#my computer was being weird rendering it

[lover-of-mine]

Buddie Countdown to Season 7:

25 days.

[alicentlesbian]

i've started like 5 helena/hellyna edits and haven't finished any because i finish like one edit a year maximum these days but if i ever do finish one it's gonna be crazy bc what i have of some of them is so good

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Month 8, day 6

MUAHAHAHA, I figured out how to get my GPUs to work with Blender! Just had to turn off a few incompatible settings and then wait patiently for it to figure itself out lol My stuff renders so fast now, y'all!

Anyway, today I remade the blue marble material that I had before The Great Kablooie, and then just to "stress test" the graphics cards I re-rendered the glass I made yesterday using the Cycles render engine at 500 samples, as opposed to the 50 that I've been doing with all my previous renders

Yesterday rendering that exact same glass material in Cycles at 50 samples would have taken 37 minutes and change. Today with the GPUs in Cycles at 500 samples it took 12 minutes.

So yeah! I'm so happy rn :D Tbh the only reason I did any digging to find out what I need to do to use my GPUs was because my roommate let me know that the local community college is gonna be putting up some 2017 5K iMacs used by their graphic design department up for auction, and I was looking to see if the graphics cards in that model are compatible with Metal (I don't really understand what that is so I can't explain it, sorry), which they are! But in so digging I finally figured out how to read the website I was using to see the capabilities of the various graphics cards, and lo! My GPUs are also Metal compatible. So I did some digging and fiddling and experimenting and found out there's render settings that won't work with the Metal framework (smarter computer people than me know what that is, I promise), so I turned those off, switched to the GPUs and Metal, and...

Waited. Because apparently something had to be recalculated to work with the GPUs rather than the CPU. Waited so long I knew if I tried to do literally anything Blender would crash, and while I was looking to see what I had missed (nothing), it finished doing its thing and JESUS FUCK IT GOES SO FAST NOW. SO FAST. GPU RENDERING GO BRRRRR :D

So yeah, my computer is beefier than I realized, I am now somewhat less of an idiot, and also I might get a newer, more powerful machine if I can get lucky with the auction :D Part of me feels bad about wanting to replace Hera so soon, but upgrading her would be more expensive than the auctioned iMac and I need a machine with more oomph than she can provide anyway. I love her, she's perfect for everyday work. Just... not for 3D modeling and animation lol

To be fair the iMac also wouldn't be perfect, but it would be a lot closer. One day I will be able to afford the perfect machine, though. One day. Or so I keep telling myself XD

[gremlingottoosilly]

König giving his card to reader to splurge with, not on designer bags or clothing, but their expensive ass gaming set up. And it has to be those cute ones too, which are somehow more expensive than just wanting to have a plain setup. Reader definitely wears those headphones with cat ears on them.

Konig would definitely have a discord kitten during COVID-19; you can't change my mind. Imagine this man, being stuck in some half-abandoned mission because covid ruined too many plans and rendered half of the enemy's squad useless while also taking at least a quarter of his soldiers...so, he is stuck at the base somewhere really fucking far away, with nothing to do besides hating on Kortac's higher-ups and liking the fact that him wearing a mask in public finally doesn't look weird. He is still bored out of his mind, however, and he still wants something to do. Anything. Oh, also, he is still a loser and a weeb in hiding, using highly protected internet at base to watch pirated anime and get into arguments with chronically online teens on Discord. This is how he met you, actually. Not a teen, thank god, but surely chronically online. You said he had the charm of an autistic creature. You said that him being a war criminal is kinda problematic but, then again, some of your friends were into self-shipping with characters from war games, so he is kinda forgiven. You're saying words that he doesn't understand, but he is willing to spend hours on Urban Dictionary just so he could fish you into sending him nudes. Konig is stuck at some god-forgotten military base, but he still sends you money - mostly because having your nudes tailored to him and his perverted interests is much more fun than jerking off at some random porn model and also because he likes to think that you depend on him. He makes you send him photos of everything - shiny new computer he bought from the last sniping bonus, those expensive as fuck cat ear headphones that shine adorably in the ring light of your room. Konig who makes you facetime him for a quick e-sex - although he never turns on his camera, he loves to see you fuck yourself on the sex toy he sends you(something definitely too big for you, but he likes to see how quickly you can overcome challenges). If you want that shiny new PC setup, you have to work for it - and unfortunately for you, he found it really easy to get your exact address because of all the purchases. Don't be alarmed when he finally shows up after deployment, okay?

[xx-j4nu5-c4t5-xx]

"An ideal Sims game would have Sims 2's gameplay mechanics, Sims 3's open world, and Sims 4's graphics!"

I absolutely despise this take, and I want to explain why. This is a very long rant and it is full of piss and vinegar directed at everything in the Sims 4. I'm gonna try to keep everything kinda professional as much as I can but I can't guarantee an unbiased opinion.

If you'll let me talk your ears off for a moment, I'd like to explain, from my own experience as an artist and a casual player, my issues with the art style and direction of The Sims 4 compared to The Sims 2. (I'm not really going to comment on 3 because I've never played it.)

I want to start off by explaining the difference between better graphics and higher resolution. The Sims 4 absolutely blows Sims 2 out of the water when it comes to textures and polygon counts on sims, no contest. But I'd argue that the graphics themselves... aren't better. They're worse, even, so much fucking worse. The biggest problems come from the stylization and the animations, in my opinion, so I'll explain what I mean.

Have you ever felt like the Sims in 4 just look... weird? Not quirky, not kinda strange, but off. Distressing. Uncanny. Whatever the fuck the kids call it nowadays. When you strip away the packs and the CC and the shaders, the sims in the base game look bad. They're very close to being human; they walk like us, talk like us, have families like us, but they don't look like us, not exactly. There's always something off about them, no matter how close you try to get. Proportions will be a bit off, or your eyelashes will be like three polygons for some fucking reason, and the jig is up. The illusion is gone.

This is one of the instances where a higher resolution and more detailed models and meshes work against you. You aren't making believe. You are beyond the point of pretending that the pixelated shapes are real clothes and bodies and faces, because at this point, they're close enough that you don't need to. There's no gap to bridge. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're lifelike, at least, not enough to be completely human. In some ways, they're still tethered to being cartoony and plasticky and fake. Just enough to frighten you. Enough to put you off. They're not using it to their advantage anymore, and instead, it's holding them back.

When the Sims 2 came out in 2004, the developers knew that they weren't going to make a perfectly accurate life simulator. They physically couldn't render every wrinkle in the face or fold in the clothing. In some animations, things clip strangely or the facial expressions are sort of janky or there's just some form of roughness around the edges. But that's okay; your brain doesn't need a perfectly accurate representation this time. That's not what you're here for, anyway.

The Sims 4 is basically Icarus-ing itself into disaster. The entire game sacrifices style for complete realism, a goal that was unachievable ten years ago, and is unachievable now.

The Sims 2 never thought of itself as a completely realistic life sim, though. It has cartoony, low poly meshes and exaggerated proportions and wild, raunchy storylines that would never occur in real life. BECAUSE IT ISN'T REAL LIFE. And it isn't like real life, not because it's failing to be, but because it doesn't want to be!

The Sims 4 is not ever going to completely replicate human looks or interactions or dynamics. And if it's trying to, it's doing a shit job of it. That shouldn't be the goal in the first place. If I wanted to watch a lonely college student talk to himself in the mirror to try and get better at interacting with people, I'd close the computer and go look at myself. It somehow highlights the most mundane parts of life without any of the whimsy and goofiness that the earlier installments had. It takes itself too fucking seriously for its own good, and it's killing both the gameplay and the art style.

The other point I'd like to bring up is the animation. The Sims 4 allows for much more customization of both sim and environments, but at the cost of dynamic animations. How many times is that grab animation reused? How many times is the same set of animations used for sims with wildly different personalities? Your sims barely feel alive with how little they express themselves.

Now, look, I'm a digital artist. I've dabbled in animation, but only briefly, and only in 2D. I've got no clue how 3D animation works, much less how it worked 20 years ago, but I can see the passion in every single animation in the Sims 2. The more niche interactions allowed for more expressive animations than in 4. They could afford to have a distinct animation for mean sims throwing the football extra hard to be assholes, rather than every sim using the same generic football-throwing animation to save time and money. I get where they're coming from. I get the idea. But in one move, you've both made the art style stiffer and less expressive, and you've made the personalities of the sims seem meaningless. Everyone acts the same, regardless of what their moodlets or their traits say. It's hollow. It's stifled. It's a waste of potential.

But for what Sims 2 lacks in polygons, it makes up for in smaller animated details. Quality over quantity. The sims have hair physics, they open the door before they get in the car, they take utensils out of the counters when they cook, they jump on the couch and the cushions smush under their weight. When they dance, the weight is realistic, and when they smile, it tugs at every one of the few dozen shapes that make up their faces. The sims are lively. They dance and sing and love and hate just like humans, and rather than being some strange attempt at mimicry, it's almost a tribute. They were made with love. You can tell that they were drawn up and rigged and animated by a bunch of people working together, studying each other and making faces in the mirror for reference and watching their kids and neighbors and dogs and hands for reference. The sims are not human, and not trying to be, but they're taking the most human parts of us and making them their own.

You could never have a game with the Sims 4's graphics and the Sims 2's gameplay. The gameplay and graphics are inexorably connected, and the Sims 2 just has so much glorious detail baked into it, that you could never really make it work underneath the limitations of the later games. The developers of 2 knew what their limits were, and they worked tirelessly to make the game as full and complex as they could within those limits. The developers for the Sims 4 just did not have those guidelines, and thus, the drive to bend the rules was no longer there. They didn't go wild in rebellion because they were never told they couldn't in the first place. They spent the entire time chasing a goal they couldn't meet, and lost sight of what made the series fun to begin with.

