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workingforitallthetime · 2 years

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Every UMich Monday question 2021-22, ranked

God bless umich social for giving us every single one of these gems of pure distilled characterization. To celebrate, I watched all of them in order. The most interesting season-long trends were Eddy’s suggestibility (consistently willing to agree with whatever anybody else tells him), GVW’s obvious belief that every single one of his answers is supremely clever (when in fact they are just as dumb if not dumber than everyone else’s), and the way that Truss always cherubically looks at the ceiling instead of the camera.

20. What’s your favorite Coach Pearson saying? (January 26, 2022)

Charming question but provided minimal character information.

Best answer: Whoever says “Breathe, Truss!” in the background. Worst answer: Everybody who says “Nothing more, nothing less” but fails to use the appropriate hand gesture as demonstrated by GVW, Beech, and Jimmy.

19. Who’s going to win the Superbowl? (February 13, 2022)

It would have been cooler if they’d skipped this question and just posted more pics from their Joe Burrow cosplay party.

Best answer: Loyal Michigan boys the Nicks (“Detroit Rams.”) Worst answer: Eh, there’s only two options, can’t ding anybody here.

18. Who has the weirdest and the best pregame rituals? (January 20, 2022)

All of the other questions that encouraged chirping scored high in these rankings, but the guys really whiffed on this one. They mostly just made up lies about each other, and they weren’t even funny lies.

Best answer: Bords. (“Matty Beniers. We leave for the rink, me and Truss, and he’s going to take his nap. I think that’s pretty weird.”) Thanks, Thom, for the reminder that you live in throuple bliss, as if any of us forgot for even one second. Worst answer: Everyone who roasts Dylan. Leave Dylan alone!

17. If you could play one other sport besides hockey, what would it be? (February 16, 2022)

Honestly, Monday question content went through a dim era while the Olympians were gone.

Best answer: Noah (Chess) Worst answer: Jimmy (Quidditch)

16. What is your guilty pleasure song? (November 24, 2021)

A strong early entry in the series, but it falls down the ranking due to the absence of chirping.

Best answer: Mackie singing California Gurls. Worst answer: Eddy (“Supermarket Flowers, by Ed Sheeran.”)

15. Who would play you in a movie? (November 2, 2021)

At the time, this appeared to be a strong start to the series. But the content trended sharply uphill over the course of the season, and when reviewed in context, this one has too many boring repeat answers. Sorry, but this is not a team full of Bradley Coopers, Brad Pitts, Will Ferrells, and the cast of Happy Gilmore.

Best answer: Mackie (Zac Efron) Worst answer: The first of Brendan’s three increasingly terrible answers is Jack Sparrow, which, while an apt comparison, is not an actor.

14. Who will have the most points at World Juniors? (December 17, 2021)

The questions with the most potential are the ones where they’re asked about their teammates, but this one suffers from its breakdown along predictable USA/Canada lines.

Best answer: GVW. (“I plead the Fifth.” [exits frame] [remembers where he’s from] [runs back into frame] “Just joking, I think it’s gonna be Matt Beniers. Go Seattle Kraken!”) Worst answer: Owen. (“Kent Johnson.”) Owen we KNOW, okay. We know you’re obsessed with him.

13. Wheels or doors? (March 16, 2022)

The blank canvas of this query ends up shedding a surprising amount of light on their idiotic thought processes. “I started with doors, but I think wheels now,” Truss says, looking aimlessly upwards. “I’ve had a lot of good cases brought to me.”

Best answer: Nick. (Coach: “How many mullets are in this building?” Nick: “How many mullets? Not enough.”) Worst answer: Matty, guessing that there are probably a lot of wheels in a hotel only to later prove himself wrong.

12. Who has the best/weirdest tape job? (February 1, 2022)

I am very intrigued by the deep respect that everyone has for Owen’s tape jobs. This is also the video in which we learned that Mark’s nickname was Stahp Sign.

Best answer: Bords, because his accent’s unusually prominent. Worst answer: Steve Holtz, who cannot figure out how to explain his two sticks.

11. If you could have one superpower, what would it be? (January 11, 2022)

A classic question. Too many Spidermen on this team, but I remain very curious about why Owen’s desired superpower is to read minds.

Best answer: Truss. (“A power that makes you big, like Owen.”) Worst answer: Brendan. Sweetie, Tobey McGuire is the worst possible Spiderman to be.

10. Is a hot dog a sandwich? (November 30, 2021)

There are so many varieties of idiocy on display as these guys vehemently defend their answers without making a single coherent argument. Loses a point due to everyone eventually reaching consensus.

Best answer: Jimmy (“I mean, the world isn’t going to change if a hot dog’s a sandwich.”) Worst answer: Owen (“It’s gotta have sandwich meat.”)

9. What’s your favorite holiday tradition? (December 17, 2021)

This one scores high for the background heckling, especially the howls of “Going back to Saskatoon!”

Best answer: Brendan. (“Going up north and hunting with Morgs and Jay.”) Worst answer: Nick Granowicz. (“Spending time with family.”) Give us something better, Grano.

8. Who on the team would you call in case of emergency? (April 6, 2022)

Thanks to this video for finally giving us a Nick Granowicz characterization! It also features Truss sweetly disarmed by Owen and Kent telling him they would obviously pick him, quickly followed by Thom’s indignation at Matty picking Truss too. However: why would not a single member of this team call their captain in case of emergency?

Best answer: Jimmy. (“Definitely not Briss.”) Worst answer: Dylan choosing the teammate who was ready to cook and eat him.

7. What is your favorite memory or the funniest moment from this season so far? (March 25, 2022)

It is extremely tempting to rank this video higher due to Thom looking like a figure skater in his tank top and warmup jacket while gazing adoringly at Brendan. However, too many guys had boring-ass answers like “Winning the B1G championship” instead of expanding on the time Moyle pantsed Phil at BD’s Mongolian Grill.

Best answer: Thom, sweetly noting Jack Leavy's first game. Worst answer: All the other serious ones.

6. What’s your ideal date? (February 9, 2022)

This video ranks high on the strength of Mackie’s answer alone. (“It’d be Duker if he looked like a girl.”) Just serve me up a ship on a silver platter and sauce it with gender feelings, thanks.

Best answer: Dylan. (“Swipe into the dining hall. South Quad.”) Worst answer: Luke. (“It would definitely be, like, taking me to a Lakers game. Or like a Knicks game.”) Luke Hughes does not woo you, you woo him.

5. What New Year’s resolution would you make for your teammates? (January 6, 2022)

This is a perfect question, since it not only asks them about their teammates, it encourages roasting them. This is the video that revealed Matty’s gummy bear habit, and foreshadowed more fascinating/horrifying content about the state of the seniors’ house.

Best answer: Dylan. (“Luke Hughes. Wear headphones when he watches Harry Potter.”) Worst answer: Jay. (“My New Year’s solution… My New Year’s revolution… I am going to revolutionize 2022.”)

4. What breed of dog would you be? (March 10, 2022)

Quality content from top to bottom, from ever-suggestible Eddy affirming TikTok’s opinion of him as a golden retriever to the brutal roasting of hairless cat Luke Hughes.

Best answer: Owen. (Beniers Mountain Dog.) Worst answer: Brendan. (Brissbese Mountain Dog.)

3. What’s your hidden talent? (February 23, 2022)

10/10. 100/10. Infinity/10. There is no score high enough for the casually entitled way Brendan tugs up Matty’s jersey, Brendan’s indignation when confronted with the possibility that there is something he does not know about Matty’s body, or Brendan’s delight at Matty’s dumb talent as compared to his indifference to Phil’s objectively much more impressive talent.

Best answer: Luke. (“You can ask Truscott for my hidden talent.”) Worst answer: GVW failing to wiggle his ears.

2. If you were a kitchen appliance, what would you be? (April 1, 2022)

This question delivers personal insight while also offering broad opportunities for chirping. The resulting video captures so many themes of the whole season: Luke’s inability to run with a joke, Thom being cool as hell, Dylan “Panface” Duke, minifridge Kent embracing his identity as a tiny little guy, Brendan seizing the spotlight and running his mouth. I considered awarding one million bonus points for the sound of Brendan smacking his chest, but I recognize that is important only to me.

Best answer: Noah, pretending to crank a pasta machine with his blocker. Worst answer: Luke’s fragile masculinity.

1. If you were stranded on an island with one teammate, who would you want it to be? (November 17, 2021)

The top of the list has to be the video that launched so many important characterizations for this crew. Terrifying cannibal Morgs! Helpful Truss! Poor crestfallen Dylan!

Best answer: Owen (“Jacob Truscott. He knows why.”) Worst answer: None. Every single moment of this video is golden.

* Unranked (November 9, 2021)

Unranked due to cultural insensitivity, which is a shame, because if this video was accurately titled “What Animal Would You Be?” Bordy’s announcement that he would be a unicorn would vault this into the top tier. (Also showing excellent self-awareness: Dylan as a panda.)

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ultraskull1000 · 9 months

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AND SO I PLAYED A SHOW WITH THE GUITAR I BUILT (July 11th)

plus a few other updates

Okay so the last time I posted about this guitar (My partner dubbed it Bluejay) it looked like this

Which is fine and all and I love the color of it to bits and the contrast bit around the switch fucks and i love it with the pink strap (I got an orange strap for it specifically but its too saturated and i need to dampen it a bit) but i have decided that it is by far too plain so ive done a few things

First of all I sharpied it, bearing comparison to body marking on my partner's chest

This fucks. Being able to write messages on my guitar? fucks so hard. God i love this shit. There are a few particular stickers that i want to nab and throw on here, one in particular is the P! symbol that is on Haruko's vespa from FLCL (which, fuck i love fooly cooly. shit fucks so hard. the P! symbol is (iirc) a logo for the band that soundtracked the show, the pillows, but i havent found that sticker sold by them and i cant really find any specific evidence that its something that they sold or anything like that.) because my partner pointed out the palette similarity to Canti with the blue base color and the off-white accents and all that. Im likely gonna put that on the lower bout below the output jack area beside the vibrato.

