Favorite - Tumblr Posts
cool drag transformation (im on episode 115 so please no spoilers)
scream (1996) and rope (1948) are basically the same movie in different fonts if you ask me
Cupioromantic Angel - final version. Flat colors, transparent background, linework under the cut.
Read the FAQ and follow the campaign: Pride Angels.
shoutout to gay detectives and their husbands across history
submissive in the way a livestock guardian dog is submissive to the sheep it kills wolves for
DID YOU THINK YOU WERE GOD, BRANDON?
redraw of an old piece i did back in sept 2023, shown below the cut. i apparently forgot to upload it to tumblr when i drew it then.. gg.
ignore the mistake on phillip's pant legs ok. just ignore
Trying to figure out how to draw these guys from memory…. so hard.. idk how you guys do it 💀💀
Holy crap, the High Geologist is better than before. One of my beloved posts I have a parasocial relationship with....
The Ever-Faithful Robot
I love robots.
Like, I really love them; more than people, often.
They’re amongst my list of favourite things, along with dragons, lasers, dinosaurs, Christmas lights, and, peppermint.
Honestly, I want a Roomba JUST for it to be my cute little friend (because, honestly, I hear they’re not the greatest at actually vacuuming yet, but, I hear they’re developing new ones!)
Lucky for us, there have been some amazing robots is recent development and media, the most recent being the awesome robots in Interstellar, and, the adorable Baymax, of Big Hero 6.
Most robots are in at least one, if not more, of the following categories:
A) Adorable Robots
B) Past-Meets-Future Robots
C) Murderous Robots
The amazing thing about the robots in Intersteller is that they really challenged the usual robotic archetypes. They were fun, unique, smart, and refreshing.
However, we love our classically cute robots because we find their quirky personalities, and their flaws, endearing, and, we love the past-meets-future robots because it gives an intriguing contrast of time, and it gives us a sense of belonging and understanding in such an unknown period, the future. Also, it’s just funny to see what horrible technology people used to find futuristic. Despite how much I love blinking lights, why anyone thought literally walls of unlabelled blinking lights was the way of the future, I’ll never understand. Both categories give us a much needed break in tension, and often comedic relief. Space is a cold, brutal place, which usually breaks our hearts. So, we count on our dependable robots to get us through the dark times… Literally….
Whereas we love the quirky, childish tendencies of most robots, that appeal to our humanity, we ironically love the silent, oozing horror of the lack of humanity in murderous robots. They can’t be reasoned with, bargained with, bribed, starved, poisoned, and can survive without oxygen, a helpful quality for space, if they’re in space, which they often are. The thing about murderous robots is they’re such scarier in lesser numbers. Like with Alien, Terminator was horrifying because there was a SINGLE nearly invincible robot trying to hunt you. The war concept for Terminator was an interesting passing detail, but, the trailer for the newest Terminator movie, which inspired this post, made me realise why I lost interest in the series. It’s just a depressing war series now. I feel like the mystery and horror is gone. Jaws, Alien, Predator, Terminator, The Most Dangerous Game, and countless other horrifying stories leaned heavily on the idea that a single entity, or a small group, desires to hunt and destroy you, and has the overwhelming ability to. This style leans heavily on music, lighting, cinematography, directing, and more on what isn’t seen and what isn’t known, than what is. I feel this style is more interesting.
All in all, though, I love robots.
Especially Baymax. He’s friggin adorable. Definitely in the running for one of the cutest robots of all time.
Whether it’s the glimpses of humanity we look for in robots, or the lack thereof, robots are only going to become more and more of reality. They’re already changing the job market. What happens when most jobs are done by robots? Like it or not, they’re here to stay; don’t piss them off.
Joshua's Decently-Sized Questionnaire
Beginning Note:
Tag who you want; answer what you want; deflect any question you want with whatever snarky answer you want. I don’t really care, nor should anyone else. The point is to get to know each other, right? Go, be free, my little ones.
