#nothing original

[artiswhatartdoes]

Doodles of some bat family shenanigans because I tripped and fell HARD back down that rabbit hole (dc comics)

All of these boys are certifiable (morons, freaks, take your pick) and the fact that they can function on any level is a blessing and curse. I love them so much

[420mastr69stackr]

THE END WAS NOT WRITTEN BADLY / AND TORD IS NOT A CLONE!

Okay, well, The End was written slightly poorly, and Tord is a clone theory is mainly just a headcanon to make up for said bad writing that would affect the plot too much so it had to be a theory.

I'm sure this has been said time and time again, but I just really like eddsworld and wanted to rant on Tord eddsworld. While watching Tomee Bear's video on this (which since I agree with most of him on this topic, this'll just be me talking a little more about what I find important) I realised if this is still even a little discussion, I disagree with most on it.

THE END IS NOT WRITTEN BADLY

As Edd Gould wasn't around to write the script himself, yeah, it's going to be different. I find the pacing a little weird, and especially its pace in the Legacy era as a whole off, but from a poorly planned crowdfunded whim, I don't know what else to expect from the team. As for the actual characterisation and dialogue,

In WTFuture, Tom remarks saying "Did anyone realise this is the most we've ever spoken", WAYYY past Tords resignation and the characters leave from the show. The show was very much Edd's World. Edd talked way more than the others, and with shorter episodes, there wasn't much spoken line to base a whole character off of anyways. Most of the characterisation came from the visual actions of the characters at that point in time. Tord didn't speak often. I would say at that point he definitely was a well-rounded character (eddsworld standards) but he was lacking in lines. From his screentime though, there are some very defining traits we know of.

He's smart More so a captain obvious, but whatever. In Zanta Claws, I always think of how he was the first to come to his own conclusion on what Zanta was doing. In Zombeh Nation, he's the first one to ask if they have any escape plans (very no nonsense about it too), and in general is one of the first to take action in the show. Much like a guide NPC, Tord directs the crew and in general gets things started. Though I do think he is used as a narrative item sometimes, or Edd just couldn't write, which is also plausible

Will settle for things of his own benefit This isn't TOO consistent, and ties in with the other traits, but given the events of The End, I figured I would add it. In Moving Targets, he had somehow acquired a jetpack and used it to get somewhere????? quicker than the other boys. I don't think the fact it would burn all their parachutes was in mind when he used it, but he didn't seem too concerned about them until they could've launched him back into the air later. In that one zombie animation you can find in eddsworld archives, Edd tells Tord to run on without him when they're both in mortal danger, and he does exactly that. As for the Necronomicon in Zombeh Attack 2, I am very torn on whether or not this even fits here. Matt and Tord didn't seem to like each other much at all? Nonetheless, both Edd and Tord seem fine running Tom and Matt over so Tord can get his Necronomicon. Also in the 2007 Halloween special Tord literally locks Matt out of the room he was in to hide from the killer. Now maybe he could've been saving him because we do know he was pretty pissed the room had no escape exit, but as far as I know atm, it was just a gag, he gives NO shit about Matts wellbeing, but in the end, idk much about it anyways!

Trigger-happy Very obvious, he likes guns, he likes violence, yada yada. He's the first to blow shit up and the first to fight, usually. He just has guns on him and is very happy when fighting, and was happy most scenes in Moving Targets, when no one else was. Also is annoying and teasing, mean generally, but not all the time, and not to an overdone extent.

Quiet So, Tord is generally quiet. I know I said the amount of lines all characters got in general was low, and so Tord was bound to not speak much, but all his lines are generally pretty...lacklustre. He has not much of anything to say, which I would imagine is an attribution to bad writing. I'm sure this would change with time, like Matt's standing as a character and his amount of lines, but Tord only speaks a few more than Matt did, and Matt had more telling lines than Tord did. Such as, in Hello Hellhole, Matt had significantly less lines than Tord did, mainly due to Tord being the plot firecracker, but Matt's lines being more humorous than any of Tord's lines. In Ruined, how Matt has humorous lines and a very silly personality, yet also adding on to his fairly disinterested traits, and Tord just...hates a happy song, is mistreated by his friends, and doesn't add on much throughout. Maybe I'm biased, but as much as I like Tord, he is very sparse. Matt made up for his sparseness by being comical. Not that Tord is unfunny though, just quiet, and a victim of being shorthanded by the script. (Sorry for the long Matt parallel, I just found them very similar)

