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melrosing · 27 days

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a while back you mentioned bran being a fisher king type of figure if he becomes king. i am so intrigued by that concept. can you tell us more?

so full disclosure, I don't have a great deal of familiarity with Arthurian legend or British/Welsh mythology, which is what the Fisher King really draws upon, so I don't think I can say anything of real substance on this subject! i keep meaning to just sit down and swot up on this stuff but it's. not really something you can do in one sitting lol

HOWEVER i think even to a wiki peruser it's patently clear that GRRM is drawing on the Fisher King concept with Bran (as in, once you know he's doing that, you realise he isn't even trying to hide it). and I do tend to think that GRRM is more likely to stick with the top line of a myth or historical event he means to parallel rather than get lost in the minutiae - e.g. Matilda v Stephen succession crisis inspiring Rhaenyra v Aegon, the Black Dinner of 1440 inspiring the Red Wedding, this is GRRM taking the substance of an event but not the details of how it came to pass.

I'm going to guess that rather than getting into the finer details of the Fisher King mythos, GRRM is going to utilise it much like he's used Shakespeare's Richard III for Tyrion, which is another inspiration that seems painfully obvious from the moment you spot it, but is hardly lifted beat for beat, and I seriously doubt that Tyrion's story ends up anywhere like the end of RIII. but you can see GRRM taking the bits and pieces of RIII he finds interesting and twisting them for Tyrion in ASOIAF.

so with that in mind, I'm just going to quickly list the key points I can personally gather from the Fisher King myth that seem to gesture to Bran, and why I think these are probs interesting to GRRM as a writer (but as I say there are people who know lots about arthurian legend and british/welsh mythology who would probs have a lot more to say here):

the Fisher King is usually depicted as being wounded in the groin/legs/thigh - this is considered synonymous with his inability to have children and so propagate his line. immediately obvious parallel to Bran, and I think through both ASOIAF and F&B, GRRM is trying to show that ruling through dynasties where everything hinges on how the next guy's son turns out, is not a viable way to run a country. Bran will not be succeeded by children of his own blood, but I think much in the way that he himself has succeeded Bloodraven

the Fisher King is one with his land as such: his welfare is the welfare of the land, and when he takes a wound (and becomes infertile), the land too becomes barren. the Fisher King awaits a hero who will heal and restore him and so the land (but I can only imagine GRRM would subvert this - it's clear through GRRM's writing of disability that he doesn't see value in just 'curing' his characters. he wants to actually write them as disabled people). and I think there's a lot in Bran's story about man learning to respect the land he lives upon - the children and the first men's peace pact was agreed upon the grounds that the first men would essentially preserve Westeros and its weirwoods etc, and so I think it's generally agreed ASOIAF could end with a similar kind of pact to end the Long Night (or after the end of TLN)? so again, think this point is about Bran representing a renewed relationship between the lands of Westeros and its peoples - the welfare of all is tied together through him

the Fisher King is guarding the Holy Grail. im way out of my depth on this point, someone with more knowledge re. the Holy Grail needs to weigh in here lol, but I would guessssss that maybe this has something to do with Bran ending the story on the Isle of Faces, protecting the peace from there or SOMETHING idk

then the most obvious point: the Fisher King as he appears in Arthurian legend is thought to draw on the figure of Brân the Blessed, a character of Welsh mythology - which immediately recalls Bran the Broken (something Bran literally calls himself several times). the name 'Bran' also translates to crow or raven in Welsh, so, duh. and Brân the Blessed's story ends with his requesting that his head be buried on the White Hill of London - and as long as it remained there, Britain would be safe from invasion. more about Bran being tied directly to the welfare of the land and its peoples

(again there's doubtless a lot more that could be added here by someone who understands the Fisher King myth better than I do, but these seemed like the most obvious points that anyone could draw on)

anyway I absolutely take it as a given that Bran will be King at this point, and whilst it's really hard to imagine what that looks like, I do think it resonates. GRRM likes writing about dynasties but I don't think he believes in them. I'm sure he feels much the same way about feudalism, but I doubt that will be gone by the end of ASOIAF, too, so this is how I picture it??

KL: destroyed. red keep: fucked. some level of politics may continue here post-series, but I think it will no longer be the heart of westeros. the fact that it is in AGOT is I think GRRM trying to show the corruption at the heart of this country - KL is constantly described as a cesspit where the rich play their games and live and eat luxuriously directly atop the shoulders of the poor and downtrodden, divorced from what's happening in the rest of the 7K.

the new heart of Westeros will be the Isle of Faces. this is where I think Bran will end up. we don't know much about it, bc noone is able to sail there, but this was where the pact between the COF and the First Men was created, and it's one of the last places in the south where weirwoods still grow (here, in abundance). and apparently there was once a Green King of the Gods Eye?? if the Green King, of the Rivermen, is in any way the role Bran will soon be occupying, maybe this is where his Tully heritage is somehow relevant. and also like 'god's eye', Bran's whole thing is about learning to see all, so. likely place for him to be. ultimately, I don't think Bran will remain in Winterfell; the story is supposed to be about unity I think, and not northern exceptionalism, so a remaining Stark sibling will take up that seat and as I said before, I tend to think that will be Sansa.

and I guess the most I can imagine beyond this point is Bran living alongside the COF (perhaps in the company of Meera idk?), functioning less as a political entity and more as a figurehead, perhaps an oracle, who lives for the welfare of his people. there will still be politicians to run the country, but they will be guided by Bran in some way, and like Bloodraven, Bran will choose his own successor. what the intricacies of any of this look like i have no idea, but this really does sound to me like the start of GRRM's answer to all his concerns re. dynasties and corruption etc etc

sorry this was all garbled as hell but this is basically what the Fisher King endgame means to me for now. in short, not a whole lot that I can make sense of but I like the feel of it, I think it's consistent with the themes of the text and suggests the start of real change at the end of the story, rather than the start of yet another dynasty.

#ask #bran stark #i would link a better essay here but i've lost track of the one i remember reading.... it was on some old asoiaf forum #and was written before the show too so well done to that person lol #anyway yeah my lit studies were very definitely modern and early modern lit i do not know much about this stuff at all #so where ive got shit wrong or missed something glaring. CALL ME OUT #im p sure jon factors in somewhere here but like i know how #asoiaf

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caligvlasaqvarivm · 4 days

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How do you analyze so good I'm really impressed and honestly wonder if I can learn from you

It's a skill, so the good news is, you can practice and get better at it!

Read A Lot/Gain Context

Analysis often means making comparisons or drawing from external context - one of the best things you can do if you want to be better at analysis is to try to cram your head with as much knowledge as possible. The time period, culture of origin, and where the author slots into those are usually major influences on a work (in Homestuck's case, much of it is a direct commentary on the internet culture it emerged from, and missing that part of it can drastically influence how the story reads).

Also important are the works the author themselves are inspired by. You've likely heard some variation of "nothing is original." We're actually really lucky with Homestuck in that regard, as the work is highly referential, and you can glean a lot by looking at what it references (for example, if you watch Serendipity, one of Karkat's favorite movies, which is titledropped during the troll romance explanation, you will understand Karkat so much better). This applies to things like mythological allusions - you'll hardly know why it matters that Karkat is a Christ figure if you don't know what the general outline of the Christ story is, nor will you pick up on the Rapture elements of Gamzee's religion or the fact that Doc Scratch is The Devil, etc. The key to picking up a lot of symbolism is being aware that the symbols exist.

And last, it helps to read a lot of media and media analysis so you can get a better understanding of how media "works" - how tropes are used, what effect language has, what other entries into the genre/works with similar themes/etc. have already done to explore the same things as the piece being analyzed is doing - and what other people have already gleaned and interpreted. I've mentioned before that many people seem to find Homestuck's storytelling bizarre and unique when it's actually quite standard for postmodernism, the genre it belongs to. But you're not going to know that if you've never read anything postmodern, y'know? I also often prepare for long character essays by reading other peoples' character essays - sometimes people pick up on things I miss, and sometimes people have interpretations I vehemently disagree with; both of these help me to refine my take on the matter.

Try to Discard Biases/Meet the Work Where It Is

Many will carry into reading media an expectation of what they want to get out of it. For example, one generally goes into a standard hetero romance book expecting a female lead, a male love interest, romance (of course), and a happy ending for the happy couple. If the book fails to deliver these things, a reader will often walk away thinking it was a bad book, even if the story told instead is objectively good and interesting. We actually see this a lot with Wuthering Heights, which receives very polarizing reviews because people go into it expecting a gothic romance, when it's really more like a gossip Youtube video spilling the tea on some shitty rich people (and it's really good at being that).

There's nothing necessarily wrong with this when reading for pleasure and personal enjoyment, but it presents a problem when attempting to analyze something. There's a concept called the "Procrustean bed," named after a mythological bandit who used to stretch people or cut off their limbs to fit them to a bed, that describes "an arbitrary standard to which exact conformity is forced." Going into a media reading with expectations and biases often results in a very Procrustean reading - I'm sure we've all seen posts complaining about how fanfic often forces canon characters to fit certain archetypes while discarding their actual character traits, etc.

Therefore, when reading for analysis, it's generally a good idea to try and discard as much bias and expectation as possible (obviously, we are never fully free of bias, but the effort counts) - or, perhaps even better, to compartmentalize those biases for comparison while reading. For example, Hussie talks at length about what they INTENDED Homestuck to be, and, while reading, I like to keep Hussie's words to the side while I try to experience the comic fresh, seeing what choices were made in accordance with Hussie's intentions, or where I think Hussie may have fumbled the messaging. At the same time, I try to let the work stand on its own, set in its proper context.

I'd say this is the number-one problem in fandom analysis. For example, people hear from the fandom that Eridan is an incel or a nice guy, so they interpret everything he says and does to fit that belief, or ignore any contradictory evidence. Or they fall for the character's façade that's meant to be dismantled by the viewer. Some works are fairly shallow and accessible, wearing all their meaning on their sleeve (or are Not That Deep, if you prefer meme-talk), and problems arise when a work is, in fact, That Deep, because someone biased towards the former will discard evidence that a work is the latter. This isn't exclusive to HS - it's happened in basically all of my fandoms - which is a statement to how easy it is to fall into this way of thinking.

Even without knowing that Hussie had coming-of-age themes in mind, for example, characters will talk about being kids and growing up. Knowing that Hussie has explicitly said that that's one of HS's themes serves as extra evidence for that interpretation, but the work itself tells you what it's about - if you're willing to listen to it.

