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salt-and-shade · 10 months

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BARBENHEIMER - July 21, 2023

The most ambitious crossover event in history (artists cited under the cut!)

I hyperlinked the original posts to the artist handle wherever possible so go show the artists some love!! ROW 1: @JohnBeLucky on Reddit @anglespizza on Twitter (they made this for a class-iconic) @whovianrad on Twitter @shadowknightdk on Twitter @BossLogic on Twitter ROW 2: @rahalarts on Instagram @justralphy on Instagram @GrungiestBunny on Instagram, available as a poster here @envelopandkissme on Tumblr (I think? idk this one was hard to find) @shirtsthtgohard on Twitter, available for purchase here ROW 3: @omarg294 on Twitter (possibly not the original source) @raichu.copper on Instagram/@raichucopper on Twitter @galactic_psychedelia Instagram, available on Redbubble here @thesenatortheatre on Instagram (possibly not the original source) @nannymcghee on Tik Tok

ROW 4: Retro Travel Design on Redbubble @rahalarts on Instagram @stevereevesart on Instagram @jonattfieldart on Instagram @gringgieespons on Tik Tok

ROW 5: @BossLogic on Instagram/@BossLogic on Twitter @rahalarts on Instagram @nolanlounds Tik Tok @seanlongmore Instagram @Cornettogod on Twitter

ROW 6: @readfulthings on Instagram (aka Adam Perocchi) I cannot find this artist but you can buy the shirt here and here @moviemantis on Instagram (possibly not the original source, idk) Jason P on LinkedIn (ok career barbie!!) and finally, you can buy the shirt here

huge love to all the incredibly talented artists that put their work on the internet for free for all of us to look at, we love you!! (please sign/watermark your works though, the amount of art theft I found while looking these up made me sad for you)

anti-shoutouts: to google for nerfing their reverse image search with google lens (seriously-CHANGE IT BACK), to twitter for making it almost impossible to use the website after I deleted my account, and to basically no one on tik tok (or any other social media site for that matter) for crediting artists because that made tracking down the original posts so much harder than it needs to be :')

#barbie #barbenheimer #oppenheimer #barbie movie #barbie 2023 #margot robbie #cillian murphy #ryan gosling #fan art #movie art #movie poster #the art isn't mine but the collage is #the hype riding the marketing train has been fascinating #and now with the strikes hollywood is really going out with a bang! (pun intended)#embarrassing number of tags bc sorting these by aspect ratio to make a pretty grid took forever #ok this got more notes than I anticipated so I went back and cited the artists bc I'm not an asshole

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stbot · 1 year

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Kit sparring flirting being a brat

#kit tanthalos #jade claymore #tanthamore #kit x jade #willow 2022 #willow #willow spoilers #tbh i missed her being a cocky little shit #glad to see it back #i know in my brainspace that those sort of sword flourishes are impractical and honestly if jade wasn't down SO BAD kit woulda been stabbed #but they're still so fun to see!!#it's official lads i have lost any chill i ever had #this episode this SCENE really just !!!!#i'm so happy that these characters and this story exists in the world #sword lesbians of my gay lil heart #i think i need a gif tag

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miralyk · 4 months

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it's been nostalgic looking back over the years,, one thing i'm very grateful for is seeing my improvement of art styles And grasp on fundamentals to try to do more justice drawing these guys now gdfhkj

#loser's (likely) not even vietnamese but i'm basically throwing the most insane đám giỗ for him rn LMAO #today really is a 'i want des back' sort of day #text #assassin's creed #desmond miles

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canisalbus · 7 months

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Hey quick question,

What do you think is an acceptable amount of asks to post in a day?

They've become my primary way of delivering you art ramblings and oc lore and such, but I'm constantly worried I'm flooding people's dashboards with them.

#be honest #tumblr's communicating systems are sort of clunky #you either talk to someone privately in dms or post it publicly for everyone to see via asks #if you've sent me a comment and I haven't replied I'm sorry #I simply don't have the time/energy to get back to every one #but I read them all and appreciate them #I'm slow to put my thoughts into words so sometimes I also go way back and dig up really old ones that I've been thinking of #from months ago even

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sergle · 5 days

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I noticed you weren't posting much for a while, you seem more active now adays and I hope you're doing okay! Say hi to Hugo!

omg... I appreciate the concern!! I'm not great but I am feeling better rn than I have been, and do not currently have a gun in my hand. also Hugo says hi back.

