#Partially story

[ask-diane]

Teena @ Diane: Hai there! So about the Hisuian Zorua, are you two travel buddies? Do you get along?

*Diane blankly stared at the Mew, soon realizing they had asked her a question and began to blabber.*

"Oh, Sammy? No he's not really a travel buddy I would say.. But he is very sweet, and we do get along. At first though, I sort of had some doubts because I... I well, just had met him, and I didn't know if he was trustworthy or not. But I'm glad I followed him in the end. Cause now I'm just hanging out and living here in Saroka with him, Selena, Starry, and Eva. ... Well... until I make some final decisions... Though I'm really enjoying the time I've spent here with Sammy. We always do something fun and unique each day. And even though there really aren't that many options for us to do recently, we just make the most of things... Though... If I'm being completely honest with you... Sometimes, it's strange but.. I feel like he's hiding something... Like I see him sometimes just sit and stare at the edge of the forrest with his head down, and if I come near him and ask him if he's alright... He just tells me he's fine and walks off... So I guess what I'm saying is..."

...

[@cutemonclub, Teena]

[eerivee]

My silver dragon oc Eleisarion (or Isa for short!) They're somewhat of a mentor figure for Aella when it comes to any draconic stuff but they're also kind of one of the biggest reasons why she has to deal with any of that draconic stuff to begin with. Not that they really had anything to do with it, sometimes people just meddle with magic they don't fully understand and OOPS would you look at the consequences of everyone's actions

[hellspawnmotel]

remember when I did this?

well I did more

[thetrinitytest]

happy pride month from peepaw harkness and the torchwood team 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[neodiekido]

little red riding hood and the boy who cried wolf

[reunitedinterlude]

shuffleboard (2024 // 2018)

[jae-in-a-trenchcoat]

Idk how to explain this but this is partially @mangosaurus’s fault

[uncanny-tranny]

Hey, if you have speech impediments, you are so amazing.

If you stutter or have a lisp or misspeak easily or you have a flat affect or a limited verbal vocabulary or if your voice is AAC or if you just have a difference in your vocality, you are so incredibly important and amazing.

Just know that your voice is yours. Nobody will ever be able to truly take it away. Your voice is part of you, and you deserve to make it as true to you as you deem fit. I hope you have the space to grow with your voice and whatever about it makes it unique.

[serpentface]

This was going to be a panel of a little comic but I got too invested in drawing minute background details so, here.

[enden-agolor]

for valentines day requests maybe lukas healing injured jesse with hurt/comfort? or maybe sunshine institute stuff?

BRO FORGET WAITING TIL VALENTINES DAY I NEED TO DRAW THAT NOW!!!!! WTF!!! we were robbed of sunshine institute Lukas! he would have taken such good care of Jesse…

[llemon-soda]

more scribbles

[scarapanna]

Small TW for

Bright lights

Injury

[saetoru]

something that’s always been funny to me is that long fics with smut tend to do better than long fics without but it’s like. if you write a longggg 10k+ word fic with a build up and plot and sprinkle in smut at the end, people will read that long build up and pay attention to the plot in order to get to the smut. and 99% of the time the tags and comments will talk about the plot itself and the way it was written as opposed to the sex and they will ask for more or for part 2’s and as annoying as the part 2 comments can be sometimes, it also means that they focused on the plot and not the smut. but if you post that fic without the smut—as in same fic and same build up and everything, but the smuts not there, a lot of those same people will simply not give the fic a chance. it’s just funny to me bc yes, a part of it is just horniness, but also i think it’s partly that there is also some conditioning to believe that a “perfect romance” or a “perfect story” of a romance is sealed with intimacy that’s more often than not sexual in order to actually be valid. and yeah. idk. it’s an interesting thing to see from a writers perspective

[supahstarrr]

i can't just emphasize how important stella is as a friend for both jentry and michael. she is the "earth" to jentry's "fire" and to michael's "water"—sharing both of their traits while also having distinct ones of her own that is able to balance out the both of them at once.

even her "powers" being the only one not revolving around supernatural abilities go along with her as the "earth" that they both need to be stable. she represents the "normalcy" that the both of are able to get & feel despite their connections to the supernatural. she's sympathetic enough to get to the both of them but also can act as the voice of reason and an organizer to keep them both grounded.

