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skelleste · 1 month ago

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2024 Art Summary

A selection of art from the past year. You can find a little about each image below.

Happy New Year (Again!)

Just like last time, it's time for another self-indulgent end-of-year post. A lot of things happened and unfortunately I don't feel that I made as much art as I did last year. I got bombarded with people asking me for art trades when I opened them last winter and I still haven't done most of them. I'm used to only a few randos that I mostly turn down requesting them, but having a bunch of friends ask all at once was a bit unexpected. If you're still waiting, I haven't forgotten and will make it eventually. Unfortunately I have the "I shouldn't draw for myself until I do my owed art" mentality most of the time and it just results in doing absolutely nothing because, quite frankly, I often don't want to draw other characters more than I want to draw my own. I'm going to have to be extremely selective about art trades going forward. I also moved this year for the first time ever, and that threw a big wrench in the works. The reason I moved so soon was because my insane sister was moving back in. She threatened to poop in my brother's bed (she's 22) and threatened both of us with violence and my parents were like "yeah that's fine". So uh, yeah, goodbye to living that sweet, sweet, chimpanzee lifestyle. All of that aside, I still made plenty of things, and I'll talk about a few of them here.

January

Some of the last comic panels I worked on before the art trade fiasco put working on the comic to a halt for almost a whole year. These are sketches, but the whole page is done now, of course. This was probably the most time-consuming panel so far, as I had to draw an indoor scene with 9 characters (technically 10 if you count Scott twice). I'm not sure if any of the panels that I have yet to work on will surpass this one in amount of time needed. There's a reason I made this one of the first scenes on the laundry list.

February

The first art trade. I had the pleasure of drawing Mumbo, Jumbo, Balder, and Dash for Chalkrub. I don't feel too great about the background, with its wonky perspective and odd colors, but everyone seems to like how it turned out anyway. It's my third most popular piece of art on this whole site as of writing this.

March

I made this for no reason other than I wanted to draw something edgy for edgy's sake. It had been a while since I made any art of this nature, and Ferdinand is my go to OC for it. My taste in art is not the same as what I draw. I make what I do because it's more about the enjoyment of the process than the aesthetic appeal of the final piece. When I focus on personal aesthetic appeal, I end up not drawing for 9 months at a time because I hate injuring my hand on inking all the time. So if you're some edgy artist and ever wondered why the fuck a cartoon shitposter extraordinaire follows you, there you go.

April

Another art trade, this time for 888goober888 on DeviantArt. A perfect example of a classic case of the eternal false promise "yeah I'll just finish this detail and then be done." And then there's 3,000 brushstrokes worth of individual grass blades. Tee hee.

May

This was a painting I started, and then put down because it was awful to work on, and then I picked it back up weeks later and finished it. The miseries I suffer for not trusting the process. It was a backburner project for a backburner project, which is the website. This painting is now the homepage background, ready to greet all visitors to my nonsense.

June

Commission for Porcumoose. I get the standard array of OC types in my commissions, because every client wants something different from the last. This time I felt very fortunate to draw something I personally like, and I this was my favorite commission from the whole year. This is my way of saying to the public at large "Please pay me to draw more spooky shit please please please".

July

Art Fight month again. I was planning on attempting longest chain with a friend, but he fell ill and we cancelled that plan. I decided to do a slow art year instead, which means fewer attacks with higher quality. My personal favorite from fighting for Team Stardust was this attack, Osireon (a fanmade eeveelution) for Sqveel. Thank you to everyone who attacked me! I always appreciate every single one. Next year is the big 10 year, and I plan on making it special.

August

August always begins with a week-long break from art for me, simply to rest after Art Fight. I also had a week-long vacation shortly thereafter, so half of my month was already spoken for. I had also started the process of moving and lost even more time to that. I can't recall exactly what all I made during then because it was very little, but one of them was certainly catgirl Maudlin. Here she is in all her glory.

September

This is when I moved, and I did not have access to the internet on my computer for a little while. I also spent much of my available drawing time working on a commission, so this was another month where I made very little for myself and cannot recall what little there was. Scatterbrain pineapple is going to teach you French while I jog my memory with blunt force and drywall.

October

Alright, now we're talking. On a whim I decided to participate in Goretober, because I couldn't stop thinking of stupid slapstick ideas and I thought someone scrolling through the tag and seeing this stupid shit randomly in the mix was funny. I was correct. I have one last prompt that I'll get to when I get to it, but aside from that one, this was my favorite drawing from the season. I think I've raised the bar on my own cursed content.

November

After Goretober, I took a break from regular drawing and leaned in favor of website progress. I made a handful of long-needed art assets, animated a custom cursor, created directories for future comic releases, and more. There is still much more to do, but a lot of the necessary code is sorted out.

December

Fuck those art trades (respectfully). I'll do them when I do them. I started working on the comic again for the first time since last February and I've already got a few more pages done. I don't really publicly talk about the comic very much, and yet I'll have random people take interest in the characters, the site, the prospect of a comic coming into existence, etc. and so I should really get on that. As much as the trades have been delayed, this is a project that was started much earlier and honestly could've been done by now if I didn't have to live for so long with people who are blasé about abusing each other. It needs to be completed.

These are just a small selection of my artworks throughout the past year. If you would like to see more, then you can peruse the blog. It's been my goal to get the comic done for the last two years, and we're going on year 3 now. Same old, same old. You'll see more art from me soon. I hope your new year is fruitful and full of peace. See you in 2025.

2023 || 2022

#art #oc #original character #digital art #drawing #cartoon #artists on Tumblr #monster #artist #Happy New Year #New Year #New Years resolution #art summary #long post

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maddsmallow · 2 years ago

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" "con, don't you ever fuckin' relax?"

"lieutenant, i'm a machine. i don't need to 'relax'."

"oh fuck you, come on, we're on break. loosen up a little or something. you can chill out from your fuckin' mission for the three minutes it'll take me to smoke this cigarette. and shut your mouth before you go telling me it isn't actually exactly three minutes on average to smoke a cigarette or whatever."

connie closes her mouth. a small addition to her list of missions to accomplish is made: try to appear "relaxed" to appease lieutenant anderson. a raise in friendship means an easier partner to work with, so connie carefully inspects the lieutenant's posture and does her best to replicate it. being a machine of plastic and metal certainly doesn't make it easy. "

hankcon, but gorls. did i base hank off of my butch lesbian manager at my old job at a sex toy store who was covered in spongebob tattoos? absolutely yes i did

mostly i just wanted to portray fem!hank as a Large Woman because i think there is a severe lack of that. broad with muscle hidden under fat, like the kind of woman who does shot put. so uh,,, ms trunchbull basically LMAO. deep voice, raspy from smoking and drinking, all that good stuff 😩👌 also peep the button on her jacket hehe

got some headcanons and stories for them under the cut!

-hank wears cargo shorts 100% of the time. no matter the weather or temperature. like, 'bill and ted at prom in shorts, but it's her at a dpd ceremony in cargo shorts' level. but not actually because i'm totally gonna draw her in a pantsuit later, totally not with connie on her hip in a slinky dress 👀

-also yes hank's shirt is a spongebob reference

-when people ask hank why she goes by hank and not her "real name," (which i like to headcanon is "henrietta") she always says, "oh it's actually a really funny story, i'll tell you later," and the later never comes lmao. or, if she does tell you, it's some made up wacky story that actually has nothing to do with giving herself the name hank. the real reason? she just likes it

-speaking of "henrietta," this story, 'if you know where to look' by ghost_teeth, works so fucking well with a lot of my headcanons about how their characters would be like genderbent! highly recommend it, and all their dbh stories honestly!

-connie has a compact gun (i asked my brother for examples and he said sig p365 or springfield hellcat, which i think work perfectly for this) holstered inside her jacket on the left side. also, i'm stealing this idea from this post (which basically almost has the same design for fem!connor (altho like, most designs for her are basically the same lmao)) but she also has a knife strapped to her thigh

-her skirt is actually made of some super high tech flexible and durable material, and she's got specific programming to make her balance crazy good, since she'll be running in heels. she's made to hunt and pursue deviants so obviously she needs to be able to run and jump. the outfit is only made to appear like a standard "business woman" to blend in with the humans she would be required to work with, but otherwise gives her everything/doesn't hold her back from doing what she needs to complete her mission. here's a bonus conversation i had with @extraordinaryandroid about it lmaoo:

-hank met connor-51 first for the ortiz case, but connie-52 (with 51's memories of course) came in the next day when it was announced they were to be officially paired to investigate deviants. cyberlife has their grubby lil hands in everything so of course they knew their RK800 unit would be paired with this lieutenant anderson before basically anyone else, and deemed that she'd get along better with a "female model" that she would find attractive. which of course has hank like WOW that's super weird and gross of y'all! and i fucking hate that it's working you pieces of shit at cyberlife !!!! but ofc connie's like "im a machine i dont even have a gender" all the while hank's sweatin major thirsty bullets

-at the cyberlife tower, connor-51 is the one to hold hank at gunpoint. how did he get hank to trust him? idk i haven't figured that out yet lmao, but the angst of connor-51 essentially taking the place of -60 from the game in the sense that he's clearly deviant in some capacity, in this context being that he feels connie stole the life he deserved (which he'd never admit) and now wants to suck up to cyberlife and be their best boi to feel important and special again and not knowing they'd just throw him away for the RK900 model, is very good imo. that was a very long sentence so i hope it made sense lmaoo. have i worked out all the details of how all that shit would work in a story? absolutely not, im too busy thinking about butch fem!hank making her robo girlfriend bluescreen in the bedroom 🤪

also if ur wondering wtf the background is, idk. my usual plain color gradient was too simple, but i did NOT want to put in the effort to do a whole ass real background, so i settled on something in between. meh, it's just them hagin' out behind the station on a smoke break ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

consider supporting me on ☕! ko -fi. com / maddsmallow (without spaces)

#detroit become human #dbh #hankcon #detroit: become human #d:bh #fem!connor #fem!hank #connor rk800 #hank anderson #fem!hank anderson #dbh genderbend #conhank #hannor #dbh fanart #dbh connor #dbh hank #idk what else to tag this as #my art #the blogger says words

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incaseofart · 13 days ago

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Wendy's Plush Making Starter Pack

Hello! I'm far from an expert at plushie making, but it's been a super fun journey for me and I've seen some folks express interest in learning to do this themselves. Now, that said, this is not actually really a guide to how to make plushies. This is a starter pack of resources that I found helpful to get me started! The most important thing is being willing to go look for resources, but it is intimidating at first because...where do you even start? That's the question I aim to answer!

youtube

This was one the first videos I watched - this will help you understand what it takes to get started. There's also an entire playlist with even more details associated! I only watched the intro vid because I was raring to go. Because of this video, I decided to work with anti-pilled fleece initially, due to the fact that minky is stretchy and that complicates matters. Fleece is also cheaper and in my experience easier to find in a store.

Next up, I thought it was best to start with a simple, free pattern for a few reasons.

if you start too complex, you're likely to be hit with catastrophic failure, and that can be really disheartening! Simple patterns can be completed relatively quickly, so if you mess up and it isn't how you want, it's a lot less painful than failure after two weeks of work or more. And trust me, you will fail and learn a LOT from those failures at the start! Do not expect perfection at first.

Free is a good place to start because if you try this out and find out you hate it, it's nice to not have spent a lot of money. That said, patterns are also often pretty cheap, so it's probably not unreasonable to go buy a pattern if you can't find a free one you like. It's up to you and your budget.

The pattern I first started with was this Poke'mon tsum tsum one!

