#ekakinomi

[ekakinomi-forgrownups]

Next up--NiGHTS' eeeevilll twin brother, Reala! Unlike my Jujinka of NiGHTS, whose appearance I made very gender-and-species-neutral, Reala has more of a solidified persona, clearly looking like a male werewolf with no nose. This is because unlike his purple sibling, Reala is out to destroy childrens' dreams and take away their courage, instead of fixing their dreams and building their courage. , so he doesn't exactly want children to identify with him.

[ekakinomi-forgrownups]

Here's a new Jujinka! (And the first of several July releases at that!) It's NiGHTS, a flying dream jester and the titular character of the forgotten Sega Saturn game "NiGHTS into Dreams...", which turned 25 on the 5th of this month!

I didn't draw NiGHTS as any particular species, but a creature that looks similar to all species, so that any anthro dreamer can identify with them.

[ekakinomi-forgrownups]

Happy Birthday, Muffin! (2021)

To Cherry Marie Muffinpot (my OC in this picture), the best way to celebrate a birthday is by sharing it with others. So she spent the whole day making both warm, wholesome treats (like pie muffins, mushroom cookies and cheesy tomato soup "edibowls") and cool, refreshing treats (such as mini fruit-and-veggie icecreams, regal pumpkin jelly and the dessert that she's holding, double-decker candy apple pie), all using ingredients that were in season just in time for her birthday--today, September 15th--and is now making her way to ColorCat's castle to share these treats with all her friends at her birthday party, hitching a ride on 6 passing clouds as they drift on cool September breezes.

[ekakinomi-forgrownups]

Bi-Tistic pride!!!

[ekakinomi-forgrownups]

Trick Moon!

A fan-art

A fan-art of an amazing cartoon pilot called “Trick Moon”, created by Geneva Hodgson (a story-board artist and supervising director for OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes), with a fantasy theme and starring two adorable wolf pups who work together to protect a magic moon-stone and now have to fight to save their big brother, who has been trapped inside it by a sorcerer raccoon with a grudge.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve dreamed of seeing a cartoon like this on TV, so it was natural that I was among the thousands who were deeply disappointed when the news arrived that Cartoon Network would not pick up this pilot...

...but it’s still got a chance! Fan support, whether it’s by word-of-mouth or through awesome fan content like my drawing, makes much more of an impact than you think, and as of this post, this petition on Change.org http://chng.it/ZHmmB9pDbm has already got 413 signatures! And its goal is 500!

That 413th signature is my own, and I highly suggest you add yours if you want to see this go on the air as much as I do!

If you’d rather not sign, please spread the word instead. Do something. Every bit of help counts!

LET’S MAKE THIS HAPPEN!

#giveustrickmoon

#CartoonNetworkShortsWatchChallenge

...oh. And if you haven’t seen the pilot already, here it is:

https://youtu.be/DgS95rnB1t0

[ekakinomi-forgrownups]

(*jingle-jingle...*) (*rustle-rustle...*) (*fwwwoooowwooooo...*) “La la lelalala, le lalala le lalale lalela...” ...I don't know about you, but I think a description like that suits this picture just fine.                                    

[ekakinomi-forgrownups]

“Easter Egg Bunny”

A statuette

I just remembered...my "Chocolypse" piece was actually created from the left-over paint I had from painting this little guy! Isn't he sweet? He makes elaborate Easter egg displays for a living, and by the looks of it, is an elaborate Easter egg display himself! Maybe he's from the same magical land as the bunny that caused the Chocalypse...(and hopefully his ear just came off in an accident and not because Chocalypse bunny wanted to see if he was really made of egg or not!)

He was made from Crayola Model Magic air-dry clay and painted with various mixes of FolkArt acrylic paints in the spring of 2015.

[ekakinomi-forgrownups]

"Better luck next time, fellas!" ~Mr. Peanut to 2nd and 3rd contenders Geniusman (Tottemo! Luckyman) and Mettaton EX (Undertale) as he proudly shows off his "Loving" Cup that he won for being the official Winner Of My Heart this year

Hi, everyone! How are you today? I bet you're pretty tired of being mostly cooped up inside. But don't worry--I have something right here that might catch your interest.

As some of you may know, March is National Peanut Month. Now, that's not exactly something worth celebrating for peanut allergists...but, on the other paw, March is also National Nutrition Month, National Kidney Month, Optimism Month, Spiritual Wellness Month, National Women's History Month, Irish-American Heritage Month, and International Listening Awareness Month, among even more things. March is also, of course, the first month of Spring. So there's much more to celebrate in March than just peanuts.

However, in this blog post, I'm going to celebrate peanuts. I could go on and on about peanut butter, my favorite food ever, the average jar of which is made with hundreds of peanuts. But, I'm just going to focus one one peanut this time--one of the most famous peanuts of all time--the one and only Mr. Peanut, mascot for the Planters brand of nuts and snacks. Why? Because he's my biggest cartoon crush.

