[Image Descriptions: Five images. The first is a page of fullbody and bust pencil sketches of Ebiwara from Mob Psycho 100. They have fluffy hair, a thick sweater, thick eye bags, and under their left eye is a cross-shaped scar. The text next to them (some of it cut off) says "Division 3 Head X-Gen[sic] They/T[sic] Specialty: pressure points - can lock up opponents energy and movement by forcing energy in[sic] pressure point". The second is a page of fullbody and bust pencil sketches of a fat, dark-haired woman in a tracksuit with diamond-shaped scars on her cheeks like dimples. She is labeled as Tsūren. The third is a page of fullbody, bust, and profile pencil sketches of a a skinny girl with an undercut and bangs covering her left eye. She has a scar on her head, above her right ear, more visible in profile. She is wearing a loose t-shirt that says "BANG!" in an explosion-shaped bubble. She is labeled Seiteki. The text next to her says "-uses aura like a tazer[sic] -battle junkie -big fucking airhead". The fourth is a page of fullbody and bust pencil sketches of a thin man in a black suit, wearing a blank white mask. His face beneath the mask is plain-looking with dark hair and dark, emotionless eyes, a scar running down the left side of his mouth to his chin. He is labeled as Zenkishi, the text next to him says "-puppets corpses/uncoscious[sic] people -D-list terrorist -so fucking boring he wears a blank mask and suit to stand out (it doesn't work)" The fifth is a page of fullbody and bust pencil sketches of a stout woman with short hair in a button up shirt and dark pants with suspenders. She is wearing round glasses that obscure her eyes and has a scar across her throat. She is labeled as Kosa. /End ID]

Info about these OCs and their powers (and spoilers for Champion if you care) below the cut.

My funny little OCs for Champion (and also a canon character I pulled to make the antagonist). Say hi to the Third Division Scars!

Ebiwara is an actual Scar that you see for like...half a second in the World Domination Arc and, sure, the wiki says that he is a dude but it's my world here and I decided I wanted to have someone who uses they/them. (Also he doesn't have any kind of canon specialty so I made one up lol. You can see me lifting from ATLA here.) Plus I realized halfway through that Ebiwara's Third has one (1) man and that was funny to me lmao. "I don't care about Ishiguro's little den of perverts and freaks!" They say, unaware of the irony.

Tsūren was the first I developed and, as a pattern you'll see going on with all the Third, I kinda patched together her name. Hers is a combo of "pleasure" and "pain" because she's a mean fucking bitch and also her aura is bruising and raw meat. Her specialty (cut off the page) is telekinesis used as restraints and to pull limbs past the breaking point. She likes causing pain. She looks cheery and sweet, sure, but she isn't and that's the point lol.

Seiteki was the second (alongside Zenkishi) because I thought "what if someone could use their aura like a taser?" and then i spelled it wrong on the page. She's fun coz she's a little punk and she likes getting into fights. Hence her hand-to-hand combat style and her frustration when someone isn't "fun". Unseen here is that she has dental piercings, a fact that, when I shared it with my friend, got an "eugh". Her name is a combination of "energy" and "accurate".

Zenkishi (once referred to as a "slenderman looking ass") was a little more of a joke than the rest of the Third. Because he wore the mask and suit, I decided he was just so boring and plain to look at that the suit/mask combo was an attempt to stand out among his peers. It didn't work because he's just...there a lot of the times, but it's a funny attempt. My friend is the one who called him a "D-list terrorist" lmao. His whole deal is "what if Mukai's skill but instead of puppets it's people" and then I made his aura beige lmao. His name is "former" and "dirt".

Kosa is the one whose design I plan on reusing coz I like her whole vibe (her vibe being gaslight girlboss). Her power was to kinda mirror Muto from the Seventh Division as the psychic who manipulates people into joining them. But while Muto has his illusions, Kosa has something more insidious: she can change one memory you have of a single moment, influencing your emotions at the time to change how you feel at the present. That's why her aura is the impossible colors one (stygian blue, hyper orange, magenta). She's unassuming until you get caught by her. Her name is "grit/sand" and "liar"

Today was the last DND session for a three-year campaign and I am big sad :(

One of the players brought whiskey for a last toast, which was very kind of them. I had never had whiskey before. Turns out I do not like whiskey. Unsurprising.

