#cog talk

[crystaloregarden]

behold: what happens if you make @boigameista 's frog pattern when you 1) have never sewn a plush before and 2) didn't read the instructions because you sewed it while watching a stream with your partner

my server has named him "the boppie" and he is now an emoji that shot to the most frequently used tab in mere minutes

Long live the boppie

[animesickos]

The Sickos remembered that we have a form we shared a long time ago where people can submit horror stories from their workplaces, and we finally read some of them! Then, we discuss if Joe should get a Vespa so he can fit in with all the Italian guys.

Submit your own cog tales here, perhaps we'll remember to read them one day: https://forms.gle/aBFBueBAGQr4xtcx6

[songinabottle]

I tried to switch my calendar/s to start with Monday because, "Yeah, I guess it does make more sense." But then my clever brain rebelled. It said if my calendar starts on SUNDAY, it looks like I don't have two days in a row off. But in practice? Oh ho! I've tricked them now!

For unnecessary context: I live in the USA (on Shawnee land), and I coordinate a lot of calendars for M-F/9-5 work reasons. Even if those aren't always my hours.

[vivianvixen]

My favourite thing about working with used books is when people bring in boxed sets that they’ve filled with sort of just whatever volumes they happened to have at hand.

And by “my favourite thing” I mean “the bane of my existence.”

[paper-lilypie]

something something gaining perspective

[witchlingcirce]

I don’t think we talk about Isabelle Lightwood literally ripped Sebastian Morgensterns hand off.

and the fact that his wrist is still SCARRED.

Everyone say thank you Isabelle !

[ewwww-what]

Talking about cogs and gears and such.

[looking-for-wisdom]

the “ex-something” character in disco elysium is so interesting to me because what we finally learn about the true Dora from harry’s dream sequence & conversations with the 41st precinct initially undercuts the first impression you get as a player. We learn things that makes it seem like Harry should be over her leaving. Specifically, the fact that she and Harry were never actually married and that it has been six years since she left.

Everything we’re told about Dora needs to be taken with a grain of salt, since it primarily comes from Harry. He’s an unreliable narrator and, if we had her perspective on things, there would surely be more to the story. But even with that said, I feel reasonably confident that the player’s first impression — that whoever this ex is did some damage even beyond typical breakup heartbreak — isn’t completely wrong.

We know a few things for certain. Harry was a gym teacher before they met, and Dora was the reason he joined the RCM. We can also do the math to figure out that they were together for around 12 years. Married or not, that’s a serious relationship. There are implications that Dora might have been pregnant at some point.

Dora’s family was wealthier than Harry’s, but they struggled financially when they were together. They had to rely on her parents for support.

Harry is a grown ass man who is responsible for his own choices. None of this changes that. But the way he is starts to make more sense when you consider that it wasn’t just their breakup that was traumatic. Their relationship itself seems unhealthy.

Harry clearly likes working with kids. Kim actually points out how he is easily able to connect with Cuno and the other teens in Martinase. With that in mind, I imagine he probably liked being a gym teacher. But we learn that Dora encourages him to join the RCM to do more for the greater good. Again, Harry had to agree to this — she didn’t force him to quit at gunpoint. But it rubs me the wrong way that, shortly after they start dating, she implies that his work isn’t fulfilling or important (probably patently untrue in an area where kids won’t necessarily have stable home lives). And, more than that, she suggests that joining the police is the solution.

Granted, we’re told there’s a lot of crime in Jamrock. Maybe it is as simple as her thinking law enforcement helps prevent that. But given the political tones of the game, which intentionally critique cops and the moralist forces they represent? I think it’s notable.

Speaking of which. The class difference between Dora and Harry has to be thematic. So much of the game discusses the struggle between the working class and the bourgeoisie. There’s an inherent power dynamic there. It’s her parents who are consistently paying their bills and keeping them afloat. She has an out that Harry doesn’t. Money won’t be an issue for her when they split, but Harry will be left without any support. Regardless of whether she intentionally held this over his head, this game shows that even without meaning to, the capitalist system harms the poor. That strain must be felt in their relationship, and could cause a lot of damage over 12 years.

