#to simplify it

[almondpiglet]

ppl were drawing mikus from all over so heres habesha miku and her lil twin sibs rin and len!!

[papier-ciseaux]

Happy ASAW 2024, here's something about community !

[dostoyevsky-official]

the americans going "i need to leave to europe" and especially the smug europeans saying "america needs to fix its racist, climate change denier voters" are operating on an advanced model of cognitive dissonance. sir starmer's landslide labour country was gripped by race riots a few months ago and handed out five years to climate protesters. nearly every far right party in europe is first or second with youth voters for both genders: RN secured about a third of both 18-24 and 25-34 age groups; young men across the continent said they would vote trump by massive margins. tusk barely beat back orban 2.0 in poland, and his immediate reaction was to double down on fortress europe—something all other parties are doing. EU politicians are so averse to public investment that this fear blew up the german government yesterday.

there is nowhere to run, there is no country "safe" from the global far right wave

[bam-monsterhospital]

I guess I'm gonna talk about villains (part 1?)

What people love to forget about villains is that, moreso than heroes (because heroes have become synchronous with 'protagonist' despite not necessarily being the same thing, but that's a different convo), villains serve a role in a story. And that role is the most important thing about them. Villains are (for the most part, again, not getting into that) antagonists. Not all antagonists are villains, but villains almost always make antagonists. AKA: villains are your obstacle, your boss fights, your challenge, your conflict. Villains get the ball rolling.

That's it. Obviously well-written/'good' villains also tie into some aspect of the themes or ideas of the story. Ideally they also open up aspects of the protagonist to view, not taking away from the protagonist but instead supplementing them, highlighting their character by existing/interacting. Kinda like a foil, y'know?

So with all that said, what's my miniscule list of all-time favourite villains that is apparently less than 10 entries long? Well, I don't know what tiny sketchbook I started writing it down in, and I've changed computers multiple times, so I guess I have to work off the top of my head...

in no particular order, this is just what i can think of:

maverick, from tiger&bunny

jack winters & mr sinister (i lump them together because they serve the same role and themes, just the mundane vs fantastical versions) from xmen comics that remember they're quintessential to scott summers' backstory and character. ALSO, the idea of mr sinister is better than most of his writing, so take him with a grain of salt here.

verner vogel, from frogwares' 'chapter one' continuity of sherlock holmes games.

the queen of maggots (only in the cat lady game though, rather than when she appears in havester games' other titles)

that's all i can remember right now.

Keep in mind, these are all-time fav villains: I'm looking at narrative role, themes, how they tie to who they prey on, etc. If you know these characters, you'll notice some commonalities here: personal ties to their protagonists, competent manipulation that has consequences on their victims, full of personality/character etc. These are the villains I think about when I want to make up my own villain characters. HOWEVER, this is by no means any condemnation of more simplistic villains: I too love me a good fun "black and white" villain.

Maybe in another post I'll talk about those fun villains that don't need to be complicated and the ones I personally enjoy. But for now I need a break from this thought-train, because i forget where i was going with this other than "NO, VILLAINS ARE JUST TOOLS, NOTHING MORE, GAH STOPIT".

[spookedbees]

thalia casting announcement means i have an excuse to redesign her!!!

[katsinspats]

I think my copy of the game is broken they've been doing this for 30 minutes

Crop of the Biolizard edit I did bc it makes me laugh:

[chrisrin]

all my behind-the-scenes concept work and such for the HGCZ! i had a blast working on it all.

check out my finished piece here, and check out @hotguycomiczine for the full zine!

[pangur-and-grim]

skull of a skeleton with burning cigarette - Vincent Van Gogh

witches' sabbath / the great he-goat - Francisco Goya

the fallen angel - Alexandre Cabanel

classical art enamel pins, up for pre-order at greerstothers.shop

[corvidconventicle]

My new favourite idiom is 画蛇添足 basically meaning to ruin something by overdoing it

Quite literally ‘draw snake add feet’

Pinyin: Huàshé tiānzú

Traditional: 畫蛇添足

[ocdhuacheng]

So laios and fallin have been ostracized by society since they were children, Marcille has lifelong grief from constantly outliving her loved ones that leads her to dark magics, kabru’s village was destroyed by monsters, senshi and mithrun both have horror movie level backstories, izutsumi was sold as a freak show attraction, and then there’s chilchuck, who is a normal ass divorced middle aged man. And somehow he’s the most shady and secretive out of all of them

Edit can y’all please let me live I didn’t make this post bc I think chilchuck doesn’t have his own trauma or doesn’t experience racism or that being a union boss is a walk in the park or whatever I made it because him lying that he cheated on his wife to get the others to stop asking about his family was funny as fuck. Come on.

[liorlen]

gale origin playthru from astarion’s pov or smth like that

[mumblesplash]

💥VINEBOOM💥

[plumadot]

warmup with some of my favourite sunshine people ;v; <3

[ponury-grajek]

Neuvillette should have given him the longer sentence

[wolfythewitch]

Stop adapting the iliad and the Odyssey into movies. You'll never succeed. Adapt them into shounen anime, as is their god given right

[simplified-birds]

Simplified bird #1 - scarlet macaw