#why are animal characters so had to draw. damn

[lousirs]

good morning DM nation !!!

all 2 and a half of you! have a redraw

the original image under the cut:

[sysig]

The brainworms are winning, clearly (Patreon)

[theultimatekamehamehavoc]

so i maaaaaay have fallen deep into spirk suddenly 👉👈 without warning i don't even know how i got here sent help

[illusioncanthurtme--art]

BABY FACE BABY FACE!!!!!!!! KSDJDHG LFFKL WHY IS HE SUCH A CUTIE PATOOTIE

embarrassingly long ramble and wintersberg drawing below the cut:

lmao, I finished the GG playthrough of re8 the other day and uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

anyway yeah. Don't even know what to write about it cuz it sorta overtook me with no warning, and idk shit about resident evil but here we are.

I read mushrooms and magnets on ao3, i did the frowned upon thing and went straight to most kodo-ed (i KNOW it's wrong but i didn't feel like searching!! I just wanted to Read. If I stick around any longer I WILL read other things too), and I feel like that's probably a rite of passage in the ethan/heisenberg wing of this fandom. Blasted through it in like 3 days. Anyway, like, 3 quarters through it I realized I never took it upon myself to see what ethan looks like? I just assumed he had Typical White Guy Face, which yeah, he does, but after an image search.... I never realized he had such a baby face skjdgf sksjfh PRETTY BOY PRETTY BOY

So then I drew him. And I drew heisenberg too, although I need more practice with him. Plus I think I got gassed out for the night, after drawing ethan. it's really hot and it can be hard to remember how to draw for fun after doing so many commissions.

One of my go to drawing visions is one character in profile, and the other character all up in their face in a pseudo profile, 3/4, tilted angle. And idk why I keep doing that, because I fuck it up at least half the time. Ethan looks good here, heisenberg does Not. I need better references of him. Seriously, if someone has a karl heisenberg folder on their phone with a crap ton of pictures of his face from different angles, PLEASE send me some. I need a clear one of him in profile. All the ones on google have his face obscured by his hat, glasses, both, and he's always in dark lighting. Ironic that the one who's face you never see has better reference pictures.

Kinda considering doing a GG animated for the moment where ethan's like "I just want to fix my daughter!" and arin (as heisenberg) says "uh, she's in four pieces," because it cracked me up so damn hard. His voice is so dumb. I love him.

This came outta nowhere but hahaha oh well, my interests change on the wings of the wind (wings of the wind = what the grumps are uploading)

[quixoticprince]

Yayyy!! Yippee!! I finally get to make one of these!! Art without the text under the cut and some long-winded elaborations:

How long I've been playing: well, it hasn't been a straight 11 years, rather off and on - but I have drawings of these guys dating back to when I was 14, so I'll give it to me. And man I had no business reading the fanfics I was reading back then It's also crazy how this was a super influential media for me in so many ways. It's the reason I ever made a tumblr, it changed the direction of my drawings for a long while, my broken sense of humor (gmod animation memes and yt poops were the brainrot back then), tf2 Sniper changed my god damned gender (rather, it was the inspiration for me to start socially transitioning at 15). This is part of my personal lore that I tend to not admit to 😓

Your main: I've always been completely ass at the game, and I can play flexibly, but I enjoy playing Sniper, and more recently as Heavy. Whenever I'm sitting around somewhere, occasionally throwing sandwiches and attracting Medics, I feel like this:

Favorite character: When I was younger it was definitely Medic, and I think you can tell that he's still up there based on how much I've drawn him! However, since getting back into it, I've felt quite a shift in focus towards Heavy, very strongly. It's unfortunate that he's side-lined in a lot of fanwork, and I think I'm also complicit in this so far - but for me it's cuz, how tf2 works is that it's going to prioritize humor over character and consistency haha, and Medic is just so loud and insane that he's really easy to make fun stuff with. Heavy is a more serious and grounded character, not to say that he's not funny or that he doesn't have his own cartoon slapstick moments! But that aspect of him is what is really really intriguing to me. I love his quiet, stoic, and intimidating character, I like how loud and boisterous he is when filled with bloodlust in contrast! I love his bird story and him getting into wrestling as a child from Poker Night. I love his back story setting, there's so much to extrapolate from a young boy in Russia growing up during WWII, what his parents must have been through before that from the aftermaths of the revolution, all the way to his fathers execution and his imprisonment. I love his strong relationship with his family, his role as an older brother, as a protector, as a man - the way that he performs these roles - and because I personally see him as bisexual - how his orientation intersects with all that! He is incredibly fascinating to me and I wish that he was played around with more to see a lot more corners and angles of these things that I listed! There's way more that I want to say here too but this is getting very long 😅

Character I relate to: It's so interesting that a lot of the characters have very strong, tho maybe dysfunctional, families. Heavy, Demo, and Sniper in particular really speak to me in that relation. From Heavy being an eldest brother (I am also an eldest sibling) the parentification that comes with that, especially with him probably being like 10 years older than his sisters from the looks of it. Demo and Sniper both struggle living up to their parents expectations (although there's a lot of love there from everyone), being disappointments in one way or another (not gonna deep dive into that lol), and the general alienation both of them feel. From Sniper not knowing why he's not like other Australians to Demo being "a black Scottish cyclops." And well, I'm Filipino, I'm queer, and mentally ill so - there's a lot to project there!

Class you want to play as: I find Medic incredibly stressful to play as but I find the idea of battle medics incredibly funny. However I usually find myself rushing around madly trying to cater to everyone, and I'd like to just not give a shit and just start stabbing people with a saw lol

Favorite ship: "I just like the dynamic" - The dynamic:

No but fr, they're really compelling to me, I'd probably need a longer more thought out post as to what I like about them and I was already going crazy up there ^ Overall tho I like that they're practically built for each other in terms of mechanics, really plays into my desire to spiral into intense codependency haha. I also think that Medic's drive to cheat death and hide behind meat shields plays really well into Heavy's desire to be a meat shield and a protector, and how nice it is in turn, that Medic can grant this man who's been around death, starvation, and war invulnerability. (He outsmart boolet, yknow?) They're also depicted together a lot and I like how much they enjoy each others company, and bring a lot of joy to each other. It's beautiful to me :'^)

Character you like to draw: What can I say! Medic is handsome! He is very fun to draw and easy to make memes and shit posts out of!

[beannoss]

Something I think about a lot and wonder if maybe gets overlooked in Twilight’s story and as vitally indicative of his character is actually in the very first chapter:

Anya isn’t needed for Strix. Twilight decides to adopt her anyway.

[Spoiler warning: Mostly this post deals with early chapters already in the anime but there is reference to chapter 62, which has not yet been animated and will be in season 3]

Twilight decides it — “I’m going to rework the mission so it doesn’t involve a child because that’s too dangerous” and he’s 100% right! Donovan Desmond is canonically a far right warmonger with fascistic authoritarian aims. His government made liberal use of the SSS — a group to mirror the Stasi — who continue to operate in morally dubious ways (much more likely they’re actively morally reprehensible, though we’ve mostly only had rumours of that so far). From what we can tell, Desmond is at best an absent father and likely actually worse than that: if that's how he treats his own children, imagine how he might treat others. And the timeline seems to indicate that the experimentation performed on Anya was done under Desmond's government — even if Twilight isn't aware of experimentation on children, he is aware of both human and animal experimentation under Desmond's government. Taking all that and also the complexity of Strix's aims, undoubtedly there were other things that could be done, more straightforward if not necessarily easier.

So. Why? Why entertain the change at all? And then, having entertained it, why go back when the reasoning is indisputable?

On the Doylist level, I think Endo wanted to ensure that Anya had some agency within the set up — Endo also does this with Yor. It would be much harder to be on Twilight’s side fully, or to trust him on an ethical level/take him as any sort of moral authority, if he were just straightforwardly using these two people. To have them be active and consenting participants (arguably to actually be affirming the arrangement: Twilight sets it up, but Anya and Yor actually make it happen) even if the audience only knows the depth of their knowledge/motivations/etc currently, shifts the power dynamic in important ways.

But it also the set up tells us important things about Twilight. He is largely impatient, cold, detached in chapter one. His overarching feelings towards Anya are, I think, real annoyance, real confusion, and real impatience. He just doesn’t understand this damn kid and it turns out she’s a person which is frankly unacceptable — he’d needed and anticipated an automaton, ideally of himself in miniature form. (Though I think one could ponder whether Twilight was, in many ways, an automaton himself at this point, but that's maybe for another meta 🙃)

He’s not entirely unmoved of course — we're given to understand he’s affected when Franky tells him how many times Anya’s been adopted and returned, and isn't amused by Franky's joke about names. Franky's comment — "Just don't get attached" — reinforces this. The prospect of “the future” perturbs Twilight when he’s reading the parenting books. His initial reaction to Anya’s kidnap is horror. All these are true too.

