#it's a dumb observation

[avvocarlo]

the childhood experience of playing any kind of game or activity with friends then getting bored really quickly and being like "uhhh you win"

[egophiliac]

I love the idea of teenage Malleus hating his new baby brother Silver but slowly falling for him

words cannot express how much I adore that Mal's reaction to seeing a human baby for the first time was "the fuck is this. why does it look like that. gross." (then he immediately got stuck on babysitting duty and the rest is history)

I am SUCH a sucker for that trope of "non-humans being fascinated by normal human behavior", so between that and all the delicious angst going on I was eating VERY well. >:) Malleus being so impressed that two-year-old Silver can walk, because it took him twenty years to stand on two legs! Lilia barging in on the Zigvolts at 2 AM being like "he won't stop crying what do I do"! Lilia trying to feed Silver rats and Malleus being like "...please just stick with what the books say to feed it"! it is all so. chef's kiss.

[ranna-alga]

"Do the Evolution" - Pearl Jam

[divineandmajesticinone]

25 Ji, Akasaka de / At 25:00 in Akasaka (2024) I 1.05

Nagumo Shoma as Yamase Kazuma

[patheticbatman]

I haven't seen any posts about this yet but l've seen some fan art that makes me feel this needs to be said:

Don't forget Leah Sava Jeffries has darker skin when making Annabeth Chase fan art!

She is much closer to Lupita Nyong'o than Zoe Kravitz when it comes to shading, reflection, and complementary color usage :).

Lighting for dark skin is different on light skin. Light skin gets changed by lighting, and dark skin reflects the lighting. Below is a lovely shot of Nyong'o's character from Wakanda Forever in mourning. The filmmakers emphasize the umber qualities of her skin in contrast to the funereal white and (arguably harsh) light across her shoulder below.

Try to pick spots that aren't directly in or near the light, and try mixing 3 or more! You can put it into a color mixer online, or even color pick, lower the opacity, and lay the shades over each other until you find one that fits. And of course, the more 'realistic' you want to go with shading and lighting, the more shades you're going to want to be able to explore vivaciously :D.

Let's take a look at the same 3 beautiful actresses I mentioned at the beginning, with a bad color picked area and a better-ish color picked area. (Please keep in mind, these are not perfect comparisons, as I was not able to find pictures of all 3 actresses under the same kind of lighting.)

Kravitz's has a clear difference between the two, but they aren't too far apart, in comparison to Nyong’o’s and Jeffries’s. Note the dullness in the poorly picked shades as opposed to the better ones. Also keep in mind that while Kravitz has a rosy undertone (at least in that picture - it’s from The Batman, which has stylized coloring) Nyong’o has a slight cool undertone (I can’t pin down quite what, but the picture is definitely not stylized like Kravitz’s).

Jeffries runs more ochre or russet, but neither of those are pink. They are more red than terracotta or umber, but to call Jeffries’s face rosy would be wrong. Err more towards the golden when drawing her.

^^saved an image from a writing tutorial long ago, but can’t seem to find it. If someone recognizes it, I’ll link it. EDIT: it’s from this post. Thanks @autumnrowancollector ! <3

And also, the darker skin gets, the less likely warm undertones are going to appear. Don't be afraid to use blue or purple or even green on occasion!

Additionally, cool lighting on dark skin is always a win imo.

(I was going to use that picture of Jeffries as Annabeth by the lightning bolt, but then I realized the lighting on her face doesn’t quite match up with where it should hit from that angle, and I realized they kind of just turned everything bluer, so screenshot time!)

(Also if you want another really great live action example, check out anything Aldis Hodge is in, like Leverage and Black Adam)(and of course there’s Spiderverse <3 but I want to post pictures of Hodge)

Now, to here’s a list of more experienced people’s advice:

Black facial features & hair

Shading digitally for a (somewhat) monotone Black character

Stylistic choices and places to start looking for inspiration (besides a search engine).

Coloring Black people’s lips

A better coloration tutorial

Also a nice tutorial for Indigenous skin tones, just in case yall want to draw Piper or use this information for other dark skinned characters :).

EDIT: Some actresses who are closer in skintone to use for Annabeth, provided by the lovely @blackfemmecharacterdependency ! If you can’t find a reference for Jeffries in a specific lighting, maybe check out these ladies’ pictures! It’s a reblog, so scroll down.

TLDR: Don’t make Annabeth pink and pale, make her dark and golden.

[minors-dni]

[shycorvid]

Imagine having a dream and you're studying for it, working for it, maybe both, and circumstances beyond your control forced you into a position where you had to stand up for yourself and everything around you. You succeed, and you get a prize for it- 'power'. But is it really power when you have to keep using it for the greater good? When you can't ever be selfish anymore, or be considered just as bad as the one before you, the one you stood up against.

When you can't work for your dream anymore, because this thing you never asked for is more important now.

And in the end, your friends and family are able to wander off and pursue their own lives and you're stuck with this hell of your own making, but it's expected, and you're doing such a good job! Accept your destiny, grin and bear it! Isn't it grand to have all this power, that all these people depend on you to keep doing good?

