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colleendoran · 1 year

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How Do I Do Stuff

The question was phrased a little strangely, and I don't want to embarrass the person by posting exactly what was said, but I'll answer it and hope this clears everything up.

I do almost all of my drawing by hand. No, I don't trace in Photoshop. Not a judgment on those who do, but I come from a generation of artists who did not use Poser programs or other digital tools. We learned to draw using a technique called the Sight Size method. I know a lot of people assume everyone - including the old masters - traced everything using optical tools, but while it is true some people did, it is just as true that most didn't, and you can draw with great accuracy if you learned how to draw the old fashioned way.

Sight Size breaks everything down into its barest components of geometric shapes and you build from there. Once you learn it, you never forget, and it applies to everything you will ever draw.

I learned it using a set of Famous Artist Course books my mom had since she was a kid, and they are still the gold standard. They're often on ebay. If I were you, I'd buy them.

I actually find using figure reference really annoying because I like exaggerations and modifications from reality in my final work.

This page from Neil Gaiman's Chivalry was drawn and painted without figure reference of any kind.

I don't know why people assume I trace all the time. If you were to try to use photographs to replicate these figures, you would find they are slightly off. There is no tracing here.

This is not to say I never use reference. This page, for example, was referenced from a photo of my mother. Isn't she pretty.

But this page of Sir Galaad was drawn and painted without reference.

He's pretty, too.

If he were real, I'm sure a lot of people would be very happy about it. But he's not. And had I reference, the art would have gone a lot faster. I had a time trying to nail this face that is very alive in my head but doesn't really exist.

Back in the ancient days, all cartoonists had to learn to draw and paint extemporaneously because reference was limited and digital tools didn't exist. While some high end artists had photography studios and professional models with costume and sets on hand, small fry like me were limited to what was in the house or available at my small local library, which was no bigger than a few rooms of my current house.

Artists kept extensive "morgue files" or "swipe files" which were collected from magazine clippings and photographs so we would have as much of what we might need on hand for quick reference. These ephemera collections could get unwieldy. I have thousands of photographs I've simply never sorted. I finally dumped most of my files this past year.

Have I ever traced anything? Of course, especially if I have to re-use a shot or setting over and over. Making extra work for myself is just silly. It's my job to make pictures, not to perform magical feats, like copying one shot after another over and over without making a mistake.

However, for almost 15 years of my career, I refused to copy or trace anything, and did not even own a lightbox. On the one hand, that forced me to learn to carefully examine what I saw. On the other hand, it was a stupid hill on which many deadlines died.

Only after I realized many professional artists had lightboxes and overhead projectors did I finally break down and get one.

The one thing I use my lightbox for more than anything is for tracing my thumbnail sketches to the final drawing paper. Instead of trying to capture the liveliness of the original sketch by copying what I see - only bigger - I blow the thumbnail up to the size I want the final art to be, then I trace over the thumbnail using a lightbox onto the final drawing paper.

Here's a look at thumbnails from the graphic novel Neil Gaiman's Snow, Glass, Apples.

I enlarged these on my computer to fit onto 11"x14" paper, and traced the thumbs before finishing the art which was drawn in pen and ink and colored in Photoshop.

While I obviously made some changes, the essence of the thumbs is there in the final work. Tracing my thumbs retains some of the looseness of the original sketches, which is often lost otherwise.

So, there is a valid purpose to tracing at times, though in my opinion, too much tracing can weaken drawing ability, substitute for developing skills, and make the work kind of stiff.

If you want to, I'm not your judge. But it's weird to me that people think I must be faking my skills in some way.

Ironically, the word cartoon comes from the Italian word cartone, which is a large heavy sheet of paper - also, the origin of the word carton.

Preparatory sketches were made on this paper which was then transferred to the final work surface via either tracing or by stamping little holes in the paper through which dust was sprinkled, recreating the contours of the drawing for the artist to follow.

So the origin of the word cartoon comes from a process often used...for tracing.

#snow glass apples #chivalry #neil gaiman #drawing

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traumasurvivors · 3 months

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Here’s a link to a blog post on my personal website on a topic that I think is very important.

I’ve also put it below the read more for people that don’t like external links. But if you're okay with it, checking it out on my personal website is really nice (and even giving it a heart if you can)! I don't make money from my website, so there are no intrusive ads or anything like that to stop you from reading the article.

Embracing Your Inner Child

This applies to anyone, but I really want to emphasize this to my fellow survivors who went through trauma as children and/or teenagers.

I’m so sorry you lost part, most or all of your childhood. That doesn’t mean it’s too late to give your inner child what you can. This includes comfort but it also includes doing the things you didn’t get to if you can.

Play the fun games. Buy the tasty treats. Go on adventures.

It’s never too late to feel a little more of the kind of joy you had (or should have had) as a child. You may not be able to be a child again, but you can still help and support your inner child.

You might have been told that a fun idea you had was “silly” or even “stupid.” When you have those thoughts now, instead of rejecting it, embrace the “silly” idea and let yourself enjoy it. It’s not shameful or wrong to do the things your inner child wants to do. It’s okay to be “immature” sometimes, even if you’re twenty years old. Or thirty. Or sixty. I just want to say that I don’t think any of this is immature, but I know that is a bias and judgement a lot of us might pass on ourselves.

A short, not at all complete list of things you might do for your inner child:

Watch childhood movies or tv shows (Did you watch “Blues Clues”, or “Pokemon”? Maybe “The Land Before Time”? There’s no reason you can’t still enjoy them.)

Listen to “silly” music, maybe singing along or dancing to it (for me, one favourite is “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” from The Lion King. I know every word and have a dance party everytime it comes on my shuffle.)

Go to the park and use the swings (I don’t know why, but flying up just a few feet can make me forget all my “grown-up” worries)

Have a treat just because (maybe that big sundae your parents never let you have, or the chicken nuggets you haven’t had in a decade). Maybe you want to fulfil your childhood dream of having ice cream for breakfast!

Go to the toy store - maybe even get some stuffed animals or other toy items. (I just recently realized that I can fulfill my childhood dream of collecting certain toys that I never got to have when I was younger!)

Ride a roller coaster and scream your head off on the way down (I like to try to be in the very first car)

Make creative, crafty stuff - like a painting or drawing, or decorating a picture on construction paper with googly eyes and glitter or a clay model with a weirdly shaped head (even if the result looks like something you’d expect to see in a kindergarten class, or the process makes a mess that looks like a glitter bomb went off)

Another aspect of embracing your inner child is trying to give your inner child the person you needed when you were a child.

This might mean standing up for yourself when others try to put you down or take credit for things you’ve done, even (or especially) if no one else spoke up for you when you were a child.

It might mean offering comfort and compassion to yourself, and not being too hard on yourself when you make mistakes that you would have been insulted for as a child or don’t know something that “everyone learns as a child.” Maybe now you can teach yourself that accidents happen, and spilling a drink or breaking a plate is not the disaster and failure of character that you were told as a child.

It might mean being patient with yourself when something is harder to do than you feel like it should be (whether you actually aren’t able to do it as easily as others, or you have unrealistic expectations of its difficulty because of the expectations put on you as a child). There are lots of instructional videos out there to help you to gain basic cooking or cleaning skills. If you never really learned to read, there are programs to help you. If you weren’t allowed or able to learn to manage your emotions or relationships in healthy ways, there’s help out there for you. There is absolutely no shame in not learning any kind of skills you feel you “should” have learned as a child, and it is okay to learn them as an adult.

You may have had to grow up too fast. You may not have been allowed to do the fun things. You may have suffered trauma that shattered your childhood. I’m here to tell you that you still have an inner child, and embracing that inner child is good for you. Just because you’re an adult, at any age, doesn’t mean that you’re too old to have fun.

No one else gets to decide what’s right for you - you get to decide what you enjoy and what you want.

And it’s never too late to remember, indulge, listen to, and embrace your inner child. Let them be a part of how you choose to move forward. It’s time for us to realize that there is no one way to be an adult, and we get to decide what being an adult means to us. And if that means I want to rent a bouncy castle for my birthday, then that is my perfectly valid version of an adult birthday (a birthday which my inner child would be thrilled about, by the way).

