#I’m actually like a super amateur artist

[xx-sketchy-xx]

Poor poppy, a three tiered cake is simply not big enough!

[the-heart-of-a-monster]

PUTTING THE NEW PAGE INTO THIS ASK AS WELL FOR GHE FIRST TIME BECAUSE THERE IS A LOT TO TALK ABOUT WITH THIS PAGE SO PLEASE BEAR WITH ME HERE

Ima start with the first panel because there’s already so much in that one single panel and it is gonna drive me nuts!

So first up, we have “Secret” Chaotix meeting room. Yes, this place is apparently being kept a secret from the public eye. This could be due to the Chaotix having to handle a bunch of super deep and disturbing cases that, if allowed to spill out into the public, would be catastrophic! Not in the sense that it would destroy the world or anything like that, but it’d certainly ruin their reputation as detectives! Don’t detectives irl have these kinds of cases too…? Or maybe I’m thinking too hard on this and it’s just the place they meet with their friends whenever Eggman does something stupid? Who knows.

I do know though that it looks beautiful and it looks like they’re actually in a room which, as an amateur artist myself, can only dream of achieving!! It looks so cool! I just… I adore your backgrounds and I can tell you put a lot of love and effort into making them, so please give yourself a pat on the back!

And maybe I’m reading too much into a single panel.

But that’s not all that we get to see!!! (No I’m not talking about the Chaotix even though I REALLY wanna talk about the Chaotix cuz they deserve more love and I’m so glad they’re here THANK YOUUUUUUUU) YEAH THAT’S RIGHT, SONIC IS FULLY CONVERTED TO DARK GAIA SONIC LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Well not fully converted, but we can clearly see that it’s taking a huge toll on his body! Not only are the markings now visible on him during the day, but it also seems to be siphoning his energy…? Kind of…? I mean, Sonic has been out cold since “Killing” Omega, and usually he wouldn’t be so out of it otherwise. And I can see a little tiny X over his Gaia eye, so… I’m not too sure, but what I am sure of is that this is BAD for Sonic. The poor guy is gonna have to deal with not only being corrupted during the day, but also at night, and that cannot be good for his psyche. It was bad enough when he had to be in a completely new body for just the nighttime, but now it’s for both day and night in its own way, and… Gosh, this is gonna be torture for Sonic once he wakes up.

Okay now onto the actually lore panels because there is so much to uncover but BEFORE WE GET INTO THE LORE PARTS OF ALL THAT LEMME JUST POINT OUT HOW PISSED SHADOW LOOKS IN THE SECOND PANEL BRO LOOKS LIKE HE WANTS TO PUNT CHIP INTO THE SUN FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER AND HE IS JUST SO OVERPROTECTIVE OF SONIC IT’S NOT EVEN FUNNY I LOVE THIS ANGSTY EDGY BOY SO MUCH BUT I WANNA KNOW WHAT IS GOING THROUGH HIS HEAD RIGHT NOW WHY IS HE GLARING DAGGERS AT CHIP WHAT DID THIS LITTLE CREECHUR EVEN DO TO YOU SHADZ

Okay back to the lore-

So, im still gonna call Light Gaia as Chip because I still see a cute adorable fluffy fairy in those big brown eyes and I think he deserves a real name. Anyhow, Chip now is aware of him being a literal god. He says he regulates the day and Dark Gaia regulates the night. This kind of makes sense. Chip handles the sun and DG handles the moon. Think Luna and Celestia from MLP. And similar to those two as well, Dark Gaia got out of control like Luna did and created an eternal night. But this doesn’t really explain the planet splitting into a million giant pieces. (Not literally a million) Nor does it explain Chip losing his memory. Chip claims that whenever one of them falls out of line, the other will be there to pull them back together. Does this mean Chip or Dark Gaia have lost their memory before? Have the events of Unleashed happened before? How do they reign the other in?

These questions are probably gonna get answered in the next page lmao what am I doing-

Everything else is kinda sorta spelled out to us which I think is a good thing, since Chip is, in the story, explaining all of this to a group of people who had no idea about any of this for their entire lives. The poor Chaotix just got roped into this, they just want their pay. So with that in mind I don’t know what else to really cover…? Maybe I’ll notice something later on and just start spamming you with questions, who knows. For now I’m SUPER DUPER EXCITED FOR THE NEXT PAGE LET’S GO THIS IS GONNA BE SO FUN CANNOT WAIT FOR NEXT WEEK

hell yeah do look out for the new page on monday :3 i love ur little big analysis its always the highlight of my week to see one

btw this goes out to evecryone but the whole scene has a lot of moments for everyone else than sonic and shadow so we are winning

[mikkaeus]

게이PC방 “gay PC room” podcast recommendation - for intermediate/advanced korean learners looking for queer content 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

Highly recommend this podcast! This is the first time in my life I’ve ever truly enjoyed and looked forward to a podcast (including English ones).

They have four hosts, all of which are gay men in Korea, and they talk about a really wide range of topics with various guests. In season 3 they’ve been focussing on the “ordinary queer” life (some brief episode synopses at the end of the post), but in the previous seasons (which I’ve not listened to yet) it sounds like they talked about more activist stuff.

Their audio quality is excellent + they speak slowly and clearly (compared to other native podcasts lol). Minimal talking over each other. And their voices are nice to listen to! (No seriously the audio quality is amazing for an amateur podcast because they actually use a recording studio.)

The PC is a pun on the regular definition of PC방 lol, initially I thought they were going to be like… talking about computers? But in a gay way? 😂 but it actually stands for politically correct lmao i.e. they’re going to talk about things with as much sensitivity & respect as they can.

Overall, it’s super interesting, funny, and really just struck a chord with me, esp knowing how Korea is… hm… not very progressive 😬

Their main platform is 팟빵, but they’re also on google podcasts & Apple podcasts. Google podcasts is more user friendly but if you enjoy their content pls go support them on 팟빵 as well! (Also if anyone listens to it and wants to chat about it feel free to PM me! I’m dying to talk to find people to talk to about it. I can probably help you out if you don’t understand sth as well although my comprehension isn’t 100% yet)

~ some episode synopses under the cut ~

ep 52 was about korean bear culture (iirc one of the guests was a bear and the other one was a “stan” (i.e. “standard” guy) who likes bears. good discussions abt body image and stuff

ep 47 was a bit of a catching up w/each other type episode and covered things like attending uni during covid, funerals, korean and french holiday customs, something about christian organisations installing christmas trees in public areas and being bullied away last year(?) bc of people making civil complaints? the kdrama D.P. and korean military service in general, Q-Force

ep 46 talked a lot about kpop and the korean wave because the guest was a french dude who's doing a masters or something in korean culture (he mentioned that - idk if in this one or 47 - that he's looking into the differences between how intl and kr fans perceive homoeroticism in kpop, which i thought was cool)

ep 44 was them interviewing an openly gay korean artist http://yangseungwook.com/ (and going off on wild tangents lol)

ep 40 “queer in Taiwan”. Guest was a korean dude who’d been a tour guide in Taiwan for several years, talking about his experience. There was a good helping of politics as well. If you’re so inclined I recommend getting verified on 팟빵 (super quick, just need to email them a photo of your ID) so you can access the 19+ episode because it was hilarious.

ep 39 the guest was a korean currently living in America who’d gotten married last year. they talked about his life (how he met his husband, how the wedding went etc) in part 1 and then more on the broader issue of gay marriage in part 2.