Then there’s also this, from earlier in the chapter:

It’s exposition, yeah, and it’s also exposing. "Hopes" and "joys" are very specific words to describe those events. It could simply have been "A marriage? An ordinary life?" but describing them as such — hope for marriage; joy in ordinary life — expose something of what Twilight feels about those two experiences and, on the flipside, they expose what he deems he's lacking. No hopes of intimacy; no joy in (an ordinary) life. There's an argument as well, of course, that he's being ironic but I don't think that actually invalidates the above analysis. Drawing attention to 'hope' and 'joy' at all are revealing, regardless of Twilight's tone in thinking of them. I think it's also interesting this panel, taken in conjunction with a pair of panels in chapter 62, Twilight's backstory. The above is almost a pulled out version of this below panel of Twilight's recollection of his childhood, and of course the returning image of not just a rubbish bin but a rubbish bin on fire when it comes to disposing of his identity:

Back to Strix. Both his final interaction with Karen and the whole everything of the framing of Strix is making Twilight think (and feel, ahem) things that he hasn't for some time. Twilight decides, I’m reworking this. It can’t proceed this way. Not because Anya is a pain in his ass, not because she’s not as (apparently) intellectually advanced as he’d originally thought, not even because he thinks he can find another child who would better be exactly what mission parameters called for. No:

And what changes his mind is Anya asking to come home.

One of the important parts of this to me is this:

He seeks consent.

This moment is a keystone, I think, to understanding Twilight. It’s also more telling than he maybe realises. Twilight is decisive — we all laugh because he spirals at the drop of a hat when his daughter or wife look even mildly upset but outside those (also very telling) scenarios, he makes decisions and he pursues them. Often he makes decisions quickly. He’s a dab hand at it; it’s a large part of why he’s as good a spy as he is.

He’d decided to change Strix.

Anya asks him, in essence, not to.

So, he doesn't.

But it's wild that he entertains keeping her request at all — why? Why even entertain it? It’s dangerous; it’s impractical; there are too many moving parts outside his direct control; Anya isn’t the sort of child he’d wanted for the mission if he’d spent any time thinking about what a child might actually be like; Strix is in many ways an extremely long shot anyway, Desmond could just stop attending for reasons unknown and unrelated; etc.

So, yeah, why? Maybe because of this —

In conjunction, I often think of this moment in the cruise arc:

Twilight first naming the feeling as lonesome, and secondly tacitly conceding that he perceives Yor as a companion and that that relationship is important to him, something to be missed. What makes this for me though is that Anya calls this out "Papa's you're so sappy" and Twilight's reaction is that of someone caught-out. He doesn’t say “nuh-uh!” but he may as well have. Essentially, something landed a bit close to home, hm? Maybe some of that hope for marriage? A soupçon of joy of an ordinary life?

Twilight’s loneliness underpins many of his decisions with his family — probably without him being fully conscious of it. I think he is at least somewhat conscious of it, but also if he looks too closely... Well, best not to. I could fill this post, I think, with images that demonstrate his loneliness throughout the series; that sorrowful/pensive close-up of his eye(s) is one of the abiding motifs for Twilight throughout. I'd probably start with this one from Twilight's backstory arc:

Anya's request plays directly off his loneliness. Still though, he doesn’t immediately capitulate — he emphasises Anya’s choice. Is she sure? The last day has been scary for a child (and for him, but he's ignoring that part) and Twilight, in his increasing recognition that Anya is a person, is probably aware in the back of his mind that he hasn’t exactly been warm or welcoming or at all patient with her. Things that people respond to — he's otherwise excellent at manipulating people, so of course he understands this. So. Given she'd just had this scary experience, given he hasn't exactly been great with her: Is she sure? She wants to come home — with him?

I think the moment may get a little lost because Anya says something riffing off his own earlier thoughts and self-revelation (featuring that shadowed, lonely eye motif again!)

Were this a post about Anya, I’d talk about how it’s an important character moment for her as well by way both of demonstrating her agency/choice and also that she isn’t nearly as dumb as Twilight thinks (and the audience, maybe, also thinks).

But in my view, she didn’t actually need to say anything about it making her cry. I think she could simply have said yes in that moment and Twilight would have agreed.

Twilight’s an unreliable narrator; he’s disconnected from his heart and that shrouds his own motivations from himself — something he actually also concedes in this chapter!

And it shrouds from us just how much he actually understands himself. He’s also a master of deflection. Easy to assume or say that bringing Anya home is just to align with Strix. Nothing more to see here; nothing else going on. But also that ripping off of the mask in the panel above — and the literal 'riiip' sound effects — also indicate to us that this is an unveiling to himself.

In my view, Twilight agreeing to Anya's request, deciding to go back to original mission parameters, actually shifts his motivations, subtly. Now he’s committed not only to the original mission goals, but also to Anya. He needs Anya to succeed at Strix, not only for Strix's sake, but also because otherwise the mission will end and she’ll have to go back to the orphanage, and he’s just agreed with her not to do that (not right away, in any case). I don’t think at this point he’s thinking it’s forever — his thoughts throughout the manga indicate he still expects the Forgers to be temporary. I don't think the shift in motivation is necessarily even conscious, but given the set up, I think something inside Twilight recognises that agreeing to bring Anya home is a compact, jointly engaged. Mostly all this has become subsumed into Strix: he makes decisions. He pursues them. He deflects, even from himself. Of course it's just for the mission; this saved him the trouble of reworking it, of figuring out something else. Nothing more to see; no need to think any more on it. And to be fair to him, Strix is very high stakes, resting pretty solely on his shoulders, so of course that is, objectively, motivation enough. Why even consider beyond that?

But I personally think that to the extent he's aware of it at all, there is something else going on, that he wants to have Anya for as long as it takes him to work something else out for her. If that's the case, then of course, we have Occam’s razor: the simplest solution may be the best one.

Maybe Twilight should just keep Anya himself, eh?

[Image description: gif from Spy x Family season 1, episode 1. Twilight and Anya have just found out Anya passed her entrance exam and are overjoyed. Celebratory, Twilight picks Anya up and swoops her into the air as they smile at one another. End image description]

[lilybug-02]

Happy 2 Year Anniversary to The Chara Timeline ✨

I FINALLY made drawing references for you guys, yippie!✨

It’s wild how long I’ve been working on this comic without reference sheets. I’m never that consistent with my art style, so I figured it was a waste of time 🫥💀😔 this is my first full comic okay…

Thoughts and Feelings About the Comic Below ❤️💖💕💞

Wow. It’s been 2 years??? I thought I would be done with this comic in 2 months! I don’t know whether to feel worried or accomplished!!

(With months between each update, I understand why it’s been 2 years. I’m a slow writer and artist and well- many things have come up in my life that had to come first, like my sisters wedding! 💞 and college 😅)

I want to thank my family and friends (WHO DO NOT READ THIS COMIC- THANK GOD) �� AND I want to THANK YOU! The readers! 💐💐

You guys are relentless! I’m as impatient as traffic and yet you guys wait for weeks or months at a time for like 4 pages?! You guys don’t even complain!!! I truly want to thank you all for that ❤️ it helps me so much. Being busy and getting burnt out are common and it helps me feel relaxed that i'm not on a timer. Literally tho- you guys keep this comic chugging I swear. Tysm 💐

Unorganized rambling about the comic ahead :) ⭐️🔥

—

My feelings with this comic are actually so complicated. On one hand I hate looking at my older art because GOD IT LOOKS SO OFF I want to stab it, and then on the other hand I am so so proud of myself for even continuing it this far. Ngl the weird route has been one of my favorite parts of this comic. It took me FOREVER to figure out an ending, but damn do I still get chills >:) hehe.

I’m still miffed that I named this project “Deltarune: The Chara Timeline” I could have gone for something so much COOLER. Doesn’t help I use like 7 different titles for it either. We got Deltarune the Chara timeline, Deltarune chara timeline, THE Chara timeline, chara timeline, Ct??? Man,,, I’m crazy. I take after my family so hard. We have 3 names for each of our dogs 💀.

Comic/Animation Tip i have learned. It is VERY GOOD to make the character relatively simple in design. Shape language is also super important, ((but I never really got around to doing that before I was half way through the comic, woops.)) These things can make ur process go by so much faster. This whole comic has been a HUGE learning curve. LIKE OH MY GOD. I had to learn how to draw backgrounds, write dialogue, plan a story, learn how to draw fast and draw noses (which god damn I really still can’t). And I had to learn how the heck to squeeze art into a tiny page and make it not look grainy. It's intense!

Anyways.... this has been such an awesome opportunity! Thanks Toby Fox!

I totally ran out of “art time” for my iPad and wanted to finish this today. So it’s a bit rushed. I’ll add weapons and possibly the other characters later :)

Oh shi- I forgot to add this grainy image of the next few pages lmao

[sunflowerandstrawberryspice]

CARMEN SANDIEGO? In 2024? It's more likely thank you think! Please excuse the shit quality for some reason I wasn't allowed to upload the normal pdf and I had to upload a fucking screenshot???

