#lol just tell me TL;DR i will understand

[skania]

It's so funny how Aqua talks big about manipulating Akane, yet she ends up being the person he is most honest with in the entire manga (alongside Gotanda) 😂

It's even funnier when you realize this trend started from the very moment he set out to lead Akane on!

He deliberately kisses her to trap her in a fake relationship with him, but Akane sees right through him and to the fact that he isn't looking to date her because he is romantically interested in her.

I believe this is when Aqua first begins to realize Akane is not someone who can be easily fooled, and he rewards her perceptiveness with a truth.

To me, dating is just an extension of my work: This is part of my revenge plan

I'm highly interested in you as an actress: The way you get inside Ai's mind and understand her so perfectly is extremely useful to me

So of course, Akane reads in between the lines and realizes he wants to use her for something.

From the get-go, the one time Aqua intended to lie and manipulate Akane, he couldn't do it. She immediately shot it down.

What's more, Aqua here is telling her a truth while hiding his real motives. But Akane sees through that either way.

Aqua intended for his relationship with Akane to be a lie, but from the very beginning the truth starts to slip in.

At first, it's only because Akane sees right through him. But this soon changes, and Aqua starts sharing his truths all on his own.

(Spoilers for the entire manga below the cut!)

She is also the person he opens up to about his thoughts and feelings once he thinks his revenge is over. He tells her literally everything, from the DNA tests he ran and his struggles throughout all these years, to how relieved he feels now that it's all over.

She also knows that Himekawa and the twins are related.

But this honesty streak doesn't only apply to Aqua's revenge. She's even the first person he allows to see his old acting videos!

The one thing Aqua can't tell Akane about is that he is Goro's reincarnation, but he still goes and shares his entire backstory with her either way.

He later talks big about feeding Akane information so she would find the corpse for him, but sharing Goro's backstory and feelings wasn't relevant at all!

This all gets to a point that Aqua turns to Akane for answers when he is going through an existential crisis about what to do.

What it comes down to is that Akane makes Aqua feel understood. After spending so many years hiding his truth, Aqua craves that feeling.

That's why he can't help but to reveal more and more pieces of himself to Akane, including as much as he can of the one truth he can't say to anyone at all.

Akane, thank you for finding me.

tl;dr It's hilarious how Aqua intended for his relationship with Akane to be a lie, only for it to practically become the relationship he's most honest in lol

[randomdragonfires]

Didn't Aemond in Parallel Lines just straight up lie to his wife, "I don't go there for...that" Errrm you kinda do ya cheater!!

Hello anon! I LOVE rambling about fic situations, so thank you SO MUCH for this ask!

Aemond is definitely lying, but the distinction he makes between sex with Madame Sylvi and intimacy with his wife is crucial.

With Sylvi, he's seeking an escape - a temporary, mindless comfort. He understands the sanctity of marriage, even if he doesn't fully uphold it. His reluctance to try stems from a fear of opening up, as admitting his need for affection and comfort would be a vulnerability he's unwilling to expose, especially to a wife whom he expects should always be in awe of him.

Intimacy with his wife, however, is a different matter. Aemond knows it could never be mindless; anything less would be disrespectful to her. They are bound in the eyes of the Gods, and it feels wrong to treat her as he does a whore. Yet, he's too emotionally constipated to build that relationship, believing his flaws are insurmountable.

Aemond is also acutely aware of the expectations placed on him by both women. Madame Sylvi expects nothing more than mindless sex (even if she gets slightly more), while his wife rightfully demands/yearns emotional connection and effort. His inability to open up to his wife is a source of pain for him, making it difficult for him to be with her.

From his wife's perspective, she's waiting for him to love her, feeling disappointed that Madame Sylvi seems to receive his attention effortlessly. Although Sylvi doesn't truly have his affection, the way Aemond treats his wife leads her to assume so. The real hurt comes from his disloyalty - but more so the fact that he never tried to build an emotional connection with her.

Aemond understands this and respects his wife enough not to give much of himself to Sylvi, as that would be a true betrayal in his eyes. So, when he tells his wife he's not going to the brothel for sex, he doesn't mean to lie (even though he does.) In his damaged mindset, he believes that mindless sex is forgivable if it brings him comfort, especially since it differs from what his wife wants from him.

"When I want what you want to give me, I will come to you and ONLY YOU." That's the sicko's mindset, really. And apparently, that's supposed to make his wife feel better about his infidelity - but he realises how stupid that is, which is why he stops his sentence midway.

TL;DR: Aemond is a horribly flawed husband in Parallel Lines, but it MAY get better....? lol

[klemsk-a]

TL;DR

S2a undermines the concept of redemption so badly it makes me want to cry.

Megatron changing for the better is interesting because it’s complicated. He used to be a warlord, a tyrant, people suffered directly as a consequence of his actions. Unfortunately ES fails to show us these consequences. The closes we have are Starscreams words and that is far from showing us anything.

There are no flashbacks, no actual conversations. Nothing but the present and most of it is from childrens perspective.

This lack of nuance is frustrating. For all we know Megatron might’ve acted exactly the same, but changed factions therefore he is a good guy know.

And this “autobots = good, decepticons = bad” morality is so on the nose in s2a it’s actually kind of pathetic.

The new season needed a villain, and all the hatred for cybertronians apparently evaporated (everybody else just had a change of heart ig and the only 2 people who actually disliked them are dead) and the cons were “always” bad so it doesn’t matter.

It allows the writers not to think about Megatron and problems accompanying his redemption because his victims are terrible so… it’s all fine, don’t worry 👍.

Perhaps it isn’t this way and I majorly misinterpreted the show.

The existence of the chaos terrans really makes me doubt it tho. It also makes me incredibly mad.

Aftermath literally comes into existence, has no idea what’s going on, who is everyone and they’re all fighting. So he does too. And immediately gets called terrible, basically the evil version of the terrans.

WHAT KIND OF MESSAGES IS THAT?