Even If the Curtains are Just Blue, That Still Means Something

This is the next biggest fandom stumbling block - thr insinuation that when things in a work are put into the work without more explicit symbolism, that that means they're a discardable detail. This one is more about making a mindset shift - details aren't discardable, even if they don't appear to have been made with the explicit intention to mean something. Everything kind of means something.

First of all, whether or not the curtains are Just Blue is often highly dependent on the work. For example, in something made in large quantities with little time, staff, and budget - say, for example, one of the entries into the MCU's TV shows - there likely isn't too much meaning behind a choice of blue curtains in a shot (although you'd be surprised how often choices in these constrained environments are still very deliberately made). In a work like Homestuck, however, so terribly dense with symbolism and allegory, chances are, the blue curtains DO hold some special meaning, even if it's not readily apparent.

However, even in cases where a choice is made arbitrarily, it still usually ends up revealing something about the work's creative process. Going back to our MCU example, perhaps the blue curtains were chosen because the shot is cool-toned and they fit the color grading. Perhaps they were chosen because the director really likes blue. Perhaps the shot was filmed at an actual location and the blue curtains were already there. Or, even, perhaps the blue curtains were just what they had on hand, and the show was made too quickly and cheaply to bother sourcing something that would fit the tone or lend extra meaning. These all, to varying degrees, say something about the work - maybe not anything so significant that it would come up in an analysis, but they still contribute to a greater understanding of what the work is, what it's trying to say, and how successful it is at saying it.

And this applies to things with much higher stakes. For example, Hussie being a white US citizen likely had an effect on the B1 kids being mostly US citizens, and there was discourse surrounding how, even though they were ostensibly aracial, references were made to Dave's pale skin. Do I think these were deliberate choices made to push some sort of US superiority; no, obviously not. But they still end up revealing things about the creation of the work - that Hussie had certain biases as a result of being who they were.

Your Brain is Designed to Recognize Patterns, So Put That to Use

So with "establish context" and "discard expectations" out of the way, we can start getting into the nitty-gritty of what should be jumping out at you when attempting to understand a work. One of the most prominent things that you should be looking for is PATTERNS.

Writing is a highly conscious effort, which draws from highly unconscious places. Naturally, whether these patterns are intentional or unintentional is dependent on the author (see again why reading up on a work's context is so important), but you can generally bet that anything that IS a pattern is something that holds significance.

For example, Karkat consistently shows that he's very distraught when any of his friends get hurt, that he misses his friends, even the murderous assholes, that he's willing to sit them down and intervene on their behalf, despite all his grandstanding to the contrary. We are supposed to notice that Karkat actually loves his friends, and that he's lying when he says he doesn't care about them.

Homestuck is very carefully and deliberately crafted; if something comes up more than once, it's a safe bet to assume that you're supposed to notice, or at least feel, it. Don't take my word for it:

Basically, [reusing elements is] about building an extremely dense interior vocabulary to tell a story with, and continue to build and expand that vocabulary by revisiting its components often, combining them, extending them and so on. A vocabulary can be (and usually is) simple, consisting of single words, but in this case it extends to entire sentences and paragraph structures and visual forms and even entire scenes like the one linked above. Sometimes the purpose for reiteration is clear, and sometimes there really is no purpose other than to hit a familiar note, and for me that's all that needs to happen for it to be worthwhile. Triggering recognition is a powerful tool for a storyteller to use. Recognition is a powerful experience for a reader. It promotes alertness, at the very least. And in a lot of cases here, I think it promotes levity (humor! this is mostly a work of comedy, remember.) Controlling a reader's recognition faculty is one way to manipulate the reader's reactions as desired to advance the creative agenda.

But this applies to less deliberately-crafted work, too; for example, if an author consistently writes women as shallow, cruel, and manipulative, then we can glean that the author probably has some sort of issue with women. Villains often being queer-coded suggests that the culture they come from has problems with the gays. Etc. etc.

This is how I reached my conclusion that Pale EriKar is heavily foreshadowed - the two are CONSTANTLY kind to each other, sharing secrets, providing emotional support, etc. etc. It's why that part of my Eridan essay is structured the way that it is - by showing you first how consistently the two interact in suspiciously pale-coded ways, the fact that a crab is shown in both Eridan's first appearance AND his appearance on the moirallegiance "hatched for each other" page becomes the cincher of a PATTERN of the two being set up to shoosh-pap each other.

A work will tell you about itself if you listen. If it tells you something over and over, then it's basically begging you to pay attention.

Contrast is Important, Too

Patterns are also significant when they're broken. For example, say a villain is constantly beating up the protagonist. Here's our pattern: the hero is physically weaker than the villain. In a straight fight, the hero will always lose.

And then, at the mid-season two-parter, the hero WINS. Since we've set up this long pattern of the hero always losing to this villain, the fact that this pattern was disrupted means that this moment is extremely important for the work. Let's say the hero wins using guile - in this case, we walk away with the message that the work is saying that insurmountable obstacles may have workarounds, and adaptability and flexibility are good, heroic traits. Now let's say the hero won using physical strength, after a whole season of training and practicing - in this case, we say that the work says hard work and effort are heroic, and will pay off in the end.

In Homestuck, as an example, we set up a long pattern of Vriska being an awful, manipulative bitch, and a fairly remorseless killer. And then, after killing Tavros, she talks to John and admits that she's freaking out because she feels really bad about it. This vulnerability is hinted at by some of her earlier actions/dialogue, which is itself a pattern to notice, but it's not really explicit until it's set up to be in direct contrast to the ultimate spider8itch move of killing Tavros. This contrast is intended to draw our attention, to point out something significant - hey, Vriska feels bad! She's a product of her terrible society and awful lusus! While it's shitty that she killed Tavros, she's also meant to be tragic and sympathetic herself!

Hussie even talks about how patterns and surprises are used in tandem:

Prior to Eridan's entrance into the room, and even during, the deaths were completely unguessable. After Feferi's death, Kanaya's becomes considerably more so, but still quite uncertain. After her death, all bets are off. Not only do all deaths thereafter become guessable, but in some cases, "predictable". That's because it was the line between a series of shocking events, and the establishment of an actual story pattern. The new pattern serves a purpose, as a sort of announcement that the story is shifting gears, that we're drifting into these mock-survival horror, mock-crime drama segments, driven by suspense more than usual. The suspense has more authority because of all the collateral of unpredictability built up over time, as well as all the typical stuff that helps like long term characterization. But now that the pattern is out in the open, following through with more deaths no longer qualifies as unpredictability. Just the opposite, it would now be playing into expectations, which as I said, can be important too. This gear we've switched to is the new normal, and any unpredictability to arise thereafter will necessarily be a departure from whatever current patterns would indicate.

Patterns are important because they tell you what baselines the work is setting - what's normal, what's standard, what this or that generally "means." Contrast is important because it means something has changed, or some significant point is being made. They work in tandem to provide the reader with points of focus in the story, things to keep in mind as they read, consciously or unconsciously.

Theme

I'm talking about this stuff in pretty broad and open terms because stories are so malleable, and so myriad, and can say so many things. There are stories where horrible cruelties are painted as good things - propoganda is the big one, but consider all the discourse around romance books that paint abusive/toxic relationships as ideal. There are stories where the protagonist is actually the villain, and their actions are not aspirational, and works where everyone sucks and nobody is aspirational, and works where everybody is essentially a good person, if sometimes misguided.

This is, again, why outside context is so important, and biases need to be left at the door. For example, generally speaking, one can assume that the protagonist of a children's cartoon is going to be an aspirational hero, or at least a conflicted character who must learn to do the right thing. However, there are even exceptions to this! Invader Zim, for example, features an outright villain protagonist - a proud servant of a fascist empire - and for a lower-stakes example, the Eds of Ed, Edd, n' Eddy are the neighborhood scammers, constantly causing problems for the other characters with their schemes.

Thus, how do we determine what any particular narrative's stance on a given topic is? It's a difficult question to answer because every narrative is different. If I say something like, "the things that bring the protagonists success in their goals are what the narrative says are good," then we run into the issue of villain/gray morality protagonists. To use moral terms like "hero" and "villain" instead runs into the problem of defining morality within a narrative in the first place. But you have to draw the line somewhere.

So that brings us to themes.

Now, as with a lot of artistic terms, "theme" isn't necessarily well-defined (this isn't helped by the way the word is used colloquially to mean things like aesthetic, moral of the story, or symbolism). Wikipedia says: "In contemporary literary studies, a theme is a central topic, subject, or message within a narrative," but this is still very broad and hard to work with, so I'll give it a shot.

A theme is what a work says, beyond the literal series of events. Sometimes a theme is obvious - the theme of Boy Who Cried Wolf is that if you become famous for lying, you won't be believed when you tell the truth. Sometimes a theme is one of many - for example, Disney's Cinderalla says that kindness and virtue will eventually be recognized and rewarded, and that cruelty is interlinked with ugliness. Sometimes a theme is unintentional - for example, how Disney's body of work tends to villainize queer-coded characters. Sometimes context and the passage of time changes the theme - for example, Snow White originally held a message of hope for wartime families that domestic normalcy would one day return, but is now seen as anti-feminist as it appears to insinuate that a woman's place is in the kitchen, and her happiness is in marriage to a man. And sometimes a theme is not something you agree with.

In any case, a theme is a meaning to be gleaned from the text, more broad and universally applicable than the text itself. After all, we humans have traditionally always used story to impart meaning; our oldest epic, The Epic of Gilgamesh, contains within it several themes, most famously that of accepting one's mortality. It's startling, really, how applicable the story is to this day, even if specific details have become obtuse or unsavory to a modern reader.

This is, again, why it's so important to engage with a text on its own terms, in its own context, with as little bias as possible. A story's themes are not necessarily apparent, and commonly implied rather than stated outright, and approaching the story with expectations can easily lead to a Procrustean twisting of the facts to fit those expectations. A theme should emerge to the analyzer out of the reading, not the other way around.

Identifying theme gets easier with practice, and largely comes down to identifying patterns within the narrative (alongside looking at context and symbolism, of course). What does the narrative consistently touch base on? Are there any references; is there any symbolism? What does the story deem "normal," "good," or "bad"? How are ideas developed, and why? Why did these events happen, and are those motivations echoed anywhere else?

Homestuck is very complex and tackles many topics at once, and explaining why it's a coming-of-age would basically require a whole second essay, so I'll use a simpler and more popular example (like I've been trying to do) - let's say, Shrek.

