#but I just really wanted to draw robots as anime girls

[compaculaaa]

A maid with an Icy spark 😉❄️

[shokveyv]

shut up

[ferrotaxis]

[anothermonikan]

Me: Literally just trying to draw anything, anything at all

The irreversible impact these two fuckers had on my art:

[spicymancer]

So just wanted you to know, "yellow" is a common slur against Asian Americans and so Huang Feng, being a Bruce Lee (whos an Asian man) clone and all could raise some eyebrows to your intentions. And before i get accused of white knighting, i am Asian

Thanks for reaching out! This is honestly something that might be important to discuss and I appreciate your attempt at broaching the subject delicately. More after the jump.

So to start. I am also Asian. Specifically Chinese American.

As an American born Chinese, I have a weird relationship with my Asian heritage. I have a bad accent when I speak Chinese and most of my upbringing and cultural understanding is very American and western-centric. So I have certain biases at play here that I fully acknowledge. My experience is not universal. But these characters are drawn from that experience.

Huang Feng is a reference to Bruce Lee's performance as Kato in the Green Hornet. Dà Huángfēng being a Chinese term for a hornet.

The character is also narratively implied to be a secret moonlighting identity for the Yellow Ranger in my made-up sentai team. (Who, due to my own decision to always refer to the characters by their Ranger color, is literally just called Yellow by the other members of the cast.)

This is also a reference. Specifically to one of my greatest inspirations, Thuy Trang (Rest in Peace), who played the original Mighty Morphin Yellow Ranger. She was one of the first "Cool Asian Characters" that I encountered in media targeted at me as a child, problematic color choice aside. I sincerely adored her and her giant robot Saber-Toothed Tiger.

To be honest I have a complicated relationship with "Asian Themed" characters in media. So often saddled with cliché stereotypes: Martial Arts, dumplings, nunchucks, etc etc.

But the thing is, even as I roll my eyes whenever I see the Fighting Game character that is The Chinese One who wears a rice hat and a qipao. Or when one is literally just Bruce Lee. I do also immediately main that character. It's a bit of a guilty pleasure. Taking what representation I can get with mixed feelings. Similar to my enjoyment of sexy anime girl art even though it's all rooted in pretty uncomfortable sexist and objectifying aesthetics. A lot of my work comes from a place of exploring my own sexuality/identity. These characters are, partly, my own attempt to explore Asian themes and ideas for myself.

I would love to say that I'm trying to "reclaim" the term or something but I'm just some internet artist drawing cute anime girls and monster smut. For me, playing with these clichés is just another way of being self-indulgent.

Not really defending these creative choices so much as explaining my perspective on them. I totally understand if all this turns folks off! I fully respect those who don't vibe with my work and wish them all the best. It's a big internet and I'm sure they can find something super great to enjoy elsewhere!

Anyway, sorry for the long rambly post. Despite the fact that I'm posting this on Tumblr, I am not super mentally equipped to engage in Discourse, so forgive me if I don't respond to the tags on this.

So I'll just leave y'all with a neat article by Kat Chow discussing the history and usage of the color Yellow in regards to Asian Identity.

[winxwiki]

On the Winx reboot leaks

Long post, leaks analisis, spoilers if you don't want to see it under Read More. Seeing the Rainbow artist names attached onto these pictures and the development renders, these are 100% real. On top of that, It's not the first time Rainbow got something leaked, received feedback and acted accordingly. Remember the negative feedback on the 2023 easter eggs designs? Poof, gone. Remember the positive feedback on the 2023 leaked group design? Suddenly, Rainbow started using that Bloom at press events.

I genuinely believe that Rainbow "leaks" stuff now on purpose to receive feedback without actually needing to announce anything final to broadcasters.

Let's see.

From the Lorem Ipsum we can tell this isn't remotely final, but a group test. We're back to Bloom with a ponytail (they really like it!) and Tecna does have robotic limbs. Each girl's design seems to reflect their elements:

Stella has stars, the sun, wings at her feet and light, even light rays on her wings and top

Bloom seems to have scales of some sort and patterns on her leggings. Maybe to indicate that she's an artist? Or meant to represent the breath of life?

Musa, the smallest, got some musical sheet onto her. Overall not the most musical inspired design. Everybody kinda looks like an ice skating ballerina.

Flora got flowers. Really most obvious one there.

Aisha's hair is a bit too much, I prefer her civilian braids more. I like how her dress has wavy patterns of sorts and sparkles that look like shining waters on her shorts and skirt. They can do better on her though. Wings look like they got splashes of water. It's still cool that Rainbow is experimenting more with black textured hair than any american animation studio, so kudos for that.

Tecna looks like she's wearing a circuit but looks the most generic. Probably because she has too much going on with a full bodysuit with patterns. I don't like the accessory on her head.

Proof that these are real: these obvious dev documents

They even got an alt with their "civilian" hairstyles, but it says "transform". Which means no hairstyle or design is final so far.

It seems Musa and Tecna share skintones, Bloom has her own, Stella and Flora share it too, Aisha has her own and is the darkest. I think we can make Stella and Flora a little darker each in varying degrees, to show that Stella is tanned and Flora is a dark skinned latina.

There is a lot of focus on the designs we saw leaked that got positive reception. It's likely they will be finalized, since they went as far as making a test animation with that Bloom design.

A lot going on here in this room already giving Bloom so much personality. Her own shelf with the name with a heart-shaped B. A guitar? A sketchbook and school supplies. Bloom is back to drawing again, we last saw that in World of Winx but in the main series it was always just left implied by her earth room's belongings and her huge drawing desk, yet it was never expanded upon. Hopefully her being an artist can finally shine through her personality.

Most importantly, she's back to being silly, goofy and expressive again. Of course, the reboot is back to square one with the story and characterizations. I hope more quirks that were not explored in the main series get more attention in the reboot (again, like Bloom being an artist!)

The Trix now got a symbol and individual faces while sharing the same body. Icy's design is nearly identical to the original, I actually like the small cuts showing skin on her chest, so she doesn't feel too covered up. Midriffs are back and so is 2000s fashion.

Important detail, Icy is taller than Bloom. Is it her heels? Regardless, we got some more body diversity.

Some more notes:

Artist is credited as Pasqualino Masciulli, a real 3d artist at Rainbow

Date is 17 April 2024, for some reason they're using the wrong format. This is VERY recent. They're NOWHERE near done!