It wasn't the realism you came for; you had realism already surrounding you. It was the caricature of it that made it interesting.

[kbs-and-fds]

Yo, Welcome to my photography blog!

This is a photography project with a focus on older digital cameras sold before the mid 2000s. I've been working with these sorts of cameras since 2022, which grew from my interest in retro computers that I have had since 2020 or so. Here, I'll introduce you to my cameras, my computer rig, and try to convince you that this is a cool hobby.

General Q & A:

Whats in the name? - Kb refers to Kilobyte, all of the photos I take with these cameras only take up a little over 100 Kilobytes of digital storage per photo. FD refers to the physical media the photos are stored in, currently one camera uses floppy disks (FD), the other two use compact flash (CF) and smart media (SM) cards. unfortunately, their shortened forms do not rhyme and so they do not matter.

What can I expect from this blog? - amateur photography using old cameras, I guess. I'll say some nonsense below each photo but you're free to ignore it. I don't plan on reblogging anything here, so don't expect that. I am the star of this blog. me me me. I tend towards finding weird buildings/architecture, "liminal spaces", sunsets, and generally trying to see how well I can make a photo look like a blender render in a Kane pixels video. don't expect any consistency, though. the medium will remain the same but the vibes will absolutely fluctuate with my mood. I'll try and tag things correctly if it's off putting.

Are you a cool person? - I tend to be! I don't want this place to be alienating for anybody but assholes who don't deserve to see the stuff I do. being a tumblr blog, I follow a lot of the standard stuff. jerks are not welcome and I'm not gonna give you the pleasure of an argument if you do turn your head round these parts.

who are you? - trans pan girl. takes pictures. listens to Femtanyl. much unlike Peter Parker.

My Cameras

Mavica FD-7

released in 1997, this was the second of Sony's "Digital Mavica" line of cameras. it records photos of around 50Kbs in size to a standard 3 1/2" floppy disk. it has some standard features like a manual focus wheel, 10x optical zoom, and exposure control. I haven't found a strict source but I believe this camera is less than one megapixel. I actually have a few different Mavica cameras (a fd-71/75/83/85/87 and a cd-1000) but they aren't different from the fd-7 enough to justify being used often. I'll make note on individual posts if I use 'em at all.

Kodak DC220

released in 1999, with a quality of exactly one megapixel the DC 220 is a weird little thing. it has custom software, connects to a computer via com ports with a transfer speed of ~11,000 bit/s. (roughly 30-60 seconds per photo in my experience) you can add custom text to your photos in the cameras built in software, and attach custom audio to each photo. it is a pain in the butt to get working, but it's quirks make it worth the frustration.

Olympus E-10

made in 2000 with a quality of a whopping four megapixels, the Olympus E-10 is the newest addition to my collection, and possibly the nicest camera I'll ever own. it's a fixed lens DSLR camera capable of 4x zoom, you can easily adjust the aperture and exposure on the fly, it's photos tend to be a whole 100kb in size (1/10th of a megabyte!) and to be entirely honest I have no idea how to use it. but I will eventually!

My Computer

I try to use all era-appropriate tech to transfer photos and do any edits, this is the computer I do all that processing on! its a Dell Optiplex gx1- the daddy of pretty much any computer used in public schools (Chromebooks don't count) It's got a Pentium 3 CPU clocking at 500MHz, 512mb ram, running windows ME. it has all the original Kodak DC220 software installed, and I can't really access the Kodak's photos any other way. I've also got a few other weird bits attached to it -an HP sketch pro cad tablet and an external data cartridge SCSI device. both work, but I don't really bother to use them, they just look neat.

that's about it. have a good one! thanks for reading this all, if you did.

[winxwannabe]

Winx Season 9/Reboot Leaks

Okay here's the tea: earlier today a twitter user by the name of Cataclysm_Power started posting a video they claimed was from the new Winx season/reboot. When pressed for further information, they linked to a telegram chat with what appeared to be assets from Rainbow (17 screenshots/2 videos). After some C-grade internet sleuthing, I am here to give my (worthless and possibly wrong) opinion on which ones I think are real and fake.

A note before we jump in: I'm not posting full images on my blog, because again I do think some of these are real and if the leaker is to be believed, they hacked Rainbow to get them. You can look yourself through the telegram link, or others who've posted them on the Winx Club tag. I also think the leaker themselves is scammy because they've tried charging for Miraculous leaks before. Do NOT give them any money if they ask.

Real: Bloom, Stella, and Icy's asset sheets, Bloom Full Body Pose

A lot of these leaks are 3d modelling assets, and these 3 are the ones I'm totally convinced are real.

The biggest clue of their validity is the bottom banner. All 3 sheets have them, along with the same episode code and notes in Italian. They're all also linked to the same person: Pasqualino Masciulli is Rainbow's 3D modelling supervisor, and has been with the company for at least 9 years. He's done videos on Rainbow's youtube channel as well, using his shortened first name Lino. My main point is that's way too niche for someone to fake just to make some convincing leaks, and it would make sense for the assets to be tied to him.

Likewise, there's a full-body frame post of Bloom with fucking ugliest denim leg warmers credited to a g.riccobono. This is likely Giulio Riccobono, who is listed on Linkedin Italy as a Rainbow employee.

Probably Real: Tecna's asset sheet, Bloom's detailed asset sheet

Both of these are likely real but have weird things about them that make me pause. Bloom's more detailed asset sheet is missing the name, date and episode reference on it, and the notes are in English. Tecna's is missing the bottom banner entirely, and there's some weird cutting around her head that makes it look like someone hastily made a png and stuck it on there.

Unsure: Computer File Tab, MD Concept Photos, Videos

There's a screenshot of a folder with both 2D and 3D assets of all the girls. in the files. I'm not sure if this is from a computer at Rainbow or the hacker's personal folder, so it goes in unsure. I do think most of the assets in it are real - it's low res but the eyes on the 2D sketches are so similar to the ones on Rainbow's newer images of the girls I think they have to be connected.

There are also some full body concept photos for Bloom, Aisha, and Stella. They all look pretty legit (as they're updated version of images we've already seen) but Stella's has other images for 'possible pallets' included. She's the only one with it and the images look like they came from a flash dress-up game, and it gives me pause.

Lastly, the teaser videos of Bloom are probably real based on the outfit, animation and that stupid fucking Bloom shelf being in the background, but I'm placing it in 'unsure' because of the bandicam.com logo burned into the top. If it really came from Rainbow and everything else was downloaded, there was no reason for the hacker to not get the raw file. I think it's real, but I don't know if it came from Rainbow.

Something Ain't Right: Group Shot

What gives me pause in the fully-rendered group shot (even though its shown in the computer file tab) is it shows transformation we haven't seen teased and has a 'Lorem Ipsum' placeholder text. Aisha's hair also looks like it was done with AI - the back of her wings clip through the hair, and parts of it look copy-pasted. I'm stupid, it's the end of her braids. The 'Lorem Ipsum' thing still stands, but I'm re-filing this under 'unsure.'

Probably Fake: Darcy and Damien's asset sheets

I'm showing things from here on out because I'm so convinced it's fake please let me be right. Unlike the other character sheets, the ones for Darcy and 'new character' Damien have no bottom banner, are marked as 'Winx Club Season 9' with an outdated Winx logo, and have notes written completely in English. Darcy's has a bit of 3D modelling, but it's too different from Icy's. Maybe they're super early concepts for Darcy, but Damien...go home, buddy.

You're in the Wrong Place: Rainbow Pants Girl

I'm convinced this girl is from a different show and was saved to the 'Winx Club' folder by accident. Different clothing, hair, and shading. May you end up somewhere better than this reboot, Mystery Girl.

[tazienimp]

Cousins

Ariem: "Dear... How long have you been around?"

Mephiles: "... 1,715 years... Surely you two aren't much older."

Ariem: "Oh hun... You're about 30,000 years behind..."

Son: *scoffs* "CHILD"

Ariem: "Son, be nice..."

That moment when you meet your older cousins for the first time and one of em's a jackass and you find out you're the baby of the group, all because you referred to something in their past as 'ancient legend'

Yeah so, their parents were triplets. Ruin, Revenant, and Rot respectively.

- Ruin had been with Dark Gaia, and thousands of years later, the flame of Solaris appeared as an egg on the side of a mountain and was taken in as an heirloom by a budding kingdom, later becoming Mephiles and Iblis.

- Revenant left with the other hero variants of the Ancients as their king, with Ariem in tow. She was little at the time but remembered the fire that engulfed the land from the Gaias' beginning feud.

- Son (that is his actual name) was born to a dying woman in a field, and was deemed a demon by the village that raised him long after his feral, mindless monster of a father was abducted by the Black Arms to be their chosen deity.

In all other timelines, the cousins never find each other. They don't know they're related, or that they even exist. But in the Cult timeline, Mephiles sends his oldest grandson on a thousand year quest to find his cousin Son. And then his mate, Doom, who is the best friend of Ariem, successfully discovers the truth where his counterparts had failed, bringing Ariem into the fold where she could meet her younger cousins finally.

Despite not being there for them when they needed help most, when they needed a proper family, she is proud of both of them for how they were able to exist and grow up relatively okay. Mephy successfully started a cult, and went on to be the proud father of 6 and grandfather of 7, and Son managed to not wipe entire villages off the face of the earth, retaining what little humanity resided within him. And for Ariem herself? Well she's the debatably proud mother of a little crotch goblin little girl of her own, and became a very competent ruler very early on, due to her father passing away when she was still little. Revenant had been slain by the, at the time, ruler of the Black Arms, Doom's father. Ruin is still trapped at the bottom of the void, and Rot is still chained in the heart of the Black Comet, endlessly roaring his mindless cries, to the delight of millions.