#that picture is from just today btw this is how he Gazes at me #I love this man. more than any man or dog I have ever met in my life #but yeah no it's been really bad for a really long time #I actually went off my meds like. not tapering just cold turkey quit them #a couple weeks ago or so and have been feeling better since then. so.#don't know what that means. but I'm not on suicide watch atm so it's whatever #sergle answers #that's more info than you probably needed but I'm just very impressed w the observation about me being sort of Back At It Again

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ronanlynchbf · 5 days

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#rereading trc while simultaneously falling back into aftg stuff by virtue of reading tsc and thereby transporting myself back to when i #was sixteen but it's fine it's totally fine like it's whatever 😁👍#r.txt #anyway. me when – me when i – me when i'm trying to tell my best friend that i'm gay but i'm also trying to tell him i can take stuff from #my dreams and i took my now pet raven from my dreams like from my head i'm a dreamer but also that's kind of the same thing but also it's #really not but also it is bc it's an allegory but also that's not the only thing the dreaming is an allegory for and also i'm scared to tel #him like i'm terrified actually and i don't want to tell him but also i need to tell him but also he already knows but i don't know that he #knows and also i was goinggggg to tellllllll himmmmmm arghhhhhhh #this scene is soooooooooo like. like AOUGH. ARGH OUGH AGH AOUGHHHHHH #<- sounds of a guy taking minus xp damage with every word read of this stupid scene. he literally was going to tell gansey 😕.........#trc #ronsey #like i need 2 lay down. he came out there to tell him......the timbre of his voice being described as strange&initially unrecognizable....#i read this part like. 2 weeks ago idk. smth of the sort. and i'm STILL thinking abt it....you came out for something.....when you'd made u #ur mind to confess but ur mouth betrayed you in the end......associated with secrets and guilt......MAN.....

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michaeljoncarter · 11 months

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one of the most frustrating things about current dc & what's slowly starting to make me lose interest altogether is this like… bizarre nuclear family-ization of everything & everyone

a lot of the appeal of superhero "families" came from them not fitting into the norm of what a family is "supposed" to look like. the dynamics between every single person were very unique and very few if any of their relationships really fit into any traditional family roles (because that's kinda the entire point of found families/families of choice)

but now, it's like them not resembling a conventional family unit is seen as a bad thing that needs to be "fixed," and everybody's histories & relationships are being deliberately watered down and pruned of any and all complexity so they can be easily slotted into conventional family roles

idk i just think "he's like a brother to me because of how much he's come to mean to me after everything we've been through" is a whole lot more compelling & meaningful than "we've spoken all of like 2 words to each other for as long as we've known each other, and there has been 0 development of our actual relationship, but the group we're both a part of adheres to a traditional family structure, so he is, by definition, my brother."

#sorry i'm doing like nothing but complain lately lmao but switching back and forth between old & new supercomics #is genuinely depressing #it's all just so bland #idk it's just like saying someone is 'like' family doesn't mean less than just saying someone 'is' family #in fact it 99.9% of the time it means more imo #but everybody seems to think they're making some sort of Statement by cutting out the choice aspect of it #it's just.... really annoying #if i wanted this energy i'd watch an 80s sitcom

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mice-ducks-and-blots · 5 months

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Fellas is it gay to plant a whole like REALLY HUGE road of flowers exclusively for your enemy. Flowers that, canonically, will wither and die if you don't tend to them for a SINGLE DAY. mAY I ADD that earlier in the story Blot states something like "the falls are ROMANTIC in a way, especially with a full moon in the sky >AND MY WORST ENEMY APPROACHING<"

Like I'm sorry I held it for too long and I need to say it. I am a firm believer that Mickey and Blot have the same as whatever it is that Basil and Ratigan got going on

