#the quote is from an old comic on tumblr i really like

[zahnffxiv]

hrothtober day 23: rain i like the rain. its sound is comforting to me, and it drowns out all other noises from my mind. but it never lasts long.

[the-east-art]

hello!! I hope you don’t mind me asking this, but do you have any good gf fic recs? I really like your sister’s one so maybe ones with similar vibes to that? :D

heck yeah! *to the tune of Stunkle Bunkle* East gives Gravity Falls Fic Recs!

idk if i can say for sure what does or doesn't have similar vibes to Pines Paradox, but I can tell you fics I like! Although legally if you like a fic I recommended you have to tell me 'I read that one and liked it' so I can feel like I'm getting a good grade in fics recs. One last thing: I'm not really a shipper so these should all if not mostly be gen. (if you want to see my entire list of bookmarks fics you can check out my ao3

Pines Paradox - BrownieFox

Ford's research is interrupted by his estranged brother showing up on his doorstep with a kid who claims to be time traveller. Meanwhile in the present, Stan and Mabel try to figure out how to get Dipper back to the right time. There will be secrets revealed, old wounds readdressed, and above it all a one-eyed demon watches with interest.

East: the primer. the blueprint. The one I do all the fanart for. Obv you have already read it, but in case this list gets around to other circles outside of my own, I want to put this one up first. Dipper gets stuck in the past BEFORE Not What He Seems.

Adrift - Jamesneatojourney

Stanford wakes up on the deck of the Stan O'War, concussed and alone

East: intense and dramatic - I'm kind of a sucker for Stan whump and that's what it is paired with REALLY good Ford POV

Pines! Pines! Pines! - hellmandraws

A collection of my various Gravity Falls fan comics, previously posted on Tumblr. The main focus tends to be on the Stan twins.

East: MUST READ COMICS. Hops all over the timeline, mostly focusing on Stan and Ford. Explores a bunch of aspects of their relationship, of the years they spend alone. It's the beast stuff out there.

putting the dog to sleep - parsnipit

ford can’t stop thinking about old yeller that night, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on their ceiling. he couldn’t do it, he thinks. he couldn’t ever shoot his own dog, no matter what. “well,” stanley says pragmatically the next morning, pretending like he doesn’t care as much as ford knows he does, “since he was sufferin’ and all, it was really better for him to be dead, wasn’t it? not much point in being alive if your whole life is terrible and you’re a danger to everybody you ever loved.” something cold and sharp takes up residence in ford’s stomach. he doesn’t like hearing stanley say stuff like that. he doesn’t like it at all. “i wouldn’t do it,” ford insists. “no matter what, i wouldn’t. there’s always another way.” “heh. yeah, i bet you’d find another way, brainiac,” stanley teases, reaching over to muss ford’s hair. ford swats him away. stanley can make fun all he wants—ford still spends all night thinking about cures for rabies.

East: OUTRHGDSGD the old yeller analogy that runs through this one shot absolutely kills me - I'm such a sucker for these types of metaphors. It uses quotes from the book to set the stage the the different sections and it drives me crazy in the best ways.

Things You Can't Take Back - thesnadger

It's Nineteen Seventy-Something. Stan is running from his mistakes, when he suddenly encounters the last person he ever thought he'd run into out here. What is he doing in Columbia, so far from Glass Shard Beach?

East: dare I spoil the twist? I won't. Read it. One of my all time faves.

Persist and Dwell - fencesit

Wendy pauses with her hand on the door and then says, "Hey, Soos—you ever notice Stan doesn't really...touch things?" He probably should have seen this coming, but the problem with deliberately not looking at things is that they have lots of chances to blindside you. In hopes of avoiding this conversation, Soos says, "I haven't noticed that." "Okay," Wendy says. "So. I'm going crazy, right?" "Dude, you're too smart to be crazy," Soos says, "but he totally touches things. He handed you money like five minutes ago."

East: What if Stan was lowkey-highkey haunting the shack?! THIS IS SUCH A GREAT IDEA. I really wish that there was more for this au or this idea

Deja Vu - interlude

Stan and Ford get stuck in a time loop on the day of the portal incident and are forced to work through some things.

East: Through the lense of a timeloop, watch the brothers have their struggles, and find that with infinite time on their hands there is nothing else for them to do but to eventually work things out (and maybe deal with how to get out of the loop). ITS GOOD SHIT

The Sacrifice of Stanford Pines - Jugare

Instead of sending Stan a postcard, Ford leaves Gravity Falls to find his brother. But to his shock, Stan is not nearly as willing to help as Ford thought. Everything goes south quickly.

East: I love this fic. The act of Ford going and finding Stan rather than having him send a letter gives these characters more time to interact before they arrive at the Shack, changing the course of fate. A top tier fic.

Under The Ice - castielrisingabove

What if that phone call the Bill-possessed Ford made to Stan actually went through?

East: short but to the point. A fun thought experiment and I think does a good job portraying both Stanley and Ford.

Sleight of Hand - impish_nature

Stan the magician!

East: Stan, post weirdmageddon, shows off his sleight of hand and his magic tricks. Ford POV. If you like the idea of the things lost in the cracks of memory after the series finale, or at least while Stan recuperates, you'll like this.

Unexpected but not Unwanted - impish_nature

Ford struggles as Stan remembers.

East: the tentative movements towards being a family, being brothers again, post weirdmageddon. shamelessly soft.

I Am A Selkie On The Sea - scribefindegil

The twins may be able to use the same sealskin, but only the one born with it is the true selkie. At least, that's what Ford's been telling himself for the past 40-odd years.

East: This series in general is really good. I like how the selkie skin is used to unit and to tear apart. My one gripe is I wish we never found out whether the skin belonged to Mabel or Dipper, and it was left for the reader to decide (and to decide if that even matters)

Too Late, Too Soon, Not Enough - IncomingAlbatross

(Another take on the missing scene in the Fearamid, featuring protectiveness, promises, and some long-overdue emotional progress. Also Stan being annoying on purpose.)

East: one of my favorite depictions of this scene. Does a good job with Fords POV and writing Stanley

why can't we just teach kids swears? - untrustworthyglitch

“Anyway, what’s in my kitchen that needs kid proofed? I keep the liquor in the high cabinets, where the kids won’t be able to reach,” Stan says. “Plus, the gun in the breadbox isn’t even loaded. Probably. I think.” Soos sighs. “I have my work cut out for me.” Or, in which Stan's niece and nephew are coming, and it's up to Wendy and Soos to fix Stan's life and habits.

East: A good fic, but more than that I really love this idea of how Soos and Wendy helped Stan get the shack ready for the kids.

Protective Instincts - ShyEye

Stanford decides to do some out of house research one late full moon night. He returns home only to almost instantly be attacked by an unfamiliar monster that maybe isn't as unfamiliar as initially thought.

East: I just love werewolf Stan au okay?

The Other Portal - Haberdasher

AU where, when items are lost in the Bottomless Pit, they come to Ford… regardless of his current location in the multiverse.

East: A good fic, but more than that it's a really fun idea! I wish they had pushed the implications of this even more (especially with the bottomless pit episode)

Off-Season - anistarrose

Winters running the Mystery Shack are difficult, but two unexpected guests improve Stan’s day.

East: cute oneshot. I'm a big fan of timetravel oneshots that are from the pov of the person who ISNT the timetraveler. Dramatic (or in this case tbh just very cute) irony.

In the Shadow of Death - A_Zap

It all started with the grim. Now it seems like every time he turns around, Ford finds yet another death omen hanging around his brother. Seriously, what exactly is going on with his brother that death constantly seems to follow his footsteps? A 5+1 fic of the death omens that adopted Stan and he adopted back.

East: It all comes together in the final chapter, trust me.

Changing Tides - Ariasune

When their dæmons settle, they'll be grown up. At least, that's the general idea.

and

Post-script - Ariasune

Poindexter, your deed is in the safe -- Wendy can open it for you -- don't worry about the mortgage, that's been paid off. Sorry about messing your life up again. Bye. PS - the milk is about to go bad, so you should use that up.

East: DAEMON AU DAEMON AU I'm such a sucker for these kinds of aus. Changing Tides focuses on canon, flipping between when the Stans were kids and the time of the show. Post Script naturally happens after the show. They're both good and dramatic.