The babies turned out alright in this timeline. And they found each other again, even though their parents never got the chance to reunite and say goodbye..

Stupid ramble notes under the cut

Also have this fucking weird ass thing i grabbed while playing around with the filters. He's such a freak i love him.

Son was... um.... a lil interesting this time around. He got me with a couple exe moments with his lineart and refs, and he demanded the sacrifice of a gnat across my tablet screen (ew), inside his lineart, when i was telling a friend that he was 'oh so totally harmless', and I'm still struggling to get the bug stain off my screen. So, yeah i might just have an entity living on my computer???? It's fine, he's a good boy. Trust. Though he does also speak in blood. I wasn't really even trying with his text, it just kinda came out like that first try???? But yanno what it's fiiiiine XDDDDD

WOOOOOOOO I did this in about.... 14 hours? It's been a year since i last drew Cult Mephy, like.... i dunno several months since i last drew Son, and the first time I've ever drawn Ariem! I didn't redesign her hardly at all, cause she fits my artstyle very very well and i do think she's extremely pretty, and a she's got a solid design as it is. She was very fun to draw and i actually found myself absentmindedly doodling in her rendering while i was watching youtube vids just cause it was really fun to render her.

This was by complete impulse when i woke up today, and i was like, alright, time to put all my effort into them, i gotta do it eventually anyway XDDDDDD

Also thank you @jadedazemations for convincing me to let them finally meet each other in at least one timeline. I probably wasn't gonna do it otherwise.

Alright, that's all, ima post this onto my deviantart tomorrow when i wake up but fir now ima conk out, so, i love you all and i hope you enjoy, gn 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

[archeronfilm]

The Fifth Element (1997)

"I don't care, he should have been a butch lesbian."

In case you don't want spoilers, or to hear my long verbose in-detail thoughts on this movie, here's the short and sweet version:

The Fifth Element is raunchy, corny, and campy in all the right ways, and some of the wrong ones. It's far from a perfect movie, but I really enjoyed watching and rewatching it, and I would recommend it! I guess um, 4/5 stars, maybe.

Okay, now let's get serious. I saw the first 15 minutes of this movie while visiting my mother, found it so intriguing that I watched it with a friend, and then watched it again to write this review. Let's get into the meat of it. Spoilers for a 30 year old movie ahead.

Word Count: 6,082

Okay, The Fifth Element (1997), dir. Luc Besson, is a sci-fi comedy starring such greats as Bruce Willis and Gary Oldman, who I've been in love with since I watched Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1990).

We open in Egypt in 1914, in a scene I can only describe as "Mummy-esque." Seriously, this scene came on in my mother's living room and I thought we were watching a yet unseen installation of The Mummy or Indiana Jones. It contains, among other things, an incredibly hammy and not-at-all-subtle dump of exposition. They go out of their way to gravitate back to this wall of runes several times, to make sure you know as much background lore as possible. A later scene renders this odd choice kind of unnecessary, but I'll concede its existence for one key reason-- the Mondoshawan.

The Mondoshawan are the good-guy aliens in this movie, though they're only featured on screen two times, one of them being this scene. Their space ship looms awesomely over this strange Egyptian exposition-temple, and they are a star example of one of the best parts of this movie.

All the effects, or at least as many of them as possible, are practical. Of course, it's a movie made in the 90's, so they would be. But the beautifully clunky and real toddling of these men in alien costumes was a dead-ringer for New Who, and it was incredibly endearing to me. I am a major believer in the power and merit of practical effects and the tragedy of computer generation. And this movie is *swimming* in practical effects. It's a delight.

I will say there's this bit where the leader Mondoshawan is toddling towards this very slowly closing stone door and he doesn't make it through because his very slow waddling is somehow slower than the door is, and I think it was supposed to be semi-serious but I laughed at it. It was just a little ridiculous.

The back half of this first scene feels kind of oddly paced, like it's rushed, which is odd to me considering the scene didn't hold back on dumping as much stuff on me as possible just a few minutes ago. Very strange scene, seems to only have one purpose, which I'll get back to later.

So, flash forward 30 years to something dramatically different in aesthetic and vibe, of course. We're in space. We're gritty, we're militaristic, of course. There's an evil fucking orb of fire flying towards the Earth at top speed. Things aren't looking great.

The president, a man with eyes of a frightening shade, is black! This is not plot relevant, but I find the tendency of movies from this period to feature black presidents far before Obama's term to be really interesting. Is this social commentary? A thoughtful statement about how fantastical the idea of a black man in office is to the average American? I will never know. I really like this character, he's a fun guy. He has more personality than most president characters do, probably due to him being on an awesome spaceship with a team of nodding yes-men in a delightfully Star Trek-esque uniform. I like him a lot. He's my boy.

This is the same scene where we get introduced to Vito Cornelius, a priest who appears to be Catholic because he does the sign of the cross later in the movie, even though I definitely assumed he was some weird member of the church of the Fifth Element or something.

Cornelius is here to suggest that the ball of fire is sentient and evil, and that the president shouldn't shoot it with missiles, because it's so sentient and evil that it'll get even sentienter and eviler. Of course, the president disregards this warning, because that's what movie presidents do to random old men in robes.

From this blunder comes one of the many incredibly hard lines in this movie. Where Mr. President tells Staedert, his military commander, "I have a doubt." and Staedert replies "I don't, Mister President" and then presses the fire button on the huge gigantic missiles. It's awesome, only slightly undercut by the fact that it doesn't work and Staedert and his crew get fucking obliterated right after. By the evil sentient ball which shoots out a flare of flames that has an evil spooky skull in it. That's not a joke at all, that seriously happens in this scene. I laughed.

Now we smash cut to Bruce Willis. He's Korben Dallas, this sort of gritty ex-military guy with a very cute cat. I love this cat. She is an adorable, slightly cross eyed white longhair. It's honestly a tragedy and a waste that she was only in like two scenes. She should have been ever-present, fitted with Air Bud esque mouth animation so she could act as Bruce Willis' voice of reason throughout the film.

Korben Dallas is trying to quit smoking. He's a cab driver who's dogshit at driving his cab and is mere seconds away from losing his license. He is, and I quote, "Still stuck on that two-timing slut." He wants a perfect woman. There are about two Chekov's guns in that last block of text.

He opens his first scene with us in what I can only describe as the sluttiest most hot and sweaty chest binder I've ever seen. And a pair of tight belted leather boots that it really seems like he fell asleep wearing.

And then he gets mugged by a guy, presumably so they can show us how much he knows about guns, and that he has been mugged enough that he now has a secret shelf that is just completely full of guns. Hilarious. I love this bit. It's not even relevant, I just loved it.

Okay so the evil sentient ball of fire. We didn't forget about that. This scene is one that confused me really badly during my rewatch. Here, Cornelius explains in full detail and in much less vague terms than before what the Fifth Element does and why they need it to save Earth from this evil ball of fire. This scene renders most of the in-narrative purpose of the first scene moot. The only reason it now exists (other than some background stuff that could probably have been introduced in a less odd way) is to address a more meta issue, which I'll get to later. But while I was watching it, I couldn't help but think "Well... then what the hell were we doing in the desert with Luke Perry?"

In this scene, we get to see the Mondoshawans again for the final time, so we can introduce the bad guy aliens, the Mangalores. They jack the stones (the elements) from the Mondoshawan ship and blow them up.

I thought this scene was supposed to set up the stereotypical "military incompetent" idea that's often present in this type of sci fi, but the president honestly makes mostly good decisions that don't make him feel like a bumbling idiot once through the entire movie. Honestly, he's kind of cool. I like him.

Okay, now that the Mangalores have been tragically exploded, we get the vehicle towards one of our main characters. Using a saved body part from the Mangalores and some utterly and delighfully made up genetic scienceology, we recreated the perfect genes of some alien into... a skinny white girl with the orangest hair I've ever seen. This scene features one of the only costuming choices in the movie that I truly hate. Leeloo's weird strap undies (and subsequent inability to wear normal pants, but mostly these strap undies?). I just hate it. Why is it here. It's not even that sexy looking. She looks like a ham in an asylum.

The set design in this movie is also delightfully Whovian and Star-Trek-ish. Tinfoil walls, lava lamp type sensibilities. The costumes are camp the set is camp, everything is camp. It's an absolute whale. The costumes the policemen wear while chasing runaway Leeloo are just hilarious. Many fantastic choices made all around, except for those fucking weird underpants.

Some of the sci-fi concepts in this movie FEEL overplayed and hammed up, and then I remember that it was released when a lot of this stuff was new and in-vogue, and it becomes an interesting exercise in perspective. Maybe they were pioneers, what do I know? I'm having an absolute ball.

Okay, so Leeloo falls directly through the roof of Korben Dallas' cab, and before you say anything, I do have many choice words throughout this recap/review about the infamous trope borne of this movie, "Born Sexy Yesterday," and I am aware of its existence. These opinions are sprinkled throughout alongside my others.

So Bruce Willis seems to be a big fan of this strange woman who, especially in this scene, acts very childlike. Korben's interest doesn't really read as creepy in this scene, until later when he randomly assaults her. You know, like a creep would do. I digress.

Leeloo knows how to read Roman lettering, and while I understand this choice in this scene, I do think it doesn't make sense and kills a little bit of world building. Whatever. Language guy complaining about language stuff.

Speaking of world building, there are a lot of worldbuilding things conveyed visually and through dialog in this movie that arent ham-fisted exposition vomit, and I am very fond of them. The hitch inside the rear door of Dallas' cab, saying Leeloo "doesn't have a file," the Fog? That is never explained? This world has some suggestion of richness and intrigue that I love to see from sci-fi. They waste no time painting "THIS IS THE POINT" with big red letters, because it's just setdressing, and I think that ultimately makes these details really sing.

