#also their reasoning is better compared to the original epic lmao

[velvetart0v0]

Anyways my fav song is suffering cuz fake penelope sounds cute.

But also odysseus just going along with their rp is a funny image in my head. Like yes im afraid of water even though ive been leading this ship for ages. But i will jump in if u give me directions to the nearest shortcut.

[skydigiblogs]

back on my bullshit (thinking about translation theory in the context of my silly little monster cartoons <3)

(this ended up so so fucking long so i put it under a read more lmao)

specifically thinking about it in the context of like a handful of world/postcolonial lit courses we took and some anth courses

what i mean by that is like

when it comes to just literature there are already so many things that have to be taken into account for translation! let's say you're taking a poem. in its native language, that poem has a sound, a rhythm, a way of communicating that a lot of poetry in a lot of languages do. when you translate it to another language, like english, are you going to translate in a way that preserves the meaning most, or a way that attempts to approximate the meaning while preserving the synesthetic qualities of its sounds?

the homeric epics are a really fun example for comparative translation analysis imo. and i mean fun because there are so many translations of them into english, and at least one madlad decided to make a prose translation of an epic poem. only recently did the first translation of the poem by a woman get published, and that revealed that a lot of biases in the linguistic nuance were kind of getting smoothed over like a crease in clay.

(i have a copy of emily wilson's translation but am not the guy who reads classics in our system, i just write the essays lmao. but she wrote multiple times about the theory of translation she was working with and if you're at all interested in this topic, look her up.)

but even if you aren't translating a text from antiquity and are, say, working with a more contemporary example of literary translation, you still have to bridge the gap between two cultures that may be very different. just a word for word translation may not work too, because figurative language like idioms might not be understood by the language you're translating to.

the amount of cultural knowledge required to sculpt a truly effective translation that preserves the image of the original while making it comprehensible to an otherwise ignorant audience is just. so cool to me. i say this as someone who could never really do translation work myself, on account of not having that kind of complex grasp on another language than my native one, of course, but you don't have to be fluently billingual to understand what i'm talking about here, imo.

another example, and one that i actually wrote comparative analysis on, is work from charles baudelaire's les fleurs du mal ("the flowers of evil"). works of short poetry are effective case studies in what different translations can look like, because translations of baudelaire's poetry still portray the subject matter in a way that is presumably true to the original french. while something may always be lost in translation (there's a saying for a reason there), the philosophy behind one's translation can also highlight one's own reading of a text, and offer a closer insight into said text for foreign audiences (me, it's me, i'm the foreign audience reading charles baudelaire in world lit and going absolutely insane about translation theory).

for my mileage, you end up seeing a paradigm between translations that span between "strict" and "loose," if that makes any sense. a strict translation makes no changes in its translation, preserving the literature in its entirety as it is translated, to the best approximation possible where a direct translation is impossible. a loose translation meanwhile may make more artistic choices in its translation, foregoing certain details in order to better articulate the artistry in the original work.

okay, now, the reason i'm thinking about this today, right now.

in literature this is already a complex subject, but when you get into other forms of art, like animation in the case of this blogs primary topic, there become a lot more moving parts. like with literature, there's going to be the simple fact of looking into a cultural window and trying to communicate that snapshot to foreigners.

with subtitling, you can add things like translator's notes. this is a non-diegetic method of communicating information to your audience, and you can see it present in literature as well (footnotes or endnotes are a frequent addition to many translated works; hell, they're common even in non-translated works). in animated works where there are vocal tracks (like anime openings or insert songs), you can also have subtitles for those, no problem!

however, when it comes to dubbing, you automatically include more elements to juggle in your translation work. you have to take into account individual voice, background tracks, visuals, etc. etc.. the method most dubs handle translating the work often discourages non-diegetic methods of communicating information, so you're less likely to see translator's notes in dub work. sometimes this even includes changing on-screen text so that a foreign audience can read it.

the lengths to which a dubbing company is willing to censor in translation is also, obviously, a conversation worth noting (see again my losing my shit at pinnochimon packing heat). a phenomenon i'm sure we've all noticed when it comes to dubbing (as opposed to most translations of literature i've seen) is that dubs may market to a specific age range in translation. sometimes that may end up defanging a work's themes, or changing them entirely. the censorship of a dub may come out of a cultural difference or hesitance to show certain subjects to a younger audience, but regardless it is part of the theory behind some dub work.

i don't really have a conclusion to this, but it's just in my mind a lot while i'm watching some of these series for the first time subbed. by all means, i don't think dubbing is a bad thing (if anything it's complex), but having the experience of watching the sub is allowing me to do a type of comparative analysis i don't think i've ever had the chance to actively do.

i know that there are folks who have done more thorough comparative analysis work than i'll probably end up doing, of course (there are so many wonderful blogs here on tumblr alone about that meta-analysis). it's just that i'm enjoying engaging with a childhood interest in a way that i suppose i didn't know i wanted to do so badly.

[beautifully-lumpy]

the beautiful person's journal - #11: evolution of sponsors

you're sitting there, watching the brand-new caddicarus episode. you're about 20 minutes into the 70-minute epic, you've already finished your bowl of popcorn, and you're racking up reaction images and clips like it's the lottery...

when suddenly, out of the blue-

it's december, the most consumerist month of the year. christmas shoppers clog every store imaginable, buying everything in sight. so what better time of the year than now to discuss sponsor segments?

sponsor segments are sort of the way of life for just about every youtuber these days. whether they're formally placed before or after the show proper, or placed in the middle with awkward segues, it's hard to find a youtuber who hasn't talked about raid shadow legends or nord VPN in any of their vids. with the adpocolypse back in 2017, youtubers began incorporating sponsors more than ever in their videos, as well as patreon plugs. since then, it's become a necessity.

the caddicarus show and its channel's side shows are no strangers to sponsors. in fact, the channel has had sponsored segments and videos ever since the old kingdom! (which is my placeholder name for 2012-late 2015 until i come up with an original name. i took an egyptology class this semester okay.)

in this entry, we'll take a look into this channel's history with sponsors, and how the segments have evolved over the years.

pre-2019

if you were around pre-2019, you may remember that sponsors didn't use to be as entertaining as they are now! in 2015 we slowly began to see sponsored segments and videos make their way onto the channel. at first, we had mentions of appman during the end slate of the videos, then we had sponsored tinker time videos for the PS store, and then we had the announcement of caddy partnering with the pixel empire in july 2015! he didn't have any of his merch on the site until 2016, though - this was back during the days of rodeo arcade and the yetee. do those sites even exist anymore...?

...okay, looks like the yetee's still around...first thing i saw when i looked up rodeo arcade was a reddit thread about how bad it was. lmao.

with the pixel empire partnership, we began seeing dedicated sponsor segments at the beginning and/or end of videos. not EVERY video, but a whole lot. and with the introduction of outtakes in mid-late 2015, the endings of videos could get up to 3 minutes! it was a much different world back then compared to today's straightforward "okay here's the subscribe jingle and here's the patreon credits with no voiceover and here's stanley's segment".

as 2015 continued, we started seeing ads for crunchyroll and audible. i believe there were also ads for dollar shave club - i actually found about about these companies through caddicarus, and they would go on to become household names when it came to youtube sponsorships! i think i also found out about amino through caddy - it was either him or rebeltaxi. my memory is cloudy when it comes to the specifics of this stuff.

in 2016, gamesgrabr promos really ramped up, and chrono.gg - later nexus.gg - was introduced into the mix. the address "chrono dot gg forward slash caddy" was ingrained into the skull of many a beautiful person. there was also a sponsored current quickies about an AR game called kazooloo - and i never realized it was unlisted. it COMPLETELY slipped my mind when i was compiling privated/unlisted videos. what's strange is that this and the 2017-19 sponsored videos were unlisted but not the 2015 sponsored tinker times.

caddy returned to patreon in 2016, so in a bunch of videos after that, that was like a sponsored segment.