And you can't complain, because you're basically living in the lap of luxury, right?

A bird trapped in a golden cage.

Yeah, anyway, Ghost King Danny should be considered the tragic ending.

[mobblespsycho100]

Idk if this is considered a hot take or not (hopefully not) but Laios is not a himbo lmao. He's got buff and kind, but he's the farthest thing from dumb.

[warriormoustache]

Favourite fish?

Very hard to pick a favourite because I love all fish, but I’ll admit that I do have a particularly soft spot for blennies. Particularly those from the genus excenius. Every time I see one I feel happy.

They’re just so dumb

This fish is having so many thoughts running through its head right now and none of them are intelligent.

Of course I am also fond of their relatives; the gobies, the mudskippers, the dragonets, but something about these tiny slug-fish always mange to make my day feel better

I could stare at them for hours

[l3viat8an]

MC: Did you steal one of the neighbour’s garden gnomes again? They’ve been standing out there glaring at them suspiciously for the past 30 minutes.

Satan: Nah, I got bored of that months ago. I’ve actually been adding new ones to their collection every few days for a couple of weeks now. I was wondering how long it would take them to figure it out.

MC:….You’re a menace to society.

Satan:*grinning* Thank you. I try.

[the--firevenus]

I have a personal hc that HSR MC acting menace a lot is just to avoid having dreadful thoughts of existential crisis, an unconscious mental self defense if you will, that's why the first thing Kafka advice them is "not to worry" as their story had "already been played out to them"

Caelus/Stelle seem to be content despite being literally born yesterday, the way they interact with trashcan and that closet scene seem child like, very imaginative (and fucking funny) thus slowly make you forget the why or what they are in the first place,,

The inner monologue from the dialogue option kinda gave me this energy: "hey haha yeah you have bomb in your body, but it's okay😊😊look shiny trashcan, don't think too much about why you exist, look at these shiny coins in the water fountain woooaahh, hm? What's that? You're questioning why you hear voices in your head?? Nah it's fine, let's hide in the closet and banish hotel demon!!"

Anyway I don't have anywhere to go with this, but I just love the contrast of the trailblazer lore (that heavily allude to be heavy angst) and the funny idiotic moments they did 😭

Head? Empty, Trauma? Repressed, Hotel? Trivago

[idsb]

This isn’t a take about the discourse but more a take on the takes and that is: the fuckass director of that Miss Americana documentary pivoted the focus of the documentary to be political on her own, based on what she observed. Taylor said in interviews she didn’t know what the outcome was going to be. We know it was originally supposed to be a documentary about the fans, and that switch, made exclusively by that director without Taylor’s input, actually turned out to, in the long game, be the worst decision for Taylor’s career anyone has ever made.

[thebramblewood]

Girl gone feral.

Previous / Next

Elli: Well, this thing is just about spent. Unless you've got another one hiding under your hat, I think I might have to call it a night.

Guy: [teasingly] Are you sure you don't need me to walk you home?

Elli: [scoffs] Fuck off! Are you sure you don't need me to stay and hold your hand, you pathetic little scaredy cat stoner?

Guy: Love you, dude!

Elli: Love you too!

Helena, thinking: Come on, Helena. You've been practicing. You've fucking got this. Hypnotize, feed, get out. It's simple.

-

Elli: What the hell with the screaming, dude? You're not fun- HEY! CREEP! GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HIM!

Helena: I'm sorry! I don't want to do this!

Elli: Do whaaa... t?

Helena: SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!

FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!

Oh, I don't feel so- [THUD]

[fatedroses]

Adventurer Zenos and G'raha cause I had to draw my silly guys. I just enjoy the idea of Zenos hanging out with fellow bookworms and being begrudgingly (though occasionally willingly) helpful.

[nyxi-pixie]

sometimes i think abt how shocked chuuya was when dazai was like 'teehee i blew up your car' and its like ??? bro why are you surprised?? he presumably left the pm the same day your car blew up and you never connected those two things😭😭

[katyspersonal]

Marika & Messmer are fascists but not the hornsent who chop people to small pieces and put them inside jars to achieve divinity because they believe they're "chosen" people and therefore superior to other races? Have you considered the possibility that sometimes both sides of a war can suck? This is why frenzied flame is the way🙏

Anon, I am going to scold you before I get to the topic because "have you considered [thing]" here should be reserved for a problem when someone is ignorant and in a bad, poor-taste way! Which I was not because obviously I "considered" this! You are referring to a silly post of me liveblogging how I got to Messmer, and so of course I addressed Messmer! I should not add long disclaimer about every other lore-relevant thing when I make a basically liveblog-ish remark to "demonstrate" that I do not let other culprits in the story "get away" either! 😣 For example recently I've been focusing on Fire Knights to express my hatred for religious purism, but later in another post about story of Abyssal Woods I've instead focused my vitriol on Hornsent Inquisitors! There is its own post and time for everything!

