#hopefully I’ll get around to redesigning them and getting them each little stories

[clumsiestgiantess]

I’ve been working on some DNAliens stuff recently and realized I don’t have a height chart with all of them together, just them beside human height for reference.  So, in case anyone wants to know a bit about all the DNAlien ocs I have, as well as their heights, here’s a little guide.  (Illustrations to be added over time; I’ve posted a few on my blog already)

Now without further ado..

A quick guide to all the DNAliens that live/have lived on earth

Tselani (aka my self-insert with a separate backstory): Her three mutations are human, ancient ground bat, and kentrosaurus.  She lives in the dense cold forests between Canada and North America, and has the ability to reanimate corpses by combining what’s left of them.  After the village she cared for was destroyed in the War, she settled down in the Rocky Mountains as a suitable refuge from humankind.  She’ll occasionally reveal herself to or befriend them if they seem kind enough.

Jactol: His three mutations are gorgonopsid, anomalocaris, and DNAlien.  He lives in a deep cave system beneath South Africa, and has the ability to exhale a heavy noxious gas that will rapidly choke victims to death.  A misunderstanding between him and Tselani caused them to fall out of love.  After nearly being poached by humans, he grew a hatred and now vindictiveness for them, and will often toy with and torture any that cross his path before he inavitably kills them.

Aethra: Her three mutations are jerboa, cuttlefish, and DNAlien.  She lives in a large open cavern within the southeast section of the Himalayan Mountains, and has the ability to manipulate a creature’s desires.  She's like a cat lady but with humans, and keeps a minimum of three or four of them in her home at one time.  Unfortunately, she takes them against their will and many of them don’t want to be there.

Eracin: Her three mutations were screech owl, snow leopard, and Terrinu (a creature not native to Earth).  She roamed the Eurasian Steppe until settling down with Aethra, and had the ability to slow time with her heartbeat.  Her and Aethra kept humans safe during the War, but unfortunately they were attacked and Eracin laid down her life to give Aethra and the humans time to flee.  Unlike her lover, Eracin viewed humans as intelligent beings in their own right — on a similar level as her own kind.

Vremonl: During his brief time on Earth, he only took one mutant strand besides his own DNAlien one, a chausie cat.  He stayed around an ancient city in Egypt that sat near the Nile, and has the ability to morph additional limbs along his body.  He only stayed on Earth for several centuries to study various types of the planet's natural fauna before returning to Firsthome.

Helleia: Her three mutations are human, tussock moth, and locust.  She lives in the swampy everglades of Florida, and has the ability to infect living things with her hivemind that she can instruct with simple directions.  One of her favorite pasttimes is taking unsuspecting humans into her domain, luring them to herself with a proposed relationship.  She’ll occasionally take the time to build relationships with humans, but it's a facade; her abilities work stronger on those who have emotional ties to her.

Tserem: His three mutations are human, eastern brown snake, and arthropleura.  He is a wanderer and doesn’t have a definitive home, though he does tend to shelter in places where other DNAlien friends reside.  He has the ability to quickly expel any ailments or illnesses.  Tserem used to live in Central Europe with a beloved human, but he hasn’t stayed in a single place for very long since her passing.

Xr: Their three mutations are jaguar, toucan, and DNAlien.  They live in the craggy mountains of the South American rainforest, and have the ability to infect beings with disease by looking at them.  Xr has been living in the same place for epochs as he is older and isn’t interested in finding any other place to live.  He has a fairly large cult of natives who have been worshiping him and keeping him alive for generations.

Kraken: His three mutations are human, giant squid, and megalodon.  He lives deep in the Atlantic Ocean avoiding any human contact, and has the ability to generate and manipulate water and wind currents.  Ever since he was betrayed by the group of pirates he worked for, he’s been in hiding from humans.  However, he understands that not all humans are cruel and will act kindly towards them unless hostility is shown.

Corven: His three mutations are human, bold jumping spider, and plourdosteus fish.  He lives in an open cavern in the Mexican desert, and has the ability to bind two beings in an unbreakable oath that shuts down the oath-breaker’s internal systems for periods of time.  In his younger years, his rare ability gave him a quick rise to fame, but a quick rise to burnout as well.  He lives on Earth to hide from his fame, and later humanity as well, but will still give out binding deals to those who manage to find him.

Harneon: His three mutations are human, grizzly bear, and woolly rhinoceros.  He lives in the open grasslands of North America, and has the ability to stimulate muscle tissue to go above and beyond its limitations.  While his home is here, he often takes extended vacations to several other planets.  Rumor has it that he has several other ongoing relationships that he participates in on each planet, and Earth is his getaway from all of them.

Enercill: Her three mutations are human, jackrabbit, and killer lizard (a species not native to Earth).  She has the ability to hide her third mutation and mutate between two forms at will.  Enercill travels between largely-populated human cities, thriving off clubbing and nightlife there.  Underground, she’s made quite the name for herself, and people come from all places to.. spend time with her.

Siem: Her three mutations are human, sturgeon, and dunkleosteus.  She lives in the place humans call the Bermuda Triangle, and has the ability to magnetize her body.  Commonly she uses her ability to hunt down shining metals, and is an avid collector of anything with bright colors or shining properties.  Occasionally she’ll kidnap humans who are artisans and keep them on deserted islands like pets to make her more valuables.

Wraith: His two mutations are deinonychus and DNAlien.  He lives off-world, and has the ability to combust as well as be completely fire-resistant.  He was an avid supporter of the ‘humankind are subservient animals’ group during the War, and ruled over a large civilization before he was bested by Atnoir, who was fighting for the ‘equal rights of humans’ group during the War.

Atnoir: His three mutations are saichania, woolly mammoth, and human.  He lives near the arctic circle to steer clear of any humans, and his ability is heightened senses, which comes in handy when you’re the size of a small mountain.  Before the War, Atnoir used to live in Northern Europe where he took care of many human civilizations, and fought for them in the War.  However, he has banished himself to a human-less place after even his own humans turned on him.

Orner: Their three mutations are human, anaconda, and elasmosaurus.  They live between several uninhabited islands of Japan, and they have the ability to multiply their body like a single cell organism, and regroup.  They’re a trickster at heart who overall means no harm, but once in a while they take things a little too far.  They've befriended several humans, but usually gets them killed accidentally.

Orin: His three mutations are maned wolf, flying squirrel, and moray eel.  He lives in the mountains of Alaska, and has the ability to connect and disconnect beings’ consciousnesses.  He can cause both mass hysteria and deep emotional connections within the network of beings he connects, but has no way of controlling what actually happens.  His altruistic tendencies often backfire, and even his own kind are wary of him.

Arn: Her three mutations are human, roe deer, and stone pine.  She’s one of the few DNAliens to ever mutate with a plant; while it is possible it’s hardly ever practical.  She lives in a forest near the Mediterranean coast, and has the ability to coax plants into growing incredibly fast.  She's always been extremely docile and elusive.  Back when humans believed in benevolent mythical beings, she traded plants with people to better her large garden.  She still tends to it to this day in honor of her beloved, who courted her and helped her tend to the garden when it was still small.

If you have any questions about any of my ocs, leave me an ask!  I’m more than happy to rant about them, or draw you a sketch! Most of them have full background stories I plan to write one day, like Tserem’s and Tselani’s, but these are just quick rundowns of each

[bvannn]

Weekly update August 4, 2023

I have been tired and restless all week but I’ve done some stuff too.

First of all: I have finished what I hope will be the last test animation before moving on with TRG animated. I tested some fun effects, and realized I have put far too much time into certain effects, when I could have just put the lines inside the symbols from the start. Obviously the sketchiness will vary depending on scene, so I’ll have to apply it uniquely for each scene the characters are in, which I’ll have to figure out how to do that for scenes shared in the same file, since that’s how I’ve storyboarded the video, but it shouldn’t be too hard, something about duplicating symbols most likely. Layer masks also might open up the possibility of shading in the future, but only if I can figure out how to communicate to Adobe that transparent is not a color.

Also found out I forgot to lipsynch 3 storyboard shots. Got one done already, another is partway done. I also need to create, export, and import sketchy assets for Tim and Emile, although I’ll probably limit these to the lines around shapes specific to their designs, like hair, sleeves, and pants/shorts. Otherwise I can just recycle Jon’s assets. Last thing I’ll need to do with clip studio is top and bottom foot assets for Jon for sure, and I’ll need them for the others eventually too so I may take them all out in one go. I’ll try to take out all the clip studio work, at least all the drawing, tomorrow, since I also have some OC drawing I want to do.

While I’m at work I’ve been listening to music playlist based on OC stories, trying to focus on filling in gaps, and whatnot. I think I’ve gotten to a point where I’d like to redesign 3 old old characters, who I don’t believe I have featured on the internet yet, since they have become relevant. I’d also like to give Thomas a little bit of a redesign, since he’s also growing in importance. Finally, I need to design alt outfits for the unit 624 group. I’ll probably just be sketching multiple designs and put it up to polls or something, so if there an aspect of one design you like but the rest of the design you don’t like, or if you’d want an aspect of one design grafted onto another, please speak up. I love feedback.

During the work week I was poking at music stuff. I realize I’m super out of practice, and I’ll need to remember how certain transitions went, but hopefully I can start recording midi this week, and see what parts need to be added from there. First project will be a more chill arrangement of a few short Zelda songs strung together to form one longer one. From there I’ll start thinking about other projects.

I’m in a weird spot because I have lots of motivation but I’m physically exhausted and have little time. Uni starts back up again at the end of the month, with any luck I’ll have a lab internship I’ve been really really wanting for a long time, which will allow me to drop a couple classes, but will more likely take up more time than both classes combined. Most likely. I’m absolutely going to do it regardless, assuming I get selected, but fall internships tend to be less competitive than summer ones, and I have been able to build more lab experience this summer, which I am grateful for. If I get the opportunity, it also means fewer lab classes through uni, which also frees up time. I don’t know what things will be like during the school year, but I’m hoping everything will be alright.

[mahou-furbies]

It is time for

Last year the Dazzling Pink Precure were supposed to host the event but were unavailable due to being redesigned, but this time they are ready for the job!

Here is the magical girl (and related) media consumed on this blog this year:

(you can read my closing thoughts on them here)

Anime: Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel & the 2 OVAs, Twin Angel Break, Pretear, Happy Seven, Ojamajo Doremi (started), Healin’ Good Precure (most of it that’s out now), Magia Record (also following the game news though I don’t play), Myriad Colors Phantom World, Re:Creators, Concrete Revolutio)

Movies: Fresh, DokiDoki, Happiness Charge, Go! Princess, KiraKira & Star Twinkle Precure season movies, Spring Carnival & Miracle Universe crossover movies, Magical Sisters Yoyo and Nene)

Manga: Magical Girl Site (finished), Zodiac P.I. (reread), Sugar Sugar Rune (reread), Nogi Wakaba is a Hero, Puella Magi Suzune Magica (reread), Puella Magi Tart Magica (reread), Can You Become A Magical Girl, Colourful Macchiato)

(revisits to old familiar stuff don’t qualify for an award unless I had forgotten everything about it, Doremi is ineligible since I've only seen 1/5th so far)

Unexpectedly I managed to finish quite a lot of stuff on my last year's "plans for 2020 list".

As for blog stuff, this year the Precure Chibi Project was concluded for the designs that exists so far, but obviously it will continue when more are released and I'd also like to draw some more of the civilian clothes too. But this year over 400 chibis were drawn...

Then we of course had the Precure Dress Tournament, with Cure Magical emerging as the winner. Hosting it was a lot of fun since I like graphs and numbers, as the fact that I keep a google sheet that documents the dates when I draw the chibis (it also calculates useful data such as how many percent I've finished).

(Also Megumi's heart dress should totally have won the tournament)

The Precure positivity posts were also a thing this year. Usually the franchise is bitched at here at Mahou-Furbies so I tried to say something nice about each Cure that I had seen. Which was a major struggle in some cases but hopefully they don't come across as too much damning with faint praise. I plan on writing similar posts for the Cures from the other seasons too as I watch them, but also because I managed to write an entire post about Mana without complaining I take that as justification that I get to write a huge bitchy "the flaws of the Precure franchise" post later.

And then now at the end of the year the Dazzling Pink Precure finally managed to emerge again with their new designs. I hope I'll be able to post more about them in 2021!

And now, the Mahou-Furbies 2020 magical girl awards!

Let's start with Best Henshin Design: Megumi Moka from Magia Record! I always love a good sweets theme and I can't get over how cute she is.

(Kikko from Concrete Revolutio was also a strong contender)

Best Team Design goes to Nogi Wakaba Is a Hero, I've always loved the YuYuYu henshin outfit design.

The Best Powerup Look award goes to Lala's Cancer form in the Star Twinkle Precure movie! I just really like the fresh colour palette...

Runner-up is Nagisa's MagiReco Valentine's outfit which I like for being sweets themed but I guess it's more like an alternate form than a powerup?

There weren’t that many contenders for Best Civilian Design but let’s say that since I like the casual outfits in KiraKira Precure in general, The Movie was also good at this. So let’s reward Ciel’s look, it’s nice to see a more muted colour palette in Precure every now and then!

Oh, right! Also everyone from the Star Twinkle Precure movie! Love all their outfits. 

Best School Uniform is the one from Sukoyaka Middle School, from Healin' Good Precure! I like the colour palette, and the cut of the dress.

The uniforms from the Twin Angel franchise are also fun with their cherry ribbon.

Best Hair award goes to Kikko, from Concrete Revolutio! The "rectangular" cut ends are fun.

Best Magical Item is Mamika's wand from Re:Creators! There's really nothing special about it, I just think it looked nice enough with the candy cane and the heart crystal (and also not so merchandise driven since this isn't a kid show).

The Best Henshin Scene award goes to Sudachi from MagiReco! I don’t like how detailed all the body curves are drawn in the few seconds before her outfit appears, but otherwise there’s great backgrounds in this, starting from the space theme, twinkling stars, beautiful blue sky and then ending with cute hearts.

Best Fan Creation award goes to Marighoul’s comic “First Hunt”! (read it here) It was a fun little story and the colours were amazing!

Best Relationship is Hikaru and Lala with the alien in the Star Twinkle movie! I would never have guessed that I’d enjoy Precures raising a “baby” mascot this much, but it is true! I love how much role their bond had in the story, and the conclusion was more epic than anything Precure has managed to offer elsewhere. 

The Best Mascot of 2020 is... the aforementioned alien UMA! Unusual design for a girl show, doesn’t have an annoying voice or speech pattern (or in fact doesn’t talk at all), and has an interesting role in the story.

Second place is Nyatoran from Healin' Good Precure, he pairs well with Hinata and I love the scene where she records cat videos of him with her phone.

As for Best Supporting Character, this is a joke character, but I have to say Mayune from Pretear. I'm sorry I just like this kind of dumb diva characters (with the o-ho-ho laugh!) and always had a good time when she was on screen.

Discount Tuxedo Mask from the Twin Angel franchise was also fun, he had nice chaotic energy to him.

Best Visual goes to Kikko's magical effects from Concrete Revolutio! We always get the standard sparkles so I was so happy to see something different for once.

Best Audio award goes to Pretear OP! The song feels a bit dated but in a good way, this is just the kind of music I like.

The Best Scene award goes to Healin' Good Precure attack!

Usually in Precure I really don't care for the stock attack animation and instead just focus on the henshins, but in this one I really like the bit where the giant hands rip the element spirit out of the enemy. The music is so good in that part, and the huge hands compared to the tiny spirit feel majestic.

I also liked Re:Creators scene where the (in-story) writers create a powerup for their character by getting their audience excited about it by tweeting. It was dumb how a tweet from some ranobe author goes viral in a matter of seconds, but I still thought the scene was fun and worked well.

The Innovation Award for doing something magical girl related I haven't seen dozens of times already goes to Happy Seven! I thought it was fun how the main character wasn't on the magical girl team at all and instead was practically the Muggle friend for most of the story!

Re:creators is the runner up here with its "fictive characters show up in our world" story, but I think it could have done more with the idea, and I think Happy Seven is commendable for doing something that feels refreshing without having to be all smart and self-aware about it.

Then the Golden Mana Award for one thing that I really didn't like this year. 

The questionable honour goes to Meguru's unbearable behaviour at the start of Twin Angel Break, when she keeps pushing her friendship on the blue girl who has made it very clear that she'd rather be left alone. And of course the blue girl is secretly lonely and ultimately caves in so Meguru faces no consequences for being selfish and entitled and having zero respect for other people's boundaries. Stuff like this fuels my rage at the Friendly-And-Energetic-Stock-Magical-Girl-Heroines.

For Best Character I want to pick Lala from the Star Twinkle movie but she won Best Character last year so let’s pick someone else. To be fair nobody (else) this year made me super excited, but leaving such a broad category as this completely empty would be really stupid, so the winner is Himeno, from Pretear!

She had a lot more multifaceted personality than I initially predicted, had interesting and different relationships with many different characters, and of course had many unique henshin!

And finally, Best Work of the year... I know I picked Star Twinkle as the best series last year (award has been renamed now) so this feels somehow redundant, but I still can't get over how enjoyable their film was and as you may have noticed it has been mentioned in plenty of other awards already so it deserves the spot. On principle I liked that it wasn't centered around the pink Cure for once, and additionally it was about Lala who is my favourite Cure, and also since there wasn't really a villain the plot was more interesting than the same old "bad guy wants to take over the world". Also great visuals.

