territorial pissings

So I wanted to write about how much I absolutely love Steven Universe. How it's basically the cartoon I wish I'd had around when I was 10 or so. Caveat; I might be really wrong here. I just wanted to write about it.

Something people like about the show is inclusion of Queer characters. I think this works because Queerness is much more a McGuffin than an all-embracing plot point. The Gems are lesbians not because it's important that they're lesbians, but because it's important that they are able to fuse and have romantic relationships, and hey, they're female. Rose is bisexual because her relationships with Pearl and Greg becomes a vital plot point. Stevonnie is MtF (sort of) because the relationship between Steven and Connie is crucial, and having Steven transition (sort of) facilitates that.

The result are stories which are what LGBT+ people want to see; not about Queers having to accept themselves and fight for acceptance in their own and larger communities, but simply representational stories in which someone with your identity is actually a main character for a change. It's like SU fell out of a wormhole from 40 years in a nicer future, when nobody really cares too much about orientation or assigned birth gender.

Far more important to those characters is that they're all affected by a long-past interstellar rebellion turned mopping up exercise, which might become very active and very deadly any time now. "Affected by a long-past interstellar rebellion turned mopping up exercise, which might become very active" sounds like the background to a favorite anime.

I'm old enough to remember when anime was still a huge revelation to us American kids -- you mean people did cartoons with big, long story arcs, that sprung surprises on you? (I love how SU still surprises me. We the viewers learn about the Gem War and Homeworld along with Steven and it really gives Homeworld this aspect of looming threat. For a while I thought Rose was one of the Diamonds, gone rogue -- now I know that she actually killed that Diamond, and there's a fullness of story I wasn't anticipating.) You mean people did cartoons with awesome giant swords, giant robots, and consequences like actual romance, or death? Whoa.

Steven Universe manages to do a lot of that classic anime storybuilding and still be very much an American show. You'll put on an episode with Steven being the classic slightly bratty American protagonist obsessed with doughnuts and Dogcopter, and then next episode there'll be some gigantic plot exploration that ends with him shivering in a ball as he realizes he -- and his mother -- are capable of doing terrible things. That sort of thing. Whoa.

I grew up with a lot of kid-focused media being soft-pedaled and I think children understand that the world is full of incredible hurt. Now that I'm older, I really appreciate that Steven Universe isn't really made for me; that it's intended as something an 8-16 year old might watch.

So... parental adults who are deeply, deeply flawed, and yet they aren't just a bad Simpsons joke, they're clearly capable caregivers? Finding independence from well-meaning but controlling parents? Having Pearl and Bismuth step beyond assigned societal roles to become truly expert at what they prefer? Trying to sort out the emotional mess of a caregiver having died? That you can be a chunky little kid and still be a fantastic athlete? Simply having a male apparently-white protagonist, only this time, it's okay that he's emotional, caring, and that his superpowers are about defense and healing? Heck, putting mindfulness to work for you?

This is all good stuff; things I would like my kids to see if I had kids, things I wish I'd seen in a cartoon when I was 10, and it's not phrased with the heavyhanded moralism of earlier cartoons.

The other thing about age here is that SU does a great job with "not everyone watching this is going to be 8-16." I was completely floored when the show included Yellow Submarine's Dreadful Flying Glove; I was completely floored when Jasper pounds the bejeebers out of corrupted monsters in subarctic Canada, and it's basically riffing on Sabertooth. I was never a Dragonball fan enough to watch the Rubies emerge from their spacecraft and go "oh wow it's a Dragonball reference!" But I know that happened.

The show is not perfect. But no show is, y'know? I'll definitely settle for an-at-least-okay-show-which-can-be-amazing. There are some episodes which aren't at all my thing, and that's cool; I've seen someone really tear into the show about racial presentation, and yeah they had valid points, but ultimately it's a more important to me that a cartoon actually have representation at all, than that it's a perfect representation.

And from here out we get into the art style. I think I'm going to settle down now, because there's no way I can praise the art style (especially those backgrounds!) without babbling incoherently about stylization and color use.

Was thinking. Skill builds on itself. The more I experience and the more skilled I get, the more I can get more out of experience and training to plug back in; my brain's now capable of understanding the pattern, and improvising off that.

So now I am thinking what consists of natural talent is the initial core of material to plug into, build and improvise off of; the "talented" person is much more the person who can hit the ground running, where the rest of us need to stretch out, warm up.

It's not like Mozart started out as late-20s-something-Mozart, it's more like Mozart as a 10 year old prodigy had a lot more of the stuff that he could work with to build 28-year-old-Mozart skills.

