#they forfeit right to using it for any purpose

[kittykichi]

Where is Photoshop getting its AI training from?

Well, probably from scraping. And your stuff might be already in their database without your permission. Above is a screenshot of my Photoshop app with my original picture of my butterfly/moth pin with my watermark already baked in. I was trying out their generative AI tool that is integrated with their new version to see what kind of potential problems could arise and I found one immediately.

As you can see in the image, when I clicked generative fill and typed in "cabbage moth wing" it generated a slightly garbled flipped image of my pin. Where did it get this? Adobe states it's not using your images to train their AI. So let's believe that's true and that when I edited the original photo in Photoshop, it didn't use it from there. I also don't think used the pre-existing pixels to generate it. The generative AI is using a different source than the Content-Aware tool they have.

So it must be from where I've posted it online. After all those are keywords I use for my project. That would be Etsy, my Shopify, and my Instagram page. While nothing in their terms explicitly calls out selling your imagery to AI companies (as far as I've found in their legal pages) they could be. Or, my theory is, Adobe purchased data from people who were scraping the internet.

Currently Adobe prohibits you from using anything created fro their generative AI for commercial purposes (personal use only). It will take your AI text prompts. My worry is that they don't say they won't use it in the future and their already using a database that more than likely has illegally scraped data.

I have no advice except perhaps don't use their tool. It's pretty cool honestly, but we must simply make a moral choice here.

[casualmonsterenjoyer]

So, I have no idea if anyone has already figured this out but I have just spent an unreasonable amount of time translating this part of the Soul Contract...just because

and like...

You are now twenty-one grams lighter

THIS CONTRACT IS LEGAL AND BINDING. WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO USE YOUR LIKENESS, FACE, VOICE AND SMELL TOWN PLUCK IN WHATEVER NEFARIOUS MANNER IS DEEMED NECESSARY.

SANS SOUL, YOUR SOULMATE WILL NOT RECOGNIZE YOU AND WILL WALK RIGHT PAST YOU ON A COLD AUTUMN DAY. NEVER MAKING EYE CONTACT. NOT EVEN PROCESSING THAT YOU HAVE EYES AT ALL. NO AMOUNT OF INTERACTION WILL MOVE THEM TO A PLACE WHERE THEY CAN REMEMBER, IN FEELING, THE THOUSANDS OF LIFETIMES YOU HAVE ALREADY SPENT TOGETHER. EACH TIME CHOOSING THOUSANDS FORM WOULD KEEP YOU CLOSEST LIKE OTTERS HOLDING HANDS IN A TUMULTUOUS RIVER. YOU WERE BIRDS. YOU WERE TREES WITH ROOTS ENTANGLED, DRINKING IN THE SUNLIGHT TOGETHER.

WHEREVER WE GO NEXT, WHATEVER YOU CHOOSE, I WILL ALWAYS BE RIGHT THERE WITH YOU…THATS DONE, BUDDY. CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE CHOSEN BILL INSTEAD!

MCDONALDS RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PUT A GIANT YELLOW M ON YOUR TORSO AND FOREHEAD AND SEND YOU WALKING THROUGH A CROWDED TIMES SQUARE WHILE YOU SCREAM "THE FRIES! THE FRIES! THEY DON´T DEGRADE IN NATURE!!! IT´S AN IMMORTAL FOOD!!! THEY WILL BE IN THE LANDFILLS LONG PAST OUR DEATHS!" GOOD GOD! THE THINGS S I´VE SEEN!

ME? WHO AM I? OH I´M BILL´S PREVIOUS LAWYER! HE PUT MY SOUL INTO A QUILL PEN SO I CAN WRITE HIM LEGAL DOCUMENTS UNTIL THE SUN SNUFFS OUT LIKE A CANDLE IN THIS SICK UNIVERSE! I USED TO BE SO HOT! I WAS SO FINE! NOW I´M FINE PRINT!

SPEAKING OF WHICH, BILL RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PUT YOUR SOUL INTO AN INANIMATE OBJECT, A STRANGE CREATURE, A CONCEPT, A SENTENCE, A TASTEFUL BUT RUSTIC MASON JAR WITH WILDFLOWERS IN IT.

IF AT ANY POINT YOU WANT TO HAVE VISITATION RIGHTS WITH YOUR SOUL, YOU WILL BE SWIFTLY DENIED. UNLESS YOU HAD A COOL DAY PLANNED FOR THE BOTH OF YOU, THEN BILL MIGHT WANT TO COME ALONG.

BY SIGNING THIS DOCUMENT YOU FORFEIT ANY RIGHT TO EATING SOUL FOOD. IT WILL TURN TO ASH IN YOUR MOUTH, A FITTING PUNISHMENT FOR A FOOL WHO SQUANDERED THE ONLY TRUE GIFT LIFE OWES YOU.

BILL RESERVES THE RIGHT TO DRESS YOUR SOUL HOWEVER HE DEEMS NECESSARY, ESPECIALLY IF YOUR SOUL WAS A NERD BEFORE ACQUISTION. SOULMAKOVERRR!

YOUR SOUL MAY BECOME FRACTURED AND PLACED INTO DIFFERENT OBJECTS. THIS HAS NO PURPOSE AND WILL NOT RESURRECT YOU IF YOU DIE.

SIGNEE HAS FORFEITED ALL RIGHTS TO ANY AFTERLIFE. INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO: HEAVEN, HELL, PURGATORY, BIG CORNER, FLOW STATE, THE DREAM HOUSE, THE REINCARNATION PROCESSING CENTER, AXOLOTL´S TANK AND CONSEQUENCES HOLE.

SIGNEE CAN NO LONGER BOARD THE SOUL TRAIN AND IS ADVISED TO DISCARD ALL BELLBOTTOMS.

SIGNEE CAN NO LONGER HAVE A PUPPY AS A BEST FRIEND, THEY CAN SENSE WHAT IS GONE. BATS ARE INDIFFERENT.

SIGNEE MAY EXPERIENCE OCCASIONAL DEMON POSSESSIONS FROM HORCULUS THE RED, PLABOS THE MERCILESS, MORBUS SON OF MORTEM, PLAGA THE OOAING AND OTHER SUCH COMMON DEMONS ROAMING EARTH SEARCHING FOR WEAKENED, EMPTY VESSELS!

TIPS FOR RIPPING YOUR SOUL OUT AT HOME: WATCHING YOUTUBE COMMENTARY CHANNELS, ATTENDING AN EXTENDED FAMILY EVENT WITH AN OPEN BAR, USING GENERATIVE AI AND ASSERTING THAT YOU ARE CREATIVE, TURNING A BLIND EYE TO HUMAN SUFFERING, AMASSING MORE WEALTH THAN NEEDED, PURCHASING A BLUE CHECKMARK...

I had fun with this and yeah...rip to anyone who signed (me included, I would have loved to visit axolotl´s tank...)

[flufflecat]

The theraprism text reads: "YOU ARE NOW TWENTY ONE GRAMS LIGHTER"

And the fine print is under a readmore because its very long:

"This contract is legal and binding. We reserve the right to use your likeness, face, voice, and small town pluck in whatever nefarious manner is deemed necessary. Sans soul, your soulmate will not recognize you and will walk right past you on a cold autumn day, never making eye contact, not even processing that you have eyes at all. No amount of interacting will move them to a place where they can remember, in feeling, the thousands of lifetimes you have already spent together, each time choosing whatever form would keep you closest like otters holding hands in a tumultuous river. You were birds. You were trees with roots entangled, drinking in the sunlight together. “Wherever we go next, whatever you choose, I will always be right there with you.” Thats done, buddy. Congratulations! You have chosen Bill instead! McDonalds reserves the right to put a giant yellow M on your torso and forehead and send you walking through a crowded times square while you scream “The fries, the fries, they don’t degrade in nature!!! It’s an immortal food!!! They will be in landfills long past our deaths!” Good god, the things I’ve seen. Me, who am I? Oh I’m Bill’s previous lawyer. He put my soul into a quill pen so I can write his legal documents until the sun snuffs out like a candle in this sick universe. I used to be so hot! I was so fine! Now I’m fine print. Speaking of which, Bill reserves the right to put your soul into an inanimate object, a strange creature, a concept, a sentence, a tasteful but rustic mason jar with wildflowers in it. If at any point you wish to have visitation rights with your soul, you will be swiftly denied. Unless you had a cool day planned for the both of you, then Bill might want to come along. By signing this document you forfeit any rights to eating soul food. It will turn to ash in your mouth. A fitting punishment for a fool who squandered the only true gift life owes you. Bill reserves the right to dress your soul however he deems necessary, especially if your soul was a nerd before acquisition. Soulmakeoverrr! Your soul may become fractured and placed into different objects. This has no purpose and will not resurrect you if you die. Signee has forfeited all rights to any afterlife, including but not limited to: Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, Big Corner, Flow State, The Dream House, The Reincarnation Processing Center, Axolotl’s Tank and Consequences Hole. Signee can no longer board the soul train and is advised to discard all bellbottoms. Signee can no longer have a puppy as a best friend. They can sense what is gone. Cats are indifferent. Signee may experience occasional demon possession  from Horculus the Red, Plabos the Merciless, Morbus son of Mortem, Plaga the Oozing and other such common demons roaming Earth searching for weakened, empty vessels. Tips for ripping your soul out at home: watching Youtube commentary channels, attending an extended family event with an open bar, using generative AI and asserting that you are creating, turning a blind eye to human suffering, amassing more wealth than needed, purchasing a blue checkmark"

