#I Have to make Nine fanart at some point. I have to

[tezzbot]

Part way through ep 2 of prime but I have to liveblog I'm goinvg CRAZY

When it cut back to Nine I was like ?? Is Shadow still fighting down there??? I forgot they put him in the pit HDJDGF

NEW YOKE KNUCKLES I LOVE HIM

"You know what? You keep talking, Doc, and my Fist will be Affront to ya Face." [Very gently taps his own cheek]

PIRATE AMY HIDING BEHIND CYBORG AMY.... SISTORS...

Mangey??? MANGEY???? YO. YO GET YOUR DOG???? WHERE IS HE G

OH!!!! HEEHEHEEE PUPPYYYYYY SMART PUPPY.... HES SO PROUD OF HIMSELF

I will not lie the floating hologram is so fucking funny to me GDKDGDF NINE BABY I'M SO SORRY I CANNOT TAKE YOU SERIOUSLY UP THERE

MANGEY..... I LOVE HIMFBHDSF HES SO PUPPY oh hi reused animation lmfao Unless it's bc I saw it in the trailers 10 times... maybe...

Ouhghh

HES SO FUCKING BIG IT’S SO FUNNYYYY

I AM SOOOO OBSESSED WITH NEW YOKE KNUCKLE'S VOICE

AAAOUHGHH MANGEY..... HELPING HIM HELPING HIM

Of course it's a Tails and a Knuckles that rusb to Sonic's side of course of course Team Sonic for literally ever

THE PIRATES???? WHY ARE THEY STILL OUT THERE?????????

Okay ep 3

What the....

THIS IS SO CUTE THOUGH WAAAA

GDJDGEJSF me when my memories are 16bit

Wait where Did Dread go...?

It's been a minute since I watched s2 GDJDF

YALL STOP PRAYING FOR MY GRANDPA HE'S GETTING TOO POWERFUL

Renegade Knux I fucking love you forever and ever

OH WAIT DREAD IS THERE. MISS THING IS JUST SAT IN THE CORNER LMFAO

God I love animation.

I will not lie the teen doctor eggman is so fun to me I like him GDJDF

RENEGADE CALLING SONIC 'BLUE'......

LETS GOOOOOOO GIRLS NIIIGHHHT

HE CANT SWIM. GET YOUR FEET DOWN. GET YESSS ATTABOY GOOD BOY GOOD BOY

Sails... u r so cuteful....

AAOUUHH THE WAVE.... AND THE LITTLE SMILE RUSTY ROSE YOU ARE EVERYTHING

AAWUWHHH FROGGYYYYYY

These fucking birds scream and shake their heads like a fnaf jumpscare

OUHHHH SONIC ON YHE BACK OF BIRDIE WITH THAT AMY WHOS NAME I FORGOR THATS SO CUTE

GO GRANDPAAAA

PIGEONS.....

I just noticed the stupid little gears in Nine's shoes.... girl what.... HDJDGD

Nine...... :((((

EHHEEHEHEEEE THE SHAKE

RENEGADE SHOULD GET TO BEAT UP EVERY LAST EGGMAN AFTER THIS

New Yoke Knuckles and Rouge besties literally forever and ever

Everyone in that room like who the fuck is Shadow GDJFD

MY CUP OF CHILI....

THE BABY TALKING GIBBERISH LITERALLY MAKES THAT SEQUENCE "Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, ??????, Profit."

SONIC.........

NOOOO THEY ALL LOVE HIM SM......

Shadow still in that hole lmfao

I still love Nine's outift

GODDD THIS HURTS......

AAOUUHGGHGHH

"Lov a good chili Dawwwggg"

GIRRRLLLLL. TEAR HIM TO SHREEEDDDSS DAMN.

Suicide pact

My silly little space

NINE.....

SSONIICCCCC RRAAAAGGGHH

W

WHAT.

THEY EVEN GOT DREAD UP FOR IT WHAT THE HELL

NOOOO NONONO

NINE NOOOOO

OH GOD.

Ep4....

Oh god.

AW WAIT. WAAAIIITTT

NINE........

Okay Elsa we get it.

HIS PHOTOCOPIER

OUHHH HE'S LEARNING....

AAAAAAAAWWGHHH SIIICCKKKK SICK SICK SICK

MANGEY YOU'RE EVERYTHING

THE GROUND POUND....

Peepaw at it again

OHHHH THE TAILSES.... THEY HAVE A PLAN LITTLE SHITS....

HELLO???? NINE WHAT THE HELL????

AHAHAHAHHAHAHAAAAAAA THEY BUILT A FUCJINF BOMB?????

Wait. WAIT??? WHAT HAPPENED? DID THEY DIE???????? WHAT THE FUCK

ARE THEY ACTUALLY FUCKING DEAD??????? IM . IM GOBSMACKED. They wont be. They aren't.

REBEL'S EARS.... ANIMATION I LOVE Y

THIS SHOW IS STILL SO FUNNY

Hes WAAIITTIIINNNGG (<-stupid)

No really who is this.

Shadow is still. In a hole. DVJDFSG

FUCK EM UP BIG

If Nine has his eyes on Sonic why is Sonic hanging out with the groups who are trying to sneak up on Nine... VDJDFSJF

CATFISH?????

Sittadul

NINE... AAUHGH

AAAUUHGGGGHG BIGBOT BIG BOT BIGBOT

FROGGY MISSILES

"FROGGY?" AND CUT TO BLACK THAT GOT ME SO BAD. I LITERALLY GUFFAWED THAT WAS THE FUNNIEST SHOT IN THE WHOLE SHOW

EP5

THERES SO MANYYYFYGDHX

THE BIGBOTS BIG OLD TAIL.....

AUGH THE ANIMATIONS GOING CRAZY

You Are Just A Little Boy In A Chair....

GOOD GOD. This is so much.

THE HOLE

Grandpa you've made that joke 5 times now

HERE HE COMES. I KNOW IT.

YEEAAAAAGHHHHHH

We Are Not. Related.

GIRL YOU HAVE JET BOOTS

OKAY. ALRIGHT. OKAY. WORD CHOICE. BUT OKAY. HDJRHDJDGDJG

HE LITERALLY JUST JET BOOTED OUT OF THEM

PHHH THE MUSIC

VOLLEYBALLL

Left him hanging...HE HIGH FIVED HIMSELF

SONIC IS SOOOO CUTE..... HIS LITTLE FAAACEE.... I LOVE YOU SONIC HEDGEHOG

THE AMYS..... FOREVVEERRR

SISTERRRRSSSS

Amy Underground. Start a band NOW

AHAHAHAAAAAA FUCK YEESSSSS

GDJDGSJSF Shadow is like Do Not Fucking Touch Me

OUGH THAT POSE ON NINE...HES SO CREEEPYYYY I LOVE IT IM OBSESSED

OUGH. HOIUHGHH

THE ANIMATIOOONNN

HES SO TIRED....

Dr deeps legs: shattered lmfao

POV BEATING SHADOW UP

NO SONIC NOOO

FUCK!!!!!!!!

EP6

God. Just everyone...

Girl you're gonna hurt yourself......

HES GONNA DIEGDJDHHD

OH MY GOD. ITS FREE ROADS

A SHIELD TOO

AHHAHAHAHAHAA Splat :D HES SO CUTE

He needs an ibuprofen

Nine... he's hurting himself.......

WERE TEHY PLAYING DEAD. LMFAOOO

Oh god he's shaking

YOU ARENT GOING ANYWHERE.

Oh god. Hi Bigbot..

OH MY GOD. NINES ANIMATIONS I LOVE HOW IN SANE HE LOOKS

LETS!!!! FUCKING!!!! GOOOOOOOO!!!! RENEGADE I LOVE YOOUUUU

LETS GO KNUCKLES SONIC TEAM UP LETS GO

THIS HAS GOT TO BE SAILS AND MANGEY IT HAS TO BE THAT CATBOTS GOT THAT DOG IN HIM

FUCK YEEAEAAAAAGGGHHHHH

MANGEYS LITTLE TONGUE.... GOODBOYS

Dread...... Dread no....

