#hence why I also wouldn’t make this into a original concept next to “lmao what are those”

[no1ryomafan]

This randomly only came to my mind from a brief conversation with a friend in dms but is there legit ANY mecha where it’s centered around supports? Yes I’m being serious here despite not being huge on sports in both regards of playing them and watching shows about them, but my brain was tickled by this idea. And yes I’m aware of Iron Leaguers existence before any asks-kinda hard not to when I have a handful of moots really into it-but I’m for once strictly talking about self piloted mecha. I need to know if there is something out there that exists where a giant robot fights another robot in a game of soccer only because that mental image is really funny to imagine.

[medievalmon]

Since you have a ton of pairings, what about just listing one alternate pair for each main or side characters, I really want to see what you have thought up

((Oh my. You’re enabling my indulgences, haha! 

Well, let’s go through some, then. 

Greninja/Samurott - Ninja and samurai pairing, very obvious. Given how I’ve written the characters out, they actually would’ve complemented each other quite nicely. Hence the (mostly) one-sided attraction. 

Chesnaught/Incineroar - Several instances of fan art with these two together have endeared me to the concept. If Chesnaught weren’t the main character, he would’ve had time to wait for a love interest and probably ended up with an Incineroar character. Otherwise, he’d have probably ended up with Lilligant, which might’ve been noteworthy, but boring in my mind. 

Nidoking/Nidoqueen - It’s technically canon, but very clearly not in focus (yet). It’s a typical pair that lots of people see and accept, so I might have honestly gone with that if I avoided Nidoqueen’s tragedy. Rhydon would’ve been a very lonely character as a result. 

Rhydon/Tyranitar or Rhydon/Aggron - These are cute when not based on my fanfics, so I’d have liked including one or the other. Sad reality is, if Rhydon wasn’t with Nidoking, he’d be with someone that reminded him enough of his king, at least by appearance, and these two would relate well enough. 

Typhlosion/Feraligatr - Kind of speaks for itself given its popularity, no? I’m a sucker for the two as well. Bonus points, because they’re usually paired off as males as well, so it’d be a common gay pairing to include. They’d probably have been entirely different characters, though. 

Gardevoir/Froslass - Boy oh boy do I feel like I dropped the ball on giving Froslass a solid girlfriend, let me tell you. Also, if Nidoking had been straight, Gardevoir probably would’ve gotten a push to be gay. 

Gallade/Bisharp - Knight boyfriends, probably. They’d be drastically different from how they were developed, obviously. 

Escavalier/Sirfetch’d - This is a very recent development, but I absolutely love that Gen 8 gave me this for indulgence. 

Accelgor/Kricketune - Honestly, I just kind of like the idea of Kricketune as some wealthy character that would’ve had a loyal bodyguard. That very much did not happen, but this pairing would’ve been possible had Kricketune been written that way. Originally bounced between Accelgor and Escavalier for the bodyguard, but Sirfetch’d got rid of that debate, lmao. 

Lilligant/Tsareena - Someone pointed this couple out to me, and the only reason it’s not going to happen is because I had a partner planned for Lilligant prior to Gen 7, and going back on that would’ve been annoying. 

Scizor/Ledian - Prior plans had me toy with this one, and I used to like this pairing when I was younger, since both were red bugs and I had figures of them that fit together nicely. They’re no longer going to be a couple, so I guess I can reveal that? 

Heracross/Pinsir - I don’t have any plans to use Pinsir, but I’ve had a soft spot for one being a potential partner to a Heracross. Would’ve been a nice minor couple, but Heracross will have a different partner in the next story. 

Sceptile/Blaziken - Mentioned them before, but I would’ve picked these two together if I hadn’t decided on pairing Blaziken with Swampert. They’d have been a very, um…well, if you like how Nidoking flirts with Rhydon, that. Swampert tempers the two, which I liked better. 

Hitmonchan/Mr. Mine - I can’t explain this one very well at all, honestly. I like these two together for some weird reason. Fighting/Psychic is a particular weakness of mine, and I’ve pondered over these two. Would’ve been hilarious, having a fashion fanatic dating a shadier merchant. 

Alakazam/Hypno - Blleeeugh, I don’t like considering Alakazam with anyone besides Machamp. But, I have considered this couple outside of my fanfics, so, had Hypno turned out differently, he probably could’ve been a love interest for Alakazam instead of a minor villain. Or…well, that’s a spoiler. 

