#i love making characters all blocky

[sometimesmaybespoof]

Why so scruffy???

[meanbossart]

i just need to take a second to gush about how much i love durge drow and astarion, they feel so fleshed out and perfectly written together in their fucked up wretched ways. They really inspire me to write more for my own tavs, hopefully one day ill be able to say im as happy with my own work as i get when seeing yours. I have to ask though, do you have any tips on drawing head shapes and faces? or maybe about wrinkles? i find i really struggle with that stuff when drawing and i adore how expressive and grungey all your art looks!

First of all thank you so much, I love hearing what people think of the two of them together 😭

Honestly you've hit on something that's quite near and dear to my heart, I love developing and figuring how to draw and stylize different faces to get the most unique, interesting looking results - everything about the details is highly rewarding to me. What does x type of nose look like from this angle? In this style? How can this eyeshape best translate to my art? How different does a face look when its making this expression? What does that MOUTH DO? etc etc.

In fact you kind of inspired me to put a little tutorial/guide together the last hour lmao and what a blessing it is that the two current subjects of this blog serve as great models here, being that their faces are basically polar opposites!

When it comes to heads, you've probably heard it a dozen times before that you want to think of them in terms of geometry and facets; my process to drawing them is pretty conventional so I won't spend too much time on it, but it goes something like this:

Obviously I don't do every single one of these steps most of the time, which is just something that comes from practice/developing muscle memory, but it is helpful to start off this way for two main reasons:

By making these guide lines and splitting a head into pieces like this, you'll have an easier time seeing and understanding it as a multidimensional object, and in turn, facilitate It for you when you venture out into doing wacky angles and lighting.

Making different headshapes starts HERE. notice how Astarion's "face" slate is narrower and longer, how my durge's jaw pieces sit lower on the head, how all of the same pieces came together in the same way but we ended up with one real pointy elf and a real brick of a drow - making characters look different successfully begins very early in the sketching process.

The next thing you want to do branches out into every day life: start noticing yours and other people's facial features. How does an upturned nose look from a high angle? How does the size of someone's cheekbones affect what they look like when they smile? How about when the light hits them a certain way? Does someone's lip shape changes when they pout? When they laugh? How does a person's hairline change the shape of their face? You do NOT need to creepily sketch every stranger you see on the bus, but get into the habit of actually noticing what people look like when you talk to them - when you look at pictures, when you watch movies - make a mental list of interesting ways mouths, noses, and eyes can come together in a variety of different proportions to make completely distinct looking mugs, and how they change depending on how you are looking at them.

Light and shadow play a HUGE role in how faces look, too, basically as crucial as actual bone structure does. As you see up there I tried to rough out how natural, head on, and underhead light would look on these two very different looking guys, and while we can see definite patterns, there are small differences that come to be because of the sizes and shapes of their features.

Here is a very, very basic look at how some of these features come to look the way they do, how they interact with one another, and how they compare between a blocky, rather conventionally "masculine" head and one that's much softer and slimmer.

Note please that it is not one or two characteristics that give a chaarcter their "look"; you can reduce a face to eyes, mouth, and nose through stylization and still have them be recognizable, but if you want to do more than that, you have to consider the whole package! Chin, cheeks, brows, direction of the jaw, slope and size of the forehead, depth of eyes, ridge of the nose, etc - I know this is probably far more than you bargained for, but if you start making note of a FEW of these things now and slowly add on, this will eventually become second nature to you.

Similarly, understanding how these characteristics come together will help you with rendering light and shadow in a realistic way, and predicting what their facial expressions may look like - if no two people are alike, neither are their smiles. :)

Lastly, remember that I'm no expert - I have developed my own methods and semiotics and yours may look slightly (or vastly) different, and that's fine! I hope only that by sharing this it has given you a base to work off of.

Anyways, I HOPE this has been helpful and not just the unsolicited ramblings of a face pervert.

[twoflowers]

Sentimentality - Sanji x Reader

Read on AO3

Description: The newest addition to the Straw Hat crew grapples with their easy affection, and especially with the attention from their doting cook.

Tags: SFW, character study, slight slash, scientist reader, no use of Y/N, female reader. First impressions, nakamaship.

Word count: 1397

Special thanks to @mere-mortifer for the encouragement to post my Sanji fics. I love your Sanji very much.

This one isn't very slash-y and honestly feels a bit incomplete to me, but I'm obsessed with this man in a psychological way and need to post at least something, even if it captures only an ounce of my insanity about him and the crew.

Also: thinking about making this into more of a series (as the reader is kind of based on an OC of mine...!). Please, please, Sanji fans: give me any and every prompt you can imagine.

__

Sentimentality

Every morning you settle into the golden-glowing comfort of the breakfast table: the press of arms against arms, the jostling of bodies to the time of the waves, the hard wooden bench softened despite it all. 

The captain is not at all what you expected. He’s a kid, and a downright grabby one at that. You have to slap his rubbery hands away from your plate at every meal, and if you don’t catch him, Nami always does.

You sit next to Chopper, whose tiny, furry body is so very warm. He likes to plan the day over breakfast, still thrilled to have another scientist on board. You watch him nibble at pancakes with his blocky teeth (it really is hard not to coo over him, but he has his dignity to uphold, so you restrain yourself!) and sip his milk and grin, white mustache and all. Robin leans over with a napkin to clean Chopper’s mouth, and he fusses, but concedes. Some of his drawings hang on the fridge, secured by magnets. You think of siblings with a pang in your chest every time you see them.

Roronoa Zoro is inexplicably softer than you imagined. There’s something about the curve of his cheeks, the careless sprawling stance, the way his nose whistles lightly while he sleeps. He barks laughter at Luffy, leans on his swords like they’re children, even smells better than Nami likes to say.

Robin terrified you at first, but you quickly became a sucker for her mellow gaze and old book smell. Besides, educated women are always of interest to you. Nami and Robin are incredible, always encouraging: proof that somehow, someway, a woman who has been chased out of her old life and hunted by the darkest parts of herself can uncurl and be seen. 

The first few sleepless nights aboard the Going Merry, you stared at the ceiling, heart pounding at the vulnerability of sharing a room. You are a scientist. You’ve long denounced the need for sentimentality, though Luffy manages to wring a few spare drops out of you every day. How could you have accounted for the love that permeates every board of this ship? How have you gone your entire life wondering if belonging like this could exist, only to find it among a notorious pirate crew- a crew who, really, is more bumbling than you could have imagined? How can Luffy stroll into any place- town, restaurant, heart- and break down every wall without a second thought?

And the cook… 

You have to look away from him sometimes. The first time he made a meal for you, he sank to a kneel to present it, like he was a servant and you were a queen who could take his head at any moment, and have it willingly. You took the plate with shaking hands and nodded a thank you. When he stood back up, there was a bit of dust on the knee of his fine-pressed pants. You kept your eyes on it as he fluttered around, crooning to the women and brusquely serving the men. What were you supposed to make of that?

Sanji squeezes your heart like it’s an old rag. The way he remembers your favored flavor profiles makes your toes curl. You’re not even sure you’ve managed to smile at him yet, even a month after joining the crew, because he throws you so off-balance you’re left feeling like you’ve been thrust into a hurricane without any solid structure to grip onto.

His… whatever it is- admiration, loyalty, devotion, all of the above and more- has only gotten stronger in the past month. He floats into the lab as if on a cloud to tell you he made you a snack and left it outside, mindful of the potential for contamination. He tells you how lovely your eyes look that day, and every day- that you are the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, and that he lives to serve you.

“A snack for you is outside, miss,” he says today, like he’s itching to bow. “I prepared carrot cake and spiced milk for you, with turmeric, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Let me know if anything is not to your liking.”

