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#it also doesn't help that I've been having on-and-off art block
slumbergoblin · 4 months
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hey
#I don't typically like to vent on main™ but. I have to be honest I haven't been feeling good#my art hasn't felt good enough. none of my personal work feels good enough. and I don't want to get sucked into the mindset of#'all I can draw is fanart because that's all what people like'#I do not want to think like that. I want to be positive and keep making stuff that makes me happy regardless if nobody else truly likes it#but boy howdy is it. getting harder and harder to think positively like that..#and I will say this. this isn't me trying to say 'I'm sad nobody likes my personal art. could you guys pwease like it?'#yes it is discouraging to get 3 - 12 notes on my personal work but. in the end it truly doesn't matter#I despise guilt tripping people into liking/reblogging my work. so I don't ever want to do that#and I want to make sure that these tags don't make people feel that way either#I just. auugh I don't know#I want to say these feelings only last a little while. but I've felt like this on and off for /months/#it also doesn't help that I've been having on-and-off art block#I know for a fact in the end I will be fine. but that's just been my thoughts recently#I do not need affirmations. advice. or to be consoled. i just needed this out of my head^^;#after posting: it also does not help that I've been exhausted physically and mentally for a good while. but hey what can you do#after posting again: I REALLY want to draw just. characters in normal clothing hanging out#I've been really inspired by Ryoko Kui to just. draw my blorbos in casual outfits
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gremlinmodetweeker · 14 days
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Bellowing Bull Calling Home
Please forgive me for not posting any stories in a hot minute! I've just been super busy and tired. I had a whole issue with my meds (thankfully it's been sorted out) and since I'm so angry I wrote something about König getting mad. I really like the idea of being yelled at by this man, so once I get to 500 followers, I might post some snippets of smut.
Also, I'm thinking about opening a Kofi soon. I don't make much money, but it would be a good place to post some more... Interesting drawings, so to speak. I could also take some comissions if anyone is interested. However, I'm not sure yet. I'm just floating the idea.
Anyways, enough about me! Time to read König getting mad because that's super hot.
TWs: König yelling and insulting recruits, slight allusions to degradation kink, allusions to a horrible government secret contained in a suitcase (you never learn what it is)
Wordcount: 4.1K
Art from This Post
Story below the cut
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Bellowing Bull Calling Home
 Normally, visiting König at work was a laughable concept. A PMC base was no place for a simple civilian such as yourself, yet here you were with König’s (supposedly) very important briefcase that he’d been directed to hold close to his chest for the foreseeable future. You’d begged König to let you read them, but he had simply laughed you off and changed the locks on the briefcase again. He then politely hid it out of view to keep you from trying to break into it. You had no intentions of doing so, but apparently whatever was in there was important enough for König to go to such lengths to protect it.
Unfortunately, by hiding the suitcase to keep it out of sight and out of mind from your curious fingers, König had forgotten about it entirely when he left that morning. You wouldn’t have known were the suitcase not sat proud and regal on your humble dining room table.
Sipping your drink and leaning against the counter, you realized you had the perfect opportunity to try and hack the damned thing open. Whatever was in there had König muttering darkly under his breath and leaning away from your touch. Those accursed documents were driving a wedge into your relationship the size and depth of a canyon. Of course, you knew the case was tamper-proof. You knew that if you so much as cracked it open as much as a millimeter, it would most likely set off some sort of alarm if a proper code wasn’t punched in the top. You had the strange feeling, based on the hefty weight in your hands, that the case wouldn’t even so much as dent if you took a simple butterknife to it.
You swung it back and forth as you left the home, the weight of your relationship hanging with the suitcase in your hand. Making your way to the main gates of the base.
A soldier checked your ID before waving you through, getting another soldier to help make your way to your husband.
“So, I don’t know if he’ll be in his office right now, but we can swing by there first,” Horangi chirped as he followed behind you to a long, grey building that sat close to the entrance.
You passed through a series of doors under the judgemental stares of low-ranking officers as Horangi brought you down the linoleum floors to come to a plain wood door, its only decor being a brown and white plaque reading ‘LEICHENBERG’ in big block letters. Horangi flicked the back of his knuckles against the doors twice before rolling back onto the balls of his heels. He looked at the door expectantly, then to you, then knocked again.
“Sometimes I knock and he thinks he’s going crazy,” Horangi explained before turning back to the door, “what he doesn't know is that sometimes I’m walking by and I’ll knock on the door and leave before he can answer it. I don’t think he’s caught on yet.”
You shook your head tiredly. That would at least explain some of König’s strange tendencies as of late, at least. Friends like Horangi tended to shorten lifespans, so if König dropped dead on his next mission, at least you knew who to blame now.
Horangi pulled out a set of keys and unlocked the door to step through into the minimalist office. You balked at his gall, but the way the soldier swaggered through the doorway had you thinking that Horangi was far too comfortable with pushing his way into your husband’s office.
You barely got a chance to see your wedding picture on König's desk before Horangi cleared his throat.
“Whelp, looks like he’s not here,” Horangi sighed as he turned to face you, “guess I can just hand that over to him myself, if you’d like.”
You sighed, “I was really hoping to hand this over to him personally…”
“Why?” Horangi snorted, “so you can go fuck in a closet or something?”
“No!” you gasped, “I just… I wanted to see him. I never get to see him at work so, you know... I thought this might be a good chance to see what he's like at work.”
“Well who am I to deny such a fine and noble venture?” you could hear Horangi’s shit-eating grin through his mask, “if we’re gonna track down König, we gotta use plan B.”
“Plan B?” you asked warily.
“Plan B!” Horangi cheered before sauntering over and slinging an arm over your shoulder, “looks like we’re going on a goose chase today.”
“Please not a wild one.”
“It’s gonna be a wild one.”
You groaned as Horangi’s laughter echoed off the empty walls of König’s office. It figured that the one day you had to go to König’s work he’d be squirreled away into the farthest corner of the base. He had a habit of being in the wrong spot at the wrong time, which made you all the more anxious every time he was sent on deployment. It also had a tendency to haunt you in your daily life when he returned home to your awaiting arms.
Horangi trotted down the halls, conveniently pushing you past anything he considered a bit too explicit for civilian eyes and ensuring you were in front of him to prevent you from skiving off to some derelict corner of the base.
“König usually likes to go to the gym when he’s frustrated about something,” Horangi explained as he brought you from the main building to a separate section of the base. Once inside, Horangi rounded on the help desk like a tiger on a deer.
“So, Matrice,” Horangi drawled as he leaned his chin on the heel of his hand, somehow exuding smugness through his mask and sunglasses, “you wouldn’t happen to know where ol’ Col. Leichenberg is, would you?”
“Uh…” Matrice darted her dark eyes between Horangi and you, then down to the suitcase fearfully.
“König’s my husband,” you offered.
“König has a wife?” Matrice shook her dark curls as she tapped away on her archaic keyboard, “nobody ever tells me anything around here...”
“Well maybe if you actually came to the staff parties, you might get to know us a bit better,” Horangi slyly slid the dig into the conversation with serpentine ease.
“Horangi, last time I attended a KorTac hoedown you threw up in my car,” Matrice grumbled, “I’m never gonna be your DD again.”
“I don’t remember it being that bad,” Horangi snorted, then turned and muttered, “not that I remember that much anyways…”
“And that’s why I’m not your DD anymore,” Matrice scrolled through the page a couple of times before shrugging and turning to you, “sorry ma'am, but you’re outta luck here. Maybe try checking the cafeteria? It’s nearly lunch. Big boy's gotta eat."
“König would be the first out to lunch,” you grumbled after you thanked the woman. Horangi paid no mind to your whinging and simply turned you back around to head back to the main building.
“If it makes you feel better,” Horangi offered as he firmly pushed you across the road, “I think I saw him cut down on red meat the other day.”
“We’ll see how long that lasts,” you rolled your eyes. 
Horangi only laughed as he opened the door for you.
“I’m serious! He needs to watch what he eats!” you insisted as Horangi led you into the belly of the PMC.
“You know, sometimes I think about what your grocery budget is like, and then I think I'd rather go back to South Africa than have to pay your bills for a month,” Horangi chirped as he stopped you from missing a right turn, “watch your step.”
“You know it would be easier if you were the one in front,” you huffed as you swung down the bland corridor.
“I don’t like the thought of you being out of sight,” Horangi explained as he guided you around yet another corner, “König’s said some interesting things about you.”
“You guys talk about me?” you cast a glare over your shoulder at the tall Korean man.
“What else are we gonna talk about?” Horangi shrugged, “living on base isn’t exactly exciting. Dunno if you civvies got the memo, but there’s only so many times you can talk about special secret missions before it just gets boring.”
“Special secret missions?” you perked up.
“Cleaning duty assigned to whatever poor fucker got the shit end of the stick,” Horangi clarified.
You groaned, then complained, “Please tell me he doesn’t say bad things.”
“Not really,” Horangi replied, “but he tells me a little bit. Just the juicy bits.”
“Really?” you scoffed, “like what?”
“Did you actually forget your own birthday this year?”
You flushed, which seemed to be enough proof for Horangi to laugh at your humiliation.
“He told me you nearly had a heart attack when he told you,” Horangi snickered.
“Oh really?” the cafeteria came into view, “well has he told you he eats other people’s lunches as snacks?”
Horangi sighed, “I figured it was him. It’s not hard to guess that one.”
“Has he told you that he ate Stilleto’s cake?”
Horangi paused, “I thought he was a better man.”
“We both did,” you shook your head morosely, “but I guess she stole his evening snack or something?”
“Oh my God he didn’t try to justify it, did he?” Horangi groaned.
“I tried to explain it to him but he wouldn’t have it,” you pushed the door to the cafeteria open.
