#they aren't art people or even interested in cartoons so I don't expect much

[shrineofdolls]

my favorite reply to showing off my crafts or artwork is "I don't do stuff like that because I don't have time" followed by awkward silence and a quick escape to their phone

[berrypass-de-murdler]

About the Murdle fandom. (long post)

I have made vent posts before, but this is less of a vent post and more of explaining the specifics of the situation, which I have not yet shared my perspective on publicly. I know it's a long post but please, please for my sake read it.

I joined Tumblr because I wanted to be a part of the Murdle fandom.

It started with Raven. She was the only person on DeviantArt (where I started) other than me who posted Murdle art, so I summoned the courage to talk to her. I'm glad I did. She ended up one of my best friends, not just in the fandom, but period.

After a while, I more or less left DeviantArt and moved entirely to Tumblr to focus on the Murdle cartoon. For a while, she was the only reader, until I was joined by RoyalleBlue, my best friend on Tumblr.

And I would also like to shoutout kirvee, electricskelecomics, foxglove.woods, and murdleandmarot for providing support

Raven invited me to the Detective Fanclub Discord server. I was extremely nervous coming in but was welcomed by electricskelecomics and a few others. I wasn't used to a public server and had intense anxiety, but was slowly warming up to talking.

Eventually I was comfortable enough to talk regularly about Murdle. Raven posted AU information about Logico, and I jokingly called her out for 'hurting my babi boi'. Another user suddenly publicly called me out for 'infantilizing' characters, completely humiliating me. They gave an indirect apology (through Raven) apologizing because they 'knew I was fragile'. I left the server, to then which a mod followed me to DMs and criticized me for leaving for a long while until I stopped responding and they finally let it go.

To this day I am very uncomfortable when the server is brought up and often fall into another depression cycle.

I generally felt better here on Tumblr. Even though I didn't get much attention, I still had Blue and Raven.

I however seemed to unknowingly be making an enemy. A prominent user in the Tumblr Murdle fandom who I had never spoken to directly but had still liked the posts of and who indirectly said I was 'very cool' at one point began completely avoiding me, although I'm not sure exactly when it started. Initially I figured they just didn't read the series, which is fine, but they also ignored my art while usually liking and reblogging every other Murdle art post. This kept increasing to the point where they no longer interacted with Blue simply for being friends with me, and refused to acknowledge art that I was even tagged in.

At this point I could tell that it was personal, and yet I still don't have the faintest idea of what caused the grudge, as again, I never spoke to this person. They blocked me at one point before unblocking me the next day (and still avoiding me). Eventually I couldn't take it anymore, I sent them one non-aggressive message explaining why I felt like I had to block them and did. It hurt me, because I knew this was a very nice person otherwise and someone I wanted to be friends with initially.

It doesn't matter if it's not direct, targeted avoidance hurts. Every time someone other than me, Blue, or Raven made a Murdle post now, I'd get a harsh reminder of the fact that I was being ignored on purpose.

The depression I've gotten from all this is more severe than one might expect. I just wanted to join a community with the people who also love my new favorite thing. Murdle was the only thing making me happy through a dark time, and now it just makes me think of the people who berated me on Discord and avoided me on Tumblr.

I hate thinking of the book like this. I find it, needless to say, amazing in every way which is why I dedicate so much time and effort to it. Designing characters isn't easy. Writing isn't easy. I only wanted some appreciation for my efforts. I don't mind if people aren't interested in the cartoon. But the personal offenses are getting to be too much.

Thank you for reading this. I want to be free to continue my work that I love making so much.

[mystycalypso]

Can i just say how much i freaking love the work you two are doing, Holly hell this is some wild stuff as veteran of hello neighbor you two are making me proud of this small community that is running on tumblr!

Also i hope you two don't mind me asking two questions.

Firstly, If one of you two had the control over welcome to ravenBrooks show what will be some things you two will change.

Secondly, What are you're thoughts on the artstyle of the show considering that Man of Action is working on the show?