So my friend convinced me to watch Carmen Sandiego and since he's watching ALL of Ninjago for me I thought it was the least I could do to watch four season of a show with a pretty decent concept but uh... yeesh, don't get me wrong the show is really fun but lord have mercy does it have problems especially the last two seasons which were just so wildly disappointing to me. It went from a show with an interesting look on morals to pure pro-cop and mostly black and white thinking so quick (that not mentioning the breaking up a found family full of people with abandonment issues) it was honestly just so disappointing so me and the friend who introduced it to me decided to rewrite it! (I will not be animating nor do I plan on doing more than MAYBE a comic or art piece here and there because my chronic pain ridden ass can not handle that much lol)

The main goals are to:

1) Flesh out characters that aren't Carmen and actually give them reactions based on their lived experiences and how they might realistically react instead of what the show needed to move the plot along

2) Having characters other than Carmen be actually relevant to the plot the main one being Chase Devineaux who we're gonna kind of have as a parallel to Carmen (trust me yall) as kind of a "What if Carmen didn't have her friends/family to ground her and fall back on" but for all the Chase fans out there (gods I hope there's some other than me) he will be getting a happy ending but bro is getting put through the RINGER first

3) Have both A.C.M.E (now standing for Administration for Containing and Monitoring Evil) and V.I.L.E be the bad guys. Also just as an extra bit of fun we're making VILE a full blown cult, they were very cult like in the show so we're just gonna make it one. Both are going to be very morally questionable and while it'll take a bit longer for ACME to show it's true colors don't you worry they definitely will ;)

4) We're doing canonical lgbtq+ rep, I know the show teased a lot of relationships and really only gave yall background gays not to say thats bad but we can do better than just a brief shot of a damn taco truck. I mean like come on in a story about a young woman going against the government for the greater good why not put some rep into it ya know!

5) We're making it light sci-fi, not like SUPER high tech but definitely beyond what we've got currently, as shown with Carmen's prosthetic, and don't worry I'm doing my research as a disabled person I know how it feels to be misrepresented or ignored so I want to make sure I'm being realistic

6) PLAYER ISN'T GOING TO BE A CHILD! I don't know if this bothered anybody else but to me it was really weird that this 16 year old's only friends were in their 20s!

Alright I think that's what I'm gonna say for now, I'd love it if yall tuned in for updates if your curious since this is a passion project for me and my friend and we're having a blast writing it!

As always I am still working on stuff for Ninjago cause I could never abandon my one true love, currently there's a Pixal drawing in progress (it's giving me hell T-T) something for Cole and Geo, and something of Sora MAYBE even Euphrasia if I'm feeling up to it.

Having said that I hope yall have a great day/night and PEACE OUT!

[marciabrady]

here are some sleeping beauty plot points/general details that i love and i would love to see more discussion around

the story team did such an incredible job with fleshing out aurora while still making her feel true to the mythos from which she was derived. in every novelization i've ever read that predates the disney film, she's only ever given one line of dialogue (something like: "what is that thing that spins so merrily?") before falling asleep. disney took that same princess and successfully expanded her into a living, breathing dynamic human who is filled with everything- ethos, pathos, everything, but is also authentic to her origins. they also did a genius job at creating a basis for why love is so revered in this tale. true love conquers all, we're told, and it's indeed what keeps aurora safe from maleficent for all these years, as it's the one thing the evil fairy can't understand. yet, the fact that the princess grew up surrounded by the love from the three fairies, which instills that care in her heart, along with the fact that she grows up in isolation, so connected to the universe around her and allowing her to be introspective enough to observe the animals about her and draw a connection to the human condition and that of the consistencies of nature is so...deep and profound and develops her and makes her an evergreen character that will always represent people, for as long as we're around, because aurora's struggle is one that speaks to everyone. she isn't just some "lovesick princess" but a character that's growing up and longs to be able to find her soul's mate and to express the love in her heart in a universe where she was socially excluded and deprived of others outside of her three guardians. as humans are tribal creatures, social inclusion is one of the main pillars of wellbeing. so to take aurora, who is already an innately romantic person, and to deprive her of that just gives all the more reason why the kiss of true love really would revive her. she isn't just some princess who grows to be fifteen or sixteen, pricks her finger, and then is awakened by a prince she never meets. she is someone who was raised in love, grows up and wants to become a woman and share that love and express it with someone else. when she finds it, it's suddenly stripped from her and she's induced into a magic slumber that's meant to symbolize her transformation from girl to woman. then, she's awakened by the same love she'd thought she lost and it's just...the structure of it is genius and incredible and they retain all of the qualities about her in the fairytale and storytelling devices but they develop it so much further and round her out so well but still maintain a reverence to her source material instead of condemning it or outright changing it and i just LOVE

i don't think enough people realized that, it wasn't until maleficent visited prince phillip in the dungeon and showed him the vision of aurora in slumber repose that he knew that aurora and briar rose were one in the same!!! like this is the moment it all clicked for him and it gave him the drive and determination to slay the dragon in her honor. he realized the woman he loved and the princess he had been betrothed to were both one and that's so important and it's just such a plot twist that, again, was so genius of the writers. it proves to us that he loves her enough to leave the kingdom for her and risk damning the princess he had been betrothed to to the curse she was under and he'd take her as she is, even if it were a peasant, but also that his love is so steadfast and true that he'd defeat a dragon for her. 10/10 and it sooo runs along the vein of the lyric "visions are seldom all they seem." this is a plot twist done RIGHT but with so much sophistication that it tends to fly under most everyone's radar because it isn't like loud

something i love about the original princess movies is how the female characters are forever in the forefront, and the fact that this film opens with the celebration of the birth of a female child is something that's so special! instead of having to think about how female children weren't celebrated in that time, or it was a disappointment she hadn't been a son, or something of the like, the fact that the spotlight is on their daughter and the opening of the film continues this matriarchy, where all in the land praise this female birth, before the fairies are introduced as their most "honored and exalted excellencies." we need to see more worlds like this instead of pixar films where there's like not a single main female character lol

THE FACT THAT PHILLIP WAS WILLING TO GIVE UP THE THRONE AND THE KINGDOM "for some nobody" and told his dad flat out to his face without hesitating makes me love him soooo much?? he loves aurora for who she is, not just because she was a princess to whom he had been betrothed to his entire life, and this proves how genuine his love is. it also paints how progressive and open-minded phillip was, seeming to be the first that would ever break the tradition of princes marrying princesses and opening up his country for a new type of culture and reign. love me a freak like that

one of the biggest facets to aurora's character, and something that further develops her relationship to phillip, is how differently she reacts to her guardians when told of the betrothal. where phillip already knows, and is aware of the king and queen and how his duty is to marry their princess daughter, aurora is just finding out that she has living parents for the first time and the future of a nation rests on her shoulders. she discovers she's to be married to a prince and must give up her true love forever. again, before i hear anything about "she just met this man for two minutes in the woods, why is she crying," this is a fairytale with magic that's meant to be archetypical. in the narrative of the film, and in the universe of this world, phillip is her true love- and this is confirmed when it is his kiss that awakens her from the curse. so to leave the one true love who was meant for you, when that's all you ever wanted in the isolation you were raised in, to accept your duty and responsibility over parents you didn't even know you had and to assume the obligations of a nation you aren't even prepared for...it's astounding. aurora does everything right, she even leaves love behind for the good of her people and puts everyone above her own personal desires, and yet people still criticize her and say she's dependent on a man and all she cares about is love. meanwhile, phillip never receives any hate, and he's literally willing to give up the throne and the kingdom and start a war between two countries for the girl "he just met in the woods for two minutes" but he's one of the most beloved princes...it really just makes me think about how misogynistic our society still is, without even realizing it. aurora literally couldn't have done anything better, by our modern standards, but people still condemn her just because? this is definitely a discussion piece i want to hear more about and, in general, i think it would behoof us all to understand why aurora has been so demeaned culturally as a character when her actions, in and of themselves, are exactly what we say we want and would appeal to modern sensibilities

this is a slight sidenote but i always was tickled by merryweather proclaiming, if she had it her way, maleficent would be turned into a "fat old hop-toad." i always felt like this was a nod to the original tale from which this movie was based on, where a magical frog tells the queen that her wish to be with child shall soon be granted and that it, just generally, was a very clever easter egg/allusion

in this film, they have enough action and movement to appease the more restless demographic/traditionally "masculine" crowd, but i love how the basis of maleficent's defeat lies still in the femininity of the three good fairies. it's these elderly women that save phillip from the dungeon and arm him, not just with weapons that will kill another being and are predicated upon violence, but with symbolic weapons that are laced with truth and virtue. i think it really reminds us all how transformative these values are and how, in arming ourselves with them, we'll alone be able to navigate the road to true love (whether that be familial, platonic, or romantic love) which will be "barred by many more dangers" and how it enables us to have a sense of autonomy where we'll be able to overcome anything that's thrown our way while still retaining the core of who we are

i wrote about this moment previously, but to piggyback off of what i wrote about phillip just above...i love how aurora is the most competent human in this world? much has been said about how the plot of sleeping beauty is essentially the fairy worlds dueling with one another and, in that, many of the mortals are somewhat...inept, to put it for lack of a better term. king stefan is unable to protect his daughter with the burning of the spinning wheels, even with all the power he harnesses within his kingdom, and the fairies are quick to see his folly. prince phillip would still be rotting in the prison had the fairies not interjected, and he would be burned to a crisp had they not sprung a final chant of magic upon his, already, enchanted sword. yet, maleficent has to hypnotize aurora for the princess to even succumb to her plan and, even then, aurora is temporarily able to snap out of the magic hypnosis she's put under. i don't think people realize how powerful that is? yes, i understand it's a minor moment, but the hesitation and the ability to counter magic while remaining totally unarmed is something that reminds me why aurora is our main character, despite what anyone else might say.

