#shorts the giraffe

[charlidrawz]

Shorts

The Half-Eared Giraffe

By @horse-hateblog & @charlidrawz

^ [Context] ^

[p2ii]

Happy Party Rockers Spine saturday

[internetgiraffekid1673]

What the Hell is Wizard101 (and Pirate101)

I'm making this post for the lovely @ellazimmermansblog, who is very sweet and wants to actually have half a clue what's going on in the fandom that I'm in but she's not. And oh sweet cheese and crackers. You asked for it. I tried to leave this in the comments. I really did. This is gonna get long, so feel free to read this in chunks or disregard it or just read it whenever you get the time.

Genre:

Wizard101 is a JRPG or junior-role-playing game that's also an MMO or Massive Multiplayer Online game that was big in the 2010s. In case you don't know what those are:

A JRPG is a game where you basically play as the protagonist of a middle grade fantasy/adventure story, meaning the target audience is usually 7-13. Think Pokemon or Kingdom Hearts.

An MMO is a game where everybody who plays the game is playing at the same time, in the same world. You can always interact with other players and are heavily encouraged to team up and collobarate.

While it is advertised as "free to play," it's only free for like the first hour or so of playtime. You can do the tutorial and like two other areas before you have to fork over some cash for a membership.

Basic Story:

Anyway, the spoiler-free story of Wizard101 is that you are a young Wizard enrolled in Ravenwood School of Magic by Headmaster Ambrose. He found you magically transported from "a strange world that doesn't believe in magic" (read: Earth). He believes you may be "the one we've been searching for." After doing a personality quiz to decide which school of magic you belong to, your enrollment is immediately crashed by Malistaire Drake. He used to be the Professor for the Death School, until his wife fell ill and he went mad with grief and turned evil trying to bring her back.

After beating up your would-be teacher, you learn that he's been unleashing scores of undead onto Wizard City, mind-controlling people, is going after major infrastructure, and is just being a dick in general because he's eeeeeeeeviiiiil. Ambrose turns you loose in the streets to help a number of other student NPCs save the city and do general damage control.

The main story of Arc 1 basically has you trekking after Malistaire like a lunatic, cleaning up his messes and trying to stop him from breaking the world apart while he attempts to ressurect his wife. This is where me and my brother J-Dog are at in our playthrough.

But there are 4 arcs, and the story continues WELL after you mop up the Malistaire problem. It's basically the Young Wizard saving the spiral from major threat after major threat, trekking through quirky worlds willy-nilly, and meeting a massive and entertaining cast of NPCs, all with different motivations and sidequests and problems for you to solve (or cause).

Each world in the spiral is also kind of an analogy for a real life place or a popular fictional story, but you replace all the humans with anthropomorphic animals (I'm really not sure why this game isn't more popular with furries). Marleybone, for example, which is where my brother and I are right now, is analagous to Victorian era England and populated by a bunch of stiff-upper-lipped dogs that nobody likes, mutliple crime rings of cats, and a contingent of Irish foxes that only appear in the less-popular but very good companion game: Pirate101 (I'll get to that).

That's the most basic I can make the gist, but there's still a lot of other basic information that might matter when I talk about it, so I'll put that under a cut!

Magic Basics:

The 7 main schools of magic that you can play as, and what they're general purpose/ability is are as follows:

Storm: Hit things really hard in exchange for a low accuracy rate and lower base HP. Glass cannons basically. This is what I'm playing as.

Fire: Also hitting things, but focuses more on damage-over-time spells that kill your enemies slowly.

Ice: Damage Sponge. They have the highest natural health pool, access to some decent spells early on to reduce damage, and even have a taunt spell that can draw enemy fire onto them (this isn't very useful in practice from what I've heard).

Those are the three elemental schools. The next three are spirit schools.

Life: Healers. What did you expect? They're the only class with the ability to heal other players. They get a high health pool, really good accuracy, and a lot of healing spells, but they're less good at hitting things and dealing damage. This is what J-Dog is playing as.

Myth: Summons. You can summon lots of different minions to help you out. From what I understand, each minion plays slightly differently and you're supposed to build different strategies around what they give you.

Death: Drains. Stealing health from the enemy basically. A lot of their spells will hit the enemy really hard, and then give half of that back to you. Because of the capability to hurt and heal in the same turn, they're the best to solo the game with.

