selkra-souza

[selkra-souza]

He killed off all his competition but they'll be okay later

[selkra-souza]

I got you boss. I found you a nice and vulnerable profile for you to attack.

[selkra-souza]

Gonna upload it again so it can show up in tags.

[selkra-souza]

ROUND TWO BABY! There's two more ref sheets done this year<3

Aye yo I met my goal of 6 ref sheets in time for art fight boo ya. I've got more OCs I'll make ref sheets of, but I'll prioritize them after art fight and they'll be ready for next year. If you're still interested in seeing my account, view it here!

[selkra-souza]

Mild spoilers below since I’m talking about themes and the first act of the movie.

It’s a cute movie about finding out you’re not alone and reconnecting with family IN SPACE. Though I can already anticipate YouTube animation reviewers calling it mid because of this simplicity.

None of us are immune to nostalgia, she’s a powerful bitch; it’s easy to get rose tinted glasses over past Disney and Pixar films like (the original) Lilo & Stitch and Wall•E. But, what those two films do have is the systemic social commentary (Lilo and Stitch has themes of colonialism and child protective services, and Wall•E has themes of environmental degradation and reliance on mega corporations for convenience) that Elio lacks. My expectation that there’d be mature themes appropriate for a family movie (something Disney and Pixar used to do more of) is most likely going to make Elio wildly described as a mediocre Pixar movie if that ends up happening.

My only other critique is most scenes were more fast paced than I’d like. I wish the pacing and choreography could’ve focused more on the environment of the Connectiverse facility. It looks like such a fun place to explore, especially in the first act when Elio was getting aquatinted with it. That scene could’ve been the action of a registration process in a luxurious garden office full of excited new colleagues or a visit to his new fancy condo full of high end alien amenities like blorp snack bars and a floating glow pool and all sorts of other eye candy while meeting his new neighbors. The montage we got instead felt too quick for me, especially since it’s the whole reason Elio is motivated to stay there.

Cute movie, loved the magma warlock space worms. 7/10.

Watching Elio on opening day brb

[selkra-souza]

Watching Elio on opening day brb

[selkra-souza]

What if Don was a space truck hauler in space who had dreams of saving endangered species from the disciples of virtual augmented reality gods while wearing green jeans

[selkra-souza]

Perhaps I should adopt this lifestyle 👀

me: i wanna talk about my ocs

someone: ok tell me about your ocs

me, suddenly convinced that every single thing about my ocs is stupid and cringy and probably offensive: i. have them

[selkra-souza]

The Portals Out of Dreamland Are Made with the Shed Feathers of Moths

[selkra-souza]

And this ✨

m1=28.5 m2=16.7 m3=21.8 (solar masses) v1x=-0.147 v1y=0.411 v2x=-4.96 v2y=-3.042 v3x=4.941 v3y=-4.652 (km/s) x1=-31.0 y1=8.0 x2=11.0 y2=5.0 x3=14.0 y3=-23.0 (AU from center) Music: Adagio for Strings – Barber

[selkra-souza]

One of my main problems currently is that I don’t really know what to do with my space alien sophant OCs, for story reasons and simply in general.

What I’ve learned so far is to really get a firm enough understanding of each alien species biology (physiology, reproduction, how they sense their environment), and some culture basics (so that you know what’s normal for them and what’s countercultural for them). Both are needed to have enough of an understanding of populations of alien people.

At the same time, get a firm enough understanding of the setting the alien characters are in (climate, infrastructure, economy, ecology) so that you see opportunities for niches (like jobs) in their setting to fill.

Problems (conflict) arises where there’s conflicts of interests, difficult dreams to chase, interpersonal struggles, legal issues, work issues, etc. All based on the above info.

“Firm enough” doesn’t necessarily mean overly detailed. The simpler and more straight forward the better actually.

This is my basic alien sophant OC design 101.

Might have mentioned this before but BYG is going through a kind of soft reboot where I’m tweaking the main setting until it’s a fun sandbox and tweaking the sophant designs and cultures until they’re fun dolls to play with. I kind of spent years not realizing this is supposed to be fun. I just wish this was possible to do in an afternoon instead of like… months…

[selkra-souza]

Me when I realize that the best way to improve my sci fi is to stop being a workaholic perfectionist and allow myself the fun deed of reading and watching more sci fi.

Might have mentioned this before but BYG is going through a kind of soft reboot where I’m tweaking the main setting until it’s a fun sandbox and tweaking the sophant designs and cultures until they’re fun dolls to play with. I kind of spent years not realizing this is supposed to be fun. I just wish this was possible to do in an afternoon instead of like… months…

[selkra-souza]

Might have mentioned this before but BYG is going through a kind of soft reboot where I’m tweaking the main setting until it’s a fun sandbox and tweaking the sophant designs and cultures until they’re fun dolls to play with. I kind of spent years not realizing this is supposed to be fun. I just wish this was possible to do in an afternoon instead of like… months…

[selkra-souza]

The cream parts are the Superego/Highest Self blending with The Self and the brown parts are the Id/Subconscious blending with The Self. Both are also shapeshifters maybe. Still figuring that out.