2017 was a hotspot for separate sponsored videos - i touched on these briefly in my entry on the caddy show. you can find most of them in this playlist!

i remember the dreadnought video stuck out to me because there was this bit that 15-year-old me thought was really funny for some reason... it went something like "bada bing bada boom...! i was a bada man when i used my computer that doesn't use the default web searcher as bing to make the bada ships go boom!"

that was the original screenshot i took of it in 2017...the file was titled "cursed image"

another sponsored vid i have fond memories of was the one on the acer predator laptop. i was on vacation in branson, missouri when it dropped, and i remember watching it while riding back to the hotel late at night as i looked at the view of the city from the mountains.

there was more of the same through the rest of the pre-2020 era. there were two more shady voucher app things which i think were the same people - "appbounty" and "apphunter". there was this especially shady-sounding one literally called swagbucks. there were some videos sponsored by forhims, and let me tell you, opening a caddicarus episode and being greeted by caddy talking about men's pubic hair and sexual wellness and it not being a bit was like a digital punch in the face

he was also one of the many youtubers who sponsored betterhelp in 2018, and if you know the drama behind that company...yeaaaahhhh. but he took the sponsor in good faith and pulled out when shit hit the fan.

none of these sponsors were particularly controversial. there were the usual "sellout" comments, and many eyebrows were raised at sponsors like swagbucks and forhims, but most fans didn't mind these segments. the only genuinely controversial one was the PUBG video from 2019, which had a nearly 50/50 like/dislike ratio and a divided comment section. and...it really was such a weird video. like, it felt like an AI watched some caddicarus videos and was made to produce a sponsored caddicarus video about PUBG mobile. it felt very dishonest, very uncanny, and it's just...you know those mobile game ads that show some kind of influencer playing the game? like the ones seen on the vinesauce android games segments? yeah the caddicarus PUBG video was one step away from being classified as that. we just needed a video of him in the corner playing the game.

season 13 onwards

with the premiere of season 13 in august 2019, sponsor segments at the beginning/end of the show were taken away entirely in favor of awkward segues in the middle of the video, a tactic that was starting to become popular in the youtube sphere. if viewers know for sure the beginning/end of the video will be sponsored, then they'll know to skip! so how about we just put it in the middle of the video?? that'll surprise them!

and...viewers still skip them! as this tactic increased in popularity, we as viewers have been conditioned to start tapping that screen or spamming the right arrow key when we hear a youtuber start to emphasize online security or website building in the middle of their 4-hour essay about an obscure cartoon that ended years ago.

so how does jim combat this? well, he simply makes his sponsored segments entertaining to watch. much like emplemon and internet historian, caddicarus sponsored segments from the final season of the original series and beyond are known for their entertainment value.

the spons character we know and love today is a combination of two characters. one is the unnamed kite demon who first appeared in the pixar games video. the other is the actual named character spons who was first introduced in the lego games video, and he wasn't a kite - it was literally just jim. the lovable shill kite as we know him appeared in the kinect games video, and it's been that way ever since. and he's now legally bound to the channel!

also i have to show y'all this tweet that's an absolute gem.

i hope you enjoyed this look into how sponsors were done on the caddicarus channel!

[transsexualhamlet]

alright it’s time for as requested part two of rowan reads the original sherlock holmes and compares it to yuumori

i finished a study in scarlet and holy shit was yuumori accurate to it

obviously they changed the case so that... well, moriarty was involved, and they didn’t go into detail on why drebber was an a-grade piece of shit (lol i wasn’t expecting the mormons but it was a great perspective actually doyle went big brain time on that one lmao) 

Hmmm i mean the other main difference is that Watson Is Gayer In The Original but yeah obviously that’s for a reason and the reason is william james moriarty

I have some highlights of “oh my god I need to see yuumori sherlock do this right now because he Absolutely Would” and they’re WILD

So yuh here are your Sherlock Moments

-when watson asks stamford why he might not want to board with sherlock bestie went “he’s a little queer” and watson was basically like “i like that in a man :)” like i am Fully Aware that’s not what queer meant back then but it’s FUNNY alright

-stamford is also like “yeah i mean he’s the kind of guy who would probably perform human experiments on his friends without telling them”

-watson walks into sherlock’s lab like hello new roommate :) and the dude immediately starts SCREAMING

-he’s all I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT LOOK and fucking stabs himself and drips the blood in a container, yeah yeah it makes a reaction and he’s like I AM GOING TO SOLVE ALL CRIMES EVER ACTUALLY wait who are you

-SHERLOCK THEN PROCEEDS TO SEAL UP THE CUT WITH P L A S T E R AND THEN HANDLE POISONOUS CHEMICALS WITH HIS BARE, INJURED HANDS

-watson moves in with this dude and is like “oh wow im really interested in this guy but im Polite so i cannot ask him anything” so he starts snooping around trying to figure out what sherlock does for a living?????? like he couldn’t just fucking ask???? and he’s like wow he has these clients and he kicks me out of the house every time they come over i Really Don’t Want To Think He’s Fucking Them

-obviously, and to watson’s embarassment, he wasn’t. sherlock is a virgin and it is very clear

-watson describes sherlock in the most homoerotic way possible i don’t even know how to describe it bestie goes on about his hands for a full paragraph it’s really gay man

-WATSON IS SO POLITE ABOUT IT ITS ACTUALLY HILARIOUS ISTG HES LIKE I AM KIND OF SERIOUSLY OBSESSED WITH THIS DUDE BUT I COULDN’T POSSIBLY JUST ASK HIM ANYTHING OR LIKE TRY TO GET CLOSER TO HIM I WILL SIMPLY WRITE LISTS ABOUT HIM AND DIAGNOSE HIM WITH AUTISM

-he’s also like “i don’t know i really think hes on drugs i would say he’s on drugs but also he’s like this all the time and he might just be mentally ill” lo and behold it was both

-SHERLOCK GOES TO BED AT TEN PM AND GETS UP AT 4 AM EVERY DAY WITHOUT FAIL

-m o t h e r f u c k e r  d o e s  n o t  k n o w  w h a t  t h e  s o l a r  s y s t e m  i s

-and when asked why he doesn’t know! he’s like my dear watson! i simply cannot be bothered! my brain is filled up with more important things! 

