#I think it’s fun and I like the character designs

[pancakesthewormwithcandy]

Hey ya'll this is why Rainworld is both really good and really challenging. It has 72 PAGES OF MOVEMENT CONTROLLS HALF OF WHICH ARENT EVEN HUMANLY POSSIBLE WITHOUT MACROS AND ARE SO ODDLY SPECIFIC ITS SHOCKING ANYONE FIGURED IT OUT AT ALL. and it teaches you two moves in the start, drops you in an eco-system with a bunch of smart Ai that you have to learn yourself through trial and error. It's not a game about you. It's en ecosystem and you are at the bottom of the food chain and have to rely on your knowledge to get through it. You often die instantly in one hit, it's brutal but very fun especially if you look at it under the guise of an eco system simulator where you have to hit your head against the wall a few times until you learn how to get past certain things. Like it felt like being a child exploring the world again idk i loved it so much.

Easily one of the best if not my all time favorite game I've ever played. The first time experience was honestly insane to me and it has some interesting themes if you are willing to dive into the lore and explore enough.

DO NOT LOOK UP ANYTHING. DONT SPOIL ANYTHING. the jot of the game is learning it for yourself trust me. ( granted one time i got so stuck i was going to quit and looked up spoiler free help so like only do it if its like " I'm gonna quit if i don't look it up" ) But like don't look up anything if you can help it its sooo much more fun.

also if you've already finished the game there's DLC and mods and they are all peak. One mod lets you meow. it is perfect.

speaking of i think i know what im gonna do tonight LOL

just have to make sure

[gallusrostromegalus]

I did not care at all for Aizen Sosuke when I first read bleach. I found him boring, and worst, unthreatening.

So it's pretty jarring for me that I have been OBSESSED with him in your AU. I'm rotating him at great speed

Walt Disney was a jackass who was flat-out wrong about a lot of very important things, but he employed a great many geniuses of storytelling, and there's a piece in Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson that discusses a key feature of Disney Studios Character Design:

"Of all characters, villains are the most fun to develop because they make everything else happen. They are the instigators, and always more colorful than the Hero. They may be dramatic, awesome, insidious or semi-comic, but they MUST be appealing. Almost any story becomes innocuous if all the evil is eliminated, but we do not necessarily gain strength by being frightening. we want a character that will hold the audience and entertain them, even if it's a Chilling Type of Entertainment."

And I've found that to be an important principle of character design, especially the kind of canon restructuring I do.

Aizen had a LOT going for him in canon- for all of Bleach's other faults, Aizen's conspiracy and THE REVEAL are spectacularly constructed and executed. I legit screamed and threw my mug across my dorm room when I read it in the manga the first time. He's also conventionally attractive and the translations I was reading gave him the speech patterns of Every Douchebag In Your 101 Political Theory Who Thinks He's The Smartest Man In The Room, which made him a terrific combination of Unfortunately Charming, Menacingly Competent and Engagingly Obnoxious.

...But he falls flat in a few key places.

Aizen's reasoning could be MUCH more sympathetic- After all, he is RIGHT. Soul Sciety does suck ass and all the options kind of suck. Who designs a universe like that? An asshole who needs killing, that's who. The best kind of Unhinged Madmen are the kind who spell out their reasoning and you realize that there but for the grace of Not Having Super Powers Go I. Canon!Aizen makes a few Good Rhetorical Points, but seems to lack any personal connection to his all-consuming plan.

Another issue is that nearly every villain with A Plan has a clear end goal AND a lot of the menace is drawn from the fact that the plan *could* work. Aizen's plan for betraying the court guard and then killing them off before proceeding into the Royal Realm to Kill God sorta falls apart when it's clear he planned to use pretty much all his accumulated forces dealing with the court guard and doesn't seem to have a plan for the Even More Powerful Royal Guard, let alone God. For how meticulously planned the rest of the plot is, the last two VERY IMPORTANT steps are just handwaved.

So I sat down and started with the plot beats Aizen MUST hit, and tried to imagine what kind of guy would he have to be to get there? And I came up with this:

Sosuke Aizen is a fundamentally good man with genuinely good intentions who is really trying his best for the whole world.

Think about it- what lengths would you NOT go to if you think you found a genuine shot at Fixing Everything Wrong With The World Forever? We all talk about killing Hitler if we found an actual Time Machine- would you do it if your only chance was when he was a baby? Would you kill an infant if it meant you could stop World War II before it starts? Of course you would! One small life for over 75 million? You'd be insane not to! What if you found out that you could prevent the future extinction of Humanity by killing your best friend today? Ten Billion lives? For theirs? It's simple, really- Hell, it's your Moral Obligation to do that if you were SURE!

-And Aizen IS sure. He is absolutely, totally, completely sure that He Can Save Everyone if he just gets rid of that idiot sitting on the throne of heaven. He's seen the plans! He knows where the gate of heaven is! It's So SIMPLE he just has to get inside, and he knows EXACTLY how to do it, yes it'll be hard and there will be... unpleasant parts but. IT. WILL. WORK.

He is of course, insane.

Aizen didn't have One Bad Day that set him irrevocably on the path of madness. It was a succession of catastrophic disappointments and realizations that he was living in a fundamentally irrational world that made irrational thinking look sane. The Catastrophe that befell his family, working for the central 46 and later the court guard and seeing how the organizations were inept to the point of abuse or corrupt to the core, learning that The Actual House Of God is a place he can just? Go to? Anyone would start thinking you were just a handful of white lies and homicides away from Fixing Everything, Forever.

Not only is Aizen insane, he is nowhere near as smart as he thinks. He is smart- He does have a knack for being able to guess just what will spur someone to action or make them recoil in fear. But mostly he gets extremely lucky Many, Many, MANY times. On some level I think it gives him Confirmation Bias that this is what he's supposed to be doing. Aizen is also nowhere near as smart as (nearly) everyone else thinks he is. His bizarrely good luck makes him look like a hyper-competent genius when really it was really the catastrophic failure of Soul Society as a Society that let a merely mediocre conspirator to evade detection for so long.

Being that he is at most, mediocre, he had to have Outside Help, specifically Gin's emotional support and Tousen's Competence- and if there's a part of the fic that stays true to canon, it's this.

