#Both in regards to skill and developing my style

[galactichelium]

Very unfortunate that I am a very slow drawer because I am also very impatient. Why must it take 1 million years for my drawings to manifest

[under-lok-n-ki]

Captain Ava & Captain Lizzie

literally cannot wait until we get more development on this plot bc it’s so so good

also I got around to listening to the Black Rose One-shot and Lizzie was originally blonde??? ik her design was changed a lot during the campaign in general but I’m deciding to play around with that info—I’m thinking she started dying it after joining Shadowbeard’s crew

anyways thoughts I had about Ava/the Ferin’s while designing her (possible spoilers or maybe just incoherent rambling):

gave her a rifle bc I feel like she’d have sharpshooting capabilities on par with Drey, but a pistol just didn’t seem appropriate for her. but I also see her favoring close-range attacks so she also gets a big knife as a treat

I think it’s mentioned in an episode how Jay looks more like their mother, May, so personally I think Ava resembles Jayson much more with certain aspects (specifically height, nose shape, eye color, hair ‘style’— Jay got his more square-ish face shape and broad build; they both have the same eye shape)

expanding on that fiery hair ‘style’ thing— I’m thinking that’s smthn that just kinda comes with the Ferin abilities and I’m thinking those powers need to be unlocked in a way?? there’s no other reason I can think of as to why Jayson has the flaming hair and specific magic skills while Jay doesn’t, so I’m thinking Ava may have been more in-tune with/naturally drawn towards the Ferin magic (esp since we see her using that golden form during the animatic sequence in ep101) while Jay become more influenced by May’s magic (since I think she spent the most time with her esp after Ava’s death). maybe Jay and Drey suppress their Ferin abilities (Drey def intentionally, Jay maybe a bit unintentionally?) and it could kinda explain why Jay has special blood: she’s a mix of two [supposedly] powerful magical heritages

I also have this thought that Ava may have unlocked these powers earlier than most of the Ferin’s, resulting in a fate similar to Gillion’s where she was regarded with pride for this yet constantly pressured and trained into becoming a weapon for the Navy (perhaps by request of Grandma Fey, who seems to be a very controlling character and could be the reason Jayson acts so cold and ruthless). and when she failed to uphold their beliefs that’s when The Order was given (maybe they found out about her & Lizzie???)

BUT in comparison to Jayson who absorbed himself in his work, and Gillion who was forcibly separated from his family, Ava was able to visit home often and had May and Jay to lean on as a support system. that connection alone could’ve helped separate the brutality and violence of her work in the Navy from her actual personality—the one that she became admired for and the one Lizzie was drawn to. it could also be speculated that she had the same ideas as Kira and Jay: that she could make the Navy better from the inside (obv this would be more difficult if she was held to high expectations, but she could’ve been on her way to making it work)

speaking of Jay—I think I remember a moment where someone explains how Jayson didn’t want her to join the Navy at all, and I always thought this was odd considering how it was moreso pointed towards her rather than Ava (as well as the fact that the Ferin’s ostracize those who don’t join, like Drey). this would coincide with my theory that Ava was expected to join bc of ‘unlocking’ her powers early, so maybe Jayson didn’t want Jay joining due to the fact that she hadn’t tapped into her Ferin powers yet, but Jay being Jay decided to enlist anyways and eventually gained a different motivation for her involvement than the rest of the clan [thanks to Kira & Ava]. or there was another thing at play. idk kinda just throwing smthn at the wall with this one bc that little comment stood out to me and I can’t remember if it even happened lol

also do we think the whole ‘sun nightmare’ is like,,, a test to unlock those abilities?? we know Jay and Drey opted to jump into it which kinda resulted in some magic golden eye phenomena (which we’ve seen in action once by Drey), but the issue here is when Jay rejected the heat the first time it just resulted in pain. so what would’ve been the option that leads the Ferin bloodline to become so powerful? do they choose to combat the sun?? do they conjure up heat of their own until they overpower it??? so many questions

gaaahhh I can’t wait until they’re out of the Black Sea so we can delve into this more bc I’m tired of feelin like this:

[edmcmayonnaise]

Months ago, I wrote "biographies" for Edwin and Simon in the style of the Edwardian (Third Edition published in 1915) study on "Sexual Inversion" (medical phrasing that pre-dates the term "homosexuality") in the style of Studies in the Psychology of Sex by Havelock Ellis. This book can be found for free online and is a treasure trove due to the collection of biographies written by queer people.

Maybe against my better judgment, I will share them now for Simon Appreciation Week, as they capture to some extent how I perceive their interpersonal dynamics.

HISTORY E.P. - English, student at public boarding school, aged 16. His father, who comes from an unremarkable middle class lineage, is a physician. His father has been deployed to France since 1914 for wartime service. His mother’s family has a history notable for hysteria in his maternal grandmother, and his mother he describes as a high-strung and nervous woman who herself has been intermittently institutionalized for afflictions of mood. 

He has no siblings, and describes the relationship with his parents as distant. He lived most of his early childhood life in the care of a nanny. At age seven, was sent away to boarding school. 

He has never been attracted to girls or women, though had minimal contact with girls his age, He takes little interest in women or in their society. There is nothing markedly feminine in his general appearance, but he does believe that his general kinesthetic disposition is not viewed by others as manly. Specifically, he says that he is concerned that the animated way in which his hands is too recognizable as a symptom of what he considers to be his congenital condition. 

He is of average height and medium-slim build, but generally normatively developed and healthy. He considers himself to lack skill in athletic pursuits with the exception of fencing, but is an omnivorous reader and excels in academics. 

In his own words:

“I have always been very shy of showing any affectionate tendencies. Most of my acquaintances (and close friends, even) find me curiously cold. For obvious reasons I have been unable to speak as to why this is. I fear being cruelly misunderstood, and I have at times felt as if wrestling in the folds of the morally reprehensible python of inversion.

"I find myself cut off from others, feel myself to be an outcast, and, amongst others my age, am intensely withdrawn. Privately, I am miserable. The desire to love and be loved is hard to drown, especially when treading through a veritable pool of ‘what-ifs’ as I am surrounded by male virality in all aspects of my life at school.

“I am not sure entirely what it is for which I am longing. Certainly, my parents neglected to impart to me any sort of knowledge of the adult modus vivendi. The only thing I do know with confidence is that no bodily satisfaction should be sought at the cost of another person’s distress or degradation, including my own.

“At my school, I have heard rumor, and in fact been the subject of rumor, regarding attachments and gratifications with other boys, which are all untrue. As with any topic that is discussed only behind cupped hands and in whispers, the stories become more and more fantastical as they are shared from schoolmate to schoolmate. Upon my truest promise, I have never yielded to the temptation of any sort of intercrural connection. I have preserved strict chastity. I do not know how long my mind can hold back the instincts of my heart and body, but I am terrified that I will soon lose this seemingly never ending battle.”

Shortly after E.P. submitted his history for publication in this book, it was reported that he and several other boys at his school went missing in what the school is calling an Act of God. Any additional information about what may have happened to this youth and his friends is not forthcoming at this time. 

~

HISTORY S.M. - English, student at a public boarding school, aged 17. Father and mother both living; the latter is of a better social standing than the former. He is much attached to his mother, and she gives him some sympathy and companionship, when he is at home. He is the third of four siblings, all boys, and he suspects that his next elder brother is also inverted.

In early life, S.M. was of delicate constitution and his studies were often interrupted by illness. Though living under mostly happy conditions he was shy and nervous, often depressed. This he attributes to having been on several occasions mishandled by his next elder brother; concedes that his brother is prone to foul and violent moods. However, his brother is well-liked, by his father and other siblings, he says, because of his masculine character. His brother has many friends at school. Though S.M. does report that he does have some influence over some of his classmates, he has few close friends.

Of his inversion, he reports the following:

“There is a boy in my year who has become the absorbing thought of my school days, and who comes to me in my dreams almost nightly. I have absolutely no words to tell you how powerfully his beauty affects me. He is well-formed, lean, shy, and in my dream he sits beside me, allowing our legs to touch and for me to caress his thigh. He looks at me with desire in his eyes, green, but clouded over dark with his want for me to kiss him. And I do want to kiss him– on his wrist, and his palm, and into the gentle, milky curve of his neck, and to leave my lover’s mark on him, to say to anyone who might pursue him that he is mine and mine only. 

“I keep my feelings hidden, however, hardly daring to look at him for fear of being found out. His bed is next to mine, and the rest of the dormitory is boisterous and lewd, and there is a good deal of bullying, which I cannot bear to have directed my way.

“I have tried to tell myself that these dreams are not due to a moral failing of my own, but indeed this boy’s own influence upon me. I love him and I resent him. His seeming indifference towards my existence, as he has never responded well when I have plucked up my courage to speak with him, angers me. I want him to look towards me and love me, too.”

S.M. was involved in the same incident as E.P.,  where he and several other boys went missing from their school. It is reported that their last known whereabouts were their school dormitory rooms.

[sotwk]

Apart from being the Crown Prince of the Woodland Realm, Mirion Thranduilion is best remembered in his realm’s history for two things: his ferocity and devotedness as Protector of the Realm, and his skill as a master bladesmith.