You side-eye him from your bench, pipette paused in midair. Miss, miss, miss. Every time he says it you’re left breathless. As usual, you nod and mutter a thank you, still focusing on your work, lest you do something stupid like offering him your hand to kiss or backing him into a wall to taste his neck.

He usually leaves right away, but you don’t hear the door close today. When you look back at Sanji, he’s beaming, eyes practically heart-shaped. 

“May I make anything else for you?”

“No. That will suffice.” Something in your chest is shouting at you for being so formal with him. 

“I like carrot cake,” you add.

Sanji’s smile turns tremulous and melty. A hand moves to cover his heart. “I will keep that in mind. And I don’t wish to disturb you- your work is very important- but it will be best eaten soon, while it’s still warm.”

You surprise yourself by setting down your pipette and moving to the sink to wash your hands. Sanji is still lingering at the door as you scrub between your fingers and under your nails, similar to the way he washes his after handling raw meat. You take extra time drying off, the feeling of him behind you prickling at your neck. 

In the hallway, the cake and milk are placed carefully on a table. The mug is to the top right of the plate, handle tilted at the perfect angle for you to grab. A dainty dessert fork leans against the plate, next to two sprigs of mint forming a heart.

“I almost don’t want to eat it,” you say. “It looks perfect.”

“I can make you as many as you’d like, all with love. Please. It’s my pleasure.”

You lift the fork, and Sanji leans forward with the eagerness of a child witnessing a magic trick. When you take a bite of the cake, his visible eye widens.

“It’s delicious. Thank you, Sanji.”

Sanji lets out a shaky breath. “Of course, miss. I can make you anything your heart desires, provided I have the ingredients. And if I don’t, I will make sure to procure them as soon as we make landfall. And if you want them before that, I'll swim to shore.” 

Why does the man have such puppy-dog eyes? You know with certainty that he would do anything you asked of him, or else die trying, and you’ve hardly spoken to him. There’s a string of tension in his body when he’s around you, loosened slightly now that you’ve complimented his food. Is he just that eager to please?

You have met many men happy to go through the motions of wooing you for one reason alone, but something about Sanji tells you that he would be at your beck and call for the rest of your life, even if you never said “thank you” again.

You nod, moving to try the spiced milk, which is, of course, perfect. 

“I noticed that you like cinnamon, so I tweaked the recipe to add more.” He sounds hopeful. “You don’t find the turmeric overpowering?”

“No, no,” you shake your head, lowering the drink. “It’s good. You’re very… perceptive.”

“Of course! I pay special attention to my lovely ladies.”

You’re included in this group, somehow. Why does that make you want to push and prod at him, despite the measured indifference you’ve culminated?

“Sanji,” you say, and he snaps to attention.

“Yes?”

“Could I have some marmalade with this?”

This is the first time you’ve requested anything from him. A broad smile spreads across his face. 

“Right away.” He falls into a bow before walking down the hallway. When he’s out of view, you hear him begin to run, legs pounding the wooden floor strong enough to rattle the pictures frames on the walls. 

You pluck a sprig of mint from the cake, grinding it between your teeth. It’s refreshing, new, with a bit of a kick. You smile to yourself, imagining Sanji in the kitchen, carefully scooping marmalade into a dainty dish, heart thrumming with the thrill of receiving an order from his newest object of affection.

[ondeemand]

Transformers One Review

For the sake of convenience, I’ll be referring to the characters as their new names (Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee) instead of their old ones (Orion Pax, D-16, B-127).

Also, I didn’t grow up with Transformers, so this will be mostly from an outsider’s perspective. I can’t tell what possibly was or wasn’t a retcon or how accurate to the source material it was, but I think the background info on their world held up very well and they were able to explain it clearly to new viewers like me. It definitely would have hit harder if I grew up with Transformers and knew more than just facts from cultural osmosis, but I still enjoyed the movie a lot.

Notes/Things I’m Neutral On

Very weird to hear my name (Dee) being said throughout most of the movie by Chris Hemsworth’s bad American accent.

Also, I forgot that Megatron has transformed into ground vehicles before. I only ever knew him to turn into a jet, so I was kind of confused that he was a tank in this movie. I hope we get to see him get upgraded to a jet in the next one, but the tank is still cool.

Pros/Things I Liked

Simple but effective color theory with their eye colors. Main good guys have blue while Megatron has yellow, sitting between good and bad. Still a friendly color at first, but slowly turns closer to orange and then fully red as his anger and hatred consume him (and after he met the red-eyed Starscream, a cowardly man who ends up enabling Megatron‘s more violent/aggressive tendencies)

○ Also I don’t know if I was just seeing things, but it looked like Megatron’s eyes got more yellow whenever he looked at Optimus which is so sad and so gay.

I really thought they were gonna push a romance between Elita and either Bumblebee (goofy manchild x competent woman trope) or Optimus (male lead x female lead, blue x pink), but I was pleasantly surprised that they didn’t. Sadly, there’s still time for it in future installments, but I can dream.

Not to be gay, but spider woman sexy. Airachnid was so obviously evil that it was funny, but I can’t fault Sentinel for having her around because I, too, would want a deadly goth woman to be my right-hand lady. They felt like the evil, less developed versions of Mustang and Hawkeye. I am in love.

The animation is gorgeousssss. The environments, the character designs, the fight choreography, the transformations, the lighting, the texture, mwah mwah MWAH STUNNING!!!

○ Sorry, I’m never gonna stop talking about this. The way they were able to make square/blocky figures move so fluidly was fantastic (and proof of concept that a fully animated Minecraft movie would have worked). ○ The camera angles were also great for framing both the dramatic, intense, and/or high-action moments like fights or chase scenes, while also adding a lot to the comedic moments. Like when the camera stays tracking Optimus’ face when running through the forest, only for him to suddenly fall down a cliff neither he nor us saw coming, only to then zoom out to the perspective of the guards below, showing them stumbling and falling. ○ The contrast between the mechanical and organic elements on the surface were really cool, and the way it was introduced was able to convey this idea that organic life was this strange, alien thing. ○ The way the surface just rebuilds itself into these jagged, blocky terrains was really unique and interesting! It felt like a glitched computer model because of its rougher shapes which really added to the fear and hostility of the surface.

90% of their jokes landed and they landed hard. The bit where Optimus looks like he’s about to transform and then just fucking books it is incredible. The audio and camera work help add to these as well, like the music building as Optimus pretends to transform, the camera zooming in close to different parts of him, only for all background noise to cut out as it shows Optimus running away. I won’t name every joke and quip I found funny or we’d be here all day, but they’re certainly a highlight of the movie.

I love Keegan-Michael Key, but I wasn’t a fan of him as the comic relief character of Toad in the Mario movie. When Bumblebee showed up I got a little nervous, but I really loved his performance of the character.

I really liked the midpoint pep talk about hope. That’s a really nice reason that Optimus is the leader despite not being as skilled as other people. He has the hope for a better future and it was a core part of his character from the beginning, and I really like the idea that a leader is someone who can envision a brighter future no matter what.

Alpha Trion transforming was SICK AS FUCK!!! I love that he was more animalistic when the rest of the cast become vehicles. His final fight was so cool, and it actually made me kind of emotional to see him at the end with the rest of the Prime ghosts.

The stabbings? The beheadings?? The branding??? The way Megatron tore Sentinel in half and then ripped his heart out on-screen holy shit???? This movie was incredibly brutal and I loved it. It’s such an interesting phenomenon that children’s media is allowed to be about as graphic as they want as long as it’s against robots, even incredibly sentient ones like in the Transformers series.