Gin is Aizen's emotional rock in Canon. He's the ONE guy that Aizen genuinely trusts, and considers his 'my only real partner' in his scheme. There's more than one occasion in the manga where Aizen more or less asks Gin "Is this actually a good idea?" and Gin backs him up every time.

...Which is more than a bit at odds with Gin's later stated goal of "I did all this to kill you at your most vulnerable to protect rangiku" . It never rang true to me. So I started thinking why on EARTH Gin would be backing Aizen up like that, and realized there was a hole in my world building that he slotted into nicely :)

On the other hand, the entire fic was started because I didn't like how Tousen's character arc ended, so you can imagine how much he's changed.

But in canon, TOUSEN DOES ALL THE FUCKING WORK.

Lab work? Tousen.

Supervising the arrancar directly? Tousen

Actually getting victims for the Hogyoku experiments? Tousen.

Altering all the archives to keep Aizen's plot hidden? Tousen.

Sending all the Orders allegedly from the central 46? Tousen.

Making sure Unohana believes Aizen's fake body is real? Tousen.

Managing all the day-to-day operations at Las Noches? Tousen.

There's even this little exchange, which is Tousen's first appearance in the Manga:

Aizen establishes this entire meeting is a little fake-out a few pages later with "now isn't that a convenieint time for the alarm to go off?"

which makes him look like he's investigating, but he's also going "Good job on disrupting everyone with the alarm Gin!" It's ballsy of Aizen to do a check-in on his plan with his main nemesis in the room, but also his style.

I think the same thing is happening here with Tousen. To make sure Ukitake wouldn't raise a huge fit about the proposed execution of his beloved lieutenant, which might fuck everything up for Aizen because Ukitake is one of like, three people Yamamoto will listen to (sort of).

...So he had Tousen poison Ukitake to keep him out of the way.

ALL. THE. FUCKING. WORK. It's even in his name! The characters for "Tousen" Refer to a legendary scholar the emperor of China sent out to discover the secret of immortality- only to kill the scholar when he returned with that secret. The character for "Kaname" means "Necessary/Vital/keystone" or "to organize/take account of". His name LITERALLY means "Scholar who is essential for the plan (that we're going to kill later)"

Another thing Kubo did well in Bleach: his name game is Off The Fucking Charts.

-but I digress.

In AEIWAM, it's much the same only this time Aizen sees this very dangerous witness who is immune to his illusions but also extremely snart and capable young man and instead of risking being caught out by the one damn guy who can see right through him, opts to Curse Kaname into doing as Aizen says, and doing all the fucking work of this conspiracy against his will.

It's Not Nice, but Aizen genuinely thinks he's doing Kaname a favor by subjecting him to this degrading and incredibly painful servitude- I mean, Aizen's only other option was to Kill him to keep his silence, and isn't it wonderful that you get to help fix the universe? You're the one always going on about Justice, I don't understand why you didn't jump at the chance to mete out some Divine Justice.

An Excerpt from the captain's meeting in between the Massacre that made the visored and Zaraki's arrival, when Kaname realizes Yamamoto is 100% serious about his promotion to captain of the 9th and goes to throw up in the garden. Aizen offers to go check on him while Unohana very politely reads the general the riot act:

---

"You broke your toy Aizen." Kaname coughs.

"…I really am sorry for running you ragged like this. I really shouldn't have gotten so mad about you hiding the the hogyoku- it was very petty of me." The bastard sighs, taking off his glasses and rubbing his face, entirely genuine.

Kaname stayed on his hands and knees, weaving slightly as another wave of nausea flowed through him, powered by disgust and rage.

"How about this- I've got a lot coming up with the new job, training Gin and disposing of Kiganjo- So how about I promise to not give you any orders for a while? You will have to keep our arrangement a secret and not interfere, of course, but other than that, you're free to do as you please for- a year and a day is traditional isn't it? No, that's not going to heal by then- Oh, would you look at that!"

Kaname didn't have the strength to offer his usual rebuttal that he won't look at anything, ever. The sides of his head tingle like his skul was being pressed between two enormous hands made of static electricity.

"It's 11:11! Alright, I won't give you any Orders until 11:11 am on November 11th, 1911. That's easy to remember! What do you think?" Aizen continued cheerfully, patting his back and the Curse nails.

"…I can't." Kaname groaned. He could scream if he had the energy, but due to Aizen's Illusions, nobody would hear him. "I actually physically can't think. Please…"

"Of course! You really are such a help to me, it would be a shame to lose you. I'll even amend our contract, so you don't get paranoid-" There was a sizzling sound and a new stroke of hot pain up Kaname's spine as Aizen did something to the wretched Bakudo. "There. No compulsions for eleven years and a day. What do you say?"

Kaname grimaced, but dropped his head. Save the energy to fight another day. "…thank you, Aizen-sama."

"Good man! Let's get you on your feet." Aizen beamed, putting his glasses back on and offering him an arm.

---

He genuinely thinks that he's doing everyone a huge favor and if they don't get it it's because they're just not smart enough, but it's alright, He's a Benevolent God and they'll appreciate all his hard work the next time around :)

Aizen is a man who is FULL of joy. He loves what he does! He actively takes pleasure in it! And I think that's something that REALLY delivers in terms of sympathy AND horror for him. Who *Wouldn't* have a great time actually fixing the universe? He's a good man who enjoys doing good works, and this is the greatest work of all!

It also Delivers on the Horror when I get to write the deliciously fun scenes where Aizen is Elbows-deep in a novel War Crime and waxing poetic about how GREAT this is, or being confused why the people around him are reacting with fear. Don't you want to make everything better too?

[cotton-fae24]

Hello everybody! Surprised to see me post something not Seabird related? Well sometimes drawing the same things over and over again gets a little tiring, so to clear my head (and to remind myself to draw legs once in while) I’d tried to draw other owl house stuff. During this break times I’d actually end up drawing other owl house creators Au’s, and I decided to clean up these drawings together and compile them into one big illustration. Think of this post as a sorta tribute to creators that inspire me. And don’t worry, Seabird part 3 will still come out Monday.