Okay to start, I know I say it every time we get asks like this but y'all are genuinely so sweet and nice and it's just really really cool to see people enjoy our stuff. Like- especially fellow old fans of the franchise. I know Kaydin also really appreciates how sweet you guys are but just idk it feels like my fandom dreams come true when people like things like our au and art for this series

As for your questions...

Personally, to start, and this is Jack being slightly particularly- idk nitpicky? But there are three things I'd want to just- fix immediately and all three of them are Nicky related.

Number one, his shirt. I'm sorry guys but I've been here since the alphas and I didn't even realize this was his Sharkotron T-shirt. It's- It's just an egg

Number two, I realized after intense studying of Nicky's- face that it looks really weird when he's front facing, but his nose is facing right. So scenes like this suddenly seem- off model for no reason? I've poorly edited the image below to fix both of these

Yes I am too lazy to edit them properly, sadly. Did make his shirt logo still one colour for ease of animation. Idk why but left facing nose Nicky just looks less weird. Just me and kaydin? Maybe.

Number three- uh... that hairline is atrocious /lh

I know he wears his goggles in the show like constantly but also- this is a 13 year old boy guys. I was 13 once and I have a very flat (minus a widows peak) hairline, but it did not stop my hair from falling all over my face, and I think it's fair to assume the same for the kid who's hair refuses to behave anyway

Just fluff him up a lil (again I'm sorry these aren't better edits lol)

You don't even have to have it show when his goggles are up because like a headband or headphones it pushes hair back, or otherwise

Although ironically while I'm explaining what I would change in the designs, I don't mind the art style at all, actually I kind of love it. Sure some things you kinda of have to get used to, like their ears being pretty low to the head, but in general I think it really fits the franchise. I know it didn't look too drastically different from the pilot, but there's so many little nuances in the designs that just make it better (especially when you look at characters like Trinity)

I've told Kaydin a dozen and a half times how I think show Nicky is the franchise's second best design for him. The first being this singular piece of art from Nicky's Diaries, like I have gone on for hours about why this rendering of him is just perfect.

Third being fan renders, followed by the book artstyle, the pilot and finally games

And while other designs I wasn't sure about when watching through the show the first time, really just lore hunting instead of caring about anyone who wasn't Trinity or Nicky ngl, when I started doing my expression analysis I realized just how nice the designs and individuality of the characters are. If you put Nicky's expressions oh Enzo or Ivan's on Trinity it wouldn't fit and that's something I don't think people would expect from a Hello Neighbor cartoon.

They also have things I can just appreciate as someone who's special interest is animation (but doesn't have the patience to animate TvT gotta love audhd) for example, just having shading even in shots where they could completely go without it. It makes it less drastic and a smoother transition when lighting gets intense. They're also now afraid to switch up camera angles and push the rigs for a more intense shot.

Also something I really appreciate

Smear frames!

God I love smear frames!!! It's another one of those things that It's like- knowing how much this cost Tinybuild, they could've easily cut it down to save money. But it just wouldn't have been as nice without it.

Sure there are probably people who look at the fact that Man of Action is working on the show and are disappointed by the art style. But I say this entirely genuinely when I say I couldn't picture this show looking any other way and working as it does.

Yeah, they could've used more realistic proportions for these kids, but it works so much better when it's pushed like this when Mr. Peterson is nearly double their height. He's visibly a hulking intimidating man who could lift a middle schooler and lock them away. You fear his build which contrasts his outfit best (really feels like they took the book description of him and just pushed it, as we know he doesn't have this same stature in the games)

Plus it feels like in general, they stopped focusing on that dumb "Oh we need to hide things in every frame" which- thank God. Sure they are still hiding little details, hell I have changed a whole chunk of theory about Theodore's relationship with his son because of something I found on accident

This photo of (seemingly) 12 year old Aaron Peterson.

I'm not gonna go into it here lol because this is already long and it's supposed to be about the animation.

Are they still building mysteries and people are still crafting theories? Absolutely! Not a day goes by that I haven't been thinking about whether or not Aaron will ever be seen in the series in the present day and if he is, what he will be like mentally.