The massive room was empty save for a table of sergeants playing poker and a couple of officers sharing a coffee. The room was notably absent of any giant men with a propensity for malicious snacking. The warm and inviting smell of the room made you want to grab one of those dishwater coffees they served and kick up your feet, get a taste of the military experience, but the suitcase felt hot in your hands.
“Looks like he’s not here,” Horangi pointed out the obvious, “so maybe he’s outside training one of his teams? I hope not…”
“Why don’t we check?” you offered.
“But it’s so far…” Horangi trailed off weakly as you marched past him, “hey! Where are you going!?”
“To see König!” you called back.
Horangi rolled his eyes, but followed behind you regardless.
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The outdoor training area had been split into three squads of men, each squad being led by a different officer. The first leader Horangi brought you to had looked you up and down suspiciously before promptly turning a shade of milk white when he spotted the suitcase in your arms.
“What the hell are you doing with that!?” the portly man squawked as he jabbed a finger at the offending black pleather suitcase.
“My husband forgot it before going to work,” you spoke softly, taken aback by the man’s animated reaction.
“Wh-König just left it at home?” the man’s pale skin was steadily flushing to a beet red the longer you let him sit with your answer.
“Can you show me where he is? I need to get this back to him,” you tried to calm him but he only grew steadily more upset.
“You’re telling me König left that suitcase in the hands of a damn civilian?” the man scoffed, “König’s an idiot, but he can’t be that stupid!”
“She’s probably telling the truth, Baker,” Horangi interjected.
Baker steamrolled over him with the grace of a bulldog chasing a rat, “So where the hell did you get that?”
“It was just on my kitchen ta-”
“It was on your what!?” Baker howled.
“Baker!” Horangi barked, finally making the man pause to let you breathe, “this is König’s wife.”
Baker’s eyes widened as his mouth dropped into a perfect ‘o’. He turned to you with a sheepish smile, “Sorry, ma’am, I… I should’ve put two and two together but just seeing a random civilian with that in their hands and… Well… You gotta understand, right?”
You tried to steel your nerves as you replied, “It’s alright! Don’t worry about it.”
“I really should apologize though,”  Baker blundered on, “I mean if I’d only known you were König’s wife I never would’ve-”
“Baker please,” Horangi pinched his nose bridge, “cut the shit. I’m really not in the mood to listen to you kiss ass for an hour straight.”
“Understood sir,” Baker snapped his jaw shut before subtly turning to you, “please don’t mention anything to König.”
“I won’t,” you assured him kindly.
“Thank God,” Baker quietly made the sign of a cross before returning back to his platoon.
Horangi dragged you along to the next platoon, quietly ignoring Baker’s inability to direct you to König. Instead you were brought before a short man with notably thick dark eyebrows, accentuating his severe browline as he scowled at his soldiers.
“G’day Horangi 'ow are what the hell is she holding,” the man glared at you as though you were but dirt beneath his steel-toed boots.
“This is König’s wife,” Horangi cut you off before you could even start, “she’s here to deliver what he forgot at home.”
The man’s dark eyes darted from you back to Horangi, “You’re tellin’ me big boy over there forgot the damn-”
“Don’t say it,” Horangi interjected harshly, “don’t you dare.”
“She don’t know?” the man whispered.
“Not a word,” Horangi’s threat was nearly lost under the shouts of men and the screams of whistles.
The man looked unnerved, but nodded along begrudgingly.
“Right, well, you’re lookin’ for the big guy?” the man glanced between you both.
“Sure are,” Horangi nodded.
“Well yer in luck!” the man’s face lit up, “big boy’s just over there.” With that, he pointed out into the distance at one big man sitting in a navy blue folding chair whilst commanding the smallest group of soldiers, no more than a squad in number. His back was to them, but it was clear it was none other than König. If nothing else, the mask on his face in the sweltering hot sun was a dead giveaway. It was a miracle you didn’t see him earlier.
“Damn,” Horangi spat, “you really think it would be easier to find him, but he’s damn good at getting lost in a crowd.”
“When ‘e’s in that chair it’s hard to spot ‘im,” the man chuckled, “now get outta my sight with that damned thing. Gives me the heebie-jeebies just lookin’ at it.”
You glanced down at the suitcase and back at Horangi.
“You don't want to know. Seriously,” Horangi muttered as he urged you onwards.
Instead of taking in the weight of Horangi's ominous utterances, you focussed on making your way to König with a skip in your step, eager to see your beloved husband. You were so eager that you didn’t notice how he tensed up as you drew close. Just as you were about to greet him, he slowly rose from his seat with a blood-curdling howl sent straight from hell itself.
“YOU!” König bellowed like a brazen bull, “JEFFERSON, YOUNG, MANDULU! GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW.”
You stopped dead in your tracks. You had never, never, in your life ever heard König yell like that before. Sure he could curse up a wicked storm when he stunned his toe on the corner of your table, but this? This was another beast entirely. The mere thought of König yelling like this had been completely foreign to you.
“YOU USELESS ANIMALS,” König raged as he rounded in on the three cowering soldiers, “I have never, in my entire life, seen such incompetence,” König drew himself up to his full height, making even you shiver in your shoes, “and yet here you three are before me. What gives you the right to call yourself soldiers!?”
“I’m sorry sir, it won’t happen again,” the middle man’s voice quivered as he stepped forward for the others.
König’s laugh sounded downright demonic, “You’re apologizing for what? I haven’t even told you what you did wrong!”
You looked back at Horangi, who only threw you two thumbs up as he smartly backed away. You glared at his retreating form before König forcefully grabbed your attention.
“All three of you have been nothing but DEAD WEIGHT to the rest of your team. I’ve seen better performances from drunks moping up their own VOMIT!” König snarled as he drew close to the men, circling them like a hyena stalks its prey, “fucking Aziz is doing better than any of you. And Mandulu!” König clucked his tongue as the terracotta skinned man quivered like an aspen tree when König's voice dropped to a lull, “I expected better of you. You’re supposed to be up for promotion, yeah?" König leaned in close to scream, "DOES THIS PERFORMANCE WARRANT A GOD DAMN PROMOTION?” König’s face wasn’t even a foot from the man’s nose, leaning down and coating him with hot breaths from his draconic lungs.
The man, Mandulu, slumped as all fear left his body, totally replaced with encroaching shame. He dropped his head down, before tearfully admitting, “No sir.”
“THEN WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?” König screamed.
A part of you wanted to intervene. You felt like you were witnessing a torture session with how König rounded on this poor man, but something held you back. Maybe it was fear, but maybe, just maybe… It was arousal.
You hated to admit it, but something about watching König’s muscles bulge in his neck as his mask swayed forth when he leaned down over men who easily dwarfed you excited you. You almost wished that you were in their shoes, but watching was more than enough. He was a glorious sight, rage burning like the sun as he lorded over his men like a god. He was a mountain of a man with how he held himself up above his victims. You wished to lay before him like Prometheus, let him rip you apart with his talons.
“And you two,” König spat as he turned to the others, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING ON YOUR PHONES? What are you doing twenty feet off looking at the others while they work like ACTUAL FUCKING SOLDIERS.”
One meekly spluttered, “Sir we were just-”
“Just what? Laughing at Goetz?” you could see König whipping himself up into a frenzy as he hurled his next insults, “GOETZ HAD KNEE SURGERY THREE MONTHS AGO AND IS STILL HAULING YOUR USELESS ASSES ACROSS THE GODDAMN FIELD. AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING? PLAYING ON YOUR GODDAMN PHONES!!!”
You shuddered. If there was one thing König hated, it was soldiers on their phone during training. You gave a silent prayer for the poor men.
König stalked around them slowly, “I should have you thrown out. What would I be losing? Nothing! Not a single thing! I might actually gain something without you two dragging us down!”
The men cowered miserably. You couldn’t help but feel sorry for them, despite knowing the abuse was more than well deserved. From the sounds of it, it was a miracle König hadn’t beaten them to a pulp. Now that… That would be a sight to witness…
“ALL OF YOU,” König snapped as he finally stood to face the three men directly, “Mandulu! Give me a ten page report on all the reasons you’re still worthy of a promotion today at eighteen-hundred exactly, or you’re up for recycling. For the next half hour, you’re running laps around the yard. Maybe think how you'll structure your points, ja?” he turned to the other two, this time with a sadistic gleam in his eyes. You knew that under his mask, he was grinning from ear to ear through the fury etched into his face. “And you two!” he cackled, “give me your phones. For the next week, you’re going to be putting your phones in lock boxes. You’re going to carry those fucking boxes from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep. If you’re good little boys, you’ll get your phone for an hour before lights out. Are we clear?”
“But sir, my wife-”
“I DON’T GIVE A GOOD GOD DAMN ABOUT YOUR WIFE,” König roared.
The man shrunk into himself like he’d been burned by the flames of König’s fury.
“You are to carry your phones in lockboxes for the next two weeks! Are we clear?” König snapped.
“Yes sir,” the two miserable whelps squeaked out before König finally relaxed.
The goliath finally stood straight before them, “All three of you! Dismissed!”
“Yes sir,” the three men saluted and slunk off miserably.
Just as Mandulu looked like he couldn’t be in any worse of a state, König called out, “And Mandulu?" the man raised his dark for eyes, "I’m disappointed.”
The poor man looked like his whole spirit had just been crushed to dust. His face crumpled in just briefly before he quickly turned his face and quietly left.
You watched the poor man leave with his tail tucked between his legs before turning to look at König. He was shaking his head slowly as he turned his back on his soldiers, all of whom were watching him for further instruction. He quietly turned to them, barked a couple of commands that had the soldiers scurrying into actions, then turned back to stare off into the distance. Incidentally, that was right at you.