That because you aren’t from a perfect family you’re evil? That is what I got out of it.

Terrans = whole Emberstone = good

Chaos terrans = broken Emberstone = bad

For a show about acceptance and empathy that is a terrible plot point 😀

The episode with Aftermath and Jawbreaker (was extremely boring imo but that’s not important) gives you the impression they’re going to further develop Aftermath. Have him questioning orders and thinking about his choices. But no, he STOLE the entire water from a cave in one tank (how did he even manage???)

Spitfire is an even worse example.

On her first day alive, she gets told that if she wins a race she gets to go on an autobot mission.

She wins, by endangering Alex, and they tell her she won’t get the reword. It’s all understandable but the writers clearly don’t know anything about raising children or children in general.

Yes Spitfire did a bad thing and has to be taught that her behaviour was bad. No they cannot be mad at her for not immediately understanding and agreeing with them. That’s why children (especially toddlers) are infuriating. They don’t know better so you have to teach them, but they will find a loophole to help them get what they want (obviously depends on a child but we are rolling with Spitfires personality). Now depending on what they’ve done to get to it you either reward them or punish them. Because they don’t necessarily understand what they did wrong, even if it’s obvious to you, it can be hard to explain in a way that satisfies a child.

Spitfire lashing out and attacking Twitch is common for kids who believe that someone got something they deserved. It’s especially common if a kid has problems with aggression.

That could’ve been an interesting character development and a good message. Sometimes children won’t be easy to deal with (as all the terrans are, sure they can make bad decisions but ultimately they don’t cause much problems), sometimes they have unpleasant personalities or behavioural problems but it doesn’t make them evil. Being there and loving a child isn’t enough to raise them, discipline is needed and so is patience.

But no.

Aftermath and Spitfire are chaos terrans so they are evil by proxy. Too bad lol.

Twitch and Thrash needed to learn everything. So did Nightshade, Hashtag and Jawbreaker. There was a great deal about self discovery.

Aftermath and Spitfire already have alt modes (at least Spitfire I don’t actually remember Aftermath) and they are just terrible, no good people.

Case closed, problem solved.

Oh. And then they died so…

Unlucky 🤷‍♀️

Redemption in media, especially kids media is important. It sends a message that you can in fact mess up in life, make a couple (hundreds) of mistakes and still come out on top.

But redemption is earned, and it can be (and often is) hard to changed for the better (as opposed to changing for worse).

You shouldn’t change for those you have hurt but so it won’t happen again, so you won’t hurt others again.

Some will come back, some will not.

It IS important that you try nonetheless.

Because no matter what explaining isn’t excusing and no one is born evil.

This show is so FRUSTRATING to me because I cared, and still do obviously (I wrote two versions of this but accidentally deleted the first one so had to write one again).

I really hope S2b will be back on track about acceptance and redemption.

I think Starscream deserved better but sincerely hope they (autobots) will get a hold of him, and him and Megatron will actually talk.

At least let Starscream have his father-daughter relationship with Hashtag, please 🙏.

[genericpuff]

Hi Puff! Idk if anyone has asked you this yet but what are your thoughts on the god of war game series? Are they actually more "accurate" about the greek mythology then LO? xD

oh lord, I'm def not a good person to ask about this question because I haven't played through all the original God of War games (though it makes me laugh to think about them because watching my oldest brother play the first game when I was like 7 years old was the first time I'd ever seen video game boobies LOL) but considering it's just a hack and slash game in which you brutally murder the gods... ima give it a big noooo on that one LOL it's about as accurate as LO in that it's more about spectacle and drama than it is about actually being accurate to the myths they're based on lmaoo

As for the Norse series of games, I actually HAVE played both God of War 2018 and Ragnarok and loved them both, though I'm not as well versed in Norse mythology so I also can't say if what they take from Norse myth is accurate. Obviously I know that Atreus/Loki has zero relation to fictional character Kratos from Greece and I have basic understanding of general concepts like Yggdrasil and the nine realms among other things like that, but the finer details regarding the stories of the characters themselves I'm not as brushed up on. Hella great storytelling though and I appreciate the lengths they went to to make it feel like a Norse-myth-inspired environment, even down to the vocabulary and terms used.

Just like with LO, you shouldn't be taking any of what God of War does or says at face value. If you like the games (or LO), use it as an opening hook to get more into the actual myths if they interest you. But definitely don't use them as any sort of credible source LOL

Now that I'm typing out my thoughts on this though, I think the biggest difference between GoW and LO (one that makes GoW far superior to it) is that the creators of GoW never once led their audience to believe that they were more than what they were, a hack and slash video game inspired by specific myths. What you see is what you get with GoW, but LO - and Rachel - constantly feel like they're actually trying to be taken seriously and that's what makes it all the worse when their storytelling is godawful and the amount of actual "myth" they have in the comic amounts to as much as a Family Guy cutaway gag. Just completely directionless and uninspired to the point you wonder why it's even an Greek myth retelling to begin with. At least GoW fully immerses itself in the myths their games are based on and has a shitload of fun with it, with LO it'll just source some copy pasted Princeton document or lazily tell some mythological metaphor that has nothing to do with the overarching plot so that it can remind you "hey this is a Greek myth retelling!" before getting back to its bland Keeping Up with the Kardashians romance. The mythological "inspiration" in LO feels more like tired lip service at this point rather than actual inspiration, which is really bitterly ironic considering Rachel used to tote around calling herself a "folklorist" and claiming that everyone else's knowledge of Greek myth compared to hers was "basic af".

TL ; DR: The biggest difference between GoW and LO in their retellings is humility IMO.

[raguonmynieceandnephew]

I fucking love Shadowlands and I am tired of being silent

This is probably gonna be long. TL;DR at the end.