But the point is, they're focusing on crafting something GOOD over just theory fodder. Both animation and story-wise, and I can appreciate that so much.

Like- this is gonna be a really hot Jack take here so be aware.

I enjoy this franchise and it's spinoffs much more than the FNAF franchise.

Sure, Hello Neighbor one is and will always be awful. But I am 100x more likely to play Hello Neighbor 2 or Secret Neighbor than I am to play any fnaf game myself.

When I make fnaf content it is almost entirely AU based. Because the idea of getting lore super wrong since I just can't be bothered to try and figure that convoluted mess out is annoying. Why even try to solve lore if I need to read more than 10 books for a minor detail that becomes a major antagonist? We can't even get a full confirmed backstory for the main antagonist!

But with Hello Neighbor they realized that people don't want to be jumping through 50 hoops for lore. Yes we want mystery, but one we can solve without dumb contrivances and plot holes.

Do I still love FNAF? Of course. My senior quote is from William Afton ffs ("You may not recognize me at first, but I can assure you, it's still me") but one of these franchises is growing to better itself and gain more love, while the other is slowly becoming more of something I enjoy without trying to understand, and I think the Hello Neighbor animated series is- the pinnacle of this difference.

I love Welcome to Ravenbrooks. I love Hello Neighbor. I can’t wait to see what comes next from TinyBuild, and how season two will be even better than season one. (As proven by the fact that Nicky gets to yell louder in that one teaser clip alone than anyone got to in season one lol)

[mrdragonageherself]

Also related to dragon age I know I was super critical last night and I still have really low hopes but I do truly love the dragon age series I'm just so disappointed that EA keeps getting away with treating their fans and consumer base like shit thinking we'll lap up anything they give us for massive money when they abused and mistreated their staff and are so out of touch with what constitutes a good game because they don't care if we like it, they care if we BUY it.

But I am interested in Bellara and Davrin especially, with a special shout out to Lucanis and Taash. I'll always be sad they named a character Neve and spelled it that way so it tarnishes my opinion of the character but I am very excited for those characters.

I still maintain my criticisms. The voice acting in the ad sounded bad and low quality, with varric not even sounding like himself. I don't know why they made varric dark haired to show he's greying like... you can make him strawberry blonde and greying it IS possible. Harding sounded weird too and while I'm happy we finally have a dwarf romance option I wish it was a new character not someone we've met already. If they were going to give us someone we met already it shouldve been varric and it should've been in inquisition. (OR DA2 BECAUSE LETS BE REAL HIM AND HAWKE ARE SOUL MATES but varric *was* a new character in da2).

I also didn't love the art style but I didn't love it in inquisition either, i didn't mind if they went more cartoon-like, like they did in dragon age 2, I just wish it didn't feel like a different company made it every time and also I found the art style hard to process while in motion like the FPS was off, like I struggle with halo my brain just doesn't properly process what I'm seeing so I hope it flows better and is more comprehensive in game.

Also when people said they wanted it to be grim dark again we didn't mean literally get rid of lighting. Let's not pull a GOT here. And the criticisms of the script I think are still fair, DA:O and DA:2 were more grim dark than DA:I but they still had humour (it was in fact, a main draw in the game), people aren't looking to remove the humour from a grim dark they're just commenting it feels like very generic recycled and over used Hollywood phrases that lack real personality which is concerning.

I do have some hope and I desperately hope the game turns out to be good, and want to enjoy the characters and story, I just have really low expectations and the ad didn't make me feel much better.

Also whyyyyyy do all the handsome black male characters have a close shaved head like whyyyyy Davrin is an elf they could've given him soooo many cool hair styles, shaved sides and dreads, or long braids with beading, bantu knots, twists, an afro, ANYTHING but we got another shaved head. Which speaks to what we can expect from the character creator hair options as well, I suspect. I'm not even a proper curly girl if you're being GENEROUS my hair is 3A, but mostly 2C and there is never ANY curly options that are decent even a little bit I am always left wanting so I can only imagine how people with type 4 curls feel looking at the character creator options.

