#art fight 2022 defenses

[cherryvampiro]

 Next generation creek kids (ft. 2022 art of MJ, Nancy, &Sonya) Introducing The Flower Scouts: Troop Honeysuckle & The Alvarado kids Jaime & Laura 🌼🌼I’ll write a little about them below:

Troop Honeysuckle:

 Troop HS are a girl scout group that fill in the role for the scouts in the future. Just like their predecessors their main goal is to protect the wildlife & kids of the creek (Though in a less assertive way compared to he original). They all follow under their scout master Shawn and when he isn’t present, Stevie fills in the role as troop leader. 

Stevie: Stephanie “Stevie” is the eldest of the trio (12). She joined the scouts at the age of 7 both out of curiosity & to help her get more settled in the states. Stevie speaks 3 languages: Spanish, English, & American Sign Language. She’s an openminded girl who’s happy to learn new things.

 Penelope: Penelope (10) is levelheaded chilled out kid. She carries with her all sorts of helpful & useful things in her backpack. Band-Aids, hand sanitizer, rope, snacks, you name it she has it!! Penelope’s reason for joining the scouts was cuz of her mom hoping it’ll help her focus more. Penelope often gets lost in the clouds and completely zones out on everything around her. So it may take a couple hollers to ground her back to earth. 

 Regina: Regina (8) is the daughter of Big Red & Boris. Regina wanted to join the scouts so she could be just like her dad. Reggie’s more of the muscle/crowd controller of the group, with her loud voice & stronger than average 8 yrs strength, she can really clear an area. Under that tough shell though she’s a real sweetheart! She knows more about the animal wildlife than the others. 

 The Alvarado Kids:

Jamie: Jamie “Two Punches” (9) is the son of Kelsey & Stacks. This little dude loves boxing with the passion! You’ll rarely ever see him without his red gloves. He spends his time at the creek practicing throwing swings at trees. Jamie’s called “Two Punches” cause he throws one punch as a warning & then a second to put down/knock out his opponent (inside & outside the ring if anyone tries it). He’s a good sportsman and would never fight outside of self defense. Jamie also has a habit of calling everyone “Coach”, including his moms. 

 Laura: Laura (10) is the daughter of Kelsey & Stacks. She’s a selective mute who doesn’t say more than a few hums. Unlike her brother she spends most of her times in the library with her mama (Stacks) instead of exploring the creek. When she does explore the creek she often brings her pet cockatoo, Cantaloupe, with her. Laura likes to write down what she’s seen or done at the creek. Her moms often encourages her to share her writing in a live journal but she’s too shy to want to do that just yet. 

 That’s all I have for these kids!! Sorry I didn’t draw more outside of them just standing there 💦 I love making silly character designs for this show & thinking of a future of these characters 💖💖 Thanks for reading!! 💗💗

[iincogneeto]

Kny oc concept art (WIP)

meet kanan! she uses Breath Of Steel.

Breath of Steel. (a sub-type of stone breathing) Users train to be tougher than normal—the breathing style focuses mostly on increasing strength and speed. The idea is to make rigid and fast movements that force the enemy to yield. Defensive movements are stiffer so as to try and inflict damage back on the attacker. Strikes a very good balance between defense and offense, but movements are comparatively less fluid than other breath styles. Basically, Users aim to be a tank. They can get hurt and dented as steel can, but like it, won’t break easily. The user learns to not care about injuries and keep fighting. No matter how many times their steel like body gets dented or scratched.

technically, kanan already exists as a character! I made her in June 2022! But I just now made her a kny oc! (so i basically made another version of her.)

Feel free to ask questions about her! (or ask how your ocs would interact with her)

[tacoma-narrows]

Art Fight 2024 - In Review

I saw some other people doing this and it seemed like a fun idea to gather all of the stats n stuff into one place!

Attacks Made: 57 (17 of those being friendly fires) My all time record! Defenses Received: 58 Mass Attack Inclusions: 5 Total Points Earned: 1889 Longest Revenge Chain: Level 6 with @macaronichewtoyz!

Every year, I feel like one or two of my characters get a ton of attacks over the rest of them, and this year was no different! It probably comes as no shock but this year's Art Fight winners in terms of attacks received are Seabreeze and Luau! They both got 11 pieces! Though to be fair most of those were of the two of them together lol. If you count one piece I drew with Luau in it, that bumps her up to 12, but I was mainly counting pieces I got from other people here ^^

Here's my full Art Fight OC roster, ranked by how many pieces they each got! If an OC has (+1) next to their number, that means that I drew them as part of an attack rather than getting something from someone else :]

Luau: 11 (+1) Seabreeze: 11 PBnJ: 9 (+1) Rhazz: 8 Soda: 7 Tarmac: 5 Shep: 5 Firecracker: 4 Doppler: 4 Astro: 3 (+1) Starburst: 3 Eejanaika: 2 Agouti: 2 Spatter: 1 (+1) Wilkołak: 1 Rye: 1 Pumpernickel: 1 Moxie: 1 Isaac: 0 Pebble: 0

Then just for fun, here are each year's standout OCs: 2024: Luau and Seabreeze (11 attacks each) 2023: Wilkołak (6 attacks) 2022: Starburst and Moxie (4 attacks each) 2021: Pebble (4 attacks) 2020: PBnJ (12 attacks) 2019: Doppler (7 attacks)

First Attack: Beautiful Mystery! of Choco for MacaroniChewtoyz!

Final Attack: Hit the Power Chords! for KittenPlush!

Highest Point Value/Most Characters in 1 Attack: Hold Your Breath a Little Longer, Let's Go Dancing Underwater! with 10 characters, netting 361 points!

Favorite Attack: Stay Punk Forever! for MacaroniChewtoyz!

Thank you everyone for a fantastic Art Fight and for all the amazing pieces I got of my characters this year!! This year's OC art shirt is gonna go hard hehe. I had an absolute blast with it this year!! Like I said, this was far and away my most productive AF ever, and probably would have been even more so had I not lost the last week of the month to my friend visiting (not that I would have changed that for the world though <3). Hope you all enjoyed the firefight too! Here's to next year!

[speedwalkingtheplanes]

Willow characters as D&D classes and races not because I can't sleep, but because I don't want to write tomorrow's session

Unlike my Percy Jackson version of this post, Willow has pretty clear ties to D&D, especially the 2022 show, so I'm not really going to be changing characters' races for this list. For all intents and purposes, they could be played in the world they're in, rather than adapted into a high-fantasy setting like I did with PJO. That said, I will be taking a couple of liberties with it, and trying to make it at least a little interesting. Same rules as the last one: minimal reflavoring, and no hombrew or unearthed arcana.

Willow Ufgood: Halfling Transmutation Wizard. Yeah, I know that all of the magic-users in the Willow-verse are referred to as sorcerers, but I think there's some nuance between how they use magic, and Willow, despite his intuition, certainly does not find his magic born within him. He doesn't necessarily have a natural gift for it, but rather finds careful study and many of years practice aiding him in becoming the magician he is by the time of the series, not to mention receiving a spellbook at the end of the movie. I struggled for a little while to decide what his subclass is, as we only really see him doing generalist magic. That said, war magic or order of scribes are out, seeing as he isn't a battlemage at all, nor does his spellbook play as important of a role as a scribe's would. So, considering his feats of returning Raziel to her human form, and restoring the Galladoorn warriors, transmutation feels like the most apt option for him.

Madmartigan: Human Swashbuckler Rogue/Battle Master FIghter. I had initially thought Madmartigan would be a champion, but thinking back on his fight against the Nockmaar soldiers, I think it's fair to say that he exemplifies the Art of War qualities that are so prevalent in the subclass. Swashbuckler is much more clear-cut. He nails one-on-one combat, and certainly has the high charisma necessary for the class, not to mention how he aids Franjean in picking the lock on the cage.

Sorsha Tanthalos: Human Hexblade Warlock. We don't see a lot of Sorsha's capabilities, so I'm gonna play flavor far more than mechanics with her. We know that she is a skilled fighter, and we see some of that, but I like the idea that her patron is her mother, and her pact ends after Bavmorda's defeat. She's certainly charismatic enough to trick Madmartigan into letting down his defenses enough to allow her a chance to escape from him, and was seemingly quite the leader in the quest for Elora, so I don't feel that this is too much of a stretch.