All this to say: their relationship clearly wasn’t some fling. And, if Harry is to be believed, the blame for things falling apart was largely placed on him: working to much, not bringing home enough money, not being enough. But even if Dora wasn’t actively manipulating him and he came up with all of this on his own, I think the facts still point to a dynamic where he was made to be small in the face of a woman who came from more. Their backgrounds create an imbalance where Harry was always going to feel the flaws in their relationship more acutely. He starts with little, and gives up much of what he does have to pursue something better for the both of them. But when that isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, he’s the only one left with nothing. She can leave the country and start over.

It makes sense, to me, that he might not have recovered from that in six years. Especially when that rock bottom feeling seems so permanent that he isn’t trying to get better so much as numb himself enough to exist another day.

That doesn’t mean he isn’t responsible or that he’s exempt from having to get his shit together. The game very clearly illustrates that everyone will turn away from him if he doesn’t. But it does complicate his character a bit more than “got left by extremely bangable woman, proceeds to make the lives of everyone around him worse.”

[yaoifuldnp]

my new favourite phan conspiracy is that dan did in fact run philslion but hes never mentioned it to phil and now its a 15 year long lie that he has to keep up that he DID run a fan account for his lion for 2 years

[cathalbravecog]

Drew these to practice drawing him but I went kinda ham on it again

[cogmented]

how do you come up with your designs for mcyt’s? theyre so creative and cool so i thought id ask

THANK YOU AND THANK YOU FOR THE QUESTION

now entering yap city tihs will be a long post

my steps are basically

voice

personality

og look of minecraft skin/branding

player movement

other ppls fanart (if any)

things that happened/cultural associations

i start with a bunch of random sketches to get the feel of the person.. that's why so many of my early posts were doodle pages. to me, character design is more based on what the person is like rather than what they look like. i think a lot of people do that

I do this with all of the above and shape language, but in bigger art pieces outside of lineups i also use color and perspective (as in youll see more of someone like spepticle in large, sweeping scenes while someone like zam in closed, heavily perspective-based ones) to indicate personality. ill change designs when suited for this too (spoke with or without a gas mask, vi with or without a mouth, etc etc)

my first iteration of lifesteal designs heavily relied on the look of the skins and were gradually tweaked over time. my most prominent example of this is my spoke design, so i'll use him at least once in the examples for continuous comparison.

i watch a couple of each person's videos first, understand their voice, personality, and what they do, then focus on them in other people's videos too to get a full story, their movement, and what others think of them (helps with personality and things we might not see). streams are the most helpful because they're less biased and you see so much more of their antics. huge stream fan.

i get into the how after this

this process doesnt go in order for some designs and others have a more prominent focus on particular parts of the process that override or effect other parts

Voice

starting off with not spoke here's a problem i encountered when designing wemmbu

I based him a lot off of spoke and ashswag due to not knowing much about him besides the fact that he schemes (spoke&ash-esque) and he doesn't move his character around too much when talking (ash behavior). he didn't match the left one because his voice doesn't have the dramatic, flamboyant fratboy flair that spoke has, so I shifted it to be more friendly yet still dangerous with curved square shapes rather than triangles. i made his scheming, diabolical nature more evident through his clothing that's pretty jester-like and sharp, but with a smoother middle that spoke doesn't have (and to match his eyes).

voice also impacts character height. i dont know how to describe this. mapicc and zam are similar heights because their voices are similar, same goes for parrot and vortex, but leo and vitalasy are close to the same height (due to vitalasy's huge fuckass ears) despite having wildly different voices, with leo's bold text voice and vitalasy's higher-pitched jumbled kinda speech they still take up the same "amount of space" in conversation. they stand out. and even though spoke's voice also stands out an incredible amount he is still only slightly taller than average. this is where personality overrides voice in my designs.

