#the mouse is in the reference images

[the-real-couchrat]

I couldn’t get @thicctails’s Mythology Falls Dipper design out of my head, so I had to make something for it. (Tw for animal death (a mouse is being eaten by an owl))

Fun fact! In order for owls to be as silent flyers as they are, they had to lose the waterproof oil coating on their feathers, which makes them unable to fly when wet.

If anyone’s interested, I found some interesting videos about Owls and Cheetahs (that are both by two of my favorite YouTubers)

Mabel’s seal form looks a bit different than the (harbor) seal photos next to it, and that’s because I only found those pictures AFTER finishing the art. Before that I had just looked up “seal photos” and used the wrong species as a reference, even though I did the markings (almost) accurate.

Some older doodles below the cut

[spottedsnake]

carson can’t enjoy his strawberry mojito in peace

[galactic-glamour-girl-posts]

The Animaniacs Shared Universe (A.K.A The Tooniverse)

It goes deeper than you think!

(I put way too much thought into this lol)

Tier 1 - Mutually Canon (They definitely share a universe)

I'll be separating each property mentioned into tiers (hey I told you I put too much thought into this). This tier is for properties where characters from Animaniacs have shown up in them as themselves, and vice versa. These have to be more than just references. No parodies, knockoffs, cases where the characters exist but are fictional in universe (as in they're not toon actors, they're fictional cartoon characters with no thoughts of their own), etc. These are part of the ASU, no question.

Tiny Toon Adventures

First, there's the fact that Ralph debuted in Tiny Toon Adventures, before he became a recurring character in Animaniacs, although he was unnamed at the time:

Then, once Animaniacs started, characters from Tiny Toon Adventures would often make cameos, and Animaniacs characters would cameo in Tiny Toons' post-series specials:

Before I move on to the next property, although most of the properties mentioned in this post don't always adhere to continuity, I still only want to provide evidence from content that at least could be considered canon, so while I feel obliged to acknowledge the existence of "Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain", given that it isn't canon, it's depiction of how these characters share a universe doesn't really matter.

Pinky and the Brain

A pretty obvious pick, given that Pinky and the Brain were initially just Animaniacs co-stars before getting their own show:

Their spin off series has plenty of references to Pinky and the Brain's adventures in Animaniacs. Also, Phar Fignewton, Billie, and other Animaniacs characters all make appearances (with Billie and the Warners appearing multiple times):

Those in addition to the series finale ("Star Warners"), where the cast of Animaniacs reunite to do a sketch that parodies Star Wars, make it clear that the spin off definitely takes place in the same world as Animaniacs.

Freakazoid!

This show is more removed from Animaniacs than the previous two properties, but Wakko and Brain show up in Freakzaoid, and Freakazoid shows up in Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain, so it's in the ASU alright.

Space Jam/Classic Looney Tunes

I realise that Looney Tunes in general doesn't really have a "universe", just various iterations/reboots. So the versions of the Looney Tunes I imagine exist in the ASU are the ones in the Space Jam movies/classic shorts (or pretty much any version of them that are toon actors in the modern world).

The Looney Tunes appear or are at least mentioned in Animaniacs multiple times:

Space Jam is alluded to in the Pinky and the Brain episode "Inherit the Wheeze", and the Warners are in Space Jam: A New Legacy (their water tower is even placed in Looney Tunes World in the movie).

There's also the fact that Tiny Toons is an official Looney Tunes spin off, so presumably if Animaniacs shares a universe with that show the Looney Tunes should therefore exist as toons in the ASU.

Tier 2 - Implied/Headcanon (They could share a universe)

For cases where Animaniacs or another ASU property implies that they share a universe, but this isn't done the other way round (for example, if a character from the property appeared in Animaniacs, but no characters from Animaniacs appear in their franchise). This can be done via references, cameos, mentions, etc., but they have to come off as more than just references/jokes, they have to imply characters from those properties really do exist. Basically, the Tooniverse may consider them canon, but the feeling isn't mutual (yet, at least).

Mickey Mouse & Friends

For this franchise, when I say they might "share a universe" it's assuming the context is that Mickey and Friends are also toon actors in the real world, like the Warners, Slappy, Bugs, etc. I'm also including Goof Troop stuff, Donald Duck universe stuff, etc. WB cartoons reference/take shots at Mickey/Disney ALOT, so I'll only talk about a few references that imply that Mickey, Minnie, etc. are real people in Animaniacs.

