#the art style doesnt even work for most species a lot of them just look.. Okay. anf theres barely any design variation

[matoitech]

still (unfortunately) thinking abt zootopia cuz i cant stop thinking abt how mid it is even if u took out furry racism metaphor and cop plot its like so overwhelmingly mid

[gascreates]

eeeee I love your atla dino au so much!!! do you have an idea of how bending would look different in the dino forms?

aaaa thank you!! im glad you like it!! it feels so great to know that people like this au!!!

actually, bending as a dino was one of my first thought experiments, came way before anyone had any dino designs! ive always wanted to make sure to preserve the whole magic martial arts vibe of atla, even in dino form. and combat is such a big thing in atla that im constantly shifting things around in my head to try and make sure that everything feels balanced. i don't want dino bending to be the definitive replacement for human bending, yknow?

im gonna plop the rest of my response under read more cuz it got pretty long. here we go!

as for how bending actually looks, my thought was that dinos primarily use their head and tails for major bending motions, as most dinos dont have long or flexible limbs that would do much good, at least compared to human limbs. each bending looks slightly different, as with their human forms.

earthbenders are the easiest to visualize to me, as mostly they just do a lot of stomping and head throwing. foot goes down, rock goes up.

airbenders mostly rely on appendages that are feathered, so flapping wings or slamming down a very feathered tail like a fan. i have no idea what a non-winged airbender would do. probably not be very good at airbending.

waterbending is kinda muddy honestly, in my head they're mostly ground based tail and head swingers. less flipping than an airbender, but more mobile than an earthbender. i feel like sokka would use his head a lot though. he's not a bender, so if he wants to get a concussion blugeoning a parasaurolophus, go ahead man.

also also, airbenders and waterbenders can absolutely propell themselves with bending. i mean i guess all of them could if you want, but it's super common in air and water. air dinos flying in dino forms that aren't *quite* built for sustained flight (aang is a microraptor, which is a gliding dino, and not actually able to fly, but with airbending, that doesnt matter!) and water dinos bending while swimming in order to torpedo themselves through the water.

and then firebending is mostly reliant on the tail and legs if possible, basically use the tail as a replacemnt for legs in human form. loooots of roundhouse kick stuff. with a tail. also i was thinking that maybe it's normal to be able to spit fireballs like a dragon? but it's still kinda hard, and something most people can only do in dino form. idk about that one, i just like the idea.

i drew a bit of concept art for this waaay back, but honestly im not all that well versed in how to draw movement, so i feel like the firebender there is the only really clear representation of my thoughts. here's that pic, and a link to the post.

in terms of visualizing the movement, there's this one video game project though called dinoSword by Jean Nguyen that actually really represents what im thinking, even if it's a bit flashy and fast for what i mean. either way, it's badass and might give a good point of reference. absolutely check out their work, here's a compilation of some of their animations

and here's a gif of another one of their animations which i will try so so hard to describe in the alt text

so yeah, all in all super badass! definitely faster and more deadly than what i have in mind, but the general idea about the potential movements and range of motion for these dinos is there

(also a side note, in terms of species for dino forms, my half baked idea is that it isn't really based on nation or bending style as it is geographical location. like, those are obviously linked, but the cause is the physical location. so you can find spinosaurus anywhere you find water, even though it is commonly believed to be a water tribe dino. there are swamp spinos, earth spinos, and yeah, even fire spinos. yes, there are conotations and societal consequences to a fire spino, regardless of how accurate those assumptions are. it got worse with the war

the msot common species for each nation are: mid to large raptors for the fire nation, spinos abd cold weather dinos for water tribes, large herbivores for the earth kingdom, and tiny tiny raptors or flight adjacent dinos for the air nomads. maybe also some lil herbivores, and they just dont get to fly in dino form.)

in terms of what the actual element looks like while moving, i imagine that dinos would have a rougher time with anything that has a huge amount of finesse to it. delicate movements or anything super precise might not be worth it to do in dino form, and most attacks would be more explosive than their human alternative. that whole thing katara did where she incased zuko in a ball of ice in the s1 finale? not happening as a spinosaurus. so while a dino form might give a boost in power, it isn't always practical at the time. not to mention it takes energy to transform, and sometimes it's best to save that for the fight itself.

the general feel of the movements is much more flexible and weirdly athletic than any actual dinosaur would ever be. but at the same time, i want to impose this idea that dino bending, while powerful, can be pretty clumsy, and each dino brings it own limitations. large dinos like sokka and katara are automatically slower, and in fights like the ones we see in atla, that really matters. small dinos like aang and toph also have to deal with how lightweight they are. their natural defenses are to run and hide, so they dont get much in terms of physical equipment the way a large carnivore or herbivore would. they're much more reliant on their bending to stay safe than say a big ol ankylosaurus, who's built like a tank.

