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hi!! first post here!!
made this blog because i recently rewatched the bruno and boots movies and started reading the books, and it's safe to say i haven't stopped thinking about them <3
my favorite characters: bruno, george, chris, wilbur, sturgeon, cathy (though i love everybody else too!! these r just my faves)
my ships: wilbur x chris, george x bruno (bruno x boots is kinda meh for me), and cathy x diane
expect art, fics, screenshots, and other things relating to these characters/ships^^
#bruno and boots#bruno walton#boots o'neal#macdonald hall#chris talbot#george wexford-smythe iii#elmer drimsdale#wilbur hackenschleimer#william sturgeon#cathy burton#diane grant#btw i will be focusing primarily on stuff from the movies#with only small things from the books#also is youre another fan of bnb please please please interact!! it seems like the fandom's pretty much nonexistent/dead
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It’s way too late at night for me to be posting something this stupid but I’m also very autistic rn and I need to talk about this. Which means I’m gonna need to make something clear before I say this, my blog is NOT for kids. I know I’ve been posting about Sonic recently because hyperfixation go brrrr but if you’re under, like, 15 I don’t consider my blog safe for you. This is primarily a mental health blog, focused around my bpd. I’m saying this all at the start because… this post is gonna tackle some pro-shipper stuff that I’m definitely thinking about due to my own trauma, and I don’t think this is a good post for a kid who loves Sonic to read.
About Surge and Kit. I see them like Ashley and Andrew from The Coffin Of Andy And Leyley. Deeply fucked up and codependent, to such a degree it becomes incestuous. Yeah, as I said, fucked up. The writers will obviously never confirm this (in fact they’ll vehemently deny it, and for good reason) but the evidence is in the text. Surge and Kit are simultaneously toxic sibling coded AND toxic couple coded. I don’t believe that’s a mistake (much like Rouge gives off some heavily uncomfy vibes in the early days of Flynn’s run on the Archie stuff). And I don’t at all think it’s there to be duplicated in real life. Flynn and Stanley, from what I’ve read from them, seem to have a solid grasp of the line, but that line is older (age-wise) than you might think. Take one look at the Metal Virus Saga and you’ll see what I mean. I think they wanted to depict a horrible toxic and fucked up sibling relationship, much like The Coffin Of Andy And Leyley, and the most powerful way to do that is to cross that relationship into something else. Something darker. And personally, I appreciate it. I think it’s important to show how trauma can twist relationships like this, and it’s particularly important for kids to know what abusive dynamics look like. That’s part of why Tangled is one of my favorite Disney Princess movies (feel free to silently judge me, I’m an emo alt girl who likes Disney, I’m used to it). Plus… it’s an interesting wrinkle on (particularly recent) Sonic and Tails stuff. I’m a firm believer that a big part of the reason Tails was so out of character in Lost World and Forces was there was a SonicxTails shipper on staff. This takes that to its logical extreme, and contrasts it phenomenally. Sonic and Tails are brothers in all but blood, they have a healthy distance, rag on each other a bit, but ultimately are always there for one another. It’s literally the dream sibling experience. Surge and Kit are… Surge is constantly dominating Kit, and Kit is more than willing to serve her however she needs. He has always loved her deeply and wanted the best for her (because of how Starline fucked with their brains), even once he’d learned he’d been brainwashed to feel that way. At first Surge had shown zero care for Kit, but now she seems to love him too. Wanting to actively involve him in her plans to rip apart Sonic and friends. She still constantly demonstrates her dominance over him, but no longer in a hostile way (most of the time). It’s more… loving. It’s fucked as hell but she gives off rough mommy domme vibes for him (as I said, this post is fucked up). I mean, there’s a reason Mimic made the “shared room” joke in the latest issue, it’s not subtle.
Sorry about the hella long posts btw… my ADHD is ADHDing
#sonic the hedgehog#surge the tenrec#sonic idw#kitsunami the fennec#proshipper safe#antishippers dni#15+#srsly#this is a very fucked analysis#adhd hyperfixation#god I’m painting a target on my back
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Icy cold take here (actually I dunno) but a lot of Indian movies are q bad cause they are either “oo look at this couple and how they fall in love” or “oo look at MC, isn’t he the coolest?” And honestly I like movies that aren’t necessarily focused on the romance at all, but aren’t just “the trials and tribulations of this one guy”
call me picky but IDK
~ chalky the chalk anon
chalk anon, CHALK ANON *SHAKES YOU* i wrote an entire essay about this because I was so frustrated about bollywood movies LMAO but yes i didn't mean for it to get this long 💔 more utc 😔💔💔
no because you're so right 😔💔 i get that too! i wish there were more movies about female characters that weren't ott-exclusive/direct to streaming services yk? and even the mainstream female-oriented movies that we already have are marketed as such (which causes the general public to lose interest in it because "it's about women and feminism is cancer *goes to the movies to watch the most generic action-thriller starring salman khan and an actress 20 years his junior for the third time this week*)
but that isn't even my only grudge actually?? bollywood movies are primarily romance movies but even then— EVEN THEN!! i don't think I can name a single movie that made me swoon or made me feel giggly and happy on the inside 💔 i have never "shipped" an on-screen couple in a bollywood movie etc. because the movies just?? aren't good. i don't like the way it portrays romance as physical attraction (especially on the male characters part) and shows him needlessly objectifying women. it's sad, it's tired, it's exploitative, it's male-gazey, it's everything that is wrong with this world 💞 /gen now i'm not gonna sit here and tell you what a good romance movie makes (because I... Have never made one lmao) but on behalf of the girls and the gays, i would like to outline some obvious pet peeves that i have from MOST movies (I swear you'll find these tropes in like every movie you don't even have to try) let's go.
item numbers. we don't need them. take them out. please 💞
actors not knowing how to act??? i think this is just an industry problem tbh
not knowing how to write women
not knowing how to choreograph good fight sequences
filler songs for radio promotion
ARIJIT SINGH IS EVERYWHERE???
not knowing how to write romance
thinking every movie NEEDS romance in the first place
and that last point is so important to me btw. i just wish we had more movies trying to tell STORIES rather than LOVE stories, like yeah an occasional rom-com is fun and i'm not saying we should give it up completely but it gets tiring when literally every movie is a rom-com. action-rom-com? drama-rom-com????? yes we've got it 😔💔 it's v funny becajse most of my (and most people ik!!!!) favorite movies weren't romance at all 😧 spirited away is the best movie ever made (#hakukisser4lyf) because it had a compelling story set in a beautiful world with fun characters.
it's honestly just pretty clear to me atp is that bollywood just doesn't care about giving us good stories. your best bet is south indian movies and indie stuff.
so yeah anyways i don't watch Bollywood anymore.
