#anyway this is one of my favorite vash images thanks

[longhands-the-second]

I’m scribbling him in again

[freedfromthegalactichivemind]

Hordak's Arms and Cybernetics

Thanks to something completely unrelated to Spop, I think I may have figured out how Hordak's arms work. And, I've got an idea for fanart. I always thought that they must have some kind of internal cybernetics to work because, organically, they shouldn't be able to move being just skin over bone without critical muscles and tendons. I figured that Horde-clone arms must be fundamentally different from our own in that they had some kind of cybernetics alongside the bone that worked in a way to compensate for or shore up the muscle and thus a rotting out of muscle that Hordak had didn't leave him completely helpless (although in a bad way). Cue a reboot of another show I liked back in the day coming up and showing me just how this might work! Trigun: Stampede is a re-work of the anime Trigun from 1998 and the manga from the late '90s - '10s. It was my very favorite thing from 2001, when I'd discovered it until the early '10s and Vash the Stampede is my all time favorite blorbo (even though my brain flitted off to other fandoms - Vash is the character I consistently list as "Favorite Character of All Time.") I couldn't get a JPEG to post, but the article as a web-image screenshot of the anime with a really nice shot of Vash's prosthetic. Vash always had a prosthetic left arm (well, not when he was a kid, but in the story of Trigun, all versions). In the original anime and manga, it's one of his three important guns (hence the series title). Despite this, he is actually a pacifist and I am glad that the new series has kept that critical part of his character. The arm/gun had a very different look in the manga and first anime series. The reboot redesigned it and instead of having it hidden and a revealed mystery later, just had it out loud and proud - and even made a joke about it when Meryl meets Vash. "Ooh, need a hand?" (Pops off). It is noted right away as Lost Technology (an important aspect of the Trigun story, like First Ones' tech, but slightly better remembered). Anyway, the redesigned arm - for people who take a look at the first-episode review article with pics... Look at the thing! It's a bone-arm! Well, it's metal / shiny crystalline stuff because Studio Orange wants to show off their animation-chops, but there it is, big ol' gap with a fake radius and ulna attached to the hand-unit with something of a pivot-joint, no artificial muscle or hydraulics need. And, yeah, watching my ULTIMATE BLORBO back in action in a new form for the first three episodes of the new anime released so far, I saw that arm and thought of reboot Hordak from my more recent fandom. It's like a eureka-moment, like "Ooooh! That's how arms that are Like That can work!" And it tempts me to do a fanart wherein Hordak has been given new fully-prosthetic arms by Entrapta... but they still have gaps in them, as a facsimile of his old arms (but they are indestructible First Ones tech crystal so there is no tactical advantage of anyone wedging anything in the gap) and they look like the new-version Vash-arm. If I do that, it will have to wait until I feel like doing fanart again. I'm too depressed to do much lately (for reasons spoken of earlier on this blog).

[retvenkos]

“are you always this chaotic?”

A/N: i have an inquisitive anon in my ask box that deserves the whole world, and i decided their amazing (sometime hilarious) ask deserved better formatting, so here we are. sweet anon, this is for you.

tw: language

@bladesappreciationweek​​ A COLLECTION OF RANDOM HEADCANONS AND MEMES FOR THE INCOMPARABLE BLADES COMPANY...

who reserves the right to say “fuck”?

mal does not deserve the right. 10/10 he would use it every other word just for the effect of it all (scandalizing tyril who is upper class and thinks there are “better, more intellectual insults” and upsetting nia who tries to play it off like it doesn’t bother her, but she doesn’t like it). no rights, we’re censoring mal.

nia deserves the right, but she would never use it. not even in her dreadlord state did she utter it (the dreadlord is also an upper class elitist, fight me) but she argues with mal that she can say it and she would, but scholar vash is watching over her right now and she can’t disgrace him (scholar vash would be vvv proud if she said it, though, don’t even lie). olinda egged her on one night and she whispered it, dissolving into a fit of giggles afterward, but neither of them speak of it afterward.

tyril does not deserve the right. he believes himself too good™ for such a word, so he doesn’t get rights. he says he’s better than banal vernacular, thank you very much, but that’s awfully presumptuous of him and fails to take into account that, at all times he’s 5 seconds away from saying it, now that mal has entered his life. 100%, mal is trying to get tyril to say it by startling him at unnecessary times or just being generally irritating, and he never gets tyril to crack. i imagine tyril does end up saying it, though. aerin turns out to be the bad guy and nia falls into the portal or whatever and tyril is just like “...... fuck.” mal is bitter he wasn’t the one to make it happen, but he doesn’t whine about it until after the dreadlord has been defeated. nia is slightly upset that she was the reason tyril broke his solemn vow, but she also laughed thoroughly at mal’s rendition of the moment and regrets that she wasn’t there to see it.

