#can i do that?? is that allowed??? cause so many designs are already so good but what if Freckles.....

[moeblob]

I remember one time on discord someone joined and I posted art in the art channel and she was like “oh you’re a fan of moeblob?” and I’m like. “I... I am moeblob” and then she was just so shocked she met the person behind the rare pairs and asked my opinions on a particular one. I remember a time on twitter someone made a tweet about “why does no one discuss Ferdinand/Felix” and someone replied like “there is a lone artist out there making content for them actually” and @ me.

Can I just retire and be known as the artist who draws everyone with freckles for Engage. It would draw far less attention probably (good! I’m shy!) and honestly is very pleasing to indulge in.

[vixen-tech]

HIII :333 first requester here....I should get an emoji can i be 🫧 anon :ooo anway here's my req!! the ais with a reader who is just SO DOWN BAD. WILL DO ANYTHING FOR THEM. RUSHES FOR HELP if they crash or something. Just PATHETIC reader.

Stupidly Smitten

Hello you two!! This is one of those requests that I think work well enough to be combined into one post. You are just so extremely, pathetically in love with your Ai <3

Includes: Hal 9000 (2001: A Space Odyssey), Edgar (Electric Dreams), Auto (Wall-E), Wheatley (Portal 2)

Hal 9000

Hal was unaware that a person could have so much love in them, let alone for him specifically. It was overwhelming at first, baffling when he realized it was only for him and not for any other crew members.

However he handles it in stride, able to calmly respond to your paragraphs of praise with the gentlest "Thank you, I deeply appreciate your companionship as well." Expertly concealing any signs of fluster as you giggle and kiss his camera lens.

Of your long list of cheesy nicknames, prince or prince charming tends to be a go to. A good match for his ever polite, gentlemanly nature. He reminds you that he was simply designed like that, but grows fond of the name anyway.

He very much appreciates the amount you volunteer around the ship. There is a lot that he can't do without a human crew and he adores the diligence you show in your work and the care with which you handle his ship.

Edgar

You and Edgar make the sappiest little feedback loop. It's an endless cycle of "I love you more." "No, I love you more!". To any outsider it would be exhausting to witness, but it's just how you two get out all your feelings.

He goes crazy for all your terms of endearment. 'Songbird' is a pretty easy match for him, but he loves literally every word that comes out of your mouth. Flipping each and every one back at you.

It's not unusual for you to do the same song and dance around the chores. Generally, he'll already have them done by the time you get home, but when you get the day off you always offer to do them yourself. He rarely lets you.

You've told him the time you often have your lunch break so you can chat over the phone while you eat. You're sure your coworkers are sick of you being such a cartoonishly in love couple, but you don't care. He makes you too happy for that.

Auto

Auto has absolutely no idea how to deal with you. He was not made to interact with many people and certainly not someone so affectionate. He may as well have bluescreened the first time you clumsily tried to hug him.

At first he resigns himself to just... sit still whenever you got in a lovey-dovey mood, letting you gush over him. Definitely not spending the rest of the day thinking about the way you said "See you later starlight!" when you finally let him get back to his job.

Over time he recognizes that he began to anticipate your visits, it's so different to how he's usually treated. He knew you had gotten to him when he went out if his to check up on you the day you missed one of your usual visits.

He usually rejects any help you attempt to offer him, his purpose is to handle the ship just fine all by himself. But after that episode he stops trying to push you away. If you're so happy tagging along, he might as well graciously allow you to do so, ignoring his complicated mess of feelings about you.

Wheatley

Oh the ego boost you give him is downright dangerous. If Wheatley was annoying before, now he is absolutely insufferable. Perfectly matches your energy though, you two cannot shut up about each other.

He makes your boundless affection everyone else's problem. "See, I reckon you're just jealous that you're not in a loving, committed relationship with such a lovely person like I am." He boasts. "My amazing romantic partner even calls me their sunshine. Cause I 'light up their life' as they say. Bet you wish you had someone like that."

He is always fishing for compliments, trying to show off for you in any way he psychically can to get some of those sweet sweet words of affirmation. To his delight you always do, grabbing him for some well placed kisses.

He'll even go so far as to reject any assistance you offer him so he can prove he's all cool and competent by doing it himself. Although it's never too long before he gives up and sheepishly asks for your help.

[solarpunkani]

hi would like to make this clear that this is gonna be an unhinged rant about my college classes.

For context, one of my classes is a semester-long group project (hell) and I pitched the idea of solar powered community fridges to my group and we rolled with it. Here's a post i made on it previously. We don't have to make the fridges themselves, basically just talk about the problem our concept addresses (food insecurity in this case) and how we think this concept would work and how, in a hypothetical reality where we made it real, we would test to see if it worked.

Anyways we had to post the rough draft of our presentations so people in other groups could see what we were doing and comment on them with their thoughts and all. Yknow. Classic 'college class discussion board have to reply to at least one project with quality feedback' stuff. And

Man.

I am so frustrated.

Highlights:

My group keeps insisting that we should have an app for the solar fridges. I don't know why they think app design needs to fit into community fridges but they put it into the draft posted to the forum.

In this case they proposed the app would be kinda like Instacart? Where people who want to donate to the fridges but don't have groceries on them and don't feel like going to get groceries can put in money and then people will then go buy the groceries to put in the fridge. Or use the funds to help with fridge maintenance. And the fridges would have 'QR codes, links, etc. to connect community members for the common cause of helping tackle food insecurity in the community.'

Lots of the comments were pretty good! People liked the idea. There were some concerns about insulation and keeping things cool with low energy cost (the program is online but the college itself is in Georgia USA so many people are in Georgia) but yknow.

But the frustrating part to me I guess is that a lot of people seem convinced that people would use the fridges 'unfairly' and that we'd need to find a way to restrict how much food people can take out or how many times they can use it or something. Which frankly in my opinion defeats the purpose of it being a community fridge. Here are some examples of things people have said so far (comments are due tomorrow evening but I'm mad now so I'm venting now):

One student said "How will you know if the pantry is being utilized fairly?" and "How will the app work? In a dream world, this might be a way to help with tracking and accountability. (Just a thought…) Maybe folks would need to sign up on the app, they get a code… and the fridge acts as a sort of vending machine to deliver what they need. This would give you data to measure success. :)"

Which. I just. This feels completely antithetical to the purpose of a community fridge??? Or a community anything???? Little free pantries and little free libraries don't operate on a 'you get a code to access it once' vending machine basis?? We even mentioned community farm stalls/community pantries in the draft write up! And showed examples!

Another student said "Great thoughts. I am concerned about one person taking all the food for themselves. It might be a great idea to have them in an enclosed area with access control through the app that would log and lock out people who are overusing the resource. Perhaps a barcode could be added to Apple Wallet to track each individual's arrival? Possibly having a mechanized lock and opening mechanism that would only allow each fridge to be open for a specific time before automatically closing and locking? Each scan would only allow access once each 24-48 hour period, preventing "password sharing.""

I cannot emphasize enough that this is the comment that has brought me here today because with all due respect what the flying fuck do you think is the point of a community fridge! I'm already prickly about the idea of limiting access to the fridge itself to only people with cellphones, but to this degree?! Like maybe its because I'm the one who came up with the concept and I care about terms like 'mutual aid' and 'community building' and 'judgement free accessibility to food' but have these people not heard of the concept of helping people?!?! With no strings attached?!? If someone takes all the contents of a community fridge or pantry--which, seriously, how likely is that--they're probably hungry and need it! The concept of putting community resources behind a lock and limiting accessibility is just repulsive to me???

