#I'm trying out some new techniques because i really should figure out and use more than one or two layers

[syncrovoid-presents]

I'm doing Digital Art (evermore on my crusade to get better at it. Alas I'm still best at pencil and paper) and my respect for all that do detailed backgrounds has skyrocketed.

I knew it was tough but damn, balancing the line between detailed and not detailed enough is Hard

[tyrantisterror]

I decided to spruce up the Thorn and the Spectre today - one of the problems when you have a big art project that keeps growing despite your attempts to end it because you're having too much fun with it is that your skills grow with it, and eventually you look back on the first parts of it and being like, "Uh, yeah, I think we can do better than we did." This is why Tyrantis's soft sculpture model has two whole remodelings.

The Spectre's touch-ups were somewhat minor. I added more transparent material to the interior of her skirt so she feels a bit more substantial, and then, uh... cut off her face for the second time and gave her a third and final one. This time I used the technique I first tried with the Beast of layering the foam rubber on her head so she has naturally sunken eye sockets and cheeks, then covered it in a thin layer of fabric so the seams aren't as noticeable. It worked, I think she looks much closer to the cute ghost she is in the game! Also now she has her old face as a fun accessory.

With the Thorn, I decided to do something I had initially intended to do, but decided against because it seemed to have a bad ratio of "insane amount of fiddly intricate detail work" to "things people will actually notice and give a shit about. Namely, cutting out a bunch of tiny little thorns to put on her vines and gluing them all on individually. Even now I can feel Dennis Nedry waving his hat around and saying, "See? Nobody cares!" about all the effort I put into this, but dammit, this is the Thorn! My favorite princess! She should have her namesake! I also made some extra vines to put in her hair to make her more canon-compliant, which of course meant I had to make even more tiny little fucking thorns no one will notice.

It's ok, she's worth it. She's worth it.

Oh, and I beefed up her legs a bit with some more fabric. Her original legs were too twiggy and it was really noticeable whenever I stood her next to the other princesses, so now she's got stronger gams.

...and since I had the hot glue gun anyway, I decided to make one last new princess. As a treat! The Princess and the Dragon is one of my favorite routes of the game, and it can result in one version of the princess who's, like, color inverted - where the other princesses look like cross-hatched pencil drawings, this one looks like a cross-hatched chalk drawing, and it's just a really cool effect that I wanted to try and figure out how to do. I... I'm kind of ok with the result? I like the felt I got for the hair, it's dark gray with streaks of white and really feels as close to the chalk drawing looks as I can probably get with that material. Unfortunately, the white-ink pen I got to try and do detailing on her face did not show up as well as its black-ink siblings have - you can kinda sorta see the lines I drew on for her lower lip and eyebrows if you squint, but yeah, bit of a disappointing result, especially since I was hoping to be able to use it to give her skin some of those faint chalk cross-hatching lines that make her look so cool. Still, she looks nice next to her fellow princesses!

I imagine if I was good with paint there'd probably be some sort of fabric paint that would work, but I can never use the stuff without it globbing everywhere.

The funny thing is, while I think she's one of the most visually striking princess designs, the ending that gets you the photo-negative Princess isn't my favorite for The Princess and the Dragon route. My favorite is the one where you and her get out of the basement and just lay on the grass together. Sure, her design isn't as striking in that one - she's almost identical to how she appears in the beginning of the game, just missing a hand and bearing an x-shaped scar on her heart - but it's such a sweet, tender little moment, and I savor those in the game. Definitely the least interesting P&D take on the princess to make a doll of, but perhaps the one that's more dear to my heart.

...

but I did say this would be my last one, so...

[luxuki-1]

Like I said I would, I'm going to go through the details I hid in my recent FNAF painting. Not because anyone asked, but because I want to and I'm proud of everything put in

1. Michael's design is my own! I've pretty much had the same concept for the design since SB came out. I just really liked the idea of having part of his jaw missing for no particular reason other than it looks cool. But, I have since moved the jaw gap to the other side, as well as defining scars and wrinkles.

2. I've already posted Golden Freddy but here he is again. I redrew the original poster since I really didn't feel like I just should just slap the original on there. Since I had that freedom now, I decided to make references in the design to later games since it is appearing as a hallucination(?) to Michael. Obviously there are blood stains around the mouth to reference The Bite of '83 and I also added tear stains to reference Evan/CC, said victim of the bite.

3. The classic "Celebrate!" poster. The same thing with Golden Freddy, I didn't feel like I should copy and paste the original so I drew it myself, but this time I only drew the bottom half of the crew since you'd only see that part anyway. Maybe one day I'll fully recreate the poster but for now, this is it lol (You may also notice that I gave each of them different leg shapes, to make them more distinguished from each other other than just colour)

4. And again, didn't want to just copy and paste, so I re-typed all of the newspaper clippings myself in Canva. They say pretty much the same thing as the originals, but I'll still put them here anyway in case anyone wants to take a look:

5. I also recreated the children's drawings myself. Fun fact: I actually used my NON-dominant hand to draw most the basic shapes. I figured that if I drew with my dominant hand, the lines might look too clean, showing my obvious years experience. It's silly but I really wanted it to look and feel like a child drew it

6. It ends up being pretty much invisible in the final painting, but on the floor you can see old confetti and blood stains on the tiles

7. If it wasn't obvious; cup from the Security office is here too

8. Now it should it obvious by now that I chose to not draw the security office. Why you ask? I'm still new to drawing more detailed backgrounds, and I really didn't feel like drawing the office in the moment lol so I opted for the hallway, and I think it still looks pretty good with what I was going for

9. As a bonus, here's the original sketch I planned out. As you can see, I was originally planning to have more posters, some featuring the missing children. But in the end, I decided to scrap it and leave room for the wall to be more detailed since I thought it looked bare. Also, if you look closely, you can see a faint plan for a shadow over Mike. I was originally planning to put a shadow of Freddy there, but when I really started finishing up the shading, I realised that the extra shadow would be too much for an already dimly lit scene

And that's pretty much everything! I had so much fun doing all the little details and references, even though it did end up being more time consuming lol. I also tried out a bunch of different rendering techniques and I think they really helped pulled everything together. I'm definitely going to try my hand and making more paintings like this in the future ^^

If interested in seeing the full process, here's a link to the speed-paint:

[afrophunk]

Remember when I was trying to figure out at what point of time in the story that people started labeling Yamcha as a lazy Z Fighter?