[peridyke]

I follow you as a fellow lapis stan. And I like thinking ideas of how viscous and amazingly dangerously powerful that blue gem is, whose also a dork who likes napping and jokes. I’m wondering what kinds of art does lapis like to do. Or if she’s real flexible in all kinds of mediums.

LMAO glad my blog is enjoyable for other Lapis Enthusiasts. Also actually you can get a good idea of what kind of stuff she does through both the show and the comics!

Going off the original run of SU, you can see at the beginning of her artistic development she seems to focus entirely on abstract sculpture. Her first pieces are very literal and usually involve arranging of objects without much or any change to the objects themselves. Her subjects tackle simple things from her life that she has fond memories of (playing baseball, getting a leaf, liking a show) however I would argue that in representing these moments these pieces could also represent some of her deeper emotions as they all involve things she went through and enjoyed after her defusing from Jasper and her positive readjustment to earth life. All in all, simple but respectable!

Later in the comics we get a look at what her 2D art looks like when she does an art lesson with Vidalia! She does what I would consider some pretty nice and fluid gesture sketches especially for an amateur. She does a good job capturing the flow of the poses in my opinion!

in the same comic she does this collaborative drawing with Peridot! It's actually pretty hard to tell who drew which parts (and I really doubt anyone was supposed to look this deep into it LMAOOOO) but if I had to guess I would say that the drawings of Peridot and her line up more with what we've seen of her style as it's a lot less crude than Peridot's (which was shown earlier in the comic).

Finally in SUF we get a look at what her art looks like now after 2 years of development! Her taste in sculpture has gotten a lot more grand and abstract, looking much less literal than her sculpture work we saw in SU. We can also see that she has both a sketch and a newsprint pad in her studio, which leads me to assume that she's still doing 2D art or at the very least teaching the fundamentals of it.

One last detail, in the last episode of SUF Steven gives her this 142 piece art set which she is super excited about, particularly about the watercolors (lol). Considering these are all materials used for illustration and painting that leads me further to believe that she still actively enjoys doing 2D work! I wish we had gotten a chance to see more of what her non sculpture work might look like, I wonder if it would be similarly abstract? Anyways this was a ridiculously long and detailed answer that I put a lot of thought into because I am autistic for both art and lapis LOL so thanks for bearing with me here

[emrystheedgedancer]

A critique of the official Mistborn Trilogy covers I really dislike

I despise these three because 1) they’re super hard to read what’s going on and 2) why’s we we looking at her feet for two of the three? Why is she always in some fluttery dress when a core trait is how she walks around in trousers? 3) These look like they were going for Sistine Chapel vibes and it’s weird to have such fleshy peach tones for a world that’s red, grey, and brown.

These are the ones on the print copies I own and they are uncomfortably real for me. While I actually am okay with the first one, the other two are just… weird. I especially hate the Hero of Ages cover. They make Vin look like a ten year old boy larping a squire.

These ones are at least an interesting take but again, I don’t understand the blue theme. Or making Luthadel look so simplistic. I would never expect these covers to match the inside. Bonus points for Ascension making Vin look like a creepy possessed doll.

And now… the worst one….

I will NEVER get over the fluffy teased Vin hair, the blue steel pout on Elend’s face, that Vin appears to be wearing thick makeup, and the fact that they’re both in 80’s romantic novel cover power poses.

Look I’m no artist. I get drawing is hard. But I have seen better cover and character designs here on tumblr by amateur artists than by most of the official cover art that is published.

[aeoki]

Grand Slam - The Blood-Vomiting Beast: Chapter 4

Location: Yumenosaki Grounds (Sports Festival) Characters: Touri, Tsukasa, Souma, Yuzuru, Eichi, Wataru & Mika

Mika: Ngh~ I don’t like this… There are a lot of martial artists here, it’s super scary…

Yuzuru: Oh, you’re representing “Team CosPro”, Kagehira-sama?

Mika: Yeah… We’ve got so few people, we’re actually in a pickle, though.

We were talking about whether we should send “2wink” twice in a row since they look the same, but it might not look very good on the outside.

Souma: I see. So that is why you were chosen instead of one of the Aoi brothers.

Mika: Yeah. I’m not that good at sports, but… At this rate, my turn will come sooner or later.

Also, I’m the oldest in “Team CosPro”. I’ve gotta do my best.

Souma: That is a wise attitude. Let us display good “supotsumanshippu” and compete fair and square ♪

It is time to battle…! 

Eichi: “Wait, wait. Don’t start on your own now.”

Wataru: “Yes. We’ll explain the event first. In ‘Clairvoyanstar’, each player will be provided with a gun.”

Tsukasa: Hmm. It appears to look more like a Clarinet than a gun, though.

Eichi: “What a perfect way to describe it. Can you see there is a microphone attached to the gun?”

“If you face the mic and sing into it, something will be filled inside the gun according to your singing abilities and the volume of your voice. After that, simply pull the trigger and that very something will come out.”

Tsukasa: Something? What else would be shot out of a gun if not a bullet?

Eichi: “That is for you to find out ♪”

Wataru: “There is more to the explanation. Please face the gun towards the sky when firing.”

Eichi: “That’s right – The sky with nothing in it is your target.”

“Visualise your target in the empty sky. In order words, ‘Clairvoyanstar’.”

Tsukasa: No, umm, I don’t understand at all.

Souma: A picture is worth a thousand words. We have no choice but to try, regardless.

Eichi: “It’s exactly as Kanzaki-kun says. Alright then, the event starts now ♪”

Wataru: “Now, the event has begun! How many points can each idol get within the time limit…? ☆”

Mika: That explanation was so sloppy! It was so hard to understand!

Souma: Hmm. I need to let my voice out into this mic…

♪~♪~♪

…With this, the gun is filled with something, correct?

Tsukasa: (Fufu ♪ A chance at victory!)

(I had my guard up thinking Kanzaki-senpai was not an ordinary person judging by his appearance! But he is a mere amateur seeing the way he wields the gun! It appears he’s not used to it!)

(If singing abilities matter, then it isn’t a simple competition to compare our shooting skills!)

(Even I have a high chance of outdoing Fushimi-senpai who is skilled in handling guns!)

(Victory is mine for this round!)

♪~♪~♪

Bang…☆

Souma: Ohh! The spot Suou shot is now sparkling and glittering!

What is that? Fireworks? But how could it light up so well in the daytime…?

Eichi: “Fufu. I see you’re all surprised. There is an invisible screen placed in the sky. It will reflect a variety of colours when you shoot at it.”

“The louder your voice is, the bigger it will be. And the more skilled your singing is, the more beautiful and brighter it will be.”

Wataru: “We shall make arbitrary decisions and award points to each shimmering, colourful ‘star’ based on its size and beauty. That is the event. Do you all understand?”