First up, the Monster high AU by @dazeddoodles

As the title suggests, it’s an AU that combines the G1 Monster high with the Owl house series. I was a huge Monster High fan when I was younger, so this AU was a real treat. I’m really sad they decided to discontinue it, as I think this AU is really cute. I love the designs too, Raine is my favorite. I kinda just wanted to draw some cute interactions, a young Eda and Raine interacting, Gus and Willow giving Hunter “a hand’ and Amity flirting with Luz (in her own way). Drawing this AU was a lot of fun and did inspire me to rewatch some of the old Monster high specials.

Pittwins AU by @nikolutke

This AU is much darker. The idea of the story is what if Hunter and Luz weren’t resurrected at the end of the series and wandered around the Boiling Isles as ghosts. I love Nikolutke designs for Ghost Luz and Hunter, they’re both haunting and really sad. Plus the idea exploring the Owl house characters reactions towards the death of a love one is really fascinating concept. I kinda explored that idea with these drawings, in this case Eda and Darius reactions. I feel like Eda would be out of her mind with grief, as she was forced to watch Luz’s death first hand. I think she’d feel a lot of guilt too, thinking she failed to protect Luz. I also wonder if Kings Titans powers allows him to see the dead, could be possible. As for the other illustration, I think Darius would probably isolated himself and grieve quietly, contemplating what he could of done differently, and if he could have saved Hunter in time.

The Gilded Cage by @catboymoments

I’ve been fan of both their next gen au and this one, but I decided to post one about the Gilded age au. The basic idea of this AU is the classic “What if Belos found Luz instead of Eda” concept. A lot of these AUs tend to go the route of “Luz becomes Belos 2.0” as someone who loves Luz, I’m sad people just think she’d just instantly become a villain if left unguided. I’m really that this AU went into a different direction and actual kept Luz’s personality and made Luz someone who’s trying to help the Isles and wants to protect her friends from Belos wrath. The one on the left is Lilith and Luz interacting, I like to think Lilith sees a lot of Eda in Luz, and makes her think of the good times before everything got complicated. The one on the right is Luz and Hunter, with the former trying to convince the latter to question Belos control. I love in this AU that despite Belos attempts to put the, against each other, they still have each others back no matter what! Their siblings no matter what universe they’re in!

And of course the classic (pun intended) The Mythology AU by @turquoisespace35

This AU is Huntlow story set in Greek mythology. Hunter in this AU is the half human-gorgon offspring of the human Caleb and gorgon Evelyn. Willow is sent to his location to kill him but (of course) they fall in love instead. The story has a lot of twists and turns, so I suggest you check it out if you haven’t already. The left drawing is Caleb and Evelyn interacting together. I don’t know if this work but I like to think the two were able to somewhat interact with each other by Caleb looking through mirror. I of course had to draw the love birds Hunter and Willow interacting together. The one on the top right is a little bit of a spoiler but I decided to draw Lilith and Edalyns in their goddess forms, I love that Lilith plays the role of Athena and acts a caretaker to Hunter. I drew her getting a little emotional about Hunter finally being free, as any cool Aunt should.

And to those who are just hear to see the Seabird AU, here’s a preview drawing of part 3 of chapter 10. I don’t think Edas really enjoying this part though lol.

Anyway, hope you guys this more unusual post, I just wanted to draw something a little different this time and pay tribute to some of the artists that have inspired me.

Edit: Chapter 10 part 3 of the Little Seabird is out now. In case you’re interested in seeing my work, I’ve left a link:

Chapter 10, part 3:

And if you want to read from the beginning, here’s a link to the first page:

Beginning:

[starleska]

12 months. 46 crushes. 0 moments of sanity.

welcome to Starleska's F/O Round-Up 2024!! 🥳🥳

what you see above is a chart of every single fictional character crush i had in 2024: whether they lasted a single day, or are still plaguing my thoughts now 🙈💖 gosh, it's been a busy year!! if you look closely, you can see the exact moments i lost my mind in-between fixations 😳 the full list of characters is below!! feel free to ask about any of them, because they're all very dear to my heart 🥰

Maxime Le Mal (Despicable Me 4)

King Magnifico (Wish)

Alan Partridge (Various)

Adam (Hazbin Hotel)

Kinito (KinitoPET)

The Sixth Doctor (Doctor Who)

Lord Royal Highness (Spongebob Squarepants)

Velvette (Hazbin Hotel)

Dr Reflex (Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning)

Maestro (Doctor Who)

Boycie (Only Fools and Horses)

Max Jägerman (Nerdy Prudes Must Die)

Wiggog Y'Rath (Hatchetverse)

Siegfried von Schroeder (Yu-Gi-Oh!)

Elliott (Stardew Valley)

Nordic Bunny (Shred Force)

Mr Puzzles (SMG4)

The Love Glove (Doom Patrol)

Pegasus (Yu-Gi-Oh!)

Master Shake (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)

Frylock (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)

Piers (Pokémon)

Archie the Inventor (Balamory)

Periwinkle 'Peri' Fairywinkle-Cosma (Fairly Oddparents: A New Wish)

Ramón Salazar (Resident Evil 4)

Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

Deadpool (Marvel)

Badman (Super Richie)

Captain James T. Kirk (Star Trek)

Han Solo (Star Wars)

Zanzo (Hi-Fi Rush)

Dionysus (Hades)

Gambit (Marvel)

Emberlynn Pinkle (Helluva Boss)

Victor Quartermaine (Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit)

Adrian Monk (Monk)

Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice)

Castor/Zuse (Tron: Legacy)

Sensei La Dew (ItsLorlo Sketches)

'Real' Frankie (Finding Frankie)

Rolando (Helluva Boss)

Vic Diamond (Thelma the Unicorn)

Jack Frost (The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause)

Gustafson (Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey)

Inspekta (Great God Grove)

Superman/Clark Kent/Kal-El (DC Comics)

[plethorawrites]

Guys! Clark has started to invade too!!! Anyway, today I was thinking about Smallville Clark Kent (personal go to when thinking about the character) with a new neighbor from the city...

---___---___---___---___---___---___---___---___---_

Clark Kent: Who sees you by the fence, petting his family's horses, and doesn't recognize you, which is odd because he recognizes everyone in such a small town.