.......say waaaaaaa~~~t?

But isn't he dead?

youre just posting your april fools joke too early

Nope. It's all true!

All the recent hub-bub about Mr. Peanut, including the infamous commercial where he literally dies, reminded me of this earlier commercial I saw on T.V. back in 2018 (the first video featured in this post), which utilized the same sleek design he was animated in during his passing. After finding it on YouTube, I found other videos of him, and this social media browsing eventually brought me to his Twitter account, where I browsed all of his posts from 2018/19. I immediately fell for his optimistic attitude, his sweet personality and especially his support for his friends and followers...and the rest is history. He has the looks, he has the heart--and now he's helping me to grow up.

But why him?? How could an overdressed anthro peanut top, let alone compete with, these practical princes of men? How would crushing over a cartoon help me grow up in any way? And last (and strangest) of all, why am I suddenly going "nuts" over the now-defunct version of a character who just 2 months ago died and came back as a baby?

I will answer all those questions in approximately...right now!

Being autistic, I have a more child-like mind-set than others my age--one facet of this is the ability to immerse myself in imaginary worlds and connect with characters. Thinking of characters, "talking" to them and even trying to act like them has gotten me through many a tough time. As I take inspiration from their personalities and actions, I find more fun and creative ways to spice up my every-day life, stay calm when things get stormy, cheer me up when I feel down, or pep me up when I get sluggish and demotivated. I use different characters to help me with different aspects of life. The two types that always helped me the most were characters with pure hearts, and characters I had crushes on.

Recently, though, I had been looking for a character that would help me take on one of my toughest challenges--accepting the fact that the world is equally as cruel as it is kind, while staying a calm and collected person, and then handling it all just by myself--to put it in two words: growing up. I won't go into detail (in this post, at least), but life had been extremely cruel to me last year. I had a lot of trouble accepting it, and I was losing my self-control. But considering that I'm going on 23 now, I knew that I had to get it together, or else I would stay a crying ball of nerves, trapped on a bed, forever. Being one of the less restrictive aspects of having the heart of a child, I knew that modeling myself after a good-natured fictional character would be a perfect start--but I needed one exceptionally powerful character to pull this off. I needed a crush with a pure heart.

Then it suddenly and silently occured to me, as I continued to take in his various pictures, videos, GIF's and Tweets, that Mr. Peanut was it.

His sleek and curvy body, his elegant limbs, refined features and gentlemanly disposition--not to mention the fact that he's wearing white gloves and has one eye always covered--immediately calls to mind my best cartoon crushes: Geniusman from the anime "Tottemo! Luckyman" and Mettaton EX from the game "Undertale" (who are both looking salty alongside Mr. Peanut on the winner's podium in the top picture). But what really got me was what he didn't have that the other crushes did, he made up for with his unique personality, that my other crushes, in turn, didn't have:

You see, Mr. Peanut rests comfortably on two fine lines that few characters have even been able to stand on. The fine line between "handsome and stylish" and "conceited and mean", and the fine line between "peppy mascot" and "mature and modest gentle-man". All except for a "brief" 10-year stint where they tried to "re-invent" him (Yes, I'm talking about the one who spent the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade dabbing), he's always been a gentle, friendly, quiet character whose main goal in life (besides selling nuts) is to help people and make them happy, "shelling out" plenty of pep while also remaining proper and well-composed.

He never got angry for more than a second or two, and handled (almost) any problem he faced in the smartest, most dignified and most fun way possible. And of course, he's very sweet and always thinks of those he cares about first. He also, despite being a mascot for snacks, loves to play sports and stay fit and healthy--and he encourages others to do the same. And finally, despite being a mascot in general, he always had this quiet, unassuming air to him. He made all his necessary appearances and entertained his customers, yet he always acted very natural about it and never hammed it up or acted super wild and goofy--a thing that most other cartoon mascots fail to do.

So he's not just eye-candy--he's also a perfect role model. That covers the "first of all". Not only does he give me the incentive to be a dignified lady who always does the right thing first, but he gives me that euphoric, limerance-enduced energy I need to really want to act upon it. All my aspirations to be more courteous, be more proper and elegant, be more brave, lead a healthy and active life-style and be a good mascot for Ekaki No Mi are finally coming to fruition. That covers the "second of all".

Yes, this all sounds very silly. But In a "nut-shell", he's the reason I'm finally growing up, so in a way, this is all anything but silly. I would be a hot mess without him...which is exactly why I'm speaking of him in present-tense (using "is" instead of "was"), and pretending he never became Baby Nut or even died in the first place. Here's where I cover the "third of all".

