#to avoid associating that face with a character type already

[fatelcved]

thinking about how i need to bolster the roster of deities for dorverold -- i got a lot of major deities but not a lot of minor deities -- and the urge to use g.ojo as the fc for one of them bc i just love the way he's drawn tbh

[cripplecharacters]

How should you write/draw burn survivors? I know this isn't a drawing blog but I don't know of one that I could ask this question to.

Hello!

I'm not a burn survivor myself, so I'll mostly talk about facial differences/visible disability in general and link some stuff made by burn survivors.

First thing, I think it's important to remember that being a burn survivor changes a lot of things - not only appearance. Very important part is the psychological one, but I'm not a burn survivor so I will just let the resources linked below speak.

From the physical aspect, burns can also come with: chronic pain, limited range of motion due to scarring, tightened skin, problems with regulating temperature, itching, skin irritation, and even different nutritional needs during the initial healing process.

There is also specific everyday care associated with burns - something you basically never see in fiction. That could be things like occupational therapy, physical therapy, skincare (like heavy moisturizing and scar massaging), wearing sunblock, wearing splints, or stretching to prevent contractures or tightness.

There are also different types of burns and they (unsurprisingly) differ from each other - for example, electrical burns have a much higher rate of amputation than any other type. Chemical burns can cause eye issues. A burn caused by a fire in a closed space might result in a brain injury due to the lack of oxygen. A much larger portion of people than you (probably) assume have survived burn injuries as small children, and if they were young enough they might not even remember the event at all, unlike older people who might be very affected by the trauma.

Experiences of a person with 80% body surface burns, a person with quadruple amputations from an electrical burn, a person with a facial burn, and a person burnt very recently will be different from someone who has a 5% body surface 2nd degree burn in a spot that’s usually hidden, who has lived with their burn for a decade - despite them all being burn survivors.

When it comes to more thorough research, I recommend going through Phoenix Society’s and Face Equality International’s websites to learn more about both real burn survivor’s perspectives, and face equality as a social justice topic. I think the 3rd link (see below) puts it very well when talking about burn survivors being represented in fiction:

“Most likely, these characters were not created by someone with lived experience. The result is an increasingly garbled game of telephone [...] To avoid contributing to this false narrative, embrace research as part of the process. Explore interviews, first-person accounts, and articles from reliable sources.”

I personally think that the links below should be mandatory reading for writing not only burn survivors, not only people with facial differences, but visibly disabled people in general - because the treatment we get is often so similar the advice still holds up just fine. And if you don't plan on writing any of these, you should still read them to see how prevalent of a problem ableism in media is.

Lise Deguire's Hey Hollywood - scars don't make you evil.

Face Equality International's International Media Standard on Disfigurement.

Niki Averton's Tips for Writing about Burn Survivors.

The main sentiment that you will read from basically any first-hand source is that if you're writing the burn survivor to be either:

evil (just throw the whole character away)

a guy with the "World's Saddest Most Tragic Backstory Ever and It's So Sad and Tragic" (because he revealed he has a scar)

a helpless victim who is there to be The Helpless Victim

...then you're already doing it wrong and need to make some major changes.

From our blog's reblogs and posts, you might want to look at tips for writing a visibly different/disabled character and tips on drawing people with facial differences. Neither are specific to burn survivors but cover the topic of visible disability and facial differences.

Now for tips on drawing burn survivors (that weren't included in the last link);

Reference real people. 99.9% drawings of burn survivors seem to go through the same "increasingly garbled game of telephone" that Niki Averton mentions with how burn survivors are written, in that the newer the drawing, the less in common it has with how real people with burns look like because people reference from each other and none of them ever think to actually check if their depiction is accurate. If you just google "burn survivor" you will very quickly notice that burn survivors don't have that damn red overlay layer put on top of their skin. It just doesn't look like that, and basic research (aka Google Images search) will tell you that - and still, people color a hand with bright red and think that's how it looks like (it doesn't).

In the same vein, maybe don't just draw an able-bodied person and then put some scarring on top (or maybe do exactly that. No burn scar and no burn survivor is the same, and there are people that fit what I just described... but hear me out for a second). Think about how scars interact with their features - do they have both of their ears? Do they still have all of their hair? Do they only have parts of their eyebrow? Do they have all of their fingers? Can they move the same as before their burn, or are their scars limiting their joints? How did their body react to the post-burn hypermetabolism? Lots to think about. Take into account what type and thickness of burns your character has.

Ditch the mask trope. Just ditch it. There's no need to cover your character's scar from the world unless you as the author think it requires to be hidden, is too scary to show, or other ableist trope that seems to always come up with drawings of visibly disabled people, especially burn survivors. The one exception I will mention is a transparent face orthosis/mask (TFO) that facial burn survivors might wear while awaiting a skin graft early after their injury. But as the name suggests, it's transparent and doesn't work for the "scary facial difference, better cover it up and only reveal it in some hyper dramatic scene!" trope because you can see right through it. (I will also mention that TFOs are a very modern thing. Your medieval burn survivor wouldn't be wearing one).

No "body horror", no "gore" tags or trigger warnings or whatever. That's a human being. If you feel the need to warn your followers before they see a disabled person existing, you're better off not drawing them.

Some last notes;

Throughout this ask I used the term "burn survivor" rather than "burn victim" because that is, to my knowledge, the general community preferred phrase. Individual opinions will differ (because no group is a monolith) but "burn survivor" is generally the safest term to use and probably the best if talking about a fictional character.

Similarly, I used "facial difference" rather than "disfigurement". Just as the above, opinions will differ on what is the best to use but I personally, as someone with facial asymmetry and a cranial nerve disorder, heavily prefer the term "facial difference" over "disfigurement". (I am in this case The Individual Opinion Differing because you can notice that in the links above, facial difference and disfigurement are used interchangeably. The general community uses both, some people have specific preferences. I'm some people). When talking about a fictional character, "facial difference", "visible difference" and "disfigurement" are all probably fine. Just stay away from calling a person "deformed".

mod Sasza

[kozachenko]

[Click for better quality]

Ok so as a sort of followup to that Yachie drawing, I did one of Yachie as well. I already had a pretty solid idea in mind (though tbh drawing her wasn't as fun as drawing Saki) but I'm overall pretty happy with this drawing.

Artist's Notes;

So I knew that I would never forgive myself if I completely missed the oppurtunity to give Yachie face scales, which is something that I haven't really seen many people do yet. I do feel like I could've pushed it a lot more, but I'm liking the direction my take on her is going.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to talk about some of my headcannons for how Hell's fashion works since I've had this on my mind for a while. So ever since I refined my own design for Zanmu, I really liked the idea of having there be some connection between her and Satori in their clothes because they're both the defacto "leaders" of their respective Hells, and then I had the idea of having Hell's fashion trends mimic real life history where it mimics whatever the upperclassman are wearing in someway? I've always been really fascinated with the idea of how Modern Hell works as a society and also how Old Hell was impacted by it's abandonment, and while I am aware that the animal realm isn't exactly Hell and is moreso it's own thing right next to it, I imagine that there would be some overlap in the fashion and culture due to their close proximity to each other. Of course, I still kept a lot of elements in from Yachie's original design, the only thing I really added to the outfit was the jazzed up sleeves and the bottom of her shirt as well as those cool triangle things ZUN added to her shirt in 19. I also have her some nice and sharp nails since I thought they fit her. I also tried adding some scales onto the tips of her ears though tbh IDK how well they read. Her colour palette also ended up becoming a lot more teal than I had anticipated, but I honestly like it as I love it whenever people make Yachie's colour palette and design a lot more teal. I also wanted to try and differentiate her face from Saki's, though I do plan on experimenting more on how to avoid same face syndrome, as it's a problem that haunts me in my dreams. There's not really much I can say here aside from "hee hee clothing rendering go brrrrrr" and how the Clip Studio Paint charcoal brush is really all you need for any given piece and it is literally the only brush I use aside from the occasional airbrush for lighting (sometimes) and the blend tools. I've been doing a lot more simple character art recently and I've just been waiting for a cool enough idea for a full blown piece.

Though now that I've talked about some of my headcannons about how Modern Hell works, I really just want a Touhou manga spinoff about Modern Hell. Like, please ZUN I'm begging you, just do it, it would be so fucking cool because Touhou 17 is literally the only time in modern Touhou when we've been to Hell proper, does modern Hell have any settlements of Oni and other Youkai? Does it have cities? Towns? Villages? What's the technological level of Hell? How do they keep sinners from pulling a Touhou 17 and summoning a fucking god to save them? Where do all the characters associated with Hell as of right now fit into everything? You can't just drop a character like Zanmu who is stated to essentially be the king of fucking Hell and then not elaborate further on how she fits into the general framework of Hell! Is she officially the king or is this more of a "true mastermind using the official king/ruler as a puppet" type deal? How does the Animal Realm fit into all of this? Did Hecatia purposefully create Hell so it would be right next to the Animal realm? Did it just appear there on it's own once Buddhism started popping off on Earth or was it established once Zanmu established Modern Hell? How long was Keiki a problem for, and how did that affect the rest of Hell? Seriously there are so many unanswered questions here and I don't know if I just need to read an interview Zun had where he was asked these same questions and if so please tell me because these questions have all been stirring in my brain for quite some time and I really wished we'd just get a new fucking manga instead of going over the same settings in Gensokyo over and over and over and over again dear god. Like, I get that there's still a lot to explore with what we already do have, but it would just be really nice to see the Animal Realm get a little more explanation as to how it fits into the overall grand scheme of Gensokyo's worldbuilding because that would just make such an already interesting idea for a setting in Gensokyo so much better.