Clark Kent: Who quickly realizes from the way you dress to the lack of an accent that you're not just new in town, but from some larger city that probably has apartment buildings with more tenants than the entire town has people.

Clark Kent: Who brushes off your apology for petting the horses, which you'd only done because you've never seen any in real life and couldn't resist how sweet they looked.

Clark Kent: Who watches you insist on going home to unpack instead of keep talking, but runs into you at school the next day and offers to show you around.

Clark Kent: Who you offer a ride home in your car as a thank you for being an extremely patient tour guide.

Clark Kent: Who accepts, under the condition that you let him show you the town too and when you tell him you pretty much have with how small it is, shakes his head and tells you there's a lot of places people don't know about aside from him or a few other kids.

Clark Kent: Who not only shows you his favorite places the next time you're both free, but also says he would be glad to teach you to ride, if you ever wanted.

Clark Kent: Who is thrilled when you take him up on it and spends several hours on a trail with you at a calm pace, keeping close in case anything suddenly spooked your horse. Although they were incredibly good horses so there weren't any problems.

Clark Kent: Who was fascinated by watching you slowly get more accustomed to the town—wearing clothes that were from a local boutique instead of a designer brand, engaging in the rather silly but beloved town traditions, even cutting off some of the friends from the city who you realized weren't really your friends at all after they once visited and immediately started making fun of Clark and his friends.

Clark Kent: Who was surprised at first, when you showed up at his family's door one day asking to help with the animals, but quickly got used to you coming over to help him feed or bathe them, which you claimed was your way of thanking him for the riding lessons but he suspected you just wanted an excuse to be with the animals.

Clark Kent: Who knew you'd fit in with his friends after they got over their own prejudice of you being rude or pretentious because you're from the city and likes hanging out with you with them but likes it just as much, maybe more, when everyone leaves and you're able to stay a bit longer in the barn.

Clark Kent: Who leans out the window next to you, enjoying the breeze as the sun sets and tells you he's glad you moved to Smallville.

Clark Kent: Who sees you shudder from the cold and instantly wraps his jacket around you, conveniently ignoring your blushing cheeks in case he was misreading the situation.

Clark Kent: Who still carefully tucks a piece of hair out of your face—while the voice in head screams not to ruin things—just to see it better and wets his lip while staring at yours.

Clark Kent: Who leans in slowly, waiting for the moment you'd slap him and walk out for daring to try something with you, but only sees you leaning in too.

Clark Kent: Who kisses you for the first time while you're in the barn, wearing his jacket, but promises himself then and there that it wouldn't be the last.

[miscellaneoustofu]

Basketball bad boys, anyone?

Yeah, so these are my Kirisaki Daiichi redesigns. The uncrowned kings and their respective squads have all the fun potential and I intend to use it.

Kirisaki Daiichi and Hanamiya being the most slept on team for character design of them all because you can’t make a canonical “bad boy” team and not have them be emo, goth, and punk for the funsies. For the visual “pen egg chest qua” (je ne sais quoi). For the fun, stereotypical edgelord flair we all deserve to indulge in every now and then.

Makoto’s og design simply didn’t scream spider enough for me and I was tired of so many key characters having this longish, same shade of black hair (him, Himuro, Mibuchi, etc). Like, I know giving the black and brown a colored tint can subtract from the uniqueness of the GOM, but not even a little? So, yeah, fuck allat, I’m using desaturated colors every now and then.

I also loved drawing Makoto in some casual clothes and much needed drip. Villains are required to serve most. I wanted to draw the rest of them in some casual outfits because trust Kojiro and honestly all of them dress immaculately but life and time restraints. Maybe later.

Story wise, each player and Makoto maybe have their own reasons for turning to hurting others through basketball and I hope you catch some of the story threads I threw in. Whether or not they deserve or have the capacity to change is entirely up to you all with Makoto having the most potential to be entirely complex or cartoonishly evil (I like both). I’m a sucker for a bit of character complexity and things that leave room for interpretation.

Sometimes knb can be very black and white in its themes…

Well, let me know what you all think! Thank you, for everyone’s kind words and support. See ya!

[cordspaghetti]

wait i want 2 add what i said about this over on ig. i was trying to think of how having gerard as the front person of the Band For Outcasts model for a designer house label that is mostly just aping the styles of various alt fashion subcultures 4 nostalgia factor and Subversion Points would work in terms of artistic integrity. so i thought having them model a character that is sort of like a rich preppy schoolgirl & the complete opposite of the identities the band have assumed in the past would be a fun / kind of Calculated way to approach that lol. somewhat similar flavor to some of the other characters they’d do on tour perhaps. so idk if it lands but that’s what i was going for with the styling :-)

au where i break into the gway heaven by marc jacobs shoot and start amateurishly mucking about

[beautifulterriblequeen]

Wait you wrote some of the Dragon Prince's Reflections short stories? That's awesome, congratulations! What was that like and how much lore did the showrunners give you access to, or were you allowed to make your own additions to canon? 😃 Which ones did you work on if I can ask? Thanks!

Oop, this question came in while I was answering another one! I just went over which Reflections stories were my work here! tldr, most of the first volume and one in the second volume.

I worked with Devon on ideas to pitch, and then on crafting and polishing the ones that got approval. I only needed to know a little bit of lore from upcoming seasons in order to write the stories, but with the timeskip between S3 and S4, I necessarily had to know a few things, like "so it's been two years."

I did get a couple of references to look at, such as the design of the soul candle for "The Queen's Soul," since that was an asset they'd already created for the show. And I did get to watch an early version of the first episode of S4, for character/design/location/etc reasons. A picture is worth 1000 words, etc. But most of my stories were just little bubbles stuck on the side of the main plot bubble - as the Reflections series was originally pitched to be! It's full of treats and foreshadowy lil clues, but in the end it's just fun supplemental material for the extra nerdy to indulge in! So there was some freedom in pitching and writing, as long as it held to theme, and we had a lot of fun bringing these little moments to life.

Crackledrake is my favorite short story because I got to add the cute little ritual to Sunfire canon and created the lore behind it. It's inspired by the real-world tradition of snapdragon, so you can see I was super inventive with its TDP name there! I gave Janai and Amaya their own Xadian fruits and nuts, though, as they deserve. I can't say I did so with a straight face, though. My face was extremely gay about it, actually.