Personality

spoke is sharp in every sense of the word, but is also able to mold himself around to get what he needs.

my first attempt at him was pretty lackluster. i didn't know much of him at the time, only his wither video, and thus understood him mainly through his association with parrot. he seemed a lot more evil and more serious at first glance. like woah! fully fledged mouth and nose?! not anymore.

i cover certain expressive parts to also depict more of their personality in some abstract, holistic way. after watching streams and whatnot, spoke doesnt actually speak (excluding his random sounds and yips or whatever he does) too terribly much, except when the spotlight is on him or he's trying to get something. so, i tweaked his design to encompass that when i understood him better.

i take away his arms to allow his hands to stand out more (character movement thing, he moves around a lot when no one is paying attention to him, punches the air when ..not talking but making a point ig. he's a big fan of hovering menacingly), i give him a slinky-like outside skeletal structure to both capture his affinity for withers (i made him a wither thing because of the wither sounds in his video.. and the withers in general) and to give him the feeling of more freedom with his movement.

i also just really like gas masks so. basically, spoke is someone that hides away until he chooses to stand out. thank lord heaven he looks like some shadow creature.

later on i gave him more magenta highlights, especially in the wormhole era because 1. magenta wasnt heavily included in his rainbow look, making it stand out on his whole being, and 2. because magenta is really really cool and people should use it more.

og minecraft skin/branding

hi spokeis here. this will be quick because his branding is so heavy. lightning, rainbow, black. boom. character. withers and white eyes? easy. causes a lot of anarchy? again, lightning and withers.

planetlord on the other hand is someone i greatly differed from the og skin and branding. i saw the design in a vision idk. i shift his colors all the time in different pieces but i use more of his pfp colors now because there's too many purples in this world. his branding, personality, and voice all connect very well. a bit misleading, he's a bit of a weasel.

Movement

i never used to look into movement, but pvp styles and conversational movement of lifesteal is intriguing. unfortunately it was only something i started paying attention to during the end of s4 because vitalasy's movement was so interesting. he's a big fan of getting in people's faces.

ill be real, i didn't really notice spoke a lot during things because he was almost always never alone, and when he was it is always at a distance or you knew he had people to back him up.

spoke's movement isn't actually too abnormal. he's goal oriented and tends to always be doing something, and when he does he finds the most efficient way possible. pretty basic. his design choices are based mainly on voice and personality.

someone like mapicc on the other hand has very particular movement. he spins around people when fighting and gets right up in their face (in nethpot pvp mostly), so i made his clothing tighter to the skin with looser parts to accentuate that movement: practical clothing for close combat battles. it was also noticed (by the lord) that he tends to look straight forward instead of the slightly down that most players do.

zam fights differently, but i made him with the og branding (he's princezam) and what he does in mind. his body language in my art is more indicative of his personality.

Other people's fanart

shoutout the community, a notable amount of ideas were from the mid-late 2022 lifesteal community.

dog leowook and leather jacket mapicc were from gen, jackalope rek from aoi i think, "croptop" jacket spoke from saints-blade, snail terrain from navy-leader, tv ashswag from kish, sock puppet red definitely from someone i dont remember, 4 armed squiddo from seri, and old cartoon jaron was from bucket

Things that happened/istarted talking about cultural inspirations

spoke and his connection to godhood influenced his redesign greatly. this section affects what the character wears most of the time.

i give both spoke and vitalasy painted palms (alta) due to their connection with godhood and destruction, with spoke in particular reminding me a lot of Kali Ma, thus i gave him a skirt (due to nppp too). vitalasy's clothing is based on Indonesian cultural clothing. wemmbu's also takes inspiration from Indonesian and Bhutan cultural clothing.

indigenous cultures inspired some designs too (i do a lot of ethnographic anthropology work with some of the tribes i base the clothing off of), with woogie having Yupik and Inuit inspiration. polar bear = cold climate in my head. and leo has Haida and Yunnan (minority Chinese providence, not a tribe) inspiration.

