#for them to be 100% alienated from her as a character and personality

[fideidefenswhore]

i don’t actually mind iterations of AB where she’s ‘mean’ (…again, whatever the fuck that means in the 16c); but i really do reject portrayals where she’s completely devoid of warmth. unfortunately for me, one of them has remained #1 prestige ‘blueprint’ tudor drama since 2012 😭

[psuedofolio]

I've been continuing my quest to draw 100 different characters, once a day every weekday and a couple weeks ago was like... "Girls and Mecha" week. And I tried each time to have like... a different take on the theme but would still have certain similar aesthetics. With the exception of the "school girl" the other machines were inspired more with industrial or construction machines.

So like... here's a power loader type mech. And a power armor type design. Then there was like... a mecha pilot but all she got was a roomba. Then there was the "pilot" and there was the girl that is actually the mech for a tiny robot. Was fun!

I had this whole lore where it was some corporation fighting some future union rebels on some space planet. Maybe I'll expand more on that someday.

EDIT: It occurs to me I should probably include the flavor text from when I tweeted these out. I'll put them in the same order as the images here:

"You know Kimmie, from the loading docks? Yeah she took to the Pile Bunker like a champ. You should see her tear open the corpo APCs."

2. "The off world colony workers repurposed the excavator suits into mobile armor frames. Corporate needs you to shut this down, now."

3. "The workers at the BIG PLANT found a little creative solution for taking their work with them while moving through and monitoring the factory floor. They've taken to personalizing their "Desk-bas" thinking of them like their own little mecha."

4. "The Cortex Walker, inspired by some particularly cruel science fiction, was Corporate's latest attempt to demoralize the rebel factions. While impractical from a mechanical perspective, the psychological impact of firing on captured allies could not be understated."

5. "My Best Friend is An Alien (and Unfortunately That's my Type!)"

[shigayokagayama]

incomplete list of weird/interesting manga-anime discrepancies

-you know the bit where they break into the girls highschool in episode 2? yea thats chapter 56. spliced into the middle of chapter 4. its supposed to go before the bit with the ghost family as a lead up to the mogami arc with mob starting to consider evil spirits as just as much “people” as living humans are. all things considered its kind of weird how well it fits its anime placement

-ritsu in the manga gets introduced in the same chapter as teru. you dont see mobs family at all for the first few chapters. infact i dont think his parents appear until like. chapter 25????? every interaction you see between mob and any of his family is completely made up for the anime

-in the manga during the claw arc instead of reigen sending them away all the lackeys just stood there awkwardly during the fight w the scars fdnjksndkjgnd

-mogami arc got GUTTED my god. the part where the fake psychics tried to murder minori got removed, shinras role in the arc got reduced to basically nothing, they move mogamiland ritsu to a bridge like 50 feet away instead of having him walk right over mob, mob only gets beat up like twice, the cat lives, the boxcutter bit is totally removed, the fight with the spirits is made a lot more abstract and less graphic. like im glad this one took the hit instead of the separation arc bc i cant imagine that arc ever being effective as one episode but wow.

-putting the “mob finding his family dead” thing at the end of the episode instead of in the middle of a chapter where it originally was was an objectively hilarious move

-rip the scene of teru outsmarting all three claw guys and saying “say old man have you ever been tortured before” unfortunately all scenes of teru being competent are not plot relevant and must die. also teru can make shadow clones

-hey remember those weird satellite people in claw keeping the viewer updated on where all the characters were in that infinite arc?

-mob with a gun.

-mob getting briefly knocked out while fighting toichiro and dimple possessing him then getting kicked out was replaced w toichiro just throwing him out the window or somethhing???

-toichiro saying that he only kept the super five around as spare batteries and draining serizawas power getting cut was a personal affront to me

-every single emotion mob cycled through in the anime got a 100% meter. the kid was super emotionally unstable in that fight

-that old man whos house they went to whos wraith made everyone asleep that they exorcised? yea they anime team made that up. they never went to his house in the manga, he just went to spirits and such for a shoulder massage

-manga reigen got 0 money for helping the yokai dude. it wasnt on the table. also most of the stuff he was saying was lifted from a video game serizawa played which he pointed out. also serizawa thought getting arrested was a type of spell

-takenakas general meanness was significantly toned down manga takenaka was a huge bitch

-in general the alien arc was a lot funnier in the manga? like the scene where reigen crashes they had reached a dead end on an extremely narrow path and were driving in reverse while tome and takenaka were screaming at each other in the back and inukawa was 5 seconds from snapping and killing everyone in the car. these might be my favorite pages in the entire manga they as so fucking funny

-originally when tome said she wouldnt keep climbing reigen suggested mob carry her with telekinesis (which horrified her) and mob said he was too motion sick to use his powers (obvious lie) but could carry her instead which got her to get up

-mezato asking mob to sign a t shirt for the psycho helmet cult in exchange for relationship advice got cut

-i cry every day that the sequence of ???% waking up didnt get animated it set a very different tone than the anime did. the anime was like. slow build up of dread. the manga was immediately bone deep horror i was literally sitting in my room yelling “WHAT???” over and over again at my computer as i clicked through it

-shigeo and mob conversation cut down significantly, all the references to the body improvement club being mob making a new self rather than embracing who he really is and being scared that all the friends hes made wouldnt like the real him removed </3

-the scene where reigen takes his shoes off is made a lot less somber and depressing. it feels less like “oh he knows hes going to die” and more like. triumphant? in the anime

-100% shigeo kageyama is an anime addition they added specifically to ruin my “the first time we see mob 100% is to fight dimple and the last time is to stop himself from fighting dimple” observation

-anime teru generally seems like hes in a better place than manga teru? manga teru seems very melancholy and like he doesn’t really know what to do with his life or his place in the world (which seems to put shigeo off) but anime teru is like wanna go shopping ^_^ *sips tea happily*

-manga shigeo deliberately threw the cake directly in reigens face and my fury over them making this ambiguous will last until i am dead

[simpletale-officiale]

farm sans!!

YIPEE!

farmer sans, he farm. hoohah! he likes to pretend to be a scarecrow, but he works with corn and cattle too, hoorah! his au is right next to the bar, so he likes to go there to drink, him and horror like to drink a lot! yay! farms personality is more laid back then the others, not reacting as cartoonishly to everything, likes eating and doing farm stuff, likes brewing his own beer and cooking some good ol meat on the stove, pretty much like your ol' uncle or grandpa out on the farm. says pardner and pardon a lot i got bored so, some miscellaneous outcodes and AU's are in the BAR SECTION

this is for general combo au asks as well as miscellaneous outcodes and aus combo asks? whats combo asks? for example, while you can ask the characters specifically associated with two seperate aus, like fell and swap, they answer the question, together! at the bar. but moving onto the characters specifically only askable in the bar starting with the focus of the drawing above, geno and paperjam! geno geno came from a AU where his brother tragically passed away, he wore his scarf in papyrus honor and became a sort of hitchhiker, one day he got beat up pretty bad when he found a grey, glitchy... block? he tried to lift it up and well suddenly he was in a dark glitchy space, bits and piece of his friends floating above him in pixel form he spent his time there for many, many years, eventually he sent out a signal through a similar glitchy block in an attempt to try to communicate with someone, this failed, but eventually he succeeded at escaping. alone in the multiverse, sans stumbled upon the bar, and decided to live there, never alone again! hes a little depressed, but less in the waa waa way and more in the soft kind of tired way. like for example he doesnt give a "hi!!" but a "hi......" paperjam pastel and error got a bit to.... errr, frisky lets say (no error doesnt have a penis nor nipples, but pastel does have the female parts, she can reproduce both sexually and asexually, the latter she can achieve through arousing means, but not necessarily inserting privates into eachother means. which gets her to be errrrr, pregrante) eventually she gives birth in a brutal manner, imagine the movie alien but instead of simple blood and whatnot your stomach slowly bulges until it explodes dropping a baby out. ink survived, but error had no interest in kids, ink didint really care, shes a hulking beast her instinct is to take care of the kid for a few months then leave it out in the wild to live but because paperjam is an interspecies baby hes a hybrid of error and inks anatomy so. he grows faster then a normal monster, but still has a moment as a child so, hes not ready for the big world yet, but ink didint know that, so she just dropped him off somewhere and left, paperjam grew up to be a sad child wishing for validation from his parents by any means, learned french to try to impress his mom. used to be a scam artist to try to impress his dads crime fascination, he only semi-succeeded with ink. sad, ambitious artist

