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zaebucca · 5 months

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About scale, process, palette and canvas: a few considerations on pixel art as a medium

User moredogproblems answered an interesting and legitimate question by another, DiscountEarly125, regarding my work and canvas size. He also perfectly isolated two central concepts of pixel art, which are scale and process. Canvas size, which was the theme of DiscountEarly125's specific request, is more of a dependent variable to those two aforementioned concepts, rather than a starting point. I hope the following considerations I shared may help or prompt some other ideas, but this is what I could come up with 15-ish years of experience with pixel art (and a few more years of art and media studies). I was quite in the mood of writing down these few thoughts that have been floating for a while. I apologize as this may also result in a confusing wall of text, but it is all part of a my work and research, and I would love to polish all the material, hopefully with some thoughts, insights from other colleagues, as well as pictures and materials!

A. Scale and canvas size It is true that the bigger the canvas, the more distance one may visually create from pixel art, but I personally think this is to be possibly considered a matter of perceiving pixels, rather than a fundative problem of the medium. In fact I concur with the idea of "process makes the medium" rather than identifying pixel art as how (evidently) pixeled the result feels. The general picture, or the sum of pixels, though, is a really important matter to the medium nonetheless! Pixels themselves work in relation one with another, so it's their overall result that gives context and makes the subject recognizable. This relationship between pixels links back to all the art fundamentals that each artist is taught, from color theory to shape and composition - and so on. So, the canvas size debate usually boils down to a matter of scale or necessity of your subjects. As long as the dimension (canvas) of your subject (as in: a drawing of an apple, a character sprite, a mockup environment) allows you to operate, control and keep an eye on the quantity (number/area of pixels together) and quality (color, shaping of multiple pixels, texturing obtained through color and shapes) of isolated single pixels or pixeled areas, you're in the pixel art universe. The other way around to define the matter of scaling: in order to be operating pixel art fundamentals and techniques, your subject has to be on a scale that allows you to apply principles of pixel art within the space of your canvas and your personal style. These very same principles, or basics, can be applied with different results and extent to bigger and smaller canvases alike, each with their own specific difficulties and variables. It is important to adapt your scale when learning, and trying classic canvases per subject like "16x16px" (standard tile or character sprite unit, tied to older consoles and screen ratios, it's a bit complicated there) is always a nice idea - they also tend to be industry benchmarks and necessities so in case you'd like to consider a professional output, that's very useful.

Scale also applies to the array of colors, and there lies the concept of palette: a number of single hexadecimal hues we are using for each single pixel. Any single pixel can have one hexadecimal color only.

Consequentially it is absolutely true that either a huge canvas or a palette too broad may prevent a viewer from perceiving immediately the "nature" of your medium, namely seeing square pixels, recognizing a certain amount of color - or more thoroughly recognizing that you made some choices for each subject on a pixel level. What could possibly happen on a huge canvas (without zooming in) is that you can't really grasp the pixels, but just the "overall picture" - and that may not differ too much from digital, raster art, which is of course also based on pixels. Therein appearently lies a sort of threshold that is really hard to pin down for us pixel artists, as it depends on screen size, visualization methods, distance, filters and lots of other inherently subjective parts.

This kinda is my case sometimes: I make big environments (possibly too big, and too detailed in each part I tell myself) that are a sum of many lesser parts: both tilesets and sprites that relate (but not strictly adhere) to a basic space unit that is 16x16pixels. You can indeed consider scale in a broader sense as a subdivision or magnification issue, much alike squinting your eyes to focus on a picture's overall contrast or, conversely, analyzing its fundamental parts with a magnifying glass, and then a microscope - an analogy as follows:

a. the picture as a whole is like a colorful rock that you can analyze by magnifying its grain. b. the characters, geographical elements and textures, works like the different substances that compose the rock and give its visible characteristics grain and complexity, c. single pixels constitute the very atoms of those previously recognized substances.

I mean "atom" in the traditional, classical meaning of indivisible, fundative object. That's a "quantized" part of information, which for pixel art is ultimately color (or a binary value, like yes/no black/white). If you were, for example, to crop some parts of my work - let's say 160x144 pixels (a gameboy screen resolution in pixels) you would see the substances that are characters and elements of nature, and when you zoom in again, every atom becomes visible as a single entity of color. There are 29 different type of "atoms" in Ruin Valley as in different, singularly hexadecimal colors that work together in different combinations and shapes to create different substances and characters. 18 of them are used for the different qualities of the environment, and 11 more for extra hues for characters and other elements to pop out a bit.

It's really interesting to see how many pixel artists push this "threshold" of pixel art canvases to the extremely small or the extremely big, whereas, notably, palettes are less open to growth: it is indeed my opinion that pixel art tends to quantize color (quality) over than dimension (quantity). Palettes, notably, do not grow exponentially, but tend to a lower, fixed, controlled amount of individual values instead. This usually gives the artist the true possibility and toolkit through which is possible to think about/with pixels. In other words: color (or its absence) is the founding unit and identity of pixel art as a digital medium.

B. Pixels as process or pixels as objective? Pixels themselves (as strange as that may sound!) are not to be considered an objective of pixel art, I think, but the founding matter of its research as a medium instead. I think that making pixel art is not just devoting oneself to show those jagged, squarey areas or blunt edges that we all know and love: this is just one of the possible aesthetics that pixel art conveys or adopts - especially on small canvases. Pixel art is not about denouncing itself as pixels, but, rather, embracing the square, atomic unit to build an ensemble that conveys a content or a style. That's the important part of the discourse that emancipated pixel art into being a medium, and not just an aesthetic choice or style of representation. Again: process makes this medium. Speaking of that, I consider pixel art as part of a broader family of "quantized art", namely media that operate on/with "indivisible, founding bricks and unities" that can assume a certain quality (color, mainly) within a certain quantity (palette, canvas size) and in relation to its surroundings to describe something. This puts pixel art, with its specifics and with a certain degree of semplification, among other mediums such as cross-stitch, bead art, construction sets, textile art (on a warp and weft basis), (micro-)mosaics and others.

A classic threshold example of process vs objective: oekaki art. Oekaki art - which I love and also happen to make from time to time - doesn't really work or "think" specifically on a pixel base: it doesn't place pixels per se, but uses pixel-based areas and textures on bigger canvases with a certain degree of freedom, like one would normally do with brushes on raster digital art programs (adobe ps, gimp, clip studio and so on) in order to convey an aesthetic with fewer colors and a certain line style and texturing. That way, oekaki uses and knows pixels in a deep way, but doesn't see them primarily in a quantized way. As a result the "overall picture" shows pixels to a certain extent, and it's possible to recognize distinct pixels for each part, but the objective is not an analysis and use of pixel and quantized information, but the use of an aesthetic based upon accessibility of resources, their control and a certain rendering style.

A huge part of pixel art is its absolute accessibility: everyone with a fairly outdated computer or screen and a basic drawing program can study the medium. To be fair, it's indeed considering accessiblity that I highly support an inclusive approach to the term "pixel art" and I think traditional oekaki is a close, beautiful relative that builds upon the rules and techniques of pixel art and pixel rendering, yet keeping its identity as its very own medium - somehow like a dress may be built around/upon textile design. Anyway, boundaries are meant to be crossed and I think there definitely are lots of oekaki and pixel-based art that meet traditional pixel art mid-way - or further. I also think the "is it pixel art?" discourse possibly ensuing - and generally speaking any media belonging purist ontology - is a treacherous, slippery terrain leading to excesses, and this is not my focus today, neither am I able to tackle that subject extensively at the moment.

C. Conclusions and a few good exercises Everything above may be farfetched or too complicated as a starting point. I tried to write all down as orderly as possible. The point of this (possibly discouraging) analysis and the reasoning between scale and process is that (pixel) art is about trying different canvases, and reasoning on one's subject and objective, rather than limiting oneself to presets sizes or styles. It's important to choose something that resonates with us and, in doing so, thinking about other, more interesting limitations: that's the discourse about quantity of space and quality in color. Limiting is the best possible exercise and one I wholeheartedly encourage: by doing so we are progressively delving deeper on the basics, as we learn the fundamental relationships between shapes and colors that we can achieve through pixels. A few good exercises that I too implemented in my own workflow come to mind: 1. Trying different canvases (or sizes) for the same subject (sprite, character art, illustration or so on). This helps a lot finding a comfortable size to apply pixel techniques, as well as getting a hold over fundamentals such as aliasing, linework, conventional representation and so on. 2. Trying different palettes for the same subject, both by varying colors themselves (therefore learning about values and contrast and readability, as well as atmosphere and mood!) or singular hues and their components, in order to discover possible relationship between them. Have fun! 3. Reducing the width of the palette progressively for the same subject: reducing the number of singular colors forces a reasoning on shapes, rapresentation. You may go from 1-bit art (just black/white) to 3 colors, 4, 8 and so on. We'll not talk about transparency as a singular color there, but if you happen to be interested in retro art, transparency counts to the palette size. This exercise is very useful in rendering, and possibly tricky. And definitely fun. :') 4. Choosing an objective and usage of our work: for example trying to learn about old pixel art limitations for games, in order to reason within specifics. Get inspired by traditional games (spriters-resource is your best friend here, in case you have a specific retrogame you're thinking of)! I will probably talk about limitations and style on another post. 5. Four eyes (and other multiples) are better than two: try to talk with people and friends and other artists you trust and feel comfortable with to get their point of view. This can be scary, I know, especially at the beginning. You're not forced to, of course, but if you do (in a safespace) there's lots you can learn about concepts such as readability, subject recognition, rendering and composition. Our eyes and brains get accustomed to something, and pixel art being a rather analytic medium made of synergies, subtle changes, limitations and conventions is especially tricky on the artist's eyes on the long term. Either way, the important thing about pixel art is understanding that this medium is about recognizing and enjoying the process rather than the eventual aesthetic and in order to do so the best choice is to start simple, small, with few colors and techniques at a time! Have fun and hit me up with your progress and considerations. :')

#pixelart #art resource #pixelartist #how to #reference #art tips #learning #insights #pixel illustration

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toreodere · 11 months

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So here's something I was working on that kind of got out of hand the longer I got into it, hhh

I was thinking for a bit about how underwhelming the overall presentation of Psycholonials was, not just in the general artstyle it went for but with how it's panels and UI were overall way less interesting to look at than anything seen during the lifetime of MSPA, and from that ended up having some silly idea to make a conceptual mockup of what I thought a slightly better UI for this COULD look like, so I hope yall enjoy how that ended up looking.

Additionally, There was a bunch of other stuff I had written down for how to better implement screen transitions and animated panels too, which BIG shocker, Psycholonials sorely lacked in, the novel usually consisting of hard cuts between completely static panels of characters standing around idly, or a slow and completely unskippable fade into shots like, a character pulling a poorly drawn face, or having their face zoomed in on, maybe with an extra hand being drawn in on the shot that's been drawn at a completely different resolution, this variably becomes a little to severely tedious to when doing re-reads, which I had to do to get reference for how panels in this were actually formatted, h.