There's a possible chance this assumption started sometime during the Android Saga

Goku invited Yamcha and Krillin to come train with him, but they both declined. Yamcha specifically points out it's because he wouldn't be able to keep up

But even with this segment, it still doesn't really make him out to be a fighter who prefers to laze around and skip out on training. He just recognizes his limits, which you are going to see this specific form of self-reflection from practically all the Z Fighters in this Saga. Maybe a bit too much, idk, everyone kinda gets super depressed and easily discouraged in this saga. Which did lead to nearly everyone to stop fighting for 7 years. Yes, this includes Tien and Vegeta

But yeah, back to Yamcha, that's always been his character. He's a realist and a survivalist, important skills to have as an orphaned bandit all things considered. But that never meant he wouldn't do everything he could to help those he cared about. He's shown to do this numerous times

And even here, all he said was that he wouldn't train with Goku's intense regimen; not that he wasn't going to train at all and join them in the fight. Even Krillin declines to train with Goku for the same reason as Yamcha's. Which I've noticed Krillin doesn't get nearly the same outlook as the "lazy cowardly fighter" compared to Yamcha, despite those two being around the same level, both retiring from fighting after the Cell Saga, and both having moments of lack of confidence in their abilities compared to Goku. Also that was literally Krillin's character for a good while from the start of Dragon Ball (but then they also wierdly flipflop to that being his personality now so idk) But I'm guessing he got "Best friend of MC" status to thank for that. And he got a hot wife so fans cant make fun of him now just for that

"Well Yamcha should still push himself if he wants to get stronger" yeah I can see that what yall mean. I wish we had seen these characters train together for some time, as they all seem to love fighting. That's their lifestyle and passion. Problem is, no one really trains together for this saga and honestly after this it just gets worse🙄. Back when they trained for the Budokai, it made sense that they didn't train together. They didn't want to share their new techniques, which they planned to use when competing against each other. But after that, it made no sense for these guys to not train together when fighting a common enemy. Piccolo, Gohan, and Goku get to train together cuz we all know they gonna carry everyone in this saga. But thats about it. Everyone else just does their own thing, and no one grows from it

Toriyama isn't good at writing relationships. As in not just romantic relationships, but just relationships, period. It would have been nice to have known what everyone was doing during these time skips Toriyama likes to pull. What do they do to push each other, or what do they do to relax? But we just don't see that, which is probably why Yamcha even explained how he(and everyone else) "can't keep up" with Goku's training. Just a way for Toriyama to have an excuse for none of them interacting for 3 years

Fillers can be annoying, but sometimes it's understandable why they exist, given how little information animatiors are given to flesh these characters and their relationships out

Like yeah, why can't Yamcha, Krillin, and Tien just go off and fight a volcano? Why can't Chiaotzu end up befriending a dinosaur in the meantime? Am I describing a Dragon Ball filler episode or a Sailor Moon episode? The answer is sure, Toei is not original

Unfortunately, filler in Yamcha's case here has him lift weights at the gym, which resulted in him breaking the equipment, given how strong he is. I wouldn't be surprised fans took that as proof that he didn't want to push himself by training more intensely to become stronger, and that's what stagnates him. However, in the next episode, we see Yamcha attempt to take on the anti-gravity machine, pushing himself so hard that he nearly gets crushed, which somewhat contradicts that point again. Plus, these are both filler episodes, so we just don't have a good idea of what any of these guys were doing to train

It's just annoying Yamcha keeps on getting this treatment over a meme out of his tragic sacrifice. Meanwhile, every other earthling Z Fighter kinda goes through the same motions as Yamcha in terms of having , and they don't get this treatment

[beifong-brainrot]

Referring back to the Mako & Bolin post about being a firebender and earthbender in RC, I think that when taking into account that the Earth Kingdom doesn’t necessarily make a major deal out of earthbending in comparison to the Fire Nation and firebending, and upon applying that Bolin’s character, it creates this interesting picture of his character and what it says about him.

Considering the EK’s neutral perspective of earthbending and the Republic City’s origins with FN settlers having more privilege over the EK residents, the abilities of earthbending may be deemed as menial in comparison to other forms of bending (the stereotypes in regards to firebenders and earthbenders being interconnected to Fire Nationals & Earth Civilians is a whole other case in it of itself). Like I said before on a reblog, earthbending can be well utilized in manual labor, but overall it may not appear as anything special if not honed, used for something such as entertainment (pro-bending), or a sort of gateway to a subset of bending (metalbending & lavabending).

With that being said, I find it intriguing how Bolin seems to be, at least somewhat, proud to be an Earthbender — and it’s perhaps due to figures like Toph Beifong (who he looks up to a whole lot) that he’s proud of being who he is as an earthbending. Furthermore, I think this can add onto how Bolin kind of has a hard time nailing down who he is as a person — trying to figure things for himself as someone who is often a follower.

In some way, I can see how the perceptions of earthbenders within both the RC and the Earth Kingdom can impact Bolin when examining such intersections.

You make a lot of good points! I think Bolin's relation to his earthbending is so interesting, because a lot of people seem to downplay his bending abilities. Bolin is a highly capable earthbender, honestly probably on par with Toph, in my opinion. He utilises both earthbending and firebending techniques in his bending, and actively nerfs himself while lavabending. Like he opts for the lava disk, because if he pulled shit like this?

He'd be a murder machine. Bad guys in the tlok universe should thank their lucky stars that Bolin is a cinnamon roll.

He's able to bend with little to no contact to the earth, he's physically strong even without his bending, he has incredible accuracy, he's incredibly agile on his feet, being one of the only earthbenders to backflip like why does he do that

And I honestly don't find it surprising that Bolin is so skilled. His bending skills are probably one of the things that kept him and Mako alive on the streets, not to mention that his and Mako's income also depended on his bending ability in their probending days.

So I'm not surprised that Bolin has some level of pride in his skills, despite also being a little insecure about them too.

Knowing the love for bending in the Fire Nation and the neutrality towards it in the Earth Kingdom, I wonder about the difference between San and Naoki's approach to their kids bending. We know that a child begining to firebend is a reason to celebrate in the nation.

And I could certainly see Naoki celebrating Mako's bending. But I can also see that sentiment carrying over to Bolin too. We don't know much about Naoki, but she seemed to be a good mother, so I can't really picture her being too biased towards firebending over earthbending.

So it's very likely that, even if Bolin's abilities weren't celebrated outside the home, they were celebrated by the family.

I can see Bolin kinda getting slapped by the harsh reality of people's approach to Earthbending. Of course, I mentioned how Lighting Bolt Zolt could've favoured Mako due to his firebending, plus the City's potential disdain toward earthbenders.

One thing I find interesting is Bolin's hero worship of earthbenders who seem to have elvated over the status quo, and particularly earthbenders who have somehow innovated earthbending. Toza is a probender, which seems to be a relatively new sport, which lead to new techniques developing. And Toph is Toph. She revolutionised the bending art. She's an icon She's a legend and she is the moment.

Bolin: Mako! Do you know who that is? It's Toza, legendary earthbending captain of the Boar-q-pines. He's my hero. What do you think he's doing here?

Bolin: Because it's embarrassing. This isn't the first time I've tried, and I've been wanting to metalbend ever since I heard about Toph. Your grandmother is my biggest hero!

It's possible that Bolin percieves these two as having elevated themselves above the typical stereotype of earthbending being an uncreative, rudimentary bending style that is only based on brute strength and throwing rocks.

Bolin desperately wanting to metalbend is a very interesting and telling part of his character. Beacuse I'm sure that a lot if earthbenders would feel dissapointment over not being able to metalbend, but Bolin is like, genuinely distraught over it. He's ashamed and very uncomfortable on the subject.

