That Second Image Is A Nightmare Waiting To Happen.

Barring, of course, the sporadic misfire of whatever bots Tumblr is employing to target posted art.

Remember: Flagged posts can be appealed.

So, to clarify what’s going to happen, here’s a handy checklist:

What will happen

Images of real-life nudity will be flagged

Flagged posts will be only viewable by the poster and nobody else

Flagged posts can be appealed and fixed if done so by mistake

That’s it

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Something I wrote ages ago about villains and motivation from the Super Mario Games. More a meditation than a straight-up essay.

On Villains and Motivation

Since Cleanup Crew obviously isn’t written in the gag-a-day format like many if not most other webcomics, it’s given me a lot of opportunity to think about storytelling. And since I realized I have a ready-made blog for the comic here, I figured I’d file some of my thoughts here as they occur to me.

Having played every Mario Bros. RPG through Bowser’s Inside Story, I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the big flaws of these games is the villains.

More specifically, their lack of motivation.

Now, we can talk entertainment and characterization until the cows come home, about how much fun they are to watch, but the simple fact of the matter is that a villain needs a WHY, and no amount of plans or goals, the how and the what, will make up for the fact that there’s literally no reason for any of these villains to do what they do. This failure of characterization steals context and meaning from their actions.

Take Grodus, of The Thousand Year Door. As impressive as his organization is, as clever as the plot and storytelling are (that game does such tricks with the fourth wall that the couple of times it breaks it directly just barely limp along), it’s really hard to get invested in the villains because Grodus simply has no -drive- to accomplish his goals, no reason to do what he does. Given the fact that he’s a robot with a noble title and a pretend magic staff, his lack of even a token backstory is rather jarring.

On the other hand there’s Count Bleck of Super Paper Mario (which we will pretend is an RPG for conversation’s sake), who suffers from a broken heart and intends to solve that problem by committing a rather exagerrated form of suicide. THAT is a motivation, something Grodus is severely lacking. In fact, Super Paper Mario gives a lot of character to its villains, judging from what you can dig up about O'Chunks and Nastasia. Now, Dimentio hasn’t got any stated motivation, but this is deliberately done to emphasize his mystery – the game very obviously knows what it’s doing as far as the villains are concerned. (On a side note, the only real problems I have with Super Paper Mario are that it’s just a little too impressed with itself – to start with, the story is addicted to waxing melodramatic – and that it’s not actually a Mario story. It’s really about the game’s original characters – Mario has literally nothing to do with anything, Peach and Bowser are involved only for the sake of a joke, and Luigi has more involvement with the plot than all three combined, only because he’s the villains’ patsy).

But the rest of them, Cackletta and Fawful and the Shroobs (we’ve already discussed Grodus, and you could say the same about the Shadow Sirens) are devoid of motivation. You can see this in how they’re remembered less for their stories and more for their gimmicks. Cackletta is remembered primarily for being 50% of Boobser Bowletta rather than her desire to screw around with the all-powerful Beanstar; Fawful is bonkers and has a speech impediment, and “crazy narcissist” is not a decent motivation any more than “evil” is one, and then there’s the fact that the guy has no real plan except to set himself up as the local bigshot until he decides to destroy absolutely everything just for the heck of it. The Shroobs almost have a motivation that you can reverse-engineer by studying their actions (do they *need* to prey on the Mushroom Kingdom?), but putting the burden on the audience like that is bad writing for lazy authors.

This failure to motivate the villains is especially notable in Smithy, who argues with the heroes as if Super Mario RPG had an Honest to God *theme*. Smithy’s got enough going on that you can almost piece together the motivation that should be there. He wants to take over the Mushroom Kingdom as a stepping stone to ridding the world of wishes (which suggests that it’s no accident that Exor broke the Star Road on the way in, nevermind the fact that his minions have all been collecting the pieces), but why? Well, for most of the game, all the information on Smithy is at best second hand, suggesting he’s taking a leaf out of Orcus’ book, but when we get to finally meet him face to face, we realize he’s been busy the whole time. Smithy has been building his army piece by piece, by hand, and then delegating responsibility so he can keep building. Smithy is a craftsman, achieving his goals through the work of his hands, definitely -not- making wishes to get what he wants the easy way. All this together suggests that Smithy has some kind of enmity with the stars and their habit of granting wishes, a hatred so strong that he’s willing to conquer entire planets to get a shot at completely shutting them down. But after that, everything else would be pure speculation.

Now, I admit that this sort of thing’s not easy. Bowser’s generally easier to write than coming up with new villains wholecloth, insofar as he comes with the motivations built-in, like “FINALLY succeeding where he’s failed so many times before” and “sticking it to Mario once and for all”. I generally tend to ignore the “romantic interest in Princess Peach” motivation that he’s occasionally saddled with, because the implications are creepy in ways that make “Asmodeus covets Sarah” look Appropriate for All Audiences. I’m generally more favorable to the idea that Bowser takes an interest in the Mushroom Kingdom because he’s spent his whole miserable life a corner of Hell and the Mushroom Kingdom is a place of beauty and plenty and Her Highness may figure in his eyes as an emblem of all things beautiful, hence his fascination with her, since he only knows ugly things. You could get some serious mileage if someone spent five minutes figuring out a halfway decent motivation for the King of Awesome.