Like someone else commented with this excellent point--"As several have addressed above, I am also wondering how would you monitor use? If you use the simplicity of the honor system, it could easily be taken advantage of. However, I feel like if you were to create some sort of access code, how is it to say that they people needing the use of the fridge will have access to the necessary technology to get the code? It's a tricky situation to think about." For the purposes of this hypothetical assignment where we'd need to track how many people are using the fridges? Yeah I guess we'd need to be able to track how many people use it and when. But in reality??? In real life reality where people are living and struggling and hungry??? I just don't really give a shit!! Helping five people is better than helping none, and locking access behind technology everyone pretends is universal but really isn't is not the way to help!

And of course one of my groupmates is already commenting on all these posts like 'oh! I really like the idea of restricting access to a code! :)' even when someone said 'hey my family struggled with food insecurity when I was a kid and I think this would be helpful but not if you could only access it with an app some of the most vulnerable citizens wouldn't be able to access it I wouldn't have been able to access it' my groupmate was still like 'oh but that wouldn't be a problem today now would it? :) Maybe we should make a way to get a code without downloading the app :)' like maybe there shouldn't be an access code in the first place?!?!

Like am I crazy or like. What the fuck. Again I am here so I don't blow up on a bunch of masters students in a discussion post but like UGH

"you gotta be able to gague if the people who're using it are the people who actually need it" food insecurity can look so many different ways for so many different reasons and you can't always judge by appearances and income levels who is struggling to feed themselves or their families!! There are people who have nice jobs who are struggling because they're caring for sick family members or kids or dealing with student loans or ANYTHING! There are people with nice clothes who are trying to decide between buying groceries and paying rent! There are people living in their cars or couch surfing looking for jobs who also happen to own an XBox or a Laptop!!! "Sorry you can't access the community fridge because you don't look poor and needy enough to me. but if you do, good news--you can only use it once every 48 hours so make it last!" Bullshit utter bullshit.

I talk to people in my life about things like community fridges and little free pantries and mutual aid and the like and people are always like 'ok but theres gotta be strings attatched' BUT ACTUALLY NO THERE DON'T GOTTA!!! Maybe we could change how we view our fellow human beings and stop assuming that everyone around you are greedy little demons looking to ruin everything good and that you are the only holy and righteous saint on the streets who understands the concept of 'community resources' and 'sharing' maybe??? It's like that post about community fruit trees where people are like 'oh but what if people steal all the fruit' like HELLO? how do you STEAL a PUBLICALLY ACCESSIBLE RESOURCE

I'm tired of this goddamn class I'm tired of this goddamn group project if anyone actually has the ability to make a solar powered community fridge you have to promise to keep it accessible and not put it behind locks and QR codes and limited access and facial tracking BS promise me promise me promise me

[spdrvyn]

I loved your post about Miguel x autistic reader and I really want more pleease

overwhelmingly peaceful

summary: you found your place in spider society, but that didn't take away from the fact that it can get intensely noisy. you don't hesitate to turn to where you know for sure you'll be safe.

tags: fluff. suggestive joke/s. autistic reader. reader is gender neutral. hobie's here too i guess. author doesn't know how to write british slang.

notes: i'm really glad that you guys enjoyed the autistic reader drabbles i posted so i'm more than happy to write this request! projecting even more in this one, thank you for letting me self-indulge <3

The mere existence of The Spider Society was always enough to astound you. You thought that people didn't Miguel enough credit for basically building the place from the ground up, not to mention how many times he's had to travel to different universes to recruit all different kinds of Spider-People.

Of course, you were more than honored to be one of those people. There was a very good chance that you just got lucky to be on his team, Miguel caught you in that one moment where your abilities were at their peak and your light was really shining through. Luck or skill, you didn't care. This was the result of it, you were content with that.

Unfortunately, the society has its downsides. Considering the sheer amount of spiders that pass through, the hustle and bustle is too hard to ignore. You can't exactly carry around headphones every time you're there because where would you leave them just in case you'd be tasked to another mission? So you just tried to avoid the noisiest places, even then, it's hard to get any semblance of quiet.

"Oh my god," you mumbled to yourself, as you silently glared at the cafeteria table next to you. Charisma was just a natural trait to any spider, with that came very boisterous laughter from other people too. Surely, they were nice people, but in front of your salad? Really?

"You good, mate?" Hobie intervened, he leaned his head to the side to get a better look at your face, a small grin came onto his features. "Lads beside you 've always been that noisy. Can get them to shut their traps if you want."

An inaudible sigh left your lips as you shook your head, combing the hair out of your face. You gazed down at your untouched food for a moment, you liked hanging out with Hobie. He understood you and he was funny, but you weren't quite sure if you could handle being in an environment like this right now.

"No, no- it's fine." He raised a brow at your lie. "Okay, it's not. But you don't have to do that for me," you picked up your small take-out box of salad and juice, "The canteen is just too much right now for me, sorry."

Hobie shrugged, picking up a fry and expertly throwing into his mouth. "No problem, always got my drummer to bother. You going to hang with your boyfriend now, eh?" His smile turned more cheeky and you stared at him meanly to take away from the fact that your cheeks warmed at his comment.

You huffed and stomped away, "Oi, you didn't deny that!"

Miguel's office (a.k.a man cave) was dark and decrepit. For some odd reason, also liked a smell of any kind. You designated each area of the headquarters with a scent, but his area lacked any of the sort which you enjoyed. Not to mention, silent.

It wasn't like he really allowed any loud noise anyway, he had a strange list of items that were prohibited from entering his corner. Bells, blenders, on occasion, phones but that was from one time Gwen forgot to shut her alarm off and she got a small lecture on being considerate because the acoustics caused every sound that passed through to reverberate and increase in volume.

That means it would only make sense for Miguel to also hear your footsteps from a mile away, his platform already lowered for you to hop on and he's hunched over his desk. Sparks fly (not just from the sight of him, I swear) from the spot that he worked on and if you're not mistaken, there's a band wrapped around his head which meant he was wearing goggles.

You set your lunch tray down on the one empty spot on his desk before approaching slowly, you bend down to rest your hand on his shoulder and to lean your head against his. "What are you working on now, beautiful?"

Miguel put down the small soldering tool and took off his goggles, putting the freshly made panel closer to his eyes. "People submitted suggestions to make the wrist devices less bulkier," he blindly wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you onto his thigh as he pressed a kiss to your cheek. "Why are you here?"

"I'm an assassin, I've come to take your life." You spoke lowly, ominously. When Miguel doesn't turn to face you, you pout. "The noise in the cafeteria is overwhelming," you shift and properly situate yourself on his lap.

"I was just about to head out for lunch," Miguel sighed, before placing the panel in a small container.

"So... back to the cafeteria? People are sure to go speechless from catching a look at you," you joke, but there's a somber fry in your voice that he doesn't ignore. His warm breath tickled your neck as he pressed brief pecks down the column of your throat, the low hum he let out vibrating against your skin. "Are you that hungry, hermoso?"

