#and a readmore wouldve been awkward here

[a-sketchy]

p4d yu’s just literally so fucking nice to yosuke. he just genuinely likes him so much i can’t overstate it. i don’t think a single person in yosuke’s life likes him as much as yu does. maybe even half as much. which is… extremely sad but also really really funny.

like every time yosuke says or does literally anything, yu thinks “yosuke’s right” or “yosuke’s reaction is perfectly natural” or “yosuke really is skilled at this, it’s admirable” or “yosuke’s complaining, but it’s to be expected, he worked really hard” he just thinks really highly of him. and every time yosuke says something stupid then gets ganged up on yu’s just like ‘poor yosuke :(’

the contrast between how everyone else treats yosuke and how yu thinks of him is just soooo funny. yu’s loser boyfriend he hypes up every time he enters a room. except he doesn’t actually say much of that at all— just thinks it. so interesting

“as i approach yosuke to console him” literally the nicest person in yosuke’s life. ‘it’s okay yosuke. i understood your joke yosuke. i thought it was funny yosuke’. yu would like all yosuke’s flop posts and reply with “🔥🔥🔥‼️👍” every time

[azpher-omega]

Hey-ho look at my cool thingo

Redesigned these fire raptors AGAIN and I think I'm finally happy with them.

Inane ramblings about them and what I've been up to below. I would put a readmore but well I guess if people dont like long posts they'd have the post shortener on. I'll tag it anyway tho.

It's probably unwise and unfair to my other creations to start the arduous and fraught task of modelling something I've only JUST made but I really wanted to and here we are.

This one is perfect to practice both multires/baking details as well as proper fur. Not super happy with it so far? Its objectively well modelled but it's not really looking like the drawing yet. Such is the struggle of 3d. Ttrrryyying to model them naked/neutral sex-wise first, not sure if that'll work out.

Biology wise, these guys are wierd. They're related to the dragony group, but not suuper closely. After all they lost all their lower limbs while some dragons still have all 8. Unlike them they dont really show any vestigial parts/repurposing, but that may change.

Fun fact, they are not feathered. Their frills are flaps of cartilage covered in hair. Its probably not super soft, since its derived from scales.

I maaaaay be giving them a third eye? Probably not a conplete one though. See, the common ancestor of their group wouldve had 4 eyes, one on the bottom, top, left, right. I will have to do more work to see exactly which ones lost eyes before I say whether these guys do or not.

Struggling a bit with the feeling I never finish stuff, which is true because 'finished' is an arbitrary line, and I never want to feel obligated to stick with something I no longer like just because it's 'done', but, well, then you get sucked into the alluring tornado of only ever redoing stuff and never progressing. Redoing stuff feels soooo fun and rewarding though.

If you made it here, coolio. Have a look at this guys design evolution:

The original, very yellow, always liked and failed to improve on its upright posture and flowing tail

The redo that got a little out of hand, love it, gorgeous, still some of my best detail work, was in a bit of a realism phase, and lost a lot of the orignals uniqueness in it, but still, great

The re-re-do, an attempt, and maybe failure, to recapture the original, but kind of ended up just feeling like a halfway compromise between the two while having neithers good points. At the least I got rid of the beak which was a great choice. Much better hands too. However this one really solidified their inner workings, habitat, etc. that was key to how I went about re-re-redoing it.

The re-re-redo! Theyre now more upright again, woohoo, finally got it, tails awkward and im still not 100% on it, but its much more reflective of its evolution. Made them more bald like a vulture since they live in a desert, plus, for the new theoretical potential 'female' design, a sandy coat. I'm not 100% on them being dimorphic, texhnically I have an explanation for why theyd be black in a desert, but I thought it'd be fun and make them feel more fitting.

Fun fact, their tassels are actually sensory structures, sort of a nose, sort of an ear, picks up vibrations and chemicals on the wind, basically an antennae. Funner fact, the dragons horns are homologous to these, and serve the same purpose, just heavily modified!

[sovpologist]

hi, genuine question! I want to like Mara, but d2 lore shows her, in my eyes, as selfish and cruel, set on her own goal with no consideration for others. At least that's what I got from marasenna lorebook.