Raising Stakes - Mary P Sue

East: heck, my copy and paste stopped working for some reason, so no summary for you. This is a vampire au and it's good! Create characterization, pretty clearly written either while Mystery Trio was a big thing or inspired by it. Carla fans get your juice.

[thenonbinarydetective]

Do you like the official wayne family adventures? It has everything any batfam fan would want.....But sometimes I feel like they all kinda have the same personality.....shouldn't dick be with titans or starfire....why is he back with Bruce?

EDIT: REMINDER THIS IS MY OPINION. IT IS NOT A DISCUSSION OR ARGUMENT.

It’s what tumblr fanon fans who actively go out of their way to shit on comics wants. To be precise. I’ve been shitting on the behavior of some truly awful people on here for like several years so if anyone reading this is surprised and offended. I don’t care.

No I really don’t like it. The better personalities are the girls really. But even then it’s not great. The boys and Bruce especially are full copy and paste. But honestly that’s the only way they can get what they want to work without digging too deep

That’s kinda the main problem I have with it and many others who do that it’s very surface level fluff rather than actually challenging the “angst” in the comics. I’m only putting it in quotes because to some angst is when it isn’t sunshine and rainbows all the time.

I don’t think it has a good argument, for lack of a better word (still works I just want a different one that I can’t remember rn) for being what it is. And also creating that weirdly rancid, occasionally violent and pretentious fanbase that accuses comic fans of doing that no matter what they say or do. Like some people suck but you dont need essays when people point out flaws in WFA. Of which it has some pretty obvious ones. Aside from batfam characterization their Talia characterization just rubs me the wrong way. Like I know it’s been worse but it’s just not giving what it should.

I think dickbabs is supposed to be canon there or at least people act like it. Idk a lot of their reactions can still read platonic which is why WFA readers try to say it’s batcest. If that answers your starfire question. Technically this should be set at a time where dick wasn’t fully friends with the titans again. Although it’s an au, they could probably just fix that for their obscenely happy go lucky attitude

But if you’re asking why starfire and Roy should be far away from the outlaws title, you’d be right. You can call me dramatic but it was lowkey shitty of them to include them considering the damage it did to their characters. Especially Kory.

Yeah dick should be actually independent. But again it’s family fluff over solid characterization so the umbilical cord isn’t cut yet

It’s negatively effecting comics too. Pushing that coffee Tim bullshit, “feral” Damian, and emotional support dick. The Damian one pisses me off most of all because they really had him pull a knife in a formal affair out of annoyance when that boy was raised an AL GHUL until he went to Bruce. Like if he’s drawing a knife it’s for a formalized duel. Not on an unwitting old woman. But even then I’m not sure I’m forgiving.

Oh and DUKE. Duke gets his own paragraph. Jesus fucking Christ did they do him dirty. Absolute boring cardboard cut out of a child. That also gets mildly sidelined for a comic that began with his narration. I get it’s a group thing but like why did some chapters seem to forget about him completely when they stripped him of every ounce of personality to turn him into a reader insert? God I hate it

There’s a lot of problems with it but apparently when you talk about it you’re in for a “let people enjoy things” lecture from someone who doesn’t actually let people enjoy things. I mean some WFA stans cry webtoon if you talk about the slightest amount of negativity. Claiming they need to be healed. Idk with what because WFA is basically a placebo of a comic

[savebylou]

your top 5 favourite fan artists in the fandom. go!

Hi anon, oh I can't choose. I think all of them bring something different and special to the fandom. Here they are in not particular order, is how they appear in my tags.

I love the art of @yimmysart their drawings are so gorgeous and sometimes they look so real, I recommend to follow them on instagram because they share more art there. They have a shop as well.

I love the art of @moon-sun-thyme is just so beautiful and they usually share some drawing that is related of the current events of the fandom.

@specklelouis art is always so cute and adorable, they do larry comics or solo fanart. I always have a smile on my face with their art.

I love the art of @lebesyej especially the Louis' drawings are always so stuning and cool (I will keep manifesting Louis with a piercing earing like their drawing) they share sometimes like video animations and do commisions as well.

I love the art of @lonelychicago she draws Louis beautiful and with different ways they also do 911 fanart in case you watch that show (I haven't yet) check their art here. Buy her a ko-fi here.

I love the art of @evenasyoungastheyare is just so stuning the drawings and they also have a shop here & here.

I love the art of @enchantedlandcoffee is so adorable and makes me smile.

@theeliampayne makes gorgeous fanart, they look like a paiting.

@dxnny-art has beautiful fanart and this one will also make you smile.

@twopoppies has gorgeous fanart and I always love that she complements the art with a quote, makes it more impactful the combination of both. Here is their shop.

@bidamonalbarn has gorgeous fanart, they share of Louis and other fandoms as well.

@biathecreature has beautiful fanart, they also make video animations. Their ko-fi here.

@28goldens has beautiful fanart, they also have a shop.

@harryshandbag has gorgeous fanart, is so impressive.

@justanothershadeofblue has beautiful fanart.

@lemelous does beautiful fanart of Louis and for others fandoms, they do commisions, have a shop here and here, and a ko-fi.

I love the art of @burberryhat is so gorgeous.

@rainbowbeanstyles have a side blog @rainowbenstyls where they share their art. I stll need to check more of their posts but my favorite is Louis with the mexican flag.

@jelyrvia has beautiful art too, they have a shop here and here and do comissions.

@thetriangletattoo has gorgeous art here and here, they also have a ko-fi.

@ialwaysknewyouwerepunk has beautiful fanart and for other fandoms as well.

@bluewinnerangel has gorgeous fanart, is so unique.

@369sec has gorgeous fanart of Louis.

@tommos also has beautiful fanart.

@glourry has beautiful fanart.

@we-mustbe-fireproof they have this beautiful art I hope to see more from them in case they want to share.

I also want to mention some people that make beautiful edits: @wendersfive because their edits for me is art, it's so gorgeous, @louisgayvodka their edits are so impressive and beautiful, @punkpillowprincess I love their edits, they are so pretty & @tangerinequeen19 has awesome edits of Louis.

Another one of my favorites is @lapollypocket-detianguis they are not active on tumblr but they are on instagram and have a shop.

Sorry anon that I didn't choose and instead I list all of them but I really think they are so talented and amazing. I hope this post will make you or anyone interested to follow them, check their art and reblog it and if you can also buy/support their art. This will also help me as well to check old posts that I haven't see.

I'm always thankful for their art that they have share, we are lucky to have so many talented people in the fandom. Thanks for sharing your art and talent with us.

[sidecharactersdomatter]

Thoughts I had during TGCF S2 Ep 3

Let’s make the best of Summer Vacation

CW: Past trauma

Previously on TGCF…

-We’re back in Ghost City

-It’s a Ghoulish mob!

-The same bandaged boy from episodes 2-4 in S1

-Thank you Qianqiu

-Riot!  Riot!!!

-The same old cartoonishly violent dust cloud with people fighting in it, classic

-Qingxuan’s face XD

-Yep it is him

-Oh no he doesn’t like touching

-Yeah he does know the kid

-‘Oh joy’ is right!

-A chase!

-Oh no!  Not the mask stall!

-Got any Yuan on you Xie Lian?

-It’s the Blue Spirit from ATLA (that’s the first thing that came when I first saw the waning moon officer)

-That guy has a red lantern shaped eyeball for a head

-Oooh the Ghost city outskirts

-It’s Yubaba’s manor from the Spirited Away movie My sis’s quote: Xie Lian!  Don’t give anyone your true name!

-The manor’s interior feels like the fancy restaurants I’d go with my extended family Sis: Yeah except for the dancing ladies

-This is giving Bollywood vibes

-It’s your man!

-Oooh a flashback!  800 years ago…  

-Those maids are wearing Hanfu reminiscent of the Han Dynasty style

-That’s Alexis Tipton

-“If a foil palace falls it can be rebuilt, but if a son falls ill it won’t be so easy to put him back together again” That is some solid advice

-He looks and sounds adorable!  “I hate it when they fall apart!”  That complain letter ties in with what happens when he’s older…

-Does anyone know who voices Child!Xie Lian?

-His mother’s design is also inspiration for one of my ATLA OCs

-This was me with Kapla blocks, colorized

-It was a few days ago!

-It’s the same music from Ep 9 in the Sinner’s pit

-The shots of Hualian together!!!  Those are the best crumbs!

-It’s the engagement ring from Ep 12!

