#also i love drawing random aliens its very fun

[bleh1bleh2]

He's just looking. Its fine.

[kaijuparfait]

long ramble of me going through the venom trailer because i am insane totally normal about it

this isn't anything professional, just me spouting out random words as i run around in circles like an excited dog-

OK LET'S GO:

firstly... king please change your clothes its been years, why are you still wearing that exact same outfit???

BUT i am a sucker for the light going over and past Eddie as he walks, i just think it's so cool hehe,,

E: "You should probably know that I have a really dark and unpredictable side to me."

hmmm... i'll believe you. at first, it sounds like he's telling this to Venom, but I wouldn't be surprised if Eddie is telling this to someone else and this "dark and unpredictable side" is Venom.... Or he is telling this to Venom and Eddie just really wants to kill now which. I am ok with that, love that for them, they should be allowed to do what they want

cleanly punching off the lock via the ~ Power of Friendship ~ (or something like that)

not the dogs :( i'm assuming this is a place to hold dogs for like. dog fighting?? i think? which is terrible and those guys deserved to get their heads eaten!

E: "I'm giving you a chance, sweetie."

LET. EDDIE. KILL. everyone say thank you Tom Hardy for being Eddie cause WOAH i am. normal.

V: "Just say "when"." E: "...when."

WE'RE SO BACK its just like the "Mask!" "Copy." bit from the first movie omg we're so back, these two make me ill i love them sm

also Eddie not even flinching at the knife, most likely Venom turning off the pain (or something) but I like to think Eddie's just cool like that (these close ups of Eddie's face makes me wanna do a study on him, just draw him a million times for the fun of it, and i will! Tom Hardy is a beautiful man!)

either venom is fully acting as shoes or Eddie is wear the most busted up pair of crocs i have ever seen and both options are so great. either way- KICK! that guy is GONE you even see him slouched against the wall, surrounded by bricks in a later scene, Venom and Eddie are not messing around this movie!

I- hhhhh. ok. I'm ok. Yeah these two are NOT messing around, Eddie could not care less about these dudes, there is no hesitating, no guilt, no fear in this man's expression AND I LOVE IT <333 GET ANGRY! GET SCARY!!!

AND WE HAVE THE BOI. THERE HE IS!!! the roar sounds different too i think, it's very cool tho, feels like a shrill, higher pitch than i expected but i don't dislike it

let the dogs be free! they immediately start attacking those guys and i love it <3 doggy :3

AND EDDIE IS FIGHTING TOO WOOOOO i need to redraw all of these frame cause WHEW! making me blush with these shot compositions, so good. so much trust, Eddie knows Venom will keep him safe and jumps in! literally! i adore how Venom's head is following him too, it's so creepy, the way it just slithers through the air, I wish to send all my love to the teams who work on Venom, there are so many points from the trailer and the first 2 movies that I wanna dissect, just to point out all his little movements, very fun

speaking of his little movements- squinty eyes :3 and the half venom, half eddie face again! always a win, forever iconic <3

tearing apart this venom scene OK! the little tendrils by Eddie's face, the way they move around is so UGH its so weird and i adore it! This "pose" is also fun because we really get to see the inside of Venom's mouth, most importantly his teeeeeth, in a long, pretty still shot that isn't when his mouth is wide open, the artist in me is loving it

also the team always does an amazing job on just making Venom look alien- the thick veins, the shiny black skin, and the tendrils that are holding up the bad guy split apart, instead of being just one tentacle, very gross, but in a good way

E: "We.. are..-" V: "WE ARE VENOM!" E: "We.. are..-" V: "VENOM!!" E: "No.."

They share one braincell, holy fudge, I love symbrock fjdkslfjsdk

and Eddie just keeps trying! same tone, same level, and Venom is so excited

V: "Oh!"

(I also love these shots because we get a nice close up of how Venom's mouth moves when pronouncing words)

E: "Yeah.. We.." V: "We.." E + V: "are... Venom." E: "...We really need to work on that."

and they get there eventually lmao, the way they say it is so in sync, even the eye movements are the same, how they open wider, and THE VOICES hhhh the voices.,,.. Tom Hardy is such a good. voice actor? in this sense ig.. i am on the ground, pure joy with how Eddie and Venom's voices overlap here

and Venom goes to town! lovely meal <3 getting a meal with the bf <3

I am LOOKING oh my goodness his mouth can open WIDE... normal feelings rn, yup, mhm!

doggy :D dog friends :D also Eddie no shot you stole that guy's shoes lmao??? nice boots tho (as someone who wears cowboy boots often, i would love to see Eddie in a full outfit.. putting that in the drawing idea list...)

V: "DELICIOUS! You take me to all the finest places!"

see! dinner date! :3 I can just hear the smile on Venom, i love when he's happy

and the world's most pathetic wet cat of a man (I say with the upmost affection) is back!

more proof that Eddie is never NOT sweating and that Tom Hardy's Eddie voice has the most confusing accent- i think he's saying

E: "Honey, I don't know."

but he could very well just be stuttering, or maybe he stopped midway and instead said "I need- I don't know." but i'm hoping they're at the point of pet names, go full comic, let Eddie call Venom "love" and "dear" and "my darling"

[Edit- thank you @.bridoesotherjunk for pointing out that he says "I need a Tylenol." i need better listening comprehension i guess??? lol?]

i don't know 100% of the Venom lore, still have tons of comics to read, so i won't talk much about the potential storyline here but- 4 SYMBIOTES!! maybe maybe maybe the Life Foundation Symbiotes... these babies got some funky colors.. they already used the name Riot but these 4 could be Lasher, Phage, Scream and Agony if i pray hard enough, the colors don't match but i can dream!

totally not emotional over this little bit of Venom that was left behind from that one after credits scene trying to bond with a host gently. yup yeah my heart isn't hurting at all!

LET MY BOY GO, HE DID NO WRONG!!!

my favorite local cryptid, what a creature

and he changed! finally! nice shirt tho, buttoned up only part way? the HAIR??? good stuff

fire seems to be a known weakness now, looking at the background, and i can't guess what they're looking up at, Eddie does speed up for it tho. I'm gonna say either a helicopter or something else they're gonna try and jump up to? Venom does go-

V: "OH SHIT"

during this scene so maybe it's one of those Symbiotes from before? Who knows, I could guess a hundred things but idk

THE WATER SCENE!! FROM THAT ONE BEHIND THE SCENES PHOTO TOM HARDY POSTED!!!

Venom in the last bit and Eddie being just himself if the first portion of these clips show that these guys 100% know what they're doing and have some sort of device (shown in the right image) that is capable of doing some crazy damage to Venom! Which! Oh no!!! I enjoy fight scenes underwater tho (Looks at Godzilla), very hyped for this one, I really wanna see how Venom swims. Yeah that sounds a bit weird but like. no way he's swimming like a human, c'mon now

E: "We are living the dream, my friend V: "You mean it?!" E: "NO."

Can't get over Venom's delivery here, he sounds so genuinely, it made me laugh, especially to how exhausted Eddie sounds lmao

LAS VEGAS??? y'all guessed right, they really are gonna get married in vegas,,

Eddie in a suit, HELLO??? my guy is looking snazzy! really tho, he looks so nice a suit, the BLACK AND WHITE suit? perfect. I saw people saying that they hope that Venom is the suit and just. me too..

MRS. CHEN RETURNS omg this cast are all so <333 she is GORGEOUS that dress is beautiful on her AND HER HAIR Mrs. Chen my beloved

Mrs. Chen sounds so happy to see Eddie, and Venom also very excitedly say hi, my heart is going to burst, it is overflowing, this part of the trailer makes me smile so much AND THEN THEY DANCE WITH EACH OTHER!!! I know it's called The Last Dance but I was not expecting a dance with Mrs. Chen??? I am more than ok with this tho, Venom and Mrs. Chen, dancing on the stairs, they look so happy, they're having such a good time i can't, my heart can't take this <3

AND LOOK HOW THEY HOLD HER HANDS.. they... they care about each other so much i'm going to cry in the theaters- no i'm gonna cry NOW.

is that a xenophage i see??? that thing is HUGE HUH??? i fully understand Venom in this (side note, i ADORE how Venom goes "JESUS CHRIST" upon seeing this thing, the line delivery get's better every film, that was so genuine) this design is insane tho, i might spend some time doing a study on it

Toxin is here! YIPPEE!!! love the voice, thought it was Venom for a second the first time i watch this but its pretty good

I have no clue who the people are that are in this tower thing, I've seen a few theories but i ain't embarrassing myself by guessing wrong here lmao

(running out of image spaces sorry!)

in the clip of Venom walking into this lab (?) and then getting violently shot at, is it just me or does Venom seem small? I'm guessing the door is just really big but like. idk maybe i'm just mixing up my Venoms and thinking that he's not as big as I remember

really quick cut of what may be 2 more Symbiotes like the 4 from earlier? maybe they're the same and are just changing colors, maybe they're new, who knows! I love their colors tho, the one on the right (in the clip) looks like it's blue and pink and i think that's cute

Xenophage breaks into this lab, love that for her, she is still terrifying!

E: "We may not make it out of this alive, buddy."

haha what do you mean by that king?

V: "Eddie... the time has come..."

HAHA PAUSE. uhm. he said the same thing last time at the end of Let There Be Carnage and Eddie didn't let him go but, istg, IF THEY DIE AT THE END OF THIS MOVIE. i know its the last of the trilogy BUT THEY DON'T NEED TO DIE, SONY, MARVEL, DON'T DO THIS TO ME. i am going cry violently at the writers... i don't think i will ever stop crying if they die at the end

they're in this busted up helicopter, already intriguing, but when it zooms in on Eddie's face, he's tearing up??? this movie is checking off every emotion, i need to remember to stay hydrated before i go see it, i will cry so much

I don't even think i'll be able to handle just one of them dying, the end of the first movie made me tear up the first time i saw it, and that was before i was as insane about them as i am now, i will be UNWELL in the theater

And last but certainly not least. HORSE VENOM WOOOOOO

the design for this things is insane, i didn't think i'd ever wanna draw a horse in my life but like.. kinda changing my mind ngl (weird detail, Venom horse has hands and feet and not hooves!)

E: "Be honest with me, how fast do you think you can make that thing go, without killing it?" V: "..ONLY ONE WAY TO FIND OUT!"

Venom sounds a bit muffled in this clip which makes it a bit more funny to me, i won't lie. Eddie is hanging on FOR HIS LIFE THOUGH, geez i know he said "how fast" but Eddie gets LAUNCHED OFF VENOM when they go over that cliff. fun reference to the first movie, how Venom grabs onto Eddie as he flies up, like on the motorcycle <3

this horse scene has to be earlier on because Eddie is in The Outfit and is also not wearing shoes??? i refuse to believe he'd put it back on, and in the helicopter-"it is time" clip, Eddie is wearing that white shirt, which looks like the undershirt to the suit (maybe) so the Las Vegas scene happens before them running from the explosion/fire.

oh right, the song that's playing? Space Oddity by David Bowie? yeah it's about an astronaut dying along in space.... which... is not very comforting...

god this trailer makes me so hyped, October cannot come faster i need this movie NOW. please.

man the trailer is kinda confusing, i'm already making guesses on where things happen and what the context could be, but literally anything could happen in this film. there are so many things that just don't make sense yet and it's hurting my brain I JUST WANNA KNOW! are those new Symbiotes or not? What even is the plot? Will Eddie and Venom profess their love to each other? Will Sleeper be real? How many times will this movie make me cry? Only time will tell

...and it's only the first trailer! head so full of thoughts, heart so full of emotions!

