#okay i think i've got all the art out of my system for now

[benevolenterrancy]

pet fish revenge fantasy

[erinwantstowrite]

i feel like if you released a 24 hour + video of you talking about your plans for your original book i would sit and watch all of that with no breaks. so: would you be willing to share at least the bare bones of the plot you have now? or even some tropes that would be in it? or maybe random questions like how many main characters? how many povs? if it's sci-fi or fantasy? just stuff like that!

ahhhh!! i'd love to talk about them because they're constantly rotating in my brain!! i hope this doesn't get too long but we all know me, i can never stop yapping 😭

(okay this is present erin editing before posting and yeah this got long guess who called it. anyways there's art and stuff under the cut as well)

(Marked this as mature with violence only because there is an image below where I drew injuries/cuts on a character)

This book has been a thousand different books in all kinds of settings, plots, lessons, etc, and that's because I've had these characters since I was in middle school. At first I was so obsessed with them that I'd write and draw them all the time, to the point that my teachers were concerned I wasn't paying attention. I was seriously into magic and fantasy at the time because Harry Potter books were still the epitome of writing to my middle school brain. Ruby was a wizard with a bird theme that lived in the countryside and one day found out that her town was "alive" in a sense... But after I lost that sketchbook with all of the details (devastated to this day), and started venturing into other books series and shows, etc, I sort of forgot about the og story or what it was like. What remained was a love for the characters I had made over anything else about them, so I'd end up writing stories with a different theme each time, but the ocs being the same, just with their backgrounds shifted. (Around the time I was obsessed with VLD, Ruby was in a sci-fi plot set on a planet in another solar system.)

One of the most recent iterations was Ruby and the other characters essentially struggling to understand death, life, and everything in between. The story is called "Behind the Blue Glass" and I still really like that title lol. All of them had died on the same day, at the same time, just in various different ways, and then all of them came back to life in the same manner. They all developed different powers from the experience: Liam could float/manipulate gravity), August's body was essentially a phantom that could go through objects and disappear, Vin could possess people, Jean had an empathy link with the dead and could talk to and see them clearly, and Maya could figure out someone's cause of death/also tell when people were about to die. As for Ruby, she's the only one who can move freely between the land of the living and the land of the dead. It's different from Jean seeing the dead, as she's still in the land of the living.

The plot of that story was Ruby having dreams/visions of these other people she had never met before and knowing she needed to find them and set "something" right, but she didn't know what. She sets out to find them anyways, and they each join her on her quest to find everyone simply because they never got an answer to how they came back from the dead and find it weird that they all died on the same day and time. They solve deaths of ghosts they come across, meet people who are still grieving lost ones, have to lay some of the ghosts down to rest- all while figuring out why these shady people have started following them and trying to stop them from figuring out what happened to them. I even made some first draft titles (definitely, 10000% inspired by PJO because I was reading it at the time):

to top it all off, it's set in the 2010's I believe? Around that time. Just because I think more books should write about the time era

I have some (recentish) art of the characters:

first image: (Liam on the right, August on the left)

this is what Ruby looked like when I was first designing them for the story:

They're meant to look dead-ish but this art was SO long ago when I wasn't confident in my art so Ruby just looks like a wet rat or smth idk what is going on here

And here's Vin!! I don't hate this drawing of him that much, surprisingly, but this was also drawn a while ago

and this was some art i was planning at the time:

i think that's all of the art that i have for this story (at least on this computer. My old laptop might have more but it's been laid to rest)

to be honest, i'm still thinking about writing this story, but Ruby's name would be changed because at this point, this iteration of her character is VERY different from present day. She's two different characters at this point 💀 that's how you know I've had her for SO long because she looks so different from her original drawings.

The latest version of Ruby ended up in a story with completely different characters in the cast and a completely different setting (even if some of the characters were inspired by their og versions). It's called "The Clocktower's Chime"

It's very much inspired by those reincarnation manhwas. I like those stories but they all have the same plot over and over, and while I was more interested in the versions where the character is sent back in time to live their life again but with all the knowledge they had in the future, I always struggled with the aspect that the characters' mental age is far older than they are. It makes the dynamics a little weird, but they can be excused unless it's a romantic dynamic, I would think? I dunno, it was hard to get into the plots mostly because of that.

So I used Ruby as a placeholder OC and came up with a story where upon their death in the future, someone casts a spell or a god sends them back, and instead of having a mental older age, they get a journal with all of the details of their future. Ruby woke up one day and found a journal written by herself that detailed everything about her future up to the point of her death. It was more like a book, however, rather than a journal. It just looked like a journal because it was in her handwriting.

So Ruby gets this book, doesn't believe it at all, until she notices that there are way too many "coincidences" lining up with the events of the book. She starts believing it could be true, and then decides it must be when she finds out that a prominent family in the country she lives in is going to visit her hometown. In the book, they were there because they learned that Ruby was their daughter that had been kidnapped as a baby and believed dead. However, in the book, Ruby had spent her entire life living as a weapon instead of a daughter, and she died by their hands when she refused to kill a woman that is prophesized to end a war that would devastate both countries.

Ruby is, like, 12 at that point. So her kid brain is like "obviously I run away and go to school in a different country and tell everyone I have a different name and there's no way this could go wrong." Except before she can even do that, she runs into Julias Parlia, a Duke's son from the country that is supposed to be her enemy in the future. Ruby is like "shit this is THE worst adult to run into and I haven't even gotten to the running away part of my plan" and Julias ends up being the reason she doesn't even get to the train station. He's fucking hilarious by the way. He's got a well adjusted family with two loving parents and a bunch of little siblings and he basically picks Ruby up by the scruff of her neck and is like "I want this one she's insane."

This is Julias (kneeling on the ground to talk to Ruby) and Emelie (Julias' knight and childhood friend, she's so silly)

and this is the part where I share art from many months ago... when I posted my most recent art and said Ruby keeps getting buffer every time I draw her, I meant it 💀

Ruby and her love interest, Cecelia

This is Vekenti, a character that was also supposed to be a "villain" in the original timeline. Ruby goes looking for him to prevent his death as well, and Julias obviously is like "Omg another weird kid, how delightful!" Everyone thinks Vikenti and Ruby are related, but they are not. They're just raised as siblings in both timelines and have a lot of the same mannerisms

Julias' love interest (unnamed? I can't find her name anywhere) and him

REALLLY old drawings of what they looked like in the OG timeline (I desperately need to redesign these because I could do better now)

Julias and Ruby again

and that's all the art I have for this one (besides the other post of Ruby I posted today, this is the story that that version of Ruby belongs in. She's looks very different now!).