#to me they're just two bi guys (bi ace for Mickey) who are like. You scare me. You're the only one who can face me at my level.-#-I admire your tenacity so much. I will chase you to hell and back in any challenge you lay out for me. Anyway I hate you. Jerk #I don't ship them in the sense of wanting them to be a couple but there IS tension there and I will DIE on that hill #I also don't think they're exes like Basil and Ratigan probably are but the vibe is the same #Bro will go to such extremes to mess with Mickey in particular it's insane #I really hope I'm not starting any sort of shipping drama in the topolino fandom (certainly a sentence to say)#should i even tag this #eh whatever #mickey mouse #the phantom blot #topolino comics

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softpine · 3 days

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can i just word vomit for a min...

there was a point in late 2023 where i felt like i overstayed my welcome on simblr and i planned on just wrapping frozen pines up as quickly as possible and moving on. continuing to write when it's clear that the audience for it is dwindling felt so embarrassing that i almost didn't even want to put effort into it anymore, because i was afraid it just looked pathetic (obligatory disclaimer: no one made me feel this way, you're all so lovely, it's just the nature of seeing a community change over 7 years). writing already feels very personal to me and it's becoming increasingly harder for me to put my work out there (again, for reasons unrelated to simblr and entirely related to mental illness 🤙🏻). i know my story is so long that it deters new readers, and so sporadic that it makes old readers drop off with time. this has really been bothering me lately because i don't know what i can do to fix it. i don't think there IS anything i can do.

but. okay. don't make fun of me for saying this. dan and phil returning to youtube kinda changed my mindset? they may be pulling a fraction of the views they got in their peak, but they're happier than they've ever been and they're working on things they actually want to do, not things they think will be particularly popular. seeing that has made me realize that it is possible to keep finding joy in a community that has largely moved on without you. obviously my little blog is nowhere near the same scale, so this feels kind of silly, but i've been thinking about all the things i used to do on simblr that were never fun for me, i mainly did them because i knew they would get notes or because i felt like i had to do it. making cc, lookbooks, sim requests, reshade help (oh my god the reshade help), lot downloads, etc. they DID get notes, but i can't imagine spending my time doing any of that stuff ever again tbh.

on top of that, it makes me sad to scroll through my dash and realize that i don't recognize most of the people i see anymore. i still talk to some wonderful people here who i consider friends and that's invaluable to me (💖), but the broader community aspect is something i no longer feel a part of. and believe me, i know i'm at fault here because it's not like i'm going out of my way to talk to new people or participate in trends like i used to. i don't blame anyone except the passage of time!!

frozen pines, and simblr by extension, played such a gigantic part in my life when i needed it the most. and that's not to say that i don't still care about it, because i absolutely do, but it's a different kind of feeling. i've always promised that i would give frozen pines a satisfying conclusion rather than silently abandoning it someday, and though i do intend to keep that promise, i know it's possible that i might never get there. but i don't want to let my own insecurities get in the way of something i really enjoy doing. writing is an intrinsic piece of me that i'll never quit doing, but sharing my writing on tumblr is something that can't (and shouldn't) last forever. i know that. but i'm going to enjoy it to the fullest while we're all still here together 💞

to anyone who's still reading my silly story after all these years (especially those of you who still check in on my blog even though you're not on simblr anymore): thank you thank you thank you THANK YOUUU. you don't have to change a single thing about what you're doing. this is not me fishing for compliments or putting down an ultimatum, this is just me trying to make sense of my feelings.

but with all this being said, i've decided to quit simblr and start my own exclusive streaming service for $60 a year, i hope you'll all support me as i increase my production value 😌

(just kidding. ily. okay that's all)

#to be 100% clear this is not a goodbye - i'm literally halfway done with the next story post #just sort of an update on the state of my brain #👍🏻#btw...... sorry to Watcher fans lmaoo you guys really got the short end of the parasocial relationship stick..... </3 #that's not relevant to anything i've said here i've just spent way too much time thinking about how youtube has changed in the past 20 year #because i'm a loser that got really into youtube when i was 11 and never looked back #and then the watcher thing happened. and i was like ohhh if dan and phil did that to me i would have to die about it.