-watson compares him to some fictional detective that edgar allan poe made up and sherlock is like HIM OH MY GOD DO NOT COMPARE ME TO THAT MOTHERFUCKER I AM BETTER THAN THAT

-it’s honestly really cute watson apparently will sit and listen to him play the violin and like request pieces and stuff and yeah sherlock can play those fine

-but most of the time if he picks it up on his own sherlock will just start plucking it with his fucking hands while slouching in a chair and sitting like L Death Note and playing random notes that Vibe 

-watson HATES it

-watson once picks up this paper sherlock has lying around about yknow. deduction and all that and how you find things out and watson is like “this is Bullshit who wrote this what the fuck this is the most unrealistic thing i’ve ever read” and then sherlock is like I Wrote It Shawty and watson is like. um. oh haha i take back everything

-MAN I JUST GOTTA POINT OUT I AM A TEENAGE BOY AND I COULD NOT STAY SERIOUS WHEN DOYLE THOUGHT “EJACULATED” WAS A GOOD WORD TO PUT IN PLACE OF SAID

-lol he was like “ahahahhaa my deductions” and watson was like “but How Did You Do It” and he’s like “I WANT TO LOOK COOL WATSON DONT MAKE ME RUIN IT BY EXPLAINING”

-GHHHHHHHHHH BESTIES when sherlock was Infodumping to watson About Crimes watson was like “oh my god that’s so cool bestie!” like Once and watson described it like “i was complimenting him like he was a girl and i called him beautiful and he blushed” LIKE DUDE THATS GAY

-that one time sherlock yelled “THE PLOT THICKENS” and lestrade was like “i t  w a s  t h i c k  e n o u g h  a l r e a d y”

-dude thinks he’s wrong ONCE and has a mental breakdown in front of the entirety of scotland yard before like five seconds later realizing that he was not, in fact, wrong

I’d say that the main difference between him and yuumori sherlock is that og sherlock has a massive fucking ego and yuumori sherlock is very loud but has no ego at all. Og sherlock will brag about how smart he is to anyone who will fucking listen. Yuumori sherlock will only boast abt his intelligence around Moriarty because he knows they’re both mindfucking

Other than that... I honestly cannot come up with significant differences between them. You can really tell how similar they are especially with the sign of mary episode- dude was just like >:((((( the entire day because watson has a fiance and then he walks in on a dead body and goes now hERES SOME FUN

He’s very accurately and enthusiastically portrayed, as far as I can tell, and I think that’s really epic. I love him. I might kin og sherlock too guys ngl

[itskyleeyo]

hadestown brain dump (songs)

SPOILERS FOR HADESTOWN/THE STORY OF ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE

ok so it may have been more than a few days, but what're you gonna do about it?

so i wanted to do another brain dump, and i wanted to listen to hadestown, so i'm doing a song by song brain dump as i go along. this means that my thoughts are going to be even more stream-of-consciousness style (if that's even possible.) also i'm talking specifically about the original broadway cast recording bc i haven't listened to any other version. (also this was completed across multiple months so it is even more chaotic lmao).

also i highly recommend that you listen to the musical and/or pull up the lyrics as you go along! enjoy!

road to hell. the way andre brings in the chorus is flawless please. also the way that hermes is both a narrator and a character in the story he's narrating? beautiful. "the king of the mine." he sounds so nice here for some reason. also love his self-introduction "maybe it will turn out this time" no it won't but thank you for trying. also breaking the fourth wall to acknowledge the chorus and crew is so nice, here comes reeve ;) mans sounds like an angel. you can hear amber's voice stick out of the chorus and i literally love it so much. i'd die for amber gray but we'll get to that later.

any way the wind blows. the fates literally sound so perfect together. Eva's intro throws me off every time, she sounds so pretty. dear god the harmonies with the fates hit so different. can this cast please narrate my life? there's the wind comparisons ;D the "ooos" are so good. "and it ain't because i'm kind" idk i just like how andre sounds here. oh and the funny behind "so i took him underneath my wing" because hermes has wings on his helmet and shoes.

come home with me. orpheus is so oblivious but i love it. also eurydice is literally such a mood. the wordplay with "come again". the "oh, he's crazy" is my favorite part of the whole song. also eva's voice acting is so good.

wedding song. the way she says "lover"? my ass cannot handle this. eva sounds so smug in the beginning of this song and i love it. "sing the song ;)" eurydice is so fantastic. the chorus of "la" is so pretty. eva joining in during the end is just. so perfect.

epic i. hell yeah introduce the king and queen (both literally and figuratively). reeve's falsetto <3 the way orpheus looks to hermes for approval throughout the musical. hermes narrating over orpheus singing.

livin' it up on top. HELL YES THE QUEEN HAS ARRIVED. i love amber gray so much. the gravel and the rasp. please step on me. also i love the idea of persephone being the wine aunt, especially because media usually portrays her as soft and breakable. the way she says "haaard". the way the music gets more upbeat and energetic when hermes says "the world came back to liiife!" the instrumental/dance? break is so good. please kill me with that trumpet good sir. the leadup to when amber starts singing again. orpheus really knows how to give a speech. "i will ;)" amber please step on me i am not joking.

all i've ever known (intro). thank you for the intro king. the music is so pretty. the way it picks up with the piano part <3

all i've ever known. eva sounds so pretty dear god. yay more wind references! the wordplay with "hold". and also the references to hot and cold throughout the musical. "i don't wanna ever have to let you go." lol ironic because she ends up going with hades. "i knew you before we met, and i don't even know you yet." the fucking wordplay. like holy shit. the "love at first sight" feelings. this line gets me every damn time. the wordplay from 2:10 - 2:38 is so fucking incredible. i lose it every time istg. the instrumental portion is so pretty. the wind! "we'll always be like this" i fucking love irony so much. its so underrated and adds so many layers to the story.

way down hadestown. amber gray. that's it. "you either get to hell or to hadestown, ain't no difference anymore". i fucking love this line so much. not really sure why but the delivery is perfect. also the whole thing with it being a train? i love that so much. all the allusions and comparisons they can make are fantastic. more amber gray appreciation. and ofc. the fates. more fantastic instrumental breaks. "and you better forget about your wishing well." this line is so good but so sad because its literally persephone saying that "hey, fair warning, life is shit down there" and i feel bad for her. like the way she's super sassy and shit, but just stops singing when hades gets there, you can tell that she's definitely not ok. speaking of hades, holy shit patrick page. sounds so fucking fantastic. thank you for existing good sir. eva with the breathtaking single lines. and eva's voice standing out when she sings "ground".

a gathering storm. the constant references to weather and nature throughout the whole musical. eurydice with the common sense. the wind again! "did you hear me, orpheus?" he did not, in fact, hear her.

epic ii. the different names for hades in each epic make me so happy. hades thoughts: "i think my wife might not come back cause i'm super controlling. whatever shall i do? oh, i know! be even more controlling!" lmao dumbass motherfucker. that might not work out so well. i fucking love the transition into "chant" so much.

chant. this is one of my favorite songs from the musical. the wordplay within the entire song is so fucking fantastic. hades singing about desire and then orpheus singing the "song of love" was definitely done on purpose and i'm living for it. every single one of eva's lines make me emotional. ma'am why are you good at everything?? the band! more weather references! patrick page singing "lover" hits different. orpheus singing about hades and persephone being blind and deaf. lmao irony because he's not paying attention to anything around him. the wind! weather! "the song of love" is what brought orpheus and eurydice together, but orpheus' devotion to finishing it is what drives eurydice to hades. "did you think i'd be impressed" i was right ;) it didn't work out so well.

hey, little songbird. the strings <3 patrick page is a god (lol i'm so funny). how does he manage to make manipulation sound so good? bird references! the vocal contrast! eva's voice has this kind of "innocence" to it. especially compared to patrick. not sure if that's on purpose or not, but i love it. also the low note kills me every time. the octave jumps between patrick and eva's voices is just. ugh. and also eva's entire second verse is so fucking good. the emotion she portrays in her voice is so spectacular. seriously hades with the manipulation is so interesting and its so good. (manipulation is not a good thing i just mean that its done so well in the show. do not manipulate people!)

