#STRAIGHT FROM DEVIANTART ITSELF

[gaily-daily]

MERMAID BEETLEJUICE AND LYDIA !!!!

I TAKE BACK EVERYTHING I EVER SAID ABOUT THIS SCRIPT HOLY FUCK

[lycorim]

I know the culture is way past NFTs at this point (and thank god for that) but I thought I'd share the message that made me stop posting on DeviantART altogether.

The user is inactive now (wonder why) so I don't feel bad sharing their name uncensored.

It's shit like this that makes me hesitate posting my stuff anywhere - because for every person who asks and then backs off when rejected, how many are there who will just save the art and sell it without even trying to reach out? And it hasn't stopped with the death of NFTs (which, to be fair, the site did make actual moves to protect users from), because DeviantART has proved itself incapable of staying away from tech bro fads and alienating the real artists who made it a flourishing site in the past.

Now it's AI art - and enough of it to choke out genuine posts and make you wonder if any of what you see there is real. The number of times I have probably scrolled past a piece - a real piece of art that someone probably put hours of work in to - because DeviantART refuses to treat it any differently than some computer generated plagarism is staggering. And depressing.

Straight up, don't use DeviantART. If you're one of the few brave souls still trudging through their platform, leave it. It's not worth the risk. It went downhill when they deleted the "recent deviations" tab (like what the actual hell????) and got rid of their tiered organization structure in favor of exclusively tagging, and it is not a safe place for artists anymore. I think, genuinely, if tumblr wanted to play to is userbase and implement things like galleries or other art-focused features, it could just stake itself in as THE art platform (and it would be better than whatever the hell they're doing now).

[apas-95]

can i ask about your thoughts on whether ai art models should only use art from people who have opted in as their training data? sorry to bother you about this, you're the main person i've seen defending ai art on tumblr and i agree with a lot of what you've said, but i feel a little uneasy about the models using art from people who haven't given permission.

The main thing to understand is that AI training isn't like... packaging up a zip file in the AI model, full of a billion images from deviantart, which it then cuts up for pieces, or anything.

When neural networks are trained on data, they're learning from it, in as much as that term can be applied - the data leaves an impression on them, rather than a copy. In simple terms, the neural network is made up of a bunch of different nodes, connected with each other, with different sensitivities to them and their connections - just like neurons in a brain! When going through training, what happens is that the sensitivities on these nodes and connections are slightly adjusted, by looking at the average difference between thousands of actual and intended outputs. If, simplifiying here, over thousands of images made, the output neuron responsible for drawing straight lines keeps underperforming, then the training process would identify the most active neurons inside the network that connect to that output neuron, and increase the sensitivity of their connections to that output neuron. This is, functionally, the exact same process as a well-used model for understanding the learning process in our own animal brains, Hebbian theory. It's a long, evolutionary process, where connections are slowly built by repeated 'firing of neurons'. Again, this is simplified, and, in reality, there wouldn't be an individual output responsible for drawing straight lines, but many many outputs which are responsible for very unpredictable and wide-reaching aspects.

So, the neural network doesn't just have a copy of a given image stored, it has been - very minorly, considering it takes the average of thousands and thousands of samples - influenced and impressioned by it. For any individual image, the amount of data it actually gave to the network would be equivalent to slightly multiplying the sensitivity of a neuron by one number. The problem here comes when this process is accused of being 'theft'. Of 'using artists assets without their permission', or, more bluntly, of copyright infringement. The idea that, firstly, copying data is itself theft is already a dicey one - we have all laughed at the 'you wouldn't steal a car ads' when it comes to movie piracy - the original is still there. However, as we've already established, the AI isn't even copying any data. If the process I've just described, of being exposed to many many thousands of images, and iterating on the output in order to more closely match the general, average feeling of what's been seen, is theft, then all artists are constantly committing theft against any artist's work they've seen - because this is the exact process of taking inspiration by which people develop art styles in the first place. Whenever an artist draws an anime-style drawing, they're 'copying' a million pieces of anime art they've seen - or the general impression of their commonalities that they've slowly developed over repeated exposure. Whenever anyone creates anything, they're taking inspiration from everything they've seen before. Nothing is entirely original, and the process of 'learning to draw by comparing with drawings that've been done before' is universal, here.

In short, there's no metaphysical, ethical basis by which we can call training neural networks on art 'theft' without also implicitly extending the concept to all methods by which humans create art - and the only result of that would be Disney being able to sue you for inspiration. And, as I've discussed before, there's neither any basis for calling their images 'not art' - the neural network is, in the final analysis, a tool being used by a person, and what makes something art is the person, not their tools. What's left is purely a political, economic argument. That argument can be had more productively if people didn't immediately jump into the safety of these metaphysical debates the second they felt their position might be weak.

[transformers-mosaic]

Transformers: Mosaic - "Ever The Pessimist"

Earliest evidence posted on November 29th, 2007

Story - Logan Rogan Script, Colours, Letters - wadapan Art - Andy Short

deviantART

wada sez: This is it, folks, we’re almost at the end: tomorrow will be the last post on the archive! But as for this strip—writer Logan Rogan clearly had a soft spot for Dreadwind and Darkwing, as for BotCon 2009, he self-published a full-length comic starring the characters: “Limelight: Dreadwind”. This one-page strip, however, was seemingly never completed; I found the finished lineart over on Andy Short’s deviantART, and hoped to track down the original script—but sadly, Short seems to have left the Transformers community, per his inactivity over on TFW2005, while Logan Rogan simply did not reply to my @ on twitter. Without a script to go off, I decided to try and reverse-engineer what the story in the comic might’ve been like, writing my own dialogue to suit the artwork. Keep reading for a full process breakdown.

From the character designs, it’s obvious that this strip is set in IDW continuity; Dreadwind and Darkwing appeared as part of a Decepticon infiltration unit on the planet Nebulos in Stormbringer (identifiable as the setting of this strip by the architecture of the alien city). They had a fairly minor role in the story, with the Nebulos scenes mostly serving to set the stakes for what Thunderwing might do to Cybertron. Darkwing seems to be the leader of the gang; he orders a token resistance against the monster to satisfy Megatron, planning to flee the moment things get rough.

They’re last seen in issue #3, seemingly having escaped—but in the artwork in this strip, Dreadwind is in a crater for some reason. There’s not a moment in the canonical events where this could’ve taken place, so they must’ve had one last run-in with Thunderwing as he was leaving.

I sketched out the rough shape of the script on my phone while doing some shopping. Here’s what I wrote:

Panel 1

DREADWIND: He’s coming BACK to finish us off.

DREADWIND (CONT’D): You know, I used to ADMIRE that guy. When the war was at its peak, he was like, “We are going to DESTROY this planet.” And he was so SURE of it. He literally turned himself into a MONSTER so HE could be the one to do it.

DREADWIND (CONT’D) : When you think about it, he was the ULTIMATE PESSIMIST.