It says episode 106. It must be a reference to the reboot itself, Season 1, episode 6, as the old series episodes in total were 208. This means the series has at least finished writing and storyboarding, but they haven't finished with the character designs yet!

Further proof that fucking nothing is done yet, the leaker said this. From what I just noted above, I believe it. They're not remotely done.

This "Damien" motherfucker looks ai generated, doesn't fit the style in the slightest with his weirdly realistic face and the belts details and clothing folds are all over the place. Shame to whoever did this.

Who even is this guy? Is he the new character Iginio was warning us about? He doesn't look bad but they can do even better. Definitely a fascinating choice for the sexy bad boy, because I know that's who he's gonna be.

Don't fucking use AI for your art, though. It looks like shit.

Interesting, no specialists in the leaks. No Roxy or Terra either though.

This outfit is a mix of 2 outfits from season 2. Which means they're studying their own old designs. The same goes for another Bloom render and concept.

Fascinating detail: they're using 2000s dress up pixel dolls as reference. Learn from the masters! This dress doesn't resemble anything and doesn't seem to be a civilian dress but a transformation one, with all the glitters and stars around.

Last but not least, absolutely atrocious 2000s fashion is back (this is a good thing). We can hope a little but it's surprising how in 5 years they haven't done shit yet. That's some development hell. Either Iginio is really passionate about making this the second coming of Christ or they don't know what the fuck they're doing.

Free hopium tanks!

[mixelation]

i've finished reading xiran jay zhao's iron widow! here is my review so far (contains spoilers, including the "twist" at the end). my tl;dr is that it starts as a fun revenge story but both the quality of the narrative and the writing itself decline over the course of the novel. you might like it if you want a power fantasy where the main character is unapologetically violent and selfish, and you don't mind cardboard characterization or shallow worldbuilding. if you want a nuanced take on how misogyny functions in a society, a book about strong female characters (as opposed to a singular, capital Strong Female Character), or you find descriptions of anime-style action scenes cringey, you this book may not be for you.

on to the full review ->

iron widow is a scifi-fantasy YA book set in alternate timeline china, where humanity battles invading alien "hunduns" using gundam-esque giant robots called "chrysalises." a lot of the worldbuilding draws on the aesthetic and certain social norms of ~old timesy~ china (iirc zhao has stated they pulled inspiration from lots of time periods, but my familiarity with both historical china and chinese historical fantasy is very low, so i am absolutely not the person to label anything beside "the past"). so you have people checking tablets and riding around in hovercraft and using modern slang, but a lot of Aesthetic elements are more traditional, and society is deeply, deeply sexist in a way that.... feels old-fashioned (wording chosen to set the Mood apart from how modern misogyny tends to work). for example, the main character has bound feet but also uses phrases like "railed on."

chrysalises, the giant robots, work by the pilot channeling qi. for whatever reason that's not really well explained, they require a copilot to boost their control/power over the chrysalis. think "drifting" in pacific rim, except here when pilots are not compatible with their copilot (this seems to rely largely on "qi levels" and pilots don't seem to have control over it), the "weaker" copilot can become overwhelmed and die. in this setting, the main pilot is always male the copilot always female, with the copilot usually dying. this part of the premise as it is described on the back of the book confused me as a setting for a ~feminist~ story, because why would men always win in a wild mind-meld, battle-of-wills situation? however, the main character slowly figures out that it's not that men are inherently stronger pilots-- it's that women are always paired with a male pilot the military has tested to be stronger (based on qi levels), and then later one of the plot twists is that the chrysalises are designed to weaken the female copilot. this is because, in the way sexism works in this society, "families wouldn't send their sons to be pilots if they knew they could be killed by some girl." (not an exact quote, but what one character gives as the explanation)

weaker female copilots are called "concubines" and teenaged girls are frequently sold to the military to be concubines. if the concubine survives, she's dubbed a "balanced match" for the male pilot and they become quasi-married. more on this later.

this leads us to wu zetian, a "frontier peasant" who offers herself up to be a "concubine" (co-pilot). we learn that zetian's older sister was sold off by their family to be a concubine, but was murdered by her assigned pilot. like, regular murdered, not killed by a psychic link the way most concubines are. so zetian, having a shit home life, and under pressure to sell herself as well, decides she will enlist and then murder her sister's killer.

now, i had a lot of fun with the beginning of this story. but in order to get into this book, you have to accept upfront that zetian is very firmly the main character, and she is always right and ridiculously strong, clever, and resilient just because. she runs her mouth even at the risk of violence, and is usually meant to be right about whatever she's saying. she rejects her role in society just because, and she decides she doesn't care if her whole family is punished or even killed for her actions because they're terrible to her, and the reader isn't really expected to criticize this. despite having no formal education, she always knows what she needs to know to logic her way through things successfully, and she can strategize and debate on par with people whose literal jobs it is to do these things.

for the first ~25% of the book, this is fun. zetian has decided fuck the system, fuck her family, and fuck her own life-- if they're going to kill her, she's bringing her sister's murderer down with her. she doesn't care about having to endure demeaning tests or people insisting on putting her through painful make-up routines. this is a girl who just has murder on her mind, and it's pretty entertaining.

then, she's shoved into the co-pilot seat of a chrysalis with the man who killed her sister as the main pilot, and through some messy mind-scape battling, she kills him. she takes control of the chrysalis and wins the battle. and then..... the book sort of stops having a real plot, and everything slows down.

see, in the first chunk where we're reading a vengeful murder plot, everything is centered around this one goal. zetian's extreme personality makes sense because we're reading about someone who's actively thrown her life away for revenge. we're on board with it and we wan to see how she manages it. this premise allows for an unhinged protagonist making unhinged decisions.

so what happens next, if she accomplished her goal a quarter of the way in? the military decides to pair her with a character called li shimin, who is the current top pilot. he's the top pilot in that pilots are given scores (their battles are televised and they're treated as a celebrities) and also he has the highest qi level. he's also a convicted murderer and was recruited off death row. sounds fun, right? wrong. shimin is a cardboard cut out of a man. he barely speaks. the only thing he really does is drink and fight people. he gets into physical fights with little provocation. the narration makes a big point of really driving home how big and intimidating he is.... and also how he's an ethnic minority. i cannot comment on if this was meant to reflect any real world group or how they're treated, but overall shimin's characterization make me slightly uncomfortable AND he's just not very interesting. later we find out he's an ex-scholar who murdered his whole family after walking in on his brother raping someone (yeah, i..... idk), and he used to write poems. i think this was meant to make him seem more fleshed out, but the character writing needs a lot of work, so "ex-scholar and poet" is a very informed trait.

