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#(primarily that people don't see it or don't like it...)
thankskenpenders · 1 day
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Sonic x ...DC Comics?!
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We have our reveal of what our new Sonic comic crossover will be, and it's... not what I expected! We're getting a five-issue comic series mashing up Sonic with the DC Comics universe written by Ian Flynn, plus a slew of merch to go with it.
To be honest, I don't know how to feel about this? I don't feel the hype.
Okay, for one, cards on the table: I have more attachment to Marvel's cast of characters than DC's. Sue me. But it's not like I don't also like DC's heroes! I grew up watching the Batman movies and the Justice League cartoons and Adam West's Batman and whatnot. I loved Teen Titans so much as a kid that I was Robin one year for Halloween. DC's cool! People have been comparing Sonic to the Flash for years! So... why does this collab make me feel nothing?
Well, for one, it might be that I would prefer a series like this to be about Sonic and friends meeting the Justice League, as opposed to them being the Justice League. To me, personally, that just seems a little more interesting. Seeing how those characters play off of each other. People have been asking "who would win in a race, Sonic or the Flash?" for years, so that was kinda the thing I was latching onto as the impetus for this crossover. And yes, in the interview they tease the possibility of the actual characters meeting, but they're marketing it primarily via these mashup characters with Sonic and co. cosplaying as the Justice League, so I have to assume that's the main focus of the story.
But I'm also just sitting here like... why DC? Why is this the highest priority crossover to do with Sonic? It seems so arbitrary. Just mashing two random popular franchises together. It doesn't feel like something that resonates so heavily with Sonic that we just NEED this crossover to exist. The DC universe isn't something that has much of a thematic connection with Sonic. Like, you look at the TMNT x Naruto crossover, and THAT feels inspired. That's something you never would've thought would happen, but the second it's announced it seems so obvious, and the sick cover art sells the idea that it's gonna be something fun. (Hell, speaking of TMNT, that feels like a crossover that would've made way more sense to me. No, the single panel of the Archie comics they appeared in doesn't count.)
When the Sonic X DC thing is announced with a series of stock vectors of the Sonic cast cosplaying as the Justice League and the news that there will be a ton of merch for this, well. It just makes it seem like this is first and foremost a collab designed to generate new Funko Pops.
I don't know. I'm sure that whatever the actual story looks like, Ian will do his damnedest to make the comic fun. It'll probably be pretty decent. He's the perfect writer for this assignment. It's just not the crossover I would've requested. Maybe I'm just being a hater here. I know a lot of people are excited, with speculation about what other Sonic characters could take the roles of DC characters. Maybe showing something from the actual comic would've been a better sell. But, well, that's how I feel about it based on the announcement!
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entiqua · 1 day
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I love your artstyle!! Do you have any tips for drawing?
thank you so much! i'm really happy you like it!!💗 as for tips, what i would say would change drastically depending on what kind you're looking for, but some very general ones:
draw what you love and want to see most, regardless of whether anyone else wants to see it. if you don't enjoy what you're drawing it'll never come out as good or genuine as something your whole heart and soul is in. i mean you'd think this would be a no-brainer but sometimes i've had to sit back and ask myself 'if no one was ever going to see this except me, would i actually spend time drawing this?' and i was surprised by the answer
that said, it is also completely valid if your motivation for drawing is to draw for other people! there have been plenty of times where i was too artblocked to draw my own ideas but was still able to draw commissions or gifts and enjoyed it simply because making other people happy with my art makes me happy.