Electronics wise, I continued adjusting some of the electronics, changed the value of the tone cap, and I modded the pickups to be coil splitable, which was simpler than i thought cause

okay so if you look at this pickup its not a 4 conductor pickup by stock, cause the larger black wire there connects the two coils without the option to disconnect it so all i had to do was desolder that wire and replace it with one wire for each side. I dont have pictures of all of that because i didnt think to do so and also my wiring on this guitar is messy as hell right now and im still trying to figure out what to put in the rhythm circuit section and I promise eventually ill go over the specifics of my wiring later. ANYway

I got some cheap toggle switches and threw them beside the pickups and it fucks with the aesthetic and i love the sounds it can make with this

AAAAAAAA i love this so much

once i figure out the rest of the electronics and make the rest of my modifications ill also do a sound demo and whatnot.

BEYOND THAT THOUGH

I PLAYED A SHOW WITH THIS GUITAR AND IT DID SO WELL

unfortunately there were very few pictures and instagram doesnt screenshot well but heres a single pic i got to work

7-26-23

Okay update this is what the guitar looks like now

not sure why i didnt post this before. but this fucks now.

#fender jazzmaster #guitar #partscaster #bluejay guitar #fender #jazzmaster #grunge #luthier #musician #music

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drawnaghht · 11 months

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tag guide anyone? + differentiating between usagis (thinkpiece)

I'm really just curious now if something like a "tagging guide" would help? If you would like this, or know if anyone else has posted something like this, sound off in the comments or like/reblog to agree ^^

I posted a poll about this on twt and it looks like 13 so far really want one, so I’m putting a lil test post around here too. I also found while researching for this post that apparently on tumblr, the first 20 tags show up in search! so I guess they changed that from 5 to 20 at some point. huh. that’s a bit more helpful than just 5 tags!

I’ve noticed sometimes people have no idea what to tag with a show like Usagi Chronicles that is less than 2 years old and is based on existing IP, but also that ppl use a lot of tags in general, perhaps confused about what is the “main tag” or most used tag for a character in rottmnt for example. So I started writing a little tag guide, which I’ll post the draft of at the bottom this thinkpiece. The main issue around tumblr seems to be excessive mis-tagging or multi-tagging i.e when a character isn’t there. I think I’ve seen this in some other fandoms too (primarily bigger fandmos), but I’m not gonna get too deep into it. You can skip to “tagging guide” via CTRL+F to search it on the page. I’ve also included a little character “separator” part with graphics, cuz it seems some are having trouble seeing the characters differently from fanart alone. I thought it would help to post more of the “source” materials ^^

Also if you have problems differentiating between the two in general…aside from both being white long-eared rabbits they are almost as different as night and day, at least on the surface ^^;; Here is a helpful post by Freakova, about how to tell the difference between Miyamoto Usagi and Yuichi Usagi, ancestor and descendant respectively:

https://freakova.tumblr.com/post/707461151549702144/i-made-this-for-my-besties-to-help-explain-the

But I kinda get it! Especially if characters are intentionally obfuscated a bit (e.g. there are characters in the show who can’t tell between Miyamoto and Yuichi Usagi, but it is mostly used as plot hook/humor). But they have different names and characteristics and slightly differing fanbases on a site like tumblr, so separating them in tags is helpful. I think part of it also comes from the name confusion, but I already wrote a post about that. Imo, if you have your own design already and it looks like neither of the two characters, you can just use “Rise Usagi” or “rottmnt Usagi” or other variations as tags, those are popular and used enough already that you don’t need to use the main character tags ^^

Personally, I would only like to see Yuichi Usagi in his own tags when it applies (he’s in the pic/fic), but if he’s not, well, what are you doing tagging him there?

I also get that some newer/younger TMNT fans apparently didn’t know the Usagi characters are from their own franchise for a short while last year (but ppl probably learned, right? I’ve literally only seen posts/tweets asking what the series is abt and unrelated posts exasperated that ppl don’t know) but visually they’re quite distinct, even if they are all white rabbits. I’ll post these comparisons just so I can use the tags properly and not piss off anyone else.

We have the original Usagi and his 1000-years later descendant.

Stan Sakai based Miyamoto Usagi largely on his childhood inspiration of samurai films, mainly “Samurai Trilogy” starring Mifune Toshiro playing Miyamoto Musashi, a real-life samurai who inspired many other films and adaptations. You can hear more about how Stan created Usagi here in this Portland Art Museum video where he explains and draws his Usagi. The story usually goes that he drew a rabbit with a chonmage (the edo-period top-knot) and suddenly, Usagi was born.

In the show he has a slightly older-looking design? but in the comics his look varies slightly because the series has been going for 40 years and the character has developed over the pages. so he can look slightly different cover to cover, page to page, but mostly it’s all him, the same character, just different situations, life periods and emotions. So he can look different in official material depending which publication period you start reading from, but mostly the same.

Then we have both the Miyamoto Usagi’s in different animated mediums,

And Yuichi in different media (show itself in 3D and 2D and merch by Stan)

And then there’s also Jotaro (very important Usagi Yojimbo character introduced early on/vol 1) and Yamamoto Yukichi(introduced in later stories/vol 4), who I think people aren’t mixing up with any of the previous rabbits yet, but who knows, i don’t look through absolutely all the tags myself after all and tumblr seems to have a problem of not showing much older posts in the public tag search anymore, so I can’t find older posts I used to see anymore ^^;

More thoughts on tagging + being a fan under cut.

This … is not really a vent or analysis post, I can't get that upset about it myself. with real life worries etc - fandom is supposed to be a fun outlet for creativity, at least for me. So I try not to feel anything about it. But tagging has always seemed fairly straight-forward to me and it’s mostly to organize a blog/find other people with similar interests. Writing non-structured non-essays is basically how I interact with a piece of media when I feel like fanart is not enough. And because tumblr posts now apparently Do Not HAve Limits, this is a better alternative to tag rambles.

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So when I saw the post about the Miyamoto Usagi tag I remembered that this was why I didn’t use the “follow tag” feature + the “your tags” tab as much myself (aside from not having it before and not being used to it on tumblr). Because usually with bigger fandoms, people do mis-tag or tag their other shows/fandoms into it without including the main character, this happens on occasion because there are a lot of people using the tag. I also don’t follow the Leosagi tag anymore for the same reason, that people can’t seem to differentiate between the characters and it becomes hard to tell what they want to post or which character they are talking about/drawing ^^;

As pointed out by Tamalinvonpineapple's post about it, people mis-tag Yuichi Usagi and Miyamoto Usagi and that’s a problem for people who would like to see just one of those characters but not mis-tagged as the other. I’m not gonna assume these are made in bad faith e.g. intentionally to piss off other fans, cuz there can be so many different reasons for people doing this. This post is also not gonna get into ship tags much because that is a contentious topic and tbh, left for a separate thinkpiece (I also already wrote smth abt tags for myself).

I tried to find out more possible reasons for mistagging in general or what the general consensus on tumblr is about tagging but it seems (or we can assume) it is a “bad practice” from how social media sites have given a slightly different use for tags tiktok/instagram/twitter - “tag for reach” - so like those social media accounts for companies that spam other tags. I do see this in anime/manga fandoms occasionally. Not just for the different spellings of characters (e.g, when a dub would give the character a new name; japanese vs western way of writing names) but specifically when 1 character is the only one there and the tags then have 30 other characters listed as well so the post/media would show up in search. But I wonder where this habit is from? Aren’t people curious to see what other tags their character/show have? I remember that on sites like blogger, we only tagged so that we could find things later, so people often made their own custom tags, i.e. "my work on the show" or "midnight doodlies". if a show got tagged, for example TMNT or Usagi, it would probably get 1-word/1-phrase tag (i.e. “turtles” “turtlies” “mutant turtles”) or just the series title tag - either the abbreviation or full name of a series/comic/cartoon depending on content. When it comes to tumblr tags, I remember getting annoyed at NOTPs permeating the tags as well. Or just posts about other seriesM multi-crossovers where your blorbo is only there to die, but then is still tagged after that; edits that have no relation to the character but they share a name or tag for whatever reason and you keep seeing these unrelated posts in the tags. I’ve seen more than enough from almost any of the fandom tags I’ve visited on tumblr. So I get how annoying mistagging itself can be.

But basically in regards to tags on tumblr itself, it seems people misuse them mainly because they don't know or don't like the tags for the other shows. Folks also like to see their posts get to as many people as possible, which I understand, I do the same on instagram, cuz that’s what I’ve learned by other artists example. Seems to make sense that more tags = more views. On tumblr, this sort of doesn’t always work this way. I could post a drawing from a popular cartoon and get maybe 5 notes total in 12 years, while a scribble I deemed too ugly to tag properly might get 54 notes on it’s first day. It’s almost like a Murphy’s Law of Tumblr that what you expect to do well, doesn’t. It’s just how it is here and I’m so used to it, it feels weird to complain about it, even on other sites with actual algorhitms and working apps etc.

Well, as a fan of the Usagi Chronicles show, perhaps what makes me more sad is that this has had the adverse effect of older TMNT/Usagi Yojimbo fans being so angry that they can’t stand the show/character itself now, even if they already disliked it before seeing other fans post about it. Which is just plain sad because some people even make up stuff about it just to discredit it as a show that Stan Sakai worked on. I understand that people have different reasons to dislike the show, most probably valid, but they also assume many things about it, to the point of stating them as fact when the opposite is true. I have… a different post about it. In general, we can say that being online seems to be the common thread between fans annoyed at fans.

In some ways, what’s even sadder however is an empty or unactive tag. Imagine that the last post you saw in that tag is still the one from 2013 you made yourself. It’s a bit annoying seeing people mistag or post unrelated fanart in it but hey, maybe this means they also read the tag? A chance to educate or get more views on your own fandom? Just a chance for communication? I know that doesn’t seem very appealing when those same fans are the ones mis-using the tag, but it just seems better than something completely empty. Of course, this is not a problem for TMNT fandoms perhaps, but from my experience in smaller fandoms, or being a fan of smaller/less popular media. And with how much there is mainly ship-related posts in almost all the Usagi Chronicles tags, this seems to be a matching experience I’ve been having so far in the Usagi tags. The comic series tag itself is also often full of other things, or only ship things, or sometimes only TMNT things for a short bit, but overall, I guess at least people use it?? But I would still like it that Samurai Rabbit, SRTUC, etc stuff gets tagged with those tags so I can actually find it instead of combing through multiple tags at a time just to see something new. While the newer “Your tags” feature on tumblr makes this a bit easier, I can see the easy annoyance at when people tag a character but then don’t include the character. and to add insult to injury, they tag a different character, but without acknowleding the first character at all.

