fragmentaryremains

[fragmentaryremains]

Thank you for answering my ask! It's always interesting reading your thoughts on these sorts of things.

On the note of how the goblin situation will be resolved, I feel like you'll be pleasantly surprised. The comic seems to be pointing towards a road forward, if not a solution—the negotiations between Durkon and Redcloak puts forward several first steps that could be taken towards coexistence between goblins and other races. It'd certainly seem like a waste to both dangle those options in front of the reader and repeatedly show the reader that what happened to the goblins is wrong (though I suppose I could also be unfortunately surprised).

I'm also unsure as to why you think this resolves with the villains being killed because "they can't be saved, just mourned after they're put down." I mean, yeah Xykon is almost certainly going to be destroyed. But while the comic's frank about how this will almost certainly be resolved with violence:

I disagree that the villains will be "put down." I also would suggest that you omit a few crucial details when describing the (main) villains as evil beings as opposed to evil people—that is, they're people who've specifically made choices that are evil as opposed to simply "being evil." Redcloak in particular has had this distinction spelled out. It's been explicitly pointed out by Xykon in Start of Darkness:

We'll just go about our daily business, and you can hide from the horrifying truth of what you've become—namely, a murderer who just killed his baby brother in cold blood. And hey, we can both pretend that you don't really have any options about any of the despicable actions I ask you to take from here on out—rather than acknowledging that, like Right-Eye, you do in fact have a choice. But unlike Right-Eye there, you're too chickenshit to even make it.

And more subtly by Oona in the most recent storyline:

Oona never said she was worried. Oona is pretty sure she knows what little caped man would choose.

All that is to say, I think Order of the Stick deserves a little more credit. While it's far from perfect, I disagree that the goblins plot fails in the way you describe it.

Sorry about all that—this post kind of got away from me a little. Thank you once again for answering! I hope this doesn't come off as too critical—I agree with your analysis as it pertains to the comic and the issues it inherits from D&D in general. And I appreciate that you took the time to put so much thought and care into your response. I hope you enjoyed my question!

Hey! Got a question for you that's somewhat related to the post you reblogged about ethics in D&D recently. It reminded a bit of one of the few D&d based pieces of media I follow: The Order of the Stick, a webcomic I know you've recommended in the past. I was curious then what you thought of how OotS handles those topics, both in its goblins and specifically with Redcloak. Especially now that I've recently gotten my hands on Start of Darkness and actually have read the context for those things.

One of the last times I was asked about this I ended up saying that every good work of fiction that uses the "always chaotic evil race" trope is only good in spite of using it, and I would say that goes for Order of the Stick too.

And, to the comic's credit, I think they explore the trope in a lot more depth and with a lot more nuance than most fiction that employs it. For those who haven't read the comic, here's a brief summary:

Order of the Stick takes the standard D&D setting ideas of 1. having literal gods of evil and 2. having inherently evil races and ties them together. There are gods of evil who create evil followers to empower themselves, and are allowed to persist because the conflict between them and the followers of the good gods allows followers of both sides of the pantheon to get strong, thus feeding both sets of gods with belief. The good gods are sustained by the belief of their noble followers who in turn need the good gods' powers to fight the forces of evil, and the evil gods are sustained by the forces of evil who need to the evil gods' power in turn to keep from being wiped out by the noble heroes of good.

Order of the Stick then, in its grand tradition of deconstructing D&D tropes, has the evil races stop and realize that they're getting the shitty end of the stick in this deal. A key part of the backstory is that the goblins have a god who was not created with the other pantheons, but ascended to godhood on the belief of his fellow goblins. This god, the Dark One, has the stated goal of altering the fundamental power structure of reality so that goblins have a fairer deal - that they get decent land to live off of, heroes (or villains, technically, by necessity) who stand up for them, and, since this is a deconstruction of D&D specifically, better stats.

And we are shown, both in the main comic itself but also ESPECIALLY in the print-exclusive prequel comic Start of Darkness, that the circumstances of goblin life are so exquisitely shitty that they really do need a fundamental restructuring of reality itself to have a chance to be better. They are given harsh land to live off of, driven out of every place they try to inhabit, frequently enslaved by more powerful monsters, and generally forced to live in such desperate circumstances that they have no options BUT to resort to al life of banditry and bloodlust. Any goblins that do otherwise end up dead - well, dead quicker than their fellows, I suppose, since the ones who do commit to being evil generally don't live long either.

Which, again, goes back to the fundamental idea that these creatures were made to be canon fodder - the gods literally conspired to make goblins disposable, evil, nasty creatures who exist to die at the hands of heroes and in the service of villains. It is, explicitly and in the text of the story, a fucked up and horrible thing that was done to them.

...but the failing of this plot point, in my eyes, is that at the end of the day, it is nonetheless treated as an unavoidable fact of this world. While heroes express sympathy for the goblins upon learning of this, and irritation or even anger at the gods for making the situation in the first place, the only characters trying to actually change it are explicitly villains, and ones whose actions may unintentionally destroy all of reality itself. Because at the end of the day, they are still inherently evil beings, no matter how sympathetic they are, and they can't be saved, just mourned after they're put down.

