#id make a more cohesive post about it if theres interest

[spearxwind]

Hey, would anyone be interested in some fish serigraphy prints I made a couple years back in uni? I made them in sets so there's a few complete sets that come with a little box, and then i have some individual ones that cant be made into a set (both repeats and b-grades)

There's twelve designs total. Ten of them are of real irl fish and two of them are based on the monster concepts I developed for my comic DEEP

Ive had them sitting around for a while and i just keep forgetting to post about them constantly haha

They'd be 110eur per complete set (12 prints plus a handcut box thing) and 10eur per individual print (plus shipping for either case)

[d0d0-b0i]

(SPOILER FILLED) alrighty, time for some more cohesive thoughts on prime for me (since my last one was written directly after finishing it and now its had time to sit in my brain) (long post btw, i ramble @w@)

overall, i very much enjoyed it! the animation had me positively salivating over the fact that its /actually/ using animation techniques and not just. moving characters from A to B without the time for proper stylization. the overall plot was enjoyable and i am excited to see what the rest of the season will offer.

the fact that it is only one-third of the whole season also makes me a lot more forgiving about certain flaws i found at first, like only showing three worlds and not giving the characters a lot of time to breathe. theres the very high likelihood that such a thing actually will happen, and we might even see more places and worlds, which is an exciting thought! nonetheless, going in i did not know this as i was sleep deprived and had forgotten how many episodes the season has, so i felt a little bit salty, ngl.

Devon Mack does a very good job as sonic, and it makes me feel warm inside hearing his portrayal! every actor does a great job honestly, and it truly feels like they all understand the respective character they voice act(especially considering they have to acclimate the character /and/ voice for each new world. very talented!). the eggman voice actor could use some rerecords at times honestly;; but he does a good enough job that i only notice it sometimes; and he is fun to listen to regardless, and is just a subjective thought of mine.

the different universes also intrigue me! :D i really enjoyed the first one the jungle one was interesting and had beautiful flora models, but it is with this one that a problem of mine arises (but ill get to that later). the waterworld was also interesting, but kind of boring worldwise, since its just. water. (i get that its a pirate world and thats fine! i just cant give a good description of my feelings besides just. water. yknow?)

ive seen that a lot of people think rouge shouldve been the captain in the third world and. honestly. yeah. i think we might get to see why later on? but idk. i hope they have a reason that makes sense as to why she isnt, like if the worlds stick around and dont fuse back, shed be the next captain? weh! (i do love knuckles in a captains outfit though, so bonus points for that!)

now. i only have a few “criticisms”, and although some can be attributed to not being intended for me(and i will therefore not include cus. duh), there is one thing i just cannot let slip by.

(CRITIQUE START) the issue i have is that it feels so empty. new yolk (i refuse the yoke) is populated, but later episodes only really reuse the same five models roughly multiple times and i think had at most like 30? of them at the same time, and obviously could not have had more due to budget and such (which is understandable, but that still doesnt mean i cant point it out).

the jungle episodes! THE JUNGLE EPISODES?? ONLY HAD 5?? CHARACTERS MINUS SONIC (froggy counts) AT ALL TIMES?? and even the flashbacks only show those, probably so as not to imply death but like. come on. not even a few background characters at all? am i meant to believe they will all die out anyway simply by being the last people on this earth? im sorry i just cant get over this. you can make sean mcloughlin, mr jacksepticeye, get a cameo and his own personal character model, BUT CANNOT EVEN FILL A JUNGLE WITH PEOPLE?? did i miss something? if theyd shown even /one/ bg character once in a single frame in the flashbacks, id forgive it but i. cannot. im sorry. im nitpicking but come on! this is like the only issue i have. you only have 11 of the original characters in the first place (sonic. tails. knuckles. amy. rouge. big. froggy. shadow. eggman. orbot. cubot.), and then half of them are pretty much gone most of the time.

i just. its so empty? DO NOT GET ME WRONG I HATE WHEN THAT HAPPENS. I DEEPLY ENJOY THIS SHOW! I LOVE THE CHARACTERS WEVE GOTTEN TO SEE !!! THAT DOES NOT MEAN I CANNOT COMPLAIN ABOUT SOMETHING I HAD TROUBLE PROCESSING. if its gonna be a show about sonic and his friendships. where the fuck are the rest of them? is all we’re gonna get homages to their characters? (jungle knuckles was just sticks. come on now. just put her in shes already canon to the mainline games now) sega, if youre going to make a show about his friendships, why wont you let his friends be there? why can you only license 11 of your characters to the show? please make me eat my words.

and yeah you could say that the reasons others arent there (in-canon, not because of legal issues) is because they werent hit close-up with the prism shatter, but neither was big? he was shown to be down by the hills when it exploded, and i dont know if that counts considering that orbot and cubot arent even in any episode besides the first one, and they werent visible in the blast, i do not know what the blast radius would be to affect anything else. eugh. idk man. this is like the ONE issue i have, and its so small it feels meaningless. yeah yeah the budget the tight grip on characters yadda yadda i get the reasons behind it but it still affects the endgoal and i should be allowed to point it out.                                                                                                                     (CRITIQUE OVER)

that being said. i am in love with the character designs! especially a big fan of sonics gloves and shoes in the pirate world. i fuck w/ that very much <3

anyway, thats it. show good. binge it if possible! we need netflix to know that we like this. and maybe theyll realize that one episode per week for this show would be perfect (im looking at you episode recaps)

[surlifen]

i dont waste energy hating closed species And You Can Too!

alright you asked for it

Claim 1: “Closed species limit creativity in the art community by locking off certain concepts.”