Why is she liked by so many in community? I feel like I'm overlooking something over things I mentioned above, but I would appreciate a perspective from someone who likes her character! If it's okay to ask!

its totally okay to ask!! this is going to be a long post so im going to put it under a readmore :)

i just want to stress first that mara is like.... widely disliked by many in the community. it used to be very unpopular to like her and if you even said anything remotely positive about her, people would reply to your posts and send you anons about how you were a terrible person for liking such a manipulative and toxic character. it was only recently that community opinion kind of started to shift, and people started to actually appreciate her character as nuanced and interesting. i definitely dont think this is because of me or anything crazy like that, but ive tried to correct misconceptions about her and cultivate a space on my blog at least where people can just openly like mara and not feel like they have to qualify it by constantly assuring people that they know mara's done bad things too (because literally every character in d2 has done bad things, and somehow people understand that liking the uldren doesnt mean you support him killing cayde but cant apply that same concept to mara for some reason). ok, im getting off my soapbox now and im going to just talk about why i like her.

mara is genuinely just such a fascinating character to me. reading the marasenna im really struck by how alone she is, even as a 19 year old human. her mom has essentially abandoned her and says that she's mara's friend but not her mother, and mara's father is never mentioned, so mara literally has no parental guidance or supervision or love. this puts a lot more of her pre-awoken actions into context, such as her not knowing how to interact with people and preferring to keep herself away from the rest of the crew. everyone mara loves leaves her. her mom stays in the distributary, uldren is distant in his efforts to impress and surprise her and then dies, and sjur dies too.

i also love mara's character arc, although it kind of makes me sad. mara is so painfully human in the earlier parts of the marasenna. she's awkward, she's lonely, she thinks her and uldren's secret language is "cool," she gets embarassed at her mom's embarrassing petnames, she hero-worships alis li and listens to her advice. watching her lose all of this and crystalize into a queen is so interesting. remember, mara didn't go out into the fight between the darkness and the traveler bc she knew she would gain power and create the awoken, its stated that she went out there to die. so a 19 year old just trying to die peacefully ends up witnessing firsthand the power of the dark and light and being tasked with essentially creating a new species, knowing that one day she wants to go back and fight the darkness. she becomes such a politician and has to scheme and plot and really loses her humanity while following ALIS' advice- alis was the one who told her that people need a mascot, not a friend. this also makes for a really interesting scene where alis grants mara one favor, and instead of asking for political power, even though mara is such an intensely political and scheming person, she tells alis the truth about the awoken and asks for forgiveness. alis, who mara looked up to, doesnt forgive her, and mara really internalizes this and starts to permantantly close herself off. mara made herself into a queen and lost her humanity in the process. there's a couple people who see the real her, like sjur, but even sjur doesnt really understand her. but her relationship with sjur is also so well written and interesting, sjur being the one person she lets herself drop her mask around and just act human. i made a post about this once, but even mara's speech patterns change around sjur, becoming much more casual and "normal." however, at the same time, mara's mask/persona is a part of her character, and one that i love. people hate her for being "mean," but i like characters like that. mara doesnt take any shit, even from the protagonist, and has her own plans and goals that she doesn't feel obligated to share or change for other people. she's ambitious, sticks to her guns, and doesn't allow other people to influence her.

you say she's selfish, and i think it is easy to brush her off as selfish and doing everything for her own gain, but there's a lot of subtext and outright text in the marasenna and other lore that shows mara genuinely believes that the only way to fight the darkness is to become a being on the same level as the darkness and the traveler. she doesn't let the awoken become immortal gods, which some people regard as a bad thing, but she did that for a reason. mara understands that a people who are eternal and ageless will never grow as people, and she knew that the darkness wanted them to just be complacently sitting aside in their little realm while it does whatever it wants. mara wasn't going to let that happen, and knew she had to find a way to encourage people to leave paradise. you can dislike the way she went about this, essentially encouraging conflict and war among her people, but she did not just do it for her own gain or amusement. mara has also been hated on for starting the reef war/firing a missile at the house of wolves, people act like she did that just for fun too, but the eliksni fleet was heading to conquer earth. instead of just hiding and building up her own resources, which wouldve been the logical thing to do in this situation, mara put her own fleet and power on the line to draw the eliksni's attention away and help earth. she doesn't do things solely bc they benefit her, but because she genuinely loves and wants to help earth. her uncaring persona is a mask, the thing that she feels she needs to be for people to have faith in her.