if you've followed the buzz on this book, you'll know one of its "draws" is that the end game ship is polyamorous. so, zetian has a second love interest. his name is yizhi and he's the fifth son of the richest man in the country, and he made friends with zetian before the start of the novel. the way they met and bonded doesn't super make sense, but i'm willing to buy into it. yizhi has been infused with SLIGHTLY more personality. he signs up to work for the military as a strategist, which is how he gets to hang out with zetian and shimin. his contribution to the plot is mostly just that he has money to throw at problems. oh, and he can give their chrysalis a boost of qi for extra power and starts hanging out with them in their cockpit during battles. why others don't also do this, and why pilots need to parasite a copilot instead of just having other people around for extra qi, is never explained. zetian has a line where she says something like "don't you know a triangle is the strongest shape?" so i kind of dig what i think zhao was going for (that they balance each other better than just two of them would), but it's not really a realized theme.

okay, so if zetian killed who she wanted to kill, then what's the rest of the book about? good question! it's a little unclear. zetian survives copiloting with shimin and they're declared a balanced match. then the buddies of the pilot zetian killed try to kill her. then the military tries to kill her AND shimin by sending them into battles when they're too tired. then zetian asks yizhi's rich dad to help them with their PR so the government will stop trying to kill them. then they decide to "take back" a province the hunduns took over years ago. then zetian realizes the chrysalises are rigged against female pilots and they go and kidnap and torture a guy to make him confess to how it's done. then they go to take back the province and zetian finds the cryopreserved body of an ancient emperor and his dragon chrysalis. oh, did i not mention him? yeah he's some legend that gets brought up a couple times and then suddenly he's there at the end. but he doesn't do anything. he just agrees with everything zetian wants to do, for some reason, and what she spontaneously decides to do with her new giant robot is go take over the government. she kills multiple people. then the book ends with them finding out they're on the hundun's native planet. okay???

the last 75% just reads like a bunch of things happening because why not. this by itself isn't necessarily bad, but the events are not well connected nor do events get set up in a way where you understand why they occur in the order they occur. zetian stays angry and determined, but her actual overall goal evaporates and instead it just feels like every few chapters she just decides on a new thing she wants. one could argue her overall goal is "claiming agency" or "survival," but they narrative doesn't really carry either of these themes through. for example, in the first quarter of the book, zetian repeated emphasizes she's ready and willing to through her life away if she can get her revenge, and i believed that. but after she miraculously survives.... that willingness to throw her life away vanishes, but not in a "character has undergone development" way. it's just not there anymore.

the writing isn't amazing in the first quarter, but i thought it was fine. it steadily declines over the course of the book, making it feel like a rough draft where zhao was losing steam. instead of getting to see characters interact and play off each other, we just read descriptions of events and conversations. this is nitpicky, but one thing that was starting to drive me crazy through out the book is that the narration frequently would be like "oh, earlier so-and-so showed me this" and then it would be something that could have EASILY just been included at the beginning of the scene and would have also been INTERESTING to see.

the world has a lot of elements going on, but there is a huge problem with telling and not showing, so even with lots of details, the worldbuilding feels shallow. for example, despite zetian saying defeating hunduns has to be a priority, i don't know what happens if hunduns successfully invade an area. we're never shown a ransacked village or hunduns killing anyone but unnamed pilots. the narrative spends a lot of time talking about different element qi and the advantages and disadvantages of each element, but this never actually becomes plot relevant. the pilots are paraded out to the public as fancy celebrities and zetian and shimin have photoshoots for PR, but this also never really becomes plot relevant besides being well-liked being something zetian decides would be a good idea for a few chapters. we don't even know what zetian's relationship with her sister is like, even though she decides to die seeking revenge for her.

i want to expand on that last part a bit. zetian states repeatedly that she wants to help save other girls from becoming concubines, and yet no stakes are attached to this. shimin accidentally killed a concubine he was in love with before the start of the book, so we get some flashbacks of her, but otherwise we never see the impact (or lack of impact) of these young girls' deaths. like, that character really only exists as a tragic backstory for shimin. there's no sympathetic concubine character that dies to drive home the point (although there IS a mean concubine character that presumably died and zetian never thinks of again); there's no meeting a family that misses their daughter; there's no dramatically prying open a cockpit to free a concubine. there are two other female pilots who are balanced matches, and one is a bitch to zetian and the nice one backstabs and attempts to kill her later. zetian never sympathizes with another girl or woman for more than a few lines, including her own sister, so it is unclear why saving girls is so important to her. there's a brief moment where the "nice" female pilot points out to zetian that living in poverty and being terrified of hunduns attacks likely contributed to the various types of misogynistic abuse going on in her family and that providing more support for them would help them.... and zetian sympathizes with her mother for maybe a paragraph.... and then at the end of the book she decides to murder her family. Uh. Okay? Oh, and when the "nice" pilot betrays her, she says it was because the military had her kids and was threatening them. zetian decides to literally crush her to death. Feminism, I guess.

when i read through reviews of this book, the negative ones largely complained about zetian as a character. i always take reviews complaining the main female character is a bitch with a grain of salt, because often they're just bullshit and also i like horrible women. i liked zetian alright for the first two thirds of them book, although she starts to come off as weirdly arrogant at some point. (she starts to refer to herself as one of the most powerful women in the world due to her qi level, even though this does not help her physically, politically, or socially, and she has very little actual agency until just revives a frozen emperor at the end and goes off the rails.) however, this time i think the complaints are merited. you ever read a dark harry fic? or a "naruto gets chased by villagers, becomes powerful and murders them all" type fic? it's like that but if those types of writers were 5% more aware of social issues. zetian is self-righteous about wanting to change the pilot system, but her actions do not indicate she actually gives a shit about anyone but her and her boyfriends. so in the end it seems like even though she's preaching about saving girls, she's actually going, "me! what about me! how dare you do these bad things to ME!" which like. obviously it's fine to be angry about wrongs done to you, but it comes off like she's less upset about systemic problems and more upset the systemic problems happened to HER. there's a lack of nuance and character work that would make or explore this difference.

hmm, what else. i don't really have specific compliments or complaints about the romance aspect, other than the inter-character relationships aren't really built up well. there's definitely effort put into the zetian-yizhi and zetian-shimin relationships, it's just that.... neither of the boys have a ton of personality....? also there's a few oddly placed asides about zetian not feeling ashamed of having two lovers, which feel more liek they're there to justify it to the reader than zetian's actual internal monologue. it's okay, zetian. i did not for a second think you were a shamed of a single thing you've done.