“Ah!” König stiffened slightly as he locked eyes with you, “meine liebe! What are you doing here?”
“I brought this for you,” you held up the suitcase that had been weighing you down all day.
“Oh mein Gott,” König gasped as he rushed over, “ohhhhh mein Gott meine leibe I can’t believe you found this. I can’t believe I forgot oh mein Gott.”
“I figured you might need it,” you laughed as you handed the suitcase over.
“I knew I was forgetting something, but this? If one of my superiors saw me without this,” König shuddered, “I don’t even want to think about it.”
“Well it’s a good thing I got it for you!” you smiled brightly before scowling, “it was really hard to find you though.”
“Oh?” König put the case down and put his hands on your shoulders, “where did you think I was?”
“Well, first Horangi took me to your office-”
“Please tell me he didn’t take you inside,” König groaned.
“He did,” you chirped, “but he did knock twice at least.”
“Well that’s something,” König grumbled, “so where did you go next?”
“We went to the cafeteria afterwards,” you placed your hands on König’s hips and shifted from side to side.
“You went to the cafeteria? Why didn’t you come here first?” König scoffed in mock offense.
“König,” you cupped his masked face in your hands, “I know you too well to not check the cafeteria second.”
König sniffed indignantly but let you continue your regales of your odyssey.
“So anyways, when you weren’t in the cafeteria, Horangi took me out here to find you! It took us a couple of tries, but we got here in the end!” you lightly kissed the inside of his wrist, making him chuckle sheepishly.
“So you saw all that?” König grimaced.
“All of it,” you told him, “I feel kinda bad for them though…”
“Ach,” König scratched the back of his head, “Jefferson and Young are fucking idiots, but Mandulu is usually one of my best. I don’t know what got into him today…”
“Maybe he’s going through a tough time?” you asked.
“I really hope not,” König winced, “if he is… Well, I can’t apologize. And if he were out on the fields it wouldn’t matter, so this is a good experience. Still,” König paused as he looked off to where Mandulu left, “I hope tomorrow is better.”
“Can't you go easy on him?” you asked hopefully.
“It’s because I like him that I have to be harder,” König patted your head lovingly, “if I’m soft, he’ll never be what he wants to be. If I’m hard on him, he might get to my rank in a couple of years.”
“That fast!” you whistled, “he must really be something special.”
“I was the one who put him up for promotion,” König brought his hands back to his hils, “but… You weren’t upset by any of that, were you?”
“Not really,” you shook your head, “if anything, it was kinda hot.”
“You thought me going red in the face is ‘hot’?” König shook his head in disbelief, “you’re a strange woman.”
“It’s cool to see you when you get all angry and stuff,” you chirped, then quietly added, “it would be hot if you yelled at me like that.”
“I don’t want the neighbors to know about your kinks,” König drawled as you blushed, “but if you really want, we could always try something when we get home.”
“Could we really?” you grinned eagerly.
“Well, not like that,” König pointed over his shoulder at where the three men had stood, “but I’m sure we can figure something out. Now,” he picked up the suitcase, “do you need a lift home?”
“I’ll be alright,” you assured him, “do you need me to go?”
“I'd hate for you to go so soon. If you like, I can meet you back in my office, but as you can see I’m a bit busy just right now,” König gestured over to the soldiers hauling a massive log over their shoulders from one end of the muddy field to the other.
“Can you at least give me a kiss before I go?” you asked.
“Of course,” König laughed.
Without missing a beat, König lifted his mask up to lean down and press a kiss against your lips. He held you tight briefly, then let you step back from his grasp. His eyes shone with an undying warmth as he took in your form once more.
“Colonel König has a face!” a soldier screamed in the distance.
König closed his eyes as he let out an exasperated groan.
“They’ve never seen your face?” you asked.
“They’ve never been on the field with me,” König explained before ruffling your hair, “now go to my office. I’ll be there soon, okay? I love you.”
“I love you too,” you blew him a kiss as you walked off back to the main building.
As you did, you could hear König raging and roaring at the soldiers from behind you. You felt bad, but you knew you’d be on the receiving end of König’s rage soon enough. Funnily enough, you looked forward to it.
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clownrecess · 1 year
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It really pisses me off how often public schools ban stim toys.
Almost everyone stims, it isnt just a neurodivergent thing. Neurotypicals and neurodivergents stim, neurodivergents just do it more and in more obvious ways.
Personally, I need to stim with something physical nearly always. Sure, I stim by rocking, flapping, etc. but most of the time I need something in my hands or my brain blocks everything out and I eventually cry because of how icky I feel. If I can't write a damn tumblr post without taking a break every 15 seconds to fiddle with a tangle or my hoodie strings while I hum noises relating to every word I've already typed just so I can write another sentence, I sure as hell can't sit and listen to an hour of information on something I don't even care about without a stim toy/tool.
This is why I hate the fidget trend so much. Yes, it makes stim toys more available, but it also gets them banned in schools because someone who doesn't even benifit from them cant stop being distracted by them. And then suddenly, everyone "must be distracted by them".
Back when I was still in public school, I used this sensory braclet a lot (I still have it, but I care more about fashion nowadays than I did back then, and it doesnt match with anything, plus it barely helps anymore, so I dont really use it.) that was very clearly a sensory thing. It's orange with silicone prickles all over it. It wasn't a distraction. It was just something I ran my fingers over in class. Well, suddenly its being taken away and nobody will tell me why. Anyone want to guess what happened? Yeah. I had a panic attack a few minutes later (I dont expect much else from that teacher to be honest. One time she threw away my art project because I folded it wrong even though it's been known and on my file since about 1st grade that I have motor issues. And no, she didn't let me retry. I just had to sit there, made to feel terrible because I FOLDED SOMETHING WRONG!).
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omaano · 2 months
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SW Hades AU July Update
Other updates: May - June - July - August
I've made a lot more progress with my Star Wars meets Hades AU project than I'd imagined - and absolutely none in other aspects, so let's see how the past month has been!
I have finished the character illustrations both for Maul
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and Omega, (look how cute she is in her pocket sized version! ^^)
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and I have also finally rounded out my Din collection, so that I now have 6 variations on his character art (helmet on and off, with Grogu and the darksaber, and with and without Grogu and the beskar spear in hand).
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Aphra has lines and flat colours too, as well as the very basic lighting layers on her!
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I'm real hyped to start working on her! I'm very proud of the dynamic pose I picked for her, too. I'll likely up the red in her jacket and gloves for a bit of a pop in colour, because all this brown everywhere is growing a little boring tbh. Like with certain other characters...
There has been some progress with Obi-Wan, but it's going suuuper slow, and I continue to preemptively worry about how I should completely redraw him for after his reunion with Cody, too. (Iirc Patroclus is standing with his spear in hand after he's reuinted with Achilles in Hades, and I also very badly want to draw him with his lightsaber ignited, but I feel that wouldn't be very good for him just, you know, hanging out in front of his little house on Tatooine...)
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And now I'm going to add my first ever poll for the next month in case anyone wants to weigh in on the order in which I add characters to this project:
I'm making no promises, but I thought this could be fun :)
This post is growing a little long, so I'm putting the rest about Obi-wan's background re-draw, and some musings on picking colours for Omega under the read more ->
There was no room for it in the previous update, but I'd fully redrawn one background finally for Obi-Wan's chilling spot!
It is the same setup as where you can find Patroclus in game, with the walls and the chasm and the doors out, but I added Obi-Wan's hut and a desert envisonment. (I've watched so many videos on how to draw in an isometric grid, because there was always something that just wouldn't work... I'd thought there was a trick to drawing squares and circles in this grid that I just couldn't figure out for the life of me - and it turns out that I was just careless and my grid wasn't tight enough so I had to eyaball distances and the width and length of things too much lol.) And now I'm faced with the difficult task of picking colours and figuring out if the character shading tricks also apply here or not.
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For now these colours are more for just to block in certain elements in the background, but I have some more desert/desolate looking backgrounds saved from other Supergiant games (they've got some really vibrant and dark colours, like wow!) as well to hopefully help me out moving forward.
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I'd redrawn those bulbs you can find over the door leading out of various chambers in-game, because I might as well go in full re-design mode bit by bit, and after some deliberation and googling I picked the Mandalorian Crusaders symbol as inspiration for it.
And now back to Omega for a bit:
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While I was working on the character illustration for Omega and Batcher I became very aware of how weird it is to pick colours for me. (I very heavily rely on preexisting colour palettes; I have multiple saved just for the Hades project like for Rex, Ahsoka, Cobb...) I'd been working on Rex and Cody last (Maul doesn't count because he doesn't have very human colours, so picking reds and purples and browns for him wasn't so shocking tbh), and aside from the armor paint and hair colour they very much share the very same colour palette. That was easy, I'd picked the skintones off Boba and the little portrait icons already, upped the saturation a bit because seeing the base skintone laid down scared me, and off I went.
(Laying down the first layer of flat colours is always super scary because they too often seem too dark and too grey/green, which I know will change after the complete shading is done but it still looks very off putting...)
So. The way the colouring in Hades made sense for me is that it works with pretty desaturated colours, there is a lighter shadow colour that's a bit more desaturated and the hue is shifted cooler but is still pretty cool to the original base colour (so much that I'd often have to turn it darker so that I'd see it laid down if I'm not sitting right), and another darker shadow layer that is a tad more saturated and warmer in tone. And there is also (a possibly slightly cooler shifted) and lighter highlight, and another more saturated colourful highligt (in the skin that is the bright, peachy orange for example). (and the little super bright pops of colour at the very very end. I hate adding them so much, but they are very important!)
