You Have Forgotten Me Already

A bit ago I did a quick sketch in Photoshop of Simon as Consolidation Monthly's Hottest Convict and I said I was totally going to make a magazine cover using all the silly article titles I came up with. And then I DIDN'T.

But I started learning Krita a few days ago, and used it to clean up the original sketch. Then I used Photopea to do the text because as awesome as Krita is for sketching, I hated how the text input worked. I'll get better at controlling the text in Krita. Next thing on my to do list.

Here's the original sketch and the cleanup side by side.

Thank you for having a look!

I heard a few of these even before my first gig. I think they are quite old.

Q: How many screenwriters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: One! And you better not change a damn thing!

Q: How many producers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: Does it have to be a lightbulb?

Q: How many grips does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: Four: one to get the ladder, one to unscrew the old bulb, one to screw in the new one, and one to supervise. They're all union, too, so they need breaks and hazard pay.

Here's a few I came up with on my own. Just a little self-burn and sadness:

Q: How many animators does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: One, but if we can replace them with AI we've trained to screw in lightbulbs, we can fire them.

Q: How many production designers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: None. We fired them already.

Q: How many VFX artists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: VFX? We don't use VFX! It's all practical! The entire lightbulb scene was practical! People hate green screen and CGI because we've trained them to think that way with our rhetoric, so it was PRACTICAL. Film nerds who have never been on a set love to say "practical" like it's a goddamn mantra, so NO VFX was used in the screwing in of the lightbulb! NONE!

Ugh. Meant to post this here and posted it to a community. I have done that three times at least recently. Where is my mind.

There's a case to be made that Simon is newly arrested. The game dates do make a lot of fans put Simon as a prisoner for 16 years, but visual evidence from what he is wearing, to still having sheaths and the remains of his bracelet, don't fit well with the 16 years in prison timeline. Everything would have been taken from him upon his surrender, so why does he still have things that could be weapons to a resourceful guy if he was imprisoned for a long time? This is a speedy turnaround, I think. "Wanted fugitive Simon the Butcher, step into the light or we shoot! Put your weapons down, put your hands up! Now get on the spacecraft and come with us to this blood moon" kind of stuff, I think.

Even the way Simon talks about the handcuffs doesn't scream of a long incarceration. So, yes, while game lore makes us attribute years to Simon's prison sentence, our eyes and ears tell a very different story, and reconciling these differences I think has caused me some real frowns because "BUT THE GAME LORE!!!" sounds really loud in my head. I'm finna ignore that voice and trust my eyes for a bit: Simon has recently surrendered, been arrested, tried, found guilty, and almost immediately given a chance at convict realization. Boom: welded into a sub with bruises still on his wrist, and all the stuff he was wearing at his arrest still oh him.

So, say he was able to escape Filament after it blowed up real good 'n stuff, returned to Eden, and then surrendered after he felt like he could no longer live on Eden for whatever reason. He could have gone out under false pretenses and made a b-line for the nearest C.O.I. ship. Maybe he pulled a Finn and stole a ship! I love that idea.

Or he could have been in hiding for years as a wanted fugitive somewhere in the vastness of space and surrender was the best/only option, either because of a need to survive when supplies got scarce, or because he was cornered and given a very grim choice.

Look, Simon is beefy, has sparkling teeth and gorgeous hair. Eden took care of people pretty well! That doesn't gel with years and years as a prisoner. His outfit doesn't either. TWO knife sheaths that could have been used to strangle somebody? TWO??? Belts? All them harnesses? I've known my fair share of people put into facilities: they don't even get shoelaces.

I think it's food for thought at least! I do kinda love the renegade on the run in space scenario this idea gives me. Simon as Han Solo just....love that. OMG a better artist than me please draw Simon in a goddamn vest with knee-high boots and a blaster! People doing Project Hail Mary crossovers because of thematic overlap? Hah! Star Wars is ALL about hope, just like Iron Lung secretly is: give me the Han Solo and Simon crossover adventure of a lifetime! Simon shoots first!!! That's no moon! It's not my fault! I've got a bad feeling about this!

The blood eel and the Sarlacc Pit? Distant cousins.