KILL THIS CLOWN. WHO EVEN ARE YOU RACCOON FREAK

CAPTAIN ROSE AAAAAA

That birdie just out in the battlefield. Chilling

LETS GO SHADOOOWWW

Uh oh lol

OH MY GODDDVJDGHDHD HE JUST FUCKGINB BLEW IT UP

TYYAAEEEAAAHAHHH I AM THE ULTIMATE LIFEFORM!!!!

THE CHORAL MUSIC????? SEPHIROTH...

Ohhh Nine is trying to destroy the stabilisers...

HERE WE GO.... LAST ONE...

Ep7

HE SET IT UP SO SONIC COULD LIVE WITH HIM IM GONNA BE SICK

GOD. THEY JUST WONT LET SONIC TALK WITH THIS KID HUH

AOUGH....

BABBEL..... Why does that baby have a full set of veneers

GOOD LORD.

Edgelord....

THIS IS LIKE CANDY TO ME VDDJGDDJF

OHHHHG NINE.... NOT EVEN A WORD.. JUST A HUG

THEY JUST FUCKING LEFT SHADOW HELP MEEWE

Shadow incredibly cunt

YAAAAYYYY YOU BLUE BUFFOON

HE HAS A PERMIT HE CAN DO WHATEVER HE WANTS

God. Trows up.

Very very good show. That ending was. slightly disappointing, there was no like... cooldown it felt slightly abrupt BUT. Good Show I loved it so much<333

[rexscanonwife]

🌈 Welcome to WLWeek 2024 🌈

Hello everyone, I wanted to put together a nice, low-pressure event dedicated to my fellow wlw self shippers for one week of June because it's pride month, babey!! This is the first time I've ever tried to 'organize' an event, so take it easy on me, I'll try to be as communicative as possible and if anyone has questions about it, asks and DMs are always open!

On to the details! Its gonna last from Monday the 10th through Friday the 14th, and anyone can opt in or out as they see fit! No one is obligated to participate throughout the entire week or from the beginning alone, just do what you feel like!

RULES:

NO PROSHIPPERS/COMSHIPPERS/NEUTRAL, all blogs with that will be blocked on sight!

Obviously don't participate if you're not wlw/not shipping with a female character

Lesbians, bisexual, pansexual, sapphic, and once again general wlw/nblw are welcome!

Essentially I am tolerating NO funny business, and I won't tolerate bullying either so everyone be very niceys and hey, try to support each other! 💖💖💖 now onto the prompt list

Monday June 10th: Favorite style/aesthetic-

draw you and your female f/o in your favorite clothing style (goth, Y2K, cottagecore, etc.) Or what you think their favorite style would be! alt. for writers, write a drabble about going shopping for these outfits with your f/o!

Tuesday June 11th: Morning routine -

draw you and your female f/o getting ready for the day. Who's the early riser and who's dragging them back into bed? alt. for writers, write an early morning cuddle session/chat. 

Wednesday June 12th: Date night-

draw you and your female f/o on a date! Is it a dinner, a picnic? Are you guys dressed to the nines or at home in your jammies? Alt. for writers, write a date gone slightly awry. How do you fix things/compromise? 

Thursday June 13th: Beach day-

it's summertime, draw you and your female f/o in beachwear and enjoying the sun and sand! alt. for writers, write out a nice dip in the ocean! Can you swim? Can your f/o? Does one have to teach the other? Is it nice and relaxed or does it dissolve into splash fighting? 

Friday June 14th: Role/Ship Swap -

draw your f/o as the self shipper and you as the fictional character role they fill! What kind of s/i do they make? Would they write fanfic, draw fanart? Alt. for writers, write a gush post from ur f/o's point of view! 

And that's it!! Do one of them, do all of them, or do none of them, it's your choice! I just wanted to show some love to my fellow wlw self shippers out there this month and so something fun for them!

Now if you got this far and you read the rules make sure to put 'great googly moogly' in the tags when u rb! And don't forget to tag my blog here when you write/draw for this event!!! 🫶🫶 everyone who does will get a rb from me and a little promo as well, and maybe even a follow cause I need more wlw mutuals :3

[starberry-cupcake]

I don't think I have a lot to update today because life got in the way of me reading as much as I wanted, but if I don't note things down, I'm gonna forget, so here we are. I'm not sure if I'll be able to update tomorrow, but I'll be back as soon as as I can, more for my own peace of mind than anything else.

previously, in harrowlicious the ninth:

this happened

also, I may have or may have not been slightly spoiled about a thing because people in my dash don't use the tags available to us mortals, so I'm gonna have to sprint if I see any semblance of skull make up in my dash

close the tab immediately

close my eyes and cover them for good measure

currently, chapters 12 & 13:

we are training how to...kill planets, I think

basically, I think we're killing a planet and killing the thing that comes out of it when it's killed

this is what the care bears taught me not to do when I was a kid

actually, I think they even made a new one in the new re-design thing specifically to make the point even clearer than in the 90s

this new one

that's the opposite of what these people are doing rn

so harrowbean is training with mercygirl on how to be environmentally unconscious

if I am understanding the dynamics correctly, you kill the planet and then you chase the planet's soul aka beast through the river and kill that too

if the ones they're escaping from are bigger than these, they must have fucked up massively with whatever they destroyed

when I started reading gideon, I thought the houses were like planet-coded

you know, nine houses and all that

the ninth is now a hypothetical mysterious ninth planet

but back when my astrology lesson was sailor moon

the ninth was pluto

and in that mindset, the ninth would be setsuna meiou, which checked out with some of the harrow aesthetics, I mean

a mix between these two looks???

I went on a tangent, anyway

I moved on from that idea later but, in any case, these people must have destroyed some fucking huge thing to make the mess they're in now

so, basically, in order to chase the planet's soul (which they call beast, but I think that's disrespectful), that's where the cavalier comes in

the slurped cav is meant to keep the lyctor running through that process, so that their body doesn't collapse

and it's meant to have their instincts kick in to do the final push and use the sword they were trained to use

if mayonnaise uncle had not done what he did, he would have probably been good at this part

but he was obliterated

by hubris

so, harrow cannot do this

WHICH IS GREAT

for us, at least, because it's more hope for the "gideon isn't gone" theory that keeps us together

I speak in plural, as if you didn't know exactly what's happening, but you get what I mean

in my mind, we're like this, waiting for gideon to come back

so augustine calls harrow "diet lyctor"

he should call her "lyctor lite"

mercygirl gives harrow crap for not being able to sustain herself due to her lack of cavalier-ness

augustine makes fun of her for her lack of cavalier-ness

and I'm here like...you guys are the ones who started this mess?????

it's not up to a teen to save you in a couple months from something you haven't been able to fix in 10k years????

maybe you deserve it????????

what is this, evangelion????

harrow, coming back from the training and planet killing

harrow visits yandere twin in her new designated room

yandere twin has a room with a lot of nudes

"life sized nudes in languorous attitudes, generally in oils, and all of the same two persons. They were enthusiastically executed. The duo posing held a variety of objects both likely and unlikely."

so...which lyctor ordered a ton of nsfw fanart of themselves and their cav or whatever????