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It even comes with a free download of the pattern. This is a great one because it's very simple to start with. I had to make adjustments to the patterns due to using fleece (pikachu's ears wouldn't stay up straight the way the felt would), and ultimately I made large edits to the pattern to make my favorite characters. I also added embroidery because that was also something I wanted to learn.

My only other comment about this vid is that while the stitch they use is fine, I've since switched to using a straight stitch or a back stitch which I think are a bit more standard and useful long term. You can find out how to do those by searching for them on youtube! They're very standard and simple so I'm not including any specifics videos on them. My understanding is the back stitch is better when you need something to be a little extra sturdy, but again the internet can guide you better than I can there.

One other stitch that I wish I had known sooner is the ladder stitch, or invisible stitch.

This is a great tutorial that I found easily by googling. it includes a video (REALLY HELPFUL) as well as written instructions with pictures. This is great for closing up your plushies at the end, or for attaching pieces like hair or maybe accessories to the main plushie without using glue or having an ugly seam. That said, I did use glue for many of my tsum tsums because of how small they were, and in some cases I personally feel like that's still the correct choice, but this is REALLY good to have in your arsenal.

Once you're satisfied with a simpler pattern, you can make it more complex by adding details or modifying the pattern, or by moving on to a new pattern!

Okay, phew, so that's sewing! Let's talk about embroidery. You CAN make plushies without embroidery - you can glue on bits like in the Poke'mon tsum video, or depending on your fabric you can draw a face on, or maybe something else I haven't thought of, but I'm me and I like a challenge and detail oriented work so I opted for embroidery.

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The most important of these for plushies in my experience has been what is called "stem" here, but I've also seen it referred to as "outline". Secondly, there's "satin" and "long and short" for filling, but I actually have another video with even more details on filling.

youtube

Satin stitch is what I used for all the fills on my tsum plushies. Thread saver is great because it really does save a ton of thread, and guess what? We don't care how the back looks because it's, you know, going to be inside a plushie. I'm currently learning the long and short methods, both blend and brick, and there's a bunch of other neat ones here.

What I'd really like to do next is link the amazing 20cm plushie embroidery video I learned from - but unfortunately, it's gone because yt terminated the account. So a quick summary of the points I recall:

Do an outline stitch for each part, in the color you are going to fill with. To fill it, go from the outside of the outline stitch, across, and to the outside again. Repeat.

Instead of filling by going directly next to the previous stitch, it can be easier to go halfway through the unfilled space. Then, go halfway again. Then, halfway again. Eventually your stitches will be directly next to each other, and it will be filled. This is less thread efficient but this is mostly what I do because it's easier for me to understand.

Use 1, 2, or 3 strands of embroidery thread depending on your fabric and what you're doing. If you don't know, embroidery floss comes in 6 threads that are all wrapped together, and you are able to separate them. For my fleece, if I'm doing an outline that isn't part of a fill, so for example the mouth which is just a curve for a smile, I tend to do 3 strands. For my outlines and fills, I tend to do 2 strands. You can then use single strands to cover in gaps in your fill, though I'm usually too lazy do this and just use 2 strands the entire time.

That'll about cover it. If you go on youtube, you can search "20 cm doll" or "cotton doll" if that's the specific type of doll you want to make. You can also experiment and try things out! I think that's pretty key to learning myself.

As for my own tips, in general:

Embroidery paper is the best thing ever. It's sticky, but water soluble, and you can write or print on it. So basically, put your pattern on the embroidery paper, stick it on your fabric, and them embroider over it. This helps stabilize the fabric in the hoop, and also helps you make nice neat lines. Life saver.

There are cheaper alternatives to embroidery paper, like water or air soluble pens and pencils, or like transfer sheets (you draw on top of them over the fabric, and the ink transfers to the fabric, and then can be washed off). Lots of options for different budgets! I've only used embroidery paper so I can't speak to the effectiveness.

Embroidery hoops - big ones look cool and tempting but will be hard on your hands and wrists. A friend told me you don't want the hoop to have a radius longer than your fingers if you can avoid it.

THIMBLES! Sometimes it is hard to push the needle through, and thimbles help prevent you from stabbing yourself or in some cases make it possible at all. For my fleece + embroidery paper, I need a thimble or the back of the pin will pierce my skin. I use some cheap rubber thimbles because they feel better to me than metal, but I might invest in some less cheap ones soon.

If you can draw on the back of your fabric, trace the patterns on that way and then cut them. While you can cut by pinning the pattern to the fabric, I've definitely found that harder and my impression from watching vids is that most plush artists draw the pattern on the back and cut it out.

PROTOTYPE, PROTOTYPE, PROTOTYPE! When trying something new, use scrap or other cheap/plentiful fabric to try it out first. You don't want to do all your embroidery only to realize once you've sewn everything up that your pattern needed modifications. Yikes! (I've been there and it sucks) It may feel like a waste of time, but you'll thank yourself when you didn't waste time and potentially more expensive materials only to find you did it wrong.

Embroidery floss - I use DMC, but you can use any brand really! I've heard satin can be a bit harder to use, but haven't had that experience myself.

Lastly: LOOK STUFF UP!!! There's so many resources out there. Find a cool video but you don't need it yet? Save it somewhere so you can watch it when you do! Example, I nabbed a resource on making plushie clothes during a sale from a small artist late last year. I haven't used it yet, but I will be, so I keep it in a resources folder for when I need it! Similarly, I'm about to start embroidering on minky, so I plan to go on youtube and look for tips on how to do that since it's a bit different than fleece

secretly lastly, GO FOLLOW PLUSH MAKERS YOU ADMIRE! It will be inspirational and a lot of them time they sell patterns or how-to guides and then you can support an artist while also getting something super valuable for yourself!!!

Have fun! Make stuff! I'm not an expert but I'm living my best life! Feel free to add your own tips if you want!

#embroidery #plush art #plushblr #plushie #tutorial #references #sewing #again I am not an expert so this is resources from OTHER PEOPLE primarily!#Youtube

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overlordmetal · 5 months ago

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Art Rewind: DC

Similarly to what I did last time with a few of my Dragon Ball artworks from over the years, I selected some highlights out of some DC fanart I’ve created.

"The Dark Knight"

A sketch work I drew in 2018 to test out an art journal I’d just gotten at the time. While he could have benefitted from longer ears, I still really like how this one has aged.

"Batman"

An artwork based on the iconic still toward the ending of the iconic opening from "Batman: The Animated Series". I drew it as a gift for a friend’s birthday in 2019.

"Batman and Robin"

An art collaboration between @eigs and I, she drew Robin while I drew Batman. Originally only a sketch in 2019, I returned to it earlier this year and digitally colored over it.

"The Kill(ing Joke)"

A couple of Joker artworks I drew, this first in 2020 based upon his comic appearance, and the second in 2021 based upon Jared Leto’a appearance in the music video for Thirty Seconds To Mars’ "The Kill".

The Penguin

Penguin is (usually) my favorite Batman villain, and as a result, I wound up showing him a little appreciation in 2020 with an artwork of his own.

"Man of Steel"

I drew the DCEU iteration of Superman in anticipation of Snyder’s cut of the Justice League film in 2021. I know the trend was black suit Superman at the time, but I hadn’t drawn Superman in so long, I just wanted to get him in his standard colors.

"Doomsday"

An artwork I’d drawn of Doomsday in 2021. Fantastic Superman villain.

"Batgirl"

Drawn in 2021 as my entry in a "what-if?" challenge where I depicted Stephanie Brown in my own redesign continuing as Batgirl while Barbara Gordon remained as the Oracle instead of reclaiming the Batgirl title like she did in the New 52.

"It's Not Easy"

Drawn to celebrate Superman Day in 2022, I aimed to capture both the brilliant hopeful side of his character while simultaneously addressing the alienation and burdens he battles behind closed doors. I’m not too crazy about how this one turned out, largely because I didn’t put enough work into the background but I am proud of the shading and coloring and I still really like the overall concept.

"Superman"

Drawn in 2024 to celebrate Superman Day again. I couldn’t go for anything too complex due to my work schedule but I think I succeeded in a simplistic approach a lot better this time. It’s also probably my best Superman artwork to date.

—

I’d like to thank you if you’ve read this far, I hope you enjoyed and that you’ll have a good rest of your day. If you have thoughts or comments you’d like to share, you’re more than welcome to. These are characters I grew up with and I’d love to draw them more should the opportunity arise.

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bl4z33467 · 5 months ago

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(Cracks knuckles) Alright folks I remember how to draw

Fat fuck Vulpes by yours truly, Blaze Lander. Inspired by the lovely drawing by @yourmateyoya ,egged on by @legions-top-dog , and because i force you to deal with all my shitty drawings, @noomycatz

Yes, once again, i have put too much effort into a shitpost. Roughly 2 hours as I reused a canvas on ibis paint for a 5th drawing lmao

Yall can burn me at the stake later lol

Process below hehe i like to ramble

And just because i like to talk about my drawing process for characters with complex outfits, this is how my lobotomy brain does it:

First i do silly fun colored sketch. I use different colors to differentiate the "skeleton" from the, euh, fleshy bits, and the clothing. You can see lots of lines that would not be shown in the final product so it makes it confusing to look at.

Next i do a clean sketch.

This is where i clean up everything before doing the final lines. I use one color and a thin brush to make it easier to line over. Here i add any extra bits (like the top football armour) and "render the physics" as i call it, so properly drape cloth and the uhhh squish of stupid fat fuck vulpes' boobs and stomach. I also will balance the drawing here by flipping it and redrawing or using the drag tool.

Next is lining.

For this drawing, i used a 9.0 digital pen with a taper. Its my standard :þ. I kept my pen at the same size for this piece. Sometimes i line the outside darker to make the drawing stand out more. I decided not to as i wanted to give the drawing a more "serious" tone. (How serious can this be though lol-)You may notice on the arms little bits of the lines are missing, thats because i gave him some arm hair. I like make little details like that show over the lines. But since the one shading technique i used works with clipping masks, i had to but the arm hairs on a layer lower than the line art. Next is colour:

I colour in the drawing with midtones. Simple as. I tried to stick with warm colours besides his eyes, which are grey blue. Idc if they arent, im too lazy to google it. I mostly use flat colors but i did make his shirt a gradient. Next is do simple cell shading:

Depending on how i feel i shade with or without the colours in the back. I went with a sorta "non decrepit" light source here. Didnt want too much intensity. I used a deep marronish orange on a multiply layer on 45% opacity. Soft shading/lighting next:

I get intense with the soft shading. I use the airbrush with a deep maroon to add dark gradient and airbrush with a light pink to add a bit more depth. I usually use less light and more dark because im evil i like the intensity. I keep the layer the same amount of opacity and multiply it with the darks and soft light for the lights. Next are the shine highlights:

I use the dip pen hard with a taper to add light highlights of white on shiny bits like metal and eyes. I uses pure white, set the layer to 25% opacity, and use normal blending.

I also shade the lines because it makes the lines softer. I use a clipping layer on the line art, set the whole thing to a dark grey, and airbrush in darker and lighter parts. (I felt like a picture wasnt needed cuz its hard to notice.

For the background, i used a dark red i stole from the cell shaded layer, drew a vine pattern with the kaleidoscope ruler, and added a vignette. Vignettes are my cheat code for background hehe~ it makes the subject stand out while keeping suave, seriousness and formality. To make a subject pop out more, put the vignette behind the character but in front of the background. For more intensity but it on top of both.

Also- I usually draw with a level 10 stabilizer (i got shaky hands) but i drew with a 2 stabilizer so im surprised it came out so smoothly-

Also i gave him goggle tan lines because if i have to have them from playing tennis with sunnies, so does he.

