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Pav's 'Grown Up Books' reading list, Part 3
Posted 3 years agoTo clarify in advance - I've read most of the books on this list due to interest in the topic or the point of view, not cause i agree with the views of the author. While some books are pretty solid when it comes to information and research, the conclusions drawn are sometimes either too mired in authors world view or absolutely useless. As such, i will point out authors political leanings and bias, when applicable, and also write my own thoughts about it after summary, as well how much i recommend said book. With that out of the way, lets roll.
'Guns, Germs and Steel' by Jared Diamond
The book analyzes why some countries failed to develop and why others, like european ones, ended up on top. To this end, the book proposes the geographical theory - europe, middle east and asia, being on a same parallel, could exchange technological achievements and trade much easier than, for example, american societies that were broken apart by impassable terrain. This also meant that the spread of agricultural achievements and domesticated plant species was limited outside the eurasian continent, and the lack of large, domesticate animals was a further downside, since herding societies not only had draft animals, but also immunity to many diseases that spread from animals (small-pox, flu etc.). The book concentrates mostly on Papua New guinea, but also covers every continent, history of human settlement and limitations.
My Thoughts - The geographical theory is quite intuitive, but sadly, the world isnt as simple as that. This theory gets thoroughly deboonked in the next book in the list. Some of the information in this book is outdated as well, since new understanding of human migration has come to light since this book was published, but its still a solid read that gives a rather good overview of human history. Slightlu recommended. Three Stars.
'Why Nations Fail' Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
The theory this book proposes that success of a nation/system of government is tied to a simple formula - of inclusive or oppressive economical and political institutions are. To demonstrate this point, the book describes countries on every continent, concentrating on cases where geographical and cultural similarities still lead to different outcomes (USA and Mexico, South and North Korea etc.).
It still provides a great insight in histories of all continents, painting a rather compact, but informative picture - for example, how spaniards thoroughly fucked south america over for years to come, the trust in political and economic institutions still eroded after all this time. USA on other hand, unable to exploit indigenous societies like spanish could, turned into a much more inclusive culture - something that still didnt stop them from incorporating slavery, something that the book discusses with zero whitewashing. It also describes industrial revolution, that started in england, not as a supremacy of white culture, but just an amalgam of several circumstances that prepared the ground for it (black plague, common law etc.) European colonialism is also not given a break, describing how europeans hijacked exploitative institutions or, in case it wasnt possible, just createf their own (and murdering people if needed). It also ends on a sobering note that, helping out countries that have exploitative institutions rarely causes any good for the people there, the money/material 'vanishing' on the way there in pockets of NGOs and local leaders (As example, how a 10 million dollar help to rebuild a village in afghanistan resulted in two trucks of sub-par, unusable wood.)
My Thoughts - An incredible book and a must read if theres any interest in global politics and why some countries rule and others drool. The book is thick on information, very well researched and, as thus, a rather hard read, but well worth it. What i really liked is that no society or group was treated as better or worse, just objective facts and reasons that lead them to where they are now. Possibly the most objective book ive read. 5 Stars.
'Against the Grain' by James C. Scott
The theory this book proposes is the idea that states were an exception, not the rule, in most of human history, having a huge fail quota and a need to be pushed onto people, one way or another - and not a perfectly normal human behavior as we were lead to believe. For this, the book covers mesopotamian pre-city-state and city-state societies, why the need for states arose and how walls werent only meant to keep the invaders out, but to keep villagers in. The book also jumps to other societies and statea, but the bulk is about mesopotamia.
My Thoughts - This is an academic book at its core - it has one point, and it hammers it in, over and over again. Every example and story just serve to hammer that point home - early states were highly unstable and needed a lot of work to maintain. The short synopsis ive gave is basically the whole book, but its still worth a read if you are interested in the era and bountiful information, but i wouldnt say its a must read. 3 stars.
'Guns, Germs and Steel' by Jared Diamond
The book analyzes why some countries failed to develop and why others, like european ones, ended up on top. To this end, the book proposes the geographical theory - europe, middle east and asia, being on a same parallel, could exchange technological achievements and trade much easier than, for example, american societies that were broken apart by impassable terrain. This also meant that the spread of agricultural achievements and domesticated plant species was limited outside the eurasian continent, and the lack of large, domesticate animals was a further downside, since herding societies not only had draft animals, but also immunity to many diseases that spread from animals (small-pox, flu etc.). The book concentrates mostly on Papua New guinea, but also covers every continent, history of human settlement and limitations.
My Thoughts - The geographical theory is quite intuitive, but sadly, the world isnt as simple as that. This theory gets thoroughly deboonked in the next book in the list. Some of the information in this book is outdated as well, since new understanding of human migration has come to light since this book was published, but its still a solid read that gives a rather good overview of human history. Slightlu recommended. Three Stars.
'Why Nations Fail' Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
The theory this book proposes that success of a nation/system of government is tied to a simple formula - of inclusive or oppressive economical and political institutions are. To demonstrate this point, the book describes countries on every continent, concentrating on cases where geographical and cultural similarities still lead to different outcomes (USA and Mexico, South and North Korea etc.).
It still provides a great insight in histories of all continents, painting a rather compact, but informative picture - for example, how spaniards thoroughly fucked south america over for years to come, the trust in political and economic institutions still eroded after all this time. USA on other hand, unable to exploit indigenous societies like spanish could, turned into a much more inclusive culture - something that still didnt stop them from incorporating slavery, something that the book discusses with zero whitewashing. It also describes industrial revolution, that started in england, not as a supremacy of white culture, but just an amalgam of several circumstances that prepared the ground for it (black plague, common law etc.) European colonialism is also not given a break, describing how europeans hijacked exploitative institutions or, in case it wasnt possible, just createf their own (and murdering people if needed). It also ends on a sobering note that, helping out countries that have exploitative institutions rarely causes any good for the people there, the money/material 'vanishing' on the way there in pockets of NGOs and local leaders (As example, how a 10 million dollar help to rebuild a village in afghanistan resulted in two trucks of sub-par, unusable wood.)
My Thoughts - An incredible book and a must read if theres any interest in global politics and why some countries rule and others drool. The book is thick on information, very well researched and, as thus, a rather hard read, but well worth it. What i really liked is that no society or group was treated as better or worse, just objective facts and reasons that lead them to where they are now. Possibly the most objective book ive read. 5 Stars.
'Against the Grain' by James C. Scott
The theory this book proposes is the idea that states were an exception, not the rule, in most of human history, having a huge fail quota and a need to be pushed onto people, one way or another - and not a perfectly normal human behavior as we were lead to believe. For this, the book covers mesopotamian pre-city-state and city-state societies, why the need for states arose and how walls werent only meant to keep the invaders out, but to keep villagers in. The book also jumps to other societies and statea, but the bulk is about mesopotamia.
My Thoughts - This is an academic book at its core - it has one point, and it hammers it in, over and over again. Every example and story just serve to hammer that point home - early states were highly unstable and needed a lot of work to maintain. The short synopsis ive gave is basically the whole book, but its still worth a read if you are interested in the era and bountiful information, but i wouldnt say its a must read. 3 stars.
Pav's 'Grown Up Books' reading list, Part 2
Posted 3 years agoTo clarify in advance - I've read most of the books on this list due to interest in the topic or the point of view, not cause i agree with the views of the author. While some books are pretty solid when it comes to information and research, the conclusions drawn are sometimes either too mired in authors world view or absolutely useless. As such, i will poont out authors political leanings and bias, when applicable, and also write my own thoughts about it after summary, as well how much i recommend said book. With that out of the way, lets roll.
'The strange death of Europe' by Douglas Murray
Political leaning: UK conservative (center right)
Bias: concentrates too much on the negative examples that made the news and is extremly lenient to european anti-immigration movements. The book is also european-centric and makes no comments (that i can remember) of immigration in rest of the world.
The book covers the history of the post-WW 2 immigration in western european countries, concentrating on slavic and muslim immigration. It raises the point that the governments failed to address the lack of integration by the newcomers and, to avoid taking responsibility, embraced the idea of multi-culturalism, which turned into prosecution of opposition to mass-immigration, shutting down of dialogue about this issue and to harm of social cohesion, for natives and immigrants alike (parallel societies). It covers the 2016 migrant crisis, how the governments failed, yet again, to address the issue, as well covering several high-profile cases of immigrant crime and terrorism, as well as groups and people pushing against it and prosecution of these. The writer has a rather dry, sarcastic humor that bubbles up every now and then, making the trudge to the rather depressive picture he paints easier.
My thoughts - As a migrant myself, i concur with this book on at least one point - the incentive to avoid integrating into the society and build a parallel one instead is strong, partly because of the attitudes of the immigrants, but also due to the attitudes of the natives, that at times, have a very fluid understanding of what 'integrated' means. While the book offers vast amount of information, spanning immigration history of many countries, the bias makes it almost useless in the end, since lacking the opposing view can only lead to one mindset - immigration bad. While he does refute the usual pro-immigration arguments rather well, it all feels like pining for a pre-globalist society, where immigrants were a rarity, not a normal facet of life. Though, on one point i agree wholeheartedly - governments shat the bed and harmed everyone involved, natives and immigrants alike. Two stars.
'The Madness of Crowds' by Douglas Murray
Political leaning: UK conservative (center right)
Bias: Like with previous title, strong right-wing bias, to the extent that not a single right-wing movement (that have their own brand of tribalism) is discussed, or if mentioned, only in positive light.
This time around, Murray discusses the left-wing political and social movements, the damage caused by their tribalism and noteable examples. It covers feminism, lgbtq+ (mostly trans) and anti-racist, again being mostly European-Centric or purely UK-centric at times. He mostly talks about the impact of these groups on society, like censorship, stifling of debate and free-speech, and cancel-culture. The book is again written in dry, sarcastic tone, that manages rather well as a break from the doom and gloom of the narrative.
My Thoughts - Again, i have the same problem with this book like with the previous one - while the information provided is top-notch, the failure to address the opposing side or to explore how valid the concerns of the left-leaning groups are, just means that theres only one conclusion - left bad. While this book isnt as awful as some other right wing stuff ive read, its really hard to recommend it - the previous book has a lot of info on history that is usefull and, despite the bias, can be used, while in this one, its just one long rant. Not really worth the read, unless ya want to inform yourself how the right wing views the left during the ongoing culture war.
