It's understandable don't worry! I'm no artist, but I too have a bit of a hard time thinking about designs that aren't just humanoid or animals from earth (or both). As for the thinking about alien societies, I'm no expert either, but I like to think that I can decently put together some interesting stuff with inspirations mostly from around history.
I'd like to point out a couple of other humanoid designs that I think are quite good with the spin they give to the idea. I know Fear Reaper looks more like a robot to most, but for me, it reminds me of a puppet with oversized hands. Like, they're so big that it's hard to picture them running with those instead of just floating around with some strings or chains conected to them. There's also Fortress, with their multible faces and four arms.
Agreed, it was quite off putting that these supposed alien invaders ended up being just humas with crazy hair. As for Marucho's program giving the Bakugan forms more familiar for humans, that's gona be a very interesting topic to explore, especially from the perspective of the bakugan themselves, who got isekai'd into another world with new shapes.
Although it may not end up being such a big change, the fact that these rifts appear naturally due to the Silent Core's power eroding the fabric of reality instead of Mikhail's portal is a nice touch. It also gives a good reason as to why the Vestals managed to reach Vestroia, allowing study them for a good time before being able to make their own portal.
That's what I've also thought! We already have Naga's minions in the last dozen episodes of season one (two of them actually surviving), so why couldn't there be more dual atributed Bakugan? I don't want to ramble here, but I also think the idea of Bakugan born from the Doom Dimension (like in the videogame) would be really cool too, maybe like a forced reincarnation caused by the Silent Core of those who perished there, but lack any memories of their past life?
Imagine all the shenanigans Mikhail could've experienced as the first human in Vestroia, that's quite a lot of wasted narrative potential.
The bonding between the Brawlers and their Bakugan has to be one of my favourite things in the series, especially in season one with characters like Shun (that episode hurted :,) ). Having new partners each season not only opens the possibility of having new stories, but it can also help develop other aspects of the brawlers that couldn't be explored with the partner before, or maybe new ones that appeared recently.
Your design ideas ARE very cool indeed! I don't know any specific monster artists out there, but let me tell you that folklore and cryptids are a good source of inspiration. Do not apologize! My response ended up being quite rambly too, so we're even xD I'm glad to have formulated a thought provoking question, those are some of the best when working on a project like this.
Hello! I've been binging on the headcannons and designs of your AU all day, they're very creative and have quite a lot of thought behind that makes them feel organic and vibrant.
Now, my question is about what are your headcannons for the other half of the characters, a.k.a. "The Bakugan™"? Though I'm not only talking about the monster protagonists, but Bakugan as a species. I haven't seen anyone flesh them out as of yet.
RIGHT SO here's the issue I run into whenever I try to work on Bakugan: I only know how to draw people. I'm not creative enough to do diverse designs that don't follow the general shape of a bipedal humanoid. Sometimes I draw a tail or something. I have a lot of respect for people who can design and detail fantasy creatures; they're always so creative and some of them literally blow me away. Additionally, from a writing perspective, I'm not very good at alien society worldbuilding, because I'm not creative enough to make up a whole new society. I'm not J R R Tolkien, for sure.
This presents a problem because I like to tell stories through designs. I let a character's looks influence the story (instead of the other way around, but that's because I just really like drawing things and then trying to get them to fit my story hehe) but if I can't draw a character, their part is just void.
When it comes to monster designs, unless it's horror or very very pretty (very arbitrary decision, tbh), I don't like humanoid creatures at all. I don't like Ravenoid or Robotallion or whatever the fuck Drago becomes in the later seasons. Exceptions are Gorem because I love colossi and Monarus because they're beautiful. And Lars Lion but I'd be okay if she was redesigned. I'm thinking of a deer with its antlers forming a crossbow.
I'd like to headcanon that Bakugan themselves have more primordial, indiscernible forms, but Marucho's program is able to translate the energy readings into physical beings. I always find it strange when a supposed alien creature looks like a person except maybe their eyes are different or they're taller (looking at you, Vestals. I want them to look truly alien, almost freakishly so. Maybe they can retain a humanoid silhouette but generally I want to go for something COOL) but at least for Bakugan I can just say "yah like Marucho's program makes them look like a giant turtle trust".
