#love that post it's really cute but sometimes the image of childhood people project is very alienating.
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I don't know about you but I was not carefree at 11. I had a lot of cares. too many, even.
#love that post it's really cute but sometimes the image of childhood people project is very alienating.#because I think it is not true honestly for many people#like I first had contact dermatitis from compulsive handwashing at the age of 7 for some of us it starts young :/#that is just a really random example but you get the picture
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You know what it’s always a good time for?
Dwyn Sibling Angst
(This one’s a big one so I’m putting the explanation under the cut)
So who remembers the Patronus sidequest?
Way, way back when I posted that first ever bio of Jacob and Seren I made brief mention of Patronuses, namely what theirs would be and the fact that Seren would not be able to cast it unless Jacob was found alive. I later made brief mention that I’d finalized the Patronuses to a Sea Lion for Jacob and a Common Seal for Seren, but I never actually elaborated on why Seren would have trouble with the spell
That’s because I started this stupid, elaborate project back when the quest came out and just never finished it, so here we go. Let’s finally talk about Seren’s Patronus issues
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I have this tendency when applying sidequests to Seren to just make up my own timeline that’s completely divorced from both what year the quest claims it takes place in and what year I actually ended up playing it in. In the case of Unleash Your Patronus, I actually do put it in Year 4 like the game suggests and not Year 5 when I played it
The Patronus Charm, as far as we know, has three requirements: strong magical skill, a “worthy” heart, and the ability to muster up and sustain a happy memory
Pass, pass, hard fail
Seren is not a happy person. I wouldn’t even say she’s a positive person. If it looks like she’s being positive, it is almost always performative to try and ease someone else’s nerves. This girl is a giant ball of nerves that gets angstier and more traumatized every year and she cannot shut her emotions off. Not that she can’t be happy, she can, but it’s far from her default state since the anxiety tends to run through worst case scenarios all the time
Complicating things is that her happiest memories are all things involving Jacob, who is decidedly not there. The reason I set this in Year 4 is because we don’t even have the Forest Vault message that he’s in the next Vault yet. He could legitimately be dead for all anyone knows in Year 4. So positive memories are of Jacob which, oops, reminds her that he’s still gone. Which then triggers the worst case scenario machine that is her brain
So, alright, let’s assume that Seren manages to shove that down. She’s just focusing on the memory, maybe even repeating “I’m gonna find him and we’re gonna do that thing from our childhoods again” to keep from getting distracted. Cue the actual form of Seren’s Patronus
I picked the Common Seal and Sea Lion for the Dwyns for a variety of reasons. I was already giving them the same Animagus form, figured I’d switch it up for the Patronuses. Make them “related” and symbolizing similar things, but not the same (also reference that merperson heritage). I’ve also always been a fan of the idea that sometimes particularly strong memories can shape the Patronus thanks to the fact that sometimes people with an obsession with an animal have their Patronuses take that form, and then there’s this quote:
"[...] the Patronus often mutates to take the image of the love of one's life (because they so often become the 'happy thought' that generates a Patronus)."
And now we have the earliest memory Seren has. She’s three years old and Jacob’s eight. They go to the aquarium. It’s one of the few times they’ve ever gone out somewhere as a family and she’s just completely enamored with the whole thing. She really falls in love with how cute and graceful the seals are, to the point where she spends part of the trip after they’ve moved closer to the gift shop camped out with the seal plushies just... looking at ‘em. Jacob notices and convinces their parents to buy her one. It’s her absolute favorite toy as a kid, and one of the few things she brings to Hogwarts every year, without fail
It’s not a memory she thinks of much. It wasn’t even the memory she was using to call forth her Patronus, despite being her first happy memory. And yet, there it is, played out in front of her in a brilliant light show. This time, though, Jacob isn’t there. Fighting down the instinct to whirl around and show it to him is just another reminder that he hasn’t been found yet and may never be and what if he isn’t-
-and it’s gone.
So even if Seren manages to fight through her natural tendency to make everything worse in her head, what her Patronus looks like will just send her spiraling right back into it. And once she sees it the first time - that’s it. Now she knows what her Patronus is and dreads seeing it again so much that she can’t focus on anything else when casting it. A dread that’s strong enough that she wouldn’t be able to muster up even an incorporeal Patronus
That’s why she just can’t cast a Patronus unless Jacob’s found alive, and mentally sound, and noooooot evil
If the Vault situation isn’t resolved with a happy ending, that’s all permanent. Jacob’s evil, Jacob dies, whatever, that’s an automatic no Patronus at all. If that incident from Year 6 Chapter 18 is real and permanent but Jacob’s fine, that gives her the most inconsistent incorporeal Patronus at best and the only reason it can manifest at all is because it’s form has no ties to the spoiler character so the dread factor is gone
The best timeline will probably result in Seren being able to cast an incorporeal Patronus consistently, a corporeal Patronus fairly consistently in low-pressure scenarios, and managing to find a workaround regarding a corporeal Patronus by having Jacob just send his most terrible jokes at her via Legilimency in high-pressure situations. Even in the best case scenario, she still struggles with maintaining positivity and is riding solely on her support network
I let her become an Animagus at age 15, I had to give her some weaknesses. (Relatedly, she also struggles with Riddikulus and can only perform it consistently due to intense practice thanks to the Vault of Fear)
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Furthermore, Jacob and Seren’s Patronuses are what they are because:
Seals and Sea Lions tend to get shoved together when searching for symbolism. A Patronus represents the “hidden inner self” that is called forth in times of need. So then I have to come up with something that can represent both Jacob and Seren, but being just different enough to represent the nuances between their personalities.
Common traits associated with them are playfulness (more overt with Jacob, but Seren is still mischievous and can be goofy), creativity/big imagination (extremely applicable to both of them), adaptability (which goes hand-in-hand with their creative aspects), faith (normally self-faith. Seren lacks it so perhaps this symbolizes what she needs to develop. Both have faith in others), independence, and balance (with the two finding balance with each other, losing it, then regaining it later in life)
To separate them I looked at behavior. Seren gets the Common Seal due to their quiet nature and tendency to remain largely solitary. The introverted one
Jacob gets the Sea Lion because they’re LOUD and DON’T EVER STOP BEING LOUD and prefer being in larger groups. The (somewhat more) extroverted one
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Finally, here’s the still .png for the key frame in the .gif with the Patronus in it because I liked it a lot
And there it is. The big Patronus explanation writeup. I’m so glad it’s done
I started this damn thing after I finished the Patronus quest. Like, the day after or even the day of. And then I stopped for some reason! And then a few months ago I was like “hey, that was almost done and Dementors are coming back into the story, why not finish it?” Didn’t get it done in time for that update. And then that update was Year 6 Chapter 18 and I lost all motivation I had
So here! Fine! Happy one year and one day anniversary of when the Patronus sidequest came out!
Now please take this thing out of my sight
#harry potter series#harry potter hogwarts mystery#hogwarts mystery#hphm#jacob's sibling#seren dwyn#liz art#in case anyone scrolls too fast there's a gif in there
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FROM UP ON POPPY HILL - THE STRUGGLE OF YOUNG GENERATION
New Post has been published on http://www.whatsupkpop.com/from-up-on-poppy-hill-the-struggle-of-young-generation/
FROM UP ON POPPY HILL - THE STRUGGLE OF YOUNG GENERATION
FROM UP ON POPPY HILL – THE STRUGGLE OF YOUNG GENERATION
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As a film from the famous Ghibli production studio, “From Up on Poppy Hill” must be the best choice for those who are looking for a beautiful movie with both photo and content.
The love of school age is always a topic that makes them flutter when turning on the screen. “From Up on Poppy Hill” a rare Ghibli work on the subject. Directed by Miyazaki Gorō, son of legendary filmmaker Miyazaki Hayao. The main theme of the film is the love between Umi and Shun, a love that is both beautiful and complex.
The journey to light up “From up on Poppy hill”
From the beginning, this was a huge challenge for Miyazaki Goro, the wounded son who suffered an invisible pressure from his father, Miyazaki Hayao, who brought his life to the works. associated with our childhoods such as: Spirited Away, Howl’s moving castle, My neighbor Totoro, … Everyone expected that he was “the second Hayao”, and that expectation overcame on his shoulder a huge burden. Until his debut Tales from Earthsea was released to the public, despite being well-received and successful in terms of sales, it was a failure when the work received a lot of words. Disparaging comes from critics. And when he decided to do his second animation, but this time he was making the movie with his father, Miyazaki Hayao. This unique father-son combination led to the birth of one of the Ghibli works that I consider to be worthy of viewing, From up on the poppy hill.
This is the highest-grossing Japanese film of 2011 with the proceeds of 4.46 billions yen.If you haven’t seen From Up on Poppy Hill, enjoy the movie now. If you have seen this movie or don’t care about the spoiler, Let’s start now.
Main content
Set in 1963, in the port city of Yokohama, near Tokyo. The drama revolves around 2 main characters Umi and Shun. Umi is a 16 years old girl, energetic and courageous. She lives with her grandmother and two children in the family building, an old hospital that has been renovated to become a hostel for several girls. Umi’s daily jobs are cooking, cleaning, looking after the children and running the building while her mother is in America. The building is located on Kokuriko Hill. Every day, to commemorate her late father, who was a captain who died in the Korean War, Every morning she pulls colored flags that carry the message of asking for a safe journey for each ship.
Kazama Shun – a male student at the same school as Umi, is seen as the hero by a stunt performance to attract interest in the school newspaper – the club he joined after school. Wanting to get Shun’s signature, Sora – Umi’s sister asked her sister to come to the Quartier Latin. It is a very old building and is also the site of historical events and full of club memories. Here, Umi watched Shun and his friends devote themselves to keeping the building in danger of being dismantled. Realizing the sagging, old building of the building, Umi came up with an initiative to call the girls to come clean and renew it together.
They gradually became close to helping each other in everything. Then one day in a meeting at the house on the top of the hill, they accidentally discovered they have the same bloodline. When Shun avoided Umi, after demanding, Umi also discovered that the two were siblings.
They decided to hide their feelings and continue to be friends, and then one day, when the sun was still shining in the green bushes, Umi’s mother returned. It was also when Ryoko revealed that Shun’s biological father was Tachibana Hiroshi – the second man in the photo. In 1945, Tachibana died in a shipwreck accident. Shun’s mother passed away after giving birth to him, and relatives all died during the US atomic bombing on Nagasaki. Ryoko was unable to adopt Shun because she was pregnant with Umi, and was currently a medical student. Yūichirō issued a birth certificate for Shun in his name so that he would not have to become an orphan in the tumultuous post-war years that followed. Shun was eventually adopted by the Kazama couple. After being verified by Captain Yoshio, they rejoiced … not only because from now on being together and not worrying anymore …
The film’s success is not only based on the content, but also on the profound meaning that is meticulously incorporated in the movie
Image of dynamic and enthusiastic young people
The fact that the Quartier Latin was about to be dismantled at the behest of the district president was a challenge for the students living in the clubs in this building. Young students who are still day and night diligently devote their youth to research projects, they learn and cultivate everything outside of school, they do not hesitate to choose the difficult path of resisting directives to pursuing what they think is right.
They are willing to devote all their energies to renovating the building, which is not an individual’s work but a collective work of a team with so many enthusiastic people working. They try to the last minute, with only a little hope, the students here still make efforts to create opportunities, not easily surrendered. The trio of Umi, Shun, and Mizunuma together went to Tokyo to meet the chairman, waited patiently and bravely asked the president to visit the building before executing his dismantling instructions.
Young people working together to save the club can be a metaphor for the country’s rebirth. Together With other students, they are the embodiment of the future Japan, enthusiasm and determination, enthusiasm and optimism, passionate love and foolish youthful aspirations. touched and inspired those of the same generation. The film recreates the spirit of a time that helped that generation to rise up to revive the country, heal the wounds of war in the past, protect and preserve traditional values.
“From Up on Poppy Hill” can be said to be one of the most “Japanese” films of the Ghibli studio.Not only because the port area’s street space is faithfully reproduced in every small detail/, but also because of the strong and resilient spirit hidden in the characters’ personalities. They embody the country with determination, youthful enthusiasm and optimism for the future.
History lessons are appreciated without being cliché
Every effort comes from the thought: “… There will be no future for those who always talk about the future but forget the past …” that Shun raised in an argument between students. One detail I really like in the movie is the image of everyone singing solemnly and singing the national anthem of Japan. Never before has the atmosphere of national pride exploded so deeply, it crept into the consciousness of each student. Everything they are fighting for seems to be for the noble purpose of preserving and promoting historical and cultural values.
“Eliminating the old means erasing the memory of the past”
Actually, this statement by Shun is very correct. Always remember that history is the connection between the future and the past, there is the past, the present, and the present, the future. Thanks to the cultural identities, customs, monuments, and historical records, we can look back on our own country’s past and take it as a lesson to rise later.
Even the girls who do not join the club in the building, still spend time, effort and enthusiasm to renovate it, to give the Quartier Latin a new interface, with the desire for prices. Historical values are preserved.
The story of a group of young people fighting together to protect the old clubhouse building /with sacred memories of generations of seniors is a metaphor for Japan in its renovation towards development. /Still fighting to preserve precious traditional values. /Through these activities, they met and gradually a love between them began to arise …
The pure love of the young couple
Actually, Shun still notices and responds to the signals that Umi sends to her father every day, but because her garden is out of view, Umi has not noticed it for a long time. The author of the poem about the girl pulling the flag on the top of the hill is also written by Shun for Umi. We can feel the sincerity and very cute before the subtle vibrations integrated. The scene of Umi holding his hand during the show, the scene of Shun passing Umi down the hill to buy some evening preparations, the scene where the two of them go home together and discuss the upcoming exam, or simply keep quiet and intently together. After completing the school newspaper, all the videos are lovely and gentle.
“I like you, Shun, even though we are bloodline, even if you are my brother, my feelings won’t change” Umi’s words in the movie.