Something like, say, “somebody invaded his castle and stole something from the treasury, so now he’s driven to get it back and punish whoever had the gall to penetrate his fortress security and make a goon of him and his forces”.

And now I have spent entirely too much time writing about Mario characters.

Gotta love that panicky Luna swag,

Cover art, the back jacket art underneath the CD, tracklist and CD scans from Colis Records most recent release, Hoshizora Denpa.

The album itself is mostly standard Colis fare; if you like your bouncy chiptune electronica, you’ll enjoy this album. A little less rock influence within the mixes this time around, until you get to the final of 3 different remixes of Heart Wave. While that does sound like too much of the same thing, each does have their own uniqueness to still be enjoyable. The couple of battle tracks are pretty tight, too. 

In some ways, yes, it could use a little more variety of songs, with some popular ones I definitely would have loved to hear remixed. But regardless, it’s nice to hear an album of remixes that are all Star Force-focused. 

Go out and grab your copy here, or wherever you can find doujin music for purchase.

Scanned from: Hoshizora Denpa CD, by Colis Records, Circa October 28th, 2018

Mad bombers, matchmaking, magic spells—what’s a butler to do?

Meet Bostwick von Dogsbody, a sardonic door-to-door magician, and his white rabbit, Emmaline, who just happens to be a cursed human princess. The two are traveling through the goblin-run continent of Ataxia in search of the legendary Domino of Nonpareil—a mask that allows the wearer to become anything he desires—in order to return Emmaline to normal. Their journey has finally led them to Styx Castle, where they meet Millicent, a human maid who wound up in Styx due to mysterious (and embarrassing) circumstances, and Delilah, a goblin queen with a taste for the chaotic.

But Bostwick’s theft of the Domino does not go unnoticed. To avoid a harsher punishment, he agrees to be Delilah’s butler for a hundred years. Before he can escape the queen’s clutches, he’ll have to face mad bombers, an all-bugbear police force, romantic schemes gone awry, and a mysterious goblin-turned-cat named Sebastian who also has designs on the Domino. And as if that wasn’t enough, he soon learns that Millicent is also a magician—and needs him to teach her!

Read more at rosecorcoranwrites.com

Happy 30th Anniversary! This is the linework I did for @rockmiyabideusexmachina and his Mega Man 30th Anniversary collab event. My partner was the inestimable (and inestimably patient) @ingopotato, who did some marvelous color work with the pieces (and helped shore up those positively barren buildings). The premise of the piece is a riff on the aerial chase segments of both Mega Man 8 and Mega Man X8, swapping in the flight crew from classic in for X and company on their air speeders as they hunt down Gigabolt Man’o’War. This was a fun piece for the sheer novelty of some of these character designs and poses -- mostly I draw from other sources of inspiration, so I’m not used to playing with the classic or X characters. Not since a certain Dr. Wily Sand Castle Contest anyway.

Gunslinger Iris!! [Fan Concept Art] Iris is taking responsibility to save the peace between Maverick Hunters and Repliforce. This time, how she fight with firearms. Deviantart via http://fav.me/dbltzdr

I know there’s a lot of tension after Tumblr’s new policy annouced for December 17th, but reblog this if you aren’t leaving Tumblr so that other blogs can know they aren’t going to be completely alone!

Worldbuilding Practice Sample

So, a while ago I wrote some sample dialog for Injustice 2 interactions that will never happen, and I happen to have a great affection for DC characters in general. Unsatisfied as I am with the current state of affairs in DC, I got in the habit of writing little plots and ideas on the side, and after several years basically wound up composing my own version of the DC cosmos, an Earth-J, if you will.

This is a sample of the work I've done so far.

The Living Kingdoms

The Red -- Fauna Parliament: Limbs Representatives: Animal Masters, who can use either the physical or metaphysical aspects of animals as super powers. Much to the Red's chagrin, however, they can't manage to keep a champion like the Green's Swamp-Thing; their main choice, Bernhard Baker, doesn't really care.

Bernhard "Buddy, Animal Man" Baker Supposed Champion of the Red, much to his chagrin. Also much to the Red's chagrin, since he keeps not observing his duties. His power is to trade metaphysical qualities with animals via homologous and analogous structures. (i.e. he can give his arms the power of flight, because that's what birds do with those parts). Notes:  He occasionally has jam sessions with Garfield. Quotes: "You are a Champion of the Red! You bring fruition to thousands of years of prophecies!" "I AM A FAMILY MAN, FIRST!" -P.o.L. & Buddy Maxine Baker Even more powerful than Buddy, even less interested. She just likes her pretty animals. She thinks Tefé is awesome. Garfield “(Various)” Logan The Orphan, and Evolution-Master. Unloved by the Red and the Parliament of Limbs (individual members notwithstanding), Gar nonetheless wields impressive power and serves with the Doom Patrol (formerly with the Titans). Ironically, he gets along the best with the Green and its masters; there is some speculation that he may not even be totally wedded to the Red, given he has instantiated microscopic life, a distinctly Blue power. What significance this has remains currently unexplored. Mari "Vixen" McCabe The trickster. An Animal Master who received the Tantu Totem originally created by the malicious trickster god Ogo, and won it from him in a contest of wits.

