#gotta be one of the most shaped designs ever

[cat-dragron-arts]

More of them :]

[godsfavoritescientist]

Another human bill concept. Short balding guy with heterochromia, with the pines nose and glasses because it would make Ford mad

[silverspectre51]

Summoning the Boy King

Darkseid was rampaging through Metropolis, Superman was injured, and the Justice League was desperate. As the League hid between fallen skyscrapers, John Constantine prepared a last-ditch effort to save the Earth.

The Hellblazer drew an intricate sigil on the ground; its circular design stretching over six feet in diameter. Most of the symbols within were space-related, while the others were themed to royalty. Batman, one of the few heroes in-the-know, grunted.

"Are you sure this king ghost can help?"

Constantine sighed and pinched his nose.

"He's the High King of the Infinite Realms, Bats, an' he's bloody powerful. He'll stop Darkseid, alright, but what he does afterward is anyone's guess. Believe me, I wouldn't be doin' this if we had a choice."

Batman sighed and glanced at the smoke-filled horizon.

"Alright, get on with it, then. We're running out of time."

Constantine nodded and placed a single offering in the center of the sigil: a squishmallow of Disney's iconic blue alien, Stitch.

"I beg your finest pardon," Batman sputtered, "What on Earth is that?"

Constantine sighed again as he took his position at the edge of the sigil.

"Mate, the book was very specific. Unlike his predecessor, the new king requires a single offering of space or alien theme that is suitable for children. It's bloody strange, but beggars can't be choosers."

Batman just shook his head and looked on. Constantine raised his hands and started the summoning chant. An eerie, green glow spread across the sigil, and light fog gathered above it. Little white orbs floated up from the ground and spiraled together, forming the slowly spinning visage of a spiral galaxy.

"Incredible..." Zatanna gasped, "This summoning is on a level all its own. This king of yours is on the level of Gods."

Finally, something began to form over the small galaxy. Batman's expression quickly softened, much to the surprise of his teammates. It was mere seconds before they understood, as a black blob full of white stars formed into the shape of a boy. The blob had spiky 'bangs' if you could call them that and eerie, glowing green eyes.

The squishmallow floated into the boy's arms and he squeezed it excitedly. At the same time, he took on a far more human form, with pale skin and snowy white hair. His eyes had whites now but still glowed green. He was dressed in black and white, royal attire with green accents, a black crown floating in a green aurora, and a black ring with a green stone. A black cape flowed down his back, its underside looking as if it were cut from a clear night sky.

"Awesome offering, dude! What can I do for ya?"

The voice was a reedy tenor in the throes of puberty, and its owner was more than a little geeky. The boy's smile was infectious, or it would have been were it not for the specific circumstance.

"How old are you?" Batman asked, his tone soft, "We weren't expecting a child."

The boy waved him off like it was nothing.

"No one ever does. And, um... technically I'm fifteen. I know, I don't look it."

Constantine cut in, clearly out of patience.

"Look, this monster Darkseid is destroying our world. We need you to stop him."

The boy turned in the air and took in the destruction around him. Somehow, he seemed to understand the situation immediately.

"Okay, but I gotta get permission first. This'll take a lot of power." He paused, taking a breath, and then yelled in a strange language. "Mom!"

Constantine paled and the other heroes shrank back as a green portal tore into existence. A young woman, barely an adult herself, floated out. She had waist-length blue hair and the same glowing, green eyes. She wore a royal outfit in white and maroon, complete with a glittering, silver tiara studded with rubies.

"What's the matter, Danny? Are you okay?"

Danny nodded.

"Mhmm! These guys need me to take out this Darkseid guy, though. Can I use my full power?"

Constantine snuck a drink from his flask. He did not sign up to deal with the fucking Queen Mother of the Infinite Realms, nor had he known she existed. God, he needed a smoke...

The Queen Mother smiled softly and pressed a kiss to her son's forehead. She spoke whilst taking his new plush.

"Yes, Danny, you may. Let me hold onto this for you so it doesn't get dirty."

Danny nodded and turned away.

"Okay, thanks mom!"

The Queen Mother vanished through and with the portal she had created. Moments later, Danny shot off into the city, with the remaining able-bodied heroes hot on his trail. The young king reached Darkseid rather quickly, engaging him while the Leaguers looked on from cover. Darkseid was foolishly amused.

"A child dares oppose me? Flee, whelp."

Batman tensed as Darkseid unleashed his Omega Effect. Two red beams shot from his eyes, and yet the young king floated firm. Two eerie, green beams shot from his own eyes and, to the shock of everyone, overpowered his foe's. Darkseid shattered into many tiny pieces which then vanished into thin air.

"Man, he really wasn't smart!" Danny grinned, "Who fires a death beam at the king of the dead?"

He received no response, as the heroes were too stunned to speak. Smiling, he saluted the group before tearing open another portal.

"Oh well; villain gone, carry on. Later guys!"

Batman glared at Constantine, but the Brit had already absconded. Heaving a sigh, he resigned himself to this new reality. Darkseid was gone, but there was an incredible new power to worry about.

(Note: My only source of information is DP canon, DP fanon, and the Justice League cartoons from the early '00s. I apologize for any inaccuracies with Batman's or Constantine's behavior.)

[ckret2]

I might tweak some details later (jewelry? take the ribbon off the bow?) but I've about got a Scalene design I like. The lipstick is really the centerpiece of the design. Now let's infodump! With more art!

🔺 Notice her lines are a a little curvy. It's not for artistic effect. She's got a Fictional Polygon Physical Disorder that makes her bendier than she should be—meaning, among other things, sides that curve and flex.

🔺 It's also the kind of condition with symptoms that are romanticized by people who don't grok that it's a debilitating medical condition. Sides that curve and flex? How exotic! This went to her head in the wrong ways.

🔺 Bill was born with the same condition. You know how squishy and blobby he was as a baby? Thaaat's genetic! He was a lot squishier than most babies! And, consequently, more adorable.

🔺Scalene dreamed of being a famous super model. Was actually a teen beauty queen at mid-tier beauty pageants. She thinks it's always somebody else's fault she wasn't more successful.

🔺 She took Bill to his first baby beauty pageant the day he was born. He did, in fact, have a Best Baby Ever award presented to him by the mayor, but to be fair he was only competing against like 6 other babies and who's going to withhold a trophy from a newborn on his birthday? Anyway the 6-12 month group and 12-24 month groups also each had a Best Baby Ever award.

🔺 This was an absolutely bonkers thing for Scalene to do.

🔺 What's that small scrunkly thing doing at a pageant, he can't even see color yet.

🔺 Their fictional squishy medical condition doesn't just accidentally make shapes cute. It's the kind of condition that affects just about all parts of the body: sides won't stay straight, poor muscle tone resulting in instability & weakness, poor motor coordination & clumsiness, back aches & pains (well, triangles don't have "backs." side aches?), easily dislocated joints, and increasingly skewed sides with age. Just about everyone in Scalene's family is born equilateral and ends up extremely scalene after young adulthood. The rest of her family have normal relationships with their condition, she's the only one who's weird about it

🔺 She was very rough on her body in pursuit of pageantry success, but her physical symptoms & associated chronic pain got a lot worse due to having a kid; she had to retire from pageantry for good. She doesn't blame Bill for this at all. Out loud, to his face. (If she hadn't been so rough on herself in pageants, having a kid probably wouldn't have impacted her health this much. She doesn't consider this.)

🔺 She's weirdly intent on seeing Bill become the success she wasn't. He's her little golden child, he deserves to be seen as the greatest! He'll show them how great he is for mommy, won't he? He won't let mommy down, will he? When he's very young, she takes him to child pageants—he'll appreciate the lessons they taught him when he's older—and this lasts until he finds out he can get out of it by pyrokinetically setting the stage on fire.

🔺 She jokes ("jokes") that she didn't realize that when she was having a kid, she was firing herself from the pageant circuit so she could hire & train her own replacement. These jokes had no long-term impact on Bill at all!!!

(Compare/contrast: how we're told Stan's "You watch the movie, you scare the girl, the girl snuggles up next to you, next thing you know you gotta raise a kid, your life falls apart" is repeating something he heard his dad say.)