I'm hoping to get the drawing for Keiki done before Touhou 17's 5 year anniversary, though I am willing to postpone that and take my time on it and I also have something coming up where I won't have access to my main drawing tablet for a while so it might be a while until I post again, maybe, who knows, consistent posting schedule? Who are they, I've never heard of them. I do fully intend on talking about my thoughts on Touhou 17 though, even if it's a day or two late, it's Touhou 17's birthday month so it still counts! Also because out of all the Touhou game anniversaries, this is the one I care about the most because Touhou 17 was the first Touhou game I played and 1CC'd(???) on normal, and even though it has plenty of flaws (i.e. the many missed opportunities for it's gameplay, how unbalanced the mechanics are and also screen visibility), I'm always going to have a bit of a soft spot for it and I think that the game's strengths make up for some of it's weaknesses in my opinion.

[pomefioredove]

angelum

summary: morally insecure reader type of post: fic characters: rollo additional info: romantic, reader is gender neutral, reader is yuu, yuu is at nbc now, hurt/comfort, a little fluffy, extremely self indulgent, rollo is ptsd coded as per usual

Perhaps he didn't know you as well as he thought.

But then again, perhaps he didn't want to.

Rollo had become accustomed to the comfortable home you had made yourself within his mind, warm and comforting and far, far away from the dark crevices he worked so hard to stave off.

It mirrored reality, in a sense; he saw it as his duty to keep you safe and away from all the evils of the world, the magic and sin and those who would lead you astray... some days, he felt that he could shrug the rest of his life off his shoulders and solely devote himself to your keeping. Others, he was bothered by nasty thoughts of doubt, those that told him he was only doing to you now what he couldn't have done all those years ago.

Rollo kept himself occupied enough to avoid thinking about it too much.

He did not see a reason to tell you of his mission, of course. You- pure, perfect, untainted by the sins of this world- wouldn't understand. No one would. But you never questioned it, either. Most days, you were simply happy to be treated well (the implications of which he did not want to dwell on; Rollo had made himself a promise not to pry too much about your experience at Night Raven College).

Always so grateful. So kind. Too kind, sometimes, that it caught him off guard. Rollo had not had a friend since...

...Never mind, that.

So perfect. So pure. Everything he could ever aspire to be, but never would, all captured in one person. An angel sent for him, and him alone.

But just as there were things you wouldn't understand about him, there was a sea of mysteries about you.

He can't imagine how you could cause yourself such grief.

Delicately holding your face between his hands, palms gently pressed to each wet, salty cheek, as if you were made of porcelain. He wipes away your tears with his thumbs, not bothering to pull away to retrieve his handkerchief. He can't even think of that right now. Seeing you in such pain is tearing him into halves.

"I'm a bad person,"

"No," he says, almost immediately. His voice sounds more desperate than he would have liked. He can't help it.

"I am,"

He had already spent thousands of nights wishing for some miracle that could heal unseen wounds, but that desire had become stronger than ever now. He would have gladly torn his heart out of his chest and given it to you if it would help.

He hates it. He hates that you make him feel this way. He hates himself for caring so deeply.

Yet, he still can't hate you.

Never you.

"You're not," he insists. "Tell me what's happened. I will make it better."

You don't respond, and it kills him. However you managed to get such an awful idea about yourself, he can't say. Perhaps it came from Night Raven College. Perhaps it's even older than that.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, because it is not true.

It's not true.

It's not true.

After all, if you are a bad person, then what does that make him?

You avoid his eyes. "You can't," there's long pause to take a shaky breath. "You can't make it better. I've tried... I've been trying... it doesn't go away. It's like... I've been shattered into a million pieces, and I can't be put back together again."

Rollo winces, though he doesn't show it on his face.

There are these things you do, these brief moments, soft exchanges of words, certain looks on your face, that remind him all too much of himself.

He pities you. He pities himself.

"Stop it," is all he can think to say. "Do not say such things about yourself. You are not broken. You are not evil. Do you think I would dirty myself by associating with such people?"

You're quiet for a long moment. He does not like the silence, so he keeps talking.

"I cannot address what you won't tell me, thought you should know that no matter what you were told at Night Raven College or elsewhere, here, you are valued. You are wanted. You are the most..."

Rollo hesitates for a moment, taking but a second to compose himself and rephrase whatever it was he was about to say.

"...the most exceptional student I have ever met. Your humility is honorable, but I will not allow you to drown in it. Let yourself feel this, recover, but know that here, at Noble Bell, you are nothing less than an angel."

Failing to find anything else to say, another long silence is cast over the room, though this one significantly less tense than the last. The only noise between the two of you is of crackling fire, though it sounds miles away when he looks at you like this.

Eventually, you speak. "...Thank you,"

"My pleasure," he mumbles, finally releasing the hold he's had on your face for the past several minutes and leaning back to get a better look at you. "...Let me help."

He sits a little closer, bringing your head to rest on his shoulder as he's done a thousand times before within the private confines of his room. Though, this time feels...

The purple and gold of his handkerchief cloud your vision as he gently dabs at your tears until he's satisfied, which he marks with a soft hum.

"Don't get up yet," he says after, allowing you to lean against his body for much longer than he has before. "The fire is still warm."

[bonebeautyart]

Saint Just is definitely the Satan of politics.

But let me explain what I mean. Satan, of course, comes from the term "adversary" in ancient Hebrew, where it is first mentioned in the Torah. This term has been associated with negativity, or with villainy or inhumanity. But at the same time, it is something that attracts and terrifies us, so we think we are wrong, or we try to avoid it, because it is beyond human understanding, At the same time, the figure of Satan is a constant questioning of order, and a driver of human curiosity about what it fears, for the judgments that imprison the mind.

Well, Saint Just has a similar case. For two hundred years, a diabolical image has been constructed of him, a legend in which he is the archangel of death, ruthless, otherworldly, and therefore beyond human interpretation. This, curiously, makes a very profound noise in our hearts, historians constantly avoid crossing it: that's why he is mythologized. Thus, the new generation of readers, philosophers, writers, and historians are taught to admire him and fear him so that a Saint Just will never again set foot on earth. This evasion is repeated throughout the centuries, and every repeated action becomes a habit, whether it be a virtue or a vice. This, without a doubt, is the vice of history. Many historical figures are easy to digest; Napoleon is admired for the grandeur of his figure and his character on the battlefield, a glory that is constantly repeated (we can already see it from Alexander the Great, Khan, Mehmed II, Caesar, or Napoleon himself). This type of grandeur is tactile to human thought because of the cult of personality. They all have a standard to follow: great, brave, glorified, and with a need to leave a historical mark. There’s no more type of greatness than that, but suddenly appear Saint Just. A greatness that has no face, seeks no personal glory, no historical record, but a structural greatness. Saint Just does not build to impose his will, but to destroy inconsistent systems and thereby possibly build one of the most rigorous political architectures ever seen.

Then, this shadow he leaves raises questions about whether all the proposed systems are realistic enough to work. Create a model that, for the mental health of historians, they prefer to call utopian or unreal; however, when you want to specify what this is due to and you move away from all the ideologies that are imbued in our consciousness, you can denote one thing: the total congruence of his system. There is no room for error; it can be systematized under mathematical models. It is a rigid structure not because of dogma (it wouldn't be so if it were, if it were due to dogmatism, it would be easily collapsible) but because it is integral, where a typical hierarchy of representation is not proposed, but rather this representation is the cohesion of the entire political system: a living being. This not only intimidates, frightens, and terrifies, because if it were just an unprovable delusion, it would become unnecessary to reinterpret it over the years, but history does not absorb it, it remains there, latent. That's why many philosophers tend to distance themselves from his figure, but at the same time they observe him and wonder: is he right and is this possible? A dangerous question for conventional moral systems. It is precisely one of the reasons why Nietzsche writes this poem, he does not despise it, he admires something sublime, an architecture that imbues Saint Just not with personal or typical glory, but with a deeper, structural and at the same time eerie one. This makes him a Satan of politics.

This is a brief, somewhat rhetorical interpretation of his image, certainly intimidating for one reason: what if he was right? That would break with many moral and political frameworks that exist today, something that is unthinkable for the political order.

[internetgiraffekid1673]

Luka-Alix Kwami Swap

This is currently my favorite miraculous duo and my favorite kwami swap and nobody is talking about EITHER, someone please ask me questions or tell me things about them!!!

I've given them the placeholder names of Radio Rabbit and Vipertime, but I would LOVE something better, pretty please make suggestions!

(No background, no shading, design notes/rambling under the cut)

***

***

Nah, cuz if you tell me there's a character with snakes ALL OVER her outfit who's had time travel powers since the FIRST FIVE EPISODES, and THEN you tell me you've introduced a magical artifact that turns you into a snake hero with SUSPICIOUSLY similar time themed powers, what conclusion was I SUPPOSED TO COME TO?!?!