bacon's... not bacon strip design's clothing was based on Bangladeshi clothing (im Bangladeshi, i also added alpona patterns to ash's design), nomadic cultures, and some german pilgrim thing?? idk not my best design. i specifically looked for nomadic inspiration because of his willingness to flee at any moment lol. i didnt do this for rek despite his fleeing reputation because i dont watch rek content too much and he already had hybrid traits that took care of that presentation.

poafa's design is a goat because of the medusa trials where he was used as a scapegoat. makes sense i think. his horns are from past associations with jepex that infected mapicc as well (devil trio s1). zam's design is very much from s3 empire and s4 castle.

planet's design changed slightly, mostly rounder shapes, but also the number of "spikes" on his scarf, now stuck at three because of 3ht.. and easier to draw than five. minutetech has a bow instead of a bowtie from jumper due to s5 happenings. the gem on his crown has wemmbu's highlights from his gem's main color.

roshambo's design was also heavily influenced by medusa where i gave him a snake body. in my art that depicts before medusa events he doesn't have the snake body, and same goes with before s4 spoke where i draw him with full pants. in some sketches ive depicted mapicc with a muzzle only after the destruction of s4 spawn due to quix's mapicc dog influence shoutout.

mapicc and ro have matching things that persist seasons (mapicc periwinkle collar, ro red painted ring finger... head finger?), as did subz and vitalasy with matching shoulder pads (beginning of s4 subz had a bandana and vitalasy had a bell that traded between them through artworks of mine) Vitalasy also gained sun and moon earrings. mid and 4c have matching hoods/cloaks ^_^ marriage or something.

hope this made sense and covered everything you could have ever wanted forever... feel free to ask me questions i love explaining processes

[crystaloregarden]

every day i can't cook for my loved ones is just ever so slightly worse for it. every time i'm in the kitchen my brain is bringing up my internal list of everyone's dietary restrictions, even of those i haven't gotten to cook for yet. i always make enough food for an entire group, logically for mealprep reasons but spiritually so i never forget how to make enough for AT LEAST two people. the jolt is a machine made for feed loved ones

[olasketches]

sukuna did not tell kenjaku about his plan to change vessels, which makes me wonder… what makes us and maybe even sukuna think that kenjaku told him everything. another yapping session incoming cause I need to get this out of me. we don’t know the terms of their agreement but sukuna is certain that yuuji’s only purpose was to seal his fingers and mind you that says the man who throughout the whole manga kept underestimating him and saying how boring he is, which creates a perfect blind spot. sukuna is so uninterested in yuuji, probably as a way to keep some sort of distance between himself and yuuji, that it is very much likely that he’s not aware of the actual plans kenjaku had towards yuuji. why was it important for them to keep sukuna caged? wa yuuji always supposed to have an engraved curse technique(s)?? why is he slowly turning into another sukuna?? and I’m not saying it to take away yuuji’s agency as a character but to point to the fact that the lines between the curse known as ryomen sukuna and yuuji are beginning to become more and more blurry with each new chapter. sukuna referred to himself as the fallen angel/disgraced one, but who was he BEFORE that?? and what’s the actual reason behind angel wanting to kill him? there’s so much we don’t know and honestly… as intelligent as he is I don’t think sukuna truly knows what is going on either… but I might be totally reaching and I still don’t why I keep brainstorming all of it cause gege is just too damn unpredictable so I really don’t know what’s relevant here or what’s not but there are just so many unknowns in this story that I just can’t help but wonder… (more in the tags)

[drdimm]

this is portia she sucks and no one likes her 👍

[helenofblackthorns]

I wish the tsc timeline was stronger because I would love nothing more than to invest vast amounts of energy & time into figuring out the dates of Jace's & Livvy's deaths/resurrections. like it's not a want but a need to know how close together they were 😔😔

[bbhq]

this is what happens in the boiler room while you're not there