And that’s it for 2020! It has been a weird year, but that didn’t really show on this blog.

Plans for 2021:

Also once I finish drawing the chibis for the Madoka girls, expect a Madoka themed character tournament in 2021!

[professor-tammi]

Here is a rambly SW5 post I do not expect anyone to read

- So I don’t really need to say much about Ran being gone because I’ve known for over a month that none of the silhouettes could possibly be him (+ he wouldn’t fit in anywhere on the official site, my numbering analysis from way back was correct :/!). I think his only hope for being readded to the series is SW5:XL, because if SW6 goes into Sekigahara territory I imagine they’ll be more concerned with adding characters from that era. Anyway that said, at least give me UNPC Ran Koei. I will take it. I’m desperate :(

(i actually don’t know if I’ll be able to play this game at all bc Ran not existing sends me into a very Bad Emotional State so it will literally depend on how good my mental health happens to be when the release date rolls around. lmao. why am I writing an essay on a game I may or may not play? well,, I don’t know)

- Moving on! Yasuke is actually in!? I’m still a little concerned Koei will mishandle him but also kind of hopeful and I’m probably just worried over nothing. His profile doesn’t seem to be covering up the basics of what is known about his relationship with Nobunaga from history; it at the very least mentions that Nobunaga was “intrigued by his appearance” :’)

- I didn’t expect Koei to change up Magoichi as much as they seem to have done, and to be honest, I’m not a fan of his redesign. Actually his may be the only redesign I don’t like? Mago was never one of my favorites but his old version definitely struck me as having more personality. Anyhow, he kept his voice actor, so maybe he’s not as changed personality-wise...

- I think one of the earlier trailers showed what appeared to younger Nobunaga and Mitsuhide at Honnoji, so the latest revealing that both of them actually age was quite the surprise? Their aged versions look much more like their pre-SW5 incarnations... I’m happy with the designs if nothing else, much less happy how they seem to be handling Honnoji in this game

(why are Nobunaga and Mitsuhide just. meeting up and greeting each other before the battle. it’s supposed to be a surprise attack!? hello?? I am not going to like the Nobunaga/Mitsuhide relationship in this game am I)

- Honestly I am not feeling Mitsuhide’s side of SW5′s story at all, presumably because all of his relationships I enjoy (with Motochika, with Gracia, even with Ran) no longer exist :(

- Speaking of which my main concern with this game is really just that I will have no relationships to latch onto because I obsess over relationships much more than I do over individual characters. Like, Nobunaga is my favorite historical Sengoku person by a long shot, and I think his portrayal in SW5 seems really really good (and to the people who have been saying this: no he is not remotely a goody two shoes shonen hero, that much is already evident in the story bits they’ve shown) -- as much as I love older SW Nobu he was always a very intentionally inhuman character and, while fascinating, I think a more human Nobunaga is a much needed change, but. I don’t have his relationship with Ran to latch onto anymore. I’m so sad?? I am heartbroken

- People are talking at great length about stuff they don’t like so I’m going to talk about the stuff I do like. First of all!! I love Toshiie and I like that maybe SW5 will actually explore Toshiie+Nobu friendship a bit; Toshiie’s redesign is not overly drastic imo but still his best design out of any other SW game so far, and also I’m delighted he keeps his VA because honestly his VA gives me life. (Koei if you readd Ran please give me Toshiie+Ran content)

- I like Hanbei’s new design a lot, even if (or maybe because) it’s quite in line with his old versions, and am also glad he seems basically untouched as a character bc Hanbei did not need changing. I’m also glad for Kanbei’s redesign, and since I frankly never cared much for Kanbei as a character I’m sort of hoping they change him at least a little bit (but it’s also fine if they don’t bc the classic SW Ryoubei relationship is very cute regardless). Also I sincerely hope Hanbei+Nouhime friendship is still a thing, even with this very different new Nou...

- While I’m not very interested in what little we’ve seen so far of the story bits for new Ieyasu (cute design, I guess, but that’s all?), new Hideyoshi is actually kind of endearing and I like that they’re kind of leaning more on a country bumpkin depiction for him ahaha. It’s cute :’) oira

- Also! Still really love Sena, her determined personality feels refreshing and I really like her design; I don’t personally expect to care much for her core relationship with Ieyasu but hopefully there’ll be something else for her? Hopefully? Could we get like... Cute Sena+Oichi friendship content. That’s what I want out of this game at this point tbh

- Mitsuki actually seems cute and her supposedly father-daughter-like relationship with Nobunaga has potential to be sweet, so I am tentatively hopeful for her too (also she is a punchgirl which is of course always a bonus)

[luminecho]

Show Me What You’re Proud Of

RULES: It’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought  into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want  (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to  awesome works.

@sister-dear did this and tagged all their mutuals who create things! Took me a moment before the realization hit me that, oh shit, I’m a mutual who creates things. Sooo here we go! Super nervous for some reason jdkjkqwdm.

I haven’t posted a lot of stuff publicly, let alone actually made things in general, and as far as writing goes I don’t have anything finished yet, but I used this opportunity to create a new art & writing blog (@echoing-creations) so I can hopefully start posting some WIPs and short snippets of stuff there from now on! ^^ Otherwise, I’m just gonna try my best to show what I have.

WRITING:

Again, I don’t really have anything posted or even finished yet (at least that I’m proud of). But I’ll share two WIPs/sneak peeks of the LU longfic that I’ve been working on these past couple of months. Because I’m pretty proud of some of the scenes that I have written so far! Unfortunately I’m limited in my choice of what I can include, because spoilers, but here’s what I’ve got. (They’re still very subject to change.)

- “Everything Goes Away” - Prologue

He was in control now. Not some selfish deity or petty goddess. For once, his destiny didn’t have to be set in stone. He could rewrite his story, re-weave the strings of fate. And it all started with a single thread.

Forgive me.

- EGA - Chapter 3

A cacophony of sound broke out around them as the other heroes’ reactions grew muddled together and incoherent. All the while, Legend and Warriors didn’t move, didn’t blink. The world was a swirling vortex of noise around them, a raging whirlwind of confusion and betrayal, and the two heroes stood in the center of it all, the eye of a hurricane, frozen in time. Frantic colors and voices spun around them like a cyclone in motion, tasting of forgotten courage and broken promises.

But all storms came to an end. As the tempest of sound and color died down into a suffocating silence and the world stopped spinning and lulled to a halt, a single whisper rang out louder than a gunshot, piercing the air and finally forcing Legend to break eye contact with Warriors.

“Why?”

ART:

- BotW Link - Wow, the only thing on this list that I actually have a link for! This post never kicked off, which kinda sucks, because I can’t even begin to describe how ridiculously proud of it I was (and still am). It took me ages and I put in so much more effort than I thought I would going into it. But I don’t really mind that nobody saw it, because I love it and that’s all that matters! It was all a big experiment (particularly with drawing humans) but I’m very happy with the outcome :)

Ummm I’m not really that proud of anything else I’ve posted, and there’s a lot of stuff I’ve drawn that I’m not ready to share with people yet cause I’m kinda self conscious, BUT I do have a couple of drawings that I still really like!

- First one is a ref for a Warrior Cats OC that I’ve had for... ah, almost as long as I’ve been drawing, actually. She’s a favorite between my and my irl friend, and she’s gone through so many redesigns I can’t even keep track, lol. This is definitely my favorite design of her by far, though, and is probably gonna stick for quite a while.

- Second one is just a random doodle of my catsona. Honestly not much to say about it. It was done for my part of an animation meme collab for a friend’s birthday a while back, and I kept the drawing because I really liked how it turned out. I honestly kind of want to redraw it soon with an updated version of my sona’s design and use it as my tumblr icon? Maybe? 👀 I’ve been wanting draw my own banner for a while now, so maybe this can be part of my blog makeover, lol.

And that’s that! Not much, I know. I spent all evening trying to pull together scraps of stuff I could maybe share, but chickened out of showing most of it in the end. I’m kind of shocked at how little I actually created this year. I feel like my art has been at an all time low recently. I just haven’t really been drawing as much. Hopefully giving myself time and distance from it will help me to gather the motivation to pick it up again soon and be able to look at it without judging myself too harshly. As for my writing... I’ve definitely written more frequently this year than I have for a long time, even if I have nothing to show for it. I’ve been finding myself using my writing as an outlet a lot more recently than I did in the past, and I’ve been getting better at writing things down rather than just daydreaming them and letting the scenes float away into the void of my mind, lol.

Tagging all of my own mutuals (and followers!) who are creators!! Share what you’re proud of, even if it’s small <3

[davidmann95]

Hey David? Why is ours such a cruel and merciless God?

mirrorfalls said: (If you don't know what I'm talking about, your inbox should be filling up with more specific deets riiiiight about now.)

cheerfullynihilistic said: THE SNYDER CUT

Anonymous said: You don’t seem to think Superman’s public rep will take another beating from the Snyder Cut coming out. Honestly I thought you’d be way more upset than you seemed on Twitter.

Anonymous said: So uhh, against all thoughts and logic the Snyder cut is being released? Maybe as a mini series? Thoughts?

Anonymous said: SNYDER CUT!

Bullies. Jocks. Guys angrily asking if we know who their father is. Assorted dudebro nerd-oppressors of America:

You have failed us. You have failed us so hard. What else do we even keep you around for if not to head this shit off at the pass? Shame on you.

Okay, so seriously: I’m actually gonna put most bitching and moaning under a cut, because I know firsthand there are as many as several non-slavering maniacs out there who dug Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and who are simply and entirely reasonably excited that they’re getting this movie after all. I don’t feel like throwing a wall of text at them shitting all over this, so I’ll lead off with I think some fairly even-handed commentary on the real-world circumstances here, rambling speculation regarding the production, and some cautious optimism about the actual movie/s. THEN I’ll get to what I imagine most of you are here to see.

So totally in a vacuum: this is a cool, good thing. I’m the notorious theatrical Justice League-liker, but at best it was a compromised product due to the original creator - who like it or not clearly had an incredibly ambitious personal vision for these characters and their world - suffering a horrific tragedy forcing him off the project, and leaving his final stamp on blockbuster culture and a world he’d devoted years of his life to a flop with his name on it when he couldn’t even truly call it his own anymore. At worst, said tragedy was taken advantage of by suits to ditch him in the home stretch so as to try and shove out something ostensibly more marketable. But now because of a...very loyal fanbase, the man’s getting the opportunity and resources to rise like a phoenix and see at least some of his vision through in a huge way. That’s pretty remarkable.

Not in a vacuum this is fucking horrifying. I’ve already seen folks poo-poohing the reflexive fears that this will ‘set a precedent’, and they were right enough that I deleted my initial tweet on the subject because I didn’t think I could express my own opinion with any nuance in the space of 280 characters. Yeah, nerd whining definitely shaped Rise of Skywalker (another movie I enjoyed in spite of the circumstances of its creation). Hell, Sonic the Hedgehog crunched its CGI team prior to unceremoniously firing them to redesign his model thanks to outcry. That’s already a market force, and just to be clear upfront, if we can’t agree the predominant mode of operation for #ReleaseTheSnyderCut has been a toxic nerd harassment campaign when they spammed posts memorializing deceased actors and chased Diane Nelson off Twitter, we’re not gonna be able to have this conversation. And director’s cuts are you may have noticed also already a thing. But this isn’t changing direction on a project that’s already going to exist no matter what, this is turning back 3 years later on a commercial flop and dumping tens of millions of dollars into it, explicitly in response to that harassment campaign. It’s not *actually* going back and, say, remaking The Last Jedi, but by god to the naked eye it’s gonna be as good as for plenty of fanboys, and probably to some shortsighted execs as well. This is a new thing, and in this context it is a very, very bad one. Hopefully one that won’t amount to anything.

As for the movie itself: what the hell is this thing going to end up being? I assume with this sort of cashola being pumped into it we’re not getting any slapdash greenscreen or storyboarded sequences, but four hours? Is it really just going to be an expanded and revised version of what we saw in theaters, or is this including content that would have been in the originally planned Justice Leagues 2 and 3? My understanding is that those were already compressed into a single Justice League 2 before plans collapsed altogether, were they maybe filming side-by-side and this’ll be the whole shebang? If not is Snyder going to hedge his bets and end this on a clean note, or keep it ending on a cliffhanger in hopes HBO will throw another $250 million his way to keep going? Does DC want to keep going? Would they give into fan pressure on releasing after all what was widely publicized as the first film of a duology or trilogy with dangling threads if they weren’t going to be at least watching the numbers to see the feasibility of returning to this in a bigger way? Not that I think WB execs would piss into Snyder’s mouth if he were dying of thirst at this point if he simply asked to be able to do Justice League 2, but if he floated that if they instead just give him a liiiiiiiitle more money he can finally deliver unto them their very own Avengers - one that they can work on even during quarantine since it’s mostly just VFX work left - and hey if it works out he’s got a sequel or two cued up and ready to go? Maybe they look at their scattered plans and say the hell with it and end up giving this a theatrical release and sequel with Snyder holding the reigns again if this ends up a killer app; stranger things have happened, if not many, and somehow this is already happening in the first place after all. Alternatively, if this succeeds, could they go “thanks and good on ya, totally do another, but it’s gonna be an HBO exclusive so you’re only getting a hundred million, figure it out”? Would Ben Affleck return? How much reshooting will he be willing to commit to even for this? And most importantly, since this is potentially going to be serialized as six ‘episodes’, will We Got This Covered count this as another ‘win’ since their bullshit rumor mill algorithm spit out “Justice League HBO TV show” recently?

As for the project itself: I ain’t subscribing to HBOMax for this bad boy, but once it becomes more widely available I can’t claim I won’t probably watch it. It’s basically a new movie about the Justice League, and if there’s anything I WOULD wanna see Zack Snyder do in the DCU, it’s the movie finally moving past pseudo-realism (aside from some of those dopey costumes) and leaning all the way into godlike superbeings bludgeoning each other through continents. I absolutely wanna see his aesthetic take on the Green Lantern Corps, and New Genesis, and time travel, and all the other weird promises of where his movies were going to go climaxing in a ridiculous super-war across all spacetime. It’s the same reason J.G. Jones was an exciting choice for Final Crisis before he had to leave, seeing a guy known for his work in an ultra-real grungy superhero style starting there and building up to seeing his version of absolutely wild cosmic spectacle. And no, to respond to one of the initial asks, I’m not worried about the impact on Superman. Everyone seems to have accepted this is its own distinct thing whether they like it or not, I think him getting to complete his ‘arc’ will quiet down many of the folks who like to yell at every other version as retro nonsense since now they’ll be able to be smug about having had the best take rather than pining for a lost finale, and I’m not interested in further Superman movies at the moment anyway with Superman & Lois in the pipe (which I was originally paranoid would be endangered by this when rumors first started floating, but if it’s been brewing since November then if they wanted to strike that down to ‘make room’ according to their Byzantine ever-shifting rules, they would have by now). Far as I’m concerned, as long as the other DC movies get to keep doing what they’re doing during and past this - even Pattinson in his corner, however that works - then totally let Snyder work out all his Wagnerian superhero bullshit for another flick or two. If nothing else, maybe we’ll learn what the hell that diagram up there is supposed to mean. And a plea I want to clarify upfront is wholeheartedly sincere: we’re already down the rabbit hole, so let Snyder to literally whatever he wants with his non-theatrically released Justice League. Zero input or veto power from outside parties. If he wants Flash to hang dong or Superman to say fuck or Batman to learn he’s Steppenwolf’s secret dad or Cyborg to learn he needs to eat babies to fuel his machine parts, let him go for it. Whole point is this is now his thing for people who want his thing.

Okay, beneath the cut the filter comes off, so go ahead if that’s your jam.

Hahahahahahaha this is gonna be such a fuckin’ shitshow you guys, Jesus Christ.

They’re giving the dude who did BvS and wants to make an Ayn Rand adaptation someday $30 million to take another crack at this monstrosity! 30 goddamn million smackaroos for four fucking hours of by many accounts roughly the same basic movie, except now presumably with what little coherency, fun, and clean character work the theatrical cut managed to pull off excised in return for weighty staring, ponderous pseudo-philosophical musings, hackneyed symbolism, aimless mythology teasing, and Steppenwolf I understand being decapitated by Wonder Woman at the end rather than taken back to Apokolips. I didn’t even spoiler mark that shit because don’t you dare pretend you care about the fate of Steppenwolf. I won’t have it.

I used to wonder if I was indeed missing the forest for the trees with these movies, that I was so inflexible in my personal image of these characters - even though I appreciate plenty of alternate takes on them and even some stories that bend or break what I consider their ‘rules’, just not these - that I was incapable of grasping or appreciating these films on their own merits as works of art using those archetypes in wildly different ways; even I could see there were good moments and interesting ideas on display despite seemingly failing to come together. No matter how much I personally deconstructed how and why it wasn’t working, I couldn’t do it to my own satisfaction to the point of stamping out that niggling little worry with how many folks whose opinions I respect love ‘em. Until I finally remembered that the Cadmus arc of Justice League Unlimited is totally the same basic story as BvS, centrally driven by an even worse take on Superman, and that’s still one of the best superhero stories of all time. These just stink by any merits, and while I think Justice League absolutely has the potential to be the most *entertaining* of the bunch, it’s not going to magically become *good* in the eleventh hour. Not to lift up Joss Whedon of all people as some kind of savior, I’m on the record that my love for Justice League as-is is some kind of inexplicable alchemical accident, but I promise that there is not going to be one single addition to this movie that’s going to make up for the removal of “Just save one person”.