Love is like a Rose, sometimes sleep quietly, like Umi once buried in her heart … there is also a compromise between the pain, so go on or stop … /maybe expect peace , when the waves are quiet, the sea is together …/ and sometimes simple, reunited after days away. /Far away from war, distant because of obstacles, distant because of painful feelings … /but in the end, it will be as sweet as a child’s sleep, still meeting.
Family affection is always warm
Umi’s memories of her father are still standing, as evidenced by the flags she sends every day to inform her father at sea about the way back home. She still loves her father even though she is doubting Shun is his son. Or Shun’s adoptive father, who insists he always loves him like his own son, is willing to find ways to let Shun know the identity of his deceased father.
Both Shun and Umi are poor children who lost great fathers because of the war, but still cherish and are happy with their current family.
General conclusions
From Up on Poppy Hill, a work from Ghibli never disappoints from image to sound. The poetic and artistic scenes have always been the specialties for each of us, the films to feel the life, the daily activities from the beginning of the film, combined with the melodies from the composer Takebe Satoshi, has created an extreme … peaceful atmosphere.
See and feel the daily beauties of life, love and cherish our values, and constantly strive to dedicate living in accordance with the youth we currently have.
Although building a love story between two high school students in the most pure, sweet and vague way, From Up on Poppy Hill still makes us wonder, is it the ideal type of love, when two people have opposite personalities but a common desire?
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I think Courtney Love is as fake as Emilie Autumn. They both created alternate pasts and idealized identities for the images they want to project as famous people.
I just realized i wrote 2 pages or something of text. If you asked me in person i’d tell you maybe two sentences but when i have to write, i write too much. Sorry lol.
It’s your opinion and you have right to think so. But CL being comparable to Emilie Autumn? Dude. Alternate pasts? What pasts? Courtney Love didn’t create her past, she literally had fucked up past. And she didn’t lie about her family. She would sometimes exaggerate while saying her Hollywood/rock anecdotes but she didn’t lie about her past. I recommend buying „Dirty Blonde”. Idk, I think you simply don’t like her. Courtney Love had kinderwhore look for a few years and then switched to designer clothes, but she doesn’t undermine her previous looks and records (except for Pretty On The Inside, she doesn’t like it now). Courtney doesn’t create any fake alternate reality, she have recurring themes (like fallen women for example), but she does what she wants while Emilie milks the same old worn out thing for years. She writes about anything she wants to, from violence towards women and shady strip club situations, fallen women, eating disorders, post partum depression, riot grrrl poser movements and elitism to love, mourning, beauty/ugliness and finally being broken, in a constant falling-rising up-falling cycle (especially on later records). EA basically only writes about one subject for years. Courtney’s music may not be complicated and she might not have a perfect voice/looks/personality but she’s honest in her songs – girls and boys worldwide find themselves in her lyrics and experiences. You may not like her but that doesn’t mean her music is fake. I don’t think Emilie Autumn’s lyrics are fake either, it’s just that she’s narcissistic, mean and compulsively lying, rewriting her past every few years and only accepting endless praise – if you don’t like her, you’re her enemy. Courtney Love doesn’t care. She lets people think whatever they want to think.
As a Courtney Love fan knowing a lot about her i look at her a little different than people not liking her/not reading,listening to her. Courtney Love fans know well that sometimes you’ve got to take what Courtney says with a huge grain of salt, cause she likes to exaggerate stories to make them more interesting. (And Kurt Cobain did the very same thing. “Rock’n’roll stories” from his diaries. The whole “i was bullied cause i desperately tried to sleep with disabled girl in high school” story from Montage of Heck? That’s a madeup story he wrote in diary and later recorded on tape when he was bored. Somehow people don’t consider him “liar”.) Usually as a Courntey fan you learn to notice that border, and you can somehow “feel” where she exaggerates. Mostly i’d say when we notice those moments we all kind of get amused and laugh it off & continue to reading further. It’s not like we immediately get offended like “OMG she’s a liar i’m a fan no more”. The problem with EA is nobody believed she could ever lie, you would get hunted by fans if you dared to doubt her words. Her „history” was designed as something 100% true and real, but it turned out there’s more of fake than truth, yet she still continues to keep up her lies.
You can dislike Courtney’s nowadays lifestyle like red carpet designer dresses and all that glamour. But “creating a past and persona” or being a liar comparable to Emilie Autumn? How so? She doesn’t lie about her name - everybody knows her real name and she never pretended that Love is her birth surename. She adapted name Courtney Love in 80′s after her friend Pat Smear (from The Germs & later Nirvana) told her this would be a good artistic nickname for her.
Courtney Love never lied about her parents or her youth. She had bad experiences with her family & certainly was raised poorly, but she didn’t try to rewrite her story or bury her parents in the “fire” (although she has good reasons to). Everybody knows about her therapist mother Linda Carrol & her father is Hank Harrison, previously manager of The Grateful Dead band. Courtney was even featured on the back cover on one of their records as a tiny child. Courtney wasn’t on good terms with mother and usually circled between her and other relatives. Her father is a complete piece of shit - he gave Courtney LSD when she was a toddler, which was why he lost a custody of her. He claims to know his daughter so well, even though he wasn’t raising her at all, and wrote a fucking book about how psychotic Courtney is, although he lost custody of her when she was a tiny toddler. And how Courtney killed Kurt. No, actually, he wrote A FUCKING BIOGRAPHY OF KURT, even though he never met him. Of course Kurt-was-murdered conspiracy fans consider him their beloved mascot because of that, asking for his opinion & believing anything he says.
Her family certainly weren’t as rich as EA’s, but they had some recognition and money. In the beginning of 80′s CL started getting some trust fund left by maternal grandparents, so she could afford going to other countries & make additional money stripping.
Later she spent youth in different countries & boarding schools, later got arrested for shoplifting and spent time in correctional facility for teenage girls. In Dirty Blonde book she wrote about her experiences from that time, printed some papers from Hillcrest describing her behaviour. Idk, but Emilie Autumn took A HUGE inspiration from Courtney’s Dirty Blonde book. All the idea for including papers from hospital, all scrapbooking style was taken from Courtney. Even the fucking “red crayon” - guess what, Courtney’s book begins with a letter from facility written in red crayon, cause they don’t allow them to have pens.
The only thing i have doubts about are her universities. She said she studied English, philosophy & theology but I think it was only a few months/semesters. When you say someone studied this and that you immediately think the person finished studies, but in fact she was starting and dropping learning. But she never said she graduated or anything, so i think it is obvious she studied for one or two semesters or in weekends or something.
She always had an interest in rock music, although she prefered 80′s new wave and stuff like Fleetwood Mac and Echo and The Bunnymen, which she always admitted anyway. It’s not like she suddenly adapted rock music after it became profitable. She only learned how to play guitar in the very beginnings of Hole, so she probably only wanted to sing earlier. In the 80′s she spent time in Liverpool. She was hanging around with Echo and The Bunnymen band and apparently lived at Julian Cope’s house. It’s not made up, cause Cope was really jealous of her fame in 90′s. Plus i heard he wrote about her in his autobiography. Somebody wrote a book about Courtney’s time spent in Liverpool and London this year, but i don’t have it yet. But it’s not like she took all those stories from nowhere, she really spent time living with Echo & being a friend/roadie for other bands. I remember she also knew Joe Strummer, she was a friend or a roadie for The Clash. Later they also starred in Alex Cox’s movie. She was a young impressionable girl at the time, so she was learning from those bands. She had more goth/punk style at the time.
People excuse her of leeching of whatever rockband she can & you can interpret it however you want, but seeing how she roadied with punk bands in her teens and how she liked to meet new rock bands after she got famous shows she liked to surround herself with people from rock circles. Men from rock bands hang around other men/women from other bands all the time but it’s always Courtney Love that gets shit for that.
You can doubt Courtney’s words on her inventing “kinderwhore” and starting that style trend. Although it was Courtney who coined that term. People usually yell that Courtney is unoriginal and that she stole the style from Kat Bjelland. And i say bullshit, it wasn’t even started by Kat. The girl from Divinyls did it before (CL admited she took it from her), Kim Shattuck of The Muffs did it before.
She said she liked cute dresses so much as an adult cause her mother always dressed her up rather manly– if you look at her childhood photos she indeed wasn’t looking like a „girly girl”, her mother was much into hippie culture. She got into that feminine look as she lost a lot of weight in the beginning of 90’s, so i guess that’s why she could pull off that babydoll look. Anyway here’s the interview where she explains the idea behind her style:
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Courtney listened to different bands, she liked harsh noise like Big Black but she also liked Fleetwood Mac. She posted an advert she’s looking for people inspired by these particular bands, so it’s not like she was lying about her softer music side. I believe Pretty On The Inside was partly a “fuck you” to Kat Bjelland, partly she wanted to record the heaviest, most noisy record by a girl-fronted band. You could say she wasn’t honest cause she tried to impress people from that scene and be cool enough for them. Well, Courtney actually admitted later she wanted to prove her worth, impress people from that scene etc. That’s why the record is so noisy. But the lyrics aren’t fake. That kind of writing was consistent in her poems. She took those themes from her experiences, people she knew and situations she observed as a girl in a stripping business.
I don’t know how can anyone even judge if Live Through This era was fake or not, recording wise she competed with her husband and wanted a more polished record. But later in 1994 or 1995 she was a wreck, numbed with heroin after what happened. It’s really fucking hard to „fake a persona” when you’re a) mourning b) on heroin/oxy. What’s there to fake? Wearing skirts, missing Kurt or being on drugs? That’s fucking disrespectful to say that was „fake”.
Now a lot of people say she sucked after Celebrity Skin, but the truth is Celebrity Skin was probably her most real album/era soundwise. And I don’t even like this album that much. It was inspired by new wave/more poppy rock bands she loved and Courtney was actually satisfied with how it sounds. It was just a good time to her – she quit drugs, she had a successful album and tour, she was nominated for Golden Globe in 1996, she looked genuinely happy and glowing. People were mad cause she changed style – i think she changed style because of her acting career, to continue acting she probably wanted more polished look. But was it always that polished? She would hang out her tits onstage or dress as that „trash fairy” in 1999, so I’d say this glittery look was also partly ironic. And people saying she’s fake cause she chose acting career seem to forget she originally wanted to be an actress, she played in Sid and Nancy & Straight To Hell in 80’s.
People who say „oh she’s a fame whore” – well it’s not like she was ever hiding she likes/she always wanted fame. She wrote she likes fame because it’s challenging, because she gets off on it, etc.
I have mixed feelings about her designer clothes and red carpet looks and at times it seems fake to me too, cause red carpet is usually fake and embarrassing. It’s quite a contrast to her older punk & kinderwhore style. But people change with age anyway… Brody Dalle doesn’t look especially punk anymore, Kat Bjelland doesn’t wear dolly clothes. Emilie Autumn looks like a fucking christian grandma, sorry. Courtney Love likes designer clothes. *shrug*
However Courtney Love’s character and behaviour is consistent throughout the years, she talks the same as always. She doesn’t craft a new personality every few years like EA and she doesn;t erase her past like EA. She doesn’t milk her fans making overpriced shitty merch. It’s true it’s been a lot of years since she last released a CD, but she’s been releasing singles and touring A LOT during this decade, also engaging in fashion design and art. Emilie Autumn sits at home and makes stupid faces at her iPhone, produces more merch and doesn’t make/post music/play violin anymore.
The only thing I don’t like about her is how she can’t play guitar anymore. She used to know how to play guitar, you can watch any 1990-1995 show to see she knew how to play guitar. In CS era she would sing without guitar more, but she still could play. But after 2010 her abilities decreased a lot, someone leaked a sound of her live guitar and it turned out her playing became really… weak. She said after her cocaine use she lost ability to play and didn’t even know how to move her fingers, that she was learning playing all over again in rehab. Idk if something happened to her hands or if she’s just too lazy these days. It would improve if she just practiced everyday. Of course if you don’t practice you’ll get worse – i know it well cause i had a few years without playing guitar too. But it’s not like it’s impossible to improve. Other than that… yeah, i’m not really crazy about her designer clothes and event looks. I don’t like things like that. But she likes it, so why shouldn’t she go with that.
Courtney can be nice, can be mean, but she never flipped shit the same as Emilie Autumn. She likes fame but she knows where she fucks up while Emilie most of the time thinks she’s more famous than she is and is so full of herself. Courtney Love knows she’s not the greatest guitarist and singer, while Emilie thinks of herself as „virtuoso” and shades every other violinist in rock music (and violists), while in fact she is the epitome of „failed violinist”. She played music for easily impressionable fans who knew nothing about classical music, so it was easy for her to impress them with her fake violin playing with violin playback coming straight from the tape. It takes to be a high level of being a snowflake to claim you’re a virtuoso when in reality you never play live and if you do you play only scales, making beginner mistakes and being mediocre at most.
Emilie Autumn always presented everything about herself to be true and personal, people believed her and literally praised her for that, feeling connection with her because they had bipolar disorder or stayed at psychiatric hospital, or lost family in a fire for real… And then it turned out all of Emilie Autumn’s life was a lie. She was hiding a real bitch under the guise of this cool „virtuoso” goth bipolar girl Emilie Autumn. Every year brought some new drama, she was less and less credible. She behaved awfully and treated her fandom like shit repeatedly. I don’t know, i got interested in her at some point but i can’t stand her now & i don’t keep up with her stuff anymore (although i read on her latest blm drama), why bother yourself with someone who doesn’t respect anyone. You can dislike Courtney Love and i understand it, but I don’t see how she could be comparable to EA’s shit.
