#or at least redesign it in a way that doesnt just make them a completely different person.

[ganondoodle]

(oh hey, we didnt have a long rant in a while, this wasnt supposed to be so long, as per usual with me ... i looked up some refs of the botw sonau ruins since i wanted to see how to combine its design to my sonau design in my totk rewrite- and this happened ... in case this sounds too angry or aggressive, its not meant like that, im not imploding about it, its just frustrating and annoying to me)

i have a problem with pretty much every inch of totk, and theres lots of big problems, and lots of things i find absolutely bafflingly stupid decisions-

one bafflingly weird and stupid decision to me, though there are way more important ones, is the nigh complete seperation from botw sonau (zonai) design aesthetic and totk sonau design aesthetic- its so .. weird and utterly unecessary it will never stop bothering me, its one that has relatively little impact in development but huge impact on the believability of the world

you have these ancient ruins of long gone people (that imo should have stayed a mystery, since that sense of lost history you cannot grasp makes both the world more believable and real feeling and will never let you stop thinking about, if you care about that kind of stuff at least- but i talked about that in length before im sure), but whats left leaves you still with a pretty clear design aesthetic, at least in the buildings that remain (the armor less so bc it really doesnt look like anythign ancient and just doesnt really fit together)

and then you make a game around them- but ... completely redesign their aesthetic .... in a rather big contrast too, for literally NO reason, there is not a single reason to do that, not even the excuse of trying to seperate the two games in their core aesthetic (like in the case of the shiekah- though that too is stupid bc ITS A DIRECT SEQUEL- IF YOU DONT WANT TO MAKE MORE OF THAT DESIGN THEME or leave it in for that matter THATS CORE TO THE PREVIOUS GAME DONT MAKE IT A DIRECT SEQUEL YOU DUM-) can do any work here, the botw sonau ruins werent many, it was background stuff, it wasnt a main theme and it didnt carry any importance in the game itself

like, botw sonau architecture was dark stone with red highlights (a color that usually fades rather quickly, imagine how strong it had to be once, maybe it was even more colorful at some point), bird, boar and dragon carvings, torches in bird shape, alot of swirls and round patterns among the blockier rough shapes, its was pretty detailed with patterns and pictures all over it --

totk sonau? blendingly white stone, all blocky shapes like unfinished blender models, not a swirl to be found, green hologram lights (or cold white light, i dont think there are any totk sonau torches, just those weird candle things- most light sources are lamps in impeccable shape all giving off that cold white light) and gold blocky script, theres rarely alot of detail on them, the pattern most often present beign a scale pattern ... one which i dont remember appearing anywhere on the botw sonau ruins in that way/that often, the only animal motif is a dragon head every now and then and it honestly feels tacked on, like they scrambled to try and connect the two in any way shape or form, white gold and green, theres nothing red anywhere, they neither connect to the botw sonau architecture nor to the one armor set- or its description, totk sonau have nothing to do with the phirone (faron) region (aside from that one quest that could have been placed anywhere), they are weirdly modern and techy, theres nothing "barbaric", not even their clothes are in any way connected (im so sick of all that gold tbh) even their magic isnt really .. magical, it all feels like science fiction type tech stuff (even though they said they wanted it to feel magical, couldnt be further from that tbh) the design of their magic symbols dont line up with their own building aesthetic or anyone elses even, its so messy

if you do the quest to get the fith sage its even more apparent- its the direct contrast between botw and totk sonau, its like a cut into a mod, theres no overlap, you cant argue that its bc the botw ruins where exposed to the elements and thats why the color differs- the totk sonau ruins left to rot both in the underground and in the literal sky are all just as if not more exposed, yet they all remain in rather good shape, all keeping the white and often completely colorless look, most damage being just some clumps of mold (?) or something having fallen over, and if they were protected so their color didnt change? wheres the red? the colors all should be in pristine shape then but its not bc there is no color

their excuse of "uuuh the hylians build those things in honor of the sonau!!" they tried to give doesnt work, like all other excuses, if they did why the hell does it look so different? sonau stuff was all over the place, you have the blueprints right there, WHY even build it? in those regions nonetheless that were of pretty little importance as far as we know, if this were the case they should be on the forgotten plateau or around hyrule castle but they are not- ALSO if the hylians built them for them .. so after they died out .. why then is there some weird mechanism with their actual aesthetic there in the ones in phirone? if they built it while they were still there ... why make it look so different?? ADDITIONALLY hyrules style of architecture is closer to the totk sonau one than the botw sonau so you cant even say it was influenced by their own style bc botws sonau is more different than both of them

it also adds to the .. feeling of something being off about the entire game (like it felt to me even shortly after starting to play), while i dont want to touch on the stupidness of how they handled totk shrines since thats another long rant i already did before, the sudden appearance of totk sonau style stuff literally everywhere (and the disappearance of anything not plot relevant shiekah bc it just went poof according to interviews and neither that nonsensical excuse nor anything in the game making sense- bc in the end they just wanted it gone and didnt care) would seem LESS weird if it was in the style of botw sonau, you know that style, its been here the whole time and more of it appearing would seem much less jarring, even if it doing so in completely non sensical ways- it would at least lessen that weirdness

i do not get why you would do that, did your designers have nothing to do so you made them make an entirely new aesthetic? did you not want your holy perfectly goodest god king to be anything but the most clean and kingly looking so you didnt even go for the barbaric idea from botw?(which i am not a fan of either) bc of course someone supposed to fill the role of perfect example of how to be good king of holy hyrule to zelda couldnt look "primitive"? was that given to the ancient hylians instead? with their designs going, to me, rather close to a mix of native american and ancient greek aesthetic (uh oh)- to contrast them to your superior alien that brought the idiots on earth technology since we didnt have enough tired tropes in here already? thought that design theme was more sellable? simply didnt care? (tbh, most likely in my eyes given the carelesness of the game to connect in any way to botw, much less in a meaningful one)

(those where written like questions but i dont expect anyone to answers for, it just sounds better)

[jennrypan]

Ya know..there's redesigns of characters you like to give them a similarity to you (I do it with characters by making them black cuz i like seeing what theyd look like black but you can still tell who they are visually)

But like..if the character isn't even recognizable cuz you adorned it with a bunch of random shit like a polly pocket. It's just an oc at that point?? (I was guilty of this at some point.) Like..just make an oc if you wanna see a character so much like you, cuz you're changing the entire characters personality and appearance until it's just YOU.

Making ocs are fun and freeing.

[zluty-spendlik]

WAKFU REDESIGN SERIES PART 3 - ADAMAÏ

Hiya, Im back lmaooo - took me long enough

I have been struggling with Ad's and Am's design so much. I dont know why. With Amalia, Im going to have to start over- again- 4th times the charm Im sure - but I finally finished this little guy!

ADAMAÏ IS MY FAVORITE CHARACTER GUYS IM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS I LOVE HIM SM

But anyway, here is the final (human form) design:

Im aware he has multiple forms since hes, you know, a shapeshifter, and Im going to add them i promise but im like super tired and burnt out from the rest of my mortal life rn

Anyway, to the DESIGN.

Honestly, Adamais og design kinda sucks. Im sorry (not rlly). He doesnt look similar to Yugo at all - YES I KNOW HES A DRAGON - which bothers me a lot, even his color scheme is a lot different from his literal twin...

In my version, I wanted Ad to look deer-like at first, since I gave Yugo deer features, but then I drew him over and over again until I got this fusion of a moth and a lamb or smthing..

I don't know, but I really like it!

The outfit he's wearing is actually what I plan to be an official eliatrope/dragon robe? Both Grougal and Qilby will be wearing it and - potentially - Yugo in season 3. It has some portal imagery (the spiral on the back), and I don't know I just think it's neat!

ALSO WAKFU FRECKLES-

Season 1

Ad has been raised by Grougaloragran (least complicated name ever, wtf Ankama :3) and with Eliatrope/Dragon traditions, so hes very knowledgable of the now dead culture and values it very much. He loves talking to Yugo about it (he gets almost bored sometimes, but he would never admit it to Adamaï).

He, just like Yugo, is extremely curious and loves studying the way Wakfu works and its limits.

And mainly, he loves Grougal, whom he sees as an idol and a father figure. Which is why hes so hurt when he gets killed by Nox.

It feels like the whole world is collapsing on him. His mentor, care-taker, father, LITERALLY THE ONLY OTHER "PERSON" HE EVER INTERACTED WITH AND THE ONLY OTHER DRAGON ALIVE, is gone.

Adamaï has noone. Well- almost noone. Theres this little 12 year old Eliatrope, his only hope, his only anchor.

And he asks you: "Uh, sorry, whats your name again?"

Season 2

HAHSHA LETS TRAUMATIZE THE BOY!! (Even more than he is) Like I said, Adamaï values his culture and people very much, so I assume he would get very, I mean extremely attached to Yugo. However, Yugo is not actually interested in the same things Adamaï is interested in, which makes him a little bit more avoidable of Ad than he should be, given his emotional state.

Not that we blame him. So instead Ad seeks out a new anchor, a new mentor, a new... idol. Who is that you may ask?

Well, it's Qilby of course. Now here's where the funny trauma part happens, because Adamaï starts blurring the line between Grougal and Qilby.

Qilby's mistakes suddenly don't matter as much because Adamaï cares about him as much as he cared about Grougaloragran even though they don't know each other that long (which is the core of the problem).

Anything he'll be does that is morally questionable suddenly isn't bad, because that's not the mentor that Adamaï was raised with ‐ he trust Grougal completely, so why should Qilby be aby different?

So when Qilby betrays him, Adamaï is all the more surprised and hurt. It doesn't help that he really doesn't want to hurt Qilby: Even though he finally realizes that Qilby is a bad person, Adamaï still sees him as an anchor. He might be bad, but other than Yugo he's the only other person Adamaï has.

So of course he loses the fight, of course he gets captured – he doesn't actually want Qilby to get hurt.

Season 3-4 (5?)

Okay let's make one thing clear, I'm a bit of a hater.

Like I genuinely really dislike season 3 and what it has going on with making Adamaï a villain? I really don't think it fits his character, and I would much prefer for the story to have Yugo and Ad grow closer and revive their culture despite all the horrors and terrible things that have been bestowed up on them - But the writers have decided to go the obvious evil twin route which honestly makes my blood boil..

so I don't think I will be even considering rewriting season 3? I think to make it likeable for myself - as this is a self-indulgent project - I would just have to make my own season 3?

If that makes sense?

Art dump!! (Seriously my sketchbook is filled w this lil guy, these r hand picked) And- woah, is that Cleophée redesign? Maybeee~

@saturnyukaa i was looking forward to ur reaction 👉👈

[nondienary]

i saw this post sharing designs of the infinights in GL2 and it inspired me to share my own! enjoy (i guess)

and obligatory spoilery rambling warning because character design makes me so happy

starting off strong with kyborg!

details i enjoy- his blue hairties and gold ear cuff are inspired by the ones he has in the picture on the home page of the stinky dragon wiki. im especially happy with the ear cuff because it turned out way better than i expected.

i also really like the arm (and yes i know he doesnt have the diagem in it anymore but it needed some pizazz! said pizazz made me temporarily hate myself because it used up his 4th face accessory slot but i don't even remember what other face accessory i wanted for him anymore :P)

also his boots. idk why but i like them

his hair!! i went through a bunch of styles and chose this one and i'm glad i did because this is a pretty accurate representation of how i imagine his hair, including the color! his mom was a redhead so ya boi is a strawberry blond (ish)

details i do NOT enjoy- the fact that gl2 doesnt have a hip quiver :( because i had to add the quiver to his back but that took up his second cape slot so he couldnt have his cloak of many fashions. and also even if i could give it to him w the back quiver i would still want a hip quiver because i imagine him with a hip quiver! because you can't do somersaults barrel rolls with a quiver on your back!

anyway

i probably should have made these separate posts but oh well you signed up for rambling and rambling is what you get!

next up: mudd!

loml

details i enjoy: his cloak, i spent ages on it because i was overthinking what to do with his cloak of billowing vs his cloak of the secret garden (?) but i'm very happy with what i settled on

the detail in the undercut drove me crazy because again, characters are limited to 4 cace accessory and i was using one for the runes in the undercut. which i obviously changed but that brought me so much pain and misery /lh

im so happy with how his face, especially his eyes turned out because again, i struggled with them for some time. but now his face is SO perfect. except the lack of sideburns.. maybe something with the side hairs? i keep forgetting that's an option in this game

the little daisy earring. spur of the moment addition, so glad i did it.

details i do NOT enjoy: his outfit :( for all the others i knew what i was going for but with mudd i had no clue other than the cloak. it's based off his puppet outfit because i legitimately couldn't think of what he'd wear. i like the shoes and choice of belt but between this and the sideburns mudd is definitely next in line for a redesign

ok someone who was just redesigned is gum gum!

details i enjoy: his face. that is such a gum gum face. wish i couldve added bigger tusks though. and the lil smudge of dirt on his cheek!!!

silly almost easter egg i added is that each of the colors of the rainbow is in his design at least once because dia's whole thing is rainbows and light and stuff. at first i just had it in the accessories and his whole outfit was blue pretty much but i looked at bart after completing all the accessories and i was like GODDAMMIT he has all the colors. and it's actually incorporated into the outfit AND it looks really good.

the fact that vee and i both designed his hat nearly exactly the same completely independently of each other is so epic.

i originally came up with the shoulder flower while working on mudd but i was like "oh wait gum gum's the flowers guy mudd's the animals guy." and gave it to him instead. and i'm very glad i did it fills in that space in the cloak very well.

speaking of the cloak, i very much enjoy it

things i do NOT enjoy:

honest, nothing comes to mind! maybe it's because he was the most recent to get revamped but its so wonderfully gum gum.

and last, and maybe least in stature but not in much else, bart!

things i enjoy about this design: the little thigh dagger. bart is totally the kind of man to strap a dagger to his thigh instead of just attaching the sheath to the belt like a normal person

i made him VERY visibly part dragonborn because it's honestly hilarious. because gum gum has known bart since he was a baby, he knows bart's just Like that. kyborg hadn't interacted with another person in like 30 years before he met them and mudd had probably never seen a halfling in his life, and even if he had, he wasn't just gonna have his first conversation with the guy be "i don't believe you when you say what race you are." tbh mudd's probably applies to kyborg as well. and bart assumed its just because of the different subraces of halfling. he's a stout halfling, alleve is a lightfoot halfling, no wonder she doesn't look like him!

also the hem of the pants is so fun and piratey and i love it and it's perfect.

i also gave him a crystal resembling his diagem, i haven't decided what's going on with that yet. i didn't give mudd one because no way in hell am i trying to make a ring WITH a diagem in it. how about no :3

things i do NOT enjoy: gl2 doesn't have enough curly hair options, specifically for rear hair. so bart's hair in this is not as accurate in this to my mind's eye as the others. its alright it does look good regardless

and that's all ive got in terms of commentary, please enjoy me talking about my silly little hyperfixation guys. byebye!