when the chips are down (intro). "your ticket ;)" yes pls sir i'll take a ticket cause life sucks ass.

when the chips are down. i fucking love the fates dear god. gambling references! eva has literally one line and still owns my heart. the band! "shoot to kill" sounds so good like i love it so much pls. also this fucking line "cast your eyes to heaven, you get a knife in the back" is so good. i'm gonna have to get into quite a few lines throughout the musical in a different brain dump because i have so much thought.

gone, i'm gone. darling eurydice. its not your fault that you're starving stop apologizing. "talk of sin" lol she do be going to hell. that's funny. the harmonies.

wait for me (intro). the piano. heremes trying to change the subject hurts my heart. and orpheus' reaction is so sad please. "no.." just rip my fucking heart out, why don't you?

wait for me. the transition. andre coming in clutch with the narration. reeve sounds wonderful, as always. the fucking fates. just kill me already. they literally sound so good. the strings' build up between the "la"s. the chorus. the buildup at the end.

why we build the wall. the total 180 in the vibes. call and response has a special pace in my heart. mr page killing it again. god, hades is such a piece of shit and its perfect. he really is a master manipulator. fuck capitalism. the chorus sounds so good. i want to platonically smooch all of them. jesus fucking christ burn capitalism to the ground. the end is amazing. also the not-so-subtle references to slavery/forced labor.

why we build the wall (outro). i'd die for andre. "anybody want a drink?" yes ma'am. yes please. (don't drink, kids) i love you so much.

our lady of the underground. its so jazzy! jesus fucking christ. oh my fucking god. i would literally sell my soul for amber gray. what did we ever do to deserve her? god the raspiness fucking kills me. also love that she breaks the fourth wall to acknowledge the band. when she comes back in after the instrumental break? consider me dead. "what the boss don't know, the boss won't mind" she sounds so good here. also i love that she straight up doesn't give a fuck about hades here.

way down hadestown (reprise). hell yeah i love reprises. the fates. andre. the chorus. i love them all. i'm such a whore for reoccurring lyrics. the strings! fuck capitalism! eva's emotions are just so fucking good. "you've already forgot?" holy shit. this shit hurted. the "ahh ooh"s are so good.

flowers. the intro <3. eva sounds so pretty. the fucking symbolism in this song is incredible. i'm gonna get into this in another brain dump bc it's a very sensitive topic. the fact that she can't actually fully remember orpheus makes me so sad. so pretty <3

come home with me (reprise). hell yeah another reprise. the way the music is much more upbeat when orpheus shows up. their excitement! eva's vocal emotions are literally so fantastic pls.

papers (intro). "young mannn" kill me patrick. train references! hell yeah persephone. the way andre gets louder when he says "raised up his voice." eva <3. reeve just always sounds so pretty. ohmygod the laugh. kill me good sir. mans straight up admits to owning people and is like "it's cool tho cause they signed a piece of paper. def not taking advantage of people that are literally starving or anything. it's fine." fuck you hades. go step on a fucking lego. orpheus is so sad :(

papers (instrumental). yes. sounds so good. i'm imagining an epic chase scene. the transition into nothing changes <3

nothing changes. respectfully? the fates could kill me any day and i'd thank them. the weather reference! that "anyhow" is so fucking good istg.

if it's true. another one of my favorites. pop off intro. the broken "is this how the world is?" sadly, yes. "but everybody knows that walls have ears." is literally such a powerful line to me for some reason. it does a great job of bringing in the chorus. and by calling the workers "walls" it shows that hades views them as "less than." they aren't even referred to as people. "what's the use of his backbone if he never stands upright." oh my god. because they literally cannot stand upright. anais mitchell is literally a fucking genius. fuck the 1%. gambling references! the chorus backing him is just so pretty. the way orpheus looks to the chorus for advice and support. "we're standing." ugh its so good.

how long. oh my fucking god. amber fucking gray. (that's it, that's the post). the way she sounds resigned/disappointed when she says "i've had enough" makes me so sad. there are no words to describe how i feel about 0:25 - 0:41. like their relationship is strained, and super mega fucked up, but it's obvious that they still care about one another. the emotion in their voices throughout this song is fantastic. the play on light and dark. also more bird references! how they view themselves/their self importance. hades is a most importantly king. persephone is most importantly a wife. it really show that hades views power as more important than anything else. "nothing comes of the songs people sing." holy fucking shit. cause their song is the "song of love," but they can barely stand each other and their relationship has fallen apart. persephone commenting on his love of power over his love of her. amber's voice during "the earth must die" is so nice and for what? god i love her. they sound so nice together <3

chant (reprise). another favorite hehe. the strings! it's all just so pretty. when the piano comes in i die a little. the self realization coming from the chorus when they're like "oh shit, this is wrong. i don't deserve to be treated like this." is so fucking fantastic. the "young mannn" again! hades really be like "manipulate her! make her depend on you financially! i've been ding this a while kid! i know how to successfully control women!" reeve sounds so pretty pls. the way that eurydice has basically become part of the chorus (since she's just another worker now). more self realization! the different ways that hades and orpheus view the "song of love." "sing before i kill you so i can use it to manipulate my wife and make her feel like shit." patrick's voice tho.

epic iii. reeve coming in with that falsetto like nobody's business. orpheus really about to bite you in the ass with your own damn song. amber gray <3. the "ooo"s in the background. the way the music picks up when reeve gets to the "la"s. it's just so fucking good. that falsetto again. orpheus really looked at the king of hell, a literal god, and said "i want to ruin him psychologically" and it fucking worked. which is some of my favorite irony because hades wouldn't have shit if it weren't for that fact that he's a good manipulator and takes advantage of the needy. that last line <3

epic iii (instrumental). i have no words for how fucking beautiful this is. i so desperately want an extended version. like for real love this so much. if i get married, i want this to be the song for the first dance.

promises. eurydice is so proud of him for finishing. the way that eurydice realized that she cares about him more that material objects. wind and weather references! "if we can do it so can they!" she sounds so excited. :( "hand-in-hand" lol nope. not them refencing wedding song, anyway the wind blows, and then giving their "i do"s. absolutely heart wrenching.

word to the wise. the fates. pls step on me ladies. the lyrics throughout this are so fucking good. lol hades being damned. cause he's the king of hell. honestly its solid advice tho. humans are really fucking stupid.

his kiss, the riot. give us them adjectives king. " how dare people want rights! >:(" hades is really trying to make himself the good guy rn. the music! 2:15 - 3:03 is so good pls. the lyrics are just so spectacular.

wait for me (reprise) (intro). hello again andre! hermes literally says "he's trying to psych you out and manipulate you. he wants you to doubt everything" and orpheus says "are you sure tho?" and then procedes to doubt everything. the way the music changes is <3. the song transition.

wait for me (reprise). my absolute fucking favorite song in this musical. the first fucking lyric is so good. it really sets an expectation for the song and i am not disappointed. lyrics that talk about how fucked up any single person's brain is are so fucking cool to me. god i love this song. how soft the first set of "wait for me"s are. the support/pressure from the chorus. the entire exchange between hades and persephone. the way amber's voice sticks out of the chorus. the fates coming in clutch again. train references! more brain talk! amber gray please end me. eva sounds so pretty. and the final note is so good!