But while I could pick the skin tones off of Rex, the problem I'd tumbled into was when it came to shading her hair (it's very important to me that Rex and Omega shared all these colours). Omega has a lot more hair (shocking, I know), and so shading that required a lot more than Rex's simple two-tones, and the "shadow" colour from Rex just didn't work, it was too saturated and warm in a larger quantity. So I tried to find another blond character in Hades, picked some colours off of Theseus... and those didn't work too well either, because those colours looked too pale and washed out compared to how lively her skintone was. There had been a lot of adjusting - I'd colour picked all of Theseus' colours and watched like a hawk where my colour marker moved both in hue and saturation a couple times in every which way and tried to mimic that in comparison to my base colour... and then you already saw how she ended up.
Here is the visual representation of the process:
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I do a lot of these swatches.
You can see them there next to Omega with the blues and the gold/metallic detail colours (the latter of which I'd ended up using in her crossbow), and up above with the Obi-Wan wip as well (I needed to pick a lot of colours from Chaos and Aphrodite to figure out how to go about his pale skin), but I also worked like this with Din and Achilles in the beginning, as well as trying to pick the greens for Boba's armor. Usually the first and biggest hurdle I run into is choosing my base colours... that's something I really need to work on; but after that this method really helped me feel a lot more comfortable with cell shading.
I hope it made sense to you, and it was at least a tad bit entertaining (or if I'd ruined the word "colour" for you for a while, I'm sorry XD, I know I'd used it a lot). This was really the first time I'd truly seen how I changed around the colours I worked with in a piece, and also tried to go a bit more consciously about shifting them around here (that's why I have all the screenshots XD) and thought I might as well share them here in this monthly update.
I've also switched over to using CSP and a display tablet, in the hopes that I can familiarize myself with them without the pressure of needing some fancy or very specific brushwork and work process. No texture, little need for pressure sensitivity - I hope to slowly pspsps my brain into accepting working with these, and build up some success and good experiences before I try sketching and drawing on it and maybe trying out some new unfamiliar brushes as well ^^;
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so 96% of you wanted to see me do a redesign of mermista. and while i can draw, i've been stuck in an art block so i opted to just draw over her current design. i don't hate all of it so i'm not changing everything.
let me go through the complaints i do have about her design.
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first off, she does not look like royalty in the slightest. she just looks like some girl who likes the color blue. even the gold accents don't really help. i'm not saying she has to walk around in a gown and tiara but at least add something to her design to indicate that she's a princess?
secondly, those clown shoes are NOT IT. who even thought of that? they look uncomfortable and ridiculous, and doesn't make sense for her character design.
those sleeves/armor (??? i honestly don't know what those are) and gold gauntlets also do not look practical in the slightest. they look like they'd be a hindrance for a swimmer. and guess what, she still has them in her mermaid form.
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the OG mermista design wasn't the greatest but at least it looked like she could swim comfortably.
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so my objectives were:
give her outfit a more streamlined look so it would make sense for her powers
make her look like actual royalty and not some girl with a cool color palette
expand more on the indian-inspired design and reflect that in her usual outfit, instead of putting her in a saree-inspired dress for one episode and calling it a day (i say saree-inspired because it's not really a traditional saree, but more like a modern and slightly western rendition)
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i made two versions of her redesign - one with a dupatta and one without. the dupatta, i understand, could be a hindrance in certain situations but i just wanted to give an example of how to take inspiration from a culture instead of just using it for brownie points. a dupatta is something indians would wear with their casual attire, mostly with salwars, unlike sarees which are generally reserved for special occasions (there are sarees that are casual wear, but they're still not the most convenient).
secondly, i gave her a headwear inspired from desi wedding attire and older indian tiaras. mind you, indian tiaras themselves are a lot more complex and beautifully crafted, but 1. it would take me ages to draw all the details and 2. i figured mermista would go for a simpler look, especially when she's not at her palace. also, while indian headwears are usually made with gold and jewels, i gave mermista's headwear pearls because.. pearls, oysters, ocean. mermaid vibes.
i changed the shoes and gave her a pair that are inspired by water shoes. i know that she would transform into a mermaid while swimming anyway, but these still look more comfortable without serving clowncore.
i replaced her gold accents with silver because the gold doesn't really mesh well with the teal, in my opinion. while indians are known for their love of gold, a lot of people nowadays opt for silver, because it is less expensive and more compatible with casual wear.
i highlighted the fishscale pattern in her outfit since you could barely see them in the original.
i gave her a bindi and the necklace that 80s mermista wore, as a tribute to the OG show, and the design is complete. i know that some of these may not be the easiest to animate but if they could animate perfuma's cape thing, entrapta's hair and a hundred different outfits for catra; this design is just child's play.
let me know what you think of the redesign and if you want me to do the same for the other characters!
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factual-fantasy · 10 months
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23 Asks :)))
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Google says that means Hunger in Spanish soooo
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Eat up my child
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I feel like it would be really hard to mistake Foxy for a dog. "Foxy the pirate Fox" posters are everywhere. Foxy is bright red and has a obviously fox like tail. His name is Foxy.
But there's always bound to be that one parent who doesn't get it, "Sweetie go play with the big dog :}}" But no one would throw a bone at him because they think he's a dog. That wouldn't happen-
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Once I'm free from this big project I would like to draw some digital circus. But who knows, my interest in it could die out before the project is done-
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@professional-idiocy
Uhg. Always super frustrating. Thanks for letting me know. 👍
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Google says that's an economy/nation question. I don't talk bout that stuff here sooo... sorry-
My main headcannon for Sunny is that he is also Moony. He is 1 animatronic with no split personalities. Sunny and Moony are the same animatronic with 1 personality, wearing 2 different costumes.
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I don't think taking inspiration would be much of an issue. Just stay away from straight up taking my idea word for word and doing the exact same thing as me. And don't take my idea word for word, add a bit to it and then call it yours.
And as for the offline stuff. Going against artists wishes is still wrong even if I cant see it.
If people seriously cannot interact with me without going against my wishes. Please block me. Stay as far away from my content as possible. That would be more respectful to me and yourself.
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@mysteriousl0ser
YEEEAAAAHH!! All good characters. I like Caine for his unique design, plus he's really funny. Same with Kinger, I like his design and he's really funny to me XD Perfectly cut screams are my weakness.
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@beryl-shade
Yes! And in the true swap its Bonnie! :}}
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@shawnmlinsitly08
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Thank you so much! I hope you like the rest of the artwork I have to offer! :}}}
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@abaroo
I haven't planned for Seam to get his eye back, no.. <:/
Also-
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WAAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH!! 😭😭😭
I remember reading about that style of line art and how it was "bad". "Chicken scratching" I think its called. And how people said that its not a proper way to draw and makes the art look bad. But it DOESN'T!!
Controlling lines and getting the perfect shapes is so much easier with chicken scratching. And if you know how to control it and clean it up, its not as messing looking as people think!
I've used chicken scratching for line art becuase its much easier and not as messy as people think. I'm so glad you noticed my line art and I'm honored that you would incorporate it into your artwork! I hopes it helps you as much as it helped me! :}}}
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@pinkbomb08
I'm sure Seam and the others would devour anything you gave them. Even if they didn't like the taste. Beggars cant be choosers!
Also thank you so much! I'll do my best! :))
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Maybe.? I could see them applying ointment to rags and carefully slipping them under and at first it feels nice.. But then having to take the rags out to apply more ointment could cause more pain and irratation..
There's also this property to the chains where they can get tighter at times.. maybe they'd have rags under the chains occasionally. But due to the tightening and irritation maybe they can only do it for a short time. As to not cause Seam any more discomfort..
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@chickenmilk120
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I've been hanging in there! :')
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Thank you, and I'll do my best! :}
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Oh yeah, there would definitely be this "cool down time" after every mirror where Jevil is wiped out and needs time to get his strength back. The natures of these mirrors is still a bit unknown, even to Jevil. So the first time he collapsed out of exhaustion must have been pretty scary for Seam.. who knows what was wrong with him..
As for the darkener thing, my AU functions off of my bizarre headcannon.
In my AUs, Darkeners, lighteners, and Undertale Monsters and humans.. are 4 separate beings with different properties.
A Deltarune Human is different from an Undertale Human. And a Undertale Monster is not a darkener, or a lightener. They are their own category. Not saying I believe any of this is canon to the games, its likely not. This is just the structure my AU is built on.
And I had this idea that Deltarune and Undertale stuff.. doesn't really mix. Or at least it rarely does. The idea is that the magic that makes up these 4 beings are all different. They don't mix usually, they just clash together.
Asgore cant heal Spamton becuase his magic is sooo different from the magic in Deltarune. Spamton's body just rejects this magic because of how foreign/different it is. A darkener could maybe heal him. And perhaps a Lightener could heal him.? But no one originating from Undertale can give their magic to him. They are just completely different.
Its the same when it comes to food. Some food is universal. Its so simple that nearly any kind of magic can break it down. But a lot of the times the darkeners bodies just, cant absorb Undertale foods. They're so different..
As for advantages or disadvantages.. maybe? There could be a case where a powerful Undertale monster tries to hurt Jevil. But his magic is just, structured sooo differently its basically ineffective. It could also work the other way. Maybe Seam is trying to step up and protect himself. And he only has to use a tiny amount to blow the Undertale opponent away. Its because his magic is so different it pierced right through his foe. Maybe stuff like that.? :0
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That is an interesting question.. I'd say it kind'a depends on the AU.?
And like, none of my AUs are actually completed. None of them. Things are always changing or I'm always adding more too it and the story never ends. But still I develop them at different speeds depending on the AU..