Panel 2

DARKWING: He’s GONE back to Cybertron. RAZORCLAW is preparing to fight him.

DREADWIND: They’ll lose.

DARKWING: Megatron DOESN’T LOSE.

Panel 3

DARKWING: Look, we did it! Forget about phases 1-5, ol’ Thunderwing just took us straight to phase six. Mission accomplished.

Panel 4

DREADWIND: Megatron will see right through us, you know that? We FAILED to stop Thunderwing, and worse than that, we hardly even TRIED. Face it, we were never going to die to aliens or Autobots. It was always going to be our own team, breaking us down for scrap. That’s all we’re good for.

Panel 5

DARKWING: Right. Well are you gonna get up, or-

DREADWIND: -I’m up, I’m up.

Panel 6

DREADWIND: I bet all the good stuff got incinerated.

DARKWING: You never change, do you? EVER THE PESSIMIST.

My only requirement with the script was that I wanted to incorporate the title directly into the story, because I always liked it when Mosaic strips did that.

So yeah, fairly close to what I ended up with, I just tightened it up in a few places as I was getting it on the page. In Stormbringer itself, Dreadwind barely gets a speaking line; in fact, at one point I considered making Dreadwind near-silent, with most of the script just being Dreadwind’s inner monologue. You can imagine how this might’ve worked:

DREADWIND (NARRATION): He’s coming back to finish us off.

DARKWING: Looks like he’s gone back to Cybertron. They’re going to fight him.

DREADWIND (NARRATION): They’ll lose.

I liked the idea of Darkwing kind of reading his brother’s mind, while Dreadwind is so lost in his own sullenness that he’s constantly coming up with new worse-case scenarios in his head. In the end, I felt like the comic itself didn’t support the interpretation of Dreadwind as a particularly introspective character. In particular, Dreadwind later shows up (and dies) under Mike Costa’s pen, and during that appearance, he’s very talkative!

In the end, I tried to pitch the tone of the dialogue at exactly the halfway point between Simon Furman’s style in Stormbringer, and James Roberts’ style in More than Meets the Eye. The colouring style was also intended to fall halfway between Josh Burcham’s work on the former and Joana Lafuente’s work on the latter. This is because Skullcruncher, another member of the Nebulos infiltration unit, later reappeared as a stand-up comedian in More than Meets the Eye issue #45. I liked the idea that the rest of his infiltration crew are More than Meets the Eye characters by extension, if that makes any sense.

For the lettering, I simply referenced Robbie Robbins’ work on the original comic, using those rounded-rectangle speech bubbles with little nicks in the corners. I also looked to the original comic for inspiration for the colours, though obviously I can’t remotely compete with Burcham’s work. I spent a lot of time building up the atmosphere of the flames. In the final panel, there’s a dismembered arm, which I decided to identify as belonging to Ruckus by colouring it purple. To the Jack Lawrence reading this, sorry not sorry!

I wanted to do a character study of Dreadwind by taking his pessimism seriously, drawing a parallel between him and Thunderwing. Much of Stormbringer has an oddly straightforward environmentalist bent, and I wanted to inject some of my own cynicism regarding the future.

In the first panel, I wanted Dreadwind to say “he actually did it the absolute madlad”, but it just didn’t feel right for him to use the word “lad”, it would’ve been too human in that moment.

I liked the idea that, from Darkwing’s perspective, they kind of end up in a best-case scenario: they survive Thunderwing, and he practically does their job for them, cutting short what could’ve been years of boring subterfuge. Of course, Dreadwind would never see it that way!

The irony of the story, as I’ve scripted it, is something that would’ve been impossible for the story to account for as originally written in 2007—namely, although Dreadwind is mostly wrong in his predictions (Thunderwing is really gone, Megatron is really going to win, the Decepticons seemingly won’t care about anything that happened on Nebulos), he’s right in the worst way: both Darkwing and Dreadwind really will end up being ripped apart by their fellow Decepticons and used for spare parts, and it will be personal.

On another level, I think I wanted to inject a little bit of my own mixed feelings towards the Mosaic archive as a whole. Like, in the context of this project, I’m just a talker—people like Rogan, and Short, and all the others, they were doers. But now’s not quite the time to get into it. If you check back tomorrow, I’ll have much more to say on the experience of curating this archive. See you then...

[pandor-pandorkful]

It's time for another ADHD-fueled ramble! This one is about Homestuck, kind of. Saw a post about someone never reading it in spite of being a tumblr oldie, and that lead to some introspective reminiscing. Maybe it's interesting, maybe it isn't.

I reckon a lot of folks who read Homestuck were kind of peer-pressured into it. I was no exception, though the pressure applied was relatively passive. And if my memory serves me, I started reading Homestuck on MS Paint Adventures before I was a regular tumblr user... sometime in 2011, I think? The year I took off between grad school year 1 and 2, or maybe just slightly before that...

Anyways, around that time I noticed most of my Silent Hill fan art buddies on deviantArt suddenly switched to drawing trolls pretty much non-stop out of the blue.

I felt confused, and kinda left out. I was already feeling like being so overwhelmingly distracted by grad school had permanently damaged my connection to those friends...

So in kind of a last ditch effort to not lose yet another friend group, I dove headfirst into the webcomic, hoping to understand why the steady stream of old man yaoi had been replaced by weird preteen aliens.

If you've read the majority of Homestuck, you know what an effort that was. Its first few chapters are incredibly long and slow paced. By the time I even caught up to the trolls actually being visually introduced, I think my SH-turned-HS friends had moved on to something else entirely. :B

(Later I'd learn that the majority of HS fans during the height of it's popularity were, uh, kinda "fake fans". In that they skipped directly to the troll chapters. :B)

Granted, I had taken the longest possible road to catch up with MS Paint Adventures. When it comes to comics, any comic, I am a completionist. Maybe it's the anxiety from feeling like I'm always missing out on CONTEXT due to ADHD... My brain is broken and I must read everything in chronological release order, so that nothing is missed. (This is a big reason I never got into superhero comics.)

Homestuck was only the current series on MSPA, there were several other completed or abandoned series as well. So I started at what seemed like the very beginning, with Jailbreak. By the time I was done with Problem Sleuth I was very hooked on the throwback to text-based adventure games meets forum shenanigans baked into a comic formula.

Homestuck itself was delightful, from an adventure game mechanics perspective. It had all the frustrating backtracking and plodding story of a classic hardcore adventure, as well as the wild traditional-format-breaking jankiness of the experimental web comics imagined in Scott McCloud's "troubled middle child*," Reinventing Comics. (*as he described the book to me when I asked him to sign my copy lol)

No wonder so many readers skipped straight to the troll chapters! You really had to have a very specific string of incredibly niche, nerdy interests in order to appreciate the slow-burn of the chapters leading up to the trolls... and apparently that's exactly what I had.