I had this idea while reading a recent chapter of the Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint manhwa where Junghyeok (Joonghyuk) gets to use his pro-gamer skill, and I had this image in my head of Markiplier locking in on some of the games he plays and decided to do a pastiche of a frame from ORV. I used some graphic images from Welcome to the Game (all three games) for the screens, because I was being terribly literal. Hah!

Got your attention now, huh?!? 😁

(a caption from Deadlymelodic's website about the Eden Tree)

The Eden Tree is something from the movie I think about a lot. It contributes many fertile ideas about what humanity encountered on their voyage through the stars. The size of the tree in the flashbacks is surprising, as is the fact that it was thriving in space.

Deadlymelodic, the online alias of Molly Brown, has some amazing concept art of the tree uploaded to her website. She did such fabulous work for the film as a concept artist, designer, and modeler.

The film makes it clear that the tree is not a normal size. The leaves in the concept art are unusual, too.

I would say these are definitely not maple leaves or, really, any kind of leaf that is instantly recognizable. And I think that's the point. This is a tree in space, on a space station, and canonically fed by dead bodies. And I know the first thing people think of in this instance might be burying the whole body, but a lot of sacred groves on Earth had been part of cremation ceremonies.

A massive space station burning whatever kind of fuel for power, or even just using heat sources of some kind to cook food, would have the means to incinerate a body. Ash is excellent for soil in the right measurements and in proportion with other additives. So, while I have seen people poo-poo the idea that bodies were used to feed the tree on Eden, I think the reason why these people are doing that is because they are being unfortunately literal about bodies becoming the soil, instead of thinking like a gardener.

And, actually, here on Earth in C.E. 2026, there is a movement involving Natural Organic Reduction (N.O.I.) that helps convert human remains into nutrient-rich material that could nourish soil. For members of certain religions who have burial built into their religion, but who have had to adapt for reasons including restrictions from local and regional laws, N.O.I. becoming legal in certain areas is allowing them to return to their traditional ceremonies.

Who is to say that a similar process couldn't have been employed on Eden (if we are insisting on making our space tree function in a logical way)?

Add on to that the fact that this is very likely not a tree from Earth and the sky's the limit. An interesting thing about plants and trees is that humans have always manipulated them to create new varieties. Broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts all have the same origin in a wild mustard plant, for example. They were cultivated over time to become different plants. The tree on Eden could have been crossbred with other trees over time to help it survive in space. Wouldn't it be neat if it was a wild, last-gasp attempt by a space-faring group to create resources to help them survive in adversity? They perhaps found unique soil, minerals, or organic growths in space, and were able to utilize them in making common varieties of trees on Earth hearty in the unfriendly environs of space.

There's modern research about growing things from Earth with Martian soil that is really fascinating.

Molly Brown has a little tidbit on her website about the mutated Eden Tree. The dead splitting from the tree was not meant to be literal, but more as a visual representation of both Simon's broken psyche, and the concept of the Eden belief that the bodies become the soil appearing to him in visions at its most extreme and horrible. I do love the idea of both the Eden Tree and the blood eel as gestalt entities: The eel had all those extra limbs, and the mutated Eden tree in Molly Brown's concept art has just...so many whole bodies emerging from the bark. Just...oh so many. Eek.

What striking and disturbing imagery! Again: the reaching arms becoming tree limbs is so similar to the limbs of the blood eel.

Tying up all my points here, I'm all onboard with embracing the sci-fi of this film. The Eden Tree doesn't have to be limited to trees that exist now in recognizable forms that we can apply current science to. The movie is dreamlike and painted large in grungy futuristic brush strokes. In the spirit of the movie, I like to think of this tree as nothing like a maple or spruce. It's a towering mutant of a tree growing in adversity on a space station orbiting around the vast emptiness where Mars once was, and the central religious symbol of a desperate human diaspora struggling on after the universe ends.

Of course, it's dead by the time the movie starts, but that seed in the pendant Simon finds sprouts like nothing else once Simon dies and the blood floods in. It grows so fast and so violently, it's impossible to think of it as just a tree that has to follow our understanding of trees on Earth. This thing is special.