#like its a C+ I think

[ruushes]

dancing lessons! have to pass the time at camp somehow 💃

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about not only the specific people lucanis pulls in to represent the 'locks' in his psyche, but the storytelling that happens in the structure/order of them. the underlying ideas are presented something like:

the lucanis who went into the ossuary never came back out again; he died down there (the boy caterina raised is gone forever) -> you're putting yourself in danger doing this (by being close to me), you should leave because I can't bear it if you get hurt because of me -> it doesn't matter even if we do try this, it won't work anyway (again because of me) ('you know what he's like, you can open the door but he won't walk through it' :'( oofie doofie) -> what if the real secret is that there was never anything but the monster in here from the beginning. you should leave, there was never anything here worth saving in the first place. (implicitly: what if I deserved what happened, all along.)

it runs pretty cleanly from outward-oriented attachment anxiety ('caterina won't even want me back like this, she won't recognize me (the same way I no longer recognize myself)) and gradually deeper inwards until we reach self-image and self worth. or you know, the harrowing basic lack of it lol.

"careful -- they'll know we're not right," spite says in one of their first scenes... but clearly, some very deep part of lucanis has feared or suspected for much longer than that that there's something inherently not right at the core of him, way before any demon entered the picture. and the voice he gives those lines to is the person who should know him better than anyone in the world, who he has loved more than anyone in the world -- and who deliberately chose to hurt him so horrifically anyway. 'It's better if I'm just a monster and deserved what happened than it is to allow for the idea that the brother I love doesn't really exist and maybe never did'. it's better if he's fundamentally flawed in some way that needed fixing to help him survive, and that's why caterina chose to hurt him again and again -- out of love. (this one I think he might have a very sad wakeup call on one day if he ever ends up with the responsibility and care of a child of his own in some way and realizes just how alien the idea of ever intentionally hurting them for any reason is to him. oh buddy. also interesting that he keeps caterina as the outermost lock -- there IS a distance he keeps there that he hasn't with illario. he doesn't resent her 'anymore' he says, but he also keeps her carefully further away from his deepest self.)

as far as I could tell the only note in the mind prison that's fully hidden and needs to be uncovered is the sad painful helpless stupid little truth that even after all this, even knowing what happened... he still loves his brother. is there anything illario could ever do that would make lucanis completely stop loving him, do you think? sometimes the trouble with unconditional love is that it is, well. unconditional, even when some terms and conditions probably would have been in order haha.

that's the pattern you see there again and again; he would rather destroy and abandon and imprison himself at every turn than let go of love, even when it's just scraps, even when there's only ever enough of it to hurt him. it's only when rook shows up and as it were takes his hand and walks along with him that he can entertain the idea of changing the story of what walking out the door might mean in the end.

[stankworth]

after many years of being strong // may you have the chance to be gentle again

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

[redrobin-detective]

I think one underrated tragedy of Ice King's scars is that he probably took away Simon's sense of levity.

Like in his very limited appearances before Simon is consumed by the crown we see he's kind of a silly dude. In his introduction video, he only put on the crown in order to playfully tease his fiancee. Plus watching him make light of the loneliness and general misery for a young girl in a broken world. He was a dedicated man, who was generous and loved with his whole heart and threw himself one hundred percent into everything he did. He was also a fun lil guy.

But after almost a millennia of being a mad man, the brunt of every joke, someone who only existed as a broken caricature of himself and couldn't be counted on to take anything seriously, I imagine he was done with it. Now he wants to focus back on his academic endeavors, on his role as a father figure in Marcy's life, on being a proper adult. Any attempts to be silly could easily remind everyone - including himself- of Ice King, something he's eager to avoid.

So his jokes and jibes and general lightheartedness turned to sarcasm and self deprecating comments.

[crow-withaphone]

For the past few weeks I've been sitting in the DSMP community like- im just sitting in the corner trying to enjoy the silly block people from a distance

Anyway this is @spoopdeedoop design for Dream and I thought it was neat, been saving my art energy for these, he was fun to sketch, ill probably draw him again, maybe, probably. Anyway go check out Spoop, his art is edible and its what got me back into dsmp, ive already talked too much goodbye-

Individual sketches below the cut:

[idle-compy]

its supposed to snow here for the first time in 7 years so i was inspired to draw the camp fam having a snow day

(click for better quality)

[justpassingbyoursht]

I've seen some people say some character art downgraded from 1 to 2 and while i agree about some poses not being as dynamic and some of the art being unfinished (early access tho) and the colors not being as dope, and some of the gods feel different

but i wanna specifically ramble about Artemis best gurl for a bit

this is my girlie in Hades 1

I've been thinking about the differences from 1 to 2, and I think in here, she's presenting herself as the Goddess of Hunting.

she looks a bit menacing, she looks sharp, she looks like she just got here, the angle she's looking at you it's not very direct it's like she's measuring you from head-to-toe kinda way, she also has that greenish light which feels kinda like an aura. she's down to business!

and when we look at her in Hades 2

She looks confident still, and you can see her weapons just as clearly, but her pose, and her smile? she's like, laid back, she's not quite posing to create an impression, she doesn't have that greenish aura, she's there in the flesh, she's not really presenting as a goddess in particular... she looks more welcoming, a bit softer looking... she looks like she's just stopped for a chat, while in 1 it's like she's in the middle of something

and when you stop to think about it? she is. she is just chatting with her friend. Melinoe is her friend, she called her Sister.

