#but I think the scale here is a bit wacky.

[obstinaterixatrix]

I wish the manga about the office lady getting isekai’d as the villainess’ summon was. better.

[gravitycavity]

Sunshine (Pomni x Ragatha) Chapter 1 - Put On a Happy Face

[Click here to read from the beginning on AO3!]

Cover art by @blukiar

“You’re supposed to $%#&ing smile, Pomni!” Zooble's hoarse scream reverberated throughout the big top. “Are you stupid?! We can’t finish the new intro if you aren’t @#$%ing smiling!”

“Leave. Me. Alone!” Pomni, denied the catharsis of slinging her sailor’s mouth, expressed her disdain with her middle fingers instead. She only ended up seething harder, however, when a pair of other-dimensional censor bars appeared to obscure the rude gestures.

“Oh! So that’s how you want to play it, Puffball?” Zooble narrowed her eyes, limping toward the jester with as much aggression as their awkwardly-constructed body would allow — which, for the record, wasn’t very much.

Ragatha had seen enough. “Relax!” She raised her voice, swooping vigilantly between the bickering belligerents. “Both of you!”

Gangle, moping off to the side, sniveled pitifully. In all the commotion, her comedy mask had been shattered. For the second time. This morning. “Guys…! Please, just stop fighting…”

Jax crossed his legs, reclining smartly against Kinger’s impenetrable pillow fort. “Can it, crybaby. This is the best entertainment we’ve had in years!” He flicked a piece of popcorn into the air and caught it in his mouth. Meanwhile, a vibrating Kinger poked his eyes out from between two pillows, saying nothing and everything at the same time.

Ragatha’s good-natured attempts to keep the peace were all for naught. She flinched out of the way of Zooble’s punch — but before the strike could connect, a floating boxing bell materialized out of nowhere, piercing the air with a shrill shriek.

“Now, now! There’s no need for that!” Caine’s wagging finger appeared beside the bell, followed shortly after by the rest of the entity. He lifted his tophat, and a cheesing Bubble gingerly drifted out.

“Naughty, naughty~” Bubble chomped his teeth.

Caine snapped his fingers, and an unseen force pushed Pomni and Zooble apart. “The Amazing Digital Circus — copyright 1996 C&A Incorporated, all rights reserved — is a magical, marvelous CD-Romp for all ages! Zany shenanigans and cartoon mischief I can abide, but outright violence? Strictly out of the question!”

With a grunt, Zooble spiked their arm against the floor. “What are we supposed to do, then!? We’re on take fifty-seven of your dumb@%$ theme song because poor little Pomni thinks she’s the main character of the universe!”

Pomni responded to that, but whatever she said, it was profane enough to be scrubbed out entirely.

“Yes, well…” Caine crossed his arms, steeped in careful thought. The last hour-and-a-half of unusable footage played back through his mismatched eyeballs in a matter of seconds. “It’s nothing we can’t fix in post.”

Zooble swiped their discarded arm off the ground and crammed it back into its empty socket. “Great. Then you can edit me in, too.” They stormed off, reciprocating Pomni’s earlier gesture. “Eat $@#%, sad sack.”

Jax sighed. “Aw, shucks. Right when things were getting good…”

“Uh…!” Caine skipped a beat. He swiveled toward the five circus members still gathered beneath the big top. “Well, then!” he elbowed his soap bubble companion, “Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us, Bubble! As for the rest of you, consider yourselves off the hook for the rest of the day — my treat! Take some personal time, get some sleep, and try your darndest not to dwell on the soul-crushing scale of eternity!”

“I have no soul!” Bubble turned upside-down. “So I don’t mind it one bit!”

“You and me both, old pal!” Caine’s laugh sounded forced and unnatural.

There was a pause. Gangle glanced around, then meekly raised her ribbony hand. “But what about—”

“Go on, now! I won’t take no for an answer!” the ringmaster stabbed the air with his cane, “I want you all in tip-top condition for tomorrow’s wacky adventure!”

🎪 🎪 🎪

It wasn’t long before everyone had gone their separate ways. Jax had slinked off to the digital carnival to terrorize the NPCs, Gangle had left a trail of teardrops all the way to the digital lake, and Kinger, as per usual, had just disappeared without anyone really noticing.

At last, Pomni was alone again. She curled her tear-stained face inward and filled her chest with three shaky breaths. She couldn’t hold it in anymore. Hands tightened into trembling fists, she threw her head toward the sky and let loose a long, ear-shattering shriek.

Why was this happening to her? What did she ever do to deserve this!? She was a person — a human being, for God’s sake — not some stupid, one-dimensional children’s character. How dare anyone expect her to just grin and bear it? She didn’t owe anything to anyone — not even one second of feigned emotion. As far as she was concerned, the moment she forced that goofy smile onto her face would be the moment she surrendered, and she would never, ever, in a million years—

“I’m always here if you need to talk. You haven’t forgotten, have you?”

Pomni flinched, wrenching away from the sudden voice. After the emotional hell she’d gone through during her first day, unexpected noises didn’t exactly put her at ease — nor did anything else in this deranged digital purgatory, for that matter.

“Ah! Sorry!” Ragatha covered her mouth. “I didn’t spook you too bad, did I?”

“You did, actually! Wh-What’s wrong with you?” Pomni gathered herself quickly. She didn’t dare to even look in the direction of the person who had just watched her childish tantrum. The moment she found her footing again, she stormed off like her very life depended on it. “Don’t just sneak up on people like that!”

Silently relenting, Ragatha stepped aside to let Pomni pass. She watched the pouting jester jingle and jangle with every step, stomping with boundless confidence in the completely wrong direction.

“Uh…” Ragatha tilted her head. “Pomni? Do you remember the way to your room?”

“Ugh! What do you care?” Pomni doubled her pace. “Mind your own business!”

Ragatha smirked. “Alright, I guess I’ll just head back to my room, then. Which, for the record…” She pointed behind herself, “…is that way.”

Pomni stared vacantly as Ragatha sauntered off. The doll had read her like a book. Locking herself in her room for days on end meant she still had no clue how to get around the tent — if she wanted to get back to her regularly-scheduled self-pity anytime soon, she would have to swallow whatever was left of her pride.

Pomni grumbled under her breath, fast-walking to catch up. “Hey! W-Wait!”

🎪 🎪 🎪

There was no ambient noise to dampen the tension; the dormitory hall’s plush carpet absorbed the sound of Pomni and Ragatha’s footsteps. Ragatha led, hands tucked politely below her waist, while Pomni trailed behind.

The complete, unbroken silence wasn’t exactly the most comfortable thing in the world, but it was preferable to whatever inane smalltalk would have filled it. That’s how Pomni saw things, at least.