SO. that's my big infodump agdkhsjf. i have maybe possibly thought a bit too much about this au. thank you for the aaaask!! so sorry if you didn't expect a wall of text x3

[tumblunni]

Also it still makes me Super Sad to know they were at one point considering giving Viera a similar remake to the Mithra and having them be a both genders race with like.. actual normal people and it being the player’s choice if you wanted to wear sexy armour or not. Seriously i hate ‘they are sexy race’ as a concept for a ‘culture’, it’s like finding the planet of everyone has the same job in some star wars thing, except the creepy version...

Tho also these more ‘sexy race’ designs for them still work MILES better than FF12 when they have sexualized dudes too! Apparantly this concept evolved into (ugh) the Au’Ra, so you can kinda see here how they decided to go ‘nah, extra buff power fantasy dudes and even more over the top fanservice women that also look 12′ instead of like.. fanservice kind of muscly man, at least... :( srsly he looks like that sexy armour guy they censored in that spinoff game or that sexy armour they censored for Ringabel yet nobody seemed to care and instead whined about 1 singular additional belt being added on the sexy costume for girls T_T why do the worst of the worst internet douchebros always throw a fit at the slightest bit of equal ass for all??

wow this ended up going into a big ol lol image heavy post so lets have a cut!

also this sexualized lady armour at least has a different and visually interesting design, and they were thinking of more hairstyles too! like the FF12 viera were even more bad for how they all looked like the same person in 1-3 minor variants of the same xenomorph lookin metal thong atrocity. (and like.. one robe model for npcs that somehow managed to still sexualize a robe?? wtf?? leav whit mag alon)

Another beta viera design that just appeals to me a lot, somehow! I think its the interesting idea of having a fully furred head and then just a quiff of human hair on the top, it feels more like an actual animal man instead of a human in cosplay. Same for the idea of them having big black cute button eyes!

Also look at these other really cool designs for different beast races, even stuff thats not based on anything we’ve ever seen before It’s hard to believe that the Au’ra were even conceived as a ‘beast race’ concept, like holy fuck it should be illegal to throw out 47 Actual Designs and just go with Human Again But More Fanservice...

also they made this april fools thing as a fake Au’Ra reveal and like... it doesnt say much good about your designers when this could legit pass as real like the joke here is apaprantly just that Sexy Bangaa looks ugly, not that having a race with a monsterish man and a sexy lady is a dumb idea, cos they just went ahead and did it anyway...

the au’ra concept art shows pretty much EXACTLY the same ‘sexy bangaa’ principle and I’m glad they at least fuckin toned it down to the man having AN ACTUAL HUMAN FACE, even if its also a lazy fuckin design change. i’d be so fuckin mad if we got a legit cool only-nonhumanoid-race-in-the-game and it was men only!

also like Wow, I am actually getting excited about just the same super tiny demure unfitting lady to a massive man except Less Sexualized And More Magical/Ethereal ...unless that isnt meant to be a dragon familiar but actually another design for the men or something, that’d be going WAY too far! XD

Hello Welcome To Bottom Of The Barrel With Bunni, wouldnt it have been nice if the weird succubus-y ladies like.. looked in their 20s or something i am actually advocating for big fanservice titties cos it would be 99% less disturbing than the same damn camera angles on a ‘childish’ design... also seriously 99% normal fanservice lady with bigass actual monster horns on top would be better than same thing sans the horns

oh sorry they do have ‘horns’ but they look like fuckin this

and i fuckin can’t even.. i jsut fuckin... they don’t even let us have THE MOST BASIC TINY BEASTIE THINGS! why does it bug me so much that male au ra get to have black schelera along with the black horns like even this super minimal actual dragon trait isn’t allowed?? even when removing it makes no sense?? even when its supposed to be a nationality indicator in-universe cos you put a really nice amount of worldbuilding into each ‘race’ having actually two races of sun and moon based designs. which are EXACTLY THE FUCKIN SAME FOR FEMALE AU’RA, seriously why not just make horn colour an option in the editor then... actually is this a thing that has ever existed in any real world country, is there a place where men have [visual trait] and women don’t? I mean aside from like.. cultural or religious outfits, where only one gender’s is different to the west but its not like the west is default anyway lol. But seriously imagine EYE COLOUR! Imagine if blue eyes only happened to american men and like.. american women couldn’t have blonde hair and all looked identical to.. I dunno.. west indian women. Just a whole country where dudes have all the abstract concept of ‘race’ and the women don’t. That’s how nonsense it seems when you make a fantasy species where only the women look human!