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So, that has happened since yesterday...
Dobson decided to give up on his tumblr, mere hours after he more or less out of the blue decided that he was no longer fighting against his “harassers”. You know, the same people who he accused of being after him for years and doing utterly terrible things... by pointing out his hypocricies with completely independent tumblrs that have not personally engaged with him in talk, and which Dobson ignores or tries to anyway.
The “worst” aspect for me is that in regard of the second major message he wrote (the “well-wishes one”) it is pretty much clear that he hinted on the idea people should doxx the people he does not like (you know, the hint of he needs people to help him with “physical” actions). Which btw, is illegal according to tumblr guidelines. Heck, as far as I know, none of the people on tumblr who make fun of Dobson/criticize his work have decided to doxx him ever. Also it just shows how “meaningless” well intentions are in his eyes when he can’t get immediately results out of them. Which is hilarious as “well intentions” is all his works are based on majorily too.
What I don’t get is what “recent” action supposedly had him now go into the defense like that. The fact that pics of Cabin’s Rest got leaked for people not paying him money? People calling him paranoid because his latest assumptions about the Hypocricy of Andrew Dobson indicated he thinks there exists a master troll who is after him for 15 years? The backlash resulting from admiting he wishes someone he doesn’t like dies of COVID-19 because it makes him happy to think people he doesn’t like are “suffocating” from a virus that costs thousands of lives globally, meaning he indirectly also pissed on the graves of those that died? All of them combined? If so I am baffled because Dobson reacts to such accusations and actions simply by blocking and trying to excuse them as justified. Anyway, Dobson has now “given up” on tumblr and if a first glance of online plattforms indicates anything, even patreon and facebook. And honestly, part of me feels bad for it. Look, I do not like Dobson based on his behavior (framing a shallow obsession with cartoons and lesbians as progressive support for the LGBT community and how insightful he is into storytelling, exploiting his talents as an artist primarily to accuse every group of nerds out there as being bad people because of their interests, focusing only on the worst of nerd culture instead of also celebrating good things without making it then about his hatred for white males, twisting the truth about past actions and mistakes he made instead of admiting to them etc) but if I am being honest... I want him to get better.
I am one of those people who believes that at least in 90% of all stories created out there, the thing that makes a story fail or succeed is execution more so than the idea itself. and some of the stuff Dobson created or thought up over the years could work on the basics. Alex ze Pirate, So You’re a Cartoonist, even Patti. So I would love it if Dobson was capable of reviving some of that stuff in a positive way and make at least a decent story out of them. Stories that entertain and yes, also make him become popular to some based on the work alone while making a profit. The problem is (partly), Dobson barely is able to separate himself from the art. His work is oozing with his own often times negative opinions, he can’t take criticism even if it is justified based on the work alone (sometimes not even the message conveyed), he seems to go with the first idea for story progression that comes to his mind, even if it may be unhelpful for anything later etc. Plus again, he seems to focus mostly on the negative things than anything positive he is interested into. Like when Captian Marvel and Wonder Woman came out. Instead of focusing on anything positive those movies may mean for others, he just used them as an excuse to once again show how bad white males are for not liking them. Bottom line, Dobson could use being a bit more cheerful or at least find something to be cheerful about, without a need to directly or indirectly piss into the cornflakes of everyone who does not necessarily think the same way he does.
If he could do that, I think he would be happier as a person and even more succesful and I wish him that to be. But the way it is, he chose a direction that on the long run just assures his “haters” win and he loses either way.
finally, at least part of me believes this latest shocase of burning down the ground and be done with the internet is just show. Why? Because it is not the first time Dobson did that thing. Years ago Dobson already was on tumblr, but then gave up his account when negativity became too much. He even indicated he was done doing anything art related ever, except a comic he was commisioned to do at the time. Didn’t stop him however from continuing on deviantart, until he rage nuked that one on September 11 2017 or so (the most hilarious date in Dobson history, honestly)
It is also not the first time from being slightly overdramatic and deleting tons of stuff simultaneously, likely to get a sympathetic reactions out of some. And mind you, this is less than a week after he did the entire “Spread the Love” thing which was primarily just done so that people supported him and likely go after his critics.
So if anything, wait up what Dobson does in the next days. Cause it is likely he will either set up a new Patreon or return eventually once he got enough positive support. And if not... well, then I wish Dobson good luck with his regular life outside of the online circle, cause in the times we live in now, he can use it. Who knows, perhaps he will find the happiness interaction here did not give him, if not even the inspiration to do a comic that will earn him success. Stay safe, Andrew.
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If I could make a DC comics character
Just a big + strong lady. No superpowers, she's just fucking jacked. Carries Batman over one shoulder fireman-style when he's knocked unconscious.
But she's not the stereotypical strong woman. She doesn't grunt and she's not portrayed as unintelligent, none of that "gentle giant" trope. She's just like a big strong gay lady who probably thinks Batwoman is a goddess and wears Wonder Woman t-shirts to bed.
You thought Jason Todd had the thickest thighs in Gotham? Well watch out, there's a new contender on the block.