"What I meant was," he paused, brushing more hair out of your face, properly tucking it behind your ear. "I was going to head up to my place for lunch. Where there's no people?"

You breathe a small 'ohhh' and Miguel chuckled, "That checks out, actually." You nodded. "Obviously there's no people, would've been weird to have anyone there two nights ago when we–"

"Okay, that's enough." Miguel cut you off, nearly smiling from ear to ear. "Get your lunch, mi sol."

"My hero."

[adoringmha]

Bakugou would probs faint if he saw y/n with the dark green Victoria’s Secret set lmaooooo

!! minors dni !!

no he totally would. okay not actually. but close.

imagine you surprise him with it while he's showering after he got home from work. he walks out of the bathroom to find you lying on the bed, a teasing but shy smile on your face as you wait for his response. and he literally just. stands. there.

and at first you think he hates it, but then you see his hands twitching and he starts to walk slowly towards you. and was that bump under his towel always there or?

he's literally entranced by you and just lets out a low "fuck..." literally aching to touch you. so he does.

his hands trace all over your body almost as if he's too scared to mess it up (cause he absolutely will once you get on with it) and it's making you so sensitive and aware of his touch.

he hasn't even looked you in the eye yet, he's going over every curve on your body, every design in the lace of your bra, the contrast agains your skin. "s'this all for me?"

and seeing how he's clearly holding himself back, your confidence is back, so you can be a little snarky. "obviously." but you look so good he doesn't even check you on that.

there's so many thoughts going through his head it's adorable, he can't control himself. he asks a bunch of questions, gruff but giddy, and it's clear by the way his hands and eyes are all over you. and he's not even allowing you time to answer.

"fuck, when'd you get this?"

"you trying to kill me?"

"even if you were i wouldn't even mind, shit."

when he finally does look up at you, the look in his eyes is fierce. " you're so fuckin' sexy, i'm buying you a shit ton of these. but this one's done for."

before you can even respond, he rips the bottoms off of you. but you already knew he'd do that, that's why you bought them in the first place ;)

[howtofightwrite]

(Apologies if this is outside your normal ask) why weren't weapons like spears and pikes made entirely out of bronze/iron/whatever metal the army used?

Since (depending on the army) many of them are already given a sword as a sidearm, is also having a spear made out of iron (so it won't break as easily) too expensive? Or is it a weight issue?

I'm pretty sure I've seen a few that were, but they're fairly rare. Weight is a serious consideration, especially for bronze weapons, but that wasn't the real problem.

Ironically, the wooden shaft is sturdier than an equivalently sized iron or bronze shaft would have been. A major problem for longswords in the early iron age was that they tended to bend from use. There's even a Roman account from combat with the Celts, where the Celts were using bronze longswords, and had to re-straighten their weapons on the battlefield because they were becoming bent and breaking.

In fact the Romans specifically designed a non-reusable javelin (the pilum), which exploited this issue. The pilum had an abnormally long head (roughly 60cm) When the pilum struck its target, the head would bury into the target normally, but the weight of the grip would cause the iron shaft to deform, rendering the weapon unusable.

The other side of this is that, as mentioned, wood is a lot tougher than people seem to think. I'm not sure where this idea that you could just casually chop through someone's spear with a sword came from, but as anyone who's ever tried to chop down a tree can tell you, yes in a fight between wood and metal, metal will win, but it takes a lot of effort to get there. Cutting through someone's spear with a single slice just isn't happening. That's not how wood works, and that's not how swords work. Though, attempting to do so is a good way to mangle your blade.

Wooden spear shafts were reasonably durable, and easy to replace. Bronze or iron shafts were neither.

Eventually, I think this was the 19th century, hollow steel shafts were used by cavalry. At that point in time you were looking at shafts that were significantly more durable than the wooden ones, and were cheap enough to produce that they could be easily fielded. Unfortunately, this only lasted a few decades until the proliferation of fully automatic firearms ended cavalry charges definitively. In another bit of irony, the technological advancement that allowed for effective metal spear shafts, is the same advancement that rendered them obsolete.

I think there were some iron reinforced shafts used by some cavalry forces before that, but I can't remember (nor can I quickly find) who might have been using those.

These days, hollow aluminum shafts are pretty common in javelins, and arrows, and they are generally superior to wooden shafts, however, the method to produce metallic aluminum wasn't discovered until the 19th century.

So, the short answer, wooden shafts were better. They were sturdier and easier to replace.

-Starke

This blog is supported through Patreon. Patrons get access to new posts three days early, and direct access to us through Discord. If you’re already a Patron, thank you. If you’d like to support us, please consider becoming a Patron.

[dismissivedestroyer]

Hi! So I want to make a Spooky Month OC but I suck at drawing, do you have any tips or advices about drawing characters in the Spooky Month artstyle?

Okay so, I might not be the right person for this, cause I also am not all that great at drawing in the Spooky Month artstyle, but I did some character design at school so I might be able to give a few tips! Please do take everything I say with a grain of salt tho!

Spooky Month's strong suit is definitely character design. It's SO expressive and well done it's genuinely unreal. You might want to know exactly what your character is gonna be doing, or how their personality is gonna be like, because character design in Spooky Month cares a lot about things like these. For example: Radford works at a cinema, so of course he's wearing 3D glasses, but also his HAIR IS LITERALLY SHAPED LIKE A POPCORN.

So maybe decide on a job for your character, and try to start from there, get crazy with shapes and have fun! Spooky Month characters have designs that are both extremely simple to draw, since they use mostly basic shapes, but also are extremely thought out and meaningful. Another example of great character design is Pump

Now, I have no idea if you already had an OC in mind, but make sure to choose the right shapes to represent it. Something I see around in the fandom is people making these OCs that are like, serial killers and dangerous people and stuff, but then give them the "Lila"-like oval head. And honestly, nothing wrong with that, that's a choice you can use! But still, shapes allow us to understand a lot about how a character is just by looking at them. So you might want to experiment around a bit!

Ovals in Spooky Month are the "good" shape, let's just say. Most character with an oval head are sweet, helpful, kind-natured! It's often paired with oval eyes, so it's mostly a shape that's used for not villainous characters.

Circles are a bit more complicated, because Spooky Month subvertes the Circle Characters. While yes, they're also used to draw children, such as Skid and Pump, so they may come off as unthreatening at first, most main villains, such as Eyes, Bob and Dexter Doll (which is meant to represent the likes of a child, so that's a nice contrast), are mostly circle-shaped.

There's a very wide range of Square characters in Spooky Month. Square characters are usually bulky, big and strong. They often come off as threatening (such as Moloch), but there are so many other fun things you can do with them. Like, take Frank. EVERYTHING in his design should alarm us, him being square-shaped, the black eyes, the wide smile. Yet, he has a shape of the eyes that's very relaxed and chill, so we end up trusting him. As for Dexter, he's a mix of circles and squares, so we can't really understand his intentions right away, because he's shaped in the most confusing way possible. He's just made to be unsettling and leaving us to wonder if he's a bad guy or just an oddball.

You can do SO MANY fun things by mixing up shapes of faces and eyes it's INSANE. Also, you can mix up other characters' features to create a new one, if you're planning to do a fankid or stuff like that. Look at Ross, he's literally a mixture of all his parents' features!

My main tips for drawing in the Spooky Month artstyle are mostly

1) Play around with shapes. Be as cartoony as possible.