With talent unmatched by any other Elven weaponsmith remaining in the Third Age, Mirion designed and personally crafted armor and weaponry for the soldiers of the Woodland Realm. His first-hand practical knowledge of armed combat (aided further by the battle expertise of his father) gave him an elevated understanding of how to design weapons that were both functional and efficient while still being beautiful works of art.  

Although Thranduil’s sword is the most recognizable weapon in the history of the Woodland Realm, Mirion’s personal sword would be judged the strongest blade. Both were designed and made by the Crown Prince, and although they were forged from the same rare material, they were two very different swords crafted for different purposes and fighting styles. 

On one hand, Thranduil’s sword is lighter, more beautiful and elegant, and made for speed and single-handed wielding. 

On the other hand, here are SotWK AU headcanons regarding…

Gwaedhang: the greatsword of the Crown Prince of the Woodland Realm

Mirion’s sword was named Gwaedhang, Sindarin for “Iron Oath”.

It is 78 inches (198 cm) long--just 2 inches shorter than Legolas! 

It weighs 10 pounds (4.5 kg), which is extremely heavy for a combat blade. 

In contrast to all the other weapons he made, Mirion kept the design of Gwaedhang’s blade simple, bearing only an inscription--his personal oath to his people, written in Silvan: “Until my last breath, I will serve.”

Gwaedhang’s black-blue steel blade was made from a very rare ore sourced from the deepest mines of Khazad-dûm a thousand years before its fall. 

It was forged in Khazad-dûm by Mirion in TA 1035, in collaboration with the best dwarf-smiths and King Durin V himself. 

The greatsword took nearly five years to complete. 

It draws its power from the union of Elven and Dwarven knowledge, the strength of the unique black alloy developed from the rare ore, and Mirion’s Noldorin “magic”--supernatural crafting abilities that he was born with, and that grew under the guidance of his mother.

Gwaedhang is sharp and strong enough to slash through virtually any substance without being damaged or losing its edge. Although never tested, it is also believed able to withstand the most extreme heat, including dragonfire. It is considered indestructible. 

Gwaedhang is so large, heavy and dangerous, only three people ever wielded it in combat: Mirion, Thranduil, and Turhir. Mirion alone had both the strength and sufficient practice to use it single-handed on the battlefield. (And yes, the fact that the sword is named “Oath” also symbolizes the weight of the oath of duty Mirion took upon his shoulders.)

When Mirion fought with Gwaedhang, he was known to effortlessly cleave in half grown spiders and monsters with one stroke, and behead a line of orcs in a single swing.

Upon Mirion’s death, the sword became a treasured heirloom of the realm. It is displayed publicly as part of a memorial statue honoring the late prince, and the Elves of the realm continue to come there to pay their respects.  

Want to learn more about Mirion? Mirion Headcanon Masterlist

@creativity-of-death I'm sure you don't remember anymore, (and I can't blame you!) but this post was written as a LONG-delayed response to your Ask in my Headcanon Ask Game. A Lannister SotWK always pays their debts, and I'm trying to prove that! ;)

OTHER USEFUL LINKS:

Introduction to SotWK

Main Headcanon Masterlist

[airrec]

will you ever make janitor ai or character ai bots out of any of the characters from your fanfics? if not.. can people make them? (please i’m dying to make a Dream Blob au bot i’m on my hands and knees begging here)

In short: no. Please, please, please do not.

In long: please do not feed my fics or posts to A.I. To do so would be actively against my wishes, and even the thought of it is upsetting and angering to me.

A.I. has a lot of potential to do good – in the medical field, in the sciences, etc. There is nuance to the subject of A.I. in general. Regarding specifically A.I. art, the technology is not yet advanced enough to be used as a tool in the way that a tool is meant to be used – it is not a brush you can download, or a digital model you can pose. It is “trained” through being fed lots and lots of real, human-created pieces of art, and copying that art.

It does not learn how to use specific brush strokes, or specific colours, or how or why certain details are included or left out. It is wholesale lifting from what it is fed and mashing it together into new configurations, Frankenstein style – there is nothing creative about it. Similarly, when fed fictional writing, it does the same: it copies and pastes common tropes, common story beats, common plots, common phrasings – there is nothing of creativity in there at all.

There are currently no legal protections for artists of any kind against A.I. algorithms; the technology is still too new, and already it is causing harm. Even just on the practical side, the environmental impacts of the excessive electricity usage needed to run the A.I. is immense.

A.I. generated art is theft, pure and simple. It cannot be currently described as anything other than that. And creative writing is a form of art. A book that you pick up in an airport, or a fanfic you open in a tab on your phone, or a well-thumbed novel you found on a shelf in a café – these are pieces of art. Perhaps you do not think of them that way, in the same way you might look at a painting and say, “Yes, that is a piece of art,” but they are.

I was talking to a friend of mine some time ago, and they said (and I agreed) that writing is often devalued as a form of art, because the idea that “anyone can write a book” is so pervasive. And, yes, anyone can write a book – or anyone can write letters onto a page in a specific order. In much the same way, anyone can draw a picture, or paint a mural. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t a creative process involved, and it doesn’t mean that there isn’t the development of skills and immense amounts of knowledge and experience going into story-crafting as much as there is visual arts. Quite frankly, anyone who says, “Oh, anyone can write a book,” has almost certainly never actually tried to write a book themselves.

My friend went on to say that very often books are considered objects, just things, not pieces of art that have been handcrafted just for you, just for someone to pick up and immerse themselves in and enjoy. In much the same way, fanfic has also become a commodity – perhaps even more so, because its content is based on a pre-existing canon that does not belong to the writer. But fanfiction is still art, in much the same way that fanart is still art, and the devaluation of it and its creators is upsetting and frustrating.

I am not a machine. I do not press some buttons, pull some levers, and start outputting fanfic. This is something I do for fun, because I enjoy it. It is something I post online because I want other people to come enjoy it, too, and for it to be an expression of art meant as a part of a fan community’s expression of love for a canon. That is what being a fan is all about.

I am a real human being, and I don’t deserve to have my art stolen from me, fed to a shambling corpse spouting out things it has “learnt” from both my art and from every other piece of art that has been stolen to feed it. Anything it would say – that would not be my story, because it doesn’t come from me. It would just be an amalgamation of thousands of people’s stories, cut down into something mainstream and palatable because the point of so-called A.I. art is not to create unique and interesting stories – it is to create generic ones that will sell easily under the model of late stage capitalism.

You know, I got the email notification for this ask last night. I have my email notifs on because I spent so long being shadow-banned on this blog, and I fear missing things in my inbox. I checked my phone in the middle of the night because I couldn’t sleep, and while I was reading the ask I could hear my mother breathing in her sleep just nearby – we’re in a caravan together, because it’s been a while since I went away with my parents. I am typing this answer up from that same caravan, and I’m squinting a little because the sun is reflecting off my screen. We’re going to have a barbecue later for dinner – we just bought the food for it not three hours ago. Did you think of that? Did you think about the way that I am a person, living my own life, and now I am being forced to beg for you to respect me as one?

Because that’s what you would be doing, if you did this: you would commodify me, and you would commodify my art. It would be just another machine-made thing, not something that’s handmade for others’ enjoyment; not something that work – my time, my energy – has gone into, that my passion and love has gone into. But I am not a thing, and I resent being implicitly treated like one.

If you really want to know more about people’s fanfics – talk to them! Leave a comment, send in an ask, engage with them in some way. Fanfic is created by fans for the enjoyment of other fans, and fan communities are still communities, which means there is a social element to them. Stealing from others, as one might expect, is frowned upon greatly – they gave that to you, for free. You pay nothing for it – and shouldn’t – and now you want to plagiarise and thieve what was shown in good faith?

I suppose that, ultimately, if you were truly determined, there is nothing that I can do to stop you. You could copy/paste my works into your A.I. bot creator and go on your merry way, despite how I’ve told you that such would make me extremely upset, and that it isn’t something I want. I can say, “I forbid you to do this,” - and make no mistake I do forbid you – and ultimately I have no power to actually stop you, because there is no law in place to prevent you from doing exactly as you please.

I can do nothing to stop you except this: I am asking you not to. Please.

[kotaromita]

OOC Lore Post: KOTARO'S FRIENDS

After talking about them quite a bit here and there as Kotaro, I figured now would be a good time to do a big info-dump about my two Project Sekai OCs that server as Kotaro's friends and musical collaborators. "Kotaro's Friend" is a canon character who has 2 lines spoken to Akito regarding how Kotaro got into music, so I decided that was enough information for me to take it and run and make individuals based on it.

Introducing, Minoru Saiki and Kazuki Shimabokuro.

I'll start with Kazuki.

Kazuki Shimabokuro

2nd year, online student (17 yrs old)

170 cm tall

Born February 20th (Pisces)

An online musician who goes by the name “Kazukur0.” He makes chaotic and inconsistent music that can be described as “breakcore” or “alternative.” He utilizes Virtual Singers because he is self conscious of his nasally voice. He’s socially awkward and has a tendency to ramble on and on when given the leeway to. His younger sister creates his song cover images to post online. He has William’s syndrome.