[transhoverfish]

OK TRAILER TIME

SO PRETTY!! now, because everything in this is cinematic (and it's only a teaser), i would take basically this entire thing with a grain of salt for how accurate it will be to actual environments and gameplay. the cinematic trailers/teasers for the first two games are full of things that didn't make it in. still looks VERY GOOD and im so excited!!!!!!

onto a few specific things, this specific area ^^ shows up in a steam screenshot (which i will get to later), and considering the high amount of light and coral, this is potentially this game's version of the safe shallows! that pink fish that swims by is also the youtube channel's current pfp, and as such is probably replacing the peeper, which was the old 'mascot' fish. this character is also using alterra tech, which i think is very interesting! are we still working for alterra, or are they just such a mega corporation that they make basically all water/space gear? the diving suit looks a bit like the stillsuit with its colors! the design itself reminds me of the cold suit,,, :o

now, the thing about this scene is that it goes by pretty quick, and is supposed to draw attention to the water vortex (and won't it be fun if THAT is an actual mechanic!!! god i would be so so scared), but upon a few pauses and look arounds... there's a building! that is so clearly some old ruins!! it doesn't look anything like the usual ruins/bases we've seen before, so i would guess that these are NOT built by the architects, and instead a new alien race. the assumption is that this planet is also very much abandoned,,, which begs the question, why? not the kharra again, surely? or is it just these surface-level ruins that have been left? and if they went deeper, why? this appears to be the only screenshot/sequence that shows any of these ruins. how many more are there?? I DEMAND ANSWERS!!

also, entirely possible im wrong, but this new character bears some resemblance to ryley, imo. the earlier scenes of him doesn't match too closely, and their hair is entirely different, but this shot specially depicts a very similar face structure, eyebrows, lips, and nose! now, this could be (and probably is) a new guy that just kinda looks like him, but if it IS ryley,,,,, what's he doin here? is he working with alterra still? is he just off exploring various ocean planets? even if this isnt him, i want to know these things. wheres my guy :(

another thing pointing at this being ryley is that this game is intended to be a direct sequel (as opposed to bz being a spin off), and if its in an entirely different environment, then it stands to reason there's a chance theres returning characters. otherwise,, this game would just also be a spin-off!

(also, would absolutely love if that oxygen warning is an actual popup ingame!)

and here's the second character that pops up! the steam screenshots also only show two people in co-op so far, and i do wonder if these are two of the playable characters and not just random models/characters used for the teaser (similar to how bart is a trailer for sub1 despite not being playable, and fred in bz's trailer). this person doesn't seem to be anyone from either game (she looks a tinyyy bit like lillian, but not enough that i can say it could be her), and she's in a new vehicle! everything still looks very atlerra, though, and the two characters seem to know each other, so once again i wonder if this is a lore reason, if these ARE alterra workers, or if this is just to fit in with the aesthetic of the other games.

BIG FISH!!!!! BIG FISH!!!!!!! this thing looks VERY new and introduced in the teaser in a similar fashion that the sea emperor was shown in the first sub1 trailer, so im wondering if this might be THE Big Fish (or simply just one that they've finished the design for). with brightness turned way up, it appears to have a nose and mouth on level with the two humans, much below the light on its head. a similar hunting tactic to anglerfish, maybe? and so many tentacles!! and pincers! BIG FISH!!!!

no exact date for early access, which makes me think we won't get it until spring at the earliest. however, the first two games came out in winter (december for sub1, january for bz), so its possible it will keep with that trend and be out before march. don't take my word for that, though, this is purely speculation.

with this teaser (or potentially before, i was not actively checking this LOL), there's also now a steam page up with additional ingame screenshots and description of the game with a lot of new information!! because tumblr has a screenshot limit, im going to rb this post later with all of the steampage info.

but there is a LOT of new stuff we've learned now!!! pair all of this with this article showing screenshots the devs have dropped in sub1 time capsules (which i will also talk about in the rb), and oughhhh it is a GOOD DAY to be a subnautica fan!!!!!! are we all ready to get dragged back into this fandom?? i hope ur all ready. we're gonna get water vortexed. help.

[many-gay-magpies]

5, 8, 19 for the dbd ask game! xoxo

aaaa thank you so much for asking!! most of this has been put under a cut because apparently i had a lot to say hdhfjfbfb

5. Which character do you relate to the most?

i think out of the main cast, i relate most to niko, but i also relate somewhat to kashi—and i mean, the night nurse said they were alike, so that makes a kind of sense XD.

niko reminds me specifically of a version of myself i USED to be, or like, one that's lying dormant. she's awkward and reclusive and extremely literal with her language, and once someone takes her out of her box she's super friendly, but she doesn't know how to get HERSELF out of the box, so she needs a friend who openly and unashamedly enjoys her presence and invites her along to things (like edwin!). i'm getting better with socializing, but that definitely reminds me of MYSELF with the whole social vampire thing of, like, i wont interact with you in depth unless you invite me first. she also has a lot of knowledge about random and frequently creepy things (see "long pig"), which i relate to on a spiritual level, AND she has an incredibly bright and exuberant fashion sense, which i feel is the case for me as well. ALSO!! aro niko is basically canon as far as im concerned, and idk if thats because its actually viable; because i, an aro, projected onto her way too hard; or both of those things. honestly, it's kind of a surprise i'm not more obsessed with her, but maybe this is exactly WHY i'm not. her character's already familiar to me because i grew up with her in my head.

as for kashi, it's more like. specifically his view of his life and past experiences? like, the way he goes "really im not sure i HAVE any trauma" and night nurse goes "YOU WERE SWALLOWED BY A GIGANTIC FISH" and he smiles all wistful and goes "ah, one of life's many adventures!". even when i have bad experiences don't necessarily enjoy them in the moment, there's a part of my brain that's like. yes!! negative emotion!! so refreshing and fun!! this is evidence that we are human!! this is a symptom of life!! yes!! how joyous!! like i was a fucking alien in a past life or something and the little alien remains of my soul are so utterly fascinated by every aspect of human existence, whether its grim and painful or fun and full of love. so. me and kashi 🤝🤝🤝

8. A headcanon you have (that you havent seen talked about yet)!

idk if this counts as me not seeing it be talked about yet because the whole thing that SPURNED this headcanon was seeing someone offhandedly mention that crystal would probably be good at drawing due to having rich artist parents, but i imagine crystal being kind of an artist herself (and in fact ive written 2k words of fic about it! its on the backburner at the moment tho). her fashion sense is very reminiscent of the way an art kid would dress (see: ME), and it just feels like it makes SENSE given her parents' profession and how she might have been raised, growing up around art. i also feel like little kid crystal, seeing how much attention her parents gave to the OTHER artists in their installations, might have tried to gain their attention for herself by getting really good at art, before she realized the problem wasn't anything she was or wasn't doing; it was just her (or, more accurately, it was the fact that her parents were neglectful pieces of shit who probably never should have had a child).

19. Favourite actor from the show?

i don't really get into the actors of shows on a personal level, although i do love watching behind the scenes and interviews of them just goofing off and having a good time, so for this question—i don't really know? george rexstrew seems like a very nice and down-to-earth person, and jayden just seems cool and fun(ny), but they're all pretty much just guys (gender neutral) to me.

if we're talking acting... man idk, they're all so good. this being george's first onscreen role out of theater school is fucking amazing, he absolutely killed it, and the sheer DEDICATION is awe-inspiring (i think i read that he actually took ballet classes to help him walk and move like edwin?). all jayden's micro-expressions and actingchoices as charles blow me out of the fucking water, and kassius made crystal feel so real and genuine, and... yeah, i could go on XD.

[dazzle-writes]

Hello, saw you were doing match ups so wondered if you'd do one for me, with trigun characters

I'm an 160cm thin girl (20 y/o) with long brown curly hair and blue eyes, kinda look like merida from brave if that helps, enfp

I'm a lot like 98' vash (my biggest ever kin fr), goofing around and having fun, making dirty jokes with my friends, very clumsy and bubbly when in good mood, tho i don't shy away from being tough from time to time

I'm friendly and like meeting new people but keeping connections is my biggest flaw. I mostly keep it going with the ones i click with

I love being around people, but don't mind being alone for some periods of time, reading, watching something, drawing or doing whatever hobby i picked on

I'm an archeology student, have passion for history and literature, love psychology and philosophy, love things like true crime and paranormal stories, definitely would like to travel and see what the world and people have to offer. I'm the "do it for the plot" type of person, getting into random situations for the sake of seeing how it'll end and if i'll have a story in the end

When i was younger i was more like some kind of vash-milly combo, but now I'm more aware of people, i can't stand when someone is judgy from the beggining, when someone is too negative about the world and people, because even tho i myself get disappointed in people often, i still think that we should look for positive things in everyday life. Kind of "if life has no meaning, might as well find meaning in small things"

Sorry if this was too long, thank you if you've read this far ^^ and keep up with the good writing, you're doing amazing!

UWAAAA I'm so glad you like my writing! I've been swamped with work lately, so sorry this is taking a while!!

For trigun 98, I most definitely match you up with Wolfwood! You are just that little ray of sunshine he needs to keep going. Plus, he loves that you and him make sex jokes to each other about everything that you can. You two get kidnapped and held by Knives? Non-stop dick jokes. At first you try to at least mutter them under your breath, but soon enough you're both just spouting them out as fast as you can think of them. Knives is just standing there in shock that you can think of so many in a short amount of time. I also think you two would be like, surprisingly close beforehand. He a big cuddler too (have you fucking seen those titties MMMMM) and I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL BUT WOLFWOOD IS TERRIFIED OF GHOSTS!!! Yall go ghost hunting and he is ATTACHED TO YOU LIKE NO OTHER. Homie is throwing round the holy water like he's a raincloud. You one day dig up and old book and are pretty sure that its haunted? He's hiding being his giant cross and shaking in his tight ass pants.

In trigun stampede however, Vash latches onto you like white on rice. You are exactly what this poor bean needs in his life!!!! You teach him to appreciate the little things, and show him that he's allowed to have wants and needs. He enjoys taking you around old crashed spaceships and letting you go wild with the archeological zoomies. In this universe, you also get kidnaped by Knives so Vash follows to come and save you and once again, you make so many dick jokes. The only difference is that Stampede Knives has never seen a wiener in his LIFE and doesn't get any joke you make. Do with this information what you will. Vash also really likes showing you his Plant siblings when his spilled the alien beans. You'd probably enjoy just quietly hanging with the Plant girlies because they just watch you draw or read or they nap! they are very nice when you need to recharge a social battery but don't want to be completely alone. Vash is also a big cuddler and understands having trouble keeping connections with people!! He's always moving so he gets sad thinking about all the people he wanted to grow closer too.