#my blog posts #embracing your inner child #my post

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artistpicks · 1 year

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Category is: The Art of GIF

Welcome to November’s Artist Picks series! This month, we’ve invited @catswilleatyou to share posts surrounding the theme, “The Art of GIF.”

Here is what they have to say about it below!

What does “The Art of GIF” mean to you?

The GIF is an art form that was born on the web. Videos existed in other places; paintings, photos existed in other places. GIFs just didn’t exist anywhere until the internet came along. Many artists were thrilled to be at the moment in art history when this medium was born. Even though the compression techniques are outdated and the functionality has been surpassed by other formats, the perfect infinite loop of the GIF has yet to be achieved by another file format. MP4s still have a hiccup when they start over. While GIFs are widely used for quick jokes and communication, many artists still believe there is more depth to this medium. I believe that as digital art continues to gain acceptance as a high art form, GIFs will eventually be realized as a cornerstone to it. To me, the art of GIF is about working within limitations and birthing something infinite.

Why did you pick these particular posts?

A few years ago I started creating GIFs that are Phenakistiscopes. I couldn’t find any resources on how to make Phenakistiscopes, but I found lots of tons of centuries old Phenakistiscopes that were making amazing GIFs. I sort of backwards engineered my own method of making them and I continue to explore this medium with GIFs. There’s a lot to be learned by limiting yourself to a small number of frames. I keep thinking I’m done making these but every time I work on one, I learn a new animation trick.

(Below are specific mentions of the artists @catswilleatyou chose posts from.)

@volvulent is a mysterious artist to me. I know nothing about their personal life. I’ve never been able to find them on other social media platforms. I feel so fortunate to have stumbled on their work many years ago. They are a complete master of organic form and hand drawn infinite loops. You can follow some of the shapes on these drawings for several seconds, and then when you go back and study the art closely, you discover that the whole looping sequence is only fraction of a second long.

@katecursed uses old and outdated technology in ways I’ll never understand. Tons of analog CRT TVs, oscilloscopes, old video games, and synths. I love it. She grew up around this stuff and is extremely knowledgeable. Her GIFs are timeless.

@alcrego is an absolute workhorse and in my opinion, a historically important GIF artist. He has an instantly recognizable voice using almost entirely black and white. I think he would even go so far as to say he only uses light. The minimalism is always deceptive—there is so much depth to his exploration of GIF as an artistic medium.

I’ve also chosen some very “classic” looking @kidmograph GIFs. I credit kidmograph with bringing the retro/video game style back into fashion about a decade ago. When he started posting this stuff, I hadn’t seen anything like it. Shortly after (and still to this day), there was a huge movement of artists that co-opted this approach. I wanted to include their work here because when you see this look, I want you to know where the echo started. I also want to say that this is just one of many tricks kidmograph has. They explore a wide range of styles and approaches, and they are continually evolving.

@mrdiv always had such a knack for color, compositing, and simplicity. When I was first learning 3D, they were a great artist for me to study because I saw how much emotion and reaction they can get with using very very little. I love the minimalism of their work.

I love how @maxcapacity incorporates vintage equipment in his process to create such wild psychedelic GIFs. They’re always pretty saturated with lovely colors. For me, there’s a heavy hitting moment with this work where I’m watching my childhood get spit back to me in perhaps a more truthful version than I even recall it. It’s hard to explain but the nostalgia lures me in, and then I’m cut with a darkness by them. There’s also some humor sprinkled in.

@zbags’s work is instantly recognizable with the way they use creepy lively eyeballs behind faces. Collin’s work is disturbing and fun. There’s always an added bonus in reading his wild descriptions and titles. When there was a file size limit to GIFs being posted on Tumblr, I was always impressed by their ability to get a very long and detailed animation into a small file. I think he’s doing lots of frame rate tricks I still don’t think I’ve ever figured it out.

Find out more about Artists Picks here!

#artist picks #catswilleatyou #gif #the art of gif

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polarisdelphi · 4 months

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Back on posting old art I never posted, Frau Schneider, my beloved 🖤

I'm seriously considering turning her into a sticker and slapping it everywhere I need to remember something to do. Drinking water? Frau is there judging me. Writing? Frau is waiting. Sleeping at a decent time? She's at the clock, looking at me with hatred in her eyes.

Jokes aside, this was more of a try on stylized drawing, which I completely suck. Since I studied Schneider's face thoroughly once for another drawing, I figured stylizing him would be easier for me as a first try.

I love his nose HAHAHAHA that's my anchor on his likeness xD

Sketches, breakdowns on how I got here, what I thought on shapes and more on his features - and just general artist blabbering, down below!

It was born from these loose sketches:

And I do like the ~proper~ one too. Took a lot of screenshots of the video's making of to understand his mannerisms when ~in Frau~, and there's a big change between the video and the live versions.

Video is a proper, collected, older woman with a dark side from repressed unfulfilled desires, live one is a brute, angry, harshly dominant one. 100% angry all the time, taking her dogs for a walk 🖤

Keeping some harsh shapes on the first one 'cause we all know she's evil, and some more organic ones on the second one 'cause she's UNHINGED.

(Also, Frau's coat are a thousand little Edelweiss 'cause you know. Schneider, Austria, his wife hahahaha aaaaand I have roots from there too, so I decided to shamelessly slap Edelweiss everywhere xD)

Another interesting thing to note, was trying to keep the male proportions on a female presenting appearance. Because we all learn about better shapes for women, how they usually are ~smaller, softer and more delicate~ than males (please read with sarcasm) but Schneider is still a man in woman's clothing, acting like a woman. So I had to keep in mind what I'd draw if it was just him as himself - big hands, big feet, tall as a fucking tree, very large shoulders, toned arms and muscles, all that. No ~delicate~ features 'cause he's still a man, but in here he's a woman.

I'm not saying I succedeed. But it was a good first try :)

Given I have so many drag queen original characters, it's something I think it was nice to study and have in mind T-T

About his features, like I said, I studied him once 'cause I was trying to go for stylized Live aus Berlin Schneider illustration once, but all I got is: I can draw his likeness from memory now, that's it *cries in incompetence*

I said before, I'm not good at stylizing.

So, his key features are: very slim and small mouth, big nose (gods I love his nose, I'll always say that), kinda small eyes and there's almost no distance to his eyebrows (on the video they paint his brows to make a LOT more arched, almost like original Maleficent), longer face, big and square chin, sharp and high cheekbones. I figured if I kept all that in mind, I'd have his likeness.

That's what I used to go figuring out how to draw Frau like that :)

And why am I blabbering all this?

I just hope it helps other self-taught artists out there who have a hard time finding resources and see other people's drawings and go "oooh man how do I get there?" and the artist always go "I dunno just draw a lot and you will get there :)"

Yes, yes, draw a lot. If you don't practice, you won't learn. But there ARE tools, observation studies, drawing studies and a WHOLE lot of things you can learn from other people to get where you want to faster and easier - but most of these resources are, nowadays, behind a paywall. So I just figured I'll share what I learned and hopefully it'll help someone struggling with the same things I did less than a year ago ;)

#schneider #christoph schneider #art #stylized art #illustration #character art #I'm just having nonsensical fun at this point hahaha #I do pity enourmously my mentor #getting all these crazy unhinged people drawings to analyze #but hey I don't make the rules #frau schneider lives rent free in my head #and schneider too for that matter 'cause he's the reason why I remembered I can't live without music #rammstein #frau schneider

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greggorylee · 8 months

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Do you have a screenshot of his responses? Also what year was this?

context

its not the entire emails since there are parts not relevant, like me mentioning unrelated things or complimenting him, etc. the 2nd point i brought up to him but omitted was about the weebish elements of the game that my korean sibling expressed distaste with, and toby seemed receptive to.

my email:

"On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 4:33 AM

Hey there Toby,

Another Tobi here. I'd like to start off by congratulating you on the 1 year anniversary of your truly incredible game. It changed mine and many, many other's lives. However, it hasn't been all for the good.

I simply wanted to address the matter of some decisions you made in creating the game that have expanded in the fanbase and, well, have hurt and are hurting many people."