It maybe leads me to wonder if he had been pressured to learn to metalbend at some point in his life, maybe by the triple threats, and was unable to do so.

One thing from Bolin that I've always been fascinated by is when Bolin calls metalbending 'not normal'. Because it's such an odd way to phrase it. Also, really funny thing to say right in front of Wing and Wei who eat sleep and breathe metalbending.

Bolin: Mako, metalbending is extremely difficult. No one gets it right away, if they can get it at all! It's not normal!

Of course, it could just be Bolin lashing out or deflecting, but the idea that Bolin doesn't consider metalbending as 'normal' has been latched in my brain. Because it potentially implies that Bolin sees metalbending as a trait that isn't normal. Maybe a trait that is 'above average'.

I think it wouldn't be too out of the blue for Bolin to want to metalbend due to his perception of metalbenders as 'special'. To elevate himself over the potential demeaning he faced as an earthbender. Bolin struggles with his self esteem throughout the show, some of which may come from his role as an earthbender.

I believe Bolin loves his bending, loves earthbending, loves the martial art of earthbending, but he also wants to surpass the stigma of earthbenders being menial labour, or something of the sort. He was excited to connect with his Earth Kingdom Heritage when heading to Ba Sing Se, and downright giddy when in Zaofu. His identity as an earthbender is important to him (let's remember that he had nightmares about his encounter with Amon for days afterwards) but he has incredibly high expectations of himself. I think he sees himself as 'one of the dirteaters', and he wants to evolve past that. Adding to this is his struggle with finding his own identity and his desire to 'find himself'.

I really wish this side of Bolin had been explored more, because I think it has some great potential fod a good story.

[everpresence]

I want to manifest being crush of all the celebrities and yes I know it sounds kind of crazy, I see that anons want to manifest for common people, but I would like to manifest celebrities. I don't have interaction with any and I don't know how to meet them or all that, or how it would happen. Specifically when it comes to a group of soccer players and they are friends, plus some already have partners and are very famous, we are also not close and there is no way for now to meet them. They are 32 men and I am 22 years old, they are a little older. I don't know, I'm new at this. Do you advise me to manifest common people like all my friends in love with me? Or the famous ones? Any suggestions? Please, I'm not good at visualizing and affirming a little. Does the 3d take time? Because I give up easily and I'm afraid. Anyway, thanks for reading me, I send you love.

DAMMMNNN THATS A LOT OF MEN!!!! good for you, though, and much love to you as well ♡♡

whether you should manifest common SPs or celebrity SPs is up to you. i think you should address your beliefs regarding celebrity SPs being much "harder" to manifest because at the end of the day, they're normal people just like us. it's just our beliefs that we have to change.

so based on your question there's already some things that i noticed right away. first, it seems that you believe that it's impossible for you to cross paths with them. notice that you're focusing on the "how." how it's going to unfold in the 3D is not up to you, and in fact, it's better to stop trying to figure it out for yourself.

all that is being asked of you is to know that you are already are this person who can pull anyone they want, and to embody this state every time the desire comes up in your head.

Please, I'm not good at visualizing and affirming a little.

good news! you don't need to use techniques, and you don't need to be good at them either. i bring this up because techniques don't manifest, techniques are only meant to help you remember who you are choosing to be now. i have aphantasia, so i don't have 4K dolby vision-esque visualizing skills. did this deter me from having successes myself? not at all!

Does the 3D take time? Because I give up easily and I'm afraid.

this is where i'm going to suggest picking up one of neville goddard's books to get a basic understanding of how the law works, especially since i see that you said that you are new to the law in general. i recommend reading At Your Command or Feeling Is The Secret, which ever one you feel pulled towards.

the more you learn about the law, the more you'll see that your beliefs are always creating your reality 24/7 and see that there really is nothing to be afraid of.

[bomberqueen17]

idibus martis

I haven't written any actual updates in a bit. So anyway here's me: cut for wittering about writing and quilting, of all things.

I did finish the first draft of the novel in the first week of March. So that is all up in the beta doc, if you're one of the people that signed up for that. I have immediately started in on the sequel, because the stopping point I hit was an interpersonal landmark of stopping point, right before a whole new important new plot pops up.

So far there's one scene in the completed work I'm going to go back and alter to include one more character in, because if he's introduced there then his role in the sequel is much easier to explain.

I also have introduced myself a timeline-limiting complication for the sequel, in my usual fine style where I'm bad at linear time and then decide blithely to include an event that must take place in very clearly delineated linear time intervals, but that's just how I generally roll.

Anyway, that's going well. If anyone remembers my solarpunk mammoths of 2018 that I put on dreamwidth, I'm using the 2/3 of a novel I wrote for that and repurposing it for this, because it works much better with a plot, which this has. I'm going to fuss with that a bit more and try to get this sequel into an approximate book shape and then maybe I'll come back and look at this first draft, which is slowly accumulating notes from readers (and if you signed up to give notes or read, it's there for you now), and try to give that another pass-through. But of course, in the midst of all this, my winter of relative idleness will be ending and I'll be back to the farm at the beginning of April. But perhaps this year I will have a better work/life balance and I will continue to progress on writing?

Or at least I'll get back into fanfic, as I have some chapters of those like half-done. Who knows.

In other news I went yesterday and spent the day with Dude's mom, who makes quilts for charity-- her sister, dude's aunt, is in a nursing home now, and the only thing she wants to do with her time is assemble quilt tops, so now Dude's poor mom has a backlog of thirty-five quilt tops she's got to finish and bind before she can donate, which leaves very little time for her to create her own quilts. So I learned the quickest, easiest, most durable style of finish for the donation quilts they do, on an example whose size proclaims its intended purpose for donation to a NICU (they like 30"x42" pieces because those fit nicely with the units they use), and have taken home two more of a nursing home lap quilt size to finish with that same technique.

I've been moderately interested in quilting and there are so many ways to do it I've been intimidated out of starting, so I figured this was a great way to demystify it a bit. Starting with a competently-assembled quilt top takes out the whole guesswork of which techniques actually matter for me, and then coming from the "I make and donate at least 50 quilts every year" mines, with the aesthetic of "this thing is going to hold up to being machine-washed and dried for hopefully many years by people who don't know anything about sewing and don't care" as the primary motivating factor rather than the indefinable whatsit that you find in the guidelines for show quilts.

There's no hand-finishing on these quilts, though there's a little bit of hand-basting. Which is good because I like to get precious about handwork and this prevents that.

I would like to make exquisitely detailed crazy-quilt hand-finished scrappy masterpieces for myself someday, but knocking out a whole bunch of This Is Getting Donated So Do It Right pieces seems like a really good way to get out of my own head first and just learn how to do it properly.

I also got briefly obsessed with decoupage and have been hand-painting biscuit tins but those were sort of fleeting bits of madness.

As for the atomoxetine-- it should have begun to be effective this past week, and I simply can't tell whether it is. Is it doing anything? Well I'm drinking a whole lot of water. I've had slightly more trouble with my memory than usual, and I did burn dinner one night when I put it into the oven, forgot to set a timer (I often forget to set timers), and went into a different room and then wildly hyperfocused on something pointless to the point of entirely losing track of time, which is not normal for me. Dinner was salvageable but I was very stressed out. That wasn't normal for me.