going along with what i said above, while many are quick to point out aurora's lack of screentime, the film begins with her birth, the plot is sprung forth with every character wondering what they could do to protect her, then when she pricks her finger upon the spinning wheel, she and the entire kingdom are put to sleep. it isn't until she wakes up, that the entire kingdom does, too. she holds the key to this entire universe in a persephone like way and i just love how important it is in the narrative of the film to wake her up. she isn't just this beautiful creature who's valuable because she's pretty, because if that was the case, her being a lovely figure posed to perfection in her slumbering mode would be enough...but the people of her universe value her so much more when she's alive and active and being her own person, that it ensues a fairy war, practically. she's also involved in every single plot, even if she isn't physically present. this is her movie and no one can take that away from her. but, just to restate, the fact that there's so much emphasis in aurora being alive and well is something that's so important

so, it's kind of a given at this point that every princess can sing, but i think the role that music plays in sleeping beauty is the most meaningful and well done? sleeping beauty makes much to do about its classical score and it skillfully combines realistic characters and storylines (like the fairies not knowing how to cook and clean, phillip being captured with no way out, the kings toasting to the impending nuptials of their offspring before getting into a quarrel centered around a misunderstanding) with the fantastical world of fantasy and opera. by giving aurora the gift of song, the narrative is creating a framework that explains her relationship to her singing voice in a way that's even more profound than that of ariel's connection with her singing. it explains why aurora sings more than she speaks and ties in perfectly with the thematic style of the operatic presence in sleeping beauty, which is that in the opera, instead of speaking about it, you sing.

OK but this scene of hubert's/his general plotline and character motivation that results from this is genuinely perhaps the best comedy disney's ever done? hubert is coming off of declaring war upon his best friend stefan, because he misunderstood stefan's caring for his own daughter as a snub against hubert's son. after challenging aurora's father to a duel, they quickly make up, before hubert hears phillip has arrived and rushes off to greet his son. there, the news is broken that phillip is actually in love with a peasant and that he plans to renounce the throne- which will actually cause a war- so that he can be with his beloved. hubert is convinced phillip is joking, especially as he happens to meet this mystery maiden on the date that aurora is set to come home- the most anticipated date for these past sixteen years in the kingdom- and his son is set to be a central figure in the celebration for the princess's homecoming! before he can reason with phillip, his son escapes, leaving hubert to be the one to break the news to stefan. heavy-hearted, as hubert tries to tell stefan, he keeps being interrupted by trumpets and the musical notes that are meant to accompany the princess in her debut to her country. then the fairies literally put hubert to sleep when he finally gets a chance to explain it to stefan and, when they're awoken from this fog like slumber, the first vision that greets hubert is that of his son and the princess??? the same son who said he had no interest in aurora, but was set to marry the peasant maiden. the whole thing concludes in a very charming "all's well that ends well" but i still think the whole "how am i ever going to tell stefan" dilemma, while continually being interrupted, and this king who declared war in 2 seconds flat and minced no words in being so short-tempered was suddenly at a loss for words and so hesitant and fumbling and nervous about this news his son sprung on him lol

one of the most haunting sequences in film is the one above. the three good fairies have endeared themselves to their mortal charge, even giving up their magic for her for sixteen years. their bond is so much deeper and meaningful than it would've been otherwise, as they probably would've blessed her at the christening and then only appeared in her life intermittently, at a distance. they clearly aren't close enough to humans to know too much about their customs, and their magic always gives them away as outsiders, which indicates they were always content to live in their own fairy-world. but then they give it all up for this baby, this child, and they change their entire world for her. she is their world, to the point where their sole purpose is protecting her, until that's all they can think about for close to two decades. they would do anything they could to make her happy, to give her a fighting chance at life. they're so protective over her- and the fact that they got this close to the finish line...only to leave her alone because they want to be respectful of giving her privacy as she's still reeling and processing from all the news they sprung about her at once. they were even discussing going to king stefan and attempting to convince him to let aurora out of the arranged marriage so that she could be with the boy in the woods. and this all leads to maleficent enchanting aurora to her demise. as the fairies place her in a bed for the last time, looking upon her in her princess form, all of the time they've spent with her runs through their mind. how this isn't their little briar rose anymore, but a princess who inhabits, not the woodcutter's cottage, but king stefan's castle. someone who will never be with them the way she once was ever again and who, presently, is dead for all they know. as they look upon their lost daughter, the faint chimes and musical notes of the celebration of her homecoming is heard in the distance. i could talk about this forever but it's just such a heartbreaking and sad but also eerie mood

in 2023, it's time king stefan gets his flowers. while, in the time period in which this film is set, it'd be totally realistic for a father to set his daughter up in an arranged marriage to further the prospects of his land, stefan displays an understanding that seems more contemporary than his counterpart, hubert. hubert doesn't think about prince phillip's feelings for a beat and concedes that the "children" are bound to fall in love with one another. meanwhile, stefan seems to display a much more well-rounded paternal instinct, even exemplifying a degree of care and concern for both aurora's emotional wellbeing and her consent. he urges hubert to calm down and remember that this might come as "quite a shock" to aurora and to not push all of these political arrangements upon his daughter before she's had a chance to react to them and digest them.

the duality of briar rose and princess aurora is so fascinating, but also the moments in which they overlap is more enchanting still. this is a fairytale that is meant to be archetypical, and aurora's enchanted slumber is meant to be symbolic for her transition from girlhood to womanhood. briar rose, the girl, is anxious about her future, the prospect of meeting her love and settling down and getting to the next stage of her life. she loves her guardians, but is frustrated at their inability to see and treat her as anything other than a child. she goes to sleep a scared, shy, unsure teenager and wakes up as a self-assured, mature, gracious woman- the princess aurora. she's a vision, descending the staircase on the arm of her beloved, and she paints quite the picture as she gracefully curtsies to her parents, the king and queen. yet, true to the girl from the cottage, briar rose takes over. unable to contain the love she feels, she bolts forward and rushes to embraced her lost parents. i love this because, for as calm as a character as aurora is, i've always been so mesmerized by the breathless excitement with which she speaks when she returns to the cottage. this is a girl that has more love inside her than she can contain and it renders her a beacon of light. her running into the arms of her parents, instead of resenting them for giving her up, putting her in an arranged marriage, or even pausing to question whether or not she should be so warm with these figureheads of state, is such a tender moment that i don't think i've ever heard anyone speak of.

i will never get tired of singing the praises of the three good fairies. this film placed three older, conventionally unattractive women at the forefront- without pushing forced hetero ships on any of them- and allowed them to be bad ass (ie saving phillip from the dungeon, providing him with the tools and guidance with which to defeat maleficent, coming up with all the plots and actions that propelled the plot forward), while reminding us that love and kindness is truly the most powerful force on earth and placing an emphasis on the strength and power of femininity. the entire transition, from them being business women in the kingdom essentially (this is more in modern jargon; them being the fairies who are invited to political organizations for their contributions and not knowing anything about things like cooking or cleaning or rearing a child) to learning how to raise a baby and the film ending with them beaming over the shining achievement of their assigned charge finally being safe and happy is...it's everything. how beautifully the film focuses on them and the relationship with their adopted daughter and how that's the driving goal in all of this is something that's been unable to ever be surpassed

[a-ikuoliver]

Mercury your event is SO cute I’m actually obsessed! I’m such a beer girlie, but if I had to pick a drink it’s gotta be a jägerbomb! And for the character you pick because I want you to be as free as possible I’m ready for anything👀

ehehehe i was a lil cheeky with this one, i leaned more into the leave you wanting more vibe with the jagerbomb also im sorry for the lack of beer i've never met a beer or cider i've liked LMAO i was going to make this endeavor but the more i wrote it the more it worked better with bakugou but i hope u like it!! teehee birthday bash intro + rules + menu | event masterlist

anyone who wasn’t a couple jagerbombs deep could tell you how bad of an idea jagerbombs are at an work party, but when you work at one of the most popular bars in musutafu, it’s more a rite of passage.

not even here a year, your work-best friend was the very first to inform you of the notorious annual work party, how messy they get, how she’d gone home with the chef one year, and how many servers had crashed in the booths over the years. finally, the time had come for the party, your friend already abandoning you to flirt with the chef again, although, you couldn’t play the morally high act about it when all your attention was on your boss behind the counter.

walking behind the bar, you perused the liquor on offer, mostly mid-tier stuff, but god, did the imported stuff look good right about now, something smooth to take your mind off of him. fuck, why’d he have to roll his sleeves up like that? his forearm muscles enough to make you wonder what else lies beneath that damn shirt, an endless expanse of muscles underneath a wife-pleaser singlet, thick thighs caged in his expensive slacks.

“need some help?” lost in your daydream, bakugou is beside you before you realise how long you’ve been ogling him, your indecisive daze in front of the alcohol drawing his attention (any excuse to talk to you, really). you’re nowhere near drunk enough for him to be this close, to get this messy. yet.

“you don’t have my beer on tap.” his eyes nearly roll back at your sweet tone, your gentle teasing that’s been driving him up the wall for months. he stays steadfast, dark garnet eyes unwavering, despite the top you’d worn specifically for them to wander.