"-- Firstly, I have no idea what design choices led you to create Frisk's sprite in such a manner, or whether or not you did this purposefully, but they are (intentionally or not) a harmful stereotype of east asians called yellowface. Which is...very, extremely racist. This has been spoken about by east asian people for a long, long time."

"-- Thirdly, and this may seem small, but the incest joke. Incest is a very real and damaging thing and should not be taken lightly. It's rather insensitive to joke about the situations that have caused people (mostly children) severe trauma. Similar to joking about rape. You just don't do it.

I bring these things up because your decisions affect others. Is that not what Undertale is about? The effect of your decisions? Unfortunately the effect that yours have made within the fanbase are quite damaging.

Because Frisk's sprite is the way it is, hundreds of either ignorant/uneducated or young artists are now drawing yellowface. This is horribly harmful and spreading a racist stereotype."

"I'm not trying to hold you accountable for all the harmful behaviors the Undertale fabase make... By no means would that be fair. I just want you to understand that your choices made a ripple effect, and when people are hurt by this and speak up about it, it's important to not, you know, absolutely dismiss them."

toby's response:

"From: Undertale . <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, September 16, 2016 6:01:40 AM

1. This was not my intention. In order to make the character design less "normal," I gave them yellow skin like in "The Simpsons." Also, by making the skin color unrealistic, allows fans to have more of an interpretation regarding how to draw it.

In the future, if I make more media, I definitely won't create a character design like this. My apologies."

(i find this last sentence interesting since kris is also yellow skinned and it felt like toby just hid their eyes to avoid controversy?)

"3. Huh? There was no incest joke in the game? OK, seriously, what the hell are you talking about? Please link me to whatever you are talking about. That would be a real issue.

Regarding the tweet, it's real, but I made it in poor taste 3 years ago and deleted it. I definitely would not have made it even 2 years ago and am sorry if I offended anyone with it. I have definitely changed since then and would never make a tweet like that now."

(the tweet in question is an old tweet Toby made joking about fontcest. i also find toby's first reply interesting because he seems to have forgotten about the incest joke written between dogamy and dogaressa post-pacifist. i dont blame him after writing thousands of lines of dialogue, however, when i replied providing him evidence of the "real issue" and asked if he could consider removing it, he did not reply nor address it anywhere else. it makes the claim that he's changed past thinking incest is funny seem less genuine.)

my reply (that was ignored):

[ screenshot attachments of the dogi incest joke, email sent 9/20/2016 ]

"1. I very well understand what you mean by the intent behind Frisk's character sprite. Specifically it was the skin color and the shape of the eyes that just unfortunately happened to align with a stereotype, and I'm very glad you understand that."

"3. I included screenshots of the jokes. When one of the Dogi mention that being married to one's sister is normal for dogs. I'm sorry if it seems nitpicking, and I know that the joke was likely just a joke about how dogs are prone to incest, but it was still in basics a joke with incest as the punchline. I did not try to scare you by the mention of the attempted suicide. The person's alive and okay, my only intention was to provide an example of how serious incest will affect survivors. Perhaps that wasn't the best example to use, and I'm terribly sorry. Again I wasn't trying to imply anything was your fault, just that incest is not an appropriate thing to take lightly, that's all.

About the tweet; it's good to hear, thank you for addressing that. I've definitely said my fair share of tasteless things in the past that I've also grown from."

"The only thing I ask is that perhaps if you were able, if you could address some of these issues publicly. I'm not trying to pressure you, but I really do think it could make a difference in the behavior of the fanbase. Many, MANY people consider your word as law, and I understand that might be overwhelming, but if you mentioned that Frisk's sprite wasn't meant to be a stereotype and that incest shouldn't be glorified or joked about, etc, it could change some people's minds for the better. For example, a friend of mine who's an incest survivor has to deal with a lot of Undertale fans who create incest content -- he's had to block at least 2,000 people, and that list is growing because more and more are put in public tags on tumblr which put him and other survivors at risk, he's gotten endless attacks and death threats and hate messages for saying "incest porn is bad", and this is a struggle he deals with daily. A lot of those people won't change, but with your word some might, and it would at least give us leverage when arguing for the safety of others."

"And again I'm not trying to imply any of this nasty behavior is your fault. It seems that you really didn't have any idea, and I'm REALLY sorry to have to bring up the ugly side of your fanbase, I know it's an unfun and uncomfortable time, but the unfortunate truth is that fiction affects reality and how people treat each other, which you've found from the messages you say you've gotten from people saying Undertale has inspired them and made them try to act nicer. I hope it doesn't seem like I'm making an unreasonable demand, I just thought it wouldn't hurt to give that idea a shot. You'd be surprised how much difference your word could make."

"Thank you once again for listening, it really does honestly mean the world. Your game really did touch my life--and that's the reason I was ever compelled to email you. I am certain that you only meant good and fun when you made the game, and I hope it hasn't seemed like I was accusing you of intentional bigotry. I simply wanted a chance to offer insight so that an artist like yourself can go on to create art that has less and less harmful content, because hey, we all have to comb that stuff out of our own art and mindsets. We're kindof raised on bigoted stuff, so we all gotta grow from it, and we all sometimes need to be made aware of ourselves. I hope that all makes sense, I do hope you understand, and that nothing came off weirdly."

... and that's where i was left, 6 years ago or so. i cannot for the life of me find his follow up email claiming how he didnt want his work to come off racist, but its clear in my memory when mentioning it to friends at the time.

personally i dont think toby is a horrible person or whatever, like i mentioned in my first post i think he just simply doesnt want to face the results of taking public responsibility for the problems in his own game, or even backlash in response to him denouncing parts of the fanbase, etc. but like i also mentioned, it's cowardly to to nothing at all about things you're very aware about. i just feel like if he really was concerned about what i brought to his attention, something wouldve been done in the past half decade. not that he owes me or any of us anything personally, but i just find it disappointing all the same after being given the impression that our feelings and safety matter

#undertale #toby fox #long post #999 #<- so i can find this later

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gogojetters · 7 months

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▪︎ REDESIGNING UBERCORN ☆

What if I made an Ubercorn design?? Well, imagine no more, because I just did!! When I redesign the characters, it's always to add more detail and flair, NEVER because I hate a design. Plus, the canon outfits are a little too plain for my art style. So here's what's hopefully the first post in my new redesign series, of Ubercorn!!

I stuck mostly to Ubercorn's 70s and 80s inspired disco look, giving his jumpsuit a bit of an upgrade, making it look a little bit less like a baby's onesie. The top half resembles the canon one a little, still being white with a star pattern, but I deviated from there with a purple star button, a deep neck with a popped collar, blue diamond patches on the arms, and Rainbow sleeve cuffs. The bottom half of the suit deviates a little more from the canon suit, but I encorporated the canon suit's blue into this part, creating a blue-to-teal glittery gradient that stands out amongst the Go Jetters' solid-colour suits. His pants also have the same Rainbow cuffs, creating a bit of unity in the look.

I also tried to encorperate some more modern aesthetics into the look, to account for Ubercorn's love of high technology. I replaced his goggles with a star-shaped visor, with a purple and red gradient which pays homage to his old goggles. Additionally, I decided to give him a protective hairstyle, as in flashbacks or photographs in the episodes, we see that Ubercorn has 4C hair !! I wanted to bring that into his modern look, while still keeping a similar energy to his original hairstyle, so I chose to give him braids, which he wears half put-up, and half down! His tail is also braided, to match ! He also has a little bit of a beard because I just think it looks nice. Don't question how it works if he's covered in fur. Shh. The rest of the design is pretty much the same, with his horn receiving a slight curve, his hooves staying shiny, and giving him some cheek fluff, and earrings. His eyes are a cyan-blue, as I headcanon that Unicorns and other antro horse species to have thevprinter-ink colours as their natural eye colour options. And that's the deep dive into my design !!! ♡♡♡

I really hope that you like my redesign, I'm very proud of it!! I love to create these redesigns, and would eventually like to do the whole cast in this style. This would mean also drawing the Funky Four; Xuli, Kyan, Lars and Foz, then Grandmaster Glitch (& the Grimbots!!) and Tala. I would also love to include my design for JetPad's holographic human form, as to include her in the main group too. If I wanted to further extend it, I could also do Professor Wave, Professor Nouveau, or Finn! I will have to see how I go for time, could take a couple months until I am actually free enough to do all of this, if any. If there's enough positive reception on this, I'll have to get to work sooner !!

