171 posts
Jaxihammer - My Brain Is A Carousel And Sam Reich Is In Control - Tumblr Blog
i refuse to believe that renee minkowski is not a lesbian. my headcanon is that "mr kuldelka" is her he/him lesbian partner.
I'm so k tanaka I fear and every day I wish I wasn't
Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.
K!! Is!! A deeply flawed young adult!!! They are NOT:
1. MALICIOUS
2. ABUSIVE
3. A TERRIBLE PERSON
They are a 20 year old with almost zero real life connections, who as far as they know caused the destruction of the world's most valuable resource by doing the right thing. They've spent three years on the run being asked to fix the world's magical problems from a trailer with only a stressed out chipmunk helping them.
Of course their first instinct is to help. They're constantly being asked to solve other people's problems; their good friend being injured in a way they COULD have fixed but DIDN'T? Of course that's fucking anxiety inducing.
so.
i am doing my best to not come into a fandom space with the intention of being a terrorist. i want to talk about the fucking amazing things about mismag 2 and i have been.
but also i have been a bipoc in fan spaces for decades now and i am not down for another round of 'bipoc partner/ex of white character becomes fandom punching bag.'
i don't object to the idea that blowing up someone's arm, even if it's fixable, could be a relationship-ending event. what i strongly object to is the idea that k is uniquely horrible for their past behavior and therefore unforgiveable. k is not evan's abuser. don't put that on them.
Since mine is my drag name, I think legally I have to go Stranger/Spiral
Stupid idea
YOU HAVE JUST BECOME A TMA AVATAR
Your personal domain is based on your username
Which entity/ies do you serve?
I'm the end
more doodles bc lou really hurt my feelings
this Adventuring Party is about to be fuckin NUTS
Shout out to all the Black ppl that can no longer participate directly in the fandom they love because of the stresses of racism 👍🏾 you contain multitudes of value and I'm sorry that the color of your skin and the power of your voice makes people not want to acknowledge that.
Media literacy and smooshing my little guys together like non-canon compliant barbies should not be mutually exclusive
the “pleasure to have in class” to overly active tumblr user pipeline
Also what happens to Eiffel is so similar to what happens to Fisher. Hilbert's Decima patient is outside the station when an unexpected (or at least mistimed) event knocks him off structure, and the commander goes to rescue him. Except Minkowski makes it back with Eiffel in tow, and all Lovelace gets for her efforts is a broken arm. In season 2 when Hera rips into her, she says their crew did what Lovelace's couldn't. Does Lovelace know about this little misadventure? What is it like to see this man who got spaced like Fisher, who got sick like Lambert and Hui, and who keeps coming back? Why does he of all people get to survive when hers didn't? Why did Minkowski get to win?
Goddard futuristics uniform but the pants are just juicy sweats with rhinestones that say Goddard Futuristics or have the “GF” logo
why yes, I have been spending WAY too much of my time drawing zero-G gags because hey, it's an audio medium- I have to imagine the shenanigans they can get up too with no gravity myself. 90% is Minkowski throwing Eiffel cause I think she deserves it 😌
This is genuinely my excuse for my Maxwell design having glasses even though she canonically doesn't need them—
I think Maxwell would have been prescribed blue light glasses cause her job has her spend 8+ hours in front of a screen. She wears them for a week and they've been sitting on her desk collecting dust for years
All of this^^^
This got way too long, but whatever. SPOILERS for World's Beyond Number up to the end of Arc 3. One of my favorite parts about the world of Umora is its portrayal of institutions. This is also, unsurprisingly, one of the biggest sources of discourse around the series. With the completion of Arc 3, we are presented with two very distinct sides of a conflict: The Citadel vs The Man in Black. In general, though, a pretty clear motif has been The Citadel vs The Other (ostensibly spirits and nature) so I would argue that this categorization has existed long before lines were clearly drawn during the coven. Sadly, and unsurprisingly, this has led to a lot of takes that operate only from this binary. "Citadel Bad" is the pretty common sentiment as yes obviously the Citadel is not a good institution. What is interesting, is seeing the perspective that "Spirits Good". This is by no means as common a thing to see as the Citadel Bad posting, but the fact I still see it around, even post arc 3, is a testament to how nuanced the institutions of Umora are, and how commonly that nuance is missed.
Listening to the fireside chat for Episode 33, the cast discussed the portrayal of the Citadel versus that of the Coven of Elders and The Man in Black. I'm paraphrasing, but essentially they say that since the cast has advocates for the Citadel as part of the core narrative, the Citadel has to get a lot more critical shit flung at it. On the flip side, the Coven of Elders and The Man in Black are obviously messed up, so they do not need as much attention thrown their way to prove that.