i have more to say but this is already so long and ive said a lot, so i'll end it here :) at the end of the day, some people are just not going to like mara and thats totally fine. she's not everyone's type, bc she IS ambitious and manipulative and sometimes cruel. i just wish she didnt get a disproportionate amount of hate for being like that when i know for a fact that if she was a male character she would not get this much hate, and i wish that people could just dislike her normally without lying about her or misinterpreting her character and motivations. but if you dont like her, you dont like her! sometimes we just dislike characters, sometimes for well thought out reasons snad sometimes just for no reason! thats completely fine, as long as you're respectful!!

[cerealmonster15]

How about Leo for that character thing?

ffffuck yes i have to put this one in a readmore bc i got carried away listing like 800 leo quotes 

How I feel about this characterhes one of my favorite royal sibs!!!!! probs tied with elise and takumi? or possibly my most fave?????? i was sad the whole time birthright bc i missed him and elise the whole time,,,, now that im playing conquest im sad bc i miss takumi lol. i love my tomato brother ;w; but he (and xander) is like the funniest fuckin character, oh my god. i love him so much. he makes me cry with laughter half the time he opens his mouth. hes this snarky little snob and he can’t dress himself for shit bc his clothes are always inside out or backwards (me too actually. every time i realize my shirt’s on wrong im instantly like Wow Leo Vibes). i love how in birthiright near the end theres this important emotional scene and hes gotten rid of iago and corrins like “hhhhey leo,,,? ur shirts inside out” and he just goes “DAMN IT.” his shop voice lines sound like a really sarcastic customer service voice. “Welcome. Goodbye~!”. so do xander’s??? i fucking die every time one of them is manning a shop oh my god i love themhis alts in feh make me s c r e a m hes so damn funny and dramatic.summer leo:“[grumbly voice] TANLINES… what, torture.”“If you are disappointed by these results then give me clothes”“Hot… beaches?hHHRRNNNNNN[aHEM], hate them.”“Tropical islands? Forget it! And this swimsuit? [snobby laughing tone] DONT even get me STARTED!”“Hey, if you like tropical islands, that’s fine. Maybe it’s not as bad as[randomly starts laughing???] I say.” like is he trying to be chill about it but just cant hold it together because the very idea of  a tropical idea is so absurd to him ?? hes so fuckign weird i love himGOD my ultimate favorite leo quote ever of all time tho is: “I actually like walking a beach at night. But… swim? In the ocean? [laughter, maybe nervous laughter i cant fucking tell] With my body?!?!???” WITH MY BODY?? i love him what the helland then he does that thing in the lvl40 five star convo where hes like “id be as red as a tomato if i got a sunburn???? fuck, how could i hate the sun if thats the case??? maybe ill go right now-” god hes so weird. i love that line regular leo does thats like “you’d never guess what vegetable really catches MY fancy! ………tomatoes…….”and then picnic leo omg. i probably screamed when i saw he was a free unit this spring i was SO HAPPY [as much as i love summer leo i dont actually have him and i cry that his banner hasnt returned this summer yet ;c]he grumbles when u poke him. he goes MMMMMM when you pick him up to take his turn. he complains about the sun, AGAIN.“i’m not used to this much sunlight! it’s…. nnggggg,,, blINDing..”“[offended voice] why are you being so SNEAKY? THIS is a PICNIC!” HhhhhhHHHHHH god lmao“[very proud voice] How does it taste? It must delicious, given I made it mySELF!” “What about this? I had my retainers prepare it for us.“ ik a lot of people say this contradicts his first line and one of them is a fucking lie, but i like to think this just means he made lunch with odin and niles and they did different parts and it’s soooooooooooooooooo cute to think about him cooking with his boys ;w; also he sounds so proud here too. hes so proud of his retainers and hes like “heh, mine are the best, they made this great food arent they wonderful i love them so much”“You want…to try some of my cooking? [gasp sigh huffy noise??] If you insist…” hes so excited someone wants to eat his cooking but he cant let anyone Know he has emotions lollies down… maybe leo really is my top fave LOL i just love his lines so much. i want to high five his voice actor for the delivery on these lines. that’s not even going into some of his supports in warriors that ive watcheed on youtube [plz everyone needs to see the one with frederick and leo. it always has me in tears. theyre SO FUNNY together ldjsfgbgf]chapter leo of birthright is probs one of my favorite chapters in fates. it was HARD AND ANNOYING but the dialogue made me weepy 