Although maybe I'll be proven wrong on that point - the comic isn't over yet, after all, and there's a chance someone may actually change things for the better for the goblins and other inherently evil beings. I doubt it'll happen, but I've been pleasantly surprised before.

But yeah, very good comic, very well written, far more thoughtful than most others that use this trope... but I still think it would be better if goblins (and kobolds, and dragons, and so on and so forth) weren't treated as inherently evil in the first place.

[fragmentaryremains]

Has anyone done this ? I hope not because I've spent way too long on what should've been a quick joke.

[fragmentaryremains]

hi hapo! just want to say thanks for all the work that you do, keeping the canadian personification side of the fandom alive. i live over 15,000 miles away from canada, but i fell in love with iamp and all its projects as a teen. 10 years later, my coursework on canadian politics and society has nominated me into a programme with a major canadian university.

if it's okay, i'd like to ask you how you deal with 'hobby burnout' when your interests align so closely with your study/work! canada's regional identities, history and politics are fascinating to me, but because of how i'm approaching academically, it saps some of the creative energy i have for my own province OC projects. even though it's important because of how inherently political personifications are, the weight of real historical and social issues sometimes bleeds into my projects more than i can handle.

thanks in advance!

[ catthatjustwokeup.jpg ]

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat

wow thank you for this very thoughtful and flattering note and congratulations on DOING THE THING, that's wild! and hey if that major university is one i'm familiar with or have contacts in feel free to let me know so i can make recommendations on tasty treats and bookshops lol, but no pressure. (I am intending to stick close to academia for the foreseeable future, so it's nice to know what's going on across the country and across disciplines even when I'm not Formally Studying.)

uh well this is going to be long and rambling so i hope at least part of it makes sense and shout if there's anything I can clarify. The tongue in cheek short answer is "get a job at a university and get institutional access foreverrrrrrrr"

the hobby burn out is real for all the reasons you described and quite honestly i do what i've been doing since i was a kid who struggled making friends because i was Weird about my Interests in a way that I suspect may have been some flavour of neurodivergence that I continue to not investigate. That is, I have a handful of core interests that i cycle through and focus on when for whatever reason times get tough, it's kind of a juggling act that I will try to explain.

The Quick Fix

I think the fastest thing of Getting Away From It is having a few of those interests be Enduring, that is, the Simple Things from Childhood, if you can dust them off and get those feelings from them. While I realize going to post-secondary makes you full of Nuance and Ennui, or encountering shitty situations that ruin things for you over the course of your life is a big risk here, trying to find a grain of that you can build a pearl around is helpful. I still have been trying to beat the same Sonic games for 20+ years, I still like watching Empire Strikes Back or 1960s sitcoms when I'm feeling sick, and I still like going to the kinds of places that I loved going to as a kid like the zoo or museums to learn something from someone who's super passionate about a cool thing. It's just about making room for them and getting ready to catch them when they're coming up, which can sometimes seem impossible when you're deep into work or academia, but also necessary.

And it's also just about treating your child-self to something. I just think it's healthy once in a while to create something that would make your younger self excited or even want to be you. Take that kid with you once in a while, it's good for you both.

Personification Juggling

Within history/personifications generally, this usually results in a flip flopping between @athensandspartaadventures, which i had to quit working on and avoid during my first masters because thinking about "work" and school was so mentally draining that it ironically ended up becoming a bit of an IAMP renaissance for me, and likewise I have come back to AaSA after a long hiatus because I haven't been studying it formally since 2017, I finally got some time to read my accumulated pile of literature, and because [gestures at the current political situation].

The other thing I did within the 'fandom' (if thats what it is? i guess?) is I changed the granularity of what I was doing according to what I was thinking about at the time. For me this ultimately became @battle-of-alberta which I created primarily out of homesickness but also partially out of a retrospective need to process the "small town -> big city" transition that accompanied Becoming an Adult (tm). It occurred to me that I didn't JUST have to do either 1. Historically Brilliant Analyses With Punchlines or 2. Angry Vent Comics With Punchlines, I could also return to the sort of experiences of daily life that I was learning to notice and not just survive. I think of all the comics I do that I like doing comics about "taking the bus" or "minor annoying ways people behave in public" or "weird local news/memes" the best, even if it ultimately is very biased I think it can resonate with different people in different ways and I think the point of doing it is to get people to laugh and consider how these things do or don't match up with their own experience and to share that.

The Touch Grass Part

I think the above paragraph sort of segues nicely into "go outside, see thing that reminds you of blorbo, draw blorbo" advice, but what if you CAN'T draw blorbo???