The most obvious theme of Shrek is that beauty does not equate goodness, that one mustn't judge a book by its cover. The opening sequence is LITERALLY Shrek ripping out pages of a fairy tale book to use as toilet paper, and the movie ends with Fiona finding that her happiest, truest self IS as an ugly ogre. Shrek's main character conflict is that people immediately judge him as cruel and evil because he's ugly, and the characters' lowest points occur because Fiona is similarly insecure about her ogre half, considering it unlovable.

But there's other stuff in there, too. For example, if you know that Dreamworks and Shrek were founded after a falling out with Disney, then the beautiful, sanitized city of Dulac, with its switchback queue and singing animatronics add to this theme of a direct refutation of traditional Disney fairytale values, mocking them as manufactured, inhuman, and even cruel in the way that they marginalize those who don't fit an ideal of beauty. Again we see the opening sequence - defacing a fairytale - as support for this, but also the way that Dulac is displacing fairytale creatures. There's a moment where Gepetto literally sells Pinocchio, which can easily be read as a commentary on the crass commercialization and exploitation of fairy tales Disney likes to do.

And then, of course, there are lesser, supplementary themes. Love being a powerful positive force is one - Donkey is able to rally Shrek after he truly reciprocates Dragon's love for him (which echoes the theme of not equating goodness with beauty, as Dragon is still big and scary), and it's true love's kiss that grants Fiona her happy ending.

And then there's stuff that's unintentional. There's all this work done about how beauty =/= goodness, but then they made the villain incredibly short, which is a traditionally unattractive physical feature. So, does that mean that ugly things can be beautiful unless that ugliness is specifically height?

Sometimes, authorial intent does not match up with result - but in those instances, I think the most is revealed about the author. Modern Disney products tend to be very cowardly about going anti-corporation and pro-weirdness, despite their usual feel-good tones and uplifting themes - and that says a lot about Disney, doesn't it. That's why I think it's still important to keep authorial intent in mind, if possible, even if they fumble what they say they've set out to do.

Obviously, Lord Fuckwad being short doesn't REALLY detract from the overall message - but it's still a weird hitch in the themes, which I think is interesting to talk about, so you can see where personal judgement and biases DO have to be applied. There are two options here, more or less - either one believes that Shrek is making an exception for short people, who are of the Devil, or one believes that the filmmakers did a bit of an oopsie. Barring an outright statement from the filmmakers, there's no way to know for sure.

We can say a work has very complex themes when it intentionally explores multiple ideas very deeply. We can say a work has shallow themes when it doesn't have much intentional meaning, and/or that meaning is explored very lightly. The labyrinthine storytelling of Homestuck, with its forays into mortality, morality, and growing up, chock full of symbolism and pastiche and allusions, is a work with complex themes - especially as compared to the average newspaper comic strip, although they ostensibly share a genre.

We can say a work has very unified themes when these themes serve to compliment each other - the refutation of Disney-esque values, and love as a positive driving force, compliment the main theme in Shrek of not judging books by their covers, of beauty not equating to goodness. Ugly things are worthy of love, and those who push standards of beauty are evil and suck.

Similarly, we can say a work has unfocused or messy themes when the themes it includes - intentionally or not - contradict, distract, and/or detract from each other. Beauty has no correlation to goodness... unless you're short, in which case, you are closer to Hell and therefore of evil blood. To get a little controversial, this is actually why I didn't like Last Wish very much - there are approximately three separate storylines, with three separate thematic arcs, going on in the same movie, none of which particularly compliment each other - so the experience was very messy to me, story-wise, even though it was pretty and the wolf was hot. This is why we feel weird about Disney pushing anti-corporate messages, when they're a big corporate machine, or why it's easy to assume Homestuck was written poorly if you don't like Hussie - we want themes to be coherent, we want context to be unified with output.

Tone

Tone is somehow even harder to define than theme. It's like, the "vibe" of a work. For example, you generally don't expect something lighthearted to deal with the realistic, brutal tragedies of war. Maybe it'll touch on them in light, optimistic ways, but it isn't about to go All Quiet on the Western Front on the reader. By the same token, you don't expect fully happy endings out of the melodrama of opera, or frivolous slice of life from something grimdark.

Tone, too, is something people often wind up Procrusteanizing, which makes discussion difficult if two people disagree. If I read Homestuck as unwaveringly optimistic, with its downer ending the result of an author fumble, I'm pretty much going to irreconcileably disagree with somebody who reads Homestuck as though it's always been a kind of tragedy where things don't work out for the characters. Since it's even more difficult to define than theme, I'm not even really going to bother; I just felt like I had to bring it up because, despite its nebulosity, it's vital to how one reads and interprets a text. Sometimes I don't have a better answer for why I dislike a certain interpretation other than that it doesn't suit the work's tone. I generally try to avoid saying that, though, because it winds up smacking of subjective preference.

In summary... analysis is about keeping everything in mind all the time! But i swear, it gets easier the more you do it. Happy reading!

#homestuck #literary analysis #critical thinking

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0046incognito · 3 months

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how do you animate? ive always wanted to but idk where to start, any advice? love your art btw

thank you!! i Love encouraging people to learn to animate it seems daunting at first but once you get the hang of the basics you can basically do anything

i Started learning animation by not even animating, i just would rewatch all the original animaniacs skits animated by tokyo movie shinsha over and over again and go through them frame by frame to study the timing and movement on any shots i liked, timing is probably the Most important part of animation and a lot of it genuinely just comes down to intuition, so it's good to get into the habit of studying any animation you like frame by frame, i Still do this all the time [usually just for fun but also to use as actual tangible motion reference in whatever i'm working on, for example i learned to animate lightning effects from hunter X hunter and i learned to animate floaty bouncy movements from perfect blue]

BUT i'm getting ahead of myself, basically it's good to study animation you like before jumping right into actually animating, but that won't do you any good if you don't understand the fundamentals!! this also gives me an excuse to do a warmup for once which i usually skimp out on [<-hack fraud]

the first thing ANY animation class will teach you is The Dreaded Bouncing Ball [<-i actually like animating balls][<-intentional euphemism], because it's both simple And teaches you really essential basic animation skills such as A) motion, in general B) timing C) how timing sheets basically work, and occasionally D) squash&stretch!

you'll sometimes see animators draw charts with a bunch of lines off in the corner of a page, that's basically an old-timey timing sheet! each dash on the line indicates how many frames for a particular movement; for example, the top ball bounce has more frames bunched up at the top where it moves slowly, less frames when it's moving fast

if every motion you animate uses the same number of frames to do any movement, it'll look weird, because nothing in real life typically moves like that. you can demonstrate this in real life by just moving your hand in front of your face from one side to the other really fast; you won't see it in the middle, because that's where it's moving the fastest. this is basically where the principles for smear frames comes from!

the second thing they teach you in animation school is flour sacks so really animation is just all about nothin but balls and sacks

but the flour sack exercise is slightly more complicated so my advice for Getting STarted really ends here. once you have the hang of bouncing balls, you can apply those principles to things like character animation; some of the first "character animation" type things i ever animated when i was first learning were just really quick expression changes and flinching. this also teaches you about anticipation and what richard williams [author of the animator's survival kit highly recommend seeking out a PDF of that, he also was animation director on who framed roger rabbit and he made thief&the cobbler, he also animated some sequences on the raggedy ann&andy movie] calls Takes&Accents

this is a Really Really simple way to get started on character animation, this is only four frames! a lot of really bouncy-looking anime tend to animate their expressions pretty much exactly like this. you can always add more frames to make it smoother or more expressive, sometimes you'll also see an "anticipate up" frame before the "anticipate down", but remember the Timing is key so if you're adding more frames, try not to shift the timing too much or it might look awkward

OK i have spend like two hours typing this up instead of actually working on what i was supposed to today LOL i hope this helped at all if you have any more questions ever feel free to ask i Love talking about animation

OH ONE MORE THING!!!! i started learning animation in adobe animate [the software that was formerly Flash] but it SUCKS!!!! DON'T USE ADOBE ANIMATE!!!! i currently use a pirated copy of toonboom harmony which is THE industry standard 2D animation software and also just the best art program i have ever used in general, but it is CRAZY expensive that's why i pirated you can also invest in a perpetual license for clip studio paint pro or EX, but pro only lets you use 24 frames Total on a timeline and EX is like two hundred somethin dollars, OR i've heard decent things about procreate dreams? which is a mobile app IDK if it has a desktop version but i think it's only like twenty bucks

OK good luck have fun everyone please enjoy animating

#animation #tutorial #art tutorial #sorry this is so long i got crazy carried away i just love the medium of animation so so much and want to encourage more people to get into #it it's not that scary i promise!!!! i KNOW it seems scary to start i only started learning myself like three years ago cuz i was too #intimidated to get a headstart until in an actual classroom setting #and then it turns out art school is a scam and my school in particular sucks dick at teaching anything so all this i basically taught mysel #it's like driving it seems like the scariest shit ever but then once you actually start learning it's not that bad #[<-says the guy who still doesn't have his license at 23 cuz he had recurring nightmares about car accidents for eleven years]

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literallyjusttoa · 10 months

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Ok I have just been scrolling on your blog for like ages now and I just wanna say that I find your greek mythology rants literally so interesting bc a) they are so informative and when reading them it's obvious your dedicated abt it and b) I just love the way you write??? There's so much passion and it makes reading all your posts so interesting. I just love the info dumps especially bc I really want to know more abt greek mythology but I just don't have the time + have no idea where to start finding this information.

Plus I just really really love your art. It's so adorable?? I love your style and the way you draw your characters I just want to bundle them all up and never let go like I am literally etching every last bit into my brain.

Anyways I hope this doesn't seem like weird ☀️

These are like the kindest compliments, thank you!!!!

I'm so glad my passion for mythology comes through in my writing bc I do care so much about greek mythology and like mythology in general, if I thought I could make it in academia I would totally get a job in mythology research it is one of my favorite things. AND! I have a couple of resources I would totally recommend for a good place to start researching!

Theoi.com: oml this is such a phenomenally good resource for greek mythology. It has a whole bunch of different information and all of it is linked back to it's original source from antiquity. I will say that the writing on the website can be a bit dense, but it's not horrible and I could not recommend this site enough as a source for information.

If you have the money to buy a book I would recommend getting a copy of the Apollodorus' Library. This is a collection of mythography (It's like a mythological dictionary) that is thought to have been written around 2nd century BC. So, two plusses. 1. It's a primary source. 2. It has a lot of myths in a small package. Obviously, the original book is in ancient greek, which I sadly have not learned to read, but there are a lot of really good translations in english that are readily available. The one I have was translated by R. Scott Smith and Stephan M. Trzaskoma, and it's really cool because it also has the translated Hyginus' Fabulae, which is also mythography but this time it's roman. So like, two in one go! Woop woop!