Rise Again was another of my pitches that got accepted, and writing it really helped me connect with Claudia in a way I hadn't before. I've felt differently about her ever since, and that wouldn't've happened if I hadn't gotten to spend time with her and give her Burnt Biscuit.

I think Changing of the Guard was already in the pitch lineup, but I was really excited to get to write for Soren and Corvus. I always enjoy when opposite personalities try to come together! I tried my best to add some angst into Corvus' backstory, but I had to trim it for length so he remains mysterious. But King Ezran's Belly Full of Jelly tart-eating contest is a thing I've put into the world, and I'm genuinely pleased with that. And then there's all the *waves Sorvus flag*. I just think they're neat! (and you're welcome)

[keepmycandleburning]

It's always frustrating to me when I see people's misunderstandings about the degree to which a writer's words and writing choices are intentional. There are many types of writing and some people may be writing for fun or whatever, but in a story that is complex and carefully put together, the writer's choices are not coincidences or things that just so happen to be that way, they are carefully and precisely made choices that are designed that way to communicate something to the reader.

Surprisingly often I will see people write these complex and meaningful HP analyses, and then end their post with 'but I'm sure Rowling didn't mean any of that, or even think about it, she just wrote it this way because she's stupid.' All of that was somehow magically in the text for you to find and analyze, and she didn't even mean to write it? EVERY word of these books was typed by a human hand and reread with human eyes.

Think of how for example people will say foolish things like 'Did JKR just forget that Bellatrix was married?' Bellatrix being married is a HUGE part of who she is, who Voldemort is, how the DEs function, how the traditional pureblood families and marriages and culture function... You're missing SO MUCH of the meaning in the text by denying the writer's intentionality.

Same with things like mistaking her world-building for being statements of her real-world beliefs. 'Here's an in-depth analysis of what the text implies about gender and sexism in pureblood culture... but JKR probably just wrote all this because she's sexist, and I magically put meaning into it that makes perfect sense' ??? The idea that a writer will only write sexism into their fictional world because they're communicating that they think sexism is good is insanity. Characters don't do things solely because their writer thinks that is proper behavior. Characters' behaviors or words, or elements of the fictional world the story exists in, are not straight-forward statements of what the writer thinks is good or ideal, and in fact are often the opposite. If you can't analyze things with such complexity, that's a problem with your reading comprehension, not with the text.

Or, when people will treat the text too much like it's a real life event that happened, rather than something that was carefully put together by hand to mean something. I love analyzing characters and the HP world like they're real, but when you find yourself denying meaning by using logic like 'well it probably just happened that way for no deeper reason' you're just misunderstanding what fiction is.

For example attempting to disprove the numerous hints at the Bellatrix/Voldemort relationship by saying things like 'but other people call her Bella so it could have meant anything' or 'there are other types of pleasure than sexual so it could have meant anything.' But why would Rowling choose that word? And put it right next to Bellatrix longing for his physical closeness? And why would she set up this exchange at all? Why 'lover'? Why 'lover' placed so directly with physical closeness and care? Why 'lover' and 'pleasure' and 'longing' and 'closeness' in the same book? Why have Harry point out that she's acting in an intimate way that invokes being lovers? Why do other characters later use 'Bella,' if not to communicate that it's used by people she considers/ed family?

When everything that 'could mean anything' all lead to the same answer, why is that? Why are you assuming Rowling's implications are for some reason unintentional? Unintentional over and over and over again? If many readers are catching it, why are you assuming she's not smart enough to catch it herself? The only person not catching it here is you. Word choices or words with clear connotations are not random or accidents or coincidences, particularly when several of them occur in quick succession or when it's associated repeatedly with the same two characters. Nor are characterizations or patterns in the text. If you read that way, that's a misunderstanding on your end (not with the author, not with other readers) so don't complain when you can't understand the text. 'I'm going to act like the person who wrote this is stupid, and therefore ignore everything that the text is saying, and then say the text sucks' is YOU being an idiot. Notice how other people don't have this issue when they analyze actual meaning and intentionality in the text

[alexanderwales]

Pitchposting: Retcon

The main idea is this: it's a narrative game where the majority of the gameplay involves placing the pieces of your own past.

This is at least partially lifted from some tabletop games that have "retcon inventory" or "retcon friends" where you declare in the middle of play "oh, actually, it's plausible that I had prepared for this all along, and here's how I did in fact do that", even if the player would have had no way of knowing what was necessary for that. (I have not had a chance to play Blades in the Dark, but I've been told that it features this heavily.)

So the whole game would be this: slowly adding to your own backstory, penning yourself in over time, until there's no room to maneuver anymore, and shortly thereafter, the game ends. The fundamental tension of the game is that you want to keep the character as amorphous as possible, to commit to as few details as possible, but commitment is necessary to actually accomplish things.

In my mind, there's a timeline of the character's life, and that's one of the main thing you're adding to. If you need them to have skill as a pickpocket, you need to account for that somewhere in the timeline, to define how and when they acquired that skill, and whatever time period that was suddenly becomes locked in place. Some level of proficiency in combat can be explained by a rough childhood or a hobby or just bits and pieces picked up here and there, but at a certain level you need to commit to having had multiple years of real world experience, a hefty bar slotted down into the timeline.

The basic appeal to me is that it sort of turns progression mechanics on its head. If you really wanted to, maybe you could slap everything onto the timeline at once, an entire defined life with every memory, skill, and contact determined right at the start. But this would almost certainly sink you unless you knew every twist and turn of the game ahead of time. And in this game "progression" does not come from increasing skills because you got better, it comes from defining the past. (Though there's no reason you can't also have material progression as you acquire more and better things.)

This is also, somewhat, what the process of writing can be like. You nail down things piece by piece, and over time, you're penned in, unable to move except along the tracks you've hopefully laid for yourself, no ability to introduce new things.

I'm not entirely sure what kind of game this mechanic is best suited to. A narrative game would be interesting, but the player is attempting to define as little of the character's past as possible, and ... does this even work for a narrative? The player's version of events is that they're (more or less) trying to keep backstory from happening, that's baked into the concept. It creates an uneasy tension.