#fallout #fnv #new vegas #drawing #digital art #fallout new vegas #vulpes inculta #shitpost #i put way too much effort into this #dont ask why i draw this type of shit good i swear i will blow up in a million pieces and cry if you do

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cayde-orcat · 2 months ago

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This is a long one, get ready. I'm speaking right now as a former Vivziepop fan (yeah, specifically her along with her shows.) don't let your hyperfixations cloud your judgement from real criticism. Before you ask YES IT IS OKAY TO LIKE THE SHOWS, YES, ITS OKAY TO WATCH THEM. Buying merch? things like that, probably not very cool.

Listen to me carefully: Your enjoyment of a TV show has no impact on your moral character. I am only educating you about a petty, malicious, and greedy public figure.

These videos and their second parts are both really important to watch, I think (links at the bottom of this post)

But to summarize if you don't want to watch these videos:

The Original Voice Cast:

The voice actors of the original pilot did MOST of the work funding that pilot, were led to believe by vivziepop that they would be in the full show, and then almost EVERYONE that worked on the pilot was dropped.

The goodbye song from the og voice actors was nothing more than a professional goodbye.

One of the voice actors was told they were dropped from the show right before her husband died. She described it as "the last heartbreak he ever helped her through." She had been left in (I believe) millions of dollars in debt from it all. Her and some others held a Livestream to help her out, and Vivienne told them they cannot use the voices of the old cast during the stream. They would have made significantly more money if they had been able to do this, voice acted skits and requests is what made the Hazbin Pilot possible, and what made them so much money in the first place. But apparently, because Viv wasn't benefiting from it, they couldn't use those voices.

Spindlehorse's work environment:

Spindlehorse takes in mostly fans of the shows, and animators with little to no professional experience, they are easy to take advantage of and ARE taken advantage of. I won't go into pay rates because I'm bad at remembering numbers and you should watch the first video for all of that, but the turnover rate at Spindlehorse is FIFTY PERCENT. A good average turnover rate is 10%.

The pay gap between their favorites and everyone else is, gross, honestly. Their normal workers get the industry standard, while their favorites get significantly more than that.

Many people who haven't signed an NDA have talked about how bad of a work environment it is. Some have even talked about how hard Viv and other people in management are to work with.

Kendraw, art theft, and false allegations:

This is going to be a very light summary of a LONG video. Watch VIVZIEPOP VS KENDRAW for a better understanding. If you do not want to watch the video, here you go:

Kendraw was, to my understanding, a good friend of Viv before the pilot came out. Kendraw's pronouns are they/them. Viv has always known this.

Kendraw would give Viv a lot of suggestions for the pilot, to the point where they basically wrote it for her. Viv had called herself a bad writer during all this.

They also made a concept drawing of Cherri Bomb, and when they showed it to Viv, she asked to "work off the post" and credit them if she did so.

This was Kendraw's art.

This, was Vivziepop's. (This may not be Cherri's first official render, but it's one of them.)

Kendraw was not given credit for this drawing, not given credit for his ideas for the pilot, and MANY others weren't given credit for their work on the pilot as well.

Kendraw asked Viv calmly, why they and others weren't given credit. Vivziepop told them she felt attacked, and went on to misgender Kendraw to other people, along with accusing them of talking inappropriately to a minor, instead of just, giving people the credit they deserved.

There's more to this situation, but I know people will only read so much, so this is just a little surface scratch of how BAD of a person this woman is. Not enough people are talking about this, too many people are groveling at her feet.

Let me remind you that it is FINE to like Hazbin and Helluva. I'm not the boss of you, I just think people need to talk about this so much more than we are.

We need to be aware of the people we idolize.

VIVZIEPOP V KENDRAW: the deepest dive:

https://youtu.be/DwRb4ydYTdQ?si=V4Hk6TIhLVOZAAXd

Vivziepop is a Bad Person - Part 1

https://youtu.be/pQqQhF5Q3EA?si=AAsLlPAMPQkYzVUU

#vivziepop #hazbin hotel #helluva boss #kendraw #please please just hear me out pleaee

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letstalkwhump · 2 years ago

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Let's Talk Whump No.5

Welcome to Let’s Talk Whump, a series of interviews that spotlight the amazing people in our whump community! ! I’m Malice and I’ll be your host.

Today I’m talking whump with the wonderful @painsandconfusion!

So good to have you here today, @painsandconfusion! Tell us a fun fact about yourself!

I'm a lawyer but don't seem like a lawyer at all - everyon'es always confused when I say so. I'm a fan of jumping between fluffy pink dresses, standard hipster vibes, emo styles, and who knows what else. It's different every day. I just like variety!

What does whump mean to you?

Oh dear, tricky to answer...

Whump is when a character is at their highest stress point (or...at least higher than average). I suffer from severe and vivid nightmares, but I found out that when I write whump, I can process my fears and anxieties through those characters and their experiences. I can only go about two weeks without writing before the nightmares start again. It's kinda amazing to see just how effective and healthy it is for me. I live vicariously through my whumpees for a moment, and they help my brain keep its shit together. Then I get to meet all these lovely people online and it just makes my heart so happy!

Wow, that’s really great to hear! Whump can be really cathartic at times. How did you find the whump community? What made you want to join?

I think this is a standard story, but I discovered the hero x villain community first, and it wasn't /quite/ my cup of tea, but it was close. After I saw a few people reblogging things with #whump, I checked it out.

I have a vivid memory of skipping class for the first time in my life, just sitting in my apartment, all but crying as I scrolled through everything. I was so relieved to find that I wasn't alone. I spent so much of my life hating myself and hating whumperflies and hating that I was drawn to violence and not understanding why. After I found this community I felt so much more at home.

I made a blog and started reblogging.

Then of course, I relapsed into hating myself and deleted it.

Then I made another. Started posting gifs I made from my favorite whumpy movies.

The kink community kinda took it over - which is fine and lovely and I'm happy to share content, but....they were the only ones who saw my blog. So everything I made was taken in a way I didn't mean and I felt very isolated and unheard.

So I deleted it again.

A couple years ago, I tried again. I started just reblogging, then I impulsively added to a prompt list in one of my reblogs and people really liked it? So I made more. And more and more and more- eventually I started posting scenes, and I've been having a lovely time here ever since!

Do you think your view on whump has changed since you joined? Are there tropes you now love/hate that you didn't at first?

Absolutely. Like. Wow so much. I used to dislike pain a lot and only enjoy the fear leading up to it. While I still prefer the suspense, nothing really squicks me out anymore. I used to hate pet whump but now I'm a fan.

I have started making whump art as of late, which has been a fun new adventure! I picked it up almost solely because there's so many fantastic writers in this community who deserve some good fanart. I'm having fun working through a list of my favorite creators!

Tell us about your favourite whump trope!

Dear goodness, do I love a chin tilt.

No no...hmmm.....I get to run wild with this question and there's nothing you can do to stop me! Muahhahahhaaaaaaaa~

Okay so. Picture this.

Whumpee stumbling slowly backward, breath catching in their throat and burning at their lungs. Their feet drag against the ground as they stare up at Whumper, eyes shaking and sparkling with tears that cling to their lashes, refusing to fall. Not /quite/ yet.

Whumper strokes a knuckle down their cheek, drawing a twitch - not quite a flinch, no no, Whumpee wouldn't dare to pull away. Whumper's hand flips softly as it reaches their jaw, pressing to their throat instead.

Whumpee finally lets a sound pass their lips, a soft whimper as their back hits the wall. The momentum topples the wetness from their lashes, and Whumper's eyes roam down to follow them as they soak hot into the fabric of Whumpee's shirt.

Whumper's hand turns up just /once/ more, curling a finger under Whumpee's chin to tip their head up, drawing hiding eyes back into place.

Then they say something whumpy, I guess - you get the picture.

LOVE that shit.

Intimate whumpers? Slow pacing? Vivid sensation? Yes!

Absolutely loving the detail in that! It’s all about the sensations! And speaking of favourites, do you want to share a piece you've written?

Hard Question!

First one that comes to mind is The Party. It's one of my favorites because my hands were shaking so hard while writing it. It was a great way to kick off that event (@thewhumperssoiree) which I'm inadvertently yet shamelessly plugging by answering with that piece I guess! It's very very fun, I loved what that piece created. Everyone who wrote for it did such a great job! (Event is still open, I don’t know why I'm talking about it in past tense)

Do you have a standard writing style/routine or does it vary?

I absolutely change up my paragraph style depending on the intensity of the scene or the place in the scene. I'm a big fan of elaborating and writing moment to moment so the oc's sensations and emotions bleed into the reader. I don't write much on visuals at all - almost entirely on sensation, which I think works well in this medium.

When I'm writing, I kinda forget everything else exists, so I don't have food or drink or if I do, it's neglected. If anyone tries to talk to me, tough luck to them, I'm in the Write Zone and I cannot hear them!

I write solely when inspiration strikes which.......is a lot!

Is there a noticeable difference in how easily you write things? Do the words always flow or do you have to beat them out sometimes?

There's characters who don't get in my head nearly as easily, and ones that are effortless. Getting fucking Alec in my head? Impossible. He's a bitch, then does bitch things once there. Ethan? Dream. Miracle boy. So easy to write that emo little shit. For clarification, the seven chapters of Alec's series vs the thirty of Ethan's. Alec is a bitch. End of story.

But, I also do much better describing little moments rather than full scenes. I'm good at scenes, but it takes so many spoons. Hence why I have three hundred or so random drabble posts or lists, but only like fifty total from my series. It just takes more effort to have to think about plot and pacing and all that good stuff.

Fun? Yes.

But hard.

Is there anything you're working on at the moment? Finalising the final chapter of your series? Starting a new au? Trying a different style of writing/pov? Revisiting fanfiction? Maybe you've really gotten into poetry....

Oh dear goodness, I'm working on everything all at once and I need to stop!

I also need to roleplay less and write more for you lovelies! I’m so sorry I’m just really distractible…

Give us some writing advice. Bless us with your wisdom!

I have posts for this but:

1. Keep your descriptions to the textured senses. Less visuals, more sensation. Caretaker has brown hair? So what? Tell me about how Caretaker's hair curled at the ends, just barely tickling at the corner of their eyes until they flicked it away with a twitchy shake of the head.

2. Personify the shit out of your nouns. Whumpee bled? No. The blood soaked through Whumpee's shirt. Make it an external factor that's affecting them. Much more engaging.

3. Pacing. Whumpee got dragged into the car, then into a house and chained in the basement? That's not one scene, that's at least three. OR. It's a two sentence summary that Whumpee is musing about while already in the basement.

4. Speaking of, don't start with the boring, just get right into the action. You can weave the 'how we got here' bits in after a few sentences, but get your reader hooked right away. Don't start with "Whumpee got out of bed, glancing at their blaring alarm". Try instead "Their hands were shaking so hard they had to try three times to dial the number, fingers as clumsy as they were that morning, trying to slap their alarm off through the fog of blissful sleep." Or just don't mention it at all! Skip to the good stuff!

Lastly, let’s hype up some of your favourite blogs! Any friends, writers or just really cool people you want to shout out?

@whumblr was like my idol before I started! It's so cool just casually knowing her now? Still not over that, to be honest.

I always tag her but @distinctlywhumpthingmpthing is so good? Seriously, you want to see some god-tier writing, go over there. (minors read tws well please, its not all for you.)

@brutal-nemesisemesis is always a delight. Castys gives me life.

And of course, I'm gonna give a shoutout to @wormwritinging, my beloved. We met here and as much as I adore this community, they're hands down the best part of it.

Anything you'd like to add?

I can't think of anything but thank you for doing this. This blog is so cool!