If we wanted to hit up the manga, then id actually pair you with Legato! I think you'd be just the right person to help him let himself be a better and softer person. Your love of psychology would really interest him, and I think you'd be that enemies-to tolerated-to friends-to lovers thing. He also likes learning about humans and the past, and I think that's he would really appreciate you showing him to good side of humanity through psychology and even true crime by showing how people come together and how people react to catastrophe and stress. He needs to see people doing good things, and you are just the person to show him around the world and prove it to him

ALSO SORRY THIS IS LIKE MONTHS LATE I got another job and started school SOBS!!! But I hope you enjoy!!!!

[brokenhardies]

Trying to spread some positivity in the OC community today, so: tell me ten random facts about Skye! Whatever fun little tidits you can think of, tell us about them!! <3

omg hi!!! thanks for this message! i havent thought about skye in quite a while sooo here we go;

Skye's biggest fear is being alone (Monophobia) because it reminds her of the long time that she was in the game on her own. As a result, she can come across as kind of clingy

Her real world counterpart's name is Summer Rosedale, with the surname coming from a street that Skye notices upon meeting Fridge for the first time outside the game

Her preferred weapon is knives, with her having a butterfly knife on her person when the group arrives in the game. She later switches from knives to small guns, such as derringers, that she can slip in her pocket and pull out when needed

Skye is surprisingly fast in game, but is surprisingly weaker then the other characters - yes, even the one where strength is literally his weakness. You would think, following her 2-year-long trip to the real world that she would get somewhat stronger, but nope!

The reason Fridge gets increasingly more terrible avatars - and also why Oberon, the avatar he was stuck in the sequel, gained 2 extra weaknesses? It's because the Jumanji game itself is Skye's parent, and its very overprotective of her

As a result, Skye is either part alien, part eldritch beast, or just part random supernatural being, which explains her glitching abilities

Skye can walk through walls, but its in the most fucked up body horror way possible. One scene in my rewrite has her leg get caught in the ground, and pop up somewhere else while she's trying to move!

Skye and Spencer's relationship is basically a brother/sister dynamic, with the pair constantly bickering (especially in the sequel) but its always tongue-in-cheek and out of love... Or out of "dear god you're about to make a stupid decision, aren't you"

If Skye was in the real world, she'd probably get diagnosed with ADHD

Skye needs to fiddle with something! It's why she likes drawing, because it gives her something for her hands to do. She also picks up playing with her butterfly knife like its a toy - much to Spencer's shock :')

[patchdotexe]

ok heck it uhhh stickmolus

(this is still one of my fav drawings for it. the guuuyyyys)

it is! a Henry Stickmin au! taking place in our Limoliverse setting, which is the catch-all name for.. several stories we haven't made any content of except character designs and incoherent tumblr posts. um. hm. WELL the part that matters is that everybody is aliens!

it's a very loose adaption of the whole series, except with the twist being that henry is jumping between routes willy-nilly and potentially even creating brand new ones as he goes thanks to breaking things in unexpected ways. you know how it is with spaghetti. also there's a lot of background worldbuilding that we are very bad at actually implementing

(also it has an askblog! @stickmolus is in a weird limbo state on account of the exhaustion and my difficulty to keep up an ongoing interactive project, but its fun to read and i still think about picking it back up. i want to so bad. i am my own worst enemy)

quick hits:

Henry is.. something! nobody knows what his species is, including himself. he just straight up spawned one day and immediately began doing crime. this immediately got the attention of the CCC, especially once he started pulling out every power and item out of his back pocket and launching between timelines at random.

everyone's response to him is some form of panic on account of him being an Unauthorized Fucking Thing. speaks english but also writes in minecraft galactic and can make nether portal noises. he's not mute but there's a pretty big language barrier he's trying to work around and when he is able to talk to people he's pretty sparse with words. his head is weirdly shaped and i admire max's ability to actually Make A Whole Ass Sculpture Of This Guy oh my god i just looked over at my shelf and got emotional

i did animation memes with all 3 of triple threat and henry's is RENARD!

Charles is a pilot for the Limolian military and is certified in both air and space travel! good for him. he's a limolus, which is kinda the "mascot species" for the setting seeing as its. named after them. they've got your basic run-of-the-mill psychic powers tropes and are heavily inspired by Giegue from the Mother series! i could talk about them for a very long time. LET'S TALK ABOUT CHARLES.

charles was stationed on earth for a while and as a result is considered kinda Weird because he picked up a lot of earth culture stuff. he's fluent in both english and lilio so he's henry's translator, although his translation is pretty loose and skips details and basically he is not reliable no matter how hard he tries. i love him

his animation meme is BAM BAM! and it was really really fun to make. i love drawing charles i love thinking abt charles he is My Boy

ELLIE oh my god this drawing doesnt have her tattoos. what the hell. ellie is ALSO a limolus! they can be colours besides red its just that ellie and charles are both red. anyway. she's very good at telekinesis because canon ellie already uses the force, so that's her solution to most problems. her relationship with henry is a bit rockier from the get-go due to a communication barrier on Several Levels, but theyre able to get along! ..in some routes. oops.

uhhhh she's actually got some pretty intense backstory that hasnt come up yet because Ellie Has Not Appeared On The Blog At All for the love of god why did i pick the order i did its gonna be FOREVER until we see ellie AUGH. but she got locked up in the wall for some Pretty Serious Crimes (like uh. treason?) and even in timelines where she joins up with charles there's some friction because of that.

her animation meme is Wolf in Frenzy which is probably the best one ive made so far ngl

Reginald's anatomy is terrible and i hate drawing him. also he's a musae, which are very long/tall and very venomous. the toppats overall are a ragtag group of people of various species and various backgrounds, in stark contrast to the govt which is like 90% limoli. also he's a pathetic noodle of a man but that doesn't stop him from being a tricky bastard

i didn't animate him but he shows up in RENARD for like 5 seconds if that counts

uuhhhh also i have a "#stickmolus au" tag. which is probably pretty incoherent. im tired

[ramennoodlezzzao3]

nobody asked me to answer but I’m answering anyways 🤪

My Family, Covid, and Music

It’s horrible 💀

The Outsiders, IT, Titanic

If me and my parents get into a minor disagreement, my dad will point to the sky and say “Whose roof?” It may not be funny to yall without context, but it’s fricking hilarious in my family.

tbh, I didn’t know that tumblr was like this, I just read about it on an outsiders modern au fic and wanted to see what it was about

the best part is getting to make people happy and laughing with people all around the world in my comment section abt random stuff. The worst part isn’t the trolls, I can handle a good hate comment and can make an even better comeback, but I think its people stealing your content (I’m a TikTok and YouTube editor with a semi-large following, so people stealing my comets isn’t rare, it’s just hard to find the video bc they normally block you afterward)

Fire alarms and ovens. Idk why but I have always been afraid of both

No, not that I remember at least

We were at the beach and my husky ran out into the woods because he saw a dear. Both my parents and my sisters were looking for him, but my sisters didn’t have shoes on, so they came back with thorns and sticks in their feet (we found the dog btw)

Kinda? I have an emotional breakdown every other month and cry a few times in between but a movie or song can’t get tears falling. Unless a dog dies, if I dog dies, babes, I’m on the ground sobbing.

In a movie or book, just any romantic interaction that lasts a certain amount of time. Ten-fifteen minuets for a movie and maybe ten-fifteen pages in a book, depending how long each one is.

if people try to put you down, whether it’s a hate comment for an actual comment, bite back. Don’t be afraid. Biting back makes them back down. And if you are too scared to bite back, make fun of yourself with them! It shows confidence and also shows that you can take insults without being affected. It shows a lot about you.

Listening to music and writing my book! (It’s based off one of my dreams)

I have always wanted to move to Tokyo. I’m still a teenager, but when I get to collage, I want to apply for the animation school in Tokyo. I’m just scared that would be a very bold move.

It’s not really a feeling, but I smell cinnamon and bread baking, ik it’s weird but still.

how annoying I am.

music, books, writing

ghosts maybe, aliens no

I like laying in my bed while listening to music with sunlight pouring in. I like it better when it storms tho, it gives my room a really pretty and cold vibe, perfect for the neighborhood music!

I get to sleep lol

Idk, I don’t think I’m like the biggest spiritual person out there. I wouldn’t bring up anything spiritual in a conversation bc I don’t particularly find it interesting. But if someone else starts a conversation I would talk about it

my mom. She’s funny, very dirty minded, and has a strait-to-the-point-no-nonsense type attitude

Andrew Tate. Self explanatory.

Building a community on YouTube and TikTok where everyone feels comfortable enough to share their thoughts and feelings

winter! Mostly because it’s Christmas time in the winter and I LOVE the Christmas vibe

Blue, Green, Black and White. I’ve always liked blue and green, but I took a liking to black and white because me and my sister used to share a room and everything she owned was either pink, black, or white

My older brother calls me Honey, my oldest sister calls me Sugarboo, my second oldest sister calls me chicken (weird without context 💀), and my other two older sisters just call me by my name

Snowglobes! I started when me and my family moved across the country. We went to 11 states and so I have 11 snowglobes rn. My oldest sister bring me back one every single time she goes to visit her boyfriend.

listen to music or watch funny YouTubers like Joe Bart and the sturniolo triplets

When people comment on my videos. I love it when people enjoy my content!

a bit of both

12 💀

Drawing, Writing, editing, painting

I HATE STEREOTYPING PEOPEL! GOD ITS SO ANNOYING WHEN PEOPLE DO THAT IT MAKES ME WANT TO SCREAM

Very easily, I probably need to stop doing that. But I can always tell when something’s off about a person

People think I’m an open book but literally nobody knows anything about me, not even my family

I downloaded discord without asking my parents once, deleted it after a while though (The life of a kid with strict ass parents 😍)

End of beginning or Sex, Drugs, Etc

Joe Bartalozzi and Nick Sturniolo. They just remind me of myself

I chew the skin in front of my nails. I dig my nails into my arm when I feel like I’m being annoying.

that’s it 😍

questions I think would be fun to be asked

what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are?

show us a picture of your handwriting?

3 films you could watch for the rest of your life and not get bored of?

what’s an inside joke you have with your family or friends?

what made you start your blog?

what’s the best and worst part of being online/a creator?

what scares you the most and why?

any reacquiring dreams?

tell a story about your childhood

would you say you’re an emotional person?

what do you consider to be romance?

what’s some good advice you want to share?

what are you doing right now?

what’s something you’ve always wanted to do but maybe been to scared to do?

what do you think of when you hear the word “home”?

if you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

name 3 things that make you happy

do you believe in ghosts and/or aliens?

favourite thing about the day?

favourite things about the night?

are you a spiritual person?

say 3 things about someone you love

say 3 things about someone you hate

what’s one thing you’re proud of yourself for?

fave season and why?

fave colour and why?

any nicknames?

do you collect anything?

what do you do when you’re sad?

what’s one thing that never fails to make you happy/happier?

are you messy or organised?

how many tabs do you have open right now?

any hobbies?

any pet peeves?

do you trust easily?

are you an open book or do you have walls up?

share a secret

fave song at the moment?

youtuber you’ve been obsessed with and why?

any bad habits?

