Heyo! Starting a new series: Musha Mummbles. I plan for Musha Mumbles to be a series of advice and constructive criticism on topics of my choosing relating to art, story telling, and character design. Relavence: What spurred me to write this was the shipping trend in modern media, at least in the media I consume. It's always the overly optimistic hyperactive one(Usually the protagonist) paired with the edgy emo/goth. Or as I like to call 'Himbo and their Gay Cat' but also refered to as 'Dog Personality and Cat Personality' A specific, niche flavor is 'Oblivious Bi and Disaster Gay' For the rest of this peice I will be refereing to them as 'Cat!' and 'Dog!' Which characters are Cat! Personalities? The Cat! is usually edgy, independent, and stubborn, unwilling to admit any sort of feeling to anybody. They're often prickly and like to be left alone. Other Cats! like to be in the spotlight. They usually have a superiority complex, an inferiority complex masked as a superiority complex, or both a superiority and inferiroty complex(or 'I know I'm a bad person, but at least I'm better than you!') Or the character with the 'cool, confident' aura. Which characters have the Dog! Personality? Dog personalities are usually not the brightest crayon in the box, but the overly happy nature, 'just glad to be here' attitude, and positive aura make up for it. Overly excitable Dogs! are often headcannoned as ADHD or Autistic, rarely confirmed. Often refered to as the 'sunshine' character. Examples in Media: Catradora (Cat!Catra, Dog!Adora) She-Ra - Cannon Lumity(Cat!Lumity, Dog!Luz) The Owl House - Cannon Klance(Cat!Keith, Dog! Lance) Voltron: Legendary Defender - Fannon Kiribaku/PopRocks (Dog!Kirishima, Cat!Bakugou) My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia - Fannon Korrasami(Dog!Korra, Cat!Asami) Legends of Korra - Cannon Hicstrid(Dog!Hiccup, Cat!Astrid) How to Train Your Dragon - Cannon Sasharcy(Cat!Sasha, Dog!Marcy) Amphibia - Fannon Sashanne(Cat!Sasha, Dog!Anne) Amphibia - Fannon Miritama(Dog!Mirio, Cat!Tamaki) My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia - Fannon EraserMic(Cat!Aizawa Shouta, Dog!Hizashi Yamada) My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia - Fannon (I know not all of these are cannon and that there are more examples of this that I listed. These are just some of the ships from media, canon or fannon, I've consumed.) No hate against any of these ships, I may not ship them all(not saying if I do or which ones I don't. Not asking for drama, thank you) but other people do. Please be kind, all hate will be deleted. I also recommend NOT talking about ships in the context of 'I ship it' '*insert ship* 4 LYFE' or 'I don't ship it'. The thing is, there are more relationship dynamics than this? It's not that I have a problem with this dynamic, it's just I'm /tired of seeing it/. Related Trends: This dynamic is 9/10 times paired with the Cat! being a tsundere or at least reluctant to admit any sort of feeling. Hey! The only example that doesn't fall into this on that list above is Korrasami. The Only One. Fixing: -Try another dynamic? -If going for this dynamic, spice it up a bit? Maybe ditch the whole 'edgy/emo Cat is also a tsundere' Examples in my work: As mentioned above, despite everything I've said, I have a soft spot for this trope. I am currently working on a two works that feature this tope: No Borders and OceanSide. No Borders features 2 actually. Virnen the Earth Lion x Shirifu the Explosion Fire Monitor Lizard and Cascade the Water Wolf and Baron the Fire Wolf. Shirifu and Baron are the 'Cats that are also Tsunderes' Baron was taught by his mom and enabler father that emotion is weakness while Shirifu is affraid of getting attached to only get ditched. Oceanside stars 'Cat Personality' Leon the Human with a later introduced 'Dog Personality' Darren the Human. Despite the 'overly happy' protagonist trend, it's actually problematic, pessimistic yet hopeful Leo that this story follows. Leo is heavily modeled after circumstances that I am currently going through and is still under heavy construction. I'd rather not spoil too much for OceanSide yet. Other Dynamics: -Nerd x Nerd. Seeing two nerds passionate about the same thing talking so fast and animatedly that no one else can understand what they're even talking about is just fantastic. I don't think I can accuratly come up with an example for this one, which is kind of sad. -Dog x Dog. Two overly happy people ready to make each day their best and psyching eachother up is underated. -Cat x Cat. Two loners saying 'okay, I can tolerate you' and the ensuing hyjinx can be both funny and infuriating. Just don't make it too edgy or it just becomes boring (my best friend read this book like that and it's now her go to for comparing badly written romances to. It was basically 'watch the world burn?' 'watch the world burn'. I brought it up once when our new characters have a similar dynamic and it got her going off about how bad it was again)
Cover art: @Twinkle_Toes9603 Character: Musha I /could/ be happier with the background art, but it works. Next Musha Mumbles is probably going to be about the trend of 'overly optimistic protagonist'. Again, I have no problem with it, but I just want to see something else for a change? I have a BUNCH of these sitting in my 'unshared projects' from how taking a medical class has helped my art, how to properly draw scars as someone who has them, mental illnesses+disorders in original characters, writing relationships, color palettes, and pencil drawing.