I love the time duo no matter which way their powers are, but it goes from great to absolute favorite when you swap them around. Not only is there Alix's snake association, but I feel like it's better suited to their personalities. Luka feels more like the kind of person who can watch and wait and only jump in when something dire is happening, while Alix feels like the impulsive quick thinker that can work in chaotic five-minute jumps.

***

I always make character design harder on myself than it really needs to be because I know nothing about fashion and looking up references terrifies me, so I kinda just make it up lol.

For Luka, I'm pretty satisfied with his design! I tried to keep as much of the victorian alice in wonderland ref as I could while still making him punk-rock because he deserves to be punk-rock all the time. I feel like I succeeded alright! The pseudo waistcoat pattern really helps. While I love diversifying the types of masks all the heroes use, I have a particular love for giving Luka a lower-face bandit mask. I have literally never drawn him in a classic dominoe.

I *mostly* like Alix's design, but I think I need to workshop her hair some more. I was trying to avoid the Aspik bald cap because I LOVE her hair and want to draw it more, but it may be the best way to go. I was modeling Alix 40% off the canon snake designs, 50% off her timebreaker outfit (which is where we get the skates and the visor-helmet), and 10% my own utter BS.

I threw in the red color partially because of timebreaker, but also because I needed something to help break up the overwhelming amount of teal and synergize with her hair better. I did have to significantly darken her hair to make everything work, but I do like the colors, if not the style I came out with.

(I also just HAD to give her knee and elbow pads because I LOVE giving heroes knee and elbow pads, and especially if they're already skater types. You people NEED those, I have SEEN the knee drops and elbow jabs ya'll do, PLEASE, your bones are BEGGING YOU---)

[awaggaa]

hi till wears his heart on his sleeve i mean this both symbolically and with his literal shirts and how he treats them

looking back at these pieces in relation to tills attitude about love is super interesting!! theres a ton of symbolism and whatever that can be synthesized now that most of his story. character. idk is fleshed out

idk when the first piece was released BUT it was before the final. and yknow theres the bubble water gun pointed at his head so thats really direct foreshadowing. (back in my day when this was released tumblr went crazy like look at him why wouldnt you go crazy.) MORE IMPORTANTLY with my point though is the mizi shirt! and till actually blocking the print from his heart with his hand.

this could be viewed as till trying to keep his feelings away, or distanced. this would fit with how till tends to idealize mizi while not interacting with or actively avoiding her actual self. the IDEA of mizi was more important to him. true face re-established these ideas with HIS OWN WORDS. mizi also brings up in her affection scores till avoids her. he isnt going to do anything, despite his feelings.

...

WRONG theres utte! mizis name also tranlates to unknown. this song is very much about her. she also sings a duet with till for the anniversary remix. ill be honest i dont think it was a great fantastic idea for till to sing this while mizi was still processing round 1 but hey to be fair his songs are banger and its a literal death singing match so.

its important to note theres still a level of detachment when he sings utte. hes performing on a stage and some of his actions are artificial to play it up. also, mizis physically separated with the bubble thing. so although this is a musical confession, this isnt different from anything tills done in the past. AGAIN mizi knows till likes her. a musical confession wont change their relationship more than the other ones have.

tldr the first piece is direct about being detached from mizi with his hand and whatever and this has already been proven also its been known for 3 years that till likes mizi because shes pretty thats literally it

next up is MI VIDA LOCA!!! go boy go. this song is not about mizi. the lyrics dont reflect that at like. all. sure maybe surface level they do but this is ALIEN STAGE you HAVE to look deeper DO NOT TRUST TWT DO NOT TRUST TIKTOK I AM PERSONALLY SHAKING YOU BY THE SHOULDERS

tills heart is bursting literally where he was covering it in the previous piece of art. which could mean nothing

ivans associated with cats. theres a cat on tills shirt. do you see the connection

if you REALLY want to get into it thats fine. theres a bunch of candy on the cover art. both ivan and mizi like sweet things. till is till in that one dotchi suki art. which translates to "which one do you like?" which could mean nothing

again till never asked mizi for understanding, or tried to close the distance, or straight up asked if mizi liked him.

my opinion if you will is that till wouldnt even WONDER if mizi liked him in that way. we have multiple comics where mizis straight up like "i like sua" or sua says "dont go near mizi"

theres also this piece but i dont have anything to say about it but it fits the general theme so

last but not least is tills main shirt! yes it does change designs quite a lot but to be fair no ones going to replicate the graffiti the same every time.

im not sure where the post is but someone brought up how tills shirt is made up of the signatures of people he loves. world ending type shi

i know the bottom of one of tills shirts has mizis star but i dont know where that is so just assume its supposed to be in the bottom right of tills shirt

anyways i dont really have a way to end this post live laugh love unlike till who may or may not be living laughing or loving. huzzah

[takiki16]

White Collar rewatch has hit 1x09, the boiler room scam episode, and you know? I kind of wish they hadn’t used the “I don’t like guns…never said I couldn’t *use* them” trope for Neal.

Neal doesn’t like guns. It’s one of the first things we learn about him. In all of the past scams and cons he’s run, all the former associates we meet, this one thing is reinforced: Neal is fundamentally not a violent person. It makes him more interesting! In a world where even Mozzie acknowledges that you sometimes need violence to back your word up, Neal Caffrey steadfastly refuses to use guns even when they would MAKE SENSE to have for someone in his position! Even just as a prop! It’s one of the unexplored facets of his character that I wish the show had dug into a little more - WHY Neal is perfectly fine with all sorts of other behavior, but violence disturbs him deeply enough that he avoids it even when it would be a material and even morally viable help!

So WHY DO WE NEED THE “DOESN’T MEAN I CAN’T USE ‘EM” TROPE?!?!

The uses of that trope, at least at this network TV level, are usually for characters who are already proficient in OTHER “less lethal” or at least more cinematic types of violence. Off the top of my head, Eliot Spencer and Oliver Queen. It *makes sense* for characters who get paired with this trope to already BE essentially violent characters. Their refusal to use firearms represents a compromise between their Angsty Backstory where they were trained to be a human killing machine and their current efforts to be Better People, etc etc etc. Using a firearm represents an extreme personal compromise, usually the life of a character dear to them. The trope HAS WEIGHT that way. We get a demonstration of badassery, a character struggle moment, and a hint about backstory and this character’s personal ethos and choices.

But NONE of that makes much sense for Neal Caffrey, except as an incredibly weak retcon tie-in for the bio dad arc, which you all already know I got complaints about. Neal is not only opposed to violence, he is shown at later points to be kind of actively bad at it! His whole gentleman thief schtick gets a boost bc he is COMPETENT AND GENIUS ENOUGH to work around his personal objection to violence and be a hugely successful criminal anyway! He doesn’t NEED the badass points of Secret Gun-Fu Competency, nor does he ever actually USE this alleged secret competency EVER AGAIN ON THE SHOW. The moment doesn’t lead to any deeper exploration of why Neal KNOWS about guns yet refuses to USE them.

All the moment really proves is that the show runners were unwilling to let Pretty Matt Bomer be even slightly incompetent at any single thing, so they made him a Cool Gun Batman for a single scene and then forgot about it. Which makes me tear my hair out bc they didn’t even NEED TO DO THAT. Neal is good enough with his hands and eyes that they could justifiably have passed two bullseyes off as luck on his part, with a few secret nervous shots of his face before and after - it would create tension! They could have HAD NEAL MISS THE SHOT, bc no character is perfect at EVERYTHING or they just get boring. Missing the shot then remaining One Of The Lads anyway would let him reinforce his con man skills. There were lots of ways to play that scene off without making Neal a Secret Gun Batman, and I wish even one of them had been used.

Anyway I’m going to binge this whole thing again bc my life choices are excellent.

[serpentface]

what is the wardi zodiac system like? what's the worst and best signs, and how seriously do people take the stars youre born under?

Ok here's a full overview because I had this like 75% typed up already

The Wardi zodiac is a very direct interpretation of each constellation the sun passes through in its ecliptic over the course of the year. There is no attempt to divide these signs evenly throughout the year (as in the western zodiac), rather every single constellation the sun passes has its own zodiac sign (ie the sun only passes the tail of the Lion for about a week of the year, while the sun takes about a month to pass through the entirety of the Gull, making the former a significantly less common sign than the latter).

As such, there are 20 astrological signs in the base system (all of which are animals). Seven of the base signs correlate directly with the seven Faces of God (the zodiac system actually predated this religion, and some preexisting signs may have been retroactively modified to fit). All of these seven signs are considered auspicious and highly positive (though still ascribed some negative personality traits), and are seen as uniquely blessed by their respective Face.

One’s zodiac sign is assumed to be highly informative of their nature and personality. One’s birthsign is described as ‘(constellation)-born’, and the personality associated gains an epithet of ‘(constellation)-faced’. IE: Someone born under the sign of the ox is Ganops (ox-born), to have the personality associated is to be Ganmachen (ox-faced).