doubt comes in. the long intro that builds up suspense. the first time that orpheus's "la"s aren't echoed by the chorus/music. wind! weather! the fates sound so pretty like always. reeve genuinely sounds so scared. the way the music picks up and the chorus joins in when eurydice starts singing. the music is so unsettling and i love it. god i love his voice. 3:44 - 3:57 always hits so different. you realize just how much she means to him. how it all goes to shit when the music reaches the climax. the fact that the music clashes on purpose. the sadness in their voices.

road to hell (reprise). it all comes full circle. god andre sounds so sad. the way you come to really hear the lyrics because there's no upbeat music to distract you this time, "its a tragedy" lol because the actual written story is a tragedy. "i learned that from a friend of mine" poor orpheus :(. the way the chorus slowly joins in and the music slowly picks up. the "can you feel it" is literally so fucking powerful. fuck yes amber. fuck it up queen. amber and eva sound so nice together. the "its a love song, its a sad song" is so sad. the final lyric is just. ugh.

we raise our cups. yes pls amber. this song is so pretty. good night queen.

[the-resurrection-3d]

so what was ever good about acotar anyway?

For some reason, I’ve been very tempted to reread ACOTAR lately, and so I’m going to just make a quick list of what I remember specifically endearing the book to me back when I first read it in 2016 so we can compare notes later. This will, however, also include some retroactive criticisms now that we’re four years on from ACOWAR ruining everything forever. 

Twigger warnings for discussions of abuse, csa and neglect, as well as me using my complimentary R Slur Pass.

For some context: 

>Be 18yr me in 2016. 

>Be in your first semester at college. 

>Be so fed up with YA romance that you avoid books just for hinting at them in the summary. 

>Be also brainstorming a series with your roommate called The Cuckmaster Saga. 

This is probably going to sound embarrassing, but I’m being completely sincere when I say that part of why this book excited me was simply the novelty of finding a YA romance book that I liked. 

I’d fallen out hard with YA in general by this point in my life, partially because of a string of fairy tale “retellings” that clearly gave zero fucks about the source material beyond using the iconography in its marketing. Folklore had been my special interest for a while, and my excitement for the series and all its little extra niche references coincided with finally getting to study folklore in a true academic setting.

Which leads me to point one:

I love the idea of combining BatB and the Tam Lin ballad. I know some people have complained about this, but honestly, I enjoyed finding a retelling that mimicked the mix-and-match structuring of a lot of folktales. ACOTAR isn’t even the messiest or least coherent mash-up by a huge margin. Unfortunately, this aspect of the series severely lessened as it went along — remember when we all thought ACOWAR was going to be a Snow White retelling and then there was just one scene with poisoned apples? Lmao.

[If anyone wants an author who does YA mash-ups that are actually YA, I’d recommend Rosamund Hodge, whose books are always interesting in their sheer weirdness even when the story itself slightly falters. I mean, I wrote a whole 20-page thesis on her Red Riding Hood/Maiden Without Hands retelling and still didn’t cover everything I had thoughts on. (Tragically, however, I must inform you all that she is a Catholic Reylo. Rest in pepperoni.)]

It is fucking hilarious in retrospect that SJM clearly knows a bunch of different folktales and folkloric creatures but thinks it’s believable for shadowsinger powers to have no theorized origin “even [in] the rich lore of the warrior-people” (ACOFAS 65). Bro fuck outta here. 

But this leads into point two — Feyre and her family. It’s very obvious that SJM based Nesta and Elain’s dynamic with Feyre off the common folktale trope of having the youngest sibling be the only competent person in the room (and Katniss Everdeen). I thought it was honestly a lot of fun to see this trope done with some interiority; you can practically hear Feyre seethe about what useless hoes her sisters are between every line. I genuinely giggled through these parts on my initial readthrough. 

I’ve seen some people complain that Nesta and Elain’s behaviors aren’t realistic in this situation, but au contraire! Nesta and Elain’s actions in book one are (...almost) perfectly realistic. Without revealing too much, my grandmother grew up in poverty with a few older sisters, and yet my great-grandmother would make her do all the work and constantly force her to give up her possessions (like her car) to the older sisters whenever they wanted them. Even to this day, when they’re all in their 70s and 80s, one of these sisters still relies on my grandma to do basic shit like balancing her checkbooks. I’ve also observed similar dynamics play out plenty of times between an adult child and an overindulgent parent, with people literally ruining their lives and bodies all for the sake of sitting at home all day buying furry porn off the internet. 

Nesta and Elain are basically the psychology of this type of person split in two — Elain the soft, delicate, perpetually victimized front they put on for the world, and Nesta the ice-cold, bitter, and aggressive bitch they truly are. 

Honestly, the only thing I would change about this set-up is either keep Ma Archeron alive or give Papa Archeron more personality than a plank of damp wood. What’s truly missing here is a parental figure enforcing this fucked up dynamic — I don’t remember it being clear that Feyre’s always had this role, just that she took it on after her mom’s death. Making it clear that Feyre’s always been forced to be this way — alongside giving the mom more characterization — would have gone a long way towards making this dynamic feel more realized and less like the narrative using trauma and pity as a shortcut towards reader engagement. 

Then again, that would require SJM to have a female villain in this series who isn’t a rapist, and quotes I’ve seen floating around from ACOSF make it pretty clear SJM doesn’t know same-gender sexual abuse even exists. 

Anyway. 

Point Three (or rather 2B): Feyre realizing she doesn’t have to hang around her family just because she feels obligated to love them was a fucking banger. I loved it so much; having a story, especially a YA story, that showed you aren’t obligated to love a family that treats you like shit was so special to me. Especially since I was also leaving my family for the first time, and going home to visit them every other weekend felt like being hit point-blank with a Psyduck blast. 

Thankfully, my relationship with my family has gotten a lot better, but I’m still really disappointed that Nesta and Elain were forced back into the story, rather than them reaching out to Feyre and making amends because they wanted to do better.  The closest we got to this was the revelation that Nesta almost made it to the Border by herself after Feyre was taken, which was definitely badass, but also unfortunately the only Nesta scene I’ve liked in this entire fucking series. If SJM was going to force Feyre to regress into being Nesta and Elain’s tardwrangler again, then she should have followed up on Amren’s line in ACOWAR that Feyre treats Nesta and Elain the way Tamlin treated her. 

“I asked them to help once—and look what happened. I won’t risk them again.”

Amren snorted. “You sound exactly like Tamlin.”

[. . .] and I said, “She’s right.”  (169-170). 

But I’m sure everyone who’s read ACOSF knows how well that’s going. 

Point Four: the femindhjdfhfdh I can’t even write that with a straight face. I mean let’s be real, I too enjoy seeing female characters I like become queens and all that other stuff, but it was clear to me even on my initial reading of ACOMAF that it was all shallow and designed to help delineate good guys from bad guys without much in the way of nuance. It certainly took me out of the experience a little, but at least it ties into the books’ themes of recovering from abuse and shacking up with a Certified Women Respecter. 

My actual point four: Truthfully I only bought this series for the meme of having the first shitty love interest getting cucked in the second book. ACOWAR gave me some complicated feelings on Tamlin, and I honestly think he should have just stopped appearing in the series after that — BUT, having him be dragged back in once per book just to call him a cuck and cockslap him around a little bit is fucking hilarious. Pointless! But hilarious.

