#observations and stuff of the designs or just art in general?

[jumjum-crafts]

Sketches n Concepts!

(also design ideas)

[thecoolerliauditore]

saw you mention gender for a bit - i wonder why grian is feminized so much? it's of course because of the feedback loop of fanon but how did it snowball so much? it would be funny if it's from him using the alex player model

I'm probably not the guy to ask for this just to be clear right off the back. I love observing fandom trends but I'm just not keeping an eye on Grian stuff more often than not. Grain (lol) of salt, blah blah blah.

So first off I think we should tackle what "feminized" means in this context because I can see that argument being made for both the default-ish generic young anime guy grian I have in my head when I think "fanon grian" and. well. arianna griande and the like (I'd argue cuteguy falls into this latter category)

I'm gonna start with the first one and use my own Grian as an example because I think he's pretty much as standard as you can go in the former category, and that's more or less on purpose. Pictured here in all of his tiny anime twink glory (next to Joel and Cleo who are also meant to be pretty short!)

So while I can't read the minds of other Grian artists, I can offer what went through my head when I designed mine and try to have a guess at how much other people thought the same.

First things first I do think this specific brand of Grian is "feminized" -- if you compare him to the CC. The goal at least for me was more to communicate youthfulness than femininity, but those traits tend to go hand in hand with male characters due to them having pretty much the same features (no facial/body hair is a big one).

Artists in this fandom tend to swing on the younger side, and people tend to base their designs unconsciously (or consciously tbh) on themselves or media they like, the latter being very likely to be media aimed at their age group and thus having a cast of characters around their age. Doesn't help that most popular animated things are made for younger audiences, so chances are most people are basing their art styles in media where the casts age range is 12-25.

For me I do think most of my designs have a little bit of added in youthfulness/femininity unless I Really want to get across age/masculinity. It's a lot easier to separate the 30 year olds from the 40 year olds if the 30 year olds look a bit closer to 20, doubly so when most of the stuff I like (and thus reference from purposefully or not) has casts full of 15 year olds. Alot of this also applies to the other younger men in my designs aside from Grian, like Joel who's next to him.

But Joel is still drawn with stubble and a bit taller than Grian, so what gives about Grian specifically?

For me personally, I draw everything with the Life Series in mind, especially Third Life in Grian's case. And the character who Grian plays off the most in that series, especially in Third Life, is Scar.

While I do think the aforementioned age factor also impacts a lot of Scar designs (as well as younger artists' tendency towards shyness when drawing muscles), I think most people see Scar's masculinity as a key trait of his. I think I'm kind of unique in that I take descriptions of their appearances ingame as somewhat canon (e.g. Scott being canonically referred to as "handsome") but Scar really lays it on thick with "Hot Guy" and the abs and so on that it's pretty much screaming for acknowledgement when you're designing him.

Grian is also short irl and this even gets mentioned by Joel in the first WL episode, so it made enough sense to me that should be something exaggerated with Desert Duo's designs to make them look better next to eachother.

This is also maybe getting a bit into headcanon territory but when I think Grian I don't necessarily think predator or brute force, I think of him setting his traps and giggling maniacally and manipulating what he wants out of people with his words instead of his sword. And him just being like. a little gremlin thing compared to his Big Strong Man partner in crime whilst also, actually being arguably the more dangerous of the two feels harmonious.

If we do a layer deeper into headcanon land, I've also always seen him as more frail and physically weak due to Martyn's concern for his safety and his own more anxious nature in 3L as one of the first players to really consider having to defend himself -- if you're dropped into a death game arena and you're the smallest one there, you would naturally be a lot more nervous than the big guys and come off as more "insane" for wanting to set up seemingly unnecessary defenses or striking first. (<-- this is why I don't talk about Grian much btw all of my thoughts regarding him are seeped in headcanons lol)

Alot of Grian artists are also Desert Duo artists and while they might not be operating by the same logic I am I have to assume there's some common points.

I've seen this meme used a lot when people make fun of other peoples DD art and it's almost always people with very little self-awareness. it's funny to me (and this probably could be its own discussion about queer tropes and xenophobia, but whatever haha funny it's literally them so true so true.)

One final note on this is I think this specific brand of twink Grian might be dipping in popularity? I've been seeing a lot more Grians that are chunkier or entirely throw out his anime-main-character-ness by making his glasses or curly hair heavily exaggerated. Which is cool I especially loveeee the more cartoony puff ball grians that have gotten more popular. Idk if it's necessarily in response to the anti-twink-propaganda or if it's just a new stage in Grian design development as we get further away from the Third Life Desert Duo meta, but it's fun and I think speaks the feminizing not really being an intentional trait and more of a consequence of other things.

As for CuteGuy/Griande I can't really offer as much insight since I don't really get the appeal either lol except that I think it's fun in the way drag is fun.

I think what a lot of people need to remember when they ask for more masculine designs is that masculinity irl is often synonymous with less customization. Alot of it is practical (like short hair obviously you can't style like long hair) and especially outside of queer circles a lot of it is just gender roles -- alot of men will refuse to wear literally plain mens t shirts if it's an eye-catching colour.

There's a great Derek Guy interview where he talks about how men tend to misunderstand what "fashion" is and how most cishet men actually care deeply about fashion. He makes the example of offering two pairs of jeans -- one is a regular pair of blue jeans that costs fifty dollars and another is free of charge but happens to be pink, and how most men despite "not caring about fashion" will go for the fifty dollar blue jeans.

If you want an example of mens fashion and its "boring" aesthetics made more to fit into a crowd than to stand out, just go on instagram and look at pictures of the Empires CCs together and watch the guys get absolutely mogged. This isn't me calling the men badly dressed (in fact I've actually noticed before that CC Joel is like. super well put together) but more of a statement on how womens clothing is designed vs how mens clothing is designed.

I know where my eyes go first, at least. (self indulgent note: Pearl is kind of an exception to the rule for reasons but I cannot say lest I betray my own moral code. however my eyes go to her first anyway because she is stunningly beautiful she could wear a potato sack and it'd work)

And while I don't agree with this sentiment (I actually loveee menswear deeply it's. a thing), in the world of fandom artists who typically are big fans of the gay gay homosexual gay and more into high-decorative, sexier stuff, clawing at any ounce of femininity that these men exhibit is probably an opportunity hard to pass on. This also happens with Jimmy on occasion I think, with stuff like the maid dress. And Ariana Griande is like Drag Drag, not just a dress but a whole persona, so that in combination with feeding into yaoi tropes for popular ships like Scarian and Grumbo, I'm not surprised there's such a gap between actual screentime and fanmade content.

Also is Griande even like. That popular anymore? I also don't think I've seen CuteGuy all that much unless it's DDVAU stuff specifically.

I'd be interested to hear my artist friends comment on this too since again I feel like I'm not the right person to ask lol. Take this as an invitation to yap I would be fascinated hearing your perspectives.

I also think his popularity and younger audience might be playing a big part in this especially in conjunction with the first point about drawing characters younger-looking but this is getting fairly rambly already lol

Go follow the menswear guy (@/dieworkwear) on twitter if you're interested in menswear btw he's very insightful and funny

[hongluboobs]

ok i was cooking up another hong lu analysis thing bc i noticed SEVERAL things in his base id art the other day and wanted to share with the class but they just dropped a new one in the canto V trailer and i have some stuff i wanna talk about that one:)

My Hong Lu knowledge and interpretation is very heavily influenced by reading Dream of the Red Chamber, which may not be the best because I don’t know how much Limbus will pull from the book because it’s Long as fuck but I think it’s given me a deeper knowledge of Hong Lu.

Keep in mind this ego is NOT out yet so i could be totally off base depending on what the full animation/corrosion/sin affinities are like and this is totally theorizing but I wanted to have a go at anyway!! And this got totally out of hand so reading is appreciated :)

One of the first things I noticed here is this Hong Lu seems VERY Bao-yu. We still don’t know for sure what Hong Lu is within the context of Red Chamber (i don’t think it’ll be straightforward considering how that book works) but it’s important to note!

He has this little hat on (this is the best pic i can get atm to show it’s not a fancy hair tie, unfortunately the footage we have rn is a little scuffed)

and Bao-yu is ALWAYS depicted with a hat like this.

This could just be because that’s the appropriate outfit for Chinese nobility (I unfortunately have little to no reference point here, feel free to correct me, but from some quick searches hats aren’t ubiquitous and ESPECIALLY not ones of this style.) I think it’s worth noting because it comes up in nearly all modern depictions of Bao-yu.

There’s also the pearl Hong Lu is wearing on his neck/chest area, which is where Bao-yu wears the magic jade he was born with. His jade is translated into Limbus as Hong Lu’s jade eye, but this plus his hat and the abno’s themes REALLY makes me think we are dealing with some Bao-Yu stuff here.

Speaking of the Abno’s themes, now i can actually go over them! All we have for Walking Pearl right now is the MD event (as well as general observation), but there’s a few things that are relevant.

Just based off design, the abnormality seems to be mostly about the precious (the pearl) and the filth (the muck) intermixing. which makes sense with the EGO being named “Effervescent Corrosion” and our holders being Hong Lu and Rodya.