This was the problem I had with the stimulants: they made my tendency to get absorbed in things much worse, without giving me any more ability to initiate tasks than I'd already had. So the SNRI was instead supposed to help me increase my executive function, switch tasks better, etc.; I can't imagine why it would instead be making my hyperfocus worse and removing what little ability I have to keep track of more than one priority at once. :/

I had one wildly productive day in February where I used pomodoro timers etc., starting off with a really great double-sided to-do list where I put Creative tasks on one side and Curative tasks on the other-- under Creation were like, writing, and painting, and those fun things, and under Curation was cleaning, organizing, those kinds of tasks, and when the timers beeped I'd switch from one to the other-- and I've kept meaning to try it again but every fiber of my being resists it when I want to sit and make the double-sided list again. I don't want to do it. I got a lot done and was happy at the time but I did not enjoy it and don't want to do it. :(

So anyway. I'm going to try to figure out a way to do things I want to do and things i have to do and not, idk, die? I don't know.

And my goal this year is to not just show up at the farm and immediately abandon any goals of my own forever and ever and resign myself to doing only work, because that sucked last year and the year before and it's not necessary nor is it helpful.

[godricked]

hi, i've noticed tarot cards in your latest post. i'm a beginner with cards, and still tryna figure out how to "learn" them the best way. can you suggest some techniques, or maybe some good sources? the sticky notes on your cards made me really intrigued

have a blessed day!

hiii!! thank you for the ask!

honestly i would consider myself a newbie too (i don't use them nearly enough). still, i do know my way around the cards a lil bit, so i'll explain what i do and some tips/tricks/sources.

this is the yughostlavia technique (bc i am inconsistent and don't really dedicate my time to studying the tarot as much as i should... it's like an 'on the go' way to learn).

do a daily reading - this is pretty basic yet effective, do a daily draw in the morning (or if you can't do one in the AM, any time during the day is fine) and learn the meaning of that card. depending on the deck, the cards may have slight meaning variations, but all have the same "core/archetypal" meaning. i suggest beginning with the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck, because the meanings are much easier to read.

learn the basic symbols of the cards - what does each suit mean, what are the most common motives (water, far away mountains, where are the people looking, what is the colour of the background?)

do basic readings - easy readings are past - present - future, situation - action - outcome... here's a list and take NOTES! these are the little papers i stuck onto my cards, i find it easier to retain information when i write.

once you have the basics down - try to interpret them on your own and THEN check google/the booklet that comes with your tarot. it will make you learn the meanings quicker (especially if you have bad memory and are more of a visual learner) as well as develop your OWN intuition.

watch youtube tarot readings! watch how others read the cards and how they weave them into a story, because rarely does one read the cards alone, independently from each other. i recommend the white feather tarot.

try to weave them into a story - you don't have to do a literal reading every time. pick out some cards at random and do practice readings - imagine you are starting a new job/getting married/moving abroad - and see what advice you can pull from the cards. this is great if you don't have other people to practice on and don't feel like reading for yourself

download a tarot app - i recommend labrynthos since they have all the meanings, cheat sheets and more (also the art is sooo pretty) and use it daily, while commuting, waiting in line, wherever you can.

where are the figures looking? what does the number of the card mean? what is my life path number and do i resonate with this number, etc. all of these things can help you learn to interpret the cards easier and more intuitively.

keep a tarot journal - draw the cards, the symbols, the spreads, everything. keep notes, but also do some free writing - keeping a daily journal will definitely help. take photos of your spreads, print them out, stick them in the journal. document the process. this is something i wish i had done when i got my first deck, so i'm compensating by sticking stuff into my regular bullet journal!

some other free resources i recommend are:

learntarot free tarot course

biddy tarot tarot card meanings

this article about how cards are connected

this subreddit has some advice!

i hope this is somewhat helpful! have a lovely day too!

[unma]

haiii unma!!

sorry if I'm bothering you, but. Dice told me that you are experienced with things like fanfic and such, and so, I'm planning to start a story that I don't know if I can call it fanfic since it's 100% my original, but still. So I wanted to see if you had any advice, tips or anything related to... You know, writing a story for other people to read or something like that? I don't know if I managed to explain it correctly. In short, I want to know, is there anything that would be good for me to know to write my story that I intend to post for people to read-

again, sorry if I'm bothering you. It's just something new to me and I'm a little nervous about how to make it work. Thanks :]

Okay, so starting with the basics:

Read a lot. Like, a lot. Doesn't matter if it's fanfics, books and stuff, over time just by reading you will continue to grow and understand more of what it means to write. This is obvious yeah, but even I myself still try to read more so I can get better.

You want to have concrete, noted down plans for what you're writing, lest you meander off course or get stuck midway through writing. It depends, sometimes you're just fine going off of what's in your head—most of my monthly one shots are written this way—but longer stories tend to need more planning, or you'll be like me who still hasn't updated Nekropolis in two years.

On that note I really should post the next chapter already.

Both of the above are just kinda obvious, so it's not like I needed to be the one to say it, really.

Study writing you really like. It's good to stop and take note of how things you enjoyed reading used words, or figures of speech, or conveyed emotions. This is especially really important when you're starting out and aren't used to using these techniques yourself, it helps to practice these techniques and so you get better at them over time.

Don't worry about trying to make a style for yourself yet. It may come naturally to you as your enjoy particular techniques of writing more than others.

Don't be afraid to try new things every once in a while. Some of my best fics exist because I tried new things I'd never done before. The Devil and Their Marionette exists because a friend asked me to write Charisk, but also because I really wanted to try flower symbolism. Did I do particularly good at it? Maybe. I think I did fine, but I'd have to hear what others think. Beloved Black Rose was written because I wanted to try out a different writing style, and people liked it. Never feel scared to experiment.

I would also suggest you try writing something short first. Longer projects take more effort and are more prone to wip hell or outright failure. A short project will tell you a lot, like how long it takes you to write, what your typical editing process is, and simply how much you enjoy writing. It's also a good idea to get comfortable with writing because some people write quite differently. I, sometimes, stay up late at night writing in bursts of inspiration. Some people might enjoy writing while eating lunch, for example. It depends on the person.

Lastly, feel free to ask other writers for help just like this. It won't hurt to talk to authors online whose works you like. Actually, I think it'd make an author's day if you asked them for tips or more details on how or why they write a certain way. I know this ask made my day for sure.

[simlicious]

I'm feeling adventurous and tried sculpting with the cloth brush in Blender. It's such a game changer, just wow. In maybe 20 minutes I went from base to what you see below. Incredible. And this is my first time using them. I just wanted to get a nice texture bake from the high poly sculpt for my base mesh, but I definitely love how dynamic that sculpt looks! If I'm feeling totally reckless I might attempt a retopology of it... but I'm not sure I want to put myself through that kind of torture just yet 😜

I talk more about the project under the read more!