“let me make it up to you,” he takes another step closer, the expensive scent of his cologne filling your lungs when he reaches around you for the distinct green bottle, trapping you between his biceps for a fleeting moment, “we’ll do something i used to have in my party days.”

grabbing two pint glasses and two shot glasses, you watch him work with the kind of swiftness and expertise decades behind a bar could give a man, every twist of his wrist calculates, not a single drop of jagermeister or redbull spilling, even when the latter threatened to bubble over the top of the glass.

“you used to do jagerbombs?” you can’t help but sound incredulous, your eyebrows shooting up to your hairline when you accept the drink from him. mesmerised as he pours his own, you try to imagine him younger, chugging back the bomb, swallowing shot after shot, stumbling home in the am. even in your daydream, his hair had speckles of salt through the blond of his hair, the silver fox look worked too well for him to see him any other way.

“why are you so shocked? i was twenty once.”

“it’s hard to imagine you… like that.”

“like what?”

“you know, a party animal, i can only see you drinking bourbon on the rocks.” he chuckles at the memories, of sleepless nights, of horrendous hangovers.

“i could still drink you under the table.” he challenges, already reaching to pour another, you try not to laugh in his face, the image of your all-powerful boss drunk and stumbling was something you’d pay to see. with a smile you could only describe as evil, hot, you clinked your drink with his before knocking it back, “sure you can, old man.”

after too many bombs, an assortment of other shots, some cocktail bakugou poured you and a sip (you weren’t game enough to have more of it, there’s a reason you weren’t a bartender) of the one you poured him, the pair of you stumbled into his office at the back of the bar. half the buttons are undone on his shirt, your hands sliding beneath the hem of his shirt even when he pulled away from you long enough to unlock the door, pulling you inside with him and nudge it closed once more before turning all his attention back to you; the way you stared up at him with glassy eyes, the way your lipstick smudged under your bottom lip, how your chest heaved (the way your tits looked when you did), how your dress rode up when you pulled yourself onto his desk, tugging him in by his belt loops.

he can’t even find it in him to care about the time-sheets crinkling under your ass when you bite your lip, can’t care you’re his employee and his mind goes blank of everything when you wrap your thighs around his hips. fuck, you’re irresistible like this; arching into him, kissing and biting his jaw, one hand tugging your dress further up your thighs, the other working off his belt to slide into his slacks, searching for more and more, more he wants to give you.

you’re just so, so, so hot… and he’s soft. he’s fucking soft. he finally has you under him and he can’t get it up.

let’s hope the alcohol buzzing through your blood is enough to clear your memory of this in the morning.

[grapenamjams]

20 minutes

Characters: Artem wing x fem. Reader

Genre: Smut

Contains: needy Artem wing because y’all haven’t fucked in a week, fingering, p.n v, mutual orgasm, princess. Gorgeous. Darling. Pet names used, marking.

A/n: needy desperate Artem is my favorite animal

🩵Start here 🩵

When Artem received the notification that his early morning appointment was canceled. He knew he had to take the opportunity that had presented itself. as the rare pleasure of having an extra 20 minutes before needing to get to work.

And he would be damned if he didn’t make every second Count.

So he set out to do just that. Your body trembling with arousal in minutes, breathe feeling like it’s been stolen, letting out gasps and moans.

His chest pressed against your back as you both laid on your sides under the sheets that were getting increasingly warm.

He captures your moan in his mouth Those dark eyebrows furrowing as if not being able to get enough air through your moans. His kisses where desperate. Because that’s what he was. It’s been a week since he last fucked you and the consequences of that, were apparent to him each passing day.

Feeling himself tighten in his suit pants at just the sight of you-hell just at the thought of you got him scooting his chair closer to his desk at work. He felt pathetic, not used to the feeling of lack of control. But if you were the reason for it? He would gladly relinquish any sense of it. having you consume him entirely. 

“I Need to be inside of you” his voice coming out strained. “Please let me fuck you, darling” Artem dosnt care if he didn’t sound composed as he normally did. He wasn’t going to let any second go to waste.

With your agreement in a form of a moan and you throwing off the covers from on top of you both. Artem pulls his hand that was between your thighs away. Fingers coated with your arousal just by rubbing your clit.

He pushes down your pj bottoms along with your underwear. lifting your hips to aid him. He tosses them over the side of the bed.

he kisses any skin exposed to him as he removes his own embarrassingly soaked briefs. His uneven breathing hits your neck. He presses his body closer behind you. “You’re so beautiful. So perfect, my love. Ive missed how you felt” he tries to regain some sense of said composure through his words.

His hand goes down your side and takes ahold of your thigh. Lifting it up slightly so he can settle himself closer. He holds back a moan at just feeling your folds graze his swollen head.

he knows he isn’t going to last long. Not like he usually does, making sure to draw out his thrusts, changing the pace to keep himself inside you as long as possible.

Right now though, it was different. His body trembling with desire. a growing flare that licked at his restraint. “Ready?” He asks even if mind was hazing. his number one priority in everything was your wellbeing and happiness.

Seeing your nod Artem shifts so the head of his cock is at your entrance. Your delicious warmth calling him to a long overdue welcome home. Artem sucks in a breath, lips hovering over your shoulder.

“You finished laundry, correct?” He sees the confused look in your eyes at his strange question.

“Yes I did. Why-!” You feel artem slips inside of you in a single thrust to the base when he heard the words he wanted. The sudden action making you both moan. Only, Artem’s is muffled with a bite to your shoulder. Soothing the mark with his tongue he begins to thrust into you.

“Good. You can cover these up then” mouth latching on to another section of skin. As much as he loves marking you. He’s always careful to place them in areas that can’t be seen, mindful of your professionalism.

But right now he didn’t have much choice. He was needier than ever before, feeling so incredibly sensitive and this position wasn’t helping. Letting him feel you at a whole new angle. “To long princess” he groans. He pulls out to the head and slams back in making you Yelp. To damn long. Feeling your heat stretch at the size of him. Your warmth engulfing him so tightly he wonders how he survived days without it.

“You feel incredible” he pants as his thrusts quicken. “No matter how much time passes, you always take me in so well” he praises landing kisses up your neck to your ear “isn’t that right, darling? Always ready for me.”

You turn your head to the side “I’ve missed feeling you inside me. P-please Artem harder” you beg breathlessly. He looks at your pretty face etched in pure bliss next to him. Something primal snapping in place. He kisses you as he obliges you. Needing it too if not more.

As he suspected Artem felt the all to familiar tension in his body coiling up rapidly. He curses not wanting this moment to ever end. Wanting to shut the world and thoughts of work away and just have you in bed the entire day making up for lost time.

“Touch yourself for me,hm?” hand tightening against your leg. “Together. Alright?” He manages to grunt out. You do as you’re told needing that release.

It didn’t take long for both of you to reach your highs together. Both of you so pent up for the other it was inevitable. Artem lips don’t leave yours, moaning your name and giving you praises as his hips don’t slow down feeling your walls clench around him as if they don’t want to let him go, demanding he stay and give everything he had left. He sucks in a curse at the thought filling your cunt, over and over again with his seed. Burying it deeper and deeper into you.

Groaning reluctantly, he slows down his hips ridding both of your highs. After a moment of catching your breath. Artem lets go of your leg. his kisses become gentler, reassuring. His words asking if you were alright.

A hand cupping your check and another pushing your hair away from your glistening face. He sucks in a breath, when he feels himself slip out of you as you turn your body onto your back.

Clear blue eyes, the hue that is found in the cracks of a glacier. gaze down at you with a sincere content look of fondness. a contrast against the bursting pink splotches across his face and ears. The smile you give him only deepening the color. He feels your hand push back his damp hair. He turns his head and presses a kiss to your wrist. Keeping his sights on you.

“How does your evening look like?”

[itsthislake]

Reposting this directly on tumblr because YT deleted my channel.

In Our Bedroom After The War. Trash of the Count's Family animatic.

Consider supporting me via Ko-Fi! I would really appreciate it!

Extra stuff i wrote down while making this under the cut:

this took me so long you can literally see me get better at art from beginning to end lol

so many artistic liberties were taken here, you've no idea

confession time: i looked at references when doing the first drafts/storyboard(?) and then didn't for the line-art so yeah. rip lock's hair lock, i forgot about it until it was too late lmao

me, storyboarding this: SO. MANY. CHARACTERS????

@heart-select's Gashan design is so freaking cool I just had to use it, so kudos to them for that

me, repeatedly, while doing the line-art: oh god i still have to COLOR ALL THIS?!?!?!

how tf do you even draw wings?????

me, drawing the DHB: haha bones go brr me, drawing raon: you're damn lucky i love you

so glad I gave up on my original idea to color EVERYTHING jfc past me sure had high hopes

upset that I can't switch sheritt and DHB's order so they fit the lyrics bc I love sheritt too much to not draw her twice and also i'm not drawing a dragon bone head again thank you very much

ohn hasn't got ears. don't ask me why, i don't know either

on that note, i headcanon that ohn is the type to either look full human or full cat at all times, while hong (and lock too) like to have animal features while in human form whenever they can get away with it

added the kids' names to their piggybanks in korean bc why not

my blind ass made the subtitles far too big for my liking but i'm too tired to go and change everything now

this is also my first time doing an animation/video using only clip studio so i'm a little confused with why some things look like they do, but whatever

(Originally posted on 21/02/2023.)

anyways, enjoy!