He suffered a lot in junior high in a fashion not unlike Mizuki and Rui, which is why he does online school now that he's in high school. He has severe stage fright and admires Kotaro's bravery to perform solo a lot. He longs to be heard and admired but until he can overcome his social anxiety he will use Kotaro as both his muse and vessel.

Hobbies: Mimicking Western fashion trends, singing

Specialties: Making electronic music utilizing sound effects and the Kagamine duo’s vocals

Dislikes: Quiet

Favorite food: Takoyaki

Least favorite food: Kimchi

and through Kazuki, Kotaro meets...

Minoru Saiki

Graduate, unspecified university (19 years old)

178 cm tall

Born November 29th (Sagittarius)

A professional musician who prides himself on his ability to mimic the musical stylings of any musician exactly. He is mostly hired for classical music performances and cover bands but he is able to play most instruments and learns songs very quickly. Because of his capabilities his nickname among peers is “Shapeshifter.” He is unwilling to compromise when it comes to music. He has Jacob’s syndrome.

Due to dedicating himself to perfect recreations, he has left little room for himself to develop his own style and even his own personality. He has a makings of a talented composer but he never takes credit for anything original he creates as he doesn't want to risk being associated with something "imperfect."

Hobbies: Challenging his skills by learning incredibly difficult songs

Specialties: Translating songs from instrument to instrument

Dislikes: Change, being disagreed with

Favorite food: Fried tofu

Least favorite food: Tuna

Kazuki meets Kotaro first. Kazuki is Kotaro's fan! He didn't see RAD WEEKEND, akin to Toya and Kohane, but he's always found solace in music and came to love Kotaro and his independence and individuality rivaling his own.

He offers up his "services" making "beats" to Kotaro, who sheepishly accepts, unaccustomed to being spoken to with any sort of admiration. Rather quickly they become friends. Kotaro picks up on Kazuki's discomfort with crowds and comes to care about him in a way similar to that of an older sibling.

That's when Minoru encounters them. Minoru seeks out Kazuki, knowing him solely as his online alias. As Minoru's only pastime is dissecting music pieces. A friend of his (shockingly, Souma Miyata) oftentimes challenges him with pieces he thinks would be exceptionally difficult to recreate. Through Kotaro Arata learns of Kazuki and through Arata Souma learns of him too. Thus, he shares kazukur0 with Minoru and says "Try recreating this!"

Minoru listens to Kazuki’s music over and over again, struggling to comprehend it. He’s frustrated but excited as he can’t remember the last time he felt challenged. He tries for days on end and for the life of him he cannot make an exact recreation of Kazuki and Kotaro's music. Minoru seeks Kazuki out and insists he observe Kazuki’s work process so he can understand how it was possible for someone to make such hypothetically bad music sound good. He has to find Kazuki and he has to understand how his brain works so he can mimic him as identically as he can every other musician.

Kazuki hates this! Frankly, he hates everything about the way Minoru treats music. They're complete opposites in every way. And yet, they both massively admire one another as musicians.

Both of them quite like Kotaro. Kazuki adores Kotaro, in the way a fan loves their bias and in a way a little sibling loves their elder. Minoru respects Kotaro for all that he's endured as a musician and his willingness to suffer in the quest to better himself.

Even though Minoru admires Kazuki in his own strange way, they have massive creative differences. During rehearsals Kazuki changes things and improvises sporadically, making each performance vary slightly. Minoru dislikes it, insisting Kazuki play the song the way it was “intended to be.” Kazuki gives in but Kotaro steps in, forcing them to agree to explore their options. When Kazuki performs the song without any personal touches, Minoru does recognize that somehow it feels as though something is missing.

As a trio, they're all forced to face the parts of themselves they try to ignore looking them dead in the face. Kazuki has to decide if he's truly satisfied being an accessory to Kotaro rather than truly being his partner and working side by side with him instead of insisting he work for him, that he isn't worthy of being seen as his equal. Minoru has to address the fact that he has no sense of identity and that despite his insistence on always working solo that all of his performing up until now has always hinged on being someone he isn't. And Kotaro, of course, has to face his persistent struggles with self worth and feeling that it's okay to "burden" others by asking for help.

They end up all in a sort of friendship-colleagues situation. Kotaro calls them his friends, Minoru calls them his colleagues, and Kazuki calls him his allies.

Here's sort of what a relationship chart between the three would look like!

Minoru → Kotaro: I admire your drive and willingness to follow advice and experiement. You're so far from perfect, and yet…I don't particularly hate it. [Calls him Mita.] Minoru → Kazuki: You're difficult to get along with and understand, but I admire you and you've fundamentally changed how I view music. [Calls him Kazukuro.]

Kazuki → Kotaro: MITA-SENPAI! ♡ I'm your biggest fan, forever! It's an honor to collab with you, so you can rely on me whenever! I just sort of wish I had the guts to stand on stage like you. Kazuki → Minoru: You piss me off so much! Your music is so good, but there's no YOU in it. How can I understand YOU when you keep saying these conflicting things!? You don't have to keep pretending to be perfect around us… [Calls him Saiki-senpai or Shapeshifter-senpai.]

Kotaro → Kazuki: You've always got my back and I've always got yours! Let's keep working together for a long time. My 2nd little brother. [Calls him Kazuki.] Kotaro → Minoru: You're a pain in the ass, but God are you talented. There's a lot I could learn from you…and a lot you could stand to learn from Vivid Street! [Calls him Saiki.]

thank you for coming to my ted talk please support kotaro mita and his two fuck ass mentally ill friends

[tomiyeee]

Genshin Character Design Notes

wanted to write down some stuff i’ve noticed while studying genshin character designs for my rottmnt au in case anyone could find them useful for their own crossovers/ocs.

these are not hard and fast rules as much as they are simple observations and patterns i’ve seen across characters. i am by no means telling people how to design their characters!! these are just things that i personally try to keep in mind while designing and wanted to share for those who are interested.

sorry it’s long, i’m obnoxiously meticulous and wordy 😔

5-star characters will almost always be using their burst in their wish art and the effects will usually take up half or more of the space. many will either have an almost solid background and/or ground to stand on. an exception to both of these would be klee which could be due to her being made very early in development.

4-star characters can be using either their skill or their burst and their effects will usually be pretty minimal with much more empty space around the character. effects are also much more generic save for some talent-specific visuals like sucrose’s butterfly or xingqiu’s swords. even the 4-stars with more complex art look basic next to 5-stars with similar effects (ex: chongyun/eula, xinyan/dehya, candace/tartaglia).

all of the archons so far have had their nation’s scenery incorporated into their wish art. nahida is possibly an exception as it looks like it’s just her burst, even though the burst itself seems to be based off of sumeru’s architecture, but this could also be due to her being isolated compared to the other three.

i feel like this one’s a given but long loose/draping fabrics and dangling ornaments are basically a requirement. this game has gorgeous cloth physics and they very much like to use that to their advantage in their designs.

also the characters’ movements and combat style often play a part in how they are dressed, especially in regards to the cloth physics. characters with quicker and more active movements, like sword users or those with more energetic personalities, have smaller capes, wear pants/shorter skirts, and overall have fewer loose fabrics to obscure those fast movements; their clothing/silhouette tends to hug closer to the body. meanwhile characters that have less movement and/or are more elegant, like catalysts, will have longer skirts or other long clothing items that accentuate those types of movements better. there are no strict rules for this one, but in general the clothing should complement how the character moves, not work against it.

most characters will have a very unique hair style/coloration (yelan, dehya, xiao) or they will have hats/hair ornaments (shogun, shenhe, childe) and many will have both. either way, their hair and head is an important point to add visual interest.

this one’s kind of specific, it’s just a fun thing i noticed: there are very few characters, if any, without a high collar, choker, or otherwise covered neck. i guess they don’t really like leaving the neck exposed lol.

basically this entire video has a ton of very good observations, but the main thing i keep in mind from it is that characters will “always have an appealing view from behind” since that’s how they are primarily viewed by the player during gameplay. characters in most other series will have a backside of their design that basically gets the job done and not much else. but genshin takes care to have a back view that is just as unique as the front. skirts and capes will have their own unique silhouette and flow. clothing cut, fabric patterns, and accessories will create shapes that are just as eye-catching as those in the front. they are basically almost their own unique character design, completely independent of what’s going on in the front.

the legs tend to act as a sort of “break” for the eyes, especially when viewed from the front. not counting skirts, the legs will usually have less patterning and/or darker, more subdued coloration compared to the torso. many characters will have bare legs or plain colored stockings or pants with large amounts of blank space/simple patterning.

some will have brighter colors or noticeable patterns compared to other characters, but it is almost never the main point of interest in the overall design. ex: yelan, shenhe, and albedo all have very ornate leggings/pants, but at first glance it’s generally drowned out by the brighter colors + higher contrast shapes on their torso.

some characters like razor, noelle, and heizou are exceptions to the pants rule. in these cases, the legs serve to simply balance out the design. razor and heizou’s brighter colors add interest to an otherwise simple and almost monochromatic design and noelle’s armored legs make her feel sturdy and more ornate, fitting for a knight. they are detailed enough to enhance the design, but not enough to take away focus from the upper body.

since the characters spend a lot of time running, climbing, etc, their legs are never completely covered/obscured. skirts, if not split, are knee-length at most. otherwise their animations would probably be a clipping nightmare.

pattern placement is very intentional on every part of the character. fabric patterns will generally follow the cut of the fabric so as not to interrupt the “flow” of the design. repeatable/tileable patterns are almost non-existent, except to add texture to a small area like the scales on zhongli’s coat, dark patterns on sara’s skirt, and glittery star-like textures on parts of several characters’ outfits.