I'm assuming it's a portrait of one of them and it's this kind of situation

yandere twin apparently likes the nudes, so they're staying there

harrow doesn't like them

I think it's A Lot tbh, but it's not my lyctor room, so I'm not telling her what to do

who has the room with the ceramics collection? because I call dibs on that

anyway, yandere twin is having a hard time with this too

both of them are having a hard time with doing it, not with the ethical or moral implications of what they're doing or why johnny john john is asking them to do these things

harrow can kill the stuff faster, but she can't be trusted to be able to stay alive after

harrow was never very good at not getting physically damaged at all times

yandere twin has a hard time making chad cooperate

who would have thought

imma assume it's a problem you might encounter when you slurped your cav against their will

which is what we think happened, idk, we found him stabbed in the back so

and also it's chad

chad complained about everything all the time

harrow tells her it's psychological

the mental health care plan of the lyctors looks like this

also, harrow suggests yandere twin to cut her new arm if it bothers her

I mean, that's one solution, I guess

it's a very harrow solution

yandere twin points out that harrow is the emperor's favorite

that sounds like a very bad thing tbh

she also asks harrow to make her own arm grow back again and harrow says no because she's not good at the fleshy bits

"the fleshy bits"sounds like something cursed that comes with cereal in a magnus archives episode

but you get the idea

we end the chapter with harrow appreciating yandere twin's company because, when she found her after she had stabbed not!dulcinea's corpse, she said "wish you'd taken off her arms"

I respect that too

again, no camilla yet

well, this wasn't as long or entertaining but I'll come back whenever I can...life needs to let me read this book

[taralen]

Title: E-Mail Guy's first day lol

HEY EVERY !! ITS HIM! N0 BUDDIES FAVORITE [[E-MAIL GUY!!!]] 

Well, well, here is my first ever DELTARUNE fanart! I've loved this game since it first came out, and while on disability, I played Chapter 2 and loved it even more than Chapter 1. This guy captured my [[HeartShapeObject]] the moment he popped out of the trash. He's officially my favorite character ever made (yes, I am dead serious about this.) I REALLY like this character, so expect to see more of him from my gallery even if you don't want to!

Why did I draw him this way? Answers Below!

Spamton's back story is mysterious, and the game doesn't give us much to work with regarding his past. This drawing is based on my interpretation of him before he became the lovable trash puppet. There are a lot of fan interpretations of Spamton as an Addison, but I rarely see anyone draw him with black hair. I like his contrast with the black hair against the white skin (is he Snow White??!), but I understand why fans choose to depict him with white hair while he was still the "e-mail guy." I included a variant with the white hair for anyone who prefers that version. The white hair makes sense, but I like the idea of him having black hair as an "error" or anomaly. The gray outline is based on the sprite of both him and the Addisons. I'm a little bummed out to see most fan art does not include their cute little glow. No other NPCs have this look, so I believe it was intentional. 

My theories regarding the Addisons and Spamton are based on my experiences working in Sales and Customer Service (and yes, at some point, I was the e-mail guy lmfao.) Spamton confirmed in a Q&A that he was shorter than the others before his downfall. It's hard to tell in this picture, but he is still short, just closer to canon height, which is slightly shorter than Kris. I imagine the Addisons as being like male ballet dancers because of their attire and pointed feet. I'll probably write a speculative fanfic on this because I find how these characters work fascinating from the perspective of someone who studied advertising and sales. I also did ballet for nine years, so funny that. HAHA!

In this image, Spamton has not yet been relegated to the e-mail job just yet as they test him to see how well he performs on the floor. From my experience, if you suck at doing something upfront but your employer still likes you, they'll move you into another position. So, this is before they do that. LOL  Likewise, if you are not very good at ballet, you get sent to the back or to a spot where the audience can't see you very well. 

Anyway, I hope to do more pics of this character and his co-workers soon because I really like them, haha!

Unmarked Full resolution + processes on my Patreon if you're into that. Link: https://www.patreon.com/taralen

[helly-watermelonsmellinfellon]

So Immortal/Mortal Ships

What is the cut off?

Why are some ships with an Immortal/Mortal pairing considered creepy and others aren't? Cuz there has been a surge of people calling 2-year age gaps pedophilic this year, and losing their damn minds if two characters aren't the same age. But then they have age gap ships of their own.

Many of y'all can't keep up the same energy all around. You sit here shipping InuYasha and Kagome, despite how she is 15 and he is 200+, but then attack people who ship Edward and Bella, even though both are physically 17 even if one is technically 104.

But when this is pointed out, how your ship has an even wider age gap in it, you start whining about power imbalance, as if InuYasha ISN'T overpowered and hasn't nearly killed Kagome when he's lost control. But then you'll claim Edward is more mature than InuYasha which is a laugh cuz no he damn well isn't. Eddie Boy is a teen boy through and through. He's just a teen boy from the 1920s. But THEN you'll claim it's the time period they're in and how the 1400s-1500s of Japan is a more forgiving place to have an age gap relationship because they don't have modern technology on hand.

And this will go on. I've seen enough Twitter threads defending InuKag and demonizing other age gap ships.

So where is the cut off?

Cuz I've seen people on Tumblr, arguing that Genshin's Zhongli/Childe is pedophilic because Zhongli is a 6K+ y/o god and Childe is like a 20 y/o twink. Ajax is a literal adult. He is the youngest Harbinger, but he is still an adult. He even has the 'adult man model' y'all whine about. So how can this be pedophilic? Adults in an Adult ship. But cuz Ajax was 18 only two years ago, shipping him with Zhongli makes you a pedophile? Even though he is a literal terrorist and has killed a lot of peopel as the Cryo Archon's 'weapon of war'?

So, what about the Traveler? They are canonically 500+, and heavily hinted to be part of the primordial civilization that existed long before Zhongli came into being. I saw someone on Twitter whining in some Aether/Scaramouche fanart because of age gaps and pedophilia. Traveler being 500+ and Scaramouche being at most 400. How the hell is that pedophilia? Same body type even.

There are Aether/Zhongli fanarts that get attacked for pedophilia too. Zhongli 6K+ and Aether 500+(likely 10K+ according to popular theory). These aren't small numbers. And the Traveler has the mind of an adult and IS legally allowed to drink but is just tired of arguing about it all the time. Traveler doesn't even look like a child despite the claims of people who say being 5'4" makes you a child. On the same breath, some chick demonizing Aether/Zhongli ships Aether's twin with Eula, who is in her 20s and Ei who is 2K+. Why are those age gaps okay?

And there's even more to go from!

How about the Ninth/Tenth Doctor. Old as shit. Everyone seems to ship Nine/Ten with Rose. The age gap there is astronomical despite both being adults with Rose just barely being an adult. That is one of the most popular ships to come out of Doctor Who and the second or third most popular overall.

We have so many age gap fictional couples that are present in pop culture.

Why is it that some age gap ships are totally acceptable when the gap is massive, the power is skewed entirely to one side, and the youngest person in the ship is the equivalent of a blind lemming?

And why do people feel so comfortable throwing the word pedophilia around?

[canmom]

catching glimpses of the international fandom of the Mechanisms is so weird to me. because they were a fixture of quite a niche scene in London - you’d see them play at pubs, or events like Nine Worlds (short-lived UK con for nerd shit with a social justicey bent - in retrospect, it went about as well as you’d expect, but I was naive back then). i went to some of their gigs, and it was fun, but there was a bunch of audience interaction type stuff I wasn’t entirely clued in about - it was clear that most of the people who went were people who went to a lot of Mechanisms gigs and quite probably knew them personally. big overlap with the sort of cabaret/bi cuddle pile type scene, anyone remember ‘Lashings of Ginger Beer Time’ lol.

and what they do is such an unabashedly nerdy thing, like the typical structure is to take a theme - fairy tales, Greek mythology, etc.; then reinterpret it in a grimdark scifi context - grand space opera, cyberpunk noir, space western, Lovecraftian horror - and assign various members of the band to assume the roles of the characters in the story, find some small corner for the Mechanisms themselves to appear and be nihilistically violent, and then the songs are... well, I don’t know about all of them, but definitely a lot of them are pastiches of existing songs. in Once Upon A Time (In Space) we have for example Our Boy Jack is to the tune of Bella Ciao, No Happy Endings is Korobeiniki - and you’re kind of expected to pick up on that I think!

anyway don’t get me wrong I love concept albums that tell a story, that’s one of my favourite genres of music, so I actually really quite like the Mechanisms. but it definitely feels like they’ve broken containment lmao.

anyway at much that same time I became good friends with Maki Yamazaki (Dr Carmilla), who originally created the Mechanisms as a backing band in the first place, so I mostly get her side of that split. which adds an extra dimension. bc it’s like “oh yeah, Maki’s old band”.

meanwhile the average fan’s encounter is like... so as I understand, one of them starred in a really popular podcast or something? The Magnus Archives. and at some point fans of that caught wind of this older project and brought all the same fandom machinery with them. so years after the band broke up, they now have a bunch of people making fanart and writing fanfiction and writing big old meta posts on tumblr, mostly coming at it from that angle. they’re getting really into it, it’s fascinating to observe a slice of that via @arianwells. also makes me feel really old...