So Tord's main character traits were that he was trigger-happy, a little selfish, a quiet character, and he was very smart compared to the other boys. While The End has more flowing dialogue, and less focus on the boys interacting with Tord and more on getting to the fight at the end, they did an OK job at portraying these traits in The End. I first think its important to note that, while Tom and Tord always had the teasing relationship, those weren't as often as I see the community made it out to be some years ago, and even sometimes now. I might honestly be blind or too forgetful but I can't think of a handful of times Tord or Tom were mean to each other in specific. Just more often to be pinpointed, I guess. Tom is the bigger evil in the instances I can remember they annoyed each other. So, for The End, Tord using Tom's reactiveness to kick him out (smart!) was all story motivated. Nonetheless, he is still quite violent in this approach, so trigger-happy is covered. Also the fight. Also the motivation behind the fight. In order to build a whole base in your bedroom (On the side might I add which is pretty crazy to never notice) and a massive giant robot plus some other useless violent shit and gather some enemies in the base you helped blow up in Moving Targets, you just need to be fucking smart. No surprise. Being smart has always been a very noticeable part of his character, as silly as he may also be. Selfish was showcased a LOT here, obviously. He intentionally stirs up drama in the house, kicks Tom out for selfish reasons, and then tries to kill Tom, blows up their house, shows no remorse because he doesn't need friends, and in general, tries becoming a dictator, which is pretty damn selfish. Also no surprises. For quiet, I will touch up more on this in the clone section, as I will admit is not very relevant here. Tord has many lines, not really personality building as I would say that's all in-between the lines and in his actions, and the quietness as a personality trait is only seen in the classic era, and is easily explained away. I only added it here FOR the clone part.

They hit all the bars, and unless you just didn't like the writing of Legacy in general, you can't really say they wrote Tord badly, unless you have your own version of him you are superimposing on canon. For as short-lived a character as Tord was (I know) they hit major points that you can actually pinpoint to classic Tord. So, Tord ISN'T written horribly, but he's different and so I'm still torn I thi

TORD IS NOT A CLONE

The main, probably only, real reason people think Tord is a clone is because of bad writing. I covered that already. But still, yes, Tord is undeniably different. But with the proper timeline, things fall into place.

Moving Targets happens, where we see the blond guy, and Paul. Patrick who comes in later is dressed in the same attire as the enemy base, and therefore Red Army. Immediately after, 25ft Under the Seat comes out and Tord immediately leaves, when we use The End's flashback Tord says he is going to "make it in the big city".

Eddsworld does not just happen in the episodes obviously, so we can assume there is a stretch of time between those two episodes. What happened between them is not important, unless the Tord teaser this year is actually covering that, which could change this timeline. We just know that behind or between those two plot points was the building of the secret base, and after those plot points was the growth of the Red Army. If not, then he would've just destroyed the world before 25ft, and he in fact did not.

With the talking thing.. yeah. He speaks more. This is a huge reason why he seems different. You make a quiet character speak his mind more often and then he seems like a new man. Tord is written with much deeper character and story intent than any of the silly episodic classic episodes we had gotten before. Zombeh Attack is as well, and guess who has deeper story intent than usual as well!

THIS is why he is so "new". He is evil now, and has an obvious intent to show his evilness. He's just a fleshier character, as 2d as the flesh may be. He's always been a malevolent character, much like a 'loveable bastard' type troupe. 2005 Christmas special, he takes over like half of Norway and did not plan to stop. Scrapped idea, he comes back as a supervillain in super average or whatever the series is called. I'm pretty sure he's the only eddsworld character with a mentioned political stance, as jokey as may be. He is the perfect base for a character who could just be a quirky, violent weird dude, or an evil man. To ignore this canon is to ignore massive parts of Tord, and would go against the story in The End. Tord has some sort of character growth on that hill, so it isn't thrown off that Tord was the one who betrayed his own friends. It was definitely meant to be Tord, and it has always been shown that he has that capacity.

tldr tord eddsworld is an absolute piece of shit bitch who did definitely do whatver he did in the end

[druid-for-hire]