(this one is very iffy and better left to your own judgement, but..) asymmetry is common, but not necessary. in fact, most characters’ silhouettes are pretty symmetrical; the asymmetry is more often in the smaller details like patterns or ornaments/accessories than anything else. more noticeable asymmetry is usually in angled/layered skirts (ningguang, faruzan, barbara) and one-sided capes/sashes (kaeya, alhaitham, wanderer), while the cut of the “base” outfit is otherwise symmetrical. the asymmetry in these designs is noticeable because it is used well, not just often. exceptions to this (namely yoimiya and tighnari) are usually going for a specific look that fits the character’s personal and cultural background and their personality.

aaaand that’s about all i can think of at the moment. i’m sure a lot more research and thought goes into these designs than what is listed here, but i am just one non-professional artist and i am far from knowing all the ins and outs of mihoyo’s design process 😔 these are just a few of the (purely surface-level) visual observations i’ve made while making my turtle au lol.

[polarisbibliotheque]

So like, less of a suggestion and more of a question - I recently found your works and have just been blown away by the details (like, seriously, you're on the top of my favorite writers list) and just how... perfect you craft everything? I genuinely inspire to be like you, but the problem is that I've hit a rut - I'm super unsatisfied with my writing, and whenever I try to get back into the writing zone, I just fall flat. Is there any advice you could give on how to improve one's writing? What would be your tips and tricks at getting into that writing zone?

(Do apologize me taking SO LONG to answer, but I had some health emergencies the last couple of weeks and ended up in the hospital – I’m doing better now, chilling at home and trying to recover. My doctor is 90% sure I have Crohn’s Disease and I’m having many ups and downs trying to find a proper treatment that I seem to respond to. BUT…)

…I hope you are aware of how much you made me smile, blush and almost indulge into my teary eyes upon reading this. Hahahaha seriously, thank you SO much!! I can’t even thank you enough, I’m just in pure awe that another being in this big ol’ world we live in thinks so highly of my writing!!

I mean, not even I think that highly of my writing. Notice a pattern? ;)

One thing I learned being an artist – not only writing, I also draw, play the piano, write music on my free time/when inspiration hits, everything creative, I’m there, doing it – is that we’re never really satisfied with our work. We will always think we could’ve done something better, and we’re definitely going to be pretty “meh” about a lot of things we do – even when other people think it’s a masterpiece.

And that is good! We’ll always strive to perfect our skills! You just have to remember to appreciate the work you do even when you’re not completely satisfied with it. You will get to where you want to – but then, you’ll wish to improve even more! And that is awesome!

But hey, I do have some tips and tricks on improving and getting into that writing vibe!

For the people getting to the party now, my main tip on improving is here, in the first part of the answer for this ask! Now, now…

(long post below, as expected YEE BEEN WARNED!)

Regarding improving:

Read. A. Lot. Hahaha I know that’s quite an obvious one, but it’s really important. Personally, I think reading mindlessly just to fill a quota of “I read 25 books a month” doesn’t work. It works when you absorb it – when you allow yourself to plunge into the world of the book you’re reading, feeling the characters, the emotions, the settings… That helps you build your “mental library” so to speak! And sometimes you’ll find things and expressions you like that you might use both on your daily speech and while writing – for instance, I have this awful thing of saying “there’s a lack of wings to my words” whenever I’m speechless, because of Homer’s Odyssey. I freaking LOVE that book, I loved that expression, I use it all the time, and it has definitely bled into my writing.

WRITE! A LOT! Write bad stuff, good stuff, short 2 pages thing-ys that you go “hey that’s a good idea!” but you’ll never actually turn into a full story, random scenes, fanfiction, stupid fanfiction, serious fanfiction, self-indulgent stories, stories for your family, stories for yourself, stories for whoever wants to read or not, dreams that could be great stories… The point is to write. It’s much like drawing or playing the piano: if you don’t practice, you won’t get better and you won’t develop your style. The more you practice, the better you get! So don’t be afraid to write bad stuff, cringy stuff, or ridiculous stuff – or even stuff you thought would be awesome and turns out bad, or stuff you think will never turn into anything that turn amazing! One way or another, you’ll be refining your craft!

Identify what you like on writers you admire. I started noticing that while reading The Silmarillion. The Lord of the Rings is my favorite book since I read it for the first time when I was 15, but I didn’t pick up The Silmarillion until I was around 22 – and by then, I started underlining with a light pencil all the phrases I liked most, something my mom did on her old books when she was around my age. I then started taking a look at what I liked about Tolkien’s writing so much – and in other books too: what kind of phrases seemed to resonate more with my soul. Which ones brought tears to my eyes and a smile to my face. And then I notice I tend more to the unconventional ways of describing things.

For instance, instead of going like “she was beautiful, with pale skin under raven dark hair, blue eyes shining on her fair face” I tend to go for the unconventional, sort of eerie, not so much taken for granted kind of describing “her beauty glowed like the first pale star to glisten in the evening sky, under a deep sea of dark, velvety hair, making her eyes twinkle like sapphires with a smart look while carrying the light she kept in her soul”. If I had to, the second one would be how I’d describe Arwen or Lúthien, giving them that ethereal otherworldly beauty they have. It's also the one that evokes more feelings inside of me rather than just a mental image.

That’s why I try to describe some things in a different light. When I’m writing, I want people to feel something – but how can you describe that feeling of joy when you hug someone you love and the whole world fades for a minute? That’s when I go for the “his heart bled with gold while his hands never wanted to let them go. For a minute, time seemed to stop and there was nothing else but his heartbeat intertwining with theirs, beating as the same song – even if theirs was more melodic while his was more melancholic. It was that kind of tune that made his lungs not remember how to breathe and his eyes pour – while his lips reflected all the gold that cascaded from his heart.” It’s a quick (rather ridiculous) example, but I do think about some things: how when I feel like that, I tend to have a hard time breathing and I do cry, but it’s because I want to smile so much I cannot contain it. Then I try to describe those feelings with metaphors and poetic stuff because I’m a melodramatic bitch.

Jokes aside, it’s because I like that sort of writing that has that beauty behind it – or more of a melancholic approach. It’s what resonates the most with me and I adopted it, even if sometimes it feels too… Abstract. I like that ability of people piecing the abstractness together and having their own interpretation – and that’s what makes people have different feelings while reading the same thing.

Is this for everyone? Absolutely not. I bet some people despise all that poeticness I like to put on words to lace them like a painting, you know? So, the more you re-read the things you like, you’ll start identifying what resonates with you and you can apply that to your own writing!

And that doesn’t mean you’ll have to be locked on that writing style as well. I’m currently trying to finish a book (I hope someday I can publish it) which is a cyberpunk style story, with lots of inspiration from Cyberpunk 2077, Blade Runner, John Wick (yes, Keanu Reeves sends his regards) and all that poetic writing doesn’t quite fit there. I’m using more of a direct approach, but there’s a lot of existentialism and reflecting on overcoming grief, trauma, owning your own life and contemplating one’s own mortality – and that’s where that poetic, metaphoric, melancholic, bittersweet characteristic of my writing style comes into play. And then everyone starts cursing and shooting each other again :)

Having a style doesn’t mean getting stuck in it – it means knowing when and where to use it!

Now regarding getting into the writing zone:

I freaking ADORE music and it helps me A TON while I’m writing. It’s like setting the mood. I’m trying to be sexy, or mysterious, or having that vampire-y vibe? Depeche Mode playlist it is. Fight scenes? Metal and Electronic. I need to freaking focus and get to work without thinking too much about the music (or start dancing like crazy whenever a song I love comes in and there I am, dancing and singing in my room at 3 a.m)? Piano playlists – classic, modern, everything and anything, as long as it is piano.

Playing music that goes with what I’m writing also helps. For my cyberpunk book, for instance, I put on the Cyberpunk 2077 OST playlist/radio on, or I search for “Cyberpunk Ambience/Playlist” on Youtube and let it roll while I write. For my King Arthur stories (yes, still working on them), I put on Celtic music compilations, Enya, Loreena McKennitt or the piano playlists. For my vampire stories, be the medieval or the near-future one, dark piano, Dark Wave, etc. Perhaps searching for that one playlist that has to do with your story setting and listening to it for some time might get you in the zone!

