WheezyDragons

But the more I think about it the more I think the opposite is where the comedy is.

Like:

More of my vis dev work for Bioshock: Infinite! (You can see my concepts for young Liz over yonder in this post)

Sooo I also got to work on designing Robert and Rosalind, who you end up meeting pretty early on in the game.  I’m only three hours in so I don’t know if their full names are spoilers yet, so I’m playing it safe. :)

So the problem with designing characters who become popular is that, if you’re a needy bastard like me who tracks the Lutece tags when you’re bored, you’re suddenly exposed to a ton of art of said characters in various states of undress.

I’m not one to discourage this sort of thing- no no, I have sketchbooks full of Remus/Sirius stuff from high school- but I figured I might as well give everyone a leg-up with a more detailed guide to Rosalind Lutece’s potential underthings.  I’ve seen a ton of drawings of her in corsets from a good 50 years before her time and I…  I needed to step in.

Think of this as a primer!  Not a be-all-end-all of Edwardian underthings (heck, I’m still learning this stuff), but it might teach you some new fashion terms/ideas you weren’t previously aware of!  Go forth, young padawan, and draw historically-accurate Rosalind porn to your heart’s content.

the murder acts as a vessel by which to deliver some kind of political commentary or moral message to the audience— largely stuff like, “government corruption is bad”, “be nice to marginalised people”, “the legal system sucks”, and so on. for obvious reasons, a lot of these messages in the 18-1900s focused on classism, financial abuse, and corruption in high society— which is why we HAVE the modern murder-mystery stereotype of A Bunch Of Rich People In A Big Mansion House Killing For Money. even in terms of detectives, there has always been political commentary— poirot and marple specifically are always dismissed by others on account of them being foreign and old respectively, and holmes and watson meet in the first place because they’re both poor and the latter was WIA. this stuff gets played for laughs a lot in modern adaptations, but it’s actually a big part of their personalities and the stories the authors are trying to tell.

murder mysteries have ALWAYS reflected the modern political climate, because they have always had to answer the question “in this day and age, what would people kill for?”. some constants remain— money, love, etc.— but a lot of the environmental context changes with age. good modern mysteries recognise this; i’m sure the killers in the thursday murder club, for example, would not be given half as much mercy in the 1900s as they are by modern viewers— and yet in today’s world, where we can recognise their pain as something that exists within the context of modern society and its disregard towards the vulnerable, WE, the audience, feel that their actions are justified and that they should be allowed to remain above the law.

it’s why a lot of contemporary hollywood mysteries don’t work. so many modern authors try to return to “the good old days” by copying the 1900s formula— tossing a ton of rich people in a house and saying something vague about money— without realising that the appeal has always come from the tackling of real, relatable issues, and in justice for those who deserve it. it’s the reason why murder on the orient express, widely considered one of the greatest mystery stories of all time, HAS to end the way it does— because having it end any other way would completely undermine everything the story is trying to say about the legal system. in a similar way, there’s a reason why knives out CAN’T end with fran surviving/ransom getting away with it, why glass onion CAN’T end with miles being arrested normally, and why wake up dead man CAN’T end without jud taking martha’s confession— because those endings miss what the films are trying to say about the very real modern issues at the centre of them.

Who had late Victorian Scooby Doo on their 2024 bingo card? Hmm?

But when Shane sees Ilya shuffling sleepy around the kitchen in the morning, mumbling something like “gonna make you the best eggs Hollander where the fuck is your whisk” or later when they’re getting ready to have dinner with Shane’s parents and Shane helps Ilya pick out a parent-friendly button-down from his own closet, doing up the buttons for him instead of undressing him for once and taking a look at the result (“no, let’s try the this one, the color is better, maybe”) I think they’re both like holy shit this is my guy. This is the team I’ve always wanted, above the one where we play hockey on TV. And it crosses some wires in their brains because oh this is what it’s supposed to feel like to have someone have your back. Not that they both aren’t beloved by their teams but we honestly don’t see it besides the transactional nature of their skills (maybe Hayden is an exception with Shane, but really Ilya’s closest person in the show is Svetlana, he has no one close in the books) weighed with how they get the team accolades.