Like, to the point that it took me a long ass time to warm up to the trolls at all. Maybe it was because I was an older reader than the typical HS fan and had actually experienced more eras of the internet, but the trolls were just as annoying as the real life types of internet trolls they were based on.

I don't think I started to actually like any of them until the second set of trolls were introduced. The generational conflicts between old-internet and then-current types of trolling was fascinating and honestly hilarious.

By the time I was finally caught up, the comic was close to it's first ending. (And in my opinion, only ending. As I didn't bother checking in with Hussie's later attempts to rekindle the series.)

Having read through everything on MSPA that came before Homestuck, as well as stumbling into Andrew Hussie's even older comics, blog posts and Picard/Riker ST:TNG fan edits on youtube, I had built up maybe an unrealistic hope for the future of MSPA: I was excited for the next comic project to come once Homestuck was finished.

What a big assumption! I don't think anyone would have an easy time just moving on to "the next project" after making something that had garnered as big of a reaction as Homestuck did. So watching Hussie spiral into milking HS for all he could really shouldn't have surprised me.

In an ideal world, artists, writers, creators in general would be able to just move on from project to project. Creation to creation to creation. But we're not machines, and none of us exist in a vacuum. We need to survive somehow, and our feelings of importance and self worth can get so dangerously tangled up with the reaction others have to our work.

Some may find success and never work again. Some may find success and seek to recapture that high for the rest of their life. Some will never find success and give up creating altogether. Who am I to judge or hope for anything from any creator? I'm barely holding on by the whites of my knuckles and the skin of my teeth myself.

But part of me still grieves for the "Next MS Paint Adventures Project" I made up in my head. Something that scratched the itch for interactive comics in new and exciting ways. With brand new characters, settings and bizarre lingo to get used to. There would be references to prior projects, just as HS was peppered with references to Problem Sleuth and the other MSPAs, but on the whole it would be a self-contained work, as it's predecessors were. Another volume for the abstract digital bookshelf.

MS Paint Adventures is dead, the site is just Homestuck now. Flash, the format that made up the very backbone of the comic, is dead and banished. I haven't chatted with most of my old dA buddies in over a decade. We all move on, or don't, in one way or another.

[nokingsonlyfooles]

The Dark Secret of Kung Fu Panda (Part 1)...

... Shifu is kind of a shitty teacher.

But only if you live in the West!

Apparently, you all like Panda analysis, so let's talk about cross-cultural translations, Theravada Buddhism, filial piety, and the ultimate futility of writers trying to impart a specific interpretation to a diverse audience - just to start! Then, I'll come back on Thursday and we can unpack WTF is the deal with that Dragon Scroll.

American movies can pick up a lot of box office cash in China, so they try like hell to stay inoffensive and relevant to Eastern and Western audiences. Often, they fail spectacularly.

But Kung Fu Panda pulled it off! ...With just a little wobble on the dismount.

Chinese audiences have little to complain about when it comes to these guys:

But here in the West, we can't seem to stop coming up with reasons all three of 'em got a raw deal - even the ones who were a little bit genocide-y.

And especially this li'l guy.

Aw, no, look how cute!

People will bend over backwards to defend that cute kid (and sexy adult), to the point of throwing Oogway, Shifu, Po, Tigress, or the whole franchise under a bus.

There are folks out there who are gonna die mad about Tai Lung's lack of a redemption arc and humiliating demise. Like, literally.

To their credit, the Kung Fu Panda team caught this after some early screenings and tried to fix it. Tai Lung's betrayal and attempt to steal the scroll just wasn't enough, so they added a massacre, and every villain after Tai Lung had an impressive kill count woven into their backstory right from the start.

(Not that it necessarily helped, if you happen to look this bad boy up on DeviantArt.)

In a wuxia film, and in Chinese culture in general, betraying your father/teacher, and asking that they betray their father/teacher is more than enough to make a villain. Given that filial piety is the basis of all ethics, as taught by Confucius himself, what went down in the Jade Palace was an attempt to burn society itself to the ground, all because one guy felt entitled to a shiny piece of paper. That is Captain Planet levels of self-destructive evil.

All three movie villains pulled off some violation of this fundamental ethical duty. Tai Lung betrayed his father/teacher. Lord Shen betrayed his parents - and managed to let his teacher go, with sadness and disappointment on both sides. Kai betrayed his adoptive brother - although from his point of view, his brother betrayed him, so he may be the most sympathetic of them through this lens.

The only way to impart this level of wrong across cultures is to add a lot of murdering, and even then it doesn't quite scan. Tai Lung didn't even necessarily kill anyone in the village; cartoons get nervous about the word "die" around these here parts, so they just said he "laid waste." Well, that could mean a lot of things! Does that guy deserve decades of solitary in a hell-prison for (in my mind) doing nothing more than calling out an unfair action and leaving a bad Yelp review of Mr. Ping's noodles?

I can't trust a bird who eats noodles, I don't care how cute his hat is!

So, it's not just that the violation of ethics doesn't carry, the concept of "unfair" crept into a place where it really doesn't belong. Traditionally, it is perfectly acceptable for a Kung Fu Master to be a total piece of shit who motivates his students to learn out of sheer spite and puts them through hell.

Oh, yeah, I remember him. That moustache looks familiar...

If we're coming from a place where we buy that trope and expect it to be played straight, Shifu's mistake was being too nice to Tai Lung. His student's self-esteem was insufficiently crushed! That boy had the nerve to break his own Master's leg! Thank goodness Shifu became a cold, uncaring, emotionally-distant task master - just in time to raise Tigress right!

Yes. Good. Never let on that you're pleased with anything your student does. That'll keep 'em in line!

But a Western audience isn't going to buy that. Shifu just looks like a jerk, and Tigress is a jerk... In fact, all of the Five, save Viper (who is just that nice) seem like jerks, and Oogway is a troll.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did you have something urgent to do? I think blowing out these candles, one-by-one, is rather important too."

Being an utter troll is also a valid way to teach kung fu, and Buddhist practices in general, which is definitely where Oogway is coming from. I peg him as a Theravada Buddhist, due to the way he teaches, and one scene in particular from the third movie.

Enlightenment isn't something you just hand over like a piece of paper, it's something everyone has to find for themself, in their own way. It's not possible to teach Tai Lung or Po self worth, and it's not possible to teach Shifu to lighten up, so the best a smart teacher can do is give them a good nudge, then step back and see what happens.

...Even if that "nudge" requires one to ascend to the Spirit Realm and leave your most stubborn student to clean up his own damn mess.

But there aren't as many Buddhists watching in the West, so what's a writer to do?

