#tbskyen

[ohnoitstbskyen]

... y'all know Lae'zel is acting scared, right?

Video transcription: I've seen a lot of comments on my short about Lae'zel dismissing her entire character because she's mean and… I'm just checking in here… you guys know she's scared, right? She's terrified. She was kidnapped by the worst monster she knows, infected with the most horrifying death anyone in her culture can have, and then stranded on a hostile world, alone, with nothing to guide her except the dogmatic military cult indoctrination of a cruel lich demigod, telling her that her only hope of salvation is to follow Gith doctrine with total unyielding faith. And still she tries to save you. When she keeps insisting that you must get to the Githyanki crèche, it's our only hope, she's trying to guide you towards the only salvation she knows from the parasite, so she can share it with you. And Gith... aren't supposed to do that, saving an outsider is not part of the doctrine, she's breaking the rules trying to do right by you. None of that means she's not being an asshole, she's rude, dogmatic and unpleasant. But everything she does comes from a genuine, very misguided and abrasive, desire to do the right thing. It doesn't make her behaviour okay, but there is more to her character than just "being the mean one."

To expand on this a bit more than I can in a 60 second short, people acting from fear and from their damage is a major theme among the Baldur's Gate 3 companions.

Lae'zel is terrified and falling back on the only thing she believes will give her back some control over her situation, which is the dogma of the military cult she's in. Shadowheart is much the same, amnesiac and grasping on to the only solid thing she knows, which is her faith, which preaches deception, loss and duplicity as the only certain factors in life.

Gale is an inveterate people-pleaser desperately dependent on other people to help him feed his magic addiction, with his overtly affable exterior hiding a rolling boulder of guilt, ambition, greed, arrogance and legitimate hurt. Asterion is... well, no way to really lay out his deal without spoiling, but the boy has been through it and his self-destructive, hedonistic and selfish impulses are all coping mechanism and self-defense all the time.

None of that make their shitty behaviours okay, but in a fictional story, those kinds of flaws and toxic behaviours are what make for interesting stories and characters. I don't blame anyone for finding Lae'zel unpleasant and abrasive, but I do get a bit Old Man Yells At Cloud about people who casually brag about shoving her off a cliff-side, or murdering her because "she was a bitch" or whatever.

Like... being unable to face discomfort in your media is not a virtue, and lashing out reactively against fiction that doesn't validate your power fantasy isn't a flex.

Of course, I saw a lot of those reactions in YouTube comments and on social media, so my sample is biased by those algorithms, but still. A lot of people seem aggressively proud that they never engaged with her story because the terrified indoctrinated child-soldier wasn't immediately nice to them and I can't explain it but something about that reaction feels puritan to me.

#tbskyen #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #laezel #lae'zel #Youtube

[artofgeppetto]

Did a commission for @ohnoitstbskyen of his TAV from BG3, Tarja!! Very very proud of how it turned out. Thanks again for the opportunity!

#art #illustration #artists on tumblr #geppettodraws #artofgeppetto #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 tav #baldurs gate fanart #tbskyen #tarja #fantasy art #bard #drow oc #dnd drow #so so proud of this art piece y'all have no idea #I wanna gush about this forever LOL

[tbposting]

principal edit on the next Boss Designs of Elden Ring is now DONE!

Now I just need to append the analysis segment, go over it for any details I missed one last time and it should be ready for premiere this Saturday!

Here are some context-free spoilers for the episode:

#boss designs of elden ring #tbskyen

[cardentist]

I just spent six and a half hours listening to a youtuber I really like ranking and dissecting every hasbin hotel song Not by how they sound (though he Does go into what he thinks of the music and why, it's quite delightful. he sings along to quite a few of them and I'm very much so still getting used to the fact that he's apparently really good at it), but how successfully they push the story Forwards.

and I have to say that I now have opinions on hasbin hotel despite never having seen it jklfasdkjlfsda

I'd really suggest the video to anyone who's a fan of the series, he even took the hit to monetization to play all of the songs in full so he could analyze them properly.

I think I really do understand Why this series took off the way that it did. yes it is a series with some pretty deep flaws, but I'd argue that the vast majority of them come down to the time limitation.