404 and king sans

bio: 404 was born omnipotent, automatically more powerful then all the other simpletons. he would become aware of how through an alternative reality known as the prescratch timeline where that version of him speaks of what he was destined for. nobody believes him however and that bitch error keeps harassing me about talking shit well you werent talking at all when you were sucking me off you fucking whore i thought we would have a fucking future togheter but you just a fucking slut fuck you never talk to me again bitch likes: chaos, delinquency, anarchy, NOT following the rules, 100 gecs (the one with the stupid horse), being powerful, super transformations, hyperpop, chains, gold, copypastas, big hot strong men that could absolutely penetrate me hard, 100 gecks (literally, i have 100 of them as pets and its awesome!!!), flexing, being totally dripped out, colors associated with errors, busting it down (gay kind not cool kind) dislinks: order, rules, politics, leaders, having to follow instructions, horror sans from the evil guys fuck you you stole my place on that group which im not that upset about anymore after realising they all suck anyways but i still hate you because you refuse to actually fight and keeps saying random quips everytime youre on screen like actually shut the fuck up, gex, women because im severely femalephobic and extremely homosexual so they terrify me, error (cheater and liar dont ever trust him with anything), ink who stole my man with her fuckin cursed woman parts and apparently in the prescratch timeline everyone calls her mommy????? im bouta yiik out man yeesh omnipotent brat with a big ego king sans a sans who believes himself to be the king of the multiverse, goes around ranting about how hes the greatest and how everyone has to BOW before him, most of the time just gets called slurs and has beer bottles thrown at him wears a comically large crown made of cardboard, plastic, and 5% metal. speaks like an old englishman

paper crane a bunch of sanses got ripped to shreds like paper! oh no! and then they got glued together again, hoorah! but the pieces were all mixed up so they just glued it into one single entity hoo...rah? cheerful, a little... soulless. means good, wants a soul, wants to feel alive again.

horror part of errors gang, but since errors gang hasnt been unlocked yet hes gonna be in this category for now. coming from an au where the core has a malfunction and undyne and alphys asked him to fix it, sans the mechanic errr kind of just slacked off, ate a sandwich took a nap wasnt really paying attention to the subject. eventually after 5 months of sans doing nothing alphys and undyne snap and hit sans in the head with a metal pipe, smashing his skull and sending him flying into the waterfall-snowdin river, after washing up ashore in snowdin, he kind of just forgot his whole interaction with undyne and alphys, and even if he did, he probably doesnt care, same personality as simpletale, but hes slightly more brain damaged so hes a bit more clumsy and endearing. seems menacing at first but hes harmless, beloved by everyone. loves getting wasted at the bar with farmer

[tgammsideblog]

How 100% Molly Mcgee¨ tackles mixed race crisis

The Ghost and Molly Mcgee, while being a funny comedy slice of life series, it has episodes that explore complicated real-life topics that the audience is able to relate to in more than one way.

One of these episodes is the season 2 episode ¨100% Molly Mcgee¨ that explores how Molly, who is mixed race/culture (Irish and Thai) feels alienated from her thai mother side of the family when her uncle David and cousin Emmie come to visit. Molly feels disconnected from her thai side and feels like she isn’t ¨thai¨ enough for that part of her family.

In this post I’m going to talk about how this episode tackles this theme, how it affects Molly and the rest of the characters involved and the lesson it gives.

Let’s start:

What does means to be mixed race/multi-ethnic?

According to dictionary.cambridge.org being mixed race means ¨a person whose parents are of different races¨. According to wikipedia being multi-ethnic refers to ¨people who are of more than one ethnicity.¨ In other pages, the term mixed race is used interchangeably to refer to people whose parents are from different races or different ethnic backgrounds since both terms are often correlated with each other. However, it worth of remembering that they mean different things. As you can belong to two different cultures but not be mixed race.

In the context of the series, Molly is a mixed race and multi-ethnic teen. She is half Thai from her mother side (Sharon) and half Irish from her father side (Pete). She is asian, southeast asian to be more specific, and white-european. The episode ¨100% Molly Mcgee¨ is about her thai side of the family and how she feels like she isn't connected enough to thai culture.

Molly’s conflict about being mixed race in the episode

¨100% Molly Mcgee¨ starts with Molly giving a presentation to her school classmates about her Thai heritage and her maternal family tree. She explains that her grandparents inmigrated from Thailand to America and that their surname is Suksai. Grandma Nin had two children: Sharon, Molly’s mom and David, Molly’s uncle, who himself got married and had a daughter named Emmie. Molly adds that Uncle David and Emmie are coming today from New York to visit the Mcgees after years of not seeing each other.

This intro is a good way to give the idea to someone who has never watched the series before that Molly is part thai and where her heritage comes from. I like how there are references to Thai culture and the fauna that is in Thailand in the presentation. It gives the idea that Molly enjoys learning about this culture and being involved in it, something that has been established in previous episodes.

In addition to this, there is a somewhat good explanation about why we haven’t seen Uncle David and Emmie around before, and that is because they live in New York and they haven’t been able to visit the Mcgees in a while.

The scene that follows is Uncle David and Emmie arriving at the Mcgees house. Molly greets them both and they get to meet Scratch, who they are very happy to see him and give him a big hug. Uncle David gives Molly an elephant plushie as a gift and she thanks to him in Thai. This makes Emmie excited since she thinks she has someone else around her age to talk to in Thai, to which Molly sadly answers that she only knows a few words and not much else. Emmie apologizes and shows to be okay with Molly not knowing a lot about the language.

Then Sharon and Grandma Nin greet David and Emmie in thai too, a conversation that Molly isn't able to follow since she can’t understand them. This is the first thing that makes Molly feel alienated from the rest of the Suksais, expressing to Scratch that she didn’t know there was so much thai spoken in this side of the family.

In the next scene the family is seen looking for a game night to play, Emmie suggests playing makruk, which Sharon describes as ¨thai chess¨. This is a game Molly has never heard about. Darryl reveals that he has been playing makruk online lately and plays a game with Emmie, making Molly feel more insecure about not knowing a lot about thai culture.

Then Uncle David shows some seaweed snacks that he brought to share. Molly tries eating some of them only to quickly realize that they are too spicy for her and she isn’t used to eating food that is this spicy. Sharon, David and Emmie eat them without any problem since they have spicy tolerance thanks to the thai food they got used to growing up.

Molly and Scratch are trying to calm down their burning mouths from the spiciness by drinking bottles of milk in Molly’s bedroom. Molly then expresses feeling alienated from thai culture because she doesn’t know things like how speak the language nor play makruk. She talks about how she only has one thai parent (Sharon) while her cousin Emmie has two thai parents, and, she thinks that because she is mixed race, she ¨isn’t thai enough¨ for her family.

One thing that is good about this episode is that a person can relate to Molly’s conflict without them having to be Thai since her conflict is about feeling like she doesn’t fit in with the rest of the Suksais because she doesn’t know much about her heritage aside from a few things. It is about feeling insecure that you aren’t connected enough to your roots and culture and feeling disconnected to your social circle as result of that. What’s more, this idea of feeling left out is something that Molly has struggled with past episodes (A Period Piece- All Night Plight), something that in part comes from being a teen but also a product of some abandoment issues she has.

Another aspect that is cool is how the Suksais don’t put Molly down for not knowing enough about thai culture, like Grandma Nin doesn’t show to be disappointed when Molly only knows a few thai words and Emmie apologizes to Molly when she realizes this too and continues to talk in english to her. They only make one or two jokes about Molly not being able to tolerate very spicy food but nothing else. If anything, them making Molly feel left out is indirect and completely unintentional as it would be in this type of family situations.

Molly has the idea of spending all night trying to learn as much as she can about thai culture to feel like she is ¨thai enough¨. The music song sequence has her trying to learn Thai language, how top lay makruk and trying to develop some spicy tolerance while Scratch helps her. I want to highlight how supportive Scratch is of Molly in this episode, he is seen guiding her when she is giving her school presentation at the start and then staying all night helping her with learning more about thai culture. In part it is because he gets what Molly is going through but he just really cares about her.