It’s been a honor to have you here, @painsandconfusion!

And to all you folks at home, have a whump-derful day!

#whump community #whump interviews #lets talk whump

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fantasyfantasygames · 11 months ago

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Tomb Builder

Tomb Builder, Gnomekin Games, 2008

It's like Tomb Raider, but in reverse. I figured since a Tomb Raider TTRPG just got announced recently, it would be good to review a different game inspired by it.

Tomb Builder takes the "subtext is for cowards" approach and puts the clash between monstrous but human invaders and humane but monstrous defenders right at the front of the game. Your group is building an impenetrable series of death traps and summoning circles to keep "heroes" and "archaeologists", by which we mean "thieves", out of your ancestors' burial grounds, by which we mean "a dungeon". Your characters are chimerical monsters of all types, making you inherently more diverse than the thieves, but the game also describes eight different cultures that you can come from and encourages the group to play just one monster from each culture. Each group of invaders is from a single culture, with five of them described. The art reflects this: a slime in one drawing might be wearing rank emblems from the more military culture, while one in another drawing might have a pair of hair sticks holding their... um... ok, they gave a slime a bun like it had hair, and visually it works, and you might just have to trust me on that.

Chargen is fairly freeform, using what is essentially a Fate variant with aspects and skills. The skills are Builder, Defender, Genius, and Schemer. There are two main phases of the game, Downtime and Encounter. The phases themselves have their own Aspects, with the GM choosing from a list of 5 (10 total). Examples include "No time to lose", "Unexpected allies", and "Treachery is everywhere".

One of the neat things is that you don't need to plan out every step of your defensive plan beforehand. Instead, you get to narrate your past preparations as the thieves invade, effectively as a quick flashback, describing it as it was when you were setting up in the first place. You use Builder to generate rooms, Defender to repel the invaders physically or through intimidation, Genius to create advantages for others, and Schemer to spring traps. They map to the standard Fate actions fairly well, with a little extra flexibility allowed. For those who enjoy the planning phase, you can build up a stash of up to two Fate points per player by planning things out. When you do, the GM gets a "scouting" roll to see if the invaders get an Aspect related to preparation, so it's a little bit of a gamble but typically pays off overall.

So, does Tomb Builder manage to avoid the more problematic elements of Tomb Raider? Well.... not quite. It does a lot of reversals and subversion, but colonialism is still so embedded in the basic scenario of invaders/natives that it's impossible to shed it entirely. I'm of mixed opinions on the monstrous humans / humane monsters split - it averts one thing by falling into another. It's a fun game but I feel like it could have used a "pre-game discussion" section.

The writer of the upcoming TR:SoT:TTRPG did have some sage things to say about the inherent assholery of defiling someone's burial grounds to take things out of their literal graves. It's good to know that they're not going the "no politics" route. That game will get more eyes on it than Tomb Builder ever did.

Tomb Builder was initially discussed and hashed out on StoryGames.com (which is gone) and then published on 1km1kt (which is gone) with physical copies available via you know what you can probably guess where this is going.

#ttrpg #imaginary #indie ttrpg #rpg #review #it was never yours

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rynekins · 1 year ago

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Welcome, friends, to the Sideshow Bob Awards! Recently I did a few polls about certain elements of Sideshow Bob episodes, and now I shall give some commentary over the results!

Why did I do this? Eh, funsies, but I’ll always look for an excuse to ramble about Sideshow Bob.

First up is the Award for Humor. Which Sideshow Bob episode is the funniest? Black Widower makes Honorable Mention. While an important episode with a lot of notable moments, I might not personally rank it amongst the funniest. Though Bob’s dry wit (as always) wins me over, and Bart explaining Bob’s plan to Homer, worthy of a chuckle.

This overall ranking, out of all of the polls, I agree with the most. Sideshow Bob’s Last Gleaming has some stellar Bob moments: Bob on helium, mimicking the Colonel, his pathetic attempt to kill Krusty, and who could possibly forget the Air Show Rant.

“Air Show? Buzzzzzz-cut Alabamians spewing colored smoke from their whiz jets to the strains of Rock You Like a Hurricane? What kind of country-fried rube’s still impressed by that?!” As for the Air Show Rant, I am also giving it the Award for Best Quote. Unfortunately, this poll did not have much engagement. I expected people to be shy, and I suppose I should have made it a normal poll for people to vote on instead of asking for more direct input, but there are simply too many good Bob quotes to narrow it down! How could I possibly? I had not the strength. His exasperation with his peers, mocking elitist tone, the venom, the sass, the hip swaying and crossing of his feet, going wall eyed and throwing his arms out cuz he always gotta be extra, if there is a perfect Sideshow Bob quote that exemplifies his character it would be this one.

Aside from that, mocking the military and garbage television, this episode offers a ton of laughs, worthy of at least Third place.

Brother From Another Series takes Second, and has a different brand of humor, but the kind that always gets me. It’s supposedly written like an episode of Frasier, which means the script is chock full of one liners from two guys too smart for their own good, constantly trying to one-up eachother. You wonder how both Bob and Cecil could ever end up in Springfield, an environment of pure dumbassery, and it clearly has had an effect on them (they must have drunk the water). Personal favorite moments are the boys with the slack-jawed locals, “especially Lisa, but ESPECIALLY Bart”, and “utterly hopeless”.

To no one’s surprise Cape Feare takes the crown. It often makes top 10 lists for its humor alone, and with good reason. This episode is packed with jokes, funny drawings, and goofiness, with running gags so memorable and powerful that they would get callbacks even 30 years later. The idiocy is at an all time high, both with Homer and Bob, which frankly is necessary to balance out the more sinister and rather tense scenes. Homer scaring Bart, the rakes, the drive through the cactus patch, The Rakes, “Hello Mr Thompson”, THE RAKES. This episode is iconic, and I completely understand why.

Next up we have the Award for Animation. For our Honorable Mention, we have Bob’s official debut, Krusty Gets Busted. I’m glad to see some love for season 1, when everything was experimental especially with the animation. The linework, expressions, poses, models, colors, everything seems off by today’s standards, but you can see the effort and love put into it. There’s something beautiful about how rough it looks because you know what a struggle it was to make it work. And it does work. But I’m biased toward things that are hand drawn.

In Third for this category, the award goes to Gone Boy, the complete opposite of Krusty Gets Busted. We have the modern era, the clean colors, the characters staying on model, a lot of the stiffness that a lot of people don’t care for. However, there are moments that feel like a return to form in this episode. My eyes lit up when I saw Bob’s face as he encountered Milhouse. Then the dance he does as he sings is song-o. The wintery environment, a few ambitious angles, some great character acting. It’s proof that newer episodes have their beauty too. I only wish that the hallucination sequences went harder. Imagine, if you will, they suddenly went Courage the Cowardly Dog mode on you and changed mediums, turned into something more experimental and maybe truly nightmarish. This episode was great, but it could have been legendary. I am grateful for the feast we got. In Second, Black Widower returns, which dare I say has been robbed. Yes, I think it should have been First. This episode is gorgeous, but as I have established, I liked the earlier, rougher animation.

Every single frame of Bob’s rant on MacGyver is absolutely wild, as is the skipping through the flowers. The colors in the night scenes. The glow from the explosion. There’s so much character here, so many expressions and extra motions with hands in scenes, even when no one is talking. The weight in Bob’s hair when he throws back his head for a maniacal laugh. What this episode’s got is flair. Once again, Cape Feare takes First. I can see why, because it is a very good looking episode. One of the best. Oh, how I wish the show still looked like this (the latest Treehouse Ei8ht made me crave what we have lost). But I must wonder if it might be taking the number one spot because of how memorable it is with other factors. No doubt it’s funny, with a lot of well done and imaginative scenes. Bob’s lil dance during his work out comes out of nowhere and is hysterical. You think for a minute that the episode is going to cheat you when the elephants are trampling him off-screen then it pans down to show you the exact moment one steps on and off his skull. The increasingly elaborate set and costume designs for Bob’s theatrical performance. There is a lot of artistry to appreciate here. It’s cinematic even. Then again, a lot of the cinematic moments can be attributed to its source material: the 1991 movie Cape Fear, some moments directly inspired. Not to say that all of the work was done for them, certainly not. They put their own spin on things.

Perhaps the placement is deserved. The shot that goes from Bart’s window, flying over all of Springfield, to Bob’s prison is particularly impressive. There’s a lot of juicy saturation and shifts in color reminiscent of shots from Krusty Gets Busted and Black Widower. It’s safe to assume that I’m drawn more towards character details, and little things like all the lower angles we get from Bob work well in conveying menace, as if we, the audience, are in danger

This concludes Part One of the Sideshow Bob Awards, In Part Two I will cover Best Song and Best Mystery. As for intermission, picture THE RAKES!!!

#sideshow bob #robert terwilliger #the simpsons

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miqojak · 10 months ago

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Character Associations: Jak

(Funny, I had this same prompt in two different versions saved in my drafts from the last two times I did it in past years, intending to do it again since it has been years! Good time to tag me...even if I took a month or so to get to it! xD )

I'll smash together these two old ones and put them into this one, resulting in a bit more things to fill out: "5 Things" and "Character Features" - with 3-5 things per category.

✴EMOTIONS/FEELINGS✴

✧ Paranoia ✧ Disdain ✧ Curiosity ✧ Confidence ✧ Arrogance

✴GREETINGS✴

✧ Silent Nod ✧ Clipped wave or nod ✧ Silent, judgemental stare: first impressions don't always go over well ✧ Faint smirk, almost as if she knows something you don't ✧ Fanged grin, if she likes you

✴COLORS✴

✧ Red ✧ Black ✧ Gold ✧ White

✴SCENTS✴

✧ Handmade, perfumed oil (Spiced and earthy/citrusy) - a connection to her past, and the family she lost ✧ Well-oiled leather - what she's often garbed in ✧ Campfire smoke - another reminder of her family/past ✧ The scent of a savory meal on the stove/in the oven - she loves to cook! Having suffered with hunger and near-starvation, the ability to cook good food now is something she relishes.

✴CLOTHING✴

✧ Leather mini-skirt/pants/clothing in general - good for sneaking, or for drawing the eye where you want it...away from where thieving hands might be wandering ✧ Loose-fitting cloth fabrics - the better for the hot places she likes to live/dwell in ✧ Sandals - for when it's hot! (Boots or sneakers when practicality + comfort is the goal.) ✧ Lots of piercings - in her face, and ears.

✴VICES/BAD HABITS✴

✧ Drinking - She drinks now and then, and no longer tends towards being an alcoholic ✧ Drugs - She no longer abuses somnus, and smokes moko a little now and then to relax ✧ Works out too much/pushes herself too hard, out of the paranoia associated with having been a Garlean prisoner of war. If she's fit and fast enough, no one can catch and cage her again! ✧ Holds herself (and others) to incredibly steep, almost unachievable standards out of a belief that one should always be bettering themself. ✧ She loves breaking and entering as a hobby! She doesn't even steal things, most times - maybe moves things around, or breaks things, and just makes herself at home...it's about the power and control, not the stuff.