(this post was stolen from @teenage-mutant-ninja-freak, since it couldn't be reblogged anymore)

[the-tzarina-alexandra-paracosm]

Some of my favourite art - a timeline

Part 3: 2013

Final Fantasy X/X-2 and FFVII fanart. June or July 2013. The first pic shows remnants of my previous style, while the latter is fully anime. Late 2012-early 2013 was a transitional period in this sense. I really like the concept of the first pic, which is Yuna's past and future self looking at each other. The second pic shows an attempt at perspective and composition.

First row: July. Second row: late 2013. Not only was I growing more and more into my style, but I was trying my hand at original character design. (1st pic: Cherille and the others from the dragon story. 2nd pic: Ivy from the vampire story. 3rd pic: Thea, alien princess. 4th pic: Chleo, wanted criminal).

It's funny to me how clear it is that this is the first time I learned to do a gradient, then proceeded to use it everywhere.

And now for some of my most iconic 2013 pieces:

September (can't make the date out but it's somewhere between the 6th and 9th). I still love this picture. I like the colours even though I ended up changing the character designs to something more cohesive eventually. The concept of this drawing was combining my two stories taking place in Japan, the one on the left being a samurai one, and the one on the right being a modern time one (fun fact! These are the characters from what eventually became my first novel, The Image through the Thick Glass, but the very original ideas as illustrated here was a sort of whodunit/ revenge story, wherein Kaito's brother had been killed etc. It's crazy how different it ended up being from the initial concept!). I also have very pleasant memories of the drawing process, as I was in vacation with my family and we were chilling on a bench in the salt mines and having a snack (and I took my notebook with me everywhere).

In terms of art progress, the most noticeable improvements compared to just months prior are: 1. Side profiles have actual chins 2. Attempts to draw clothing folds 3. Attempts to do shading 4. Still anime influenced but slowly growing into my own style 5. Growing into my character design style

September 2nd. think this is single-handedly my favourite picture of all 2013. This is one of the first very serious attempts to combine composition, perspective, colour and mood. What I like the most is how the wind blows thriugh Onix' hair and clothes, and how the city lights reflect into the river, and how the cars are a mash of random colours to suggest the speed they travel at. This is definitely the highest effort and highest execution drawing I did in that year. And I still love the character designs (and concepts) today.

October or November. I like this because it is very experimental, and if there's a year that has been characterised by its sheer leaps and bounds in art, it's been 2013.

I had to check because I thought this was 2014, but it's actually dated as November 28, 2013. This is also one of my favourites, and perhaps objectively the best of that year. Compared to the Xavier and Onix pic, this had the added benefit of better contrast with the background and a more readable composition. I really like the mood of the drawing, too, it's very emotional. Also re: my gradient comments above, this is one of my first successful sunsets.

-----

The main characteristics of this year are: 1. Trying to adopt an anime artstyle 2. Experimenting with character design, as well as scene composition, perspective, gradients, shading, poses and so on. I didn't realise just how much I've improved over the course of just one year, it really seems like every new month brought a new skill with it, and the style at the beginning of 2013 and that at the end of 2013 can almost not be recognised as being from the same year.

[psyoniks]

i got bored and doodled 1/4 of my fan kids on my notes app. finally made more kids so cody and cain aren't just homestuck inserts. might actually draw them asp

casy garcia and sean ashley

weird creepy pasta kid and annoying theater kid

---

cody dreams on derse and is a mage of mind and sean dreams on prospit and is a maid of heart

--

fun facts/random stuff:

cody constantly draws operator symbols on his arm because its fucking cool.

he will spam everyone at 3am in the pestergroup chat to show his shitty proof of mothman. he didn't sleep for 72 hours and was running on coffee. it was just a moth on his window.

speaking of, he's terrified of moths. they're the devil incarnate.

stole his name from the best creepypasta x virus

gets genuinely anxious at the idea of aliens existing. he's going to have a hell of a breakdown at some point.

never shuts up about Pokémon. ever.

most likely nonbianry or smth but he ain't got time to figure that out

likes glam rock, screamo and vocaloid

makes short horror films and likes bringing his cam recorder into the woods next to his house to try(and unsuccessfully)find evidence of the supernatural.

makes multiple dnd character sheets because its fun but never uses them. and because he's a nerd and has no one to play with irl.

plays the electric guitar but he's extremely bad at it.

---

he watches way too many shitty romcoms

sean wants to visit paris to have a main character love story moment.

people think he's annoying because he likes to be dramatic for the fun of it and is very theatrical. so he tries to tone it down when he's not alone, but it's pretty hard for him.

he's the type to read a book or write in a journal at a concert to seem 'mysterious' and by the off chance his favorite band invites him backstage to have a tour or some shit(he's so real).

in the theater club at his school, hasn't gotten a lead yet but he will eventually!(he won't)

sean actually has terrible stage freight, but still has a passion the preforming arts, so he joined the club in the spur of the moment to try and get over it

tripped over his own foot during opening night for a musical and ended up starting a fire somehow.

likes high-school musical and glee.

actually plays a sport, soccer.

pretends to know french because it thinks it makes him seem more sophisticated. He does not know french.

hates coffee but drinks it anyways. thinks its 'romantic' since coffee shop love stories are all rage.

reads old boring books that you'd read in english class like the great gabsty because he thinks it make him seem more mature.

he's actually very happy to help out his friends anytime they need something

----

cody and sean like to discuss about the conspiracy theories about the cult theater people, the mystery of hamlet curse, superstitions and of the incredibly specific scenario if aliens were to infect humans to sing and dance(tgwdlm real). other than that they like to play video games, though their tastes are wildly different. cody likes horror while sean likes those really bad visual novels, which cody makes fun of. they also both unironically like twilight. cody is team jacob and sean is team edward and they do argue about it.

[sl33pyperson]

finally we have reached moon knight in 2000s! alas i have so many screenshots to go thru until we start

moon knight was made to live in watercolour

i have no idea where i started or ended with the previous mk post oh fuck

its been a while so ive also forgotten my thoughts

just, ouhghhhhh look at that man

TRUNCHEON TRUNCHEON TRUNCHEON also like. ok yeah hes saying it outloud for the audiences sake, but having mk be SIMPLE with his weapons is just. so nice after “random bullshit go”

GENAAAAAAA CROWLEEEYYYYYYYYY THE MOUSTASSSSHHHEEEEEEEE

sobbing

almost feels like im dead - that one eaaaarrrlyyyyyy panel of him being like “i just feel like a ghost in a body” monech no one is doing it like you. love this ghost

of course ud bring back the people who already know ur deal hiiii samuels, steven i hope u are paying both of them very well

i am not smart enough to understand like. the deep complexities behind these two relationship, but gods i love em

SCREAMING SHOUTING OMG HI FLIINTTTT i didnt realise how much i missed the cast…… like what the fuck were they doing in marc spector moon knight. saw someone be like “that series just show how much steven actually does” and like yeah marc has no idea how to run a business and no idea how to stay connected to ppl

bushman SCARED of someone. fucking AMAZING. put in the villain mk is most scared? horrified? traumatised? by and show him weak <3333 yeahahhhhh

i hate jake getting the kids involved every time like i want them to be safe :( but also jack saying hi is sooooooooooo sweet

hes just so cute

just fun

“haunted by the deeds of a dead man” thanks marc!

something about this panel is just, mwah

UR AN IDIOT I STILL HATE THIS UVE GOTTEN GENA IN TROUBLE ONCE PLEAAASSSEEEEEEEEEEEEE

“wheres my fucking money dracula”

if people are going to keep saying mk is batman, at the very least give him a joker. none of his main villains r just funny little guys. it doesnt match mk tone at ALL but it would be funny

i have forgotten what “the company” is, is that the ppl who hired mk to kill mr. jack werewolf?? fuck if i know

“jakes mustache” lol cute

marlene is CONSTANTLY scared of loosing steven to ANYTHING and as much as i hate jealousy arcs i wish her fears were…. more developed? but i think that always ends up with her leaving him bc being a part of mk just wrecks her when she thinks about it. alas

this kinda tulpa is more of a physical one but just imagine if they had a marlene in their head too. crowded

i love comics for stupid shit like this. welp aliens and moth man and nessie MIGHTbe real but we can draw mk with lil alien guys and call it canon

holy shit i need to get ready for school hold up its speed run time. anyway i love this ship design

“maybe we should get into email” is just a great line

mk came into this comic to stand of wolfies head the. get the shot beaten outta him. kinda hot

speedrun

FUCK IMAGE LIMIT

[lovecolibri]

SaL anon here my friend, saying hi after a long absence!! I don't know why this summer is kicking my ass so much, I've been in a rut of absolute apathy about everything, including putting in the effort to rewatch my comfort shows. But things are getting better and sometimes its the small things that get you back up (for me specifically its the return of Puppet History, an absolute gem I highly recommend).

Anywho hope the summer is going well for you despite the summer and global warming of it all. Don't know about you but I'm still pretty bitter about 911 and really the way so many of the shows we've enjoyed were mishandled so badly. And with the writers and actors (very rightfully) on strike it could be awhile before we get any sort of idea what's going to happen in s7 so I figure we've got time to get some of that bitterness out through some salty competitions. So to start which series finale had the worse ending, RNM or 911 (I know 911 isn't over but its over on fox so it kinda counts)? A lengthy justification of your choice is encouraged!!

Hello friend! I got this while I was out of town at a concert with my mom so I'm just getting around to this today. I also thought this summer was going to be Super Chill and Time To Catch Up On Things but we have been weirdly SO BUSY every weekend and had numerous unexpected Things happen (the fridge went out, thought it was fixed, it went out again, one of the cats had to go to the emergency vet an hour away and is now on new special food forever etc) and it's not slowing down any time soon! Sorry you're in your apathy rut era, I was absolutely there too recently so I know what that's like! I hope you can find some joy again soon! (I know everyone else Hates Summer, but I love not being cold all the time and heat and sunshine are what give me life so I'm currently on a slightly more energized kick which I'm going to try and use to Get Some Shit Done in regards to home improvement and self-care.)

I haven't ever watched Puppet History but it sounds delightful and with the strikes going on (take 'em down WAG/SAG AFTRA!) I'm sure I will be finding time to watch all the things I never got around to. I'm currently nearly finished with Resident Alien which has been a delight, and me and my mom are watching White Collar which has been a lot of fun for us.

Okay, now time for The Salt Mine.

It's funny that you bring up the RNM finale because I JUST saw a post the other day of Malex comparison kisses but the one they used from the finale is a wide shot and LITERALLY the main color focus drawing the eye in the shot is that goddamn fucking red dress under the bright lights of the bar, and only then, second, is the pink light Malex is under while in the darker, shadowed part of the bar. Sooooo I've been feeling salty about that for daaaaays.