As for „idealized identities”… you realize that Courtney was on drugs most of her career? She would fuck up so much, getting ridiculed by the press and regular people. She would often embarrass herself unintentionally, she would often end up all smeared and tousled in a way that wasn’t planned as a „kinderwhore look for the evening”. Getting fat, getting horribly thin, sometimes looking nice but often looking what society perceives as ugly. People hated her and they still do. Her life was a mess at various points of her life and she was judged harshly… if that idealized version to you? People might preffer her kinderwhore days but when i look at it now, she had better days but some certain looks from early 90’s sometimes only highlighted how bad she felt at the time. Her most „ideal” version was 1996 and Celebrity Skin look, up to 2000 i’d say, she would wear nice clothes, brush her hair, add glitter, looking glam – as i said, she quit drugs in 1996 to be able to play in movies, i believe she wanted her life to change for the better, to try to be happier, to look nicer and cleaner and to set an example for her daughter. I think it’s awesome that she manager to get better, i wish i could change my life. Unfortunately in 2003 she went downhill again, this time it was in some days even worse cause she got into cocaine and something else, her album was a flop (interestingly, there was another, rockier version of American’s Sweetheart but Virgin Records told her to rerecord everything and put out worse songs), she would end up in court, she would lose the custody of Frances and had to go through drug tests and rehabs. She had ED i think, she gained a lot of weight at the time then went to stick thin. It was dragging on and you know how it went later, she was better and worse moments, still doing prescription drugs on and off, flopping with new version of Hole. I haven’t checked what she’s doing these days and kind of lost track but i think she’s so much better now and successful, she’s got fans wanting to see her live, she reunited with Hole members and she released a few solo singles that were actually fucking awesome (Courtney don’t be shy, make a new album, you actually write good songs recently). „Idealized identities”, well she’s as idealized as Amy Winehouse, lol.
Courtney is human and makes mistakes all the time, but she doesn’t get offended when someone points them out and acknowledges her mistakes. Emilie Autumn thinks she does nothin wrong, she’s always right and if you don’t like it, fuck you, get outta her house, fucking patronizing fucking. Idk why should i explain it any longer, it’s obvious.
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okay in reddie whos the an and whos the sb?
okay i had no idea this was even up for debate but i have opinions and here they are:
let’s say we’re working directly off of the definitions given in the original niche post, so:
a sweaterboy “is stable [and] settled. the sweaterboy lives within a familiar pattern, and is, in all likelihood, highly competent at what they do. but is the sweaterboy happy? fuck no, dude! [...] the sweaterboy thinks that this is what relationships — of any kind — should look like: giving and giving and giving, and never actually asking for what they want. Because that would be selfish. the sweaterboy would never want to burden anyone; the sweaterboy, deep down, fears very much that they are a burden”
an absolute nightmare “is someone who has entirely rejected the task of trying to conform to societal norms. they know they don’t fit in. they know they’re not like everybody else. and while they are outwardly bold and defiant and confident, they’re often very lonely. they internalize their issues; they may be mistaken for aloof and uncaring when, in fact, they have big feelings”
let’s discuss the book evidence. we have:
eddie “needed to be protected from his own dim intimations of possible bravery” kaspbrak. lives under his mom’s thumb for years and years because he’s been taught to fear what will happen if he steps out of line even a little! his internal fear of being different, which i would argue is heavily mapped to his sexuality, is externalized in his fear of disease and especially in his fear of sexually-transmitted infection. he tries being a regular straight dude with a wife and a nine to five that he excels at but he’s deeply unhappy with it! he’s replicating what he knows as normalcy (i.e. maladaptive relationship patterns from his childhood) in a desperate attempt to conform which is some CLASSIC sweaterboy bullshit. eddie isn’t your conventional sweaterboy because his definition of what the aspirational norm looks like is so deeply colored by his hypochondria, so as readers we still register him as abnormal, but in his own way he’s trying to live the lifestyle that was prescribed for him that he associates with his mother (fearful, straight, cautious).
i think the thing that hammers this home the most for me is book Eddie’s relationship with surveillance and being watched. the book repeatedly makes the point that eddie’s personality and self-image are directly contingent on being watched, and who’s doing it. the text makes the argument that eddie when he’s being watched by his friends, or when he’s alone, is fundamentally different from eddie being watched by people who enact violent mechanisms of social control (e.g. bullies who beat him up for not conforming, or his mother who inflicts medicalized violence on him whenever he steps out of line). we get a pretty unambiguous statement of this in the flashback where eddie remembers his gym teacher having an argument with his mother:
“i have the results of eddie’s last physical on file […] it says that eddie is a little small for his age, but otherwise he’s absolutely normal […] he loves to play games, and he runs quite fast […] when there’s nobody around to remind him of how delicate he is”
basically, eddie lives with this constant awareness of how authority figures in his life want him to be, and he conforms when they’re watching him, for the most part. this is how he can be totally capable of the same physical activities as other children and still buy into his mother’s insistence that he’s delicate and constantly ill; he has internalized that surveillance until it’s unconscious/second nature to replicate the behavior that’s expected of him. we also see this focus on surveillance when eddie talks about how he loves bill because he never calls him homophobic slurs, the implication being that other boys their age do. with his friends, eddie can let go of that internal voyeur that watches and polices his actions to make sure that he’s not behaving in a way that might invite unwanted negative attention. you actually see little flashes of this in the scene where ben meets eddie and bill and eddie has a bloody nose from talking back to some bullies! eddie by himself or with his friends is a brave little motherfucker in a world that’s determined to make him afraid (of himself, of the consequences of abnormality, of his sexuality)! i love him so much! but anyway!
basically, eddie spends his entire childhood and most of his adult life trying to bend himself into a shape that’s as small and unassuming and inoffensive as possible. he associates any deviation from the norm with sickness and lives in fear of what it would mean to be different in any way. stephen king literally doesn’t deserve rights but his scene of eddie cataloguing and packing the contents of his medicine cabinet after mike calls him? that’s a goddamned fucking portrait of the iron fist with which many deeply closeted gays try to control their lives. i’m not a hypochondriac but the worst years for my ocd happened when i was trying my hardest to avoid coming out to myself. the mechanism of control varies, but it all comes down to a desperate conviction that something unspeakably terrible will happen if you don’t enact all these horribly specific rituals to protect yourself. eddie’s mechanisms are pills and his inhaler and his marriage and i’m literally going to stop bleeding myself dry writing this oh my god i projected a little too hard there sorry.
anyway: richie “sometimes enchanting, often exhausting charm” tozier. gets beat up constantly because he canNOT stop himself from saying every fuckass thing that comes to his head! he’s whipsmart and observant as fuck and can’t keep it to himself and that gets him singled out by the bullies! i don’t have the exact quote but roll the clip of the part where it talks about richie’s face begging to be bent into new and interesting shapes by bullies ANYWAY. richie is someone who knows he doesn’t fit in and has given up on the task of pretending to! sometimes he’s charming and funny! sometimes he’s exhausting and weird as shit! but that’s absolute nightmarism babey!
the thing that really gets me about richie is that he’s subject to exactly the same normative surveillance as eddie and he canNOT keep himself from telling his audience to fuck off! we see flashes of this when richie hesitates before touching bill for fear that someone might see them and subject them to homophobic harassment. but he touches him anyway! yeah he looks surreptitiously but he touches him anyway! like richie is guided by feelings of deep love and devotion to his friends and he can’t help but express that and wow i’m getting emotional about richie too anyway!
richie as an adult is someone who is weird as shit for attention, but it’s a performance that deflects from his issues being emotionally vulnerable, which is classic AN. the movie got this so right with the part where richie admits he threw up after mike called him, and then tells the other losers he’s glad that they’re there together. like, everyone is shocked because this is a moment of deep vulnerability and sincerity from someone who’s performatively larger than life in order to keep people at a distance. the 2017 movie gives us this with richie deflecting the conversation about their fears by asking stan if the woman from the painting was hot, and again when he says that his biggest fear is clowns, a claim that is NOT borne out by what he sees inside niebolt. richie is, in short, someone who’s comfortable with attention but NOT with scrutiny; he isn’t ready to be seen with all of his vulnerabilities on display, so he puts on a show for people to look at instead. that’s the core of absolute nightmarism. it’s a committed performance of weirdness that’s intended to telegraph invulnerability, but a tightly controlled one that’s meant to ensure that people only look where you want them to. it’s a magic act that shows you something shiny so you won’t glance at where the soft spots are hidden. eddie wants you to look away because there’s nothing to see here, richie wants you to look but only at what he shows you.
i think the thing that cements it for me is the book content about richie’s nicknames for eddie. richie is SUPER demonstrative with eddie and is constantly calling him goofy nicknames and telling him he’s cute. but we get that great quote about how eddie hated being called eds, but sort of liked it too, because it was like a secret identity. that’s the core of the dynamic, imo. the absolute nightmare helps draw the sweaterboy out of their devotion to normalcy and emboldens them to be the version of themselves that they are without the outside pressures of authority and heteronormativity and whatever. the dynamic is book eddie wanting to be the person he is with his friends, the eds of it all, and it’s also book eddie fighting off a panic attack because he has to be brave when the losers need him, and it’s also movie eddie directly attacking pennywise because he’s been reminded of his own “dim intimations of possible bravery” like! i could go on but this is so fucking long anyway yes i think eddie is the SB and richie is the AN now roll the clip of the part where richie asks eddie if he knows what fucking is and eddie is like OF COURSE I DO and the text is like “he hoped he wasn’t blushing” like that’s the dynamic babe
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I'm too dumb to live sometimes. I wrote this about two months ago and only realised now that I neglected to post it, even though I thought I had. Duh!
Soooo, someone has to teach the witch how to fly... Selene is out of her comfort zone, she's not confident and she's over dramatic. Poor John. Part of the series on Ao3.
"Brains just informed me that Selene's car is ready for a test ride and that means someone has to teach her how to actually fly the thing."
"Teaching a Witch to fly, can't be that hard," Scott joked.
John snorted. "You do remember how we met, right?"
"Ah, yeah, good point."
John nodded. "So, who's volunteering? And make sure she doesn't find out, I don't want her panicking and stressing herself out over it, you know what she was like when you were overseeing her gravity training."
"So you're just going to spring it on her?"
"That's the plan."
"You're a braver man than I am, bro."
"Or just stupid," Gordon helpfully added. From where he sat in one of Three's launch chairs he had been invisible to John.
John closed his eyes briefly, oh, this wasn't good. Gordon was usually firmly on Selene's side in almost everything, not always because he agreed with her but because he feared and loved her in equal parts, that and he always found it hilariously funny to watch her exploding at people.
"Gordon, you cannot tell her about this, she thinks she's got plenty of time before it's ready."
"Fine, but let me just say one thing?"
John sighed, ready to promise anything to ensure his silence. "Sure."
"Not it."
Scott, realising that his second youngest brother might actually be the smartest of them all followed his lead. "Not it!"
"Scott, really?"
Scott grinned. "You're the stupid one, not me. Besides, she's your fiancée, you do it."
"Do you think Parker…"
"He and Penelope are attending the opening of that new underwater hotel for the week."
"Virgil?"
"Busy with Two's bimonthly tune up, only leaving for emergencies."
"Kayo?"
"Can you actually imagine Kayo having the patience to teach anyone anything?"
Crap, he was right. That only left…"Alan?"
"Would break if she yelled at him and he'd let her get away with not even trying. Nope, this one is all on you."
Shit. He might be a little inexperienced when it came to relationships but even he knew the two golden rules, never agree that her butt looked big in those jeans even if it appeared she has a beach ball stuffed down her pants and never, ever, teach her to drive. He just hoped he wasn't suddenly single by the end of the lesson.
"I guess I'm on my way, ask Grandma to take over monitoring duty will you?"
***
Selene grabbed her phone when it pinged up a message, surprised but very pleased to read it. John, as always, was a man of few words 'I'm outside'.
She snatched up her jacket as she ran out the door, clattering down the stairs. It had been a long week filled with back to back appointments for her and she was more than ready for a break. She'd been about to call Virgil and request a pickup but it seemed her man had other ideas. Honestly, much as she loved his family, the thought of having a night, just the two of them in her peaceful little apartment seemed like heaven.
She swung open the front door and abruptly stopped. There was her car, her cute little car with its sleek shape and shiny black paint job and her spaceman behind the wheel. That meant…oh crap.
The door opened and he unfolded his long frame from the driver's seat, stepping out of the car.
"Is Brains finished with her, is she done?"
"Hello to you too."
She pulled him in for a quick kiss. "Hello gorgeous man."
"That's more like it.. Now, are you ready to take her for a spin?"
Her eyes widened as she stuck her head inside, checking out the modifications. Where she had previously had nothing more complicated than heater dials and a radio she now had something that looked like it had been ripped out of the Enterprise and shoehorned into her dashboard.
She wasn't a bad driver, just a simple one, and one that was used to roads and signposts, not sky and 'turn left at the third cloud'. She could get lost going to the bathroom, she wasn't good at picking out landmarks. That was why she often drove to her witchy venues and flew the last mile for appearances sake.
How had she ever allowed herself to be talked into this? She glanced over her shoulder at John who was none too subtly checking out her behind where she was bent over. Oh yeah, that was why. She had the sexist Space Hunk who happened to live, part time anyway, on a secret island that could only be reached by air or sea, and she was not that good a swimmer.
"Erm…"
Her face was a picture. She might go out of her way to project an image of being confident and fully in control of everything, but now he knew different. She was sensitive, loving, kind, and strong, but also dramatic with an overly active imagination and a tendency to go with worse case scenario.
He'd also realised that, as much as she tried to deny it, she too suffered from the occasional crisis of confidence and often believed that she would do something wrong. She'd confided in him late one night, while lying close together in his bunk on Five, that an ex boyfriend had managed, over the course of their year long relationship, to convince her that she was pretty much useless at everything she did so there wasn't any point in trying. Much as she was helping him to see that he was more than good enough, he was doing the same for her.
"You can do this."
She pulled a face, clearly not believing him at all.
"Can you at least get us somewhere far enough away that I won't endanger human lives?"
"There's the confident woman I know and love."
She stuck her tongue out at him and climbed into the back, refusing to give him the chance to argue.
Rolling his eyes he got back behind the wheel. Clearly this was going to be a long day.
***
"It's really simple, Brains made sure to keep it as familiar as possible for you."
Selene had managed to work herself up into a nice panic on the drive out of London, imagining all the horrible ways in which she could potentially kill them both and now she couldn't even begin to think straight. His calm tone,which usually made her feel better, was now sounding patronising and annoyed to her ears and it was pissing her off.