And finally there is a school that lives in between Elemental and Spiritual:

Balance: battlefield control. They have a lot of damage increasers and damage reducers, and have the capability to mess with the powers of any of the other schools.

While each class does have it's unique and specific niche, they do all have the same main function: summon a monster to hit your enemy. All the combat in the game is done in a summoning circle where you take turns summoning monsters to hit each other. Each side can have up to 4 allies at a time (are we sensing a number theme yet).

Each enemy in the game has an assigned school that they belong to. Casting spells from the same school as them does less damage, while spells from the opposite school are stronger. Opposites are as follows:

Life and Death

Fire and Ice

Myth and Storm

Balance is a special snowflake that has no opposite :)

Your ability to cast spells depends on your Mana, which can be restored with blue wisps of magic floating around the world. Your ability to not be dead depends on your health, which can be restored with red health wisps.

Most spells that you cast, especially damaging spells, have a chance to "fizzle" or fail to cast. It's like missing in a pokemon game. This is the bane of every player's existence.

There are also Astral Schools later that do other things, but I ain't got there yet, so it's whatever.

Extracurriculars:

There are a number of other fun things you can do in Wizard101 that don't involve saving the world:

PvP: player versus player combat! Get the shit beaten out of you by people with more time and money! For fun! Beat the shit out of other people and win arena tickets, which can buy you cool prizes like better gear!

Pets: You can have a number of adorable little animal companions that, if you take good care of, will help you in combat! Some of them cast spells on their own, some of them give you extra spells to cast, some of them have passive abilities that increase your strength, and all of them will get more helpful the more you train them. You train them via minigames, like teaching them to dance or having them eat snacks off a stage or FIRING THEM OUT OF CANONS (amongst other questionable activities).

Gardening: Take care of the weirdest assortment of magical plants you've ever seen, in exchange for harvesting them for money and crafting ingredients and treasure cards and stuff. All of them are puns btw. Like. I have laugh-o-dils, despairagus, baby carrots (literal screaming baby carrots in diapers), and dandelions (which have actual lion faces) to name a few.

Fishing: Pull weird magical pun-based fish out of the water and sell them for exorbitant amounts of cash or stick them in your aquarium or something!

Monstrology: Study various creature types by killing them a lot until you become an expert and can either summon them as minions, stick them in your house, or just get EXTRA good at killing them.

Crafting: Use natural ingredients you found across the spiral (reagents) to make better gear yourself!

There's also photomancy, but that's just a glorified screenshot feature and we all know it.

NPCs:

Me and everybody else who plays this game is fucking obsessed with all of the non-player characters in both games. There are so many of them though, and they're so different from each other, that you're better off just asking who's who every time I post about one.

Pirate101:

While the Wizard is off being a tragic chosen one saving the spiral from various world-ending threats, there are other adventures going on underneath their nose! Pirate101 takes place at the same time and in the same universe as Wizard101, but never interacts beyond vague references.

The basic spoiler-free plot of this one is that you are a young orphan who got thrown into prison after crossing the Clockwork Armada, a tyrannical army of steampunk clockwork robots who want to conquer the world and end our God Given Right to steal shiny things (and also suppress free will or something. Idk. I never got that far).

You're broken out of jail by eccentric pirate captain Boochbeard and his monkey first mate Mr. Gandry, drag a fellow captive along with you, beat up one of the high-ranking members of the Armada, and are taken to the pirate safe haven of skull island. You're introduced to it's steward, the successful and retired pirate Captain Avery, who immediately enlists you as his errand boy/girl/goblin thing. You meet one of the first companions of your crew, Bonnie Anne, and together you run some turncoat sharks out of town.

After proving yourself to Avery and getting swindled out of a real ship, you basically spend the rest of the game chasing after untold gold and riches, beating up the Clockwork Armada, and helping out unfortunate souls where you can.

The critical difference between wizard and pirate though: The wizard makes temporary NPC acquaintances and even a few true friends, but they're always left to fight alone with just themselves (and a few other wizards if you're playing the game multiplayer, as intended). Meanwhile, the pirate is collecting ragtag companions for their motley crew like they're pokemon cards. Some of them are looking for adventure, others money, others freedom or a new life, and a lot of them just feel like they owe you because you beat them up.