I'd make examples of those in this post itself but little known fact right, I get very tired all the dang time!! and probably don't have too much time to be making every little individual element of a hypothetical "better" version of a Visual Novel I'm a fan of all day when I could be doing anything else! but I may make an addendum detailing how I would do stuff like that if anyone showed any interest in reading that.

#psycholonials #zhen (psycholonials)#riotus (psycholonials)#could yall consider this critique? I genuinely don't know

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portsandstars · 1 month

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I recently got an ask about how I made my Vere cosplay, so I thought I'd write an (overly descriptive) explanation about what I did! Note that I have very minimal sewing and cosplay experience, so it's quite possible that there are many better ways to achieve the same look.

If you're interested in recieving the pattern that I used, please DM me, and I'll send you the files. Note that the pattern is only made to my measurements(I am very tall and small chested) and I have also altered the pattern after working with it some, though not altered the PDF.

Some of my explanations won't be the most clear, I'm happy to explain more in the comments or dms- I'm just limited on the number of pictures:)

Below the readmore because u guys this is going to be a bit exhaustively long :>

The pattern pieces for the top

I got a pattern after commissioning someone on Fiverr for about $60 dollars (let me know if you want their contact info). They were not very interested in reference photos and instead wanted me to sketch the garment I needed. I made a mock-up in a day after receiving the pattern files (took me about 8-10 hours lol). I requested a few edits from the pattern maker and recieved a second pattern. From there, I made multiple mockups and edited the PDF pattern to:

- shorten the smallest sleeve

- increase the curve of the front shirt edge

- add an unofficial collar band to increase collar height

- change the angle of the piping seam to enter the armhole at much more of a slanted angle

- increase the height and shape of the side waist openings (they are still lower than is accurate).

- add a sleeve gusset bc I couldn't move my arms (the sleeves are still tough, I'd recommend altering the dark purple sleeves if you make this)

- making the floatly sleeves way more voluminous.

Here are some photos of the top. I bought a crotch snap bodysuit premade and cut it after someone helped me pin the top to it. This is to help keep the top "tucked in" to the belt without bunching, while still allowing you to go to the bathroom. There need to be snaps because I taped the top to my skin, so you don't want to pull the top off your shoulders as you would a romper.

Ok, now let's see where the pattern pieces go to the shirt:

Fabric

I used a satin fabric for this top. I chose this primarily because it looked the closest to the right color that I could find (rather than being interested in the sheen). I'd say that it kinda sucked to work with because it frays exceptionally easily, though it does look pretty. The lilac fabric is a cotton fabric that I used throughout this project to add weight and stability - the color doesn't matter. I also used a medium weight black fabric (?), Silver pleather, and lightweight interfacing.

- back of the garment was purple satin underlined with lilac cotton

- front (orange) piece was purple satin with lightweight iron on interfacing

- collar (blue) was purple satin with the lightweight interfacing not in the seam allowances.

- front (red) piece was purple satin, iron on interfacing, and underlined lilac cotton.

- black boarder on the front (green) was a thick black fabric that was in a discount bin. Highly recommend you use a thin black cotton because the thickness of this fabric gave me a lot of trouble. Interfaced the center of these pieces.

- facings for the side opening (front and back of garment) were made from the lilac fabric and interfaced with lightweight interfacing EXCEPT for the seam allowance.

- tiny sleeve (yellow) was interfaced to give it structure, but not in the seam allowances

- I really struggled with the tension on my machine so I never sewed the satin alone. On the long, dark purple sleeves I added iron on interfacing ONLY to the seam allowance to give the seam stability so I could sew it.

- the silver piping around the collar and glued onto the front is made from a silver pleather. On one hand, this sucked to work with because my strategy involves sewing through ~10 layers of it at least, which is very hard(thimble needed). BUT, If you don't use silver pleather, I'd say your silver fabric MUST NOT FRAY for you to use the techniques I used.

STEPS TO CONSTRUCT (~30-40 hours).

You definitely need to make a mock-up unless you are very experienced. I made about 4-6 (would alter one sleeve but not bother changing the other, etc).

1. Cut all pieces except for facings, black boarder, and floaty sleeves out of purple satin.

2. Cut cotton support fabric for the following pieces - back, red, gussets, side facings (4 total)

4. Cut black boarder/facing (4 total).

3. Cut and iron on interfacing - center of collar, red (not seam allowance), orange (not seam allowance), tiny sleeve (not seam alloance), black boarder/facing- only needed on the outside ones(not seam allowance). Interfacing for the side facings. If you have issues with sewing the satin, also iron on interfacing on the seam allowances, and add it to purple satin that is alone (the long sleeves).

4. Baste all underlining fabric to the purple satin by hand (back, sleeve gusset, red).

5. Stay stitch in the seam allowance all pieces

6. Zigzag stitch all pieces.

7. Lay the lilac side facing on top of the right side of front orange piece, interfacing of the facing touching the right side of the fabric. Sew together along the inner curve. Notch the seam allowance here so it can bend easier. Flip facing to the wrong side of the garment. Iron flat. Pull the notches to the facing side and understitch. Iron again. Sew the top and bottom of the facing edges into the seam allowance of the side seam of the garment and the hem of the garment so they don't flop as much. Do the same thing on the the second orange piece (mirrored). Then do this twice, once for each side curve on the back piece.

8. Yayyy now it's time to attach the black edge. Choose your prettiest of the two of each mirrored piece to be the outside ones. Hem the longer edge of all 4 black facing pieces. Lay the facing, right side facing up, on top of the right side of the orange piece along the front hem. Sew directly on top of your hemming stitches so it is attached about an inch in. Try to not go out of the hem stitches at all. Then, lay a second facing on TOP of the facing u just sewed, wrong side facing up. Sew along the edge through all three layers. Notch this seam. Flip the top facing to the inside of the garment and iron flat. Understitch the inside facing. Iron again. Sew along the black facings inside the seam allowance of the top edge of the orange piece. Below are my notes to myself about this if they would help you LMFAO.

9. U can hem the orange piece now if you want to, I chose to not bc there is sooo much more stuff to do!!

10. Hand baste the red piece to your completed/with facings orange piece along the bottom edge of the red piece/top of orange. You're gonna have to rip this out later but you need to add the collar and measure the length of the piping that will go here and it needs to be attached to do this.

11. attach the back of the top at the shoulder seam. you can also pin or baste the side seams now under the arm hole but note that the size will be really different here with the sleeve gores later added. this turns it into a vest yayy its taking shape

12. iron all the seams u got going on

13. Hem the interior edge of the red pieces so that the collar can attach over it. Use a basting stitch bc you're going to have to undo part of this later 🙃

13. make the collar. tbh I'd recommend watching a tutorial for this, it is pretty similar to any men's dress shirt, especially a mandarin collar. sew the collar along the neckline of the garment.

14. Measure from the side seam under the arm, along the hem of red all along the back collar, to the other side seam under the other arm to see how long your piping needs to be. You can make it a bit longer than it needs to be. i chose to use piping because I couldn't find a silver cord that resembled this detail going around the collar of his shirt, and this seemed like the best solution. It would be far easier to use a silver cord if you can find it tho :). If you found cord that you liked, you could simply sew red to orange directly.

15. make the piping! This whole part is the worst part of the whole garment. You should have a thimble and strong handsewing needles. And probably pliers to pull the needle through. I cut long strips 4 of the silver pleather and bought 2 mm wide nylon cord. I then folded the strip around the cord and handsewed really close to the cord with white thread. You could machiene sew this but personally I found that it wasn't "tight" enough to the cord for me. Two of the piping strips you should cut most of the seam allowance off, the other two should be a normal amount of seam allowance on the piping.

16. Line up your 4 piping strips into a stack and measure across them to determine their width. You next want to create the ILLUSION of more piping. The way I did this was I took a wider strip of silver, the width of the 4 piping strips + one hypothetical extra piping on the top and one on the bottom and cut a strip this wide + lots of extra seam allowance that was about the length of the shirt collar. Then, I hemmed it deeply, so my hem stitches would be close to the center of the strip. There's NO cord in this piece. Then, I hand sewed this flat piece to the collar of the shirt.

17. Next, I bent my piping strips in half and marked the center points on each with a pin. I took one with long seam allowance and laid it flat so the seam allowance lay facing right, and then laid the other piping with seam allowance overlapping the previous piping facing left. Then the piping with very small seam allowance goes on top of this. Diagram crossection below, with the circles representing the cord of the piping, and = representing the orientation of the seam allowance.

O O

O=====

======O

In this way, the piping can be sewn into a continuous strip that is sturdy, without the seam allowance showing. I handsewed the piping pieces together, working from the center, for about 5 inches of length, snaking sideways through the cording of the piping with white thread so it's joined into one continuous strip. Then, I began to handsew this piping to the collar on top of the silver flat fake piping that u already sewed there. Make sure the center of the piping goes to the center of the collar. From there, you alternate handsewing the piping to itself into one continuous strip, and then handsewing it to the collar.

18. As you work, you're going to have to sew it along the edge of the red piece once you're done with the collar. You can initially sew it to the hem that you established before on the red piece. However, when the red piece meets the orange piece (at the black fabric) you need to undo the hem of the red piece there and cut a slit in the fabric (visible below). This is because the hem of the red piece now needs to hang down and attach to the orange piece, so you need the material. Your piping here will go between the red and orange pieces. You also need to cut your basting stitches here so u can sew it for real. You should gradually and evenly spaced - end each line of piping along the top of the orange, so that by the time you're at the armhole, only one piping line is remaining. I chose the bottom silver line on the collar to be my longest piping strip, as this matches (more) of the reference photos). Rather than sew through all 12- 14 layers (...) I found it easier to do a stairstep method. I sewed my first piping strip to the red, then I sewed my second piping to the first piping(but NOT to the red), my third piping to the second, my fourth to the third, and my orange piece to the fourth. Throw in some stitches that bridge more layers as a failsafe and be diligent here bc the structure of the garment depends on it lol.

19. Fantastic ! U made it through the hardest part! Hem the long purple sleeves. Gather the top of the floaty sleeves. Sew the inner seams of the floaty sleeves. Sew the inner seams of the 2 long sleeves together. Leave the length of the V of the gusset unsewed at the top of the sleeve seam. Hem the edge of your tiny sleeves (yellow).

Now you need to attach the sleeves. I sewedthe gauze to half the gusset by hand first. Next I handsewed the gusset to both the long sleeve and the floaty sleeves, leaving the other V half of it unattached to later put into the side seam under the arm. Next I pinned all three sleeves into the armhole of the top. Tbh ... The size of the armhole seemed wrong so I needed to pleat the top of the of the long sleeve to make it fit (😐). Then I handsewed all three sleeves on each side into the arm hole, and then sewed the gusset into the side of the garment, and then finished the side of the top's seam (where the side facings meet) by hand too. I think it'd be possible to do this by machiene but with all the layers, gathering, and difficult corners from the gusset, it was way easier to handsew it imo. Now do the other sleeve wow so fun

20. Get a silver ribbon /string and handsew the sleeve decorations in place. I've found that piercing the silver cord tends to make it get ugly and split so instead I sewed the ends down and then went around the cord like belt with belt loops. Leave a tiny amount of give here so it doesn't strangle ur arm. Try and make the other sleeve the same lol.