[coraline-piange]

“Our deaths didn’t matter”: On vulnerabilities, precarious life and grievability in Netflix’s Dead Boy Detectives

oh, a little essay i wrote for my intro to gender and diversity studies seminar? yeah, i'll share that on tumblr :) (this was written in a day with almost no proof reading, so please keep that in mind)

A story about two teenage ghost boys solving supernatural mysteries while on the run from Death herself cannot get around discussing precarity of life and the conditions of grievability: What makes life precarious and why are some persons deemed grievable and others not? Dead Boy Detectives deals with the themes of loss and grief and injustice, its two main characters central to that exploration: Edwin Payne and Charles Rowland are two boys who have been killed at 16 and now run a supernatural detective agency to help other beings move on (to their afterlife) while themselves refusing to do the very same. Using Judith Butler’s theory of precarity and grievability, I argue that the series returns the grievability to the lives of the two ghost detectives: on the narrative level of the living and of the dead, as well as on a meta-narrative level. Starting out as ungrievable, Edwin and Charles come back to life through their respective character arcs as well as the show’s mere existence.

Butler distinguishes between precariousness and precarity: the first being the very condition of making “life” matter because of its fragile and injurious constitution, and the latter being the political and social conditions through which specific lives are apprehended as precarious or not (3, 24, 25). Precarity is therefore created through political mechanisms, frames which change and break out of themselves through time and space (10). The frames determine which life is recognised to matter and therefore needs protection at any point in time: “a life has to be intelligible as a life, has to conform to certain conceptions of what life is, in order to become recognizable. So just as norms of recognizability prepare the way for recognition, so schemas of intelligibility condition and produce norms of recognizability” (7). This mechanism becomes visible through the notion of a grievable life. Grievability appears as “a presupposition for the life that matters” (14). Thus, lives that are deemed grievable are in turn apprehended as precarious and to matter, whereas ungrievable lives “are ‘lose-able’, or can be forfeited, precisely because they are framed as being already lost or forfeited.” (31). They are considered a threat to the “right” kind of precarious life which in turn sanctions the use of violence against them. They exist in a state outside of life, “something living that is other than life […] and ungrieved when lost” (15). Butler’s notion of precarity and grievability is focused on the context of war, however it can be applied generally as well: Frames of vulnerability that ensure an unequal distribution of grievability exist in everyday life.

The mere premise of Dead Boy Detectives already gives reason to think about lives that matter. Here you have two teenage ghost boys that died with their whole lives still ahead of them. They are using their existence as ghosts as a sort of surrogate life — living for all intents and purposes without being alive — yet without the possibility of ever truly growing up, they are stuck being living dead. Their grievability lies in the unfulfilled potential they have because their lives have been cut short, “a life unlived”.

The narrative frames their deaths as unjust tragedies, not only because they died young, but because of the way they died and the treatment they received from the living following their deaths. Both boys are killed by their classmates in violent hate crimes for being different. Edwin is dragged from his bed at the boarding school St Hilarion’s in the middle of the night, gagged and bound to a table. His classmates, led by Simon, call him “Mary Ann”, a derogatory word used to describe effeminate gay men. Their goal is to scare Edwin by performing a sacrifice to the demon Sa’al unknowing that the ritual is real. Sa’al turns up, kills the classmates and takes Edwin to hell — apologizing for the technicality that seemingly forces his hand. In hell Edwin is tortured for the next 73 years before escaping in 1989 and returning to earth as a ghost. (“The Case of Crystal Palace” 31:09 – 33:08).

He meets Charles Rowland while the other boy is on the brink of death. Charles defended a classmate from bullies who targeted the classmate for being Pakistani. Charles stepping in had the bullies turn on him, beating him up and forcing him into a freezing lake while throwing stones at him. Charles manages to swim and then run away, hiding in the attic of St Hilarion’s. There he dies of hypothermia and internal bleeding. (“The Case of the Lighthouse Leapers” 40:28 – 42:58). In the last few hours of his life, Edwin keeps him company. They form a friendship and, when Charles has passed away in the early morning, they run from Death together (“The Case of the Very Long Stairway” 10:14 – 15:02). While Edwin’s death hasn’t been changed much from the original version in the comics (except for the bleak detail of the classmates shoving his body into a trunk where it lay undiscovered for decades – the show simply has Edwin’s body disintegrate), the Netflix adaptation changed Charles’ death quite a bit: In the comics, he is alone at the school over winter break and victim to the escaped souls of Hell, including a cruel headmaster and Edwin’s bullies, who torture Charles for days before he dies (Gaiman). In the show, Charles dies at the hands of his racist classmates, not the supernatural.

Their deaths are human made, brought upon by other kids. While there arguably was no intent for murder in either case, the intent behind the hate crimes that led to the boys’ deaths betrays a disregard of lives that enabled violence in the first place. Edwin was targeted by bullies for his presumed homosexuality, both because of the outward homophobia of his classmates as well as Simon’s internalised homophobia. During Edwin’s brief return to hell in episode 7, Simon reveals that he used to have feelings for Edwin: “I got so embarrassed thinking we… We were the same” (“Very Long Stairway” 26:04). Simon recognised in them both that their homosexuality made them ungrievable in the eyes of 1910s British society where it was still criminalised. Instead of using this vulnerability to violence for solidarity and a united front, Simon hid his vulnerability and, in an attempt of proving his life’s precarity to his classmates, turned into the perpetrator of violence himself. In Butler’s words: “the shared condition of precariousness leads not to reciprocal recognition, but to a specific exploitation of targeted populations, of lives that are not quite lives cast as ‘destructible’ and ‘ungrievable’” (31). Edwin’s monologue in episode 1, when he tells Crystal Palace of their deaths, makes this ungrievability explicit:

Do you know what happened when I died, Crystal? Nothing. My disappearance was labelled ‘an act of God.’ And Charles? The boarding school covered up what happened to him. Our deaths didn’t matter. No one ever solved them. […] We are solving cases that would never be solved. […] We didn’t matter, he and I. So these cases matter. They have to matter. (“Crystal Palace” 40:09).

Similar to Edwin, Charles seems to have gone ungrieved. As a biracial Indian kid coming to the defence of a Pakistani boy, he is vulnerable to racist violence. Even before his death he experiences violence at the hands of his abusive father which he is not protected against. In fact, he carries that trauma with him more than 30 years after his death, unprocessed and unacknowledged. The cover-up of Charles’ death implies that the futures of his classmates were deemed to outweigh the crime of taking his unlived life. Their precarity was recognized while his was denied. His loss didn’t matter — just like Edwin’s hadn’t.

The narrative shows that the frame of their grievability shifts over time, however. While Edwin was not deemed grievable in 1916 and Charles experienced the same in 1989, they find value to their lives not only with each other but also through the people they help and meet. Most importantly, however, they learn to apprehend their own precarity over the course of the series by completing their character arcs: Through his encounters with the Cat King and Monty, Edwin learns to stop repressing his sexuality and to accept his romantic feelings for Charles, going so far as to confess his love to Charles on the stairs out of hell (“Very Long Stairway” 45:30). His acceptance and embracing of the very thing that made him vulnerable to violence gives him the ability to help absolve Simon of his guilt, enabling both of them to leave hell (Simon by moving on to the afterlife, Edwin by running out with Charles) and therefore breaking the cycle of violence. By acknowledging their respective grievability and vulnerability, both Simon and Edwin get to be apprehended as precarious lives.

Charles in turn is forced to process the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father. He is confronted with his vulnerability and has to deal with the fear of turning into a perpetrator by virtue of being his father’s son. By acknowledging his anger at his fate, he finally allows himself to grief both the youth that was stolen from him by his father as well as the future taken from him by his classmates. After beating the Night Nurse, who is trying to force the boys to move on to their afterlives, into the mouth of a sea monster, he says: “Was it to extreme, Edwin? So was me dying at 16, mate. I don’t wanna be dead. I hate it.” (“Lighthouse Leapers” 44:10). This confession sets of Charles no longer repressing his anger and instead seeking reassurance from his friend. Through his grief, and through letting Edwin partake in that process, he returns grievability to his unlived life, making it matter.