All of these NPCs join your crew and you can have up to 3 of them in a fight with you, in addition to a pet. They all have highly entertainig personalities and different sets of abilities that are useful in different scenarios.

Pirate101's combat is much more up close and personal, playing more like chess where you have a bunch of different pieces that you have to strategically move around to hit different attacks with.

The different classes of pirate, which are determined by which crime got you in jail at the beginning of the game, are as follows:

Musketeers (my fave): guns and traps. The idea is that you don't have to get too close with them.

Witchdoctor: magic! They function sort of similarly to wizards in wizard101, but they can also hit things over the head with their staff and get stabbed, so no they don't.

Privateers: Healing, boosting, and commanding other pirates

Bucanners: Big sword that hits one thing very hard (and also big defense) at the cost of more agility and freedom to move.

Swashbuckler: Also hitting things, but less defense and health in exchange for more agility.

Pirate101 also has ship combat. While Wizard has convenient magical teleporters to move you between worlds, Pirate101 said "get in your boat and drive there yourself." You basically fire canonballs at each other until one ship gets damaged so badly it stops moving and gets boarded, at which point you transition to regular combat.

Pirate101 is in general, the neglected younger sibling. Kingsisle doesn't pay a quarter as much attention to Pirate, but it's still really good.

Apart from the companions and the combat, the biggest difference in pirate is probably your lack of supervision. You don't constantly have people glaring over your shoulder and telling you what to do, you just have a ragtag gang of misfits and a general order to "get money, don't die, and don't be a dick." The pirates get to be very chaotic in comparison to the wizards.

Holy mackeral, that was a lot. Anyway, I played both games a lot as a kid and spent my summer allowance on memberships for them. Now that I have an adult brain and adult money and am a lot better at video games, I have returned to enjoy them again, and I am dragging my brother along with me (don't worry, he's having fun too).

I highly recommend that you play them both, they're very fun. But this post should be a good guideline if you don't want to put that much investment into it, but still want to have half a clue what I'm talking about when I bring up either game. Thanks so much for asking!

[sullyfortress]

do you have idea's for fan actor. I don't know why but I can totally see Scarlett Johansson as Jane.

Shoot i don't know for Jane yet... I'm playing with a few actresses. BUT I just watched MoonKnight again and I KNOW Rudy is Oscar Isaac my short king daddio.

[spinestoat]

mustelids that i think suit spg :3

the spine (ermine/stoat or ferret)

hatchworth (erythristic european badger or japanese badger)

zer0 (wolverine)

rabbit (sea otter or beech marten maybe?)

the jon (mountain weasel or malayan weasel)

upgrade, i have no ideas for im so sorry queen

[saym0-0]

stupid little doodle of spine on an off day

okay so i forgot to finish this but i cba to make another post so um uh this is the original under the cut the top one is actually finished

[brooklynisher]

Family Photo

I made this for my stepdad for Father's Day. He's not necessarily an SPG fan, but he does find the concept cool and after hearing me yap so much about them, he figured that an easy request from me for his birthday would be to make him a drawing of the entire family as SPG characters. I missed his birthday. So now we're back for Father's Day and that's what this is!

Did it in the SWH style since that felt easier to apply when it came to designs I've never used before.

So there are one of two ways this could go. One, since Boopsy was separated from GG, you could say they were her adoptive family and she just lives with them now. Do I know where they came from? Not really since they aren't necessarily my characters! I could imagine that my grandparents from both sides were the inventors though.

The other way, which is honestly more likely, is that this simply isn't canon. But idk, we can learn more about it along the way.

Happy Father's Day people!

Sketchy sketchy

[lotus-pear]

my partner is shorter than i am so i always show them ur skk art and they throw pillows at me. but they like ur art so i guess even hobbits can have taste. they have red hair too this is relevant trust me.

ANON WHY DIDNT YOU TELL US YOU WERE DATING THE CHUUYA NAKAHARA ⁉️⁉️

[who-do-i-know-this-man-s4]

⚠️Vote for whomever YOU DO NOT KNOW⚠️‼️

[piripiip]

Who gives shit about anatomy

Draw however you want

[anotherdescentintomadness]

YiZhan Height Wars

Possibly the most adorable thing you’ll see all day

[steambot-shenanigans]

I may or may not have another idea for a fanbot… or three.