don't get too caught up in having a consistent art style. in my experience this 1000% hinders you
having your sense of anatomy degrade over time without you noticing because you keep drawing the same types of characters is a very real thing! if this is a concern to you be sure to draw a variety
follow a billion artists that you like the art of and you will have endless inspiration injected directly into your brain every time you open social media
my favourite practical tip for those who draw at a desk: keep a small mirror next to you at all times. absolute game changer for quickly referencing hands
if you're drawing digitally, make the canvas huge! in my experience this lets you draw messier/faster and you can't tell at all when you zoom out. if you tend to get stuck spending unnecessary amounts of time micromanaging pixels (me💀) keep it zoomed out while drawing
related to the above point, messy drawings can have far more expressiveness in them than neat and polished drawings. nowadays i never do lineart and go straight from 'barebones stickman pose' to 'varying-levels-of-coherent sketch' and use that as my lineart. sweet freedom from the sketch-looks-better-than-the-lineart phenomenon
if your goal is to improve, then you really do have to scrutinize your art, figure out what you're not satisfied with, and commit the time to focusing on it. 'practice makes perfect' kinda rubs me the wrong way because of how much i've seen it interpreted as 'just draw everyday and you'll magically improve' but genuinely it won't get you very far if you don't actively think hard about what you're trying to improve and take the steps to do it. is this a hot take idk. also hand in hand with this, not every artist is trying to improve and you shouldn't feel bad for this! maybe you just wanna make a little headshot doodle of your fave blorbo and that's your only drawing goal ever. awesome. maybe you know your art has flaws but it's passable enough to convey what you want and you're perfectly satisfied with that. (this is the stage i'm usually at). also awesome!
don't hesitate to draw something because you think it's out of your skill level. the worst that can happen if you draw it is that it comes out terribly but you learned something and can always redraw it better in the future. the worst that WILL happen if you don't draw it is that you'll never draw it. and then it will sit in the back of your brain haunting you for years. it's not like i'm speaking from experience or anything aha
look up 'hand stretches for artists' and do them if you draw a lot unless you wish to summon the wrath of the carpal tunnel demons
of course, these may not necessarily work for you, and most importantly(!) these are coming from the perspective of someone who is primarily a hobbyist. some of this won't be practical for people who need to build an audience, maintain a consistent style for work, etc. these are just things that have personally helped me over many years of drawing :)
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paintedkinzy-88 · 2 days
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"You're far more powerful than the people of this planet, yet you defend them. Why?"
"Big talk from the guy that was defeated by those very people."
"Hm. Don't make me laugh. The... beasts that managed to delay our reign were far from human..."
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In other words, I decided that the ancient mystic warriors that created the Key to the Prison Dimension are now dragonfied... somewhat successfully-
More info on them below, why not.
Almost a thousand years ago, after the creation of yokai, dragons of the time advocated for peace between humans and yokai. However, the tensions only grew as each attempt ended in failure, by the fault of one side or the other. Eventually, a war was declared, and the powerful beings ended up as targets for many.
The story is typically different depending on the location. Generally, in the East, dragons were more respected by humans than yokai, and the West was the opposite. Draxum's family grew up in the Western yokai cultures, primarily, whereas the Hamato clan originally lived in the East.
One by one, by either human or yokai, dragons were hunted down, often seen as either a threat due to their power, or as foolish for their optimistic desires. When the Krang's full army made it to Earth, only four remained across the globe. Seeing this massive threat to life itself in their home, they gathered together and sacrificed themselves in order to create the Prison Dimension, locking away as many Krang as they possibly could and trusting the stragglers could be taken care of.
With them gone, the Yokai were eventually forced to hide away, with any remaining rebels quickly struck down. Currently, the only remaining proof of the dragons, aside from many mixed stories and historical drawings, is the small, inferior yokai breed (think like Bruce and his gang.)
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Blazure: Having lived in the Eastern side, Blazure was a constant target of human armies. He used to have a small group of fellow dragons he often socialized with in surrounding territories, but they were all taken down by the kingdoms around them eventually. His home no longer safe, Blazure spent most of his remaining life traveling and trying his best to help people of all kinds where he could, without getting killed.