All of this has been in the back of my mind for a while, and I've been trying to figure out which story I would want to write first. Middle school Erin would love for me to finally write Behind the Blue Glass, but sometimes I find myself wanting to write a fantasy story like Clocktower's Chime a lot more

[firesnap]

Honestly, the more i learn the more upset i get. I've been here since pretty much the beginning of L'manburg, and got so attached to these creators and characters that seeing them one by one turn out to be assholes just hits so hard. I feel dumb but i feel like I'm in a mourning process now- I've drawn, written and thought so much about Wilbur it feels so disheartening looking back on all of it. A part of me still feels in denial, and i hate myself for it, because Shelby made it obvious and I can't ignore the victim - i support her, I'm happy she's healing, but by god do I wish it wasn't him. I wish this person i spent so long admiring and watching wasn't an abuser and i feel stupid for feeling this way, if it makes sense. I almost don't know what to do with myself now, because so much of my creative process was tied to these characters which included music, drawing, writing - I truly hope you're doing okay, since I've been following for a while and I know you were very attached to him too. I only hope for the best for Shelby and the victims, it still doesn't feel real

I'm happy she's healing too. She's got a great support system too and it's heartening to see people who knew Wilbur be on her side.

I didn't make like... true creative fan content for this community. I argued with people, I helped lazily with an update account, I wrote meta about RP characters. But I do understand that sort of "what happens now" thing. Because I still loved the things I wrote and the fun I had with that story, but it's so tied TO him that it's hard to separate. I don't think I'm deleting anything.

For everyone who has created any kind of art/writing around his character, it's up to the individual if they want to continue or not. Because these characters are ours now and have been for a long time at this point. Don't let a terrible person take that joy of creating away from you. But if you don't feel comfortable continuing to create around his character that's fine too. Just take time to figure out your feelings. Don't make any rash decisions.

I also want to emphasize that you should not feel bad about wishing it wasn't him or feeling betrayed or tricked. We don't know these people and we could have never known what he was like behind closed doors. Honestly, he was better at putting on a persona than 90% of other streamers so of course we didn't see it.

[russeliarat]

So I've encountered some WILD vague posting about the CCCC fandom and it's arguments about gore fics. I haven't directly interacted with this fandom for over a year - not because of anything bad, I just moved on to other interests to be clear, however the fact that this issue that I encountered a full YEAR ago is still a prominent issue in the fandom is crazy. And according to my boyfriend, who still actively engages with the main section of the fandom and their fanfictions, it's apparently gotten a LOT worse.

So I'm gonna be clear, I still engage with CCCC and CJ's media. I still listen to his music, I still engage with art on tumblr, as well as headcanons, I still draw HMSW (plus two of my system's cohosts are directly sourced from the media). I just haven't read the fanfiction or gone on CJFS for a while. Hearing that this has been so bad, it's come to vague posting back and forth on tumblr makes me so fuckin fed up with this shit.

Read to the end of my post before you form an opinion on this, I have nuance, okay?

Hi people, maybe it doesn't take a genius to take a step back and figure out that saying that you should be allowed to make reasonless and intense gore, abuse, and torture fics about a REAL GUY'S personification of his own personal struggles with mental health and suicide is insanely entitled /neg.

Heart, Mind, Soul, and Whole are not just independent characters from Chonny Jash. They are his (self-admitted) personifications of his mental health struggles, thusly, they are him. CJ has said that Whole is just him.

Excusing making fanfiction about intense abuse and gore and torture and cannibalism and god knows what else about HMSW on 'they're AUs' or 'they're interpretations' is not okay. Usually, I'd agree that you should be allowed to make fanfiction freely without people telling you what to do. HOWEVER! This is a real man's struggle with his mental health so I think that there are certain lines and boundaries that should be placed out of respect for CJ. Reasonless gore isn't necessarily bad, but reasonless gore about a real person's struggles is above and beyond disgusting. I've seen someone argue that saying that is government state censorship...

Guys, there is a distinctive difference between 'reasonless fluff' and 'reasonless gore'. One is wanting them to get along and be nice. The other is wanting them to torture each other. I don't think it takes a genius to understand there's a huge difference between 'I want them to snuggle' and 'I want violence to be done upon them'.

I think over the past year, I've kept this idea to myself because I wasn't directly involved and I didn't want to face the backlash at the time. Then my boyfriend got slammed in dms by someone who had these views, so now I'm pissed. I have personal shit in the game now and I cannot hold myself at bay anymore because I'm at my wits fucking end.

I think a lot of writers who delve into these intense topics should keep in mind 'what would CJ think if he saw that I was making fics about gore/abuse/torture with characters that personify himself?' Not because all gore or abuse is bad, they can be used for some wonderful symbolism or tension when pulled off with meaning and though and tact - rather, it's because some people take it way too far, sometimes without realising. I've seen a lot of people I was close to get stuck in an echo-chamber and not realise they spiraled from the headcanon that The Juno Incident was a violent blinding to something as intense as frequent abuse or gore between HMS.

I want the people on the opposing side to realise that I'm not going after gore or violence or intense themes. Some of my favourite pieces of media contain very violent, gory, abusive, intensely triggering themes, and sometimes, they are reasonless and because the developer or writer wanted to explore different forms of horror and fear. I don't personally believe that those kinds of themes should carry over to CCCC because (for the fifth time I'm mentioning it but I feel like I really need to drill it into some people's heads) the album is about a real person's struggle with suicide and his own mental health.

I'm not trying to censor anyone's views, it's just that I think sometimes there's just general common sense boundaries surrounding fandoms that are about someone's mental health.

An additional point is how often these fics tend to be quite ableist and I do see these writers project their internalised ableism onto HMS, which is a much bigger issue in the fandom since about 90% of people headcanon Heart as being somewhere on the blind spectrum and Mind as having some sort of issue with his voice that means he needs to use a vocal implant/Mind being a robot (which can very quickly spiral into ableism depending on how it's used).