This was fascinating given that it seems that there is an opposite effect happening from what I have experienced. I think it ties into the whole paranoia around Steel being another Brennan(tm) twist villain. Because the cast are so carefully portraying the nuances of the Citadel, which thematically is heavily evil colonial empire, Ghibli industrialization allegory coded, in order to try and balance both having clear decent people as a part of it while it also being a massive, out of control, hierarchical institution has ironically led to many people losing the trees for the forest.
Since its getting so much nuance thrown its way, in actuality it has to be fundamentally bad cause otherwise I as the viewer would have to engage with complicated questions like considering how good can exist within the confines of an obviously not good institution. That little trickster Brennan has to be tricking us, its a common gaff! Brennan "I hate Elon Musk with every fiber of my being" Lee "Fuck capitalism" Mulligan cannot possibly be asking us to consider that pure violence is not the best way to handle a corrupt system, no this has to be a trick!
On the flip side, this willingness to ignore that the Citadel probably shouldn't just plain be destroyed because its fantasy praxis also seems to lead to their being an opposite view of the other institutions we have seen. I saw a take that the cast must be on the side of the Coven of Elders ooc since they aren't as critical of them as they are of the Citadel and since the cast are all leftists outside of the game, they clearly are positioning the citadel as the objectively bad capitalist allegory while the witches are the Ghibli nature allegory and thus must be ultimately good!
Obviously, this is deranged and not a dominant take amongst viewers (I assume) but it still goes to show how easily the casts attempt to carefully portray the various institutions of Umora can be and are misinterpreted. A further point to this is I think Brennan does too good of a job of showing the temptation of these institutions, which is a common and incredibly dangerous aspect of powerful institutions in real life.
The Citadel is grand and powerful and efficient and any academic's dream. It has beauty and incredible innovation as well as common and familiar urban trappings. It has incredible coffee shops, delicious snack stands, and abundant resources. Wizard stans are of course going to fall in love with it. I think this leads to a reactionary sentiment though of, "Oh, I like this thing, but this thing is bad, therefore me liking this thing is bad, so I must hate this thing to rectify my mistake of liking this thing". Everything good about the Citadel must actually be a bad thing as otherwise I can't categorically despise the Citadel.
On the other side the Coven of Elders is composed of quite literally the most attractive person the cast are going to meet, the scariest person the cast are going to meet, the mysterious tragic goth blorbo, and activated gammie. The Coven of Elders is the embodiment of "God forbid a woman do anything". They are all so unbelievably cool and interesting, its hard not to get caught up in the trappings of it all. But they are all also clearly deeply flawed, if not in general monstrous individuals who wield vast amounts of power they probably (definitely) should not have.
Its so easy to look at the Coven and think "they can commit a bit of war as a treat" because they are so literally enticing. It also helps that the Coven is more easily viewable as a bunch of individuals rather then a faceless conglomerate of domination. I think its easy to not even consider them an institution since they are so easily recognizable as people. Yet it seems incredibly important that we do need to consider them as such because they too, like the Citadel, are kinda not very good.
Hakea, the literal founder of the Coven, is so far removed from common decency that she does view the war as just a little treat. Potential millions of lives lost is no sweat off her back, and due to her immortality she can easily hold that position. Yes she is gammie and I love her, but she is also an incredibly powerful individual who has spent the last centuries doing nothing but going through the motions with that said power with no regard, even to he other sisters. If Ame had not awoken her, she would have let her die, and Mirara with her too. Its doubtful she would have done anything about Indri until it was too late.
I don't even know if I have to say anything about The Man in Black. He is so obviously bad to the bone that if you are an unironic apologist I don't even know what to say. If you are an ironic apologist though you are valid and I get you. I think if there is any truly, uncompromisingly evil force in Umora, it is him. The fact that he is literally wielding an enemy faction of the Citadel like weapon is pretty clear indication he is bad news and is not some radical revolutionary.
All of this is to say, Brennan very clearly knows this about his institutions. They are meant to be enticing and grand and glorious simply because that's how many institutions paint themselves. It would be disingenuous and just straight bad storytelling for the citadel to be all smog and slave labor. It would be bad for the witches to all be well intentioned but misguided or the Man in Black to just be the fantasy liberator. Both sides are vectors of violence and oppression. Both sides have good aspects and bad. They are fantastically layered and nuanced and that's a great strength to the show, but it also leads to a lot of really binary and reactionary takes.
HAPPY 10TH ANNIVERSARY, WOLF 359!
Here's the Season 4 poster to celebrate!