[images ID: three images of a comic titled "one must imagine sisyphus happy" by druid-for-hire. it is a visual narrative beginning with someone with wrist pain (depicted by bright orange nerves) working at a drafting table. the reader is shown the same wrist as the person uses it for many everyday tasks such as carrying a grocery basket, pushing elevator buttons, typing, and doing dishes, until the pain dissolves all the panels into chaos. the person then performs several physical therapy exercises until the pain subsides. they sit back down at a desk with their laptop, sigh, and begin typing. a small spark of pain reappears. end id]

a fun little piece i made during the semester and submitted into our school comic anthology! (which you can buy at the Static Fish table at MoCCAFest in NYC ;] ). it's about artists and injury

[arielluva]

god's favorite

redraw of this :3

[protagaster]

Penelope: Hey Ctimene, are you free tonight? Like, around sundown?

Ctimene: Yes, I am.

Odysseus: And you, Eurylochus?

Eurylochus: Umm... yes?

Penelope: Great! Because we're not.

Odysseus: You two go out without us. Enjoy your date!

[Penny & Ody run away hand-in-hand, giggling between themselves]

Eurylochus: ...

Ctimene: Did they just-

[pancakemolybdenum]

happy cascade day!!!!!!!!!!! is this not what happened

[thedreadvampy]

people seriously pretending EEAAO is overrated suddenly bc it swept awards? it swept awards largely because it is very very very good. I cried like someone who's just had a religious revelation BOTH times I watched it bc it touched something raw and real and beautiful but it was also just very, very funny. everyone's performance kills and the concept is creative and interesting and doesn't distract from the emotional core. you guys are just contrarian.

[plesiosaurys]

getting emotional over footage of an amateur scuba diver interacting with a coelacanth. they are hunted by large deepwater predators, and here comes a large creature bearing the brightest lights it's ever seen, making strange noises, but it does not shy away. it hovers, calmly, as the diver reaches out and trails a hand down its back. im strongly against the anthropomorphizing of real life animals but the stupid emotional part of me loudly insists this is because it recognizes us, the alternating movements of its four paired limbs matching the diver's four paired limbs, & it is thinking, "hello, cousins, we missed you these 66 million years, it's so good to see you again. welcome back, welcome home."

[a-most-beloved-fool]

makes me a little sad when star trek ignores IDIC. like. vulcans are logical. that is true. But 'logical', for vulcans, does not amount to 'without compassion,' and it definitely doesn't amount to 'racial superiority.' Belief in 'infinite diversity in infinite combinations' should NOT result in the weird racist/speciest stuff we're getting in some of the newer treks. It does make sense that some vulcans are discriminatory. They're still flawed. But that should not be common or expected, like it seems to be in SNW. If it is, then it's a race of hypocrites, which. doesn't seem very true to Star Trek's message.

I think TOS Spock does a pretty good job of embodying this. Not always, it was the 60s, after all, but mostly. He was often trying to find non-violent routes, and get by without killing - even if they were in danger or had already been attacked. (See: the mugato, and the horta (until Kirk was the one in danger, lmao. t'hy'la > IDIC), the Gorn ship). Kirk, in his eulogy, calls him the most human soul he's ever known, and I've always read that as Kirk calling out Spock's overwhelming compassion.

It's just so much more interesting when Vulcans get to be radically compassionate. I want them to believe that everything and everyone has value. I want them to respect all ways of being. I want them to find ways for even very non-humanoid aliens to exist unfettered in society. I want them to see hybrids and think that it's amazing. Also, like, disability rep. I want Vulcans to have The Most Accessible Planet and available resources because they want everyone to feel accepted and valued. It makes for better characters and more interesting stories.

[lunian]

made a couple of posts about Astarion being hilarious gremlin but never made a collection of Gale's silly talks?? I should've fixed it

[ratsoupee]

Accepting isolation, craving belonging

[friendlyneighborhoodghostpal]

i’m just gonna say it i love how kaos handled orpheus and eurydice. i really did, im a huge greek mythology nerd and that story has always been about the refusal to give someone up even when you should, its not a love story its a story about grief. and i just- ah they did something really cool there didn’t they? i’m gonna rewatch the season and like properly form my opinions but i really like it.