Edwin’s and Charles’ vulnerabilities as minorities exposes the norms of the frames through which grievability and precarity are apprehended. They also show a shift in those frames: their story could be told because queer people’s and the lives of people of colour are nowadays deemed as precarious and worth telling. On a meta-narrative level, then, their unlives are made to matter again through the existence of the show. They get to tell their story and be the heroes in it, making sure other people’s lives matter and are grieved. By shining a light on the injustice that is their deaths, the show in some form grieves their unlived lives, making them matter and giving them precarity. The ghosts retroactively turn back into living beings. Ironically, the series’ cancellation in August of 2024, despite a generally good reception both in viewership and critical acclaim (Otterson), has diminished this feat: The Dead Boy Detectives return to being ghosts whose story doesn’t matter enough to be told (any further). Their true grievability may lay in the fan’s effort to get the series renewed and to bringing the dead boys back to life.

[Works Cited (besides the eipsodes themselves): Butler, Judith. Frames of War. When is Life Grievable? Verso, 2009.]

[sillyjpeg]

BILL'S SOUL CONTRACT DECODED.

I was planning on doing this at some point, so here is the entirety of bills soul contract decoded! here is the contract just for reference:

if this flops i WILL cry, i spent 3 hours on this.

but here is the entire decoded version:

YOU ARE NOW TWENTY ONE GRAMS LIGHTER

THIS CONTRACT US LEGAL AND BINDING, WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO USE YOUR LIKENESS, FACE, VOICE, AND SMALL TOWN PLUCK IN WHATEVER NEFARIOUS MANNER IS DEEMED NECESSARY. SANE SOUL, YOUR SOULMATE WILL NOT RECOGNIZE YOU AND WILL WALK RIGHT PAST YOU ON A COLD AUTUMN DAY, NEVER MAKING EYE CONTACT. NOT EVER PROCESSING THAT YOU HAVE EYES AT ALL. NO AMOUNT OF INTERACTION WILL MOVE THEM TO A PLACE WHERE THEY CAN REMEMBER. IN FEELING, THE THOUSANDS OF LIFETIMES YOU HAVE ALREADY SPENT TOGETHER, EACH TIME CHOOSING WHATEVER FORM WOULD KEEP YOU CLOSEST LIKE OTTERS HOLDING HANDS IN A TUMULTUOUS RIVER. YOU WERE BIRDS, YOU WERE TREES WITH ROOTS ENTANGLED, DRINKING IN THE SUNLIGHT TOGETHER. WHEREVER WE GO NEXT, WHEREVER YOU CHOOSE, I WILL ALWAYS BE RIGHT THERE WITH YOU!!

THATS DONE. BUDDY, CONGRATULATIONS. YOU HAVE CHOSEN BILL INSTEAD. MCDONALDS RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PUT A GIANT YELLOW M ON YOUR TORSO AND FOREHEAD AND SEND YOU WALKING THROUGH A CROWDED TIMES SQUARE WHILE YOU SCREAM “THE FRIES, THE FRIES! THEY DON'T DEGRADE IN NATURE!!! ITS AN IMMORTAL FOOD!!! THAT WILL BE IN THE LANDFILLS LONG PAST OUR DEATHS!” GOOD GOD. THE THINGS I'VE SEEN. ME? WHO AM I? OH IM BILL’S PREVIOUS LAWYER. HE PUT MY SOUL INTO A QUILL PEN SO I CAN WRITE HIS LEGAL DOCUMENTS UNTIL THE SUN SNUFFS OUT LIKE A CANDLE IN THIS SICK UNIVERSE. I USED TO BE SO HOT. I WAS SO FINE. NOW I’M FINE PRINT. BILL RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PUT YOUR SOUL INTO AN INANIMATE OBJECT, A STRANGE CREATURE, A CONCEPT, A SENTENCE, A TASTEFUL BUT RUSTIC MASON JAR WITH WILDFLOWERS IN IT.

IF AT ANY POINT YOU WISH TO HAVE VISITATION RIGHTS WITH YOUR SOUL, YOU WILL BE SWIFTLY DENIED. UNLESS YOU HAD A COOL SAY PLANNED FOR THE BOTH OF YOU. THEN BILL MIGHT WANT TO COME ALONG. BY SIGNING THIS DOCUMENT YOU FORFEIT ANY RIGHTS TO EATING SOUL FOOD. IT WILL TURN TO ASK IN YOUR MOUTH. A FITTING PUNISHMENT FOR A FOOL WHO SQUANDERED THE ONLY TRUE GIFT LIFE OWES YOU. BILL RESERVES THE RIGHT TO DRESS YOUR SOUL HOWEVER HE DEEMS NECESSARY. ESPECIALLY IF YOUR SOUL WAS A NERD BEFORE ACQUISITION. SOULMAKEOVERRR! YOUR SOUL MAY BECOME FRACTURED AND PLACED INTO DIFFERENT OBJECTS. THIS HAS NO PURPOSE AND WILL NOT RESURRECT YOU IF YOU DIE. SIGNEE HAS FORFEITED ALL RIGHTS TO ANY AFTERLIFE. INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO: HEAVEN, HELL, PURGATORY, BIG CORNER, FLOW STATE, THE DREAM HOUSE, AXOLOTLS TANK AND CONSEQUENCES HOLE.

SIGNEE CAN NO LONGER BOARD ANY SOUL TRAIN AND IS ADVISED TO DISCARD ALL BELLBOTTOMS. SIGNEE CAN NO LONGER HAVE A PUPPY AS A BEST FRIEND, THEY CAN SENSE WHAT IS GONE. CATS ARE INDIFFERENT. SIGNEE MAY EXPERIENCE OCCASIONAL DEMON POSSESSION FROM HORCULUS THE RED, PLABOS THE MERCILESS, MORBUS SON OF MORTEN, PLAGE THE OOAING AND OTHER SUCH COMMON DEMONS ROAMING EARTH SEARCHING FOR  EMPTY VESSELS.

TIPS FOR RIPPING YOUR SOUL OUT AT HOME: WATCHING YOUTUBE COMMENTARY CHANNELS, ATTENDING AN EXTENDED FAMILY EVENT WITH AN OPEN BAR, USING GENERATIVE AI AND ASSERTING THAT YOU ARE CREATIVE, TURNING A BLIND EYE TO HUMAN SUFFERING, AMASSING MORE WEALTH THAN NEEDED, PURCHASING A BLUE CHECKMARK.

i was giggling decoding this, and my hand is now cramping. the punctuation is based on whatever i was feeling and made sense, comment if i translated something wrong.

[zonezyo]

glinda and fiyero, both being for all intents and purposes on the same footing socially, are two sides of the same coin on what happens to those who come from privilege if they choose to forsake their standing in the face of adversity. they come from the same place, they have essentially the same thing to lose, but they end UP losing insanely different things based on the way they choose to live their lives. however, glinda and fiyero have the same thing to lose, but they do NOT have the same thing to gain.*

fiyero is of course actually very smart, no matter how carefree he plays himself, but before elphaba, before the catalyst, he WAS truly content with dancing through life-- he probably would have skated through on his looks and his charm, living a blessed but ultimately unfulfilling, unhappy life, with no real direction. but when given a cause he wakes up and begins to actually want. he wants change, wants elphaba, wants something different than what he's had. though it comes at obvious sacrifice for him, it is natural for him to follow elphaba. there is no personal risk of straying off his path because there is no real path ahead of him anyway. yes, he's captain of the guard, he's engaged to glinda-- but his heart is not truly with them. he has already mentally strayed towards elphaba.

glinda, though, is not like fiyero. she can play herself as charming as she wants to match him and everyone that expects anything from her, but she's at shiz to learn sorcery-- from the moment she's introduced we know that she's dead set on that goal. she WANTS something. she, like elphaba, marvels at the emerald city, imagining her life there one day. so when faced with this fatal decision between choosing what might be good but what is risky, she panics-- it's right there in the lyric!! to grovel in submission to feed her own ambition!! though part of it is certainly her backing into what is safe, she can't let go of her own dream for what would effectively kill every future she ever dreamed of. glinda is WILLING to forfeit her SOCIAL status for elphaba-- it's just that she's smart enough to understand that this is not simply forfeiting social status. this is forfeiting any and all power she ever could have, gain, or use to her/elphaba's advantage.

however: glinda's choice may seem entirely based in self preservation but she's also just as much trying to preserve elphaba's, maybe not safety, but status, because that's what she thinks of as safety. though it's unfair, glinda is right-- maybe not in this instance, but at least in the broad strokes of the song. elphaba HAS hurt her cause forever, she IS having delusions of grandeur, and this is going to make it that much harder for elphaba to ever truly make change regarding animals in oz because as a villain all she can do is drive people away (though ofc this doesn't mean she shouldn't have done what she did). glinda is desperately bargaining-- she knows elphaba cares about the animals, but she doesn't truly understand why, so there is nothing she could have said or done to level with elphaba. glinda ultimately still thinks that change is manageable under the people responsible for cruelty. she's misguided, unaware of the weight of what's happening. it's why she calls it ELPHABA'S cause, not the animals' cause, because she's not really concerned with the greater good at the moment, she's focused on saving her and her best friend. she's smart enough to understand power play, but not aware enough to understand what all that power means, really, at least not in the moment of act 1.

we can speculate what the "good" choice would have been for glinda but the real truth of the show is that the choice she made was the only one she was ever going to, though it might not be just or right or the one she should have.