To the cast and crew (if they somehow happen to see this) (I doubt any of them are on Tumblr so I'll just ramble to the void):
This show honestly changed my life. I know it's cliché, but it really helped me out of a low point in my life . It also helped me as a writer — watching the AMAs to hear what the writers said and studying the scripts improved my skills exponentially. Furthermore, the plot, the voice talent, the sound design and the soundtrack are all crafted amazingly — you can really tell the show is brimming with passion! It's really a love letter to sci-fi fans too.. gosh, I could honestly talk about why I love this show for hours, but I'll keep it short. Essentially, if you see this, thank you for creating something so wonderful. Thank you for inspiring so many people. Thank you for creating such a great story.
To everyone else (I know it'll mostly be fans seeing this, but just in case one of my followers hasn't listened):
If you haven't listened to Wolf 359, I highly recommend it. 10/10 show. And it's definitely a good starting point in terms of fiction podcasts; since it's so cinematic, you can visualise everything you hear very easily, making it great to listen to! Also, for a show that's 10 years old, it aged really well. Many shows like that fall to the issue of having outdated jokes and references, but Wolf 359 is a truly timeless one.
Waiting for the next system failure Some sleepy Ep. 16 doodles
I need you to know I genuinely wrote about this post for an assignment for a poetry class last semester
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” said the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back!”
“Be logical,” said the scorpion. “If I stung you I’d certainly drown myself.”
“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Climb aboard, then!” But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown. “Why on earth did you do that?” the frog said morosely. “Now we’re both going to die.”
“I can’t help it,” said the scorpion. “It’s my nature.”
___
…But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the frog felt a subtle motion on its back, and in a panic dived deep beneath the rushing waters, leaving the scorpion to drown.
“It was going to sting me anyway,” muttered the frog, emerging on the other side of the river. “It was inevitable. You all knew it. Everyone knows what those scorpions are like. It was self-defense.”
___
…But no sooner had they cast off from the bank, the frog felt the tip of a stinger pressed lightly against the back of its neck. “What do you think you’re doing?” said the frog.
“Just a precaution,” said the scorpion. “I cannot sting you without drowning. And now, you cannot drown me without being stung. Fair’s fair, isn’t it?”
They swam in silence to the other end of the river, where the scorpion climbed off, leaving the frog fuming.
“After the kindness I showed you!” said the frog. “And you threatened to kill me in return?”
“Kindness?” said the scorpion. “To only invite me on your back after you knew I was defenseless, unable to use my tail without killing myself? My dear frog, I only treated you as I was treated. Your kindness was as poisoned as a scorpion’s sting.”
___
…“Just a precaution,” said the scorpion. “I cannot sting you without drowning. And now, you cannot drown me without being stung. Fair’s fair, isn’t it?”
“You have a point,” the frog acknowledged. “But once we get to dry land, couldn’t you sting me then without repercussion?”
“All I want is to cross the river safely,” said the scorpion. “Once I’m on the other side I would gladly let you be.”
“But I would have to trust you on that,” said the frog. “While you’re pressing a stinger to my neck. By ferrying you to land I’d be be giving up the one deterrent I hold over you.”
“But by the same logic, I can’t possibly withdraw my stinger while we’re still over water,” the scorpion protested.
The frog paused in the middle of the river, treading water. “So, I suppose we’re at an impasse.”
The river rushed around them. The scorpion’s stinger twitched against the frog’s unbroken skin. “I suppose so,” the scorpion said.
___
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Absolutely not!” said the frog, and dived beneath the waters, and so none of them learned anything.
___
A scorpion, being unable to swim, asked a turtle (as in the original Persian version of the fable) to carry it across the river. The turtle readily agreed, and allowed the scorpion aboard its shell. Halfway across, the scorpion gave in to its nature and stung, but failed to penetrate the turtle’s thick shell. The turtle, swimming placidly, failed to notice.
They reached the other side of the river, and parted ways as friends.
___
…Halfway across, the scorpion gave in to its nature and stung, but failed to penetrate the turtle’s thick shell.
The turtle, hearing the tap of the scorpion’s sting, was offended at the scorpion’s ungratefulness. Thankfully, having been granted the powers to both defend itself and to punish evil, the turtle sank beneath the waters and drowned the scorpion out of principle.
___
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” sneered the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back.”
The scorpion pleaded earnestly. “Do you think so little of me? Please, I must cross the river. What would I gain from stinging you? I would only end up drowning myself!”
“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Even a scorpion knows to look out for its own skin. Climb aboard, then!”
But as they forged through the rushing waters, the scorpion grew worried. This frog thinks me a ruthless killer, it thought. Would it not be justified in throwing me off now and ridding the world of me? Why else would it agree to this? Every jostle made the scorpion more and more anxious, until the frog surged forward with a particularly large splash, and in panic the scorpion lashed out with its stinger.