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originalartblog · 1 year

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Answering some asks about the dad Murase lives AU under the cut because you are forcing me to think about what I've created (❤)

@inkingkitsune

Murase had to know about N's less-than-savoury work. He was hired as a security guard (thanks to his brother) for a military facility for which he was told to kill any trespassers on sight. And his brother had been legally dead for a decade! But the main difference between the two brothers is that while N will still do horrors in the name of his job, Murase has spent his life after the war trying to help people to atone for what he had to do to survive. I think having to face concrete proof of what his brother did/does, especially without the immediate pressure of war and survival to "justify" his actions, to a kid he's grown somewhat attached to? That would be really hard on him.

Frankly I had never heard of that theory before, and after considering it, I can't agree with it. The government has expressed barely any interest in Chuuya, N seems to have acted on his own. The PM has so many ability users, and abilities are so unknown to the general public, with or without Chuuya, it was an important move to make, and there was no normal legal way of getting it.

As for Oda... I fear he's going to suffer the same fate. In another post I did wonder if Mori would try to be more careful with Dazai, since we know he was very careful to nurture Chuuya's loyalty and bond to the mafia. But after thinking about it, while Mori felt bitter after Dark Era (please read the light novel), he says he would still do it because the permit was so important to get. Chuuya going away here wasn't his fault, so I see no reason he wouldn't do things especially differently. Maybe he'd feel even more bitter though.

If Oda dies the same way... it's a fun question. Dazai would leave, Dazai would still refuse to work for the government, so his options are limited. I can't imagine Chuuya leaving at 16, join the ADA, and the mafia not knowing a thing about it? So what would Dazai do? Chuuya left and joined a group and now that group is his only option in Yokohama. If he wants to join them, he'll still have to wait two years for his records to be erased and hidden. And he knows Chuuya is gonna be there, and he knows him!! How frustrating and stressful is that wait going to be?

I'd like Chuuya to be gone when Dazai first joins, so Entrance Exam can still take place in a similar way. Maybe he accompanied Ranpo on his contract out of town? I do wonder if he'd confront Dazai publicly or in private... I'm still not sure how much he told the ADA about his own origins.

I've decided that Chuuya leaves after the Dragon Head Conflict (after loosing a second set of friends in the same year), because this time, he has someone waiting for him to offer him an out. And this is interesting from a skk point of view. At that point, Dazai has already met both Oda and Ango, and technically, Double Black has made a name of themselves. Chuuya would be leaving at the creation/peak of Double Black, barely giving it enough time to get their name. But all that we know (so far) of what they were up to as teenagers has happened already! And Dazai has met Oda and Ango, he has a support system now! They'll be fine. Well, as fine as their canon counterparts anyway.

This is also funny because their "history" is less than two years of absolute hell, then a 5/6-year gap, and suddenly they're coworkers again.

Honestly I don't know if Murase would have an opportunity to see it or its repercussions? I doubt he saw Chuuya directly after Verlaine (you know, mafia and all that), and I think Chuuya would be the one to seek him out after the DHC. I truly think you could count the amount of times Corruption was maybe used by Double Black in canon back then on one hand, and in this AU, it's literally only twice. Unless Asagiri planned for another big event and hasn't told us yet, I don't think Chuuya has had to use Corruption again in this AU until Lovecraft.

MAYBE someone would notify Chuuya's dad guardian that his son charge was badly injured, but with Yosano in the room, I doubt it would make it back to him. Same thing with Dead Apple. Murase lives in a blessed world where he knows Chuuya's powerful, but doesn't know the extent of it.

Have a lil' doodle for making it all the way down here! (it's Chuuya's first week or something)

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deoidesign · 2 months

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T-theres a bee?

#ooooo bee #monochrome piece from me sort of that's rare #i love my contrasting colors usually. i might actually go back and edit this one to have some teal idk haha what if i did haha #no i probably won't. i like it but also I'm too busy #my art #digital art #illustration #art #my ocs #artists on tumblr #digital painting #not comic #idk how I'm so busy lol i guess things were really really building up while i was focused on work

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theminecraftbee · 2 months

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very funny to open the team zits fae au i put down because i got too distracted by persona and to go "wait i WAS doing cyberpunk* impulse before it was cool. i am not giving him yellow hair, though, his whole bit was that he was deceptively abnormal for such a normal-seeming guy--"

