew were planning on damaging the ship so they could escape. And it was going to be exciting to see Honor wrestle with handling a damaged ship. But the bad guys were sent to the brig and died and that plot just… ended.

[maskedchildren]

Hiii!!! My name is Elliot and I am the owner of this blog. This blog will be dedicated to my OC Universe "Masked Children" and I will be posting things like my world building process, character designs, character roleplays, responses to writing prompts using my OCs and lots and lots of art and potential scenes and other infodumps about the world and characters. I will also sometimes post asking for critiques and answer asks about my OCs if I get any!!

Masked Children is a world I've been creating and working on, on my own since I was around 14 years old and originated from a creepypasta roleplay I had with an ex-friend when I was around 11-14 years old! Once I started making OCs for that storyline I realized I didn't need the Creepypasta characters or world and started making my own universe that had nothing to do with Creepypasta or horror as a genre entirely. Finally once I stopped being friends with the person I made these characters for and with, I decided to part entirely from that storyline and create something that was entirely my own.

Anyways!!! Don't be afraid to ask questions, those are always welcome, and thank you for sitting through my ramblings!!! Hope you enjoy my little guys as much as I do and have fun!! (⁠ノ⁠^⁠_⁠^⁠)⁠ノ

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

The Thrilling Saga of Connie paying real life money for the Worst Sonic TV Show

Let’s begin with the simple fact that me and my sister, @birdsareblooming​ “Cori”, have both been hyperfixating on Sonic the Hedgehog since last March. During this hyperfixation, I was on Sonic Wiki to copy-paste song lyrics onto my stolen mp3s, and I called my sister in and pointed at the template at the bottom. 

“What is this Sonic Underground thing?” I asked. “It has one shit billion songs.” 

So we clicked on the page to read about it, and each sentence we read was a punch in the gut and this quickly became the funniest thing we’d ever read. Highlights include:

It looks like this:

“Sonic[...] is known to be a prince” 

Sonic has two siblings who actually have good characterization but their names are literally just Sonia and Manic. Like. Sonic split into two names. jesus christ 

Also Sonic and his siblings all share a voice actor. honestly Jaleel White does his best with it but 

“The three siblings possess enchanted medallions that transform not only into musical instruments, but also into weapons.”

“Some fans consider Sonia to be a clone of Amy Rose, minus the attraction Amy feels for Sonic.” YEAH I SURE HOPE IT DOES

“Manic is the most often captured of the siblings” himbo king 

Knuckles shows up, and for the first, like, two sentences his description is very similar to the game, and then you get immediately pulverized by “He has a pet Dinosaur called Chomps.”

Literally so many sentences on Sonic Wiki are lowkey salty about this show. The page features lines such as “Sonic Underground bears little relation to the often complex Sonic universe (including previous animated series, as well as Sonic comics and games), and shares only three established characters” and “many of the characters in the Freedom Fighter group that were in Sonic the Hedgehog are completely left out (including Tails).”

“The show met with mostly negative reviews.”

*checks air dates* It only lasted two goddamn months

So after seeing this we thought it was the funniest thing and we showed our older sister, @patema-introverted​ “North.” To our surprise, our at the time “knew nothing about this sonic bullshit” sister recognized the show. Turns out she’d seen trailers for it as a child and that was her sole exposure to Sonic canon. 

We were in quarantine at the time, so we ended up finding it on YouTube and binge-watching it all together as a sibling bonding activity. It was just as hilarious as we thought it would be- some stuff was legitimately good, like the sibling dialogue for instance, but good lord were the character designs ugly, the plot all over the place, and pretty much every song, um, not great. Also there was one episode that we skipped because it got, um, I think “stereotypical” is the nicest word I can use here. 

But the point is, we had a jolly good time watching it, and afterwards we binged all the other Sonic shows and bonded as a family. 

After quarantine, North and I go back to college. My roommate gets groceries at Walmart, while I get them elsewhere, so while she and North collect food I wander the DVD aisle to look at the cool movies and also dumpster-dive in the bargain bin for Cats (2019). I am also short as fuck, so the top shelf of movies I cannot see, I can only read the labels. 

So one day I was browsing the DVDs, and glancing over at the labels for the top shelf. I read over the final one before the shelves end. 

And then I stop, do a double take, and have a heart attack, because there is a label that reads “SONIC UNDERGROUND $3.74″

I immediately climb the shelf but there aren’t any DVDs atop the shelf. However, the label is still there. I excitedly tell my sister and roommates, freak out with them a bit, and then give myself a mission statement:

I will buy the $4 Sonic Underground DVD from Walmart

I did not want it as a gift, I did not want to find it online. I wanted to walk into a store, pick up the Worst Sonic Show on DVD, walk it straight to the checkout, and in front of the cashier and God, pay for it with my own money. I did not care if it was the whole series or two episodes; I needed to do this for my own serotonin.

We would go to Walmart about once a week. Every time, I would go to the DVD aisle, and go right to the end of the shelves. I would stare at the label SONIC UNDERGROUND $3.74 and empty space above it and wonder who the fuck was buying this other than me. I would occasionally ask employees if they had any copies in storage. I would build a shrine to Manic in my room. Okay, no I didn’t, but only because my RA would have murdered me. 

Christmas break comes, and we have to go home. We have a nice Christmas, and Cori and I infodump at each other about how we would make Sonic Underground a good show (note: we’re both galaxy braining) and also play Bendy and the Ink Machine. Fun times. 

When we finally get back to College, it’s late January- long story short we have a very long winter break. My roommate who gets food at Walmart got food without us the first week cause she showed up first, so we take her out to Walmart the first time in the year of our lord 2021 on January 29. 

I wander the Valentine’s aisle, immediately grabbing a sequin puppy. I go to the DVDs and see Animaniacs Season One, also grab that. 

And then.

There it is.

The Holy Grail. 

Above the label SONIC UNDERGROUND $3.74, is one DVD left. 

Already I am losing my mind. It’s roughly seven hours of episodes- I couldn’t find an episode list, but I think that’s half the show, for $4! And the cover is amazing. 

That’s a png of Sonic from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (1993) with a medallion badly photoshopped over it. The medallion is too small. 

Manic is shoved into the corner. He doesn’t have his medallion at all. 