There’s some symbolism around greed/wealth (the offspring filled muck desiring the pearl and fighting for which one will earn it? the muck tarnishing the pearl? ) and I think we should read into that because it’s Hong Lu and Rodya who have this one and they’re both very tied to their financial status. Those two sharing an ego makes me insane for a bunch of reasons but that’s probably for another analysis piece! But duality is REALLY important for those guys and that’s a theme they’re emphasizing here with both the pearl and muck within the clam.

There’s also some elements of shelter/protection/potentially entrapment with the clam’s shell which are HUGE for Hong Lu, especially with his egos so I think those may come up.

But mostly it’s about the mixing of the precious (likely “wealth” here) and the unsavory, which works very well with what we know of the Jia family. The design likely referencing Bao-yu and thematically dealing with the Jia family makes me think each of those individual readings are more likely because they’re deeply tied together!

And now onto the MD event! I did not write this in order so I may repeat stuff here but. I realized I had to cover the design first so here we are!

First thing that stuck out of me is this portion when you choose to sample some of the clam’s slime.

Sibling/family infighting is very Jia family. It reminds me a lot of this line base Hong Lu says.

You could take this a step further because the clam is something that would typically offer shelter from the rest of the world, and even though it protects, its offspring continue to kill and eat each other.

It seems fine, the offspring have this lovely shell for protection, and they have the precious pearl held within, but even as they are sheltered and wealthy. They are still getting killed and eaten by one another! Reminds me of someone I know:)

It reminds me of some bits in the later half of Red Chamber, where family members more obviously start acting behind each other’s backs or turning on each other, some even killing other family members.

Another part of the MD event that I got something out of was the beginning portion.

using specifically jade as the color for the seawater is a Hong Lu thing. I may be reaching with this bc it’s more than likely just flavor text BUT when taking this color with the fact that there’s nothing in the water it makes me think of an important scene in Red Chamber where Bao-Yu is described as an empty shell, so I wanted to mention it. We know Hong Lu has TONS of water motifs, especially when relating to his family (see his base ego)

The main reason I brought up this section of the MD event is because of the question brought up by the last portion.

If you take one thing from Dream Of The Red Chamber into your perception of Hong Lu as a character, it should be the themes of ambiguity, duality, and being between binaries. Because he sure as hell does that a lot!!! (and i’m not just talking about his gender) He is both genuinely curious and sheltered with an urge to learn as much as he can, but he also plays dumb frequently, backpedals and asks a lot of stupid questions on purpose to maintain others’ perceptions of him. He is CONSTANTLY walking the line between truth and illusion and it can be hard to tell which is which and precisely how much is fake or real, which is why I find him such an interesting character to think about.

Tangent about Hong Lu's characterization aside, it's really easy to read this line as about his family's perceptions of him.

Hong Lu (or rather, Bao-yu) can be read as being the source of the contamination in that he is the heir of the Jia family who is just an absolute fucking failure of everything you’d want in an heir for that time period.

The clam containing the filth can be read as Hong Lu’s lies (whether conscious lies or otherwise) to himself and others about the true “filth” of his family. Really good example of this is with another bit of window dialogue, but these lies and half truths come up quite a bit if you know where to look. (what happened to cohort of kin looking to stab each other in the back at every turn???)

We already have Hong Lu’s assorted water motifs (his feet make ripples on the water in his base id, land of illusion has so much water theming and shows the Jia mansion is surrounded by water) so I think this is a reasonable analysis to make :)

There’s some other sections to the MD event, but there’s nothing of note that triggered the Hong Lu sleeper agent in my brain & also this has gone on long enough that I wanna talk about predicting some stuff for the ego!

I am manifesting Gluttony/Gloom/Wrath for this ego!!

Gluttony and gloom are in the MD event’s skill check already and I think tie in nicely with the themes. Gluttony works with the offspring in the muck killing and eating each other and themes of greed with the pearl (plus the ego is primarily green and that’s a pretty good clue) and then gloom comes up a LOT with Hong Lu’s family (Liu Hong Lu, the only one that remarks on his jade eye, is also the only Hong Lu with gloom. land of illusion requires 5 gloom resources and also relates a lot to red chamber/his family) Gloom’s also generally a stand-in for water which exists here.

Wrath in Hong Lu generally manifests in him going “yeah, maybe my family was a little fucked up actually” internally, instead of manifesting as taking direct action about the fucked up things like it works for most other sinners, and acknowledging that his family was at least partially filth and killing and eating eachother (metaphorically. maybe literally) works for that

i am not an expert on sin analysis but i wanted to take a prediction bc it’s fun :)

I have a couple of predictions for corrosion and i’ll be real they are the main reason i wrote this thing because i LOVE when bad things happen to Hong Lu!!

Since this ego seems to be referencing Bao-yu so much i can pull stuff from Red Chamber too which makes it more fun :)

First one I came up with is Hong Lu taking the place of the pearl within the clam and getting locked in there! A bunch of his egos have to do with being controlled/trapped so i think it works and it also can work as a parallel for Bao-yu’s treatment by his family. Bao-yu’s name means precious jade, and he’s often treated more like his namesake than a person, heavily controlled and never allowed to leave the Jia mansion (or, in this case, the clam.) I just think it’d be fun!

My other concept has to do with more Red Chamber stuff, notably what happens when Bao-yu loses his jade. I’m not quite there yet in the text, but from what i’ve heard he becomes incredibly unstable and essentially loses his mind. This sets the Jia family’s downfall into even faster motion and from that point things get REALLY fucked up. Since the pearl here parallels Bao-yu’s jade, I think having a reference to that part of the book would be really fucking crazy for all 5 people who have read 1800+ pages of red chanber to get to chapter 94 where he loses that thing. Also i just want to see Hong Lu lose his mind i KNOW it would be terrifying and chilling. but they may be saving that for his distortion (manifesting)

In my skimming Red Chamber table of contents to find when Bao-yu loses his jade i just found a chapter where Bao-yu’s father admires a pearl but we will just ignore that for now bc this has taken long enough to type already and that is several chapters off. but there may be more analysis when this thing actually comes out!

Thank you for reading this far!! I hope you enjoyed me looking far too deep into an unreleased ego we know next to nothing about for fun! this took WAY longer than expected to type out but i’m glad I did because I loveee telling people about Hong Lu!

There is a very real chance very little of my analysis and prediction is reflected in canon BUT please remember that truth becomes fiction when the fiction’s true and even if this doesn’t turn out to be correct now u know a little more about Hong Lu and the themes he plays with :)

[asherashedwings]

INTRO / MASTERPOST

(Idc if I've had this blog for like a year, I'm making this now)

💥REQUESTS ARE ALWAYS OPEN💥

(It may just take me a bit to get to them-

Or I just might not do them-

Just-

Im not very reliable with those)

Hi! My name's Ash, but I more commonly go by Wingz. I'm a self-taught artist with a passion for creating and admiring character designs. This is my main blog where I post art relating to my interests. Nothing but pure brain rot and self-indulgence here!

ABOUT ME:

Name: (As stated before) Ash/Wingz

Age: 17

Sexuality: Fictoromantic asexual

Pronouns: They/he/it etc. Basically anything BUT she/her. I really don't care much

__________

INTERESTS:

CURRENT FIXATION(S): Dandy's World (Overexposure AU)

Main fandoms: Newgrounds, FNaF, Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss, TMNT, Cult of the Lamb, Warrior Cats, Sanders Sides, Regretevator, Dandy's World, Hatchetverse, Amber Isle

Other interests: Plants vs. Zombies, Monster Hunter, Little Nightmares, Generation Loss, Wings of Fire, Pokemon, Undertale/Deltarune, spiders, character design, robots, clowns, dinosaurs

__________

TAGS:

General tags:

#Ashedwings post: Any post made by me #Ashedwings art: Any art posted by me #Ashedwings design: Designs I've made, fandom or otherwise #Ashedwings ramble: My long posts that contain a lot of me talking or rambling #Ashedwings fic: Fics I've made and posted here #Ashedwings reply: Any responses I've made to asks #Ashedwings request: All the requests I've made

Fandom tags:

#Ruins Rebuilt AU: Posts relating to my FNaF SB AU. Subsequent character tags are:

#Wingz!Sun

#Wingz!Moon

#Wingz!Eclipse

#Wingz!Sol

#Wingz!Harvest

#Wingz!Music Men

#Wingz!HH Rewrite: Posts relating to my Hazbin Hotel rewrite/AU

#Wingz!NG AU: Posts relating to my Newgrounds AU (Mainly Pico's School and FNF related, but other Newgrounds series may also be relevant at some point)

This video is very important in understanding my NG AU:

#Darkness Gates: Posts relating to my OC story known as Darkness Gates

#Overexposure AU: Posts relating to my Dandy's World AU. Current character tags are:

#Overexposure!Brick

#Overexposure!Dreamcatcher

#Overexposure!Observer

#Overexposure!Relic

#Overexposure!Rocky

#Overexposure!Warden

#Overexposure!Researcher

#Overexposure!Verge

__________

DNIs:

Basic DNI; No homophobes, transphobes, zoophiles, pedophiles, ablists, fatphobes, racists, etc. Other than that, as long as ur not a dick, we should be fine.