Look, Shadowlands is the second worst expansion this game has ever shipped, besides WoD. I know this is a WILD opening sentence for a defense argument, but I am a romantic, not fucking delusional. This is a fact. Point blank period. The content drought was absurd, the legendary system was completely fucked, the maw in general, the lore reduced Arthas and Garrosh quite literally to dust, The Jailer as the main villain and FUCKING THORGAST, the overall alt unfriendliness, borrowed power cranked to a million, and I have expressed how much of a fucking joke I think putting Pelagos as the new Arbriter was.

It was bad.

This has been stablished, not just by me, but by the entirety of the wow community.

But even though I agree, all these things made the game worse, I still enjoyed my experience, and I have a positive outlook on the expansion overall, which seems to be the greatest sin a World of Warcraft player can commit: I liked Shadowlands. I dare to say I liked it more than I did Dragonflight, if I think really hard about it.

You simply cannot say you liked Shadowlands in the any circle of the WoW community online, from what I have seen. I remember Kraken Latte put it in first place in a rank she made of all expansions and got shit on for days on twitter, with people failing to see what she saw in the game.

Now, I feel like I have pointlessly yapping till now, so without further ado, here are some of the Shadowlands features i like the most:

1 - THREADS OF FATE

I am a simple man, who likes to do 2 things in wow: Mythic+ and leveling. That is pretty much it. I don't PvP, I rarely raid and I occasionally indulge in RPing as a Tidesage on Moonguard. And let me tell you, this baby right here was lifechanging.

Threads of Fate is by far, the single best feature (before Warbands, lol) in my entire World of Warcraft experience. I loved it. I loved it dearly. I don't think I have ever had so much fun leveling 60-70 through Revendreth and Ardenweald with ToF. I still have the route I took memorized, it was SO good. So many bonus objectives back to back to back, world quests and that goddamn gorgeous blue forest had the FATTEST questing hubs in the game.

I was so excited to play this combined with Chromie Time, like IT WAS ON BETA, until it was ruthlessly taken away from me for no goddamn reason AT ALL. Like, what the actual fuck blizzard. Y'all don't understand how delightful it would have been to level like that in ardenweald in the mid thirty levels, right after clearing Loch Modan (or the Silverspine and Hillsbrad, for horde). I barely touched SL since it got removed.

BRING IT BACK BLIZZARD, I AM BEGGING YOU, JUST DO THIS ONE SOLID FOR ME.

2 - COVENANT CALLINGS

Speaking of features I thoroughly enjoyed that were pried from my hands, we have the best iteration of daily quests this game has ever had. They actually worked as good dailies that gave actual gold, was a good reliable source of reputation and was amazing for anima and cosmetics.

This + the recent nerfs to the Dragonracing WQs make me feel like blizzard doesn't like when players make their gold independently, like, jesus christ not all of us have time to be profession moguls.

3 - THE 4 ZONES

What inspired this post was the fact that SL raids are now on legacy loot (if you didn't know, now you do) and I had to go to Bastion to buy the weapons with the thingy that drops from Nathria and...look at this. Just look at this.

This place is one of the most beautiful things this game has to offer. Like, the entire zone is gorgeous byt seeing this for the first time since DF came out legit moved me bro, LOOK AT IT.

And while the covenants were kind of a shit show gameplay-wise, in EVERY SINGLE OTHER ASPECT, it was a 10/10 feature, argue with your mom. Aesthetics, themes, everything, simply gorgeous. Also, it got bonus points from me bcs i really do not like to use training dummies in current expansions because of the sheer amount of people blasting them at any given time, so each covenant having their own Dummy Room, was a ++++ for me.

4 - THE NECROLORDS OF MALDRAXXUS

The Necrolords were the best covenant, their campaign was the best and their characters were the best. Like, come on now.

Draka? Mother. Vashj? Mother. Emeni? Mother. Sin'dane? Mother Stradama? Grandmother. Like, are you kidding me? I know lore was one of the Weakest points of SL overall, but you are insane if you include anything involving these guys. Even the Korthia campaign was enjoyable when they had the spotlight. And I only listed the female characters lmao, don't forget The Primus, Krexus's meme death, the five houses, Morgraine, Grahmal, Marileth, like C'MON!

5 - THE DUNGEONS

Except for the Theater of Pain, and arguably the De Other Side (I personaly love it), Shadowlands has the best overall roster of dungeons in the entire game.

Sanguine Dephts is, in my opinion the second best dungeon in WoW, period, behind only Freehold, Tazavesh is the best Mega Dungeon they ever made. Mists is a banger, Plaguefall is a banger except for the tentacles, Halls of Atonement, Spires (controversial take, ik), Necrotic Wake is amazing, like, you can say whatever you want about SL, but you cannot talk shit about its dungeon design.

Except ToP.

Fuck ToP.

Now, it's getting late so imma speedrun the rest of the items:

6 - COSMETICS

SL changed the transmog game, and all cosmetics from it (all the mounts and sets from all sources) look phenomenal, and if you disagree you are simply lying to yourself.

7 - ZERETH MORTIS

The zone was good and had tons of stuff to do and collect, plus, the introduction to the Catalysts was a plus.

also, nothing will be funnier than Taelia fucking Fordragon being the talking quest bubble for WQs in THE REALM OF ULTRA DEATH

8 - RAIDS

CN: Vibes? Immaculate. SoD: Horrible systems, cool mechanics SoFO: Cool systems, mid mechanics overall a positive for me

9 - CHARACTERS

Already mentioned a lot of characters from Maldraxxus, here are my other faves: Lady Moonberry, the gay unicorm, Denathrius, Theothar, basically ever steward, The Accuser, Kael'thas, General Draven, Remornia and many more.

There are probably more reasons to list to justify my love for SL despite all the bad it has in it, but I simply do not have the mental fuel to keep going rn, i need sleep.

TL;DR: I like Shadowlands despite it being bad and would appreciate it if ppl didn't throw a fit everytime someone talks about it in any sort of positive light. I then listed Threads of Fate, Callings, the first 4 zones, dungeon design, the fuckton of collectibles, characters and the beginning of the shift in game philosophy as positive and valid reasons to be a SL enjoyer.