Machamp/Conkeldurr or Machamp/Sawk - Honestly would’ve just been compensating for Alakazam not being with Machamp. These two have been compared before, so I’ve thought of them as a couple, and I’m probably not alone. Machamp tends to have flexibility for potential love interests, since human-shaped dude, so he’d have more options. Would’ve probably gone with Sawk in all honesty, or Hitmonchan if he were available. 

Empoleon/Blastoise - Infinitely less enchanting than what I came up with for Blastoise and Carracosta. Empoleon might’ve benefited from taking that role instead, but then Carracosta would’ve ended up alone for the current story. 

Carracosta/Floatzel - Aqua Jetters. Definitely not a pairing that I’ve seen, but it’s one that I’ve thought up (maybe like once myself). I just fell so hard for Carracosta being with Blastoise and never really looked back. 

Weavile/Lopunny - Dark girl plus pretty girl, and I’d have shamelessly run with that one outright. …Ok maybe not shameless, but I’d have made you like them. 

Golduck/Ludicolo - No lie, I had little to no intention of using Ludicolo, but I like the idea of one with a Golduck, because they seem like a cool/cute pairing. Would’ve absolutely leaned into that, and Golduck probably wouldn’t have had any history with Greninja were that the case, because they’d be a wholesome couple and I can’t imagine Ludicolo not being cute. 

Mienshao/Lucario - This one is probably more common than I realize, but I don’t see people making much for male Mienshao in general, so it’s probably non-existent for gay content. 

Delibird/Politoed - Ok, so, I think these two are pretty cute, and that’s out of nowhere, I know. But, I don’t know, I like them as a Gen 2 specific pairing, with Slowking rotating out for either of them as well. If I had focused on developing them a lot more, they probably could’ve been a canon couple. Thankfully, Delibird avoided that heartbreak. 

Poliwrath/Primeape - Big fist boys. Another one that would’ve made no sense for the story, but it’s a couple that I do like. Had I wanted to give Poliwrath a partner, Primeape would’ve been like a reformed bandit up north with him. Too bad they didn’t get to be a couple…or get happy endings. 

Pangoro/Krookodile - Don’t think I’ve ever seen this one before, and I like the idea of it! They’d be bad boyfriends, lol. Pretty sure if I included this for the fanfic, they’d have been villainous characters. How fortunate for them that I didn’t go that route, ha. 

Ursaring/Slaking - Lazy time boyfriends. Hadn’t really thought of Ursaring not being with a bear when I wrote him up, but I’ve grown to like this pairing after considering him with non-bear characters. 

Beartic/Abomasnow - Fun fact: I totally did NOT pay attention to Beartic’s canon size, and that he’s supposed to tower over Pandora and Ursaring. If I had, he would’ve been Abomasnow’s boyfriend. Plus, great white ice monsters. 

Flygon/Garchomp - It’s being played with, but I would’ve put these two together were it not for…reasons. 

Zoroark/Zangoose - Does anyone like this pairing??? I’ve thought it up like once or twice, so not that I’d be a major supporter, but they seem like a valid couple. Yet, I’ve only seen Zoroark consistently paired with Lucario and Lycanroc, so, what’s up with that? These two would be an easy one. 

Lucario/Toxicroak - This is a very quiet pairing that I came up with solely based on Pokedex proximity, where I looked at two Pokemon close on the Pokedex and went, “yeah, they could be a couple.” (It worked best for Alakazam and Machamp, I know.) I don’t think I would’ve seriously considered them as a couple, especially because Lucario has loads of other options, but I figured it would be a funny one to share. 

Others to Note: 

Delphox - I’ve got spoiler plans for Delphox, but had I not come up with the idea that I had for him, he would’ve gotten a solid partner. It’ll be very clear who I’d have picked personally for him, but that’s…well, I’ll get to it in the future. 

Golurk - Another instance of me not paying attention to canon Pokemon sizes. I originally goofed with a Golurk being paired up with a Hitmonchan, because mini-skirts that aren’t skirts, but now that I know Golurk’s canon size, whoops. It’s good, because their current characters wouldn’t make sense together. 

Quagsire - I actually like Quagsire with some weird picks, such as Granbull, Gastrodon, Swampert, Goodra, or Ampharos. But my fanfic Quagsire was never meant to be paired with anyone. 

Yeah, I could keep going for a lot of these, though they would be rather lopsided in who gets lots of pairings and who doesn’t. 

But, there you are, alternative couples that could’ve happened or ones that I’d have liked and inserted in because why not?))