[herbofgraceandpeace]

I was reading your tags on that fanart of Thor as a wireless charger, and noticed how you said that much of Marvel lost its charm over time but Thor retained his for a while longer. And honestly I think you phrased my feelings on this very well. I actually lost interest in the MCU ages ago when other fandoms crowded my brain, but even when I would see trailers very few of them appealed to me and I think it's that lack of charm you mentioned. I only regained some interest recently after my sister convinced me to watch a few movies & shows, but so much of the MCU still doesn't appeal to me. But I've always liked Thor's jovial personality and the fantastical elements of much of the Thor franchise.

hi, thanks for sharing your thoughts! I wish I had more coherent thoughts to add on what makes the Thor movies/his character feel different, but I’m not really sure how to put any of them into words…..I expect a lot of it has to do with the more fantastical setting of Asgard and the Nine Realms, as you mention! Besides the scope for imagination, this might have allowed the movies to be less bogged down in messaging (I think one of the many problems with later Marvel is its obvious, belabored didacticism on various issues). Also, Thor as a character had some sincerity left in him alongside his innocence and earnestness. The post going around about “quips” and “bathos” as a problem in Marvel is spot on, imo, but Thor’s role as the naive or obtuse character allows him to escape this, to a certain degree! Plus, Hemsworth plays him very openheartedly, I would say, along with your point about his joviality!! Of course, his character gets shifted around a lot with the different directors and writers who want to tell different stories with his character. Thor: Ragnarok is a large tonal shift for sure, but I think it keeps lots of the aforementioned joviality AND sincerity while adding more lightness to the narrative. Hemsworth does a great job of tying the disparate Thor narratives together, particularly in Infinity War, where I was quite struck by his protrayal of Thor’s grief, guilt, and rage alongside his comedic side. And then I have nothing good to say about Avengers Endgame, lol. I admit that I haven’t seen the fourth Thor movie because it looks like stuff and nonsense from the trailers. Basically, I’m glad for the joy I can get watching Thor in the earlier movies, and I’m steadfastly not watching new things that I know will make me angry 😅

thanks for letting me talk more about it!

[sapphanimates]

2023 Art Summary

I originally created my blog back in April, but I've decided to jump on the trend and share a compilation of some of my favorite works.

JANUARY

My first attempt at a digital painting style, featuring a character I don't believe I've introduced here before. A reimagining of the Tails Doll, with a Phantom Ruby twist: The Phantom Amalgamation (or Maggie, as my friends call them), made for Project Alacrity. I'll have to get around to redrawing them so they can have a proper introduction.

FEBUARY

Fanart for YouTube creator, Miharu the Fox. Whilst watching one of her streams, I asked what I should draw, with her co-host Marc suggesting that I should "Draw Spyro glitching into the abyss." Seeing that they were playing Spyro Enter the Dragonfly, it seemed only fitting. So I drew him shaking on top of a trapped baby dragon in ice.

MARCH

An attempt at a papercraft style using a tutorial by YouTube user, CariadsCoffee. The character pictured is Squirrelflight (or rather, Squirrelstar) from Warrior Cats, using my own design. Learning this method of drawing is what eventually led to me adopting the lineless style I use in many of my posts.

APRIL

Parody designs of Silver and Blaze, aptly dubbed Pothead and Lighter. They originate from a Sonic 06 parody comic for 4/20 that was written by my friend, @alzikeiswrong , and was illustrated in TuxPaint by me. Whether or not I decide to actually finish and post it is a mystery.

MAY

A post made as a gut reaction to discovering the amount of articulated parts the Jakks Pacific Tails Nine figure had. 70 points of articulation is ridiculous, but man is the figure amazing. I just wish he was to scale with the normal Tails figure.

JUNE

My second attempt at a digital painting, this time featuring Blaze the Cat. Manipulating the flames and how they interacted with Blaze and the background, was a fun challenge, as well as figuring out the textures and posing.

JULY

This is the point when I discovered my lineless style. Specifically the one I use when drawing my fursona, Sapph. Her design has developed a lot over the years, from being a Minecraft X Warrior Cats crossover OC, to slowly rounding out and becoming less Minecraft, gaining new design details in the process, to where she is now.

AUGUST

A drawing of multiple AU designs of Tails for Project Alacrity, socializing at some sort of get together. This was mainly a test to practice how to frame a drawing with multiple characters in it, as well as giving them each something to do. To show the differences between these various different versions of the same core character through their designs and how they interact with one another.

SEPTEMBER

One of the ask answers for my MommyClan cat's ask blog, @stepcousinclawspeaks . Stepcousinclaw was originally created for the fanclan in August, but this panel was one of my favorites. It shows his chaotic and often arsonistic side really well. I'll return to the blog soon for a big story update. Stay tuned!

OCTOBER

October brought with it the Sonic OC Showdown 2, which I had miraculously managed to get my Trace the Tasmanian to participate in. She passed the first round by a close call, but lost by a wide margin in the following. It was a good fight, with a good string of propaganda art coming from me and some of my supporters as a part of the campaign. Thank you all for supporting me while I was a part of it.

NOVEMBER

Whilst exploring through old files, I came across a template I saved. I used it to share the designs I made for various Warriors characters, some who I already had made designs for, and others I had to make up on the spot. One of my favorites was Spottedleaf. The balance of colors and details seem just right to me, as well as being a vast improvement from the color inaccurate one I had made as a ten year old.

DECEMBER

December's was fun. I haven't ever really had a "set style." Every time I try to revisit one specific design I always make something a bit off. Same can be said for this sketch style. I loved doing it. It felt the most accurate to how my art on paper feels as I draw it. Rough around the edges, but lifelike. Sadly I've had a hard time returning to it after dumping out all my thoughts around the 06 AU onto my screen. I've been working on it. There's more to see in the coming year, so I hope you'll stick with me to see how I can grow as a young artist!

Template is by @zontarzon !

[tendo-64]

sometimes i forget how old mother 3 is. like, i know in my head "2006" but i don't really comprehend that until i stumble across fanart from like 2008 and am like "damn this was made when i was five years old". lucas being in smash doesn't have that effect on me because he almost feels like an entirely different being, it's just fanart that does.

it's kinda surreal to me that i am drawing the same character that someone did sixteen years ago. especially if i see similar concepts--thinking that someone thought "oh this would make a great drawing idea for the twins" except instead of it being yesterday it was in the year 2012 whilst i in the same instance was playing mario kart 7 past my bed time at nine years old, didn't even know how to draw yet beyond poorly scribbling yoshi in ms paint on occasion, and lucas to me was "the weird kid from smash bros" that i never gave a second thought and would not give a second thought for another seven years. more surreal when i think about how that artist has become the nine year old me in that they probably moved on years ago and now mother 3 to them is "a game they liked a long time ago"

and yea that can apply to just about anything, but i guess it's the mother series' niche nature that makes it different to me. it's such a small, cozy fandom that I forget that maybe years and years ago it was different at some point. another part being i didn't know anything about mother 3 before 2019 and actively avoided spoilers until i finished it in late 2022, so my brain thinks it's this recent thing because i'd never known anything about it for so long, when in reality i just lived under a rock

idk tho maybe i'm not making any sense

[sweetcircuits]

Fic Stats Meme

Rules: Give us the links to your fics with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and your fic with the least amount of words.