Save your academic shit somewhere. Save those pdfs you don't have time to read, save those citations, save those quotes. Whether this is in like a physical bullet journal or a digital file or some combination, make sure you write down your sources and ideas so that 10 years after graduating you REMEMBER where to find That Thing you read on the left-hand side of some book that had a green cover. I cannot tell you how many times this has happened to me and I tear my hair out thinking "if only when I posted that stupid drawing and made that vague allusion I put a link or a citation in there so i knew what I was talking about!!" You're burned out now, sure, but some day some random anon is going to come and say hey you made an impact on my life, do you have any headcanons about blorbo and squimbus? and you'll be like FUCK!! I THINK SO!! BUT WHERE!? I try to tag these things now that a lot of things come up incidentally in my work work and I try to at least write down the date of the article for each of my newspaper screencaps and hope that I'll still be able to get along with the OCR/Proquest to find it again if I need to.

Make connections that enhance and outlast fandom. I cannot emphasize enough that this fandom is THE REASON that i have friends I can crash with from LITERAL COAST TO COAST (still working on that third coast). I have been so lucky to have hosts who are willing to share their local spots with me, and to have visitors I've been able to show around my home and adopted cities. It's just good for the soul to see things through someone else's eyes. I realize that travel is expensive and not always possible, so I encourage also both online and snail mail exchanges just to hear what is different and what is similar about places on this earth, and have fun exploring physically or virtually. You might be surprised.

Channel your inner anthropologist and get totally out of your depth on something, observe your observations. This kind of is related to the "go to the zoo" thing and also the "notice being an adult thing", but say yes to weird opportunities occasionally. Go see that play, learn how to make something, attend that highly specific conference of a profession you didn't realize HAD conferences (listen i got a free ticket to an event full of arborists last year and i was mostly there for the free food but i learned stuff about trees and bats that live in trees and people who plant trees and cut down trees and?? what a nice way to spend a summer afternoon compared to doomscrolling even though i spent a lot of it apologizing for not being there for any reason other than being a plus one.)

It sucks but sometimes you need to just quit cold turkey and let it simmer for a year or something. It sucks and it hurts but honestly sometimes you just need to put a moratorium on it because thinking about it puts you into the pits of despair, and that isn't healthy. Like, I used to listen to CBC radio every morning because it was a huge source of inspiration for me, and I had to stop for a long time because i was laying in bed grinding my teeth, so instead i switched to listening in the afternoon while i'm cooking. It's ok to put as much as you can stand of it aside, it'll still be there when you're physically and mentally able to notice the connections and appreciate them again. Combine with #2 and #3 for best results, sometimes you just need to get out of your own head and see things with different eyes, i.e. if the sociopolitical shit is getting you down try to change your routine or look at something else from another angle entirely. Learn something about the natural world, or the architectural world, or the urban planning world, just try to look for another door without carrying the baggage with you and see what you find behind it.

And kind of a spin-off of the above but trying to do a thing for a non-blorbo audience is also helpful. I'm currently working for two local history orgs and one of the things I'm doing is an illustrated article/comic that has nothing to do with my previous work, but is something my previous work prepared me to do. It's nice to do something for normies that build on all the things I did for school or for blorbs without exposing myself too badly, haha. Likewise, I have a dedicated sketchbook JUST for urban sketching so that I don't feel like dying 1000 deaths when a stranger sees me sketching, and it's something I can show people irl as a document of where i've been and what i noticed without worrying about them stumbling on my weird esoteric yaoi.

Finally, speaking of weird esoteric yaoi, just get comfortable doing bad stuff. Do the worst thing you think of. Maybe don't post it unless you think it will really resonate with people, haha, but get comfortable with being uncomfortable and making things you can't stand the sight of, or things that make you laugh because they are so stupid or so bad. Do self indulgent stuff but do it BADLY on PURPOSE. Don't take anything too seriously and don't worry about things being too niche and i swear to god do Not let the work that you do for yourself hinge on some arbitrary terminally online standard of success. People will always find a way to read things in bad faith or have wrong opinions or whatever, so allow yourself to get things wrong and to be cringe and to do things that won't make sense for your own sake, not theirs.

so. I don't know if this is completely comprehensive but I hope this is a start and gives you some ideas. The only other thing that I can add off the top of my head is that eventually, school ends. Whether it turns into work or it turns into something completely unexpected, it will end and even if it doesn't end when you think it will the experience will inevitably change. What works for me might not work for you now, but it might later, or it might work for somebody, I don't know, but nothing is permanent and that's ok.

I don't know you anon but if you or someone reading this is experiencing the joys and sorrows of Being In Your Twenties still, good luck to you and it does get better. It might feel like you are completely Baby and also Overburdened with Responsibility but trust me there are going to be times where you miss it, and where you realize "i know more than i thought i did" and "wait i can revisit that thing!" and it's actually a relief.

There are always going to be points where the work is a slog and you feel like an idiot and you feel like there is so much nuance you will never grasp, and that's fine. That's just the agony of being in the Conscious Incompetence quarter of the cycle, and eventually you will remember that you can do some pretty neat stuff when you reach other parts of that cycle. Nothing is permanent, including your understanding and your skill, and isn't it wonderful to be able to build on stuff you thought you knew and also learn stuff you didn't know you would?? wild. yeah

[ you watch me sit in silence for an hour wishing i could just manifest a gif of that poorly attempted mic drop from the 22 minutes skit about the last time you'll get to have to hear justin ]

[fragmentaryremains]

Huh. I guess Vic and Ed both have living in ideal Christmas movie filming locations in common. And of course Van's just here to play their usual role of someone else.