[hp-hcs]

1.3k words of the author bullying blaise zabini just for the plot (Chapter Three of The Doll) — slytherin boys x gn! ‘the boy’ (2016)! reader

Requests open

tws: dolls, obviously; reader referred to as ‘it’ (presumed inanimate); mentions of past child character death(s); mentions of a house fire—implied arson; violence; & murder

based entirely off of the 2016 film ‘the boy’. the painting? dear jesus fuck. that’s my trauma. watching that scene when i was like, thirteen.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Without further ado, Blaise snatches up the fucking doll, stomping upstairs with the doll carelessly dangling by one porcelain arm. Reaching Y/N’s bedroom (of course the freaky doll has its own bedroom, why wouldn’t it?), Blaise opens the door with much more force than necessary. He pauses in the doorway, taking in the room that the L/Ns had so carefully decorated—as if it were an actual child’s room—with brightly colored bedsheets, cartoon animals painted on the walls, and toys scattered everywhere.

He aggressively chucks the doll onto the rocking chair in the corner, (“The reading chair,” the L/Ns had cooed. “Y/N just loves when we read them bedtime stories”), and shuts the door as he leaves, digging through his pockets for the skeleton key the L/Ns had left the boys and locking the door with a resounding clack!

Letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, he tries to calm his racing heart. Drawing the key back out of the lock and tucking it away safely, he makes his way back downstairs on shaky legs.

He pointedly looks down at the floor as he passes the painting of the L/Ns.

Returning to the living room, his friends stare at him with wildly curious expressions.

“You okay, man?” Draco asks slowly, tilting his head.

“You guys aren’t getting popcorn tonight,” Blaise says with finality, his voice cracking on the last word. Blaise Zabini is not the kind of person to waver while speaking.

The boys don’t press the issue.

They instead scoot over, making room for him to join their blanket pile on the floor as they start the movie. Once he’s settled in, Blaise focuses on watching Cady Heron fumble her way through high school and tries to push the fuckery with the doll out of his mind.

~~~ Passing through the main narrow hallway, Blaise precariously carries a stack of antique books, liable to disintegrate at just the wrong glance. The rain is still going strong, a sudden clap of thunder causing the hallway’s oil lamps to splutter feebly. Cursing under his breath, Blaise sets the books on a decorative hall table and fumbles through his pockets for a lighter. Just in time, another crack of thunder seems to shake the whole house, the lamps giving off one last sad spark of light before giving up entirely.

His thumb slips against the flint wheel a few times before the lighter finally flickers, a flame catching on the wick. The tiny pinprick of light in the otherwise murky and oppressive hallway does nothing to light up Blaise’s surroundings. Moving the lighter around slowly, so as not to accidentally catch anything in the old house on fire, he slowly makes his way down the hall, immediately banging his hip on a console table.

Cursing again, Blaise swings the lighter around, looking for any more furniture boobytraps attempting to further maim him.

Then, a soft sound could be heard.

Blaise freezes, his breath catching in his throat.

It’s the unmistakable sound of a child crying.

Holding the lighter out in front of him like a weapon, Blaise takes a hesitant step down the hall towards the sound. The flame of his lighter then glints off of something hanging on the wall, a very large glossy wooden picture frame.

It’s the damn painting.

Frozen in place, Blaise can’t do anything but stare up at the imposing painting in terror. In the meager light, the L/Ns faces all look demonic and twisted.

The sobbing gets louder, closer.

He glances down the hall towards the sound, his heart pounding in his chest, before glancing back at the painting.

A hand shoots out from the canvas and seizes him around the throat, sharp nails digging into his flesh and squeezing squeezing squeezing-

~~~

Blaise wakes up in a cold sweat. Heart practically beating out of his chest, he breathes heavily, every one of his senses on overdrive, screaming at him to get out of there.

The clock on the TV stand glows a comforting green, whispering the time as an early five in the morning. The sun has only just begun to break over the horizon, gentle morning rays leaking through the decorative bits of stained glass at the top of each of the windows and casting warm shades of colors over the ceiling.

Mattheo lays stretched out next to him, dead asleep and hogging all of the blankets. Enzo and Draco fell asleep on each other, in a way that looks terribly uncomfortable. Theo is sprawled out across all of them, his head on Blaise’s knee and half of his body sandwiched between him and Mattheo. They must’ve fallen asleep before the movie ended, because the little DVD logo box slowly bounces across the screen, avoiding the corners like the plague.

Blaise scrubs his hands over his face, looking around the inviting and entirely non-threatening room. Really, the house is rather cute, in its own charming way. Like how a grandparent’s house is always tacky and poorly decorated, yet still perfect and homey nonetheless.

Knowing there was no way he’d be able to fall back asleep, Blaise carefully moves Theo’s head onto a blanket, sliding out of the group pile and standing up. His knees snap crackle and pop as he grunts to himself, shuffling to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee.

The kitchen is even cuter in the sunlight, with pale gingham curtains framing the window above the sink and cross-stitch frames dotting the walls. As he flicks the start lever on the coffee pot, he takes the opportunity to look around the room. Tacky linoleum floors? Check. Kitchen towels with embroidered kitschy sayings? Check. Live laugh and fucking love, everybody.

Blaise leans against the counter on his forearms, listening to the coffee pot hum. Taped onto one of the kitchen cabinets in front of him is a faded polaroid of a family in the outdoors, the woman and man grinning widely at the camera while the young child in the foreground appears to be mid-laugh, clinging to their father. The scrawled handwriting at the bottom describes the photo as ‘Y/N’s 9th birthday at the lake!’

Blaise’s eyebrows shoot up as he looks over the photo again. He hadn’t recognized them immediately, but sure enough, the woman and man in the photograph are the L/Ns. They look so much younger and happier in the polaroid, the weight of life having yet to set in.

Caught up in his thoughts, Blaise barely notices when the coffee pot dings to let him know that it’s done. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he pulls down a few mugs for him and the rest of the boys. He glances down curiously when the coffee pot continues to hum.

His brow furrows as he taps at the machine with a fingernail. The coffee maker splutters indignantly and beeps again, then goes silent.

But the hum continues.

Abandoning his quest for caffeine, he peeks out into the hall, wondering if one of his friends had woken up. He peers into the entrance of the living room from the kitchen doorway; he can see the still-bouncing logo on the otherwise mute TV, and his four friends still sprawled out on top of all of the blankets.

But the hum continues.

He steps a little further out into the hall. He can now hear distinctly that the sound is coming from upstairs. Looking back at his abandoned mug on the counter forlornly—and mentally cursing himself for being insatiable in his curiosity—Blaise slowly starts up the stairs.

Once he reaches the top floor, the sound grows louder. It’s clearer now too. Blaise can tell that it’s not a hum.

It’s a child’s sobs.

Eyes widening, his gaze immediately latches onto the door of Y/N’s bedroom.

Surely not.

Holding the skeleton key retrieved from his pocket between shaking fingers, he slides it into the lock and twists, the door slowly creaking open.

The doll is still sitting in the chair, exactly as he left it.

He sighs in relief.

It’s a doll, dumbass. You’re just being paranoid. The war just left you on edge, that’s all.

He turns to leave, to go back downstairs and enjoy his coffee, when something catches his eye.

The doll is crying.

A single tear tracks down its face, hanging still for a moment before dripping off of its porcelain chin.

Blaise stumbles backwards, dropping the key with a clatter. He tugs the neckline of his shirt down frantically, feeling the phantom hand from his dream wrapping around his throat once more. He could swear he feels those damn nails again, slicing into his skin.

Watching the doll with bated breath and terror-stricken eyes, Blaise waits a long moment before another tear runs down its face, running down the bridge of its nose from its forehead.

Wait.

Forehead?

Blaise slowly looks up at the ceiling, a bit convinced that if he looks away from the doll for too long, it’ll lunge. He releases the breath he’s holding when he sees that the ceiling has a leak, rainwater from last night’s storm dripping down. Down from the seam of where the shut tight pull-down ladder to what must be the attic—or some kind of storage space—meets the rest of the ceiling.

It’s just an old house. There’s no crying dolls, no monstrous paintings. Just a wacky old house with wacky old owners.