-“Xie Lian you wound me!  You think I’d go to a brothel?”  My reaction: …A soup place? (Futurama reference, it’s in one of the revival eps)

-Hua Cheng: Brothels, bad.  Interior design, good.

-“I haven’t had a home for the past 800 years…” that line hit hard.

-Hong Jue again!!!!

-“Always how dangerous” 10/10 best flirting

-Flashbacks from S1 eps 3-4

-You gotta love Hua Cheng’s commitment

-Good shot of the Ghost masks

-Hua Cheng’s quote on power is secretly inspiring

-And he accomplished what Ling Wen couldn’t in mere seconds!

-Not so rough Waning moon officer

-Still touch aversive

-“Who am I to deny your wish?” *fans myself non stop*

-Great.  Now I’ve got a craving for dragon fruit, strawberries and mango slices

-“Yong’An.”Oh no his answer triggered XL’s PTSD

-Everything really did change when Bai Wuxiang attacked

-That spiral effect

-To quote on meme made for S2 on tumblr: 

Xie Lian:  It can’t be!  That boy’s homeland shouldn’t be Yong’An!

Hua Cheng:  Yeah, yeah Gege, Let’s get you to sleep.

(My older sister loved that reaction, that’s for sure) 

-The sword’s eye woke up!

-When the house is so well decorated you forget about the mission…

And my older sis would also say: Now he’s draping himself

-The demonic chanting he does while dashing around the manor

-It is Yubaba’s manor from Spirited away

-That was close!

-He just did Yor Forger’s ceiling jump from Spy x Family

-It’s a 12

-Yeah he’d just end up with snake eyes the whole time

-He’s onto you Xianle, best headcanon I’ve got is that Xie Lian is a terrible liar.

-“Useless idiot” yep keep it coming with the Qi Rong roasts

-There’s a Dragon relief on the door

-It’s the earthbending sound effect from ATLA when the huge stone door closed

-This brings me back to the very first Ep when XL defeated the demon at Yinian bridge

-Man, Imagine Sokka in Hua Cheng’s armory doing the same scene from Sokka’s Master (Instant comic inspiration!):

-Dude really thought of the best gift for his highness (I’m really glad I finished this reaction on XL’s B-Day!)

-The exchanged humor on tending to the armory!

-Here it comes!

-And now, here are my translations of the Crimson rain sough flower’s scimitar:

E Ming, wakes up: Who’s that?  Who’s there?

Xie Lian: Hello.  *chuckles*. It’s cute!

E Ming, hearing Xie Lian’s compliment: He thinks I’m cute!!!

Xie Lian: Isn’t that nice?  Well I like you too.

E Ming, hearing more of XL’s compliment: Awww!  Stop it!  You should totally pet me!

Hua Cheng: No

E Ming, now excited: YES!!!

(I love how Hua Cheng and E Ming’s whole dynamic when it comes to Xie Lian’s affection is basically, Hua Cheng: E Ming no!  E Ming: E Ming YES!  Imma go sketch that out!)

E Ming, getting petted: Oh yes!  Yes!  Right there, and near the hilt!

-He’s gonna touch the deadly scimitar, he’s touching the deadly scimitar, he touched the sword

-They tended his wounds!

-This has the energy of two hardworking dads tending to their adopted son while they’re both busy with jobs

-He’s honoring Xiao Ying with her name, that’s good

-Just like Lang Qianqiu!

-Every night at Paradise Manor is Dim Sum night

-It looks like a red bean roll cake

-Another quick 800 year flashback!

-Those glasses look like Jade

-That maid has lighter brown hair

-This is what happens when you accidentally drink through the wrong pipe

-Qingxuan is the wingman/woman

Finished just in time for Xie Lian’s Birthday! Also when I heard that a short film and movie were announced!!! Everything’s coming up TGCF and it’s awesome! For those of you reading The Scrap Immortal and the Avatar, I’ve got a great start on Chapter 1 so hang tight this weekend! More reactions will be coming out this week!

[iloveschiaparelli]

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes: My Love Letter Part 1

Okay okay okay SO Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes longpost time just my whole opinion/analysis/love letter for the whole film beginning with my Wes Ball backstory so skip to the Ruin screencap if you want to skim past all that.

I haven't talked about it on tumblr yet but I'm actually like a huge fat fan of the Maze Runner cinematic series directed by Wes Ball. Really I'm just a fan of Wes Ball. It not only singlehandedly got me through my first year of high school but also became the reason I ended up entering the film industry. I've watched all 3 movies at least 4-5 times each. Probably like 20-30 for Scorch Trials at this point because it's my favorite. I can quote probably at least half of it from memory. I've watched all of the BTS content that was on the DVDs + the bloopers on youtube like i was obsessed ok.

2019 was like the second worst year of my life so imagine my distress in january 2019 when I found out about Wes Ball's next movie, Mouse Guard, got Super Hyped Up for the multimillion dollar mice-with-swords movie (I eventually read some of the comics btw it's insanely good) And then within the same week found out Disney pulled the plug on the project after acquiring 20th Century Fox. TWO weeks before production was scheduled to begin. I was livid. I'm still bitter about it. Wes Ball then released the demo reel for the film to the public which iirc also had temp music.

So anyway yeah that was awful but then! I think it was later in 2020 that it was announced that Wes Ball was going to be directing the 4th POTA movie. This kicked off me seeing the original 1968 film and then the trilogy and wow did doing so increase my excitement. In my opinion Rupert Wyatt/Matt Reeves' directing styles and Wes Ball's were/are very compatible. I also took the time to get caught up on as much of Wes Ball's old projects as I could get my hands on at the time, including his animated short Ruin (screencap below). Which is fantastic BTW and apparently was purchased by Fox for a feature film that was never made (???) I swear, filmmakers have their past works splattered all over the internet like body parts after a landmine explosion: Good luck finding everything.

Now, Finally Finally FINALLY!!!!!!!! Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is out. I meant to see it on the premier night but my boyfriend broke up with me 2 days before so I forgot. I saw it tonight instead! So now with the backstory out of the way I can finally talk about the actual movie.

First of all, the beginning of the film absolutely WOWed me!!!! It honestly feels like a callback to Ruin, the way that the buildings are overgrown and the post-apocalyptic setting is super evident and feels so delightfully reclaimed by nature. It's also really neat to see how far VFX has come since Ruin was released if you compare the opening shots of the movie with the wide shots in Ruin. Wes Ball himself is also a VFX artist, so it's really neat to see how that affects his work especially since Planet of the Apes is by nature a very vfx-heavy franchise. This movie absoutely popped off in that area but we'll get to that.

Secondly, I forgot how much I missed Ball's directing! Oh my goodness, the performances he gets out of the actors are always so authentic. I still have yet to see a performance by Dylan O'Brien that was as raw and believable as in the Maze Runner movies, and I'm like halfway through Teen Wolf already. In the action scenes especially, I love how characters in Ball's movies, you can really feel their pain. Since pain and physical discomfort aren't communicated directly through film, we often forget just how hard it is to get back up again after getting kicked down, but with Wes Ball you never forget. Ugh, when Noa was getting beat up on top of the bunker at the end of the movie, I caught myself catching my own breath when he coughed up blood. Like, yeowch!

Additionally, everything this man makes is just, like, a masterpiece? On a technical level at least. That's really the mark of a good director, whose job is not only to evoke a performance from the actors, but also to tie together the whole crew. And KOTPOTA really showed off how well the team worked together. Just the establishing shots alone in a lot of these scenes! Oh. My. Word. You can clearly see the fruits of labor of not only the concept artists, but also the VFX artists and production designers, and how they worked with the DP and actors to get the shot. Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:

There are more that I'm thinking of, but unfortunately without a digital release available yet there's a limit to the screencaps that I'm able to obtain. The shot where Noa is walking up the escalator following Raka and you see the plane in the background indicating that Raka lives in an airport is one of them. There's also one or two establishing shots in nature that just show off the setting. The opening shots, of course. And then the shot where it pans up and you see Eagle Village for the first time. There's also an aerial of Proximus Caesar's camp, but I'm unable to find that one as well. The main one I want to look at is the telescope.