I wasn't tagged by anyone but I believe I saw @ladytauria do this at some point late last year (I'm late to the party what else is new XD)

Most hits: My Brother's Keeper, a canon rewrite/canon adjacent fic seeing the events of the show from the POV of my OC Amber Rinelli, Chiro's older sister. We're in the middle of the I Chiro saga so basically exactly halfway through the fic so far. Honestly still blown away by the amount of hits this fic has received. You guys seem to love Amber and that makes my heart so happy. (6,318 hits)

Second most kudos: A Brave Blossom, a fic that diverges from canon very early in Mandarin's time as leader when Nova gets pregnant. Sparx/Nova ship fic, details Nova's pregnancy as well as Mandarin's slow mental unraveling and the aftermath of his imprisonment in the HOOP. (61 kudos)

Third most comments: Double Vision, an AU where each of the robot monkeys were born as a pair of twins, and three of the nine initial monkeys didn't survive the building process to be made into robot monkeys. Emotionally messy as the monkeys discover their past, struggle to forgive, and vow not to forget again. (15 comments)

Fourth most bookmarks: A Brave Blossom again (7 bookmarks)

Fifth most words: Crush, so you know that scene in Wall-E where Walle-E struggles to hold up the hyper-warp module so they can put the plant inside it, then he gets crushed under it and EVE rushes to get him fixed as soon as they get back to Earth? That but Spova. (1,731 words)

Least words: Train of Thought, a cute Gibotto drabble inspired by some adorable fanart, Gibson struggles to remember to eat since he's so focused on his work, so Otto takes it on himself to make sure he gets to eat. (835 words)

Honestly I wasn't surprised to see a repeat on here since I only have 7 fics posted right now - maybe that'll change this year, who knows! MBK is still my favorite of my fics but it makes me happy that some of the other ones I was proud of also made this little list!

I dunno if any of my friends/followers would want to be tagged in this so if you want to do this consider yourself tagged!

[supernovaofthoughts]

Nighlight redesign

Ok, I know I am late to the party, but I thought I would just add my grain of salt to the discussion.

The Nighlight design of HTTYD3 (no, we do not talk about the Nine Realms, it does not exist) has, at least from what I've seen, sparked some complaints amongst fans. To me, they aren't terrible by any means, I actually kind of like them, they are charming anc cute, although a bit childish, but I'd like to propose some tweaks that could maybe (subjectively obviously, this is my opinion) make the design more appealing through realism and believeability (even though they still are appealing with their cutsy, patchwork cat like appearence).

I think just picking random features of Toothless and the Nightlight, mixing them together without a really smooth transition and especially just making their scale colour random patches of black and white just doesn't feel right. HTTYD is known for it's realistic and grounded, more animalistic dragon designs, so I find it a bit weird that the Nightlights would go for such a oversimplified hybrid pattern.

Sure you could argue their pattern was inspired by spotted cats, but I think this would only work for a unique species, but Nightlights are hybrid, so it would be more realistic if the features of both of their parents would be more mixed up.

In the animal kingdom, when hybrids happen, most of the time, their fur pattern doesn't just have one area of one animal and one of the other, but mixes up in a natural way that doesn't scream patchwork.

Here you can see a mix between a lion and a tiger. See how the skull presents a balanced mix of both the broader shaped tiger skull and the lion skull ? How the stripes are subtle and fade out into the brown fur ?

Here you see a zonkey. The pattern might be a bit more obvious here, but still, you don't have delimited areas of pure white/black zebra stripes and then plain grey donkey fur. Here, the black white stripes are covered in greyish/brownish donkey fur and fade in with it.

This is the Grolar bear, a polar bear and grizzly hybrid. You've probably heard of these guys, since Polar bears start to venture more on continents. Anyways, here, you can clearly see how both the Grizzly Bear's anatomy and the Polar bear anatomy mixed. The skull shape looks more similar to that of a Polar bear, while still having it's unique look because it has been balanced out with the Grizzly bear's skull shape. It is not just a Frankenstein hybrid where we see a Polar Baer head and a Grizzly bear body, no, both mix up in a harmonious way.

The magic of genetics.

So for the Nightlights, even though the tail fin seems to be a mixture between Toothless' and the Lightfurys, I think pushing this aspect of hybrid animals would really help making them more believable.

Furthermore, scrapping away the patchwork colouring would also look nicer in my opinion. Since darker colours are often the dominant version of genes in nature (as you can see with the Grolar Bear btw), it would make sense if they where overall black, or of a dark grey. A fade out to lighter grey on the belly would also be an option. Since Nightfuries and Lightfuries seem to have a similar, leopardian pattern, there also could bee lighter markings that fade out from dark to more lighter shades in a subtle way.

The wing pattern could also be lighter on the under side than on the upper side, again, in a subtle way, not in a contrasting BLACK/WHITE way.

I don't know, these are just my opinions. I'd like to do fanart at some point, when I am not so busy and own an actual graphic tablet XD

[thekimspoblog]

Reasons JimKim would be bad parents:

Criminal record would prevent them from adopting through the regular channels.

Most of Jimmy's interactions with children so far have ended badly. "Contributing to delinquency" is pretty much his whole MO.

[Insert flamewar about all the reasons they shouldn't be together in the first place]

OLD.

Kim's mommy issues.

[Insert flamewar about whether this would even be in-character for Kim to want this for herself]

She'd never get through nine months without a cigarette.

The fanart of them as DINKs is already so good; why mess with that?

"The world needs more white people," said no one.

Reasons JimKim would be great parents:

Jimmy already loves novelty mugs, ugly ties, and bad jokes.

Exhibit A: Swimmy the fish.

Kim has already had to take on a stern but nurturing role working as a juvenile PD. I could easily see them fostering some preteen she took an interest in.

Sometimes cold and distant =/= bad mom. If the love is unconditional, what else is there to say?

They would accept an LGBT child completely.

That scene near the end of BB when Walt is still fuming and planning revenge, and Jimmy's like "You realize Flynn and Holly are basically out on the street right now, RIGHT?!". Low bar but the point is this job calls for an instinct to put others first.

If your kid reaches adulthood with a perfect respect for law enforcement and corporate property, it means you've failed as a parent. And Wexler-McGill would be doomed to make a lot of mistakes, but never that one.

They wouldn't even need to have the discussion: she's the breadwinner, he's the homemaker.

Bob and Rhea both have families IRL and it would be cute to pull from that.

[desmondkane-of-ao3-fame]

what do you think Skara's last name is?

You ask me a very simple question.

I spent 3 hours at work questioning my philosophy on headcannons, and what the line is between writing a fan interpretation of a character in another work and simply creating an OC.

I’ll answer this question, but let me just ramble for a bit.

Imagine a bubble. A big, red bubble that reads “SKARA” on it. This is, in fact, Skara. Or, rather, the purest version of her character, specifically from the show and any related cannon media. And surrounding it are other bubbles, each also labeled “SKARA,” but including the name of some fanfiction or fanart. These are the interpretations of Skara, the different ways people write outside of the writing staff make Skara as a character. The bubbles that are closer to the pure bubble are the ones closest to her show counterpart. The ones farthest out are the ones that stray enough that they feel almost like a completely different character.

Like, the bubbles closest to the main bubble are literally just written exactly like her in the show. No frills or fluff or extra details. What you see with Skara is what you get. And the ones furthest away are AU’s where she’s like, a werewolf queen who sustains herself on the souls of orphaned babies, sees the future in pools of blood, and hates music and sports. In other words, an OC in all but name, connected only at best by name and appearance to the original.

For me, I like to imagine I write Skara somewhere in the middle. I know the version of Skara I write for Tumblr and AO3 isn’t exactly the same as the one in the show. But what differences there are, I try to write expansions to the original character, as opposed to contradictions. I often write headcannons, for instance, that Skara is an excellent cook. There’s no evidence for this in the show, of course, but there’s no evidence against it either. So, technically, one can say that this is a form of Schrödinger’s Skara: she is, and simultaneously is not, a good cook. And until Dana herself comes out to answer if Skara can or cannot cook, or some other cannon material answers that question, I’m freely allowed to believe she is, and choose to believe it. Likewise, there’s not a lot of evidence really that Skara is a chaotic bisexual gremlin with a stupidly big crush on Willow. But again, there’s no evidence to suggest she isn’t. So I’m still able to claim I’m writing Skara, just expanding on her.