For example. My Welcome home AU. The structure for that AU and basic plot was thought up in like 3 days. Same thing with my Digital Circus AU actually,
But my FNAF AU? It took WEEKS to sift through all the games and pick everything apart and carefully construct my own timeline and think of a story for every single animatronic and have it all line up and-
Then there's my Deltarune AU. The basic idea of a traveling Jevil was thought up and constructed in like a day. But the rest of the au is weeks in the making. And its constantly changing and I'm always adding stuff and rearranging things GRAHHH!
It really depends <XD
And some ideas do go unwanted/unused overtime. But mostly I overwrite my own ideas with new ones. I think of a cool idea and I push everything in the AU aside to make it work. Even if the structure of my AU suffers a bit. <XD
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Yeah! Its good to see those guys out and about. And hey Green Truck's ok! He just has a strange way of starting up. It means that he's harder to steal now XDD
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@beryl-shade
Yes! Her voice box doesn't work if its not attached to her Jaw. Same with the all the other diner animatronics :0
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I pictured Seam being MUCH younger. I thought of King and Queen being like Asgore and Toriel. Being these powerful boss monsters that live for 100s of years.
So while King and Queen are 100s of years old. Seam is like.. in his 50s or something <XD
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@crimson-thinker
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WAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! THAT MEANS THE WORLD TO ME!!😭😭💗💞😭🍤💕
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Thank you! Also after googling it, I kind'a see the resemblance XD
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ALSKAKD GREG BEAR XDD That's perfect!!
Also thank you so much! Same to you! :D
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@lathan-chillyfilm
I've never played Dr. Mario & Dr. Luigi so any elements from that game were not added to my AU.. :(
But Mario and Luigi bringing foreign bacteria and illnesses could be an issue.. or it might not! :0 After all I don't know if human viruses can be dangerous to fungal people <XD
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mister-qi · 4 months
Text
Mr. Qi Friendship and Romance Mod Devlog 5/9/2024
Previous update
For those curious about the mod progress, read on!
Since the previous update, most of my efforts have been spent on Art and Implementation. While I've made some progress on Writing, that hasn't been my main focus.
Writing
Heart Events: no major progress, besides a bit of writing/blocking for the 4 heart cutscene.
Daily Dialogues: Generic dailies are 64% done. Unique dailies are currently on the back-burner. Marriage dailies are also on the back-burner, but I have quite a few written regardless.
Misc dialogues: A new section! This includes so many little details, which even get as hyper-specific as what happens if you divorce him and then attempt to invite him to a movie. What does he say if you give him a bouquet at low hearts? What does he say if you're married to him and there are slimes in the house? Stuff like that! There are 49 of these written so far, and it's hard to estimate my progress because as I continue looking through both the documentation and existing files I get more and more ideas.
Gift Dialogues: Not a ton of progress since the previous update, though I've written his birthday gift reactions.
Art
Portraits: 2 new portraits finished: blush and shocked.
Sprites: You may have seen me posting about this, but Mr. Qi does not have a walk cycle in the vanilla game, so I had to make custom animations for him. I've also changed his color scheme to better match his sprites.
Besides that, I've also made a walk cycle for the Bouncer, who will show up in at least one cutscene, maybe two.
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look at him go!
Maps: I'm really excited to announce that I've recruited someone to help with maps! Their name is wovensong, and they're currently working on the Casino VIP Room, which features in the 10 heart cutscene. They're helping with both the sprites and .tmx files, which is a huge help.
Misc sprites: none yet
Implementation
I have a functional version of Mr. Qi that can be befriended in my files now. He doesn't have a ton of dialogue in game yet, but you can give him stuff, raise his friendship, and trigger some placeholder heart events. But getting to that point has been kind of a hassle, in ways that the average modder doesn't have to deal with!
You see... the vanilla "Mister Qi" has a space in his internal name. If you know anything about coding, this should be setting off alarm bells.
Here's an example of where that's an issue: say you want to trigger a cutscene at two hearts with an NPC. You'd write something like:
f Jodi 500
which the game reads as "trigger this cutscene when you have 500 amount of friendship with the NPC named Jodi"
But if you were to write:
f Mister Qi 500
the game would go "you want me to trigger this cutscene when you have Qi amount of friendship with the NPC named Mister?? WTF?" and then SMAPI throws you a big red error and the cutscene would never trigger. Yippee!
It took me... a while to figure out how to get around this. Luckily the 1.6 update now allows for parsing for quotes in certain scenarios, so what actually works is:
f \"Mister Qi\" 500
So I'm glad that I started this mod now instead of pre-1.6!
However, it's definitely possible that the space in the internal name will cause issues down the line, so I have some (rough) code for what to do in that scenario. This involves hiding the vanilla Mister Qi, and adding a new, identical NPC with an internal name that doesn't have a space. Other mods, such as Morris Redeemed and some NPCs like Marlon and Gunther in SVE, do this as well.
And, if you're thinking that I could just change the internal name itself: maybe?? But probably not. There's some hardcoded stuff surrounding Mister Qi, and I worry about breaking it. Additionally, if any future official Stardew updates added new content revolving around Mister Qi, there's a risk that the mod would break in more serious ways.
Final Notes
Overall, I feel like I'm making pretty good progress! There's still a lot to get done, but I'm proud of the work I've done so far. Thanks for reading!
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gallusrostromegalus · 2 years
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oh my god I am frothing at the mouth PLEASE tell us about how Unohana is SO WEIRD ACTUALLY
(her reveal is my favorite thing in the whole series and I was obsessed with Bleach for a good long time)
I love Unohana. She's magnificently insane and deliciously fun to write so far.
My take on AEIWAM Unohana is that fundamentally, she just wants to be happy.
Oh, that doesn't sound too nuts. I hear you say.
Yeah, but I also headcanon that she has ADHD. We joke a lot about it on this site, but if you have the good fortune to have functioning dopamine factories, allow me to explain the worst part of it, for me.
There's no passive happiness.
Most people, as I understand it, if left to their own devices without undue stressors like capitalism or any particular stimulation, tend to be able to feel pretty okay most of the time. Which fascinates me because if I am left alone without undue stressors but no stimulation, my malfunctioning dopamine factories will shut down and I will rapidly develop a terrible black depression and paranoia that life is cruel and I will never experience happiness again and also my appetite vanishes and sleep cycle collapses and I will end up mentally and physically distraught, sometimes in less than an hour.
So I've always got to be doing something, or The Horrors get me.
So imagine Unohana, and with a brain that wants to die if she gets bored... living in fantasy magical ancient japan. Not much to do, out in the early days of the soul society, besides being attatcked by monsters, or participating in warfare, or starving to death. the first two, at least, get the blood pumping, but the first is difficult to come by regularly, so as a young woman, the most interesting thing that happens to her on the regular is Mortal Combat.
And how exciting it is! Adrenaline! Dopamine! And on the rare occasions she meets a fellow combat enthusiast, she also gets one of the best things about ADHD- Recognition Responsive Euphoria. You know that great feeling you get at Con or meeting another person with your special interest and you guys just VIBE and it feels like you've been best friends for life in less than five minutes? Yeah, apparently Non-ADHD people don't get that.
So naturally, she develops her skill in combat, not in pursuit of Honor or The Art or something nebulous like, that, but in the simple Pursuit of Happiness. She gets very good at it, and a lot of people die.
But she starts getting... too good at it. The fights don't last, there's nobody willing- let alone able, to meet her on her level and the previous joy she felt fades and fades until she is once again left in the darkness.
Then, a Miracle happens! Some punk stabs her in the lung :)
Man, what an evening for her. Kills a hundred men with barely a stroke and there's no more joy in the world for her when suddenly some barely-legal scarecrow looking bastard with a raggedy sword he pulled out of someone else's corpse appears at the top of the pile of bodies and then goes Ape. Fucking. Shit. on her.
It's the most fun she's had in ages! He's strong and fast and his moves are inefficient but delightfully unpredictable and by the GODS the STAMINA! Alright, she might be 1,000 years his senior but in the soul society age really is just a number and she can't help but be charmed.
So she flirts back by nearly cutting his face off. This DELIGHTS him!
And there it is again, that sudden feeling of intimacy between like-minded individuals, only these two ships aren't passing in the night, there' here to make Titanic 2: Electric Boogaloo. They make eye contact, and know-they're just like me.
True Love is a wonderful thing.
It's also a great opportunity for a surprise thrust and she only sort of manages to block it, and despite the feeling of blood pooling in her lung, she returns the blow full across his chest.
She staggers back, coughing.
He, miraculously, sits up, coughing. He won't die if he can crawl off somewhere to lick his wounds, but he can't continue the fight either.
She stands up, teeth gritted through the pain, and sheathes Minazuki. "What's your name?" She asks. "So I may find you to fight again."
"Don't have one." he wheezes. "But I'll never forget yours."
She's had men spit that as a threat to her before. It sounds very different as a declaration of love.
"Yachiru." she says, trying to not cough up blood. "Unohana Yachiru."
*
A Year later, there's a problem.
Soul Society has a bit of a problem with lungs. They can make entire fake bodies for shinigami to travel the living world, but individual organs, especially lungs... never seem to transplant well. Perhaps it's the fact they're already dead.
Her left lung is "healed" in the sense that it no longer has extraneous holes in it, but... Godsdammit, she still has all the power but none of the stamina. Barely 10 minutes into a fight and she's wheezing worse than The Old Man. 20 minutes and her hands are starting to shake and she's seeing spots in her eyes because she can't breathe well enough to keep the oxygen in her veins. Her fights usually last seconds so functionally she's still one of the most powerful people in the afterlife but it's a far cry from where she was before.
She can no longer be the 11th division's Kenpachi. Hell, she can no longer be the woman she was before.
"Unless you figure out some new medical miracles, this is as healed as it's going to get." Explains the chief medical officer after yet another frustrating checkup.
"...If that's what it takes." She decides.