In the time it had taken to walk here, she had managed to cool off a bit — and the unwavering quiet gave her plenty of mental space to reflect on the last few minutes.

She wasn’t sorry. Pomni didn’t care if Zooble hated her — she could hate them right back. Breaking bread with Jax was pointless; that creep preferred to provoke. Gangle was friendly, but to interact with her was to walk on eggshells, and Pomni lacked the patience. And Kinger? Was Kinger.

Arms crossed, Pomni looked up from her big, dumb clown shoes. Her gaze settled on the doll in front of her. Pomni despised everything about this place — but now that she was going through her laundry list of grievances, she had to admit: she had nothing on the redhead.

…What was her name? Ragatha…? She was by far the most mature of the circus’s captives. She was kind. Predictable. An island of calm in a stormy sea.

Pomni’s harsh features softened. Ragatha was the only character who had shown her the slightest shred of compassion since she’d arrived here. The realization weighed down her stomach with more than a few pangs of guilt. Ragatha, of all people, certainly wasn’t a deserving outlet for her angst.

Oh, no — nice going, you idiot. Ragatha was the one thing about this place keeping you anywhere close to sanity, and you’ve already repelled her by acting like a petulant child. She probably hates you now. You know that, right? Actually, it’s not ‘probably’. It’s ‘definitely’. That’s why she isn’t talking. That’s why this is so awkward. That’s why —

“So…what’s under your cap?”

Pomni stumbled. Had the wall not been there to grab onto, she absolutely would have fallen flat on her face.

Stabilizing herself, Pomni gawked up at Ragatha as if the doll had just beamed down from another planet. What’s under her cap? Did she hear that right? It was such an odd, out-of-the-blue question — but at least it had yanked her out of her head.

“I’m sorry?”

Ragatha bent down to Pomni’s eye level. “Your cap.” She said gently, resisting the urge to prod one of the little bells dangling from either end. “It comes off, doesn’t it?”

Pomni blinked. She hadn’t really given it any thought. In fact, until Ragatha had brought it up, she had forgotten that her ridiculous new form came with a hat at all. Doing nothing but hiding under the covers and sobbing for days on end had that effect.

With much bigger problems weighing on her mind, Pomni didn’t really care to check — but something about Ragatha’s expectant gaze possessed her anyway. Very carefully, she hooked her fingers beneath the golden rim. She felt a small amount of resistance as she pushed up, almost as if the headpiece were attached to her body through some kind of magnetic force.

With a just a little effort, though, it popped right off.

“…Huh.” Pomni held the striped cap in her hands. “Look at that.”

“Oh, goodness!” Ragatha tried and failed to suppress a squeal. She paid no mind to her question’s answer, too distracted by the worst hat hair anyone had ever seen. It was certainly a look; a chaotic mess of tangles, knots, and flyaways did as it pleased atop the jester’s capless crown.

“Hey! What gives?!” Pomni ducked her cap back onto her head. A few extra clumps of hair stuck out from underneath. “Why are you laughing?”

“I’m so sorry! Your hair is just…” Ragatha giggled. “Well, it’s a bit messy at the moment. But I like it!”

Pomni leered. “…Liar.”

“I’m not making fun of you! Honest!” Ragatha crossed her hands over her heart. “I love your hair, Pomni. It’s…”

“It’s what?!”

“It’s so cute!”

Pomni’s eyes grew two sizes. That was…not the answer she expected to hear. She didn’t know what to say — just that her face felt a lot warmer than before.

“Obviously, you could use a comb…or three. But who cares about that?” Ragatha’s hand drifted through her own thick, yarn-like locks. “You really lucked out, you know. I’d trade your hair for mine in a heartbeat.”

Despite everything, the smallest of half-smiles lit Pomni’s face.

“I, um…” Pomni took a deep breath. And then two more. Her whole body slumped closer to the floor. Try as she might to keep her personal pity party alive, Ragatha’s radiant energy made her forget her troubles, if only for a moment.

“…Why are you being so nice? And to me, of all people?”

Ragatha just shrugged. “Do I have a reason not to be?”

Pomni gripped her other arm, gaze flicking down the corridor. Her smile faded in the silence.

“Well, um, anyway…” Ragatha glanced at the door behind her — Pomni’s awkwardness was infectious. “You have your room key, right?”

Pomni’s heart skipped at the thought of having lost it, but eased at the feeling of cold metal in her pocket. She nodded.

Gently, Ragatha took the cartoonish key from Pomni’s hand. With a turn and a click, the way to the jester’s room was open.

Ragatha held the door, smiling warmly. “You look like you could use some space. Go enjoy some quality alone time, okay, new stuff?”

“O-Okay.” Pomni didn’t hesitate to do just that — until she did. “Um…” She peeked behind a door half-open. After the longest pause, a simple, stammered “thanks” was all she could manage to get out.

Her door clicked shut. And audibly locked.

My Ko-fi - Tips are very much appreciated! :)

[Next Chapter]

[melodiousmonsters]

I'm just going to start talking about my celestials each month to give you all some low effort and fun(for me) content. Also doing full illustrations of them as well, with some design notes at the end.

My interpretation of loodvigg, named Fhobia Denta Latrostratous (they're one of the three celstials with a full name at the moment) is a fair bit different from other's interpretations of it for extremely personal reasons. They're a tad bit strange, and creepy looking, but overall they are a compassionate (in their own strange way, like almost everything about them) and creative individual that's held as a role model for all shadowkind. They also have a lavender colored ring around their pupils so their eyes aren't fully pink, which is the main difference from the cannon loodvigg, along with the subtly different feathers, lower body, markings on the abdomen, and scales on the arms.

They are generally unexpressive (tonealy, the main way monsters express their emotions) yet VERY emotional. Over the years they gradually became more in control of their emotions due to sheer life experience, but they are still a little more irrational and driven by emotion than most of the other celestials.

They hate being touched, loud sudden/repetitive noises, math, people or things that get too into the meaning of art and other stuff like that, and the texture of a few things like fish meat or coarse fabrics. There are very few things they have a neutral opinion on, one of which is the taste of blood by itself.

They love keeping up their appearance in most situations, for example, their hair isn't naturally like that, they use their saliva like hair jell and specifically style it to look like that, also they would be absolutely rancid smelling and filthy with their diet of fresh meat and preferred locals of wet warm caves. They spend a lot of time cleaning themselves, which is extremely rare for monsters. They also like eating more than your average monster, they eat like a toddler because of how preoccupied with eating they get, collecting/making taxidermy and other oddities, and all critters, especially invertebrates though.

