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snakeeyesdraws · 8 months

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Overly Analyzing the Super Mario 3D World story intro

So I've been playing Super Mario 3D World a lot, and since I haven't seen many people talk about the opening cutscene, I wanted to do that since it contains a lot of very cute animations!

This will kinda be a scene by scene analysis with me just pointing out things I like, but if you'd like to see the full cutscene in better quality than my screenshots, you can watch it here!

The scene starts off with all of the main playable characters going for a walk under a starry sky filled with fireworks. I know blue/yellow Toads have been staples of Mario games now, since they colour code the main characters and Mario is obviously red, but its does delight me that Blue Toad is just invited on this little walk with them.

(Also if you listen closely, you can hear Mario say "Ah Princess, what a beautiful evening!" and I thought that was cute)

Their walk is interrupted by Toad noticing something offscreen, and they run ahead to see a broken pipe in the middle of the path! Mario and Luigi closely examine it, and then we get...

ACTUAL PLUMBING FROM THE SUPER MARIO BROS!

Real talk, the more the series goes on the less relevant their status as plumbers often becomes, so anything that references it or shows them actually using their plumbing skills makes me so happy. And their tools are colour coordinated!

A bunch of power ups and the green Sprixie Princess pop out, and we get some classic 2d artwork, which I absolutely adore. More of this in every 3d game, please.

The ground and pipe start rumbling, and this is where I really wanna focus on the character animation of the main four here. All four of them start looking around for the source of the tremors, and we see both Peach and Luigi lifting their hands up, Luigi looking more anxious.

Bowser suddenly pops out of the pipe and roars, startling all four main characters. We can see very different reactions from all of them.

Toad and Peach jump before covering their ears, very clearly intimidated by Bowser's roar.

Luigi is the only one to fall over completely from Bowser's appearance. He stays on the ground and holds one hand up in front of his face, flinching when Bowser roars. Dude is clearly terrified by Bowser.

Mario does jump in surprise when Bowser pops up, but he's the only one who doesn't cower when Bowser roars. Instead, he immediately gets into a confrontational pose, with one hand held out protectively towards Peach. This isn't his first time dealing with Bowser, obviously, and his instincts are to prepare for a fight and to protect Peach.

However, Bowser's target this time isn't Peach, but instead the green Sprixie Princess. A lot of people poke fun at the set up for this game - "if Princess Peach isn't in danger, why do any of them care?" - but I always like when Mario & Luigi and the others try to rescue others simply because it's the right thing to do.

Bowser turns to glare at Peach and Mario, taunting them to react. Peach and Mario are both upset by the capture of the Sprixie Princess, but neither react too strongly to Bowser. Both of them have interacted with him enough to know what he's like.

Conversely, both Luigi and Blue Toad react much more when Bowser turns to them. Blue Toad stumbles onto one foot, while Luigi cowers back further, keeping his hand raised defensively, which seems to be a common mannerism of his when he's frightened. Bowser seems to be grinning a bit more in this pose, as if he knows he can get a bigger reaction out of these two.

When Bowser disappears down the pipe, all four of them regain their bearings and jump back up, reaching out for the green Sprixie Princess.

Peach is the first one to rush forward to the pipe. She sort of flounders on the edge of the pipe before she slips down it - yeah, I don't think she had a game plan there outside of trying to rescue the green Sprixie Princess. But proactive Peach being included on the adventure is always a win!

Before Luigi even lands his startled jump, Mario is already rushing forward to follow Peach down the pipe, and Toad is right behind him. I'd say it's out of mostly courage on Mario's end, and mostly out of loyalty to the princess on Toad's.

Then we get to my favourite animation of this scene (can you tell I'm biased?)

While Mario and Toad follow Peach down the pipe, Luigi pulls himself together and slaps his cheeks twice to hype himself up. It's one of my favourite quirks for characters to do, and it's doubly endearing on characters who are timid in nature. Luigi was arguably the most started and scared by Bowser's appearance, but he knows he has to do something! Totally adopting this as a common mannerism of his

Luigi then follows the others down the pipe, and they travel to the first world of the game, bringing the opening cutscene to a close.

Fun fact; since I've only ever played this game solo, and since I main Luigi, I assumed that his animation of landing on his stomach outside of the pipe was unique to him, since he's established as quite clumsy.

But in 4 player mode, you can see all of them coming out of the pipe together, and Mario lands on his stomach too. Just thought that was a cute detail.

So that's the opening cutscene of Super Mario 3D World! It's not terribly complex, but I've always adored it for showcasing a lot of personality with the main characters, and since I didn't really see any discussions on it, I wanted to highlight it!

I do recommend you watch the cutscene since a lot of the nuances and details can't be shown in screenshots - or better yet, play the game yourself! It's a ton of fun ^^

#snake talks #Super Mario #Super Mario 3d world #smb #mario #super mario bros #woke up with the urge to info dump about this game so. here we are #this was fun too do!! I might do more of these :]#just as a character animator I really care about and love small details like this #this cutscene isnt long but it tells so much about the characters and its very cute

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lindalofbroome · 3 months

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original sketches

DELTORA FASHION CONCEPT ART V2

hello i have finally coloured some rough sketches of some deltoran fashions, a redraw of some really old sketches from ages ago.

im a pretty amateur concept artists and i hate designing clothes so truly was a challenge for me hahah BUT it has given me plenty of time to think of headcanons. im not sure what i've already posted about or not so im just gonna go ahead and rant

these characters were originally just models for me to draw the clothes on, so i didn't need to draw a new person every time; although in some of my earliest sketches of different people groups i did a bunch of people. but naturally these characters have developed a little and some of them are my beloved adin-era OCs <3

[about 4,500 words]

⬜ JALIS

since the jalis are reknowned for their warrior prowess and their signature gold armour, i thought it'd be neat that even if when they're not wearing the full set, they are always wearing their arm guards. it's a sense of pride and identity, they probably receive them as a rite of passage into adulthood. not every jalis is a knight, but they value a heart of courage and great feats and they all have them, and would wear them always (or at least special occasions if one prefers not).

i headcanon that jasmine was gifted her own set of arm guards as an expression of their respect and admiration of her. her relationship with glock grew so much and was cut off, but she earned her "heart of a jalis" and we didnt get to see much of jasmine and gers together, but theres plenty of time post-DQ3. i think my jasmine and the jalis thoughts should be a separate post though, otherwise this post will never end 😂

i dont imagine that the jalis had special party clothes, i think they just turn up in their usual clothes and get drunk and dance their hearts out maybe start a brawl thats none of my business

i cant remember why i've been giving them this geometric sort of pattern tbh. i think i drew someone at some point and wanted it to look different to mcbride's design but im not sure if i like it or not. the plus is that i can make diamond motifs though!!

i also cant really remember how my brown skin gold hair came to be 🤔🤔 wait backtracking i think what happened is that i decided to draw del people as black latinx inspired, so it wasn't that big a step to make jalis also dark skinned since they're both in the south (deltora geography is weird tho so like it's not that deep) and then i think i made them blonde as i "why not??" situation but tHEN i thought maybe it's connected to their jalis gold?

my headcanon is that their armour is made of a unique metal that can only be found in diamond territory, it's super hard, tough, and light etc. so maybe whatever is In The Ground is also in them and their blood and shows in their hair????

🥳 fun fact 🥳 wasn't until i had to draw steven and glock side by side that i had realised what i'd done?? i.e. steven canonically has brown skin gold hair too¹. which now forces me to think about whether it should be a coincidence (like it is) or shall i headcanon that steven and nevets' father was jalis² 🤔 ¹ pretty sure it's about the dichotomy, to show contrast but connection between the brothers. i have many steven and nevets thoughts but that should also be another post ² i am.

🟩 DREAD GNOMES

these characters are adin-era, so unfortunately this would be when the gnomes still hunt the kin. whats weird is that i realised that i was picturing the caramelly brown fabric that this gnome is wearing was the kin pelt and not the big furry parts?? i usually picture the kin as more like velvetty. idk what the thicker fur parts would be though?? literally any other animal i guess 😅 i dont know it doesn't make sense and it's only occurring to me right now i shall have to think about it lmao

anyway made them green because why not. maybe they come in different colours idk. this gnome is pre-gellick so does go out in the sun, gellick-era gnomes would be waaaaay more paler they probably looked white. this could be similar to the jalis and like theres something in the grounddd

gla-thon claims that the dread gnomes knew that lesser gems had weaker but the same powers of the great talisman gems (sots), but im not sure if they knew it before adin. would be interesting if they did 🤔 and how they figured it out?? (side note but now im wondering about how withick knew what to write about the gems??) would imply that if they got the great emerald than they could deduce there are others surely. unless they thought it was a freak accident/miracle. anyway we know they love gems and gold etc etc so they obviously decorate themselves with heaps of jewellery

triangle motifs in homage to their mountain 💚

i gave them a sort of war paint ritual. i'm not sure if they all do the same markings, but this one was specifically to symbolise a bow and arrow (arrow going up the nose). you can see it a bit better here lol. i also decided that sometimes they wear it for purely cosmetic purposes. im not sure what the substance is exactly though. i think in my head i was imagining something similar to kohl, but maybe not.

🥳 fun fact 🥳 bre-tak and az-zure are lesbians (i make the rules)

🟦 MERE

oooooh baby this is my guy my babygirl my everything

okay so i think this headcanon developed recently when i last drew sky of rithmere and i thought that mere superstition encouraged them to wear their charms in random spots to avoid them cancelling each other out. it could be construed to be they were inspired by the night sky and the pattern of the stars perhaps. this led them to prefer asymmetrical fashions, mostly prominent in the armour i put badr in

🥳 fun fact 🥳 badr means "full moon" 👀

i think i originally decided the mere had leather armour just to give them something different iirc but the mere characters we see are usually the lithe, speedy, crafty type, so maybe light, mobile armour does work for them lol. anyway the main reason is that i had the image of studded leather, and i was like ohohoho STARS

i generally think of them with muted colours but sometimes they have a bold blue for their prized garmants. like zillah and co, the leaders of rithmere in adin's time were described with bright blue and starry cloaks. (i checked the wiki just to check zillah's name lol and apparently it's actually canon they have leather armour?? so not sure why i thought otherwise) anyway i do currently have minecraft brain but i did vaguely remember that people made ultramarine pigment from grinding lapis lazuli into a powder and im not sure if thats something the mere would do or if there's some strong blue dyes they can get from plants or something native to their territory 🤔

actually im liking that idea now? it would be incredibly time-consuming and labour-intensive but that would add to its value?? real world lapis lazuli has a horrible yield rate of 1kg lapis to 30g of pigment apparently, but it's a strong pigment (unless i misunderstand). alternative name for ultramarine is "permanent blue" apparently so. anyway ultramarine irl is more of a paint pigment, but in roddaverse maybe the mere make a lucky blue dye to use on cloaks and scarfs and shawls etc for good fortune?? me frantically checking that i put badr and luisa's wedding garb in bold blue lmAO oh i did but it's a little muted. they mix in oils and stuff to make the paint, so it doesnt seem like a stretch that they can mix different ingredients or ratio to make a cloth dye (to my very amateur understanding).

so im imagining now that they have a special (probably secret within the mere) process to create bright blue thread speckled with white (also gold to me. im pro deltora lapis with gold) and weave it into their beautiful starry night fabric. the amount of labour and the use of their prized lapis lazuli makes it very special, and maybe some people think it's the lapis that makes the fabric lucky or maybe some people think it's the work of love and time that makes it lucky, maybe both.