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

Part 2/2

By the time Stanley had realized he wasn't as alone as he believed himself to be entrapped in this ravenous abyss; he had honestly begun to suspect that he was finally starting to properly lose his mind.

In all the ceaseless miles that Stanley had journeyed during his apparent permanent residence within the dark devouring void, not once had he encountered another conscious, walking, talking being similar to himself. Every other formerly living creature that he had crossed paths with had been so... silent. Empty. Dead, in every sense of the word. It was as though the very essence of life itself had been sucked out of their bodies with a straw, their forms slowly falling apart piece by piece under the vicious gluttony of the darkness that surrounded them. They looked like they actually were supposed to be there, unmoving and comatose, unlike him.

So, when Stanley first began to encounter the twins, all of a sudden, he wasn't the only one in the dark.

When meeting the first pair of them, he found himself standing in a lake.

He hadn't even noticed the changes at first. It felt as though he had been walking for weeks on end, his body moving purely on autopilot and his aching legs leading him towards a destination only it knew. A thick fog of forgetfulness and flickering memories had descended upon his brain like a heavy blanket of numbing static as he had traveled. In this absentminded state, he hadn't even realized that the ever-present undulating, buzzing darkness surrounding him had begun to gradually shift and morph to form a horizon line; stretching into tall looming cliffsides that almost seemed to close in on him. Once the nonexistent floor beneath his soles abruptly began to ripple and warp, like the disturbed surface of a shallow puddle; only then did he finally notice his transformed environment.

The transition was seamless, almost dream-like. One moment, he was still surrounded by that filthy, overwhelming abyss; and the next, his boots were suddenly plunged deep into the cold, dark lake water.

The silence didn't leave, however. It still choked and stuffed its way into Stanley's ears to clog up his mind with thick cotton; the eerie quiet not quite matching the calm, almost serene scenery the void seemed to have abruptly transformed itself into. Like a movie with its sound cut off; leaving only the unsettling hum of the projector to fill the empty air.

It was odd. The lake was surely incredibly deep. He could obviously tell from how thin and pathetically small the shores appeared all the way from where he now unceremoniously stood in the middle of the lake. Stan could look down and see the darkness below his feet swallow what meager light that managed to break through the murky waters. The overwhelming black almost seemed to beckon him, gaping and haunting; a bottomless underwater pit of pitch black that never seemed to end.

And yet, he didn't sink. Stanley remained perfectly level, the almost ink like waters stopping just at ankle level, as though he were held up just above the surface by some invisible force. Even the writhing waves seemed small and low, as though the waters were shy to climb up his legs further than that. It was odd, so very odd.

However, it wasn't nowhere near as odd as the sight that greeted him when he finally lifted his eyes from the waters.

Stanley had crossed paths with truly unbelievable sights in this strange somewhere; from bursting, collapsing stars; to the imploding heat death of entire universes, but none of them seemed to hold the candle to what he saw then when he lifted his eyes:

Children.

Two, to be exact. Two, nearly identical looking children stood motionless before him; completely soaked through to the bone as though they had taken a plunge into the frigid water that pooled around their ankles. It was a girl and a boy, both adorned with twin expressions utterly devoid of emotion, their wide eyed stare seeming to burn holes into his thin jacket. Their drenched clothes sagged off of their scrawny frames; thin rivulets of water dirpping off of them and disturbing the glassy surface of the water at their feet. The little girl's hair had messily stuck to her face in thin sodden strands, her cheeks still full and round with youth just like the boy's. They looked young. Too young to be in a place such as this.

Oh, but their eyes; their eyes.

They burned with such anger; such injustice, brighter than any dying star or galaxies he had ever seen. Anger towards the world, to fate, to whatever cruel deity that had deemed them fit to be sent to this wretched place so prematurely. They were too young to be here; to be entrapped like he was amongst this hungry darkness. And yet, here they were, sheer denial against their own untimely deaths being the only thing keeping them awake and conscious amongst the dead and rotting. A show of juvenile defiance to nature itself so vehement even the all-consumign darkness seemed hesitant to devour them whole just yet.

It saddened him. It saddened him to know that they belonged there, that they were supposed to be there. He could see it, he could feel it; they were dead. No amount of determination could deny that universal fact.

