#I basically started this for a animation course and then it kind of expand to a visual narrative course which established the world building

[alexxuun]

TerraMyriad is basically a world I’ve been creating throughout the courses of this year. This is my boy, Triffid :)

[thana-topsy]

The Neloth Post Nobody Asked For but now I'm making it everyone's problem

I guess I'll start out by saying: all of this pertains to my very specific version of Neloth who can be found alive and well (for now) in my fic series "Legends Never Die". It's a big wide fandom, I do not claim to be an authority on Anything, and I think everyone's little pocket universes and OC-ification of NPCs are all equally valid. These are just some of the ways I write and characterize him. So if you have any Neloth headcannons of your own, please sound off!

The Basics:

I estimate this old crusty bastard is in his 700s, or thereabouts, probably on the later end. He stopped counting at a certain point and can't be arsed to keep a talley. There are more important things that occupy his brainspace. He maintains his spry and youthful visage [cough] through his rigorous magical practices, (and his not-so-subtle interest in necromancy and discovering the secrets to immortality).

He was exiled decided to retire from the Telvanni Council a good fifty or sixty years before the eruption of Red Mountain, retreating to Solstheim to continue his experiments in seclusion. Due to severing his mainland ties and House loyalties, his power and influence are significantly weakened, though he continues to expand his studies and has a relatively well-functioning settlement of workers, as well as his current apprentice, Talvas Fathryon, under his tutelage.

And of course, the question on everyone's mind: do he fuck? In terms of his sexuality, he's finicky and if I had to slap a label on him, he's definitely in the realm of Aro-Ace, but on the gray side of things (pun intended???). Here, have an Ace Neloth Pride Flag because why not:

Personal Interests, Likes, and Dislikes:

The list of dislikes could probably rival the "color of the sky" post, so let's try to condense that into the main point: he dislikes inefficiency. The definition of what he finds "inefficient" can and does vary greatly, even in his own work. I would say one of his driving motivators is IncreasE Efficiency, above all else.

His likes are few and far between. As it stands, I could probably list three off-hand. He likes well-made tea (preferably dark, bitter, and stimulating), he likes an organized bookshelf, and he likes Teldryn Sero (who is also dark, bitter, and.... stimulating).

Morality:

Huh? What's that? Never heard of it.

I kid (kind of). Neloth has a complicated psychology. I characterize him to have underdeveloped empathy, but he is not entirely devoid of it. I suppose I'll let him explain it, (from chapter 5 of "Breathing Water"):

“I do…” Neloth began, [...] “I do… feel.” He twisted the stiff bedroll between his fingers. “I do.” [...]  “It’s just…” He didn’t know where he was going with this, but the words were clawing their way out of him like some kind of sick, emaciated animal emerging from a cave. “I don’t think I… feel… correctly.” He exhaled sharply, letting his head roll from side to side, neck popping. “I’ve always been this way. It’s not just the result of graying morals from a prolonged life. I’ve always had this,” he gestured to his chest with trembling fingers, “hole. Like something’s missing.” He pulled the bedroll tighter around him, curling in on himself. A small laugh. “It’s been useful, if I’m honest.” 

He does try, at a certain point, to understand this side of himself a little bit better. Though, honey, he's got a big storm coming.

Anyways, that's my Neloth post for now, maybe I'll add more another time. :) Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[sophia-sol]

Delicious in Dungeon (Dungeon Meshi), by Ryoko Kui, translated by Taylor Engel

I decided to read Dungeon Meshi because I kept seeing people on tumblr posting about the new anime adaptation, and it looked fun and cute. And although I don't watch much tv, there was an entire manga I could read instead! So I did.

The basic premise: in a world where adventuring parties going on dungeon crawls is a thing that happens, one guy has a dream: to be able to cook and eat all the different kinds of monsters in the dungeon, to be able to find out how they taste!

And because his party needs to be able to head deep into the dungeon to rescue a party member who was left behind, and they don't have the funds or the time to collect supplies, all of a sudden they have REASON to need to eat monsters. They're going to forage and hunt for all their meals as they make their way down.

So using that as the basis, the manga goes on to explore the worldbuilding, the interrelationships of the characters in the party, everyone's backstories and reasons for being there, a developing plot, and of course, the ingredients and nutritional composition and flavour of every meal they eat.

I absolutely adored every bit of this!!! The main characters are all a delight, and it's the kind of story where the author sees and shows you the inherent personness of all characters, including antagonists. And the world created to make sense of the dungeon's existence is fascinating, as are all the ways the ecosystems within the dungeon are expanded upon to make sense of the creatures living within it.

And it's a story that knows what its themes are, too, and is able to tie them all together in extremely satisfying ways in the climax of the narrative!

I had this moment leading up towards the ending where I was like:

[thematic spoilers below the cut]

ohhhh it's about….everyone being part of a balanced ecosystem of life and death where everything sustains everything else! the various human species included! and I was filled through my very soul with this feeling of connectedness myself.

Anyway it was amazing and I had a lot of feels.

And as well as enjoying all of that, I also just really loved our main characters! We start out seeing them all fairly shallowly but over the course of the story as more aspects of them are revealed they're all just…..I love every one of them.

I did struggle with a few aspects of the manga, but none of it significantly affected my ability to enjoy the read:

It kept adding more and more characters, and I got rather lost occasionally trying to keep track of them all. But ultimately it's not vital to remember every tertiary character to get a good read out of this, so it's not as bad as it could be.

In the mid to later parts, it became a lot more plot focused and actiony than I'd really been expecting, in a way that made it harder for me to follow, since fight scenes in sequential art are challenging for me. And occasionally it drew back more than I wanted from its focus on food. But it refocused eventually!

It turned out to be pro monarchy in the end, which isn't my fave, but it's not like a major theme of the manga or anything so I could overlook it.

I kept expecting it to have at least a little bit of textual queerness, and there wasn't any as far as I could see! Even various background relationships or depictions of people's attraction was m/f. But uh. Falin/Marcille, anyone? There are some powerful vibes there. (I'll also accept Laios/Kabru)

In conclusion, I highly recommend it, and if you want to read it, you can read the whole thing online for free in English translation here: https://dungeonmeshi.com/manga/dungeon-meshi-chapter-1/

[mochiwrites]

Would you have any writing advice/tips for someone just starting out? I hope to one day be as skilled as you are!! <3

oh my gosh this has been sitting in my inbox for way longer than I've wanted it to T^T but yes!!! I have Many a tips (also sobs??? at you??)

write down. everything. little ideas, dialogue ideas, notes for yourself, future scenes, even if it's one sentence or two. write them. even if you think you'll remember it later

this one is kind of a give or take since I know some people are organized chaos and work better with that but -- try to keep all of your notes for stuff in one place. organization helps a Lot with writing (I say, as I have my notes for songbird spread out over four different apps)

outlines are your friend!!! I love outlines! chapter outlines, fic outlines. they're incredibly helpful in keeping yourself on track and knowing where your story is going. of course, this comes with saying: your outlines are Not set in stone. sometimes while you're writing, the story takes a different direction than you thought it would, and that's okay! sometimes plans change and the original image you had in mind doesn't fit with where the story is going. don't be afraid to plan something again with different ideas! it's all a part of the creative process

outlines also help a buuuunch with pacing of a fic.

speaking pacing, pacing is incredibly important to a story. you don't want things to feel super rushed or super slow either. granted, pacing can be tricky to figure out, but that's something that comes with lots of practice. I suggest looking at like. other fics or even tv shows (I use some animes I'm very familiar with as examples for good pacing)

research. if you're dealing with a topic or a concept that you don't know much about, do some research. I know this one sounds like a given, but I cannot tell you how many times I've read a fic that dealt with something like ptsd and. it was So abundantly clear the writer didn't do any research on it. and was writing based on very old fandom stereotypes that are Not in line with what ptsd actually is. so research is important!

if you're like me and you have trouble visualizing things, get reference images! they're super helpful. I use reference images a ton when I'm describing rooms and buildings. I can't visualize those too well in my head, so I go to google and look up the kind of building or interior I'm trying to describe. ofc, this expands to basically anything too -- clothes, items, scenery, cars

this is probably the most important piece? don't write for numbers. I know it's a lot easier said than done, because at the end of the day we're all human and we like sharing, we like talking about what we've created. and sometimes it's really easy to compare to others and get caught up in how well a fic is doing based on the kudos/comments/hits, etc (god knows I'm incredibly guilty of it jhhgfhfjg). but the really important thing is that you write for you. write because you're passionate about an idea, or you're excited to see something in your head come to life on the page. focus on your passion, your excitement, and you will find the people who share that. it'll happen naturally. write for the excitement and fun of writing <3

(I also have a whole tag now with other advice posts >/////< there's a lot of stuff in there that I hope can be helpful!!)