Sonia isn’t even pictured on the front cover, probably because they realized she was the worst designed of the bunch. I’m not ragging on her though, because she’s still one of the better designed characters of the show. Those background characters make me cry 

So you bet your ass I finally paid my hard-earned $4 for this shit. Upon getting home, I discovered that there was even wilder shit with this DVD than I thought. 

For starters: the bonus features listed are as follows:

Original Concept Art - did not expect that these character designs were the final draft

Storyboard-to-screen - did not expect they bothered to storyboard this 

Music Video Jukebox - that’s cute, they thought we liked the music 

Interviews with original screenwriter & executive producer - I fully expect the only questions to be “why.” 

On the left of this list are screenshots from the show, where people can finally see Sonia, who we Know™ is a girl because she is pink and has hair and also an actual body shape instead of just circles like her brothers. 

But wait... what’s that in the lefthand corner? 

That looks like some kind of robot. But it’s not a robot from Sonic Underground! That didn’t appear once. Why is it here? 

The mystery continues upon opening the DVD case: inside are advertisements for other collections, including other Sonic DVDs: two volumes of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (1993) and the final episodes of Sonic the Hedgehog “SatAM” (1993)

First of all, the first volume of AOSTH has the exact same PNG of Sonic as the Underground Volume 1. Not even trying to hide it. But second... the second volume of AOSTH also has this robot on its cover. 

And THIS ROBOT IS ALSO DECORATING THE THIRD DISC IN THE SET?

So you may be asking, who is this robot? Is it from AOSTH or Underground?

IT’S FROM FUCKING SATAM. The one show that doesn’t have it decorating the DVD covers.

Also, not only is it from SatAM, it only appears in one fucking episode. Not a major character! AND IT HAS A DIFFERENT DESIGN ON THE PROMO ART, WITH HAIR AND FANGS.

Why is it showing up everywhere? What is going on? 

I have not yet had the opportunity to watch this glorious piece of animation, but I am so glad at the confusion I have felt upon receiving it. 

But before I go, I must share with you the best part of this DVD purchase. And it was flipping to the back, scanning the details, and discovering the exact runtime of the episode collection. 

Guys, gals, and enby pals, friends and enemies, Nintendo and Sega, the first Volume of Sonic Underground has a runtime of...

420 MINUTES.

Maybe I’m wrong and this IS the best Sonic show. 

[angelicimagines]

Hello there! Love this blog! Do any of the mods have general headcanons on what the V3 cast was like pregame? Thanks!

I’m gonna let the other mods add to this if they want to, because I only have a few head-canons of the characters pregame.

Such lovely headcanons you have there mod Chihiro, I'd be a shame if someone wee to…add on to them.

–Mod Shuichi

Yes it would be

Wouldn't it

-Mod Kaz🔧

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Shuichi Saihara

Shy and reserved

He just likes watching anime alone honestly

He’s scared people will judge him, but he can rant about anime endlessly if you get him talking

Has a resting bitch face pretty much all of the time so it's very hard to read him

Will be more expressive when he's talking about his interests or you are sharing yours

Rantaro Amami

Slightly rude on the outside, but he has good intentions

Inside him there are two wolves, one that wants emotional connection and one that fears it, it's a constant battle

Has an arsenal of sarcastic comments at his disposal at all times

Vibes in a 7 eleven at the ungodly hours of the night and trauma dumps on the cashier, you have to apologize to the poor cashier

He gets very huggy sometimes but will deny everything to hell or say it's not a big deal and to not read into it

Very Forgetful. I mean he will not remeber your name for the life of him

Kokichi Ouma

Chill

He doesn’t really mind what other people think about him

He's a big daydreamer so he doesn't really see where he's going, he bumps into people and things a lot because of this.

Gets dragged around on some very questionable adventures with the rest of his friends and you and he just has the time of his life

He gets whiny when you don't hug him enough, he likes his cuddles man

Kaede Akamatsu

She means well and cares about her classmates but won't hesitate to kill a bitch

She's just done with everyone's antics, but if someone even looks at one of her friends the wrong way she won't hesitate bitch

Will die before she admits it but she likes flower crowns, make her one and she will be indebted to you forever

She's the class rep/president and thrives in that position, Kokichi is jealous

Shuts down when you compliment her genuinely, she doesn't expect it

Ryoma Hoshi

He is done, with everything tbh

Loves his classmates don't get him wrong, but they're just dumb as bricks

Basically everyone's tutor, he says he doesn't get paid enough for it

Sometimes indulges himself in some minor crime with you and it results in y'all running around town and almost crashing the car

Designated guardian of the class and hates his position, complains to Kirumi

Angie Yonaga

Really sweet and kind!

She loves to help other people accomplish things, but she can be a bit possessive.

Can be seen as a bit pushy, but will back down if you say you're uncomfortable

She wants to rant about her interest in religion but she fears being annoying since she's shut down a lot, if you indulge her she will love you forever and be your own personal cheerleader

She likes to bake cookies and will give you some if you're nice to her (they may or may not have her blood in them but who knows)

Kaito Momota

Dude's a dick, a fun dick but a dick nonetheless

Play fights a lot which usually ends up with him pinning you to the ground and saying some suggestive comment

Encourages the buffoonery that the class gets up to and is the self assigned leader of their misadventures

Show him genuine kindness and you will have a bodyguard, will even tone down the shitty attitude if you ask him nicely

He likes going out at night and just walk through town enjoying the stars and the night sky

Gonta Gokuhara

Scary dude, class transportation

Resting bitch face 2.0, but unlike Shuichi he will be more expressive

Likes nature and will take you outside for hangouts, he finds it peaceful and relaxing

Will infodump about his interest to the people he's close to and will in turn protect them from bullies and such

Do not bully Gonta's friends, that boy puts his muscle to good use and has possible rage issues

Miu Iruma

Less vulgar than in-game Miu but still lives in the gutter

She's smart in very specific and concerning subjects but won't remember what she read in her history textbook

Will tell you how to get away with murder in 5 steps or less but doesn't know when Japan got its independence

Second in command on the class's missadventures, has to be kept in check to make sure nothing blows up

Laughs like a 7th grader when you say something remotely suggestive, "that's what she said" following 90% of the time