Slappy mentions attending Daisy Duck’s bar mitzvah in a season 3 segment called "Gimme a Break", so that implies Daisy, and therefore the rest of the gang, really do exist and aren't just fictional characters. She also mentions Huey, Dewey, Louie in the same episode. She mentions these characters while delirious, but one of her gimmicks is being reminded of younger versions of other cartoon stars she's met, so who's to say she hasn't actually met them?

Dot says "Why don't you go bug the kids on Goof Troop?" to a nanny in another season 3 segment called "The Sound of Warners". Again it's just a mention (and a sarcastic one at that), but it does imply that they are real people in their world.

DuckTales has been mentioned a few times; by Pinky in "Opportunity Knox" ("Egad, this is better than a DuckTales episode.") and Yakko mentions the DuckTales reboot in "Suspended Animation - Part 2".

These references alone don't imply Scrooge, the triplets, etc. are real, but alongside the previous references, it does seem to imply that the cast of DuckTales are animated actors in this world too (Animaniacs, the show, exists in-universe too yet the Warners are real people).

All these and more just seem to repeatedly hint that Mickey and his pals are toons in Animaniacs just like the Warners, but since they're from another studio we can't see them onscreen.

This is supported by the possible presence of…

Roger Rabbit

Ralph greets Roger as he enters the lot in the limo (presumably with Jessica) in Tiny Toon Adventures, and although we don't see Roger's face and he's wearing grey gloves rather than yellow ones, Ralph explicitly refers to him as "Roger":

He shows up again later:

OK I admit this one's kind of a cheat because this guy could count as a knockoff (different clothes), but think about it, if he is just supposed to be a knockoff, why hide his face? Why make sure we never see him up close? He's one of the only supposed knockoff characters they do this with. It just implies that this is actually supposed to be Roger, but for the sake of copyright they keep his face away from the camera, since Roger Rabbit is considered a Disney property.

Mickey, Minnie and more appear in WFRR, which goes perfectly with the implication that they are toon actors in Animaniacs. It’s also one of the only properties where both Bugs and Mickey exist (or in Animaniacs' case, Mickey is implied to exist) in the real world as themselves and not parodies or fictional characters. I'm just saying, Animaniacs and Who Framed Roger Rabbit being taking place in the same world would make sense, considering they are both about toons in the real world.

Plus, Steven Spielberg directed Who Framed Roger Rabbit and even voices the "knockoff". I think it's only fitting the movie that got him invested in directing animation shares a universe with the rest of his animated work.

Tier 3 - Reaches/Outside References (It's possible they share a universe, but unlikely)

For cases where a property implies/shows that Animaniacs/ASU characters exist in their world, but this has not happened the other way round. This tier is also for cases where the property has no canon and hence can't share a universe.

Histeria!

Some of the character models that were used in Histeria came from Animaniacs (like ones for caricatures of historical figures such as Michelangelo and Ludwig von Beethoven), and some Animaniacs characters are mentioned/seen in Histeria!:

So why isn't it in Tier 1?

Two reasons. First, in regards to the character models, this seems to be a case where they just reused background character designs rather than intentionally putting an established character in a different show. For example, the World's Oldest Woman was not given a name until Histeria! and was slightly redesigned, and Ludwig von Beethoven has a different voice in Histeria!, so they're not really official appearances of those characters as their Histeria! selves. Yes that's a similar situation to Ralph, but the difference is that the background characters have completely different roles in Histeria! whereas Ralph is the WB security guard in both Tiny Toons and Animaniacs and looks exactly the same (Frank Welker even voices him in both). In the case of the historical figures, two properties depicting the same historical figure does not mean that they share a universe.

As for the Animaniacs references, Histeria has no canon. It's not like Looney Tunes and Space Jam where there's at least a duology of films where one continues the story of the other. There are recurring characters and gags but each episode is completely standalone (different settings, time periods, etc.), unlike most of the other properties which are episodic, but do have continuity (Miss Flamiel is hired in her debut episode and continues to be the Warner's teacher in later episodes, Snowball buys Microsponge in season 1 of PATB and still owns it in season 4, etc.) Histeria! exists in it's own little reality-warping world. Therefore any references to Animaniacs are just that: references.

Teen Titans Go!

Yes, really.

Starfire mentions that the WB water tower is where "the Animaniacs" live in "Teen Titans GO! To the Movies".

(Yes they make the mistake of calling the Warners "the Animaniacs" when that name is meant to refer to the entire recurring cast of the show, but to be fair official Animaniacs media has made this same mistake so whatever.)