[flannelepicurean]

Yo, hey, also, if you're an anxious and/or stressed LGBTQ+ person like myself, and like little games about tasks, like Stardew Valley or My Time at Portia or stuff like that, check out Hokko Life.

It's one of those cute little "do things" games, and there are some things about it that I really, really love:

In a lot of these games, there's a set town structure and cast of characters. In Hokko, there are some keystone elements. But each save file has a different "town area" map that you get to build and expand your little town into. There are two residents to begin with, other than you and the shopkeepers in the main town area (separate), and THOSE COULD BE DIFFERENT. From what I can tell, there are at least 4 possible starter residents, and you can get different combinations per save file.

The days are looooooooooong. This is different from Stardew, for example, where you can feel really pressed to "get everything done" in one day. In Hokko, you have PLENTY of time. And you have the option to take a li'l nap at your house if you want to, so you can skip 2 hours or 6 hours without losing the whole damn day. Or just...take a lil nap.

There are NO GENDER OPTIONS in character creator. You start with the same starter outfit, and have 100% of the starter customization options. Everyone calls you "they/them." A good number of the residents are "they/them." You are just...nonbinary/gender neutral/agender. Periodt.

You are the only humanoid. Everyone else is basically stuffed animals. The first folks you meet are a pink elephant who looks like she maybe has vitiligo and a giraffe with a general store who has extremely Dad Jokes Energy. There are all kinds of other interesting animal folks with different personalities. My game has a green emo/skater pig who seems like they might be a stoner and possibly vegan. Definitely cares about their carbon footprint.

Everything is SO CHILL. There's not really energy to manage or anything, you don't get hungry, you don't have to run around making sure you talk to everybody enough so you don't get less popular. Even if you fail a task for a resident...nothing bad happens. Or at least, that I can tell so far. Just like, whoops. Couldn't find that fish. Oh well. I can make you that paint, though. No worries. All good.

When you DO complete tasks, you get clothing items. And like...the first one I got was a "striped skirt" or something. And I was like, "Oh, that looks kinda-sorta-almost like a nonbinary pride flag. Cool." And then I got some yellow shoes, and a red jacket. And then a "Happy Knit Sweater," which was DEFINITELY ABSOLUTELY a trans pride flag pattern! And then a tee shirt with rainbow sleeves and a rainbow pocket? So like...THEY GIVE YOU LGBTQ+ PRIDE MERCH FOR YOUR LI'L NONBINARY PAL. And then I realized I very much had trans flag wallpaper in my house. 😂 I freaking love this.

You can MAKE YOUR OWN FURNITURE. There's a whole subset of customization and item creation where you can just...design your own furniture and decorative items from almost scratch. You unlock sets of shapes for the crafting & design table, and then you can go into a 3D design space and just...put some wooden spheres together however you want! Add a leaf shape! Put a brass "7" on it! Go crazy! And then you get to save your design and you can craft it again later if you want to make more, or sell them. It just...becomes an item in your game.

The music is super chill. Because of course.

The fishing system is good, for the way I like to play. It's very easy to see the fish, it's very easy to know when you need to "hook/catch," and following the system to reel in is easy to understand. It requires a little effort, it's not an auto-catch, but it's not stressful. It's a TASK, but not a HEADACHE. And you can do it without bait and still be fine.

There's a whole entire thing around catching butterflies. You can just frolic around all day in your pride-wear catching butterflies if you want. It's lovely.

You can save and exit at any point. SUPER IMPORTANT. Can't tell you how many times I've felt some stress about like, "AAAARRRGGGHHH, I have to get to a good spot to stop this Stardew day, or just start over again..." Nah. Hokko, you just hit escape, "Save & Exit." When you load up again, you'll be in your house, with the same stuff on hand/in your backpack.

I actually kinda also like that there doesn't seem to be a romance component? Like, that's neat and all when it is available, but I don't always want the townsfolk coming onto me just because I've given them sufficient eggs or whatever. I might have needed to do those quests to advance the plot, or get a new shovel or something. And maybe I'm not actually down to clown, homie.

Anyway, I'm thoroughly enjoying this game. Got it in the Steam Sale. I think it's not crazy expensive even regular price? My one issue that I'm running into is that the wiki for it is like...zero content. Or just not much in-depth stuff beyond the very bare basics for some of it. So when I want info or hit a snag, I been using Duck Duck Go on that biz, or hitting the Steam Forums. Not the worst thing in the world.

[taffybuns]

Hi Taffybuns! Thank you for being you and artist that has passion to make. My brother told me that he bought two shirts out of it and he loved it, i was surprised you were the artist drew design! (the pokemon ones!)

Though I am curious and i hope you'll able to respond, do you have advice to make my art for merchandise in the future? I don't mind if you want to simplified explaination, a tumblr posts, or dropping a youtube link video; since you're busy with conventions.

I'm picky when it comes youtube art videos that are always give me the vibes of elitism, clickbait videos or others. You're the first artist I wanted to ask, so i hope it's fine if you can reply or not.

Sending my best regards to you. Take care and love your art as always. (I hope i can buy your pokemon hawaiin shirt!)

hello! thanks so much for the sweet message!!

apologies for the confusion, though! the pokemon shirts arent mine! i share a joint storefront with my friend and tablemate, you can view all his designs here! we have our store bio set to say we are two artists, but it's hard to see on the shopee site format, haha. i'll pass this message along to him, and i hope you can buy his shirts in the future too, they're very well made! i'm glad your brother enjoys them!

(if anyone is reading this, he also has them listed internationally on Etsy! my items aren't here though, sorry!!)

i assume you're PH based aswell if your brother got our shirts, so i'm gonna link some resources and basic advice under the cut-

i'd be glad to help where i can, though my basic advice is to just start.. i began selling merch with dann (friend who made the pokemon shirts) when we were just classmates in college, and we started at small anime events selling small prints with our table falling apart hahajkfghjk.. but even back then everyone was so friendly, so it was very encouraging !! the art community is very sweet and there is a lot of support for you !!

first, you'll want to find your market! this will determine what conventions you want to apply to and what kind of merch you want to make. do you want to make fanart, or original art? are you doing mostly stickers, tote bags, or anime merch? or do you just want to sell online?

second, what is your budget for merch production? starting out is expensive, personally my funds always circulate between profit and spending on restocks again. this will determine what kind of merch you can make, and then you expand later! i started out with only stickers and art prints, then keychains, and then bags and t-shirts later on!

if you're into original art, some events i recommend for beginners are Patrons of the Arts, Buzzart, Komiket. they have regular events throughout the year. if you're into stickers, there's Stickercon and Sticky Expo!

if you're into fan art, you can try ozinefest (sales are slower but table cost is cheaper), or if you have enough money, split for cosplay ph events

of course these aren't the only events, though they're the ones i regularly attend! if you have a more specialized market, there are dedicated cons like philifur, the grand lason, pokecon, etc. for all of these events you'll either have to keep your eyes peeled for table openings on their pages (rare), or email them to be added to their mailing list so you'll be told when they're open

if you don't have any suppliers yet, you can apply to join Artist Alley Group Order on facebook ! people regularly post about suppliers for all kinds of merchandise that you can look up. if you want any recommendations you can message me off-anon!

as for the merchandise itself, this varies person to person. my market is more obscure fanart that other people don't sell, and cutesy original art! i sell big illustrations as prints, though other people report on having a hard time selling prints. it depends on the content and art style. you'll have to experiment and see, or look around other shops to see what sells! visiting art markets yourself is also a huge help, to see the market, make friends in the artph community, and support artists!

i'd recommend starting out with stickers and prints- they're the cheapest to produce, and people often buy stickers because of their low price at cons. when you get more familiar with the market you can try going onto more expensive things to reproduce!

again if you want details, let me know! this is very vague and general advice, if u have any specific questions i'll do my best if i'm not busy! don't be afraid to surf thru some videos too, a lot are very helpful n not too elitist!

gl and take care aswell anon!