The faces associated with the birthsigns may be used as complimentary epithets in speech and verse when the sign is considered auspicious (ie “Lion-faced Faiza”/“Faiza odomachen”), or used disparagingly, especially “dog-faced” (chinmachen), a fairly common insult that describes someone as vicious and lowly.

A birthsign is taken very seriously within the Imperial Wardi cultural sphere, but does not necessarily have fundamental impact upon the average person's daily life. There can be social benefits and detriments associated- many people will want to avoid association with certain birthsigns, or will use them as a basis to judge character. Those in leadership positions may particularly benefit from having an auspicious sign or hiding an inauspicious one. If you exist in the public eye, your sign is extremely likely to come under scrutiny and invite judgments of character, or to add ammunition to other judgments (ie it is frequently noted when unpopular historical kings were dog-born).

They're also usually taken into account for marriage arrangements, as there are established senses of compatibility among the birthsigns. This is most prominent at levels of wealth where one can afford to be choosy about arrangements, but not so high that the arrangement itself is political in nature (thus superseding concerns about compatibility).

The most significance of one's birthsign in day to day life is in the context of astrology and of traditional medicine (a holistic practice that takes a variety of physical and spiritual factors into account). The position of the stars and other celestial bodies are considered to have very strong effects on the world and individuals, as an aspect of God's spirit and Its perpetual flow through the world (the Faces Mitlamache, Inyamache, and especially Kusomache preside most heavily over the movements of the heavens). The common person is unlikely to do a detailed consultation of the stars daily, but will often seek the services of an astrologer before making major moves or life changes, or to help identify sickness. Priests devoted to Kusomache are universally trained in astrology and often provide these services, as are most healers.

BASE ZODIAC SIGNS

Ox: An auspicious sign. Considered to be hardy in nature, patient, hard workers, slow to anger but dangerous when riled, blessed with natural physical strength. They are also regarded as exceedingly stubborn and prone to grudges. The constellation is seen as an ox kneeling at rest.

Lion: An auspicious sign. Considered to have excellent leadership qualities, a heroic and regal disposition, mental acuity, and blessed with natural talent as warriors. They may be overly proud and domineering, aggressive. The constellation is seen as a maned lion mid-stride.

Khait: An auspicious sign. Considered to have spirited personalities, a tendency towards romanticism, and blessed with natural athleticism and virility (in men) and susceptible to the influence of the sun. They are considered prone to over-competitiveness and lustfulness, chasing after whims. The constellation is seen as a leaping khait, with a bright red star as its eye.

Gull: An auspicious sign. Gull-born are considered worldly and knowledgeable, blessed with good fortune, but often somewhat foolish and slow to learn their lessons. The constellation is seen as a gull with its wings spread wide.

Serpent: An auspicious sign. Considered intelligent, quiet, philosophically inclined, good politicians and wise rulers, uniquely blessed with wisdom and uniquely susceptible to the influence of the traveling stars (planets, comets). They may also be conniving and prone to plotting, and make dangerous foes. The constellation is seen as a two-headed, coiling serpent.

Aurochs: An auspicious sign, distinct from ox-born but with some similar qualities. Considered are strong-natured, hard workers, and naturally inclined towards physical strength. They are also considered to be quick to rile and to have bad tempers. Believed to be blessed with especially good fertility and to be highly susceptible to the influence of the moons. The constellation is seen as a bull aurochs with lowered horns.

Duck: An auspicious sign. They are considered wise and thrifty, graciously mannered, excellent romantic partners and parents, blessed with fertility and beauty, but often disorganized and unreliable, naive. The constellation is seen as a duck upon the water.

Horse: Considered docile and nurturing, honest, drawn to poetry and art. They may be overly anxious and dependent on others, regarded as a feeble-natured sign. The constellation is seen as a grazing horse.

Hare: Considered to be cunning, independent, jovial and friendly, but cowardly and avoidant of consequences, lacking in proper respect. The constellation is seen as a running hare.

Dragon: A sign based off a legendary animal that flies and hunts in thunderstorms, with a beaked mouth, horns, the neck of a snake, and body of a hawk. Considered egotistical, demanding, and prone to mood swings, likely to lead a tempestuous life, but a good ally to compatible signs who can match their energy. The constellation is seen as a dragon in flight.

Dog: Usually considered an inauspicious sign. Dog-born have strength in cunning and loyalty, and are considered aggressive but cowardly, often foolish and greedy, lustful, unambitious. The constellation occurs at the foot of the Hunter constellation, identified as either a loyal hunting dog following its master or a lowly scavenger looking for scraps.

King Hyena: Somewhat inauspicious, but given many respectable qualities. They are considered to have powerful and commanding personalities and natural talent as warriors. They are characterized as tyrannical in positions of power and prone to theft, often untrustworthy, brutally pragmatic. The constellation is seen as a stalking king hyena, low to the ground.

Leviathan: Considered somewhat slow-natured and quiet, closed off in personality and difficult to know. The constellation is seen as a swimming leviathan.

Rat: A somewhat inauspicious sign. Considered to be clever and frugal, very sociable, good with business, but ascribed a ruthless low cunning and greediness. The constellation is seen as a rat standing on its hind legs.

Gazelle: Considered gentle natured, emotional, easily worried and pessimistic, avoidant of conflict. The constellation is seen as a leaping gazelle.

Polecat: Considered to have a brave yet foolhardy and carefree nature, often to their own detriment. The constellation is seen as a polecat in the act of the war dance.

Scorpion: A less auspicious counterpart to the serpent as having a potentially treacherous and duplicitous nature, but pragmatic and hardy, thoughtful and quiet. The constellation is seen as a scorpion with its tail arched.

Crow: Largely inauspicious, associated with crows as negative omens. Characterized as intelligent but with a low, cynical and opportunistic nature and a tendency to hold pointless grudges. The constellation is seen as two crows in flight.

Catfish: Considered to have a hardy, simple personality, great patience and wisdom. The constellation is seen as three catfish trapped in a dwindling pool, awaiting the rains.

Pheasant: Considered naturally beautiful, confident and self-assured, foolish and egotistical, prone to vanity. The constellation is seen as a pheasant with a trailing tail.

Main character birthsigns:

Palo: dragon

Tigran: hare

Couya: crow

Faiza: lion

Janeys: dog

Brakul: ox

Hibrides: catfish

[fluffle-writes]

As I don’t know much about “weird core” what thought process do you tend to imply when designing the characters? You talked a bit about Epel’s wings being stone and Pomfoire being angelic cause of the strict rules, but what else do you tend to think? (Let me pick apart your brain! Your designs are so cool and I wanna know the ideas!)

Weirdcore AU Masterlist Here!

Ehehe, okay so! From what I understand about the concept, Weirdcore is an aesthetic that's reminiscent of things being uncanny, almost like in a dream where things are familiar but different - in a way that may feel unnatural! Shadows may fall strangely, or beings encountered may not be 'constructed' in a way that makes logical sense!

Because of this, I try to make my edits a little uncanny! Ace's flower has a wide, staring eye in the centre of it and no discernable mouth. Cater has a false face and four eyes that seem more cold and calculating. Vil is large and imposing, and Rook has no discernable human face - just a shadow. All these features can make the edits feel more uncanny or not quite right, which is what I feel captures the essence of Weirdcore!

(I'll put the info for each of the dorms under the cut here since it got really long haha)

As for the way I decide how to design the characters - I'm trying to keep each dorm on a theme! Heartslabyul, for example, will all have plants or flowers for heads, and a number of eyes that match their card number (I'm torn between giving Riddle no eyes - to represent his bling rage - or many eyes - to make it look like he's always watching/observing) the flowers I'm choosing will also have either references to flowers that may be associated with the characters in game (such as a rose for Riddle or a Violet/Clover for Trey) whereas others will be focused more on flower language or colours that suit them well - like Riddle and Cater.

Savannaclaw will have the heads of their respective animals - similar to what I did for Crewel - but I think I'm going to add skeletal designs to them like the spine/teeth I gave Ruggie! That way it can be a reference to how, under Scar's reign, the animals in the Lion king went through a drought and famine. I may go for a cooler colour scheme for Jack though, to make him seem somewhat separated from the other two in a reference to how he felt alienated by their plans in book 2, as well as using it as a way to reference how he grew up in a colder climate.

I'm less sure about Octavinelle - but I definitely want to include heart imagery for Jade and Floyd due to their UMs, and maybe a brain for Azul to have them all match. Perhaps it could be a joke that their hearts are visible when, in reality, they're not the types to 'have their heart on their sleeve' as the saying goes! I'll also likely use scale patterns and give Azul a few tentacles, but I'm not planning on giving them the heads of their respective merform species so they can feel more different to Savannaclaw.

Scarabia will have themes around precious materials and gems - I want to give Jamil Viper-like qualities, but I'll probably use overlays to give golden patterning to the scales to match Kalim. His details will be much less pronounced and more hidden though, to reference how he hides his true potential in order to avoid outshining Kalim. I feel like adding more eyes, either closed or open I'm not sure yet, could reference his observant behaviour as well as his UM since it works with eye contact.