21. Cut EVA foam (very thin mm foam) into LONG strip for the vertical silver detailing. Handsew the Eva foam to your top where the silver detailing is. Honestly I might wait to do this until your belt is done bc the position of the bottom half of these lines depends on where your belt sits. But, the purpose of the Eva foam is that it provides a solid base for your silver fabric to glue to that will bend with the garment well and the glue won't stiffen or distort your fabric. Afterwards you'll glue it to the foam with contact cement or fabric glue (needs to be able to flex).

22. Personally I sewed snaps that connect to the chest harness on the inner black boarder because 1) this allows a bit of the weight of the harness to be taken off of your neck/collar, and 2) allows your top to be held closer to your body (lower chance of flashing people). Make sure to only sew them to the interior black facing, not showing to the other side. I also sewed tacking stiches through the interior facing (hidden in the hem stitching) to hold the interior black facing down. My harness was waistband elastic, stabilized with cotton so it's not stretchy, with velcro attaching to itself through the ring. So each side of the harness at the ring is velcro folded back onto itself after being looked through the ring.

23. I also sewed the snap crotch thing to it. You need to wear the top and the body suit and have someone pin the top so that it's pulled somewhat taut by the bodysuit. The small section between the left and right side of the top (by the bellybutton) of the waistband of the bodysuit I stabilized with cotton again because you don't want that part getting stretched out and widening over time. If you're someone who maybe doesn't have boobs or doesn't care about flashing people, you could just sew it to some shorts. The idea here is to keep it held down AND be able to use the bathroom later WITHOUT pulling all ur fashion tape off in the stall and then reapplying it each time.

Look here for the part two (belt/skirt explanation).

#touchstarved #touchstarved cosplay #vere #touchstarved vere #cosplay #mine #personal #ask #touchstarved game

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dayfalwastaken · 9 months

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Power Testing - Spider-Man fanfic preview.

Mirroring a lightbulb lighting up, he jumped to his feet, his mind racing with a few spots in seconds. The first place he’d thought of was Doc Ock’s underwater base, though that one had been flooded from top to bottom. There was Vulture’s so-called “Nest”, but that… Nope. The Lizard’s hideout in the sewers- a more acceptable alternative if he ignored the smell. Although… Nah, bringing the Symbiote down there would make him eligible to experience the “Lethal Protector Treatment™”, and if that’s what led to Venom he’d have no right to get mad. There were those couple of weapon cashes belonging to Mr. L that he’d busted, but they were too small for what he needed to do. Or…

He finally gave the warehouse a good, long look before letting familiarity take him down the wall and through a broken window. What he saw inside left him with his mouth agape.

Or he could use Mysterio’s old prop house. Peter shook his head. These were too many small miracles one after the other. He knew he shouldn’t jinx it, but something bad was going to happen in return, wasn’t it?

He’d forgotten all about this place after the Police had raided it. The building had been abandoned in every sense of the word so there hadn’t been a reason to keep tabs on it. Every nook and cranny had been inspected, all evidence collected and nothing of interest had been left behind. Even Mysterio had known better than to return here. Before he’d been imprisoned, that was.

“Man, I hope he’s real this time. If it turns out he’s another bot I’m breaking that snow globe of his and leaving him hanging off the Brooklyn Bridge.” He muttered as he dropped to the floor.

The warehouse was huge and filled to the brim with dilapidated movie sets and harmless props, the only things not to be stripped clean by the Police. In front of him was a large theater stage, complete with red curtains with golden accents and spotlights to shine on the would-be actors below. Surrounding it were the sets, which came in all shapes and sizes. One was an old town that looked like it had been ripped straight out of a western, another was a miniaturized castle that belonged in a Disney film. A mockup tropical island was stationed to the far left, featuring fake vegetation, palm trees and a greenscreen where the sea should’ve been.

Near the stage, to its left was a full-sized T-Rex animatronic, sitting behind a row of costumes ranging from astronauts to horror movie monsters and caped crusaders. Other such props were littered about, many in open wooden boxes and on… barrels of all thing. Dust had gathered in absurd quantities on everything, all surfaces having a hazy layer of grey to them. Not even the air had escaped, the roof’s skylight allowing the moon to shine through right in the middle of the warehouse, illuminating the particles throughout. Oh, and there were more cobwebs than he could count.

“Makes you think why a guy with so much money would put on a suit and start robbing banks.” He spoke out loud. He couldn’t say he related to those that chose a life of crime when they already had all they could’ve asked for. Were those types of criminals looking for fulfilment? Something to entertain them and stave off their boredom? Peter would never know.

Hideouts such as these fit the guy’s style more than Peter would’ve considered. Hidden in plain sight, being almost too obvious of a base for people to think they’d actually be used. The bad guys weren’t that dumb, right? Except that kind of reverse psychology was exactly what Mysterio specialized in. It explained why it had taken so long for him to be found out.

Peter walked to one of the barrels and picked it up, checking around to make sure he was alone. He wasn’t sensing… Was that breathing he heard? Or… No, that was literally the wind. A current must’ve formed from all the open windows, which- yep, if he zeroed in on them he could pick up the wind flowing in.

Neat. Couldn’t do that before.

The Symbiote sent something then. It was like a ping, a short vibration at the base of his skull, what his Spider-Sense could have sounded like in another life, to notify him of… He couldn’t tell. Like the tingles, he was given a vague sense of direction, pointing towards the stage, but it was too widespread to say if it was the stage or just in front of him in general. Even more like said power, a feeling of alertness flew through his being, making his hair stand on edge.

Peter took a stance and waited, expecting to be taken by surprise, but nothing happened. The Spidey-Sense itself didn’t trigger, which made him raise a brow. He knew how reliable it was. Unless he was too distracted to listen to it, the early warning system couldn’t fail him no matter what, so… if it didn’t ring then there was no threat in his proximity…

…Was Symby attempting to communicate or was it playing around with his powers, mimicking them for testing purposes? If so, had it gotten the idea from him? He thought the question again, more clearly this time, hoping for an answer only to be met with the usual silence. It was plausible this had been just a test- the Klyntar adapting to his body like he was to its and trying things out. But then… Peter was the host. He was the one who had to accept the foreign being, not the other way around…

And as he pondered that, the lack of ringing in his head kept on confirming he was under no danger. Not being spied upon or anything of the sort.

So… just a fluke? No bug squashing involved at this time?

No response.

Good talk. Well, I hope it was nothing. Because if it was then shouldn’t the faux sense have remained active to keep warning him? Instead, it’d been as brief as it could have, and Peter was fairly convinced it was in both his and the Symbiote’s best interests for enemies to be scoped out if they were hiding somewhere close. Whoever those enemies may’ve been, if they even were that. Keeping information about their surroundings hidden was detrimental to the both of them. A Symbiote, a being whose whole deal about bonding revolved around the “we” aspect would know better than to keep close threats hidden from its host.

So, it must’ve been a fluke. Or a test or whatever it was Symby was doing other than actually warning Peter, since keeping him in the dark about this was a dumb move…

You know, I mean, no rush- I know this is new for you too, but I hope the cold shoulder won’t last long. I’d really appreciate a second opinion in, well, everything really, `cause… if I’m being honest… Most of the time I’m just winging it… That, uh, haha, rolling with the punches- that’s kinda what I do. Even if I shouldn’t when I have all these memories to tell me what I can do better. I haven’t outgrown that yet… Ah, sorry for being impatient- I’d just love it if we could talk, you know?... Probably not. I dunno, sorry. Take your time, buddy. He tried to offer it feelings of encouragement, which he didn’t actually know how to do, but it was the thought that counted, no? Peter hoped so anyway.

A curt blink of acknowledgment was radiated back along with something akin to a metaphorical pat on the head, telling him his concerns were understood and would be addressed, before Symby severed the connection. He smiled slightly.

Heh, coming from the immortal alien goo that’s pretty comforting.

…Symbiotes were so above his paygrade, he couldn’t help but feel a little small when compared to the alien that hailed from the stars. Alien that had been alive for literal eons. The… expectations or standards a being like it must’ve had when it came to-

No, bad Spidey! Don’t thread that way if you don’t want to go into some dark places. Focus on the present.

Just the act of thinking… It was like working to defuse a bomb- trying not to mess things up permanently and second guessing himself at every turn, but then… What else was knew? Typical Parker luck. What was a new weight added to the balancing act, some more confusion to navigate through? He shrugged to relieve the distress.

Redirecting his attention to the barrel at hand, he clasped it with both hands and pressed them closer, caving the metal with a sickening whine. He froze when he realized that may’ve hurt the Other, but when his suit failed to produce a reaction he took it as a sign that he hadn’t accidentally harmed it. Must not have been loud enough, then. Continuing, he was left dissatisfied with the bent plate in his hands. Simply flattening it wasn’t what he wanted, so he crumpled the remains further into a ball the size of his fist. He repeated the process five more times before webbing the spheres together.

Nodding to himself, Peter began crushing it all at once- every one of those one hundred and eighty pounds of steel drums. He actually had to struggle the more pressure he applied, but it didn’t take long for those one eighty pounds to be compressed into something that could fit in his palm. That was over twenty thousand grams per cubic centimeter…

He closed his mouth as soon as it had started hanging open and dropped the metal pebble, staring at his hands. Whether in awe or terror, he wasn’t certain. He was leaning more towards terror.

This was how the Thing felt, wasn’t it? Always having to be mindful of the world around him since he could break it with a mere touch. Like it was made out of tissue paper. That must’ve scared him a little. Peter shared the feeling to a degree, superstrength did that to people, but this… was excessive to say the least. He’d had an understanding of it, but he hadn’t fully grasped just how strong the Symbiote had made him, and… He’d hate to have to use this much power against another human being, or any being for that matter. Ever.

Look on the bright side. Now you can give the world’s best bear hugs.

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femmefatalevibe · 1 year

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Hi, do you know a real way to earn money by yourself online or with your own business. I tried searching into it many times but none of those things listed on google seem to work for real?

Hi love! I can only speak from my experience starting my own business as a solopreneur. Here are the steps I would take if I were starting from square one:

Define your ideal career path for yourself. Consider your answers to the following questions:

What type of work would you be doing?

Would it be a product or service-based business?

Who are your ideal clients?

How would you interact with them?

What's your ideal lifestyle?

With this information, reverse engineer your entrepreneurial career path:

Discover your passion + core competency: Figure out where your interest and skillsets lie and how they can intertwine

Build & refine your skillset: Read, practice, take courses, etc.

Create examples of your work and a digital presence: Create mockups of your work, do passion/portfolio projects for a low fee for new clients or family/friends for free, etc. Make a website, LinkedIn page, online portfolio, etc.

Network & pitch yourself: Use email, LinkedIn, etc.

Create systems that serve your business well (onboarding materials, spreadsheets, supply chain management – even if it's from your living room, deadline, and invoicing schedules, etc.)