'The strange death of Europe' by Douglas Murray
Political leaning: UK conservative (center right)
Bias: concentrates too much on the negative examples that made the news and is extremly lenient to european anti-immigration movements. The book is also european-centric and makes no comments (that i can remember) of immigration in rest of the world.
The book covers the history of the post-WW 2 immigration in western european countries, concentrating on slavic and muslim immigration. It raises the point that the governments failed to address the lack of integration by the newcomers and, to avoid taking responsibility, embraced the idea of multi-culturalism, which turned into prosecution of opposition to mass-immigration, shutting down of dialogue about this issue and to harm of social cohesion, for natives and immigrants alike (parallel societies). It covers the 2016 migrant crisis, how the governments failed, yet again, to address the issue, as well covering several high-profile cases of immigrant crime and terrorism, as well as groups and people pushing against it and prosecution of these. The writer has a rather dry, sarcastic humor that bubbles up every now and then, making the trudge to the rather depressive picture he paints easier.
My thoughts - As a migrant myself, i concur with this book on at least one point - the incentive to avoid integrating into the society and build a parallel one instead is strong, partly because of the attitudes of the immigrants, but also due to the attitudes of the natives, that at times, have a very fluid understanding of what 'integrated' means. While the book offers vast amount of information, spanning immigration history of many countries, the bias makes it almost useless in the end, since lacking the opposing view can only lead to one mindset - immigration bad. While he does refute the usual pro-immigration arguments rather well, it all feels like pining for a pre-globalist society, where immigrants were a rarity, not a normal facet of life. Though, on one point i agree wholeheartedly - governments shat the bed and harmed everyone involved, natives and immigrants alike. Two stars.
'The Madness of Crowds' by Douglas Murray
Political leaning: UK conservative (center right)
Bias: Like with previous title, strong right-wing bias, to the extent that not a single right-wing movement (that have their own brand of tribalism) is discussed, or if mentioned, only in positive light.
This time around, Murray discusses the left-wing political and social movements, the damage caused by their tribalism and noteable examples. It covers feminism, lgbtq+ (mostly trans) and anti-racist, again being mostly European-Centric or purely UK-centric at times. He mostly talks about the impact of these groups on society, like censorship, stifling of debate and free-speech, and cancel-culture. The book is again written in dry, sarcastic tone, that manages rather well as a break from the doom and gloom of the narrative.
My Thoughts - Again, i have the same problem with this book like with the previous one - while the information provided is top-notch, the failure to address the opposing side or to explore how valid the concerns of the left-leaning groups are, just means that theres only one conclusion - left bad. While this book isnt as awful as some other right wing stuff ive read, its really hard to recommend it - the previous book has a lot of info on history that is usefull and, despite the bias, can be used, while in this one, its just one long rant. Not really worth the read, unless ya want to inform yourself how the right wing views the left during the ongoing culture war.
Pav's 'Grown Up Books' reading list, Part 1
Posted 3 years agoTo clarify in advance - I've read most of the books on this list due to interest in the topic or the point of view, not cause i agree with the views of the author. While some books are pretty solid when it comes to information and research, the conclusions drawn are sometimes either too mired in authors world view or absolutely useless. As such, i will poont out authors political leanings and bias, when applicable, and also write my own thoughts about it after summary, as well how much i recommend said book. With that out of the way, lets roll.
'The Righteous Mind' by Jonathan Haidt
Political leaning - American Liberal (center left)
The book deals with the differning moral world views of people and how they lead to different political leanings. Mostly, it tackles the idea if morality is nature vs nurture (inherent and taught), how much the society plays the role in forming of our morality, as well as what role family plays in all of it. The author introduces a system of moral foundation, based on six pillars of morality and, using this system, find out that different political groups have different grasp on morality (for example, left has a strong care foundation, while right wing is equaly divided over all six pillars). Furthermore, the book touches upon human tendency to tribalize, claiming that religion, for example, was borne out of this need, and didnt create it.
The other concept it introduces is the rider and the elephant - the idea that our subconscious is where our morality comes from, and is only controllable by learning to handle it (the elephand), while our conscious mind (the rider) thinks they are in control, but are more or less a press secretary for the elephants whims.
My thoughts - I think that this is one of those must-read books, especially when wanting to understand and build bridges with other groups and people. Othering people cause they dont share our sense of morality is a rather easy and direct solution, but it wont lead to a prosperous society, more to a downfall of it.
There is an evolutionary reason why we tend to slip into open minded vs close minded category (progressive vs conservative), and only when these two work together can there be any meaningful growth - too progressive, and the identity of the group will disappear, thus leading to the downfall, too conservative, and the group will calcify, leading to slow and painful disappearance, both equally bad outcomes.
The idea of moral foundations allows us to understand that people on the other side have their own reasons and world-views, allowing us to build bridges and cooperate. All in all, i would suggest this book to anyone. Five stars.
'The coddling of the american mind' by Jonathan Haidt, Gregg Lukianoff
Political leaning - American Liberal (center left)
Bias - Much more lenient to the views and deeds of left leaning people than to right wingers he brings up in the book, some infos and stories arent well researched and, instead, fake narratives are taken as the truth.
The book addresses the rise of safeism and the negative outcomes it lead to. It starts of with an example of how the nut allergy was approached - banning of nuts almost anywhere - which lead to the rise of children allergic to nuts, since the ones in danger of acquiring this allergy had no chance of being exposed and thus, get their systems used to it, even citing a study where risk kids were allowed to eat nuts and had a much lower number of ensuing allergies compared to the test group that didnt ingest any nuts.
The childhood is the time where kids can test and learn their limits, learn to work with others, learn to deal with emotions etc., and all of these chances were stripped away in name of safeism - prohibition of rough play, parent supervised play sessions that undermined childrens ability to learn socialisation, reduction in child freedoms to explore (due to abduction scare in the 80s and 90s), influence of internet and social media and introduction of concept that speech is violence.
All of this lead to more impulsive generation of young adults that have hard time communicating between groups, with sadistic tendencies when it comes to punishing the outsider etc.
The book concentrates mostly how this ended up affecting academia and colleges, with safe spaces, X rights movements and perceived oppression behind every corner. As opposed to this, he talks about provocation and identiterian culture sprouting on the right as an answer to this, but concludes its a chicken and an egg scenario, where it cant be pinpointed who threw the first stone, since it only became noticable once it spilled out in the media.
He also touches upon the tribalism in US political world views, how it started and what the consequences are. The book ends with proposals and ideas how to raise children and design college clases and avoid safeism.
My Thoughts - Not so taken by this book like with the previous one. While it does hit the nail on the head and describes the current zeitgeist very well, its rather bare bonsey in describing why people on college campuses suddenly see racism everywhere and why right wingers get a kick out of 'triggering the snowflakes'. The suggestions at the end of the book are fine and dandy doe, even differentiating between the ways rich and poor households fuck-ups of child-rearing. A solid read, but not really anything groundbreaking, since all the ideas described in the book can be observed on ones own, but its nice to have it put in words somewhere outside ones head. Three stars.
'The Righteous Mind' by Jonathan Haidt
Political leaning - American Liberal (center left)
The book deals with the differning moral world views of people and how they lead to different political leanings. Mostly, it tackles the idea if morality is nature vs nurture (inherent and taught), how much the society plays the role in forming of our morality, as well as what role family plays in all of it. The author introduces a system of moral foundation, based on six pillars of morality and, using this system, find out that different political groups have different grasp on morality (for example, left has a strong care foundation, while right wing is equaly divided over all six pillars). Furthermore, the book touches upon human tendency to tribalize, claiming that religion, for example, was borne out of this need, and didnt create it.
The other concept it introduces is the rider and the elephant - the idea that our subconscious is where our morality comes from, and is only controllable by learning to handle it (the elephand), while our conscious mind (the rider) thinks they are in control, but are more or less a press secretary for the elephants whims.
My thoughts - I think that this is one of those must-read books, especially when wanting to understand and build bridges with other groups and people. Othering people cause they dont share our sense of morality is a rather easy and direct solution, but it wont lead to a prosperous society, more to a downfall of it.
There is an evolutionary reason why we tend to slip into open minded vs close minded category (progressive vs conservative), and only when these two work together can there be any meaningful growth - too progressive, and the identity of the group will disappear, thus leading to the downfall, too conservative, and the group will calcify, leading to slow and painful disappearance, both equally bad outcomes.
The idea of moral foundations allows us to understand that people on the other side have their own reasons and world-views, allowing us to build bridges and cooperate. All in all, i would suggest this book to anyone. Five stars.
'The coddling of the american mind' by Jonathan Haidt, Gregg Lukianoff
Political leaning - American Liberal (center left)
Bias - Much more lenient to the views and deeds of left leaning people than to right wingers he brings up in the book, some infos and stories arent well researched and, instead, fake narratives are taken as the truth.
The book addresses the rise of safeism and the negative outcomes it lead to. It starts of with an example of how the nut allergy was approached - banning of nuts almost anywhere - which lead to the rise of children allergic to nuts, since the ones in danger of acquiring this allergy had no chance of being exposed and thus, get their systems used to it, even citing a study where risk kids were allowed to eat nuts and had a much lower number of ensuing allergies compared to the test group that didnt ingest any nuts.
The childhood is the time where kids can test and learn their limits, learn to work with others, learn to deal with emotions etc., and all of these chances were stripped away in name of safeism - prohibition of rough play, parent supervised play sessions that undermined childrens ability to learn socialisation, reduction in child freedoms to explore (due to abduction scare in the 80s and 90s), influence of internet and social media and introduction of concept that speech is violence.
All of this lead to more impulsive generation of young adults that have hard time communicating between groups, with sadistic tendencies when it comes to punishing the outsider etc.
The book concentrates mostly how this ended up affecting academia and colleges, with safe spaces, X rights movements and perceived oppression behind every corner. As opposed to this, he talks about provocation and identiterian culture sprouting on the right as an answer to this, but concludes its a chicken and an egg scenario, where it cant be pinpointed who threw the first stone, since it only became noticable once it spilled out in the media.