The top review on amazon says, "Wow… this is everything you could want from a science fiction novel." Iron Widow is sci-fi the way Star Wars or Pacific Rim are sci-fi: it's fantasy with robots. Except there's no loving descriptions of engines revving or switches being flipped. There's not even cool little alien dudes; I don't even know what a hundun looks like.

[goatpaste]

Is there any specific reason why you named your characters stands what they are now?

lol ye I can speedrun these real fast

-Song I like

-Song I like

-Wanted a stand with rat in the name lol

-song I like, but friend kept joking that I kept drawing Mary the sheep in the same pose and she didnt look alive. So I fell in love with the idea of an stand user animal coming back after taxidermy with their stand (much like stray cat) So I thought a big ol crocodile was a good fit and an easy song choice from there

-I love Always by Erasure, and making them into a big robotic unicorn was a sweet cute reference to me :)

-wanted something with an anglerfish vibe and outcame Doro with Fisherman's blues

-Song i like

-Already had the idea that 'would Happy birthday count as a stand song name' in my head, then my friend while watching 5th element was refering to Ruby Rohds like 'your jojo ocs having an announcer like him, someone who would crawl right into the fighting ring an dget so amped and involved' really got me i loved that idea. So they took inspo from Ruby Rohds and i just scooped but the happy birthday idea, also Stevie Wonder has his happy birthday song so it worked out lol

-I like this song, but also, it feels ironically fitting for her. A song about a girl at her own party crying, while is a song about a girl being wronged this is being applied to a woman who is defiantly in the wrong and playing victim because its 'her party' she's going to do what she wants

-Mac started in design as my jojo sona (still sorta is, like a rohan and araki situation) so I named his stand the name of my 1# favorite song from my childhood.

-Named that because whitney was originally designed as an adoptable design where all the stands were named after ABBA songs because i was watching the Mamma Mia movies. its a good ass song lol

-I love animal stand users, so I made mary who was named after the 'mary had a little lamb' song ofc, and I thought it be cute to make her stand a big wolf. A wolf in sheeps clothing gimmick. But tbh, not my favirote song lol. Not a big Duran Duran fan, music that is ok but gets tiring fast.

-Song I love

-Designed the stand before i ever designed Janelle or gave it a name. So when it came time to put a name to a face I was like, this bitch is yellow and I like The Cranberries, they have a song called yellow skies. thats good right?

[conkreetmonkey]

Concept: Kris, Mettaton and Mew Mew have formed Hometown's first ever trans support group.

No discussion takes place, they just sit on plastic chairs in the school gymnasium and play Super Fighting Brothers on the wheely TV, sketch their edgy gender-envy-projection OCs (you can probably guess what MTT and Mew Mew's tend to look like, both are still ghosts of course), listen to nightcore, and consume obscene quantities of cheap fruit juice, slimy brown apple slices, Ice-E's pizza and dry grocery store cookies off of a folding table (provided in corporeal and non-corporeal varieties by Toriel (they're all hungry teens given a snack fund, they ravage that table every time)).

They're the school's only non-sports club (and Jockington is the only member of every sports team), so they pretty much get all the funding they want within reason, but all they've really bought is a trans flag to hang on the wall when Hometown Public School Trans Youth Support Group is in session.

They meet up once a week.

This is the only form of trans "care" any recieves because Kris doesn't care due to their natural androgyny and Alphys isn't a robot-designing, life-size-anime-girl-fascimile-owning royal scientist in DR. Despite all 3 of them being different flavors of trans, they're ride-or-die about their club and each other's validity.

(granted, as for why MTT and Mew Mew are teens, that would require some AU-ing... while the idea of Mew Mew and Mettaton being adults and serving as trans role models for Kris is both enticing and more vanilla-friendly (although both seem to be closeted in vanilla, so...), the idea of a cringe-ass high school club friend group made up of an edgy emo enby, a transmasc glitter femboy and a transfemme pastel lolita anime magical girl... like, please tell me you see the lite AU potential here?

Kris would still befriend Suzie, of course, who would not understand what being trans was ("I just thought humans were... like that" and "ok... you're a boy, and you're a girl... and? Ok?? Good for you???Kris, these are just two normal ghosts, I don't get it.") and join in on a "support group" meeting to "learn."

She'd eat an unfair amount of the snacks, get too into an intense match of SFB, and laugh at Mettaton and Mew Mew's bad half-demon-half-angel OCs before making MTT cry, which would send Mew Mew into a white-hot protective rage, forcing Suzie to apologize under threat of violence, which she does before admitting Metta's half-oni bishounen samurai OC was "kinda sick, honestly." She'd then walk home with Kris, excited because "Kris, that's what "transgender" is? That was cool as hell! I'm in! I'm trans now!" She'd sign up for the "club" the next day.

She'd continue to be a girl, but when prompted would tell people she was "totally like 100% trans" and not elaborate. She still wouldn't really "get" it, because they're just a boy, girl and other thing with nothing seemingly special about them, but would assume that her experience of poring over terrible "How to Draw Manga" books from the library, stacking classroom chairs into thrones, roughhousing over alleged video game "cheating," and getting free terrible cookies is what "being trans" is.

Ok, so I literally pulled this out of my ass as I typed, but omg I think this could actually make a decent fanfiction? Imagine the possibilities... do they still find the dark world, and what would MTT and Mew Mew's alt forms look like? Do they ever meet up in other areas, like the library or the park? Sleepovers? Birthday parties?? Conventions??? Hell, this has big askblog potential, too. Now I want to write this, if my ADHD will let me... cute, nostalgic slice-of-life about awkward small-town baby-queer teens being cringe and free... holiday "episodes..." misfit friendships... trans joy...