[just-your-average-supervillain]

...So, that ending, huh?

I'm just gonna... deposit my thoughts here. Spoilers ahead.

Before we get into any of the heavy shit, uh... I think this is the first time the second part of a Canto ended with a comedic scene. Qiu, Huan(?), and Hong Lu all having an intense dialogue while Qiu beats the shit out of us until Hong Lu finally finds the Way he believes in, at which point Qiu forfeits the entire Evaluation and gives us all his coins to rocket us to first, Huan bows out with his coins to try and get second place (and the Bough), and we... go and find Xichun to put ourselves in second, securing the Bough and incidentally handing the seat of Jia Family Hierarch to her. I mean... I think most of us knew it was coming, just not in this particular way?

Not to say that the outcome is all good, though. We now know what the purpose of Hong Lu's jade eye is! It's a high-tech camera implanted at birth so that the ghouls called the H Corp Elders can get their kicks watching the sort of footage that would have K Corp flooding the streets with all the tears produced! And Xichun's ascension to the Family Hierarch means she's gonna go meet them! Hooray!

The politics of the whole situation are also kinda neat. The Shi rule H Corp, then the Kong take over, then Shi Mu (now Jia Mu) uses her high position to trick the entire Kong Family into transforming into Outskirts Monsters and getting the Head called down on each and every one of them. Now the Jia rule H Corp, and Jia Qiu (formerly Kong Qiu) has... just forfeited the possibility of reclaiming the throne.

Also, I think we now know where the aesthetic inspiration for the Three Birds comes from. Pretty neat that the Heishou get their powers from taking on features of Outskirts Monsters, and also that there's a type of Outskirts Monster that's just a bipedal bird-man with black feathers and ringed, glowing eyes.

...I genuinely didn't expect it, but we actually got to see Garion just sitting around and chatting. No ominous shadows or overwhelming auras, just the quiet menace of this one lady bringing about the annihilation of an entire clan. Pretty neat that they followed the original scene of her watching H Corp fall from the first game so closely, just with an added scene of her applauding Jia Mu for the effort and carefulness it took to balance the line needed to call the Head down on the Kong without being targeted for the knowledge herself. Fascinating how it seems that while everybody knows of the Claws, even the leaders of Wings are totally unaware of what an Arbiter is, only that they're people who bring Claws to accompany them.

Incidentally, terrifying that the outcome of a single person breaking a taboo is not running away as the Head closes in on your location, but rather having a Claw instantly teleport next to you and then kill you.

Uhhhh just my own complaint but I think that part was too damn long. That was like... 4? 5?? 6??? different boss fights, along with the whole bullshit of having to work though the Eight Trigrams room. Like, I started playing immediately after the update dropped, and it's now five hours later. I guess we now have a shitton of new factions or enemies to make Identities out of, but by the end my brain was melting and I was mostly resorting to winrating filler battles between boss fights.

Fascinated to see how they'll shift from the whiplash comedy of us unilaterally deciding that Xichun's gonna be the next Family Hierarch to the inevitable angst of the ending of Canto VIII. I'm also a touch concerned about who the fuck we're gonna fight as the final boss if Qiu already had his big battle and then seemingly fucked right off. Is it gonna be the Elders? Grandmother Mu? I feel like the way things are going, it'll probably be one of them, but I'm not sure how to feel about that... well, whatever the case, it'll be peak.

I might have some more thoughts later, I'm sure there were a few Weird Comments from the Sinners that'll give hints to their own stories, but for now I think I'd like to go to bed.

[s0lemnhypn0s]

I translated the jargon at the bottom of bills contract on the thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com.

the top part says

"YOU ARE NOW TWENTY ONE GRAMS LIGHTER"

but the rest of it says:

"THIS CONTRACT IS LEGAL AND BINDING, WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO USE YOUR LIKENESS, FACE, VOICE, AND SMALL TOWN PLUCK IN WHATEVER NEFARIOUS MANNER IS DEEMED NECCESARY. SANS SOUL, YOUR SOULMATE WILL NOT RECOGNIZE YOU AND WILL WALK RIGHT PAST YOU ON A COLD AUTUMN DAY, NEVER MAKING EYE CONTACT, NOT EVEN PROCESSING THAT YOU HAVE EYES AT ALL, NO AMOUNT OF INTERACTION WILL MOVE THEM TO A PLACE WHERE THEY CAN REMEMBER IN FEELING THE THOUSANDS OF LIFETIMES YOU HAVE ALREADY SPENT TOGETHER, EACH CHOOSING WHATEVER FORM WOULD KEEP YOU CLOSEST LIKE OTTERS HOLDING HANDS IN A TUMULTUOUS RIVER. YOU WERE BIRDS, YOU WERE TREES WITH ROOTS ENTANGLED, DRINKING IN THE SUNLIGHT TOGETHER. WHEREVER WE GO NEXT, WHATEVER YOU CHOOSE, I WILL ALWAYS BE RIGHT THERE WITH YOU. THATS DONE, BUDDY! CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE CHOSEN BILL INSTEAD. MCDONALDS RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PUT A GIANT YELLOW M ON YOUR TORSO AND FOREHEAD AND SEND YOU WALKING THROUGH A CROWDED TIMES SQUARE WHILE YOU SCREAM. THE FRIES, THE FRIES, THEY DONT DEGRADE IN NATURE, ITS AN IMMORTAL FOOD, THEY WILL BE IN THE LAND FILLS LONG PAST OUR DEATHS, GOOD GOD, THE THINGS I'VE SEEN. ME, WHO AM I? OH I'M BILLS PREVIOUS LAWYER, HE PUT MY SOUL INTO A QUILL PEN SO I CAN WRITE HIS LEGAL DOCUMENTS UNTIL THE SUN SNUFFS OUT LIKE A CANDLE IN THIS SICK UNIVERSE. I USED TO BE SO HOT, I WAS SO FINE, NOW I'M FINE PRINT, SPEAKING OF WHICH, BILL RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PUT YOUR SOUL INTO AN INANIMATE OBJECT, A STRANGE CREATURE, A CONCEPT, A SENTENCE, A TASTEFUL BUT RUSTIC MASON JAR WITH WILDFLOWERS IN IT. IF AT ANY POINT YOU WISH TO HAVE VISITATION RIGHTS WITH YOUR SOUL YOU WILL BE SWIFTLY DENIED, UNLESS YOU HAD A COOL DAY PLANNED FOR THE BOTH OF YOU, THEN BILL MIGHT WANT TO COME ALONG. BY SIGNING THIS DOCUMENT YOU FORFEIT ANY RIGHTS TO EATING SOUL FOOD, IT WILL TURN TO ASH BY YOUR MOUTH, A FITTING PUNISHMENT FOR A FOOL WHO SQUANDERED THE ONLY TRUE GIFT LIFE OWES YOU. BILL RESERVES THE RIGHT TO DRESS YOUR SOUL HOWEVER HE DEEMS NECCESARY, ESPECIALLY IF YOUR SOUL WAS A NERD BEFORE ACQUISITION. SOUL MAKEOVERRR. YOUR SOUL MAY BECOME FRACTURED AND PLACED INTO DIFFERENT OBJECTS, THIS HAS NO PURPOSE AND WILL NOT RESURRECT YOU IF YOU DIE. SIGNEE HAS FORFEITED ALL RIGHTS TO ANY AFTERLIFE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO: HEAVEN, HELL, PURGATORY, BIG CORNER, FLOW STATE, THE DREAM HOUSE, THE REINCARNATION PROCESSING CENTER, AXOLOTL'S TANK AND CONSEQUENCES HOLE, SIGNEE CAN NO LONGER BOARD THE SOUL TRAIN AND IS ADVISED TO DISCARD ALL BELLBOTTOMS. SIGNEE CAN NO LONGER HAVE A PUPPY AS A BEST FRIEND, THEY CAN SENSE WHAT IS GONE. CATS ARE INDIFFERENT. SIGNEE MAY EXPERIENCE OCCASIONAL DEMON POSSESSIONS FROM HORCULUS THE RED, PLABOS THE MERCILESS, MORBUS SON OF MORTEM, PLAGA THE OOZING, AND OTHER SUCH COMMON DEMONS ROAMING EARTH SEARCHING FOR WEAKENED EMPTY VESSELS. TIPS FOR RIPPING YOUR SOUL OUT AT HOME: WATCHING YOUTUBE COMMENTARY CHANNELS, ATTENDING AN EXTENDED FAMILY EVENT WITH AN OPEN BAR, USING GENERATIVE AI AND ASSERTING THAT YOU ARE CREATIVE, TURNING A BLIND EYE TO HUMAN SUFFERING, AMASSING MORE WEALTH THAN NEEDED, PURCHASING A BLUE CHECKMARK"