[survivorforestofhorrors]

Episode 4: what's the harm in a lil flirting - Liam

Me @ this swap when I’m in such a GREAT position on this Cat tribe. Literally for one, my name was never out considering everyone asked me for what names I’ve heard. Then two, I literally have two alliances which none of them have the same people. And they weren’t groups I made, people came to me wanting me in them lmao. The first one is me, Daulton, Livingston, and Keaton. Then the second one is me, Jesse, and Maynor. I also have a pretty good relationship with Dan and me and Josh have gotten along well so far. If Zach wasn’t exiled, I definitely could have been close with him too. It’s whatever, at least I have people who have trust in me moving into this swap which is all I need. And I got some peeps on this other tribe who I worked with at the first tribal so this could be good.

So, just when the cat lovers were really starting to feel like a family, we end up getting swapped. Apparently the people that did the best in each puzzle category last round became team captains, and Dan chose me thank GOD. I trust Dan a lot, and I’m glad he sees me as an asset to his game and wants me on his tribe. I also have Livingston from OG Macneil, so that’s good because him and I had the alliance with Grace and Keaton. Hopefully they are good over their tribes, and we make it back together again. The new tribe, the Morgan Tribe, is the tribe I care the least about just based on who’s on it. I obviously want Keaton to make it through, and I like Jessie a lot, but the other 4 are a little less important to my game. The new Samhain tribe is honestly iconic too, and I want Macneil and Samhain to win immunity. Which speaking of immunity, it’s a fucking creative challenge which I do not excel in at all. I just hope the other people on this tribe are good at creative challenges or we’re screwed.

a tribe swap!!!! spicy. I really was not expecting that one, so good on you hosts for shaking things up.  So my strategy for the swap was to pick everyone I was close with originally lmao. very complex strategy, I know. I will accept player of the season now.  But seriously, I wanted to pick people that I felt would want to work with me and that would not target me specifically if there were to be someone to flip.  

I picked Liam because I feel like we connected pretty well on the original 21 person shit show. I had said to him that I wanted to work with him and Nik had told me he was someone to really have on my side.  I then picked Livingston because I'm really trying this story arc redemption moment with him from trinity. I also... genuinely like him. I feel like we vibe really well and are upfront with one another about game stuff. I hope he doesn't let the past cloud anything going forward, but for now he's definitely my #1.  I then picked Zac because I really got along with him early on as well. A great byproduct of this is that he told me he's super close with Austin, which means thats either information I can exploit, or use to my advantage. If we go to tribal, I could easily target them as a pair, OR join forces with them against someone else. We love accidental connections coming through. Then I picked Daulton because I feel like if I hadn't, he would have been mad. I know what y'all are thinking, why not pick your alliance member Keaton? Well, here's the thing, I don't want to be stuck with the same people all game and really feel like I need to branch out. I also feel like Keaton will understand this better than Livingston, hence picking Livingston over Keaton. Anyway, back to Daulton. Daulton cracks me the fuck up with his blunt delivery. I just have really enjoyed working with him and would love to work with him and livingston moving forward. And that brings us to Austin, who I didn't necessarily pick, but who I was fine with getting. We had some good convos pre swap and I am looking forward to seeing where his heads at in this game.

As far as the challenge is concerned, I think a lot of direction is gonna come from Livingston, which is fine by me. I really am not a creative soul, so I feel like I will be channeling my energy into Livingston's creative process and let him take the wheel. I think we have a good shot of being untouched into the next phase of the game but we'll see. Also, I feel like I basically found the key to all the advantages in the game tonight in my idol search, so trust and believe i'm about to fuck this game up ladies!

I had high hopes from our first new tribes and the way I play is short, simple, and sweet. Tim made a 5 person alliance of people i liked, and i thought that it was good. Liam is extremely solid, brandan is good not great, and Nik is typically okay on a short term basis. But i had my reserves on Nik, and of course Nik saw the opportunity to break me and Tim up, even though we arent this duo who will flip flop, fuck people up, we are old school people, we find our people we roll with them, we get to the end. We're loyal, but we aren't stupid. 

The minute I saw Tim was getting a lot of the votes and that it got too quiet, i knew the fix was in. Liam has been our informant and I went out of my comfort zone right into the mainchat ala Nik style. I called them out, and I had the immunity idol. The GTO play (Game theory optimum) would be to let Tim go and play the game by myself and break that perception and have an idol. But I AM LOYAL. I do not let my ride or dies sink in the game. I have never voted tim out of a game nor will i ever let him go home if i have anything to say about it.