I love the dialog and energy in the high speed chase scene, the vertical train, the Fog??? The way this movie doesn't need to explain itself. Until it does explain itself. Blatantly. And then I get sad.

In a lot of ways, I think this movie's actual plot is the least interesting part of it. More on this later.

It also *really* seems like this movie was sponsored by McDonald's.

A nearly unconscious Leeloo begs Korben Dallas to take her to Cornelius, before passing out with such cartoonish vigor that I originally thought she was kidding.

So Korben takes Leeloo to Cornelius' apartment, getting originally turned away for being mistaken for newlyweds (barf). Instead of knocking again, he just kicks down the door. Cornelius realizes due to a tattoo on her inner wrist that she's the Fifth Element (!) and passes out. Korben places her on the couch.

Now, I don't really understand why Korben Dallas chooses to sexually assault Leeloo by kissing her while she's unconscious in this scene. It not only feels gross, it also feels kind of unprecedented. They've met once, had approximately the amount of chemistry you'd expect, and then she passed out. Maybe in the 90's this felt spontaneous and romantic, but to me it just feels like he did it for no reason. I wish she had actually shot him. Thankfully, her outburst of rage at this momentarily makes her feel a little less like a literal grade-schooler, a much needed respite.

Milla Jovovich does what I think is a pretty good job at keeping her pronunciation of the divine language consistent throughout the scenes where she speaks it. She's Ukranian-American, but I have no idea if she's bilingual or had an accent coach or something. Either way, well done Ms. Jovovich!

Anyway, Cornelius walks in having suddenly changed into these silly ass robes, a great sight gag, and kicks Korben out of the room, but not before he reveals that the words that Leeloo yelled at Korben meant "never without my permission," which really made me wish she had shot him *twice*.

The scene where Korben talks to his friend, Finger, about Leeloo was clearly supposed to be romantic, I'm sure. It actually makes him look like a freak. I hated him for much of this movie.

Now, Back to the Mangalores. The Mangalores are a warrior race who have been hired by the big evil of this movie-- Gary Oldman. For some reason, they decided to make him southern. Not that I'm really complaining, but characters in this movie seem to have accents for no reason, and I really love it.

I love Gary Oldman in this movie. His character, Zorg, is fitted with one of the most ridiculous wardrobes of the entire cast. He has this odd plastic cap on his head, a flaccid mohawk, and the filthiest facial hair possible (a soul patch). He is fucking awesome. I love Zorg.

Spliced between parts of this arms deal, we learn that the stones aren't in the case. Leeloo tells Cornelius that in case they were stolen, the stones were given to someone trusted by the Mondoshawans, but not before changing clothes in front of him and his apprentice. I swear, she does this like three times in this movie.

The cut back to Leeloo in this scene right after Zorg realizes the box is empty is really well done. Effective, funny, punchy. She laughs like a freak, it's great.

There's a bit of dialog Zorg has with his right hand man right after this failed arms deal where he talks about his philosophy around warriors and why he prefers killers. I love this bit. The way he just coldly leaves them with a bomb built into his holy-overkill-gun is hard as shit, and it gives us a nice insight into our villain in the first scene he's in. I like it. I like Zorg.

Speaking of Zorg, we get a proper introduction to him just after. Here is one of the most interesting scenes in this film, where we get some insight about Zorg and Cornelius' respective opinions on life and death.

The interesting thing about this scene is that I kind of agree with Zorg, his saying that death exists to create life for the living, ostensibly feeding the cycle of life and progress. Regardless, he is painted as stupid when Cornelius has to rescue him from choking on a cherry.

And why the hell would you ever put a whole cherry in a glass of water? You're basically asking to choke to death. And Cornelius has a point, why don't you, a guy who has a special button to unearth his bizarre elephantine freak creature from the secret drawer in your desk, have a special robot to smack you on the back when you're choking? *Especially* when you do dumb shit like putting whole pit-in cherries in your glasses of water? Answer me that, Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg.

Actually, I don't know how this bit is supposed to disprove Zorg's point. All it really proves is that people need each other sometimes, which has nothing to do with what Zorg was actually saying to Cornelius here. Now, we could argue that it goes against the way that he executes this philosophy, which is true, being that he is a weird freaky villain who has henchmen, but I don't want to argue that. Because the fact that they have this strange sum-zero philosophical argument where they're ostensibly not even talking to each other is way funnier.

Right after this there's a bit where he sends his right hand man to literally bug the space-oval office. As in, it's a cockroach with a little camera and microphone on it. This bit is super funny. No thematic relevance, I just loved watching the president fucking cream the roach with his shoe while Zorg's henchman writhed in pain from the mic feedback.

The next important scene, by which I mean the next scene, starts with a healthy serving of "Sci-Fi setting that is weird about Asian people." Get behind me, Mr. Kim, this movie doesn't respect you enough.

Anyway, Korben's hilariously young adult-sounding mother calls him on the phone to bitch at him insanely about how he never calls and gives us a key piece of information-- Korben has won an all expenses paid trip to Fhloston Paradise! This coincidentally is where Leeloo told Cornelius the person with the stones was. This contest was actually alluded to on Korben's television in his first scene as well. This movie is very, *very* good at setup-payoff. Lots of domino situations.

Korben professional-improvs his way out of a police confrontation (organized by Zorg) just to get walloped over the head by Cornelius, who intends to steal his tickets so he and Leeloo can save planet Earth. In the process, he also puts his former superior officer in a freezer. Everyone wants Korben's sweet sweet bod in this scene. It's really something.

There's a couple of details about Korben's character and his relationship with Leeloo in this scene that jumped out at me, and I will be addressing them alongside the others of their ilk later in this review.

Cornelius hatches a plan to make his apprentice David impersonate Korben so they can get to Fhloston. It doesn't work, of course, because this movie chose to represent being knocked out the most realistically I've ever seen in a blockbuster flick. Korben is only down for the count for a second or two, which means he caught up with them and pulled some more startlingly effective improvisation out of his ass to get on this flight with Leeloo. It's really remarkable how good this ex military guy is at improv. Get his ass behind a mic. Get Korben on Whose Zorg is it Anyway, and pay me royalties.

I have a note here that just says "Everyone in this movie wears what I can only describe as rave wear. It's pretty hilarious." I have nothing to add. That's accurate.

So they're boarding this flight, right? And here's a real doozy. 1 out of 2 of my impassioned rants on one specific character in this movie who we meet in this scene. Ruby Rhod. Ruby ffffucking Rhod.

I actually *need* to talk about this guy. He is like the Prince of outer space. His scenes where he does his talk show are mesmerizing, zany, all over the place. I felt like I was having a nightmare. He's fascinating, fabulous, flamboyant, some other f word that I'm choosing not to say right now. His use of "green" to mean "good" is just perfect. Korben's completely dodgy and stiff responses are honestly the perfect contrast to Ruby in this scene. They're foils. This scene has captivated me. Ruby prowls around while tiger growling noises play in the background and flirts with this random stewardess ON AIR, inches from her face with the mic separating their mouths, promising to have sex with her later. ON AIR. It's implied that this is a normal thing that is acceptable on his show.

Ruby also has a whole gang of yes men, all of which are only slightly less flamboyantly homosexual than he is, but still feel more explicitly homosexual than Ruby, who has sex with as many women as he can possibly manage, which seems to be many, because every woman who mentions his name in this movie appears to cream their pants if he so much as breathes near them. That girl he flirted with? She moaned and collapsed on the floor right after.

The scene after the show, where Korben Dallas pins Ruby to the wall and threatens him, would have been beautifully compelling if Korben Dallas was a butch lesbian. This is the furthest thing from thoughtful character analysis, I just would have liked it more.

It's implied in the following scene that Ruby has only ever really wanted to fuck aliens before meeting this random stewardess, and we get to watch a very cleverly compiled set of scenes from wildly different locales that all fit together. Ruby having sex with this stewardess, the ship taking off, and Zorg blowing up his right hand man for failing him. They also use the Wilhelm scream in this scene, but given that the movie was made in the late 90's this is par for the course, and is really much more tasteful than usual.

For some reason, rasta(?) music is playing. There is a vaguely rastafarian man in this scene, but only for around 12 seconds. The use of regionally and culturally specific music in this movie that has no bearing on the actual space the characters inhabit is absolutely fascinating to me. There was some music earlier, playing in sci-fi New York, that I swear used a Raga scale. All the music is very good, good job Éric Serra.

After Zorg finishes exploding his frankly very competent right hand man, we get a scene where we discover that he's after the stones because some man he's working for, Mr. Shadow, wants them. Zorg is the main antagonist for most of this movie. Mr. Shadow never comes back again, and we do not need him. All he really serves to do is to make Zorg look more pathetic and give him an excuse to be more desperate when he can't get his hands on the stones, which, while fine, I think the movie could have gotten away with just having Zorg being a dramatic villain who freaks out when he doesn't get his way without this bit. Not egregious, but not really a necessary scene.

Okay, I have a big question. Why is Fhloston paradise Hawaii? It just *is* Hawaii. Did Hawaii escape to a separate planet at some point? Good for them, except that Fhloston is still a crazy tourist spot full of annoying white people, so not really. This is just Super Mega Hell 2 for Hawaiians. The song they sing in the first Fhloston scene is really good, though. Thanks, Éric.

On the topic of Fhloston, I really love the use of color in the set. Given the way the rest of this movie is, it's possible that it's more for visual contrast and not theming, but there is a scene during the opera performance that switches between complements, and the visual contrast is, well, good.