He also touches upon the tribalism in US political world views, how it started and what the consequences are. The book ends with proposals and ideas how to raise children and design college clases and avoid safeism.
My Thoughts - Not so taken by this book like with the previous one. While it does hit the nail on the head and describes the current zeitgeist very well, its rather bare bonsey in describing why people on college campuses suddenly see racism everywhere and why right wingers get a kick out of 'triggering the snowflakes'. The suggestions at the end of the book are fine and dandy doe, even differentiating between the ways rich and poor households fuck-ups of child-rearing. A solid read, but not really anything groundbreaking, since all the ideas described in the book can be observed on ones own, but its nice to have it put in words somewhere outside ones head. Three stars.
Clive Barker - Should you read his work?
Posted 3 years agoLately, thanks to glories of audiobooks, ive been catching up on clive barkers work, both the horror and fantasy stuff and think i got nuff of his writing under the belt to make a recommendation.
Ive encountered his work way back when I just started delving into horror literature and it was love at first read. Ive read my Poe, King, Lovecraft etc., but Barkers approach to horror caught my interest more than the others. King is a grab-bag of genre and I always found his writing quite meh, especially the trope of items becoming haunted (there is a story of a clothing press being posessed by The Devil and going on a rampage ffs), Poe has a lovely literary style ('Mask of the Red Death' still remains one of my favs that kickstarted an art style phase for me), and Lovecraft is also a mixed bag - i love his earlier works, like 'the music of erich zann', when he was basically copying Poe, but most of his stories are along the lines of "And then i glimpsed x and went maaaaad!", so it gets samey.
Which brings me to Barker - his horror is more visceral and debases human dignity of his characters. Sexuality and instinctual fight or flight instincts play a bigger role in his character actions and reactions. And stripping away of what we deem as rational and treating human bodies just as a sack of meat adds just that existential horror that i rarely found in other authors.
Being from england, his earlier works are set there, while later are set in USA, specifically Cali and New York. I did notice that he didnt really get american culture, but that could just be me.
Being a gay man, Barker has plethora of homosexual characters and good understanding of roles in the scene, and some of his protagonists are homosexual men - he does depics heterosexual relationships as well, but lets just say, he doesnt do a good job with it, but eh, cant really blame um now, can we?
Ofcourse, there are movies based on his stories and characters, although i could only recommend the original Hellraiser, original Candyman (the new one, ive heard, is apparently very race-batey) and maybe, if you want some 80s shlock, Hellraiser 2. There are some other movies, one based on his book Cabal (havent watched it) and on his story Midnight Meat Train, which is an absolute garbage 2010s horror cinema.
As for the books, 'The books of Blood' is a good grab-bag of short stories - "The forbidden" is the story the movie 'Candyman' was based on, although if ya want psychological horror, there is 'Dread', for good old splatter, theres 'Rawhead Rex' and for suspense, theres 'Son of Celluloid'. The series starts slow, but builds up towards book three and four, with best stories imho, but then it just drops off - there is a King-esque story of hands starting a revolution and chopping themselves off (I think theres a movie based on this, but cant remember), a story where a guy meets some female deity and turns into an 18 year old girl (...ok?) and some other non-sensical stuff, like a story about a guy getting injected by some BS and goes on a rape spree, men and women alike, and eats their hearts. Its crazy, i tell ya.
As far as his novels are concerned, 'Cabal' is a great read - monsters, psycho killers and undead on mortal sex extrrrrrravaganza. It is a pretty fun ride, i can tell that much. A man finds out from his therapist that he is actually a serial killer during his blackout phases and, after a failed suicide, decides to find a place he heard only in rumors...and thats when the fun begins.
'The damnation game' is a much more serious work, and is probably my favourite - a con gets to work as a bodyguard for an eccentric millionaire who, basically, made a deal with The Devil or close enough to it, and shit hits the fan when The Devil comes to take a revenge for being slighted, dragging a pedophile murderer as his hencheman in tow. There is violence against animals in this book, buh the doggos live...again.
'Sacrament' is an ok book, a bit of a hard read, but i did enjoy a few imagery from it. A wildlife photographer, that only takes pictures of dying animals, falls into coma after getting mauled by a polar bear and remembers his childhood, when he met a man whose only purpose in life is to extinguish species. Main characters homosexuality plays a role in this story, and theres even some hot, steamy gay sex and furry foxes around...but no, no furry fox steamy gay sex, sadly. I wouldnt recommend this one, to be honest, but its still a solid read.
'Coldheart canyon' has a great plot hook and rather gruesome parts to it. A hollywood actor tries to do facelifting, it fails horribly, and he hides in an abandoned villa in coldheart canyon, meeting the owner there and the descent beginns. I dont recommend this book for one thing only - theres a whole chapter where he puts down his dog, and I know people dont leik that shit. On other hand, a chick gets ripped apart by ghosts in gruesome detail, so that might be worth the stay?
'The hellbound heart' is basis for the movie Hellraiser - man, in pursuit of pleasure, finds a puzzle-cube that, when solved, will have such sights to show him. The 'Hell' in title is a pretty dead giveaway, what kind of sights. Its a short novel, but one of Barkers classics, so pretty much an easy recommendation.
Which leaves us with his fantasy work. 'Weaveworld' is a pretty solid book, and easily one of my fav Barkers novels. A man stumbles upon a carpet and finds out theres more to it than meets the eye - a whole world and its denizens weaved in by magic to escape prosecution. The only warning i ought to give about this one is that theres an evil character that says the N-Word, but he dies, so justice served I guess.
'Imajica' is like weaveworld, but on a much grander scale. A copy-painter is called to help his ex by her new boyfriend, since he sicked an assassin on her and now regrets it. The meeting with the assassin triggers a cascade of events that has the protag find out more about their history and other dimensions and worlds surrounding the earth. It is a marathon read, but all in all a very good book. Just dont read it if you are depressed.
Im currently fighting through 'The art' series of books, which i cant really say id recommend, and still got 'Abarath' to read, although ive heard its for younger audience, so dunno how that will pan out.
All in all, if you are looking for some horror books with blood, sex and viscera, Barker is yer author.
Ive encountered his work way back when I just started delving into horror literature and it was love at first read. Ive read my Poe, King, Lovecraft etc., but Barkers approach to horror caught my interest more than the others. King is a grab-bag of genre and I always found his writing quite meh, especially the trope of items becoming haunted (there is a story of a clothing press being posessed by The Devil and going on a rampage ffs), Poe has a lovely literary style ('Mask of the Red Death' still remains one of my favs that kickstarted an art style phase for me), and Lovecraft is also a mixed bag - i love his earlier works, like 'the music of erich zann', when he was basically copying Poe, but most of his stories are along the lines of "And then i glimpsed x and went maaaaad!", so it gets samey.
Which brings me to Barker - his horror is more visceral and debases human dignity of his characters. Sexuality and instinctual fight or flight instincts play a bigger role in his character actions and reactions. And stripping away of what we deem as rational and treating human bodies just as a sack of meat adds just that existential horror that i rarely found in other authors.
Being from england, his earlier works are set there, while later are set in USA, specifically Cali and New York. I did notice that he didnt really get american culture, but that could just be me.
Being a gay man, Barker has plethora of homosexual characters and good understanding of roles in the scene, and some of his protagonists are homosexual men - he does depics heterosexual relationships as well, but lets just say, he doesnt do a good job with it, but eh, cant really blame um now, can we?
Ofcourse, there are movies based on his stories and characters, although i could only recommend the original Hellraiser, original Candyman (the new one, ive heard, is apparently very race-batey) and maybe, if you want some 80s shlock, Hellraiser 2. There are some other movies, one based on his book Cabal (havent watched it) and on his story Midnight Meat Train, which is an absolute garbage 2010s horror cinema.
As for the books, 'The books of Blood' is a good grab-bag of short stories - "The forbidden" is the story the movie 'Candyman' was based on, although if ya want psychological horror, there is 'Dread', for good old splatter, theres 'Rawhead Rex' and for suspense, theres 'Son of Celluloid'. The series starts slow, but builds up towards book three and four, with best stories imho, but then it just drops off - there is a King-esque story of hands starting a revolution and chopping themselves off (I think theres a movie based on this, but cant remember), a story where a guy meets some female deity and turns into an 18 year old girl (...ok?) and some other non-sensical stuff, like a story about a guy getting injected by some BS and goes on a rape spree, men and women alike, and eats their hearts. Its crazy, i tell ya.
As far as his novels are concerned, 'Cabal' is a great read - monsters, psycho killers and undead on mortal sex extrrrrrravaganza. It is a pretty fun ride, i can tell that much. A man finds out from his therapist that he is actually a serial killer during his blackout phases and, after a failed suicide, decides to find a place he heard only in rumors...and thats when the fun begins.
'The damnation game' is a much more serious work, and is probably my favourite - a con gets to work as a bodyguard for an eccentric millionaire who, basically, made a deal with The Devil or close enough to it, and shit hits the fan when The Devil comes to take a revenge for being slighted, dragging a pedophile murderer as his hencheman in tow. There is violence against animals in this book, buh the doggos live...again.
'Sacrament' is an ok book, a bit of a hard read, but i did enjoy a few imagery from it. A wildlife photographer, that only takes pictures of dying animals, falls into coma after getting mauled by a polar bear and remembers his childhood, when he met a man whose only purpose in life is to extinguish species. Main characters homosexuality plays a role in this story, and theres even some hot, steamy gay sex and furry foxes around...but no, no furry fox steamy gay sex, sadly. I wouldnt recommend this one, to be honest, but its still a solid read.
'Coldheart canyon' has a great plot hook and rather gruesome parts to it. A hollywood actor tries to do facelifting, it fails horribly, and he hides in an abandoned villa in coldheart canyon, meeting the owner there and the descent beginns. I dont recommend this book for one thing only - theres a whole chapter where he puts down his dog, and I know people dont leik that shit. On other hand, a chick gets ripped apart by ghosts in gruesome detail, so that might be worth the stay?
'The hellbound heart' is basis for the movie Hellraiser - man, in pursuit of pleasure, finds a puzzle-cube that, when solved, will have such sights to show him. The 'Hell' in title is a pretty dead giveaway, what kind of sights. Its a short novel, but one of Barkers classics, so pretty much an easy recommendation.