"Nice to know that everyone thinks I'm a complete idiot who couldn't handle anything too mentally taxing."
"No one thinks that, you specifically said that you wanted the flying equivalent of a go cart. Would you have wanted anything as complicated as one of our crafts?"
"Of course not, contrary to popular belief I do not have a death wish."
He wisely ignored that and continued his instructions.
"The pedals work exactly the same as they did before, just stop and go and steer with the wheel."
He leant closer from his seat in the back and pointed to the first of a new row of buttons. "The blue one is drive, the green one is fly, that will realign the wheels and lift her off the ground to a height of around two meters. Only when flight is engaged will the steering wheel allow you to pull up on it to go higher and push down to go lower."
"Does it still turn left and right?" her tone was sickeningly sweet but ever so slightly dangerous. John was a wise man and yet again chose to adopt the mantra of 'if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all'.
"The yellow button engages the autopilot and the course is set by inputting the location into that GPS there." He pointed to the upgraded screen that had replaced her old navigation system. "The moment you press that one the autopilot will take over and all you have to do is keep an eye on the sky and make sure you don't run into anything."
"What does the red one do?"
"That one is multipurpose, it's your stop and land button. If you're landing press it while losing height and the sensors built into the undercarriage will take over, levelling you out and realigning the wheels ready to drive and bringing you to the ground safely. If you want to land and keep driving press the blue button after the red, if you want to stop press the red a second time. That will shut off the engine once you come to a stop."
"OK…"
"That didn't sound convincing, sweetheart."
"No, no I think I've got it. Emphasis on the word, think."
"Want to try just starting her up and cruising on the ground for a few minutes and then we can try the skies?"
Selene visually mapped out the interior again, trying to remember everything he'd said.
"OK."
"You can do this, it's really simple."
"Yeah, so you keep telling me, because that's about all I can handle."
He frowned, where had that come from?
"Of course it's not, you are anything but simple."
"So I'm complicated and difficult?"
"No! You're wonderful and unique." How had it turned into this? She was taking everything he said wrong. "Just give this a try."
She took a deep breath and mentally smacked herself for being such an cow. She wasn't mad at him, although she would have appreciated a little warning before he threw her in the deep end and expected her to swim, she was just so scared of fucking up. They were all so competent, so confident and experienced, in comparison she was, a nothing. Boringly normal family, average childhood and an affinity with nature, not machine. She'd never been one to take to technology easily, machines and how they worked pretty much baffled her on a daily basis. She was an intuitive person, one that interacted with the energies of the earth, and that didn't work with machinery. It had no life force, no energy of its own, no soul.
If she was honest with herself she knew that with very little effort she could easily become a burden and a problem to them all. Only she could manage to find the love of her life by needing rescue. The last thing she wanted to do was become a target for them or to get in the way with her inexperience and lack of skills.
Compared to the other females on the team she was next to useless. Penelope was a brave, beautiful, skilled, connected woman that could handle anything. Kayo was a highly trained, arse kicking machine that had the brains as well as beauty. She flew her craft with the kind of skill that Selene couldn't even begin to imagine let alone pull off. Grandma Tracy might lack culinary skills but she made up for it in a million other ways, strength oozing from her pores. Whereas she was a little too curvy to be fashionable, had no real talents that she could speak of and had never been to university. She was nothing special.
And the boys? They were all high flying, high impact, overly intelligent prodigies and she was a nothing. She didn't deserve any of the help, support and acceptance that they had given her. One day John was going to wake up and realise exactly what he was missing out on. Realise that he had settled for average when he deserved amazing.
He was looking at her so strangely, like he couldn't understand her or her actions, and she couldn't blame him. He'd made the effort to drive her car, pick her up and was trying to help her and she was being a raging bitch.
"I got this shit." She pressed her thumb against the key lock and the car engine rumbled into life.
***
"I really don't got this."
The car's front grill was lodged in the mud and she was ready to give up five minutes into the lesson. How could you get up and down mixed up? Somehow she had managed it.
She'd been driving along the grassy ground of the hillside he'd parked them on and had managed to remember that green was fly only by association of green being the colour of Two and that thing flew. OK, so maybe simple was better for her.
She'd yelped when the cars wheels had shifted and rotated on their axis, just as FAB 1's did, pointing to the ground and each becoming their own little jet engine.
The car had lifted off the ground by a few meters as promised and John had calmly reminded her that now the wheel would work for the up and down not just the left and right and to go higher she had to go up.
That's all well and good, but her version of up was apparently slightly different to his. He meant she should take hold of the wheel and pull it towards her which would lift the wheel up. She in a classic comedy move of not being able to open a door, mistook pull, for push.
She pushed up when she should have pulled down. The result, a less than spectacular nose dive into the ground.
"It's OK, it's fine, you can fix this. Just put her in reverse and she should have enough pull to yank herself out, she's not that deep."
She moved the car into reverse and eased her foot down on the pedal but the car didn't move.
"No, you have to put her in drive mode first."
"You should have said that!"
"Sorry, I thought it was obvious."
"Well it wasn't."
"So I see."
She tossed a glare over her shoulder at him, her hand hovering over the control panel.
"Blue button."
"I knew that!"
"Did you though?"
Honestly she hadn't, she'd been about to hit the yellow. Why hadn't the genius that was Brains thought to label the fucking things?
She pushed the blue button and felt the wheels shift back down.
"OK…reverse." She pushed the gear stick back into reverse and eased her foot slowly down on the pedal. The wheels gripped a little but then span out, sending up a stream of mud and grass behind them.
"Shit!"
"It's OK, lets try to override it. Put her in fly again, green button-"
"I got it, I got it, green like two that flew."
He gave her a look that said he was seriously debating her sanity at that moment. Honestly she was surprised she hadn't seen that look more often.
"Green button, wait until the wheels are up, then shove the steering wheel up as far as it will go and boot it."
"Shove and boot, those are highly technical terms…"
She did as she was told, pulling at the steering wheel, which didn't move.
"It won't pull until the wheels are fully up, just give it a moment, don't be so impatient."
She gritted her teeth and let the wheel go, waiting until the wheels fully lifted, noticing then that a small light above the green button blinked on. Well that would have been handy to know too, why didn't this thing come with a manual?
"Alright, now hard pull and foot down, Sel."
She followed his instructions, yanking the steering wheel hard as she slammed her foot down on the pedal. The car's butt took a dive but it's nose shot up, as did the car, launching itself into the air.
She screamed and he barely resisted the urge to do the same when she panicked and let go of the wheel, which retracted, dropping them sharply.
"Hold the wheel, Selene!"
She grabbed it and held it in place.
"OK, there's no need to yell at me!"
Had he yelled? He never yelled. How did she do that? How did she always manage to make him lose control?
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shout. Just level out a bit. Follow the Altitude Indicator."
"The what now?"
He sighed.
"You see that thing on the dash?" he pointed to what looked like half a snow globe with a line across the middle and a cross lower down. He waited until she nodded. "That cross is us, so you need to correct her until the cross is in the middle, lined up on the horizon line."
"Again, that would have been handy to know before we took off."
"It's standard in every craft, I assumed you knew what it was."
"Then just keep assuming and assume that I'm dumb and spell shit out like you're teaching the ABC."
He rolled his eyes at her dramatics. "You aren't dumb."
"Dude, did you just roll your eyes at me?"
"No?"
"Don't answer a question with a question, that does not make it better!"
He wisely shut up and simply pointed to the horizon line.
She gave the steering wheel an experimental pull and saw the cross move. When she went left it went left, the same with right, which was so blindingly obvious but she still felt like she had to test it. Following the cross she managed to level it out.
"Good. That's great, but you might want to take us just a tiny bit higher…" the top of a rather large fir tree scraped their undercarriage.
"How the hell am I supposed to know how high to go or when I reach it? What's my limits? I need limits dammit!"
"It's the new gauge next to your upgraded speedometer. You see the numbers there?" She did, they were high, scarily high. "That's in feet, 5 thousand each line. Commercial planes and our crafts aim for between 35 thousand and 40 thousand feet. Anything about 50 is in the red line there and too high. You need to go between 10 and 15, higher if you're going long distance, maybe around 20."
"That's…that's seriously high. Very very scarily high." according to the new needle they weren't even registering as having left the earth and it already felt too high for her. She'd never be able to do this on her own.
"You've been higher."
"Not when I'm not in your tin can or with someone else driving. On a broom we barely clear the treetops, it's too cold, too windy and too exposed."
"Well you're about to go higher now, because if you don't pull up we'll hit that Tor up ahead."
The mass of rocks, piled high, had come out of nowhere and she jumped, yanking on the wheel, just managing to miss crashing into them like a bowling ball into pins.
"I can't do this. I can't do this…" she chanted under her breath, knuckles white in the wheel. She needed to get down. She pushed forward on the wheel, dropping their nose sharply and punched at the red button. Red meant stop. Stop was good. Stop was needed.
The wheels came down and thankfully the sensors took over as she smacked at the button again. They hit the ground with a teeth jarring bump as she had forgotten, or never been told, to slow down.
As soon as the engine died she threw open the door and hauled her shaking self out of the car.
John followed straight after, catching up with her.
"Selene what's wrong? This isn't like you."
"Yes, it is! This is totally like me. I freak out over unfamiliar things, things that I can't control and don't understand."
"What's not to understand, it's simple-"
"No. It's not simple. Not to me anyway. Maybe to you because you all grew up like this. But I didn't, I'm different, I'm not part of your Tracy life where you have to pull out a plane to go to the shop! I am not a part of this!"
"Of course you're part of our life."
She closed her eyes, praying for patience. It was freezing cold out on the moors of Yorkshire, the wind howling across the hillside to whip the hair back from her face and she huddled into her coat, arms wrapped around herself, for comfort as much as warmth.
"I didn't mean it like that." She knew that she was a part of his life, or all their lives.
"Then what did you mean, I don't understand?"
"Of course you don't. Because you can't imagine what it's like to not know all of this stuff. If you've never flown before, never had anyone show you all that you need to know, never had someone actually instruct you on it, you don't know. It's not an automated download to your brain. It might come naturally to all of you, but let's just face facts here, I'll never be like that. I'll never be one to hop into a craft and instinctively know what to do or how to even start the thing. I'll never be good enough."
"Never be good enough?" Her last words stuck out to him more than anything else she said.
"You really do focus on the most insignificant parts, don't you?"
He felt like he should be insulted by that. To him, her feeling like she wasn't good enough was the most important thing. Thankfully he wasn't one to react to a negative situation without assessing everything first. He mentally rewound her words and realised that she was right. He had just expected her to know what to do. He was used to working and interacting with people that operated their kind of machines on a daily basis, they were all trained in each others crafts, at least the basics enough to get them out of trouble. He had forgotten to tell her what most of the instruments were because they were second nature to them. A five minute run down of any new modifications Brains made to any of their crafts and they were good to go. Learn by doing, that was the Tracy way. Sometimes he forgot that she wasn't a Tracy, she hadn't been brought up the way they had been. She was different.
He didn't know what to do or how to handle this situation. He could clearly see that she was struggling, likely on the verge of a full meltdown. She was always so good at comforting and helping others but didn't seem to be able to be kind to herself.
He couldn't leave her like that, he had to do something. He knew that whenever she didn't know what to do she deployed her secret weapon, a healing hug.
He approached her like one would a scared dog, avoiding the teeth, and enfolded her in his arms.
"I love you."
She remained stiff in his arms for a few moments but then sagged into him, her arms going around his middle.
"I love you too, but you're annoying."
"I know. So are you."
She didn't dignify that with an answer, just let him hold her for a few minutes.
"Selly, talk to me. Why would you think you aren't good enough?"
She sighed, nuzzling her cold nose into his neck, feeling him shiver in response.
"I don't know. You're just all so perfect at everything."
He snorted at that, they were far from perfect, especially Gordon who managed to find the widest range of ways to screw up.
"Go on."
"I just…i just don't get how I'm your type of person. We have zero in common, I don't fit into your world, I'm not a super spy or an awesome astronaut, I have no skills to offer the team at all. I'm the definition of dead weight."
"We don't see you that way, you're one of us now. You don't need to be like everyone else, we have enough spies and rocket flyers, your skills are so much more important."
"Yeah right."
"Yes, right." He gave her a small squeeze for emphasis. "I like that we don't have the same interests, the same hobbies and job, it means we have something different to talk about. And as for not being my type, well I've been with my type and it didn't work out, as I'm sure you have."
She had to agree with that, sticking to your own kind often left a lot to be desired.
"But then, if a beautiful, loving, highly skilled woman isn't my type, then I don't know what is. I might not have been looking for you, but I think you fit me perfectly."
"And I might not have been looking for a gorgeous, intelligent and highly skilled spaceman, but I think you fit me too."
"Often what we want and what we actually need are two different things, but I know I'll always want and need you."
"So you don't think I'm stupid for not getting this whole flying thing?"
He shook his head. "Not at all, it's not your fault if you don't already know how to do it. We just need to start with the basics and this time I'll make sure I explain everything I'm doing and you need to make sure you ask about anything you aren't sure of."
"I can do that."
"Let's try this again, shall we? But this time we'll do it a little different."
***
"I can't believe I'm actually doing it!"
Selene was perched on his lap, both of them sharing the driver's seat. It was unconventional but was working well.
He'd been great at explaining everything once he realised that she knew next to nothing about any of it. He'd gone through every instrument on the panel, explaining its use and when to use it, including the silver button that would cloak the car should she ever be followed or need to be invisible, something she insisted on calling Ghost-mode. The black button was there to activate a protective shield around the car should she ever need it. Brains had also resprayed the car with anti-scratch, extra tough paint that would stop most damage aimed her way.
He'd then started the car and talked her through everything as he did it, so she could see it in action, making sure that she understood. They were both controlling their moods and had managed not to snap at each other again.