Eichi: “Incidentally, Tsukasa-kun’s ‘star’ wasn’t very interesting, so I suppose I’d give it a 3. The total score is out of 100.”

Mika: I-Isn’t it unfair that the judges are from StarPro!?

Tsukasa: Yes! Onii-sama, you two plan on assigning low scores to the other teams while STARMAKER PRODUCTION receives a high score, don’t you? That is injustice!”

Eichi: “How rude. We will judge fairly.”

Wataru: “That’s right.” 

*Whispers* …Hurry and shoot as much as you can, Mr Butler. We’re buying time for you.”

Tsukasa: “How foul! You have no intentions of hiding that at all…! This is a farce! I object!”

Touri: You idiot~ There’s no way Eichi-sama would do that.

Their strategy is to annoy Tsukasa and have Yuzuru gain as many points as he can at the same time, right?

Tsukasa: Isn’t that cowardly…!?

(Gyaah! They’re toying with me this way and that! Contrary to what I thought, NEW DIMENSION may not be dominating this event!)

Yuzuru: Hmm. If it is not a simple shooting contest, then it is rather disadvantageous for me.

Mika: I’ve been saved then… Ehehe, Yukkun, I won’t lose to you or the others.

Souma: Yes. I do not wish to be on good terms. Let us battle with all that we have.

(...Fortunately, we were able to see the plan for the “Old-Fashioned Sports Festival” during this event.)

(It may be a sports festival on the surface but we are not contesting our physical abilities.)

(I now know we are competing with our “aidoru” abilities.)

♪~♪~♪

← Previous Chapter ᠂ ⚘ ˚⊹˚ ⚘ ᠂  Next Chapter →

[tepperz]

I wanna talk about fanart in the early days of the internet.

 My one friend it up quite nicely,

“Like any amateur art on the internet, Fan art is astronomically ubiquitous online, There have been various methods of uploading fan art and original amateur art on the internet, The earliest yet most popular method of upload fan art is Bulletin Board Systems, Back in the early days of the internet, Artists would upload fan art by the use of a BBS. Most companies didn't mind about any fan art made by amateurs at that time, but some users did get in a bit of trouble for it. Another early and popular method to upload fanart was Usenet, They usually upload it in binaries on newsgroups including original art, Like BBS, Companies didn't mind about fan art being uploaded on Usenet, Yet another method upload art and also the most popular method is email, Users usually send fanart and original art to other users as a hobby rather than professional reasons and financial gains, They also do it as a gift, art trade or a commission, other methods such as FTP is used to archive art along with ISPs, Mini servers, Local server locations and IRC.”

I would like to expand on that. 

Back in the early days of the internet, and I'm talking, like... before 2000, the common things were forum threads, as was mentioned. However, at the time, rather then fanart, the thing that was actually most popular were role plays for me? Fanart has never been new, but it wasn't really seen as a "thing" like it is now. People didn't really make a lot of art of media they enjoyed. Like, there definitely was some, but you have to remember that the quality was really different back then. People didn't have access to digital art tools unless they were professionals. That started changing around 2000-2005 or so, but even then they were the minority. Most people had to draw with their mouses or trackpads if they wanted anything digital done, unless they came from a rich family. People who did fanart mostly did, like, really silly humor pieces rather then illustrations. Memes and really derivative stuff. And the popular people who could draw digital anime art and speak English could be counted in the double digits and were almost exclusively on deviantart. I think I got my first wacom tablet in 2008, for about $200 from a bestbuy. That was kinda the only way to get it back then. So back to role plays, what im getting at is that people didn't really make a lot of fanart so what they did is they wrote stories with their friends. What people did is say "naruto rp" and then, like, take anime characters they found off google and claim it as their oc. Everyone did that. No one drew their oc because everyone was mostly kids and no one really knew how to draw anime art at the time. Fanfiction was even bigger then it is now. There also wasnt smart phones back then and old phones didn't really upload pictures to the internet, and when they did it was bad quality. you basically had to own a scanner to upload anything or get lucky with a phone that actually kinda worked for that (most didn't). What that means is a lot of awkward traditional art thats hard to see and, frankly, not super well drawn most of the time. I guess what I'm trying to say is that derivative works were always around but as far as "fanart" it wasn't the thing that it is today by any means.

it's kinda weird to talk about but i guess a lot of people nowadays don't even know this stuff. anyways, I used to roleplay on neopets which was literally the THING for anyone growing up at the time. That was most people's integration into roleplaying, actually, since it was mainstream. Afterwards, I migrated to a forum site called playanime.com and it looked like this

At the time I thought the site would last forever because there was no context for things on the internet disappearing at the time. But it turned out that it was a public server hosted by this one couple who liked anime and they couldn't keep up with the cost of the growing site so it had to be shut down after a few years. All of the roleplays and friends I made vanished after a while without being fully documented afterwards and I'm sure I'm not the only one. It was a wild west of websites where no archiving was properly done and most servers were hosted by ordinary people with passions just like that. Here's an example of the type of "fanart" that was being shared back then. Circa 2005, it's a picture of a blorbo from a show being shipped with one of my friends self insert oc, which I drew and shared privately to make them happy. Back then, all I had was original Windows Paint and a scanner. This is a pretty good example of the standard quality back then and what "fanart" looked like.

[childisshh]

my gf and i made a spidersona for each of us

the left is my initial idea of what she’d look like. the right is a finish product haha. she kinda like a techy spider riding around in her spider miata. she relies on her self made antenna for her spider senses. she’s sort of lacking what a standard spider persons power has, but recreates it with her engineering skills. i’m not sure what abilities she lacks, could be all, could be none, didn’t really pan out the lore. but all in all, spider peanut is just a miata drifting maniac, who makes cool drippy clothes that either recreates a spider person’s ability or enhances it. her main feature is probably her miata, tricked out with a lot of cool stuff like driving on walls and shooting webs at pedestrians. couldn’t draw an actual spider miata because i’m still just an amateur drawer lol

moving on to my gf who has actual drawing skills!!! she made me a homeless spider (as per request) man called spoodoo moo! she made my dogs my sidekicks. on the left is what she showed me. and on the right is extra stuff she added for me. like the earring and legs on my goggles:>> she’s so cool, she even made the title “ragged like” to capture my homelessness. i’m so lucky i’m dating an actual artist, unlike her who’s just stuck w me. but i got a lot of cool ideas:) but this is what she came up with. in my right pockets i got spider darts i can throw at pedestrians, my left i got hooks that i can attach to a rope of web and attach to my sword that i found in a dumpster to make a fishing rod. use my diy spider fishing rod to fight pedestrians and get fishies because i can’t buy food for me and my spider strays. on my back is my dumpster sword that she claims that “you won’t be using it like a real sword but just for some dumb shit” because idk how to use a sword. she gave a ragged bandana. and then also my scarf (which is my blanket) around my neck for extra outfit tings just in case someone i’m doing hero work with questions my ragged bandana as a mask. she gave me goggles to cover my big forehead and also gave me cool spider sneakers. my dogs also gotten bitten by the same spider that bit me, but they each only gained different half of the abilities because one of them just straight up ate the spider instead of getting bitten. thank god they’re okay. nunu, the one on the left (demon spider) got super strength and agility so thats why she’s got no vest because she invincible, but a web leash because she a menace. and jackie, the one on the right (fruity spider) got web slinging and wall climbing. that’s why he’s got a vest because he’s vulnerable but doesn’t need a leash because he behaves. demon spider ate the spider

obv my gf’s is better lol

[azzurra-astra]

Drawing Fake Peppino is hard, even though I like working on that kind of maddening shit… weird and creepy things have always been fav, but I’ll save it for tomorrow and answer a few questions received again over the past few days with warm up sketches. I don’t do these all the time, but there’s only three of them so it was simple to make the practice about responses. Again, I am extremely humbled (thank you), but glad people are amused enough to drive Palmira apeshit (and embarrass her, you know who you are) with nutty questions. I don’t answer them individually, it’s just easier to answer questions like this. Due to the insistent suggestion from a best friend, I’ll keep these in the main tag to ensure whoever asked sees the response. I need to post some actual fanart, not just OC stuff because that gets drab.

