Everything you thought you knew falls apart but youll be alright

Final redesign

+ background

Starting off with, the quills. I figured out how to use geometry nodes to generate them from curves, then place a premade texture on them for the white markings. I still need to tweak the texture mapping as well as the underlying spike modeling, but this is almost exactly what I had in mind. I might make the banded section wider though.

(Zoom in, there's little white rings sort of like those on actual hedgehog quills)

I also replaced the iris texture with a high-res one. For context, the original one was grabbed from that one Home Alone parody poster. It worked well enough as a placeholder, but it was definitely a bit crusty.

Wondering if I should give him darker limbal rings to make them stand out more, or just make his eyes as close to canon as possible.

Oh, and I also figured out how to blend materials together using vertex-based masks. I could probably make a more precise one using a texture, but I haven't properly unwrapped the model yet, so until then I can't really do any texture painting.

Thousands of you called, good job!! Your voice matters! 🩷 Be happy with me today. This is a huge win!

Bad Internet Bills

bc in no way can be read that she was always gonna send grace on the hail mary, or that she suspected or knew she was going to have to send him.

when she sings, it is absolutely to him, but it's to reassure him that she knows she's going away but that she's coming back. she's telling him to hang in there, that it's going to be hard but that she believes in him and that she will come back when the time is right and they'll meet again somewhere far away from here.

that's the captain of the ship telling her first mate "youre gonna have to run things when im gone but its okay bc i believe in you and youre gonna do fine. I'll be back soon."

she KNOWS she's a scapegoat. she's been planning for her arrest and eventual escape the whole time on the backburner.

and then the disaster happens and she has to send her second in command, her friend, to his death or they all die.

and suddenly there is no more "we'll meet again someday" bc she's never gonna see him again. even if everything goes to plan and she escapes and the beetles arrive with a solution-- she loses grace forever.

played dolls with pngs today . a gift for you

Since it's already making the rounds and I’ve only seen a small part of it being shared (which can lead to some misunderstandings), here’s an extended passage from My Last Bow where Akinori Nishiyama, creator of Blaze the Cat, talks about her and the details behind her character.

Alright, it's my turn to get in on all this. Due to work restrictions, I have not been keeping up with PanSMP's announcement timeline, but with all the character designs on the table, I think it's time to put my two cents in.

"Res," I hear you ask, "what are your qualifications?" While my degrees are primarily in English language literature and linguistics, the same professor who made me spot-translate the Peterborough Chronicle was the one making me insane about Etruscan funerary cultures the year before. Also, I used to teach this to sixth graders. If two rooms full of eleven year olds could comprehend my god lectures, I'm sure MCYTblr can.

Parameters

Not everyone in Ancient Greece could read so well. As such, the common people needed to be able to recognize their gods at a glance. Every god had around three symbols to represent them - if you saw a sword, a helmet, and a dog, you knew you were looking at Ares.

This is purely going to be a discussion of how accurate each player's design is to the iconography of the gods they are claiming to represent - in short, how well you can tell at a glance that they champion each god. Some discussion will be made about how accurate the clothes are to the Greek period, but only when relevant. Now, onto the ratings.

Apo, Champion of Morpheus

There are not many classical depictions of Morpheus, god of dreams, which puts us already at a disadvantage. In his single mention in Ovid's Metamorphoses, he does have wings, but we don't have much if any actual Classical art of the figure. Apo's design seems to draw heavily from this 1889 statue of Morpheus by Teofila Certowicz - the owl imagery and flowers are relatively similar. There isn't enough to go on, here, though the point gets across. C+, but could use more sources.

Pearl, Champion of Nyx

Nyx, goddess of night, is often depicted as a winged woman in dark colors and with star or moon motifs. Pearl checks all of these boxes to a degree. I will be so real, however: this looks like Ianite. B-.

Owen, Champion of Chronos

All we have to indicate that Owen is a champion of Chronos, god of time, is the hourglass icon in the god announcement list. I will also admit that the red figure on the right is of Cronus, titan father of Zeus and god of harvest, who has a similar sounding name. I could not find a classical reference for Chronos, and all other depictions of Father Time had imagery that conflated the two. At least he's in a semi-accurate outfit. N/A.

Pyro, Champion of Athena

If we're looking for imagery directly associated with Athena, goddess of strategy, Pyro's got it. His outfit does make me say "what the hell is that?" but he has the imagery. Helmet? Check. Spear? Check. Owl? Check. Aegis? Check. Yep. That's a champion of Athena, even if there's little evidence for a soft plume on actual battle helmets. A.