He'd taken the car up and down twice, slowing down his actions so she could register them, then he'd made her try, covering her hands with his for support and reassurance. She'd talked her way through everything, and he found that he only had to correct her once before they were safely up above the tree line.
Now that he was right there with her and able to take over in the event of an emergency, she had relaxed and felt confident enough to climb higher, reaching the desired altitude and begun to cruise.
Once she was comfortable with that he had encouraged her to have a little fun, moving this way and that, feeling the air currents and working with them rather than fighting against them.
He'd then instructed her on landing, which she managed to do the second time as smoothly as if she'd been flying all her life.
Next he taught her how to program a route and engage the autopilot once they were high enough. That had been easier for her and she had relaxed back against his chest, keeping an eye open for any potential obstacles or dangers though there was nothing of note.
They'd picked a route that was less than three hundred miles, something that took a matter of minutes with her upgraded engine, and had looped them in a big circle to come back to their original spot. Once again she landed perfectly, having gotten the hang of the controls now. It really was quite easy once she had gotten over her fear of the unknown and had it explained to her in a way that made sense.
Their last lesson was to use the GPS to get them back to her apartment, which she followed easily now she was on the ground again. He had vacated the driver's seat and sat in the back for the return journey, content to simply watch her and ponder over her words.
He didn't understand how she could possibly think she was stupid. She was a fast learner and had gotten into the swing of things quickly once she had felt supported and everything had been explained to her. She was very much like him in the fact that she liked to know everything about it before she even started, knowledge made her feel more comfortable. He could kick himself for not having noticed that about her before and not realising that it really was all new to her.
They pulled up outside her building and she slid into her designated space, hitting the red button to shut down the engine.
"You did amazingly well."
She turned to smile at her love. "Well, it turns out that I had a good teacher."
He climbed out of the car and took her hand when she joined him.
"Quiet night in?"
He nodded. "Sounds perfect, then tomorrow we'll head to the island, I think you can handle that with the GPS and autopilot, don't you?"
She took a deep breath but then nodded her agreement. "As long as I have you, I can handle anything."
***
The palm trees didn't need to fold back for her dinky car, and it was kinda scary waiting for the cliff face to open enough to let her in, making her think that it wouldn't register her cars signature and open in time, leaving her driving into solid rock, but she needn't have worried. Brains, as always, had thought of everything.
John directed her to a spot off to the left of Two's hanger. Someone, likely Virgil, had painted on the wall in big purple letters the words "Thunderbird Witch".
"I told you you're one of us."
And that was when she burst into tears.
#Had to edit 4 times to beat the 250 paragraph limit#Never teach your partner to drive#Poor John#Selene is out of her comfort zone here#Thunderbirds#thunderbirds 2015#thunderbirds fanfiction#thunderbirds are go#fan fic stuff#fan fiction#fan fic update#john tracy
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Steven Universe: Art and Origins (Outline & Review)
Steven Universe: Art and Origins is not just an art book--it's also a collection of early material, a reveal of many initial concepts, and an amazing experience to sort through.
Finally getting around to importing my review to Tumblr. I wrote this on the release day.
In my review I'll give you a description of the structure and overview, while also collecting notable information for fans. Obviously just about everything is "notable" with a book of this magnitude, so this may get long, but I'll try to include anecdotes that have some unique insight or perspective on the main source material--with as little of "OMG this was the original idea for this!" as possible.
This is illustrated with some low-quality pictures of the book and it gets super long, so I have to cut. But please read. :)
The overview:
After a foreword from Rebecca Sugar and an introduction from Genndy Tartakovsky, we get:
Part 1: Origins. This contains some narratives about Rebecca Sugar's early life as an artist--inspiration, family, college projects--all illustrated, of course, with childhood photos and early art. Rebecca mentions having wanted to bury her femininity for a while, but coming back to draw female forms and include dancing after she learned to sort through her issues using art.
Her college education and connections with other artists are discussed--some in interview format, some in narrative--and there is some background regarding her time on Adventure Time. The story moves on to talking about developing the pilot and what went into her character and plot ideas. Character design is discussed in depth, with Rebecca giving initial sketches to a design team and developing the characters' initial pilot look.
Some really slick promo art is shared--posters, sketches, great concepts that were designed to bring in new viewers and make them curious about the show. The pilot succeeded in getting the green light to develop it into a TV series.
Part 2 discusses the show's Green Light and Development. Rebecca and some of the other crew, in interview format, talk about getting the team together and allowing for both nailed-down character essentials and flexibility for the writers to explore and collaborate. Developing the setting was also a big part of the to-do list; coming up with Beach City itself, its businesses, its residents, and also the creatures the Gems would fight.
Some cute stories are shared about the early Crewniverse hanging out at a cabin and talking about the show all the time, hashing it out. There are some great, loose character model sheets for early versions of Greg, Connie, Sadie and Lars, and the four main characters.
Part 3 is about Character Design. They discuss how the pilot got released and fans grew attached to what they initially looked like, only to be "outraged" by the changes, making tons of assumptions about who was controlling the process.
Rebecca shares some thoughts on her development process and her philosophy on letting different artists draw the characters differently while gripping onto specifics she set. Main, palette, and distance models are discussed, with some technical details of what different artists do on the team and how they handle props or special poses.
There are many sheets of how to draw the Gems on model (with pointers on what NOT to do), and then there are some Homeworld Gem ideas that didn't get used, and finally, some sketches and concept art for Lapis Lazuli, Peridot, Jasper, and Bismuth.
Part 4 is on Writing and Storyboarding. More Crewniverse interviews provide insight into the process, including how much is revised from the early days and how collaborative everything is. Some specific episodes, like "Ocean Gem," "Monster Buddies," and "Island Adventure" are put into perspective with how they were written by the group.
There's heavy discussion of how the process works and why processes that work on other shows wouldn't work here, and what "rules" are firm and what's just a suggestion, and what's changed as the show's plot became more complex and important. Steven still having access to the "side" stories, the ones that involve Beach City humans and non-world-shaking stakes, is still very important to the story that the original Crew wants to tell. Cute images from the Crew's thumbnail storyboards, Gem designing, and technology designing workshops are shared too.
There's some good continued discussion of concepts in Part 4, especially about fusion and relationships and the larger message the show is sending. How do you tell a story and why? There are many answers to that, and sometimes it's about fun and sometimes it's about a message and sometimes it's about wanting to make an episode about something you've never seen a cartoon do before--something specific to you that other people can suddenly see represented.
One of my favorite parts of it is when they discuss Steven discovering the Gems' weaknesses over time and having that NOT make him think less of them--more like he admires them for being strong enough to shoulder the burdens he didn't know they were carrying before. Storyboarder Lamar Abrams talks about the importance of growing up not just being about becoming bitter, and I really like that.
Part 5 is on Sound and Vision. There's some history of how they found the voice actors for the major roles, and some of the actors give perspectives on their relationship and experience on the show.
Aivi and Surasshu, as the composers, discuss their process as well, with some anecdotes and discussions of why musical palettes work better for characters instead of assigning them themes. Places and objects have their own sounds too.
Part 6 covers Background Design and Painting. Steven Sugar takes the stage and explains general background thoughts as well as specifics for certain settings. His focus on detail is really fascinating to read about--it's really him who nails down the locations in Beach City and where an outlet is in a house on the wall.
The directors and other Crewniverse folks discuss the use of color and background items in the show, and how they use it to create mood or feel changeable enough to be real.
Part 7 discusses Animation and Post, with a spotlight on the work they do in Korea at animation studios Sunmin and Rough Draft. The process is described--how and when the material is transformed from animatics to animated cartoons.
Nick DeMayo discusses timing and adding the sound effects and whatnot. There's also some design instruction that's provided to the animators in Korea.
Some special highlighted drawings and pieces, like the "C.L.O.D.S." zine or some keys for Ruby and Sapphire, are included.
Even the bumpers and end tag animations are discussed here. And of course they had to mention a couple very special episodes, such as when Takafumi Hori from Studio Trigger came in to do "Mindful Education," or when they did the musical episode, "Mr. Greg."
And Part 8 is called "Onward." The intention of the section is unclear at first based on the title of the chapter, but you can quickly see they're discussing the forward-thinking message the show has--how its representation of its creators' experiences has also struck a chord with people who wanted and NEEDED its diversity.
Zuke says a very wise thing when they state that they want the show to provide "insight . . . not a solution." That's one thing this show does well; it spotlights problems and situations and feelings, but only shows you how those things can be dealt with, not necessarily how they SHOULD, in all cases, be dealt with.
Representation matters, and seeing evidence that you are a part of this world when you're from a marginalized or underrepresented group is valuable in a way that you can only know if you DON'T have it.
The show's writers also weigh in on good vs. evil and how it's too black and white; that we needed a show with nuance, and has a message of love and tolerance. Kat Morris acknowledges that there are more important things than making a feelsy and entertaining piece of media, but as she says, the point is to let people see themselves in something and be challenged.
And the creators are able to see at conventions and online that people are responding emotionally, viscerally, to their work. It puts a lot of pressure on an artist to do it right, but in the words of Dogcopter, "Just be true to yourself and people will appreciate your honesty."
The book closes with some photos of the Crew and a few more pages of art. And it kinda leaves you with a squishy feeling. :D
Notable:
1. I was relieved to see Rebecca state it plainly in the foreword: the items you see from the development phases of this show are not to be taken as canon or as "real" insights into how you should interpret it now. She specifically mentioned that she does not consider the Gems "girls" or "goddesses," and that was particularly important to me.
Throughout, you're supposed to see the contributed bits and in-development pieces in the context of what they were: early drafts, embryonic. We all become different from what we were even though we grew from it and may have roots in it still, but that doesn't mean you can point at the seed and say its flower is meant to be understood surrounded by dirt.
2. The original designs for the Gems fluctuated a lot, and in a couple cases even names flopped around. An early name for Garnet was "Onyx," and if you've seen the pilot, you know Pearl got her signature nose later and Garnet's hair took a while to become the splendid square afro. Amethyst seems to have changed the least.
Themes were given to them initially (like Amethyst being "flora and fauna," which you can sort of see in her pilot intro with her lying on big cats). You can still see some of the original intentions in how the ideas manifested, but the first ideas do not gel particularly well with what the show became.
This is particularly interesting because non-creatives commonly think creative people simply receive inspiration and birth their creations into the world wholesale. Inspiration exists, but it's much more common to take an inspired idea and REALLY WORK ON IT. This book's origins section does a great job showing how that works.
3. Some early sketched-out ideas for episodes seem very far from what would fit into the show now (such as an idea for an episode where Pearl is obsessed with the pizza guy??), but one seems to be the roots of "Bubble Buddies," which implies that Steven's original crush was "Priyanka" instead of Connie. (That's now Connie's mother's name.)
4. The pilot's title was "The Time Thing."
5. Initial notes for Garnet say she should have the coolest shoes of the three, that she's commanding and outer-spacey and also weird, and that she's inspired by Grace Jones, boy Michael Jackson, and Estelle in "I Can Be a Freak."
Initial notes for Amethyst insist on the "fanny pack" pouch and suggest her clothes are cut, her hair is in chunks, and she should have an animal theme with a wild texture.
Initial notes for Pearl indicate a desire to have her opposite Amethyst in her formal way of dressing and needing to have an outfit that would allow her to be hung upside down, possibly with a pearl stone theme for baubles in her hair. (Rebecca indicated she needed the most help with Pearl.)
6. Early versions of the show included the idea that the Gems might be trying to hide being Gems in public, and that they kept magic away from Steven for the most part instead of encouraging him to use it.
A "lost" episode about Steven summoning his shield (later incorporated into the episode "Gem Glow") had him saving Greg with it and dreaming about his mother, and having Pearl drive a crappy old car (later incorporated into "Last One Out of Beach City"). Rebecca and Ian reveal that the dream Steven had in it was used a little in "Rose's Room," and that a song called "The Meatball Sub Song" was involved which could have contributed to the show getting picked up despite that we never got to hear it. (Imagine that, Steven singing about food!)
7. There's a note in the early character design section that says "the girls can all turn into Steven" with an accompanying illustration of Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl shapeshifted as him.
Cute, because we actually got to see them do this in the episode "Keep Beach City Weird" with the exception of Pearl.
8. Rebecca Sugar shares an anecdote about thinking there was a "best" way to draw that was objectively correct (influenced by some art-school stuff), and through that she arrived at the idea that Pearl was a cone, Amethyst was a sphere, and Garnet was a cube, because all of those things say something about who they are (pointedness, fluidness, stability).
She evolved from that idea to a more flexibile idea of how drawing works for different artists, but that was part of what helped her nail the characters down. Steven, eventually, was fixed to having a heart-shaped face.
9. The Tiger Millionaire and Purple Puma flyer shown in the episode "Tiger Millionaire," presented as something Steven drew, was actually drawn by Lily DeMayo (daughter of Nick DeMayo, animation director) when she was seven.
10. Guides are made for the Crew to use featuring reminders on drawing the characters. It's kind of adorable to see common drawing errors or misconceptions or inconsistent details discussed in a how-to format for the people who actually work there.
11. A timeline exists for the show and it encompasses TWENTY THOUSAND YEARS of Gem and human history. It was too spoilery to be in the book, but there is a LOT of lore that is laid down, and this tool mentioned in Part 4 established that this document is referenced often to make events make sense in the timeline.
12. It's been established before, but Amethyst's origin in Earth's Prime Kindergarten was not initially known as part of her character when she was invented, and that was discussed in Part 4 of this book--how the writing retreats the Crew takes to discuss the story sometimes result in huge revelations like this. "Oh, that makes sense, that's why we wrote her like that" is one of those things I recognize as a writer--you know a character has a certain vibe, but you don't know what explains it. You just trust that something does. And eventually, sometimes you find out what it is and it all makes sense. Interesting to know they did this with Amethyst.
13. "Lars and Sadie make out even though they're not together" was the basic idea for making "Island Adventure." And the original idea for "Onion Friend" had a "Grandma Shallot" character.