But then again, I already changed the base TS4 mesh a lot and did the entire UV map from scratch. Some people would consider that torture, but I weirdly enjoy it. I also found a great way to turn UV maps into squares (thanks, UV toolkit add-on!). The UV's need a bit of finetuning afterward, but it's definitely less work than doing the process by hand. I tried to make a really low drop-sleeve. I know the bones will give me hell but I will paint them on myself. Hopefully, it will look okay later. I still want it to be a chunky wool pullover and have to be careful not to overdo it with the folds though. Even if it is so much fun to add them. Must. Resist. In case you are wondering about the base mesh, it is this one: you can see that they avoided doing a low sleeve at all costs (it looks a bit funny how tight it is around the shoulders and how wide the sleeves get, no one would actually knit like that but I bet they did it because of the animations.

Does anyone else feel peeved about the way the TS4 knitted fabrics look? It's so cursed.

As a knitter, it's really hard to tolerate even looking at those weird alternating stripes with way too low of a saturation. It would look tons better if they just had used the light vertical V's without alternating them with a darker shade. If that is supposed to be imitating a ribbed texture, that's such a fail (where are the purls??). Maybe they had a brioche stitch in mind? I doubt they did much research on the basic knit stitches before they made the texture. Huge missed opportunity, and kinda sad for a pack centered around knitting. The ribbing on the hem looks nice though, I give them that.

But enough rambling about that, I'm not going to use the texture anyway. I want to update my TS3 CC meshing workflow and have been learning new techniques here and there. They just need to come all together and I need a few projects that I actually finish to solidify the workflow. Once I figure it out, I really want to make tutorials about how I do things. That's the plan (that was the plan for this year, in fact, but realistically, I should make it my 3-year plan instead). I'm not even attempting to finish anything mesh-wise to the point of release at the moment (so don't get your hopes up yet). I'm just playing around and learning and trying new things. I need to reduce my anxiety to actually work on projects at all, and if I don't have a public release on the back of my mind, it seems a bit easier :)

[dynared]

While Robert Kirkman and friends have made it clear they have no immediate plans for characters outside of US G1 for now, I'm once again pondering what might be done in the near or far future with certain characters. Admittedly some of this is also because I know there are certain characters Earthspark won't touch for anything, even if they might have some use there, because Mae Catt was told she couldn't make them gay couples.

Anyway, my rambling will start with one character that was screwed over hard in IDW and really deserves more of a chance to shine, especially given how nice his Haslab and third-party figures are. I'll probably do this for other characters later. So let's start with the biggest victim of IDW's writing - Star Saber.

Star Saber is someone who got a REALLY bad look in IDW thanks to his characterization being based on the one from James Roberts's shitty fanfic, to the point Hasbro has essentially done an about-face with him everywhere else. Knowing that Hasbro won't return to the insane religious fundamentalist that he was mutilated into is already a relief. Still, there is something to the idea that if Optimus and presumably Rodimus aren't going to be gone for volumes at a time as the leader of the Autobots, there may be another role Star Saber can fit into in the Energon Universe.

Swordsman/Master of Metallikato -

One of the ideas in Transformers lore that has existed since the Furman run of the 1980s but has surprisingly never been elaborated on, even in IDW, was the idea of Metallikato. Metallikato is supposed to be a mysterious Cybertronian martial art thought lost to the ages, until the Decepticon Bludgeon began bragging to everyone within earshot that he was a master of the art, a combination of bare-handed fighting techniques and swordplay. While on occasion you get a Bot or Con who claims training in it, like Drft for example, it rarely gets elaborated on in any meaningful way.

Maybe it's my love of martial arts movies talking, but the idea of an ancient martial art in the tradition of kung fu movies being used to turn the tide of a civil war has a lot of potential. Star Saber being a master of Metallikato along with others, wondering if he should lend his blade to a partisan cause, only to find that bots like Bludgeon and Drift have made that choice for him. From there there's a ton of ideas that could sprawl from that, both sides wanting to train new Metallikato practitioners, the philosophical issues with lending a blade to a partisan cause, or the idea that a master would want power for themselves.

As an aside, if he were to show up in Earthspark, Saber training one of the Terrans in the mastery of Metallikato seems like it would be a pretty natural fit. Then again, considering what the rejected script with Drift looked like, I doubt they were entertaining such a notion.

The Single Dad in the galaxy -

While Star Wars may have abused the utter hell out of the framework of Lone Wolf and Cub since The Mandalorian became a hit (Bad Batch and Obi-Wan both try to replicate the core idea to much less success) one of the bigger parts of Star Saber's original characterization (which was ignored by IDW like everything else) was that he was essentially a father with an adopted child. A human child, named Jan.

The second episode of Transformers Victory actually has Star Saber doing paperwork to get Jan into a private school.

While, as noted before, the idea of a lone warrior traveling with a kid has been used a lot in recent years, there are definitely a lot of ways this could be taken that would be new to Transformers. The human element (or another alien if the EU goes that route) forcing Star Saber to interact with other people a lot more than he would have to otherwise. Hard to be the straight-laced, serious sword guy when you're worrying about your adopted kid being able to socialize with others and get an education. At the same time, there's definitely a lot of comedy to be milked out of such a setup. You just know the other Bots would groan whenever Saber shows pictures of his son.

The Super Robot Parody/Reconstruction -

Simon Furman, the quintessential Transformers writer guy, has been writing a lot of stuff for the mobile game Transformers: Earth Wars (and he also helped to write the script for the Earthspark game). In it, he has Star Saber as an active character, but as something of a worrywart/blowhard whose speeches about JUSTICE and other platitudes oftentimes rub his Autobot compatriots the wrong way. Then he fights and everyone is quickly reminded why he's the head instructor of the Autobot's War Academy.

As I mentioned in another post, the idea of a super robot parody is not one that Transformers has ever really dealt with despite having super robot elements in past shows, and Bang Brave Bang Bravern showing the potential of such a concept. Granted, I don't see Star Saber being nearly as...affectionate as Bravern can be, but the fact that Transformers hasn't played around with this parody concept outside of some flavor text in a mobile game few want to whale for is something that you think would have potential. Is he genuine about it or is this something he thinks is cool? How do the other Bots and Cons react? How do the humans? And what happens when they underestimate him and the end result has them lose to the weirdo?

Like I said before, I get not wanting to have the straight leader archetype if you're not planning to get rid of Optimus or Rodimus. But with the religious extremist angle having been rejected by just about everybody, there are ways to make Star Saber work in the Energon Universe and other animated material.

[shamebats]

If anyone wants to see a different take on AI use in art by a professional artist who's personally using it for their work, I recommend this Reddit thread:

Text copied under read more:

"I've been a professional artist and illustrator for decades. Like most artists, I was concerned when AI image generators hit the scene. But since they sucked at first, I wasn't all that worried... but then they started to get much better, really fast. I figured I should look a bit closer to see if I should be worried.