[the-sinful-voice-witch]

SONAMY ongoing evolution

I've been playing Sonic frontiers and I watched Sonic prime and I read the IDW comics... Omg where's do I start???

Sonic frontiers is just a work of art in general, but the sonamy inside is just beautifully portrayed, I can say that Ian Flynn totally ships them 😌😌. I'm just so utterly happy how things had changed even if it took so many years

Sonic changed a lot his perception of Amy! 🥲🥲🥲 Also the detail of the umbrella line, remember that sonic was created in Japan, say fellow anime fans what does usually means when two characters share an umbrella? What does it mean when students in Japan draw an umbrella in the blackboard with two names written under it? It is clear that Ian Flynn totally knows the meaning and the MUSIC! Seriously those scenarios with Amy and that music felt like it came right out of a shojo anime😖😖😖💗💗

But also the feels... THE FUCKING FEELS!! The way Amy is kind of too calm with her situation but Sonic is just so worried and you could tell how worried he was even if he tried to play it cool... His expressions girl... Look at him with his cute ears dropped 🥲🥲🥲 Guys this game fed us good stuff... We shippers finally got what we had always wanted.

Next topic: Sonic Prime.

So I'm a bit conflicted, cause i only liked one of Amy's different designs and that was Thorn Rose, I'm obsessed with her hair but dude Rusty Rose? That could have been better... Also why Rusty Rose and not Metal Rose? Cyborg Rose? Badnik Rose? Mecha Rose? Robot Rose? Rusty sounds a bit degrading... It is because she was made like that by the Egg council? Pff also her robot appearance is just so ugly! What with that eye? But I love the dark concept and I love her SASS 🤣🤣🤣🤣Anyway my problem with Rusty Amy and Sonic is that it feels like the situation is not treated nearly as serious as Nine situation and boy ok you are a hurt loner with bully victim issues but Amy is basically dead, like there's no flesh or organs in her, she literally has a Birdy as a source of life and what is the outcome of that? Is there another outcome different from Gamma's fate in sonic adventure? Because the second Amy gets back her emotions she will want to release the bird... But more importantly... I can't wait to see Shadow react to her... This is the girl that reminded him of Maria, i really shouldn't but I really have high expectations for what kind of interaction will they have, we really need to see Shadow and Amy interact more let's be honest. As for the other Roses, there's no much to say about Black Rose but with Thorn we got good stuff too:

But I have to say one thing... Ok I know Amy is a strong power character but... It's a bit ridiculous that she could fight off characters like Rouge and Knuckles THAT EASY is just...🙃🙃🙃 Well i loved the part when he tries to reason with her all like: you liked me... A bit? Remember? And she is just so irritated and done with him already 🤣🤣🤣 but then... We also got this:

Actually touch her cheek you COWARD!!😤😤 Also when he was about to smash her and but stopped because he has a flashback of his Amy 😭😭😭, it's curious that Thorn Rose seems to be more impactful in Sonic than Rusty Rose which is ok but is odd plot speaking, after all Rusty is the one in the worst condition and is the one hunting him down, I'll just wait for next season and see what happens

And last but not the least I Shall say something about THIS!!

This illustration hit me right in the kokoro, date with hands holding and Sakura petals... is pure shojo manga energy!! I'm so blessed 😭😭💗💗

And of course the important reminder that Amy is a POWER CHARACTER and that's why she and knuckles make a good POWER SIBLINGS team as I stated in their own post about them... And dear Silver fucking gave her a COLOSSAL hammer 😂😂😂do not mess with the pink hedgehog buddy, and of course Sonic knows exactly how awesome she is as it should be, seriously she is really getting better and better, i really hope we'll see her in the next movie

[magicalswordgirls]

Heh, I’ll draw a better Aerial next time. The important thing is that I got over my fear of drawing mecha and also over my fear of building plastic models of robots, so thanks, Okouchi! Some headcanons and ranting under the cut. (With spoilers)

For some reason most of my WfM fanfiction has been centered around Aerial/Ericht ever since the theory about Aerial being Eri started circulating during the first season. I’ve been thinking about AU’s where she doesn’t lose her body and instead is an older teenager/young adult who has to deal with a mother obsessed with revenge while also trying to protect her little sister from the consequences of said revenge (and precisely because of that, she ends up questioning herself wether following her mother’s path is worth it or not).

I think that Eri was a character with a lot of potential in the story. She’s this girl who lost absolutely everything, who might be sad and angry about it but can’t do much on her own. She loves her family and even if she also wants to help her mom get revenge, she knows that it’s wrong and she doesn’t want her clone/little sister to get involved in any of it but, yet again, she can’t prevent the fact that her sister is used as a pawn, and she’s also being used, even if her mom doesn’t want to admit it. The dilemma of wanting to help her mom while simultaneously wanting to protect her sister’s innocence is a very compelling part of the story. Also the relationship between the sisters had a lot of potential. Eri could’ve seen Suletta as everything that she wasn’t able to become and that could’ve lead to very complicated feelings. There were a lot of elements that would have turned Ericht into a very interesting and nuanced character and I’m not even mentioning the transhumanism angle, there was a lot that could be explored in that area.

However, as we know, there wasn’t much about this character in canon (even if she was important for both the protagonist and the antagonist of the show). She remained a mysterious figure throughout most of the story and we didn’t get to know much about her motivations. In fact, most of what we know about her comes from the short novel “Cradle Planet”, the anime didn’t bother to put that information in the story and that’s why for most viewers she’s this creepy girl haunting a Gundam who’s almost as big as a jerk as Prospera. To be honest, I was expecting her to be more conflicted during her battle with Suletta or at least I wanted to kow why she was so convinced to follow her mother’s plan. At the end we didn’t get any of that, and she remained as an underdeveloped character.

So yeah, I have the impression that in my head I made up this nuanced and tragic character out of someone that ended up being a Funny Little Guy inside a keychain. Well, I guess this is very common when one starts liking a secondary character from a show. (I always wondered how people would make long essays and fafics about characters that didn't do much in a show... guess I'm that kind of person now).

Well, I suppose that I’ll have to stick to my fanfics and headcanons, at least I know that nothing I could write’s gonna be more wild than what actually happened in canon. So there’s that.

…Thanks Okouchi :/.