1

“What’s her apartment like? Like, her room really, can we see it? It usually has things about someone’s personality.”

“Mmm… I mean, sure.”

“It ain’t nothing fancy, just small and weird, really…”

Though depressed and torn between being lonely and relishing time to herself, she’s young at heart and dismisses the bitter folk who insist she “grow up”. Her walls are covered in posters of her favorite media, character masks, weapon replicas, fish and cat things. She’s mature, and fun.

2

“It’s like a broken record at this point but I really like this character, she’s actually really friggin’ cute adjshgkf… Do you have anything of her wearing different clothes or can you whip something up? Can I ask why she’s depressed too?”

“Hiya there, Sugarpeas!” (Associating with Branzino’s cat— more than the people —during a party he’s throwing, she and the rest of the staff were invited)

No, I didn’t have anything else with her wearing different stuff so here’s her in a lime green and cream dotty party dress, she’s not afraid to wear bold and cute patterns on somewhat loose or flowing clothes. Thank you for liking her, too. She’s obviously a bit of a thicc & big-hipped bean (artist is a chubster too), and she’s depressed because she bore the brunt of bad, demeaning neglect by jealous garbage parents for a lot of years.

3

“I’m gonna come clean! Super nervous about sending this but fuck it I kinda wanna see her being cute and vibing with Peppino because it’s a TEENY WEENY guilty pleasure ship of mine lately! ;_; Lemme explain!! I just think because the favorite pizza man is a nervous best boy and you said she’s supporting and likes hugs it’d be super cute because I see her trying to reassure him and help make pizza , I hope I didn’t make you mad, sorrrrryyyy!!!!!”

GASP

“FUCK ME RUNNIN’— BACKWARDS— Don’t insult the man!”

Nope! I’m not mad, after being shocked for 20 seconds, I nearly pissed myself laughing. Thank you so much for that though, needed it. I’m not mad but she certainly thinks you are for insinuating such a thing! Here, blursed with a neon pink face and overwhelming embarrassment, she would think anybody nutty enough to try flirting with her can definitely do better (she considers herself outta the ¢.50 tub) and she doesn’t even know him, it would take some persistence to convince her to give it a try. She’s also an amateur when it comes to making pizza, but a wiz with pasta, bread, and seafood. She can make pizza and does so on her own but the crust is hit-or-miss sometimes, though toppings and flavor are darn near on-spot. She experiments but can’t dedicate a lot of time because of work, so she’d be eager to learn.

These were a good warm up practice for some actual PT fanart, and not just OC scribbles. When I’m not braindead I’ll work on my piece with Fake Peppino tomorrow. Ciao!

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super 010

Okay, let’s see if I can knock out the entire God Goku vs. Beerus fight tonight.

Before I get too deep in the weeds, I’d like to take a moment to point out some particularly ugly examples of the character models in this series. 

Ugh...

This show always goes for far-away shots of large groups of characters, and they always look revolting. 

And sometimes even the close-ups look wretched. 

Really, I can’t even explain why these are so unpleasant to look at.  It just feels like a really half-assed effort was put forth.  Like, I’m not much of an artist, but looking at this stuff reminds me of my own work, where I sort of just go for it and accept that the end result might not look quite right, but I’m still pleased with it just for getting it done.  Which is fine for unskilled amateurs like me, but it really feels like early Dragon Ball Super was animated by an entire team of people with that same mindset.

Fans have always given Yukio “Triangle Guy” Ebisawa a lot of crap over the decades, what with his ridiculously off-model and often-ugly style.   But I like his stuff way better than the lukewarm crude we see in early-Super and about half of GT. I’m not saying you have to love Ebisawa’s style, but at least when he breaks the rules you can tell he’s going for something.  He’s trying to make the characters look intense and dynamic.  He’s turning them all into triangles for a reason.  There’s a purpose to it, even if we might find it garish or laughable. 

Compare this with a typical shot from GT, and you can see what I mean.  That’s Mr. Satan punching Uub out of the ring to win the tournament, but it looks more like Uub is standing on a box while Satan rubs his knuckles gently against his abs.  That shot of Vegeta above looks way, way more impactful, and he’s not even fighting. 

Generally speaking, Super does a better job making action sequences look intense, although that’s not saying much. Like GT, there’s a lot of shortcuts taken where characters just stare each other down, rush together, and launch big energy blasts instead of doing any kind of complex combat sequences

But then the show constantly switches back to the bystanders to get their reaction, and they always look like crap.  Vegeta’s face is basically frozen that way for the next three episodes.  Bulma’s supposed to be flipping out and Krillin’s supposed to be astonished, but it’s all half-measures.  Whoever drew this was just putting forth the minimum effort.  The characters look like they’re supposed to look, but there’s no oomph there. 

Compare to this shot of Dende, Mr. Satan, and Bee hiding in the bushes.  It’s a lot more expressive, interesting composition.  Mr. Satan’s head is exaggerated, but it helps get across his emotions.  

Anyway, this is just something I wanted to bring up Super always invites comparisons to Z and GT.  And as bad as Super can be, it usually trumps GT simply by having characters look and act like they did in Z, but they often look dull or unimpressive, which makes the show look like a pale imitation of Z. 

But I’ve gotten waayyy off-track.  Let’s talk about the fight.

Actually, there isn’t a whole lot to say here.  In the Battle of Gods movie, they started with Beerus kind of going easy on Goku, giving him a chance to get acquainted with the Super Saiyan God form.  Here, DBS #10 just turns that into a whole episode.  Gradually, Beerus ramps up the offense, and Goku gets more confident with his power, until he finally reverses a punch from Beerus into a grapple. 

Then he flicks Beerus’s forehead with his finger...

... and gives him a chop to the shoulder, just as Beerus did to SSJ3 Goku on King Kai’s planet.

Beerus finds this unseemly, but he can respect Goku wanting revenge for how Beerus humiliated him in their last encounter.  Personally, I don’t think this suits Goku as a character.  Also, Beerus isn’t anywhere close to using his full strength, so if he didn’t want Goku to manhandle him this way, he would just break loose, so this all seems kind of pointless to me.