Frequently, I see people portray Heart's blindness as making him weak or helpless and the same with Mind and Soul if people headcanon them as having implants or prosthetics or some form of disability and use it in their gore fics. Due to a lot of gore/torture fics using helplessness from injury as horror, it can very easily become quite ableist. I've been in fandoms with a whole month dedicated to harming their faves, and this can be an issue with them as well, not just the CCCC fandom. It can be done without ableism, but more often than not (especially in the CCCC fandom) people aren't looking for it when they write and can create ableist fics about a helpless character because their new/old disabilities.

I also saw someone talking about mischaracterisation and how that ties into this whole thing, but that's for another time because it's partially a separate topic that I could do a full length thesis essay on, so I'll do it another time.

TLDR; Don't make gore/torture/abuse fics about a real person's personifications of himself and his mental health/suicide struggle. That's fucked???

[celerydays]

☁️ 2024 Artist Resolutions ☁️

Happy New Year, everyone! 🌻

Just sharing my annual artist resolutions (this is my 3rd year doing this, I think?):

colors & palettes: I would like to try and experiment more with color, including probably (re-)teaching myself color theory (and actually trying to understand it this time lol), working with more mindful color choices like limited palettes and overall trying to use color to make more visually interesting pieces.

video content: I actually really like the process filming and editing little progress/behind-the-scenes videos, but I didn't do much of that at all this year. I'd honestly like to go back to doing some of that again! Also I had a brief stint of streaming art on Twitch around this time a year ago and haven't gone back to it...still on the fence but I may revisit that as well this year.

comics: I've always enjoyed drawing silly little daily life comics and would like to continue with that, but 2023 made me realize how much I also enjoy creating more long-form webtoon and comic book-like pieces as well! I definitely want to explore and expand more upon that in 2024~

composition: I've been very lazy about composition! Going back to wanting to use color to create more visually interesting pieces, I'd also like to focus more on composition to do the same as well.

(soft) freelance: I used to have an online shop that I shut down almost 3 years ago now...I don't know what I feel brave enough to tackle this year in terms of being an independent artist outside of my day job; whether that's commissions, ko-fi/patreon, product design for a shop reopening or tabling at conventions, but I hope I'll figure it out and get over my hesitations about it...soon.

sketching & journaling: I really super-mega-absolutely neglected sketching and journaling for the entirety of 2023 which TRULY HURTS MY JOURNAL-LOVING HEART. I want to try some things to find a new system of sketch-journaling that fits my time and lifestyle better these days so I can incorporate that back into my life.

My previous artist resolutions from 2023 and 2022~

I think I only really got to two goals from my 2023 list; drawing more backgrounds and entering my 'villain era' by drawing more selfishly (though I'll be honest: I didn't expect that to manifest the way it did when I had written it out, but yeah okay, smutty art it is I suppose lmaooo)

We don't talk about 2022 lol.

Hope everyone is having a great start to the new year~ Relax! Rest! Recharge! And may we achieve all (or at least most of) our goals we're hoping to in 2024 💗

[howdy-folks-its-showtime]

It's Showtime! - October 2024 Devlog

Howdy Cobalt here! This is really late I know, that's my bad. Again. I want to say right away this dev log isn't particularly exciting. Mostly because almost everything I did this month was in preparation for future things to be added so while I may not have a lot to show… Hopefully everything I did this month will mean soon I will!

Got Cutscenes mostly working! There is a placeholder cutscene that's an intro and another that activates upon opening a door! You can skip cutscenes by holding E for a bit but I have not yet implemented the code that keeps track of which cutscenes you've seen before to activate it. [I want there to be a system that keeps track of if you have ever seen a given cutscene. Since this game is story-heavy I wouldn't want people accidentally skipping cutscenes that may have been vital. This system will hopefully be able to keep track of this even through save files. So if you decide to replay the game after fully beating it all the cutscenes will be able to be skipped since you already know what's happening and such. Also for speedrunners]

Okay I know there's not a lot here but the cutscene system took. A while and that was cause I wanted it to be as optimized as possible [we'll be having quite a few cutscenes after all~] And that always makes coding take a lot longer. If I coded it in a super messy complicated way it probably would've been done in a way but I wanted the code to be mostly clean and most of all not tank the performance. So it took a lot longer than I thought it would.

Been doing some loose writing here and there. Honestly haven't done any major writing this month, I wanted a break from it. I have since taken that break however and I'm sure I'll come back swinging!

Haven't done much art myself, been doing some tweaks to the props I showed off in the last dev log but nothing more than that. However I have been working relentlessly on Henry's first model [I say first cause I'm sure with time, I will want to update and change it] and I can say confidently it is fairly close to completion.

In terms of 2D art, I've done a few textures and Roddy has been working hard on character designs! We got one of the major characters in their cycle form done and that'll help a lot for establishing the style for the others ones as well. We don't have much that wouldn't be considered spoilers though so for now, you'll just have to trust us.

HUGE progress has been made on figuring out rigging. I have a rig that works really swell, [one that was created by that very person I talked abt helping me in last month's devlog] now I just have to learn how to modify it for my own purposes which shouldn't be too hard since I now know all the little mechanics that make it work. With that I can hopefully start on making a good generic rig for humans and toons alike to act as a base for all of them but still be able to customize for any deviations they have in design. This took. Days. But I think it'll be worth it when you guys get to see these characters start to come to life in their first few animations and such. I think next month, I'll have at least something swell to show off! Thanks for your patience as always!

[sopheadraws]

Thanks for the tag, @birdofmay!

Okay, so I don't actually have any playlists of my own; I entirely use playlists made by other people/generated by Spotify/actual albums, so I had to improvise. I stuck all six Spotify "Daily Mixes", my top 100 songs of 2021, 2022, and 202; my "On Repeat" playlist, and my "Repeat Rewind" playlist into a brand new playlist that contains 563 songs. I'm not good about favoriting songs, so I thought this was the fairest system. Some songs I don't actually know may come out of the Daily Mixes, so if that happens, I'll listen to it for the first time. Okay, cool.

1. Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran do a cover of the "Thriller/Heads Will Roll" Glee mashup.

Well, Taylor and Ed are two people, and this is a duet, so that's a good start. However, that's as far as my enthusiasm goes. Taylor has a *good* voice, however, she's not really a belter, which is all the "Heads Will Roll" part is. And Ed Sheeran covering Michael Jackson is not something that needs to happen.