[poohwhin]

|| My Ocs From Different Fandoms

tagged by: @fruit-of-infidelity

tagging: no one bc my friends have all already been tagged >:( but if you see this: DO IT 🔫

HI HI HI. I HAVE MILLIONS OF OCS THAT I CARE FOR AND LOVE VERY VERY MUCH, EVEN IF I DONT HAVE DEDICATED BLOGS FOR THEM! (and those that have been forgotten bc i’ve become unhappy with them, bUT THATS NOT THE POINT! ANYWAYS!)

Also this art I’ve found is OLD. eat my ass /lh

Also (x2)! A few of these were made in sort of a story I’d sometimes talk abt with a friend! But since we don’t talk much anymore, I’ve kind reworked my ocs into their own thing. (or made an attempt to without just completely redoing them).

(I won’t ramble too much these it but I want to pls enable me to do so)

I. Virek Sutcliffe (Diabolik Lovers)

Are: 18

Species: Human

Pronouns: He/Him

Desc. AHHHH MY SWEET BABY BOY. Probably my most known oc idk. BUT YEAH. he acts as an alternate protagonist after you complete all the contact in the More, Blood game :D He’s a former experiment, who ended up in Kaminashi completely by chance. It’s the similar case of “wrong place, wrong time”, except with Virek comes a lot more chaos than usual. My entire purpose for him was to incite more animosity between the families, and indirectly cause Karl’s plans to absolutely fail. (which in the end he’s happy about bc he hates that guy).

but yeah. he’s a silent, odd, and downright IRRELEVANT and MISSABLE character, but so much so that he attracts chaos and eeriness and just freaks some of these guys out in the worst way. yeah :) (no art bc im still redesigning him).

II. Rowhin (Diabolik Lovers)

Age: 19

Species: Questionable!

Pronouns: They/Them

Desc. It’s a self insert imma be so honest. Its a s/i for richter bc i am down TREMENDOUSLY and delusional 😞 They act as a servant for them bc they met him at a convenient time. Technically they’re supposed to be helping him advance his plans to reunite with Cordelia. But you know. things don’t go that way and those two silly fucks end up catching a tiny teaspoon of feelings. (In which Richter will never actually admit bc it’s RICHTER. but i’m delusional and greedy so i can do what i want 🙄🤷)

(no art bc i hate my previous designs; drawing myself makes me so picky).

III. Avard (Genshin Impact)

Age: Not specific (between 20 and 30)

Species: Human

Vision: Anemo

Origins: Khaenri’ah (birth), Monstadt (raised)

Desc: Yes ik I said his vision is anemo but in the photo is cryo. there’s a reason for that its bc he’s faking that’s not his. ANYWAYS. Bro’s technically from Khaenri’ah, but remembers absolutely nothing (and probably never will)— So he doesn’t consider it home since he has no connection to it.

Instead he was raised by a father and son in Springvale. But unfortunately after getting in between a father/son quarrel and trying to prevent it from escalating, he obtained a vision ‼️ and ofc nothing goes right and he couldn’t actually gain control over it, so he did de-escalate it. his adoptive father and newfound best friend died 🤷

so he ran away, changed his appearance and his name, and became sort of a scholar?? not really. he just wants to find some kind of answer as to why he feels out of place. he’s one of those characters that’s on the road with traveler a lot, but doesnt actually get involved unless it’s useful for him.

IV. Khalid (Genshin Impact)

Age: Not specific (mid 20s — early 30s)

Origins: Sumeru

Vision: Electro

Pronouns: Hey/They

Desc: Bro’s a ghost. Okay not like. Fr a ghost. But he’s like. NEVER SEEN?? He had one terrible day during early akademiya days and said “guess i’ll die” /j. He’s technically a Haravatat scholar, despite his methods of doing things being more fitted for Rtawahist; he just joined the former bc it had the least amount of students to worry about.

He keeps to himself mostly, rarely every actually being seen at the Akademiya. (he’s there he just. doesn’t wanna be noticed 😭 people do NOT like this man). People also refuse to believe that he’s the author behind all of these genuinely well done and thought out articles bc they think he’s a wacko, whatever. 😭 Bro refuses most of his summons unless he feels like coming, and just spends time stargazing, thats if. Bro’s a nerd 😞

Oh also his vision story is very stupid. Bro electrocuted himself with a toaster one day, said fuck it, and found his vision lying on his doorstep whenever he went outside again.

V. Zone (One Piece)

Age: Late 20s

Species: Human

Affiliation: Marines

Devil Fruit: None

Pronouns: He/They

Desc. Bro’s just a marine idk what to tell you. NAH BUT ‼️ He used to be affiliated w Doflamingo’s crew. But after a friend he made turned him over to the marines as a kid (they didn’t wanna see him grow up to be like Doffy. as they should’ve) Zone was just raised to be a marine.

Which is like cool whatever. Yada yada bro grows up training w them. BUT THEN WHENEVER HE TURNS LIKE?? 23?? BRO GETS DRAFTED INTO THE SAME DIVISION SMOKER IS IN AND LOSES HIS MIND 😭 Bro is aggressively homosexual for captain smoker and that is his ONLY personality trait /j

nah but he’s one of those people who’s super loud, energetic, and obnoxious. but then when he’s fighting or focused he’s eerily quiet. everyone’s like “damn i guess he can be serious.” (they take those words back as soon as work is finished).

VI. Nero (Fandomless)

Age: Unknown, (early to mid 20s physically)

Species: Vampire

Pronouns: They/He

Desc. Previously a DL oc, i made him fandomless just for my own mental health. BUT! Nero is a Vampire & an artist. He specialises in painting and sculpting, and has made some of the most beautiful things the underworld has ever seen. Except none are marketed as his.

He was taken in by a prominent family of artists, who are going through a dilemma when the eldest son just ABSOLUTELY SUCKS. So in exchange for a home, and the ability to do what he likes, he acts as a secret proxy for the eldest. But yada yada things happen and an ‘accident’ ends up taking place, and Nero is taken in by someone else. Bro has to regain his love for the arts again, while also learning to be treated as something MORE than just a set of hands to make things :). (also i hate this design sm i wanna change it).

VII. Rook (Fandomless)

Age: Unknown

Species: Also Unknown

Pronouns: Literally make them up Rook does NOT care

Desc. There’s not much too Rook other than them being a jester who pulls lethal silly pranks by trapping people in playing cards and swapping them around! Nah but to be completely serious, i love playing around w just full fantastical and magical characters, and Rook is one of them. Bro is technically a criminal, but hey they’re a jester you can’t arrest them!!!! it’s just a joke!!!

They wander around to every which place and just have a grand ‘ole time toying with people. But sometimes they will trap you inside of a playing card and use you for a trick! You may die! But it’s fine it’s just a joke!!!—

Oh! And they don’t speak. They only jingle. They got jingly shoes, jingly hat. Yeah. (also idk if that is a mask, or just their face. Make smth up).

IX. Bonnie (Fandomless)

Age: mid 20s

Species: Human

Pronouns: They/Them

Desc: I don’t have a drawn out design for them, but I do have some general thoughts!! They live on a planet who’s population is incredibly advanced. BUT! Their basically a nobleman im a highly futuristic society, that has a general distaste of cyborgs. (Even minor things like bionic limbs). Unfortunately for them, they have a bionic eye (well its more like those things you see in dragon ball. but whatever) 🤷. Oops, big ‘ole issue when you’re the child of a man who has to run an entire planet’s population‼️

VIII. Pyro (Fandomless)

Age: 26-ish (probably older??)

Species: Alien (humanoid, technically. but he is supposed to be a fire guy)

Pronouns: Hey/They (wouldn’t care if any others are used though).

Companion: Kalixo (added him bc i love this little dude and him and Pyro are a PACKAGE DEAL)

Desc: In the same universe as Bonnie ‼️ He’s a fire-oriented alien from a planet of different elemental guys, who each specialise in their own type of art. His specifically being welding/engineering. Unfortunately bro’s planet was DECIMATED when he was a child, BUT DON’T LOSE HOPE— he can just rebuild it 🙄 bc building is what he does 🙄 he’s just a funny, silly, heart on his sleeve guy who adores building.

Like Bonnie, he also has bionic body parts :D specifically mechanical legs! As a kid, he had a condition that made his legs increasingly weaker as he grew, so being the amateur master craftsman he was, he just made himself new ones. AND they’re fire powered because he’s cool 🤷 ( also his human form isnt what he actually looks like. his family specifically just chooses it bc fire is scary to others!)

ALSO! HE HAS A CAT. bro has a cat named Kalixo, who’s just a wandering spirit that likes being a cat form and being lazy and doted on. bro met pyro bc pyro was DUMB and ran into him (kicked him) by accident and cried for hours. Now he follows him around and acts as a voice of reason to keep pyro from being too STUPID.

X. Ezekiel (Fandomless)

Age: Unknown (thousands of years old)

Species: Vampire

Pronouns: He/Him

Desc. A lot of my followers came here from DL, so vampires should be your thing. HOWEVER! EZEKIEL HERE IS A BIG ‘OLE BABY. A vampire who refuses to drink blood from humans, because be doesn’t want to put himself, or anyone else, in that kind of vulnerable position. He also: is a recluse. Seriously, a HERMIT. He holds himself up in an abandoned library that full of spirits and ghosts, and does not LEAVE.

He also doesn’t speak. He passes notes. And if you somehow stumble in he will HIDE FROM YOU and maybe throw paper balls at you until you leave :3

[mad-hats]

starred wars. full reign. all of starring wars.

Oh god… where do I even start do you realize how many characters are in Star Wars? How many blorbos and glup shittos fit in there?? This will be very long I apologize in advance.

Blorbo: honestly I have quite a few favorites I think. Probably Boba Fett mostly as of late though if not just because bobf has been eating at my brain. I am obsessed with his characterization like they took a random fucking guy the Fanboys™️ clung to and made him such an interesting character. Ahsoka is a blorbo too just because there is so much to think abt with her…. Oh and Omega I think of her way too much but I’ll discuss that more in poor little meow meows.

Scrunkly: hm. You know this is actually kind of hard. I’m just gonna say Din though my tin can man I admit he’s not actually scrunkly or baby but he is shaped and sometimes I want to throw a slice of cheese at his helmet because I think his confused reaction would be funny. Oh Echo is also shaped and my special guy. Not rlly scrunkly or a baby again but I think being an armored cyborg is perhaps one of the most shaped things you can do. He’s cute though I want to completely redesign his ugly whitewashed design and give him a gun attachment for his arm he deserves it <3

Scrimblo Bimblo: Max fucking Rebo my blue little guy rip j*zz legend you will be missed😔BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY Finn and Rose they were sidelined so hard and Star Wars has a nasty habit of doing this with their compelling poc characters my god they deserved such better writing and screen time and literally Everything. Oh also K-2SO? He was iconic in Rogue One literally one of my favorite droids and I think Rogue One should be discussed more in general but I just thought K-2was neat :]

Glup Shitto: That hot turquoise twi’lek guy from bobf. He doesn’t have a name but he is trans and he seems nice :]. Literally any handmaiden. They had to deal with So much. Basically any minor character from tcw because no one else knows who they are but I would freak out if they were mentioned. Bossk was in the originals too but if boba so much mentions him in the new content I will Talk Extensively about it.

Poor Little Meow Meow: Maul lol. He’s very popular he’s just such a weird evil fucked up terrifying but also kind of pathetic little guy. Uhhhh also Omega! She’s fine she’s just mildly controversial because the tbb writing was lacking to say the least and a lot of people thought she was annoying and doesnt make sense in the big picture and I get that but I can fix her. Oh and Commander Fox! He’s not pathetic or anything and didn’t even have much of an appearance but he is kinda controversial. A good chunk of the tcw fandom Hates him because killed Fives but I will defend him anyway, like I love Fives so so much but Fox did what he thought he had to do it’s all very nuanced you can learn more by sending me Star Wars sideblog asks someone please-

Horse Plinko: Tech and Crosshair in a fairly lighthearted way like they’re still clones so I’ll always support them to an extent but their designs are so so ugly and I like bullying them in discord servers. Less lighthearted with Cross though he’s kind of a dick. Obi-Wan in a lighthearted way too because he’s fun to see in pain. The Kryze sisters in a significantly less lighthearted way though they’re interesting but mass murder and irresponsible leadership is not inherently girlboss I’m sorry. I will also bully any Viszla for anything at any time.

Eeby Deeby: Palpatine lol he just sucks for obvious reasons. Oh and Kyle Ron. Kylo stannies dni I Do Not Care if he was redeemed I don’t care if his name is actually Ben and I don’t care about Reylo I simply Do Not Care For Him he’s so whiny and angsty and for what his backstory is not even THAT bad he gives incel vibes and idc if he’s a goth angsty sadboi Maul did it better and he did it with horns and cool tattoos.

[sasswonfp]

sasse please i’m begging you to drop your thoughts. dump as much as you’d like i just want to hear more about your absolutely banger redesigns

OK OK OK. BRAIN MODE. ON.

How the redesign decisions were made:

So I had 3 rules for myself on how I made these and the options I chose, just loose ones that addressed my personal issues with the designs

Try and make the silhouettes distinct, and have clear, visual shape language in each, with the prime goal to make them at a glance comparable to their animal (within reason)

Limit. The skintight clothing. They are children. What the fuck Thomas.

Try and incorporate as much of each user's personality and self identity into the choices, to make it feel more authentic to the actual character

With that being said onto thoughts on the characters!