After these two resources, I would recommend going trying to find resources that go more in depth on whatever myth catches your eye. Of course, that could be anything, so I can't really offer up a certain book or website for that, but I can give a couple of tips I use when looking into potential sources of information!

Primary resources!!! Always look for primary resources!! These are the sources that are actually from ancient greece, and have little to no additions from an author. I know these sources are usually more dense and harder to get through, but I think it's good to have an understanding of the original myth before you start looking at other people's interpretations of that myth, just so you don't get their thoughts confused with the actual original text. If you're having trouble figuring out if a book or site is a good primary research, search it up and look for reviews! Usually there's at least a couple people talking about how good the source is academic-wise.

I would always encourage researching ancient greek and roman history alongside researching mythology. These myths did not exist in a vacuum, and a lot of the time certain myths and stories are the direct result of the culture and politics of the era. I think the connections between greek mythology and history give you a greater understanding of both topics, and is always a good step!

(Also just my bias showing, but greek art history!!! is so good!!! and tells you so much about the culture!!! and then roman art history is also great!!! Because you get to see how the artists of rome used the cultural and artistic values of greece to create meaning and influence the people!! Like, Octavian purposefully had himself sculpted in a hellenistic style so that people would be less worried about him ruling from such a young age?? That's so interesting!!! I love art history!!!!)

I will say a lot of this does take a lot of time (I only really have time to research now bc it's summer so i'm not in college ;-;) but I really think it's such an interesting field, as you can probably tell by how long this was.

#ask #sunny speaks #greek mythology #long post #also you're totally not weird it's cool!

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sibillascribbles08 · 11 months

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Okay ramble that will probably not get anywhere but I will put it here anyway because I saw yet another post about people struggling to get any writing done. And someone in the comments made a good point. You write/draw so much more as a kid because you're less practiced and ergo less worried about the imperfections that may arise from just gunning it.

And this is true! And this is why I want to tell you if you are struggling to write much, learn to write like a kid again.

You know how with a lot of art you see processes and it always starts with really shitty thumbnails that have silly faces or just blobs of color? Then you have an actual sketch (during which the artist likely moves a lot of shit around on a digital canvas) and then possibly the inking phase or just painting which is more blobs that slowly get sharper and sharper the more the images is rendered.

Yeah uh, do that with writing. Going under the cut because long

Writing as a process is something that is unique to an individual, just like there's 800 ways to slap paint on a canvas. If you look at guide books for writing and none of it is sticking it's not cause you're a failure that technique is just not gelling for you.

And as such I can only speak from MY experience with it but like, here's how I generally stay on top of projects

A) Sketch phase! It's outline time baby! "Ughh but outlines suck" listen I know school made the outline phase of an essay the worst fucking thing ever but hear me out on this. Sure some people CAN write by the seat of their pants but in terms of long projects this does not work out for me. I'm inevitably gonna hit a point where idk where to go from there and it's so hard to map all that out in long form

Listen, outlines are not there to be formal. They're not even there to be fancy. This is time to get down the bare bones and if you have to make it only a paragraph long and then extend that paragraph into multiple then DO it.

Like hell, NONE of my outlines are formatted the same! Some are a paragraph per chapter. Others are just endless bullet points that I split up later. I'm sure in one book due to all the plotlines I'm just going to have a storyline for each character laid out in columns so I can draw lines between them. Whatever works.

And again, do not have to be formal, like here is a legit line in one of my outlines

As for the ruined building… Hypno will cover the damages……….. Right? : )

Go crazy.

B) Now that you have your baselines start working on the actual story. Do you like writing shit out of order? Do it, because with an outline you still have your baselines to reference for any important details you don't wanna forget "Remember [character] is supposed to get a scar in chapter five!" Or write shit in order, and every time you hit a lull consult those baselines to say "oh yeah that's where this chapter was going"

And hey, keep writing it like a kid if that's what it takes to get this crap down. Hit a fight scene you don't wanna write? Slap down some brackets. [Insert a fight scene here where [character] gets his head smashed in so he ends up with this concussion later like a dumbass]. Boom, done, worry about it later.

Worried the dialogue isn't flowing well? Slap open another document or grab some paper and write it out in a play format to keep it moving. Add in all the beats, expressions, and details after.

Not sure if this detail you're putting in is historically accurate? Leave an easy to search symbol in the doc so you can go back to it to research later.

Write the sappy shit. Write with poor grammar (but still like, comprehensible you know what I mean). Slip in adverbs to swap out with strong verbs later. Use a run on sentence.

"But it's gonna sound bad" Who cares who tf cares that's what editing is for ! You go back and refine that shit and clean up sentences and add in all the extra research and pull out the repetitive words.

You gotta quit treating writing like you're supposed to just swing your brush on the canvas and suddenly you have some beautiful scenery. There's layers. There's blobs that turn into refined shapes. There's blending and shading. There's fine lines and thick lines. And sometimes there's mistakes that you have to wait until it dries to go back over it again.

It is a process! Let yourself have FUN with the process.

Okay rant over.

#scribs speaks #I will never tell people how they should write #but so many times when I talk to fellow writers who say they haven't touched their WIP in ages #9/10 I ask if they have an outline and they say no #sir you are trying to write a fic that could be like 20 chapters #give yourself some sketch layers

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pomrania · 5 months

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Another Bestiaryposting critter, the "gligglae", and apparently sometimes "haven't gotten around to doing this thing" and "don't feel like doing anything at the moment" cancel each other out. I'm reasonably certain I know what this creature is supposed to be, and I even know that I can like 75% draw that most distinctive feature, but a) it's not about drawing what you think it ACTUALLY is, but rather something it could be if you were just going from the description; and b) I had a dumb idea that I am absolutely going to run with.

Now, it mentions that it has wings, and it "flies, but not on wings; it supports itself by making a rowing motion with its skin". The REASONABLE interpretation is that either a) its mentioned "wings" are just, like, shoulder fluff an gives the appearance of wings, or b) that it actually does fly using wings, and the "but not on wings" is a shorthand version for "not wings that look like what we're used to seeing". HOWEVER, I'd an idea from the "rowing motion", and decided it should have stuff that looks like actual oars.

If I was less of a coward, I'd elide the whole "with its skin" bit, and just draw a creature hooked up to a Flying Contraption. However, it'd itch at my mind if I did something INTENTIONALLY getting it wrong (as opposed to last week, where I did something ACCIDENTALLY getting it wrong, because I didn't know that a "coot" was an actual extant bird), plus also I don't feel like designing what A Contraption might look like.

Here's everything in the file I currently have. The middle bits were just getting the generic concept out; then the bottom left is me thinking up cool features for the creature, and it's kind of like an anteater pretty much entirely because I was recently watching a video on them, so they're what first came to mind for "mammal that doesn't look like a dog or a horse or a cat"; the thing on the right is me trying to doodle out it hanging from a thing, and forgetting about perspective; and on the top left is doodling out some colour patterning. I think I accidentally got some "houndour" mixed in, but that shouldn't be an issue when worked over a creature with different shaping.

Next on the list is "think about what pose I'd do for this", because I've learned to not spend too much time and effort on getting the design just right, when there's a decent chance I'll end up changing it to make a picture better or easier.

#progression #not a reblog

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twigs-sprigs · 2 years

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So judging from that eyepatch Kai has and since its premovie, I'm guessing Kai gets his eye scar from this au?

If so, NICE. I need to know how he got it >:)

RIGHT OKAY!!

so before i start going off about it, i need to mention one thing, namely the fact that this au contains a multitude of me and @shadesofvermillionvoid 's personal headcannons and such.

by that, one really important thing that plays a big part of this au (and most of our aus including the show rewrite we've been thinking about) is the idea that lloyd has 4 forms, his dragon form, his oni form (which was in my last post), his human form and his inhuman form (which is his true form)

i swear ill get to kai just bear with me this is important to how he got the scar believe it or not

now his dragon and oni forms aren't entirely relevant to this au, (his dragon form doesn't even appear, since he has not yet reached his full potential, heck he isnt even the green ninja yet, he doesnt even know that his friends ARE THE NINJA). his oni form does play a part but it doesn't appear in the canon of the au (even though we've discussed it)

these are the forms i'm gonna focus on right now

lloyd's human form is, as you see up there, pretty much a disguise. his insides are still purple because this form only affects the outside.

one thing about it, is that he can only keep this human disguise in a healthy way up for about 4-5 hours before it starts to physically strain him and/or hurt him. keeping it up causes him to be really sleepy too, but he's learned to deal with that. (this is also important for a certain part of this au)

this form is the lloyd everyone knows and hates loves! he has it at school, in town, basically everywhere outside.

lloyd's inhuman form is what lloyd really looks like! very few people know of this form, as in: koko, garm, wu and the ninja squad.

he is VERY adamant about keeping this from under wraps, as he doesn't want to draw even more negative attention to himself and the people around him. he only looks like this when he's at home or at any of the ninja's homes, despite being more physically comfortable in it. he is extremely careful about this form not being revealed to the general public.

OKAY, YOU GOT ALL THAT? GOOD!