It's a tough call to pit these two against each other because 911 literally shoved Buck and Eddie into "endgame" relationships with random characters they have zero chemistry with and that we know next to nothing about (Marisol) or everything we know is Not Great (Natalia). They really thought this was the end of the show and would rather waste time on these side characters and forcing these relationships rather than focus on the firefam and found family of it all and showing the core cast of characters TOGETHER as a FAMILY in the end. They rushed through the emergency and the feels we SHOULD have spent time on with everyone being hurt and seeing the firefam worry about and fight to rescue each other, all so KR could have time to (poorly) wrap up the 7000 plotlines she made for Buck because she apparently doesn't like or care about any of the other characters and only cares about Buck insofar as she can make jokes about his junk and sex life and how she can use his character to insert new ones she wants to have instead of using the characters she already has. However, despite all that mess, there WERE some good moments in the finale for the firefam and the bridge collapse was good, if too short to do what it was intended to do. 911's practical effects have ALWAYS been a highlight of the show and one of the things that makes it great so it was good to see some effort put into that side of the show again.

But, even with all the missteps of the 911 finale, RNM fumbled the ball on literally EVERYTHING in their finale. There was a Malex wedding, but it focused entirely on Michael and we didn't get to see Alex's POV on anything (not even anything about being on death's doorstep and magically being healed which happened entirely off screen and we didn't get to hear from Alex about it at all) except how he was perfectly happy having NONE of his family there for the wedding because god forbid m*ria be uncomfortable for 5 seconds because everything is about HER and how SHE feels 🙄🙄🙄 We got more focus on m*ria than we did Alex at his own goddamn wedding! And aside from that whole mess, the finale also separated Max and Liz, the supposed main couple of the show! The show ended forever with the lead in tears as Max goes to an alien planet for who knows how long! WTF kind of ending is that?! The show really made it hard to root for Max and Liz because the writing for them was just...not what it needed to be, but Jeanine and NDP had great chemistry and when they let them be in love they had some GREAT moments. I just wanted to root for them more but they constantly put them on opposite sides of every little thing they came across so they were never really able to work TOGETHER on anything and it was frustrating. Even so, I wanted a better ending for them after seasons of fighting and being so on again/off again the whole time. Jeanine especially got screwed over in what SHOULD have been Liz's show and I hate that being left behind was her ending. And that's not even going into all the plotholes and storylines the show just half-assed or flat out didn't address, and things that got dropped along the way and never explained. I know I say it A Lot about 911, but good god, the RNM cast, characters, and the base storylines they started the show with deserved SO much better than what they got consistently from the s1 finale through the end of the show.

Despite all of 911s flaws and faults, I still think they can come back from it all if they go back to the formula used in the early seasons for pacing and storyline distribution and focus on the firefam as a unit together, and given that the issues brought up by fans were pretty similar across all platforms and mirrored oftentimes by professional reviews, there's some hope for change moving forward on a new network. If RNM had been given another season I'm sure they still would not have resolved any of the plotholes and would probably have just made them worse while creating new ones 🤷🏻‍♀️

So I have to go with RNM for having the worst finale but damn if 911 didn't give it a run for it's money!

I was good hearing from you my friend! I had high hopes to work on my Countdowns fic this summer but I just have not had a weekend to myself! My niece will be visiting this whole week and my nephew is due to arrive in August but may come earlier, plus I'm working on getting out of town for some shows (and out of state if I can swing it to see Ed Sheeran), and working on some remodel work in my bedroom so we'll see when things start to slow down if I have any brain power left to write, much less do any of the other craft projects I have pending! I am confident I will get the baby blanket I'm working on done in time but everything else is up in the air. Remember when summer was time to relax? Anyway, I am ALWAYS here for your salty thoughts or anything else you wanna talk about. In the meantime, lets all manifest a good outcome for the striking workers!

[mokutone]

For the ask thing if you're still doing it (love your art so much by the way, as a fellow Yamato Enjoyer): a member of the akatsuki of your choice! Also feel free to replace the otp/notp questions with something else about them that you have opinions about if you want :)

hehehe! i will use this as an excuse to talk about obito via tobi :)

answers under the cut!

favorite thing about them — HE'S FUN!!! like back when he was a kid he was a huge goofball, and despite everything, that clearly hasn't changed! he's more annoying than ever! the akatsuki generally...honestly bore me? a lot? but i've come around to tobi. i also used to draw him constantly when i was a kid bc he was the easiest face to draw lmfao. swirl.

least favorite thing about them —i dont like what he did to yamato :( not a fan. wish he wouldnt have done that.

favorite line — i like when hes like building up for a big reveal and then he flips down to the other side of the branch and is like "frill-neck-lizard no jutsu!" and his cloak comes up around his head. fucking clown. love it.

brOTP — ghGHHSGHSDGHSDG. ITS. COMPLICATED. i think i am most compelled by his relationship with kakashi? but...my god you can't call that a brotp. what they have isn't friendship, it's like...its just like a bond made out of the need to prove the other person wrong, or at least to be understood? i don't even know if they like each other. i don't know if they ever even liked each other.

OTP —ehhh??? i don't really care. his crush on rin is rlly cute though i think.

nOTP — YAMATO 😰

random headcanon — he wants to be held as he cries. he wants to be held as he cries. he wants to be held as he cries. he wants to be held as he cries. he wants to b

unpopular opinion —i do think, as a kid, he genuinely cared about kakashi.

I know i just said that they maybe never even liked each other, and I stand by that as a very real possibility, but I don't think that means he didn't care. you can care deeply about somebody without liking them. you can care deeply about somebody while hating them. the two aren't mutually exclusive at all. care is based on love, opinion is based on taste, etc etc

i think kakashi pissed him off a lot, and i think he was routinely humiliated by kakashi (because like kakashi who was fucking. six years old. when obito was ten or something. was kicking his ass REPEATEDLY! good god!!! i'd feel humiliated too!!! 😭) and then Kakashi the nerve to be stuck up about it, and tell Obito what a loser he was. Salt in the fucking wound, Kakashi. Salt in the fucking wound.

but i also think he felt a huge depth of like, frustration that came from compassion for kakashi. clearly he understood on some level that his teammate was struggling with some shit and was taking it out on him, and that pissed him off, and he had every right to be pissed off about it!!!

but. he also told kakashi that he thought sakumo was a hero for putting his friends before a mission even though that alienated sakumo. and when kakashi lost his eye, and obito was dying, he had the kind of. compassionate focus, to be like "i can do this thing for you, even though I'm dying." and i do think there's a part of him that was like "maybe this will finally get through to you, maybe you'll finally understand what I'VE been saying this whole time!" and kakashi did! and that stuck with him for the rest of his life!

like. for sure, kids can have extremely emotionally complicated relatioships!!! He can both have compassion and fury for his obnoxious teammate. Let's give him a little credit, come on.

song i associate with them — THE UNDERDOG BY SPOON!!! i am OBSESSED with this as an obito v kakashi song, especially as little kids. oh my GOD. obito is generally somebody i connect w/ a lot of the music i listen to, but this one is the biggest one by far. i've literally been fighting off the temptation to make a fucking obito lyricstuck (BLEH) to this song for at least a full year. send help. send reinforcements. send a therapist. i'll need it.

here. here. picture this with his final mamma mia fight with kakashi.

The thing that I tell you now It may not go over well Oh, and it may not be photo-op In the way that I spell it out

But you won't hear from the messenger Don't wanna know 'bout something that you don't understand You got no fear of the underdog That's why you will not survive, right!

that like. "it may not be photo op, the way that i spell it out," as obito does his fucking wild grin because he is going to GET kakashi this time he is going to fucking GET HIM!!!!

and then the instrumental after, building and building and building and then! gunshot! AUGH!!!!!!!! IT MAKES ME CRAZY !

favorite picture of them

hole

[felassan]

Mass Effect development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

This is the Mass Effect version of this post.

[In case you can’t read it the subtitle in the bottom left logo above is “Guardians of the Citadel”]

Note: Drug use is mentioned.

Cut for length.

Mass Effect 1

ME began its life in a vision document in fall 2003

Codenamed “SFX”

Conceived of by Casey Hudson and a core team from KotOR. Its genesis was the intention to create an epic sci-fi RPG in an original setting that BioWare owned (so they could have full creative control), and in a setting that was conceived of first and foremost as a video game

Initially players could control any squadmate, but they wanted it to be about Shep and for players to be focused on Shep being a battlefield commander, rather than on switching bodies

By the start of 2004 its story was shaping up. Initially humans landed on Mars in 2250 and discovered evidence of an ancient alien race and a powerful substance, Black Sand, which rapidly advanced tech to the point that FTL travel was possible. (My note: obviously now the Prothean artifacts on Mars & associated mass effect force tech enabled this in the final canon, but I wonder if aspects of the ‘Black Sand’ naming-type & powerful substance stuff was rolled into red sand from final canon) Humans were suddenly capable of travel to multiple star systems and made contact with a multitude of other species. At the start of the first game, these species together with humans had a fragile peace, with focus placed on the political center of the galaxy, a hub known as Star City, later renamed the Citadel

Multiplayer was a vision for the series as far back as 2003. The plan was for ME1, an Xbox exclusive at launch, to take advantage of the platform’s online components. Early designs saw players meeting in one of the central hubs to interact and trade items in their otherwise SP adventures

By 2006 it had the name ME and the story was more specific, with the theme of conflict between organic and synthetic lifeforms. The story’s scope now stretched across 3 games and included scope for full co-op MP

They tried to do MP in every game, discussing it from the get-go, but it always just fell by the wayside. “When you’re trying to build something that is a new IP, on a new platform, with a new engine, you’ve got to really focus on the core elements of the game.” 

The conversation system prototype was made in Jade Empire, and some of ME’s earliest writing was done in an old JE build. At first there was no conversation wheel. Paragon was “Friendly” and Renegade “Hostile”. In the prototype Shep was a silent unnamed Spectre. Many conversations in the prototype about the player’s choice in smuggling a weapon through Noveria made it into the game

In said prototype a merchant referred to themselves as “this one”, though the word hanar never appeared. The PC in it also had the option to end a conversation with “I should go”. In the prototype also, Harkin was voiced by Mark Meer

An early version of the Mako got used as the krogan truck in ME2

Early concepts of the Citadel were drawn in pencil by CH. A piece of concept art of its final design was painted based on a photo of a sculpture near Aswan, Egypt

As with any new IP naming it was a struggle. They put out a call to all staff for ideas, did polls, made a name generator that combined words that they liked in random ways and made pretend logos of ones they liked in Photoshop to see if they could make themselves love the name or find visual potential in it. (Some of these names are in the pic at the top of this post.) CH liked “Unearthed” as it was a reference to Prothean ruins dug up on Mars and humanity’s ascendance going away from Earth. They knew the game would have a central space station featuring prominently so some of the ideas were based on that - “The Citadel”, “The Optigon”, “The Oculon”. “Element” was another one they had in mind due to the rare substance in the game 

CH: “I was a big fan of John Harris’ book Mass, which had epic-scaled sci-fi ideas, so that was a word that came up often. Many of the names came from the idea that the IP featured a fifth fundamental physical force (in addition to the known four of gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and weak nuclear) so the word ‘effect’ came up pretty often.” Ultimately none of the ideas really felt right. One Monday morning they were going over the names and Greg Zeschuk said he had an idea on the weekend: “Mass Effect!” CH: “I said, ‘I don’t hate it’, which in the naming process is a high compliment. And it stuck!”