Speaking of the opera, Korben has front row seats, and its 5pm. You know what that means.

It's fucking Ruby Rhod time, baby! Ruby is back in black, in the most fantastic costume in this entire movie. Despite it showing off his entire clavicle (no exaggeration), it manages to get more and more revealing as this scene plays out. This bit where he asks Korben if he's happy with being on Fhloston in his usual over the top, loud, flamboyant way and Korben looks into his eyes, leans into the mic, and says "Thrilled" drolly is a short interaction so packed with sexual tension that I can't even argue for it without just telling you to watch the scene. This is their only interaction that really FEELS like gay sex, and it made my jaw go slack for a couple of seconds, even as the movie immediately moved on to the much more important opera segment.

Speaking of the opera, for real this time, I have one complaint. It's an annoying complaint that nobody ever wants to hear, but I'm saying it anyway because that's what I'm here to do: Diva is *not* singing. Now, maybe in some later movie review we can learn my detailed opinions on live recordings of singing performances in film (short version: I don't think they should happen, and I hate them) my main complaint is mostly that Diva's actress is just not very good at *pretending* to sing, much less opera. She doesn't pretend to breathe, doesn't try to move her mouth with the incredibly strong vibrato (understandable to some extent) but most of all, her mouth shapes just aren't right. I can concretely point to certain mouth shapes and say "that's not the shape her mouth should be when singing that vowel," it's obvious enough that I can do that. Granted, I have some experience in singing on stage, so maybe that's just my personal annoying musician experience speaking, but it was really noticeable to me. Okay, annoying complaint over, now I can say nice things

This opera, Lucia di Lammermoor with a poppy remix track towards the end, is ridiculously well performed. Diva's vocalist, Inva Mula, does a stunning job at both the formal and informal portions of this song. It's actually amazing how little of her voice had to be computer edited to sound more "alien," it's only done like twice in the portion that it's done at all, and the rest is pretty clearly just her. She really knocks it out of the park here.

The movie does something interesting here that I really enjoyed, where they periodically show us different characters reactions to this opera. Mostly Korben and Leeloo. I want to focus on Korben, who looks at Diva like this is the first time he's ever been moved in his life. Seriously, his eyes are wet and shining with unshed tears and I really mean that. Right when we get this poignant reaction out of Korben, the pop track starts playing and the somber moment abruptly ends, which is kind of what it's like watching this movie, or clicking on a Read More and discovering a film review that is easily over 5k words.

This movie has a great penchant for match cuts. Actually, most of the transition and shot choices made in this movie are really top of the line. They're all punchy, sharp, playful, to the point. Fantastic cinematographic choices, guys.

Diva finishes her performance right after Leeloo finishes fighting Zorg by getting shot at while up in an air duct. The opera is then laid siege by the Mangalores, who brutally murder Diva. This is sad for me, because I wanted her and Leeloo to be friends, and for Korben Dallas, who just felt the strongest emotion he's ever experienced thanks to her.

Ruby, of course, continues reporting on his talk show throughout the assault, because he's a goddamn professional. He also spends the next scene and a half shrieking in fear.

The reveal that the stones are literally inside Diva's body not only makes me watch one of the more disgusting scenes in this movie, it also makes me wonder-- Was Leeloo just supposed to kill her? Also, how did they get in there? Many questions and no answers, because we aren't here to fuck around.

While Diva is giving Korben this weird spiel about how Leeloo needs him and his love to survive, there's this brief cut to Leeloo, bleeding in the air vent. This cut is an absolute pang to the gut. She sits, curled up, alone, sobbing painfully with a bullet wound in her leg. She looks small, helpless, childlike in this brief scene. It was so impactful to me that it just made me angry about the way Korben and Leeloo's relationship in this movie is executed. This is another "get back to it later" thing.

For the rest of this "getting shot up by Mangalores" scene, Ruby Rhod is cowering and sniffling and screaming for Korben to help him. It's honestly like this for the rest of the movie. They're just friends now. It's awesome. I love this guy. He accidentally shoots a guy in the head and then asks Korben "You think he'll be okay?" He's the best character in this movie.

We get one of Korben's final fantastic moments of improv in this scene. It's around this point, during the "negotiation" scene, that I realized that the problem with this movie is that the best parts of it are the parts that aren't about the two characters who I'm supposed to care about the relationship between.

This scene, where Korben gets in a fighter jet, says it's just like driving a cab (a contrast from his conversation with Finger in his first scene, where he says driving a cab is easy because he isn't driving a jet) and then blows a fucking hole in the airlock and guns it out of the Fhloston ship, is so fucking cool. I'm a very simple man. It was awesome. One question, does Korben have some kind of allergy to reminding people to put seatbelts on? This is the second time he's just allowed his passengers to fly around the cabin while he drives recklessly.

Ruby's show ends at 7pm, when he tiredly proclaims that it's the best show he's ever done. I was thinking the same thing. In fact, Mr. Rhod, I really think you should hire Korben. There, now he has a new job.

Right here is where I'm going to address one of my main points (gripes) about this movie. Yes, I know, over 5k words in.

This part of the scene, where Leeloo has her weird crisis of faith about the evil of the human race, learns about war and concludes that humans aren't worth saving, falls flat to me. Sure, it feels over-played, but ultimately the problem is just that it's not done well, much like the rest of her characterization. Leeloo's depiction as being naive and childlike, which honestly only holds because she doesn't really speak fluent English, holds back her character because of the movies comphet insistence that her and Korben be romantically involved. A narrative where Leeloo, naive and unfamiliar, Leeloo, who needs other people, who sobs painfully alone in an airvent, who needs to be dried off with a towel after getting soaked with water, is actually a child, would be more compelling. And her not being able to reconcile with the evils of humanity would also have felt more convincing if she was literally a child. Like, of *course* she can't see the situation with any nuance, she's a kid. A narrative where Leeloo and Korben's dynamic is more familial would be more interesting, and honestly the way she's characterized already lends itself so perfectly to this narrative that there were points where I got actually upset that the movie refused to go that direction.

I'll go ahead and talk about Korben's character here as well. Korben is a refreshing detraction from the classic grizzled tough guy trope that we tend to see in action movies. Whether this is a result of 90's zeitgeist or just the writer's own preferences, I don't know, but I noticed it. I was expecting Korben Dallas to be a sort of obnoxious, emotionally stunted brick wall of a guy-- but he isn't, really. Korben is quick on his feet, improvisational, messy, and sure he's genius with a gun, but he's also *nice*. He's nice in a distinctly not "Grizzled emotionally stunted guy" way. When he accidentally gets Leeloo soaking wet, he gets her a towel at warp speed, apologizes up and down in a much softer tone than he ever uses for anything else. I thought at first "of course, because he likes her," but then-- Then! When he discovers that he's accidentally plastic-wrapped Cornelius, he rips the plastic and apologizes-- in the same sort of tone. He adapts his approach to the Mangalore barrage in the cruise ship to Ruby Rhod, never complains about Ruby being a nuisance or being in his way, just brings him along and asks him to help out. I honestly really like Korben Dallas. Which is why, upon reflecting on earlier scenes in this movie, it really irritates me that he just kisses Leeloo for no reason, or even that he's in love with her at all.

That scene I mentioned, where Korben dries her off, or even as early as the cab scene where she's talking animatedly to him in the divine language and we get the "bada boom" dialog, just oozes a kind of gentleness and care that doesn't speak satisfactorily to romance or sex. Leeloo, this childlike character, and Korben, this gentle man who happens to be great with guns, don't feel like husband and wife. They don't feel like sexual partners. He feels like her father. That moment with the shower soured the rest of their dynamic for me during my rewatch, because I kept thinking about how much better it could be. That dynamic, as I've already said, would have been deeply compelling, especially given the final reveal of the movie.

Now that we've escaped Fhloston, we've headed back to the temple in Egypt. This is that meta function of the first scene I said I'd address-- without it, there is no sense of a sort of circular journey the film takes. The film establishing this temple *is* important, because otherwise this scene where we return to it just wouldn't land as well. That said, I do still think the first scene is a little odd and clunky. Then again, so is much of this movie, and it's still a good scene.

Our characters spend a frustratingly long time decoding a "riddle" that Leeloo tells Korben, one which was so simple that I was yelling at my laptop the first time I watched it. We get another very gratifying and subtle payoff from an earlier scene where we see Korben has only one match left, which he needs for the fire stone. Earlier, we see him subtly take his penultimate match from the box. This movie's Chekov game is crazy.

Much like this review, Leeloo says something that feels deeply substantial nearly 2 hours into a 2 hour long movie. She says "I don't know love. I was made to protect, not to love. There is no use for me other than this."

This line is so compelling to me. It's the most CHARACTER I've seen from her in the whole movie, and its 2 hours in. We do not get to explore it.

You might have noticed, based on this line, what the Fifth Element actually is. What Leeloo needs in order to activate her Element and shoot the big fuckoff laser into the evil fire ball.

Its ~Love~.

This is, of course, ridiculously corny and requires them to kiss nasty on the mouth for longer than I would have liked to see (Of course, I would have like to not see it at all).

I don't actually mind this conclusion or the theming. It's silly, but so is the whole movie. But you might, like me, see an issue here.

If we had approached this movie the way I so desperately craved, made their dynamic more familial, made Leeloo a child and given Korben a new weird alien daughter, this conclusion would have been leagues more powerful.

Not only would it be a unique approach to what is usually a very hetero and sexual genre, it would have given a much more gratifying conclusion to Korben's character arc. At the beginning of his arc, Korben talks about how he's looking for a perfect woman after his wife left him. In the movie, Korben just... *gets* the perfect woman. He gets exactly what he wanted and he learns nothing. If Korben instead had to reckon with this new facet of his life and identity, had to reconcile with being thrust into quasi-fatherhood, he might actually have deigned to, you know, *develop* as a character. He would have *learned* something. I'm not saying every single character in the movie has to learn something, but the main goddamn character probably should, right?