What I found was that they really are a powerful tool if used creatively, but they are *nowhere near* a replacement for human artists. They don't understand context, they spit out a lot of garbage that needs a ton of work to refine into something useful, and you still need an artist's eye to know how to direct them to make anything that's actually good. This is why you see so many people complaining about all the bad AI art. Because there really is a lot of bad AI art out there. The good AI art? People don't even know it's AI in many cases.

But as an artist who has been around since before the days of computer art, I have had to adapt to many changes. I adapted to using a computer to make my illustrations to keep up with the times. I learned to use Photoshop. I learned to use Blender (although admittedly not very well). I see this as necessary in a world where technology is constantly evolving; you need to evolve and adapt with the tech, or you will get left behind. So naturally I looked into ways to use AI generators to help in my work flow.

I started out by using it to create textures. One thing I have always done is use a blend of photo textures in my digital paintings to create visual noise and interest. It's a great technique that's been around for years. Being able to generate my own textures with AI means that I can get exactly the texture I want, much quicker than looking through stock images or going out with a camera trying to find new textures.

As AI image generators improved, and as my prompt skills improved, I started using them to generate thumbnail images to work off of, and to generate models to use as reference, etc.

I have always been very open with my clients about my work flow, and I've never had a problem with that. If I have a client who is opposed to my use of AI, then I don't use it when working for that client. No big deal. I have some clients who actually prefer that I use AI in my work flow, as it helps smooth the process along, gives me more flexibility, and they believe that the end product can be better. Again, I'm happy to accommodate.

Well I had one such client hire me to do a book cover. They suggested I use AI to help because the cover included multiple human figures, and without AI I would have to get some very specific photo references which would cost a lot of time and money. The whole image was completely created by myself, a product of my own mind, but there were some AI elements remaining in the final image.

The client was very happy with the end result. The author of the book was especially excited. They shared it with their audience and they got a ton of positive feedback. No negative feedback at all. Just another job well done then, right?

Well, no. Apparently another artist who also does book covers decided to run it through AIorNot and it came back saying it was likely AI generated. Well, of course it did. If you so much as look at AI while creating an image, AIorNot will say that the whole thing was made by AI.

And often even if you don't.

It will say that my old abstract acrylic paintings are AI generated more often than not. That software is seriously flawed. But no matter, as in this case, I actually did use AI elements in the illustration, and my client was well aware of this. No big deal.

Well, no, it turns out that it *was* a big deal. This artist contacted the book's author who, apparently, had not been made aware that I would be using AI in my work flow on this piece. It turns out that this author is extremely anti-AI, not just for images, but in general. For him it is a moral issue, and anyone who uses AI is not fit to be employed.

My client, the publisher, explained to him that I made the image, but only used AI elements as part of the process, but the author wasn't having it. They refused not only to use the cover, but refused to allow me to paint a new cover without the AI elements in it. In fact they strongly pressured the publisher to cut off all ties with me. The publisher obviously wasn't going to do this, as they are very happy with the work I do. In fact they still paid me for the cover art, even though they can't use it now, because they loved the cover and I did the work they asked of me.

But still, the publisher had no choice but to pull the cover art.

The author put out a social media post about it, essentially accusing me of being dishonest. People are jumping on the bandwagon, calling me an art thief, telling him how morally superior he is, etc. It's a truly nauseating display. This is not a matter of creative differences to these people; it's about good vs. evil. And because I dared to try and stay relevant in a changing world, I apparently picked the side of evil. And there is no arguing with them about it being art theft. They have no idea how these generators work, and they don't actually want to know, or they wouldn't keep pushing that obvious falsehood.

I have reached the frightening conclusion that if AI generators don't put artists out of work, then they may very likely do it to themselves when the community implodes. The way I see it, you can either try to stay competitive, or you can choose to be a Luddite and fall behind, because AI image generators aren't going away. They simply aren't. And in a few years, only the zealots will remain, beating their drums in a small echo chamber where only other zealots will hear them, because everybody else will be over it and bored sick of the drama. In the meanwhile, they are only making it more difficult for artists to stay employed in this new world with AI generators, by punishing those who try to adapt!

Any artist who runs art through an AI image detector, which actually uses AI to operate, is committing extreme hypocrisy.

The irony is completely lost on them, that due to their panic about AI potentially putting artists out of work, they themselves are using AI to track down and punish artists by threatening their livelihood.

AI will put artists out of work, because artists are making it happen.

So now, my client is in a bit of a panic and adding a disclaimer that relevant covers are made with AI on all the Amazon links because, even though Amazon claims that no such disclaimer is needed in cases where AI is merely used as an assist, he is worried that people will complain about them, and they could lose their Amazon affiliate shop, which would be death to their company. So even the images that merely had a texture overlay somewhere on it now have to be labeled as being ENTIRELY GENERATED BY AI. Even though according to Amazon's own terms they were in full compliance already. And the issue there is that if an Amazon affiliate has too many products which are listed as made by AI, apparently (I'm not sure exactly) they get put in a different category or something. So even though Amazon claims that AI assistance and editing is fine in their rules, in actual practice it is not. You can't take that chance because of the witch hunt that is happening right now.

And I'm still perfectly happy to work with or without AI. I have done without it for many years. But my clients still want me to use it, because they also don't want to fall behind. So that puts me in a difficult position of feeling like I need to choose a side on an issue that I don't even think should be an issue in the first place.

TL/DR: AI image detectors, which use AI to function, are being used by artists to track down other artists and endanger their jobs. And I really hate this stupid war."

[justicescoolandawesomeblog]

3 Chapters, 1 Blog Post: Because Attention Spans Are Overrated

sup papa pat today's blog post is gonna be split into 3 sections talking about each chapter IN DEPTH with a slightly less funny tone because i crave a full 20 points. SO let us begin with chapter 4

"Practicing Gratitude And Positive Thinking" In this chapter, Lyubomirsky talked a lot about performing happiness activities, and I mean a lot. Gratitude practices were honestly interesting too because, according to her, regularly expressing gratitude can shift one's attention from what's lacking to what's abundant. She expressed that keeping a gratitude journal, writing thank-you notes, and even just a simple task like mentally acknowledging your blessings can all contribute to a more positive mindset, and honestly, this really works. I spent some time reflecting and realizing what was positive in my life, and I genuinely believe that it made me happier that day. She goes on from there to discuss another few topics, such as how optimistic thinking helps you bounce back from temporary setbacks and how visualization techniques can help reinforce that optimism. After that, she went on to explain lots about how you should savor life and not rush through positive experiences and "flow" activities, which is where you engage in a deep state of engagement with an activity… which, like, I guess? I don’t really get her point here all that much because if this only occurs when skills match the challenge, and it’s something you can always overcome… then where’s the challenge? If you're doing activities that are hard but you never fail at, then it wasn’t much of a challenge at all, was it? It was just difficult. Me personally, I think failing and trying again at something is more rewarding than this "flow" state, but I GUESS I understand what she meant by it—it's just worded in a weird way.