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Pyre: Immediately after the war was declared, Pyre set off with as many Yokai as he could, trying to guide them to safety. While he still wholeheartedly believed they could live in harmony, he also recognized that reasoning with humans was not in his personal skillset, a lesson he had learned the hard way many times. Instead, he took to running with the yokai he could protect, gaining new members at every turn. It's rumored that he was the start of the first Hidden Cities.
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Shilong: Highly revered by the humans of his territory, Shilong was a mighty warrior who, unlike many dragons, had no problem resorting to physically fighting for his beliefs. Many yokai saw him as a threat and even a weakness of their kind due to his desire for peace between them and humans. Because of this, he was often attacked. Even still, he stuck around and defended human villages and cities when he saw it necessary.
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Zuma: Settling down in Japan with a few others, Zuma was highly worshipped by multiple human clans. They were free to walk the streets of these villages unharmed, and often received gems, food, jewelry, and other gifts, which they always made sure to repay in one way or another. Overall, they were well treated and defended from the many yokai who wished to hunt them down.
Curse of Icarus Masterpost
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itsbenedict · 20 hours
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From the beginning | Previously | Coin standings | 60/70 | 36/36
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Walter wants to go check out what was happening down in that sunken temple, but Adea doesn't want to just leave all this dirt sitting here- and she's just plugged in that coin miner thingy, so they'll need to sit around for a bit to see if it works anyway.
IT PREVENTED ROOK POWER EXTRUSION is OVIOS NETWORK EXPENDITURE REPORT. Apparently, about 14 years ago, the municipal government started deploying some project called the OpenVista I/O Station network. OPENVISTA is, on paper, an independent startup, but apparently it's a shell corporation established so Thinrar could dodge some of his own restrictions on public works. The report details the budget that went into constructing and deploying these things- though it's not clear from the report exactly what they do.
Apparently a construction company called WIREFRAME MOCKUP was hired to simultaneously build a mall named TARGETED ADVERTISING... and force an underground funeral home type facility run by SLEEP MODE to surrender something called the LOTUS VEXOR, in exchange for letting them keep the rights to their land (which they'd been retroactively granted thanks to a surveying loophole). The project took years and went way over budget, despite someone named DEADLOCK DETECTION being sent from Thinrar's office to oversee it personally. But 14 years ago, she apparently managed to get her hands on it- a key component of the OVIOS network, somehow. The cover op, the mall construction, is set to open in a few days.
TIN RUNT CONCOCTS A QUART O' CACTI concerns an AQUATIC CONSTRUCTION CONTRACT, offered by COLLUSION to a well-regarded specialist contractor named REGRESSION TEST. It's mostly an email chain with said contractor, who had a thousand questions about the nature of the work and the equipment she was being paid to install. The emails- sent to her by someone named JUST-IN-TIME COMPILER- are evasive and noncommittal, and seem primarily concerned with getting her to agree to various nondisclosure agreements and security measures.
REGRESSION TEST's job, apparently, is just to demolish the wreckage at the build site, create some waterproof housing with enough space for maintenance staff, and install the provided equipment. That's all she's allowed to know about the HILARITY! BE A FILIAL E-CYGNET.
SPRITZ? REPENT, WRY ED COOLHAXX! is a strange set of files called PROXY WIZARD CONTEXT HELPERS. It's a dossier on... various random people in town. A university researcher with no friends, a family of small-time crooks down by the docks, various guards at this very tower, and a handful of other random citizens with no clear connecting factors. The files describe the details of their lives over a disconcertingly long period of observation, and note things that are missing from those lives. Family members they don't have, friends they've lost contact with, coworkers who quit recently. There's transcripts of interviews with some of these people, but nothing stands out as particularly odd.
There's also profiles on various properties for rent, and some odd shorthand notes that appear to describe how long they've spent vacant and what's wrong with them. And... a bunch of copies of old missing persons cases, with all the names blacked out. And statements from investigations of incidents where... disasters were averted for reasons no one understood, like an out-of-control trolley being diverted onto a track by some good samaritan who never identified themselves.