1. Preferred Nicknames: Joshie or Hedgie 2. Age: 25 years old 3. Dream job: Writer or Talk Show Host 4. Your 3 Biggest Achievements in the Last Year: Losing 80 pounds; Buying a New Car; Getting and keeping a job at Starbucks 5. Biggest Goal in the Next Year: Pursue my desire toward a career in Group Management, Leadership, and Investing. 6. Favourite Robot: GLaDOS… You monster… 7. Favourite Colours: Purple and yellow 8. Favourite Animals: Hedgehogs, owls, foxes, and otters 9. Favourite Flower: Daffodils 10. Favourite Video Game: Bioshock Infinite 11. Favourite Real Villain in History: Velociraptors 12. Favourite Magical/Mythological Creature: Dragons 13. Favourite Monster: Cthulhu 14. Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff 15. Favourite Book Series: Harry Potter 16. Qualities You Admire most in a Person: Mercy and grace 17. Favourite Bedroom Decor: Christmas lights 18. Favourite Added Flavour: Peppermint 19. Favourite Food Dish: Caesar Salad (with chicken or salmon) 20. Favourite Musical: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee 21. Favourite Comic: The Walking Dead 22. Favourite Board Game: Betrayal at the House on the Hill 23. Favourite Card Game: Cards Against Humanity 24. Favourite Cards Against Humanity Card: Fuck Mountain 25. Favourite Breakfast: Most things involving eggs 26. Favourite Thing to Do Alone: Read 27. Favourite Modern Technology: Robots and lasers 28. Most Important Piece of Clothing: A hoodie 29. Where do you most want to travel to and visit: The UK 30. Favourite Ice Cream Flavours: Whiskey Coffee, Stout, and Mint Chip 31. What Superpower Would You Choose: Healing 32. Favourite Superhero: Batman 33. If You Had to Have Your Birthday on a Holiday, Which Would You Choose: Arbor Day 34. Favourite Quality in a Bar/Lounge/Club: Decent lighting, and, comfy chairs. 35. Favourite YouTube Video: The Death and Return of Superman 36. Favourite Movie Trilogy: Star Wars IV-VI 37. Favourite Band: Nickel Creek 38. Favourite Pokèmon: Dragonite 39. Video Games That Made You Cry: Ni No Kuni; The Last of Us; Red Dead Redemption 40. Comic Character You Thought You’d Hate, but Didn’t: Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) 41. Favourite Anime: Princess Jellyfish 42. That Sport That You Call A “Real” Sport: Soccer 43. Favourite Hangout Spot: Coffee Shops 44. Something Not Many People Know: I’m surprisingly introverted 45. Favourite Sound: The ocean shore 46. Something You’re Insecure About: Whether or not I’m a good kisser 47. What You Want Most in Life: To spend the rest of my life with someone that loves me. 48. What You Want Them to Say at Your Funeral: This man loved people, and it mattered. 49. Guilty Pleasure: Gummies and Peppermint 50. What is the Most Essential Ingredient to a Good Sandwich: Avocado
I was high off my ass last night and had this dream where I was in this dense ass forest and sitting there was a tall woman. She was so tall I couldn’t see her face but she was wearing gold and I was like “uh…hi?” And she said “I made you, do you know that?” And I nodded and she was like “I hear your thoughts. Why do you hate my creation? Why do you try to destroy yourself? I made you perfect as you are. Please don’t break my heart”. Then she started crying and it flooded and I woke up with fucking heart palpitations like what does it Mean™️????
Canon irken eye colors
All the time I see all these fancy ocs with really bright ass eye colors and a wide variety of them too!!! And it got me thinking...
Do we even actually see all of these colors in the show?
So I'm gonna compile a list of all the eye colors we actually do see in irkens :-)
Starting with four images:
1) Is all of the irken invaders lined up together! Look at all those eyes just ready for conquest. No. no not really ANYWAYS here you can really only see a few colors: Magenta, maroon, fuchsia, and surprisingly, a pale red, a dirty orange-red, dirty yellow, and a lavender from Zee! Honestly the magenta and fuchsia are kind of a stretch because. The show irkens eyes are all really dark and dim compared to the movie. They get super duper saturated there.
2) Redrick and Ourp themselves... self-explanatory. We actually see a shitton more purple irkens than we do red ones!! At least main-character-for-single-episodes irkens. Sizz-Lorr and Tak <3 then there's also the Tallest's advisor, who has muddied green eyes!!!
3) Very light blue/teal!!! I'm not attributing the brightness to shading at all because the skin looks normal-colored. I'm fairly certain this is the ONLY guy with this color of eyes.
4) All the navigators together because they're all beautiful <3 If you look at the green closely you'll notice that it's all actually leaning more towards blue than yellow.
Now, what do we do with this information?
Speculate :3 it's what I do best!!
Bear with me though for these poor edits. I'm on my phone at four AM making this post.
Here's a color wheel where I blotched out all the colors that I don't believe exist for irken eyes :-) We don't see a lot of dark shades of colors so even the dark reds or magentas might be a stretch but we also really don't see any bright yellows or oranges. They're all really muddied and shaded when we do see them! And we also don't see any saturated or dark blues -- opposite to yellows, we only see bright blues!
This wheel is notably missing cyan but. I'll go out to say that that's probably not an irken eye color either. Or it is, but it's super duper rare for an irken to have that color.
It's also missing the really saturated fuchsias and magentas that we know are there because of the movie irkens... but shh......
Anyways. What did we get out of this ramble?? Idk. That having shit stain brown eyes is more common than having baby blue ones and that Miyuki probably didn't have cyan eyes.