○ I watched the 1986 Transformers movie for a class earlier this year, and while it also had a lot of brutality in it’s fights, the new movie felt more intense. Part of this could be attributed to me watching the 2024 movie on a big screen vs the 1986 movie in my living room, but there are other reasons as well. The 1986 movie had more upbeat songs playing over the fights, specifically songs like The Touch and Dare, which helped keep the tone lighter and more exciting. The 2024 movie didn’t have anything like that, allowing the action, while still cool and exciting, to take on a more serious tone. This is also emphasized by the graphics of the movie being 3D instead of 2D. While the 2D 1986 movie is a stunning masterpiece, people still view it with the idea in mind that, since it’s a cartoon, the stakes and story will be less intense. The 2024 movie being 3D with very detailed graphics and lighting already has more visual intensity. The characters are still these bright, poppy colors, but they can come across more moody and dark due to the environments, lighting, and textures that the 3D medium more easily allows. And while the painted backgrounds and cell shading of the old movie are great, the CGI backgrounds are a lot closer to realism, so the harsher elements like metal and rock, which make up a vast majority of the environment and characters, look real too.

The way Megatron’s hate consumed him to the point where he started acting more villainous and, while not entirely similar to Sentinel, still ended up hurting innocent people was tragic. Trying to push away and deny everything about a person only to wind up being just like them. This was perfectly shown in the end credit scene where Megatron is branding himself and the new Decepticons with Megatronus Prime’s face. To him, it may be him reclaiming the traumatic experience and literally using it like a badge of honor, as well as thinking he’s honoring Megatronus Prime. But in reality, he’s just inflicting the same trauma done to him onto others, just like Sentinel. Such a cool way to show how every villain is the hero of their own story.

The doomed yaoiiiiii I’m never gonna get over them. The only other Transformers media I’ve consumed is the 1986 movie, which kills off Optimus Prime in the first 25 minutes and Megatron becomes Galvatron, so I never knew the depths of their homoerotic relationship.

I’m a sucker for “the hero and villain used the be friends (and maybe even lovers?)” trope, so Optimus and Megatron’s relationship and the general premise of the movie was already a slam dunk for me.

I’m also a fan of legacy stories like Avatar and She-Ra. While this movie didn’t get as in-depth with the concept, I enjoyed that they played with the idea of legacy and taking up the mantle of the former Primes.

I absolutely loved the end message that Optimus gives us. Hope, freedom, and autonomy are incredibly important things to learn, and as a trans person who very much wants to keep control over what I do with my body, I really resonated with that last one. I think it’s really cool that they included a message like that in this children’s movie about robots that turn into cars.

Regarding the message of autonomy, I love that it gives the term Autobots a new meaning. Auto meaning “automobile”, since they transform into cars, and Auto meaning “self”, as they are now fully their own bots with control over themselves.

Cons/Things I Disliked

Mid vocal performances from everyone except Brian Tyree Henry and Keegan-Michael Key. And as I mentioned before, it was hard not to focus on Chris’ attempts at an American accent, not to mention how recognizable his, as well as Scarlett Johansson’s, voices are.

The plot felt a little disjointed in the first 1/3-ish.

○ Good setup with the main characters being an oppressed working class with one dreaming of better things and the other hesitant to fall out of line or take risks. But then suddenly there’s a race, and then they’re in it, and then they lose, and then their leader wants to promote them. At first it feels like there are hints that he’s a scummy celebrity-type and that meeting their hero is what will spur on the disillusionment with their society. But then some random douchebag that doesn’t like them reassigns them which goes against their leader’s command, and that’s how the plot kicks off? ○ Also, Elita’s involvement felt kind of rushed/hand-waved. They all get stuck on the surface, but instead of trying to make her way back to report them like she was saying she would for the past few minutes, she makes a complete 180 and heads the expedition herself. ○ It all just felt a little strange, but once it got going the rest of the plot felt fine.

Megatron’s descent into “evil” felt kind of rushed. I understand that he feels betrayed and I really love where the character ends up by the end, but it felt like a real 180 without a lot of build up.

Some jokes fell flat or felt annoying and kinda cringe. That’s the territory of children’s movies though, so par for the course.

TLDR

Overall, this movie was a really fun watch and I’d love to go see it again. While some parts fall a little flat, the movie is lifted from mediocrity by its many Pros. From the stunning visuals, to the quick humor, to the tragic origins of two friends driven apart by their ideals, I’d recommend this movie to anyone interested in animation or the Transformers brand.

8.82/10

[outletcrash]

GUESS WHO FIGURED OUT 3D ANIMATION!!!!!!!

i started this project on the 15th with the 2d drawing at like 3am. the next day i modeled + textured it and today i spent all day rendering/animating!

this is the 2nd 3d model ive ever made and i couldnt have done it without @crashsune 's course on yt!! i have tried every couple months since 2020 to learn 3d modeling and this is the BEST tutorial i have ever seen.

lots of tutorials show you how to make like. a hyperrealistic donut. why would i want to make that. that is useless. i want silly blocky characters and i want them now!!

i started this series on jan 9th and i fully completed a love-chan using the free downloadables in ONE DAY!! then i watched it again a few days later and made THIS!! im still loosing my marbles like i had absolutely 0 experience or prior knowledge in any way,, (previous attempts never left me with any proper models, only weird squishy nightmare stress creations i gave up on instantly).

hes still a bit clunky but idc i love him. it is literally day 8 of me using blender of all time. ofc its gonna get a lil silly

its creature time baby (shockwave is next)

[karinadele]

drabble on pharma x human reader

warnings: its pharma, everything is fucked

just me listing ideas and character traits so i can write...

Actions/Behaviors:

-would keep you on him at all times as if you were a pocket hamster

-600% will drug you

-preserving head and organs after you die

-mnemosurgery to pry into your brain and know everything (perhaps attempt a digital link with him so he's connected 24/7 like a sparkbond)

-physically consuming organs mainly heart/brain

-wants to cut you open while conscious to see your organs (will sew you back up after ofc) (will be sedated for no pain, but will be awake)

-propofol abuse? (maybe fuck you on and off it just to see how you react)

-will attempt to physically massage your heart in an attempt to maintain your heart rate. (and to have control over your life literally)

-would scarification his red cross on your chest (? horny tramp stamp? wow just thinking hurts)

-would withhold medication until you submit and beg (if you're too stubborn, he will slip just enough in without you knowing to keep you going)

oocs??:

-would poison you just to watch you suffer and then antidote you? (idk to make it where reader knows, or reader thinks it was a 3rd party. maybe pharma has gaslighted reader into thinking its external but always have an inkling?)

-would attempt to infuse you with energon/nucleon (if nucleon stops bots from transforming, what would it do to humans?)

-would try to forcibly physically put you in his spark

-would he remove limbs so you're stuck?? (i dont think so... but i do believe he will try to modify you)

-i want to see him use his chainsaw to engrave lines over reader? forming more blocky lines to resemble Cybertronians?

-probably drinks your blood, or at least taste it (maybe keep it in a vial in subspace at all time)

-permanent drug state?

-super ooc, i want to see him repaint/make reader repaint his autobot insignia with their blood

light analysis:

-pet names: dear, darling, occasionally love?? (not sweetspark??)

-ends sentences with "hmm?" / snarky

hmm? ah. tch tch, ah, ah! don't touch that! tongue clicking, lots of italics. (writing in his mind is hard...)

snarky, haughty, controlling, obsessive (to reader), does not want to see you in pain, but will actively cause you to be in it, naturally manipulative, more smirks than grins.

i want to say gaslighting, but will ease on it when he warms up to reader...?

internal personality conflict:

i see him as finding a human annoying, and originally toying, very traumatic shit, then warming up. (insert charm) not accepting that he has feelings, he pushes them into obsession. and acts them out in questionable physical actions.

thoughts:

quotes are ooc, just what i think he would justify his actions;

"no its not love, i just need them with me at all time."