She works with Robin (Damian) one time and he's being stubborn, so she just lifts him above her head like she's playing keep-away and wades through a sea of thugs with him squirming in her arms
Everyone assumes she's pretty young, but she's actually slightly older than Bruce Wayne, and occasionally she drops these deep-cut references to pre-Zero Year Gotham and Batman just frowns as he tries to puzzle out who tf she is
Her patrol route in Gotham primarily encompasses The Narrows, because she has a knack for being able to help the seemingly helpless, and she has a deeper understanding of poverty than the bats ever could
In her day-to-day life, when she isn't doing superhero stuff, she's an activist of some kind. She probably runs one of Gotham's most well-established NGOs, and she's probably been invited to speak at the United Nations at least once. (Wonder Woman was there and she got so excited she cried.)
This means she keeps up with Gotham's current events and has an intense knowledge of the city's socio-political landscape.
She reads every news publication in Gotham: all the usual suspects, plus the Gotham University paper, every Vice-style indie news outlet, even the gossip rags.
But she also trawls social media. She knows every bit of drama that's going down at Gotham Academy, and knows that there are four different tenants in the same apartment building in Lower Gotham all complaining about the same strange odour coming from the 5th floor that sounds a lot like Scarecrow's doing.
Her guilty pleasure is that she has notifications turned on for the accounts of every Wayne family member, and she keeps up with them like they're the Kardashians.
... Even though she's definitely protested outside of Wayne Tower a time or two in her day.
When she finds out Batman is Bruce Wayne, she leverages it to make Gotham a better place. She'll just burst into his office like:
"Mr Wayne, I think it would be very beneficial to the community for you to invest in this black-owned start-up business."
"Mr Wayne, don't you think it would be worthwhile for you to support this Native American organisation, given how much of their land your ancestors took from them?"
She's a ruthless intersectional feminist and she's the leftism to Batman's liberalism
OC: "Bruce, one of Gotham's oldest gay bars is closing down, I think you should buy it."
Bruce: "The optics on that are... complicated."
OC: "Not really, Dick Grayson was photographed there last week."
I like the idea of her being a mental health practitioner of some kind (idk what the proper terms for MH workers are in the US, I'd have to look into it), but I think she should be focused on community service and trauma-informed care. She probably also cares about recovery-oriented MH a lot and would work well with people experiencing addiction, and people experiencing poverty who don't have the money for clinical mental health care (psychologists, psychiatrists, etc).
She's also definitely lobbying for Arkham Asylum to be renamed and restructured (seriously, who still calls them asylums? It's 2019)
Appearance-wise she's jacked and has a tonne of someone-did-this-in-a-kitchen-at-a-party-with-a-sewing-needle-taped-to-the-end-of-a-pencil tattoos that are faded and patchy. It makes people think she's been to prison, and when people ask she never gives an answer one way or another. As a result of said tattoos, she's always dressed in long sleeves and long pants (turtlenecks or button-downs, the occasional blouse), and her superhero suit covers her entire body. It's similar to something like Red Hood's suit, because she values armour and protection over speed, but she still wants a level of manoeuvrability.
I think at some point she figured out Superman was Clark Kent, so in her day-to-day life she wears glasses even though she doesn't need them, she just thinks it's really funny and always chuckles in the mirror when she puts them on.
She probably has really drab, long brown hair (going grey) that she wears in a bun 24/7, and she rolls her sleeves up when things get intense. She's either wearing a button-down (when she's at work) or a checkered flannel shirt (when she's not at work) almost all the time, and watching her carefully and neatly fold up her sleeves around her elbows is the most nerve-wracking thing in the world. It's even been known to make Bruce Wayne flinch on occasion.
Things she said in front of Bruce Wayne once she found out he was Batman:
Batman and Superman have definitely fucked
*detailed explanation of exactly what furries are and why half of the superheroes and villains in Gotham are, in fact, furries, including Batman*
I think she's a bit of a conspiracy theorist, which means her and Red Robin should never be allowed in the same room alone. She's got a vibe similar to The Question in that way, but she's not a full-on, push-pins-and-strings-covering-the-whole-room conspiracy theorist. She's just a bit of a tin foil hatter. Disturbingly, Batman, Nightwing, etc. can't find any evidence to refute a lot of her theories, and their stories together often end in an eerie, open-ended conclusion that implies she could be right about everything.
I like to think she uses old phrases and Gotham-isms that people routinely forget are a thing. E.g. "What in the name of Riddler's left testicle?" (A reference to that time during the Zero Year when Riddler turned his camera on too early and broadcasted his entire scrotum to every citizen of Gotham.) Otherwise, she mostly speaks like Jack McCoy from the early days of the original Law & Order. E.g. "You really screwed the pooch on this one, Batman!" and other obscure North American idioms that haven't been used in 30 years.
I either picture her family-less, or like that part in season 2 of NCIS: LA where Agent Hanna just casually drops that he has two kids and a wife, btw, and up until that point you've been convinced he was single and a workaholic.
Honestly the more I think about it, the more I think this might just be an AU for Susie Su where her character is actually fleshed-out and not just fatphobic and two-dimensional
...
Guess I'll add this to the list of fanfics I gotta write, right behind the one I'm writing right now (*Jake Paul voice* link in bio) and the sequel to Batman Forever /Batman & Robin that's a standalone Nightwing movie lmao why am I like this
#dc headcanon#dc comics oc#oc#original character#batman#gotham#susie su#rhato#red hood and the outlaws#bruce wayne#red hood#robin#batwoman#fanfic#fanfiction#dc fanfic#dc fanfiction#my posts#my rants#my headcanons
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I am considering changing some of the appearance aspects of Lanaster to be based around more of South Asian racial features because that's an area I'm lacking diversity, especially because there's so little representation of characters like that in media. But I'm not sure as there are other minority groups like Latine/Latinx people and Indigenous American people I haven't touched on and obviously you won't touch every minority in one story and I have other ones in the works, and idk if it's 100% appropriate TO HAVE every minority in a story when you're mainly drawing inspiration from certain groups so should the story be focused on the groups you're drawing from (in my case the inspiration for much of the mythology comes from East/Southeast Asian folklore and Greek and Norse mythos becUse that's my familial heritage both my own and my adopted family)
Thoughts?