Rool/Franjean: Fairy Fey Wanderer Rangers. These two are interesting. I had almost made them gnomes, but I think them being fairies themselves (alongside the other Brownies) makes a bit more sense. They're definitely rangers, what with their affinity with animals, tracking abilities, and association with other fey creatures.

Airk Thaughbaer: Human Crown Paladin. We don't see a lot of Airk, but given that Madmartigan named his son after him, I think it's reasonable to put him on this list. He's kind of the ideal Galladoorn knight, fighting for country and fellow man against the forces of darkness. While I definitely think he's a paladin, other sublcasses might work for him.

Bavmorda: Tiefling Undead Warlock. Bavmorda being a tiefling is really only because she has the name "The Demon Queen." (And yes, I know that tieflings are infernal and not abyssal, but there isn't an abyssal race in D&D, so this is what I've got.) Her class and subclass seem pretty clear-cut. We find out in the series that she had made a pact with the Withered Crone, so she's clearly a warlock, though whether she's undead or undying is up for debate. In all honestly, they really aren't any different, and undead is just better.

General Kael: Human Berzerker Barbarian. Kael's so cool, but we also don't see much in the way of his combat ability. He's certainly very skilled, and he can also take a beating (the man took a sword to the face, and then kept fighting after getting stabbed), not to mention his shouting about "Now you die!" That feels very much like a raging barbarian to me.

Kit Tanthalos: Human Champion Fighter. Champion was my first choice for Kit, but I thought that I should dig deeper for her and kept trying to find something else. I've seen people say that she's a swashbuckler, or a battle master. I've even seem some people say that by the time she has taken the Kymerian Cuirass, she's gained three levels in artificer and become an armorer. And I hate all of that, because it's all too damn much. I think Kit's most important arc as a character is learning that she isn't the invnincible fighter she thought she was, and that her main character syndrome doesn't actually make her the main character. As far as that goes, I came back to champion, because I think the simplest fighter subclass conveys that journey really well.

Airk Thanthalos: Valor Bard/Oathbreaker Paladin. Airk is really interesting to me from a character creation perspective. He's clearly high charisma and low wisdom, and he isn't too shabby with a sword. He could very easily just be a paladin, and the Crone's corruption caused him to be an oathbreaker, but he's just too charming for me to not make him a bard too.

Jade Claymore: Human Samurai Fighter/Devotion Paladin. I've seen a lot of people say that Jade is a battle master, and while I see it, I think Samurai is a significantly more interesting choice for her. She's definitely not an average knight, and we can clearly see her wisdom in her fighting and her decision-making. As for paladin, Graydon aptly points out that her devotion is her driving force on the quest. If it's that important, than I'd say it counts as an oath.

Scorpia: Human Scout Rogue. There isn't a lot to go on for this one, unfortunately. She's clearly well-versed enough in combat to beat Jade, though I'd argue that she's simply a higher level. Being a scout would be beneficial for the forest-swelling Bone Reavers, and we see her have some skill with a throwing knife, which feels much like a roguish quality to me. (Ignore that Airk Thaughbaer also kills someone by throwing a knife.)

Thraxus Boorman: Human Berzerker Barbarian/Swashbuckler Rogue. I figured that Boorman was a barbarian/rogue early on, and was pleased when I saw some other people saying the same thing. I don't think Berzerker really fits him, but the only other non-magical barbarian sublcass is battle rager, and that fits him even less. (Seriously, there needs to be more non-magical barbarian subclasses.) It is possible that he never made it to three levels of barbarian, and just has a one or two level dip. (If i were to optimize him, it'd be two levels. That way reckless attack can be used to proc sneak attack at any opportunity.) I also don't think his rage is purely angry, but instead reflavored into sorrow that is masked with humor. As Madmartigan's squire, it makes sense that they would have the same rogue sublcass, and we definitely see Boorman's charisma shine through the series. Plus, like Madmartigan, he can pick locks. Ish.

Graydon Hastur: Human Lore Bard. Yeah, he's said to be a sorcerer in the show, but the man casts magic with his flute and gives other characters inspiring pep talks. If that doesn't make him a bard, I don't know what does. College of lore because he's very booksmart, and collects dead languages and ancient stories like an old lady collects little spoons.

Elora Danan: Protector Aasimar Divine Soul Sorcerer. And finally, the chosen one herself. I really wanted to make her wild magic, but divine soul unfortunately just makes more sense. I feel that of the sorcerers in the franchise, she's the only one that's actually a sorcerer. We don't know anything about how Raziel's magic works, so there's really no figuring her out, and Cherlindrea is more of an archfey than anything else. Elora, on the other hand, has an inborn aptitude for magic. She still has to practice, and reads Willow's spellbook, but that's more about control than power for her. As the child of the prophecy, and the one destined to defeat evil and unite the lands, it makes sense to me that she would be an aasimar, a divine being imbued with the power of celestials. She also has the chef feat.

There's certain characters that I left out, either because we don't see enough of them for me to properly gauge what they might be, or I think they'd be better with monster stat blocks than character sheets. But maybe I'll revisit this later and figure out characters like Silas, Lilli, and Ballantine. In any case, let me know if you disagree, I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks.

[girljeremystrong]

✨best books i read in 2022 in no particular order✨ 

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang (2021)

This "memoir of an undocumented childhood" is a beautiful story of a family who cared for and looked after one another and of a child who had a lot of fears but was at the same time wonderfully brave and curious and determined.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (2011)

This is the story of Elena and Lila, two childhood friends living in a rough neighborhood on the outskirts of Napoli. We follow their story, narrated by Elena, until they become teenagers, when their paths diverge and their friendship is transformed forever.

Persuasion by Jane Austen (1817)

Persuasion tells the story of a second chance, the reawakening of love between Anne Elliot and Captain Frederick Wentworth, whom eight years earlier she had been persuaded not to marry.

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin (1956)

This is the story of David, an american man living in Paris, living off the little money his father is willing to lend him, while his girlfriend is in Spain, On a night out he meets a young bartender named Giovanni and goes home with him.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders (2021)

Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works, how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger (1961)

When Franny’s emotional and spiritual doubts reach new heights, her older brother Zooey, a misanthropic former child genius, offers her consolation and brotherly advice. These two stories offer a touching snapshot of the distraught mindset of early adulthood and are full of insightful emotional observations and witty turns of phrase.

Jazz by Toni Morrison (1993)

a passionate, profound story of love and obsession that brings us back and forth in time, as a narrative is assembled from the emotions, hopes, fears, and deep realities of black urban life.

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (2021)

This is the story of Ailey and her ancestor's journey in America through centuries, from the colonial slave trade to our days. We meet Ailey when she is a child and watch her grow up, until the moment when, as a college graduate, she embarks on a journey to uncover her family's past.

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart (2022)

Growing up in a housing estate in Glasgow, Mungo and James are born under different stars--Mungo a Protestant and James a Catholic--and they should be sworn enemies if they're to be seen as men at all. Yet against all odds, they become best friends.

Real Life by Brandon Taylor (2020)

Almost everything about Wallace is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he is working uneasily toward a biochem degree. But over the course of a weekend, a series of confrontations with colleagues, and an unexpected encounter with a straight, white classmate, conspire to fracture his defenses.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach (2011)

This is the story of Henry Skrimshander who gets recruited by a small college to play baseball and quickly becomes the star of the team, and of Mike Schwartz, the baseball team captain who recruited Henry, and who doesn't know what to do with his life, as his relationship with Henry becomes more and more co-dependent.

Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett (2022)

Emma was set to start med school but her father got sick with a brain disease and she decided to go back home to New Hampshire. At home her dad and her mum are in a fight, her brother is just out of rehab her childhood best friend is missing and Emma’s dad started seeing ghosts.

This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920)

Amory is a boy with family money who attends a private high school, and then Princeton and then gradually becomes disillusioned with life.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (1999)

Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations.

Fight Night by Miriam Toews (2021)

It is told in the unforgettable voice of Swiv, a nine-year-old living in Toronto with her pregnant mother, who is raising Swiv while caring for her own elderly, frail, yet extraordinarily lively mother.