"my spark isnt flaring harder because of love, its because they belong in there"

"they may not live long, but i can preserve them" (leads to infusing energon?)

soft pharma (say no tarn tcog or any incidents, or you pull him out of issues) (shit how did first aid get an evalv from rung but pharma didnt?? bro was sane then!!)

-would be tender, lots of physical affection (still)

-would organ harvest for you

-would tease you and be annoying (instead of internalizing it and coming out obsessive.)

[sanctus-ingenium]

Just wanted to ask, please forgive me if you've already answred this, what program do you use? Your art fucks HARD and like. I was looking at your art of the two moths over the city they die in and I was hit with the wave of "oh that looks really fucking fun actually." Like i know my art program can't do some of those effects and like, I'd love to try fucking about with them.

hi there, thank you! all my art is done in procreate and paint tool sai

because you mentioned that drawing in particular i thought it would be fun to break it down and show ppl what exactly went into each part of it so check this out

sketch & lineart - the brushes come from georgbrush.club and the urban sketcher is my most commonly used lineart brush, it has a nice irregular shape. the square brush is nice for big blocky sketches.

the cityscape was REALLY hard but basically I got a photo of the skyline of florence, traced some basic building shapes, then bullshitted the rest using the vertical symmetry/mirror tool to cut down on the amount of work (so i only had to sketch one half of the city). then for lineart I turned off vertical symmetry, turned on the two-point perspective tool, and got this:

the rose windows were made using the radial symmetry tool.

I didn't like it being so flat, so I used the liquify tool to make a kind of fish-eye effect (limited success tbh). I liked how it looked but the buildings in front needed something to cover them up to make the liquification less obvious...

first pass colours. I felt they were very washed out, aside from the sun which i loved. I use the spectra brush (default procreate) for skyscapes a lot, I love the texture. Although the clouds were filled in using the lasso selection tool, I softened the edges using the square pencil again and added texture using true grit sampler grainy brushes. The translucency effect comes from my setting the brush as an eraser. The sun rays come from the radial symmetry tool.

Blocking in the moths' colours was done with the urban sketcher again.

Something people may not have noticed is the labyrinth hidden in the sky! yeah I had a bunch of versions where it was more obvious but I found that it clashed a bit and was too busy, so I made it subtle. But yes. I searched for "royalty free labyrinth" and picked one.

The toner grit brush is one you've seen before if you've looked at any art on tumblr lately (this is such a popular brush) and it's from the true grit fast grit set. The pointillism brush is from the true grit free sampler pack, like my grain brushes.

I added shadows to the moths, increased saturation overall, and changed the clouds to a translucent blue (you can even see in the sun where I forgot to block in the sun itself because the clouds over it used to be opaque lol). Moon rays were drawn using the radial symmetry tool but this time with rotational symmetry off. I also moved the moon down closer to the moths because I felt that it was a bit far away, and this served to visually divide the drawing into three equal parts, so I chose to lean into that and divide the sky colours too, to show passing time, or an endless moment - morning, evening, night, etc.

And then the oroborous, I tried a few different effects on it because I wanted it to be very clearly separate from the main scene - I settled on a dot matrix newsprint texture, using procreate's onboard tool, and some heavy chromatic aberration. This is because the oroborous isn't real, it's purely symbolic and the moths' demise started when they became photographers so I liked the print media aspect there as well. The story itself is about grief without closure, cyclical violence, and sunk cost fallacy, while everyone explores an endless labyrinth, so an oroborous fits I think

what makes art fun to me is thinking up ways I can tell a story using just a single image. and sure a lot of it will be lost to an audience who isn't familiar with the characters or backstory but i want to leave enough in there that even complete strangers to my work will be able to construct a narrative about what's happening here, rather than it just being a cool image. that's my goal.

Finally I exported it to sai on my pc to give it a once-over. this is really important because the retina display on an ipad is oversaturated on purpose, to make everything look amazing and vibrant. but what this means is that on other screens, your work might look washed out. it's especially bad at displaying yellows! so i look at it in sai on my pc and i make minor adjustments, in this case I actually added another multiply layer on the moths and an overlay on their non-shadowed parts to increase the contrast there.

finally if you've read this far, I played a little trick with the caption of the drawing. yeah, THEY die... but only one of those moths is a theythem pronoun haver... the other has to survive. he isn't given a choice in the matter.

[diejager]

Prize Cw: darkfic, dark!reader,smut, rough sex, fluff, worshipping, bdsm, bruises, biting, tell me if I missed any.

Part6

You writhed under Simon, lost in the throes of rapture. You moaned and sobbed the same, crying his name in a airy tone as he ravaged you. He had you at his complete mercy, arms stretched almost uncomfortably over your head, tied in pretty and neat and complex knots that he never bothered to teach you (he wanted it to be known by him alone, the knowledge of tying and untying these complicated knots his little secret. It gave him some sort of power over you.) and legs bent over his shoulder as he ploughed through you. 

He was warm, his skin sticky and sweaty from the way his body burned higher than yours. It made him so much more big and imposing than he already was, the loose strands of blonde locks sticking to his cheek and forehead, his cheeks flushed pink and his pupils diluted so wide it made his dark eyes look black. It was mesmerising to your eyes, half-lidded and heavy as you arched against him, admiring his body the same way he loved yours. 

Over the pretty scars on his face, the pale flesh that sunk deeper than the rest, white lines and dark bruises that made him, him. It added to his character as much as the growl of his words and the gruffness of his motions, rocking into you and moving the bed, it creaked and croaked from his rough thrusts. If either of you weren’t so desperate to feel one another, to feel his skin brush against yours, his lips bite into your shoulders or his cock carve itself a place in your cunt, you would have worried the bed would break.

Over the broadness of his shoulders, the dip of his pectorals, thick and plump things that were somehow soft to the touch, and the erratic rise and fall of his stomach. You drooled every time you saw his happy trail, the wild bush rubbed you raw, irritating your softer skin and leaving it red when he took his fill of you. You especially loved the way it felt against your clit, throbbing and swollen, rising from under the hood and a victim to his course pubic hair. It always left you overstimulated by the end of it.

Then down his thick thighs, blocky muscles that gave him an advantage over you in any situation. He was faster than you. He was stronger than you. He was your better. And his cocked showed as much in the way he fucked you. From languid rocking, his bulbous head popping into you with a lazy push and kissing your cervix, to rough and hard drive of his cock, ramming into your walls, feeling your cunt clench and milk him while he battered your gummy cervix.

Simon was a strange dichotomy of loving and tough. One moment he’d shower you in kisses, pressing his lips to yours, mumbling sweet praises and complimenting you for your skills, your little cries, your soppy cunt and your bloody kills. He would pepper you in nipping pecks, drowning you in affection until your cheeks burned and you smiled dopily. Then the next he would manhandle you, wring you dry and tying up so prettily in crude ropes and tear you apart with his snide remarks and venomous hisses. He would degrade you to tears, make you cry from it as much as his girth did.

He filled you up so well, leaving you feeling full and bloated, your navel heavy with every deep punch. He looked so pretty, looming over you with a sweaty face, lips swollen from all your kissing and his shadow covering you in a possessive embrace. You wished you could hold him, touch his lips, hold his hands or caress his body. If Simon hadn’t tied you up, marked your wrists with the rope, you could have held him, worshipped the ground he walked on, but told you that this was your prize —the first part of it. Despite your nagging wants and cries, he’d been truthful - as always - wringing orgasm after orgasm from you, watching you grind against his face, pussy stuffed with his fingers and clit teased by his hot mouth. You wondered how long he’ll have you bent under him like this.