Anyways dragon age rant over.

[lastoneout]

which fob song were you thinking of?? for some reason i can’t think of it and it’s driving me crazy also i love the idea behind the post so true <3

Oh, it's "What A Time To Be Alive" from their newest album! I'm literally obsessed with it, it's SO good and I am incredibly impressed that they managed to flip to a completely new genre that's so different from their other music and immediately nail it. (I'd embed it here but youtube is evil and hates embedding so here's the link.)

And tbh, if you'll indulge me, Fall Out Boy really is the band that, to me, most encapsulates the spirit of "we can do whatever we want who cares what anyone else thinks". Like all throughout their music is the theme of how expectations are a prison that destroys creativity and the best way to be free is to say fuck it, and I am so fucking inspired by them because of it.

So really, who gives a shit about consistency or sticking to one style or any of that crap! Be an emo rock band unapologetically releasing a goddamn Earth Wind and Fire song. Switch from western cartoon styles to anime to watercolor to oil paints to whatever. Write books and fanfics and poetry and video essays, draw and make animatics and comics and stickers. Stream video games and learn to sing and drop both on the same youtube channel. Make sad things and then happy things and then sad again. Switch genres from project to project just for fun. Because you might make some truly amazing art when you stop limiting yourself to one style, one skill, one hobby, one anything. Just do what you love, do what sparks joy, let your passion take you wherever it takes you, even if you've never been there before.

Like, that's part of why it annoys me so much when I hear people say they don't like when a band tries new stuff, or they wish they'd just stick to the same kind of music that made them popular. Or when I hear people say this about like, literally any type of artist or creator. You do not have to do the same thing forever. We SHOULD try new stuff and drop the old when we've lost interest. Insisting that artists never do anything new is how we get the 50th Marvel movie that's just the same as the last one, or 20 meaningless live-action Disney remakes, or youtubers or streamers or artists who keep saying they WANT to make new content but they lose their audiences when they do so they just keep chugging along with stuff they've lost passion for.

We should let stuff that was good go when it's time has passed and embrace new things, even if we end up not liking them as much, because we only stand to benefit from it. When we let artists and other creators and OURSELVES go out and try new things we get wonderful new creations, and even when we don't we still grow and will make even better stuff next time. We have to try new things and fail and keep going to grow as people and as artists and I will always encourage that.

That's what Fall Out Boy's music is to me, beyond emotional catharsis. It's a reminder that I don't EVER have to be or make just one thing, and that it's better, I'm better, when I don't let anyone convince me I do.

(Anyway that got long and rambly, sorry. And I know FOB aren't the only artists that exemplify this, but I do love them for really going out of their way to make it clear they aren't going to just do one thing forever. Especially because they're proof when people try new stuff they can make amazing art.)

[lorbanery]

I'm going to derail this ever so slightly. Because while it's absolutely true that there was probably a major amount of executive interference that led to this final product, I'm genuinely worried that there might be an artist issue here too.

If you're not familiar with Drawfee, it's a Youtube channel originally under the College Humor brand but went independent after CH imploded. It's run by four professional artists who have a formal art education, with the occasional guest artist. While they've branched out into a lot of other things, their main content is taking a (usually) fan-suggested prompt and then chatting as each of them takes a turn at drawing something based on the prompt.

Now, I love these guys. They're one of our household's favorite channels, we've been following them since they were under CH and we watch almost every drawing prompt video. That said, there was a video a while back that I had to ask my partner to turn off because it was genuinely pissing me off.

I don't remember the context, but at some point one of the artists brought up Rocket Power, the early '00s Nickelodeon cartoon by the animation studio Klasky Csupo, which led to a conversation about Klasky Csupo's Nickelodeon shows in general. Their opinions, collectively, were that the art on those shows was ugly, and they spent at least as much time as it took whoever was drawing to finish their piece to find new ways to reiterate that point.

And to be absolutely clear, they were not using "ugly" to mean "interesting" or anything else like that. They were specifically mocking those shows for being "ugly" and making it clear how much they hated that artwork.