Scoop by Evelyn Waugh (1938)

William Booth is a young man living in the countryside, writing for a newspaper little colums about nature, and he is sent by mistake (he has the same surname as a much cooler novelist) to the fictional country Ishmaelia to cover a war for his newspaper. Various other little mishaps ensue.

Maps of our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer (2022)

This is the story of Lia, Harry and their daughter Iris, a beautiful loving family. Iris is a teenager and has to navigate all that comes with that while, at the same time, learning to live with the fact that her mum's cancer has come back, and doctors are telling them it's terminal.

Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897)

When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon afterwards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (1937)

It narrates the experiences of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers, who move from place to place in California in search of new job opportunities during the Great Depression in the United States.

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah (2016)

The memoir of one man’s coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1952)

It is the story of an epic struggle between an Santiago, an old, seasoned fisherman and his life's greatest catch of fish, after eighty-four days that he has set out to sea and every time returned empty-handed.

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925)

One day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway. She is getting ready for a party she is hosting at her house. It is also a day in the life of a young veteran, Septimus who fought in WWI and got shellshocked: his last day. The two move around London and think back to episodes of their past.

Peril at End House by Agatha Christie (1932)

Poirot is vacationing in Cornwall, meets young "Nick" Buckley and her friends. He is persuaded that someone is out to kill her.  Though he aims to protect Nick, a murder happens that provokes Poirot to mount a serious investigation.

[mariacallous]

If U.S. President Joe Biden wants to check the pulse of the arsenal of democracy, all he has to do is look at Bill LaPlante’s wall in the Pentagon. The U.S. Defense Department industrial chief’s office is covered with production charts for every weapon that the United States is building to fend off a potential war with China while helping countries such as Ukraine and Israel fend for themselves in wars of their own.

It’s like an electrocardiogram of the U.S. defense industry: There’s a line going up to count the number of units moved and a line going sideways for the time that it took to move them. There are production rates for the Patriot missiles that the United States has sent to the Middle East to provide backup for Israel, the sea-launched Standard Missile-6 that the United States has deployed to the Indo-Pacific to potentially bloody China’s nose if it launches an assault on Taiwan, and the guided multiple launch rockets—known as GMLRs—that helped the Ukrainians liberate Kherson and the areas around Kharkiv in a one-two punch to the Russian army in 2022. “It’s a whole stair step,” LaPlante told a small gaggle of reporters at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California in early December 2023. The chart, he said, “keeps going and going.” And even though business is booming, Defense Department officials are facing a problem from hell. How can the Pentagon mobilize the U.S. defense industry to respond to not just one conflict or two, but potentially three wars? Foreign Policy talked to a dozen defense ministers, officials, and experts across the NATO alliance. They described an almost Sisyphean task to rebuild the trans-Atlantic—and trans-Pacific—defense industrial base to fight three wars not during a world war, but when much of the Western world is at peace. “We are moving from a just-in-time, just-enough economy model to a peak demand model,” said Dutch Adm. Rob Bauer, the chairman of NATO’s military committee, in an interview in his office at the alliance’s Brussels headquarters in October. Much like the manner in which the Western world had to convert factories at dizzying speed to produce protective medical equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic, Western leaders need to “make sure everybody understands the sense of urgency of where we are,” Bauer said. Officials are still trying to figure out what the right number is for every weapon on LaPlante’s chart. What makes planning especially difficult is the friction of war. Nobody expected the war in Ukraine to suck up thousands of artillery shells every single day, year after year. Few thought that Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip would exhaust precision-guided munitions in a couple of months. If the United States were in a war with China over the Taiwan Strait, it could run out of long-range precision munitions within a week, according to one study.

There was a time when the United States could turn plowshares into swords; in the Second World War, the United States built more of pretty much everything than any other combatant, from tanks to planes to ships to landing craft. Then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it the “arsenal of democracy” because it was. In five years, U.S. factories built 141 aircraft carriers, 88,410 self-propelled guns and tanks, and 257,000 artillery guns. 

Now, Washington is trying to get back in business after three decades of post-Cold War belt-tightening that saw companies merge and production lines slow down. LaPlante said that the Pentagon has built a facility in Texas that has the capacity to surge 155 mm artillery shells as needed. Boeing is growing its capacity to build sensors for Patriot missiles at its Huntsville, Alabama, facility by nearly a third. In Europe, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic are becoming major producers of ammunition. Germany is buying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of artillery shells while Rheinmetall sets up shop inside Ukraine. Sweden, Denmark, and Norway have begun jointly procuring 155 mm barrels for Ukraine. And the Swedish manufacturer Saab—which no longer makes cars—is producing so many diesel-electric submarine hulls that it’s even looking at Southeast Asia as potential clients. Building industrial muscle means that the Pentagon needs to rebuild long-atrophied bureaucratic muscle, too. LaPlante has deputized a so-called “joint production cell” within the Pentagon, comprising defense officials who are visiting production floors. It’s not just a question of getting scientists and dollars, but also of getting factories full of skilled welders, assemblers, and foremen. “It’s dusting off a lot of skills that we’ve had in this country that we haven’t used in a while,” LaPlante said. 

But there’s a bigger problem, too: It’s one thing to assemble shells and missiles, and another thing altogether to assemble higher-end gear such as the B-21 Raider stealth bomber, which runs at about $750 million per airplane, with a production line that snakes across three U.S. states. Building the aircraft is so complex that U.S. officials have compared it to the nearly four-decadeslong process of building the interstate highway system.

Some of the weapons still have to be funded. Congress has already agreed to fund SM-6 and GMLRS. Other projects, such as the Pentagon’s plan to get up to 100,000 rounds of 155 mm artillery produced by 2025, need Congress to pass the supplemental budget, LaPlante said. With Congress out for the holidays, that’s on hold until at least January. And across the Atlantic, the European Union has fallen far behind its target of producing 1 million artillery rounds per year to feed Ukraine’s voracious appetite for ammunition while replenishing NATO stockpiles. 

But when LaPlante and other Pentagon officials go into meetings with industry and members of Congress to tout their plans, they face two big questions about the United States’ military-industrial buildup. Are they going to pull the plug, especially as Congress wavers on additional U.S. military aid to Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel? And even if they’re for real, are their plans even enough? 

When it comes to putting shells in barrels, since December 2022, the U.S. industrial base has doubled its output of 155 mm ammunition, growing it from 14,000 rounds per month to between 28,000 to 30,000, LaPlante said. U.S. Army officials hope to get to 60,000 rounds per month by September 2024, and to the magic number of 100,000 rounds per month by the end of 2025. 

The Pentagon has put about $3 billion toward the ramp-up so far, the price of about four B-21 bombers, sprinkling contracts across five U.S. states and three countries. 

The European Union is producing between 600,000 and 700,000 artillery shells per year, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur told reporters in November, well short of the 27-nation bloc’s 1 million shell goal, which it hopes to reach next year. To support Ukraine and recapitalize its own stockpiles, Europe will have to reach about 3 million rounds per year in the next 10 years, Pevkur said. 

But Ukraine’s appetite for artillery ammo is voracious, about 6,000 shells per day at the peak of fighting this year— and the shortage of U.S. military aid is already causing troops to hold their fire on the front lines. The pain of growing the arsenal is hard, Western officials concede, but the pain of losing the war would be far worse. 

“There is no option but to rise to the occasion in this regard,” Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson said in an interview with Foreign Policy.

And when it comes to so-called smart bombs—weapons with GPS guidance kits built in—the situation is even more dire. Despite the United States allowing Israel to raid precision munition stockpiles in the region, more than half of the air-to-ground weapons fired into the Gaza Strip since October have been unguided “dumb bombs,” according to U.S. intelligence reports. 

All of that is without accounting for the weapons needed to fight the next war: ships, submarines, sea-based missiles, and coastal defenses. China has done everything short of invading Taiwan, though it has vowed to do so at some point soon. In a naval fight, shipyards count as much or more than hulls in the water, and there the United States is beached. Even when it comes to what the United States is really good at—building and operating high-end nuclear submarines—they are artisanal affairs. The rest of the U.S. Navy is shrinking while China’s is growing. “We’re spending 3.3 percent of GDP on national defense and you’re building a paltry 1.2 subs” a year, said U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I don’t think that is making [Chinese President] Xi Jinping quake in his boots.”