Ladybug

First off ditch the skintight suit on a 14yo, bc that is unoriginal, bland, and gross bc of obvious reasons. (I don't blame marinette being uncomfortable and clumsy in the beginning I would be too). Plus, besides the color and the spots, the design doesn't Scream ladybug. At most it looks like a pokadotted spandex suit. Bc thats what it is.

My main goal was to try and figure out how to make her design have that classic big round circle like an actual ladybug shell, and to make her outfit feel more authentically chinese, something I feel like is a major oversight on her entire character (esp paired with how little she actually looks like sabine's daughter and- I am angry). So i went though several concepts and eventually landed on the bisected cape she has! It can flare out like wings and also from the back looks like a huge blownup version of a bug! Since the spotted patern is also there too, but with MUCH bigger spots (and the actual section at the to being black with white spots on the shoulders, like ladybug heads!!).

Animal aspect/function: i think it would be really fun if the cape acted and helped ladybug a bit like real wings. More for soaring and gliding, and generally not a Flight ability, but a way to not rely on the yoyo to do all the effort. Plus a cool visual of the cape billowing and spreading like wings!

Chat Noir

His design tweaks are minimal since honestly they did the best job with him. I just gave some really baggy pants that tuck into high boots to give chat that Classic cat silhouette, where the leggies start thick and get thin. I also made his hair a little wilder, since i think it fits better and makes for a more dynamic, unpredictable hairdo that looks funky and gives a wild cat energy! :]

Animal aspect/function: not a lot! Just that his eyes should be allowed dialation rights to be even more catboy.

Nino (I refuse, carapace is a horrible name)

first. I HATE THE CANON DESIGN SO BAD. it's probably my least favorite design. IN THE SHOW. and that's including all the akumas! It's so bad. The whole thing is unbalenced and weirdly slippery and just doesnt feel like a Solid Deisgn Or Character. They Did Nino Dirty, on Every level.

Research for Moroccan styles and trends were really hard to incorporate into nino's design without breaking the animal shape rule completely (since most stuff tended to be looser, or have flat free flowing skirt shapes which wasn't as easily style-able into a turtle as marinette's more traditional garb), so I decided to go for his personality, taking the hero suit in a skater boy, ninja turtles direction.

His goggles are actually goggles now, since I think that's way more flattering to his face and adds a lot more diversity into the mask shapes and designs! And I figured a good way to balence the very topheavy design out while also thickening up the shapes of the arms and legs to come across more like a turtle's- tripp pants and a denim jacket, all green themed of course <3

Animal aspect/function: i think it would be really fun if the shell was used as a skateboard esque mode of transportation? And if it could expand physically to become a bigger sheild! I also like the idea of nino actually getting a little weaker if the shell is off his back? So not as super strong or agile and not completely invoulrable either. It's a bit of a lose win situation.

Rena Rouge

Ok i AM tweaking the design in the previous post since I realized some better ways to convey my original idea (i struggled with pose so much i got lost in the sauce) but overal- I think it would be fun if the suit was. A Suit! Kind of in line with the snakeoil salesman style, slim chic and crime >:3. And I also thought it would be fun if her mask was actually protruding with a fox nose! Other than that the last tweak was the hair, since the original is a little overdeveloped and far too inorganic, with the Very structured and strict chunking off of hair into the tail shapes with frosted tips- instead I made it so her hair overall blends in a gradient to white, since it makes for a nicer, more simple design. EDIT: I GOT UNLOST FROM THE SAUCE- deciding first and foremost alya should have box braids there is no reason her sisters hair and her hair should be that wildly different- also just cause. Then i gave her a real farmy kind if look to fit that wild fox feeling and also ayla's personal style. Topped off with a HUGE scarf that acts as her tail :3c

Mainly, the canon design is mostly alright, other than the whitewashing and the skintightness of it all- but I really had an issue with her chest area? I'm not sure if it is an actual change in model or if the patern is making it look this way but alya has a weird almost cartoonish way in how her chest is shaped? The booby area is way too pronounced and honestly makes me uncomfortable bc it looks like they slimmed down the waist and made her chest bigger for the hourglass shape? (ok Thomas.) Which is. Hrm.

Animal aspect/function: i think alya deserves tail rights. Aka i think the scarf tail should be allowed to actually move around and wag like chat noir's does. I also think it would be cool if her hair ears were able to twitch? I feel like it would really tie in a bit more of that animalness- and with that if the nose of her mask Also twitched. Like how cool would that be

Queen Bee

Last but not least, queen bee!

My main thing here is in the original design there's honestly a really poor choice in shapes and once again it just fails to convey Bee to me? Plus, there's the uncomfortable fact of the only real area of rest for your eyes in the design is on the crotch area... yikes. (Seeing a trend here y'all)

I really went wild on hers since. Well I think chloe would Definitely take her suit to the most princess level shit. Big bows, huge skirts, stupid complex patterns, she's Literally bougie through and through. Her skirt is to make that Classic honeybee shape, with the actual stripes of her design only on that part. I added the fluffy colar to really puff up the chest area and also make it look more like the bee shape, and then finally tied it off with a huge bow.

I want to alter chloe's weapon too since it feels like a cop out to have it be basically ladybug's, but I haven't fully decided on an idea so if you have thoughts toss them my way!

Animal aspect/function: my favorite idea so far!!! Not only does the bow mimic the wings of a bee, but it also flutters and can actually lift chloe up! Not in a full, sustained flight way, but in short burts with limited height, more akin to how much lift a hen can get. She's can't fully fly for too long. But she cam get started without assistance! (Something i think she'd probably lord over ladybug haha).

WOW! you read all this? tank u,,,

[sanchoyo]

danny phantom season 2, ep 12-16 thoughts! these episodes, in comparison to the first 10 or so, felt way more laid back and low-stakes, which I appreciate sometimes. I didn't appreciate how lazy jack's halfa design was in masters of time, it made me so annoyed I redesigned it. 👎🏻 u_u

see prev episode thoughts in this tag <3

-'picking a fight with me and my upgraded form!' 'you upgraded to a mullet?' DANNNNY. YOU CANT SAY THAT TO TECHNUS. YOUVE HAD A MULLET TWICE NOW ('fun' split danny, and evil future danny BOTH HAD THEM). I HAVE THE RECEIPTS.

-danny seeing technus hurting valerie and yelling I AM GOING TO BREAK YOU IN HALF. SAMEEEE <3

-axion labs is now a part of vladco. FUCK YOU VLAD. hes not even really IN this episode, but just thought I'd throw out a nice fuck you anyway.

-'capable of blasting a single person into space in (2) minutes!' tucker. that would kill someone. i mean yeah they might get to space, but theres NO WAY THEY WOULDNT CATCH FIRE, OR THEIR ORGANS WOULDNT LIQUIFY BECAUSE OF THE STRAIN. THEY'D PROBABLY PASS OUT BEFORE THEN, BUT. ...no, okay, I get why vlad bought this company. this is RIGHT up his alley.

-danny KNOWS VAL DIDNT DO THIS, THAT SOMEONE STOLE THE SUIT. AND SPENDING ALL NIGHT CHATTING WITH HER. <3 and val is a 9TH DEGREE BLACKBELT?? danny's mom is, too!! omg and she hunts ghosts, his parents would love her. and her fav fruit is kumquat bc its a funny word. im so with danny val is amazing. I love her and I Do Not Want To Hear It From Sam.

-I knew danny wanted to be an astronaut, but the bowling tidbit is like. yes give me more useless info abt these characters, I love tiny details that make them feel more human, and im glad hes got hobbies aside from ghost stuff, we dont really see a lot of that!!! (I mean, we knew 'fun' danny from when he split himself in half liked bowling, so obv it makes sense he LIKES it, but hes very GOOD at it. so proud of him, bowling king) val calling him neil armstrong and them teasing each other. LOVE THAT.

-technus you are my favorite grandpa for setting this up. SAM WHY ARE YOU BEING SO CREEPY BE HAPPY FOR YOUR FRIEND!!! STOP SPYING ON THEM!!! who actually cares if technus did 'set them up' together, theyre having fun and enjoy each others company!!! 'you think the universe wants you two to be together?' 'i dunno, but maybe /I/ do!' EXACTLY DANNY!!! SOO TRUE.

-and valerie being happy sam said she wants to try and be happy for them and make room at the lunch table for them. and hugging sam over it. VAL NEEDS MORE FRIENDS.

-VAL GOING AFTER TECHNUS IN HER SUIT WITH (1) MILK, AND (1) TREE BRANCH AND KEYS!!!. I LOVE YOUUUU BEST GIRL. her new suit kicks ass

-dannys like 'HEY IM AN ASTRONAUT :D' AW. ...HES IN SPACE... the fact he's actually intending to give her the ring. with SAMS NAME ON IT?? IM CRINGING DANNY NO. YOU CANT DO THAT...thank god he didnt. thank god valerie cut it off and said they can just stay friends for now. tbh, they both have a lot on their plates!! they obv both still like each other...it can be a future thing!! when she knows about phantom! youre 14 theres no need to rush. I just want her to have friends and be happy :(

-...danny struggles to do (1) pull up. SAME. but all the ghost fighting in phantom form REALLY doesnt carry over at ALL? that sucks

-sam being as fit as she is, is not just a goth. shes a goth jock.

-honey I Shrank Our Kid, One of his Enemies, and his Bully: the episode

-dash's crush on phantom is So Obvious. fitness buddies :) watching them interact always makes me laugh. also, phantom, with PANTS. 'how many costume changes you gonna go through, what is this, vegas??' DASSH DJKSFHASKDF

-MADDIE GOING AFTER THE MOUSE WITH A BROOM, WHAT THE FUCK. AAAH. JUST BUY SOME KIND OF MOUSE TRAP.

-danny likes lime and vinegar chips. which sound very good.

-'our boy finally has the physical prowess of a 60 year old president!' ...poor danny LMAO

-'what's wrong with beauty pageants' oh tucker you sweet naïve child. what ISNT wrong with them. who approved this for a high school?? (I mean, yes. unfortunately child pageants exist, but...) also danny and tucker once again treating the pretty girls like objects. I need to meet the grown man who wrote this, I just want to talk...

-prince aragon's dragon form reminds me of maleficent (color scheme wise) which is always a bonus. considering the episode is called beauty marked, I feel like the sleeping beauty references are deliberate

-sam with the fake fangs. once again her accessories never miss. hate the 'not like other girls, girls who get sucked into this kind of thing are all shallow and all want to be carbon copies' bs tho.

-sam trying to be the Worst Bride, being rude as shit. DORA IS GOING TO GET KILLED. DID YOU MISS THE PART WHERE SHE SAID THE PRINCE WILL HAVE HER HEAD IF YOU ARENT THE IDEAL BRIDE. YOU /KNOW/ DANNY WILL COME SAVE YOU. JUST ACT CHILL UNTIL THEN. even if you were doing fine to get him to take off the crown, consider maybe not letting his poor sister get punished also?? sure, she could also take off the crown and has dragon powers, but did you know that for sure?? dora didnt even really realize it until you guys talked!! (or at least, she was scared to stand up to him. you had no guarantee she would...) but. good for dora. ANOTHER friendly ghost to add to the List :)

-tucker is so under appreciated in his time. if he was doing a tech-based campaign today he'd have a better shot. people in 2004 had NO IDEA how much tech would be a part of our day-to-day lives...altho. tbh if you're going to be running for student council president, maybe you should..focus on things to actually improve the school? since he's going for a tech angle, he could say like, he would be running fundraisers for the schools computers to be upgraded, etc? we've already SEEN he can be good at money-making entrepreneur type stuff!!

-oh my god wait. this episode is JUST YUGIOH?????! A REBORN PHAROH USING A TEENAGER AS A VESSEL?? YESSSSSS

-tucker using his new minion to feed him grapes and carry him. AND LOCUSTS ONTO THE BULLIES. I love how when he's possessed, he gains winged eyeliner.

-this episode is giving me big 'plankton makes everyone in bikini bottom his slaves and build monuments of him from the spongebob movie' vibes. and the pharaoh has a traitor who works for him? VERY big yugioh vibes. aknadin confirmed

-I like that danny is still completely exhausted after using ghostly wail. (still patiently waiting on him to get duplication)

-LOVE the fenton's 80s outfits. I get hes 14 and embarrassed by everything they do because theyre his parents, but. cmon, this is one objectively cool thing theyve done. love 80s fashion.

-...was vlad just standing on that streetlight waiting for danny to come out? how'd he know they'd be coming out the back? how long has he been up there???

-oh, wait, his ecto-acne has flareups? that SUCKS. danny was...well I dont want to say he was LUCKY HE HALF-DIED, but he was lucky his was pretty instant (I'm assuming that had to do with the power/scale of the portals being different?) I remember in the ep we met him, vlad made a point of saying he was stuck in a hospital for a long time, so. that really actually sucks and I feel bad. not that it excuses anything he's done...but like. it does suck.

-vlad being so sure danny wouldnt help him he made it somehow contagious to his friends to make sure he'd get help? danny is a nice boy, he wouldve helped if it was anyone else. the only reason he wouldn't have is because of the shit vlad did to him, on purpose. vlad 100% dug his own grave by being the biggest asshole, so it is very hard to feel bad for him.

-clockwork is back!!! and making danny learn lessons The Hard Way. Uhhh, okay. I kind of get Danny’s logic, that time traveling this far back would prevent vlad from becoming a halfa also, ergo no arch nemesis or ectoacne to worry about. But the fact that was basically the first solution Danny came up with to solve this problem is actually so funny. It’s so extreme

-APPRICIATION FOR THESE 80S LESBIAN BG CHARACTERS.

-vlad telling maddie in the lab (in the 80s) he has something he's wanted to tell her 'for a long time'...how long have they known each other? I assumed they met in college, since jack always calls vlad his college buddy/roommate, so jack and vlad for sure met in college, but did vlad know maddie longer? thats surprising if so. Tho we don’t know what year of college they’re in so they could mean they met as freshmen and a few years have past…speaking of maddie shes crushing the 80s look.

-vlad blames jack, but. maybe dont stick your face 2 inches from the portal??! THIS FEELS LIKE LAB SAFETY BASICS. IF SOMETHING HAS POTENTIAL TO BE DANGEROUS, DONT GET NEAR IT. WITH YOUR FACE UNPROTECTED IN ANY WAY. (altho jack didnt really give a Big Warning besides screaming BONZAI. so. also that, but cmon.) also, they need gloves, goggles, and to pull all of their hair back tbh. but fuck lab safety, I guess!