tho also i’m still pissed off too that the human nationality thing actually comes with a different body build (FOR DUDES AT LEAST) and different hairstyles and starting outfit, instead of only a colour change. it stands out a lot that they only did this for their first attempt at the concept. also it makes male au-ra make even less sense cos you can already have a muscle human and an even more muscle human who has a dumb ogre face and also elf men are muscular somehow and you kinda only have miquote if you wanna be a skinny dude.. or even just an average dude...

also it kinda sucks that you can’t turn off or choose anything about the weirdly complicated scale patterns on their neck and upper arms only. like why is that even there except to be like ‘hey we did the bare minimum to be considered a dragon’...

ALSO LIKE EVEN MORE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL I would have STILL been happier if we got this fuckin terrible fanservice lady design but she at least had ears and claws as well as we-say-its-horns-but-it-looks-like-cute-hair-decs. like seriously throw me a fuckin bone here, give them SOMETHING to justify the ‘beast race’ category... also did i mention that its really fuckin stupid how they did the worldbuilding too? these guys are meant to be nomads and warriors yet the women look like this. its just.. never explained. its just that all the Lore applies to the dudes and the women are just for ~cyooooot anime girl who does the stubborn kiddy pose with her tits hanging out~ (SERIOUSLY THEIR ANIMATION SET IS REALLY CHILDLIKE AND ITS SO CREEPY! theyre like the sex appeal of miquote with the lalafell animations...)

seriously holy shit looking at this pic makes them it look like dads taking their daughters to soccer practise like seriously fuckin christ

and ALSO on top of fuckin everything else we get to see they even had designs for the same creepy loli fanservice ladies but if they had Some Sort Of Actual Unique Features and Cool Aesthetic Choice like wtf you even abanded like 40 cool horn designs and just gave them plain gross triangles in only one of two colour choices... T_T also like.. that loli lady at least gets to wear an actual gothic lolita fashion style, and i love the aesthetic of armor plates hanging as accessories on a non armour outfit. Do they jingle like windchimes? or does this mean Au’ra were meant to be fully scaled below the neck, so this kinda IS a skimpy outfit but you cant tell? XD

Also l kinda like this aesthetic of this other equally lame and super humanoid design with overly sexualized females. Like i dunno if this is just shading but if they actually had this colourscheme it would be super distinctive! And it reminds me of amarant’s trance form, The Amazing Battle Banana Hammock. Even if it also suffers from the same problem of technically showing a man in a skimpy costume but like his design is supposed to be monsterous and badass instead so it still doesnt deliver the same as the female equivelant. The top left version could kinda be a fanservice guy but like.. only if he was naked like that? like drawing someone in a style that’s supermodel body shape and has giant boob outlines and super sexualized poses and doesn’t look monsterous despite being a monster and ET CETERA, that’s what we mean about a character design being sexualized rather than just sexy. If you put some pants to cover this guy’s impressive bulge then he’d just be another scary boss guy. I mean Ifrit is a nearly naked guy with horns in every damn game but he’s very VERY rarely sexualized! The FFXV version is like the first damn time, except when we had a female version of him. It sucks cos ifreeta has a pretty damn cool design but still its really weird how she’s so much more humanoid and has attention drawn to her having boobs in a way they never did with ifrit’s constantly-on-display pecs and loincloth... Man why is it so hard to explain these weird nuances of how people draw ‘topless monster’ characters like this? its like they go out of their way to try and backpedal on the fact they made a topless guy. he can show more skin but its supposed to be less appealing by the artist, thus its less offensive cos it isnt boxing a character into this one sexualized role while the plot says ‘no, they’re a monster, honest!’ YKNOW?? god am i making ANY sense here? XD

nakey man, not meant to be arousing to audience

nakey lady, suddenly just because she’s ‘the lady version’ she looks like this

the same nakey man, redesigned, this time indeed meant to be just as sexy

and like it sucks that there aren’t many good examples of nakey ladies who ARENT meant to be arousing in this series cos I mean that lady ifrit design is so much more sexualized despite being in a chibi art style game for kids?? this was really not the right time or place!