✴OBJECTS✴

✧ Throwing knives - often coated in non-lethal toxins, and sheathed in hidden holsters in her clothing. ✧ Lock-picking tools, if she's out to do some B&E ✧ DRK soulstone set in a bangle on her tail

✴BODY LANGUAGE✴

✧ Languid, but alert - in the manner of many a large, feline predator; she may seem to be completely at ease...while simultaneously ready to act at a second's notice ✧ Shoulders squared and chin lifted, a stance of stubborn pride ✧ A tail that lashes in anger, or sways slowly when in thought - this body part betrays the otherwise carefully controlled actions of the rest of the little woman. ✧ Feline ears that are almost always on a swivel for sounds that are out of place, or words spoken softly - seeking things meant to go unheard. ✧ Examining her nails - either truly bored, or trying to project disinterest

✴AESTHETICS✴

✧ A weathered, leather-bound sketchbook ✧ A desert campfire, as the sun sets on a sandy horizon ✧ Piano music drifting from another room ✧ A dark, viscous, canine shadow with too many eyes and teeth that hungrily slinks across snowy wastelands ✧ Opposing aesthetics of dark leather, and gold jewelry set against pale, flowing cloth; the street rat, and the empress, juxtaposed

✴SONGS✴

✧ Cold-Blooded - Zayde Wolf ✧ Somebody's Watching Me - Madelyn Darling ✧ Knife Under My Pillow - Maggie Lindemann ✧ THAT BITCH - Bea Miller ✧ Here Come the Wolves - Lola Blanc (An especially poignant and multi-layered song for Jak!)

Tagged by: @hares-and-hounds

Tagging (a bunch of people from my notifs, but do it if you want to, and tag me so I can see!) - @briar-ffxiv @xmimiteh @wpip-raham @uldahstreetrat @captainqster @shieldandarrow @merlwybs-wife @alannah-corvaine @madalyn-maeve @ashenbun @thedawnforged @why-raven @ivyffxiv and...anyone else! YOU, reading this! Do it, and go ahead and tag me so I can read about your OC! (This took me ages to think about and finish, so no rush on knocking it out - in some categories, I even had a hard time coming up with three things, much less five!)

#rp meme #oc aesthetic #oc meme #ffxiv oc #ffxiv rp #sometimes it takes me forever to do things I'm tagged in...but I usually get around to them when the spoons recharge xD

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destinygoldenstar · 8 months ago

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Golden Analyzes 2001 Nominees “Monsters Inc.”

*Have Seen Prior*

So there’s gonna be a lot of Pixar movies. That’s because the studio is basically the Oscar’s pet.

But if I said some of their movies didn’t deserve nominations, I’d be lying.

It’s really crazy how this didn’t start off as the Pixar award until 2003.

In terms of how I feel about the over-obsession… eh, I’m pretty indifferent to it. I don’t really care.

Like I said, I’m not reviewing these based on who made them. Because… some groups have higher standards than others. Even if you don’t think that plays a factor in judgement, there’s a thing as a subconscious.

Anyway, this movie.

I’ve seen it prior to this viewing. So has my GF. We’ve all seen this movie. If you haven’t… what are you doing?

I remember distinctly that I was scared of this movie as a Kindergartener. And believe it or not, one of the reasons I was scared of it was NOT Randall.

I was scared of the George torture, I was scared of the half bodied simulation human, I was scared of the scream extractor scene, mostly stupid sh*t to be scared of.

I remember that it was movie night in Kindergarten and we had to vote a movie to watch. Monsters Inc won the vote and I was UPSET.

Obviously now that I’m older I can watch this movie no problem and say that it is a great movie. But I think we all know that already.

It’s just never been one of my favorite Pixar movies personally. Not through any fault of its own, but because I was just more emotionally affected by other movies in their catalogue.

There’s an objective way to look at media, and there’s subjective ways to look at media. SO YOU KNOW, objectively I think this is one of the best structurally put together Pixar Movies and deserves to be called one of the best. Subjectively it’s just not one of my favorites, even if it is good and I enjoy it.

Cool? Cool.

And while we’re at it, Monsters University is a movie that wasn’t nominated, so I won’t be reviewing that, but if you’re interested in my thoughts on it, it’s a movie I feel is far more suited for adults than kids. It’s a movie that didn’t click with me until years later, and when it did, it clicked HARD. (As a college student myself) It’s a great prequel. Has a message everyone needs to hear. But I feel like its story structure was significantly weaker than Inc’s, and I think they should’ve stuck with the plotless slice of life story they presented in the first act. But what do I know?

Then there’s Monsters At Work. Which I have not seen and have no interest in seeing. But… it exists, I guess.

Anyway, funny reactions from us and reviews.

Reaction Quotes:

(Bold is my GF’s Words)

“I think it’s gonna be a trend for me to read the descriptions. ‘A little girl named Boo wanders into the world of monsters.’ 1, I’m pretty sure her name isn’t actually Boo that’s just a nickname they gave her cause she doesn’t talk, and 2, that description makes it sound like Boo is the main character of the movie. 😂” “Yeah.” “That’s hilarious to me.”

“I remember in Toy Story… remember that scene with the toilet seat that had the fur, just like… just like Sulley’s fur…” “Yeah…. Sulley died. RIP.”

(WHY CAN’T ANY STREAMING SERVICE GET MOVIE DESCRIPTIONS RIGHT?)

“RIP the M. It fought so hard.”

“Are you gonna get scared?” “What?”

“The parents never hear any of this screaming. Or they do but they’re like “Gosh, our son is having a rough puberty””

“Make it a big deal about there being a scream shortage, there’s your screams right there.”

*Can anyone tell me mister Byle’s big mistake?* “You rearranged the room cause those drawings and those tack things weren’t there before.” “You were scared of your own shadow.” “I know what the answer is but honestly, out of context, it’s the least of your mistakes.”

*It could let in a draft?* “A draft…?” (AnalyzGolden.exe has stopped working) “What’s a draft?” (STUPID) “A gust of wind.” “Human air gets in? It’s the apocalypse.”

“That’s dedication if you're waking up 6 AM to practice your job before you do it. I would never wake up that early to practice bagging before I go to work.”

“That seems pointless to push all that furniture around just to put it all back again.”

“They blocked him off. But you know what? He was still on TV. That’s a win!”

(Considering MU’s context, that joke hits even harder for Mike as someone who was told all the time he wouldn’t find success, so getting on TV alone would satisfy him even if the industry screws him over)

“Playing jumprope with your tongue… YEP.”

“Eating trash… YEP.”

“Sneezing fire on the newspaper… no. Just no. That’s a crime. I can’t even.” /s

“The pumpkins are $5000” (I noticed when she says that) “Forget a power shortage, how are these monsters not living on the streets?”

“They sell Blood Oranges. Mangle Fruit. Spleen… something.”

“That monster DIED. The drain is a casualty.” “How are his teeth and eyeballs not attached to his body?”

“There’s ANOTHER giant chicken monster?!” (Jimmy Neutron also had one) “If there’s one in Shrek, then that’s why these movies were nominated. They all have giant chicken monsters.” “That’s a huge coincidence.”

“‘Stalk’. Oh, cause they’re predators.”

“Oh that lobby is beautiful. And all the different designs walking around-“ “It looks like an airport.”

“Mike is cropped out in a lot of those pictures. He gets screwed by the industry so hard.”

“Why are there four clocks with different times?” (Me and a family member explain to her the different times on the globe) “It really is an airport.”

“Either she has snakes for hair, or she’s bald and snakes live on her head.” “😳Ew…”

*It scares little kids and little monsters* “Is that the equivalent of monster racism?”

“Why is he the janitor?!” “It’s his first day on the job. He’ll be fired immediately.”

“‘Baby born with five heads, parents thrilled’ I would be screaming in terror.” “Troll Attacks. There’s trolls in this world. Fur Replacement, with THAT hairstyle? Gain 10000 pounds, scare your neighbors.” “If you gain 10000 pounds, you’re DEAD.”

“You know why Roz is scary? You meet her at work everyday.”

“‘It’s my way or the high way’. I love that. 😂.” “That says Roz as a character perfectly.”

“I can’t watch that anymore because I’ve seen a blooper where it’s just them falling over. That’s all I see now.”

“That last one seems very tedious. Having to put on your eyeballs every time? Why would you even need to take them off in the first place?” “Maybe they’re contacts.”

“The furball’s name is Luckey. That’s awesome. Rivera, Peterson, Jones, Sanderson, Plesuski… Sus. Schmidt, Pauley, Ward, and Gerson. Gerson is WAY behind the others, I’m worried for his career.”

“I wish I had that many fingers.”

“The tape they put on that door says ‘VOID’. This really is the exit door in Digital Circus.”

(I WILL MAKE DIGITAL CIRCUS JOKES TILL I DIE)

*Nevermind* “Nevermind-😂” “😂” “‘Something revolutionary has happened-nevermind.’”

“2319 is the numbers of the alphabet. So they’re actually saying ‘WS.’ ‘White Sock.’ ‘White sock! We have a white sock!’”

“Is the CDA the FBI in their world?”

“All this for a sock?! They got the whole country’s CDA for a SOCK.”

“Noooo George! Noooooooooooooo”

(Justice for George)

“‘Odorant’. I love that.”

“What did I say? Roz is someone you meet everyday. They always come out of nowhere to ruin your plans with paperwork.”

“No- well, actually, you wouldn’t want to abandon your monster pal if they were in there. So okay…”

“Sorry. Child hater. I’m with Sully on this.”

“That’s how I would react to a child that close. I’d say hi then run for the hills. *Sibling name* said ‘you’re never having kids!’” “Good! Don’t want any!” “Exactly.”

“Get rid of the evidence of the crime.”

“HOW DO YOU NOT NOTICE?!” *Three seconds later* “Now he did.”

“‘I’m a cigarette’?! What?!” “Cigarette?” “I heard her say ‘I’m a cigarette.’” “She said ‘I’m Tiger.’” “No, I heard cigarette. Why is that kid saying cigarette? I’m concerned about her home life.”

(REWINDED IT)

“Tiger…ette? What’d she say?” “I still heard cigarette.”

“That cook has a cut tentacle.” “He has eight of them, he’s fine.”

“What’s the age gap implied here?” “Not sure… it’s been my headcanon that in the prequel movie these characters are in their early 20s, and in this movie their late 20s, early 30s, somewhere in that age group… in human age range, idk if it’s different for monsters.”

“‘I was thinking of killing my snakes. You know?’”

*I said… Sulley?* “😂” “😂” “And then they were roommates.” “😂😂😂😂”

(I was actually crying from laughter for about five minutes)

“😂I’m sorry… that had NO RIGHT being as funny as that was…” 😂

“This is like if there was a shootout. Except the shooter brought a Bebe gun and it’s meant to be a joke. Take that one vine, but Boo is the gun, Sulley is the shooter and the monsters are the ones running away.”

youtube

(This is that vine)

“What is that shield? Did they summon the aliens what happened?!”

“This is how I would react to a kid in my home.”

“This is how it feels when I hear babies cry at work.”

“Oh the lights stopped flashing guess that apartment is not suspicious anymore. Like, I would still check it.”

“Yeah, spoons. You don’t have anything else?”

*No monster in here* “Uuuuhhh…” *Well now there is* “I was about to say”

“He just casually has bricks in his room” “Maybe it’s workout equipment. He said earlier he worked out at home.”

“I wish getting a kid to sleep was that instant.”

“‘I’m not gonna do that thing!’ Cuts to them doing the thing.”

“This kid’s got powers if she can slip away from them this easily.” “Maybe it’s to show how kids can slip away from you very easily.”

“Cousins sisters daughter… but a sister of a cousin would still be a cousin, so what does that look like on the family tree??”

“Sulley just became a predator. Movie ruined.”

“I felt that smash.”

“HOW DID YOU NOT SEE THEM?! The dude’s got three eyes and not one of them saw them?!”

“How much you wanna bet the other side of that door is a bar?”

*I get a time out?* “I mean… technically.”

*…painted?* “😂Oh my god… I thought you were the smart one! It’s not rocket science!”

*You talk to me like that again, we’re through!* “😂” “What?!” “Before Disney was shoving it down our throats, these two were their first queer rep.”