Pomefiore, as you already know, has an angel theme. This is partially because of the restrictions that may be associated with angels - for example, some beliefs suggest that angels do not have free will so that they can fulfill the will of their god without error. However, I also chose angels because they're often described as being beautiful or otherworldly - something that cannot be truly perceived but is still believed to be pure and beautiful. This kind of references how I feel about Vil as a character - he's seen as beautiful on the outside, but many people fail to notice how caring he is and how much effort he puts into helping his peers become the best they can be.

Ignihyde, as you could probably guess, will be themed after technology. I'm gonna give Idia a CRT monitor for a head because I think they're cool - plus I can do fun things with his expressions using the screen! The tech thing is self-explanatory but the CRT thing could call back to how Idia holds onto his past and his Grief. Also CRT monitors may be more clumsy or awkward, which could work well alongside his awkwardness in social situations. I'm not too certain about Ortho though... I may make him slightly based on a doll - perhaps with a broken screen...

Diasomnia is one I'm having a little more trouble with - but I think I'll go for a theme of light/fire for them. Lilia has a lit candle for a head to represent how his life is burning down and may be snuffed out soon, Sebek will have something lightning-themed, and I feel like Silver could have a different appearance altogether, but I'm not entirely sure what I'll do for him yet... As for Malleus, I'm also struggling a little with him too, but I'll probably place a flame between his horns and add more Weirdcore elements to the rest of his design. I'll get there when I get there haha.

I hope this was coherent lol! Feel free to ask for clarification on anything I may have accidentally missed!

[hiding-under-the-willow]

do you have any songs that you associate with lahof characters?

There is!! A whole playlist of them!!! And it is the only thing I listened to for a good six months straight last year! And also all day today 😅

[Said playlist for your enjoyment if you haven't already seen it]

I love a good opportunity to do music analysis for characters though so I'm gonna. do that under the cut because it'll probably end up super long (update: it did)

Yippee let's go!!

Okay there was a brief moment here where I thought about going through every song on this playlist one by one and analyzing it and then I realized there were. 56 of them. so instead I'm going to go through some of my faves, probably at least two or three for each main character (and also probably 1 million for helsknight let's be real), and if you ever wanna know about any other specifics songs feel free to ask about them bc I will be thrilled to talk about it. obviously.

Um uh Beef first main character treatment

#1 for him is so Bird Song by Florence + The Machine

And #2 is The Wind by The Front Bottoms

Beef (especially in the first half of the fic before he gets to go on his whole restorative justice arc learning to make amends for harm and learning to forgive himself even if the person he hurt (Hels) can't forgive him) is a man wracked by guilt that refuses to face it, who is terrified of what it means to face his past with the cloning machine, the actions he took with it, the harm those actions caused, and the way it changed him. Hels calls him a coward, says that he's avoiding him not because he's scared of Hels, but because he's scared of what it means to acknowledge him, of letting the other Hermits in on what it is he did. And he's not wrong!! There is a sense, especially throughout chapter three, that Beef is terrified of what it means to have been the one who caused this, and some of it is just his own experience with the cloning machine having done something to him, made him scared of ever acknowledging the fact that it changed him, but a lot of it is blame avoidance, a fear of a lack of forgiveness, if not from Hels than from the other Hermits. It's the reason for his self-imposed isolation in that first half of the fic. Both of these songs are just. so that. That terror of discovery, of being forced to answer hard questions, one's you can't face, don't have the answers to.

And also this line from The Wind

Makes me insane in the context of Beef's whole relationship with Hels and Wels throughout the fic. Beef being Hels' sworn first kill, all of them running circles around each other to avoid a possible permadeath. Wels repeatedly putting himself in a position to take Beefs place as that first death. ough.

I also have Excuse by C418 on there. right off the minecraft soundtrack. nothing much I can say for that one except that it's a song that sounds exactly like its title. It is all quiet, solemn desperation and guilt, and obviously that is also very lahof Beef coded for the exact same reasons as the above songs. It sounds exactly like a desperate and cowardly excuse feels to hear.

#1 for Wels is definitely Rule #31 - Calamity by Fish in a Bird Cage. I mean. Come on

Tell me this isn't exactly the type of way Wels is thinking about Hels, all fear of the reflection of the self, the dehumanization, acknowledgment of emotion only so far as in rage, or accusations of insanity, unreasonable and dangerous. And "Who scraped through the dirt to survive a calamity" makes me feel normal things about Hels in the context of his struggle to cope with the whole thing with the cloning machine and his struggle to live following Wels around from server to server.

And also like

Tell me this isn't X and Hypno both trying to convince Wels to step back and take care of himself, accept help before he gets himself or someone else seriously hurt. "You might not prepare in time for the speed of consequence to plow into your radiant guise." As X's warning to Wels about putting himself in a position to possibly face permadeath, and also as a backhanded reference to Wels' knighthood being just as much performance as Hels' is, Wels' performative chivalry vs Hels performative cruelty. Normal. Normal Emotions.

I'm Not Falling Asleep by Andy Shauf is also very Welsknight to me if I'm being honest

Something about Wels hurting himself in his refusal to ever backdown against Hels, let someone else help him, the sleep loss, a general lack of safety in your own skin, own mind, always doing something, sifting through dozens of hand drawn maps in an exhausted haze after days on end in the nether. The tension between that and the server full of loving friends who would drop everything at a moment's notice to sit there with him, help him sort through it.

Also thinking about this made me add Hometown Hero by Andy Shauf to this playlist and I'm not gonna get into it right now cause. the thoughts are literally just forming but. ough. normal about him. totally.

HELS SONG #1!!!! On another Ocean (January/June) by Fleet Foxes. This song. feels like it was specially crafted for LaHoF Helsknight I don't even know if I can fully get into it like.

Him trying to make himself small and unintrusive across the different hermitcraft servers after he realized he couldn't get through to Wels through performance, hiding in the nether, staying out of the way as much as he can manage, stuck with this sinking weight, the reminder of his left behind home

Him never quite being what the Hermits', especially what Wels, expects of him. Timid and non-committal when Wels expects a villain, cruel and vindictive when he expects a mere bully or an easy fight. Being a lurking stalking presence, eyes you can feel on the back of your neck to Beef throughout the first half of the fic.

Do you (Beef) think you're above this? That somehow you get to never face the consequences of your actions? That someone will magically rescue you from yourself?

If only there was a way to reach you (Wels), a way to make you change, realize the falsity of your knightly persona, make you face the harm you caused without giving you some kind of justification for pursuing more of it

If I am half as strong as I believe myself to be this won't be the end for me. I will not be denied my revenge.

Oh but isn't it a tragedy that any of this is happening at all, that any of us should have to die or to kill because of it.

You uh. You get it. I. am so normal about this song.

I'm not going to go on my Answering the Phone by The Mountain Goats rant because I. Made a whole lyric comic about it already. But you get it. Helsknight song.

Cry for Judas by The Mountain Goats is in there for extremely similar reasons.

Self explanatory. Hels performative cruelty. Hurting himself by hurting others. Thinking of himself as in some way less than the Hermits, broken compared to them, both literally in his code being broken and the ways that affects him and figuratively in the way he feels unsocialized and almost less than human compared to them.

Feeling unable to go back once he has escalated things, being unable to reason with Wels and therefore deciding to just keep going, match the image Wels has of him, feeling like there is no one in his corner who could stop this for him.

Continued similar theming, feeling both like this is something the hermits, and Wels and Beef specifically earned for what they've done to him, but also like in pursuing his revenge he is some great evil, however performative that evil is, like he has debased himself in some way.

Just. Owchies. Banger song I heard it live in December and thought about Helsknight the whole time.

Not Joking by The Front Bottoms is also one of his songs to me. All about that performance, born from his life as a professional fighter, feeling trapped in the structure of roles and acting, never quite his own person, a piece of someone else's story, someone else's image of him.

You get it it's right there I don't have to go line by line for this one.

For last here's some general stuff :]

Tag! by Scarves is a bit of a reach but it feels very much like XB and I/skall in those early chapters trying to navigate Beef's paranoia and avoidance. just.

I'm always thinking about the world in which either Beef broke down a little earlier or was a little braver and someone else got to realize what was happening before everything went so incredibly wrong. Everyone is trying to help Beef and Wels at every turn and the two bastards can't look past their own guilt long enough to see that any one of their friends would in fact 'follow them anywhere' if it meant keeping them and the rest of the server safe.

Émigré by Alela Diane doesn't have much to do with the actual story aside from some shared themes of leaving home, death/violence, and collective struggles, but it is and always will be the theme song for chapter three. I listened to it the whole time I was writing that chapter and it has the perfect dark building tension for that chapter.

On a similar note. Would you uh. would you like to know the song I had on repeat the entire time I was writing the chapter with the fire? Because it was the Cheers theme, Where Everybody Knows Your Name by Gary Portnoy. Bad soundtrack for that chapter. Absolutely a Helsknight song to me. I mean.

Please let that man go home (I say as if I didn't write him into this situation and I don't decide whether or not he goes home at the end).