BOUNDARIES:

Tone tags are appreciated, but not mandatory.

DMs are fine, just don't expect me to respond immediately. Or at all. I’m really bad at talking to people I don’t know. I’m working on it

Simping for my designs is fine. Just don't get too wild. I am a minor.

I'm completely fine with being tagged in stuff!

Please do not genuinely pressure me to make art. I am not obligated to draw you anything unless I am being paid and actively agreed to draw said thing

[genericpuff]

ok as someone disabled with severe motor skill issues i really hate the argument that "anyone can learn art" and that it's completely accessible to everyone. it's not. there are lots of disabled folks who are getting left out of this discussion with the ableist argument that anyone can do art and if you can't you're just not trying hard enough (which is an argument a lot of abled people tend to use against disabled folks in general). i'm against ai art and will never use it but we have got to stop acting like art is an accessible hobby to everyone because there is unfortunately a lot of people who would love to become artists but will never be able to because of our disabilities.

nah you right! I try to be mindful of that sort of thing but it does admittedly fly under my radar at times because I'm not someone living with a physical disability (and thus it's not as front-of-mind as someone who is) so thanks for catching me on that, many apologies. My argument was regarding the people I've seen who have exclusively used "well I've tried to learn how to draw and it's hard / took too much time / etc." as their driving argument (of which there are just. so many) when like. these are realities for many artists who have been doing this for years, too, including those who are disabled. yeah, making art takes time and practice and a lot of hard work! welcome to the party LOL

but I also understand how keeping that argument so simplified can be exclusionary to those who do genuinely face barriers when pursuing art due to living with disabilities. I've met and observed the work of many disabled artists - webcomic artists, game designers, musicians, etc. - who are out there making their stuff and it comes with all its own unique struggles that shouldn't be forgotten about or overlooked in the discussion regarding AI art, struggles that bar many people from even getting into making art from the starting gun.

I do genuinely believe that art can come from anywhere, that anyone is capable of expressing themselves through whatever medium that compels them... but you're right that many artistic mediums in and of themselves are not wholly accessible to everyone. And I hope to god that more tools are developed to help those who are both working artists as well as aspiring ones.

But AI, in its current state, just isn't one of them. And I'm seeing this sentiment being yelled from the rooftops by many disabled artists who firmly believe that the ends do not justify the means - that they don't want the medium to become more accessible if it comes at the cost of other artists (many who are disabled themselves!) whose work and livelihoods are being replaced with cheap carbon copies. AI art doesn't allow anyone to actually participate in the joy of creating straight from the heart, it just takes from others' joy and spits it back out with an impression of what it thinks the joy of creation is supposed to look like through lifeless pixels. That's not even getting into just how much damage it's already actively causing to our environment, and how quickly AI has started to replace other surrounding industries as well.

Separately from that, you're right, paying for art is a luxury for many, but that's all the more reason why we shouldn't be supporting the current climate surrounding AI IMO which is the crux of what my argument was in that previous Simpsons meme post. Many people do face severe limitations in trying to create their art; the people I'm referring to who are heavily pro-AI are often not those same people and only face the limitations of their own entitlement, which is destroying the livelihoods of many human artists. Is it worth participating in AI art to save money if that same participation perpetuates a growing system that's costing people their livelihoods?

Maybe some day we'll get AI tools that are less predatory and destructive and help those who want to create art do so. Maybe we'll finally get some stricter regulations around what companies are allowed to get away with in their respective industries. I'd like to think also that the rise of AI art will, by extension, make human-made art all the more valuable. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish for tools that made making webcomics just a teeeeny bit more efficient without being completely unethical LOL But until any of those scenarios prove to be true, we're dealing with a monster of our own design that will never stop eating even after we've all been consumed. The toothpaste is out of the tube.

[zieroses]

enda “rook” de riva

replay // shadows of arlathan + in entropy’s grasp

thoughts and notes -

shadows of arlathan

- “Solas can speak with people in their dreams, even kill them” he what? Since when can he kill them? What lore did i miss?

- They were evil gods who enslaved their people - how does Harding know these things? Lol is this stuff hidden in codex entries i didn’t read closely enough? Stuff Harding and Varric learned over the last 9 years? If so, how/why were they learning these things in their search for Solas when, in theory, the Evanuris being a danger was not on their radar?

in entropy’s grasp

- Upon re reading tevinter nights, strife is a completely different character. He was supposed to be chatty, smiley, and sarcastic, and notably did NOT have facial tattoos/vallaslin. Very strange, I wonder if this version of strife was not written by Patrick weekes. He’s also very monotone - no shade to the VA, but it was alarming to see the first less-expressive cutscene also paired with an inexpressive character. Gave me the worry that quality was going to go downhill fast after the introductory sequence to the game, but luckily that wasn’t the case.

- (Re: cutscenes - bioware games in general have 3 levels of cutscene from my observation. The capital-C Cutscene, the lowercase-c cutscene, and then the convo-cutscene, the first being the most detailed and cinematic and the last being the least. Speaking with Strife and Irelin felt like the first example of the convo-cutscene where characters just stand across from each other and chat back and forth. Which is fine but again, it’s that lack of expression paired with strife’s more monotone voice and bearing that really worried me for a hot second.)

- I do love Irelin’s design. i actually like strife’s a lot too; I just think he should be bare-faced like in the novel.

- bellara’s intro is also so strange. She barely acknowledges the gods thing. They tried a little too hard to make her quirky here. She grows on me, a LOT, over the game - they just frontloaded way too much of the super cute and absentminded thing here. I think that should’ve come to light after her introduction had a weightier heft to it. Someone also mentioned it makes no sense that she, without any questions, gives some randoms (incl. Neve if you brought her, who is Tevene) essentially a tour of what is theoretically some very powerful secrets. It would’ve been worth a brief scuffle with her, I think, and then a few lines of not just explanation, but hastily attempting to convince her you aren’t here to poach elven secrets or magic. Even a code word provided by Strife and Irelin would’ve sufficed to put to rest any concerns that never even reached the light of day.

- Ogre - i quite like the darkspawn designs, even if they’re slightly cartoonier than before. I do think it has to do with the fact that the designs themselves, with this art style, are more readable in general; i can pick out details on the types of darkspawn that I couldn’t before because of the more muted color schemes of the prior games. (I loved those, to be perfectly clear; i just like how clearly and sharply i can see what’s going on here. But i do think there’s something to be said about the cartoonish quality; there’s probably something that could’ve been done to make them slightly less so. I think they managed it with the blighted dragons.)

[616witch]

Hi there! As a pretty casual Avengers fan, I haven’t read too many runs that portray the relationship between Wanda and Vision. Why do fans like this ship? And why do some Wanda fans seem to dislike Vision? Are there any runs or comics that show the good or bad of this pairing?

Hello! I'm going to answer this question because I love these characters and I love to waffle about them, but also just going to remind people that I also have a personal account over at @brw where I talk more about stuff like this! This account is almost a portfolio of my graphic design, as well as an archive for comic art and editing resources and other graphic designers, with a few odd extra things I think are cool that I want on this blog. I try to refrain from posting too much commentary or the like here, just because I want to keep it very focused on my creations and the creations of other folks. With that out of the way, I'll dive into this!

Why do fans like this ship?

Well, I can only speak to my experience as a 616 ScarletVision fan, and from engaging with different fans through the years, but these are only my personal takes and some observations. Everyone you ask could give you a different answer, and none of them would be wrong.

For me, the personal pull is, first and foremost–I really like both of these characters. They both have a very distinctive design, they both have very strong core aesthetics, they both have dramatic, strong personalities and they both have a very distinguished speech pattern, so their relationship would always be interesting to me, because it combines so many different things that I love. Without being a fan of Vision and Wanda separately as characters, I wouldn't like this relationship as much as I do.

Anyway, beyond just generally liking their respective vibes, I've always appreciated just how dramatic and intense these two are. Vision and Wanda definitely feel like their respective first, proper adult relationship, at least in my opinion. This might be divisive, as Wanda and Warren Worthington III did date in First Class, but that relationship to me read more teenage and youthful, while Vision and Wanda are very much so swept in the emotional and physical intensity that they develop for each other very rapidly in their Avengers appearances together. That dramatic, strong personality they both possess makes their relationsip very dramatic and over the top, which I find a delight to read.

Giant Size Avengers #4 (1974)

Even when they get married, this drama doesn't really go away, and the bio of this blog comes from one of my favourite issues depicting these two and their dramatic sensibilities.

Marvel Super-Heroes V2 #10 (1992)

This panel brings us into our second reason, which is that there's something really interesting about the way these characters are both social outcasts for a variety of reasons; Wanda is Rromani, a mutant and a witch, and Vision is a synthezoid, completely non-human and unable to fit into human norms and customs. A big theme of these two and their relationship is having a similar lived experience because of the ways they are social outcasts, and of their love becoming stronger than the adversity that they face because of it.