No, they don’t. If you believe that, then you also must believe that copyrighting in general-- or just generally the fact that making a design exactly like someone else’s is viewed as kind of wack-- are stifling creativity. Why? It’s easy to accidentally make a concept that is similar to someone else’s, because there are literally just not that many Things That Exist. There will ALWAYS be repeats. Generally, if a design coincidentally looks like another, there will be a mixture of backlash from people who believe it was an intentional ripoff, and total acceptance from people who understand that it was an accident. Ultimately, the correct way to live is to understand that 1) these coincidences can happen and should not be punished, but 2) intentionally ripping off someone else’s work is wrong. It isn’t black and white, you must process 2 or more concepts at once.

Species owners understand this. I have never seen a species owner come after someone for accidentally making something similar or inspired. This is a myth. Species owners are busy as fuck, generally Normal People, and simply do not have the time or energy or desire to moderate things outside their community. Please talk to literally any of them for more than two minutes and you will discover this. Every species owner I have met is friendly and kind and I’ll go into detail on exactly how bullshit this stereotype of them chasing people down for similarities is later.

So, given that some randos will get upset and harass people over harmless inspiration/coincidence but most will not in ALL cases of accidental over-similarity: this is NOT a species-specific problem and happens just as often--if not MORE often, because of how much people fucking despise closed species-- with non-closed-species characters.

Secondly, species owners do not create a closed species with the goal of closing off a concept from use. They do it to create a community they can manage and share a concept they have created. 

Take the world of Nephfei, created by the artist Queijac. The closed species of Nephfei are called Spinxyn, and they are very much sphinxes. They are not a brand-new concept Jac is claiming to have come up with, they are intentional and very direct references to sphinxes. What sets them apart is their species LORE, WORLD, and COMMUNITY.

[image ID: a screenshot of the Spinxyn species guide on deviantart, created by queijac. Text reads “IMPORTANT NOTE: Spinxyn are a species OF sphinx. Yes, they are sphinx, and yes of course anyone can make sphinx characters and designs using similar appearances! I claim no ownership over design aspects! Spinxyn as a CS community, however, which offers social art related activities, world building, themed events, etc., to use the characters in, simply relates to my own PERSONAL WORK and how i want to enrich peoples experiences with it! Please understand this, thank you!!!”]

This species is not closed so that Jac can copyright the idea of a sphinx. It is closed so that Jac has some control over the world and lore they have created. Were anyone able to create a Spinxyn without an approval process, not only would the community become too large to manage too quickly, but all sorts of Spinxyn with aspects that don’t fit the lore would pop up. 

[Image ID: screenshot of a message from Queijac in the nephfei official public Discord server. Text reads: “theres just a total disconnect that 99% of ppl making closed species are making. a Group...... its about.... the community....... and building the community around One concept that someone makes and puts rules in place for so that they can actually. U kno. MANAGE THINGS... and make a cohesive group experience....... the reason CS have so much popularity is because they come with a community, not because theyre 100% unique never before seen or heard of concepts”]

Jac explicitly acknowledges that sphinxes do not belong to them and even says that borrowing some spinxyn-specific appearance details is okay!!! The ONLY thing off-limits here is a WORLD, COMMUNITY, and LORE.

Except it isn’t. Because Nephfei also hosts not one, not two, but THREE open species of intelligent beings, plus NINE official species of non-intelligent animals, so that anyone can participate.

Claim 2: Species owners harass and police people who make similar concepts.

I touched on this already re:species owners are busy as fuck & Jac openly encouraging people to make sphinx characters and even borrow spinxyn-specific traits, but this note from ground-lion/seel, the creator of Chimereons, really does it for me.

[Image ID: a DeviantArt note from ground-lion to me. Text reads “hello, thank you for showing me this! we don't actively do anything to police offbrands, since it causes more trouble than i think it's worth. i like to avoid drama wherever possible, and it seems like most people who participate in offbrands are just looking to press people's buttons so we can't/won't do anything to these people, i think it is best to just try and ignore it and move on.”]

Here you have the owner of one of the arguably most shit on and hated species saying outright “we don’t bother doing anything about intentional ripoffs”. For context, this WAS 100% intentional, I had noted ground-lion about a user I saw posting adoptables that were LABELED “offbrand chimereons” (so if anyone was hArAsSiNg PeOpLe oVeR SiMiLaR cOnCePtS here, it was me, calling attention to intentional and stated copying). 

