#amusing geekery

[rideroftherange]

Artist goals tbh

Is this really how HG describes Laterano to the people they commission? Because if so, based.

[riderart]

Had a near death experience in D&D last night.

[riderart]

Hephestia beside herself.

This gnome artificer pilots a giant (by gnomish standards) mechanical armor to fight in the name of Gond for the rights of the oppressed and downtrodden. Armed with the terrifying Momento Mortar and the Word of Gond and a short temper, she plans to liberate the shit out of a city occupied by a cleric of Bane.

[hiddenbysuccubi]

If you find this amusing. My mom wanted to go for lunch for Valentine's so we went to tea and she... gushed about the Star Trek cruise we're going on next week the entire time. SO APPARENTLY on Star Trek there's a shore leave sex place and so... people in open marriages or open to lots of sex or poly or whatever wear this voodoo stick figure pin or put a magnet of it on their cabin door and Apparently now I have to watch out for that like. And people make things to gift out and put them at their cabin doors and my immediate response was "so Burning Man. But Star Trek. At sea." Also there's free booze and a dance party in the pool at cast off, and she partakes. Listen my birth name I was named after Kira Nerys and I'm all for the geekery and nerding out that will ensue on this cruise and I am still friends with and part of the poly and burner community of Seattle but. My MOTHER? MY Mother? My entire goddamn Mother? THIS is what she wanted to talk about on Valentine's Day while having cucumber sandwiches and tea. In another entire lifetime where my mom and I are not 40 years removed I could vaguely see us being friends by some of the absolute nonsense she talks about when telling me about her childhood and what groups she's around now but like. MY MOTHER?

[riderart]

I spent way to much time on this…

[riderart]

Yo, but what if Metal Gear in a medieval fantasy setting?

[riderart]

Cartoon Saloon made a whole movie with Sean Bean as a major character and managed to resist making this dumb joke. They must have the discipline and artistic integrity of saints.

Though they did give Bill Goodfellowe an arrow motif that amuses me just as much as this dumb meme does.

[rideroftherange]

Some people are just like that about mushrooms.

marcille, confronted with boiled mushroom: ewwwww it was just up and walking arooouuuund

marcille, confronted with her best friend's skeleton: [etching an evil necromantic circle into the ground] the concepts of "right" and "wrong" were crafted by empires of men to shackle and puppet us

[riderart]

Reply of the Champions of Hyrule to Emperor of Darkness Ganondorf Dragmire

You ever been struck with inspiration and dragged down an alley? Wanted to practice faces and expressions and do some Zelda fanart, and it occurred to me that The Reply of the Cossacks by Ilya Repin was the perfect painting to base such a drawing on. Lots of fun, but needed lots of reference materials.

[rideroftherange]

Recently discovered the party’s Gravity Wizard was inspired by a cartoon character.

Seen here, cursed with multiple illusionary hands, making the most of a bad situation. Argus, recently expelled student of Gravitation Magic.

[biscuitgeekery]

So i wish that just once i could exaggerate how much my mammy doesn’t care about me and it be an exaggeration.

But today... ahah, she was offering my mom some random balls of yarn she found and when my mom said no she looked at me and said: “would you like this yarn to play with?”

And i’m just,,,, i’m 21 and a senior in college. Not a three year old cat.

And this thanksgiving is just my parents, myself and her so this will be a fun awkward dinner.

[rideroftherange]

Would you love me if I was a Wyrm?

Lebernd

[freedfromthegalactichivemind]

Memorial Fanfic Posts

I found out my (adult) nephew died today. We were very close and today I have been very numb. I am not okay. He was not in Spop fandom, but he has great relevance to my being in it. For better or for worse, I probably wouldn't have gotten into the Spop fandom at all without my late nephew. I was planning on just watching the show as a reboot of something I liked as a kid and not touching the fandom because I was worried I was too old for it or that I wasn't really the true target-audience for it as a nostalgia-watcher and non-lesbian (ace), but then after having watched Season 1 together, he just had an "idea for a fanfic about Entrapta." He wasn't the target demographic, either. He was a heterosexual, cis-gendered older-millennial man and hadn't watched the original series and had no interest in the original, but he checked out the new She-Ra as a fun-looking cartoon and perhaps as a preview for me because he knew I loved original She-Ra. He immediately fell for Entrapta as just... the best character. Shared autism-traits. Shared love for robots. Mad science vibe. We watched the show together in later seasons. He was holding his breath just *waiting* for Perfuma to snap and go medieval on everyone. XD. So, when we watched Season 1, he had this fanfic idea, but he didn't want to write it because he wasn't into writing at the time / anymore, didn't have the confidence to get it off the ground but wanted to see it done. He shared with me this idea about Entrapta just causing hilarious havoc in the Fright Zone as part of making it her new home. We discussed ideas back and forth and I wrote the thing for his amusement and then I just started in and really got into the fandom. The first fic I wrote for the fandom, which was entirely his fault, the writing of which got me hooked on doing more for the fandom: The Havoc Hypothesis Revisiting a fanfic as a memorial, because I really don't know what to do right now. A small legacy for people who did not know him. He inspired me to some truly things. Here is another fic inspired by him, by a back and forth, a Fallout crossover. Crawl Out Through the Fallout Yet another fic, not written specifically for his amusement like the others above, but inspired by a board game he got and my partner and he and I played together. We have it in our apartment because it was a thing we only played together. I used it as inspiration for a "Game Night" Entrapdak-week prompt: It's a Small World After All

I am never going to share this specific kind of geekery with another person. There really was a dynamic between us that will never exist again.