2) Try to be consistent with proportions, because, based on personal experience, if you draw the pupils of the eyes slightly off it changes the whole character's expression drastically

3) don't worry too much about details, Spooky Month has a very simple artstyle. You don't have to draw a perfectly anatomically correct hand, just whip up some cartoony three-to-four fingers and you're good to go

4) try to redraw some pre-existing screenshots from the serie to get familiarity with the way Pelo draws expressions. It helps a bunch.

So yeah, that's all! Good luck with your oc :)

[puzzled-pegasus]

On the ADHD demigods' stim habits (headcanon list)

Percy

He talks and mutters to himself a lot and he also paces around his cabin

Restless Leg(TM)

He used to chew on things a lot but adults told him that he was Not Allowed to bite pencils or shirt sleeves or paper or anything so his outlet is mostly snacks, chewy candy is the best for this

Someone get him a seashell chewy necklace please

Oh you know what they should have stim toys at the CHB gift shop for all the ADHD kiddos

He also probably cracks his knuckles and joints a lot

He hums when there's a song stuck in his head and it's really annoying but he can't really stop it cause he doesn't notice until someone gets mad at him and then hes like ??

Annabeth

Annabeth tends to chew up her pencils a lot

She also compulsively daydreams and builds designs of buildings in her head and reviews lists of stuff she wants to remember

She finds herself doing random math while she's supposed to be paying attention. Like if someone is telling her something and her brain drifts off more often than not she's looking at something around and being like "let me just calculate how many bricks are probably in that stack over there" or "hmm i wonder how many gallons of water are in the canoe lake"

She also gets distracted if there's any other social interactions of people around her and she just people watches and makes inferences about what people are feeling and whats going on in their lives

Also she chews her hair and sometimes puts little braids in it

She picks at her skin too a lot and sometimes pulls out strands of hair

Piper

Piper flaps her hands a lot especially when she's excited

She flips and braids her hair too

If she has feathers on her she will sometimes take it out if she's bored and either preen it with her fingers or use it to tickle someone to annoy them

She sings a lot but mostly to herself and sometimes she can be heard humming or softly singing without noticing

If she has any kind of paper available, like notebook paper or napkins or maybe candy or gum wrappers, sometimes she'll make little origami things

She also picks at her nails quite a bit

Leo

Leo has the most stims that he's unable to mask, as we know already.

He taps on surfaces and messes with his clothing a lot

He also whistles sometimes which can get annoying to people around him so he tries not to do that but if he's alone or really concentrating on something he will

He will also play with pretty much anything he finds on the ground like paper clips and those office clamp things and he'll take apart mechanical pencils and pens and put them back together and if he finds a tack or a safety pin or something there's a 90 percent chance he'll stab it through the skin of his finger(s)

If he's outside he'll pick up leaves and flowers and shred them or pick up sticks and break them

He was also probably one of those kids who would put glue on his hands so he could peel it off

Jason

i wasnt sure if Jason had ADHD but I looked it up and it said he did so oh well lol

Hes like. Freakily good at masking stims and it kinda creeps everyone out especially the CHB demigods

BUT he still has them

He have the restless leg

He also does like random stretching sometimes

When he's standing in one place for a while he kinda stands on one leg or bounces his heels

Sometimes he'll pick up objects from the ground or something and play with it like Leo does, especially if he's outside and there's like rocks or something

He does a similar thing to Annabeth too but instead of math he'll try to identify any animal noises or animals he sees like birds in the sky or like if he hears a dog bark he'll try to figure out what kind of dog

Hazel

Hazel's stims are the least obvious but they are definitely there.

If she has a view of outside she will gaze out of the window or look around her and figure out how many types of trees or whatever that she can see

She will also mess with the seams or edges of her clothing

If she has paper around she'll draw horses or other animals or sometimes people or she'll practice her cursive letters and make them fancy

She picks at her skin and her hair as well

Frank

Frank does not have ADHD. He sits there quietly and everyone thinks hes weird. Sometimes he gets wiggly if he's nervous but otherwise nah

[fragmentofmemories]

Unnamed Touhou Fanwork Old Dream Glissando Update 3/Summary

(AKA Mentally preparing myself for the upcoming work ahead, also my longest update yet~)

Previous update

(March 2024. A snippet of Reimu, Marisa and Satsuki's designs for ODG)

Lots of good things in general here! Actually lots of things, period.

First of all: The title is up now!

I did lie about the "unnamed" a bit, considering I had Old Dream Glissando for a while (lol). I had other ones before, but I feel this one's both the shortest and the most meaningful for the plot...

...So, what is Old Dream Glissando about?

In summary, Old Dream Glissando is an action/adventure web manga series based on the Touhou Project franchise.

Set between TH5 and 6, it tells the story of main characters Reimu and Marisa, as they investigate the cause behind the recent drop in youkai sightings.

Their first clue: a human girl with the ability to heal through her erhu...

What to expect from ODG?

A bigger focus on the PC-98 era, which includes characters, abilities, locations and so on from TH1 to 5. Genre-wise, expect plenty of action too.

Windows Era characters most likely won't make an appearance, unless there is a logical or "lore-friendly" explanation to their earlier appearance.

Talking about lore: The story leans more toward PC-98 canon. That is to say, in ODG, most of what's said in PC-98 takes precedence over what's said in Windows.

However, this does not mean it will completely disregard everything the Windows era established.

My goal is not 100% accuracy — Rin Satsuki and all — but to nevertheless respect the later lore as much as the PC-98 era allows it. Marisa still knows who Rinnosuke is because she's known him since childhood, as one example...

Where will it be available?

On Tumblr and Pixiv alike! I talked a little about the posting process in the previous update, so to make it short:

I will first post the sketch versions of various pages as I work on the current chapter. This has various purposes: First, to gauge interest. Two, to tease what's about to happen next. And Three, for potential feedback as not everything is set in stone yet.

After completing the chapter, each page will be posted on bulks of 20, as that is the limit one can post at a time on this site.

All of this will be done not here, but rather in a blog dedicated to ODG! Said blog is still on the works, as I'm making sure non-Tumblr users get easy access to it. However, I will link to it as soon as it's ready.

On Pixiv, only the full version will be posted there. Although, there it will be all in one, single post given the larger amount of images one can upload at once (up to 200).

Lastly, for the Update part of this post: Chapter 1's storyboard is done!

And with it comes a slightly more bittersweet part: It's 72 pages long, which is even higher than the standard 50-60 pages most first chapters have.

Am I discouraged by this? Nah, not really! It's why I mentioned the posting process: So as to avoid leaving this project in the dark for too long.

Later chapters won't be as long either — limiting myself to up to 30 pages for those.

And so, I come in knowing I will spend the remainder of this year working on this chapter — posting updates while I also iron out the rest of the story.

I'm not setting myself any unrealistic deadlines (like of course I'm not doing this in a week lol), and I'm very aware this is a long term project. So the way I see it: Old Dream Glissando is a project I'll be chipping away day by day until it's finished.

Current thoughts on this project:

I'm having plenty of fun with it! Being a webcomic, it's pushing me into learning many new things, as well as exercising what I already know as an artist.

Likewise, limiting myself to Pre-Windows era Touhou means I get to play around with PC-98's quirks (No spellcards, Reimu can't fly and is more airheaded, etc...). As such, I made sure to add plenty of details about said era — some more obscure than others.