Kirumi Tojou

Quiet, worried mom friend, partner in crime with Ryoma

Psychologically analyses her classmates for fun and calls them out on their bs, lovingly tho

Has a heart attack whenever a class trip is announced, contemplates buying leashes for them

Likes to make you tea as you two complain about your classmates to each other, sometimes others join

Tutor 2.0, teams up with Ryoma and Shinguuji and they are basically responsible for the class passing the year

If you insult her she'll Just insult you back until your begging for her to stop, most likely Captain of a debate club

Doesn't say a lot but when she does, She Talks

Tenko Chabashira

She's all over the place, all the time

She might look scary but she has the Mii theme song playing on loop all the time

Gets attached to the first person who shows her affection like a puppy

She likes plants and taking care of plants, I feel like they calm her down. She also likes green so she might be biased

Is on the hunt for the class cryptid because she's skeptic on the supernatural/paranormal

Himiko Yumeno

Resident cryptid

One time, Miu saw her sneaking into the dorm kitchen at 1 am and convinced the class that she saw a ghost/cryptid

Gets random surges of energy and starts like 5 projects that she almost never finishes

Really likes cotton candy, will make you buy her some whenever y'all go out (she shares it dw)

Is not opposed to cuddling but prefers headpats, she melts with em

Kiibo

Most forget he's even there because he's so quiet

Kind of rude and has little patience, so he buts heads with the more rowdy classmates

Basically a glorified babysitter, hates his job

Likes singing and has a decent voice actually, will sing to you to express his emotions

Very smart but refuses to tutor anyone because "google exists"

Korekiyo Shinguuji

He's a loner mostly because he's so off putting sometimes

Discusses philosophical and moral questions without prompting that lead to class debates, he thrives

Writes poetry when he's bored, it's surprisingly deep and well written

If he likes you, he will compare you to the 7 Wonders of the World, calling you the 8th one

Has very clean handwriting or writes in hieroglyphics, no in between

Maki Harukawa

She's quiet because she's kind of scared of her classmates

Has a lot of siblings and is the neighborhood babysitter, she gets along well with children

Gets adopted by Kaito and you and goes along with his antics, actually enjoys it

A regular in the class tutor service, taking care of her siblings takes up a lot of her time and effort

Is a cat magnet for some reason and that makes Ryoma give her discounts

Tsumugi Shirogane

Degenerate weeb (affectionate)

Also a regular at the tutoring service, she daydreams a lot and by the time she stops the lesson is over

Unspoken bond between her and Shuichi, takes a weeb to know a weeb

Likes doing people's hair and makeup, she'll make you look fabulous

Makes various origamis for her friends and you

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

-Mod Chihiro

[tyrannosaurus-trainwreck]

Old-school Moon Knight: phase two

By 1978, Moon Knight was popular enough to make the jump to consistent publication as the B-story in Hulk!. 

Doug Moench, the writer responsible for the character’s creation and initial embellishments, was back on script duty, and the 15-page shorts all add up to fairly prolonged single-story arcs in which Moon Knight and his various allies investigate crimes, solve mysteries, and stop a supervillain.  There’s a pretty notable departure from the absolute batshit nonsense of the previous appearances, with plot and character developments more in keeping with detective stories than soap operas with space wizards.  The supervillain is building a nuke; the masked killer is just a fucking guy.  Nobody in Spector’s immediate circle is a superpowered weirdo.

The character’s cape design, previously tethered to his gauntlets to give him the power of a prolonged glide because there’s nothing comic artists hate more than having to draw a light jog, is shifted to something a lot closer to modern interpretations with the full length and crescent-like flare at the base.  (He can still glide, because fuck you for expecting comic artists to draw someone walking everywhere.) The cowl also picks up its now-characteristic widow’s peak, an evolution from the simple oval hood design of the earlier appearances.

The werewolf-based superpowers are reiterated, with Moon Knight’s superhuman abilities waxing and waning through the month.  The stable of identities and allies is also imported, with additions as needed for the storyline.  The “possible war criminal” thing is dialed back, with Marc Spector using a reasonable amount of money from politically palatable mercenary activities and *checks notes* insider trading? to work the stock market and come away with his millions.

The first story arc leans heavily on the theft of a statuette of the god Horus, but it doesn’t invoke it as anything more than a MacGuffin.  Considering that none of the Moon Knight storylines at this point have featured anything supernatural aside from the werewolf/moon thing, which is vaguely medicalized along the same lines as the Hulk’s science-magic bullshit, it could either be the first nascent fumblings of the the writer’s eventual shift toward full-blown special-interest fixation or just some fun thing the writer felt like throwing in there.

The first story arc also includes an infodump on Moon Knight’s secret identities in which it’s suggested that Marc Spector is also an assumed name, though the second long arc identifies his brother as Rand Spector.  If Marc Spector is an alias, it’s also as “real” a name as the character has at this point.

There are multiple references to the secret identities as separate personalities by other characters, with one character suggesting he read Sybil and asking if “the boys” will be coming to dinner with them, but the same character also says she doesn’t know how he keeps them all straight. 

Nothing about the main character’s behavior indicates that they’re real personalities, however, and he doesn’t find them distressing.  Spector can swap cover identities quickly, easily, and at will, and he doesn’t suffer any disorientation, memory loss, or shift in priorities or perspective.  He’ll occasionally correct himself when he uses “I” about his other identities, but then revert immediately back to describing the thing that happened to $Other_Identity as a thing that happened to him.

This is one of those fun things where the question can be “Was all of this meant as a joke about how intense the character was?” or “Was the writer genuinely trying to give this character a mental illness and just absolutely did not know what the fuck they were doing and refused to look it up?” and the answer is a long fart noise.

Moon Knight is seen keeping case files, which is used as a narrative device to tie up loose plot threads without wasting pages showing the action and reinforces the character as highly organized but not compulsive.  Both of the long arcs result in the villain’s death, but neither can be blamed on Moon Knight and in both cases he regrets the outcome. (When Moench jumped ship from Marvel to go work at DC, he landed on Batman and Detective Comics, so.)