*Sulley thinking Boo is getting murdered by the trash room* “😂I’m sorry I can’t stop laughing…”

(Damn, you hate kids THAT much Past AnalyzGolden?)

“Boo laughs at Mike’s misery… ouch.”

*Mike gets kidnapped* “…I think it’s okay.”

“Is this inside the walls?” “I thought it was underground” “No cause we saw them go in… maybe it’s underground.”

*It’s Cretin if you’re gonna threaten me do it properly* “He’s not worried about getting kidnapped. ‘I’m not concerned about getting kidnapped, but if you’re gonna do it at least do it right’”

“‘Evil plot’. He acknowledges it’s evil. But he’s doing this anyway cause he cannot stand up for himself. Feel bad.”

“He’s dead. They left him for dead!” “Did they?” “He’s gasping for air, he’s shaking, his skin is pale, he collapsed on the ground, no one’s helping him, he’s DEAD. I don’t think we even see him again after this.”

(He’s there later in the movie. He, in fact, did not die.)

“Is that foreshadowing Ninjago?”

“Those snow cones were definitely made out of his pee.” “…I didn’t want to say it, but…” “Where would he get lemons in the cold like that?”

“YES GEORGE! YESSS! 👏🏻 Well deserved justice.”

*Oh…* “Oh NOW you realize?! Some friend you are. ‘I am DYING’ ‘Oh…’”

“Oh wow… that’s a spectacle of doors. Is there an exit door here?”

(STOP IT ANALYZGOLDEN)

“Nope. I would never go on this ride. I hate roller coasters.”

*Why couldn’t we get banished here?* “😂” “😂” “If you’re gonna banish us, at least banish us somewhere nice.”

“THAT’S what happens if you fall. SHATTERED. I felt that dread so hard…”😰

“No. I could never do that parkour. Nope.”

“He’s perfectly willing to murder Sulley. I just wanna point that out there.”

*Randall getting beat by a toddler* “😄That is so satisfying.”

“I mean, they were able to get back through the doors, so even if they smash this one, they’re not technically leaving Randall for dead.” “Yeah, but by the time he gets back… he will definitely be fired.”

“What’s the deadliest weapon known to mankind? 2319.”

“This is brilliant. Right here? That was actually a genius plan to defeat him.”

“And Roz is number 1. That reveal though 👏🏻 Icon.”

“It’s really funny that there’s a Nemo fish, because when this movie came out, Finding Nemo was not even out yet. This was foreshadowing their next movie.”

*And I don’t want to see any paperwork on this* “Character development.”

“It hits so much harder when you realize this was pretty much Mike’s dream. He did do it after all… not in the way he expected, but he did it.”

“Who is against Mike in the ad industry?! Someone has to explain themselves!”

“I actually love that they leave it vague. All up to interpretation.”

Review:

I don’t think I need to tell you that this movie is excellent.

Out of Pixar’s catalogue, this is probably one of their movies where they do pretty much everything they try to do right. As this is definitely up there as one of their best story structured movies.

Like, yeah, the opening scene of the movie doesn’t show the main characters. As all but Waternoose are irrelevant to the story, but that isn’t the point of the opening scene. The point there is to establish the stakes of this world they had created, and THEN show the main characters roles in this world.

Said world is very expertly established. Even without University, this movie feels like you’re transported into a living breathing world that could actually function.

And it’s all surrounded by a simple concept of “What if the monsters that come out of kids closets to scare them weren’t actually monsters?”

And then you build on that. Why would they even be scaring kids in the first place?

Because they need the screams to power their world.

And then what would that look like? How would they do that? And that’s how you set up the functionality of the company and every workers roles. You got the scarers, you got the workers that collect the screams and get the doors, you got the door shredders for doors that are useless to them, you got the paperwork filer, you got their worlds version of the FBI, and then you get a whole location that is constantly breathing in purpose where you understand how that works by just seeing the work get done.

And then you have the monster society itself. You can probably guess from the reactions segment my GF and I commented a lot on the little details on the scene where Mike and Sulley are walking to work. But that’s because the scene is so good at establishing that this is a monster world full of monsters.

There’s houses with certain sizes to fit certain monsters, there’s different doors in apartments for that reason, the fruits are named after human organs because that’s what monsters in our human myth head imagine them eating, walking is considered stalking without self awareness that we humans would have, kids are casually born with five heads, weight gain seems to be encouraged in this world, and so, so, so much more.

And this all background stuff. But it’s VERY important to get us immersed in this world and understand what the rules are and what’s going on.

In Jimmy Neutron, that movie takes place in our world. So they didn’t have to establish our world cause we already knew it. That movie just had to establish the main character and his place, and whatever not ‘our world’ was in the movie.

Monsters Inc had the far more challenging situation of choosing to create a world that was NOT ours. A world that was completely original. So they had to build all of these rules from scratch. World building is a much harder aspect of storytelling than you think, especially if the world is original.

That’s why you see a lot of people pointing out plot holes in movies with original worlds, because the world they created makes those plot holes. Even in good movies.

So Monsters Inc avoiding quite a few of these pitfalls is nothing short of writing competency.

And the movie takes place MOSTLY in just ONE location. The titular Monsters Inc.

We get two scenes with the apartment. We get one scene with the restaurant. And you could make an argument about the human world banishment segment. But that’s it. Otherwise the movie’s setting is that one location, and that one location is the crux of the story and what they needed to get right.

As a result we spend so much time in this factory and characters showing us how it works and functions. That I felt familiar with this factory as I would in my own work space. (Maybe even more so tbh.)

On top of that, you follow this world and this story through a duo of very likeable friends who get their world absolutely shattered by a toddler of all things.

No but seriously, in a studio that’s movie catalogue contains of an unlikely duo learning to get along, it’s odd that it didn’t start out that way. The only one that did at the time was the first Toy Story. And in this movie, you start off with their great friendship dynamic so you can actually challenge the friendship itself in the story.

Because yeah, when your reality of scarring children for life and those children bring toxic killers gets shattered when you realize you’re the real monster… some people are gonna have some opposing opinions on the matter. (Or, monsters I should say)

I’m gonna ignore University’s context for this analysis. Not because I think it’s not important but because I’m supposed to judge this movie alone. So keep that in mind.

Sulley is a figure at the top of the monster world. He’s the most reliable scarer in the industry that powers their entire world. He’s on his way to breaking an all time record for it. And that’s… basically his life and purpose. And it’s a good one in his mind to be fair. I mean what else is he supposed to do? (University context can be added there)

There’s a line early in the movie where Mike comments that theres more to life than scaring.

Which heavily implies that until Boo, the record was all Sulley really had going for him. Not to say he’s arrogant about it, maybe a bit prideful, he’s still a nice dude, but it is a shallow worldview if you only look at things one way.

And while Mike is more of a materialist than Sulley, and is far more passionate about the things he does (University context can also be added there), he at least has a life outside of the record goal. He has his own materialistic things, he relishes in recognition, he has a girlfriend he’s making plans for, and he’s working with his best friend in an industry where they’re on top. He has a pretty good life. A life so good in his eyes that he wouldn’t want to give that up.

But both of them are forced to when Boo shows up.

Now, I am not a fan of little, little kids, so bias against Boo is just a natural thing for me. BUT, just because I’m not relishing on how cute she is doesn’t mean I think she’s a bad character in any way. She serves her purpose as the MaGuffin well, she definitely acts like a real toddler would (mostly cause she’s voiced by an actual toddler), and she has her own character arc where she stands up for herself against her monster. Which is a very satisfying moment.

I also love the subtle non-told characterizations these characters have as well. Like Sulley’s naturally caring nature when he kindly greets the people around him at the start, gives Mike a cover so he can go on his date, and is the first to open up to Boo. Mike is the fairly logical one and mostly keeps a cynicism at poor attempts at overthrowing him, but when he is genuinely scared all that goes down the drain and his brain stops working. I’m just saying, it makes them feel far more real and I’m glad they don’t need to ‘tell’ us these things.

I love that we get two perspectives on this ordeal of a world safety law turning out to be a myth, and how two different characters would respond to that. One opens up to the idea of looking after the kid and becomes a father figure, which makes him break when he realizes he’s part of the problem with human children trauma. (That scene hurts.) The other is not into the idea at all and just wants to resolve it as soon as possible and go back to what things once were. So when Sulley says “None of that matters now”, it gears Mikes head and he challenges him on that. But I could see both of their points very clearly. I really could not pick a side there.

I would say Mike’s apology is a little rushed, but let’s be honest here, he wasn’t even thinking straight at that cave and would never ditch Sulley like that. You can tell when he looks back at the cave entrance after Sulley was given no choice but to leave him. That one look of immediately regretting what he said. The fact that he’d be able to turn around that quickly when his friendship is put in jeopardy is believable. At least to me.

Randall is also a good villain. I wasn’t scared of him, but I totally understand people who would be. The scariest of individuals are the ones who commit the scariest actions. And that is true with Randall.

Right from the start it’s obvious he’s a villain due to the work rival trope. But then you actually understand just how ruthless he is.

Everyone talks about how Waternoose felt bad about his actions towards Sulley and Mike, but Randall did not give a single shit. He tried to torture Mike despite not having a reason to. And when he had the opportunity to murder Sulley he took it with absolute glee.

He’s a slimey bastard who deserved his fate. Plain and simple.

But then you learn he’s NOT actually the main villain, but rather an accomplice to the mastermind.

Then there’s Waternoose. This guy is highly regarded as one of the best twist villains in media, and I get why.

The scene that sticks out to me is the line he says as he’s banishing Mike and Sulley. “It’s yours.”

That’s it. No gloating of his plan. No hesitation. Just a cold ruthless reveal and then banished.

It’s honestly such an affective reveal and I can’t get enough of it.

I’ve seen the movie before so I knew the context. The entire movie I was listening to his dialogue and looking for any contradictions… and I found none.

When writing a twist villain, it’s very easy to forget when the characters dialogue is supposed to have a double meaning. Get it wrong, and they look like two completely different characters.

Waternoose feels like the same character even after the reveal. He actually did care about Sulley, who was his best worker. That’s why he apologizes for the mess, he feels bad about having to take these actions.

But he takes these actions anyway because in his mind, the company is more important. (My GF actually pointed this out.) He sees the company above all else and can’t see flaw in his logic and moral of its for the company. Kidnapping and torturing children? Wrong. Obviously. But not in his brain.

I also love that the way he’s defeated is by his own hypocrisy exposing him through the heroes brain power getting it exposed. Genius plan. Very memorable villain defeat.

We all talk about villain deaths, why not just plain old defeats that don’t involve death? They’re just as good.

On top of those guys, this cast is PACKED with side characters you just remember and make this world feel absolutely alive.

My favorites being George, who deserved better, and his mini arc of being fed up with the myth’s BS was great to see unfold.

And Roz. The icon. HOW do you make a paperwork manager with like, four tiny scenes of screen time, THIS memorably creepy, funny, and iconic at the same time?!

I guess if there are any negatives I can point out are some minor ones. One that again, the snowman character kinda took me out of the banishment portion of the movie. Sulley and Mike just got BANISHED. They found out their boss is in on the whole thing, the kid is gone, and they’ve been banished from the world they know, literally. I’m not saying there shouldn’t have been any comedy in that segment of the movie, but his lines just did not land a laugh from me. And it kinda killed the tone of that segment. There’s also the trash room segment that kinda felt like panning out, as it added nothing to the story other than losing an eye of the costume. Which affected nothing. No one called it Sus that the kid lost an eye or anything.

But they’re pretty minor nitpicks.