Which leaves us with his fantasy work. 'Weaveworld' is a pretty solid book, and easily one of my fav Barkers novels. A man stumbles upon a carpet and finds out theres more to it than meets the eye - a whole world and its denizens weaved in by magic to escape prosecution. The only warning i ought to give about this one is that theres an evil character that says the N-Word, but he dies, so justice served I guess.
'Imajica' is like weaveworld, but on a much grander scale. A copy-painter is called to help his ex by her new boyfriend, since he sicked an assassin on her and now regrets it. The meeting with the assassin triggers a cascade of events that has the protag find out more about their history and other dimensions and worlds surrounding the earth. It is a marathon read, but all in all a very good book. Just dont read it if you are depressed.
Im currently fighting through 'The art' series of books, which i cant really say id recommend, and still got 'Abarath' to read, although ive heard its for younger audience, so dunno how that will pan out.
All in all, if you are looking for some horror books with blood, sex and viscera, Barker is yer author.
Masters of the Universe Revelation
Posted 4 years agoAnd yet another IP fucked up by the usual "I want to cram politics into the narrative, but am too creatively bancrupt to come up with my own, original ideas" crowd.
It always amazed me that creators unironically think that they can kill off the main character (spoiler alert) twice (another spoiler alert), switch them up with an unlikable asshole that is supposed to be our new main character and a stronk, independant woman aka a woman that is just an amalgamation of toxic male and bratty behaviours as they usually write them, and expect people not to get fussy over it.
Its He-Man - if ya just wanted to cram identity politics in, make everyone gay - hell, ya dont need to change anything, aside of letting them get out of the closet. Or heres a freebie - set it in the world a 100 years later - there, ya can have yer cake and eat it.
I know that i always whine about this, but its pretty simple for me - this is not art or creativity, this is wanton destruction for sake of destruction. Shows like Steven universe are proof that you can preach your world-view AND create something in the process. It also seems to me they are head over heels to create a labeled characters (trans, gay, poc, whatever) with zero personality or being interesting, but just to be there and "represent" people that are more than just their sexuality, gender or skin color in worst way possible. At least they got better and representing sexuality and realized that ya can do it without ringing the "gay" bell anytime the character is on screen. And lets be honest - unless romance or outright porn is involved, characters sexuality has no impact on the story - unless ya want to make a "pain" story to illistrate how horrible people have it.
Back to the new She-Man doe - boring netflix trash. See ya next year when they ruin street sharks!
It always amazed me that creators unironically think that they can kill off the main character (spoiler alert) twice (another spoiler alert), switch them up with an unlikable asshole that is supposed to be our new main character and a stronk, independant woman aka a woman that is just an amalgamation of toxic male and bratty behaviours as they usually write them, and expect people not to get fussy over it.
Its He-Man - if ya just wanted to cram identity politics in, make everyone gay - hell, ya dont need to change anything, aside of letting them get out of the closet. Or heres a freebie - set it in the world a 100 years later - there, ya can have yer cake and eat it.
I know that i always whine about this, but its pretty simple for me - this is not art or creativity, this is wanton destruction for sake of destruction. Shows like Steven universe are proof that you can preach your world-view AND create something in the process. It also seems to me they are head over heels to create a labeled characters (trans, gay, poc, whatever) with zero personality or being interesting, but just to be there and "represent" people that are more than just their sexuality, gender or skin color in worst way possible. At least they got better and representing sexuality and realized that ya can do it without ringing the "gay" bell anytime the character is on screen. And lets be honest - unless romance or outright porn is involved, characters sexuality has no impact on the story - unless ya want to make a "pain" story to illistrate how horrible people have it.
Back to the new She-Man doe - boring netflix trash. See ya next year when they ruin street sharks!
Borderlands 3 and peculiar case of representation
Posted 5 years agoSo, i got my hands on BL3 a month or so ago, now that its finally on steam and have some rather mixed feelings about it.
The gameplay is vastly improved compared to BL2, with tons of little quality of life improvements (more mobility, easier shopping, new badass rank system etc.) - so, as far as "turn your brains off and play" type of grindy game are concerned, its a really good thing to get.
The part i got a problem with is the writing itself. Aside of few rather nice lines, the main story and characters are written rather atrociously - and in a series that never boasted great writing, thats telling.
The main plot is as bad as it gets - the player constantly needs to be told that yeah, the stakes are really high ya guise - something thay never really comes off during the gameplay. Even while trying to play this high stake storyline, the plot is 80% filler, and it feels like that the story could be told in much less time than what it ended up being. The main antagonists are bland and the try to present them as cult leaders/streamers comes off as rather cringy.
As far as friendly NPCs are concerned, there are hardly any new ones introduced, and the "main" ones that have the most impact on the story are all female. The game didn't manage to introduce a single male character, and the ones that came up were played for laughs. And even though the devs talked big game about inclusivity, theres not a single new character that sticks out - you get a gay old white dude and a fiery latina kid, amazing, i know.
Their mold breaking non-binary character was fl4k, a playable robotic hunter that looks masculine, has a masculine voice and acts masculine, but really is non-binary, just trust us (even though hes a robot, so literally binary with 1 and 0s). Its the most low effort inclusivity addition ive ever seen in my life, cause, if i didn't knew about it via articles and tweets of people gushing about it, literally nothing in game reveals this - and ive played this character extensively. The other playable characters are: a boring white chick, a boring black chick and a boring irish dude. I have no clue how they managed for a robot to have more character and personality than all other human characters combined.
"But pav", i hear you asking "ya said this game is inclusive, but aside of robot and feisty latina, there isnt much there?". Thats where ya is wrong - ya see, the true panopticum of races, gender and sexuality is found in enemies, so you end up slaughtering thousands of women and minorities during your game time, a feat that is only rivaled by all dem banned far-right games. As a cherry on top, the aforementioned fl4k has a skill called dominance, with which you can enslave enemies for a short while by bashing them in the face - and considering you fight a lot of poc's, i'll let you make the connection.
Maybe im just too old school, but mowing down and spilling guts of women and minorities just seems wrong. But, with gore upped again for this game, it proves the old saying right - on the inside, we are all the same <3
The gameplay is vastly improved compared to BL2, with tons of little quality of life improvements (more mobility, easier shopping, new badass rank system etc.) - so, as far as "turn your brains off and play" type of grindy game are concerned, its a really good thing to get.
The part i got a problem with is the writing itself. Aside of few rather nice lines, the main story and characters are written rather atrociously - and in a series that never boasted great writing, thats telling.
The main plot is as bad as it gets - the player constantly needs to be told that yeah, the stakes are really high ya guise - something thay never really comes off during the gameplay. Even while trying to play this high stake storyline, the plot is 80% filler, and it feels like that the story could be told in much less time than what it ended up being. The main antagonists are bland and the try to present them as cult leaders/streamers comes off as rather cringy.
As far as friendly NPCs are concerned, there are hardly any new ones introduced, and the "main" ones that have the most impact on the story are all female. The game didn't manage to introduce a single male character, and the ones that came up were played for laughs. And even though the devs talked big game about inclusivity, theres not a single new character that sticks out - you get a gay old white dude and a fiery latina kid, amazing, i know.
Their mold breaking non-binary character was fl4k, a playable robotic hunter that looks masculine, has a masculine voice and acts masculine, but really is non-binary, just trust us (even though hes a robot, so literally binary with 1 and 0s). Its the most low effort inclusivity addition ive ever seen in my life, cause, if i didn't knew about it via articles and tweets of people gushing about it, literally nothing in game reveals this - and ive played this character extensively. The other playable characters are: a boring white chick, a boring black chick and a boring irish dude. I have no clue how they managed for a robot to have more character and personality than all other human characters combined.
"But pav", i hear you asking "ya said this game is inclusive, but aside of robot and feisty latina, there isnt much there?". Thats where ya is wrong - ya see, the true panopticum of races, gender and sexuality is found in enemies, so you end up slaughtering thousands of women and minorities during your game time, a feat that is only rivaled by all dem banned far-right games. As a cherry on top, the aforementioned fl4k has a skill called dominance, with which you can enslave enemies for a short while by bashing them in the face - and considering you fight a lot of poc's, i'll let you make the connection.
Maybe im just too old school, but mowing down and spilling guts of women and minorities just seems wrong. But, with gore upped again for this game, it proves the old saying right - on the inside, we are all the same <3
Representation in media and why it's good/bad
Posted 6 years agoLately, i've been finding myself discussing the topic of representation of POC, Women, LGBTQ+ and such with increasing number of people, both on the left and right end of spectrum, collecting a serious number of Nazi,Bigot, Communist, SJW and such from either side. This stems from my argument that representation, while not bad, is usually done rather heavy handedly or straight up insulting, both to the audience and people it claims to represent. Before i get to the meat of it, it must be said that i tend to generalize for expediancy sakes and that im well aware there are enough people and circumstances that dont fit the "norm", so dont worry, I dont do it with malicious intent or ignorance. With that said...
Representation is the easiest thing to do and, ironically, extremly easy to fuck up. Ya want to represent a certain minority? BOOM, just add them. Thats the gist of it and nobody in their right mind will complain about it, unless they are part of the group that hates that minority, in which case, fuck em. Where things get complicated is when chosing the media where to represent them. Movies, as a staple, are visual (duh) and actions usually shape the character more than the words do. Some minority representation works easier here (just plonk a PoC in and ya is done) while things like sexuality are rather...complicated, to say the least. Due to the way this particular media conveys the message, you NEED to work the sexuality into the story somehow if one wants to convey it, cause, for all intent and purposes, unless clearly shown, each character could be anything. There are plethora of ways to do this - in the past, it was done via stereotypes (hello lisping gay!) or by a sudden reveal (see Paranorman), but since both ways were played for laughs, they are hardly worth of being called Representation, since the intended group was played for laughs. You can also have the character state they are gay, a tactic that usually brings the run of the movie to a grinding halt, since you dont really have people stating out loud what sexuality they see themselves drawn to. Easiest would be is to give the character a boyfriend, hint at it or put him in situation where it becomes apparent. All of these are rather glaring, but as said, portraying sexuality elegantly is really, REALLY hard in a pure action and visual media. I might be alone on this, but i still think that Mortal Kombat X, of all people, did it rather elegantly with Kung Jin, a scene so good it was WASTED on that shit game. Umbrella Academy, a series on Netflix, also hat a rather great gay character (Klaus) who was, despite somewhat stereotypical, a very well written and deep character. What im getting at, representation of sexuality can and should be done, but HOW its done is the issue here.