[iconsumeheadcanons]

persona characters autism headcanons!

hi im autistic and i started my day with sun so now im !!!!!!!!! some of these headcanons are from elsewhere on tumbr, but i dont know where :(((  so i am hoping someone out there knows that n that everybody knows that i love them <3

(also go check out mollypaup and i think hypeswap if you havent already! they post some good stuff autism+adhd hc too!!! i think.. oh! and thieves-in-the-palace!!!)

P5

Joker

there was some artwork from someone on tublr..where they pointed out that he doesnt really talk outside the metaverse so--hes hyperverbal as joker and just near nonverbal as akiren

he stims ALL THE TIME. that phone thing, the pencil thing, the little tappy tap of his foot, pulling at his bangs when hes embarrassed/smug. someone get him a fidget spinner. he’ll prob learn to do tricks with it

he probably sucks at focusing in class, like i know its just the game design but hes always surprised out of his daily “star out the window at the nearby office building” when his teachers ask him questions

mona mentions when the pt is at Wilton for the first time (after they run into shido) that joker eats like shit, and that could have multiple causes at the start of the story of course, but when i first played i thought that joker was a picky eater and that the variety (and amount of food) at the buffet would be an Ordeal...

tho mona makes that comment bc joker looked pale after having a little ptsd moment from shidos voice, but i didnt know that the first time i played

maybe when joker makes a face at ryuji putting so much ginger in his gyudon? joker probably does not like pickled ginger lol

his favortive foods are all spicy, which is why the curry he makes for his friends is always ‘overly spicy’, and why kasumi makes him a curry bento and joker kept going “...?” .... “....?!”

overly reflective glasses have been a great plus for him bc now he never has to make real eye contact every again!

mona Soft. play with Ann hair. maybe Braid. nice

puns (Gorou the Goroumet)

he has so many options to be straight up rude sometimes in game. he probably no clue on his own, which is why he defaults to Not Talking. people probably mention his constant scary face, which is just him being nonexpressive, squinting at all the fucking bright lights, and Tired

executive function who? we do everything last minute folks

high pain tolerance, which is why he was the kid that was always climbing trees in elementary school to get basketballs unstuck from the branches

his sixth sense lets him see treasure and possible places to climb/crawl bc 1. Shiny? Steal it. Steal it Now. and 2. Could i fit in that? Time to Find Out

probalby a bit of a klepto too oops. he’ll return it tho!! but he has to do it dramatically or he’ll die

cant sit properly to save his life

smells and touch are Great, they can keep him grounded when his brain goes off to police or dead rivals or guilt or

if a friend hung out with him and gave him total reigns of the agenda, he would choose to nap on the floor while his friend does something off to the side quietly

hyperfocuses on handy tasks (i.e. lockpicks, coffee brewing, cleaning, his part time jobs) and some things like movies and books. everything else is a tossup

his (normal) navigation app is his most used app bc he still doesnt know where hes going, even though he only goes to the same few places in the city

hates being sweaty, literally cannot stand it. probably double exhausted during the summer

but Needs Compression so hes often Struggling

Futaba

paraphrase from p5d “i have no motor skills so i cant play rhythm games :(” need i say more? (i will regardless)

echolalia all the time, from anime, memes, the PT

those headphones she wears all the time? noise cancelling ear protectors babey

only talks about her interests, “normal” talking is Not Easy, but she is still communicative w others despite her worries. shes not “hard to understand” at all but she feels the anxiety nonetheless

only talks informally, cannot talk ‘politely’ with out imitating someone around her

shes had meltdowns and anxiety attacks in game :( i relate so hard

Technology. thats it

def had an egypt phase that pops up every few months. probably came from yu-gi-oh

has Immune to Bright Lights buff.  joker is very jealous

“Time to make like a tree and leave!” and 30 other iterations

video game metaphors are the only ones that makes sense to her

probably relates hard to robot characters in anime for their general androgyny and confusion about human emotions and connections

probably gets told that shes “too smart to be on the spectrum” by teachers >:( she fails their classes on purpose

wakaba’s autistic too that just how it is

the Connection that she establishes with Joker is so Warm. my life goals include adopting an older brother like futaba has lsdkfjslkfj

also eater of 5 foods only, i mean, she brings cup ramen to the beach. i just really admire her...

hides in small spaces for comfort

doesnt she have like uhhhhh hyperthymesia or something like that?

Yusuke

art

his entire social link is learning how humans work, which i relate

talks seriously all the time

“sarcasm? who is that? are you saying I was sarcastic?...how?”

cant remember to take care of his body, and madarame did not help with that either

lot of uncomfortable staring, hes overdoing the eye contact thingy

infodumps all the time, doesnt know hes doing it

needs a lot of support even if he doesnt think he deserves it. no one ever complains about helping him out tho

visual stims my friends

he didnt know that you could look up pictures on the internet but he does know you can stream live videos of waterfalls and fluffy animales!!

I am certainly in the mood

for something salty today.

he and joker are scared of math. numbers do not interact

Yusuke, futaba, and akiren are a trio and i know this bc their first day of non-thievery interacts is Akiren clearing Futabas room w/o permission, futaba hyperfocusing on destroying medjed, and yusuke rearranging futabas figurines so they are more visually appealing

morgana is a support friend for all of them bc igor knows they need it

P4

Souji/Yu

yes, he mostly wears gray semi formal clothes bc parents tell him to, no, he will not changes this

Schedule or Death

“sorry, could you repeat that?” “huh? oh yeah, i was saying that--” “yeah that’d be cool.”

cats, fishing, he just likes to be quiet. you can literally spend a day at the beach just to think if you want, and that is what yu want

has a lot of scripts for things (of which he shares with nanako!) but if he runs out he just stops talking..

inaba is a godsend bc its so fucking quiet and warm

he Yearns to hold his friends hands, but he shies away from a lot of touch (excepting yosuke, teddie, and nanako)

Cooking and Cleaning makes the world better. he and joker vibe together with this

unlike akiren, he strong arms any executive dysfunction into Be Productive or Else. his punishment is feeling the pure anxiety of having to make up for ‘lost time’. (another symptom of his workaholic parents)

writes everything down, notes are very neat, has pages dedicated for bad doodles when hes not feeling his usual Super Classroom Focus