2. The Warblers from Glee cover "I Feel Pretty/Unpretty"...also from Glee.

This is a song a female insecurity (arguably with lesbian undertones). I do not want an all male a cappella group involving themselves. Terrible idea.

3. Johnny Cash covers "Girl on Fire". Specifically the Glee arrangement.

This is so stupid that I love it. Johnny "Ring-Of-Fire" Cash covering a 2010s pop song about a woman being metaphorically on fire is hilarious to me. And the Glee arrangement is the icing on the cake.

4. Johnny Cash covers "champagne problems" by Taylor Swift.

Interesting that I got Johnny Cash twice in a row. Anyways, I think this just might work. I can't explain why. But it would.

5. Brittany from Glee covers "Million Reasons" by Lady Gaga.

Brittany can only really pull off heavily produced dance pop, and this song is a belting-heavy ballad. Sorry, Britt, but it's a no for me.

6. Simon & Garfunkel cover "obsessed" by Olivia Rodrigo.

I can't * f a t h o m * how this would sound. I am intrigued to hear it, but I sense it would be terrible. But, then again, Paul Simon is a musical genius and I could listen to Art Garfunkel sing anything.

7. Natasha Bedingfeld covers "Last Kiss" by Taylor Swift.

Natasha Bedingfeld is one of the never-heard-of-this-person-before-in-my-life musicians I warned you might appear on this playlist. Having heard one song, she's a generic pop artist. Sort of a Beyoncé vibe. I'm sure she'd do just fine covering Taylor.

8. Avril Lavigne covers "Operator" by Jim Croce.

Avril is another person I don't actually listen to (I actually know who she is this time). Uhh.. this cover would be wack, but I'm not sure if it's wack in a good or bad way.

9. Darren Criss covers "Talkin' Bout a Revolution" by Tracy Chapman.

(Yes, this was a DC original song, not a Glee cover.) Okay, so, having been on Glee, Darren knows how to do a killer cover, and I'm sure this would be no different. Kind of a tone deaf song selection on his part, however.

10. Olivia Rodrigo covers "Heaven Is A Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle.

I do know this song, and it's not *out* of my taste range, but I don't think I've ever listened to it on Spotify before, so. Anyways, I think this is the best combination I've gotten! I really want to hear this now! Best for last!

Well, Sina, and these the crazy combinations you expected from me? Very Glee heavy and most of the combinations would be horrid, which seems in character.

I would like to see what @doctor-whu @porcelainvino @wheresurboytonighthelookslikeenj @katyobsesses @angelhummel and @hevanderson get if you want to try :))

[rkcarts]

My thoughts on Midjourney/ Generative AI as a real human artist

So my curiosity got the better of me and I ended up biting the proverbial artificial intelligence bullet. I tested out midjourney/nijijourney.

Honestly, I went into it with a feeling of despair (If I spent 15+ years honing my skills only to be able to produce an image a fraction as beautiful as AI can make within seconds... what was/is the point of even studying so hard for so long?)

But the more I played with it, I came to realize a couple of things.

AI is fantastic at some things, and really super dogshit at others. Human artists still have a HUGE leg up in a ton of cases! I.e complex physical character interactions, depicting more than one character accurately and consistently, words and hands, ect.

2. I feel like the direction it's headed, there's a lot of possibility for the tools to be utilized as a way to speed up or enhance real human artist's workflows, which is exciting. Especially when it comes to visual development and brainstorming.

Personally, as a real human artist, I'm excited about the way it can be used for creative projects. I've already been doing a lot of visual development for fun and playing around directing the program to create some FFXV fan 'art'.

That being said, it's obviously super shitty that these algorithms were trained off of artist's work without their permission. I do think it's unethical to feed the system more of any artists works without their explicit consent.

However, the program already has an insane amount of data, and that isn't going away. I think generative art is here to stay, and over the years it will be adapted to more and more by real human artists.

I've been pondering long and hard the past couple weeks about the ethics of it all and I've come to this conclusion. People who generate AI images and call themselves 'AI artists' are huge tools. Lol. Even worse are the ones who crank out hundreds of low effort AI images each week to try to sell prints/adoptables and tout their Patreon begging for people to (and I quote) "Support their work".

Obviously a huge factor in all of this mess is money. (Thanks, capitalism!). Due to the fact that in order to survive in our society, we need to have a marketable skill that we can trade for income, real human artists having their income taken away by AI and AI users is a huge ethics problem. I think if we lived free of capitalism, the whole AI dilemma wouldn't exist the way it does now. It would be much easier to accept the technology as a cool advance instead of seeing it as a job/life destroyer.

I believe that using the AI to create for the joy of creation is alright. As long as you aren't making money off of it, or feeding more artist's work to the AI monster.

I think any type of group feels a need to define themselves some way. Like we've seen, a lot of people are calling themselves AI Artists. I think that' s a huge insult to real human artists who pour their blood sweat and tears into their craft for thousands and thousands of hours.

I think a more appropriate title would be AI Creative Director, or AI prompter. AI prompt engineer is a little silly IMO but it's better than AI artist.

Okay my long messy AI rant is over! If I post any AI images that I directed the generation of, I'll be tagging them with 'Nijijourney' so they're distinct from my real human art. Peace.

[itisbop]

And now... the moment you've all been waiting for (or not, which is fine)! Let's talk Brawl Talk because OH BOY am I excited.

This is gonna be a pretty long post, so bear with me! I'll go over one section at a time and go over what I liked and disliked. Spoilers ahead! If you haven't watched the latest Brawl Talk, go do so! One more reminder, these are just my thoughts! You don't have to agree with me!

Without further to do... let's talk!

New Brawlers (Angelo and Melodie)

Now, when I first saw Angelo, I immediately went, "HE'S UGLY LMAO." After getting used to him, though, he's actually not that bad. His design is really good and is somewhat of an anti-cupid (perfect for a gal like Willow). Also, his voice actor did such a good job so much energy was put into him.

He doesn't seem like he's gonna be incredibly busted, but he is gonna be good in the right hands (while I'm at it pay your respects to Mortis Mains ya'll, they just took a major l with this guy). Sorry Larry and Lawrie, but you two are gonna have to step aside, I NEED this man as much as I need the next brawler.

I. LOVE. MELODIE!!! I did think she was a League of Legends character at first, lol.

Apparently, I've heard people say she is the first female assassin, which is very interesting! Out of the two, I feel she poses more of a threat. She might be broken, though her main attack is WEAK.