Edit:
The issue also arises that the folklore of this story is based mainly off of the mythology of the culture I was raised in mainly Chinese mythology and a little of Norse and Greek and Egyptian stuff because that's what I grew up with my dad reading to me to connect me to my heritage and the heritage of my adopted family (Mediterranean and middle eastern and northern European)
So should I have a main cast of characters primarily being of the race that the mythology is based on? Because that's the argument many people have for movies like dune that there should be more middle eastern rep because the show borrows so much from middle eastern aesthetic and for me my book's cultures and mythos takes a lot of aesthetic choices etc from those cultures especially the folklore of China and the family ideals of China and a lot of the geographic ideas and geopolitical ideas are taken from old times china and southeast Asia and Polynesia
And I feel like while there is definitely space in my story to put characters not of these races (and I plan to) I feel like the story should revolve mainly around my core eight charas (btw I'm putting up the design for Jain Hessade soon) and I'll put supports in of other races.
I just don't want to be the person who relegates races that I'm not (aka Latine and South Asians etc) to be support roles every time and it's something I want to make conscious effort of.
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I was tagged by @mylasagnaisraw to do this tag to design my own ‘sides’ (thanks!) and this was honestly lots of fun to do. I also have a picture of my sides at the end :D Let’s get started!
(This is a super long post so it’s under a read more!)
Aesthetic/Analise
She/Her
My gay side
She is the embodiment of all of the clothes I want to wear but never can
She is also the embodiment of all the people I think are gorgeous but can never date
She loves to sing soft, pretty songs that makes her voice sound good and loves to sing them in echo-y spaces
While she can pick out good outfits, she has a terrible taste for designing clothes/outfits, do not trust her
She also hates shopping like Me
Loves the cold and loves to wear layers
Description:
She has two outfits: A frilly girly dress that fluffs out when you twirl, or the Hipster Boy look
Her feminine outfit consist of the dress, usually a ribbon or a sun hat, and low heels or sandals
The hipster outfit consists of skinny jeans, beanie, fake glasses, tshirt with an open plaid shirt over it OR a long sleeve with the plaid shirt tied around her waist, and converse
Her hair is short and curled
Her eyes are a bright blue because people claim that that’s the color eyes I have when I Don’t
She loves hats
Confusion/Connor
Any pronouns
The embodiment of my confusion on many subjects
Gender? I don’t know. Sexuality? Clueless. Why I’m better at math than English? Who the heck knows.
Can never give a straight answer for anything even if it’s as simple as “what is your favorite color”
It’s either green or purple btw but teal is also really nice so who knows
He’s the reason I can’t figure out whether I like someone or just wanna be their friend
“Hey you know that person you’ve been fawning over for two weeks? What if you only want to be their friend”
“Hey you know that person you’re marrying tomorrow? What if you only want to be their—”
Can’t decide what movie is their favorite
Is the reason why I hop fandoms every 2 weeks
Description:
Hair is half slicked back and half hangs forward, kind of like Victor from Yuri on Ice
Eyes are heterochromatic blue and green because she can’t even decide what eye color to settle on
Wears Eevee sweatpants and a long sleeved super baggy LGBT sweatshirt
He has fun colorful socks that go up to the knee but you can’t see them because of the sweatpants
Wears a ‘Make America Gay Again’ wristband
Empathy/Emery
They/Them/No pronouns
The sweetest bean you will ever meet
The Soft Gay
Cries at every show/book/movie/whatever, even cries at every TS video
Loves giving big hugs and fantasizes about falling asleep cuddling Emery’s friends
Makes art for other people because Emery loves seeing them happy
Only argues when someone is insisting that they’re awful or don’t deserve kindness and refuses to stop arguing until the person feels better
Loves flowers, especially roses
Listens to musicals all day every day
Can’t understand romantic advances
Would spend $1000 dollars on friends if Emery could
Description:
Wears oversized sweaters in pastel colors
Sides of hair are shaved down while top is longer, slightly curled, and dyed pastel pink.
Darker hazel-ish eyes and sometimes wears Analise’s false glasses to make friends laugh
Fluffy socks all the time
Loves earrings
Pressure/Prescot
He/Him pronouns are preferred, but will take any
He is my equivalent of Logic/Creativity/Anxiety wrapped up into one scary package
Where some people live life out of spite or self care I live mine as a result of pressure
He’s the one that pushes me to learn and do well with studies, get art out consistently, and write on a weekly basis
“You’ve got to finish that book today and also make that picture for the blog and don’t forget you need to write a chapter because you missed posting last week and also a short story for this blog and—”
He only sleeps like 3 hours because he is constantly making lists for the next day
Feelings? What feelings
Somehow believes there are at least 36 hours in a day
Crashes and burns once a month and needs to be comforted by the others before he cracks completely
He is the most anxious bean and hates when there isn’t a straight answer to things because that means lack of productivity which means no new content is being made which means more pressure builds up and oh gOD
Description:
Most masculinely dressed, and goes from Book Nerd to CEO to Boy Next Door
Book Nerd look is long sleeved button up with the top button undone, sweater vest, and glasses
CEO look is a full suit with glasses and a brightly colored tie
Boy Next Door look is a plain tshirt with a plaid open shirt and finally a cool jacket of sorts over it, with messy hair
Usually his hair is slicked back or done in some kind of fancy fashion
Dull green eyes and usually wears glasses that he actually does need
Vision/Vic
Pronouns change, so any
Has 1000 ideas and can never get them all written down
Knows color theory and dream interpretations and can spout them off like nothin
Also knows super obscure facts from researching for stories, primarily a lot of medical knowledge that he really shouldn’t know
Is he a writer or a murderer? His Google history can’t tell. Is that blood or paint on her hands? No one knows.