Sidenote: I think it’s shitty to intentionally steal a concept. Ground-lion has also said there is no issue with making anthropomorphic chameleon characters, just that chimereons were inspired by a set of traits, a word, lore, a desire to create a community, and their own personal stylization of anthro chameleons. It’s fine to take inspiration from how someone else stylizes an animal, but the degree to which people do it-- just outright copying every aspect of Seel’s work-- rubs me the wrong way. Not enough to say anything because that is only my personal opinion and because I do not have time for that shit.

The Dainty mod team + owner (Pajuxi-Adopts) also have a section stating that to make a design no longer a Dainty, all that’s needed are the following changes: 

[image ID: screenshot of Dainty species ToS. Text reads “ Visual edits must be made for discontinuation, here is our standard discontinuation options: - remove the stockings completely and give them fur like an actual satyr - keep the stockings and give them human legs - make them an anthro - keep the stockings but they MUST start at least a quarter to halfway up the bottom portion of the deer leg with a clear divide between the stocking and leg with fur poking out underneath - you are free to suggest your own edits as well! “]

This may be speaking specifically about discontinuing a former Dainty due to the context we found it in, but this means that a design is not considered a dainty if, for example, its stockings show fur underneath and are not part of the body. That’s it. That’s all they ask. Pajuxi is not saying “this is my closed species of SATYRS WITH SOCKS and if you DARE make a satyr with socks i will COME FOR YOU!!!”, they clearly state that satyrs with socks are an acceptable Not A Dainty. I personally think the lore behind the stockings being physically part of the body and all the specific rules they entail is interesting and original and I do not think it’s such a wild ask to say “hey, please respect this and if you see it, don’t rip it off on purpose. You can take inspiration in all these valid ways but I want to have some control over the concept I came up with”.

Claim 3: Species owners are rich elitists making small artists suffer.

Species owners are small, independent artists. Artists being hated the instant they get even moderate success (that’s still usually BARELY A LIVING WAGE) is its own huge discussion and internalized issues + capitalist brainwashing you all have to deal with on your own damn time, but I want to emphasize that someone making a living or even comfortable wage from their art is Good, Actually, and is something we should all be happy to see and want to see more of. 

Furthermore, no one is being taken advantage of. CS characters are a luxury item. You do not NEED one. If you absolutely will die without a sock deer, make one where the sock isn’t part of their body. If you will die without a chimereon, make an anthro chameleon and use your own ideas. If you will die without a sphinx character, I’m overjoyed to inform you that fucking nobody ever asked you not to make one. CS involvement is voluntary. If you don’t like them, don’t participate in them, but keep in mind that someone saying “hey, please don’t blatantly copy this design concept I spent time creating” is The Same Thing as someone asking you not to copy their individual character designs. You could live without stealing character designs. You can live without making something exactly like an existing CS. 

Claim 4: CS put concepts behind a paywall and make them inaccessible.

Again, these are a luxury item. Most closed species MYO slots cost $10-$45. That is not a ridiculous amount to aspire to. Closed species owners WANT people to participate in their species, so there are a ton of ways.

- Chimereons hold First-Time Owner flatsale slot raffles every single month to ensure people who are new to the community have a greater chance of nabbing a slot than existing participants - Dainties have an art prompt every month, which rewards every participant regardless of skill level one prompt point (the art can be visual or written). Six prompt points can be used to buy an MYO slot for free. If you desperately need a dainty and are flat broke, you can get a free one by writing 150 words a month for six months or doing one drawing each month. Skill level doesn’t matter, ALL participants get a point if they follow the rules. - I joined a raffle for a free pre-made Spinxyn. I did not win the raffle. Jac randomly decided to give out 7 MYO slots too, one of which I won. I entered a raffle that DID NOT HAVE MYO SLOTS AS A PRIZE and got one for free anyway. CS owners want people to participate, I promise. - Dainties just had a 24-hour turn-in event (that they warned about a month in advance so folks could prepare designs), meaning every single person who submits a design in that 24hr time frame gets a slot. Normally slot sales are limited in number and sell out in seconds. - Jac sporadically draws quicker, messier Spinxyn designs which always cost $5 and raffle-flatsales them on Discord. $5 is not a gatekeepy price. - Tomoyokis recently had a free-for-all event where everyone could claim either a free common slot or a $10 uncommon slot. These are just specific examples I remember of easier or free ways to get CS. Non-specifically:

- art = reward systems are common, so again, just writing or drawing enough can equal a free MYO slot or entry into a raffle for a pre-made design - many many species that are relatively new have FREE turn-in events or giveaways to build a community - free FTO slot raffles - paid but discounted FTO slot raffles - random free design giveaways - trading art for a CS character or MYO slot (I’ve gotten a dainty and two dainty MYO slots this way, and I realize not everyone’s art gets accepted, which is why this is a whole list of ways that don’t require artistic skill whatsoever)

So getting your hands on one isn’t the worst thing in the world. You might need a little luck (as in, you have a completely fair chance that is equal to everyone else’s) or a little dedication (6 months of wanting one, or having to have a design ready within a limited time for a free turn-in event).

Also, there’s a reason CS prices cannot change much: this causes issues with the value of all existing CS characters. Dainties will ALWAYS be $35. The MYO slot price will NEVER increase. If it did, all previous dainties would be worth less, or would have to have their worth increased, which is logistics hell. Inflation doesn’t affect CS the same way it does everything else.