Also I’m already not looking forward to dudes tweeting “whoa, he’s splitting it up into a serialized narrative, reflective of the sequential nature of the characters’ primitive native pictorial medium! Or mayhap in ode to the pulp film adventure serials which inspired those in turn! Even the Justice League children’s cartoon for dumb babies, which was itself...made up of episodes! That’s three references in the structure of the thing alone! The man’s operating on an entirely different level!” “God, isn’t it amazing how much better he understands the source material than you”, they shall say, about a man who I understand just very confidently referred to Doomsday in his livestream as having destroyed Krypton in the comics. Again, don’t you say they won’t, just the other day I saw folks tweeting they just realized that since Jor-El wears armor over his bodysuit that technically means Superman’s whole costume is underwear which means Snyder’s totally honoring that without putting him in ugly dumb red panties so checkmate, dorks.

(Okay, in fairness, I know Snyder was saying that’s his take on what happened to the moon in the past of the movies and maybe I only misheard that he thought that also happened in the comics, and it’s trivial information anyway. Still sucks though, that seeming out-of-nowhere Jax-Ur shoutout was like the one thing I liked about that otherwise interminable Krypton sequence. And why is there a second Doomsday? You did Death of Superman already!)

And further SPOILER thoughts below on the reported plots of 2 and 3:

It’s also an amazing, perfect sort of narrative synchronicity that the hypocrisy of Man of Steel in presenting Superman as a savior would (will?) be matched by the movies also rejecting that promise long-term. In there, Jor-El’s musings on the capacity of every living thing being capable of good, the closest the film has to a singular moral statement, are proven wrong when Zod has to be put down like a mad dog, and rather than the one who’ll bring us into the sun, Kal-El’s presence draws ruin from beyond the stars to our world. And again in BvS with Doomsday. And again in Justice League 1-3, where in spite of claims by Snydercutters that it’s okay for Superman to be a really lousy take on Superman because it’s totally supposed to take several movies after putting on the costume and calling himself Superman, including his own death and resurrection, for him to really, like, become Superman, man, he remains a liability to the end. His death lures in Steppenwolf, the Kryponian matrix in his genes is Darkseid’s goal, he becomes the villain of the first act of Justice League 3 - possibly of his own free will depending on which version you’ve heard about - and at the final showdown, it’s Batman who sacrifices himself to stop Darkseid and save the world and inspire the rise of superheroism, because Batman, you see, rules, whereas Superman, stay with me here, drools. A letdown given BvS was just about the one major story of the last 30 years to unambiguously conclude Superman is better than Batman, but not a shocker. None of what I understand goes down in these - iconography from the likes of Fourth World, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Death and Return of Superman, Rock of Ages, Final Crisis, and Injustice reused but stripped of all context and thematic weight that gives it meaning (even Injustice is built on the premise of having a ‘good’ Superman to contrast the dictator); Lois being the ‘key’ because of her connections to two men, one she married and one she bears; time travel that even by the very generous suspension of disbelief applied to it in a genre like this operates by two obviously completely different sets of rules in its only two uses, and is then used to write the entire second movie of the trilogy out of continuity in the first act of the third, making one and a half of these movies pointless - is shocking. It’s just more empty notions and unfulfilled promises offered up to a fanbase staking everything on the idea that all the tampering, all the wild swings, all the meandering, it’s all building UP to something, not possibly just a dude who doesn’t understand these characters but wanting to look very clever with them before building up to one more rad punch-up. So yes, make these movies. Let what can be gleaned from them as worthwhile be revealed, leave the rest of it up for examination to be judged as it deserves and let it, finally. Finally. Be done.

[sonicfanj]

Sonic Ring Bond Intro

A sonic the Hedgehog AU by Sonic Fan J

Welcome everyone to my Sonic AU, Sonic Ring Bond. I would like to take the time now to introduce you to my little corner of the fandom and the ideas behind my AU. I had contemplated originally trying to present this introduction as a full-on textbook style document, but frankly I’m a lot better at talking than I am planning so I’ll be treating this more as a text seminar. Hopefully I’ll avoid rambling too much and will manage to entertain and enthrall you with my ideas. At the very least, I hope you’ll come away from this with a firm grasp at least of the world I see for my Amy Rosy redesign, Rosy, to run around in. There’s a lot to cover as well, from the ideas that led to this AU to the setting, the characters, and my take on what games have occurred within it and how the events within unfolded.

To begin, I should note that Sonic Mania did not initially enthrall me as it did so many other Sonic fans who have been with Sonic since 1991. In fact, I was already weary of the nostalgia pandering that so many others had grown tired of as well. I was also at a point in my Sonic fandom where I yearned for Naka and Oshima’s Sonic with only memories of Sonic Adventure 2 and Unleashed keeping me interested in Iizuka’s Sonic. Most importantly however I was having a complete reevaluation of my love of the franchise due to having finally watched the OVA and being overwhelmed with a sense of nostalgia for why I had fallen in love with Sonic to begin with. Then there was also me learning of a point in Sonic’s massive history where Amy had addressed him as Sonic-sama which led me on a massive reexamination of her character and what she was introduced as and the role she was meant to fulfill. I learned an awfully lot during this period both about Amy and my feelings and desires for what I wanted out of the franchise. Suffice to say I found myself disliking Amy’s signature Piko Piko Hammer and coming to odds with the franchise direction though Mania gave me a little hope. That hope was born of false expectations of my own creation due to a desire to see how Amy would have been handled before her hammer was ever given to her as her primary creator for the games, Kazuyuki Hoshino had said he was getting back into the mindset of that time as a content director for Mania. As is typically the case with such false expectations, nothing came of them, almost.

In addition to gameplay arguments going around at the time and my dislike of Amy’s hammer taking root in me, in the Sonic community I was a part of at the time, and quickly growing ostracized in due to my dislike of Amy’s hammer, there was concern about Amy’s outfit and the problems distinct to it in a three-dimensional space. This combined with my desire to see Amy with traditional Sonic gameplay led to me creating my Amy redesign Rosy. Garbed in a white leotard to avoid certain problems distinct to a dress while also intending to capture the image of someone who tumbles, I also went with her classic design to fully imply Sonic’s rolling gameplay. At the time that was enough for me and I was pleased enough to just see her serving as my avatar on various sights. I also enjoyed drawing her as it cheered me up with a lot of negativity floating around the fandom at the time. Naturally as I drew her more, more and more people started asking me about her and I had to start considering the why of her. It was no longer enough to just be happy with her as a drawing, she needed something more. An AU was the logical path to fleshing her out, and being a big Sonic fan who loves way too much of the franchise in all of it’s parts I wanted to try and mash as many disparate parts together as I could into a single world while rewriting Amy’s place in it. This resulted in my weird little Hedgehog Circus AU which has does possess several things I still like. But it is busy, over encumbered, and lacking in the simplicity necessary to serve the beginnings of an AU that I can enjoy. So, after a great deal of thinking, studying the franchise, and looking for ways that I could justify to myself Rosy having Sonic’s abilities I started again mashing together ideas I liked, but kept it as simple as I could. The result is Sonic Ring Bond.

The Setting

Aesthetics.

There is nothing that sells a setting to me more than aesthetics. I am a very visual individual who appreciates what good aesthetics brings to a story and world and nothing captures the sense of whimsey, adventure, and discovery that I yearn for in Sonic better than Hayao Miyazaki. The movies that I am most enthralled by aesthetically and thus become the primary basis for the setting for Sonic Ring Bond are Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Porco Rosso, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Howl’s Moving Castle. Using the imagery of these movies as well as the ever-changing shape and nature of Sonic’s world from the games the world of Sonic Ring Bond is a fading world where technology has fallen to appoint barely hanging on to airships and early industrialization. Human’s, humans with animal traits drawing inspiration from settings like the fighting game “BlazBlue”, the Sonic OVA, and the anime “Shuumatsu Nani Shitemasu ka? Isogashii Desu ka? Sukutte Moratte Ii Desu ka?”, as well as animal people like Sonic himself all live together or in isolation across the world. But the world is ever changing. One day an entire landmass maybe just across the bay, the next it is not. To keep the world linked together the world’s governments uses an ancient technology they do not understand to build and deploy giant Rings known as Ring Gates to link together communities no matter where they may be one day. These gates are one part of where the Ring Bond title comes from for my AU, but are not used without due consideration. Making a Ring Gate requires a great deal of Rings which are collected by adventurers who are supported by the organization Checkpoint.

Checkpoint is an organization that possesses access to special Ring Gates that bond to an individual and allow them to recall them back to a Checkpoint facility at any time. They are not the only adventurer supporting organization, but access to these unique Ring Gates and even Sonic the Hedgehog being an adventurer who relies on them in the Ring Bond AU has made them very popular. Despite being an organization though, they are more of a hub for adventurers to sell the information found on their adventures as well as receive requests from governments, corporations, communities, and even individuals to explore new and frequently ancient landmasses. The most common of requests fielded by Checkpoint are scouting out resources and determining if a location is worth deploying a Ring Gate to for long term access with resources including material, historical, agricultural, or even culturally if new communities are discovered and deemed worth maintain relations with. Most adventurers have a dedicated agent who monitor them while fielding communications and requests in addition to handling the information they bring back from their adventures. Not every adventurer accepts requests preferring just to see new lands and locales like Sonic himself, reporting in for various personal reasons. Sonic himself in my AU was not even an adventurer who reported into Checkpoint until he rescued Zooey from Sonic BOOM! during one of his adventures and her home island simply disappeared before he could her back. With little other option Sonic left her with Checkpoint due to their reputation and she became his agent. Also, due to being inspired by a pic that @drawloverlala​ once drew with Tails and Zooey dressed Edward Elric and Winry Rockbell from Full Metal Alchemist, in Sonic Ring Bond idecided Zooey also serves as the mechanic for the Tornado. So, where does that leave Tails? Well, Tails is in the Ring Bond AU, but his role is a little different as well as his relationship with Sonic. This has to do with me being fond of the idea that him and Amy would make great friends who support each other in their pursuit of Sonic and his lifestyle. This of course leads me to

The Characters

For my AU I did not really want to change the characters too much, but I did want to answer a few questions I’ve always had while also indulging in some of my biases and preferences. In the example of biases and preferences after seeing artwork from @rontufox​ on deviantart.com that I interpreted as showing Sonic and Mighty as good friends who occasionally adventure together but mostly swap adventuring stories in my AU it is Mighty who is Sonic’s best friend and not Tails due to sharing similar lifestyles that give them grounds to bond on. Tails in Sonic Ring Bond actually becomes close friends with Rosy to indulge in my belief that Tails’ and Amy’s personalities and shared love for and interest in Sonic and his adventures as a starting point. But Rosy and Tails also share one more thing in common that they actually share with Mighty which leaves him concerned about Sonic’s spontaneity combined with his aloofness; the titular Ring Bond.

The Ring Bond

A question I used to ask myself all the time but stopped having to once SEGA and Sonic Team decided to be pretty definitive with how only a few Characters possessed Sonic’s speed instead of nearly everyone in the pre-Adventure days was what is the source of everyone’s speed. I used to have all sorts of headcanons for everyone but Sonic who I just accepted it as being natural for. Outside of speed though there were other things I wondered about as well such as how Tails managed to use Sonic’s Super Spin Attack without Sonic’s spines. As I began really developing my AU, I figured I could address that as well and the solution that I eventually settled with drew inspiration both from the Paramount movie and the Sonic OVA. That solution is that Sonic’s abilities can be shared by others. This solution of course needed to have a solution of its own to the question of how Sonic share could his abilities. Me being me with the need to over explain things as well but wanting to stay reasonably within the limitations of the games it was (Knuckles) Chaotix that would afford me my answer in Ring Energy. Going by the Japanese manual for Chaotix, Ring Energy is a force that can bind two Rings together allowing for the rubber band mechanics of the game. Considering all the other properties and abilities of Rings I came up with the Ring Bond, the ability to share one’s abilities with someone else through Rings.

Within my AU Sonic with his experience with rings and the various things they do simply figured it out and shared his abilities with Mighty, Rosy, and Tails to get each of them out of a situation that he couldn’t just carry them through. In Mighty’s case that was escaping Eggman Island, Rosy it was getting through Metallic Madness on Little Planet (which addresses for me how she made it through and caught up with him by the end), and Tails as the fox needed to be able to protect himself being able to use his tails to keep up with Sonic through the Death Egg Saga. But while Sonic simply figured it out in his own way Eggman has been slowly figuring it out as he has been perfecting Metal Sonic, needing only the Ring Bond to fully add Sonic’s abilities to the robot doppelganger. Luring Mighty, Rosy, and Tails to island that (Knuckles) Chaotix takes place on as part of his attempts to further understand how rings work after realizing that they all have Sonic’s abilities. At this point though I should probably change course and detail what games have taken place in the Ring Bond AU and the order in which they do. I’ll also take this opportunity to further flesh out how the characters met each other so things might get even lengthier and meander even more as we move on into

The Games & History

So before getting too into, it should be noted that in my AU, like the Japanese manual for the original game states, Sonic and Eggman were already at it before any of the games take place. During this time period in Sonic Ring Bond is when Sonic met Zooey and joined Checkpoint. It was during his time with checkpoint before any of the games that he heard of Mighty as an adventurer who would seek out and find the most spectacular of natural locales. After checking out some of them himself Sonic would seek out Mighty to hear about his travels from the armadillo himself. The two being kindred adventurers with a love for discovery they hit it off and became fast friends exchanging stories and places for the other to check out. Their friendship would appear as an opportunity to Eggman who would attempt to capture Might to use as bait to lure Sonic to Eggman Island. By sheer luck however Egman managed to capture both Sonic and Mighty.

Unlike the original game, the Ring Bond version of SegaSonic the Hedgehog only had Sonic and Mighty go through game’s events. Now, as the Sonic Mania Adventure shorts showed that Mighty lacks Sonic’s speed and considering the traps of Eggman Island, Sonic knew there was no way to get Mighty out using his usual methods. Getting his hand on the first available Rings he could Sonic attempted to use Ring Energy to pull Mighty along behind him. With traps designed to overwhelm Sonic however littering the island in a continuous gauntlet doing so would have surely gotten the both of them killed. Wary to do so, but not accepting the alternative, Sonic created a Ring Bond between him and Mighty, granting his abilities to the armadillo. While it took Mighty a bit to get used to using them, his shell kept him safe and eventually he was able to not only follow Sonic to safety, but played his part in their escape from Eggman island.

Possessed of Sonic’s abilities, Mighty wanted to repay Sonic as he would now be able to see the world in ways he never had before. Sonic declined the offer as he believed the effects of the Ring Bond would be temporary but Mighty insisted and told Sonic how to reach Never Lake so he could see the appearance of the Miracle Planet. Figuring if he was in the area while it was around he’d check it and parted ways with Mighty until their next meeting. The Miracle Planet, Little Planet, was not just of interest to Sonic however as Eggman had ambitions of his own using it’s time traveling properties for his schemes and a certain pink hedgehog would receive an order from her cards to head to Never Lake for a fated encounter.

Now in Sonic Ring Bond, Amy’s background is a bit more detailed. The reason for this is like answering why she, Mighty and Tails have Sonic’s abilities, I felt a need to answer why I would use her original nickname over her actual name. To do so, I fell back on my Hedgehog Circus AU where before she met Sonic her fortune telling abilities allowing her to find treasure had resulted in her being sought out by Fang the Sniper. Being the treasure hunting ruffian that he is, Fang didn’t take to Amy’s personality and took to calling her Rosy as commentary on her outlook. Choosing to travel with Fang to indulge her desire for adventure and how playful she was would result in others calling her a rascal. But Rosy the Rascal would not spend all her time in the company of Fang as if the power of the cards gave her an order she followed without hesitation. Following the order to the letter was a different story as when she reached Never Lake she was enamored by the Miracle Planet and made her way up to check it out oblivious of the dangers posed by Eggman. As for how she got up there, for Sonic Ring Bond I’ve decided to play with a headcanon of mine that she owns the magic carpet that her stage in Sonic the Fighters takes place on. She probably found while adventuring with Fang and simply kept it for herself without ever letting him know she has it. I see her keeping it a secret from everyone as magical artifacts could very easily change the world in unexpected ways.

Rosy was not the only one thinking about the effects of mystical artifacts as Eggman was well on his was to tracking down the Time Stones so that he might unlock the flow of time and conquer the world. Ever the industrial genius, Eggman was expecting Sonic’s eventual appearance and to that end using the advanced technology he found in Little Planet’s future created his most advance machine, Metal Sonic. Despite how advanced Metal Sonic was and Eggman’s genius being able to easily comprehend and make deft use of technology long lost to the world, the robot was still pretty much just a mannequin built around a jet engine. Not wanting to waste his creation willy-nilly Eggman waited for an opportunity to use it where Sonic would have to take on it’s full capabilities without just trashing it. Rosy’s fangirling over meeting Sonic who as a hedgehog adventurer herself she idolizes would be the perfect opportunity and Metal Sonic would make his debut by abducting the hedgehog girl. Perhaps more bothered by not having the opportunity to talk Sonic into taking her on his adventure than being held hostage, Rosy would get her desire in a way she did not quite expect.