"Investing In Social Connections"

OK, honestly, you've seen I'm capable of a good summary, so I'm gonna go back to the writing style that makes ME happy, but I'll still cram as much info about the chapter summaries as I can in. SO, in this chapter, she talks a lot about how one of the STRONGEST and MOST CONSISTENT findings in the ENTIRE field of happiness research is that social relationships are the key to well-being. And like, yeah, I can't imagine a world in which any friendless dork is happy—like, how can you be happy without friends to spread joy and whimsy? OK, so continuing on, she talks a lot about how happiness is strongly tied to the quality—but not necessarily the quantity—of relationships. Which I fully agree with. As long as you can have a few super close friends, I think you'll be way happier than with a ton of just fair-weather friends.

This chapter continued on a lot about how expressing love and gratitude is important, and you should always remember to do small acts of kindness for your friends and family to nurture that good relationship. Tbh, who wouldn't be happy if your friend was like, "OMG, I love you, oomfie, you're the greatest and coolest and awesomest friend ever and ever"? I'd like that personally.

Finally, in this chapter, she said to limit toxic relationships, and dude, I'm not even gonna extrapolate on this—it's so self-explanatory. Don't surround yourself with chuckle schmucks. Like, just don't.

"Managing Stress, Hardship, And Trauma"

The Big Lyubomirsky talks about a few key strategies in this chapter about how to manage—well, it's in the chapter title, so you figure it out—and they're all pretty simple, tbh. First off, you've gotta develop some resilience. Resilience is the ability to recover from setbacks, and you do this by having a positive mindset and lots of optimism.

The next strategy is to reframe negative experiences to look at them in a new light—take a look at the silver lining and all. Next on the agenda is to meditate and let the anger and sadness flow out of you. It apparently does something, but tbh, who meditates?

FINALLY, you've gotta seek social support from the besties, which lets you trauma dump on them in a HOPEFULLY effective way.

Anyways there's my blog post no conclusion bye.

[gamesception]

Sception Reads Cass Cain #24

Batgirl (2000) #9 Words: Kelley Puckett Pictures: Scott & Campanella

The end of the 'Cass gets her powers back' arc, some good stuff in here, including Bruce going to Cain in the hopes that he might gain some new insight into how Cass was trained in the first place that will help her now, while Cass goes out to find Shiva, who is able to give her what Bruce can't, in exchange for the promise of a proper fight to the death a year later, establishing a new temporary status quo and letting Cass's Batgirl title get back to the mostly stand alone stories, at least for a while. I'm sick as hell right now, so once again we're just picking out a few scenes to look at in more depth, but you know the drill, this is still mostly the original team, still ~mostly~ on their A-game, so yeah if you've never read it before go check it out.

So Bruce sneaks into David's house, again, this time trying to find insight into David's training techniques that might help Cassandra, and there's this little flashback sequence via David's proud papa family films (please forgive the more-extended-than-usual cut and paste):

Setting aside the comic-book unreality of the scene, It's important for a number of reasons. For one, it again contrasts Cass's two father figures, who are otherwise so often in parallel.

Yes, they both drive her towards isolated lives of violence and darkness, and away from everyday life in the light and normal human interactions. Yes, both love and care for her, but also see themselves echoed within her so strongly that they end up treating her more as extensions of themselves, as protege, partner, agent, or legacy, rather than as a person in her own right who should be allowed and encouraged to live her own life.

but Bruce has lines he won't cross, and David doesn't.

More than that, though, we get to see here something that Bruce can't.

Bruce sees David crossing his lines and snaps into vengeance mode, all black and white morality. "You weren't training her, you were just abusing her." But while shooting Cass was absolutely abuse, it was also training, and more importantly than that it was play. It was a game.

Look at that smile. Even in the middle of tremendous pain, Cass is having fun. She's playing a game with her dad, and winning, and her dad's going to be so proud of her for winning the game.

These are the sorts of extremes little Cass was not just willing but eager to go to in order to earn her father's approval, and Bruce is too distracted by his own righteous indignation at her abuse to register this dangerous and self destructive character trait - central to who Cass was even before she was consumed by guilt - or realize how her new life as Batgirl is feeding it.

Yes, David abused Cass in ways that Bruce never would, but rather than helping Cass recover from that abuse - instead of offering Cass the kind of unconditional parental love that would allow her to start living for herself instead of for a father-figures approval - Bruce is instead using Cass's abuse in furtherance of his own crusade.

And that's something that's only possible because Bruce refuses to acknowledge Cass's gleeful participation in her own past abuse. 'David abused her, but I never would. I'm not forcing her to join my crusade, I'm simply allowing her to do what she wants to do, and if what she wants is to be just like me, that's just because we're so much alike' - ignoring how her abusive upbringing influenced what Cass wants or how she behaves towards father figures.

...

Sadly, as with a lot of this early set up stuff, we don't ever really get a proper payoff to this. Creative teams change and characters are retconned and terrible editorial decisions are imposed and by the time any stability returns to Cass as a character not only is this intricate web of character connections gone, the structure it was built on also no longer exists.

.....

Anyway, Cass is also in this Cass comic, asking if Shiva can give her back her powers.

It's kind of a cheap cinema-sins ding style complaint, but... how exactly can Shiva give Cass back her body-reading ability? Especially so quickly and easily? Especially without any impact on the language centers of Cass's brain which used to be processing the body reading stuff and are now processing language? Like, there isn't even an arbitrary wizard here. This bit works on an emotional or story logic level I guess, but always felt kind of arbitrary. Especially how Cass was able to have both the body reading and normal speech after this, when they were so deliberately positioned as an either-or sort of thing before.

But whatever! We're not doing that anymore! And the looming death match that Cass expects to lose ties so closely to her core character motivations that I'm cool with it. But I talked about that stuff at length last time, no need to re-hash it here.

David Cain and Lady Shiva are problems for the future. For now this little stretch of serialized stories is over, and Cass can go back to episodic Batgirl adventures for a bit, only with more narration I guess.

[nillisaie]

So I need to have two cosplays done by November 1st

One for my mom which is going to be a Link cosplay but red since she loves red and hates green. I need to modify a shirt for the tunic, make the hat and also make some props. I think it's pretty doable

Now for myself, I actually don't know which option I want to try and make/finish: Octavia Goetia, Charlie Morningstar's battle attire, Verosika Mayday or Alastor

Gonna ramble a bit about each cosplans I have and what I currently have and what I need to do/buy/etc

So let's start with Octavia! I was going to wear her last year, but I unfortunately ended up having sewing machine issues. I still don't know what the issue is or how to fix it, but the only thing I need to do is finish sewing the dress and paint the stars on!

Currently, my dress is just basted stitch together? So not very well held together and the fabric is rather stretchy so I'd need to learn a new sewing technique that will probably be a bit time consuming to master to a satisfactory level. I do also need to make a few tiny adjustments to the neck and taking it in here and there and technically also add the sleeves..? Though I can probably omit that for now since the cardigan (?) I'm gonna use is a full long sleeve one. Oh! And also the necklace!