Just, like, Hello???? It looks like an art piece. This screencap is a little closer in than I'd like, but in the full frame you can see the absolute mastery of composition that it is, you can totally imagine it as a painting. Which in my experiences usually means there's a painting behind it somewhere in the process, lol. Let's go concept artists!!! But then you see how the colors are just, perfectly balanced, the plant growth is realistic and accentuating the set, and so on and so forth. It was just absolutely breathtaking to see for the first time. I'm pretty sure I audibly gasped. I did a lot of stimming during this movie just to stay quiet and not start babbling about the film pipeline to my father in theater auditorium.

Even more magic happens when Noa steps onto the set, and starts messing with the telescope. Suddenly it's real, it's tangible, it's touchable. Transforming what was likely a matte painting at one point into a set that the actors can interact with, and then into a shot where almost everything is overlaid with VFX, and having it look so real like that is truly magic.

The ship also had me dumbstruck, but slightly less so because we saw a similar setting in The Maze Runner: The Death Cure in 2018. Although it was slightly different for sure. What had me going even more in this movie was how much the characters interacted with the ship, moving in and around it, and trading glances with one another from on the ground and up inside. In TMR:DTC, you really only see the decrepit ships in the background, and one is referenced as a plot point but the characters never actually physically interact with any of them. So it's much easier for our brains to categorize the ships as gimmicks to help us believe the scene.

It's when props like these are woven into the scene as tangible objects that our brains start to shut up about the CGI and really start to believe what's happening onscreen! and KOTPOTA did an amazing job at this. Please bear in mind like, I literally have zero specialization in VFX, it's not my field and although I draw, I've never done concept art for film. I honestly believe that I'm simply in an appropriate level of awe for what this film accomplished.

The other thing that amazed me was how stylized the setting was. The greenery was so green, the ocean felt like a painting, the ship was red, the telescope shot is very, very blue. Several of the shapes used in the ape's costume design are simplified. And yet, despite the stylization, it never feels cartoony or polygonal, it still feels completely grounded in reality, and I could really believe I'd see it in real life. I think this owes partly to the fact that we rarely inspect any of these simplified items at a close distance, aside from Raka's necklace which appears to be made of either bone or whittled wood. It also owes to absolute geniuses in color grading that kept the stylized colors realistic enough for our brains to believe. Overall I'd take the visual style of the film to be Impressionist. I love impressionism.

My main interest in filmmaking is writing/directing. However, most of my experience lies in costume design (Student films rarely need costume "design" so its usually coordination) and production design. As a result I spent a good deal of my time watching KOTPOTA zeroed in on the production design.

I love post-apocalyptic science-fiction/fantasy worlds like this partly precisely because of how much you can learn from the production design alone. When Mae enters Trevathan's room for the first time I swear I was eating it up. Every single prop in this movie was carefully thought out by the PD, which is why his room absolutely stood out from the rest of the setting that we had seen up to that point. It was distinctly "human-centric" as opposed to the rest of the movie. I remember seeing it in the theater earlier today, laying eyes first on the bed by the door, thinking that it must be something they set up for Mae, but then wondering why or how the apes would know or want to set up a human-style bed for Mae when we're so many generations removed from human-dominated society.

Next it was on many miscellaneous table objects, thinking to myself "That looks like how a human would treat a space. Apes are generally too big to decorate at that scale." and then my eyes roved on to the furniture, seeing a human-sized table, human-sized chair, human-sized junk everywhere! Slowly, by observing the room, I gained a stronger and stronger sense of "there is another human here," which upon observing the rows and rows of books became "a smart human like Mae, who unlike her can read" (Remember at this point we still believed that Mae and her mother were the only smart humans that Mae had known growing up, and that she had been pursuing the opportunity to meet other smart humans and join them).

It was only upon the instant of realizing that this was a smart human that Trevathan spoke and appeared on the stairs. It was absolutely perfect timing. THIS, guys, is exceptional production design. It was honestly my absolute favorite piece of production design in the entire film, especially because of how much it contrasted what we've become used to seeing in the series as humans have diminished in population and apes and nature have taken over the space instead.

That exact sense of change or "otherness", that noticeability of contrast upon seeing what is honestly a pretty "normal" human space if you look at it in the context of our existing society, is only present because of how well PD treats the rest of the movie. In order to make a completely normal space feel strange, you have to change literally every other space to something alien but consistent with itself. And KOTPOTA does just that. The job was begun in the original trilogy, with the decline of humanity depicted across decades, nature taking over the gas station and the dam and even the city. But this movie had the biggest challenge because of simply how many years had passed before the story even began. Society as we know it today is completely and totally obliviated in KOTPOTA's setting. In every set that the characters interacted with in any way, PD had to fabricate a space where humans had been but the virus, decades of decay and post-apocalyptic living, and ape encroachment had transformed it.

This also brings me into the subject of the rich culture we see emerging in the world of the apes through this movie. The original trilogy, especially the first and second film, was all about the ape's identity. In the first film Caesar wonders whether he is human or ape, and whether apes are pets or equals to humans. He eventually comes to the realization that humans are never going to look out for apes the way that apes will and decides to become that person. In the second film, Caesar and the other characters involved have to figure out what being an ape means. Does it mean strength is power? That humans are always an enemy to defeated? Or a similar species to live alongside? It's about establishing what the ape race's relationship is to the human race. The third film I didn't get to rewatch before seeing KOTPOTA, but iirc it was about whether humans and apes could ever coexist, which is a theme we see continued in this movie, albeit in a slightly different way. Either that or more likely it was about whether apes will repeat the same mistakes as humans.

Anyway, I digress. In the script we already see a rich culture emerging in hints, right from the start of the movie. It's in the hunt for the eagle eggs at the beginning with mentions of some kind of coming-of-age ceremony, followed by Noa reminding Anaya and Soona that they must "leave one egg always. It is the law." Already in the first five minutes we've established that this particular ape civilization not only has cultural traditions surrounding youth and coming-of-age, but also rituals and laws surrounding their relationship with and the conservation of nature. And through dialogue we extrapolate that these apes have bonded animals (eagles). It honestly felt like a crossover between Native American Indian hunting practices and How To Train Your Dragon, which is wild I know. (Also can we talk about how the eagles in this movie actually made eagle sounds???? And not falcon sounds! Finally we're breaking the bad habit of making up animal noises to sound cooler when the original already sounded super cool by itself.)

So in just a few minutes guys!! We already have so much. Then the trio heads back to the village and has their first encounter with the Echoes (Ekos? If anyone could get spelling on that for me that would be fantastic) but are too afraid (or law-bound) to get too close to or cross through the tunnel "into the valley below". So through these we establish that there is a taboo around not just humans but also around leaving the village. The clan has taken an isolationist approach wherein they not only forbid their young clan members from leaving but also withhold information about the outsiders from them until they've come of age. Guys the cultural system arising here is absolutely wild. Like sorry not sorry but I eat this stuff up. (Screenwriters-- this is prime example material of "show don't tell")

There's also all of the ape social communication rules that we've already gotten used to, mainly a variation of the palm-up/palm-down gesture as a means of showing respect (submission) and asking for permission/approval.

In this movie however the hands are mostly closed and the palms are down for the sub as well as the ape they're seeking approval from, as opposed to the trilogy in which the submitting ape always had their palm up. At first I chalked this up to cultural differences among clans since we learned that this clan is not the clan descended from Caesar's apes in the trilogy, but then Caesar's descendants were doing it this way too? So I don't really know what to make of it but I'm going to decide that it's just global cultural evolution (at least, as global as the real-world evolution of Old English into modern English).

Through the production design of the beginning sequence in Eagle Village, we see that the eagles catch fish and then the vast quantities of fish and the smokehouse indicate that fish caught by the eagles are the main source of food for the Eagle Clan. We also see feathers as a motif throughout, worn especially by the parents and the elders as a sign of social status (we know it's social status bc Sylva rips it off of one of the elders as an intimidation tactic and everyone audibly gasps, indicating it worked). That last bit is honestly more costume design, they popped off too but one thing at a time or I'm going to become incomprehensible. I will repeat myself. It is inevitable.

Then throughout the film we learn that not only do they adhere strictly to the "law", but that that law is set by the elders alone. We also learn that they primarily relate to their eagles by singing to them which!!! is just!!!! so!!! metal!!! I love it. The way it plays into the end scene with Proximus just AGHRGHJHRHGR GROWL BARK BARK FERAL NOISES>

ahem

Also we see them building nests at home for their eagles and they've figured out falconry tools for the aerie and everything on their own like??

