The Power Cut Previews: The Superpowers

Is it just me or does she give off Harry Du Bois vibes?

Having an extremely specific problem after trying a traditional pencil crayon look for an older Tattletale portrait. Somehow, during the slow work from grubby sketch to rendering, she became way too hot. And said traditional art style means I can’t change this with regular digital tools, I have to redraw sections of her face entirely.

That I did with optical colour mixing using hatching and a limited palette.

Do I roll with hot Tattletale or do I suffer?

Number one takeaway I had from worm was... damn these bitches gay

The following tinkers are all given 2 months to create a basketball team of 5-9 players. These teams have to be entirely made of their creations.

The only limitations are everything has to be bipedal and have a vaguely humanoid shape, cannot have more than 8 limbs (tails count), and cannot be above 7 foot tall.

They then do a tournament. Assume that those that can't explicitly create drones (i.e mannequin) can turn existing stuff into drones. So mannequin could create a drone version of his current weird body as a 'player'.

Directly attacking other players is not allowed but indirectly is. Any damage is repaired between matches. Distorting the field by doing things such as creating acid pools is allowed, so long as the hoop itself is still accessible. Blocking the hoop in any way is not permitted. The ball must be accessible at all times - no teleporting it to alternate dimensions. No teleporting in general, and ball modification is not permitted. Flight or wall climbing is not permitted.

Anything else goes.

Stupid thought I kind of believe: no one can agree on what "neoliberalism" means, but extensionally it's "whatever we've been doing, economically, for the past few decades."

Therefore, a major component of neoliberalism must be degrowth. It might be neoliberalism's fatal flaw!

These images from J. Michael Straczynski's Rising Stars gestures in the same direction I was gesturing with that Aquaman post- there's a really interesting archetype in superpower fiction consisting of characters who "Step Outside" in the way described here. Superhumans who remove themselves from society- not in a "kneel before me" way, but simply out of recognizing that participating in society in a conventional manner offers them significantly less than it does an average person (though not nothing- insert that MP100 monologue about "can you make a soda can.") Libertarians who fuck off to the moon and carve a Gadsen snake visible from earth, that kind of guy.

Invincible featured the title character gradually sliding into something adjacent to this as he realized that he was just sort of going through the motions by attending college and so on, when his girlfriend can wish a house into existence and the Cecil throws money at him to do stuff he'd do for free. The entire main cast of The Power Fantasy is doing something like this- you're most likely in no danger if you see one of the Superpowers walking down the street but most of them probably haven't paid for a meal in years (unless they insist on paying, which wraps back around to having the same dynamic as not paying.) Superman yo-yos on the topic of how accountable he makes himself to human governments, but I strongly doubt he got a permit for that fuckoff-huge fortress in the arctic. And so on. Obviously not all superhumans can get away with this- Spider-Man is held back from becoming a full-time bank robber by way more than just his conscience. But whether they could get away with this is a great characterization question to ask of any superhuman, and it's a door you can't really close once it's open- any decision they do make from that point forward will be implicitly contrasted against their everpresent option to just Hit Da Bricks.

The interesting thing about Masumi is that for all that her condition is tragic, the story doesn't pull punches on the fact that she's also kind of a self-centered dick.

Shea a person with a continuous need for praise and positive emotions or millions, possibly everyone, dies.

And she chooses to go into art. She goes into a field with tons of competition and purely subjective results and is thereby bringing everyone else on earth, Including 4 of the most powerful people on earth, along for the stroke-my-ego ride.

And no one can tell her no, can tell her to back off, because that conversation might put her over the edge and turn her into a giant monster. She has a girlfriend who cannot break up with her because that would kill her.

It's a tragic situation to be in, it's sucky to know that everyone around you is taking reactions out of fear, but she very clearly isn't helping, and years of being treated that way have not helped.

I really love how Taylor can either hold a grudge forever or have it disappear alarmingly fast, and it all depends on if she acts on her anger at first. Like she forgives and is willing to work with Sophia after the bullying, Lung after he tried to kill her, Rachel after she tried to fuck her over, Defiant after the everything. Like most people wouldn't forgive all those acts and trust those people afterwards, but she hardly even considers otherwise because she believes that people should work together against unbeatable foes despite their differences and when she fights alongside someone she kind of just forgets the things they've done.

When she acts on something though, when she acts immediately in an irreversible way the people she lashes out against are immediately marked as 100% irredeemable evil bastards in her mind. Alexandria, she doesn't regret the murder in the slightest despite the fact that it had consequences and Alexandria isn't a being of pure evil. Since she killed her she has to convince herself that it was right and just and that she doesn't regret it, which erases any nuance Alexandria had in her mind that would lead to her forgiving her. She does this again a buncha times throughout the book. Against the C53s in the Cauldron raid she thinks about how everyone in the crowd could be innocent, forced to go along with the mob out of fear that they'll be next and with no chance or choice of getting away and being peaceful. But then she dangles a disintegration knife into all their faces to kill Mantellum and suddenly they're all monsters who delighted in torturing innocents and all voluntary members of the mob and none of them deserved any mercy because they're Evil Bad People, so she'll never lose sleep or forgive them.

Aisha points something like this out in 29.5 actually, she says her and Alec had an argument over it because Alec was annoyed at how quickly and easily Taylor stopped being mad at her bullies and didn't want revenge. I think Alec equated Sophia to Heartbreaker in his mind because they caused both their respective triggers, and he can't fathom the idea of someone not wanting to slowly torture and kill their Heartbreaker to make them feel an ounce of the pain he felt, and honestly Alec is the normal one here I think? I think most parahumans would get revenge on the people who caused their triggers in a heartbeat if given an opportunity, and honestly poor Alec imagine trying to understand and make sense of your dulled emotions and Taylor Hebert is there as the worst example ever with her weirdo decisions. Aisha defended Taylor and her choice to not get revenge but she still got revenge for Alec because she hold grudges for herself and other people.

Letting go of hatred to someone isn't something other people can really do like Taylor. Going back to Aisha, she fucking despised Bonesaw during Gold Morning and hated how she got a redemption, but Taylor was fully willing to work with someone who sawed her skull open for the greater good when it would be completely fair for her to never want to get help from her. Idk what my point is here I just think it's really neat that unless someone is her enemy right then and there or unless she already killed that person and sorted them into the Bad Person Category, Taylor is willing to forgive anything and everything to make sure everyone works together.

i cant stop thinking about brian at pride. he keeps getting hit on and he's going sorry im just here to support my sister and then aisha goes what IM here to support YOU and he has an internal panic attack until she cant hold her laughter in anymore

I somehow, in what was probably a moment of poor judgement, convinced my mother to read worm.

Highlights so far (shes on 7.10):

thinking Coil was spelt Coli and pronounced Coil-ee (she refuses to wear glasses)

not knowing the names of any characters

thinking Taylor is 'very practical' in reference to her cutting Lung's eyes out

just complete incomprehension at the incompetence of Taylor's teachers and the PRT

saying that she would have attacked the trio if she were Taylor

not catching any of the Wolfspider content (tbf, this is a bi woman who doesn't call herself queer because she has never been in a relationship with a woman, so her ability to detect queerness is hardly the best)

being very mad at me for not telling her why Emma is bullying Taylor

Anyway, shes only a chapter away from the Dinah reveal and a couple of chapters from Leviathan, so I'm quite excited.

My WORM trailer storyboards for my class!!!

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Hey all!! Been a while lol, I still exist, and I'm still insane about worm! Enjoy my 16-shot storyboard I made for class! I plan to maybe animate this someday, let me know what you think!