*cyberpunk has an asterisk here because it's not REALLY a story with major cyberpunk themes, it's a story about zedaph stealing a baby. like, an evil major telecommunications/electronics company that runs the world for profit IS a major world element and plot beat and it is ABSOLUTELY the case that "what does it mean to be human" is a theme of the au, it's just that the transhumanist stuff is completely separate from the evil government surveillance stuff or the post-apocalyptic world with resources being controlled by a stratified capitalist society thing and it's REALLY more a weirdly sci-fi urban fantasy than actually cyberpunk. i am not sure this is a story to read if you like cyberpunk. i just think it is funny i shoved impulse in a "cyberpunk" desert in like, january, only to discover that i was sort of half predicting what he was about to do, and also that team zits was going to be confirmed on hermitcraft shortly afterwards, although that was WAY more predictable.

#i am going to include that asterisk type paranthetical so much #this is like when i was like 'last days is KIND OF a noir. i mean it's not a noir all the characters are too likeable for it to be a noir'#'and the ending is too kind-of-happy for it to be a noir and it's not really joe's flaws that exacerbate the plot it is more kind sort of'#'inspired by noir stories i'm not going to claim to be in a genre i'm not really engaging with the themes of'#THIS IS GOING TO END LIKE THAT. I CAN FEEL IT.#anyway back on the 'what if zed stole a baby' fic grind.

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ineed-to-sleep · 5 months

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Well. He wasted no time

#IT'S JUST REALLY FUNNY TO ME. OKAY #in my first playthrough he took his fuckign time #bc ok. I was playing as the same character. but also it was the 1rst playthrough #so I ended up juggling between playing the character and doing whatever I wanted to do bc. well I wanted to be niceys #but now that I'm roleplaying her consistently he's going bananas dlkfhdlf #like 4 long rests in #I haven't even made it to the goblin camp yet #and hes like oohh I know you've felt it I felt it too 💅🏻#and like in my first playthrough I had the impression they had this like slow burn sort of romance #like butting heads a lot at the start but then slowly growing on each other #but it's not like that at all now. they actually like. get along like a house on fire #this woman used to date nwn2 bishop back in the day tho this shouldn't have come as a surprise #I've changed her quite a bit since that game yk. but still. the parts of her that attract toxic men remain <3 #oc.nawen #bg3 #sleep.txt #you should've seen it I started a durge playthrough with pepper on impulse just for funsies #he fucking hated her #just like. not on board. calling her hard headed and boring #it was brutal #PEPPER IS LOVELY OK you don't deserve her #I wasn't happy w how she ended up looking tho 😔 gotta get some better face/hair mods and try again sometime #ship: narion

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telekitnetic-art · 1 year

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Have you seen the formline art in splatoon? It's present in a variety of salmon run decals and on some of the locker graffiti. Idk if the Devs just googled "salmon art" and got indigenous art and decided to copy it or what. Not sure how I feel about it personally.

Long post incoming, gonna put a break here. Also sorry for the late response, I wanted to take a couple days to formalize my thoughts together before responding fully.

I have, I remember noticing in 2018-2019 (when i first started playing splatoon 2) how much one of the decals/graffiti located on the ruins of ark polaris back in 2 sort of resembled a formline bear and salmon. (near the logo in this screenshot, I couldn't find a clear picture online)

Back in 2019, it was pretty easy to think of it as coincidence or a stretch for a comparison. But with splatoon 3's salmon run decals, the resemblance is far easier to see, specifically with the TS-ORBRS graffiti and the TS-SCHL graffiti.

(also this was the best image size I could find for the graffiti images, sorry)

A couple of the banners have the designs on them as well:

The website Sealaska Heritage has info such as textbooks and an online doc about formline art (specifically geared towards Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian nations' style) with lots of info about formline art, and the Seattle Art Museum website has an info sheet (with credits listed as being from the Sealaska Heritage site as well) breaking down some of the basic shapes of formline art.

with this chart, you can definitely begin to notice the similarities between the Salmon Run graffiti and formline art. the ovoids, crescents, and u-shapes appear noticeably in some of the graffiti such as ORBRS and SCHL.

For perspective, here are some formline pieces featuring salmon or fish from various Indigenous artists from various nations.