I also usually write deep in the night. Because I’m a spawn of Dracula. After everyone at home has gone to sleep, I make myself some hot tea, sit on my computer, start listening to music and write. That’s because I know I won’t be interrupted, and I can do just that. Sometimes, I start writing at 1 a.m, other times earlier, other times later. Try to notice when your ideas seem to flow better and when you get more into the zone – but please, don’t be unhealthy as I am and go to sleep at a decent hour. I’m not an example here with my sleeping schedule hahahaha

Cringy moment: when I’m stuck, I act the last scene I wrote as one of my characters in the shower and, usually, ideas start to come in (and I have to get off the shower). Hahahaha now that’s just a weird one, but I have NO idea why, my best ideas arise in the shower. Water has a weird effect on me, so sometimes I just stand there with warm water pouring over my head and, lo and behold, I’m exiting the shower in a hurry because I just got my writer mood back HAHAHA so maybe some very mundane activity – like cooking, taking the trash out, cleaning the room – might be where your writer brain will come to life. You never know.

Needless to say, I talk to myself a lot, sometimes as if I’m talking to the characters. That is a very bad coping mechanism I developed when I was being bullied at school – I used to pretend Dante was with me when I was alone or something had happened and I needed someone by my side, so nowadays I have a very easy time writing this man. I started doing that with some of my characters, and that goes for repeating lines or part of the stories I’m writing to see if I can get un-stuck. It’s not the greatest of things, but it works. My neighbors might think I’m crazy, though xD

When I’m completely unmotivated or I keep staring at the blank page without being able to write, I try to immerse myself in what I’m writing about. So, if I’m stuck on my cyberpunk book, I watch some Cyberpunk 2077 let’s plays, I re-watch the Edgerunners anime, I re-watch Blade Runner, I re-read some parts of Do Androids Dream of Electrical Sheep? or I, Robot, I listen to Blade Runner’s soundtrack, I even try to play Cyberpunk 2077 (while praying not to get motion sickness or not having my pc exploding from overworking). If I’m stuck on my King Arthur works, then I re-watch the 2004 movie (may the gods bless Ioan Gruffudd and his wonderful Lancelot and Mads Mikkelsen as my beloved Tristan), re-read the 3 books on the Chronicles of Arthur series, listen to some Celtic music, research Arthurian stories for hours on the internet, search for my encyclopedias at home to see if they have something on King Arthur, read obscure translated manuscripts from ancient times on it … So, immersing yourself on reading, researching, listening to music, watching movies, playing videogames, listening to stories, watching series, reading mangas, watching anime, documentaries, going to the movies, basically doing anything that has to do with the theme you’re writing, may get you in the mood. Next time you sit down to write, it might flow wonderfully!

I don’t force myself to write, though. If I do, I usually can’t write a single decent word and I’ll hate it. If things aren’t flowing – and this I learned with my mom, who also draws – I leave it for a while and go do something else. Maybe I’ll have some warm tea, or watch a completely unrelated movie, or read my current book, or talk to my parrot in the kitchen, play some piano, draw a little, or just take a good nap. My mom says it refreshes the head and the eyes, and when you come back to it, you’ll be a lot more inclined to find things that weren’t working and let those creative juices flow.

I also have a very weird search history and I’m not ashamed of it. All writers do, and it’s better to have a weird search history than not knowing what you’re talking about, honestly. And sometimes, researching takes a lot more time than writing and might get you motivated – time spent learning is never wasted. Even if you’re learning what kind of dates grow in Greece and are offered to Apollo (bless his heart).

Sometimes, I write something completely unrelated, with a very different theme, and stupidly goofy – and that gets me back to the writing vibes. Sometimes there’s just this need of writing something for the sake of writing, and you just want something foolish to make you smile like a goof. It’s valid and it might be your ticket out of writing-rut-land.

Now some little uncalled for advices:

I spent too long being self-conscious and too serious about it. If it’s not your style, don’t force it. Some people need structure, other people thrive in chaos – know what’s your style and go for it. I hate planning novels, for example. But I will outline the main points of the story and the ending – the rest, well, the characters have to show me whatever else they’re doing, and I have to go with it. Sometimes there are huge arcs I didn’t plan as a main point of the story, but they pop up in the middle of it and they are important – I like leaving that room for impromptu writing/creating. So, find out how it works for you, not how it works for everyone else.

You don’t have to create masterpieces right at the first time you’re writing. Take my King Arthur thing-y for example. I wrote the full story when I was 15. When I was in college, I decided to re-write it. And then, when I was at work, I decided to re-write the re-write. And now, I just took all my files, read them, thought about it all, outlined a whole new story and decided to write anew. Not re-write, but take all that work and write as if I had never written anything before – in the original file, the main characters were 15 years old and in school, now they have their jobs at Universities and work on the secret society that is now a lot more fleshed out and built with loads of new characters around (including a new one I created yesterday after months not thinking about it).

If I hadn’t written the Twilight-sort of embarrassing thing when I was 15, I wouldn’t have this whole universe, characters and story to build upon nowadays. It wasn’t a masterpiece, but it was a good idea – and I’ll keep working on it until I’m happy with it. It’s been 13 years I’m working on it now, maybe when it reaches its 15th anniversary, I’ll be able to finally let it see the light of day!

Don’t listen to the “NEVER DO THIS!!” advices. Seriously. Writing is a form of art – and, as in all art, there isn’t a right or wrong. By all means, see what people are saying it’s bad and you should never do – I watch and read those advices so I can learn to be better too! – but don’t take it to heart. As Captain Barbossa would say, it’s more of a guideline than rules set in stone. Sometimes, something people say you should NEVER EVER do is something that works perfectly fine for you and your style of writing. Learn to make up your own mind: learn new things, listen to advices, but absorb those that resonate with you and leave those that don’t. That’s how you create your own opinion about things and how you find your writing style!

One fun thing to point out on this as an example: me, my mom, my sister and my dad ADORE reading. My sister loves Jane Austen, my mom is a super fan of Dostoyevsky and Russian literature, while my dad lives for Isaac Asimov and all things sci-fi. I love sci-fi, my mom can’t stand it. I read Dante’s Inferno in a week and my mom couldn’t get past the first verses. My sister can’t read poetry at all and is terribly bored by Lord of the Rings. My dad read my Chronicles of Arthur books and even told me to buy the complete the series. Me and my sister enjoyed Khaled Hosseini’s books a lot, but my mom never felt like reading them.

All of this to say: it’s not a matter of who’s more intellectual than the other, it’s a matter of who likes which kind of literature and writing styles. Some people are more comfortable with one way of writing or a certain kind of literature and can’t stand others – and that’s ok. Writing is pretty much the same. THERE ARE NO FIXED RULES! BE A REBEL!

If it helps you: character sheets. Around 8 years ago – or more – I searched and searched online for the character sheet that could help me the best. I had never done it before and thought it was quite useless, until I downloaded one and started filling the infos on my main characters of my Arthurian sort of story. Lo and behold, they became SO MUCH BETTER and that’s when I started rewriting everything: I understood all characters a LOT better and made better decisions when writing them. It doesn’t work for everyone, though, but it’s a lot of fun for me. Currently, I don’t use it much because I now know what are the main things I need for my characters to seem alive, but it’s always nice to have a reference when you’re writing.

My cyberpunk story, for instance, it has A BUNCH of characters with scars, different hair colours, different eye colours, the way they dress, birthmarks, cyber-implants, cyber-prothesis, dressing styles… And sometimes I get lost in it. So it’s nice keeping a character sheet when I go like “wait, she has burn marks on the left arm or the right arm…?”

And keeping a file on worldbuilding might be helpful as well. I noticed that writing my cyberpunk thing. The first thing I wrote was a huge file explaining the city, the factions, the districts, people’s styles, who are the viruses, the sub-types of viruses, the political parties, the police and secret police, the difference between artificials and organics, how does access to the world works, what is the Ocularis system, the most important corporations, their names, their owners… And all those things will probably never appear on this story.

But I felt a HUGE difference. Instead of info-dumping right at the beginning to make the reader understand how the world is built and how it works, I started it right at an important point in the story. No one knows anything about how things work, but, as the characters speak to each other, they talk about so many things that the reader catches things and pieces together how all things are organized.

Don’t try to explain everything. Tying with I said before, if you have a very good idea of how things work, how the characters relate to each other, how they react and how they think, you won’t need to info-dump. I usually think I’m seeing my characters going about their day and that is ALL I’m describing: what they are saying, feeling, thinking and doing. If I feel something is missing for people to fully understand, then I add something quite minimal to help. But I don’t overexplain: people are intelligent and they can piece things together.

Don’t go full Marvel movies and explain everything as if no one can understand unless you say it. Go Nolan and try to make people understand with images, feelings, glances, metaphors and such. It’s very effective in writing! (Don’t get me wrong, I do like Marvel movies, but they have become those kinds of movies that require little mental effort because literally everything will be explained in a huge monologue or through dialogue. You don’t always need dialogues – and if you say “oh that’s too ambiguous and people won’t be certain about it” that’s the beauty of art: it’s always up to interpretation)

Having someone to read and give you feedback might be very helpful too. I have a few friends every now and then I send some of my stories so they’ll read and give me an honest feedback. I try to listen to their opinions and refine my work – but if I think they critique doesn’t make sense, I thank them anyway and keep on doing my thing. Like I said, know when to take what makes sense and when let go of something that doesn’t. Also: feedback is NOT a personal attack. DON’T TAKE IT TO HEART. See it always as something you may need to improve – and you’ll improve quicker.