But I’ll never say anything, like, ‘Skara is a lesbian who would never ever date a man,’ because that doesn’t pass the smell test. She clearly went on a date with a guy in Grom. So at that point I’m just contradicting the original Skara in a way that feels too OOC to reasonably match with her in the show.

So you’re probably asking, what in the nine circles of Hell does any of this have to do with Skara’s last name?

Simply put, whenever I try to think of a last name for Skara, I can't imagine a new Skara bubble forming at all. Giving her a last name makes me not think of her as Skara.

Names are important to identify a character by, far more so then just if they can cook or not. So if I decided to say, like "I headcannon that Skara's last name is Smith," now I feel less like I'm talking about Skara, the character from TOH, but Skara Smith, my OC that happens to have every defining characteristic of Skara from TOH, but still isn't her at all. Even if I gave Skara a last name, and Dana herself came out to say that the last name I gave her was correct, it would feel like I had separated my Skara too much from the original for her to even have a real hint of her essence. That's why I don't really give her a last name at all in any of my writings.

And yes, I've named characters surrounding Skara: Guitar Strings names her date from Grom as Ves, and I often write that Skara's Palisman is named Daisy. But those are just things that surround Skara, barely characters outside of her. Giving HER a name though... that... that's a bit more of a tall order for me.

HAVING SAID ALL THIS!

Here are a few suggestions I can think of for potential last names Skara might have. Just know, these aren't me saying "These are what I headcannon Skara's last name as," it' me saying "These could make potentially cute last names for Skara."

Brae - If you've ever searched up Skara without specifying 'The Owl House' or 'The Greatest Character Ever,' you've probably heard of Skara Brae. You can read about it from it's Wiki entry here, but essentially it's the incredibly well preserved, neolithic remains of a Scottish village. And more importantly in this case, probably where Skara got her first name. So making her last name Brae would be fitting, though admittedly a bit of a silly and lazy answer.

Bell - A bit of a more musical name, tying in with her status as a Bard, and one I like a bit better then Brae. For one, it ties more directly into Skara's personality, and it's more simple to understand. I also like that it somewhat sounds like Belle, as in the French word for beauty, which would fit her well. Finally, I can't deny that I now want a Christmas themed Skarlow one-shot called "Skara Bells," about Skara looking for the perfect gift for Willow during the holidays (which I've written about before here).

Strist - Not actually a real word, but an intense conjoining of the term "strategist," which is how I could best think to make a name to tie into her time as the Entrails strategist.

Cendre - The easiest of these to explain: It's simply French for 'ash,' like Skara's ashen hair.

Admittedly, I'm not particularly amazed with any of these answers, which is probably another reason I don't have a last name for Skara. But still, I hope you like these suggestions, and if you ever want to use them for a story yourself, I'd love to read it.

(Also, let's be real: We all know in the end it's gonna be Park anyway.)

[stackslip]

7, 9, 12, tlt?

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

nobody understands gideon/harrow to the point where i'm kinda bitter seeing any fic or fanart of them bc i feel like there's a huge chance i'd get into a fistfight with the op lmao. i mean the fact that the name of the ship is popularly griddlehark (as in like, the derogatory nickname harrow gave gideon while having absolute power over her and it's treated like a cute soft thing and not representative of the poison between them)....... and also 99% of fandom's take on them is gideon being an ideal soft butch boyfriend to her poor pathetic fragile (coughs self insert) harrow and nothing else so i'm like ALRIGHT ONLY FIVE MUTUALS ARE ALLOWED TO LIKE GIDEON/HARROW AND THE REST OF YOU ARE BANISHED

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

i try not to look for tlt fandom opinions bc most of them are bad. but for the love of g-d, as fun as the drama of the nine houses can be, lots of people have genuinely convinced themselves that it's a fun gay royal rp type of situation and not, you know, an empire built on literal death and destruction that destroys everything around it and rots its own people from the inside out. look basically if you're going to do AUs where gideon is the emperor's daughter and she and harrow have a cute romantic comedy courtship, do you really have to make the nine houses into some quirky queer bridgerton thing. we all have fun AUs but i'm always like.............. is this really what you think the nine houses are in this specific story

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

where's my gideon the first appreciation. his life is a fucking nightmare. his identity is never his own. his relationship with pyrrha is so interesting. he's never given the time of the day either by the narrative or by anybody really, and i find it telling that of the remaining adult lyctors (not couting john) he was the only unambiguously brown man, a soldier and tool for empire whose brain was destroyed from the inside out, and nobody seemed to give a shit about him or even his passing except for pyrrha. it's so fucking sad man.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

All right, it’s that time of week again. Last week I ended up screenshotting like half the episode and stopping to comment nearly every few seconds, at times. But I can’t keep that up every week, so I’ll try to comment less this time, I have shit to do. I mean, I don’t, I’m waiting on a potential job offer at the moment but in the meantime have fuck all to do. So we’ll see how this goes.

Thoughts on Taskmaster s15e03, written as I watch it.

- Solid beginning-of-episode banter this week. I’ve said before that I think the funniest ones are when they have Greg accuse Alex of being right-wing. And it’s followed by Alex accusing Greg of “going all wacky with the scoring”, and giving out nine points or one point or seventeen points. I assume they just stick these auto-cue things wherever and it’s not a specific reference to anything, but that does fit in well after the very up and down scoring of the previous episode. Good start. I also like the prize task, lots of room for differing definitions of “heroic”.

- Oh, Ivo. It was such a good idea. Worked in Greg’s love of food-based prizes, Greg’s love of Greg-based prizes, and some wordplay with Hero chocolates. The fact that I was so impressed with the description makes the screenshot even funnier, for how much of a contrast it is to see something so disappointing. 

Do we think Ivo made that himself? Normally with something like that, I’d assume the production crew made it. They probably did in this case, I guess. But I can picture Ivo making that.

- Ivo:

Me: And we’ve now brought back what I was talking about in the first episode, where Mae and Ivo are the two people competitive enough to put effort into pandering to Greg just for a few extra points, but when Mae does it it comes off as impressively calculating, and when Ivo does it, it comes off as desperate. Not because they do it particularly differently, it’s just the difference in their personas.

Ivo:

Oh good, glad we’re on the same page.

Also, great screenshot, I feel like the way they’re all looking at Ivo and his desperation really summarizes the group. We can’t even see Frankie’s face but we can still see he’s mentally calling Ivo pathetic. Jenny’s game to play along, and entertained by the strange display. Kiell’s not having it, shaking his head. And Mae’s glaring at him like, “Being competitive enough to pander to Greg is my thing, how dare you steal it?”

- 

...I would like to apologize for suggesting Mae and Ivo were the only people on this season willing to go that far for points.

- 

Okay, it’s possible that everyone but Frankie would throw their own cat under a car in order to win this season. I approve of that level of play.

- Kiell’s prize actually turns out to reference the Enrique Iglesias song, making him the second person to do a play on the word “hero”. I approve of that level of play.

- Okay. They’re going to relase an outtake or something with uncensored screenshot of Frankie Boyle’s prize, right? They can’t just leave us with that.

You have to zoom in a little to see it, but I enjoy this screenshot of everyone looking at Frankie Boyle’s image of explicit superhero fanart, because of the one person who isn’t looking at it. Mae Martin is looking at Frankie with an expression that makes me remember their stand-up set from like 2015 in which they mentioned reading explicit Harry Potter fanfiction, specifically of the Bellatrix/Hermione variety, as a teenager. They’ve heard of this before.