It tastes like slightly nicer hand sanitizer.

not going to watch ms marvel or engage with it at all but i’m definitely curious about Who Exactly decided Kamela’s power should come from Djinn and who decided to have Nakia look like that

Because whoever made those decisions knows exactly what they’re doing. Trying to make Muslim immigrants stomachable for white audiences and in doing so removing the aspects of religion and culture that defined so many characters in this series and moreover define us as people

Classic Who explores ideas, New Who explores morals

classic who is like 'i see this trend, lets explore what might happen if that trend continues and let the audience figure out what it's talking about and come to their own conclusions.'

new who is like 'this trend is BAD and i'm going to PREACH A SPEECH about why it's going to RUIN EVERYTHING' and it's so much more exhausting

In old roleplaying circles, I used to have people get really angry at me because they found a lot of catharsis in taking their characters those agonizing angst without necessarily giving them an end point of healing whereas my characters would always try to prompt that moment of healing—would be an end point they could come to whenever they were ready, would love them through the pain instead of drive it higher—and I don't think I've really changed at all in that regard, and I hope that ends up being all right.

binged through the hunger games movies because I wanna see the prequel at some point here, and I have to say- some of y'all are way too harsh on these films. many of your problems with them were not with the films themselves but with the marketing and, in some cases, the fandom.

Lol wow yes sure reply to my hatred of JK Rowling with an angry little rant I would absolutely love to block you.

so pissed off that they brought back the woman who baited me into thinking betty was getting a for real lesbian awakening for one scene JUST so betty could call her to say “sorry i can’t be involved in any fun plot lines with you anymore because i’m boring now. goodbye i need to go get engaged to my boyfriend.”

I’m mad on Billy’s behalf. Their background is so interesting but intsys shat the bed by making them into an avatar just because kris, corn and robin were. Their premise could have also been great! I guess I should’ve known better when merch started to include shit like the Tharja and Camilla statuettes because we know who those are marketed towards

Kris slaughtered a game to become its hero, Robin was the beginning of the end, and Corrin had some "avatar privileges" but the cons (for some) of actually being a character.

Billy is both the player-UI, sometimes a character whose consistency depends on your stance on the "uwu hammer" and has the pesky "avatar privileges".

At the cost of Billy themselves!

How to make a story centered on Billy?

I'd have focused more on their nature as a hybrid who wants to live and embrace their two heritages, the Nabatean one coming from Citrus and the human one from Jerry.

Yes, Citrus was a homonculi made by Rhea to house Sothis, and it didn't work, but Billy wasn't born because Rhea willed it, Billy's born because Citrus and Jerry sat under a tree.

Are they human, nabatean, the avatar of the goddess or something else entirely? The final answer would be "yes", they are all of those things, but most importantly are Billy.

Rhea would thus see Billy not as Sothis but as her avatar - but first and foremost as another Nabatean, a member of her family. Billy could exchange with other Nabateans and wonder why they don't out themselves as Nabateans, even meet Birdie and Turtle and learn their POV on humans - they think humans are children and Nabateans cannot live with them. Humans are always waging senseless wars, even if Rhea tries to guide them, they are hopeless and will always seek violence and strife.

As for humans? Maybe through interactions with students Billy could understand that what defines them could be something like "their will to move forward" even at the cost of peace and stability, and they'd feel closer to them after all, since they grew up with Jerry.

But if Garreg Mach exists, with both humans and nabateans, maybe some sort of coexistence is possible - a place without strife but where people can learn new things to better their lives home? A world without strife and a world where everyone wants to better everyone's tomorrow isn't contradictory

Flamey does their thing - encompassing the worst of "humanity" as derided by Nabateans, the need to crush everything and to war for no plausible reason.

Were the Nabateans right then, Humans cannot guide themselves and the World needs Sothis’s return?