Then in contrast we see what's left of Caesar's clan, it's descendants. Proximus Caesar, we learn later from Trevathan, has gone completely fangirl over the ancient roman empire and decided to emulate it because "he likes it" and it makes him "feel good" (yeah he's probably the most textbook tyrant I've ever seen in media), choosing to morph Caesar's teachings into his own new worldview rather than adhering to them properly.

So the culture of Caesar's clan is very heavily roman-influenced, often copying practices outright such as the insitution of slavery, a lot of the fashion choices and even the way that banners are put up around the camp and the way that Proximus dines at a low-set table filled with an overabundance of food. And he has a throne and crown, and there are roman numerals inscribed on both his and Sylva's necklaces. But we still see influences of Caesar's original society, most noticeably the persistence of the window symbol and the architecture of the dam. The architecture wouldn't be significant at all, instead being noted as a stylistic choice for the whole series, if it weren't for the fact that it's different from Eagle Clan's architecture.

If Eagle Village resembles those spaghetti bridges that engineers build for class, with thatched roofs, then the dam at Caesar Clan's camp is much more brutalist by comparison. Eagle Clan was very spindly and focused on height and lightness of building materials: many of the logs were thinner and longer, more spaced out, and sometimes rounded at the ends. By contrast, Caesar Clan's dam is built with stumpier logs, closer together, and spiked at the top. The dam is also shored up with soil and other materials. Which yeah, is typical of beaver dams but is also typical of the structures in the original Caesar's village in the trilogy.

Unfortunately, there's only one image currently available of Eagle Village and it's after it was burned down. But you can still see how it differs from Caesar's village, instead of being chaotic it's more organized, allowing for a more lightweight structure.

This (below) is the closest I could get to having a picture of the dam's architecture, but you can still tell how it's more similar to OG Caesar's architecture than it is to Eagle Clan's, even though it's using a completely different building material (scrap metal instead of hewn trees).

Eagle Clan's architecture is also a further effect of how their society revolves around making a life bond with eagles, which are flying creatures. So of course they would be inclined to taller structures, especially ones that are more lightweight and have structural patterns, imitating the way that birds are built (see above).

I'll continue in part 2 as a reblog because it's 1 am and I'm running out of steam but YALL I need you to understand: It's been 6 years since the last time I had a Wes Ball film to overanalyze and rave about. I have SO MUCH to say about this film.

[cuubism]

Headcanon from my "fic graveyard" doc.

What if Hob can not only refuse death, but also has a kind of death-averse zone around him?

Things heal more quickly in Hob’s presence than he has ever had any reason to account for. He thinks, maybe it’s some effect of whatever has kept him alive over the centuries. People still die around him, of old age, of violence; he’s killed no few himself in war. But wounds heal faster around people who room with him, cut flowers linger past the point they should fade, fruit stays fresh longer, things like that. He wonders for the thousandth time if Eleanor hadn’t encouraged him to go to London to handle court affairs right before she went into labor if she’d have survived the birth.

THAT LAST LINE FUCK 😭

I love this, I'm slotting it into my Hob-becomes-a-patron-saint-of-living thoughts. It happens slowly, over time as he gets older he's no longer just spared Death's gift, but starts to become his own creature that's not quite human, has his own sort of power tied to his incredibly strong will to live... it's more precious to me, actually, than thinking of Hob becoming "Hope." Hob as the personification of Life is dear and interesting to me, especially if he is close friends with Death. There was that quote that went around tumblr absolute ages ago, I don't know its origin. "Life and Death have a long love affair. Life gives gifts to Death, and Death keeps them forever." (I think that comic might have become a meme tho XD). Anyway that's Hob and Death, except, of course, Death once gave Life a gift in return of something that was really supposed to be hers... aka, Dream.

[lediableblancdotcom]

It is long...but read it....

Future of LeDiableBlanc.com

Here is the lowdown on what is going to happen with LeDiableblanc.com. Over the last month or so I have been playing around with new ideas for the site. The reasoning behind this mucking about is nothing short of I am getting old and so is the site and it needs to slow down along with me. I have been running this website alone for almost 30 years now, and I am approaching the big 50 myself, and we are in need of a smaller workload. It has been a labor of love and still will remain one, just a little slimmer, just cutting the fat. Here are the changes that I know are going to happen moving forward in the streamlining of the site:

Appearance Database:

The Appearance Database is the heart and soul of the site, so it is going nowhere. It will change (hopefully for the good), but will remain housing the same idea of collecting all of Gambit’s comic appearances. I did a quick rehaul of the “A” section in the Appearance Database, that shows how the new database will be absorbing the other information from the site. The main page of the Appearance Database will stay the same, cover and basic stats of the comic for quick reference, but by clicking on the cover you will get not only the variant images as before, you will also get any other Gambit related information from the comic as well. The database will absorb the information normally found in: Friends & Foes, Family Tree, Uniforms, Charged Items, Stolen Items, Quotes, Crossovers, Major Reads, and even some sections that never made it to the site itself and these stand alone sections will be removed from the main menu. I feel this will be be an easier way to keep that information available, but less workload on getting this information up on the site. I will also keep the Printable Master List updated regularly and available.

Sections getting the Ax:

Some areas of the website will be getting the ax all together. Most of the these sections are now redundant or out of date. Getting the ax will be Bang your Dead, Fashion Police, Wolverine Gallery, Wallpaper, and Ads. I will also be taking down Fanart, due to art theft and the AI issues of today, it is not a mess I want to step into anymore. With artists having their own social medias and websites, I feel there will be no great loss to this area leaving from the my site. The merchandise database will be coming down too, it is out of date and impossible to keep updated. Disney is very loose with their licensing, so the amount of goods coming out is too large to keep housed. Also, most new merchandise is immediately posted on the Facebook Groups much faster. I will make sure to post some of the older, more unknown goods to the Tumblr “Obscure Gambit” page, so that older stuff doesn’t disappear completely.

Sections on the Fence:

I will be keeping the Non-Sport and Game Card databases. They are relative to Appearance, in my opinion, and will remain and updated as much as possible. Saying that, I am on the fence with the Sketch Card database. It is technically an appearance, but the cards are not available to everyone and the database can never be completed because the actual amount of cards are unknown and are constantly being made. I am also on the fence about keeping the media outside of comics, like movies, animated tv, and video games. They are technically not anything I have to update a lot, because the information is complete for now, but eventually new episodes/games will be made, and I am not really into the other media, so I usually am unaware. So I may leave them for now and decide later on those. I am really debating on taking the site back to it’s comic only roots and removing those sections.

I would really like any feedback, for or against these leaving the site. So please let me know your opinions.

Galleries: As I said above, the Fanart, Wallpaper, and Wolverine galleries are being axed. I am going to keep the Edits, Original Pages, and the Cover galleries on the site. They may not get as many updates as usual, but they are not time sensitive, so it should be fine. Those are highly used galleries, so I don’t want to take them away for now.

Social Media/Domains:

The LeDiableBlanc.com Facebook Group and the two Tumblr (lediableblanc.com and Obscure Gambit) pages will remain and operate as usual. I will not be using Reddit (why so much hate for Reddit?), Instagram never got used much anyway, and will be discontinued. I will never open a Twitter/X, so don’t ask. I am willing to take any suggestions on other social media, but no promises. I will not be renewing some of the domain names that mirror the site. I will always keep lediableblanc.com and remylebeau.com, but iheartgambit.com, xmengambit.com, xmenlebeau.com will most likely not be renewed as site mirrors. They are rarely used and the money spent on their renewal can go towards the annual server fees.

Patreon, I am going to remove at the end of the rehaul. I thank everyone who donated, it helped more than you know. If you want to donate one last time, I will be forever grateful, server fees are not cheap, but with the downgrade of the site I don’t expect anyone to do any kind of monthly support. I may go back to the annual begging, so prepare for that, but I don’t expect anything from anyone but enjoying the site.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback of any kind, PLEASE let me know. Reply to this message or email me at remylebeau@yahoo.com. You can message me through the Facebook group or on Tumblr as well.

It will probably take me a few months to get the Appearance Database up to date and the other information added, so not many changes or updates may happen until that is completed. So the soon to be removed areas will remain until it is done and uploaded.

Thanks, everyone for your support and I hope it will continue through the mess to come.

