#Basic Authentication

[nerdinsandals]

People asked me to do Roy so I thought, why not try Dot too? 💙💖💜

Their designs were definitely more difficult to adapt to the OS style since they're almost 100% modern elements, but I did what I could while trying to keep them recognizable! Hope you like the result. :>

[Original Liko post]

[self-made-purgatories]

when the breakup was so bad that you find yourself making questionable hair changes as a coping mechanism

[helenvaughans]

[brw]

When you refer to Tyrone as having a learning disability, what specifically are you referring to? I remember at one point it's said he's struggling academically and doesn't "get" certain subjects the way she does, and I think there was at one point a scene in Power Pack where he's having trouble reading and, uh, the youngest Power kid has to help him (though I tried to find that scene later and couldn't, so I may be misremembering or misremembering the book). I fell off reading C & D somewhere in the first few issues of Mutant Misadventures, so there might be more stuff I'm missing.

To be honest though, the way this was written and presented always felt pretty racist to me, because it was /always/ in comparison to a white character and there were /never/ any other Black characters.

Well, his teacher says he has a disability, and specifically says it makes academic achivement difficult. She could easily just be talking about his stutter and does say he's succeeding alright at classes, but her specific description of it making academic achievement difficult does make me think it's more than that.

Later on, Ty is shown as struggling in classes, specifically seeming to struggle with maths and seems to think of himself as stupid and slow, and he ends up lashing out at Tandy because of his frustration with not being as smart as her.

There's less in the modern age but I'll also mention this moment in a dream sequence where the thing that makes Ty realise he's dreaming is that in his fantasy he gets an A, which in his head is so impossible it's the one thing that snapped him back to reality.

These are the more overt descriptions of Ty struggling academically and having some kind of learning disability, but without Cloak it is a heavy subtext to most of his early depictions. Bill Mantlo is also no stranger to writing characters with intellectual disabilities, namely Nuklo from Vision and the Scarlet Witch and Laura Dean from Alpha Flight who are both described as autistic and there are some not dissimilar threads with how he depicts Ty in my opinion. While Ty is never described as autistic on panel, I do think he has some kind of nebulous/unstated learning disability alongside his stutter, because his feelings around his struggling at maths feel less "I'm slow to grasp this subject" and a lot more "I cannot understand this no matter how hard I try and it's causing me distress that I can't understand it".

And yeah, it definitely is racist, but it's weird, because I also do think this depiction was done in an effort to humanise Ty rather than just to make him "worse" than Tandy. Like, it feels very different from say, Lemar Hoskins, who was depicted for a while as illiterate and a guy who barely made it in to high school who couldn't read or write, and that definitely was done in a mean spirited, racist (to be completely fair to Gruenwald, one of the other Bold Urban Commandos, either Hector or Jerome also was depicted as illiterate too, but it's still obviously Deeply Racist) "Look how uneducated this man is", and once Lemar transitioned into a hero that element of his character has just completely disappeared, which I think ultimately is for the best.

By contrast, Ty's disability and speech impediment is used to make him a more sympathetic character? Cloak is depicted as such a non-human, strange and often demonic entity, that Ty having a stutter and a learning disability contrasts him more with Cloak and makes him seem more like Just A Kid In A Bad Situation like Tandy, as opposed to a malevolent figure, which obviously is very racist too. They almost use it as a way to make him seem more innocent or more childlike, I think, which goes hand in hand with just how different Ty is drawn vs when he's Cloak. And this depiction has it's own very obvious problems but I DO think it is a complex choice that I have kind of mixed feelings about, because the depiction and the way it is another layer to his dynamic with Tandy is Odd at the best of times and deeply racist most others, but equally, it makes him feel very real and much more layered as a character and as a person, and I think it DOES make for some very interesting storytelling decisions, that Tandy being privileged is happy to be free of being Dagger, but Ty who is black and disabled and grew up in poverty does feel a certain amount of power and self-determination with being Cloak and misses it when it's gone.

It's complicated. I don't disagree, but as with all things disability in comic books I really wish the answer to this flawed depiction had been to try and treat it more sensitively by listening to more black disabled people in how they choose to depict this character rather than just removing any vestiges of him having a speech impediment and learning disability from most modern comics.

Also re: the Katie teaching Ty to read thing WAS really odd, but it happened very shortly after Terry Austin took over writing duties and I do think he genuinely just mistook Ty's stutter for being like, unable to read or something, because he clearly reads in various previous issues so?? I dunno, it was an incredibly weird moment that didn't really get brought up again so I'm grateful for that, but again, that moment was also clearly meant to make him seem less scary and threatening, and again try to humanise him a little. Wherever or not they succeeded is a difficult question, but I do think that's a very major element of the writer's decisions to show Ty as having a learning disability.

[bidokja]

this isekai could've been an entirely independent fantasy setting

[nerdinsandals]

I wanted to see if I could draw Liko as a Gen 1 character! 💙

Instead of just changing the art style, I tried following the trends of the era to create a whole new design that looked believable for the time. For example, her outfit is based on Squirtle instead of Oshawott in this concept. :>

[Update: She has friends now!]