The United States has to outsource its defense procurement, as do most countries—which, in the long hangover of the post-Cold War era, means a very rude awakening. Some NATO countries, such as Poland, which keeps more of its defense industry in state hands than most other member countries, can expand production lines on the back of public spending. 

The United States can only prod and pray—the Pentagon’s own soon-to-be-released industrial strategy indicates that defense companies wouldn’t be able to respond fast enough for the U.S. military to fight a modern war.

For instance: The biggest bottleneck in sending GMLRS and 155 mm ammo to Ukraine is the lack of rocket motors, said Heidi Shyu, who oversees the Pentagon’s technology strategy. So the U.S. Defense Department has initiated a parallel effort to make sure that rocket motors get built, too. But it’s a slog.

“Ramping up production is not like a light switch, where you can flip the switch and bang, you can tenfold your production,” Shyu said. “You just can’t do that. Every country that has the ability to ramp up production is in the process of ramping up.” 

Further down the food chain, the U.S. Defense Department is running into problems; there aren’t enough testing beds for new weapons systems, for example. There aren’t enough good programmers to write good code. And there aren’t enough little things that go boom up and down the U.S. supply chain to feed all of the Ukrainian gun barrels, let alone those of other allies.

Europe is feeling the same crunch. 

“What are the smaller obstacles? First, fuses. Second, gunpowder. Third, shells.” said Pevkur, Estonia’s defense minister. “You have to be able to solve all of these small details in order to be ready to produce more rounds.” U.S. partners are getting creative, given the lack of backup. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced a 1-million-drone target to build one-hit kamikazes that can strike Russian troops deep behind their lines. They’re conducting do-it-yourself air defense with obsolete Soviet-era munitions. And Taiwan, still stuck in a billion-dollar backlog of U.S. weapons sales, has started doing F-16 maintenance on its own. 

But none of that is going to restore the arsenal of democracy, whose shelves—already bereft, if not barren—aren’t getting restocked like they used to. 

“There is an end to every stockpile,” Bauer said. “There’s an end to it.”

[peculiar-potato]

My Art Fight 2024 Stats & Summary!

(This might be really boring but I like numbers and this is my tumblr so too bad)

For starters, here’s my progress on the Art Fight Bingo card, almost blacked the whole thing out! I hit a lot of categories with the same attacks, so to avoid too much repetition I decided to fill in the blocks with attacks I thought fit the brief the best, even if they weren’t the first one to check it off.

A few things of note, compared to previous years:

I had 28 level 1 attacks I needed to revenge (not counting chains). This most direct revenges I had to do so far! (Previous record was 21 in 2021). Essentially a lot more people attacked me first this year!

My attacks to defenses ratio this year (including mass attacks I was included in) was 42.2%. This is my lowest ratio of all the years, and the first time it fell below 50%. I did revenge everyone but I got a lot of attacks back for my mass attack so I technically received more art.

I did 38 attacks, which is my second-lowest amount of attacks (I did 31 in 2018). This was because my mass attack took up a ton of time, and now it just takes me longer to make attacks of the quality I want to.

18 of those attacks were friendly fire, which ties for the most friendly fire attacks in a year (I also did 18 in 2020), but friendly fire overall made up a higher percentage of my total attacks this year.

I had at least one character included in 19 mass attacks, which beat my record of being included in 12 in 2021. (Worth noting that between both 2022 and 2023 I was included in only 8, so I was not used to this many ahah).

This year my mass attack scored 9609.75 points, which absolutely destroyed my previous personal record of 3750.25 in 2021.

That helped my total points scored this year land at 12445.75, which is way more than previous years, my previous record being 7340.75 also in 2021.

In general, my fan characters took my art fight by storm, receiving wayyy more attacks than any of my original characters, which hasn’t happened before! I think a big contributing factor to this was all the mass attacks I was included in, but still, it was really interesting!

This year’s “fan favorite” (character who received the most attacks) was actually a tie between two characters- Twelve and Cyrus, both being included in 12 (aha) attacks each! Gray was a pretty close second being included in 11 attacks.

New/different things I did this year:

A lot more animation! I’ve done tiny bits here and there, but this year I actually fully animated a few attacks (including my mass attack)

Also my giant amv mass attack lol. So much fun but so much work ahah.

A traditional art attack! I’ve never actually submitted a traditional art attack in all my years of art fight despite originally being a traditional artist before I got into digital art in like 2017.

More comics! I did quite a few comics as revenge, (usually as revenge for others’ comics), and those were really fun too.

A lot more character interaction! I included my characters in attacks on other characters more, usually as revenge for people who already drew our characters together. Building off of other attacks and kind of “continuing the story” when I got a coupe comics was really fun.

Bonus doodle reward! Whoever was the first to draw one of my characters for the year got a bonus mini-doodle in my cartoony style of the character of theirs I attacked/revenged with. This was in an effort to try and get more of my characters attacked instead of people just focusing on some of the same ones. I don’t know if it actually made that much of a difference in getting more of my characters attacked, but it was kinda fun. I almost forgot to add the doodles though sometimes ahah. I haven’t decided if I’ll bring that back next year or not

Overall I had a great time! I would say this has been my favorite year of Art Fight so far, beating 2021 which was my old favorite. Only disappointment is not getting to do quite as many attacks as I wanted to due to time constraints- there were a few people I wanted to attack but didn’t get to. In general though, this year was awesome, and I’m sad to see it end. Already cooking up some fun ideas for next fight though!

Here’s a few screenshots from my overcomplicated spreadsheet that break down some of the numbers!

[thezeinterviews]

B. T.: Rare interview with Ukraine's First Lady: There are things he doesn't say to me

Jeppe Elkjær Andersen

Apr 16, 2024 - 19:04

They see each other once a week at most - and there's a lot he never tells her.

She lives in an extremely special marriage. And now shares some rare details about life with Ukraine's world-famous president.

After more than two years, the war has left its mark not only on Ukraine, but also on its people.

No one has symbolized the Ukrainian people more than President Zelenskyj and his wife Olena. She admits that the hard times have also affected her as a person. She does so in a candid interview with B.T.

"War changes everyone," she says, looking up with sad eyes.

Before the Russian invasion of her native Ukraine, the former screenwriter suddenly found herself in an unfamiliar situation.

Her husband, the famous comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyj, had become President of Ukraine. Now she had to take on the role of First Lady of all Ukraine.

A completely different life.

However, the title of First Lady took on a whole new meaning on February 24, 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine.

Suddenly, her husband was world-famous and she had to find a way to be there for an entire nation that was in a fight for its life. A fight for its existence. A fight for her soul.

Both she and President Zelenskyj had to show strength in an almost impossible situation.

"You can't be brave when everyone around you is discouraged. It's a fairy tale," says Olena Zelenska, who B.T. met with Berlingske at a hotel in Copenhagen during the First Lady's second visit to Denmark.

"The image that people see of us is the result of a lot of work, where we try to communicate to the world that the Ukrainian President will lead the way in diplomacy. We are just more visible than others. But the real heroes are the Ukrainians who are defending us on the front line right now," she elaborates.

The first weeks and months of the Russian invasion were filled with despair in Ukraine.

Then came a period where Ukraine beat back the Russian invasion forces in several places.

But over the past several months, the situation has become difficult again.

First, a long-awaited offensive did not lead to the breakthrough many had hoped for.

And most recently, Russia has pushed Ukraine to the front line, while Ukrainian infrastructure is being bombed almost daily.

Morale is hard to keep up. But Olena Zelenska and her husband have a job. They must remain positive and hopeful.

Here they look inwards, says Olena Zelenska.

"I remember the first months of the war with the defense of the Kyiv region, when the people took matters into their own hands. It gave hope to the Ukrainian people."

She continues:

"Now we have to find our strength again. We must find it in our history, in our art, in our culture. Because we are up against an empire that enslaved us for hundreds of years. Now we have a chance to be free of it, forever. And that, I think, is what keeps us going."

The job of a First Lady in an invaded country can obviously be difficult.

Olena Zelenska doesn't see her husband as often as she would like.

Maybe once a week.

Here, they try to do things together that make time feel more normal.