I also think that this kind of arc is a great critique of the standard “happily ever after,” acknowledging that in real life, you’re much more likely to just pass from one abusive household to another because you don’t know what healthy love, communication, and boundaries are. (Arguably many folktales are the fantasies of women who are well aware of this reality but want to imagine a world that’s otherwise). I definitely have a lot of problems with SJM’s claims of “sex positivity,” but acknowledging that Feylin used sex as a means of avoiding communication was another great touch.

I wish that this whole King of Hybern shit was completely cut just to focus on these themes more; it’s very clear SJM only included it because fantasy series = BIG EPIC WORLD-ENDING STAKES!! I've read maybe ten pages of Throne of Glass, so I can't speak for how she handles epic fantasy there, but I know for me and a lot of other stans, the Hybern plot had licherally nothing to do with what we liked and connected to in these books. 

But I must soften here, because I totally empathize with feeling like big stakes are “necessary” for a fantasy story and that no one would want to read your books without them. YA fantasy is the reason why TV Tropes coined the term “romantic plot tumor,” after all. (Source: I’m making shit up.) 

What else… what else… uhhhhh. I think that might be it, at least for substantial things I don’t have to qualify too much. I of course have plenty of little things I used to like but have now been tainted because ACOWAR ruined everything forever and ACOFAS danced on the graves (such as how I liked Lucien but everyone in the books shits on him now to the point it’s stopped being funny). But this post is too long anyway.

[ohmystarsy]

marsza

replied to your post

“I’ve just downloaded “Baptism of Fire” in English, half of curiosity,…”

That is SO interesting to hear- translation really is an art and a talent of its own. I’m always so curious about the nuances that are lost when things are translated. I’d love to learn more about what differences you find!!

translation really is an art! 

(this is going to be REALLY long, sorry; I’m hiding this under read more) 

I know nothing about linguistics, but what I noticed so far in English translation is that while it almost literally translates the meaning of each sentence (and it does it pretty well I must admit, and the story is still fun and enjoyable), it is using only modern vocabulary. What I really like about Sapkowski’s style - and I’ve already written about it - is that it kinda reminds me of our great writer Sienkiewicz who wrote epic historical fiction in 19th century. Sapkowski combines modern, archaic and colloquial Polish words, grammar and way of telling the story and he does it masterfully in my opinion. It’s a really weird, unique mix; some characters (like Geralt or sorceresses) speak like modern people would, while others (like Milva I mentioned) speak this rather archaic language that we associate with countryside and - let’s say - folklore. Also there are times where he just drops such a bomb in the middle of a sentence, just a word or two that you just wouldn’t EXPECT in fantasy genre (my fave from this book - and that one actually works in English almost as well as in Polish - is “[The witcher] was looking at the cormorants sitting on the shit-covered tree.” which is funny as hell - especially in context bc Geralt is brooding romantically again - and if you ever saw cormorants they ALWAYS sit on the shit-covered trees, it’s just that mental image that is just right. But then the word used in Polish for “shit-covered” is much cruder than that and for some reason it makes that sentence even funnier idk). And surprisingly all those three types of words coexists very well!

So when I read English translation it just misses this additional level. For example there is a dialogue where Milva says in English “Go to hell”. In Polish we say “Go to devil” (”Idź do diabła”), and normally I would be ok with not translating an idiom literally, BUT additionally Milva uses archaic word for the devil, which is “bies” (”Idź do biesa”) and that has just completely different feeling than English “Go to hell”! 

Or let’s take the very first sentence of the book. In English it’s “Birds were chirping loudly in the undergrowth.” Nice. Poetic almost? In Polish it’s much shorter and to the point and the word that is translated as “chirping loudly” is 1) one word (no adjective), 2) a colloquial one which makes the sentence much stronger (in my opinion). Also the structure of the sentence is reversed - in English it’d be literally “In the undergrowth were chirping loudly birds” - but I guess you just can’t do that in English (Polish has rather loose sentence structure and depending on the effect you want to have, you just move words around - so that reversed structure here also makes the sentence stronger).

I’ve only skimmed through my favourite scenes tbh (at this point I know this book almost by memory lmao, it’s my favourite one), and mostly it’s what I mentioned above (lack of archaic or colloquial language), but also what I found curious is the translation of some Polish idioms and sayings (and I haven’t realised till now that Sapkowski uses so many of them!). My fave one is the scene with higher vampire who talks about his addiction to blood and how he overcame it, quite like an alcoholic. In English the dialogue goes like this: “I noticed I could manage without them [parties and company]. Blood was all I needed, was all that mattered, even when it was…” “Just you and your shadow?” “Worse than that. I don’t even cast one.” And ok that’s maybe funny (is that some idiom in English?), BUT in Polish we have this saying of “drinking to the mirror” which is just euphemism of drinking heavy liquor alone (it's considered bad taste even in Poland hence the mirror so you at least have your own reflection for company). So in Polish the dialogue goes like “I noticed I could manage without them [parties and company]. Blood was all I needed, was all that mattered, even if I was…” “Drinking to the mirror?” “Worse that that. I don’t reflect in mirrors.” which is HILARIOUS idk it’s like this saying was just created specifically to exclude vampires from it, poor creatures!!!

Again, I don’t want to criticise the translation of this book (or at least… not so much, I wish they did better job on speach mannerisms though) and I KNOW there’s no way all that meaning and feel could be translated 1:1 especially as English and Polish are from different language families and Polish is much more poetic than English in my opinion. It’s just always interesting to compare the original and the translation and I’ve never done this with Polish-to-other-language ones, so… sorry for writing so much.

[ghosty-schnibibit]

very late (both in terms of date and time) ttazz liveblog before graduation comes out later today! 

the main reasons i put off listening to the ttazz for as long as i did:

was in the middle of a balance relisten, specifically in the middle of eleventh hour, and didn't want to break my flow there (iirc i was right before That Episode and i didn’t want the mood whiplash of going from ttazz to the emotional gut punch of the chalice)

still getting over amnesty in general because d a m n, this was my first season with taz from beginning to end that hit me hard, i needed some decompression time

i'm always a little terrified to listen to ttazz eps because i've been here for a long ass time and have seen interactions between fans and creaters go bad fast and am always quietly worried for our good good brothers even though most of the fandom is relatively chill

but graduation begins today so! i felt like i needed to get it over and done with. going into this with my only spoiler being that sternclay is canon, let's do this!