The next morning she re-enrolls in the Shinigami Academy, under the name Unohana Retsu. The sole change she makes to her appearence is to braid her hair down the front of her chest because people WILL ask about the scar, and she doesn't want to think about how badly she's letting down that warrior with no name.
Either she needs to learn how to get back to his level, or find a new rival and learn to heal them to actually last the 20 minutes she has, or she'll die.
She studies.
To her vast surprise, bodies are actually fascinating. She'd previously seen that there were lots of interesting organs inside people but now learning what they are and how they work and the fact that the human body is already astonishingly death-resistant compared to most animals AND a carefully balanced meat sculpture minutes away from catastrophic failure at all times delights. She learns about the extreme ways humans can survive and the bizarrely mundane ways they can die, and she starts to form an idea- not an image, not a philosophy per se- but a working theory of how to keep someone alive and moving for as long and far as they will go, and what they need to stay upright.
This idea shines so brightly that it can keep that terrible darkness away.
The century practically flies by, and one night she stays up manually pumping the mechanism on a device used to keep the also-failing lungs of a young boy going after the power goes out. He's been blessed by A God that he's lived as long as he has, but even Gods can fuck up sometimes and she effectively has to breathe for him for twelve hours until the God gets its shit back together and he can breathe under his own power again.
"Hell of a fight you put in, keeping him alive." says one of her colleagues, collapsing beside her out in the 4th division medical garden where all the doctors go to smoke.
Retsu slowly exhales the smoke, fatigued but still coming down from the high of success. She cocks her head. Her body aches and her mind races and her heart thrills, just like- "I guess it was. " she realizes. "Interesting fight, going 12 hours in the ring with a dying child and winning because he walked away at the end." She laughs, and hands him the cigarette to share.
"You weirdo." he colleague laughs. He's far too young to remember when she was Yachiru. Most of them are these days, and it's a weird sort of peaceful anonymity and personal joke. "You weren't fighting the kid. If we were actually allowed to fight patients, I'd've stabbed the Kuchki hypochondriac decades ago." he grumbles, taking his own drag.
She snorts. "Who was I fighting then?"
"Death?" smoke billows out as he laughs, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
She freezes. Oh. Oh. That's why she likes this so much. She's gone from fighting mere men to the one opponent she knows she can win battles with, but never the war, and who will defeat her personally someday.
"Are. Are you crying?" he asks, a little worried.
"I- yes." She laughs, tears streaming down her face. "I just fell in love all over again."
"Ouch." he nods sympathetically, offering her the cigarette back. "Who with?"
"Death's own Angel, apparently." She giggles, feeling positively prepubescent with this crush.
And thus she goes on, for centuries, learning everything there is to know about bodies and minds and how the two keep each other going and the ways she can help. She gets very good at it, and a many more people do not die.
But there is a special, secret place in her heart for that nameless warrior that defeated her in battle, and made her stronger than every before.
*
Nearly 1,000 years after she stopped being Kenpachi, she is supervising the annual "see if you can kill the captain" tournament. Her colleague Kaname is there, a walking anxiety disorder with undoubtedly real but strangely hard to diagnose phantom pains, but he's still easily in her top 10 coworkers of all time because he made her a new medical record filing system so functional they were actually able to recataloge three millennia of medical records into a usable format in under a decade. He can come twitching into her office any time he likes, especially if it gets her that mass vaccination process for the Rukongai he's been biting The Old Man's heels for.
Then
as suddenly as he had appeared the first time,
He's back.
He's older now and larger, having matured into a spectacular bastard, but there's no mistaking that cutting edge on his reiatsu (which, oh, that has gotten much, much stronger since last time) or that scar running down his face as he turns from where he had just cleft the previous Kenpachi in twain, and stares out into the crowd in the shower of blood, challenging anyone to do something about it. Hell, even when Yamamoto appears to congratulate him on his promotion, Death's own angel's first reaction is to turn to fight the old man without hesitation.
He then promptly picks three different fights with four captains in under five minutes, tells Yamamoto to shove the job up his ass, imply he's had a WILD collection of vocations in the last millennium and furthermore, he has to get home to his daughter.
...Named Yachiru.
Hilariously, Unohana is only having the second weirdest time about this here, because Kaname and Kenpachi are, somehow, even weirder than she is.
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aioliravioli-69 · 5 months
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Detective Noir AU
Alright, this au has been sitting around, waiting for me to finish it but chances are, I never will :((
So instead, I'll just post what I have so far
This was inspired by that one comment on the au post the author made(at this point you could consider me a stalker for the amount of hours I've scrolled through her feed💀)
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First things first, none other than our main character himself, Detective Hollow!
I made him the detective in this one mainly because I was basing it off of the theory that if there was no heroine the keyholder would simply become the hero instead(don't remember where I read this but I'm guessing it was the webtoon comment section).
I also my have just really wanted to draw him in an overcoat
gonna be honest, I did little to no research going into this AU, the thing I most tried to learn about was the femme fatale so I could get a good view on how to design Buddy
Speaking of the femme fatale:
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Seems like someone got caught in the spotlight!
And before you ask, yes, those are pants. Weird ones, but pants nonetheless. I swear, I hate lighting when it's from the front. Frontal lighting can go fuck itself. Please ignore the little help lines I put in
Honestly, Buddy's outfit was probably the hardest part of this one. I wanted him to look slutty, but I didn't want to make it TOO slutty, but I feel like I may have added WAYY too many folds in his pantsuit and I kinda messed up on the overcoat lol. The diamond on his chest was inspired by the diamond on the villainess key more than anything and I tried to incorporate that into his gloves too.
Anyway, have some potential outfit sketches I made:
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the two I thought might come off as too slutty and
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the ultimate winner of the outfit ideas
As you can see the diamond chest window and fur coat were a mut in this outfit and I'm pretty happy with the end result
Y'all know how the femme fatale usually has to seduce the main character a.k.a. the detective?
Well, y'all know me so have an extra just for you <33
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But I'm not done just yet!
Remember how I said that I made Chase the hero because of the lack of a heroine in the story? Well...
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I did some more surface level research(and I mean very surface level) and decided to adapt the trope of the girl-next-door archetype for him!!
Don't think it suits him, since they usually just sit pretty and wait for the detective to notice them, but they do have badass roles once in a while and I live for those!!!
The one Chase has taken on doesn't though sadly :')
I decided to go with Charlie Hollow for this one because it sounded more like something the timid and 'pure'(yuck I know, but sadly film noir movies often prop up comparisons between the femme fatale and the girl-next-door, this being one of them) girl next door would have
Overall I tried to make this one as cutesy as possible because, why not lol
Lastly(I apologise, I made this in a rush because I was running out of motivation)
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The distance between Buddy and the detective sure did close QUICK-
Originally I was planning on adding Deacon as a police officer and now that I think about it I could technically fit Prunella in here as well, but I just don't have any willpower left to keep this thing alive
My art blocks been acting up recently and I can't even pick up the pencil without immediately wanting to put it down :((
I wish I could have continued this and maybe I will someday, but until then this'll just stay in my drafts
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imaginative-123 · 5 days
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The Yaoi Community is so ignorant to the issues other gay men faced from toxic yaoi fangirls
Warning: Minors do not retweet, interact or like my posts if I found out you're a minor you might get blocked.
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Btw I'm not using f*joshi bec I found out it's a misogynistic term so I'll use Yaoi fangirls although the people using that term when it comes to criticism for Yaoi Fangirls may not realized it's a sexist term and I used that word before and not realizing it was sexist, just bec you may not seen a yaoi fangirl assaulting gay men for not having sex that doesn't excuse blind ignorance of sexual harassment gay men faced from yaoi fangirls. Also I'm not ignoring if there are other queer women who experienced being assaulted by men and I've seen other women who have issues with men in how they seen lesbians and I think they deserved better, also I used to consumed real life gay porn from websites in the past not until I found out recently that there are few stories of gay guys who tell their horrifying stories from the sex industry that includes a gay sex worker who was abused from his work and disliked Hazbin Hotel's depiction of SA and his thoughts on Poison, it just pisses me off that the Yaoi community will be ignorant to bad behaviors the community has been criticized for years by gay men who have valid criticisms so that they can defend themselves of using terms like Misogyny or the classic "You just hate women that can't enjoy BL!" When there's problematic behaviors in the community that's been a problem.
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Yes the women who did this to him is Sexual Harassment, it's gross.
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For the last comment there are guys I've seen who were also hated for fetishization, there are people having heated discussions on that from what I've seen.
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Also this is the worst one bec this is really disgusting, an asian man was being helped by a man on his chest bec I believe this is related to injury from the Olympics and guess what the toxic yaoi fangirls make art and sexualized him. This is Online Sexual Harassment, this is distasteful to be honest, poor guy he deserved better.
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This comment definitely surprised me
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Hello?! Just bec there are certain men who did bad things to women that doesn't mean other women can do bad things to men, can we acknowledge that Sexual Harassments on both genders is bad?
This is all I have to post, I'm a Yaoi fangirl for all these years ever since I started as a teen, I used to have sh#tty views on men in the past during my Yaoi and Proshipper phase back then but as of growing up I'm starting to try and be open about the real issues in real life and I'm trying my best to be open and understanding as possible, and btw I'm no longer a Proshipper and I'm still a Yaoi fangirl but as someone who is part of the community, I can't just ignore the issues and normalization of bad behaviours and sexism of the community which is unfortunate it gives the Yaoi fangirls who don't participate in bad behaviours a bad name and it's sad bec there are times I feel ashamed of being a Yaoi fangirl, and what I'm hoping is that the Yaoi Community should call out bad behaviours instead of trying to act like being innocent all the time and did nothing wrong but also try to blame Misogyny as a defense card when people criticize their bad behaviors. Also Toxic Yaoi fangirls who participate in bad behaviours can be Misandrists themselves towards straight and gay men. Yes Misandry exists, stop trying to tell me it doesn't exist it's like saying Misogyny can't exist, Sexism in both genders can exist in Society.