There's my fursona which is what I'd wish to turn into using the Dragon Balls, and then here's my paraself, The Self (with a capital S) also called Souza, used to interact with my inner world. It can shape shift into any anthropomorphic form, from furries to fruit plants to fanny packs (as long as it's orange with optional cream and brown patterns, because visual consistency is cool).

[selkra-souza]

Basic masterpost of all the Broken Yolk Galaxy sophonts, all drawn to scale. These are (almost) all space fairing species originating and coexisting within the colliding galaxies of Broken Yolk. Their space fairing histories collectively go back several thousand years. An overview of their history can be read below.

~~~

The nedal have the longest history in space, going back thousands of years. This hypersocial people spent the first millennia or two exploring and sending satellites to the far reaches of the galaxy and building simple colonies on neighboring planets beyond their homeworld looking for signs of life to befriend, or at least to care for. They've spent centuries feeling alone in the universe until they came across the planet of the zrai. All zrai originate from hunter-gatherer villages centered around their "mother" polyps, with cultures highly invested in socializing, the arts, altered states of consciousness and memory sharing. The nedal, elated to have finally found "space friends", made a vigorous attempt to befriend and aid the zrai "to civilization in space", to varying degrees of success depending on how much each village was willing to meddle with foreign extra terrestrial influence. To the initial confusion (and at worst abandonment anxiety) of the nedal, most zrai villages rejected this treatment and contact altogether, only some were open to a close allyship, and only a rare few consented to be uplifted to join the nedal in space. All modern space populations of zrai outside their homeworld are descendants of these past uplifted zrai.

Nedal made contact next with the delorix, who by now have settled with a few of their own intricately complex space colonies across the galaxy. The delorix, who focus their space expansion on terraforming, bioengineering and planting life on other planets, saw a common goal with the nedal, and together the two pulled resources to build more colonies across the galaxy, often with settled planets housing delorix and nedal (and the uplifted zrai under nedal care when applicable) in cohabitation.

Nedal made contact next with the delorix, who by now have settled with a few of their own intricately complex space colonies across the galaxy. The delorix, who focus their space expansion on terraforming, bioengineering and planting life on other planets, saw a common goal with the nedal, and together the two pulled resources to build more colonies across the galaxy, often with settled planets housing delorix and nedal (and the uplifted zrai under nedal care when applicable) in cohabitation.

While the delorix and nedal/zrai colonies expanded in one corner of the galaxy, their satellites orbiting around another corner observed an unusual amount of star and planet debris. They'd come to discover this was not due to a natural phenomena, but had agency behind it. Turns out the cause was the masaka warring with the smazel over territory. The dominant religious group of the smazel homeworld began a crusade centuries ago against the perceived corruptions of physical reality that led to fully detonating their own planet with the belief that it would bring a rapture that would cleanse reality of corruption. When that didn't happen, their agenda shifted to other planets and stars, with the goal having shifted to detonating as many of them as possible until the rapture they've prophesied comes true. The masakas, who were expanding their territory for resources and trade opportunities amongst their own space faring countries, just happened to get caught up in the crossfires of the smazel empire crusade. This conflict was spreading across the galaxy, encroaching the nedal and delorix colonies. Informed by their satellite data, they prepared for their first and only intragalactic war.

Once the smazel were up against two more attacking space militaries, their close wins gradually shifted toward accumulating losses, though this took place over the course of long grueling centuries and did not come without many tragic casualties and planet busted worlds. As time went on, growing countercultural smazel groups budded off and fought against their own empire's agenda as well. In the modern day, the crusading smazel empire has lost most of it's power, but still carries out their agenda in more covert ways that don't rely on military might (such as hacking, sabotaging resources, and propaganda). Most countercultural smazel have remained broken off from their parent empire, and either continue living independently in their spaceship colonies (where they are free to govern themselves but can be left more vulnerable to crusader attacks and influence) or have integrated into cohabitation with other sophont governments (where they are more beholden to foreign influence but tend to be left more secure from crusaders). Some corners of the galaxy are more vulnerable to crusader influences than others. With how quickly smazel reproduce compared to the other sophonts and their ability to adapt quickly to using new technologies made by other aliens, some think it's unlikely the crusading empire's agenda will ever be fully abolished permanently.

The main setting I'm exploring in BYG takes place at least a few centuries after this intragalactic war, and isn't focused on it, but the effects and legacy of it no doubt this has a hold on it.

~~~

[selkra-souza]

I’m sitting here with unfinished art fight ref sheets, lore post WIPS, in the middle of an art collab with a friend, VA work for another friend still waiting to be done, also trying to learn two whole new art forms from scratch thinking to myself I don’t draw enough Inside Out fanart.

[selkra-souza]

There's my fursona which is what I'd wish to turn into using the Dragon Balls, and then here's my paraself, The Self (with a capital S) also called Souza, used to interact with my inner world. It can shape shift into any anthropomorphic form, from furries to fruit plants to fanny packs (as long as it's orange with optional cream and brown patterns, because visual consistency is cool).