#this will probably continue all day

[labradorite-princess]

Someone please come baby me. I don't feel good.

[thelaurenshippen]

hello it is world radio day and I want to talk about the state of audio drama very quickly--

over on bluesky, there's a lot of chatter about saving AD at the BBC and it's really worth reading through the tag. public funding for the arts, especially a medium in which experimentation and diversity are prioritized, is crucial and I'm deeply concerned about the BBC getting out of the game.

and, for me, this feels like part of a bigger discussion. the state of art in general is, uh...tough right now. when it comes to getting stories that you feel represent you - that are exciting and inclusive and meaningful - we just have to hope that some big stakeholders have spines and want to still make challenging stuff. idk about you, but I don't want to put all my eggs in that basket.

audio drama has always thrived in america because of you - welcome to night vale, wolf 359, the bright sessions, even the magnus archives (which isn't american but very popular here) have all been able to exist because of listener enthusiasm and support, not public funding or investment from large companies.

the best thing about podcasts is that they are mostly separate from governing bodies/regulations. sure, we all rely on hosting services to carry our shows but if push came to shove, we could create our own RSS feeds. the state of both the us government and tech (and the ways in which those two things are becoming increasingly intertwined) makes me nervous for free expression, but I take comfort in the fact that a lot of shit would have to change for someone to be able to bully me into making my art less diverse.

we have to start aggressively supporting small studios and independent creators again. if you can do that monetarily, fucking great - atypical has a membership program, most shows have patreons or crowdfund, etc. - but that's not the only way to support the art you love. talking about it, making fanart, telling your friends, reblogging, live posting, whatever! we talk a lot about the health of fandoms/reblogging here on tumblr and that's part of it too--we need to start really actively participating in our enjoyment of art again.

anyway, here are two crowdfunds you can give to right now that are still trying to meet their goal:

Camlann Season 2 Heartglass

and an incomplete list of audio dramas that I've been enjoying recently:

Red Valley Un(con)Trolled Havana Syndrome Sherlock & Co

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

Watching Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron again as an adult is so great because not only do you appreciate the nostalgia and joy of it, the stunning 2D animation mixed with early 3D techonology and well written tight story with a main character that never speaks.

But also you appreciate that the plot relies on horses, despite not being typical talking horses in cartoons, being extremely intelligent to the point that they are aware of their captivity and exploitation. And it involves a hyper intelligent horse dismantling (or, at the very least significantly delaying) American colonialism's expansion into the west.

This horse also very likely killed many colonialists when they were either launched at high speeds from his back, kicked in the head or blown up in a train explosion.

Good for him.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

In Regards To Your 2024 Summary:

Holy shit it’s been another year????? The hell?????

Also! Your art style is gorgeous and that being found in 2023 and then refined throughout late 2023 and the entirety of 2024 really shows, as does your growth in panel layouts, perspective, and — as you said — experimentation. If you ever post your animation or video game art I’m looking forward to it.

As cheesy as it sounds, being able to laugh at funny comics and look at all the details of your art really made my 2024 brighter, even when things were hard. Including looking at your older art— it doesn’t need to be new to be enjoyable! I’m glad your art is well loved and it’s a privilege to have been here since the (near) beginning. I hope you take care of yourself in 2025 and beyond!

You and your art bring a lot of people a lot of joy never forget that <3

Thank you so much for keeping up with my art journey throughout these last two years! Two years!!! I am baffled at how that feels both too long and too short!

Admittedly, my art summary didn't manage to capture the fact that I did a lot of comic layouts that I'm really proud of. I also drew more backgrounds and made some very detailed works (*Dungeon Meshi spoilers for these examples*).

The growth is lot more evident when comparing my 'best' comics of 2023 to 2024:

Sometimes the growth is vertical, sometimes it is horizontal - and damn, sometimes it goes out of sight into the Z-plane. But it is always happening!