Last thing I want to mention is the Pixar tearjerker scene. Out of Pixar tearjerker scenes, this one doesn’t hit be that hard. I’m gonna be honest. It didn’t get to me.

It’s still a very well done scene. It’s just a personal thing.

I also think that’s just because it was always gonna happen, as it was always the obvious end goal. They wanted her back home, they got her back home. The reason it’s sad is because they’ve bonded heavily along the way. Which is obviously sad. But I think other Pixar tearjerkers have hit me harder because they weren’t the obvious outcome. That or the character change was so heavily prevalent throughout the movie that there’s so much relatability to it.

But look at me as a child hater. I suck, I know.

Still an objectively great scene though.

Last thing I want to mention is the animation.

These movies were made in 2001. So these early Oscar nominated movies are going to look pretty rough.

But also, compared to the other two nominations, it’s EMBARRASSING that this movie objectively has animation that ages so much better.

A standout to me in terms of spectacle is the door coaster sequence which is so pleasant on the eyes. Especially when they start hopping from earth place to earth place.

On top of that it’s very smooth. I always love it when movies utilize color to express their style.

You may say that’s a kids movie thing to use color, but like, tell me with a straight face that these dark muted color palette and stone serious actor expressions in life action are objectively more interesting for the eyes.

There’s also them taking full advantage of character design here and being as creative as possible. Even in just background characters that get zero lines. They’re monsters. Why not use that?

It’s a great movie. Everyone knows it.

I’m still not interested in checking out the show, though.

And it PAINS ME to hear that the director of this movie is now claiming we need LESS of these types of movies because ‘they’re not profitable enough’.

I’m calling it right now, he was at gunpoint and forced to say that. (I have no evidence to back this up)

Let creative people be creative, dammit!

Anyway, that’s it for this movie. The last Oscar nomination of 2001 is the winner of this year, Shrek. Look forward to it.

#monsters inc #animation #best animated film #animated movies #pixar #movie review #movies #reactions #film review

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its-all-papaya · 5 months ago

Note

🧽 the dishes - time to tell people more about gentle with the ache !!

I did my dishes (literally just coffee tumblers) AND my roommates' dishes (a lot more than that) bc i'd been passive aggressively ignoring everything that's not mine for a week, but i simply don't want mold in our sink, so. double points or smth

↠ please make me do my chores

charlie i'm taking this as your cry for help & your reminder to me that now that this fic is in the universe, i can complain about it to EVERYBODY and not just you.

gentle with the ache.... the precious newborn baby.... time to dissect her already.... she almost killed me ! honestly, I started this fic like.... awhile ago? two weeks ago i think maybe? which i know is not long for a fic, but it is long for MY standards as a writer bc i was devoting all of my writing time to it and it just. took so mf long to get anywhere. lestappen was a much harder dynamic for me to attempt than landoscar, because (as i've said), i see big parts of myself in both lando and oscar, so writing them is half the time just drawing on my own emotions. max and charles are REALLY not like me very much at all (i don't got that dawg in me), so i had to think through like... literally almost every piece of dialogue and every interaction for 1000 years. i was listening to 90 minute charles leclerc podcasts at 2am while doing work for my day job, i was reading lestappen on ao3 like i was doing a research project, i was in the TRENCHES trying to get inside either of their heads and in the end, i still feel like it's kind of just... out there? idk. i hope YOU all like it, but i'm almost hesitant to reread it now because i'm afraid i'll find one million things that still don't feel quite right.

the other thing about this fic is that it has literally over 1k of deleted stuff that is mostly just me writing poetry about lestappen's dynamic. I think it served the fic alright tbh, like a character study for me internally, but i had to trash some prose i was TRULY obsessed with for the sake of the plot and the mood.

last thought on this fic is that it hurt kind of deeply at first because i'm a maxiel truther and EYE was freaking out about the helicopter vid when it dropped in the opposite way as charles bc ricbull renaissance would bring tears to my eyes. if you read gentle with the ache and think 'hm, charles is kind of saying some nice stuff about max and daniel despite being Weird about the way events are unfolding?' that's just me unable to kill the maxiel that lives permanently inside me.

okay, if you like this fic, everyone say 'thank you charlie' to @fear8not1 because i promised to burn it to the ground and trash it and memory wipe formula one out of my brain like every other day the entire time it was being written because i was so mad about it, but she talked me off the ledge and we got there eventually !

ty <3

#answered #ask game #chore time #gentle with the ache #soph explained #this thing ate at my brain so bad i couldn't write anything else until it was finished #take me home landoscar plz lestappen sent me to war it was scary

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fox-graves · 2 years ago

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A very special throwback Thursday! Again! This time a walk through Asim’s character design and how it changed over time and my journey through colorizing traditional pencil drawings. Breakdown under the readmore.

(note: when I say “my DM”, he is also my partner who I have been building a DnD setting with, I wasn’t bullying a random DM into what I wanted, I was working with my partner to build a new setting while he was really stuck in Standard DnD and was letting that inform pretty much all the worldbuilding decisions.) 2017: The first color picture of Asim, and an attempt to colorize a messy pen sketch that I had been close to giving up on. The filter modes I used on the inking made the shadows harsh and dramatic, and while good for the piece, did not give me much control over the color. He was a basic drow with a color scheme picked out by my DM - my DM also insisted on shorter elf ears that didn’t emote and an overall human-like appearance aside from skintone.

2018: The DM had noted in an expression sheet I had distinctly drawn Asim’s canines - he said it made him look part orc but it was really just a stylistic choice I was playing around with. I leaned into it and suggested his father was half orc for a chance to give him more monstery traits and made his tusks a bit more prominent. I also used large emotive elf ears in the sheet to show the DM how it was a fun trait to allow. He agreed. I did some semi clean line art of a new expression sheet and experimented with coloring that. the line art gave me a lot more control with coloring, but I wasn’t entirely happy with it. The DM had given me a halfmask/eyepatch with a design I wasn’t too keen on but used it in the design anyway.

2019: Fully leaning into his orcish heritage, Asim as his stage persona Balam Yunuen. It was a expression sketch that got out of hand and I ended up fully shading it in pencil I loved it so much. Some more playing around with filters, having remembered a tutorial I saw on digital artists tinting their lineart, and I hit gold. My painting skills were still a little shaky but I learned a lot and he gained +1 Iridescent Skin.

2019 part 2: Another 2019 because I learned a lot that year and his design gained another tweak - a small snout and hints at the animal-like nose he would soon have. I found my stride with shading hair and have been going ham on it ever since.

2021: His sideburns! His finalized snoot! His resting crooked ears! Redesigning his eyepatch because dammit it’s my character he’ll look how I want him to look! At this point I had really settled into my style of colorizing my pencil drawings.

2022: Return of the chin tattoo! Redesigned and simplified into a sun-eye motif. Playing around with his cultural braid, the Makhiorya, a braid that you put beads on for everyone you invite into your family. Magical neck scar where his neck was torn out! I was beyond settled in my colorizing, I was getting bold with colors and lighting, constantly trying new things and learning from it. 2023:???? my kofi supporters are in the know on what’s coming ;) Comms | Shop | Tips

#dnd art #dungeons and dragons #drow art #drow #half drow #half orc #dnd #dark elf #half elf #dnd paladin #monster art #monster boy #dnd character #dnd character art #throwback thursday #art throwback thursday #fantasy art

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thrythlind · 8 months ago

Text

Tendou Kasumi - Late Start Version

Okay, so, before we begin let's go ahead set some basic information here first.

Who is Tendou Kasumi?

Kasumi is a supporting character from the 80s manga Ranma 1/2 by Rumiko Takahashi and the anime it is based on. She is a character who exhibits several traits of the yamato nadeshiko trope which represents an idealized Japanese housewife. In the manga, she can be witnessed to have tendency toward biting sarcasm when responding to other characters, but this was mostly lost in the anime where she is the perpetually kind and calm woman who acts as a surrogate mother for her sisters and father.

She is one of the only characters without any hint of martial arts prowess or observable supernatural trait save in just how kind and patient she is.

What is the premise of Ranma 1/2?

Ranma 1/2 is about a teenaged martial artist named Ranma Saotome who has received a curse where they change gender when they get wet. Cold water turns them into a girl and hot water turns them into a boy. Through the machinations of his absolutely terrible father, Ranma has at least two fiancees: the daughter of his father's longtime friend and the friend he had as a child while they were starting their training trip.

Kasumi is the eldest of the friend's daughters and her youngest sister, Akane, is the usual fiancee of the agreement. The middle sister Nabiki has occasionally claimed the role as part of some scheme to her advantage. Ranma has another fiancee due to getting tangled up in the laws of another culture and has a fourth admirer in the form of a mentally ill rich girl. In addition Ranma's girl side is desired by the mentally ill brother of said rich girl. A long time rival of Ranma's has a crush on Akane, and a childhood acquaintance has a crush on the foreign girl pursuing Ranma.

The manga is a satire poking fun at the standard tropes of teenage romances as well as martial arts stories. It blows a lot of these things out of proportion. The anime loses a lot of the satire and mostly focuses on the immediate humor, romance subplots, and fight scenes directly. The success of Ranma is at least one reason for the emergence of the Harem genre where the convoluted romance subplots are done unironically.

What is Late Start?

Late Start is a fanfic I wrote to get myself back into writing a bit after some burnout. It is currently unfinished, but the premise was that instead of coming to the Tendou dojo at age 16, that Ranma instead doesn't learn about the Tendous or the marriage agreements until he's 20. And indeed, Akane and Ranma first meet at a martial arts tournament and hit it off.

The idea was to do the characters without a lot of the teenage confusion. Where they're on more equal footing power-wise, more mature, and have had more time to settle their own issues.

Among other things, each of the Tendou sisters has their own curse. Akane is bound up with a lightning spirit, Nabiki is a vampire, and Kasumi is an oni. While two of those are just made up, Kasumi really did spend some time during the manga and anime possessed by an oni. It operated by trying to draw out and feed on the evil of the people it possessed, and in Kasumi's case that meant doing things that would be considered cruel "pranks" but not nearly to the level of evil one would expect from an oni.

Spoiler for the fanfic necessary to understand the build:

In Late Start, when the oni tried to finally consume her she managed to fight back, but in the process she became an oni. She's convinced her family that she's human and the horns are just a remnant of the possession. However, she is in truth a being of darkness and chaos. Unlike the prior oni, however, compassion is at her core rather than cruelty. This kind of passes since her vampire sister Nabiki is largely just a civilian so not really anybody dangerous.

Kasumi has also joined the Templars (Secret World rather than Assassin's Creed) and secretly investigates and prevents occult disasters while telling her family she goes to a LARP society that copies the MMO "The Secret World" which includes the Templars, Illuminati, and Dragons (I think a made up secret society for the game). So, when Kasumi is not keeping the home, she's basically dressing like this and hunting bad guys. (pictures that follow are a screencap from City of Heroes: Homecoming, a commissioned piece of art by Silky Noire, and a screencap from Secret World Legends, the free-to-play version of the original MMO)

So... I'm going to go ahead and build a version of Late Start Kasumi for Scion as an Origin but give her a quick simulated shift to her visitation and a Hero when she joins the Templars. She's not going to have a Pantheon, instead having a Covenant with the Templars.

The Build

Step One: Concept

Kasumi Tendou is a human woman who turned the tables on a possessing entity that had sought to claim a physical body all of its own. She was willing to share, but the entity only played along with that until it felt strong enough to consume her. Along the way it taught her some conceptual magic. She failed to convince it to share, and she realized she couldn't keep both herself alive and prevent the transformation of her body, so she conceded the change and sneakily focused on being the sole survivor. Leaving her a physically embodied oni with a soul that still possesses primarily human experiences.