We manuevered the vote dynamics, made sure the votes were on him, and we made Nik get to steppin. Moving forward it would have been very tough but now a swap is among us.

-

So we just swapped, and Tim was tribe captain. Exactly what we needed. Nik was 100% right, all i need is one swap and just a few rounds to mobilize my army and build a coalition. Give me time, and i will break people. Not in a bad way. I need people who will be dedicated, and will never waver, never flip. My militia is called the L&J team. Me, Tim, Liam, thats 3, 3/18 = 1/6. Now we recruit Zach, and we pull in grace. 5/18. 27% of the cast. I begin to like these odds once the numbers dwindle and we keep our people in the game.

I may seem like this menace, but I am extremely calculated and people who give me their word I will return the favor. Me and Tim are loyal people. But if you are halfway with me, or are against me we will fucking murder you in cold blood. 

Josh V is the next to go, Brandan worst case if we lose again. We aren't going anywhere anytime soon, we found our people, now we show the game what we can do.

You ever have those moments where you're hyped, but also not hyped at the same time? Well this is one of those times. I got a fucking idol!!!! but I also earned our tribe a disadvantage in the challenge in the process. So that basically means to me that you probably get a disadvantage any time you get an advantage. or are in the process of getting an advantage. So that means Tim probably got pretty close to getting something, or got something. I'm not sure if that means Zach got an advantage (exile) or if that was his disadvantage? Idk, I'm fucking nervous now, we're gonna have to pull out all the stops for the challenge. 

My worry about the challenge is that we don't really have a story line, we just have the slasher concept. I mean, realistically, I would love to have my idol for myself later in the game, but I would also rather get rid of it if we lose this comp because of my disadvantage... I'm very nervous now, and I think I fucked my game up with this whole idol search business. I hate everything lmao. Well played hosts, well played.

I feel so fucking guilty. I know there’s probably a bunch of people in here laughing at me and saying I’m an idiot, but I literally didn’t mean to get a fucking disadvantage. I’m really considering just leaving zac or Livingston my idol and getting voted out. I’m so fucking mad at myself.

-

So I’m feeling more into the game today now that I’ve slept on it. My plan is to fucking stay by any means necessary. I spoke with Livingston just now and told him about my idol. Obviously I know that could come back and bite me in the ass, but frankly I’m playing the idol tonight if I’m in danger or not so fuck y’all. But anyway, I do trust Livingston more than anyone else here. We have a good rapport and I know he’s a loyal guy. So lettuce pray that everything works out and I can idol out a big threat hehehe

-

Tribal in two hours. It’s me or zac. I’m voting zac and I’m playing my idol so square up with your idol boo

Well Well Well... I'm not having a good day! I heard it's Zac going... I REFUSE! He will not be going on my watch! Zac is an ICON who I love and adore! I was LITERALLY crying at the thought of voting him out so imma fight for him! I REALLY don't wanna lose anyone on this tribe but especially Zac!

In more positive news Daulton and I are the first Showmance of the season! I've always thought Daulton was cute so what's the harm in a lil flirting ☺️

Meep merp beep. Ive been soo not into the game that i need to focus again. I want to do well in this game but ill end up just letting myself down as always. 

Soo im haply our trailer won immunity. Im safe. 😊

Oh, poor Liam. :( He really doesn’t want Zac to be the vote tonight, but I think it’s pretty set in stone at this point unless and Idol is played. I don’t want to sound cocky though because I realize anything can happen, but I feel like Livingston, Austin, and I in addition to Dan are all on board to vote Zac. Liam feels like it’ll be a 3-3 vote which I’m not sure how that will play out unless Austin flips. I really don’t want to go to rocks this early in the game, but I told Dan I wouldn’t write his name, so if Livingston wants to flip, that’s on him, but I just don’t think I can do it. I just hope it is 4-2.

So we won immunity for once with the videos! Really don’t appreciate the hating on my editing skills/lack of appearance in the video @judges. It was editing or being filmed and I choose editing haha. Anyway, I’m feeling pretty comfortable with this group. Really hoping we don’t lose again. Splitting into 3 tribes really helps give us a chance. I like everyone on my tribe but they’re also super super quiet and we only talk during challenges which is a bit awkward...