[bettsfic]

Very curious about 2 and 24 for the ask game!

2. Anything that you'd like to write but feel like you're unable to?

a lot of things. most currently the novel i'm working on, the one i'm doing a bunch of research for, in large part because every new thing i learn colors all the information i thought i knew, and i don't know at what point i'll stop learning major perception-shifting information such that i'll be able to create an informed narrative. in other words, i have to know more than what my characters know so that i can determine what they don't know. that said, i'm already like 50k into this thing. i'm just stalled out on 3 of my 8 narrators, because War Crimes Happen but it's very hard to define what a war crime is in a war that was never officially declared by the US.

24. Thoughts on flashbacks/flashforwards.

love them basically always and it pisses me off when people dunk on them. context is so important, and flashbacks/flashforwards or any kind of nonlinear timeline can help establish and heighten stakes. in fact whenever i'm bored with a story usually the cause is that the characters lack a sense of lived time. i want them to feel like beings who have been somewhere and who are going somewhere, who will change over the course of the narrative but who have already changed from who they were long before the story started. i hate the term "slice of life" (except in reference to the anime genre) but ultimately that's what i like stories to feel like: a small piece of a greater whole, with flickers of insight into a picture that expands far beyond the scope of the plot.

[clairelsonao3]

Author Ask Tag Game

Thanks to @i-can-even-burn-salad @tabswrites and @mysticstarlightduck for this tag a few weeks ago, around the time I took a break from tag games. Back on the horse, though.

1) What is the main lesson of your story (e.g. kindness, diversity, anti-war), and why did you choose it?

I don't really "choose" lessons or themes. They emerge. But if Good Slaves Never Break the Rules had a lesson, it's probably about The Power of Love, not only romantic love, even though it's a romance, but love for our fellow humans and love for ourselves. And the power of choosing love over hate, despite how cruelly we may have been hurt in the past -- or how we may have hurt (or perceive that we have hurt) others.

2) What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding (like real-life cultures, animals, famous media, websites, etc.)?

The world of GSNBTR owes a lot to (mostly) fanfics with modern slavery AUs that I have read and enjoyed over the years. I basically took all my favorite elements from those stories, mashed them together, and threw in a few of my own unique touches. And of course, the worldbuilding has expanded from there, in many cases in much more detail than I imagined it would when I started.

3) What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, help readers grow as a person?

My two MCs both start out with their separate goals -- her to get through university and become independent, him to find his sister -- which end up merging into one singular goal (save their loved ones and defeat the villain, essentially) by the end of the story. Learning to trust and work together is part of the journey they undergo, and with their individual strengths, they end up making an incredible team. So I guess demonstrating that is what I'm trying to achieve with them.

I want to make readers feel something. It doesn't even have to be necessarily what I feel, or what I set out to make others feel. If you feel anything -- love, fear, sadness, shock, hate, disgust -- while reading this, my work here is done.

4) How many chapters is your story going to have?

At this point (I just posted Ch. 27), I suspect not more than 40, give or take. (But take this with a grain of salt; the number has already expanded several times). We are in Act III and it's outlined in detail, with may of the scenes at least partially written, but I'm just not sure how long each chapter/scene is ultimately going to be and how and where they'll be divided. I have an idea of that, but I can't decide it ahead of time; I only know when I sit down to write and edit the chapters.

5) Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

Original (although I'm not afraid to admit there are some fannish elements/tropes to it) and I'm posting it on Ao3! It will eventually be an ebook as well. It probably won't ever migrate over to Tumblr, unfortunately, not only because of the time and energy that would require but also because the NSFW and romance elements make it much better suited for Ao3, I feel. Also, having it in one place only allows me to gauge exactly how many people have read it and engaged with it (not that that really matters, but still!)

6) When and why did you start writing?

When? As soon as I could pick up a pencil and string together letters on a page to form words. Why? Because telling stories is in my blood (literally; my dad is also a writer).

7) Do you have any words of engagement for fellow writers of Writeblr? What other writers of Tumblr do you follow?

Write what you want. It sounds simple, but I spent way too many years of my writing life writing what I thought OTHER people wanted, and it almost derailed my ability to write altogether because it made me so damn miserable.

For newer writers: If you find yourself beginning a writing question with the words "Is it okay to..." or "Can I..." just stop right there. The answer is "yes."

I follow more people than just about anyone I know and I think most of them are writers; it's in the 4 digits. So I'm going to put this question aside for now and start working on a post of my favorite Tumblr writers and stories, so for future similar questions, I'll be able to direct you to that.

This one was going around a few weeks ago and IDK who's done it so OPEN TAG!

Template under the cut

1) What is the main lesson of your story (e.g. kindness, diversity, anti-war), and why did you choose it?

2) What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding (like real-life cultures, animals, famous media, websites, etc.)?

3) What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, help readers grow as a person?

4) How many chapters is your story going to have?

5) Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

6) When and why did you start writing?

7) Do you have any words of engagement for fellow writers of Writeblr? What other writers of Tumblr do you follow?

[multifandomhellhole]

Eyeless jack headcannons

Since everyone in the creepypasta fandom has their own headcannons on ej and his anatomy/abilities I decided to hop on the train and do my own finally. Seeing that I'm a creepypasta veteran who never did headcannons before...it's alot and very long...good luck ej soldiers.

decided to start from his physical attributes and slowly work down from there but slowly lost the structure I had so. Yeah.

He is a tall guy Just shy of 6'2, standing straight up that is, he typically is hunched over juuuust a bit for convince that only shaves off an inch or so.

Hes almost pure muscle but isn't at all jacked and swollen but rather lanky and lean, with a broader chest and shoulders. Designed for speed rather than brute strength. He has those hip bones and collar bones that potrude under skin that make him almost sickly looking…probably from malnorishment as he eats on the basis like a Wild animal.

He has thick, course, dark brown hair that is messy. And somewhat curly. Prior to being in your care/ treated it has not been washed and is muddy, tangled and feels more like corse fur than anything. He does wash it but that's when he showers and that only happens when he's killed a victim at a house that has a shower.

He is in fact missing both eyes and does have empty black sockets (since old dry blood is black) of where they should be. At one point when the injury was fresh they were Infected but he knew how to sterilize them. In public he usually uses an extremely tinted pair of glasses that cover them. Also with covid times a face mask helps cover his unusual mouth as well without being questionable. He does have Eyelids too fyi.

His mouth is definitely one of his most unsettling traits. His teeth are nothing but sharp and needle like, the worst part isn't that he has these types of teeth but how wide his mouth can get in to bite with them. His mouth looks normal size at first and when attempting to speak, make facial expressions, or mouthing words it appears like an average mouth. But when he has the intent of killing or frightening something his lips can stretch back and widen to reveal his teeth and his jaw can expand way past human limits. The reason for that is the cult sawed his bottom jaw into two, connected by a tendon and put it back together like that causing his mouth to be very snake like in the way it functions. Like a snake, his bottom jaw halves can move independently and stretch apart to a certain extent allowing him to eat faster, more, and do more damage.

