#working on background skills

[poposusz]

I did a thing. It has a companion fic as well.

[badolmen]

They don’t even attempt to assassinate US politicians anymore. You notice that? Not since the anthrax scare back for… who was it, Barack? And even that… pathetic. This new generation has no respect for an honest hitman. I’m not sure this new generation has any honest hitman - you see that shit with Boeing? Sloppy, fucking disgraceful - you kill the whistleblowers before they get halfway to a lawsuit. What kind of fucking amateur is doing faked suicides the night before testimony? Goddamn greenhorns. Back in my day someone tried to shoot Ronald Reagan in broad daylight. There used to be bomb threats to Congress. I took out a few union leaders in the utilities sector myself. Today’s generation? Won’t even threaten to throw a punch - not even over on that - what’s it now, ‘X’? They got no guts. None! And they don’t even have poor impulse control to boot! Too much of that - that panopticon anxiety bullshit. “Oh what if I get a called out post???” People used to send the president letters full of bioweapons. In the mail! Today’s generation? Not a chance. All because of woke.

[nagasleeps]

beach day!

[sevastiel]

A Thousand Lifetimes

Drifter appreciation piece :3

[xamelsketch]

¡Orpheus and Eurydice!

[konoharfts]

“…When I’m with you the world makes sense, but when we are apart I see clearly that your world is not one from which one can escape..”

Heard the “Dear Arthur” Red Dead clip and thought of my rancher Gai and outlaw Kakashi from the Cowboy AU so uhhhhh now y’all have this 🤷‍♀️

Anyways, enjoy the sad gay cowboys, they took years off my life 🙃

^^ full comic

Yeah so basically my concept was that Kakashi and Gai met each-other at a bar, got into some shenanigans (lots of stupid challenges and flirting ), and yadda yadda thy start seeing eachother on the down-low.

At first the whole Kakashi being an outlaw thing doesn’t really matter to Gai. The tales of his dangerous and illegal adventures are exciting and it’s definitely not horrifying when he comes to the Maito ranch with blood oozing out of a barely patched wound. It’s endearing that he trusts Gai enough to help stitch him up on the kitchen table.

And it’s not like Kakashi likes doing illegal activities… he just has people he needs to protect, people who he’s completely loyal to, and sometimes those people need him to back them up while they do illegal activities. 🤷‍♀️

But, you know how it goes, suddenly it starts to catch up. Suddenly the grey gets murky and someone takes it a step too far and now your boyfriend is being actively hunted by law enforcement 🤷‍♀️ Suddenly those stories become concerning, and you wonder if the next time he stumbles through your door with an injury he got god knows where will be that final nail. Suddenly you don’t want to ask how he got it.

(^^ by you I mean Gai, buuut you get the idea)

So yeah.. Gai knows full well well that Kakashi’s loyal to his crew to a fault. He knows that no matter how good life is when Kakashi’s around - how good KAKASHI’S life is when they’re together - Kakashi will never abandon his comrades…. And Gai’s whole life is on that ranch…

So now the only time Gai sees Kakashi is on the various wanted posters that circulate (though they could never quite get his eyes just right) and the only time Kakahshi sees Gai is the few times he has a nice dream (instead of a nightmare)

Yeah anyways you guys see the vision right? I don’t even have that strong of a plot idea I just get my heart ripped out every time I hear that RDR2 scene and I figured Cowboy AU KakaGai kinda fits so 🤷‍♀️

If anyone read that I will serenade you sofly 🫶🎶🎷🐛

[threecowsusingthistoreadcomics]

Grumbot doodle :]

This design is technically related to the Hermit Hat Atelier AU, but I think it works as a standalone piece as well.

[aliferous-ly]

special shout-out to everyone making gifs for the hermit charity event you are my absolute favorite people and the lifeblood of hermitblr <3

[archerdepartures116]

Contary to popular belief, I CAN draw backgrounds

also my OCs incase anyone is interested

Im currently planning and writing a story and I have more characters I need to make ref sheets for but here are some of them heh

Fun fact, I named my accounts after my oc so there's that

[lavrushkl0l]

Maybe you could draw Rod and Tim playing with trains together… This ideas been in the back of my mind for a while

I absolutely LOVE this idea, sooo i sketched it! Tysm for request, it's such a cute suggestion:D

[poposusz]

Napping in the sunlight.

[weirdglassthing]

Probably all of the thirteen beers at the local cheese drawings I’ll do but these two are so funnnnn

[bonefall]

Do you think the clan cats having less kits per litter/less litters in general (they already have less kits than real cats) would fix the bloated cast issue? Because I look at Ginga and the cast is also bloated and only a few characters have offspring but the author keeps making other dogs join Ohu and refuses to kill the old as fuck dogs

I don't think there's any one particular "solution" for stopping bloat in series that manage large casts through generations like Ginga or WC, it's actually a few things

The #1 MOST important thing I think about bloat, though, is that it's about a ratio of quality to quantity. NOT raw size.