[lia-nikiforov]

Summer Anime Watchlist

We’re a couple of weeks into the summer and it’s time to decide which shows I’m gonna be keeping up with for the next three months. Because there was so much terribleness, I’m going back to my worst-to-best format for this list, so let’s get right into it

Dropped

Netsuzou Trap: Fetish lesbians are predictably terrible and gross, moving on…

18if: What was that first episode even about. It was so confusing and nonsensical and it also looked butt ugly. I’m guessing it’s trying to be Alice in Wonderland-esque but it’s just boring and weird. Heck, I’m not even sure if I was awake through the whole episode. Can’t be bothered with more

Keppeki Danshi Aoyama-kun: I was willing to give this a 3-episode chance but then ep 2 came along with the mandatory waifu character and I HAAAATE her. She’s literally my most detested heroine trope and I want to delete her from existence. Also the rest of the episode wasn’t particularly funny, but mostly I couldn’t stand the heroine girl and wanted her to die and can’t imagine myself suffering more of her insufferable existence one more minute. It’s a shame, I had good expectations for this show.

Saiyuki Reload Blast: Nothing particularly wrong with this one, but I wasn’t particularly hooked by it, and although it’s not very prohibitive for newcomers, I definitely feel I’d be more excited about these cool dudes being cool if I had any rapport with them. 

Inertia watching or let’s see how long until I can’t be arsed to keep watching

DIVE!! Oh wow, they actually made diving boring. A running theme this season is taking something interesting and making it boring. Just wow. The main character is borderline insufferable, his girlfriend is awful (and he is awful with his girlfriend) and his friends are milquetoasty forgettable at best. And the animation and visuals are so bad you’ll be hard-pressed to find an on-model shot of any of the guys and the diving itself looks so inconsequential. I’ll give it one more episode, but I’m honestly more than ready to drop it.

The Reflection: So this is a collaboration project with Stan Lee and on that alone it’s a bizarre and interesting thing that somehow was willed into existence. It’s a shame it’s a boring thing. The visual style is unique which isn’t necessarily a good thing, but I didn’t find it as terrible as others did, ymmv on that one. The story though, god was it boring. Also the plot doesn’t make any sense as of now, to the point that I’ve no idea what the story’s even supposed to be about. The animation is chunky and almost non-existent and the fight scene was just so dull. Idk, idk, idek what it is about, if next episode doesn’t give me something I’ll drop it.

(couldn’t even find a gif for this one lmao)

Re: Creators: Ah yes, just what this show needed, a sleazy eroge author to glorify plus giving “totally-not-the-protagonist” Sota an excuse to participate in the self-masturbatory megacrossover that’s apparently gonna take up the finale of this show. Did you know light novel writers are awesome? Light novel writers are awesome and this show won’t let you think otherwise.

Hitorijime my Hero: You know, going in I wasn’t aware there would be two focal pairs, but as soon as I found out I thought for sure the teacher-student one would be the problematic one… then along came the other couple that has its big moment when Dude A tells Dude B that he has to choose between fucking him or never talking again. Run for the hills Dude B!! Of course that’s not what happens and why must BL always be this gross ugh. I should also say the direction and storyboarding is a mixture of incomprehensible and terribly bland. Honestly hoping at least the teacher-student pair gets something interesting going soon or I might drop it

Katsugeki! Touken Ranbu: I think people doing Tourabu anime are missing out on a huge opportunity to appeal to bigger audiences by restricting their stories to the tomfoolery that is the game’s original plot. For a series that has a serious look like this one, I certainly expected some variation on the story, but so far it looks like I’m just watching Hanamaru without the village parts. I’d thought the show was going to be more about the actual Bakumatsu period –hence choosing Hijikata Toshizo and Sakamoto Ryoma’s swords as the main focus-. I think one of the show’s biggest shortcomings is that the villains are just loads of faceless minions so they don’t feel particularly threatening and although visually the fights are fairly cool, there’s just no tension or excitement. Will I end up dropping this one too?

Centaur no Nayami: it’s just okay? Mostly harmless? I hope demon girl is actually a lesbian and not just fetish lesbian? The merpeople skit was pretty good and it’s interesting how they’re politizing the racial issues of this Monster world, I certainly find those segments much more interesting than the ones where the monster girls are just being cute (the school play, for instance, was so boring I almost quit the episode halfway)

Vatican Kiseki Chousakan: This show is very stupid and also they say they’re going to South America but they actually show Mexico and cacti in the middle of the jungle what are they doiiiing? It’s also kinda unintentionally funny, although I think they piled way too many mysteries for the opening episode and it’s become way too convoluted. But having a notorious interest in Catholic iconography (even though my level of atheism is over 9000), I was very pleased with the accurate depictions of the martyrs, and mostly I’m rooting for the killer to succeed just to see how they execute Catherine’s and Lawrence’s martyrdoms. Please don’t let me down show.

