#queue are so busted

[redandfranticfeelings]

[redandfranticfeelings]

the bizarre brainrot of watching one of the bleakest mid-2000s adult cartoons ever and connecting it to my pbs kids show of choice

[redandfranticfeelings]

been sitting on this wordgirl OC for a couple of months now (even put her up on artfight and got some fantastic work done of her!) but kept forgetting to post her properly on tumblr hehe :V

so this is my darling Jennifer Lackey, aka The Jynx, a character heavily inspired by the likes of Gretchen Wieners, Heather Duke, and Veronica from Fairly OddParents, as well as edgy impulsive tween alternative phases. she is Victoria Best's on-again-off-again best friend, or rather Victoria is her best friend, lest anybody but her be "best" anything. they regularly have petty fights that result in Jynx using her witch powers against Victoria.

some full backstory under the cut!

The girls met in sixth grade (so the year after canon), where Victoria used her talent (and hypnosis) to win over Jennifer's former best friend, popular seventh grader Asha Mazin, taking credit for Jennifer's own good deeds as a friend. But Asha was better at making friends and getting positive attention, so Victoria pulled strings to get Asha to transfer out of school, giving Victoria a boost in the popularity polls. This also meant, however, that Jennifer was now drawn to Victoria, something Victoria was happy to exploit. And Jennifer is hard-of-hearing in her left ear, which makes her less susceptible to sound-based hypnosis. Meaning Victoria had to social climb instead of using her recorder. Luckily, Jennifer is a skilled people-watcher, and helped show Victoria the ropes of the school in exchange for her friendship.

Disaster struck one day when Jennifer got a hold of Victoria's recorder, then when Victoria caught her with it, Jennifer panicked and tossed it away, breaking a mirror in the process. The recorder was undamaged, but Victoria cracked under the pressure at the recital and blew a single sour note. Her parents held this against her, and Victoria needed someone to blame -- so she chose Jennifer, decreeing her to be "bad luck" and a "jinx."

Desperate to find her identity as an individual, Jennifer went to the library to study something she liked that her friends never really did: witchcraft. There, she discovered a book of spells, with the most fascinating being a spell that allowed her to control what others say. Jennifer learned this spell, and a few others, and became a supervillain known as "The Jinx."

Jinx spends most of her time messing with Victoria and others at the school, but sometimes branches out to cause mischief at citywide events as well. Her signature spell is a "jinx" spell, where if she speaks in unison with another person, she will have control over anything they say. Originally, Jinx did not have this spell totally polished, resulting in her accidentally speaking through her captured individual rather than only having them speak when she wants them to do so. The spell is only broken when Jinx, or whomever wields her wand, says the captured's name three times. Another trick Jinx can use is trapping people inside broken mirrors. She perfects these spells with time, and eventually can even puppet people's movements. Now that she wields this ability, she's even more particular about trying to figure out the school's social structure so she can predict what people say and do, thus allowing her to take control of them.

As for her and Victoria, well, Victoria realized the benefits of having a witch as a best friend and sort of apologized. Victoria tends to put Jennifer down (to feel better about herself, especially if her parents are currently mad at her) while Jennifer is very possessive and knows just what to say to push Victoria's buttons, but they still bond over their shared interests in music, fashion, gossip, and strange world records. Their friendship is comically on-again-off-again, and twice a month they'll have a blowout over something stupid, bringing out WordGirl to reluctantly intervene. The tragedy is that they'd understand each other deeply if their stupid pride didn't get in the way -- they both desperately live to please other people.

Jinx rides around on an enchanted mop because she couldn't find a stereotypical broom, and her "familiar" is an untamed black cat with a habit of scratching anybody who comes too close.

Jennifer doesn't fit in much with other villains due to her age, though she's had a few tiffs with Tobey due to the eternal "magic versus science" debate. (Her unhealthy relationship with Victoria is intended to mirror Tobey's obsession with WordGirl, at least in some ways.) She sometimes tries to pivot to being Tobey's lackey when she and Victoria are fighting despite Tobey not liking her in the slightest. She also has a minor one-sided rivalry with Eileen, who is also in their friend circle by the time they're in middle school (Victoria keeps her around as a "yes man" and muscle), out of sheer jealousy. In fact she seems to disproportionately resent other girls, probably because she projects her own insecurities onto them (and sees them as stronger rivals for Victoria's attention).

[redandfranticfeelings]

spent the past several weeks sketching teenage/college-aged wordgirl characters because having fun is part of life.

(my main design philosophy is that i headcanon the show to be set in the late 80s or early 90s so i sometimes lean into those trends when drawing them as teens -- you can't see it under his hat but scoops has dicaprio-esque "curtain" bangs lmao)

[redandfranticfeelings]

a funny little recurring thing i like with tobey plots is that when the robots backfire, it's usually because their programming reflects tobey's own dysfunction, usually, ironically, the very reason the robot exists.

tobey held a grudge because he lost a game of checkers, and thus built a robot to play (read: win) for him. he projected his perfectionist attitude onto the robot and berated it so badly for losing, it literally tried to destroy the game and anything tangentially related to it, because it also can't stand loss.

mobot freaked out because miss davis (very gently) called out tobey's need to shoehorn robots into everything he does. and even though it's because mobot is, of course, a robot herself, it was very clearly reflecting tobey's own insecurity defending his fixation (worth noting of course his real mother has disapproved of the robot obsession/dependency on numerous occasions)

wordbot basically went kid-friendly yandere on tobey because, as wordgirl puts it, he programmed her to be "jealous" instead of "devoted." wordbot treats tobey the way tobey treats wordgirl -- obsessive, possessive, and ultimately destructive at the mere notion of being slighted. tobey's recreation of his love object backfires because his own perception of said "love" is incredibly warped.

[redandfranticfeelings]

artfight #1 - posted july 3, for @starryoak, of pegmatite pie!

most of my drawings were kind of effortful (by my standards, at least) so i'll probably post them individually :V

i love the miracleverse so much guyssssss

[redandfranticfeelings]

[redandfranticfeelings]

there’s something about leela’s early-season ideal men typically being of high financial and social authority (adlai, the mayor’s aide, her idealized senator husband in that one joke) and thus able to provide her with financial security and social protection that she never had growing up. i think for a long time, she saw prospective partners as an extension of her success in life rather than seeking out people with whom she was genuinely compatible, hence why she’d end up compromising so easily to keep them around (adlai again, and alcazar as well, though the context with him is a bit different). 

like i know it’s probably just like.... what a lot of people (especially women ig?) want in a partner, but it stands out because it’s deliberate to show she has high standards compared to amy who will pretty much shack up with anybody, and to contrast with her inevitable relationship with fry, who is (at face value) very much Nothing Special but is nevertheless the only one who can provide her with some much-needed emotional security when these other guys shrug her off for not meeting their standards.