OH SHIT! new ttazz music! :D

kill me with emotions more like

or clint could be pollution a la g’omens

YES PLEASE I HAD TO GOOGLE HIM

... is there some reverb on justin's audio? he's echoing

i literally only saw ferris buller for the first time a year ago and i cannot remember wayne newton being in it

whomst???

yes please i am so curious

aww, that's fun

... so the ending was likely originally going to be duck taking over as mothman??? i'm so mad

YES PLEASE EXPLAIN GRIFFIN I WAS SO CONFUSED ABOUT THIS

g i v e  m e  t h e  l o r e  g r i f f i n

oh my god that is so good, holy shit

oh right, the npc who was a ghost that i couldn't stop picturing as owl from winnie the pooh because of his voice lmao

oh dang griffin and trav's audios are echoing too, this is super distracting

i would agree with that honestly, i feel like it was more like a tv season-esque build than an epic

... mood, and also why i think it hit everyone so hard that ned died

same, i love bad liar duck so much

the audience struggled with it too for a bit there lol

it has been so fuckin long since i listened to the first few eps of amnesty, i legit do not remember what aubrey's original voice sounded like

"how did we come to ned chicane?" damn trav

i always made a connection between suffering game and the shifter arc in my head but i didn't want to compare the two seasons unjustly, i feel better now that griffin's made it more implicit

who is clinking a spoon against a porcelain cup

"i'm checking slack, fuck you guys" pfff

that is literally how you brought barry back griffin

i need someone to write an au where aubrey touched thacker and got quelled earlier in the timeline, holy shit

dang, i could have guessed it was planned... i guess a lot of this arc's foreshadowing came in the form of "the boys all picked red null suits" moments where random things all added up

... wait, didn't duck kill the tree abomination? i need to relisten to amnesty so bad, i honestly cannot remember, i think that arc’s finale came out while i was in the middle of finals

ilu griffin

we could have had a "you earned love, but you didn't earn LOVE" moment??? g r i f f i n

YES, give me those great parallels trav

i have literally never seen a national lampoon movie guys

i thought it was!!! dang :(

honestly i wish pigeon had gotten more screen time between the arcs, she was really a wasted character imho

i love danbry so much :')

i'm only familiar with brian blessed as hamlet sr.'s ghost lmao

YEEEAH, STERNCLAY! :D

...

i maintain that she fell off a pudding fruit tree lol

oh fuck i am somehow even more happy thacker did that knowing that now holy shit

nice, time for some graduation hype!

tiny heist? i don't remember hearing anything about this :0

i am so fucking excited to see these maps trav, holy shit

i! cannot! wait! for! travis! dming!

oh my god i do the same thing with all my ocs, i have an entire publisher doc with all their info written out too

i'm so damn exited! holy shit!!!

nice one griff lmao

alrighty, that's the end of amnesty! i can't wait to see what trav has in store for us, and i'll still be here livebloging along with it for the foreseeable future ^u^

p.s.: thank you guys so much for all the love on my recent post!!! i didn't expect so many people to enjoy me venting my emotionsTM over suffering game lol

[miximax-hell]

Happy birthday to me. /o/ And that’s the first and last time I mention it in this post. I don’t care and you shouldn’t either—I just want cake.

FubuGabu is back! Not by popular demand because, well, no one has asked for it, although the feedback I got was lovely. But, hey, I had this material ready, so might as well do something with it, lame as it might be.

These are some early and not-so-early doodles of FubuGabu. The latter was pretty much the base of the final design, but the former… that’s from 2014 or something wild like that. I actually had many more doodles and concepts, but I hated them all so much that I erased most of them. I’m surprised I could save that one. I might have kept it because it was a full lineart, I guess. In any case, I’m glad I could find that much.

Since it’s fitting to do, let’s talk about FubuGabu’s design today! There’s a lot to talk about, but my memory is awful, so I’m sure I’ll forget about some things. I hope it won’t betray me too much.

Anyway, as usual, more under the cut.

Well, well, well. Ain’t this boy one little shit. Fudou gave me nightmares. Kidou is still giving me nightmares (to the point where I’m considering changing the idea I’ve had for around a year now). Someoka was awful to draw and make sense of. Max’s tail was awful to work with. But Fubuki? Fubuki is on a whole different level.

Let’s start by talking about the final design, since that’s the better one. Not even good, just better. That’s an epic victory as it is, so who cares.

FubuGabu’s design, as the reference sheet and my last post states, is not based on Gabumon, but on Gabumon’s line. What this means is that it has elements from (almost) every single one of Gabumon’s evolutions. Just for the sake of satisfying people’s curiosity, namely @IshidoShuuji’s, I’ll list the different elements here, since that’s the easiest and most straightforward way to explain it:

Tsunomon: eyes, colour of the face.

Gabumon: horn, face stripes, teeth, hair ears.

Garurumon: eyebrows, pretty much all of the hair, hair tail, forehead marks.

WereGarurumon: nose stripes, pretty much all of the hair, earrings, eye scar.

So, no, MetalGarurumon, Punimon and Omnimon/Omegamon aren’t part of the design. …Or are they?

Just kidding. They are not. ww But you shouldn’t rule them out just because of that. Well, no—rule Omnimon out. There will be no Agumon miximax, so that isn’t going to happen. I don’t want to keep people’s hopes up for nothing. I made it pretty clear from the start that I wouldn’t use a franchise twice, but I bet most people don’t know that. So, yeah.

Now that I have broken down the elements, let’s look at them from up close. This is truly a difficult design to understand, so I’ll get the explaining done as I move along.

Let me start with Tsunomon’s part. I used the colour of Tsunomon’s skin because it looks human: I didn’t want to turn Fubuki into a furry—I mean, have him all covered in hair, because it just looks weird. It was either Tsunomon’s skin or Gabumon’s, and he’s BRIGHT YELLOW. So you’re welcome.

The eyes have changed very dramatically. Tsunomon’s aren’t all that complex compared to Gabumon’s, for example, so it was easier to pull off without screwing up too much. That’s in the early concept you can see above, Fubuki has eyes based on Gabumon’s instead and it looks like he’s using about 4kg of eyeliner, hah— You’re gonna run out of money if you wear so much of it every single day, pal.

They’re not exactly Tsunomon’s eyes, although it’s a rather radical change. As I mentioned when I talked about Creature miximaxes, eyes get rather distinctive shapes when animals (or monsters) are involved. I did something that goes against my analysis, though: I added light to FubuGabu’s eyes. Just because I hate myself and because it looked kinda weird without it.

While Tsunomon’s eyes are completely round, FubuGabu’s actually follow the shape of Fubuki’s eyes, although vaguely. The irises are Fubuki’s, period. I simply extended the lines to match the new shape of the eye. The lower eyelid creates a straight line based on the hypothetical line of Fubuki’s eyes, which is visible in coloured art. The outer part of the eyes also matches that of Fubuki, not to mention that I kept the fold over the upper eyelid and the little marks below the eyes. The main difference, therefore, is the thicker contour (which is linked to the spikes) and the curve that replaces the right angles on Fubuki’s usual eyes.

Let’s move on to Gabumon. His marks were probably the toughest to place, and it doesn’t help that Fubuki’s refs are so BAD. REALLY. Many, most characters have references that match. Maybe not perfectly, but almost. But Fubuki? Fubuki ain’t need none of that crap. When you are this FABULOUS, no one cares about your face changing size and shape in every screenshot or your hair going longer and shorter every 5 seconds. Everyone is blinded by your sparks, anyway, so who will notice?

I noticed. But anyway. ww

Since Gabumon only has markings on half of his body (since the rest is all yellow), I let FubuGabu borrow those on Gabumon’s nose. Actually, if you were to strip FubuGabu (please don’t do that), you’d see that his whole body is covered with markings. I like to think that those belong to Gabu, even if they could easily belong to Garuru or Were instead. Still, that means that the marks on his neck are Gabu’s.

As for the marks on his cheeks, they were very easy to place on the front view and frustrating to figure out elsewhere. I just gave up on them at some point and thought, “meh, Inazuma has pulled off weirder stuff!” They’re supposed to end somewhere behind the jaw, though, but before reaching the neck. Hence why I actually drew the jawline ww

The horn and the teeth are pretty self-explanatory, but I’ll point something out about the latter: I only added two teeth even though Gabumon has many because I wanted some kind of parallelism with Someoka. He, too, has two teeth, but they grow on the opposite direction. True teammates who complement each other!