in a sense, her pushing michael to a future that many others defined for him contributes to her as a symbol for "normalcy" because of how that's reflective of the negativity that comes with social norms, and how in the context of michael's story that was what "normal" meant to him.

jentry & stella becoming friends while one of them has a crush on the other's former partner subvert social expectations about how you should go about and feel about those scenarios. jentry reaches out to stella for her to organize and process the thoughts she has, then for some moments they bond while jentry is able to forget about what being "normal" is like without powers for some time.

without her, the two of them (especially jentry) would have a harder time to define what being normal means to themselves due to the lack of having moments that don't involve the supernatural or constant self-doubt and mourning. she helps them break down social norms as an attempt to gain control over their lives through positive (jentry & stella) and negative (michael & stella) relations.

i'm sure the writers internalized stella's importance. although that plan for her importance was not fully delivered to the audience because stella definitely could use some more depth to her character and her importance is brushed aside at various points of the story, but the potential in the dynamic between jentry/stella/michael and what stella means for the both of them is soooo interesting to me. especially because the show definitely needed an "earth" character— someone who represents normalcy after michael as a symbol for jentry's story has a shift & someone who is able to keep them grounded after the supernatural becomes intertwined in the both of their stories

[canisalbus]

If I remember correctly you created Machete around 2007-2008. But when did you create Vasco? (I'm sorry of this has been asked before, I couldn't find anything)

First finished pictures of Vasco are from 2018, but even before that I had been thinking it would be interesting if Machete had had one (1) romantic relationship in his youth before he was ordained. I just didn't have a name and design for him yet.

In the earliest sketches of Vasco, he first looked a little bit like a bordercollie, then like a spaniel or a setter. He had a darker color palette as well, sort of chestnut brown with white markings, but combined with the overpowering whiteness of Machete he looked kind of impassionate and drab, so I kept making him warmer and lighter until he became the golden boy he is today. The name came later, I just thought Vasco sounded friendly and charismatic. (Also the old finnish word 'vaski' means brass and bronze, and even if it's a tedious connection and doesn't factor into their canon at all, it felt too fitting to me personally and I had to go with it).

[rawliverandgoronspice]

I think what particularly annoys me with the "zelda was always gameplay before story" is that... it's not true? At least I don't think it's true in the way people mean it.

Zelda games were always kind of integrating story based on the standards of the time. When game stories were in game pamphlets, Zelda's stories was in the pamphlets. ALTTP tried to tell a pretty complicated stories with the limitations of the time. OoT was actively trying to tell an epic, cinematic tale packed with ambiance and expand what 3D could offer that 2D games struggled with. Majora's Mask is deeply character-driven in many, many ways. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are both pretty concerned about their stories, down to the point that some people were bored by TP's cutscenes in particular. Skyward Sword, from what little I have played it, is very very invested in its characters and their journey (and 2D Zeldas have Link's Awakening, Minish Cap... None of them are visual novels, but they are concerned with emotional journeys, character arcs, mysteries about their own world...)

What is true is that the narrative wraps around the mechanics, and not the other way around. The mechanics drive themes, aesthetics, emotional beats and character journeys; and that's great. The world is a puzzle, and the world is delightfully absurd when it needs to be, full of heart when it calls for it, dark and oppressive when it suits the player experience.

That does not mean the games aren't invested in their stories. Even BotW has a pretty complicated story to tell about an entire world rather than one specific tale or legend --all of it at the service of the gameplay, which is exploration and mastery of your environment.

So. Yes, none of the Zelda games are million-words long visual novels that care deeply about consistency and nuance; but stories don't need consistency or deep lore to be meaningful and serve an emotional journey. Again: gameplay is story. The two cannot be so easily parsed from each other.

And Zelda as a franchise obviously care deeply about story, characters and setting (and still does right now --otherwise there wouldn't be a movie), even if it doesn't try to imitate prestige narrative-driven games, which is great and part of why I love this series so much. Doesn't mean it couldn't have done better in the past, it obviously could have, but I feel like pretending that nobody ever cared about story or character is just... false? It's a huge disservice to the devs too. Some of them obviously cared immensely.

The "gameplay above story", at least in the extent to which it is paraded today to defend TotK, mostly, is a really recent development. And I think it's one that deserves to receive some pushback.