DC One Million 80-Page Giant
He never saw it coming.
Text
(Todd (when asked, he gives a different last name each time))
Aliases: Old Man, Magpie, Ḫabru (Hahb-roo)
Pronouns: He/it
Sexuality: Bisexual
Height: 6’0
Age: 38
Birthday: November 19th
Special Fact: His favorite gemstone is a sapphire (blue is also his favorite color).
Character: A clever and fox-like thief with a hefty reputation and bounty to show for it who grew up in slavery, and had a habit of escaping and running away at a very early age. Todd is quick with his hands, and even more so with his thinking. While he travels with Koda to watch all of the boy’s chaotic hijinks, he still sees something specific in Koda, something he thus far spent decades searching for.
References: (TBA, I will be finishing these as soon as possible, thanks for your patience! <3)
Crew: Šulmaru (shool-mah-roo)
Position: Navigator
Moodboard:
Text
”Mrs jewels…everyone except Louis…you have humiliated, abused and talked me down and treated me like dirt for the last time.”
when Todd has finally had enough of this wacky school that he made a mistake transferring to.
(Feel free to use this for when you want to write a “hero to villain” song about Todd from the wayside cartoon, just give me credit if you do)
Answer
Thank you!
I’ve already seen a couple of speculations float around and it’s funny because some of them are very right, and some of them are extremely wrong. Either way, it’s hard because there’s a couple of things in part 3 that I really don’t want to spoil ahead of the game, but on the other hand I’m bouncing with eagerness to get them all out.
Luckily I have 12 years’ worth of experience with keeping plot secrets :)
Anyway. FYI, the first two fragments are Seb-pov from chapter 2, the third Jim-pov from chapter 3, and I’m debating adding in a fourth from chapter 4 (Seb-pov again, they’re alternating) just to show the full spectrum of what’s going on there, ‘cause the first three alone might give off the wrong impression.
And then I will absolutely have to quell the temptation to keep yapping and shut my mouth and start the work.
Text
Todd ig
Had to make a design so I could visualise him for my fic
Anyways i physically cannot walk right now, were cooking with writing tho, i need to finish an ask for my other blog, but that’s a tmr flare problemmm!!! Ive skipped writing another chapter of tom and tord to writhe about the rest of these losers because I need to actually write about them, toms getting too much character development. Anyways goodnight hoes and hotties
Text
Finally went back and finished inking my third page of “what can Todd do?” sketches, this one focused entirely on a weapon idea that was suggested by a coworker when I stopped by the pizza place on Monday and showed her some of my drawings because it was super slow and they weren’t getting any orders at all.
A boomerang!
I wasn’t sure how I felt about the idea at first, so after drawing several poses, I started playing around with the design of the weapon itself… and around the time I started doing more of the blade-like, unevenly shaped ones the idea of him using boomerangs really started to grow on me.
It’s almost like some of the better parts of the sword, throwing knives, and sword-plus-knife ideas combined!
Plus, I’ve rarely ever had any characters who use a boomerang as their primary weapon. Out of all the characters I still use for anything currently, the only one who comes to mind off the top of my head is Meghan Yomahan during her appearance as one of a group of five optional bosses in Okédoké! La Leyenda Mexicana, and she’s sort of semi-brainwashed and amped up on borrowed magical power when she shows up in that game, so… not exactly her usual self.
I realized while drawing these… boomerangs are Australian.
Which means Todd could be not just any ol’ toad, but a cane toad!
Especially if I gave him the poison related abilities like I drew at the bottom of the first page, since cane toads are kinda notorious for making critters that try to eat them sick with their poison goop.
Text
Whoops… just realized I forgot to upload the second page of “what can Todd do?” sketches here, even though I already had them inked and scanned yesterday.
Anyway… picking up where the first page left off, I went from weapons to weird innate froggy powers to the possibility of making him more of a wizard-ish character rather than a physical fighter.
There’s a lot more notes on these pages, mostly dealing with how to differentiate his magic use from what Christy Telamora does (even though they’re running off of the same power source, it would be a lot less interesting if they just did the same stuff in the same way rather than each of them having their own style/technique.)
First idea I had was to give Todd books that he casts specific, pre-defined spells out of (in contrast to Christy just drawing on the power of her amulet to throw a bunch of random stuff out there, sometimes not turning out the way she had intended.)
The weird text in his word bubble says “BUBARUBAS” in the Deseret alphabet – an alternate English alphabet invented by early Mormons in the 1830s that never really caught on (even among Mormons) and has fallen out of use. I’ve sort of adopted it as my go-to “make some weird ancient/magical looking text” alphabet in drawings over the past few years.
“Bubarubas” was also the name of a sunken city in Uggy Barfoo, an RPG Maker 2003 game I made ages ago. The boss you fought there was Tuham Yigro, a giant tentacled worm monster… hence why the spell is creating a bunch of slime tentacles!
And then I had the thought of him possibly using a staff instead of books, with a transparent crystal seashell shaped part on top that’s full of blue magical goop that he uses as a power source (just like Christy’s amulet, but more “focused” due to the staff.)
This could, of course, also be used to fight up close. The idea with that last one is that he’d probably get that as an upgrade at some point, after having the “seashell” of his previous staff broken in a fight – removing a major weakness, since that’s protected by a barrier now.