Yep. That’s all.

~~~

Chapter Four <3

[mspaesthetic]

Tidbit: The “Posterization” Effect of Panels Due to the Consequences of GIF Color Quantization (and Increased Contrast (And Also The Tangential Matter of Dithering))

There’s this misconception that the color banding and patterned dithering found in panels is an entirely deliberate, calculated effect Hussie manipulated the image into looking with some specific filter, but this isn’t the case, exactly. It wasn’t so much a conscious decision he took but rather an unavoidable consequence of the medium he partook in: digital art in an age where bandwidth and storage was at a premium.

Not to delve too deeply into the history and technicalities of it, but the long and the short of it is back in the early nineties to late aughts (and even a bit further into the 10s), transferring and storing data over the web was not as fast, plentiful, and affordable as it is now. Filesize was a much more important consideration than the fidelity of an image when displaying it on the web. Especially so when you’re a hobbyist on a budget and paying for your own webhosting, or using a free service with a modest upload limit (even per file!). Besides, what good would it be to post your images online if it takes ages to load them over people's dial-up Internet? Don't even get me STARTED on the meager memory and power the average iGPU had to work with, too.

The original comic strip's resolution was a little more than halved and saved as a GIF rather than a large PNG. That's about an 82.13% reduction in filesize!

So in the early days it was very common for people to take their scans, photographs, and digital drawings and scale them down and publish them as smaller lossily compressed JPEGs or lossless GIFs, the latter of which came at the cost of color range. But it had a wider range of browser support and the feature to be used for animations compared to its successor format, PNG ("PNG's not GIF").

You'd've been hard-pressed to find Hussie use any PNGs himself then. In fact, I think literally the only times he's ever personally employed them and not delegate the artwork to a member of the art team were some of the tiny shrunken down text of a character talking far in the distance and a few select little icons.

PNGs support semi-transparency unlike GIFs, which is why Hussie used them to preserve the anti-aliasing on the text without having to add an opaque background color.

While PNGs can utilize over 16 million colors in a single image, GIFs have a hard limit of 256 colors per frame. For reference, this small image alone has 604 colors:

For those who can't do the math, 256 is a pretty damn small number.

Smaller still were the palettes in a great deal of MSPA's panels early on in its run. Amazingly, a GIF such as this only uses 7 colors (8 if you count the alpha (which it is)).

Not that they were always strictly so low; occasionally some in the later acts of Homestuck had pretty high counts. This panel uses all 256 spots available, in fact.

If he had lowered the number any smaller, the quality would have been god-awful.

To the untrained eye, these bands of color below may seem to be the result of a posterization filter (an effect that reduces smooth areas of color into fewer harsh solid regions), but it's really because the image was exported as a GIF with no dithering applied.

Dithering, to the uninitiated, is how these colors are arranged together to compensate for the paltry palette, producing illusory additional colors. There are three algorithms in Photoshop for this: Diffusion, Pattern, and Noise.

Above is the original image and below is the image reduced to a completely binary 1-bit black and white color palette, to make the effect of each dithering algorithm more obvious.

Diffusion seemingly displaces the pixels around randomly, but it uses error diffusion to calculate what color each pixel should be. In other words, math bullshit. The Floyd-Steinberg algorithm is one such implementation of it, and is usually what this type of error diffusion dithering is called in other software, or some misnomer-ed variation thereof.

The usage of Pattern may hearken back to retro video game graphics for you, as older consoles also suffered from color palette limitations. Sometimes called Ordered dithering because of the orderly patterns it produces. At least, I assumed so. Its etymological roots probably stem from more math bullshit again.

True to its name, Noise is noisy. It’s visually similar to Diffusion dithering, except much more random looking. At least, when binarized like this. Truth be told, I can’t tell the difference between the two at all when using a fuller color table on an image with a lot of detail. It was mainly intended to be used when exporting individual slices of an image that was to be “stitched” back together on a webpage, to mitigate visible seams in the dithering around the edges.

To sate your curiosity, here's how the image looks with no dithering at all:

People easily confuse an undithered gif as being the result of posterization, and you couldn't fault them for thinking so. They look almost entirely the same!

Although I was already aware of this fact when I was much younger, I'm guilty of posterizing myself while editing images back then. Figured I may as well reduce the color count beforehand to help keep the exported GIF looking as intended. I view this as a complete waste of time now, though, and amateurish. Takes away a bit of the authenticity of MSPA art, how the colors and details are so variable between panels. As for WHY they were so variable to begin with, choosing the settings to save the image as requires a judicious examination on a case-by-case basis. In other words, just playing around with the settings until it looks decent.

It's the process of striking a fine balance between an acceptable file size and a "meh, good enough" visual quality that I mentioned earlier. How many colors can you take away until it starts to look shit? Which dithering algorithm helps make it look not as shit while not totally ruining the compression efficacy?

Take, for example, this panel from Problem Sleuth. It has 16 colors, an average amount for the comic, and uses Diffusion dithering. Filesize: 34.5 KB.

Then there's this panel right afterwards. It has 8 colors (again, technically 7 + alpha channel since it's an animated gif), and uses Noise dithering this time. Filesize: 34.0 KB.

The more colors and animation frames there are, and the more complicated dithering there is, the bigger the file size is going to be. Despite the second panel having half the color count of the first, the heavily noisy dithering alone was enough to inflate the file size back up. On top of that, there's extra image information layered in for the animation, leaving only a mere 0.5 kilobyte difference between the two panels.

So why would Hussie pick the algorithm that compresses worse than the other? The answer: diffusion causes the dithering to jitter around between frames of animation. Recall its description from before, how it functions on nerd shit like math calculations. The way it calculates what each pixel's color will be is decided by the pixels' colors surrounding it, to put it simply. Any difference in the placement of pixels will cause these cascading changes in the dithering like the butterfly effect.

Diffusion dithering, 16 colors. Filesize: 25.2 KB

This isn't the case with Noise or Pattern dithering, since their algorithms use either a texture or a definite array of numbers (more boring nerd shit).

Noise dithering, 16 colors. Filesize: 31.9 KB

Pattern dithering, 16 colors. Filesize: 23.1 KB

There's a lot more I'd like to talk about, like the different color reduction algorithms, which dither algorithms generally compress better in what cases, and the upward and downward trends of each one’s use over the course of a comic, but since this isn’t a deep dive on GIF optimization, I might save that for another time. This post is already reaching further past the original scope it was meant to cover, and less than 10 images can be uploaded before hitting the limit, which is NOWHERE near enough for me. I should really reevaluate my definition of the word “tidbit”… Anyway, just know that this post suffers from sample selection bias, so while the panels above came from an early section of Problem Sleuth that generally had static panels with diffusion dithering and animated panels with noise dithering, there certainly were animated panels with diffusion later on despite the dither-jittering.

Alright, time to shotgun through the rest of this post, screw segueing. Increasing the contrast almost entirely with “Use Legacy” enabled spreads the tones of the image out evenly, causing the shadows and highlights to clip into pure black and white. The midtones become purely saturated colors. Using the Levels adjustment filter instead, moving both shadow and highlight input level sliders towards the middle also accomplishes the same thing, because, you know, linear readjustment. I'm really resisting the urge to go off on another tangent about color channels and the RGB additive color model.

Anyway, there aren't any examples in MSPA that are quite this extreme (at least in color, but I'll save that for a later post), but an image sufficiently high in contrast can be mistaken for being posterized at a glance. Hence the Guy Fieri banner. In preparation for this post, I was attempting to make a pixel-perfect recreation of that panel but hit a wall trying to figure out which and how many filters were used and what each one's settings were, so I sought the wisdom of those in the official Photoshop Discord server. The very first suggestion I got was a posterization filter, by someone who was a supposed senior professional and server moderator, no less. Fucking dipshit, there's too much detail preserved for it to be posterization. Dude totally dissed me and my efforts too, so fuck that moron. I spit on his name and curse his children, and his children's children. The philistines I have to put up with...

In the end, the bloody Guy Fieri recreation proved to be too much for me to get right. I got sort of close at times, but no cigar. These were some of the closest I could manage:

You might be left befuddled after all this, struggling to remember what the point of the blogpost even was. I had meant for it to be a clarification of GIFs and an argument against using the posterization filter, thinking it was never used in MSPA, but while gathering reference images, I found a panel from the Felt intermission that actually WAS posterized! So I’ll eat crow on this one... Whatever, it’s literally the ONE TIME ever.

I can tell it's posterization and not gif color quantization because of the pattern dithering and decently preserved details on the bomb and bull penis cane. There would have had to have been no dithering and way fewer colors than the 32, most of which were allotted to the bomb and cane. You can't really selectively choose what gets dithered or more colors like this otherwise.

Thank you for reading if you've gotten this far. That all might have been a lot to take in at once, so if you're still unclear about something, please don't hesitate to leave a question! And as always, here are the PSDs used in this post that are free to peruse.

[rascalentertainments]

Wish Granted AU: Flazino

Now the sorcerers' overworked, underappreciated, underpaid, incredibly tired apprentice, Flazino! I keep laughing at the fact that this guy has more depth to him than half the cast of the canon movie. 😂 He went from throwaway character to a nearly co-protagonist character with importance to the story!

His design was inspired by several Disney characters. The outfit and hair are a reference to Arthur/Wart from "The Sword in the Stone". The face and body language is based on George from the Paperman short film (Remember how great that was? And it mastered the 2D/3D hybrid animation long before Wish? What happened to those animators, Disney?)