P.S: I like to speculate what kind of teen/young adult she would’ve been, specially in slightly less tragic AU’s, maybe she’s more like she was in the Prologue or she’s a little bit messed up because she’s shielding her sister from everything that’s wrong with their family. Idk, I just find her very fun to write (although I’m always aware that I might be creating some sort of pseudo OC, man I really wish that canon had given us more material to work with!)

[cat-esper]

WIP Questionnaire

I was tagged to do this by @teacupsandstarlight

In return, I shall be gently tagging @awleeofficial, @illarian-rambling, and @ahordeofwasps + open tag!

Questions:

What was the first part of your wip that you created?

The Enochians. The initial inspiration for Records was actually Peter Mohrbacher's artwork which I saw at a con. I imagined a world where these vast and horrific angels just appeared in the sky over a world that was basically their sandbox. All I had to figure out was who lived in the world and what they would do about it.

If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

I picture Records having a whole intro title and credits sequence with very 80s CGI fantasy landscapes to this song here:

The fictional band Red Tape Rocket plays an important role in this series and I based their sound on my very favorite irl band, the Moody Blues, so there's a fun fact for you.

Who are your favourite characters you've made? Why?

Definitely Sydney and Dell. Sydney's a girl who struggles to see herself in a positive light after being told again and again that she's worthless by members of her own family while being quietly brushed aside by the people who are supposed to care. So when she ends up on the Spiral, it's very much a journey of self-discovery and learning to be confident in herself and boy, do I want to give her a hug.

Dell started out as an email attachment that, due to some strange reality-warping shenanigans, gains sentience on Reyna's computer. She's super excited to speak with him and teach him things because her life is sad and she has no friends and he ends up leading her on a quest to the Spiral. I already know he's going to be fun to write because AI/robots always end up my favorites anyway XD

What other pieces of media do you think would share a fan base for your story?

I've always thought this would make a cool Jim Henson movie so probably fans of weird, dark surreal fantasy like Labyrinth or The Dark Crystal would like it.

What has been your biggest struggle with your wip?

Probably getting everything to fit together in a way that makes sense but also allowing myself to leave certain elements a mystery. Usually when I plan my magic systems, I like to make hard rules for them but the Spiral is home to an eldritch skeleton thing that literally warps reality so anything can happen.

Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

Depends what constitutes animals, I guess. I have a lot of strange creatures that inhabit the Spiral but all of them are sentient (yes, even the sandstone), so I guess they'd be more like fantasy races than animals. But they include the Varixxi, moth-like winged humanoids, the Aroon, clay pot tortoise-looking guys, and the Keem-Torali, which look like tentacled Horta that secrete acid and chill in extremely salty water.

How do your characters get around? (ex: trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

Walking mostly or, if they're lucky, my characters may catch a ride on a Colossus, but they're very hard to climb on to and you have to be careful not to get stepped on. Incidentally, there's also the molted exoskeleton of an eldritch abomination that sometimes becomes a portal when someone dies next to it, but that's not very practical.

What part of your wip are you working on rn?

I've actually been taking a little break from this so I can focus on Incantations but I really want to have my draft of book 1 finished by the end of the year.

What aspects (tropes, maybe?) of your wip do you think will draw people in?

This is pure, old school portal fantasy escapism. The main characters are all unhappy in their normal lives, wish for something more, and they get it. They're not your traditional heroes, but they get to save the world anyway.

What are your hopes for your wip?

If this story and these characters resonate with at least one person and can help them get through the day, I'll be content.

Records of the Spiral taglist: @awleeofficial , @desastreus

General taglist: @thatrandomlemononyourcounter1, @teacupsandstarlight

Blank questionnaire below the cut:

What was the first part of your wip that you created?

If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

Who are your favourite characters you've made? Why?

What other pieces of media do you think would share a fan base for your story?

What has been your biggest struggle with your wip?

Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

How do your characters get around? (ex: trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

What part of your wip are you working on rn?

What aspects (tropes, maybe?) of your wip do you think will draw people in?

What are your hopes for your wip?

[whisperingwisterias]

Neon Genesis Evangelion Part 1 and Subverting Masculine Stereotypes

While on the surface Evangelion may be a coming-of-age story set in the popular giant robot genre, by looking closer we can see that the anime actually makes a commentary on how masculinity is perceived or expected to be shown by society through Shinji, a boy who does not fall under traditional, hegemonic masculinity but is still called to a role that wants him to act that way.

Hegemonic masculinity would say that to be a man is to be comfortable with using violence as a solution to problems, which we see right from the beginning of the show. When the angel begins to attack the city, those in charge try to fight back with their own weapons, but with every failed attempt they try something bigger and more destructive, until they are almost causing more destruction to the city themselves than the angel in trying to subdue it. In contrast, we have Shinji, who, when enlisted by his father to pilot a weapon called the Evangelion, refuses because he does not want to fight. He does not find the idea of violence cool or exciting, and only agrees to pilot the weapon when he realizes that if he doesn’t, they would have made an injured girl pilot it instead. We see Shinji’s contrast from traditional masculinity again when he is talked with a classmate who, unlike Shinji, is enamored with the idea of piloting the Evangelion and how cool it would be, while Shinji is focused on how worried the boy’s family would be if he had been the pilot instead.

Shinji also strays from hegemonic masculinity in how he views women. In the first episode he has a picture of Katsuragi to identify her when she picks him up, and despite there being crude drawing on it pointing to her chest, he completely ignores it. In fact, he never looks at Katsuragi lustfully, even when his classmates, after meeting her one time, become focused on “what a babe” she is and are jealous of Shinji’s living situation with her. Likewise, when his male classmates are thinking lustfully about their female classmates and start pressing Shinji to tell them what part of Rei he’s looking at, he surprises them by admitting that he wasn’t looking at her body, instead observing that she seemed to be really lonely. When Katsuragi teasingly accuses him of the same thing, he again tells her that he’s not thinking of her like that, he just wants to get to know her better because she’s also a 14-year-old pilot like he is. Even when accidentally caught in an awkward situation with Rei, he does his best to avert his eyes and be respectful.