At the end of the day, writing is art. And all art is relative.

Your art will be great to some and horrible to others – and that’s ok! Again, learn to NOT make it personal (the critiques, I mean, because art is always personal and that’s wonderful, I think).

And repeat after me: you will not please everyone. The point is to make yourself proud. You’ll find your people along the way.

Do it because you love. Do it because it comes from your heart, from your soul. The world has become so filled with content, mindlessly created by artificial intelligence so we will keep consuming, that things have lost so much of their soul.

To make art, to write, is to have soul. If you have that heart, that passion in your work, it will show – and people will follow. When you sit to write, don’t make it a chore, don’t make it an aesthetic tiktok post, don’t follow the routine of this or that famous artist – do what you have to do and let your heart flow. Do it for you.

I think that’s the main advice I can give. Don’t do content to post on social media and look good, do your art. Push your boundaries, test new things, write in ways you never did before, but do your thing.

When everyone is doing the same thing over and over again, you’ll realize your words will stand out by doing what you want to do.

Again thanks for attending my TED Talk xD

[captbananapants]

OK, so this has just popped into my head regarding the leaked episode boards DD on Twitter leaked.

This is a theory on the Dice on Ice one. Soppiness ahead, be warned.

The Devil and Henchman notice King Dice being a little off and acting suspicious. They confront him, and he takes out a leaflet that advertises an ice skating couple's competition that is held in a month's time.

Both demons learn that King Dice is a professional ice skater when he was young and earned many a trophies, but stopped to turn most of his attention to singing.

He has applied for the show where he is accepted and paired up with another professional yet snooty ice skater.

The Devil kindly takes King Dice up to the surface to a frozen lake and asks Dice to teach him to skate, all while letting Dice practice for the upcoming show, a la Dirty Dancing style. As the competition draws to a close, The Devil realises he had a talent he didn't know, and his feelings for Dice grow stronger.

On the night of the show, Dice's partner drops out last minute when she finds out King Dice has dealings/works with the Devil, and Dice cannot continue without a partner. On the last minute Devil turns up with Henchman and transforms himself into the snooty partner and offers to continue the competition, and Dice happily agrees.

With the skills the Devil has been taught, they give a breath taking performance - they didn't win, but the feelings between them develop, and them, along with Henchman, happily walk to Hell.

And they lived happily ever after, I guess.

[aaenvs3000w24]

Final Post! My reflection as an interpreter

This course provided me with the opportunities to learn about various learning styles and methods of interpretation, giving me the tools to discover who I am as a nature interpreter (Hooykaas, 2024). My approach as an individual comes from the desire to evoke emotional responses through interpretation, whether that be through art or through teaching scientific concepts (Beck et al. 2018, p.44). Looking back to my second blog post, I described my ideal role as an interpreter being a professor. I still resonate with this role, but the idea of interpretation in less of a directly-academic setting has crossed my mind. I still believe that my ideology of presenting scientific information in a setting for open conversation is most suitable to me. Through this open line of communication surrounding scientific topics, it can open a listener to care about things such as plant nutrients or global warming, to lead them to caring for these topics in day-to-day life (Beck et al. 2018, p.60). In addition to interpretation through speaking, I have realised that my learning styles being tactile/visual really reflects in my art (Hooykaas, 2024). I explained my connection to art and nature interpretation previously in my blog, and I have always known that nature has inspired me to create throughout my life. My art provides me with another outlet to showcase nature interpretation in a physical way that can provoke viewers to ask questions and get curious about nature (Beck et al. 2018, p.229). 

Through these two very different paths of interpretation, the responsibilities I uphold are to stay true to my passions and to state unbiased, clear information to my listeners. Staying true to my passions is important for both art and scientific interpretation. If I were to deviate from art that makes me feel fulfilled and from science that applies to concepts I care about it wouldn’t be me. This is a responsibility I have to myself as an individual, and without the passions that drive me to be curious about nature, I would have no role as an interpreter at all. Stating unbiased and clear information is especially true if I am to pursue a professorship in academia. It is a responsibility to pass on information that is factually true so that others can interpret their own opinions off it. Topics that come to mind regarding this include GMO information as well as the various methods of combating climate change. Fulfilling this responsibility can be done through constantly learning, maintaining professionalism, and developing various skill sets to be a credible interpreter (Beck et al. 2018, p.378).

The belief that I feel defines me as an interpreter is that nature is the greatest teacher in balance. When a tree falls, it creates a space for insects and small animals to burrow under, it gives life to fungi and moss, it creates an entirely new ecosystem of life through death. A quote that connects to this belief is “Often the scene interprets itself, so interpreters need not impose.” (Beck et al. 2018, p. 83). I really resonate with this quote because through observing the natural order of life, you learn so many concepts that you can apply without doing anything but taking it all in. On a more cellular level, learning about homeostasis and how plants create antioxidants to keep themselves healthy is applied to human concepts of health constantly. Being taught to eat blueberries as a kid because of their antioxidant potentials, drinking peppermint tea to soothe inflammation in the stomach, health concepts that were learned from nature. I believe that through observing the natural science of life, order can be brought to my own life, and it is a goal to share my interpretation of these instances with others. 

All in all, my ethics as an interpreter lay in being truthful, kind, and curious. I also want to remain aware of the privileges I hold in life, and to attribute credit to those who made my interests available to me. As an interpreter, it is important to me to share the truth with all who listen, even if that truth is ugly. I will share the truth about food processing, land colonisation, and inaccuracy of government regulations where it is due. Learning about the beauties of nature is never without the unfortunate facts that may lay underneath the information. Another area of ethics I feel very strongly about is being mindful of each person’s struggles throughout life. This concept is more for the scenario of me as a professor. I have always had the goal of creating an atmosphere built on actually processing and caring about the information learned, not regurgitating facts to fulfil a standard test. I have had many struggles out of my control throughout my university experience, and while some professors have helped, many haven’t. It is a goal of mine to never be like those people. I want to be able to help students who care about succeeding even when life deals them a bad card, something I wish that could have been done for me. This is a large basis of my ethics as an interpreter, and it drives me forward to reach my goals. 

It is bitter-sweet that this is my last post, as I have never had an outlet to share my thoughts on nature in a way like this. It has been very interesting to question areas of interpretation that I had never thought of before, and it has helped me reflect on where I see myself going in the future. I look forward to seeing how all your final posts summarise you as an individual interpreter! Enjoy some photos of nature to end this blog off :)

Alleeya 

Beck, L., Cable, T. T., & Knudson, D. M. (2018). Interpreting Cultural and Natural Heritage: For a Better World. Sagamore Publishing LLC. 

Hooykaas, A. (2024). Nature interpretation. https://courselink.uoguelph.ca/d2l/le/content/858004/Home

[best-underrated-anime]

Best Underrated Anime Group C Round 1: #C3 vs #C6

#C3: Old man turns into robot superhero

An old man is diagnosed with cancer with 3 months to live. He sits in a park depressed until an alien spaceship passing through collides with him and a nearby teenager. The aliens frantically rebuild the old man and teenager as cyborgs before leaving. The old man uses his newfound cyborg powers for good, while the teenager uses them for evil.

#C6: Sports anime for people who prefer bildungsromans* to sports

Two childhood friends who play competitive after school ping pong find their friendship and dedication to the sport tested when their sense of their relative skill in the game is challenged. A character focused-exploration of why we pursue sports, and what we have to commit to succeed.

*a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood, in which character change is important.

Titles, propagandas, trailers, and poll under the cut!

#C3: Inuyashiki: Last Hero

Propaganda:

This show is nowadays remembered for referencing One Piece and its obvious CGI, but it’s so much more than that. Inuyashiki is a beautiful, dark, dramatic exploration of humanity, showcasing the brightest good that humans are capable of and the most horrific evil. It seriously explores both extremes, and it forces the audience to solemnly watch every step of the way.

It also has an AMAZINGLY badass OP and a beautifully sad ED, perfectly encapsulating the duality of the show itself.

Trigger Warnings: Animal Cruelty/Death, Flashing Lights, Graphic Depictions of Cruelty/Violence/Gore, Rape/Non-Con, Suicide

#C6: Ping Pong the Animation

Propaganda:

An experimental director (Masaaki Yuasa) adapting a work from a very stylized and emotionally-focused shonen mangaka (Taiyo Matsumoto). This is an anime that feels more like watching an indie arthouse movie than a shonen anime. Featuring characters and arcs that subvert standard anime tropes, it gives an incisive picture into youths on the verge of growing up and learning responsibility. If you want to watch a short anime (one 11-episode season!) which will include cool sports action (and that’s coming from someone who is not generally into sports animes) the matches given weight by the primary use of them in narrative being as checkpoint in the characters’ growths.