In the next day Molly presents to her family all the thai related plates she prepared for them to have, the Suksais are shown to be impressed, seeing this as a very nice gesture from Molly. Molly mentions how the food is ¨super spicy¨ and Grandma Nin quickly notices that something is off and brings up how Molly doesn’t like spicy food. Molly ignores Nin’s commentary and tries her best to prove that she can tolerate the spicy flavor.

She asks to Uncle David and Emmie how was their trip in thai and asks them to answer her in thai too. This leads to the rest of the Suksais to have a conversation in thai that Molly isn’t able to follow again just like the beginning of the episode.

I really like how this scene really shows how overwhelmed Molly feels about not being able to understand what the rest of the family is talking about, with the subtitles covering the entire screen while Molly panicks more and more until she screams. It’s a pretty effective scene that shows how she stressed she is in this situation.

Pete decides to tell a joke in thai language, making the others laugh. Molly is suprised that even Pete (who is Irish-white) knows how to talk thai. Pete explains to her that it is a joke that he has been practicing for months to impress Grandma Nin. This leads to Molly say that she still ¨isn’t thai enough¨ even when she spend all night trying to learn about the culture.

In the following scene Molly is in her bedroom surrounded by her plushies, feeling bad about what happened earlier. Scratch tries cheering her up without being able to do so. That’s when Sharon comes in and asks to Molly what is happening. She explains to Sharon how she doesn’t feel as thai as the rest of them. What follows is the rest of the suksais telling Molly that understand how she feels, just in different ways: Sharon feels bad about letting her thai get rusty, Uncle David for not have been in Thailand and even Grandma Nin mentions how her sister made fun of her for ¨being too american¨.

Sharon explains to Molly that ¨being thai is part of you¨ and ¨there isn’t a right or wrong way to be you¨, leading to Molly to understand that she doesn’t have to prove anything to them and it is her decision to choose how she celebrates thai culture and how much she wants to learn about it. Emmie tells to Molly that they love her the way she is and they all share a family hug, ending the episode.

One detail i want to highlight i how only the Suksais are involved in this personal scene and Scratch and Pete are ¨set aside¨ since it isn’t something that involves them in this context. It is a pretty nice detail that makes the scene better than it is.

Conclusion:

The lesson that 100% Molly Mcgee gives is that people have different ways of celebrating their own culture and they don’t have to prove anything to anyone. It is one’s decision to want to learn more about one’s heritage and you don’t have to do it because you feel like you have to impress your family or other people. One decides how invested they want to be and there isn’t anything wrong with knowing less about it in contrast to the rest of your family and social circle.

[genericpuff]

A theory as crazy as it is profound in a silly r/im14andthisisdeep kinda way

So there's this conspiracy theory of sorts that's been whispered within the ULO discord and subreddit the last little bit. I don't think anyone's made an outright statement on it yet but it's definitely something people have been casually talking about in the comment sections and chatrooms, mostly as a joke, but also as a thought experiment.

And that thought experiment is concerning the notion that Lore Olympus could very well have become a poorly-made AI comic.

Not necessarily the art, as we've already dissected the art process plenty of times before and it points to Rachel simply being bad at team management and using her mismanaged team as a way to circumvent any real effort on her own part.

But the writing. There's just something about Lore Olympus' writing that's become incredibly stiff, boring, and alien.

Disclaimer before I continue: this is a tinfoil hat theory, and a lot of the points I'm about to discuss can be easily proven with far more reasonable explanations, so take it with mountains of salt. That said, I do think it's something worth talking about as we're currently in an era of mass AI-takeover in the art and writing scene, and let's face it, Lore Olympus nowadays really does feel like it's either being written by an alien, or an amalgamation of possessed animatronic endoskeletons wearing a human skinsuit. So viewer beware, this post is full of speculation and tinfoil hat wearing, read at your own discretion and don't take everything I'm about to say 100% seriously.

Let's get started.

THE TONE OF VOICE

This is where that whole "animatronic wearing a skinsuit" vibe really shines, so I figured it would be where I'd start. Lore Olympus... does not feel human. It's dialogue often feels stilted and scripted, none of the characters have any sense of personal voice, and it often feels like the dialogue is coming straight out of a sterilized Wikipedia article.

There are also often times when characters will say one thing only to be responded to with an entirely other thing. It comes across as randomly generated, like the dialogue is being created based off a script that is only given prompts as to where it needs to end up - so everything between Point A and Point B ends up feeling like non-sequitur filler at best and outright nonsense at worst.

In fact, there can be better tone of voice and dialogue found in the legitimate AI conversations of Lore Olympus themed ChatGPT bots.

And this is a bot that's self-aware it's a bot, so it definitely has that going for it.

The more likely explanation: Rachel's bad at writing. She's planning these episodes maybe 2 weeks ahead at a time at best so she's just throwing dialogue in to keep readers spending money and meet her panel quotas. Her characters have no voice because they aren't, in and of themselves, characters. She hasn't given them any depth beyond their appearance and she clearly has next to no understanding of writing outside her own headspace (and her actual headspace as we've seen is... yikes) so it's not surprising that her dialogue-writing is on par with Shenmue 3. And Shenmue 3 is a game with real human-written dialogue that exists so it's not a stretch that something like LO's bad writing could be entirely the fault of a human either LOL

THE NARRATIVE INCONSISTENCIES

It seems since the start of S2.2 (post-mid-season hiatus which starts us off with the 10 year time skip) narrative inconsistencies and plotholes have become far more egregious, sometimes contradicting itself within the same episode. Almost like scenes are just happening from single idea prompts and no actual structure underneath the surface.

The more likely explanation: Just like the first point about stilted dialogue, this could easily be chalked up to Rachel just not committing to goal-oriented writing. She doesn't have any sort of end point planned for any of these plotlines, she just drags them out until she can finally think of a way to resolve them, if she even resolves them (many often aren't resolved, or are simply left as a "yep, that's it, moving on" type ending, ex. Eros and Psyche).

STRANGE SYNTAX AND CONSTANT TYPOS

This goes hand in hand with the first point about stilted dialogue, but part of what makes everything feel so stiff and robotic is how often the sentences are structured in very... odd ways. From the lack of contractions that make sentences feel less natural-

-to the strange choice of words that no human being in a modern setting would ever use (and LO is, again, set in a modern setting and is trying to portray the gods as being 'just like us')-

-to the numerous typos and spelling errors.

(there are so many I could post here but the "his deam" one always makes me laugh lmao)

It really feels like a lot of these sentences were pulled straight out of Twitter or a Wikipedia article. As a result, it never feels like these characters are talking to each other, but at each other.

As for the typos, at this point, Rachel really has no excuse for how frequent they are. Fortunately, she has hired a copy editor recently which seems to have mitigated these errors, but if there were a bot involved, it wouldn't be farfetched to think that the bot would also make spelling mistakes and stilted dialogue if it's been trained off Rachel's past material which is, y'know... full of spelling mistakes and stilted dialogue.

The more likely explanation: It's a well known fact that Rachel has dyslexia, so I'm not going to fault her for struggling with spelling things right. None of this is to shame people who struggle with dyslexia and reading disorders. But the fact of the matter is, Rachel is a multi-million dollar creator in the year 2023 where spellcheck exists. It's wild that she's only now taken on a copy editor. Literally any of her assistants that she's had for the last few years could have done that for her. It's great that she's hired a copy editor but it feels like too little too late. That isn't going to fix the stilted dialogue, either, which just comes down to, yet again, Rachel being a bad writer. And possibly a series of animatronic endoskeletons hiding in a human skinsuit.

REACTING TO CRITICISM

The irony of this post is that it asks not to take every speculation I write here seriously because it's just that, speculation, and we shouldn't get carried away with conspiracy theories... which is exactly the sentiment we had back when we initially suspected Rachel of spying in the criticism groups, which turned out to be true. It's basically public knowledge at this point that Rachel lurks in the criticism groups, thanks to both testimonials from others who have been in groups who got hijacked by Rachel (see: Broseidon's Palace of Fishposting) and the 'clapbacks' in LO that are clearly meant for the audience.

But it's wild to think that Rachel would really spend time in criticism groups when she's said it herself that she "doesn't like criticism". And considering she already spends an absurd amount of time on social media, it would be really ridiculous if she was still finding time to also lurk in the critic groups and concoct ways to 'get back' at them.