imtura deserves the right and uses it. imtura curses like a sailor. .....get it? because she’s a— alright, you get it. but yes, imtura gets to the right to say fuck and she says it enough for everyone. if mal ever wants to express himself using the expletive, imtura will gladly say it for him. solidarity. but she’s also sweet, deep down, and she keeps her swearing to a minimum when nia is around. 

olinda deserves the right, 100%. she doesn’t say it often, but when she does, it has such power. mal wishes he had the commanding presence. olinda is generally too intent on finding a solution to the problem to ever dwell on failure, but when she goes into battle and realizes her group is terrible outnumbered? oop, there it is.

kade. oh, my sweet summer child, who swears often enough to rival imtura. 100%, he deserves the say “fuck” because every bard deserves free access to every word they can get their hands on. it’s rather funny that kade has a terrible mouth, since he’s like the golden retriever of the group (barring nia, ofc), but it’s also rather fitting. imtura was taken aback and mal had mad respect after hearing one of his tirades (directed at threep, ofc) and tyril is just like,,,,,, will i ever rEsT? anyway, let kade say fuck.

threep does not, under any circumstance deserve the right. threep will go off if given the right to swear, and it’s terribly annoying. everyone is trying to travel through a small town and then, out of the priestess of light’s travel bag you hear the worst string of curses you’ve ever heard - so many outdated and upper class curses picked up through the millennia and then you hear the most country, farmer swears (thanks, kade). it scandalizes everyone and nia is the poor girl who has to carry threep around. don’t let threep swear, whatever you do. it’s a power far too strong for this world.

what they get a tattoo of...

mal tries desperately to have the ~aesthetic~ so you know he gets something like a compass or a dagger or something equally as wanderlust and vague. it’s hella intricate and it’s probably on his forearm or something. i feel like mal is 100% that guy who has a tattoo for his mom on his chest but is also deeply terrified of commitment so the mere idea of getting a tattoo for someone else paralyzes him with intense fear. i don’t feel like mal is the guy to have writing for tattoos - he’s much more open to drawings than words. he’s all about the imagery. mal probably has a couple of tattoos though - he might be starting a sleeve or something, idk.

nia would deliberate long and hard before getting a tattoo - it’s permanent, after all, so she wants it to be something special. she 100% puts it on her lower back, which she grows to regret because she can’t actually see it? it is probably a flower a drawing of the temple of light, or a light crystal or something. i have a feeling there’s a prayer written in cursive that kind of wraps around the image she has tattooed. mal took her to get her tattoo and he was a proud brother™.

tyril was 100% that emo kid who wrote angsty song lyrics in a notebook, and that has not changed. i 100% guarantee that his first tattoo is a poem or something that he either wrote himself or desperately wishes he had written. he probably has it tattooed on his side or something equally as dramatic. mal wishes he had the flair that tyril just naturally carries. he’s iconic™ without even trying. he probably only has a few tattoos and most of them are small. he was one big tattoo on his back - it’s elaborate and kind of works like a family tree. it’s unique to him - he likes the idea that he carries his ancestors with him, no matter where he goes. nia notices one night that the company is on it, too, and she never says anything, but she’s touched.

imtura gets all the NAUTICAL IMAGERY. she 100% has one of those bands wrapping around her bicep, made of waves. i also imagine that imtura has a lot of ink? it’s what she deserves, and i feel like orcs are really artistic with their tattoos - their tattoos are culturally relevant and she has a story for every single one. mal knows every single story - they get sentimental on night watches. i imagine that imtura also knows how to give tattoos, so i headcanon that she gave olinda one that represents the company. imtura thought it was very sappy, but deep down, she was honored to do it.

olinda. similar to imtura, olinda has a lot of ink. the only difference is that she gets hers later on. there is one (1) person who knows how to tattoo in riverbend, and olinda got a few from them, but once she goes out to see the world? she’s going to the good™ tattoo artists and she’s fulfilling her dreams. i feel like olinda get’s her tattoos in very pointed spots - she definitely has a sleeve and you can “read” it from top to bottom - the story of her life. kade jokes that olinda’s memory is shot and so she has to get tattoos to remember her story, but he also really admires them. olinda has a lot of constellation tattoos, including some of the ones that kade made up. she’s very sappy, tbh.