But this is now like a joint fandom for a crossover for two franchises which have had crossovers before and now… there’s sort of a joint fandom? Sort of? So because it’s a bit bigger, it feels nice when other fans are considerate of small things like tagging. Now, on the whole, while many do still mistag and the leosagi tag is still mainly yuichi x leo for many, I’ve also seen in my own tagscrambles that not as many do this as much anymore, or going through a tag in time, the newer stuff seems to do this less. So like I’ve written in previous posts, my honest hope is just that fandom will adapt and grow into healthier online habits. Still, there are a few other things in the tags that I just can’t help but notice each time. it’s also why I don’t bother too much with repeat-viewing tags unless I’m looking for something specific.

It often feels like people just make up their own versions of any Usagi and/or write off the show as “too bad to watch”. And. idk, this just makes me feel sad about it because as mentioned above, I’ve seen it before in other smaller fandoms I’m in. In transformative works, it’s fairly normal that people make their own versions of a show or it’s characters, because that’s something fun to do with fanart and fic. But to openly hate a character? idk man, just feels weird to me personally. Like I don’t have the energy for hatedom. I know my little sibling really gets into hating one series that really disappointed her as a viewer, but even she now says that it’s an odd way to spend time, when she could be making fanart of something she likes instead. And I get that. I also spent my earlier non-internet days being more hateful of new media I disliked at the start, and while expressing that isn’t always bad (it’s just an iopinion), it became weirdly detrimental to me actually enjoying stuff in my tweens. Everything me and my friends and their friends ever talked about, was related to somehow being more above others or knowing better than others, being hateful of anything new or popular. And without quite realizing it right away, that was really tiring. Even if I spent time on things I did like, hobbies I enjoyed, that hate and childhood snobbishness sorta simmered there. I remember that for me it mainly came from “oh, I want to be a real animator one day, I should act like a real profesional adult and always be critical of the media I view, because that’s how I see adults treat real serious film.” Fast-forward 15 years, I’ve been through making comics as a tween, making fanart as a teen, I’ve been making a lot of different kinds of “cartoon art” in general as well as some actual art education, thinking, maybe I want to have some more general art schooling too. Later in my mid-twenties, I met someone with this similar mindset to my childhood self, who at first I got along with. We laughed at cartoons we didn’t like and made fun of the bad endings of those we did. At some point, I listened to them talking about getting to visit a big animation festival. And how they completely unironically expressed their hate directly at a leading crew member of a cartoon they didn’t like. And then I realized like. Wait a fucking minute. I don’t wanna act like this to other people! And this is why I don’t really “shoot the shit” about cartoons I don’t like as publicly anymore as I maybe once would have online on tumblr etc. Like I just don’t get it anymore. At most I’ll write down my thoughts somewhere private or to friends and try to understand why I don’t like the thing. And if it’s a very simple dislike, I just don’t spend time on it.

So like, I don’t get the hate the show (SRTUC) and character(Yuichi Usagi) get. Like I can understand sort of where people are coming from. but I don’t get why they gotta publicly tag it, announce it, or put it in the reblogged tags sometimes. the og poster sees that after all? so that’s like a bigger thought for me when it comes to tags.

I believe people can learn to be nice about a show they don’t like, but if they start to feel annoyed at fandom parts of the web they see online, they also start to feel hate toward a specific show, even if the show or thing itself might not be as bad. Example - I have this toward Star Wars for example, it’s a big fandom. I feel indifferent now, but in my youth, I found it annoying that everyone was talking about it as if it was the best thing ever, when it was spoiled for most of my childhood for me, and also felt like a generic movie series after all that. Something growing in popularity, or being really popular in a niche fandom can make ppl dislike it in general and that’s fairly ordinary as fandoms go. Often, people just don’t like a popular thing. Just think of series of like GoT/ASoIaF or HP. But then again those go down the cultural road so easily, I suppose in countries where western-media is really popular/common, it becomes like a cultural osmosis and fans can assume *everyone* likes it, even if not everyone does. I’m thinking about the fresh 30+ dads from 10 years ago I read about who only interacted with their kids through their own nerd interests. Pokemon is such a culturally permeated thing, it’s everywhere and everyone seems to assume everyone has played it or at least knows about it, even if at some point, some of us were big fans of Digimon instead, or some don’t like it at all. At some point, my dad gifted me a Harry Potter book, even though I (non-vocally) disliked it, but it was in the cultural osmosis here so strongly that it was everywhere and he just assumed I was into it (bless his heart, he genuinely didn’t know). HP was something that I initially disliked because it was so popular, but the idea of a “basic magic premise, but extended” seemed interesting, and it was required reading in my middle school, so at 11, I went to see the movie and thought, alright, maybe I’ll give it a chance. But reading the book I found things that didn’t make sense to me, that didn’t match what seemed like the themes of the book (the whole slave freedom plot for example) so I always sort of kept it at arms-length - not quite getting into it, but also not turning it away if I found anything, not saying anything upsetting to people who were fans of it. Everyone at my school read it though to varying degrees, or at least everyone knew things about it even if they weren’t fans or weren’t invested at all. (This was all before we knew JKR is a vocal TERF, so now I feel a bit validated in my dislike, even if I feel sad for the fans who got something positive out of the series).

So point being, fandom can have different types of people in it. A type of media will often accrue a specific type of fan and sometimes it won’t match what the show itself puts out. E.g. fans acting in ways that go squarely against what the media talks about (Steven Universe is a popular show with many fans that comes to mind), or a show having an unexpected viewership next to it’s intended demographic (us 90s kids still being cartoon fans in our late 20s/30s/early 40s). It’s slightly unpredictable in a general way.

Of course, TMNT fandom is a bit different from those bigger properties because it was an indie comic made in the 80s that was so different and off-the-wall indie for a comicbook, it sold out and gave its creators Eastman and Laird a hefty legacy, lasting careers and actual money. Good for them! Personally I think it’s thanks to how genuinely creative and collaborative their work was then. Like Usagi Yojimbo, it’s an old comicbook/franchise now, so the “fandom” as such differs from generation to generation, from childhood to childhood. I met the turtles for the first time with the 87 series in the early 90s, then the next time w the 2003 series, which i initially hated as that angry, cartoon-critical tween, but was surprised at how much it seemed to take from the comics. I think I was initially angry about it for different reasons, mainly, “why is it so serious? why are the jokes so lame?” and also because I had invested so much emotionally into the idea of seeing something as good as the 80s cartoon again... but then found that it grew on me and now 20 years later I can look at it with nostalgia. As a result, my reaction to the 2012 series was mostly “wow another TMNT cartoon?” and “huh it looks interesting” and “oh I’ve seen this person work on another cartoon before”. My little sibling on the other hand only saw the 2003 cartoon and their reaction the the 2012 adaptation was “Wow, THEY’RE FINALLY TEENS” because as kids, we thought the 2003 TMNT looked and sounded “too much like boring adults”. But from many online fanspaces back then a lot of the more vocal reactions was around “THE 3D IS SO UGLY” and “WHY ARE THEY SO YOUNG”. You’ve probably heard similar sentiments of various degrees if you’ve been a fan or viewer of any TMNT cartoon.

Usagi Yojimbo is unique in this sense because Stan Sakai has been the only one drawing and writing the comicbook for 40 years. Some of the visual style and writing tone change from book to book, but it’s gradual because Stan has changed as an artist and writer too. If you look at any comic series like this, it’s actually a natural part of many comics i.e. webcomics used to be a prominent example of this, as the creators were often complete novices at the beginning and graduated to a more consistent style. But even from a surface level view, lets say, reading other people’s reviews, you can see that people really enjoy Usagi Yojimbo for how consistent it is with it’s treatment of its characters, story and Edo-period culture. Stan Sakai really does his research and puts respect back into fiction inspired by samurai. Even though guides will often tell you that you can jump into the series from any point in the series, there’s just something really consistent about it as a whole. Sakai gets to do whatver he wants with his books and what he does seems to be thought-out usually. Even if the early animated adaptations were a bit incorrect, comic readers in general have a lot of respect for Stan and his work. My favourite part about this all is how Usagi Yojimbo is actually used to teach about japanese culture in a college course in the US.

Because both TMNT and UY are originally creator-owned comics (still so with UY regardless of publisher or adaptations but not so much TMNT as Viacom bought the rights in 2009), perhaps the general fan experience is more similar to original comics fandoms in Japan. Although whether a series is creator-owned varies from series to series, the manga and magazines culture in Japan seems wholly different from what US comicbooks were in the 80s and even what they still are now in that regard. Because a series will more often be written and illustrated by the same creator/artist/team, there are less variations and book-to-book differences both visually and tonally. In the US, a comicbook series can start with an artist-writer team, but then switch if the editorial decides some change is needed. This is something that often affects consistency and a story or character’s canon eventually and in a convoluted way, it’s the reason why we got “alternate earths” and “multiverse crossovers”. Which, while fun, make american comicbooks hard to read for some newer readers. Even with TMNT, once Eastman and Laird started having less time to make the comics and their other problems, it led into breaking off their creative partnership and never speaking again. But they had to continue the comic. If before the feud, they would just have fun passing the pages between each other, now they actually so they wrote it he series became different based on who was writing it. One more sci-fi leaning and one more martial-arts and mysticism leaning. You can see this difference in the TMNT animated adaptations as well. The 2003 series namely is more based on Laird’s storylines in the comics and he was also consultant on the series. After the 2009 sale of Mirage to Viacom, we get the 2012 series, where Eastman acts as consultant, so it’s more heavy on his ideas of what the TMNT are. In 2019, the documentary series “Toys that made us” brought them together for the first time in almost 2 decades. And then we fans got to have The Last Ronin, a collaboration between the two again.