"Sometimes... when things are difficult, I ask him to tell me something optimistic, something. And then he might tell me about a new military aid package. As a civilian, I don't understand how it will help us, but it often makes me happy," says Olena Zelenska.

She makes it clear that she doesn't get involved in things that are only for the president and his cabinet.

"That's how it is. The president is the president. He doesn't tell me about his plans, his deals or state secrets."

However, when there is the rare occasion that they do have time to spend some private time together as a couple, they have a fairly simple thing they resort to in order to cheer each other up.

"We like to watch movies together. For some reason, we like to watch movies from our childhood that we haven't seen in years - stupid comedies - just to relax. Just have an hour where you don't think."

As a family, when they get together, there are always private matters that need to be discussed. Just like any other family.

"We always have something to talk about. Our family, our children. There are always family things that we need to talk about, solve some important problems, make decisions," says Olena Zelenska.

But it's not just talk they take care of. Both Olena and Volodymyr have worked with humor in their previous lives.

And that's why it's important for them to laugh.

Even if the situation is unreal and brutal.

"We try to help each other remember to laugh. Somehow to laugh. But we don't always succeed," says Olena Zelenska.

And here she and her husband can draw on the Ukrainian history and culture that Olena Zelenska believes is so important for the survival of the nation.

"The Ukrainian poet Lesya Ukrainka described in a famous poem how to 'laugh through tears'. We try to laugh, not cry," says Olena Zelenska.

Article

[im-captain-basch]

Kairo, your fighting-type gym leader for the Pokemon Trainer AU

Oooh he ourple.

Kairo is the Unova region's fighting-type expert, and a master of martial arts in his own right, taking post in Opelucid City. He is very serious as a martial artist and pokemon trainer, having been trained under the same type experts from different parts of the world. Despite this, he is very encouraging to those he battles and always has wisdom to dispense, whether he emerges victorious from the fight or not. In addition to his duties as a gym leader, he also owns a dojo that trainers can visit to help up their pokemon's less stellar stats.

Kairo is a Unovan native, and has ancestry from all over the world. Although he enjoys martial arts, he prefers it more as a way to stay active, but will gladly instruct anyone who wishes to know it for self-defense.

His team consists of:

Taeko (Mienshao, female, Careful nature)

Lee (Throh, male, Relaxed nature)

Shu (Sawk, male, Jolly nature)

Ryu (Lucario, female, Bold nature)

Hugo (Hawlucha, male, Sassy nature)

Ripple (Poliwrath, male, Modest nature)

Some additional fun facts:

-Similar to other characters, Karate goes by a different name in the AU for simplicity... and also because it felt kind of weird for people to know his actual name while calling him something that deals with his profession outside of being a gym leader. While it was going to happen anyway, this change was not actually implemented until this posting. From my brief research, the name he uses here can mean either "victorious one" or "master" depending on the origin you're looking at.

-Of course his trainer inspirations are the various fighting-type experts over the course of the series. The appearance is mostly inspired by the clothing of various forms of martial arts.

-Karate/Kairo as the fighting-type gym leader was actually chosen by poll! He was up against the other three "kong" bosses from Jungle Beat, and is the only one who got more than one vote.

-I mentioned a really long time ago that there were three characters that I had to redraw. Karate/Kairo is one of them, being one of two that I drew but was unable to post before my computer went fucky-wucky in July 2022. His and Taeko's design here is mostly redrawn from what I remember of the original.

-He and Wrinkly were neighbors as children.

-The fighting-type experts he's trained under include Marshall of Unova's Elite Four (at least in regards to his youth) and Mustard of the Isle of Armor.

-Kairo is quite fond of bluk berries, so much so that he has a patch of plants of them that he grows himself. If he happens to find himself with an overabundance, he'll give the berries to his gym trainers or sell them to shops for a reasonable price despite their rarity in the region.

[heartsforseo]

Hi, I have a request I'd like to make. I didn't see if you were taking requests at the moment, so I'm kind of assuming you are and if your not sorry for bothering you. But, regardless I have a request. Fem!reader who's a member of the Straw Hat Pirates, and it just sweet lolita core fashion to the MAX.

Like fully, frilly dresses everyday, tall heels with stocking, a but lode of accessories, a parasol, ect. Just like the reader having a really lolita esc fashion, but also like draculaura from monster high.

Like the reader wears poofy skirts, corsets, vests, tall heels, stocking, parasol, Victorian and lolita inspired outfits. And they like short, 4'10 to 5 foot, with just the cutest face with the iconic hear shaped beauty mark under their eye. Black and pink striped hair, they are just super cutesy.

I feel like that's a good contrast to every one else on the crew, because they all have their own varying personalities and aesthetics but none are like super cutesy and bubbly with a lolita aesthetic.

And even if the reader looks really cute, they are also really dangerous in their own sense. Because like anyone who fights them their just gotten totally underestimate how strong the reader rlly is, like a 4'10 girl that looks like she wouldn't harm a fly, powerful? A total joke.

But, the reader has a devil fruit sorta like Daki's blood demon art from demon slayer, because Daki can create obi sashs from her flesh that are super powerful, sharp as a blade and very versatile in offense and defense. But instead of obi sashs it could be like large ribbons to fit the readers aesthetic, and the ribbons could come out of anywhere bc it makes it better.

Hope this request made sense, have a wonderful day and thank you for reading this^^.

Hello!! I really love Mori Kei and Acubi. I find Lolita outfits so cute and would wanna take pictures w/h ppl wearing them BC GOD DAYUM THEY LOOK SO GOOD!!!

Anyways THIS is the story THANKIEE!!!

i ws also thinking of the Hatsune Miku AMP Figure (Latidos 2022 Ver.) Prize Figure

[catty-wumpas]

Homestuck Secret Santa 2022 (Late edition) For : @monggay

My part of this year’s @homestuckss event.

Included is a surviving excerpt of The Execu-Cretary’s Diaries, a multipart action novel in the much maligned Ashen Facilitator-surrogate genre. It was being optioned for Alternian Cinema, shortly before the Dooms Day which destroyed the Empire (being widely considered a good move for the art of cinema). The series follows an ambitious 10 sweep old Jade blood (Harley Bequel), whose defied the norms of her caste to become a highly esteemed, and professional Execu-Cretary entangled in the corporate intrigue of Alternian Military Fashion: Sitting between the two most powerful women in Military Fashion, careening through Capital Prime’s streets in the luxury scuttlier at twilight, should have been more exciting. Just being there had answered a sweeps long quest to achieve high and move into the highest echelons of the Empire’s Execu-Cretary cadres.

But here it was less than 3 hours into my first duty-shift and I was bored. The worst possible thing for an on duty Execu-Cretary. 

There wasn’t even nerves. Nerves at least made you more likely to act in an emergency. Boredom made response slow, and meant more danger than ever. Nerves are something you get around someone who commands respect.

The Two Women I was assigned to, powerful magnates with untold influence, had started bickering even before getting into their scuttlier. The Argument had remained the same the entire ride into their office: ‘Were shoulder epaulettes  truly in this year’?  Aradia, who was the more reserved of the pair and surprisingly from the burgundy caste, and she felt strongly against them. Terezi, the teal blood, was much more interested in just having an the argument. 

Even a hard as nails, professional Execu-Cretary like me could see these two were in obvious Vacillations ... And the thought dawned, as an ashen lump in my throat.

‘This argument wasn’t for my benefit, was it?’ I asked myself, a cold sweat forming on my skin. Oh no, the last thing I needed was to be drawn in as the facilitator for a Imperial level power couple...

The blurb on the back of the novel promises a glimpse into the corridors of power, the lap of luxury and wealth, the intrigue of Military Fashion, corruption that spans the hemospectrum, and at least 3 Biotronic Ninjas fights. Owing to her wide array of combat skills, physical prowess, and a  ‘veritable armory’ of gadgets at her disposal Harley can handle any  threat that crosses her path... But she has no defense whatsoever against the two troll’s she  assigned to protect; a distant Burgundy blood with a mysterious past and a mischievous Teal gremlin and their Vacillations for one another. 

[usafphantom2]

With NATO membership imminent, Sweden and the US sign a new defense cooperation agreement

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 08/12/2023 - 00:07in Military

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, and Swedish defense minister Pal Jonson signed a bilateral Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) on December 5, strengthening military ties between the two nations, which will allow bilateral exercises and new joint acquisitions and will further pave the way for Sweden's integration into NATO.