[thatoneaceinthecorner]

RQG Art Masterpost

Hey guys! So recently I've had a wave of notes on some of my old rqg art, and a few new followers. I got really nostalgic about rqg and decided I wanted an easier way to access my rqg-related art (other than the dumpster fire that is tumblr's tagging system), and I wanted other people who are just finding my art to have an easy way of looking at the rest, if they want to. So I dug through everything and made a masterpost! This post contains links to all the rqg art I've ever posted on tumblr, as well as a couple images that I couldn't find the original posts for, despite all the digging. It's loosely organized, emphasis on loosely, but I hope it should be fun to look through if anyone ever feels like it. Spoiler warning for the whole show, just in case anyone new isn’t done with their first listen. There's also stuff in here that's pretty old and that I don't necessarily love anymore, but seeing how my skills progressed over time is still pretty neat. This is a long post, so I've put all the links under the cut. Enjoy!

My top three pieces and why they're my favorites

General:

Shoin's sketch of London

RQG Inktober: Scars

Resurrection Ritual in the Ursan Village

Zolf Smith, cleric of what comes next (comic)

Alex's horrible Barret Monster with knife arms

Ada and Tesla in their lab with the Babbage brain

"Why didn't you do more" (it's all your fault comic)

Blue-veined arm in Other London

Zolf and Azu hear the hivemind

Sasha and Cicero leave Rome behind them

Apophis in human form

Party camping outside the Garden of Yerlik

Kantu!! Because I thought they were cute

Also these two drawings, the ones I couldn't find the original posts for. Azu giving Hamid a piggy-back, and a really old drawing of Azu in Carter's mind museum.

Sasha Racket:

Sasha hangs out with gargoyles (and sphinxes)

Sasha portrait

Goodbye, Brock

Goodbye, Grizzop

If Grizzop had lived and helped raised Sasha's kids

Sasha deserves bat wings, as a treat

"I so wish you could meet them"

My very first drawing of Sasha, post-Kafka fight

Wilde:

Wilde masterpost (yes he has his own)

"We're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars"

His brain might've popped

Wilde looking pretty (plus bonus shitpost sketch)

"Oh Wilde, you must have been so scared"

Wilde with blue veins

Wilde gets his magic back (first time I ever drew him)

Zoscar:

Wild and Zolf in the rain, epilogue

"We've got this" "Yeah, we've got this" aka Parallels

Breath of Life

Wilde's first death

Peace and comfort (for once)

Actually some more peace and comfort

And a little more

Aaand back to some angst

RQG Zine Art:

The End of the World As We Know It

How Little He Matters

Rome Is Where the Heart Is

Animatics/Animations/Videos:

Hamimatic - Immature

Zolf is the sand guardian, guardian of the sand

Wilde and Zolf in the rain but animated this time

Sasha protecting Wilde in Paris

Time lapse of some of the "Breath of Life" drawing

Ben Meredith quoting Jenna Marbles (starring Toothbrush Zolf)

Doodles, sketches, and requests:

Messy busts of the whole party (plus Wilde, obviously)

Azu and Grizzop outfit/deity swap

Never wake a sleeping Barnes (comic)

Toothbrush Zolf

Azu caring for undead Sasha

Ada mourning Babbage AU

Fun sketch page of various PCs

Domestic Zolf and Wilde

Canon-compliant under-dressed Zolf (look he's posing like the coppertone baby from that one brand of sunscreen, i thought it was funny)

Sasha and Wilde bonding time

If Sasha and Cel met each other

Sasha and Zolf, amputee buddies

Wilde in a flower crown (Everyone Liked That)

More domestic Zolf and Wilde

Sasha playing with Hamid's twin brothers

Sasha looking after Grizzop's kids

Zolf and Wilde hugging

Sasha and Skraak, dynamic duo

Barnes and Carter hugging

Kobold in the kitchen with Zolf

Ada holding down the fort

Happy Hamid

Cel and Grag

Wilde and Hamid high-five

[positivelybeastly]

Hi!! Is me, Stray! After many a trial and error, I now have an RP blog! Just letting you know I'm here and, uh, favorite music genres & favorite song headcanons for Hank?

Welcome to the roleplaying community! There's always a few ups and downs when you're first getting set up, especially if you've only ever set up the one Tumblr for personal use, but there's always room to learn, and I find that people tend to be generally pretty accommodating if you're as polite as you've been on Anon! If you have any questions about roleplay etiquette or the like, feel free to send another ask or just IM me.

As for favourite music genres and song headcanons for Hank, I generally think he's a pretty open minded fellow? There are a good few bands and types of music we know for certain that he enjoys.

Jocko Homo, by Devo.

Dead Man's Party, by Oingo Boingo.

Chopin's Nocturne.

60s rock! I can see him being a Creedence Clearwater Revival kinda guy.

Acis and Galatea!

The Rolling Stones!

Something you'll often see assumed of Hank is that just because he's a man of the arts, well read, and eloquent, is that he's some kind of music snob, that he only listens to opera, that he only enjoys classical, that he looks down on 'lesser' forms of music. And I honestly just don't believe that would be the case?

Like . . . here's the thing. Hank may talk fancy, but he is still, at best, a middle class farm boy from Illinois. If he has an accent, it's probably closest to a Chicago accent, if he hasn't trained his voice to do something entirely different - he does mention his voice has changed during his feline mutation to a baritone, so it's not out of the question. But he is not (or at least, he should not be) a hoity toity snooty asshole.

This is something even writers often get wrong about him - they assume that he's the smart character, ergo he must be the snooty, elitist character, which is something Ben Percy leans into, but it's not even just him, it's Paul Di Filippo in X-Men Unlimited vol. 2 #8, too. It becomes an asshole trait, and it's just. Not. Accurate.

Hank likes all kinds of music. In fact, I struggle to think of a kind he's outright stated he hates, though he's been around for 60 years, I'm sure someone can correct me. He's a curious fellow! He likes to explore! He'll consume any media, he quotes 1940s Superman comics, he watches Robin Hood movies with Wonder Man, why in god's name would he be a snob?

As for headcanon? I have tons! I often think, hmm, this feels like a song Hank would like, or a song that feels like a Hank song, when I listen to music, because. You know. Big blue guy's p much always on the brain.

I have a Spotify playlist that I occasionally add to, but currently on there is:

Is She Really Going Out With Him? by Joe Jackson - self deprecating, but also kind of a banger.

Carry on by fun - fun is an amazing band, and I definitely feel the lyricism and scale of their music would appeal to Hank.

Rain on Me by Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande - I don't know if Hank would listen to this, but it has his vibe.

Cells by They Might Be Giants - I'm sorry, but have you fucking heard a band that more encapsulates Hank's personality?

Dr. Wanna Do by Caro Emerald - my old Abigail RP partner used to use this as her ringtone for Hank. I think Hank likes some jazz.

Cure for Me by Aurora - again, not one I think Hank would listen to, but again, it feels like Hank to me.

Very Good Advice by Robert Smith - Hank totally digs new wave and the Cure, and literary references mixed in with that vibe? Totally.

Moonshine by Caravan Palace - this song leads into Lone Digger by the same band, which I put on Dark Beast's playlist, representing the continuity between them. It has the right energy.

There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards by Ian Dury and the Blockheads - songs Hank would sing in the middle of the fight if it weren't full of swearing and comics were allowed to do that.

I Want You to Want Me by Cheap Trick - he does.

On Melancholy Hill by Gorillaz - this just has exactly the right energy.

I Will Dare by The Replacements - "How smart are you? / How dumb am I? / Don't count any of my advice. / Oh, meet me any place or anywhere or anytime / Now I don't care, meet me tonight / If you will dare, I might dare."

Anti-Hero by Taylor Swift - another one that doesn't feel quite like something Hank would listen to, but I think we can all relate to this song a little bit (does that make me a basic bitch? Maybe), and some of the lyrics are so awfully Hank. "I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror," like, fuck.

Turning Japanese by The Vapors - Iunno, I just think he'd like it. I often think that if I were gonna make an OG X-Factor movie, this is what would start the movie during a fight scene.

I would also like to give @brw a shoutout for their excellent Hank playlist, which introduced me to, among other things, Touch-Tone Telephone, which feels like Hank's theme song.