(You can even use this concept art as reference for Flazino if you want too, especially that pissed off look 😂)

And I swear it wasn't on purpose, but as I started drawing him tired, he started resembling Bruno. All his references are from overworked or stressed out characters and I didn't even do it on purpose! 😂

Now for some backstory and info dump! This was pretty fun because I got to create my own take on him since there's practically nothing on him outside of a deleted scene.

• Like the aforementioned deleted scene, Flazino's wish is to study magic. For this story, its so he can help others lives be better, which is what he thought Magnifico wanted as well. He thought the job would be more glamorous or fun as he learned, but it turns out Mags doesn't actually want a successor. He plans on being in power permanently. He pretends he granted Flaz's wish and instead of studying magic, he's the errand boy, cleans the lab equipment, feeds Sabor, and is in charge of the tour guides for newcomers. Flazino just practices what he can at home and secretly takes ingredients from Amaya's potion cabinet.

•No one's sure if the bags under his eyes are from losing his wish and side effects starting, or its just him being stressed out all the time. Either way he's like Aled, he doesn't sleep much cause he's always working or worrying. He's sort of sassy when he's really tired so he might make an off hand comment. Bonus: He swears, but its censored in the "Spongebob Sailor Mouth" style. You'll just hear a noise or beep censorship sound in place of it. 😂 (Hey, you can say "Hell" and "Damn" in a Pixar movie now, so why not?)

•He gave his wish at 18, and was surprised to hear it was getting granted so soon. Though Mags doesn't really need an apprentice, he takes Flaz on just in case something happened to him, all of his magic, power and evil will go into the apprentice. Sort of passing on his plans to him to become the next Magnifico and continue his work. That's pretty terrifying.

• Most people in the Hamlet think that he and Asha are secretly a thing, but that's not the case. Lord knows Sabino wanted his granddaughter to get a boyfriend so she'd stop being so serious all the time. They never really had feelings like that for each other, they just stayed friends. One part is because Asha has just sealed herself off from connecting deeper with other people, and on Flaz's side, he already has feelings for someone else. (Also, after Star shows up and spends time with Asha, she starts feeling things for him she's been repressing for years. Girl, chill.-)

• During the first few months of becoming the apprentice, he learned about the Hamlet through rumors in Rosas. He didn't understand why people would run away until he stumbles on seeing the king and queen crush the wishes of a couple who talked about leaving Rosas and not trusting the royals. He never saw that couple again.

He later took off one night into the forest to finds this supposed Hamlet using a tracking spell. Once he finds it, Sabino and other people tell him why they ran and what a monster the royal could be. Flazino felt so disgusted that he promised to help anyway he could. So he makes an excuse to get specialty mushroom from the Uncharted Forest once a month and brings supplies to the Hamlet ever since. (stuff like seeds to grow food, flour, medicine, toys for the kids)

• A lot of the people actually go to Flazino if they can't get to the king for help improving the kingdom, or people needing help. The royals don't do crap, so he just does the best he can himself. But most people don't realize he's the one that granting their needs and not the royals.

• His connection to the 7 Teens actually foreshadows Asha bringing them together. Like the deleted scene suggested, they all know him as the "great apprentice to the king", when he's really just a tired guy trying not lose his sanity. He has different interactions with each of them.

Gabo is the one shouting that the royals are evil like a conspiracy theorist, but since he's such a low threat, they send Flazino to get rid of him and everytime he gets away. Gabo's been a nuisance for months now and he's even defacing anything with the royals on it. He actually agrees with Gabo, but obviously can't say it out loud.

For Simon, he tries to keep him awake when he can for his knight training, or guard duty so its his way of trying to help fulfill his wish of being a knight. He's tired himself, so its even harder.

Safi is allergic to practically everything when he cleans, so Flaz has an idea to make a medicine that can cure that through magic. He has no idea its just so he can talk to the girl he likes without sneezing in someone's face. 😂

Hal is one of the easiest he gets along with. She's pretty content where she is and gets along with him fine. Though he gets roped into doing some of her work when he's not paying attention, lol. If she does see an injustice being done to someone else she'll step in to help them.

Bazeema he's not even sure what she thinks of him. She's so shy whenever he talks to her, all he knows is that she does a great job caring for the local animals and flora in the kingdom, which he's thanked her many times for. Though she has been leaving him yellow roses as thank you messages.

Dahlia is actually the one he bonds with the best. He ends up talking to her when its time for Sabor's breakfast or dinner and she makes the food by hand with her parents. At first he just talked to her out of convenience and vent a little bit about being overworked (much to his surprise, she's actually listening). Then the two of them just found some comfort in talking to each other when they've had a long day and now its developed into a full-on crush for him. But with Dahlia going all fangirl on Magnifico, he doesn't have high hopes the feelings mutual. (She's been dropping hints but he's not getting it)

So I guess we got three Flazinos right now: RFTS!Flaz who actually likes his job and still wants to learn magic, UaS!Flaz who's a prince of the evil royals, and then WG!Flaz is an overworked man who wants to hurt his bosses. Y'all need therapy. 😂

(So now, Chapter 6 of WG will be out tomorrow! 😏)

@signed-sapphire @oh-shtars @annymation @chillwildwave

@uva124 @ishadow246 @tumblingdownthefoxden @your-ne1ghbor

@mythartist21 @gracebethartacc @emptyblog7 @spectator-zee

@lazytitans-world @emillyverse @flicklikesstuff @kenihewa

@snackara @wings-of-sapphire @natsuki208

[strobichie]

just sae.

♡⸝⸝ summary: poor you decided to replay ddlc, but something seems wrong... why is monika sae?

little note: bachira is sayori, rin is natsuki, and isagi is yuri!!

your perspective:

i had recently gotten a new computer, there are so many things i still need to work with and customise to my liking.

so, to cure my boredom, i'm installing ddlc again and replaying it!

my favourite character is natsuki, i absolutely loved how adorable and relatable she just is. she reminded me of one of the kids i babysat.

after installing the win files i extracted them all and started the game up, as usual, i see the 4 dokis on the main screen on startup.

i entered my name of choice and started the game ---

wait, bachira??? FROM BLUE LOCK??

why was he sayori? not gonna lie, his sprites are really cute, but how..??

i re-checked the website i downloaded the game from but it displayed the 4 dokis there and there was nothing wrong..

huh, why am i being scared?

i should be grateful, honestly.

i've been blessed by the gods above!! for once i'm fucking lucky!

no way was i gonna pass up the opportunity to interact with my favourite anime characters especially since they somehow ended up in my favourite childhood game..!

i wonder who natsuki, yuri, and monika would be, though?

this is interesting! as i progress even more reading the dialogues and clicking on the chat box, after a few minutes of suffering i finally got to the literature club with bachira!

"seriously, a girl? way to be a killjoy." rin... RIN?!?!?!?!?!

OH MY GOD RIN IS SO HOT? HIS ATTRACTIVENESS SCALE WENT TO 100 TO 1000 SO QUICK!!

wait.. could that mean ---

ISAGI IS YURI!! YES!! MY FAVOURITES ALL IN ONE ROOM!!

i hope monika is kaiser or even better, anri..!!

gosh this got me feelin' so giddy and chipper in the early fucking morning..

i skipped a few of the dialogues, and abruptly stopped when a certain person came into view.

...sae? really?

what an eyesore. i hate sae, of all people, why sae?

sure he was similar to monika, but only in appearance. kaiser or anri could have been able to fulfill this role.

i sighed in annoyance, at least i have rin and the others...

i continuously skipped many dialogues and had finally gotten to the part where sayori, or in this situation bachira, hangs himself..

right, this was a horror game after all. did i really forget about the main plot?

i stared at the screen with an obvious frown. rin and isagi are next..

and the person behind all this was saeshit. ugh, seriously... well, good thing i can just delete his files at any given time.

progressing through the story even further, i got a special poem and cringed at the 'drawing'. it was bachira hanging in a humorous manner.

this was unfortunate.

i clicked on the chat box endlessly, wanting to speedrun to the moments of all my favourite characters deaths..

seeing rin crack his neck and isagi stab himself looking like a crazed maniac broke my heart. good things don't last.. this will probably be the last time i'll ever be able to play this version of the game.

then, here sae was, fuck was he smiling for?

"let me take a quick one of rin's cupcakes, these such are really good for a brother so shitty and nasty." i scoffed and gritted my teeth in anger, sae was clearly the asshole in their brother-ship.

i was met face-to-face with sae, i pursed my lips and stared at my computer screen.

"it's nice to talk to you even if it's by a dialogue box." is this even real?

"i know that you're thinking: is this legitimate? to answer your question, yes it is. i became self aware after everything in that god damn manga and anime called blue lock, i felt sick and tired of not being able to show up in the manga after a long period of time. somehow, i found a way to break the barrier between the fictional animanga world and reality as you call it." that was a mouthful. he was pretty talkative now. my burning hatred for sae cooled down a bit as he spoke more ---

"i found this 'cutesy romance horror' game and it had all the things i needed in order to cross over to the real world. this version of the game only exists on your desktop, {user}. is {user} even your name? are you even a girl?" he shot me a confused expression.

"honestly, i don't care anymore. even i started falling in love with you. i thought i wasn't capable of love, just like the original character monika, i fell in love with you." this sent a shiver down my spine, i sweat-dropped and continued reading his dialogues.

"you read that right, i love you. even if i'm not real, i love you. i won't ever let you leave me. i'll kill you even if you think of it." he coldly stated and i opened my file explorer, ready to delete his character file --- huh.. why couldn't i delete it?

"i'm disappointed, why would you wanna try to delete me? i love you, you should be grateful i love you." but i hated sae, i hate him!

"i've been practicing for a while, i think i can finally break the laws of physics and rules of nature between our worlds." uhm, does he even know what the fuck's he saying?

"i'll see you soon, goodbye {name}. i love you." HOW DID HE GET MY NAME? DID HE HACK INTO MY COMPUTER BECAUSE WHAT THE FUCK..?!?!?!

i was scared shitless, jesus christ, just what did he mean by all that? i force shut down my computer and rolled to my bed covering myself in my blankets. time to go back to sleep after that eventful experience.

short little fic, should i make a part two?

finally made a part 2!