Through the course of the game, Billy’s conclusion will be much like Rhea during her “Seiros the Warrior” days, Humans and Nabateans can live together and guide/lead Fodlan, it is not up to only Humans to do so (rip to Supreme Leader) or to Nabateans or to the Goddess (Rip Rhea), but everyone must play their part.

Rhea’s biggest mistake wouldn’t be to let states deal with their own internal affairs, but to have lost hope in a Fodlan where “teh people” can work together to achieve great things, thinking only Sothis can lead the land.

But when the inevitable “we say this now but who can say humans will not war again in 1000 years to destroy this land” comes, Billy, who has faith in Fodlan and its people, let them be humans or lizards, will insist that no matter what they won’t give up, and for one warmongering human out there, there will always be humans who will strive to restore peace and order, and it’d be their job to support and guide them.

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i am NOT trying to stop people from celebrating girlbulge and other aspects of trans bodies, but, like, theres literally nothing inherently sexual about being able to see the lump of a flaccid penis in pants that fit the way all modern pants are designed to. its so normal. its so fucking normal and they should be allowed to wear jeans in peace. its not sexual when cis dudes dont tuck, so lets stop sexualizing women who are literally just standing there. trans women with the very reasonable "not wanting to risk damaging their testicles by tucking" stance arent open season for unsolicited sexual comments. please get normal about penises

(explicitly clarifying a second time so no one twists my words, if some lady wants sexual attention re: her dick, thats her choice. obviously. but i feel like "talking about a woman's genitals when shes literally just chilling is sexual harassment" should be common fucking sense in 2024)

EDIT: its been brought to my attention that packers on trans guys do get sexualized and ive just never seen it, so ive removed that bit. from the bottom of my heart, my bad

this post is not gonna be well put together but i am having feelings

mean girls is trending right now because the musical movie just came out and i feel insane. idk why i do, it was stupid of me to think that most people Got It, no one ever gets it, it was always about the memes and the aesthetic.

the first mean girls movie was based on a nonfiction book called queen bees and wannabes. it interviewed and discussed the social hierarchy system in teen girl friendships. how they hold each other to these insane standards of heternormative femininity out of sheer terror that they won't meet those standards themselves. the way they leverage their relationships for some small degree of power in a world designed to strip them of it, even if it drags other girls down.

the "you can only wear your hair in a ponytail once a week and on wednesdays we wear pink" speech was not an original creation for the script. it's a QUOTE from a real teenage girl. those were REAL RULES.

then the musical came, and it was one step removed from the intended messaging of the film. OG mean girls was not perfect (and was extremely racist), but it said what needed said. the musical leaned on the comedy more, but still left a heartfelt undertone, and still critiqued the systems in place. of course no piece of media is going to be perfect, but it was about the conversation.

then this new movie comes out and it is washed over in the veneer of white hollywood feminism so thick you can't see anymore. the problematic aspects of the original movie are taken out to avoid "offending" when the offense was the point. it becomes toothless, it becomes some other thing entirely. they changed karen's line "i expect to run the world in shoes i cannot walk in" to "watch me as i run the world in shoes i cannot walk in." because choice feminism is in vogue, suddenly this character whose entire point is that she doesn't think deeply about WHY she does anything is suddenly hip to the fact that the world is against her.

i think of sokka losing his misogyny arc in the new atla. i think of the Heathers remake casting the bitchy, identical heathers as queer and hollywood-fat outcasts. as if the story, the meaning, the allegory is hidden in the sets and the jokes and the music. it's a whole new thing now, and it's a thing that means nothing in particular.

the plastics should not wear jeans. they should not have curves. their queerness should be suppressed, painful. their sexuality is not a slay, it's the only thing they think they have of value. the santa dance isn't sexy, it's shocking, it's mortifying - they are children.

they're not mean because "we are all mean." they are mean because they are girls in a world that brutalizes them and crushes them into a standardized shape. they are mean because the world is mean to them. they are mean because it gives them some power back. they are mean because it's the only weapon they have.

the landscape of femininity today has shifted to camera-ready makeup at the age of 10, stringent performative hygiene standards, and avoiding being caught on film while having a genuine emotion. the consumerism, the fatphobia, the racism, the classism, the homophobia remain. We could have had a conversation about that.