NOW TO WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED!!!

so, lloyd got dumped by harumi, and he got dumped HARD. as in, PUBLICALLY DUMPED IN FRONT OF EVERYONE.

harumi was only really using lloyd and didn't really actually love him, of course, she just wanted to toy with him. she was using garmadon's son for her own gain and she treated him like garbage during their relationship, and lloyd not knowing how all this stuff works just kind of...ate it all up like it was normal. kai noticed all of this but couldn't do much but to stare and be worried from the sidelines.

lloyd was shattered after the breakup, he'd become so attached to harumi and her toxic behaviors that even if he KNEW it was all wrong and twisted, he still wanted to go back, he still longed to be with her because it was something different. it took kai and the squad a long time to help lloyd accept that it was not something healthy, and even then he still gets very upset whenever harumi is mentioned around him. she traumatized him b a d. and thats not even the worst of it.

anyway! so harumi broke up with lloyd, but before this, lloyd decided it was a good time (since they'd been together for a few weeks already) to show harumi.. well...himself! he showed her his true form, thinking that he could trust her not to tell anybody else about it.

yeah... that didnt go well.

what harumi did, is that she managed to snap a blurry picture of lloyd in his true form, albeit blurry. and she decided to... post it online a few days after the breakup took place

lloyd, upon seeing this picture that harumi had just posted during class, gets up and BOOKS it to the school bathroom, to hide and... you know...cry.

kai sees harumi snickering, and he decides to excuse himself and follow lloyd, in hopes of comforting him. he's his best friend and older brother figure after all.

while on his way to the bathroom, he sees the chen cheerleader, lloyd's number one bully and kai's number one most hated person ever. chen also left class and is...wait he's heading to the bathroom.

kai knows that chen saw the picture and wants to hurt lloyd because of it, and he's NOT going to let that happen. before chen can open the door kai TACKLES him, and a fight ensues in which chen goes on about how lloyd is just a monster in disguise, and that he's doing everyone a favor.

chen. pulls out a pocket knife during this fight. he slashes at kai a few times but kai being a ninja and all knows how to dodge.

during this fight, chen manages to actually get in the boys bathroom where lloyd is, and blocks the entrance so kai can't come in. chen starts hurting lloyd, putting his head in the toilet, pinning him to the wall and trying to threaten him with the knife, trying to force that form in the picture out of lloyd. of course he isnt budging, but he's also not fighting back, lloyd never fights back in these situations.

meanwhile, kai is DESPERATE to open the fucking door, he is FREAKING OUT hes trying to hit it, to throw himself into it but nothing. the bell had rung by this point and a crowd started to gather.

the other ninja make their way to the commotion, and stare for a few seconds before kai notices them and he's like "DONT JUST FUCKING STAND THERE, HELP ME!"

cole makes kai get out of the way and breaks the door open. kai runs in to chen with the knife an inch close to lloyd's throat. he tackles chen and pins him to the wall, but chen manages to slash at kai, hitting his eye. and that's the scar! he didnt actually damage kai's eye that much, mostly scarred around it.

some teachers come in and break everything off. kai and lloyd are taken to the nurse and later kai and chen are taken to the principal's office, where chen twists the story, making kai seem like the bad guy.

chen gets off with a slap on the wrist, he gets his parents called to school. and kai gets off with a week suspension.

and lloyd...

well...lloyd's mental health... somehow gets... even worse

worse enough for him to do something *really* stupid

maybe @shadesofvermillionvoid can tell you what happens next, so go ask em abt this au too dont be shy!!! :D

and thanks if you read all that KJDWKKWD I TRIED MY BEST TO MAKE IT MAKE SENSE BUT IM HORRIBLE AT EXPLAINING

have some pre-movie au kais :)

#ninjago #ninjago pre-movie au #art #digital art #drawing #lego ninjago movie #kai ninjago #lloyd garmadon #kai smith #fanart #lego ninjago fanart #ask #twigs art #lego ninjago #movie kai ninjago #tw blood

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miutonium · 11 months

Text

Im so sorry @jils-things but you made me want to go on a tangent about art supplies in a bit cuz I'm a nerd andhekqkwkdjwoqo i lov u pls dont go away- 😭

Anyway yes I usually make a very light sketch with my pencil so that I could erase it easily for me to retrace it but I am here to make a very important public announcement and I feel that it is my duty to inform the public on something that could be beneficial to the society.

Behold: Kneading Eraser

This fucker have multiple names; Putty eraser, gummy eraser, kneaded eraser,clay. It's going through a phase, please don't judge it, let it change name every 10 seconds.

What I need is that I want everyone to put everything down and listen to what I say: You run to the art store, Michael's, Art Friend, soup store, whatever store you get your art supply at. You ask the store clerk you want a putty eraser and if they dont give you a putty eraser, tell them they're a loser in malay (it's mak kau hijau. The more your learn folks) and then go to the next store and find a putty eraser until you get them. Its not expensive, it cost me less than 2 bucks for 1 pack of putty eraser.

Why you may ask? Well, I can assure you as someone who draws, putty eraser is much much MUCH better than a normal generic eraser.

First of all, there's no dust. When you erase a line with this boy, there wont be any rubber shit nugget clumping on the table and making a mess on your bed (i know you hate your spine too and likes to draw on bed i live in ur walls u guys better sleep with 1 eye open). I'm so serious like I have 0 eraser shavings in my house since I use a putty eraser. Please stop sleeping covered in eraser shavings.

It's also malleable. You can literally shape it to whatever shape that you want so you could erase a a tiny spot that you couldn't reach without disturbing other lines. And it works sooooo well as a stress ball or a toy. People actually knead it into animal shape. Can you shape a normal rectangle eraser into a giraffe? CAN YOU? DO YOU SEE MY POINT?

Do you suffer from loneliness? Do you need a conversation opener? Are you tired of kneading an eraser to shape it into a friend? Believe it or not, putty eraser is a great conversation starter when you dont want to start a conversation! As a personal anecdote: whenever I sketch in school, if anyone I know sees me sketching, they will always ask me what the fuck is the clay thing I use to erase my lines and then I have to explain to them what is a kneadable eraser and then whenever I demo'd the eraser, an amusing OOOOOOO will come out and they will play with my eraser for like 5 mins. Am I mad that my eraser is taken away? No because the eraser can also be s e p e r a t e d . Black magic fuckery. Please go buy a putty eraser.

Anyway for the pencil, I swear to god if you ever get this pencil, you will never use a normal mechanical pencil ever again.

The pencil I'm using is called a drafting pencil, specifically Pentel Graphgear 500. There's tons of drafting pencil in the market but just look at this one because other's are expensive and you will cry. This pencil had a plastic body but the base is made of metal so its pretty heavy. It feels v e r y c o m f o r t a b l e on the hand, like the moment you hold it, you will believe that this is how mechanical pencil suppose to be. It just fits so perfectly with the contour of you finger. The weight feels so nice on your hands and the grip is very comfortable. The pencil sleeve also doesnt budge so you don't and won't have any issue of lead breakage (unless you press your pencil really hard)

It's also very long-lasting. I have 2 of them in my pencil case. The one on the left were bought in 2021 from Muji. The one on the right were bought in 2015. It still works fine despite being 8 years old. I don't think I ever have any mechanical pencil that is long lasting like this one. This is legit one of the product that I would say would last a lifetime if you take care of it well.

This ends my sleepy deprivation fueled post for today.

TL;DR: Please go buy kneaded eraser and a drafting pencil I am on my knees rn-

#asuka speaks #anyway aHHH I LOVE U JIL THANK YOU FOR BEING MY NO 1 HYPEMAN FOR CHLOE AND UTONIUM BLESS YOU 😭😭💕💕💕#i have said what i need to say so I will go to sleep now //bonk head

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hummingbird-hunter · 1 year

Text

The journals of #0068, documenting their time in the Wizard Realm University

Wizard Realm – year 1

Finally in the Wizard Realm University :•DDD Not that I need to be here, really, but I think it's one of those places where those pesky Fae won't be following my every step.

Ehh, who am I kidding.

They'll probably still find a way to observe me. Not a semblance of privacy, really! But at least I wouldn't have to interact with one while I'm here.

There's no Fae here.

Like, at all.

Not specifically those Fae, but, like, Fae in general.

I think they think they're too good, too powerful to go somewhere and learn magic.

Well, I get that.

Like I said, I don't really need to go here.

For something that calls itself a "Wizard Realm" there is little to no actual wizards here. Various dwarves, shifters, merfolk, other little creatures that want to learn wizardry and then call themselves "Wizards", as if a fundamental part of who I am can be reduced to a mere profession.

Whatever.

The main thing is that now I am free to do my research in peace. The thing that bugged me for the millenia I've lived, now without the Fae to hinder me.

I am not yet sure what exactly am I looking for, but the gaps in my memory… Well, I suppose I should start with that.

Shit, I think I missed the orientation.

Whatever, doubt that there was anything important.

And why is the air texture so weird?

Wizard Realm – year 4

This stupid realm with the stupid classes and stupid fucking sky worms floating about their fucking sky wormholes >:•(

Can't even do my research properly without godsdammned library books trying to hex me three ways to hell!

Doesn't matter. I have time.

The only thing I have, really.

Fucking time.

All the time in the worlds. Even remember most of it.

Most.

Really, I should've started this research a millennium ago.

Well, better late then never, I guess. At least I'm going to keep this stupid journal. Just in case.

Hopefully, I won't need it.

But,

Just, in case.

Just in case.

Wizard Realm – year 15

wHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE >:•[

Have they never seen a clown before??? Listen, I am not a stranger to a little cannibalism between friends, but every other creature trying to cut off my leg because they "heard that clown meat is a delicacy" is where I draw the line! >:•[

Whatever, it's not like they can hurt me that easily.

Wizard Realm – year 15 – part 2

Those fools don't even know about clown skills

Wizard Realm – year 28

Finally. Almost three decades in, I finally actually started my research.

The results are… well, the results are null. Nada. Nothing.

It's not a disease, but I already knew that much. Don't have any other symptoms, other than the fucking memory gaps, and those don't seemingly have any pattern or some unifying trigger, or anything of that nature.

They seem, random, almost.

The longest one was twenty years. The shortest – a bit less than a week.

And I'm not even counting the ones that lasted less then a day. Fuck, those could just be a result of a head injury, or a bad hangover. I don't know if I should count them. Maybe?

How am I supposed to look for something, if I don't even know what I am looking for?

The Fae should know.

Of course they know. Not that they would ever tell me.

Maybe they're the ones doing it. A little sick joke they decided to play with my life.

Or maybe not.

Maybe they just just want to observe me losing my fucking mind.

I love watching things burn, too.

Another little thing that makes us similar, I suppose.

Wizard Realm – year 51

Hypothesis: Rainfall Beast Ailment

Wizard Realm – year 51 – part 2

Hypothesis result: negative. The memory gaps do not correspond with any particular weather pattern

Wizard Realm – year 69

Nice B•)

Wizard Realm – year 72

I met an interesting creature not that long ago.

A shifter, with little to no magic of her own.

And yet she wants to learn, she said. She wants to be a wizard, she said. She's going to be the best wizard in all of the multiverse, she said.

Funny.

I threw her into the snake pit.

Wizard Realm – year 72 – part 2

She survived.

Not unscathed, but alive nevertheless. Not resurrected, either.

Simply crawled out of the snake pit and started rambling about how cool my pocket dimension was, how interesting it was on the technical level, and how powerful I must be to create something so beautiful; started listing all the possible pranks and hijinks it can be used for.

Funny. In a good way.

And, it is nice to see your work being appreciated

:•)

Wizard Realm – year 113

If it's a curse, then there has to be some sort of trigger element to cause it.

Of course, it would be easier to figure out what it is if I could fucking remember it.

If it is one, it has to be so immaculately crafted, so masterfully hidden; able to activate in every realm and dimension.

Fuck, that doesn't make any sense either.