A Bakugan's energy is very powerful and unstable, especially reliant on the state of the central cores, which fuels all Bakugans' life force. Two cores is kind of like two notes played that forms a dissonant core. The power generated is unbalanced (Silent core is stronger) and it ruptures the fabric of the universe over time. Powered up by the dissonant split cores, this energy escapes through cracks in the dimension, which leaks into new worlds. Usually this leads to preventing the heat death of a universe, but my AU's world was able to harness the energy and translate that into a pokemon game.
Once the cores are reunited, the energy flows in harmony, but lingering effects of the rips remain. The energy is still leaking out, and can be captured. This is how the Vestals found the dimension and colonized it.
I actually like the idea that because of the separation of the cores, all the attributes were separated as well, and the joining of the cores at the end of S1 meant that all the attributes intermingled. related to that, I think it would be mega fun if S2 onwards, there are bakugan with dual or even three attributes, because of the cores joining. It'll definitely bring an interesting aspect to a Bakugan tournament, where a two different attribute brawlers can use the same Bakugan.
I think Mikhail really missed a golden opportunity to study the sociology of sentient energy, honestly. Instead he got caught up in traveling between dimensions.
Honestly while I have thought about how my AU's Bakugan might differ from the show's, I definitely have not thought about it enough to be able to write a worldbuilding manual out of it :( It's all very surface level stuff.
What I will say is that at the start of every season they gotta shake up the main team's Bakugan and have them get new ones. I liked being able to see how the brawlers and the Bakugan interact in the beginning of their partnerships, but the later seasons just drop you in the middle of a fight with a Bakugan you've never seen before and never explain how they met. If you want to treat your Bakugan like real characters you gotta flesh out that backstory!
With all these disclaimers out of the way, here are some Bakugan design ideas I wrote down a while back:
"a hummingbird with a scythe shaped beak" : while hummingbirds themselves are pretty nonthreatening, imagine a grim reaper hummingbird. hilarious. Darkus or Ventus attribute. This was extremely inspired by oberus and the fact that her design is so good i have no idea what the fuck they were going for. Exactly what I want.
"just a bundle of wings (think biblically accurate seraphim but butterfly wings instead of feathered ones) that slowly fall off and reveal a cocoon. once evolution happens, the cocoon opens up to reveal-" : I didn't have an idea for what it would reveal, but i like the idea of an ominous bundle of butterfly wings. Ventus.
"Biblically accurate owl" : A barn owl looking creature with no eyes on its face, but with eyes all over its wings. Darkus.
"Monstrous barreleye" : honestly you can probably make any of the deep sea creatures into a horrifying Aquos Bakugan, but the barreleye is my favorite. Imagine a big fish but with a clear dome and inside is just like. a writhing mass of tissue. What's going on here?
"Stingray skeleton, but it flies" : Stingrays have insanely cool skeletons. Their bones look like feathers. Haos.
A slightly warped vers (don't even ask how it's warped, it's different ok) of the lion costumes you see in a southern Chinese lion dance. Pyrus.
"Earthwyrm" : I think I just wanted a cool giant worm. A million teeth and cutting it up creates multiple wyrms. They can burrow to different gate cards using wyrm holes. Subterra.
Now that I'm writing these out I think my design ideas are fun. Maybe I'll draw them one day. This post ended up a lot more rambly than I expected, I apologize. You do bring up an interesting question though, it seems like I should start thinking about how the Bakugan as a species fit into my world.
Recommend to me your favorite monster artist! My personal favorite currently is matryoshiiika, but I would love to study more!
banjo and shamisen
UNDERTALE YELLOW 💛
I’m gonna be sharing my Owl House Wips and Aus for a while now that it’s over and I’m definitely hyper fixating on them.
Open Portal Au
Luz, her sister Vee, and their childhood friend Hunter end up exploring an old house that was said to have belonged to a “witch” many years ago and a number of people went missing in it too. While both Luz and Vee could only hope it was haunted, Hunter was more hoping it was just empty. Not that he was scared per say, but his dad did want him back in time for dinner and he wasn’t sure if any ghosts would be fine with them just saying hi and bye like the girls insisted.
Though what they find instead of ghosts happens to be a portal to a demon realm they never knew existed.
Hunter, Vee, and Darius are all human. Hunter was adopted by Darius and Vee was adopted by Camila.