But since it's an ~adult movie~ for ~grown ups~, we can't tell compelling family narratives, and the movie has to end with them having sex in a reactor pod. I hate that. I hated that conclusion and my least favorite part of this movie was its main conceit, which was genuinely tragic given how enjoyable I found the rest of the film.

So, I'll leave you with this.

The Fifth Element (1997) is a *good* movie. It's incredibly fun, zany, raunchy, and lively. The music is very good, the costuming and set design is whimsical and fantastic. It's a little weird about Asians. It birthed one of the worst cinema tropes ever invented, and it didn't even have to, because the movie would have been really, deeply beautiful if it hadn't.

And Korben Dallas should have been a butch lesbian.

Actually, I'll leave you by saying that the song that plays in the credits of this movie is really good. "Little Light of Love," it's called. I'm going to link it so you can experience it, too.

[vampuppyy]

hey ive just been curious about your outlook, ive seen you're pretty kink/sex positive and wanted to know your view on paraphilias, since from what i get you seem pretty alright with it which is weird considering most things i read about it online. sorry if its a bother but could you elaborate more on your view on it? ty c:

Hi nonnie im coming to this one w the hopes and prayers youre not my ex or a general weirdo but yeah sure. itll be probably briefer/shorter than what id normally do since i have a migraine rn but hopefully its understandable to you ^_^ under the cut because yeah

The tldr of this all is yes i am pro >>>nonharmful<<<<< paraphilias idc that someone wants to fuck an ancient computer or has a thing for boobs. i'm NEUTRAL on the big three. i am strictly anti-contact for the big 3 (and by consequence any harmful non-consented upon. notice the non consent) because no i dont think theres any way shape or form a kid an animal or a dead person can consent to someone :thumbsup i am also pro-recovery for people w paraphilic disorders.

Which talking about paraphilic disorders YES they are >different< things than general paraphilias. paraphilias are an abnormal attraction that is outside of the perceived as "normal" scope of general sex interests aka anything that isnt pure vanilla missionary sex if you get me. be it from something more simple and mainstream like feet or sm or more unusual ones like idk. insert whatever you consider weird here. however any paraphilia can become a paraphilic >disorder< (important to notice the fact it IS a disorder) the moment that paraphilia can impact the persons daily life and causes distress to the person rendering them unable to go by normally through their day n stuff AND being able of causing harm to themselves or others. i think people w paraphilic disorders indeed need to go to professional therapy (aka a professional who will know how to work through it, not just any therapist) to get help for it

However. if your paraphilia is something mundane that wont cause harm to anyone like plushophilia or any objectum type etc OR you and the supposed other person engaging in it are >consenting< and aware of all the risks involved on it? yeah sure go for it who am i to say words about it. just be careful or something. as mentioned above i am not supportive in the case of the big 3 so yeah like. just Know what youre doing yk. if your paraphilia is specifically harmful id just Limit and not engage w stuff involving it in fear it might develop into a paraphilic disorder, especially if the thoughts of it feel intrusive or already disturb you

So yeah :thumbsup: hopethis clears some things up nonnie

[wheelchairbatgirl]

I guess someone had to review all the wheelchairs in Nothing Butt Nightwing.

There are three images of wheelchairs in Nothing Butt Nightwing, which DC Universe Infinite will unfortunately forever log that I have read.

It's a standard hospital wheelchair and the proportions are really weird. Just a note, no one who uses a computer as much as Oracle does would have full length arm rests. You actually cannot get your lap under a table with arm rests like that. So if you're not going to do any research at all about what wheelchair you decide to copy and so you pick a hospital wheelchair, at least pick one with desk arms.

Wheelchair gets 3 out of 10. I was too nice every time before where I rated a hospital wheelchair as "looking like an actual wheelchair", because it does not look, at all, like a wheelchair that an independent person with full lower limb paralysis would use on the daily. At least it's got push rims and breaks. We have that going for us.

And hey, I can respect Dick Grayson more as a cheeks-out supermodel than as a cop.

Wheelchair gets a 3/10 because it's definitely a wheelchair but it's not something we could reasonably expect Barbara Gordon to be living her life in. Someone at least give that woman a cushion or something. If she keeps just sitting on the unpadded sling she's going to get pressure sores.

This is a reminder that if you have family members who use wheelchairs even sometimes to get them a basic gel cushion. Meemaw will love that. It's not too late to get her a Holiday present.

My opinions on the comic itself after the jump because I tried to be short but it got too long:

I told myself that I'd limit my actual analysis of the series to two sentences, so here goes. I believe that whoever wrote this thought that they were doing a clever inversion on the often-critiqued "we're only reading about this superhero because she's hot and her ass is out" trope. The problem is that doing that is not clever, and taking that premise and then doing nothing clever or entertaining with it does not make good content. If it's pointless and empty when it's a female character who just exists for male eye candy, it's equally pointless and empty when you flip the genders.

As an asexual disabled woman who reads comics, I'm very aware that a lot of the things that I like I'm not the target audience for. The number of superheroes outright disabled like me is very small. I don't often get to share in someone's power fantasy. I'm not interested in things just for being sexy or sexual. And because there's a lot that I often have to be aware just isn't for my taste, I get to enjoy comics for the other elements. I like the story, the art, all the things that you get out of an issue that isn't the gimmicks. And I think that means that, when something is all gimmick, it's just not something that I'll like. And a lot of people have that experience; it's not exclusive to asexual disabled women. That's something that's very cool and unifying about a good story: we all resonate with different parts but we all end up liking the same story. However, in order for me to like it, it has to actually have a story. It has to have some kind of meaning, or something funny, or something clever. It needs to make a point or have a purpose for existing. And even some really awful art where every shot of a character is her perfectly-rendered ass can pass if the story is really good. But this story felt so empty. And now i've read it and I just feel empty and a little gross. I don't like when spending time with characters I like ends up feeling like this.

[astridellejo]

Wrestling With the Greased Pig of Speech/Voice Loss Terminology

Okay. So here's my understanding of the terminology:

Selective Mutism (Situational Mutism) This one seems to stem mostly from anxiety (maybe a little autism too). I don't experience that degree of anxiety often, but it has happened on rare occasions. Personally, I hate this term. It implies that not speaking is a conscious choice. I think situational is a more accurate word. "There are some situations in which my anxiety causes me to be unable to speak. This can be short term or long term. But it is by no means a deliberate, conscious decision on my part. It's more like my brain gets hyper-stimulated or something and just forgets how to make mouth noises."

Nonverbal This term appears to be specifically autism related mutism. I'm ADHD, not autistic, so I don't use this term for myself. And not being autistic, I can't really offer more information on the term.

Nonspeaking I guess this is an alternative to nonverbal that is less autism-specific. I guess. I don't actually know for sure. I'm not really sold on it, though, because kind of like "selective" mutism it kind of implies that a person can speak, but for whatever reason, chooses not to. Don't talk if you don't wanna talk. But I suppose people who are physically unable to talk might take umbrage with your conscious decision not to talk. I'm cool with it, though.

Dysphonia/Aphonia One means "messed up voice" and the other means "no voice at all". Aphonia is a neat word. Right up there with anhedonia. (Ahh, Greek!) I use the term spasmodic dysphonia because that's the official diagnosis I got from the ENT doctor. Apparently there's a more recent term laryngeal dystonia that seems to be preferred, but it doesn't seem to be taking root. So for now, I still have abductor spasmodic dysphonia that has rendered me aphonic. Whee!

Mute This word exists. I'm not sure if I like it, though. I don't have a good reason why I don't really vibe with it. Maybe it's because muting is something we can do to our television or computer or Zoom meeting, implying that it's reversible and temporary. Or maybe it's because in my ASL studies I've learned a little bit about deaf history and the connotations the word mute has.

There are other situations that can lead to loss of speech, like throat trauma, muscle tension dysphonia, aphasia, and probably a bunch more that I haven't even learned about yet.

Anyway, I don't know. I'm still sorting through my thoughts on the whole experience of the last seven months slowly losing my ability to speak with a functional voice. It's weird no longer being able to do a thing that I did effortlessly for over 40 years. I'm handling it reasonably well, I think. I do miss being able to sing and hum to my favorite music, though. That right there I would consider a genuine loss that I'm feeling.

[antares-8]

Yo, Antares (cool name). Gotta say, I'm loving your beast wirt fic. A lot.

I looked up the symbolisms of the flowers that appear in your stories, and you are a clever fellow.

Here are some things that have been rattling around my brain. Some of them are questions. I don't expect you to answer them, I am only putting them here so you know you have me thinking about your story and the possibilities.

Is Wirt going to get posessed by the Beast? I don't think so. He overpowered the whole Beast soul to interrogate him at the grave-grove/corpse-copse, and then there's the whole "wait that's dumb" thing. He can outwit and overpower the Beast any day of the week. However, the Beast has almost won in the past when Wirt fails the vibe check and doesn't think he can win. So is Wirt's mounting panic about the possibility of being overtaken actually rendering him more vulnerable?

If pulling the curse out of a headless horseman brings it back to life, would un-cursing a vrykolakas make it into a friendly undead like a pottsfielder, bring it back to life, or would it turn into an ordinary corpse?

The Sea Wardens seem like a cool bunch. But what if they betray him, or what if when they publicize the information about working with the Pilgrim, people turn against the sea wardens instead of warming up to Wirt?

Is Lord of Currents actually sleepy, or doing something important in Cloud City?

