#digo speaks

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Me: Oh I'll just check tumblr before bed--

Literally my entire dash:

GOOD FOR HIM??? Coffin??????

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Imagine.... a pangkey soulmate AU where they switch bodies sometimes

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going to put forth a controversial thought:

so i was rewatching the cw s2 episodes with the mandalorian conflict and all, and i was thinking about those posts recently where people have been talking about the new mandalorians vs death watch. and i was having this thought. what does "traditional" actually mean when they call death watch that?

because. we SEE in the very first episode with satine and mandalore that the armour is mass produced, even the paint comes ready done. its not like theyre using traditional methods to make it or anything. other than that, and their warrior ways, we dont see much that is uniquely cultural to the "traditionalist" mandalorians, that new mandalorians dont also have.

based on this, i am beginning to wonder if the meaning of the word "traditionalist" is a very nice (child-friendly) way to say "fascist". HEAR ME OUT (i know some of u are gonna be thinking "it's star wars, the writing isn't this advanced/it's not that deep" but just HOLD ON FOR A SECOND OKAY).

first things first. in every single fascist ideology, you will find that they are ALWAYS looking back towards some kind of "glory days" "glory era" "glorious empire". so for italy thats the roman empire, for nazi germany its the holy roman empire, and you can even see it in modern USAmerican neo-fascists with 1950s housewives and "the good ole days" etc. ok so this is evidence nr. 1: death watch want to go back to the glorious empire days of yore, they want the mandalorian sector under their control. they want to be able to fight back against the republic -- evidenced by pre's statement to dooku: "my men are anxious to fight" (more on this in a sec), or when he says that satine is "tarnishing" their ancestors' memory. im very much getting empirical vibes from this, although i suppose it's not technically solid evidence? idk im not done watching yet

next, about the violence thing. strong military is a CLASSIC fascist characteristic. i think most people know this one. when dooku calls the death watch "your death watch army" i dont think thats lightly said, i think the writers knew exactly what they were doing when they put that wording in there. honestly, i think you could even infer here that the backstory for death watch (which, remember, is a REACTIONARY organisation formed in opposition of the new mandalorian government/movement/philosophy) is very similar to nazi germany; the "warriors" of mandalore (specifically that wording, not "traditionalists", not sure if that has significance but i think it could do) were exiled to a moon where the natural resources of have been removed with EXTREME prejudice -- the place is a wasteland. you could maybe then make the argument that one of their only exports/ways to make money is through their manpower -- hence the army(?). same thing that germany did/claimed to do. obviously there were other reasons for the sizing up of the german army at that time. but for death watch, thats just inference/speculation im making up on the spot here

the army thing is also not helped by the whole mass produced military armour thing they have going on. presumably they are also producing, or otherwise sourcing the weapons that death watch is using. not only does this imply a relatively impersonal connection to the "traditions" they are claiming to uphold, or we are told that they are upholding by outsiders (im not sure if they ever actually call themselves traditionalists? which is also an interesting detail - i guess if we're going with "traditionalist" being shorthand for fascist, they might not actually call themselves that. but again im not done with my watching), but it also feels like i'm being offered a very industrial vibe. which isnt a solid argument for my cause here i just associate industrialism with depersonalisation, war, abuse, sickness + death, etc. u know. class struggle, war rations! this type of thing. again thats just me and my little brain tho. maybe theres an argument in there somewhere idk

ive seen mentioned that because a lot of "traditional" mandalorians are poc, the new mandos must then be the colonists in this situation. but i think that is another case of star wars writers not reading the room, or wanting to lean into an "aesthetic" (vikings) and not fully unpacking or analysing what the hell theyre doing (which is, admittedly, very on brand). it is quite a bit weird that ursa wren, din djarin, and the fetts are all poc, and that death watch is led by a white man (pre vizsla) and opposing a bunch of white ppl. of course, the death watch mandos are all fully masked up the whole time (unless they take off helmets later on) so the only real confirmation we have is on those 4, and most of them arent even death watch. not that fascists have to be white to be fascists, but im trying to stay on track here

anyway i also feel like it's worth noting that they ARE backed by the sith, and palpatine in particular (a way more overtly fascistic character, which i think we all agree on but i suppose would be its own essay) as seen by the duchess of mandalore episode.

yeah anyway, based on all this, im like, so sure that the new mandalorians are meant to be the good guys (which like, i guess we already knew). satine is a flawed character, yes -- but look at how she changes! obi-wan suggests she's pushing her friends away in her bid for independence, and she changes! she asks for help! she's given some really fun development to mess around with and i love that. i dont think it reflects on the new mandalorian group as a whole though.