🔺 Did you know that squeaky baby shoes are sometimes medical devices? Squeakers help children with poor muscle tone and delayed motor skills learn how to walk correctly: it makes them want to walk on their heels instead of their toes so they can hear the squeak. Did you know sometimes oversized squeaky baby shoes are worn by young kids who need ankle braces? Did you know that kids with poor motor coordination can take a longer time to learn complicated motor skills like tying shoelaces rather than using shoes with velcro straps? It sure is interesting that baby Bill's most defining visual feature is oversized squeaky sneakers with velcro straps and that he kept wearing velcro shoes until he was 16!

🔺 As a baby, Bill's angles were technically supposed to be equilateral,* but thanks to his inherited condition, his angles were so loose his top corner practically formed a right angle. Not good: the closer a triangle creeps to being obtuse, the more likely he'll have muscle strain and medical issues from his organs being squished out of place by his own exoskeleton.

(*supposed to be equilateral: but after receiving treatment, they discovered his angles were still 60º, 60º, and 60.1º, which is mathematically impossible for a triangle... on a euclidean plane. But on a non-euclidean 3D plane, such as in spherical geometry, a triangle's angles can add up to more than 180º... and it's this slight 3D flex to Bill's body that lets him see up into the third dimension.)

🔺 For his first few years of life he actually had a hypotenuse, until physical therapy and side braces helped him improve his muscle tone. Sometimes he still reflexively refers to his base as his hypotenuse. It's fine, sweetie, it's nothing to be embarrassed about, mommy had a hypotenuse too. Don't tell anyone.

🔺 Scalene took baby Billy to a lot of doctors as a kid, just like how she was taken to a lot of doctors! Doctor for his side braces, doctor for his physical therapy, doctor for his shoes... doctor for his eye when he started talking about seeing white glitter at the edge of his vision. Scalene didn't have that symptom, but the eye doc said their condition does occasionally come with visual problems—blurred vision, lazy eye, visual field defects... It sounds like Bill's main field of vision is unobstructed, but if the visual snow he's getting in his peripheral vision is distracting him and confusing his little toddler mind into thinking it's something real, they can give him a medication that'll narrow his field of view. From the sound of it, he's not seeing anything important at the edge of his vision, anyway.

And she only wants what's best for her golden child.

🔺 Scalene's "bow" is actually a medical device: sort of like a medical corset, it helps tug and press her anatomy into place to reduce pain. Bill started wearing one preventatively—if he can keep everything in place when he's young, it'll take longer for his angles to skew when he's older. Like wearing a retainer when you get your braces out.

🔺 He has a cane for the same reason—he doesn't need it NOW when he's young, but he might as well keep it on hand, by age 35 he'll probably want to stand more often than float and when he's standing he'll probably want the extra support! Even if he doesn't need it by 35, he will eventually!!

🔺 Bill doesn't medically need a bow tie in the third dimension either; but he adapted it to help tie his 3D exoskeleton on.

🔺 A trillion years later, Bill suspects that his mutation to see the third dimension came, at least in part, from his mom's medical condition. Except, she didn't have that vision. Nobody else with the condition on her side of the family had that vision. It's not a known symptom of the condition. His dad had stuff going on with his eye too, did he get it from his dad's side? A mix of both? Just a standalone random mutation? He doesn't know; and with the rest of his species dead, there's no way for him to find out.

But back to Scalene!

🔺 She's not quite red, she's rose gold. However she doesn't like it. She thinks it's a sort of pinkish brown and very dull. She uses makeup to make herself look redder. Note how bright red her sides are: in a species where only your edges are visible, body paint is the most common form of makeup+fashion. She's pleased her baby came out gold-gold, it's much cuter. Bill knows she's rose gold, but he only saw her with her makeup off when she was tired or sick; he remembers her painted red.

🔺 She adores her Billy; but she somewhat sees him as an extension of her will. She thinks he's just perfect and will tell anyone who asks; but she also demands he be perfect and is furious when he isn't. She'll protect him from ANY perceived external threat; but she'll tough love him into being the kind of success she thinks he should be. He learns early that when he screws up, he can often redirect his mother's anger by pointing his finger and saying it's someone else's fault, and she'll bring the wrath of heaven down on them. Woe to the teacher who gives Bill an F on a test.

🔺 I'm on a quest to write Bill as a foil to the entire cast of Gravity Falls, and that extends to writing his family as a foil to the entire cast's families. Scalene's a blend of Pacifica's mom and Caryn: beautiful, proud of her beauty, afraid of losing her youth, self-aggrandizing, quick to lie about her & her family's (false/exaggerated) accomplishments—and very aware of the fact that you can say anything about woo-woo mystical matters and nobody can prove you wrong.

🔺 So she takes it great when they figure out Bill is, like, legit psychic. And by "takes it great" I mean "starts a cult."

There's what I've got on Scalene. Fortunately, I got to keep all my pre-TBOB headcanons about Bill's mom, I only had to change her shape & color. I already had medical trauma baked right into the family!

(Preemptive disclaimer before I get any "but she doesn't look 2D" comments: we all understand that the baby Bill picture we see in the book is a psychically-generated 3D approximation of Bill's 2D Euclidean form, right? And that drawing a 3D baby Bill design alongside rigidly 2D parent designs would make it look like even in the second dimension Bill already had a 3D body, right? So, if we're drawing a 3D baby Bill and want to convey that they looked similar to him, we have to draw his parents in a similar art style, right? Okay, great.)

[leighsartworks216]

Pumpkin Patch

Sylus x gn!Reader

Inspired by my going to a pumpkin patch and carving pumpkins today and yesterday. I am soooo sore, BUT I made a kitty pumpkin and it's so fuckin cuteee

Warnings: pumpkin carving, fluff, cuddling, Halloween, sleepy Sylus, soft Sylus, established relationship

Word Count: 2,172

Main Masterlist

Love and Deepspace Masterlist

AO3

Tag List Form

Sylus normally doesn’t get up during the day. Usually, on any other day, he’d sleep all the way through from dawn until dusk. If he woke up at all, he’d use that time to check up on you, diurnal creature that you are.

This is “late” for him. It’s mid-morning, the sun is closer to its peak than the horizon, and you’re bouncing around like a 3-year-old that just raided a candy store.

You’d insisted on going to a pumpkin patch. The issue with that is the hours they’re usually open. As he turns into the lot, parking his nice (very expensive) car on the grass, watching you already starting to unbuckle your seatbelt, he thinks ruining his sleep schedule just a bit is worth it.

You hold his hand like a tether as you practically skip all the way down the driveway. At the end, on the left, is a big red barn, side doors open wide to welcome guests into a small shop. Cider, candles, donuts and more sit along wooden shelves, waiting to be bought. But to the right…

“Sy, look at them all!” You gape at the array of bright orange gourds in front of you. Big, medium, small - even a couple huge ones that he could sit inside of if they were hollowed. You suddenly look at him, a bright smile tearing at your face and stars dancing in your eyes. “I never asked! Have you ever carved a pumpkin before?”

It’s a miracle you’re not letting him go to run ahead into the field. Other couples trail along, searching for that one perfect pumpkin. A small family is taking photos of their dressed-up child among the hay bales. One person is looking at the huge ones with the eye of a sculpture artist.

He shakes his head, his own smile accompanying yours. “No. I don’t think we have anything like it in the N109 Zone.”

“Really? Do you have Halloween?”

He chuckles. “It would be a funny place if we started handing out free candy for one night of the year.” He tilted his head and raised a brow at you. “Besides, do you really want kids running around unsupervised?”

You huff, face wrinkling into a cute grimace. “Most kids who trick-or-treat aren’t unsupervised,” you retort. Your face softens as you reach the edge of the field. “But I guess you’re right. Oh!” You tug on his arm excitedly. “You should spend Halloween with me! We can watch scary movies and dress up and give out candy to the kids!”

A warmth seeps into his chest. You’d never allowed him to visit your apartment in Linkon City. You were always so scared of someone recognizing him, of being caught in this little game. To offer so freely now, and with this much enthusiasm, how can he refuse?

“Alright,” he agrees. “I’ll spend the holiday with you. Now pick out your pumpkin.”

“You gotta pick one out, too!”

“I will, sweetie.”

You let go of his hand to weave and wind your way through the patch. Pumpkins of all shapes surround him as he follows, scanning each gourd with a discerning eye. He vaguely understood the concept; pick a pumpkin, carve a face or design into it, and leave it out on the front step with lights inside. It was strange, to be sure. He couldn’t, as of yet, understand the appeal.