The writers sometimes play writing games to brainstorm, and those were shared. Some ideas for a story which was later used in "Future Boy Zoltron," covering Mr. Smiley's romance/comedy partnership with an old flame, were shared with more emphasis on the characters being lovers.
Garnet's part in the story was more explicit too, with her giving people future predictions that are not at all nice or gently delivered, and they have to shut down the business in the wake of Garnet's badassery. Weird.
Other ideas were used but not as they're presented, like one where Greg learns about fusion from the Gems (but witnessed the fusion of Pearl and Amethyst, not Pearl and Rose), and a complicated one where cross-Gem fusion is a new idea in a flashback and Rose wants Garnet to fuse with her to teach her about it but she's too unsure of her own fusion relationship as such to risk it. The idea was that Pearl would be jealous and Pearl, Rose, and Garnet would actually fuse in the episode. This has not been done in the show.
14. Rebecca Sugar apparently just pops up with concepts she wants the writers to work in. Like "I want Steven to be in a mushroom forest" (which hasn't happened yet) or "I want Steven to have cats on his fingers" (which, obviously, happened early on). Rebecca gets little concepts that are sort of dreamlike, and they figure out which episode they can put them in. Working those things in sometimes seems like as much of a priority as getting plot elements in!
15. I like that they dish a bit about the fan reaction to Garnet's Fusion status. They thought they were being a little too obvious to not get caught, but Ian said the fans figured it out and then got bored of the idea and decided it must be even more complicated than that. People were apparently worried that Garnet would be replaced by her component Gems in the story if she were to unfuse, but obviously since Ruby and Sapphire want to be together, that doesn't happen.
16. Kat Morris's "rules" as discussed in Part 4 are "Garnet never asks questions" and "the story has to stay in Steven's perspective." I love how strict they are about Garnet not asking questions (except in the episode "The Answer," though there have been a couple ~technical~ questions from her; she usually just finds a way to ask a question with a statement, like "tell me what you saw").
17. A great quote from Zuke on the incidentally queer content of the Gems' relationships and gender: "Personally, I'm happy to not have to think, 'I'm writing a character based on my queer experiences.' That would be so hard! I'm just writing from my perspective, and I happen to be queer. I think that's what makes the show feel natural when it comes to that. It's a fine line between defining something so that people are aware it exists, which is so important, but also letting it breathe, so it's not forever contained in a box labeled 'queer media.'"
18. In Part 5, Michaela Dietz relates her experiences as an adoptee to relate to what Amethyst deals with as an "adoptee" into the Crystal Gem family without knowing where she really came from or what it means to be a part of that. She's said this before in some other interviews and panels, so it's not new in general, but it's probably new in print. Deedee Magno Hall, who plays Pearl, obviously relates to Pearl's maternal nature.
19. Tom Scharpling and Charlyne Yi were voice actors that Rebecca specifically had in mind for her characters (Greg and Ruby respectively). Rebecca's illustrated letter to Charlyne explaining Ruby and Sapphire's relationship and Ruby's role on the show is really adorable.
20. Music nerds like me will very much appreciate the photographed notes on music motifs--the Diamonds each have a solfège syllable and a chord (White is F#M7/Sol, Yellow is BM7/Fa, Blue is EM7/Fa, and Pink is AM7/Mi), and Steven's powers and modes are coded with instruments and styles.
21. Some world maps provide new possible insights. Greenland in our world is Blueland in theirs. South America is called Pangea. Aqua Mexico is labeled about where Mexico is in our world. India is the Indian Islands. There's an Australia and a New Australia. A big sea in the middle of Asia is called the Tunguska Sea. Rose's Fountain is in Spain or Portugal; the Sky Spire and Strawberry Battlefield are in Norway; the Shooting Star Shrine is in the middle of the drastically different Asian continent; the Galaxy Warp is in the Tunguska Sea; the Lunar Sea Spire is off the coast of Canada; Mask Island is in the Atlantic near Beach City; the Comm Relay is in the Western United States.
22. It was known from interviews that Shelby Rabara (voice of Peridot) is a dancer and provided the foot sounds and coaching to create the short tap number in the episode "Mr. Greg." But what's great is here, there's a visual reference included! Photos of Shelby doing the dance are lined up next to the drawings of Pearl and Steven in the "Mr. Greg" number doing the steps! She poses in dance moves with her husband for the Greg/Pearl dance for "Both of You" too.
23. There's a really cute story in the last section about Amber Cragg ascending from fan to Crewniverse member through posting Pearl art in response to the pilot and eventually getting contacted to take a board test. That is the kind of thing so many online artists dream of!
[SU Book and Comic Reviews]
#steven universe#steven universe reviews#steven universe art and origins#steven universe books#rebecca sugar#myblog
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IS YOUR CHARACTER
[001] the face of any products: her team is currently working on a deal with burberry that should be finalized shortly.
[002] open about their private life: no. not even slightly. she’s intensely reserved and prefers that her private life remain exactly that — private.
[003] an advocate for any charities: yes, specifically st. jude’s children’s research hospital, unicef, and various environmental causes. more recently, she’s become heavily involved in the #metoo and time’s up movements.
[004] involved in a relationship for publicity: not at present, but who knows. if she truly believes that it would benefit both her and her career, sylvie’s not going to say never. but she is incredibly picky about who she dates, and that would like extend to “fake” dating as well.
[005] where they are because of dishonest / shady moves: not due to her own. what her mother might have done or been willing to do in order to make them famous... sylvie doesn’t want to know.
WHO DOES YOUR CHARACTER
[006] @ / retweet regularly: willow, former and current cast mates to support their projects, and the charities that she supports.
[007] mention most in interviews: probably her twin sister, willow. after seeing them together for so many years on their variety show, it’s hard to separate the two from audience’s minds. additionally, after the rather public break with her mother, sylvie tends to get asked questions about that particular relationship, which she evades to the best of her ability.
[008] go to when they need some help: again, willow. nothing like having a twin sister.
[009] idolize / adore more than life itself: nicole kidman. if sylvie met her, she’d probably freak.
[010] want to end up with (in their dreams): young sylvie would have said cartoon aladdin or dimitri. current sylvie is more comfortable being by herself and waiting for the right person instead of guessing who it might be.
WHAT WAS
[011] the first thing they tweeted: @sylviehugo welcome to my universe, twitter!
[012] the first event they got invited to: likely the premiere of whatever film the twins first cameoed in. sylvie likely doesn’t remember much of it, only being bored and uncomfortable in whatever dress her mother picked out.
[013] the last (non work related) vacation they took: she’s a frequent flier to paris and london, and she’s been known to spend vacations there after long shoots.
[014] the first thing published about them on lounge: probably that she was incredibly snobby, very demanding during her variety show. it probably listed “events” and “reasons” that never actually happened.
[015] the project that made them want to act / write / sing / etc.: acting was more or less forced upon her, but during one of her first cameos, sylvie caught a peek of a scene between the two lead actors that took her breath away. she’s desperately wanted it ever since.
WHY
[016] do they put up with all of the bs that comes with the business: at this point in her life, pushed into the industry as a child and having grown up in it, sylvie simply can’t see herself ever doing anything else. so it’s less of a choice, more something that she’s been saddled with and forced to face with no alternatives.
[017] did they pursue the career they’re currently in: acting was very much forced upon both sylvie and willow from a young age by their mother, who sought the fame and — even more importantly — money that she could get out of her two golden cash cows. she got her wish and, even after the twins separated from her after reaching the age of eighteen, acting had become too ingrained as a part of sylvie to try anything else. she loves it, she does, but even if she didn’t, sylvie can hardly imagine doing anything else.
[018] did they choose the media persona they did: her media persona is slightly more open than she allows herself to be in public. it reveals a bit of her life — stories about her cats, pictures of her and willa — while always ensuring not to reveal anything too deep. at the very least, it helps to satiate the curiosity.
[019] do they hate gossip magazines so much: sylvie hates them because of the lies that fill them, guessing at the truth of her private life and never failing to cause her problems.
[020] would they ever make a sex tape: yes. there’s still a big part of sylvie that wants to completely distance herself from the reputation her mother built as a darling. it was — and, really, still is — incredibly restraining. in her more impulsive moments, sylvie would certainly see a sex tape as being a perfect tool to eliminate that image and absolutely go for it.
WHERE
[021] did they hear their first song on the radio: she hasn’t. though her mother did force her to see a vocal coach and her talent will be put on display in the upcoming anastasia adaptation, sylvie has never before recorded songs that could be heard on the radio.
[022] did they find out they’d landed their first project: their mother’s one bedroom apartment, likely eating leftovers.
[023] did they go on vacation after their first big project: while living with her mother, most of the money went to obtaining a more luxurious lifestyle. after her first big independent project, though, sylvie travelled to paris.
[024] do they live when they want to get away from it all: her home in la? it’s... hard to get away from it, but at least she’s got the comfort of home.
[025] was their first big press conference: in utah, after the first feature she filmed independently premiered at sundance.
WAS THEIR FIRST
[026] project embarrassing: her first project was some baby commercial that her mother got the twins into. so, probably.
[027] talk show appearance a wreck: it was with willow, the better spokesperson of the two even at a young age, so not as much as it could have been.
[028] public relationship heavily followed: sylvie was “too busy” for many relationships during her teenage years. her first public relationship was directly after the split from her mother, which meant that it got more attention than it likely would have gotten otherwise.
[029] fan encounter awkward / nice / sweet / etc.: yes! their childhood consisted — post variety show — of a lot of cute fans who would come up to sylvie and willow, telling them that they wanted to be exactly like them growing up.
[030] relationship (while famous) talked about at all: since it was right after the start of her career move, which was getting attention, it unfortunately was.
WILL
[031] they ever open any sort of business: perhaps? right now, sylvie’s thinking long-term in regards to acting and not much else so she’s hasn’t given that much consideration.
[032] they ever win a major, prestigious award: currently, sylvie has been nominated for a golden globe and won an emmy for her portrayal in a limited series in 2017. she hopes that she’ll continue to be recognized for her work, especially after she begins to put more distance between herself and the reputation her mother fostered.
[033] they ever host the smn version of saturday night live: i imagine that with her child star popularity and the attention anastasia will receive, that’s certainly likely to happen shortly.
[034] they ever work tirelessly for years to get a project going: yes. now that sylvie can make her own choices regarding the projects she takes on, she is completely and utterly committed to them. her passion knows no bounds and her tendency to commit herself whole-heartedly to them would push her to make them succeed.
[035] they take pictures with fans who approach them on their off time: occasionally? if they can read the room? there are certainly times where sylvie expects to go out and be bombarded by fans or the press, which means that she’s more likely to accept when someone asks for photos. the rest of the time, especially during private dinners or heading back from the gym, she’s unlikely to agree.
DOES YOUR CHARACTER
[036] invest their money wisely: she tries to be incredibly frugal. her home is the largest purchase that she’s ever made, but she does have a penchant for buying expensive shoes.
[037] work only on projects they love: nowadays, yes. if sylvie doesn’t connect with the script or the character, then it’s unlikely that she’ll pursue it.
[038] care more about the fame than anything: it’s not so much the fame as the job. despite the rough beginning, sylvie really loves what she does. the fame is just what — sometimes unfortunately — comes with it.
[039] often find they’ve put their foot in their mouth: absolutely. of the hugo twins, sylvie is the least able to speak professionally. somehow, too often when she opens her mouth on camera or in front of paparazzi, she ends up either saying something or cursing them out. because of this, willow more or less became the spokesperson for the twins and sylvie couldn’t be more thankful for it.
[040] hide things from the public because they are afraid / ashamed of what the reaction could be: if sylvie chooses to hide things from the public, it’s not because she’s afraid of what people will say — though that certainly has affected her in the past — but because she wants to maintain some semblance of a private life.
DO YOU HONESTLY THINK YOUR CHARACTER
[041] is a good person: she really, truly tries to be and uses her platform to help others.
[042] will have career longevity: i truly believe so. sylvie’s passionate, talented, and her devotion to her projects is easily seen both onscreen and off.
[043] deserves the career they have: heck yeah. she works her ass off.
[044] can remain unjaded by hollywood: she’s already pretty jaded, but it’s up in the air whether or not that will get better or worse.
[045] will spend the rest of their life with the person they marry: if it’s up to her, absolutely. she commits herself completely to those she’s with and her perfectionistic tendencies leave her unable to quit much of anything, even if it would be better for her in the long run.
GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY WOULD YOUR CHARACTER
[046] date / marry a fan: possibly, but unlikely. sylvie is committed to finding deep, genuine relationships that help her form an emotional connection. while that’s certainly not impossible with fans, she considers it to be unlikely and knows that wading through that particular pool of people would be incredibly difficult.
[047] star on any type of reality show: as said above, sylvie is an intensely private person and that doesn’t tend to match with the reality tv set up. but, if it happened to be the best decision for her career... there isn’t much that sylvie wouldn’t do for that.
[048] donate to charity / do good deeds without publicity: yes. she does always sign her name to the donations, but she doesn’t do so to bring it to the attention of the public. most of what she does use her platforms for are to bring attention to the causes rather than her involvement in them.
[049] say exactly what they think about the ins/outs of fame: yes and no? if she’s asked a specific question about it, sylvie’s likely to be candid. but she won’t volunteer the information in fear of seeming like she’s complaining (another of her mother’s voices in her head).
[050] walk comic con without any security (in or out of disguise): i doubt it.
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It’s Time to Talk Sam Manson
If it’s not already obvious from the fact that I run the @sam-manson-defense-squad, I love Sam. Sadly, she seems to have gotten a nasty reputation among fans, which is a right shame because there’s a lot that can be done with her character. I do understand that her execution in the show was flawed, but if people can overlook bad writing for other characters, I think we should be able to do the same for Sam. Since the first two episodes do a pretty good job establishing what she’s like, she seemed like a great character to start off with.
As a general rule, these character-specific posts will be focusing on the positives (meaning what I think makes them a good character and how they work as part of the show). I’m trying to enjoy something I love, and I don’t wanna spread negativity.
