Also I have a vague idea for a fic or a comic? I don’t know if I’m capable of doing a comic at this point but it would be Nightbeat getting curious and borrowing Nautica’s wrench again, and turning the beam that cancels out attention-deflectors on Rung at Swerve’s, wondering if he might be some sort of natural attention deflector.
The results are spectacular.
At first Rung is confused, wondering why everybody is staring. Then somebody points out that he has five eyes. And horns. And he’s even more confused, until he looks at his hand, sees claws, and starts screaming because OH GOD WHAT? WHAT????!!!!
I like the idea of Rung being a secret eldritch thing without even knowing it. When the beam’s off him all the weird stuff disappears again, like, it literally stops existing and can’t be touched. Some sort of quantum bullslag, Nautica explains- it’s only physical while it’s being observed.
This probably has other consequences but for now just a fun monster!Rung idea.
I’ll try to draw more of this later.
I was weak so here’s an alternate ending. Rung as an angel of Primus, instead of a monster? I should try to combine these two designs.
I still insist on a bunch of thin flicky antennae and five eyes, tho.
I forgot I did this but I feel that this previous issue would have been a great time for Rung to have turned into Unicron and eaten somebody.
annelids like earthworms, bobbit worms and leeches have a simple hole for a mouth like we do, but nematode worms (their own completely different phylum) do tend to have the sci-fi alien sandworm mouth for real
What look like eyes are chemical sensors and sometimes those look like dizzy cartoon spirals:
One thing that makes Steve Trevor work in Wonder Woman is that they manage to hit the “Tries and fails to be protective” angle, but without any of the normal sexism you see in that trope.
It’s not “No honey, this is a job for a MAN, You can’t do that!” it’s “Diana! Stop! No! PEOPLE DIE WHEN THEY DO THAT! You can’t do that! I CAN’T DO THAT! NOBODY CAN DO THAT…Except You, apparently”
Yes! Exactly! And not only that but there’s no wounded pride scene where he goes like “How could she do that?”, “Why didn’t you tell me you could do that?” blah blah blah. Instead, he’s more like “Woah, can you show me more?” and “Hey guys, you know that thing we haven’t been able to do? SHE’S DOING THE THING! LET’S GO!”
I feel all of this exceptionally strongly for having Whedon’a script floating around out there, showing so starkly how to do all of this only wrong, only awful.
I hate most hetero relationships in films but honestly Steve’s romance with Diana was not only bearable but enjoyable to me in those moments.
After the first few times she shows him her abilities, he totally rolls with it and just lets her charge on ahead. He wants to protect her, but he trusts her skills and he’s practically giddy when she succeeds.
Steve never assumes Diana she can’t do things ‘because she’s a woman.’ He assumes, rather, that Diana has the same vulnerabilities as her fellow Amazons, a number of whom he personally watched get felled by bullets whilst battling gun-weilding fascists on a beach.
This is an entirely fair assumption to make considering even Diana, at the beginning of the film, does not realize that she is a god among mortals. Her mother raised her to think of herself as human.
Steve starts off assuming Diana is a highly competent, albeit human warrior, because she introduces herself to him as an Amazon, and he’s seen the Amazons in action. He knows what the Amazons are capable of. He’s seen them die from bullet wounds. He’s also seen them win a battle against technologically advanced fascists using only bows and arrows and parkour.
As soon as Steve realizes that Diana has godlike powers, he adjusts his expectations accordingly. He no longer expects her to have the vulnerabilities of a human warrior once she’s proven otherwise.
.
The thing about Steve is, he’s not consciously trying to be a feminist ally. He’s just reasonable.
He makes logical conclusions based on his observations. He draws new conclusions when he observes new phenomena that contradict his previous assumptions.
He uses basic common sense.
And that’s the beautiful thing about this screenplay. It does a great job of illustrating how illogical sexism is, and how diametrically opposed sexism is to common sense.
If you discover someone you were flirting with yesterday can repel bullets, the logical reaction is awe. A reasonable human being would be awestruck. It would be absurd to get defensive. Yet we, the audience, expect the male protagonist to get defensive because that’s what we’re used to seeing from male protagonists.
We are so used to male protagonists with comically inflated egos, that it’s shocking to see a male protagonist put common sense ahead of his ego. We are so used to seeing male protagonists make sexist assumptions that we are surprised when they instead draw logical conclusions.
The opposite of a sexist is a reasonable human being.
The moment when he yelled “DIANA, SHIELD” in order to help HER save the day actually made me cry in the theater
I learned in a Latin Studies class (with a chill white dude professor) that when the Europeans first saw Aztec cities they were stunned by the grid. The Aztecs had city planning and that there was no rational lay out to European cities at the time. No organization.
When the Spanish first arrived in Tenochtitlan (now downtown mexico city) they thought they were dreaming. They had arrived from incredibly unsanitary medieval Europe to a city five times the size of that century’s london with a working sewage system, artificial “floating gardens” (chinampas), a grid system, and aqueducts providing fresh water. Which wasn’t even for drinking! Water from the aqueducts was used for washing and bathing- they preferred using nearby mountain springs for drinking. Hygiene was a huge part if their culture, most people bathed twice a day while the king bathed at least four times a day.
Located on an island in the middle of a lake, they used advanced causeways to allow access to the mainland that could be cut off to let canoes through or to defend the city. The Spanish saw their buildings and towers and thought they were rising out of the water. The city was one of the most advanced societies at the time.
Anyone who thinks that Native Americans were the savages instead of the filthy, disease ridden colonizers who appeared on their land is a damn fool.
We’re giving Dungeons & Dragons another shot. My character for this campaign in an Aarakocra cleric.
I wasn’t quite satisfied with the canon design of “bird head on human-shaped body with angel wings tacked on the back”. I wanted to take a more anatomical approach to her, and so I have her wings as the primary limbs on her torso. Her arms are small and secondary, and tuck up next to the body when flying.
Her casting focus is that cat’s cradle, which has an actual feather from her goddess hanging from it as her holy symbol. As well as healing, she uses weather-based spells.
She’s on a quest… to do… something…? It was Very Important, she remembers that much. It was also Very Urgent and must be done As Soon As Possible, whatever it is. But she can’t quite seem to recall… Why exactly is she here?? And what was she doing???
Here’s me holding a common snapping turtle properly. Notice how my hands are on the sides of the shell, not putting weight pressure on the thinner front and back portions that connect to the spine. Here I’m supporting the turtle at 3 points. Two hands at the bridges (where the carapace and plastron meet) and one supporting his weight on my thigh. The bridges are thick parts of the shell that can handle the weight of the turtle without putting pressure directly on the spine. He did claw at me a little, but it’s hardly bad compared to other things that claw at me. He cannot reach me with his mouth, not that he tried really. This was comfortable and not very threatening for him.
It’s not an alligator snapping turtle, but even then I wouldn’t take one above 70lbs out because they simply are too heavy to be held comfortably by us and without putting pressure on their body.
The old tradition of holding the top of the shell behind the head perplexes me, because it puts all of the weight on that point (the front of the spine) and bends it back. It also would have no reason evolutionarily to support that area for weight bearing! Knowing that, how could anyone think that’s the only correct way?
This is a Gulper eel, a deep-sea fish rarely seen by humans. It is not actually an eel, though it’s a close relative. The most remarkable feature about it its the mouth, larger that the entire body and loosely hinged so that it can open extremely wide and swallow fish that are bigger than the eel itself, which are stored in a very stretchable stomach.
These images haunt me in a good and a bad way, I’m curious from which expedition these are. They’re so old, but weirdly HD.
BettSplendens Tumblr Evac 