His skin is a gray with a bluish hue due to his argyria( a skin disease caused by the exposure or ingestion of silver. Which I headcannon to have been caused by the cult.) This disease also causes neurological damage so ej does suffer from that effect as well which is why he can't remember many parts of his life before coming a monster and the parts that he can remember are quick flashes that set off at random times, if ever(he trauma of being tortured for months also contributed to his amnesia, those two combined have erased almost all his past life). Now this doesn't mean ej doesn't know that he once had a normal life. He's a smart creature and can deduct based off of the flashes of his memory that do occasionally come through, the basic actions of human kind that he knows instinctively ie human behaviour/concepts that he has ingrained in his brain, how he physically and mentally is closer to us than any other life form hes familiar with, and so on and so forth, that he was once human. that he came from a normal, merry life such as the ones his victims have lived… and that something spoiled that. And obviously that knowledge comes with heavy emotion.

He has two tounges that are always present, they are the result of his normal one tounge being split into two by the cult that healed as two seperate ones. they are very long and work Independently of one another as well. He having demonic influence has another set of tounges creating 8 in total.

His ears are pointed like an elfs, not so long that they extend past his head but they do stick out a bit from his hair. They have very sharp hearing and can hear the heart beat of someone in close proximity such as, shoulder to shoulder or fsce to face …of if bitting their throat. But it's not perfect/fool proof..as noises can often sound the same or be labeled off as something else if you can't see what made it.

He has clawed hands and clawed feet the claws on his feet are more curved. Both his hands and feet fairly human in terms of shape and size, his fingers are a little longer than normal but not to noticeable. The tips of his fingers and are darker than the rest of him. Not jet black but more like a powdered black so to speak. Nothing mittens and socks won't cover. His nails are particularly tough and almost straight. They function like cat claws, they are designed to slice, puncture, and rip rather than paw and pin like a dog's.

I feel like I should dig in a bit more with how his eyes function and just his overall bodily functions and how his general mind works.

starting with vision- He Is blind in terms of human eyesight. Waving your hand In Front him he will not see it. but if its loud and frantic enough will still be able to snap it off as if he could see. That's because he can get a basic understanding/blueprint of his surroundings by using all other senses(smell,taste,touch, hear) and also via vibrations (the main sense he uses). For example, if something drops, the vibration of it hitting the ground and it sending energy up and down the nearby walls and any surroundings would give him a basic outline of the fallen object and the surroundings that vibration/energy got transferred through . How hard the impact/drop is means the more vibrations meaning the more he can see. With that said when pursuing a victim his main goal is to make them give off intense factors of all 4 senses, such as making a wound or getting them to bleed for tracking the strong sent of blood, making them cry, Scream, gasp, etc for loud noises to pinpoint their location (also cause noise bounces of objects and works as impact) and obviously and most importantly make them run so that the impact of their feet works as a perfect radar but also a continuous, pulsing view of his surroundings with each harsh step. Obviously this takes a lot of effort and there are plenty of ways a victim could disorient him(if given enough time to observe him and if they were to think calmly and rationally). so that is why he perfers to strike at night and when his victim is asleep. Or at least at as much as a visual disadvantage as he would be during the day and swiftly enough that they can't evaluate him or even logically asses him. Speaking of which During the day it's obviously the worst time for his sense and for catching humans (especially at noon where human activity is at most). The loud rumble of passing cars drown out all other noises, the intense vibrations of the engines, dozens and dozens of voices, the thousands of differents sounds such obnoxiously loud radios and voices of crowds that bring to light every tiny object within the vicinity and bounce off of every wall overload him to torture. and his least favorite of all, the awful smell of exhaust that chokes his poor lungs and burns his nostrils. If I could pick a worst possible scenario for ej it'd be getting lost in LA during lunch hour. He'd probably just curl up into a screaming ball of pain lime a stressed frog. With this said he can be spooked off with excess noise. Screaming while banging pots and pans with multiple people will send him retreating like a racoon found in a dumpster.

With all that said the sky is the one thing he cannot distinguish. If you were to climb a tree in the distance without alot of noise/attention, he would pass by like nothing. That or a hawk soaring particularly high without beating its wings he would remain unaware.

Same thing for objects. For example let's say he broke into someone's house and ended up in the kitchen, if a cup dropped off the counter as he was feeling around he would most likely "see" part of the counter and the tile, but would not see the cupboards and such as the vibration caused by the cup falling would not be strong enough to bring the cupboard into view. so if he tried to hop over the counter to get to his prey that gasped or jumped at the sight of him and the cup breaking, he would most likely hit the cupboard with his head.

With that also said hiding behind object is also smart as small/medium vibrations would have a hard time mapping density. Using the same example, if you where already aware he broke in and kept you cool enough to hide behind the counter with no noise. The cup breaking would travel up the counter tile first, most likely not having enough vibrations to pass through it completely, let alone reach you, so you would remain undetected as long as you didn't react. (Also for both examples he's in your house so everything smells like you so he wouldn't be able to rely on smell all that well, if your uninjured.)

Sonic booms help him see a lot, almost the whole room his in from top to bottom with the rumble up the walls and sometimes even making dishes clatter. but the noise does make him jump. It's like he opened his eyes for about a second but hit a gong at the same time. Just pray one doesn't happen while you hiding or being hunted by him.

Hopefully that clears things up a bit and the examples where useful.

Because of his unique eyesight, he has great image memory and analysis.

Very animal like in behavior but still managable if conditioned right. As I've said he Remembers basic human behaviour/concepts and can recognize such, like clothes and the concept of being clothed in public and in general. houses and apartments, cars, age differences in people (such as who's an adult, who's a kid,and whose In-between), marriage and romantic bonds, parental bonds, fucking/the act of sex, drugs, alcohol, money everyday life stuff that has been ingrained in his mind so much that they stick even after he became what he is as its the minds instinct to recognize them, Since he was a very successful med student and regularly was observing operations as he was a star pupil and certain basic medical practices, tools, and procedures were ingrained into his mind just like the previously stated normal day things, so he can perform some specific surgeries, sterilize tools, basically all medical procedures he once practiced as if they were instinct and as common as one would tie their shoes. but his mind is still muddled in general, his past normal/human college life is in faded, shattered memories that pop up every once in a while and that Is something that will most likely never change.

His voice box was partially destroyed by the cult and therefore can no longer normally speak in the sense of forming audible and coherent sentences excluding grunts screeches, howls, squeals, hisses, and hence has adapted to using animalistic like behavior to exhibit language.plus when captured by the cult he eventually stopped speaking, they wouldn't listen to that.

He does in fact also use universal body language to communicate such as cocking his head to show confusion or observation, whistling to get somethings attention or alert something, nodding his head to show he agrees or understands, shrugging his shoulders to say idk or idc, shaking his head to show disappointment or as a no or disagreement. thumbs up and thumbs down and middle thumb to show his opinion on something, etc. Sighs and huffs to show dissatisfaction or annoyance, moans to show pleasure and/or pain, etc. He doesn't know hand language as he would need to see to learn.

He kinda stares alot...like alot alot. Just following you around silently at a distance, black eyes watching you cook, clean, Work or move in general unblinking. Usually if you aknowledge him with a "yes or can I help you he'll stop, silently walking the other way or busying himself with something on a nearby shelf

I don't personally headcannon him with tail but if he had one it would be small slender hairless tail, barely extends past his ass cheeks.

Actually now I do.

Body hair wise he has very little. It's still there but very thin and sparse.

Ej has lapses of mental states, some days he's more human and acts like it, he combs out his hair, he takes out his victims remains, brushes his teeth, etc.Other lapses are when he's a demon/more creature, here his behavior is more animalistic and basic. Such as instead of using huffs and sounds of disproval to show irritation hell snap and snarl, he may take off/rip off his clothes as they don't feel right, chew random things, drink dirty sink water, throw up, and might eat expired food or raw food, not that it would really hurt him, to slate hunger (that's usually when he eats humans recklessly, where people find his kills), etc.