As a bonus, I have also made a "Funky Fact File" version, which includes some of my headcanons for Ubercorn (plus some canon stuff!!), and a fun alternate layout. Thank you for reading through this whole post!! ♡♡

Post Also Available on Instagram ☆

Original Ubercorn Design (For Reference)

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cow-legs · 2 months

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What are some of your favorite videogames? ♡ ♡ ♡

(extremely long post incoming lol turns out i have a lot of things to say on this subject)

usually i have too hard of a time trying to remember anything i like to have answers for questions like these but thankfully for this one i have answers prepared since this is something i try to think about a lot

realistically if i had to pick one single "favorite videogame" above the rest itd probably just, like, ocarina of time & majora's mask (i'm considering them to be one videogame because i said so, it;s a package deal), just on account of how much of an impact they had on me from an early age combined with just how often i Still go back to revisit them in one way or another, but this is just about the most basic boring answer a person can have for this question unfortunately

thankfully you asked for some of my favorites instead of just one so i can unveil my Actual list of favorites instead of the one that only holds the top spot by technicality and not because i actually like it "the most". all of my favorite games have such a range in style and quality it's hard to really compare them in any meaningful way

anyway

crypt worlds, space funeral, and off-peak are all pretty different games made by very different people but i usually group them together when talking about stuff like this since collectively finding them all back in the day at roughly the same time kind of shaped my perception of indie games as a whole which probably gave me a very weird and skewed perception of the media but who gives a shit really it's a perception i hold dear. (they weren't the first indie games i ever saw of course but they were the most personally impactful ones that made me go "holy shit, this is awesome, you can do literally whatever you want")

they've pretty heavily influenced my own games, too. there have been multiple times i've started a project and then days later realized "wait shit this is just space funeral again. i'm just making space funeral again but slightly to the left. fuuuck" which is a pretty good problem to have i think.

anyway,

gadget: invention, travel, and adventure is an old point and click game i found a few years ago that struck me by just how unique feeling its atmosphere is. strange looking people turn to you and say even stranger sounding things, the soundtrack feels like its having a nervous breakdown, the main character is given so few meaningful decisions/actions (read: basically none) by the people around them that it can barely be considered a game at all…it is a very fascinating experience, and one that i think back to a lot

i like Your Turn To Die a lot and am very excited to see how it ends, though i feel like i don't have too much to say on it here. one of those games that has me going "oh man i should draw more fanart for that one of these days" every time i'm reminded of it only to then remember that i Can't Fucking Draw right now lmao

myhouse.wad is something that extremely deserves to go on this list but a large part of my brain is telling me not to just because somewhere along the line i fucked up and became allergic to anything that has ever recently become popular & trendy on youtube because i don't want to look like a poser even though literally no one but me cares about where i hear about these things so i can only bring myself to include it if i also state that i played it BEFORE it was cool &all the streamers started covering it like some kind of shameful hipster. but for real though its awesome, very inspiring stuff. i wish my brain did not force me to want to distance myself from it for literally no good reason. fucking ocarina of time is on this list why is this the thing that makes you afraid of looking like a normie

i have a lot of appreciation for myst in a kind of "i've never played more than 5 minutes of this nor have i even bothered to watch a playthrough of it but i understand what you have done for me and the games i love that came after you" kind of way. i have purchased 3 different copies of it over the years as well as a copy of riven and i don't intend on playing any of them anytime soon. great game, probably. i wouldn't know.

i like a lot of kitty horrorshow's games but i don't really know what my favorite would be. lethargy hill is probably the one i think about most often though.

i like (the steam version of) dwarf fortress a lot and have been trying to play it more often. it is very funny having 80 hours in a game and still not feeling like you understand half the mechanics in it. figuring it out as i go along has been fun though. in a similar vein i also like elden ring a lot and despite being at over 160 hours on that one i still haven't beaten it. i need to get back to it before the dlc comes out but i stopped playing for so long that most of my muscle memory is gone…

for something much more recent than all of the above, absolutely perfect specimen is something really incredible that gave me a lot of stuff to think about, though it can be a little hard to recommend since it's extremely 18+ and has a whole big list of content warnings you definitely need to take heed of. extremely interesting work though, i like it a lot.

i'm running out of things to list off and should probably stop just for the sake of time even if there is more shit that deserves mentioning so i'll just end it off with CLONE ON NET YAROZE BABYYYYYY LET'S FUCKIN GO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 💯💪🙌💥💯💯

#asks #i like videogames. huge fan of em

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rohirric-hunter · 1 month

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Oh yeah and this is the shortlist of my OCs/stolen canon characters that are going to Umbar:

Leonys. Leonys is getting to Umbar in an unconventional manner and will not be involved with most of the Epic.

Hathellang. I know the devs aren't reading my fanfic because that's illegal*, but I honestly do find it hard to believe, after they wrote the perfect foil for Hathellang in Nakasi. And it's a delightful challenge because while there's a fair chance I couldn't do so well myself, there's a 100% chance I wouldn't have. Like this is not something I would have thought to write, regardless of how perfect it is. And that's always fun to play with!

Indarant. I mentioned at some point the idea of multiclassing her "back" into Loremaster, but wasn't really sure what I would do with that. A really good setup is a sorcerer antagonist who makes a big deal out of drawing his power from nature. Make her face head-on what scared her so much about the power way back when. Also Kholtekh is going to come up to her like, "I think maybe Thorongil might have possibly become a king. What do you think of that?" and she's gonna fully look him in the eyes and say, "He did. What about it?" Like in public. Woman has No Tact. I am still figuring out her in-universe reasons for going, though.

Dahlia and Ferelin. I may or may not have mentioned on here that their big motivation for leaving the Shire was to track down their missing father, who, being a Took, had gone off on an Adventure, as Tooks do, and then never came back before they were born. So they've actually never met him. And spoilers technically but I don't really care -- they do eventually find him, one of the oar-slaves aboard a Corsair ship in Pelargir. Pretty quickly after the Black Gate he goes back to the Shire to see their mother. The twins, dealing with mixed feelings about All That, stay behind and go adventuring with Leonys and Hathellang some more. They need to see some of the things their father saw, and also have some conversations with a certain old friend going by a really stupid name and playing at being a bounty hunter assassin. For character development.

Helegdil. Helegdil is my mariner alt and is specifically being developed to stop this from happening again. Leonys and Hathellang weren't even supposed to go to Gundabad, let alone Umbar. They need to go home before I have to rewrite major parts of Blood of the Covenant on account of it happening years in the future. So the next time the Urge strikes me to throw them at a new questline I am going to do my level best to throw Helegdil at it instead. He's a new character and hasn't told me much about himself yet, but I've got a strong base with some wibbly themes that I can work into whatever stories he ends up in, probably. Heavily inspired by many indulgent fanfics set in post-war Gondor that I read as a kid.

I am putting Candaith in this situation. Candaith has an arc in Blood of the Covenant that I think will benefit from this sort of adventure.

I would really like to put Boromir in this situation too. I don't know how feasible it is from a logistical standpoint, since Imrahil's very good reasons for not going would also apply to him I think. But I have this vague fuzzy idea for what to Do With Boromir post-war and I think this would lead into it very well. That's the trouble with writing an AU that saves characters that die in canon. You have to Do Something with them, especially if, as in this case, parts of the shape of the story after their death are defined by their absence. It can be a lot of heavy lifting.

*It's not illegal actually I don't think but their lawyers will tell them not to do it. For this specific reason. If I was of a less agreeable sort and could produce evidence that they were reading my fanfic then they run the risk of getting sued. I wouldn't win this particular case, I don't think, but getting sued is expensive. And this has happened in the past I think with some TV shows. So unfortunately no fanfic for writers while they're actively writing for a property.

#(also when i say 'less agreeable' i mean i wouldnt do anything for like. broad ideas. concepts)#(if they were to say lift one of my ocs wholesale then i would not be agreeable about it at all)#(but i do not think they would do that. if only because it would be very stupid. from a legal standpoint)#lotro #spoilers of umbar #the wind will set me racing #i was going to throw belharen into the mix but there wasnt anything there #well there was one thing but it was heavy handed and ridiculous and sort of uncomfortable

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ccpowo · 1 year

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Split tongue Mason!!!