CH on Shep’s Prothean vision from the beacon: “It was hard to imagine how we would do this. CG was - and is - really expensive. Instead I wanted to try doing it through photography and video editing. So I went to a local grocery store and bought a few packages of the weirdest looking meat that I could find. Then I set up a little photoshoot in my basement, complete with some electronics parts and some red wine for juicyness.” He used these props to create a video sequence where the photos were rapidly cycled and blurred, along with production paintings, to create the scary vision an organic/machine experiment on the Protheans. These mashups were also used as inspiration for concept artists and level designers who were working on these themes

Tali used to be called Talsi

On the licensing side they often joke that they’re licensing N7 not “Mass Effect” due to N7′s popularity

There was a confidential internal guide to the IP in 2007 to help devs along and summarize/synthesize the vision etc. Some excerpts from it are shown in the book and this is the first time the public have ever seen them

Early versions of Asari had hair

Asari were designed as a nod to classic TV sci-fi (with human actors wearing obvious makeup and prosthetics to play aliens)

The turian design guideline was “we want them to be birds of prey”. They also wanted a range of alien types, some close to human like Asari, while others were to be a lot further away, like turians

BioWare patented the conversation wheel, which was a first for them. CH had been frustrated with reviews of Jade Empire that said that the actioncentric game was too wordy [with its list dialogue]. “I’m like, story is words. [...] What is it about our games that is making people feel like they’re wordy?” Then he thought “In a game you kind of need to feel like you’re continuing to play it. Maybe you should continue feeling like you’re playing it actively into the dialogue.” “[The wheel] kind of gave a new experience with dialogue when you did start to react based on emotion, and that’s ultimately what we’re trying to bring out in our games”

The original krogan concept was based on a bat “with a really wide squidgy face. We just used its face on top of this weird body and it kinda worked”

Geth musculature was based on fiber-optic cables, with flexible plates of armor attached

The vision for the IP was 80s sci-fi inspired space opera

The concept art of Saren lifting Shep by the throat inspired a similar scene in-game. The staging wasn’t planned til designers saw that art

A squadmate with Shepard on the way to meet Ash in an old storyboard was called Carter. Early name of Kaidan or Jenkins?

Bono from U2 was kinda instrumental in bringing us ME lol

Finding the right cover art for ME1 was notably tricky

Matt Rhodes got his start drawing helmets for ME1, including one which would become Shep’s “second face”. He estimates he drew between 250-270 different ones

Some of the sounds in-game were people smashing watermelons with sledgehammers and sticking fists into various goos

The audio team had fun trying to slip the iconic main theme into unexpected places throughout the MET. “We were very aware of how powerful that track was for the fans and it was tempting to overuse it for any moment we wanted to make really emotional”.

The theme was creatively repurposed in ME3: slowed down and reworked as the ambient sound for the SR-2. “If you listen to it for a really long time, just stand in the Normandy and listen, you’ll actually hear the notes change slowly. It doesn’t sound like music, it sounds like a background ambiance, but it’s there.” (My note: Well no wonder the Normandy feels so much like home?? 😭 sneaky..)

Bug report: “Mako Tornado”. There wasn’t enough friction between the tires and the ground, causing testers to lose control of the vehicle and send it spinning into the air like a tornado. “As it turns, the front end comes up, and then it starts spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning faster and faster and faster until it just flies up in the sky” (My note: Sounds like a regular day in the Mako to me)

Cerberus originally had a bigger role in this game. It was cut but they had a whole explorable outpost. “I called it Misery,” says Mac Walters, “It was this planet with a little outpost that said ‘Welcome to Misery’”. Everything on the outpost was shit - dirty worn stuff, no windows, no kitchen, the vehicle bay was open to the elements etc

The Reaper sound is literal garbage. Some audio designers went on a recording trip to a national park. One of them got fixated on a garbage can, “a metal bear-proof receptacle with a heavy lid that creaked horribly when opened”. “It was like, ominous, spooky, tonal and almost musical. I decided to throw a mic into the garbage and record it moving. I didn’t know what it was going to be until later”

They were making lots of noises to record like throwing logs and rocks around. An old couple peered at them through the window of their camper van in the woods and must have called the cops because then the cops showed up, pulled them over and told them to stop. The cops towed their car (the driver’s plates were Cali plates and expired), drove them to Edmonton outskirts and then the audio producer Shauna got a call and had to go pick them up “like three little boys”. “We got a stern talking to”. Once back they were playing around with the garbage sound, editing it etc. Casey heard it and proclaimed “That’s the sound of the Reapers”

Preston Watamaniuk: “There are things I could have done to Mass 1 to make it an infinitely better game with better UIs” and some simple cuts and changes. “But when you’re living with it, it’s very hard to see those things”

BioWare Labs

As social media and smartphone games exploded, BioWare dedicated a small team dedicated to exploring opportunities here - BioWare Labs

Mass Effect: Galaxy used a unique graphic art style and static visual presentation common in visual novels. It has the distinction of being the only iOS game BW have made during their first 25 years

Scrapped ideas were a 3rd person space shooter called Mass Effect: Corsair and 2 DA titles - a strategy game and a top-down dungeon crawler starring young Wynne. (My note: Maybe the corsairs stuff was rolled into Jacob’s backstory in 2, the Alliance Corsairs)

Corsair was a very short-lived project that never got its feet under it. It was a spin-off on Nintendo DS featuring a behind-the-ship perspective and branching dialogue. At one point it had MP. The idea behind it was basically “ME: Freelancer” - fly your ship around, do missions, get credits. It had a limited branching story but was a gameplay-centered experience intended to fill the gap between ME1 and 2. That gap ended up being filled by Galaxy

Galaxy and Corsair’s smaller screen allowed concept artists to use bold colors and a simplistic character design style to help those games stand out from Shep’s story

Nick Thornborrow did some art for Corsair but was worried his art style didn’t fit ME. He moved to DA where he feels his art style fits better

Lots of BioWare VAs and even a lead writer and the VO director are drawn from Edmonton’s local community theater scene, which is vibrant. Think this is how Mark Meer got involved

Mass Effect 2

Player choices carrying over was a first for BW

Dirty Dozen-inspired plot

Its plot is a web of conditionals (see Suicide Mission)

Was more of a shooter than anything BW had made since Shattered Steel

There was 2 camps on the team, those who wanted to push combat and systems forward and redefine the ME experience and those who wanted to make a true sequel, with the same gameplay and systems but a new story. Karin Weekes: “I think it ended up being a good push-pull. It felt like a pretty healthy creative conflict”

“ME2 was a game you could hold up to someone who argues that games aren’t a serious medium and go ‘Oh yeah, then why is Martin Sheen in this?’” Sheen was their first pick for TIM

The idea for TIM came from a mash-up of concepts CH had collected over the years. The name “Illusive” originally came from his pitch for naming DAO’s Eclipse engine, a word inspired by Obi-Wan’s line “It’s not about the mission, Master. It’s something... elsewhere. Elusive”. “I thought, what if we called our next engine 'Elusive', but used an ‘I’, and then it’s like ‘Illusion’. [...] I still really like the word with an ‘I’ and what it conjures”

When ME1 DLC was in production, CH had been watching a lot of CNN, specifically Anderson Cooper. “How is one guy travelling to all these places and never looking tired and always being able to speak with clarity?” CH says it seemed almost superhuman. “What if there was someone who is the absolute maximum of the things you would aspire to be, but also the worst of humanity?” Cooper, though not evil, became an inspiration for TIM down to the gray hair and piercing blue eyes

Inspiration for TIM’s behind-the-scenes role pulling political strings came from Jack Bauer’s brother Graem in 24. Graem “can call up the president and tell him what to do and hang up, because he’s so connected and so influential”. Sheen had played a president and his performance brought gravitas and wisdom to the role. He had quit smoking, but the character smokes. He didn’t want to fake it, but he also didn’t want to smoke, “so he actually asked for a cigarette” to hold so he could stop his words to take drags with natural cadence

Writing was still pushing to write and revise lines hours before VO started. A series of problems like injury and some writers leaving for other opportunities left it so that Karin, Lukas Kristjanson and editor Cookie Everman hand to land the story safely, with PW helping where they could. Lukas: “We took over the writing bug and task list, and I can’t stress enough how much [Karin and Cookie] did to get ME2 out the door. There’s no part of that thing we didn’t touch”. Karin: “That was the most dramatic 2 weeks of my life”

Initial fan reaction when they started promo-ing ME2 was very negative because people didn’t want to know about new chars like Jack and Mordin. “[fans were like] ‘Get them out of here. We want our characters from the first game’. But then when they played them, those became some of the most popular chars [of the series]”

Concept art of Thane has an idea annotation saying “Face can shapeshift?”

At one point when designing Thane concept artists sent multiple variations of him to the team asking them to vote on which was the most attractive

Most of the Normandy crew was written by lead level designer Dusty Everman. Lukas gave him advice in the evenings between bugs

BioWare Montreal made ME2 and 3 cinematics

CC for Shep was based on tools used by char designers to create in-game chars. Under the hood similar tools existed to create aliens

Aliens were much easier to animate than humans. When something is human it’s very difficult to make it look realistic and you can see all the mistakes and everything

Over the holiday period in 2007 CH worked out a diagram on a single piece of paper that would define the entire scope and structure of the game. The diagram is included in the book

Bug report: “I shot a krogan so hard that his textures fell off”. At one point shotgun blast damage was applied to each of the pellets fired, and shot enemies ended up with just the default checkerboard Unreal texture on them after their textures got blown off

Blasto was meant to be 1 step above an Easter egg but his fan popularity prompted them to bring him back in ME3

They rewrote chunks of Jack 2 days before she went to VO. She was the only one they could change because all the other NPCs were recorded. They redesigned her mission by juggling locked NPC lines and changing Shep’s reactions by rewriting text paraphrases to change the context of the already-recorded VO

Lukas snuck obscure nods ito ME2′s distress calls. In the general distress call for the Hugo Gernsback, there’s BW’s initial’s and Edmonton’s phone number backwards. In a fault in a beacon protocol there’s the initials and backward phone number from Tommy Tutone’s “Jenny”. In 2 other general distress calls there’s initials and numbers from Glenn Miller Orchestra’s “Pennsylvania 6-5000″ and initials and numbers from Geddy Lee and Rush’s “2112″ respectively 

Mass Effect 3

“The end of an era marks the beginning of another”

ME3 “marked the end of Shep’s story”

Saying bye to Shep was as difficult for devs as it was for players

JHale’s final VO session included Anderson’s death and romanced Garrus’ goodbye. “We were in the session and we both just started crying”, Caroline says. “I couldn’t come on the line to give her notes because I was crying, and she was crying. And so there was just this minute-long pause of like, nothing, nothing, nothing - just silence through the airwaves. And then I came on and just told her that I was crying and she said ‘I’m crying!’” They talked about these anecdotes also here on the N7 Day reunion panel

The Microsoft Kinect voice support required devs to teach Kinect hundreds of commands in a variety of accents across multiple languages. The result was useful but made for some awkward moments. Numerous players accidentally said “geth” or “quarian” while making a particular decision and accidentally killed Tali