Turn in the highest quality work/product on time

Communicate with class, grace, enthusiasm, and appreciation for your clients

Go the extra mile with thoughtful holiday or milestone gifts ( they don't need to be at all expensive)

Ask for testimonials & approval to use the final work product in your portfolio (do this with an initial contract if you have a service-based business), and make it known that you're open to referrals

Keep in touch and tabs on the growth/new achievements of previous clients. Dropping a thoughtful line of encouragement can only cultivate an ongoing positive connection. Once you have a relatively robust and efficient skill set, relationships and your network are everything in business.

Hope this helps xx

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dollsorwhatever · 1 year

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Merliah dump lol

This is such a random-ass fixation but here we go lol While I was looking for older Mattel Ariel dolls for my collection on Facebook marketplace a few months back, I somehow managed to stumble across a used Mermaid Tale 2 Mini Merliah doll-one of my most random doll grails- for the very very low price of 5$ which began a renewed interest in Barbie in a Mermaid Tale dolls lol

I've always been a huge fan of the Mini Kingdom line but dissatisfied with the body they used (and the massive balloon hobbit-era head sculpt they switched to in 2008-ish), so I was pretty excited when the Mermaid Tale 2 mini dolls came out with not only a teeny tiny Belly Button body, but also a new miniaturized GG head sculpt! Sadly they were Wal-mart exclusive dolls and were sold in very limited quantities so I never had a chance to get them when they came out, and they have been nearly impossible to find secondhand since then so I have been searching for them for years to no avail lol

(photos from google, pls let me know if they belong to you) this is also my obligatory plea for anyone to let me know if they have these for sale or find them anywhere because I still desperately want the Kylie doll and an NIB set of both lol After getting the mini doll, I thought it would be a good time to repurchase the deluxe Transforming Merliah doll I had when I was a teenager- one of my favorite dolls back in the OG doll Flickr days! I've always loved her face and the general aesthetic of the line (but not necessarily the construction..we'll get to that later) so she's always been a favorite of mine.

(the time stamp is killing me lmao)

At first I decided to just get my hands on a singular used Merliah doll to reroot and a collection of all of her outfits from previous movies, but upon her arrival I was pretty shocked to open up the padded envelope and discover a completely squishy head with no glue!

(I also rooted extra hair into her head for thickness but that's beside the point lol) Turns out the earliest batches of the original Merliah doll (Including international versions) are glue-free, while later ones have gluehead. This is probably a result of Mattel not fully integrating the glue-head method for every single doll until about the middle of Monster High's original run, which is why certain batches of Mattel dolls from between 2008-2012 still have squishy heads despite glue head already being a thing. At this point I decided to start hunting for more glue-free Merliah dolls (going by vibes and prayers alone to figure out which ones had no glue) one for each outfit. Next up was an NIB Merliah that came in the international package (luckily also with no glue, especially because I paid an egregious amount of money to get her NRFB):

I also started working on a set of two Merliah mermaid dolls, using multiple parts combined together and a set of rerooted Merliah dolls with solid pink streaks (instead of the color change ones that she comes with). The original deluxe Merliah dolls are pretty infamous for having some of the worst looking tail construction, so if I wanted a set of good mermaid dolls I would have to get creative lol

(Mermaid Tale 1's tail turns into a beach coverup and MT2's tail turns into a literal surfboard...bye) They also made a set of 'budget' mermaid dolls with more traditional fabric tails, which serve as the primary base parts for my versions:

MUCH nicer tails, but their fins are really dinky and flimsy and they could both use some more details, and the dolls are ofc way too basic lol

Mermaid Tale 2 Merliah was the first to get going because I found the pieces I needed at a lower price than the ones I need for the original Merliah, but she's also still unfinished while I wait for her rerooted head to come lol First I made a mockup, using the budget tail with the deluxe doll fin just to make sure the parts would fit together :

Then my finished tail, with some added detail around the fin to look a bit more deluxe lol:

Gorg! And very headless (for now) I also switched out her legs with the standard hollow plastic beach feet legs that the budget Merliah dolls have, because I hate the legs she came with lol Original Merliah is definitely my favorite though, and the one who cost the most for me to put together (and also got the most love lol) and also got finished the soonest. My mockup for her:

Originally I planned to add a Fountain Mermaid Barbie fin to her tail in order to make it larger, but eventually decided on Secret Door Romy's fins for the bottom layer instead, because they look more cohesive to the rest of her tail/fin and look more 'official' instead of looking like...well a 1993 tail slapped on a 2009 doll lol Ofc she needed a reroot to start with (commissioned from 292millimeters on Instagram!):

And then I (very reluctantly, because it was like 80$ lol) purchased the budget mermaid Merliah doll, a used Secret Door Romy outfit for the fabric fins and a bag of fuschia hotfix gemstones and put her together!

I also switched the tiaras between the Original and MT2 doll because the pink tiara matches her better, and I think it makes more sense for the original mermaid form to be more muted and for the "upgraded" sequel form to be more colorful. The extra fin on the bottom really gives the tail that little bit of extra length it needed to look like an actual, legitimate Deluxe Merliah doll tail imo, as does the longer hair and the gem on her top! And if you don't think this is a vast improvement from the original Deluxe doll's outfit....well

It was lowkey a little painful to put my stock Merliah back into her mermaid form for this comparison but it had to be done, it's just so ugly!!! This was a really random project resulting from a very spur of the moment purchase of a 5$ doll, but I really love these dolls and this line, and it felt good to fulfill the wishes of 15-year old me-and all of the other collectors on Flickr bitd who were absolutely livid about Merliah's original tail being so incredibly bad lol I've been having a lot of fun with these "what if" projects I've been doing recently, it's only further proven to me that I am a much happier collector when I actually take my own time working on whatever interests me in that moment and put everything I have into fully realizing my vision to the smallest detail (even if it's for something as niche as this, and even if it costs more money than it should) instead of putting so much emphasis on dealing with the hell that is trying to keep up with and purchase every new doll, even at the expensive of my financial and mental health and even if it personally does absolutely nothing to enrich my collection or my creativity to be constantly worried about missing out on whatever new RH doll is out lol

#barbie #barbie in a mermaid tale #merliah #barbie in a mermaid tale 2 #mermaid

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raul-volp2 · 7 months

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Today is Wargroove 2 launch day! Gongrats to everyone that worke on what Im sure it's going to be a great game. My celebration is a fan art for the game with some custom art I made. And a little story of how Wargroove is important to me.

Wargroove is probably the main reason for me to become a pixel artist, since I saw the mockup of what would become Wargroove I fell in love with it, and resume my interest to pixel art, I always dabbled on it on and off though the years, but seeing the amazing art of Wargroove made me interest into know more about it, my main reference of modern pixel art was the work of Glaubler for Duelyst, and because of Wargroove I discover the modern pixel art scene, I end up buying Aseprite and the first studying it, using Wargroove style as reference. Eventually I end up leaving my job as Graphic Designer because they thought that making Batman tees on home office wasnt the same as making Batman tees at the office and that we should risk death by Covid, so with the pixel art skills I got (and a lot of luck) I was able to start to work as freelancer pixel artist and it's my job since them. So thanks Wargroove, for being this amazing game made by great people that changed my life... and it's also the only strategy game my gf plays with me, another big plus. =)

#pixelart #pixel #pixelartist #pixel art #pixel artisti #gameart #game art #game assets #gameassets #wargroove #fan art #chucklefish #raul_volp

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bonefall · 1 year

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I’d love to hear more about character stats

Here I made a mockup, putting down the fuzzy thoughts I approach every character with onto a sheet--

[ID: A Cat Stat sheet for Muddyclaw]

Basically, I'm breaking down every cat into a bunch of interesting little traits and thinking of them in the context of a bigger Clan. I also try to mentally note their "nyams," their friends and family, and treat all of these as equally important.

My favorite thing is the little 'badges' on the side. Like Fire Emblem, there are unlockable traits that give a character special bonuses. So for example, "Frog Hunter" would be a possible 'badge' they can equip that makes them better at hunting frogs.

The first slot is locked. Once they encounter a special skill, it's locked in and changing it always comes with a consequence. Usually this skill is totally unique to that cat! For example, I consider Goosefeather's Curse to be his Locked Badge! It's broken at the end of his life, but only after Bluestar snaps the thread of fate.

After becoming a warrior, two slots are unlocked, with two more opening up as a cat progresses into Standard Warrior, then Senior Warrior. You'll notice for Muddyclaw there's still two slots locked-- those are exclusively for a cat who's promoted to a senior position. Only leaders unlock the final badge.

The cat's name in both English and Clanmew is written, plus a more accurate translation if applicable. There's 5 stats, and you may pick 1 free specialty that it applies to. Dual-specialists must pick another skill to apply a harsh penalty to.

And lastly, inventory! A better belt or bag unlocks a new slot. I play pretty loose with inventory space, but I do consider it.

It's totally for fun, I just really like sorting data LMAO. I should probably just delete the bio section and use it for more general 'trivia' notes tbh... so many cool bits of info to track, man.

#better bones au #cat stats #bone babble

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whirligig-girl · 9 months

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Character design and step-by-step process for my Torchship Commission. It involved character design, posing, starship art, rendering, and a LOT of work. This is, so far, my biggest and best commission yet. I thought it might be interesting to look at how I went about drawing this.

Initial character design sketches to get the feel of the characters correct. I used more of a lower decks style especially in the eyes at this step, but they would be more detailed by the time i got to making the final drawing. I had to do Martin in color because of the psychic energy being in her head.

the actual line-art is pretty rough here. in retrospect a big part of that is simply the neck placement relative to the head. but that wasn't the point. the point is cool whispy aura/halo.

Iterating on the faces, putting them on bodies with relative heights Holmes is a career spacer and so very tall; Yureli is a martian, and martians are all very short. Also, I forgot Stevens' goatee, so that had to be added! The facial expression on Martin had to be changed to be more "bedroom eyes" as per client feedback. :P

note how Holmes' robot arm attaches to her spine down her back. The robot arm was not specified in the commission info, but I thought something that resembled a NASA rover robot arm, or maybe Canadarm, would be really cool and interesting.

Mockup with the sketch mostly finished. I was asked to lower Martin's ACER pistol to be more like a secret agent kinda pose.

And after more tweaks to placement and proportions and cleaning of lines, the finished sketch:

and then i realized I'd made a terrible mistake.

sorry i just noticed a bunch of technical errors in my previous sketch. this is so embarassing. i had to fix this. here's a fixed version

/joke.

Mary Gilham 32 was started on a separate project file. I started by tracing the basic proportions of the Mary Gilham from one of the reference renders I was sent, then I added a lot of the details. The warp rings were made by using the ellipse tool to construct the different pieces of the rings and move them into place; way better than freehanding it.

Now, I had procrastinated starting this project for a couple days, but by the time I actually got to working on it I could not stop. I had started the concept sketches at 2:44 PM and I finished the line-art and silhouette for the Mary Gilham at 10:48 PM. Job well done for the day, I went to bed.