A less narrative game, like an immersive sim, might work better. You decide that you spent at least three years as a thief in order to "gain" (i.e. have always had) lock-picking skills, with enough room in the timeline that you can add an extra few years if need be later on.

And of course this works for skills, but it also works for relationships, which I think is fun. In a normal RPG type game, you gain relationship points over time by being a good buddy, but with this framework, you would be revealing backstory that was "there all along". And depending on your needs, you can have this be different backstory, giving certain side characters the same amorphous nature, establishing different relationships with them.

The other option (since I'm a writer, not a game designer) is to try to import this idea into a work of written fiction, which ... might work?

You have your protagonist, and they know that they're a reality-warping amorphous blob, but they have some kind of goal, and they will lock in whatever backstory they need in order to accomplish that goal, while trying to stay cognizant of the fact that whatever backstory they give themselves (and the reader) is going to pen them in further. Maybe there's a nice little magic system to make of it, though I think that would necessitate some kind of reset mechanism.

It might be hubris, but I think I could probably find the structure that would make it work. Cool scenes:

The protagonist is acting in such a way to leave all his options open, which means that he wants to avoid a fight because that would mean either confirming that he can fight or that he can't fight, collapsing the superposition, so he's going out of his way to not have to make that decision.

The protagonist retroactively was always friends with a police officer who took him in, making all the chilly conversation they've been having the result of an ongoing grudge.

The protagonist takes a big swing and fills in a whole swath of his past at once, a major investment ... and one that upends his stated goals up to this point, recontextualizing the entire novel and making it "about" someone else.

Plus all that "standard" stuff to do, like retroactively knowing how to ride a motorcycle, handle a gun, hold breath for two minutes, etc.

I don't know, I think that it could work in prose, so long as you're clever enough about how and why you're doing things, and correctly explaining things to the audience.

[9ofspades]

I did actually read a good summary of what some people earnestly mean when they say “metagaming”. I thought it was good food for thought, even if it doesn’t cover every situation and doesn’t address the new players’ fear of “meta gaming”.

So first, the person established a framework of 4 approaches players can have to a TTRPG (assuming the rpg in question is multiplayer and has each non-GM player adopt at least one character):

I’m doing what I would do if I were in this situation, and also I was an elf cleric [or whatever is relevant and appropriate]

I’m an actor playing this player character, and I do whatever this character would do in the situations they’re in. As a good actor, I have to stay in character and act and react accordingly.

I’m a cowriter/co-director and this PC is one of the tools I’m using to execute my vision of telling a good story. This means this PC will do whatever I think will make for the best or most interesting story.

I’m the player of a game I intend to win. This means all my decisions will be based on what will improve my chances of winning given the information and resources I have.

The summary concluded that when person A uses a different one of the four approaches from what person B thinks they should use, person B will accuse them of “meta gaming”.

In actuality, each TTRPG will have at least one of these approaches they favor, and extremely self-aware ones will explicate which approach the player should apply in a given situation. For instance, the old school D&D with all the deathtraps, where a dungeon was an obstacle course that tried for a total party kill, #4 was actually the correct approach.

I had an especially ignorant friend try to insist to me that every game *needed* to be as strict and crunchy as 3E, because otherwise “meta gaming” would definitely, without question occur, and by this they meant people playing using approach #4 in a system that wasn’t designed to do intellectual combat with them.

From what I understand, “munchkin” and “meta gamer” are insults thrown at people who play #4, even though that’s only inappropriate if the system isn’t designed for it. But there’s also people who call out “metagamers” for doing “yes-and” improv comedy with their characters, which is more approach #3, because they’re failing to stay in character. The others may or may not be less common, but I haven’t seen them as much.

Anyway, circling back to the main conversation topic, I feel like allegations of “power gaming” and “meta gaming” for the probability thing are very much people thinking players shouldn’t play with approach #4, and then doing what my friend did with the “but it’s only human to use #4 and no amount of communication or polite requesting will stop them,” and then drawing the conclusion of “THEREFORE you have to make it impossible to use that approach in order to have any fun storytelling in a roleplaying game”. And then deciding to ‘make it impossible’ by preventing anyone from knowing how odds are calculated so they can’t strategize numerically.

Which is ridiculous, because if you want people to play using one of the #1-3 approaches, then you can just. Communicate that. And then pick a game that supports it.

Besides the fact that it's really stupid, the issue with the conflation of system mastery and metagaming in [modern D&D centric] RPG discussions is that it effectively generates a mode of play that's. Not fun to engage with as a game.

GM starts a new campaign with the other players creating a fresh batch of characters. The players have been taught that expressing too much knowledge about the game as a system is metagaming and bad and they should avoid it, but because it's impossible to know what is reasonable for a bunch of starting characters to know it's easy to overcorrect. The GM also knows they shouldn't expect the players to express too much system mastery so there is effectively a gentleman's agreement that wherever the player characters stumble into blindly (because they can't be expected to make informed decisions about which challenges to pursue because thinking about what the situation presented to them via the logic of the system would be metagaming) they will be challenged but not too challenged.

This leaves very little room for player characters accidentally stumbling into a situation where they misjudged the danger present or meaningfully learning from their mistakes. Because a lethal mistake means that a player loses a character. Is the player allowed to utilize the knowledge they gained from the loss of that character with their next character? Apparently not.

Anyway so that sucks.