You just drank the 19th century’s most brilliant scientific mind dude. #vanhelsing

Their main agricultural product is torches. And absinthe! #vanhelsing

His face rings a bell! #vanhelsing

We just keep all this crap under major pilgrimage site, nobody cares. #vanhelsing

Gee this ring with a little dragon couldn’t be related to Dracula. #vanhelsing

Transylvania where the rulers have been very stationary Roma for centuries somehow. #vanhelsing

I’m glad we caught you at home. Can we use your phone? We’re both in a bit of a hurry. #vanhelsing

Gee cause the locals have had no experience with vampires the last 500 years. #vanhelsing

“I can sense fresh blood rushing through her veins.” Actually that’s deoxygenated blood. #vanhelsing

Curse this loveless undead existence. The eternal night filled with naught but 5 dots in Dominate and 3 Celerity. #vanhelsing

Their house is a museum where people come to see ‘em. #vanhelsing

Jonesy! Jonesy! Miao! #vanhelsing

He transforms into a werewolf and no horse tonker? #vanhelsing

Let’s go hunting werewolves after dark kinda like I said was a bad idea 8 minutes ago. #vanhelsing

“Why do you do it, this job of yours?” Oh, dental, 401k. The usual. #vanhelsing

Looks like some sorta secretion. Yeah but secreted from what? #vanhelsing

“How do you know me?” Oh your FetLife profile. #vanhelsing

He vould hev a gigantic Schwanstuecker. #vanhelsing

On the internet nobody knows you’re a lifeless mockery of human existence created by late 19th century science. #vanhelsing

Your family’s hunted vampires for centuries and NOW you’re surprised Dracula has no heartbeat. #vanhelsing

Uttidi! #vanhelsing

“He isn’t evil!” Yes but the monster isn’t Frankenstein either. #vanhelsing

“Go! Find the cure!” But I like Sisters of Mercy more. #vanhelsing

He loses more ceiling-cycling midget lab assistants that way. #vanhelsing

We put the acid vat right in the middle of the lab where it’s most useful. #vanhelsing

He remains a werewolf long enough to get in one last cliche. #vanhelsing

Her grandson’s gonna find her burned mask and vow to finish what she started. #vanhelsing

Zootopia turned out to be really awesome. I was expecting it to be something like Big Hero 6, which was technically spot-on in so many ways and yet never became a compelling story.

I don't think this is a huge spoiler, but with this one, the protagonists actually have real growth and real feelings of loss - and even though the movie ends with a lot of hope, it's more realistic, more nuanced. These are characters 'way more sympathetic than Disney's had for a while now, so I came away loving the movie, and I think I would have if they were cartoon humans.

Another not-really-a-spoiler is that the big character growth is on the main two protagonists, with little bits of really good characterization for some of the other characters, so it was much easier to care about those two.

Since I tend to get weepy during movies, I was expecting some part of this one would make me tear up. ( The spoiler. )

ooh look a collaboration between Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta. This screams EPIC right there. #FireNIce

BETWEEN THE TIME WHEN THE OCEANS DRANK ATLANTIS QUEEN JULIANA BORE 31 SONS AND SHE NAMED THEM ALL NECRON. WELL SHE DID! AND SHE'S SORRY!

In possibly the world's slowest D&D evil invasion ever they sent glaciers southwards. Nice Frazetta drawings though. #FireNIce

Wow, Death Dealer's in this movie! Necron's grimacing while flooding the village with an unstoppable white torrent, nothin' Freudian here.

Bakshi rules of storytelling; never waste time furthering the plot when you can spend it on rotoscoping something random instead. #FireNIce

BY THE SURLY BEARD OF MRIFK why did Brak or whatever his name is run away and abandon a perfectly good horseman's flail? #FireAndIce

AND NOW. LOW ANGLE SHOTS OF LOINCLOTH CLAD ASSES. AND AN ASSGRABBIN' SEQUENCE! FANTASSSSSYYYYY #FireAndIce

Nothing stands between the evil frost kingdom and Fire Keep except for a plain and this lush jungle full of Mallorn trees or something. #FnI

Good King Eyebrows and his daughter, the lovely Princess Aureole. Also rotoscoped in lush Deadboring-O-Vision (TM)! #FireAndIce

Okay I got distracted from a Bakshi film by an episode of Gravity Falls that had #dinosaurs and the #Underdark. How could I NOT be?

"Princess Aureole. YOUR duty is to writhe about on this couch in sheer silks next to a jaguar, because Frazetta." #FireAndIce

#FireAndIce drinking game. Drink every time it's appropriate to yell URATEK or I WASN'T ABOUT TO HANG AROUND HERE WITH MY DORK HANGING OUT.