idk maybe this is all very influenced by my upbringing as a european whose country was occupied during the war, and whose country also had (HAS) a very significant right wing group (see: definition of the word quisling. side note, but this really reminds me of the whole demagol thing too). this could all be a massive reach. but im interested to hear people's thoughts on it!! i feel like death watch is often written off as "the bad guys" without much thought into what their actual beliefs and internal motivations are. even the vizslas dont seem to have much going on beyond "power hungry" in canon. i bet theyre actually really charismatic to their own troops somehow. but yeah. im rambling. tell me what ya think!!

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🌻

(x)

if YOU 🫵 download BLOCKBENCH (for free!!) and create a BEDROCK ENTITY (this can also be added to mc java if you would like to code that in)

and then ADD a NEW CUBE

and then using the MOVE and RESIZE tools ADD a FEW MORE....

and then INFLATE some of the cubes by 0.001 to GET RID of Z-FIGHTING

and then use the ROTATE tool to make the JOINTS look MORE NATURAL (and don't forget to centralise the pivot point using the button on the right!)

and then GROUP all the cubes you might want to ANIMATE into organised BONES (you can't animate the cubes themselves, only the "bones", or the folders you see below)

and then you go into your PAINT tab on the TOP RIGHT and click the CREATE TEXTURE button....

and then you PAINT your model (using the texture preview on the top left to make sure you don't miss any spots)

and then you go into your ANIMATE tab on the TOP RIGHT and click the NEW ANIMATION button on the TOP LEFT. rename the animation to IDLE and set it to LOOP (sorry i forgot to highlight that part....)

and then you start by making your model "breathe"; raising the Y-LEVEL of the BONE of MAIN BODY by a SMALL AMOUNT (I've done a value of two here) and INFLATING it by an EVEN SMALLER AMOUNT (i've done a value of 0.02 here).

(NB: make sure that the BEGINNING KEYFRAME (the first little diamonds on the timeline at the bottom of the screen) values of both these at ZERO)

and then you LOWER the Y-LEVEL of the TAIL BONES and ROTATE each BONE so that they still fasten to the BONE of the MAIN BODY (so that it looks like it's moving up and down with the breaths)

(NB: making sure the PIVOT POINTS are centred is EXTRA IMPORTANT here!!!! USE THE BUTTON!!!!)

and then you DO THE SAME for the HEAD and NECK BONES....

and then you ROTATE (i've done that by a value of 2 here) and only SLIGHTLY lift the Y-LEVEL of the LEG BONES (i've done that by a value of 0.2 here)

(NB: make sure to leave those tootsie-feet alone -- we're not doing a walk cycle here, it's gonna look weird if they're sliding around too much).

and then you HASTILY add EYE BALL BONES because you FORGOT

which are MOSTLY INVISIBLE so you go back into the PAINT tab and click the APPEND ELEMENTS TO TEMPLATE... button

and then you PAINT them to look like CLOSED EYELID BONES and RESIZE them in the EDIT tab to fit over the model's EYES. also, INFLATE them by 0.002 (the head's already been inflated, my b)

and then you HIDE them INSIDE THE SKULL of your MODEL and make sure they are PROPERLY ORGANISED in the OUTLINER panel

and then you go back to your ANIMATE tab and you WIDEN THE TIME GAP between the ZERO-VALUE and the NUMBER-VALUE KEYFRAMES (the inhale and exhale keyframes) in the TIMELINE panel. and then you COPY+PASTE the KEYFRAMES several times (idk i did it until it was like 10 secs long).

the ANIMATION should END with the ZERO-VALUE (exhale) KEYFRAME.

(NB: the smaller your creature, the shorter the time gap between keyframes should be. smaller animals breathe faster and their heart beats quicker. larger animals should be slower and more lumbering).

and then you pick a RANDOM POINT in this loop (i prefer to do near the end) and create NEW KEYFRAMES for BOTH EYE BONES with VALUES of ZERO. and then you add a NEW KEYFRAME 0.1 SECOND after that, and you MOVE the EYE BONES so that they OVERLAP with the edge of the HEAD BONE where you have PAINTED the eyes.

then, about 0.3 seconds after that, you COPY the KEYFRAMES, but MIRROR the ORDER. so it should look like THIS:

and then you go to FILE and click SAVE PROJECT.