🥳 fun fact 🥳 i forgot that "bless your lucky stars" is like a real saying until recently lol

a starry cloak is probably something only the really rich could afford, but i think that they are more like heirlooms and states of office? im not sure if these pieces are things that one would purchase or something they would receive. bit hard to imagine people doing it for free but maybe it's one of those staple things that they revere and everyone else works to support them as well etc like the cooks in noradz are prized. idk. but yeah like a poorer family couldn't get a new one, but they would have one that has been in their family for generations you know? and i think that there would be something about like. idk youre meeting up with your doctor or something and youre nervous and you put on your family's best clothes (the most lucky ones) and maybe youre cynical about the whole good fortune stuff but there's something comforting about wearing the cloak your mother wore and your grandmother and your great grandmother wore, who also had to do such things. something something gives you the confidence to make your own luck because youre no longer pessimistic and allowing avoidable mistakes to happen

this means that the mere giving adin a cloak was a REALLY big deal because they definitely dont just go throwing those around and they would probably only give it to an outsider in trade for a steeeeeeeeeeeep price. which of course means that there would be knock offs with bad quality dye. lmao thats perfect actually. like 10000% there would be merchants in rithmere trying to sell cheaper versions to people that are expensive but still affordable to the average person. some would be different shades of blue, but the more crafty might have dyes that are strong but not lasting.

oh also i headcanon that palace fashion was a conglomerate of aspects from all the tribes but this should be it's own post i think. but i just remembered that i put gold thread in badr's braids in the formal wear sketch. i did that to tie in with the veins/flecks of gold (technically pyrite) in irl lapis lazuli. as such, people at del palace were inspired to weave gold into their hair too.

also gives me another thing to ship badr and luisa lmao. badr can wear some gold and luisa can wear some blue as a treat for me <3 moon and stars ocs beloved

🟨 DEL

alright. okay so del is definitely very white western patriarchal coded (most just a bias of living in that type of society i reckon) but it sucks and i'm passionate about making del NOT that. i think i've said this a million times now but this should be it's own post too, but most succinctly del is a very vibrant, curious, and daring sort of culture (e.g. their recklessness, exploration, trading). they were already marrying non-deltorans before adin (i imagine that some might have dared to marry outside of del, but it would have been way more politically complex so it was rarer and often kept quiet and rural). people of del were moving to other countries (like dorne) and people were probably moving to del, so del is definitely a big mix of different people and languages and superstitions and stuff.

but anyway i wanted to set a sort of base for before that. i've had art on the wip pile for YEARS about this and i'd flesh this out properly when it's done lol (hopefully we see that day) but since the topaz has the power to summon spirits, i really wanted to develop an aspect of del culture around that? i was inspired by Día De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) and i still want to do some more in depth research and explore it more properly, but i like the idea that del will celebrate their lost loved ones life, coming together to remember, if they were lucky the got to see and even talk to their spirits. maybe pre-talisman they did know about topaz properties and they had a big deposit of gems that they would wheel out for the festival and the huge pile under the full moon would be enough to allow the spirits and people to interact? anyway this is a longwinded explanation of why my sketches of del fashion could be latinx inspired.

circle motifs in homage to the moon. the trim decoration on luisa's scabbards are based on moon phases :D

i also arbitrarily decided that del people love swishy clothes. they're all about the drama of cloaks and twirling in sundresses etc it's fun. not sure if i will actually follow through with that lol or maybe that can just be luisa.

🥳 fun fact 🥳 i think hearing luisa laugh would heal me

there's no particular reason for why i've been drawing a lot of del people as black, other than maybe spite lol. i think i drew jasmine and that got the ball rolling. del is a blank enough slate that they can be anything. im tired of white people being the front runners asldkjfhalsdf. bUT again del is multicultural, so there isn't a particular look for anyone in del. being del is more a state of mind and being part of community i think. you move to del and you participate in their society in one way or another and boom youre del now they adopted you.

🌈 PLAINS

hiran attire inspired by french aristocratic fashion. i cant remember who posted about it but pretty sure this was something that circulated around the fandom at least a little bit at some point.

added some subtle rainbow to harlow's outfits because he's the strong silent type. but i suppose there are so much more gaudier and extravagant outfits.

i was going to say this was just hira fashion and not like, rural plains fashion but i guess this is the same for all of them. it's just like a general direction for what someone might wear.

the swirly patterns?? i dont know. i drew them when i did adin's pre-battle speech as the last supper but i dont think there's a particular reason. i remember that i was trying to do something unique because lief recognises the cup in the city of rats as the same/similar to the one in noradz, so there had to be something to be recognisable lol but i probably just did it this way because it's relatively easy to doodle, just takes a bit of time.

🥳 fun fact 🥳 harlow was a cook before the shadow invasion. out of desperation, he and many others had to train to defend hira. he's big with natural balance and reflexes so he excelled and is a pretty adept warrior, but he will always think of himself as a cook first, warrior second.

now the armour!! freshest headcanon piping hot. yesterday when i was colouring i was sitting there like wow you look like a tin can man and you are so boring. we went from pretty colours to blank. im almost certain the hiran soldiers were described as silver with white plumes, so i was planning on doing that but they had intricate details on their armour because they are Extra, so it has the swirly patterns you can see on harlow's coat.

but then suddenly i was like. what if. pearlescent.

and honestly i loved it so much i didnt care i was setting myself up for some difficult work ahead lmao. but my general idea was that they're armour looked like it was silver, but if the light catches it at the right angle it exposes the rainbow in it. most of these headcanons i've had baking for at least a year, but this is very new so i dont any hard details yet. kira mentioned enamel or ceramic and lowkey interested in having a look into that so that theres another armour material. maybe it's gonna be like special jalis gold and special plains silver. maybe something else. i also just remembered bismuth exists (same boat as gold as very heavy and soft) but i think maybe it's too loud, i think im liking the more subtle pearlescent thing aLTHOUGH it's a good metallic rainbow reference 👀 maybe there is an esteemed plains warrior with a rainbow sword

ANYWAY pearlescent armour really hit my heart because oh my god once upon a time the plains had a shore and they could visit the sea,,,, lowkey ocean vibes without an ocean [screaming crying cat spinning in a void.gif]

🥳 fun fact 🥳 i have NO idea what food harlow has made. i think i had ratatouille on the brain at the time????

🟥 RALADS

⚠ PROPAGANDA ALERT ⚠

ruby territory best territory. ruby symbol of happiness. warns of danger AND antidote to poison. double helpful. ralads are so sweet and so smart. architectural and engineering marvels. living in harmony with the land and beasts. D'OR!!! manus and nanion friendship underrated and so special to me. horse girls. AND. broome. god theres so much i could say about broome that i cant say anything. anyway you guys know im normal about broome yes of course. separate post etc etc

i think technically this is a headcanon but it's not that big a stretch surely but as above i always picture ralads as in harmony with nature. never take more than they need, know how to work with not against, theyre not the main attraction but an equal part of the bigger picture.. this isn't even about how smart they are with engineering and their perfectly round houses with bricks that are cut perfectly. im thinking about their knowledge of their world is so strong and wide and diverse. they have the most vibrant and potent dyes and pigments around, they have the most colourful fabrics and clothes around. the plains has many colours but it can't compete, and they have different styles. i think that the hirans would trade for the dyes though (maybe undercutting pre-adin, maybe more equal post-unification). i think that they would also have a pretty decent blue dye but it is still inferior to mere lapis lazuli blue. it is probably a dye that could be used for a mid range mere garment?

maybe it's the anime fault but i do usually imagine ralads as barefoot but i also drew iris with construction tools and just the idea of ralads walking around a construction site barefoot was not fun to me. but it could be a hobbit tough soles situation. anyway i drew some shoes so i had a vague reference if i wanted to draw ralad shoes.

obviously had a problem drawing warrior attire for a non-war race. but i thought what if i leaned into the stories the hirans tell about how the scouts and soldiers they send into the ralad wilds never returned and were often found dead with broken bones or whatnot. definitely big watching but never seen vibes imo. so i decked iris out in some camouflage lol

🥳 fun fact 🥳 im sure the ralads can whistle and whatnot to make birdcall signals, but i thought it was fun for iris to be able to make birdcalls with her flute

HEY ALSO headcanon about ralad hair. i was making some dragon art from a doran pov that i was going to save for that but i cant wait now. but we know from Tales that the ralads had a good relationship with the ruby dragons, could even summon them (unless im misremembering and it was more like a premeditated calling) but i was thinking about how they nest with .. human? hair. and i was thinking what if they grow out their hair? and then they offer it to a dragon when they are ready? i dont know if there's a nesting season for dragons but it could be something like that? ralad-dragon ceremony and party time. this isn't a rite of passage type of thing, just something that they like to do. not everyone does it probably, but most do it once, some people do it several or many times in their lifetime. it's an honour, but not really a sacrifice to them. it's part of the world balance and theyre willing to serve the dragons as the dragons serve them as they water the plants and the plants feed them and they feed beasts and beasts feed them.

also dont remember why i did the hair so bright and orangey??? genuinely perplexed lmao. probably was leaning into irl ginger but like THEYRE BLUE so i could probably make them actual red. not sure if this is also like a "theres something in the ground" situation also that makes their hair red but maybe 😂😂

side note but it's lowkey so wild to me that rodda was like yeah these guys are blue-grey with red hair, and then everyone else is like an average person, BUT the mountain people are short. like they're all just some guy basically???

it does make return to del so so funny because fallow is like AYO look at these MONSTERS they are UGLY and WEIRD

but i guess thats part of the motivation to give the deltora tribes some basic unique traits.

🟪 TORANS

okay so toran robes as inspired by japanese fashion is definitely something that's floated around the fandom for ages. i can't remember if it was before or after seeing posts about it that i started my first concept sketches but i think it probably had a hand in helping me visualise what rodda was talking about when she described their robes as butterfly wings when they speed-travelled. like yeah big deep sleeves and floor trailing hems WOULD probably look like colourful butterfly wings in the wind,,

🥳 fun fact 🥳 azami be always hungry. if only she knew someone who liked to cook 🤔

i don't have much to say design-wise, kinda just did various doodling. they would probably be second in extravagance to the plains, but it's a different sort of detail? they are probably a bit more refined and elegant than the hirans who are probably more bold in their designs. torans grow to be vain and selfish (it's already started by adin's time) so they probably have a high value on the beauty of their belongings, and it probably began with imagery of beasts and plants and dragons in amethyst territory, "true" pictures. but as time went on it probably distorted a bit and became idealised and/or fantastical etc.

OKAY SO my brain bluescreened just now for a moment trying to figure out how a people who use magic to make life easier, were also the ones known for their weaving, a manual hands-on task (lief's cloak is praised as being worthy of toran looms, implying high grade; pretty sure this was supposed to be a hint that his mother is not who he thinks she is also). some conclusions are 1) they weave with magic (sad, horrible), 2) they weave as a past-time, for fun etc (okay) but i took it to a third option

for a long time ive been thinking about toran magic as like, a balance and an energy thing (because i like that stuff lol) they cannot create something from nothing, only change things. they couldnt summon a fire, but they could change a piece of wood to fire and start a campfire, or those more advanced could even change the air into fire. but honestly it's left me a bit unsatisfied. like how does that explain the tora-del highway? hELL tora itself? what happened to the marble that got carved away? also how can that mountain have been so perfect there was no cracks or seams?? or did they carve those bits out lol. questions for another day.

anyway i was thinking about how hobbies are good for you, you dont have to be good at something but it's good to do stuff for fun and when you do crafts you get a cool thing at the end of it that you made. but it's also like skills you can develop? and i wondered what if weaving is a starter skill that they learn, some of them at least. maybe there are different activities, and they do the one that speaks to them the most. there were other types of artisans in tora, just not as talked about (i guess they're robes are pretty iconic so it's easy for people to go wow robes wow weavers who made fabric for the robes so soft) like i distinctly remember barda remarking about how tora was untouched and why bandits wouldn't have stolen the carved box that ended up holding the auto-reply letters from the palace.

so what im thinking is that maybe this builds a foundation to help torans visualise and perform their magic?

it actually solves a problem ive had in my headcanons i feel like ive got seven eyes open rn 😂😂 but in relation to del culture and traditions, i've been thinking about there being a physical and spiritual realm of course, and maybe it's the comfort of threes but it felt like something was missing.

i dont know what to call it yet, but im thinking the third thing is like the glue, it connects all things, it's in everything. it's like a third realm but also more of like a medium maybe? kind of sappy but we can just call this the magical realm for now. i actually used to think of toran magic as being like a subset of the greater deltora magic, but now im thinking it's more like torans are more receptive to the magic realm, as del are to the spiritual, and the ralads to the physical; theyre the experts in these things, which is why unified deltora is important 😂; likewise dread gnomes specialise in gems, jalis in combat, mere in cunning, plains in hope perhaps? literally never thought about it quite like this so maybe i will process it different later and designate different specialties.

so when the torans are young, they learn a craft and these skills help them sort of "tap into" the magical realm. so in the case i first thought of, when a toran weaver starts to see and interact with the magical realm, the easiest way for them to engage with it would be to think of it as weaving. they might see the magical realm as threads that connect everything, and weave things together to get what they want. a potter might see it as a malleable mass and sculpt what they want. a carpenter might see it as something to carve, something to break and put together.

the magical realm is not a concrete thing at all, up to interpretation, perhaps a unique experience to anyone who could glimpse in; don't strictly have to be toran, but they are perhaps naturally receptive to it or it could even be entirely a knowledge thing and that they are taught about it more; someone like verity who had her eyes opened to this realm, and learned to interact with it on instinct. does open questions to what the hell is up with the plains lmao but i think thats another post.

sorry about all the "i'll tell you in another post" i was attempting to stay on track 😂😂 also there's a 90% chance im gonna forget to come back and write about them so if anyone is dying to know feel free to send me an ask or something???

also if you want to know more about these OCs let me know 👀 i can find an ask game or something maybe. it's a case of i know a lot but will forget it all if asked to speak freely, i need specific questions. i have also developed the first four a bit more, but the last three are not without character so they can still be included. maybe it will be a group effort and they will have Background.