Martyn, Champion of Artemis

Unfortunately, Martyn immediately gets points off by virtue of not being an adolescent girl. Looking past that, however, he gets the motifs down. Artemis, as goddess of the hunt and, in the Roman period, the moon, is often depicted with bow and deer imagery. Martyn’s got those. Extra points for the scars on the chest looking like bear claws! Bears were a big part of the cult of Artemis and the rituals that brought girls from adolescence into adulthood. A-.

Cleo, Champion of Pan

Not much to say with this one. Pan, god of nature, wilds, and rustic music, is depicted as a satyr and often seen carrying a pan flute. Cleo’s got all that. She's even got the Dionysian crown of ivy. No notes. A+.

Legundo, Champion of Zeus

There is nothing in this design that suggests Zeus. Zeus, king of the gods and god of thunder, is depicted most often with eagles and thunderbolts. The sun on Legundo’s shoulder suggests Apollo, but that’s about the only symbolic piece I can trace here. At least he has a beard. F.

Sausage, Champion of Hermes

Hermes, god of travel, trade, and tricksters, messenger of the gods, is often depicted wearing a winged helmet and shoes, and carrying a caduceus, a winged staff with two intertwining snakes. Sausage checks exactly one box on that list: vague wing imagery. D.

Scott, Champion of Aeolus

Scott’s design has been discoursed to death already, and baby, I’m here to beat a dead horse. Aeolus, keeper of the winds, is not depicted often in Classical art, but is mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey as the one responsible for the bag of wind that Odysseus is given. Scott’s design invokes more cloud than wind, leading me briefly to think he may have been a champion of Tempestas, but she’s Roman. C-.

Drift, Champion of Apollo

Apollo is the god of music, poetry, healing, light, and prophecy, and is most often depicted with a bow and arrow, laurel wreath, or kithara. Absolutely nothing in Drift’s design suggests this, except for, if I’m being extremely generous, the vague laurel wreath in her hair. Everything about Drift’s design invokes Demeter, or, slightly more accurately, Ceres. This is not an Apolline design. F.

Shelby, Champion of Tyche

Tyche, goddess of fortune, is often depicted with a mural crown, acornucopia, a wheel of fortune, or the zodiac. This has none of that. This is Malenia, Blade of Miquella, from Elden Ring. F.

Abolish, Champion of Hephaestus

And, finally, we get to Abolish, champion of Hephaestus. As the god of artisans and blacksmiths, Hephaestus is often depicted with fire, a hammer, and an anvil or tongs. Abolish has, at most, the color scheme down. I don't trust that sword in combat. D+.

Conclusion

he didnt know they had those

[original meme]

didn't give enough credit to the commonly-used Aeolus design, actually, it is very specifically drawing from the aesthetic look of a clown and is meant to evoke a lot of "childlike whimsy" type visuals. the baggy pants in that specific design are likely meant to be a combination of the clown look with a far more generalized "flowy wind" look than the specific pattern used

we think the other big design inspiration miiiiiight have, and please take this with so many grains of salt, been Gear 5 Luffy? the specific cloud motif is replicated a lot more there and it also has the odd wind-sash thing that the Aeolus design doesn't. this design is also meant to evoke whimsy (in a more cartoonish sense) and carefree spirit. this is complete conjecture, but it is an intentionally super good-faith guess since One Piece is ridiculously popular

combining these two designs for a character that "is not young at all" causes a little bit of an issue because it is removing a lot of the previous visual and cultural signifiers that made those designs work. character design is all about context!

in regards to context, diaphanous/translucent muslin fabric is used a lot in Orientalist art as a signifier of seductiveness/promiscuity/exotic appeal. therefore, removing other visual signifiers but adding this specific fabric to the specific pants design would relay that same coding, especially when the character is also referred to as being promiscuous.

this can be done completely on accident and at no point did we attempt to claim it was intentional, just that nobody was able to catch what it was accidentally signifying.

the problem was not the intent behind the linkage of these different images (baggy pants+translucent fabric+promiscuity), but that the link was being made and therefore reinforcing held beliefs about that link that, for lack of better phrasing, was relaying a narrative in which this correlation is seen as a factual representation of SWANA cultures.

combined with a lack of clarity from the previous visual signifiers, this led to a design where one of the clearest ideas being conveyed was this particularly Orientalist one.

this was not done on purpose. people do this accidentally all the time. what matters is what people do with it when it is pointed out.