There are a lot of songs in there that tend to kind of lean towards one particular character in my head but that could also apply to. all three of them. Cause all of them are mirroring each other in various ways throughout the fic (struggles with personal responsibility, guilt, self harm and punishment vs forgivness of both the self and the other, isolation and miscommunication, masks and assigned roles, etc)

Moonsickness by Penelope Scott is definitely one of those for me

Very much that struggle with duty/responsibility and harm caused by taking on impossible struggles by yourself, self loathing, etc.

Peace by Shayfer James is very similar to me in that regard

All guilt and shame and the belief that you deserve what's happening to you in some way, do not deserve to step away from it.

Okay I'm gonna go eat dinner now I've been here for like three hours now but. OUGH. normal about them and the story and. music. in general.

[zeninsama-moved-again]

Can you please tell me about your self hip with Naoya and what you love about him? I am ready to see the vision

ohh violet... okay so this more the context of how i started liking naoya and self-shipping with him to begin with hjfdsk but hopefully it gets the job done. tried my best to keep this spoiler-free but i am discussing naoya's character so be wary of that if you haven't read jjk.

long as fuck so no pressure to read it hgjdfks <3 tldr; he's pretty and bitchy and took up mental real estate for a long time

wow where do i even begin... so naoya has been a favorite character of mine since around 2022, so going on three years now... i've always liked him tbh, like i enjoy a good villain and something about naoya being so sniveling and condescending really appealed to me, not to mention he's hot in a vaguely emo way that is absolutely my type. looove his little ear piercings and eyeliner. back then, liking naoya wasn't as popular as it is now and probably will be once he's animated.

(i remember when i first started posting on ye olde zeninsama blog that i liked naoya, my inbox was flooded with people being like "b-but he's a misogynist!" hgjdfks like yeah bitch we read the same series!)

so my feelings towards him went from an initial liking of his character + what he added to the story (especially to maki's development) to more profound feelings around the time menthol came out, believe it or not. back then, cass and i were still cooking up ideas for the prequel and we wanted to give reader an ex-boyfriend that was sniveling and evil and wouldn't make people sad if aki punched them in the face because naoya absolutely had it coming...

this lead to me cooking up an entire backstory for menthol au naoya. it was really important to me that i didn't erase how he is in jjk, i wanted to take his character exactly as he is and simply drop him into a new environments this lead to my first naoya playlist, my first characterizations of him, etc. i spent so long rotating this fucking guy in my head that it made me soo fond towards him.

the second thing that really made me attached to naoya happened a handful of months later, an anon on ye olde zeninsama blog recommended a fic to me called "fever daydreams" on ao3. it's actually mostly a gojo x reader fic but reader was formerly naoya's wife, so it focused a lot on their relationship as well. i already had so much love for him at this point but this characterization of him absolutely floored me, like having my own headcanons about this man validated and hearing new ones that really softened him while still staying true and accurate to his canon self... when i finished that fic, i had to shut myself in my bathroom and sob and dry heave for like half an hour hgjkfds it moved me so much... that was actually the fic that made me a gojo fucker too but that's a different conversation.

compared to other jjk characters, naoya is not very intimidating, or even strong for that matter. he's just fast and loud and a bitch and misses toji every single day of his life. self-shipping with him was also incredibly easy for me because i don't have an urge to defeat him or demand his respect gjkdfs i am an incredibly docile and domestic person at my core <3

OKAY I CANNOT AVOID SPOILERS ANYMORE SO IF YOU REALLY CARE AND WANT TO AVOID IT STOP READING <3

naoya is just incredibly special to me... like he is such a widely-hated character both within the jjk fandom (the western jjk fandom, jpn loves him) and within the jjk universe, the thought of being the only person that grieves him when he dies is what moves me. knowing you had an entire life together with a side of naoya that was reserved only for you, that dies with you because nobody else could understand it.

also i adore the amount of female symbolism that's actually associated with him. for starters, his domain is a womb, and the results on which deity his hand sign represents are conflicting but one is a female deity and the other has the ability to "transform a girl inside the womb into a boy" so whatever one you take, come on hgjdfgk. not to mention his manga cover is him crushing a pomegranate over his head and pomegranates represent fertility. this is crucial to how i view naoya tbh.

[dailycharacteroption]

Retrograde Revision 3: Archivist

(art by suomar on DeviantArt)

Another case of bards in name only, today we’re looking at an archetype that is essentially a librarian.

Described as being “bards that eschew the dramatic aspects of their training”, that need not necessarily be the case, as archivists could easily have gained their arcane/occult magic by studying the body of work under their care rather than having gone to any bardic college.

Either way, they are still associated with academia, and may have a personal history as a scholar first.

The badass librarian has been a thing in recent decades, so whether they are archivists or scientists doing field work, these brilliant minds can prove how effective their stores of knowledge are both on and off the battlefield.

This archetype feels like a first pass at a non-loremaster knowledge-based character, the sort of thing that would evolve later into the overall vibe of the investigator class, so it’s interesting to see where it got it’s start.

Rather than inspire bravery in others, archivists instead focus on providing running commentary and guidance on how to fight the creatures they and their allies are currently facing. While they have to identify them first, doing so gives their allies an offensive and defensive buff against them as they point out vulnerabilities and limitations in the subject’s attack and defense.

Whether it be supernatural boredom or the sheer crushing weight of their focus on minutiae, these archivists can wax technical on a subject to daze or confuse those under the effects of one of their “fascinating” lectures (how fascinating they actually are may vary.” Later on, they can even affect whole crowds this way.

Predating the skald ability of the same name, these archivists know so much that they are true lore masters, able to recall incredible amounts of information on a topic a few times per day.

Additionally, their magical lore makes them better suited to identifying magic items, disabling magical traps, and recognizing magical runes in time to better brace themselves against their effects.

Furthermore, they also demonstrate proficiency with all skills, which only grows over time.

More powerful archivists are so knowledgeable that they can predict a possible outcome and occasionally take the most average result on any sort of activity, including when attacking and resisting, which can be useful in an emergency.

The archivist, with it’s eventual ability to treat every single skill as a class skill, as well as taking 10 often and 20 a few times per day at a low level, has the potential to be the arguably best skill monkey in the game. The base combat performance providing both an offensive and defensive buff against identified foes is also very nice, though the ability to daze or confuse foes that are already fascinated is of dubious unsability, since most situations in which you’d fascinate, you’re trying to avoid combat, and it’s not clear how confusion and daze work in regards to keeping people fascinated when they might start punching each other. Beyond that, however, I recommend spell and feat choices that help you have an at least partial answer to any situation you come across. Damage spells with a variety of types, utility spells, debuffs, buffs, you name it.

The nature of their ability to debuff foes they fascinate might give some the assumption that they are boring or dry lecturers, but that doesn’t have to be the case. It could be that their passionate diatribes are simply bewildering to others, and you can certainly portray them as being passionate about many a subject.

A mystic prank goes wrong when a bookish student cast a forbidden spell to get back at his classmates, and now they are all stuck inside a demiplane centered around the most popular tabletop board game in the school. Experienced adventurers are needed to enter the game’s world, master the rules, and rescue the students.

Palanz Whisperwind has never seen any of the monsters he’s spent his whole life studying. In need of a change of pace, he hires a party of adventurers to escort him on this field study. Putting up with his incessant droning and condescending attitude may drive the party up the wall, though.

The secret name of Falrax, the demon lord of night, is hidden in the secret archives of the Library of Thoumous Rang. Getting to the repository, however, will prove difficult, as the gynosphinx archivist Written Conundrum is loath to allow the ignorant and uninitiated to touch her tomes, even if the fate of the world is on the line.

[bigsoftmarshmallow]

Yo I posted about Pastell Now give Doc HC pleaaaaaasssseeeee 🥺

I have posted about her??? Doc is under the MallowOc tag... I posted a whole thing about her. >_> Just so everyone can see it here:

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8

Doc - Rei Nakatomi, the My Hero Academia ‘self-insert’ who is more her own character by now. 

QUIRK: Biokinesis (She can manipulate anything living -such as plants/animals/humans/organic material that is alive) 

DRAWBACKS: She can pass out if done too much (length of time varies, it can take weeks at the most severe), requires living material to work to lessen drawbacks (plants are preferred, but can use living creatures)

Is never seen without her iconic coat (A mixture of a doctor’s long coat and a lab coat, made with plants when Kawii was young and still new to her own quirk). Her coat has 2 forms, as she can manipulate it with her own quirk: A normal coat with long sleeves that goes down to her knees for when she is out normally/working, or a sleeveless trench coat with a hood when she’s out with ‘special’ work, with a mask to cover her face (mask has a green plus sign). Usually has her hair up in a messy/neat bun, depending on where she is working that day (Messy for league work, neat for clinic work). Avoids wearing clothes that show a lot of skin unless at home, so her usual look in public is long business pants, heels, sleeveless turtleneck, and her coat. When dealing with Overhaul, gloves and surgical mask is applied. Sometimes wears glasses to add to the ‘look’ of being a doctor, especially if meeting a new client. She doesn’t wear jewelry normally, unless given by Kawii.