Now, for the hair ears, aka those things growing from the sides of his head. Those are 100% hair—they don’t really serve a purpose. As such, using Gabumon’s seemed like the best idea. After all, what makes WereGarurumon’s ears interesting are the earrings, but how do you put an earring on hair? As for Garurumon, his ears are just more boring than Gabumon’s. Gabu’s ears are kind of quirky and worn out, which is a cool little thing that I felt like adding. Also, Garuru’s ears go upwards and I didn’t dig that.

Regardless, Garurumon is probably the star of this design. Most of the bigger elements are based on him, after all. You could argue that many of them also belong to Were, but I was looking at Garuru when I designed them. I guess that’s enough of a reason. I guess.

There was an element of Garuru’s design that I really, really wanted to add to Fubuki: the feather-shaped hair growing from his back. You know, these things:

After fiddling with that idea a whole lot, I eventually realised that it was best to keep it simple and shape Fubuki’s hair to look like those… however you wanna call them. I’ll just call them feathers. It may not be a perfect resemblance (and it may not make perfect sense either lmao), but I definitely thought it looked the best. These are actually not too hard to draw:

The first feather (from the top) follows the natural curve of Fubuki’s hair, but instead of curving down again, it creates an arrow-like shape.

The second feather starts and ends in the exact same spots as Fubuki’s, but instead of curving upwards, it’s completely horizontal.

The third one is the trickiest: it’s long and doesn’t match Fubuki’s normal hair. The part that touches the second feather starts where it should, but the part that touches the fourth one doesn’t. It’s tough to explain, so here’s a picture that will hopefully make it all clear:

The last feather is shorter and isn’t as diagonal as the third one, but it does start and end at odd places, too. The “trick” to draw it is keeping in mind that the third and the fourth feathers end at pretty much the same height:

The fifth feather isn’t even a feather; it’s just a simple spike. Nothing relevant there ww

Garurumon is also responsible for the marks next to the ears and the one on the forehead, not to mention the top of the head in general. The ones on the ears weren’t too bad, but the forehead was frustrating. As I mentioned, Fubuki’s references are a mess and I draw over them for the sake of keeping the original proportions, but it backfired in this case. Since they’re all so different from each other, Fubuki’s forehead grows bigger or smaller depending on the view, so the forehead mark is radically less visible sometimes, even though it technically shouldn’t be. Still, rather than repositioning it every time, I thought it made more sense to place it correctly to settle for a specific place, so that’s what I did.

Now, the top of the head is tricky. Let’s start by saying that it’s based on Garurumon’s back. Maybe WereGarurumon’s too, but I couldn’t find a single picture of Were’s back, so who knows. As you can see in the following image, Garuru’s back has a long, thin line that goes from his head to his tail, and that’s exactly what happens to FubuGabu too. You can’t quite see the end of the line because of the hair, but it’s still there… technically.

That thin line sprouts into a bunch of rugged lines, and that’s exactly what happens with FubuGabu too. The lines are rather random (and I didn’t spend much time figuring the size out, whoops), but they do follow some certain shapes. The closest line to the face might be rugged, but it goes straight down. The second one starts from way back, but it’s shaped like an arrow pointing at the face. The tips of both lines are fairly close, too. The third line is way smaller than the rest, and is also the last one you can see, but definitely not the last one in general.

Let’s talk about Fubuki’s little sprout as well. As you know, Fubuki’s sprout has two locks of hair, but FubuGabu’s has three. That’s because FubuGabu’s is also based on Garurumon: to be more specific, on this part:

I tried adding that part just the way it is by sticking it to the forehead, but I didn’t like the result at all, so I figured it was best to do something funny with Fubuki’s sprout instead. Oh, well. Choices! And talk about choices, I added Garurumon’s tail simply so the hair would be a complete portrayal of his figure. As I mentioned in the post I linked to above, miximaxing with creatures often leads to that, so yeah.

The hair is obviously the biggest and most visible part of FubuGabu’s design, but Garuru hogs quite a few other spots. Not Gabumon, nor Tsunomon, nor WereGarurumon (nor Punimon) have eyebrows, so I was pretty much forced to use Garurumon’s. Not like I mind, because they’re pretty awesome. It’s kind of sad that they’re usually not visible, but, to be honest with you guys… they’re kind of a pain to draw because of their very specific shape. So I’m secretly glad. ww

And last, but not least, WereGarurumon. Ah, what a little shit. How come there are official linearts for MetalGarurumon, but not for WereGarurumon? Anyway. ww

Were’s contribution is pretty straightforward. Earrings, a scar and marks. There are a couple of things worth mentioning, though.

For the earrings, I noticed too late that Were has both white and red earrings. I was going to use the red earrings because they stand out more, but I noticed that the visible ear was on the side of the white ones… And it was too late to change the design completely, so I just went for the white. Too bad, but life is simply unfair. Especially when you don’t pay attention.

Now, the nose marks are funny. I struggled so much with those. As you can see on the second picture of this post, they were originally going to be shaped like triangles, but I didn’t dig that. And even after I changed the design, I couldn’t get them right, which was… frustrating.

(Also, it took me a long time to realise that the bridge of the nose would be hiding one half of the marks in every view except the front one. After I did, though, everything finally looked better. Thank goodness.)

Anyway, I think that pretty much covers the final design, but let’s also talk about the early designs real quick.

Nothing much to say about the second picture of the post. I just made sure to make some sense out of the markings and retouched the elements I mentioned above. Well, I tried to polish everything, really.

Now, the first picture of the post is easily over 2 years old. It was one of the first, if not the very first, concept of FubuGabu. And, man, what a mess.

It was like, “what does Garurumon have? Feather thingies! SO LET’S ADD THEM EVERYWHERE.” The feather thingies appear on his forehead, the locks of hair over his face, on his hair and even behind his head. I could never figure the latter out—but, man, did I spend hours trying to make those work. And all because Garurumon has feather on his face and on his back, so I felt like FubuGabu needed two layers of feathers too. Thankfully, I eventually realised many of these elements simply weren’t needed, like that second layer of feathers, the earrings on Garurumon’s ear (which, again, are made of hair, so wtf), and… the ring at the end of the tail? Where did that come from? This is Garurumon, not Gatomon! Geez, self!

Some of the early elements made it to the final design. The overall shape of his eyebrows, the markings on the head, the neck and the cheeks and even the horn, just to mention a few. The final feel to it is completely different, though.

This is probably because of how different the hair looks. FubuGabu’s original hair was full of feathers, but they didn’t fit Fubuki’s normal hair. They were randomly coming out of his head for whatever reason. Not to mention that the hair falling over his face looks like tentacles rather than anything else. It looks like a miximax with Squidward rather than with Gabumon. Ugh, I hate myself. XD

One last note: I don’t know where the forehead mark on that first design comes from. I guess it’s meant to be Gabumon’s, somehow? I forgot and I’m too tired to investigate it. It probably never made sense, anyway. XD

I think I covered everything! But, phew, that took long. Still, if anything isn’t clear or there’s something I forgot to mention, please let me know!

(Also, I’m too tired to re-read this post, so excuse the many typos that I probably made. I’ll check it out... eventually.)