The reason I brought up Hazbin Hotel bec I'm going to make a second post about Viv's sexist views on gay men since I've made a post on Helluva Boss and that second post on Hazbin will take time since I have college workload to do in Thesis and Foreign Language and Visual Effects. So if you're interested reading my analysis and criticisms of Viv's work here's the link.
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hoodedboy79 · 2 months
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Hey. I just saw your post of the idea to write about Assassins Creed. It’s lovely to see someone who would write about the Assasins, like Bayek (he doesn’t get enough love). I don’t have anything particular in mind but I’d love to see some/or reactions of some kind of Bayek, Arno and/or any you feel comfortable with. Have a nice day :))
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Being Best Friends With Them: Bayek, Arno & Jacob.
Just to start off with I'm sorry this took so long for me to do but I've got major writers block atm so these might be ass but I tried. Also Arno might be extra ooc cuz I only brought Unity a few days ago when it went on sale and haven't done more than the beginning yet so apologies in advance 😅
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Bayek
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• The most loyal, lifelong friend you're ever going to get right here.
• Even if you two don't see each other as often anymore after Bayek became a Medjay and started a family.
• Talking about him starting a family, you were one of the first people he told when he found out Aya was expecting.
• Invites you over regularly to eat dinner with him and his family, along with Hepzefa and Rabiah if they are free.
• He loves that his closest people get on so well.
• You accompanying him, Khemu and Chenzira on their hunting trips.
• As much as he wants to confide in you after Khemu's death and Aya's departure, he can't bring himself to. Not only because he doesn't want to speak about it when the wound is so fresh but he doesn't want to burden you with his feelings.
• So he doesn't say much to you before leaving to track down the Heron.
• When he eventually returns, and is in a slightly better headspace than before he left, he was happy to see you, and Hepzefa, waiting for him.
• You two have a lot to catch up on.
Arno
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• Will silently judge every stupid decision you make, his face tells you exactly what he wants to say though to the point it doesn't feel as 'silent' anymore.
• He will help you clean up and or defend you from the consequences of said stupid decision though.
• The type to have clothes made for you, regardless of your social status.
• Depending on your personality, there's going to be a LOT of disagreements between you two due to Arno's stubbornness (and yours, potentially) but he's willing to come to a compromise with you after enough back and forth, he probably won't admit if he was wrong though.
• Arno never truly gets over Élise and has times where his grief rears it's head, sometimes he'll allow you to comfort him even if it's just by sitting in the same room in silence while you both get on with your own things or other times he'll avoid everyone completely and try to keep himself busy with random tasks till he feels ready to see people again.
• Would like to visit the theatre with you occasionally or just relax for once and have a discussion about art or the newest plays.
• Gossip duo 💅🏻
Jacob
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• Sheer pandemonium.
• You two together brings the fear of God into people.
• Spending hours with him in the pub, whether it be indulging in drinking games, playing Whist (don't worry he won't drown you in the river if you beat him) or just chatting with the Rooks, Jacob will make sure you enjoy yourself and hopefully get you to stay just another hour (and buy another round).
• Tells Maxwell about you and eventually invites you to accompany them on one of their random outings.
• We all know how that eventually ends.
• Both of you teasing Evie about Henry. Jacob will definitely turn on you though if he finds out you are courting someone/being courted, it isn't just Evie he's willing to tease.
• He would find out as much as he could about the person that you're interested in, especially if their the one trying to court you. He's been betrayed by people close to him before and doesn't want you to go through the same thing if he can help it.
• He'll make almost everything a (friendly) competition with you; Who can climb this building faster? Who can kill the most Blighters in this random street fight? Who can escape the police quicker?, things like that. Evie will even sometimes join in, which usually ends with the twins bickering after she wins.
• You and Jacob really do share the same braincell at times fr.
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I haven't done any hc's in a hot minute and I can see why lol. Maybe I'll rewrite these one day or add to it I dunno.
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dollcherray · 14 days
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✧₊⁺ SPRAWLING EFFIGY IDIOT ⋆.˚
₊⊹ Cyn reader in school
⊹˚. ♡ Pst! Cherry says: Told y'all i would redo this, Its been a while since i've written for fpe so i forgot some things about it, im so sorry if there's any mistakes! Cannibalism mentions, killing mentions, some gory descriptions and etc... it's cyn so she's her own warning, cyn art made by tsukyiio... i had a writer's block in the mid of this so this is short, im sorry.
。𖦹°‧Type: Platonic, Headcanons, Fluff
꩜.ᐟ Song: Lights out
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۶ৎ Cyn reader who's feared by alot of people in the school, not only because of your habits but your erratic and weird behavior itself, the way you move your body and hands actually gives alot of people the creeps.
۶ৎ Cyn reader who's very similar to Alice in a way, maybe even more sadistic because of the way you inflict shock and fear into the others, finding joy in other's pain, emotional or physical, it doesn't matter to you; your enjoying it either way.
۶ৎ Cyn reader who's left alone by the teachers because of your abilities and creepy desires, even if the teachers are relatively deranged too, they still find your way of acting very twisted, not to mention the way you leech off of people's pain, it gives them the chills.
۶ৎ Cyn reader who's the only one who can enter Alice's room without being shredded to pieces, since you're also a psychopath like her, she kinda relates to you, shes not really friendly with you, but she's not hostile neither, she just lets you exist near her.
۶ৎ Cyn reader who can only "interact" with Oliver and his friends without them running off, since Oliver is somehow friends with Alice; i can see him being able to strike some type of friendship towards you or at least a neutral relationship.
۶ৎ Cyn reader who loves to torment random students out of the blue just for the laugh of it, turning hallways lights off whenever a student is alone, threatening them, crawling on the walls and etc... Heck, you even do it to the teachers when able.
۶ৎ Cyn reader who can actually be caring only with those who help you, these people (possibly) are Oliver and his crew because of the neutral relationship you have with them.
۶ৎ Cyn reader who always passes all the classes even when you don't put in the effort, because the teachers are so afraid from the fact that if they tried to give you one simple B; you would come after them.
۶ৎ Cyn reader that even if the teachers fears you; you actually have a lot of points with them because of your psychopathic antics, and because you eat whatever's left of their victims, consequently cleaning it.
₊⊹ "Boring, and, annoying."
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A/N:im sorry for not writing recently, i have been having lots of episodes and its been a busy month for me since the year is almost ending.
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beekeeperspicnic · 1 year
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What I've been getting up to without my computer
Since I don't have any game updates at the moment I thought I'd give you a look at my very analogue Sherlock Holmes related project!
As you probably know, the Sherlock Holmes stories were mostly originally published in the Strand Magazine which came out as floppy monthly magazines with hardback collections every six months.
A while ago I spotted a really beaten up copy of the July to December 1893 book on eBay for £8. This book can sometimes go for £200 in good condition because it's the one with...
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I immediately decided to make repairing it a Project!
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You can see here that the text block has totally come away from the boards.
Along the spine I was really excited to see something a little familiar being used to give some structural support! My initial thought was that this had to be a slice of a cover of one of the floppy Strand magazines.
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But when I got it loose and studied it, although the paper and ink colour is the same, it doesn't actually follow the layout format of the Strand covers. It's lots of little ads, and they run off the bottom like this is part of a larger document.
Scrap of paper on left, a Strand Magazine on the right:
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So yeah, that's still a bit of a mystery, but it's cool to see this scrap of paper the printers had lying around. I had to remove it, but I'm going to keep it safe.
I did some gentle cleaning of the cover using a putty eraser, just gently pressing and rolling, never rubbing. It picked up a little of the grime.
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The cover had got some paint splotches on at some point in the past, and I tried to gently remove these. Part of me wishes I'd left them as I think I was starting to effect the blue colour in the area.
(Original on the right, my attempt at cleaning on the left!)
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I also reinforced some of the parts of the bookcloth around the spine that were very worn with Japanese tissue, which is very thin but very, very difficult to tear.
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Now here's a fun part, with some help from my cat Miss Malkin!
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The spine of the book had a few problems.
The fabric which wraps around it and helps attach it to the cover/boards which is called scrim (or mull, I've seen it called both!) had totally decayed and turned into gross dust, I knew I'd need to replace it.
Although the sewn binding was sound, I could tell that the glue wasn't doing its job anymore. It was old 'animal glue' that had turned hard and brittle. I knew I'd need to replace it with something else, like PVA.
I needed to get that glue off, so I tried out a trick I saw online. I made a paste/gel out of methycellulose, which is a substance that gets used as a thickener in lots of food products. Of course I keep mine in a fancy little jar:
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The gel softens the old glue without getting it dangerously damp, allowing you to gently scrape it away. I have a really satisfying video of me doing it, but Tumblr only lets you upload one video per post, boo.
Look at all this gnarly gunk!
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But look at how good the text block looks with its new scrim and glue!
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I got the black paper from Shepherd's in London which is a specialist Art & Conservation Paper shop (they have a book bindery too but it's closed at the weekends.) Buying it was so fun, I got to look through lots of samples and pick something which matched the original paper.
I then had to get it home half way across the country on public transport. Yaaaaay.
I was trying to think what I was going to use to replace the Strand Magazine page on the spine. In the end I decided to leave a little note, for some future person who might take the binding apart someday!
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So, here it is!
I have to admit that this whole project has been a real challenge, emotionally more than anything! It's required me to be brave about messing with an old book, and to acknowledge that even where I've made mistakes, at least it's better off then it was when It arrived at my house.