(What I’ve paraphrased here is mostly based on this video overview of how the comic became a franchise “How did a violent indie comic become a $15,000,000,000 franchise?” by matttt if you’re interested in seeing and hearing a more picturesque summary of this)

So getting back to fandom, because it’s mostly been one comicbook series, both the more avid and casual UY comics fans might not be used to there being adaptations of Stan’s Usagi. Yes, even with the visual examples I brought up above, perhaps some simply haven’t seen the animated adaptations because these are still marketed “for kids”. This is like the only reason I can think of that people who are 30+ adults, go online to complain about the Chronicles series online, even though it’s obviously for kids, meaning they probably didn’t even watch it. Folks are “surprised” Stan “let Netflix ruin his series” etc - even if it’s explicitly in a new futuristic setting to avoid affecting the comics canon. It will be interesting to know how people react when or if Sakai puts out his “Kagemusha” anthology, where the idea is about different creators telling different Usagi stories.

Even TMNT fans, many of whom don’t know Usagi beyond the animated adaptations, might jump in with this similar mindset of “different = bad”. Maybe there’s a manga/anime adaptation out there with the fans having similar concerns about their adaptations. Sailor Moon comes to mind, but as always, people’s grievances with an adaptation may have good reasons underneath. But also I’ve personally never seen an avid Sailor Moon fans be as annoying as the casual Star Wars fan. It might also depend on the age and lifestyle of the fan. Someone who is a teacher or parent, maybe they’ve met more people, put more thought into it, might feel milder about new or different things vs someone who is used to going online to see people angry and enjoys getting into arguments.

If I start to think about it, I can get a similar reaction out of myself. It was hard to look at mid-00s fanart of Usagi because it always felt a bit “extreme” like fans changed things about Usagi to suit their own understanding or image of samurai, which was always more based on popular movies or anime rather than the comic. I think this is just a general thing about fanart over the times. I still balk at some fanart, either UY or SRTUC, if for example the sides of the clothes are opposite - right over left, for burials vs left over right, like the letter ‘y’ - because it just means the fanartist didn’t bother to look up even references. Most times people just don’t know about this sort of stuff, they might be anime fans or they might even be part of a different asian culture, but it it’s not something that’s taught, of course it won’t reflect in something like fanart. But then, it’ll just be something new to learn. To me it also speaks of a wider annoyance of people liking things only for the surface-level appeal.

Usagi Yojimbo I’ve noticed has much more of a fanbase than fandom. I know fanbase doesn’t get used much as a term these days as more and more media gets an active fandom rather than staying at a fanbasem but it’s a term I’d like to use in this case. “The Wilkes Beacon” in 2014 defines the difference so: “Not everything with a fanbase has a fandom, because a fandom is a group of committed fans who are always vocally interested in their “thing,” usually expressing that on a social website such as Tumblr. Just because you’re a fan doesn’t mean the fandom will accept you.” Indeed sometimes fandom feels almost like being in a separate part of the club, only for people in the know about it. The origin for fanbase is attributed to early 20th century baseball fans. The origin of fandom, most well-known as a portmanteau of fan + kingdom, is often attributed to the original Sherlock Holmes fans who actually gathered to mourn the character when Arthur Conan Doyle decided to kill him off (bless your hearts and souls, sometimes it feels like fandom has never changed) but also from early 20th century sports fans and 60s Trekkies, who saved their show. A lot of different sources give different origins and histories for these words and many will also equate them as synonymous.

My own experiences tell me that a fanbase is more general - any fans of a thing, whether they attend conventions, buy the media or no (i.e. Sherlock Holmes readers, sports fans) and will comprise the “base” of any activity - the larger number of fans that exist for a piece of media/sport/celebrity. A fandom will be the more “active” part, more interested in being connected with each other within that fanbase. Of course, to any other person outside of fans, both of these will be synonymous and a fan will look weird and fanatical regardless of how little they invest themselves into a media. But I’’m making this distinction to describe what I see as more casual and more active “fanbase as a whole”. Fanbase as a word feels more general, while Fandom sounds more specific. So as an example, the One Piece “fanbase” might feel large and more everywhere, like with pokemon or Sherlock Holmes the book, but the OP fandom can feel more active and particitative, like the .It’ll depend entirely on what way each person interacts with the media. Do you have friends who are also fans of the series? it’s like a fandom. You just watch it but don’t participate as much? You’re in the fanbase, but you might partake in fandom activities if you feel like it. You might be a more casual fan, but you might have more avid feelings about the series as well, but you’re not that interested in making fanworks or posts or reacting to other fans at all. A fandom might be big, but more ubiquitous, more silent and conversely, some fandoms may be small, but still very active and vocal. I’ve often theorized that this is because So UY online fandom sorta feels like the latter, but more under-the-radar. Small and active but also more silent and appreciative. With the previous “big fandoms” example, it’s also the juxtaposition between Old and New that comes into play. An old Spidey fan from the 70s might have become an official Spiderman fanartist, but they might not partake in all the fan stuff they used to anymore. Still a fan, but maybe the newer and younger “fandom” as such is just not appealing to them in the same way.

The larger or more advertised a TV series or book is, the larger and more annoying its fanbase in general. If a piece of media has less popularity, it will ergo have a smaller fanbase and sometimes no “active fandom” at all. So now with the Samurai Rabbit: the Usagi Chronicles TV show as an animated spinoff-adaptation, we have a similar problem that TMNT fans have been familiar with over the decades. Thanks to the show, there’s a more active, slightly younger fandom who want to connect over the series and maybe even read the comicbook, know more about the source and origins, they might want to even know how the show was made, make fanart or fic. So fans like any other, but just that the media they’re a fan of now, is still relatively new. Maybe these newer fans act or write differently online from how older fans are used to. Maybe they even treat the original source comic differently or just don’t know anything about it. In any case, new series and new fans will generally seem annoying because culturally that’s what we’ve started to associate some of fandom with. Otaku culture etc. So it and it’s fans might get the “new thing” treatment as mentioned above with the TMNT animated adaptations.

The difference here is that Stan Sakai has been wanting his own animated adaptation for a long time (just look at the Space Usagi pilot for proof) and while many suggested projects to him before, this one actually piqued his interest bc they did something new with the characters. You could say that what people don't like abt this series are some decisions resulting from this being a netflix cartoon for kids. the decision to set it in a near-future with a new younger for example, was made in the beginning by netflix and I haven’t found any articles yet that’s found a legit reason for why it stayed this way. My guess based on interviews with Stan and crew is that Stan found it interesting as a possible new way to get more readers to the comic. Something for the younger generation. Although many readers and even parents will attest that the comic is child-appropriate (and really, it is), the TV-Y7 ratings and so on exist for a reason. And while I would love for more western studios to get funding for more adult animation in general (I’m not from the US myself and animation such a large medium, the way that genres are explored or what gets made for adults vs kids feeks so different elsewhere), I think it’s good that the first full series based on UY is this “non-violent” (your mileage may vary). Because a lot of the more vocal adult fans of UY seem more focused on the violence vs what kids might get out of it. A popular quote from Sakai is “Once, a mother asked me, 'What is Usagi Yojimbo about?' and before I could answer, her son said, 'It’s about honor.'" (Komai for JANM, 2011). Sometimes it seems like the “older adults” or the “more casual” fans of UY sort of don’t get it.

Even the naming of the series and character has reasons, which I’ve seen some Rise Leosagi shippers make their own reasons for. So the various hate from “older fans” I see about it is strange because all evidence points to the show having Sakai’s approval and his full involvement. Of course, I could also be wrong, but watching the series, it doesn’t feel to me like an “empty cashgrab” as one angry TMNT fan put it. It feels more like something made by other UY fans, those more familiar than I was at the time, with both Usagi Yojimbo lore as well as the culture and lore behind it. In their quest to properly honor the comic series they loved, crew put a lot research hours into making sure both edo and post-edo periods got to be part of their show. Like “trips to japan during a pandemic” type of research. The show is an interesting fusion of old and modern in futuristic setting and feels wholly unique as an experiment.

Another aspect of course is also the shipping parts of fandom. I can never quite get my head behind this “arguing about ships” because it just reminds me of my Grandma and her older sister fighting over their soap operas and who should get together with who. And alright, maybe this was fun for them...? I’ve never been that invested in this myself but it can be fun to have a pairing you root for in a show, when it’s just a bunch of connected ideas over the story, there really seems like a real genuine connection between the characters or if there’s a chance to connect with other fans over it. That’s kind of what fandom is for me in general, but with crossover ships, it’s like a strange and interesting combination of “oooh what interesting similarities and differences” and “lets find out” with fanworks.

This is the main way I enjoy making crossovers in general work, even if I’ve never finished an actual fic (I’m more of an artist) and even if the works sometimes don’t go together (it’s like a fun challenge). I wonder sometimes if the SRTUC crew also imagined crossovers with TMNT? As in this fanart post on facebook by Samurai Rabbit character designer Andry R, I wonder what that could have been like. After all, if many of the crew are fans too, it just makes sense to think about that? it’s fun to think of crossovers after all! And since it’s fanwork, I personally don’t feel as obligated to make some of the quality as insanely good as I would have in my younger days. I want to enjoy the art making process too, so putting research and sketches into a piece is sometimes my own “enough”. So I don’t really care about views either because I know even now, tastes might still just be not geared toward something sketchier that I make.

Even so, despite the experience with online sites and social media people have in general, or other artists/fans encouraging to feel a bit less worried about socmedia algorhitms, it might be frustrating that posts are not as popular even if your idea feels great.

So connecting all of that fandom talk, I can only assume people mistag between a popular and non-popular series for similar reasons. As said earlier, fans might assume everyone prefers the popular thing and that it’s better to tag that popular/bigger/older thing. Because at least that So in our case, I’ve noticed more that ppl tag Yuichi Usagi with the Miyamoto Usagi tag. From the surface, it seems like people don’t know about the Yuichi tags/show or they just don’t like it for some other reason. Now Tumblr is more a “home of fandoms” than casual fans, as most of the user-generated content is entirely by people who get much more invested in a series than a casual fan. Similarly I’ll see people tag their TMNT 2012 inspired fandesigns as ROTTMNT as well, because that is simply seen as the popular fandom at the time ergo, more attention on your post.