Avengers V1 #113 (1973)

To me, its a very engaging story, and it's well compounded by again, how dramatic and high-energy these two are, the ways they show and perform their love for one another. They're also often very bitter and angry at the world for the way it mistreats them, which is an interesting character trait for both of them as other characters (like Pietro) are often written as antagonists for those opinions. And this of course makes it more special when they are so tender and loving around each other, the ways they can find solace and peace in one another.

They also just generally brought out the best in one another during their marriage, in my opinion. Vision's stoic, dependable personality and their support for Wanda while she was exploring her magic with Agatha Harkness was incredibly important as she developed and grew from a mutant with magical themeing, to a powerful witch in her own right. It is Vision who taught Wanda the principal of "Order and Chaos belong together", which is a really important line of thought for her. And Vision of course becomes increasingly more in tune with their own emotions, more emotionally mature and more developed as a person as their relationship with Wanda develops. They go from a traumatised, bitter person angry at the world, with essentially no emotional regulation skills because they're like three days old, to being a loving, deeply compassionate and considerate spouse and parent, who has built their own family in spite of the isolation they grew up with.

There's probably other reasons I'm missing, but these are the big ones in my opinion, why I keep coming back to these two despite not being together for 30, 40 odd years.

Why do some Wanda fans not like Vision?

There are a few different reasons for these, so I'll do my best to be brief. Some reasons are more than valid and are worthy critiques and understandable reactions and feelings to have, and others, quite frankly, are complete horseshit made up by people who feel like their dislike of Lines On Paper has to be justified, or righteous, and can't allow it to just be. I'm focusing this list on specific reasons they dislike Vision, not people just preferring other relationships like WandaJericho or ScarletPhoenix or what have you.

Just not the type of character they like. Which is understandable. Not every character works for every person, and sometimes disliking a character isn't that deep! People are allowed to not like lines on a sheet of paper, after all.

Character and ship was ruined for them by the MCU, and MCU fans. Also understandable, although I wish that didn't mean that all the actually interesting parts of the 616 Vision/Wanda dynamic was ignored, but what can you do.

Has a difficult and varied history of being coded as a minority by various (very white, very American) writers during the 70s and early 80s, which have not aged well. A big inspiration for Vision was Spock from Star Trek, who is obviously a biracial character and faces a lot of discrimination for this, and this was part of the character makeup of Vision and it was often a source of allegory, as well as a source of drama in Wanda and Vision's relationship. Not an often well done aspect of their character, and not very tasteful. This writing turned off some people, which is understandable (although if you're asking me, which you are, it's not any more egregious than X-Men coding but that's neither here or there)

Vision's character development and prioritisation in the 70s came at the expense of Pietro. This one is true; Steve Englehart, for whatever reason, decided that as Vision and Wanda's relationship became more fully fledged and he was going to continue with Vision's minority coding, that Pietro was going to be an antagonistic and often allegorically racist person to give that dynamic more drama. This was fixed when Moondragon decided to lobotomise him because I guess actually writing character development was too much work, but it still means a solid chunk of Pietro's 70s appearance are marked by this. It's a shame, because I think there's a way to write this antagonism in a way that makes sense and is narratively fulfilling, but that's not the conversation at the moment. I do appreciate this as a reason of why some people have never quite worked with Vision (although given that this hasn't been true in the past 20, 30 odd years of publication history I find it strange as a reason to dislike modern Vision but I'm biased in this conversation)

Writers reduced Wanda to her relationship with Vision. This is, frankly, bullshit, and I really don't know where it came from. There's a slight argument for pre-Byrne Wanda and especially early 70s Wanda, but I can still name a few different issues during the period of their marriage where Wanda had her own adventure outside of Vision, and the thing is folks; Vision wasn't getting many solo appearances or stories during their marriage, either. Post Byrne, it really doesn't make sense. Wanda was reduced to her grief and her mental illness, yes, which were caused by the traumatic dissolution of her marriage to Vision, but that isn't the same as her being reduced to her marriage. Later on, what Wanda is reduced to is House of M and the Decimation; this has nothing to do with Vision. Sure, if you're reading Roy Thomas/Steve Englehart early 70s Avengers, maybe, but these are only two writers in a sea of people who have handled these characters, so this argument doesn't hold water for me.

Vision is abusive. Anyone who says this shouldn't be reading comics, they should be watching Blue's Clues. Vision can be mean, or blunt, or emotionally distant, or bitter–but that does not mean Vision is abusive, that means that comics exaggerate personality traits for the sake of drama. It's a soap opera! And to be honest, any argument you can apply to them can apply to virtually any comic relationship from the era. That's just the writing style, it doesn't mean that Vision is an abusive figure.

Vision made a robot version of Wanda, which was creepy and weird. True, but using a Tom King comic to talk about Vision is like using a Bendis comic to talk about Wanda. Neither of these writers had good intentions with these characters, or particularly cared about or respected them as characters and what they're meant to represent. Vision (2015) was a bad, deeply racist and xenophobic comic written by a CIA agent who admitted freely to torturing people as if it was a fun little tidbit. Unless you're using it to criticise Tom King's racism, I have zero interest in acknowledging this comic in the history of these two.

Vision's character comes at the expense of Jim Hammond and Simon Williams. I... don't see this one? Both the revelations that Vision had a relation to Jim and Simon came after their initial debut, and Vision is a distinct person and design from both these characters. Writers can use Jim and Simon whenever, and they often do. There is just that historical/familial connection, to try and build up connections in the Marvel Universe, but it isn't as if the character of Vision RUINED Jim and Simon, or whatever. In fact, Simon would have never been remembered and brought back from the dead to be honest without Vision keeping his character alive in the memory of people. The same is arguably true for Jim, who wasn't really used in post Timely marvel comics at all until the Vision connection was established. And if any character ruined Jim Hammond's prospects in comics, it would be Johnny Storm, the character who is considered the definitive Human Torch, not Vision, who only dedicated comic fans probably know of the Jim Hammond connection.

Vision cheated on Wanda with Mantis. A) no they didn't, B) Steve Engelhart just has a weird cheating thing, so I really don't consider this a big deal. Don't believe me? In the Fantastic Four: Big Town series he did, there's a moment where it is heavily implied that Hank Pym and Charles Xavier are having some kind of affair to contrast with the affair Janet and Tony Stark are having. It's just a quirk of his. Also, you can't blame Englehart for making everyone fall in love with Mantis, that's his girl.

Vision has no emotions and can't emotionally fulfil or love Wanda. Anyone who says this has probably not passed basic English class, because my G-d, how do you miss the point of a character that badly. Avengers #57 didn't die for this.

And finally, I think a lot of people only care about Wanda in relation to the Magetfam dynamic and aren't particularly interested in her realtionships on the Avengers at all, despite the fact that that is who she is far more than being an X-Man. They don't really like that she's on the "cop team", so any relation to it is dismissed or ignored in favour of her having more relationships with mutant characters. Every time Vision appears in a Wanda comic, despite the fact that they are the parent of her children, someone she spent years of her life with, her first proper love and someone she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, it has to be "forced", regardless of how ridiculous an idea that is. It's dumb, and stupid, and I don't think these people really care about Wanda as a character, but that's probably just me being a nasty little hater.

Runs and comics I recommend for this couple

Good or bad can be subjective; I've seen people read completely differently into a scene I thought was sweet, or creepy, or whatever, so I'll just send a list of what I consider good issues to get a handle on these two. Bolded are important, italics are just bonus issues that might be of interest.

Avengers V1 #91–#93

Avengers V1 #96

Avengers V1 #113

I (heart) Marvel AI <- AU issue, but cute

The Celestial Madonna arc (#124, #125, #129–#135, Giant Size Avengers #2–#4)

Avengers V1 #147

Marvel Team-Up V1 #41–#42

Marvel Fanfare #14

Marvel Fanfare #58 (Their house here is burned down in Avengers V1 #252)

Marvel Super-Heroes V2 #10

Vision and the Scarlet Witch V1 & V2, V2 also crosses over with West Coast Avengers V2 for the first 4 or so issues.

West Coast Avengers V2 #34–#36

What If? V1 #20, #38

West Coast Avengers V2 #42–#46 is the Vision Quest arc, and is the dissolution of their marriage.

Hope this helps, anon!

[arkhamjack]

Thank you everyone for the reblogs on my "how some of the fandom sees wolfwood vs how I see him" lol I wanted to continue the conversation bc I am very annoying about this stuff and it grosses me out bc I am sensitive or whatever but um yeah 🤓

It's pretty long so TL;DR stop being weird about Wolfwood thanks 👍

I'll talking about objectification, hypersexualisation, and prejudice so a warning I guess --->

The Gaze has been working overtime on Wolfwood's ass (and tits) and it's making me a little nuts. This is not to say his character cannot be presented in a sexy way, or that he cannot perform sexuality without being problematic, it's just... ask yourself: why.