They are majorly interested in biological sciences, specifically preservation and taxonomy. They gave the celestials and dof era monsters/critters their scientific names(no I don't have scientific names for the celestials yet, I've kinda ran out of ideas for scientific names tbh). They happen to spend a lot of their time in a very large cave network with a lot of different types of caves that make good enclosures for keeping critters to study.

They care a lot about the other celestials as they are siblings and gets very angry if something bad happens to them, only if they feel it's undeserved, their empathy is a bit wacky and  inconsistent.

Also most shadow monsters tend to share in its odd mannerisms, sometimes the behaviors show up in completely non shadow affiliated monsters and no one knows why.

Disclaimer (I think that's the right word), yes you guessed right, Fhobia and the large majority of the shadow monsters are autistic, the term isn't used in universe as the monsters don't have a word for autism as they aren't that into psychology and "the way that monster is" has worked in place of a proper word historically, monsters aren't into categorizing others.

as for design notes and process here it is! all the stuff in red boxes are final.

[sporkandpringles]

my problems with discovery's spore drive have nothing to do with the wacky mushroom science. Like this is Star Trek™ not some bonefide diamond on the Moh's Scale of Sci-Fi hardness like The Martian. I know to expect the writers playing a bit fast and loose with physics and how the real world works. I'm here for that wackniess, actually. Love me some technobabble about mycelial spores or tetryon particles or whatever! the thing that doesn't work for me is the way the spore drive acts narratively, and how the technology was introduced within the timeline of the series. Like it's just obvious that the writers aren't willing to let anyone else but Discovery have access to the spore drive. They twisted up the Glenn in season one, so Discovery is the only ship with a spore drive. They hemmed and hawed about genetic modification in season 2 so no one else got a spore drive. They purged records of the spore drive's existence from history and claimed that no one else had tried to make anything like it in 900 years despite a massive dilithium shortage and canonical search for other methods of propulsion in season 3. And then at the very end, just when you think, oh hey maybe the entire population of Kwejian will make for a nice crop of new spore drive pilots, the writers fucking blow up their whole planet just so they don't have to let anyone else have the spore drive. And to be fair, they can't really let anyone else have it, or else Discovery loses it's right to be "the only one we can turn to in a crisis". And that's really all it has going for it. So, I get it! Still hate it, though. And, even moreso than all the silly narrative contrivances that are used to nerf transporter technology so that the plot can still happen, this bothers me. Because sure, all the ion storms and interference can get a bit stupid. We all make fun of star trek for inventing a technology that could immediately yoink our blorbos away from their problems, only to turn around and force it to not work when it's needed most. But at least there isn't just one ship that has the ability to use the transporter at all. That would be ridiculous. Everyone would want their own transporter. And yet, that's the situation we have in Discovery. Only one ship can travel across the galaxy in the blink of an eye. The show writers keep contriving to keep it that way. And given how useful instantaneous travel is, the fact that it hasn't been replicated once, by any species in the galaxy, not just the Federation, in 900 years is just stretching the limits of my willing suspension of disbelief.

[rwnjun]

foxies <3

this took me actual literal months to complete, i think i drew neil in february…… please ignore the differently sozed proportions/heads i drew them all in separate files and pasted them in here & scaled for heights lol so it's a bit wacky

i've already posted neil and andrew separately and i might post the others as well at some point :)

[netherworldpost]

Been following you since the Evil Supply Co days, was very pleased to place my first order from Netherworld Post recently! I love the "hope this fireball finds you failing to save" design so much! A few people in my d&d group are definitely getting that one.

I hope you have an awesome day and something nice happens to you!

I am incredibly honored that so many folks have been following since Evil Supply Co.

It was nearly four years to do the day from when I first emailed friends "What do you think of this business name change?" to flipping the switch to launch.

One thing that hasn't made it through the transition

(I emphasize)

...yet...

...is the stories.

I used to write 3 - 6 very short stories a week. Sometimes a few paragraphs, sometimes longer. Most got posted here -- started here, on Tumblr!

The structures needed work, more connectivity. The genre, the characters and locations, the softness? All remain. But the structures needed work.

This will take time.

Not four years of time (length of shop closure to rebuild).

But they will come back.

I'm rambling. I'm a bit nervous over how all of this is operating. The nerves are not based in evidence -- the roll out has been smooth, the response bigger than expected. Just personality quirk, I suppose.

Back to sense-making.

I'm grateful you're here and that I am able to do all of this.

Phase One (where we are now) is to launch the shop and get the initial orders out the door. The presses are pressing ink to paper, first batch of orders goes out late next week. Continues onwards at a steady pace forever.

Phase Two (rest of the year) will be slowly adding more. Both to the shop for pay and the downloads "pay if you want."

Phase Three (next year, probably) is when I think we'll have stories again. It won't take that long to launch them -- launch will be part of Phase Two -- but I think it'll be next year until I'm at a steady pace.

I'm rambling again. I'll cut this to the end.

The primary availability of stories for Evil Supply Co. was free via social media posts.

I want to keep that availability. I don't trust social media to maintain its presence as it stands in the next several years (I'm looking at 3, 5, 10, 15 years forward).

The zero-cost-to-read prohibited basic structures such as "hm I like Strawberry, this mermaid, I wish to read more about her wacky antics." There simply wasn't funding to build out any of the million ways to do that.

Part of Phase Three is solving that, finding the balance. There are a million options, with strengths and drawbacks and costs. I'll have a better answer for it as the year progresses.

As I say, I am wary of social media (all platforms) direction -- they will continue to exist, I'll continue to use them to their fullest advantage, but they are growing increasingly hostile to independent creators. I don't work for Tumblr, Tumblr doesn't owe me continued access to audiences at the current pace.

Ultimately, I work for the moon and you come to the Post for the things you're interested in -- neither of us work for a social media platform -- and I'm keeping that tightly in mind to ensure I can continue to service your desires + build new things you'll love but didn't know existed yet.

Thank you for being here.

The something nice you hoped for came true in two ways.

Your note and an afternoon pulling together notes on how to independently publish myths and legends and stories and rambles about the Netherworld.

The scale of this equation is...

...significant.

Fortunately. So is my willingness to tackle it. :)

Cheers to you and thank you again for being here.

Long may we sip potions, in the moonlight, while sitting on our folded cloaks, listening to ghosts, telling stories of dryads and mermaids and witches and more, as the jack-o-lanterns surrounding us wile away the hours with their flickering tongues of flame and smoke.