Maybe a solution for the mis-tagging could be smth as simple as fandom outreach, something active to unite the different types of fans into using tags correctly, but of course, something more active and social might feel more unnatural, as most of us are more wall-flower than social butterfly - working off the assumption here that most fans are shy. I used to be pretty shy as a fan and now I’m more active and out-going in general in my adult years, but at the same time, doing something socially more active is still a scary thought in my brain so I can understand that it’s easier to just tag and hope it’s correct. Or easier to make ticked off posts vs something with a different kind of effort. But then again, as brought up in my examples of other fandoms, being a fan can make people very active in taking part in similar fan activities. As we all enjoy the same thing in different ways or different media in similar ways, we are all still fans at the end of the day. Whether casual or more involved, that’s a unique experience that should unite us. So I’ll have my peace with the older cartoon-hating fans who only view Usagi Chronicles as an empty children’s cartoon etc etc.

So, because I’m an adult, but also an artist and animation fan, this is how I’ve been approaching TV cartoons for the past 5-10 years. Against my first reaction of “oh, this is too slow for me” the way I chose to view the series once I saw more of it was “I’m an adult, and this is a cartoon made my other older adults, for kids - let me see what it’s about”. It’s more about curiosity and seeing what other creatives have done to put connective tissue between one idea to another.

Personally when it comes to tagging I try to keep to a general amount of “minimum amount of tags possible” bc I’m a bit lazy but also, I will never find anything on my own blog later if I used more than 20 tags about a simpler fanart post. So maybe like 1-2 tags for show/series, 1-2 tags for characters and my own art tags. I am lazy but I also like being considerate with other people. But also because of my previous experience with blogging, I like to keep tags I re-use as consistent as possible so I have the same experience. Of course, sometimes I forget what I’ve actually used if there are many tags i.e. many characters. so keeping the tags short is a boon for that end.

Here is the draft version for the UY and Usagi Chronicles tag guide, i'm gonna change this more but this is mostly how I've been tagging stuff (or have tried to so far) and I wrote a small guide back in march before all this, but have been coming back to it now with more general and character tags in mind.

== Tagging Guide ==

Hello Rise of the TMNT and Usagi Chronicles joint fandom! Here’s a guide on how to tag Usagi Chronicles/Samurai Rabbit stuff! Mostly it’s my own view on how to tag things based on how I interact w the fandom stuff posted here but also from my experience of using tumblr and older blogging platforms - how I see the most common/make-sensical ways to tag characters/shows. But maybe you will find this useful too, fellow fan!

Usagi Yojimbo - the name of the original comicbook series - I decidedly reserve this for posts and reblogs ONLY about the Usagi Yojimbo comic (pages covers,, screenshots, memes), or general fanart of the comic or its characters. This helps me keep it separate so I can find posts about it later.

Usagi Chronicles - personally I use this for all content for the show, but especially the crossover stuff and my own art posts. This seems to be the most commonly used unique tag about this show.

SRTUC - acronym, good for short posts, for quick tagging. but I also use this to tag general reblogged posts about the show

Samurai Rabbit - I only try to use this if it is about the official stuff, like interviews and GIF/screenshots in bulk (more than 2). This tag gets used a lot for both the series but before that it was also used for posting general UY comics content and alternate covers by other artists, as well as for original samurai rabbits unaffiliated by UY. It is too general for me to use it on my own posts outside of text posts maybe.

Samurai Rabbit the Usagi Chronicles - mostly I use this tag for more general posts, but also reblogs if someone else has made something directly related to the series.

SamuraiRabbitNetflix - lol I only use this one on twitter, bc I saw someone from the crew use it and it has stuck for most of my more finished posts I guess ^^ Literally nobody else on tumblr uses it which is fine, but I think it’s a good way to separate the series and the more general posts people make about the comic or guest art of it (or sometimes original art unrelated to UY)

Characters:

Miyamoto Usagi - I try to mainly use it for just comic Usagi and fanart, but occasionally I will use it for fanart depicting

Rise Miyamoto Usagi - Any Rise!versions of comics Usagi. Usually these are fandesigns, but sometimes fans will adapt it wholesale (usually adapting him from his younger years). Sometimes it is unclear which version it is based on or it is a completely original version so I simply tag these as Rise Usagi.

Yuichi Usagi - pretty self-explanatory! I only use this for posts/fanart including Yuichi Usagi (but not when he is only mentioned in passing). Sometimes it is hard to differentiate between these versions however,

Usagi fandesign/Yuichi Usagi fandesign/Miyamoto Usagi fandesign - I use all these tags to organize the fandesigns ppl make of all these characters, reserving “Usagi fandesign” when it’s really an original design based on various canon Usagi concepts or more of a “general” Usagi than a specific one i.e. meant for the Rise or 2012 TMNT crossover AUs. This counts for me in reblogs also when the OP hasn’t really decided what the character is and has tagged both characters. Lol there is a lot of different fanart of these characters and for my own sake, I tag these separately where possible so I can find the fanart easier later (especially if the posts themselves have text which doesn’t use these names, or if tumblr search is not working on blogs)

UY character - I use “UY” as the common acronym before characters from UY, but I also generally tag their names in reblogs. idk, this just makes it easier for me to find them later in my own blog and that’s all (Kenichi and Mariko for example are quite common Japanese names)

Tomoe Ame - This character just deserves her own tag, but also, I think the 03 version, while quite different, can fit in the same tag because people don’t post about them as much ^^;;

And now for the TMNT tags!

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - the official name! long, but good if you are tagging official stuff i.e. screenshots, gifs, concept art, tweets from crew etc

ROTTMNT - good short catch-all tag, lots of ppl use this to tag their reblogs quickly, but shorter posts can also go under here

Rise of the TMNT - Slightly longer tag than the full acronym, but more descriptive, if you wanna make sure people know it’s a TMNT show

Rise TMNT - I’ve seen a few ppl use this as a tag and it’s a valid way to tag (short and unique) but it’s not as popular as the others

2018 TMNT - again, general tag for the series. Common way to make a tag for a TMNT series - adding the year of airing before the TMNT acronym. Same with TMNT 2018. Same for the comics! I’ll use IDW TMNT as a tag for example, bc it seems widely used and understood.

TMNT18 - same as the previous one, but shorter! There are a lot of TMNT media besides the comics, (movies, animated series, etc) so it’s a general easier practice to tag via year. Ppl also sometimes use the variation 18TMNT. Anything is basically fair game with these general tags as long as the author of a blog finds stuff later.

Characters![I’m not sure about the characters yet bc I use the tags differently than other people apparently. my blog my rules i guess!]

rottmnt [character] - reserved for when i tag this character in crossovers, eg rottmnt April, rottmnt donnie. I generally use nicknames for the rottmnt boys cuz I am lazy.

Rise [character] e.g. Rise Leo, Rise April - I try and use this just for

April O Neil (full name) - for when I’m tagging them in general and just want to see them in this tag with the other versions

12 April or 12April - for the 2012 TMNT versions of the characters. I often write the tags together bc I am just lazy but in the case of numbers, I can also forget. On tumblr I try to remember to use spaces cuz that is allowed here lol.

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And that’s it! I have more in the list, but that is the gist of the style of it. Basically hust explaining what I’ve seen and if/how I use it on my own blog. Let me know if you have more thoughts about this. I’m curious to know what other fans of both series think!

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anarchistbakery-vtubers · 1 year

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A dozen Cupcakes

A comparison of all my model variations over these short/long couplea years I been a vtuber. Aaaand unlike on tweeter, I can actually explain it here~

So the first is a sorta "Proto Cupcake" a drawin I made for a web novel Bonbon was writin about a trans girl in a punk band. She was canonically a former vtuber who went by "Cupcake Rebel" so like I guess in an alternate universe she is me XD

Then theres my "Cupcakless Rebel" Model that I made some test videos with before movin on to the next one with the first version of my cupcake logo.

I actually had drawn the Cupcake logo first, before the name "Cupcake Rebel" even. This first model with the logo is the one I made my first youtube videos with. My first video bein "Anarchy in the First World, Cupcake Rebel reads r/firstworldanarchist"

I had accidentally made the hair brown in this one lol

Yea, I started out as a reddit readin vtuber. I made some tweeks and adjustments to the colors and gave myself a much better cupcake logo with the next model. Also this ones outta order on the big pic, oopsie.

New eyes, sharper colors and adjustments to the cupcake later.

This one was unused for some reason. I had given myself fishnets, and a feathered earin, And is also outta order on the timeline for somreason. I gotta be more attentive when makin stuff like this...

Finally the design most people know me for, sorta. I really learned how to use vroid, boutgh a couple booth assets, and started makin major changes to my model. The ribbons, piercins, and choker were booth assets. I did modify the chocker so it would be a heart insteada the normal buckle it had.

The nude model was used in some NSFW comics Bonbon posted over on her twitter. I like em cause you can see my painted toenails, freckles on my chest and shoulders, and the fact that I got nipple and dick piercins.

(Not attachin the image again cause I don't wanna get flagged for nsfw stuff idk)

The real model I am most known for is next. Vroid was no longer in beta, and I had also gotten a whole lot better with it. The ribbons were no longer a part of the dress texture, my hair was improved a whole lot. Also my skin looks so much better at this point.

Oh and if I push the "7" on my numpad it swaps out this avatar with Bonbon's avatar, that way we can stream together~

The next one was gonna be the basis for my new avatar that I was gonna redebut with. I got the new pants with an illustration of my personal favorite vtuber, Electravirus Ella. The flat texture ribbons were replaced with 3d models made by said Ella, and I was wearin all new boots I made myself. This version was in a comic featurin me and Vox.

Then is my Anarchist Bakery Caffe maid uniform. This is my official uniform for when I'm on duty at the Caffe~

new cropped hoodie made by yours truly, complete with oversized zippers. A cute lil half skirt, also made by me. A lil ribbon made by my Ella. A heart padlock choker given to me by Bonbon and made by her. Handcuff Earins, handcuff brow piercins, a tranarchy pride earin, and a new lip ring. Also cute lil ribbons on my boots~ I really love this outfit I made, and I really can't wait for my redebut in January~

If it's not obvious, makin models is my special interest, and if you read this far thank you for listenin to my ramble on about somethin I'm passionate about <3

#vtuber #vtuber model #Envtuber #vtuber uprising #lgbtuber #trans vtuber #vtuber debut #history of Cupcake Rebel #Anarchist bakery #Breakin character kinda #I just really love makin models and love talkin about the models I make and lookin back and seein how much I've improved makes me happy

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kop-mischief · 1 year

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New series coming up gonna be 'Purposely Uncomfortable Flowers. Channeling some little annoyances that have built up over 15+yrs into this rather than on people.

