monster design for the "toxic meltdown" prompt from @catmask and @frogcroaks's MONSTER MAYHEM
(and being used for Project Breaker)
HCA-888 AVARICE, also known as the "Illusion of Control", "False Yggdrasil", and "247 Years and More" is a Storie that desires to take more and more land. Many powerful people have joined the ranks of the snakes on its crown after giving up their land. People with hope have looked upon it and dug their own graves at its roots to try and do... something.
Its influence should not be seen as an easy means to get rich quick. You only realize how far you've gone when you look back and see no one behind you.
Design notes:
TOXIC MELTDOWN -> Despair of late-stage capitalism/ climate change, taking advantage of "if i just work hard enough". toxic work environment and a mental breakdown/meltdown.
the eyes are the fruits it gives to exchange "power" (gaining more land, tricking people into working for it)
888 resembles the snakes eating each other, but it also represents financial success and prosperity
The rainbows are supposed to resemble oil spills, but its supposed to trick people into thinking it is beautiful / the way to get a better future
the snakes eating each other represents general greed / putting down or exploiting others to gain power, but also how companies just sort of.. eat each other
its a tree because money is the "root of all evil"/"money grows on trees", and the idea of the Original Sin starting capitalism (thanks Moby Dick)
drawings i thought i'd save for "when i finish them", but i probably wont be "done" with them until after I finish reading Dante's Inferno and Paradise Lost so uh... posting them now since theyve already been waiting long enough.
these both originally started off with me thinking, "what if Hazbin Hotel specifically catered To Me?" which started out as the original characters, but once i made the jump to linking Lucifer with the Snow Queen... yeah these are completely different characters
reaaaaalllyy long discussion on Catholicism and Hazbin under the cut for the Thought Process behind these guys. hazbin fans look away because i am blending up your show 50 times and making a cake with it. thanks. everyone else please come into my house vv
Adam was more focused on him being the Original Sinner, and the idea that his spot in Heaven is "earned" because he's "fixing" his mistakes by killing sinners/consequences of the original sin. the whole idea of Persecution as a way of showing you're a Part of the Church. and because I think "the only way to get into heaven as a sinner is to constantly be suffering and condemn other people" would be really Interesting for the whole commentary on redemption/Catholicism.
ALSO i get the Raging Misogynist because hes the First Man but thats like.... kind of boring and not funny to me. I get the point of it but it just seems like an excuse to have an in-universe reason to name a character after the vagina. and also its just not funny. And i dont think focusing on the "Men are Violent and Strong and need women to calm them down and have something to protect 🥺thats why theres Man and Woman for Balance" would be funny either but Gender Essentialism is a concept that pisses me off to no end so i NEED to talk about it through characters. (or even, "If I was a Stronger Man, than I could've saved Eve from being tricked" for the Catholic Guilt and Misogyny combo)
ALSO ALSO i think if Hazbin!Adam made the excorcists through his own body (so its not just a bunch of Edgy Angels) i think that would add wayyy more interesting conflict between him and Vaggie ("you were born for this" "im your father so you have to listen to me". things like that because Subtlety is Dead). Also cough cough I feel like he should've taken Charlie more seriously because her dad is literally the person that "tricked" (in quotes because i dont think he MEANT to) him and Eve into Dooming Humanity so like.. what if shes acting all nice because its a trick >:/ or whatever
(copying the next part from Discord because its still accurate to my thoughts)
in Dante's Inferno, lucifer/satan is at the very bottom of hell, in a frozen lake
in the Snow Queen, the devil makes a mirror that makes people see only the bad of people. The snow queen takes a boy (sinner) to her domain (hell) where he is trapped there until the protagonist can free him with love
lucifer (hazbin) gave free will to humanity, but after he gets banished and his wife leaves him he becomes depressed and self-isolates
the thing with hazbin!lucifer that makes him 🤨 is that they just. make him a silly deadbeat dad?? i guess???? when like. what if because he can only see the worst parts of humanity he loses faith in humanity. like with his pride he doesn't think he did a mistake, but if he become cold and bitter and self isolated bc of that it would make him contrast WAY more with charlie. if you're gonna make him a deadbeat dad COMMIT to it!!!!!!! and then the ~devils influence~ that christians always talk about could be apathy and paranoia and responding with anger to love. he becomes the mirror that distorts people's views of themselves and others, making them believe that its in their nature to be evil, that they cant get better, that this is just how the world is
Lucifer in "WSE"/"We Sunk Eden" would basically be an entity that showed Adam and Eve their potential through the Mirror, giving them free will, but dooms humanity because of it. The Rain basically floods the World to the point where it becomes all ocean. It has enough important details.
If people want more information on WSE specifically, then I'll try to gather all my scattered notes on discord 👍
I recently had the good fortune of dining amongst a great crew of individuals, most of whom are working on social design and entrepreneurship initiatives throughout the city of Detroit. The gathering was hosted by Juliette LaMontagne of Project Breaker and Susie Wise, K12 Lab Director at the D.School.
Breaker is a design-led social entrepreneurship program for 18-24 year olds. Young collaborators learn creative problem-solving processes that they use to identify the needs of a community and then translate those needs into a marketable enterprise. This summer, Breaker is coming to Detroit for a two-week session: The Future of Stuff.
What stands out the most about the Breaker process is it's emphasis on design AND entrepreneurship. Around the globe we see workshops of similar ambition being led, but too often participants are boxed in by a single discipline. i.e. designers learning how to design more socially relevant projects with other designers (most of whom have little or no business experience), or entrepreneurs learning how to launch better businesses with other entrepreneurs (many of whom don't understand how design and design thinking can advance their offerings).
Having participated (and hosted) a number of design workshops, I'm almost always left with the same feeling at the end: Okay, that was fun…but now what? Now what, if I want to make a living doing social good work? Now what, if I want to go out into the world and do this on my own? Social Design workshops are good at getting young creatives excited about alternative career paths in design, but they're usually not so great at actually equipping young learners with the entrepreneurial skills necessary to build projects with real market value.
This is the difference I see with Project Breaker. I'm excited beyond belief to participate as a design coach during the summer session. Much more to come...
TED Fellow Juliette LaMontagne's Project Breaker looks to reinvent the traditional education system, and help aspiring youth better use their talents to create projects with real-world impacts.