Afraid of bugs, any kind of bugs
Loves meeting new people and talking about stories/OCs
Will shout really excitedly about art/writing because wow!!!! Look! At! That!! (AKA they’re responsible for my excited tags on everything)
Perfectionist and never satisfied with her work
Loves animals but can’t draw them which makes him sad
Has filled 10 sketchbooks, half filled 20 notebooks
Hoards any and all sketchbooks/notebooks
Description:
Wears a jacket with at least thirty (30) pencils stuffed into the pockets (she likes to make a show of taking one out at a time while looking one of the Sides dead in the eyes, asking “Do you need a pencil?” every time she takes a new one out)
Hair is poofy and messy and dark colored
Eyes are tired and a murky blue
Wears jeans and slippers
Basically he looks like an Art Student with the work load of an English Grad
RELATIONSHIPS:
Analise and Connor
They clash a lot when it comes to clothing tastes and how it relates to gender
Ana always asks Connor for advice about an outfit but he says he doesn’t know
They do like to watch Project Runway together though
Connor likes to listen to Ana sing
They can chill at night and watch TV together but during the day they don’t really get along and start a lot of arguments
Analise/Emery
They get along pretty well and like to gush with one another
They are the Soft Beans and like to be soft together
Similar aesthetics and love cuddling
They’ll watch musicals together and cry at romantic dramas
Emery always tells Ana she looks wonderful no matter what she wears which is frustrating for Ana who wants an honest opinion
Book club buddies
Analise/Prescot
Prescot is the only one to give her honest opinions about her outfits, so she likes him for that
Sometimes he can be overly critical though and they get into fights
“Clothes don’t matter, just wear something” “I WANT TO LOOK CUTE”
Prescot thinks that Analise watching reality TV is a waste of time and always tells her to stop it
Analise gushes to Prescot about sets/costumes/choreography in musicals and Prescot will humor her for about 10 minutes before saying that they should work on something productive again and reflect on it again later
Analise/Vic
These two work best together because Ana helps Vic come up with the ‘look’ in projects
They gush about color theory together all the time
Ideas can get way out of hand while these two are together so it’s up to Prescot to keep them in line
They watch things together all the time and usually fall asleep on the couch together
They share clothes or Ana tries to dress Vic up so he doesn’t look like such a mess
Connor/Emery
Emery always helps Connor when she has an episode and can’t figure anything out
Always lots of hugs and reassuring words
Emery basically takes care of Connor
Emery also tends to shield Connor from Prescot so Connor doesn’t get as overwhelmed
Emery brings Connor blankets when he kind of just stares at things for hours on end in the midst of an existential crisis
Connor/Prescot
They don’t get along well. Prescot provides a lot of pressure to figure out my identity and Connor’s confusion only gets in the way of that, so they clash heads all the time
There are few instances where they can get along because they’re essentially complete opposites
Connor/Vic
Connor frustrates Vic because Vic always needs second opinions for ideas and Connor never knows how to help
Sometimes Connor will also randomly drop a criticism with nothing to back it up
“Don’t you think these colors are wrong?” “Why?” “I don’t know it just looks wrong” “*angry screaming*”
Vic helps Connor vent a lot of his frustrations when he’s confused, though, so that’s nice and Connor always feels better afterwards. They keep notebooks/sketchbooks together to share their work
Emery/Prescot
Prescot makes Emery cry a lot without meaning to and he always feels a little bad because he didn’t think that he would upset Emery
They do depend on one another a lot though
Emery is the one to tell Prescot to take a step back and breathe when he gets overwhelmed with something
Prescot is the one to tell Emery that Emery can’t always focus on others because sometimes focusing on one’s self is important too
Emery only throws that line back at him when he feels overwhelmed to make stuff for recognition from others
Emery also comforts Prescot when he gets overwhelmed and has a lil breakdown
Ultimately, they end up falling asleep together or just chilling together and being unproductive/not openly comforting for a while because it’s good for the both of them to just…be, for a while
Emery/Vic
Vic knows that Emery just kind of likes everything and is always encouraging so that’s nice when they are feeling down about their work but they’ll never go to Emery for actual criticism
They do work off of one another though when Emery wants something to be made for a friend and Vic is there ready to provide it
The two of them talk over art and literature a lot and have fun doodling randomly together
The both of them appreciate music of all sorts and will have jam sessions together
Prescot/Vic
They work off of one another where Prescot never says no to an idea and also gives a lot of encouragement and pressure to Vic to keep creating but this usually results in one or both of them getting burned out or upset
Usually a lot of screaming fights that Emery has to break up and tell them to stop
They haven’t learned to just relax around one another yet so it makes interactions really upsetting for the both of them
They’re just two hostile forces that can’t be in the same room together for longer than an hour
Phew! That took a while :D But that was fun! Now I gotta tag 5 people because I made 5 sides. Soooo...
@slightly-functioningsociopath @bossatronia @pattonpending @sanderships and @finiteframe3!!
#xaan sides#mine#tagged for me#the main post said that people could make fanart of one another's sides#if anyone made fanart for my sides i would d i e#in the best way possible
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By the way, IDW is going to realease a new comic series to replace Friends Forever, called Legends of Magic. It's all about telling the hidden history of Equestria and apparently will also tie in with season 7. Unfortunately, I can't give you the link to the article, but it's on Equestria Daily. Probably still around the first page if you go there today. 2017 truly is the Year of Pony, huh?
YES. FOR FUCK’S SAKE, YES!!!
OH GOD DAMN. OH GOD DAMN, GOD DAMN.
Also, TELLING ME PONY NEWS IS THE GREATEST THING THANK YOU???
LOOK AT THIS GORGEOUSNESS, EVERYBODY (the colours are off on the first two, but that’ll be fixed in the prints; also, to be clear, these are variant covers of the same comic):
I’mma just copy pasta some info from EQD for the Tumblr peeps here to read:
Writer, Jeremy Whitley said this:
"My Little Pony: Legends of Magic” is a tremendous opportunity for both us as comic creators and our readers to get a chance to really dive into the rich mythological history of the My Little Pony world. The long history of the world is so often hinted at in the show and now we have the chance to pick up on all those little hints and fill in all the rich details. It gives us a chance to tell different sorts of stories and follow mythological members of the cast who have only ever appeared in stories and flashbacks. It gives us an opportunity to work very closely with the show without having to tell stories that are happening at the same time. It will be a must read for big time My Little Pony fans!”