Cannot handle secondhand embarrassment (most often caused by yosuke) and will quietly slip away to random cats or origami folding

hungry, crunch crunch folks. probably needs chewelry bc he used to chew on his shirt collars when he was younger.

cleans up after everyone in the food court, constantly worries about them accidently hurting themselves. likely spends half of group conversations watching peoples hands

he canonically eats expired food, nanako plz help your brother

really clumsy, but people only notice after they decide that he is a cool person

video games are too chaotic for him

exhausted every night from the pure amount of masking he does, if a friend spends the night (or is like yosuke) they will know his more comfortable weirdo self (tho everyone knows hes a weirdo eventually)

hyperempathetic, sometimes just understands animals and children better than peeople his age or older

Yukiko

her jokes

she and souji get in ‘trouble’ together, she and joker commit crimes together

she and chie have to coordinate outfits, its important

actually understands metaphors, but does not understand people

like me, had no clue that creepy kid was flirting with her

she is very angry when she has meltdowns that might involve slamming doors and shouting. her parents call these ‘tantrums’ and ‘unfitting for a polite daughter’ but really thats because her meltdowns tend to be caused by arguments w her family after a long day of school and TV world traipsing

the metronome meme, except hers goes between Loudest Person in the Room to Quietest Pin Drop in the Planet. she is completely unaware of this

her atmosphere brightens when chie appears. that is not only the lesbian energy within her, but also because chie is like her Favorite Person

Cannot wear Pants. No (tho she wants to try it! but she puts them on and her soul instantly squashes)

happy flappy lesbian! watch out!

Naoto

the pouty face. all the time lskdfjlasdkf

hes really snappy sometimes and i love that for him. he and akechi should fight just to see what would happen (please read Bang Bang Shoot Shoot on AO3)

“do not touch me or my hat, thank you”

no one has ever seen him shutdown and no one ever will (except for his grandpa)(and kanji)(and rise)

probably likes certain food textures and will stand for nothing less, probably feels embarrassed about his preferences with friends

constantly jumps between ‘everybody hates me so i should act like them so they dont hate me’ to ‘i refuse to be anything but very comfortable as myself, and i dont care that im making you upset sir’

he and souji are the king and queen of subtle stims, but for unhappy reasons :(

does not make jokes. cannot joke around. understand? yes, do? no.

loose clothes are the only good clothes, but all tags and obtrusive seams will be obliterated by kanji tatsumi

not very empathetic so he probably comes off as an asshole to strangers (like when he throws away his classmates confession letters without reading them) but he tries so hard to sound comforting when his buds are struggling.

his understanding of others emotions/reactions come from his learning as a detective, which seems cold+clinical to others, especially compared to souji, whos completely unexpressive but very introverted people person

P3

Hamuko/Minako/Kotone

big personality!! very people-oriented!! koromaru and her are buddies!! when shes having a real bad time, shes very quiet and expressions turn off

interrupts herself in the middle of conversations all the time. no one knows where shes coming from. her brains is thousands of km ahead of her body

bouncey legs, swingin arms, twirlly skirt, little somersaults! when will she stop? never!

very obvious music stims with her hands and arms! people are like “oh there she goes! happy as usual!” shes listening to minatos heavy metal playlist

switches from exhausted to excited within milliseconds. no one can predict, not even her

SEES has to ask her for context all the time cuz she’ll just continue shit from 2 weeks ago without warning

professionals will assume shes very childish bc of how chipper she is, but she is beyond mature for her age and only feels comfortable enough to have serious conversations if a person has proved themself able to handle it

collects every little thing. her room is a mess and she has to get rid of most of it every time she moves :(

hates cleaning! smells bad, feels bad hhhhhgggg

dont let mitsuru-senpai see her bedroom

gets lost in the middle of conversations with others bc shes thinking about a story connected to one(1) word that was said earlier

 no sense of time and place, she just sees her friends and goes “ah, this is the right place, then” but junpei and akihiko are also lost so now theyre all screwed

Minato/Makoto/Sakuya

no talkies, no walkies

his story in the movies is him literally learning how to function around people he cares for

doesnt get jokes, expressions, body language, empathy, subtlety, metaphors, physical contact, or eye contact. aigis is probably the only person he truly understands right away

he is still nice to people because he doesnt see a reason not to be, but also he has very limited energy so only his senpai and old people get his most polite-kindnesses

cannot describe feelings for the life of him. the team wont know hes injured or sick until hes passed out

everything is too loud, time to drown it out with my loud ass music

rocking and chewing stims, ryoji is the first person to point him out for these subtle stims (not accusingly of course, just general pure curiosity and love for the uniqueness of humanity)

likes to cover his face with whatever is available, lives like a bat in a dark dry cave

will wear anything that has pockets and his blue/gray/black palette

sleepy at all times bc he never has much energy

when he was younger he probably needed a lot of support, especially after his parents died, because he wouldnt communicate like a neurotypical and would shutdown for hours in the middle of school without warning. probably missed a lot of lessons and field trips out of pure overstimulation

eating at all times. no preference, just whatevers closest

his meltdowns probalby include humming whining noises and curling up in a ball, which makes people want to touch him, but that is the LAST thing he wants. put a blanket on him! play some music! do not talk and do not expect him to speak

aigis is the only person who can touch him normally bc her hands are cold and he likes cold

never nude, feels mmmmmmmmm without clothes and probalby wears a full robe in the hotsprings

will not do things that take more than one step w/o someone else walking him thru it, which Same

[creativitycache]

ngl asking for people who self-identify as "antis" is already biasing your results because the term originated from fans being defensive over getting called out (eg the types who sincerely think fandom culture is ""puritan""). fair number of people started to use the term ironically and it might be evening out but overall the post calling for responses on the survey still comes off as something written in bad faith?

I wrote a rather long and involved response and then tumblr ate it. Goshdarn.

Fair warning, this is a hyperfixation and I’m coming off of a migraine so this may not be very cogent. Please read this in the over excited tones of someone infodumping about emulsifiers, with no animosity intended.

So, tl;dr and with a lot fewer links, I’m incredibly interested by your perspective that “anti” originated as a derogatory term.

As far as I am aware, the etymological history of the word “anti” being used pejoratively is coming from some very new debates.