[whomstsnek]

Twiggsy!! deginitely fine and normal <3

in order: brownie, tabaxi (ragamuffin cat), lizardfolk (frog-eyed gecko), fire genasi, goblin, bugbear, human

rahhhh Twig my beloved <333

I feel like I had the most fun designing brownies and idek why. I wanted them to look super cutesy and youthfully jubilant yknow? almost childlike. huge facial features on tiny lil faces. For many of the other characters I think it's pretty noticeable that I smoothed out some of their wrinkles and rougher features to fit this idea and now that all is said and done idk how much I'm into it but oh well. I imagine brownie eyes as huge and uncanny, and I like to tint their sclera with the same color of their irises. I like to do a similar tinting on their wings :) In a perfect world I would be less lazy and draw brownies more... insectoid, because that's kind of how I view them, but for now this is a brownie :3

Nothing too special about her tabaxi design, I knew I kinda wanted her to be a domestic cat breed bc A. they're generally much smaller that other felines and B. I wanted to kind of set her apart from the rest of the Krew who are (mostly) big cats. Ragamuffins seemed super cute and fluffy and something about it just clicked in my idiot brain

On the other hand her lizardfolk design was a slam dunk, easy peasy lemon squeezy, frog-eyed gecko was just the correct choice. Small, cute, big fuckin eyes, reference to frogs. Oh yeah, it's all coming together. The only challenge was figuring out how to put glasses on her, and tbh idk if they're super functional the way I ended up drawing them lol. w/ever it's fine. This might be one of my favorite overall designs tbh, and I might recycle the design for a character of my own

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

His Majesty the Worm

its wormin' time Genre: Dark(?) Fantasy, Dungeon Crawler, OSR

Touchstones: Classic TTRPGs, Dungeon Meshi

What is this game?: His Majesty the Worm is a Tarot-Based game that aims to take all the boring parts of OSR and make them into goofy and fun features

How's the gameplay?: Hoo boy, this is gonna be a dense one His Majesty the Worm takes on a Maximalist approach to game design, with many sub-mechanics affecting your overall performance, the core game's mechanic is using Tarot instead of Dice for randomization, while a Tarot deck (w/ minor arcana) is recommended, the game is designed so a standard 52 card deck could also work, albeit not recommended. Whenever a character needs to do something a TEST OF FATE starts, characters have stats based on the Arcana's suits, Wands, Pentacles, Cups, and Swords, and whenever a TEST OF FATE starts, they draw a card from the Minor Arcana deck, then add that stat to the number they drew (Face cards are 11-14, Fool is a 0). Characters have a choice between 4 paths (also corresponding to the Suits in a minor arcana deck), a Kith (species), and a Motif (a quick sum up for your character), if I wanted to play a crotchety wizard asshole I would play a Path of Wands character with the Motif "Grumpy Scholar" and the Kith Underfolk, since my wizard is a halfling. The game is split between two distinct phases, Crawling and Citying, The crawling phase is going into the megadungeon and looking around for loot, while the City phase is going into town and buying shit! This game really focuses down on the minor, mundane parts of adventuring, Food management, Managing what you're currently holding, Torch supplying, Equipment Upkeep, and Weight management are all vital parts of a character, this might sound boring, and in any other game it'd be! BUT his Majesty the Worm is built entirely around these granular, seemingly inconsequential mechanics, they feel warranted and fun. The game also has an in-depth Guild building mechanic, after paying the 50% tax that all adventurers must pay to enter town, you gotta use up all that gold from dungeons somewhere! and the best place to put it in is equipment, but second place is helping out your community by starting an adventurer's guild! By investing your hard earned gold into your community you can build many things! like Taverns, Unflattering statues of your rival guildmasters, Monasteries, and other such fun things! This isn't even getting into things like Sorcery and Alchemy and how those end up mattering, Status effects, Language management being a part of gameplay… His Majesty is a maximalist game in every way, but it knows how to blend all of its strange and seemingly menial mechanics to make a very fun experience, it takes some of the most unfun games in the market and goes "Ok but what if it worked?"

What's the setting (If any) like?: Uhhhh, there's a setting alright! It shows up in bits and pieces of flavor text and the like, but there doesn't seem to be a setting guide or anything, the setting is fairly malleable, but a general dark fantasy vibe is the norm, the game explicitly says its not supposed to have a set in bedrock setting

What's the tone?: Goofy Dark Fantasy, its a grim world, but its also silly and pokes fun at tropes of the genre as well as just has copious amounts of poop jokes, its not a game to be taken seriously tonally speaking

Session length: 4 hours minimum, this is a complex game

Number of Players: 5 is my recommendation, 1 gm and 1 player of each path

Malleability: Very malleable! its an explicit design goal!

Resources: The game's website has many resources available, including an online tarot deck, player sheets, and a guild sheet

I really didn't think I'd like this game that much! it's an extremely well made and well thought out look at the OSR genre, if we keep getting OSR game I hope they look more like His Majesty

[artsideblogofsorts]

ALRIGHT WOOOOOOW. I wanna reply and show appreciation for this in a proper way so it's a reblog🥹💙💙

They would DEFINITELY vibe together naturally!! Nick is indeed a very cool and unique character that draws a lot of attention hihi, and he's quite charming too! A fan favourite for sure C:

THE JACKET ONE WAS A MUSTTTTTT and I also wanna draw him shirtless at some point!! not for thirst for ONCE BAHAHAH but because I wanna show all his damage. I might also introduce a few more chars from Fo4 and dbh C: already have ideas for a Reed900 appearance 😍

SAME HERE I love DBH design but the obvious synthetic look (like the ones in I, Robot or Bicentennial Man) are just UUGGGHH super cool imo!

AND ABT THE ATMOSPHERE AAAH HE IS THE NOIR VIBE, like I wanna explore more of that because I want Connor to be the younger less experienced detective that adapts to Nick's modus operandi and they both end up having this dark, smoky badass look to them KJASDFHKJHDSF im gonna blow the hell up just talking abt this

BOTH IS GOOD. They have the synnergy to share both kinds of vibes I think :DD

AAAHHHHH AND OF COURSE THANK YOU SO FRICKIN MUCH, honestly this one came out a lot more naturally than I expected ;v; it was a lot of luck. I will post a process vid later!! its not finished but conveys most of it :D Thank you thank you thank you kindly💙💙💙 ;V; ig those boring design lessons paid off, and even though I still have doubts and know that I can do even better your comments are immensely appreciated and push me in a much healthier way C:

thank you SO MUCH for taking the time to go over it all and for checking the details. Making them is so fun, but the reward of having someone point them out is 1000x better C: 💙

Nick Valentine, Synth Detective

partnering up with

Connor-51, Deviant Hunter!

I am pleased to present this little partnership idea between two tin cans I'm extremely fond of 💙 making this brought me so much joy and I hope you guys like it as well!

Some background info under the cut!~

Connor is an advanced prototype of android within the universe of Detroit: Become Human. He was designed to assist in the investigation of deviants, other androids that have "gone rogue" and stopped taking orders. He's also known as the Deviant Hunter. Though initially convinced that he is "just a machine" designed to accomplish his mission, Connor might eventually begin to warm up to his partner, and his priorities might shift unexpectedly.