Anyway, now that Goku seems to have a handle on his new form, they agree to fight more seriously, while Bulma and a lot of her guests try to follow the action in some sort of aircraft she keeps aboard her ship.  And the Pilaf Gang are taking a nap. 

Yeah, now I remember.  So they saw the Dragon Balls being used earlier, so they returned to the ship to find them, only to discover most of the partygoers were gone, and then Whis shared a “dinner encore” with them, and now they’re sleeping it off.

[spaceboysandfieldgirls]

tired of that post that’s like ‘people who were fic writers before they were pro authors all suck’ and using like cassandra claire as an example. sure, some authors who started writing fanfic now make shitty derivative wish fulfillment books with bad adjectives. but that’s such a misunderstanding of what fanfiction is.

fanfic is not an inherently subversive genre, and i personally hate people who’s only queer lit is fanfic. they’re missing like everything important about the queer experience. but fanfic is also not meant to be a societal medicine, a cure-all for queer issues.

fanfic is a space for passionate people to express their love for a piece of art.

just like fan artists don’t make bad artists, fanfic writers don’t make bad writers. it isn’t causative.

however, lots of people in fandom are new to their mediums, or young, or not super high effort. so fandom spaces are flooded with the content of amateurs- people who create out of love.

lots of those people are bad at it. not because liking things enough to write about them makes you bad at art, not because wanting gay people to kiss makes you bad at art. but bc the point of these works is singular: to create for a fandom a thing that is wholly yours, drawn from your love of that fandom.

i go to art school (fake gamer, i know) and all of the most talented artists, especially the illustrators, had fandoms that they drew for when they were young. the fan space allowed them a community to create for, people to encourage those early stages of artistic development.

this is what lots of (i’d bargain most) fanfic is. it’s the beginning of an artistic process. it’s fresh, it’s new, it’s missing constructive feedback and editing and perspective. just like the early works of a million different singers, songwriters, painters, writers, actors, and dancers before them, these artists are laying the groundwork for their future endeavors. and they’re doing it out of love. i think that’s beautiful.

furthermore, lots of fanfic is actually well written. those posts that say ‘x is such a raw line you’d think it’s from shakespeare but it’s actually from a stuckky incest fic’ or whatever. those posts are a perfect example of the actual writing ability of some fic authors. i’ve read fics that do innovative things with form, rhythm, plot structure, etc. i’ve read fics that discuss in more plain-clothes fashion topics that are hard to find in most fiction. sure, maybe i do really like it when a character is confrontational in a way no real person is, but that unrealistic behavior doesn’t mark a bad author— fiction doesn’t have to feel like it’s real, it has to feel congruent with its own internal logic. some fic authors understand this better that some ‘real authors’. many don’t.

finally, there are some authors that i’m pretty sure were fic authors before they got published (no evidence, just conjecture) who make incredible work. nora sakavic, lee mandelo, c.s. pacat. their work is all notably fic-y, from some writing conventions to plot points to obvious references to other works. none of this devalues their books, which each have their own merits. the all for the game trilogy by nora sakavic is an awesome fast paced action series centered around stupid mafia drama and a fictional sport (which would be way more fun to play than fucking quidditch btw) and also deeply explores consent, trauma, and what it means to be someone’s family. summer sons by lee mandelo is a beautiful languid southern gothic with some innovative ideas about ghosts and some really intense haunting scenes. c.s. pacat’s captive prince trilogy is undeniably fic-y with a lot of weird plots and sub plots and sub sub plots, alienating dialogue, and an obsession with sexual trauma. and the captive prince trilogy is also the most comprehensive look i’ve ever gotten at battle strategy. i love how the relationship between afflictors and those afflicting harm was discussed- there’s no right way to understand the atrocities discussed in the text, but the characters are people, so they keep living, and they make bad decisions and they make good ones. i’d recommend all of these books.

all this to say that fanfic has its place. there’s nothing to be achieved by acting like it’s some angelic force, but likewise bashing on it needlessly does no one any good. and to close: i got into economic theory because of my sisters ex-boyfriend who had a copy of das capital. i got into queer theory because a fic writer i like mentioned the faggots and their friends.

[mywifeleftme]

315a: Various Artists // Top Teen Bands Vol. 1

Top Teen Bands Vol. 1 Various Artists 1966, Bud-Jet Doing a three-for-one today on this trio of Minneapolis-St. Paul garage rock compilations originally issued in 1966 on the Bud-Jet label, and mysteriously bootlegged on CD and vinyl around 2005. With the exception of bluesman George “Mojo” Buford (on Vol. 2), none of these acts ever managed to cut an LP, and a few barely managed to get a single out. The Twin Cities had a decent little rock scene, and these comps give us 16 bands across 36 tracks, good, bad, and bluhgly. First time opening these guys that have been sitting on my shelf for ages, let’s see what we’ve got.

Top Teen Bands, Vol. 1

Underbeats — Our Love (How mad were these guys in the late ‘70s when they realized the name Undertones was just sitting there. A really sweet little jangly acoustic ballad with hand-drummed percussion and pretty harmonies; a minor gem, but a gem nonetheless.)

Accents — Muffin' Man (Yes, it’s a garage rock version of the nursery rhyme. The Accents really show off some unfortunate brand name synergy with singer Kenny Sand’s borderline offensive British impression. Listen If You Like: Imagining if things hadn't worked out for Mick Jagger with the Stones and he'd ended up making humiliating novelty records for children.)

Only Ones — With this Kiss (Not those Only Ones, those Only Ones, or even those Only Ones, the Minnesota Ones released a single 7” in 1965. This is the A-side, and it’s instantly forgettable. Stay tuned for the surprisingly great B-side way over on Vol. 3 of this series though.

Deacons — The Baldy Beat (I like this dude's madcap holler. The band doesn’t sound nearly as sloppy as his vocal, which creates a sort of tension as they wiggle and buckle to stay with him that makes this feel like it’s rocking harder than it actually does.)

Corvets — Can It Be (An instrumental with a cool blown-out, almost dubby sound: super dry, scraping guitar, muffled percussion, buried sax, organ just playing octaves, the tight bassline arguably the most melodic element. I wonder if this weird sound is due to a shoddy pressing, on either the original or the bootleg—the version on YouTube is also faint, but sounds more conventionally mixed. In any case, I’m into it.)

Gregory Dee & the Avanties — Buzz, Buzz, Buzz (Farfisa organ-led R&B, total bop. We’re going to be hearing a lot of the Avanties on this comp, and it can be a little feast or famine with these guys, but this is a good start.)

Muleskinners — Muleskinner Blues '65 (An emissary from the Wisconsinites; rockabilly, pretty satisfyingly wigged-out.)

Rave-Ons — Whenever (A passable Beatles close-harmony ballad rip-off, though they're just a hair flat; one guy’s even specifically trying to do John's voice while the other does Paul.)

KanDells — Cry Girl (These guys baaaaarely have it together, truly amateur hour.)

Aaron Brothers — Lean Jean (An Everlys/Holly style quick one, various satisfying thwacking emphases on everything. The chorus feels like it's so close to indelible—maybe if they repeated "Lean Jean Seventeen" twice before hitting that "Yeeeeah" instead of just once? If you know of any other octogenarian garage rock musicians who could use structural notes on their stuff, DM me.)