[addictedtostorytelling]

Given Eric isn't main credits until season three, what Greg moments do you think prompted audiences in S1 and S2 to latch onto his character enough to promote him to main credit status? I can't fathom the original show without him, nor how the production crew stalled on not wanting to lock him in sooner, as he feels so integral to the cast in the later seasons.

hi, anon!

i think the path to greg becoming a fan favorite and eventually being promoted to main character status began with him functioning differently than the other minor lab tech characters on the show did almost from the get-go.

as i talk about here, the csi writers generally imbue all of their minor characters (excepting the one-off ones) with at least one distinctive trait: jacqui franco gets to be friends with catherine, david phillips has his puppy-dog crush on sara, bobby dawson is a good ol' southern boy, ronnie litre is prone to telling personal stories as he works on questioned documents, etc., etc., etc.

but right from the start, greg had more than one of these traits, which automatically made him feel a little more "rounded" than the other lab rats—more 3d, as it were.

in the first place, there was his aesthetic—eric has talked about how he purposefully chose to have greg wear his trademark flamboyant tees and hawaiian shirts and have wacky haircuts so that he'd be visually memorable—but then there was also his playful, goof-off personality; his quirky hobbies (which we start learning about very early on); and his high usage rate throughout various episodes*.

* while i haven't done any real statistical analysis, i feel like we see much more of greg in s1 than we do of any other lab rat. everyone else is used much, much more sporadically (and especially as there are many lab rats, such as, say, charlotte meridian, who appear only once or twice and then are never seen or heard from again).

but even beyond that, i think the thing that really got greg "in" was that by the end of s1 and certainly into s2, he had (perhaps by way of his high usage rate) actually formed distinct relationships with almost all of the main characters.

while many of the other lab tech characters (particularly in the beginning) were really only there to convey necessary information and were shown to have personal relationships perhaps with only one or two of the main csis at most (again, see jacqui franco), greg was imbued with a noteworthy personality that lent itself to making the main characters react to and play off of him and so developed personal relationships with pretty much every field mouse. 

his scenes also tended to be somewhat longer and more in-depth than the standard "lab rat gives the csis a report" blips we got with other minor characters; there were many instances of him just hanging out, being in on the team banter, particularly with the junior members of team graveyard.

that his squirrelliness and tendency toward mischief around the lab annoys grissom while his flirtatious nature alternately amuses and offends catherine and nick and warrick (former high school jocks that they are) can't help but tease him for his high-strung geekery while sara very much in spite of herself finds him charming when she's not busy rolling her eyes at him all contributes to the sense that he's his own complete person and not just a mechanism by which to move the plot forward.

all of the above points mark greg as "different" right from the beginning.

so in terms of actual scenes that endeared him to the audience and made him stand out from the other lab techs:

in general, any scene where greg makes a big, elaborate presentation of his dna findings, and particularly ones that involve him wearing costumes and/or using props.

in episode 01x01 "pilot," in his very first appearance, talking about anal swabs being "money." i mean, that's some killer dialogue for his introduction.

in episode 01x04 "pledging mr. johnson," the scene where he floats his theory on the case to grissom while eating ben & jerry's ice cream straight out of the carton. it's such a good characterization moment for their dynamic.

in episode 01x15 "table stakes," the scene where he wears the showgirl's headdress and dances in the hall, flabbergasting catherine and grissom because, like, what a visual.

in episode 01x15 "table stakes," the scene where he flaunts the fact that he is both well-rested and well-fed to an overworked, dead tired sara ("a couple of glasses of merlot. rack of lamb on my day off. i slept like a baby yesterday. you look horrible") because it's one of those "he's such a charming little shit" moments where you can't help but like him, plus it characterizes his dynamics with nick and sara.

in episode 02x07 "caged," his elaborate presentation to nick where he draws out the the molecular structures of the protein freehand and off of the top of his head because it shows off how much of a genius he truly is ("i know what you all think of me: i’m just another pretty face who got to where i am by sleeping with catherine. but seriously, phi beta kappa, stanford. can i help it if i’m hip?").

in episode 02x01 "burked," his rambling story to grissom about how he learned about anal heroin usage while living in new york because it's comedy gold and again a good showcase of his and grissom's "exasperated, long-suffering father and inexhaustible, weirdo son" dynamic.

in general, his "crush on sara" storyline that plays throughout s2, particularly in episodes 02x04 "bully for you," 02x11 "organ grinder," and 02x18 "chasing the bus" because it's sweet and sympathetic and humanizing.

in episode 02x08 "slaves of las vegas," the scene where he sticks markers up his nose to explain the erotic straw usage and teases grissom about knowing bdsm terminology because, again, what a visual.