When he looks around at the people, they’re just like you: bouncing around, grinning from ear to ear just thinking about what they’ll carve. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think there was some reward or prize involved. But there wasn’t. As far as indulgences go, it’s one he can’t fully grasp yet.

You gasp as you run ahead toward a pumpkin. It was bright orange with shallow grooves, almost perfectly round, and with a stem twisting out of the top. You pick it up, turning it this way and that. “Look how perfect this one is, Sy! What do you think?” You turn to him, holding it for him to see.

“It’s a bit big for you, don’t you think, kitten?” he teases.

“Hush, I think it’s the perfect size for my design.” You swat at his chest, but he doesn’t even flinch at the contact. Instead, he holds out his arm so he can carry it for you. While it’s not the heaviest pumpkin in the patch, you do struggle with the heft. He doesn’t struggle at all as he cradles it in one arm.

“What are you going to carve into it?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see.” You smile mischievously up at him.

He chuckles and shakes his head. “I look forward to it.” He turns his attention back to the array before him. You hold his free hand as he continues his search.

It’s minutes later when his eyes catch sight of a smaller pumpkin. It’s gumdrop shaped, with a shorter stem. He isn’t sure what draws him to it, but he points it out to you and you pick it up.

“Awe, it’s so cute! I thought you’d go for one of the big ones for sure.” You spin it by its small stem to look at all its sides. The grooves are mostly shallow, with some running deeper than others. It’s also not perfectly orange like yours is. It’s instead more yellow toward the top.

“I should start small for my first pumpkin, no? I’m not an expert like you yet.”

You laugh, tucking the light-weight pumpkin into your own arm to carry as he leads you back towards the barn. “Maybe one day you’ll be as good as I, the Pumpkin Carving Master. I’ve had years of experience - you gotta lot of catching up to do.”

“You sound confident,” he says. “Maybe you’d like to put a little wager on whose pumpkin turns out better?”

“And who would be judging this competition?”

“Luke and Kieran, of course.”

“Ha! They’d give it to you in a heartbeat.”

“Do you know any other impartial judges?”

You think for a minute. All of your friends are hunters, and they’d probably feel bad choosing someone else’s work over yours, friendly competition or not. You shake your head. “Not anybody that wouldn’t turn you in.” You nudge him with your elbow. “We can always hold the competition next year. Oh! We can do us versus the twins! And then have the quote-unquote ‘impartial’ chef decide the winners.”

He chuckles warmly. “I like the way you think, kitten.”

“I know,” you chime back, grinning wickedly at your own devious little plan.

-

Sylus drives you back to the N109 Zone. It’s too risky to go back to your apartment right now, what with all the hunters that live there. It’ll be safer when it’s dark, perfect for Halloween night.

He helps you cover the coffee table in the living room with plastic trash bags to catch the guts and bits of pumpkin that will undoubtedly end up on the floor and couch anyway. You open up the cases of carving tools you got from the barn, setting out two scoops and a series of serrated knives for you both. He sets out a few toothpicks, telling you not to worry about them as he smirks all too knowingly. A familiar Halloween favorite plays on the large TV as you get started.

You show him how to cut open the pumpkin and gut it. He grimaces at the slippery, squishy innards as he pulls them out, causing you to laugh.

With a sharpie, you draw out the design you want to carve. You may or may not have found a reference for it online, while he seems to have gone in completely blind. You’re curious to know just what he’s making, but you hold back. It’ll be more fun to show them to each other after the fact.

Very few words are exchanged the longer you work. The movie fills up most of the quiet. Sometimes, you both make little jokes or commentary, but you become quite content to just sit in the moment with him. You can also understand that he’s not used to being awake at this hour. He might be too tired to keep up a conversation, so you don’t push.

“Sylus, what do you-” You quickly cut yourself off when you turn to see him.

He’s sitting with his arms crossed over his chest, resting deep in the couch cushions, head tilted back so his face is to the ceiling. His chest rises and falls slowly, quiet breaths you’d completely missed over the sound of the movie. You reach over and carefully turn it down a few ticks.

When you set the remote down, however, you notice his pumpkin sitting on the table. It seems finished, as far as you can tell. Unable to wait any longer for the reveal, you turn his pumpkin to face you.

Slanted triangle eyes with an upside down triangle nose, and a wide mouth with two little fangs. The triangles from the eyes have been repurposed with the help of the toothpicks to form ears at the top of the pumpkin. He’d even carefully cut away the orange outer layer of the pumpkin to accentuate the fangs. It was a cute little kitty. You can’t fight the smile that lights up your face as you take in Sylus’s first ever jack o'lantern.

“You’re making the same expression.”

You gasp and turn to see Sylus, no longer with his head leaned back, and with a sleep-softened smirk. You’d been so caught up in his pumpkin that you didn’t realize when he’d woken up. His red eyes shift from you to your own pumpkin. He chuckles.

“Is that me?”

Your own jack o’lantern was a classic: sharp eyes and a jagged smile full of pointed teeth. You laugh. “No, it’s not you.” You turn both of the pumpkin faces to look at you both, before leaning back into the couch next to him. His arm automatically wraps around your shoulder, pulling you in closer. “I don’t see you like that anymore.”

He hums noncommittally. How you two met remains an unspoken stain on your unusual relationship. He was scary and intense, so damn determined for you to Resonate with him that he hadn’t cared about anything else. He’s spent every day since making it up to you.

“Is that me?” you ask, pointing to his cat carving, steering you both away from that time.

He nods. “Of course it is, kitten. That’s the face you make when you’ve come up with a mischievous scheme. The resemblance is uncanny.”

You chuckle. “We can set them out later. But right now…” You pull away from his side, drawing a disappointed sigh from the man. He watches as you slide down to the other armrest, leaning your back against it and making sure the TV remote is within reach. You pat your chest. “C’mon, it’s past your bedtime.”

He huffs a soft laugh. “I wonder whose fault that is,” he teases. Still, he’s all too happy to accept your offer, stretching himself out like a sleepy cat until his body covers yours, his head resting on your chest. His arms slide between your body and the couch until they’re wrapped securely around you. You pull the blanket off the back of the couch - one of your own additions after coming and going so often - and drape it over the both of you.

“Comfy?” You comb your fingers gently through his hair. It’s always softer than you expect, gliding through your fingers easily as you scratch along his scalp.

He groans against your shirt. “It’s perfect, kitten,” he murmurs. His eyes are already shut. He’s certain now that they won’t open again until midnight. With his ear so close to your chest, he can hear your heart beating clearer than ever, mixing with the movie in the background to create a lullaby that eases all the pent up tension in his muscles. “This was fun,” he admits, voice so quiet you almost don’t hear him. “I look forward to the competition next year.”

Your fingers scrape along the nape of his neck, sending chills down his body. You grin at the power you hold. The way he so naturally responds to your touch is addicting, a power you will find a way to abuse when he wakes up. But for now, you use your newfound skills to massage the strain in his neck away and play with his hair. “I think yours won this time,” you comment.

He grins. “What do I win?”

You pretend to think. “A kiss.”

He chuckles, a darker twinge of possessiveness staining the sound. “Be careful when offering yourself up as a reward, kitten. You don’t know just how much I’ll collect.”

“Well, you can collect when you wake up. Deal?”

He squeezes you a smidge tighter in his embrace, pressing his face into your neck as he lets out a long sigh. “Deal.”

---

Tag List:

@the-golden-jhope @huen1ngk41 @armycaratlover @sylusfluffymeow @cheesemachine44

[p0rk-guts]

He's finally done I think. WOAW! Radio demon time!!!

Okay time for comparison + breakdown rant ^ - ^ another SUPER long one I had a lot to say about this silly guy

ALRIGHT. So. Atp all that can be said has been said about Alastor but I'll gloss over it anyhow. Grossly historically inaccurate hair and clothing. Invisible deer theming. One of the main reasons he's got one of the most clowned on designs in the show is bc he's a pretty good representation of the worst it has to offer. He's absurdly red and has the waspiest waist in town. Also gotta zero in on the coat for a second bc I find it incredibly stupid that he went to that tailor bc of his coat being ripped and then left the shop with the exact same torn coat on oh goddd that felt like a complete joke who wrote this

Also his "redesign" was pointless. He stayed pretty much entirely the same except his colors got pinker and grosser and now he has this?? White trim on his lapels??? Even less 1930's accurate and it only serves to hurt the pallate in my eyes. It's the only spot of white on his entire design, it doesn't appear anywhere else so it throws it all off. And it's so bright. Is it supposed to be a focal point?? His tits????