[saturday-byte]

Spg has me watching fucking YouTube Shorts. This is embarrassing

[atlas-the-clockwork-weirdo]

Hall of Wires

Spine x Oc

The Hall of Wires is known for a lot of reasons. Some call it spooky and downright refuse to go anywhere near it, even taking entire flights of stairs just to not have to walk past the closed door.

Others claim it is Walter Manor's brain, as if the house had a mind of it's own, powered by some matter core in the basement or something.

For the automatons though, it was simply the place where you'd find The Spine if he wasn't anywhere in immediate sight. The Spine liked to disconnect his head from his chassis and hang around the maze of wires in his snake form as a way to relax and recuperate from the energy the other people in the house had.

That's why it didn't even remotely strike Atlas as weird when he entered the room, closing the door quietly, that The Spine's headless chassis was standing in perfect form by the opposite wall. While he does know The Spine can disconnect from his body, he's never really seen it with his own eyes, so he pries his attention away from the chassis and up to the wires, weaving and spooling all along the ceiling.

"Hello Atlas," a voice says behind him, making him jerk in fright before turning around. Thankfully, it's just Qwerty being their usual self. "The Spine is expecting you, I'll call him down," they say before their screen pulls up and disappears into the hord of wiring again. He only lets himself wonder for a short moment how the two of them navigate this mess of spiderwebbed wires before something twitched in his peripheral and he turned to face it.

Spine hung from a thick wire that was lowering towards the floor, snake body wrapped around it for support. "Howdy darling," he says happily as Atlas steps closer.

"Evening dear," Atlas greets back, gently taking hold of The Spine's chin and placing a quick, soft kiss on his lips. The Spine kissed back and smiled.

"Are you sure you're okay to spend the night in here?" The Spine asks, just double checking while another three thick wires moved down from the ceiling, weaving and looping to form something like a swing.

"I wouldn't have agreed if I wasn't sure," Atlas answered, taking the proximity of the wire swing as an invitation to sit down on it. He's careful and slow to put his whole weight on them, but does still find himself surprised when his feet leave the ground and he doesn't immediately return to it.

The Spine smiles gently as the wires lift both of them up into the mass of other wires in the air. Atlas soon learned that the ceiling was far higher than he thought initially and there was a lot of room for movement among the wires.

The wires stop moving once they reach a certain height. What appears to be a hammock made from weaved wiring is there and seems oddly comfortable. Spine moves off the wire he's been holding onto and slithers into the hammock.

Atlas carefully tests the weight capacity of the hammock before he puts his whole weight onto it. It gives way slightly, but not enough to be worrisome. The Spine gives him a patient smile, letting Atlas take things at his own pace.

Once Atlas moves to the center of the wire hammock, he sits down, getting comfortable among the humming and general noise that permeates the Hall of Wires. The Spine slithers over once Atlas had settled and moved up to rest on Atlas' shoulders, making himself comfortable as well.

They spent the next couple hours just relaxing and talking about anything and everything, until eventually they both drifted into stasis together. Atlas would never admit it, but that was the best sleep he'd gotten since his creation.

[tomatoart]

Hi sorry if this is weird to say but i saw some of your Persona 5 art on Pinterest and i wanted to check you out bc i really really liked ur style and HOLY MOLY YOU HAVE IMPROVED. Ofc i know that it's old art and time passes and new things will look different n shit but!!! Dude!!! Your art looks fantastic!!!

NOT WEIRD AT ALLLLL HELP THIS IS SO FUNNY I LOVE U. Genuinely one of the best reactions gotten outta me like I can’t imagine going from seeing the older art to the new that fast you just like speed ran my own life LOL but srsly tysm!!! It always makes me smile so wide seeing ppl come from my persona art bcuz it is and was such an important part of my art & life yknow !!! I hope to draw more of it again!!! honorary verterans badge for liking my older stuff (blows my mind to think it’s still enjoyable dhakgswh) even if u weren’t here for when I was originally posting it cuz only real ones loved that stuff way back . This has done NUMBERZ for my brain btw

For anyone curious this is from an old comparison I did on my main last yr. HUHHH ⁉️⬇️

[ariminiria]

it's so unnatural to see the Doctor’s legs. don't like.