Also it sucks that ‘is nakey’ is a common trait of monster man characters, because well there’s been an established history of dudes being topless and you’re not meant to be aroused. So then whenever they try and make ‘monster man race’ they go for a topless dude and are like ‘then the woman needs to be topless too!’ except the only way they can draw them is sexy??? except its like a false premise to begin with, you can totally make a beast race that isn’t topless, you guys! or even a beast race that isn’t buff, so you don’t need to be all ‘what’s the female equivelant of buff? oh yeah, sexy!’. or, yknow, just draw a buff woman. it could work... or like just have neither and make a beast creature that’s supposed to be cute or mysterious or comical or whatever.

completely random moment of interjection to say that nu mou are pretty neat

Actually, FFTA’s version of the ivalice races was pretty good about this, aside from the dumb thing of ‘theyre all male except viera, and just coincidentally viera are the only humanoid and sexualized race’. (Tho it was funny that somehow they accidentally made all humans male only too??)

Also another reason the Au’ra’s version of fanservice bothers me more than the simple option to wear a bikini as both genders for every other race: like none of them are DESIGNED FROM THE GROUND UP to be ‘they are all biologically born in an idealized supermodel shape and also look twenty years younger than they really are and also all culturally do j-pop poses for fuckin everything’. Even if you picked the sexy catgirls and catboys race you can choose to play a perfectly covered up version of either. And none of their animation sets or voice lines were inherantly fanservicey. Thats kinda what bugs me more than the Au’ra’s designs, its that they’re all ~uguuu senpai~ anime fanservice lady poses and squeaky voices even if you make their design not sexualized in the customizer. Even tho like.. at least a character in full armour doing j-pop poses is kinda funny/cute, so that’s one consolation. But couldnt you have just made them simple emotes for all the characters instead? I WANNA SEE IDOL ROEGADYN OMG :D

ANYWAY UHH BACK ON TOPIC

we almost got a dreadlocks hairstyle? That looks cool

ok.. okay.. I’m done Okay I’m Done sorry i just saw these concept art pics and got really fuckin wistful for what we could have had...

[gojaimas]

More Comments

MyloMatsuri: “I feel like you could've put this at the very end, after the story was finished. Dont get me wrong, I loved the little interlude. just thought that from a narrative standpoint, it would've been interesting to see this after reading how Gwen, ben, and Lucy reach the conclusion to this story.”

I disagree. It’s important to completely understand how Gwen feels at this point, so I wanted the readers to know everything about her and Ben’s past. Now is the last opportunity to show that.

kinglan10: “So while this author has Gwen describing herself as "not religious," this could mean anything from an Atheist, to an Agnostic, to a Christian who doesnt attend church often and/or doesnt think about God and religion often. And since it's somewhat open to interpretation I choose to pick the one that favors my views, which I'll go as far to say that no I dont believe Gwen is an atheist.”

Pretty much. I wasn’t expecting people to think this much about it. Gwen being religious or not isn’t important, I just figured it would come up at least once in the conversation if two people were to discuss whether or not incest was okay. I can share more about how Ben, Gwen, and Lucy think in terms of religion if people are curious, but it isn’t gonna come up in the story. It’s actually good character building exercise for me to answer unimportant background questions about them, so everyone should feel free to ask me whatever they want about the characters.

csgt: “Interesting twist to make Gwen herself the one who asked for the trip instead of her mother, but Natalie was very supportive of the whole thing. I wonder if this will be a plot point that will come up later, that Natalie might unexpectedly react better to the Bwen relationship than the rest of the parents (usually, in my stories included, Natalie is the most fiercely opposition to the cousins)”

Natalie actually being kind of nice deep down is probably a plot twist no one was expecting lol. I’ve had people commenting recently about how cold she seems compared to Frank, which is how I’ve purposely portrayed her so far, so it was fun to make her show how much she really cares about her daughter for once.

Guest: “I never thought about it before but it was weird that Gwen didnt come out to laugh at Ben hanging when she was in the Rust Bucket the whole time. This fic is now canon.”

Yeah, they didn’t really explain why she didn’t do anything at that point. And I always thought there were some holes in Gwen’s story about being forced by her mother to go on the trip with them. I definitely prefer my headcanon too.

Guest: “Lucy’s into girls? Her and Gwen just seemed like friends in the original serious but oh well. I have friends who’re bisexual so I’m not homophobic but I just can’t seen them as anything more than friends but that’s just my opinion.”

Lucy being bi isn’t something I based on anything from the original series. I just thought it fit because most of the girls I’ve known with her kind of personality have also been bi. Also, I figured she would have sort of a Captain Jack Harkness attitude towards the whole thing, as in, if she can be attracted to aliens who look nothing like her own species, she’s probably not gonna care too much about gender.