When Sonic finally caught up, spending more time leaving Rosy a hostage than she would have liked as he went about removing Eggman’s influence on Little Planet and making sure the Time Stones were safe, he found himself pitted in a race against his robotic doppelganger. Unfortunately for Metal Sonic, Sonic won the race and was able to rescue Rosy, to a point. The road to Eggman’s fortress was where the race had taken place and Eggman had completely annihilated it making doubly sure of Sonic’s end should he lose to Metal Sonic. With the road gone and the only way forward being through Eggman’s fortress, Sonic found himself having to figure out how to get Rosy to safety. It was unlikely that Eggman’s fortress on Little Planet would be any less dangerous than Eggman Island, and Rosy was obviously younger than him and lacking the ability to make it through such a place. Begrudgingly and hoping that the effects of the Ring Bond truly were temporary, Sonic shared his abilities with Rosy and led her into Eggman’s fortress. Unlike Mighty though, she was not as quick to pick up using Sonic’s abilities and would barely catch up to Sonic as he drove Eggman off of Little Planet.

Escaping the planet after Eggman just as it’s one-month appearance came to an end, Sonic headed off towards his next adventure leaving Rosy behind. The change in status quo for Rosy after her life changing adventure on Little Planet would come back to haunt Sonic in due time, but not before answering a call for help from the legendary South Island. Eggman had taken to the island after hearing of the major losses of the terrifying sky pirates, the Battle Kukku’s, who were searching for the legendary Chaos Emeralds. Conducting his own research into them Eggman discovered and tracked down South Island. Naturally he upended the island in his search and Sonic being so well known was reached out to by the inhabitants for help. Upon arriving at South Island, Sonic found Eggman waiting for him with a devious trap in play; to slow Sonic down he had captured all the animals on the island and shoved them into his robots.

Now, for the Ring Bond AU things are a little more complicated as Fang the Sniper and Metal Sonic also make their way to South Island. Eggman is surprised by Metal’s reappearance, both him and Sonic oblivious to Sonic using the Ring Bond having an effect on the robot allowing it to make its way back to Eggman. With Metal Sonic’s mysterious return and eavesdropping on Sonic and Fang discovering that the treasure hunter blames Sonic for his loss of his treasure tracker as Rosy suddenly had Sonic’s abilities leaves the doctor curious. Thus, while attempting to discover the Chaos Emeralds in a race against Sonic and Fang, Eggman repairs Metal Sonic and sends it out to cause interference. In the end Sonic beats them all, and through his Ring Bond ability harnesses the power of the Chaos Emeralds to undo the damage caused by Eggman. In his use of the Chaos Emeralds however Eggman was able to witness their power and desired more and more to harness them. To that end he would have to repair Metal again as the robot seemed affected by Sonic. He would need more data however as well as the chance to get his hands on the Chaos Emeralds again.

Whether by sheer coincidence or perhaps design, Sonic and Eggman both descended upon West Side Island, the Illusory Island providing the doctor the opportunity he had been waiting for. Sonic however was oblivious to his nemesis’ arrival and had simply set down on the island to take a break between adventures. While there he found himself starting to be followed by a two-tailed fox boy who could use his tails to keep up with him. Nicknaming him Tails and viewing him as little more than a minor distraction, Sonic ignored him for the most part during his time on the island and let him do as he pleased. This was enough for Tails, who despite having fended off the Battle Kukku Armada lacked the courage and confidence to approach a hero such as Sonic. He did however desire to become a hero like Sonic, especially after having defeated the Battle Kukkus. Having just a little more confidence in himself he had trained himself to use his tails to reach groundspeeds around the speed of sound in the hopes of one day impressing his hero as unlikely as it was that he would meet him. Impressing him was not quite what Tails would manage to do though.

Eggman’s plans eventually sprung into action and the destruction he caused in the process naturally drew Sonic’s attention. Racing off to save yet another legendary island from Eggman, Sonic found himself being followed by the young fox. Suddenly Tails’ ability to keep up with Sonic proved to be problematic as though Tails believed if he could keep up with Sonic everything would be fine and believed he could help, Eggman was far greater than the Battle Kukku Armada. Unable to chase Tails off and fearful that the stubborn fox would get himself hurt or worse, Sonic made the decision to grant him his abilities through the Ring Bond. Surpassing Sonic’s expectations, Tails took to his abilities like a natural and became a major asset in saving West Side Island. His ability to fly the Tornado elevated him even higher, but not nearly as much as his ability to slap a rocket on it and repair it in the time it Sonic to bring down Eggman’s airship. Impressive as Tails’ abilities were, however, he could not keep up with Sonic as Sonic chased Eggman into space and had a battle with a far clunkier robot double of himself. Clunky as it was, it was combat capable and the space fortress that Eggman built put him even further and further ahead of the technology of the world below. Unable to let Eggman keep his latest and greatest creation for the sake of the world below, Sonic again used the Ring Bond to harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds hoping to undo the space station’s creation. To Sonic’s surprise the Chaos Emeralds transformed him and granted him the power to do as he desired to protect the world.

With the Death Egg seeming destroyed, Sonic allowed himself a few days rest. Tails, amazed by Sonic’s extraordinary feats spent those days rummaging through the remains of Eggman’s bases on West Side Island to see what Eggman had dug up on the Chaos Emeralds. Tinkering around with Eggman’s tech Tails managed to put together a Chaos Emerald detector and to his surprise picked up reaction in the middle of the ocean. The direction was the same as the epicenter of a tidal wave that brought an ancient Ring to Sonic’s attention reminding him of the legends of an island that floated in the sky. Deciding his next adventure would be Angel Island, Sonic headed out allowing Tails to join him again as his Chaos Emerald detector would likely lead them to the legendary Angel Island.

Finding Angel island proved far easier for Eggman as he simply had to wait for the Death Egg to crash land to find it. Attracting the attention of the island’s guardian, Knuckles the Echidna, Eggman managed to trick him into believing Sonic was his enemy. Doubting that Knuckles would serve as much of an obstacle to Sonic, Eggman took his combat data from Mecha Sonic Mk. I to start work on a Mk. II unit in addition to digging himself in on the island. Eggman however vastly underestimated Knuckles, as the island’s guardian was more properly the Guardian of the Master Emerald, a legendary gem that controlled the Chaos Emeralds. Due to his duty and the stories engrained into the island and him he was blessed with abilities matching Sonic’s as well as knowledge of the Ring Bond. As a result, he introduced himself to Sonic by breaking his Ring Bond with the Chaos Emeralds. It was a shock to Sonic and Tails both and when they discovered that Eggman was already on Angel island things got desperate.

The battle for Angel Island was unlike any other as Sonic had to restore his Ring Bond with the Chaos Emeralds to prevent Eggman from gaining access to them, fend off the misinformed Knuckles, and stop the Death Egg from making it back into space. It was more than Tails could keep up with and as the Death Egg began to ascend Sonic’s journey would continue on alone. He would stop the first launch on his own and would soon after discover the truth about Knuckles. Deciding to help out the echidna he would use his Ring Bond to restore the bonds between the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald. He would not succeed at stopping the Death Egg from finally making it into space however or keep Eggman from getting his hands on the Master Emerald. Realizing the error of his ways, Knuckles sent Sonic on ahead to try and catch up to Eggman exposing him to Mech Sonic Mk. II. Despite the improvements of his latest doppelganger Sonic managed to still catch up with the Death Egg. After an epic encounter in space, Sonic would truly destroy the space station this time and meet back up with Tails before reuniting Knuckles with the master Emerald. Despite saving Angel Island though, Sonic had a nagging feeling and after parting ways with Tails took the Tornado once again into the sky after the legendary floating island.

For Knuckles it was a good thing that Sonic did as Eggman’s robots had long overstayed their welcome, but most importantly, Mecha Sonic Mk. II had managed to get its hands on the Master Emerald. After a grueling battle with the emerald powered machine, Knuckles was saved by Sonic from plummeting to his doom. Relieved to hear that Knuckles had dealt with Eggman’s leftovers, Sonic left Knuckles and Angel Island for a second time. But neither he nor Knuckles realized that the Master Emerald’s Guardian had not fully dealt with Eggman’s leftovers. There was enough left of Mecha Sonic Mk. II for Eggman, who had survived his last clash with Sonic, to salvage and analyze the data it held. It was more than Eggman could have ever hoped for as it revealed through the bond with the Master Emerald the Ring Bond.

Desperate to study the secret of the Rings and learn about Sonic’s Ring Bond ability, Eggman was thrilled when a whole island began to rise up out of the ocean in response to the Master Emerald’s time on the surface. Hoping that the island would lead him to unravel the mysteries of the Rings Eggman was more amazed than he anticipated he could be. He discovered the Rings could be used to directly access the Master Emerald and more secrets due to the island having once been part of the same civilization that Angel Island had been part of. Gleefully building a new base on the island to support his research, Eggman invented the Dark Ring and began enhancing Metal Sonic. He still needed more data though to complete his original Sonic doppelganger and recalled three individuals who he knew about who possessed Sonic’s abilities. Hatching his next scheme Eggman proceeded to lure Mighty, Rosy, and Tails to the nameless island. Unfortunately for Eggman, someone he did not account for got involved.

Since having rid Angel Island of the last of Eggman’s influence, Knuckles had been watching the world below for signs of the Master Emerald having affected it. The rising of an island from the ocean in a world constantly shifting about seemed little to worry himself about, but Eggman’s interest in the island kept him keeping an eye on things. When the Master Emerald began reacting to the Chaos Rings, powerful Rings born from long lost Ring Bonds with the Chaos Emeralds and Master Emerald, Knuckles knew he would have to investigate what was going on. He didn’t know about the Chaos Rings themselves, but was not surprised when a trio of adventures with Ring Bonds with Sonic showed up and fell under attack from Eggman. What horrible fate awaited them had Knuckles not come down from Angel Island is one Mighty was glad he would not find out.

For Mighty, his time on the nameless island was a lot like his time on Eggman Island constantly avoiding traps and Eggman’s attempts to stop him. Matters were more complicated this time though as the presence of Rosy and Tails also sharing a Ring Bond with Sonic and believing they could help Knuckles with his reason for being there meant he couldn’t just flee. Someone had to take responsibility for Sonic so recklessly making Ring Bonds and Mighty felt with what he saw of Knuckles’ personality he was unlikely to keep Tails and Rosy out of trouble. When they had to face off against Metal Sonic and a giant monstrous version of the machine, he was glad though that Knuckles was present as his combat expertise proved integral in stopping Eggman’s plans and the creation of the Dark Ring. Knuckles took it a step further however and used the power of the Master Emerald held in the Chaos Rings to destroy the island and make sure that they could never be used by Eggman again or endanger the master Emerald. Saddened by the loss of history, Mighty would have liked to spend some time speaking with the echidna about his past and everything he knew about the world but had to deal with Rosy and Tails.

During the adventure Rosy had hit it of with Tails in their shared idolization of Sonic, even if Tails couldn’t grasp Rosy’s crush. Completely hyped up by the adventure Rosy wanted nothing more than to team up with Tails to go adventuring and try to find Sonic but Mighty wasn’t having it. That Sonic had shared his abilities with the two and did not bring them to Checkpoint to make sure they could develop their skills safely left Mighty far to concerned. Though rosy put up a fight, he managed to get the two of them to Checkpoint. It was not the best start either as Rosy wanted to meet everyone and hear their stories while Tails found himself meeting Zooey who had more than few words for him for making her maintenance work the Tornado harder by attacking a rocket engine to it. Eventually things smoothed over and Zooey became Rosy and Tails’ agent in Checkpoint, though policy kept her from telling them where Sonic was at any given time no matter how much Rosy pestered her. Staying with Checkpoint at Mighty’s insistence Rosy and Tails would become exemplary Ring Hunters, a respectable if not exciting role as though Rings were finicky and no one knew how they worked or why, Ring Gates needed them to be built and function so the two slowly built a reputation for themselves. Mighty already having quite the reputation was free to go as he pleased and once he was confident that Rosy and Tails had settled in headed out in search of Sonic, something he could use to get Sonic to come to him, and to make sure that if Eggman was up to anything someone might know.

The funny thing about Sonic and Eggman though was that they were always bound to bump into each other at one point or another, even when Eggman would prefer they did not. After his defeat on the nameless island to Knuckles, Eggman went about compiling all of the data he managed to gather, and though he lamented losing almost all of his Ring data had more than enough to finally complete Metal Sonic. The only thing left he needed was what a dubbed a Chaos Factor to forge a Ring Bond between Metal Sonic and Sonic. Of course, he also had to repair Metal Sonic again, upgrade it to receive the Chaos Factor, and then test it to make sure that it was indeed Sonic’s equal, or even better. To that end, he sought out Mirage Island, a place where Little Planet was said to appear, even if it was not a tangible appearance like over Never Lake. It seemed the perfect place to work and Eggman sure enough found ancient ruins with hints to the Chaos Factor he needed. Thus he set up base and began his search while preparing to test the eventually completed Metal Sonic by putting out old Badniks that Sonic had already proved were failures, though adding a few new twists to test Metal Sonic’s adaptability.

Sonic had no clue what Eggman was up to when he arrived on Mirage Island by chance, but seeing Eggman’s old machines littering the island, and with the local fauna stuffed inside, he was quick to act. His testing grounds suddenly under attack by the wrong Sonic, Eggman had to scramble to meet his long-time foe. Unfortunately his little twists to his old designs were not enough to deter Sonic, and only by launching his incomplete low-orbital base was he able to pull Sonic away from Mad Gear Zone so that Metal Sonic might be completed in peace. Unfortunately Sonic still inflicted tremendous losses and Eggman lost his new, though much smaller, space station as well as great deal of the tests he had set up for Metal Sonic. It was not all a loss however as Sonic was unaware of why Eggman had chosen Mirage Island for his latest scheme. That meant that the Chaos Factor he was after was still untouched, though he had lost the machines to excavate it. That was fine though as the completed Metal Sonic was more than up to the task, a task that made him truly complete for as he absorbed the Chaos Factor his Ring Bond with Sonic was completed and the machine was non longer just a constructed copy of Sonic, but for all extents and purposed a robot Sonic. Eggman was overjoyed by his success and needed now only the opportunity to spoil Sonic’s fun and let him meet his perfect machine counterpart.

And that wraps up how the games that have occurred in the Ring Bond AU and the order. My apologies for the format and meandering approach, but I hope it helps paint a picture of the AU’s history. For a quick recap though before I wrap this up, the game effectively took place in the following order

SegaSonic the Hedgehog>>Sonic CD>>Tails Adventure>>Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)>>Sonic 2>>Sonic 3>>Sonic and Knuckles>>(Knuckles) Chaotix>>Sonic 4 Ep. I>>Sonic 4 Ep. Metal.

From here the Sonic Ring Bond AU will be going in its own direction. How the characters develop and grow is for the future, though I hope I’ll make something of it. If not, for now this AU is the one that my Rosy occupies. She has Sonic’s abilities and the desire to master them so that she can go on adventures with him and maybe even win his heart. Her shared idolization of Sonic has resulted in her and Tails becoming best friends, while Sonic is best friends with Mighty. Eggman has completed a version of Metal Sonic that is for all extents and purposes Sonic and is just waiting for the perfect opportunity to ruin his fun and gloat in victory. Meanwhile, the Battle Kukku Armada is still out there and desiring revenge against Tails, and Rosy leaving Fang in pursuit of Sonic and his lifestyle has left her and Sonic yet another crafter enemy who himself wants “compensation” for losing his treasure tracker. And all of this takes place in a world where Eggman’s robotics and engineering skills puts him decades ahead of the rest of constantly shifting world full of ancient ruins and legends barely hanging on to airship technology fueled by early industry. But with the help of Checkpoint, it is a world that is a home to many adventurers who live out their dreams of a lifetime of discovery.

Thank you to everyone who read to the end, and I welcome any question or suggestions you may have. For the sake of organization though, please send questions or suggestions through my ask and I’ll be glad to answer. Thank you again everyone for your time.

[zwei-the-penguin-with-a-pen]

‘Second & Sebring’

Ruby Rose packed up her briefcase with the tests she would spend half the night grading. Hopefully, this rowdy batch of future Huntsmen and Huntresses knew which Grimm was which and they would all pass with flying colors. If nothing else, that would make the grading move faster and leave Ruby with more Weiss time.

Ruby loved her job as a professor at the new Beacon Academy. Rebuilding the school didn't take all that much time once the people of Vale had set their minds to it. Grimm weren't as much of a problem as they once were, what with Salem eradicated, but the occasional spike in the monsters population still needed to be controlled. That's where Ruby came in, teaching the bright young minds and training the bodies of the next generation of demon slayers.

"Professor Rose..." She heard a voice call her name. She looked up from her desk to see a handsome young boy that had bright orange hair with a black streak in it. He looked at her through bright pink eyes.

"Yes, Mr. Valkyrie?" She responded. Being a professional was still an adventure for Ruby. She'd much rather scoop the kid up and hug him, as she'd known him since he was born. She tried not to be on a first name basis with any of her students if she didn't need to be, but Heimdall Valkyrie was the son of two of her friends.

"Would you mind going easy on Lotus's test? She's been restless lately with redesigning her weapon and it's all she can do to stay awake some days..." The shy boy asked her. He was forever looking out for his kid sister.