I translated all of this by hand and I got a headache for it you guys better appreciate this and if someone beat me to the finish ill cry

[ouatpancakes]

The complete, translated fine print at the bottom of the soul contract:

This contract is legal and binding. We reserve the right to use your likeness, face, voice and small town pluck in whatever nefarious manner is deemed necessary. Sans soul, your soulmate will not recognize you and will walk right past you on a cold autumn day, never making eye contact, not even processing that you have eyes at all. No amount of interaction will move them to a place where they can remember, in feeling, the thousands of lifetimes you have already spent together, each time choosing whatever form would keep you closest like otters holding hands in a tumultuous river. You were birds, you were trees with roots entangled, drinking in the sunlight together. Wherever we go next, whatever you choose, I will always be right there with you. That’s done, buddy. Congratulations, you have chosen Bill instead. McDonalds reserves the right to put a giant yellow M on your torso and forehead and send you walking through a crowded Times Square while you scream “the fries! The fries! They don’t degrade in nature!! It’s an immortal food!! They will be in the landfills long past our deaths!” Good god, the things I’ve seen. Me, who am I? Oh I’m Bill’s previous lawyer. He put my soul into a quill pen so I can write his legal documents until the sun snuffs out like a candle in this sick universe. I used to be so hot. I was so fine. Now I’m fine print. Speaking of which, Bill reserves the right to put your soul into an inanimate object, a strange creature, a concept, a sentence, a tasteful but rustic mason jar with wildflowers. If at any point you wish to have visitation rights with your soul, you will be swiftly denied, unless you had a cool day planned for the both of you. Then Bill might want to come along. By signing this document you forfeit any rights to eating soul food. It will turn to ash in your mouth. A fitting punishment for a fool who squandered the only true gift life owes you. Bill reserves the right to dress your soul however he deems necessary, especially if your soul was a nerd before acquisition. Soulmakeoverrr! Your soul may become fractured and placed into different objects. This has no purpose and will not resurrect you if you die. Signee has forfeited all rights to any afterlife, including by not limited to: heaven, hell, purgatory, big corner-flow state, the dream house, the reincarnation processing center, axolotl’s tank and consequences hole. Signee can no longer board the soul train and is advised to discard all bellbottoms. Signee can no longer have a puppy as a best friend; they can sense what is gone. Cats are indifferent. Signee may experience occasional demon possession from Horculu the Red, Plabos the Merciless, Morbus son of Mortem, Plaga the Oozing, and other such common demons roaming Earth searching for weakened, empty vessels. Tips for ripping out your soul at home: watching youtube commentary channels, attending an extended family event with an open bar, using generative AI and asserting that you are creating, turning a blind eye to human suffering, amassing more wealth than needed, purchasing a blue checkmark.

[artwithkai69]

I DECIPHERD THE CONTRACT PAGE..

You are now twenty one grams lighter

This contract is legal and binding.

We reserve the right to use your likeness, face, voice and small town place in whatever nefarious manner is deemed necessary.

Sans soul, your soul mate will not recognize you and will walk right past you on a cold autumn day, never making eye contact, not even processing you have eyes at all. no amount of interaction will move them to a place where they can remember. In feeling, the thousands of lifetimes you have already spent together, each time choosing whatever form would keep you closest like otters holding hands in a tumultuous river. You were birds, you were trees with roots entangled, drinking in the sunlight together. "Wherever we go next, whatever you choose, I will always be there with you." That's done, buddy. Congratulations! You have chosen Bill instead.

McDonald's reserves the right to put a giant yellow M on your torso and forehead and send you running through a crowded times square while you scream "The fries! The fries! They don't degrade in nature!!! It's an immortal food!!! They will be in the landfills long past our deaths!"

Good God, the things I've seen, me? Who I am? Oh I'm Bill's previous lawyer, he put my soul in a quill pen so I can write him legal documents until the sun snuffs out like a candle in this sick universe. I used to be so hot, I was so fine, now I'm fine print. Speaking of which!

Bill reserves the right to put your soul into an inanimate object, a strange creature, a concept, a sentence, a tasteful but rustic mason jar with wildflowers in it. If at any point you wish to have visitation rights with your soul, you will be swiftly denied, unless you have a cool day planned for the both of you, then Bill might want to come along!

By signing this document you forfeit any rights to eat soul food, it will turn to ash in your mouth, a fitting punishment for a fool who squandered the only true gift life owes you.

Bill reserved the rights to dress your soul however deems necessary, especially if your soul was a nerd before acquisition, Soulmakeoverrr! Your soul may become fractured and placed into different objects, this has no purpose and will not resurrect you if you die.

Signee has forfeited all rights to any afterlife, including but not limited to: Heaven, hell, purgatory, big corner, flow state, the dream house, the reincarnation processing center, axolotls tank and consequences hole.

Signee can no longer board the soul train and is advised to discard all bell bottoms. signee can no longer have a puppy as best friend, they can sense what is gone. Cats are indifferent.

Signee may experience occasional demon possesion from Horcukus the Red, Plabos the Merciless, Morbus son of Mortem, Plagga the Oozing and other such common demons roaming earth searching for weakend, empty vessels.

Tips for ripping your soul out at home: Watching youtube commentary channels, attending on extended family with an open bar, using generative AI and asserting that you are creative, turning a blind eye to human suffering, amassing more wealth than needed purchasing a blue checkmark.

this took me like 6 hours in total my brain is fried

[angelofdumpsterfires]

BILL'S CONTRACT FINE PRINT DECIPHERED

I'm sure someone has beat me to this, but because I decided to decipher/translate all 1000ish words of the fine print on this here totally normal contract (by hand)

Bold code is theraprism substitution cipher, the rest is the author's substitution cipher, i've reformatted the text to be more readable but i've also made a version with the more accurate, original line formatting here

YOU ARE NOW TWENTY ONE GRAMS LIGHTER

THIS CONTRACT IS LEGAL AND BINDING, WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO USE YOUR LIKENESS, FACE, VOICE AND SMALL TOWN PLUCK IN WHATEVER NEFARIOUS MANNER IS DEEMED NECESSARY.

SANS SOUL YOUR SOULMATE WILL NOT RECOGNIZE YOU AND WILL WALK RIGHT PAST YOU ON A COLD AUTUMN DAY, NEVER MAKING EYE CONTACT, NOT EVEN PROCESSING THAT YOU HAVE EYES AT ALL. NO AMOUNT INTERACTION WILL MOVE THEM TO A PLACE WHERE THEY CAN REMEMBER - IN FEELING THE THOUSANDS OF LIFETIMES YOU HAVE ALREADY SPENT TOGETHER, EACH TIME CHOOSING WHATEVER FORM WOULD KEEP YOU CLOSEST LIKE OTTERS HOLDING HANDS IN A TUMULTUOUS RIVER. YOU WERE BIRDS, YOU WERE TREES WITH ROOTS ENTWINED, DRINKING IN THE SUNLIGHT TOGETHER. WHEREVER WE GO NEXT, WHATEVER YOU CHOOSE, I WILL ALWAYS BE RIGHT THERE WITH YOU. -

THATS DONE BUDDY, CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE CHOSEN BILL INSTEAD.

MCDONALDS RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PUT A GIANT YELLOW M ON YOUR TORSO AND FOREHEAD AND SEND YOU WALKING THROUGH A CROWDED TIMES SQUARE WHILE YOU SCREAM “THE FRIES, THE FRIES, THEY DON'T DEGRADE IN NATURE… ITS AN IMMORTAL FOOD… THEY WILL BE IN THE LANDFILLS LONG PAST OUR DEATHS.”

GOOD GOD, THE THINGS S I’VE SEEN, ME. WHO AM I? OH BILL'S PREVIOUS LAWYER, HE PUT MY SOUL INTO A QUILL PEN SO I CAN WRITE HIS LEGAL DOCUMENTS UNTIL THE SUN SNUFFS OUT LIKE A CANDLE IN THIS SICK UNIVERSE. I USED TO BE SO HOT. I WAS SO FINE. NOW I'M FINE PRINT.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, BILL RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PUT YOUR SOUL INTO AN INANIMATE OBJECT, A STRANGE CREATURE, A CONCEPT, A SENTENCE, A TASTEFUL BUT RUSTIC MASON JAR WITH WILDFLOWERS IN IT.