[mitskijamie]

Do you think Ted was a good coach?

Oof. Controversy!

This is a loaded question, because if you look at his end results, you can't deny that he's a "good coach" in the sense that he was able to completely turn the team around and take them to the top of the league. He was definitely doing something right!!

However I feel like I can't really call him a "good coach" with my whole chest because he doesn't know ANYTHING about the sport he's coaching, nor does he really seem to make any effort to learn (like, he doesn't understand the offside rule until 3 years after starting the job. Why?) He's certainly good as part of a coaching team, because he's excellent at building relationships and connecting with his players, but he would be nowhere without Beard, Nate, and Roy, because at the end of the day a team just can't be successful if their coaches don't know anything about the strategy/technique of the game.

Also, Ted's expertise is in coaching kids, not adult professionals, and that really shows in how he handles Richmond sometimes. His whole "winning isn't what's important, it's all about teamwork and having fun and being the best version of yourself :)" is a fantastic mindset for, say, the coach of a little league team, but (as Beard points out) not as wonderful for coaching professionals whose whole job is winning. They're not there to have fun and learn the value of teamwork, they're there to win. I get that the return to football as a fun childhood hobby is a theme on the show, and there's nothing wrong with that, but I feel like Ted doesn't always fully understand the gravity of the sport for people who are truly invested, and he doesn't always do a great job of balancing "having fun and growing as individuals" with like. Doing what these men are paid millions of dollars to do.

As a preschool teacher, I think the way Ted handles conflict is also very reminiscent of how adults handle conflict between young children, which is another thing that would make him a fantastic coach for a kids' team but works against him in a professional setting. In s2, for example, rather than just going to Roy as a superior speaking to an employee and telling him to get over himself and coach Jamie because he's a grownup and that's his job, he tries to get Roy and Jamie to talk it out and come to a resolution like they're two kindergarteners fighting over a toy. He was doing Social Emotional Learning on them, and even though it ultimately benefitted them as individuals, it was not the best or quickest way to deal with a workplace conflict like that between two adults. Can you imagine going to your boss like "hey, the person who's supposed to be training me won't talk to me at all or answer any of my questions and I'm kind of lost" and they were like "lol and what do you expect me to do about that? That's on you, I'm not gonna tell him what to do" insanity

TL;DR I think Ted is fantastic with people and that's a huge asset to him in coaching, but I don't think he knows anywhere near enough about soccer to be a bona fide "good coach" of a professional team. I also think the way he handles his players and their conflicts would be an asset to him if he were a kids' coach or a teacher, but sometimes is frustrating and infantilizing when applied to professionals

[vegaseatsass]

Reality tv is so fucking dangerous for me because my brain still whirs as if I'm watching fictional characters but I'm NOT and I should NOT be blorbofying or armchair diagnosing these irl human beings, it's simply safer for me to never ever engage. Tl;dr my god the exes on His Man 3 have eaten my mind, I can't stop thinking about them. I won't share REAL PERSON HEADCANONS (basically: who pings as neuroatypical) but I went from thinking Myeongkyun was the most hilarious entertaining television figure I'd seen in years to being really truly gutted for him and his like, slow struggling emotional processing which makes him sooooo frustratingly opaque even though he is trying, and his fuckboy affect which is so deceptive for how confusingly deeply (but just. sloooooowly) he actually feels. Youngjoon has been my favorite contestant this entire time (well, Youngjoon and Seungjin but let's not get me started on how it feels to watch Seungjin go untreasured episode after episode) and Hanmin jumped way up there in episodes 7 and 8 too because who knew he was the absolute kindest and most supportive and emotionally intelligent person in that entire house, I'm rooting SO HARD for him and Youngjoon I think they're such a crazy good match for each other augh. So the thing I find so compelling about Myeongkyun and Youngjoon's conflict is that it's really easy for me to understand where both of them were coming from; as absolutely maddening as it is to imagine being in Youngjoon's shoes and trying with so much hyperverbal self-awareness to reach some kind of clarity and just being hit in the face again and again with Myeongkyun's blase opaqueness, I really DO think they were both trying super hard and in good faith in that exhausting conversation! It understandably didn't FEEL that way to Youngjoon, as Myeongkyun led him in circle after circle, but I'm seriously like unhinged with how much I feel for Myeongkyun rn and his visible overwhelm. When Youngjoon was about to leave and tell Myeongkyun to figure things out on his own and Myeongkyun told him it's actually easier for him !!! to sort through his feelings with him there !!!! that's such an admittance, he absolutely was trying that whole time but what comes out of his mouth is sooooooooo not intelligible and thus as infuriating as humanly possible for Youngjoon, this incredibly verbal, emotionally analytic overthinker. They're such a bad match lmao and it's so so sad that Myeongkyun just assumed their relationship was moving as slowly as his feelings do and not that he was fully ghosted dklfjslkdfja I can just see BOTH THEIR SIDES I'm almost always on the side of the person who is like "how was I supposed to know what you ghosting me meant? I kept contacting you because I just thought you were busy!" vs. the ghoster who is all ugh dude why couldn't you read the room? but if Myeongkyun has always been like this - answering a direct question with "Maybe I'm ENTJ!" or "I don't want to tell you" or munch munch munching and "mmm"-ing and blinking and never ever answering what he was actually asked - it's pretty easy to understand why Youngjoon would assume this is a guy who neither cares about nor requires direct communication of any kind.

Lol sorry I've never posted into this tag before and this is a super incoherent blur of feelings before I go offline for the next two days but I just have to get it out of my system because I don't think I've ever had a reality show change my perception of somebody as much as Myeongkyun just like. Visibly hanging on by a thread while saying all the absolute wrong things in his stupid cool guy voice. and then breaking down as soon as he was alone. did. "Dating Minseon is... a possibility" went from sounding like a half-assed non-commitment to me, to Myeongkyun very seriously working through his feelings at his regular slow slow speed, and I'm fully rooting for them as well atp.