Anyways onto my guy who I love so very deeply. I'm pretty sure sepia film was outdated by the 1930s but I gave him a palette inspired by it to emphasize how dated and stuck in old ways he is. Added blood red accents bc. Well. Cannibal murderer. Also bc I redid the sin colors so red is wrath and it seems like a fitting sin to pair him with.

After looking into 1930's men's fashion a tiny bit (thanks anon, this video was helpful!) and gave him a double breasted coat but wider and pointier so he looks a little less like just some normal guy and really emphasize how prideful and egotistical he is. "Ooo look at me I'm super big and imposing and powerfulll". I think it's a fun character trait of his. Definitely keeping it.

I liked him wearing gloves bc I feel like he wouldn't like getting his hands directly dirty and would always be covered when committing his murders. Maybe he's a germaphobe even. "I can excuse murder but I draw the line at dried blood on my skin". Also the gloves being white would contrast really well with blood so. Love that

I gave him a long tie to free him from the Vivziepop bow tie uniform and a fedora to add to the 1930's vibe and serve as something that can occasionally obscure his face in shadow. His glasses are also opaque and I imagine his eyes would rarely be shown if ever to make him seem more inhuman and off-putting, disconnecting him from personhood a bit. Wanted to add to that with his smiling mouth never opening and just being a static grin that can only occasionally widen or lessen, his voice cracking out of his "speaker" with fuzzy radio static. Seen multiple ppl use that idea and it always eats

I love Alastor's silly theatric nature (primarily in the pilot) and I'd probably keep it, but I'd add a layer of uncanny-ness to him where when he's not putting on his silly jovial facade, he gives off an unnerving vibe. Trying to appear approachable and charming and pleasant to lure people in before he's revealed to be less than human. Loveee thattt

I love Alastor being a deer. Predator becoming prey (animal) + "prey animal" lulling people into a false sense of security before striking. Love it. We should be CAPITALIZING ON IT❗So I gave him deer like legs, visible deer hooves, and more readable deer ears + the ham radio tower antenna antlers (sorry 4 calling them horns 💀)

Tried to make it a little more obvious that he's a mixed man of color by giving him dark wavy hair and the faintest hint of lip definition Viv uses in her style. I think it works. He's still not dark skinned tho

LASTLY the mic. Also not an original idea as I've seen tons of others turn it into a carbon mic but turned into a pentagram shape and I love the idea a lotttt so I joined the crew.

AND THAT DOES IT!!!! hope u like him as much as I do hehe. Just 1 supplemental doodle this time sorry :/ showing off how his face is probably obscured most of the time. He's. So hard to draw. I'm just bad at men but I'm tryinggggg guys

Alsoooo I've already finished the drawings for Niffty, Angel, and Husk! Once I've finished their breakdowns I'll add em right to the queue, and then I'll make a post with all of the main 6 together :3

[blackheart-6]

dess-ember day 31/31

very long thoughts below the read more!

hi yall

woo-hoo, ive finished another month of dess-ember!! it really has been fun, if very time consuming, but ive made many pieces over this month ive loved and had a great time sharing them all with yalls 😄😄😄

but anyways, lets get to the final entry! its a bit of an unusual one :D

its some pixel art!! i have only done 2 other pixel things this month (i originally wanted to do more, but i am very slow at it 😔), so i felt like ending with it wasnt a bad way to go!

i took dess, noelle, berdly, kris, ralsei, and susie and made some different sprites of them, which were taking the way i draw them and making them into sprite version, and also me making omori style versions as well

i had a couple different versions of the art, layed out in different ways, but stinky tumblr only lets me have 10 images. unfortunate 😔.

but anyways, now weve got the main part, each individual character! you can skip past this if you dont want to hear my thoughts i had while doing the individual drawings, its kinda alot :/

i put them all in a format like this, hopefully it isnt confusing!

we can go in order of how i have them in the very first image, so we can start with kris :D

kris was a very fun one to do, they were actually the second one i made, and them turning out so well is what led me to making even more. i feel like im pretty much entirety happy with them, the omori style turned out cute, and the deltarune style isnt half bad either! i did forget to give them bangs though, like i normally give them in my art, but i was too much of a bum to go back and fix it after i finished :|. i feel like they translated very well ❤️

next would be ralsei, but im doing him last actually, because he has the most to talk about 😤😤

now weve got susie! her hair in her canon form was tricky to translate into the omori style, but i think it was worth it, cause it turned out well! and i think her canon dark world omori sprite might be my favorite i made, her outfit turned out great!! im not as fond of my versions of her design, they didnt translate that well into sprites, but it could be worse lol. her face was a bit difficult to do, since the omori head shape is meant for a human, but i think she turned out good regardless 💜

next is berdly, and im so sorry for him, he turned out roughhh. if i thought someone like susie, with her head, was hard to translate into the omori style, it was nothing compared to trying to turn berdly into it. with his beak and his head feathers and wings and his legs... yeah, it was not a fun time 😔. i tried though, and i dont think its entirely bad! the legs are probably the worst part, they are kinda hard to see, but the rest of it came together... kinda. dont get me started on turning my version of him into a sprite though, i dont wanna talk about it 😫. sorry berdly, if i ever sprite you again ill make it up to you 🩵

next is noelle! she was the first i did, and i feel like she turned out so cute 🥰🥰🥰. her dark world, my version, deltarune style sprite might be my second favorite one i made, i think it actually translated well to sprite art. her fur is a bit rough, gradiants are tough in pixel art, but i dont think its that bad overall. but yeah, im pretty happy with her 🤎

penultimatly, weve got dess! gotta have her, its dess-ember after all!! hers was hard to do, trying to take my own design and alter it to make it more canon (mostly, i just simplified some things, but i dont think it looks enough like a canon sprite :( ill keep trying with it), but i think she turned out cute as well! im not entirely happy with it though, as i said, i might go back to fix up the deltarune styled ones at some point 💚

lastly, weve got ralsei. ohhh ralsei, how cute you are, but how difficult you were 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫. to start off with, i had a goal in mind for the deltarune style sprites. normally, when you look at the canon ralsei sprites, you might notice they look a bit different. obviously theres the hat, and the fur color, but its more than that.

theres so many differences, and yet my goal was to make the sprites lose all those differences, and be more consistent with each other. i didnt think it would be too bad, but it was a rough time. i made his hatless version easily, and i was like, oh, ill just add a hat, change his color, itll be easy!! ...it was not easy ���‍🌫️. i did that and he looked so wrong, it barely even looked like hat ralsei at all 😖.

i mean, that doesnt look right, right?? so i had to keep editing, and changing both versions, trying to make them better. i spent so much longer on him than anyone else, but at the end, i think it was worth it! i feel like he ended up adorable, but boy was it work 😂

the omori sprites of his were pretty easy though, once i had all the deltarune sprites down i just omori-fied them, took barely any time. i did make his outline purple though, like the headspace denizens, since hes a darkner 🩷

but thats it for that! this is where youd wanna skip if you didnt wanna read all that lol. now for me to yap about this month, and dess!

i feel like this was a pretty productive dess-ember!! i definitely ramped up my art from last year, trying to do as few small drawings as possible. was that a mistake? maybe lol. it was certainly difficult, and led to pretty much every drawing being late because most of them took like 8 hours or so, but i suppose a couple hours late doesnt affect much, and i still did all 31 entries!

and id say while it was a struggle, it was a good thing i did it! i enjoyed my time drawing, and sharing all my art with yalls is always a fun time for me ^^ and i really do like drawing dess, i think i made a pretty good design for her all those years ago (like 2) 😊

there is the question though, of 'what about next year? will you do this again??' and to that i say... i dont actually know haha. i would want to, even if im busy i could always do a smaller one, but the real thing that could affect it is that, in 2025 we are getting more deltarune!!! im more excited than i could ever say, but if we see dess in canon, then i dont know if ill do another dess-ember. there would be my design vs canon design, which would be strange to reconcile with, and i imagine someone would probably do an official month for her of art prompts.

but thats all if she even appears. if she doesnt, well, expect me back next december to do this! if she does, ill have to think about it, so we will see then ^^

anyways, ive had a good month doing this! it may be a bit before i post new art, to give myself a break, but ill be back 😄

bye yall, and happy new year 2025!!! 🥳🥳🥳

[mezz-merizing]

language, hypnotism, and you!