MP chars were voiced by cops and military people

The helmet on one of the MP chars was originally designed for cancelled project Revolver

The payload device at the end needed to attach to the Citadel while essentially serving as a giant trigger. “It ended up becoming quite the engineering feet just to visualize how this thing would move and connect to the Citadel”

Concept artists explored creating an anti-team, where Kai Leng was almost an anti-Shepard essentially, with an elite squad to counteract your team. This idea never went beyond concept phase

ME3 Special Edition was released on Nintendo Wii U exclusively. This exclusive version of the game includes Genesis 2 (a sequel to the original Genesis comic) and unique gameplay features that took advantage of the touchscreen GamePad. For years Sonic Chronicles: Dark Brotherhood had had the honor of being BW’s only game made for a Nintendo console

FemShep regrettably didn’t feature in major ME marketing til ME3. Later releases like DAI, MEA and Anthem have taken increasing care not to gender their protagonists in cover art

To capture combat sounds they took a trip to CFB Wainwright, a military base southeast of Edmonton. They got a big tour of it and were allowed to record anything they could find. The tour ended with them getting to drive and shoot tanks (real shells). The force of doing that sent waves through Joel Green, he felt his whole chest compress when it went off; the perfect sound for the Black Widow! After the trip the soldiers let him keep the shell he fired and it’s been passed on like a torch to various devs since

Kakliosaurs began life as a joke in the writers’ room after John Dombrow placed a Grunt figure on a t-rex toy he had on his desk. Lore was brainstormed to justify the mash-up before someone asked, “Why don’t we put this in the game?” They loved it so much Karin had custom coffee mugs made

Bug report: For a while Tali’s final romance scene would fire when she was supposed to be dead

“Balancing combat: how designers in ME3 entered an ‘arms race’” - the solution to players feeling OP vs players feeling frustrated by really strong enemies is to find a good middle ground, but for designers Corey Gaspur and Brenon Holmes, it was war. Brenon designed enemies, Corey designed guns. Corey “was obsessed with bigger, heavier guns. We had this sort of informal competition where he’d make this crazy overturned gun that would just murder all the enemies, and then I tuned some stuff up to compensate”

Brenon had to invent new ways to “stop Corey” and this led to the Phantoms. Corey had in turn designed consumable rockets that could wipe out entire waves of enemies. He must’ve figured this would make short work of Brenon’s space ninjas, but Brenon had other plans: “I had just added the ability for her to cut rockets [when Corey was playing MP and he was watching]. She cut the rocket in half... Corey just turns and looks at me and is like: ‘Really dude? I just shot a rocket at this Phantom and she’s fine? Not even damaged? Zero damage?’” 

This friendly rivalry helped elevate ME3′s gameplay. Corey had a knack for making a gun feel so good to fire it had his fellow designers scrambling to keep up. It was his version of balancing. Before Corey sadly passed away he mentored Boldwin Li in all things weapon design and the arms race continued

Corey designed the Arc Pistol. It was causing problems for enemies because it was too powerful. It seemed hell bent on staying that way, Boldwin would tune down all its stats and it was still doing 3x the damage it should have been doing. “I was like ‘What the hell?’, and then I looked closer. It secretly fired 3 bullets for every pull of the trigger! Corey, you sneaky jerk”

The day it launched there were midnight launch parties across North America including one near the BW building. Numerous devs sat at long tables greeting fans and signing autographs as the fans picked up preorders. When midnight struck the line was long enough that it took several hours for some fans to get their game. One particular fan is remembered: “It was 3am. Some guy drove up from Calgary with his friends. He was like one of the last people in line. I think he was sort of tired-drunk. He threw himself across the tables, pulled up his shirt and shouted ‘Guys, sign my abs!’ And like I did, because he waited so long. It felt impolite not to. So I hope he enjoyed his copy of ME3″

For designing Protheans concept artists had free reign to design something that read as ancient

Before the concept art team had the story of the game to work toward, they explored wild ideas of their own including an image of the crew stealing back the Normandy to go after the Reapers

Jen Cheverie was testing scenes and was initially excited to be testing Mordin scenes, til she saw she was testing the Renegade version of his death. “This is even before like all of the audio and everything was in, so you didn’t even have the sad music. I remember sitting at my desk and my hands just went to my face when I saw that the gun Shep pulls on Mordin is the gun he gives Shep in ME2. I burst into tears and was crying for the rest of the day. People are waving to me as they walk by and I’m like, ‘It’s ok, I’m just killing my best friend’” 

There’s a segment called “Shepard’s story ends”. Casey on the ending: “There’s a whole bunch of things that come together to make it incredibly tense and emotional for players. I think the biggest one was the sense of finality, that whatever it was that happened in that very last moment... was it.” 

Wrapping up the story was a massive feat. In a way all of ME3 is an ending. Its final moments were the players’ last with a char they’d been with all the way from Eden Prime

“And while the critical reception of the game was extremely positive, many fans were unsatisfied with the ending, which became one of the most controversial in the history of games.” CH: “We were, on one hand, at the end of a marathon trying to finish the game and the series. But as devs we also knew that there would be more. We knew that we would continue to tell the story. In retrospect, we didn’t fully appreciate the tremendous sense of finality that it would have for people”. He envisioned an ending that posed new questions, something in the tradition of high sci-fi that left players dreaming about what that particular galaxy’s future could hold. “Frankly, there’s a lot more that we could have and should have done to honor the work players put in, to give them a stronger sense of reward and closure”

AAA games are massive undertakings with a million moving parts. Somehow they come together but even the best-planned projects don’t turn out quite like devs hope. From start to end video game production is a series of compromises. It’s rare if not impossible for devs to ship a game they’re entirely happy with. “I think that people imagine that when you finish a game, it’s exactly the way you wanted it to be. But whether people end up loving or hating the final result, we work hard to finish it the best we can, knowing that there’s a lot we would have wanted to do better. I think that’s true of any creative work”

As the dust settled after the initial reaction to the ending and later its epilogue, meant to show the wide-reaching ripple effects of Shep’s final choice, “players emerged mostly asking for one thing”. CH: “Now, most of what we hear, after both ME3 and MEA, is ‘Hey, just go make more Mass Effect’. And that to me is the most important thing. Knowing that players want to return to the ME universe is what inspires us to press on and imagine what comes next”

Mass Effect: Andromeda

By creating a new ME in a new galaxy the team was challenged to put their own visual stamp on the game while keeping it true to the franchise

Being the first ME game on a new gen of consoles meant for more detail

“Massive transport ships called arks populated with salarians, turians, humans, asari and quarians” made the risky jump to the Cluster

MEA was the first time BW had truly codeveloped across 3 studios: Edmonton, Montreal and Austin. The bulk of the work especially early on was done in Montreal, which was composed of a handful of Edmonton expats and heaps of experienced devs who joined from elsewhere specifically to bring a new ME experience to life. Series vets in Edmonton then came on to contribute writing, cinematics, design and QA, along with leadership from creative director Mac Walters and the core Production team. Austin writers and level designers also joined the fray

“It took a new team to take ME beyond the Milky Way”

Mac: “A lot of people in Montreal joined BW as fans of the franchise, so they just had this passion, and it felt like it was more like the days of Jade Empire, where a smaller younger team gets to do something for the first time. Even though it wasn’t necessarily a new IP for me, it felt fresh and new because of that. The team was just super excited to be working on it”

Early plans had the player exploring hundreds of worlds, procedurally generated, allowing for a nearly infinite variety of experiences. But as development wore on, it became clear that the game narrative required more specific, hand-touched level design on each world to keep the story focused and the experience engaging. “The plan was to give players numerous uncharted worlds to explore. Designers worked hard to come up with procedural elements that would make such planets special. Eventually the team made the difficult decision to abandon procedural planets in favor of more memorable hand-touched alien worlds, each with a specific story to tell”

One challenge was defining what ME meant without Shep. Care was given to include many of the MET’s key species. “Ryder recruited turian, asari, krogan and salarian followers”. Like Shep Ryder represents humanity’s hope for a peaceful coexistence among aliens who had long operated without human contact

Beginning with MEA the team decided that with few exceptions vehicles in ME have 6 wheels. Early Nomad concepts were bulkier. Later ones focused on its ability to move over its ability to protect itself from hostile fire, underlining the themes of exploration

German concept designer and auto-motive futurist Daniel Simon was contracted to create the Nomad and Tempest. The Tempest’s final design took inspo from the Concorde 

Concepts for angaran fighter ships have the following notes: “Two doors swing open, wings rotate down to function as landing struts, the landing struts split open. It has a spinning turbine engine 

Despite being set a galaxy away and some 600 years after Mordin’s death, there was a time when he had a cameo. It wasn’t cut due to running out of time however, it was cut due to drug references. John Dombrow explains: “One day I had to write a small quest for Kadara. I thought it’d be amusing if these 2 guys living way out on the fringes in a shack were growing plants for uh, medicinal purposes, and needed Ryder’s help with it. It occurred to me, wouldn’t it be amusing if Ryder had the option of actually trying ‘the medicine’ to see what would happen? And I thought, what if it turned into some hallucination that somehow involved SAM - like maybe SAM would sing? But why? How could I motivate that? Then it hit me. Who else in the ME game sings unexpectedly? MORDIN. As a nod to him I wrote SAM singing Modern Major-General. It got even better when our cine designer John Ebenger wanted to take it even further. Bless him, he came in on a Saturday to do a special hallucination showing Mordin himself. It was great. Til the fateful day we were told MEA had already been submitted to the ratings board. That’s when you declare things like drug references in your game. Mordin fell under that category which meant it was a no-go. We were too late”

Ryder’s white AI armor contrasts Shep’s iconic dark armor (intentional design)

Concept art for Ryder involved experiments with cloth (cloaks, ponchos, capes - “Pull here to release cloak”) and asymmetrical design elements

For alien design, there’s a few exceptions but humanoid figures are the ME standard and this persisted into MEA

Kett and angara concepts explored striking lines and textures 

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

[tyrantisterror]

The ATOM Create a Kaiju Contest 3-D: Entry Roundup

You’ve been patiently waiting for the results of the ATOM Create a Kaiju Contest 3-D, and now... you have to wait a bit longer, but at least you’ve got an entry roundup with lots of sketches and a good bit of feedback for all the entrants!  My goal is to get the finalists illustrated in a week or two, and after that, the grand prize winner will be announced.  But, for now, the official entry roundup!  After the cut:

I should note that while I sketched these in the order they were submitted, my scanner saved the documents with random names, so they’re a bit jumbled.  You know, just in case you’re like me and would get confused noticing that it’s almost in chronological order but with some entries jumbled around.

@bugcthulhu’s Obsideban was designed as a counterpart to Rohobaron - the Black King to Rohobaron’s Red King, if you will.  Or, well, Black Queen in this case, as Obsideban also takes her personality from the “delinquent girl” archetype in Japanese media.  Bug’s designs always ooze personality, and I had a lot of fun translating this big, gnarly retrosaur into my own style.