- Actually, I rewound the video after writing that point becacuse I’d missed a bit, this screenshot from right after they first put Frankie’s prize on the screen is pretty good too:

You know, when it was first announced that Frankie Boyle would be on this show, there was a lot of talk about how weird that would be, given that Frankie’s known for being an evil scary bulldozer or whatever, and this show is a fun light entertainment. And I said I’m excited to see Frankie show how much that isn’t true, how he is very vulgar but the most definitive features of his comedy aren’t even about that, they’re about the fatalistic attitudes and attempts to tie together disparate philosophies. One of the few reactions to Frankie’s casting that I heard and thought was actually accurate about Frankie Boyle came from Nish Kumar, who said Frankie is very well read and intelligent so that’ll be interesting. Nish made it sound like Frankie should be grouped more with the Victoria Coren-Mitchell type of contestant, the really book smart people thrown into another world (not that it works out well for most of them), than with people known for being scary and angry. I think this is true.

…Having said that, I’m pretty sure Frankie Boyle just became the first person to ever bring in explicit pornography as a Taskmaster prize (correct me if I’m wrong, because I could be forgetting something, I’m pretty sure even Rhod Gilbert didn’t go as far as that), and that would be exactly what someone would expect if all they knew about Frankie Boyle came from YouTube compilations of his “most savage” Mock the Week moments and “audience annihilation” stand-up. However, despite all of that, I think I continue to approve of this level of play.

- Me, when I first woke up this morning: How come this old post I made last year suddenly got a bunch of new notes?

Me, after seeing this:

Ah, that would explain it.

- Slightly weaker entry from Mae considering their strong prize task efforts from the last couple of episodes, but I did enjoy them calling Ivo a coward for no reason whatsoever.

- I think Frankie got underscored here, but he was overscored in the prize task from the first episode so it evens out.

- I can’t stop thinking it so I’m going to say it one fucking time and then I’ll be done, okay?

Mae Martin looking really pleased with themself in a white shirt is... that’s pretty good. That a pretty good thing. I mean, if I were Charlotte Ritchie, I know which one I’d choose (no fault of Kiell’s, as people of his gender are rarely my top choice in that type of thing). Sorry, I needed to mention it. We can all move on now.

- …Starting to wonder if there might be anything problematic in my continued jokes about the idea the Mae Martin and Kiell Smith-Bynoe are competing for the affections/hand in marriage of Charlotte Ritchie, just because they both played her partners in sitcoms. Feeling the need to clarify that I am aware that Charlotte Ritchie is a person with her own autonomy, I just think the phrase “battle of Charlotte Ritchie’s husbands” is funny. Okay, now we can move on.

- I’ve enjoyed this greatly so far, but my first proper laugh out loud of the episode didn’t come from any of the prizes, it came from Greg telling Alex to “get fucked” over a time/thyme pun. I approve of that level of play, Alex.

- Oh, I really like this task. A good level of difficulty, I think. And lots of room for different methods on both time keeping and word listing.

- Frankie immediately makes a good point - I bet stand-up comedians are, on average, better than most people at keeping time in their heads because they have to know how far they are into the allotted time for their set. I was just thinking of that last night, when I was at a comedy show and the comedians got no indication of the time until the guy running the night came to awkwardly stand in the corner and indicate they had to wrap it up (the actual comedy clubs have a red light, this pub has a guy who stands there awkwardly, it’s rather less subtle). I thought if I ever tried this, I’d put a timer on my phone and leave it somewhere visible to me, but the comedians I saw didn’t do that. So I guess people do get used to keeping time in their heads, with practice.

I assume all of these people are now going to fuck it up and disprove this theory, I’m just saying it makes theoretical sense for Frankie Boyle to be right that stand-up comedians should be able to time twenty minutes in their heads.

- Damn. Frankie Boyle’s Taskmaster instincts are obviously weak, not even noticing any of the devices that were clearly put there so people could try to figure out how to use them (students of the game Mae and Ivo will be all over that stuff, and I imagine Kiell and his competitiveness will also be looking for tricks). But his stand-up instincts remain strong. Doing 23 minutes when he was supposed to do 20 sounds like what Frankie would probably do in a comedy club normally.

Jenny Eclair not so much, but to an amusing degree. I did like her system of repeating the same word over and over, and then she was so pleased with herself for coming up with it that she got too into it that and lost track of time.

- Alex:

Me: So Ivo loses his mind in a caravan and they’re saving him for last. Great.

- Having now seen Mae and Kiell’s attempts, I feel this is a sort of play about the generational divide. Frankie and Jenny rely on their innate sense of timekeeping, a skill developed over years of applying their trade. The younger ones, Mae and Kiell, try to find tricks and shortcuts that will give them the answer. But then, they find that their tricks don’t work, those new-fangled devices like watches and clocks on top of caravans fail them, because we should never rely on devices alone, we need to have our own independent skills like our ancestors did! But then, in another twist, the young people adapt to this development, rely on their wits and their instincts, and it ends up actually working. Mae’s last-minute instincts worked even better than Frankie’s careful skill, and Kiell’s worked almost as well. And they both worked much better than Jenny’s, because when I say the older people had the skills I really just mean Frankie, it turns out Jenny Eclair has no idea how long a minute is.

- Right, I was expecting Ivo to lose his mind. Wasn’t quite expecting him to forget how to count to 40.

- I feel like this is a pretty good screenshot for summarizing what Taskmaster does to people:

- Actually I think this is a more thorough summary, because it still shows us a guy staring in bafflement at a row of hour glasses and saying “Mississippi”, but it also includes the omnipresent sense of Alex watching and judging them while they fall apart:

This one captures that especially well, with Ivo literally framed in a window like he’s a zoo animal put there for Alex’s enjoyment.

- Oh, Ivo found the clock. And it appears to actually be working, I’d assumed Alex was joking when he said it was working at first and just broken for Mae. That’s not really fair to Mae, if they only didn’t get a non-working clock due to rain. However, it’s not going to help Ivo unless he knows what time he went in there.

- And he just tried to pull it through a sunroof that’s barely half its size.

- I do not understand what Ivo is doing. He’s now using the clock, the hourglasses, and has shouted at random people on the street. The latter of which is not a bad idea. How could would it be to live near the Taskmaster house and just walk around out there during filming days, in case someone needs to shout for help with a task, or Johnny Vegas needs to bag you like a Christmas tree or something? Anyway, Ivo seems to have done some math that is based on the assumption that he’d been in the caravan for 13 minutes, but doesn’t explain how he got to that assumption.

- Oh shit, it kind of worked, though. The overall lesson here is that no careful system works as well as just throwing stuff at the wall and making shit up.

- Oh, the tension at the end. You know, I thought I caught Kiell’s mistake with the world length while they were showing his video, but then I got distracted by Mae and figured I probably imagined it. I didn’t catch Mae’s though.

- After we learn that Jenny Eclair gets three whole points despite her terrible time, we get a screenshot that I think might also summarize the generational divide, this one in whether they know how to spell words:

Also, I did not think of Jenny’s trick to just use the same word over and over, but the obvious thing to do would just be to list 40 four-letter words, right? That can’t be that difficult, there are so many of them. Or if that’s too hard, 20 of four letters and 20 of 3. Or split it into 4, 3, and 2. That has to leave less room for error than the system of starting with a really long word and getting progressively shorter. Is what I did think earlier in the task, but then I got distracted by seeing Mae try to climb on a roof, and I forgot to write it down. But at the end, we see that yes, it turns out it was important to create a system that leaves little room for error.

- Ooh, first look at the indoor section of the location tasks:

Interestingly desolate and mildly creepy, I like it. Also, it seems that they are sticking with a potato theme for this season.

- They’re also sticking with the “callbacks to season 2″ theme, it seems. Last week they had a potato bridge, and a potato across the untouchable red green task. This week it’s reminiscent of the live task that very controversially won Katherine Ryan the season when they had to throw rabbits into their hats.

- Never mind, I was wrong in my initial assessment. They’re not throwing things into their hats like in season 2. It’s much more like the season 6 live task, when they had to sit there and let things fall, and catch some things but not others.

- Okay, this has created more proper, out-loud laughter than anything else this episode. Well done, Alex, you were absolutely right in your theory that it’s very funny to watch comedians sit on a chair and get hit on the head with objects.