here in the Hypnokink Zone we tend to center our focus on inductions. and for good reason!! they're the purest form of hypnosis, the intentional induction of someone, an endeavour designed exclusively to take someone into trance. but what if we didn't want to do an induction, or even take someone into trance, but still have a hypnotic effect on them? as it turns out, this is extremely doable, and extremely cool!

if you've been here for a while now you might have seen this post from me, my first proper ramble about all this stuff, and you might remember that bit at the end, when i talk about just how hot i find the words "hypnotized" and "brainwashed" themselves, and how i sometimes just find myself repeating them over and over when i'm really feelin' it. i think that's a good representation of how just single words can fuck with our minds, and it's not just those two <3

so like, let's think for a second about what language actually is; we tend to take for granted the fact that we make air do silly tricks with our mouths and our throats in order to put ideas and concepts into other people's heads. really, a word isn't just a word- it's not just the funny shape that air takes on when you make just the right tongue movements, it's the idea that word actually is. and ideas are extremely powerful!! when you think of the word "brainwashed" you don't just think of the individual letters, you think of helpless subjects, spinning spirals, and complete, devoted obedience. and that has more effects on you than you might realise :3

sometimes people in the hypno sphere call this "neuro-linguistic programming" or "NLP" but that's kind of a misnomer, (actual NLP is a silly and weird pseudoscience largely invented by "pickup artists" to sell courses, so, y'know, i try and avoid the association) i prefer to just use "hypnotic language" because it's just as descriptive! the basis of hypnotic language is this: when you say words, you incept ideas into someone's head. if you have the skill, time, and familiarity with the person you're talking to, you can use this to control their thoughts nearly as effectively as if they were in trance!

a lot of this relies on what words mean the most to the individual you're talking to. let's take me as an example!! the word docile makes me fucking weak. it conjures up images of blank-face, calm-smile obedience, of gently nodding and going about the commands i'm given, of empty-headed servitude. the images it conjures in my head are vivid and hot as hell, and it's just a single word. use it a little bti around me, and you'll ensure i have all those thoughts swirling around in my head! thoughts of servitude. thoughts of enslavement. and so it comes naturally that i'd be easier to control <3

tone matters too! if you speak to someone authoritatively, they'll come to see you as an authority. even in tiny matters, insignificant ones, even in little ways- saying "hey, grab me a glass of water" is more authoritative than "hey, can you get me some water?" obviously, this is a double-edged sword! too much authority and you might give your intentions away, or just come off as kinda bossy, and that's more likely to make people actively resist you than let you in. once again, it's all about knowing your target! you gotta know what your subject's tolerances are for this kinda thing

take all this together, and you can have almost as much of a grip on someone's mind as you would if they were completely hypnotized :3 you break them down overtime, get them hanging on certain words, widen their tolerance for authority... and eventually, with a lot of effort and patience, they're yours. obedient to you- brainwashed, in all but process

can you imagine it? like, from the subject's perspective- being completely under someone's hypnotic control without ever having been hypnotized. maybe looking back at a long time ago and thinking "i sure acted different then", but not worrying about it at all. you're a thrall, and as far as you're concerned, that's just who you are!! that's just kind of how the world works

i dunno about you but i can't imagine a fate i'm more desperate for <3

[carionto]

It'll be "awesome", the Human said

(Continuation/conclusion to this)

____________________________

After the Coalition delegates had been mindblown enough, it was time for them to finally leave and have a nap. But Captain Knoslark had one more thing he desperately wanted to show them.

"So, like, we're a science vessel and we have three of the biggest reactors, right? Right. So, I wanna show you what we recently figured out we can do. C'mon, it'll be awesome."

Awesome - a word the rest of the Galaxy will soon learn to both admire and run for cover whenever a Human uses it.

With trepidation in their steps, and worry in their breaths, they followed the all too eager Captain, who was almost skipping and humming down the halls, dramatically pointing the way. His crew continued to not give him the satisfaction of ever acknowledging his theatrics.

"Once the reactors are in good enough sync, we'll reconfigure the Radiant Dusk to a circular shape and begin!"

Oh. Yeah. Of course their ships can also transform. Why not. The delegates have given up thinking there are things Human engineering can't accomplish. Also, good enough?

"Eh, don't worry about it, we overbuild everything, so a 1 or 2 percent margin of error is fine, most of the time."

They could not imagine themselves to be more worried. At least not until a few minutes from now.

"Captain, she's ready," Chief Engineer Tameki's tone changed to a total blank deadpan for the next words, "to transform. and. roll. out."

With childlike glee, Captain Knoslark tapped the big red button, specifically designed for his pad only, to begin the sequence.

Distant creaking of metal, anguish at the prospect of bending in ways nature never intended, and the unmistakable jolt of mechanical movement, despite the artificial gravity maintaining the same down throughout, once more instilled primal anxiety for the delegates.

The reactors wound up, turning the almost-buzz like feeling beneath their feet to a true all encompassing sense of absolute power. Three small stars at equidistant points along the now 4km in diameter vessel created a singular feeling of something imminent that should never have been possible. The Universe itself wanted to reject this possibility.

"We tried copying your mass field generators from way back when you did the barrier thing. Wanted to see if we could get close to Black Hole levels, there were some theories that time travels was possible with that kinda pull."

I don't think anyone would be surprised if they had succeeded, but, for once during their entire visit, the Humans said they couldn't get time travel to work. Celebration! Then the Captain kept talking.

"So what happened instead is we accidentally tore a hole in time-space, creating a sort of warp gate." He said with both joy and disappointment.

Then the Universe shrieked. A massive distortion in reality now struggled and failed to restore normality between the ring-shaped ship. Swirling coils of matter flickered in and out, ghostly visages of detonations on a solar scale. A sight never intended to be witnessed.

"Still gotta figure out how to set a destination to anywhere. Right now the only stable connection we can get is with massive gravity wells, so any celestial body with enough mass, smallest one is a red dwarf. Problem is the connection steers towards the center, so not really practical right now."

"If we try to point at empty space the gate just kinda wiggles and you end up getting spaghetti-fied on the other end. Still, once we get enough ships like this one around the galaxy, we'll solve that whole trips taking more than a few hours thing we got with the hyper drives."

At this point the delegates decided to be escorted away, as most had became a crying mess. One stumbled onto a automated cleaning unit and at this the Captain, whose mood had soured a bit now that his time as tour guide was over, rose back to heights unseen before. With his most official sounding, yet at the same time most joy filled tone ever, he declared:

"Sergeant Ying Zhao, issue an official notice. Today at 20:30 ship time there will be a grand ceremony for the promotion of Captain Stabicus to Special Envoy of the Galactic Coalition. Ready all relevant paperwork, and his new badge, and inform the chef to prepare a feast. We have done much today for the sake of Human-Coalition relationships, and so much more for the Radiant Dusk at Everest and her crew and staff. Tonight, we celebrate!"

[gaykarstaagforever]

FREE ON YOUTUBE

...YouTube, I feel like your free animated movie recommendations have declined in quality a bit since the halcyon days of Osmosis Jones.

Yes, it is a blatant Kung Fu Panda knockoff, with an American voice cast that is clearly whoever was home at 11 am the week they called.

This is bad. Like, unfinished, I think I'm missing like half the movie, they forgot to resolve the main plot and it just stops, bad. There is a scene where the only character on screen suffers an animation error, and no one fixed it. The framerate of the movie drops every time the action picks up or the camera swings around too fast. Like...you made a computer-animated movie, and you don't have the hardware or time to do...you know...computer animation? The stones on the Chinese producers of this mess.

Not everything has to be Pixar or DreamWorks. CG is hard. I get it. But you gotta work to your strengths. In this case, the computers you are using can't even render the movie properly. Like...I don't know how you get around that. That's kind of a major issue.

Technical incompetence aside, this suffers from the usual bad CG animation problems of every character looking like they come from a different artistic universe, and most of the action is generic mocaping that doesn't take into account how any real bodies shaped like these bodies would move. And there are just things they didn't bother capturing. Like none of these dough monsters ever stands up on screen.

Shot composition is a disaster. Most scenes are a mob of creatures standing in a pack in an empty space, doing exaggerated facial reactions to someone else talking. It's like bad machinima made in the Skylanders games engine, except all of the character designs are way worse.