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thinkingfandoms · 5 months

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An accurate list of the best movies I've ever seen

This list also includes reasons that are all too objective and nonsensical. Avoid asking too many questions. And share what you think in the comments!

Hercules

Hercules is probably my favourite Disney movie. And I also think that's where my interest in Greek mythology started. Hades is my favorite villain from this company and he's such a mood.

The Prince of Egypt

Oh dear you don't know how much I love this movie. I know every song by heart and was lucky enough to sing them with my choir. I'm a big fan of animation and despite how old is this movie, I think it remains one of the best ever produced. I cried more times over this movie than over all the others on this list combined.

Friends & Family

I only discovered this film this year but it quickly became one of my favorites. I have never laughed for so many consecutive minutes at a movie. I approached it because it's unusual to see a gay mob-themed movie, but I immediately fell in love with all the characters and the final scene remains one of the most comic I have ever seen.

Treasure Planet

I have a soft spot for animated films about great adventures and self-discovery. Jim has been my only animated crush for years, and his story has always resonated with something inside of me (maybe the desire for adventure and his recklessness, idk). Plus, of course, "'I'm Still Here" is one of the most beautiful soundtracks ever created.

Howl's Moving Castle

One of the first films I saw by Studio Ghibli and my absolute favourite. The love stories created by this Studio are always wonderful, and this one is no different. Plus I always saw myself in Sophie (especially about the crush on Howl) and, well, there's Calcifer, what more do you want?

Les Choristes

Another thing I love: movies about music. It may be that I've been playing an instrument for years and singing in choirs, but I've always cried watching kids rediscover a new side of themselves through music and songs. And these songs are composition's masterpieces. I still remember them all by heart even though French isn't my native language.

A Christmas Carol

I'm slightly obsessed with this story, with Charles Dickens and with Christmas. I was born on Christmas Eve so you can imagine how close this theme is to my heart. I have seen several versions of this story though, and for some reason, this one remains my favourite. It may be that it's different from other more colourful versions and really shows the darkness behind the original story, idk.

How to Train Your Dragon

I literally grew up with this saga: I was 8 years old at the first film, 12 at the second and 17 at the third. I watched Hiccup grow up with me as a friend and Toothless as a fellow adventurer. I'll forever be grateful to Dreamworks for creating the best-animated saga that cinema has ever seen.

The Three Musketeers

This movie is so random that it's perfect. I watched it again recently (after like 8 years) and realized that maybe my daddy issues come from this movie: Luke Evans, Orlando Bloom and the freaking Mads Mikkelsen together, seriously? I'm not surprised it was one of my favourite movies growing up.

A Monster in Paris

The love I have for this film is enormous. I could never get over the beauty of the songs in it. The characters are so well written and Francœur will always be in my top animated characters. It's too amazing to be real.

Rise of the Guardians

I could talk for hours about this film and have not even touched the tip of the iceberg. I have an insane obsession with all the characters, starting with and especially Jack, my top animated crush for years. It's all so perfect that I don't see how people never nominate it when it comes to top animated movies.

The Hobbit

Again, I have serious problems with films about fantasy adventures. I have always preferred The Hobbit saga to its sequel because the story has always fascinated me more. And the main character especially: for me Bilbo >>>> Frodo. And then there's Thorin and Luke Evans. You know, daddy issues.

Mune: Guardian of the Moon

Another French animated movie, another obsession, another adventure, another animated character in my top. This is an example of how to do good animation. There isn't a colour out of place. The settings are authentic, the characters are original, and the adventure they make gets me every time.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

I'm maybe a Muggle, but I prefer Fantastic Beasts to the Harry Potter saga. That's not to say it's better, mind you, but it reflects me more. We all know how we Hufflepuffs (and Ravenclaws) have no real representation in the HP movies, so to be able to have at least one prequel saga starring a Hufflepuff (in which I also find myself far too much) as the protagonist is wonderful. And I have an unhealthy urge to become a magizoologist.

The Greatest Showman

It's the movie I have watched the most of these. I know every song by heart and every line too. It always manages to be a roller coaster of emotions. And it has Hugh Jackman in it.

The Boy Foretold By The Stars

I'm a big supporter of the Philippine's film company. This is one movie is gentle, funny, and not based on the usual drama between Christianity and LGBT+ people (which is what I thought when reading the plot at first). Moreover, another underrated thing, the Philippines' music company here has thrown in masterpiece after masterpiece of songs, perfect for this movie.

Bros

This is my top comfort film in the last year. It's like watching a Hallmark movie but hotter, much more sincere and gay. Very gay. And the relationship between the two main characters is so cute and sweet. And funny.

Top Gun: Maverick

I love this saga but especially love this particular chapter. I love Maverick and his relationship with Rooster, and all the other characters are so well-written. And don't get me started on the story... I LOVE it. There isn't much else to say except that Cruise is a great actor (and a terrible person).

Glass Onion - Knives Out

I love my silly little gay detective. And I have a little passion for movies and mystery series. I found this saga's chapter more compelling than the first one, and the characters gripped me more. Also I fell in love with the setting. Oh and then there are Daniel Craig and Hugh Grant.

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eschergirls · 2 months

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February 2024 Update & Patron Thank You!

Hi everybody!

It's a new month, so it's time for an update and, of course, thank all our wonderful Patreon subscribers. :3

For I fixed up a LOT of posts across the DC Comics tag, though because it's so big, I still have a lot that aren't formatted correctly or have images without alt-text, but I'm slowly working my way through it. Many of the broken or lost images or images deleted by Tumblr due to mistaken algorithmic flagging should be fixed though.

One of the big restoration projects was fixing up the posts that stemmed from that infamous Catwoman vol. 4 #0 cover image that led to a ton of redraws and also to DC actually changing the cover before it came out. A lot of the redraws didn't get imported when we moved the site from Tumblr, but I've managed to find them again and restore the posts (as well as adding alt-text and fixing formatting, etc).

Here's a list of the redraws, some serious, some humorous:

Catwoman as an assemblage boobs and butt by Josh Rodgers

Catwoman in a true cat pose by @rosalarian

What Catwoman would look like from the side by Cameron Stewart

Catwoman before and after animated gif redraw by @miracleisyou

As well as that post, I've also restored this post featuring Pagan from Batman #479 looking terrifying in two different poses, and a pretty good redraw of the cover by Glitchy.

There's also another Catwoman picture (from Batman: Arkham Unhinged) inspired people to do a lot of humorous takes on it, such as Kainu's take on how she looks from various angles and this animated gif joke by le-mec which is very good. I fixed up all 3 posts, found the broken pictures, and added alt-text to everything.

And finally, two other DC posts that I found images for when they broke and reformatted & added full transcription for screen readers:

this page of Artemis from Artemis: Requiem #3 offering some... interesting ideas of gender & what Y chromosomes do

this post about All-Star Batman & Robin & it's depiction of Vicki Vale as well as the infamous script notes from Frank Miller to Jim Lee (the script notes are fully transcribed by me for screen readers too)

I've restored a lot of other posts too, but those are the main ones I wanted to highlight for those who haven't seen them before (or weren't able to see them before) and would be interested in!

And as usual, I've been working my way through the Tumblr inbox backlog (which means that like very old submissions might start to show up too... I developed a huge backlog over the years and because Tumblr's inbox works from most recent to least, it means that older stuff becomes more difficult to reach as I get more submissions). I've also been working my way through contesting all the mistaken flagging Tumblr's algorithm keeps doing (such as flagging any solid colour piece of clothing as nudity).

For those who want to follow us without using Tumblr, we have an RSS feed. (For newbies, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is basically a feed you can read using an RSS reader. Simply copy and paste https://eschergirls.com/rss.xml into an RSS reader and it will keep you up to date on Escher Girls!)

Tumblr's occasional changes of policies and its random algorithmic flagging of posts and sudden removal of posts are reasons why I decided to self-host and why I am so appreciative of people helping me to keep the site up and pay for hosting, domain registration, and general site upkeep and improvements. :)

Anyway, now I want to thank everybody who supported Escher Girls on Patreon in January!

Thank you so so much to:

Cat Mara CheerfulOptimistic Chris McKenzie Em Bardon First Time Trek Greg Sepelak Ian Cameron Ken Trosaurus Kevin Carson Kim Wincen Kristoffer Illern Holmén Leak Manuel Dalton Mary Kuhner Max Schwarz Michael Mazur Miriam Pody Morgan McEvoy randomisedmongoose Rebecca Breu Ringoko Ryan Gerber Sam Mikes Sean Sea SpecialRandomCast Thomas

And thank you to everybody for reading, submitting, and just generally commenting and engaging with Escher Girls. It makes running the site so worth it, and your comments always make me smile.

Thank you all so much,

Ami

If you have any issues with the site or suggestions to improve it, please do not hesitate to contact me and let me know!

If you wish to support Escher Girls, you can subscribe to our Patreon at: https://www.patreon.com/ami_angelwings or donate through Ko-Fi at: https://ko-fi.com/amiangelwings.

#patreon #update #note

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oneatlatime · 8 months

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Return to Omashu

Fire nation priorities. Yes, there's a war to win, but first! We must make our colonies aesthetically consistent. Couple of gates, some gold trim, and some spiky bits! Can't forget the gold spiky bits!

Fulfilling the beat up Sokka quota this episode is raw sewage.

That sewer trek must have been long. They went in during the day and it's night now.

I spoke too soon! The quota is in fact filled by tribbles.

"it's so awful I'm dying." I get the feeling that Sokka has been waiting years to use that line. I love how quickly everyone in the Gaang supports each others' spontaneous plans. It's a sign of a good team if you can ream off fake names without blinking and fake the plague without being asked. They all work so well together. Zuko could take some lessons from these guys on lying.

Well this episode's going to land differently post-Covid.

Looks like Zuko Jr.'s going to be in this episode. Bummer. Although tweedledee and tweedledum are intriguing. Who'd ever think to give a teenage girl villain a pair of eighty year old poetry twins? One of the great things so far about this show is how they consistently choose to go with the most out-there option and always make it work. In a show about defeating the firelord, they chose to kill the moon for the finale. And it worked. The plot point, not the killing.

So I'm thinking that orange and yellow must be an acknowledged fashion choice among the four nations outside of an airbending context, because of the number of times fire nation guards have looked right at Aang and not seen him. Also I think his tattoos must have selective invisibility.

It's a crying shame that Hot Topic doesn't exist in the Avatar universe, because this May girl just passed their employment interview with flying colours. I'm siding with what I'm guessing is her mom on this one. Just chill for a bit.

Ok maybe don't chill for a bit. Yeah my bad. This is not a good time to chill.

Reusing the same Naruto run shot literally two seconds later.

How many projectiles can you fit in one pair of sleeves? She's got a whole armoury up there.