-cryyyyinnng at how lazy they were with jack's ghost form design, its just plasmius' design on jack!!! you couldve given him his own design!!

-there. I did that in about 10 minutes and its somehow less lazy than what made it into the show. embarrassing! better yet, I think the episode would've been better if maddie would've gotten the ectoacne. or maybe its just me, wanting to see her design! anyway. I'm sure people have already done redesigns of them both as halfas. I have to go look after I finish this watch through. Also mildly frustrated jacks resentment and bitterness is basically also a copy paste of vlads backstory. They’re different characters, I really don’t think jack would stew in bitterness and jealousy the same way vlad would!! I also don’t think he’d give up after one time of trying to hunt ghosts and getting laughed at. Our canon timeline says different…I dunno, I get it was for laughs, but I’m annoyed because the POTENTIAL this plot has…

-did vlad really wear a stupid cheese hat to his wedding. ok actually that kinda rules. and the cheese door knocker. the dairy-only buffet table. vlad still got rich, just on being the New Dairy King. (Assuming that means he owns a lot of dairy businesses?) ok! this actually is great. hope maddie isn't lactose intolerant!

-'no matter how hard I tried, I could never get rid of my ghost half, the half I knew Maddie could never accept' ohh, ouch, what a horrible thing to say to her HALF GHOST SON. 'YOUR MOM WILL NEVER ACCEPT YOU' BASICALLY.

-maddie strapping danny to the table with a lazer pointed at him in a secret lab she keeps from vlad that she makes a point of saying is sound proof so he can scream all he wants...CHRIST. DANNYS POOR PYSCHE.

-also, not to feel bad for alternate vlad (because, he did lie to maddie saying jack blames her and never wants to see her again...) but. being married to a woman 20+ years and she immediately goes back to jack? if she didnt love vlad and feels like she had to hide shit from him, and says she wasted her best years with him, WHY MARRY HIM. it feels like leading him on!!! cannot believe im feeling bad for vlad, but. this alternate timeline vlad is significantly Less Horrible than Our Vlad. did she not think she'd get funding for her ghost stuff? (which, fair assumption since they're considered 'ghost fanatics/nuts in canon...but...) why did she think jack or vlad would be her ONLY OPTIONS? be like your sister. be single. Actually, this au could’ve been really interesting if after the accident, vlad lied to her and said jack never wanted to see her again, but she stays single. Imagine how much that would bug vlad… like, in her mind, it was never a competition it was jack or no one type situation…

-danny being like 'leave him ALONE' this jack is a HOMEWRECKER, DANNY. let them go to court and settle this at the least. ...or just throw vlad into the portal. (100% human, defenseless vlad) CHRIST, MADDIE THATS BRUTAL. THATS MURDER.

-danny seeing his mom immediately accepting him and his dad being half ghosts in this universe, if I was him this would be a great sign that his universe's maddie would also.

-*maddie voice* "clockwork will help!" *2 seconds later, with clockwork* "I will Not Help." TOUGH LOVE KING. YES LET DANNY SEE THE SODA HIMSELF AND DEVOLP BETTER OBSERVATION SKILLS.

-when clockwork ""reset time to the way it was"" just before danny "meddled"" ...did he really erase a whole alternate timeline? ...damn. because maddie and danny both called it an alternate timeline by name, it splitting when the college incident went different, so it wouldnt have really mattered if he reset it, right. like because danny's timeline is on a different stream? why didnt clockwork just. show danny a replay and not Reset That Timeline. wh...I wonder how many people that Erased From Existence. Anyway! once again stating clockwork is casually terrifying!

[karihigada]

assassin AU

*me talking to my friend*

Shizaya Redesign!

and !!!! that shizaya redesign! ACTUALLY! look here: initial AU prompt

assassin!shizuo taking care of brat!izaya ! :D

let me tell you in detail

assassin!shizuo send to kill this upstart tech wizz kid izaya who founded his own company and got really succesful and now his adult business partners want to get rid of him. and shizuo does mean to kill him but instead shizuo ends up running away with him through a series of circumstances which make it seem like shizuo betrayed the people who hired him so he ends up fleeing with izaya cause they are now both hunted by other assassins

and izaya totally hates being wih shizuo at first. and shizuo wonders why he bothers with this brat but izayas skills (hacking and tech wiz stuff) prove to be invaliable so its an unlikely partnership based on nessessity. at first. but after killing so much for a living, shizuo thinks for once protecting somehing is nice

okay sorry i wish i could give you more for assassin shizuo taking care of a little shit and slowly coming to enjoy it but i actually never came up with more or concrete scenes

or you know maybe, imagine this. they are staying at some hotel and shizuo was out shopping and comes back and finds izaya lying on his stomach on the bed, playing videogames or you know actually, he lies on his back, his head hanging upside down the edge, and he plays like that and shizuo comes back to such a /childish/ scene that he cant even comment. izaya gives him a welcome back without looking at him and when shizuo walks past him and the tv in order to get to the kitchen he just gets an Hey (for being in izayas field of view haha) izaya then asks if shizuo got the stuff and shizuo just sighs and throws a bag of cheese chips at him which izaya gleefully tears open and starts munching

izaya in this is such a hypocritical contradiction of health cause he will happily stuff himself with all kinds of snacks but draws the line at junk food and instead demands his proper meals are healthy

so shizuo goes to cook dinner while izaya keeps stuffing his face and shizuo tells him to stop or he wont have an apetite later but jokes on him izaya still wolfs down the dinner shizuo makes (and says its delicious) cause izaya is a growing boy.

what the fuck this is way too wholesome with shizuo taking care of like 16 year old genius izaya, there is no way i can put fucking into this later with shizuo way too much of a guardian hahahaha

well i guess not every AU needs them to get together. instead shizuo becomes his bodyguard (izaya later also pays handsomly once the whole plot with the betrayal and framing and other assassins and corporate takeover is over) and they become good friends.

and maybe a few years later when izaya is older (between 18 and 20) and laments (like full on imagine him lying on a bed or couch with his hand dramatically raised to his forehead like hes about to faint like a victorian virgin and just overdramatically ranting. he is such a drama queen bottom bitch) that he could never find an interesing partner cause people are only interested in his looks and money and that shizuo is the only one who sees him for who he is and unaffraid to tell izaya off

so at first izaya jokingly comes onto shizuo or like fullon suggests they should try hooking up (i imagine shizuo is like, mh, 29 when he meets izaya? has been an assassin for a while. so he is like 13 years older.) and shizuo is just like What The Fuck Brat and says if izaya really wants to get laid that bad he could just pay anyone he wants.

izaya says he doesnt trust anyone, "remember that time my businesspartners send an assasin after me?! that was scary!" he says in mock fright. shizuo just grunts.

izaya then drapes himself around shizuos neck, shizuo going stiff, and whispers in his ear "common shizu-chan, its just sex"

shiziuo untangles izayas arms from his shoulders and gets up, leaving. not cause he is afraid he will give in but cause he is afraid izaya will push this too far and then get pissy when shizuo keeps refusing him and it will destroy the trust and friendship they build up. cause shizuo does enjoy this life at izayas side way more than his previous occupation

more from before the timeskip: imagine shizuo carrying izaya under one arm to get away in dangerous situation and the first time it happens izaya hates it, the second time he is completely nonchallant about it and types on his phone while shizuo is carrying him also since izaya is tech wiz hacker he gets them like access to security footage so that shizuo can sneak up on their pursuers

also, i imagine it a bit like Dishonoured videogame? like its a stealth assassin game and the plot is neat but anyway for every 'major' assassin mission for the plot you have the option of just killing the target or finding a noneleathal way of getting rid of them

some of these may include selling them into slavery but hey, at leas theyre alive xD yay morality.

anyway. imagine like this situation shizuo finds himself in, protecting a kid and multiple other strong assassins on his tail. he COULD, and would normally just kill all persuers to ger rid of them but with izayas tech wiz skills (cause iazya doesnt want to kill people) they find other ways to take them down.

like maybe one gets held up in the airport and then arrested and izaya conveniently reveals their identity as a hitman so the police just made a goldcatch. or another gets into a traffic accident and will be out of commission in a hospital for a while first (while izaya reveals their identity to the police...

okay the only way to take down hitmen with technology is to have them caught by the police but still xD nonleathal means xD

and shizuo is really impressed by izayas abilities (and izaya also gets them fake IDs and passports and creditcards and makes reservations in hotels under fake names so he keeps them afloat while they are on the run while shizuo protects them from physical danger. which is also nessesary since some hitmen do catch up with them and shizuo has to take them down. some with lethal force sadly since it was a dangerous situation and it shakes izaya up pretty bad and izaya flinches away from shizuo before he gets  a hold of hismelf again and and tries to laugh it off and say that he is okay but shizuo can see the strain in his eyes and how tense he is. maybe thats towards the begining and thats when shizuo decides that they should try to work out other means of taking down their pursuers

also imagine shizuo teaching izaya his knive skils :3

okay moving to post time skip. like izaya keeps making moves maybe and shizo puts up with it for a while but it gets to a boiling point where shizuo looses his temper and yells at izaya to cut it out (he normally never yelled at izaya) and izaya actually gets scared cause he didnt want to chase shizuo away.

like. izaya had a weird sort of imprinting on shizuo. he does like him as a friend and mentor and guardian but some part of him is scared shizuo will leave? so he tried being more to shizu than just some kid he once protected

so maybe if they talk about it openly they can resolve this and izaya doesnt have to fear shizuo leaving. and shizuo says that izaya can look for a partner his age and shizuo wont get jealous and will instead protect them too and maybe a kid. but izaya also says he meant it serious that noone he meets could ever look past the money he has (and also people are boring). "but shizuchan. shizuchan was never boring. he understands me."

so they do spend their life together in a fullfilling mutually supportive realtionship but it does stay platonic and both are satisfied with that :)

or maybe like 5 more years later when izaya is finally no longer a kid (mentally. that brat) and still says he wants to sleep with shizuo at least once but that it wouldnt change anything between them that they do end up fracking and start a sorta weird mix of platonic and sexual relationship that maybe evolves into romantic so all in all good end (other than that they are totally codependant haha)

or, alternate not good ending: 19 year old izaya pressures shizuo into sleeping with him and shizuo feels horrible about it but satisfies him sexually to appease his temper in order to keep his peaceful life

...

okay more domestic assassin shizaya things: izaya in in charge of their money, ne? and they need to lay low , ne? izaya orders them new clothes online. and shizuo has to wear what izaya buys xD cue them dressing like in the pic above with iazya in the pinks shades and shizuo in the suit. cause that brat wouldnt know subtle if it bit him in the ass

im trying to come up with more scenarios. but i explicitly said izaya DOESNT order copius amounts of take out food. unless its healthy take out food. expensive healthy take out food.

also. imagine. later in life. shizuo teaching izaya some light hand to hand combat self defense. them together standing barefoot on gym mats and izaya is sweating and panting and wiping the sweat off his forehead, his hair sticking in all directions cause he tried attacking and taking down shizuo for the dozends time and shizuo is totally collected and unaffected, blocking and sending izaya to the mat with ease. and izaya gets this really competitive streak. wants to /take him down/.

it actually becomes a sorta game, for a long time. izaya trying to catch shizuo unaware. he only once succeeded, a long while later, after they resolved their problems and fears and live a fullfilling life togehter and shizuo is completely relaxed and at peace and happy.

[lollytea]

What are your opinions about Jungle cubs? I loved that show as a kid!

hi hello!! thank u for humoring me!! i love getting asks about the stuff im currently obsessed with that nobody really cares about, it makes me feel valid! also i dont have well constructed opinions, i just have a very messy, manic head so i just babble all my thoughts. for that i am sorry 

im not gonna say jungle cubs is the best damn cartoon to hit the tv and maybe its just my own biased love speaking when i call it a good show but it means a lot to me personally. it brought me comfort as a little kid, i came back to it as a teen when i was feeling very alone and came back to it again as an adult just cuz of my recent love of baloo and talespin and needing something to keep me upbeat during the quarantine. 

and ive watched quite a few cartoons i loved as a kid that i dont really vibe with anymore. i tried rewatching gummi bears. its not my thing. but jungle cubs is?? really good?? its just so charming to watch. i love the expressive animation, i love the smooth flowing dialogue, i love the playful and naive tone it has of just a bunch of kids being kids, i love the depiction of these characters, i love the performance of the voice actors, i love the layers it adds to the original film. layers that were never intended to be in there in the first place but isnt that just the beauty of interpretation and ones own imagination. 

its such a formulaic concept isnt it. to take a classic show/movie and make its protagonists babies for a spinoff. but i dunno, i always got the feeling that whoever was the backbone of this story actually cared about the characters they were writing and took a sincere approach to it. 

they thought in-depth about how to devolve them from their current personalities in a realistic way and what aspects of themselves are so core to their being that they would have been ingrained since childhood. the cubs feel pretty three-dimensional and considering theyre cash grab spinoff babies, that is an amazing feat.

but also, i love it for the very very very simple reason of its really adorable. bagheera especially. to see such a stoic and levelheaded character in his earliest stage as a child just Hits for me. cub bagheera is clever, hes cautious, hes a little stuck-up, all traits he has in the movie. hes also not the best hunter, doesnt know how to roar yet, is a little cowardly, sorta awkward at times and is often trying to prove that hes the best even though hes aware that he is nowhere near the best.

like its easy to believe the kind of person he grows up to be but at the same time, its really interesting to see the more childish aspects of himself that he eventually matured past. and hes adorable dude! baby bagheera voiced by EG Daily is the sweetest goddamn thing, i love him so much 

also shere khan who is a fuckin doozy. hes very interesting in this too. everything about his attitude is reminiscent of a preteen who says mean things to you on voice chat while playing overwatch but if you tell him you’re gonna call the police on him, he starts panicking. thats shere khan’s vibe, a real edgy little tiger who thinks hes hot shit cuz he probably caught something bigger than a mouse like one time and its gone to his head. 

hes constantly stalking around, subtly bragging about what a natural predator he is. but at the same time, he’s still around?? hes still hanging around with the other cubs cuz hes ALSO a cub and likes to play around with other kids his age. and he fucking loves his friends. the amount of times he’s scared off bigger animals who were about to harm them. and its really sweet cuz they like him too. while his attitude is definitely annoying sometimes, they still consider him their friend and enjoy his company. its just wholesome. 