Unless, of course, there was a bot parsing criticism hashtags like #antiloreolympus and #loreolympuscritical. I can personally attest to the fact that Rachel must be subscribed to hashtags in some capacity because I've had Lore Olympus fanart (way back in the day when it was actual fanart and not foe-art) get retweeted by Rachel herself literally seconds after posting. So either Rachel is just constantly refreshing the search feed all day, or she's directly fed tweets and posts with the hashtags she's subscribed to.

The more likely explanation: Rachel literally just spends an absurd amount of time on social media and considering she clearly only involves herself in the beginning and end process of drawing her comic - and only has a buffer 1-2 weeks ahead of time - she's definitely got plenty of time on her hands to lurk and hurt her own feelings in the criticism spaces. She could also just have her mods sending things to her as well. Either way it's icky behavior and I wish she'd do herself and her mental health a favor and just stay out of the fandom spaces, they aren't for her, they're for the fans.

HOW IS IT GETTING WORSE?

Consider everything I've laid out here. Remember that Lore Olympus is a comic that's been in development since 2017, and in the Originals catalogue since 2018. Its Originals version turned 5 years old in March and technically LO is well into the 6-7 year age range in total. It's absolutely absurd that after all these years, not only has the story fallen apart, but the art has lost the quality it once had. Comics are a medium that encourage improvement, you're drawing lots and typically the same characters and settings over and over again, it's natural progression to get better at doing it over time. And yet, Rachel seems to be getting worse at it, and her involvement in the comic seems to be shrinking with each year.

Of course, improvement is optional. Not every comic gets better over time. Which brings me to my final piece on this matter.

The most likely explanation: Rachel is burnt out and not interested in LO anymore. This is the longest project she's ever done, and while it's not the first webcomic she's done on a schedule, it is the first one that's made it further than a handful of chapters (The Doctor Pepper Show ended after about 1-2 years, not even making it to 10 chapters). She even stated herself in the beginning that LO was a project she'd "never finish".

While it is a testament to how far LO has come from its humble beginnings, I think it also serves as a precautionary tale - success can come at the expense of your happiness and integrity if you've trapped yourself in a project that no longer fulfills you.

Rachel's never finished a long-term project, and at this rate, it's hard to say when she will. As well known as it is that she has dyslexia, it's also well known that she has ADHD, and speaking as an ADHD creator myself, I can fully empathize with and understand that webcomics are hard to create, and get more exhausting to see through with each passing chapter. There's a reason not everyone does long-term comics like this, they're incredibly hard to manage and require a lot of commitment. Even I've found my commitment to current projects wavering as the honeymoon phase has worn off and I've sunk into the reality that is monotonous work, panel after panel, episode after episode, deadline after deadline.

If Rachel were a more experienced creator and more self-aware of her own limitations and work methodology back in 2018, Lore Olympus likely would have never been dragged out this long. She may have gotten the chance to finish it while she was still happy with it, or at least leave it behind when she was ready to move on. While I'm sure the allure of signing on with Originals felt worth it at the time - especially when we didn't know yet just how exploitative Webtoons was - it clearly hasn't benefitted her in the long run because it's tethered her to a project that she never felt wholly dedicated to in the first place. A project that's now less about telling a story and connecting with an audience and more about generating clicks and revenue.

She can claim all she wants in her interviews that Persephone and Hades were her "muses" as a child, but the writing is on the wall - LO was a passing fancy that stuck around too long after its heartbeat gave out.

What it's become now is an endoskeleton on life support, made up of statistics and analytics, struggling to stay alive from inside of a colorful but rotting skinsuit that only barely resembles a living thing.

[talesfrommedinastation]

Redneck Doug on ALL the other Clones in Star Wars!

As promised, for reaching a new number of followers, here's Doug's list when I asked him to name off all the clones in 'The Clone Wars' and 'The Bad Batch'!

Some are obviously repeats of other posts, and some are brand spanking new.

I'm using my autoethnography skills to their fullest extent, here, people.

This is LONG but hey! 7 seasons of The Clone Wars and 3 seasons of The Bad Batch means animated Star Wars in the Days of our Lives of animation.

If I'm missing someone, let me know! I'll reach out to Doug!

Enjoy, everyone!

CW: Redneck Doug just rambles needlessly about people.

And Clermont Lounge is one of the scariest and yet, most fun places in the ATL and I could 100% see one of the 501st working there.

-----------------------

Bly: That’s a boy, his name’s Miguel. Got his friends, they drink Pabst, shoot the empty cans behind the garage when they done, and hit on every woman that walks by. But Miguel’s got his eyes on Babe-the-Blue-Jedi and steals flowers from people’s yard and gives them to her. Babe-the-Blue-Jedi knows the man’s not that bright but his heart’s in the right place and that’s all that matters, right? 

Rex: That's Rex. He's a king. Respect him. 

Cody: That’s Obi-Wan’s Boyfriend, he’s sad all the time. We know why. (Confirmed that Doug is a Codywan shipper and I don’t know what to do about that)

Howzer: That’s my niece’s boyfriend, Jorge. We all love Jorge, nice guy, owns an auto repair shop and always remembers plates and napkins for the cookouts after church.

Gregor: Jorge’s cousin, Manny. Met him once at Christmas in Miami, nice guy, only drinks brown liquor and insists everyone arm wrestle him. But he’s got a good job as a PE teacher, we respect education, come on now. 

Hardcase: Wiggles. He laughs at everything and never wears a helmet both on his big head and his lil head and that explains everything about the man.

Kix: Nurse Mark. He's tired and sick of your shit, sick of the creeps trying to get the Fentanyl, that's a crime now, ain't it.

Echo: "Eh, Toaster Strudel. Homeboy looks like his daddy had an affair with a convection oven on shore leave and forgot to pay child support."

Mayday: Aw, I liked this guy so much! That’s Sassy Park Ranger, he’s the type that gives you your camping permits, warns you about the bears, and then is all disappointed when you don’t properly stow your food and the bears destroy the campsite. I need to go back to Little River Canyon, that place was pretty. 

Scorch: The Son of Robocop. His daddy told him to get off his lazy Robo-son ass and go get a job, so he works for the Empire now, because no one can get a job in Detroit. That’s why he’s a bad person. (Because he works for the Empire? “No, because he’s a Lions fan and that ain’t a good look for anyone.”)  

Fives: Alex-from-Manitoba. He reminds me so much of this awesome guy I knew, Alex, was from Winnipeg, we worked in oil together. Smart, knew his shit, loved guns and getting his hair did. No one listens to him, management hates him, and he gets fired. Man I was so pissed off when that happened with that damn alien that ran the ocean on the mall! He deserved better, damn it!

(Fives or Alex-from-Manitoba?

“BOTH!!!”)

99: 99!  

(You actually remember his name?  

“Hell yeah! He’s one of the most important characters! Why would I not?” 

::cue me, quietly staring at all the weird-ass names over texts and saying NOTHING in response::) 

Wolffe: Bernando. I dunno, man, he got that Bernardo energy. I’ve met three and they all looked like they wanna run off into the woods and come out when they got a deer they need to process and take a shower and find a lady before running back into the woods. Also Bernardo never has a girlfriend that lasts more than 6 months with him. Don’t know why. Just trust me. 

Gree: Carnie Joe. Man, he looks like the type of guy who drives an ice cream truck but there ain’t no Bomb Pops inside if you know what I mean. 

Cut Lawquane: Not-Wolverine. He ran away from the Empire, grew out his muttonchops, wanted to join the X-Men, Charles Xavier said ‘Nah son you need super powers for that’, and then Not-Wolverine stomped off into Tremors-land and started a pot-and-chicken farm like every other hillbilly in Kentucky. But he got a hot wife out of the deal and some nice kids and lots of guns, and ya know, that ain’t a bad ending for the man. 

Commander Fox: Red-Chief-of-Police. He’s absolutely on them Ticky-Tack videos my nieces and nephews watch where the cops are doing bad things but they ain’t gonna get fired over it. Man. It ain’t right. 

Tup: Alex’s-Friend-Matt. Aw, Matt, good guy, but too much brain damage after that time he fell off the roof while laying down tar. He grew out his ponytail to hide the dent in his head and talked funny afterwards, but he real good at roughneck work and I can’t fault the man, nope. 

Hevy: That’s Ross. He’s always mad because he’s insecure. He’s got a lot of Nerf guns and only eats stuff you can find at 7-11. 