I really would’ve made all three of them siblings but I still wanted Dadrius.
Also Masha is a witch.
Sometimes a family is a strange small child, three grown ass monsters who tried and failed to kill said small child, and the most delightful bird you ever will meet 😋
> Quick question, what do you get when you take a chernobyl like accident, and make it frickin Global? Well ask the Vestals, because something like that happened to them around 6 years before the "Convergence".
> You'll see, for context, Vestal (The planet) is a highly geologically active rock, in which the vestals had to build an artificial crust with several facilities to keep it habitable. For this, there are sector Administrators that are in charge of certain facilities (Atmosphere controllers, earthquake nullifiers, etc) which are so big that you may consider them entire countries. Appart from that, there are several extraction colonies around the system that are taken with near the same importance as the facilities on the Homeworld.
> Now, Vestal Goverment works more like a Company administration, with a CEO on the top alongside a board of directors in charge of sector administration. Each one has different offices that are in charge of stuff like vestal resources, logistics, sector security, etc. And though this rigid model has worked for them at the begining, when everyone was trying to stablish an actual homeplanet, it more than falls appart on current times. Since the strict control of these resources had become less nessesary, several bussiness and companies had started to form, with demands that the Directors of each sector want to fullfill (partialy because they have a stake in said businesses)
> This colission between the interests of the sectors at Vestal fighting for more resource input, the colonies being unable to meet the demand and the people rioting for more private goods; created a tense atmosphere that prompted sabotages between these entities. But it finally exploted when a mayor failure ocurred on several key facilities that provoked massive dissasters that would be known as “The Blackout”. Several cities suffered from things like abrupt changes in gravity, to earthquakes, hurricanes and even being bathed in radiation. It is unknown yet if it was a failure on the AIs used there or if it was an intentional sabotage, but no one has been made responsible of it.
> The dissaster ended up with millions dead, as well as entire sectors of the planet left inhabitable as of today, with the rest struggling to adapt to the influx of refugees and a shortage on resources. The current High Administrator Zenoheld has done his best to stop the crisis from getting worse, but with the loss of his wife on a ship crash during the Blackout, he has become overburdened by the discussions between the directors who are fighting to see what to prioritize their resources in.
> Though six years later, a light of hope would came through in the form of cards falling from the sky, with a promise of a solution to finally recover from the crisis.
*Note one: Even though I can understand Zenoheld as the head of state that makes the important decitions like a King, I really don’t like the royal aspect on an advanced civilization like this. So by making him more like a CEO, it can still be a government centered around a main figure, but this time he Has to respond to a board that can collectively decide to depose of him if he underperforms.
*Note two: Another thing that I think it’s hard to believe is that Vestal’s overpopulation problem can’t be solved in another way.other than invading a planet… on another universe… with clearly sentient and hostile native life. So, this time the problem makes more sense, since they can’t just leave their system due to their location far from other stars. And even if they could build more city-stations around their system, people don’t want to, creating a conflict between recovering the danger zones and wanting to move the people to space, that end up in a stale situation that only creates more tension (AKA Spaaaaace Bureocracyyyyyy!)
Hey, d'you want to hear a horrifying Episode Echoes theory?
y'know we've had a lore book entry stating varying encounters with the Vex on Nessus and how weird they're behaving - like a Guardian saying they swore one was making sandcastles etc. kind of weird and almost childlike. And other reports have talked about how the Vex are spontaneously changing, adapting, learning, in a way that is wholly new for them?
so... remember that fucking weird Swarmers lore from Lightfall?
The CloudArk and Neomuna in the early days was being attacked by the Vex though they didn't know then it was the Vex. They were approached by an Axis Mind named Aesop, which offered to help them in exchange for their loyalty. When they refused... the children's connection to the CloudArk was severed which presumably killed them?
It's a nursery rhyme, so isn't going to be 100% historically accurate - it could well be entirely allegorical.
But I can't help but think about the minds of the children and if they got stuck inside the Vex network rather than outright dying...
And some part of them is now inhabiting the Vex...
Actually thinking about it... the Swarmers nursery rhyme is essentially the story of the Pied Piper, who killed the rats in Hamelin, and when they refused the promised payment, lured the children away with music (often implied to be magical, so the children couldn't resist).