And now badly rotoscoped Neanderthals because that's fascinating. STERN. STEEERRRRRRRN! #FireAndIce

The evil Neanderorcs are attacked by the fiendish _Iguanasaurus stenops_. Which I'm sure is relevant to SOME story if not this one.#FireNIce

LOOK SHE'S THE QUEEN SHE CAN DO WHATEVER SHE WANTS. #FireAndIce

MRIFK! And now 5 minutes of rotoscoped escape from dire wolves! And oh hey it's Death Dealer again. Hi Death Dealer! #FireandIce

Mrifk! Is anything actually GOING TO HAPPEN in this movie? I mean even if Dour the Barbarian just met A Real Torakian or whatevs. #FireNIce

URATEK! URATEK! and oh great. It only took the Neanderorcs like, a week to catch up to Brak and the Princess. #FireAndIce

Okay so now, days after Princess Aureole probably left, Brak's back! With Death Dealer, who turns out to be Gay Furry Batman! #FireAndIce

She uses her captured knife to cut her chains! They're like made of hardened wood like in Dark Sun or something. #FireAndIce

No, she's actually still chained to a Neanderorc while Batconan and Brak affect A RESCUE which I guess is supposed to be exciting. #FandI

Also you could seriously get plastered if you drank each time Animal yelling WO-MAN! WO-MAN! would fit into #FireAndIce.

Wait, why is there a party riding from Fire Keep on horses, instead of the Gor-ripoff-dragonhawk things? #FireAndIce

Princess Aureole has been brought to the hut of Thingizzard. (Beware her potions!) And then later the oral sex. #YesYesTheOralSex

So this whole thing was just a setup for Batconan to stand at the pinnacle of a cone of enemies like a Frazetta painting? Yep. #FireAndIce

OH YEAH THIS IS JUST LIKE THAT AWESOME PART WITH THE ZOMBIES AND THE B-17 no wait, it's just more #FireAndIce.

Did he really just say YOU KILLED MY MOTHER YOU KILLED MY PEOPLE? #FireAndIce

THERE IS A FELL VOICE IN THE WIND IT'S SARUMAN no wait that might actually be interesting. Oh look, Batconan's rescued Brak again.#FireNIce

Well, Necron doesn't consider snub fighters a threat. A dragonhawk with a proton torpedo could disable the glacier's heat sink. #FireAndIce

"Lock S-foils in attack position. All Star Wars quotes full front!" "Will you look at the size of that thing?" "Cut the chatter, Red Two."

From somewhere Batconan's acquired a horse to pose on dramatically. AND SOMETHING SOMETHING A NEW TORAKIAN SOMETHING. #FireAndIce

The Buddha compared anger to a hot coal grasped to throw at an opponent. Keep hold of it, you harm only yourself.

And that's true, but to keep with that metaphor, I hate feeling that I always have to drop the coal. I tend to think of this as "dropping it is what a good person would do," and that doesn't really fit Buddhist thinking. What sounds more "Buddhist" to me is "figure out something else to do with the coal such that I feel like I've accomplished something, when I can't throw the coal and I don't feel satisfied with dropping it."

Historically I've tended to dismiss the idea of art as "something to do with my anger" because when I'm drawing, I'm usually happy! And I tend to avoid using art as a way to process stuff that upsets me - like I really hate political cartoons for the most part, I hate the idea of making the complex way that people come to beliefs, even compassionate or hateful ones, into literal cartoon all-or-nothing thinking.

But, maybe there's a way I can see my significant anger and sadness as powering my artwork, even when it isn't a literal "I make art to express my rage."

Thoughts?

More thinking about the movie;( Major spoilers! )

About Dolezal, race, and transgender issues;

Okay, first off; nobody questioned her ethnicity before I think because they assumed "well, who'd want to fake being one of us and put up with the bullshit we go through?" This is at a slightly different level from the usual way people may claim First Nations ancestry while not having to put up with the worst gunk Indians put up with (a little more on that below as that is hugely about money).

So setting aside my biases (I'm obviously pretty biased towards transgender folks, as we're talking about my friends here, and by definition that means I trust what they say); why would someone claim to be, and bust all kinds of ass to find recognition as, a largely less empowered group? Usually the only answer to that is "someone who's finding a solid footing in identity which they'd previously lacked." You'll notice that there are thousands of people who transition gender; thousands of people who bust all sorts of ass to feel more in touch with their heritage, even if it's a heritage which has been largely undervalued; there are even a few dozen people each year who decide they're going to put up with the bullshit Jews face, because a Jewish identity is comfortable at some level. By comparison this makes one person who used her ability to pass as Black to her advantage (and if she passes visually, that implies it isn't always advantageous for her either with white or Black people!). One.