I've been through the Reddit and have seen so many people talk about how she looks like Janet, and I'd like to take the time to bring up a little theory... what if she was Janet and Bonnie's mom? I would go into this further, but we have to keep going!

Overall, I really like these two! Their designs are really good, and the character designers did a great job! Their pins and profile pictures show SO much personality! Expect some art of these two soon! However, if I may say something, I wish their skins were cooler. Why couldn't Angelo have a Sands of Time skin too? 😭

Speaking of Sands of Time...

Sands of Time and Ragnorok + Skins

Out of both seasons, I'm very hyped for Sands of Time. The "Sands of Time" is a very interesting concept that can be used very creatively. Can't wait to see what the animation brings! Though I think we all know why I'm hyped...

My best guest was that this skin was gonna be a Epic/Mythic skin, but a LEGENDARY?????? WHAT?????? Chuck fans we just fucking WON. I've seen the sneak peaks and heard his voice lines, Nicolai did an INCREDIBLE job as always. I'm am SO READY to go broke for this skin, but first, I must purchase some seasonal skins since they've been on my agenda for a while.

Loki Chester has to be the one I'm looking forward to getting the most for the Ragnorok seasons/skins. Plus, it's free! (If you have good luck).

Side note and honorable mention, Thor Bibi was just the icing on the cake for Bibi Mains this update. While I feel like a few more details could be added for this skin to make in truly "legendary," everything else about it great, including the voice acting! Poor Bull, he's the only one in his yet to get a Legendary Skin.

Ranked and The Report System

Okay, not related, but I love how they disses on the community a bit in this section, LOL. They know what, at least Reddit and Twitter are doing (and let's keep it that way, they don't need to know what's going on over here lol).

Anyways, while I'm excited (and scared) for Ranked with modifiers I wanna take this time to talk about a concern... the report system...

Now, I know there's a reason why we have 10 reports; but what's gonna stop so angry guy from reporting me if I didn't do anything? I feel like there's a chance this could backfire, that's all.

Hypercharges and Balance Changes

No Mortis or Poco hypercharge :(

Cordelius was definitely unexpected and very scary. Getting slowed in the shadow realm is a death sentence.

I wish Belle got a little more this update, but I'll take the hypercharge.

Move over Charlie, there's a new spider person in town, and he's a DINOSAUR.

Onto to balance changes. 84???? GOD DAMN. Adrien wasn't fucking around this update. Edgar is dead (and rightfully so FUCK HIM) and Doug might actually stand a chance in this Meta. I'll miss the days when Hypercharges were game breaking just for the community's rage, but it's probably for the greater good.

Whatever the Fuck the Random Skins Were

Now Primo Shark, I can take (though I'm definitely not gonna be able to take Baby Shark as a in game theme, I'm muting music for that entire time period). Pitcher Fang is a good skin too. Squeaky note is very... meh, but it's a rare skin so you can't expect much.

BUT POOP SPIKE.

POOP SPIKE.

What

the

FUCK?

It was tolerable until I saw the losing animation, and to that, I say EWWWWWWWWWW 🤮🤮🤮. WHYYYYY!?!?!? THAT'S SO NASTY!!!

I get that this is an April Fool's skin, but WHYYY THAT??? Thank GOD this skin is expensive. If I catch any of you with this skin, I'm gonna need to ask if you're okay. I don't wanna show a picture of this skin to you all, or else I'm pretty sure Tumblr would kick me to the curve. This is easily what I was least excited for for this update.

Overall Rating and Final Thoughts

Now, it's time to throw the final ratings on screen and say anything else that's on my mind.

New Brawlers - 9.5/10, definitely getting both! Let's hope they get some cool skins soon!

Sands of Time - 7/10, the concept and Chuck carry this season don't fight me on this. /j

Ragnorok - 6.5/10, I'm not as hyped, but I will grind for that Chester skin!

Ranked - 8/10, now I have a reason to actually play this mode. Hopefully, the report system is fair enough...

Hypercharges - 6.5/10, again not as hype, but I will be snatching that Belle Hypercharge since she's the only one out of the 6 I maxed out. She deserved more, though. :(

Balance Changes - 10/10, bye Edgar begone. F for the twins, however; I liked them.

Random Stuff - 3/10, not even Pitched Fang can save us from whatever the devs were on.

Overall Season 24/25 is...

8/10! (Poop Spike ruined it >:( )

And that's it. For those who have read to the end, thank you so much for heating me ramble it means so much. Expect some headcanons and more little theories soon (as in some time this week). Until then, ciao!

[exercise-of-trust]

how it started -> how it's going:

(left: a 10-year-old sketch of a friend's oc; kiya if you're still out there i hope you're well. right: an éowyn from last year i'm much happier with now, lmao)

it's about a year since i really got back into posting fanart! and it's been a lot of fun and you all have been very nice, and i want to get the art bug out of my system before i tackle nanowrimo this year, so i'm taking art requests all through september! send me a character, get a drawing, i'll keep going until i get sick of it (or until october 1, whichever comes first).

guidelines? info? idk i've never done this before:

open for requests september 1 through september 30 (although i do reserve the right to quit early if it turns out i've wildly misjudged things)

everybody gets at least a flat-color headshot (digital or traditional), but you may end up with a rendered painting if i'm on a roll. we'll see how this goes!

similarly, the most i'll commit to up-front is a single character per request. you're also welcome to send in pairings if you like but a) poses with multiple people are way harder and i'm lazy and b) i'm an extremely picky bastard about shipping, so, like, be emotionally prepared to just get whichever half of your duo i like better ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

just to keep this sorta manageable i'm gonna say tolkien book characters only, but anything is fair game within that band - if you've got an obscure blorbo from the appendices, or a popular blorbo i never post about, now's your chance to send 'em in.

okay! think that's about it! if this goes well i might do it again next year; if it goes poorly we'll just pretend it never happened lol. have fun!