Well, they split the difference. Tigress did grow up better than Tai Lung, in accordance with the tropes, but it turns out she's not done learning and growing, and neither is Shifu (or the rest of the Five, but they don't get much of an arc. There are time constraints!). Their arrogance and lack of flexibility render them incapable of working with someone like Po - and they gotta figure out what they're doing wrong fast, 'cos Shifu's other teaching mistake is on his way back! In China, Shifu is learning to be a better teacher. In the West, he's learning to stop being a shitty teacher! And it takes him all three movies to grasp the humility he needs to learn from Po. Tigress, on the other hand, learns to respect Po and soft style by the end of film one.

When Western values are applied, Shifu comes off as a very slow learner, due to his own impatience and inability to slow down. But that's okay. He does learn, he's clearly trying, and we love him anyway.

Well, most of us do. Some of us can't get over that cute, fluffy little leopard, and we don't buy the (admittedly imperfect) attempt to make this story intelligible across cultures. These folks tend to focus their ire, much like Tai Lung himself, on that useless piece of paper the troll stuffed in a temple like it was something important, and the jerk led Tai Lung to believe was rightfully his. Why can't the boy just have his useless piece of paper, huh?

Well, I'll come back later and I'll tell ya.

[nanistar]

Who’s the two cats in your banner? the art is so pretty !

those are some of my older warrior ocs, goldenstar (yellow) and her husband lichenshadow!

it was a commission from deviantArt user dearmary from about 3 years ago! i care about these two a lot but their story got kinda stagnant and i didn't really like how it was turning out, but i conveniently created the mojave clans just at that moment so i haven't really done anything with them in a while, nor do i have any real drive to.

i told their story mainly through youtube so >here's a playlist< with all of her +her supporting cast. their clans live below the peak of mt st helens, an active volcano near where i live in WA state which famously erupted in the 80s, collapsing in on itself. and when i say erupted, i'm serious. look. the whole damn mountain esploded.

their initial setting before even getting to goldenstar and her buddies is honestly one of my favorites that ive done, and it's really long so i'm gonna put it under a readmore. but the basics of the actual plot is that there are two cats destined to destroy each other or save each other (and their respective clans). these cats are morningglow of cedarclan and duskfang of willowclan. they are lovers, but duskfang dreams of power and revenge for being ostracized by her clan and it scares morningglow so she leaves her. morningglow was born weak with birth defects, and she takes a mate, a shut-in named Stormpelt. she gets pregnant and sadly her heart gives out and she dies. the prophecy passes on to Stormpelt, but like i stated he's a shut in, especially after the death of morningglow. he's a grumpy senior warrior, should have retired at this point but he refuses, and his leader gives him one last apprentice; a little timid lady named goldenpaw. just before she becomes a warrior, stormpelt is called away to guide the medicine cat apprentice on his apprentice quest, and goldenpaw sneakily follows them. she's found after a day, and then joins the party. near the end of the journey, she is almost killed by a dog that leaves her scarred, but stormpelt jumps in assisted by his brother's spirit and fends it off. he dies from bloodloss. the prophecy passes on to goldenpaw. bloodied, half blinded, she steels herself and helps guide russetpaw, the med cat apprentice, on the remainder of his quest. they return successful. she is closed off, cold, hard and miserable, and a lot of the story is about her learning to love again and open up. eventually she becomes deputy, starts havign an affair with a willowclan warrior, and then her leader beetlestar is killed suddenly and tragically in a rockslide, and she becomes leader very young.

and circling back, here's the setting!!! i genuinely really like the setting but like i said, it's really long. anywayyyyy

 -in the 70s there are just two well established clans, willowclan and cedarclan. they're located in the forest on the mountain, which is no where near the peak (mt st helens is a glacial mountain and active volcano so its too cold and dangerous) and anyway other than the occasional flash flood in the spring and sometimes bears or cougars wandering through, the 2 clans are just fine. they get along for the most part because they both have tons of territory, they meet monthly for gatherings like normal, everything is cool.

-in the winter of '79 something happens to the clans. not physically, but every cat in both clans suddenly get dizzy with vertigo randomly, and everyone has a feeling of unease. Starclan doesn't offer much help (they are watchers like in TPB) but tell the medicine cats to send out a patrol towards the south, and are told to keep walking south until greenleaf. 2 cats from each clan are taught basic herb skills, and then set out. -(This feeling of unease is the way that animals can "sense" natural disasters) -may 18, 1980. mt st helens blows its complete top, sending a column of ash 15 miles straight into the air. an eathquake caused the whole north side of the mountain to collapse, causing the largest landside in recorded history and sending a mix of pyroclastic ash and lava down the mountainside towards the lake where the clans resided. no one survived. in the following days, the smoke and ash from the initial blast and residual explosions spread east into 11 states and 2 Providences.

-however, the 4 clan cats on their journey were far enough away that they were safe, but they could see the effects of the blast from their current place in oregon, until the sky became too dark

-they made the decision to turn back, and a few months later returned to a wasteland of ash that was completely uninhabitable. the cities nearby were disgusting with ashy mud, and those who survived the heavy ash clouds now had permanent breathing issues among other health problems. the 4 clan cats kept to the furthest reaches of the twolegplace as they could, and stayed in a group for about a year living as loners. eventually, a cedarclan cat (goldenfang) and a willowclan cat (duskfoot) had a litter of kittens together and the group had to decide if they were gonna stay as clan cats or separate and try to go their own way

-the mountain was uninhabitable for the first year or so at least, but come next spring life began again. there was a lot of human attempts at clearing away ash in small areas to plant new trees and stuff, but eventually plants grew again, trees rose and animals returned. goldenfang and duskfoot had stayed together with their 4 kids, but the two other clan cats had left to become kittypets. after 2.5 years living alone with their little family, they decided it was time to make the trek up the mountain to see what remained of their old home.

-(this is where the fantasy begins because it took like 15 years for shit to actually start being fixed enough to sustain an ecosystem lol) the clan cats found that their home was still recognizable, but destroyed. the beautiful lake that they lived around has turned to a sludgy, ashy marsh with very little clear glacial water flowing from the mountain. there were some areas of the territory that had lost all trees and vegetation entirely, but some still had enough cover for protection. surprisingly, prey was easy enough to find, and they were able to hunt birds and mice and stay healthy. the adults who had a little herb knowledge were able to "farm" the few herbs that remained, and after the summer rainfalls, a majority of the ash had started to wash away and the forest came alive again.

-for the first time since leaving the for the journey 3 years ago, the 4 clan cats felt safe. in their dreams they were visited by a few scattered starclan members, who gave them advice and tips. the adults sent 2 of their kids back down the mountain to gather up some non-clan cats who may have been interested in new promising territory and communal living. they returned with a surprising amount of cats, about 10-15 or so, and goldenfang and duskfoot began teaching the warrior way again.

-about a year later, the two former clan cats who had left to become pets returned as well, and each had a few friends in tow.

