sabermoonlight1616 - Tumblr blog

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hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

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Phases of the moon by Mashu

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The pessimist looks to a wave of Tyranids and sees an all consuming force of pure hate and hunger that will consume all in its path. The optimist looks to a wave of Tyranids and sees a situation where he finally can't miss.

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The thing that fucks me up with the whole “Leandros still doesnt trust Titus”, is look how happy he is when Titus wakes up. He is the one there after the sugery. I bet he sat at the end of his bed, watching over him.

Leandros fears that Titus is corrupt. But he doesn't want him to be. And I think its an important distinction to make.

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- you see those service studs? our lieutenant is over two hundred years old. he couldn't have been born a primaris.

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Hey. Hey I'm gonna say the depressing bit out loud.

So Calgar has been asking for Titus's whereabouts on a yearly basis ever since Thrax took him, right? And while Thrax was alive, he stonewalled Calgar, because that's what you do when you're a Lord Inquisitor with a fetish for torturing Astartes.

But then Thrax dies, Titus goes into the Deathwatch, and Calgar still doesn't get any news. What happened?

It had to be because Titus joined as a Blackshield. The Deathwatch takes Blackshield anonymity really fucking seriously. Mr. Demetrian Titus here doesn't want anyone to know who he is, well by golly gosh ain't NO ONE gonna know!

So every year someone in the Inquisition got a "WHERE THE FUCK IS TITUS?!" email from Calgar, looked up Titus's records, and saw DEATHWATCH BLACKSHIELD stamped all over it and went Welp! Too bad Lord Calgar, we ain't got shit on this Titus fella!

But the reason why Titus became a Blackshield was because he assumed that he had been stricken from Ultramarine records for dishonoring the chapter by getting accused of heresy. Why else would the chapter abandon him to Thrax's gribbly little hands for so many years? So he signed up as a Blackshield rather than returning to the Ultramarines (which was an option) and burdening his chapter with his dishonor.

So even as Calgar was trying to find him, Titus had made it nigh-impossible to be identified because he thought his chapter didn't want him.

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Young Xehanort and Eraqus Sparring Match - deviantART

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joel on empires vs joel on hermitcraft

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Twenty pages into Assault on Black reach and my god Cato is truly so feral,so cocky and ready to wreck the enemy. Thus I can only assume this was the dynamic between him and Titus when he was Cato's Captain.

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My Spoiler Free Semi-Serious Opinion of Titus's Character (that no one asked for)

My biggest worry for this game was that Titus' character would be completely tossed aside for a more guttural/aggressive and stereotypical Space Marine archetype compared to his more gentle, soft spoken, and overall nuanced characterization in the first game.

And while I miss Mark Strong's voice, the new voice actor grew on me as time went on. And after getting the full backstory to Titus' time under the inquisition and subsequent service under the Deathwatch I see his hardened character as tragic. Not in the sense of bad story telling, but in the sense that you see a broken man on screen.

Titus no longer believes in the brotherhood of his fellow Ultramarines. He is bitter, suspicious, angry, and confused, which is to be expected after a century of believing his Chapter had abandoned him and was ashamed of him.

It many ways, his hardened character was heartbreaking for me personally. I infantilize these big strong men cause it's funny, but in a serious way, his character in the second game saddened me. This man needs a hug, an apology and another hug.

But what I noticed is that he is still himself. There were many points in the game that I feel a different Ultramarine would have been less forgiving, but Titus let's a lot slide. He still has his patience and still possesses a "fatherly" aura to his subordinates, though it is much more reserved and hidden behind a grim expression and rough tone.

This game has only endeared me more to Titus and I hope this isn't the last we see of his story. Let the man find his belonging again, and let him be amongst his brothers again 🙏

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Minus One is a menace

From (link):

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How it all started...

The Custodes were supposed to be the Emperor’s friends and advisors. Which got me thinking.

What if they had actually been that? There were many, many moments in canon where Big E could have done with a well-meaning slap upside the head.

“My Lord, why not just send the War Hounds down instead of teleporting Angron up?” “What about chastising Lorgar in private instead of publicly? Much better for unity and morale.” *waves graphs showing how much garrison duty, and how much efficiency, the Iron Warriors are doing*

Except that the Custodes in canon are all stoic assholes and complete yes-men.

So I changed that.

The original draft for the AU was for the Primarchs to be parented by various Custodes while the Emperor was his usual manipulative canon self. But that wouldn’t work.  With more personable and proactive Custodes, he wouldn’t be his canon self. And it would be too many characters to write right out of the gate.