I'm gonna go back to sleep now and contemplate changing my orange-eyed irken to be rust colored :) goodnight
A Speculative Analysis About Irkens No One Asked For: Part I
Dem green fellas. Them lil guys, they’re an interesting pack of critters, aren’t they?
I used to really fixate on them back in middle and high school, stronger than everyone else seemed to be on the spazz in the dog costume. Jhonen Vasquez’s worldbuilding has always towed a very fine line between nonsensically ridiculous and surprisingly logistical, and this balance is typified in everything we know, and can infer, about these bug-eyed imperialists at the center of everything Invader Zim. So, let’s infer, and take a crack at it since no one’s stopping us anyway- More specifically, some thoughts and ponderings I had about how they “tick” as a fully realized society, not just a sci-fi monster..
A Homeworld Obscured
Now, to really understand the history and “deal” of any civilization, or any animal, usually you would turn to their environment first to give you some handy clues and context.
Small problem, though: We actually don’t get much in the way of direct, explicit showing or explanations about Irk itself when it comes to the show. This makes some sense, given that the whole of what they do worth showing (and the most notable members of their kind) exists almost entirely off-world. So instead, we mostly find out more about Irk from what Invader Zim does tell us about its natives. As far as confirmed canon goes, we know that Irk’s atmosphere appears red, its surface is entirely and densely urbanized, and it’s long been depicted in starmaps with a set of Saturn-like rings.
This last fact is probably the most interesting, because planetary rings are usually something we, in our own little solar system, would only associate with massive, gaseous worlds, not terrestrial ones. What These rings are made of is really anyone’s guess- could be ancient debris from natural satellites, Water-ice particles, maybe even some form of artificial defense network put into orbit by the Irkens themselves. If they aren’t artificially created, this would suggest that Irk has quite a strong gravitational field- greater than that of any of our neighborhood’s rocky planets. This is the common theory I personally like to subscribe to, because it would also go hand and hand with explaining why the average height of the irken race is so much shorter compared to that of an adult human. It fits neatly into the “why” question for the sort of athletic skill and agility we’ve seen invaders able to demonstrate on Earth, too, for otherwise being of meek physical prowess. It even adds some credible context for why the very achievement of growing to a more substaintial height is both uncommon and associated with extreme survival fitness to them.
A Fun fact that’s about to be relevant: “Rayleigh scattering” is the term given to when light wavelengths become shifted and scattered through an atmosphere medium. Long story short, it’s the reason our sky has color to it during the day. Stay with me on this.
I’ve also seen some people take a go at the red-looking surface, guessing a different gas makeup than the elements on earth responsible for our blue skies. I’m gonna go against the grain here, and actually contest that. I think that Irk’s atmosphere is coincidentally extremely similar to Earth’s. We know well enough that they both have a similar composition of gases breathable to both societies, given that Zim, Skoodge, and Tak all seemed pretty comfortable without some form of assistance on the same dirtball as humanity. Instead, I propose that Irk’s magenta skies are actually the symptom of heavy pollution. Sunsets and sunrises in the real world are known to make the sky appear more reddish-orange, even pink, as is. Usually, Rayleigh scattering has the light From the sun appear bluish in full midday, but during low sun, the rays are coming at an angle making them have to travel farther before reaching us, so you have already stretched light waves getting the same treatment from the air and, well, a higher frequency blue turns down to the lower end of the spectrum, red and yellows.
And wouldn’t you know, air pollution can actually do the same thing. THIS is why there's a scary ass orange haze known to accompany the presence of massive forest fires and volcanic eruptions. Earth’s most polluted cities even experience longer and redder sunsets for the same reason.
Left: Image of a lilac sky over a Chinese city experiencing heavy smog levels Right: Intense red haze spotted over towns in Indonesia in the wake of rampant rainforest fires
On Earth, Zim stared directly into the midday sun without hesitation, nor concern that it would literally blind him. I think the planet hue and this is plenty enough to guess the likely case that Irk’s surface probably doesn’t get a lot of direct sun on an average day as is, and the sheer amount of unbroken cityscape that covers the homeworld would be the more obvious suspect than just having a more distant star from them. If they overcrowded to the point of their expansion, why build their civilization deeper into the ground, instead of up? Maybe there's actually a good reason or two they don’t raise their young topside.
A Psychology Molded for Domination
As well, I want to chirp about real world space again for a second. So, anyone up to the buzz in geek circles and aware of the math on the matter probably got the memo: humanity is almost matter-of-fact certainly not alone in this sandbox of a universe (or at the very least, we won’t always be alone). Like, about as certainly as we were about Black holes’ existence before we up and observed the real thing. And while it’s probably not going to happen in any of our lifetimes, sci-fi and media generally have been trying to take a crack for years at what the theoretical first contact with an alien civilization is going to look like.