-about 5 years after the initial blast, duskfoot and goldenfang got a shared vision: they needed to climb the mountain alone and find a way to share tongues with starclan. they left the clan in the paws of the two other original party members, and left together. for several months they searched until a shooting star lit up the way to a small tunnel. they entered and climbed a long tunnel for a full day and night, and when they emerged, they were in a large cavern up to their knees with water that was filled with stars.

-this cavern was named the Star cavern, and the tunnel to it was named the star stairs. the few starclan cats that remained spoke to the couple, and gave them 9 lives each, and told them it was time to return to their original clans. this was upsetting to both cuz they were mates, but they decided it was for the best, and that they would be too focused on rebuilding anyway to bother with clan v clan issues. they promised to love each other again in starclan, but for the time being would split up. returning to their group, they took 2 kids each (WILLINGLY, this is not a moth flight scenario), and split up the pack.

-eventually, another gang of cats would pass through and join them on the mountainside under the name MapleClan. the leader of the group was eager to join their community and starclan and the established clans welcomed them. then, after some inner turmoil , cats who had issues with the initial re-seperation of willow and cedarclan split off and became Birchclan. each of the 4 kids eventually became an established medicine cat, taught by starclan in their dreams (and they evened out so there was 1 in each clan) and then clan life was relatively back to normal.

-goldenstar and duskstar passed on and became the unofficial leaders of starclan, but upon arriving realized that their problems weren't over: the initial blast permakilled hundreds of ghosts, and many double died due to being forgotten, but the "surviving" cats were blasted away by the power of the explosion and didnt know how to come home. so for the past 30 years, its been tradition for the medicine cat apprentice to go on a journey accompanied by 1 warrior to go out and find a ghost and lead it home. this is the journey Russetpaw and Stormpelt embark on, and that goldenpaw invites herself along which ends up leading to her trauma and storm's death.

[ardate]

Oh, jumping in the ask game, if that's alright! Hm, what's a piece of media that you love but find it difficult to recommend to others, for whatever reason? Thank you! :)

WELL.

I didn't even have to think I immediately got slammed by Metalocalypse as soon as I read your ask LMAO

Listen, I've loved Metalocalypse for over a decade now (12 years or so?), it's a show I regularly go back to, it's a show that has one of the most prolific and long-lasting fandom despite a literal decade of nonexistent content. It's also a show I very much struggle to recommend to anyone bhGBh

The thing about MTL is that it is an early 2000s show from the american TV channel AdultSwim about a filthy rich and successful Death Metal band, and as expected it is full of edgy humor from that era. There are offensive jokes and storylines on a regular basis, especially in the earlier seasons. They range from somewhat palatable to so uncomfortable I straight up skip some episodes.

And yet it's also a show that, in spite of that, has a surprising amount of heart. What appeared like a basic serialized series about very idiotic privileged krillionaire metalheads ended up with an interesting overarching plot, a lot of character growth, found family, learning to care about things beyond yourself when you're a deeply selfish group of people... It evolved with the times and its audience, as it originally pertained to edgelord dudes but somehow found itself with a hugely queer, feminine and neurodivergent fanbase. They even made a convention episode with a big nod to shippers (where they featured actual fanarts from deviantart after reaching out and asking for permissions to the artists to put them in their episode, of course).

The journey is worth it, the characters grow on you surprisingly fast, and you end up caring very much about all of those assholes and cheer for them to get better. Interestingly, as the characters grow and mature it feels like you're witnessing the growth of the writers alongside them, or at least it feels that way to me. But also, my god, there are so many warnings to give about it before anyone can even watch it. There still are new people falling into that show to this day, but I do think it's probably getting more difficult as time passes because standards have very much risen regarding edgy and offensive humour and plots, as they should have.

Despite it all, I still love it.

[blubushie]

(this got long, sorry. I DID say you couldnt stop me, significantly less sorry about that.)

Okay first of all, the characters are stupid thin. Yeah, its a stylized artstyle, I can get behind that, cool, Vivzie’s gimmick is that her designs are fun and bouncy and remind you of DeviantArt, good for her. But a gimmick shouldnt get in the way of quality! Not every character has to be stick-straight thin! Beelzebub is a character from Hazbin Hotel’s spinoff, Helluva Boss. One aspect of her character is that she’s extremely skinny due to her stomach being a lava pit. Except.. She doesnt looks skinnier than the other characters! Because they all look like they can fit a grand total of half their nervous systems in those scrawny torsos! AND more on Beelzebub, she lives in a hive, she’s referred to as a ‘Queen Bee’, theres a lot of bee/insect/honey/motifs about her… and she’s a wolf. A bee-wolf hybrid, sure, but functionally a wolf. The thing is, insect anthros exists, and they look good, and if you had any sense while running a show, you’d either ditch the heavy insect motifs or learn how to draw a damn anthro bee. Angel Dusts body is as thing as his arms and the other characters don’t fare much better. The buff characters have a bad case of ‘skipping leg day’ just so Vivzie can give THEM toothpick waists too. Give me Asmodeus with stomach fat or give me death. Actually, give me 75% of the characters with more body fat or give me death. I say 75% because the skinniness isnt an inherently bad thing, the whole show is stylized so its pointless talking about fat ratios. The problem is that ALL THE FUCKING CHARACTERS ARE BUILT LIKE THIS. Second of all, theyre way too overbearing. Take Husker. Cool design. Nice and simple. Digging the overalls-- oh god why does he have wings. Why does his tail look like that. I guarantee you if you take away the wings and give him a normal cat tail, his design would be good. But for some reason they keep on adding more details, more giant huge additions, more weird accessories that SCREAM “emo preteen who pathologizes their kinda strict parents”. Sir Pentious, now! Like that he’s a snake and remains legless. LIke the pinstripes. Aaand his hat has its own face. Why? It detracts from the character’s facial expressions because now you’re looking at his damn hat for the facial expression changes. At least the eyes on his hood are just tiny pupils, but his hat has a fucking mouth too! But even so, the eyes on his hood are still distracting, especially since Sir Pentious’ head is so small in comparison. Thirdly, SO MUCH GODDAMN RED HOLY SHIT. Cool it with the fucking red. Please. We get that its hell. We can tell because a character swears every other words and pulls the ‘>:D’ face every damn second. You dont need to make everything red. Please just fucking stop it. Its nothing but eyestrain and takes away from good character designs when so much of their colours are just black and different shades of red. Characters like Vox, who is mostly blue, was genuinely such a relief even though he still had some red because FINALLY something wasnt red or a light hue of red. Heres the kicker, that 50k video of Verbalase being chased by Charlie had better colour schemes than THE SHOW ITSELF. It was OKAY TO LOOK AT. The colours didnt give me a headache for once. None of the main cast’s designs work together. Husker looks like a cartoon character. Charlie looks like a “Sans’ Girlfriend” persona. Vaggie looks like a fantasy rpg character. Alastor looks like someone’s 2 edgy 4 u serial killer oc. And none of them work together. DOUBLE kicker, one character has a nose that isnt a pointy, anime girl, miniscule thing, its a hooked nose. And she’s themed after the 1920s. And she’s fat. And she likes money-- its a fucking jewish stereotype. 