Everyone in Evangelion expects Shinji to perform in line with their idea of masculinity and always seem surprised when he behaves in a way that is not, like when he lacks confidence or is reluctant to act with violence or looks at women in a way that isn’t lustful, and we see how Shinji himself has internalized this difference and believes that there is something wrong with him because of it. However, I think this shows that gender should not be defined by how well masculine or feminine stereotypes are performed, as it only harms those who don’t quite fit within those guidelines.

[rascalentertainments]

Account Update 🌟

I haven't been on this platform in years and slowly started making posts and reblogs again. Most of the accounts I did follow back then are either gone, or no longer active. So I'm listing EVERY THING I'm into, so I can follow people back with similar tastes and interests. Consider it a get to know me things whole I make updates. Reblog, share and comment as much as you want, I'd really like to make good use of this site again. Especially since I'm a YouTube Spoofer and part time writer, and always getting inspiration. Which also means my channel is going through revamping, so you'll see some activity on and off as things are scheduled ahead of time.

Plus I'm working on creating my own animation studio with friends to bring my original ideas to life as movies and series in the future. I love to spread joy and fun to others to who aspire to animate as well! Warning: there's a a ton of things I love! 😅

Animation/Cartoons 🎨

Animation

Behind the Scenes and Animations tests

Animation Trivia

How to Draws

Fanart

Memes

Animation History

Tributes

Kid Cosmic

Ben 10 (Classic-Omniverse)

Teen Titans

Samurai Jack

OK K.O: Let's Be Heroes!

Bluey

Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja

Codename: Kids Next Door

Invincible

Voltron: Legendary Defender

Justice League/Unlimited

Young Justice

Batman Beyond

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

The Batman (2004)

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes

Motorcity

Hazbin Hotel

Spectacular Spider-Man

Gravity Falls

Wander Over Yonder

Sponge bob Square pants

Johnny Bravo

Johnny Test

Scooby-Doo/Mystery Incorporated

Code Lyoko

Lackadaisy

Avatar: The Last Airbender

The Legend of Korra

Transformers: Prime

G.I Joe Renegades

Wolverine and the X-Men

Danny Phantom

American Dragon: Jake Long

Star vs The Forces of Evil

Penn Zero: Part Time Hero

Tales of Arcadia

Lego Monkie Kid

TMNT (2003)

Wild Kratts

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur

Xiaolin Showdown

El Tigre

Miraculous Ladybug

Steven Universe

Monster High

Static Shock

Hellboy: Animated

Animaniacs

Tangled: The Series

Lilo & Stitch The Series

Darkwing Duck

DuckTales 2017

Wish Concept Version

Lego Monkie Kid

Buddy Thunderstruck

King of the Hill

The Simpsons

My Life as a Teenage Robot

Comic Books & Manga 🔥

Marvel & DC

Superman

Batman

Superpets

SuperSons

Hellboy

Invincible

My Hero Academia

Fullmetal Alchemist

Monthly Girls: Nozaki-kun

Deadpool

Jonah Hex

Middlewest

My Little Pony

MLP: Legends of Magic

Ouran High School Host Club

Jujutsu Kaisen

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes

Godzilla

Voltron Legendary Defender

Scott Pilgrim

Anime 🇯🇵

My Hero Academia

Sonic X

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Ya Boy Kongming!

OddTaxi

Toradora!

Monthly Girls: Nozaki-kun

Cowboy Bebop

Urusei Yatsura (2022)

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

Tiger & Bunny

Solo Leveling

Jujutsu Kaisen

White Cat Legend

Dr. Stone

High Card

Demon Slayerw

Trigun: Stampede

Delicious in Dungeon

Love is War!

InuYasha/Yashahime

Polar Bear's Cafe

Rascal the Raccoon

Movie Franchises 🎬

Kung Fu Panda

The Fast Saga

Star Wars

Sheep

Hellboy

DCAU

Scooby drop

Pixar

Lego Movie

TV Series 📺

Stranger Things

Heroes

Friends

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Supernatural

Video Games 🎮

Sonic the Hedgehog

BROK The Investigator

Blind

Crash Bandicoot

Sly Cooper

Spyro

Party Games

Mario & Sonic at the Olympics Series

That's mostly the just of me and what my channel is going to start having. If you have any questions about favorite foods, animals, book series, sports or anything about personal tastes, feel free to drop them I'm my asks box, and Ill get to them as soon as possible!

Hope you'll like what I have to offer! 🌟🌟🌟

[jellytamalies]

Netflix Live-Action ATLA Review

episode 1: Aang

Parts I like:

The costumes and sets

I really like them they look awsome

Like I gasped at the southern air temple it’s beautiful

Extra world building of the comet festival

Look it makes like a lot of sense

It also makes me hate sozin even more

Like they were Celebrating! This was supposed to be a time of happiness 

Zukos conspiracy wall and journal

It’s fucking hilarious 

Like the first thing he does is draw a picture of aang after losing him? A+ characterization I love him already

Gyatso 

Look I’m sad we didn’t get the pie scene but I also like this one a lot

“I will always be your friend” excuse me while I go drown myself in the shower

The side characters

It’s neat to see side characters getting some love

(Aka Captain jee, that water tribe boy, and the little kids who threw fucking rocks at the soldiers like Jesus Christ man)

Parts I did not like:

Extreme exposition (especially at the beginning)

I get that you’re trying to get new viewers up to speed with old fans while not boring old fans but still

I just- don’t really like it :/

The bending

Ough no

It feels weird and robotic?

It’s missing something? Like it doesn’t feel as grounded as bending from the original series

in the original you could see the martial art styles in it, this just feel like empty punches and kicks

The CG animals

Why

The fight scenes

Partly the same issue with bending

But also a lot of the time they feel unnecessary

(Not that the scenes themself are unnecessary, but that they’re putting in extra violence just for the sake of making a fight scene)

Also, the airbending fight scenes

A) airbender don’t like fighting, I get it in some contexts but the fact that it was the first thing they went to felt wrong

B) Airbenders evade and avoid. Monk gyatso and that other tornado lady were very much Not evading or avoiding. 

zukos scar

Stop being cowards!

make the scar obvious and horrifying to see

a 13 year old got his face burned off by his dad!! That is supremly fucked up

make the scar reflect the cruelty of ozai (and in some extension the war)

Things I noticed but am mostly neutral about for now:

They changed the characterizations a lot

It feels like they sanded the characters down by taking away their more extreme traits