Reworked an old Mason drawing yippie

I never really liked the drawing but posted it anyway, so if you saw it, no you did not

I’ve been kinda developing an artstyle as of lately so I’m kinda excited to see where that’s going

I’m also starting to get into resident evil and I finally was able to buy fe3h wooooooo I love Dimitri

Im also really excited for book 3 and I already pit away some cash to buy it as soon as it’s released hehe

Hope all of you had a better New Year’s Eve than me and good luck for the new year! :D

vv kind of a drawing process and the old sketch vv

Glorious first, rough sketch and the nauseating cleaned up sketch (not the finished product I ended up posting, it's not as terrible somehow)

Did all of that on my phone, on ibis paint and did the rest on my iPad, on csp yippie

Idk if anyone cares but I’ll explain my decisions here:

Okay so, the face was just too long, idk why I was so obsessed with giving him a face that long. The mouth looked awkward as well, the overall shape was bad and, even tho I love it when there's gum showing, I don't think it worked in that drawing, the teeth look weirdly long too. The eyebrows do not make sense either, I placed the eyebrow on the side of his face that's being squished by his mouth high while the other one is low. Does not make sense and it's driving me crazy. I also think that the eyes look boring and soulless. I took influence from different comic book artstyles and completely changed the shape of the eyes. I darkened them too to make it look more sinister. The shading on his face isn't too bad but the pillow shading is killing me. The necklace looks bad too, it's very 2 dimensional and looks like it was painted on tbh I just kinda forgot about it and maybe it's better that way. The hair was pretty nice but it didn't really work for what I was going for in my redraw, would've kept it otherwise. The nsoe is just a bit off and the ears look funky. The pose is awkward as well, just kinda looks like he's staring at you, in a weird weird way. It ended up looking more suggestive than intended tbh. There was no line weight at all, glad that I went for something more painterly. I also added the hearts because I thought it'd be cute to add hearts. Who would've thought that adding hearts to a pretty suggestive drawing would make it even more suggestive! I liked them too much so I kept them. In the end I looked up references for some dramatic lightning, added that on a multiply layer, added some grey and orange, put a black and white duplicated layer of the picture on color dodge, 14% opacity, to make the highlights pop and finished it off with a gradient map yippie

#the wayhaven chronicles #twc #wayhaven fanart #twc art #seraphinitegames #interactive fiction #twc mason #mason #wayhaven mason #agent m #my art

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pugzman3 · 4 months

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The multilayered lie of Christmas

Above are two Public Notices that were produced in the Massachusetts area by the Puritains stating that the practicing of Christmas in any shape or form is banned and prohibited. The reason for this is why I called this post "a multilayered lie", and I will try to keep it short, and will by no means be able to hit all the layers.

The reason for this ban was because the early founders of this country didn't celebrate Christmas. They knew what it was, they knew that the Vatican had merged Jesus with the pagan festival of Saturnalia for deceptive reasons. So when catholics started coming to America "under authority" of the crown, they started bringing ALLLLLLLL the man made traditions and pagan practices of the catholic church. The VERY same ones that partially influenced the reformation, the wars, the mass murder of their brothers and sisters, and the very same religious persecution that they fled England from. They saw what the vatican was doing, so they put a ban on it. But the devil plays a patient game and he is still doing it today, and we are all watching it unfold with the lgbtq agenda. Same game.

But it wasn't just the early reformers and Puritans that spoke out against these pagan celebrations like Christmas. From the beginning some of this demonic merger, Christians were vocal against it. It is these Christians that started tearing Rome in two.

I've made multiple posts about actively participating in these things and opening up doors to demons. In the case of Christmas, I draw your attention to the term, "Stoicheion", which Paul calls "weak and beggerly elements". This isn't new, and Paul was warning the Galatians of this very thing. Read...

In Galatians 4:8, Paul brings up the subject of the idolatry and paganism that they had participated in before their conversion. "But then, indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods." This obviously refers to the worship of pagan deities (Acts 14:8-18). He is making it clear that God had called them out of that way of life. Paul continues this thought in verse 9, where his obvious concern was that the Galatians were returning to the way of life from which God had called them. The "weak and beggarly elements" were demon-inspired, idolatrous practices, NOT something God had commanded. "Elements" here is the same word, stoicheion, translated "elements" in verse 3. An extension of stoicheion can refer to the heavenly bodies that regulate the calendar and are associated with pagan festivals. The apostle condemns the practices and way of life that had been inspired by Satan and his demons, the principal cause of all the world's evil. Paul recognized that the Galatians had begun to return to their former slavish, sinful practices.

It is evident that the "days, months, seasons and years" Paul refers to in verse 10 were the pagan, idolatrous festivals and observances that the Galatian Gentiles had observed before their conversion. They could not possibly be God's holy days because these Gentiles had never observed them before being called, nor would Paul ever call them "weak and beggarly." Rather, they were turning back to their old, heathen way of life that included keeping various superstitious holidays connected to the worship of pagan deities.

Far from doing away with God's holy days, these scriptures show that we should not be observing "days, months, seasons and years" that have their roots in paganism, such as Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day, Halloween, and any other days that originated from the worship of pagan gods.

Here is the link....

https://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/topical.show/RTD/cgg/ID/1627/Stoicheion.htm

Now, by all means, use that same Bible tools website, search Saturnalia, and you will find all kinds of history, with references, to the pagan origins of Christmas, as well as the Vaticans own words in their writings that they knew the holiday was pagan, but the "made it about Jesus", to counteract the paganism. This....is another layer of lie because this is straight Spiritual Warfare. That is NOT how you fight in Spiritual Warfare. But they ran with that lie and have never repented from it. Then they forced the celebration of Christmas on the Christian community. They have hid the pagan roots, shamed those that speak like I am now, hidden history, allowed the non religious angle to be played that distracts further, made it kid friendly so parents have no choice but to keep playing the game, and layer upon layer of deceit and lies.

But back to the Stoicheion, those elements, the "demons", they get attached to all these christmas objects. Then when you bring them in your house, they come with it. Whether you believe it or not, whether you want it or not, whatever reason you celebrate christmas, it matters not.

You are playing THEIR game. Their game, their rules, you have zero choice in what happens next when you actively participate in this demonic holiday. But all the layers hide that.

God called his people to be set apart. If God wanted us to celebrate this, he would have told us to.

Celebrate the "birthday" of Jesus?

My Jesus has no birthday.

He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made, Amen and Amen.

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blizzard-nightlamps · 5 months

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Oh hay! Can you tell us a bit about your fursona?

hii i ABSOLUTELY can! his full name is ethan burns, and hes a cute raccoon. he barely has any real lore, or personality (aside from some tidbits about his piss), but ive had him as my only sona ever for a good 4 years or so and ive both gotten better at drawing and modified him a decent amount since then (that's part of why he doesn't look much like a raccoon). so this will be more like a mostly comprehensive history of his design and the very small very incremental changes to his appearance since day 1.

anyways! this is proto-ethan from April 2019

i had been tossing around ideas for a fursona for a while in my head but realized i wanted to make him a raccoon after reading an old tumblr post about making fursonas. it's two tone cause i wasn't brave enough to pick out colors at the time, which definitely made him look less raccoonish later on. the ears being light on the inside and dark on the outside probably also contributed to that - real raccoons have a sorta rim of light colored fur around their mostly dark colored ears.