I'm glad you're getting to enjoy spring though! Hopefully you're enjoying all the flowers over there. I certainly enjoyed the comic!

hello from the other sideee (of the mountains and the georgia strait) again

I am still in vic due to Circumstances (although I'd like to be home for my birthday this month and before the goddang federal election) so i gotta keep up my momentum with more silly comics while everything else is shit

I try not to be annoying about springtime but it sure is a source of many serotonins... still! i've got new winter boots I'd like to test back home.

It is officially mysterious Christmas film time on the island! I haven't caught any crews firsthand since I've been pretty busy, but I've heard that so far there seems to be a 1940s era Christmas movie filming downtown, and that another project has changed all the signs at a local campus to "Cal Arts" for some reason...

Vic and Van, as always, belong to the lovely and talented @orcanadian-blog

[fragmentaryremains]

…everything I learn about Warriors fills me with more and more morbid curiosity. I'm kind of curious now why the Erins seem to have this fixation on detailing birth scenes.

Either way, this was definitely a fun answer. I was already familiar with Diavolo, but it's definitely fun seeing some of the really weird (and interesting) characters that get submitted to try and kill Macbeth! Glad to see you getting back into the swing of things! Hopefully the next submission will have less detailed birth scenes…

Could Lionblaze from Warrior Cats kill Macbeth? Specifically before his prophecy powers were revoked, in which he cannot be defeated in battle

I hope you know what you just did to me. I had to crack open Leafpool’s Wish for this. I had to reread one of those scenes. I hope you know what you put me through.

I briefly mentioned Lionblaze before, but I’m now more confident in my answer: No, Lionblaze from Warriors could not kill MacBeth.

Let’s start with what you’ve specifically asked about: the powers. Lionblaze’s powers are pretty weird and I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking they just make him win all the time. That’s kind of how they’re written, after all. But the actual rule seems to be that Lionblaze cannot be injured in a battle he is specifically trying to win. This power, as far as every source I’ve ever checked has said, is purely defensive. Lionblaze cannot be hurt by others (with one notable exception but that’s more of a retcon) as long as he’s trying to win in battle. It says nothing about him being able to instantly kill any adversary, even though he…sure does use it like that. This man kills three people, and I’m fairly certain only one of them was on purpose.

In case we want to argue that this is some unspoken part of his power, he does kill Harestar a couple years after he got his power revoked, seemingly by accident, so it has nothing to do with that. Lionblaze’s power is just that he’s immune to injuries. Whether or not he uses that ability to become God’s perfect killing machine is besides the point. His power would not let him dodge the prophecy, no.

And now, the part I hated. Warrior Cats has a strange fascination with long, highly detailed birthing scenes, including some…really bad ones. Lionblaze’s birth, specifically, is given a couple paragraphs. The reason I just gave a hand-waving answer of “oh yeah maybe idk” last time is because…well, because I didn’t want to go back and read this bit again. But now I have, and now it’s everyone’s problem.

Lionblaze’s mother has some...complications in giving birth to him, and the ghost of an old friend has to come down to help her out. I’m not going into detail, but it’s in Chapter 9 of Leafpool’s Wish if you really want to check for yourself. But they do get the kid out in a way that ol’ Will Shakey would have considered a “natural birth” (though some may argue it was a tad “supernatural”, hehe)

It is also worth noting that Lionblaze is a reincarnation of another cat, who we also see the birth scene for! In that one, he comes out on the verge of death, but is fine after *checks notes* …yeah I’m not explaining all that. The point is, he’s fine. Natural birth, all checks out.

Fortunately for MacBeth, he is safe from notorious murderer Lionblaze and his overpowered passive, though Jayfeather could relentlessly torment him in his dreams, which is arguably way funnier.

Thanks for your submission!

-Mod Pepper

[fragmentaryremains]

Ooh, nice! I've been watching this blog with interest ever since I discovered it. As someone who likes hypothetical crossovers and questions of who would win between fictional characters, this blog is definitely up my alley. I especially like that it strikes what I feel is a good balance between thoughtful analysis for if someone meets the qualifications to kill Macbeth while never quite losing site of the silly whimsy is part of this blog's appeal. Guess I'll have to make sure to follow this blog so I can see the next update!

Inbox Update

((Hey, y'all. Getting right to the point, Mod Pepper and I have talked about some stuff and we've decided that the best course of action for the blog right now is to purge the rest of the asks currently in the inbox and open it up from scratch.

This is mainly because on a lot of our recent posts, the people who sent in the asks have been responding with something to the effect of "Oh, hey, I completely forgot I submitted this!", which tells us that it probably wouldn't be that big of a deal to you guys to do this. If you've been waiting for your ask to be answered, you can feel free to re-submit it once the inbox is open again.

Currently, there are still 50 asks in the backlog, and for me personally, it's been pretty discouraging/overwhelming, so we're hoping that restarting it will help with that sort of energy. I'm not expecting it to completely reignite my desire to post on this blog every single day or anything like that- I'm gonna be focusing on taking it easy mostly- but I think it'll still help a little with my mental state currently.