Just one more page left to go! But that one hasn’t been inked or scanned yet, so it might not show up here until later tonight or sometime tomorrow.
Text
Was trying to come up with what Todd might be able to do in a fight – what sort of weapons he might use, if he has any weird innate abilities (like Froog’s stretching) or other powers (magic, etc.), or what.
So I started sketching out a bunch of different possibilities, and ended up filling up multiple pages of my notebook in the process 😅
First thought that came to my mind: knives!
Basically the idea was that Todd was an assassin type character, sneaking around and stabbing from out of sight or throwing knives from a distance to avoid getting hit back… which is always a good idea when you’re fighting someone like Froog who can hit back hard.
The thought of him throwing knives immediately gave me the mental image of him rapid-fire throwing a bunch of them like Dio near the end of Stardust Crusaders, especially since I had already started drawing him with several of them in his hands all at once.
The next thought: swords! Possibly just the sword, or possibly in combination with knives.
Was leaning toward swords with prominent hand-guards from the start of course, and primarily the more “stabby” ones though I did draw a more curved slashy-type saber and a “can slash or stab” type sword mixed in with the more fencing type/thrust-oriented ones.
Briefly considered guns!
But this was probably the first of these ideas to get crossed off the list. Partly because it just didn’t quite “fit” in my mind, and partly because having Todd rely on guns puts a pretty hard “upper limit” on what he can do unless he ends up getting some really unusual guns rather than the more realistic style ones I drew here.
If you’re trying to snipe from the rooftops with a regular-ass gun, and meanwhile your target can unleash hurricane force winds that tear the whole building down… you’re not a threat, you’re collateral damage.
I do still kinda like the image of him just pulling a freaking bazooka out of nowhere. Maybe I’ll find some way to work that in even if Todd’s main method of fighting doesn’t end up being guns…
And for the bottom third or so of the first page, I shifted away from weapons and toward the possibilities of giving Todd some sort of weird innate ability – mirroring how Froog is a rubbery frog that can stretch and bounce more than a normal frog.
The first thought that came to my mind was poison! Not surprising considering that I had already had the idea of him being an assassin (I actually had the thought of him using poison come to mind while drawing him wielding the knives and swords!)
Partly because toads often do use poison to defend themselves, similarly to how frogs are naturally flexible and bouncy (so both Froog and Todd would have a hyper-exaggerated “superpower” version of something their real-life animal equivalents already do)… and partly because poison felt like a good “counter” to Froog’s fighting style. If you mostly rely on physically hitting your opponents, somebody who can cover their body in toxic slime or generate clouds of poison gas around themselves is going to be a bit more difficult to deal with.
I also thought about an ability that’s a more direct “opposite” of Froog’s stretchiness; turning to stone, or perhaps just “hardening/solidifying” his body in general.
This also mirrors real-life frog/toad abilities (like how they can shut down most of their bodily functions for a while during hibernation and even survive being frozen solid if it gets cold enough), and also would help to counter Froog’s fighting style by making it so any blow that’s not hard enough to damage solid rock is just going to bounce right off… and, of course, hitting harder (and possibly with jagged/rough rocky parts that could cut/scrape in addition to having a blunt-force impact.)
Text
Had the random silly thought earlier today that Froog should have an enemy/rival type character… a toad named Todd.
Like how Froog is just “frog” with an extra O, Todd is “toad” but with one letter changed.
Got the idea to make him wear clothes (in contrast to Froog just running around getting in fights butt-ass naked), which almost immediately led to him having a nametag and bowtie. This also works with him being a toad rather than a frog. Froog would need to stay at least slightly damp and breathe partly through his skin, so clothes would be uncomfortable or even harmful to him… but Todd’s body is built to be better suited for dry environments and doesn’t do that sort of thing, so clothes wouldn’t be such a hindrance for him.
I liked the idea of him sharply contrasting with Froog, so I gave him a kind of blank, calmer, almost snooty look (vs. Froog being a super expressive goofball with wacky facial expressions.)
Drew a few different versions, but I’m definitely leaning toward using the bottom-left (where he’s got a tall, thinner “Kermit style” body shape, closer to what Froog himself had before the redesign) to continue the pattern of Todd’s features all pretty much being opposite/contrast to Froog’s.
Currently undecided on his origin, or what sort of powers he might have. I don’t think I’ll make him rubbery like Froog, but if he’s going to be an enemy/rival to Froog then he’s going to have to have some way to keep up if the two ever get into a fight…
Text
Who Is Todd Bridges’ Wife? All About Bettijo B. Hirschi Bridges Amid Divorce
Diff’rent Strokes alum Todd Bridges and his now-estranged wife, Bettijo B. Hirschi, announced their divorce after more than three years of marriage. The couple met through a dating app via a mutual friend, and they wed after nine months of dating.
“After much prayer and reflection, my spouse and I have made the difficult decision to separate,” Todd shared in a statement obtained by People. “This…
Who Is Todd Bridges’ Wife? All About Bettijo B. Hirschi Bridges Amid Divorce
Text
Food for Thought
Can anyone draw the Wayside School students doing their iconic things but using their cartoon designs?
I wanna see how the neurotic design of cartoon Todd translate doing the stuff from the books.