All the people I ship romantically with this characterodin and niles are fave….. they make a cute ot3!! i love how much he appreciates and cares for them and theyre all so good for each other… mr uptight leo and his chaos incarnate retainers to bring out his very secret dorky side… my BOYS!!!  i could go on and on about them for many paragraphs but this is already way too long lmfao oopsi also like leo and takumi of course lol. i havent played revelations yet but ive seen bits of their supports and also i just love the bickering enemies to lovers trope lol. this is my favorite panel from the 4koma comics

My non-romantic OTP for this characteri love the familial bonds between all the nohrian siblings but so far leo and elise is my fave sibling duo,,, but im biased bc so far ive only gotten theirs and camilla/xander’s lol. but even in hoshido i like the younger sibs plus older sibs duos. the idea of closeness in age forming a special bond is cute to me. i also like corrin and leo as having a close sib bond since they seem close in age! i know theres [remembers graveyard chapter of birthright again and starts sobbing] some underlying angst of him envying all the doting on corrin his siblings do and he feels ALONE AND I CRY, but he also was very fond of corrin, and i remember the end of birthright where camilla totally calls him out saying how he was saying how nice it was to get to see corrin again ;w; i’d like to think they were close!and of course i like leo and camilla’s relationship…. thinks about end of birthright and sobs… at least they have each other ;o;i need to get more leo supports actually… i want to see every support convo but theres only so much time CRIES 

My unpopular opinion about this characterIDK if this counts bc i feel like it’s half and half but i am not a fan of shipping corrin specifically with him or any of the other nohrian/hoshidan royals. like i totes get wanting to marry him as a character, buuuuuuut like i personally was not about to do that when our protagonist was his adopted sibling??????????? no thank you?!?!?!?!????? my friends and i read through the s-support convos for all of them on the wiki once and just…died the whole time bc theyre SO AWKWARD AND WEIRD “i was hiding my FORBIDDEN FEELINGS for you, PERSON I THOUGHT WAS MY SIBLING, my WHOLE LIFE, but now that ur NOT MY BLOOD RELATED FAMILY we can GET MARRIED, even tho weve still been calling you sister/brother casually this whole game” i CRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY IT’S WEIRDDDDDDDand like i dont think thats really an unpopular opinion but i see enough corrin/royals art to think it’s unpopular enough i guesstho i imagine there are some people that chose to marry the royal sibs and also think it’s weird but they just love the character and sat there like “ew stop dont talk about  that” loltho some people are like “it’s not technically inc/est-” like,,,, it kinda still is tho HHHH GROSSANYWAY

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.I mean with all video games i wish bein gay was more legal. i want to s-support all the royals to their counterparts. let leo hold takumi’s hand, which would probs turn into a competition of who can squeeze the hardest until they break each other’s bones bc theyre stupid, but plz. i want this. let hoshido and nohr form ultimate peace bc all their royal fams married.also i dont know the full situation with forrest bc i havent unlocked him but from what ive heard i wish leo was nicer about CERTAIN THINGS in their…. i guess recruitment chapter ? supports? i hear in some of japan’s dlc or a drama cd or something he comes around and is more accepting but still, if that’s not the case in US game i wish it WAS!!!ALSO i wish the sibs could have support convos with each others kids. like even if it was just the main royals kids getting to talk to their aunts and uncles i think that’d be CUTE !!!!!WAIT ALSO on the wiki, leo, niles, and odin all have unused quotes from the endgame. it seems like theyre in the part of the game where you got knocked the fuck out and hung out in the afterlife for a bit with ur dead friends and family and then everyone in the real world is shouting at u to get up off ur ass and come finish the fight. im wondering if that means leo and his retainers were originally supposed to join you in your final battle, even tho you were siding with hoshido? i wouldve loved that and cried twice as hard..... 

[x]