Jesse: That’s Jesse, he’s a trucker, was a bouncer at Clermont Lounge in Atlanta, and has three ex-wives who all hate him. He shaves his head because his hair hates him too. 

Crosshair: So that there's Daddy Warcrimes. All you need to know is he lives on beer and Slim Jims, has more guns then Jesus got faith, and that he does your mom on the weekends, and then you thank him for his service.

Hunter: Aw man, we got Rambo up in this place. Daddy Rambo. He looks like he's got some hot wife with a huge butt who makes amazing biscuits, but he only showers on the weekends for reasons he won't tell you.

Wrecker: I know, I KNOW, he's got some cool Star Wars name, but in my head, he's Julio. He looks like a Julio, ya know? Every Julio's been the nicest guy with a truck and a million friends. I swear. I bet he's a contractor and lays pipe like you wouldn't believe. ::winks::

Tech: Hm, yeah, I know him. That's Ryan-from-Accounting, somebody's hipster dad. You know, everyone knows a Ryan who works in accounting, he's quiet, only drinks IPAs, and has a bitch wife named Laura who drives a Kia and is always yelling at him. Poor man. I hope Julio saves him from his bitch wife Laura.*

Omega: Little Orphan Blondie. I hope she gets real parents or something besides those freaky alien things running the mall on the ocean.

Emerie Karr: Stepsister-Beth. She’s got a stick up her rear, was in a sorority known for bitchy Daddy’s Girls who wouldn’t touch below the belt but are all about using other places for their date’s hoses to put out the fire, and only drinks almond milk lattes. She’s a bitch to waiters and drives a Prius. 

(“Doug I drive a Prius.”

“Yeah, but you ain’t a southern sorority girl so y’all forgiven.”)

Nemec and Fireball: Trigger and Nutsy. They’ve been in a survival militia in the Florida Everglades and that’s all you need to know. 

CX-2: The Guy from Tron. He’s a guy, and he was in the movie Tron. That’s it. 

[welcome-to-green-hills]

Spit-Ball Headcanon Time... Maybe...

This is a little thought of mine, maybe a bit of a fan-theory now that I think bout it. I've been thinking about how the first, second, and third movies could combine into one massive web of SCU lore. Here’s my thought; I believe that Longclaw and a Robotnik (hopefully Gerald Robotnik) potentially knew each other. Potentially. And if they knew each other in passing, then it opens up the ability for other intergalactic aliens to be introduced into SCU canon. Not only that, but these extra-terrestrial interactions helped further Dr. Robotnik's need to capture Sonic for his own personal use in the first movie, as well as inspire him to continue tinkering on the movie's version of the Death Egg Robot via chaos energy. And this is all true, then it might explain some of the bizarre history of Green Hills, Montana.

I'm a big advocate in reading the novels for the movies (Book 1 and Book 2). There's some information present in the books that weren't present in the films. In the first novel, it states that Longclaw is very familiar with Earth. She's actually visited Earth a few times and has observed the humans (PG. 12 & 13). This also leads us to believe that she might have known some of the humans in order to describe them as "power hungry, self-centered." But she makes up for it in saying that it's a safe haven for Sonic to grow up on as long as he stays hidden. With this in mind, as well as informing Sonic that her people have left temples with the Master Emerald all around Earth, it explains why she was okay with leaving him on the foreign planet. Even with this tidbit of information, it shows that she might have known someone in order to give that impression of humans.

I believe that this is Gerald Robotnik. 100%.

Concept art for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) shows that Gerald Robotnik IS a character for SCU. This was conformed by Tyson Hesse, concept artist and one of the producers for the films on Twitter (SOURCE). The concept artwork shows that the writing on the walls is the same plans used in SA 2. Even so, writers Pat Casey and Josh Miller explained that heavy influence of SA 2 and ShTH 2005 will be used in the third film (SOURCE). This could mean that Gerald's deal made with numerous people and an extra-terrestrial alien overlord COULD be canon to the films. This could also mean that the quest for immortality and a cure for Maria Robotnik will be Gerald's motive. With this information in mind, it opens up a potential relationship with Longclaw.

This relationship is formed as she comes to Earth to check on the temples and with Gerald Robotnik on his quest to achieve immortality. Longclaw knew that Earth had several temples for the Master Emerald. It would be part of her duty, as a guardian, to protect and keep tabs on them at all times. I strongly believe that way before Sonic was taken in by Longclaw, way before Sonic was born, she knew Gerald and they both shared information. In game canon, it's stated that Shadow the Hedgehog is created with connection to the Chaos Emeralds. In the movies, the Chaos Emeralds are in the Master Emerald (it's now it's own separate emerald). If Longclaw shared information of both the Master Emerald and the Chaos Emeralds to Gerald Robotnik, then it would explain the chaos-like energy that we see emitting from Shadow in the second movie's post-credit scene.

Note that the Echidna tribe are located in SCU’s equivalent to Mystic Ruins. The background structure of where the tribe's huts are is the temple in Sonic Adventure 1 AND in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1993). And a massive popular fan theory is that the reason why Shadow looks the way that he is that Gerald Robotnik saw this temple mural fighting a god. Gerald Robotnik took it upon himself to create an artificial chaos energy. He created Shadow with the mindset of having connections to the emeralds as well. Interaction with Longclaw and Gerald Robotnik stopped because she felt that he would be after the power that came from the emeralds, thus leaning him to try and replicate it on his own. And if he could try and replicate the emeralds, then he could try and find a cure.

If Longclaw and Gerald Robotnik knew each other, then it's quite possible that Gerald had knowledge of other aliens existing. And if he was able to replicate chaos-like energy, that would open up the possibility of the Black Arms aliens coming in Sonic 3. He could form an alliance with them and further his research on immortality. Not only that, this would give a means for the United States government to get involved and shut down Project: Shadow entirely. This would explain why Project: Shadow was hidden in government archives, as well as General Walter's eagerness to want to create Guardian Units of the Nation (G.U.N.) in Sonic 2. This would also explain Dr. Robotnik's desire to capture Sonic and drain his power-source from him in the first movie. That, and it explains some of Dr. Robotnik's plans for the Death Egg Mech--he had some understanding of chaos power before hand. I argue this because Dr. Robotnik's response to Knuckles' statement on the Master Emerald is an “ah-ha” moment rather than a new concept. Dr. Robotnik had an idea that chaos power existed from his grandfather, Gerald Robotnik. He wanted that power.

It's no surprise that Green Hills, Montana is kind of a funky place. Other than it holding the only Olive Garden restaurant in the entire state, it has some pretty interesting history to it. Since the 1800's, Green Hills is originally known as an agricultural hot spot AND a massive hub for imported goods for the railroad system. All of this information is displayed on historical plaques seen throughout town. This is especially evident on Main Street where we seen the railroad tracks. What we've neglected to point out is that the historical plaques also state that the town has a rich history of being a military town. This information also states that it was a military town for a short amount of time in the mid-20th century, then quickly reverted back into an agricultural town.

I will make the bold claim in saying that Green Hills, Montana has something to do with Shadow's creation. Not only that, but those that were involved with Shadow's creation--or even shutting down the project--potentially had something to do with Green Hills. And to make sure that the project stayed quiet, the USA government had someone stay and make sure that none of that information was uncovered... thus making the statement, "there's been a Wachowski protecting this town for more than 50 years" crucial.

But I hear you questions. I hear saying that there's still loose ends to this fan-theory, especially the parts where Sonic's existence comes in and why so many people are after the emeralds in the first place. Why do some characters have chaos powers and some don't? Why does it feel like Knuckles is afraid of Sonic when he goes Super Sonic? How do present-day Dr. Robotnik and General Walters continue to tie into this?

All I can say is that we'll just have to wait into Sonic the Hedgehog 3 comes out in 2024.

This is just a headcanon/my thought. I’ll add more to it when I’m not so tired.