I wish this season had more friendship and less shady secret missions because everyone is so miserable... including me, who is sitting here typing nonsense instead of posting about my safely fictional characters.

[rileyclaw]

Hii! First off i just want to I'm such a big fan of your art and animatics! Your art is just so expressive and unique its addicting to look at 💞💞

I was wondering if you could go over how your process or tutorial in making an animatic? Whenever I try to start to make one, I get jumbled up and end up ditching it lol

I'm sorry if you get this question a lot 😭

So sorry it took me so long to answer this- I was in a Busy time (diseaseridden with covid and being punched by finals) when I got the ask and wanted to answer it with some stuff Im using for my next TOH animatic!!

I'll say one thing first: I get jumbled up and ditch so many animatics. For every one animatic I release, there are three to five more I have that have NEVER seen the light of day (yet). And that's okay!! It's fun just to make them for me, and I hope it is for you too!! Animatics are scary because if you're working on it alone, it can be really hard to be your own cheerleader to keep up the mojo to keep going. So that makes it really special when there is that project that makes it to the finish line- cuz you can look at it and go "holy crap I made this. holy crap i MADE that look how SICK that is dude!! all that work and look at the turnout!!"

The following stuffh is just my personal process and is by no means representative of a professional animation pipeline, but this works for me as a Lonely Artist! It all begins with the idea - whether it's a song, or just a story you wanna tell. In the case of the one I'm gonna demo here with , I wanted to animate Hunter's first day as Del's apprentice!

The first thing I did was write a script. Not fancy or AO3-quality, but enough that I understand the pacing and the visuals of each shot. I usually just put this in a doc or put it in a script format, if I feel fancy.

Then, I take that script and find music that I think would fit for it- and remix it (if needed) to fit the pacing/mood/etc! This is what this new animatic looked like before I began ANY artwork- this is a me thing because I'm super inspired by audio as opposed to visuals first. But you might be different- this is just how I like working personally!

Then begins the research! I find references for characters, background layouts, and create a style guide for the animatic that tells me how thick lines will be for characters, backgrounds, if there'll be tons of value or no. I make a turnaround for each character so I can refer to them because Im gonna be drawing them over and over a LOT and want to be consistent! Luckily TOH has no shortage of references, so I based my work off them.

THEN, I can begin drawing. I'm a little,,, (a lot) ADHD and may not always do this process, but if you're new to animatics or daunted by the task at hand, make beat boards of the entire project.

This is just a page of rough thumbnails that get your visual idea down - look how rough and quick these are!! I try not to spend over a minute on each beat board if I dont have to, unless it's a particularly complex shot.

When it gets to the stage where you're ready to begin the actual scenes, I personally tend to do backgrounds first because I like to set characters into backgrounds - and for every animatic, I have the Awkward Blue Sketch Stage which is basically my beat boards timed out as an animatic.

I used Storyboard Pro for this (Toonboom, not free ): icky), but the process can be replicated across most art platforms in whichever way you feel most comfy with! This is so I can time the drawings before I devote time cleaning them up-- which can make for some Pretty Funny looking little guys but theyre important!! trust!!

Once a big sequence of shots is cleaned up (I usually do 40-60 second chunks at a time), I export the .mov and send it to my editing program (which in this case is still Premiere Pro) - and then repeat this process again and again until.. it's done??

Here's like a TL;DR list of basically everything I said summed up:

• Make a loose script or bulletin of the idea! Do your research!

• Depending on what kind of animatic you're making, time it to music!

• Make a beat board of very loose gestures for your shots, and time them - then move on to refinement & cleanup!

• Combine all shots, refine music cues and timings, add any last needed VFX, and export!

There's no secret recipe or anything, it's just learning a pipeline that best suits you, whether it is for something professional or something you want to make for fun because you just love to make!!

[ebonysplendor]

Infatuation 💰🏞️

TL;DR: What's worse than running away from one psychopath? Running away from six psychopaths. Even worse than that? They're rich psychopaths, with shmonies. Also, can we make a damn plan and stick to it please?!

Game Link: https://aspenglen.itch.io/infatuation

Notable Features: Self-Insert, Customizable (somewhat), Multiple Endings, Multiple LIs, Yandere LIs, 4+ hours of gameplay Spiciness: 2/5 -- It can get a little flirty and a little spicy here and there, but the main "spice" is when there's an unwanted advance from some of the LIs LI(s) Red Flags: 3.8/5 -- Kidnapping, drugging, nonconsensual sexual advances, tied up, branded, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, physical force

Wanna know more? Meh...I say not unless you're at least 16. There's not an age restriction, buuuuuuuuuut I don't feel like anyone's 12-year-old sibling should be playing this. That being said, I can't do much from behind a screen, so let's get into it!

Just a heads up, the game was long as shit, so this review is going to be long as shit;;

Oh hey. Didn't see ya there. Oh this? This is just my first post in about a month. Thought I'd just...sliiiiide on in here, get thangs swangin' again. Lol but no seriously. It has been a pretty crazy month, but I've finally got enough time and rest at the same time to finally make this review, and aha...

Respectfully...I understand that all good things must come to an end, but damn, I really miss that phase where I was running into all the really good visual novels...

That being said, I know what I said, but hear me out! The game isn't...awful...but I didn't really vibe with it. Like, I know why I didn't vibe with it, but I'd rather wait and get into all of that during the review portion. Hopefully, based on the summary I give you, the review and criticism I have will make sense.

Anyways, this game, interestingly enough, is actually a rendition -- am I using that word right? I believe I am...? -- of a story that was written on Wattpad, and don't act all brand new like you don't know what Wattpad is! You know damn well what Wattpad is because here you are playing and reading visual novels and reviews of visual novels about toxic ass men being a (forced) love interest. Don't try to play me. I'm getting distracted though!