[epiphlyte]

aaugh i never thought i would procrastinate so hard on posting here but whaddaya know this has been sitting in my drafts for days.. mostly because school has started up again for me and im too tired in the evenings to write out my thoughts on things SJKKHJ

anyways, ive been feeling extremely nostalgic recently, so as a bit of a warmup-gone-out-of-control here are the fake (well, backup) prophecy dragonets! remember this reveal absolutely shocking me reading the books as a kid. their dynamic is wacky.

an in depth explanation of their designs under the cut!

something i initially didnt like, but now think is a striking visual, is the fact that their designs really don’t go together - especially compared to the actual prophecy dragonets. was puzzling over this for ages, trying to figure out how to make them more cohesive, but eventually just decided to leave it. i think it fits since they really dont get along lol.

the problem with making starflight (check previous posts/tags) purplish is that now fatespeaker has to be a more saturated purple to distinguish the two - she additionally has faint teardrop scales by her eyes to add some spice to her design. i think canon should give nightwings more unique silver scale patterns as well, like fatespeaker's "bracelets" (sadly not included here)!

i want to eventually revisit flames scar, it didnt really come out how i wanted it to. other than that, i like his colours and his pose! you might notice that as i recall how to draw dragons again ive slowly been working on my poses and expressions, making them more dynamic.

seawings are one of my favourite tribes to draw so i really liked designing squid, although he hasn’t really made that much of an impression on me. i should eventually make a palette tracker of all the colours for the tribes, to make them more unified? or alternatively, focus more on the shapes and attributes of each one. i like making seawings squishy and frilly, like some sea animals!

viper is probably my favourite design out of this batch! i really like her colours, although they border more on the palette id use for ocs - eg. is she recognizable as a canon character? i do like her pose though!

and finally ochre - i seriously can’t remember any of this guys dialogue. with this though i did manage to nail down my mudwing designs, varying horns and tusks. maybe i’ll draw clay’s sibs next?? no one knows, not even i.. but i am currently in a character designing mood!

[canmom]

l'aventure d'canmom à annecy épisode DEUX - lundi - partie 1

sure hope everyone knows the days of the week in French.

I'm gonna be writing throughout the day today because there's gonna be a lot!

this morning i wasted my reservation for The Most Precious of Cargoes by not showing up early enough, rip. As a consolation I went into Grad Films 1! These kinda slapped! ...mostly anyway.

first up, we had Sheep Out by Zofia Klamka, which was pure style. a severely dressed animator has her routine disrupted by a runaway cartoon sheep, taking her on a crazy chase through the ads and posters of the city. edited tight as fuck, the initial routine montage of match cuts transitioning perfectly into crazy smears, wacky perspectives and some really playful shots with the characters running through posters at different scales and interacting with the real world. calls to mind Kon. hell of an opener.

Apartment 203 was a bit of a dud for me. Found footage style about a serial killer, it explains the premise in text at the outset so there is little tension, and it's just a camera looking around a dirty CG with foley of breathing, music, and offscreen violence and screams.

Luckily such misses were not the rule in this block!

Echoes by Robinson Drossos used a very strong sketchy traditional animation style to depict a boy descending into a sewer that becomes an increasingly surreal cave. The pencil texture and strength of drawing and movement do a ton for this one, i fully winced when the boy falls down a shaft hitting his head on every surface.

Carrotica by Daniel Sterlin-Altman was a blast. It's about the desires and fantasies of a single mum obsessed with her carrot research and her repressed gay son who writes erotica in his notebooks, all depicted in stop motion. Excellent naturalistic voice acting and a script that is both funny and very genuine.

Humantis by Paris Baillie from Calarts was a really cool stop motion one about flower petal creatures which engage in strange formal dances, and one of these creatures whose white petals start becoming corrupted with green. The creature tears petals from the others to try to hide its condition but inevitably gets found out, only to discover other green humantises. Yet in the final shot of the film, we see that it still mourns its white petals. I loved the visual style here - really imaginative creature designs.

You are the truck and I am the deer was not really to my taste - poetry over abstract imagery of corruption and trauma, i kinda get it, but it felt a bit too generic for me.

Yapalaponky by Masataka Kihara... I'm sure glad I can post a picture so I don't have to describe the creature. The film depicts a series of cute/funny little interactions between the man and the creature, good visual gags around weight and such, eventually pulling back to a child in a car on the way to a funeral (I think). Always interesting to see jp animation outside the anime bubble - I appreciate the visual imagination of these weird guys with their う faces.

The Time Botanist by Glenn Paul-Parvenu is a delightful tribute to rubber hose and earlier animation, with its mc getting sneezed back into older and older styles by her anthropomorphised time machine. Good concept, nails the execution!

The Last Visit by Keawalee Warutkomain is a meditation on grief, animated in the pages of a book. Foregrounding its process this much, it led me inevitably to think about the act of making a film to grieve someone. I made a short animation when Fall died - it was really rough, but I felt moved to use the art I was making at the time to commemorate her somehow. I always felt a little ashamed that I didn't make something better, but like... as if she'd care! And it makes me wonder like, the stuff about technical execution, how it relates to something so personal as a film about grief - but then, it's not just a personal project, it's being screened for others here. What is the right way to make art 'for' someone who has died? I really don't know.

In this case, Warutkomain is mourning her aunt. The film is more about the experience of grief than the aunt herself, and it felt a little too long for what it had as such an abstract film, but like, it feels cruel to make that kind of criticism. It certainly provoked thought of my own experience of grief, but the subject is inherently resonant - I realised I was getting lost in my head and missing the film. I don't know what to make of it all. Certainly the animation in the pages of a book was a cool effect.

Adiós by José Prats seemed like another such personal film, but in this case a tight drama. A father is struggling to accept the departure of his son, the dialogue full of loaded lines about leaving him behind. They go out hunting, but their dog accidentally eats poison; the father is resigned to losing the dog, but the son runs to fetch salt instead of staying at their side - and this turns out to be the right call, since the dog is saved, and the father finally accepts his son's decision. Strongly executed stop motion, this was a very solid note to end on.

I love student films, because there are few other cases where people get to create with such few restraints. Which isn't to say there aren't pressures - students are trying to impress future employers and their instructors and so forth, and they draw inspiration from other student films so you get certain genres - but I'm always impressed by the sheer variety of stuff that people can cook up in just a year. Definitely a strong block, can't wait for more. (Also some of the directors were present, I hope they appreciated the applause - living the dream of getting a film into annecy. one day.)

[vilevileposting]

I am reading Homestuck for the first time (Week 4)

As we approach the thousand page mark, I think I have the picture of why homestuck was able to blow out the walls of its niche sensibilities into mainstream appeal. I assume I'd get this answer when the trolls showed up, but no, the answer is that Homestuck is actually good! Going into this, I can't honestly say I expected it to be good. This whole thing was supposed to be a bit, where I power through Homestuck in a year (with the babes) and then cosplay a troll at Dashcon 2. This leads me to reflect on what a bit really is, because when I imagine something done as a bit, I imagine the bit acting as its own motive. You do the bit for the bit. Can you do as a bit something you have more than that one reason for doing? Is this still a bit? It's still funny to get into homestuck in 2024, I think, but can I rightfully still call it a bit when I eagerly await every book club? Much to think about.