"I'm certain Lotus did just fine, Heimdall. You guys are Ren and Nora's kids, after all. Ren won't let you guys fail at anything you try." Heimdall grinned at his teacher's response and thanked her.

"That's something else I've been meaning to ask you..." He sighed, pointing to the small figures on Ruby's desk. "These two... They were Mom and Dad's partners when they went to school here, right?" Ruby's face fell at the question. Heimdall or Lotus was bound to ask it sooner or later.

"Yes, they were. The boy was Jaune Arc, a fantastic fighter and friend. He didn't come from much, and he kind of cheated to get into Beacon, but he fought harder than anyone else did. The girl was Pyrrha Nikos. She was a world-renowned fighter before she ever even came to Beacon. She was shy in spite of her fame, but she was a wonderful friend and a beautiful soul. And everyone at Beacon had a crush on her." Ruby chuckled at the thought of that. She fondly remembered her eyes turning to stars at the very sight of Pyrrha.

"Do you know what happened to them?" Yeesh, kid. Always with the difficult questions.

"Well, kid, they both ran headlong into battles they knew they couldn't win. At the Fall of Beacon, Pyrrha went after the woman who led the attack, and she was pretty much a god when Pyrrha got to her. You know the Maidens story, correct?" The orange haired boy nodded, mentioning that it was one of his favorite fairytales. "Well, the Maidens do exist. Or they did. No one knows if they're still around, seeing as the great evil has been defeated. Anyway, Cinder had just become the Fall Maiden, but Pyrrha went after her anyway."

Ruby held back a tear. "I watched her die, Heimdall. I was rushing to help her, but I was too late. A similar thing happened with Jaune. He made a mad dash for Salem in our last battle, but he never even got close. She summoned a horde of Grimm that devoured him." She rubbed her eyes to stop the tears. "The last words I heard him say were, 'At least I can see Pyrrha now'... and then he was gone."

"Wow, Professor! I can't believe you've been on so many great adventures! I'm sorry those horrible things happened to your friends, though." Heimdall sympathized. Ruby grinned at her student and honorary nephew,

"It's a hazard in our line of work, kid. More of my friends died, and even more of them lived through endless horrors, but we defeated Salem and lived to tell the world about it. What more could we ask for?"

"Wow, my parents were with you and your team?"

"Yep, them and Jaune, and some others, too. We made a fantastic team, really. Especially my girls," She grinned and pointed to the photograph on her desk. "We were called Team RWBY, and we were not what you'd call the best team at Beacon by any means. But we found a family in each other, all by ourselves. It was little and broken, but it was good. Is good, I mean." She picked up the photo.

"This one here is my sister Yang. We had the same dad, and the same mom raised us. Yang had a different... I think 'vessel' is a good word for Raven." Heimdall laughed at Ruby's remark. "Yang lost her arm in the Fall, but she and Blake destroyed the creature responsible. She's the one with the dark hair and cat ears. They were married shortly after that, and now they've got family of their own."

"So the girl with the white hair... isn't that Weiss Schnee? She's famous for reforming the Schnee Dust Company after her father ran it into the ground." Heimdall mentioned. He was always very studious. You could tell he was Ren's child.

"Yeah. He was a miserable man. Holding my scythe up to his neck is still one of my crowning achievements." She laughed as Heimdall's eyes widened.

"Were you the one that killed him?!"

"Well, he shouldn't have slapped my wife in the face and tried to attack her!" Ruby huffed defiantly. "But no, I didn't kill him. Weiss and I had our fill of beating him, and then we threw him into the mines and let the faunus have their way with him, Lion King style!" She grinned at the idea. "And then I married the girl of my dreams! But only after my team and I defeated Salem."

"You're so incredible, Professor Rose! I'd love to meet your team sometime!"

"Well, I'm sure you'll meet us all someday. Anyway, I'm going home now. See you next class, Nephew. And I promise I'll go easy on your sister... but only because you asked nicely." She grinned at the boy as she shooed him out of her lecture hall and locked the door behind the two of them.

"Rough day, Flower Pot?" Weiss asked Ruby when she arrived at home. Ruby showered Weiss with hugs and kisses.

"GROSS!" The small girl with white hair tipped with red yelled at them, making fake gagging noises. Ruby smiled and scooped up her favorite tiny human.

"Shut your cute face, Pyrrha Schnee Rose!" Ruby told her, hugging and ruffling her oldest daughter's hair.

"HOW DARE YOU!" The kid protested, trying and failing to escape her muscled mother's embrace.

"To answer your question, wife dearest, I had a wonderful day. And then Ren's son came and asked me about Pyrrha and Jaune." Ruby released her daughter, who ran off into another room. Another kid, smaller with bright crimson hair, appeared from the restroom.

"Hey, Ma!" The girl told Ruby as she reached into the fridge. Weiss shoved her away and closed the door.

"You JUST had a snack, Penelope! Dinner will be done soon!" Her mother protested. Penn grimaced and crossed her arms but accepted her cruel fate. She hugged Weiss and Ruby.

"Your mama's cooking is amazing, Penn! I certainly can't wait to eat it!" Ruby bragged on her wife. Penn smiled as she ran off to her room. "So, Mama... when are we gonna have a boy?"

"One of these days! Please don't make me name him after Jaune," Weiss joked. Ruby grinned.

"Niko Arcana Rose... That sound good?"

"It's an idea. A bit better than Penelope Summer." Weiss jabbed. Ruby huffed.

"Hey, I carried 'em so I named 'em! You just did the fun parts!" She fired back. Weiss rolled her eyes and tended to the meal she was cooking, sipping coffee from a wine glass for some reason. Oh yeah, all the coffee mugs held plants and/or science projects for the kids.

Ruby sat down in her lazy chair, leaning the head back and relaxing. 'Have I made you proud, Mom? I'm sorry I haven't been to visit lately. School's been pretty wild. I'll make my way there soon enough though. I love you.' She silently prayed. Pyrrha ran by with something shiny in her left hand. "Pyrrha, honey, what is that?"

"A knife," the little human answered. Ruby sped over and snatched it away.

"NO! Just because you're named after Pyrrha Nikos doesn't mean you can get all stabby! You're still too young for weapons, honeybun!"

"If I can help it, you'll always be too young for weapons..." Weiss injected from the kitchen. "Food's ready by the way! Kids, your plates are on the table!" The two kids rushed to the table and sat, waiting for Mom and Mama to fix their own plates. The four of them sat to a nice dinner. Ruby could not be happier with her life.

\/\/\/\/\/

\/\/\/\/\/

\/\/\/\/\/

Day 9: A Character Ten Years in the Future.

Had a long and rough day yesterday, so it’s late. I kinda used Day 10′s prompt too, so maybe I’ll see what the WRW prompt is today.

Anyway, Professor Ruby Rose has a talk with Heimdall Valkyrie, then goes home to Weiss and their kids.

[elstonsblog]

2019

In my last yearly round-up, the goals for the end of 2019 were to have done:

365 drawings (1 a day of place and thought)

52 what I saws

12 reflective writing pieces

12 reasons to be cheerful

12 photographs of tattooed fruit

6 posters

6 punks

6 tattooed people

6 painted objects

6 zines

4 pieces of clothing

A piece of work printed/made

Learn stick and poke

Stall at an art fair

It’s obvious to say, that I didn’t complete all of my resolutions. There were tasks that I started and then fell through – like the 52 what I saw’s, then there were other tasked that changed throughout the year. Looking at these goals again I think my approach for the coming year will be slightly different. Fewer goals, bigger goals with more actions that can be divided throughout the year. Hopefully, after writing this I’ll have a clearer idea of what they’ll be so I’ll come back that at the end. 

The work I’ve created this year feels a lot more together than the 2018’s body of work. I’ve found comfort in the barrel pen and the application of a colour palette which helps give the work a sense of togetherness. While in 2020 I hope to expand my processes a bit more this year has been good to build confidence and find the fun in what I’m doing again. The goal of making my work and Instagram page look more varied (as previously it was lumps of the same work) I think has been successful. It has been achieved through daily drawings of whatever pops into my head at lunchtime to then be drawn up and coloured at the weekends. This way of working has suited me well as it gives me something to do at lunch and thinking of 1 thing a day is manageable into my routine... the downfall of it would be that it doesn’t give much room for larger ideas or projects – knowing this now, I hope to set some time aside on weekends to plan those out and then I could use the lunchtimes to progress them.

My way of working is still fairly analogue as all the lines are drawn by hand, scanned and then will be digitally coloured. If I were to get an iPad the processing time would go down but I don’t feel there is a need for that yet as everything I’m doing it on my own time and it’s a process I’m comfortable with that ensures my hand stays in the game. 

In 2018 I was focussed much more on observational drawing, this year I have come away from that and started to play around with things a bit more. Using ideas and objects and trying to focus on fun. There have been a few recurring pieces that I would like to continue in 2020, Reasons to be cheerful was started in 2019 and while the ones that have been created could do with a bit of freshening up I can redraw and update those while continuing it as eventually I’d like to make it into a book/poem of some kind so that it is in keeping with the original song. The half heads are also interesting to me to play with, stemming from this philosophy that the mind and body are separate yet connected – opening up the brain allows for better communication of what that person is feeling. I’m not sure what the half heads will lead to in terms of the outcome.. but it’s a nice outlet for me to communicate feelings.

The platform that I am using is starting to increase which is starting to give me a better understanding of who my audience is. Before my nephew was born I was reluctant to do child-focused things but my view on that has changed a lot seeing how he interacts with pictures and toys. For a few months in the latter part of the year, I was seeing my work as being in the soft middle of nothing as it isn’t too much one thing or much the other. With that in mind, I started to make things with soft middles. Felt soft toys that are just like physical drawings, making them takes longer than drawing does but it’s nice to have something physical at the end of it. It’s something that is still quite new to me so there’s an excitement there. Because of the material and general look of the bright coloured soft and squishy objects, they lend themselves to children. When drawing the ideas of what to make I made sure that it was things that interest me rather than trying to use the toys to make only baby stuff, this has also helped keep my interest. A goal for this year is to make stuff so that I can go to stalls – having a face on contact with people will give me a much better idea of who my audience is and meet other creative people.

I’d say that the most successful aspects of my work this year is the progression of my visual toolkit, I’ve found my eyes and my nose and my colours. Things that I’m able to apply to any drawing I do. This has been helpful and I’m hoping it will continue to progress and change as currently when I ditch the nose it looks quite kawaii which isn’t quite what I’d hoped for but with more practice, I’ll find an alternative. This year I need to focus some effort on creating body shapes as many of my drawings with people in are just headshots other than body’s that were observed. I think that’s because when drawing the half heads, I draw them naked. I can do full body monkeys and skeletons and, I’m sure, with the addition of clothes I’ll be able to do people – I just need to put some effort into making sure it happens. ­

On the flip side of that, my least successful aspect would be refinement and placement. Throughout the year I’ve just been drawing one thing then moving on to the next with no real thinking of what I could use this for, where could I put this.. how can I push it? I think 2020 will see some refining of existing work as now it’s been drawn and I’ve had time away from it I can think and see it differently. I’d like to make some of the things already created into gifs, prints etc. so that they’re not just stuck as they currently are.

Other than a handful of projects, most of my work didn’t involve research into an area or subject – which has led the pieces to be seen at face value, most of them aren’t trying to communicate anything deeper which when looking back over the body of work makes it feel a little light. Not by any means does this mean that my work suddenly has to become all serious or obvious – but I think I could benefit from taking more interest in the news, short stories etc. to attempt to convey messages, tales and ideas rather than just images.

Overall, I think this past year has been a good step in the right direction that I hope to continue taking forward. I’ve played around with stick + poke; made a group exhibition;  redesigned my website and opened up more social media channels; made work for other people; designed an alphabet and learnt to sew (to pick my favourite few). Through focusing on drawing happier things I have also held a happier state of mind – I think both things feed into each other. While I’m not where I want to be yet (and I don’t know what that is) I’m positive that by carrying on I’ll get somewhere. My confidence in the drawing is getting better but now I think I need to focus my efforts on application and ideas of the drawings. 

In 2020, my main aims are to work towards (and hopefully do) a stall in either Bristol or London along with creating a self-promotion pack to send out to possible prospective clients. I have loosely planned my year with the main recurring projects that I would like to achieve this year, it looks slightly barer than the previous year but having fewer objectives means I can spend more time on them to make it the best version possible. I will be continuing with creating image ideas at lunchtime and working towards a bigger goal in the evenings. There is a possibility of my full-time job ending mid-year so what I’ve set out to do may suffer during deciding whether to do an MA or looking for another job... but none the less, these are my goals for 2020:

Make 24 Felt toys

Make 12 Editorial response drawings

Make 12 Zines

Make 12 Reasons to be cheerful

Make 12 Cards

Read 12 comics

Take 10 Polaroids a month

Write 12 reflection pieces

Design and distribute the self-promo pack

Stall at an art fair

[96flowers-writings]

The Real Endgame Chapter Two

Okay Marvel fans, here we go! Chapter Two!

Things start moving a little towards the end of this chapter. As soon as this is posted I will be working on Chapter 3! Hopefully that will be up by Wed.

To the person who commented about watching all 22 movies: Yes! It is a little ambitious to try all 22. I do say that I don't ever fully abandon something I have written. So it may take me a long time, I do plan on finishing this.

I will say this! This will be a multiple story arc. This one will contain meeting the OG crew and gathering everyone as well as the full first movie. After that each movie will have its own story. I don't plan on this being only watching the movies, there will be other things happening.

Stay tuned!

Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel

The Plan is Put in Motion

Over the course of the next two weeks the three Avengers worked all hours of the day and night to perfect the plan that had been put in place. Cassie had needed to go back into the notes and files left by her father and Doctor Pym to recreate the Pym particles and the machine needed to send a person into a different time.

Morgan had spent the time redesigning the original suits used when the Avengers tracked down the Infinity Stones. She had updated the style and the safety features. She had also gotten started on building the machine that would send her to the past. Yes, it had been decided that she would be the one going to the past. That had been a fun conversation…

Two weeks earlier….

"Alright," Cassie sighed as they met the next morning in Morgan's lab. "If we are going to do this we need to iron out some details before we start building anything."

"Oh?" Morgan hummed from where she had started pulling up old files on Friday's system. "Like what?"

"Well, first off, who is going to go?" Cassie asked coming around the table to face the Stark Heiress. "What kind of repercussions is changing the past going to have on this future? Is it going to rewrite ours or is it going to create a splintered timeline and leave ours intact?"

"I can answer the last two," Doctor Strange spoke up from the sitting area where had was reading some dusty textbook. He continued when he saw he had their attention. "This timeline is fragile due to the jumps the Avengers made 25 years ago. When we send our person to the past and they begin to change the timeline, this future will begin to fade away. Unfortunately, the person who is sent to the past will be stuck there. They will become a part of the new timeline and will not be able to return. There will be nothing left to return to as this future will, essentially, cease to exist. That is why the answer to that first question is very important. Whoever goes back must be completely willing and understand that it is a one-way trip."

"Oh," Cassie sighed and sat down in the office chair. She obviously didn't want to be the one to go back, and Morgan didn't blame her. Cassie was married and had two small children she had to think about. Even if the timeline faded away she would want to be with her family when that happened.

Morgan on the other hand, didn't have anything holding her back from going. Her mother had passed away a few months prior due to complications with cancer. Her godfather Rhodey had died in a battle a little more than 10 years previously. Happy had passed away 3 years ago in an assassination attempt on her, he had pushed her out of the way of a sniper. He hadn't even been working, he had retired but remained an amazing friend over the years. Morgan had never married or really gotten involved with anyone. The only people she would be leaving behind would be Peter and Harley, and of course the new Avengers team, but they would all understand her need to do this.

"I'll go," Morgan said as she came to this conclusion. Cassie opened her mouth, most likely to argue, but Morgan interrupted her. "I really don't have anything holding me here, everyone who would have argued with me is dead. Peter and Harley will understand, even if they don't like it."

"You're right," Cassie admitted and reached over to grab her hand. "Besides, I got my father back all those years ago. It's time you got yours."

Morgan smiled at her friend as Strange looked on. He had already known it would have to be Morgan Stark, but she had to come to that conclusion on her own.

Present….

During the last two weeks Doctor Strange had been pouring over his spell books to make sure that everything in the movies were accurate and that he had made the right call about what was going to happen to the timeline. He had also taken to comparing notes with Morgan and Cassie about the physical effects that this will have on the body. Though he may be a master of the mystic arts he is still a medically trained Doctor who has kept up his training in the years since his accident.

Finally, after two weeks of long days and longer nights, they are ready to send Morgan back to 2012, to when Loki had been defeated and the Avengers were newly formed. The day before they had finally let the rest of the local Avengers know of their plan. As expected, Peter and Harley were less than pleased but understood that Morgan needed to see and save her father. Of the two Peter was the more understanding and the more devastated that she wanted to do this alone. Peter, Harley, and James (Steve Rogers grandson who took the mantle of Captain America after Sam retired, also the occasional boyfriend/friend with benefits for Morgan) all had offered to come with her, but she had said this was something she needed to do herself.

They all gathered around the rebuilt quantum tunnel to watch. Cassie was at the controls prepping it for go time. Morgan was messing with the settings on her wrist control nervously as everyone shuffled around. Finally, Peter had enough…

"Morgan," He said and stepped forward. He grabbed her by the shoulders and tilted her face up towards him. "Are you sure about this?"