"sk’ug sdang" (Two Dog Salmon) by Robert Davidson (Haida)

"metal medallion", by Crystal Kaakeeyáa Rose Demientieff Worl (Tlingit Athabascan)

"Salmon People" by Alano Edzerza (Tahltan)

"Jumping Chum" by Stephanie Anderson (Wet'suwet'en)

"Salmon" by Art Thompson (Nuu-chah-nulth)

And that's literally just the surface of dozens of Indigenous artists from the PNW.

With these pieces, you can begin to see the resemblance that the graffiti designs have. A lot of the heads follow the pattern of utilizing ovoids for both the head and eyes, and u-shapes for the bodies and crescents to fill in specific areas are also common. For example, TS-SCHL has a small school of fish where the bodies are entire ovoids.

However, there are a couple flaws in the graffiti designs too. With a few of the designs, you can see they utilize the u-shape (see the formline shape breakdown from Sealaska again) in designs like TS-WHP and TS-SMFR. I can't speak for every Indigenous formline artist ever, but from how I've been taught to design formline art from my family, the u-shape should connect to the rest of the form instead of free-floating. I drew a quick example here:

you can see similar mistakes with a different kind of u-shape with TS-RLPL and TS-C0HK.

Another very specific mistake that takes a bit of squinting to make out is that ovoids are sort of top-heavy, for lack of a term I can't think of right now. The line or the area should be thicker on the top then the bottom. This mistake is frequent in the graffiti designs utilizing ovoid or ovoid adjacent face or body shapes, like TS-ORBRS, TS-C0HK or TS-SCHL.

Full disclaimer, I am not an expert at formline art. I've been practicing it under the tutelage of my aunt and father for about 3 or so years now, and there are definitely cultural variations that come into play as well. My culture's formline art style can look completely different from someone who is Haida or otherwise. This critique of the graffiti designs is based off my knowledge and skill at formline art, as well as critique and feedback that I've gotten from family. Formline art isn't just something you look at and replicate, there is a specific process of utilizing the shapes and negative space that you need to account for too. Some shapes have their own rules for how they're used as well.

Despite the beginner mistakes, the clear resemblances are pretty definitive proof that a good section of the sticker/graffiti designs for the salmonids are meant to be, or at the very least based off of or inspired by, formline art.

Splatoon's lore has a lot of elements of taking inspiration from real life culture (which is sort of one of the main elements of the story, the squids and octos are basing their society off long dead humans). Hell, Shiver and Frye are two prime examples of Splatoon working in real world culture into their setting and characters.

With that in mind, using an art style that's exclusive to an ethnicity of people as inspiration or baseline reference for the game mode that's all about taking natural resources from a species that in-game dialogue tends to treat as dangerous and lesser-minded is... not a good choice. Especially an ethnicity that has historically been ravaged and attacked by settlers for natural resources.

Now, technically if you do digging into lore for salmon run, you can find out that the salmonid are not as simple-minded as the dialogue in-game (I am staring directly at the deep cut big run announcement dialogue we've gotten so far -_-) makes them out to be. The salmonids do trades and commerce with the octarians for equipment and gear. That's why they have such technically high tech gear, like the scrappers with their shields that actually resemble octarian shields and the flyfish with their missiles and flying aircraft. That's also why power eggs show up in the story mode; they're from the salmonids' trades with the octarians.

So the salmonid could technically be as just as smart as the inklings, which is why the dialogue and some of the portrayals of the salmonid are confusing and contradictory (shiver's dialogue from the first big run, that one promo picture of an inkling walking a smallfry on a leash????). I think a good bit of the fanbase sort of thinks of the little buddy we get during the game as a pet, and I'm sure that much more of the fanbase/playerbase doesn't really care about the lore whatsoever. Salmonids sort of have a similar vibe to me as hilichurls from Genshin Impact, where the lore tells you that they're smarter than people assume while NPCs talk of them as less intelligent monsters. And you're also caught in this paradox where killing/fighting them feels morally wrong but the gameplay loop has you continuously doing that while also telling you on the downlow that you should sort of feel bad about it.

Rassicas did a really good video on translating salmonid lore from various interviews, which is where I learned a lot about the salmonid lore that doesn't really get explained/brought up in the game.