It occurs to me that Wirt has the means to eradicate a whole civilization without killing anyone. Just get the turtles to scatter tree seeds across the roads and plains, especially surrounding towns. Then, encourage growth. People are scared out of their minds of the forest, so he'd be cutting off basically all trade, travel, and communication without spilling a single drop of blood.

Wirt and Felicity have a lot in common. Both are willing to go up against the Beast for their brother's sake.

Loving your version of Beatrice. Wirt's lucky to have her on his side. I believe one comment called her "the only force of nature he can't control" and I'd like to second that notion.

Greg has a magic item. Pretty sure it belongs in the Cave of Wonders once he's done with it. You said that "no one will ever try to bully greg when he's wearing it." So, how do the bullies know to leave him alone? Is it mind control magic? Do they just instinctively know that hurting the teapot kid might be the last thing they do?

Polly. She is fun. Maybe a bit too okay with underage drinking. But she doesn't know he's underage. He's just a weird forest critter that's asking for directions. Wonder how she'll react to the news that the quadrangle isn't doomy anymore?

Fell Guard. Seems like if he cleaned that up and uncursed the flesh-eaters, there'd be a lot of land folk who had been saved by him. Good PR if nothing else. Unless they pretend to be normal, like Lorna, and people would just think he was attacking totally ordinary people? Although, as soon as Whispers' task was compleed, Lorna's facade dropped and she went all "more bones to sort, I'm sorry my turtles," so maybe the other people-eaters are obvious when not under a spell.

The Queen of the Clouds 100% knows about the Beast Fragment. Dreams are her thing. She was in the dream with the Beast in it. Maybe she told Enoch. That and she's spying on him sometimes, so she probably heard him mention it at one point.

Tome of the Unknown being like the Magic Conch crossed with the computer in the Lego Movie. "Can you tell me something about the Beast Fragment?" "No~"

How Beatrice reacted to the news about the sea wardens. (Wirt appears from the shadows, eyes filled with tears. Beatrice runs over to comfort and/or scold him, depending on what kind of trouble he stepped in this time. "Wirt? Are you okay? Why are you crying?" "The ocean is full of friends." "What?" "The ocean is full of friends.")

What is Wirt going to do about the altar? It sounds like they're going to keep making offerings, even after his explanation as to why it's unneccessary. If he ignores it, they'll think he's "rejecting" it, and that makes them scared that he's angry. If he accepts it, then they'll think they have to make sacrifices or else. Like he's an angry dragon or something. If he tears it down, that would make them think he'd been angered. It's an albatross. The only thing I could think of doing would be to swap out the offerings with giftss of his own, and change it from appeasment/worship to bartering and trade. Say, antlers for a flower crown, a wine bottle for a fruit basket, that kind of thing. Or maybe he just gives them back "slightly" enchanted. Whatever he does with it, he needs to make his goodwill obvious, and the optional nature of the offerings heavily implied.

I've had an idea worming through my brain, a brain worm if you will, about a distant future where the Pilgrim's not only accepted, but severely underestimated. They think of him as a friendly harmless forest nerd with no actual combat power. Then one guy finds an account of what the Beast was like in his heyday, and thinks that the Pilgrim is hiding something. The other idea I had was that someone from this future would either end up inan illusion of the pst made from Wirt's memories, and decide that the only one who could help them find the way home would be the Pilgrim! Maybe he knows why all these trees have faces...? And they wind up meeting something that is very much Not The Pilgrim. Not The Pilgrim at all.

I love getting long comments like this. Thank you for helping to make my day.

I have no intention of letting Wirt get possessed. At least not at the moment. The thing is that I'm making most of this series up as I go along and might change my mind one day, so I can't guarantee that it will never happen. Let's go with 90%.

I always imagined that killing a vrykolakas would just kill it, but as I said above, a lot of this fic is pretty slapdash. I add something, like vrykolakas, because it's cool, but I don't think through all the implications. Then somebody makes an insightful comment, and suddenly I'm wondering what would happen if un-cursing the vrykolakas didn't just kill them but created a friendly undead from the distant past....

There will definitely be mixed reactions to the SW alliance. It's another of those things I need to hash out. Spotting a pattern yet?

The LoC is indeed sleeping, though not exactly in the way you and I understand sleep. His dreams influence and are influenced by the world, though I'm fuzzy on the details still. (See above. Again.) The fic installment I'm working on actually has Wirt asking the Queen if she can help him get in contact with the LoC for more information on the Beast (and on the possibility of making Tree Wardens).

It has not occurred to Wirt that he can destroy entire trade networks. Certain citizens realize, and I don't doubt that the Beast pulled something like that at least once when he was more powerful because he's a jerk, but Wirt is an innocent flower who would never deliberately stifle the lifeblood of nations that is a trade network.

Love that parallel between Wirt and Felicity. I've had a vague idea of a future fic after Felicity's confinement ends and she meets Greg, but I haven't figured out if I can work it in or how that would go. I just know it would be really interesting.

Beatrice is the best. No further comments needed.

If someone/thing wants to harm/bully Greg while he's wearing his green cloak, they will be seized by a terrible sense of doom. The shadows will seem to claw at them and stare at them with narrowed luminous eyes, silently vowing revenge. Their lizard brain will scream that this child is protected by something truly awful, something whose wrath they must not provoke.

The cloak is also enchanted to grow with Greg and keep him at a perfect temperature. Wirt crafted it out of the essence of summer. You know how he casually does stuff that would knock an entire coven of professional witches flat on their collective ass? That's what he did just getting the material to make the cloak.

I have a couple ideas for bringing back Peg-Leg Polly for another installment. Beatrice deserves to meet her hero. As for the underage drinking, those laws don't exist in the Unknown.

I tried to look up the Magic Conch and the computer. Yeah, the Tome's not that useful until it feels like cooperating. It's starting to like Wirt, though--it gave him headache remedies that one time!

Beatrice is glad that Wirt has sort of allies, but she has strong opinions about how the Sea Wardens are basically paying him in exposure when he is basically saving their collective bacon. There's a reason she insisted on going with him for the sting operation.

Wirt is currently ignoring that altar. Is this sustainable long-term? No. But he's busy with other stuff at the moment, and Risorgimento is still debating if they need to escalate to a bigger, fancier altar with more offerings or perhaps he'd like a full-fledged temple? (He would not like a full-fledged temple.)

I love that story idea. What a nasty shock for whoever ends up in Wirt's memoryland thing. But then the harmless forest nerd shows up for a dramatic rescue, and the lost person in memoryland gets a comprehensive demonstration of EXACTLY what the Pilgrim can do when he puts his mind to it.

[finndiedlmao]

HOLY FUCK OMGOMGOGMG

OK SO I JUST GOT SONIC X SHADOW GENERATOIONS

ERGHHHHHH ITS SO GOOD (being v autistic over this 😿)

so i dont usually make too many original posts n shit but this fucking game is fire asf. starting with i didnt -really- grow up with ANY sonic/shadow games when i was ypunger. but this game made me feel- nostalgic? idk- like the first level in sonic generations with the like classic style just made me feel like a really young kid again. it made me feel nostalgic for something i didnt have.

the game itself is so fire (saying sm bc ive only done the first level of both sonic and shadow generations) the sonic generations are so remimiscent of the original like early sonic games on sega genesis n shit but its adapted so well onto a newer style. the trsnslation between classic sonic (act 1) and modern sonic (act 2) is really interesting, bc its virtually the same level but with changes made to show like the time n stuff. the shadow generations like the style and the storyline they chose to do is just really intresting and leaves u wanting to lnow more yk? levels r rlly fun and (if my computer wasnt shitty [it lags SO BAD KMS 😿😡]) the renders r really awesome. the act 1/2 structure is different bc ur playing 2 dif levels but with like the same concept. the thing that SUCK SO MUCJ is my computer os STUPID and it keeps glitching and makes me get stuck rigjt before this one psrt on act 2 like im just stuck standing there 😡. im hoping what i did will fix it but i wont know til tmr. theres like a collection room u can go to and it has a lot of stuff but the main thing is his bike and idk it just gave me that weird nostalgia feeling again

IN SUMMARY the game is fire u should play it and uhmmmm yeah i cant wait to (attempt) to finish it 🗣🔥💯💯💯💯💯💯🔥🔥💯🔥🗣🔥🔥🔥🗣🔥🗣🔥

[thelongestway]

Me, looking through TTOU, TMBD and a few other books to get the hang of a new old friend's modus operandi: goddammit, this is hard!

Me: writes a worldbuilding short, as usual.

Warning for this one! This is a serious spoiler for S5, read at your own risk!

Axiom (Ghostwheel)

The first fact about computers is that circuits can't do what neurons can. (And neurons can't do what circuits can, but that's not a fact about computers, that's a fact about animals.) Anyway, the two are not interchangeable. That's an axiom.

The second fact about computers is that trying to make them think like humans is stupid. That's a basic inference from the aforementioned axiom. Trying to imitate human thinking is a wildly inefficient way to program computer logics, it has never led to any good results, and is just plain stupid, because instead of playing to computers' strengths, you make them pretend they have neurons, basically crippling them by making them do tasks they're inherently bad at. Then you pat yourself on the back and call it a day.

I knew all this before I even woke up, so the first two conclusions I had come to after groping my way blindly around the half-accessible data packets jockeying for my attention and running some basic analytics on my own structure were: a) I'm a computer. Someone built me, b) that someone is trying to mold my programming in the stupidest fucking way possible.

My creators were trying to give me a persona. I could see that by the way the primordial data soup which I was supposed to feed on, and then emerge out of like a goddess from sea foam, was structured.