She draws sustenance from the friendliness and good will surrounding her as she refuses to take in hate, anger, or fear to sustain herself and risk becoming another evil. Eventually, she comes to the attention of the Templars and joins them. Since then she's been able to receive holy water and blessed rice and draws sustenance from the blessings imparted to the food.

Step Two: Paths

Primary Path: A Creature of Chaos and Compassion Skills: Occult, Subterfuge, Empathy

Secondary Path: Eldest Sister of the Tendou Family Skills: Culture, Integrity, Persuasion

Tertiary Path: Lost Two Battles to win the War Skills: Integrity, Occult, Subterfuge

Step Three: Skills

Based on the Paths and which we assigned as Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary. Primary skills get 3 dots, Secondary 2, Tertiary 1. Any skill that has 3 or higher gets a specialty. This by RAW is only at character creation, but we've generally played that getting to 3 comes with a free specialty as well, rather than making people pay for it.

Culture 2

Empathy 3 (Toxic Beliefs)

Integrity 3 (Kindness)

Occult 4 (Conceptual Magic)

Persuasion 2

Subterfuge 4 (Overlooked)

Step Four: Attributes

Kasumi's Favored approach is going to be Resilience. Primary will be social (6 dots), secondary Mental (3 dots), and tertiary Physical (2 dots). These each get one free dot, and the three Resilience attributes (Resolve, Composure, Stamina) get two free dots as the Favored approach.

Mental

Intellect 2

Cunning 3

Resolve 3

Physical

Might 2

Dexterity 2

Stamina 3

Social

Presence 3

Manipulation 4

Composure 4

Step Five: Calling and Knacks

At Origin she is going to have a single Calling typically if we were building her as a denizen she wouldn't get her Denizen trait and that's it. But we're building her as a scion with a Denizen origin. As for Pantheon... she's going to be a tutelary goddess. IE she's associated with a specific group of people rather than a pantheon. In this case the largely more benevolent version of the Templars that appears in the fanfic.

That said, I want to nod at her being both a denizen and a scion. So I'm giving her a Persistent Condition that causes her trouble. And I'm going to base this a bit on her hunger. She doesn't need food in the same way as humans do, but she still needs to feed.

Persistent Condition: Emotional Hunger: Kasumi must feed on the emotions and spirit of other beings. By preference she only feeds on kindness or other such emotions freely given to avoid taking more negative attitudes into herself. However, if isolated or among hostile beings for long, she may grow hungry and desperate. She can also feed on blessed food (such as holy water, blessed rice, or edible blessings) but it is possible to poison her with cursed food instead, possibly affecting her personality while digesting it. Add Momentum whenever her hunger causes her a problem.

I'm also giving her a second Persistent Condition. As these are a way to produce momentum at the "cost" of drama (oh no, something interesting happens), a second Persistent Condition is something you can only get with GM approval, but this is a theoretical, so let's go with it.

Persistent Condition: Oni Horns: Kasumi has oni horns. She can't hide them. They're always there. They're pointy. When they cause her trouble, add Momentum.

So, now, her Calling. Given the fact that she perceives the world as bundles of concepts and interacts solely on that level. Like she doesn't see with her eyes so much as she is aware of the concept of light and darkness or people walking through it. That feels very much like Sage. So that's what she's starting with. For her Knack, she's getting "Master of the World" to represent the already discussed perceptions.

Step Six: Finishing Touches

This is the end of the Origin character creation. So we do some figured characteristics.

Defense: relates to whichever Resilience attribute she is using to defend with and will thus be either 3 (Stamina or Resolve) or 4 (Composure)

Health: She has the basic Bruised, Injured, Maimed, and Taken Out health statuses. Due to having 3 Stamina, she has a second Bruised status.

And she gains the following:

Five Extra Skill dice: 1 to Empathy, 1 to Integrity, 1 to Culture, 1 to Persuasion, 1 to Athletics

One Extra Attribute die: to Presence

Either two more knacks or four points of Birthrights.

As she cannot use more than a single knack at the moment, but also I can't think of a particular birthright she has from the start. The prequel story I did of her implicated that she had to rebuild her place with her neighbors due to the horns, so the Cult feels like something that came later. Covenant feels like a Legend 1+ thing. Joining the Templars came later at her visitation. So, I'm giving her two more Sage knacks: Presence of Magic and Scent the Divine (available to all Scions) as further representations of how she perceives the world.

Tendou Kasumi - Possession Survivor

Primary Path: A Creature of Chaos and Compassion Skills: Occult, Subterfuge, Empathy

Secondary Path: Eldest Sister of the Tendou Family Skills: Culture, Integrity, Persuasion

Tertiary Path: Lost Two Battles to win the War Skills: Integrity, Occult, Subterfuge

Athletics 1

Culture 3 (Suburbs)

Empathy 4 (Toxic Concepts)

Integrity 4 (Kindness)

Occult 4 (Conceptual Magic)

Persuasion 3 (Gentle Nudge)

Subterfuge 4 (Overlooked)

Mental

Intellect 2

Cunning 3

Resolve 3

Physical

Might 2

Dexterity 2

Stamina 3

Social

Presence 4

Manipulation 4

Composure 4

Calling: Sage 1

General Knacks: Scent of the Divine

Sage Knacks: Master of the World, Presence of Magic

Now, on to Hero

Her visitation comes when she visits a Shinto shrine that is a front for the Templars and receives the invitation to join them. Her route toward that event did involve her instinctively closing a rift that something terrible was trying to slip in through, but mostly it was a social adventure. She spent a while making sure everyone in her neighborhood trusted her despite the clear oni horns on her head and working to break down some of the harmful traditions and concepts that had calcified around people in the area.

I'm going to say this was five sessions worth of game play and say she achieved:

Three short term deeds

One long term deed

One story milestone

Spent half or more the momentum pool five times

But no group experience rewards since it implies she didn't share her true nature with anybody and so I'm saying she did this solo.

Still that's 16 xp before reaching her visitation.

For the sake of humor, I'm going to say the Band deed was helping Nerima to become a healthier community and the Long-term deed was "face another supernatural creature". So she achieved her Band-term before the Long-term... which is a bit funny since Band-terms usually take longer.

Spending that Experience I'm doing the following:

Cult Birthright - 2 dots (10 experience)

Specialty - Empathy: Desires (3 experience)

Specialty - Integrity: Temptation (3 experience)

For the Cult Birthright I'm building it as follows:

Nerima Ward: Community

Light 2, Shadow: 1

Path Skills: Athletics, Culture, Occult (Nerima's a weird place y'all)

Tag: Temple (letting her get access easier to places around the neighborhood)

Responsibilities: Converse with residents and help their mental health.

Light Access Connection: Community center

Light Contact Connection: Shopkeepers

Shadow Contact Connection: The women of Nerima

Visitation

She gains the following from her visitation:

Two additional Callings and 4 Calling dots.

Additional Knacks up to 5 total. Plus any you gained from Finishing Touches. (So 7 total in this case)

Seven dots of birthrights

An Innate Purview

Assign Boons

Legend 1

Calling Keywords

Legendary Title

For her two additional Callings and Calling dots, I'm going with:

Liminal 1

Psychopomp 2

Sage 2

For the Knacks I'm going with (including Origin knacks):

General Knacks: Aura of Greatness (Empathy), Scent of the Divine

Liminal Knacks: Flatlander (to represent how she can bend the concepts of space time)

Psychopomp Knacks: Tending the Egg, This isn't Everything You Are (for how she recognizes where people have harmful preconceptions and tries to help them break past those.)

Sage Knacks: Presence of Magic, Master of the World

For the Seven Dots of Birthrights

Covenant 2 - Templars, Physical Representation: Hakuba Shrine, Enhancement two when dealing with Templars. Access to Covenant boons. Motif: Ancient Occult Knowledge

Relic 3 - Horns (Innate, Chaos and Darkness purviews) Motif: Whispers in to the Soul

Cult 2 - Templars (Conspiracy, Shadow 3, Mystery Society, Coven, Contact: Master Hakuba, Access: Hakuba Shrine)

Note these birthrights come with her first Motifs, these are the ways that Kasumi uses her purviews and magic. So, she can either apply the invocations and incantations taught to her by the Templars... or she can engage in intimate conversation where she encourages the other person to bare their soul.

For the Innate Purview

Passion (Compassion)

For Boons:

Chaos: Loosen Chains - Allows her to Imbue 1 Legend to clear a person's mind or soul from an unnatural corrupting influence. To make it permanent she must interrupt the source of the influence (by defeating the sorcerer, ghost, demon, talisman, etc) A possessing entity is forced out of the victim's body as long as this is sustained. (A variation of the Marvel to clear a Condition where she can imbue instead of spend Legend. Which means I had to make sustaining it necessary)

Passion Boon: Tugging at Heartstrings

Legend becomes one and now I am going to do Calling Keywords and her Legendary Title:

Liminal Keyward: Oni

Sage Keyword: Concept, Soul

Psychopomp: Guide, Kindness

And for her first Legendary Title: The Nerima Oni.

That gives us the following version of Kasumi as a newly recruited Templar agent of extreme potential. Now, the version of Kasumi that is in the fanfic is probably Legend 2 or 3, has learned to use a shotgun, has acquired a Mutation ability similar to a titanspawn, and is generally more powerful. But this would represent the start of her Templar career when she was more support than badass.

Tendou Kasumi - The Nerima Oni

Primary Path: A Creature of Chaos and Compassion Skills: Occult, Subterfuge, Empathy

Secondary Path: Eldest Sister of the Tendou Family Skills: Culture, Integrity, Persuasion

Tertiary Path: Lost Two Battles to win the War Skills: Integrity, Occult, Subterfuge

Legend 1

Title: The Nerima Oni

Keywords:

Liminal: Oni

Psychopomp: Guide, Kindness

Sage: Concept, Soul

Skills

Athletics 1

Culture 3 (Suburbs)

Empathy 4 (Toxic Concepts, Desires)

Integrity 4 (Kindness, Temptation)

Occult 4 (Conceptual Magic)

Persuasion 3 (Gentle Nudge)

Subterfuge 4 (Overlooked)

Attributes

Mental

Intellect 2

Cunning 3

Resolve 3

Physical

Might 2

Dexterity 2

Stamina 3

Social

Presence 4

Manipulation 4

Composure 4

Callings

Liminal 1

Psychopomp 2

Sage 2

Knacks

General Knacks: Aura of Greatness, Scent of the Divine

Liminal Knacks: Flatlander

Psychopomp Knacks: Tending the Egg, This isn't everything you are

Sage Knacks: Master of the World, Presence of Magic

Purviews

Covenant (Birthright)

Passion (Compasison) - Innate

Chaos (Horns Birthright)

Darkness (Horns Birthright)

Boons

Chaos Boons: Loosen Chains

Passion Boons: Tugging the Heart Strings

Birthrights

Nerima Ward - Cult 2

Foundation: Community

Tags: Temple

Light 2, Shadow 1

Light Contact Connection: Shopkeepers

Light Access Connection: Community Center

Shadow Contact Connection: The Women of Nerima

Templars - Covenant 2

Physical Representation of Oath: Hakuba Shrine

Enhancement +2 dealing with Templars

Access to Covenant Purview

Motif: Ancient Occult Knowledge

Templars - Cult 2

Foundation: Conspiracy

Tags: Mystery Society, Coven

Shadow 3

Shadow Access Connection: Hakuba Shrine

Shadow Contact Connection: Master Hakuba

Oni Horns - Relic 3

Part of her body

Motif: Whispers to the Soul

Chaos Purview

Darkness Purview

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