IF AT ANY POINT YOU WISH TO HAVE VISITATION RIGHTS WITH YOUR SOUL YOU WILL BE SWIFTLY DENIED UNLESS YOU HAD A COOL DAY PLANNED FOR THE BOTH OF YOU, THEN BILL MIGHT COME ALONG.

BY SIGNING THIS DOCUMENT YOU FORFEIT ANY RIGHTS TO EATING SOUL FOOD, IT WILL TURN TO ASH IN YOUR MOUTH, A FITTING PUNISHMENT FOR A FOOL WHO SQUANDERED THE ONLY TRUE GIFT LIFE OWES YOU.

BILL RESERVES THE RIGHT TO DRESS YOUR SOUL HOWEVER HE DEEMS NECESSARY, ESPECIALLY IF YOUR SOUL WAS A NERD BEFORE ACQUISITION, SOUL MAKEOVERRR!

YOUR SOUL MAY BECOME FRACTURED AND PLACED INTO DIFFERENT OBJECTS. THIS HAS NO PURPOSE AND WILL NOT RESURRECT YOU WHEN YOU DIE.

SIGNEE HAS FORFEITED ALL RIGHTS OF ANY AFTERLIFE INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO: HEAVEN, HELL, PURGATORY, BIG CORNER, FLOW STATE, THE DREAM HOUSE, THE REINCARNATION PROCESSING CENTER, AXOLOTL'S TANK AND CONSEQUENCES HOLE.

SIGNEE CAN NO LONGER BOARD THE SOUL TRAIN AND IS ADVISED TO DISCARD ALL BELLBOTTOMS.

SIGNEE CAN NO LONGER HAVE A PUPPY AS A BEST FRIEND, THEY CAN SENSE WHAT IS GONE. CATS ARE INDIFFERENT.

SIGNEE MAY EXPERIENCE OCCASIONAL DEMON POSSESSION FROM HORCULUS THE RED, PLABOS THE MERCILESS, MORBUS SON OF MORTEM, PLAGA THE OOZING AND OTHER SUCH COMMON DEMONS ROAMING EARTH SEARCHING FOR WEAKENED/EMPTY VESSELS.

TIPS FOR RIPPING YOUR SOUL OUT: WATCHING YOUTUBE COMMENTARY CHANNELS, ATTENDING AN EXTENDED FAMILY EVENT WITH AN OPEN BAR, USING GENERATIVE AI AND ASSERTING THAT YOU ARE CREATIVE, TURNING A BLIND EYE TO HUMAN SUFFERING, AMASSING MORE WEALTH THAN NEEDED, PURCHASING A BLUE CHECKMARK.

[t00thpasteface]

UPDATE 6/16/2024: TABLET IS FUNDED!! Digital commissions will reopen as normal. This page is to remain up as an archive and for possible future reuse.

These will work similarly to my digital commissions, only with a far quicker turnaround time and less emphasis on super fine polishing, hence the seriously slashed prices. LIMIT 3 CHARACTERS for halfbody; LIMIT 2 CHARACTERS for fullbody!

For purchases, questions, examples, and absolutely anything else you may be wondering about:

ADD ME ON DISCORD @ shebbz (preferred method!)

EMAIL ME at toothpaste.commissions@gmail.com

or message me here on Tumblr!

To futher entice you, I'm offering COUPONS! Redeem at checkout to get a discount on any purchase of a halfbody or fullbody:

$2 OFF if i've drawn this character before

$5 OFF for a drawing of a ship i ship

Coupons DO NOT stack; limit one per purchase!

CURRENT SLOTS:

closed for now!

SEE BELOW for what I will/won't draw (same rules as my digital commissions), as well as terms, conditions, and more:

Buyers will receive their artwork privately at full resolution in .PNG format. All commissions are signed and dated.

All commissions will also be posted here on my Tumblr, at a smaller resolution with a prominent additional watermark, after the buyer has received and approved the final piece. The buyer may be tagged in the post, or may choose to remain an anonymous.

Payments will be through PayPal. I will give you my PayPal once I agree to your commission. All payments are due up front in full.

Payment

After being completed, the commissioned artwork will be sent to you, the buyer, in .PNG format through email to ensure a near-lossless file. Alternate delivery methods are available upon request.

You must pay the entire price in advance, but only if we decide to go through with the commission.

Termination

You may cancel the commission at any time and receive a full refund of your payment until the commission is completed and sent. If I have already sent you the completed .PNG file of the commission, you are no longer able to request a refund for any reason. 

I may cancel the commission at any time and fully refund your payment if I feel I am being coerced into drawing something I am uncomfortable with, but I will not cancel a commission without giving several clear warnings first.

Rights

You may use the commission for any personal or educational purposes, including most social media profiles. You may repost the commission to social media or other websites as long as I am credited by clearly linking my Tumblr. You may use the commission for an icon, header, background, etc. on your personal (i.e. not business) social media profile as long as I am credited.

You may not use the commission for business purposes or profit off of it in any way, such as using it on icons/banners/promotional materials on a for-profit social media account (ex. Twitch, Etsy, official business Twitter accounts), uploading it to merchandise printing sites (ex. Redbubble, Cafe Press, TeePublic), tracing/spoofing the design in your own creative works, incorporating it into a larger creative project (ex. a book, game, or comic), etc. You may not license the personal/educational usage rights to third parties. You may not edit or repurpose the commission in any way that supports hate groups, promotes hateful or bigoted ideology, incorporates iconography and/or dogwhistles of hate movements, etc., whether implicitly or explicitly.

I reserve full legal ownership of the commission and I may repost it to any site. I may use, edit, and reproduce the commission for any and all purposes. In the event of a cancelled commission, you forfeit all usage rights for the incomplete assets and may not edit or repurpose them in any way.

By commissioning me you agree to these terms and conditions.

[renegadeknucks]

Hello I was wondering if you have any sonuxadow (hope I spelt that right) headcannons I love your art style by the way

i do! and thank you so much i really appreciate it!

Sonknuxadow headcanons

The three of them wear matching gold jewelry to keep close to each other, Shadow and Sonic both have their right ears pierced with two earrings, and Knuckles has the gold bands on his spines because he lacks visible ears. They do all have promise rings as well, but they're not typically worn due to none of them wanting to break such a sentimental item.

Sonic flirts with both of them constantly during battles against Eggman, he thinks it's funny. On multiple occasions this has led to Eggman forfeiting because he really doesn't want to hear it.

Their favorite nap spot is on top of the Master Emerald.

They seem to spar far more frequently than before the three of them were dating, often using it as a competition to see who can be the least worn out at the end of each session. It's almost always Knuckles, but Sonic seems to be really proud whenever he actually manages to stun the echidna. Shadow always looks the most well kept after, no matter how long it goes on, and the other two will immediately gang up on him for the sole purpose of messing up his quills. They're all very competitive.

The teasing and bickering also became far more frequent, except now instead of ending up with someone being physically hurt (usually Sonic) it now ends in them laughing due to them starting to truly understand what's off limits when it comes to each of their personal lives. 

Knuckles and Shadow are both trying their hardest to help Sonic get over his fear of water, giving him gentle kisses and holding his hands as soon as they see him getting even slightly nervous. They haven't gotten him to try full on swimming, but he's gotten okay enough in the water to go waist deep while he's with them. He still prefers to stay as far away from it as possible.

Knuckles had found the two, on multiple occasions, sneaking onto Angel Island just to play with the vast population of Chao. He finds it cute.

All three of them are known to ramble for hours about their interests, and they're always purposely asking about specifics so the rambler can go into heavier detail about it. They all love listening to their partner talk about topics that they know nothing about, they just want to hear their voice and like seeing them so passionate.

Knuckles seems to leave his island a little more often since he'd started dating them, along with using his communicator a lot more because he grew attached very quickly than anyone expected him to.

Sonic and Knuckles both help Shadow mourn the date of Maria's death and celebrate her birthday every year, Shadow secretly thinks she really would have liked them.

Shadow and Sonic started dating first, and they were only dating for two weeks before they decided someone was missing and immediately got ready and raced to Angel Island to be the first one to ask him out. Yes they did bring gifts of chocolate and flowers and stuffed animals, they had no idea what they were doing.

Speaking of stuffed animals, that's like their go to gift for all of them. Shadow has a collection of various cat plushies which eventually led to Sonic and Knuckles getting him a real cat for his birthday. Sonic has various sea creatures, and Knuckles has forest creatures. They also all have a plush of the other. None of them are the best at gift giving, Sonic often forgets he needed to.