Seriously I know she's bored and all but no teenage girl should have access to that many weapons. If I'd had access to an armoury when I was a teenager, people absolutely would have died.

So cute. I'll take 12 please.

Every sentence that Zuko Jr. is saying to this pink girl is some kind of veiled insult or threat. I'd adopt Pink Girl's wilful obliviousness too if I had to deal with that.

Smart Bumi. He knows his people and his element. We've seen more than enough times already that something about being an earthbender makes you too stubborn to quit and unable to change plans even when your original plan is obviously not working (looking at you, Fong). So, knowing that his people are unable to change course, he prevents them from entering on to that course in the first place.

And Aang picks up on this too! Actually, since Bumi knew Aang growing up, do you think he picked up the concept of strategic retreat from airbending?

Tribbles to the rescue! Given that these are sewer dwelling creatures, this fake plague might turn real.

I love how casual Sokka is about touching other people.

Every street in Omashu seems to have a couple of bundles of twigs propped up against a wall somewhere. It's probably an animation trick to fill up the background.

Love the one guy really committing to the bit who just flops on the ground.

"Pentapox! I'm pretty sure I've heard of that." Humans are so suggestible.

I love that Flopsy remembers him. Aang's propensity to make friends wherever he goes paying off again. Also, exactly how much metal to the fire nation have access to? They're doing the floor, walls, ceilings, of the whole city. There must be some crazy budget surpluses that need using up.

This baby has an absurd throwing arm.

Machine gun Momo!

This is what happens when you don't feed your lemur AANG.

I know cartoon physics is a thing, but can this baby secretly fly or something?

Poor Momo didn't ask for any of this. Guy just wanted some berries. Now he's getting his tail pulled and bitten (hopefully no teeth yet).

Add absurd grip strength to this baby's list of other superhuman characteristics.

Baby apparently weighs quite a bit too.

Flying lemur unintentionally kidnaps baby. Did not see that coming.

Tiny nitpick: the circus master introduces Zuko jr. as "the firelord's daughter" rather than as Princess Zuko jr. Does she not have a title?

Nope. He's calling her princess now. Maybe there are a bunch of princesses in the fire nation and he was just being specific?

Thus begins the bullying of pink girl. Imagine going to school with a bunch of fire nation noble girls? There must have been casualties.

I love Sokka so much. Expert hug administrator.

"everything so clever. So tricky." Actually the avatar forgot to feed his lemur and it kind of snowballed from there. Hands down one of my favourite tropes is when one side in a conflict assumes their enemies are master manipulators, then we learn that actually they're just failing upwards through shenanigans. Love that.

Poor pink girl. The only viable strategy, both for her own safety and the safety of the whole circus, is appeasement.

"The universe is giving me strong hints that it's time for a career change." No blame cast, no fingers pointed, but also not giving Zuko jr. credit for influencing her. That's some fancy talking.

And now they're reusing the campsite shot too?

Poor Momo. That's about the face I make around babies.

I spoke too soon again. This episode's beat up Sokka quota is actually fulfilled by Katara's backhand. Because apparently it's a cardinal sin to prevent a baby from chewing on a potentially bladed weapon? Priorities girl.

Well that accidental kidnapping had some unintended positive consequences. Don't you love it when problems fix themselves?

She even paints her nails black and wears fingerless gloves. Seriously. Hot Topic. STAT.

"Well, Asula called a little louder." Hell of a lot of information in that sentence.

How long is her neck?

Ego much?

Zhao was an asshole and unpleasant, but at least he had some good banter. Zuko jr. is just mean. I hope I see less of her going forward.

Bumi! Hi Bumi! I love Bumi.

Pink girl's loyalty was tested with burning nets and released beasts. Now May's loyalty is tested with her brother's life. Zuko jr. is so good to her friends.

Why is no one able to recognise Aang? He's dressed like an airbender. The only one of those left is the avatar. It's not that hard.

Pink girl is lucky that Sokka is quite prone to friction.

More wood bundles. I guess it's for scaffolding?

Gotta give it to Zuko jr., she has excellent balance.

May has leg knives as well as arm knives?

And shirt knives. How does she not stab herself every time she sits down? And if this place is so boring, why does she feel the need to carry 8 billion knives?

Love the Appa tail slap. Underrated and underused move.

So Bumi has no spine left.

Facebending. Neat.

Neutral Jing is a neat concept, but I'll be damned if any earthbender we've seen apart from Bumi ever bothers with it.

Suddenly the 100 year gap between Aang and Bumi can no longer be ignored. Bumi is still Aang's friend, but he's got a century of learning and a city to protect. This is kind of a sad moment.

Do May and Zuko have some history? Is that's what's being implied here?

Wouldn't expect any less. I wonder how these two are going to explain the return of their son without painting the resistance in a really good light.

Zuko jr. is spelled with a Z.

Final Thoughts

Zuko Jr. gets a girl squad, the Gaang gets a reason to spend a season gallivanting all over the Earth Kingdom, and the audience gets to see Superslide part 2. A weird mix of establishing groundwork and having fun this episode.

I totally buy that the fire nation guards and governor fell for the plague thing. Anyone remember "that lemur! He's earthbending!" These guys are not smart.

The plague thing did not bother me at all. I thought it would, since the anti-science idiots in the Fortuneteller really annoyed me. I think since the fake plague was treated as a joke the whole way through, and never actually endangered anyone, it didn't bring up Covid memories.

I think Flopsy's pupils are sideways hourglasses, which contributes nicely to his uncanniness.

I think the stuffy that the baby was throwing is the same animal as the beaver bear thing at the circus.

I love Momo the machine gun. I think those are the same berries as the ones Iroh was going to double poison himself with.

Sokka getting to plan the plague and getting to save the day with boomerang was fun. That's two episodes in a row where he's been the plan guy. Katara got to use some of her new and improved waterbending as well, but she was really pushed to the background otherwise.

I think pink Girl, whose name I still haven't caught, is quite good at reading people. I caught more than one 'shallow-on-the-surface-but-actually-way-deep' statement from her. Also she can Vulcan pinch people's bending? I'm guessing it's temporary or else Katara would be really freaking out.

May was just too much. Too overdone. Yes, there are teenage girls like that, but it felt a bit on the nose. Actually, way too much on the nose. I get that she can't show any emotion in front of Zuko jr. for her own safety, but "can I offer you an egg fireflakes in this trying time?" is not exactly an appropriate response to your little brother's disappearance.

I'm still not liking Zuko jr. But I'm someone who never likes the villain anyway, at least not when our heroes are this likeable.

This episode was not easy on Aang. It was an interesting mix of bringing home the reality of the war and the reality of the time passed. Even when he seemingly got to save his friend in the end, he actually didn't because things are more complicated now. He untied the damsel from the railroad track and she tied herself right back on.

Further evidence for my 'entire fire nation is colourblind' theory this episode. Aang was not disguised apart from a hat made from a very incriminating colour. He had a giant blue stripe down the back of his head! Come on!

No Zuko this episode. He was last seen stealing a perfectly nice lady's bird horse, and it'll be a while before I forgive him for that, so good call by the writers to not have him around.

Now that I think about it, there was a lot going on this episode. Sewer break & enter, assassination attempt, fake plague, hostage exchange, water v. knife fight, fire v. air fight, vulcan pinch v. bending fight, Boomerang & bison v. knife fight, earthbending philosophy, girl squad assembly, lemur harassment, and baby restoration. This episode felt long in a good way.

How about, instead of learning the elements, Aang learns pink girl's vulcan pinch and just does that to the fire lord?

#atla #avatar: the last airbender #return to omashu #avatar the last airbender

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fitzs-space · 9 months

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I absolutely love ur mer designs for Etho, Grian and our lovely sea monster ofc lol. Do you have any more in depth refs for their designs, id love to see more of how they look if possible! /nf ofc

only really had the couple rough sketches for their designs unfortunately! given its how I work with most of my stuff with just quick sketches like this. But I'll give the couple details I remember adding into their designs! Main notes will be I spent more time on Etho because I knew they'd be seen the most,, also that this this Is a default of how I've always drawn mermaids, with the whole dark eyes and covered in scales and fins, more siren esk in a sense.

with Etho the main things I remember adding is chancing the headband and gloves to be more like kelp being wrapped around/ braided, because In general I like drawing mermaid outfits with a more found object type vibe to them. the other main thing was intentionally giving them 9 fins in their design, 6 on the tail, 2 on their fourarms, and the one on the back. Cause I enjoy drawing Etho with the kitsune vibe. even though I;ve only ever drawn them with the full ears n tail like,, once or twice? who knows.

Also! points points, finally had an excuse to draw their tattoos!

only notes I really had for Grian was wanting him to have the rounded Fins cause feather vibes. and I never really looked up actual fish or animals when I draw quick designs, so I go off pure vibes and vague memory of what I think the animal looks like,,, and we end up with stuff like this.

and drew them with the void damage again! thought it would look pretty to have a tail and scales that looked like a void/spacelike. and It wouldn't have been a good colour pallet to have him in just pure red with the poncho and tail bein the same colour. I did also try the white hair too, even just being streaks like my s5 Ex design, but It wasn't really working out.

I looked at my old design of Xb and went, "what can I do to make this being even prettier." and here we are /hj the full sea monster style Is something only like five of the hermits would have seen, so its not a common thing. I'd like to think Xb also like triples in size when like this, but its hart to show that when its just a single character shot like this. the default Xb design I will use is the "just some guy" kinda thing with only a couple fishy details if you look close enough. the whole a couple scales around the eyes like freckles and a vague impression of gills that are mostly covered up buy the hoodie anyways. the third eye is something Xb always keeps closed, and is normally hidden behind bangs

yada yada, I draw my Xb design as a character who just does everything to act as "Just some guy" and not as a full on monster of the deep sea kind thing only other design notes would be me adding the runes into Xb's horns, cause I've got some random magics lore Ideas, and I've been meaning to also add some to Tango's design as well and I originally had drawn Xb's earrings as a way to match with Hypnos, forgot that I drew this one with just a teardrop,, but I know my Hypno design does have both a eye and a bell on his earrings. Silly reference to a cool fic that was a good chunk of inspiration to how I characterize my Xb

Idk, not as many thoughts behind these designs as I had in the ties comic, but still a couple none the less!

#answering the thoughts #hermitcraft #headcanon dump #ish #grian #ethoslab #xbcrafted #fitzs art #I try to use no pronouns for my Xb. so the writing may read odd if you don't know that!#silly mermaid designs

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mahou-furbies · 4 months

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Once again it is time for

This year's event will be hosted by mahou Zeldas, because I've been spending a lot of time in Hyrule this year.

Mahou anime of the year:

(Futari Wa Precure Splash Star, Yes! Precure 5, Yes! Precure 5 GoGo, Smile Precure!, Mahou Tsukai Precure!, Hirogaru Sky Precure!, Otona Precure, Tokyo Mew Mew New s2, Magical Destroyers, Zettai Bouei Leviathan, Petite Princess Yucie, season movies for Splash Star, Yes5, Yes5 GoGo, Smile & Delicious Party, Crossover movie for Fresh Precure!)

Then the stuff I read:

(Saint Tail, Stellar Witch Lips, Magical Girl Tsubame, W.i.t.c.h. reboot, Smile Precure novel, Null Magical Girl, Magia Record Scene Zero)

I also keep up with what kind of designs Magia Record releases though I don't play it or otherwise follow the story.

Extremely Precure year this time around though that was not intentional, usually I only manage one backlog season per year. But I started with Smile, and then we were hit with the news that we'd have a Yes5/Splash Star sequel in autumn, and in preparation for that I had to power through some 150 episodes for the original series. And then I somehow ended up watching all of Mahou Tsukai in less than 2 weeks. And then there was Otona as well of course.

Now there's only three backlog seasons left, and they should be doable in a year if the Mahou Tsukai sprint is of any indication, though we'll see how that goes. I'd like to take a look at other similar shows too (like Doremi and Sailor Moon) but I want to clear Precure first before moving to the next thing.

The W.i.t.c.h. reboot was also a thing this year, which seems to have come and went with a thud. Which is a shame because I was looking forward to it, but... well it wasn't particularly good. I guess it can pick up of there's more to the story.