Nothing works everywhere. And even then, why? Why bother? No, this is way too complicated, and I don't have any enemies capable of such power. And even if I did, what's the point of erasing my memory? Why not just break my mind in a thousand little pieces and send every little piece through billion hells each?

So no, not a curse.

I don't get it.

Wizard Realm – year 134

Hypothesis: Brain-eating amoeba

Wizard Realm – year 134 – part 2

Hypothesis result: negative. No brain for amoeba to feed on

Wizard Realm – year 180

Got married :•)

Wizard Realm – year 180 – part 2

Got divorced :•)

Wizard Realm – year 198

The shifter girl asked me a question.

We've known each other for more than a hundred years, she said. And yet you've never told me your name, she said. You never asked, I said. And you've never told me yours.

You never asked, she said.

What's your name, she said.

I don't have one, I answered.

Why, she asked.

I didn't have a lie ready. People don't usually ask.

Fae, I said.

Ah, gambled it away then. Happens to the best of us.

Gambled it away, huh? I wouldn't say it happens to the best, but few would get judged for losing to the Fae. That's just how Fae are.

Gambled it away. Seems believable, at least. Maybe that's what I will use in the future.

Sure, I said. Gambled it away, i said. What's your name?

Maize, she said.

Charmed.

Wizard Realm – year 245

Maybe I'm doing this all wrong.

Maybe I shouldn't look for what or who is causing my memory to falter, but why.

Don't really want to spend a millennium researching only to find out, that yes, it is in fact the Fae doing it, by means that I already fucking know of but for reasons that I am no closer to uncovering.

Wizard Occams Razor or whatever that shit's called.

No, I need to find a way to find out what's connecting all the times I do not remember.

Looking through other people's memories? Seems like the only feasible option for now.

At least I haven't lost any memories while I've been here.

That's… good.

Wizard Realm – year 299

Hypothesis: Hangover

Wizard Realm – year 299 – part 2

Hypothesis result: negative. I don't drink that much

Wizard Realm – year 311

I've looked. I am looking.

At least I have something to look at.

I've found several different memories for almost each memory gap.

But they're situational. A fifteen-minute memory at most.

I mean, what else have I expected. It's me. All my interactions are situational.

Saying that, it is interesting seeing myself from the outside perspectives.

…

But it doesn't help me in finding the missing link.

Wizard Realm – year 420

Nice, I guess

Wizard Realm – year 455

Hypothesis: Seeing the true face of a God

Wizard Realm – year 455 – part 2

Hypothesis result: negative. Saw several Gods and their true faces. Resulted in temporary blindness, no memory loss

Wizard Realm – year 490

Maize showed me the Cursed Clover Fields.

I didn't even realise there was Cursed Clover here. I love clover.

You look tired, she said.

I am tired, I said. I've been looking. I've been looking so hard and yet I still don't understand! What am I missing? I said.

You're tired, she said.

You need to relax, she said.

C'mon, she said, I don't even recognise the person who threw me in the snake pit the first time we met!

I don't want to forget again, I said.

I know, she said, but in your pursuit to not forget again, you're not living a life that is worth remembering. You haven't forgotten anything since I've met you. But how many things do you remember?

Fuck you, I said.

You're right, I said.

Still, fuck you, I said.

I have an idea, she said.

I think you'll love it.

Wizard Realm – year 490 – part two

She was right. I did love it

A bit of magic, a bit of trickery, and the whole campus was filled with flesh-eating multicolored lightning bugs.

She was right.

I did love it.

I did also make her take the fall for it, as a little revenge for psychoanalysing me, but I got her out of the prison right before her Trial by The Very Big Hydra.

Thats the friend I know, she said.

I pushed her into the snake pit again

:•)

Wizard Realm – year 511

More than a half a millennium in the Wizard Realm, and I saw a fucking hummingbird.

Didn't even know that there are hummingbirds here.

Well, were. Definitely not anymore.

I am very good at what I do :•)

Wizard Realm – year 598

I showed Maize the Elevator.

She was amazed.

A-maize-d, hehe :•D

Of course, everyone knows about the magical wormholes that connect the magical dimensions, but not a lot of people are interested in the non-magical ones.

And the one that hosts the Elevator, known by the operators as "the Elevator Shaft", is the biggest one of all.

It connects every realm and dimension.Every? Maize said.

Yes, every. All of the Magic ones and all of the otherwise Powered, but also, all the non-magical ones, and even the anti-magical!

Cool, right? :•DDD

I showed her how the bits of the wormhole from Elevator Shaft to create non-magical bag of holding, or how I use the Shaft to open doors.

I swear, I could see stars in her eyes.

You're the most impressive person I've ever met, she said.

I know, I said. Of course I am. I was born like that, with both magic and skills both flowing where my blood could be. I am powerful, I said. It's my birthright.

That's not what I meant, she said. The Elevator isn't your birthright, neither is your hunt, and yet you show me the most unusual things I've ever seen.

The Elevator is just a part-time job, I said. And I just hate the little fuckers. This isn't unusual.

But it is, she said. Frankly, I couldn't care less about your birthright, she said. Your power is innate, sure, but so is your very punchable face, she said. That is not what i find impressive.

Fuck you, I said.

You love me, she said.

Eat shit and die, I said.

She laughed.

Wizard Realm – year 601

Fuck research.

I haven't forgotten anything yet, and it's been more than six centuries.

Maybe whatever erases my memory doesn't function in the Wizard Realm.

Or maybe whatever triggers the memory erasure hasn't happened yet.

I think, it doesn't matter.

It's been six hundred years.

It's not like I'm going to lose six hundred years.

I think I'll just let myself live.

:•]

Wizard Realm – year 666

Nice B•)

Wizard Realm – year 772

Tomorrow is seven hundred years since I met Maize.

I wish I would be the one to invite her somewhere on this day, but she already came up with something. She says it's a surprise.

Well, I do like surprises :•)

Wizard Realm – year 772 – part 2

■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■

Wizard Realm – year 773

Tomorrow is one year since Maize died.

That's the thing, wizards don't just die forever, not even the taught ones!

Not like that, they just don't!

It is really, really hard to kill a wizard forever. And I know, I've killed a few in my lifetime. And it was fucking hard because wizards get revived and then you have to kill them again, or destroy the thing or person that's reviving them, and if that gets revived…

Well, wizards die all the time, but they don't die.

Fuck, Maize have died before! At least four times in the time that I knew her. But she got better. There was always either a faculty member to revive her, or the magic in the air made her inside organs regrow, or she just walked in off, but this time she just...

Didn't.

It was that lake, that fucking lake. The only non-controlled anti-magical thing in the whole Realm.

We were going to use the acid from the lake for another little practical joke, but

She just

Fell.

I thought she was pranking me when she didn't resurface.

Very funny, Maize, I said.

I'm not falling for that, Maize, I said.

Maize? I said.

Maize! I said.

When I got her body out of the water, she was dead.

It was fine, I thought. I'll just bring her to the faculty, I thought. They'll revive her, I thought.

As a wizard, I am a creature of Magic, but as a clown, I am also a creature of Mask.

Maize, even though she wasn't a Born Wizard, she was a shifter. A creature of Magic.

And soon there was nothing of her left to revive.

...

It's kinda funny. Almost three millenia of my life. I am one of the most powerful creatures by the right of birth, having both Magic and Mask inside me, and yet I've never learned how to revive.

I've never needed to revive anyone, really, most of the dead people I encounter I was the one to kill, and I don't remember dying myself, so i never had to learn how.

Maybe it is something I should learn.

...maybe I should just take time to mourn.

Wizard Realm – year 773 – part 2

I don't remember dying.

That is fucking it, isn't it? It's not that I've never died, I'm fucking almost three thousand years old, of course I have fucking died before.

It's that I don't remember dying.

Fuck, I've been told I've died before, but I just assumed I walked it off and wrote off the two hour memory loss on my hangover.

I've been told by a person I've never met before, how are you still alive? I killed you with my own two hands!, but I never fucking met them before so they probably mistook me for someone else and I am so fucking stupid.

It's my death. That is the trigger.

But why are the gaps all different in length?

I need to rewatch the memories of me.

Wizard Realm – year 780

I think I figured it out.

And it's really fucking simple.

I even found the person who claimed to have killed me.

They said we were friends. They said we were friends for twenty years. They said the whole twenty years they were quietly poisoning me with the only poison known to work on both Mask and Magic creatures.

They told me when it happened and how horrified were they to see me a millennium after, alive and healthy.

It was exactly the twenty years that was my longest memory gap.

I killed the fool of course.

And unlike me, they'll stay in the ground.

Wizard Realm – year 796

So that's it. I figured it out.

Yay.

Revisited all the places. All of the other people's memories. It all confirms it.

I lose my memories regarding my death, right from the point of finding myself in the situation that directly leads to it.

So, it seems if I buy a cursed amulet that kills me seven days after the purchase, I will forget all seven days.

…

For some reason, knowing that doesn't make me feel better.

I still don't know why, for one thing.

I am revived, obviously, so why would I need to forget my death?

I don't get it.

…I don't get it, but I know who does.

Wizard Occams Razor, yadda-yadda.

At least, now I know what to ask them.

At least I'm not going to rush in with tell me something but I'm not sure what.

At least I can just go up to them and ask why are you making me forget every time I die.

It's a gamble, of course.

There is still a chance it's not them, but, really, no one else has this kind of power.

Not over me.

I wish I could leave now, but…

It's four years until graduation.

Maize would want me to stay.

I wish you were here.

Wizard Realm – year 800

I let loose a Devil Tiger Goat during the graduation.

Maize would've loved it.

...

I'm meeting the Fae first thing after I leave this dimension.

Well, maybe I'll go to the Meadow first.

I remember there are clovers there.

After Wizard Realm – day first, day last.

They didn't tell me about the Fog.

Why wasn't I told about the Fog???

It's…

Funny thing about the Fog. You can only find it in the Wizard Realm. It only starts acting outside of it.