@toothlessloveshiccup‘s Argonox is the first - but far from the last - monster in this breakdown that brings in a bit of fantasy influence to ATOM’s roster.  A golden-fleeced ram with a vicious streak, this sheep is both treasure and dragon at once.  And while it wasn’t written in the monster’s profile, given the Yamaneon-rich nature of its wool, Argonox might be able to replicate the healing power of the golden fleece too!  A very fun mammalian kaiju and excellent entry.

@highly-radioactive-nerd submitted Gunmetal Jeeves, a robot butler who can gigantomax temporarily create a holographic/hard light version of himself to fight kaiju.  That detail was a late revision added to the entry before the contest’s deadline, made after the creator realized that ATOM allows for some truly ludicrous bullshit, which is something everyone should exploit when making entries for this in my opinion.  Also, this is a robot butler who can size shift.  Revel in its awesome absurdity!

Ultranerd submitted Rajasaurus, a dimetrodon-like synapsid kaiju with electric powers.  His origin specifies that the electric powers are a result of the volatile nature of the Yamaneon deposits he mutated under, which is an interesting idea.  That’s another theme that cropped up a lot in this contest’s entries, actually - people really wanted to play with what Yamaneon can do.

Case in point, @polygonfighter’s Yamaneolith takes the Monolith Monsters homage at the heart of Yamaneon even more apparent.  I like the implication that there is a second mineral-based lifeform at the root of this Yamaneon cluster’s anomalous behavior - a parasite, perhaps?  It brings up some interesting possibilities.

@ariccio50 submitted Kukulkuzana, and damn is this a cool spin on the body plan of my martians.  I made a few changes here and there (splitting its tail into two is probably the biggest one), but tried to keep true to the original design, because holy hell is it gorgeous.  The idea that this is a mountain-dwelling creature is really intriguing to me, as it looks like a sea creature, but at the same time, that flexible and low-slung build WOULD work pretty well in mountains, and it’s just the right mix of plausible weirdness that makes for a fun alien design.

@akitymh submitted Aramzados, a Venusian monster that’s basically an organic hot rod car.  I like the idea of organic machinery being the gimmick for Venusian kaiju, and Aramzado’s does it subtly enough to not feel like that gimmick is the sole thing going for it.  I especially love this monster’s stange, apparently mouth-less blade-beaked face.

@virovac submitted Rurzar and Zar Rider, a Beyonder kaiju and mecha (respecitvely) that were both modified and repurposed by humans reverse engineering Beyonder technology to make, like, a motorcycle-saurus essentially.  It is a delightfully absurd concept, and a very, very detailed one (13 pages of description).  There’s a dark undercurrent beneath the sillyness, though, as this pair show that humanity might still be following the same path as the Beyonders before them.

@dinosaurana brings us Krangor, a humanoid monstrosity of living kelp!  The goal here was to create a Jack Kirby-esque monster dude, complete with the gibberish name and all.  He’s also made out of kelp, which feels very classic 1950′s monster-y despite me not being able to think of any monsters that were explicitly made of kelp.  I love him.

@kiryuthechimera submitted Genkakurah, a psychic retrosaur with some draconic features.  Though his substantial powerset is probably the biggest distinguishing feature of this kaiju (given that most ATOM kaiju pretty much have the same standard powers), what really draws me to him is that reptilian pseudo-beard.  It’s just a fun detail!

@glarnboudin submits Tiratola, and see, there’s that fantasy influence again!  Even more explicitly dragon-y than Kraydi, Tiratola still manages to toe the line between sci-fi and fantasy enough to fit ATOM as is while still cementing its ties to my own slice of fantasy fiction.  Man it’s good I’m doing a Midgaheim book next, huh?

@dragonzzilla submitted Scuttlebutt/Argonautilus, a hermit crab kaiju who lives in/with a hollowed out mecha.  That’s a twist I can’t recall ever hearing before, and the idea of a kaiju and a mecha having an equal partnership that doesn’t involve one being grafted to the other is really intriguing to me.  A very unique concept!

@evolutionsvoid submitted Fleagor, an enormous flea who has no idea what to do with itself now that there’s no creature large enough for it to parasitize.  I love that concept - it takes the core idea of the giant bug kaiju archetype (i.e. unsettling the audience by showing how terrifying small, “insignificant” creatures would be if our sizes were reversed) and really turns it on its head.  The name also plays on the Universal Monsters, who were a huge part of 1950′s pop culture thanks to their movies being re-released in that era, so all and all this one is very on brand for ATOM!

@skarmorysilver submitted Lilacorn, another entry that plays up that Midgaheim/ATOM connection.  Reinterpreting the mythological unicorn as an Cenozoic wooly rhinoceros-inspired monster gives it a very unique look, both in ATOM and in the general world of unicorns, and she has a bad-girl with a heart of gold personality to boot!

dracosaurus-rex submitted Florasaura, a two-headed plant/retrosaur hybrid monster.  I love me some plant monsters, I love me some retrosaurs, and I love me some rhyming the word “flora” with other words that contain similar vowell sounds, so this one has me written all over it!

@downtofragglerock submitted Sauroguana, a delightfully odd flying retrosaur.  There’s a great deal of charm to the original illustration that this sketch doesn’t quite capture - it’s a deceptively simple design with a lot of personality in it, and with those unique leg-wings it really doesn’t need a whole lot of frills to stand out.

Draxi submitted Brakan, an unimpressive burrowing retrosaur kaiju whose mastery of illusions allows it to convince other kaiju it’s actually a big, super-powerful badass that’s the ultimate fighter in the universe.  It’s a delightful parody of the concept of a fan self-insert god-mode character, with a really fun story built into it to boot!

@quinnred submitted O.N.I.A.C., a mysterious cocooned kaiju whose chrysalis has been turned into an organic computer of sorts by the people studying it, and seems to possess a fairly advanced intelligence for a kaiju.  It’s a really bizarre and ominous idea, with built in intrigue given how vague its nature is.  Is it just a kaijufied butterfly/moth who got stuck mid transformation?  A relative of the Mothmanuds?  Something else, perhaps equally alien?  Good story potential here.

shadyserpent submitted Vespilitor, a bat/retrosaur hybrid made by the nefarious Spooks Organization.  A mercurial prankster whose tendency to stir up trouble never crosses the line into maliciousness, he’s the kind of monster who would make a great foil to a lot of ATOM’s cast.  I’d especially like to see him in a prank off with Ahuul - it’d be like Bugs Bunny fighting Daffy Duck, but on a kaiju scale.

@multiversefan submitted the Yamaneon King, a nomadic kaiju whose refusal to settle down causes problems as he stirs up trouble at kaiju sanctuaries all over the globe by showing up unannounced and stirring up the locals.  He was basically designed to be a monster that the kaiju sanctuary initiative would struggle to deal with, which is a good idea for a post-ATOM Volume 2 story conflict.

Sir K submitted Jadeera, a kirin kaiju that can actually forcibly convert most of its body to Yamaneon to enter a dormant, statue-like state in a loose homage to King Shisa.  Though the fantasy elements are far more present than I usually prefer for ATOM kaiju, I think it should be noted they’re pushed that far for a purpose - a theme in Jadeera’s entry, which continues where its creator left off with their submission to the previous ATOM create a kaiju contest (Yokaigon), is that the world of kaiju is more complicated and challenging than many are willing to accept, which is a theme in ATOM itself.  Yokaigon’s more supernatural/occult powers are based on the ghost parascience of my setting, which ATOM has delved into a bit (Pathogen being the big example), so it’s not as out of left field as some might think.

@cerothenull​ brings us our final entry (unless some got lost thanks to tumblr’s shitty tagging system), the flying spider Naeranti.  She’s a kaiju spider who uses silk to make complicate hot-air balloons, more or less, and that’s just delightful.  ATOM could always use more spider-monsters, and with a really unique gimmick backing up a wonderfully distinct look, Naeranti is sure to stand out among her fellow giant arachnids.

Well, that’s the roundup!  In a week (or two, depending on how much my hand cramps) we’ll have the five finalists, and sometime after that, the grand prize winner!

[tamersonas]

Will there be a tamersona week for 2021? I participated in the last one and really enjoyed it!

Yes! And this is a horribly late reply, I am very sorry about that. I do owe an explanation so here's the issue on why it's later than last year

Also please note you are more than welcome to @/ me on my main ( @elecmon ) if you'd like a speedier response in the future!

The personal life excuses on why Tamersonaweek is late this year:

Much like everyone else, I had a series of unfortunate events during 2020 where I Lost a tooth (still in the process of trying to get the replacement, a whole year later.) Had my identity stolen and a theft committed in my name, got diagnosed with beginning stages of Skin C*ncer, began a series of 6 removal procedure surgeries which led to my arms being all but useless for a few months unable to draw, became bed ridden for a few days with severe back/neck pain that nearly caused me to black out a few times, caught Covid and was bedridden for half a month again, work kept closing/re-opening, lost my promotion and higher pay at work, applied to two different jobs (both of which lasted less than a month), had a fender bender that has currently dipped into the last bit of savings I had left to pay for the remainder surgery bills (not having insurance is hell) and this was just July-Decsmber, it's been, stressful to say the least.

The Tamersonaweek related excuses on why Tamersonaweek is late this year:

Coming up with a new theme is Hard. Not on the surface level but there were three things I had to consider at all times that made it a bit difficult to set anything down in stone;

A. If I do the same questions as last time, it will be boring and alienate the people who have participated who won't want to re-say the same things.

B. If I Don't do the same questions as last time, it will alienate people who are new that Want to talk about their self-insert/partner/their story/etc

C. People are usually burned out when it comes to July because of Art fight + getting ready for Odaiba Day. The timing of it last year, even though it Was decided on by popular vote, still wasn't objectively the Best. But every other time slot that would be fun/semi significant was either taken or [insert life problem here] happened and it became fully difficult once again.

BUT, after talking it over with a friend and spending about 3 days brainstorming we have come up with something that we Hope will be fun for you guys!

I'm currently working on making a little info sheet on the event/details/prompts (and then will have to convert it to a Twitter-friendly post)

BUT I feel like it's okay to share the theme and planned dates

September 16th-September 22nd

Choose your own Camp Adventure!

Each day will have a scenario linked to a random number generator with possible outcomes based on your 1-10 results

For Example Day 3 will be:

"Second day at Camp and you heard a noise coming from the abandoned cabin, what do you do?!"

1-2: "Nope not interested bye!"

3-4: "Oh it's my old friend _______!" (OCs/canon characters are welcome!)

5-6: "Oh SHIT ITS MY OLD ENEMY_______!" (OCs/canon characters are welcome!)

7-8 "Hey it's that other Tamer/Camper! Hi!"

9-10: "Forget checking! I'm going to IMMEDIATELY FIGHT IT!!!"

You are more than welcome to write/draw/talk about your own responses outside of the given prompts!

There is NO requirement to draw or write a fully detailed anything

The first Two days WILL be the same as last year's, where you can introduce yourself, and Then your Digimon partner!

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Tamersonaweek has always been about showing off and appreciating yours and other people's self inserts, it's an event made in mind with everyone (hopefully) having fun which is why I would love to hear opinions on it/this format! Yes this wasn't an easy thing to work on, but good or bad I Would like to hear what people have to say on if this is a good direction to take Tamersonaweek in for future events!)

Any questions, comments, concerns, etc feel free to ask away!