For the first time I've followed a Magia Record (game) story, with Scene Zero. The format is difficult but I am interested, so it's possible I'll look into more MagiReco stories once Scene Zero is over. The game has so many cute characters so I'd certainly like to know more about them.

This year I also took part in ArtFight and did some mostly mahou themed OC art, which was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to doing the same next year as well if they host the event again.

Now onto the awards!

Best henshin design goes to Cure Sky! Blue lead Cure aside this is a top tier magical girl design, and that is mostly thanks to the cape, especially the red inside and yellow fringe. It looks so majestic! But being a half-cape prevents her from looking too stuffy. The thin twintails also look great with the cape in action shots. And of course she is also stupidly cute.

Also a shoutout to Saint Tail's simple but very effective look with a rarely seen colour scheme.

Best team design goes to Stellar Witch Lips! Similar enough to be a team but everyone has their own take on the theme, black makes for a good base colour and the sparkly tops look amazing.

Best powerup design goes to Cure Felice's Alexandrite form! She looks so regal and powerful, truly a nature goddess!

Best civilian design goes to Cure Sky in general! I just like her practical style and the clothes look all comfy.

Best hair goes to Junia! It looks so soft and poofy and her pastel colour palette makes everything even cuter.

Best magical item goes to the tiara and amulets in Petite Princess Yucie! They aren't that special to be honest but I'm always ready for magical items that don't look like cheap plastic toys.

Best henshin scene goes to Cure Sky! A lot of dynamic animation, the tinted split screen at the end is fresh for Precure, the modulation in the middle amps up the power, the dark background makes everything a little bit cooler, and the cape flip and wings at the end just look amazing.

youtube

Best fan creation goes to ArtFight in general! It was my first time participating, and getting to draw other people's ocs on a low threshold was great, and obviously receiving a ton of art of my own ocs felt amazing.

Best relationship goes to the group in Petite Princess Yucie! I really like how the side characters have distinct relationships with each other and not just the main character, and how not everyone gets along all the time (or most of the time with Glenda and Elmina). The fact that they're also rivals makes things more interesting and everything culminates successfully in the power of friendship in the end.

Best mascot goes to Saki's cat Korone! Not exactly a traditional Precure mascot but he does become more mascot-like towards the end. Absolute unit of a cat, gets a funny deep voice and even lands a hit on the final boss, and most importantly isn't annoying.

Best supporting character goes to Kintoleski from Splash Star! He's a pretty simple character but I like villains who are honourable and polite, and he managed to be consistently funny as well.

Best visual goes to Stellar Witch Lips! The story wasn't really anything to write home about but the ultra cute and sparkly art is just magical.

Best audio goes to Updradft Shining bgm! It's surprisingly epic for such an early series attack and it'd be cool if the franchise used music like this more.

youtube

A honourable mention to Tsubasa's eagle sound effect in the Majestic Halation attack, Mabayu's (MagiReco) silly "nuwawawa" scream of pain in a decidedly serious scene, and every "Haa!" from Ha-chan.

Best scene goes to the separation and reunion scene from Mahou Tsukai Precure! Or I guess that's more like half of an episode. Really impressive how they spent so much time on pretty low-key character stuff like this.

Honourable mention to the big battle towards the end of Petite Princess Yucie.

The Innovation award is given to a magical girl work that I think does something fresh for the genre. This year it goes to Hirogaru Sky! Precure for having a boy Cure, an adult Cure and most importantly a non-pink lead Cure! Which isn't particularly notable for the genre as a whole but a gigantic achievement for this franchise. Hopefully it wasn't just a 20 year celebratory fluke and we'll see more variety in the future too.

The Golden Mana award is the prize given to one thing I didn't like.

This year it goes to the henshin forms in Otona Precure, or more specifically the way it did absolutely nothing about them. No adults-as-magical girls, no new looks as 14-year-olds, and not even a new powerup form for the final finisher. Boo! I'm not really saying that the show is required to include new forms just because I wanted it or because it's common in the genre, but that would definitely have made me a lot more forgiving of its many other flaws. And this is my list so I get to complain about my preferences.

Dishonourable mention to Nozomi's catchphrase in Yes5 and GoGo for exemplifying the selfish and pushy aspect of pink heroines like this that often goes uncriticised.

Best character goes to Cure Sky! In addition to the excellent character design she also has a fun personality, "earnest dumbass" is a great combo, and her determination is just great. I also like that she isn't super girly for once. The story of Hirogaru isn't that good so Sora too is held back from having a truly awesome story, but as a character she is still enjoyable enough.

Best work goes to Petite Princess Yucie! It has fun characters, great designs, good group dynamics, interesting world and a really strong ending. It's a shame they don't seem to do kids' anime like this nowadays?

Plans for 2024

Onwards to 2024! I swear this year I'm going to continue with MagiPro, I've been stuck at volume 7 for several years.

#blog stuff #annual wrap up #Youtube

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rick-rayson · 10 months

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Okay so weirdly specific, but could you do imagines for Yara Flor x Reader where reader is a villain who’s not evil, they’re just a Megamind type villain: a harmless theater kid who’s a good person. Also they’re a magic-themed villain and the Circe to Yara’s Diana

DRAMATICS

A/N: I put this into the same formatting as my Jonathan Crane post because the normal storytelling format just wasn't doing it for me (Don't ask how that works it just does) Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy and sorry for the long wait ORZ THIS IS KINDA LAME- BUT ALSO YARA IS DEF THE PERSON TO HATE THE MEGAMIND TYPES LOWKEY-

"Reader is a villain who’s not evil, they’re just a Megamind type villain: a harmless theater kid who’s a good person. Also they’re a magic-themed villain and the Circe to Yara’s Diana."

➯ Despite her many clashes with society, humanity and spectacles alike, Yara is a virtuous and giving woman who prides herself in her ability to stick up for others who cannot do it for themselves. She protects the people of São Paulo and speaks where they cannot be heard, to her core that is who Yara is. A protector. A warrior.

➯ It was an uneventful day, Yara took to helping civilians with the common thief and the occasional crook, picking up debris three times her height and mass as if it was akin to lifting a lone pebble. So, not very eventful for Yara but most definitely perplexing for the average citizen. It was, all things considered, calming.

➯ That was until Yara's ears pick up the sound of familiar and loud music that hurts her ears to even listen to. And with a groan of annoyance, she stands tall, already knowing what is to come.. or more like who.

➯ "Greetings, people of São Paulo! Your greatest nightmare has arrived!" You gloat, arms raised as you conjure up what Yara can comprehend to be coloured illusions of animals and fireworks. Usually, such a sight would enlighten Yara, it reminds her of the carnivals she's attended. But right now she's over this ploy of yours.

➯ You and Yara have been doing this game for far too long. (A month) A millennium, truly. You come in with an elaborate display and an evil plan that she easily thwarts with the flick of her wrist and the painful end of her golden Bolas. you somehow disappear and she's annoyed all over again.

➯ "We're doing this again? Have you no hobbies?" She grimaces at you, in the action of whirling a Bola. ➯ "This is the hobby, actually, so-"

➯ She throws a Bola at you, forcing you to construct a forcefield. "You know you are very volatile."

➯ "And you are very annoying." She mutters before she's leaping towards you, her fist barely missing your jaw.

➯ "It's been a while since I've been villain-ing so you could-" A poor construct of a pig takes the damning punch that was meant for you. It shatters like glass. "-make this less of a bad experience for me-"

➯ "I aim to make it worse." Yara smiles before sending a hearty punch to your nose.

➯ "And you're-" you wince as you hold your nose that was now sputtering with blood, "supposed to be the good guy-" Yara ties you up using her lasso.

➯ "Speak now or I throw you off this building, why do you do this?" She grits her teeth yet all you can think about is the small gap between you two.

➯ You make an attempt to shrug, "show....biz?"

➯ There's a pause, a beat, Yara's angered expression has now gone blank at the sound of your answer. And the silence is so long that not even the nosy civilians who've arrived are confident in breaking it. "Theatrics? You use your powers for theatrics?"

➯ "Mostly, yeah."

By the police arrive Yara leaves your legs tied together, the officers are quick to expect some manner of resistance but upon arriving at the site, all they see is you writing on the floor with a Sharpie. An officer slowly treads to make sense of what you're writing: "I am dramatic and I love Wonder Woman."

#dc x reader #dc comics #dc x y/n #dc x you #dc future state #future state wonder woman #future state justice league #yara flor x reader #yara flor x you #yara flor x y/n #yara flor #wonder woman x reader #wonderwoman #dcu comics #dc fanfic

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yellowvixen · 6 months

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Logo by @bunnymajo, thank you!!

Better late than never, here's a Q&A for @sonic-oc-showdown

✨ How did you come up with the OC’s name?

I wanted to use a word that meant ice that wasn't extremely obvious, and Rime ended up being perfect! To be specific it means hoar frost.

🌼 How old are they? (Or approximate age range)

Same age as Blaze! She was created ~100 years ago, but like Shadow she was frozen and didn't age until she got woken up.

🌺 Do they have any love interest(s)?

She's aro, so no romantic love interest. That said, she and Blaze do definitely end up in a relationship :3

🍕 What is their favorite food?

Surprisingly, anything spicy!

🎹 Do they have any hobbies?

Ice skating! Rime can create her own ice and propell herself pretty easily, but outside of fighting she's discovered she loves the elegance of truly dancing on ice, and challenges herself to learn difficult jumps. She also likes going for long morning walks, especially on a crisp winter morning when the ground is still covered in frost.

❤️ What is one of your OC’s best memories?

Most of their memories as a child with their brother, although a lot of them are bittersweet to look back on now.

✂️ What is one of your OC’s worst memories?

Seeing her brother die before being frozen.

🧊 Is their current design the first one?

Yup! Some of their fur colour has changed ever so slightly (her muzzle and ear/chest fluff are now pure white rather than the same off white as the rest of her fur) but that's it.

🍀 What originally inspired the OC?

@transgendershadowthehedgehog made a post about how Blaze should have an aro cryomancer rival, and I ran with the idea.

🌂 What genre do they belong in?

@mari-madas gave me the idea that the Sol dimension is centered more around fantasy in contrast with Sonic's dimension being more sci fi. Not a hard and fast rule as they both have magic and tech, but it's about the Aesthetic™. So, fantasy!

💚 What is your OC’s gender identity and sexuality?

Aromantic nonbinary lesbian! Or as she would describe herself, girlthing.

🙌 How many sibling does your OC have?

Just the one, her adopted brother, Gertrude's grandson! Possibly also a Sol version of Biolizard, but I haven't come up with anything for that idea yet

🍎 What is the OC’s relationship w/their parents like?

Like Shadow, Rime was made rather than born, so technically doesn't have parents. But her creator, the witch Gertrude, was basically a mother to her... In a way.

Rime was always perfectly happy with Gertrude and never really thinks anything was wrong with how they grew up. But anyone else might think differently, as Rime was treated more like an animal than a person. Not with (much) malice, Gertrude just assumed that Rime didn't have the intelligence of a regular mobian. This allowed Rime to grow up pretty feral, which she considers a good thing! She won't look too deeply into it. She DOESN'T have mommy issues, promise (lying).

✏️ How often do you draw/write about the OC?

Definitely more since this showndown, which I'm glad of! I want to draw her more in the future too, she simply hasn't been around long enough for me to have made a lot of art for her.

💎 Do you ever see yourself killing off the OC?

I mean... gestures to Shadow "dying" at the end of sa2. A similar thing happens to Rime, so while she does die, it's not permanent.

💀 Does your OC have any phobias?

Large open areas, especially at night. Being in space is particularly awful for her (not that she'd show it)

🍩 Who is your OC’s arch-nemesis or rival?