Anywho, let’s get started. (warning: will likely be image-heavy)
So, right from the start, Sam’s established as a girl who’s wants to stand out as an individual. For a 14-year-old girl in the early 21st century, this means “utter disdain for anything popular.” Or at least, that’s what it was like for me.
I was in middle school when DP was airing, but my experience reminded me a lot of Sam. I was a young kid trying to discover myself, so I tried out some bizarre styles. I avoided the “in” crowd and immediately turned to the outcasts, because I naively assumed that the ones who were left out would be the true friends. I needed to stand out, but I didn’t want too much attention. I started getting a bit more involved in causes. As I was leaving childhood, I started understanding and caring about more things. I wanted to make a difference. Find my place in the world. Also, the goth craze was pretty big back then. (I remember my sister going through a goth phase around that time.)
To me, Sam’s like a little time capsule of what middle/early high school kids were like at that time. Sam’s very outspoken and opinionated. She wants to stand out, but not in the way that attracts the “popular” kids. She’s an activist, sometimes to an extreme, but she’s always fighting for what she believes in.
Episode 1? Vegan menu. (Of course, Sam’s only referred to as vegan once Aside from that it’s ultra-recyclo vegetarian, but she’s clearly got a plant-based diet, so I’m sticking with vegan. It’s fewer letters.) Episode 2? Ugh, the popular girl. She’s obviously a shallow bitch. Episode 3? Save the gorillas! Episode 5? Save the frogs!
Because she’s a kid, she sometimes takes things way too far, though. Her vegan menu wasn’t optional, and none of the kids were given any warning before the menu was suddenly changed. She was really judgmental of Paulina because she was one of the “pretty girls.” She let a gorilla loose in the zoo. She pulled together an assembly just to give a speech about saving the frogs. It goes over the top because it’s a cartoon, but yeah. I remember making mistakes similar to these as a kid. After all, I was still learning.
The important thing is that Sam does her best to keep her heart in the right place.
Parental Bonding is one of my favorite episodes for Sam, because it really addresses this. Sam focuses a lot on being special and unique, but she has insecurities like any other girl. Throughout the episode, Danny and Tucker are trying to find dates to a school dance, completely overlooking Sam as a girl. Danny talks about how he has a hard time talking to cute girls, which hurts because he has no problems talking to Sam. Tucker’s going through “every girl in school,” but completely overlooks Sam. She’s their friend, and that can lead to them forgetting she’s a girl and she might like to be asked.
Of course, she can’t let them know that, so the result is her unfairly taking her insecurities out on Paulina. Once those insecurities are addressed, she realizes that she was being unfair and apologizes.
Unfortunately, Paulina turned out to actually be the shallow girl Sam had accused her of being, and even worse, she showed it by trash-talking Danny. Despite what people may think, Sam loves her boys, and seeing this girl treat one of them like that, especially after she made a real effort to patch things up, it’s no wonder she was never particularly fond of Paulina again.
Despite her flaws, Sam really is a caring and accommodating friend.
Exhibit A:
Sam might not want popularity, but social approval is very important to Danny, and he’s got a chance to make an impression because he’s invited to an A-list party. The only problem is they’re all going to be wearing some very expensive sweats, and Danny can’t afford them. Sam’s kept quiet about it, but she happens to be filthy freaking rich, and while it goes against her anti-popularity agenda, since it’s important to Danny, she’s willing to buy them for him.
Unfortunately for Danny, he spends the episode getting too distracted by his sudden popularity to pay attention to his friends, and Sam doesn’t get the chance to offer.
Exhibit B:
Movie-marathon and pizzas with Tucker! Cool stuff. Only problem is, Sam’s vegan and Tucker won’t touch veggies. No problem. Sam will just order two medium pizzas. One pepperoni and one veggie. Sure, she might be vegan, but she can still pay for her friend to have what he likes.
Exhibit C:
Tucker’s severe phobia of medical facilities. It might be scary, but Sam’s gotcha. She has a bag for just these occasions, and she’ll get you past the nurse’s office safely.
Exhibit D:
Tucker, I know this looks dangerous, but Danny’s in trouble, and there’s nobody but us who’s going to save him. Now we need to jump onto this moving train owned by a man who tried to murder me.
Exhibit D:
Tucker’s being teased for being a techno-geek, and when he tries to break free of that label, he gains a new reputation for being bad luck. Sam proceeds to spend the episode hyper-gothing Tucker up to the point where he gets sick of it, and then she talks to him about how what other people label him doesn’t matter. What matters is what makes him happy. Goth makes Sam happy, but technology makes Tucker happy. It sucks to be made fun of, but he has a right to be himself.
Sam is flawed. She can take things too far, and her stubborn views make it hard for her to recognize when she’s doing what she thinks is right and when she’s projecting. When push comes to shove, though, she’s always there for her friends. She has episodes where the writing gets messy, but so do all the characters. Look at Danny in Livin’ Large. When you take that out and just focus on the good stuff, you get a very realistic, good-hearted teenage girl.
For me, this is the Sam I love. She’s stubborn, opinionated, and sometimes misguided, but she cares a lot about her friends and is doing her best to do what she thinks is right. And personally, I’m always here for a Sam who doesn’t usually take the violent route, but will set a man on fire if they touch her boys.
Or worse. Sam’s intelligence and influence can be scarier than a lot of the weapons in this show.
#i love this girl so much#i love all the team phantom kids actually#they're all so different but they love each other so much#they're good kids#sam manson#cast#danny phantom
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Hey you lovely (mostly not but hey, we’ll include the spam bots as well) tumblr’rs!
Long time, I know. Things have been fucked intriguing trying --- they’ve just been; I find myself at the precipice of something new and with that comes another adjustment to how I present myself.
Too Long Don’t Care? Click the link above and follow me...or don’t. #Trigger Warning below. Nothing graphic (some burn blisters #scarification under Semi-Colon), but my life kinda requires it.
TLDR: I’m changing blogs and it’s going to have (but not be limited to) subjects like death, suicide, anxiety, depression, abuse, and other unpleasantness in the effort to broaden the discussion.
So those who know me--personally I mean--know that it is rare on a good day for me to be caught on camera; I have some pretty strong beliefs about what capturing someone’s likeness does post-mortem. Yet somehow;
I’m pretty sure the last time I was taking photos was when I took that one that’s my profile image...which was promptly after leaving the hospital for the second time around; ultimately they marked the beginning of this Los Angelean chapter. Two plus years can hardly be considered an era, yet something about the new dawn breaths fresh--hope isn’t at all the right word, (dash it from this glossary because I do not speak of such things) it is care.
Then I was Annabelle, bipolar, reclusive, smoker...
Now? Well now is both different shades of similarity and something completely new. In this new space (that from which I had come (it seems redundant, but it is not)) I have vastly expanded my understanding of my own my mind/condition. While my gender identity still plays a heavy role in it, I’ve found the term Genderfluid to be the easiest ‘title’ though in reality it’s still more complex.
3 people, 1 platform
I’m not entirely happy with my diagnosis but until my research pans out, i’m stuck with ‘almosts’...*deep inhale*.
So at all times there are three distinct consciousnesses in my brain and at any given time ONE of them has control. The GIF above--from Pixar’s Inside Out--pretty accurately describes when I’m conflicted in Democracy mode (I’ll get to that in a moment) all three have equal control and none (one) plays nice. This is different from ‘voices’ in that direct and instantaneous control is possible (as opposed to a suggestion aspect of control); but this also differs from Multiple/Distinct Personality Disorder in that there is no loss of consciousness...so that’s nice...I guess.
See, the fun thing about the movie is that Pixar personifies emotions and portrays how that affects and controls us...sadness makes us sad, anger makes us angry, etc. This is cute, and fun--in my ‘movie’ those three are each their own being, fully loaded with all the anger, sadness, jealousy, and fear to boot. I wish I could say that one hasn’t set up the other for failure [some call this self-sabotage, I call it pettiness over an argument (the ‘I’ that is writing this currently) won back in 2007 and ‘she’ still gets bitter about...even writing this is pissing me off.
Democracy mode! That’s new. For the majority of my life it has been one in the foreground, BURYING the others; when I had finally allowed ‘her’ to speak it felt like fire coming from my throat--that I had been locked away from childhood into my mid-twenties. My gender presentation had less to do with dysphoria and more with control--she had waited almost two decades watching the other two ruin this vessel.
The GIF above is quite suitable too. None of my ‘me’s’ have names, I just am who I am--but there is a distinct (younger male) [older male] and [female]; the ages are irrelevant (as they say age is) but it’s better to differentiate them that way as opposed to (weaker male) [stronger male] because that greatly underestimates (him). To put this realistically, there’s a lot of “YOU....He...she...we...us” and very little “well (he) said this, {she} disagrees” so narrating out my internal monologue can get a little confusing to read--I’ve lived with it (maybe think about having your siblings in your brain at all times and control over stuff...)
Where the fuck are you going with this?
I’ve learned that fascism doesn’t help anyone.
So I’ve let go (for some time now, but ultimately as well) with gender markers to differentiate when ‘she’ is me, those who know me (who quite frankly are the only ones of whom such a thing would even impact them) know how she carries myself; and she’s had to make a lot of compromises but cohesion is key. Hence--as you can see, having read thus far--the need for a re-birthing.
--------------Trigger Warning below : Scarification -----------------
Semi-Colon
Do you know about the Semicolon Project? No? What the fuck are you still doing here, nothing on this page is nearly as important as what’s HERE. [THIS LINK is a ‘TALK TO SOMEONE NOW’ page. Just one of many not nearly enough.]
It isn’t pretty...that whole night was a brutal rendition of the more poignant scene’s from Fight Club; I did quite literally punch the ever loving shit out of myself more than once. Aaaaaand this was the other outcome. I’ve long said, even though it offers me no peace:
[Self-harming] is a coping method. Is it a good one? Fuck no! But it’s strong. WAY strong. When chaos reigns over logic, when your darkness is quicker than you, when you’re so far shut down even feeling is unmanageable--it works. [S.T.O.P Techniques] {see here} are powerless to the unbridled force of ‘natural reaction’.
I really screwed this one up--it was meant to be more art piece than self-mutilation, but this night was a bad night. It healed okay, but the damage to the structure of the shape is noticeable. Regrettably so.
My semicolon is important to me; it is a constant ((sometimes through the darkness) daily) reminder of WHY I am alive; simply seeing it often can offer me a breath of consideration.
“It’s when an author could’ve chosen to end the sentence, but didn’t.”
So that brings me all the way back around to the beginning (of this post anyway); I grow tired of stagnation--and while the illusion of work (Fiction) was a nice distraction/stretch, I’m doing nothing but avoiding the necessity of work; nonfiction.
I’ve talked multiple times about writing more on the topic of death, the afterlife, depression, anxiety, abuse and so much more™...but rarely delivered. Another product of Annabelle’s indecision and avoidance...every time I got into something of value I’d let it rot; unchecked, unseen, uncaring.
^^^^^^^^
There’s always time to expand on all that. For now, either hit the follow button above, or don’t--this blog (Hummingbird-Operandi) is going to fall into beautiful disrepair; favoring this blog (JakFenchurch) to hideously bloom.
Sure the image is darker, grainier, and complex; but it’s truer.
#changing blogs#writer#author#nonfiction#tw#trigger warning#trigger warnings#suicide#depression#anxiety#fear#shame#abuse#death#feelings of death#i'm getting bad again#dear charlie#blogging about bipolar#bipolar#personality disorder#inside out#darkness#dark kinship#jak fenchurch#bonus points#to those who know that the tarot card means change#not death#i'm probably forgetting something#please share and tag as you feel appropriate
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tagged by @authenticaussie Always repost the rules Answer the 11 questions posted for you Create 11 new ones or Tag 11 people (if you want!! No pressure <3) 1. whats the last song you listened to and do you recommend it/the musician? It was the Bastille remix of Bloody Shirt by To Kill a King, and I 100000% recommend it. 2. what were some of your favourite cartoons as a kid? Definitely "The Last Airbender", but before that i remember watching a lot of Sailor Moon. 3. how do you feel about scary movies? Kinda eh. Like they're okay, but i'm not a huge fan unless the plot or the mythology behind them are really good? If it gets too scary i have a habit of just analysing the cinematography to distract myself hahaha 4. how do you take your tea/coffee? For tea i usually have earl grey with milk and two sugars, and for coffee i have milk and as many sugars as i can get away with. 5. since you made your tumblr, what fandoms/interests have you been through phases of blogging about? When i first got it i was all about aesthetic stuff, a lot of art and animation, then through high school it was very superwholock/homestuck oriented, i think lately i've been more about night vale, over the garden wall, gravity falls, steven universe, all that cute animated shit. 7. what’s your current favourite movie, your childhood favourite movie, and your all-time favourite movie? My current fav would be Kubo and the Two Strings, it's just so gorgeous and beautiful. My childhood fav was definitely Alice in Wonderland, but the Disney animated version specifically. And my all time fav, geez... i'm gonna tentatively say Paranorman? 8. what kind of names did you give your toys as a kid? I had Alice, Lorna, and Michael, were my dolls, and my teddy was called Katelyn. 9. what’s the funniest meme right now? Definitely the "History of the World i guess" like its hilarious and kinda abstract and without context seems like the shittiest educational video. 10. what’s the best prank you’ve ever pulled/ever had pulled on you? My 8yo brother made me tea in the morning and i knew he'd put salt in it bc i heard him giggling up the hallway, and i looked that kid in the eye and took a sip and thanked him. I then proceeded to drink the whole damn cup, and ask for another if the kettle was still hot. 11. what’s the first song you can remember loving? When i was about 8 i think, i was obsessed with anything by ABBA, i had a cassette player and i found an old ABBA cassette in the garage and i was hooked. What do you think you smell like? Hopefully i smell like Marc Jacobs "Dot" perfume bc thats what i got for christmas. Got any new projects that you’re really excited about? I'm working on a short comic i was to release in october, and am contributing to an art zine! What was one of your biggest life changes? Uni for sure. It's just such a healthy change from high school and now that i'm out if that environment i've really been able to get myself together a bit better! What countries have you traveled too? I've never left the country ahha Where do you want to go? What do you want to see? I've always wanted to go to NASA!! or see the art galleries in Europe!! But my realistic goal is to go on a roadtrip with some friends to see all the Big Things in Queensland. What are you most worried about right now? What will you do to stop the worry? I worry constantly about social situations, the future, god everything... Mostly due to my lucid dreaming i sometimes have moments where i feel like im dreaming when im awake, its terrible, and i always worry i'll get stuck feeling that way. And i have no way of dealing with it, but if i find a way i'll let you know! If you had to give yourself a new name, what name would you pick? I don't know, when i was little i wanted Lorna bc i think i knew a girl at school with that name. What quality about yourself do you value most? I'd say my creativity; my ability to have ideas and stories and images in my head and turn them into art and poetry for others to see? its good fun. What’s in your fridge? Is it Edible? At the moment i have a lot of mince and tomato sauce bc im planning to make some enchiladas for dinner tomorrow. When you were younger, what did you want to be when you grew up? For the longest time i was going to be a ballet dancer, and then when i hit high school i wanted to be an artist. What is one of your favourite deserts? STICKY DATE PUDDING!! or lemon meringue pie! I'm tagging: @thatrandomhopeguy @strompilto @celestial-gh0sts @nathamon
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OC APPLICATION:
Character name: Chroma
Link to stats page: https://nicegirlchroma.tumblr.com/post/175996682290/stats-page
Character biography: Chroma and her sibling Mona are homunculi born of a rivalry between the twin alchemists Pestle and Mortar, who each created what they believed to be the ultimate homunculus to prove themselves the superior alchemist. Chroma was designed to possess unmatched strength, Mona was designed to possess unparalleled intellect, and both possess a capacity for human emotion far beyond any homunculus that even the Master Alchemists Pestle and Mortar had ever created. They were also created as infants, so that they could organically grow and eventually settle their dispute. However, Pestle and Mortar both loved Chroma and Mona so much that they immediately forgot their rivalry and raised them as their own children, eventually forgetting who created whom in the first place. Neither were assigned a gender at birth, but Chroma began to identify as female fairly early in her childhood. Her parents were happy to help her grow into a body she was comfortable with.