plus hes also pretty vulnerable as hes a cub. he doesnt stand a chance when they come across a grown animal as a threat. he gets scared just like the rest of them, hes just so arrogant that he never admits it. 

in fact the appeal of the show in general to me, is the vulnerabilities of all the characters that comes with being in their most immature state. they dont know any better when it comes to stuff. this show is real dumbass hours 

EVERYTHING about baloo is just great. he does not change even slightly. he is exactly the same except hes little and his voice hasnt broke yet. his child voice is amazingly fitting also.

i mean i guess one thing that differentiates him is adult baloo had some semblance of a philosophy. he was wise....in a way. baby baloo does not know shit about shit. he does not think. he just vibes, okay?? i love him mwah

i dont have much to say about the others but i DO like this interpretation of them more than their adult selves. it also just feels bittersweet that they grew up to be such dicks. Haithi is lovely, i love that hes just out here TRYING to be a colonel but he lacks the authority that comes with being a grown elephant and he doesnt have the self confidence to command anybody yet. he is simply babey.

 louie is a very cute little dude, i love him and baloo as just an idiot squad. he also has a very good voice

kaa.....i dont trust. on one hand, hes very sweet as a child but on the OTHER HAND he grows up to be the creepiest fucking creation disney has ever put in a movie so that snake will always rub me the wrong way even when im trying to like him. 

also ONE THING thats driving me crazy about this show is like. it has the best depiction of pre-adolescent boys that i have ever seen in a cartoon ever. just the way they behave. theyre sweethearts one minute, extremely mean the next minute, going from building eachother up to lightly bullying eachother, lots of unprovoked play fighting, laughing over dumb shit, rude to strangers for no goddamn reason, theres just a lot. 

it fuckin knocked me back like 15 years cuz it reminded me so much of kids i used to play with. and these arent even human children whose brain development is documented, these are animals, this show had no business being this spot-on.

i dont like season 2. it has a few gems here and there that i get a kick out of. but as a whole, its really disappointing. since the show swapped production companies, they seemed to uproot it completely and start from scratch. and its kinda sad cuz i think they were TRYING to do something poignant when it came to a future narrative but it just didnt land. firstly there was a huge animation downgrade and looking at the two season in comparison is kinda depressing. 

also they redesigned the characters, some looked worse than others. baloo looked fine but i still preferred his og look. bagheera....was the worst. rip bagheera. 

they all underwent a huge personality change. and not in the way that showed subtle maturity, i mean a vapid exaggeration of their original personality. the only characters who were left relatively alone in this regard were baloo and kaa. and i dont mind gradually changing a character since there IS an adult version of them that they should be growing into. but the season 2 depictions are literally the furthest things from their adult selves that its unbelievable.

 another pet peeve is they changed a few of the voice actors and.....i love these season 2 voice actors in other work theyve done. dee bradley baker and cree summer specifically who are both very talented people. but they did not fit these roles in the slightest. (not to mention having cree summer play an APE and suddenly having her do a LOT of monkey noises that the previous va never had to do. im not gonna get into all that BUT hmm.) and if youre gonna recast the characters to make them sound “older” as least make them sound somewhat similar to the jungle book actors, so you can picture them eventually growing into those voices. 

also the tone shifted so much between seasons. the way they tried to make this jungle more of a “society” with shit like talent shows and sports games and celebrities and like fuckin. STOP. theyre animals. just let them be animals. along with that the writing just feels really off and its just. not fun. i dont like it 

and as i mentioned, they WERE trying to do something here. the fact that the cubs didnt hang out with eachother as much and were starting to drift apart is kinda sad and wouldve liked it see it handled a little better. but instead i got season 2, which was stupid. and im 21 and im petty. 

anyway i am very sorry that ended so negatively and im very sorry that rant was completely all over the place i have no sense of proper organization i just wanted to gush about what i love. but on a positive note i love jungle cubs!! its very dear to my heart and makes me very happy and i wish it had gotten more episodes

[moomingitz]

Your feedback on Crusher's oc is that she doesnt look like a Horse... in a world full of Sonic characters who dont look like a thing like the animals they are supposed to be. This kind of gives your feedback way less credit and more likely that you just are saying bad things about his character because you dont like him. Its not honest its just bitterness and according to others you do attack people's characters a lot if you dont like them

Only that wasn’t the only criticism I gave the character’s design. It may have been a big chunk of it, but I followed it up by saying that it being a poor representation her intended species was not the only reason why that the OC’s character design was just not that good in general. I mentioned that if her overall color palette, silhouette, and attire was at least appealing to look at would be able that I would have been able to overlook the lack of a resemblance to a horse- mentioning Sonic and Knuckles as examples of characters who don’t really resemble the species they’re based off but still have appealing and unique character designs regardless of it. She looks like a plain, generic background Mobian characted used to fill in crowd space in post-reboot Archie, instead of a character with the a major role, resembling an actual horse or not.

I also voiced many times in the before that I do not agree with or like the strict and homogenized design standards that should apparently followed or relied when it comes to designing Mobian Sonic characters. And what I mean when I said the OC had a “Assembly Line” character design, it’s because of this typical kind of base(or something very close to it) I see used a lot in not only Sonic fan characters but in official Sonic media, especially when it comes to the female characters.

Post-reboot Archie did this with a lot of their designs for both their original characters and redesigns of pre-existing characters, and I think it hurt so many character designs that had a lot of potential to be something special.

The whole thing people keep saying how the animal characters in the Sonic universe don’t look a thing like the animals they’re based off is only just not true for most of the characters(at least in the game canon), but it’s a terrible excuse to just not try to make a character at least somewhat unique or appealing to look at. I understand being lenient with insects or weird aquatic animals like jellyfishes, etc, because they would honestly look pretty terrifying if you were to try to be completely accurate with them. But it gets tiring when it’s with like mammals, avian, reptiles, or amphibians, where we don’t only have just real endless real life examples to go off from, but from animation to get ideas or stylistic references from too.

I hate to look like I’m shilling my own stuff, but I can’t use other people’s characters as examples because I don’t have the permission to do so. You can still follow the Sonic style and not sacrifice variety in character design at the same time.

(Though like I’ve said before with the giraffes, I’m not happy with the stick limbs on them and their torsos, so I am going to retool them down the line.)

These aren’t even really major characters, either. They’re side characters I designed. When I was designing them I didn’t just take the most commonly used body base used in Sonic characters that I showed above and just slapped on  some ears and tails shaped like the animals their base off of. I took their body proportions and builds in mind when looking at real life references of their respective animals, and thought of how to best still work within the Sonic aesthetic while still making them unique enough. I thought of how their muzzles would look and differ from other Mobians. I used cartoon versions of their respective species as reference in order to try and get ideas of how to best apply the Sonic style to them without having to use the common standard base above.

And I’m not using my own character designs or saying all of this because I want people to think I’m hot shit. I’m an amateur as far I look at my shit. I’m saying this to show people that you don’t need to be a big geewizz professional to eventually learn how to work around the more simple “SEGA Sonic” design aesthetic without sacrificing diversity in character design at the same. To anyone who has ever felt intimated to deviate from the standard Sonic character base: Shapes, color theory, and references are your best friend.

It’s actually rare that I go and give other fan’s character designs criticism, btw. The only other time I’ve really given someone’s specific character design a harsh detailed critique was a person’s skinny Big the Cat redesign, and I had never even seen the artist or their work before that. Guess what? A lot what I said back then mirrors what I think of this OC’s design and my personal pet peeves when it comes to character design in Mobian Sonic characters. So you’re mistaken if you think my not-so positive opinion of Lutrudis’ character design is because I have a distaste towards their creator. Even if I didn’t dislike her creator I would still think her character design is boring. That’s my honest opinion no matter what my personal feelings are of a particular person. Like I said before, I do think the design does have potential despite it. But it just plays it safe and it ends up holding that potential back.

[solidburnreturned]

by popular demand, here is my oc chatter regarding stuff like relationships n random character traits. its rly long oops but i divided it by character at least lmao,, these are all things that i think id also wanna use if i ever use these characters as humans (which i def will at some point honestly)

- i thinkkkk i want toad and pike to date. toad would come across pike in their lagoon one day while hes wandering around on another wonked exploration and pike is like hey lol :B with their pointy teeth and long ass hair and toad is like :0 he just sits and talks with pike for hours and comes by a few times a week to hang out with them. they fall in LOVE

- fred and lani are def gonna date too. two butches who use he/him pronouns fuck yeah? they have a powerful relationship. mega BDE. power couple. not a lot of pda but alone together theyre both very loving and tender, its a vulnerability thing for both of them. like lani is very cool and can be either stoic or borderline obnoxious while fred is punkish. fred is very head over heels for lani tho 

- mardi n berg.....complicated....i gotta figure out how they actually end up together. berg is a jogger and mardi is a piercer/tattoo artist so that doesnt....make them line up very much in that department. ill think about it more and figure something out. itll probably have something to do with berg’s nose stripes and eye rings

- also side note on mardi......i want his backstory to include a grey period set off by his brother being eaten when they were both young at the troll tree. like he becomes angry and depressed, sorta like branch, his tattoos that he gives himself the only color on his body, until he learns to let go and his colors come back (high key this was inspired by 21 savage, mardi’s voice claim, and the line in his new song A Lot “my brother lost his life and it turned me to a beast”). ill develop this idea further but i just wanted to get it written down

- bismuth.......unsure. they had a crush on pepper and kept trying to ask her out until she came out to them as a lesbian, then they were like :’) but theyre ride or die theyre not gonna be an ass to her because they cant date her. they just care a lot about her. its like icarly

- gazpacho and jupiter CUTE two small trans trolls in That Love. i need to develop them more but. theyre just cute 

- talia is still a little too new for me to develop her......but im thinkin about it...

- kinda same with ernie and olive. they kinda mostly just exist as cute babby characters right now? if anything olive is a trouble maker and ernie is a chatterbox

- clem and thursday also fuckin cute as hell......clem was a nervous wreck asking thursday out but theyve been together like ever since, which is more than a few years. they have a rly cute gentle lovey dovey relationship. thursday is usually hanging around up on her gf’s shoulder giving her kisses on the cheek

- bea and crystal.......adorabl relationship......crystal is another character thats kinda nervous but bea is so chill n confident is helps calm her down. theyre both trans and love the hell out of each other. rly slow n steady relationship, bea is very patient

- pj and marcus!!!! dumb mlm rep relationship. pj is so so gay for marcus he can barely comprehend it. its a dumb ego boost for marcus but hes also very in love with pj, he just expresses it in a weird cocky way idk marcus is a nerd. i need to make more content for them i think about these two way more than it seems

- dwight!! he has a boat. he lives on the boat.....ive thought about maybe pairing him with toad and pike. deciding on his voice claim has been the most difficult thing ever

- kass and current HELL yeah buff gf and tol gf......they spar with swords and wrestle for fun and hang out at the beach a lot. kass fuckin loves the gem on current’s back. i gotta make more content for them 

- celia......i wanna do more with celia. friends with berg probs theyre both sporty. shes just a sweet giant troll who loves mushrooms. i gotta pair her with someone whose palette goes nicely with her pastels 

- carrot and harriet are literally cricket and tilly from big city greens just older. yeehaw siblings. havent thought about relationship stuff with harriet yet.....i think she also needs ANOTHER redesign her colors are just too heavy still. maybe if i can make her colors compliment celia’s that could work as a pairing? hm hm.....carrot tho is dating ford’s oc rye theyre gentle country gays

- rainer. hm. i dont think theyre rly the dating type......theyre just chill with being them. they just wanna swim and be funny

- hammond and andromeda are probs two of my least developed characters.....hammond still needs a redesign. he might be cute to pair with walter, theyre around the same age. andromeda tho i have no idea. she might be a nice pairing with eve? if i ever feel like pairing her with someone...who knows. eve is very carefree and might find andromeda’s energy too intense

- radish i wanna make more content for!! i rly like her a lot....i think shes another troll who isnt interested in dating. shes very focused on being a chef instead. loves her friends a lot!

- mack and pepper 2gether 4ever obvs......they have a relationship that gets richer with age for sure

- im just gonna ramble about mack. i thinkkkkkkk i wanna make her half latina? columbian specifically. she doesnt quite read as white and i didnt make her with the intention of making her white. anyway i love mack a whole lot and should really develop her backstory more. its not rly as like...””tragic”” or whatever as pepper’s i know that but she def has layers. i wanna give her whole family more depth. she has a very complicated relationship with her own feelings and motivations that i need to think about more fully. my powerful femme tho i lov her

- mack’s parents, robin and champagne, i need to like....think about them more. they have kinda a comedic relationship thats sorta inspired by roger rabbit and jessica rabbit. robin is a very caring, gentle troll who’s very smart and cares a lot about his nursing responsibilities in the village. champagne is very relaxed and the “voice of reason” character of the family. she loves a good party and has her party planning down to a science. both are very successful power parents. kickass family

- i already talked about topaz and marney in a separate post but i still love them both so much. big wesbiabs

- pepper....pebber. im gonna talk about her the most obviously gfhjdkrs i wanna talk about her mental health i feel like i think about it a lot but i never write about it explicitly? this is gonna be long oops hgjfksd she has depression and ptsd stemming from the trauma of her crash...im thinking she also has adhd and thats just something shes always had. her depression rly got heavy during her recovery and right after like...she hated being bed/housebound and felt rly powerless to her situation and just let it eat at her until her personality had actually changed considerably. like extroverted wild child rebel to introverted, soft-spoken sulker. this got better with time but she still is pretty introverted, just turned her moodiness into chill energy. 