THESE are like the beta and full releases of ethan from may and june 2019 respectively. most of his features were defined back then and all changes going forward are like, extremely minimal. the most prominent changes since proto ethan include the removal of the dark fur running from his forehead to his nose, digitigrade legs (i did change them back to plantigrade legs eventually), and making the side of his face and his chest have big tufts of fur (the arrangement of tufts got standardized pretty quickly because im a bitch about keeping his design consistent. not his color though weeee). here are some discord pfps i had of him back in the day

i experimented with giving him a bigger nose and claws among other very minor revisions - since then, his snout has gotten smaller, his fur tufts have gotten bigger, his ears have gotten SIGNIFICANTLY bigger, and he's taller and less stocky. also worth noting how his oval nose slowly morphed into an actual nose shape over time

i also made a bunch of 3d models of him at different points in time, most of which never got totally finished but these are probably the best representation overall of how his design changed over time (ordered by time of creation, the one with no mouth is the oldest from September 2020)

but yeah i dont have much else to say about his design and how it changed over time. also a lot of it can also just be chalked up to me becoming a better artist so there's that.

oh and as a thank you for scrolling through all these itty bitty details about my fursona, let me elaborate about the piss lore i mentioned at the start 1) he pisses liquid nitrogen. 2) due to having no genitals of his own to piss with, he basically remote-accesses the genitals of others nearby and forces his piss out of there. needless to say the experience is deeply unpleasant for those whose genitals he takes control of

#also one of these fursona images is brand new so im posting that soon on its own #furry #my art #fursona

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piereoglyphics · 8 months

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DTIYS WINNERS!!!

Before I do this I'd like to thank those who drew something for my DTIYS, I love all of the work and it was so hard to choose between them. I'm glad I could make a place here on tumblr where I can share my art and my thoughts and mess around and be chaotic. I would never be able to host ANYTHING like this if it wasnt for any of my followers, or anyone whos ever reblogged my posts. Thank you.

Links to the artists original posts are in their placements and are underlined! Please check them out.

3rd place! @roselock22

I fucking love them both. They are so cool 🥺🥺 Cors dumb smile and Kai holding his little mug... they are both so precious. In the original scene they were in, they both actually had hot coco and I'm so surprisee this is here... And the fabric wrinkles are so cool??? I can never get them right. Cor's tail looks so fluffy, i want to squish it!!! Thanks so much <3

2nd place! @dontlookforme00

Hii!!! I love how you draw. The wrinkles never seem to excessive, and the lighting is pretty. The heatlamp is there only cuz Kai wouldn't help if there wasnt one /hj Kai looks likes hes bragging about how great he is and I'm here for it. Cor doesnt mind and listens anyways. I see you sneaking morro into all your art somehow... Seems like a Kai thing to do to keep that on him. AND. YOU HAVE THE HOT CHOCOLATE TOO?? This is sorcery.

1st place! @blazersparker

I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!!! You do so well with face shapes, and them smiling at each other omga.. 🥺🥺 Kai absolutely uses some old sports shirts as pajamas, and I adore the fact you put the little tree symbol on Cor's shirt. His tail is nice and fluffy. Just as it should be. The little lights strung up around them is so cute!! And I love Kai with long hair... such a good idea. I'd like to think Cor suggested the little hairclip because Kai's hair was falling into his eyes or something. And you included Cor's gloves too!!!

HONOURABLE MENTION:

@starwhipnspin

YOUR STYLE . IS SO BUBBLY AND CUTE. You can absolutely see the curls in Cor's hair, and the way you did the fire on Kai's pajama pants is so real. The background you did was so well done and RRAH . its just so pretty. You did Kai's hair so well too!! And i've never seen anyone give him blue eyes. Honestly, he looks great with them. Thanks so much for participating!!!

PLEASE DM ME FOR YOUR PRIZES!!!!! If you don't do so, I'll dm you first!!! You can DM me on Tumblr OR Discord (Piereoglyphics) so we can discuss what you'd like, or for easier communication depending on the one you'd prefer.

Here are the prizes as a reminder:

(I might actually do a little more than this if I feel like it, since I really appreciate all of your artwork!) <3

#ninjago #lego ninjago #art #digital art #glyphsdtiys2023 #ninjago art #ninjago oc #dtiys winners

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hecatombi · 7 months

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001. MISC. PHYSICAL HEADCANONS

(( here is a bunch of miscellaneous physical headcanons i have about the guys, going from the ones with the least changes to the most! Vash and Chai .. are going to have a lot more due to the nature of my insane fixation on them. ))

👇THIS IS A LONG ASS POST! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.👇

ASH WILLIAMS

Ash has five different prosthetic hands, and several chainsaw stumps to attach to his hand.

He prefers to keep his hair as swoopy and voluminous as he had it in army of darkness ( even old ash. sorry ihate his slick combed back look )

GARY GOODSPEED

Gary naturally has heterochromia and blue + brown eyes, but after his possession by invictus, they are a striking bright pink. and it's permanent! Here's a ref i drew of him with them.

Post invictus, he grows his hair out and wears a far more complicated outfit. Like the concept art for the FS graphic novel.

JOSEPH JOESTAR

On top of having a prosthetic right arm, Joseph ALSO has a prosthetic left leg. This is because of the fact that LAVA HIT HIS KNEE CAP IN THAT FINAL BATTLE WITH KARS THERE IS NO WAY THAT DIDN'T DESTROY IT BEYOND REPAIR!!!!! So, double amputee.

When he is upset or mad, Joseph's hand clicks and wriggles around every joint independantly, and it is typically the only tell that he's angry or upset in any way if he's trying to hide the fact.

Joseph's arm was made by the SPW. not. who they're from in canon. <:) On top of that, it has several different functions, and a different appearance from canon. There are 5 star shaped buttons on it with varying uses. I.. still need to decide them, though.

He is NEVER ever seen without the remaining burnt headband of Caesar's. Ever. A common stim he has is twirling the ends of it.

CHAI

Now, i have a big ol' about page coming for Chai soon, but let's start here.

To get things out of the way; Chai has HORRIFICALLY poor vision. He refuses to get glasses though, because he is certain it makes him look like a nerd. He really, REALLY NEEDS THEM though. He's more farsighted.

Chai always had arrhythmia and other heart defects before his surgery at Vandelay. On top of that, he did not have mobility in his left arm at all, which is why he went in for the arm surgery. They told him they'd help with his heart too, but ...

.. the MP3 player + core replaced his heart entirely. And also gave him top surgery for free, even though he'd been too poor to afford it, as his breasts got in the way of the core. However, his top scars are more than just that; there are thick scars, branding him with the vandelay logo down his entire torso, becauuuuse...

His insides and organs had to be reworked to physically accept such a drastic change to his body. I'm talking moved around, and more than just his heart and arm replaced with robotics.

He straight up is an eldritch, terrifying mess of organs and wires in there. He doesn't know how much of him is robotic and how much is organic anymore. I draw this from the factt hat when electrocuted, Chai's skeleton shows up -- but his skeleton also includes the magnetic waste management tool in his arm, as well as the fact that the things he survives physically NOBODY ELSE CAN. AT ALL. like jesus christ he is somehow so resilient to things literally nobody else in game is under the same circumstances. Also, his body and brain can be hacked directly from his arm. You can't do that with organics, only tech.

So... that's why I think he's more robot than person now. Or cybernetic, if you want to get technical. W/e

His life span has been extended by an unknown amount, and he will age significantly slower if at all due to this change in his body. Oh, and the outer shell of the arm is made of a compound that is not metal. Dont know what it is, but it's still just as strong and durable.

It is possible for Chai to sync with other robotic beings in the same way he synced with 808( his cat ); you have a 50/50 chance of hearing the music that always plays in his head forever, like 808 now does, OR hearing the world moving to a musical beat for the rest of your life. Until he dies, anyways -- if / when he does.

His music core is shown to thump and beat like a heart, and if it pounds hard enough, it's enough to jerk his chest and cause him to get a little dazed-- it's definitely uncomfortable when it thumps so hard. I think he watches it cause he's nervous if his heart is fucking up or something, given that was a BIG health anxiety his entire life. Only 808 managed to snap him out of it, as you can see here.

Speaking of that, post surgery? He LITERALLY can not process anything beyond music and beat he can not hear. For the rest of his life, he will always move to a beat nobody can hear; the environment makes music around him; you can see in this example here how everything in the environment and even his own movements fall largely to the beat of the song. See the video below for an example of this.

youtube

He will never be able to hear or see the world regularly again. Not that Chai minds; he LOVES music. Adores it, even. He'd be happy to live with this the rest of his life. Which is good, cause he really has to.

He picked up cat tendencies from 808 when they synchronized, just as 808 picked up chai mannerisms ( like the way he fights & love of rock and roll ). They often mirror each other because Chai is influencing 808's expression more than you'd think! They pretty much share a single braincell now.