These are more sexy and less pointy than I'm going for. There's a few I'm not posting that turned out more pointy but also more sexy in ways I didn't intend. Never done sexy art before so still figuring some things out.

TLDR rant: Been angry drawing uncomfortable sexed up and fleshy flowers in reaction to a friend in the media arts comparing my spring time tendencies towards nouveau shapes with O'Keeffe's paintings of enlarged flowers in the worst possible way. For 3yrs now! Ridiculous response on my part? Likely. Better than screaming. (3yrs!) Also growing up enjoying "the wrong stuff" for a girl leading to my pics of flowers being made into a big stupid deal and getting lumped together with O'Keeffe throughout my art education.

Below are some of the first drawings I wasn't embarrassed to show other people after a 10yr art break. So when I sent this over to my "professor of the arts" friend his first reaction being "looks like vaginas!" followed by O'Keeffe talk didn't exactly have me happy for a few reasons. Possibly more for her than me.

Anyway. Here's some vaginas apparently.

Wasn't very invested in fashion or makeup in school and was told my tastes in music, media and love for videogames wasn't "girly" in the 90s/early 00s. So when strayed from horror/dark art and drew or took pictures of flowers instead it became an uncomfortable focus in school and some family gatherings. Like "Hey you did it! Congrats! You did a girl thing! 👏" In that regard, things still need work but it does seem like it's better now.

Look. I was, and still am, a sensitive bitch. Loving me some flowers and listening to industrial metal weren't, and still aren't, mutually exclusive.

Anyway in highschool photography they showed us a documentary about Alfred Stieglitz's and Georgia O'Keeffe, their companionship and their art. Perfect time and age to prepare for the small stupid things to come. The film, it was upsetting. Learning how critics treated her and women in art generally at the time. Especially when a woman artist paired up with or married another artist. Man the crap O'Keeffe had to put up with. Her paintings often written or talked about in comparison to that of Alfred Stieglitzs'...photography. And of course her flower paintings being immediately likened to vaginas by male critics which to this day is what she is mainly associated with. God I can only imagine the frustration she went through. 20yrs later parts of that documentary still haunt me.

Between the flower photography and picking a O'Keeffe sky scraper piece to paint on a chair for the school a few years prior, I was kinda lumped in with her by teachers and professors for a while. Resented it back then. Appreciate it now. We're all standing on the shoulders of women artists like her having to deal with that BS much more intimately than we do now. Recently I even got to see some of her paintings in person too. A tiny part of me, knowing all that, was left a touch sad looking at them.

Anyway, lots of sexed up upsetting flowers coming soon though with more juices and pointy teeth as I figure this out.

#art #artists on tumblr #artwork #drawing #gel pen #traditional art #marker art #wipart #wip tag #wip #art nouveau #felt tip pen #micron #illustration #nouveau #women in art #women artists #o'keeffe

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incarnateirony · 10 months

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Still lmfao cannot get over amc bitch boy, now it's his turn to live rent free in MY head but for the opposite reason. He felt "awkward" or "uncomfortable" through it like any side bob cut karen in the grocery line and did his shit. I'm just sitting here fuckin. laughing. Then again, I saw his pic pre-transition, he literally, I shit you not, had the blonde karen bob. No amount of scalpels or T has managed to cut the Karen out of him. Karen(gn)

2 years. He and theirs have been, along with her, repeating her malicious lies on every available thread or DM on the internet, sociopathically lying to and picking apart friend groups like hyperobsessive freaks, bringing it up in the most random ass places nonstop and in upside down universe interpretation of reality. I fuckin PEEP 2 years later the gods honest truth of her chasing out my friends and them voicing relief that the insufferable bitch is gone and they can have me back and in comes the cuck brigade screaming DONT TALK ABOUT HER.

No see, I was just gonna like, make a few lulz posts about it. But now, buddy, now we're gonna fuckin talk about her. If you thought "lol oh my god there's an entire server glad the cunt is gone" 2 years later is bad, wait until I decide to do two years of nonstop public revelations of the garbage she has done in comparison timelines and shit, just when I get bored and have the time and fucking feel like it, because you're that big of a bitch.

I do what I want. It's baby rich white girl bitch stuff to complain about Uncomfortable or Awkward to control conversations, much less your victim posing garbage. So now? Now no. Now my blog gets to be "all the reasons shea was a transphobic, abusive, people-using, lying, cheating whore: a blog" when I feel like it.

Waving pomoms because it's socially acceptable in your club doesn't erase the years of verbal bitchings I took that completely shut me down to the point I needed goddamn therapy to unpack the bullshit she put in my head. Not even like, a year before we broke up she was out there like, YEAH, GET 'EM ROWLING and MY CLIT SWELLS UP TOO I DONT SAY I'M A DUDE while fucking pressing send on "YAY, TOP SURGERY" in your fucking chats.

Know when to leave well enough alone, chud. That was the dumbest bitch shit you could have done. And the most balless, even in trans proverbial ways. Now I'm talking. Because you tried to be a spoiled little girl demanding what someone can talk about on a blog you patrol years later. Deal with it, because I promise you, I am the least of issues with other men your behavior will cause. One of these days your whiny bitch shit will get your face run over someone's floor until the ugly beard rips out with your teeth when you try this shit on someone else. Let's not pretend you're even capable of defending her like I was. Or you wouldn't have peed yourself at something you imagined in your own head. Hell, you can't even protect her from herself. (Source: your bank account.)

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trustcash · 2 years

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Xpro m80 plus by smok

#Xpro m80 plus by smok mod

#Xpro m80 plus by smok upgrade

I don't know how the temp control is gonna work out with nickel wires so I will have to wait and see. It performs really well as a regular box mod.

#Xpro m80 plus by smok mod

I could wiggle the lipo batteries around but I don't want to remove the top to take them out since it's already taped, but I think I could easily take the batteries out and replace them when they are dead.Ī size comparison among sigelei 100 plus, m80, and SX300 G-Sensor mod.Īll in all, for a 80w mod that costs me less than $55 shipped, I am very satisfied. So to do the real tc testing, I will have to wait for the nickel wire and the usb cable.Īnyway I opened the mod from the bottom, and it looked nice and clean. Googled and found out those junk cables are not good for data transfer so I ordered a micro usb cable from Amazon. I tried 4 different micro usb cables and none of them worked. It kept saying "no usb detected" even though the usb cable was connected between the mod and my laptop. This modified mod provides 80 watts of power, along with new functions of temperature control and vaping plan. With two built 18650 li-polymer batteries and USB charger port, it can be chagrged via computer and has a vaping-while charging function.

#Xpro m80 plus by smok upgrade

So there's a firmware upgrade but I haven't been able to do so after downloading their software. 80W SMOK Xpro M80 Plus VW MOD - 4400mAh is an improved large capacity and wattage ecig-mod. It takes a long time for the temperature to reach 400f, just like many others have experimented in youtube. I switched to wattage mode, put the same amount juice in, reset the puff count, used the same wattage, and dry hit at 12th. This modified mod provides 80 watts of power, along with new functions of temperature control and vape plan monitoring. With two built in 18650 Li-polymer batteries and USB charger port, it can be charged via computer and has a vape while charging function. I tried at 400F/27w and at the 11th puff I could taste the dry burn coming. SMOK Xpro M80 Plus VW MOD - 4400mAh is an improved large capacity and wattage ecig-mod. I can post some pics later tonight.Īnyway, as expected, the TC function is not working for the Kanthal wire atm. However, I think it's still a very decent mod for less than $55 that fires up to 80 watts, and it really hits at 80 watt, unlike the cloupoop mods. The Vapor Chronicles and MikeVapes tried it with dry cottons and they burned, so it will be interesting to see TC in action with Kanthal later, although I am pretty sure it will burn, if it lets me fire. But I will watch the video and try it with Kanthal tonight. I am in the US though.Īnyway, I am still waiting for the NI200 wire along with the DNA40 TC mod from FT. I bought it from an online vendor for less than $55 and got it within 1 week. I'm just relaying stuff I think may be of interest to y'all,so don't shoot the sceptical messenger -) There are comments from viewers that it does work to throttle back the temp with kanthal. Obviously he's a new reviewer so doesn't have the questionable "credibility " of the established vape-famous reviewers,but considered this,if its true,to be well worth sharing. I've asked him in the comments where he got this info from & will post his reply when/if I receive one. Been watching reviews of this mod on YouTube & stumbled on PixelVape's offering,in which he says Smok's TC tech is not dependant on In & kanthal can be used

#Xpro m80 plus by smok

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unproduciblesmackdown · 3 years

Photo

Tell me – are you among the lions, Daniel?

belated happy halloween; just finished watching an atdd playthrough

#jeremy dab at the end of that caption #still embracing this kick and having fun doodling this dude it's easy to be loosey goosey drawing him lmfao #like design wise i keep it simple enough going roughly off the concept pic but ignore the coat lmfao #and it's fun to draw him Conceptually lol coz i enjoy daniel and all he does is be Scared and Funny and just some dumbass guy #in that playthrough i watched he just ditched agrippa :(#idk how players are annoyed by agrippa being chatty lmfao it's fun. and he's all polite and apologetic lmfao like he's your friend!!!#oh right gonna use some Real Tags #corned beef #amnesia #atdd #think a rando found another manesia post of mine thru the tags earlier....if you're out there i shake ur hand. decade later atdd times #Latent Atdd Fan always emerges eventually lol...man it's been Over a decade lol. i was on Amnesia right when it came out and pre-mh #and i watched mh in Nov 2010 and amnesia was released in sept 2010 so i had to be for real right on it....it made a splash.....#you know i don't know enough about Biblical Daniel; Prophet; Book of; to know if drawing that connection means too much lol #i sure know about being cast into the lions den but just chilled with the lions.....but that is it smh #yanno abf's stream was the peak halloween thing i did lmfao but that's not bad. a) i didnt have other plans and b) i did and have been #completely earnestly enjoying it lmfaoo. i don't think they exist outside of halloween.....#i'm still putting together things re: rebirth lore that ties in with atdd....aka like all of it almost but you know.#purple orange that's halloween and an underrated color combo #s/o to daniel making an Orpheus Into The Underworld comparison and me not being 1000% certain in what way that connection is Apropos either #can't razz daniel sometimes....just a real Same....lmfao at alexander going ''sometimes ur intuition is...remarkable''#wow just like hadestown.....same like daniel dropping a ref to Xanadu in a diary lol when will musical theatre be invented

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blogger-yura · 3 years

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Entry #26 Oct 21st '21

#YurasLife #ChoisDiaries #Cat #Animals #Adopt

𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 - 𝐂𝐡𝐨𝐢'𝐬 𝐀𝐝𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Hello hello my pretty angels! ଘ(੭ˊ꒳ˋ)੭ How are you doing today! How is the week treating you all? Have you been sleeping enough? Eating well? Staying hydrated? I certainly hope so! Do you guys have any plans for today? Thursdays are chill days for me, for some reason. I never seem to do much on them in comparison to other days! Do you have a day like that? Just like, a boring day? LOL

Since I don't have much to do, and therefore don't have much to share on Thursdays! I'm doing another little throwback~. This time I guessed I could share the story of how I got this dumbass, since many of you seem to have liked Choi ♡ Also it's been a while since be last featured!