***

Nuzzling the crook of his neck, you pawed at his blond speckled chest, feeding into his body heat. You both basked in the afterglow of sex and aftercare, your wrists massaged and you body cleaned and cared for by Simon. You were putty in his arms, melting into the safe grip he had around you. Simon was safety and comfort, the man who had showed you a better way of life. He was your everything: your teacher, your master, your owner. 

The ticklish brush of his fingers rose you from your sleepy daze, your eyes fluttered opened. You gazed up at him, blinking owlishly and hummed, sounding raspy from the overuse of it. 

“Would you like to meet Johnny, kitten?”

You hummed in confusion.

“Meet him,” he smiled, a warm gleam filling his eyes, “No surprises or scares. I take you to his place and we talk, yeah?”

“Really? You’d do that?”

His chest rumbled in a low chuckle, shaking your cheek.

“You’ve scared him long enough, kit. ‘Bout time you met.”

“Uh-huh, if you say so. All right.”

Taglist: @sae1kie @yeoldedumbslut @bvxygriimes @distracteddragoness @konigsblog @im-making-an-effort @daisychainsinknots @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @danielle143 @dont-mind-me-just-existing-sadly @tuttifuckinfruttifriday @notspiders @brokenpieces-72 @petwifed @aldis-nuts @randominstake @haven-1307 @shironasumi @sparky--bunny @bloobewy @cod-z @sweetnanah @evolutionarry @kaoyamamegami @cassiecasluciluce

[regretevator-confessions]

I don’t understand the appeal of Gnarpy’s old design and why it’s missed by so many fans.

I love Gnarpy. Xey are my favorite Regretevator character, but something that bogs my mind is the constant obsession some Regretevator fans have with a design that was replaced due to behind the scene controversy. I will admit, I do feel bad that the design was tarnished as a result of its creator’s degenerate behavior, but I can’t help but ask why people continue to view the redesign as a terrible thing. Let me take you through a crash course about why I dislike the old design and how the redesign is actually the best thing to happen to Gnarpy in an artistic standpoint. Allow me to explain:

Let’s face it, the original design was bland. For what is supposed to be an anthropomorphic alien cat warlord with a superiority complex, the original design fails at conveying that. Good character design should be able to tell the viewer something about that character’s personality and who they are just by looking at them. The original design fails at doing that. It’s just a generic green cat with some antennae and glowing stuff, that’s it. There’s nothing that tells me xyr an intergalactic general, no attributes that makes xem seem otherworldly like an alien should be, and it just doesn’t match the rudeness, arrogance, and exaggerated energy of xyr in-game dialogue. Instead, it just made Gnarpy look like uninspired furrybait for the sake of furrybait, which to me is an insult towards a genuinely interesting character concept.

The redesign on the other hand is way more faithful to Gnarpy’s character than the original design ever was. Redesigned Gnarpy looks more cartoony, having more alien-like details such as four arms, four eyes, conjoined ears, double tails with pincers, and a red outfit with a yellow star badge. Not only that, xyr color scheme is more interesting, xey have a recognizable silhouette, and xyr new animations perfectly capture xyr pompous ego. Some may argue that the deviation from the blocky style makes xem less charming, but to me, I feel the opposite. The complex goofiness of the new design not only fits xyr personality perfectly, it also gives xem a sort of an Invader Zim/Peridot type of charm that makes me like Gnarpy’s character so much more.

Overall, I know that art is subjective and I know that making this confession may have put me at risk of getting publicly executed (French Revolution styled). I just don’t get the appeal of such a bland design, especially one made by a creep. I like the way Gnarpy looks now and I feel that most Regretevator fans are too harsh on it solely because it deviates away from the original. Yes, it was a sudden change nobody asked for, but that doesn’t make it right to immediately hate it without giving it a chance (also it’s not like the developers had a choice). If you genuinely prefer the old design, have no ill intent on bashing you for your preferences. If you like it, all power to you. I’m just tired of hearing the vocal parts of the fandom complain about a fictional character just because they were changed. Old Gnarpy is dead, xey died behind the Shwaffle House parking lot. Just be glad Gnarpy didn’t suffer the same fate as Miché did: completely removed from the game.

.

[connorsnothereeither]

So uhm.. for a project I'm doing, what do the brink characters hand writings look like??? I may be fully hand transcribing and binding brink...

And I want to do the letters in their hand writing soooo

Oooh okay sorry it took a me a while to answer this I’ve been thinking about responses

1: HOLY SHIT that’s so cool I would love to see that project come together if you end up posting things anywhere 🥺 I’m working on a revised pdf version (and updating the ao3 version as I go) to print and bind myself, but hand transcribing is so sick omg /gen

2: I’m hoping these descriptors make sense because they do in my brain but describing handwriting is,,, kinda hard haha 😅 (going based on order of appearance of handwriting in the first book)

Jamie’s handwriting is neat and orderly but simple. There’s not a lot of flourishes to it, especially since often they’re transcribing things for Rae, so it’s very much “getting this information down quick but readabe”. I think they’re the kind of person who like,,, isn’t super consistent with their cursive? So there’s some print letters occasionally in the words but mostly cursive.

Rae’s handwriting is thin and scrawling cursive. He was taught elegant, flourishing handwriting, but over the years as writing has become about getting down as many notes and thoughts as possible, it’s become compressed and rushed and frantic. Most of the time it’s readable by others, but not always

Athena’s handwriting is sharp and scratchy and blocky. It’s a rough handwriting, almost. Probably more print than cursive.

I think Easton’s writing, is very solid and matter of fact, in a way. Like very clear, distinct print letters. They are making sure the words are getting across. It’s usually clean and clear but once they’re corrupted it starts to get shaky and rough.

Strawberri’s handwriting is almost like what Rae’s should look like. Curled and elegant swirling cursive. Flowery, even, if you’ll excuse the pun. I think unlike the others who are writing for notes and science and such, Momboo’s writing is much more relaxed and dignified, almost.

I think that’s all the characters who have letters or documents written in Brink?? But let me know if I’ve missed any or if you wanted me to go into other characters, or characters handwriting from the other books!!

And at the end of the day like,,, don’t take this as gospel or something you need to match, necessarily!! If you have a vision for what their handwriting is in your headcanon of the story, that’s just as much canon to you as my thoughts on the matter are to me! That’s the beauty of fan works and headcanons is that you can make it your own!! And especially with something as intricate as transcribing the fic there’s so much of your own feeling put into it, there’s not a wrong way to interpret any of the handwritings or anything like that!! 🫶🫶 /geb

[agent371]

This post is talking about the designs (and the designs only, I haven't read anything from the authors and dont even know who they are so this is design based only) released for the new Damian Wayne comic - The Boy Wonder. I will be heavily critical and btching about these, but please tell me your thoughts as well. After Damian, the others are under the cut. Please read because it's important.

Damian's design is actually really good and the best one, which is probably good since this is a comic about him. And I love how he's not whitewashed, which is something that happens way too much in comics.

Now, to Nightwing, his design is okay for a Nightwing design, but he just looks off in this style. I think if they tried to stylise him more, it could look a lot cooler. So I think he's just got wasted potential. Also, he's probably whitewashed as well to make damian more special as the "only" POC in the family (probly why Cass, Duke, Luke, and Luicus aren't here as well).

Babs is next, and this is the main reason I made this post. They abled her. DC authors stop abling disabled characters, please, for the love of me, I can't stand it. She can be disabled and still be relevant in the plot. I swear the only reason authors do this is because they don't know how to write disabled characters. If they need a Batgirl, use Steph or Cass because they are more than capable of doing it. I know they aren't as iconic as Babs, but move on DC. She's so much more interesting as Oracle.

Batman, I'm not a fan of his big blocky design. I just don't like it. He also looks really irrelevant and giving this is a comic about Robin (his son!) I think he should be relevant or look like he isn't a background character who just grunts, like for the design it looks like he doesn't talk. Don't like it.