So the name of the story on Wattpad, like the game, is Infatuation, and it's about...well actually, I'm gonna give you a summary of what it's about because this visual novel is based off of it! I was going to give the actual story a read after I finished the visual novel but, uh...

Almost a 24 hour read???? Yeah, no thanks, and you'll hopefully understand why I didn't have much motivation to give it a read after my review.

I'm pretty over yapping in the intro, though, so let's head into the actual game, yeah? As per the usual, I'm going to tell you as much about the game as possible without ruining the game itself. Without a better transition sentence, let's get into it!

So boom.

We're on our way to school, and we meet up with our -- quite frankly -- thirsty ass friends. They're pretty much raving about this new group of boys that had just transferred to our school, because, not only are they super rich, they are, apparently, extremely attractive.

We pretty much brush this off, though, because we're not looking for anything romantic. Honestly, we're barely looking for anything platonic; however, we agreed to be their wingman since we're essentially God-tier at picking up men that we don't want.

That being said, by some weird stroke of luck -- or misfortune, considering we know that this is all going to go very left as the story progresses -- we proceed to run into every single one of them. And I mean

every.

single.

frickin.

one.

of.

them.

Well, kinda? The blond one had a class with the blue-haired guy, us, and the bestie. The purple haired one -- even though it's more of a burgundy? -- was in the vicinity after we had pretty much asked the other boys about him because this was the one that the besties were simping over the most. But the rest? Pretty much had a one-on-one moment with all of them, even if one was extremely douchey.

Anyways, we're kind've going about our days and the besties are still thirstin', and, admittedly, we're getting closer to these guys -- too close. One of our other friends -- his name is Hiroko -- pretty much warns us about them because something just seems real sketchy to him about these guys. That being said, we just kind've brush him off, because it's, like, sir? Who are you to talk about someone being sketchy? Like, lmao mans is a full on delinquent with a whole ass gang and a criminal history with the police, and they can't stand his ass.

He's a good sport about it, though, because even though he's like "You're a full blown dumbass for that", he's like "True, true..." and just warns us to be careful around them. Now mind you, his concern is totally fair, because it's discovered later on that they pretty much fucked up this one kid's world -- you'll have to discover how during your own playthrough, though. I ain't tellin' you all that lmao.

Now, fast forwarding a lot here, shit lowkey starts hitting the fan because the bae comes back in town -- not official bae, but still bae -- and conveniently enough, he is the brother of our two besties

Everyone. This is Kenzen; the man that we're pretty sure is gonna be our husband and baby daddy one day, maybe not even in that order, but those things exactly.

Now, the reason why shit starts hitting the fan is because all of a sudden, the school boys are starting to realize that we already have our future husband picked out. Shit proceeds to get super tense once this knowledge it learned, and the boys are start to slowly but slowly lose their shit. Allow me to show you

Exhibit A: A most vicious side-eye competition

Exhibit B: The OG death grip and growl

and Exhibit C: The comply or choose death, but drunken

Oh, and let's just throw this one in for some added flair.

And definitely this one.

And why would we not add this one?

Yep, the fan was pretty much hit with shit so...yeah lmao. Go ahead and give it a go so you can see how we ended up with the most romantic gift of a necklace and a finger.

Lmao I wasn't joking about the finger by the way.

And now to air all of my grievances...

Lol nah, I'm joking, but also...there's a lot to unpack here.

First off, let's talk about the good!

So...our psychopathic LIs. Can we just acknowledge the diversity? Like, you had your pale guy, your dark guy, your tan guy, your fair skin guy, like...? I seriously appreciate that time was taken out to actually make all the LIs look different from each other and not some copy-paste, change the eye color and hair thing. I absolutely LOVED the diversity of the LIs.

Not to mention, the MC is diverse a well! Granted, like typical, we can't really SEE it except in the occasional CG, but it was just dope that there was even an option, ya know?

Also! The concept of the story was actually pretty solid! Some of the things that happened were interesting, and I definitely had a "...Well, damn ._." moment here and there.

Now for the...not so good.

This flowed like a stereotypical Wattpad story. That's obviously no fault of the dev, but, for me, the point of renditions is to take something and make it a little better or give it some extra flair without ruining what the OG creator intended -- that didn't really happen, and that was honestly what bugged me the most out of everything.

I didn't really care that there'd be strings and strings and strings of dialogue before the next choice finally came up nor did I care that, while it appeared to be choice heavy, it was actually just an illusion on choice where it didn't really matter how you responded to certain things; it just was. But yeah, the pacing was...well, let me expose myself a little (don't come after me. I'm a tiny and cozy blog lol)

If you make posts on tumblr, then you know what this is. For those that don't know and/or can't guess what it is, this shows the interaction that my blog gets or my "activity" more accurately. The reason why I brought this out was because...this was how the story's pacing was.

First, it'd be on a steady progression, and then it'd drone on and on and on into a plateau, but then -- out of no where -- shit will randomly escalate and just take off into this fit of drama...but then it'd quickly drop. There was no real flow, and when there was, it'd be super inconsistent. Not to mention, the wishy-washiness of the MC and the unpredictability of the LIs (which duh, right?), the pacing would just take off and then would come to a dead stop. It's like there was no balance between the narration, the drama, and the transitions to the next scene. Like, yeah, you've gotta story tell, obvi, but don't drone on for-- actually I can show you that as well.

Did you notice how long that clip was? Imagine how long it took to read...

That was just straight up narration, and there was multiple times where this happened. Nothing really happening, no choices to make, just straight up narration. Well, no, I lied a little. Things did happen, but once again, it'd come out of no where. It, quite literally, will go from having a normal conversation, and then the yandere side just comes out totally unprovoked. Like? It's honestly more for shock factor than for story, and it got to a point where I was honestly just tired of the game itself and was wanting it to end...but it ended up being 3 hours longer, and I'm not even joking about that. Once again, I can show you.

This was the point I started getting ill with the game but felt that I was towards the end and pushed on to finish it out

This was when I realized that I was clearly wrong about that being "almost the end" and took pretty much another 3 hours to get through.