Claim 5: ok but legally nothing is stopping me from making one lmaoo

That is true. It’s also true that there’s not really any effective laws in place to protect artists when they say “Hey, please don’t quote retweet my art on Twitter” or “Hey, please don’t repost my art even with credit”. Sometimes, we just respect artists and do what they ask because we are Nice Fucking People, but apparently, species owners are a whole different thing, evil, and do not deserve the same basic respect.

IN CONCLUSION

Talk to a CS owner. They’re reasonable and kind people. There’s an exception to every rule, of course, but what I’ve found overwhelmingly is that they’re literally just people like you and I who were excited to make something cool and share it with people. The emphasis is HUGELY on community. I used to dislike the idea of CS too, but since participating in them and talking a ton with the owners (who are super down-to-earth and active in their servers-- Jac helped me with a confusing horse video game and gave me a Free Horse in there), I’ve realized that the caricature of CS owners as greedy and bitchy, laying claim to basic concepts like A Cat With Wings, is just bullshit. The stereotype that CS community members are an angry mob who will roast you over a fire if you draw a chameleon on two legs is bullshit. The idea that CS are impossible to get, are for the bourgeoisie, and cost thousands of dollars is bullshit (I bet you’re thinking about scarfoxes right now. Hot take: I think it’s great that an artist is selling their intellectual property for that much. I think we all should be able to. I think if someone chooses to spend that much on a design they think would make them happy, that is literally not a fucking problem, and since it was their choice and their money no one is being taken advantage of unfairly. Let people buy the shit they want to buy, I promise you will fucking survive).

I like CS, I think they are neat, I wish people would give the owners a break. They are just independent artists like me. They get lied about and stereotyped over this stupid drama bullshit and they’re so tired and saddened when the subject comes up. They literally do not police anyone-- they don’t have the time or the desire, and it wouldn’t work anyway.

I won’t post CS content here anymore. But I like participating voluntarily in these communities. I don’t understand why that’s something YOU get to have a problem with.

Stay out of my inbox. Thanks.

[normal-thoughts-official]

#i used to write them both all in one #i stopped because once a blind person reached out to me and asked me why i included the transcript in the description since they could #already hear what was going on and all they really needed to know was the visual aspect of the video #i do still try to write them in a cohesive way #like if i'm writing a description for a video and the video shows a person just talking but then they stop to do something before #continuing to speak i mention it in the description. like 'after x says 'y' they stop to do z before continuing to speak' #but i wonder if that's not much better and i should just mash the transcripts and descriptions into one again #i hadn't considered op's pov before so i'll definitely be thinking more about this (mushroomjar's tags)

thank you for adding your perspective as someone who does that! accessibility is never one-size-fits-all, and some things that are helpful for some are really unhelpful for others. i don't keep that in mind as much as i should and i ended up making a huge blanket statement here, so, i'm sorry for that

as i said my perspective is that of a person who needs transcriptions but is sighted. i did ask for the input of people who are not sighted before making this post but i didn't get many, so there is that. i think that in some cases (such as short videos or videos that heavily rely on audio cues rather than visual ones), hearing the audio is enough for a blind person to understand the video, and the visual description might be more of an addendum for some more detail. so in those cases, maybe having a short description before the transcription is better for those people. similar to how you sometimes make an ID followed by a detailed ID, maybe a VD versus a detailed VD with the audio could be a good solution to accomodate both

that might be particularly true because for screenreader users, it is a lot harder to skip content, so if they had already listened to the video before checking for a description it can get repetitive and annoying

i do think however that transcriptions are better with visual cues added. if the video relies heavily on visual cues, then i'm gonna need many of those to understand the transcription. if it doesn't, then they won't occupy much space and it won't bother me, and it will make it easier to understand the video as someone who's not watching it or listening to it, just reading it. also, people who arent hearing but are sighted can skip over content they aren't interested in much more easily, and people who are neither will need both anyway

i also believe that this is a "pros outweigh the cons" situation - from what you're describing here, it sounds like the person who reached out to you was confused, but not really upset/inconvenienced. where on the other hand transcriptions without descriptions have made videos completely incomprehensible or very hard to follow, to me. or sometimes they're understandable, but feel soulless. not to mention the groups who need both, such as deafblind people, who would have to keep skipping between one and another to process the video. theres also the fact that i think the audiovisual content where you can separate the two parts are a minority; mostly very short videos or videos where it's mostly one person sitting there talking

so, maybe this helps you come to a decision? i'm not trying to tell you what to do or fight/argue with you here, just add some more perspective and start a conversation, if you're interested in it

you guys. separating a video description from a video transcription is incredibly counterproductive for people who need both AND ["and" in caps] for people who only need one of the two

the audio part of a video and the visual part of a video arent separate, theyre part of the same cohesive story. as someone who needs transcriptions but not descriptions, it is incredibly more helpful if a transcription tells me what's going on in the video visually as each sound appears, because otherwise there's no context. since transcriptions are for videos without CC, i can't watch the video and read the transcription at the same time, especially if it's long

similarly, a person who needs a description but not transcriptions won't be able to watch the video and read the description at the same time, especially if they are using a screenreader and/or it is long. also, if there are way less visual cues than audio cues, it will be hard to tell when which part takes place

and i hope i don't have to explain why it's bad for people who need both

this also goes for doing video descriptions that only describe the visual cues but not the audio of a video with CC, or transcriptions without a description (which i see a lot. some people seem to think only images need visual descriptions and completely forget about videos. visually impaired people don't gain the ability to see when it's a video, guys). please for the love of god just provide both as one single thing