The agreement “will allow greater defense cooperation, such as the legal status of U.S. military personnel, access to areas of deployment and the pre-positioning of military material,” said Pentagon spokesman Brig. General Patrick S. Ryder told reporters: "The DCA also creates the necessary conditions for U.S. military support when requested and is therefore an agreement of great importance for both countries." More details were not provided immediately.

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Sweden and Finland, who have long been neutral, applied to join NATO and, although Finland has been admitted to the alliance, Sweden's accession awaits the approval of Turkey and Hungary.

Jonson, speaking on December 5 with the Atlantic Council, refused to provide a schedule on when he expects the final obstacles to Sweden's accession to be eliminated, only saying that this will be "soon".

B-1 bombers first landed in Sweden in 2023.

“Turkey has granted Swedish guest status, saying that it is not if we are going to become members, but when... and we hope that this will be resolved as soon as possible,” Jonson said.

About the DCA between the US and Sweden, Jonson said: “This will make our close partnership even closer. It will create better conditions for U.S. forces, both to use Swedish territory as a preparation and base area, as well as for exercise, and it is also a deterrent. Therefore, the DCA will be a new cornerstone in our bilateral cooperation."

He later said that the U.S. military presence in Sweden “is important” for NATO integration and that the DCA will guide U.S. investment in the region.

Jonson's observations focused on how Sweden will integrate its armed forces into NATO and argued that Stockholm is already highly aligned, both operationally and technically, with NATO standards.

As an example, he cited last year's "Silver Arrow" exercise with the U.S., saying that it was Sweden's largest exercise in 25 years and highlighted the need to pay attention to logistics and maintenance, and the ability to "fight for a long time".

He noted that the Nordic countries of Norway, Finland and Denmark already work together militarily and all now have DCA with the U.S., which should accelerate and improve NATO interoperability in the Scandinavian region.

Sweden was one of the first members of the Partnership for Peace (PFP) - sometimes called "NATO Light" - created during the Clinton administration to establish a path for NATO membership for other European countries and for the former Warsaw Pact nations. The PFP has defined a series of steps, from joint exercises to common equipment and training standards, necessary for membership, and Sweden fully embraced all of them, Jonson said, and sent its troops to serve alongside NATO forces in Afghanistan, Kosovo and Libya.

“We are linked to NATO's regional plans,” he said, and Sweden offers not only state-of-the-art land, air and naval forces and grassroots opportunities, but also experience in Russian intelligence issues.

"Intelligence is also an asset that I think we can bring to the table, to the alliance," Jonson said. "Sweden has a lot of Russian experience. We have strong capabilities in our intelligence communities. We have sensors that can work on our submarines and also on our surface fighters and also on aerial sensors."

T-7A jet developed by Boeing in partnership with Saab.

Sweden, despite having a population of only 10 million inhabitants, also has a defense industry capable of building armored vehicles, submarines, corvets and combat and command and control aircraft, and is manufacturing 155 mm ammunition for Ukraine, along with Denmark and Norway. The SAAB JAS39 Gripen is a frequent competitor to the U.S. F-16 and F-35 in international competitions, and its GlobalEye airborne alert and control system often faces Boeing's E-7 Wedgetail. SAAB is a partner of Boeing in USAF's T-7A Red Hawk advanced trainer, and Sweden's Gripen fighters carry US-made AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles and are powered by GE Aerospace F414 engines.

Sweden is “fully in favor” of NATO's objectives that each member devote two percent of its gross domestic product to defense and 20 percent of that amount to new equipment and research and development, Jonson said.

“Sweden doubled its defense budgets by 2024 compared to what we were in 2020,” he said. "In five years, we have doubled [expenditures]... and next year we will reach 2.1 percent of GDP and we also have an upward trajectory."

In addition, Jonson said that Sweden spends “actually 56% when it comes to acquisitions. Therefore, we obtained a very good score in terms of investments and also in innovation."

NATO membership will give Sweden greater security to deter a possible aggression by Russia, which continues to wage war against Ukraine, and Jonson said that Sweden also wants to do its part to prevent Russia from a series of new attacks.

"If Russia succeeds in this war, I fear that other countries neighboring Russia, such as Moldova and Georgia, will feel increasing pressure and that there will also be increasing pressure on the Alliance. Therefore, be sure that the United States has a partner in Sweden who shares the unity of purpose of supporting Ukraine for as long as necessary,” he said.

Russia outlined plans to regroup from losses in Ukraine and “return with a greater force” in 2026, Jonson added, which will require vigilance and will not diminish support for Kiev from NATO and the European Union. There is a “window of opportunity” for NATO to maintain the pressure to ensure a desirable outcome in the war, he added.

Most of the Swedish electorate – 65-70 percent – supports NATO membership, Jonson said, and 88 percent of the seats in parliament were won “by those who want to join,” Jonson said. They recognize that Russia's aggression is an immediate danger and requires an "evolution" in thought.

“Sweden is no longer being defended within Sweden,” he said.

Tags: Military AviationFlygvapnet - Swedish Air ForceJAS39 GripenNATO - North Atlantic Treaty OrganizationsaabUSAF - United States Air Force / U.S. Air Force

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Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has work published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. Uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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[historyhermann]

Ashly Burch’s Contribution to LGBTQ+ Representation

Four of Ashly Burch's roles, all of which are canon LGBTQ characters

Recently, Ashly Burch, a well-recognized voice actress, singer, and writer, came out as pan and queer. Taking into account this development, I decided to examine some of her past roles and offer my thoughts on her contributions.

Reprinted from The Geekiary, my History Hermann WordPress blog on Feb. 11, 2023, and Wayback Machine. This was the forty-eighth article I wrote for The Geekiary. This post was originally published on July 30, 2022.

On July 1st, Ashly Burch came out as pan and queer, saying she is "old fashioned pansexuals". She added that this is not a shock because half the characters she plays are "members of the rainbow fam" and added more in a longer thread.

Burch has added herself to the list of other LGBTQ+ voice actors who have voiced LGBTQ+ characters in media. There's Anna Akana, a bisexual actress of Japanese and Filipino descent. She recently voiced Sasha Waybright in Amphibia and Daisy in Magical Girl Friendship Squad. Both characters are bisexual.

A non-binary actor, Iris Menas, has voiced non-binary characters in various Disney series. Ian-Jones Quartey, a bisexual creator, has voiced various characters, including Radicles "Rad" in his series, OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes. Abbi Jacobson, a bisexual actress, voiced a bisexual princess named Bean in Disenchantment. She also voiced a lesbian woman named Katie Mitchell in The Mitchells Vs. the Machines.

In many ways, Burch is definitely a queer icon. Apart from her video game voice roles, live-action roles, commercial roles, and dubbing roles, there are five roles that stand out to me. This article focuses on those roles and their significance in LGBTQ+ representation.

Ash in Hey Ash Whatcha Playin'

Ashly with her beauties in Season 1 - Finale Part 1 of Hey Ash Whatcha Playin'

In May 2008, the series Hey Ash Whatcha Playin' first premiered on Destructoid. It would garner tens of millions of views. The series used surreal humor and sibling rivalry with her brother Anthony. Each episode focused on video games, and their themes, trends, and societal impacts. In 2011, the series began airing on YouTube. Papa Burch, Burch's actual father, and Ashley "Leigh" Davis, who becomes Anthony's girlfriend, also appear. Guest stars include Burch's mother and many others.

Many episodes had queer themes. One implies that Burch had sex with sex workers. In another, she says things can be "really gay" when everything becomes male genitalia. The icing on the cake was when she struggled with the homophobia exhibited by Orson Scott Card, whose ideas inspired the game, Shadow Complex.

In the show's second season, Anthony had gay sex through a message board. Ashly asked her dad for help with "lady problems" (i.e. liking a lot of women). Some episodes had Ashly joking about how brains are "gay" and defending her brother as a person who doesn't bash gay people. Others included dildos, Papa Burch coming up with imagined gay scenarios, or defense of female characters.

One episode stands out from the lot, the one where Ashly says she likes pretty girls and runs away when she sees a girl she likes. Later episodes have Ash loving a female villain-of-sorts or portray her losing her cool when people use the word "lesbians".