And yes, for the most part, I played it in one sitting with the exception of when I got me a little snacky snack and went to pee. Oh? You're curious about what time I started playing?

Around 5 hours beforehand...

Notice that that all says 19 June 2024. I have never been so glad to see the ending screen...

It wasn't even because it was bad! It was just. so. extremely. long. And for, what felt like, no reason to be that long. Granted, I could've stopped and saved and came back, but it always felt like I was either getting to the end or to a good part, and it just never came -- not that there wasn't any good parts, but...never mind, I feel like I make it worse the more I try to explain...

Anyways, the game wasn't awful by any means, but it definitely could use some improvement. The whole thing had good potential, the pacing of it really just killed it for me, and had that been better executed? This would've been a great game, but it's honestly just...decent. It had multiple endings, but outside of each of the yandere LIs' ending? I didn't bother trying to get the others.

Even still, while I don't recommend the game, I think it's still worth giving it a casual playthrough! There's plenty of material to read, and there are some interesting parts! Like I said, it's just a pacing issue. Not to mention the MC was pissing me off with that wishy-washy bullshit. Like, bro, survival is at the top of the list. Why are you making a plan and doing the exact opposite of what you were gonna do? Like, what the fuck is you doin'?!

You'll understand it when you play it yourself so...give it a fair try? Here, I'll even put the link here! Heck, and give the dev some encouraging words and, even though I didn't see it, some monetary support! The game itself was honestly fine! It was just the storytelling needed some work, which lowkey isn't even their fault because it was based off of a Wattpad story (I'll link that again here, by the by).

Okay, this review is about to be the same length as the game. I'm going to go ahead and head out of here. Just to reiterate, the game is free! Giving it a casual playthrough never hurts! I mean, what've you got to lose except about 4 - 6 hours?

Okay, really, I'm out of here now! Remember! Drink water, don't be dumb, and hope to see you around~!

Infatuation

[ellecdc]

Why no criminal minds, mother? D:

*sighs* the short answer is that I'm very soft, the long answer is ~probably~ grief/trauma? but I've always been a little bit soft so who knows

tbh, I don't often finish shows. the best example is The Good Place (for all intents and purposes, a very silly goofy comedy show) because of the simple fact that it was ending and I wasn't ready for it to, and I also wasn't pleased with the ending either. I also refused to watch the final season of B99 for the same reason (simply because it was ending)

anything I do watch requires me to know every spoiler known to man, and I was tired of friends not really understanding that and being like "no I don't wanna ruin it!" and I was just like "bestie, if you don't tell me right now I just won't watch it and then you're ruining it for everyone" -> it ended up being no fun for anyone involved so I just don't

I also struggle with anything that involves jump scares, high stress, devastating plot twists, etc etc etc....

TL;DR: it's really quite boring and I'm really just quite difficult lol

[bones-of-a-rabbit]

infodumps abt a new au idea (the demon-familiars au, or the un-familiars au)

TL,DR: Reader is a witch/wizard hired by a town to handle a poltergeist/demon problem (Vanny has a cult and is trying to summon demons lol), but they aren't very good at being a witch/wizard and after a bunch of 'throwing things at the wall to see if anything sticks' and absolutely nothing working, they, in a panic, kind of accidentally summon Sun and Moon, who are equally shocked to see them and after a bunch of staring at each other like ?????????? reader ropes Sun and Moon into helping them and hides them in plain sight as their 'familiars' until they've taken care of the demonic cult problem, promising to send them home as soon as things are ok again. PLOT TWIST THEY GET ATTACHED TO EACH OTHER AND KISS PROBABLY HAHAHAAAAAA

(the long initial ramblings/brainstorming i did w the space aces in discord is copy-pasted below, if anyone wants only vaguely coherent ideas n concepts abt this au and ur willing to torture urself, go nuts w it ig lol)

taken directly from the space aces discord, i present: the reason all of my aus are barely coherent and somehow overly thought through and barebones all at once, as shown by the following example (unfamiliars au edition)

weird silly demons/familiars Sun Moon au where Reader is a (less than talented) amateur witch/wizard trying to lie themselves into a position of relative security (bc theyve had to move three different times bc towns shun n drive away witches/wizards that proves to be unhelpful) and they werent actually trying to summon sun n moon so they end up getting them involved in their scheme but oops there is some kind of other demonic threat that is actually a big problem and oops oops now we have to seriously work together to not get killed by the other eviller demon or the cult summoning it while also fooling the townsfolk into thinking that u r competent and have everything under control

Sun and Moon, a couple of demons just chilling when suddenly summoned to the material world: what in the heck Reader, having just performed a spell/ritual they've never read the instructions for backwards and facing the wrong cardinal direction: SHUT UP AND PRETEND TO BE MY FAMILIAR FOR A MINUTE OR WE ARE BOTH GONNA GET KILLED, BURNING-ON-A-CROSS STYLE

hhhgj i just had. a rlly sappy idea for the 'familiars' part

basically like. witches n wizards naturally end up casting their own 'summoning' spell for their familiar at some point, most of th time when they are really starting to understand and control their magic? so to see a witch or wizard without one it's like 'wow they're a beginner' or 'something is wrong with them, why dont they have a familiar??'

so Reader asks Sun n Moon to pretend to be their familiars partly bc 'uh oh i summoned two whole entire demons without even meaning to i have to make this look intentional' and 'if i have a familiar the people will assume im a Real Witch/Wizard and respect me more'

and at one point when they r getting to be like, actual friends instead of 'weird roommates', Sun gets curious bc ofc he does

Sun: Soooo,, we're your pretend-familiars? Reader: Yea Sun: Sooooooooo,, do u not have a familiar? I've never heard of a wizard with no familiar Reader, visibly upset/disappointed (in themselves): Yeah, well, it turns out it's only the witches and wizards with actual skills that can summon familiars. So. Couldn't tell you if I've got one or not, I've never managed a proper summoning spell. Sun, foot in his mouth: oh,, Reader: Yep.