[misc-obeyme]

that fem villain mammon art makes me feel so many things, i went crazy when i saw it and my tags for it reflected that

LIKE I'LL JOIN YOUR SIDE ANY DAY MA'AM, JUST ONE CHANCE IS ALL I NEED PLEASE INCAN MAKE YOU SO HAPPY

if there was ever a curse where mammon got turned into a woman, I'd die on the spot. Solomon had an experiment that went wrong and now him and Mammon are affected (mcsolomams heart says it's because they were all hanging out together in his room)

I can only imagine what they would do if they both got turned 😭 team up and mess with me probably. please guys i am fragile, and i WILL run away and hide for my own sake. Like they think i get flustered now?? crank it up to ten. THEY'D GET A KICK OUT OF IT TOO !!! i hate them (said with sickening affection)

like the dame events had me in a chokehold. I can tell you I definitely dropped my phone and yelled when I saw the mammon card like HE HAS A THIGH ACCESSORY AND MESH PANELING AND LIPSTICK that i want to ruin WHO SAID RHAT

i am just a weak woman when it comes to pretty women *head in hands* it's the bisexual in me

anyway HOPE YOU'RE DOING WELL !!! work is breathing down our necks to meet our credit card goals, and my store manager is trying to plead for me and the replen manager to get a raise so HOPING !!! (IT WASN'T A RUMOR TECHNICALLY YIPPEE)

I've started giving my cashiers stickers for getting any kind of sign up or application and 😭 it's kinda endearing how excited some of them get. Like even the one's who seemed kinda skeptical/thought it was silly are immediate telling me over the walkie when they get something

barbatos giving mammon stickers when he gets good grades, or a shiny sticker and a kiss when it's an A grade

ALSO MY STORE MANAGER GAVE ME A $25 GIFT CARD TODAY AND BOUGHT US PIZZA BECAUSE I WAS WORKING THE MORNING FOR ONCE 😭 HE SAID THEY REALLY MISSED ME WHILE I WAS ON VACATION LOLOL

okay im done I think HAVE A GOOD DAY/NIGHT/AFTERNOON!!!!

OKAY RIGHT. The bisexual in me was also freaking out lol. I was like wow I don't think I've ever wanted anyone to step on me before, but FOR HER-

They would absolutely mess with you, there is no way that scenario could go down any other way lol. Like oh? You like us this way, huh? Let us show you just what we can do~

Cue heavy flirting and teasing and wow I would not be strong enough to resist them.

Oh yeah Mammon's dame card nearly killed me with his stupid thighs I was like EXCUSE YOU. How dare you, you were already pretty enough as a man, now you're gonna go ahead and hit me with the thigh bling??

OH YAY I hope they get you that raise!!! You deserve it!!

Listen, I would be thrilled if someone was giving me stickers for doing a good job. It's the simple human brain, we like rewards. I have a sticker system for when I'm actually writing my novels where I award myself a sticker for every 500 words I write. Needless to say they haven't seen any use in ages because I abandoned my novels for fanfic lol. I tried using them for that instead but it was harder because I never know how many words things are gonna end up. At least with novels I know it's gonna be over 50k so like 500 is a good goal for a daily amount. (And I always wrote more than that anyway so my little section gets full up with sparkly stars tee hee~)

Anyway, the point here is that stickers are fun and make people happy!

Now listen... Barb's rewards for Mammon are officially in smut town because of the tags you left on that fic, by the way. I was like OH. That's right, he did abandon his homework to come be with Barb and if Barbatos knew that...? Anyway part two is going to be posted soon and you'll see. Not me already thinking about part three, I have a problem.

YESSSS pizza!! This is the thing, employers don't know how much they rely on you until you're gone! LOL!

I hope you have a lovely day/night as well! 💕

[scoutbert]

Heyy idk if anyone here remembers me or cares but I figured I'd make a little life update just in case. And if not, maybe I'll just look back on it in a few years and smile.

I've had this blog for about ten years now. I was a freshman in high school when I began. It was memes, fandom, and the occasional depression. I even posted some pretty dark stuff a LOT of the time because I felt like I had nowhere else to vent.

Now I am 24. Twenty four!! I can't believe it. I lived!

I've been homeless, I've been traumatized. Went through a lot of stuff! If you like to feel sad and lurk, feel free to check out my tags for more context, haha. Some of it is pretty triggering and downright toxic so yeah take care of yourself.

But yeah. Twenty four. Sheesh. I am in a much better place now. I have an apartment with some friends and my partner. We have a little dog. I got a new car that I don't have to live in anymore. I work gigs like food delivery and dog walking. Money is always tight, but what else is new?

I still have a little problem with the booze and the weed, but I'm not searching for ways to destroy myself anymore. I don't seek chaos just because that's where i felt the most normal.

I'm learning to be okay with peace. And mediocrity. I used to- well, still do sometimes- compare myself to everyone I knew my age, people who had support systems I could never dream of, who went to college, and found their dream job. Who never wanted for anything. Always smiling.

I learned that it's not a competition. Life, that is. As long as I wake up every morning, I call that a win. It doesn't matter that this person from school makes six figures and already has a house and a kid. I get to wake up and walk dogs and look at trees and flowers, and I get to come home all sweaty and take a hot shower and make a sandwich. That's enough for me, for now. Much better than couch surfing and showering at planet fitness and eating gas station sandwiches.

Anyway. At the risk of overdoing it, I just wanna say thanks Tumblr. You were my anonymous diary for years. I received support from strangers I can never repay. I laughed at memes, made art, got in arguments about stupid shit.

I'm not leaving! Just expressing gratitude I never had. I am no longer full of hate. Just a morsel now, haha. There will always be a part of me that is bitter about everything I had to go through, and embarrassed at how I handled it. But I did my best and most people met me where I was at and accepted me anyways, even when I wasn't at my best. Thank you.

If I ever hurt you or exhausted you, thank you, and I am sorry.

Anyway. Yeah. Thanks. I'm doing okay. Good, even. Now that I'm not in crisis constantly- and I was in crisis for the better part of those ten years- I think I will find something I am passionate about, and work at exploring it. That sounds nice. :)

[thefrenchydude]

Game update #1

Hello everyone!

I would like to apologize for my absence. I've been quite busy lately and haven't had time to do what I wanted to do. The request I wanted to answer is still not finished and I haven't made that much progress on chapter 4. I'm truly sorry. But now that I've got two weeks to rest ahead of me, I intend to do what I love and finish what I set out to do.

Also, I'd like to talk about the VN and everything I've done so far:

About the game:

Firstly, I've written and coded some of the first part of the game, I still have to correct it, complete it, change a few things (and I'd like to implement an inventory and level system in this game, but I don't know how yet.).

The different routes:

Wukong and Macaque: The first two chapters have been implemented in the game.