Blaze ;)

Feel free to ask more questions about her!! Brainstorming how to answer them is pretty much how I've created her lore so far lmao

#i meant to do this ages ago but got hung up on some of the questions. which i just didn't answer djgjghdh #but yaaa here we go !!#i don't. have a name for her brother yet #i was thinking matthew but i knew a matthew and didn't like him so don't rlly want to use that name afjgjfdg #we'll see!#sth #sonic oc #sonic oc showdown #rime the cat #vixentalks

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hazbinhappy · 13 days

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Hey! I saw your match-ups were open and would like to request one if that's okay! I'm a dude and on the shorter side (5'4), I am pan with no gender preferences but I do prefer people who are more on the confident side. My love languages are physical touch and acts of service.

I am an ambivert, whether I'm more extroverted or introverted can change very quickly. I am typically laid back and easygoing and don't get annoyed easily. My favorite colours are purple and green.

I usually switch between wearing punk/emo style clothes (studded belts, band t-shirts, chains, leather jackets) paired with eyeliner or casual style clothes (Hoodies, shorts, beanies). My hair is a dark brown with a white streak due to lack of melanin and my eyes are a dark brown.

My hobbies are hiking, climbing, photography, video games, video/photo editing, needle felting and juggling. I like animals, hights, music and cooking. I don't like loud noises and spiders.

My appearance would likely have some owl-like features because of my love of heights and my messed up sleep schedule. Other than that my appearance would be mostly the same as it is now.

I would prefer not to be matched with sir pentious or charlie please.

Your Matchup is....

Velvette!

She is like the definition of confidence (more like too much because look at miss ma’am so I guess cocky, but she isn't afraid and she knows what to do)

I think she’d find your hair and clothes style really interesting.

Probably would try and mix your styles together so you two can match or she would match colors only

Idk I feel like matching is a small way to show that you are tied to a person

Did I read video & photo editing? Of course I did, I've been staring at this for a hot minute!

Oh boy do I have a job for you buddy!

Yes you already know it, you are an editor for miss ma’am Velvette here

Is it fun staring at screens all day and not getting to go outside and do your more hands-on activities? Yes, but oh my goodness your cute boss is micromanaging at every second (as if she knows what you’re doing)

Okay, but for realsies, you do speak about how you need some breathing room to be able to concentrate and she does take note of that, she also hires another editor JUST ONE so your workload is a bit lighter; you know are solely for Velvette’s work and the other unlucky editor get to work for moth man

As you two got closer she started to make more clothes based on your fashion and soon made it a rule for all of her employees to only wear her clothes (Velv come on just admit your feelings and ask for him to wear your clothes!)

Once you two do get together she will automatically take your clothes without shame, but makes it work

Shoot she might even dress like you just to make the fit work

If you get her on a hike she is whining and complaining, but it gave her inspiration to expand her work into sporty/athleisure wear as well

She does take interest in your hobbies during her relaxation time and is willing to try your food, but she will be honest about her opinions (this princess)

“Ugh! You’re taking forever!” Velvette pouted from her chair beside you with her arms crossed,

“Apologies, little miss princess. Maybe don’t give me so many photos next time.” You rolled your eyes as you continued editing the slew of photos she gave you from today's shoot.

After several more minutes of silence (in reality it was thirty seconds), she just got up and pulled your chair away from the desk.

“Don’t fight! You have been working all night, I want to sleep with you. I’m for once going to bed on time and so will you! Dumb and Dumber are out for the night so if we’re fast we can get to sleep with silence.”

A/N: You sound like a sick person ngl i’m a bit jealous of your hobbies and style /pos owls are such a good choice

#hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel matchup #hazbin hotel matchups #velvette x reader #hazbin hotel velvette

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hikari-ni-naritai · 16 days

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Emily Isekai Momence: ButaReba

That's right, we're dusting off my short-lived series of reviews to talk about this show. Whether or not I do more in the future remains to be seen, but for now we're pulling out all the stops. For some shows I've tried to maintain a semblance of respect for spoilers, but that will not be the case here. Because I do not think any of you should watch this, though not for the reasons you're expecting. But to clarify, there will be extensive spoilers in this review! I don't expect that to matter to most of you. It's pretty long, so it's going under the cut. Content warning for mentions of sexual assault.

ButaReba, AKA Heat the Pig Liver, AKA The Story of a Man Turned into a Pig, is a show about a biology student in college passing out in a fit of food poisoning from eating raw pig liver and waking up to find that he has been turned into a pig in another world. He is given no name, so I will refer to him as Pig or Mr. Pig, depending on how charitable I am feeling toward him at the time. Maybe Pig-san if I'm feeling silly. Buta-san. I can still hear her voice...

Anyway, Mr. Pig is noticed and rescued from the pig pen by a young girl named Jess. Jess is a member of a slave race known as Yethma. And already that's a whole can of worms, so let's open it right up. Yethmas can read minds and communicate telepathically. Yethmas are sent from the capital city at age 8 with no memory of their past and live in servitude until age 16, when they are required by law to return to the capital. Yethmas are exclusively women. Yethmas wear a metal collar that can't be destroyed or opened. These collars are extremely valuable due to the magic they contain, so hunting Yethmas is a lucrative industry if you've got the stomach for it. Yethmas' bodies also contain magic power, so their organs can be sold for a high price. It is illegal for Yethmas to ride in vehicles. It is illegal to have sex with Yethmas. Magic in this world is performed through the use of special crystals with properties determined by their colour, and Yethmas are the only people who can use Black crystals to perform Miracles. That, I believe, is all the information about Yethmas we need right now.

Jess herself is a kind and demure girl, eager to serve. Due to her telepathy, she is able to hear Mr. Pig's thoughts and communicate with him. Naturally, since this is a fetish show, his thoughts are constantly horny about her, and she would be perfectly willing to give it an 18+ rating if not for the fact that he thinks its hotter if she refuses to go along with his horny fantasies and treats him like a pig (as used to describe otaku, rather than the animal). They come to an agreement where Jess will ignore any thoughts from Mr. Pig that aren't in a specific Voice, so they can communicate effectively instead of getting distracted by his constant stream of horny commentary. Thank god.

Jess turns 16 in a few days and is set to begin her journey to the capital. She tells Mr. Pig that the King is, according to rumour, a member of the last family of sorcerers, and can probably use magic to send him back to Earth, so he should come along with her. Mr. Pig agrees. After killing a Yethma hunter in Jess's boss's warehouse, they set out. Let's back up a moment.

Before they leave, Mr. Pig runs into what I shall refer to from hereon in as a Wretched Beast. These are horrible creatures reminiscent of ostriches with the heads of serpents. They keep me up at night if I think about them too much. I hate them. But Jess assures Mr. Pig that they are not dangerous! They don't do much of anything. They just sit around and stare vacantly. In recent years, they've been considered a good luck charm, or an ill omen, depending on who you ask. Wretched Beasts are, biologically speaking, relatively new life. They did not exist before the great Sorcerer Wars many years ago, when the world was overrun by sorcerer families killing each other in hopes of ruling the world. There are no sorcerers now except, presumably, the royal family. But this cannot be confirmed, because nobody's ever returned from the capital. The capital is, apparently, located on top of a massive earthen spire reaching up beyond the clouds. You can see the spire from Jess's house!

The first couple of episodes are about what you'd expect. Mr. Pig is a horny college boy, Jess is an indulgent doormat (according to her, his thoughts are much kinder than those of everyone else more used to the existence of a slave race), and Mr. Pig proves himself to be a resourceful companion. Despite being constantly horny, he's intelligent and able to think up solutions to problems pretty well despite having no real power. Overall, though, it's a vile premise in a vile setting. But unlike every other isekai where slavery is prevalent, ButaReba spends the rest of its episodes (episode 12 excepted, for reasons we'll discuss) digging into its own setting, deconstructing it, and examining it through an unexpectedly respectful lens. Even the horny jokes decrease significantly over time.

The first stop on their journey is a small village, where Mr. Pig and Jess stop at a tavern. Mr. Pig is horrified to see that the tavern has a Yethma collar displayed prominently on the wall, but Jess explains that this is counterintuitively a sign of safe haven for Yethmas on their journey to the capital. Yethma collars separated from their owners are sensitive to negative feelings towards Yethmas and will corrode quickly, so a collar as shiny as the one displayed here means the owners and clientele won't hurt Jess. It's tradition to display the collar of a Yethma you cared about if she is killed and you can manage to recover it, which is why they have one here. The owner explains that they used to have a Yethma who turned 16 and refused to take the journey, choosing instead to live her life in a nearby convent for Yethmas in similar circumstances. She lived to be around 20 before the convent was attacked by Yethma hunters who burnt the stone building fully to the ground before torturing and beheading her to get at her valuable collar. The bandits were then attacked by Local Swordsman whose name I've quite forgotten and don't plan to look up. Local Swordsman was in love with the 20 year old Yethma, so he slew as many of the bandits as he could and recovered her collar for her previous owners. The bandit leader escaped, and Local Swordsman returned to town with the collar, her bones, and an eternal grudge against both the bandit leader and the Wretched Beasts, who had been present around the convent in massive numbers. He used her bones to make swords, but that's not important to the plot.

Mr. Pig, upon meeting Local Swordsman, convinces him to come along on their journey because he can fight, something neither Mr. Pig nor Jess can do. The group then proceeds to their next destination, a larger town.

While in the larger town, Jess hears a telepathic message from another Yethma in the middle of the night. A repeated, chillingly dispassionate plea for help. Unable to ignore this, the group try to follow it to its source, despite Local Swordsman's warnings that it might be a trap. Yethma hunters may have captured her and forced her to send out the warning to draw in more Yethmas. But they follow it to a church on the outskirts of town, where the suspicious behaviour of the priest there convinces the group that they're at the right place. After subduing the priest and his accomplice thanks to Mr. Pig's planning, they enter the basement to discover a horrible dungeon, the walls of which are lined with glass jars containing organs and the cells of which are coated in blood. In the very back, they find the Yethma who was sending out the message and offer to take her with them. The group sets off in the morning with her. Pig remarks on the fact that she's got bigger tits than Jess.

I don't remember her name either, but I feel like it would be cruel not to look it up. Blaise. Blaise is a quiet girl. She's more reserved than Jess. She wears an oversized traveling robe. She doesn't eat much. She was also on her journey to the capital when she was captured by the priest. She didn't expect anyone to answer her call. At that point it had become more of a prayer than anything else, a mantra to repeat to comfort herself. Soon enough, they make it to an inn right on the edge of the forest surrounding the capital spire. This is the last safe haven on their journey, as the woods are notoriously full of Yethma hunters. All Yethmas must pass through the woods, after all.

That night, Blaise asks to speak to Mr. Pig alone outside. He reveals that he is a human from another world, and Blaise reveals that she isn't going to make it to the capital. By the time they rescued her, the priest had already removed several of her organs, so the fact that she was able to even travel this far was a miracle of sorts. She's accepted her imminent death, and tells Mr. Pig that if it would help Jess make it to the capital, she would gladly serve as a decoy in a final act of heroism. Blaise laments the sexism she's faced in this world. As a well-endowed slave, she's been assaulted many times, always with the excuse of "it's your fault for having such a slutty body." Mr. Pig tells her that's bullshit, and it's not her fault. She asks him if the world he comes from is kinder. If she'd been born in his world, would she have to curse the body she'd been born with? Mr. Pig recognizes shamefully that Earth isn't perfect in this regard, but it is better than this world, so he promises her that such terrible things wouldn't have happened to her. She prays that she is born there in her next life. She also tells Mr. Pig of a rumour she heard that in order to get into the city, you have to ask the King. But she doesn't know what that means or how to do it.

I like Blaise. I wouldn't say this is a perfect scene, but the fact that they address and call out the violent misogyny, and that Mr. Pig mourns the fact that Earth isn't as good as it should be, was unexpected and sweet and at the very least not poorly handled. I'd defend this scene. I like Blaise.

The next day, they venture into the forest, where they are immediately confronted by Bandit Leader, archenemy of Local Swordsman, and his Merry Men. They are of course here to hunt Yethmas, and they'd heard Jess would be coming through (Bandit Leader was the one who'd ordered the Yethma hunter to hunt her in the beginning when they killed the guy in the warehouse, so he'd been keeping tabs on her). The show's been suffering from budget issues, so the animation in this episode is. Lackluster, we'll say. Or just "bad". They fight, though it's mostly Local Swordsman and his Big Dog against all the Merry Men. Blaise pretends to be Jess, and Local Swordsman (thanks to Mr. Pig's planning) creates an opening for the real Jess and Mr. Pig to escape and try to make it to the spire while he holds them off. Blaise does not survive this.