The plot, such as they attempted it, is supposed to be about a small, incompetent warrior who looks like Jackie Chan who gets transported to the mystical realm of Merryland by a magical jade necklace his grandfather gave him. There, he transforms into an anthropomorphic panda, for reasons that are never explained. There is a prophecy that a Panda Warrior is destined to save the realm, and our guy is apparently it, except there is a flashback to like a couple of years ago when the ultimate evil took over, and...there is ANOTHER Panda Warrior who was just there and sort of stopped it? But then didn't? Who the hell was that guy?!

Also the ultimate evil is one of the two sky-whales who guard the Dragon Ball (yes, literally) just turning evil because it absorbed too much power. Why did this happen? How are you going to stop it from happening again? Then that whale turns into a nine-headed snake after an evil mouse from the real world just...is there, and merges with the Whale. After the snake is defeated the mouse just crawls out of it and runs away, and no one says a damn thing.

Our panda warrior and his 7 legendary warrior friends kung fu fight the snake at least 3 different times, and never get close to stopping it. And the panda doesn't do anything special or lead them, he is just there, and then at the very end his necklace glows and that...helps? Somehow? The true hero here is, and I'm not joking, Jimmy Ginseng, a tiny ginseng man with an erhu who shows up whenever the warriors are losing, plays the erhu, the enemy gets soothed by the song, and then Jimmy gets tired and leaves. EVERY BATTLE ends like this, including the final one.

So...?

The panda has that cool green sword in the picture. And he does have it. It is just...a sword, thst someone randomly gives him. I think he ends up dropping it and it never comes up again.

Also all the warriors are animals, except for the one who is a talking tree stump...filled with lava. And he dies at the end by setting himself and the snake on fire. Because his master, a purple fox, told him to do that to save everyone. ...Except the SNAKE SURVIVED IT, and they had to fight it again, lose, and wait for Jimmy to show up.

The bull character also sacrifices himself, TWICE, to save everyone else, and both times that doesn't work, either.

The movie ends with Merryland being restored from the devastation of the snake...BEFORE the snake is defeated. It just...gets better, after they resuce an elf girl princess who does...something...? And then the regrown flowers shoot the snake with missiles of some kind. Which ALSO fails to defeat it.

The panda doesn't go home and become human again and nothing is explained. But during the credits there is a fight scene between the little human warrior and his general, in which they get drunk and wrestle and tons of fight animations repeat in a loop for 3 minutes. Is this part of the movie? Are these outtakes? What does this have to do with anything? If this is what happens after he got home, I don't know why or what it means.

...My guess is that the first panda warrior we see was supposed to be his grandfather, as a panda? That was probably the idea? But no one ever says that. The movie doesn't remember to explain that.

This was translated from Chinese. Perhaps the translation is terrible. Or they did a massive reedit of this for the US release. That could explain some of this. ...But then why didn't they cut out the glitch scene, or some of the shots with the bad framerate? There are literal 10 second sequences in this movie where there is no dialogue or music, just a camera sleeping over a scenery to ambient nature sounds. Who reedits a movie for the foreign market and cuts out vital plot scenes, but leaves in shit like that?

...Unless all those vital plot scenes had even worse technical problems. Jesus. That's a terrifying thought.

One positive here. While nearly all of the voice work is as boring and bored as you'd expect, the immortal Tom Kenny is good, with what very little he is given to do, here. The man is a professional.

And here is the weirdest thing: Rob Schneider is really good here as the panda man and Jimmy Ginseng. Like, shockingly good. Like, this is without exaggeration the best performances of this man's miserable life. He is funny, charming, nuanced, he feels like he is reacting properly during what were probably one-sided conversations recorded on different days in different places. It is shocking how good he is in this awful, stupid movie. My only guess is that he was somehow involved in bringing this over and it was going to serve as an audition piece to get him more voice work. In which case, like, fair enough, dude. You nailed it. He is genuinely very good in this very bad movie.

What an odd artifact from 2012. What a waste of time. Why did YouTube recommend this? What do any of us gain from being shown this? I am just flabbergasted.

You're on time out with these movie suggestions, Google.

Also there is a pig who flies who looks like this:

Those aren't ears, they are just gross misshapen tendrils that bob around as she moves. It's like someone was playing with a stretch tool and then...stopped.

I was gonna end with "Now let's have Jimmy Ginseng play us out," but I can only find this one bad picture of him, and it doesn't show his erhu:

Here is some nice erhu music from someone else. Something redeeming in this godforsaken post:

[bludmd23]

What's your favorite form/shape/look for Martian Manhunter?

OMG OMG HI You asked me the question I didn’t know I was dying to answer!!!! Thank you and pls enjoy my ramble<333 under the cut in case it gets too long heheheh

So this can be answered from multiple angles (and that’s exactly what I’m gonna do)

First would be my favorite art style for J’onn!!!

No argument here it’s definitely dcau’s design

This skrunkly blorbo has the most perfect face ever, so very well balanced features in between human and alien, my favorite thing about it are those black patterns on his eyes and his lil mouth shape <33

And his natural form in this style is perfect too, love the bio armor looking chest plate thingys on his chest and his heels, gives him a bug vibe and how can I not love that!!!

Other styles I like would be:

J’onn from Justice League Action, a bit skinny but he’s very cute and I love his overall silly vibe

J’onn from Justice league Crisis on two earths

Alright next I’ll talk about my fav uniforms for him!!

Gotta love the classic one ya know, very effective, real fun seeing him walkin around with his tiddies out and in his lil hot pants

N52 J’onns outfit is pretty cool too, I kinda like it when they go in between too little coverage and too much, plus loincloth fits him (idk if that’s what it’s called) , bonus point for claws and spikes on elbows

Justice lords J’onn pretty cool too!!! Kinda wished there was more red tho

In general I like seeing the red X on his chest, the big cape with collar and the boots with a part folded down, so if a design has all three it can’t go too wrong really

Anyways, finally I’ll talk about my fav form/shape for him!!

Apart from his hero form (Martian manhunter), his natural Martian form is my fav, especially when they make it insect like, honestly it’s no fun when you see Martians and they just look like green humans with red eyes, like why!! They’re aliens!! Give them alien features!! Make them look weird!!!

Things I like to see when it comes to his Martian form would be pointy head, long and (comparatively) skinnier limbs, claws, spikes, and I’ve seen some artist give him tree like patterns which is really cool since I associate him with plants a lot, but otherwise smooth or slightly scaly skin does the job too

Here are some interpretations of his Martian form that I enjoy and haven’t been shown, from JLA, adventures in the dcau, JLA act of gods, and Martian Manhunter 1988 (pls go read it excellent story and beautiful art)

That’s it for now! Will gladly yap more if anyones interested, thank you for coming to my ted talk<33

[lunchtimebedamned1997]

Vee's Studies!

(scroll to the end for timelapse :3)

I'm like, kind of obsessed with them lmao. While I've drawn Vox quite a lot (I've been working on a Vox animation thing over the last month-ish) I hadn't done much of anything when it came to Val and Vel. I knew I'd want to do something with them all later on, but I wanted to get a good understanding of their designs, shape language, and the differences between the three of them so I can play a lot more when it comes to doing them (heh) in my own style.

So, since I was most familiar (and most obsessed with out of the three lol), I started with Vox :3

While I've been working on the animation project, it had kind of been an 'adjust-as-I-go'/'let's-bullshit-this' process, rather than doing the work of understanding why certain things looked more correct than others, so I still learned a LOT from this one study. (Plus the scene makes me wheeze and I happily took the excuse to use that moment as his study reference haha)

Obviously Val is... an asshole, to really undersell it. But this is hell, his character is interesting and his design is immaculate. I think I had the most fun with studying him tbh. Without his santa wings-coat he- *coughs* - yeah. Uh. Good design. I can actually believe that Angel fell for him at one point. Manipulative bastard - sorry tangents. ANYWAY! XD

VERY fun to draw, and a very good balance within these designs of showing off character attributes but also not taking themselves too seriously (The HATS these boys wear! *wheeze* did Velvette just give up fighting them on it? I've gotta know haha)

I missed color too much by this point to make them all match perfectly, and frankly - trying to draw canon Velvette without hue differentiation is AWFUL she has so many details and overlapping elements. If I ever have to draw Vel from 1x03 again I might cry.