And before anyone thinks "Well she's an alien who probably doesn't understand that cartoon characters aren't real", TTG is yet another show where toons are actors in the real world. This is confirmed in multiple episodes, such as their Warner Bros. 100th Anniversary special:

So Starfire knew exactly what she was talking about. The thing is, the Warners themselves don't appear in any episodes of the show, neither inside or outside the water tower. However, the Animaniacs cast may still exist as toon actors in their world. This is implied by:

TTG'S ACTUAL CROSSSOVER WITH FREAKZOID. Granted, he is sort of treated as a fictional character, but in a meta way that would fit right at home in an episode of Freakazoid. The toon actor reasoning can still apply. The point is he's interacting with the real world and doesn't only exist within a TV screen. However, until TTG itself is referenced in some way in either official Animaniacs media or some other ASU property, these are just references.

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I realise most of these were probably just seen as fun cameos and/or references and nothing more, but the idea of the Warners and Bugs Bunny canonically being co-workers who have known each other for years, or something like Dip actually existing in their world, etc. just feels right. Helps the world seem...larger, and more developed! (Goodnight Everybody!)

Ahem. Anyway, this was post fun to think about, and only slightly less fun to make (f#@% the 30 image per post limit).

[sad-squidz]

I could never hate you Brawlhalla Rayman.

[evilmagician430]

[rjalker]

A reference for the Minnie from my dream.

[ID: A reference drawing for a version of Minnie Mouse from August 4th, 2024, who has orange and yellow fur. She is drawn standing with her arms to the side, first wearing a pink skirt with dark purple polka dots, and then without the skirt to show all of her fur patterns. Her ears and upper face are orange, with yellow inside her ears, on her lower face, and a stripe on her head. Her belly and upper legs are yellow, with yellow stripes on her arms, legs, and tail, with her feet and hands orange. A smaller drawing in the center shows her back, which is orange with a yellow stripe down her spine. End ID.]

and a black and white version you can recolor to make your own :)

[ID: A black and white version of Minnie with her skrirt from above, with black lines separating where the different colors go so that the image can be recolored. End ID.]

[autistickaitovocaloid]

faces

[muggycuphead]

Phiddie's Drunk FancyJanuary 2024 - Day 26

Day #26 – Oh god no

“We’ve spent the whole day fixing this up, truly one of the crew’s biggest masterpie- WHAT IN TARNATION”

The Rabbit must’ve conspired on this, I bet’cha he did that long-eared rascal bozo-

<- Day 25

Day 27 ->

Wanna see the other prompts? Check my teaser here

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

where am I

[classicsonic]

2 because theyre tall. making new yoke, boscage maze and no place versions of the sonic ocs i keep forgetting i have and still havent named yet. oops!

[txttletale]

What I don't get is that other your support of AI image generation, you're SO smart and well read and concerned with ethics. I genuinely looked up to you! So, what, ethics for everyone except for artists, or what? Is animation (my industry, so maybe I care more than the average person) too juvenile and simplistic a medium for you to care about its extinction at the hands of CEOs endorsing AI? This might sound juvenile too, but I'm kinda devastated, because I genuinely thought you were cool. You're either with artists or against us imho, on an issue as large as this, when already the layoffs in the industry are insurmountable for many, despite ongoing attempts to unionize. That user called someone a fascist for pointing this out, too. I guess both of you feel that way about those of us involved in class action lawsuits against AI image generation software.

i can't speak for anyone else or the things they've said or think of anyone. that said:

1. you should not look up to people on the computer. i'm just a girl running a silly little blog.

2. i am an artist across multiple mediums. the 'no true scotsman' bit where 'artists' are people who agree with you and you can discount anyone disagrees with you as 'not an artist' and therefore fundamentally unsympathetic to artists will make it very difficult to actually engage in substantive discussion.

3. i've stated my positions on this many times but i'll do it one more: i support unionization and industrial action. i support working class artists extracting safeguards from their employers against their immiseration by the introduction of AI technology into the work flow (i just made a post about this funnily enough). i think it is Bad for studio execs or publishers or whoever to replace artists with LLMs. However,

4. this is not a unique feature of AI or a unique evil built into the technology. this is just the nature of any technological advance under capitalism, that it will be used to increase productivity, which will push people out of work and use the increased competition for jobs to leverage that precarity into lower wages and worse conditions. the solution to this is not to oppose all advances in technology forever--the solution is to change the economic system under which technologies are leveraged for profit instead of general wellbeing.