These are my notes for week 4:

759: Floored as I am, I’m glad Nanna is a willing agent in all this. That said, the amount of people running around who seem to Know Something is making my neurons fire.

760: The freaking pumpking?

766: This one goes out to all the trans girls named Jade Harley (and the trans guys named Dave Strider whom I forgot to shout out last time)

789: What is Jade’s fursona, why won’t it tell me

790: Jade’s connection to everything is clearly important but it seems like it might be a while before I’m told why. Here’s someone who sees the future, or at least intuits it, who’s the grandaughter of someone with a whole lot of sburbish technology. I feel like I’m missing the same piece to both puzzles.

793: Y-yeah I noticed before this panel!!

797: I’m gonna kill the guy who put this command in. HOWEVER now we know Jade’s sona is a wolf. (Mine is a dragon, and the other bookclubbers are a possum and tiger)

801: VOLCANO!!! MOUNTAIN HERMIT!!!!!!!!!

802: Cowardice.

822: It was pointed out to me that the crossing out of “but not many” in the act 2 flash implies that that sburb meteor hit a long-ass time ago, and this confirms it! Very wacky. I might think they’re not really sburb meteors if not for the established time shenanigans. This seems to imply there’s more than one potential trigger for a meteor.

826: Jade has WAY more friends than her friends do.

829: Permanently unlocked coquettish as a word for Corah to throw at twinks. Need to find a word to pair it with, like how I use “svelte motherfucker” or “coiffed bitch.” Also I like the grand tradition of internet icons from this era casually using slurs. Look up the first appearance of Megalovania RIGHT NOW

835: How could I forget goofy modus foreshadowing………

836: Dave’s brother is so badass he beat up his armed little brother while piloting a puppet. I think in terms of power scaling this could put him above John’s dad.

839: How did I not notice that Rose’s mom opened that secret passage while Rose was in the back fighting a burning tree? Your poking holes in my they-actually-love-each-other theory, Rose’s mom.

844: Chess piece sword that looks SICK

845: During the book club last week, one of us speculated that the lesser items will be removed from the jetpack to make it functional. The thought of doing that – albeit to the code of the object and not the object itself – is vindicated here!

859: CG has GOTTA be one of those wandering vagrant guys.

*Book club note: Someone mentioned the TROLLSLUM, and I only just made the connection that CG is grey. Reading this 5,000 years in the future as I am, that stands out to me………

874: Looks like my house is okay for now….. But damn they GOT Montreal’s ass

893: John’s Dad name reveal???

896: Andrew Hussie predicted Death Stranding.

911: Aint no way this is a shot of John’s Dad’s room.

918: He’s DEAD!?

948: I was right!!!!!!

962: Carapace confirmed! More wondering what the Wandering Vagrant is. I wonder if someone tried to appearify a shadow demon from the past and a machine made him from the goo, mutant kitten style.

[minijenn]

Jen Tortures Herself With Every Dreamworks Animated Movie Ever: Abominable

Wow I can't believe Dreamworks made their own version of Up but without the Dead Wife and Flying House and with a Yeti instead of a colorful bird

Anyway, this movie was kind of a mystery to me going in, because I swear to god I've never heard anyone ever talk about this, so I had no idea what to expect out of it. As for what I got, well... it was... actually pretty ok! So let's get into it.

After the death of her father, teenager Yi has grown distant from her family and her friends, Jin and his younger cousin Peng. That is, until she happens upon an escaped yeti, eventually named Everest, after she decides to help the creature get back to his home on Mount Everest, roping Peng and Jin along for the trip. All the while, they're being chased by the wealthy collector Mr. Burnish and zoologist Dr. Zara, who are determined to recapture the yeti and put it on display.

So yeah, a pretty simple "get mysterious creature back to where they belong" plot that we've seen in plenty of other movies in the past. The movie does kind of fumble over more than a few cliches when it comes to that plot, and the characters, for the most part, are a bit too simple and one-note for my liking. The tone is also a little strange, with some weird humor mixed in with often heavy-handed attempts at whimsy and drama. The pacing is also kind of strange? I don't know how to explain it but something is... off about the way this film presents its story and I can't... seem to articulate why.

As for the characters, like I said, they're all pretty simple. I feel like Yi is a little confusing and doesn't really have a clear character arc? Like she just decides to help Everest almost immediately after meeting him? Like literally just travel across China on a whim??? What? I get she's an impulsive teenager but still, bruh, that's just wacky. Peng is your typical hyperactive kid character, and he grated on the nerves a handful of times. Out of our main human trio, I think Jin is the best, he's a pretty funny character who goes through an actual arc, starting off as a tech-obsessed stick in the mud before learning to enjoy the journey alongside the others. Everest is also just... your typical cute creature cliche? He doesn't have a ton in the way of a personality and he has these powers that are kind of just... whatever the plot needs them to be? Like deus-ex-machina yeti fr fr out here.

Our villians are... surprisingly interesting! We start off thinking Mr. Burnish is our greedy big bad capitalist when, surprise! Dr. Zara actually is instead and I love her cause she goes from zero to 100 so fast and yeah, she's a twist villian cliche but I don't care because she kind of a baddie there I said it.

As for presentation, this movie is honestly gorgeous. Like seriously, it is so damn pretty to look at. The set pieces are so vibrant and colorful and the scale of them is awe-inspiring. The character designs felt kind of weird to me at first, burt I grew used to them as the film went along, and they're animated very nicely. There's a lot of scenes in this movie that were clearly just Dreamworks flexing, and you know what? I'm not gonna fault them for it. They're beautiful.

Something else that's beautiful about this movie is its score. Yi plays the violin and that actually becomes a major plot point throughout the film and every time she picks that instrument up, we get some truly soulful, beautiful pieces. This soundtrack is nowhere near as memorable as something like HTTYD's but its still absolutely lovely in its own right, I think.

So yeah, Abominable was one of the more surprising movies of the Dreamworks watch. I kept forgetting I would even have to eventually watch it until now, but I think, for what it is, it's ok. I wouldn't call it great, but I wouldn't call it terrible either. It's a perfectly servicable film about a bunch of kids and a yeti going on a cross-country adventure. And sometimes, that's all ya need.