And then got back out of bed because I couldn't sleep, lmao.

I finished the line-art for the characters, and the silhouettes.

and finally, at 1:00 in the morning, I sent this full color unshaded drawing and. surely i went to bed right?

...I sent this at 2:00 AM.

yeah my brain was broken. i spent another hour rendering the rocket. I considered just using the CGI render by Holly, but the visual mismatch would have been pretty bad. Plus, I like how I did the Cerritos in Guzcomic, still looking both metallic and realistically lit but also storybook kinda feel. The sunlight shading was simple enough, but making the self-illuminated parts of the ship shine was really cool. The glowing bits use a combination of normal blend modes and blurred Screen blend modes on top of the line-art layer to look a little like bloom. I'm not fully happy with the radiator illumination, it looks a little on the unconvincing side, but the radiator emissive glow looks great, and the illumination coming from the cloak ring and the warp rings looks great. By the way, the red glowing end-caps which look like star trek's bussard collectors are just big warning lamps indicating a radioactive nuclear or antimatter rocket. The nacelles are rocket tanks and engines; the warp drive is one of the big rings.

THEN i went to bed, for real this time.

In the morning all that remained was to add the flags on their shoulders and do the final shading/rendering on the crew.

[redacted spoilers about shading a really interesting texture]

and finally I finished the job. There were a few touches I saved for last, like rim highlighting from the engines on the characters, and colored reflections from each other's uniforms, but that didn't take too long. Oh, and Martin got her psychic energy being in the last hour too. Overall I worked from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM that day.

The final drawing has some easter eggs to look out for that would never appear in the format of a podcast thumbnail. So feel free to zoom in and look around. I like placing little easter eggs and visual gags in my art. :)

DM me for commission info. I need money to survive!

#commission #art #digital art #drawing #painting #Torchship #Torchship Podcast #Torchship: Forbidden Space #Spaceship #Cosmonaut

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j-ellyfish · 9 months

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on the topic of hetalia outside of the actual show/manga, can you attest to feeling ostracized for liking it? i’ve liked it for well over a decade, and any attempts to bring it up with friends and i just get laughed at or told it’s problematic. i have actually never known anyone who has liked it either, and i really wish i did because i feel like it’d be so much more fun with others. but now it’s just this super cringe/shameful/problematic thing. well, it’s kind of always been thought of that way, and i’m not forgetting how some of the very early content was a bit tasteless, but the vast majority of hetalia is pretty tame.

i’m so glad for the fandom but i feel like i never hear about it outside of that. sorry this turned into a bit of a vent, but i feel so weird that i have to hide my interest in it so i’m not ridiculed for a lighthearted comic. i think a lot of other early 2010s fandoms get the same treatment ofc, it reminds people of their embarassing teen years. but i am too old to want to give a shit anymore lol.

are we just hiding in plain sight everywhere? kinda funny to think about

Yes, definitely. As a premise, I think I am in a bit of a weird position where I don't feel super at ease in manga/anime communities in the first place because it's actually very, very rare for me to like one. So I feel kinda like an imposter, haha. As a kid, I loved the anime they would air on TV and I especially loved the art styles, which is why I started to try and imitate them when I drew (I have drawings I made at 5-6 where some rudimental anime features were already visible, most notably inspired by the Pokémon anime). I am very easy to drop any anime or manga I try, so it really requires for all the stars and planets to align for me to actually stick to one and obsess over it :'D

For this reason, I don't really have any friend irl who shares this interest with me, and my 'nerd online presence' only rarely breaks out of the 'fandom enclosures' I live in. Though, especially in the past, I did venture more often out of my circles and had confrontations with, well, the average anime/manga fan.

I remember back when I first got into Hetalia, I saw this video some jerk took at a Con where he'd go around asking cosplayers/fans questions related to the anime/manga they liked to see if they were 'good fans' or not. I felt like the Hetalia cosplayers they found were treated the worst. First of all, they were asked history questions which is a bit tricky and unfair in the first place, because it's like going up to a Dragonball fan and ask him about Wu Cheng'en's Journey To The West rather than about Dragonball's actual content. The interviewers also had this lowkey sexist aura to them like those girls, being girls, had to prove themselves smart enough despite being basically 'hopeless fujoshis' (you know, in the original offensive and sexist meaning of 'rotten girls'). Even in the comments, those poor girls were definitely made fun of and criticized more than anyone else in the video, and it was clear as the sun that the reason was the underlying sexism that permeates the mind of many cishet male anime/manga fans when it comes to shows that have an important chunk of female audience, treating us as shallow and stupid for shipping characters or thirsting over a male character (yet they do at least twice as bad with the average big tittied dere). This was, I think 2011 or 2012, and sure those Hetalia cosplayers not answering correctly a very easy history question didn't make them look good but fuck, they were there to have a good time with their friends, they weren't at school and I can only imagine the anxiety they felt at being questioned about their history knowledge simply for deciding to go around at a con with a fake curl on their wig and wearing a cheap mockup military uniform.

The saddest thing, though, is that way too many girls also used to (probably still do) shit on it based on the fact that it has a predominantly male cast and homoerotic undertones (this kind of girl also tends to shit on BL as a genre and stuff a-la-Free! simply for being aimed at a female audience, and on the other hand they seem to only engage in series full of objectified girls. I don't understand them, it feels like internalized mysogyny or pick-me-girl mentality to me). I will show here (translated) some lines from a couple Italian negative reviews Hetalia got. These are all likely from 2009~2012 because I have looked at that page a lot since the beginning and those reviews were already there:

[Male User] [...] What's the point of making yaoi-worthy protagonists if the audience of this show will clearly be male? It's about world wars metaphors and nationalism, come on! I highly doubt the female audience for this thing is wide. [Female User] [...] You'll wonder: how come such a thing got so many fans? The answer is easy: fanservice! The sole goal of Hetalia is to create thousands of cheapish bishounen ready to be piled up and bred in the perverted fantasies of yaoi-thirsty fangirlies! That's the point. It's 50-something male characters with endless fanfiction-worthy distasteful ships, created merely to make money. [...] Do you get it, the reason behind this success is the minds of thousands mentally ill little girls who love YAOI and fantasize about it. [...]

When I initially switched fandom from Pokémon to Hetalia, I remember trying to talk about it to some online friends I had but some of them started treating me with a bit of a raised eyebrow and prejudice because I liked it. I think I also had some stranger invalidate my opinion a couple times because they recognized my Hetalia pfp and treated me like a shallow stupid fangirl whose opinon is garbage. Aaand I also remember there being some ant*-Hetalia circles where they made fun of or even actively harassed Hetalia fans online. And the reason was almost always linked to 'rotten girl' mentality, not for stuff anywhere close to what purity police and "new-gen ant*s" do today.

I absolutely get your feelings, I feel the same, I too wish I didn't feel so anxious and scared at the idea of saying that I like Hetalia, but even when I cross path irl with an anime/manga fan, I am too scared of them turning out to be one of those people to feel safe saying that Hetalia is basically the only anime/manga I love. If I ever found a Hetalia fan out in the wild I would surely reach out to them first though, haha :') (no I'm joking I still have social anxiety but I would definitely try).

Truth is, the world is still full of Hetalia fans but as you said, we tend to hide in plain sight because we're worried of crossing path with some jerk who will shame us for it for whether the classic mysogynistic reasons or the new reasons ant*s came up with.

#ask

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pleuvoire · 11 months

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twice this morning on my dash i have seen an apparently cool photography or crafts project that i suspected was ai-generated and turned out to indeed be, and i thought hmm this is still cool i would like to reblog it. but i felt conflicted about it because #thecontroversy and i wonder if people would be mad at me. but i really feel that the best use of ai image generation is to create visual mockups of interesting combinations of concepts, as an artistic project. like those baroque sneakers that were going around a while back. or one of the ones i saw this morning which was quiltwork depicting sushi. both of those were visually pretty and interesting to look at and had an interesting and creative idea behind them, and also had clearly taken some human refining and shaping to make sure all the details were consistent, so i consider this to be art, or at the very least a neat and creative thing to look at. but i am nervous of #thecontroversy

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tuftypompom · 5 months

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Update on the Chapter 3 Mock Stuff + Some Other Stuff!!

Hey all! It's me, your favorite purple goat with a booty stank upload and sleep schedule, Pompom!

Ever since the newsletter Toby had published on Halloween, I have started to feel less and less encouraged towards continuing my mock Chapter 3 content. On top of lacking any sort of consistent motivation towards making music like I used to have, it seems like we're nearing the release of Chapter 4 sometime within the next couple of years. Now, that's exciting, for sure! And, while it may seem like a long time, it's been, like, almost half a year since my last uploads, LIGHT THE LIGHTS and Written in Stone, and, while I certainly feel better than I had during that time, there's no denying that I still lack so much of the creative potential I once held, and I'm afraid my motivation has been so lacking, that I can't fathom when I'll ever feel the same again. I would kill to upload consistently again sometime, but it really does feel like I have to be on this little forced hiatus. Darn you, brain!

Well- Apologies for the pseudo vent post! But I only bring this up because, due to these complications, I've decided to just drop what I have now here. This doesn't mean I'll never pick these back up, but I feel terrible for leaving my last upload five months in the past, and I haven't really added anything major to any of these tracks since, well, forever ago! So, if it's something you're interested in, these three are among the primary tracks I was developing for my mock Chapter 3.

"Obligatory Field Area"

Obviously, this track holds no title. I mean, technically speaking, none of them do, but the other two I just decided to play along with the existing naming schemes of Deltarune character tracks (Like "Queen", or "Lancer" (But is that called "I'm the Bad Guy?" I don't really know...)). Meant to be the primary area of the mock chapter, resembling a similar, sprawling "field" to that of Hopes & Dreams and Cyber, this is where you would, inevitably, meet Tenna. The art was just a quick mockup I made and never expanded upon, so excuse the poor quality.

Mike

A (very short) song doodle I was making for Mike, the day host (Think of him and Tenna like Nickelodeon and Nick @ Nite, or Cartoon Network and Adult Swim!). Mike holds a more mature, thoughtful attitude and is much less of a "threat" to the Lightners. Even if he has a notably short temper, he knows how to keep his cool and to remain with his stage face on! Instead of directly stopping the Lightners, he more so just likes fooling with them to keep his audience entertained. That is until partway into the chapter, when a mysterious foe comes to bust the party and kick Mike off the stage...

Tenna

A theme for the Big T himself, Tenna! He's a lot more, uhm.. Obnoxious? Than Mike? Being the night host, he holds a more brash attitude for his more mature audiences, and is a lot less thoughtful than Mike. There's not a lot else to say about him, as that's all I've really had in mind up to now, lol. Probably my favorite theme out of the three, though; Obviously, it's kind of a re-take of my previous "Mike" theme that was just made for funsies.