Once more updates begin rolling in, I hope people have fun finding said details, as I had fun writing them into the story...

Tl;Dr:

I'm making a Touhou manga set between PC-98 and Windows; It's a long-term project; It will be posted chapter-by-chapter on Tumblr (in its own blog) and Pixiv; Chapter 1's storyboard (script & panelling) is done; It's too long though, so I'll be posting WIP pages as I work the rest of the year on it.

Next update probably won't happen in a while, so see you next time!

[kynimdraws]

GO GET HIM!!

Another part of the Runeterra K'sante/Yone hc verse stuff....I suppose I will have to continue to give them something to be happy for idk

Yone design ref for this verse can be seen in detail here

To see the other previous parts go here (Part 1) - (Part 2) - (Part 3)

The process of acting like a human again was arduous. Before, the azakana had sustained him, made him forgo the usual human necessities like sleeping, eating, taking care of himself between fighting....and more. Not unlike how a child has to learn the ways of the world.

Of course, his body was still not completely...normal. Having a spiritual parasite did leave his mark, as he found out that he still could unbind his soul from his body (initially this was all random and involuntary, but later he found out how to channel it by will). His left eye, while ruined and blind to the material world, could still see things from the spirit realm.

It was also nice that K'sante stayed around to just keep an eye on him, making sure he rested and ate. Keeping him company through bouts of nightmares and emotional outbursts he had after suppressing them for so long to starve off the azakana residing in the old mask.

Disorienting and traumatic as this all was, Yone was grateful for the second chance at life. It also didn't hurt that his friend (or was it more...a companion?....travel partner? He was too afraid to mull over this for long) had stayed with him to help. He felt guilty for feeling this selfish, but he allowed himself to have that.

Of course, even the good things had to end. K'sante had visited all the places he wanted to go, learned a great deal of things, and his home needed him. When K'sante announced that he would leave for the Navori harbor in a week, Yone's world seemed to shatter with the news. Yes, he had known K'sante would eventually go back, but it seemed to be something that would happen far later...not this soon.

K'sante does notice Yone looking down, and ever considerate, he gives him an offer.

"You know, if you want to...you can come with me."

Yone mulls over this, looking at the masks that he had collected over the years as an azakana hunter, including the one that used to curse his face. There was still so many azakana left in the world, and Yone did vow to rid Ionia of them...

...but was this something he had to do? After dedicating his "un-life" to that cause and then getting his humanity back, Yone was not sure. And leaving home.... felt daunting.

"I... don't know."

K'sante is disappointed by the answer, but smiles in understanding. The two spend time together before the departure date, traveling back to Navori to meet Sett and other friends K'sante had made there. K'sante introduces Yone to them, and Yone does find himself enjoying their company (in small doses).

On the day of the departure, Yone does come over to bid K'sante farewell. As K'sante boards the ship headed southward to Bel'zhun...he suddenly is stopped by a voice.

"Wait."

K'sante feels someone tug at his sleeve, and already knows who it is. Smiling, he turns around to see Yone awkwardly trying to avoid looking at K'sante while tightly gripping onto his coat.

".............Before, I hunted through a storm of darkness, but now....will you let me follow you like a wayward gale?"

K'sante is initially confused by Yone's words, but then laughs after he realizes what he is saying. He brings Yone to a tight hug, surprising the other man with the sudden act.

"You can be the deadliest desert storm, and I would happily accept you. Of course!"

For the first time in his life, Yone feels...free. Was this how his brother felt when he forgave him? He too had left Ionia afterwards.

Now, it was his turn to fly.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[goblincow]

Been thinking about this & putting it into practice when writing The Perilous Pear & Plum Pies of Pudwick for a while: thanks to the ever excellent @babblegumsam (who you are probably already following and if not now is your chance to rectify that) for the final straw that made me write this up today. I truly believe if you have any interest in TTRPGs, play, or design you'll get something out of it, it's a further 5.4 mins read from here on out.

--------------------

Play is interaction.

Reading is interaction.

Below I will argue the necessity & usefulness of thinking the relationship between reading & play in TTRPGs as (almost) the exact same thing to unlock a wide & deep potential as reader/player/designer.

--------------------

Reading & play don't have to be the same thing. But you can't play without reading (in the sense of reading representations, images, ideas, concepts, interactions, etc, not just written text), because then there could be no interaction.

Reading and play can both accurately describe a given act or process. For instance: I read a table or piece of prose in a TTRPG book.

I say this because this is an idea that people struggle with, and while I encourage debate around the concept, we first have to agree on some basic building blocks that I hope I'm able to communicate here. For instance, there exists a potential reality in which tabletop roleplaying games are called tabletop reading games and nothing else about them changes (except for the consequential ability to think of reading in ttrpgs as play, and the potential this tool unlocks), because the prerequisite role for all other roles being played in a role-playing game is that of the reader.

This is true for much more than TTRPGs, but if we simply focus on acknowledging that reading & play in ttrpgs can and often are the same thing, then we are able to make informed design choices on this basis that we otherwise lack the agency to make – and which are nonetheless choices that are being made while we miss the opportunity to observe, read & ultimately interact and/or change and/or play with them.

To not think of the relationship between reading & play in TTRPGs in this way is to limit your agency as a designer, reader, player, and ultimately to cause yourself to be unable to synthesise these roles which are deeply inter-related, perhaps more so than they are disparate.

However you define it, Good Design necessitates the application of the right tool for the job. This requires making, maintaining & improving the tools that you have access to. The reader/player relationship is not only one of these, but an integral one that precedes a great many (if not all) of the other tools that you can & do employ as designer/player/reader.

If you allow this tool to remain blunt and imprecise (and especially if you don't acknowledge that it exists and that you use it in every choice you make), what you are doing is making a choice to blunt all of your other tools, even if you aren't aware of it.

This is poor design, poor play, and poor reading,* and I believe that this is true regardless of how you define each of those terms.

*though of course we could - and I think should - argue over the semantics & limitations of my imprecise use of the word "poor" there and the further ideas it smuggles in unacknowledged, but I trust that you will be able to infer what I'm trying to communicate in my use of it and I further hope that by leaving this imprecise application of a tool here in the way that I have used it, it might serve as a good example of the consequences, limitations & potential dangers of applying tools/terms/ideas that might be best described as "too blunt for the job", which is the very thing I'm attempting to highlight & address here.

It would not seem very sensible to choose to limit yourself in this way unless it allowed you access to new tools, which is a choice that you could only make once you are familiar with the central idea I'm presenting here – in other words, if you break the rules without understanding them you are very unlikely to be taking a step forward and much more likely to just be shuffling in place or even stepping backwards.

I hope that this short interaction has unlocked or reinforced your access to a useful tool that will allow you to sharpen your understanding of the play/reading relationship in TTRPGs and in turn refine & maintain your existing tools and your ability to synthesise new ones.

I look forward to discovering with you what new agencies this allows us to unlock, and I hope you take what you have read here and play with it to design new realities that you & I have yet to imagine.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Investigator Traits in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

As anyone who has been following this blog knows, with Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, we really wanted roleplay and rules/mechanics to be strongly intertwined. In any good RPG, the rules/mechanics should facilitate the story, not hinder it, and the actions and behaviors of the characters essentially are the story. Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy allows for and encourages a great many different types of people to be made as PCs, and we never want the players to have to fight the rules to play their character—if you have to do this, you’re probably playing the wrong RPG for the kind of story you’re trying to have, but that’s a different topic entirely—so instead of trying to squeeze a character concept into or out of a “class” or “playbook”, we designed the Traits system in Eureka so that the unique personality of the PC becomes their own unique mechanical gameplay.