Kind of like the Conductor did with Saint...
Lol, all that discussion of whether you're a furry or not reminds me when the same thing happened to me with my friends. They accused me of being one because I had some images in my profile of anthropomorphic characters. And although in the end I ended up becoming one, it was very fun to argue against them that I wasn’t xD So continue with your fight, stand firm against those people and have fun while you do it!
Azen, more like... Furry. :p
P Eri s h
this is a cue to go to s l e e p
(There was a blackout all day on my neighborhood and I wrote this while at work to stay sane, so get ready for a long rambling)
Okay hear me out, The Owl House... but Camila is a basilisk who managed to escape decades ago, as one of Belos first experiments with the species.
Story points:
She got to the human real through one of Eda's escapades and disguised herself as a teen who was moving out of town. For the first years, she lived on a shelter (and luckly didn't stood out due to there being a couple of nutjobs), made some friends there and occasionaly went out looking for magical objects to keep her disguise.
One of said friends got her into night school with the promise of a better life, and that's where she met Manny, who was there teaching spanish. They started dating weeks after, bonding over their shared love for the language and Manny's passion for Cosmic Frontier (needless to say that she enjoyed the concept of "cosplaying").
At some point, Manny managed to get her some documents thanks to a cousin that worked at the customs office, allowing her to enter high school and later get into university. They invented a backstory where Camila was the last survivor of a family dispute on the Dominican Republic, only to move to the US with the last money she had from her parents.
After Camila's high school graduation, she accidentaly got drunk during a party, and revealed her true identity to him on a walk through the forest, where Manny ran off and she blacked out near some bushes. She went to look for him the next day, and after a heartfelt discussion, they broke up. He would later move to Pennsylvania, where he would study ---
Camila's years through university went calmly, getting a couple of part time jobs, a shared bedroom alongside a weird man obsesed with witches, and later recieved her diploma.
At some point, Manny moved back in town after a failed marriage and both of them reconected quickly, going back to practise cosplay and even visiting Puerto Rico to meet his parents. They got married and bought a home (not in Gravesfield).
A couple of years later, Luz would come into their lives from Manny's last marriage, who didn't wanted to have a child. From there on there's no change in the canon, they lived as a family, moved to Gravesfield, Manny passed away and Luz went to the Boiling Isles.
When Vee came through the portal and morphed into Luz, Camila felt something odd, but after being away from the BI for decades, she just brushed it off. It wouldn't be until a week or so after she came back from camp where the oddities piled up and she discovered Vee's true identity. After confronting the fellow basilisk and learning her story, she offered her a home and allowed her to replace Luz until they discovered what happened.
Yesterday's Lie would go different, with Luz learning about both Vee and Camila's secret, who would still end up slapping Jacob in the face with her Chancla btw.
Notes:
Camila would be the same subspecies as Vee, a Knee Dweling basilisk. Their main characteristics would be their rounder heads, furred ears, puffier manes, eyes, ticker tails to store extra fat and being overall the smallest of the entire species.
She would've most likely known the basilisk who attacked Hexside during The First Day.
I'm deciding on whether or not Camila befriended teenage Eda and the last one offered her a ticket to the human realm. She could've also met a previous Golden Guard who would've helped her scape in the first place, and thus would recognise Hunter very quickly.
Most of the cosplay stuff is from Manny, since she just shapeshifted into whichever character she wanted. Needless to say, she won a lot of competitions.
She became a veterinarian to help out other creatures and to learn self care, as basiliks share a ton with Earth reptiles.
She most likely influenced Luz's love for snakes.
I like to think that after meeting Vee for who she really is, Camila started to walk around the house in her natural form, contempt with not needing to hide her true nature. The only one who she did that with would've been Manny, during the period after their reconnection and before Luz.
Even though the camp helped Vee a lot to blend in, it would be Camila the one who truly get her to do so. Maybe even contact Manny's cousin to get her some papers too.
The angst would double for Luz after either Yesterday's Lie or King's Tide, seeing her mother getting along with Vee very easily and feeling even more like an outcast.
So, what do y'all think? Should I try to make something out of this or should I seek profesional help? Either way, I'm not sharing the good stuff.
(Here's the reddit post if you're interested)
Sketch number two cause I have an obsession 💜