After all, all these things are just facettes of persons personality - a straight guy doesnt ALWAYS date a girl, think of girls or fuck girls, and given the scope of most movies, we only see a interesting moment of that persons life. For all we know, James Bond only woos girls during the time we see him as part of his Spy job, to get info or closer to the target - he could be a leather daddy banging twinks as soon as the camera looks away for all we know. I know, bad example, but example non the less. What im trying to hint at, the sexuality of a person isnt their whole thing, their only label and, if one wants to point at that aspect of their personality, one needs to incorporate it organically - unless the goal is only to pander and put labels. Like with Overwatch, where Traces and Soldier 76 are lesbian/gay in the west, but turn suddenly straight when the game is promoted in countries that arent as liberal with the LGBTQ+ movement - id see it as an insult, personally, since the big company is using my identity to promote itself in the eyes of the public, but what do I know...
So far, there isn't a problem with representation at all - after all, all these people exist in real life, so its only fitting to portray them in media as well. Where this starts to be a problem is when you try to do this with properties that are already established and one does it extremly wrong. I'll take Witcher as an example here - the big kerfuffle with it was portraying certain characters by PoC actors. Now, witcher, while fantasy, is heavily based on polish history, a country that, at best of times, had so little PoC running around that they wrote it down when one of em showed so far up north. Tha majority of characters you meet in games are also white as snow, so pushing for the 50% PoC representation here is not only wrong towards the material, but also insulting to polish people, This setting would prove a much more fertile ground for sexuality and gender representation, but NOT racial representation. If they really, REALLY want to have their cake and fuck it, send witcher down south, let him meet new and interesting characters instead of taking established ones and changing them up. And thats the gist here - taking an established character and changing them up. This is a hit or miss and is one of those things that best works on case by case basis. I watched Gotham, for example, and there are a lot of PoC actors playing canonically white characters in it, but the SETTING allows this, so I never raised an eyebrow at that. Also, taking an established property and changing up the main character with minority/gender/sexuality works if you can explain it in canon. For captain america, for example, there were many cases where the title was passed on, so you can plop anyone in there with no problems. Batman is a more difficult thing to do, since bruce wayne and his backstory plays such a huge part in it - so, he could pass the title on, but he would still need to kinda stick around. You can make Thor female, but that gets us to the actual reason people have a heavy dislike for representation - Politics.
Its one thing to have a female Thor, but a tottally different one if the said Thor-ette(?) spouts feminist politics and beats up the eeeeevil misoginists, Its one thing to have a gay character, and other thing to have him spouting walls of text how oppressed they are and how they cant gay it up like proper gay cause of gay hating bashers. Once the entertainment media starts preaching, it tends to get ugly. Its even uglier cause, in most cases, the creators are so dead set on passing on a message that they dont bother making a GOOD movie, like with Black Panther, where every white person was being racist and condescending to to such a silly level, that I couldnt take it seriously. And ofcourse, the movie preached - a lot. If it was a fun action movie to watch, these moments could be overlooked. But it was such a boring movie with pretty drab action scenes so the moments it was politicizing stuck out like sore thumbs. I know this movie was deemed as important to African American community (at least, the media deemed it that way), but putting heavy politics in what is essentially a popcorn cinema is kinda missing the point. Now, one can say, im a white person and this movie wasnt meant for me - and yes, Im slav, and this movie was just pure racism, just not for the usual racist crowd.
And yeah, to sum it up - representation good; representation to convey politics bad; representation to manipulate public to think you are great - awful.
Representation is the easiest thing to do and, ironically, extremly easy to fuck up. Ya want to represent a certain minority? BOOM, just add them. Thats the gist of it and nobody in their right mind will complain about it, unless they are part of the group that hates that minority, in which case, fuck em. Where things get complicated is when chosing the media where to represent them. Movies, as a staple, are visual (duh) and actions usually shape the character more than the words do. Some minority representation works easier here (just plonk a PoC in and ya is done) while things like sexuality are rather...complicated, to say the least. Due to the way this particular media conveys the message, you NEED to work the sexuality into the story somehow if one wants to convey it, cause, for all intent and purposes, unless clearly shown, each character could be anything. There are plethora of ways to do this - in the past, it was done via stereotypes (hello lisping gay!) or by a sudden reveal (see Paranorman), but since both ways were played for laughs, they are hardly worth of being called Representation, since the intended group was played for laughs. You can also have the character state they are gay, a tactic that usually brings the run of the movie to a grinding halt, since you dont really have people stating out loud what sexuality they see themselves drawn to. Easiest would be is to give the character a boyfriend, hint at it or put him in situation where it becomes apparent. All of these are rather glaring, but as said, portraying sexuality elegantly is really, REALLY hard in a pure action and visual media. I might be alone on this, but i still think that Mortal Kombat X, of all people, did it rather elegantly with Kung Jin, a scene so good it was WASTED on that shit game. Umbrella Academy, a series on Netflix, also hat a rather great gay character (Klaus) who was, despite somewhat stereotypical, a very well written and deep character. What im getting at, representation of sexuality can and should be done, but HOW its done is the issue here.
After all, all these things are just facettes of persons personality - a straight guy doesnt ALWAYS date a girl, think of girls or fuck girls, and given the scope of most movies, we only see a interesting moment of that persons life. For all we know, James Bond only woos girls during the time we see him as part of his Spy job, to get info or closer to the target - he could be a leather daddy banging twinks as soon as the camera looks away for all we know. I know, bad example, but example non the less. What im trying to hint at, the sexuality of a person isnt their whole thing, their only label and, if one wants to point at that aspect of their personality, one needs to incorporate it organically - unless the goal is only to pander and put labels. Like with Overwatch, where Traces and Soldier 76 are lesbian/gay in the west, but turn suddenly straight when the game is promoted in countries that arent as liberal with the LGBTQ+ movement - id see it as an insult, personally, since the big company is using my identity to promote itself in the eyes of the public, but what do I know...
So far, there isn't a problem with representation at all - after all, all these people exist in real life, so its only fitting to portray them in media as well. Where this starts to be a problem is when you try to do this with properties that are already established and one does it extremly wrong. I'll take Witcher as an example here - the big kerfuffle with it was portraying certain characters by PoC actors. Now, witcher, while fantasy, is heavily based on polish history, a country that, at best of times, had so little PoC running around that they wrote it down when one of em showed so far up north. Tha majority of characters you meet in games are also white as snow, so pushing for the 50% PoC representation here is not only wrong towards the material, but also insulting to polish people, This setting would prove a much more fertile ground for sexuality and gender representation, but NOT racial representation. If they really, REALLY want to have their cake and fuck it, send witcher down south, let him meet new and interesting characters instead of taking established ones and changing them up. And thats the gist here - taking an established character and changing them up. This is a hit or miss and is one of those things that best works on case by case basis. I watched Gotham, for example, and there are a lot of PoC actors playing canonically white characters in it, but the SETTING allows this, so I never raised an eyebrow at that. Also, taking an established property and changing up the main character with minority/gender/sexuality works if you can explain it in canon. For captain america, for example, there were many cases where the title was passed on, so you can plop anyone in there with no problems. Batman is a more difficult thing to do, since bruce wayne and his backstory plays such a huge part in it - so, he could pass the title on, but he would still need to kinda stick around. You can make Thor female, but that gets us to the actual reason people have a heavy dislike for representation - Politics.
Its one thing to have a female Thor, but a tottally different one if the said Thor-ette(?) spouts feminist politics and beats up the eeeeevil misoginists, Its one thing to have a gay character, and other thing to have him spouting walls of text how oppressed they are and how they cant gay it up like proper gay cause of gay hating bashers. Once the entertainment media starts preaching, it tends to get ugly. Its even uglier cause, in most cases, the creators are so dead set on passing on a message that they dont bother making a GOOD movie, like with Black Panther, where every white person was being racist and condescending to to such a silly level, that I couldnt take it seriously. And ofcourse, the movie preached - a lot. If it was a fun action movie to watch, these moments could be overlooked. But it was such a boring movie with pretty drab action scenes so the moments it was politicizing stuck out like sore thumbs. I know this movie was deemed as important to African American community (at least, the media deemed it that way), but putting heavy politics in what is essentially a popcorn cinema is kinda missing the point. Now, one can say, im a white person and this movie wasnt meant for me - and yes, Im slav, and this movie was just pure racism, just not for the usual racist crowd.
And yeah, to sum it up - representation good; representation to convey politics bad; representation to manipulate public to think you are great - awful.
Commissions closed
Posted 7 years agoUntil further notice~
Pipe Dream: The Game - Main Character Species Poll
Posted 9 years agoSo, the closer I get to writing the actual scenes out, the more i ask myself what species the main character should be. The characters and the locations are done with - 17 characters, with probably 1-2 more entering the fray before im done, as well as many locations to visit on the farm.
Now, as for the main character, ive decided after some thinking about it to just make a male side of the story for several reasons - since this is one man project that i actually want finished and cause im not good writing from female perspective. So, ill stick to male protagonist - there will be enough content to offset the single gender approach tho. Now, the reason im writing this jounal in the first place, is cause i want to decide on the species - my instinct is to write it as a canine, but i want to hear what people think about it.
The species i can offer are: Canine, Feline, Reptile, Equine, Avian, Vulpine.
As for the subspecies, ill think about it after deciding on the main thing ^^ Just write down in journal what species youd like to see PC being
Some more details about the content - its a rather straightforward text adventure for the most part, with some light puzzle solving and higher aspect on players choice. The player can interact with each character, and each has several sex-scenes and dialogue tree to unlock and explore. As for the art side, each character will have a pic, as wall as each location and scene. As for the scope, i will keep it rather small since the goal of this project is to familiarize myself with the whole thing - that meaning, the fetishes featured in the game will be vanilla, with BDSM and voyeurism being the the ones most out there.