[ed: Yeah, chew on that one, FF. You'll find out what I'm on about eventually.]
This is all weird, and rings a few bells, but you're not sure what to make of it just yet. In the meantime, Adea collects 10 Coin from the minter- which seems to have really raised the ambient temperature in the room. It's probably fine, though, right? The heat's dissipating into the stone, for the most part.
Adea consults with Walter and formulates a guess. He'd been drawn underground by some mysterious force when he woke up, right? If your daughter ended up here too- and it stands to reason, because you were all right there in the same place when the blast(?) went off- maybe she was pulled down there by the same force! It's possible he just missed her- she could've gotten lost in those underground tunnels somewhere. Best to give it another once-over with an extra pair of eyes.
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You head through the ancient pyramid, which... seems to be more extensive, and in better repair than it used to be. When did all this construction happen? Finding a crack in the floor leading down is more difficult than before. Earlier, it hadn't been difficult at all- Walter says some part of him knew which way to go. Did something change?
Neither of you are feeling any supernatural pull downwards anymore. The area below- save for some additional pyramid construction- is almost entirely unchanged. Which... does mean that there is a GIANT SKELETON, still. Several of them. You find a reasonably well-hidden spot to lurk and install the WIFI ACCESS POINT in the REVERT A BANDANA SURGERY SUBTERRANEAN GRAVEYARD. Files include:
Someone took issue with the performance assessment of a robot horse, around, like... thirty years ago? The email is RE: PONY SERVITOR 2076 SCORECARD, and they're not happy.
You've heard of saltwater taffy, but mousewater taffy is considerably harder to manage. Someone's done it, though: ENCODED::: WRANGLED MOUSEWATER TAFFY.
According to the LANCE GLANCE RECRUITER: PI ROTATION IS OUT. He's in charge of recruiting people who've had a close shave with spears, and he prefers to measure lance angles with tau.
An island nation called Haiti, which you've never heard of, is really mad about something- but they don't seem to want to be mad. IRATE HAITI WISHES MELLOW??? Really?
There'd been a lot of development on a faster-than-light utensil, but the product has been getting worse over time. See, a TORTOISE PROVED WARP FORK REGRESSED in this paper.
There's an invitation to the LETTERED CORRECTNESS FOUNDATION, an organization devoted to putting letters in the correct order. Sure would help if these guys weren't hallucinatory!
To be continued | 60/70 | 32/32
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lizardsfromspace · 2 days
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Okay, this is the conclusion to my posts about Sophia Stewart. I'll never do something like this again
Everything I've posted is from her own book or her web presence btw. That's all I'm drawing from and if anyone tells me any information about her they gained any other way I'll block them immediately so uh, don't
Towards the end she reveals some of her other pitches. By showing she copywrote sequels to the Matrix and Terminator
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Lots of strange details here - she wrote The Matrix 4 in 2000? They didn't even start filming The Matrix 2 & 3 until 2001. Also, we can see in this book that her pitch has nothing to do with The Matrix or Terminator, but she claims she wrote direct sequels to both?
(Her explanation for how both very different films are ripping off her work - a 1:1 copy, she claims - is, hilariously, that The Terminator plagiarizes it front to back, while The Matrix plagiarizes it back to front. What?)
But also she didn't write it. She registered copyright on a synopsis for The Matrix 4. She has concepts of a plan for a Matrix 4.
The book ends with a pitch for another...she calls it a book, but it's a movie pitch? And this, too, is just a synopsis for some grand epic series, light on detail of character and plot and heavy with lore and rants (in this case, primarily about God and Adam & Eve). Of course her exhaustively long but barely sketched-out epic movie pitch has a prologue, which is also full of Christian-tinged Ancient Aliens pyramid power woo.