Overall Rating: 6/10

Verdict: Evil Unetical Scientists Can Be Hot Sometimes, Actually

Previous Review (How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World)

Next Review (Trolls World Tour)

[minobe-household]

so i believe i mentioned minobe's illness here and there, but the thing about it is that i can't really think of a way to make it clear with my usual wacky storytelling. or asks, since yuuto — the one who Has it — actually doesn't even know much of it herself. her parents never spared her the details, they just told her something was wrong. and also THAT has a lot to do with her family relationship which is a whole nother can of worms. so i'm just doin this shit infodump style.

when she was born, most of her vitals were starkly low. her parents thought this would mean she was to die whilst in infancy, but she stuck through almost exactly like that of a typical child. (cont under cut so i don't annoy the fuck outta people who don't wanna scroll through it)

essentially, her body runs off of a 'bare minimum'. just about enough that she'd be (comfortably not fucking unconscious) able to move and all. which still isn't a very good look, but it meant she was still able to take up work with her family. though an important part of this is how that affects her functioning as she grew up.

on a positive note, it makes it so that she is capable of exerting herself further before experiencing exhaustion and such, so it may provide some extra edge in some cases. her strength and speed are both quite good in this regard (probably comparable to that of the pillars, but i can't quite scale her with them since it varies a lot and at a pretty big deal o range), and her stamina is bordering inhuman entirely.

also because of this she has a surprisingly good compatibility with total concentration (although she doesn't use total constant as it's kind of something she utilizes as a diversion tool with her breathing style). however, this requires she warms herself up before being able to reach these points, adding onto her more non-offensive fighting style early on.

as for its downsides, she is extremely susceptible to conditional factors such as illness or environment. and while she does get some extra leverage in skill, inactivity following it, as well as just in general, can take a bad toll on her. it might explain why she acts so different in the day compared to during missions... and also why she didn't do as much work in her household...... :^)

note this also applies to the demon slayer mark. especially so. when it activates, she's a huge force to be reckoned with - although due to the conditions it requires, it takes a lot more work out of her to awaken it. and the second it goes away... with the sudden change in bodily state, i think it's safe to say it's not gonna look pretty. think like a drug withdrawal but like... all of them. at once. and you don't get to die from all the damn drugs in your system or lack thereof.

i haven't really thought about if her condition makes any change to the mark's curse. of course, whether it actually is legit isn't really like... confirmed considering the only account being with himejima and kokushibo's interaction (iirc i might be forgetting something) but in the assumption it does exist it may push the 25 limit a bit closer, or even further, i don't really know. probably the former lol

[codylabs]

now presenting in no particular order

Science Fiction stories that have affected my own work very greatly

1. Star Wars

I mean, this is an obvious one. Much of America grew up on these six, because everybody's dad loved them, to the point where meeting somebody who's "never seen star wars" is an oddity, and, well, neither me or my dad are exceptions. They're good movies, with good lore, good plots, strong characters, writing and dialogue that's all across the spectrum, and exceptional action scenes. What's there more to say?

They're very much your "bread and butter" scifi, in the sense that it sets its stories within a world of cool-looking spaceships, quirky robots and wacky aliens, but doesn't examine or elaborate on much of it, but rather treats it all as a given, as a backdrop for the human stories. (Contrast against, say, Star Trek, which makes the scifi concepts themselves its focusing interest.) As a result, there's nothing terribly revolutionary to be found in Star Wars. I can't and won't call it generic, of course, because although it very much is a 'generic scifi world', many of the tropes we associate with 'generic scifi worlds' were codified here, and there's a lot going on behind the scenes, both on the political side, in the extended universe, and in ol' Georgie's brain.

And to call them creatively bankrupt would be a big enough lie to warrant legal repercussions, since there are a LOT of cool scifi ideas here, even if they aren't necessarily the story's focus. Repulsorlifts, Coruscant (I spelled that right first try), Podracing, the Sarlaac pit, Droidekas, the Death Star, cloud city, the VERY sufficient excuses for using swords in scifi, the list goes on.

In terms of how the franchise affected my work, I really couldn't give an estimate. I love space, and spaceships, and space battles, and have them often enough. Many of my stories focus on the human aspects, I seek out excuses for melee fights, I like generic goodguy-y heroes and I like strong personalities, but whether any of that comes from Star Wars or is a part of me, I couldn't say. Maybe there's no difference. I saw them as a youngling, so very long ago.

2. Republic Commando

Now I read these when I wasn't quite so young. These are good books, and they are very much Star Wars disillusioned. This is Star Wars separated from the main cast and the main plot or the black-and-white morality of simple stories. This is a squad of elite child soldiers suffering through the trenches of a war, getting hurt, going rogue, falling in love, shooting people in the head, while the adpoted father who trainedraised them tries to arrange an escape for his boys to a new home far away, until it all comes crashing down when you the reader knew it would but nobody in galaxy did, in Order 66. And then the series keeps going. It should have gone on longer but the Clone Wars TV show changed canon so much that the author quit. But you can tell it's still Star Wars because they mention Kenobi like twice and there is one (1) scene with Darth Vader.

In terms of scifi they're just Star Wars again, speeders and space battles and laser guns and stuff. Stories unconcerned with the concepts and the worldbuilding. But I think it goes a step beyond what the movies did, by abandoning any semblance of big-picture-ness or any of the large-scale plot, and focusing only on bit characters, while the larger story from the movies continues elsewhere. The series is ALL OCs. There is nobody here who would warrant a mention in any of the movies, and nobody here who influences galactic history. They influence each other. They love each other, hate each other. They feel real. The war feels real. And I think that's beautiful.

I think that smallness and ruggedness is what lasted into my work. I've never worldbuild-ed the names or histories of wars into my works, but I've liked writing about career soldiers struggling with peace. I've never made diagrams or specs for the weapons that they use, but I've written about the heat of a shell just ejected from a launcher. I've never written strategies for fleet movements, but I've written about spacers scrambling past a closing pressure door as the air leaks out of their room. And I've written about lesser species caught in the crossfire, I've written about jungles and dirty streets, and much of it ties back to this, I think.

3. Starship Troopers

This may very well be the first 'adult' book I ever read, and you should read it too. It was written in the 50s. It's about people in power armor who get dropped out of a spaceship. It's about a man rising through the ranks, learning the meaning of responsibility and leadership. It's about war, how 2 tons of flying robosuit can't save you but your friends and a timely dropship can. It's about duty, mankind become a warrior race to defend themselves in a savage galaxy. It's about honor and discipline. This story invented the concept of power armor, coined the term 'starship', inspired a dozen franchises. It forces the characters and the reader to think about the nature of war, the necessity of sacrifice and duty, the price of security, the nature of freedom, the shortcomings of democracy.

You should read it. It's peak scifi. It's exciting. It's thought-provoking. It's imaginative. It's incredibly, noxiously fascist. It's so so good. You should read it.