And that's it, really! Those are the three big songs I was doodling out before my brain said, "No." Perhaps sometime in the future I'll pick these back up and continuing developing my ideas. Thankfully, other than music, I've still been trying to get some stuff done, including prototyping various game ideas pseudo-privately. I do anticipate uploading on Tumblr more, I've just never really had a reason to do so as of yet, lol. Sometime, though, I'd love to eventually start posting about my coding projects, and maybe my art. I've never really worked with social media platforms before, admittedly, but I'll definitely try to at least consider branching out and experimenting more with Tumblr going forward.

Thank you all for the continued support! I hope to continue posting sometime, whether it be about music, coding, or whatever.

#deltarune #chapter 3 #toby fox #fwugradiation #tenna #mike #music #lmms #update

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the-bjd-community-confess · 2 years

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I was an active faceup artist for years, took intl. commissions and all. I was forced to go on a hiatus due to moving for work and health reasons. I feel better now and my life is stable, and I still get a lot of requests to open up shop again, but I just...I just can't. Working on my own stuff, and having a day job that covers my living costs, made me realize how much I actually dread it towards the end.

It's just not worth it for how little a faceup artist earns in this hobby, and how much one has to do to even get that meager payment. Hours and hours of leaning over a tiny head, destroying my back/eyes/wrists in the process. On top of that I do Photoshop mockups, take a lot of WIP and final photos, have to discuss matters with the customer, handle shipping and customs. Materials are expensive, and sometimes difficult to get. Even when a commission goes smoothly it's still a lot of work for very little pay. And often it doesn't even go well!

No matter how hard I try to reduce any risks/issues, I still have customers who try their hardest to make the whole commission an absolute nightmare to deal with. Like thinking it's okay to change their mind in the middle of the commission, as if it's no big deal and I should just start over (for free, of course). Hounding me for updates several times a day, even though I had just received the head a day ago and am extremely open about my schedule (like only painting on weekends). Approving WIP shots, and later admitting they actually disliked something early on but deciding not to tell me. Arguing about my prices, as if I am not already crazily undervaluing my own work out of fear of being harassed. Wanting me to change my style completely, and then being pissed when my work looks like...well, my work. Not replying to messages for a long time, and then complaining about how long the commission takes. On a more heartbreaking note, showing absolutely no enjoyment or enthusiasm throughout the whole commission and leaving me doubting whether I made them happy and did a good job. Never confirming they actually received a package.

And what for in the end? 60, 70, maybe 100 bucks per head when the customer is nice and willing to pay so much? Health issues? My own doll projects waiting to be finally customized by me? In other doll communities customizers are treated so highly, just look for how much Blythe customs go and that weird cult-like fanbase some artists have. But BJD faceup artists are just seen as little painting robots. Good enough to help you get that perfect face for your doll, but not good enough to be paid a decent wage or be treated with some respect. A lot of people don't even think of what we do as art. And I am not interested in the drama if I would open up "artist choice, 300$ per faceup, I decide who gets the slot" commissions. The community is just not made for that.

Sure, I made good experiences too. It felt nice to help people own the doll of their dreams, or to make that character they wanted for their doll come alive. I had some great customers that were a joy to work with. Creative, patient, friendly customers. Commissions I felt helped me greatly to get better at my craft. Moments of warm fuzzy feelings when a customer received their doll and was just so happy about the face-up. Interesting dolls I was happy to see in real life, or ideas I just thought were great and wanted to execute.

But all this isn't enough to make me return. I dealt with this all for a very long time cause I needed all the extra funds I could get, but I just can't muster up the energy anymore. I feel bad for my nice customers who had hoped to commission me again, and all the new people who just found my work and are sad they can't commission me anymore.

Sorry guys, offering commissions just sucks.

~Anonymous

#BJD #ABJD #BJD Confessions #Community Confessions #Faceup Artists #Faceups #Commissions

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grimm-rider · 1 year

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Entry 13

After Master Keisuke responded to my message, I immediately messaged him back apologizing for the misunderstanding. He assured me he was no coconspirator with the Dominion, and asked what in our gods’ names I was doing on Triaxus. I explained to him that there were some items we needed here, and so the Dancing Hut had brought us here.

Master wished me luck with that, noting that I was bloodied from our last encounter according to the clasp’s magic. He mused that he’d wondered where that clasp had gone, as his child had lost it. I assume he likely means another of his flesh puppets when he refers to his child.

For the time being I left the clasp on, but didn’t send another message. I knew I would have more to talk to Master Keisuke about later, but I’d prefer some privacy for that. While I was talking to him during this, Aenland was trying to talk to me through the Stone of Farspeech, asking who was on the other end and what was going on, and I had to shush him for interrupting my conversation. And even if that weren’t distracting, there were things I didn’t want overheard.

Until then, we gathered up what items we’d found in Malesinder’s camp and then returned back to Spurhorn. We reported in to Commander Pharamol, informing her that it appeared a much larger force was meant to be gathered at the camp than what we’d seen. It was likely Ivoryglass had an entire standing army guarding it—and that once they’d regrouped they would launch a much larger siege on the fortress. Commander Pharamol decided this meant time was of the essence, and asked if she could send her forces along with us to Ivoryglass. We gladly accepted—we could hardly take out an entire standing army by ourselves. We’re good, but even the best have limits.

Until then, we decided the spend the afternoon heading back to the Dancing Hut to restock on supplies at Glagonargs. Edeya teleported us there. I sold our loot and divided up the gold we’d earned, then made a beeline for the strange interdimensional shop.

I finally had enough for the item I’d been wanting to get since our encounter with the hags and their nightmare shadow horses in Artrosa.

I bought what I’d come for, then returned to the upper floor of the Hut and found Greta. I pulled her aside, taking her to the peace and quiet of the forested section of the garden near my room. She asked what this was all about. I told her I had something for her. I quickly explained that I knew that normally you waited to give a ring to someone until you were proposing, and this was a bit early in our relationship for that, but I thought this would be useful for her none-the-less. She offered her hand anyways in a mockup of being proposed to, and I slipped the ring on her finger. A Ring of Fire Resistance. And not a weak one, either. I sprung for one that would keep her well protected.

Greta said she’d been getting a bit desensitized to fire with how much we’d had to deal with it—and other life-threatening things in general—but that it would make her feel better to have my protection against it. She said it was the nicest gift anyone had ever given her. (I assume that’s not counting the gauntlets I risked my sanity for, but that’s beside the point.)

We talked a bit more, then I went to find Edeya—or more specifically I went to find Illivor, who I knew would be with Edeya. Edeya made a bit of a show of talking about how everyone wanted to talk to Illivor now that she could talk to us, but Illivor said afterwards when I asked that Edeya was actually fine, and she knows Edeya best so I must assume that’s accurate.

I asked Illivor if she knew anything about Queen Elvana having children kidnapped from small villages on the outskirts of Irrisen when she was the head of the Winter Witches. Illivor confirmed that, while she was never a direct part of it, she did know of it. Some of the children were given to people like Nazhena, or to creatures like hags as bargaining chips. Others Queen Elvana took a special interest in, but Illivor didn’t know why exactly or what was done with them. She had found since being reincarnated that there was a lot she hadn’t known when she worked for Elvana—chief among it being her plan to freeze the world and bring back the former queens of Irrisen to rule over it.

She asked me then why I had asked about the kidnappings, so I told her the truth. That I had nearly been kidnapped on one occasion, and had been kidnapped on another—and I didn’t remember what had happened during the time when I had been kidnapped, only that it was probably something bad if the nightmares afterwards had anything to say about it. Illivor agreed that it was probably something bad—and that it probably didn’t bode well that I was the only child who had been found alive. That probably was not the blessing it appeared to be. I agreed. I’ve long since given up any illusions that it was luck or the will of the gods that got me out of there alive. If I survived, I was used for something and they wanted me to remain alive afterwards.

And I felt drawn back to Irrisen for years afterwards when my parents fled. And like a sailor to a siren’s song I walked right into the choppy ocean willingly.

But I’ve gained so much from coming to Irrisen. I would have lived a life of mediocracy and meaninglessness in Ustalav. Here I’ve rubbed elbows with royalty and met myths and faced a Demon Lord and gone to another planet and gained unimaginable power and met Greta. Whatever they might have done to me, whatever lured me back…it was well worth it.

Illivor and I got to talking about her using my Slay Living spells. She seems to quite enjoy that—although she seemed to have a moment in which she paused and considered that maybe she shouldn’t. I think she and Edeya think about these things too much and overcomplicate things, but to each their own. She talked about something about forming an empathic link with each of us. I stopped her there, talking about how weird the empathic link I already had with Talsune felt. How uncomfortable it felt to feel someone else’s emotions.

Illivor suggested that I don’t use my own emotions enough. I argued that I do use my emotions. She looked about as skeptical as a fairy dragon could, and asked if I really do. I told her I didn’t know how to be any other way. I’m as emotional as I can possibly be. She said to take it from her, that emotions are like a muscle, you have to stretch it or it atrophies, and when you use it again it feels wrong, like pins and needles—or like I had said about feeling Talsune’s emotions being ‘itchy’.

I will…take it under advisement. But I really don’t know how I’m supposed to ‘use my emotions’ more than I already do.

After that talk with Illivor, she went off to find Greta to do some training with her, and I went back to my room. To talk to Master Keisuke some more.

I contacted him, informing him about the strange vision I’d had in the Eon Pit, and asking him how it was that he was acquainted with Nestian. Master Keisuke told me that he’d gotten onto Nestian’s family’s bad side, and had killed one of them to make a point. “You know how it is,” he’d said.

Do I? I suppose so. Sometimes you need to intimidate or cow an opponent, and a grand show of force is the best way to get things across. It’s not like I’ve never done the same. The only difference here is that it was family and it was Nestian.

I agreed in the moment that I understood, but that Nestian would not. He valued family above everything else. He would try to kill Master Keisuke if he found out—and if he did, Aenland and likely Edeya would help. I don’t think Master took this as seriously as he should have, merely shrugging it off as ‘it wouldn’t be the first time one of your friends had tried to kill me’, and noting that he wouldn’t have done what he did if he’d known I’d be travelling with Nestian in the future. But it was done, so he said the best option would be for me to keep quiet about it so that it didn’t come to blows. I agreed.

I suppose The Reaper of Reputation will be pleased that I have such a dire secret to keep now. I…almost wish I didn’t know it. I can’t even tell Greta this one. If there’s any chance of it getting back to Nestian, everything is going to fall apart. The others will try to kill Master Keisuke, and I won’t help them. But I won’t be able to fight against them because of the Geass on us. There will be no coming back from it, either way. If Master is so powerful he can fight against all three of them and survive, then I will be screwed because I’ll have to finish The Black Rider’s mission by myself. If Master is not powerful enough to fight them, whether he's killed or escapes them, the others won’t trust me anymore.

I suppose there’s also the option where I tell Nestian and no one in the group is mad at me, but then I’m fucking over Master Keisuke, and I’m not willing to do that. I owe him too much to just up and stab him in the back. I know Nestian and Aenland have saved my life before too, on a few occasions, but it’s not really the same as actually bringing me back from the dead and setting me on the path that would go on to define my entire life.