"More than anything," Morgan said softly as she met Peter's eyes. "I have to do this. The world never really recovered from Thanos, it can be prevented all together. I also might have a chance to save my father."

"Okay," Peter sighed and pulled her into a tight hug. "Remember what I told you. There was a little boy he saved from the drones the first year he restarted the Stark Expo. The little boy was dressed as Iron Man. Only the boy, your mom and dad, and Rhodey knew about saving him."

"Right," Morgan said resting her head on his shoulder and just hugging him. Eventually she leaned up on her toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Thank you for everything Peter. You have been an amazing big brother to me all these years."

She stepped away and turned towards Harley who had been waiting silently behind Peter. He opened his arms and she stepped willingly into them. They stood for a moment in silence, there wasn't anything that really needed to be said except, "Good luck little sister."

Morgan nodded into his shoulder and kissed his cheek like Peter before stepping back. The next inline was James. He looked a little lost about her leaving. She stepped up to him and put a hand on his cheek and looked into his eyes.

"Maybe in another life we could have had something," She said for his ears only. His deep blue eyes met hers in understanding before he leaned down and kissed her gently.

"I understand," He said softly as he wrapped her in his arms. "More than anyone probably. Alright, took me awhile to come up with something that this Grandpa Steve would know, before he traveled back to have his happy ending the only time he had kissed Grandma Peggy was just before he boarded the plan that he crashed into the sea. The only people who knew about that kiss is the two of them and Colonel Philips."

"Gotcha," Morgan sighed and stepped away. She turned to look at the others. The next person to step forward surprised her just a little.

"Morgan," Thor smiled as he gently set his hands on her shoulders. In the years since he left to travel with the Guardians he had regained his former stature. He was thin and strong again, he had cropped his hair to short spikes, his beard was trimmed close to his neck, the scar along his face was faded and white. He looked like the God of Thunder again. Recently he had come back to Earth and New Asgard and sat down with his people. Valkyrie had been ruling in his absence but as it turns out she wasn't meant to be a Queen. The people want Thor to be their king again. He said that he would return soon to retake the throne, now he won't have to if everything goes according to plan. He squeezed her shoulders gently. "You are so like your father, I have often wished that I had known him better. I wish you luck and happiness."

"Thanks Thor," Morgan smiled up at the tall Asgardian in front of her. "I hope I can make things better for you and your people."

"Me to," Thor smiled before becoming serious. "For the past version of me there is something only he, Loki, Sif and the Warriors Three know. It is rather recent for him. When I had taken Loki and the others to Jotunheim before my banishment I was confronted by a Frost Giant Soldier, he insulted my pride 'Run back home little princess' were his words."

"Ouch," Sam Wilson winced as he walked closer. His hair was silver, and he walked with a cane, but he was still the man who Rogers had trusted The Shield too all those years ago. "Knowing what I do about you Thor that probably didn't end well for anyone involved."

"Right you are old friend," Thor responded and stepped back. "The resulting fight was the reason for my banishment."

"Not surprising," Sam sighed and shook his head. He took Thor's place in front of Morgan. He looked at her for a moment before pulling he gently into a hug. "I don't have some weird line or moment to give you kid. I was somewhere over Afghanistan getting shot at in bird suit at the time you are aiming for. Hopefully my ass will get brought home to watch with you if everything goes according to plan."

Morgan smiled into the hug. They weren't as close as they probably could have been, but she always looked up to the older man. She squeezed him tightly before kissing his cheek and stepping back. "See you soon Sam."

The next person to come forward was a good friend all through her life, someone she looked up to as a cousin, Lila Barton aka Hawkeye. Lila looked at her long-time friend before she slugged her gently in the shoulder.

"Ow!," Morgan complained as she rubbed her 'bruised' shoulder. "Tell me how you really feel then Katniss."

"Haha," Lila rolled her eyes at the old nickname. "Take care of yourself kid. You already know what to tell Natasha and Dad."

"Yeah I do," Morgan said softly and pulled her into a hug. The two let go and Lila stepped back.

Stephen and Cassie were the last too step forward.

"Alright Morgan, this is it." He smiled at her gently. "Cassie has everything calibrated and ready to go. Are you ready?"

"Yes sir," Morgan said with a small smile. She reached forward and dragged Cassie into one last hug. She soon released her and turned towards the device. She stepped up onto the platform before turning to her team.

"If this timeline doesn't fade, tell the others what I've done," Morgan told her team. "Our team is large and there are a lot of our friends who couldn't make it home on such short notice. Let them know I love them and that I am sorry for just leaving without warning."

"We will kid," Peter promised her. "We love you, 3000."

Morgan laughed slightly at their old goodbye. She looked down and activated her suit, it formed around her using the nano tech that her father had developed. The new time suit looked more like her Rescue armor than the old Antman style suits. She reached down and gripped the two cases she was taking tightly. One contained the 22 movies that Strange had created, the other was full of the things she couldn't leave behind on the one-way trip. Beneath the suit she was wearing was the bracelets and necklace that held the nano pieces of her Rescue armor. She turned her head and nodded at Cassie who was once again at the controls.

"Activation in…3…2…1…"

Cassie flipped the final switch and it was as if the floor had disappeared beneath Morgan and she fell into the quantum zone at the size of an atom. The heads-up display showed her the course she needed to follow to reach he target time. She followed the projected course and in seconds there was a blinding flash, and a gut wrenching feeling before she appeared in the penthouse of Stark Tower as The Avengers were taking Loki into custody.

There was silence for a moment as she took everything in. Before she could say anything, weapons were pointed in her direction by the Avengers and the newly arrived SHEILD **cough**Hydra**cough** agents. Her hands went up above her head in the universal sign for don't shoot. The silence was broken by Barton,

"Who the hell are you!?"

In Morgan's home time…

The gathered Avengers watched as she disappeared into the quantum tunnel in silence. Cassie was flipping switches and reading the monitors for another moment before the lights on the platform went dim. She took a step back and looked at everyone.

"She's arrived in 2012," Cassie said simply. "She should be appearing in Stark Tower as they arrested Loki."

"How soon till we start to fade? Will we even be able to tell?" Harley asked as he turned away from the platform to look at Lang.

"I don't know," Cassie admitted with a small shrug. "I am not an expert with this, I just know the research left by my father and Doctor Pym. Doctor Strange?"

"We here in this room will have a vague feeling of weightlessness as this world starts to fade," Strange said as he walked to look out the window into the city bellow. "We are aware that it will be coming and will have a sense for it. Much like you felt the snap coming all those years ago on Titan Peter. As for when? Well if I am correct our timelines our technically synced for now. We will not begin to fade until the Original Team begins to realize the changes that need to be made. This won't happen until they start to see their future. I'd say we have a week, maybe two."

"A week," Harley sighs and takes his phone out of his pocket. He looks at the background photo of his girlfriend. "Better make it worth it then hmm?"

"We aren't actually dying Harley," Peter points out as he runs his hand through his hair. "But I don't see why we don't be around our loved ones for when the moments does arrive."

"You're right Pete," Sam says, as the official leader of the Avengers everyone turns to look at him. He meets the eyes of everyone in the room. "As of right now the Avengers are disband. Go home to your loved ones. Only if something threatens the lives of everyone will we step in. If two weeks pass and we haven't faded we will reconvene and discuss the possibility that she failed or that this timeline won't actually fade."

"Yes Sir!"

With that the Avengers left the tower for what would be the final time.

[judgeanon]

A SHORT HISTORY OF FEMALE JUDGES IN JUDGE DREDD FROM 2012 TO 2015

Seemingly satisfied with having thoroughly destroyed Mega-City One and making Dredd horribly responsible for and uncharacteristically powerless during all of it, John Wagner let go of the reins of 2000AD’s flagship character after “Day of Chaos”, leaving the strip in the hands of a new crop of writers who’d waste no time in staking their territory. First with an absolute tour de force of storytelling, and later with epics of their own, filled with supporting casts either handpicked or created by themselves, these writers have carved their own place in the strip by exploring the themes and characters most interesting to each other.

Speaking of characters, the most important development of this era as far as this series is concerned is the return of Judge Hershey to the Chief Judge’s seat. Ostensibly brought back to form an interim administration while the city gets back on its feet, Hershey would end up staying far longer than anticipated, mostly on account of there being nobody else willing and able to take on the monumental responsibility. Least of all, Dredd himself. More on that… right away, actually.

(Previous posts: 1979 to 1982 - 1982 to 1986 - 1986 to 1990 - 1990 to 1993 - 1993 to 1995 - 1995 to 1998 - 1998 to 2001 - 2001 to 2004 - 2004 to 2007 - 2007 to 2009 - 2009 to 2012. Cover art by Cliff Robinson)

We hit the ground running with “Bullet to King Four”, by Al Ewing and Henry Flint (prog 1803, October 2012) a prologue to the year’s first epic. Back in the driver’s seat of a city dangling from a cliff, Chief Judge Hershey is already hard at work. During an interim council meeting that includes Dredd, Judge Stalker and new Wally Squad acting chief Judge Folger (Judge Hollister is mentioned as being MIA, her cover blown during Chaos Day), she reveals her plan to merge Justice Dept’s various units into larger divisions as a way to consolidate their beleaguered forces. She also introduces, to Dredd’s immediate disgust, a new head of Undercover Division and obvious source of future trouble: Judge Carolyn Bachmann.

Bachmann had been introduced in a Megazine story set during Tour of Duty called “The Family Man” by Ewing and Leigh Gallagher (Megs 312-313, July 2011), where she was hinted to be the secret head of Justice Dept’s Black Ops Division, introduced years ago in Si Spurrier’s “Dominoes.” An incredibly shrewd, cunning and manipulative woman, Bachmann clashed with Dredd over unsanctioned killings in the mutant townships, but he was ultimately unable to gather enough evidence to go after her in any official way. In fact, during “Bullet…”, Hershey directly references having heard Dredd’s accusations, but stands by her decision to keep Bachmann around. And then we get three of the most savage panels in the history of the strip:

Oof.

Clearly, the good old days of the Dredd/Hershey team are over. Or at least on life support. There’s definitely a lot to be said about Hershey’s words here, starting from the fact that she’s unequivocally, absolutely, 100% right. Dredd has proven, again and again, that he has extremely little patience or desire to deal with the logistical consequences of his decisions. The clearest example of this is back during “Mutants in Mega-City One”, when Dredd arm-twisted his way through the entire Council of Five, but then grew tired with all the politicking he himself started and left them to deliberate it on their own. It was Hershey’s cunning and willingness to stay the course that saved the repeal then.

And then there’s the resignation thing. This is something that Hershey’s not only had to deal with twice (first in “Total War”, then in “Mutants...”), but she was also there when Dredd did resign and eventually came back, during McGruder’s second term. She knows, arguably better than anyone alive, that Dredd is a judge and could never be anything else. What’s interesting is that this time, she doesn’t hesitate to call his bluff. While before, Hershey would’ve been more open to cooperation and second opinions, now she’s stuck doing triage for a half-dead city. And the last thing she needs is Dredd’s constant small picture problems meddling with her attempts at saving what’s left of the big picture, a responsibility that Dredd is staunchly reluctant to take as long as there’s someone else available to do it.

But although Hershey is right in her assessment of Dredd’s mindset, Dredd is likewise right in his assessment of Bachmann’s intentions. In fact, it’s even suggested at the story’s end that Hershey and Bachmann might be working together, which, given Hershey’s penchant for secret operations during her first reign, isn’t entirely unfounded from an in-universe perspective. Par for the strip’s course, nobody is entirely right. But despite the particulars of the story, the key element of “Bullet…” is how it has come to define Dredd and Hershey’s relationship for the last six-odd years.

Following such a strong start, we have “Asleep”, by Rob Williams and Mark Harrison (progs 1804-1805, idem), about a sov sleeper agent being reactivated by accident and gunning for the Chief Judge. The end result is an unabashed Hershey-in-peril scene, complete with her staring down the barrel of a gun on her knees and Dredd saving her life with some quick talking. So bit of a disappointment after the previous story, but hopefully it won’t become a trend or anything. Also of note: yet another redesigned female med-judge.

Then we get to the first epic of this new post-Wagner era, “Trifecta”. Which, in my opinion, is one of the strongest and smartest uses of 2000AD’s anthology format in storytelling since “The Dead Man”. Even in collected form it’s still not quite as interesting as it was reading it in the progs, and that’s because it is formed by three different series by three different creative teams that all started independently, and were only revealed to be different parts of a same story one third into it. Now, because I’m a stickler for the self-imposed rules of this series of articles (and certainly not because I’m a lazy bastard), I’ll focus only on the Dredd portion of it: “The Cold Deck”, by the returning team of Ewing and Flint (progs 1806-1811, October-November ‘12).

The story starts with the news that Judge Folger has been found dead in rather grisly circumstances, and to make matters worse, she’d also taken an important file from Wally Squad’s computers and erased all copies before dying -- a file so top secret, nobody knows what it is. Dredd suspects Bachmann, and Buell, former head of the SJS, agrees, further suggesting that she’ll use the scandal to prompt a reorganization, strengthen her position and eventually become Chief Judge herself. Which of course, doesn’t sit well with Dredd at all.

We’re also introduced to Judge Estrella, Bachmann’s partner in crime. A psi-judge, she spends most of the story mentally spying on Dredd on her boss’ behalf. Bachmann is not one to leave anything to chance.

Dredd tracks the file down but intentionally fails to stop it from being sold to someone off-world, where it’s revealed to be a list of every Wally Squad judge in operation. For this, Hershey summons Dredd to her office in an episode that picks right up where “Bullet...” left off, in more ways than one. Opening with Hershey having a flashback to the final pages of “The Judge Child Quest” during a budget meeting with Judge Maitland (who’s also hinted at being part of the epic’s underlying plot), she’s left alone with Dredd. The chapter, set almost entirely from Hershey’s perspective, is an exceptionally sharp bit of writing that segues flawlessly from plot to character development and then right back to plot with notable ease, comfortably aided by Flint peppering the pages with tight close-ups that convey a feeling of claustrophobic closeness between the two judges.

On one hand, we find out that Hershey was fully aware of Bachmann’s underhanded tactics, having made good use of her advice in the past, and wanted her in the Council as a way to get her out in the open and hopefully find something more solid to arrest her for. For the sake of the city, Hershey is willing to give an ambitious spymaster just enough rope to hang herself with, while Dredd would prefer to just hang her himself. But now, both Dredd and Hershey find themselves playing different games but not trusting each other enough to let the other in on them.

And on a deeper level, we get to see the differences between Hershey and Dredd’s conceptions of what it means to be Chief Judge, which is where the flashback comes in. After all, it was Dredd who refused to bring Krysler back to Mega-City One, espousing the notion that the Chief Judge had to be incorruptible. Hershey notes that Dredd idolizes the position of Chief, often leading him to stand in harsh judgment of the men and women who have taken it in the past. Indulging in a bit of armchair psychology, I feel like a lot of it has to do with Dredd’s relationship with the closest he had to a biological father: Judge Fargo, the first and best Chief Judge, against which all others have to be compared. And even if Fargo proved to be more human than it seemed, his myth and Dredd’s indoctrination have created an impossible set of standards in the latter’s mind that nobody else is able to live up to.

But Dredd has never been Chief Judge. Hershey has. Twice. If Dredd knows what the position should be, Hershey knows what it is. And she has no qualms in admitting that it comes with a hefty amount of compromise, subterfuge and even corruption. She laments the loss of her ideals, some of which we’ve been first-hand witnesses to over the years, but still proves to have the good of the city as her ultimate goal at all times. In fact, her attempt at ousting Bachmann is likened to her “victory” over Judge Edgar during her first reign. But in an even more personal level that has very little to do with the current situation, Hershey is shown to be wounded by Dredd’s lack of trust in her, when she trusted him enough to be kicked out of office for him. Dredd’s narrow focus on his vision of what the Chief Judge and the city should be makes him willfully blind to the compromises needed to fulfill it and to the sacrifices others make for believing in him. And Hershey, who has already given everything save her life for him once, is officially through taking his stomm.

And on a personal (for me) note, having such an exceedingly layered, compelling relationship between two estranged former friends without any romantic tension at all is one of the reasons I absolutely love Judge Dredd.

Things escalate pretty quickly after that. Bachmann is forced to execute her plan sooner than expected due to the Wally Squad list being a fake used to lure her out and ruin her scheme to create a shiny new Mega-City reserved for indoctrinated citizens with the assistance of an insane shark-headed (that’s not an euphemism, he literally has a shark’s head) business mogul. Her black ops troops start taking over the Hall of Justice, and she herself beats up and guns Dredd down, but he’s promptly saved by Maitland, who also kills Estrella in the process. This all sets up the stage for the last episode of the epic, the titular “Trifecta”, by Al Ewing, Simon Spurrier, Rob Williams and drawn (gorgeously) by Carl Critchlow (prog 1812, December 2012). 