Like, I cannot stress this enough that even as a child watching each of these shows premiere I understood that the character designs were literally representative of the natural variation in human bodies and faces, just exaggerated. You know, like art and especially animation does. Babies have weirdly shaped heads; some people have big noses; some people have big chins; other people have almost no chin at all; some kids are fat; some people have big foreheads; some people have tightly curled hair that does whatever it wants no matter how many combs and styling products you use. Klasky Csupo cartoons were one of the only places you could find "normal" people on TV.

They weren't actors who were cast, first and foremost, because they existed on the spectrum of traditionally attractive. They weren't characters designed, first and foremost, to be aesthetically pleasing to recreate the look of a cast of traditionally attractive actors. And as a fat kid who spent their childhood feeling so horribly, viscerally ugly, these shows were so fucking important to me. Even Rocket Power and As Told By Ginger, which I was watching in high school.

And then to hear these professional artists, these formally educated artists, who normally relish the opportunity to get weird whenever they're designing characters? Go on and on and on and on about how ugly these characters are, how horrible their character designs are, how much they just cannot stand even looking at them?

Yeah, it worries me. It worries me what art schools are teaching their students about what kind of art is "acceptable". It worries me about what art schools are teaching about what aesthetics are "good" and "bad" and how much of that is being internalized by their students uncritically. That the only characters who are allowed to have "ugly" exaggerated features are characters who have something "wrong" with them. Because the Drawfee artists aren't that much younger than me, they're old enough to have watched at least Rocket Power while it was originally airing. They've had time to break out of that mindset, but they haven't.

Because, to be absolutely explicitly clear, I don't expect everyone to like every aesthetic. But I do expect people who appreciate art so much that they made it their career to at least appreciate different aesthetics for what they are, rather than painting aesthetics they don't like personally as just "bad" and "ugly" with no redeeming qualities or purpose.

They De-Tumblrized Ms. Frizzle

[maxwell-grant]

So, I reread your post on how you aren't too fond of spy parodies in the James Bond vein, and it made me think: what are your thoughts on how TF2 intersects with that kind of pulp fiction or spy fiction?

I don't think I'm "not too fond of" spy parodies in general, really, whatever my thoughts on James Bond himself I'm not adverse to spy fiction or spy parodies, they just usually don't do much of anything for me. Maybe part of that is because I got really, really spoiled early with TF2, which was one of my first big fandoms.

First thing that comes to mind with the idea of an intersection between TF2 and spy fiction is an SFM short called Agent Gunn: Vulkanite, which is fan-made but well-made to the point it might as well be official. It's a short film about this badass superspy Bond character with an ending that shows what happens when you put James Bond in the TF2 universe: He may get to do all that James Bond crap and look cool and stylish and so on, but since this is Team Fortress 2, the Mercs will eventually show up to kick his ass and steal his shit and ride off into the sunset laughing at him. Whether that’s because this is their turf and old-school conventions don’t apply here, because TF2′s parody status demands this to happen, or because it’s the TF2 mercs and this is just what you’d expect them to do regardless, it’s up to you.

TF2 over the years has kinda blossomed into this ever-more-absurd cartoon of itself in a way that's only made it funnier and more long-lasting than it might have been otherwise, so it's interesting to look back on it's early years, in it's initial design documents, and see a point where they had the design and art style figured out, but not quite the personality down pat. It’s funny to think that TF2′s design was specifically set to be retro-inspired, in many ways more retro than Team Fortress 1 (Classic) was intended to be, because “retro” is not usually an adjective we associate with timeless design, quite the opposite. Team Fortress 2′s approach to design is, or at least was, a bunch of J.C Leyendecker-looking characters duking it out in an 1960s spy movie setting, a combination that feels like it should be in a dated prequel to a modern FPS, not in the sequel to one. 