My head hurts

M̵y̶ ̷h̸e̴a̷d̷ḥ̷̦̌̎ư̷̙̂͋r̵̙͙̍̌̚̚t̴͕̝͕͙͊̆͋͝s̵̪̄ͅm̴̧̍̏̇̕ý̴̧̭̳̊͠ ̸̭͈̦̀h̵̼̺̀̀͜e̸͚̟͖̦͊̑a̷̦̠̋͝d̶̨̗̭̞̒̎ĥ̶͙͉͔̘̯̭͌͑́͝ù̷̦̜͉̘͐̀̽͆̑̔̏̈̃̍ṛ̵̮͈̜̺̈̽́̽́̕͝͝ṱ̵̨͓̥͇̺̥͓̳̪͍̜͇̲͕́̔̎̾͑͌̌̚͘͜s̸̨̛̟̘̆͆̀͐̔̋͌͋̅̆͛͆͝m̴̛̺̳̣̦̲̱̦͓̩̲̀̿̆̏̔̓̌̊͋̇͝ͅͅͅy̸̢̡̧̧̦̬̳̙͍͍͂͆̄̑̇̍̒̓́̎̄̑̈́͜͜h̵̼͔̔͋̓̏̿̐̅͒̾̋̆͠͠ȩ̵̮̯̣͖͚̥͖̠͙͌͌͒̿á̵̛̗͖͍̱̼̪̱̳̦͙̟̪̟̹̀͂͌͘͠͠ͅd̴̝̤̲͕̼̤̯̤̘͚̩͐͋̓̍̿͗́͒̔̾̿͐̀̕̕͝ͅh̵̢̢̨̧͙̪̮̲̞͈͖̪̜̩̪̞̣̜̰̪̞̻̲̫̻̤̲̲̝͉̜͑̚͜͜u̶̧̧̠̳̥̲̗̯͔̮͔͓̫̫̣̫͍͎̪͕͗͑̍͜ͅͅͅr̷̢̨̖̞̤̫̜̥̲̥̟͎̘͕̗͔͇͍͔̟̬͇̲̹͙̣͇̟̳͙̦̖̫͚̲͍͗̌͆̔͐̋̉̾̒̾͐̉̽͒͂͗́̈́͝ͅt̶̨̡̡̩͔̲̘̩̼̗̰̱͖̰͚͎̮̙͓̬̫̝̰̩͋̔́͊̾͊̾̎̂́͒̌̇̔̍̚͘ͅͅs̵̱̖̱͎̳͔̹̦̥̩͖̬̖̻̳̹̣̙̯̰̞̪̫͔͇͕͇̭̰͔̦͒̈ͅ

Fuck I need to go to the Fae I need to-

..why is the air texture so weird?

[The journal entries end here. On the journal, train track marks are seen]

#wizard #wizardposting #wizard posting #wizardclown #writing #creative writing #featuring my gratuitous use of italics #wizardclown lore #oc: Maize #oc: Hunter

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abigail-pent · 2 years

Note

{{ "ok yes but: Gideon's two hander fighting style is not based on Fiore it's based on Lichtenauer" Can you elaborate on that? I have no idea what that means but I'm eager to understand, if you'd be so willing! Are you telling me there ARE books about swordfighting? Is the Sixth actually NOT as insane as everyone thought for learning sword moves that way? I'm so confused and I know nothing about swordfighting or relevant writings and I had no idea they can be BASED ON things? Please infodump!

Hey! So yes: there are absolutely books about swordfighting, and the funny thing is that the entire modern sport of historical European martial arts (HEMA), on which the swordfighting in TLT is based, comes from those books. Check out Wiktenauer for particulars -- note the pun -- but at a very high level: the sport exists because a bunch of beautiful history/SFF nerds were like, "how did people actually used to fight with these weapons?" And it turns out that there are a ton of manuscripts from between the 1400s-1800s ish that are written by old sword masters, explaining exactly how to do different drills, cuts, parries, footwork, etc. The language is sort of imprecise, so people tend to get copies of these manuscripts and sort of "act out" what they think the author was describing, to figure out how to translate from the written word back into a physical medium. Not all of these documents are written; depending on the weapon, there might be leaflets or engraved plates or other drawings that illustrate how to perform different cuts or guards for a low-literacy audience. I really do think that "the Sixth learns swordfighting out of a book?!" has to be a joke intentionally aimed at the HEMA community, because (a) we know tazmuir learned all these swordfighting specifics from a HEMA practitioner, and (b) that is exactly how the sport was developed, and continues to develop. That's how a club builds its curriculum.

Re: Fiore vs Lichtenauer: Fiore was an Italian master, and Lichtenauer was a German one. I have been taught Lichtenauer's style of longsword, and seen people fight using Fiore's style quite a lot. People's opinions vary a lot, but in general I would characterize Lichtenauer's style as sort of workhorse-y, no-nonsense, prioritizing efficiency and making sure that every attack can double as a defense with minimal effort from the swordsperson. Fiore, by contrast, looks very flowery to me; it's a lot more showy; a lot of the guards and cuts look (to my eye) very silly in terms of body mechanics. No question that it can be very effective when you know what you're doing, and no question that Lichtenauer's style can also be very pretty; but every guard or cut I've ever seen from Fiore just looks fragile in terms of body mechanics. This is just my opinion, but seeing how positively froufrou Fiore is in comparison to Lichtenauer, it just seems like Lichtenauer would be much more appealing to Gideon as a character. Much more efficient, fewer wasted movements, much more solid. Plus I know that the sword club that tazmuir's "sword consultant" belongs to is a Lichtenauer club, not a Fiore club. (There aren't that many Fiore clubs. It's not nearly as popular.)

#tlt meta

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toyotacorolla2008 · 9 months

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hi!!! i was wondering if you could do a tutorial for how you draw transformers? i can never simplify them like you can. do you have any tips?? also love your art sm <33

hi ヾ(•ω•`)o

I WILL TRY MY best to explain what i do… i don’t actually have a very structured system but this is vaguely how i got started and how i simplified the process

1. look up and compile a whole bunch of references

this will be useful for EVERYTHING– transfomos come with lots of shapes and gizmos and details and stuff so a variety of references from different angles and in different poses is really useful because you can see the shapes they’re made out of and also understand how everything connects with each other

trapezoid town! this is a mess but it’s a quick example of how by looking at everything you start to notice trends or details like what moves with what or how flexible some parts are

there are a whole bunch of resources very nice people have compiled on the web like here here here here and here (mainly MTMTE) and there is a discord server (this is a link to a tumblr post about it and not the invite link itself) for it too but you can always look through the source material and just start screenshotting and pasting shit into a folder.

you don’t have to do humongous in-depth breakdowns if you just want to be able to quickly doodle robots (god knows i don’t!!) but having the references on-hand makes it easier for the times when you’re like This pose is going to be challenging and I’m not sure how all of the cuboids will be positioned.

references also help break you out of thinking of it as just drawing blockier humans because the proportions and shapes vary a looooooot

2. draw draw draw

at first i drew a lot using refs heavily to get an idea of the shapes then i got lazy and just started drawing anime girls and smacking rectangles and kibble on top BUT as you draw more and more you start to pick up on the Salient Features as well as their General Silhouette.

drawing from memory means that what makes them look recognisable will become more emphasised in your mind so you’ll naturally pick up on how you can simplify them without losing what makes your guy Look Like Your Guy. so if you want to simplify the robots just be incredibly lazy like me B)

i'm kind of horrible because i don't even do like Basic Shapes i literally just eyeball it

for poses i rectangle it out while thinking really hard

anyway when i first tried to draw transformers but Something Didn’t Look Right it was either a) the level of detail across the entire drawing was inconsistent and threw it off balance or b) proportions weren’t right and these things only got better with me finangling and doodling and learning by iteration.

of course sometimes i don’t give a fuck because no cops in transformers doodle land but yeahhhh i’m the kind of guy who only gets through stuff by throwing a lot of rocks at it. i don’t have a Method to offer you unfortunately but what i did do was

3. experiment and exaggerate and experiment!!

The First Rule of Gun Safety is to Have Fun and Be Yourself! i took a lot of liberties and rarely stayed on-model when i doodled and waffled around (and i still do…) but it helped me figure out how much i was willing to draw lol and consequently how i would stylise them.

i would play with how big or small or exaggerated or expressive they'd be… even my most detailed drawings are nowhere near comic-detail but my least detailed ones were. turquoise triangle that’s vaguely brainstorm-shaped. having fun with it and just doing it to make stupid jokes makes the practice seem like not practice.

so yeah tl;dr i started by reffing what bots actually look like, would trace comic panels to get an idea of the shapes and details and then start drawing side-by-side → drew billions of perceptors from my diseased mind and played around with lines → ??? → upgraded from goofy-looking rectangles to goofy-looking rectangles

that’s it for advice! (i don’t feel qualified to say that much)

below are just examples of stupid doodles i’d make on my ipad in class or in the margins of assignments lol, you can tell the last one is from when i still didn't understand brainstorm's build very well because the wings are placed wrongly... But i grew.

hope this was somewhat helpful! there are other tutorials from other artists that i can direct you to but this is how toyotacorolla2008 got to shitposting on tumblr dot com

#anonymous #ask #thanks for liking my art and thank you for this ask!#If you wanted me to talk about something that i did not touch on imma sowwy.. you can send another ask and i will respond and go deeper #i typed up this post really fast so i hope its coherent #local blogger too Freaken busy with school to draw detail #going to class like Im ready for my hard days work of drawing cuboids stealthily #bonposting

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overseer-picard · 1 year

Text

You probably know the episode "Suddenly Human" best from this famous photograph.

But what you might not know is that it's actually not a bad episode at all, it just gets shoved to the side by it's three very big, intimidating disc-mates "Best of Both Worlds", "Brothers", and "Family".

Basically, the Enterprise finds these little alien teenagers getting irradiated on their damaged ship. So they save them. But one of them is (gasp) A HUMAN.

Side note: as a teenager, I thought this kid was the most beautiful creature to walk the earth and tried to draw him a lot, as twitterpated teenage girls do. And I remember my mom being supportive but also like :/ honey. there are so many others.

But anyway. This kid, Jono, was taken as a baby by these generic lumpy head aliens after his parents were slaughtered by them and he was raised by a captain dude named Endar (not to be confused with Andor, or Ender, or Endor).

We learn right off the bat these boys like to SCREAM. Like, literally. It's their sound of mourning and it's just a continuous howl. Jono immediately, and rightfully, gets yelled at by everyone within the first ten minutes.

Picard does some research and finds out that this kid is actually named Jeremiah and is the grandson of an admiral. So of course he's like "We gotta get this human boy back to human space so he can be a human with his ancient admiral grandma who is a human."

And everyone is like "Uh yeah, no duh. That's clearly the right choice."

But there's a problem. Jono only responds to Picard because he's a) the Captain, and b) a man. You see, these are sexist lumpy head aliens because we needed a strong reason as to why the obvious caretaker choices, Troi and Crusher, couldn't help more.

So Deanna is like "Captain. You will be this boy's father now." And Picard is like "I will literally yeet myself out an airlock and go get re-assimilated by the Borg if you make me do this"

Like, I cannot emphasis enough how much Picard does not want to do this. He even rehearses a whole speech about why he's not cut out for the horrors of parenting and Deanna is like "Wow, that was so well rehearsed." And Picard is just surprised Pikachu that she, an empath, could see through his carefully crafted lie.