Enid in OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes

Enid (left) and Red Action (right) in an episode of OK K.O.!

Burch is known for her role as Enid Mettle in this action-adventure-comedy animated series by Ian Jones-Quartey, Rebecca Sugar's husband. In the series, Enid is a bisexual woman previously in a relationship with Radicles "Rad". She is later Red Action's girlfriend.

Enid has a key role in OK K.O.! as a witch and a ninja all in one. She also fights villains and works at Gar's Bodega. Burch has voiced Enid in almost all her appearances apart from the original pilot. She has been the subject of much fan art and over 700 fan fics.

Somewhat like Enid is Lainey in Loud House, who Burch also voiced. Lainey is dating another character, a woman named Alice. Unlike OK K.O.!, Lainey only appears in two episodes. In the former series, she becomes very romantic with Red Action, a lesbian character voiced by actress, comedian, and model Kali Hawk.

Ash in Final Space

Evra (left) and Ash (right) in an episode of Final Space

Burch is less known for her role as Ash Graven, who has the same first name as her. In the series, Ash is a humanoid alien who strikes up a romance with Evra (Jasmin Savoy Brown), a genderless being, in the Season 3 episode "Forgiveness". They sit together in a romantic moment, watching lights that resemble the aurora borealis.

Before this, she says she hates a man named Jordan Hammerstein with all her guts. This hints that she is a lesbian rather than  "ambiguously bi," as I noted in my review of the series. In that review, I noted a podcast where show creator Olan Rogers confirmed Ash as an LGBTQ character. At the time, Rogers said he would expand the relationship between Evra and Ash if he had another season.

Ash is only one of the many LGBTQ characters in the series, although the others are recurring characters rather than protagonists. Unlike Enid, she becomes an antagonist, and villain, akin to Cassandra "Cass" (Eden Espinosa) in Tangled. She is a character as complex as Cass while both are exploited by someone else who plays on her trauma triggers.

Rutile Twins in Steven Universe

Rutile Twins (right) brings Lars and Steven to the Prime Kindergarten where Off Colors are hiding out in their debut episode.

In a little-known role, Burch voiced a non-binary Gem fusion named Rutile Twins in Steven Universe. She later said she was "extremely honored" to be on the show. Unlike the other characters she voiced, these characters are non-binary women, as are all Gems as Rebecca Sugar confirmed in a 2018 article. So that makes this character unique beyond any others mentioned in her resume.

In an interesting trivia, since Burch voices both components of the character, they have the same voice, but with different tones. The same is the case for the Amethysts, all voiced by Michaela Dietz, or all the Rubies voiced by Charlyne Yi. Real-life rutiles are said to help with the stabilization of emotions and relationships. They reportedly evoke romantic feelings and aid with handling past trauma.

The Rutile Twins are outcasts who are part of a group of Gems ostracized by society, the Off Colors. These Twins later join Lars Barriga, and the other Off Colors, traveling through space, and living on Earth. In Steven Universe Future, the Off Colors graduate from Steven's school for Gems, known as Little Homeschool.

Molly in The Ghost and Molly McGee

Andrea (left) and Molly (right) in the "Andrea Song Takeover"

Burch voices a lead character named Molly McGee. Unlike her other roles, Molly is half-Thai and half-Irish, like Burch in real life. The series incorporates Thai culture into storylines and helps educate viewers about Thai culture.

In The Ghost and Molly McGee, Molly befriends a ghost named Scratch after moving to the Midwestern town of Brighton with her father, mother, and brother. Also appearing in the series is Molly's grandmother. She meets many friends there. This includes a Latine and Jewish girl named Libby Stein-Torres (Lara Jill Miller). She also has a geeky friend Sheela (Aparna Nancherla) and a sweet pink-haired friend, Kat (Eden Riegel).

Although Molly is not a canon queer character, some fans have shipped her with her frenemy, Andrea Davenport (Jules Medcraft), with their ship being Mollandrea. Others have shipped her with Libby Stein-Torres, with their ship called Mollibby. This ship has been denied by Bob Roth, a show creator, who said that LGBTQ representation unfolds naturally in the series.

Closing thoughts

There are many other characters Burch has voiced or played since her career began in 2007. She voiced Josette Grey in Blackford Manor and Tiny Ghost in Chainsaw Richard. She offered her voice as Lila Twinklepipes in Pig Goat Banana Cricket, Meadow Springs in Trolls: The Beat Goes On!, and Miss Pauling in Expiration Date, along with others in Over the Garden Wall and We Bare Bears.

She is further known for voicing Bun Bun and Breezy in Adventure Time, Ridley in Glitch Techs, and Cass Wizard in Bee and PuppyCat. Recently, she played Rachel in Mythic Quest who is in a relationship with a Black woman named Dana (Imani Hakim).

Many of these roles aren't canon LGBTQ+ characters. However, since Burch came out as pan and queer, this could lead to new interpretations of these characters. Burch was also a writer for "Shadows at the Gates", the fourth episode of The Legend of Vox Machina, a mature animated series filled with LGBTQ+ characters and based on the Critical Role podcast.

In the end, Ashly Burch will likely continue to voice queer characters, working with other such actors to continue improving queer representation in media.

© 2022-2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

[dropintomanga]

Manga I Enjoyed in 2022

Happy New Year, everyone! I know this is somewhat late, but better late than never. I originally wanted to do this in a video format like I did for my favorite 2021 manga. But after some health issues that started late last year and finally went away this month, I decided to write about my favorite manga of 2022 instead of recording myself in an awkward manner.

Here we go!

Honorable Mention: Choujin X by Sui Ishida - This title reminds me so much of Masakazu Katsura’s ZETMAN. It’s about a young man named Tokio Kurohara who suddenly becomes a supernatural being called a Choujin after being attacked by one in the street. Tokio then enters a world where he meets other Choujins, good and bad, and realizes that he’s part of a larger scheme that potentially involves him being a “god/savior” of all Choujins. I love the art and the story is fascinating. I feel that this is potentially Ishida at his finest when he’s not being rushed to create a fun story (which is what happened with Tokyo Ghoul: re). I’m glad that chapters of this series are somewhat sporadic as it allows time for a more structured story and one that I know Ishida is wanting to tell.

On to my top 5 of the year!

No.5 - Kaiju No. 8 by Naoya Matsumoto - After Spy x Family and Chainsaw Man, this is the next big breakout anime hit from Shueisha. Kafka Hibino was once a young man who wanted to become a kaiju-fighting soldier alongside his childhood friend, but instead is now a 30+-year old cleaner of kaiju remains. He one day encounters a certain powerful kaiju who enters his body. Kafka becomes a threat of humanity all while retaining his. He enters a kaiju defense force in order to control his abilities and protect those he cares about.

When I saw promotional art of the series posted all over France last year, I realized I had to check this series out. I’m so glad I did. The art is amazing, the story is intense, and the soldier outfits are really cool. Kaiju No. 8 satisfies any fan looking for something new that’s similar to Attack on Titan.

No. 4 - Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End by Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe - I don’t really hear many people talk about this series, but I feel this is one of the best fantasy stories I’ve read in a while. It also has one of the best manga heroines this decade so far. Frieren is a long-living elf who once saved the world from a demon king alongside a group of adventurers. 50 years later, she embarks on another journey to see off the hero who changed her life long after his death all while making note of humanity’s struggle to define themselves with the short life span they’re given.

I feel that this series is somewhat Yotsuba&!-ish in terms of having memorable chapters that are one-offs. However, when it gets to the major story arcs, Frieren excels in delivering gut punches. The flashback scenes are amazing and Frieren has a variety of facial expressions that make readers appreciate her. I have kept up with the Japanese releases and the story keeps getting better and better. This series has a way of making you think about human nature.

No. 3 - Akane-banashi by Yuki Suenaga and Takamasa Moue - I got into this series in the Fall after hearing Hideaki Anno and Eiichiro Oda praise it. This is arguably the best series in Weekly Shonen Jump right now and it’s not even a battle manga. Akane Osaki, a young girl whose father was a rakugo performer, is on a mission to become the best rakugo performer in all of Japan after her father was shamed in front of a major rakugo audience. It’s very refreshing and the hype does remind me of the early days of The Promised Neverland. 