A lot of this comes down to the fact that Team Fortress 2 was, originally, intended to have that kind of modern warfare aesthetic, and they had 9 years in development to work out a lot of things about this game and change it, ultimately realizing that all their attempts to make this gritty and realistic and serious experience didn’t match at all the actual experience of playing a first-person shooter, which is chaos and nonsense and people dicking around. They ended up instead taking the better road, which was to embrace the chaos and allow for the game to be funny, but most importantly, make it distinct. Making each of it’s characters distinct from each other became the top priority, and it paid off superbly. 

A lot of what sets TF2 apart from most other FPS games comes from the fact that it works with the player experience and embraces it in it’s sheer chaos, and this, I think, also works in it’s favor in regards to how it relates to those two influences. TF2 gets a lot of praise for it’s extremely strong cast of personalities and rightfully so, and it also gets a lot of great jokes out of just playing around with the setting it’s built for itself and how the characters live, kill and/or die in it. The characters are absurd because the world is absurd, and sometimes the world gets so absurd that the characters can even look normal or well-adjusted by comparison. 

I think a lot of it’s strengths are helped by the fact that it’s characters weren’t originally designed to be funny first and foremost, which is why the comics succeed in doing dramatic bits with them, but they all lend themselves to be funny not just because of their personalities, but because they live and participate in this superspy warfare world, and that kind of thing is just inherently bonkers no matter how you cut it. It’s a lot like how, no matter how dark and gritty and aggressively self-important superheroes get, they will never wash away that childish whimsy of it’s origins, and this is not at all a negative. Team Fortress 2 gets to have pretty much most of the great and cool parts of spy fiction, even played as straight as the creators want it to be, or making it even cooler by having you live out those (particularly if you happen to be one of the bastards who plays Spy, which I am lmao), but it also gets to dick around and poke fun at the entire genre/format extensively.

It’s intersection with spy fiction is that TF2 (and Venture Bros as well) is one of the great, wonderful consequences of living in a world where Austin Powers killed James Bond. 

Now, there’s an argument to be made that TF2 isn’t exactly pulling from “traditional” pulp fiction that much, considering that the bulk of it’s inspirations comes from the men’s adventure paperbacks that were specifically not the pulps and were partially instrumental in the downfall of pulp fiction in American circles. But, I can’t bring myself to seriously argue that kind of stuff doesn’t fall under the pulp umbrella (I think most people even call it pulp nowadays), I think I’ve talked enough about how impossible and useless it is to define pulp fiction under those parameters. It’s also not an argument worth exploring in regards to TF2 because, well, it very clearly has pulp love in it’s blood, the biggest reasoning as to why being, the entire existence of Saxton Hale,

who’s sort of Professor Challenger if he borrowed Doc Savage’s workout ethic, and General Zaroff for most of the other ethics. Who initially existed mainly so the creators could get as much over-the-top pulp nonsense humor out of their systems as possible, and who stayed that way even as he was developed into more of a character, still far more absurd than the other characters but with an established personality, as the merc’s comedically insensitive boisterious arms-dealing Great White Hunter shitbag of a boss with this wholly separate world of adventures that mostly don’t show up and don’t matter except for when it’s funny, and who gets away with being a shitbag because he’s funny and the setting has considerably worse villains.

To bring up Venture Bros again, in some ways, Saxton kinda feels like he fulfills a similar role to Jonas Venture Sr, in the sense that he’s painted with broader strokes than the other characters in ways that make him a monument to the pulp side of things that runs in the work’s blood, sort of embodying a part of this universe in a way, and the fact that these two are more of aggressive pastiches than the other characters serves to underline that they are not on the same level as the other characters and also that they lord over them, because they fit in this world in ways they don’t, because they’re cut out to thrive in all this retro superspy cartoon warfare nonsense, if not having outright created or inspired much of it himself. Saxton is practically a saint compared to Jonas but, that has more to do with the fact that Team Fortress 2 is considerably more light-hearted and funny than Venture Bros and it has considerably different priorities for storytelling.