I think it's safe to say that they had a ton of ideas that they desperately Wanted to cram into this first season, but they didn't have the episode count to fully explore them (or really do more than Introduce them in some instances).

and I Do think it's likely that they made the choices that they did because a second season wasn't a guarantee. if they decided to be more conservative with their first season, let it take its time with less on its plate, they might have never gotten the chance to share some of these ideas At All.

and I do genuinely think that this is Part Of its success, at least in terms of fandom.

there are lots of fandoms for lots of media, but I feel like some of the most prolific have been for flawed series that have Potential. that have Ideas and themes and characters that resonate with people, that people can see More in, but don't stick the landing in the way that they could have for Whatever reason.

and I say this as someone who has Been in those sorts of fandoms near exclusively. it's Fun. it's Fun because it turns this story into a sandbox that you get to play with. to fill in the details yourself and see how Other People would as well.

and the key here is that there are parts about it that Must be likeable, you can even like All of it, while still feeling like there's room for that reinterpretation and Play. and I feel like a lot of people grow even closer to a character and to a world through doing so.

have you ever seen the fan content that homestuck inspired? It's That. it's that exactly.

#hazbin hotel #tb skyen #tbskyen #video #will I ever Watch hazbin hotel? #I dunno maybe #if the second season comes out and people say that it's good #I Will definitely be listening to the songs though #I knew there were songs before but there's a difference between having songs And Being A Musical #I Sure Do Enjoy A Good Musical #and bad musicals kjladsfjklafsdjkl #I'm a sucker for music

[romance-rejects]

Gay awakening this, bi awakening that. I'm here for the aromantic awakening. Who did you see and, for the first time in your life, feel like maybe you could live your life without romance and still be happy? Who first described their experiences to you and presented you with the label aromantic? This could be an aunt who never married, a teacher who owned 4 cats, anyone really.

I'll go first, mine were/are Jaidenanimation and TBskyen. Hearing their experiences made me feel less alone and honestly I'm so thankful for it.

-🌿Sage🌿

#tbskyen #jaiden animations #aro pride #aromantic #aroace #queer #sage's rants #gay awakening

[zwoelffarben]

Losing it over this frame from the latest @ohnoitstbskyen latest video, a collection of essays by various creators about characters that matter to them.

Because he's just, so right.

#tbskyen #trans man #spamton #ace at writing club

[deer-with-a-stick]

I love how like a third of the comments on TBSkyen’s Gale video is just “the wizard touches grass” lmao

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate three #gale of waterdeep #tb skyen #tbskyen #gale bg3 #gale #gale dekarios #bg3 gale

[acertainrandomguy]

I will forever curse my frail body and also Tbskyen

(this is about arcane, BTW)

#arcane #Tbskyen #league of legends

[sabtherobot]

Soraka model I made for TBSkyen's video about potential Soraka redesigns!

#3dartist #soraka #lol #league of legends #tbskyen

[troythecatfish]

#dark souls #dark souls 2 #dark souls 2 scholar of the first sin #ds2 #storytelling #soulsborne #souls series #souls #tb skyen #tbskyen #rats #ratposting #ratblr #fromsoft #fromsoft games #fromsoftware #tumblr recommendations #recommend #recommendation #youtube #youtube shorts #short video #shorts #gaming videos #youtube content #youtube recommendations #youtube video #video recommendation #youtube link #video link

[kaelor0409]

So I've been watching @ohnoitstbskyen's play through of The Mageseeker, and been having a great time. The commentary is entertaining and insightful, as you'd probably expect if you're familiar with his content, and some of his comments got me thinking about a few things myself.

I've been on the fence about Mageseeker, since the whole point of the game seems to be to neatly wrap up the Mage Revolution plot that has been Demacia's ongoing arc for literally years now. I was on the fence about the Mage Revolution plot anyway, since it feels very much like the writers asked "how can we make our Generic Good Guy Fantasy Kingdom more nuanced and edgy", and the answer they came up with is "make them White Mana from Magic: The Gathering".

Still, TBSkyen's analysis in the videos below convinced me that there were interesting stories to tell with that premise, even if some of the writers weren't really handling it with the care it deserved.

Not having played the game, the concept of The Mageseeker felt like a hasty attempt by Riot to sweep a poorly thought out plotline under the rug so they could move on to other things. Who would have guessed that a "good" faction herding innocent people (including children) into concentration camps would be controversial?

Having watched a good chunk of the playthrough (and skipped to the end to get the final analysis), I can say that my fears were...somewhat unfounded? The game does mostly wrap up the plots around the Mageseekers and mostly puts a lid on the Mage Rebellion, but admits this is not a "clean" resolution and that the struggle will continue.