With all the conspiracy and most of the character bits out of the way, the conclusion is a very two-fisted action affair that includes an honest-to-grud flashback cameo by Chief McGruder of all people, a hilariously uncomfortable one-panel reunion between Dredd and Galen DeMarco (who’d been featured in Spurrier’s portion of the story), and one of the all-time greatest Hershey panels:

So with Dredd finally fessing up to knowing about Bachmann’s plans and Hershey admitting that she underestimated their scope, all that’s left is dealing with the mastermind herself. Like any good final boss, Bachmann proceeds to beat the crap out of everyone, including lobbing a stun grenade at Hershey to get her down on all fours which is awkwardly similar to the end of “Sleeper” up there. But in the end, she gets killed from behind by Judge Smiley, a more-secret-than-secret black ops judge who’d been brought in as a countermeasure by Judge Griffin after Cal’s reign, to prevent something like that from ever happening again. Hershey is understandably upset to learn there’s been a presumed-dead spy living in the walls of the Chief Judge’s office for the last 20 years, and berates him for not coming out for any other previous crisis and Dredd for not trusting her. So although the day is saved, it wasn’t without damage, both inside and out.

To Dredd’s credit, however, he’s not a bastard to everyone in this story.

What’s especially notable about “The Cold Deck” is the sheer breadth of roles in display for its female characters. The antagonist, the main side protagonist, the sidekick, the antagonist’s sidekick, even the catalyst for the story itself are all female, plus a handful of background judges in the final chapter. In many ways, this story is the end result of all the past years of development for female judges in the strip. Women encompass all possible roles, from minor to major, from incidental to fully developed, and on both sides of the conflict. By comparison, the other two parts of the story have either no female characters (”Saudade”) or only DeMarco in a very secondary role (”Jokers to the Right”). Meanwhile, the many female characters in "The Cold Deck” are all established characters with different degrees of development, none of which were created for this story except for Estrella. And while it can be argued that it’s astonishingly easy to introduce new characters in Dredd, the fact that a major storyline can encompass such a wide variety of female characters in an organic way still speaks volumes of the people behind it.

After such a whopper story we get a chance to catch our breaths with a Judge Hughes doing sidekick duties in prog 1818’s “Witch’s Promise”, by Alan Grant and David Roach (February 2013) and then it’s right back into the fray with 1820-1822’s “Wolves”, by Michael Caroll and Andrew Currie (idem). The story concerns Dredd and Hershey’s efforts to stop a wave of violence against sov-born citizens after Chaos Day. When things come to a head, Hershey orders all citizens with roots in East-Meg to be taken to a massive internment camp, and then repatriated by the sov block in exchange for much needed food rations, a plan that Dredd is adamantly against. When the citizens refuse to be moved, Dredd proposes relocating them to Mega-City Two instead.

So we can see how Ewing’s character development threads have been picked up by Carroll: Dredd’s increasingly humanistic streak clashes with Hershey’s cold, pragmatic worldview, and in the end it’s Dredd who suggests the solution. At times it reads like a modernized version of much, much older stories where Dredd suggests a straightforward solution to a complicated situation (“Bob’s Law”, anyone?) but I’d argue that the wider context upon which it happens and the decision to let these problems become longer plotlines instead of isolated incidents all conspire to create some annoying quibbles, at least for me. But more on that later.

The story continues in “Cypher”, by Carroll and Iñaki Miranda (1824-1825, March ‘13), where Hershey and Dredd have a meeting with a soviet envoy and his bodyguard, Judge Caterina Pax, to discuss their reneging on the deal. The meeting is almost immediately broken up by a sniper who wounds Hershey and is driven off by Dredd and Pax. With the sov judge’s assistance, Dredd manages to kill the sniper, who turns out to be a cyborg hired by the envoy to kill Hershey for not quite clear reasons, and Pax expresses her desire to defect to MC-1, netting us our first new recurring female judge of this period.

Speaking of new recurring female judges, Psi-Judge Hamida returns in “Suicide Watch”, written by Gordon Rennie and Emma Beeby, and drawn by Paul Davidson (1826-1829, April ‘13). The first Dredd story written by a woman, it features Hamida having a bit of an Anderson/Corey moment, hallucinating a chat with her dead imam over halal hot dogs and feeling the weight of all the dead citizens killed by the Chaos Bug. She links up with Dredd after having a psi-flash, and together they go on the hunt for a potential suicide cult. But things get complicated when Hamida reveals that there’s a jinn -- a supernatural entity who erases people from existence and history behind it, and then even more complicated when Dredd finds out Hamida has been a suicide risk herself since Chaos Day. Ultimately, Hamida perseveres and beats the jinn, saving both Dredd and the day in a rare case of Dredd playing sidekick.

Carroll returns with PJ Holden in tow for “The Forsaken” (1830-1835, June ‘13) which features no less than five female cadet judges, each one with full names and in one case a big secret. Lori Cassano, Madison Echavez, Cheryl Tanuma, Angela Sorvino and Jessica Paris are all part of a group of cadets left for dead after Chaos Day who, feeling abandoned by Justice Dept., made a run for it. The story is told mostly in flashback as Dolman and Dredd track each surviving member, some of which are terribly wounded, and eventually manage to find Paris, who is then revealed to be a clone from Fargo’s DNA strain, effectively making her a female Dredd. Dolman brings her back to the city, with the added complication that she’s carrying the child of one of the other survivors of the incident.

The main hook of “The Forsaken” is getting to see a group of would-be judges giving in to absolute despair, their training falling apart under the strain of an extreme situation and how they form bonds and relationships between each other. While we’ve seen female judges “give in” to their humanity more than once, it rarely comes accompanied by dereliction of duty, and this one has it en masse. Unfortunately, far as I know neither Paris nor her child have appeared again so far, so we’ve yet to see what a fully-fledged female Dredd can look like.

Up next, a Judge Lawadski meets a gory end in Rob Williams and Trevor Hairsine’s “Skulls” (1836, idem) and we check in on Judge Beeny in John Wagner and Dave Taylor’s “Wastelands” (1837-1841, July ‘13). She only makes two short cameos in here, but we find out that she’s been taking a page from Dredd’s book and keeping busy to stop herself from brooding. Interestingly enough, Dredd suggests that she take a break, noting that she’s “going to have to deal with it sometime” and that, if she really wants to change things, she’s going to have to do it “from the inside.” 

That last comment in particular is interesting, as it sets up a plotline that Wagner will eventually bring to the Megazine while also staying true to Dredd’s characterization. Dredd, like Beeny, wants Justice Dept to change, but he remains reticent to go in and do it himself. And now that Hershey’s been compromised, he’s putting all his chips on Beeny, making sure that she doesn’t burn herself or become too attached to the streets. Dredd even sugars her up a little, off-handedly noting that she’s one of their best judges. Of course, Wagner being Wagner, this is all conveyed in about eight panels and less than twelve lines of dialogue, all book-ending a completely unrelated plot. In other words, a grand study in character development economy.

Carl Critchlow comes back to art duties in the Rob Williams-written “Scavengers” (1842-1843, August ’13), which sees Dredd travel underwater to the submerged ruins of Bachmann’s new Mega-City. The story features a Judge Chen who sacrifices herself in a fight against a giant mutated squid in order to keep the mission a secret and also a rather handsome Chief Judge Hershey appearance. We have a Judge Bova in Wagner and Ben Willsher’s “Bender” (1845-1849, September ’13) and Judge Pax returns as one of the stars of Michael Carroll and Paul Davidson’s “New Tricks” (1850-1854, October ’13). After an in-depth screening, she has been allowed to join judges from several other Mega-Cities (including the son of Irish judge Joyce, from “Emerald Isle”) as part of a transfer program to pad out the city’s drained forces.

Pax is shown to be exceedingly competent from the get-go, and the story is even narrated entirely from her journals, through which we learn, among other things, that Dredd seems to have taken a slight shine to her. The main plot involves a Judge Gwendolyn Kilgore, who’s returned from taking the Long Walk into the Undercity to ask for help in taking down a mythical Troggie gang boss called the Goblin King. Fairly standard action strip fare, mostly used to showcase Pax’s skills and to introduce Joyce. But it is certainly interesting to read the former’s thoughts on Dredd and MC-1 in general.

Hershey comes back for another round of workplace awkwardness in “Prey”, by TC Eglington and Karl Richardson (1855-1857, November ’13), although she seems to have grown accustomed enough to crack jokes about it. And that leaves us right at the doorstep of the first of a three-part epic by Rob Williams and Henry Flint: “Titan”.

This first part, which ran from progs 1862 to 1869 (January-February, 2014), kicks off with the news that all contact has been lost with the judges’ penal colony in the eponymous moon of Titan. Without an army to bring any possible rebellions to heel and unwilling to destroy the whole colony before getting all the facts, Hershey sends Dredd and a team of space marines to Titan to recon the place and see what’s going on in there. But after a seriously messed up landing and a couple of betrayals, Dredd finds himself alone and at the mercy of the masterminds behind the convicts’ uprising: former Chief Judge Sinfield, and former Wally Squad Judge Aimee Nixon.

Nixon, of course, was one of the main characters of Williams’ own Low Life serial. An undercover judge on the edge, she eventually quit the department and joined the Hondo City Yakuza in a bid to save her sector from a gang war, but was brought back by her partner, Dirty Frank, and put in an iso-cube for a debriefing, her intel supposedly keeping her safe from Titan. But after Chaos Day, her and several others were shipped there anyway, breaking their deal and leaving her even more embittered and vengeful. Her appearance here is quite the surprise, but makes sense considering the creative team. As Williams’ time became more focused on the main Dredd strip, more characters from Low Life would begin appearing there in guest spots. We’d already seen a hint of that in the last epic.

Back in the plot, once she realizes who she’s got in her hands, Nixon begins negotiating with Hershey. Unlike the last revolt (“Inferno”, all the way back in part four of our retrospective) the inmates here only want to be given Titan as an independent colony. But meanwhile, Nixon has also begun torturing Dredd, trying to break him down to make the man underneath the stoneyface come to the light in hope that his desire for revenge will overcome his loyalty to the law. It’s all a bit “The Killing Joke”, as Nixon seems intent on proving that every judge, even the toughest of them all, hides a human being inside, full of human desires and emotions -- just like she had.

But ultimately, Dredd proves to be too tough a nut to crack, and even when the only survivor of the marines sabotages the colony and Aimee and co are forced to evacuate towards Enceladus, Dredd still refuses to destroy their escape ships, ruining Aimee’s plan to destroy him by making him break the law. The former judges escape, Dredd survives to fight another day, and everything works out alright… for now. Overall, “Titan” is a fairly intense start that goes to some surprising places, but it also does rely a bit too much on a foregone conclusion, which is Dredd not choosing revenge. It’s also pretty funny that this makes it two epics in a row that include a scene of a female judge antagonist arguing with Hershey over a monitor. Wonder if that will be the real trend?

Also of note: Flint seems to have some trouble keeping Hershey’s eye color consistent, since they were blue back in “The Cold Deck.” Or maybe she just has a box of contacts.

We take a breather with a Judge Sisulu side-kicking it up in “Squirm!” (Carroll and Nick Dyer, 1870-1872, February ’14) and then we’re back with Williams and Flint for prog 1873’s “Fit” (March ’14). An epilogue to “Titan”, the story has Hershey send Gerhart, an SJS judge with an axe to grind who was with Dredd during the ill-fated mission, to check on Dredd for any lasting side effects of his experience on the colony. The most interesting part of this one-off for our subject is the very last page, where Gerhart notes that, owing to her history with Dredd, Hershey is ultimately ready to follow him anywhere despite this ongoing cold war between them, which zeroes in on a particular wrinkle in their relationship. For all their mutual posturing and disagreements, ultimately both Dredd and Hershey are fueled by a strong sense of duty towards the city. But while Hershey is worried by its continued day-to-day survival, Dredd is increasingly driven by his vision of a fairer, more human society. In an overly simplified nutshell, Hershey cares about the city, but Dredd cares more about the citizens. And despite her barely being present in it, the next story is one of the strongest examples of this seemingly irreparable schism.

Running in progs 1874-1878 (April ‘14), “Mega-City Confidential” marks the return of John Wagner to the strip, accompanied by Colin MacNeil. A delightfully bleak conspiracy procedural, it ends with the reveal that Justice Department has been taking advantage of the post-Chaos Day rebuilding projects to install covert surveillance equipment in millions of homes, accumulating information that is then parsed by human operators to seek out any signs of criminal activity that may necessitate a not-so-random house search. But when one of those operators escapes and turns whistleblower, Dredd is forced to defend the secrecy of a project he himself had grave misgivings about, calling it “a rare mistake” from Hershey. And once the secret is out, public outcry forces Justice Dept to roll the project back, but not before jailing the operator and probably having the journalist responsible for the leak murdered. Light reading, this ain’t.

That sounds familiar. Also, while not named, this might be Judge Stalker.

On its own, the story works as evidence of Dredd’s growing disgust with the dehumanization inherent to the judicial system, and his own discomfort as a cog within a machinery that seems increasingly prone to falling into these excesses. As such, Hershey’s error of judgment is mostly an afterthought, but I do find it’s interesting to put it within context. The Chaos Bug attack, for example, relied heavily on privacy and subterfuge, so it’s easy to see why Hershey, who’s trying to keep a dying city alive, would be tempted to go forward with something -- anything that could prevent something like that from happening again. It’s a steep change from when Hershey was considered the most liberal of all the candidates for Chief Judge, but makes sense given her own personal development and the circumstances of her return to the position. As she’s grown older and her situation direr, she seems much more open to sacrificing the liberties she used to champion for the sake of keeping people alive. So in a way, her character development has taken on a polar opposite route to Dredd’s.

Wagner stays a little longer for “Shooters Night” (art by John McRea, 1879-1882, May ‘14), which nets us an unnamed female judge and a small Hershey cameo at the end. Then Carroll returns with Nick Percival for “Traumatown” (1883-1887, June ‘14), a story about Dredd being haunted by a near-dead Psi’s vengeful spirit that features a veritable cavalcade of female judges: Pax and Hershey guest star alongside new Psi-Judge Lewis, and there’s even a funny little cameo by a Judge Parkhouse, clearly named after long-time 2000AD letterer and unsung heroine Annie Parkhouse. After that blowout, we get a small med-judge appearance in 1890-1891’s “Student Bodies” (Wagner and Boo Cook, July ‘14) and a new crisis for Dredd and Hershey in “Cascade” (Carroll and Paul Marshall, 1894-1899, August-September ‘14) as the Lawlords, a race of brutal alien overseers whom Dredd had already faced in a previous story, attempt to take over the city. The story features a Judge Reyer who dies trying to stop the attack early on, and unfortunately, Hershey’s role in it is mostly just glowering a lot while Dredd saves the day as usual.

Up next we have the return of Judge Beeny in Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s “Block Judge” (1900-1909, September-November ’14), where she assists Dredd in bringing a troublesome block to heel. But although it’s great to check on her progress as a judge, there isn’t much character development to be found here, and it’d seem Beeny is on the track to becoming another Dredd sidekick template. Wagner, however, has bigger plans for her, although as mentioned before, the big turn will happen in the Megazine.

The story also has a couple of guest appearances from Hershey, as Dredd for once acts very tactfully around her, asking for her help in keeping a couple of crime lords locked up for incredibly petty crimes until they can uncover more evidence. As usual, a common enemy does seem to unite them well enough, although Hershey can’t resist calling Dredd out a little on his criticisms. But for a moment, the old team is back together, with Hershey making sure Dredd is able to do his job as effectively as possible.

Another nameless female judge shows up in Alec Worley and Leigh Gallagher’s “End of the Road” (1911, December ’14) and the year closes with a return appearance by Judge Lewis in Carroll and Karl Richardson’s “The Ghost of Christmas Present” (prog 2015, idem). And if things sound like they’re finally settling down a little, don’t worry, because our last stop of this post features the biggest return of them all...

“Dark Justice” (progs 2015-1921, January-March 2015) was famously born out of artist Greg Staples’ desire to paint a classic Dark Judges story. And although John Wagner had admitted to basically having run out of ideas for them, he was happy to go back in after seeing Staples’ test sketches. The end result is a visually stunning mini-epic with an otherwise fairly standard plot, as Dredd and Psi-Judge Anderson team-up to hunt down Judge Death and his pals onboard a deep space colony ship. Not much to say character-wise about this one, as both Dredd and Anderson seem to revert back to their early 80s action hero selves, filling the story with wisecracks and one-liners as they batter the fearsome foursome. Anderson does get to shine pretty brightly on this one, pulling Judge Fire’s spirit out of Dredd’s mind and revealing that her past experiences with Judge Death have allowed her to develop a slight immunity to his powers. In the end, the superfiends are ejected and left drifting in space while our heroes await a rescue, and there’s not really much else to say.

One thing that is noteworthy is that Staples used model and cosplayer Lauren Integra Fairbrook as his model for Anderson in “Dark Justice”. Which makes sense, considering she’s the official Anderson model for Planet Replicas and has featured in the Judge Minty and Strontium Dog: Search/Destroy fan shorts. In fact, there’s even a reference to an “Lauren Integra Cosplay Ground” in “Mask of Anarchy”, a previous Dredd story.

And as an extra bit of trivia, Planet Replicas’ official Dredd model is… Greg Staples himself.

In our next episode: two epics! Two thousand progs! And... The End?

[dreamharvestgames]

Dev Blog - June 2017

Justin - Creative Director

Hi lovely readers, I hope you've been enjoying the summer weather we've been having.

This month I've been working on wire-framing our menu and game systems. This is everything that happens outside of matches including our contract system.