- This is basically a cartoon:

- Jenny Eclair’s uncontrollable laughter while being pelted by potatoes is fucking delightful.

- There has to be a better way to do it than that, a way to get more than four points. But not a way to have more fun than Jenny, probably.

- I just saw Ivo refuse a pen because the task said they can’t touch anything, and that’s an interesting point. I understand the impulse to argue that, but I don’t know how you would. They all touched their hats and the stool.

- In another slightly adjacently season 2-related thing, the person putting stuff on the machine happens to look like Lucy Beaumont:

- And they’ve found a trick. But like with the people who wrote it down or memorized it, it immediately becomes clear that knowing the pattern doesn’t help you all that much in the heat of the moment for this task. This task isn’t about memorizing or reading patterns, it’s about comedians getting hit on the head with stuff, and Jenny Eclair laughing really hard on a stool.

- Apparently I wrote the previous point too soon - knowing the pattern doesn’t help when you fall apart as hard as Ivo, but Mae had it for a while! Of course Mae had it, how could I have doubted Mae? Again: Mae calculating, Ivo desperate. Mae staring intensely at the wall pattern, careful to not to lose focus for a moment. Ivo sitting back and narrating his own defeatist breakdown while being pelted by potatoes.

- Current episode title drop tally: Ivo 2, Frankie 1

- Holy hell, it looked like Mae had done well but it was hard to tell if that was just editing. But no, I’ve just heard the scores and it turns out Mae Martin’s brilliant. Also, I haven’t yet heard the verdict on the touching thing, but it’ll be ridiculous if anyone gets disqualified, unless they all do. They all touched the hats, at least. Ivo held the task (like, the physical paper on which the task was printed) the whole time. Everyone touched stuff. You can’t enforce the rule about touching literally nothing, because it can’t be followed. They had to touch their clothes and their shoes and the air.

- Again, I don’t think Greg let anything “slide” there, it’s an unenforceable rule. But it does mean Jenny leaned over to confirm the result with Mae, and Mae responded with a good enough smile to make the silly debate worth having.

Okay, okay, now I’m done talking about that, really.

-

Excellent. I’m right with you, Greg. 

- And it’s a team task! I haven’t seen the task yet, but good start if we know they’ll be taking these particular teams and making them do unreasonable and prolonged violence together.

- 

I’d call this a different type of awkward, but almost an equal level of it, to their first meeting last week, when they could barely even look at each other. I have no idea what’s going on, but glad to see it’s developing laterally, instead of into any sense that anyone is going to relax. Now bring on the violence!

- Before I learned who was in the season 15 cast, if you asked me what screenshot I’d most like to see appear on a Taskmaster episode someday, this one would look pretty fucking good:

- This one’s pretty good too, actually:

- Other stuff aside, it is interesting to have them do it in slow motion and then speed it up. That has to be a complicated thing to figure out and might cool or might be a disaster. Nice addition to the task. Also weapons. Weapons are a good addition to any task.

- 

Good stuff. Someone cast these people in an action movie.

- All right, the Kiennae (does that one work?) fight gave me several significant laughs, well done. Obviously pitting the other two against Jenny was the right call. The weapons were well used. The umbrella was a lovely touch. Made use of the shed. Also, this is a big episode for Jenny Eclair having the time of her life. I see why they got her on the podcast this week, she’s loving this.

I’d happily watch this task get put into every episode. Different fight each time.

- Okay, I don’t know what I expected from the Franko fight, but that was… actually quite good. I was ironically saying the previous one looked like it could be an action movie, but this one had it down. The initial stuff with Frankie and Ivo had proper choreography.

And then… could they spin a narrative here? I haven’t watched the studio bit yet, but I’m going to say if they wanted to, they could argue that this was social commentary. Posh Englishman starts a fight with working class Celtic man (I mean, Frankie hasn’t been able to claim working class for a long time, but he was once), fights for a bit but then calls in servants to fight the battle for him, as they kick his opponent to the ground while the posh man reads a book about flower arranging. It’s an allegory for British history. There’s an argument that there’s a narrative here, and Greg loves a narrative.

- Okay, I had a couple of seconds of being disappointed that their narrative was one of eviction notices an not of historical allegories, before being hit with the news that those were Frankie Boyle’s actual children kicking the shit out of him. Holy hell, that is so cute. The real narrative is that the evil scary bulldozer comedian is an actual human, with a family, and that is genuinely absolutely adorable.

- Good scoring, I’d have been genuinely annoyed if Franko had gotten fewer than five points for that. That was excellently done.

- I often write less about the live tasks than other tasks in these long posts, because by the end this has taken up so much time and I just want to watch the episode without pausing to write stuff down all the time. But obviously I need to screenshot this:

Also, I love this task. That’s one of my favourite forms for Taskmaster to take, just going to an absurd degree of specificity. Not to be too dramatic about the words “Know the most facts about sausages”, but I feel like that’s both the heart of what sets this show apart and the essence of Alex Horne’s sense of humour, taking something like that and pretending it’s serious, and playing it so straight with desks and a sausage exam.

- 

One of the fun things about British slang that I did not know until I read David Mitchell’s autobiography a few years ago is that “swot” means “nerd”. Ivo, you fucking nerd, but in this case, I mean that in a very good way. That’s two out of three live tasks in which Ivo has done something awesome. Calculating and desperate, and it paid off. I approve of that level of play.

[moonlightreal]

Winx news roundup

We’ve got a bit of season nine news and Straffi’s thoughts on the cancellation of Fate.  ‘Cause Straffi gonna Straffi!

 First via Winx Club Rus comes the news that season 9 will move from the preschool channel Rai Yoyo to an all ages channel Rai Gulp, that showed previous seasons.  This suggests that Rainbow may be having second thoughts about pointing Winx to ever younger audiences.  Hooray!  Interesting this happens right after Fate ended. 

Be cool if they decided to bring back WoW to try to appeal to the older audience.  I don’t think they will, but I liked WoW and I’m sad we missed Baba Yaga!

Also this picture is gorgeous.  I don’t know if it’s an early season 9 concept from before they decided to reboot the original costumes, or just fanart, but I like a pretty picture.

Next up we have posts by the man himself!  Straffi rarely speaks to the fans (which I think is smart of him) but he spoke up about the cancellation of Fate.

I’m not sure why he’s upset about how the news of fate was delivered; “it was cancelled” is pretty much the normal thing isn’t it?  At least the show didn’t drag it out or just ghost us like shows sometimes do!  Maybe they’re more polite about it in Italy.

Also there’s some shade thrown at the creators of Fate.  The discord I’m in was all over this accusing Straffi of throwing Brian Young under the bus and kinda yeah but also kinda, it’s true?  The people Netflix chose to make Fate made Fate to be the non-Winx saga and I’m not surprised Straffi is minimizing Fate as part of the Winx franchise now that it’s over.  It’s just so different from the image of “Winx” that must be in Straffi’s head.  Of course, if it was successful and brought Rainbow more piles of money would he have embraced it?  Quite possibly!

And Straffi immediately goes to how he’s gonna make a real, big budget live action movie with sparkling transformation sequences.  Hah!  You tell ‘em, Straffi!  I really hope he succeeds.  But yeah that was definitely not the politest thing ever to the Fate people.  Be nice Straffi, a lot of people worked hard and did their best and they deserve kind words.  It’s only the few showrunners who made the decisions to make Fate what it is.

All in all this is good news.  Our beloved animated show may not turn into a preschool show!  Straffi is pushing for a live action movie that could be Winx’s own PGSM!  And Fate was Fate.  Fate as a strange outgrowth of the Winx story, maybe a misstep but still another piece of story and its own added canon, and Fate as its own thing.  Even as Fate: Tales from Elemental Academy I have mixed feelings about the show but it’s not utterly awful.

...I say that while I put off writing up the last two episodes to watch Enola Holmes 2 and Rings of Power and whatever, and now I’ve got another batch of essays to write.  Look forward to more Fate writeups after I finish!