The game itself is free - since its only me working on the thing, and me being me, i dont see a sense of putting a price tag on something that will be my first work i tend to show to the good world. Ill set up a donation button though once the game is mostly done, for sake of getting some sound design in and polishing the text part. Buh, all in good time :D
Now, as for the main character, ive decided after some thinking about it to just make a male side of the story for several reasons - since this is one man project that i actually want finished and cause im not good writing from female perspective. So, ill stick to male protagonist - there will be enough content to offset the single gender approach tho. Now, the reason im writing this jounal in the first place, is cause i want to decide on the species - my instinct is to write it as a canine, but i want to hear what people think about it.
The species i can offer are: Canine, Feline, Reptile, Equine, Avian, Vulpine.
As for the subspecies, ill think about it after deciding on the main thing ^^ Just write down in journal what species youd like to see PC being
Some more details about the content - its a rather straightforward text adventure for the most part, with some light puzzle solving and higher aspect on players choice. The player can interact with each character, and each has several sex-scenes and dialogue tree to unlock and explore. As for the art side, each character will have a pic, as wall as each location and scene. As for the scope, i will keep it rather small since the goal of this project is to familiarize myself with the whole thing - that meaning, the fetishes featured in the game will be vanilla, with BDSM and voyeurism being the the ones most out there.
The game itself is free - since its only me working on the thing, and me being me, i dont see a sense of putting a price tag on something that will be my first work i tend to show to the good world. Ill set up a donation button though once the game is mostly done, for sake of getting some sound design in and polishing the text part. Buh, all in good time :D
Burfday nonsense
Posted 9 years agoSince its my birthday and all, i thought id share the joys with ya guys. Comment at this journal with "Live long and hard" for a crudely drawn dick in yer inbox in next hour.
Update: Thank ya all for participating - three people were blessed with crudely drawn dick and bad pun. See ya next year for more burfday nonsense :D
Update: Thank ya all for participating - three people were blessed with crudely drawn dick and bad pun. See ya next year for more burfday nonsense :D
You enter the tavern and scout it for partymembers (Update)
Posted 9 years agoI did this once in dark ages of my artsy-fartsy career, but kinda in mood to do it again - yah, wanna do sum "classy" pictures of some fantasy classes. WHy it would concern ya at all? Since by commenting on this journal with link to yer char, ill draw em as one of the classes i will list up. Just be aware, if the character is too hueg or feral, ill resize em to something more fitting and anthopomize em. Also, no ponies
Fighter
WolfwithGlasses - cuz doggies of all kind are gud protectors
Marksman
DracoSoftscales - Cuz dragons are well known for their marksmanship...
Mage
Kaiskune - and umies for their magick
Paladin
Myrilla - cause a herm paladin makes me chuckle
Thief
Hugin - cause they make *swiss* sound when they steal shit
Elementalist
ZhirVolk - Cause Elementalist are just Mages with lots of dosh
Tinkerer
Stray - cause ya need to be tiny to tinker around with hueg ass muskets
Necromancer/Demonologist (whichever i feel like)
WilsonJackal - jackal = god of death...im being boring here
Assassin![[Koh]](//a.furaffinity.net/20250912/[koh].gif "[Koh]")
[Koh] - cause this makes me giggle
Plaguedoctor
barcod - farts of death! Now in a bottle!
Zerker
Ashadan - it just...fits, y'know?
I think i has enuff people with me, so we can steal the declaration of independance from BBEG lich guy :D Thanks for everyone applying, expect your linearts sometime this month or so, for everyone else, thanks for applying, your application will be kept/forwarded for later use to our advertisers.
Fighter
WolfwithGlasses - cuz doggies of all kind are gud protectorsMarksman
DracoSoftscales - Cuz dragons are well known for their marksmanship...Mage
Kaiskune - and umies for their magickPaladin
Myrilla - cause a herm paladin makes me chuckleThief
Hugin - cause they make *swiss* sound when they steal shitElementalist
ZhirVolk - Cause Elementalist are just Mages with lots of doshTinkerer
Stray - cause ya need to be tiny to tinker around with hueg ass musketsNecromancer/Demonologist (whichever i feel like)
WilsonJackal - jackal = god of death...im being boring hereAssassin
![[Koh]](http://a.furaffinity.net/20250912/[koh].gif "[Koh]")
[Koh] - cause this makes me gigglePlaguedoctor
barcod - farts of death! Now in a bottle!Zerker
Ashadan - it just...fits, y'know?I think i has enuff people with me, so we can steal the declaration of independance from BBEG lich guy :D Thanks for everyone applying, expect your linearts sometime this month or so, for everyone else, thanks for applying, your application will be kept/forwarded for later use to our advertisers.
Fall of Duty 4 - Why Fallout 4 sucks
Posted 10 years agoIn the very first mission, you enter the power armor, which is more like a mech now, rip a minigun from a chopper and kill a deathclaw - thats all you need to know.
We are all special \o/
Posted 10 years ago Before we begin, some things to clarify. Anything said here is entirely from my personal point of view and I dont seek to challenge anyones stance on this matter, just share my take on the subject. Second, with "special", I mean "unique" and an euphemism for intellectual disability.
To bring anyone up to speed on what the argument is about, the whole idea of a person being special, something ingrained into our minds since we are mere kids, is challenged by the fact that the society is so big that a single person is not as important and feeling entitled for being special is something that will anger most people. As being special, we usually refer to a talent or possitve character trait of some sort – be it mental or physical one – and thus something that elevates the said person. Argument can be made that there are enough people who lack any kind of talents, but thats a discussion for another time. The fact is, in a society as big as ours, most talents wont really matter in the long run and some are even despised by the most (like hunting – it takes talent and effort to be able to track and slay an animal, but in our society, it has become a hobby and not a question of survival as in the past). Most will connect that a person feeling unique in some way is automatically entitelment and treatment of others as something less (even though no talent is needed for this egocentric PoV). As far as im concerned – we are all special and we aren't at the same time.
Now, this might seem lika strange thing to say – how can we be special and not at the same time? Well, it depends how you view the whole special tag. It is true, with the most desirable talents, there is thousands of people with the same trait, so to take something close to home – you can draw, so can most of human population, thus, you aren't unique. And that brings us to the core of the problem – due to how HUGE the number of people living on this planet at this moment is, the chances of a person having even one unique trait is impossible. And seeing that a society sets standards as to what the desirable talents are, most people wont be able to bring their strong sides into the game since their role is either shunned or not needed any longer – thus, we are left with even smaller pool of talents, capping off more and more people from the "desirable" side and leaving them out. So, in the end, the counter argument is true – nobody is special and we are just one of many. BUT!
As said before, we ARE special. But not in the "better than the rest" kind of way. Or even in number of talents we posess. We are special since we are the most important person in our lives. Nobody is as important to yourself as you are – and that is the very thing that keeps us alive. True, we might put importance in other people, animals or things – but in the end, we are always left with ourselves, spending every single moment of our lives with us. And with that comes the fact that every person is a unique cosmos – with their own view of world and feelings. It doesnt matter if society doesnt see us as rich people as we truly are, as long as we know that we are. You dont NEED the fancy talents and traits as long as you realize that you are perfect as you are and only judging your worth by the standards set up by the society you are living in. Kill a person and you will kill a whole universe.
But, with this realisation comes another one – everyone else is also like that, the most important person in their life. So, even if you know your worth, realize that everyone has the same one as you and thus, nobody is obligated to harm themselves for sake of others. Respect is the keyword here – treat others well and defend your turf, nobody is your play thing and you aren't anyones either. Find your niche in the society and prosper without hurting anyone...and thats better than a society full of entiteled jagg-offs or gray mass with no individuality either~
To bring anyone up to speed on what the argument is about, the whole idea of a person being special, something ingrained into our minds since we are mere kids, is challenged by the fact that the society is so big that a single person is not as important and feeling entitled for being special is something that will anger most people. As being special, we usually refer to a talent or possitve character trait of some sort – be it mental or physical one – and thus something that elevates the said person. Argument can be made that there are enough people who lack any kind of talents, but thats a discussion for another time. The fact is, in a society as big as ours, most talents wont really matter in the long run and some are even despised by the most (like hunting – it takes talent and effort to be able to track and slay an animal, but in our society, it has become a hobby and not a question of survival as in the past). Most will connect that a person feeling unique in some way is automatically entitelment and treatment of others as something less (even though no talent is needed for this egocentric PoV). As far as im concerned – we are all special and we aren't at the same time.
Now, this might seem lika strange thing to say – how can we be special and not at the same time? Well, it depends how you view the whole special tag. It is true, with the most desirable talents, there is thousands of people with the same trait, so to take something close to home – you can draw, so can most of human population, thus, you aren't unique. And that brings us to the core of the problem – due to how HUGE the number of people living on this planet at this moment is, the chances of a person having even one unique trait is impossible. And seeing that a society sets standards as to what the desirable talents are, most people wont be able to bring their strong sides into the game since their role is either shunned or not needed any longer – thus, we are left with even smaller pool of talents, capping off more and more people from the "desirable" side and leaving them out. So, in the end, the counter argument is true – nobody is special and we are just one of many. BUT!
As said before, we ARE special. But not in the "better than the rest" kind of way. Or even in number of talents we posess. We are special since we are the most important person in our lives. Nobody is as important to yourself as you are – and that is the very thing that keeps us alive. True, we might put importance in other people, animals or things – but in the end, we are always left with ourselves, spending every single moment of our lives with us. And with that comes the fact that every person is a unique cosmos – with their own view of world and feelings. It doesnt matter if society doesnt see us as rich people as we truly are, as long as we know that we are. You dont NEED the fancy talents and traits as long as you realize that you are perfect as you are and only judging your worth by the standards set up by the society you are living in. Kill a person and you will kill a whole universe.