It can be subconscious, you might not even notice it, but media tropes have a way of worming into people's brains to be regurgitated into fan art, especially if the character presents or is coded marginalised in a way you are not. (I do it too!)

It starts from young. I had an adult call me a "hot head Latina" as a child LMAO (I am not even Latin)

Characters and actors that looked like me were worked into typically these roles - If feminine, desired, sexy but crazy, dangerous. If masculine, similarly sexual, either hot or ugly, suspicious.

I feel silly and attention-seeking for speaking up about this kind of stuff, especially as I feel I'm not in a place to cry 'racism' specifically because I'm more 'ethnic' than POC.

I'm a Balkan mongrel - Greek, bits from Turkey, Albania, and fuck knows what else. I've always kept my head down about people being weird to me but it comes to a point like the point of a classmate comparing my hair to an animal's, where I feel I gotta go "ok yeah lets unpack that."

Now about Wolfwood, he's our classic racially/ethnically ambiguous smoky sexy guy. Particularly in the 98 anime, he's pretty bosomy. He's a struggler - swindling Gunsmoke with his charm and portable confessional. This swindler trope, I've observed, tends to go hand in hand with 'suspicious immigrant out for your money'. Again, maybe I've pulled that out my ass and I'm being oversensitive, but I notice things. Tastes left in my mouth. Anyway. Brings to mind the time some other classmate jokingly called me a 'hustler' for *checks notes* making sure my work is submitted on time.??

Now on the subject of NSFW fanart... oh boy I am so uncomfy writing this... I rarely see him depicted.. receiving. You can place the issues here pretty easily. Give him a break. Please. Also I did note this on my original post and also completely my own opinion but PLEASE that man is not bigger than Vash, and I don't mean like not taller, like, thiccer. Calm the fuck down.

I hate having to write this bc it makes me uncomfy and reflects my own experiences of objectification by other people which sounds all very "oh noo its sooo hard being attractive :'((" but I trust y'all smart enough to see where I'm coming from.

The gaze. Othering. Marginalised masculinity (not to mention my intersecting trans identity thats a whole other unrelated convo). Hypersexualisation. Objectification.

But back to Wolfwood!! - are these tropes perpetuated by the original creator? Personally, I don't think so. (Wolfwood's design is based off a Japanese guy btw - musician Tortoise Matsumoto) The 98 anime? Maybe?? Am I reading too much into it? It's hard not to - naturally I'll latch onto the ambiguous guy and go "alright let's see how they do this" so naturally certain things stand out to me.

But when some of that fanart starts rolling out ... Jesus Christ ... MY EYES

On the flipside, I've seen great fanart out there! And I've seen quite a few Latino headcanons for Wolfwood too!(like I mentioned before I am not Latin, I am also not American in general I am a filthy freak Australian with our own colonial racist histories and intricacies) (There is also Latin diaspora here but I don't wanna speak for anyone aaaah)

I'd like to think most of the fandom is cool about him. But um. Yeah.

I said what I said but if I did say anything out of line I am so sorry and PLEASE let me know - I am using my own experiences as reference and acknowledge the intricacies my own privilege

Yap session over 👍

[itslouisan]

C!Ranboo headcannons!!:

(art by @C0RPSING on twitter)

• So, Ranboo is an anxious person, probably he owns some toys to deal with anxiety that he keeps on his suit or in a messanger bag he carries

• Sometimes when it's Christmas or any events or it's dark and he is without his torches, he places little jolly lights on his horns creating a tall walking lamp

• He doesn't own just a memor book. He has SEVERAL, some have photos, doodles, notes, objects glued, but he eventually just abandons them and starts new ones because he thinks the memory books aren't "up to date" anymore to his current moment

• He likes to dress fancy and presentable because he finds this way he can create impressions of being more in control and less scared than he actually is, probably also a fan of ouji lolita, vintage, victorian, goth and grunge fashion

• I like to imagine C!Ranboo loved to map all the places he was so he'd never forget them, so he creates little maps of things like L'Manberg or the syndicate room or just designs in general of how these places are because he wants to keep a forever fresh memory.

• Isn't THE artist, but can draw, loves to draw landscapes and animals but barely draws people, also I always imagined C!Ranboo played violin or piano or both, having an old and rusty out of tune piano on the syndicate room together with the syndicates other instruments and vinyl player and records and discs

• An all nighter type of person, sleeping all morning and part of the noon and only waking up when it's night, probably due to his enderman side since enderman tend to appear more on the night and The End was always quite dark like the night

• Grossed out by enderpearls and hates to use them thinking if maybe it ain't an eye of a relative of his or something, also hates when people kill enderman in front of him, WOULD CONSIDER ENDER FARMS AS GENOCIDE.

• Obviously non-binary and gay so yeah.

• I imagine he'd love cats but be scared of them at the same time, loves bats though

• Loves to collect random bs and keep in a corner of his house, probably a collector of a lot of different stuff like discs, books, quills, anything really due to his enderman instincts of just picking random bs

• Always has a pair of headphones with him

• Probably the time he was the most unhappy and unstable memory, anxiety and depression wise was L'Manberg, all the wars, the feeling of dread of maybe losing your home and friends, being constantly manipulated and used, not knowing who to trust, keep remembering stuff you don't want to, make things you didn't want to, the fear of dying, I can say this was the time he just isolated himself and followed others more than ever

• He DEFINITELY can't do stuff under pressure and will break easily, can't deal with expectations and hates when people observe him doing things even the simplest

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting Results: Glugreng

My apologies for posting a bit later than usual -- I was on the road most of the day for eclipse-viewing purposes, so it's already nighttime as I start this. (Update: and also Firefox crashed multiple time over the process of writing this post.) Anyway, we've got another vaguely-described bird, but one that I think has some interesting details.

If anyone isn't sure what this post is about, you can find an explanation at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting. If you want to see the entry from which the artists are working, here is the link:

And in general you can see all of this stuff as it posts at the tag "maniculum bestiaryposting", assuming Tumblr's search function wants to show it to you.

Art below the cut:

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) continues to post very impressively-rendered beasts. Here, since the only physical detail we have about this bird is "white", they've decided to take inspiration from the fact that it is kept by royal households. Medieval nobility did keep birds, usually for falconry, so here we have a raptorial design. And look, it's caught a fish! Good work, bird.

@pomrania (link to post here) observes that cataract-curing excrement is probably pretty valuable and worth collecting, so here we see a bowl with a dollar sign placed under the bird's perch. Honestly my favorite part of this is the very intense, extremely-close-up eye contact depicted in the middle there. Something about the bird needing (or just choosing) to get really up in one's personal space in order to do the curative "looking in the face" thing is charming to me.

@kaerran (link to post here) also went in the direction of "what kind of bird would be hanging around royal households" and landed on peafowl. There are a couple really clever design decisions here: it intentionally has very visible eyes so it's extra clear whether it's looking at you, and the "burning off the sickness" thing is represented as the feathers from its train being shed. (And thank you for including alt text.)

@sweetlyfez (link to post here) went in an interesting artistic direction, I think: since the entry was very clear that the Glugreng is "white all over", she rendered it entirely in thick white paint -- I think the texture is quite cool. Also I love the crown-collar-thing; SweetlyFez notes that she's only seen that in heraldry, and I think that is the only place it really appears. (I've seen at least one piece of marginalia that had an animal wearing a crown as a collar, but I'm like 80% sure that's someone's heraldic device being put in the illustrations for whatever reason.)

@cheapsweets (link to post here) jumpscared me a bit with this one. More very intense eye contact, but this time directed at the viewer. They also made the connection royalty -> falconry, and drew a bird of prey. For more details on their thought process, please see the linked post. I like the very intense eye contact conceptually, but also I keep scrolling down so it stops Looking At Me.

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) has again drawn something that makes me smile -- the art style is of course amazing, and the straight-on view of the pelican just looks so charmingly goofy. They note that pelicans have "so much convenient space to store all your pesky illnesses," and now all I can think of is a medical version of that "Put Baby In Pelican Mouth" post. (And thank you for including alt text.)

@strixcattus (link to post here) was inspired by the bestiary's decision to state that the bird is "white all over" and "has no black parts" in the same sentence. Weirdly specific, right? So they decided to explore in their post why this repetition might be necessary -- regular readers of these posts may recall that Strixcattus writes modern-naturalist-style reinterpretations of these animals. I'm not going to tell you what they came up with. Go read the linked post. Do it.

In fact, you should read all the linked posts, and consider following any or all of the wonderful artists who choose to participate in this weird little exercise.

All right, Aberdeen Bestiary time. A couple people said in their entry that they think they know what this one is, and I am excited to learn what their guesses were.

Now, since this artist tends to draw raptors in a very standardized way -- this just looks like their eagle but all white -- it's probably not possible to recognize the bird in question from this illustration. However, of course, there's a much larger problem in the way of recognizing this species:

This entry is the caladrius, which does not exist. It's another one of those mythical critters that didn't really catch on in the modern era -- or a strange misunderstanding of a real animal, like the salamander was, but honestly those aren't so much distinct categories as far as I'm concerned.