Don't expect the inbox to be open again today, but it should be up and running sometime this week. Thanks for your patience with how long it's been closed. Love you all!

TL;DR: Everything left in the current inbox is being deleted and asks will be open sometime this week. If you were waiting on something, feel free to submit it again once it opens. <3

-Mod Anthem))

[fragmentaryremains]

weird times, man. i draw this guy once in a blue moon but I felt like I should again, at least as a form of stress relief or as a personal documentation.

on the one hand the upswing in nationalism should be uncomfortable, we are not immune to propaganda etc etc but on the other hand what the fuuuuuck!

[fragmentaryremains]

Ah, good. I was worried since I first found Jesse Boily's article via a reprint in the Hamilton Spectator, which is paywalled. Mr. Boily's article was also featured in the Penticton Herald too. Hopefully all this attention will help change the minds of either the library board or town council like you said.

(also, thank you for posting my submission @allthecanadianpolitics)

Saw this article on CBC and thought it’d be worth submitting. Consider this the sequel to the previous article about Valleyview’s public library and town council. While town council isn’t walking back their decision, it’s clear that they’re facing considerable pushback on their decision to close and relocate Valleyview’s library.

In addition to the town hall meeting, the CBC article also briefly mentions a library board meeting that ended with RCMP being called to disperse the meeting. Local photojournalist Jesse Boily wrote up a great article about that meeting and the fallout from it for the Town & Country News. Make sure to give that a read too if you have the time (I don't think it should be paywalled?).

That’s all for now, but keep an eye out (or pester journalists to keep covering this story)—Valleyview town council’s next scheduled meeting is for March 25. Between the library and issues with the lack of transparency from town council, the issues at this meeting seem unlikely to go away anytime soon.

Finally, I’ll end with a general reminder that Alberta’s next municipal elections are on October 20, 2025. If you live in Alberta, make sure to save the date.

[fragmentaryremains]

Ah, neat! To be honest, I'm not sure how I reached the conclusion that the Patches ask was the angel emoji. I mean, I even correctly ID'd it back when it was posted:

I certainly can't complain about the hard work you put into this blog! To be honest, I always feel bad when I put something in your ask box that requires a ton of research (such as the Parks Canada management plan ask). I'm just happy you don't mind using your skills to illustrate those asks!

On the note of the upcoming asks, I think my guesses back during that poll are still pretty accurate. The real interesting thing is the four new asks. I know I submitted one … not sure whether that's sunglasses or books. I'm especially curious on that second wave—given that I was pretty sure that the first wave was one of mine, I have a fair idea of what it's about even if I don't exactly know what it is. I'm also very curious about that video game ask. I had thought about sending in an ask about Game Con Canada back in 2023 when it was in Calgary. And while I didn't do that (since I had several others in the queue as a result of my road trip questions), that's the first thing that came to mind.

(also, fun fact that I just learned—this year's Game Con Canada is in Edmonton. Maybe I'm not too far off the mark…)

Either way, I'm looking forward to whatever you wind up posting next!

@fragmentaryremains your reblog made me realize a couple of things, namely, I had forgotten about the poll [oops] and also that while I did find my "workbench" document, I did not actually code the asks with the corresponding emojis. I also think that I just deleted them off the list rather than check them off, so I'm going to go back and try to analyze my uh, "system" (or lack thereof) to confirm your hypotheses...

[ needless to say, I am also in the process of making a new workbench doc for this year's asks! I did quietly open asks over the summer hoping that I'd have a few more to start thinking about by the time I'm done these work projects. I notice that when I get stumped on an ask or don't have the time to research, I will switch methods and either try to knock out asks by age or by size, so I'm trying to adjust to accommodate for that ]

The Poll thus far... (bolded ones are ones I should work on next)

⛈️ Angst

🦴Patches [ i know, i did it out of order because it seemed small! ]

🏅 [ tba ]

👻 Drum & Wayne

🌊 [ tba ]

🫅 [ tba ]

☕ Hot Chocolate

📺 [ tba ]

🍩 [ tba ]

👼 [ tba ]

🛍️ [ tba ]

--

And, just for fun, here are some 2025 asks in the queue as emojis...

📚 😎 🌊* 🎮

*This one is a different time period, I think, but it's on the same city/similar topic so I might as well put the research together at the same time I guess.

anyway as usual thanks for your patience guys, I have a lot of difficulty balancing research for work and research for fun (plus drawing digitally adds a lot of screen time which I'm going to try to get away from this year when I can, especially because the doomscrolling does get to me pretty damn fast and it impacts my ability to lighten everyone else's doomscrolling!) so I'm looking at ways to adjust all that. But I do appreciate all your questions (whether in depth or silly) and I do intend on answering them all eventually!