Sometimes I like to think about that third clone that got removed from Retribution. The zombie in the dress. I know that she just served to inform Alice the place was full of clones before Suburban Alice took her place, but I still like to wonder what she would've been like if she wasn't undead...

The thing with the Mari Lwyd, though, is that it's being... I don't know, 'appropriated' is the wrong word, but certainly turned into something it isn't.

Thing is, this is a folk tradition in the Welsh language, and that's the most important aspect of it. I feel partly responsible for this, because I accidentally became a bit of an expert on the topic of the Mari Lwyd in a post that escaped Tumblr containment, and I clearly didn't stress it strongly enough there (in my defence, I wrote that post for ten likes and some attention); but this is a Welsh language tradition, conducted in Welsh, using Welsh language poetic forms that are older than the entire English language, and also a very specific sung melody (with a very specific first verse; that's Cân y Fari). It is not actually a 'rap battle'. It's not a recited poem. It is not any old rhyme scheme however you want.

It is not in English.

Given the extensive and frankly ongoing attempts by England to wipe out Welsh, and its attendant cultural traditions, the Mari is being revived across Wales as an act of linguistic-cultural defiance. She's a symbol of Welsh language culture, specifically; an icon to remind that we are a distinct people, with our own culture and traditions, and in spite of everyone and everything, we're still here. Separating her from that by removing the Welsh is, to put it mildly, wildly disrespectful.

...but it IS what I'm increasingly seeing, both online and in real world Mari Lwyd festivals. She's gained enormous pop-culture popularity in recent years, which is fantastic; but she's also been reduced from the tradition to just an aesthetic now.

So many people are talking/drawing about her as though she's a cryptid or a mythological figure, rather than the folk practice of shoving a skull on a stick and pretending to be a naughty horse for cheese and drunken larks. And I get it! It's an intriguing visual! Some of the artwork is great! But this is not what she is. She's not a Krampus equivalent for your Dark Christmas aesthetic.

I see people writing their own version of the pwnco (though never called the pwnco; almost always called some variant on 'Mari Lwyd rap battle'), and as fun as these are, they are never even written in the meter and poetic rules of Cân y Fari, much less in Welsh, and they never conclude with the promise to behave before letting the Mari into the house. The pwnco is the central part to the tradition; this is the Welsh language part, the bit that's important and matters.

Mari Lwyd festivals are increasingly just English wassail festivals with a Mari or two present. The Swansea one last weekend didn't even include a Mari trying to break into a building (insert Shrek meme); there was no pwnco at all. Even in the Chepstow ones, they didn't do actual Cân y Fari; just a couple of recited verses. Instead, the Maris are just an aesthetic, a way to make it look a bit more Welsh, without having to commit to the unfashionable inconvenience of actually including Welsh.

And I don't really know what the answers are to these. I can tell you what I'd like - I'd like art to include the Welsh somewhere, maybe incorporating the first line of Cân y Fari like this one did, to keep it connected to the actual Welsh tradition (or other Welsh, if other phrases are preferred). I'd like people who want to write their version of the pwnco to respect the actual tradition of it by using Cân y Fari's meter and rhyme scheme, finishing with the promise to behave, and actually calling it the pwnco rather than a rap battle (and preferably in Welsh, though I do understand that's not always possible lol). I'd like to see the festivals actually observe the tradition, and include a link on the booking website to an audio clip of Cân y Fari and the words to the first verse, so attendees who want to can learn it ahead of time. I don't know how feasible any of that is, of course! But that's what I'd like to see.

I don't know. This is rambly. But it's something I've been thinking about - and increasingly nettled by - for a while. There's was something so affirming and wonderful at first about seeing the Mari's climb into international recognition, but it's very much turned to dismay by now, because she's important to my endangered culture and yet that's the part that everyone apparently wants to drop for being too awkward and ruining the aesthetic. It's very frustrating.

So, the reason why I keep mentioning that she is the avatar for evil, is literally because she keeps getting referenced as the evil side of someone o_o

also, tentatively, i have finally added patricia as a muse! see the tags for a few disclaimers about that, though.