Sophia Stewart is unimportant, bc she represents a class of writer. Writers who have Ideas. Who have outlines and plot points but no real story, bc they never write it. But they think just having Really Good Ideas is enough - that you should get credit for coming up with a good idea for a story, regardless of if you make an actual story out of it. They're a "writer", but they never write. Despite this they often have a deep case of Dunning-Kruger, churning out outlines that leave out basic details like "what happens in the climactic battle" and the personalities of characters while insisting that an inability to author anything shouldn't keep you from being praised as a genius author
If that type of person is lucky enough to have money, they become a studio executive or tech guy, both professions awash in the uncreatively creative, or they hire ghostwriters. If they're not, they become the type of person to file spurious lawsuits under the misapprehension they own basic plot concepts. It's the "I coulda made the majors!" of writing, except, you know. Baseball players who didn't make the majors still actually played baseball at some point. I assume from now on all those types will just pump their outline into ChatGPT and try to sell the gunk it slops out and then claim they 'wrote' it so uh, uhhhhhhhhhhhh
The only reason I made these posts was discovering the conspiratorial angle to her work, bc who cares if a major studio has to deal with a spurious lawsuit? That was the part that actually sucks. But also, she does a lot of press: profiles on news websites, podcasts, that documentary was even made by other filmmakers, who actually make films. It's persisted from blogs and chain emails all the way to podcasts and TikToks. All of this uncritically spreads her story, but I also have to ask: how many actual African-American science fiction writers do those platforms profile? How many of them get documentaries made about their work? How much air is being sucked out of the room by the decades long misinformation about the "true" creator of The Matrix? And why is that misinformation so persistent when it takes a trivial amount of effort to find out it just isn't true? It feels good to support the underdog against the big studio, but in this case it just isn't true.
The sad truth is a lot more Hollywood plagiarism cases look like this than are real exposures of wrongdoing, but people tend to accept them at face value since they feel like a little guy taking on a corporation, though in reality it's just two writers suing each other. Take The Holdovers case, where people immediately turned on it, but if you look into it, the two scripts have very little in common, and the accusing writer makes odd claims like a human character in The Holdovers being a ripoff of a billboard in his script.
Or look at Groundhog Day, which was accused of plagiarism by Richard A. Lupoff, writer of the story "12:01 P.M.". The two stories have nothing in common besides a time loop; in Groundhog Day he's reliving a day, in 12:01 PM he's reliving an hour. Groundhog Day is a romcom, 12:01 P.M. plays it for horror. Groundhog Day never reveals the source of its lop but it's clearly fantastical in nature, 12:01 P.M. is explicitly science fiction. In Groundhog Day he escapes the loop, in 12:01 P.M. he never does. You can't deny Lupoff felt personally slighted, but at the end of the day, a world where a writer could own the concept of time loops would be a dystopia where creativity and art would die.
But even though they were wrong, The Holdovers & Groundhog Day cases were based on real works of writing that existed. They were based on a real, if misguided, sense of violation from the writers. But in this case, we have a mere outline of a story with not even basic similarities to the stories she's claiming are a 1:1 copy of her work, and decades of media appearances based on exploiting a community college media student's mistake in 2004. Anyway seems bad
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bitchmael · 11 days
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extremely half-formed thoughts hours but i like that black sails as a "villain origin story" (as it were) for long john silver, one of the most storied pirates there is (because among other things he's entirely fictional), shows us a series of pirate captains who have constructed larger-than-life personae for themselves to feature as the monsters in other people's stories, and shows us the (almost always) deeply personally painful histories that went into making them and then refuses to give us that for long john silver. he's not a monster from a children's story but nor does he have the kind of compelling personal history of (say) flint or vane or rackham or anne bonny. he's just fundamentally selfish in a way that's ultimately pretty banal & ordinary imo, but he's put into this position where his selfishness is able to exert a massive influence on the people around him that makes him seem like more than he is. & btw i don't mean this as like a criticism of his character i think it works really well. what if evil were just boring. what then.
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People findinging out that antisemitism does, in fact, victimize people
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cherry-bomb1985 · 6 months
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I keep thinking about Hell's words: "This is the only way it should have ended."