A long while back I made a couple of allegiance lists for certain eras. In spite of my Clans having the same (or even higher!) population as canon, I NEVER struggled with those lists being bloated. If anything, sometimes if a Clan's below 30, they look too small.

(I'm sure you can find those lists if you look, they're probably tagged BB!Allegiance, but they might be a bit out of date)

That's because in BB, there's dozens of HUGE cultural additions to Clan life. In "administration," alone, there's 3 new major divisions of skills (hunting, cooking, construction) ALL with their own "head" of that patrol, plus canon's leader, deputy, and Cleric. Not to mention subtitles like the Educator and maybe a Chaperone/Permaqueen!

So to bring it back to that "Ratio Theory," If our Clan is 30 cats, those 8 major roles immediately give at least a slight amount of character to a little over 25% of our group, with each role being something that the other 75% of cats can desire and compete for.

Canon's measly 3 is 10%, and you can ONLY vy for deputyship if you want any power. There's nothing else to BE ambitious about.

You can make the ratio higher by having hobbies, drama, skills, arts, etc. Basically; characterize background characters! Which should be obvious!! Give them traits that are useful and interesting and show the community being valuable.

It won't feel like "bloat," it has the sense of communities living their lives. Even if they go quiet for a while, when they return (just look at how much people like seeing Sedgecreek or Hallowflight mentioned lmao) it feels like meeting an old friend again.

WAYS TO MAKE BLOAT FEEL WORSE;

Giving too many "opportunities" to old characters.

Think of every relevant role a cat gets as a meal, and the bigger the role the more they've eaten. If you're only giving value to your old fanfavs, you're not doing much for them because they're already full while the rest of your cast starves.

Haphazardly killing off characters.

I actually strongly resent the "trend" where people conflate good storytelling with an author's willingness to suddenly kill characters off. I think it comes from the same place as needing to "outsmart" your audience.

If you kill off a character with VALUE, an unfinished arc, interesting connections, it's just unsatisfying. The Erins have this problem of killing background characters with some established lore or value (like Harelight and Briarlight) while leaving uninteresting background nobodies behind that they never build back up.

Before killing a character, ask yourself what their role in the cast is, and their dynamic with others. Try not to axe them without a plan to fill that "role" and/or comment on their absence. Replace what you take.

EASY REPLACABILITY

This one is HUGE, this is why Ginga is so bad with this. If a bunch of dogs die, 100 random soldiers can replace them from somewhere. That is REALLY bad, because all the random influxes of new characters do not have a chance to replace what was lost.

It also makes death feel cheaper. Oh no! Background dog 7446 got eaten by the newest type of bear. This won't make battles harder to win or cause us to lose any valuable skills though. Also a new dog just walked in from offscreen.

Population Growth outpaces Death Rate

AKA your cast is growing too fast and you're not getting rid of old characters. This is what anon was asking about-- and it CAN help to make births less frequent and litters smaller. Make sure to pair with preventing lots of new, adult characters to casually wander in, too.

ALL of these tips have exceptions and places where they can (and should) be subverted and broken. But these are just things I think about

[kineticallyanywhere]

Monkey’s Paw pages 144-147 ( START HERE || ao3 || previous || next ) AU after episode 62. The Omega Dads try a more desperate gambit, but   careful what you wish for. Our dads find alternate versions of themselves in a strange dreamscape. If you die in the dream, do you die in real life?

"three psych outs in a row is that good writing" let me COOK

anyway hey guys im still alive. these pages just did not wanna happen. mostly panelings fault. finished not perfect, amiright?

[smash-chu]

Are you really planning on making a fan Viva Piñata game?

Well, it's a whole team, you can find the development discord here and the community discord here for Return to Paradise :3

I'm just the current art lead of the project, so aside from doing concepts and UI elements i also evaluate and organize the concepts made by the other developers, along with other management things. I've also made a whole bunch of art guides as well, and so on

Have one of the videos made for the showcase in the community server, showing off some of the artic assets made so far, music made by the music team, and the ambient effects

[onesnoopyaday]

It's Charles M. Schulz's 102nd Birthday Today!

Snoopy #56

26/11/2024

Reference image under the cut :)

(source)

Also here is an interview snippet which I thought was interesting. I've never thought much about what his creative process might have been like. Also, I didn't realise that the panels he drew on were so much larger than what ended up in print. I mean, it makes sense, but I guess I always just assumed he drew up the squares exactly the way they looked in the end.