Something about her 1x03 look actually makes me feel viseral irritation just by seeing it (like, even b4 I made myself draw it), but then I see her in 1x08 and I wanna draw her forever???? She's so fucking cool? So fucking cute????? The duality of man ig lmao

Anyway, the TLDR is that actually being conscious of how things are represented when drawing a character can lead to surprisingly immense insight... I feel like I not only understand so much more about how to represent their characters, but also a much firmer grasp about how the shape language in the show works.

These designs are immaculate and I had so much fun. I actually have a lot more I could say about this, but my period came today and I'm tired and this post is already massive so I'll leave things here for now! But yeah! Hopefully more Vee's in the future bc I love them!

Wishing you all well! <3

[summertimemusician]

Linktober Shadow, Day 4

Lost

I feel like we really need to talk more about how the Lost Woods are a concept as beautiful as it is terrifying actually.

Wild/BOTW/TOTK Link fans, this one's for you and brought by my severe sleep deprivation, enough caffeine to kill a grown woman with less spite and my medieval literature/narrative/poetry teacher who motivated me through the entire creative process via helping me throw ideas at the wall even as all of the essays I gotta turn in are going to make me late in posting Sage. *laughs hysterically, immediately collapses*

As always can be read as romantic or platonic, and it's up to interpretation what's going down on this one. And can also be read in or outside of an LU context, I'm leaving it vague both on purpose and because of sleep deprivation lol.

Of all places you could say you most intimately did not wish to be alone after being separated from the Chain, the Lost Woods of literally any era but specially Wild’s would definitely be on your top three at a pristine number one.

Really, if you weren’t currently being stalked through the darkened, shadowed weald of the once welcoming evergreen home of both the Minish and Kokiri, whom you knew could be much, much more beautiful lovely (it did aid in raising a good chunk of your beloved heroes, after all) and with your heart working with all the urgency of a wounded deer being chased by a wolf. You’d almost commend it for it’s choice in setting this time.

Keyword being almost, for it compared naught to the sheer and utter terror that burned through your every sinew, marrow and veins at the accuracy of that statement, and the implication that your nebulous and hauntingly familiar current hunter grew ever more clever each passing second of your adventure.

You ran, ran and ran through the living woods, trying desperately to find any possible landmark, an oddly shaped tree, one of the torches or the remain of the skeletons from the old, ruined iterations of the Temple of Time from long bygone eras that the forest had reclaimed, or the hint of the breeze soft whispers from the echoes of the Kokiri or the elated branch rattle giggling laughter of the Skull Children. At this point you’d take even the the mad, beast like howling of the Stalfos or the tortured wailing of Poes, somewhere between vesania tainted laughter and the primal, feral pleading for one’s survival that shook you to the marrow.

There was no such symphony now, the woods as silent as a grave.

(The hauting ground of so, so many that it did not love or could not hold onto anymore, whispered a corner of your mind, and it sounded like the Shadow, with it’s ominous phlegmatic hissing, twisted amusement and sadistic brutality all in one.)

Your arm had long gone numb, broken under the impossible force held by the beast of sulfur and obsidian that the world itself rebelled against warring at it’s very existence as it roared it’s wrath back at it, the Goddesses, Hylia and Demise and your heroes and princesses caught in the middle of divine design, your legs giving out under the weight of your exhaustion, you tasted copper from the wound on your head dripping down your lips but that did not stop you. Would not stop you, couldn’t stop you.

You grit your teeth so hard against the shout that wanted to tear it’s way out of your throat as you barely kept yourself from hitting your head, diverting your momentum against an old, lonely tree. Your blood sinking into the wood, good, better it than Dark Link.

You were tired, you were exhausted, you swore you could hear a growl among the melancholy of the mist. You hoped the shade did not manage to track you down as you made sure not to leave a trail of blood, but something tells you that it wouldn’t need it to track you even with the faint moonlight barely giving enough aid in your own quest to find it before it found you with your only, laughable weapon being an old arrow you’ve pilfered from a long decomposed corpse almost falling from your white knuckled grip.

You didn’t want to die, you needed to survive.

You though of the Chain, your lovely, chaotic, kind boys, of Sky’s ever ecompassing kindness and Four’s brilliant cleverness, Time’s quiet comfort and Legend’s fierce hidden gentleness and Wind’s trailblazing joy, Hyrule’s tender sweetness and Warrior’s warm protectiveness and Wild’s beautiful adoration for life.

You missed them, and it was likely you wouldn’t see them again, that more than anything hurt more than all of your wounds combined.

You try to push yourself up, to move, to live, to keep moving forward, caring not for the stillness of the glade. Barely noticing the sudden silence as you almost pitched forward once again, stumbling onto the earth as your grip onto your makeshift weapon finally gave out-

Only for a pair of arms to catch you, steady, magnolias and rosemary, petrichor from untamed, ancient Hyrule. A bright Sheikah cerulean tunic and a navy cloak falling over darkned boots.

You freeze, hands twitching, it couldn’t be an illusion. You’ve seen plenty in the corner of your eye as you traversed through the woods, attempting to lead you astray. None of them were solid, many of them weren’t quite as cold as this, whoever was holding you.

But it couldn't be real either, it shouldn't.

“Link...?”, came your tired rasp, you felt as if you’ve swallowed sand (briefly, you wondered if the taste of flowers on the back of your tongue mixing with the copper of the liquid of life in your veins was the reason. Then resolved yourself not to think about it), your traitorous body succumbing to exhaustion as the stranger gently held you up (friend, friend, but it couldn’t be, Wild tried to hold onto you, the memory of his desperation scorching under your eyelids like a brand and his howl of denial mixed with self loathing would haunt your for days to come, maybe months, he was far away and hopefully safe, it couldn’t be him).

The figure merely steadied you against themselves, silent as they swung you into their arms, you briefly struggled. It was instinct to put up a fight, to push against the liminal illusion cruelly meant to haunt your possible last moments as another soon to be lost souls chest, or heck for all you knew it could be the Shadow, dragging it out, playing with your torment as it gave you scraps of hope before taking it away. The figure paused, only to gently readjust you -painfully careful as the memory of the gentleness belonging to your Champion but oh so wrong made your heart ache-, the figure lowly speaking, their tone the emerald eternity of the kingdom’s fields and like setting stitches against your wounded self, like the soothing nature of early autumn rain. Almost a whisper, cracked like the wind through the leaves.

“... Rest. You’ll be alright.”

You wanted to protest, wanted to claw and fight and bite his throat off just in case even if you weren’t sure it would take, as with your head in the crook of his hood you couldn’t hear a heartbeat, but your exhaustion won out in the end. Held in the warmth of the sun over Faron Woods with the glimpse of fierce cerulean blue, the gaze of a reynard whom a part of you knew wouldn’t give you up without a fight and safer than you felt since getting pounced through that cursed portal.

When you next came to, it was to Wild’s frantic worry at the edges of camp, his hair like a frazzled shroud as he dropped everything in hand of his watch to check on your now wrapped wounds. Hugging you tight as you held him just as close back.

This time, you found a heartbeat, and you could almost weep with relief, and in the darkness of the woods a shrouded shade smiled.

Returning to the mist unseen and unheard. But content you were home.

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

Working on some designs for the White Witches! The concept of them is so fucking creepy and unsettling I love it so much, so naturally I have to draw them. But before I get to do that, I have to figure out how the fuck to do that- so welcome to my process! This is gonna be long as hell, so I've put it under the cut for the sake of convenience.

First we gotta go over what we have. I haven't seen any official art of White Witches, only of the Manus and some Hunters, so we gotta work off of the narration. The first notes I took were from Arc 2, the first ever appearance of a White Witch.

These are the details I got from that scene:

White robes

Gloves

Long sleeves

Long white veil with light green and blue embroidery

Lower face showing, eyes covered

So all of these needed to be incorporated somehow. Step one was messing around with the veil and the robe silhouette.

Silhouette

This part was easy enough, I wanted to stick with the church theme so I started looking through nun habits. I didn't want to exactly copy any specific style, but it felt like an appropriate starting point. What I ended up keeping was a heavy lean on triangles and rectangles.

Veils

This was probably my favorite part to experiment with. The veils are described as covering the eyes, but not the lower half of the face, so you can see the mouth clearly. This detail actually spawned a whole train of thought that massively influenced my design going forward but we'll get to that later-

The first idea I had was to just take a regular veil and make it sheer at the bottom, like a gradient. But I quickly dropped that, it felt too same-y, and with colors it would blend right in to the rest of the white robes. The whole point was to bring a focus to the face. What I ended up sticking with was this!