[achillean-knight]

Did this like, way earlier today and utterly hated the outcome of it but hours later, I kinda like it? LMAOO Outfit and colours FOR the outfit are... subpar, but overall, I really quite enjoy this piece >:33!! I also have to admit, drawing ghost Mettaton I think is my new favourite thing

DAY 18 - STAR Skipped day 17 bc I didn't know what to draw 😭 My creativity has limits hhrg

[fluentisonus]

working in a factory has you thinking so much about the insane chain of labor & transport that goes into making literally anything

[lemongogo]

they should get to kill each other at least twice .i think

[yukipri]

feelin kinda sad so eating an obscene amount of pasta

[robertphilip]

There's an awkward "first date" silence between them, the kind that suggests there isn't going to be a "second". Giselle tries her best to keep the conversation going.

[thanatika]

yeah i agree with your point about survival mechanics and i feel the same way about the lack of combat mechanics. "why would an educated city doctor need a weapon" because shit is hitting the fan in every way impossible and pretty much everyone is walking around armed... also why am i supposed to believe the the fact that he's a man of intellect will somehow provide him with food? i don't think anyone is going to be too eager to share food during an outbreak intellectual or not...

+ follow up for the previous ask but actually my favorite quest from the original pathologic is the day 11 bachelor quest that involves shooting down soldiers. i think it really drives the point home about how this random fuckass guy who is supposed to be battling a plague doesn't even have the time to do that anymore because the people in charge are asking completely irrelevant things of him now and he's at a position where he cannot refuse what is being asked of him. like i think it was good storytelling that even as the guy who lowkey wants to deal with the plague and solve its mystery you still have other, more pressing, less interesting and or pleasant tasks to complete

i agree! honestly, i feel this way about the combat mechanics even more than i do about the physical survival (food, health, illness, sleep) mechanics. because sure, i can see how it makes sense for daniil's position of authority to mean that his basic needs are somewhat provided for -- although i don't think it makes more sense than what we got in the original game. i've never seen anyone bring up "isn't it kind of unrealistic that the bachelor isn't given lots of food during a massive food shortage?" as a plothole that needed to be resolved. the townspeople generally don't like him much, and most of the people with power don't either, except for the kains. sure, maybe it's kind of weird that you can go see the kains while broke and on the verge of keeling over from hunger, and they won't do anything to help you, but... the kains are pretty self-centered, and they're so goddamn weird that maybe they forget that you need to eat food to live anyway. and it's half-implied that the powers that be are ultimately giving daniil this role as a convenient way to kill him, so it makes sense that they would put no pressure on the town authorities to keep him alive.

(and honestly, artemy is taken under the olgimsky's auspices as much as the kains take daniil's under theirs! which is to say, selfishly, with ulterior motives that are more important to them than the well-being of their healer, but... the olgimskys are set up as the wealthiest of the 3 families financially, as well as the ones with the most access to food, given their control over the meat industry. so if anything it's "weirder" that artemy isn't more materially provided for, though to be clear i don't think there's an actual plothole there either way.)

but anyway, you could handwave it and say that daniil's position of privilege and authority gives him more perks than he got in the original game, but the amount of fighting you have to do to get through town is... kind of an unavoidable physical reality? like you're given so many sidequests that you often wind up walking around town after dark, and that's when the bandits come out. is the idea that the bandits would be too scared to attack him because he's so important? because that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and even pathologic 2 establishes that he's seen as a valuable target by the bandits:

and then there's the quests where combat plays a more direct role in the story itself, like getting involved in saving andrey from the firing squad, or killing guards to break artemy out of prison, or the quest where you have to kill var in attempt to stop the arsonists (which i include on the same tier as the other ones because i really like the quest journal entry he has if you complete it where he blames himself for willow's death. it's a good character moment.)