I've always loved power armor and jet packs and alien bugs, my stories have them all, and it's this book's fault. Certainly a lot of my really early work was based on it, but I never outgrew a good bug or a good robosuit.

I have never seen the movies, but there was a 1999 TV show that had the Worst CGI ever, and my brothers and I used to love it. However, no adaptation of this book has ever gotten the power armor right except the 1988 anime.

4. Blame!

Too many millennia ago to count, the automated construction drones stopped listening to orders to stop. The Earth, the moon, every piece of matter in the solar system and who knows how far beyond, have been disassembled, all proceeds going to grow the City. The City is all. The City has no end. The characters do not know the meaning of 'land'. The security system of the godlike internet is spawning exterminator drones to destroy all humans who lack the net terminal gene. Clutish transhumans who thrive in the chaos have made it their duty to render the gene extinct. The only hope of stopping the City's growth and shutting down the security system is to issue the internet an order, which requires a human with the gene. The gene may be extinct. Our main character, an immortal cyborg who has been climbing stares for hundreds of panels and thousands of years, is still searching. He has a really cool gun. His girlfriend is an 8ft tall hacker girl who does not have a cool gun and dies like 5 times. His arch-nemiss has a cool gun too. There are... Monsters.

I didn't read this comic until much later in my life, but the setting and the art and the ultra-high-concept action affected me deeply and greatly. If I could, in my entire life, write a single story even 20% as cool, as wonderfully illustrated, as packed with thought and concepts and sheer unbridled IMAGINATION as this one, I would die of pride. This comic is an endlessly-inspiring emblem of what scifi storytelling can be, an ideal I've been striving for since I first read it. If you ever see a massive maze-like spaceship in my works, any abandoned megastructure, any messily-detailed cyborg torso, any unreasonably-powerful weapon, and most of all any BIG OL' HONKIN GANGLE OF PIPES, (and I guaratee if you follow me you WILL see such things) know that it came from this comic.

5. Flatland

Okay, so this one is the reason I actually started this list. Apparently something in the Book of Bill that just came out was based pretty heavily on it, so now a bunch of people are rediscovering it and referencing it in the year of our Lord 2024. But that led to me rewatching the 2007 film, and realizing some of my work has taken from it pretty heavily.

The idea of the book (and its various adaptations) is that there's this oppressive, closed-minded society of 2-dimensional beings living on flatland. One day a circle comes to visit from spaceland, and shows our square protaganist all the wonders of a higher world beyond the one he can see. At its heart, the story is (A) about the dangers of closed-mindedness against possible higher truths, (B) an exploration into how 2-dimensional creatures would function and how higher-dimensional beings might interact or fail to interact with those of lower dimensionality (C) honestly not really scifi at all but I left it on this list because I've used some of its concepts here and there in my universe, and I find it all so very fascinating. If you see any of my characters navigating a 5-dimensional hyperspace or see any creatures evolved to inhabit the surface of a neutron star, know that the unlikely father of such ideas was this story from 1884.

6. Metroid

Well duh. Many of my followers probably know me as The Metroid Guy. Heck I know me as the Metroid guy.

I am the Metroid guy.

Metroid is about this lady in a suit of tank armor wandering around on lonely alien planets filled with monsters. She's a genetically-altered cyborg who was raised by an ancient society of aliens. The environments in Metroid are sometimes harsh, sometimes serene, sometimes ugly, sometimes beautiful, sometimes all at once. The music is captivating. In the first-person games you can see the rain making drips on your visor. When you stop moving she rests her hand on her gun as if relaxing. Nothing in the scary universe scares her, thus, neither does it scare you the player. The games do an excellent job of immersing the players in a faraway land.

I adore this series not for the scifi concepts (as many of them are either half-thought-out nonsense, made purely to look pretty, or derived straight from whatever videogamey gimmick the developers thought would be easy to implement) but for the feelings of confidence, wonder, exploration, and lonely peace. I have several future projects inspired by these parts of Metroid, and they are very dear to me.

In my studied opinion, if Samus was the protaganist of Blame, we would see a marked increase in the number of audience members dying from Peak Fiction.

7. Alien

Long-headed monkey made of pipes is having a Grand Olde Time on this rusty spaceship, what an insane concept 10/10 I wish I was made of pipes.

My dad told me the plot of this movie when i was like 8 and traumatized me, as he should. If in my stories you ever see any rusty spaceships, folks made of pipes, or involuntary pregnancies in the wrong part of the torso, blame my dad.

[tobiasdrake]

WHEE It's time for bugs.

Do the Ultimate Academy dorms not have door locks? Genuinely not sure why we can't just hole up in Shuichi's room until Broly goes away. But whatever the case, the arrival of the Legendary Super Saiyan is so great. This might be the most fun scene in the whole game.

Tsumugi is such a fucking nerd that her weebness bleeds off onto her performers too.

The fun thing about the Mutual Killing Game is the way it contextually affects the way you experience things like this. Super Gonta would be frightening in any situation, but the context that he might, no bullshit, be murdering people ramps it up to 11.

This is part of what makes psychopop so effective. It's in those moments of complete absurdity, where you find yourself genuinely unsure if this is a funny wacky skit or part of a murder. Often it's both, as we'll discover when we find Ryoma's body in the morning.

Ultimately, Gonta's intentions are harmless.

Well, by a certain definition of harmless.

...he meant well.

But this nonetheless provides the rising action of the case. While it seems to just be a goofy bit of fun, a lot of what happens here will be important in tomorrow's Class Trial, and beyond. Particularly with regard to who didn't join us.

Of the cast, there are five characters who successfully escape from Gonta. Ryoma defeated Gonta by being extremely slippery.

Ryoma's method of evading Gonta establishes him as extremely quick on his feet, capable of moving faster than the eye can track. Of the three people who escape the Meet n' Greet, Ryoma's the only one who does it by simply being untouchable. Gonta simply isn't up to the task of overpowering him.

This will be an interesting fact to keep in mind when he turns up dead tomorrow morning.

Kirumi defeated Gonta by being too busy for this shit.

It's not super clear what happened between Gonta and Kirumi. He later mentions that he "couldn't overcome her" so it's possible that, like Ryoma, Gonta just couldn't match Kirumi's awesome skills.

But I like to imagine she was the only person who calmly and civilly said no to Gonta when he was running around grabbing people and dragging them to his lab, and he respected her directly-expressed opinion.

Kaito and Maki also evaded Gonta but they don't get elaborated on much. And then Miu defeated Gonta by being Miu Iruma.

It is exactly what you think it is. Of course it is. It's Miu.

Under the veil of goofy antics, this sets the stage for tomorrow's murder. As Ryoma is dying right now, everyone currently being eaten alive by angry wasps has an alibi. But it also does more than that. In addition to setting up 3-2, the Insect Meet n' Greet also lays the groundwork for 3-4.