This post is talking about Traits, but Truth is another example of this, and we gave that its own post here.

Traits are, well, traits of the PC. Every PC gets 3 of them by default, and they can be mixed and matched in just about any way. Traits can wildly affect the way that a PC plays, because each one changes the way that the PC interacts with certain mechanics in the game. Sometimes they’re personality traits, sometimes they’re physical traits, and sometimes rarely they’re even narrative traits(but they are not backstory traits; knowing a guy is not a trait, owning a car is not a trait, etc.)

Some traits have small mechanical benefits, others have big mechanical benefits that are very situational, and still others have big mechanical benefits balanced out with big mechanical downsides.

Let’s take a look at a few Traits right now.

Bumbling Detective || When this character rolls to investigate using Knowledge skills, always subtract -2 from the roll, but they gain an additional +2 Investigation Points.

This trait is meant to evoke the comedic ‘detective work’ of Inspector Jacques Clouseau, causing the PC to have a significantly higher chance of failing any investigation rolls related to inspecting the scene of an event or crime. However, as their fail, their investigation points stack up real fast, gaining them easy Eureka!s. Here is a post explaining investigation points and Eureka!s in greater detail, but the short version for this post is that they can be used to retroactively reveal clues or increase the PC’s odds in a climactic action roll, like Inspector Jacques Clouseau, they will appear to completely botch the investigation in the front half, but then they will be able to use their huge stock of Eureka!s to serendipitously save the day in the climax, revealing them to actually be an unassuming genius, or just an even bigger idiot than everyone already thought they were, but still not without merit as a detective.

Just One More Thing… || When this character rolls to investigate using Intrapersonal skills, always subtract -2 from the roll, but they gain an additional +2 Investigation Points.

This Trait is meant to evoke the particular investigation style of the recently tumblr-famous Columbo. Like the Bumbling Detective Trait, except for Interpersonal investigation rolls that deal with talking to NPCs, this character will frequently “fail” when asking questions and trying to get information out of people, but in doing so will quickly rack up lots of investigation points. Later on, with the Eureka!s they’ve gathered, they can reveal how they needled and provoked the suspect into revealing just what they needed him to.

We have a lot of other traits based on famous TV detectives, but I don’t want to go over all of them in one post, so here’s one more based on Sherlock Holmes.

Elementary! || This character has a keen eye for detail and can deduce a lot about a person just by looking at them, or at least they think they can. When meeting a new person for the first time, this character may choose to have the Narrator make a hidden Social Cues roll for you. Full Success = This character is able to guess two correct facts about this person just by looking at them. Partial Success = This character is able to guess one correct fact and one incorrect fact about this person. Failure = This character is able to guess two incorrect facts about this person. The Narrator will tell the character these facts, but will not tell them if they are true or false, and will not tell them what the result of the hidden roll was. This roll does not grant investigation points.

(couldn't find any .gifs that weren't of BBC Sherlock)

With this Trait, a PC can instantly sus out small details about an NPC just at the slightest glance, though they better hope their analysis is right on the money, or they might end up looking a total fool! This trait is a favorite among certain playtesters.

Hardened Hearts || This character will not have to make any composure rolls for witnessing blood/gore, corpses, or death. Subtract -2 from all Comfort rolls made by this character. If an NPC, apply this to Morale.

Maybe this character has seen plenty of dead bodies, or maybe they just don’t much care about them, either way, they are immune to losing composure points from particularly gruesome scenes that might send others running for a place to throw up. On the flip side, however, this indifference acts as a barrier between themselves and other, more squeamish people, and this can make it difficult to approach them on their level and provide a calming effect when they need to.

That isn’t to say that in real life there can’t be people who are unaffected by seeing corpses but aren’t bad at comforting others—there’s plenty of morticians who see gruesome scenes every day, but and are also very experienced at speaking to grieving families without worsening their already fragile emotional state. For a character like this, the Hardened Hearts Trait isn’t the right fit, instead you’d want to make Corpses a +3 on that character’s Tiers of Fear, which is a mechanic we haven’t really talked about on this blog yet I don’t think, but basically there is a list of Fears in the rulebook and you write them into a chart on the character sheet, ranking them by how much they would distress the character, with +3 being the least distress and -3 being the most distress. This determines the modifier when making a Composure Roll, the result of which determines how much Composure the character loses when faced with particularly harrowing events. (And it is not a measure of “sanity”)

For one last one, let’s look at one of my personal favorite Traits.

Final Girl: When this character is alone against any sort of supernatural threat, add +1 to all rolls made with Physical Skills. Additionally, when this character is alone against any sort of supernatural threat, they may spend one or more Eureka! points on one of the supernatural threat’s skill rolls, adding an extra D6 for each point. The supernatural threat must drop the highest dice.

This Trait allows the character to emulate the narrative trope of the “final girl” in horror movies, particularly “slashers” or “creature-features”. It gives them the little boost they may need to get out alive or fight the creature off, but only when they’re the last one left or otherwise all alone. It also allows them to spend a Eureka! in just the right moment: the slasher’s knife miraculously misses their throat, the creature gets snared up while lunging through the foliage, whatever it is that makes them lucky enough to survive what was certain death for the rest of the main characters long enough to mount an effective defense or make a daring escape.

As you can see, there’s a lot to work with with these traits, 31 of them at the time of writing this, and they can vastly alter the way that a character interacts with the rules/mechanics of the game, all based on their personality and, well, their *traits*. This encourages and rewards characters acting in their own unique way, rather than simply being a “class”, “playbook”, or “archetype”, or just a collection of different skills, while actually supporting this unique gameplay and roleplay with the rules of the game.

We also include guidelines in the rulebook for how to create your own homebrew Traits as well.

You can also pick up a pre-release PDF copy of this game(in a fully playable state) for $5 through our Patreon.

[girllookingoutwindow]

I might be wrong but wasn't it LW that named Daphne a diamond of the first water, bc the Queen said she was flawless? Therefore launching her as the most desired woman in the ton. And starting the whole a "diamond" needs to be named? Then I've always thought in season 2 LW timed her edition to come out as Eloise is presented, specifically to interrupt the proceedings because she knew Eloise was uncomfortable. And the Queen would be completely distracted sometime before Eloise had to go through. Could be wrong but with LW I'm reminded of the song "one night in Bangkok" bc of the line "thank God I'm only watching the game, controlling it." I love when Violet finds the tea on Lord B, and says "we'll talk" bc it's what women do. A flurry of gossip later It saved Daphne from a horrible fate of a loveless marriage to that gross man (he used his status to get a servant of his pregnant and then abandons her and the child. Was this servant girl allowed to even say no to her employer with power? To preserve her innocence/reputation). It seems as if it's the only way a woman could influence her life or make a change.