I also planned to use my real hair for this since I unfortunately do not have the arda Stevie in black that I was planning to use since my effing ex wife never returned it to me even though I told him to return all of my stuff and it's discontinued so I can't buy the one wig that I really adored anymore

Anyway

I also actually got Stolas' grimoir to use as a prop but never ended up using it. I'm also not making the tail for now. That'd be a future upgrade thing

The next cosplay I could make is Verosika Mayday! I was finally able to find the perfect coat to modify for her! I just need to shorten it and technically remake the sleeves..? But the sleeves are fine actually, I can leave it as is for now

As for the outfit, I actually plan to crochet it since I just do not have the space to work with fabric and with my disability, crocheting is just so much easier on my body imo

I'm not sure which outfit I want to make though... I will need to buy yarn regardless. I think the white and black one would be easier because it's just a tube for the most part though I do worry a bit about stretch making the fit a bit difficult to figure out.. Also she wears a pair of sunglasses with this outfit which would be pretty neat if I can make like fake little clip ons to wear over my prescription lenses since I'm pretty blind so it'd be nice if I can keep my glasses on all the time (I know I can, I just personally would like to be accurate and take em off for pictures and such)

I personally think the second outfit is cuter but I don't want to have to put my wig in a ponytail again. Oh! I do in fact have a wig for this, it's just pretty tangled at the moment

And next, Charlie Morningstar!

I do have a wig I can probably use for her. It's a bit darker than I'd like and has a bangless middle part..? So I'd need to fix that. I have some ideas on how to go about that though I could also just try to resew the wefts in if it doesn't work. I also curled it previously so it's a bit of work

The outfit I actually should have enough red yarn though I do want to try and do something different, like a little corset thingy in a darker red to help break things up a bit, add a bit more visual interest so I'd probably have to buy that. And I'll definitely need to buy black yarn for the gloves and leg warmers

I do actually have a pattern in mind that I found a while back so I wouldn't be doing this completely blind. I also actually bought some shoes specifically for this cosplay! Oh, and speaking of which, I can also use these shoes for the second Verosika outfit. Maybe with a pair of white thigh high socks and I can just attach some criss cross X's over it..? If I don't have time for anything else?

Oh and Charlie does have a spear and a shield! I can definitely make the spear. I actually have a wip for Alastor's mic and I thankfully made it so that the mic piece is removable so I can easily swap it for Charlie's or even Vaggie's spear (I also have an almost complete closet cosplay of Vaggie, just need a wig, eye patch and bow. Also to find my skirt for it...)

And finally Alastor! Specifically maybe his Valentine outfits

I do have the hot topic Alastor coat but I don't want to wear that to a con. Especially since I'm only going for one day. I want my outfit to be a bit more special and I don't have the time to figure out his regular outfit

As for the valentine outfits, I actually specifically bought a bunch of yarn to make myself a pair of shorts similar to his 2025 (the left one) pants just because and realized I could also just use it for cosplay and not just daily wear

And also bought a bunch of dress shirts in different colors specifically for Alastor, though the red one I have is a bit on the wider side... The rest of the fit is fine, it's just weirdly wide but hopefully the coat will hide that and if not, I can either try to modify it or dye an extra white shirt I bought just in case. I do also have a black dress shirt, a red vest albeit with no stripes and a black bow tie that I can use for the other Valentine's outfit! I would need to buy suspenders, a red bow tie for the first one and dress pants for the second one, and in general honestly. Probably gloves too

I'd once again just crochet the coat. I don't know how yet, but I need to figure it out regardless for my amigurumi that's been waiting for me to finish...

And the staff I mentioned, it's almost done honestly. Mostly just need to be finished sanding and smoothing it out, also need to add the eye and then paint it

And the wig. Hoo boy. I actually have two wigs that I plan to splice together so it's gonna be a lot of work. And one wig is one that I had previously dyed and that unfortunately ended up staining last time I wore it... So I need to figure out that issue. Maybe just wash it again? And maybe dye it a bit more..? I don't remember if the red is to my liking for Alastor. And basically it's gonna be a lot of work

Though...

Though actually..

I just had a thought

I actually bought a green vest for Alastor. Specifically to try and do a Christmas festive version

And I am attending this con on November 1st

The day after Halloween

What if

What if I show up as Christmas Alastor actually?

I could then just focus on completing the staff and styling the wig and buying some dress pants

Oh! What if, assuming I have time, I also make this coat?

Oh, this would be so stupid, I think I might do it honestly. Maybe I can even try to invest in some LEDs or something. What if I also manage to get those uh Christmas string wreath things..? garland to wrap around the staff or something? Can I get a glowing nose as well? God, this would be so stupid. I think Alastor would approve

But I dunno, if anyone read this far, I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions

And for reference, last year I made a last minute Eevee closet cosplay for my mom and my sewing machine stopped working so I ended up going as fem Human Alastor last year (it was supposed to be an Alastor inspired outfit that ended up just being Alastor). Also I don't have much actual hands on experience (I've mainly made props before), but I do have like 10+ years of accumulated general cosplay knowledge because broke and disabled

[variousqueerthings]

ok having watched two episodes

Pros:

Kenny and Shawn Payne are very well-written siblings and the plot gives them some really beautiful moments of brotherly support

Kyler and Brucks have some really good (and funny) growth

Sam and Tory teased as learning to get on, but there's still more to do for them

Johnny has a moment of real ADHD vibes while at Larusso Auto (his leg just goin BRRRRRRRRR)

There is a moment of (potential) Johnny growth when he joins Larusso Auto

Kreese's gay fuckn hallucination

Chozen and Johnny have some fun bonding moments while Johnny gets a house

Chozen + Larussos poly-threesome vibes continue

Robby and Miguel are N'Sync

I like that Miguel is getting more focus again -- trying to figure out if he should go for uni when he doesn't know if they can pay for it, but deciding to go for his dreams

I like the new Miyagi-do image with the eagle flying overhead, I can get behind that

Kim Da-Eun. I really like her inclusion in the lore. I'd do it differently, but the thing is she's there, and that's better than if she weren't there, and the rest is fanfic! (where's that post about Kim Da-Eun making out with women? someone get her and Carmen to meet stat!)

Cons:

stupid fuckn weird Korean Spirit Quest that undermines the whole point of Kreese in the OG movie

Carmen... listen in my head Carmen has a rich narrative going on that I'm writing parallel to this plot happening

Johnny still isn't someone who ought to have another child/his growth is far too slow and far too late + it very rarely comes from within (there is a scene where he uses the "fist-clench" keeping in anger technique he learnt from Miguel back in s1 and that was fun, but mostly it's like "ah the roof caved in we need a new house, thank goodness this guy recognises me back from 1983 and is willing to rent for cheap")

feel like there hasn't been much going on with Daniel so far and I worry about what we're going to get with him

I feel like Sam should've been there for Kyler's growth, I think that would have been a minor healing moment for her, but alas this show is evermore dividing its plotlines into "the boys over here and the girls over there," which also makes it more obvious when "the girls" aren't in the plots as much because there are wahaaay more boys

overall, more pros than cons so far + I mean. I knew a fair few of these cons were gonna be there, which is kinda relaxing to me. I'm there for the pros, that's what I'm watching for. as for the rest... I'm not not noticing it, but I am like. *shrug* I know you of old