On the other hand, if you have similar Internet Experiences to me, you might have recognized it just now -- as soon as I saw the Aberdeen Bestiary illustration, I had a moment of "hang on, is that..."

The above is from the 2015 article "Two Medieval Monks Invent Bestiaries" on The Toast. You can check it out here:

(The author is now Daniel M. Lavery, but the byline on the linked article still says "Daniel Mallory Ortberg", probably because The Toast has been defunct for several years so nobody is updating these things.)

Anyway, the "bedbird" is indeed the caladrius. I was able to find the image from the Two Monks article by looking through the gallery attached to the "caladrius" entry on bestiary.ca (which has 94 examples, so it's clearly reasonably widespread). The bedbird comes from British Library MS Sloane 3544. And... I'm going to leave it up to y'all whether you think this should end with the "i've connected the two dots" gif or that quotation about the mystery no one thought was a mystery. It's late, goodnight.

[derangedfujoshi]

i remember requesting Ken Oyanagi for shota rating once but you said he's more like a short adult so (he's not but i get your point)

could you rate Jinta Hanakari from Bleach? i like him. he's particularly a shota i like a lot, despite being annoying (i think i just have a type for brats at this point) and... he also likes baseball. that's cool. i want to play with his baseball bat. i have some pictures of him...

https://files.catbox.moe/s9cktz.gif (him bullying Ururu, a girl who works with him)

https://files.catbox.moe/oo2trc.jpeg (i love this trope of loli / shotas with gigantic ass weapons...)

https://files.catbox.moe/rcba43.jpeg (i giggled look at him 😭)

https://files.catbox.moe/r8yxlu.webp (full-body)

i hope you like him since i just. love brats. i really wanted to request other two characters (also from Bleach) whom i consider shotas, Wonderweiss Margela and Luppi Antenor. but i think to you they would be more like shounen (plus Luppi is very feminine-like, so he's kind of a femboy). Wonderweiss has a very toddler-like personality in my opinion? but it's just the personality. uhh https://youtu.be/SeZYQeGcQb4?si=BcOHw31l_1jlyk7K there's this video even...)

anyways yeag

Dear Anny, I think you shouldn't keep asking my opinion on stuff if you don't agree with it, like, it can't be good for you to hear stuff you won't end up liking :/

It's also a bit frustrating for me but that's not on you so dw about that, but like... Wonderweiss is 155cm and Luppi is 161cm, no child is that tall and although height is slightly less important than design and proportions when making a shota, it's still up there. Take a meter, measure up to 140cm and you'll see that's like, the highest a shota can get before breaching the child range and that's still very tall for one! Heck, I'm 156cm, a shota CANNOT be taller than me, an adult woman xD On top of that, you have to take design into account! "Does this character look like a child?" Is the easy question one can ask themselves when appraising them and it should be followed by a quick design analysis "is the torso short" "are the legs way longer than the torso" "is the face round-ish and soft" "are the eyes huge" "is the head bigger than a regular one" "are the features more soft" "are the proportions generally those of a still non-developed kid" bonus points if the legs are a bit radish like cause that's a classic staple of shotas but not every art style will feature them.

So like, could we stop framing this as "my opinion" when it's actually just simple observation? This isn't specifically towards you, Anny, but I've had a bunch of interactions like this and it's... Kinda getting annoying? I love shotas so so much and I just want to share my love and knowledge of them and I started doing the rating game for fun, but people apparently get a bit caged when I tell them their fave isn't actually a shota, which is... A weird reaction if I'm being fully honest- like what does it matter? You can always draw him as such! Heck the jpn astists over on pixiv constantly draw characters as shotas and tag them as such, it doesn't mean they are in the og material but the sky is the limit! You can shotaify the oldest of men! Go crazy go stupid! Just... Don't get pressed if someone tells you you're calling a 17yo teen a shota...

Again this is not aimed at you but I remember that old convo we had on Oyanagi and yes I did read the comment you promptly deleted before I could answer it and that summed with various other interactions and my tendency to keep things inside kinda bubbled up to the surface once you brought that up again... So yeah sorry about that.

Jinta is a shota tho, of the tomboy category, I'd say but honestly I don't think putting a rating now after this answer would be appropriate ahah-

Anyway I'm not mad at you Anny, I just feel generally dejected... Have a nice day!

[ottosbigtop]

god your art is so cool....like at least once a week a post of yours gets sent to this psychonauts fandom server I'm in and we all spend a good amount of time rambling about the comic and then stuff the comic makes us think about.

So uhhh, yeah your art is great and I love your aged up designs and tbh your AAC au and just your way of drawing the campers in general has impacted everything from how I view the campers to how I handle my own ocs and fuck holy fuck I love your art and your au and your comics and your camper designs and uhhhh

*'splodes from excitement*

!!!!!! WHADDAHELL!!!!! Thank you for sharing this!

I don’t often think about the fact that people might be Observing my art when I’m unaware, it’s super cool to know yall like sharing my stuff around <:] n I’m happy that my funny self indulgent au can be that influential for you, my brains been occupied with other stuff more lately but that au is very close to my heart so that means a lot ^_^

[alangdorf]

Welp, the ref lineup still isn’t done cause I haven’t drawn Shion yet, and the belated valentines I’ve been working on are gonna be like at least a month late cause I just planned three more, but what I did do these past couple weeks is start writing a fanfic and then immediately abandon it to go draw a bunch of only tangentially-related suzutsubas (except for that first pic; that’s a scene from it, albeit one I haven’t written yet), only half of which are fit for public posting (one of ‘em I could make a few edits and feel ok about posting sometime; it’s not that out there, it’s just, y’know. Hamal Cine Bad End Hyperbolic Torture Chamber. I’m usually very “whatever happens happens” about my art but if I don’t show some restraint I know I’ll end up stuck in there forever), but hey, since I’ve been teasing them for ages and finally have some finished stuff with them, take a couple Suzumii! Also gonna ramble abt headcanons under the cut (and it will be LONG)

To begin, a note abt my Len’en gender/pronoun headcanons: as a they/them preferrer myself, I’m thrilled that most people just stick with those for everyone, but I’ve developed some more detailed headcanons as I go through working on designs and I’ll generally be using those. Don’t worry though, most of them are still nonbinary and basically all of them are trans/gq. Relevant ones for this post are Tsubakura: they/them nonbinary (transmasc to some degree) and Suzumi: cis female, question mark?? (to be elaborated on); for clarity’s sake I usually use she/her for Arde and Hamal Cine individually and plural they for the system collectively (also I don’t usually use their nicknames, dunno why), but singular they for Benet (the wiki says Benny is probably short for Benetnasch so I’m assuming that’s their actual name) for reasons which will also be elaborated on (sort of).

Aaalso this clearly isn’t autobiographical or anything but I think I’m subconsciously putting a lot of myself into Suzumi because 1) we do look pretty similar (brown wavy bob + blue eyes) and 2) given their current status as both the main antagonist and the most well-known plural Len’en character (I get the impression that Hooaka also being plural isn’t super common knowledge; I mean it took me several read-throughs of their wiki page and their dialogue with BPoHC Secret Team to get what they were getting at lol) I am probably way too anxious about doing a bad stereotype. Just an observation and also probably partially why I’ve even ended up with so much headcanon for them in the first place

And before I get into the thick of it, notes on derivations from canon: I’m running with the assumption that Suzumi being a system is a relatively recent development tied to whatever incident it was that caused the falling-out, since Tsubakura is like the only person who seems at all familiar with Hamal (including Mitori/Chouki/Fumikado, but they’re more easily explained away as just having met with one of the other alters the few times they’ve interacted) even though she’s supposedly usually the one fronting. They don’t seem to know the mechanics of it though, judging by their confusion when Arde implied that she and Hamal are different people. So basically, I’ll be referring to pre-incident Suzumi as a different character from any of the other three. (Ngl I am very influenced by Dissociation Constant on that and just in general [when will my wife The One and Only Suzutsuba Fic return from the war…..]) I was also debating whether to have Suzumi have any history with the gang before starting to work at the lab/whether stuff would happen around high school or college age, cause they keep referring to everything happening “a long time ago” and I know I, a 24-year-old, feel like stuff that happened five years ago was like yesterday, but I do have the pandemic and not really doing much of anything for most of that time to reckon with so like, eh. College age makes more sense in my head and so does the dynamic of like, Suzumi was only introduced into the friend group (she was acquainted w Hoojiro and Yabu already though bc lab) because she was dating Tsubakura and since that ended, and badly (understatement of the century), they have extremely little reason to be civil with each other and also interacting at all is really awkward.

Ok now on with it! Either end of high school or beginning of college, Suzumi ends up interning at Tsubakura’s lab for college credit (Tsuba’s already practically a department head despite being like 17 or something because. Idk. Who even knows what’s up with them) and she’s like. Only wears t-shirts and jeans (bought a bunch of khakis for this job though), [reading] glasses from the men’s section, hates leaving her hair down (it’s lab safety anyways). Repressed queer in denial, you know the type. Starts interacting a lot with Mx. Tsubakura “wears short shorts that everybody thinks are actually a skirt and also uses ore and omae almost exclusively” Enraku who seems to have everything all figured out and is immediately starstruck (GIRL WHY?? they are such a mess). Lots of “do I want to date them or do I want to be them” confusion (this will be relevant later); eventually evolves into the “am I trans or just a lesbian” question (not that they would need to be attracted to women to be into Tsubakura but you get the picture), which never quite gets answered.