Gregory Dee & The Avanties – (Folks, they’re back with a forgettable version of the Frogman Henry song.)

Underbeats — Foot Stompin' (Speaking of feast of famine, the Underbeats close this set pretty much the opposite of how they opened it with a weak rocker featuring surprisingly limp harmonies.)

Overall: A collection of genuinely obscure sides that real genre sickos will probably want to know, although nothing on Vol. 1 is essential. Standouts: Underbeats’ “Our Love”; Corvets’ “Can It Be”

See also: Vol. 2 / Vol. 3

315a/365

[captainfightingflower]

The Tee K.O. 2 avatars are so unfathomably ugly to the point where it feels like everyone’s praising them ironically.

How do people find the Tee K.O. 2 avatars CUTE?!? Are we looking at the same bunch of avatars?? I’ve never seen a piece of official media adapt character designs this fucking ATROCIOUSLY in my life! They’re violently inaccurate, incredibly uncanny, and don’t even respect their origin game’s source material. It feels like reading the reviews for the Mulan remake with how disjointed the praises are to the actual product. Did you guys actually SEE the avatars, or are you just saying that you did so Jackbox Games can get your precious games on time that you keep pestering them to release immediately?

I’ve seen people compair this to Super Smash Brothers, and that’s probably the most brutal insult i’ve ever seen someone hurl at that franchise. That game respects each characters, they adapt each character to perfection, being in that game is a thing of pride. The only one i’d really complain is inaccurate to their source material is Samus, but that’s it! Tee K.O. 2 is a fucking travesty where everybody looks like they were drawn by an amateur artist for their fan game, and i’m pretty sure if any of my characters were represented in a professional project like how Tee K.O. 2 did it; i’d instantly wanna dissociate from the entire thing all together!

This entire pack is just an officially licensed fangame, that’s it, you can not convince my brain that this is anything but a fangame that just so happens to be published by Jackbox Games. I’m honestly starting to believe that i’m being pranked, because how can anybody in their right mind unironically call these things CUTE?!? That’s what’s fucking getting me. There’s no way people fucking like this, there’s absolutely zero redeeming qualities about their design adaptions and i cannot wrap my brain around anybody genuinely liking these as anything more than a fucking joke.

If you like them: HOW?!?! Tell me, tell Fighting Flower, why do you like these design adaptions?! What’s cute about them?!? What looks good about them??%! WHAT’S EVEN ACCURATE ABOUT THEM?!?! HOW, HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM?!? WHAT’S ALLURING YOU TO THESE AFFRONTS TO GOD?!?!?!?!?!

Nothing against you personally for liking them, i just can’t understand anybody actually liking these frankly terrible designs. I’m more surprised how nobody feels as offended about it as i do. I hate these designs, because at a fundamental level: they’re just bad. Not badly drawn, just bad. You can say you like them, but they aren’t good adaptions of character designs, that’s just the factual truth: they aren’t good. Show this to any professional art teacher and they’d think you were playing a prank on them. It’s practically reaching bootleg levels of awful. These don’t feel authorised, these don’t feel official, they are BAD.

I could write an ENTIRE VIDEO ASSAY about how these design adaptions FAIL AWFULLY at being good adaptions. I could go on and on about how these things should’ve never left the drafts! I bet you even i could depict them better, and i ain’t even a professional! And i’m not claiming that ‘cause i think i’m more talented than them, i’m only saying that to show how BAD those adaptions are! That a fucking hobbyist can better adapt character designs to a game’s design philosophy than a group of PROFESSIONAL ARTISTS!

I hope the pack gets stolen like the movie Foodfight! and the staff is forced to start over from scratch, or at least put that thing in the damn oven and delay it to next year! It’s so unbaked, i bet you they don’t even HAVE drafts. They thought the first thing they could and chuck it in there, because it sure damn feels like it!

[saltypiss]

Dying Light 2 is simply embarrassing.

I don’t know how at every beat it feels like none of the developers had done anything but watch overly edited let’s plays of the series. And even then, still miss literally every point, all of them, every, single, one.

Where to even fuckin start, for one, I don’t know anyone who gives a shit about the story in these sorts of games, you’ve heard it, seen it, multiple times, it’s old, let me play the fucking game.

No, over an hour in, and I’m STILL, doing stupid ass linear story missions, haven’t had the chance to even explore the fucking overly detailed but massively artistically lacking world.

And my god, they REALLY, want you to care about this shit story. Like man, congrats on not making every character a hollywood star but that’s about all ya got in the artistry department, everything else looks like shit. Even underwater.

Somehow they looked at this free feeling parkour system, and thought, hey, let’s add a fucking stamina system. Yep. You heard that right! A Stamina System, for Parkouring. My. Fucking. God. Way to miss the god damned point, how, how did you look at literal freedom of movement, and think “That’s too much” Amateur hour, hell not even, amateur would mean some hint of fucking care and passion. This is just phoning it in.

Again, it’s like they watched overly edited let’s plays, and thought “what stupid shit can we add just to bring everything else down” At every turn. Stamina systems are already fucking stupid, but you make it dumber when parkour and combat stamina are combined. Like what’s even the fucking point in exploring when I know I can’t take my fucking time parkouring a world that was clearly hardly designed with it in mind.

At one point my character is at a antenna tower and just drops this gem:

“Oh good thing I’m not climbing that”

Wha- What the fuck? What the fuck? What...How. How did you....No motherfucker, let me climb the god damned tower, lemme fucking parko- How the fuck did you think that line was anything but an admission of fucking guilt.

You looked at the funnest part of the god damned parkouring in the original game and ACTUALLY SAID “NAH, THAT SHIT WAS GAY”

BRUH

BRUH

Then, as if all this wasn’t bad enough, the combat is so weightless I honestly think they looked at indie early access cash-grab games for reference. You know how when you hit an enemy they have all the weight in the world and react in ways that make since to how you hit them? Yeah they just ragdoll now. Doesn’t matter how ya hit them, they don’t stumble in weighty realistic ways. They just animate then ragdoll. Dead serious, it’s pathetic looking.

Oh yeah they try to say my character has super strength or something. And I thought, hey, that’s kinda cool way to explain how he’s doing all these completely unrealistic actions! But NO! Every other fucking character you meet not only can do what you can, but can do FAR MORE, BECAUSE THEY DON’T HAVE A FUCKING STAMINA SYSTEM.

NO FOR REAL, THAT IS GENUINELY THE FUCKING REALITY. At one point a character climbs up this spot my character cannot, and just drops the ladder for me. My. God. Another admission of guilt.

The UI is just fucking awful. First of all it looks like shit, the first game wasn’t impressive by any means, and was also kinda shit, but at least I knew where the fuck I was going. Oh yeah, gotta hold the button. Hold left mouse, press enter, move the cursor, hold left mouse, press enter. Oh. My. Fucking. God. No one tested this. No one.

You know how it was really fucking stupid to have us hold F or press F on every god damned thing? They didn’t learn a single fucking thing! It’s still shit! It’s literally the ONLY, thing they copy and pasted EXACTLY from the first game. Nothing changed, EXCEPT THEY ADDED IT IN SO IT FUCKS WITH MOVEMENT.