[fragmentaryremains]

Ooh! This is a fun ask to come back on! I'm not really a fan of hot chocolate at all, but I do have to say that Sparkasaurus looks really fun. Kind of wish I'd gone to TELUS Spark just to see what it's like in person now…

At any rate, glad to see another answered ask! I'm assuming this is the hot beverage emoji in the poll on asks you made. If that's the case, then the next two are probably the wave and donut ask. At least, I think that's what would be coming up? The angel was the one about Patches, ghost was for Drumheller and Wayne and raincloud was obviously the angst one. That's what makes the most sense to me at least.

question for whomever the heck strikes your fancy (sorry question mark chan) fave way to have a hot chocolate??

*Hot Chocolates not to scale, hahaha...

An ask I had left languishing since November of 2023 (sorry!) - this was something I knew how to answer but I kept forgetting to check the results of Calgary's Hot Chocolate Festival until this year. Here are the winners! It seems Cal had a fondness for Mississippi Mud-style hot chocolates this year.

Calgary-area people- were you able to try any hot chocolates this past February? What were your favourites?

Sorry for the neglect of the ask box, I have some more research heavy stuff to clear up that probably won't get addressed until after I hit this big deadline for work, but then again I do need the practice so I might do some asks as a form of procrastination :)

[fragmentaryremains]

Thanks for answering my question! I'm admittedly not familiar with any of the referenced works here (though I certainly get the "vibes" for them). Maybe that'll change though? At any rate, I'm certainly interested in following this idea as you develop it further!

Hey! I have a question for you about Bringing Up Baddie. That is, if you don't mind answering questions about something that's still in the very early stages of planning. Obviously the general setting and characters draw inspiration from a multitude of sources, from specific works like Bringing Up Baby (obviously) to wider genres like silver age comic books. My question this is what specific works are you drawing influence from at this early stage?

My main aim is to imitate the tone of silver age superhero comics, like the original Stan Lee/Steve Ditko/John Romita run of The Amazing Spider-Man. There's a casual approach to weirdness in that era of comics that I find really endearing - like, Spider-Man goes from foiling robbers and the kind of villains you'd expect Spider-Man to face in the first few issues, to suddenly thwarting an alien invasion that's working out of a radio repair shop of all things, and it's all treated as, like, just normal Spider-Man shit, whereas modern comics would feel a need to build up to those aliens (and make them a more developed plot than the single issue they occupy, and also probably give them more gravitas than being, like, a couple aliens working out of a radio repair shop). I like that off-the-wall weirdness, and kinda think modern superhero media is really lacking in it.

Given that this is going to be a story focused on supervillains in particular, there'll probably be more than a little of The Venture Bros in its DNA (since a significant part of that show was devoted to showing cartoon supervillains as very human individuals despite their obvious supervillain quirks), and likely some of the HBO Harley Quinn show as well. And, like, a lot of Harley Quinn media in general, really, since Scarlet Sidewinder is explicitly a Harley Quinn knockoff (though hopefully one that will diverge into an interesting character of her own).

There will also be a good deal of influence from Screwball comedies like Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday - lots of hopefully snappy dialogue and situations that escalate and spiral out of control in humorous ways.

[fragmentaryremains]

Ooh, neat! I was wondering what you had planned when you made those posts. Your cast looks really fun! I particularly like Konglomerate and Lugnut Louie. Konglomerate whole top heavy design is really fun. Also, please tell me there'd be a running gag where he's entirely unintelligible and has to have assistants talk for him—with an additional gag being that every time we see him he has a new assistant since the previous one "got his orders wrong." At the very least he feels like the type of person to regularly throw someone out of the top floor of a building. As for Louie, he has this wonderful retro robot vibe to him that I like. Remind me a lot of M-11 from Agents of Atlas.

I also really like the look you're developing Agent Acheron. Given her whole status as the Consummate Professional, I think a fun idea for her is having her powers be more obviously artificial as the result of a costume. It'd help make her stand out compared to all the other villains for one. But it'd also help with her characterization as a "professional." Unlike Scarlet Sidewinder, Lugnut Louie, and especially our newly created Reptillon, her villainy is a profession—one where she isn't always on the clock. She can easily cast aside her life as a villain to live a normal life. It also helps make her a foil for Reptillon. Whereas his life has been thrown into chaos by both his transformation and the Scarlet Sidewinder, Acheron has two steady identities and appears to have her life put together. But similar to how Reptillon learns to appreciate the chaos Scarlet Sidewinder brings into his life, Acheron is revealed to be rather lonely with more than a few regrets—regrets that mirror decisions Reptillon has had to make in regards to Scarlet Sidewinder.

…or maybe you have some different ideas. Honestly, I just saw that you hadn't quite locked down her design and got inspired. Hopefully you at least enjoyed my thoughts? Either way, I'm definitely keeping an eye out for this!

(also, thanks for bringing Bringing Up Baby onto my radar—might have to get a copy from my library system and see what that's like, because the plot synopsis on Wikipedia seems really fun!)

Bringing Up Baddie (Working Title) Character Concepts

Hey, remember a while back when I made those posts about supervillain archetypes, one of which inexplicably became derailed to talk about different doctorates people wanted to see put to use as increasingly terrible supervillain pitches? Well that was for a thing! A thing that I'm currently conceptualizing as "What if we took the premise of the famous screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby, wherein a crazy lady ruins a milquetoast guy's life in the best possible way, and did it with superheroes and stuff?" Well, supervillains, technically.