Once I had it down it seemed so obvious- a split veil! I just put a split across the bridge of the nose and bam, suddenly it made sense. The triangular cut and the cascading folds just kind of happened, it felt natural with the rest of the shapes I had been drawing. A friend said it reminded him of moths, which felt oddly fitting given their association with magic in Arc 1. In retrospect, I think I was subconsciously inspired by early appearances of Blue Diamond in Steven Universe. Not intentional, but I do love how it turned out.

Other Uniform Details

This is the "later" I mentioned earlier, because I am obsessed with the implications of this veil. It's very specifically said that a White Witch is never without her Manus or a Hunter, and the first one we ever see is flanked by two hunters. They are, fundamentally, still seen by the church as threats.

So with that in mind, one goal expanded into two. At first my goal was to make them unsettling, but beautiful. Like porcelain dolls. The church doesn't parade their cruelty around, they dress it up in fine robes and narratives of redemption.*

* This is some extrapolation on my part. It's mentioned in Arc 2 that most witches regard White Witches as "traitors". That implies that their imprisonment is not common knowledge. If it was, they would be "captives" or "prisoners". Even if they turned themselves in, I highly doubt they were signing up for whatever the fuck is going on in that church.

Now I have my second goal: make them clearly, but not obviously, trapped.

This gave me a really clear direction to move in, because now every piece of fabric has an extra practical purpose. For example-

There is a myth that making eye contact with a witch is inviting a curse upon yourself. The veil helps with that. Blocking their eyes eases the anxieties of any passerby or audience (and makes real spells that require direct eye contact impossible). It also heavily obscures their vision, making them reliant on their Manus to move around effectively. The mouth is uncovered so that they can always be monitored for recitations or chanting. Symbolically, the veil could parallel the blindfold of Lady Justice. If the narrative spun by the Church is that the white witches are willingly working in their service, then there is a sense of self-redemption to it. Turning wicked skills to the service of what is good and holy. Repenting as an act of the pursuit of justice. Obviously made all the more ironic and gross by the true nature of the whole thing.

The long sleeves are beautiful, and add to the general elegance of the uniform. They are also deeply impractical. The length makes them easy to trip over, the weight of the fabric makes them difficult to roll up.

There's a sketch on the first image by my friend who suggested that they could have twin trains coming off of the skirt, like moth wings. They create a very sleek and elegant design befitting the image of the Church. They're also easy to step on or grab in the event of a runaway witch. Naturally I took his suggestion.

This is what I meant by "clear but not obvious". None of this stuff is hidden, but most people aren't going to notice it. Someone like Zachary probably would, because he would be thinking from the perspective of how to escape or fight back, so he'd pick up on those details. But the general non-magic crowd isn't going to be thinking about that at all. They'll assume that a lack of literal chains means that there are no prisoners here. So the Church gets to keep a squeaky clean image with the public at large while still acting as a prison.

Basically, I'm having way too much fun with this. And now I have a solid idea of what I want these guys to look like! Next up will be settling on designs for Little One, Pointer, and Middle! (Speaking of which the utter disrespect of calling her "Middle"???? That was one of the details that made "As violently as possible please :D" a very satisfying moment)

[cyberdragoninfinity]

zane, ofc

ONE OF MY MOST ETERNAL FAVS

Why I like them/why I don’t: ZANEEEE oh i could write a thousand essays about how much i love him and why (and i have) but i will keep it brief for now. GX may have dropped the ball with the writing on half its series's cast but they knew what they were doing with zane. His character arc is so agonizing and he's such an interesting and complicated character. He threw so much away chasing after sky high standards and victory just to feel something and then killed himself when he knew he was at death's door and THEN had to face consequences of not actually dying and now having to start the long road to recovery. god. he's just fantastic. not a villain or even really a bad guy at his core but more of a performative bad guy. heel_turn_2.mp3. i love him so much

What I like about their appearance: the hell kaiser look is still just absolutely top notch yugioh outfit design. the black and silver...the ref stripes down the legs, it's such a kickass color palette that really compliments zane's dark teal hair (i also love how he and syrus really do have the same shape of bangs it's really cute)

Do I prefer their dub names or original names? going to be a Zane Truesdale preference-haver until the end of time i fear....it's just such a badass name it suits him so well imo. i do also like calling him ryozane after seeing a twitter oomf do it. the beautiful bridge gap between a dub and sub liker in conversation: just shoving both names together into one word <3

OTP: it has been a hot minute since ive gone insane about them but know zatticus/idolshipping is still an all time fav ygo ship for me. there is so much love there and also they are a fucking mess. ideal zatticus dynamic is a bit this to me i must say. they need a little sprinkling of divorce in there. they came like that

NOTP: idk man i think if you ship him with his little brother you should get a really big rock smashed over your head tbqh

OT3: do also enjoy the zane/atticus/fujiwara Elite Trio.... three guys who are mentally ill and nonbinary in three different directions. i need them to play dnd together so bad

Favourite card they use: tossup between Chimeratech Overdragon (such a cool as hell monster,) good old Cyber End Dragon (probably my favorite ace monster in all of GX and top three for all of yugioh period,) and, of course, Power Bond (*thinks about the truesdale bros and starts crying sobbing wailing etc*)

Favourite moment they were in: gotta be the zane vs possessed!jesse season 3 duel/zane's last stand of course. everything about it. when gx had a lighting and color budget and it shredded like hell. when zane goes out having summoned Cyber End, his ace and oldest friend, instead of using the Cyberdarks anymore, and all the thematic weight to that. the dub exclusive of zane telling syrus he's proud of him immediately before dying. absolute S tier yugioh.

Least favourite moment: HM. LIKE. i dont even hate it i think it's an engaging and fucked up duel but i will say the zane vs syrus s2 duel because it makes people absolutely fuck up comprehending both of these characters like. atrociously badly. see me after class.

im gonna replace the FKM last question with 'something you associate with the character' (song, animal, flowers, etc etc)' instead: hisuian samurott :^) the hell kaiser pokemon ever to me

[lousirs]

Hi!

I got another question: what classes do you think dolls had at institute?

Like we know that they were taught about how to avoid messes and etiquette classes I guess. But do you think they had more of them? I headcanon that they were also taught how to clean themselves and get rid of the stains because they were probably marketed as very high quality dolls (because they were able to be in good looking for longer).

Unrelated but I love concept art too, especially of Uglyville and Institute because they are so interesting, and different from one another.

hello again :D

(yessss i love the difference between the geometrically-shaped institute and the organically-shaped uglyville... and some of their scrapped concepts are intriguing)(cough COUGH Victoria)

ANYWAY

i'm guessing they'd have to learn every single thing a doll does, as well as the pros and cons of it (dangers and such). so... learning to create the perfect outfit for dress up, learning how to act out different roles for roleplay, learning how to care for your child if they are sick/feeling sad, learning to love your child although they are not as perfect as you, learning how to get along with other toys (if the kid has more)... etcetc but to a disgustingly thorough degree.

you having a tea party with your kid, prettydoll? WELL YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO LEARN WHAT SPECIFIC ANGLE YOU NEED TO HOLD YOUR TEA CUP AND KNOW WHAT KIND OF IMAGINARY TEA TYPE YOU ARE DRINKING.

you roleplaying with your kid, prettydoll? WELL YOU BETTER BE THE BEST DAMN ACTOR THIS INSTITUTE HAS EVER SEEN. YOU GOTTA BE SO REALISTIC THAT THE CHILD FEELS LIKE THEY ARE WATCHING A GRADE-A HOLLYWOOD FILM.

all jokes aside, i think they'd learn how to correct themselves too. for example, if a child were to play with a doll's hair, putting bows and hairclips all over, the doll would make the hairstyle more 'perfect' whilst the child is not looking. and yeah, as you said, they probably would also know how to clean themselves. perhaps not from deep stains like coffee, but if there's a little dirt on their uniform, they'd clean it up. cause no doll wants to end up in the washer.

here's a crappy doodle to illustrate my point about the hair thingy:

(the same thing would apply if the kid put the doll in a haphazardly made dress they sewed together)(the doll would make it look designer)

but i think, after a while, the doll won't be as scared to get a little mucky. cause they begin to forget the endless training (and probable stress) they went through and instead just enjoy their time with their kid.

i think most of the prettydolls post-uglydoll infiltration would probably not care about the stuff they learned at the institute, but older batches would still have all the little tricks they learnt still in mind.