Nick Valentine is a synth, or Synthetic man in Fallout 4. He is a mysterious prototype with the implanted memories of an old detective that lived over a century ago, and woke up in a heap of garbage after being dumped by his creators, the Institute. He's quick witted and snarky, and although his damaged components might make him appear intimidating at first, he is a deeply compassionate man who genuinely cares about doing the good thing, and this has earned him the trust and respect of his community.

[i-eat-candles]

I had a silly idea

WoF x Pokémon!

More info under cut

I recently got back into Pokémon and it got me thinking, what if wof characters had their own Pokémon team?

For Clays team I wanted him to have at least one of his Pokémon mud themed because, well, he’s a MudWing. I also wanted to give him a Pokémon that represented his strength, and I immediately thought of Tauros. I was originally going to draw him with Wooper instead of Marshtomp, but I think that Marshtomps design is better and more fun to draw. I really like how this came out and it was also a way for me to practice full body drawings since I don’t do much of those.

Clays team , if I felt like drawing the others, would consist of Tauros, Marshtomp, Wooper, and Phanphy

If I feel like doing another one of these, I’ll be drawing Tsunami next!

[narfin-frood]

Hi! I'm a big fan of your art, and I just wanted to know, did you study the WOY art style? I'm asking because the way you draw each character, Hater especially, is so expressive! Do you have any tips with expressions? Thank you!

thank you so much!! and to kinda answer your question: while what i do is, technically, studying, that's not what it feels like. i genuinely just enjoy looking at character sheets. a lot of the time they'll include little notes about things you wouldn't think about unless you're told to, like wander's eyes typically angling towards each other at the bottom or sylvia's eyes obscuring the full width of her neck.

(i have any one of these open in my reference panel almost always! not only are these full of tips & tricks for your everyday sketching, they're full of rules for each character, which are meant to be broken in interesting and fun ways.)

[im gonna pack a bunch of other, tangentially related tips and tricks and thoughts into the readmore, including my personal breakdown of hater's expressions specifically, so feel free to give it a click. long post ahead]

a lot of stuff can be picked up by just watching the cartoon as many times as you want. i have watched every episode (minus big fucking baby episode, which i hate) like 6 times over, sometimes more (looking at you the rager), and that has definitely solidified my wander over yonder visual library.

also, wander over yonder's art style already fits in with the way i draw, because i LOVEE long curvy lines and super crisp & clear silhouettes!!

as for why/how i get hater so expressive.... that mainly has to do with the fact that i think he's So Cute. He's So Cute and i wanna Squash Him. and his character design reflects that!!!

his hood is his eyebrow and his eyes may or may not be rolling around in their sockets, and his nose is a little upside down heart. but all of the lord hater emotion is stored in the chin. lord hater has a bunch of specific and VERY malleable options for mouth shapes, depending on what makes the expression and lipsync look clearest.

you can keep it super simple, with a clear divide between his top and bottom jaw, and do several round bumps for teeth, which they do a lot when tweening, like this:

this kind of seems to be his default state, depending heavily on the episode and when it was made and who was drawing him the most, of course.

you can also keep his jaw and skull distinct, but keep his teeth straight and flush with each other, which helps for sharper expressions, esp. anger or frustration, but can also work for a good "squee". he also sometimes pouts so hard his chin eats his mouth, which is, again, cute.

if you're having trouble keeping an expression clear while also maintaining the distinction between his jaw and the rest of his skull, it's pretty common also to forego most of the overt skeleton bits, save for a few hatch marks to indicate teeth (sometimes squiggles or bumps, when he's yelling about it). in my head i affectionately refer to this style of hater expression as the "peanut sans"

none of these convey the intensity of emotion you're looking for? fear not, you can also always just go Full Skeleting. and give his teeth a full outline. this is great for Pain and Strain and Nefariousness.

and then there are a million expressions in between and possibilities within these parameters beyond your wildest belief. nothing should hold you back from a really fucked-up lord hater expression. not proportion. not structure. ESPECIALLY not symmetry. please. make his chin bigger. make his head bigger. make one eye bigger. make him look in two different directions. scrunch his nose up. whatever it takes. by all means. i implore you to have fun

(honorable mention. his W face. the face when he says the consonant W. sometimes OO. i'm. obsessed. with it . he looks. kity)

anyway. lord hater tangent aside. i could also share my own process for expressions, but it really just hinges on what looks appealing/what i like the most/what communicates the emotion i want to communicate the clearest, and it varies between characters and people.

it helps to, again, build your visual library, and look at lots and lots of funny faces, both in real life and in cartoons you like. make funny faces in the mirror and try to focus on what parts of your face change shape or interact with other parts of your face when you do something like smile really wide or drop your jaw. your skin is taut, and there's a bunch of muscle and fat attached to your bones, so when one big bone moves, a bunch of muscles and fat under the surface will shift around too, and understanding that relationship is really helpful in the long run, both for drawing real people and for drawing cartoons.

and the easiest way to retain information like that is to have fun while you study. stop thinking of it as studying and start thinking of it as gathering information on this thing you like a lot and want to do more of, like when you scroll through someone's account to look at all their art, and just. do more of that. do more exploring and observing. since animation is my special interest, this part is pretty easy for me, but it does still take practice to get into that mindset, especially when you convince yourself you have to be super strict and rigid to make it in the art world. focus on drawing and observing what makes YOU happy first, and everything else will follow.

and don't worry about taking notes. don't worry about remembering everything you look at. just look at things you like, and think about them for longer than you usually would. think about the shapes and colors. what makes that drawing so darn appealing to you, besides subject matter and the vague concept of an "artstyle"? you'll be surprised just how abstract what appeals to you can be. for me, with expressions especially, it comes down to random shit like "i like when the edge of a character's mouth creates a tangent with the outline of their head" instead of "pretty eyes" or other, vaguer elements. and that shit i like becomes a part of my artstyle, but only when it fits in and looks appealing, because you can't do stuff like this in every single drawing & retain a full range of expression

ANYway. i hope this made some sense/helped at least a little. i like lord hater a lot. and i also like to draw