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broodwolf221 · 1 month
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new & returning fans:
this post is written for dragon age fans who are returning on account of da4, but applies well beyond that. i think it's just sound fandom advice :)
please share your reactions and your thoughts!
they do not have to be "original" to be worth sharing
they do not have to conform to fanon
you do not need to research all that has come before you before you're able to share
you do not need to have played/read everything to talk about it. it's fine if you've only played one game or only read one book; you can still be part of the fandom!
coming to the same or similar conclusions as others is natural - fandom is based on a lot of people looking at the exact same set of materials and drawing conclusions from it/building off of it/etc
it's fascinating reading through other people's meta - but if you don't want to, you absolutely do not have to!
and if you do want to but don't know where to start, you can ask people in fandom or make a post asking for recs - many established fans will jump at the chance to share information!
also: i personally have no problems with "why has no one ever thought of this!"-type posting (it just seems excitable or playful to me, not malicious), but i've been talking with my friends and apparently it can be a powerful pet peeve. so bear that in mind!
all in all, please share your thoughts, your ideas, your reactions, your meta, your fic, your art!
established fans:
new people will be coming, and they won't know all the Big Name Bloggers or the Established Conversations/Conclusions - this is natural!
they also don't have to know any of that to be respected within a shared fandom space
there's a pressure to conform to established povs, and sometimes it's hard from inside to see just how strong that pressure is, but it's still there
so being deliberate about making space for new fans is nice - this is why i'm making this post! and because seeing a post like this would have helped me when i got back into the fandom
making space for them includes not putting specific demands on how they act*
new fans means that old conversations and "disproven" povs will emerge! this is natural! it's new for them, and just like a lot of us had space and grace in which to process these, we should give them that same space and grace
the above doesn't mean you need to follow them ofc. just don't be an ass in/about their posting
*this does not apply to like... basic standards like not harassing people/not being offensive/etc. that's not a fandom-specific thing, that's a social interaction thing. this post is about the one and not the other
all fans:
i'm not telling anyone to interact with anyone they don't want to! i'm a firm believer in the block button
but it's nice to be nice? tbh? to try and assume best intentions and take things in good faith
i hope people make space for new fans; and new fans, i hope you feel welcome in sharing your thoughts and reactions
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twstedpometea · 6 days
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Addressing the "No Harassment" rule people are still breaking.
Hello everyone it's been about 5 months since I last posted anything Ugigiugi-related. However, I was recently messaged over something I still have to address because some of yall ain't listening to what many of us have been saying since this Ugigiugi drama began. This will be a long post.
There has always been a rule of "No harassing" people about the Ugigiugi situation.
This rule has always extended to people who do not want to see/hear the drama in the Twst fandom but also to people who used to/currently follow Ugigiugi. Anyone who's followed my blog knows I've already had to talk about harassment/spamming before but it seems no matter what people keep breaking this rule.
I was recently messaged that one (former) follower of Ugigiugi was being harassed. This same person who messaged me is someone who has helped save/sent us some of Ugi's now hidden art and given us some art sources since the drama unfolded. They have already explained to me that they only follow Ugigiugi on DA now for the sake of keeping an eye on her activity and nothing else.
Now I'm aware there are several reasons people still follow Ugigiugi on DA. I know some people follow her by watching her profile. Others use tabs/HTML links to said profile and so on. Whatever reason doesn't matter people follow people for different reasons. That being said once again I am still seeing this type of harassment going on and it needs to be addressed. I was sent these screenshots and have permission to post these by the person being harassed.
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So first off. This is STILL harassment. I'll keep saying it till the cows come home. Harassment of any type is against what a lot of us here have been saying to not do. Secondly, Let me correct people here on something. A watch doesn't equal a "boost" or supporting number on a profile. DeviantArt doesn't work the same way Tumblr or Twitter works when it comes to boosting a profile to the "popular" side of a Social media page. Engagement/activity/views on art pieces are what boost the algorithm. (More so you have to be breaking BIG NUMBERS to get your profile on the front page) That being said? Ugigiugi's numbers have dropped since she was exposed. She used to be pretty close to 600 watchers. She's now down to 315. So if anything she's lost half of her numbers, and with her no longer posting on DA she's lost traction as of this time. Thirdly, it's juvenile to be going after Ugigiugi's "watchers". At that point, you're just looking to start a witch hunt for people. Ironically, you're also going after the people who have been helping me and others since the drama unfolded. I need people here to stop going after people like this. You shouldn't be harassing anyone. It doesn't even matter if they're a watcher/or a fan of Ugigiugi or someone who might be helping keep an eye on her. We've stated time and time again, to not be harassing anyone. PERIOD! I'm going to go ahead and say this if anyone is getting harassed about the Ugigiugi stuff please just go ahead and block or report them. I'm getting very tired of having to repeat the rules because people are looking to use their "ugi hate" on someone. As for whoever this Cerulea--blue person? I don't know if they are a user here or if their under a different name on Tumblr but if you see this post? Kindly, stop. If you have so much energy to be doing something then go source Ugigiugi's traced art (there are still plenty of unsourced pieces) or something more productive than harassing people. You are literally not helping no one at all and you are just breaking the rules and boundaries a lot of people have been set about this drama. -TwstedPomeTea
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Text
Working on some designs for the White Witches! The concept of them is so fucking creepy and unsettling I love it so much, so naturally I have to draw them. But before I get to do that, I have to figure out how the fuck to do that- so welcome to my process! This is gonna be long as hell, so I've put it under the cut for the sake of convenience.
First we gotta go over what we have. I haven't seen any official art of White Witches, only of the Manus and some Hunters, so we gotta work off of the narration. The first notes I took were from Arc 2, the first ever appearance of a White Witch.
These are the details I got from that scene:
White robes
Gloves
Long sleeves
Long white veil with light green and blue embroidery
Lower face showing, eyes covered
So all of these needed to be incorporated somehow. Step one was messing around with the veil and the robe silhouette.
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Silhouette
This part was easy enough, I wanted to stick with the church theme so I started looking through nun habits. I didn't want to exactly copy any specific style, but it felt like an appropriate starting point. What I ended up keeping was a heavy lean on triangles and rectangles.
Veils
This was probably my favorite part to experiment with. The veils are described as covering the eyes, but not the lower half of the face, so you can see the mouth clearly. This detail actually spawned a whole train of thought that massively influenced my design going forward but we'll get to that later-
The first idea I had was to just take a regular veil and make it sheer at the bottom, like a gradient. But I quickly dropped that, it felt too same-y, and with colors it would blend right in to the rest of the white robes. The whole point was to bring a focus to the face. What I ended up sticking with was this!
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Once I had it down it seemed so obvious- a split veil! I just put a split across the bridge of the nose and bam, suddenly it made sense. The triangular cut and the cascading folds just kind of happened, it felt natural with the rest of the shapes I had been drawing. A friend said it reminded him of moths, which felt oddly fitting given their association with magic in Arc 1. In retrospect, I think I was subconsciously inspired by early appearances of Blue Diamond in Steven Universe. Not intentional, but I do love how it turned out.
Other Uniform Details
This is the "later" I mentioned earlier, because I am obsessed with the implications of this veil. It's very specifically said that a White Witch is never without her Manus or a Hunter, and the first one we ever see is flanked by two hunters. They are, fundamentally, still seen by the church as threats.
So with that in mind, one goal expanded into two. At first my goal was to make them unsettling, but beautiful. Like porcelain dolls. The church doesn't parade their cruelty around, they dress it up in fine robes and narratives of redemption.*
* This is some extrapolation on my part. It's mentioned in Arc 2 that most witches regard White Witches as "traitors". That implies that their imprisonment is not common knowledge. If it was, they would be "captives" or "prisoners". Even if they turned themselves in, I highly doubt they were signing up for whatever the fuck is going on in that church.
Now I have my second goal: make them clearly, but not obviously, trapped.
This gave me a really clear direction to move in, because now every piece of fabric has an extra practical purpose. For example-
There is a myth that making eye contact with a witch is inviting a curse upon yourself. The veil helps with that. Blocking their eyes eases the anxieties of any passerby or audience (and makes real spells that require direct eye contact impossible). It also heavily obscures their vision, making them reliant on their Manus to move around effectively. The mouth is uncovered so that they can always be monitored for recitations or chanting. Symbolically, the veil could parallel the blindfold of Lady Justice. If the narrative spun by the Church is that the white witches are willingly working in their service, then there is a sense of self-redemption to it. Turning wicked skills to the service of what is good and holy. Repenting as an act of the pursuit of justice. Obviously made all the more ironic and gross by the true nature of the whole thing.
The long sleeves are beautiful, and add to the general elegance of the uniform. They are also deeply impractical. The length makes them easy to trip over, the weight of the fabric makes them difficult to roll up.
There's a sketch on the first image by my friend who suggested that they could have twin trains coming off of the skirt, like moth wings. They create a very sleek and elegant design befitting the image of the Church. They're also easy to step on or grab in the event of a runaway witch. Naturally I took his suggestion.
This is what I meant by "clear but not obvious". None of this stuff is hidden, but most people aren't going to notice it. Someone like Zachary probably would, because he would be thinking from the perspective of how to escape or fight back, so he'd pick up on those details. But the general non-magic crowd isn't going to be thinking about that at all. They'll assume that a lack of literal chains means that there are no prisoners here. So the Church gets to keep a squeaky clean image with the public at large while still acting as a prison.
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Basically, I'm having way too much fun with this. And now I have a solid idea of what I want these guys to look like! Next up will be settling on designs for Little One, Pointer, and Middle! (Speaking of which the utter disrespect of calling her "Middle"???? That was one of the details that made "As violently as possible please :D" a very satisfying moment)
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