Keisuke said after this is over I could join his family while I help him seek Mythic Power. And that is kind of what it feels like. Family. Not that I’ve ever put that much stock in family. I mean…I love my parents, don’t get me wrong, they’ve never done wrong by me. They saved me from that old crone who tried to kidnap me and uprooted their lives to leave Irrisen to get away from the threat of me being kidnapped again. They’re good parents. But they had no ambitions, and they had no ambitions for me either. I wanted more than their simple life in Ustalav could offer. Master Keisuke gives me that. He encourages my ambition, he guides it, and he’s yet to tell me anything I’m aiming for is too dangerous or impossible to be worth reaching for.

I asked Master if he knew anything about what I had been doing as Baba Yaga’s rider in the past year. There was a long pause this time, before he responded that you usually don’t work for the person you’re trying to assassinate.

My heart sank like a stone at that. I had been trying to assassinate Baba Yaga? How incredibly stupid was I? This was possibly far worse than just betraying Baba Yaga to Queen Elvana. Had I taken up the mantle of a rider just to get close to her, to try to find a weakness? And then perhaps Elvana discovered that our goals aligned, and that’s how I ended up working with her. Because if Baba Yaga disappeared forever, it was about as good as assassinated. Not in Norgorber’s eyes obviously, but in the eyes of a mortal contract it would do.

I asked Master Keisuke if there was anything else he could tell me about the last year, because I was still piecing things together bit by bit and I still knew so little. He offered to tell me about how we’d met. I gladly took the offer.

He said he’d found me in that cave in a sorry state. Dead and decaying I would assume. But Master Keisuke said he could positively smell the potential on me. Like recognizes like. So he resurrected me, got my vitality back up, and in time he introduced me to the beliefs of Norgorber. Then he took me a a sect of worshippers—but they didn’t like me apparently. They said I belonged to Urgathoa.

Looking back, I wish I’d asked Master about that. He’s also a necromancer, but they were fine with him, so clearly ‘belongs to Urgathoa’ didn’t refer to me using necromancy. I’ll have to ask him what he meant next time we talk.

Master tried to convince the head of the cult to give me a chance, and finally he agreed to give me a test. One assassination, one target.

Unfortunately, it turned out that target was Baba Yaga.

They intended the mission to be impossible, obviously. They really didn’t want me in their little club. Well, joke’s on them, I’m doing just fine worshipping Norgorber without them, and I’ve probably killed a lot more people in a lot shorter time too.

Master Keisuke had assumed he would never see me again after I set out. He assured me that he killed the entire cult for their insolence towards him for doing this to me. Which is kind of touching, but also I kind of wish they were still alive so I could get revenge on them myself for the slight. Oh well. Dead is dead, I suppose.

Master said that he hoped that once I was safely back on Golarian that I would meet with him and have a conversation in person. I agreed that I looked forward to finally getting to meet face-to-face again. He told me to contact him once I was back on Golarian, as he had ways to travel—albeit not with as much freedom as ‘that fungal freak’.

At that, I asked him how he knew Xanthadon. I knew from Jairess’ account how they’d met, but I still didn’t know why Xanthadon and Master had been so intent on trying to kill each other. Master Kaisuke told me that she was an enemy of his own making by mistake. He had been exploring one of her mushroom forests on a lead about Mythic Power—a dead end—when Xanthadon had attacked him out of nowhere accusing him of having tried to kill her younger self. Now, with what happened in the Eon Pit, he believed he understood where the wires got crossed. He mentioned that was the trouble with time travel. But you just had to make the best of it and sometimes you could spin things to your advantage. Or as he put it, spin around nine times and vola.

I agreed, I’d seen as much first hand with our time travel escapades. Master Keisuke asked me to expand on that comment. I noted that he had seen us in the Eon Pit, so he knew just how much we’d been meddling with the timeline. He pointed out that the Eon Pit was a place of distorted time, not really what he was talking about. He did wonder what had become of the warden, Jadrenka. Probably scattered across time now, he assumed.

I could barely keep from laughing to myself as I replied, yes, probably. Unless someone talked ti Baba Yaga and convinced her to not make Jadrenka the warden in the first place.

There was silence on Master Keisuke’s end for a long moment once again, before he asked in a clearly stunned voice ‘you talked down Baba Yaga?’

I grinned even though he couldn’t see me, and responded by reminding him that he’d said himself that I had a force of personality. Master said he was starting to see how I had survived the last year.

If I had survived the last year, he added. After all, we both knew that death wasn’t necessarily the end of things, didn’t we?

We closed the conversation on that note.

He makes a good point. The last thing I remember was the moment I died a year ago. What if I had died again, bookending the year and the memory loss? It would explain why I woke up in a grave. But how did I wake up, if that were the case? There was no Master Keisuke there raising me this time. I was alone, with a bunch of dead bodies that looked like they were probably bandits. I’d always kind of assumed they’d been making me dig my own grave from the context clues, but I could be wrong. I have no idea what killed all of them. If I was as powerful as I am now—or more powerful—then you’d think it would have been me, but then why would I have even dug the grave? I could probably kill a bunch of lowly bandits with one circle of death now, and seeing as I’m still slowly remembering the spells I’ve forgotten, who knows what other deadly abilities I had that I don’t yet recall.

Maybe I hired the bandits for protection, and whatever killed me killed them too. But why would I hire bandits? Well, I guess Rokar had bandits working for him. Bandits are easy minions for a necromancer who wants someone living to follow them.

I guess there’s also the possibility that they’d already been dead, and I had been using their bodies before then. I lean towards skeletons now because they seem…cleaner. And bloody skeletons regenerate. And monsters turned into skeletons are bigger and more intimidating and powerful than shambling human zombies. But seeing as Master Keisuke taught me necromancy, maybe I did use zombies before, seeing as he uses flesh puppets. It seems reasonable to assume I might have taken after him more in my style of necromancy with my memories intact. I’m honestly a little surprised I haven’t yet remembered how to use flesh puppet or flesh puppet horde—but a little glad to not waste the magic, because I don’t intend to use those spells for the reasons listed above. I’m just not likely to use a disguised zombie compared to a large monstrous skeleton.

Or perhaps, more elegantly, a skeletal champion in the near future…

Anyways, it was not long after I finished speaking with Keisuke that the others finished up their various shopping trips, and we reconvened. Jadrenka had given us a number of spell scrolls, which we gave to Edeya to learn from—all but one teleport scroll, which she was going to use for our return trip to Spurhorn.

Unfortunately, I think there may have been an issue in the reading of the scroll. Because as we teleported, for a moment we seemed to get stuck in nothingness, before we got shunted out onto the battlements of Spurhorn. Everything stung, like lightning had shot through my veins.

Fortunately, we had a night to sleep it off before it was time to march on Ivoryglass.

The march on the enemy base was almost disappointingly uneventful. Those of us with dragonkin companions flew, while those of us with others means of flying used that. Edeya sat in the cauldron with Nestian, while Greta used the wings of flying. The effect of a silver haired beauty with those white wings looked positively angelic. That she carried a greataxe with careless ease and could cut a man down with a single swing merely meant she would be an angel of war if she really were one.

The only thing we saw on our travels were some strange birds down below.

We eventually made camp. We hadn’t done a forced march, concerned that exhausting our troops would lead to greater casualties or maybe even a total defeat against the larger force. So instead it was going to take two days to arrive to Ivoryglass.

As the soldiers were setting up camp, Talsune and Nevra heard someone calling for help in the Triaxian tongue.

Obviously the others were going to help without hesitation, so I did as well. We flew across the ice field and found a different sort of Triaxian than the cat-like people we’d been dealing with in Spurhorn and who made up Yrax’s army. This person looked like what you’d get if a Winter Wolf was smaller and bipedal. She was an adlet, we later found out, and the shaman of a tribe of other such people.

In that moment, however, she was in grave danger, surrounded by three giant mantis-like insects with saliva that was bitter cold dripping from their mandibles.

Nestian lead the charge, cutting off the leg of the nearest giant insect, drawing its attention away from its current prey. Greta followed suit, charging in and bringing down her axe on the other nearest mantis.

Unfortunately, the third still had its attention focused on the adlet shaman. It struck her multiple times, although she was still standing and managed to swipe off the icy spittle from herself before it frosted over and impeded her movement.

Aenland flew around to the side and had Nevra shoot a blast of electricity through the two already injured insects. Then he began firing. The one Nestian had hurt fell, dead, and the one Greta had damaged was on its last lets, clinging to life by only the force of its fury. Talsune and I flew in and breathed a blast of fire, killing that one infront of Greta and injuring the last one standing. Then I grabbed it with Boneshaker and dragged it away from the shaman, giving her a little room to maneuver—and Edeya a little room to heal her.

Not that it mattered, as a moment later Nestian moved in and sliced through the giant insect, spraying freezing blood across the snow-covered ground.

Edeya ran over to the adlet shaman and began healing her. As she did, the shaman spoke to us. She introduced herself as Baknarla, and told us that she had been searching for us. Apparently her people had a legend about how a group of heroes from beyond the stars would descend in the tribe’s time of need to slay the dragon tyrant and return their sacred lands to them—the lands were Ivoryglass now stood.

Baba Yaga’s rider twice over (ignoring the whole assassination thing) and prophesized hero of a tribe of people on an alien planet. If I hadn’t known from the start that I was meant to do something great, the universe sure has been screaming it over the last month.

Baknarla told us that she wanted to retrieve a sacred artifact from the tomb of one of her people’s heroes, to bring to her people and show them that the heroes of their legend had come and were going to slay Yrax and that it was time to return to their sacred lands.

This tomb also just so happened to have a tunnel running straight to Ivoryglass in it. Two birds, one stone.

Obviously, we agreed. We’d needed a back door into Ivoryglass from the start. The main entrance was a deathtrap. Helping a pretty wolf woman get her people’s sacred artifact back was just a bonus.

Random aside, she recognized Greta as a fellow wolf immediately despite her human guise. Apparently just like when I used the Rimepelt, she still has the scent of a Winter Wolf, even when using the gauntlets to take on a human form.

We decided to bring Baknarla with us back to camp, so we could prepare and let Commander Pharamol know the new plan of action. We were going to go clear out the Rimekeening Crevice that day, so that we could rest afterwards and head to Ivoryglass refreshed without having used whatever resources it would take to clear out the tunnels.

Pharamol said it would be best if we went through the tunnels alone, without the army, as that was an ideal ambush point and it would be easier for us to get out of such an attack then an entire army if it came to that. We agreed, and headed out.

Baknarla led the way to the Rimekeening Crevice. It quickly became apparent what the ‘keening’ was—the wind occasionally sounded like a woman’s mournful crying. I found myself wishing the place was haunted. At least I knew how to deal with haunts and ghosts and the undead. When it was just unsettling sounds, somehow that was worse.

We paused partway through the crevice, seeing two behir who seemed agitated. We decided to try to sneak past them. We managed it, and on the way past I saw that they were guarding a single egg that was heavily cracked in places—it wouldn’t be long before the baby behir had emerged from within. This was why the parents were so agitated, they were guarding their nest moments before the baby’s birth. We decided to leave them to it—they would likely clear out once the egg had hatched, behirs didn’t stick around their nests after birth.