In any case, they do eventually start dating (Tsubakura thinks she’s cute and smart so they reciprocate), and they’re not like super great together cause Tsubakura is emotionally constipated at the best of times (Suzumi’s into that though) and neither of them are the most mentally/emotionally healthy people even back then and also Tsubakura is more or less Suzumi’s boss which is weird, but they’re kind of ok??? Tsubakura’s mom dies at some point, also they move in together (college housing is expensive), the rest of the crew at the very least tolerate Suzumi, etcetera.

And then…! [insert catastrophic event here]!! I don’t have a shot to call on this yet cause I have no idea what it could’ve been (and I’m sure it’ll get revealed at some point anyways); I’m just banking on it being something extremely not mundane and something where you could reasonably set the blame on either (or neither) party cause they sure both seem convinced the other is way worse, huh! In Tsubakura’s case at least, blaming Suzumi is partially a defense mechanism so their self-loathing doesn’t get the better of them over it (guess what the fic was supposed to be about, lol).

The worst part of all this business though is that they DON’T break up over it immediately and it just makes everything orders of magnitude worse for everyone involved. Tsubakura and Arde have hate sex MORE THAN ONCE………… they would both really rather forget about it. Hamal thinks it’s hilarious, ofc, but the less said about her, the better. And Benet… exists??? The only idea that I’m running off of for them atm is the observation that I think they’re the only character with flat black eyes other than Tsubakura/Tsurubami and the subsequent idle thought, “hey if someone malded so hard about a breakup that they ended up with an introject of their ex would that be messed up or what?” So make of that what you will. (Oh and it may have been obvious that this is what I was going for but Hamal is femme and Arde is butch and they’re constantly squabbling abt aesthetic presentation. Having Arde be straight-up male would’ve been too straightforward of an interpretation and I think it’s funnier this way)

The canonically mentioned murder attempts start taking place and I’m leaning towards Tsubakura eventually being convinced to move out even though it was originally their apartment, albeit mostly just because the wikipedia page for house sparrows mentions that they’re known to take over swallows’ nests, usually after they’ve been abandoned, but they will sometimes drive away or kill the current occupants, and that was a very fun fact to come across when specifically doing research for Len’en but idk how else to incorporate it lol. And so on and so forth up until the present time.

Uhhh is that all I have atm? I think so! Anyway, I think I finally shook out all my suzutsuba doodles (and rambling, though I do still have that fic to work on. idk whether I’ll be able to finish it though; I started strong with an extended metaphor in the middle but Iiiii’m not sure if I can successfully write my way up to it while making it make sense. Also I may draw pretty slow but I write even slower!! Eh I’m sure I’ll post some of it sometime) for the time being so I should theoretically be able to finish up my bigger projects now. Maybe I’ll have the valentines ready in time for white day? We’ll see!

[ultrainfinitepit]

Hello!! I return with more pin making questions :]

In my first ask you mentioned that you'd be willing to go into detail about your favorite social medias, and as I have basically only used Tumblr that would be super useful!

It would also be wonderful if you'd be willing to talk about your experiences with the different shopfronts that you've used, but I understand if you can't due to partnership stuff.

And the last question for now, Newsletters! How did you go about setting one up/what program you use/how long does it take to write an update/etc.

Thank you so much!! You're awesome!!!

Hi again :)) sure I can answer this, this is going to be a very long post so I'll put my answers under the cut.

Same disclaimer as last time that all this is just what has worked for me or what I've personally observed, that doesn't mean this is all objectively correct or factual. Others will have different mileage or find other things that work even better.

Social Media

The three platforms I prefer the most are Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter.

General recommendations:

Respond to people's comments, even with something as simple as a "thank you" for a compliment. This will help build engagement and foster a good relationship with your audience.

Take nice product photos: keep your pin in focus with a nice background and good lighting. Often you only get one chance for your product to leave a good impression!

Pick only a few social media profiles to manage. Don't stretch yourself too thin such that you can't engage with your audience on all your social media.

Find your niche! It’s easier to gain followers for a specific type of merch (such as, angels) than for a broad range.

Tumblr

Posts have a long but sporadic lifespan thanks to the queue (sporadic means, they will exhibit random bursts of activity). And you can post large image sets and long text posts with links, for this reason it is my favorite platform.

Getting a following on Tumblr is largely luck-based. Users rebel against posts being pushed into their feed by the recommendation algorithm or boosts. Users find posts via other users and not so much the tags, although the tagging system is leagues better than Instagram's (which no longer shows most recent posts and only shows popular posts).

On Tumblr I get the most traffic from:

Responses to user submissions - for example, drawing people's angel requests.

Tag yourself posts

Silly or cute doodles and comics - especially if people can overlay their fandom darlings onto these posts.

Compilations of Pride-related designs, particularly of popular flags

I have noticed over the years, people do not reblog as much as in the past, so it's harder to get your posts noticed.

Instagram

In my opinion this is the easiest platform to grow an audience on. Instagram has a very predictable set of criteria for showing your posts to other users, through personal experience it is something like this:

Post once a day.

Post one Reel a day.

No more than three Story shares.

If you deviate from this for too long, or post too many times in a day, Instagram will deprioritize showing your posts to other users. This schedule can be a lot, so if possible I recommend having a buffer of saved up posts and Reels.

Instagram users are pickier about what they like to see. I recommend keeping your profile looking neat and professional; WIPs don't seem to do well there. Instagram users like illustrations and heavily-visual posts; they do not respond well to slides with text on them unless it is a tutorial or tag-yourself post.

Some users like to put memes or other silly images at the end of their posts. I personally don't do this, but I've been told the reason for it is: people share the silly images and that gains more traffic for the post even if they are not sharing the main content.

On Instagram I get the most traffic from:

Fanart of recently popular characters

Tag yourself posts

Pride-related art for popular flags

Cute, colorful illustrated creatures

Anything that asks for audience feedback in the comments. More comments means more engagement, which means it's bumped up in the algorithm.

Hosting monthly art challenges such as Angeltober

Bare chested men

And I have noticed DTIYS challenges are popular and a great way for people to find your profile, although I haven't hosted one of these yet.

Tags on Instagram appear to matter less than in the past, but I still think they are worth using. Try to tag for the content in your post (such as "#biblically accurate angel") instead of using tags for artists or small businesses (such as "#smallbusinessstrong"). Everyone else is using these tags so you have lots of competition, but no one is trawling through those tags so you have less engagement from them. Users are looking for specifically the content they like, they don't care who is posting it.

Twitter

The most arcane out of these three platforms. Getting noticed on Twitter seems to be largely luck-based as well. I had my Twitter profile for a while with little traffic on it until I started posting the new Pride Angels, then it blew up. Hashtags are pretty useless on Twitter and I didn't have many followers before then so I'm not sure why those got popular at that time.

On Twitter I get the most traffic from:

Pride-related art for popular flags

Other relatable art such as for astrological signs

Dishonorable Mention: TikTok

I have a TikTok but I just use it to crosspost my Instagram Reels. I do not have many followers on TikTok, I do not put effort into it, and I dislike the interface. That being said, I have heard from other creators it is way easier than Instagram to grow on if you are willing to make videos and post every day.

A note on blacklisted words

On Twitter, Instagram, and possibly Tumblr too: words like "shop" "link" "commission" etc. may cause your post to be deprioritized. This is because social media platforms do not want you going off of them to some other site to spend money elsewhere. That's why you'll notice people censoring these words ("shop" to "sh0p").

Personally I dislike doing this, it just makes me feel silly, so I don't bother. But I will admit, it hurts my posts. So this is something to keep in mind if you want to do shop promotion on social media.

Shops

The shops I run are, in the order of making them:

Redbubble

The lowest possible barrier to entry for a merch artist: they literally do everything from production to shipping for you, and all you do is provide the artwork. The trade-off is that it's very hard to make any significant money from Redbubble (I make maybe a few cents at most from each sale), and you have no control over the quality of the products.

Etsy

My referral link here.

While Etsy can be imposing at first, it is probably the easiest out of all the marketplaces to start out on. There is a lot of information to fill out to get started, so take it slow so you don't get overwhelmed. It does get easier after the first listing. Once you make one listing you can just keep duplicating and changing it a little so you don't have to keep making listings from scratch.

Etsy claims you need ten listings in your shop before you open it, but you can ignore that.

Once you've gotten started, there's lots of little tricks to learn such as letter mail shipping, all about VAT, improving listings, sections, and so on that I could go into more detail on if anyone is interested. For now I'll just focus on the platform itself.

I like that Etsy has a marketplace search, as a customer it is really nice to use. I like that it has one big cart for all the items I am looking at, and that it has a favorites system. I also like as a customer how each shop is uniform; I know exactly how to search through each shop and what format to expect. I do enjoy artists' custom shops but, sometimes their interfaces are tough to navigate.