Jason now, I actually love his Red Hood costume it looks sick, and the R on the chest *chefs kiss*. But his robin outfit is too gritty, and from that, I can tell he's going to be mischaracterised as the "angry Robin," so Hood looks cool, but that's all it is, his looks.

Tim. There is so much to say, omg. Where is his hero outfit! Everyone else got them. Why didn't he? You can actually see RR in the preview, so why wasn't that design put here? Why is it just Tim? And why does kid Tim look homless you know he grew up rich, before and after his adoption sure he has a style but his cloths wouldn't be friad he'd still look sleek and scruff not on the verge of his cloths falling off his back. For this, I can tell he'll also be mischaracterised as just like Jason since this is a Damian comic they are doing to do him so dirty. :( Sad day for a 90's Tim Drake fan (like every day, tbh save my guy). His RR design also has a shitty mask, but other than that, it seems fine, I like the wings/cape for it that looks pretty cool.

Alfred is a stereotypical old man. He's got no individuality what so ever and will proble be in one panel, say something sarcastic, and never show up again.

Ra's is okay. That's all.

Talia doesn't even look like herself . If you showed me her design with no context, I would not know who she is.

Carrie. Why is she here? Like honestly, why? There are better characters to include in a comic like this, like Steph or Cass or Duke or Helana. They would all be better chooses than Carrie. I'm not the biggest Damian fan, but ofter, Damian fans have been wanting him and Huntress as in a comic for a bit. I do like her design, but I just don't get why she's here. (I'm not including her image because of the limit bit is on my previous repost)

[alllgator-blood]

ohh my goodness can you pls pls pls do a brush tour?? i love ur art so so much its so cruncy >:]

Yes I can, I appreciate your interest!! I use paint tool sai 2 which is kind of archaic, but I've been drawing on a wacom pen and touch small + using paint tool sai since 2012 and I'm too stubborn to move onto something better. I actually only use three brushes so I've made a little drawing where I only use one brush per character to show the differences:

Gonna put the screenshots of the brush settings below the cut cause it got longer than I expected:

I drew my three big faves cause frankly I am sick of looking at kallamar and narinder's smug faces lmaoooo ANYWAY. GOING FROM LEFT TO RIGHT, WE HAVE THE CHUNKY BRUSH. I use that brush for messily coloring things in, doing big blocky background shapes, or just adding texture to a drawing. It's my favorite brush to paint with but I have not....finished a painting for this blog yet...

Then for the crunchy brush, it's a tool I use half for lineart and half for coloring. I use it for stuff like changes in fur color/markings, drawing all the lines in the backgrounds I do, and finer details the chunky brush can't handle. It's also the lineart tool I use for my drawings where the lines are all on the inside of the chararacters but not the outside!

As for the smooth brush, this one only ever gets used for lines but it was created when I was so bored of my lineart tool I stopped drawing for a while. I wanted a calligraphy pen and had to work around SAI's limitations, so while it doesn't have that thin-thick angular effect that calligraphy pens have....I manually apply the pressure and it looks passable enough. I hope.

The brush settings are visible in the pics but uNFORTUNATELY I DO *NOT* remember where I got my stupid brush pack from. I literally downloaded the files before I was even a teenager but I *do* remember they're from deviantart. If anyone is for some reason kicking and screaming to acquire this ancient, crusty brush pack I'm sure I could throw it in a google drive

I have other useless information about my process if any of this is remotely helpful: for the anaglyph effect on my lines, I literally take a full 120 seconds to copy+paste two copies of my lineart, color it red and cyan, and then slightly move them up+down beneath the black lineart to get that 3dish effect. My flat backgrounds are just another sai preset texture, usually the checkerboard one cause it's swag. The rest of my brushes are just for utility or to fill in the gaps, that scroll bar leads to a bunch of empty space. They're not worth showing off just because they don't ever get used, or it's just like. The bucket tool. The select tool. A binary pen I never use. And lastly, for my usual lines, I actually go back and mess them up myself to get them to look more chaotic...my lines are usually smooth + even but it's so boring to look at and time consuming that I'm trying to unlearn that.

here's a wip of what my lines USUALLY look like with the smooth brush. You can see for the background I mostly used the chunky brush for shapes and then the crunchy brush for the finer lines! But yeah it takes forever to do smooth lines because I have nerve damage in my arm (it's why my stabilizer is maxed out...) and I refuse to use the line tool. In a professional setting I definitely make sure my lines are polished but this is just my goofy fanart blog and I want everything to look like it's been laced with crack.

I HOPE ANY OF THIS HELPS?? OR JUST SATES YOUR CURIOSITY, I try to not gatekeep the way I do my art so I have literally no secrets tbh

[manyminded]

okay yk what. I’m here to show an example of my crazy polycule multishipping skills, wherein I make a polycule but every ship involving any character in said polycule that I like/is popular is included.

warning. this is a long post.

let’s start with polypact - every character from every iteration of death pact is included. that’s already fourteen characters! that’s a lot! But I Can Make It Worse.

pen is dating blocky and eraser. cool. he’s also in cahoots with snowball and coiny(we’ll get back to coiny). cool. snowball is dating golfball and tennis ball. snowball is also dating winner, which we’ll get back to. tennis ball should bring along nickel and thus nickel brings Bomby. what the hell, why not have all of BEEP here! Poly BEEP! okay, well, golfball is dating puffball and obviously puffball is dating fries. but golfball is also dating eight ball so we’ve unlocked the exitor polycule (excluding firey jr cause he’s a child). since stapy and Liy are in there too we’re including Foldy. and if you’re fine with crossover ships puffball could be dating bow ii as well (which we’ll get back too.)

pin is obviously dating firey, leafy, and coiny. first guy we’ve seen twice from two different threads! let’s keep going. pin is also obviously bringing along needle, woah bunch, so why not add donut here as well! firey is also dating gelatin. gelatin is dating fries. we’re back at fries again! gelatin is also in love with lollipop and teardrop. both leafy AND lollipop are dating flower. teardrop is dating eggy. eggy could be dating basketball and Foldy, which oh shit we’re back at another death pacter, with basketball dating robot flower.

well gaty. what about gaty? gaty is obviously with saw, of course, as well as two! and two is with four and x! okay, okay, well what about twophone? mephone4? Ah, but we’re saving crossover’s for later. four and x are in cahoots with clock and possibly gaty herself as well, and clock is with winner, and winner is with snowball, and we’re all coming back around again. four could even be with donut again! hi donut! Four is also dating profily!!

how about pillow. pillow! well there’s book of course, and you have to bring all of Freesmart along with her. but that was crossed off already with the exitor polycule including pencil and match, and pin/coiny/leafy with needle, which would’ve already brought Freesmart with them. book could also be dating price tag! and price tag brings along naily! book is also with lollipop and taco, and of course taco brings along barf bag. barf bag also brings along donut but he’s already here.

But Let’s Go Deeper.

crossovers. crossovers. YOU WANNA TALK CROSSOVERS? BECAUSE I CAN TALK CROSSOVERS. we’ve already covered twophone and puffbow. but as the no1 profilepainty shipper we’ve gotta include that as well. paintbrush brings along lightbulb, test tube, and fan. of course. mephone4 brings along metallic salad which includes microphone, knife, and pickle. bow brings along marshmallow and apple. test tube brings cabby of course. paintbrush can also drag along tissues, and tissues can bring YinYang & cheesy.

also, mic drags along ii taco, and might as well get cabby in here as well. and now there’s a lot of ways to connect to baseball, nickel, suitcase, and balloon from here (taclloon? basemic? nickmic? etc etc) but they’re here as well.

but that’s not the end of it. there’s someone I’ve been neglecting to mention.

trophy. he could be connected through either knife or tissues/cheesy. but you wanna know why I’ve left him out?