Shadow and Sonic help Knuckles with his chores around the island, they practically live with him as their relationship goes on. They were never really invited to stay, but Knuckles loves them too much to kick them off unless they're becoming genuinely destructive or too much to handle.

Shadow does both of their makeup, the three of them all like feeling pretty so it usually ends up with all of them dressing up in feminine or masculine clothes depending on how they're feeling that day.

[thorough-witness-enjoyer]

A Look into My Witness/ Destiny Cultural Project!

Greetings!! In order to help organize my cultural project (that I am still working on, so everything here is still malleable as my understandings and drafts change!), I decided to share with you guys what I aim to tackle (warning, I’m not a professional by any means)!

My project is a very causal one that will be used to form discussions with others. My goal is to encourage people of my culture to tell passionate and authentic stories after years of pressure to be docile to Western ideals, using the Witness and its role in Destiny to show that there are universal themes and antagonists we can portray to a worldwide audience!

I’ve been hopping around getting interpretations about Destiny in order to understand how others perceive a story that can be read to resonate deeply with our experiences.

For context, I am using this reading, inspired by my cultural experiences, to compare interpretations against and form this project: the greater story of Destiny is about how the indifference of the universe and its tendency to act in ways people see as cruel paired with the questions left by its silence drive people to seek an answer to it that is objective/perfect out of fear and pain, failing to realize that there is no one way to look at those aspects of the universe spiritually and that the pursuit of enforcing purpose leads to cutting away at beliefs/people that you deem a threat to your paradigm.

That fear of uncertainty and the inability to make the universe act the way you wish it would often leads to individuals forfeiting a personal existential pursuit in favor of assurance within a collective belief system that gives them a sense of safe, objective meaning; a system that can cause long lasting devastation, but can be defeated by choosing to fight alongside others to protect diversity and the right to self autonomy, even if that means living in a world that can cause pain alongside others that can choose to be immoral.

I relate this to an exploration of Caribbean culture against imperialism, specifically religious imperialism, and talk about beliefs/ideas like Myal, Obeah, Vodou, Evangelism, Fundamentalism, and Négritude.

Here’s what I have as categories!

A Silent Universe is One Open to Interpretation for All- Understanding the Traveler/Gardener’s role in Destiny’s narrative and how that leads into creating stories inspired by its dedication to free will as well as our own culture’s interpretations on the roles of the universe’s forces and divinity (with personal additions added from my experiences of focusing on scorning the universe instead of helping others understand their place in it as a partial result of people forcing the narrative of an omnipotent, omnipresent, all knowing God into fitting the white supremacist theory that slavery was earned via the lineage of African individuals to Ham from the Bible)

Don’t Submit to the Indifference of the Cosmos, Work in Spite of It- Understanding the Veil/Winnower’s role in the Destiny narrative and how that can enrich stories involving fighting against Social Darwinism and dogmatic cruelty (discussion of the hive occurs here)

Do You Need Salvation? I Don’t, but You Do- Understanding how the ideas that the Gardener and Winnower represent lead to the creation of the Witness and using that to sympathize and understand the behaviors of “Precursors” in our real world; an argument against the notion that ethics is only for “civilized westerners” and that religions with vertical morality/a “perfect”, blissful afterlife are the objective truth

We Don’t Want the Ends and We Sure as Hell Don’t Want the Means- An analysis on the intentions of the Precursors and how far intentions can be valued in stories that focus on the consequences

We Fight Systems, Not People- An exploration on how the decision to make the Witness it’s own being outside of the Precursors makes it a powerful representation of how individuals can harm themselves to make an oppressive system that is more than their individual actions

It is Beauty Amongst Ugliness- An exploration of how Destiny’s support of fighting for hope and personal freedom against insurmountable odds shows a potential interest from general audiences for Caribbean stories of maintaining hope in desolate conditions; a discussion on how tales of black triumph has a place on the world stage

You Look at the Sands, I Look Beyond the Horizon- A discussion about how more communal groups that are close to their cultural identity might focus on the more societal, large scale implications of a story rather than the more personal implications individually minded people see first, something to be aware of and acknowledge when creating cultural fiction (with observations about Witness interpretations and other pieces of media, like Dev Patel’s movie Monkey Man) (please note I am not demonizing any type of interpretation, I just think it’s important to consider that people have different scopes in order to avoid frustrations in story telling)

Disciples, Taken, Dread, and Zombies- An exploration of “zombification” (as used in the book Myal by Erna Brodber) to explain the treatment of the Witness’ forces and relate it to how imperialistic acts aim to strip people of cultural/religious identity to use for the perpetuation of its ideology

I Hope That’s Dread You’re Feeling - A discussion on how, after years of intimidation from oppressive powers, fiction can be used to cause negative reactions in audiences that move them to take our issues and stories seriously (with pieces of the Witness’ abuses, manipulations, and mutilations described); a discussion on the importance of fostering a Lordean Rage in depictions of abuses as well as the exploitation of black bodies (with additions from Myisha Cherry’s book The Case for Rage)

Leaving Lubrae Won’t Save You- An analysis of how Rhulk can be interpreted as a metaphor for zombification; how imperial powers seek to prey on the vulnerable and frustrated to isolate them, instill in them their ideology, and turn them on people who struggled just like them with promises of salvation (with additions from Derek Walcott’s Dream on Monkey Mountain play and the book The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon)

You Can Look at it This Way, or That Way, or That Way Too- An overview of some of the historical/mythological/cultural/philosophical/psychological references in Destiny that are key to understanding the world building and how Bungie uses them to enrich the game’s themes; a discussion on how we are not alone in our struggle to prove we have a right to existence and expression

You Should Always Aim to Do Better- A discussion of some of the narrative shortcomings in Destiny, especially involving racial biases (intentional or not), that storytellers should be mindful of when developing narratives or using cultures to inspire antagonistic forces

Is it Human? Male? Female? No, it’s Evil- A general discussion on the design of the Witness paired with more specific observations on how people interpret it’s gender; a detailing of personal observations on how whether the Witness is seen as masculine or feminine often coincides with what traits/interpretations of it are given attention, related to how imperialism is often seen as a masculine force

The Stars Were Made for Us Too- An encouragement to people of my culture to not shy away from implementing our experiences in sci-fi and fantasy settings based on some of the aspects people admire about Destiny (inclusion of varied forms of gender expression and sexualities, poc from different backgrounds being main characters, etc.) (with additions from a visual arts thesis a friend of mine is producing about black mythology and the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston)

If you guys have any questions or want to participate, go to my pinned post and comment on it/Dm me personally! I’m still accepting responses to my questions and lore/references that could help me out, and I thank everyone who shared that post! Thank you for your time and I’m so excited to keep working on this to refine it more!

[unheavenlycreatures]

Just in case anyone wanted to know what the fine print of this entire long contract says without wasting roughly one million hours of their precious time: i still have this cipher memorized, so, you're welcome. I took liberties re the punctuation, as all punctuation marks are the same symbol.

YOU ARE NOW TWENTY ONE GRAMS LIGHTER

THIS CONTRACT IS LEGAL AND BINDING. WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO USE YOUR LIKENESS, FACE, VOICE AND SMALL TOWN PLUCK IN WHATEVER NEFARIOUS MANNER IS DEEMED NECESSARY.

SANS SOUL, YOUR SOULMATE WILL NOT RECOGNIZE YOU AND WILL WALK RIGHT PAST YOU ON A COLD AUTUMN DAY, NEVER MAKING EYE CONTACT, NEVER EVEN PROCESSING THAT YOU HAVE EYES AT ALL. NO AMOUNT OF INTERACTION WILL MOVE THEM TO A PLACE WHERE THEY CAN REMEMBER, IN FEELING, THE THOUSANDS OF LIFETIMES YOU HAVE ALREADY SPENT TOGETHER, EACH TIME CHOOSING WHATEVER FORM WOULD KEEP YOU CLOSEST LIKE OTTERS HOLDING HANDS IN A TUMULTUOUS RIVER. YOU WERE BIRDS, YOU WERE TREES WITH ROOTS ENTANGLED, DRINKING IN THE SUNLIGHT TOGETHER. WHEREVER WE GO NEXT, WHATEVER YOU CHOOSE, I WILL ALWAYS BE RIGHT THERE WITH YOU--THAT'S DONE, BUDDY. CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE CHOSEN BILL INSTEAD.

MCDONALDS RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PUT A GIANT YELLOW M ON YOUR TORSO AND FOREHEAD AND SEND YOU WALKING THROUGH A CROWDED TIMES SQUARE WHILE YOU SCREAM "THE FRIES! THE FRIES! THEY DON'T DEGRADE IN NATURE!!! IT'S AN IMMORTAL FOOD!!! THEY WILL BE IN THE LANDFILLS LONG LONG PAST OUR DEATHS!"