Oh, also, The Plastic Age by The Buggles. Hank absolutely loves prog-rock, you know he does. Oh, and showtunes! The man just will not stop singing, in the middle of fights or while being filmed for the nightly news, so he totally vibes with some Broadway. I'd also be lying if I said that Dust and Ashes doesn't feel like a New X-Men Grant Morrison Beast vibe all over. And Hank would love it! A musical based on War and Peace? Sign him the fuck up!

[y0d00p]

since i'm no longer viscerally opposed to seeing ex-besties OCs or having them on my page, i wanted to share some old art i still like that happened to feature them :) the first pic here has what i consider to be one of the cutest/best looking Lad's i've drawn. overall i just like the little homage to Computers I Like

the posing in the second one is really cute, and i love the composition in the third one! the story with the third one is that in our RPs, multiple characters had become corrupted/infected by Soed, excluding VR specifically, despite him really wanting it. funny (?) in hindsight now that he's Soed spawn himself

more ↓↓↓

i drew TONS of these tiny comics of just OCs saying funny quotes from videos or tumblr posts. i'm sharing this one because i like how everyone is drawn here and because Lad is in it

pokemon AU Lad and (the other one) was one of the last major things we RP'd together and actually "finished" and it was really special to me. asocial middle aged man living off the grid after escaping a criminal organization and the pathetic 35 year old shmuck he meets that just lost everything and doesn't know how a pokeball works. human Lad (as a separate character) got a lot of his development from this

comics from an RP we had where their kaiju OCs showed up from an interdimensional portal or something and started causing havoc. back when Lil was into dudes lmao

i'm sad about archiving this one because it's a cute little moment with Tro and Icha but i feel like the set up with (that guy) is too good to just cut out (sorry these are long, if the text is hard to read, you can click -> right click -> open image in new tab to zoom in)

this was drawn back in Splatoon 1 time... before playable octolings and new hairstyles... the pacing in this makes me laugh

to finish up here's some doodle pages focusing on Lad and (the slot machine), including a fusion. i love the Lads in these so much ubububu he's so cute

Lad reading I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream to (the slot machine). little Lad is so cute LOOK AT HIM!!!

[bunny-j3st3r]

Archie sonic isue #3

Back at it again at krispy kreme

reminder that as much as I dislike archie sonic I am going to attempt to post as many positive as I do negative comments, these are just me logging my thoughts as I go through ALL of the comics because I like to torture myself.

After fighting with the site for awhile I'm reading these on lmfao we start with issue number 3 it's release date was on august 1993 with it publication date being October 1993.

"Sorry I scared you, anyway robotnik has a bomb" very normal thing to say sonic.

Something about Antoine's being fancy is really funny. They wanted to call this fruit a faggot so badly.

Mans really went FUCK christians me and my homies HATE christians.

Okay this bit made me cackle I'm ngl

I think this is what furry conventions feel like.

turns out the bomb was in fact a bug bomb, still not exactly enviromental friendly but eh, maybe robotnik should try a glue trap next.

Ah so they do aknowledge they changed her hair, I'm sure they aknowledge her fur change to but I don't recall that.

Ah here we have one of my favourite child hood characters when I was a kid and her first origins before they changed it many years later.

Not that I'm complaining I guess they wanted to give characters more plot lines.

I think her current orgins were similiar? don't quote me on that though.

careful she's a hero.

I love she was dying, saw a pretty girl and went I'm normal now acutally.

Very hetro behaviour.

girl they stole ur pigment

Tumblr when they see trans women

because I had to clip these from a different site it sadly seems that I'm unable to nab the questions and etc.

I do love the fun these old comics have but they sure have not aged well in some aspects.

They have charm to them though I suppose but it really does make me laugh when some sonic fans hold these comics as like the word of god of sonic lore when most of the time they just

don't make sense

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[treasureplcnet]

do you have any drawing tips? i'm just starting out and your style inspires me to keep going fr!!

HIYA !!! thank you that is so kind of you, i would say to keep drawing with references and do studies!! typically art studies (in like art school lol) are of old masters (da vinci, etc) but doing studies of styles that you like, like trying to copy a certain artist you like, also helps you develop skills !!

for example, lots of people (especially fanartists lol) do studies of artists like leyendecker while making the models their favorite characters/ocs, so it helps to make studies fun. literally look up leyendecker study on tumblr dot com and you will see hundreds.

(gets a bit long and rambly so i've thrown it under the cut :')

style studies can be anything! above was done while watching wolfwalkers, just loose sketches that copied the style as the movie went along. i love the design and style in that film, wanted to incorporate it in my character design work, so i tried it out myself! it let me know the kinds of shapes used in the construction, the way it moves (wrt to animation) and silhouettes. by copying something, you learn how to do it on the way (so the kinds of colors used, what works best with shading, etc) it's like. reverse engineering

even very loosely copying something to identify what you like about the style helps! these were modelled after the way slimsense on ig paints (her work is 2nd + 4th examples below, my attempts at 'paint' 1st and 3rd lol), but doesn't really look like her work. i'm not necessarily trying to make perfect copies. i liked that her paint didn't blend perfectly, was blocky, and the additional lineart over the painting, so i brought that into my own art. i tried to create a painting style that was 'my own' off of lots of trial and error, and seeing what stuck!

also find brushes you like! adobe has a bunch on their page (if you have photoshop, but i know there's some for procreate and other programs) and if you want the adobe brush files, lmk. i will send a drive link to you LOL (sketches of the same characters, using different brushes below. the two i used the most often, one being a solid inker and the other being a paintbrush)

generally doing figure drawing is good too. i've heard advice about art where you can only start breaking the rules after you understand them, and a good grasp on anatomy, proportions, etc is definitely a good place to start! good sites to use for this are line of action for poses, and the morpho books (if you need pdfs of this let me know, though you should be able to find them if you look lol) !

i would also say learn perspective early on. i have no tips for you here i am so sorry. i didn't and now it bites me in the ass, but there has to be a youtube tutorial for this out there that can help you AND me. same goes for color theory. quickly dropping my favorite van gogh quote of all time:

(quote is from a letter to his brother) just everyone needs the fundamentals first. don't worry about a personal style: that just comes naturally as you develop as an artist, and i was certainly inspired by a lot of the things i watched/consumed and artists i admired which absolutely shows in my work i think (manet. western comics. fma. avatar. pjo fanart. there are tells. you know how it is.)

also flip your canvas !!! like see below ... frankly this marcille is so lopsided (her entire face should shift to the left) LOL !! flipping horizontally makes the anatomy mistakes obvious, and shows you you what you need to fix. i should never have posted this as is but sometimes it works for humor and an artist is lazy </3

AND ALWAYS USE REFERENCES WHEN YOU CAN!! i should use more references tbh!!! it helps with posing, getting anatomy correct, etc, and my friends use pinterest a lot, though i tend to just google when i need to LOLLL

also draw what you like. there is genuinely nothing that is better for your art than getting into something REALLY BAD and then non stop drawing it. time + practice will lead to improvement no matter what the subject is!

i hope this was not too much information all at once !!! and some of it is helpful!!! it's a lot of basic improvement tips that i try to practice and use when i can :) so sorry that this got so long!!!!

[thefringespod]

Okay I know I already reblogged @the-sassy-composer 's post about story inspiration but I would like to expand upon things because I went back to some of my earlier notes and I left off a major player in the original inspiration of this show

Starting with the more average inspirations, we've got The Adventure Zone and Dimension 20. I'm looping them together because a lot of my inspirations for this show are d&d based and my love of d&d comes from these shows. This show was originally set in a planar system like in d&d (specifically the one that features heavily in TAZ Balance). It also was originally going to have ttrpg elements to the creation and execution of the show (side note: if you wanna see a show that's actually *doing* that, check out @souloperatorpod) There's something about the way that TAZ and D20 weave magic and sci-fi (see TAZ: Balance and D20: A Starstruck Odyssey for the best examples, though most of my D20 inspo was actually The Unsleeping City) that has always really spoken to me and greatly influenced the magic systems I used on the Fringes

Like every depressed 15 year old on Tumblr, I watched a LOT of Doctor Who. It's a huge part of my sci-fi-ish inspirations (the multiple realities and ways to travel between them mostly. Yes in DW they travel through time but the feeling I'm trying to evoke is similar). Sci-fi that deals with traveling between worlds or time or realities has always been something I've loved and a lot of that fascination stems back to Doctor Who (and also Marvel comics but they're less of an actual inspiration and more of a fix for my multiverse needs)

And then there's Between the Lions

If you were not a USAmerican child watching PBS between 2000-2010, Between the Lions was a children's educational puppet show (more like Muppets than hand puppets but not official Muppets) that followed a family of lions who worked/lived in a library. It was like an anthology series for kids, each episode featuring a different children's story being read

The original drafts of the Fringes very heavily followed the idea "what if Between the Lions had a psychological horror element"

Before it was on the Fringes, this story took place in the Library. The Library (she/her) was a sentient and infinite library where our Storyteller (any) lived. The Storyteller would read stories from the lives of those living in the realities outside of the Library to the Wanderer. If you've listened to the Fringes, you can probably see that the Library became Minerva, the Storyteller became the Keeper, and the Wanderer has always been wandering. And if you've listened to the Fringes you can probably figure out what the Library had done in my original drafts. In addition to kidnapping, however, the Library also fully consumed anyone who came into the library by absorbing all of their stories and leaving them nothing but bones. Between the Lions! With kidnapping and horror implications!