GOLDEN BOTTLE. TROPHY X BRYCE.

THATS RIGHT. THIS POLYCULE SPANS THREE FUCKING SHOWS, BABY.

Bryce Hanson. Soda Bottle. Bring along your boyfriend and girlfriend, Liam/backpack and Amelia/Scenty. Scenty, bring along your girlfriends, tray and Charlotte. Charlotte, bring your boyfriends, Parker and circle. LIAM, BRING FUCKING AIRY. AIRY, BRING HOST CIRCLE. LETS GET THIS PLACE TO THE FINISH LINE.

…

so yeah. that’s all I got. this is a non-exhaustive list, but I hope you see my point.

this was spurred on by my replies to this post by @deathpactagainn, and a dumb conversation (pictured below) with @cindersnows. gaze upon my insanity and cower beneath it, mere mortals.

[addynosketchpad]

here's a list of my aus

Random Fire AU - A random fire scatters everyone. People die, people get hurt, people try to find their friends. Lightning struggles with survivor's guilt after watching both Marker and Fanny die in front of him, even as Bubble tells him it wasn't his fault. Black Hole kidnaps his friends. Blocky and Woody probably make out in a tent. Inspiration: A dirty eraser I found in my art box and decided to draw as Eraser BFDI.

Hallucination Cabin AU - A mysterious cabin in the woods. If you go in, you'll get lost in all the doors and hallways. When you do find the door, your friends will tell you that it's not so bad, you could stay here forever. The problem is that none of your friends actually came here with you. Inspiration: idk man. i just wanted angst i think

Rainbow Rocks AU - Death PACT Again takes the place of the Rainbooms in the Rainbow Rocks movie. The original Alliance takes the place of the Dazzlings. A few story bits get changed because Bubble would never try to feed on people's hate and arguments. Inspiration: My Little Pony Equestria Girls Rainbow Rocks

Friendship Games AU - Death PACT Again and are you okay FIGHT!!!! Meanwhile Pen is messing around with Black Hole's gravity power stuff and eventually turns into a weird human-singularity hybrid. And now Pie has to go stop him. Also features math. Inspiration: My Little Pony Equestria Girls Friendship Games

Bigender Eraser AU - Eraser is bigender. Eraser uses he/she pronouns. That's literally all it is. Nothing else changes. Inspiration: The "Give her here, Pencil!" argument

Villain AU - Tennis Ball gets himself stuck in a world where everyone he knows is a comic book villain. Fortunately Dynaslinger, Mischief Master, and the Puppeteer are willing to help him out! Also Roboty is the only normal guy Inspiration: i don't remember

Project SEKAI Imaginary Friendgroup AU - Fries plays guitar, Tree plays piano, Snowball plays drums, and Donut plays bass. They play music with either Hatsune Miku or just an Eraser hologram. Inspiration: Project SEKAI Colorful Stage Leo/need

Puffball Dies AU - Puffball dies in a car crash and Fries experiences heartbreak, grief, depression, and a lot of things that are supposed to happen to people you don't know. Inspiration: A drawing i made of Fries that said "i didn't know heartbreak was real"

Astrobio Swap AU - Black Hole is the smart guy with the simp-worthy voice, and Tree is the awkward guy who has nightmares about turning the planet into a jungle. Inspiration: swap aus in general

MLP AU - Everyone is a pony. i love pegasus balloon Inspiration: MY LITTLE PONY MOVIE

Fully Human AU - i don't think there's a main character but they all have normal names and eye/hair colors and also half of them go to school Inspiration: @/tarochimochi probably. and also the list of human names i made

Teenage Rocky AU - IT'S NOT A PHASE, BALLOONY!! THIS IS WHO I AM!! Inspiration: My friend saying "Teenage Rocky be like: BLEH."

Fankids AU - Fries and Puffball, Donut and Barf Bag, and Fanny and Tree get married and have kids (Wafers, Moldy Poptart, and Poison Ivy). Their kids all get along and like to do dinosaur excavations (digging holes). Wafers usually instructs the others on what to do. Inspiration: fankids in general

Murder Battle AU - BFDI but instead of challenges, everyone kills each other. Recovery centers are a huge part of it, of course. The trend continues through all the seasons. Eliminations are probably a lot nicer, ironically. Inspiration: @/wizwadry probably. and also just the idea of woody with an axe

Jinsei no Meiyaku! AU - If Death PACT Again were stereotypical anime characters. They fight the bad people who like to death. They also fight the Shi no Meiyaku. Which ACTUALLY means Death Pact. Inspiration: Anime stereotypes

Candy AU - Tree eats too much candy, turns pink, and starts a candy zombie outbreak. Inspiration: "yOs. my head just feels yuckAy and weird? but! i dOD fOind a time reversal ray!"

Pokémon League AU - 64 contestants compete in a Pokémon tournament. Spoiler: Roboty probably wins (Profily, Grassy and Rocky don't compete) Inspiration: Pokemon anime

Woodblock Marriage AU - Woody and Blocky are married and have a son who was probably created in a lab by Tennis Ball. Blocky is the fun dad and Woody is the eternally sleep-deprived dad. Inspiration: Drawing them with their kid…his name is Chunk because he is too large to be a splinter and too small to be a slab

Get Digging AU - Fries wakes up in a room with a dirt floor. Bomby, who kidnapped him, tells him to get digging, because the key to get out is probably underground. "Probably" does not mean 100%. He has been digging for months. Inspiration: I just wanted to see Fries suffer

Execution AU - Two is a psychopath and elimination means an execution and forever death. One, instead of being a scary kidnapper, might just be trying to save the contestants. Inspiration: Danganronpa probably

Nickel Hanahaki AU - Nickel is in love with Bomby. Bomby is not in love with Nickel. Nickel is vomiting flowers. He has days to live. Inspiration: Hanahaki in general i think

Stereotyped AU - Fries is a fat slob, Basketball is a jock, and Lightning lives off energy drinks. You probably get it. Inspiration: A BFDI wiki post about Saw, and also thinking about character impressions

Starworld AU - Black Hole is a dead star. Black Hole probably lived with other stars in a galaxy. Hey how cool would it be if there was a star parallel to every BFDI contestant. Inspiration: My cool and awesome Starry design

Snownutfrytreeraser AU - Snowball, Donut, Fries, Tree and Eraser are all boyfriends that's literally it. Inspiration: i don't even remember man

Struggles of a Rotten Tennis Ball AU - Tennis Ball yaoi addiction arc, minus the religious guilt (because it's just guilt overall) Inspiration: Confessions of a Rotten Girl which i have not listened to and don't plan to

Dreamcatcher AU - Black Hole watches/controls dreams. One night Fries wakes up as Black Hole is stepping into his nightmare, which leads to Fries getting dragged along as Black Hole's sidekick guy. His favorite dreams to watch are Bomby's. Inspiration: "what if Fries was forced to team up with Black Hole that would be funny" also Princess Luna

BEEP PACT AU - Death PACT is made of a bunch of fellas who wanted to prove themselves, and BEEP is made of a bunch of people Liy decided to force her help on. Inspiration: swap aus in general probably

the bad puffries au - Fries and Puffball are sadist x masochist instead of sadist x sadist. Inspiration: the idea of normal Fries beating up an alternate version of himself was really funny

gutted like a fish. AU - Blocky likes Woody. Woody rejects him. Woody thinks it's a good idea to follow Blocky into a dark alleyway. Woody is dead now and still trying to figure out if Blocky had any real feelings. No despair or heartbreak, just a lot of confusion. Inspiration: A post about shady guys asking for girls' numbers

one week AU - Woody wakes up in a very scary hotel he doesn't recognize. While he tries to find an exit, he ends up having to fight the mangled reanimated corpses of his friends/teammates. Inspiration: A post related to the Israel and Palestine conflict that disturbed me a lot