The forest, by the way, is full of Wretched Beasts. Wretched Beasts, in fact, have been present and shown throughout the whole journey. Always just off to the side of the road, staring at Mr. Pig and Jess. I hate them, still. Mr. Pig and Jess reach the earthen spire, and there's no way to get in. No stairs, no door, no nothing. They circle it and find nothing. Then they're attacked by Yethma hunters again. After driving them off thanks to Mr. Pig's planning, he finally pieces it together. And I honestly appreciate the way this was done. Often, solving puzzles in anime feels empty. Like they just Figured It Out I Guess. You know? But here, they use established information. Mr. Pig was studying biology, so he begins to question how a creature like the Wretched Beast could exist. The fauna in this world is by and large the same as on Earth, with the only difference being the existence of Wretched Beasts, which don't disturb the ecological balance in any way. They don't seem to do anything, either. They don't attack, they don't hunt, they don't graze. They've just been watching him and Jess, and showed up after the sorcerer war. What if they were created by the royal family, the last remaining sorcerers? And what if they were created to watch Yethmas? That would explain why there were so many at the convent.

But why? Well, Yethmas come from the capital. They're telepathic. They're the only people who can create Miracles. What if Yethmas are sorcerers, sent as slaves into the world for unknown purposes with collars to suppress their powers, and forced to return to the capital to prevent them from being sorcerous in the rest of the kingdom? It could also explain how the convent was so thoroughly burnt, if the sorcerer royal family was watching and used fire magic to destroy it. And in order to talk to the royal family, you'd just have to use the Wretched Beasts, right?

So Jess tries it, and a door in the spire opens, allowing them to climb the stairs upwards safely. They're welcomed warmly by a receptionist who prepares a bath and a room for them, and at this point it's almost not completely fucking weird that there's romantic tension between a girl and a pig. Jess and Mr. Pig are granted an audience with the king, his wife, and his son, where the king explains that Mr. Pig's deductions were mostly correct. Sorcerers were far too powerful, so after winning the war, his family had them all executed. In order to prevent sorcerers from becoming too numerous, all male sorcerer children are executed at birth, and all females are raised to be Yethmas. This keeps their numbers low, as very few Yethmas survive the journey back to the capital. This is also why it's illegal to have sex with Yethmas. Mr. Pig tells the king this is cruel and there has to be a better way, but the king smugly announces that he has no plans to change the system. He invites Jess to join the royal family, an offer I presume is extended to any Yethma who returns to the capital, and I presume results in her becoming a wife destined to give birth to sorcerer children directly into the child meat grinder forever. She does not seem excited by this prospect. The king also reveals that Mr. Pig's body on Earth is still alive, and all he has to do to go back is die. He does not seem excited by this prospect. The king gives them time to consider their options, and.....

That was it. The show's budget issues caused the last episode to be pushed back a couple of months, so I was left waiting with surprisingly bated breath. I'd expected absolutely nothing from this show except horny jokes and uncomfortable moments, but it managed over the course of about 9 episodes to completely turn me around. I'd broken my rule of "Never Judge an Isekai by its Premise", and ButaReba had sucker punched me for it. An isekai so willing to engage with the horrible implications of its premise and setting? Somehow capable of creating poignant and powerful moments despite EVERYTHING about it? This was something special. How is the resourceful and cunning Mr. Pig going to overthrow the despicable Yethma system and create a better world with Jess in only one episode? Sure, maybe it'll be rushed, but that doesn't mean it can't be satisfying. I'll forgive a bit of rush in the face of the the way the rest of the show had gone. Plus the budget issues, I'm willing to look past a lot to call it a satisfying end. And so I waited.

The last episode finally airs. Jess admits she'd used a Miracle to bring Mr. Pig to this world because she was afraid of taking the journey by herself. Mr. Pig and Jess admit that they love each other. Jess insists that Mr. Pig go back to Earth and be happy. Mr. Pig insists that Jess join the royal family and be happy. Mr. Pig would not be happy on Earth. Jess would not be happy in the royal family. They both admit this to each other. They admit that what they both truly want is to be together. They both willingly go to see the king so Mr. Pig can be killed and go back to Earth and Jess can join the royal family. Jess holds Mr. Pig and they cry together as the king executes him, sending him back to Earth, and then she joins the royal family.

On Earth, Mr. Pig wakes in the hospital (depressed) and writes a light novel about his experiences in the other world. He is depressed. He gets a message from people who read his book and want to meet up. He doesn't listen closely (depressed) as they talk about how they ALSO went to that world, and how shit has gone south, and how they figured out how to send someone back there. They send Mr. Pig back there, and he for some reason inhabits another pig at Jess's old house's pigpen instead of being human. The end.

I have never been more disappointed in my life.

Gay Ass Weeb Shit Score:

Gay: 0. There is no gay.

Ass: 3. There is SHOCKINGLY little fanservice in this show, as far as I can remember.

Weeb: 4. The otaku pig fetish the story is based on is pretty weeb, but thats about it.

Shit: 6. I wouldve given it a solid 9 if the ending had been good.

Slavery: Yes.

Shinzo Abe Propaganda: No.

#emily isekai momence #butareba

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straw-beret · 7 months

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The significance of the claw machines in the opening of season 2

This is the first theory I've ever really posted or even MADE, and I haven't seen anyone else address it so apologies if I'm just repeating what someone else has already said; but yeah, these are just some observations I made recently, and they mostly have to do with the the intro to season 2 and how that potentially relates to the future of a rather significant main character.

More under the cut! And spoilers for season 2, if you haven't already guessed.

Every week I tune in to watch Link Click with my friends, and only at episode 10, i.e. a week ago, did i notice that in the opening, all the stuffed animals surrounding the claw machines are bunny rabbits.

It's a bit hard to see on account of the dim lighting, but I assure you that every single plush on the outside of those claw machines (and inside, at least in this shot) is a bunny rabbit. You can check the OP out on youtube if you want as well, if you want to confirm.

At first I thought, "Maybe the animators were just trying to save money on the budget!" But then I remembered that in the very next shot, we see other stuffed animal models that aren't rabbits:

This is the interior of one of the claw machines, presumably the one from episodes 4-5, and we can see 3D models of plushies such as bears and cats, alongside the rabbits of the outside.

And even in episodes 4-5, which are conversely animated in 2D, we can see there are a variety of other animals in each of the claw machines. And although the outlines aren't the clearest, it's still easy to discern they aren't ALL the same plushies as in the machine Tianxi is focused on:

From left to right as seen in the second image, I'll call each claw machine CM1, 2, and 3.

In CM2, we can see there's many different animals, majority with tails. I had a theory that they might be related to the animals of the Chinese zodiac, but you can't see them too clearly, so I'm not too sure.

CM3 isn't clear either, but the plushes/toys are definitely different to the other ones. On close inspection, I think there are bears and rabbits, but coloured red and white instead of pink, brown and greys/whites, like in CM1.

So clearly they didn't just have just one bunny plush model they had to reuse, and they put in the effort of hand drawing different plushies in the other claw machines. Plus, the budget for the intro must have been enormous— they weren't exactly pinching pennies. So why pile ONLY rabbits on the outside of the claw machines in the intro?

My theory is that it has something to do with my beloved Qiao Ling.

From the very first episode season 1, the show has set up a recurring rabbit motif in relation to Qiao Ling. We see this first in her phone case:

I put in a second photo of her phone for reference, and that one is from season 2, either episode 9 or 10.

So, bunny ears on the phone case. Big deal, probably just a fun piece of visual storytelling to add to her character— maybe she's into 'meng' culture. She's about the age to be into it, right?

Well, let's look at the chibi spinoff, Daily Life in Lighttime!

I don't think it's at the end of every episode this animal segment appears, but after the main events of each episode, we get to see the main characters as animals, doing animal things. Pretty straightforward— LG is a cat, CXS is a dog, and QL is a rabbit. Another thing connecting QL with the motif of rabbits.

In the official art by INPLICK, who did the character designs for the show, Qiao Ling is also commonly depicted with rabbits/a rabbit motif, and the boys with their respective animals as well.

On top of that, we know the show is set in 2021. Based on her character profiles, we know Qiao Ling is 22 years old, making her birth year 1999 (March 16th, if anyone cares). This makes her, you guessed it, year of the Rabbit!

So, let's tie this back to the claw machines. We've got a character who is established in show and in official art to be associated with rabbits, and we've got an abundance of rabbit plushes on the outside of the claw machines. Link Click is always very intentional with their imagery and mise en scene, this isn't an accident. So, what exactly does this mean?

My theory is that Qiao Ling will come to play a very significant role in the finale and upcoming season 3.

Initially, when me and my friend discussed this (shout out to Lara if you're reading this); we figured it might just be another reference to how Qiao Ling is metaphorically on the outside of the supernatural happenings. She is the only main character without powers, she didn't know what CXS and LG were doing with the photos, she was the first of the mains to get possessed by red eyes, who we now know are a wombo combo of Li Tianxi and Li Tianchen. But why go to such lengths to compound on something we already know?

So then I started to wonder, maybe it means she is less protected than the others? After all, she was the first to get possessed, she is the only one without any supernatural powers. I thought it might mean imminent doom for Qiao Ling— which would suck, because (and this is especially applicable if you've seen the most recent episode, i.e. s2e11) Link Click is not the best when it comes to leaving female characters alive!!!!!

It adds up— the animals on the inside of the claw machine are "safe", metaphorically and literally. They are protected by the glass (and also the impossibility of winning anything from a claw machine). But on the outside, they are up for grabs, easy to be destroyed or harmed. The claw machine ensures safety, and when you're outside the machine, nothing is guaranteed. So when we see the inside of the claw machine in the shot of that pink cat plush, i.e. the second image in this post, we see that there aren't as many rabbits in the claw machine, meaning less safety for QL.

(also if you want to strengthen that argument, that stuffed cat that liu lan and li tianxi won from the claw machine was torn apart by li fan when they got home).

((and even in the est. shot where we do see rabbits on the inside, there are much less than on the outside.))

So, Qiao Ling the outsider in this situation, who has as far as we know no powers and not much of a clue as to the supernatural happenings (and who let's be real only became plot significant recently, as much as i love her), her animal is on the outside of the claw machines. Simple.

And then the trailer for the finale of s2 dropped, and we got this lovely frame:

My friend and I thought it might be Qiao Ling's powers awakening, some others think it might be Tianxi transferring her powers to Qiao Ling. However, if you watch the rest of the trailer, you'll notice that Qiao Ling is left entirely defenseless, just sitting by Tianxi's body.

While the rest of the fight is presumably happening. These characters have guns and tasers! Why is she turning her back on them when she has no natural defenses of her own (save for those sick martial arts skills)?

Especially because Qian Jin, who has been established to want to harm QL and even rigged up a god damn BOMB to set off for when she and CXS went to retrieve LG:

Is on the scene with a gun!