I left the Library because I kept getting stuck there, eventually finding the room to breathe and create on the Fringes. That said, my first introduction to anthology was Between the Lions and it did still influence a lot my creative process and what ended up becoming the Fringes

I'm going to close this out by returning to The Adventure Zone and one of my favorite quotes of all time "See, there’s magic in a bard’s song. They call it inspiration, and it tells the listener what they need to hear right when they need to hear it. And right now, you hear it too." Inspiration is a form of magic. In d&d it helps you add to your roll. In real life, it helps you create things that you never thought possible until it *happened*. Seeing a bunch of other creators talking about their inspirations for their shows has been so much fun, especially when you know the stuff well enough to see it reflected in their work

[socialfauxpa]

2023 book round up!

I managed to read 63 books this year, which is crazy. Granted like 20 of them are single issue comics so that really boosted the numbers but I still loved quite a few this year if anyone wants more detailed thoughts ill put a few in a cut at the bottom. A couple were also re-reads of books I've read in the past but its because they were bangers or they had a new book in the series release or a movie/tv adaptation announcement.

Special shout outs and some thoughts about the books under the cut.

DIE, 20 issues by Kieron Gillen with Clayton Cowles, Stephanie Hans (Illustrator)

DIE was the first thing I read this year, got it for Christmas started reading it for New years and what a way to start the year. Friends who got trapped in their DND game 15 years ago having to go back to the world that held them hostage for years. Insane and beautifully executed. Can't recommend it enough.

Things have gotten worse since we last spoke by Eric LaRocca.

I have thought about the quote "what have you done to earn your eyes today?" at least once a week since I read this novella in September. Great little horror novel. very unnerving in the best way.

The long way to a small angry planet by Becky Chambers

I've been slowly working my way though the Hugo Award best series lists from the past few years and this book really fucking hit. It really hit me in the found family center of my heart. I think i described it to a friend as "Very much like the best episode of what you remember firefly to be, combined with the fun shipmate relationship dynamics of mass effect". And i stand by that.

High School by Tegan Quin and Sara Quin

I've been a big fan of Tegan and Sara for year and I watched the tv show based on their memoir when it was coming out (still hopeful for season 2) so of course I read the book. I listened to the audio book which was so fun because its read by them and has the old audio recordings of the songs they were writing.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

I've literally been trying to read this book for close to 10? maybe even 12 years now. I first heard about it from someone in line at the Veronica Roth Insurgent book signing event i went to. lmao. And its been sitting on my shelf ever since. I finally picked it up and committed to reading it when a friend asked me this year if I'd ever heard of it and I was like I have! and I'll read it with you! I finally read the whole thing, the friend never finished it haha. I read it back in June and literally it was like the great gay hive mind on tumblr was connected and also read it in June because the amount of House of leaves jokes I started seeing ?? crazy. I also went on date with someone who was actively reading it like 2 months after I finished it. What a weird thing.

[thosewildcharms]

i was tagged by @theyarebothgunshot to talk about 8 shows to get to know me. thank you for tagging me! putting this under the cut because i ramble.

In no particular order:

1: the oc/gossip girl: yeah okay i’m cheating right off the bat by conflating these two but i don’t care it makes sense! besides being from the same creator/production team, i think in many ways they are natural inverses of each other (west coast/east coast, new money/old money, evolving beyond what people expect of you vs buying into your own propaganda etc). listen i am a sucker for teen dramas, always have been and always will be, and i think these two changed the game in a BIG way. neither are thee mothership of the genre (i think that goes to beverly hills 90210???) but they are both so compelling in different ways and i very often find myself thinking about them (also in very different ways) years after watching them, and subconsciously compare characters on other shows to the main cast of each and they always fall short (you will never be blair waldorf you will never be seth cohen etc). plus the soundtracks! incredible. i can talk about the oc in particular for days and how it has what every other teen show secretly needs (sandy cohen) but this is already too long and i need to shut up.

2. miranda (bbc): listen. LISTEN. i re-watch this show every year without fail. it is the ultimate cozy feel good show that also somehow punches me in the face with how much of an Experience it is. i can’t describe to you what it was like watching this silly little comedy for the first time, getting sucker punched so thoroughly (in the best way) over and over and then to finally have the most satisfying conclusion i could have imagined. references from this show take up a not-insignificant amount of my vocabulary and i quote it daily. it’s so good. i love it so much.

3. friday night lights: anyone who has watched this show knows why. it’s so hard to explain, it’s just good. as someone who has never given even the slightest shit about any sports game of any kind, i think the highest compliment i could give this show is that it made me cry about football more than once. the only people i know who don’t love this show simply have not seen it (actually, people don’t talk about this show enough anymore?? that’s so sad). when i think of my favorite shows, i always have to include fnl because it’s just so sincerely excellent. i own two fnl t-shirts and i will gush about it unprompted if you give me even the tiniest window to do so. texas forever, clear eyes full hearts etc. micheal b jordan you will always be vince howard to ME.

4. gilmore girls: this one actually surprises even me because i never talk about it on tumblr dot com lol but i literally have it on as background noise as i type and it’s almost always my default when i just want to put something on that’s comforting. it’s weird because i can’t really say i LIKE the show as a whole but it’s so cozy (at least the first five seasons) and i do have a LOT of opinions about it, but in a kind of low-stakes way where it’s fun to think about instead rage-inducing. it’s strangely enough, something i can talk about for hours (and often do) without even realizing it.

5. smallville: oh my god the way i was obsessed with this show in middle school lmaoo the way it’s not technically GOOD but also it kind of is? full disclosure i’ve only seen the last few seasons like, once but i used to have the first five or six seasons practically MEMORIZED. it’s a good time, and while i don’t know much about the superman comics (or any comics) it’s my....favorite? iteration of superman that i’ve seen? idk, i thought tom welling and kristin kreuk were the two most beautiful people i’ve ever seen in my life and i loved watching them make out. also michael rosembaum was an incredible lex luthor and i stand by that. i also find myself talking about this show a lot in real life.

6. lost: one thing about me is that i WILL go off about how the lost finale was good actually and NO they were not dead the entire time you idiot -  at any given opportunity. it IS one of the five petty, inconsequential hills i will die on. it’s a good show with a good and fitting ending FIGHT ME ABOUT IT. also sawyer/juliet supremacy their reunion scene in the finale is the scene i compare all other romantic scenes to. nothing compares. scene of all time.

7. hey arnold: i know it’s a cartoon shut up! but consider this: it’s beautiful and good. i legitimately watch it all the time because it’s so funny and melancholy and sad and smart and the soundtrack slaps. also finally getting the jungle movie (which was a conclusion to a HUGE cliffhanger from my childhood) was proof that sometimes you can get closure, actually! this happened before reboots became unnecessary and exhausting leave me alone

8. supernatural: i watched this show after thee november fifth and it accidentally became my whole personality. i don’t even know.

honorable mentions: selfie abc (if you haven’t heard me whine about how it’s the one show in the world i actually want a reboot for you simply haven’t known me long enough); my mad fat diary (i will be thinking about finn writing ‘i love you’ on rae’s back for the rest of my life), ugly betty (i just love it a lot)

tagging: @bisansastarks @buttobstacle @mmaddens @richonnies @dwcas, @coachlasso @wordybee @ilarual @hauntedpearl @burgundyshoes @someoldlady @that-gender-bender @bananaleaves @korralone and anyone else who sees this and would like to do it!