ETA: i know people do this with the best of intentions and i don't mean to be aggressive, although i am slightly frustrated. this is just a PSA so you can make your accessible audiovisual content better for those who need it

[flockofdoves]

wait ok maybe a bad time to start this at 1:30am (<- started this post last night lmao) but i’ve been thinking so much (for a long time but this week i think maybe prompted by jonny saying stuff in the s5 q&a part 3 about fanon character designs getting more homogenous as the fandom gets bigger its really been on my mind again) about my thoughts on the magnus archives character design stuff

(this turned into such a fucking long post my god sorry lol. just writing this for my own purposes really but i feel ridiculous i spent like a good portion of the past day writing this out dkjfhgfd)

like i already said on that other post character design stuff is full of so much under the surface both really silly and almost nonsensical (like ‘oh this character just feels like they have a lot of triangles incorporated into their design’ or the slightly more connected to reality arbitrary ideas people have about what type of character might wear glasses) and stuff thats incredibly loaded and very much connected to real life systems of oppression. so its like. idk. i like drawing people and fashion and harmonizing shapes and the idea of coming up with people who dont exist through abstracted drawings that somehow click and that can feel cohesive even with different angles/expressions/poses/etc is really fun to me conceptually but Character Design(tm) as a thing even outside of established tropes and schools of it that really lean into elements that can uphold gross shit as shorthand just inevitably theres so much to consider in the implications of making a person (visually) and ascribing traits to them (or i guess in this case largely the opposite)

so thats not something id call fun its just important and inevitably a big factor if i’m going to put any of this to words and can only hope i do so non-clumsily when i wanna talk about this on the whole just bc i find the process of how fanon designs get homogenized interesting (and the purpose of it understandable and maybe a bit inevitable in certain contexts) but also regardless of any actual potential problematic implications in any of that just bc i like the creative process of coming up with character designs i like trying to see when it comes to practicing that through applying it to characters in non-visual media i care about how i can break my guides for what they could look like down to their bare essentials between canon description, things i vibe with personally, etc so that if i have all that written down for myself it can be a good starting place for just experimenting with designs (i dont have any desire to settle on any one design for these characters but its just good general practice for this stuff) and maybe pushing a bit against some things that seem to be generally defaulted to mix things up or w/e. so yeah i’ve just wanted to write all this out for myself for a while, so after that long fucking intro fdkgh here goes!

jon!!!

ok so canonically hes born about 1987 and is like roughly 28-31 throughout the series but looks older to the point where he straight up lies and says hes a decade older at one point, he has graying hair, has been described as looking like he hasnt slept in weeks

(this bullet point contains spoilers up to early s4) depending on what part of canon youre describing him in he canonically has scars from worms probably all over his body (post ep 39), a burn scar on his hand (probably right and probably roughly shaped like a handprint) (post ep 89), actually i’m checking on the wiki now and it specifically says melanie stabbed him in the shoulder? but rereading the transcript and another couple parts that i thought potentially could mention it i dont believe it ever actually specifies (maybe the person who wrote that is conflating how both melanie and daisy’s first injuries from the slaughter are on their shoulders? so even if not canon good guess i guess that his scar from thats on his shoulder) (post ep 125) plus also probably on his throat from daisy (post ep 91), somewhere from michael stabbing him (post ep 47), and who knows maybe even something from mike crew (probably not it was just the height part of things not a lightning strike but i saw fanart of him getting a lichtenberg figure scar once from that which was interesting) (post ep 91)

has been described as ‘scrawny’ and ‘little’ which may just be more of a insult but because of that i support manlet jon lol. also because of that tend to think of him as skinny and not very muscular but i’m def not opposed to him being fat i think its really fun when i do see interpretations of him as such esp in juxtaposition with martin its nice having stuff sometimes where its two fat characters in a relationship. but if i’m leaning on every little word to narrow down character design i’d say hes most likely thin and probably short too.