Zuko’s anger issues

Katara’s anger issues

Sokka being a huge loser

Aang avoiding all his problems

But I’m willing to wait and see if they give them different characterizations instead

(Like zuko still being an obsessive freak, just not in a “fuck all of you I must capture the avatar to regain my honor” way but instead a “I have a conspiracy wall about the avatar”

I like sokka

Not as much as the original, but he’s still fun :)

The southern water tribe

It seems a lot more populated

Which (like zukos scar) seems to detract for how horrible the consequences of the war

Like it’s supposed to be: look at how small and pathetic this village is! It used to be giant and full of life but now everyone is gone (lost to war but not all through death)

But it’s still neat ig

“The northern water tribe still fights strong” GIRL the FUCK YOU MEAN-

kataang is 100% not happening lol

like absolutely not happening

im not even sure if I would Want it to happen in this situation

aang is too baby

(honestly I’m mostly neutral on this ship anyway so whatever I guess)

[hazbinhappy]

Hey just saw you had hazbin hotel match ups open! I’m a trans man (he/him pronouns) for sexuality I don’t really have a definite answer I’m open to all with a small preference to more feminine presenting people!

For personality and what not I’m told by friends I’m either chaotic neutral or chaotic evil lol, I’m decently slow to open up maybe saying one or two words and over all being pretty quiet but once I open up you gotta tape my mouth shut to get me to shut up (though actually I do enjoy the feeling of tape over my mouth I blame autism for that) I make a lot of sexual jokes (constant “that’s what he/she/they said and other stuff) along with that I have a pretty major sailor mouth as well I can be pretty sarcastic in addition I can be pretty slow as well I can be a bit all over the place which you might be able to see here idk lol! For stuff I enjoy doing I really love visual arts (I enjoy painting, been doing stuff with clay, digital art, trying to figure out animation) I also very much enjoy writing (I have I think it was 20+ unfinished fics on ao3 lol) been trying to figure out how to bake, and idk I have an obsession with plushies (please send help they completely cover my bed when I lay them all out) for stuff I enjoy it’s a bit harder since I constantly move around one thing to another like unless someone is with me I’ll start a show or movie watch the first five minutes then do something else unless I was already a fan of it, I will say I do enjoy the weird kid stuff like the bendy franchise and I know the lore of fnaf pretty well (until security breach when robot Gregory theory came out I gave up) tbh not much for stuff I hate I’m a pretty open person and don’t really hate a lot of stuff besides the word moist (it’s the one word that sounds like what it is and I hate the texture of that kinda stuff to and I can feel the word) it is the one thing I actively hate. For appearance while I don’t have an active drawing of my sinner look I don’t have much other then I picture being goat like (fucking love goats) and not really important but dying my hair constantly like how I do irl. Also even though yes I am a trans man I still like wearing skirts and dresses because damn it if I can’t be a pretty man then I don’t want to be a man (that is very much a lie I am still a man even if I won’t be able to wear my dresses and skirts)

Also one last important thing I don’t want to be matched up with Husk (I see him as a dad and I don’t want to deal with being paired up with my father) nor do I want to be paired up with Angel (I ship him and Husk so I don’t want to be paired up with other father) also no Lucifer I feel like if I get paired up my friend will kill me I wish I was joking she is only willing to threaten me when I do much as joke about taking them. Anyways have an amazing day/night I hope this was enough!

Your Matchup is.....

Velvette! You gotta here me out before I dish out the headcanons and mini-blurb!

Looks at that cutie god I love her!

Anyways! I matched y'all up for multiple reasons! Have you seen the girl? She may be put together but Respectless just screamed out that she is chaos when need be and chaotic people love to be together (I mean look at Hell lmao). I think she wouldn't mind someone who is slow to open because she it lets her have more time for you to model and work with her! She wouldn't mind the sexual jokes and curses or sarcasm because that is up her alley (I mean Valentino is literally one of her colleagues I don't think she cares too much for him lmao).

okay onto the headcanons because those will explain better, no?

It may sound weird but I think Velvette would go to art shows to get inspiration! Fashion shows are actually a way to express and test what you can do with fashion so art shows are a great way to get inspiration

And wowie lookie there, a certain artist just happens to peak her interest a lot! She may either personally chat with you or send an email asking to collaborate on some pieces.

I wish in the show they played more with Velvette and the fashion instead of the social media. I think she'd be a boss in the artistic fashion and practical fashion

I swear this is important: Shae Bishop makes ceramic clothing and some of his work was in my school's art gallery!

why is that important? well i think it would be pretty cool if that was something you proposed to Velvette! She'd be unsure because "isn't that clay? isn't that breakable?" and it's a whole explanation about how it's for the art not actual long-time wear

so that brings you guys closer!

she did consider making a deal with you to permanently keep you around but you just kept coming back on your own so she didn't really feel the need if you just came back all the time

i think the dating would be a mutual understanding, but you'd ask and she'd be "of course, why wouldn't we be? (eyeroll)" (she was actually nervous to ask)

if/when you moved in with her she made space in her studio for you to do any kind of artwork because she wants to spend any kind of time even if she was too busy yelling at her models and artists

she may not always have her listening ears on but whenever you say something that catches her interest she'll respond (she'll remember bits of other things you say, she doesn't tune you out, she just cherry picks her responses)

She doesn't mind the plushie collection as long as there is room for her to cuddle with you. if not they are banished to the shelf.... maybe a couple on the bed.

she loves to dress you up in whatever is the latest fashion or even your preferred. she'd match in any way at any moment.

she will tease and bully at any moment but it's her love and she never means it. plus there is plenty of compliments that cancels it out.

idk why but you know how people like to have their oc's with horns have jewelry on them and even chains that connect? she'd find that so cute and would make some in different styles (like a bracelet for the day)

"Velv-"

"Can you BELIEVE the nerve of these ladies! Prancing around like their ideas are any good! Wrist ruffles? Fifty layers? What are we? Doing a fuckin' blast to the past!" Velvette kept ranting on about her workers before you rolled her eyes.

"You're about to get a blast from the past if you don't get off my table. I was working." You gave her a deadpan look.

She gave you the middle finger before scooting you over on YOUR chair as you worked.

"Well, babe, I have no clue why they would think that is fashion? I mean, things from the past making a comeback? Neverrrr-"

"I know-! Oh Fuck You!"