Pirate Puffries AU - Fries is a pirate, living his pirate life. Unfortunately he meets a nefarious siren and ends up liking her. Inspiration: i don't remember man

Gone and still forgotten AU - Have you ever seen me doodle Woody and Clock on the edges of drawings? Inspiration: DEAD FOR OVER A YEAR GANG RISE UP

[lovelyrotter]

okay but i actually kinda wanna know ur take on stridercest being canon compliant O_O <- autism stare

oh hey i am also hitting you with the autism stare. ill try to get my thoughts down in a way that makes sense to more than just me hahaha

bear in mind that im an epilogue lover and i think Meat/Candy are really valuable pieces that further all of the characters and are also hard canon in the sense that we're looking at just 2 post-game universe outcomes out of an uncountable number (the book in the picnic basket representing post-canon fanfic). i think the characters actions in the epilogues make sense and are satisfying to me. yes even jane (i love alpha jane and i will not do her the disservice of 'cleaning her up' w/o showing her work for it. thats not how you depict a character who grew up with fascist programming). i could totally go on a whole tangent about this specifically but thats another post lol we'd be here forever and its also not stridercest

but okay. canon stridercest. under the cut cause it got kinda long

basically it has to do with the cherubs and how their relationships and mating rituals are pretty obviously incestuous leaning even though cherubs dont have the human concept of Siblings or blood family. the cherub who predominates will search across paradox space to mate with another cherub who closely resembles the cherub they predominated which is like textbook Freudian sexuality. theres a lot of Freud and Jungian stuff in HS imo even if im kinda [wobbly hand gesture] at the validity of these theories applied to real life and real people. but theyre super fun tools and lenses to use in fiction and i mean. gestures at all of dave

so the incest aliens cherubs. the whole reason why im talkin about them is bc Caliborn is so incredibly interested and invested in the Striders in particular. caliborn as both Lord English and Lil Cal shapes earth NOT OVERTLY but more so embeds himself in earth society, but again, the Striders lives in particular. dave is full of incest jokes. hes even apparently got a list of his friends arranged in order of how likely theyd incest-elope with each other (thank you epilogues for this amazing factoid). he seems to think about it often enough to, yknow, Do That. have a good solid think about that and construct an organized list about it. bearing in mind dave makes jokes about stuff thats a) bothering him, or b) generally camping out in his brain. hes not even really aware of it most of the time (as we see in one of the openbounds where hes all 'why am i thinking about puppets???' after seeing dirk for the first time in that dream bubble. he is thinking nonstop about dirk at that point and going off his only frame of reference for ANY dirk, which is his bro. his bro who was most likely deeply warped by Lil Cal)

sorry for the long blocky paragraph lol. but now onto the next thing

Caliborn as Lil Cal is the centerpiece in the beta strider apartment. dave cant escape him and beta dirk grew up with him. what the fuck do you do when youre childhood comfort item is also the most evil creature across all of paradox space? if youre a dirk you try to fight it. but how long can you keep fighting something like that. its safe to say that bro was affected by Caliborns particular brand of perversion and sfw kink. i dont think i have to say how insidious abusive and toxic he is about those things. and looking at the truth of beta bro (16yo alpha dirk) you can start to see just how warped beta bro became. beta bro is a false dirk (still a very Real dirk but not the Truth of dirk. beta bro has been toxified and made infinitely worse by an absolute evil influence over decades of life. in 80s fuckin texas. presumably in the system. anyone would be fucked up after that)

so for this analysis/theory im stating beta bro as a false persona. using jungian terms he is apha dirk's shadow

both dave and dirk live with a fake, carefully manicured version of their bros. they live with personas (or shadows of their guardians on the walls. hello platos allegory of the cave). they dont actually know e/o and they dont until the striunion

alpha dirk especially grows up embedded in the Public Persona Of Dave Strider 400 years post mortem and completely alone with unlimited internet access. hes a self admitted expert on his bro and we dont get to see a lot if any of his early childhood but i can hazard a guess at how much he clung to that persona of his bro. he fuckin idolizes dave. he LOVES dave. right off the bat he is in some kind of love with dave and i think if you try to argue against that then thats you slippin. i think youre a fool and have to reread homestuck because i wholeheartedly believe the striders loving eachother is part of the win state

once again this is speculation cause we get barely anything about alpha dave, but from what we already know about him im guessing this bro-persona is

achingly effortlessly cool

oozing masculinity (toxic or not, not really interested in categorizing that although toxic coolboy masculinity IS something the striders contend with & is an important facet in their lives)

a skilled fighter

a dedicated moviegoer (hes a director need i say more. this one is probably the only genuine thing about his on-screen persona)

and now lets look at jake. someone whos grown up on pretty much nothing but movies, whos doubtlessly been influenced by hollywood and its idea of gritty 'main character' masculinity through that, and who also clings to more old-school ideas of manliness (think victorian/edwardian era gentlemanly-but-loves-a-good-scrum kinda manly. moustache twirly with a monocle kinda manly. basically everything that grandpa harley is)

but okay lets look at what jake wants to be. lets take a look at his teenager persona

achingly effortlessly cool (his own 'hollywood star' kind of cool also def influenced by his favourite characters like lara croft who is indeed achingly cool. you see him succeed in inhabiting this hollywood star persona on earth c)

oozing masculinity (the old school manly mans-man kind)

a skilled fighter (two pistoles always. harder to aim cause you cant use a free hand to make up for kickback. that takes skill)

a dedicated moviegoer (again one of the only genuine parts about his persona. his questionable-to-wretched tastes aside. but bearing in mind that the SBaHJ movies are intentionally bad which is what makes them loop around to good. such is the nature of intentionally 'bad' art. jake fuckin lives in this perpetual bad-good art loop. okay enough with the art tangent keep focused man cmon)

because dirk has obviously way more contact with jake i dont doubt he sees through jakes own (admittedly way more flimsy) coolboy persona but the point still stands i think. different flavours but the same kinda guy. dirk has a type and i dont think its a stretch to say that hes looking for aspects of the bro-persona he grew up looking at in other boys, much like the winning cherub looking for the one they lost in the cherub theyll mate with

also wtf is with dirks obvious boner for dave chasing him across paradox space to decapitate him huh?? the last few sentences in Meat are about that very thing. he wants to fuc fight dave sooo bad. haha remember how the cherubic mating ritual is one of the most violent and long running spectacles in paradox space? i sure do

[firemeteorguy]

I just realized that post splits cast isn't exactly THAT bad, it's decent, but holy shit we could have gotten better writing, in my opinion, they should have had taco stay in tpot and have barf bag here instead to interact with spongy, balloony could also be switched out for an exitor, preferably match IMO, otherwise the others could stay intact

My main problem with this whole fucking season is the insefurrable and whiny ass writing they give to characters, derailing them in most ways than one, the only REMOTELY enjoyable arc in that whole season was the Blocky and Woody one, then you look deeper into the season and find the bullshit that is the fireafy arc.

And I'm sorry, but I CANNOT ENJOY THIS SEASON FOR THE LIFE OF ME, just not a fan, the way they treated the characters always makes me mad LMAO

Flower SPECIALLY tbh, I wish they kept some of their season 1 traits, showing how he isn't perfect, leading to his win.

Gelatin being a runner up was cool, but I wish she did more in the finale 😭😭😭😭 like....make it so it's less OBVIOUS on who's meant to win please.

Anyways I needed to say this because I fucking love these silly little objects and adore the show, but we need to realize not all seasons of the show are 100% perfect, post split shows that CLEARLY.