Artists Brenda Hickey added:
“In Legends of Magic you will be introduced to a whole new, diverse, and colorful cast. Of course there will be appearances from a few familiar faces, so you also can look forward to that!”
And here’s the official synopsis:
The origins of cutie marks, friendships, magic and more are available in this new ongoing series devoted to revealing the secret history of Equestria! In this opening story arc, we travel back in time to uncover the secrets of Starswirl the Bearded and his magical friends!
FC • 32 pages • $3.99
The best and most exciting thing is this:
“Bullet points:
Ties into new season of My Little Pony!
The magic of My Little Pony continues with a brand-new ongoing series!
From seasoned MLP writer Jeremy Whitley, creator of Princeless, and writer on Marvel’s The Unstoppable Wasp!”
Source for all this beautiful stuff is EQD (x)
Thoughts/Fangirling (I figure EQD has the news, if you want you can go there and get the info without my reaction):
... First of all, YES. A MILLION TIMES YES.
Second of all, I hope we continue to see the same characterization of Starswirl that we did in the Reflections arc, because if so, that might mean we’re going to see that goofball in the show like that (if you haven’t read that specific arc, Google it and see if you can read it; it’s not necessary, but
Third of all, I made a wild guess on my Top 10 list of things to look forward to in season 7 that Starswirl could potentially either be mentioned or even appear in season 7, and if I’m “right” (because I didn’t actually expect that), I’ll lose my shit. That doesn’t happen.
Fourth of all... guys, I really need to kick my ass in gear with my fanfic. Starswirl and his history are a huge part of my 13 “episode” “season,” so I’m honestly glad it’s coming out in April and not any earlier. I’ve already had to push my release schedule back a month, so now I’ve got even more motivation to get it out there before we know the real story. Just putting this out there to hopefully hold myself accountable (and also so you know I’m not taking ideas from anywhere).
Fifth of all, this might give us a time-frame for when season 7 is being released. Season 6 came out super early, actually, at the end of March last year. Planning out Year of the Pony, I tentatively guessed it was either March or April (it’s weird planning for something you don’t know for sure; it makes it harder to decide on themes for March and April), but now it’s looking like April more and more. Might be give or take, but probably not by much if it is at all.
We’re actually hoping for news next week---Hasbro’s at some convention (NATPE Miami) to “showcase Transformers, My Little Pony and Equestria Girls” and specifically “The NATPE is a place to provide "a platform for upcoming and established franchises and companies to share their content and tips."
Source (x)
So, it’s still possible we won’t get a release date, but at the same time, William Anderson said he’s almost done with the background music for season 7, and that’s the last thing they do before sending it off to Discovery Family. So, we’ll probably get our release date confirmed next week. Otherwise, I’m not as good as speculating as I think I am...
Sixth of all, the more they do this year, the happier I get. They’re really rewarding the fans, it’s so cool. The Guardians of Harmony toys are badass enough and have a comic with tons of action and continuity (plus fan-favourite characters get the focus), and now they’re focusing on lore and stuff---both in the show and in comics. Seriously. SERIOUSLY!
I know with the movie the marketing will have to focus primarily on getting general audiences interested, which is why they’re doing the gender neutral thing (which is pretty rad, btw), BUT SERIOUSLY. They love us. They know we’re here and they’re acknowledging us in a way that rewards us for sticking around, but not changing anything just to please us. So, uh, I guess still pandering, but in a really good, really satisfying way---because we do want lore! We do want badass figures!
Honestly, that’s totally why they’re doing the 3 EQG specials instead of one, because they know we freaking love EQG, and specifically Sunset and Sci-Twi (among other characters, of course, but Sunset’s kinda beloved at this point).
I just... I really appreciate what they’re doing.
I know the comics have some great stuff and some not so great stuff, so I know not all fans will be super happy it’s being tackled there, but 1) I CAN’T OVER THE FACT THAT IT’S TYING INTO SEASON 7 (translation: if this really has ties into the season, you’ll still get to see it tackled in the show, too) and 2) HOT DANG THIS LOOKS GOOD (translation: the comics have their ups and downs, but the key part of that is “ups” so I’m more than willing to be optimistic for now).
Doing Year of the Pony was an even better decision than I thought it was. I knew it was going to be big, but they’re going all out all out and I love them for it. This year is going to be so much fun!
P.S. Seriously, though, thanks so much for telling me ^^
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Archive Post: Making a game writing portfolio
Post-migration note: this was the very first of the advice posts I did, way back in late 2014, in response to an email I got from someone I met at the Dublin Writer’s Festival. There’s nothing in here that I now disavow, exactly, but there are certainly things which I would phrase or emphasise differently.
For a start, back then I was still mainly a studio writer, which gives you a certain perspective on this stuff. itch.io barely existed. It was the “year of Luigi”. Look, it was a strange time.
I’ve since replied to a whole lot more questions like this, eventually under the tag Cairn Questions. But this was the original, which might explain why it’s a bit all over the place, a mite over-thorough, expansive let’s call it.
This was me setting out my stall for something which I still believe: that it should be possible for a talented writer to make a decent living in this industry, either pursuing their own artistic vision or as a 9-to-5 story engineer. Sometimes, it feels like it’s no easier now than it was back then, but a glance at the indie games lists gives me faith.
So let’s get into it.
Say I was making a video game, primarily to have something to show when I apply for writing-internships at game studios. What would be better suited: a completely text-based game, such as the ones made with inklewriter (do-your-own-adventure-type), or a game that also incorporates visual elements?
Obviously, these are two completely different methods of story-telling. Both have their merits. The question at heart is: Would studios want to see that I know how to tell stories visually, game-ly, or is it enough to write a very, very good branching story?
My thoughts on this are below. 10min read!