[helenvaughans]

see this is why i think the importance of perceived "relatability" in politics is kind of a canard. generally speaking, i don't think people want to see themselves reflected as they are in their politicians, particularly if they are unhappy with themselves as they are (which, let's be honest, is most of the population.)

i think many people want to see their politicians and leaders as people they aspire to be more like and who have qualities and lives that they want to emulate. like...look at FDR, JFK, (or even reagan 🤮). NONE of those men had upbringings and/or lives that were REMOTELY relatable to ~the average working class american~ (whatever that even means....) FDR was about as close to literal hereditary aristocracy as we've ever had in this country, JFK was well...JFK, and reagan was a movie star before getting into politics, and yet they were all BELOVED by vast (though extremely diverse and definitely not always overlapping) swaths of the population

i'm not praising trump or criticizing walz here as i think the usa is in an EXTREMELY BAD WAY if whatever trump represents is seen as aspirational, but i think we, as people left of center, need to stop thinking about our potential leaders and standard bearers in terms of "who is most relatable to the ~average american~" bc a) you will never find that person bc they don't exist and b) people don't actually care about "relatability" as much as you might think since at the end of the day, any performance of "relatability" is still a performance, and people can sense that.

[stupidjewishwhiteboy]

An interesting thing I've noticed amongst leftist types when talking about world politics is a total refusal to acknowledge that Jeremy Corbyn's actions and statements when he was Labour leader were genuinely interpreted as antisemitic by British Jews and their allies. Not even having to admit that he was an antisemite, or that he and his allies did antisemitic things, but to even admit that British Jews genuinely viewed (and view) him and his ilk as being hostile to British Jewry is beyond them. At best you can get them to admit that there was a smear campaign that duped people, and usually not even that.

[lynxgriffin]

Theres the theory that the events in the newgirl universe didnt happen in dr's current timeline. And that its events happen in another timeline all together. Which links up to the idea thaat the shadow crystals might show alternate timelines, original timeline or etc. Whats your opinion on that theory?

It took me a moment to figure out what you were talking about, and then I realized you meant Noelle's livejournal entries from the Spamton Sweepstakes. And sorry, but I find that whole thought pretty silly. It reads to me like people who aren't happy with Susie or Noelle's characterization in those journal entries, and are trying to cope by claiming it "doesn't count" by being in another universe or timeline or whatever. Which...no, sorry, there's really nothing to indicate that, and there's nothing wrong with their characterization in those entries in the first place.

And in general, while the shadow crystals are still a big mystery, I overall do not buy into the idea that they show a different timeline or universe.

[capn-twitchery]

i Really need to make character profiles bc i keep getting random influxes of new followers (hello btw! welcome🫡) and people probably have no goddamn idea what's going on with my characters

sorry my bad. welcome to my house where i post about ocs, my files are all over the floor and i can't afford a filing cabinet. you have to find info out via scavenger hunt

[moodr1ng]

always funny to get on tiktok or whatever and see some goth (who always looks younger than me) going "NOWADAYS all goths look the same and theyre all wearing brand clothes instead of diy and theyre all copy and paste!" and 1. this isnt a nowadays thing that was always true. its not a 'the kids today' issue and imo its a class issue. i was hanging out w these middle class "alt" kids who bought their anarchy symbol jacket at the overpriced alt store when i was 13 and we didnt have instagram let alone tiktok yet. i diyed because i was broke. and there were always and are still goths who have original style. you are being tricked by social media into thinking tiktoks are an accurate representation of the real worlds state. 2. somehow the people making this criticism always also look like the most basic goth w nothing out there or original about them like.. babes your glass house 😭😭😭

[no1ryomafan]

One thing I appreciate about G Gundam it’s illustrated that you can still make something look visually appealing without every scene be heavily shaded or shaded at all, a lot of weekly animes back then lacked shading but something about G just pulls it off- now I just wish I could figure out HOW to do that for my own art cause I hate shading 🤡

[morallygay]

Me fighting for my life trying to have a good grade in normal conversation with someone who messaged me on whatsapp by accident with the wrong number and is very nice but is now trying to do small talk and get to know me

[laughter-of-the-rose]

[aashidoodles]

Context: Cecil wanted sword training from Reinhardt so he joined Ares and Reinhardt on one of their monster hunts

Also i just needed a small break from main story stuff to doodle some sillies

And here's the masterpost link for any newcomers interested in some further reading☆

[solar-halos]

Thank God I'm not the only one who hates when people think odesta are some "never been in a relationship innocent uwu" (I'm not saying that not being in a relationship is bad, just talking about the stereotype) and "retired playboy" 😭😭

RIGHTT like “retired playboy” is probably what they were thinking up in the CAPITOL (if they didn’t already see the propo he did about what the capitol did to him). also yeahhh there is absolutely nothing wrong with never being in a relationship, but i feel that the way this is written often gives odesta this weird power dynamic vibe?? like one where finnick is like “i’ll teach u the ropes B)” whereas i think he’d also be a lil bundle of nerves. like this man’s hand is 100% always sweaty and he’s knocking noses whenever he leans in for a kiss it’s inevitable