So Picard accepts his fate and goes to talk to Screamy Boy but then his worst nightmare comes true: the child wants to move in with him.

And, because duty overrides Picard's inner reflex to just die, he lets the kid move in with him and he spends the entire time trying to not cry as he watches his precious things get smudged up with grimy child hands.

But things actually seem to be going well. Jono hangs up an edgy looking sparkle hammock because, and I'm guessing he's not wrong about this, the beds hurt his back.

I mean, look at this. I'd take a hammock over what is essentially a padded cinder block any day.

And then the highlight of the episode happens, Picard invites Jono to an invigorating game of Space Balls and he wears a beautifully revealing spandex number. Star Trek + Exercise Clothes = Beauty.

"You know, this whole hanging out with a teenager thing isn't so bad." -Picard, four minutes before things get bad.

Jono starts having conflicting feelings about the possibility that he might actually be a human so he does the only thing that seems reasonable: stabs Picard while he's sleeping.

I cannot get over the hilarious irony that the one time Picard tries to take on a parental role, the thing he fears most in life, he ends up getting stabbed.

But then Picard realizes that he's being stupid by trying to force this kid to accept a heritage he doesn't want and decides to give him back to Captain Endar.

And there's a genuinely very sweet little moment at the end where, before beaming off, Jono takes his gloves off (a payoff to an earlier scene where he said he didn't want to touch any dirty aliens) and gives Picard a little head boop goodbye, the same move he greeted his alien dad with earlier.

And Picard's artificial heart grew three sizes that day.

In all seriousness, I genuinely really like this episode even if it doesn't get that much attention. It's quite well written and has decently strong acting from the kid and the alien dad. I also love the ingenuity of the title, "Suddenly Human", because it gives several layers of explanation and commentary with just two words.

This is a "Good thoughts, good plots" episode.

#star trek the next generation #picard #suddenly human #episode review

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oatbugs · 1 year

Text

i want to be a machine learning engineer but some of u guys r making it embarrassing actually. long but IMO important explanation below. We have bigger issues to deal w and better things to focus on.

like our planet is dying and the commercialisation of massive AI models and training the models themselves releases like hundreds of thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions. and this includes very "nonessential" models that don't tend to contribute much to society (re: new fancy image generation toy). but u have decided your new career path is "AI artist" (glorified prompt-writer?) .

and just as bad, some of you have decided the biggest issue w AI is those people, the glorified prompt writers!! you draw more attention to it instead of focusing on the real problems behind AI and the ethics of training models! about the harm it causes to the planet, about web-scraping limitations basically not existing (stolen art falls under this domain), copyright laws to do with AI, the way facial recognition deals with race, about the boundaries between letting AI learn and develop in an "unbiased" way vs preventing sociopolitical damage at the cost of (potentially) further progress.

conversely, there is nowhere NEAR enough focus about how AI can help us overcome some of our fundamental problems. i love machine learning bc i find it - specifically the maths behind it - fascinating and i believe one day it could help us make very cool advancements, as it already has. i think the mathematical architectures and processes behind creating new deep learning models are beautiful. i also know the damage capitalists will inevitably do - they always wield powerful, beautiful new tools as weapons.

AND HERE YOU ARE FALLING FOR IT! it's very frustrating to watch!! if you're angry on behalf of artists, i'm begging you to protect the rights of artists and be mad at greedy companies instead of villanising a tool that can help us immensely! learn about AI ethics, learn about how it is present in our lives, what we should try to stop, what we should promote.

if you "boycott AI" as a whole with no desire to gain more literacy on the topic other than "steals art therefore bad", you will have to be against your translate app, your search engine, your email spam filter, almost everything on your phone that categorises anything (i.e. pretty much all of your search functions), NPC enemies in games, your medical diagnostic tools, your phone's face unlock, your maps app, online banking, accessibility tools that help blind and deaf people, new advancements in genetic sequencing and protein folding and treating cancer and modelling new solutions in physics and so on and so on.

the issue isn't all AI as a whole. the issue is A) how companies are using it and B) how a lot of you guys are getting mad at the concept of AI instead of responding to A.

#lol anyway #u guys r like protect artists rights and then proceed to do 0 research on how #without doing damage to humanity as a whole #and actually tbh a lot of artists contribute to this as well. like i was following a few ppl who had their art ripped off (this must be #horrible and harrowing and i can't imagine how bad the experience must be) and they responded by being like #AI IS EVIL!!! NEVER SUPPORT AI!! which is literally ! meaningless!!!#think about it kind of like nuclear physics. it can help us immensely #it can teach us a lot about the universe and it can help us w finding wonderful new sources of energy. it can be beautiful and fascinating #and it can also be utilised in a very dangerous way. once it is used in a dangerous way (as it has been) you probably wont start blaming #The Concept Of Nuclear Physics. like im gonna guess you guys don't boycott gamma rays or nuclear fission bc someone made an atomic bomb yk #maybe this analogy got out of hand 💀 but you get what i mean #AI #ai art #idk how to tag this lol #anyway #listen to artists but also listen to actual AI experts i am BEGGING U

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mega-ringsandthings-world · 6 months

Note

Ahh! Well that be glad for I also love talking about this au! And I have some many questions!

So Mihawk activates armament on their way out? Any chance, since he doesn’t know how armament works, he uses it in such a way that it’s like, well shit, I don’t know enough about armament to say that can't work, and then he does something fucking crazy with it? Like how Sanji lights himself on fire or Zoro creates several other body parts? Like it’s an extension of your will—why should it be limited when your ambition isn’t?

Thoughts on tattoos? The boys could get them to cover up scars or other forced tattoos or brands. Also, will Mihawk dress less exposed in this AU? Maybe in the beginning of their escape, slightly ashamed of his scars, a bit self-conscious or at people looking at his body, developed body dysphoria from all the torture--the scars could trigger memories maybe? Maybe as they heal more slowly, he starts to stop covering up as much as he does? I don't know. Shanks would be just as much of a disaster when it comes to clothes as his older counterpart, and you know, for those first few years of freedom and being able to wear whatever they want, they'd either A. Freak out over all the choices now that they have them. Or B. Wear some of the most outlandish stuff, which from One Piece probably makes everyone shrug and go, "Yeah, they can slaughter a whole Marine base without breaking a sweat; we don’t give a shit what they wear." I still want to write/draw Shanks clothes covered in Mihawks embroidery projects though.

Oh yeah, wanna bet about how absolutely terrifying and confusing freedom is for them once they get out? For two years, they had a routine, had their life structured, and even if it was horrible, it was a predictable type of horrible. Do you think they sometimes lie awake at night wishing they could go back and then hating themselves for thinking it? And are absolutely confused with stuff like shopping and human interaction that’s beyond fighting, faked complacency, and/or trauma-bound?

Do they freak out grocery shopping and walking in a crowd? Does Mihawk forget how to act human, and all the refined intricacies that are no longer muscle memory? Does Shanks refuse to talk to anybody who isn’t Mihawk for a good long while? Like if he talked to anyone else, it was probably interrogation or something worse? Are they confused by normal everyday things that they used to understand, but now it just doesn't make sense? Do they do things in public or around people that were fine when captured but are completely faux pas or uncomfortable to see in public?

Anyway, healing sucks, and learning to rejoin society and not try to kill everyone who so much as looks at you wrong will probably take a long time for them, like a soldier rejoining from the army or an inmate getting out of prison. And I've read and watched a lot of interviews from soldiers and former prisoners, and one of the things you can spot after you get out is another prisoner or soldier. Do you think the Loguetown kidnapped can just spot each other across a crowded room? Can they just look and go, "Yeah, them. I know that general vibe?"

Are their conversations then from their perspective reminiscing while everyone else is like, "Uhh, that's torture, you all were tortured? And your wistfully looking off into the sunset thinking about it?”

Like a conversation can go— "And man, food, Oda Christ! When we first got out and I had a peach again, I thought I'd fucking die, man. But then, sometimes, it's like the food is too much? You know what I mean? Like too much flavor and color and choices and health and shit? Like, we can't just eat chocolate all the time, and while gruel was disgusting, it at least kept us in top shape, ya know?"

"Oh my god, man, I totally get it. Sometimes I'll just be sitting, wondering why I'm hungry, and then remember, 'Oh yeah, I actually have to make my food now,' and like, food is just so much, man. I miss the gruel sometimes." And everyone, like staring at them, talking about getting their teeth pulled out like it was the good old times and not deeply horrifying.

Keep 'em coming, lol! Both Mihawk and Shanks discover their full haki while escaping/shortly after escaping. There's some amount of discourse on this, but I'm planning for Mihawk to use his Armament haki to turn Yoru black. Or more black. Haki (and armament haki's black color )wasn't a thing yet when Yoru was shown to be black, so Yoru is technically a black blade with no influence of haki, but shhhh, I do what I want. We also know Yoru is one of the twelve supreme grade blades, among which Roger's blade, Ace, is one of, so a big thing is that Mihawk takes Yoru from the marines, because Marines had rounded up as many of the twelve blades as they could. As far as doing improbable feats with Armament Haki, Mihawk does, because at that point, he's desperate enough to. And so does Shanks with his. And while we're peaking of tattoos...armament-black imprints from Mihawk grabbing Shanks to protect him, anyone? (Yes, I know that's not how it works. I can get a pass here.) Tattoos are always a draw. What they'd actually be of is really interesting to think about. I think they'd dress as close as possible to the way they did before their capture, because it's a way of maintaining control/grasping at their former selves. But of course, there will be be the aspect of a security blanket, so while the style remains the same, their clothes become armor. (Mihawk does wear high-collared vampire shirts for quite a while, though. And he won't be found without his coat.) They'll be more structured and ornate, meant to project status and stop people dead in their tracks. i.e Mihawk gets his hat, his coats are fully embroidered and embossed/beaded and have gold hardwear, he wears gold jewellery. Shanks takes to wearing long heavy leather cloaks he can wrap himself fully in, flowing red silk sashes. Silk shirts too. Real shoes. Mihawk embroiders everything of his. All those patterns canon Shanks wears? Loguetown Shanks wears Mihawk's patterns. Dripping bloody red flowers and gold filigree everywhere. Oh, it would be. During the times when they are fighting/unable to be around each other because of their recovery, they would think that. Too, they both secretly expected the other to be the one who would survive. They'd never thought it probable that they'd both be free again. And now they are, and they are dealing with it, and they can't. pt.2 coming up

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