I’m also noting that you had no feedback regarding the content of the questions themselves, which I would be interested in hearing as I am genuinely coming from a place without censure.

The term “anti” actually is a self-descriptor that arose in the Livejournal days, where you’d tag something as “Anti ___” for other like minded people to find. (For example, my cursory google search pulled up 10 Anti Amy Lee communities on LJ).

I’m a self-confessed old. I was back in fandom before Livejournal, aaaall the way back in the Angelfire days. Webrings children! We had webrings! And guest books for you to sign!

I’m going to take a swing for the fences here Anon, so if I’m wrong please let me know, but I’m going to guess you became active as a fan in the past 5-8 years based of your use of the term puritan.

There’s actually a HUGELY new debate in fandom spaces! Previously, it was assumed that:

a) All fandom spaces are created and used by adults only.

b) If you were seeing something, it’s because you dug for it.

These assumptions were predicated upon what spaces fandoms grew in. First you had Star Trek TOS fandom, which grew in 1970s housewives kitchens. They were all friends irl, and everyone was an adult, and you actively had to reach out to other adults to talk about things. (By the way- a woman lost custody of her children in the divorce when her ex husband brought up to the judge she kept a Kirk/Spock zine under her bed. The judge ruled this as obvious signs of moral deficiency. That was in the 80s! Everyone is still alive and the parents are younger than my coworkers!)

Time: 1967-1980s. Is Anti a term? No. Who is the term used by? N/A Is fandom space considered Puritanical? No.

Then, when the internet came about, it was almost exclusively used by adults until The Eternal September. 1993 was the year that changed the internet for good, but even years after that the internet was a majority adult space. Most kids and teens didn’t have unlimited access if their parents even had a home computer in the 90s.

This is the rise of Angelfire, which were fansites all connected to each other in “rings”. You had to hunt for content. If you found something you didn’t like, well, you clicked out and went on with your day because you’d never see it again unless you really dug. This was truly the wild west, tagging did not exist and you could go from fluff to vore in the blink of an eye with nothing warning you before hand. All fannish spaces were marked “here be dragons” and attempts were made to at least adopt the “R/NC-17″ ratings on works to some limited success, depending on webmaster.

Time: 1990-1999. Is Anti a term? No. Who is the term used by? N/A Is fandom space considered Puritanical? No.

In 1999 LiveJournal arose like a leviathan, and here is where the term Anti emerges as a self descriptor. Larger communities began to form, and with them, divisions. Now, you could reach so many fans you could reach a critical mass of them for enough of them to dislike a ship. The phrase “Anti” became a self-used tag, as people tagged their works, communities, and blogs with “anti” (NB: this is at far, far smaller rates than today). Anti was first and foremost a tagging tool used and created by the people who were vehemently against something.

You could find content more easily than in the past, but you still had to put some serious elbow grease into it.

In 2007, Livejournal bans users for art "depicting minors in explicit sexual situations”. The Livejournal community explodes in anger- towards Livejournal staff. The account holders/fans view this as corporate puritanical meddling. The outrage continues as it is revealed these bans were part of a pre-sale operation to SUP Services. SUP Services, upon taking over Livejournal in 2008, proceeds to filter the topics “bisexuality, depression, faeries, girls, boys, and fanfiction”.

The Great LiveJournal Migration begins, as fans leave the site in droves.

Time: 1999-2009. Is Anti a term? Yes. Who is the term used by? People self describing, seeking to create communities based off a dislike of something. Is fandom space considered Puritanical? No.

Where do fans go? Well, in the last decade, they migrated to Tumblr and Twitter (sorry Pillowfort- you gave it a good try!)

What’s different about all of these sites? Individuals are able to create and access content streams. These are hugely impactful in how communities are formed! Because now:

a) finding content is easier

b) finding content you dislike by accident is easier

c) content you dislike requires active curation to avoid

d) truly anonymous outreach is possible and easy (for example, you anon! Isn’t it much easier to go on anon to bring up awkward or sensitive topics? I’m happy you did by the way, and that’s why I keep my anons open. It’s an important contextual tool in the online communications world!)

Now the term Anti gets sprightly. Previously, if you didn’t like content, there was nothing you could really do about it. For example, I, at the tender age of way-too-young, opened up a page of my favorite Star Trek Deep Space 9 fansite and pixel by pixel with all the loading speed of a stoned turtle a very anatomically incorrect orgy appeared.

I backed out.

1. Who could I contact? There was no “message me here” button, no way to summon any mods on Angelfire sites.

2. If I did manage to find a contact button, I would have had to admit I went onto a site that wasn’t designed to keep me safe. I knew this was a site for adults, I knew there wasn’t a way to stop it from showing something. There was no such thing as tags. I knew all of this before going in. So the assumption was, it was on me for looking. (Some may have argued it was on my parents for not supervising me- all I can say is thank GOD no one else was in the living room and my mom was around the corner in the kitchen.)

But now? On Tumblr? On Twitter? In a decade in which tagging is so easy and ubiquitous it’s expected?

Now people who describe themselves as antis start to have actual tools and social conventions to utilize.

Which leads to immediate backlash! Content creators are confused and upset- fandom spaces have been the wild west for decades, and there’s still no sherriff in town. So the immediate go-to argument is that these people who are messaging them are “puritans”.

And that’s actually an interesting argument! A huge factor in shaping the internet’s social mores in the latest decades is cleanliness for stockbrokers. Websites can become toxic to investors and to sales if they contain sexual content. Over time, corporations perfected a mechanism for “cleaning” a site for sale.

Please note there is no personal opinion or judgement in this next list, it is simply a description of corporate strategies you can read during the minute meetings of shareholders for Tumblr, Twitter, Paypal, Venmo, Facebook, Myspace, Yahoo Answers, and Livejournal.

1. Remove sex workers. Ban any sex work of any kind, deplatform, keep any money you may have been holding.

2. Remove pedophilia. This is where the jump begins between content depicting real people vs content depicting fictional characters begins.

3. Remove all sexual image content, including artwork of fictional characters.

4. Remove all sexual content, including written works. If needed, loop back to step 2 as a justification, and claim you do not have the moderators to prevent written works depicting children.