Should. Not could. *Should*.
Like V1 should have been mass produced, obliterated all the Earth Movers, and then the next machine should have come along to counter it in turn and continue the war. Like all that fighting and the cycle of violence should have been perpetuated.
Like Mankind should never have finally gotten their act together, and tried to continue on even in the absence of divinity and in the face of total climate collapse.
There's a notable difference between 'could' and 'should', and the fact that those words are spoken by the only one who would've been *extremely disappointed* by this outcome has me raising eyebrows.
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ineed-to-sleep · 4 months
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Funny how all it takes is a couple of conversations with a cis straight man about gender to make me go "yup I'm definitely not cis"
#listen I adore my stepfather ok but he's got a pretty traditional view of gender#he's very respectful of others and doesn't enforce it on anyone else#and I think it's not that toxic all things considered bc he sees 'manhood' as being primarily about being hard working and protecting other#but it's still very gender essentialist#and he sees a lot of things as 'man things' and 'woman things'#and talks about skills and roles that are 'men's'#and I'm just like well but I do a lot of those things. but I identify with a lot of the things you describe.#and he tries to go around it like 'ahh well but you have personal history with that' etc etc#we get along really well tho we don't fight or anything but it's interesting to me#it makes me realize just how much I'm outside of the binary in the eyes of cis people#and how much 'trying to be a man' or 'trying to be a woman' are things that hold no emotional meaning to me(personally)#I could not care less what makes me masculine or feminine or if either of those labels are revoked for some reason#taking on the label of woman or man feels like a burden to me bc it always comes with a set of expectations#I just wanna be me yk. I just want people to see me through the lens of 'this is a person'#'this is what this person likes. this is how this person behaves'#I just wanna turn off gender. can I do that? like just flip a switch and no one perceives me as anything anymore#in a perfect world maybe#sleep.txt#I honestly still don't fully understand how I feel about gender but. I know that I don't like being put into a box#the box is Evil.
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kosakashuntaro · 23 days
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the concept of multifandom is kinda corny but at the same time i get it when you have diff side accounts for diff things like i do... like ig it's kinda funny thinking about how my friends from different 'fandoms' see me
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solvicrafts · 6 months
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You know, jokes aside, the sad thing about this fandom is that back in the day it absolutely WAS awful in some areas. Especially forums. And especially Candlekeep and the RAS boards. I don't remember Lavender Eyes being too bad, but I genuinely believe that if you were around in the 2000s-2010s when the discourse around Jarlaxle's alignment and/or sexuality was going around, you deserve financial compensation and restaurant discounts for the rest of your life.
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Man I just finished Babel and I was excited to read discussions online because there's so much going on in it with so many little things and just....angry white people. Everywhere. Truly a dead dove moment.
#the “you can't trust white people” theme might be a little like...aggressive but gosh you are not wrong#rf kuang#it was such a good depiction imo#it felt so much like explaining to white (or sometimes black) people what the problem is#especially felt like explaining being queer to straight people#i feel like a lot of people have at least a vague intellectual understanding of racism even if they don't see the racism#babel an arcane history#babel or the necessity of violence#also she captured a fair bit of mixed race and chinese diaspora feelings#also also i can see the relationship to the secret history and the fact that this is a rebuttal of dark academia while being dark academia#also realizing i dislike dark academia tbh#just...the ye olde university feeling is not my style#hence i went to engineering school where it had a je ne sais quois that i think is widespread neurodivergence#the good old boys clubs just do not interest me and i cannot really care about their lifestyles#it's not bad mind you it's just not for me#babel however is the exception that made me realize i dislike dark academia#hated the cloisters#got a rec for the secret history and had negative interest in that#i really want more and better depictions of engineering school and like...any similar experiences to what i had#they just do things like the social network where it's still a rich kid good old boys club but now with “nerds” who are just business majors#like the big tech guys of the modern era are primarily business guys not like...building computers in their basement#give me aome barely functional people who lean heavily into being weird once they go to school and they have hijinks like#updating archlinux and giving the other people shots if you get xyz system working again#first to get x11 back? REST OF YOU SHOTS. first to get internet back? SHOTS. sound? SHOTS. window manager? SHOTS.#or like...drama over your roommate not knowing how to do basic adult things like boil water or do laundry
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antique-symbolism · 8 months
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(11.28.23)
Living in a dying body,
Stranded on a dying world,
What shall the dying do?