Perhaps as a result of how she was designed, Chroma has always enjoyed fighting, although, paradoxically, she generally hates hurting people. Unfortunately, her incredible strength and difficulty holding herself back when she gets excited make it difficult for her to find opponents to spar against. Most of her experience in combat is against monsters and homunculi created by Pestle and Mortar for her to fight. They sometimes make a game of it, coming up with elaborate scenarios for her to play make-believe in.
Chroma currently works as a bouncer at her parents’ secret underground bar after annoying too many customers as a waitress, though she dreams of becoming an adventurer and the world’s strongest warrior. She has a huge crush on Bella, a young witch with a dark secret.
Personality: Chroma is very cheerful, friendly, and bubbly. She can be a bit of an airhead, but she always tries hard and does her best. She is very extroverted, and tends to talk a lot, especially when she gets excited about something. The two things that tend to excite her most are fighting and girls. To her, fighting is more about having fun than hurting the other person; she only enjoys fighting strong opponents, so she can use all her strength and wits to defeat them. People who bully those weaker than themselves are the exception to this rule, and she delights in teaching them that there’s always someone stronger. Although she can best almost anyone when it comes to raw strength, she prefers not to win battles with brute force. She can be rather slow in her day-to-day life, but she has a knack for coming up with brilliant and creative strategies on the fly in combat. Additionally, she has training in several armed and unarmed schools of martial arts. While she loves girls as much as she loves fighting, her ability to fight is matched only by her inability to talk to girls. She tends to get nervous and trip herself up when talking to a girl she has a crush on, which is almost any girl she sees. While she is something of a disaster, she is usually a cute disaster, at least until she blushes a deep red across her entire body and expresses a desire to fight them.
Chroma is, at heart, a very innocent, even naïve, young woman. Despite working as a bouncer for an illegal, underground bar, she lives a rather sheltered existence; while her parents sell potions and tinctures to potential criminals (ensuring to offset any wrongdoing with generous donations of medicine to hospitals and the like) they ensure nothing unsavory ever happens at their bar. She has never seen true war or life-or-death conflict before. She is very proud, often boasting about her strength without considering how it may make others feel jealous or bitter, but she is not especially arrogant. She would much rather lift up those weaker than her than put them down. She is very happy with how she looks and often wears revealing clothes to show off her body without considering how others may see it as inappropriate or an invitation to harass her. Her innocence is an important part of who she is, but it can also be a weakness.
Abilities: Super Strength – Exact quantification of her strength is unknown, but she could probably lift and throw objects on the order of 10 tons of weight without too much difficulty. This includes the ability to run fast, jump high, etc.
Energy Projection – Can shoot blasts and beams of rainbow energy with incredible destructive force. Can infuse her weapons or her body with a sparkling aura of rainbow energy that allows them to cut through enemy defenses.
Regeneration - Due to her physiology, her wounds heal fairly quickly, although usually not quickly enough to make much of a difference in a single battle. She can recover from a broken bone or comparable wound in about a day.
Color Absorption – Can absorb colors from objects, leaving them grey, lifeless, and brittle, and allowing her to use them for her other abilities. She has never attempted to use this ability on a living person or animal, so it is unknown what would happen if she tried.
Color Illusion – Can quickly create illusory images of people or objects and freely move them, using colors she’s absorbed. These illusions are intangible and any physical object will pass through them, though they can be dispelled or destroyed with magic. The illusions cannot make sound. She can apply this ability to herself to create an illusion of her surroundings that serves as camouflage, but it doesn’t make her completely invisible, and she can’t keep it up if she or her surroundings move too much.
Color Printing – Can “3D Print” objects, weapons, or automatons which she has some control over, using colors she’s absorbed. This ability takes much more color, effort, and time than creating an illusion. She can create clones of herself or other allies in combat, but they are far weaker than she is. If she duplicates an object, it doesn’t have any properties that she didn’t know that the object had when she created it e.g. if she creates a duplicate of a box, and the box has a secret compartment, the duplicate will not.
Martial Arts – Not a superhuman ability, but years of training against her parents, who have used alchemical means to implant the memory/experience of master martial artists into their minds, have left Chroma with great technical skill on top of her raw strength.
Street Smarts – Not a superhuman ability, but she is very clever when it comes to devising creative strategies to bring down her opponents.
Chameleon Coloring – Not really a power or ability, but her skin can change color in response to her emotional state.
Weapons/important items: She is usually unarmed, preferring to wait until a fight has already begun to decide which weapon, if any, is appropriate for the situation, and using her Color Printing to create it. Her strength is generally more suited to big, heavy hitting weapons like maces and warhammers and battleaxes, but she often uses daggers and other small weapons that she can print quickly to catch her foes off guard.
Her glasses: She doesn’t need them to see, but they’re cute. They can be used to disguise her homunculus eyes so she can appear more human.
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OOC contact and your name: DM @havocmantis on Twitter or e-mail [email protected]. Name is Thomas.
Other characters: 0
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Okay damn it's late but it's alright cuz I can sleep in tomorrow and I took another accidental dozed off in the middle of my books naps tonight, lol. It was around 5:30 when I was like I'm just gonna rest my eyes for a few minutes, and the next thing I knew it was 9 pm, lol. Whoops. I was all around lazy today and waking and such, idk what that's necessarily about, but I was apparently unwilling to get out of bed in the morning so I convinced myself I could skip the service and just go with the babies, then sleep extra and just uber to church, so I did that and points for being lazy, lol. The nursery was pretty light, my other person did show up but then got recruited to go to the preschoolers room because they had like, 20 2-3 year olds running around and we had like, one baby at this point lol and they knew I could handle a bit more chaos than that on my own. We ended up getting 3 with another girl willing to stay with me which I appreciated of course, though I probably could've gotten through it on my own, it was very smooth, not a tear dropped by anyone the whole time, which is quite impressive I assure you. The girl who was a bit older kept going back to the gate and trying to climb it for a while (they do that a lot, we call it them trying to break out) but every time I managed to get her to come back and play. Then there was that sweet little boy we had last week that's just such a cute little chunker and he'll just sit and be perfectly happy with a toy for an entire hour, haha he was so sweet and of course no trouble. The last one was the little 6 month old girl who's the daughter of one of the ladies on the team, I've talked about her before because she is soooooo cute. She has gotten fussy in the past and we'd had to text her mom a few times, but I knew her mom had fed her right before the service so I didn't anticipate any problems and we didn't have any. I wish I could show you her cute little smile, it's just the most adorable thing. So we played with all of them, nothing too crazy. At one point I had the little girl on my lap and the older girl decided she also wanted to be on my lap haha so I had to do some shifting to make sure nobody was gonna get sat on, but other than that we managed just fine, so I'm calling that a win (really any nursery day with not a single tear shed is a major win, because that's damn near impossible really). Talked to a few people on my way out, and passed the family of the cute little girl who used to always be in the nursery with me but has now moved on to the twos, and while I was like, still a bit down the hallway she sees me and is immediately like "hi!! Hi!!!!" and waving at me and she's just the cutest little thing. At some point we're gonna end up restructuring how we split the kids up, instead of just by age we're gonna do it by mobility, so we'd have the younger babes who can't crawl or anything in one area, and then the crawlers in another and the walkers in another, hopefully all somewhat interconnected, I don't know all the details but hopefully it means I'll get to see some more of her. The way we have it now is generally fine, and the older kids are usually very gentle with the little ones, but kids still learning to walk trip and stumble and we wouldn't want them doing that onto another baby if we could help it, lol. So after that I headed home, and when I got off the train I saw I had some time before the next bus was gonna come, so I decided to take the donut shop up on their offer for half a dozen free donuts, so I got in there and asked for the manager like I'd been told, and I talked with him for a few minutes because he just really wanted to understand the situation, like he had the video footage of it but that can only explain so much. So of course I said I didn't want to get anyone in trouble and I knew it wasn't malicious or any ill-intent on their part, and I knew they had policies they had to follow, but I thought it was an oversight that could've been dealt with better and wanted to make them aware of it so hopefully next time it's handled better. So of course he thanked me for saying something and bringing it to their attention, and that they have to deal with different individuals causing trouble in the store sometimes but they would never want to actively put someone in danger so he appreciates me telling him about the situation. For the donuts, I told him he could just give me an assortment of his favorites (sans nuts of course) and so he did and I headed over to the bus stop and hopped on the bus home. It was around 3:30 at this point so I wanted to get to work, so I pulled out my stuff and kept working on my paper, trying to work on the stuff that I'd actually need for my presentation. The actual paper is up to 16 pages now and has a good amount of the substance written, it's just a matter now of coming up with things like a budget, and a strategic plan going forward and board of directors, and all that other boring shit lol but hopefully I won't need that for the presentation. I did write something up about fundraising efforts, so hopefully that will suffice for talking about the money side of things (I'm not particularly worried there, I have plenty of info to talk about so I'm not gonna run out of things to say). Apparently after two hours I passed out with my laptop still on lap (like it actually was) and woke up at 9, lol, so I called it a night for working on the project since I had everything I think I needed, and I'd just use it to create an outline since he doesn't want us reading from a paper, I figure if I have short cues about an issue I can talk about it plenty without the assistance of my paper since this is all stuff I'm super passionate about (that's the hope anyway, I'll still probably have my paper up there with me, but hopefully I won't have to use it much). While I did this and other computer stuff, I turned 13 Reasons Why on and watched episodes 6-10, and I gotta say, damn, this show is so heavy. Like, obviously I knew that going in. But the grief is just so heart wrenching to watch, especially from her parents. And I think that hits me so hard because looking back on my own teenage years I can see now what my killing myself would've done to my family, and it just would've utterly destroyed them. I have this image in my head of my mom finding my unresponsive body, hanging from the ceiling fan in my room (and I have no idea where that came from because that was never something I ever considered) and her just screaming and screaming over and over and it just haunts me to know that I could've done that to my family because I simply couldn't see past all of the despair and hopelessness that had completely taken over my life. And I can just think how happy I am that I held on. That I didn't do that to my family. That I never put them through that. I would never want to hurt my parents like that, or even my brothers- I still harbored a lot of anger towards them at that point because I felt they had ruined my childhood and were the major reason I was dealing with all of this now, I wouldn't want this to be something that haunted their entire lives when they were admittedly still kids too. I don't even want to start talking about my sister because we'll be here all night and I don't really feel like crying any more (I've shed a few tears writing this so far) and I already detailed my feelings there in my post from the other night if you are really curious. I just....for all the criticism the show is getting from the mental health community, and much of it is very valid criticism, I think they're doing a very good job of showing the effects of suicide on those they left behind. The whole blame game approach isn't really a healthy one, but I think it could definitely have an effect on a kid who's having issues, for them to see just how much her death affected everyone she left behind. As far as the actual plot, I'm very glad Clay actually leveled with his mom about his friendship with Hannah and just how much it was affecting him. I don't think we'd get this scene, but I would SO love to see Clay's mom storm into her big power fancy law firm and tell them they can take their case and shove it because she refuses to be a part of something like that. Like I don't think they'd show that but I really wish they would. It's strange though, because the lawsuit subplot wasn't in the books, and honestly for me it changes everything I want to happen at the end of this- like I find myself actively wanting the tapes to be exposed and used at the trial, and just absolutely rip the school to shreds for all the ways they failed this poor girl. I know that would have personal repercussions likely for the other people on the tapes, but that would really feel like justice for me. Now, I kinda doubt that's gonna happen because it would be a major deviation from the book and the book's general premise, but I would like to say it. Okay, I think that's most of what I had to say about it. Watched the sexual assault scene like that was horrific and could definitely be triggering for survivors, but I am glad they included it to show just how awful what they were talking about really was. Okay, I think that's really it. And that ends my day, and I could get to bed being that it's now almost 2:30 am. Goodnight my babes. Stay sweet.
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