Which of course gets to my next point. Which is better, that you give everyone the benefit of the doubt and one or relatively few people exploit that? Or that you give nobody the benefit of the doubt, avoiding any chance of manipulation at the cost of being less compassionate? The choice here is obvious if you're more inclined to be a berkenstocky love-fest softy or if you're more obsessed with punishment, threat and wrong. Remember we're the same society that eagerly makes poor people jump through hoops to prove they might merit benefits, with prominent members who feel basic health care deserves being earned somehow, who feel we need stricter and less questioned law-enforcement. And one can see that attitude manifest elswhere in race and gender discussion. The giant outpouring of condemnation indicates something very basically nasty and vicious about people's belief in threat.

In fact I'll also point out that I feel this whole thing has been presented in a horribly prejudicial manner. I don't know much at all about Spokane, but I can tell you that if I were going to mention a place right on the frontlines of civil rights disputes I'd probably name some place like LA, Oakland, Chicago, or NYC. Even Baltimore or St. Louis wouldn't be places I would not think of without knowing better; Spokane's way down the list. The worst thing Ms. Dolezal's apparently done is claim descent she doesn't have. Compare this to how the media might handle similar right-wingers or what offenses they might offer.

Lastly, again, I would like to mention that as Americans we have a huge blind spot about money where race, and gender, issues are concerned. We seem to adore making racism, sexism and homophobia into clear cut topics devoid of financial impact; the bad guys are some obvious racist screaming the N word while curb-stomping a Black kid, or from the other side, a hypothetical "fake" woman sneaking peeks at high school girls in the shower or someone not actually Black claiming they are, that sort of thing.

Yet you look at all of this, and a lot of it's about money. Even something as basic as "I can't get married, which impacts my taxes and health insurance costs, or credit to get a car or house" is a huge thing and that barely gets into stuff like covering the costs of HRT and therapy, or trying to support a family on a fast-food-worker's current salary, or the way it's more affordable for poor Latinos trying to get a footing to live by a refinery, and just what that means to health. I keep feeling that a lot of gunk going on in this society requires better infrastructure and regulation to resolve, and infrastructure or regulation are anathema as they might cost the wealthiest few in this country a little bit of profits (tell me, what definition of capitalism doesn't benefit from having a larger number of healthier consumers with more income to buy product?). And I find this frustrating.

So I saw Mad Max; Fury Road. It's ridiculously awesome. If you're the sort of person who went "I wish the truck chase in Raiders of the Lost Ark lasted an hour," this is your movie. Some thoughts; ( Spoilers below )

Toon x DnD; black and white Fleischer inspired dungeon with improbable traps (per Bingo's Initiation), (1/6)

monsters appearing must really be able to squash and stretch and can be imagined as being voiced by Cab Calloway (ropers/mimics/etc); (2/6)

characters start with a limited number of Musical Routine Points, which they can use to nullify trap/monster effects, (3/6)

and may earn more "MRPs" by describing the musical routine or by creating lyrics. (4/6)

Scenario is timed to mimic length of a 1930s animated short. If the PCs have remaining MRPs, they loot the dungeon with a happy dance. (5/6)

If the PCs have no remaining MRPs characters are assumed to have raced home in one of those weirdly anticlimactic Fleischer endings. (6/6)

OH YEAH MICHAEL WHELAN.

What makes it a GOLDEN SPIRAL? GOLDEN PASTRY. With REAL FRUIT FILLING. You get a big delight in every bite of this old compositional rule!

And then you subdivide your composition by a square, and then a smaller square, and then a still smaller square... #GoldenRatio

until eventually you stop trying to actually draw something and just obsessively construct smaller and smaller squares. #GoldenRatio

AND YOU CAN'T AVOID THE #GoldenRatio OR THE #RuleOfThirds. YOU ARE STUCK BEING OLD RENAISSANCE MASTER BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE...

NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO COMPOSITIONALLY, YOU MUST, AND WILL, SUBMIT. So chill out, 'cause if it isn't utter shit you probably did it right!

guys guys THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING so I woke up early and hungry and walked 2+ miles to and from breakfast and then my hosts woke up hungry.

So we made breakfast and now I'm HAVING SECOND BREAKFAST, in a place FULL OF FERNS. In my bare feet. I'M LIVING THE HOBBIT DREAM.

Any moment now I'm going to start smoking and singing bad filk about Beren Half-Hand and Luthien the Fair, or about how I like hot baths.

Oh water cold we may pour in need down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed!" (I'm enough of a nerd to do this from memory...)

"But better is BEER if drink we lack and water hot poured down the back!"

* deletes meaningless musical number about hot baths to make space for meaningless action sequence in movie.*

JRRT; look this is my fanfic so I'm including a folk song which doesn't further the plot but builds the idea that middle earth is old & big.

PJ; look this is my fanfic so I'm including a part with high angle shots of Bombur rolling over orcs in slow motion, to "Spybreak."