This is why I don’t think the commitment part was ever going to be hard for them. They are both craving a person, someone that is just there for them. They were conditioned for this type of bond, promised brotherhood when they started hockey, but never reaped the benefits because of their talent. Sure, Shane could have found a nice man in Montreal, but this is so much deeper than just finding someone you want to date and falling in love that way.

AI industry groups are urging an appeals court to block what they say is the largest copyright class action ever certified. They’ve warned that a single lawsuit raised by three authors over Anthropic’s AI training now threatens to “financially ruin” the entire AI industry if up to 7 million claimants end up joining the litigation and forcing a settlement.

Authors have until March 30th, 2026 (That is just 9 days as of this reblog, which I am posting on March 21st, 2026) to file their claim against Anthropic to be reimbursed up to $3,000 per work found in the list.

Don’t leave this on the table, cousins! You owe it to the creative community to take EVERY DAMN DOLLAR YOU CAN out of these thieves’ hides.

Here’s the Writers Beware post on this as of last September.

Here’s the Authors Guild page about it. It’s not insanely complicated, and if you’re in the class, they’ve made it easy for you to ID the works involved. (More than 30 for me, for example. Argh.)

Here’s the place where you can do your claim online.

DO NOT FUTZ AROUND ON THIS IF YOU’RE OWED MONEY. Just go do it!

The point is that we live with a global network of elites who have enough power to treat politics, laws, public opinion, international treaties, and all other people as personal assets.

The point is that nobody is truly safe or sovereign when a handful of rich assholes have access to this kind of power.

He’s going to say “well, you know how lazy I am, haha”. And he’s going to get hit with a nuclear fucking missile when they not only are confused and unhappy in their disagreement. But fully pull a “why would you think that Ilya??” Concerned parent thing.

David frowns and say now, I don’t think that’s true son. Unless you’re saying you’re faster than me at puzzles without even trying haha :)

Yuna says oh but you’re so hardworking! Look at you with your rookies you train up and with the way you’ve turned the centaurs around! That’s why coaches like you so much :)

Ilya is fighting for his life while Shane just leaves him to struggle with the weight of all this while he loads the dishwasher because he’s been trying to win this argument for ages and now has backup.

Troy whose parents are both POC but his mother is more connected to her home culture (I'm thinking 2nd gen desi immigrant?) and his dad has learned to camouflage among his white peers, has made it clear that's what you're supposed to do, that if Troy does anything else he's sabotaging himself. Racism isn't real, it just means you're being unamerican, not embracing your real culture. Troy being asked about being a man of color in hockey and not knowing how to respond because he's not allowed to acknowledge racism in hockey, he only knows how to assimilate. Troy hearing racism in the locker room immediately followed up by "not you, obviously, barrett, you're one of the good ones" and feeling sick.

OR Troy whose dad is white (mom is still 2nd gen) and insists racism isn't real, it's just an excuse for weakness and laziness. Troy who is visibly mixed but just white enough that he can be accepted in white spaces as long as he walks the walk and talks the talk. Some fans don't even realize he's a POC, they think he's just got a hell of a tan. Troy seeing himself be referred to as white and feeling disoriented and out of place because he knows he's not, but he's never been allowed to be anything else. Troy feeling like he can't classify himself as a person of color because he's never allowed himself to behave like one.

And the dimension that can give his relationship with his mom!!! Her expecting to lose him when she files for divorce because he has learned to mimic his dad and sneer at his mom's cooking, her language, her clothing, and now he wants to reconnect with all that but can he? Is he allowed? Has he earned that?

It's so so so good, thank you for giving me this concept to obsess over and chew to bits. That is not a white man and he never will be again.