5. this all said anyone involved in a class action lawsuit over AI is an enemy of art and everything i value in the world, because these lawsuits are all founded in ridiculous copyright claims that, if legitimated in court, would be cataclysmic for all transformative art--a victory for any of these spurious boondoggles would set a precedent that the bar for '''infringement''' is met by a process that is orders of magnitude less derivative than collage, sampling, found art, cut-ups, and even simple homage and reference. whatever windmills they think they are going to defeat, these people are crusading for the biggest expansion of copyright regime since mickey mouse and anyone who cares at all about art and creativity flourishing should hope they fail.

[marchy-emmet]

MS Paint Submas done with a mouse!!

I don't recommend doing this often as it can be dangerous for your wrist.... But I know some artists are naturals at this. Personally, I think this is a once a week thing for me 😂

Progress shots below:

And the reference image:

[barblaz-arts]

Ok I know you probably already figured out alastor's role in your soul eater hazbin hotel au, but im just picturing him as like the Excalibur of the au.

This ask is so fucking funny, I laughed for like half a minute over the mental image and had to draw it. I actually already had him planned to be like the Masamune(Tsubaki's brother) of this AU, but sure why not!

So if you're not familiar with Soul Eater, in this AU Alastor is a cursed blade that's kinda like a parasite to his meisters. He feeds on the soul of the people who use him and takes control of them. He has stitches on his clothes and mouth as a reference to the fact that he puppeteers his meisters, wrapping his strings around them, similar to how you need to have the chains of his blade wrap around you to use it.

He's generally against the academy cuz, duh, he's got a rotten soul, but he also has a personal vendetta against Lucifer and his students because his mother was a witch and it was one of the Death Scythes who ate her soul. He regularly eats witch(and human) souls to get stronger though.

Husk and Nifty are the Free and Elka counterparts, a werewolf werecat-witch duo who are under a big bad's command. (They're a cat n mouse? Get it? Alright...) Alastor is perfectly capable of fighting by himself, but he finds a certain kind of satisfaction in having a meister under his control. A human is certain to die under prolonged partnership with him, so he has non-humans like Husk and Nifty use him when he's not in need of a snack.

[kujoestars]

The Mechanism of Kafka's Transformation and How It Affects Him

(Crossposting my analysis/theory from Reddit. Also, warning: this post contains both anime and manga spoilers so beware if you are anime-only)

So, something that drove me nuts about the manga's version of the X-ray scene was the fact that there was literally no difference from a normal human chest x-ray. The anime THANK GOODNESS fixed that:

We finally know exactly how Kafka's core looks while he's in human form. It appears to be primarily occupying where the chambers would be with a good amount of myocardium (the heart muscles) suspending it while also continuing to function as a heart.

Notably for me, there's actually a translucent hemicircle up top there where it's supposed to connect to the aorta. In fact, you can see the core is translucent on its left (our right) side while more opaque to its right (our left).

Let me highlight it for reference I hope y'all appreciate the fact I had to do it with a mouse on MSPaint because Reddit won't save images to drafts and I can't drop images from tablet like on desktop:

It appears that Kafka's heart was fully converted and the tissue there is just a facsimile since it appears to be forming a pouch for the core to nestle in.

The anime's expansion of the scene the Mysterious Larva/Young Yoju fused with Kafka ended up perfectly tying in to this. Something I noticed was that Kafka was not actually transforming for most of it. Initially he was clutching at his throat where it entered:

Then just before the transformation started (when his eyes started glowing), he was clawing desperately at his chest:

For reference to anyone who's never studied anatomy, the mid-esophagus is actually resting against the heart, which is why the best form of imaging for the heart is a transesophageal echocardiogram (i.e. stick an ultrasound down the esophagus), which works like in this diagram:

In other words, the Larva's target was his heart and it was burrowing into it from that point. Which is consistent with where Kafka was clawing at in the shot I posted before and why after the change completed, his hand was resting just above that area:

Basically, the theory I have been saving specifically for after this episode is: Everything about Kafka's body is tied to the core.

Yes, that was obvious since we saw him regenerate his entire body from just the core, but what I'm saying here is that that the heart was the only thing the Larva was trying to fuse with. The rest of the body followed instantaneously once the heart became a core. Kaiju cores appear to be storing a lot of energy, so it would fit in with why even the initial change could happen so rapidly. It was a large burst of energy that had Kafka's cells all convert and restructure, and we even see steam coming both off and out of him here in the anime.