We're much more closer to her as Melinoe than we were as Zagreus. bc while she does become friends with him in H1, she's more of a long distance friend. we were building our bond with her in H1.

But here? in H2? she's known Mel for years... she kept it a secret from other gods... she's got those accessories thingies with the 4 colors. not only are we close friends we even got a friend bracelet thing going on with her!! Melinoe is a precious friend to her from what i've seen so far.

Why would she pose and be a bit distant with her friend? we know Artemis is a bit closed off from people, she prefers being in the woods with the animals than other gods i recall her saying that to Zag, but Mel? Mel is a dear friend, she sounds much more casual from the get go with her than with Zag because we have a strong bond with her already

In Hades 1 we just got to know her, so she's more closed off, she is more business like, she is distant, she is The Goddess of Hunting

In Hades 2 she is our friend 💖

that. is the difference

[mamawasatesttube]

the timkon fans who shit on bart are annoying, the konbart fans who shit on tim are annoying, and i don't actually know if there are timbart fans who shit on kon, but i sure hope not, because they'd be annoying. the three of them are a set!!! do NOT separate. red tornado literally assigned them one shared brain cell. what is not clickign

[definitelynotshouting]

You have synesthesia?? How does that work for you? Is this how you manage to use the word “meat” in a way that makes me go “holy shit that’s good and cool i need to read that sentence four more times” instead of “ew”?????

I do!!! Letters, numbers, and words all have colours and sometimes visual textures for me-- and while numbers and letters on their own are generally only a single colour (7 is a bright, grassy green!!! while "K" is a pale peachy pink, for example :] ), when i put them into words they often take on entirely new colours, some of which even bleed into each other like watercolour paints. Ironically, its why i use the UK spelling of "colour" in the first place-- the "u" turns what looks like a dull, desaturated blue into a smeared blue-and-purple that i find really pretty to look at :]] so when i say i like to paint with words, i kinda mean that literally 😂😂😂😂😂

But yeah, i'd imagine thats why my writing is Like That™ to some degree-- a lot of what im doing behind the scenes involves matching the colours and visual textures of a given word with all of the others in order to evoke a particular vibe or image in my writing. There are a lot of layers to how i write, but this is probably the one that takes both the most time AND is the one i happen to talk about the least WKDJWKSJEJ

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[bbonbonss]

⋆˳⁺ overdoing it ⁺˳⋆

[drowningparty]

I just think the polite, well-behaved young man who secretly enjoys murdering people with his bare hands and gouging their eyes out and the blood-splattered god who delights in carnage and gleefully exploding people with his mind should, hand in unloveable hand, embrace their primal rage, become avatars of the slaughter together, and be deliriously happy for all of 2 seconds before one of them invariably kills the other. and it would be a real coin toss who dies first

[crowsgrudge]

fionna's world being represented by a dandelion makes so much sense ... they're weeds. yet people make wishes through them, changing their whole meaning from something meant to be destroyed to something hopeful.

dandelions are also resilient and it makes sense that something associated with them would. you know. perservere despite the destruction caused by the scarab.

but ultimately i think what REALLY made me tear up over this is that dandelions are really boring plants. when you're a kid you blow on them and make your wish but they're not eyecatching or anything but still, fionna's final wish was for her old world to still exist as it was when she left it (> plain and simple. boring even).

like the moment she realized she would lose her friends, and that her friends might forget each other if the world got its magic back, she immediately decided she didn't want it and I think that ties back to the dandelion metaphor so well... like, do you really need magic to be real to find it everywhere? or can you turn something boring into something magical?

[lookinghalfacorpse]

You know what is very funny about c!Dream being so human?? That he is still one of the scariest people even with the technically more powerful or impressive hybrids roaming the server! Like this guy is so human he unnerves the non humans!! Like… who the hell is human in the sever??

WORD. I like to play around with hybrid designs but ultimately my favorite cdream design is human :) I'm probably in the minority for this one, but i imagine Most characters as human on the server with some small exceptions (techno, sam, ranboo, & maybe a few others that aren't coming to mind rn). I even think of c!philza as being human before his wife smacked wings on him & gave him effective immortality. so for me, it isn't so much that he unnerves the nonhumans but that he unnerves his fellow humans, who expected him to be Something More. but he's just a kid, like they are. & Dreams alliances are mostly nonhuman, kind of like how he tries to abandon his humanity and become something more. he wishes he were more. everyone else wishes the same

[alienrascal]

About you!