getting into stuff with no real canon basis, i am a fan of him having long hair like a lot of fanon has him with. its a very tangential justification because i know its more the specific events surrounding this this was describing but when he was described as a “grubby jesus” that helped lol

but! my jon hair opinion that seems to differ from fanon is that i think maybe itd make sense with him being described as looking older and stuff to give him a bit of a receding hairline

not sure about glasses either way i think it just comes down to the specific design whether it looks good or not. there is something conceptually funny to me about giving an avatar of the eye glasses and debating whether that “makes sense” or not lol. one time i saw someones design where he stopped needing to wear glasses later on and i thought that was kinda fun

i don’t really care for like. idk. glowing green eyed jon or multiple eyes or w/e. like i get it. idk probably somethings happening when hes doing like the ceaseless watcher thing or like that one scene where he forced a statement out of that person who described him as “all eyes” like the phrase but maybe not just that as a phrase. so that plus the cover art of the show being green and making people probably theme stuff on that color i guess i cant blame people for doing that but idk just like. it feels kinda just Blah and not that novel to see a lot of the time and a bit too tropey or w/e for my personal taste unless people mix it up a bit. so i tend to prefer him just looking like some guy even later on usually. also with just like brown eyes or w/e

okay so this next part is for both jon and martin because i cant fit this into either of their sections because i feel like i cant adequately talk about this without doing it in juxtaposition to one another

this post summarizes basically anything i’m reiterating here far better but basically by nature of this being a podcast written by a white person for whom most of the first characters voiced (who included most of the most frequently appearing characters outside of those described by others because they were reoccurring avatars or w/e long before voice appearances) were from a small pool of people at a majority white company and their family members, even if that wasnt “intentional” of course that pattern happens so much and more productions should be conscious of that from the get go and reach outside their immediate circles to cast more actors of color from the start of their productions if they have the resources to properly compensate them. so basically from there theres no real totally satisfying solution for portraying “aracial” characters acted and written by white people’s race, because the situation just isn’t ideal in the first place

so like, with that in mind, i know its a bit of a mixed bag with jon in fanon being pretty consistently either ambiguously a person of color or specifically south asian, because i know people of color who were excited from fanon going in for him to be a person of color only to realize hes written and voiced by a white guy and has no canon race (which might just somewhat default to him being written as white since theres no active thought to how him being a person of color, let alone any specific race or ethnicity, might affect anything), but then on the other hand, characters with no race given being defaulted to being portrayed as white is absolutely another common issue in fandoms of things like books and podcasts. so personally because of that i would feel weird portraying him as white in my own designs in contrast with how consistently hes depicted as a person of color, but i would be interested in potentially depicting him as other races beyond the default fanon of him being south asian too (although theres def stuff to consider there that doesnt prevent any interpretation but just is there regardless like his dynamic with daisy in like s4)

and then this post expresses things better than i could ever rehash, but because of the stuff outlined in there in my own attempts at character designs i try to avoid making martin white because of the juxtaposition between that and making jon a person of color in their dynamic. not as pertinent and not something i’ve taken in from any fan of color saying it so i’m definitely not dictating this just talking out my thought process, but by extension of this i’ve also tried to consider how colorism in juxtaposition between them might make it sit better to have martin have darker skin than jon. this does get a bit weird though when balancing how martin has a couple really goofy lines implying ignorance about police abusing their power (i guess charitable interpretations could be that hes plenty aware but nonetheless vocalizing shock in the moment of it actually happening in front of him), so even if as one of the few characters i’ve posted designs of before i drew him as black, when i remembered those lines i guess its just an issue of an “aracial” character being defaulted to being written as if hes white, so even if he certainly could still be black (or any race besides white who might not have the luxury of ignorance about police brutality) it just makes clear that by him being written the way he was nothings ideal because theres not necessarily much depth that can be taken from canon to make certain depictions of him as satisfying or well fleshed out as they could be. oh also so inconsequential to the rest of this and i dont care about this at all beyond just latching onto any scrap to base things off of but the fact that martin maybe knows at least some polish i feel like thats not a language most people just know from school (esp as someone who didnt go to college) or w/e so maybe his mom is polish so probably hes part white at least to wildly extrapolate from there? idrc tho its just one more thing to note on the subject depictions of jon and martins races

martin!

canonically the same age as jon (so approximately born 1987 and roughly 28-31 throughout the series)

theres at least like 4 things in canon that can be used to say hes canonically fat, and some of those lines also more just generally describe him as “big” or w/e so while i dont care about sticking to this as much its easy to argue hes tall too (esp that one point where he says a worm “jumped literally 6 feet through the air at my face” which i guess could be approximate or the worm like. arcing lol and also iirc jonny says he doesnt remember writing that line but regardless its another thing to latch onto to narrow down design stuff)

melanie!

canonically has a scar on her shoulder (as of late 2016), probably on her leg too (if not by early 2017 then by early 2018/ep 125), and is described as skinny

(spoilers for late s4) (also eye trauma mention) post ep 155 she’s blind but trying to research what exactly she might look like like would the results of the damage she does with the awl after going to the hospital would her eyes need to be eviscerated vs enucleated? idk. thinking about lydia saying in a s3 extra in retrospect talking about this where shes like ‘it wouldn’t work like that with [an awl]!’ bc . lol yeah idk. or like would she have scarring on her eyelids or anything, would she have glass eyes, would she feel a need to wear sunglasses to protect her eyes or as a visual cue that shes blind (bc idt shed be the type to just wear it to hide her eyes) or not, etc. i’m not sure! one thing i do know for sure though thats a pet peeve in art is that people make her cane have a red stripe on it when it the UK especially a red striped white cane is for deafblind people, so her cane is most likely just plain white (also theres different styles of white canes but from researching i think shed probably make use of a long cane imo)