kade got one (1) tattoo when he and olinda were piss drunk. it’s a matching tattoo with olinda that’s very weird and makes no sense at all. you had to be there, and tbh, even if you were there, it doesn’t make sense. to top it all off, it’s on his bicep so that when he flexes, it wiggles. at the time, olinda and kade thought it was the funniest thing and they died of laughter. does he regret it? kade maintains that he doesn’t. does he know the story behind it? he likes to say he does, but he actually doesn’t. olinda knows, and sometimes she’ll drop vague hints to see if it jogs his memory. kade maintains that he’ll never get another tattoo. once was enough.

modern! au ethnicities

disclaimer that there are a lot of great headcanons out there, and i’m here for most of them, these are just my ideas..

i imagine that mal is indian or pakistani, nia is brazilian or dominican, tyril is japanese or mongolian, imtura is maori or samoan, olinda is latina, and kade is half hispanic, half filipino.

when texting.... (and some handwriting thoughts)...

a modern! au? idk, maybe just an au where they somehow have modern technology? anyway...

mal grossly overuses emojis. his favorites are these: 🤑🔪😎😏. he also never uses proper capitalization and punctuation, and he uses abbreviations far too often. you need a key to figure out some of his texts, but imtura and olinda just know what he means. his philosophy is style and speed over substance. when he writes handwritten notes, though, his handwriting is a very fancy cursive and the care he puts into each letter is amazing. he only ever handwrites love letters to olinda and “i hate you <3″ letters to tyril, though. he did write a heartfelt birthday letter to nia, once. she framed it.

nia is my favorite because she texts like a grandparent, where they format texts like a letter and have perfect punctuation and capitalization. when she got a text from mal, she was very confused by what he was trying to express, but she wanted to know how he got the “cute faces” and mal immediately dropped everything to teach her how to use emojis. she loves them and probably uses a string of emojis at the end of her text as a part of her signature, like: [ the body of the text ] Best, Nia 😇🥰👑💖🌸 but her handwriting! it’s very nice. the temple of light had penmanship classes and nia excelled. ngl, she probably does caligraphy.

tyril uses no capitalization. punctuation only. you can hear the sarcasm through his text. he also hates emojis and memes with a burning passion. he has used this, though: -.-  he did it for nia. she loved it and now every time they text, he ends his texts with his “emoji”. mal teases him because it’s dumb and now it’s a running gag that everyone send the weird emoji to each other. it’s the tyril face! tyril wants to jump off a bridge, but also finds it very sweet? he has people giving him emoji’s? is that like.... friendship? anyway, his handwriting is terrible. glorified chicken scratch. it’s efficient and nearly illegible. perfect.

imtura, on the other hand texts the most “traditionally”. she doesn’t really adhere to capitalization, and she never has the ending period, but you know what she’s saying. it’s decent. she doesn’t like to complicate things, but kade introduced her to memes and now she and him communicate together solely using low resolution memes that no one else likes. it’s very annoying but very endearing. her handwriting is nice - simple and easy to understand. she uses a lot of shorthand and a lot of sailor jargon that goes over some people’s (read: tyril’s) heads, but is smart and to the point.

olinda, actually, is the one to have proper punctuation and capitalization, with little flavor to her texts. occasionally she’ll send an emoji or two, but mostly it’s just... communication. she much prefers calling, and will call you 20 times in a row until you answer. she forces tyril to facetime her and he rolls his eyes but secretly loves it. communication is much more efficient when you can see each others facial expressions, and boy, does context go a long way when talking with tyril. oH! I FORGOT TO MENTION - olinda grew up on a rural farm. olinda chronically says “y’all” and has all of those weird, farm related sayings. kade doesn’t have this problem because he “trained himself in verse” and said that he had to be “worldly” not “farm chic.” anyway, her handwriting is kind of careless in nature - not especially nice, but not especially terrible, either. it’s a hybrid between cursive and print (whatever is fastest is best).

kade texts solely in dank memes and lengthy prose. he is the most chaotic person in the group chat, either bidding the company to draw near by sending them four stanzas of incredibly vague meaning (only tyril and olinda understand) or he’s sending “vroom vroom bitch” memes that mal and imtura adore. the blades book may not have given kade flavor, but on GOD i will give it to him because a bard requires chaotic vibes, even if he has a tragic backstory. you know what? especially because he has a tragic backstory, kade deserves some chaos. give me chaotic kade or give me death. as for handwriting, i like to think that kade has two modes: “drafting” handwriting (chicken scratch to rival tyril) and “final product” handwriting that is purposefully and beautifully penned. he had a lot of time to perfect his writing, being sick, and boy did it pay off.