Depending if his mind is more human that day or time, he walks normally, with flat feet and his hands in his hoodie. On less human days where he's more creature than man he walks on his tippy toes, alert, to pivot and dart quickly with his hands pulled up slightly like a raptor.That's a tell tale sign on what type of ej your dealing with that day and to change accordingly.

And now for what you've all been waiting for...

Yes he Does go into heat.....

Both a top and a bottom, basically just seeks pleasure on any form and doesn't really have a goal regarding his partner. Very basic thinking as in he wants to cum so will make himself cum. Definitely would need to be trained in the very basics of 2 people sex. Such as the importance of consent( . If you don't you'll most likely end up dead or in the best case possible severely inconvenienced and raked up.) Having a demon humping your leg at 3 am after an exhausting day is not exactly great. Especially when he decides to bury his needle like teeth in your leg to keep you still after you try to shove him off.

Or if your on your period/bleeding in anyway and he thinks your his latest kill and tackles you it's not gonna be fun.

Domination is the best to establish rules and his role. That's the only eay you'll probably survive living with him really is by dominating him sexually and just normally. Basically girlboss him.

He has a knot. I don't make the rules.You're a demon you have to have one.

his dick isn't grey like the rest of him but it's redish pink and very fleshy. Definitely not human looking either, it has odd fringes and fleshy "spikes" as well as the head being more pointed.

I feel I'm gonna cut it there for now so timblr doesnt crucify me and might make a part two if anymore headcannons develop/ come to mind.

[needygamergal]

Animal crossing New lifestyle (fan idea)

New Horizons was good but I do have some small problems with it. Being able to choose our villagers and make them leave or stay by our will is very good…but it gets so painfully hard to choose just ten! Also when you have multiple tastes and want all kinds of themes it is hard to cram it all in one island. So what if we can have multiple towns we can decorate with different villages in each of them! We can organise the villagers into whatever town and if we want them to move out completely or move into another town of our own making! We can have separate towns that may have a modern look or a town with an old rustic look or even a spooky looking ghost town! We can make ten favourite squirrels of ours live in one town and call it Squirrels street! Another issue I had was of course the lack of unusual furniture, it’s hard to make a haunted house in new horizons… if we could have all of the old new leaf stuff AND new horizon stuff together in one game that would be just perfect!

This is a fan idea but I am hoping that maybe…just maybe if it gets enough attention then some or perhaps even all of these ideas will make it into the next game!

MULTIPLE SLOTS FOR TOWNS

We have a train much like in new leaf, we can also change the exterior of the train and change its color if we would like too. We use it to either travel to other player’s towns or to other towns of our own making. These towns will be smaller than the large island but still pretty spacious. I think being able to make up to 10 is a good number. 10 villages, 10 towns. Meaning you can choose up to 100! You can also name each town, street or lane and you can change the name too if you want too. You can terraform each area as well! You can also choose a biome for each, forest, meadow, beach, city or mountain. You can delete some and start a new slot fresh too is desired.

FACILITIES

I LOVE having the facilities in new horizons but I will say happy home designer did do it better as it had more to choose from. In each town you can choose whatever ones you want and place them where ever you want!

Choose from a list of making the following, a cafe, a restaurant, a grocery store, a clothing store, a toy store, or just a random store with anything you want, a library, a school, at theatre, a hospital, an arcade, a hotel, a crafting studio, a dance club and a gym! In each type it has its own dialogue for the characters. You can choose how many rooms each facility has, that way in the school you can have a locker room AND a principal’s office. You can choose what kind of feel it has so the villager’s may make comments on it sometimes. Does it feel normal, silly, cozy, cute, dirty or spooky! These will NOT change the look but what some villagers may say.

Example, spooky hospital you will have characters saying “Is it cold in here or is it just me…?” Or “I think I saw a ghost!” A dirty school you will have dialogue like “I found gum under my desk! That is so gross!” Or if it’s a lazy personality - “I found some free gum under my desk! This school is great.”

THE MAIN STREET

The Main Street is where all the default stores are, much like in new leaf there will be an area where you get your stuff that is separate from town. Tom Nook’s will be there, Kick’s shoe and bag shop, able sisters, the museum, the florist, happy home designers and perhaps some more NEW things! At Tom Nook’s you can help him expand it so it is bigger! There will be new items like new ingredients to buy for cooking, like chocolate, eggs, milk and basically a lot of the other things we couldn’t get from vegetables. A new store that would be wonderful would be a music store where you can buy some KK albums and some instruments and cassette players! It can be run by either KK himself or maybe a huge fan of his. In Leif’s florist you can now buy vases, pots and wrapping paper to make your own bouquets! You can either give these bouquets to friends or use them to decorate your home or perhaps even just hold them. Harvey’s Photo Booth will also be in the Main Street! In his Photo Booth it all functions the same as in New Horizons but with saved slots! You can use an app on your nook phone to save backdrops in the Photo Booth so you can simply bring all the decor back out if you want to reuse an old setting you had before. You can have about 300 for each room! You can also buy more pictures and frames from Harvey. Able sister’s will be about the same. Brewster will be there too of course! You can get some ingredients, already prepared meals and desserts, new recipes for cooking and of course some nice drinks! You can invite villagers there to join you as well.

JOBS

How about jobs? You can not only work as a happy home designer again but you can work at Brewsters as well! You can get paid lots of bells! You can also work at able sisters, Leif’s florist and even at Tom Nook’s! Each one has a little story and as you work you unlock more things available at their store! You can also help expand the store’s size! With happy home designer your job is to make vacation homes again but you can also decorate your own villager’s homes however you like again.

NEW NOOK APPS

We get the nook phone and it all seems the same but with more or course! In the designer app we have more slots than ever, complete with pages and pages to pick from and even a search bar! We can save hundreds perhaps even near a thousand of different designs, both special and normal. All is the same in the camera app but now you can decorate your picture using stickers! You can buy them at Nook’s or get them for helping villager’s. There are many different stickers to unlock! You can use the invite app so you can invite villagers to your place whenever you want, or you can invite them to the museum, shopping, just about anything! They will follow you everywhere until you say goodbye to them. You can also use amiibos with the invite app!

You can even invite multiple villagers to your home and host parties where you can dance with them and even hand out tasty treats you have made yourself (or purchased from Brewster). Sometimes these villagers may have conversations with each other while at your party!

YOUR HOME

You can choose to have your home anywhere you would like, in each town there is one slot for a free building you can use to decorate however you like. You can have multiple homes or you can have another slot where you can make another human villager to live there! But the train doesn’t ONLY go to your own streets and the Main Street…

There is one free meadow you can decorate and live in, you can turn it into a farm. It’s a private and remote place, villagers will not go there unless invited. You get one for each biome. Your private mountain, your private beach and your private forest. This makes it handy to gather extra materials and to farm plenty without taking up so much space in your towns.

You get lots of buildings of your own to do as you please but you have to select ONE as your real home. This is an easy thing that can be changed at any time. Although as you build each house in each area your storage gets bigger! You can have dozens of pages worth of storage, ten thousands of slots!

PLACES TO EXPLORE

Much like the mystery island we have mystery places to travel too. We can now go mining in caves with randomly generated maps to get gems and ore we can use for crafting or to sell for plenty of bells! We can go to islands again where we gather unique bugs and fish as well. Or we could even travel to old deserts where we dig up droids, fossils, bells and sometimes other treasures as well! We can go to randomly generated forests to cut down trees and collect randomly generated fruits, mushrooms, flowers and more! Sometimes…seasonal things will be there regardless of what season it really is in your time zone! For example, some random forests may have cherry blossoms even if it’s winter. This is a good way to try and farm a certain bug you want or a certain fish.

