#anothersaint

[door]

what would agatha agate's best day look like? like, what does she most want to do?

Agatha Agate is cursed to love dogs sooooososososo much that as soon as she sees one her brain turns off and she throws her entire dense little body at the other dog’s head. there are few dogs who like that sort of thing, so a best day definitely involves getting to run around with one of them, such as her good friend basil.

other important elements: visiting her pals at the book and record shop for treats and to switch off their computer by accident, munching on carrots and blueberries, and chasing balls. it would definitely also feature a visit from robyn’s partner, who loves to scoop her up in his arms and hold her flopped across his lap like a fish. he’s her favourite person in the world.

finally, she would get naps on top of robyn on the sofa and under the quilt next to me in bed. the best places, according to agatha agate.

[felinefractious]

hi! can i ask: your post /734819787251826688/crystal-flames-corazon-british-shorthair, with the red bicolor? i thought all reds had to have a tabby pattern, but i don't see any on this one at all! i thought even ticked tabbies had stripes on their legs. am i missing something? what's going on here? thanks :)

[link to post]

You’re correct, all red cats - and their dilute version, cream - will display with some degree of tabby markings or another.

This is because the recessive non-agouti gene increases eumelanin production while the sex-linked red gene causes phaeomelanin production while supressing the production of eumelanin.

So the gene responsible for solid-colored cats gets called a nerd and shoved into a locker by the sex-linked red gene.

So where does that leave us with this guy?

Well, there actually are a few areas where you can detect the tabby markings. The forehead and to the outer-side of each eye are the most prominent with less distinct stripes present on the limbs.

I lightened these pictures a little bit to help the markings pop, which brings me to my next point.

These professional quality photos can be good for demonstrating a particular color or pattern because they’re typically clear, crisp and not muddied by environmental factors.

These professional quality photos are also intended to look good and promote the cat being featured, the background and lighting is carefully controlled and editing is done before the final product is released.

It is entirely possible that without editing or under different lighting the tabby markings may be more readily apparent.

As for why the tabby pattern is more visible or defined on some red cats as opposed to others, and why it doesn’t always correspond with whether the cat is genetically tabby other solid…

I couldn’t tell you. It’s likely there’s a number of other genes at play to influence this.

[antilocaprine]

🌍! 📒! 🍄!

(Ask Game)

Aaaa sorry Saint, I missed this one - and these are such good questions, too!

🌍fave type of au to write? Crossovers, apparently! Among Us, Venom, even the sentinel/guide fic was technically a crossover, since that was a TV show way back when...not that I've ever seen it.

📒any fics planned? Easier to ask if there are any fics I don't have planned. I'm sitting on several partially-written things - the Murderbot AU is scratching at my brain because I'm rereading some of those books right now. I still need to finish the prequel to Alien Abduction. And the next part of the Venom crossover is about half written. But I am trying so hard to restrain myself and restrict my writing to lil one-shots if I'm not working on one of my current WIPs, because some of those puppies haven't been updated in months - for which I apologize, but also, trust me, no one thinks more about them than me.

🍄how do you get yourself in the mood to write? I don't, really. I just sit down at the computer every day and open up at least one doc (but no more than three at a time) to glare at. Sometimes I write two words, sometimes I just do some editing, sometimes I write a few thousand words, sometimes I don't write at all. But I make myself get into the physical space, and that helps get me into the mental space. It doesn't always work, but it's better than nothing.

[synthlet]

i’m on lunchbreak! i always have a honeycrisp apple and an oatsnhoney granola bar, plus something else— today was grilled cheese. do you have any go-to meals? rn i’m trying to write about a young barney calhoun and his chumtoad but my brain keeps thinking about baby sea monsters instead. specbio is great. have you seen luca? u think those lil monsters have had wheat or dairy before? wouldn’t it hurt their tummies :-( i’ve been thinking about being a wee one wading thru streams after frogs and crayfish. last wild animal i held was a teeny snake last spring. u?

hmmm my go to meal is DECADENT it is fried eggs on top of a bagel w cream cheese w hot sauc. WAA calhoun.... toad haver guy. specbio is sooooo good. I DID WATCH LUCA on monday i LOVED IT especially the design of the fish ppl is so good. i think they are all very lactose intolerant and gluten allergy havers however they ARE italian so i think that balances it out. i want to wade thru a stream.... last Wild Beast i held was a house centipede at work

[crowned-ladybug]

3! 21! 22! 27!

Iiiii forgot that this one was still sitting around in my inbox, I'm sorry D: Thank you for the ask!!!