You could make these designs so much better just by remedying ANY ONE of the points I made! Change the colours! Remove obstructive elements! Give them varied bodies! These designs only appeal to little kids cause theyre bright and move around a lot! But theyre functionally awful! There I said it. God.

Presented without comment (I have nothing to add cuz you said it all)

[mysticsparklewings]

Obscutober 2024 Day 14: Octonary 8️⃣

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Octonary (adj.)

relating to or based on the number eight; consisting of eight; in sets of eight

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Yet more evidence I did not arrange the prompt list as carefully as I could have. 😅

BIG missed opportunity to make this the word for Day 8, or at the very least Day 16 (because multiples of 8, etc.) 

Oh well! 🤷‍♀️

Click the "Keep Reading" and we'll talk a little more about my thoughts/process for the art...and some frustration caused by the posting mishap I got started with today. 🙃

⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

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You were going to get a nice, properly typed description for this piece today, but then Google Chrome decided it hates me and crashed with no warning whatsoever and DeviantArt's new Studio Submission Portal has the exact same STUPID fatal flaw that kept me using the Sta.sh Editor to get art submissions ready for years instead of the standard submission portal—It either can't or won't reliably auto-save as you type. 🤬🤬🤬🤬 [Context: I start typing out these long descriptions on dA first since that's been my primary posting place for years and I'm used to their font, formatting, and emoticons; And only semi-recently I started copy & pasting them over here on Tumblr, which is why this rant is still relevant here.]

Just when I had about warmed up to the "Studio," here I am FURIOUS all over again that DeviantArt, in all their infinite wisdom and updates no one asked for, STILL cannot be bothered to program freaking auto-save into the submission portal AND they took away the ability edit text in Sta.sh so you don't even have an on-site alternative option that will auto-save anymore.

I'm so mad. I'm SO mad. At the core I'm not even that mad specifically about the content I lost today, but the everything else it represents and is conceptually tied into. And I so don't have time to really get into that right now because I have to re-do something for this description other than just being angry because I have other things to do today and this has already set my schedule back badly enough as it is.

Allow me one more moment to scream in frustration:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARARARARRARARAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Alright. Now then.

You get a very basic bullet point list actually about the art because that's all I think I can manage through my ire at the moment:

This prompt, much like Day 11 serves as more evidence that I didn't curate the list as carefully as I could have. There was very much a missed opportunity to make this the word for Day 8, or maybe at least 16 or 24 since those are multiples of 8.

I opted to keep things simple for the mandala. Not as simple as just using the "8" shape over an over because I thought that would be too limiting and boring. I Googled "Octonary" to see if anything visually helpful would come up and found this webpage talking about "Octonary" paths that the Knight piece might take in a Chess game.

After starting with a big Octagon as a base, I took inspiration from the diagrams on that webpage to fill the space. I started with a big 4-point division from one of the diagrams that resembles the iron cross, but ended up modifying the lines into more of an 8-point star shape because the 4-point divison wasn't working for me with all the other 8-based motifs.

And I did still use a fair bit of those 8-based shapes to try and bring in some more softness since the Chess-inspired bits were all very straight and angular.

In general I tried to work in 8's where possible, but there were some things that slipped through that I'm purposefully not going to call specific attention to beyond this sentence acknowledging they exist.

More interesting that the mandala itself is probably the color scheme. How do you make a color scheme based on the number 8? 🤔 Traditionally, that would've been more difficult to answer. But digitally, I was able to take advantage of hex codes. I specifically looked up colors that only use the number 8 and/or 0 and started with those, and then at the very end added in two light grays that also add B and E because I needed some additional lightness I just wasn't getting with the 8's and 0's alone.

More specifically, if you're curious, my exact color palette was:

#888888 - Base medium grey for the whole thing

#000888 - dark blue

#800008 - darkish red

#080808 - near-black

#888000 - dull "gold"

#B8B8B8 - lighter grey

#E8E8E8 - lightest grey

I did toy with #088888 (teal-ish) and #800080 (dark fuchsia-y), but after reviewing my options for what I might use as a song pairing on Instagram (remember I mentioned that being a unique challenge with these on Day 12), they felt a little too at odds with the color scheme made by the others.

I do think the dark blue made this color scheme come out a little more similar to previous days that I really wanted, but by the time I realized that I could not be bothered going back to change it, so it is what it is.

If the coloring looks a little funny otherwise, I tried to add the colors still using just figure-8 shapes and then blending/blurring the splotches out to get better coverage. Probably kind of pointless and uncessary considering how the final product looks, but I couldn't help myself.

I don't think this is the strongest piece of the month by a long shot, but as I've said before they can't all be super complex or amazing. [And for the record, I thought that before the lost-description mishap.] In any case, I like my solution to the color scheme "problem" and there are still some good ideas/motifs within the mandala, even if the whole package maybe didn't come together as nicely as it could have.

...I think that's everything I wanted to mention. It's hard to tell after being so thoroughly derailed from my original thought-flow. 😠

But that's at least all I can think of at the moment, so I should probably leave this here and get on with cross-posting. Cross-posting is normally my least favorite part of the process and starting off with such a bag experience trying to get this far does not feel like a good omen for how that's going to go.

Wish me luck and happier thoughts, Sparklers—I'm going to need a lot of both. 😤

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See the Prompt List

Artwork © me, MysticSparklewings

Obscutober Concept Inspired by nikolas_tower

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⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

[howlingmoon08]

There’s about three takes when it comes to Mephiles  45% of people think he was a pretty cool/pretty creepy villain and one of Sonic 06 most memorable aspects

45% of people think he was a stupid DeviantArt recolor whose suppose to give off big brain 4d chess kind of schemes but his plan was actually stupid

10% of people review his story, whether from the game itself where its barely touched or by reading it straight off the wiki, go “wow what happened to him was kinda fucked up actually” and think he’s either a tragic villain, someone in desperate need of a fully fleshed out redemption arc, or as a god in a more complex, gray area more akin to chaos

anyway they’re all valid takes but the people in that 10% are pretty cool

[lewiswhatshisname]

I suppose I ought to introduce myself

I like taking photos with odd cameras. I am by no means a professional. I just have loads of cameras I've picked up second hand from various places, and like mucking about with them in different ways.

Right off the bat, I don't care about taking the perfect shot. That's boring to me. While I don't go out with the goal of intentionally taking wonky shots – I do actually try to make sure each shot is focused and exposed properly – quite a lot of my cameras are broken or weird in some way. My main film camera technically works, in that the lens attached to it is in good nick, and when I push the shutter button, it goes click. But the shutter fires inconsistently, and will often misfire at the lightest touch, it doesn't really fire at the speeds it's set to, the ISO dial is loose as hell and is always changing itself, and even if it wasn't doing that, the light meter really has no idea what light is in the first place.