I got this question from someone who’d been to a panel I did at the Dublin Writers’ Festival, and who was wondering how best to apply to some internship oppotunities. It’s fairly specific, but it kind of raises a lot of the things that I wondered about myself, when I was first starting out. Answering the question turned into kind of a screed! So I thought I’d post this response in edited form in the hope that it’s useful to others.
Disclaimer: In case it’s not clear, my own career is really just starting out (hope so anyway), and I definitely can’t pretend to be a true veteran. But I’ve had the good fortune to work as a writer both within studios and as a freelancer, and I’ve been in the unenviable position of having to hire writers myself. The following suggestions are based on what I looked for in other writers, or based on questions that I myself have been asked while applying for jobs.
Firstly, it’s great to hear that you might have some internship opportunities. Most game production schedules have very little margin for error, and when it comes right down to it, most studios tend to want to hire someone with some kind of track record, any kind of track record. And this, naturally, is inherently unfair on people just starting out, of course.
If you’re talking to a studio who’s prepared to take a risk on a new writer, then to me that’s a really good sign: that’s a studio that’s prepared to invest in younger professionals, and they will get fresh, interesting writing as a reward. But it doesn’t happen too often as far as I know.
(By the way, I’m not necessarily talking about ‘experience’ in terms of total years spent writing. Part of the problem is that studios are likely to look for writers with experience working to a similar tone to the game they’re making (e.g. “military” or “fantasy”) or for someone with experience writing for a similar audience, (e.g. kids). This doesn’t necessarily mean that as a starting writer you need to pick a genre to specialise in, but it can be useful to point to writing samples from a relevant genre, even if that’s as vague as ‘sci-fi’.)
Applying for an internship, on the other hand, you’ll hopefully have more scope to show off how original or self-starting you are, even if you don’t have much of a portfolio yet. Which is great! I’m glad that companies are doing that sort of thing, to be honest. It’s the kind of thing I’d be trying to set up if I was still full-time at a studio.
So let’s get into it.
Answering this it depends a lot on what skills you already have. If you’re intending to learn the skills to develop something with a strong visual element, then great, you won’t ever regret it (this is true even if you’re talking about learning the skills to implement other people’s art. Being able to make something visual can be as simple as becoming skilled enough with Unity to utilise a library of other people’s art.)
BUT if you don’t have these skills now, this will take time to learn, time in which you might be able to make three or four high-quality twine games or other text-focused games, and hone your craft.
This is really about how best to present your work. Unfortunately, the fact is that anything with nice, well-done visual design looks impressive compared to something that’s text-only. (This is often true even if the person reading your application is a writer themselves.) Adding great visuals to an already-great story definitely won’t hurt your application, and it could help.
HOWEVER, that doesn’t necessarily mean that creating a bunch of visuals and UI is the best use of your time right now. Especially if it’s the difference between having one reasonably-polished visual game in your portfolio, and having two or three (or more) well-polished text games.
You should definitely operate on the principle of know your audience: if you’re fairly sure that your application will be reviewed by fellow writers, then visuals definitely will matter less. But it’s hard to know that in advance.
If this seems like a lot of guesswork, well, it kind of is. That’s the trouble with trying to join the least-professionalised profession in a still-young industry.
(Btw I DON’T mean ‘least-professionalised’ as in ‘game writers aren’t professional’. Actually any working game writer has to be extremely professional, not to mention flexible, to work within an industry with no standard format for portfolios, no established writer career path, and enormous variety from studio to studio in terms of working practice.
There are positives and negatives to this kind of flexibility of course, and the sheer variability of games as an artform compared to, say, movies, means that a lot of the writer’s craft will never be ‘standardized’. But it does make it a bloody difficult and mysterious process to get started as a game writer...)
So instead of guesswork, let’s first look at some of the other things I think you definitely SHOULD show off in your applications, visuals or no.
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When I was a lead writer hiring other writers, the things that I looked for above all were:
a) style
and
b) something I don’t have a good word for yet: the ability to hold multiple story strands in your head at once, design your words and characters accordingly, and play out all the possibilities. So basically creative cognitive dissonance. Or, like, a fruitful, creative attitude to cognitive dissonance.
(This, by the way gels pretty well with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s definition of a ‘first rate intelligence’: the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in your head at once.)
In this case I mean the ability to think something along these lines: “at this point in the game, my player might be thinking THIS. Or she might have ignored THIS altogether and be focusing on THAT”.
Or, the ability to think “I need to write a sentence which expresses idea X, when the player MAY or MAY NOT have accessed related idea Y”.
It’s like asking an actor to get onstage and start performing in the second half of a play, when they don’t know whether the first half was a comedy or a tragedy. Sometimes you need to make it as clear and unambiguous as possible what’s going on. And sometimes, you need to preserve the mystery for as long as possible.
Inklewriter/Twine and text games in general provide lots of opportunity to demonstrate both of these skills: style and let’s call it creative dissonance. Just look at Porpentine.
Whatever you choose to have in your portfolio, these are the things I think you should show off most of all. If you can do that in something that’s pure text, then do it, and link me to it when it’s done!
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So with all that said, we still have to face the fact that a text game may not look too “shiny” in your portfolio. In an extremely competitive application process, something with a visual component will PROBABLY have a better chance of making a strong FIRST impression. The question is whether this extra margin is worth your time.
After all, if you’re a writer considering making a game all yourself, then doing something that has a strong visual component might just be an exercise in trying to show off something that isn’t your core skill.
Bear in mind that any game with a layout of any description requires a large amount of design skill to make properly. The simplicity of something like Papers, Please is part of the sheer amount of design skill which went into it. And if you make something that has really clunky interface or doesn’t work, then it will be a worse showcase for your writing than a nice clean Inkle interface or Twine page.
(protip: you can always describe something as a “whitebox prototype”. This will cover up a whole range of problems, but remember there’s no disguising a crappy mechanic.)