hell, even in pathologic 2 itself, one of the biggest Bachelor Moments is on day 11, when you have that big dramatic convo with him after he killed a soldier for the papers he was delivering. plus one of bad grief's idle dialogues in patho 2 is commentary on the bachelor being "quick on the draw" and that he "already shot someone". like he just straight up is not living a combat-free existence. and overall, combat isn't just a good tool from a mechanical perspective, heightening the stakes and placing pressure on the player (though it is), it's also pretty important for him on a thematic level imo, almost as important as artemy and his "rivers of blood". in patho classic, daniil has this early interaction with the inquisitor:

which, thinking about it from a doylist perspective, was probably the writers' attempt to make it sound more plausible that this random medical researcher from the big city was competent with multiple types of guns. and i appreciate them coming up with that hint of backstory to cover their bases a bit, but with those bases covered, i think the fact that daniil ultimately spends more time shooting people than he does prescribing medicines for them actually does a lot for him thematically? i mean, if his whole thing is that he's this "tempted destroyer", someone who frames his career as a combative battle with death rather than a quest to save people's lives, whose "default" solution is to raze the town with artillery because he's too limited by his rationalist worldview and military upbringing (and bitterness over being manipulated and sabotaged) to come up with a solution that saves the any remaining infected survivors on his own. plus the way that clara frames artemy and daniil as two sides of the same coin in being violent destroyers and killers, who without player intervention will immediately devolve to running around chasing each other down in what's either an insanely dedicated tom and jerry LARP or some really elaborate foreplay. imo, that whole dichotomy (which is pretty core to the game, as the idea of dichotomies are core to it in general) works so much better with the way they're both presented in classic, stalking around with gun/scalpel in hand. hell, not to mention the effect that spending 12 in-game days trying not to starve and getting killed by bandits or guards or worms or soldiers every day would have on the player, and the way it would make them feel about the town and their natural projection of those feelings onto dankovsky, who is a perfectly fitting vessel for them as the avatar actually undergoing those virtual experiences.

ultimately i think they are mainly going this direction out of a desire to do something more creative and original, which is fine... it just seems a bit silly to me that they keep saying "well obviously that doesn't really work for the bachelor's scenario", when, well... even as recently as patho 2 in 2019, they seemed to think it fit his narrative pretty well! i'm also guessing that a lack of combat won't be that bandits are just no longer roaming the streets at night. it sounds more like pathologic 3 is set to be more of a nonlinear experience, where you'll probably fast travel from place to place instead of having to walk across town so much? so you'll be avoiding bandits just in the sense that the gameplay will be avoiding them. i guess i'm hoping that at the very least, there's still the implication of the crunch of not getting enough sleep or food and the threat of being stabbed to death while trying to get through town occurring to dankovsky in the background, even if those mechanics are deemphasized in favor of more macro-level town resource management, time control, and sherlock holmes fruit ninja or whatever the hell they were on about back in 2022 lmao.

[toxooz]

been sick as a mf dawg but i managed to draw the ol Ollie n Kari halloween costumes for this year🤘

[qoldenskies]

How do you think cc Donnie would take the Technodrome? Any aftereffects you think he'd have?

i would NEVER do anything to cc!donnie like the horrors i put cvd!donnie through (because ive still danced around in the story it but its BAD bad) ,,, and my reason is just "i think he's been through enough" but depending on your interpretation of how you want the movie to go i think there's still plenty of horrors there. i could see him being in the console being extremely triggering because of his claustrophobia, at the very least!

[avalon821]

My yearly this fucking guy that I finally finished last night

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

My rendition of @tempo-takoyaki's DTIYS!

Congrats on the milestones! And to everyone else, please go check out their 'Drawing TGCF (except I haven't read the books)' series!

[isdalinarhot]

did i like wind and truth? girl i dont know. ive been surrounded by people who both hate it completely and who think its the best book in the series. and the people who hate it hate it for stupid reasons like "kadolin dont interact much" and "they used early 19th century technology in this book series thats roughly at late 18th century technology" but i cannot deny that when i finished wind and truth i felt miserable. i dont like a book ending on an everything-is-horrible ending when theres gonna be a 7 year hiatus before the next one comes out. thats my big complaint.