- she has bad depression habits like letting dishes, old food, laundry, or just stuff pile up in her room until it gets overwhelming and she spends like two days just manically cleaning; or staying in bed for way longer than she should and messing with her hygiene; or eating way more or way less than she should eat in a day. just stuff thats hard to completely break out of when youre recovering. her color is pretty consistently the dark red but if shes having a particularly rough day she might look a little paler, or like a muddy brick color at her worst. thats kinda rare tho

- her ptsd is the thing she hates the most. for a while it made her feel very weak and she’d beat herself up over being traumatized by the crash which was obviously not helpful to her mental state but she was really all over the place during her bodily recovery. its part of the reason why she started working out, she wanted to reclaim some sort of feeling of strength and power that she felt she’d lost completely. she still gets really frustrated with this feeling of loss but she gets a lot of support from loved ones which has helped her not self-blame so much. her ptsd manifests mostly as nightmares/insomnia, chronic headaches/stomachaches, intrusive thoughts and sometimes flashbacks. the nightmares are what rly get to her, she really doesnt get a lot of good sleep and it can get to the point where she just doesnt want to sleep sometimes and she’ll stay awake until she crashes hard

- her scars used to be a big trigger for her ptsd, which is why she has her bangs covering the one on her face and wears long pants (her knee braces are too bulky for pants and would force her to wear shorts which would force her to expose her scars). she just. really really hates them. this is something she struggles with for a majority of her life

- once she and mack start going steady with their dating and start consistently sleeping in the same bed, pepper starts to sleep better. she still has nightmares that wake her up at least weekly, but having mack there to comfort her (whether she wakes mack up accidentally or if mack is already awake) helps a TON with getting her back to sleep soundly. it also just helps her sleep in general to have that comforting, loving presence in her bed snuggled up to her ;w; mack is a big help in general with pepper’s mental health, pushing pepper to make better, healthier choices and get out in the village more and have fun. mack for sure does not “”cure”” pepper of anything but shes a very positive light in pepper’s life that helps her pull thru tough times!

- i love all my goofy trolls so much. its so fun to just chill and blab about them to relax between working on big projects ;o; ty if u cared enough to read this whole thing ur so rad

[invasato]

Thoughts and feelings on the michael bay transformers movies

god okay so like its COMPLICATED GJFLHGJLFHJG

on one hand ill literally love any piece of transformers media u put in front of me but on the other i will destroy michael bay with my bare hands

ive considered making posts about the movies as i rewatch my way through them but scrapped that idea bc most of its been said before. bays writing is just,,,bad. like shitty things he does aside for a moment, he doesnt know how to make a clean story. his plot is everywhere, his emotional scenes fall flat, and if not for my connections and love for the characters prior to watching, i wouldnt have felt anything for them. like sam witwicky for example. fun character ig but i dont get any kind of emotional attachment to him other than “haha nice his last name is witwicky”. bay doesnt seem to know what the hell hes doing and its a miracle to me that his movies end in ways i can understand. im really glad travis knight is taking over for bumblebee but with bay being the producer im still Worried tbh. he completely fucked over a lot of characterizations and im mad about it. optimus went from “be strong enough to be gentle” to “give me your face” and all he does is murder and kill now and thats??not what i love his character for. hes always been written as a gentle leader, and a lot of ppl look up to him as a father figure. i get none of that from bays interpretation, and i hate it.

moving back to bays shittiness, hes just like. Genuinely shitty lmao. his black coded cybertronians are all gross caricatures, especially in the second movie wrt the twins (mudflap and skids), his take on drift has been regarded as racist (havent rewatched last knight yet personally), and then were taken into his questionable treatment of middle eastern people/poc in general and his obsession with the military. like he includes the military in every movie and u can just tell hes writing this shit and drooling over these guys ugh. half the time it barely makes sense to include the military tbh ik hes just kissing ass. hes also like,,,,,extremely creepy towards his women characters. mikaela in the first movie is 17 iirc, and theres a shitton of sexual shots of her, and then in age of extinction??i think it was?? theres an entire plot line and scene dedicated to an explanation of romeo and juliet laws wrt a guys underage daughter Being Involved with an adult man. and when theyre not being involved in creepy p//do stuff?? the women in his movies are basically sidelined. michael bay rot challenge. 

im also gonna attack this from an art standpoint for a sec: bay doesnt know the first fucking thing about making a movie look good. his cybertronians look like literal scrapheaps, all he does is blow shit up, and he uses the same goddamn shooting style for literally every fucking scene. watching his movies can be literally exhausting bc theyre so visually unappealing. im really hoping knight does smtng about that. we already get redesigns for the characters thank god, and looking at the laika films hes directed i have hope that everything else will at least look decent.

tl;dr this turned into an essay but overall bay movies are awful. i watch them bc transformers is my si and i want to know what ppl are talking about and know whats going on and etc, but i wouldnt recommend that unless youre going to be having discussions or are legit getting into transformers bc theyre just so honest to god unenjoyable and unfunny and uncool. even when im enjoying them im not, and even with a shitton of prior knowledge about transformers i have trouble telling whos who and what the hell im watching. 

if you would like to get into transformers tho, id be happy to recommend cartoons and comics!! and i may write a review of the bumblebee movie when it comes out, ill be seeing it on premier day ^^ the cartoons i genuinely love, and the comics are a little imposing but with a guide theyre easy to navigate! recent series have also had good trans/gay rep, its really exciting!! sadly tho idw comics are rebooting and the most prominent writers wrt this stuff arent getting rehired, so we have yet to see if the rep will be continued in the new comics :(

[infin-8-morphosis]

Wanted to make a 'what I've been up to' post, both cuz I forget to post So Much and I want people to Look and also because its really good to look back on my very slow but continuous progress.

This is where I would say 'I'm most active on my Discord' but I've also forgotten to post there too, whoops-

Here it is anyway: 

Its still the best way to look at my stuff. Its got conlangs, worldbuilding, eventually website progress, creatures, general WIPs of stuff, my musing and ideas, and a taster of my comic.

So, what have I been up to.

Well I recently reformatted my conlang's dictionary in such a way that makes it much, much, much easier to make dialects. So now there's 4 of them I'm working on, with at least one I need to add, and several fringe cases I could do too where there logically should be mixes of languages. As part of this I'm slowly reviewing every word for how its meaning shifts, whether or not it works (initially the word for green came from the word for grass- in a place where the primary speakers grass is blue. Lots of little things you don't think about) and how to flesh it out. It's real promising, and I feel like a big roadblock on the language has been lifted off of me, now I don't just have to stick with the one universal language that cant account for each different cultures unique outlook. Grammar is still nonexistent, but again, more room to experiment!

I have, hopefully for the final time, redesigned the world, and am making a complete map, complete with globe. I'm doing it very detailed, and its going slow, but it looks amazing. Its going to have elevation on land and sea, language regions, creature ranges, climates, temperature, roads, flight paths, so much I can do with it. Some of these I will do via the website though, with a handy dandy plugin that lets you make interactive images.

Speaking of, the plugin for webcomics finally works! Woo! Nowhere near putting anything up, but I would like to trial sooome kind of thing there. Its... kind of ugly and theres not a lot of customisability for it, but infinitely less painful than making it manually and infinitely less precarious than hosting on a webcomic site, which I dont like anyway (I wanna make my own siiiite)

Website in general, I said I wanted to focus on it before potential college, but well as usual I bounce around from thing to thing as my brain gets ideas. Its hard to write when your brain has motivation to revamp a 1000 row long google sheet, something that doesnt really happen often and should be taken advantage of. At the very least... new project logo? Maybe? The old one, while cool, is hard to read and not very relevamt symbolically. This feels much more focused on the Creatures and well, being able to be read.

Creature wise to follow on, haven't done much lately, aside from that model. Dragon model i've steered away from to making a simpler dragon first, which is going well.

Now, the comic. Hrm. Not going great. Last year I unintentionally intentionally took a break from it, because it was my last year of school. It's been... hard to get back into it. Technically I've improved it plenty mentally in the meantime but actually Getting it done, very hard. Checking off days does help, but I inevitably get energy for other things and it feels a waste to not use said energy, then I get rusty and forget to check off stuff and suddenly its been a month since I worked on it. Its technically the primary, core thing to all my work and yet I treat it so poorly, sob sob. Slow and steady at least, I have no intention of stopping it, even if my will to make it does wane every so often.

So yeah. Thanks for reading or something. I'm sure someday I'll get into a habit of posting. I want my Stuff to be Seen :]

Also, since its on now, if anyone wants, heres my artfight! Probably gonna stick to doing colored sketches at most, and who knows how much I'll do, but I'll try my best~

[prill-ocs]

Meemo Story Revisions

OKAY. MY INTERNET'S BEING SHIT RIGHT NOW AND SO I'M TAKING THAT AS A SIGN TO TYPE THIS STUFF UP THAT'S BEEN STAYING COOPED UP IN MY HEAD. Obligatory blah blah it's gonna be mostly word vomit from me so don't be surprised if it gets disorganized :')

Original lore post here: [ x ]

Misc doodles w/ Fay and Meemo: [ x ] ( I actually need to redesign Fay lmao)

So I'm still keeping the part Meemo doesn't remember much of his early childhood, aside from that he was alone from the start. ( Actually though, I have Thoughts regarding reincarnation and past lives, considering the fact that he's a ghost type hehe. )

ANYWAYS, he lives on the outskirts of some town, which he eventually ventures into out of curiosity. So this is where the main reason for changing up Meemo's story a bit comes into play. I was thinking about how it seems like. Kinda unreasonable? That the townspeople had such an adverse reaction to Meemo's presence, so I was trying to think of what could explain that. What first came to mind was mimikyu's dex entry and how their true appearance would shock people enough that they die. SO I WAS LIKE...HMM...Maybe something about his appearance would inexplicably bring about some kind of resentment in people, whether intentional or not? But then I realized that that effect would then carry onto Raku, and as we've seen, that doesn't seem to do anything LOL

To try and compromise then, I was thinking that mimikyus are pretty rare, or at least around this time where Meemo was still young. They're misunderstood and so they're perceived as something to be feared and treated with caution (especially since ghost types already tend to get a bad rap in my canon).

WITH THAT BEING SAID! Once Meemo comes into town, people get to talking about his presence, with them talking and speculating amongst themselves if he's one of those so called mimikyus. It plays out pretty much how it was in my original post, where a bunch of unrelated misfortunes in the town take place (crops aren't great, weather's pretty bad, etc.) and of course they're all coincidental. Meemo nonetheless gets blamed for them and so, timid as he is, retreats back to where he had been living and tries his best to keep to himself, even if it is lonely.

A month or so pass (or however long seems reasonable for his presence in the town to be at least a little bit forgotten lmao), and in comes Fay, the pikachu. As stated before, she's a whimsical and air-headed person, and had gotten lost finding her way back to the town that she had just moved into. ( I figured her moving in would explain why she hadn't known about Meemo in the first place)

Fay spots Meemo playing by himself in the forest, and gets a little concerned that this presumably young child is out here all by himself. She approaches him which in turn startles Meemo, and he runs off into hiding. Unsure of what else to do, Fay returns home for the day. There's a cycle of her coming to the forest to see if Meemo's still there and attempting to at least greet him, and Meemo consequently going into hiding; but each time, he lingers a little bit longer and she's able to talk to him, even if he doesn't respond back with a lot to say. At one point, Fay even tries asking for his name; but Meemo doesn't know it and doesnt rremember if he even had one to begin with. All he knows is that the townspeople had been calling him something "mim....mimi?" and he's mumbling trying to remember what it was. Fay hears it as "Meemo" and of course the name sticks, as Meemo can't really say no anyways cuz he's not sure!!!

After going back and forth from the forest, some of the townspeople start to notice this and warn her that there's a monster lurking there and that she should be careful. Fay can only assume who they're talking about, but she goes back to Meemo to ask him about the things the townspeople are saying.

By this point, Fay's gotten Meemo to trust her enough that she can get close to him and have some semblance of a convo with him. It's a bit of a stretch, but she asks if he wants to come live with her, since she feels bad that he's out here all alone. She makes it clear that they'd cover up his appearance if he was okay with doing so, and that he had to be very careful. Meemo, desperate to want to try living with other people and have an actual home, agrees to this.

So of course, Fay has to go out and try out different outfits to see what Meemo likes, but what he eventually ends up with is something he makes himself - a mask and outfit that pays homage to Fay.

To avoid suspicion about Meemo's sudden presence at Fay's house, she says that he's a relative that she's caring for and the reasoning for his covered up face is that he's terribly shy. The townspeople, while wary, go about their business.

This is new information, but Fay is actually a schoolteacher, and while she'd love to introduce Meemo to her class, she knows how risky that is. Meemo, on the other hand, really wants to mingle with the other kids. I want to say maybe a few months pass before Fay, against her better judgement, decides to let Meemo join in.

So possibly a few months go by. Meemo's learning a lot (which was a plot hole I had before, I think. cuz I was like...Meemo had to have learned some stuff *somewhere*, which would be impossible in his post-Fay isolation). However, he is still a little more withdrawn than the other kids, since he's afraid they'll find out who he really is; so he does keep some distance from the others.

Originally, I had Meemo's wardrobe slip-up be completely accidental. This time around, I want to say it's market shopping day for Fay and Meemo. They bump into some of the kids from Fay's class and they ask permission to hang out with Meemo. Meemo looks to Fay for permission, and she hesistantly lets him, though of course she tells him to be careful.

The hang out starts off pretty normal, and Meemo's actually feeling pretty good about it. Like, maybe making friends was actually possible for him now. One of the kids gets a little too comfy, though, and starts asking Meemo why he's so quiet all the time, and why he's always wearing these clothes and mask, etc. etc. They start tugging on Meemo's cloak, trying to coax him to take it off, and Meemo starts to panic. He tries asking the kid to stop, but they're being really persistent about it. Once they attempt to reach for his mask instead, Meemo *really* gets nervous and out of reflex, uses a shadow claw on the kids arm, giving them a small gash.

The kid is now *pissed off* and the other two that are with them grab Meemo while the injured kids yanks Meemo's mask off. All 3 of the other kids gasp in horror, realizing it's the monster that had shown up in their town months ago and who their parents had warned them about. They all flee, leaving Meemo to cry alone in the small alleyway that they had been in.

After fixing his outfit back up, Meemo hurries back to find Fay, who notices he's visibly upset. The two of them return home, and Meemo tells her everything that happened. Realizing that things are about to take a turn for the worst, she tries to get things in order so they could flee town, knowing that it wouldn't end well if they stayed there.

Unfortunately, they're too late, and the kids had snitched to their parents; so this is where it ties back together with my original post. Basically an angry mob comes barging into Fay's house, demanding she hand Meemo over. Fay tries her best to put up a fight, but it's quite obvious the two of them are outnumbered. She gets caught in the crossfire of an attack meant for Meemo and is fatally injured. Meemo is overcome with emotion from all the events that had occurred and seeing his guardian fall right in front of him was the icing on the cake.