I would like to reiterate these are actual gameplans, so much so that they’ve made their way into business textbooks. (Or at least they did for my Modern Marketing & App Design classes back in the early 2010s. Venmo, of course, wasn’t mentioned, but I did read the shareholder’s speeches when they banned sex workers from the platform so I added them in the list above because it seems they’re following the same pattern.)

So you have two groups who are actively seeking to remove NSFW content from the site.

A) Corporate shareholders

B) People are upset they’re seeing NSFW content they didn’t seek out and squicks them

Now, why does this matter for the debates using the term “puritan” as an insult? 

Because the reasons corporate shareholders hate NSFW material is founded in American puritanism. It’s a really interesting conflation of private sector values! And if Wall Street were in another cultural context, it would be a completely different discussion which I find fascinating!

But here’s the rub- that second group? They're not doing this for money. If there are any puritanical drives, it’s personal, not a widespread cohesive ideology driving them. HOWEVER! The section of that group that spent the early 2010s on tumblr did pick up some of the same rhetoric as puritanical talking points (which is an entirely separate discussion involving radfems, 4chan raids, fourth wave feminism, and a huge very nuanced set of influences I would love to talk about at a later time!)

These are largely fans who have “grown up” in the modern sites- no matter how old they actually are, their fandom habits and expectations have been shaped by the algorithms of these modern sites.

Now HERE‘s the fascinating bit that’s new to me! This is the interpretation of the data I’m getting, and so I’m out on a limb but I think this is a valid premise!

The major conflict in fandom at this time is a struggle over personal space online.

Content creators are getting messages telling them to stop, degrading them, following them from platform to platform.

They say “Hey! What gives- we were here first. The cardinal rule of fandom is don’t like, don’t read. Fandom space has always been understood to be adult- it’s been this way for decades! To find our content, you had to come to us! This is our space! This is my space, this is my blog! If you don’t like it, you’re not obligated to look!”

Meanwhile, at the exact same time, antis are saying “Hey! What gives- this content is appearing on my screen! That’s my space!  I didn’t agree to this, I don’t like this! I want it to be as far away from me as possible! I will actively drive it away.”

This is a major cultural shift! This is a huge change and a huge source of friction! And I directly credit it to the concept of “content stream” and algorithms driving similar-content to users despite them not wanting it!

Curating your online space used to be much simpler, because there wasn’t much of it! Now with millions of users spread out over a wide age range, all feeding in to the same 4-5 websites, we are seeing people be cramped in a technically limitless space!

Now people feel that they have to go on the offense to defend themselves against content they don’t like, which is predicated upon not only the algorithms of modern websites but ALSO talking points fed from the top down of what is and what is not acceptable on various platforms.

Time: 2010-2020. Is Anti a term? Yes. Who is the term used by? People self describing,and people using it to describe others. Is fandom space considered Puritanical? Depends!

So I, a fandom ancient, a creaky thing of old HTML codes and broken tags, am watching this transformation and am wildly curious for data.

Also...I uh....I can’t believe this is the short version. My ADHD is how you say “buckwild” tonight.

Anyways...um...if anyone has read to the bottom, give me data?

[21tailsofwoe]

RWBY thoughts! RWBY thoughts! RWBY thoughts!

First of all, thank you for getting me into this show I cannot stop thinking about it.

RWBY has...a plot. It started off as the Typical Shonen and I, being the shonen trash I am, enjoyed it but then after volume 3, things kind of changed and that too in a way that got me wondering why I was continuing to watch it. The worldbuilding started feeling cheap because of all the infodumps and the revelations. Before we were properly introduced to one important revelation and understood how things even WORKED, another revelation is thrown at our faces and just. nothing is really explained well? Everything happens so fast and so often that I couldn't actually accept a lot of the "lore" in this story. The past is too fairy-tale-like which has such a big disconnect with the present that they seem like two entirely different stories. (Seriously, Gods? With homes Salem could just casually waltz into? More explanation please??)

So, of course, I wondered why I was watching RWBY. Well, the characters of course. Not that they're the most well written of the bunch but the fact that they, as they are, are so SO loveable. I have no choice but to just really, really root for them.

Ruby? BABIEST. She's just a bundle of happiness and optimism and I LOVE her.

Weiss? Her character arc about not clinging to the family name and carving her own path, a path hopefully even different from her sister's.

Blake? Finding friends and making significant strides forward away from the past.. beautiful.

Yang? Loud, explosive, punchy, GOODEST FRIEND OF ALL. I think she's my fav. I love her so much. Step aside, B*kugou we have a better 'shonen' blond in town.

Ren and Nora? They deserve a seperate essay all about them I love them so much.

Jaune? A rocky start but he's made some amazing progress.

Don't get me started on Pyrrha ;_;

The supporting cast is also so good and the character designs! *chef's kiss*

Also, the other reason why I couldn't stop watching is that RWBY is really fucking cool. That's all, really. It's so fun to watch!! I love girls fighting! I love them getting important roles and stories! I love them getting goals and ambitions of their own!!

So yes, RWBY not perfect but RWBY good. Very good.

[veryimportantsparkles]

Alright I’ve kept meaning to do sort of an infodump on my projects because I’ve been really slipping lately.  I dunno how obvious it is?  Probably kind of obvious.  I’ve also been really bad about checking messages and responding to people.  So I figure I can write up a status report and then point to it when I’ve been inadequate about communication.

My IRL job has been wiping me out.  I’ve been getting short, labor-intensive shifts in the evenings, and then random surprise morning shifts shortly after, which has been really hard to manage my time around.  My sleep schedule has been extremely broken and it’s affected my productivity a LOT.  Leadership in my department is about to shuffle around and I’ve been interviewed for the manager position.  If I get it I’ll be working an entirely different schedule, which could potentially be good for my sleepy brain but will definitely leave me with less art time overall.  I’ve also been enduring some back/shoulder issues over the past few months.  Nothing urgent, but it’s limiting how much I can draw each day.  I think replacing my desk chair is going to be a big factor but it’s not the only factor.  I just need to be a smart human and take care of my joints and not hunch over so much.  Working on it.