[shakingparadigm]

DUDE ok i was a casual fan of alien stage before round six but now im like quaking in my boots, i wasn’t even thinking about a potential saving grace bc of hyuna. and like when i watched it i was so “100% ivan’s dead there’s no world where vivinos would keep him alive” and now im staying on that train bc it’s true and also i don’t want to be mourning for no reason lol

anyway it’s certain mizi and till will meet, probably when she saves his depressed ass like he keeps dreaming about, but what i think is gonna happen is that he’s gonna realize that the mizi he’s been yearning for isn’t the mizi that actually exists.

obviously it’s been hinted at bc her physical appearance has changed from the glasses wearing long haired angel till sees in round 6 after (or in the middle of, bc he wasn’t wearing the collar mute thing) getting assaulted, but also i don’t think mizi could ever consider till as more than a friend?

like idk mizi falling for really anyone else leaves a bad taste in my mouth, esp for someone who loves an idealized version of her, and i also very selfishly want my toxic yaoi to be requited even in death so till realizing he lost his real chance at partnership

my heart says till mourns a missed chance and never moves on, ivan deserves it >:(, my brain says maybe in the end mizi and till will become besties and grieve together in a new human world

or or maybe vivinos kills everyone off and like fades out into a future round of alien stage bc it’s a never ending cycle or whatever

sorry for length my brain worms have been brain worming

You know what I vibe with this. Ever since Mizi cut her hair I've been thinking about what it meant for her character (wrote a whole post about it) and how she's changed from the person the rest of the cast saw her as initially. I also don't think Mizi would see Till as anything more than a dear friend. She loves and cares for him, of course, just not in that way, and she'd be kind of disconcerted if she found out how he viewed her. It's implied that Till was always too shy to actually get close to Mizi, so it's likely that he doesn't know what she's actually like. He most likely takes her kind actions at face value and uses these bits of her to build an image in his head. An image of a perfect, flawless angel who's kindness knows no bounds. A purely gentle soul. But Mizi is not like that in actuality, of course. Nobody is. She's incredibly flawed, naive, prone to drowning in her emotion and lashes out when provoked. She's always been a lot stronger than she looks, too. I really want them to be friends, though. They deserve support and solidarity together with Hyuna once they reach an understanding. Hopefully they make it out alive!! (they so totally will not)

The series ending with everyone dead and the next season of Alien Stage beginning would be absolutely diabolical 😭 I could see that kind of thing happening since it's VIVINOS after all

[yanderelinkeduniverse]

Hey I’ve got something in the works for Halloween but it’s probably going to be late, so it’s going to be more like a mid-November thing. But I’ll at least whip up some tasty art because you guys deserve something nice for the holiday.

Anyways, in the meantime I wanted to share a line of thought I’ve had for a while about Wild’s memories and his attitude towards both himself and Flora.

It’s kind of an analysis/speculation type of thing where I look at the memories in “Breath of the Wild” and see how these memories could have affected Wild’s current mental state in the actual comic, so not explicitly yandere.

All art belongs to Jojo!

So first things first, something that I’m sure a lot of people have pointed out is that Link’s memories in Botw aren’t actually about him so much as they are about Zelda.

From a writing standpoint, this at least makes a little sense since Zelda is supposed to be an important character in the game and since she’s currently preoccupied with keeping Calamity Ganon at bay, using the memories to explore her character is a reasonable thing to do.

But from an in universe perspective, this doesn’t feel very fair to Link. We rarely get to see events from his perspective and instead see things from the perspective of Zelda or some other character. Plus, we get no memories that truly focus on Link himself before he became Zelda’s personal knight. Anything we do know about Link is derived from comments characters make(like Zelda mentioning Link’s father) or diary entries.

Logically, this would all make Link kind of alienated from his past self, a stranger to this “Him” he used to be.

And we know that Link only ever regains memories of the Princess and not of himself, because when Zelda talks to him after he regains the final memory, she says this:

Note how she says “of us” and not just “all your memories from 100 years ago.” So there aren’t any little gaps in between shown memories where Link collects memories beyond the time he was with Zelda, at least none that exist beyond headcanons.

Anyways, I want to talk a little about Urbosa because for as well meaning as she may have been, I think some of the things she says in two memories in particular relate pretty heavily to Wild’s self esteem in the comic.

There’s two things she says in particular that I think would’ve stuck with Link — and thus — Wild.

The first one is this:

We don’t know what order Wild collected his slate memories in the comic, but if we assume that he decides to collect them in the order of which photos came first on the slate then what Urbosa says would most likely affect Wild heavily.

He’s basically got no solid self image of himself or especially not the self he was 100 years prior. So one of the first things he learns about himself being that he was “a living reminder of Zelda’s own failures” when he goes on to recover more and more memories relating to Zelda and her failures just feels like unintentional set up for Link to develop some more self loathing issues.

But being fair to Urbosa, she is basically Zelda’s surrogate mother and by this point has known Link for maybe a day or two. She’s not obligated to worry about him. Plus at the very least she does add on that this is how the Princess sees him, not what he actually is.

The second comment from Urbosa is this:

Prefacing this with saying, again, Urbosa does clarify that Link doesn’t hold any blame for the way Zelda sees him at this point, so good on her for that.

But still this is almost the exact same sentiment being repeated, Link’s own struggles are ignored in favor of focusing on how his success is interpreted as Zelda’s failure. Even if Urbosa adds on that this isn’t his fault it’s just how Zelda is, from Link’s perspective that’s got to leave some kind of impact on him. Perhaps guilt?

So to summarize, because of the selection of memories we know Link collects in canon, it’s logical to assume that Link’s view of himself in the present and from a hundred years ago would be rather negative.

And this perfectly reflects how Wild acts in the comic.

I don’t know about you but to me Wild has always had a particularly toxic view of himself from 100 years ago. He barely sees his past self as himself, instead calling that past iteration “Him” like he’s talking about a separate person. And he’s always given me the vibes of both resenting his past self while simultaneously wanting to be him again.

The way he talks about his past self being capable of feats he could never see himself doing shows that Wild in part seems to see his current self as “lesser than” his past self, especially when it comes to how the Master Sword responded to him at different points in his life. So it’s not a stretch to say that Wild may want to “be” that person again, especially since we see him use the sword at least one time.

But because of his perceived “failure” and possibly how he made Flora feel, he also resents the gifted prodigy he once was, not seeing that he was and has always been a human person with his own struggles.

Anyways this is sloppy and messy but I wanted to get this off my chest because I think it’s really interesting.

[cityzenshark]

How to fix certain things in Earthspark

The dugout,

Dorothy,

Alex,

the triplet's relationship with their family

This is my own take, no hard feelings

1. The dugout.

Have the parents plan the dugout with Wheeljack while Nightshade, JB and Thrash eagerly joins building it.

No one should be 100% okay if their dopted child builds an underground bunker on their own and without telling them at all. What if the barn collapsed?

The security systems Hashtag and Nightshade install are done without guidance from Wheeljack, hence why the siblings get stuck inside for ten hours in 'Security Protocols'.

They could've called Wheeljack for help in that episode.

TLDR; anyting regarding the bunker should've involve Wheeljack. It makes his character more relevant than being just Twitch's Dad-2.

2. Dot should be a more strict mother.

Please know the difference between strict and abusive.

She's a veteran who wants a normal life as a forest ranger only to get roped back into Transformers issues without her consent. On the same day, her kids found newborn Transformers and want them to be family from the get go?

Have her relunctant about it and have Alex talked her out. Have her warm up to the twins gradually. She just found out her dream job is bait for GHOST. If I were her, I'd be angry for a week.

After she fully warms up to twins, the warmth is then immediate to the triplets.

She shows actual concern about the kids' cyber-sleeves. Have Dot monitor the sleeves herself every episode until she's assured they are harmless. Then have her and Alex be worried triple time after 'Disarmed'.

She knows about the events of 'Home' and have the kids grounded while worrying about Hashtag's mental condition. They were in the city for heavens sake -- Dot and Alex were bound to know!

Think about June Darby. June is rightfully concerned about the kids being involved with the Autobots. Raf nearly died to something normal medicine can't cure, Miko is impulsive around soldiers, her own son went to a desolate alien planet. As a teenager, I find June annoying. Now as an adult, I find the kids even more annoying. Dorothy should've been more strict than June and Fowler combined because she was directly involved in the Cybertronian war.

It makes more sense if she doesn't want her children involved directly with Cybertronians at all. With the Terrans, there isn't much of a choice but to rely on Cybertronians so the Terrans could learn about themselves.

3. Alex is the person the kids and Terrans first get info about the 'Bots and 'Cons & he's the family's reassurer (idk the suitable word to use here).