Then you, too, can SAVOUR your very own LIVING, BREATHING (not really) CREATURE!!!!!

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anyone wanna see my many attempts at a lukey fakemon design? of course you do!! here he is!!!! (this is not the finished attempt)

He's a mix between a woolless Hampshire Down sheep (bc british + sacrificial lamb vibes, especially from early on) + Arctic fox! You can probably tell from my notes that my process for this was making the concept for the fakemon (including stats, typing, abilities, moves, strategies to use with him, along with potential evolutions) before i started designing anything! That's because I wanted the design to reflect what stats and moves it might learn, and I wanted to incorporate the ghost typing.

i chose ghost because I think that meshes well with pre-memory lane Lukey and The Horrors and all that stuff -- memory loss, he's lost himself/part of himself, or his past self, except he doesnt even know that's something to miss. I thought that suited the ghost type pretty well. Ghost type also meshes really well with Hampshire Down sheep, because if you've seen pictures of them, it sometimes looks like they've got a skull on their face, since they have the darker skin/fur and then white wool overtop. Ghost + sheep + black and white theming + sheep skull = Tr!Lukey Vibes? I did initially start with a shuppet-esque hamster design, but idk, I wasn't vibing with it as much (you can see those in the first image).

I wanted him to be woolless to represent the taking off his armour, or specifically his helmet, thing. It also meshes well with representing his missing memories because a sheep without wool = strange/off/the sheep missing something vital (to people who dont spend a lot of time around sheared sheep -- which i understand is most people). But without the wool it was kind of difficult to tell that there was any sheep included in the design, so i added the horizontal pupils and those swirly bits to the ghost mist stuff (i didnt include this but they used to be more like marshadow vibes) to allude to wooliness. even if there isnt actually any.

I put the misty bits at the feet to go for a "lost his footing" type thing. tr!lukey in the beginning is very "out of step" with the other characters and its only really pangi + bad he gets along with for a little bit (because of the whole null rumours thing + pili grudge).

Pokemon inspo for this design was Nickit, Hisuian Zorua, Misdreavous (for the eyes specifically), and Gastly (for the ghosty misty stuff). Didn't use any sheep pokemon cos they all have wool (unless you count ampharos, which i dont bc. bipedal i guess) which makes the silhouette completely different.

picked pink + purple as colours because they kinda give dreamy vibes, while also toeing along the line of dark/light (black + white). i refuse to do actual black and white because. idk i just dont wanna. but i will deffo be making the pink paler in the real thing.

i think the only other thing i have to talk about is the pose? I've got him suspended at an angle like that to go with the no feet/out of step metaphor thing. but i still wanted to give a playful/chatty sort of vibe because that man can talk!!! so his mouth is open in a lil grin and his legs are all akimbo as if running. if i were to animate this thing, i'd have it seem like he cant get any traction on the ground, as if hes walking on ice, because he's a ghost and not fully in contact with the ground. honestly im using he/him pronouns but the more i worked on this (this is several weeks' worth of work btw, i havent even shown you the stat sheet yet) the more she/her started speaking to me. tgirl tr!lukey ftw. make her lesbians with tgirl pangi and we win. but thats off topic. who let me ramble for this long? this is just word vomit.

hope someone enjoyed it/found it useful tho, i really wanted this design to be more than just a pink sheep with mist attached at the feet. Ideally, you would look at the design and not know immediately what real life animal(s) inspired it without being told (i tested this on some friends and got answers like "hyena" and "pony" so i think i succeeded in that). (That idea actually came from Kadabra Guy's youtube video). anyway yeah I wanted it to have some cool ideas backing it up and a robust powerset! hope that comes across. anyways. gosh. i need to go to bed . jiust wait until you see what i have in mind for his evos tho

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ok but is this song not enemies to lovers/rivals to lovers pangkey. imagine: their rivalry comes to a head in some kind of school(?) project (i feel like other contexts than school could also work with this song) and they eventually end up getting along, which evolves into a mutually beneficial relationship where lukey has defense against bullies and pangi gets like better grades or whatever. but then rumours start circulating that they're in gay homosexual love (probably courtesy of tubbo) and they're immediately like NAWWW THIS GUY?? and this song happens

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He's lied to us so much i fear if this time he's telling the truth none of us are even gonna believe it evil evil streamer

Mika I fear I will be ruminating on this until the truth comes out.... @_@

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seeing tumblr mutuals chatting in lukey vods is always so exciting. like

@ilovecatszsz there u are!!