Doc is a stern, more serious woman. Distrusting of most, if not all, of humanity, except those she is already associated with. Kawii, her beloved younger sister, is the only one who gets to enjoy the full unedited form of in-private Doc, who is a gentle, kind woman who only wants to live life the way she wishes and provide for her beloved family. Otherwise, they meet her public form, who is a very blunt, almost cruel woman who cares only for reward and money, if they can be bribed to assist with anything in the first place. She runs her clinic with an iron fist, or at least that's how most see it. Her pricings for any modifications are near extortion, villains willing to pay her prices however are never disappointed. However, villains are not the only ones who she takes as clients. Any and all who come into her clinic are welcomed, and depending on who they are, they are gifted a different side to the ‘legendary’ doc. Civilians get a deadpan Doc, who states their prices (far cheaper than most doctors) and gives them a full work up. Children and animals are given more kindness, usually given assistance without payment required. Vigilantes are given what she is given, the friendlier they are, the more polite she is. Heroes… may not leave alive, depending on how close they are to Kawii and what they came in for.

Doc is Demi, both in romance and in sexuality. She has to be able to trust someone fully and completely before she would ever allow such emotions to take hold. Due to the trauma she has dealt with in her youth, she truly cannot see herself trusting anyone outside of her family. If she did, however, Romance with Doc would be a very wonderful thing. She would work tirelessly to ensure that her partner would be well taken care of and they got everything they desired. Doc is a very loyal partner, a poly relationship would not be best for her. Once someone is her’s, they are HERS. She does not share. Marriage would be a long drawn out process, as she is not the type to marry quickly. It would take a few years, perhaps even a decade, of being in the relationship to get her to consider actually getting married. Seeing as she is more on the villainous side, you would think she wouldn't want a wedding and it would be a marriage in-spirit only… However, deep inside, Doc would enjoy an actual wedding, with the legalities included. Children would be a very hard sell to Doc, as she does not want them cursed with her quirk nor have to go through what she did. It would take years of trust and communications to even get a serious talk with her about having children. Even then, it’s more than likely a lost cause… for biological children. Adopted children however are much easier to convince Doc to take care of, especially if they are downtrodden or come from bad homes. The law would not have a chance to stop a Doc from saving a child. She would be an awkward mother at first, however she would soon get into the swing of things. Children raised by doc would be stubborn, proud, and extremely intelligent.

I got the idea of her from reading a fantastic work called 'The Greatest Healer in the World" by Mai_Beyblader, which you can read here!

My beloved sibling did art of Doc and I love them so much for it:

[creativelablayla]

10.2) Sticker Making -

In this second part of the sticker making process I wanted to explain some of the choices that I made during this time and how I got to the results that I did. While I discussed a lot of the collaborative practice with technicians, I wanted to ensure I don't leave out the choices I made in this design stage.

After the session with Boris, learning about and creating the formatted stickers for printing, I had to ensure that the final designs of the stickers were completed, so that I could complete the document to print. Here is where I had to compare the different versions that I had printed and tested. It was mostly a choice of colour scheme selection, messages that I would display, the font styles and how I'd incorporate a QR code into the stickers. Because I was aiming for around 100 stickers I thought it ideal to make sure that there was a number of variations that all fit into that one hundred equally, so that I had an equal number of all the different stickers. I chose to have five different colours and five different messages, equalling 25 different variations of stickers (4 copies of the different variations, once printed). I went off of the colours that I had previously experimented with, blue, pink, green, yellow and purple. I think that these colours were appropriate as I knew that to use pastel versions of these colours, I will avoid them printing out too dark and dull, and they will still appear quite bright as they are a much paler anyways. Though this did seem like the best way to mitigate the risk of dull printing, I still wanted to make sure that the colour psychology made sense for the project. Because it was a positivity influenced idea it was quite important for me that each aspect of the project had intent to impact people positively, and something as simple as colour selection can have this effect. I discovered that psychologically, pastels shades are most commonly associated with; springtime, childhood, playfulness, optimism, serenity and laughter. I was pleased to read such positive and happy connotations of these colours, it reassured me that they were definitely appropriate for the project, it also felt as though it further enhanced this positive energy that is already woven into the stickers.

Here you can also see the experimenting with a new type face. I felt as though the original choice that I had selected, though working practically, it felt somehow very automated and in a sense quite robotic. I thought make to my truisms at the beginning of the project as I had tested with a few different type faces, and similar to this I wanted to have a bold font, this selection needed to feel slightly softer and less confrontational but still eye catching. I remembered the typewriter type face that I had used for my first set of truisms and I remembered at the time, enjoying the almost hand typed feel that this font had to it. Though it wasn't a handwritten styled serif font, it is still classed as a serif styled font.

Serif Fonts: Serif fonts typically have small extensions/strokes formed off of the main body of the letter. Typewriter fonts; typically have blunt formations that make it the serif style, these are typically known as 'slabs' which gave the type writer font the name "slab serif". The font is typically monospaced also, which means that each character occupies the same amount of space/width. I think this feature of the font used in my work in particular really helps with legibility as the characters are so evenly spaced.

I tested these two font against each other and I was still very conflicted between the two of them. I asked for various opinions around the studio as I know how important public feedback would be for my projects, especially from fellow creatives that understand audience focused design and know the motivations of my project, and we all came to the conclusion that this typewriter face had this slight edge on the original font that I'd tested with. It was agreed that this hand typed feel to it gave it a more personal, human touch to it which we agreed was quite important for a project that is based off of human emotion and interaction.

The last aspect of the whole design process was considering how I would weave the interactive aspect of the project into the designs. I had decided that i'd use a QR code with a link to some form of website so that people could leave feedback on the project, it was just where i'd place this QR code. While drawing onto the printed versions I roughly sketched having it on the physical sticker, however I feel as thought this simply overcrowded the sticker. I liked the idea of the stickers simply being these stand alone signs that are just there for people to observe and enjoy, the QR code aspect of it was simply so that I could measure whether or not the projects aims and objectives were successful, and to see how it does effect people. For this reason I thought that it may be best for the QR code to be separate from the main sticker but shown close by in the same art style, so that people were aware they were related, and had the option to approach the QR code should they want to learn more. Because the length of the messages on each of the stickers also varied (some with a significantly longer 'dare') it simply wouldn't cohesively fit onto the sticker. The dare message being the most important aspect, and so to shrink this size down to fit QR code on to the sticker, I felt, would take away from the focal point of the designs.

After these physical design decisions were made it was simply the case of making the different variations of stickers (5 different messages each in 5 different colours) and then filling out the pre-made grid with the preset sticker sized documents, ready to then print. This was a slightly lengthy process simply due to the fact that I had the original "master" document that I was editing and saving all of the new individual stickers from, into a new file of stickers. I worked in a process whereby I altered the text/dare first, and then changed the border colour, saving each copy individually. I did this process first so that I had all of the individual stickers saved and placed into a folder. I then started to fill in the grid with the stickers. I entered the stickers by columns of colour as I thought that this may make the printing process less complex.

Image 1 : Shows the file with each different variation of sticker, so each colour had 5 variations with the different messages on them.

Image 2: Shows the 'master' sticker which shows the first variation. This sticker would have been saved as a new copy in a TIFF format, into the sticker folder, leaving the 'master' document to be edited and for the process to repeated a further 25 times, to obtain all the versions of the stickers.

Image 3: Is a close up version of the grid that I filled out once all of the copies were saved into my sticker folder. You can see how all of the stickers could easily slot together as it was all measured up so that they could all fit into place neatly.

Image 4: This image shows the final document once completed. This had all of the variations of the stickers on and after some final improvements and adjustments with the formatting and columns, would then be ready to take to print!

After all of the stickers were in place I did just check over the document to ensure that all of the stickers were in line, as I know this would be a huge help one trimming all the stickers down to their individual states. I noticed that there were a few gaps and that some of the stickers not exactly parallel to one another, and so I tried to amend this as best as I could. After altering what I could see, I thought it best to get a second opinion from Boris, and so I forwarded the document to ensure that it was fit for printing, and the feedback was as followed:

It was very useful that as he updated and added the slight improvements to the document he updated and shared how to do this. It wasn't only helpful in the sense that it got me closer to having my stickers ready to print but throughout the whole process we were collaborating, he also taught me how to do the different processes that he did to get my work to that positioning. It introduced me to areas of photoshop that I had never previously used and functions that I didn't realise were so useful.

After this the stickers were ready to print and I went to collect them that afternoon. Boris was very kindly trimming the stickers all down to their individual sizes, and I was very happy with the result!! There was a slight printing error whereby on of the columns of the pink colour didn't print very successfully and I lost a few stickers this way, but aside from this technical fault I was very pleased. He informed me on the kind of vinyl that I was using and how, because it is so tightly wound an a roll, the stickers were very curled and that the next steps were to gradually press the stickers so that they flatten out and are then ready to use. He said this is best done by applying gradually increasing pressure in a warm room and leaving them under this pressure for an extended period of time. He said that if too high a pressure is placed on them straight away it can cause air bubbles between the vinyl and paper back which means it would start to lose its adhesive properties. I started off by separating the stickers into smaller piles as there was large bulk of them once stacked together. I then applied a small sized book on top of each and let it slowly flatten the stickers, not completely as I wanted to ensure the process was gradual. As time went on I started to apply larger heavier books over the different piles. I left them in front of my bedroom so that the sunlight would, hopefully, help in keeping them warm as they flatten out. I even moved them into the bathroom with me while showering so the steam, heat and pressure would help them flatten. I carried out this process over the course of a few days so that they were in the best state to be used and stuck up.