But, with this realisation comes another one – everyone else is also like that, the most important person in their life. So, even if you know your worth, realize that everyone has the same one as you and thus, nobody is obligated to harm themselves for sake of others. Respect is the keyword here – treat others well and defend your turf, nobody is your play thing and you aren't anyones either. Find your niche in the society and prosper without hurting anyone...and thats better than a society full of entiteled jagg-offs or gray mass with no individuality either~
MKX - Great game and why you should NOT buy it
Posted 10 years agoIt's been more than a month since I got the game, but my usual way to rant about something, long after everyone who was at least interested in the topic jumped the ship long ago, has finally paid out - I have even MORE to rant about :D
Now, after all the hype and the great predecessor (MK9), the game is just as I expected it to be - great fighting game. The formula was expended, it plays really good since it allows more options during the fight now with a great cast of characters, each with their own playstyle (although, ya can still categorize them as slasher, brawler, range etc.). The great new thing are the variations - each character comes with three and each one of them alter the style a bit or a lot, changing characters abillities and thus their fighting style. For example, Scorpion turns from hard melee brawler (ninjitsu) to controlling the battlefield while utilizing his skillset and combo to devastate enemies (inferno). It might not seem like much, but even the characters one wouldnt usualy play since they are way out of their comfort zone have at least one variation that suits ones needs.
The rhythm of fight has also changed with return of brutalities, last seen in their rudamentary version in MK3UT - unlike other finishers, brutalities never break the flow of the fight and feel more rewarding that way. Some are easy to do (do special move x for x times, finish the match with x), while others are rather hard to achieve (do a 6 attack combo and finish it with x move) - depending on your skill or knowledge of character, there is always a way to finish the battle with one of these. Fatalities are back as per usual, and even as they are rather gory comparred to previous games, they feel awfully token (hold onto that word, i will come back to it) - mainly cause they give the minimal reward comparred to other finishers and also since the game has a glitch that pops up every now and then, the fatality failing to be performed (you do the fatality, but instead of seeing it, you just wait like a dolt with other guy swaying around until the game notices it and finishes the match). Aside of one more kind of finisher, there is hardly anything else - babilities and friendships are missing, same as with stage fatalities (although, there are stage brutalities that are hidden really well, thus feeling more rewarding when done).
One major addition is the Faction system - basically, you chose a faction and contribute points to it by fulfilling daily tasks, doing towers or playing against other players. You are rewarded with parts for your banner and more faction specific finishers, so called faction kills (basically, letting someone off screen do the dirty work for ya). At the end of the week, one faction wins, thus unlocking the fifth finisher, bunch of banner stuff and koins. The whole thing feels rather token, since one hardly has the feeling that ones work contributes to anything and the lack of any feedback also quickly drains any interest in the whole thing. You just do the do, switch to the winning faction one hour before the weeks end and do a single tower, and you won...yay and stuff.
The towers themselves are expanded upon - now you have your klassic tower, test your luck and strength towers as well as endless and survival tower for single player. If you play online, you also have daily, hourly and weekly towers, each of them having a specific theme (like, weekly tower basing its char roster on previous MK games or hourly tower being all about a certain gimmick, like having an armor growing stronger by each fight). The online modes are extensive - from simple one on one fight to 5 v 5 and such, ya got everything there - sadly, I havent played the online mode much to really talk about it, at least, not positive stuff.
Story mode felt rather lacking this time around - rather short and concentrating on just a handful of characters. The story itself and setting aint that bad, but it feels rather rushed at moments and bad guys dont feel that much of a obsticle - comparred to the MK9 story mode, this time around you can rush through it with little to no effort. The QTEs are a mixed batch - i didnt mind them, since ya cant really fail by missing all buttons and ya wont get any penalty, but if ya do them perfectly (which aint hard), you get - ya guessed it - shit for yer banner. Let me just say few things about the banner - its a nice thing that allows you to addapt it to your game style - certain characters, certain finishers or techniques - you can even make a set to recieve certain things, like more faction XP, personal XP or Koins. Speaking of coins, the Krypt this time around is great, like a game inside a game. It looks and plays like Legend of grimrock, although the random "fights" or jump scares are fought with a qte. The cost of certain items is really high, which brings us fluently to the reasons why you should NOT buy this game!
WHile the game itself is one of the better fighting games, the whole thing surrounding it is shameful. PC port performs like shit, even after two giant patches - only lobster people from outter space could botch it even harder. The steam version came with the "new and improved way to download your games!", which worked as bad as expected. The game downloads only a bare bones version of it, the rest downloading 'while you play'. It must be said that i could play this game a day after it was released, due to this fucked up idea, most people having issues even after downloading all 27 partial downloads. I can only assume that console port was handled better, but i wouldn't know.
The second big downside are the micro transactions. From pressing x to play goro (who is already on disk, mind you) to easy fatality tokens (see, told ya to hold onto it), it really leaves one with bitter aftertaste. Where things go from shameful to criminal is the fact that the latest patch on PC wiped most people save games. While the patch was fixed and relaunched, most save games were gone - krypt unlockables and all. Funny enough, the "Unlock everything in Krypt" DLC launched around that time for 20€ and if that doesnt stink, then i dont know. The net code is bugy as fuck, sometimes crashing, sometimes failing to connect (even though it was far worse before it was "fixed") - even so, the lag in 90% of the games is too high to do anything meaningful, so the online play aint fun nor alluring, which to me explains wait times of up to 1 hour for 5 v 5 matches.
In the end, it is a great game, but i would advise anyone not to support the product nor the company with their borderline criminal attitude towards our wallets and temper. This game, even in its polished form, represents all that is wrong with tripple A and gaming industry in general - the greed chasing away people from potentionally great games. It killed Dead Space, and now Im afraid they want to kill off MK too. At least i still got disciples...oh, wait :/
Now, after all the hype and the great predecessor (MK9), the game is just as I expected it to be - great fighting game. The formula was expended, it plays really good since it allows more options during the fight now with a great cast of characters, each with their own playstyle (although, ya can still categorize them as slasher, brawler, range etc.). The great new thing are the variations - each character comes with three and each one of them alter the style a bit or a lot, changing characters abillities and thus their fighting style. For example, Scorpion turns from hard melee brawler (ninjitsu) to controlling the battlefield while utilizing his skillset and combo to devastate enemies (inferno). It might not seem like much, but even the characters one wouldnt usualy play since they are way out of their comfort zone have at least one variation that suits ones needs.
The rhythm of fight has also changed with return of brutalities, last seen in their rudamentary version in MK3UT - unlike other finishers, brutalities never break the flow of the fight and feel more rewarding that way. Some are easy to do (do special move x for x times, finish the match with x), while others are rather hard to achieve (do a 6 attack combo and finish it with x move) - depending on your skill or knowledge of character, there is always a way to finish the battle with one of these. Fatalities are back as per usual, and even as they are rather gory comparred to previous games, they feel awfully token (hold onto that word, i will come back to it) - mainly cause they give the minimal reward comparred to other finishers and also since the game has a glitch that pops up every now and then, the fatality failing to be performed (you do the fatality, but instead of seeing it, you just wait like a dolt with other guy swaying around until the game notices it and finishes the match). Aside of one more kind of finisher, there is hardly anything else - babilities and friendships are missing, same as with stage fatalities (although, there are stage brutalities that are hidden really well, thus feeling more rewarding when done).
One major addition is the Faction system - basically, you chose a faction and contribute points to it by fulfilling daily tasks, doing towers or playing against other players. You are rewarded with parts for your banner and more faction specific finishers, so called faction kills (basically, letting someone off screen do the dirty work for ya). At the end of the week, one faction wins, thus unlocking the fifth finisher, bunch of banner stuff and koins. The whole thing feels rather token, since one hardly has the feeling that ones work contributes to anything and the lack of any feedback also quickly drains any interest in the whole thing. You just do the do, switch to the winning faction one hour before the weeks end and do a single tower, and you won...yay and stuff.
The towers themselves are expanded upon - now you have your klassic tower, test your luck and strength towers as well as endless and survival tower for single player. If you play online, you also have daily, hourly and weekly towers, each of them having a specific theme (like, weekly tower basing its char roster on previous MK games or hourly tower being all about a certain gimmick, like having an armor growing stronger by each fight). The online modes are extensive - from simple one on one fight to 5 v 5 and such, ya got everything there - sadly, I havent played the online mode much to really talk about it, at least, not positive stuff.
Story mode felt rather lacking this time around - rather short and concentrating on just a handful of characters. The story itself and setting aint that bad, but it feels rather rushed at moments and bad guys dont feel that much of a obsticle - comparred to the MK9 story mode, this time around you can rush through it with little to no effort. The QTEs are a mixed batch - i didnt mind them, since ya cant really fail by missing all buttons and ya wont get any penalty, but if ya do them perfectly (which aint hard), you get - ya guessed it - shit for yer banner. Let me just say few things about the banner - its a nice thing that allows you to addapt it to your game style - certain characters, certain finishers or techniques - you can even make a set to recieve certain things, like more faction XP, personal XP or Koins. Speaking of coins, the Krypt this time around is great, like a game inside a game. It looks and plays like Legend of grimrock, although the random "fights" or jump scares are fought with a qte. The cost of certain items is really high, which brings us fluently to the reasons why you should NOT buy this game!
WHile the game itself is one of the better fighting games, the whole thing surrounding it is shameful. PC port performs like shit, even after two giant patches - only lobster people from outter space could botch it even harder. The steam version came with the "new and improved way to download your games!", which worked as bad as expected. The game downloads only a bare bones version of it, the rest downloading 'while you play'. It must be said that i could play this game a day after it was released, due to this fucked up idea, most people having issues even after downloading all 27 partial downloads. I can only assume that console port was handled better, but i wouldn't know.
The second big downside are the micro transactions. From pressing x to play goro (who is already on disk, mind you) to easy fatality tokens (see, told ya to hold onto it), it really leaves one with bitter aftertaste. Where things go from shameful to criminal is the fact that the latest patch on PC wiped most people save games. While the patch was fixed and relaunched, most save games were gone - krypt unlockables and all. Funny enough, the "Unlock everything in Krypt" DLC launched around that time for 20€ and if that doesnt stink, then i dont know. The net code is bugy as fuck, sometimes crashing, sometimes failing to connect (even though it was far worse before it was "fixed") - even so, the lag in 90% of the games is too high to do anything meaningful, so the online play aint fun nor alluring, which to me explains wait times of up to 1 hour for 5 v 5 matches.