Etsy is reasonably good at showing your items to people, which is the number one reason I recommend it for beginners. Just make sure to put effort into your listings such as tagging them, adding nice photos, and videos.

They have protection features built-in such as covering refunds if an item is delivered but the customer claims to not have received it. Etsy also enables international shipping with VAT which is great for EU/UK customers. My biggest gripe with Etsy is the fees, which I've already complained about.

Gumroad

Not much to say about Gumroad really. I only use it to list digital items such as PDFs of my lineart. I think it's saved me a few inquiries from people looking for my art for tattoos. Since all that art is for free on social media anyway, I don't charge for purchases on Gumroad. That's just a personal choice though.

Mercari

Not much to say about Mercari either. I use it to list pins from my personal collection, though I've seen a handful of pin makers use it for the pins they've created. I think the Mercari listing creation is atrocious: they like to recommend titles for your items when you upload new images, and will overwrite existing titles.

I've been considering moving away from Mercari, they recently switched their fee model so now buyers pay fees instead of sellers. This means while sellers can lower their prices, buyers get sticker shock and then ask for discounts on top of already-discounted items. I'm only on there because it's the most popular place for second-hand pin selling.

Shopify

So far I've really enjoyed Shopify. The setup was nightmarishly hard, not to turn anyone off of it but it took me literal months. You can import your listings from Etsy to Shopify but then you have to redo all the SKUs, link up photos to variants, and so on. If you have a ton of listings like me it takes a while. If you only have a few it is more worth it or, might even be worth starting out on if you can do sufficient promotion.

The major advantage of Etsy over Shopify is the marketplace feature: if you don't need the help of Etsy to promote your items then Shopify might be the better option to start out on.

I like that Shopify has significantly lower fees vs. Etsy. However, they do payouts differently and in a way I dislike. Etsy will deduct your shipping fees before calculating your payout balance, while Shopify will payout your balance and then charge you for shipping as part of your monthly bill. So you need to make sure to set aside some of your funds always to cover the Shopify shipping charge.

Additionally, to enable certain integrations or features you will need to pay for them monthly, which can add up. To sync my inventory between Shopify, Etsy, and Faire I use Trunk Inventory, which charges me a monthly $60 fee. That's in addition to the monthly Shopify fee.

Faire

I actually hate Faire despite using it. I was going to use Tundra but Faire drove them out of business (lawsuit pending). Now Faire is the only game in town for wholesale so I'm forced to use them, not that it's done me much good since I haven't had any sales there.

I can rant for ages about Faire's horrendous fees and outdated product import. But if you're a beginner you don't have to worry about wholesale selling, so I'll leave that discussion for another time. If anyone wants to hear more from me about Faire they can send another ask.

My stockists

It's quite hard to give honest reviews of my stockists here, since they might see them so, I'll just share my Linktree for them and you all can investigate on your own and inquire privately.

Newsletter

I used to use Tinyletter but it shut down, so now I use Email Octopus. Here's a referral link, and you can check out my newsletter sign up page here.

Email Octopus doesn't have a newsletter archive, and the interface is more complicated than Tinyletter's, which I dislike; but I like it better than Tinyletter's replacement Mailchimp.

You can try these out for yourself and see which you like better, it really is personal preference. All newsletter services are essentially the same: all you need is a sign up page, a way to store emails, and an ability to send a newsletter to them.

To get people to sign up for your newsletter, I personally recommend always offering it as a choice. For example, if you run a pin campaign, send an update where you share a link to your newsletter to your backers so they have the option to sign up. Do not export their emails and add them to your newsletter without a choice. I have been on the receiving end of this as a backer/customer and it makes me feel bad: it's extra emails in my inbox I didn't agree to and it feels like the creator misusing my information even if technically they are not. As a fellow creator I totally get why others might do this, it's an effective way to get lots of new newsletter signups at once. I just don't personally like it.

Shopify has a built-in newsletter feature you can use as well if you make a Shopify storefront. From your dashboard you can go to Marketing > Create campaign.

I like to send out a shortened newsletter via Shopify. Usually what I do is copy my full newsletter from Email Octopus to Shopify, and remove any bits not directly related to my Shopify, such as news on crowdfunding campaigns.

Writing your newsletter

Writing a newsletter doesn't take much time, and I think it should be a low effort task. In fact, if you make it too long people will not read it.

Throughout the month leading up to a shop update I will update my newsletter with whatever new items are ready, taking only a few minutes here and there. I include a few photos and I make sure to link to the items once they are listed (truncated example below).

I will also alert people to any sales or other special offers, news about stockists, and crowdfunding campaigns: anything a potential buyer would be interested in.

I have seen other artists share much longer newsletters with impressive graphics, sections on their art process, personal updates - but for myself I usually skip over that stuff in my inbox, so I don't do it as a creator. For others it might be worth the effort!

Final Thoughts

If you read all this, thank you! I know this was a very long post. I hope it helps at least one of you. I won't keep you much longer: you can find links to everything I mentioned in my Linktree and if you have more questions you can send an ask.

One day I'd like to make a tutorial series for making and selling merch, so this was useful as a draft for that. I would also include manufacturer reviews. If that's something you'd like to see someday you can let me know.

[cavegirlpoems]

D’you have any advice for someone who’s looking into designing her own TTRPG? I’ve started projects before that were really just heartbreakers, and want to make something more than that

What's wrong with making heartbreakers?

Design the game you want to play. There's no shame in a game adapting and iterating on what's come before it; I do it all the time, and most good games are built on a skeleton of borrowed elements.

(This is how art in general advances, regardless of medium. Almost every exciting new development is built on stuff that came before it but never got big).

I tend to start with a pre-existing framework for the game - pbta or osr generally - and then remove bits and add bits and change bits over and over and over until what I'm left with looks original to an outside observer who doesn't know how I got there.

[idvconfessions]

Anon confession:

“heheheh giggling over some Christmas at the Manor headcanons :3

One of the few times of the year that the Hunters and Survivors will all eat at the same table, even though there may still be games that day.

For the survivors: Emma, Martha, Evelyn, Emily, Lucky Guy, Kreacher, Orpheus, and Edgar DEVOTE themselves to decorating the manor beautifully with garlands, decorated trees, holly, tinsel, candles, and of course art if Edgar doesn't get artblock during the holiday prep fretting. Tracy helps, but she gets lights working and stuff, she's not really good at aesthetic design. Same for Luca, but he's also flitting around the house multitasking when he remembers all the things they have to do. Often, he starts something, forgets it, and then Victor finishes it quietly behind him. Florian WANTS to be part of the decor squad, buuuut he's only allowed to make sure the fireplaces are working properly.

Ada, Emil, Eli, Kurt, Demi, Murro, Mike and William are a cooking squad.

Vera, Aesop, Margie, Patricia, Fiona, and Jose get a lot of the manor cleaned up and making sure there's enough seats for everyone, etc etc. The hospitality squad, one might say. Aesop isn't particularly fond of it, but he likes it better than being in the kitchen or having to make decisions about decorating with which color or something. It's the quieter job to be sure.

Andrew, Melly, Ganji and Charles are the grounds squad. If there's anything that needs to be done in the gardens or out of doors, they're there. Emma likes helping them decorate outside too if possible.

Matthias, Anne, Norton, Naib, Helena, Servais, Qi, Lily, Florian and Richard are the filler squad. Naib, Norton and Qi mostly help the outdoor and cleaning crews, Anne, Richard and Matthias help the decor crew and hospitality crews. Helena is in charge of most of who goes where, aided by Lily and Servais. Florian flits about helping the decor and cooking crew for the most part.

Demi only helps with the decor crew to hang mistletoe over Ada and Emil's seats XD

Gift giving!!

Emma likes to memorize things to make/give that she knows they'll like. For her, Christmas shopping/crafting begins on January 1st.

Kreacher is surprisingly generous on Christmas. It's a special day that gets to him and he can't help but be an exception to his rule. That said, you miiiiight want to check where your gift is sourced from if it's from him.

Qi will make little dolls/plushies with Tracy and Violetta and makes things she silently observes anyone likes. She doesn't ask what people want for Christmas. She'll just make a sewn/crocheted version of something she finds out they like by being a good listener.

VALE is infamous for prank gifts. Luchino too.

Norton gives food. HOw? nobody knows. But if you are his friend, he will give you bread. Naib is similar, but might try to cook whatever he knows you like.

Melly gives honey things. Honey candies, sticks, jars, anything honey, but always with a personal touch directed toward the person she's giving to.

Tracy makes anything she thinks will help the others with her inventions...though it's not particularly personalized, and a bit more things she'd like to have that she gives, the thought is still there.

Demi just makes drinks for all. Alcoholic or mocktails, she makes both.

Lily LOVES making and giving handmade cards. And so does Victor.

That's all I have for now but I'll probably write up some hunter ones later but I do have them :3

Hoping you're having a Merry Christmas, Ms. Ivy!”