in episode 02x20 "cats in the cradle," his famous "i could've been a rockstar" drum solo scene, complete with improvised rubber glove hat and monster face mask because it's just so quintessentially greg and so memorable.

in episode 02x23 "the hunger artist," the scene where nick and warrick hassle him about eating "college cuisine" because it highlights his dynamics with them and also shows how he always just kind of does his own thing.

of course, to my mind, the kind of linchpin moment where greg really becomes a viable option for elevation to main character status comes in episode 02x18 "chasing the bus," when he goes out into the field for the first time and finds himself equally overwhelmed and intrigued by the experience.

that episode shows us greg's serious side and introduces the idea that he's capable of more than just the wacky antics we have seen from him to date at the lab.

the writers were absolutely testing the waters with him there, seeing if he could carry the weight of being a "focus character," and the test was a major success.

from that point on, greg was shown to want something, and the fact that he did gave the audience something to root for with him. that's where his storyline really begins in earnest.

even though it takes another three seasons before he reaches csi level i, the journey truly starts in that moment when he shows up on the scene of the mass-casualty bus accident, just wanting to help but having no idea (yet) how to do so.

if people hadn't loved greg before that moment, they did afterward.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

[elyvorg]

“Hey, Maki Roll!” “Hey, Shuichi!”

“...What are you two up to now?”

“Whaddaya mean by that!? We just wanted—” “—to see how our favourite sidekicks are doing!”

“I still can’t believe there’s two of you. And do you really have to finish each other’s sentences like that?”

““Of course!””

“...And talk in unison, too...”

---

@trainingtrioweek​ Day 6: AU

I couldn’t resist using this opportunity to draw (the happiest ending of) my recent Duplicate Kaito AU. A lot of people seemed to like those posts of mine, and, heck, I wanted to see Kaito and Kaito double-teaming their sidekicks, too.

For those unfamiliar: despite the different body, that is still every bit the same Kaito there. He has exactly the same personality and memories (just with some bonus existential issues that he’s mostly worked out at this point). It’s Kaito, but TWICE.

(some additional very important lore about this AU beneath the cut)

I based New Kaito’s design off a couple of Kaito’s beta designs. He has this body, and then he styled his hair to look like in this one (and also grew a goatee).

See, with his different and more bushy and wavy hair, New Kaito could never quite match Kaito Prime’s up-and-down-spiking “quasar” hairstyle and get it to look as good. So naturally, rather than let him feel inferior, Kaito Prime suggested he could do something totally different with it, something that would work better with his type of hair. What if he gelled just the ends and swirled them around to make his whole head look like a galaxy? That’d be awesome, right? That’s something that Kaito Prime couldn’t ever hope to pull off nearly as well with his hair - plus, it's the perfect complement to his quasar!

This’d also then form the basis of the individual nicknames they get to distinguish them, since their hairstyles are one of the only meaningfully different things about them. After showing off New Kaito’s new hairstyle to their sidekicks, they declare that from now on, while they still each want to be called just “Kaito” whenever possible, if anyone needs to make it clear which Kaito they're talking about or to, they can call them - pause for dramatic effect - Galaxy Kaito and Quasar Kaito!

Shuichi and Maki stare at them blankly. “What’s a quasar?”

"And how does this have anything to do with your hair?"

The Kaitos are aghast. Their sidekicks didn’t already know this? Well, time to educate them!

And so they launch into a doubly-enthusiastic explanation of galaxies and quasars, getting way more in-depth and technical than they need to in a positive feedback loop of space geekery, interrupting each other and finishing each other’s sentences even more than usual because they’re both so excited to talk about this!

...At no point do they properly explain how Galaxy Kaito’s hair looks like a galaxy, much less how Quasar Kaito’s hair is meant to look like a quasar. In fact, they probably begin to suggest different versions of the nicknames that better encapsulate the specific technical parts of a galaxy or a quasar that their hairstyles are supposed to represent, because in their excitement they’ve kind of forgotten that they’re meant to just be coming up with an easy-to-remember way to distinguish them.

All the while, Maki and Shuichi just sort of keep staring, amused at seeing their friends (friend?) being so ridiculous and passionate, but also vaguely wondering, are they going to give this unnecessarily detailed explanation to everyone they meet who needs to know what names to use for them?

Eventually, Maki puts her foot down.

“Shut up for a second and listen. You’re Swirly Kaito, you’re Pointy Kaito. There. Sorted.”

The Kaitos are very indignant - that’s far too ordinary and not nearly as grandiose and space-themed as their ideas! - but despite their protests, those names stick.

  ---

(bonus: I couldn't help but wonder exactly what Swirly Kaito's hair looked like when he was trying to make it pointy, so I went and drew it...

(and it... actually looks more reasonable than I was expecting, as Wild Anime Hairstyles go? Like, it's a perfectly fine hairstyle on its own. But despite his best efforts, it's very much not the hairstyle Pointy Kaito has, so it's probably still better for Swirly Kaito to take his hair in a whole new direction rather than keeping this style and constantly feeling like he's not quite what he's trying to be.)

[rideroftherange]

Happier than Azula is.

He's never happy