Speaking of the more pulp side of TF2, it’s also important to note that, in the lore of the series, it was established that the conflict between RED vs BLU has been ongoing for decades before any of the mercs were even born, and that the first team of mercenaries (pictured above) hired by the Mann brothers in 1850 consisted of sort of a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen set-up of several big historical figures filling in the roles, most of whom based on real people except for John Henry (who fills in for Heavy), and Fu Manchu (who was the original Spy). A lot of modern pulp works use this approach extensively in order to go for a retro vibe or explore alternate history scenarios and, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have to dig very hard to find one or several examples of “pulp” stories written in modern times where Abraham Lincoln’s wielding a flamethrower or Nikola Tesla kickstarts a sci-fi revolution. 

I will say that I do find the usage of Fu Manchu in this line-up interesting.  The bulk of the character’s adventures all take place in the 1900s (with the earliest date canonically attributed to him being 1880 as when he began a plot spanning 30 years, and PJF attributing his birth year to 1840), and no work, as far as I can find, ever depicted him as a young man, let alone potentially a hero (the comics do emphasize a lot how Spy as a person is nowhere near as much of a bastard as his in-game reputation indicates) and certainly not a team player alongside the likes of Nikola Tesla, and considering the kind of things he does and says as an elderly crimelord, for Fu Manchu to have spent his youth working as a mercenary for rich American bastards? That implies a character arc of sorts. (This seems to be the last named appearence Fu Manchu has ever made in any piece of pop culture, not counting Shang Chi’s father, but a name change doesn’t really make him a different character and plenty of really great modern Shang Chi stories still make use of the Fu Manchu iconography to make a point without making any actual tribute to the character, which is the ideal outcome). This is a largely irrelevant piece of trivia within the context of TF2, just something I wanted to highlight if we’re talking the way pulp shows up in TF2, at least overtly. 

Part of the reason why I did bring up Venture Bros and other stuff is because, and I do stress this everytime I get talking about TF2, but the game has grown so much past it’s beginnings that it’s kind of mind-boggling to get your head around, for the past 15 years it’s been alive and kicking and, much like it’s characters, breaking the rules and defying logic and somehow still staying alive even when they should have been dead and buried a billion times now, even after it’s been followed up by countless shinier and trendier shooters, even after it’s been left to die and plagued with issues after issues, after everyone says it’s dead. I guess to me that’s the most “pulp” thing about it, the way it intersects most with the kind of pulp fiction I spotlight on my blog. 

Not just it’s aesthetics and approach to storytelling and violence and humor and protagonist as unhinged and mercurial as they are human and persistent to the bitter end, but the fact that the thing as a whole just doesn’t die, even when by all means it already has and shouldn’t even exist anymore. It just keeps on finding new ways to live again and again and keep on trucking, as fiction, as a style, as a fanbase, as a meme (as many, many, many, many, many memes, actually), as a dream or goal. It’s still beloved by many and it still has plenty of gas in the tank. It will not die.

...It sure could use an actual goddamn update any second now, though.

[inkdemon-whore]

back for a hot sec

back temporarily to check the ask box, gonna answer the one or two i feel i should.

also that was pretty much all the brumira art, as i do, i tend to hop around fandoms, especially if the source material doesn't provide much in like, idk leeway? or i just generally lose interest.

farewell old followers, i'm sorry to have disappointed you, or even make you uncomfortable. i understand good n well that taboo topics aren't what many people wanna see.

and on the other side, hello new followers, i hope ya don't expect me to draw nothing but taboo topics, even if it's fun to dip my toes into every now n then. but if you are lookin for taboo, i've fallen back into minecraft youtubers, and might do somethin with technoblade and phil, i've had a comic idea floating around in my head, so when i get that down i'll probably post it.

in the mean time, i've actually felt a bit better not being here, and just kinda doin my own thing on a private blog. update as an example, i've fallen for a new cartoon man, because of course i have. i mean look at him.

an absolute dad, fuckin love this skully.

after this, i might queue some stuff, and think imma just hang out on my private blog for a while longer, i'm just more comfortable over there rn.

anyway, i'm runnin on very few hours of sleep, lets hope i can actually words good for some ask.