And I’m gonna go ahead and say it,
As “cliche” and Hollywood as the conquering little green/grey dudes trope might have become… it’s actually not a wild take after all. The little and green thing, that’s creative liberty, but the part about them being hostile and something we may not actually even WANT to be aware of our existence? That’s an idea that even the smarty pants experts have been fearing the realistic odds of, even including the late Stephen Hawking .
The Evolution of intelligent life is a hard thing to really pin down and predict, given that we literally only have the one example to study. Under the right conditions, what reason would another advanced species NOT have to be equally as expanding, as exploitative of its resources, self-destructively short-sighted, and as supremacist as humans have already demonstrated themselves to be capable of? There is a lot of very interesting literature that suggests BOTH empathy/altruism and or aggression/tribalism to be (at least in the short term) very rewarding characteristics for an intelligent social species to develop.
And that’s the thing about the behavior of the Irken Armada I think has always been fascinating. Their drive to be the biggest definitionally invasive species across the cosmos is framed exactly as irrational, bumbling, and pointless as it deserves to be; however, is it not just the extended conclusion of every empire that has existed here on Earth, if only it had survived long enough to achieve the technology of Irk? And yet, it’s reminiscent, like the rest of their design, to the far from sapient, yet very real world creatures they appear to be most inspired by: hive and colony building arthropods. Whether the next point I'm about to touch on should be seen as a rejection of that resemblance, or further elaboration of it is anyone's to answer.
Transhumanism, or.. Transirkenism, in this case?
Like the specifics of what Irk really looks like and how it realistically works, a bunch about the aliens’ physical biology is left to scattered tidbits to ponder and piece together into a bigger picture. A few of those tidbits are as follows, drip-fed to us over the course of aired and scripted but never released episodes:
+ From the mouth of Vasquez himself, it has been confirmed that Irkens lack any form of reproductive organs. Instead, they rely on industrialized facilities to grow and produce them in a factory sense.
+ Yet curiously, they still demonstrate something akin to sexual dimorphism, or at least the cultural existence of masculine/feminine genders, where females are aesthetically set apart by the presence of curled antennae, eyelashes, and higher voices.
+ Irken lifespans are able to stretch far past that of an average human’s (Zim himself is cited to be around 2 centuries old in earth years).
+ Invader class soldiers have been implanted with surgical upgrades to their eyes.
+ Every Irken is fitted with a PAK that serves a wide array of utility and life-sustaining functions for its owner. These units are physically and neurologically connected into an Irken’s spine from “birth” and contain a cybernetic backup of an individual’s personality, assigned occupational programming, and memories.
That’s not close to a complete list by any means, but it’s got the gist of what I want to dwell on most, starting with the last bit; because the PAK isn’t done true justice in one statement. It is not an extra addition the way a prosthetic enhancement is, and it is not a tool the way armor and weapons are. It is literally analogous to a vital organ to these aliens, and they are shown to die within 10 minutes of being forcefully detached from their own.
The degree to which Irken bodies and minds rely on this technology, and how seamlessly they are integrated into it, ALONG with their completely artificial life cycle all directly points to the fact that their civilization has advanced into a cyborg-like stage of evolution. It may even be on track to reach a post-organical peak in due time, phasing out more and more of their “vestigial” and feeble meatsuits until they’ve become a true drone army. And that actually begs some huge questions now that we realize we will never know how much of the Irken anatomy was ever originally a natural feature. An Irken’s own brain practically comes secondary to the superior efficiency of the supercomputer on their back, capable of literally holding their own essence and being in the form of code. A code that can preserve the “self” even in the event of meatbody failure, being uploaded post-mortem into the Control Brains’ collective data and repurposed for a future generation of workers. It absolutely would stand to reason that the species has continued this biological self-tampering to other heights- extending their lifespans, incorporating untold amount of mechanical upgrades into their bodies, and maybe even genetically engineering their smeets to be so compatible with this technology. The control brains themselves are a mesmerizing reflection of this change over time- the result of an evident shift long ago from technology serving them, to them serving the directives of computers. When you really pay attention to the control brains’ role in the series, it comes clear to you who (or what) is really in charge of their society. The Tallest still maintain their symbolic/cultural importance to the Irkens, but outside of their part in spearheading the active intergalactic invasion, they ultimately are figureheads when it comes to actually running the homeworld and ruling the lives of Irk’s inhabitants. If I had to bet money, I would say the Brains may even have the ability to choose and predetermine the next Tallest when a replacement is needed. But what does that make the Tallest? A meaningless title and transformation, chosen arbitrarily by the AI overlords? Well, I don’t think so, actually… but maybe that, and more on the “meaty” morphology of their race is all a tangent fit for another day and post ;)