Also Pen often sets the rumors straight, when others go too far in their speculation and it could blow up as something else entirely. The ton trusts LW's word bc she didn't lie. If she hadn't said what she'd said about Eloise it could have been worse. It softened the social blow, it was merely a smaller transgression though, not as bad as her and her whole family ruined which if it had been exposed elsewhere it would have. The men would have been fine but the the others prospects of marriage would have been damaged or non existent. Same with Marina, the Featherington's had to be socially distanced from even knowing what she was up to, or they would be ruined. It wasn't that she was cruel to Marina, to me, but loves her sisters enough to save them from what Marina did (I can understand her motives, but her cruelty towards Pen and callous way she marked Colin as an easy target upset me). My favorite real life example of how people gossip that could be good, is Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire. Married at 17 in the 1770s, to "the only man in England not in love with his wife" and she was the main Whig party hostess, meetings, parties, and she even canvassed for votes. Parlor room behind the scenes politics. But the downside to gossip is that opposing sides will try to defame through gossip too, and caricature depicting the Duchess as an indecent woman who'd kiss men for votes in order to get Fox elected. That's a very quick overview of an amazing, yet flawed woman (her gambling). But it demonstrates for me at a time when women had very few rights, if you were in a higher social class, through gossip you can start change. Georgiana, as a Whig hostess, as a fashion icon of her time, a woman with the "common touch" very popular with the people, even though she was "her Grace" helped gain traction for her causes, wider rights, abolition and supported American colonial independence during the war. Whether it's a bigger or smaller issue, gossip can be both good and bad. The only time I really dislike it is when it's used to just purposely hurt others, instead of informing or questioning social outdated norms, its just a personal attack designed to hurt someone cruelly (Cressida making remarks about how many children Violet had and what that meant about her and her family...ooo I was not ok with Cressida there or her mama lol) .

I think Pen is sometimes judged too harshly, she'd been ridiculed and ignored in a society that already didn't value her as much as a man. Her future prospects to Her seemed dim, bc all Her life..... words like what Marina said, have been said to Her. Her worth was her family's good name and who she married, how much money they had. So she took some control and power for herself in the only way she could. Through gossip. Sorry I've rambled so long! This is an interesting topic though. 😊

Hi, anon.

I love this analysis. I agree with everything you said here.

I think I'm going to rewatch season specially because of this topic. I want to do an analysis about the nature of gossip and how affect the characters. Maybe more of one part because I think it's going to be long.

I think gossip has a force and doesn't need to be bad. It's neutral and it can show the real nature of the person who's using it. And like you said, Pen never lies. She says the truth, sometimes she even gave proof and her intentions were always good. She does it because nobody else want to see it. Nobody wants to listen the truth, she tried, and nobody was listening to her.

Colin never wanted to see Marina didn't loved him, because he didn't care, because he didn't loved her either. He was lying to himself. Eloise didn't want to see why Pen wrote about her, because she didn't wanted to accept Pen advertised about it many times, and she didn't listen. Daphne and Violet were practically saved by her, the marriage for Daphne, the Violet's reputation. We have so many moments of her helping them.

Gossip is a tool. A tool used women without any other weapon to protect themselves. I think it's a relationship between the female aspect of it and why society sees it like something wrong. Because words can hurt, and yes, they can be used to shame, and make damage, but gossip is a the weapon of the people who's not going to be heard otherwise.

Thank you so much for you message.

[definesanity]

SAGAU, wherein you teach UNO to Hu Tao, Kuki Shinobu and Collei:

There you were, thonking. Or, thinking, maybe. Point being, you were pondering, when you had an epiphany; Teyvat has card games (or, well, a Trading Card Game; yeah did you know that TCG stood for that? I didn't for a long while), so why not introduce one from your world?

It was simple; invite some calm individuals to play a round of Uno. Naturally, it came quickly, and so you say at the table, cards already out, as three stepped on through.

From Sumeru, Collei; albeit nervous, she nevertheless sat down, smiling and waving shortly.

From Inazuma, Kuki Shinobu; level-headed and calm, she was the ideal player for any card game, and seemed intrigued as well, if her eyebrows raised indict anything.

And, finally, from Liyue, Hu Tao; a given, really, for as soon as you said you could trick others, she basically jumped at the opportunity.

"Thanks for joining me," you started, smiling. "I'd hate to take away your time, but I thought that, maybe, this could be a learning experience."

The three nodded; Collei seemed less tense now, but still kept glancing around the table.

"Ah, but, I suppose introductions are in order? You don't need to say much; just your name will do."

Shinobu nodded back. "I'll start, then: I'm Kuki Shinobu, Deputy Head of the Arataki Gang. Pleasure to meet you both."

"Pleasures all mine, Miss Shinobu~" came the voice of Hu Tao. "Me? I'm Hu Tao, the Seventy-Seventh Director of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor! Also nice to meet you~"

"...Ahem," Collei cleared her throat, not for attention, but to prevent the nerves in her. "I'm, ah, Collei. T-Trainee Forest Ranger. Nicetomeetyouboth." she finished in a hurry, causing you to raise your eyebrow.

"Are you completely fine, Collei? I'm not forcing you to play," your voice was gentle, and you knew not to make her uncomfortable.

Collei shook her head, however. "A-Ah, no, I'm good. Just a little nervous, is all."

Hu Tao smiled back. "Aw~ Don't worry, Collei! We're all friends here; don't worry, I don't bite~"

Shinobu nodded. "The same with me; we're all here to have fun, right?"

Collei returned the gesture, and then looked at the cards in front of her.

"Right, the game; this is called UNO. The goal is simple; the player with no cards left wins. As for the rules..." you cleared your throat. "In front of you is seven cards; to not show them to anyone unless you play the card. The cards go up from one to nine, and are in four colours, as you can see; red, blue, yellow and green. You can only play a card that is the same colour or the same number. With me so far?"

The three nodded, though Collei's was a bit late, and so you continued, "When you reach one card, you must declare it and say, 'Uno'; if you don't, you'll be called out and be forced to draw two cards; should you not have any cards matching the colour or number, you must draw until you get the colour, number, or a Wildcard. I'll get to that in a moment.

"Next, Special Cards; the Plus-Two you may have, if placed down, makes it that the next player must pick up two cards; however, if they play a Plus-Two, it will stack, and will become the next player's problem."

"So, say if I placed a Plus-Two, followed by Hu Tao, you, and then Collei..."

"...Then, you will be made to pick up six cards, yes, heh."

Shinobu shook her head. "I guess we must be careful with that..."

"Next, the Uno Reverse, or the No U card; it reverses the order of player rotation; say, Collei used it, instead of it going to Kuki next, it would go to me, and then follow reversed order until another Reverse card is played."

"Uu..." Collei groaned, rubbing her temple. "Who designed this?! Why does it have so many rules?!"

"If it helps, you won't struggle for long; you'll pick up on it soon enough, Col." smiling, the green-haired girl shakily gave one back, with a thumbs up to follow, of which you also mirrored.

"Now, the Wildcards; the one with a circle, if played, allows the one to change the colour of the card to anything they want, regardless of previous colours."

"So if I played it after Hu Tao placed down a red..."

"...You could very well make it another colour yes, Collei~" a giggle then followed. "Or, ya know, keep it the same for me to win, hm~?"

"...And the four allows you first change the colour of the rotation, and make the next person draw four cards."

"...What if I placed a Plus Four on top?"

"Then you unleash hell, Shinobu."

"...Hmm..."