my biggest non-canon appearance thought about her is just. melanie king butch 💗

i do think its fun when characters get drawn with unnaturally colored dyed hair for no real reason and do think people should have fun with that more but simultaneously the contrarian in me gets annoyed with how common blue grown out roots straight hair bob melanie is. like the fun of the novelty of being ‘fuck it dying this characters hair’ gets sucked out of it from it being so consistent in fanon. also while she def could be a long haired butch or w/e regardless i just wish fanon of her was way more masc for my own self indulgent reasons

basira

i think the only canonical appearance description is the implication that shes not thin by jared when describing her, melanie, and martin, distinguishing melanie as “the skinny one”

hussain specifically as a surname spelled that way while i’m def no expert, from people i know personally and looking online too seems to be most common specifically with pakistani, indian, and bangladeshi muslims so it makes the most sense to have her be depicted as south asian. considering her VA, her being part black could make sense too but also i feel like its kinda a Thing in a lot of media where they’ll barely have black characters but when they do they’ll make them cops so like idk that’d def require more thought to it.

definitely not on authority on this of course this is just me talking through my own thoughts but i feel like maybe the common fanon of her being a hijabi feels a bit just like . theres not much thought behind it for a lot of people doing it? like it feels like ‘she has a muslim name’ -> ‘she’s muslim’ -> ‘she wears a hijab’ and not much else. like theres just like a whole lot that would need to be unpacked with any main character being religious in this series and actually specifically iirc theres a part in season 5 or something where her and jon reflect on the implications of all this on human religion? and both seem a bit agnostic in their approach. and of course theres people who wear hijabs who arent particularly religious (just like obviously vice versa) but for adults in places that arent majority muslim i feel like a main motivator for that would be connection with ones wider community? but basically all of the main characters in this story like necessarily with the themes and how all this was able to happen to them they feel pretty atomized from any real community (she specifically is paralleled with martin in how she latches onto daisy) none of this is at all to say she couldn’t be practicing islam and/or a hijabi but just that if thats how people want to depict her i think it deserves more thought than just drawing her as such (like for one example of how people have done cool things with making characters muslim i appreciate this artists comics about muslim jon (1, 2, 3)) but yeah! idk just something i’ve been thinking about but very much is not something i can act like an authority on of course. because being a hijabi is something stigmatized i do nonetheless feel slightly weird if i were to go against that fanon but idk

part of me is like ‘we dont need more butch cops’ but then the other part of me just defaults to wanting to make every woman gnc lol. for w/e reason i tend to picture her dressing pretty practically in like khaki cargo pants and hiking boots and flannels and such

daisy

canonically theres here starburst shaped scar on the back of her shoulder

(spoilers for mid s4) i dont care to find it now but i feel like once she was described as scrawny or skinny or whatever (not sure how much focusing on muscle vs thinness if so) but if so that was after she came out of the coffin so i dont think that really implies she always looked like that and i think maybe even by contrast could be implying she was muscular before

def think it makes sense to make her white. generally i do see her similar to fanon depictions of her although i do kinda wish in juxtaposition people would make more women look butch besides her. i think when i first pictured her before seeing fanart or anything it was pretty similar in build and hair color and demeanor such as most of fanon but i pictured her with like . you know like the tight bun women in the military wear lol. so its more ambiguous if her flavor of powertripping “tough” white woman is gay or not. but idrc regardless i dont plan on making much art of her

tim

uhhh i think the only canonical description of him beyond his worm scars (post ep 39) is that basira called him hot in comparison to jon and martin lol

ever since i started listening i keep defaulting to picturing him vaguely like tim from marble hornets lol. so like idk i think its fun when he has defined eyebrows and sideburns and stuff. but not even that i’m really Set on i think theres a lot of fun potential designs for him

sasha

canonically has long hair, is tall, and has glasses

(spoilers for either end of s1 or end of s2 depending on if you’ve figured out something. if you know you know lol) like obviously theres weird stuff in juxtaposition if you make not!sasha a different race than her. i think probably regardless theyre the same race considering melanie didnt note that when describing what sasha looked like. idrc about figuring out what not!sasha looks like ig if i ever make art of her i’ll just figure it out

i think this was the first art i ever saw of her like right around the week or so i started listening to the show that was posted and a mutual reblogged it so i think from basically the start thats how i pictured her essentially. but the main parts of ‘long dark hair, glasses’ i internalized from that are so close to just canon so maybe not saying much

georgie

uhhhh i dont think theres any canon description of her? and i dont have very many opinions on what she does look like honestly except that i think she looks very bisexual lol. i like the idea of her presenting pretty gnc but still maybe having some fun with feminine aesthetics too, but honestly making her present totally masc is really cool too

oh also wrt body type stuff. part of me is a bit tired of how sometimes it feels like fat characters only get to be in romantic relationships if its with skinny characters and rarely are there character designs of two fat people together and melanie is canonically skinny (which doesnt really matter i Could ignore it but i like latching onto descriptions just to narrow things down) and jons maybe implied to be which makes jon/martin like that too. but on the other hand idec i care more about just having fat wlw characters so if melanie in all i project on her cant be that then georgie will be

oliver!