Guest: “Nice to see you following your idol Egaraptor’s “don’t break the chain” technique and caring about your fans so even when you can’t get the big chapters done just yet by uploading an interesting nostalgic take on the very first episode of Ben 10. Take your time, it only makes me more excited for it because there’s gonna be a lot of weightage to it. I can assure you’ll be as successful as Ego with your writing skills. Also Game Grumps is great”

Thanks! “Don’t break the chain” is a technique I’d recommend to anyone who wants to write a story as long as mine. I haven’t been watching a ton of Game Grumps lately, but I still love Egoraptor and everyone else on the channel.

Guest: “Something tells me this’ll go real south like ddlc”

What makes you say that, FriendGuest? Everything is fine. I am a perfectly normal hu-man.

Guest: “About the bathroom screen, yes we have seen her express other emotions before besides her trademark smiley emoji and prancing around the playground personality but for someone so seductive and sarcastic, panting from being close to Ben’s touch and running to calm herself down is the thing you’d expect someone like her to and something you’d expect Gwen to do. Deep down, we all have emotions and that can go both ways”

Well said. Lucy is a very emotional person, and that means experiencing both the highs and the lows.

Guest: “It saddens me the producers didn’t have the balls to end Oreimo right. I mean he rejected 4 girls for a short amount of time with his sister? They pussied out and gave an half assed ending. But hopefully, looks like you’ll set the record straight and please all your fans even though the ending is sadly nearing”

I actually suspect that Kyousuke used the “I will do one thing you ask of me” favor that Kirino owed him to break their original agreement and get back together in the end. But I agree, they didn’t end it well. Sorry to all you #RuriSquad people out there, but Kirino totally deserved to win.

Guest: “Julie’s a pretty underrated character tbh. I mean she was plainly made just to be Ben’s Girlfriend from the ghetto but she did have an understanding and likeable personality. They actually had good chemistry in alien force and unlike your story, Gwen was the one pushing Ben to go talk to her. They had their ups and downs in ultimate alien and broke up in omniverse for Ben yelling at a video game when he’s in a phone call with Julie. What?!”

Wait, that’s really how they ended that pairing in Omniverse? God, what were they thinking with those sequels?

Guest: “Uh I’m totally fine with Lucy having feelings for girls but with Gwen seems weird... they always seem to have a Sister or bestie relationship. It’s like pairing up Ben and Kevin to be gay when they act like bros or shipping Captain America and Bucky.”

I never said Gwen was into girls. As for why Lucy would have feelings for Gwen specifically, try not to view my story entirely through the lens of the actual show, as my story differs from it in many ways. If I haven’t done a great job of establishing it using my story alone, that’s my bad, but I hope I’ve done a good enough job of showing how Lucy’s feelings have developed over time.

Guest: “Tara Strong is the voice of my childhood”

Same! I love that woman.

Guest: “Do you watch HighSchool DxD? I mean I know it’s an ecchi anime, it’s like Game of Thrones, you watch it for the plot and the “plot”. What’s your impression on the Season 4 art style?”

I do watch it, and I’m only half-ashamed to admit that haha. I love Crossover Cosmology and I love hot girls, so what’s not to love about it? I’m not a huge fan of the change in art style, but I’m fine with it as long as Koneko is still cute.

Guest: “'This is how we met' that was a genuinely sweet moment between Ben and Lucy and something I wish would’ve happened in the canon timeline.”

Me too. Every chapter I write makes me realize more and more just how much potential the show wasted with Lucy.

Guest: “Since you have interest in drawing, after you’re done with the story, the multiple endings, moving onto others or the one shots. I hope you or someone can illustrate this in a manga or a light novel kind of way or even animate it, although a masterpiece like this definitely deserves an adaption that would be a real big deal”

I was serious earlier when I said I’d pay people to make fan art of my story if anyone was interested. The entire story is way too long for a complete manga or animated adaptation, but individual scenes might work. I might do some drawings of my own once I’m finished with the story, but my drawing practice is mostly on hold while I’m working on it.

Guest: “as much as I adore Bwen, are there any Bency stories at all? Even if they are, I doubt they could portray her character and the chemistry between her and Ben so well that makes me root for them too even this started off as a Bwen Fanfic”

I’m sure there are more out there, but I haven’t seen any. Well, aside from a single erotic oneshot I read once, but I probably shouldn’t link to that publicly haha.