Grind our bleach-white coral bones,
Drown in rising water, our limbs too weak to tread?
How about this instead?
On New Year's Eve, my father, a doctor of the weather said: 
"I believe in the resilience of our atmosphere."
And thus began my year,
With a body set for ambush storms, and unprepared to take my cover,
Hopeful, kicking at the knees that wouldn't last the summer.
But if Dad can see the damning data and give us yet our chance, 
Then I will face the fates that are written in my scans,
Feed the sturgeon lunch at the museum,
Bend slowly to the waterline and whisper this to them:
"I believe in our resilience, too."
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wonder-worker · 6 months
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"The feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist being appointed as the day upon which the coronation of the king [Edward V] would take place without fail, all both hoped for and expected a season of prosperity for the kingdom."
-Excerpt from the Croyland Continuator / David Horspool, "Richard III: A Ruler and Reputation"
Even though Edward IV’s death was unexpected, after twelve years of peace there need not have been too much of a sense of foreboding about the succession. The great dynastic wound from which the Wars of the Roses had grown had not so much been healed as cauterized by the extinction of the House of Lancaster. There was no rush for London, as had happened in earlier, disputed successions. The royal party didn’t set out from Ludlow for ten days after hearing the news of Edward IV’s death, while Richard took his time, too. And the new king had [his mother the dowager queen and] two uncles to support him: his mother’s brother, the sophisticated, cultured, highly experienced Earl Rivers; and his father’s, the loyal and reliable Duke of Gloucester, to whom Edward IV had entrusted unprecedented power and vital military command.
... [Richard of Gloucester] had achieved his goal by a mixture of luck and ruthlessness, and if he made it appear, or even believed himself, that destiny played a part, this only made him a man in step with his times. Modern historians have no time for destiny, but sometimes the more ‘structuralist’ interpretations of the events surrounding the usurpation can come close to it. When we read that ‘the chances of preserving an unchallenged succession were . . . weakened by the estrangement of many of the rank-and-file nobility from . . . high politics, which was partly a consequence of the Wars of the Roses and partly of Edward IV’s own policies’, it is hard not to conclude that an unforeseeable turn of events is being recast as a predictable one. But without one overriding factor – the actions of Richard, Duke of Gloucester after he took the decision to make himself King Richard III – none of this could have happened. That is, when the same author concedes ‘Nor can we discount Richard’s own forceful character’, he is pitching it rather low*.
Edward IV had not left behind a factional fault line waiting to be shaken apart. Richard of Gloucester’s decision to usurp was a political earthquake that could not have been forecast on 9 April, when Edward died. After all, Simon Stallworth did not even anticipate it on 21 June, the day before Richard went public. We should be wary of allowing hindsight to give us more clairvoyance than the well-informed contemporary who had no idea ‘what schall happyne’. This is not to argue that Richard’s will alone allowed him to take the Crown. Clearly, the circumstances of a minority, the existence of powerful magnates with access to private forces, and the reasonably recent examples of resorts to violence and deposition of kings, made Richard’s path a more conceivable one. But Richard’s own tactics, his arrest of Rivers, Vaughan and Grey, the rounding up of Hastings and the bishops, relied on surprise. If men as close as these to the workings of high politics at a delicate juncture had no inkling of what might happen, the least historians can do is to reflect that uncertainty [...].