If you press the survivor skill that highlights shit, your character STOPS MOVING, if you grab something or change your item and are holding the W key, Y O U S E R I O U S L Y have to LET GO AND PRESS IT AGAIN. THE GAME GHOST KEYS YOUR INPUTS BECAUSE IT DISABLES IT FOR STUPID BULLSHIT.

ALL THIS adds up to the game constantly feeling like I’m stuttering in Sonic the fucking hedgehog. In a Parkour game. No freedom, they literally, denied freedom, for their PARKOUR FUCKING OPEN WORLD SURVIVAL ZOMBIE GAME, and thought “LET’S MAKE ALL THE FUCKING COMBAT WORSE”

How the hell this was released is impressive cognitive dissonance. No developer could SERIOUSLY be proud of this work. It’s not done. It was half-baked. No one wanted to make this. That’s obvious when you see the story take complete control and gameplay be so far away and yet everything they show makes you go “Oh wow I shoulda just stuck withe dying light 1 huh.”

All they had to do, was implement 2 fucking mods, and a new map, that was it. Make the game more free, remove the stupid ass stamina system, make the game more fun and less kinda fucking useless to explore.

I’m impressed. It’s genuinely just and ONLY a step down. IN EVERY, SINGLE REGARD. There wasn’t one god damned thing improved, it stayed the same, removed, then added shit that removed more shit. Pathetic. if Dying Light was a 7/10, this is seriously a 2/10. Because all the factors that made Dying Light actually a great game to play sometimes, were removed. All the artistry, all the weightiness of everything, all the cool animations, all the parkouring, all the fucking gameplay, removed. Just. Made worse, or removed, or they added a tumor to it.

The entire time, all I could think was “They put everything into the story, then forgot the gameplay, then half-assed it. The devs clearly hadn’t played the original game, nor any game, they also haven’t fucking swam before, since apparently it’s realistic to fall 20 feet under water no matter the distance, but it’s also realistic to JUMP out of water. Have they played a game before?”

[peachiimilquetea]

Oh I gotta get my hands on this art class thing. Can I please pretty please get ma and Iida with me drawing on his hand?? I’m not really a visual-arts artistic person, but I doodle on my hands ALL THE TIME. Thank you, my love!!

tenya iida x gn! reader

peachii's notes: surpriseeee shawtiesssss!!!! this took me an embarrassing amount of time to fill im actually kinda ashamed i never finished this event before dipping.. in ANY CASE it was a super fun way to ease my way back into a type of writing routine of sorts! ive been trying to pour back into my hobbies more so expect to see more of me! i hope you like this my love!!!

“black or blue?”

“huh?”

you held the two pens out in front of iida’s face, asking your question again, “black or blue?”

“is there a reason for this line of questioning?”

“just answer the question, please.”

“uhhh, black?” he said, somewhat unsure he made the right choice.

you put the blue pen away, and turned back to him, grabbing his hand so fast you made him jump. tenya stayed deathly silent as you turned his much larger hand over in your own, looking for a good place to start.

settling on his palm, you went to work, starting with little hearts the stars, but eventually deciding to do an entire mandala design, covering the top of his hand. 

doing something with your hands made it easier to focus in class, so you continued to draw as the teacher droned on about whatever the hell you were learning in class. tenya, however, was undergoing a difficult internal battle. 

you see, because of the angle you were working at and the desk you had chosen at the beginning of the year, you were drawing on his dominant hand, the same hand he needed to be writing his notes with.

on the other hand (no pun intended), your scrunched-up face of focus was too cute, and iida didn't know when he would get an opportunity to be this close to you ever again.

and so, tenya opted to say nothing at all, enjoying the fact that he could shamelessly watch you scribble on him, relishing in your fleeting gentle touches and trying hard not to think about how you were indirectly holding hands.

“all done!” you whispered, just loud enough for iida to hear, “do you like it?”

iida quietly admired the intricate flower you had drawn on his hand. clearly, it was drawn by an amateur, and even some of it was smudged, but it reminded him so much of you, and you looked so proud of yourself, he just couldn't bring himself to say anything except, “it's a bea-"

ringgggggg

the bell to end class cut him off, and before he could finish his sentence, your nerve had gotten the better of you and you dashed off. there he stood at his desk, smiling softly at his hand.

maybe next time he'd choose blue instead.

[maxwell-grant]

Jumping off from my previous question/suggestion, might I please ask if there are any superheroes you think would make fine Pulp Villains and any Supervillains you think would make convincing Pulp Heroes?

I'm gonna go ahead and remark that I'd personally suggest to anyone who's trying to create pulp characters inspired by superheroes (which would be probably about 90% of you who may want to do that sort of thing) to flip the script around a little. As in, don't try to create pulp analogues to the Justice League/Avengers upfront, but play around with some of the lesser-known icons and filter those through your idea of what “pulp” means (which is gonna be quite different than my own or anyone else’s). 

I’m not gonna really mention characters I’ve already talked about before like Vandal Savage or Namor, instead I’ll pick new ones and see what can be highlighted about them.

Regarding “Superheroes who could make fine/convincing Pulp Villains”, even though he’s a character I've read basically nothing on, Martian Manhunter definitely leaped out to me as an obvious option. He’s a Sci-Fi Superman who takes the first half of the name to an extreme that borders on comical, except he’s not a square-jawed white man, he’s a 1.000 year old green alien from Mars with shapeshifting powers who can look as monstrous as the artist desires. He’s the product of an advanced civilization and genetic modification, and on top of the Flying Brick powerset and shapeshifting, he also has incredibly powerful and extensive telepathic abilities, he can become invisible, phaze through matter, use telekinesis and other weird abilities. A lot of pulp stories closer to sci-fi were based around the idea of taking one of these abilities and extrapolating horrific consequences for them, and J’onn has those by the dozens. He also has an extremely mundane weakness that would allow him to be beaten by Macready with a blowtorch if that’s where the story ended.

He was also a law enforcement officer from Mars who became a police detective and it’s even right there in his name, and again, I have never read anything he’s in (I should probably pick the Orlando mini), I know he’s for all intents and purposes a generally nice man who tends to job a lot in crossovers and cartoons, but the idea of taking all those great vast and horrifying alien powers, combining all of them into a single character who also happens to be the last survivor of a doomed planet (and one who actually lived through it’s collapse), and then making that character a former cop trying to resume his work on Earth? 

That is a Pulp Supervillain begging to happen, and a particularly horrifying one at that. And hey, speaking of The Thing-

Now, Plastic Man’s potential for horror has already been explored quite a bit in some of the darker DC continuities like Injustice and DCeased, and it’s quite funny seeing a lot of these turn Plastic Man into The Thing because there were quite a handful of Wold Newton pages that ran with the idea that Macready from the original story was Doc Savage, and that the secret chemicals that Eel O’Brian was hit by that gave him his powers were actually samples of The Thing contained in one of Savage’s labs. Regardless, the idea of a former street crook suddenly gaining bizarre shapeshifting abilities that allow him to reign terror on his gangster associates could make for a great premise as a pulp crime story that veers into horror as the gangsters gradually figure out what is Eel O’Brian’s deal, and then the story can take a more tragic turn.