All future changes seem to be purely a matter of him controlling every cell in his body like individual muscles or even like how cuttlefish and octopi are able to change their appearance in an instant from muscle contractions and chromatophores.

In other words, the evidence has stacked to full OVERKILL that Kafka is truly a kaiju that can shapeshift into a human rather than the reverse like he and everyone else prefers to think.

Which leads me to my big pet theory right now: the reason Kafka is losing his ability to revert to human form is because he's becoming malnourished. I won't stack the image evidence since I've already done enough and the focus is on the core and Kafka's real biological nature now (I'll save that for a future post, lol), but it only stands to reason that if Kafka is physiologically a kaiju regardless of form, that means he has the metabolic needs of a kaiju.

He was only fine before because he had a lot of extra body fat as reserves and didn't use his kaiju form much. But after entering the Defense Force, he's been in multiple situations where he had to push himself while transformed and consume much more energy. If you pay attention to his body type, you'll notice he's been having quite a bit of weight loss.

Sure, he's been training a lot too and eating better, but following the fight with Isao, he's becoming abnormally thin. Maybe not enough for people to immediately think he needs a sandwich, but as of the latest chapters, I've noticed he's actually pretty lanky now even in kaiju form when previously Kaiju No. 8 was built like a bear.

You could argue it's just art evolution EXCEPT literally no one else had such a drastic change in body type or AT ALL. I'm pretty convinced this is an intentional transition from Matsumoto.

Whatever Kafka is eating as a human, it's not enough to sustain him long term and so his body is going into power save mode. And since his default is kaiju (why else would he constantly slip up his first few months if it wasn't actually his default form?), his body is losing its ability to shapeshift because it doesn't have the energy to. Malnourishment tends to manifest in a similarly piecemeal fashion irl, so I'm not surprised its first sign is just one spot on his hand.

Such a deceptively simple reason for the kaijufication is precisely why I'm very certain that is the cause. Kafka has a lot of issues with loving and taking care of himself. And this series is all about subverting tropes in favor of common sense. It's not some "inner demon" trying to take over (the Larva actually only did that once because Kafka was both in danger and refusing to fight back what it perceived as another daikaiju); Kafka just isn't taking care of himself as usual!

And there you have it, folks. Finally, a clear breakdown of what exactly the Larva did, how the transformations work, and why the kaijufication may not be as scary as everyone thinks. Or rather....not in the way they think. Someone please feed that kaiju properly!

[bendysinitiation]

Sammy’s cult if it was awesome

This isn’t technically in the au, it’s more concept, but I love it. It is based off of a snippet of a Snow White documentary where it was a band playing but all of them had these eerie Mickey Mouse masks on with soulless eyes. Apparently, it was extra footage in the Snow White dvd, but I can’t really seem to find more about it.

(Image ID: A black and white digital painting of Sammy Lawrence conducting a band. His hands are raised, the pose that signals the song is about to start, with his conducting stick in his left hand. He, along with the players, are all wearing plastic-looking masks of Bendy, much more 3D than his usual cardboard mask. He also wears a tuxedo with a tie and pants. End ID)

Reference photo under cut

(Image ID: A black and white photo of a band. All of them have haunting Mickey Mouse masks on. The trumpets are in the front facing to the side, and there seems to be clarinets and a sousaphone to the far left. There’s a crowd watching them. The black sign on top says “Mickey Mouse”. End ID.)

[toonheartz]

[ID: A reference image for a blue version of Mickey Mouse.

Their name is Mick, and they're wearing a black hoodie with the hood down, and a sleeveless denim jacket over it. The front of the jacket is covered in many pins, like the trans pride flag, the genderfluid flag, a black patch that says "the first pride was a riot", an ambiguous shape with a red crossed out symbol over it, a watermelon, the autism creature, and a small black patch that is cut off due to the angle, reading "eat the".

The back of the jacket has the Public Domain symbol, white a lower case C on a black background that is crossed out, with ears at the top to match Mick.

They are holding a dark blue offset cane, and have band aids on their leg, nose, and one finger.

Text around her says:

-any pronouns -soft spoken but stands up for their friends -fucks around and finds out -being of pure spite

Back patch should always be the public domain symbol with ears

Feel free to swap patches in the same theme or omit them for simplicity

Uses cane for balance, relieving pressure on his legs, and whacking people

Bandaids are optional and can be any color / placed anywhere (she's very clumsy)."

The very bottom of the page has the hashtag, "mickeysona".

End ID.]

lil something to celebrate the mouse entering the public domain :]