MORE OF THE SAME

We still have lots and LOTS of emotes to use whenever we please and can type and talk in the game! We can still send letters to villagers as well. We can still breed flowers as well. We have EVERYTHING good from the old games with great and amazing new things too! And of course everything from new horizons like the function of choosing our villagers.

NEW SPECIAL STUFF

We can now build a chicken coop to get eggs and a barn where we can milk cows. From what I noticed we have the villagers and then actual animals. So we get actual chickens and actual cows. We can also change the exterior of the barns and coops!

New villager species - BATS and LIZARDS!

Caves and mines to enter and explore!

Multiple villages on the same save slot so we don’t loose all our bells and can keep creating!

New hairstyles and all of the old hairstyles that ever existed!

Every bit of furniture that ever existed in one game and perhaps a few new ones too! I understand that they may never allow any pocket camp furniture to go into a switch game but…ALL of the others have gotta be included.

New ingredients we can buy to use for crafting and cooking! Chocolate, milk, eggs, marshmallows, caramel, herbs and more!

New things to grow and harvest, Cocoa beans, coffee beans, chilli peppers, tea leaves, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, bananas (Idk why they weren’t in NH but I miss them), Mango (same with mangos), lemons, watermelons, kiwis, avocados, grapes, cucumber, ginger, garlic, corn, peas and more!

HAVING MULTIPLE VILLAGERS IN OUR MULTIPLE TOWNS, it is so hard choosing just ten villagers and choosing to mix only about two themes on just one little island.

Fun facilities we can decorate and have multiple of! Dance clubs, giant malls with stores we can choose what to be (toy, clothes, groceries, etc). To be able to have multiple restaurants all with different themes in each town we can make!

Thousands of designer app slots!

Being able to invite a villager to follow us around and to hang out with at any time with the use of an app!

Photo Booth with saved room slots so we can reuse old set ups in future photography!

Have our villagers be able to interact with furniture like in pocket camp! Use a swing, hug a teddy bear, etc.

If this could be like our next animal crossing game I will be so happy!

[dimalink]

Garden snails planet

Pixel art for today based on videogame Noahs Ark for game console Super Nintendo. Game is something about a good and kind animals, maybe. Or they are there, that’s for sure. Game is sunny and bright. So, summer. I think so. I do not play it. But of course, it is not a Super Mario. But, at least, it is so summer graphics. Country house. So, I think, I can give myself a try to play it.

And this is my drawing about the same theme. Looks at them, they are snails. Snails are everywhere here. It is their place. Here it is a garden. And lots of delicious. Strawberry. Grass. It is exactly a place, about what every snail can dream. Snails like to crawl. So, it is interesting who will eat more strawberry’s to the end of the day. In the garden. It is such a competition. But it is no necessary to take a part into it. It is simply a garden for snails. And at the end of the day, everyone who wants can to count how much delicious things he eats.

A beautiful little plants are growing here. And there are lots of grass. And that’s just a ocean of the grass. And amazing good summer weather for everyday. It is garden. Planet of the snails. Snails are feeling good, and they are having fun there. So good. That they even start to learn and self develop for so many days. So many days passed. And they already built their own 8 bit computers. 8 bit type. And they know what it is a Basic and Pascal. Ands they have their own basic – SnailBasic. And SnailPascal. And when they are tired about to crawl – then they do programming a new games and programs with Basic And Pascal.  They are learn how to grow their own strawberry. How to grow it. And they expand their little planet garden with small islands.

It is a game about how snails are crawling and they eat strawberry’s. More correct - it is a picture. Good and kind game. It can be. And maybe experimental. Because of here you need to crawl. Slow. It takes time. It a mode of full slow, u know. And jump sometimes. And you can move with upper or lower level. It is like a racing, but super slow. And explore process such type, like ambient planet. It is garden. Snails planet.

Dima Link is making retro videogames, apps, a little of music, write stories, and some retro more.

WEBSITE: http://www.dimalink.tv-games.ru/home_eng.html ITCHIO: https://dimalink.itch.io/ GAMEJOLT: https://gamejolt.com/@DimaLink/games

BLOGGER: https://dimalinkeng.blogspot.com/

[djphantomlight]

Alright so, ever since I made the Villain!Cthugha design, I’ve been making some headcanons for said evil boyo.  However, I also decided to expand upon it and make some headcanons for some of the other "villainous" Old Ones.  So, in comes some Villain!Nyarlathotep and Villain!Tsathoggua as well, and possibly even more in the future.

Anyways, here you go! Here's the info:

Cthugha (The Living Flame): 

His sadness turned into bitterness at his continued isolation, and it was only a matter of time before the consequences brought on by that would start to rear its head.  Thus, this would-be hero turned to the dark side in order to fill the void brought on by this extreme loneliness.

Despite being a villain, this dude is still a Grade A dork.  He’s still on that weeb-y bullshit, isekai thing and all, but he prefers to keep that side under wraps (gotta keep up that villain image, y’know?).

Dude is NOT good with affection.  Y’know, with the whole lack of companionship and such?  Yeah, totally foreign concept to him, doesn’t know how to “affection” properly.

He excels in combat and has increased his firepower, in turn, has turned into a Grade A threat.  Those who dared to face him in combat… let’s not get into that. Let’s just say that he’s known for being a menace on the battlefield.

Has anger issues and is prone to blowing his fuse if something were to go wrong and doesn’t do well with stressful situations that aren’t stacked in his favor.  

He is brutally honest and does not hold back whatsoever, even if it’s clear it will hurt.  No sugarcoating, no lies, just the cold, hard truth.

Nyarlathotep (The Crawling Chaos): 

He is known as “The Black Pharaoh.”  Egyptian aesthetic and all, either with casualwear or formalwear.  He loves to make his presence known in the most extra or the most random way possible.

As if he couldn’t get any crueler, he somehow did.  A large majority of Tokyo, not just the 3 guilds, are basically walking on eggshells at the very sight of him.  It’s gone up to the point where people shudder in fear at the mere mention of his name.

He’s cold and calculating.  He absolutely relishes in driving others insane, either through little mind games or near game-breaking catastrophes.

He does not give a care in the world as to what the outcome of his actions are.  This is mostly for the entertainment of him and his “lord” (or for any other ulterior motives he may have).

Man’s makeup game is ON POINT.  He sometimes does his makeup just a little differently for each clone that he’s summoned to mess with people.

He definitely has a few piercings here and there.  Some are visible and some are not, but if you are curious to see said piercings, he’ll be willing to show you~

Tsathoggua (The Sleeper of N’kai): 

He’s still a nerd, just a different kind of nerd.  Instead of indulging in video games, Tsathoggua ended up dabbling in dark magic, becoming some sort of mage/wizard with at least a whole library of spellbooks in his pocket dimension.  

He still depends on his little slime jar lackeys, and he still adores them to no end (probably asks them to steal stuff for him every once in a while).  He does depend on others too but is more or less indifferent to the consequences of any misdeeds they do.

Of course, he's still lazy, and will probably use his magic in order to weasel out of stuff that involves any sort of work.

Oh, and honey treats, he still loves those.  He has a sweet tooth overall, but anything involving honey?  He’s sold!

May or may not have a little blanket fort with stuffed animals (for maximum comfort in naps) in an undisclosed location that only he and his little slime helpers know.

There is a rumor that he is known for sometimes eating those who bother him when he’s “busy.”  However, this rumor has yet to be debunked and the other Old Ones refuse to elaborate.

[butterfly-winx]

First of all I would like to tell you that I love and find your redesign of Winx and their world very interesting. In your opinion, which Careers will they undertake (Also Aisha and Stella despite one day they will be Queens)

Thank you!!

Let me preface this by explaining that within the butterfly!verse, the girls' chosen profession is magic. People who are magic sensitive may seek some basic form of training to better understand and apply their talents, but few seek specialised secondary and higher education in magic. For members of high society such as the princesses, attending a school like Alfea is a matter of prestige: if you are talented with magic, you might as well get the best education the realms can offer. So within this, most girls do something with magic later in their life.