And, to close it all off; the surgery also gave him insane durability, as already discussed.. but it ALSO gave him nuts dashing techniques, and an ability to jump to a ridiculous degree. He's a very sturdy man now!

VASH SAVEREM

Vash only LOOKS human, but as we know, he certainly ISNT. He's a Plant; an independant variety, which is exceedingly rare. Plants are strange fusions of literal plants, angels, and mechanical blueprints that all meld together to make a more techno-organic being.

Because he only LOOKS human, I have PLENTY of hc's about his body and form and how they actually differentiate from your typical human.

First and foremost; he's trans. ALL plants are born female, no exceptions, as said by canon; which makes vash canonically trans. Pretty cool, right? but, in canon, where he doesn't have this -- he has plant private parts ( flower based ) and one of his breasts left. He has no desire to bind or for top surgery, as his chest is small anyways -- but he lost one of them a long time ago. More about the state of his body later, but this is important to still note.

Now, his teeth. He has fangs that he has filed down to look smaller, but they are still pretty sharp. His teeth are NOT defined like a humans; it's like .. kind of a solid plate of metal for bone? Teeth? With only vague outlines of where they should separate.

His eyes are an unnatural piercing blue, which we already know; however, the reason he wears those big orange glasses may surprise you! They're actually marksman glasses, which are known to be orange; however, they also serve as a neutralizer to his eyes. If you look at his glasses head on, through them, his eyes look like a neutral blue-gray. However, if you take off his glasses, they're still a BRIGHTLY inhuman blue.

And yes, they glow in the dark.

In BLUE and UV LIGHT specifically, his plant marks will show no matter what. Though, in blue light, they're much fainter / mostly in the eyes ( and they make them glow as you see in the example below ), while in UV all light patterns are exposed. When he heals plants, these also become pretty visible -- but if he has too use TOO much of his angelic power, one of two things could happen.

He goes comatose and unresponsive for a short while; blank stare, unable to react or process anything around them. Sometimes he can snap out of it, sometimes he can't. It really depends.

His hair will brown or blacken. If you know what this means, have a gold star! If you don't, this means he is ACTIVELY shortening his life span and using too much of his power at once. When a plant's hair browns or blackens, it means they no longer have limitless energy.

Side note; since we see that since birth, Vash has had BROWN EYEBROWS ( whereas all plants are born with blonde hair and blonde eyebrows, and blue eyes, NO MATTER WHAT ); i have a headcanon that because Nai is based on a toxic albino plant that was never meant to live in the reboot, he subconciously saved Nai at birth. He was always the stronger twin in terms of health, where Nai was sicker.

Also .. despite his glasses being pretty normal marksman glasses, he can do this thing where he reflects everything in the environment BUT his eyes subconciously; it's a big tell that he's trying to stay distant and not let people read his next expressions. He often does this to distance himself or when he's being vague. It happens a bunch in moments specifically where he does that in show, so im adopting that as a little weird plant quirk he can do. Call it manipulation of light and reflection, I suppose, since he IS a plant...

He's way taller than he looks. He will keep continuously growing for the rest of his life til a certain point, to which his true height would be around 9 ft to 10 ft tall at the least when in humanoid form. However, as of right now, he is 7'5 in his natural body. Here's the fun part though; he actually SHIFTS HIS BONES and condenses his weight and appearance to look more humanlike, but that still leaves him at a hefty 6'5. Even despite this effort to appear smaller and more unassuming, due to the poor nutrition on Gunsmoke, nearly every human is much, much smaller than him. Unless they've been genetically and unethically modified, of course. Then they can get fucking giant . But, nobody matches his height on an average basis there.

when he's in his full 7'5 ( and growing!! ) form, his limbs are gangly, and too long. His eyes look Bigger, and his skin a little bluer; his fingertips get elongated with a black gradient like all his plant sisters. Example here.

His angel arm is something he does not bring out due to a great deal of trauma with that and knives; he does not have access to a full plant angel form. What he DOES have access to is a gigantic angel arm, and three pairs of wings; parts of his body transform into an eldritch mechanical angel kind of being, but not all of his body can. This is because of his twin, Nai / Knives having the other half. Had Nai never existed, Vash would have full access to his plant angel form. He is one of the most powerful plants of his kind with said angel arm, but ... he'd sooner kill himself than ever use it. There'sa a whole rant i have about how he feels having been forced to have it out, but .. that's for later.

Now, for this paragraph, heads up for y'all for mentions of starvation and body dysmorphia, over all bad condition of a body. The next red text you'll see is where discussion of this stops. as is pretty heavily established, Vash has a great deal of body dysmoprhia. He is absolutely letting his body fall apart at the seams, and frequently punishes himself for "failing" to protect people by starving himself, despite needing it to survive / have energy and heavily enjoying food. That is why he's so damn scrawny! Which is unfortunate, but he has so so many complexes ( shout i make a separate infodump about this too? ) tht this is just par for the course. Now, he could heal the scars and shit on his body faster if he wanted to, but he's pretty self conscious about it. He will let any humans hurt him if he deems it justified, and unforch, he usually does. He lets them beat him senseless, cut him up, shoot him -- nothing he couldn't survive, anything goes. his body is straight up canonically barely held together by thick staples and grates of metal over exposed muscle.

This is part of why he never takes off his coat, ever. Or those long sleeved shirts of his. I mean, he might to shower or clean up wounds, but...... very rarely does he do this. He just takes whatever beating humans give him cause he feels he deserves it, and deals with it.

Warning over!

With all the heavy stuff said, here's a few final short hcs.

He photosynthesizes some, and really enjoys basking in the sun.

He's a very light sleeper and rarely ever gets decent sleep. He's pretty much always exhausted, but never lets it show.

CAN'T EVER LISTEN TO CLASSICAL MUSIC. it puts him into SERIOUS triggered mode and gets him too panicked to think straight, even after Nai / Knives died.

His hair looks like normal hair, but it absolutely DOES NOT feel like it. It feels like really soft velvety flower petals, and will always keep this consistency.

He's got inhumanly amazing marksmanship, yet somehow, being drunk ( should he ever GET drunk ) improves it more. Yes, I stole this bit from 98 vash but i think it's funny and it's my interpretation so this is what i keep. ok? :)

And lastly ...

He stims by reloading and loading guns :3

Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed! Should I make a part 2 sometime? :p

#oops. i accidentally spent all day on this ... ahahaha #* fuckboy lip bites *#╰┈➤ 🎸 [ STUDY ] chai #╰┈➤ 🚀 [ STUDY ] gary #╰┈➤ 🪓 [ STUDY ] ash #╰┈➤ 🌿 [ STUDY ] vash #╰┈➤ 🌟 [ STUDY ] joseph

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rubsjuice · 2 years

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The Mayor Rant

no need to say it twice my friend

This is my unadultered rant on the character of Wayward Vagabond, The Mayor, and how he was robbed by everyone who ever had creative control over him

Okay, so let me start with a simple "Who is WV". WV, the Mayor. He was a simple farmer in Skaia, he's seen the horrific consequences of monarchy and war and he thinks he and his friends could do a better job at organizing society. He has a very black and white (pun intended) way of thinking and he often punishes himself for silly thoughts. Remember when he calls himself stupid over and over and hits himself over the head for thinking of a silly thing to do?

Over the course of homestuck, he develops a set of traits that we can very easily consider PTSD after he sees Jack Noir slaughter countless brothers-in-arms without regard for shell color, shape or alignment; he has night terrors about it, and very specifically about becoming just the same if he ever puts the ring of whatever four-fold to transform into a powerful beast to hunt down Jack Noir for it. He's afraid of becoming just the same as the people he swore to destroy, and this is so. important. for his characterization. He's a kind, gentle, and stern leader who isn't afraid of gathering troops or guerilla fighting of course, but he shies away from mindless violence and death, and he'd rather not send troops to be slaughtered like they're nothing. This is the Mayor. A man with simple roots, a dream, and overwhelming trauma.

(ngl same)

So what did Hussie do with this incredible backstory and development, a couple thousand pages down the line? When WV was stuck in the meteor with a bunch of teenagers and confused out of his fucking mind?