I tend to prefer shojo over shonen for being more introspective, with the emotional arcs developed slower and more subtly, but for me this shonen hits a sweet middle ground of having that more internal feel, while getting to do the shonen things of having cooler, action-focused animation and character relationships which are about friendship rather than romance, and character arcs that are about trying to strive hard to achieve a dream. The show is quite well critically regarded, but a lot of anime fans get turned off by the unusual art style, and there isn’t really a fandom for it, so I think it counts as underrated anyways! Anyways, I think it delivers a really impactful and complete story-arc in a short time, and it leaves you feeling like you’ve grown alongside the characters, no matter how old you are (no seriously, my 50-year-old mother walked away saying she didn’t know anime was such a profound genre when I made her watch this).

Trigger Warnings: None.

If you’re reblogging and adding your own propaganda, please tag me @best-underrated-anime so that I’ll be sure to see it.

[miatsai]

I want to be an editor someday! What are the most important qualities or skills you think an editor can have? Both from an editor perspective and an author perspective?

Hi Anon!

This is a great question that has lots of answers because it really depends on the kind of editing you do and what the expectations are. But in general, I think that having an understanding of authorial intent and voice is super important. Authors make choices in their art, and any editor who believes rules supersede those artistic choices in every situation possible is not taking into account that writing is art.

There are copyeditors (or copy editors, I know some of you like seeing this term open) who hew strictly to their style guide of choice, the dictionary (Merriam-Webster Collegiate is the gold standard in trade publishing), and/or the house style guide, even when the author demonstrates a clear preference for something that's contra the guides or the dictionary. Sometimes it's for a very good reason. For example, I know that "accouterment" is the American spelling and therefore the "correct" spelling in the US, but you can pry "accoutrement" from my bare hands only after I am dead. Sometimes the author simply does not know about the rule, and that's where your discretion comes in when writing a global query.

Hand in hand with understanding authorial intent and voice is the ability to query without being harsh. No one likes having a mean editor. It's tempting to snark or fuss at an author, especially when passages are egregious, but a gentle correction with the right tone of voice works much, much better than a comment that will result in your author thinking you hate them. Being a mean editor (I'm sorry, "brutally honest" if you're a man) is not a badge of honor. I'll say that again: Being a mean editor is not a badge of honor. Editors are there to help clarify and shape a document, all under the aegis of the author's vision. They are not there to cackle maniacally and go on power trips. It's a skill to write queries and letters with gentle but direct language and provide examples where they are needed, and it's something that's only developed over time.

What do I mean by gentle but direct language? Well, that's hard to define as well; authors take feedback in so many different ways, so what may seem gentle to you may not feel gentle to the author. As an author, I have received edit letters that made me spiral for two months. My editor was not mean. She was complimentary. It's just that she asked a lot of questions and I needed to break my manuscript apart to address them in the scope I think they needed to be addressed in, and then I ran into a block, and thus, a spiral ensued. And that's for a letter that was short and kind! Her language was great, though.

Overall, I think that language such as "Echo here intentional?" or "AU: I noticed that this chapter and the previous seem to be out of sync with the rest of the timeline. OK, or should that be changed?" and comments in that tenor are professional and will not be met with accusations of being mean. This goes for developmental edit letters too; you have to find the tone that suits you as an editor as you deliver news that amounts to "scrap the following and rebuild," which no one wants to hear even when we say we want to hear it! No, we want to have written it perfectly on the first try.

And lastly--this one may feel the most controversial, but it isn't if you're an editor, and is if you aren't--when you're on a job, take your sentimentality out of your editing. You'll definitely find manuscripts or papers or whatever you're editing that you're a fan of, and when that happens, it's really wonderful. The jobs go by so much quicker when you're enjoying the material. But you still have to be able to look at a work as objectively as you can and analyze it without regard to your personal feelings. People have asked me how I feel about things I've edited when I was editing them, and the real truth is, aside from a few manuscripts I really adored (but still took the magnifying glass to), I don't have particular attachments to them. I don't have opinions on them. It's work, and it's a sign of respect for your profession and your author that you give them your best, regardless of your feelings for the manuscript.

I know, I know, it sounds cruel. But it's also one of those things where you don't want to be overly harsh to an author because you really, really don't like the way they write, or miss things because you were so caught up in the book that you just could not stop reading it. In those cases, when you send the manuscript back to the author, you can include a little note about how much you loved it, how much you're looking forward to seeing it on the shelf or on your device, etc. There are exceptions, of course, and I try to sniff those out before I accept manuscripts so that I don't read something that hits all my triggers. And that's the last-last piece of advice I'll give on becoming a good editor. Learn what your boundaries are and how to say no. Sometimes, it feels like you can't say no because you need the cash or you want desperately to get word of mouth out, but editing is taxing on the mind and body and the only one who suffers the consequences of that work is you.

Hope that answered your question!

[dsenvs3000w24]

Art and Nature Interpretation

When thinking about who I am in regards to interpretation of nature through art, I think of both what my skills and understandings of the field are, and what types of interpretation I personally enjoy. I enjoy viewing and creating art in general, but I especially like art that incorporates nature in some way. I have a moderate understanding the decision-making process in art and how people convey meaning through their works. Much of this understanding of art comes from my partner who is finishing up a studio art degree and is a very talented artist. They mostly create art that includes some sort of nature interpretation and often discuss the reasonings behind their process and decision making with me, which is where most of my knowledge comes from.

Untitled Generator 1, 2023 by my partner Maddy Cohen (@madsc_arts on Instagram)

I also think I have a good understanding of nature interpretation through music. I have enjoyed playing music for most of my life, and I really enjoy learning about songwriting and composition which allows me to understand how people use music to interpret whatever they are interested in conveying. Every small decision made, melody used, or style of production can give insight into what specific message an artist is trying to interpret. Especially more experienced or skilled artists can accurately translate their feelings or understanding of nature through their music in a way that is both easily consumed and understood while also implying deeper meanings. Most of my favorite music includes some sort of nature interpretation. For example, my favourite band Ween has an album based on their time living by the sea and how they interpret the feelings elicited by the coast and the ocean. I also create a lot of my own music, and regularly try translating my understanding of nature or feeling of connection to nature through music.

The Mollusk by Ween

One of my favorite forms of nature interpretation through art is the use of nature documentaries. I find that these give an intimate look into aspects of nature that I would probably never witness personally. Documentaries tend to provide really eye-catching and inspiring visuals, while also weaving together a narrative about what is being shown to deepen the ease of understanding and messaging conveyed in their work.

A picture I drew of how I envision nature on a strange planet

Well-made art is designed to convey some sort of feeling or message, and one really common form of this is interpreting beauty. I tend to think of beauty as a reflection of the appealing aspects of nature, and the things that I see as beautiful are generally heavily inspired by nature or are natural themselves. I definitely agree with the sentiment that interpretation should focus on translating the beauty of nature to an audience (Beck et al., 2018). Showing people how to perceive the beauty around them is a great way to provide people with the gift of beauty (Beck et al., 2018). For example, my partner is quite obsessed with finding cool mushrooms, and whenever we go hiking, they will constantly point out cool ones to me and tell me some interesting things about that mushroom. This has developed into me becoming quite fond of mushrooms too, and now whenever I walk outside, I am constantly noticing all the cool mushrooms around me and feeling excited to find them. Before meeting my partner, I had never really noticed or appreciated this aspect of nature’s beauty, but I now have a great appreciation for it. This shows how passion for a subject and an ability to interpret that to others can provide the gift of beauty to another person.

Beck, L., Cable, T. T., & Knudson, D. M. (2018). Interpreting cultural and natural heritage: For A Better World. SAGAMORE Publishing

[mythaura-blog]

Development Update - November 2022

Hello folks, Miyazaki here! Hope your holiday season is off to a great start–Thanksgiving was a whirlwind for me, but a tremendously fun time with friends and family. I’m coming out of my leftovers-induced daze to bring an update on what the team accomplished during November. There’s a lot of new content, so strap in and let’s get started!

Key points covered:

Mythaura FAQ

Quarter 2 Rewards Revealed

Sponsored Items

Beast Design Contest

Help Wanted: Freelance Artist

Code Updates

More info available under the cut!

FAQ Page

We’ve received a lot of questions from the community since Koa and Sark took ownership of Mythaura earlier this year. We’ve put together a FAQ page with some of the most commonly asked questions that we receive on Discord and Tumblr.

For the time being, our official Discord is still the best place for any questions that you may have. We will be working on a Contact Us form during December and hope to have it ready in time for our January 1 update.

Quarter 2 Rewards Reveal

Our Quarter 2 rewards have been completed and are ready for their public debut! Thank you to the Ko-fi Sponsors who voted on the different Glamour and Companion concepts, we appreciate your support and feedback.

Q2 2022 Glamour: Phantasmal Plasma

Q2 2022 Companion: Wishing Tree Spirit

Q2 Solid Gold Glamour: Hippogriff

We’ll be back with Quarter 3 concepts on January 1, 2023!