The real reason I've come around on The Mageseeker, however, is because I think it moves Demacia into a more narratively interesting place. "Outwardly good faction is secretly xenophobia, dogmatic, and committing a genocide" has honestly been done to death these days. What hasn't been done is "good faction realized 'whoops, we "accidentally" did a genocide', now what?". This is honestly pretty relatable, because if you live in Europe or anywhere Europe colonized, your national history probably includes some genocide.

So let's talk about Javan and Garen.

Jarvan ordered a genocide by knowingly signing an execution order for hundreds, potentially thousands of helpless mages (including children). It doesn't matter that he was "reluctant", it doesn't matter that he had to be talked into it, he willingly gave the order to exterminate an entire ethnic group ("magic" is technically not an ethnicity, but let's not split hairs here). Also his "preferred" alternative to executing them was to keep them locked up forever (which, yes, is still technically genocide), so even if you entirely blame the Mageseekers for the execution order he's still at fault.

Garen remained a loyal soldier even after Jarvan gave the order to commit genocide. He did initially object, but his objections were that his sister and friend might also get executed, not that the order itself was morally wrong. Even afterward, he only went outside of his role as Demacia's dutiful soldier to try and save his sister Lux. Only Lux, not any of the helpless mages she was sheltering, and when she asks him to join her in defending these defenseless people, Garen refuses. You could argue that Garen never actually harmed any mages himself (any mages that weren't trying to kill him first, anyway), but he certainly helped and when given the chance to flip to the oppressed side, he turned it down. At the end of the day, Garen was "just following orders", and we all know how much water that excuse holds.

So you have two "good" characters who very clearly did something monstrous. You also can't have them stop being "good" characters, because Riot sure as hell isn't going to go through all the effort to rebrand them at this point. So what do you do?

To be continued...

#league of legends #demacia #garen crownguard #jarvan iv #the mageseeker #tbskyen #genocide #this got so much longer than I anticipated #it was only supposed to be one part #Youtube

[ohnoitstbskyen]

The Beautiful Animation Touches of Arcane, act 2

It's not exactly a hot take to say that Arcane is one of the most striking and visually compelling animated series of the last few years, the animators and directors at studio Fortiche threw everything but the kitchen sink at this show, creating something intensely dense, layered and absolutely soaking in little animation touches, clever bits of cinematography and just straight up good direction and filmmaking.

It is impossible to discuss everything compelling about Arcane and its animation in one video, but I'm at least going to do my level best to talk about some of my favourite scenes from the second act (episode 3-6), and oh god oh god oh f*** my video about the animation is longer than all three episodes it discusses combined.

In this video we'll focus particularly on Jinx's custom animation rig that lets her swap between the Jinx and Powder personalities, how Silco visually asserts power over Marcus when they argue, how Viktor's entire character arc is contained within a single scene from his childhood, how Vi and Caitlyn speedrun an enemies-to-lovers trope via body language, and the seduction of Jayce Talis and his unfaithfulness to Viktor.

You have no idea how many Netflix copyright blocks I had to edit my way around to get this online.

#tbskyen #arcane #jayce talis #jayce arcane #mel medarda #viktor arcane #powder arcane #jinx arcane #vi arcane #caitlyn kiramman #arcane silco #arcane netflix #heimerdinger #ekko arcane #sevika arcane #silco #sevika #skye arcane #animation #fortiche #league of legends #arcane league of legends #Youtube

[artofgeppetto]

Twitter is dying so I’m gonna start putting more stuff on this page.

Here’s an art piece I did as part of an impromptu challenge hosted by @ohnoitstbskyen last year.

Also, I wanted to add some of the thumbnail explorations I did because I think it emphasizes TB’s point about how malleable character design can be. Like, all of these drawings still felt like Ahri at the end of the day. I honestly might start doing more drawings of this version of Ahri -- they were really fun to draw :)

#tbskyen #artofgeppetto #league of legends #ahri #ahri lol #body acceptance

[tbposting]

#tbskyen #twitter #ha ha ha i take bad care of myself ha ha

[eveningdawn222]

never played league but u bet ur ass i spend at least 1 brain cell everyday thinking up my own champion but only through the medium of imaginary @/ohnoitstbskyen videos.

#tbskyen #league of legends

[mysticdragon3md3]

#tifa lockhart #symbolism #analysis #character design #oh so that's why she was a parallel to Sephiroth in Kingdom Hearts II #tropes #archetypes #ff7 #final fantasy vii #softsquaresff #tbskyen