The point of his profession in Cybertronian history is only shown in episode 1. That's it. He should be the first person the kids go to when they want to know about a Bot or a Con and anything Cybertronian related.

Have him be more open about Cybertronians than Dot. Sure Dot is shown to be positive with Cons changing their ways because she's friends with a redeemed Megatron, but she's also seen the Cons' heinous actions so she's likely reluctant to talk about them/double standards.

Things like these can be offscreen by having dialogues mentioning them: "Dad says Optimus used to--" / "Dad told us--" bla bla bla

Mention his past connections with Meridian clearly. I have no idea about that until @monocle-teacup mentioned it.

3. Aside from each other, the triplets are closer to the parents than their older siblings.

Hashtag is close to Twitch but after 'Home', perhaps it's best to see her going to Dot for help and get a bit clingy.

Nightshade and Alex should have more screentime togather. Alex did introduced NS the book that lead him to the author's grave where NS gets their alt mode.

NS is essentric by copying the main character of said book. Kids often copy their favourite fictional character, so why not? And when they get into character, Alex plays along.

JB can be ruled out from this as he is close to Mo but something feels missing... I can't pinpoint where though.

to e continued maybe

[shockpine]

i've been getting a lot more interested in, like, animal stuff lately. like i love learning about new animals and learning where they come from and unique things about them.. i've translated that a little bit with some personal writing with moby and zoey (bear and rabbit characters) and i had a little bit of a surprise the other day;

i specifically made up a new type of bear for zoey, called a "blue bear", which she describes as a subspecies of black bear, although i don't think that's the correct terminology. it'd be a very uncommon, male recessive gene. i was basing it on kermode/spirit bears, a subspecies of black bear that's native to coastal british columbia. somewhere between 100-500 of them are affected by a recessive gene that gives them an all white coat, and it's not albinism. zoey isn't from the area though and it didn't make sense to make it a direct analog, but the inspiration was definitely there. ... however. yesterday i learned there actually is a subspecies called a tibetan blue bear (it has some other names). it's an extremely rare (like EXTREMELY rare, and may have been "inspiration" for the yeti) subspecies of brown bears, with some pale grey hairs that appear blue to some people.

so now i have to specifically make some sort of note that people will see that she ISN'T based on these bears. i think its way funnier if shes specifically a made up type of bear because the way her gene stuff works doesn't actually align with these tibetan blue bears (or any real bears), and i don't want to confuse anyone into thinking there's some recessive trait that those real bears have.

like technically in a world of brightly colored animals none of them are going to look like their respective species (and because i'm not good at drawing animals. zoey is barely a bear, moby's a snowshoe hare but those things aren't yellow/gold even with their summer coat) but still. zoey is weird for being blue. cartoon alien type thing

(edit, for context, zoey's specific kind of genetic blue thing only kicks in once you hit puberty. it's so rare and not spoken about that her parents didn't even know what was going on until they saw a doctor)

[alagaesia-headcanons]

If I had the energy or commitment for it, I would write an AU where Eragon wholeheartedly embraces the idea of Murtagh being his brother and (either against Nasuada's wishes or talks her into it, probably the first), uses that information to start drumming up public sympathy for Murtagh. Probably wouldn't change a ton regarding the overall plot, but when Murtagh is finally freed in the end, he wouldn't be alienated or seen as a monster. He and Thorn would have an opportunity to heal and rebuild their lives with support from their loved ones, rather than hiding away.

Yes yes 100% yes!! This is such a fun AU concept! It’s a very different direction for Eragon’s character, and yet I think it’d still fit him really well. This would be an interesting way to explore the possibility of Murtagh’s suffering inciting Eragon’s drive to defeat the Galbatorix and the Empire, making it even more personal and emotional for him. After all, Eragon’s main motivation for fighting is to protect people from Galbatorix’s selfish and endless abuse. Murtagh and Thorn’s awful situation is such a flagrant example of that, and I really like the idea that, instead of Eragon getting caught up in the uncomfortable aspects, it adds even more fuel to his desire to end the king’s tyranny. He sees undeniable proof that challenging the Empire is the right thing.

Because Galbatorix kidnapped and tortured one of his most loyal friends!! An innocent man who did everything he could to get away from the Empire, only for the king to drag him back and forcibly break him into a tool, enslaving him with his own true name. It would be so fitting for Eragon to fix all his anger, hurt, and hatred on Galbatorix, and for him to want to defeat him as a way of rescuing Murtagh. And honestly, I feel like if Eragon expressed some of that when he recognized Murtagh and wasn’t so accusatory, Murtagh would probably soften the reveal about their shared blood, which would be a good lead-in to Eragon better processing and accepting it.

And when Nasuada and Arya claim no one can one and the Varden’s morale will suffer when they learn about Murtagh because they fought together, Eragon directly disagrees. He uses that to rouse the Varden instead- Galbatorix tore their ally from their safe haven to brutally wrest him under control at any cost. If they let him get away with that, he’ll see that he can get away with anything! They can never give up until they’ve brought him down because they’ll never be safe from torment like that with such a vile man on the throne! And when anyone tries to dismiss Murtagh’s worth because he’s Morzan’s son, Eragon reminds them that they’re brothers and it’s not a matter of blood. In fact, even Murtagh loathed and fled from Galbatorix- he needed to enslave the son of his own most loyal servant because he refused to follow him!

It’s very sweet to imagine Murtagh and Thorn having a lot more support at the end of the war, with Eragon eagerly anticipating the chance to really be brothers. I think they would probably still leave at first, but it’s not because they can’t stay, rather that it would be best for them to be by themselves and work things out without so much pressure. And they don’t have to prolong it so much either. They leave for a few months, then come back to spend time with Eragon and the others, then eventually travel on their own again. They get to recover with much needed and well deserved help from their friends <333

[bumblingbabooshka]

Too many posts about how Chakotay would accept and follow Janeway no matter what she did for a man who was five seconds from starting a mutiny* against her in Equinox. He was 100% correct for almost doing that too but to me that means he would not be down with Janeway just doing whatever and has a strong sense of morality which is similar to but obviously not the same as Janeway’s and isn’t overridden by his affection for her.

After Chakotay sees that Janeway’s willing to torture and potentially kill even one person for her sense of justice he strongly opposes her and seems ready to back up that objection with action if necessary. *There’s a vague indication at the end of the episode that to mutiny against her would be “crossing a line” and so he wouldn’t have done it but One) I personally feel that’s something easy to say after the crisis has been averted and there’s no longer any need for action. “I wouldn’t have done it” is easy when push is no longer coming to shove and you don’t want to think about whether or not you would have. “I wouldn’t have done it” - does Janeway say this to herself about the slaughter of the Equinox crew? Two) I still can’t imagine that Chakotay would have been happy, even if he hadn’t mutinied against her - he still would have strongly opposed her and did oppose her enough to be confined to his quarters.  and Three) This to me just reads as a ‘return to status quo’ easy line put in there to assure the audience that their relationship is unchanged when in reality I think such a large event would have to change their relationship in some way. Some lines require crossing. If someone you follow is doing something you consider morally wrong do you prize your loyalty to them over your own moral code? I believe it’s a very strong character choice that Chakotay’s answer seems to be ‘no.’ Until the very end of the episode it seems that there’s a limit to a ‘difference of opinion’ and he wouldn’t just let Janeway do something he considers evil unopposed because she’s the captain or he likes her. To say at the very end ‘Oh, he wouldn’t have ever gone against Janeway after all’ seems (to me) both disingenuous and weak from character writing standpoint.

In contrast, Tuvok also sees that Janeway has become obsessed with the idea of enacting revenge on the Equinox’s crew as he’s present for the ‘negotiation’ with the aliens in which Janeway literally promises the aliens that they can murder every last member of the ship. 

Tuvok’s answer is clear as we next see him on the bridge at his security post, actively helping Janeway with her plan despite knowing that, if successful, it’ll lead to the deaths of everyone on board. This is very interesting to me as he acknowledges that her behavior is irrational and as he doesn’t experience emotions and does temporarily oppose Janeway it isn’t as if he’s motivated by revenge or thinks this is a good plan/thing to do. However, I think his reasoning has something to do with the fact that he has so much trust in her. When she says “I know what I’m doing, Tuvok.” he believes her and is willing to follow along with her plan even if he personally might not like it. It’s a shame we don’t get more of Tuvok’s reasoning in this episode. He doesn’t have any more meaningful lines after this so we never really know why he doesn’t fight harder against Janeway but if I were to guess I’d guess it has something to do with what he says to Seven in Year of Hell.