Barbara Ann "Cheetah" Minerva Slave of Mafdet and enemy of Wonder Woman. Barbara lived a charmed life, born with a silver spoon in her mouth, charismatic, beautiful, enterprising, astonishingly lucky, but in her dissatisfaction grew to covet more. Inspired by Wonder Woman's godly power, she tried to steal Mafdet's Claw from an ancient pyramid to experiment on it and see if it had any divine power, which infuriated the goddess Mafdet, who punished her -- upon hearing the punishments for thievery was mutilation, flogging, or death by staking, Barbara chose the fourth option, penal servitude, and became Mafdet's executioner, the Cheetah, by having a portion of the Red injected into her. Now Barbara spends her time alternating between punishing the guilty for her goddess and conspiring to free herself. Notes: She has tried previously to rewrite her own body to shed her cheetah form, but analysis of her cells indicated she was still physiologically human, all evidence to the contrary.

Michael Payson "B'wana Beast" Maxwell

Dominic "Freedom Beast" Mndawe

Robert "Man-Bat" Langstrom

Ogo, Mafdet, and all other animal and animal-aspect gods like have connections to the Red.

The Green -- Flora Parliament: Trees Representatives: Plant Masters, who have authority over the growth and behavior of vegetation. The usage of their power is often accompanied by the bodily manifestation of plant life.

Dr. Alec Holland, the Swamp Thing Appointed champion of The Green. Due to his appointment by the Green, he is also possessed of some authority over the earth.

Tefe Holland, the Sprout. Beyond her powers as the second instance of the Swamp Thing, she also has magic due to her mother and celestial powers due to inheriting Constantine's blood. Despite terrible family issues, she eventually warms up to Maxine as a surrogate big sister. Notes: Has been considered for the Doom Patrol, though her current relationship with them is unknown.

Solomon Grundy The death of a gangster in Slaughter Swamp created an "incomplete" Swamp Thing, with limited, wild power over the wood and earth. Poison Ivy & The Floronic Man, Shadows of the Champion. Drs. Pamela Isley and Jason Woodrue, who gained access to The Green and its powers through mad science, which transformed them both into plant-humanoids. Woodrue, descended from dryads, taught Isley and the Hollands as their Professor ("Professor Plant-Master"), and sought to escape "the meat". Woodrue seeks to make the world less-frail by experimenting on them (as he constantly augments himself for their qualities and powers). Isley, who runs "Lily n' Rose" flower shop, was at one point his partner in crime, covets beautiful things and despises "the meat" for its ugliness, a "toxic" ugliness that ruins the beauty around it; in a perverse sense she considers herself a "defender of the innocent", much like her historic enemy Batman.

Yggdrasil, the first Wood elemental.

The Blue - Microbes (bacteria, protozoa, fungi, etc.) Parliament: Germs Representatives: Microbe Masters, who can both control all such life remotely and transform into huge masses of microbial life at will.

Samuel "Zookeeper" Register Obtained his access to the powers of the Kingdom by stealing from Garfield Logan's charged DNA, but while he initially dealt in animals like Garfield Logan, Register has been increasingly fascinated with transforming into infectious and disease-carrying life forms, which he uses to various purposes, including taking control of animal life. He's also been looking with increasing fascination to the Grey.

The Grey -- Viruses Parliament: None. While the Grey is no one's friend, it is generally closest to the Blue. Lacking any Parliament to manage it, responsibility is generally shared by the other three. Representatives: Plague Masters, who seed and control all viruses remotely. Anton Arcane A German field doctor from the Great War who did mad science on his patients. Helped convince Adolf Hitler to go to war so he'd have more dead to work with. He uses black magic for purposes of necromancy.

Note on All Kingdoms: The Kingdoms all traffic with each other in various ways, but generally maintain a balance of some kind. However, there are periods of violent imbalance in their history, where one color will consume too much of the others (typically but not always the Grey, due to poor management) and the whole system collapses in on itself, creating the Black.

This is from the forecast discussion of Major Hurricane Florence from this afternoon. As a meteorologist, when I saw this, my heart sank. They don’t use wording like this for every storm.

Florence is going to be a devastating. There will be huge amounts of flooding, both from inland rain and from costal storm surge. Winds are going to be some of the strongest you can get from a hurricane. People within the path of this storm could lose everything.

If you know anyone who lives on the North or South Carolina coast, tell them that if there’s an evacuation ordered, they need to get the hell out. Do not take chances with this one.

Lordgenome of Krypton? I dunno, bodiless head characters are always most effective as chatterboxes for dark secrets. Still, the Dark Chatterbox who would and could kill you is an interesting take.

Good idea or bad idea: a disembodied kryptonian head, kept alive by advanced tech, who despite being, well, a head, is still a formidable combatant due to possessing superhuman durability, speed, flight, heat vision, etc. If good, what might one do with it?

VERY good, have that dude as a Zoner or other Kryptonian survivor.