Sponsored Items

We had so much fun with the items our Ko-fi sponsors helped create this month. I don't know about you, but I'm sensing a theme with many of these companions…

Garrulous Ottergrebe

Sponsored by Andydrarch

Fungal Sabres

Sponsored by Gaia

Fey Tiara

Sponsored by Alanna

Covetous Crow

Sponsored by Bug

Exalted Phoenixes

Sponsored by Alanna

Beast Design Contest

We’re back with another Beast Design Contest! We’re looking forward to all the fantastic creations that this community comes up with.

Here are the parameters:

Each individual can submit one (1) Beast option for consideration

Any species fine (babies included)

Fill out Google form; provide both a picture and the preview code

We’ll pick three winners to have their Beasts featured on the front page for Quarter 3 (January 1 - March 31). Winners will also receive:

1x Beta Key

1x Quarter 2 (2022) Skin: Phantasmal Plasma

1x Quarter 2 (2022) Companion: Wishing Tree Spirit

These rewards will automatically be applied to your account.

Submissions for the Beast Design Contest are due by December 15, 2022. The form will close at 11:59pm PST. Winners will be announced in the January 1, 2023 Development Update.

Hiring Freelance Artist

Earlier this month we made a post looking for freelance illustrators to work on Mythaura assets. Previously we had only had the opportunity open to residents of the United States due to concerns about differing international contractor laws. We’re happy to share that we have now extended this opportunity to artists based outside of the United States as well! International applicants are more than welcome to apply.

Applicants must be 18 years or older.

Responsibilities

Create and deliver PSD files that meet the creative brief.

Work with our senior artists and writers to ensure visual consistency.

Regularly demonstrate and update your work in progress.

Follow creative & technical briefs with regard to schedule.

Accurately quote and then produce work within the quoted timeframe.

Actively participate in an online team environment (currently Discord & Asana).

Required Skills and Experience

Must be able to match Mythaura’s 2D cel-shaded style.

Must be familiar with masks, layers, and templates. Photoshop expertise is a strong - plus but not mandatory so long as your program of choice can open and save in PSD format.

Real-world understanding of proportion, depth, scale, and physical space. A strong understanding of coloring and shading, and an accurate understanding of animal anatomy.

Organizational and time-management skills.

Ability to maturely handle critiques and change requests.

To apply, please email admin@mythaura.com with “Freelance Illustrator” in the subject line. Include a link to an updated portfolio of your creative works. Please be sure to include your availability and rate.

We will be reaching out to qualified applicants in the next few weeks with next steps. Thank you for your interest!

Code Updates

Items purchased through the Ko-fi shop will now automatically show in the reward lookup tool (with the exception of sponsored items, which still need to be created first).

Fix for tooltips and dropdowns to not clip over edges.

Fix for breeding demo always using one parent’s specials in some cases.

Fixed a bug where the reward lookup tool would sometimes have to be closed twice before it would actually close.

The menu can now stay open and be collapsed at will.

Adjustments to headers and text to make them easier to read.

Fixed a bug that made it so some emails would not work in the lookup tool.

Added tiered species rarity to the breeding predictor, making it so higher-tier hybrids show up less often when bred to a lower-tier partner.

Thank You!

Thanks for sticking through to the end of our November update! We’ve been really hard at work on the back end, and have been having a blast working with our Ko-fi sponsors on some really fun companions and apparel. We’ll be back on January 1, 2023 (2023!!) with an update of our work in December.

We’re thankful to have such a great community surrounding Mythaura. From us here in the dev team to you, we wish you a safe and happy holiday season.

See you around the Discord!

[mauhandraws]

If I may ask, how did you develop your art style :)?

It’s so lovely 🤍🤍

thank you so much 🥺 this might be kind of a long answer... sorry in advance haha

i think your art style comes to you naturally the more you draw and the more you observe. honestly, specifics of style aside, i think everyone just naturally has a certain unique touch to the way they draw that they might not even notice... i think it's also not good to try to force yourself to draw a certain way just because you think it'll appeal to more people... when i was in high school and my early years of college, i tried somewhat to repress having too much anime influence in my art because i was trying to appeal to what art schools liked. as a result, when i look back on my art from those times, i feel that it looks awkward and may have even stilted my growth as an artist because i was trying to make my art look a certain way that i didn't even care for myself.

in my last couple years of college i decided i didn't care anymore and let myself start drawing the way i wanted to (which is to say, more anime influenced lol) and i think that's when my "style" really started to come forward. i don't think my style is anything particularly revolutionary and that's fine! if your style makes you happy i think that's what matters most.

though i have to also say that i DO think one of the key aspects of having an appealing style (if we're talking in regard to drawing people/characters) is understanding the basics of anatomy and gesture. foundational skills shouldn't be neglected in favor of style - you may have heard the saying that you need to know the rules first in order to break them. not everything has to be 100% anatomically correct all the time, but having that knowledge will make your stylistic choices look infinitely better. when i was in high school/college, i did A Lot of figure drawing (both in structed classes and open studio sessions) and cafe sketching in my free time to get better at quick gesture drawing (this is part of the reason why i really like doing sketches of characters interacting). i also took a figure painting class in college and i can attribute A LOT of my knowledge of color and shadow to that one class. i'm still by no means a master of drawing but these things helped my art improve a ton!

for general stylistic influences, i think my biggest is probably yana toboso hahaha but i also really look up to yoh yoshinari and sushio. that isn't to say that my art necessarily looks anything like theirs, but there are elements of their work that i try to pull into my own sometimes, and again i think that having some knowledge of anatomy/gesture/color/etc first will help you a ton when you're trying to study why and how artists you look up to draw things the way they do! when i was younger and trying to develop my style, i would just look at pretty art but not necessarily understand why things looked appealing or how i could incorporate it into my own style. now that i have stronger foundational skills, my style comes more easily to me :) i also think your style is naturally subconsciously influenced by the type of art you tend to surround yourself with/look at the most. it's good to look at all types of art though - you can learn a lot from all sorts of styles.

hopefully this was informative at all!

[avelera]

Hello! First of all, I'm loving your writing, thank you for sharing it with us 😊 I think I saw that you had participated in an Odyssey writing workshop in the past? I applied for an upcoming workshop- I'm a published poet but have had a hard time finishing a novel/fiction in general. Is it a program you'd recommend for someone looking to switch genres? Thank you!

Hey there Anon!

It's hard to answer your question directly without a deeper knowledge of your specific goals.

HOWEVER, if I may wax poetic for a second, the Odyssey Writing Workshop is where you go, in my opinion, when you want to achieve 10 years of genre fiction writing development in 6 weeks. If I had to say when one should attend it, I'd say it's a pretty advanced course, one I'd recommend to writers like fanfic writers (speaking from my own context) who have finished at least one (1) longfic and who feel their desire to go pro or at least take a serious swing at it is stable and strong enough that advanced workshopping will not discourage them. For me, knowing that I had a few dozen fics under my belt and one popular, complete longfic gave me the confidence to both attend the course and to not be daunted or discouraged by the possibility of tough-but-useful critique, because I sincerely wanted to get better and take a real stab at going pro on some level (even if it's not a full time job, for example).

If you're not a fanfic writer, I'd say the equivalent would be, say, you've completed one novel draft and/or about 10 short stories and have undergone enough critique that receiving a bad critique or one that tells you what you don't want to hear (even if it's true) no longer rocks you enough that you'll consider giving up on writing. This requires self-knowledge and perseverance that--I cannot stress this enough--no one can really know when you've achieved except you.

Now, I was also a creative writing major in college at a top 20-ish liberal arts school in the US and I cannot stress this enough the experience was such utter garbage and I would never do it again nor would I recommend it to anyone. I have an entire rant around the way creative writing is taught in colleges and universities in the US. I can't speak to all experiences but short version, if you see a class that is 1) no practical craft lessons and 2) nothing but amateurs workshopping other amateurs, RUN FOR THE HILLS. The format (originating at the University of Illinois) is literally so bad that I buy into the conspiracy theory that it was deliberately crafted to discourage writers as part of the "War on Communism". But that's a discussion for another day.

Because creative writing is taught so poorly in the US, I was on the lookout, for literal years to find a place where I could actually learn writing craft/technique and not just workshop with other amateurs forever. Particularly I wanted to learn to write sci-fi/fantasy/historical fiction (aka, genre fiction), which is nearly impossible in the US university system.

I have taken other workshops and courses besides Odyssey, including at the NYC New School for science fiction writing and another very well regarded one called Viable Paradise, which I also recommend as a very fun time and a shorter time commitment. However, Odyssey was everything I was looking for as far as nose-to-the-grindstone, bootcamp style craft. How to create a plot if you're bad at plot. How to worldbuild. How to create suspense. How to write a story an editor or agent isn't going to immediately toss in the Reject bin. Nowhere else has even come close to how much I learned there. I suspect not even the Clarion Workshops, which are even more famous, would be as useful based on my comparison of their curricula.

Will it help you transition from poetry to genre fiction? I'm not really sure. Will it teach you how to write genre fiction if you're already a passionate amateur/intermediate skilled writer hoping to become advanced? Yes, it is literally better than any other program I've ever encountered and that is after a great deal of thorough searching.