It really only gets better from here. All of my cameras have some sort of physical malady by dint of being second hand, and in many cases, straight up antique, or because they're Holgas and have a deliberately imperfect design. I've got a couple of "toy cameras" as well, with cheap plastic lenses that make any given shot look a bit weird. None of these categories are mutually exclusive either.

But I also just like to do terrible things to both my cameras and the film I shoot on. My favourite thing to do is shove the wrong format film into the cameras. Sometimes I don't feel like cutting down film to fit into my 127 cameras, so I'll cram a 35mm roll in there. Or I'll stick one into one of my 120 or 620 cameras just for the hell of it. I like to redscale film, soup it, and just generally fuck it up before and after shooting. When I develop the film here at home, I don't put a lot of attention into making sure everything is perfect down to the tenth of a degree and to the second. I am not that fussed about any of it, frankly. As long as the roll comes out of the tank with photos on it, I'm happy. If they're messed up, whatever. That's part of the fun.

Right now, I'm slowly working through uploading my backlog over here. I've got even more photos on deviantART, and I post them to Patreon a month before I put them anywhere else. I also try to remember to put prints up, but that's a whole process on its own. In addition to uploading my backlog, I've been spending much of my time just working on scanning and editing a whole other backlog of negatives.

And according to Lightroom, right now that comes down to nearly 400 photos that I've yet to post, and a further 5,000-odd that I've not even looked at for editing. Plus the five or six rolls sitting on my printer waiting to be scanned.

You'll find a mix of birdwatching and urban photography, along with some random other things. I have favourite subjects I like to go back to again and again, and you'll get used to seeing them through a variety of lenses.

TL;DR, I take a lot of photos, many of them odd or wonky, and I'm never going to be done with this backlog. And the photos I have in Lightroom are only from the last few years. Multiple hard drive crashes have caused me to lose all of my digital photos a few times over.

Current Gear:

Canon EOS Elan II E (35mm)

Canon EOS Rebel XT (dSLR)

Fujifilm Instax Mini 90 (instant film)

Holga 135BC (35mm)

Holga 120 WPC Panoramic Pinhole (120)

Kodak Jiffy Six-20 (620)

Kodak Brownie Target Six-20 (620)

Kodak Brownie Starmatic II (127)

Kodak Brownie Starflex (127)

Kodak Ektar H35 (35mm)

Kodak Ektar H35N (35mm)

Minolta Maxxum 3000i (35mm)

Minolta Maxxum 8000i (35mm)

Pentax MG (35mm)

Ricoh KR-5 Super II (35mm)

Sawyer's Nomad 620 (120/620)

Super Ricohflex (120/127/35mm)

Plus photos from a variety of iPhones

[saysike-skedoodles]

"I'm Your Friend, Aren't I?"

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THE SPOOKY SMILING CAT IS BACK!!.... AGAIN!!.... I really need to draw more of my characters other than the trio.

OK to be fair though, Smiler's new design is taking a good bit to get used to draw more often. Especially trying to make the straight teeth work when they're talking without it looking awkward. But to be honest I am a LOT more happy with how Smiler looks compared to a year ago. They look more like an old Disney type character instead of.. whatever I had going on before the redesign HAH. Anyways, THIS DRAWING- I figured why not draw them interacting with Bex again just to see how the new design would work. And I LOVE how this turned out the more I look at it. Bex looks so out of place here and IT FITS. Since this is in the Ride Souls realm- so naturally Smiler fits in more than Bex. I do very much love this duo out of any dynamic despite the fact I feel bad for Bex cuz she's so scared of Smiler. This Cheshire Cat could just be standing next to Bex and she's already shaking and wanting to run PFFF. Did I sound mean laughing at that? Yeah probably, but eh I've put Bex through worse in her backstory so this is a lot more tamer than what she went through. (Oooooo backstory hinting ooooo.) But still, this isn't the most fun situation for Bex to be in as a whole, she's face to face with a spooky cat that has a echoed voice similar to Him from The Powerpuff Girls of COURSE she's gonna want to run almost instantly.

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To think I draw this cat constantly with how they're my pfp on DA is far from the truth HAH, I really gotta draw the Ride Souls a lot more...

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I've also got an alternate version of this but PLEASE I BEG SOME OF YALL TO NOT BE WEIRD ABOUT IT. If it gets out of hand it's getting deleted so please let me just post art for once without feeling I need to clarify it's not made for that audience.

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Deviantart

Tumblr

Art Tumblr

Youtube

TMM Official Tumblr

Newgrounds

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[all content I post is automatically 13+ if not stated in the title or the content itself]

[atamascolily]

Every single sentence of this Anime News Network review of Thunderbolt Fantasy 2x9-10 by Gabrielle Ekens is GOLDEN:

It's finally happened guys – Thunderbolt Fantasy has fully outed itself as a Chaos Dragon spinoff. Ever since the Funky Monk-ey's destiny became apparent, it was only a matter of time before Xie handed the blade over to her dopamine-deficient acquaintance, sending Dong Li into hell in the process. But I didn't expect that Di(ddy) Kong would turn out to have the exact same name – Lou Zhen Jie – as his D&D prototype from all those years ago. You know, Gen Urobuchi is really living the dream. The man is being paid to write high-profile puppet shows starring his goth qi-channeling swordsman OC. That's like the ultimate goal of anyone who has ever created a DeviantArt account. I'm green with envy.

You know, this explains so fucking much about S2, and I am HOWLING. I kept saying that Thunderbolt Fantasy reminds me of a wuxia-themed D&D game, but I didn't expect that to be LITERALLY TRUE. This is even funnier than the fact that Urobuchi started writing for Pili in part because they killed his favorite character off in their main series, lololol.

(For context: Chaos Dragon is an anime adaptation of Red Dragon, a six-session D&D game with Urobuchi and a handful of other well-known Japanese authors, in which Urobuchi spent most of his time trolling his compatriots and killing as many NPCs as he could get away with. The original Lou Zhen Jie--inexplicably gender-flipped in the anime version--is a warrior monk armed with a sentient sword and obsessed with death. Sound familiar yet?)

Ekens also calls Lou "the big bad Buddhist boy, Dong Li's worst therapist, the perpetual walking Evanescence song who's just renounced his vow of celibacy to a sword" and I cannot decide which of these epithets is my new favorite, so I think I'll go with ALL OF THEM.

Also, nothing will be able to, ahem, top, this passage:

... The middle of this ninth episode delivers some weirdly late setup for what's going to go down between Vape Wizard and Glasses Cop. At least Urobuchi takes the opportunity to slip in some Hot Yaoi Content™ in the form of Xiao leading Lin on a leash. (He could slip out of those ropes at any time...but he won't.) ...For all of [Glasses Cop's] bluster, it looks like the Enigmatic Gale has taught him a lesson in topping from the bottom. ... Grade: A

DAMN STRAIGHT.