Enter Constantin Valdor. (At the time of writing, the Valdor novel hadn’t been released and so the AU ignores it.) All I had to do was make him a kind, introspective and forthright character and the rest just fell into place.

Oh, and the Emperor is a slightly feral actual Eldritch Abomination.

Which actually makes him a better parent.

Link to SpaceBattles here.

Link to Ao3 here.

List of Titles in the Series:

Complete:

One Mile West of the Dreaming Sun: 5+1 Constantin Valdor-centric snippets through the Unification Wars, and his relationship with the Emperor. Gradual canon divergence. Soft.

Rise Up to Meet It: Horus origin story. The Vth Legion discover Cthonia, and a certain feral little fluffball. Some drama, but ends with fluff and cuddles. 

Your Tooth and Eye: Leman origin story. Horus tries to befriend the just-discovered Leman, who is an angry smol with identity issues. Meanwhile, there are monsters trying to kill them. Slice-of-Life-ish drama.

Five Cubits South of the Boiling Stars: A collection of snippets set between One Mile West and Rise Up. Focuses mainly on the various Custodes, adds worldbuilding, and also contains a mini-arc on the Scattering of the Primarchs. Overall wholesome, with a dash of eldritch horror here and there.  (Continuous work, updates irregularly)

Great Celestial Hieroglyphs: Magnus origin story. A slightly different deal is struck with Tzeentch much earlier. The XVth Legion suffer the consequences and an unlikely alliance with the VIIIth Legion is struck. Contains a second plotline about the growing partnership of two Astartes. Drama/Horror. Lots of Body Horror and Eldritch Horror. Plenty of Feels. Eventual bittersweet ending.

Pit Born: A stand-alone snippet about a supporting Astartes character, and the recruitment practices of the VIIIth Legion. Briefly starts off dark, quickly turns into Fluff.

Passerine: Sanguinius origin story. After being revered on Baal, Sanguinius navigates life in the Imperial Palace amongst his own kind and is faced with the task of reforming his bloodthirsty Legion. Very Fluffy, with a few bits of gore here and there. In Progress: No Frozen Firmament: Rogal Dorn origin story. Adopted by the Imperial House of Dorn, young Rogal is soon made aware of politics. Slice of Life, very Fluffy. Includes Woolly Rhinos.

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Nomura, please let Xehanort's 14th life just be some normal kid in Quadratum with no knowledge of his other selves' war crimes. I'm begging you, it'd be so funny.

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Xehaqus my BELOVED

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When we hear Player saying that Xehanort needed to be protected/hidden away from darkness until he was "strong enough to overcome [it]", our first instinct is probably to assume that this is referring to physical harm (become strong enough to physically fight back the forces of darknesss that might target you), or darkness tainting Xehanort's heart (become strong enough to keep out the darkness that threatens to enter your heart.)

But what if the real danger all along was simply darkness manipulating Xehanort? Manipulating him off of his bright "Child of Destiny" path? Say, exactly like what Darkness Baldr does at the end of KHDR?

Xehanort was specifically taken away from Scala to avoid the machinations of darkness. And where does the showdown with Darkness Baldr take place? In Scala. And where does Ansem SoD send Xehanort the moment Player is out of the picture, no longer able to intervene (in the event that it was still too early for Xehanort to safely return to his original home)? Back to Scala. Not just because Xehanort/Ansem SoD lived through it already and knows ahead of time that Xehanort needs to go there at this exact moment for the timeline to remain stable, but specifically because that's the location where darkness will finally get its hands on Xehanort, as planned. As foretold? Like I doubt it's a coincidence that Xehanort ended up right back where he started the minute he got to leave Destiny Islands, especially since it was Ansem SoD who sent him directly there.

I don't think the darkness that was threatening Xehanort was ever actually this ambiguous, abstract thing nor something that Scala was simply guessing might derail their Child of Destiny prophecy, despite how Player and toddler Xehanort make it sound. Like, sure, maybe none of the Scala higher ups (including Player) knew exactly what was endangering Xehanort, they just knew that darkness had something to do with it, but I think it was always going to be Darkness Baldr, in the end. That's what the Gazing Eye saw, after all: Xehanort and Darkness Baldr's final conversation, and Xehanort striking Darkness Baldr down. The "darkness getting its hands on Xehanort" event that Player was trying so desperately to avoid was never about Xehanort coming to physical harm, it was never about Xehanort's heart becoming tainted by darkness, it was about Xehanort and Darkness coming into contact, and the manipulation that was going to transpire on top of the Scala tower. The manipulation that served as the turning point on Xehanort's path. Or at least that's what I think.