We kept walking, through a cavern of crystalline structures. All was calm and rather beautiful, until I spotted some unusual crystals ahead. They blended well with their surroundings, but I happened to make out that the structure of the crystals didn’t quite match those surroundings them, and the color was a bit off, and something clicked in my head. Carnivorous crystals. I had Talsune flare his wings and told everyone to stop—just in time as the crystalline oozes leapt down to attack, avoiding being right under them for an ambush.

Unfortunately, as they landed they made the worst noise as the crystal pieces scraped across each other. I felt my body seize up, my dagger falling from my grasp as I instinctually brought my hands up to my ears. I only kept from falling off Talsune’s back because Talsune himself helped to keep me balanced, angling his wings to help keep me upright.

Everything was a blur after this. There was movement, the noise of metal against crystal over and over. When I finally snapped out of my daze, Talsune had moved us across the battlefield, apparently attacking the oozes with his blade rather than with fire, as they heavily resisted fire. Aenland had shot enough arrows into one to kill it from the looks of the pile of crystal with arrows jutting out of it. The other, facing Nestian and Talsune, was on its last legs—well, metaphorically given its lack of any appendages.

It attacked Nestian, but he managed to not get locked in a crystalline prison when it hit him. Then he counter attacked, and smashed the living crystal to bits.

We gathered up some gemstones, and continued on our way.

Eventually we found ourselves in narrower passages. As we entered a small chamber Nestian warned us to get ready, because something was coming up from below. We scattered so as to not be right above it.

A giant frost worm burst from beneath the ice.

Unfortunately, Nestian hadn’t expected two, as a second one burst from the ground and shot a chilling breath that caught myself, Talsune, and Nestian.

Talsune was desperately injured from that single attack. I felt panic rise in my chest. One more attack like that—like, say, from the other worm that hadn’t attacked yet—and I didn’t think my new partner would survive. Or, worse, the potential of the creatures’ icy death throes causing a fatality. I called out, informing the others that I was going to put up a barrier and not to kill the worms until I’d finished.

Good timing, because a volley of arrows from Aenland down the hallway nearly laid one of the worms low, and did a number on the second one. If he’d focused even one more arrow on that first worm, it probably would have popped in a deadly burst of ice shards.

Nestian swing his axe around and did a number of attacks on the worm infront of him, but like Aenland he was careful not to kill it before I’d finished casting my spell.

I erected a wall of bones, cutting myself and Talsune off from the Frost Worms. The only opening was a small in the side, between the actual wall and the bone wall, just big enough for Edeya to get through so she could reach Talsune to heal him. In the meantime I gave him a potion to stave off some of the damage.

Right on time, Edeya darted into my little fortress and began healing Talsune. As she did, there was a horrific sound of wind and ripping bone and shattering ice as part of the wall was obliterated by the first ice worm’s breath attack. That part of the wall was gone, but it had served its purpose.

Then Aenland began firing arrows again. The first worm popped. Ice shards flew into what was left of the wall, and through the opening the icy breath had made. Talsune and I were protected by what was left of the wall, but next to us, Edeya was hit by dagger-sharp shards of ice and bitter cold.

A moment later the second one popped as Aenland shot an arrow into it as well. More shards of ice flew everywhere. This time they hit myself and Talsune as well, although we were prepared now and dodged the worst of it. Unfortunately, Edeya—so used to just taking the cold with no consequences, didn’t dodge in time. Once again glass-like shards of ice pelted every spot of exposed skin. She was so bloodied when it was over.

The room fell quiet.

We all needed to heal and lick our wounds after that fight—no one had gotten out uninjured, not even Aenland and Nevra, who had been shooting arrows from down the hall and yet still got a full blast from one of the worm’s death throes.

After I finished patching myself up, while everyone else was waiting to be healed by Edeya one-by-one, I informed them that I had a spell that I wanted to cast on everyone after seeing how close we’d come to having people go down in that fight. I’d forgotten about it until just then, it was one I’d recently learned, not one I’d remembered, so I guess it isn’t really habit to me like some of my other spells.

I requested a little bit of blood from everyone. The others complied with neither complaint nor questions, a pleasant surprise. I had expected they would at least want an explanation of what the spell did before they’d offer up their blood, but it would seem either none of them are terribly attached to their blood, or they all trust me enough to not do anything with it they wouldn’t want.

That feels weird. Being given that level of trust.

Afterwards I explained that if anyone went down, this spell, Life Pact, would help to keep them stable, and possibly even bring them back to consciousness depending on how injured they were. It would take a very small portion of the others’ vitality and give it to the injured party.

Once everyone was done healing, we continued forward. Perhaps a little more cautiously then before—although I don’t know that any amount of caution would have helped to prevent how things had gone with those worms.

Farther down the tunnel we found a fork in the path. Baknarla told us that one path led to Ivoryglass. But the spirits were guiding her down the other path.

Seeing as we hadn’t yet found the spear she was looking for, it would seem we still had more to do in these caves before we could consider these tunnels well and truly clear.

So we continued, until we came to the final chamber. A dead end with a wall of ice, within which two Battleflowers were frozen. Only one figure stood in the room. When he turned around, the man was clearly undead—his gaunt noseless face and bald head with sunken eyes gave the impression that his face was a skull. Some memories surfaced. Bone Sage. An alien race of undead from the planet Eox that bear a strong resemblance to liches. They typically work with the Dominion of the Black.

As if to confirm my suspicions, the Bone Sage spoke. He asked what had become of Dr Galithazar’s experiment, and how well had it functioned? I told him that we had destroyed it easily. He asked what the flaw in it was, why had it not lived up to expectations. I told him we were simply too powerful for it.

Like I was giving him any data he could actually work with.

The Bone Sage nodded, then turned and summoned a giant worm in what appeared to be clerical vestments. At the same time I shot a warning to Edeya in her mind as I saw movement above—a moment too late for her to react as a Roper dropped from the ceiling onto her head.

Aenland acted quickly, shooting a volley of arrows into the Bone Sage. I could see he was using the Undead Bane arrows I had given him—and he seemed to have drawn upon his family’s spirits to make his bow holy on top of that. That had to have stung like hell.

The Bone Sage definitely gave Aenland a nasty look, and while he didn’t look like he was on his last legs like a normal creature would after taking that many arrows from Aenland, he was certainly bleeding now. Or what would have been blood if he were a normal creature. He was leaking some sort of liquid of a color that wasn’t a normal blood color.

Before any of the rest of us could act, the worm started ranting about a ‘feast’ and turned around towards the ice wall, casting Sacred Flames to melt the wall and release the two Battleflowers within. One immediately made a beeline for Nestian, kicking him and trying to stun our bear friend, but he managed to hold his ground.

The other cast confusion over us.

Which at the time made no sense. Battleflowers weren’t spellcasters.

We all managed to shrug off the confusion effect—although Edeya had to reach out to Nestian with her Black Rider power to snap him out of it.

I decided to act before they could pull any more tricks. Talsune swooped up, over the others’ heads, and lined up the Bone Sage and the worm, breathing out a stream of flame. Unfortunately the Bone Sage dodged it entirely with unnaturally swift movement. The worm, however, caught ablaze.

I decided, if things he could dodge wouldn’t do any good, then I’d just overpower him with something he’d have to try resisting instead. I channeled a Slay Living through the pocket watch to empower it, then jumped from Talsune’s back and darted towards the Bone Sage. Not fast enough. The worm lunged forward and grabbed me in its enormous maw, pulling me into the air and away from the Bone Sage.

Without my original target, I decided to hit the worm instead, letting the dark fire from my hand burn over the worm as he drew me into the air.

At the same time I heard Greta yell something about how only she was allowed to bite me, before bringing an axe down on the worm. I love that woman.

…

Anyways.

The worm was about to swallow me whole, when a number of arrows shot through it, and it crumpled. Aenland didn’t even pause after killing the worm, turning and killing the Roper which was still on Edeya’s head and which had severely damaged Talsune, sapping his strength with its tentacles. Then he started shooting arrows at the Battleflower Nestian was in combat with—only to have an arrow thrown back at him. He was more than a little testy about that.

Getting him to warm up to Cesseer is going to be almost as hard as getting him to not shoot Master Keisuke.

The Battleflower stepped away from Nestian—towards me, swinging and kicking at me in a flurry. Not for the first time I was glad I had my bone armor, it was the only thing that kept half his attacks from connecting in any meaningful way. I managed to hold my own, not falling stunned from his strikes. Then I gave back as good as I took, managing to keep my focus up to cast a spell defensively, then releasing a Harm spell on the Battleflower—leaving him on his last legs as the intense negative energy engulfed him. Then I tried to finish him off with a simple Inflict Light Wounds, but he deflected my hand away despite all his injuries being nearly debilitating.

It didn’t matter. A moment later Nestian brought his axe down on the Battleflower.

And then something horrific happened.

A creature squirmed its way out of the Battleflower’s body. It looked like a brain with four stubby clawed legs. It was absolutely vile. Nestian brought his axe down on the thing, but it stayed standing. I called over to Greta, asking her if she could smash this absolutely loathsome thing. She agreed that it was disgusting, and threw the full force of her axe onto it, splattering the brain-like matter.

Only one Battleflower was left—hiding behind a barrier to keep magic out, so I wasn’t going to be useful for this. Aenland shot a number of arrows into the monk, until his body slumped on the ground and once more the strange brain-like creature emerged, like some horrific butterfly from its cocoon. Talsune tried breathing fire on it, but apparently it’s immune to fire on top of hiding behind an anti-magic barrier.

Not that it mattered. Between the arrows Aenland had left, and Nestian moving in and cutting it straight down the middle, the vile thing died all the same.

Baknarla gathered up the spear she was going to return to her people, and offered us some items should we have use for them. We agreed in appreciation.

I was a bit distracted though, to be honest. I was still thinking about those Battleflowers with the brain things inside of them.

Well…more specifically I was thinking about a different Battleflower, and worrying that she might be in danger of having the same happen to her.

Still, we returned to camp, as we needed a rest after the events of that day. Aenland had been drained by something that Bone Sage had done after I’d been grabbed by the worm, and then the Sage had apparently teleported out with the promise that we’d see him in Ivoryglass. Talsune’s strength had been sapped by the Roper and I was going to need to heal that with a Restoration I’d picked up from a Page of Spell Knowledge in Malesinder’s camp. Lucky timing. I suppose I could ask Edeya to do it as our resident healer but…I dunno, Talsune’s my partner, at least for the time being. It feels like I ought to be the one to heal him when I actually have the ability to.

After we recuperated, we headed back through the tunnels, farther still until we reached a large open field of glowing ice—we were beneath Ivoryglass.

Edeya looked horrified. She said she hoped this was not the machine I had seen Elvana placing in Ivoryglass, because if it was…it was a Winter Siphon.

One of the artifacts used by Baba Yaga to create the eternal winter on Irrisen.

#journal entry #pathfinder #reign of winter

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