The usage of formline art in Splatoon has me sort of mixed on my opinion, because besides using an Indigenous art style for an enemy species that are considered lesser in intelligence by the NPCs, Indigenous art and culture as a whole has suffered a lot under colonialism. I don't know how much awareness whoever is reading this has about Indigenous history and colonialism, but Indigenous culture as a whole was banned in North America by the respective governments from being practiced by the respective cultural groups. Things such as ceremonies, regalia, and even practicing formline art were banned from being used by Indigenous people. Non-Indigenous people however were free to use it, which is why a lot of bastardized versions of Indigenous regalia and culture exists. You can see it in non-indigenous spiritual practices utilizing Indigenous practices and terminology like spirit animals and dreamcatchers, and sports teams utilizing Indigenous culture in its labelling and mascots. That is where cultural appropriation comes into play. And before I get anybody commenting about this, the salmonid formlines don't count as "cultural appreciation" because as far as the info available is concerned, there wasn't any Indigenous people that were consulted for the designs. And even if there were, I again have mixed feelings about Splatoon utilizing an Indigenous art style as a design piece for an enemy character in the franchise.

On another note, this isn't the first time Indigenous cultural appropriation has popped up in the Splatoon franchise. There was actually a headgear that was unreleased in the first Splatoon game called "Warrior Headdress", and you can guess what it looked like.

Yeah. That was all levels of yikes and I'm thankful as hell that it didn't make it into the game (technically it's not in the game as a wearable item, but you can spot it at the very back of the headgear shop ingame)

So Splatoon has utilized Indigenous culture as inspiration beforehand with the games, so it's not much of a stretch anymore to think that the salmon run graffiti designs were based off formline art or was an attempt at formline art.

I'm not really sold on the idea that the salmonid are meant to be representative of Indigenous people though, nor do I believe that utilizing formline art for the salmonid was a malicious decision. But it was a slightly ignorant decision at best, because again using Indigenous specific art for a species of enemies that gets fought for their natural resources and is referred to by some of the NPCs as basically being lesser-minded animals is really not a good decision.

This whole thread is not meant as a guilt trip for anyone who likes the salmonid lore, has bought any of the salmonid graffiti stickers, or enjoys salmon run, nor is it an accusation of the devs for maliciously misusing Indigenous culture. I actually really enjoy salmon run for it's PSP and concept, but this design aspect gives me mixed feelings as an Indigenous person. And to be honest it's hard to label intentions or the thought process because there isn't any info available on the development of salmon run and those graffiti designs specifically. So it's hard to know if the devs employed an Indigenous artist for feedback or if they indeed just looked at some formline art of salmon and tried to replicate it or used it as inspiration. I'm inclined to believe the latter judging by the beginner formline mistakes seen in some of the designs. There is an art book coming out soon for Splatoon 3, so maybe that will give more info.

To wrap this all up, I don't think there is really anything to be done about the designs. The game has been out for a while and I don't know if the game would change the designs at this point. I also don't think this should stop people from buying the sticker designs in game or playing salmon run. However, it is important to learn about the context of these designs so that you know why they exist and why they can be harmful, and so devs and creators can avoid making the same mistake in the future, and so Indigenous issues with cultural appropriation can be made more aware in the public space and not be ridiculed by non-Indigenous people. And again, I am just one Indigenous person so there may be other opinions from other Indigenous people on the graffiti designs and how they should be handled or viewed.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading and have a good day!! Be sure to check out some actual Formline art made by Indigenous people, like the ones I listed near the top of the post!

#long post #salmon run #indigenous discussion #cw cultural appropriation #whoof that took a while to write #I really don't think this whole situation is one of maliciousness #but one of ignorance.#the devs had the foresight to (almost completely) remove the headdress item from the first game #so good on them for that #I just sort of wish they'd thought through using Indigenous art for the salmonids a lot better.#I wish the salmonids had a different sticker design entirely tbh #graffiti is such an open-ended style concept so they could've found lots of inspiration there #instead of using an Indigenous specific art style #(and making beginner mistakes while doing it)#also if you're here to cry cultural appreciation or about how “oh this is preserving Indigenous culture actually” I'm gonna need you #to walk back out that door.#I did not spend four hours writing this whole post to deal with “but cultural appreciation actually!!!” chuds.#Look up the definition of cultural appreciation vs cultural appropriation and get back to me.

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