For those who don't already know about his apparent death and resurrection: for their big pre-Super Bowl LIV commercial (the second video featured), Planters took a very unusual, very controversial approach: Their preview commercial depicted Mr. Peanut sacrificing himself to save his friends by letting go of a branch on a cliff that was too heavy to hold him and actors Matt Walsh and Wesley Snipes. The actual Super Bowl commercial (the third video featured) depicted his funeral, which the Kool-Aid Man, among others, attended. A magic tear from the Kool-Aid Man caused a peanut plant to grow out of the ground and sprout a "Baby Nut"--the official reincarnation of Mr. Peanut. Here are the two commercials, in order:

But what people often don't realize is that Mr. Peanut is a cartoon--a form of art--and art, except in very specific cases, is meant to be interpreted by the viewer. If the story isn't satisfactory, people can ignore some parts and pretend that others play out differently, until it fits what they believe in. And the characters and their actions can hold secret meanings that only the viewer sees. In fact, the same character can don different personalities and clothes, and exist in different universes, doing different things--all at the same time. (Think of all the different versions of Mickey Mouse that exist at the same time, even today.)

So is the case with Mr. Peanut. As long as his original likeness still exists--anywhere in this world--he's still alive and well. And even if the actual Planters corporation says he's Baby Nut now, he's still the same old Mr. Peanut in another part of the Internet, in another part of the world, or in any alternate universe. Many, actually. In one of them, he could be "Miss Peanut". In another, he could be a radical "Teen Nut". And in another still, he could actually be the evil capitalist peanut everybody says he is--you know, the one who struts around in his aristocrat clothing while roasting his fellow "pea-ple" and selling them to humans as food in order to get richer...

...which I like to think is not true, because the real peanuts he sells for your eating pleasure could never have flexy bright-yellow shells or humanoid features, could never breathe, cry, blush, say "Whoa!" when startled, wear clothes, be cuddled by a person with a peanut allergy without triggering it, and couldn't even survive on their own for more than 4 months, let alone 104 years. When they grow, it doesn't happen in the blink of an eye--peanut plants take about 3 or 4 weeks to mature (on days that strictly aren't frosty, no less), and the peanuts themselves grow under the ground--totally different from how Baby Nut came into being.

In short, the peanuts we eat aren't cartoons, like Mr. Peanut is. And since he is, I can interpret him any way I want, just as any other person can. So he doesn't have to be a cannibalistic capitalist. He can be the dapper yellow fellow who sells and eats yummy, natural and nutritious morsels that happen to look a bit like him--think of how humans eat little crackers and gummies that look like other people--and, most importantly, is not dead and never will be, because people still love him and believe in him, and belief and imagination transcend death, at least when it comes to fictional characters.

(I especially have the right to believe he's dead because it's one thing to kill off a character in a series for story reasons--it's another thing to kill a revered and internationally-known brand mascot just to create a social media buzz and generate profits. Now that's capitalism!)

But at the same time, I can't help but admit that it was at least a unique social media experiment, and despite the nasty secret intent behind it all, it was very interesting to finally get to see how Mr. Peanut would die, how he got born (and reborn), and what he looks like as a baby. And honestly, with his big round eyes, squidgy body and dainty features, I actually think Baby Nut is pretty cute--certainly too cute for me to want to break out a mortar and pestle and make peanut butter out of him--but he's just not Mr. Peanut. Mr. Peanut was such a unique character that it takes some very special minds to make a character that even comes close to a replacement--sadly, Baby Nut just doesn't make the cut.

Thanks to the power of love and imagination, though, he's still his good old self in my heart. Besides, he may just grow up and come back some day. So in conclusion, he still is, not was, and always will be, the best role model and "husbando" I could ever ask for. He's got the looks. He's got the love. He's cute. He's graceful. He's dapper. He's daring. He's silly. He's sexy. He's serene. He's cheerful, and he always brightens my day. He's everything I could ever want, and more.

Some day I plan to release an art collection featuring the lovable legume sometime in the near future. I would have each picture creatively high-light a different aspect of his personality, taking inspiration from charming vintage art-work that would fit the theme of the picture as well as actual Planters merchandise, and I would utilize various retro art styles and techniques from different time periods to give each picture a distinctive "old-fashioned" vibe.

The collection will be available on all my art web-pages, including my possible future Patreon (if I can get enough subscribers!), and I'm hoping I can also get it shown off in a gallery somewhere (if there are enough Mr. Peanut fans here in Athens to want to see it.)

One of my favorite commercials featuring him ever, back when he was (canonically) alive and well.

The commercial where he literally dies.

The commercial where he comes back to life as a little baby peanut.

And that concludes my post. The credits for the videos go to Planters and KraftHeinz, and the cover photo for this post goes to my imaginary friend, Mini Minoux. Do you love Mr. Peanut, too? And if you do, what do you love about him? And what about Baby Nut? Is he “yea” or “nay”? I'd be happy to hear your thoughts in the comments--though please, keep it reasonable and don't be too harsh. We're in the company of a gentleman. ;.3