Stella I think is the only one who has a clear career cut out for her within the show that I gladly continue to expand on. She would open a beauty boutique - with a potential growth to a universe wide brand bolstered by her fame as a princess and member of the Winx. With Brandon as her business partner and occasional muse, she would work on this as a passion project until her father retired and she became queen.

At the end of Everything TM that I planned for the butterfly!verse plot, Layla would go for a break from princesshood and tour the Magic Universe with Orion (I have adopted him as an OC at this point, sorry) and perform as a magical engineer-without-borders kind of relief worker in communities in need. Throughout her later reign on Andros she would be focused on giving more power to communities and democratising their monarchy.

Bloom would be living a housewife life next to Stella and work as a cultural liaison between Solaria, Domino and Earth. I see her also doing some tutoring and teaching work in any of these communities, as she strikes me as a person who would be charmed by the berth of things the Magical Universe can offer even after all those years and be super excited about sharing it with others.

Maybe I should mention here that all the girls including Roxy become nymphs by the end of the plot.

Musa, sure would do music on the side to express herself, but her main job would be running the daily duties of nymphs as the first elected Head of a Nymph circle. Traditionally the youngest was chosen, but as her first and basically only decision as a leader, Roxy pushed for an electoral system and they voted for Musa. It's not a role she expected to hold in her life, but she definitely grows into it and gleefully enjoys strong-arming stuffy royals and politicians into doing things that are good for the Universe. And of curse keeping the Trix in check.

Tecna would run collaborations with different companies as a magifabrication expert. They are the Muse of Technology after all, and can offer insight on basically any technology ever developed after a little time spent observing the equipment in question. Most of their income is funneled into charitable projects on the side (Krystal keeps a portfolio for them).

Flora and Helia start a potions business during the run of the Plot tm and that keeps them occupied until they move to Lynphea and trade places being a full time parent to their children. On Lynphea Helia would head back to education and complete his studies as a witcher, after which he would find a job as an Artificer of fine tools (similar to magifabrication, which is technology supported magical mass production, artificing means the manufacturing of products by purely by magic).

Roxy to no one's surprise would love some animal rescue charity, using her magic to diagnose the ailment of the aimals brought in and heal them. She would too eventually take over the fey court of Earth, but only after Nebula's death as her successor.

And finally Daphne, who of course becomes the Princeps of Domino ruling their kingdom. Part of me also wants her to have school board rights to Alfea, cause it would be fun to see her go head to head with Faragonda, but I'm not sure of Faragonda should keep her title for as long...

And maybe a quick not on the boys as well:

Sky would be the King of Eraklyon and Brandon would be a freelance specialist, but slowly shift his attention to becoming the CEO to Stella and his business. Timmy would serve as a specialist alongside Nex in several other team configurations before "retiring" and putting his experience to use in teaching new generations at Red Fountain. Nex would continue as a specialist until real retirement age. Riven would spend a few years building a fresh start with his remaining siblings on a self-sustaining farm and working with underground rebels to abolish the dictatorship in his home country (Darcy would help him in this undertaking)

[fan-mans]

Did you do soda popinski hc's? If not, can give you some

Hell yeah!! I've been so excited to do cokie cola man!!!!

(Btw, feel free to send multiple asks about the same character, Esp aran or joe, I have a lot of thoughts about those two)

Soda grew up in a very poor family with just his mom and sister. His dad (mother's boyfriend at the time) just... walked out and never came back. His sister has a different dad than him and his mother got a lot of shit for it. Despite all that, he grew up fairly happy.

Total momma's boy, absolute suck-up to that woman... to the dismay of his sister. His mother is a very non-judgemental and open minded woman and loves her children over anything. She did everything she could to care for him during his addiction and still does everything to protect him from the government.

Him and his sister (7 years his junior) fight a lot, but they always have each other's backs when it matters. He's currently helping her get her law degree and more than proud of her.

He had an older brother too, but said brother died of lukemia before he was born. His mother was terrified of losing any more children to cancer and hawked over both of them growing up.

He developed an alcohol addiction as a teenager to deal with his autism and trauma. He got sober after he had an emergency liver transplant, but even today he can't drink for fear of relapse. He only tells someone 'no' to alcohol (And mentions he's a recovering alcoholic) once before he starts swinging fists about it.

He was treated badly when he first came to the us. His English was terrible and people made a lot of anti-russian jokes towards him. One reporter repeatedly called him "Vodka Drunkenski".... when soda met the guy face to face, that man left the building in an ambulance. Needless to say, the bullying tapered off from there.

Outside boxing, one of his favorite things to study is chemistry! Most people think he's stupid because he's a super jolly guy, but he's quite the opposite. He'll often sneak into the lab and play around with what the scientists he works with are currently working on. He's actually the reason why his magic soda even works! A pinch of phosphorus here and a few drops of magically altered chocolate there, throw in some carbonation and boom! (Of course, he keeps this a very guarded secret- he doesn't want his managers knowing how smart he actually is)

His career is funded by the Russian government. As such, Soda has a LOT of pressure on his back to maintain a high status in the wvba. He's watched and controlled very heavily- not allowed to hold a job outside of boxing, see his family unless under certain circumstances or even go to a doctor that isn't government assigned. Soda hopes to gather the strength to seek asylum in the us one day and have his manager's abuse properly punished.

Despite his troubles, he tries to keep his head high and a smile on his face. Hope is something he always has on hand and his determination towards a better future for himself and his family is an endless well.

Reads people like books. He is incredibly empathetic and compassionate and the kind of guy always willing to lend an ear and a fist to those who need it.

He's terrified of any animal smaller than the average housecat. It used to just be rodents but for some reason the phobia expanded to small animals in general.

Dude is super outgoing, he makes friends everywhere he goes. It's genuinely quite hard for people to actually hate him because he's so earnest and sweet.

He can't cook for shit, mostly because he gets extremely excited and ends up burning his food or isn't careful enough to read the directions. With chemistry he's much more careful because toxic chemicals, but still. He does do good in mixing smoothies and (non alcoholic) drinks, and basic sweets like rootbeer floats in general, though.

He has a great taste for flavor mixing despite his poor cooking skills- all of his sodas taste very weird and very good.

Crazy strong sweet tooth. This man cannot get enough sugar in his system, lmao.

Shit driver. Never put him behind the wheel ever.

Shit handwriting. He's about 90% sure he has dysgraphia.

"Winter is a concept." - Ivan Valentinovich 'Soda Popinski' Polyanski, moments before stepping into a blizzard. (Seriously, this man just doesn't get cold.)

Russian orthodox... but very unorthodox (HA) about it. He's amazingly tolerant of other religions and belief systems and super open minded and protective of minority religions. Proselytizing grosses him out and he refuses to do it ever. He's also very anti-homophobic/transphobic and pro queer rights and protections (Being not straight himself). He loves listening to the rest of the world circuit talk about their religious beliefs and very eager to learn about them to be a better friend. He visits the mosque Bull goes to and works at with him quite a bit, the atmosphere is very calming and peaceful to him.

He shaves his head because he finds it more practical. His hair is quite dense, fluffy and coily and Soda doesn't have the time, energy or knowledge to figure out how to take care of it. He thinks he looks better bald anyways. And he likes being twinsies with bull!!

[meltykarasu]

RWBY: After The Fall Review

Written by E.C. Myers, story by Kerry Shawcross and Miles Luna.

The Bottom Line: About as mediocre as RWBY gets.

I'll start by saying that this feels like a fanfic. And not the sort of fanfic that you wait with baited breath for each update or the kind that changes your life or even the sort that you have a hearty laugh with (or at), the sort where they take a group of side characters and huck them through an excuse plot and sometimes the characters you remember from the show are there. SOMETIMES.