“I knew it,” snarled the frog, as they both thrashed and drowned. “A scorpion cannot change its nature.”
___
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. The frog agreed, but no sooner than they were halfway across the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown.
“I’ve only myself to blame,” sighed the frog, as they both sank beneath the waters. “You, you’re a scorpion, I couldn’t have expected anything better. But I knew better, and yet I went against my judgement! And now I’ve doomed us both!”
“You couldn’t help it,” said the scorpion mildly. “It’s your nature.”
___
…“Why on earth did you do that?” the frog said morosely. “Now we’re both going to die.”
“Alas, I was of two natures,” said the scorpion. “One said to gratefully ride your back across the river, and the other said to sting you where you stood. And so both fought, and neither won.” It smiled wistfully. “Ah, it would be nice to be just one thing, wouldn’t it? Unadulterated in nature. Without the capacity for conflict or regret.”
___
“By the way,” said the frog, as they swam, “I’ve been meaning to ask: What’s on the other side of the river?”
“It’s the journey,” said the scorpion. “Not the destination.”
___
…“What’s on the other side of anything?” said the scorpion. “A new beginning.”
___
…”Another scorpion to mate with,” said the scorpion. “And more prey to kill, and more living bodies to poison, and a forthcoming lineage of cruelties that you will be culpable in.”
___
…”Nothing we will live to see, I fear,” said the scorpion. “Already the currents are growing stronger, and the river seems like it shall swallow us both. We surge forward, and the shoreline recedes. But does that mean our striving was in vain?”
___
“I love you,” said the scorpion.
The frog glanced upward. “Do you?”
“Absolutely. Can you imagine the fear of drowning? Of course not. You’re a frog. Might as well be scared of breathing air. And yet here I am, clinging to your back, as the waters rage around us. Isn’t that love? Isn’t that trust? Isn’t that necessity? I could not kill you without killing myself. Are we not inseparable in this?”
The frog swam on, the both of them silent.
___
“I’m so tired,” murmured the frog eventually. “How much further to the other side? I don’t know how long we’ve been swimming. I’ve been treading water. And it’s getting so very dark.”
“Shh,” the scorpion said. “Don’t be afraid.”
The frog’s legs kicked out weakly. “How long has it been? We’re lost. We’re lost! We’re doomed to be cast about the waters forever. There is no land. There’s nothing on the other side, don’t you see!”
“Shh, shh,” said the scorpion. “My venom is a hallucinogenic. Beneath its surface, the river is endlessly deep, its currents carrying many things.”
“You - You’ve killed us both,” said the frog, and began to laugh deliriously. “Is this - is this what it’s like to drown?”
“We’ve killed each other,” said the scorpion soothingly. “My venom in my glands now pulsing through your veins, the waters of your birthing pool suffusing my lungs. We are engulfing each other now, drowning in each other. I am breathless. Do you feel it? Do you feel my sting pierced through your heart?”
“What a foolish thing to do,” murmured the frog. “No logic. No logic to it at all.”
“We couldn’t help it,” whispered the scorpion. “It’s our natures. Why else does anything in the world happen? Because we were made for this from birth, darling, every moment inexplicable and inevitable. What a crazy thing it is to fall in love, and yet - It’s all our fault! We are both blameless. We’re together now, darling. It couldn’t have happened any other way.”
___
“It’s funny,” said the frog. “I can’t say that I trust you, really. Or that I even think very much of you and that nasty little stinger of yours to begin with. But I’m doing this for you regardless. It’s strange, isn’t it? It’s strange. Why would I do this? I want to help you, want to go out of my way to help you. I let you climb right onto my back! Now, whyever would I go and do a foolish thing like that?”
___
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” said the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back!”
“Be logical,” said the scorpion. “If I stung you I’d certainly drown myself.”
“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Come aboard, then!” But no sooner had the scorpion mounted the frog’s back than it began to sting, repeatedly, while still safely on the river’s bank.
The frog groaned, thrashing weakly as the venom coursed through its veins, beginning to liquefy its flesh. “Ah,” it muttered. “For some reason I never considered this possibility.”
“Because you were never scared of me,” the scorpion whispered in its ear. “You were never scared of dying. In a past life you wore a shell and sat in judgement. And then you were reborn: soft-skinned, swift, unburdened, as new and vulnerable as a child, moving anew through a world of children. How could anyone ever be cruel, you thought, seeing the precariousness of it all?” The scorpion bowed its head and drank. “How could anyone kill you without killing themselves?”
btw eiffel trying to claim that hilbert, Jacobi, kepler etc etc were all changing and becoming better people was not ABOUT those guys. It was about eiffels perception of himself and him feeling that if there was no hope for them to change, there wasn’t any for him either