No choice yet to change the story.

Arthur (temporary name) -a tiger demon-:

Chapter 1 completed with some choices and a finished combat phase.

Start of chapter 2 (in progress)

M??n Wuk?ng: A hidden path which is not fully developed as yet in the game.

The tea house and sauna routes are still not finished and doesn't have yanderes yet. I think for the tea house it could be a dragon and for the sauna I really have no idea right now :')

The game will have three main paths (triggered by a choice at the start of the game):

Murderous Lust (you're with Lex and you follow the story)

Variant 1 (Lex is dead and you're working with the Facility for Mother)

Variant 2 (Lex wants you dead and you're tracked by the Facility for having betrayed Mother)

About the art:

It was a lot more complicated than I thought. Firstly, I needed a furry artist at all costs (Wukong, macaque, ect… are demons with anthropomorphic designs, so a furry artist was the best option). I spent several afternoons looking for artists. On Discord, Twitter, Furafinity… It was so long and complicated. Either their style didn't match my project, or their commission were closed, or I couldn't trust them.

After a while, I found someone. I wasn't totally convinced by his style -although it was beautiful, I wasn't sure it would go well with my VN-. We started talking, he seemed interested… then nothing. With no response even after more than a week, I decided to give up and turn to another artist. So off I went again in search of an artist. Later, I found one. His style appealed to me and everything seemed okay with him. HOWEVER, there is something that I always do, I check all the artist's network. 1 - Because I like to do so and to know more about the person I can work with. 2- Because I don't want to work with a jerk. AND THIS ONE, it was a true specimen. He left hate messages on other artists' accounts, and I even found homophobic messages he'd left under the account of someone who'd asked him for commissions. I ran away from this creep.

And the more I searched, the more I lost hope of finding someone for this project. Maybe I was only going to be able to make a VN without art… I didn't like that idea at all, but if I couldn't find anyone, I had no choice.

Defeatist, I gave myself one last afternoon of searching. If I still couldn't find anyone, I was going to have to make up my mind. And then I came across an artist whose style attracted me. His works were beautiful and the more I searched through his accounts, the more I liked this person.

So I went ahead and contacted him, I was so stressed about getting a negative response or no response at all. But the artist got back to me. He's a really cool guy and he draws so fucking good ijnreijnevineinzijnoznfiojfnipnlckd.

The first commission should be ordered early this month. I'm so happy to have finally found the perfect artist for the job!

----------------

One rather important question: Will there be any NSFW? After a lot of thought, yes. There will be scenes like that in the game.

Sorry again for the absence, but I'm very busy with the VN. Thanks to everyone who sends me love through questions or private messages, I love you! It really makes me feel great, and I can't thanks y'all enough for that.

next>

[juhbebbie]

Okayyyyy so City of the Dead thoughts for anyone who cares

Was I disappointed? My expectations weren't super high so I guess not, but the super overdramatic self pitying narration threw me off quite a bit. Like okay man chill out a bit. Kind of expected to not see Layla until the end so I guess there I was disappointed but not surprised. Fingers crossed she will be a central character from here on out and not a one and done thing in the series.

Okay elephant in the room time. I know a lot of people have been saying they REALLY did not like it and I really cannot blame them, but also I'm trying to stay hopeful because it just the first issue. I'm hesitant to get pissed off over the total lack of Jake and Steven just yet, when in Mackay's series neither made an appearance until like a year into the run. Yes this series isn't going to be nearly as long, but still. That being said, no I definitely don't expect Moon Knight to really be shown as a system, but I'm gonna give Prepose a couple more issues to prove me wrong (the bar is on the floor). Mainly just because I feel like it would be hypocritical of me to denounce Prepose for not including them and then praise Mackay when it took him 12 issues to really acknowledge that they are a system. I'm going to give Prepose a chance since he wrote a pretty good Black, White, and Blood story that did have them shown as a system in a pretty cool way imo.

All this to say that I'm not trying to undermine anyone else's concerns, this is just my own opinion and trust me, based on what little interviews I've read I fully expect Jake and Steven to be completely ignored and if (and when) that happens I will be right there with the rest of yall lol. I will say that it's already very clear that the set up so far was not written with the intention of having a place for Steven or Jake, which is very disappointing.

Okay positive things! I enjoyed seeing Dr Badr a lot and i didn't have much of an issue with how he and Marc's relationship was portrayed. Yes in the main run they're closer now, but they are still very much at odds but willing to work together towards a common goal, which is exactly what we see here in this issue.

I also liked where the thing with the kid is going. The detail of him being kicked out after his brother's death definitely makes me think he's going to be a reflection of Marc, which would be a cool parallel to have.

And the art for the most part was really gorgeous! I don't know what the hell was going on with Layla there at the end (otherwise great male artists not knowing how to draw women), but other than that I REALLY loved how the actual city looked.

And the Egyptian mythology was actually a lot more accurate than it usually is, which, as someone who has always been a total nerd about that stuff, actually made me really happy. There are several specific things I wanted to point out but this post is long enough as is.

Also. "I don't care if I burn" that was badass as shit come on. One of the (admittedly several!) moments of overdramatic writing that came off very well kind of like how it does in the Mackay run (don't wanna compare this too much to the Mackay run though because I understand it's obviously going to be different and that's fine)

But yeah. The overall feel and tone was very... off. I was on board with the general plot and Marc's motivations but everything around the basic plot structure just seemed like Prepose was trying to do a weird Huston run thing and it wasn't working (I don't think it worked in the Huston run either but I digress).

I've seen people saying that they didn't like how Marc was an enthusiastic follower of Khonshu, but that wasn't really the vibe I got at all? If anything it was pretty clear how much he hated everything he was doing. Which also kinda felt off. Having him say that everything was "punishment" over and over just kind of felt like I was getting hit on the head with a theme that didn't even make sense for the character, at least not at this point. Don't get me wrong, self punishment is absolutely a big part of Marc Spector's character, but there is an important distinction between doing things to right your past wrongs and doing them because you feel like you deserve it. And it seemed like Prepose understood that at first, but then later into the issue I was like Marc PLEASE shut the fuck up about punishment lol.

People more knowledgeable than myself have said things about how this looks from the standpoint that this is also a Jewish character, but all I'm going to say as a general statement for all of Moon Knight's runs is that I wish they would let him be explicitly Jewish more often. It's mentioned in Mackay's run the clash between Marc's service to Khonshu and his Judaism, but I think that that is such an interesting part of his character that needs to be discussed WAY more!