Meemo goes into a frenzied state, with his shadow tendrils going haywire everywhere and attacking everyone who had trespassed on the home that he and Fay had made for themselves. He comes out of the ordeal as the last one standing, all tattered up and bloodied. Fay's actually still alive, but very much on the verge of dying. Meemo falls to his knees beside her, now bawling at this point, while she apologizes to him for not being more careful. Fay reaches up to cup Meemo's face, smiles at him one last time, before she finally takes her last breath.

And this is stuff I've covered before. Meemo takes Fay's body to the place they had originally met in the forest and buries her there after having a small ceremony for her. He knows it's not safe for him to stay around those parts anymore, so as soon as he's able to, he sets off to find a new place to live.

After wandering around for a while, he finds an abandoned home that seems to be a good distance away from another town. Over time and with some work, he fixes the place up and settles in. After learning his lesson the first time, he doesn't get too comfortable with the residents in this new town, and only goes when necessary. (Eventually he does grow his own produce to sell, but that's not until a little later since it takes him a LONG time to be comfortable around other people again)

Fast foward many years later, he stumbles upon Chai, an abandoned baby pichu. Meemo thinks this to be a cruel joke from the gods, but also feels that raising Chai could be retribution for what happened to Fay; so he initally raises Chai out of guilt, but soon comes to care for him as if he were his own child.

As for Raku and Meemo, well. Y'all know how that goes down :')

SO YEA. UHM. I DIDN'T MEAN TO MAKE THIS AS LONG AS IT WAS. I just felt like if I had kept it like in my usual bullet point style, I wouldn't be able to say all the details I had in mind LOL

I think the only thing that I have trouble figuring out are the time frames of these things happening? Like ngl I still have no clue how much time has passed since Meemo went on the killing spree to the current time.

If I still wanted to go the route of Blanca finding out what Meemo had done, I think he'd have stumbled upon Meemo's original town. Mimikyus are a little more common now, but still a rare sight to see. I think it'd make more sense for a very long time to have passed so that the whole tale of mimikyus being bad luck is now just one of those tall tales from the old days; so someone seeing Blanca would be like "Wow hey are you a mimikyu? Y'know, this town's had a pretty interesting run-in with one, YEARS ago." and so on and so forth.

As for how Blanca would come to know that *that* mimikyu in the story was Meemo...well.....To be decided I guess LOL

Like I guess, there'd be a plaque or something at Fay's house, recounting what had happened and name dropping the two of them (Meemo and Fay).

*throws hands up* NOT SURE!!! WE'LL SEE!!!

[onlinemarketingcourses]

PIN’s: The Future of Private Link Building

1,116 Comments 20 minutes

What I’m going to reveal in this blog post is a strategy that will likely weed out a certain section of the ViperChill audience. In other words, I’m fully aware that this blog post will make a particular type of person unsubscribe from ViperChill and likely never return. It’s certainly not going to end up on the homepage of Inbound.org.

If you are loyal to Google guidelines, the teachings of blogs like Moz and love playing by the book, then you’ll probably realise with this article that we possess a very different perspective. When I first started my internet journey – where I spent day and night trying to make a living online – I tried and tested more website ideas and angles than you would believe.

Today, I’m still pushing the boundaries to see what works. These boundaries most often pertain to SEO, since it’s what I’ve enjoyed the most over the last 11 years.

I’m in the fortunate position that my business it not tied to some employer who dictates how I have to do things when it comes to promoting web properties. As such, I’m always willing to ignore everything I previously thought about marketing and to be open to new ideas and opportunities.

This blog post details one such opportunity, but I realise it will not be for everyone. Not everyone is the position to implement it for their online business, and even if you are, you may question the ethics of what is coming up.

With that disclaimer out of the way, today I’m going to introduce you to the world of PIN’s. Just before I do that, I want to talk about why I think they’re necessary.

I Predict We’ve Got Four to Five Years Left to ‘Do SEO’ As We Know It

This isn’t some “SEO is Dead” article you see go viral in the SEO blogosphere every six months, but a genuine prediction based on how Google search results have evolved over the last few years.

Google make all of their money via ads so quite simply want more people to click on them (and more often). The less success people have with SEO, the more likely they are to move to Google’s advertising platform.

Long gone are the days when we’re presented with just 10 blue links on a page.

The White Space Between Search Results Has Increased

It’s known that the higher up the page a search result, the more clicks it will receive. Therefore, when organic search results are pushed further down the page they’re going to be receiving fewer and fewer clicks. Not only are they lower down now in mobile results due to spacing, but the change is being tested across desktop results as well.

The search result on the left includes the new extra spacing with the ads taking up far more vertical space than the search result on the right (graphic via SEMPost).

There Are More ‘Featured Snippets’ Than Ever Before

There isn’t much to say on this one besides feature snippets are to be found for millions of search queries in every industry imaginable. What, when, how and why questions are often answered with a featured snippet box.

This not only pushes ‘organic’ search results further down in search results, it also attempts to give you the answer right from the results page. We can argue whether or not it’s useful for searchers, but for SEO’s, it gives new meaning to having the top result in Google.

‘Map Packs’ Completely Changed Local Search Results

Some call them ‘map packs’, some ‘the local pack’ and some even call them the ‘snack pack’. Whatever your term of choice, after being introduced a few years ago SEO’s have been trying to figure out how to get themselves and their clients into the pack to compensate for a lack of expected search results.

After all, these local listings take up a large portion of screen real estate.

I’m not complaining about this change; I’m simply pointing it out. There’s no doubt it makes search results more useful and that is Google’s aim (usually) after all. While Google did reduce the listings from seven to three back in August of 2015, the redesign of the listings with adding spacing means not much changed in terms of organic results being seen.

Those Map Packs Now Contain Ads, Too

We’re not going back to Google updates of a few years ago to make a point about Google evolving. Just last month Google announced that the map / local / snack pack would now include ads, as shown below.

This image is a mockup by Barry Schwartz, though the real thing looks very similar

It’s interesting to follow both PPC and SEO guys on Twitter and see the difference in reaction. PPC guys are over the moon since it gives them more traffic opportunities for their clients and SEO guy’s, well…I’m sure you can guess the reaction.

Based on how Google’s past, it’s not one of surprise.

They Have All The Answers

The knowledge graph was released in May of 2012 and it’s almost disappointing when you don’t see it for queries when looking for quick answers. For example, when I want to see how my football team, Newcastle, have fared against Liverpool, I literally don’t have to click anywhere.

Whether you want to learn about how old someone is, what 12 x 56 is or who discovered Radium, Google has the results right there for you. As a searcher, I love these quick answers, but as an SEO, it’s just one more thing which has lessened the likelihood of people clicking on my website if it doesn’t appear in this box.

They Continue to Make People Scared of Link Building

Google are great at making people fearful of performing any type of SEO. After all, this was the company that introduced the rel=”nofollow” attribute so we could link out to websites without giving them “link juice”.

That isn’t the real headline for the article – I’ve got to have some fun in these serious posts – but Google have publicly cracked down on pretty much everything when it comes to link building. The list includes, but is not limited to:

Guest posting for links

Using directories for links

Utilising private blog networks

Adding links to website themes

Adding do-followed links to widgets

They literally created a ‘no-follow’ tag

That’s not all; they openly share how much human intervention is involved in finding people abusing the guidelines, rather than algorithmic. This tweet speaks volumes.

Anglo Rank was a small network being promoted on the Black Hat World forums.

Just think about this for a second. One of Google’s first employees (and former Head of Web Spam), worth millions of dollars, dedicated his time to actively targeting a tiny little network on some private forum just to scare other people away from doing the same.

The simple fact is that Google can’t figure out with absolutely certainty which links are earned, or bought, or manipulative, very effectively.

Now I’m not taking anything away from Google here. Their company is worth hundreds of billions and mine, well…isn’t. They have undoubtedly created the world’s most sophisticated search engine.

But as I said earlier, it’s far easier for them to get us to police ourselves than it is for them to police us.

Big Brands Dominate the Long Tail

As SEO becomes increasingly difficult and searches are more and more dominated by big brands, the long tail will be the final frontier of search traffic opportunities.

When I said we only have a few years left to do SEO as we know it, the long tail will be where the majority of SEO’s focus their time through on-site SEO changes and content marketing.

While we’ll still have opportunities for SEO to ‘work’, long tail search results just don’t seem to be as diverse as they were in the past. It makes sense to me that Google have some kind of ‘filter’ whereby if they’re not sure what to list for a search result, they simply show more results from an authoritative site to be on the safe side.

Logically, this makes sense, but as an SEO, it could be a worrying sign of things to come. You can see this lack of diversification above in my screenshot of the map packs as well, with Yelp dominating the first three organic search results.

The Lack of Diversity in Search Results Will Only Get Worse

If you’ve only found ViperChill recently then it was likely because of my recent article, How 16 Companies Are Dominating the World’s Google Search Results. It has been shared thousands of times on social media and been read over 40,000 times, making it one of the most popular articles I’ve ever written here.

In the article I highlighted how Hearst Media were using their brands like Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan and Woman’s Day to point footer links to a new website of theirs, BestProducts.com.

That strategy, which would get the rest of us penalised, continues to work incredibly well.

“Just follow the Google guidelines.” Why?

Since that post, I was also contacted by a few people associated with the brands I had featured. One of those people I talked with was Tre who works in the growth department of About.com. I had already mentioned in the article how About planned to spin off into many more verticals over the coming months, which he confirmed.

I admit I’m being a little pedantic with my highlighting, but when you’re Director of Growth for About.com you’re going to share which terms are driving traffic to one site with the team that is in charge of another.

I appreciate Tre’s replies and I’m sure there’s only so much he can say, but About.com’s real goal with their spin-off’s is to no doubt own ten search results, instead of one.

PIN’s: My Version of Fighting Back While I Still Can

When I talked about why I started using private link networks and then continued to use them after Google’s “crackdown”, my primary reason was very simple: Writing quality content and getting ‘whitehat’ links wasn’t working for me. I was being outranked by people with crappy link networks who could build their own ‘relevant’ links on a whim and I decided to fight back.

You could view PIN’s in a similar light. I am utilising them because we’re not competing on a fair playing field, and what is supposed to work is very rarely what ranks, at least in the industries that I operate in.

While I don’t wish to reveal those exact industries, let me give you an example closer to home, with ViperChill.

I will say in advance that this is a search term I really don’t care about ranking for. I have no idea how many times it’s searched for each month and honestly, I doubt it gets many searches at all.

Here are the search results for the query, ‘Future of blogging’.

My site is usually either in 10th or 11th for that term, yet by every SEO standard metric I should be number one.

I have more links to the page ranking than anyone else

I have more ‘domain authority’ than most other pages

My title tag seems more relevant than half of them

Yet in order to get more traffic for this search term, which I think I ‘deserve’ from a 10,000 word article which took me weeks to put together, all I have to do is one thing.

It’s not getting more links. It’s not improving my on-site SEO. It’s not building better connections with influencers.

All I need to do to get my traffic back is to add a sentence to the start of the article which says ‘Last updated: July 25th 2016‘.

This is a search result where how recent an article was posted is more important than whether it’s actually a good page to rank.

I don’t actually have to update the article; I literally just need to make it appear to Google – thanks to that one sentence – that my article was updated recently. This one sentence, this ‘trick’, would bring me back the ranking I feel I deserve. (Though, again, I doubt this even gets searched for. It’s just an example).

This is not theory. If you look at the first sentence of my WordPress SEO guide that’s exactly what I’ve done before, with great results.

This little change is not too dissimilar to what I need to rank in other industries. I don’t need better on-site SEO. I don’t need to build natural links from relevant sites through content marketing. I simply need to add more domains to my private link network and write more guest blog posts.

Yes, these are both tactics that are looked down upon by Google, but they still work incredibly well. In 2014 when I covered Google’s crackdown on private blog networks I did mention that they would now be less likely to care about private link networks.

In my exact words:

What I expect to happen is that Google will ease off looking into private networks. The damage is mostly done.

Why? Because they’ve already made people scared to build them. The best way to deal with people trying to game the system is essentially making us as a community police ourselves so we don’t try to game the system in the first place.

The continued use of private link networks and guest posting for SEO is part of the reason why I will get a lot of criticism from this post. How to implement these tactics more effectively, which I’ll talk about later, will be the larger reason for criticism.

The Approach to Take

One of the first ideas I had when I started out online was to assemble a team of people who could work together to build a huge website. At the time I was following the growth of TechCrunch and Mashable and saw how quickly they were able to grow thanks to having a team of writers.

My idea was to essentially connect a team of people who all worked on one website and in return everyone had a percentage ownership. The logic being that working as a team would result in the site growing faster and even if revenue or a sale price was split, we would have more success than working on our own.

It’s a similar idea a number of ViperChill readers had after reading my last article on the small number of brands dominating Google search results.

While it’s a nice idea, in theory it doesn’t work so well.

Some will want to dictate the direction of a site that others don’t agree with and more importantly, some people will put in far more work than others. If you’re writing more content than others and your articles are getting better traction, you’re going to want to increase your ownership compared to someone barely putting in any effort.

There is another option you can utilise if you wish to team up with others though, and that’s a PIN.

It comes with all of the benefits of creating your own team, without the downsides of worrying about who is contributing what work.

What the Hell is a PIN?

A PIN is a play on the acronym PBN, which is commonly referred to as a private blog or link network.

I’ve received my fair share of critics over the years for talking about PBN’s and their success – and continuing to build them – but there’s a reason I do: They work.

I simply don’t believe that playing by Google’s rules is always going to get me the results I want. In some industries I wouldn’t make the money I do without them. I don’t use them for clients, but do for my own websites.

Going forward, I think PIN’s are going to be crucial to my success in certain industries, and I think they are going to be crucial to a number of people reading this as well.

PIN, stands for Private Influencer Network.

Before you think that just means making some “friends” online and building up your connections, allow me to continue.

I define a Private Influencer Network as a group of people looking to rank their websites in Google in similar industries (but not the same) who work together to help each other reach their objectives.

Essentially, they use any opportunities they have to build links (such as private blog networks, guest blogging, interviews, blogger round-ups) to send backlinks to other people in their network. In return, other people do the same for them.