Okay back to the LORE with light heart now!! This is true of course that both sides are atrocious; the Hornsent basically pulled a mad cult crusade on the shamans, and very ironically long time after their folks were victims of also a religion-driven crusade! This is basically playing extermination ping-pong for generations and regardless of who "started it", none of the innocent people (children, those who disagree and simply belong to [race], distant descendants that did not DO anything etc) deserved to be exterminated by association.

To get more elaborate, one has to take into consideration just how long the conflict has been going on for, and everything else Marika has done besides the Crusade. The people being killed by Messmer's army are most likely generations apart from the people who hurt Marika's! I've mentioned that earlier where I questioned how Grandam and Hornsent (NPC) seem to not even know why Marika/Messmer went with war at them at ALL. Like, both are/were barbaric in their own way, but there's clearly a side that has suffered enough now. Like, this was such a disgusting conflict that even Marika, who was the one who had it ordered in the first place, felt the need to distance herself from it because it WAS the battle without glory or honor. There were the Hornsent, likely a cult or something, who murdered and mutilated the Shamans back in their time, but Marika was the one who started the war and kept it going even after it was clear that the Hornsent had lost, and ruined the lives of many people that weren't even part of the war in resistance like the Hornsent NPC! (One more nitpick about it is that her/Messmer's war was that of exterminating of all who have no Grace, as opposed to some insane idea on how to force them to be reborn to "join" her type of people hfhhhbhf)

Correct me here if I am wrong, but so far we can't know if ALL Hornsent accepted the practices of Bonny Village and their higher religious institution. The Greater Potentate Cookbooks that we find relating to hefty pots describe the author as having been "haunted by the grotesque practice of his village of birth". This guy didn't sound like he was very proud of what his people were doing, and it's coming from someone who was raised there! There's likely a lot of other Hornsent who found the practice just as disgusting, especially amongst those that didn't do it themselves, but we don't know that because most of them are dead and the ones who remain are understandably upset and distrustful of "our" kind!

🤔 It is also because of this why it's more reasonable to call the two leading figures of a cleansing war fascists than an entire race, because we can't just assume that ALL Hornsent are fascists just because their religious order and justice system is fucked up. We just don't have a key leader figure to redirect such sentiments towards, unlike with the Golden Order! Basically confirmed fascists are Marika, Messmer + Fire Knights + Black Knights + troops, various warriors and perfumers and what not who agreed to participate @ the Hornsent who are doing the potting, the Hornsent who did slaughter Marika's village, and remaining corrupt clerics leaders of the religion!

(On a side note, Frenzied Flame is definitely the answer but y'all shouldn't tell Melina on me hfjjchjgdh)

________

UPDATE 1 from July 4th that I wanted to add in the OG post instead:

I have nothing to add here, all of these are rather fair points! I am a little late with adding these screenshots but you've probably seen some more speculation on the Hornsent Inquisitors these couple of days by me and @val-of-the-north in my blog! Here if you missed these: ( x ) ( x ) The gist of it is that seems like Inquisitors are hunting their fellow Hornsent as heretics for serving the "impure" nobles, but regardless of whether it happened before Marika's mentioned "betrayal" or after, it is STILL horrible to harm people for association with those that didn't even do anything wrong :^)

Still applies that calling the whole race fascist doesn't work (heck, the Hornsent who choose to stand with Midra and Nanaya are confirmation of strong exceptions!), but the sentiment is certainly very strongly rooted culturally.

Sigh.. I am pretty sure there are people somewhere in the fandom that would fall into "hornsent deserved it" pit over this, too. Like "hey, even currently Hornsent culture is a rich soil for Shaman Villages 2.0 and 3.0 and 4.0 and so on to happen, so why not preventively exterminate an inherently dangerous culture?" (..if anyone here really thinks along these lines, please know that this is a dangerous line of thinking and you'll get ideologically groomed into excusing genocides before you know if you don't question what you're implying here) What they needed was more communication with other cultures and adopting more tolerant and humane principles. Seeing that various horn-ness species are just like them rather than sitting in the "we divine they filth" bubble if it is THAT bad. Maybe Marika even HAD the power to provide such change and bridge the gap while she was still a trusted figure to them during her "infiltration", and yet instead of putting and end to terrible traditions with careful planning and diplomacy, she chose the path of revenge..

Genuinely a depressing point to think about. And yes, absolutely doesn't do her a honor to choose ruin and hate.

________

UPDATE 2 from July 11th:

I also completely forgot to back it up that the fellow Hornsent were also facing execution through being stuffed in jars!

Yeah nah, definitely their people in power were so dangerous that should someone protest against the murder of Shamans and alike, they'd meet the same fate.. Having to swallow what your insane authorities do, with your own life in the line, is also something very real. This situation obscures the number of people who are against it from the superficial look.

I myself live in the country where people can't protest against the government unless they want to go to prison or face other dire consequences, so having to sit quietly for the sake of yourself and your own families for the outside world LOOKS like we don't care and ""'"agree""". :)))) Fun stuff. :') Here, anyone who would ask why Hornsent that disagree with their leaders don't express it would technically be in their right to do so, but most people will protect their own life first, especially if sacrificing it won't really avail anything. Again, Elden Ring is incredibly real with these topics. :')