Again, if you do have the technical aptitude to make an interface-driven game, then fantastic! But bear in mind that if you do, you are actually advertising yourself as a triple threat – writer, designer, coder. So the onus may be on you to emphasise that your real love is for writing.
Of course, there is absolutely no shame in not having the technical skills. In the last few years the industry has started entering a phase in which a person can have a major creative role in a game WITHOUT having come up through Code, Art, Tech Design or QA. That’s the only way I got my first jobs: I was lucky enough to come in as an editor when a studio knew they’d be working on a very wordy game, and I worked my way up from there.
To me this is a natural progression, in the same way that eventually Hollywood movies started being directed by people who only sort-of knew how to operate a camera, but who had more big-picture skills. For myself, I have no technical aptitude to speak of and am, let’s face it, absurdly lucky to be in a position of being a game writer in the first place, sitting here trying to sound all authoritative while giving you advice.
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At this point, a voice in my ear is telling me that above all you should make the game that YOU want to make, rather than considering everything you do as a ‘portfolio piece’. The owner of that voice is right. Actually she hasn’t read your email or anything. She just comes into the room and tells me that on a regular basis, in between working on her own highly commercially-viable work, and pausing so that I can make her cups of tea.
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Is there a third option, somewhere between the graphical choice and the text-only choice? Well, yeah, you could get involved in a project with other people. There’s plenty of ways to go about this, and you have the enormous advantage of having fairly niche skills (writing) and the ability to work completely remotely (Google Drive).
Pretty much everyone who starts a bedroom-based indie game has a story they want to tell, and (in many cases) a slightly over-inflated sense of their own ability to tell it. Many startup devs with games posted on, say, Kickstarter, will appreciate a politely-worded email offering to help out with scripting, especially if you offer to do it pro bono. Try to avoid pointing out the actual typos in game dialogue in their Kickstarter video, unless it gets really drastic.
There are other options too: cruise co-working spaces or game jams and offer yourself as a general-purpose story person. I got my first job in games because, above all, I could spell.
Bear in mind that with any of these enquiries you’ll have, like, a 10% hit rate at best. But it’s worth persevering if that’s the route you want to go down. Sooner or later you’ll find someone who’s up against a deadline, and when you offer to take the whole ‘dialogue’ issue off their shoulders, you’ll find your hand bitten off.
Any opportunity to contribute in some small way to a game which gets made is a good thing.
If your aim is to make your own games, then the experience of scheduling, version management, and above all COMPROMISE will be invaluable.
If your aim is to be a studio writer, then all the above will be useful, and in addition any kind of team project in your portfolio shows future employers you have survived the various rocky phases of a project roadmap, not had any really terrible tantrums, and demonstrated an ability to tailor your work to the changing needs of the project. And that’s what they’re looking for.
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If you do choose to make a game with a group, then great. But bear in mind that, whether your job is ‘scriptwriter’ or ‘writer-designer’ or even ‘co-founder’, you will have to be EXTREMELY flexible when you have your writing hat on. You WILL have some big, beloved chunk of your writing cut from the game because of an unforeseen, unavoidable change, and you WILL have to stay late re-writing and re-recording a bunch of lines in order to change all references to something being ‘blue’ to ‘grey’, because apparently it’s easier to change all the words than to just make the damn thing blue in the first place.
(Yes this has happened to me.)
It’s important to understand that this is not necessarily because of hierarchy issues, (though in most studios, story is generally further down on the org chart than I’d like). But the fact is that story/dialogue is the most flexible element in a business surrounded by inflexible elements like time and money.
And to a certain extent, that’s as it should be. Rewrites ARE cheap and, compared to re-drawing or re-animating something, easy. Talk is, fundamentally, cheap. I don’t want to calculate how many five-dollar words you’d have to write before you equalled the dollar value of one second of traditional character animation. Further, changes to almost any ‘technical’ aspect of a game can potentially introduce errors which can appear unexpectedly elsewhere, and which may have to be tested and re-tested throughout the game.
A change to dialogue, meanwhile, will at worst, introduce a continuity errors, which while annoying definitely won’t be making it to the top of any of those dreaded ‘top 10 most hilarious glitches’ lists.
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All of this is the reason that valuing your own time is crucial once you do go professional. No-one else will do it for you.
In some cases, it’s only once you have spent time and money getting dialogue recorded that you, as a writer, will have any kind of leverage to say to your Producer that the script shouldn’t undergo some kind of last-minute change, or be cut entirely, subject to the needs of the schedule. Learning to use this kind of leverage will be essential if you want to work within a studio, produce great work, and stay sane.
And, even more important, will be learning when to dig your heels in, stand by your vision, and fight story’s corner. Some story changes are worth causing time and trouble for other team members. Sometimes a word is worth more than a thousand frames of animation. Picking which hill to die on is probably the most valuable skill you will need to be a studio game writer. And sometimes you will die on that hill; sometimes you won’t be listened to, and that’s when you need to start the difficult process of deciding who else deserves your skills more.
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In short, I don’t have a helpfully definitive answer to your question. To a certain extent, it all comes down to what kind of person is reading your application. In the absence of any certainties, the advice I would always give is: play to your true strengths. Don’t apologise for not learning skills which don’t directly benefit the kind of job you want to do, and the kind of games you want to make. Make the kind of game you can see yourself making for a living.
The bottom line is this: having a flashy, shiny visual portfolio is useful, but having a smooth, highly-accessible portfolio is even more important. State clearly and plainly as early as possible what you can do, and what you want. Give your auditor the opportunity to see as much as possible of your work in a short time, with as few clicks as possible – include a one minute video clip summarising your work, as well as your carefully-crafted two-hour masterpiece. Don’t count on them playing through your demo - include a clip of your favourite story moment as well.
Give whoever reads your application as much opportunity as possible to like you – especially if they’re just skimming it, or they’re having a bad day, or they don’t have time to play all your games. Flashy visuals work because they are accessible at-a-glance. Even if you have a purely text portfolio, if it is clearly laid out and user-friendly, you will be showing yourself off to the best.
Above all, good luck!
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