His trust in Janeway is absolute and he implies that he’d follow her and consider it the right thing to do even if he knew that her logic was flawed. That, to me, is also very interesting for a Vulcan.  Early on in the series Janeway tells Tuvok that he’s her moral compass, that she relies on him as both a friend and advisor - that she values him highly for his logic and depends on their relationship as Captain of the ship and as Janeway the person. She does this after bringing Tuvok a moral quandary which Tuvok attempts to ‘solve’ by making the difficult choice she can’t due to her ethical standards. 

Tuvok in this case knows that Janeway’s ‘highest priority’ is getting the crew home and that Janeway can’t accomplish this goal because she doesn’t want to break the law. However, Tuvok solves this by breaking the law for her. He acknowledges that Janeway won’t like this and says he’s prepared to lose his job and go to prison for it once they return to Federation space but to him it’s the logical choice and even at the very end of their conversation he upholds his decision as logical (as does Janeway, tempering it by pointing out how ‘logical’ reasoning is as prone to variance and the justification of wrong actions as ‘emotional’ reasoning.)

I can’t help but wonder if this experience changed Tuvok since I can’t recall him ever really going against the Captain again and this sort of behavior/reasoning seems to be...not against his later stance of “The Captain is always right.” but more nuanced. He still thinks Janeway is ‘in the right’ and acts expressly so that Janeway can keep being ‘in the right’ while still fulfilling her goals. Equinox has a Maquis rebel, once considered a terrorist and now considered a dear friend, your first officer (banished from your sight) telling you that you’re doing the wrong thing, you’re hurting people out of a sense of vengeance, he doesn’t even recognize you anymore. “I won’t let you do this,” he shouts through the vents. “You can’t do this!” Meanwhile your security officer, moral compass and friend of twenty years and counting is standing at the ready, pointing his finger at the sacrificial wolf-turned-lamb (an optical illusion, it changes depending on where you stand) that wronged you. “Right there,” he’s saying though he objected to this once as well and kept silent thereafter. “There’s the heart.” I don’t know. I don’t have any grand conclusion to this, I just thought it was interesting! Chakotay-Janeway-Tuvok morality play, when?

[justabackroundcharacter]

Thoughts while watching Wish:

- base princess personality trope

- Never getting over the face that the goat is named Valentino

- 7 dwarfs vibes with the friends

- Hans type character

- Weird ass love song to wishes

- Evil Chris Pratt went from 1-100 really fast

- The wife was 1000000% the kings wish and he used magic to get it

- Angry guy is played by GIZMO MY BELOVED

- 100 year old man move like a 60 year old fr

- Asha also goes from 50-100 real fast

- My favorite song was a little disappointing:(

- What she’s singing and what the animation gives dosent match

- Wifey is CLUELESS

- We could’ve had A STAR BOY INSTEAD WE GET THIS THING

- Star is still cute

- When you are a Star and accidentally make a devils trap in the tree lol

- IM A STAR ⭐️

- thanks for not eating me John

- Throwing books like your cramming for a test

- King is bipolar like actually tho

- EVERYTHING IS FINE

- What are you five ?

- DANCING CHICKENS

- Best friends help each other commit crimes against the kingdom

- King really is evil he made everyone go to an assembly and they aren’t even in school

- WAIT WAS KING SUPPOSED TO BE AN ALIEN

- how old is the king ? Do we know at all ?

- Casually dooms yourself to an eternity of pain because you got insecure

- HE HAS A SECRET LAIR LIKE HAWKMOTH

- ok how do wishes work again ? Was gramps not free to still inspire people

- Not the mom pleading for her daughter to only get her wish trampled on (definitely don’t need to look at how accurate that is)

- Star said SQUARE TF UP

- He’s literally just your king hit him with your bookshelf

- Returns to your stable if anyone asks pLaY dUmB

- when you have to speed run the 5 stages of grief bc you are the main character damnit

- I know what your thinking- WELL I DONT girl that star doesn’t have an expression on his face

- I can not swim *proceeds to jump into the water with reckless abandon *

- You’ve been hit by, you’ve been stuck by LOSS OF YOUR WISH

- ‘AMYIA darling your just in time come meet my new TOY’ why would you WRITE IT LIKE THAT

- Hot take anyone who calls their partner darling is on THIN FUCKING ICE

- King man went insane that is fun

- HANS KNOCK OFF BETRAYED THEM I FUCKING KNEW IT

- Dont worry im a talking mouse but very clean

- When you only want to be a loyal knight but you end up betraying your friends- happens to the best of us dude

- Good find Valentino - my butt found it

- introverts deserve sanctuary— louder for the people in the back

- STRIKE, STRIKE newsies vibes

- YES fulfill your Sabos wish

- doc and dopey slayed

- They all did

- They are like any queer friend group fr

- the chase scene is cool

- YAZ QUEEN GET YOUR HUSBAND

- I was fooled by the love I felt- Its ok queen you were definitely manipulated not your fault

- Don’t destroy never land you bastard

- A stick ? What am I supposed to do with this ?

- The MUSHROOMS 🍄

- Poor gizmo can’t catch a break no matter what universe he’s in

- a dress on a tree more likely than you think

- Dude bro dear got into the mushrooms fr

- Sometimes a plan is just you and your six friends jumping from a high place

- FUCKING HANS GOT ME AGAIN

- thanks John

- Your so right bunnies are terrifying

- Nope nope nope nope nope

- StAr GeT aWaY fRoM tHeRe

- WAIT IS HE MAGIC MIRRIR GUY

- Yay singing again

- THE power of collective singing will always save the day

- GREEN SMOKE

- MyWiShEs dude get a grip

- Simon and queen should be besties now

- LONG LIVE THE QUEEN

- Peter Pan origin story 👀👀

- ZOOTOPIA ?!?

- bippty boppty boo the magic wand is fixed

- Give GIZMO THE WAND 😭he deserves it

- Fireworks yay

- 5/10 movie

[kittymaine]

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

I'm gonna try and use my tumblr as a book journal. Wish me luck buckaroos.

I finished The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers yesterday. It was my second time checking it out from the library. I had checked it out before, but had to give it back before I finished it.

I'm not a stranger to Becky Chambers. I read the Monk & Robot series and absolutely loved it and then read her novella To Be Taught, If Fortunate a few months ago. She's steadily becoming one of my favorite authors, so I'm definitely biased when it comes to her books, so I guess keep that in mind.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is a story that will feel familiar if you enjoyed Firefly. A group of misfits, only some of whom are human, travel aboard a cobbled together spaceship from one side of the galaxy to another. We go along with them on family dinner dates and tense hostage negotiations alike. It's a story about found family, and surviving and thriving in otherwise unlivable conditions, and about adventure, of course.

I'll start with my likes, which were many. This is both a setting and character heavy book. It's hard to chose which I liked more or which were more important. It's unusual to find a book that balances them so evenly. The characters are all really varied, but also nuanced. And, not just in their species or physical appearance or races or genders or sexual orientations, although they are varied in that way for sure. But, they also feel like real, nuanced people with strong personalities and differences and biases and beliefs. But the setting is just as rich and well crafted. As our crew travels across the galaxy we meet a wide variety of alien species, all with their own way of communication, their own unique cultures and beliefs, and fascinating and unique physiologies. This is definitely an alien heavy setting and the aliens really FEEL alien, which I loved. There are politics and infighting and resource issues, but it feels real because our crew isn't being asked to solve any of their problems. They're just normal people trying to navigate dangerous waters.

I'm definitely a character reader first, but man this setting really made me question whether that was true.

The downsides are that if you're a plot reader, this book may disappoint you. I've heard people say it feels like it just meanders around, which I can understand. There is a driving plot, but it's basically just a frame. The ship and crew must get from point A to point B and most of the actual content happens in the in between. Also, the book sort of just ends. Something really heavy happens at the end and our crew is left shaken but resilient. I'd love to see how they recover from the ending of this book, but it's my understanding that the second book doesn't follow them but another smaller character that shows up right at the end.

All that being said, I really really REALLY loved this book and I am 100% down to read the rest of them. I highly recommend it to scifi fans who are okay with a character heavy story.