Here’s the current status of my various art projects:

Laserwing

I ended chapter 5 in June and said I would finish up some other side projects before I start concept work for chapter 6.  One of the projects I needed to finish was the Popkas Yugioh season 4 special, which I finished.  The other big one was my Neonmob card set, which is most of what I’ve been posting lately.  Once that’s out of the way (see below) I need to do concept art.  Chapter 6 will put all the Laserwing characters in new outfits which will need reference sheets.  I’ll need background sketches and layout diagrams so I don’t have furniture shuffle randomly around between scenes.  I also need to sketch out the chapter 6 draft page by page.  I’ve made Laserwing in GIMP up until this point and am going to try switching to Krita for chapter 6.  I might need to do a test page to make sure my process transfers over well into a slightly different system.  Once I’m ready to make real pages, those take a while.  Chapter 5 pages were going up maybe every 2-3 weeks.  I don’t know how many pages are going to be in chapter 6, nor can I say for sure how many chapters are in Laserwing.  An old outline had maybe 40 chapters.  It’s a story with a defined end point, I can say that for certain, but it’s intended to be long.

Popkas

I’ve had issues with Popkas for a while.  I keep picking new themes for dailies, thinking they’re going to be quick and easy, but then end up making them hard for myself.  It’s been to my benefit, I’ve forced myself into learning new art programs and techniques through Popkas.  But it’s hard to keep up the daily schedule.  Currently I’m doing the Paper Mario: TTYD bestiary, which has 124 enemies.  At a rate of one per day, by the time I’ve finished them, Pokemon Sword and Shield should be released and we’ll have all the info about the new Pokemon.  Those will be drawn in ‘Popka classic’ style (scribbly shitposts).  After those are finished, unless my IRL work situation dramatically changes, I’m considering putting Popkas on pause.  In order to do any other monster dexes I’d have to do a lot more research (for example, people have suggested Yokai Watch but I’ve never played one) in order to have anything meaningful to post.  Same deal with Popka Specials (the anime writeup things), those take prep time and anime-watching time that I might not have.  I don’t ever want to end Popkas, but a hiatus might be necessary.

Angelfire Hime

Did anyone even know about Angelfire Hime?  Well I want to post more but that involves finding, scanning, retouching, and transcribing my old high school scribble comics.  It takes as long as any other project but is also low priority because it’s all old content.  Nobody is waiting for the latest update because nobody but me actually knows what that content is, and possibly nobody but me can even read it.  It’s more a personal journey of self-reflection than anything.  I want to return to it but not at the expense of better work.

MeganFantastic dot com

I had a domain name linked to a tumblr that was supposed to be my news blog/front page and I barely use it.  Also, I let the domain registration drop.  Also, I had let a typo in my banner graphic go unnoticed for YEARS and still haven’t fixed it.  Even now, I’m writing this big post to my personal blog instead of the one for news.  The idea was to eventually buy some real hosting and make MeganFantastic a whole site of its own, but that’s a lot of work.  I’ve got a generally good idea of HOW I’d do it (probably wordpress) but I’m not a coder, it would take a lot of trial and error.  This would be a huge undertaking and eventually Laserwing, Popkas, and all my other junk would be contained on one big non-tumblr website.  But it’s uhhhhh not happening yet.

Hundera Youtube

My contribution to our LP channel is to show up, talk about video games, and then draw title cards.  All recording, editing, and channel management is maintained by Josh, and I can’t speak on his behalf about our update schedule.  I will say there are a lot of half-finished games we want to return to.  I will also say that when the new Pokemon comes out Josh is dead set on recording it.  I don’t know if he intends that to be a stream or a regular LP.  In the meantime he streams Minecraft with his friends every Sunday and we fit in our own streams and recordings when we can.

Commissions/Patron Art/etc

I’ve not been very good about this lately and I’m truly sorry!  I have a few things I’m working on, a few things I’ve promised to start working on, and a few things I’ve told people I can do once my workload lightens up, which hasn’t been happening yet.  I really don’t have an answer.  I almost never delete anything so if I’ve been sent a message in any form I should still have it, and I’ll be sure not to forget anyone.  And if I do forget someone feel free to throw rocks at me!

Rane Story 2

What the heck is Rane Story 2?  Well I guess I have to explain Neonmob.  Imagine if ChickenSmoothie and DeviantART had a baby.  It’s a virtual trading card site, which is fun and cute, and I’m drawing out a card series to release on there.  I’ve been using it as practice for painting backgrounds and to fill out some backstory for some 4th-string Laserwing support characters.  Before Mistaire came to Earth, she went to space high school, and that’s where Rane Story takes place.  You can preview the series, and when it’s finished I’ll post about it.  I’ll also repost all the art to DA.  If you scroll through the last several pages of this blog you’ll see some of the art.  I’ve put a lot of my brain energy into getting this done in spite of my work/sleep issues because I don’t want to resume Laserwing until I’ve finished it.  This is what’s stolen my life, guys.  Right now I have 6 more cards to make, and then I have to write and finalize all the text.  I should be done SOON.

Pokemon Nonsense

When my back and shoulder get too hurty and I have to take a break from drawing, one of the easy things to do is whip out a DS and play Pokemon.  I’ve done a lot of twitter shitposting about it lately.  I’ve also drawn up a bunch of gijinkas for my Pokemon.  I’m talking about it now because I also intend to draw up gijinkas for Pokemon to trade away.  I’ve already done a few.  However, I don’t know for sure how I’m going to distribute them.  The idea is people can trade actual Pokemon with me (in either X or Let’s Go Eevee) and the Pokemon they get will come with a character design for you to keep.  I was thinking I might do a discord server for organizing trades and such, but I haven’t yet.  Mostly because it’s low priority and I have SO many other things going on.  But actually playing Pokemon can happen when I’m too fatigued for real work, so the horde keeps growing.  Hopefully my posts and scribbles about it are entertaining.

I feel like there’s other projects on hold that I wanted to discuss, but right now I’m too braintired to remember, and some of my ‘projects’ never actually got talked about online so nobody’s waiting for an update.  My greatest problem seems to be that I try to juggle too many pointless side projects and then drop them all over the place.  Sometimes I’ll shitpost about an idea and even I won’t be sure if I was serious or not.  How do I end this post?  I don’t know.

tl;dr Megan is SLEEPY and dropped her spaghetti everywhere but somehow still has time to play POKEMON and WON’T STOP TALKING ABOUT IT