Nettlewild Fairy

Still one of the best animations I've ever done. Took just under a week and was equal parts fun and challenging. So here are some process passes! The full version had too many colors so I had to do some compression T0T

and uses its creative freedom given to it by funding backing an existing IP (silly video game) in order to explore these themes in a very not-ironic plot and writing style about little space blobs and also STILL has some of the best animated expression work i’ve ever seen.

Franky and Robin join the cuddle pile!! 🏴‍☠️💗💞

See the First-Ever Photos of Cozumel’s Mysterious Dwarf Fox

Many believed the tiny fox had gone extinct

Strange things happen to animals when they colonize islands. Some of them get larger, like the enormous rabbit Nuralagus rex of ancient Menorca, while others get smaller, like the dwarf fox of Cozumel. This mysterious species of gray fox is estimated to be only around 60 to 80 percent the size of its larger mainland brethren. Fossils indicate it first arrived on the Mexican island around 5,000 years ago, predating the arrival of humans...

children of any species are very good at being annoying and very cute while doing that

a sphinx child based on this post

here is the first of the show's major Smallvillisms:

okay so in Smallville the fact that Clark Kent has superpowers is a secret. I cannot speak for Smallville in particular but Clark Kent keeping his powers a secret generally works for audiences bcos 1) it is a core element of the Superman narrative. if he was just publicly Superman that would feel weird and jarring. 2) Clark Kent is a nice and good boy and we understand that he is keeping his secret with the best of intentions

the secret superpowers angle is completely foreign to the Arthurian mythos however; in fact it's kind of the opposite of the usual deal with Merlin as a character? but they wanted to do Young Merlin with a Clark Kent thing going on. OK. now they need a reason why his magic is a secret.

uhh it's bcos they made magic illegal. who made magic illegal? the king. not Arthur obviously. different king. we want to keep the whole Camelot/royal court aspect tho so instead of doing the usual King Arthur backstory he's just uhh normal prince. and magic is illegal bcos it killed his mother. okay now we're cooking with gas. but obviously we want the villains to mostly be other magic users for Merlin to fight. why are these other magic users trying to Get Arthur? well they are mad that his father banned magic. and Merlin has to protect Arthur bcos he's going to be King Arthur one day and save the land. so Merlin's gotta explode all the other magic users. he gotta!!

Morgana has THAT arc bcos Smallville has a whole thing where Lex Luthor and Clark Kent are childhood friends.

i re-iterate that I haven't seen Smallville but I imagine Lex being the guy in the friend group who is going to turn out evil works bcos Lex Luthor's whole thing is that he's an asshole rich white man. definitely possible to do a character like that who's sympathetic whilst still having it ring true for the audience that they're just gonna be a bad guy.

and like they maybe COULD have made this work with Morgana? but here i suppose we do get into the straight up just bad politics, doing Morgan Le Fay but she's Lex Luthor would maybe involve leaning into the privilege she has as a noblewoman (effectively a princess) but instead they just u know victimised her over and over and then when she snaps and starts exploding people it's like wow Morgana i can't believe you're evil now. stop exploding people Morgana. only Merlin is allowed to explode people.

it's like, i don't know. they didn't realise they couldn't just go directly from s1-2 Morgana (was end of s2 the switch? I forget) to 'oh she's just evil now' without it being really weird and jarring? they didn't realise that a female character could have motives for being evil that didn't revolve around all the men in her life abusing her?

and then Merlin rocks up and explodes them both. just blows them up like bombs. and its like ok that COULD be a really interesting character moment for him but it. its not. bcos really blatantly what's going on there is they were like 'ok we're out of time, wrap it up folks. Merlin comes in and explodes the bad guys like bombs.'

it feels weird & jarring not bcos it was morally bad behaviour on Merlin's part but bcos straight up its just bad writing.

eta not gonna reblog this again but the OTHER issue w the Smallvilling is that it means Merlin is constantly not just lying by omission to Arthur but flat out lying to his face, manipulating him, on occasion straight up brainwashing him?

so Arthur is an asshole in s1. this is fine. he is at the beginning of his growth arc. Merlin training a young Arthur up to be a better king is a Thing in Arthurian literature and this is a different angle on it but nonetheless. growth arc!!

except um. it never really happens? like yeah he matures and becomes less of a manchild as the show goes along but his improvement is pretty limited.