When they spoke, Stanley could hear anger:

Stan chuckled in a futile attempt to lighten the suddenly heavy atmosphere that threatened to crush him whole. "A lake monster? You kids and your imagination," he teased, hoping to somehow rid the poor kids of the haunted look that seemed to whirl in their glares. No child should have been burdened with such a knowing look; such eyes that looked like they had seen everything there was to see about the world, the horrid and the good.

Clearly, it had been the wrong thing to say, and Stanley's faux pas was rewarded with a scowl from the little boy. A world's worth of sour contempt etched into every contorted groove that his grimace seemed to dig into his much too young face. Stan suddenly felt guilt squeeze at his weary bones for having caused that.

"That's what they all said," the boy spat out, eyes shining with a sheen of wetness Stan wasn't sure he was prepared to deal with.

Stan left that first interaction with the twins with the feeling of guilt and sorrow still clining to him.

He couldn't have known, at the time. He couldn't have known that this wouldn't be anywhere near the last time that he would meet the pair. He hadn't realised just how many of them there were. After that first pair, his endless journeying within the Abyss was hardly be spent alone anymore. Countless more times, he came face to face with the exact same two young and impossibly worn faces; forced to meet one pair of beaten and bruised kids after another.

Not one pair had died the same death as another. Some had gotten lost, prey to whatever threat that had snatched them up out in the open; some had fallen from high up; some had been crushed under an incredible weight; some had burned; some eaten alive; some zombified. Some didn't even seem physically harmed at all, body perfectly intact, and yet that same faraway, distrubed look in their eyes remained.

He thought the worst ones were the ones he found alone. A little girl or a little boy, left all lonesome without their other half there. Twins, he remembered a pair of them telling him once.

Once, he had come across a town full of silent, stone statues. It was a rustic, shabby, almost nostalgic looking town- odd and strangely familiar. The sight of it had tugged at an aged memory that had long since wasted away in the back of his mind. It was serene, almost deceptively so. The sun shone; the air smelled crisp and fresh; numerous waterfalls continued to crash down from the tall cliffsides; and a soft nonexistent breeze whistled through the thicket of pine trees that blanketed the outskirts of the town. None of it seemed to match the gruesome scene of the hundred wailing statues that littered every inch of the town.

He had found the boy's statue on the other side of town, deep within the green forest and toppled over the gnarled roots of a towering tree. Like the rest of the townsfolk, he too, was frozen mid-shriek; his stone face twisted and contorted into a mock impression of a silent scream as his body lay paused in a writhing struggle. He made sure to be gentle when he carried the boy's statue over to place it beside the girl's, whose statue stood far deeper into the forest, sporting the same rictus grimace of terror as her brother's. It somehow felt wrong for them to have been so far apart from one another, even in death.

He had come to dread meeting of the twins. He hated every second he had to confront yet another pair of dead children that did not belong here, but fate had decided they did. He despised having to listen to their tales of woe as they wept about the injustice of the world, of having died young; he despised himself for being unable to do more than weep with them.

"We don't belong here, Grunkle Stan," he would listen to the little girl weep, calling him a title he didn't recognize. He never remembered if they had ever told him their name, but they all seem to know his, without a fail. "If we're dead, then what about you? What about Grunkle Ford? Mom? Dad? What about them? We can't be dead, we can't be," they would say, confusion and frustration written all over their faces. They didn't understand. They didn't understand why they had come to the darkness so early, so unfairly.

He never knew what to say, he'd never been good with words.

All he could do was kneel down to their levels and engulf them in his arms, hoping he could somehow squeeze the pain straight out of their bodies in his embrace. He hugged them, because what else could he do?

[drenched-in-sunlight]

elden ring OCs.

Raimes and Mirai. they hail from one of the main houses that made up Erdtree’s upper echelons.

[idlesuperstar]

this speaks to me on a molecular level

[uhcasual]

All illustrations for The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Russian Edition Exclusives, Volume 5

Finally got my hands on the russian истари/Istari publication volume 5 for Mo Dao Zu Shi, so here are high resolution scans of the art exclusive to this particular edition. The art here portrays events that occur in the post-storyline extras.

Full resolution available for download here (tumblr compresses images a little)

Illustration Artist: Marina Privalova (Baoshan Karo)

[Vol. 1] - [Vol. 2] - [Vol. 3] - [Vol. 4] - [Vol. 5] (part 1)