only canonical description of him i believe is “tall, black and careworn, deep lines of worry etched into an otherwise handsome face”

uhh beyond that idk.. not really set on this at all but i feel like maybe he dresses like. business goth lol. like idk. well put together casual clothes like nice quality short sleeve button ups and chinos or nice cuffed jeans but maybe darker colors and a bit of a vaguely edgy but not tacky flair (like fucking idk. raven pattern button up or something lol)

i saw some art of him once where he had long locs and also just idk he was like doing that ominous floaty thing which included his hair and that had a nice rhythm in the art together with the black tendrils in the background so i could appreciate him having long locs/braids/twists or something. but def not set on that and ofc theres like a lot of years to depict him between he could have various hair styles

this is hard to really judge but ive seen posts where people are like ‘haha i draw oliver just like i drew kravitz in the adventure zone’ which is like vaguely annoying to me idk lol. but of course i cant Really know if thats what people are doing from depiction alone bc theres no set appearance for kravitz himself but sometimes i get the Vibes thats whats someones doing and its just like. whatever idk. branch out and design another character!!

there are literally soooooo many more characters i really thought i could make a short-ish thing for each character beyond a few necessary addendums but god even on inconsequential shit this post is already SO fucking long lol so i’m giving up for now i’ve done most of the main people plus my favorite side character so its fine i can get back to this later if i really want to

[handwritten-blog]

it’s a bit strange how it’s exactly one year since my last post. and i’m here again to talk about how i’m sad. and the thing is, is that i’m probably sad about the same stuff. and all of this stuff is in my control. so it’s on me. it’s my fault. i would be able to fix it if i wasnt so scared. 

it’s my fourth year now and i still dont fully feel like i belong. i have friends but we just dont seem close. and maybe its my fault for never being vulnerable with them because i’m sure thats how you create bonds. everyone has that anxiety over asking people to hang out and it sucks when you’re the only person asking others to hang out. it sucks even more when people think it’s weird that i ask them to hang out. it would be nice for someone to reach out to me every once i a while. like after what happened with ham he doesnt hit me up anymore and its understandable but it still sucks that im the one who asks him to hang out now. & it especially sucks because hes always talking about how ppl shouldnt be afraid to hit ppl up & how he’d hit ppl up that he wants to hang with so like?? damn is that implying he don’t wanna hang with me or what? im prob overthinking but it still sucks bc its been 2 years and while he doesnt say no to hanging out he never initiates it anymore. not to mention the one time i texted him and i got a “who’s this?” because there is something worse than ppl saying no.

and i guess going off of the whole im not that close with my friends. i always get added to group chats way late and it just sucks feeling like an afterthought. and it sucks not being invited to things. like im sure they know id be interested in going to raves bc they know i listen to edm but sometimes i feel like its because im not interested in rolling or bc i didnt drink until sophmore year that maybe they think im some prude and wouldnt be fun to rave with? idk i like the music and they know i like the music and we talk about going to raves together but i dont get invited when they do go. and i cant even ask to go bc they never discuss the specific events they want to go to or when theyre getting tickets and i understand that maybe im not close enough or simply that they dont want me there or they dont have another seat to get there but itd be nice to be included

& i have about a hundred thousand insecurities about romantic relationships. bc i made a tinder & hinge this summer and idk what to say when ppl ask me why im on tinder. like im looking for a relationship but its tinder so i just feel that every guy is just looking to fuck. and I have about a hundred thousand insecurities about the fact that i havent even kissed anyone or held hands with anyone and im on these dating apps. and my pictures are decent i’ll give myself that although i do feel ugly sometimes so i feel so insecure about having zero experience but looking like i would have experience. i feel like if i ever meet up with anyone i’ll just be a disappointment. and the fact that people who know im an extra virgin say stuff like “oh just wait for the right person” that just stresses me out bc it puts some weird added pressure that i have to make some big decision to kiss some great person. and half the time i just want to ho out bc why not. but theres a lot to do if my ho phase is gonna be a thing like birth control, std testing, condoms, and overall judgment. but idk how to even get over this insecurity that im not enough for anyone or why anyone would actually like me romantically when i have no experience. and every once in a while a friend would be like why are you on these apps if you dont want to talk or meet up with anyone. and he right. why am i here if im so insecure

& i gotta start applying to jobs and thinking about the future. and getting a masters in something bc obviously now you gotta have a masters. and idk i feel like i dont get stressed about these things bc i just assume i’ll end up somewhere but idk if it pushes me to try my best? like i feel like im complacent & that goes along with my effort in class? maybe it is my best but others are just better

& deadass just remembered that i forgot to scan and send some documents to the bank for the club im the president of. im scared that this year wont be successful or like the board wont be cohesive bc at the first board meeting it felt so sterile. like i had to keep pressing people for details or for them to do their job? kinda. either that or i knew what they had to do and i just keep butting in and remind them about things they need to do? so it feels like im micromanaging??

idk its a beginning of the quarter breakdown but only like the first part bc my housemates came back and i had to suck up my tears lmao

10/3/19