In the end, it is a great game, but i would advise anyone not to support the product nor the company with their borderline criminal attitude towards our wallets and temper. This game, even in its polished form, represents all that is wrong with tripple A and gaming industry in general - the greed chasing away people from potentionally great games. It killed Dead Space, and now Im afraid they want to kill off MK too. At least i still got disciples...oh, wait :/
Opening Lineart Commissions
Posted 10 years agoAs of now, I'm open for lineart commissions - three slots, to be exact, 20€ each (+2.5€ for background, +2.5€ for each character starting with third). Wont bother anyone with the reasons why im only opening lineart commissions instead of the full collored ones, but yush - if anyone is interested, please send me a note with description and refs. You get Art and I dont get to loose pounds due starvation - It's a win-win :D
Slots
1.
- finished
2.
3. open
Slots
1.
- finished2.
3. open
Free games!
Posted 11 years agoI got myself the last humble bundle and still got three games to give away for steam, so - dig in!
Deadlight Taken!
Terraria Taken!
Legend Of Grimrock Taken!
If ya pick up the game, drop a comment!
If ya have a problem with the link, drop me a note :D
Deadlight Taken!
Terraria Taken!
Legend Of Grimrock Taken!
If ya pick up the game, drop a comment!
If ya have a problem with the link, drop me a note :D
Commissions Open yet again!
Posted 11 years agoAnother month, another five slots open :O Sadly, due to tight work plan this month, i wont be able to make the same offer like past two months (get a pic and a free pic of lower quality extra). Prices are as usual (20€ for lineart, 40€ for color, Background +2,50€(L)/5€© extra, Extra characters +2,50€(L)/5€© for each starting with third), so if you are interested, just send me a note :3
Slots
1. <open>
2. <open>
3. <open>
4. <open>
5. <open>
Slots
1. <open>
2. <open>
3. <open>
4. <open>
5. <open>
"Dont let Pav starve to death" Commissions Offer
Posted 11 years agoYet again, new month, new offer :3 Seeing that the last months offer went good, i will do it one more time: commission a pic and get a pic of one tier lower quality free! Meaning, if ya commission colored pic, get lineart free of charge! If ya commission lineart, get a sketch free of charge! Prices as usual (20€ for lineart, 40€ for color, Background +2,50€(L)/5€© extra, Extra characters +2,50€(L)/5€© for each starting with third). Also, seeing that few people gave me a tip or two last month, im opening my paypal (archangel@gmx.at) for those - just if ya want to help Pav survive yet another month and prolong his life :3 If you are interested, do send me a note :D
Slots
1.
2.
3. <open>
4. <open>
5, <open>
Slots
1.
2.
3. <open>
4. <open>
5, <open>
Group for Furies from Balkan
Posted 11 years agoSeeing that, even though there are enough people from balkan that are using this website nobody bothered to create a group, i went ahead and pushed one out on my own. At first, I wanted to create serbian fur group, but seeing that i met more than enough furies from other balkan countries, i decided to make the group for them all :D So, if you live or orginate from one of thise countries and are still interested about the fury scene there, feel free to join - lets leave the history behind and be fur buds ^^
Also, the group
Also, the group
Regarding my Tutorials - need someone to proofread dem
Posted 11 years agoHey there everyone!
First of all, thank everyone for the feedback for the "How to Draw" tutorials ive been making - I'm very happy to find out that lot of people found both enjoyment and help in these! But, there is something thats been bugging me from day one...namely, the grammar and wording of the tutorials.
It comes to no surprise when i tell that english is not my main language, meaning that the wording and grammar tend to be okayish to poor, depending when i write this stuff down. The main diffculity arises from me creating the sentances the serbian way, using german grammar and just translating in english - it's a comlicated process, but anyone with different native language trying to write in another language will understand :3
So, what I need is someone willing to proofread these tutorials and, if need arises, rewrite them. I cant offer any payment aside of my thanks and those of people using the tutorials, so that might be a downside. Also seeing that I want to put these tutorials together in a PDF once they are done and distribute it for free, the final version will have more text and descriptions coming on. So, if you are interested in helping me out, just leave a comment :3
I thank you bois and gals in advance ^^
First of all, thank everyone for the feedback for the "How to Draw" tutorials ive been making - I'm very happy to find out that lot of people found both enjoyment and help in these! But, there is something thats been bugging me from day one...namely, the grammar and wording of the tutorials.
It comes to no surprise when i tell that english is not my main language, meaning that the wording and grammar tend to be okayish to poor, depending when i write this stuff down. The main diffculity arises from me creating the sentances the serbian way, using german grammar and just translating in english - it's a comlicated process, but anyone with different native language trying to write in another language will understand :3
So, what I need is someone willing to proofread these tutorials and, if need arises, rewrite them. I cant offer any payment aside of my thanks and those of people using the tutorials, so that might be a downside. Also seeing that I want to put these tutorials together in a PDF once they are done and distribute it for free, the final version will have more text and descriptions coming on. So, if you are interested in helping me out, just leave a comment :3
I thank you bois and gals in advance ^^
Current Projects and whats new
Posted 11 years agoSo, with the commissions finished, I can happily say that i will survive this month :D Thanks again to all people who commissioned me and also those that sent me some tips, you guys are the best ^^ Also worth mentioning is the fact that i passed my 3k watcher count! I dont plan anything special for that, but still, I'm much amazed by the fact that so many people enjoy my irregullar artwork ;D
So, one new thing is that i wont be taking any SL commissions any longer. Why, you ask? Since i quitted SL for good - my account is in hands of a dear friend, so my chances of coming back are barelly existent. I will take this chance to thank all the people i met there for the fun time, but sometimes, leaving a status quo behind is the only way to move on.
As for current projects, i will be concentrating on video game art, stuff i cant really show around, but for ya bois and girls, i have other things in store. For one thing, the tutorials are still going strong - the problem im currently having is how to tackle the whole weapon design tutorials. I would need to cover the basics before begining talkign about how to actually draw weapons at all, and that might take quite a few tutorial pages. So, I decided to limit myself to handheld weaponry with reference to the bigger guns when appropriate.
Also in working is a porn comic - yes, I finally decided to do one, because i want to cover some ground previously hardly attended. The base will be a short story written by me, so we will see how that works out ^^
And, last but not least, i play on joining the patreon as part of the video game im working on. The thing i will be doing is - most probably - comic linked to the lore of the game, but that is still open :3
So, one new thing is that i wont be taking any SL commissions any longer. Why, you ask? Since i quitted SL for good - my account is in hands of a dear friend, so my chances of coming back are barelly existent. I will take this chance to thank all the people i met there for the fun time, but sometimes, leaving a status quo behind is the only way to move on.
As for current projects, i will be concentrating on video game art, stuff i cant really show around, but for ya bois and girls, i have other things in store. For one thing, the tutorials are still going strong - the problem im currently having is how to tackle the whole weapon design tutorials. I would need to cover the basics before begining talkign about how to actually draw weapons at all, and that might take quite a few tutorial pages. So, I decided to limit myself to handheld weaponry with reference to the bigger guns when appropriate.
Also in working is a porn comic - yes, I finally decided to do one, because i want to cover some ground previously hardly attended. The base will be a short story written by me, so we will see how that works out ^^
And, last but not least, i play on joining the patreon as part of the video game im working on. The thing i will be doing is - most probably - comic linked to the lore of the game, but that is still open :3
"Dont let Pav starve to death" Commissions with Extra Round2
Posted 11 years agoSame as before, I'm open for 5 more commissions - prices as usual (20€ for lineart, 40€ for color, Background +2,50€(L)/5€© extra, Extra characters +2,50€(L)/5€© for each starting with third). The Twist here - commission a colored piece, get a lineart free of charge! commission a lineart, get a sketch free of charge! So, dont let Pav starve and pay his bills for this rough month and get some free art while at it ;3 So, if you are interested, just send me a note :D
Although the first round went great, I'm still not at my goal - everything beyond this goal will be kept for next month :D
So, without further ado -
Slots
1. <open>
2. <open>
3. <open>
4. <open>
5, <open>
Although the first round went great, I'm still not at my goal - everything beyond this goal will be kept for next month :D
So, without further ado -
Slots
1. <open>
2. <open>
3. <open>
4. <open>
5, <open>
Commissions Open, or rather "Dont let Pav starve to death"
Posted 11 years agoSadly, due to some RL stuff going on, it seems i wont posess nuff money to keep me going this month - truth be told, I can survive for quite long on "Artist diet", but seeing i want to live past my thirties, something has to be done. Basically, I'm 300 € short this month and, to bridge this gap, I'm offering something special - commission a colored pic from me, and you get an extra lineart for free! Commission a lineart and you get a free sketch! Commission a sketch and youll get...erm...free extra sketch I supose? Either way, If you are looking for a commission, just go ahead and send me a note :D The prices are as usual~
And remember, with just one commission per month, you can keep pav going for few more years with healthy cuisine :3
Queue so far:
1st Block
1.
Kana (Done and uploaded)
2.
Nero_Lupatus (Done and uploaded)
3. kazen101 (Done and uploaded)
4.
phaenix
5. Bahumot (Done and uploaded)
2nd Block also open!
1. <open>
2. <open>
3. <open>
4. <open>
5. <open>
And remember, with just one commission per month, you can keep pav going for few more years with healthy cuisine :3
Queue so far:
1st Block
1.
Kana (Done and uploaded)2.
Nero_Lupatus (Done and uploaded)3.
kazen101 (Done and uploaded)4.
phaenix5.
Bahumot (Done and uploaded)2nd Block also open!
1. <open>
2. <open>
3. <open>
4. <open>
5. <open>
Tutorial ideas
Posted 11 years agoNow that i covered the basics in my "How to draw" tutorials, i was thinking about doing more tutorials, mostly about how to design characters, armor and weaponry, seeing (at least the last two) are one of mine main interests. What do ya bois and gals think?
How to Draw - Conclusion
Posted 11 years agoWell, with that last tutorial, I've finished the goal ive set up - i created a brief art tutorial that covers the basic topics needed for a person to start drawing :3 But, it aint really over - if you think there is another topic that needs to be covered, feel free to write it down in comments! Just remember to keep the whole thing PG - after all, I want as much people to be able to view these as possible ^^
P.S.: Always remember you got the touch!
P.S.: Always remember you got the touch!