We see here the dynamic that Kokichi and Gonta have established in action.

The Insect Meet n' Greet comically and lightheartedly establishes that Gonta is a naive but well-meaning little goof who will nonetheless do harmful things under Kokichi's manipulative influence. The events that play our here are a smaller-scale and less harmful form of what will become the central case for 3-4.

For such a silly scene, there is a lot going on in the Insect Meet n' Greet. But, of course, none of this holds a candle to its most important contribution to the story.

This is why the other Masterminds didn't participate directly in the Killing Game, and were only part of the student roster by loose interpretation of the rules. When you're one of the gang, you get to suffer with everyone else.

Eat bugs, Tsumugi.

[impossible-rat-babies]

okay so I’ve done all the DT role quests, so here’s the ranking:

from fave to least fave:

melee -> tank -> ranged -> healer -> caster

melee 8/10 (loved the npc, villain was interesting in his use of the totem, final fight was just okay w mechs)

tank 7/10 (I enjoyed the two npcs, the villain could have been a bit more/I wanted more of her motivations, final fight could have used more fun stuff to do)

ranged: 5/10 (npc was okay, the villain was okay/kinda annoying, the final fight was kinda boring mechanics wise. it’s just robots in delebrum without twice come ruin)

healer: 3/10 (npc was nice, the villains were really, really annoying + not very compelling to me, the final fight was okay but I hate that they took a page out of the SCH quest handbook on the esuna + heal party members)

caster: 2/10 (idk the premise annoyed me so much I skipped cutscenes. the npc was cute, the villain’s wacky humor didn’t stick with me. the final duty was fun, but I was playing picto and that job is fun)

Overall there was some nice lore in these, and it was interesting to get to meet all these different people of Tural and their ways of life. It makes the whole of the world feel more alive and vibrant. It was nice to get to be the “big hero” again even if it was on a smaller scale + the stakes weren’t as high. they were very much a departure from the two previous expansions, and it was nice that they went for something lighter.

That being said, I don’t think it was particularly successful. (Note: im also not that big of a fan of the style of villain they had with these). There’s a great deal of stretching logic from one point to another to get a character to do what the plot needs them to do, and general making the characters “stupid” to fit what is narratively going on. there’s several instances of “hey this is a really bad thing” and I feel as if the game wants me to be like “oh that’s not so bad it’s just mischief!” ie poisoning the water supply of la noscea, or attempting to upset the balance of peace in radz-at-han’s radiant host not long after the final days Messed Them Up Real Bad. I just don’t find it particularly funny, even knowing that the game is going to have us take them down. I guess I could see the plot of each of them right from the beginning, and i don’t particularly enjoy it when I know what is going to happen. (yes you could argue that with MSQ but there’s a bit more going on there since it’s 100 quests compared to the 6 role quests).

But overall? They were okay. It ain’t my cup of tea, but it’s someone else’s favorite and good for them. Will I think about this stuff anytime soon? Maybe, maybe not, but I don’t think they’ll stick with me like the ShB role quests, or the EW healer role quests.

Ultimately, I think i like quests in this game that are more complicated + heavier in tone and content, so these weren’t it for me.

[blakegopnik]

THE FRIDAY PIC is “Pink Winged Victory,” a 1960 sculpture by Rosalyn Drexler, from her solo show at Garth Greenan gallery in New York.

I wrote a few words about the show for today’s New York Times, but figured that this image was a bit too ... vulvic ... to run there. But here’s what I wrote about it and the other works in the show:

Thinking back on the postwar era when he emerged as a sculptor, Robert Morris said that the “great anxiety” was “to fall into the decorative, the feminine, the beautiful, in short, the minor.” What he didn’t mention: that almost all art by women was bound to be described by those adjectives, and dismissed.

That leaves me all the more astounded by the early work of Rosalyn Drexler, still working today at 96. Created in the years around 1960, the art in this show fearlessly trumpets its femaleness.

A wacky little sculpture called “Pink Winged Victory,” not quite nine inches tall, seems to be a biomorphic, almost abstract riff on the figure of Nike from the Louvre, with the addition of a prominent vulva. “Fat Lady,” a sculpture that’s barely bigger, depicts its subject as a pair of spindly green-and-black striped legs with a big pink blob proudly sitting on top — this, at a moment when plus-size women were hardly celebrated and when pinks and pastels were considered taboo in women’s art, as the critic Lucy Lippard once recalled.

At Garth Greenan, a dozen tiny drawings done in brightly colored markers could almost pass as the work of an ebullient child, except that their subjects are frankly pornographic. In the sex acts depicted, Drexler seems to dwell on the woman’s pleasure.

And yet, given that most of the objects here would barely crowd a night stand, it feels as though Drexler could not yet imagine her vision of empowered womanhood as something for full-scale public consumption. 

[ignatiusweeks]

Hey! An event I collaged up these posters for. If you know anyone who would be interested in this either as an attendee or a food donor, drop us a line! The QR code for email (bottom left, second poster) includes an example template for donation notification if writing an email makes you anxious.

The conference has been going on since the 80s in its week long format and in recent years we've had to scale back a fair bit because of dwindling numbers and finances. Last year we numbered around 20 people at peak and a lot of us (including me) are aging out this year.

I have never felt more at home in my queer disabled body with my wacky neurotypes than I have at Summer's End. I was a girl guide as a kid and it's been a lot for me to have an opportunity to access nature in a way that I didn't think I would get to again because of who I am and how I need to move throughout the world. I feel Crip Camp about it. I feel run away to the woods to be braless with tranarchists and artists and zinesters and punks and Jewish farmers about it. I'm running a workshop this year where we make buttons. We have access to canoes! We have a community of people who want to help each other and feel empowered by each other. Sometimes therapy is not enough, sometimes you need to feel community and get to know yourself in the woods for a week. It's a little pocket of belonging that I wish everyone had. And I hope it keeps going for many many years down the line, long after everyone in it now is gone, when it has become something the youth of the future want it to be. There is no higher body making this conference happen. It's all us. And we can't keep it going without outreach help.

The fee is a sliding scale and many people come for free. If anything here is hard to read, feel free to click for the alt text.

I also encourage folks ask any questions you feel like!

As for COVID precautions, proof of vax is required and negative rapid test (we can provide those). The event is mostly outdoors but we encourage people to bring HEPA purifiers if you can fit it in your luggage for the indoor parts. (I'll be bringing one personally, but mine isn't graded very high and idk which building I'll be sleeping in.) Camping is encouraged but we have cabins!

tl;dr if you're 16-28 and want to be in the woods on Abenaki land for a bit have I got the thing for you!!