Anyway, to make a long story short, definitely not the strongest first issue, but it absolutely had some great moments and I'm going to go forward with my expectations still pretty low, but willing to give it a shot for Layla's sake. But the fact that a run featuring Layla is already not turning out to be very good is a little bit heartbreaking for me I'm not gonna lie lol. I was going to go and buy myself a copy of this issue, but after actually reading it I didn't really want it anymore. So 😬 fingers crossed for the next issue I guess?

[casketscratch]

Everything went fantastically and I love this horse more than anything in the world already (other than my cats).

The guy doing the actual therapy was really great -- I was honest about the DID, and I was honest about what's been on my mind lately, and what kind of injuries I've been dealing with. He's an ex-military medic who has Seen Some Shit and was absolutely unfazed by anything I brought up.

It's a little more... feel-y? Than I'm used to with therapy? At the end he had a deck of horse art cards and asked me to find one I "felt" and I pulled out a herd of horses and we went through why that one felt any particular way, and I talked about being a system and how it often feels like a herd of uncontrollable horses I'm worried will stampede at any given moment, kind of thing. But that's fine, it was nice to just. Be honest for once and let myself get into that narrative mode, I think.

But the horse is great. I got to go around and meet all of them, and eventually she was sort of nudging all the others away and chewing on my sweater for attention. The guy said she had a history of being too curious for her own good, got injured once trying to escape an enclosure and needed two years of care to fix her leg, and she'd been rescued from a meat auction, and I was immediately just like... yeah girl, I get that. Talked a bit about the times I ran away and ended up with more injuries than I'd started with.

And it is true what they say, about horses picking up on feelings. I started talking about my history in really loose terms, started getting overwhelmed and anxious, and she started mouthing at the guy's jacket a bit. So the guy walked me through like, now watch, see how she's yawning and passing that energy through her, see how she's settling down, and now you can do that with her and ground a bit again. And he was. Correct? I'm not gonna get into emotional regulation theory via equine assisted psychoanalysis on this blog or anything but it worked and I'm surprised and really, really want to go back already.

So I think it's gonna be okay. I'm gonna keep trying.

Also she is so pretty look at that face 😭

[dropintomanga]

Does Shonen Jump Really Have to Be the Grand Goal?

"The first place I submitted a manga to was Shonen Jump. I want to brag to the me back then, saying that I’m a Jump challenger now!" - Ken Wakui

Even though I'm in my '40s, I still love Shonen Jump stuff. I grew up on Dragon Ball. From Naruto to Demon Slayer to My Hero Academia to whatever's next, I've been there and will continue to see what Jump does. I remember once upon a time where the future of Shonen Jump was somewhat in question before My Hero Academia blew up.

Yet lately and especially after My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen ended, I've been thinking about fans who grow up via Shonen Jump series and wanting to be a part of the phenomenon. What if they want to be mangaka for the same magazine that drove their youth?

But what if those same folks got rejected? What if they learned that Shonen Jump isn't the be-it end-all of manga?

The best example of a Shonen Jump rejected mangaka is Hajime Isayama of Attack on Titan. Once told by Shueisha editorial to change things to his story and art in his submission for Attack on Titan, Isayama went to Kodansha Publishing instead. And you can say the rest was history.

Now we have another 2nd example in Ken Wakui, whose hit manga, Tokyo Revengers, became a global phenomenon. He tried to get a manga into Shonen Jump a long time ago, but was rejected. Wakui said that editorial told him to draw his story elsewhere where they would appreciate his interests. Wakui would go on to Kodansha and start off with Shinjuku Swan before creating Tokyo Revengers. He's currently back on Shonen Jump with Astro Royale, which is a story about a young heir to a yakuza family trying to help the world after a meteor hit the planet and gave a lot of people superpowers.

One can argue that Wakui went from, in the theme of WWE Superstar Cody Rhodes, undesirable to undeniable. Astro Royale has only been around since April 2024, but it's clear that Wakui intends to be a main-stay in Jump. He sounded like he always wanted to be a part of Shonen Jump.

And now I think about fans turned artists who aspire to draw for Shonen Jump. Over the summer, I've noticed how many artists tried to pitch manga ideas to manga industry professionals at U.S. anime conventions. Viz Media has taken notice of this demand and started a program for one-shot manga for future manga artists. Yet I sometimes wonder how many of them know what it actually takes to make it to Jump.

And I think about this statement from Takehiko Inoue in an interview alongside Akira Toriyama spotlighting 50 years of Shonen Jump in 2018.

Then I see threads like this one on Reddit about whether it's okay to apply for Shonen Jump after having experience on other platforms like Webtoons.

It sounds like things haven't changed. Some people still find so much value in the Jump brand.

That's why I want to say that it's okay to draw for other publishers and outlets (especially for Japanese creators). The thing is about people who follow Jump (especially here in the West) can be a bit insular with their manga tastes. You get an exciting breadth of manga, but it's not the full picture. There's also exposure to some of the nasty aspects of shonen fandom like leak/spoiler culture. Another thing is that fans love to compare shonen titles (past and present) quite a lot. Some are still obsessed with a "Big 3" ideal that isn't highly relevant anymore.

Sure, there's a lot of fame and attention with being associated with Jump. But creators have to deal with the vicious weekly ranking system where deserving stories sometimes get the axe out of nowhere. There's also the problem of trying to end the story the way you want and not being able to because popularity has a curse in where certain plots get throw aside and the main plot gets drawn out longer than it should. I sometimes argue that Shueisha series focus a bit too much on style over substance at times.

That's why I appreciate the American Manga Awards. The staff behind the ceremony have done a great job in acknowledging manga from all genres and publishers (not just Viz Media's Shonen Jump). Mangaka have shown appreciation in knowing that they're being recognized by folks who know the manga world is more than just Jump. Shonen Jump may have started it all for many of us and provided value in our lives. One can use that value in a way to help promote non-Jump and other non-mainstream stories that are worthy of recognition.

The beauty of manga, whether it's the creator side or the fan side, is that there's something for everyone of all kinds of backgrounds. That should be the grand goal to promote when it comes to making manga and showcasing its rich diverseness. Manga comes from all kinds of notable places, not just the brand names.