So, now it's been almost a year and a half since I got lil Choi? Maybe! He's still pretty much a baby, I sometimes forget since he's so big! It feels like it's been forever too.

When I first moved from Busan I was having a super hectic and busy life- First few months in a new city, all alone, trying to figure out how to survive and stuff, I didn't really realize how lonely I was gonna feel because I didn't have time to do so. I actually moved to Seoul without a plan, you know? Didn't have a real place, didn't have a job or a lot of money. You know know they say! You never know until you try! So I really did try and went big and moved across the country hahaha Luckily everything worked out well! But when I moved into my ~current~ apartment and settled down properly I grew bored soooo fast! I had a small part time job as I was focusing on my projects but I was all alone and it was boring and kinda sad (｡•́︿•̀｡)

A friend I made sent me an Instagram post back then, actually. I would talk to him about how I was thinking about getting a pet to keep me company but I wasn't sure because I had never taken care of another being before. Hs stumbled upon this shelter though, a few stray kittens had arrived (Choi and his siblings!) and were looking for a new forever home! I did hesitate a little, adopting a pet its scary! Especially when they're babies, they depend on you so much and I was so worried I wasn't fit enough for it.

I think I actually decided yes like, a month later? Choi was the only one left! And to be honest it was an instant connection! He was sooo happy to see me and I was so moved by his sole existence (〒﹏〒) So I took him home that day! I was lucky he was sooo well behaved on his own too, learned how to use his litter box so fast and would sit quietly waiting for food every day, honestly a dream cat for a new mom hahaha!

Sometimes I wonder how it would've been if I had gotten him sooner? Or not at all, alternatively. I don't think I would've been able to make it without this dummy, he's been such awesome support for me! I wonder if he knows too, how much he means to me. I don't think I'd have this kind of connection with any other cat.

Do you think pets realize? All the things they mean and do for us. Do you think they know or feel it when we feel a certain way? I remember sometimes, on my harsher days alone, Choi would just come up to me and snuggle as if he knew I needed it.

I think pets are also a soulmate of sorts for us, they teach us so much in such unique ways! I certainly think they're a little magical on their own small ways.

Anyway! I'll stop now because this is getting too long and silly! Do you have pets, though? How did they come into your lives? I'd love to know and see them! Please send pics of your babies to me ♡

I hope you guys enjoyed today's post! I'll make sure to bring Choi around more often for your guys entertainment too hahaha Please take care! Stay warm and always remember that I love you! I'll see you around soon~ All the love, -Yura ♡

🧡: @madmanwoodam @vitoria-oc @archangel-oc @shin-haneul @lunaaofthemoon @moongoddesselene @jinju-oc @ochouse @cbville @esmeralda-oc @jihan-oc

@cb-museclub @achillesunwoo @ares-bc @warblerchangmin @mafia-chae @unseelie-dejun @skzcbspam @betrayerjongup @ppg-3ye @moonlightchn @temptationcb @demigodnct @vampiremomo @suburbanbots @antiromantic-jun @roommates-bot @modelyonghee @floristyujeong @literature-bot @eunwoo-bot @hopelessromantic-juyeon @silvernightcb @choipaths @botuniverse @modelsora @adorbsana @richsocietybot @runawayscb @godly-bots @hwangxmaximoff @velvetparadise @berryjinnie @revengebots @urown-im @azieville-institution @7deadlysins-chan @journeythroughtime @mverses

#yura types 🧡#throwback thursday

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s1utspeare · 3 years

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DID SOMEONE SAY BODY LANGUAGE COMPARISON???

I heard the sweet, dulcet tones of acting meta on this post and could not resist her call, so @xcziel, @foxofninetales, this one is for you.

THE LIU CHANG DMBJ CHARACTER META: WANG CAN vs LIU SANG

So first of all lemme just say I love these bitches, and what’s interesting about Liu Chang is that he plays them on opposite ends. There’s not much he can do about the fact that, y’know, he’s the same-ass person, but there are some very distinct differences between Liu Sang and Wang Can, which we will be talking about now.

Liu Sang photo cred: @foxofninetales

Wang Can photo cred: @xcziel

Jiang Wu photo cred: me screenshotting @xia-xueyi’s Moonfall Echo subs (ep. 13)

PART ONE: BODY LINES

I’ve talked about body lines before! But now we get to look at it from the same actor in two different characters! As a recap, straight lines are strong, sturdy, confident, and straightforward; curved lines are weaker, but more interesting and more dynamic.

For example!!

We got our bitch Wang Can here!! This is our first look at this slimy man, and look! He’s like a square!!! All straight lines, all ups and downs. Him body a square!! The costume people also do a great job of boxing him up bc of the tailoring of his jacket, and the two neutral color palette. There’s no embellishments, no decor. This is a straightforward man!! He’s not hiding anything except exactly how much of a bitch he is

(Also notice that his hands are showing and in fists. This will be important in a minute.)

Next, we have our favorite boy Liu Sang, showing up for the first time (ignore the differences in angles):

Oho! He’s a curvy motherfucker!! Aside from the fact that his clothes are now tailored correctly to demonstrate his natural curves, this mans is also curving himself! His arms! Are loose! And bent!! His head and neck aren’t nearly as emphasized! And! AND!!!! His hands are in his fucjing POCKEEETTTSSS. That indicates FURTIVENESS! That indicates MYSTERY! We’re going to find some things OUT about this boy and we’re gonna like it!!!

In comparison, look at Jiang Wu:

LIU CHANG U BEAUTIFUL BITCH. He fucking BENT HIS ARM. He kept one straight and BENT THE OTHER!!! Oh joyous occasion!! We have a DYNAMIC BOY!! but not too dynamic—peep that hidden hand! Also I love this bc it was TWO DIFFERENT LIU CHANG CHARACTERS IN THE SAME SHOW!!! :D see!! Here’s Liu Sang again!

THIS IS A CONFIDENT LIU SANG!!!! He is CHANGED! He is capable of expressing emotions now! Look at just how much body language he has going on, while in comparison, Jiang Wu and Wang Can are like creepy Wood Baby Puppets. His body shape is boxy again, but that’s bc he’s the protagonist of this one. The plot hinges on him, he’s gotta be sturdy.

WHAT WE HAVE DETERMINED SO FAR:

Wang Can is straight lines, no hidden agenda (which is funny cause he’s a Bad Guy)

Liu Sang is dynamic lines and movement, and alludes to mysterious ✨secrets✨

Jiang Wu is a mix of the two and also a dumb dork (that’s not from the body language, I just think he’s funny)

PART TWO: HAIR, BABY!

Once again I owe my life to costuming people. Someday I’ll write that Mystic Nine costuming meta but today we’re focusing on Liu Chang and, specifically, his HAIR PEOPLE!!! I love them and would die for them literally

Once again, ladies and gentlemen and all my glorious they/thems, Wang Can:

OOOOOH I hate his slimy RAT FACE lemme AT EM. Ahem. Regardless, let’s take a look at this BITCH, shall we? We have: straight line face angles!! Very standard shape, BUT this is all accented by the fact that his hair is S C R A P E D back to within an inch of its life, like. Ahem. Sir. Please. Also this man’s got CONTOUR on. If u look at literally any pics/videos of Liu Chang out of character he is NOT this angular. His head is just as rectangular as his body, and the pulled back hair emphasizes his face, which is interesting as he doesn’t do a whole lot with it.

Alternatively, Liu Sang:

This is a nice boy!!! This is a nice soft boy!!! Look his face has CURVES that are emphasized by the glasses (which also draw attention to his eyes, which is good bc that’s where he does the most work, which we’ll get to later) and the HAIR!!! His hair is soft!! It’s flowy! It’s curvy! He conditions!!! This boy is approachable and will Not shoot you One Million Times with a Machine Gun. This also works with the Liu Sang Signature Ponytail, as he leaves thick-enough bang pieces out to also give the illusion of curves around his face. Also his nose and cheekbones are NOT as strongly contoured, so the angularity of his face is softened as well

WHAT WE HAVE DETERMINED SO FAR

dmbj hair and makeup people were doing the absolute most

Wang Can’s hair gives us the most access to The Face, giving him a slick, straight look, and also something else which we will discuss next

Liu Sang is Soft and Curved bc of the hair and glasses, primarily

Oh speaking of fucking which you know who else is soft??? Huang Junjie. That’s the softest man I have ever seen. His xiaoge is my favorite bc it’s perfectly believable that he’s Butter Inside based solely on his Cheeks (again, it’s the hair people doing the Lord’s work)

PART THREE: IT’S ALL IN THE FACE

The face is the actor’s best friend, and Liu Chang definitely uses his well. We know him as being sort of stoic, more on the Xiao-Ge end of things than the Wu Xie side, but if u compare Liu Sang to Wang Can, LS is going HAM with the facials.

Let’s take a look!