He turned him into davekat's little pet

Like seriously the flaunderization of WV is something no other character experiences in the entirety of the webomic, how the fuck do you go from "revolutionary democratic leader" to "two teen's bug puppy"? Dave flat out talks to and about WV as if he was a pet, or at the very least a creature with less sapience than he does

Karkat sorta has a conversation with him? But it's mostly framed as a joke, so the narrative wasn't treating him seriously anyway

That's a really big problem, because if the narrative doesn't treat him like a person, the fans don't have any incentive to do so either. I've seen more fanart that treats him like he's an irrational animal than I've seen art treating him as the real complex character that he is. I've seen humanstuck AU fanfics that write him as davekat's old golden retriever. I can tell whether an artist treats WV seriously or not by looking at how they draw him (it's always something in the eyes). Paired with the fact that a lot of his "silly behaviors" are either symptoms of mental illness or externalizations of neurodivergence, it all gives me a very sour taste in my mouth.

After all that and Collide, WV gets his happy ending, building a town and community in Earth C

Or did he?

I present to you: the credits

In which is established the existence of a, and I quote "carapacian kingdom" in Earth C

Based on my exposé you probably figured out that WV would be at the very least be reticent about naming anything in the new world a "kingdom" even if post-canon implies it's not actually a kingdom, what matters here is the presentation; as someone who believes strongly in the representative democratic system, the way things are worded would be incredibly important to WV, so why would they think that's acceptable at all for him?

The credits showing Callie and Roxy as like the leaders also boiled my blood a little bit because of how chess racist roxy is i mean really those guys raised her from infancy and she thinks they're lesser than her, never bothered to learn their language and thinks they're helpless without her bringing them pumpkins like ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS

All that just left me with the unwishful thinking that Earth C was a paradise for trolls and humans but if you weren't one or the other you were treated with indifference because you were just "a silly salamander" or "a little chess guy"

And I know that the epilogues and Homestuck 2 explicitly made the credits not canon, but they follow the same baselines and the same attitude about the aliens that we can call "game constructs", so really how non-canon could it be

I was blissfully thinking about ways to explore that when the bonus updates dropped, and in one of them there's a long block of purple prose basically outlining the authors' perfect democratic system (which kind of really sucks if you know anything about politics besides twitter buzz words but that's besides the point) and attributing that "marvelous feat of democracy" to WV as if he would ever think separating representation by race was a good idea

He's been part of a race war before! he knows how things like that start!!

And in the end they even write some bullshit about WV thinking "ooooh maybe it won't work out i'm scared of it happening oooo" because deep down they know they're full of shit and they know this is a disservice to the character but they don't care about it enough to make something decent. He might be a simple farmer but he's not incompetent

Anyway, this doesn't really matter at all anymore because of intricate twitter drama i don't have time nor energy to type out, i'm just really really passionate about this guy

This was WV, he lived, he served cunt, died twice and was grossly mischaracterized in two completely different directions by anyone who had any creative liberty over him

#mafa talks #mafa talks a lot #homestuck #wv homestuck #the mayor

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simplynotcapable · 18 days

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new chapter seven scene

I am adding a new scene to chapter seven between Visenya and Laenor; several new smaller snippets are going to be added, but this is the only big chunk of new content in the chapter

i'm posting it here for anyone who doesn't want to reread the whole chapter but still would like a glimpse into enya and laenor's dynamic

"You are so frightfully dramatic," Laenor said with a snort, and Visenya buried her face deeper into the cushion with an indignant noise. Her entire body ached with a bone-deep sort of soreness; her thigh was still smarting from the smack he'd laid across it with the flat of the practice blade, and the dull headache throbbing in her temples threatened to worsen into agony with every pulse of her heart; she did not think it dramatic to take refuge on her sister's sofa. "I did not run you so hard as that."

"Harwin never makes me swing fire pokers," she mumbled without raising her head.

"Wooden swords do not build your arm strength," Laenor said, dismissively. "And Harwin does not because he knows I do it. You might give up the practice if it bothers you so."

"You are cruel," she moaned in answer, groaning as she used her arms to shove herself up. "A cruel, wicked, vindictive monster, and I wish Nyra never would have—" She finally looked towards him and froze when she noticed a fat, leatherbound book dangling from his fingertips. "What is that?"

"You must not," he said, sternly, "tell your sister."

Pain and soreness forgotten, she scrambled to her feet and dashed across the room to where he stood beside the other sofa. He immediately raised his arm, keeping the book out of her reach even as she rose onto the tips of her toes and stretched her arms to their limit, trying to snag it from him. "What is it?"

"Swear to me that you will not tell your sister," Laenor said, stretching his arm even further out of reach when she gave a frantic little hop and started yanking at his shoulder. "I will not have her cross with me because you cannot keep your lips together."

"What is it, Laenor?" she demanded again, lunging for it once more, and he hissed when she stomped on his foot. "Show it to me!"

"You must swear," he crooned, dancing backward. "I promised the boys I would attend their lesson today, and I am already late; swear it to me quickly, hāedus, or I shan't give it to you!"

"I swear I will not tell Nyra!" she cried, and he swung his arm down with a laugh and allowed her to yank it greedily from his grasp. He tugged her braid as she twisted to the side and fell backward onto the couch, dragging the book up to her face to examine it and leaving her legs dangling loosely over the arm. "Will you not tell me what it is now?"

It was old; she knew that much from the worn leather of the binding, the feel of the paper, the smell—she adored the smell of old books, voracious for them in this life as she hadn't been in the first one. When she opened it, though, she knew it was more than old; the faded ink curled itself into the shape of High Valyrian.

"Where did you get this?" she asked, near reverently, drawing it close to her chest in case he tried to take it away. "Nyra forbade me from reading of the blood rituals; she says I am too young."

Perhaps she would be correct if Visenya was any other girl of twelve, a child in all ways instead of only parts, but such was not her lot in life. Her mind twisted in on itself, little girl and woman grown warring for purchase, things she should not know mixed with things she still could not remember. Such a text would be too complicated for her to translate if she did not have another lifetime's memories of speaking Valyrian with Baelon; such a text would be too…much for her if she did not have the steadiness of someone who remembered birth and death and blood in truth.

Valyrian blood rituals, after all, were not kept to slitting the bellies of goats or the palms of soldiers or even the throats of virgin maidens. Dark magic, twisted magic of flame and fear. Children broken, men tortured, women brutalized. Even those that hadn't required death and soul-corroding sorts of sin were not anything fit for a child's eyes, rooted in sex and shadow and secrets.

Really, now that she thought about it, giving her the book was very irresponsible on Laenor's part. He knew nothing of the complexities of her head; to him, she was only a girl of twelve.

"I wrote to Laena," Laenor said, almost sheepish, and he pointed at her threateningly. "You swore to me, so you must not tell your sister; I will not have her cross with me. If she discovers you have it, you must say you found it on your own somehow."

"Are you teaching a child to lie, lēkȳs?"

"You already know how to lie, Enya," he answered, drily. "Better than most men and women grown, I suspect. You need no lessons from me."

"Slander," she muttered, beginning to carefully turn the pages, and then she grinned at him. "Thank you."

"Anything for our Enya, of course," he said, smile dimpling as he dipped into a bow with a weaving flourish of his arm. He paused when he drew out of it, then stared at her thoughtfully for a moment. Looking at her with vague concern, lips pursing and eyes narrowing, he ventured, "You must not try to replicate any of them. They tell you so little of the process that you will accomplish nothing anyway, and—"

"You should have extracted more promises before you gave it to me," she said, burrowing deeper into the couch and burying her nose into the book. "As it is now in my hands, you have no bargaining power. Furthermore, I am considering your giving it to me as volunteering yourself for any and all experiments; I do thank you for your service."

"You cannot have my blood, Enya," Laenor said, in the tone of one who has little hope of being heeded, and he tapped her leg in farewell before turning to head for the door.

Visenya grinned at the book and, without looking up, called, "We all must sleep sometime, lēkȳs."

*&*&*

Laenor got no chance to attend the boys' lesson; by the time he left, Harwin Strong and Criston Cole had already ended it.

#silverandmoonstone #dragonglassandgold #ao3 works #house of the dragon #hotd #hotd fic #ao3 author

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