What's the Contract system you say? Well, this is something that's very much still in the concept stage, but in theory, it’s a mission system that allows us to deliver both narrative-driven objectives for each of the levels we'll be launching with, training missions for each of the scripts, daily/monthly events and more. It’ll be wrapped up in a cool narrative package that will hopefully envelope you in the world of Failure: NeuroSlicers and your role as an unstoppable Slicer in the NeuroNet.

With this system, we'll be able to give you a constant flow of evolving narrative, cool progression based rewards for completing contracts that allow you to customize your avatar and scripts and allow you to grow your character as you spend more time in the network, but most importantly will allow us to expand on the game even after full release in super interesting ways.

We'll have lots more to share in regard to this system and more down the line, but for the time being, here are some amazing fun to look at wireframes (I promise, they're fun to look at 😊)

Until next month…

PS. Don’t forget to join our Discord Channel if you want to discuss anything about the game with us; we'd love your input.

Sven - CTO / Lead Programmer

Yay, another time to forget what I did last month.

From what I can remember, I mostly focused on porting our game server from C# to Java. In case that seems like a stupid idea to you (because you think C# is much nicer, which I agree) let me elaborate a bit why this was necessary.

First, the original server was never really intended for production use and was mostly a prototype to test the network functionality, so it had to be redone. This open question is why do it in Java instead of C#. There were a few reasons for this:

The rest of the backend systems are already written in Java which was mostly done because a lot of frameworks only exist for Java.

After doing some benchmarks comparing Netty and DotNetty I concluded that Netty was performing a lot better than DotNetty (with the same load Netty used 10% CPU vs. DotNetty which used 25% CPU and quite a bit more ram). While this would, in many cases, this doesn’t really matter that much in most server applications, our game server is meant to handle a lot of concurrent games, therefore, network performance was really important.

<bias> I assume it’s easier to run Java than .net on servers. I should mention here that I worked as a sysadmin for a long time and I’m used to running Java applications. So, I’ve got a lot experience doing that but very little running .net applications. </bias>

To annoy Milcho.

Slightly off-topic: does anyone know a good Raspberry Pi alternative (or some other cheap computer) with a lot more ram (something like 4GB+)? I was trying to find something simple/cheap where I could install the whole server backend + game server for testing and having something we can easily take with us when going to events. If you have any good suggestion contact me on Twitter: @i_gamedev

Milcho - Lead Designer / Gameplay Programmer

Salutations, “I am here, ready to enlighten you, but are you ready to be enlightened?” 

I don’t know why you thought this might be an actual quote, but it definitely isn’t. I make up things all the time. In any case, let’s go over what’s been happening in the gameplay department of Failure for the last month. 

First, we’ve always been planning this massive meta-game on top of the RTS that’s we’re making to add a whole different layer on which you can focus on. The first few weeks of the month involved figuring exactly how that system might work and how it would integrate with our other systems. We got pretty far, but as game development often goes, we’ve put that on holds since it was too awestriking and dangerous for the rest of the team. We’re going to revisit it in a few months and prototype a few versions to get the best out of it. 

The rest of the time I spent thinking about how much I like doughnuts and how to get them in my diet without my dentist going after me with a stick. During that time, I also started prototyping a new and improved resource systems for the game, which was a huge task. We’re talking about changing something that has been fundamental for a game that has been around for almost 3 years and making sure that everything works in the aftermath. The main reasons for this redesign is to reduce the effect of snowballing, making sure that players that are losing a match have a chance to come back from possible defeat, though we also want to make sure that our matches stay within the 5 - 10-minute length. So far, it’s going great though and we’re definitely on the right track. I’ll update you on its progress next month. 

Speaking of next month, I guess that’s when I’ll be talking to you again. Until then, make sure to keep your doughnut intake healthy (whatever that means for you).

Loïc - Art Director / Designer

This month I’ve been focusing on polishing our UI and feedback, along with work on the new deck system.

In term of preproduction, I wrote and sketched concepts for all our nine environments and subsequent levels, tying the specific objectives of each level to the themes of the environment it takes place in. 

These are just quick prototypes of possible levels and are in no way the final look, layout or colour/theme scheme, but this is all part of our process.

Kelvin - VFX Artist / UI Artist

Yo! More UI going on this month! We really had to figure out a type of UI frame/theme to use. We wanted it to be modern, stylized, and minimal. Both Loic and I had to work together, throwing sketches back and forth, to get to the iteration that we are at now.

There were tons of iterations beforehand but we got to this. We've designed a pattern for the background of the frames also that connected organically but with strong and strict lines.

Another exciting thing we added is the notification system! There are times you're focusing on a part of the map and you don't notice your buildings being attacked. DO NOT FRET! I worked with Milcho on this system that will notify you when something is being attacked and which direction it's in! It's extremely helpful and will really help you on your game.

Adding to the notification system, we added a very, very simple change that shows feedback on your units being attacked. When a unit is attacked, it should flash white now. Simple, but awesome 😊

I also worked on an FX this month! Woo! It took a bit to get it right, but once you spend tech, the tech fragment will shatter in this cool flash of glitchiness! It's a very small part of the screen, but it turned out very nice.

Amelie - UX Researcher / Writer

So, what happened on my side since the last time, well, mostly to be honest holidays 😊 I drafted some wireframes for the deck builder and some other menus before leaving and while I was gone Justin polished those and the guys discussed it, made some improvements and I came back only to have to say "Wow that's awesome! Let's put this all in and test it!" So, Georgia was really cool, I encourage everybody who likes mountaineering and good wine to visit, trust the French girl even just the wine is worth it! 

In Georgia every time you drink, someone makes a toast, it's tradition and if it may seem a little funny to us (especially because the toasts can be really long) they take it really seriously. And then, if you drink often I mean, you get used to it and you learn to enjoy it, you know to learn to be grateful for something in your life every day (or 4 times a day depending how much you like their wine...) so here is my toast, despite Creative England really not getting how video games work and putting us in a really shitty position, and our boss being really rather britishly cross you know... the team is still there 😊

Everybody is still super motivated to make a good game, we're not here for the money we're here for the passion of creating an experience that we really hope you will enjoy and remember. So, to passion and to the sleepless nerds in this team who make this game come to life! Cheers bros!

Writing wise I had made a good start on the faction’s motivations and identity, I also worked on our main character background, started to imagine what brought him to become a slicer...

So now that I'm back I have loads of testing to do, and my objective for the next week will be to take the time to read the mountain of level design the team has produced, see how the maps objectives can fit into mission stories and last but not least nail the first version of our intro narrative!

Daniel - Composer

Coffee shops. Who would have thought that the music of Failure NeuroSlicers would sound like coffee shops?

Now, re-read that first sentence in the voice of Christopher Walken and you begin to enter the rabbit hole of strange that I've entered since the last newsletter. While 'the rabbit hole of strange' sounds like a particularly psychedelic category of pornography, I'm in fact referring to a world of sound that surrounds most of us each and every day: the inner workings of our electrical goods.

By using an induction coil pick up (a device similar to the pick-ups on an electric guitar), I've been able to record the electronic signals of just about the entire contents of my house and — to the concern of some patrons — most of my local shops. It transpires that many of our electrical goods are host to wonderful, bizarre and, sometimes, frightening sounds; many of these sounds can be very rhythmical and full of unusual accents and musical phrases. By 'frightening' I don't mean that our devices are low-key telling us to worship Satan, but that they create sounds you wouldn't expect (particularly the payment terminal at my local coffee shop). If you happen to have an induction coil mic and nothing better to do, try recording a PS4 while you turn it off from the system menu — it really is hours of fun for all the family.

By recording all of this information with the coil pick up, I've been able to transcribe the rhythms of some electrical items and assign those rhythms to different musical instruments to create sonic fragments that cross the boundary between natural and man-made — much like the Neuro Net. For some of the less rhythmical recordings, I've been able to alter, distort and pitch the electronic sounds in Pro Tools and create some interesting instruments (my favourite so far is the synth I've created from my beard trimmer). It is this blend of natural and un-natural, of 'above the line' and 'below the line', that will form the music of Failure NeuroSlicers and, sometimes, that will even include the sounds of my local coffee shop.

Until next time.

Bobby - Communications Manager

I'm used to being the behind the scenes guy for Justin and the team and, on occasion, the doting fanboy of Failure: NeuroSlicers as it evolves. Watching the team work, extremely, hard makes you want to try and do more and one of my tasks is to try and identify community opportunities, specific to the game, and connect with a wider audience; not just from game genre perspective, like RTS, but think about the style and story of the world that will pull fans from all areas of the gaming community to keep them up to date with what's going on within the game.

I'm hoping those already reading this will be subscribed to all our various communication channels, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and our newsletter but sometimes these can be dependent on, you, the community to scroll by it in your news feed, which, if you're like me subscribe to a lot of feeds, and will sometimes miss content as it becomes, what I like to dub, a complacent channel we go into autopilot when using.

How to prioritise communication channels? It's a daily thought for me. How many users are subscribed to each channel, what to publish to first can be difficult as it's a changing landscape but recently Discord is becoming more and more popular with the gaming community because of its real-time forum nature. The younger generation these days, the millennials, are used to instant messaging, they don't want to wait for emails or a post reply, they want to know someone is on the other end of the window ready to engage and that's why we're going to start pushing a ton of content there on a daily basis.

It's a great platform with so much control, not only with chat but voice too. We get asked about Alpha testing all the time and one of our recent meetings play testing came up. As you can imagine we're a small team and everyone getting time together across multiple time zones can be tricky so if it's something you'd love to get involved with please come and join our Discord group. We'll be approaching active users who really want to get their hands on an early alpha build, help playtest and provide valuable feedback to continue to evolve the game leading up to its release.

Also, share, it's so important to us we get the game out there and you're all instrumental in helping us do that.

[g33khq]

New Post has been published on G33k-HQ

New Post has been published on http://www.g33k-hq.com/culture/artist-spotlight-sara-woolley/

Artist Spotlight: Sara Woolley

BODYMOD: Are you woman enough to survive Bitch Planet?

Imagine a world where women are subject to punishment for being “non-compliant” and sent away to prison, literally on another planet! That is the premise of the smash hit Sci-fi series “Bitch Planet.” In this dystopian universe, when women are seen as being defiant and resistant they are sent to The Auxiliary Compliance Outpost, aka “Bitch Planet.”

  Bitch Planet

I recently started reading the Image Comics series (Bitch Planet by Kelly Sue DeConnick & Valentine De Landro) after first being introduced to Triple Feature issue #4 (contains 3 short stories in one book!) The short stories coexist in the Bitch Planet universe and you can read them without reading the bitch planet series and vice versa. However, it captivated my attention so I am now reading the initial BP series! Check them out Here: 

I’m going to focus on one of the mini stories from Triple Feature Issue #4: Body Mod written and illustrated by the super talented Sarah Woolley.

This original story is a perfect demonstration of an extreme sci-fi extension of today’s society.

Body Mod: Written and illustrated by: Sara Woolley

Triple Feature #4

Bitch Planet Triple Feature #4

RATED M

BodyMod is a sci-fi world where plastic surgery is a norm and done to the max. So extreme that there is literally a Build a Babe! Can you imagine, modifying bodies as a part of everyday life.

This mini story presents some touchy subject matter, heavy themes and can relate to society today, which is pretty disturbing. I think it’s alarming thinking of this world as a reality and potentially something that could be likely in the future when our youth is so heavily influenced by what’s trending in pop culture, social media, and “enhanced beauty”. Today’s beauty standards are already disturbing, and Body Mod demonstrates a perfect exaggeration of today’s society with a sci.-fi twist.

Here Sara takes us into the deranged world of BODY MOD.

1. How did you first get involved with the Bitch Planet series?

I met Kelly Sue DeConnick at Heroescon in Charlotte NC, 2 years ago.  She not only took the time to check out my work, but wrote to me after the fact to let me know she liked it so much she had passed Los Pirineos all around the Milkfed Criminals office.  I love work so needless to say I was totally floored.  It was really very cool of her. I sent her the 9th of april when it came out the next year and maybe a few months later we saw each other at ECCC in Seattle.  She was looking for contributors for the anthology, and asked if I would be interested.  HELL YES!

2. Congrats, as this is your first independent comic that you have both written and illustrated! How did you go about the process of accomplishing this?

When Kelly Sue asked if I wanted to be in the anthology she said “You do it all, right? Write and Draw?”  I said yes… and then panicked a little inside.  This story is my first professionally published solo work.  Up to this point I have always written with collaborators, for example the Los Pirineos Books which I coauthor with my mother.

3. Any issues, you faced or did you have the creative freedom to do you what you wanted with the story?

I definitely had a lot of freedom on Bodymod. Kelly Sue and the managing editor at Milkfed Criminals whom I worked with primarily, Lauren Sankovitch guided me through the pitching and writing process, but they gave me the space and encouragement to come up with and to pursue my own vision.  They had me come up with several different story ideas that would make sense in the context of the Bitch Planet Universe – but made me limit myself to very rough, brief ideas.  So I was able to really be broad about the story generation process without investing too much time into it.  My biggest issue was figuring out how to tell the story I wanted to in 8 pages.  I still feel like there was a 24 pages comic in there somewhere… but I tend to be long winded.  I learned a ton from Lauren and Kelly Sue working on this project.

4. You typically write children’s books, did you find it difficult working on this storyline, and how did it feel crossing over to more mature themes?

I felt absolutely fine with it.  I’m not a child, and I the work I generally read is not aimed at children.  To be honest, it actually felt very freeing.  However, the different content definitely confuses some people.  I’ve had fans of my previous books get a bit freaked out when they find out this is also my work.  I’ve been told that it doesn’t look like my work and seems like another artist did it.  I definitely don’t agree with that, but I can see where they are coming from.  I hate the idea of having to be pigeonholed into one genre of stories and one way of making art.  So… I’m just not allowing that to happen.

5. How did you come up with the premise for Bodymod?

The premise behind all the stories I came up with for the anthology came from the experiences of just being a woman navigating daily life. The premise behind Bodymod in particular comes from my feelings around the social pressures that are omnipresent in our lives every day asking that we conform to an idealized and unrealistic concept of feminine beauty.  Growing up I had my own struggles with body image. I’m 5’10 and just under 200 lbs, and I’ve been this size since High School.  Lets just say the 90’s were not kind to thick girls, and being strong was not thought of as sexy.  The anger and sarcasm present in the story is the current me, who feels great about who I am and what I look like, telling the world world just how little a fuck I give about fitting into a role and size I was never going to be anyway.    (steps off soapbox.)

6.  Although its sci fi, this subject matter touches some heavy themes pertaining to real life. How do some of the themes in the comic tie into issues our society faces today?

The whole premise of Bodymod comes from the idea of redesigning your body to be beautiful to the point of discomfort, in the story its taken to an extreme because the Bitch Planet, sci fi world allowed me to really push it.  However its important to understand that the cultural norms that Julie and Monica are assimilating to are not Sci Fi.  Whats the difference between lotus feet, stilettos that can only be worn in bed, or feet surgically altered to become mermaid fins?  Yes in my story the women essentially turn themselves into helpless pets, but all of them sexualize fettered women.

There’s a spread on pages 2-3 where Julie is on a bus and you see background advertisements behind her.  I had intended to make up some really jarringly misogynistic ones… until I looked them up. There is NOTHING I could come up with that was worse than reality.  ALL the ads on the page, including the magazine cover, are real.  I never stop hating this one ever time I see it:

7. Who has had the biggest influence on you in or outside of the comics industry, and how did they affect your life?

Ok now THATS hard.  I would say my mom has probably had the biggest influence on me, but I’m not sure if that is really what you meant.  She’s a feminist and raised me to be one too.  I wore overalls and did science experiments and was encouraged to be messy and do whatever I wanted to do better than the boys.  I am really very lucky.  She is a role model for me, but she’s also my inspiration, my writing partner and my biggest fan… which since we work on her memoir together maybe that also makes her, her own biggest fan?  hmmm…

8. What’s the most important “big idea” that you’ve learned in life – in or out of comics – and why is it important?

I’ve learned by watching the amazing comics pros that I am proud to call my friends that you must work hard, and I mean REALLY hard, to make comics.  That sounds obvious but its not.  There are a lot good creators out there who make very little work and just peter out.  But the truly brilliant ones work incessantly and when asked how they do it, discipline and tenacity is usually the common denominator.  I know an artist who told me he videos his comics commissions so he can see later where he is loosing time on them by “just fucking around”.  I know another who every time she is asked for advice says “Draw whether you are sick or well.  Draw whether to feel like it or not.”  Now, I’m not saying I’m like that, but I aspire to be.

Also what else can we look forward to from you in the near future?

I’m currently working on the next Los Pirineos book to follow up last year’s release of The 9th of April.

So hopefully by next year’s MOCCA I’ll have that one in hand.  FINGERS CROSSED.  I also have a book of watercolor sketch painting I did while traveling in Thailand for a month this winter.  I’m still trying to figure out the format of it.  Its a mixture of painting people and places on location… and all my meals!  I’m obsessed with food and theres no explaining just how good the food in Thailand is, so I painted it all to help mark it in my memory forever.  I might try including photos and recipes too… not sure yet.

To see more of Sara’s work visit: http://www.sarawoolley.com/  @saritajeanine

MOCCA ARTS FESTIVAL

Also catch Sara at Mocca Fest this Saturday & Sunday table A106

Society Of Illustrators

https://www.societyillustrators.org

http://www.sarawoolley.com/

https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/bitch-planet