I was getting that list of archetypes together to try and make some pitches, and I basically took it and got some of the kids at the daycare to pitch power combos and motiffs for me, because who would know better what would make for a fun superhero, right? Anyway, here's some of the working character concepts so far:

Reptillion, with the enhanced powers of a million reptiles!

Just a down-on-their-luck schmuck who got roped into being a test subject for some evil super science while job hunting, Reptillion would be the Cary Grant figure in this tale. The power set was pitched by a child, I swear - for once it wasn't me who decided the protagonist should have a reptile theme! Reptillion is The Big Monstrous Guy archetype, a reluctant monster who will be forced into villainy by circumstance.

Scarlet Sidewinder, the venomous and villainous viperess!

The Kate Hepburn figure in this story was always going to be a Harley Quinn expy of some sort, and when a reptile theme was chosen for the protagonist, it felt only fitting that the deuteragonist would share it. Also, like, snake-themed Harley Quinn knockoff is very much in my wheelhouse. Figuring out her hairstyle has proved to be the biggest challenge - I tried a lot of looks that fit her punk personality, but they kept obscuring the viper eye-horns on her domino mask, which I feel are a more important detail (supervillains shouldn't downplay their motiffs!), so I ended up going with a pair of sidewinder-esque pony tails instead. As both Harley Quinn and Kate Hepburn's character in Bringing Up Baby were before her, Scarlet Sidewinder is The Wildcard archetype.

Scarlet Sidewinder is, of course, the test subject of an earlier version of the Reptillion super serum, one that only focused on snake DNA and didn't give broke shapeshifting powers to her. She initially wants the Reptillion serum for herself as a way to upgrade, but when the protagonist gets injected with it instead, she decides the next best thing is to have a partner in crime with those complementary powers instead.

Konglomerate and Dr. Gibbons, corporate apes!

I decided I want this to be the sort of comic book superhero pastiche that fully embraces how silly the genre can be, and one of the key ways to signal that is to just have, like, a LOT of apes running around. Like how The Umbrella Academy comics just have sapient/civilized chimpanzees make up around 35% of the background characters, and also one of the characters had his severed head grafted onto a space ape (both of these elements were downplayed severely in the TV show for those of you who've never read the comics). Two of the main antagonists would be Dr. Gibbons, a mad scientist who is trying to help humankind evolve into a superior species, and his boss/financier Konglomerate - they'd be The Evil Genius and A Normal Businessman archetypes, respectively, and the ones responsible for mutating both Reptillion AND Scarlet Sidewinder.

Nebulord the cosmic conqueror, Killer Rabbit the pandimensional prankster, and Lugnut Louie the professional killer robot

Just going to throw these three (well, four I suppose, but ignore the Interceptor for now) together since so much of their concept art ended up sharing the same sheets. They're all... not quite allies of Reptillion and Scarlet Sidewinder, but somewhat helpful in their own way as fellow supervillains go. Nebulord is meant to be a big cosmic threat in the vein of Galactus or Darkseid, with the caveat being that in-story we'd mostly see him off-the-clock and dealing with petty day-to-day grievances. I wanted him to feel very Jack Kirby-esque, though I think ultimately it's just a shallow imitation of Kirby's style. He would be the Foreign Tyrant archetype, with a dash of the Planet Eater thrown in.

Killer Rabbit is a Mr. Myztptlk knockoff - I had listed "Killer Rabbit" as the archetype name (i.e. a villain who looks cutesy and nonthreatening but is actually terrifyingly powerful), but my students ran with that and suggested an Alice in Wonderland theme, which I thought was actually a pretty fun theme to play with for such a character. I mean, it's not exactly new ground - there are LOTS of Alice in Wonderland themed supervillains, most of which suck ass (including you Mad Hatter!) - but the whimsical surrealism with a dark undercurrent that Alice in Wonderland embodies DOES fit well with a pan-dimensional imp who uses their godlike powers to fuck with people out of boredom. To keep from retreading the MANY other supervillains who just stole Alice in Wonderland character names, I decided to make Killer Rabbit the name of this character instead of just their archetype.

Lugnut Louie is an old pro, sometimes working as his own boss, but more often than not as a high-ranking henchman. He's the Anything But Retail archetype with a dash of the Big Monstrous Guy, since it's hard for a big ominous murder robot to get jobs that aren't villainy related.

Queen Vespidious, leader of the Hive Mind!

To fill the Mind Taker archetype, I decided to go with the whole "hive mind" bullshit and have a bee/wasp-themed villainess who inducts civillians into her Hive with mind-controlling royal jelly. She also has a loyal second-in-command who'd be a spider-themed villain named Tyrantula - of course, being a spider in a relationship with a wasp, Tyrantula is very much the sub in this relationship.