Basically it revolves around Team CFVY who were just there in the actual show to look cool and fill out Beacon Academy, the setting of the first three volumes, as upperclassmen. As such they were threadbare characters then and honestly this does relatively little to provide them with depth.

They do have depth now, yes, but it's still not very deep.

The biggest issue with this novel is how it is structured. In essence, one half of the novel is "what happened then" and the other half is "what is happening now". A smart author like Myers is, to be frank, trying to be would intertwine these thematically and narratively. It reminds me of the parallel chapters of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, except without Haruki Murakami or any of the charm. Oh and also the pattern gets broken enough that there is no real pattern.

The main plot is that someone put out a distress signal and these four teenagers are responding in their official-but-still-training capacity. They stumble on the refugees from the settlement that put out the beacon. They follow them to another settlement and figure out that what is happening is that someone is causing mood amplification, which draws in Grimm (monsters). There is not a long drawn out question of this mystery; it happens quickly because half the wordcount is dedicated to the B-plot.

The B-plot traces CFVY's time at Beacon Academy before and during canon. One particularly egregious section involves setting up CFVY to be friends with RWBY and yet this doesn't go very far in terms of narrative. If you're here to explore those relationships — sorry! You don't get much more than the bare introductions between these characters. If I were editing this, I would de-emphasize or cut these chapters and instead focus on expanding the present, using the bright moments of the past as high contrast against the bleakness of the current situation.

The intercutting harms the stakes here because there's not a question of how Narrative B in the past fed the characters into Narrative A because not only is the reason they're in Narrative A a canon event (depicted in the show) but the prologue also lays it all out almost immediately in exposition.

The highlight of the novel IMO is their horrifying failure vaguely alluded to in RWBY volume 2, a genuinely frightening and appropriately horrifying and grim in-the-moment incident, yet the narrative weight and the parallels between that situation and the situation CFVY currently faces is underplayed. The point of this is that they have failed before and this is their self-considered shot at redemption but we really aren't in these characters' heads deep or long enough to get that.

The worldbuilding added in this book also creates issues.

The book opens with the members of CFVY fighting sand crabs, which are indigenous non-Grimm predatory animals. Over the course of the book there are two more instances of the author creating other non-Grimm creatures, which feels like something the worldbuilding for the core show did not establish at all and has not for three of the four major locations visited so far in its course.

Additionally, Coco's weapon — for those who haven't seen RWBY, a purse that transforms into a massive rotary chaingun — is specifically called a Gatling gun. The Gatling gun is specifically named after a real man from history, Richard Jordan Gatling, which creates more questions than it solves.

Also, this is a novel, unlimited by modeling and budget — why are we stuck with only four members of Beacon Academy's faculty?

And of course the largest question that loomed over my head was — if the desert is such a terrible place for people to live as depicted in the novel, why do they live there?

The characterization for CFVY is spotty and at times offensive — Coco is treated as perpetually horny, to the point of ogling refugees marching across the desert in revealing clothing. Fox and Yatsuhashi are given scraps of characterization — primarily detailing incidents in their pasts that shaped them — which is better than nothing but I still found them comparatively weak as characters.

If there's a character I would personally center the narrative around it would be Velvet Scarlatina. She's a somewhat meek, kind, yet strong-willed girl with a skillset that revolves around summoning the digital ghosts of weapons she's photographed — at the cost of that weapon's photograph being destroyed. This automatically means she has to be clever in the application of her skillset. Once or twice it is brought up that, as a given weapon's wielder is dead or missing, she will be unable to use that particular weapon ever again. Used appropriately, this could create an interesting narrative tension of when to use or when not to use one of these.

The other new-to-canon characters introduced are given relatively shallow characterizations; even the surprise villains of the novel lack any compelling desires of their own. Unfortunately, this is because they were hired by the antagonists of the sequel, and the book ends with a hook for that.

In conclusion: one of the characters wears a chainmail crop top, which has to be the most useless armor I've ever seen. Also, just look up where the name "Gatling gun" comes from next time.

[tigressaofkanjis]

Transformers Earthspark Review: Ep 2 (Part 2) - 10

I'm going start off by saying not a bad run. I got a little disappointed how Elita kind of was shrugged off after her debut to make random appearances more so than actually being among the team like promised but it's not bad. For a children's show, spectacular! For a fan show, it's got its funny moments like Optimus and Megatron texting in a group chat. That's hilarious.

My favorite thing about the series so far is Arcee being a chaotic element and Soundwave and his Minicons being the dream team. Frenzy's change of gender was kind of unexpected but whatever, it works. We can roll with that no problem. Wheeljack has grandpa vibes too.

(And to answer one post I had whether or not I would ship Megatron and Arcee in this, now that I know what we're dealing with...I say it's possible though it would be more in reverse than normally how the ship would work which I'm not going to complain about one bit.)

I noticed some things that become the harsh reality of the show are very stressed but abandoned quickly by each episode's end to make the series seem happy-ever-after ala MLP style. It's a bit annoying how they flip-flop through it too. A few things that stood out are that Bumblebee doesn't seem to want to be with the Terrans (humans he has no problem with) but he is forced to seem happy with his students when I can tell he doesn't like them. Animating a smile on his face doesn't give me the impression he actually appears happy from his posture, animators. Megatron pointing out Optimus' hypocrisy imprisoning Decepticons and then suddenly apologizing for it which he shouldn't have because he was right and none of the issues with said hypocrisy actually get fixed aside from releasing a few Minicons they just captured. Congrats, you did nothing to help the problem; you're stuck at point one again. They basically made Megatron get over it in one episode which makes no sense.

Another thing is Thrash who has the personality of a Decepticon yet no one really questions it. They assume he just doesn't like rules because he says so like RID15 Sideswipe, but his mannerisms tell me if he was created before or during the war, he would have been a Decepticon and he would have killed people. His personality is so egotistical but its hidden behind, of course, a childish demeanor because you can't have the main characters openly showing what can be perceived as a dark intent. Twitch is no innocent here either.

Skywarp though still is not my favorite because although I don't have a problem with her gender change, I always loved the bash brothers mentality between them, Starscream, and Thundercracker. It's sad that they have separated the trio the past few decades which I always though they missed out expanding on in the cartoons. It was another complaint I had against Cyberverse introducing the character but then not doing anything with her with her two peers.

Now, what I kind of like now is the Terrans (not counting the newer three)...but not as you think. As mentioned above, I find the hidden quirks of Twitch and Thrash's personalities, which make them seem a bit more dangerous than they are supposed to, to be actually cool. A shame they have to play the good guys because they would make better Decepticons. And the whole water thing, boy, that is a terrible weakness that they just go rampant without water before dying/going into stasis lock. Now, it could be actually a good thing because, for those of you who don't know, Quintus is the mastermind behind the Quintesson race who took over Aquatron and/or other water-carrying planets. He learned his lesson by making those of his design easier to defeat in case...anyone decides to turn bad again. That's smart.

Dr. Mandroid is basically Silas, just a different motive up until now, and now he's more or less a carbon copy. It's like they combined Silas with the making of the Quintessons but gave up halfway what they wanted to achieve and it's not even close to mid-season. I don't get it. If you're going to half-ass a serious villain, get rid of him before the end of the season or something.

I'm not going to say anything about the rest of the humans. We're pretty decent in that regard.

All in all, while I do like (and other people, of course, pinpoint this as well) the changes to Megatron and Optimus' interactions with each other and among the humans which leads to many funny moments, this series has some problems in pacing. Not going to sugar coat that. Too many conflictions on what they started off doing and what they were trying to achieve plot-wise. I praised the plot once before but now I'm not so certain. The little moments between all that, especially with Megatron and Optimus, make the show but everything else isn't really working well.

Then again, kids show so can't expect myself to like every Transformers cartoon ever made. But maybe it's the time. I ended up liking a lot more of RID15 after rewatching it a year after it ended. Maybe just watching this as a new series isn't sitting right. I don't know.