Fuck me UP!!!!!! Look at him!! This is one of the earlier episodes too so we haven’t even gotten to the real good stuff but!!!! Look at his eyebrows!!! Look at how wide his eyes get (once again, the glasses are jumbotroning the peepers)! Look at his unhappy lil mouth!! That’s a whole REALM of facial expression, and so early on in our journey!

Meanwhile, Fuckboy Prime:

(Pardon the garbage screencap, my laptop broke on me this week and I am Suffering)

This is at the very end of Wang Can’s time with us; he’s fighting and he’s going to die and he KNOWS it, but this bitch doesn’t even draw his eyebrows together. Mcwhomst???? Bitch u GOTTA give us more than that I’m BEGGING u

The other interesting thing about their differing facial expressions is that Liu Sang emotes mostly with his eyes, and Wang Can emotes mostly with his mouth. This is very obvious in the clip @xcziel posted, esp when he starts doing the whole gesturing-with-his-chin thing, but it’s prominent throughout.

These two screenshots were taken like fifteen seconds apart. He does a whole face journey, but only with his mouth. His eyes stay fixed; they move, sure, but they don’t get any wider or anything like that.

Liu Sang, however is always doing stuff with his eyes. For example (I couldn’t find an image of it quick enough but I know that @kholran has this gifset), the sacrifice scene where he looks up at Wu Xie with the biggest, most pleading and questioning eyes imaginable?? Kills me. The DEPTH in those bad boys. Fuck me UP.

This also checks out when we remember the glasses. Since they emphasize the eyes, we’re drawn to that part of Liu Sang’s face, so it makes sense that the majority of his expression would happen there. This is also prominent with his hearing abilities; whenever he’s trying to focus them (or get us to focus on him), he not only turns his eyes away, he SHUTS THEM, which means we as the audience know that there’s something going on underneath the surface, and really highlights the fact that this is an unusual and cool power!

With Wang Can, however, the structure of his face and absence of Hair Curves directs the eye to his mouth, so we watch that to tell what’s going on in his head. It’s all about directing the eye, and Liu Chang is very good at knowing where people are going to be looking!

SO: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?

Liu Sang, Wang Can, and Jiang Wu are all very distinctly characterized through their body language

The same actor becomes different characters by using their toolkit (the body) to its full potential

Hair and makeup people are Wizards

Wang Can is a Whole-Ass Ho and I do not miss him even a little bit

Liu Sang’s body dynamics change over time and I love that for him!!

I’m a giant nerd the end

#this is a long boy but I’m a nerd and enjoy drawing Arrows #liu sang #wang can #liu chang #dmbj #dmetabj #my meta #acting meta #tomb of the sea #the lost tomb reboot #moonfall echo

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simtanico · 3 years

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Hi! I don't know if this is an annoying/difficult question, sorry if it is, but do you have any advice at all for modelling sims based off real people? Your sims are SO crazy good. When I try to make them they end up looking... eh... Vaguely like the person? But there's a huge gap between that and some kind of 'spark' some simmers seem to manage to capture.

Hello! Definitely not annoying. Difficult, as in how difficult it is to answer? Maybe. I'm gonna go off on a couple of tangents. But I'm gonna try my best to explain the process. Which isn't really much of one sorry.

There's a handful of tutorials and tips out there regarding reference photos and like... proportions and all that so I won't cover that.

I use that as a general guide of course, but mostly I just save some photos of the person at various angles and focus on one feature or two at a time. Literally going back and forth between reference photo and my game. I think if you try to get everything at the same time, it really makes it easy to get frustrated with whatever your sim looks like at the moment. Making sims in general is a combination of a LOT of things depending on your style.

I can point out ALL the flaws with my sims based on real people. In my experience, it’s about getting the defining features of a person close enough to the real thing so that it resembles them. I don't think you need a complete copy to get the point across, however i do think some people and features are harder to emulate than others. I've been working on some sims for YEARS, and they still don't work out lol

and take a look at this progression on my sim based on Z4ne H0ltz starting back in 2015!

that first screenshot:

Personally, I get a little lost if I work on a sim too much all at once. I find some time away makes me less tired and frustrated. Just pace yourself :)

Also if you need any help, shoot me a message here or on discord. I promise I don't judge or anything.. it's sims who cares lol

TO START...

I suggest starting with the head and its shape. Starting off with a game-generated sim, the first slider I get to is head width. It's usually too dang wide for my tastes. And then adjusting the general position of the the features. You can always change things later, so you don't have to know exactly what you're going to do, but as I've mentioned before, sculpting sims up in CAS is just practice with sliders! Also in the long run, you may want to use Pu+Chi House's Smooth Face Normals slider! I attempt to explain and show what it does here. I've uploaded the slider here: https://simfileshare.net/download/984204/

This is gonna be a doozy sorry in advance if the read more doesn't work

SLIDERS SLIDERS SLIDERS

Big sliders like Pu+Chi House’s face shape sliders dramatically change the face shape, and it could save you a lot of time! I highly suggest using these to get rid of the weird large jaw sims can get.

Play with different sliders and how they interact with one another! Example: jaw width and Cheek Fullness affect the same area. if you need a wide jaw and don’t want cheek distortion, you can use cheek fullness, lower the jaw width slider and then edit the cheekbones from there

Knowing what sliders move what and how it can work to your advantage is key! I cover this in my reply post about noses.

For visual reference:

I start out with my nose but I want the nostrils to sit further on the outside

so i go in and use the nose width slider and raise it to widen the lower nose:

Then lower the nostril scale slider

Comparison:

as you can see, i kind of achieved what I wanted, but also widened the nose tip too! Welp, that takes another slider I have, Tip Width. And I'll adjust that accordingly! It's really just a matter of what you're going for and what you're going to have to compensate for as a result!

That said, our community has made some awesome sliders that open up so many possibilities and even eliminate the need to do that multi-slider tango. I wouldn't even know where to begin (wish I wanted to make videos because I could talk for an hour about sliders)

For example @pitheinfinite made sliders that can make sims look better and more realistic, I'm jealous at what they've achieved!

They have their Inner Corner to Nose slider that moves an area of the sim's face hat make eyebags and the shadows and lines appear farther out from the inner eye. It saves you from having to use cheek sliders to mimic the effect and thus ruining the face shape you have going

It's truly an INDISPENSABLE slider. One of many!

Since I make sliders, I usually just make some to specifically fix whatever issue I'm having. Granted they're made with general function in mind, which makes my cheater-y way of making things happen more useful in the future. I have about 50 experimental unfinished sliders in my game and can tell you that all my current sims use them for some reason or other. So I'm not working with nothing, I guess?

EYE SPY 👁

The best way to really get nice accurate looking sims is the eyes.

Pay attention to the slant of the eye, the shape and position of the upper and lower eyelids. you can use the game’s Eyelid Height slider, and AWT’s Eyelid width and height sliders (and many more)

and especially where the iris (green) sits relative to the eyelid. getting that shape and eyeball positioned correctly really makes a HUGE difference

I do suggest Bloom’s Eye slider (left and right) that rotate the eyes left and right. That along with their Lazy eye sliders can give your sims a less symmetric face and position the eyes to be FAR more accurate and realistic than the default.

I also recommend their vertical sliders (Eye lift or drop) to help with eye positioning.

I can't stress the importance of the right contacts or eyes for your sims. Of course it all depends on how you make your sims's eyes and all that. Take the last sim i posted about. It took forever and a half to find the right contacts that didn't need severe or intense editing to capture the same vibe the person he's based on. The problem is pretty persistent for me, and I am just speaking for myself when I say this is necessary. Iris size, shading, recolorability, detail, catch lights, and pupil position are things to consider for your play style and preferences.

In addition to seeing what eyes will do the trick, I do edit the catch lights in the screenshots to give the eyes a different emotion or look. (I use defaults that get rid of the game-generated catch lights, and supernatural eye glow.) It's nice when that's all it is and I don't have to go in and photoshop things in and out to make them look human lmao

Perfect, schmerfect

And just know that as long as you have the same vibe or look going on it doesn't need to be perfect! Things will evolve over time, and you can change and perfect things as you go along, but close is better than trying to achieve an exact replica. We are working with the limitations of sliders and the optimized meshes they work on! So yeah there might be jagged bits or the profile might not exactly match and some things might not be accurate, but that's okay! Considering what sims look like at their default, you should be proud! I use the same mf eyebrows on all my sims basically and I tell myself they're just placeholders (yeah, right), but I manage to make them work with what I have!

Sliders, Makeup, and Skins, oh my!

a good base skin is critical, but not the end of the world if you pick the wrong one. They determine kind of definition and types of features highlighted on a sim 100000% and you might lose a feature you like or dislike when you change them! Feel free to switch up between skins you have to find the best fit.

Makeup can be a game-changer though!!! Any details you can add and help make your sim look the most like the person you're basing them off can go MILES.

In some cases, I've actually gotten really interesting results trying to get my sculpt as close as possible to real life references so the makeup makes a difference but don't define the features by themselves. Still, though, I utilize makeup up a LOT. [remember that if you use Nraas, you can layer makeup. Right-clicking makeup will also remove it if it's applied :)]

Here's the last sim i posted about when removing makeup:

no nosemasks really replicates the face-claim's nose (too shiny at the lower part) but it'll do 🤷‍♀️

Freckles, eyebags, highlighters, face shadows, pores, nosemasks, etc are all great!!

The way you move your sliders WILL effect how these look, so don't rely on makeup that adds super-specific detail or goes over an area you know is a jumbled mess because of sliders!

I do have a mess of recommendations and wcifs for skins and makeup. replies tag | wcif tag

[also I love compiling wcif cc lists for my sims it's great]

Finally, I appreciate your comment about my sims, mainly because I know they're not ever really exact copies or as close as I want to be to their real life counterparts, so thanks!! I've seen fellow simmers get really good results without messing as much as I do and I love when people can make really good maxis match likenesses because it's just so damn cool! It's truly a talent. I'm not one of those lucky few, but I like to try my way at it anyway. After what feels like some good progress I'll post a pic here. Even after doing this forever I don't feel like I'm an expert or can get good results in a shorter amount of time, but it's just fun to see the progression (or regression) of how my sims look.

#long post #replies #no tutorials just rambling and vibes~~~~

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