[soylent-crocodile]

Beastkeeper (Prestige Class)

(art by BobKehl on deviantart)

(Do you like animal companions? I like animal companions. One of the things about fifth edition that most disappointed me when I found out about it was learning that attacking with your animal companion costs a druid her action. You mean I can't kick the action economy in the shins with my pet dinosaur? What gives?

This is a PrC for a character who wants to really focus on her companion. I especially gave the Deadly Weapons ability because about 60% of animal companions in Pathfinder are just straight up Bad (which, to be clear, is very typical of the system), and this was an attempt to even the scales.)

Role: Beastkeepers fight side by side with their animal companion, gaining increased combat prowess for themselves and their animal. They are still divine spellcasters, however, although they progress more slowly. Alignment: Beastkeepers can be any alignment Hit Die: d10

Prerequisites

Skills: Handle Animal 5 ranks Feats: Animal Affinity Other: Animal companion with effective druid level 2 or greater

Skills Beastkeepers gain 2+Int mod skill ranks per level Class skills are Climb (Str), Handle Animal (Cha), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Ride (Dex), and Swim (Str)

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies

A beastkeeper gains proficiency with whips, light flails, and greatclubs.

Spells

Upon taking beastkeeper, a beastkeeper chooses one of the classes she has that grants divine spells. At the designated levels, she gains spells as though she had gained a level in that class. This only affects spells per day, spells known, and effective caster level. It does not affect other class abilities such as channel energy, domain abilities, or wild shape, although it does grant additional domain spell slots.

If a beastkeeper does not have a level in a class that grants divine spells, upon taking a level in a class that grants divine spells, she gains the benefit of this ability.

Companion Bond (Ex)

Levels in beastkeeper stack with levels that grant an animal companion for the purpose of determining the effective druid level for that companion.

Deadly Weapons (Ex)

A beastkeeper’s companion is especially powerful and dangerous for its kind. Upon taking the first level in beastkeeper or acquiring a new companion, a beastkeeper chooses one of the following for her companion;

A single unpaired natural attack’s damage dice becomes 1d10. The companion adds one and a half times his strength modifier damage with the attack.

A paired natural attack’s damage dice become 1d6 each.

Her companion gains a bonus animal feat.

Trained Handler (Ex)

A beastkeeper is an expert in dealing with animals. She adds her level in beastkeeper to her handle animal skill.

Weakening Fang (Su)

At level 2, a beastkeeper��s companion is able to resonate with its master’s actions and spells, making them a deadly team. Whenever a beastkeeper's animal companion deals damage to an opponent using his natural weapons, that opponent gains a -2 penalty to saves against spells cast by the beastkeeper for 1 minute. At level 6, this penalty becomes -3. This ability does not stack with itself.

Teamwork Feat

At levels 3 and 7 a beastkeeper chooses a teamwork feat she meets the prerequisites for. She and her animal companion gain that feat as a bonus feat, even if her animal companion does not meet the prerequisites.

Bonus Trick

At levels 4 and 8, a beastkeeper’s companion learns a bonus trick in addition to those gained by effective druid levels.

+2 Ability Bonus (Ex)

At levels 5 and 9, a beastkeeper’s companion becomes more capable. It gains a permanent +2 bonus to the ability score of the beastkeeper’s choice. This cannot raise an ability score over 22.

Combat Feat

At levels 5 and 9, a beastkeeper gains a bonus feat chosen from the combat feat list. Her animal companion does not gain that feat.

Pulse Fang (Su)

At level 10, the resonance between beastkeeper and companion grows stronger. The first time each round that a beastkeeper’s companion deals combat damage to a creature, the beastkeeper may, as an immediate action, make an attack against that creature or cast a spell that targets only that creature with a casting time of one standard action.

[auxiliarydetective]

The Black Widow, laced with gold

There she is in all her colored glory. Feel free to click on the images and zoom in and take in all of the details because I WILL be giving you an extensive essay on them. This took me over three days to make, most of the time being consumed by the lace and the gold, and I need you to know my creative process.

Huge thanks to Fluffy-foxgirl and Alex-Hime on DeviantArt for creating the base and references!

First of all though, her full name. This is...

Dracule Aurelia!

Yes, she's married to Dracule "Hawk Eyes" Mihawk, World's Greatest Swordsman. Her parents are Silvers Rayleigh and Shakuyaku/Shakky.

NOW, for the details, which will have spoilers spelled like this. I'll be going top left to bottom right:

Her nail polish is a very similar shade to the lining of her coat and her collar. The ring on her pinky finger is the shape of a snake as a reference to her mother being from the Kuja tribe of Amazon Lily and her dearest friend being the ruler of said island, Boa Hancock.

The barrette/hairclip is inspired by the Roaring 20s and their feather headbands. The design of the barrette itself is inspired by Mihawk as well as some hints of vintage upper-class jewelry. The flower on the oval part is one I took from the sleeves of his coat, the feathers are a reference to the feathers on his hat (they're even on the same side) and the cross is a reference to the little cross-shaped dagger around his neck.

The petals on the sleeves of her coat are inspired by the tops Hancock wears, which often have a very similar sleeve design.

The collar of her coat is inspired by both the collar on Mihawk's coat and the collar of a shirt Rayleigh wore when he was younger. The flower at the right edge and the straight frame along the hem both stem directly from Mihawk's coat, the rest of the design is either free-styled or from Rayleigh's shirt. The spider could be a reference to Aurelia's epithet but is actually a reference to the spider motif of her mother.

A small cross necklace as a direct parallel to Mihawk's cross-shaped dagger, as well as a gold body chain.

Ah yes, the dagger. I used to call it "Mini-Yoru" while developing the design, because Mihawk's sword Yoru was the biggest inspiration. Just like Yoru, it's cross-shaped, has a blue gem in the middle of the crossguard and a pommel with a gem at the end. The pommel, in this case, is a spider encased in amber. The dagger's name is Atropos and it was originally a gift from Aurelia to Mihawk because he was getting bored of beating everyone with his big sword and needed a challenge. He used it almost religiously from then on, and gave it back to Aurelia along with the sheath for their anniversary when it had turned into a black blade. The sheath has a snake motif as explained above. I really liked the idea of a lace garter doubling as a holster, so I made exactly that.

The claws, aka the thing that took me the longest to make by far. They're made of pure gold cages with a sharp, solid tip that can slit someone's throat. The wedding ring that Mihawk is fitted to the claw armor on her ring finger and the blue gem is the same color as the one on the crossguard of the dagger. The bracelet attached to the claws has Aurelia's name engraved into it.

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Taglist: @starcrossedjedis @oneirataxia-girl @daughter-of-melpomene @supermarine-silvally - let me know if you’d like to be added or removed!