This manga is a really good case of how to use art and panels to tell a very cool and well-paced story. I also love how the main character is written as she stands out among the many popular male Jump protagonists. I think what makes this series so good is how relatable the characters and setting are. There’s always something exciting happen in every chapter because of that.

No.2 - Sensei’s Pious Lie by Akane Torikai - This series isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and I can’t recommend this to anyone who’s experienced sexual trauma and hasn’t healed completely from it. But I can’t help but be enamored with seeing how messy the characters in this series are. Misuzu Hara, a teacher, is a victim of sexual abuse by her best friend’s husband. One day, she finds out a male student of hers is interested in her. Misuzu then learns the student is also a victim of sexual abuse and the two become involved in a complicated entanglement that affects everyone around them. 

This is a very uncomfortable read, but I understood what Torikai was trying to say. When it comes to love and sex, people get caught up with the worst aspects of both in terrifying ways. And there’s ways to overcome them when possible. People are often known as monsters to many are still human beings at their core. You can still care about someone and want them out of your life for good. There’s no one to root in this series and I’m glad Kodansha USA brought this work over because sex (and especially sexual violence) is very often a difficult topic to talk about and life is sadly never that black or white.

No.1 - Goodbye, Eri by Tatsuki Fujimoto - Another Fujimoto one-shot on what it means to live in the face of loss. I’ve written about this one-shot in the past and the last pages still stick out to me to this day. I appreciate how Fujitomo uses the main character in a way that shows how a major loss of a relationship can affect someone even when they get older.

I want to remember people who will eventually leave me and celebrate their lives. I just hate how everyone is pressed to move on and not process whatever grief they will experience over their lifetime. Goodbye, Eri is highly relevant to everyone today because there’s only so much one can take when it comes to death and when we don’t take the time to talk about it in a productive way with people who will listen, we lose what makes humanity beautiful. In a time where some folks are talking about immortality and living on via technology, this manga reminds me that what we really want from life is genuine and unconditional love from people.

I hope you enjoyed this list and here’s to a fun 2023 full of exciting manga titles to read!

[historicalfightingguide]

“Footage coms from historical fencing tournaments: Frauschlag and Startschlag 2022, Poland. Historical techniques (colourful background) has been identified using Codex 44 A 8, aka: Codex Danzig (before 1452) and HS 3227a, aka: Codex Döbringer (ca. 1400). Names of fencing actions (black background) follow modern fencing theory. Footwork and preparatory actions are yellow, offensive red, defensive and counter-offensive blue. Identification of historical techniques and fencing actions has been consulted with HEMA coaches and researchers: Maciej Hammer (ARMA-PL, KSF), Maciej Talaga (ARMA-PL, Sprechfenster Blog) and Karol Zakrzewski (ARMA-PL, KSF). ______________________________ Fencers among others: Adrianna Bereta Filip Markiewicz-Wlazło Jakub Zielnik Michalina Musioł Joanna Katarzyna Puchalska”

And don’t forget - we can use every video of sparring as a training tool. But especially this one with named techniques for what’s shown. Depending on the systems you study, the interpretation of the original materials you have etc. you may use somewhat different terminology but you’d still find various interesting examples. If you are interested in learning how to use a longsword check out these few links.

For anyone who hasn’t yet seen the following links:

Some advice on how to start studying the sources generally can be found in these older posts

Remember to check out  A Guide to Starting a Liberation Martial Arts Gym as it may help with your own club/gym/dojo/school culture and approach.

Check out their curriculum too.

Fear is the Mind Killer: How to Build a Training Culture that Fosters Strength and Resilience by   Kajetan Sadowski   may be relevant as well.

“How We Learn to Move: A Revolution in the Way We Coach & Practice Sports Skills”  by Rob Gray  

Another useful book to check out is  The Theory and Practice of Historical European Martial Arts (while about HEMA, a lot of it is applicable to other historical martial arts clubs dealing with research and recreation of old fighting systems).

Why having a systematic approach to training can be beneficial

Worth checking out are this blogs tags on pedagogy and teaching for other related useful posts.

Consider getting some patches of this sort or these cool rashguards to show support for good causes or a t-shirt like to send a good message while at training.

And stay safe

[mariacallous]

Russia’s crusaders for traditional values have found a new battle, and nudity of all kinds is at stake. The real headline-grabber was rapper Vacio (Nikolai Vasiliev), who wore nothing but socks on his feet and penis. Still, fellow celebrities Filipp Kirkorov, Lolita Milyavskaya, Ksenia Sobchak, and others gave Vacio a run for his money, wearing transparent bodysuits that teased nipples, navels, and buttcracks. 

This was the scene at Moscow’s “Mutabor” nightclub on Wednesday, December 20, where blogger and TV presenter Nastya Ivleeva hosted the “Almost Naked” party. A ticket for the evening reportedly cost a cool million rubles ($10,770). Before the bacchanalia was even done, footage from the event started appearing in tabloids and spreading rapidly across social media. 

As Internet users gawked and gossiped, there was immediate outrage from conservative activists and pundits, several of whom began lobbying for a police response. Representatives of radical traditionalist groups like “Sorok Sorokov,” “Call of the People,” and the “Federal Project for Security and Anti-Corruption” (FPBK) soon appealed to the Prosecutor General���s Office and other law-enforcement agencies, calling the “Almost Naked” party an “immoral” celebration of the “dark arts” and asking the authorities to investigate its organizers for propagating drug culture and “the gay lifestyle.” 

Some have called for administrative charges, while others want a full-on criminal investigation. One of the recurring complaints is that Ivleeva’s festivities come at a time when Russia is busy invading Ukraine, ostensibly in defense of “traditional values” against the onslaught of Western decadence and progressivism. 

Ekaterina Mizulina, the head of the Safe Internet League, has campaigned aggressively to purge Russian popular culture of drug references and other unholy cravings. Her objections to “dangerous content” often lead to real consequences for the artists responsible, such as police charges against musician Oxxxymiron and the deportation of rapper Nekoglai. On December 21, Mizulina urged a boycott “at the state level” of the celebrities who attended the “Almost Naked” party. “Our soldiers at the front definitely aren’t fighting for this,” she said. “These raves are like firing a bullet into the foot of the entire policy implemented by the state.”

Other conservatives found the party’s supposed “LGBT” overtones most alarming. Maria Butina is a former gun rights activist who became a television propagandist and federal lawmaker after serving 14 months behind bars in the United States, where she pleaded guilty to felony charges of conspiracy to act as an unregistered foreign agent of the Russian state. On Thursday, writing on official State Duma letterhead in her capacity as a deputy, Butina appealed to the Internal Affairs Ministry, the Cultural Ministry, and Russia’s media regulator, requesting inquiries into the “Almost Naked” party to see if it violated Russia’s ban on “LGBT propaganda” and a November 2022 presidential decree on preserving and strengthening “traditional Russian spiritual and moral values.”

“Listen, they all have children. What kind of example are they setting for their children? All the truest LGBT people gathered there,” moaned FPBK director Vitaly Borodin. “What were they thinking? There’s a special military operation underway. Our society is at a loss.” Borodin also asked Internal Affairs Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev and Moscow Chief of Police Oleg Baranov to dispatch officers to the “Mutabor” nightclub on December 21 to prevent a planned second night of festivities. 

When Thursday evening came, the police arrived at Mutabor ahead of most guests, but the authorities didn’t stick around. “Officers collected what materials they needed and left,” said the radio station Govorit Moskva. Round two of the party eventually rolled into action, this time open to the general public at an admission fee of just 2,500 rubles ($27). At the time of this writing, organizer Nastya Ivleeva was absent from the celebration. The Telegram channel Shot reported that the nightclub’s security guards were now asking guests to don additional clothing if their outfits revealed too much skin.

Hours earlier, on Thursday morning (apparently before realizing the scale of conservatives’ outrage and the involvement of law enforcement), Nastya Ivleeva taunted her critics on social media, writing (in a comment that’s since disappeared) that she loves getting hate for staging risque events: 

We look at the West and see these beautiful, slim models come out, and we say, “Damn, they’re so beautiful, they’re so cool.” And now our own beautiful, trim artists come out, and everyone’s like, “Fuck, look at this shit. Pop is dead.” God, I love it so much. May it never end.