The end result is that for the work you would do to build ten backlinks, you can get twenty to forty (of the same quality) in return.

A $100,000/m PIN Operating Right Under Your Nose

I first came across a Private Influencer Network a little over a year ago. A few ‘influencers’ in a particular field were using their private blog networks to – quite simply – link to each other.

I didn’t think much of the tactic at the time, until I found another example of this happening just a few months later.

Then three months after that, I found my third example. This time it really got my attention.

A group of just five people (from what I could tell) were ranking in one of the most profitable industries online and undoubtedly making over $100,000 per month in the process. I operate in the niche, which is how I found their collaboration, and know the numbers very well.

This is when I started working on building my own, PIN.

Finally, the idea to write this blog post came to me when I found yet another PIN. One of the members of this network is one of the most well-known SEO’s on the planet and is reading this article. He already “knows I know.”

If you follow the SEO blogosphere, you’ll undoubtedly know who he is.

One of the sites they are promoting also very likely also makes more than $100,000 per month. I’m not involved in the niche, but I know others who are and with the rankings they have, those numbers wouldn’t surprise me.

I reached out to the owner of the ‘money site’ they had all teamed up to promote. I keep a private database of paid link opportunities and one of them costs more than $10,000 per year. I found their website there, so sent the main owner an email.

One months revenue spent on link building is a small price to pay when you’re doing huge numbers thanks to gaming Google.

While some would view four to five guys linking to each other to make more than $100,000/m from a one-year-old website as shady and unethical, I’m personally impressed at how well they are crushing a very competitive niche so quickly.

While there is a chance that a PIN could be “outed”, the last two examples I found were so well put together that I’m almost certain I was the only person who connected the dots.

If you’re not trying to rank in an obvious industry that’s constantly monitored by SEO’s – like blogging and internet marketing – the chances of your PIN becoming uncovered are relatively low. Much lower than having your private blog network discovered.

As you’ve probably already figured out more succinctly than I am at getting to the point, members of a PIN use any opportunity they have to ‘link out’ to take care of their whole team.

While I’ve been fairly slow on the uptake to building my own PIN, I have been slowly building them in a few industries over the last few months and I’m excited to see what the future holds.

I didn’t want to write this blog post until I had a better understanding of how to build and manage them, because managing them is actually the most time-consuming part.

You have to make sure everyone in the network is pulling their weight and giving (and getting) equal opportunities. Opportunities, of course, is code for links.

A Real-World Example of How a PIN Works

One of the websites I find myself checking for ideas and inspiration is Entrepreneur.com.

I recently found an article on the website, published by a contributor and not a staff member, which could serve as a great example for how PIN’s work.

Let me say it in bold (for those just skimming) that the example below is totally legitimate.

I’m highlighting it because it’s natural, but could have been used in a non-natural way.

While the screenshot below might be the longest ever embedded by me into a blog post, there is something much more important that I have to say about it.

There is no specific reason I have singled out this article. It was simply the first article on Entrepreneur.com when I was looking to give an example for this post. Proof of that is the date. This article is going live on July 25th whereas this article I’m featuring below is from July 22nd.

It just happened to be a great example to see a PIN (or what could be a PIN), in action.

I made the article a little shorter than the original (the screenshot was long enough, I know) but you can see the majority of it here. The first thing you’ll notice is four mentions of Weekdone. Unsurprisingly, these are all links to the company that the author works for.

A good guest article, utilised for a PIN, will link to other recommended resources that are connections of the author. The links should be relevant, but also to other people in your network so that you are ‘owed’ a link back.

Now on the surface (without my large logos stuck over the text) this looks like a totally normal article (albeit with a little overuse of linking back to the authors employer). If you do a little more research, you’ll learn that the other two highlighted companies, Zlien and Mavrck, are actually clients of Weekdone.

In other words, Weekdone likely earn some bonus points from their clients for mentioning them in an article on Entrepreneur.com. I see nothing wrong with this and it’s a one-off occurrence so it’s not done for SEO manipulation; I’m just trying to show how a PIN link looks without actually revealing one.

Essentially everything looks natural until you look under the hood. It’s normal for a client to talk about a company they use, as shown below where the relationship continues.

Once again, I’m not saying they’re doing anything wrong here. It was one of the top articles on Entreprenuer.com as I was finishing up this article (the post is only three days old) and happened to make a good example.

The truth is that Entrepreneur.com, along with Forbes and the business sections of the Huffington Post, are great resources to see mini PIN’s in action. The people who write content for these sites generally try to get as much out of writing for them as possible.

They link to their friends, and their friends link to them.

A PIN in Action

I wanted to create a graphic for this section but your understanding of the concept is far more important than your ability to decipher my poor Photoshop skills. Before it gets a little bit crazy, I have assumed that there are just two ‘influencers’ in your private network.

The yellow box is your money website (the website you wish to rank in Google).

The brown boxes are private blog sites you own (optional).

The grey boxes are link opportunities you’ve created through guest posting or similar.

While the graphic is admittedly not the prettiest (I did warn you), the concept is very simple.

Some of your private network domains will point links to the other influencer in your network, as will some of your guest posts on other websites.

In return, the other influencer will do the same for you.

Once you start adding more people to your network, things get a little bit more messy, but the principle remains the same.

When I try to visualise this with four influencers as part of your PIN it gets a little ugly, but here goes.

The golden rule you need to remember is this: If you receive a link from someone from a specific source, you need to replicate the link in kind.

So if you receive a link in a guest post from someone in the network, you need to give them a link from a guest post you write. Essentially meaning that the work you do for 10 links for yourself gets you 30-40 links in return. This number varies because sometimes it’s a bit risky (such as using blog networks) to link out to the same sites which are linking to you but you still receive more links than you would have without your network, for essentially the same work.

The Types of Links Which Are Shared

I originally tried to write these guidelines as if there were four people in a PIN but it became a little bit too complicated to read (and write). Instead, I’ll assume there are only two people in your PIN and show you what types of links you could generate or other ways to help each other.

If there are more people in your PIN, which I highly recommend, then understand that Influencer #1 will sometimes link to #2, while #4 sometimes links to number #3 and so on. It’s basically just varying the following link opportunities to keep things fair for everyone.

The types of reciprocation that can take place.

You can tweet or Facebook share an article from another influencer

You can retweet or publicly thank another influencer for mentioning you

You can utilise a guest post opportunity to link to a relevant quote or article from another influencer

If you use build private blog networks, you can use some to link to other influencers

If you find articles where comments drive traffic to your site, you can inform other influencers

When being interviewed you can link to a relevant quote or article from another influencer

Sharing link opportunities you find on your site they can utilise for theirs

Offering website design advice

Utilising Web 2.0 properties to give links and get the same in return

If performed properly, there is no reason to hide that you have a connection with other influencers in your niche. The only thing you would have to care about is that the obvious mission for having these connections is to help each other’s search engine rankings.

If you are outside of the internet marketing world you don’t really have to worry about other people finding your private link networks, but always keep a few rules in mind to avoid footprints.

Ready to Build Your Own PIN? Here’s My Advice

If you see the benefits of utilising a PIN for your own search engine rankings, and actually getting more than rankings in return, then here’s my advice for setting one up.

A PIN Must Have a Leader

As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t want to write about this topic until I had attempted to do it myself.

My short but relevant experience tells me that there has to be one person (or two at most) who is in control of the group you gather together to make sure that everyone in the team is pulling their weight.

In other words, you need to make sure that the people who are receiving links are doing their part in giving them as well.

The leader must also make sure that members of the team are active. It’s no use everyone playing along for the first few weeks while the idea is hot and then dropping off the map.

Bringing Together Your Team

While some of you may be excited about getting started on this – and some horrified that I’m even talking about it – there’s one important caveat to keep in mind.

Do not bring anyone into your team who has never shown any self-drive in terms of search engine optimisation.

If someone:

Doesn’t already have a website they wish to rank

Doesn’t regularly produce content for their own sites or others

Doesn’t have at least a basic knowledge of SEO fundamentals

Don’t invite them to be part of your network.

I assumed this would be the case from the start of building my own, but I’m even more sure of it after trying to get other people excited about the idea who weren’t actually willing to contribute to the rest of the teams’ success as a whole.

A simple test to see if someone would be right to join your network is to send a candidate over to this article and have them read about this concept for themselves.

If they don’t immediately “get” the idea and they don’t reply with something like “I can see this working well” then it’s not someone you want on your team.

You shouldn’t have to convince anyone to work with you. They should see it for themselves. If they’re against it because of ethical reasons, then that’s totally fine (and understandable) but again, it’s a sure sign that they’re not someone you want in your team.

As far as communication goes, there are a few platforms out there that would be useful.

You could create a Skype group where people get together. I certainly recommend that everyone get on a call together at least some point to make sure you all understand each other’s roles.

Slack is another good option, as you can keep up to date via their mobile app and have a history of previous agreements.

A private Facebook group is another good option.

Both Slack and Facebook allow there to be a leader who can add or remove members to the network.

The platform is really up to you. My only recommendation is not to lay out all your plans in Google Docs ;).

Take One Step Back from Your Current Niche

It should be obvious but I’ll state it anyway: You don’t want to work with people who are targeting the same keywords as you.

However, you still want to connect with people who are in a relevant niche (I’ll give you the chance to connect with ViperChill readers at the bottom of this post). For instance, if you’re promoting your real estate website then it makes sense to team up with other realtors, just not for the same region.

If you’re in the weight loss niche then it makes sense to collaborate and grow your audience with other people in that niche, but target different keywords and / or promote different types of products and services.

Whatever niche you’re in, imagine you’re shopping for that specific industry on Amazon but go back one category to find people to work with. Again, I’ll give you the opportunity to find PIN partners at the end of this article.

Footprints are Hard to Find, But Still Be Careful

From the PIN’s I’ve discovered and the ones I’m working on myself, I’ve found you really don’t have to be too careful when it comes to leaving some kind of footprint. After all, it doesn’t ring any alarm bells when Copyblogger keeps mentioning Problogger or Mashable keep linking to TechCrunch. It’s “natural” and something you can expect from the owners of websites who have developed friendships with each other.

Where you have to be careful is primarily with private blog networks and not creating footprints of clearly linking back and forth to each other from the same sites at all times. Of course, you don’t have to use private networks, but remember for each link you give out, you can get three to four back, so it can dramatically speed up the process of ranking your site.

You Need to Know How the Microphone Works

And how to sing.

One of my favourite authors, Daniel Priestley, said the following in his book The Key Person of Influence;

You don’t need to know how the microphone works, you need to know how to sing.

He was referring to the technology behind the microphone and how, when it was first invented, your time would have been better spent learning how to sing than how a microphone worked, if you wanted to reach a lot of people.

When it comes to ranking in Google, I don’t think that’s the case. You need to know how the microphone works and how to sing.

There are going to be people who worry I’m encouraging armies of people to come together to take over the Google search results.

The truth is that I don’t believe people who can’t sing – in this case, can’t produce great results for search engine users – will have much long-term success.

There’s no point putting all of the work into your PIN if the end result is going to be a crappy website.

The third example of a PIN that I mentioned earlier now easily does in excess of over $100,000 per month. What I didn’t yet tell you is that they built a fantastic resource for their industry. The site doesn’t have many pages (less than 50), but each one genuinely solves a question that a particular searcher is looking for an answer to.

I don’t view utilising a PIN as a way to “sneak” up the Google results and send thousands of visitors to an ad-riddled website.

Instead, I see it as a way to help you start getting great content noticed that could attract natural links once it is.

I mentioned at the start of this article that I would likely weed out some of the audience of ViperChill. I want to make it clear though that I’m not trying to help people with shitty websites rise to the top of Google.

While I believe there is a great opportunity here, it isn’t easy. Turning the concept into reality sounds much easier on paper (or in a blog post).

The truth is that when it comes to making money online, most people are, quite simply…lazy.

They may be excited about this idea for a few weeks but if you’re going to use this to rank in an industry worth ranking for, you should be aiming for keywords that take a few months to get any serious traction for.

Links Aside, The Connections You Build Can Be Invaluable

I’ve already briefly talked about the other benefits this kind of network can have, besides link building.

You can connect with people who have a genuine passion for your industry who in turn spur you on to put more work into your site and help you improve your online ventures. Whether that’s giving advice on your design, your writing, your strategy or anything else.

Working online can seem lonely at times, especially if your offline friends don’t have an inkling to do anything online. When you’re aiming to make money from your web projects it’s nice to find other people on the same journey.

In my future of blogging post a few years ago, one of the most popular on the site, I mentioned how some bloggers had worked together to help grow their respective audiences in the same industry.

TechCrunch and Mashable grew incredibly quickly at the same time while investors were putting more and more of their money into web-based projects. They mentioned each other thousands of times.

Smaller operations – though still huge – like Copyblogger and Problogger would guest post on each others’ sites, promote each other’s products, send traffic to each other via their email lists and essentially enhanced both of their own images through their connection.

I took the time to actually figure out how many times some sites mentioned each other, which you can see in the graphic below.

While links were a key factor in all of these partnerships, I wouldn’t essentially class them as private link building. Most of the links didn’t include any specific anchor text and they weren’t to random affiliate sites or anything like that. All of them were trying to build authoritative online businesses and found someone with a similar passion on the same journey.

While TechCrunch and Mashable were almost in direct competition with each other, they still highlighted the stories that the other site got to first. Michael Arrington later sold TechCrunch to AOL for $25m. Pete Cashmore is still the CEO of Mashable though according to Politico.com, is trying to sell the site for around $300-$350m.

That’s a partnership that certainly paid off for both of them. Pete holding out six years on his sale seems to have been a smarter choice, however.

A Facebook Group to Find PIN Partners

For what is probably a very limited time only, I’m giving access to a private Facebook group where people can assemble together to potentially build their own Private Influencer Network.

I don’t want the comments here to be full of pitching opportunities, so let’s take this elsewhere to see what industries you’re working with. To be approved for the group you must leave a comment here with your Facebook name or put your Facebook initials at the end of a comment. Facebook will likely recommend the group to people who have no idea what PIN’s are and I don’t want to do a lot of moderating.

Don’t reveal your exact niche when you start a discussion, just simply zoom out of your niche and reveal a higher category that you would like to work in. You can find the group here (remember to comment to be approved).

Thank you, as always, for reading.

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