Since there are no gifs for this show either, please appreciate the Road Closed signs in English with the cop car that says Policía Federal in Spanish

Honestly this part of the list is kinda vague, I don’t have a particular order of preference for these shows beyond not being notoriously impressed by any of them but also not bored to tears either

Shokoku no Altair: This one I wouldn’t quite call a disappointment, but it sure has a slow start. Episode 1 was quite confusing, the second one was way better but still feels like it’s lacking something. A problem I have is that the totally not Germanic dude is way too inequivocally evil. Politics and war are never quite that black and white, but this guy is so unsympathetic watching his different plans unfold becomes quite frustrating (I also have like zero tolerance for “cheating”, which is what all his practices can be categorized as). I feel the characters need a little more depth before I can get more invested in it. Also sad to see this one got the C-team from MAPPA ):

Ballroom e Youkoso: This might be my biggest disappointment of the season tbh? It’s fairly standard sports anime fare but it has done nothing particularly interesting to distinguish itself. The animation can be really impressive… when there is any, and that’s the crux of the problem here. We’re two episodes in and we haven’t seen a full dancing sequence. Heck, I timed the dancing in ep 2 and made barely 13 seconds of actual movement. Episode 3 clocked at a full minute in spite of being entirely set in a competition. There are just so many still shots it’s quite grating. I was really expecting to get a Stammi Vicino moment in episode 1, a show-stopping performance that enhanced the beauty and wonder of dance with a mesmerizing choreography and beautiful music, but the show seems too focused on being Haikyuu, emphasizing the power and OOMF of the moves rather than any artistry or fluidity, and don’t even get me started on the music because there isn’t any or it’s of minimum importance. I’m reaaaally hoping this one improves down the line

Fate/Apocrypha: I mean, it’s Fate and it’s dumb but it’s so far mostly (emphasis on mostly) inoffensive and the battle between Karna and Siegfried was pretty cool, A-1’s doing a fairly decent job of recreating that ufotable feel. I also quite like Mordred, she’s cool and fun and her dymanics with Sisigo are very equal, which is great when you compare how main girls were treated in relationship to Shiro in the main Fate series.

Made in Abyss: I wasn’t quite expecting to get into this one but it got really good critiques so I decided to give it a shot. So far so good. The aesthetics are bright and vivid and the concept is unique and exciting. There are some murmurs around the net about the source material that concern me so I’m only cautiously optimistic right now.

Kakegurui: I guess it’s fine? I’ve a feeling it can get really boring really fast (episode 2  featured a memory game and even the cheat was extremely bland, I was almost laughing at how surprised the other students were when the girls got pairs lmao), but so far it’s been more or less interesting, with engaging visuals and great voice acting, even if I’m not a big fan of the over-erotization of the whole thing. Sayokan’s OP is gr10.

The only inequivocally good (new) show this season

Isekai Shokudo: Although this is not an outstanding show in any aspect, it just succeeds at everything it sets itself to be and that’s a surprisingly rare quality this season. It has a pleasant, homelike atmosphere. I find it kinda funny that the characters get blown away by what looks like fairly standard Famires food, but it’s a sweet little show nonetheless. It’s unassuming and unambitious but it makes me feel happy (and hungry) and I enjoy it a lot.

The sequels from Spring that keep me sane

Boku no Hero Academia: We’ve slowed down a little for the internship part except OH NO IIDA WHAT IS YOU DOING SOMEONE SAVE HIM. I love this show

Shingeki no Bahamut: Virgin Soul: None of the new shows this season were good enough to overcome the leftover sequels from spring, especially not Bahamut that has once again delved in the complexities of war and also given us Nina’s extremely baddass dragon gandma. I don’t have a lot more to say in the scarce two weeks since my last appraisal, other than the show continues to be utterly excellent in every regard

Damn this season is dead. I guess it’s a good time to catch up on my pile of shame? I’m trying to binge Symphogear to catch up to the new season, it’s a palatable type of garbage entertainment. I’m starting a Masters’ course in two weeks so maybe not having a lot of anime on my plate is a good thing? Let me know which shows you’re watching and which are your favorites of the season!

[miximax-hell]

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

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

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

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

Anyway, as usual, more under the cut.

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

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

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

Tsunomon: eyes, colour of the face.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I noticed. But anyway. ww

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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