(*The author who Horspool is referencing and disagreeing with is Charles Ross)
#wars of the roses#edward v#richard iii#edward iv#my post#I'm writing a post on this topic but I have no idea when I'll finish it so I figured I should post Horspool's epic analysis#or should I say epic takedown? <3#friendly reminder that Richard's usurpation happened primarily and decidedly because of Richard's own decisions and actions#we need to stop downplaying his singular agency and accountability by casting the blame on others#most of all Elizabeth Woodville and her family but also the bizarre interpretation of historians like Ross and Pollard (et al)#who somehow hold Edward more responsible (through a 'structuralist' view as Horspool says) even though that literally makes no sense#also friendly reminder that actual contemporaries did not view Edward V's minority as a sign of worry and potential discontent#quite the opposite - they expected him to have a prosperous reign. which made sense since Edward IV left his son a far more stable#country than any former minor king (and most other adult kings tbh). The irony is that it was his son's usurper who benefitted from it.#also I added Elizabeth Woodville to the list because Edward V himself specifically said that he trusted the governance of the country#'to the peers of the realm and the queen' as quoted by Mancini (likely relayed to him by John Argentine)#and this is supported by evidence. After Edward's death the Croyland Continuator substitutes Elizabeth's role in the council#for that of the King: 'the counsellors of the king now deceased were present with the queen'#we know Elizabeth presided over all the council's decisions and initiated proposals (the size of her son's military escort) on her own#She was clearly the one with the most authority in the council (who were described as being present with *her* not anyone else)#Hastings made demands but he couldn't enforce them at all (and was in fact worried). It was clearly Elizabeth who had that power.#She was likely going to play a very prominent role during her son's minority and imo it's problematic to assume otherwise#(Lynda Pidgeon assumes otherwise but she's based her assumption on objectively false information so I don't think we should take her#seriously)(see: she claims that EW lacked influence compared to her male relatives in royal councils when EW HERSELF WAS IN ROYAL COUNCILS)#That's not to go too far the other direction and claim EW tried to dominate and tactlessly exclude others - we know she didn't#The impression we get by this first council and by Richard's own actions indicates that she Richard and Anthony would likely#work *together* when it came to governing the realm#I do find it frustrating when people disregard the fact that based on the impression we have she would've had a very visible#and powerful role
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shepherds-of-haven · 2 years
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is-this-tf · 1 year
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Is it TF?
TF, as in Transformation, is a concept that can mean quite a few things to many different people- and when depicted in art or media, usually consists of some sort of physical or psychological transformation of one thing into another, often including the contexts before or after such a change occurs. 
For the purposes of this blog, the assumed pretense that the TF or TF-adjacent content depicted in posts on this blog being nonsexual in this manner is considered the default, and will be treated or engaged with as such unless clarified otherwise, but there are plenty of ways those who engage in TF art can enjoy it! There are many who consider it a paraphilia for themselves and commonly enjoy it as a sexual theme (as explained and described very well in this comic here), but it is also quite common for people to enjoy it entirely nonsexually, as well- perhaps exploring it under a lens of gender, as a vessel or narrative device to communicate themes, or just liking it as an unrelated special interest... TF is fascinating and alluring concept in itself, regardless of the ways it can be enjoyed and explored.
I made this blog because I love it when I see people unintentionally making TF posts on tumblr. I feel like it happens a lot and I think it's really, really funny when it does, by accident or not. Feel free to tag me in posts or send in questions asking if something is TF, and I'll give my honest answer as an expert in the field myself. 
Don't forget, words to live by:
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Primary tags: #this is tf, #this is tf art, #unintentional tf, #intentional tf, #definitely intentional tf, #not tf
Additionally: Now taking TF or Pass requests and suggestions, just for fun! Please just limit suggestions for this if you want to play to sending me an ask, for me to answer from my inbox rather than being tagged in posts. Linking posts in asks for this is fine, but please specify the character you are asking me to rate in the text of the ask as well. All posts related to this on this blog will be tagged #tf or pass.
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