The thing about Jack Cole’s Plastic Man that modern takes on the character neglect is that, while Plas was a lively roguish anti-hero (arguably the first of it’s kind in comics), he’s still for intents and purposes “the straight man” (HA, right, Plastic Man being “straight”). He’s the relatively sane hero who plays off Woozy’s wackier misadventures and the imaginative madness that Jack Cole paints his adventures with, and it makes for an interesting contrast considering Plastic Man is already a weird character, having to ramp up the strangeness of the world around him so that he still remains the sane man. There are ways to twist this into something quite horrifying, even tragic for Plastic Man as he either struggles to maintain coherency, or embraces the shifting chaos the world’s spiraling into for better or worse (and definitely for the worse towards those on the receiving end of his vengeance, or even his humor).

Now, onto the flipside, regarding Supervillains that could become Pulp Heroes -

Normally I’d not mention the Batman villains here, because I already have a lot to talk about in regards to them as is, they comprise some of my favorite comic characters, but I pretty much have to make an exception for Two-Face in this topic, as not only a pretty obvious option but one with even case studies to prove it, as not only do we have The Black Bat, a 1930s costumed pulp hero with an identical origin story and several other conceptual overlaps with Batman, as well as The Whisperer, a young hotshot police commissioner who dresses up as a disfigured vigilante to kill criminals without consequence (and who’s somehow less of a maniacal asshole in his secret identity than in his regular one), but it turns out that there actually was a 1910s pulp hero called The Two-Faced Man:

Crewe was created by “Varick Vanardy,” the pseudonym of Frederic van Rensselaer Dey (Nick Carter, Doctor Quartz), and appeared in three short stories and two novels and short story collections from 1914 to 1919, beginning with “That Man Crew” (The Cavalier, Jan. 24, 1914). 

Crewe is “The Two-Faced Man.” 

He is in his forties and has gray hair and a “sharply cut and handsome profile—until one caught a view of the other side of his face and saw the almost hideous blemish that nearly covered it, and which graduated in corrugated irregularity from a delicate pink to repulsive purple.” 

Crewe is two-faced in another way. Crewe is a saloon owner in below Washington Square. But he has another identity: Birge Moreau, portraitist and socialite hanger-on. Crewe uses both his identities to solve crimes as an amateur detective.

The only person to know about both of Crewe’s identities is a police inspector who is also Crewe’s friend and who Crewe helps in pressing cases - The Encyclopedia of Pulp Heores by Jess Nevins

And speaking of obvious picks for Supervillains turned Pulp Heroes,

Assuming I even need to make a case for Kraven the Hunter other than just presenting this cropped panel from Squirrel Girl and in particular the art painted on the Kra-Van, or even just telling you to read Squirrel Girl and it’s take on “The Unhuntable Sergei” (I had no idea most of the people saying “Kraven’s arc in Squirrel Girl is as good if not better than Kraven’s Last Hunt” weren’t actually joking in the slightest and I speak as someone who has Kraven among their absolute favorite Marvel characters, it had no right being that good), I’m going to quote the brilliant Rogue’s Review from The Mindless Ones that lays down in painstaking detail why Kraven could make a killer protagonist in that horrifically over-the-top pulp fashion

One thing that strikes me writing this, is how well Kraven could hold his own comic. There’s always room for a book spotlighting a ruthless, hardcore, gentleman bastard, and Kraven’s raison d’etre makes him supremely versatile, so well suited to any genre, any environment. It’s odd that more writers haven’t jumped on the fact that in a universe where off-world travel is possible – indeed, common – a hunter like Kraven would have a field day. 

I can just imagine the opening scene – herds of weird cthuloid bat creatures grazing in the gloomy green nitrogen fields, bathed in lethal, bone splintering fog, when, suddenly, LIGHT! from above and an unholy bellowing: “CTHGRGN fthgrgnARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHGN!”

They look up in fear and then they start to run – ploughing into and over each other, tentacles flailing, as from the space-ship’s docking bay Kraven silently plummets, barely dressed for the cold, a glowing knife smothered in elder signs jammed between his teeth. 

You should have seen him one night previous, sipping alien tokay around the Captain’s table with the other guests, discussing the morning’s hunt; and the way he insulted the Skrull dignitary by forgetting himself and accidentally sporting his favourite piece of formal wear: his boiling unstable dinner-jacket of many colours, fashioned from the hide of one of the Ambassador’s super kinsmen.

Whoops!

Midway through Kraven explaining how the best way to irreparably damage a symbiote is to wait until its bonded with you and then seriously maim yourself, the Skrull decided it might be a good idea to simmer down, while his beautiful Inhuman lover hung on every word.

The deeper I get into this the more convinced I am that the MU’s hunter-killer extraordinaire wouldn’t limit himself to bloody planet Earth. And neither would he limit himself to this dimension, or universe or timeline. The guy’d be just as at home leaping, sword raised, onto the back of a T-Rex in the Savage Land, as he would be ploughing through werewolves in the graveyards of Arkham or tracking a howling Demon across Mephistopheles’ realm. 

He’d work perfectly in all these environments because he has a damn good reason to be casting a bloody swathe through them: wherever there’s big game, you’ll find Kraven.

The next choice I guess is an oddball, but not that much of an oddball if you know already what is my main frame of reference towards Marvel

I don’t think people appreciate enough that the main reason Shuma-Gorath has anything resembling a fanbase has nothing whatsoever to do with the comics he was in, but entirely because, when Capcom designers had a list of Marvel characters to pick from to work on Marvel Super Heroes, they took a look at the diet Cthulhu and went “gimme THAT one”, and then went all-in in giving the alien squid monster a funky personality along with a great stage and music and animations and all that great fighting game character stuff, and now he’s maybe the most popular Dr Strange villain along with Dormammu and Mordo, despite having ZERO film appearences or major showings in comic sagas.

Capcom's designers redefined Shuma-Gorath from a nebulous cosmic evil into a comically smug cartoon bastard who can rant about devouring all dimensions and souls horrifically while also cracking poses and zingers like “How do you expect to win a fight with only two arms?” and having dinners with Dhalsim or hosting Japanese game shows in his endings, and it kills me that none of this ever made it’s way into any depictions of the character outside of MvC. 

So that’s kinda what I’d go with. I’d take Capcom’s Shuma-Gorath, depower him a bit obviously from his canonical power, and run with the premise of his MvC3 ending where he decides that, well, if he's the unlikely savior of this pathetic planet and these wretched human dogs like him so much, and he’s clearly having a much better time here among them than he ever had drifting among the stars cealessly consuming life, then maybe he can take a break from all that eldritch business and keep up hosting the Super Monster Awesome Hour and maybe fight whatever PITIFUL villains think can take HIS planet. I mean, he’ll probably still end up destroying the planet by the end, but why not give this hero business a try?

Just until he gets his full powers back of course. 

I mean you can’t deny he DOES look pretty good in that bowtie, surely The Great Shuma-Gorath wouldn’t be so unmerciful as to deny these vile wastes of flesh something good to look at in their brief and miserable lives.