While I had the main stickers printed, I couldn't start sticking them up without the QR codes, as these were a crucial part in monitoring the project and its outcome. Instead of printing these sheets through Boris and the large scale printers in Parkside again, I thought that because of the scale, i'd only really need a sheet or two of A4, and so I should be able to use the printers in the school of art. I needed again, however, to see what materials would work with the main printers in the school of art, as this would also determine whether or not I'd have to use the printing rooms again. This is where I got in touch with the school of art based technician, Laura Gale, a senior photography technician who, I was advised, would know best when it comes to printing with these printers.

She quickly got back to me, and she had personally looked into kinds of sticker paper that she knew would comply with the printers in school of art. She had even attached links to the different kinds of papers that I could use. I looked into each of them and considered factors such as cost, appearance and the function of them. I would ideally like them to be vinyl as they'd match the stickers from Parkside, and I then know that all of the materials used can be recycled. Though vinyl isn't openly advertised as recyclable, it can be under the right circumstances, and so if I were to keep all of my materials in the same recycling bracket, it could make this aspect of the project much easier and safer. She had responded and said that they wouldn't print onto vinyl plastic, but there were vinyl based sticker sheets that have the same effect. She advised three different options that can be sourced on amazon. The first was a pack of preset sticker sheets that had existing squares for you to decorate/print onto. These looked suitable, however now that I knew how to create a grid preset on photoshop, I thought it better to work this way as there would be less paper wastage as I can create the document to completely fill the page, whereas these preset square stickers had gaps and spaces on the A4 sheets. The second material that she had advised were the Vinyl sticker sheets. These came with multiple plain sheets, and were vinyl based. These also claimed to be; suitable for outdoors, water resistant, easy to peel off, scratch resistant and can stick on to a wide range of different surfaces. These to me sounded like a very good option as they not only seemed as though they'd have a similar look to the main stickers, but they seem most suitable for the different locations where they'd be showcased. The last choice was a pack of transparent stickers, these had very similar qualities to the vinyl based sticker sheets however, they were transparent. I thought these did sound very cool, however, I had considered the design of the stickers and I wanted them to have a very obvious link to the main sticker design. And while transparent areas on the stickers sound very cool, I think it makes more sense to use stickers that would have a plain white background, like the main dare stickers. I also thought that If there were areas of transparency to the stickers, it may make them slightly camouflaged to the surface to which they are stuck on and leaves the potential of people not noticing them and therefore missing that opportunity for interaction. After assessing them all I felt that the second option would work best and so I double checked with Laura that these would be suitable, and I placed a next day delivery order. She reassured me that as long as the materials state they say laser printer, they should be fine to use in our printers. I organised to see her the following Friday (waited until I had the sheets) so that I could get the QR code stickers printed as soon as possible and ultimately start sticking the stickers up!

[bllsbailey]

The Overrated Obama

My Red State colleague, Jeff Charles, has already reported on former President Barack Obama’s recent attempted public shaming of black men who don’t want to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, supposedly because of their misogyny.

I would like to associate with most of his column. The one exception I have is to this statement – “it’s the type of mistake that Obama doesn’t normally make.”

I beg to differ.  Actually, I think it is the type of mistake that Barack Obama often made.  

You know, Obama is the guy who once said, in 2008, “And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” And who said, that same year, that he was going to "spread the wealth around" of people to “Joe the Plumber.” And who said, in 2012, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”  

Let me stand even further athwart the conventional wisdom regarding President Obama. His recent statement is just another example that demonstrates that Barack Obama is, and always was, a very overrated politician.  

I have written below a list of characteristics that good candidates for political office are frequently thought to have. This list comes from my observations on American politics since the 1988 election, my extensive campaign experience since the early 90s, my long-time experience in the Hill, and my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Political Science (it's good that I can finally use the latter for something).

According to most knowledgeable political observers, a good political candidate is one who:

Wins most of his/her elections, including in competitive races.

Has a good appearance, voice, and charisma.

Is a good political strategist and has good political instincts.

Gives good speeches.

Is good on his feet.

Has a "moderate" record on the issues. Not too far to the left, and not too far to the right.

Avoids saying and doing politically foolish things.

Avoids associating with shady, radical, criminal and/or controversial characters.

Is energetic and hardworking, and is certainly not lazy.

Is a good fundraiser.

Is able to stick to his/her talking points.

Can be a pragmatist on some important issues. (A pragmatist is willing to make compromises, while a moderate tends to have moderate issue positions.)

Chooses competent people to run his/her campaign, and is willing to listen to them.

Is, at the very least, above average in intelligence. 

Is loyal to "them that brought you." 

Comes across as authentic.

Is likable to the non-political average person. You know, the “beer question.”

Now, let’s focus on President Obama and how he compares to this list: 

1. Obama won his two presidential campaigns, including a competitive primary in 2008 when he was the underdog. He won a U.S. Senate race in Illinois. And he won three state senate races. He only lost his attempt to move up to the U.S. Congress in 2000, against a longtime sitting Congressman. However, Obama’s record is more mixed than it would initially seem. He won his state senate seat and U.S. Senate seat largely by playing dirty pool against his opponents, and his 2008 presidential general election victory was easy – he won in a terrible year for the Republicans and against a bad candidate – that almost any Democrat could have done it. Nonetheless, I will officially give Obama the check for having this quality.  √

2. Obama certainly has a good appearance, voice, and charisma.  √

3. Obama never impressed me as a political strategist. One personal example, in 2007-2008, when Obama ran for president, he faced a major criticism – he was a talker and not a doer, and as a U.S. senator, he had accomplished virtually nothing concrete. To rectify this, Obama pushed bipartisan legislation called the MEJA Expansion and Enforcement Act of 2007. What the bill did was unimportant. However, instead of doing the smart thing and being willing to compromise with the Bush administration to get this bill passed into law, Obama’s team allowed Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, a Democrat partisan if there ever was one, to “negotiate” it to death with the Bush administration. This “negotiation” was something I attended: endless meetings where the Leahy staff berated the White House negotiators, repeating the same allegations over and over again, and never attempted to actually compromise on something that might get passed. Which was not in Obama’s interest, since he wanted to brag about his passed law. ×

4. Obama gave one good speech, in 2004, which led to his presidential run in 2008. Other than that, I fail to remember anything positively memorable that he has ever said. But I am feeling generous, so I will give this to him.  √

5. Obama was not particularly good on his feet. He often said unfortunate things, including the above statements, and also including his promise: "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it," which became the lie of the year in 2013. It is not good for a politician to be caught in a lie. And here are some more ill-fated statements Obama made.  ×

6. Obama was a radical leftist who had a left-wing state senate record (including on abortion), but he got “lucky” (see above) in 2004. In 2008, his left-wing U.S. Senate record was overshadowed by the poor economy and the war in Iraq. And in 2012, his left-wing presidential record forced him to go negative against Romney (he’ll “put you all back in chains”) to win.  ×

7. Obama often said and did politically foolish things. See above.  ×

8. Obama often associated with controversial persons.  See racist and antisemite Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whom Obama sought religious guidance from and prayed with (unlike Oprah, who wisely moved to another church). See terrorist Bill Ayers. See convicted fraudster Tony Rezko. See racist and antisemite Louis Farrakhan. He also associated and assisted other corrupt individuals.  ×

9. Obama was considered rather lazy, even by himself. As was said of him in the passage of some legislation in the Illinois state senate that he was given credit for, “He was not the nuts-and-bolts guy. He got credit for it, but he did not put it together. This was a lot of hard work and negotiation between lawyers and law enforcement.” Indeed, much of what Obama supposedly accomplished in the state senate was actually accomplished by the Democrat leader who wanted Obama to be a U.S. Senator.  ×

10. Obama was certainly an excellent fundraiser.  √

11. Obama had a big problem sticking to his talking points (and avoiding sticking his foot in his mouth). See above.  ×

12. Obama may or may not have been a pragmatist. Left-wing sources felt he was. But I, and many conservatives, beg to differ.  =

13. Obama certainly chose competent people to advise him when he ran for public office. See, for example, David Axelrod, who got his opponents bounced in Obama’s race for the U.S. Senate.  √

14. Obama is intelligent, although, like almost all Democrat presidents (but not Biden), his intelligence is probably somewhat overestimated (JFK, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Obama were all portrayed as geniuses).  √

15. Obama was generally very loyal to his own people, who returned his loyalty.  √

16. Obama came across as a leftist who was trying to conceal his left-wing radicalism. See above. Making him inauthentic. That was also one of the reasons his frequent voting “present” in the state senate became an issue in his races.  ×

17. Obama was considered sort of a “cold fish” who would fail the beer question. And indeed, his beer summit with Henry Gates was reportedly somewhat uncomfortable.  ×

Since, in my view, Barack Obama has more negative qualities than positive ones, I don’t believe the conventional wisdom considering his qualities as a political candidate.  

Therefore, I think Obama was, and is, overrated as a politician. And his recent statement shows that, once again.