The Copycat/shapeshifter archetype would be filled by Octomime, a woman with the color changing skills of a cuttlefish and the body-morphing skills of a mimic octopus. Octomime can copy anyone's physical appearance so long as they're roughly human-sized, but her inability to speak means the disguise only works so long as no one notices she's being eerily quiet. She's a deadly supervillain despite that flaw, though, in part because her durable body and deadly tentacles make her a force to be reckoned with even when she's been discovered.

aaaand I've run out of images for this post, so I'll add the more unfinished concepts in a reblog.

[fragmentaryremains]

Oh my gosh. Thank you for all this lovely material! Definitely going to set aside some time to read all this when I have the chance.

(as a fun aside, when you brought up Outlooks I almost mistook it for the Rocky Mountain Outlook—which obviously isn't the case given that the RMO was created in 2001, but it was definitely a fun coincidence!)

went down an absolute rabbit hole re: 1970s gay cruising in Canada and I just. I cannot make this up.

[fragmentaryremains]

Ooh, that's a cool find. I know the major focus here is probably on Calgary and the opportunities for gay cruising at the Calgary Stampede, but I'm more curious about Banff. I know it's brought up in Prairie Fairies that Club 70's more affluent members were able to take trips to Banff (as well as other places). I'm curious if there's any more traces of that history. Certainly Banff (and other national parks) have plenty of stories about how their relationship with minorities has evolved over the years. NiCHE (Network in Canadian History & Environment / Nouvelle initiative canadienne en histoire de l’environnement) in particular has a couple of great articles about both racial exclusion in the park as well as how said racial exclusion was carried out.

Aside from that, it's interesting to think about Calgary (and the Calgary Stampede in particular) as a spot for gay cruising. Especially since this was just ten years before the CLGRC's national gay and lesbians rights conference which would notably not feature a march/parade. It also brings to mind the section of Prairie Fairies where Dr. Korinek used the Calgary Stampede to highlight the double standards foisted on the queer community (as you highlighted while reading Prairie Fairies).

went down an absolute rabbit hole re: 1970s gay cruising in Canada and I just. I cannot make this up.

[fragmentaryremains]

Oh hey, would you look at that, those assholes have been doing it in Canada, too.

@allthecanadianpolitics

[fragmentaryremains]

Ah, it did get posted! Thank you for posting my submission! Although I feel like it would have been perfectly acceptable to forgo posting it given that you already reblogged something about this. It does seem that this post replaced your reblog though, so I'm happy to accept that.

Saw this article on CBC and thought it would be worth submitting. Especially when considering Alberta’s municipal elections are this year on October 20. In particular, this section of the article quoting one David Park caught my eye.

Valleyview’s library being in the midst of a political storm was new to the town, but is in keeping with Take Back Alberta’s stated aim of creating change by seizing control of the low hanging fruit of democracy, like school and library boards.

“I say this to all of you: Who here feels that horrible things are happening in our libraries?” Take Back Alberta leader Parker said during a 2023 rally outside Calgary city hall.

“The answer right now is that we have to get engaged. Every one of you has to begin participating in their democracy. If you want them to leave your kids alone, you have to be the ones making the decision about how that happens.”

Low voter turnout, he said, is the key to victory.

“Albertans and Canadians are apathetic and lazy. They never show up,” he said during another October 2023 speech in Calgary. “You could take over every school board in this entire province.“

(and lest people from outside Alberta think this doesn’t apply to them: the article mentions similar groups existing in B.C like ParentsVoice B.C (relevant CBC article) as well as in Ontario (relevant CBC article))

#cdnpoli #canada #abpoli #alberta #lgbtq #lgbtqia #municipal politics #public libraries

[fragmentaryremains]

Nice! Thank you for answering my ask. I was mostly just curious because I've been enjoying getting Switch games from my library now that I actually have one of my own. It's a fun way to try a game and learn whether I would like it or not.

Also, that's a neat thing to learn about Persona 5. I don't know that I'd be interested in that sort of thing—I'm definitely the kind of person that enjoys challenging myself and pushing my limits. But it's nice that there's options so that people can experience it however they want.

(funnily enough, that might actually be the option for me—I'm not exactly super versed in RPGs, with the biggest one I've played through being Magical Starsign on the DS)

Not an ask related to your call for prompts, but I do have another question for you. I know you've mentioned previously that you're not great at the video games your daycare has. You do still enjoy video games like Baldur's Gate 3 though, so that has me curious. What games and system(s) do you enjoy playing in your free time?

I like RPGs, particularly ones that are character focused, and super particularly ones that let you romance someone and give them a smooch. I play them at the lowest possible difficulty setting possible so that way I can actually enjoy them instead of getting frustrated - Persona 5 has a difficulty setting that literally tells you, "Sit back and enjoy the story!" which, yes, that is what I am here for, that is what I want from this experience - enough challenge so I don't feel uninvolved, but not so much that this becomes a new source of stress in my life, thank you kindly.

I have a PS4, a PS3, a Switch, and a fairly beefy laptop. And, like, a 3DS and a normal DS that haven't seen much action lately. And a PS Vita, somewhere. Maybe a gamecube too, I dunno I haven't seen it in a while but I don't think I threw it out.