3. What ideas come from when you were little

Both dragons and "various canines that eventually converged on wolves" have been here for a very, very long time. Dragons especially, i've been drawing them pretty much as long as I can remember

21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways

In the greater sense, Art Nouveau. It's my absolute favourite artstyle (using the art class/art history meaning of the word) but not something I'd ever have the ability or even the desire to dabble in myself. Same goes for Art Deco

Another notable mention is the Typical Ghibli Style, not just characters and their animation but also backgrounds. The backgrounds in Ponyo especially get me wanting to pull out my colour pencils and then create something completely different

I tried to pick out some tumblr artists to mention here to round things out but found none sufficiently Nothing Like Mine, bc like most artists, if i see a style i like, i bite off a little nibble and add it to my hoard of things to learn from

22. What physical exercises do you do before drawing, if any

A shortened version of your pretty standard warm-up stretch set such as this one! Shortened bc i'm impatient and forgetful. I know this is indavisable. At least it's better than nothing

(I also do some of these randomly when doing nothing with my hands, it's become a habit and a level of health-anxiety relief)

27. Do you warm up before getting to the good stuff? If so, what is it you draw to warm up with

Nope! I'm aware that i should, of course, but running on limited resources like i am, it means every line i draw should count

I'll get to pick up drawing again next week (oh the luxuries of having a desk) and i intend to try and start doing warmups! Specifically gesture sketches, to try and make it a habit and give drawing humans another shot. We'll see how that goes (Knock on wood, but my wrist durability has improved somewhat over time, so a few warmups shouldn't destroy me anymore)

(Questions list)

[antilocaprine]

tell us about venom au? :o

Ohhhhhhhohohoho, I have got plans for this series. Putting below a read more (hopefully, if I do it right) so I can ramble, and bc some plans are NSFW. (If the read more doesn't work, just scroll fast to get past this wall of text.)

I figure the timeline of the plot is about the same as the beginning of the Venom movie - so Benrey's been on Earth for some time, but his hosts have been less than ideal and so he's learning about humans as Gordon and the others learn about him. That's why it was important for Gordon to get healed by the medstation while Benrey was in him, so the dumbass alien could see how it worked. The guards may have been made for him, but they're super disposable and don't have actual internal systems he could learn from. They're very Basic Human Model, which means they don't have any bells and whistles - all limbs are there, eyes, brains, etc, but no genitals or waste systems - smooth like Ken dolls. I guess it makes sense if you're designing something to be used as a guard at your top-secret scientific facility - if they don't have to take bathroom breaks, there's never any chance for someone to sneak past them. And then if one is wandering around, EVERYONE knows that That Is Benrey and to give it a wide berth. Or, if you're Tommy, to make friends with it. (In this AU Benrey is not subtle - he's known to Black Mesa, obviously, and therefore he's also known as a possible hazard to the soldiers who respond to Black Mesa in the aftermath of the ResCas - which will come up later. They come prepared for him, and things don't turn out well.) If Gordon didn't have the HEV suit, things would be much rougher, because it acts like a tutorial for Benrey. It can heal through the medstations, it can inject drugs and change brain chemistry, it can administer all kinds of things and Benrey wants to learn all of them. Gordon is basically going to be a testing ground for Benrey to figure out How Humans Work, and he'll get possessive over his toy and not want anyone else to get it, so he'll be more of an active force in this AU then he is in the series. Plus he's also going to make things Very Uncomfortable for Gordon when he starts asking about what his dick is and poking around to see what makes it do stuff, since none of the guards have anything like that. I also need to add this line from my outlines because I will not be able to put this word in the actual fic and I mourn that loss every day: "they encounter the helicopter heap and benrey gets gazoobered from the noise."

So far Benrey is still weak to the things Venom is weak to - namely heat/fire and certain sound ranges. The peeper puppies have obviously evolved a behavioral defense against him - as seen in Cytotoxin - but there will be other Xen creatures than can hurt him as well. He won't be sitting calmly in the middle of the Black mesa Golem Ape's blowtorch, that's for sure... And on that note, I literally just remembered that Bubby has fire powers. Bubby has fire powers and was BUILT by Black Mesa I'm a FUCKING IDIOT. Okay, that's definitely going in the fic now somehow. What do you do when you accidentally discover an alien species that needs living hosts to survive? If you want to study it, you make it some disposable hosts, and then you make something that can contain it that's under your control. Enter Bubby, stage left, utterly out of control.

...This is why I love rambling about ongoing fics, because it makes me think things through and come up with new stuff. Thanks, Saint!

[synthlet]

whatcha drinkin? i am drinkin irish breakfast tea out of a big ol thermos. what do you think of babies? i am a fan, they are fun to hold and know shitfuck. what do you think the best part of the internet is, i like people sharing animal videos and making lil jokey videos or pictures to make strangers laugh

im drinking water but I just had a yogurt that was warm bc it was in my lunchbox so it was kind of like a thick drink. Ilike babies they are so sweet but I get nervous being offered them bc I don't want to hold them wrong.. the best part of the internet is when melbourne gave trees emails and ppl started sending them love letters