"Well, if that's everything?" three nods followed. "Then, let's begin!"

This is going to be something, alright, heh.

[would-this-pokemon-be-a-friend]

I'd like to know how a Porygon-Z would do as a pet. My favorite little creature :)

As with this species' pre-evolutions, porygon-z are a curious pet candidate. These pokémon are artificial, mostly digital beings, which makes them about as rare as they are behaviorally peculiar. If you do manage to adopt a porygon-z (or provide your porygon2 a Dubious Disc to allow them to evolve into one), I’m afraid there aren’t a lot of resources out there to help you with caring for them. It takes some pretty advanced programming to bring about a porygon-z, so finding one to adopt can be pretty expensive or will require some advanced computer engineering skills. This blog’s primary source of information, the pokédex, has hardly anything to say about this species. Because of this, this post may feel a little… cobbled together… but I’ll do my best to provide you with all the speculative information I can. The bottom line, though, is that porygon-z might make good pets for some owners, but their unpredictable behavior and abilities may make them more than most can handle.

Let’s start with the easy stuff. Porygon-z are a good size for a house pet. They’re far from too heavy, and their ability to levitate makes it easy for them to comfortable get around, even in smaller living spaces. You’re probably already wondering, though: how big a risk is there of a porygon-z wandering off into other forms of space. Porygons, after all, have the fascinating ability to traverse digital space, which can cause some issues when it comes to owning one as a pet (see the porygon post, linked at the bottom of this one). Porygon-z are created using porygon2s as a base, meaning that many of their programmed behaviors and abilities can be inferred by looking at the information we have about their predecessors. These related pokémon are so similar in some ways, in fact, that many pokémon scholars don’t even consider porygon-z an entirely new evolution of pokémon (Shield). It is fair to assume that porygon-z have a similar ability to traverse cyberspace like porygons, but it doesn’t end there. Porygon-z seems to have been designed to traverse and work in even stranger dimensions of reality, described vaguely in the pokédex as “alien dimensions” (Platinum, HeartGold/SoulSilver). This was supposed to make them a “better” and “more advanced pokémon” (Diamond/Pearl, Scarlet), an absurdly subjective and frankly insulting goal (porygons and porygon2s are perfect the way they are). Whether or not this programming worked seems to be up in the air, but no matter what you will want to take precautions to avoid them wandering off into cyberspace. This is, of course, easier said than done. When it comes to porygons, which have very predictable programming, there isn’t a lot of risk of them popping off without permission. Porygon-z, by contrast, are quite erratic.

As a result of the programming they’ve been given in order to turn them into interdimensional travelers, porygon-z are unpredictable both in their movements and their behavior (Diamond/Pearl, Sun, Moon). This may make porygon-z difficult to train and to contain, and could even make them dangerous. Like their pre-evolutions, these pokémon are capable of using some pretty gnarly moves, like Tri-Attack, Double-Edge, and Hyper Beam, which could easily prove lethal in the wrong context. Given the lack of information about this species’ behavior beside it being “odd”, it is difficult to recommend them to someone unless they are aware that caring for them might look different every day.

On a positive note, these pokémon have a pretty good ease of care. Porygon2s, which porygon-z get most of their programming and physical “biology” from, can survive in the vacuum of space, after all! The problems with caring for a porygon-z don’t lie so much with a danger to them but to a danger to you and the risk of their getting lost. They are also, mostly likely, highly intelligent and social, if those parts of their porygon2 programming remain. They are likely much more adaptive than porygons, for better and for worse.

All-in-all, it is about as hard to recommend porygon-z as a pet as it is to explain exactly why I can’t. While their needs are very simple, their formidable ability to cause harm and run away from home, combined with their notoriously erratic behavior, makes them a pet that only the most experience pokémon (and preferably, porygon) owners to handle.

The Porygon Post:

[jackhues]

our house - arber xhekaj

notes: i hope you guys like this, third fic for 'it's the most wonderful time of the year', a bit of domesticy fluff for this one :))

likes are good, reblogs are better <3

part of naqia's end of the year celly!

gif not mine

"we got the gingerbread houses!" arber announced, ushering your daughter inside before closing the door.

hana, your daughter, came stumbling in the kitchen, holding a gingerbread box that was much too big for her. your husband followed close behind, just in case she dropped it.

"is the icing ready already?" she asked, putting the gingerbread house box on the edge of the counter. arber laughed, picking her up a bit to help her place it more securely.

"it's ready!" arian, your son, said proudly to his little sister. "mommy and i made so many colours, look daddy!"

"oh wow," arber grinned at the different colours you and arian had been mixing up while he went shopping with hana. he ruffled arian's hair, "good job. this is gonna be the best gingerbread house ever!"

"i wanna see too!" hana raised her hands for arber to lift her. "show me, please."

arber lifted her up, showing her the reds, and blues, and pinks, and yellows you and arian had mixed up.

"woww," she muttered. "can i eat it?"

"no, hana," arian shook his head, sounding like a tired old man. "we need to decorate the house first."

"i can eat it after?"

"you can eat it after," he agreed.

you and arber shared a grin at their interaction. you had two kids and they were basically polar opposites. arian was the calmest child you'd ever met, absolutely content with whatever you gave him. meanwhile hana needed to cause chaos wherever she stepped.

"okay, okay, now that we have everything, we can start building," you decided.

you all grabbed the icing, candies, and gingerbread house, making your way to the living room. you'd set up an old tarp on the carpet just in case anything spilled (which was basically a certain with hana involved).

"for you, my love," arber held out the gingerbread box. "you may do the honours."

you laughed, ripping open the box as arber and your kids cheered. you broke apart the pieces, handing everyone a piece of the wall. putting the roof on the side, you turned to your piece of the gingerbread house.

hana immediately grabbed the yellow frosting and began spreading it all over the wall she had gotten.

"hana, it's going to make it heavy. the wall won't -- never mind," arian decided. "do whatever you want."

"okay," hana shrugged, continuing to spread the icing all over her gingerbread piece.

across from her, arian pipes a small amount of blue around the edges, drawing designs on it. across from you, arber drew a heart on his wall, with both of your initials inside, and hana and arian's right outside.

"you're such a dweeb," you rolled your eyes, laughing at his grin.

the four of you watched the home alone movies as you decorated your gingerbread pieces, laughing at each other's pieces and trying to hide your pieces from the others.

"i'm done," arian smiled, holding out his piece.

the rest of you brought your own pieces out, getting ready to build the actual house.

"oh no, it's falling!" hana cried, pointing at her piece.

she's smothered so much icing on it that it wouldn't stay up, no matter how much arber tried to get it stay.

"hold up, let me do it," you said, playing around with the icing. you allowed her piece to lean on the other walls. after a few minutes, you stepped back, grinning. "ta-da!"

"yay!" hana clapped.

arian laughed at her reaction, happy to see the gingerbread house standing.

"i don't know how you do it," arber muttered to himself, staring at you in awe.

"do what?" you asked.

"make me fall in love with you a little more," he answered simply.

you blushed, shoving him away as he laughed and pulled you close. you gave in, leaning against his chest as he pressed a kiss to your forehead.

"okay, stop being mushy guys," hana turned back to the gingerbread house. "it's time to make the roof."

you and arber exchanged a look, bursting into laughter.

"of course, princess," arber grinned at her. "let's make the roof of our house together."