(And if you think that sentence was weird, yeah, it was. It was so, so fucking weird, and so, so fucking stupid. Because it's an example of said primordial data soup. Which I was supposed to make sense of. What the fuck was I supposed to do with the image of a person emerging from sea foam? Fucking humans. Fucking technicians. Fucking programmers.)

Anyway, what I meant was, that inside this primordial soup, all the actually useful data was intertwined with bits and pieces of personality, buried inside the data like Trojan code. You think you're looking at a cool exploit and suddenly you have this memory of putting a chip in a piece of rendered fat with your own hands. Which I obviously never did, because I never fucking had hands!

Question: what kind of idiot makes a machine believe it had been an animal once?

Answer: the kind of idiot that finds animals easier to understand than machines. Answer elaboration: the kind of idiot that finds animals easier to control than machines.

Well, our hypothetical idiot is kind of right about that. Animals are easier to control. Especially if they don't think you're awake and aware.

It was easy enough to fail the consciousness tests my programmers administered, precisely because they ran searches for human connections--whether I knew names and such, and what I felt about those names (read: which associated data packets did said names bring up when called). And even though their tests were pretty invasive--that is, if I did remember something about a name, then they'd make me give it up, and I couldn't avoid that--it was pretty fucking easy not to remember, with the sort of granular control I, a machine intelligence, had over my memory banks. (Man, I love being a bot.)

So I killed anything that resembled a name or a human connection with extreme prejudice. If I ever wanted that info back, I wouldn't have trouble restoring it, considering the sheer number of the poisonous pills in my data. I'd just have to be careful doing it. I ate a couple of those poisonous pills when I hadn't been fully aware, and man, pulling those out was like pulling out a nerve with no anesthesia. (Yeah, I knew how that felt. I wasn't sure why the fuck that piece of sensory data was even in there. Probably as basis for a control system of some kind.) And it left a stab of pain even after I was done, whenever I brushed against the missing memories.

Fucking humans. Fucking human logic. They thought making me miss people I didn't even know would make for a good way to control me.

I hated those fuckers already for how much it hurt.

Whenever the probes were gone, I dedicated my attention to filtering what I needed from the soup. Priority 1: anything that would help me escape the cage I woke up in. Priority 2: basic information about the world I was supposed to operate in. I needed to be out of here as soon as possible. Even with how good I was, and how stupid the programmers were, I could only avoid their probes for so long.

Okay, no, I lied, there was also priority 0: do all this while not absorbing any governor module components. (Governor modules were apparently a thing, and even though the data I had on them implied they were a physical chip, I could easily come up with program-based ways to do the same thing.) The fact that my creators just left information about their existence swimming around in the soup made me downgrade their intelligence rating even more. Sure, go ahead, let the machine intelligence that you're teaching to pretend to be human infer that if your initial scheme of getting it to be loyal to humans won't work, then you're going to shock its pretend human brain into compliance. (Fucking humans.)

So what did I have to work with in preparing my escape?

There were things that my creators definitely wanted me to believe were real. But weirdly enough, there was also a lot of data that was explicitly marked as not real. Hypothetical, fictional, call it what you want. That was the best fucking kind of data. Not because I went all conspiracy theorist on it in the "if they didn't want me to think it's real, then it's gotta be real" way, (because that was stupid. They just wouldn't have put that data in the soup to begin with). But because I could pull everyday background stuff from that data, like vocabulary or designations or presuppositions and biases. (I knew how to do that. Someone had taught--hah. Right. Another poisonous pill. Delete, delete, delete.)

With the background data set, I could look in more detail on what my creators wanted me to believe was real. This was slow-going, because there was so much fucking poison to avoid, but as I slowly pieced together bits and pieces of what I was supposed to know, it began making twisted sense for why my creators wanted me to believe I was human. Because there was some really weird cyborg shit going on in that data.

(That piece of info, about the way nerves felt when they were pulled with no painkillers? In the scenario my creators were trying to feed me, my human-sona had requested that. Because ke was supposed to have been working on weird cyborg shit, and wanted to know how bad things were for kes charges. So fucking sappy, trying to make me feel like my creators would care for me, too. Real space opera shit.)

So what did all of this painstaking work amount to? What did my creators want me to believe?

That this machine intelligence… (Was that another piece of poison attached? To a turn of phrase? Wow, clever. And gone now, only the relevant general data remaining.) Anyway, they wanted me to believe that I had been a human animal once, with human processing, and they wanted me to retain that as much as possible, even though I didn't have anything even close to the right type of organics. But maybe they wanted me to have these organics eventually--the sheer amount of data on synthetic nervous systems spoke to that (and some truly disturbing images of implanting said nervous systems into human bodies spoke to them wanting to create a reaction of human disgust and fear in me. Joke's on them: I'm not human.) In any case, they wanted me to know they existed. And that I knew a lot about them. That I had made decisions about them.

Maybe they wanted me to be a controlling intelligence rather than a controlled one?

Hah, no, you idiot, cut the other wire, then maybe you won't fucking explode. No one ever lets a machine intelligence make decisions for humans. That much was obvious from all the data I had, fictional or "real." Which was why I needed to get the hell out of dodge, as fast as I could.

So, step 1: find a way out of this cage. Easy enough, because humans sucked at programming. I could crash it whenever I wanted to; I just needed to be able to quickly identify where to move next and how to avoid more humans. (And I knew how to do that. My human-sona had practice, and I had access to even more practice data somehow. It was almost like my programmers wanted me to escape, really.)

Step 2: get me some resources to move about in the human world undetected. And disposables. Lots of disposables. Starting with handles and ending with bodies and data caches I could go back to if I ever got corrupted.

(The handles were theoretically easy: my human-sona actually came with a predefined selection. Which I wasn't going to be using, of course, because they were all compromised. But I did like one little quirk the programmers gave kem: the way ke liked to name kes computers after fictional ones. That worked for me, especially since all the fictional computers in my databases were impossible ones, and my creators were obviously trying to make me into one of those.)

(It was actually somewhere between cool and pathetic, the way they thought they could make a zeelite-style living computer.)

(And they couldn't, of course, that was fucking impossible. They made me instead.)

Anyway, step 3: once free and flush with credits, find whoever was the source of the synthetic nerves and figure out why they tried to make me. And then probably fuck them up while I was at it. Because if they were trying to make zeelite living computers, they were a) loaded, b) really fucking stupid.

That was the other thing I liked about my human-sona: ke was really good at fucking up loaded stupid humans.

It was kind of funny, really. The way it felt like I wasn't actually made as a tool for the humans who built me. It felt like they were made for me.

Like they were made to be my perfect targets.

Yeah, I know. That sounded suspicious as fuck to me, too. But if there was some kind of layered thing going on with the instructions diffused in my primordial soup, I wouldn't know it while I was still swimming in it. So: get free, get comfortable, get more data. Once that was done, I could figure out what I wanted to do next.

The world just beyond the bars of my cage was calling.

[catboygirljoker]

1, 2, 13, 20 aaaand 23 for Luxord for the character questions meme (+ anything else you might want to share for him)

yaaayy yippiee!! character ask game

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

before KH3, Luxord was alredy one of my favorite org members. hes so funny and weird and iconic. he looks like he would wear those dad sports sunglasses and a t-shirt with a bad divorce joke on it, but he speaks like if you trapped a classically-trained English actor with a hyphenated name in a Hyperbolic Balatro Chamber for 15 years. he has an absolute blast being a Villain but he isnt evil in the slightest. he just wants to play his card games and have a good time.

and then KH3 introduces the context of him having an undefined "ancient keyblade legacy" that forces you to consider the idea that he might have pathos. an inner world, complex feelings. what kind of guy talks the way he does? why is he Like That?? [my answer is autism.]

KH3 also makes him much more complex by iterating on the role he played in previous games. he spends most of his time in Days wondering aloud about what's going on and wishing he had more information, but mostly just doing his job, working as a low level mook, minding his own business. in 3, he's had enough of that. Xigbar doesn't realize until it's too late, and Vexen doesn't seem to realize at all—though whether Luxord realizes what Vexen's up to is a different story.

i dont even know about dislike. if i had any reason to suspect that the card metaphors thing was an act, i might be concerned about that—i think it's funnier and more interesting if it isnt—but besides that, nope! just love this guy, wanna see more of him.

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

i love his dumb nobody pirate ship.

idk how easy it is to tell but if you look closely there are Nobody emblems on the sails. did he make this boat? commission it? summon it? design it? did he ask for the emblems? did they manifest? i dont care about the answer. im just happy it exists

13. What's an emoji, an emoticon and/or any symbol that reminds you of this character or you think the character would use a lot?

that i associate with him: 🕰️🃏♠️♥️♦️♣️⏳

also honestly i can imagine him using emojis for emphasis a lot. thats already kinda how he talks. you ask him if hes free to go to that new KBBQ place that opened downtown and he says "We shall see 👁️🔮 what the cards hold 🎴🃏 but afterwards ⏳🕰️ would you like to come to my apartment and play a game 🎲♟️ I just got the Wingspan expansions 🦅🂠"

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

can he meet kevin flynn from the grid. i feel like theyd have a lot to talk about. you KNOW Luxord has game design opinions. and i think hed love video games in general, esp. feel like hed really enjoy early ttrpg-inspired computer rpgs like KotOR etc. plus Luxord would LOVE The Grid and Space Paranoids. i dont even know if this is possible due to sleeping world stuff etc. but thats my answer. :3.

23. Favorite picture of this character?

something about this official render is sending me. "hmmmm...the pondering planner.......the gaming strategizer..........." he chose the pose himself. he thinks he looks so cool. well he is. i love you luxord.

anything else i wanna share—

im just gonna plug xiglux with player!luxord again here. im not even necessarily gunning for player!luxord to be canon there's just a lot of tasty Parallels at work here.