I think that something bad is going to happen to Qiao Ling, the "outsider", either in the finale or in season 3. Could be death, could be a major injury, but whatever it is, it will have been foreshadowed through the stuffed rabbits and the claw machines.

kudos if you read this much lol i'm not sure if i structured my arguments well but i got really into this theory. and maybe i might make a post about the symbolism of the pacman machine in the intro as well? idk. lmk what you think!! i'd love to know if there's anything i'm missing or if there are any other interpretations to glean from this :)

#link click #shiguang dailiren #link click season 2 #link click theory #shiguang daili ren #cheng xiaoshi #qiao ling #lu guang #link click spoilers #sgdlr #sgdlr spoilers #时光代理人 #fan theory #theory #speculation

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ubercharge · 3 months

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im not sure if anyone asked you yet, but thoughts on the dunmeshi anime?

thanks for asking! sometimes i forget i exist here as a person cuz i just log on to queue random stuff without making posts 💀

it's pretty rare for me to watch an anime without ever reading the manga, and there've been stellar adaptations recently. ONK, kisekoi, BTR, frieren, CSM just to name a few. in a landscape where we're used to being disappointed as readers who have a frame of reference before watching a show, i had very, very high hopes for the dunmeshi adaptations that weren't quite fulfilled.

i'll dump everything under a cut since i actually have a lot to say, sorry if you were expecting it to be brief 😎

the lines in the artistic style are good, nicely translating the characters into animated format. really no notes there. definitely a nicer comparison for char designs between manga and anime vs. tonsuki and tensura who both have incredible manga styles that the anime stumble over (though in the latter's case, i don't think they were aiming for it sadly)

the shading has been fine, but weakened by the colour choices. some of the dungeon scenes (e.g., living armour stuff) are lit with a medium blue which helps to sell the idea of the scene being in a place not lit by fire (and contrasts it with the making camp & cooking scenes), but the lack of dark shading flattens some of these very well-drawn images.

the earlier chapters don't have the same level of detail as newer ones, but the art style is still fantastic - it's expressive with high contrast and shows action and impact perfectly well. manga will often times have a naturally easier way with contrast due to it being in black & white, but i don't think that means anime should just give up on contrast in favour of playing ineffectively with colour.

here's a night shot of fern from frieren. the choices made here allow for the shading to stand out from the flats and give her more definition overall while still being relatively simple (just flats + shading)

when dunmeshi has more "normal" lighting conditions, it does a lot better. similar to fern up there, there's about the same amount of difference between the flats and shadows, so i really wish they did a better job on the dungeon scenes since they're going to have to deal with non-torchlit scenes plenty. i won't argue that the living armor scene certainly has some kind of a sickly, alien mood to it, but tl;dr i think it should've had darker shading if not also being less green. this largely applies to every other blue-green lit scene they've done.

looking at kui's coloured drawings in the ed gives me an idea of what could've been and it makes me sad to lose out on colour choices more similar to that (even if they obviously can't have her level of detail on top of it)

some of the backgrounds haven't been too interesting but some have been good, overall it's probably fine. plus you can only draw and detail repeating bricks so many times before the viewer gets bored of looking at them anyway, i guess.

the animation is really fun and expressive. it's trigger, so they don't keep scenes stiffly on-model when they want characters moving around. this is good because it helps to sell both action and comedy moments!

the music overall i haven't really cared for? the BGM has not been particularly moving, interesting, or memorable - mostly generic. and i've seen too many fantasy shows for my own good, so i might be harder to impress (but i even remember tenken had a good BGM song or two to make a fight dramatic and that show was barely above average at best)

i'm biased not being particularly into bump, so i would've selected a different artist for the OP (i actually did like the bump OP from SxF though, come to think of it). before anyone makes a wisecrack based on what i've watched lately, no it doesn't have to be yoasobi.

i maybe feel the ED song would've been better for the OP, i don't like the largely peaceful bit of the OP with very still visuals. the OP is where you reel people in! it should be an eye-catching hook, representative of what to expect with some extra sauce on top.

the ED is great, total bop. it's a fine time for slower visuals as an enjoyable wind-down from the episode, so less or no animation is no big deal. plus kui's art is absolutely gorgeous! it all perfectly fits that "end of work" fun and lighthearted mood they were going for.

i largely enjoy the voice acting. i would've personally gone for a less "old man" voice on senshi because he's really not that old for a dwarf, but they obviously wanted to make it clear he was the older, wiser, knowledgeable character.

this might be my own personally most blasphemous opinion, but i would've picked a different VA for falin. i want to make it clear i absolutely adore saori hayami - she's incredible and one of my faves. with that said, her voice fits the character, so maybe it's just because i've heard her too often which is not her fault by any means! i love the voices for laios, marcille, and chil.

it seems netflix's subs go off of the official EN TL of the manga, which makes sense, but i've talked about how i don't like it more than ehscans' TL (which is one of the single best TLs i've read for a series, official or otherwise) and that holds true for the anime ("mad sorcerer" is cooler AND less clunky than "lunatic magician"). i prefer less localisation stuff and/or quirkiness in my subs and more direct translation for both manga and anime.

as for the changes/additions they've made to the show, some of them have been alright and some i didn't care for. they really want to sell marcille as the funny joke character which is why they had her being chased by the basilisk instead of having doni & fionil like it was in the manga which was better for the pacing and had good impact vs a funny clip of marcille running back and forth.

i don't dislike when adaptations add or change stuff, but placing them cleanly is important. dunmeshi is already really funny! i don't think it needs help being funnier by reaching for the cheap laugh. when laios sees two people running for their lives from a basilisk and he just goes "wow that's a bad way to run from that monster", it's already lowkey hilarious - all the more so followed by marcille telling mr. monster-know-it-all to go rescue them if he knows what's up and him rescuing them by making himself big and chicken squawking real loud (which embarrasses marcille and chil, but c'mon guys, at least his idea worked!). i feel like the comedy in laios' funny hero moment is undercut by forcing the marcille butt of the joke moment in the anime.

dunmeshi is already incredibly good at just about everything it does. i feel if an adaptation wants to add or change something, it's often better amplifying a strength or shoring up a weakness in the source material. BTR adds a lot to the source (not hard considering the source is a 4koma) and makes already funny things even funnier. the "we should all get social media" scene is elevated to iconic status with the visual of bocchi glitching out + the VA's inhuman screech. i can't say where i'd really want to change or add stuff to dunmeshi, since it really feels so good and whole, but i'm sure there's room in the process of translating manga panels to animated scenes, and i think the direction overall could've been better (comparing most shows to BTR isn't fair i know because BTR is directed & adapted so well it's hydrogen bomb vs. coughing baby territory)

i've mostly said negative stuff, but i don't want it to sound like i hate or even really dislike the adaptation. i think when it comes to a series you really love, you want to see the best adaptation possible within reason, and the disappointment of stuff not being quite what you were hoping for is amplified by so many other recent adaptations being so good.

dunmeshi does not have a bad anime by any means, but a lot of that is thanks to the source material's quality. if they do another season, i hope they have more time/budget/whatever because i think a lot of the parts it does have are good parts! but in this case, i wasn't hoping for good; i was hoping for great.

trigger makes great shows with wacky storylines (in some ways, the same one wacky storyline, but that's a different discussion) and dunmeshi, being directed by someone who's worked on a bunch of trigger stuff (largely sci-fi leaning), maybe needed some more direction from people who've worked on fantasy stuff? i can't say for sure what would've been enough to take the show over the top, but though i generally don't hope for much from adaptations, i really did have higher hopes for this one than it ended up achieving.

overall it seems i'll end up scoring the show a 7 or 7.5 when i finish the season, though there's certainly still room to wow us all. whatever you feel about the adaptation, whether you liked it or not, whether or not you've read the manga, feel free to comment your thoughts below or in my inbox. let's keep it free of manga spoils for anime-only watchers, though!

#sorry this is REALLY long #ask answer #anon #i've been busy with TEA in ffxiv but i'll try to post more!

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uninformedartist · 1 year

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The way Velvette is portrayed in Hazbin Hotel doesn't sit well with me.

To preface I am a fan of Hazbin Hotel and am looking forward to the show so-so. I want to clarify I mean no hate to Viv and her team, she has a creative mind even though her design choices are sometimes lacking to me. But this has been on my mind for a while especially as a poc.

Velvette has been a character ive enjoyed for the the longest time since her debut in the pilot. Even though her quick appearance she drew my attention for an unknow reason but she's just ah I love her. When I found out she was a poc and was into alternative fashion it drew me more to her as growing up I couldn't express myself in such clothes as it didn't suite my skin tone enough. Was never white enough or coloured enough (thats my race). I told my sister how I liked Velvette and she said she doesn't because of how she looks and it made me think. Velvette in all my relating to her lacks the representation I hoped she'd give others like she did me but she doesn't. Viv as much as I like her designs, underdesigned Velvette. She lacks poc features, what I mean by this is her skin tone mostly. I know she's a demon but I've see so many dark skinned monsters, demons, creatures that far surpasses Velvette. Her skin tone is this light brown- grey colour dispite being a black woman in her pitch bible (yes I saw it and I know lighter skinned black people exist but even so Velvette is so racially ambiguous point blank like many of Vivziepop's po characters and plus, her skin tone isn't even really a skin tone, its giving anime "dark/brown skin tones"), its lackluster actually and I wished it were different because I'm sure Viv has black/dark skinned design members on her team but no input from them was added to Velvette's design. Viv I understand is a poc but she is like me a lighter skinned poc, I myself have a difficult time drawing darker skinned characters and I know how Viv doesn't leave her comfort zone of character traits so it leaked into Velvette being such an under respresentation to black people/ dark skinned people. Her hair is also my end, Viv in all my years of following her has never experimented with poc hair textures/styles. It took so much more away from Velvette as a black woman with the hair style/texture she has now (I know black woman or woc can have straight hair but due to the embrace of more natural hair textures it would've been beautiful to see Velvette with a more natural hair texture). AGAIN Viv should've reached out to other designers for their input on her but no, its Viv's "character" (even though she doesn't technically own it anymore) and nobody can make such changes as its not in her vision/comfort zone.

Another thing I want to add is Viv's problem infantailising certain characters. I've seen it with Angel Dust, Niffty, Stolas and now Velvette and its not sitting well with me.

According to Velvette's pitch bible she is a 30 year old black woman, a *grown adult* who is also in the adult industry, cool.

This is a post by one of Vivziepop's staff members Sam, who also happens to be one of Vivziepop's closest friends too. They made a post comparing Velvette's to a certain character dynamic:

What the hell were they thinking. VELVETTE IS A 30 YEAR OLD BLACK WOMAN WHO WORKS IN THE PORN INDUSTRY AND YOU ARE COMPARING HER TO A PARENT/CHILD DYNAMIC!

TW:

She is involved in the adult industry along with Vox and Val. Valentino is shown to be a misogynistic man who is abusive, a rápist and much more, Vox similar. Velvette being involved with them isn't my issue, she's not a good person ha hell she probably condones their actions as she's an antagonist like them. The problem is I've seen Viv doesn't know the difference between a childish adult character and an adult character who is treated like a child and extention encouraged to be treated like one. Velvette has a childish fun personality thats all, that gives no reason to why she is treated like Vox and Valentino's child, SHE'S 30!

Fans and critics have pointed out how they keep seeing this problem how Viv portrays her characters. It creates a breeding ground for the fetishsization of these characters in a disgusting way. The amout of art I've seen depicting Velvette as their child is disturbing and TW: the amount of lòli art I have seen of her on unsavoury websites is just... I cannot. Just because of her personality she is being treated and seen as a child. I will not go into how woman of colour when reaching a certain age of development are not seen as children anymore even when they still are (we'll be here all day, its boils my blood I hate) but what Viv is doing is not right either. Strips away Velvette's agency especially as a black woman like Viv/team really should've thought before encouraging the infantailisation of her and such art posts as above.

In conclusion (since I lost my 1st draft aaah not typing that long again). Velvette is a good example to me of a poc character with lost potential. Viv had the power and choice to allow other poc creatives to give their input on her but simply didn't. She holds on to these characters so dearly and I understand she doesn't want to loose them, they are like her children. But they aren't anymore, she needed to let them be changed into their best version but alas no. Viv whether she likes it or not is in the mainstream now thanks to partnering with A24.

The audience has changed, we want to see better representation in media: various skin tones, sexualities, different body types, hair textures, even disabilities. Viv as a bisexual woc had the opportunity to give us so much more but didn't even knowing thats what audiences seek, like Velvette for example that's what I seeked and thought I saw but my rose tinted glasses got taken off by my sister and I saw what I saw wasn't all that.

You have the capabilities Viv, you have the resources, you have everything layed out in front of you to give us this why did you not, the boundaries were not pushed. Brake from your comfort zone, seek others inputs and criticism because if you go on like this you may fail. I've followed you for the longest time but not many times have you experimented with different body types, various skin tones and hair textures... no comment. I'll still support Viv's work and decide if I'll still be invested in it after Hazbin drops but I'm cautiously optimistic right now. Only wishing more grown for Viv, peace.

#vivziepop criticism #vivziepop critical #hazbin hotel velvet #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel critique #hazbin hotel critical

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