GOOD GOD. THE THINGS I'VE SEEN. ME? WHO AM I? OH I'M BILL'S PREVIOUS LAWYER. HE PUT MY SOUL INTO A QUILL PEN SO I CAN WRITE HIS LEGAL DOCUMENTS UNTIL THE SUN SNUFFS OUT LIKE A CANDLE IN THIS SICK UNIVERSE. I USED TO BE SO HOT. I WAS SO FINE. NOW I'M FINE PRINT.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, BILL RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PUT YOUR SOUR SOUL INTO AN INANIMATE OBJECT, A STRANGE CREATURE, A CONCEPT, A SENTENCE, A TASTEFUL BUT RUSTIC MASON JAR WITH WILDFLOWERS IN IT. IF AT ANY POINT YOU WISH TO HAVE VISITATION RIGHTS WITH YOUR SOUL, YOU WILL BE SWIFTLY DENIED. UNLESS YOU HAD A COOL DAY PLANNED FOR THE BOTH OF YOU. THEN BILL MIGHT WANT TO COME ALONG.

BY SIGNING THIS DOCUMENT YOU FORFEIT ANY RIGHTS TO EATING SOUL FOOD. IT WILL TURN TO ASH IN YOUR MOUTH. A FITTING PUNISHMENT FOR A FOOL WHO SQUANDERED THE ONLY TRUE GIFT LIFE OWES YOU.

BILL RESERVES THE RIGHT TO DRESS YOUR SOUL HOWEVER HE DEEMS NECESSARY. ESPECIALLY IF YOUR SOUL WAS A NERD BEFORE ACQUISITION, SOUL MAKEOVERRR!

YOUR SOUL MAY BECOME FRACTURED AND PLACED INTO DIFFERENT OBJECTS. THIS HAS NO PURPOSE AND WILL NOT RESURRECT YOU IF YOU DIE. SIGNEE HAS FORFEITED ALL RIGHTS TO ANY AFTERLIFE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO: HEAVEN, HELL, PURGATORY, BIG CORNER, FLOW STATE, THE DREAM HOUSE, THE REINCARNATION PROCESSING CENTER, AXOLOTL'S TANK AND CONSEQUENCES HOLE. SIGNEE CAN NO LONGER BOARD THE SOUL TRAIN AND IS ADVISED TO DISCARD ALL BELLBOTTOMS. SIGNEE CAN NO LONGER HAVE A PUPPY AS A BEST FRIEND. THEY CAN SENSE WHAT IS GONE. CATS ARE INDIFFERENT.

SIGNEE MAY EXPERIENCE OCCASIONAL DEMON POSSESSIONS FROM HORCULUS THE RED, PLABUS THE MERCILESS, MORBUS SON OF MORTEM, PLAGA THE OOZING AND OTHER SUCH COMMON DEMONS ROAMING EARTH SEARCHING FOR WEAKENED, EMPTY VESSELS.

TIPS FOR RIPPING YOUR SOUL OUT AT HOME: WATCHING YOUTUBE COMMENTARY CHANNELS, ATTENDING AN EXTENDED FAMILY EVENT WITH AN OPEN BAR, USING GENERATIVE AI AND ASSERTING THAT YOU ARE CREATIVE, TURNING A BLIND EYE TO HUMAN SUFFERING, AMASSING MORE WEALTH THAN NEEDED, PURCHASING A BLUE CHECKMARK.

[sipho-pearl]

feel the need to throw the translation for the bottom of the soul contract out into the world. tried to put some punctuation in but unfortunately the actual contract doesnt have any lmao

THIS CONTRACT IS LEGAL AND BINDING. WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO USE YOUR LIKENESS, FACE, VOICE AND SMALL TOWN PLUCK IN WHATEVER NEFARIOUS MANNER IS DEEMED NECESSARY, SANS SOUL. YOUR SOULMATE WILL NOT RECOGNIZE YOU AND WILL WALK RIGHT PAST YOU ON A COLD AUTUMN DAY, NEVER MAKING EYE CONTACT, NOT EVEN PROCESSING THAT YOU GAVE EYES AT ALL. NO AMOUNT OF INTERACTION WILL MOVE THEM TO A PLACE WHERE THEY CAN REMEMBER, IN FEELING, THE THOUSANDS OF LIFETIMES YOU HAVE ALREADY SPENT TOGETHER, EACH TIME CHOOSING WHATEVER FORM WOULD KEEP YOU CLOSEST LIKE OTTERS HOLDING HANDS IN A TUMULTUOUS RIVER. YOU WERE BIRDS, YOU WERE TREES WITH ROOTS ENTANGLED, DRINKING IN THE SUNLIGHT TOGETHER. WHEREVER WE GO NEXT, WHATEVER YOU CHOOSE, I WILL ALWAYS BE RIGHT WITH YOU. 

THAT'S DONE, BUDDY, CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE CHOSEN BILL INSTEAD. MCDONALDS RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PUT A GIANT YELLOW W ON YOUR TORSO AND FOREHEAD AND SEND YOU WALKING THROUGH A CROWDED TIMES SQUARE WHILE YOU SCREAM: THE FRIES, THE FRIES, THEY DON’T  DEGRADE IN NATURE, IT’S AN IMMORTAL FOOD, THEY WILL BE IN THE LANDFILLS LONG PAST OUR DEATHS, GOOD GOD! THE THINGS S I’VE SEEN. ME_ WHO AM I_ OH_ I_M BILL_S PREVIOUS LAWYER_ HE PUT MY SOUL INTO A QUILL PEN SO I CAN WRITE HIS LEGAL DOCUMENTS UNTIL THE SUN SNUFFS OUT LIKE A CANDLE IN THIS SICK UNIVERSE_ I  USED TO BE HOT_ I WAS SO FINE_ NOW I_M FINE PRINT_ SPEAKING OF WHICH_ BILL RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PUT YOUR SOUL INTO AN INANIMANT OBJECT_ A STRANGE CREATURE_ A CONCEPT_ A SENTENCE_ A TASTEFUL BUT RUSTIC MASON JAR WITH WILDFLOWERS IN IT_ IF AT ANY POINT YOU WISH TO HAVE VISITATION RIGHTS WITH YOUR SOUL_ YOU WILL BE SWIFTLY DENIED_ UNLESS YOU HAD A COOL DAY PLANNED FOR THE BOTH OF YOU_ THEN BILL MIGHT WANT TO COME ALONG_ BY SIGNING THIS DOCUMENT YOU FORFEIT ANY RIGHTS TO EATING SOUL FOOD_ IT WILL TURN TO ASH IN YOUR MOUTH_ A FITTING PUNISHMENT FOR A FOOL WHO SQUANDERED THE ONLY TRUE GIFT LIFE OWES YOU_ BILL RESERVES THE RIGHT TO DRESS YOUR SOUL HOWEVER HE DEEMS NECESSARY_ ESPECIALLY IF YOUR SOUL WAS A NERD BEFORE ACQUISITION_ SOULMAKEOVERRR_ YOUR SOUL MAY BECOME FRACTURED AND PLACED INTO DIFFERENT OBJECTS_ THIS HAS NO  PURPOSE AND WILL NOT RESURRECT YOU IF YOU DIE_ SIGNEE HAS FORFEITED ALL RIGHTS TO ANY AFTERLIFE_ INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO HEAVEN_ HELL_ PURGUTORY_ BIG CORNER_ FLOW STATE_ THE DREAM HOUSE_ THE REINCARNATION PROCESSING CENTER_ AXOLOTL_ S TANK AND CONSEQUENCES HOLD_ SIGNEE CAN NO LONGER BOARD THE SOUL TRAIN AND IS ADVISED TO DISCARD ALL BELLBOTTOMS_ SIGNEE CAN NO LONGER HAVE A PUPPY AS A BEST FRIEND_ THEY CAN SENSE WHAT IS GONE_ CATS ARE INDIFFERENT_ SIGNEE MAY EXPERIENCE OCCASIONAL DEMON POSSESSIONS FROM HORCULUS THE RED_ PLABOS THE MERCILESS_ MORBUS SON OF MORTUM_ PLAGA THE OOZING AND OTHER SUCH COMMON DEMONS ROAMING EARTH SEARCHING FOR WEAKENED_ EMPTY VESSELS_ TIPS FOR RIPPING YOUR SOUL OUT AT HOME_ MATCHING YOUTUBE COMMENTARY CHANNELS_ ATTENDING AN EXTENDED FAMILY EVENT WITH AN OPEN BAR_ USING GENERATIVE AI AND ASSERTING THAT YOU ARE CREATING_ TURNING A BLIND EYE TO HUMAN SUFFERING_ AMASSING MARE WEALTH THAT NEEDED_ PURCHASING A BLUE CHECKMARK