threep deserves to be in this line up, despite not being able to write. in this chaotic technology au, nia has created an instagram page for threep, and because he’s one of the last living nespers, it goes viral. when olinda and mal stumble upon it they have to laugh because it’s full of really expertly done ~aesthetic~ photos with really sweet captions - things threep wouldn’t say in a million years. the account is only up for a few months and at first the posting is really consistent, and then it suddenly falls apart and the account is deleted soon after. apparently, threep didn’t know the instagram account existed and when he found out, he and nia had legendary fights and wouldn’t speak for like, 2 weeks after. nia made a very shady and slightly vague call out post and it was the first time the company really saw her get petty. the instagram page was the perfect fuel for kade’s scathing and petty remarks at threep, and threep came out hard, making a dig at kade’s writing and his stupid tattoo. threep nearly died at the hands of the two sweetest - kade and nia. it was certainly one for the books.

high school! au

(you are right, anon, a high school au would be iconic™)

mal is 100% a band kid. he has the “i play the guitar to be cool” vibes. and besides, the guitar player in the band is always a little more ~rebellious~ than the other band kids (superseded only by the standing bass kids in orchestra, who had unrivaled chaotic evil energy). plus, mal has a flair for the dramatic, which the band kids have in spades. mal is a little too much of a rule breaker to have been on any teams or anything super structured like that, and while we all know that he’s a heartbreaker, he’s not a popular kid™ because (at least in my school) the popular kids are always rich kids who run in the “right” circles. mal is too cool for that.

nia on the other hand is the smart prep that’s really sweet. like, the girl who’s friends with the cheerleaders and could have been one, too, if she wasn’t so shy™. she’s mostly overlooked in favor of the more glamorous, but everyone knows nia and they’re all like, “yeah! she’s cute! and smart, and nice.” she’s probably in like, robotics club or something equally as estranged but smart. 100%, nia is the gabriella montez archetype. she’s in a few clubs, including choir, where her angelic voice earns her a few solos. people are always trying to give her positions of power in their clubs, but she graciously declines because she’s stretched too thin and stress is a thing.

tyril. i know you all want him to be like, the smart one who’s in debate club and is really charming, but tyril’s social skills are not cut out for that. tyril is like that smart kid who sits at the back of history class and knows all the answers but never raises his hand. he has one (1) popular friend who has been close with him since they were both in diapers, but he doesn’t feel comfortable with their friends so he just kinda sits alone for the most part. he was picked up once by the emo artsy kids, but it didn’t really stick. he likes poetry class and does a metal working class because he can be alone with his headphones and thoughts™. in high school he’s just brooding without the mystery. tyril cringes at his youth. he’s too strong and iconic in his current age, so he had to be cringeworthy in his teen years. perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

imtura was 100% that cool, slightly edgy girl on the volleyball team. she was popular with the students and the teachers - like, this is the student that the school mentions is going places, and yet are also like,,,, “let’s try to guide you over here, imtura. you have such potential! don’t squander it!” and imtura hates nothing more than their incessant pleas for her to be the model student. she just wants to travel the world, maybe join a punk band, and get lost at sea. that’s not too much to ask, right? she’s also on the football team, and she’s team captain. she lives in sweatpants and workout clothes, and they actually really suit her? definitely crush material, this one. she’s probably also throws some killer weekend parties with mal’s input.

olinda was harder to place, but i imagine that she’s one of those hands on kids, taking woodworking, metal working, and auto mechanics classes. maybe she was on the soccer team, one year, but that didn’t really work out. she’s a team player and all, but she likes something with a little more purpose. she met tyril in metalworking, she met mal when helping with sets for the school play (he was annoying the theatre kids, as per usual), she met imtura in gym class because imtura picked her to be on her flag football team (which was a great choice, really), and she met nia when she went to the choir room, looking for kade. she’s not popular, per se, but people know her face and they think she’s pretty cool.

kade on the other hand, is 100% an artsy theatre kid. he’s not the super obnoxious theatre kid, and he’s not the snobby theatre kid either, he’s kind of like the older sibling theatre kid who’s infinitely cooler than you, incredibly talented, but also really down to earth and ready to create an elaborate inside joke with you over the course of the year. he has it all: the tragic backstory that adds flavor and depth to his writing, the kind personality that gets him friends wherever he goes, the amazing vocals that make him a shoe in for every performance..... but he often gets overlooked. why? it’s one of those injustices that just don’t make sense. he’s decently popular among the art nerds, and everyone wonders why he doesn’t get lead roles. a real ryan evans, if we want to go with a hsm reference.

AND FLUFF ENSUES.

-- taglist: @musicallisto​, @missameliep​ // message me if you want to be added!