and then later. It turns out. There are ways to make a demon into a familiar! Turns out in the distant past some wizards used to make demons they frequently summoned for spell/magic services into familiars bc it was way easier than just doing the entire summoning ritual every single time

but at this point, Reader and Sun n Moon are close enough to be good friends, and Reader doesnt want to force that kind of permanent connection on them, they probably just want to go home, theyre probably sick of being here and being around u, and,,, u get the idea

and Sun n Moon dont wanna force that kind of permanent connection on YOU bc what if ur sick of them, or ur tired of feeding and housing them or putting up with their jokes n bickering, or maybe after everything u really dont want anything to do with demons!!!

so there's a lot of sad pining that none of them know abt

bc ofc they r all idiots in this au sorry thems the rules

and then at some point there is some big threat/place they have to go to, or maybe Reader gets injured in a fight, idk take ur pick, anyway in a heat of the moment panic Moon is like 'HEY U WANT US TO BE UR FAMILIARS RIGHT??' and reader like barely conscious is like 'w??? yea??????' thinkin he means the pretend thing theyve had going on

anyway spur of the moment/'im doing this to save ur life bc i love u' familiar binding spell/ritual performed BAM now ur stuck together

and when everything is calm again n the fighting is over reader looks at Moon and is like 'so ur like,, my actual familiar now,,' and Moon, sweating bullets, unsure if this is rlly what u wanted or if u went with it out of fear of dying, is like 'yyyyyyyyyes?'

and reader starts bawling their eyes out and kisses him bc this is like. th dream scenario to u

anyway reader n sun n moon are th worlds least likely wizard/familiars combo but somehow they r absolutely unstoppable together thank u for coming to my tedtalk

[aardvaark]

Ok so... What's your story for what the rest of the crew was up to during the Broken Wing Job? Who were they after, what happened with the monkey, etc.

ooh this is such an interesting question!! i know i’m gonna give a ridiculously long answer and i’m just gonna have to apologise in advance. there’s a tl;dr in bold at the end! also, disclaimer that i understand it was just meant to be a noodle incident and i respect & enjoy the choice to never reveal what actually happened. the ambiguity and whatever your brain makes up is more fun than any canon answer for something like this. but theorising can be a lot of fun too and i love to piece together the info we DO get!!

well, what we do know about what happened:

sophie grifted a curator to get a statue of a golden monkey

they also needed an actual live monkey: a snow monkey/japanese macaque. which are fairly common in japan, so it’s like extra weird that they’re not stealing some rare or highly sought after animal yk?

eliot had to fight someone (standard tbh) but he seems to have had time to prepare, like either a private meeting turned south or an organised fight

somehow sophie seemed to be receiving a medal and hardison was dressed as though he was a decorated japanese soldier at the same event, also receiving some kind of honour.

sophie & nate burned something at the end, something that nate didn’t know if sophie would be comfortable burning.

eliot met emperor akihito, who didn’t want eliot around his granddaughter (seems like eliot flirted with her or she flirted with him, considering their reactions).

it’s in tokyo, japan - which is unusual for the team. the vast majority of their jobs happen in the US. when they go to other countries or interfere with international politics, it probably starts with a client in the US. eg the san lorenzo job happened bc they were already pursuing moreau, the stork job (in serbia) happened because of american adoptive parents, they interfere with another country’s politics in the scheherazade job bc of a journalist in the US, etc. so i think this probably somehow *started* with an american client and became international.

you made me go through john rogers’ blog to get more info, which is extremely evil of you because i always get sidetracked like 50 times on that blog and end up with a thousand new theories and character thoughts lmao. but from the blog:

VERY interesting information. in the rashomon job, the monkey statue is what eliot was supposed to "retrieve" from north korea for his client, and when he failed to do so, that client sent hitters after eliot and then made him steal the dagger of aqu’abi to make up for the statue. in the two horse job, a flashback to north korea in 2005 has people yelling at eliot "where’s the monkey?!", and since the rashomon job happened around 2005, that monkey is probably the same monkey statue. in other words, this goddam statue has been eluding eliot for YEARS. also, evidently, it must be very valuable and highly sought after.

unfortunately i can’t find the podcast but im thinking "money" makes a lot of sense and that maybe i don’t want to know what her answer was lol. anyway, somehow the con led to gaining cash that they felt it was best to destroy rather than give to the client or keep as "alternate revenue". i guess it was dirty money or perhaps just too easily traceable.

SO!

a US client somehow led to a job in japan where they got a valuable monkey statue and a real monkey, were awarded for something, fought someone, and then burnt a pile of money.

i’m gonna say the fact that there’s a real monkey and a monkey statue is not a coincidence… did they paint the real monkey gold and get it to attack someone who thought it was a statue?? did they claim the statue had come to life??

tl;dr - my best idea is that eliot heard through the grapevine that the statue that had been giving him trouble all those years had surfaced in japan. an old friend of eliot’s tells him that some Evil Guy TM (the episode’s mark) is trying to blackmail him & other retrieval specialists/thieves into retrieving it. the team decides that they will go undercover to steal it and put an end to the saga for good. so they all have to get cover identities and grift because they’d usually do a heist but parker is out. sophie eventually grifts her way into getting into whatever vault the statue is in, then they sell their mark the statue and are paid with lots of cash, they let the mark tell everyone he has the statue, then switch it with the real monkey to make the mark look like a liar or like he was imagining things etc. then they also expose tons of files on other Evil Guy stuff the mark has done.

the mark, however, is so high profile that he was in the same circles as the emperor, and the team had to meet him during the con. when the emperor hears that sophie(‘s alias) took down that Evil Guy who was exposed for lots of evil stuff, he awards sophie and hardison for their efforts. which is a whole thing, because obviously they’re now having to make sure their fake identities hold up under national/international scrutiny - classic "accidentally did so well that we caused ourselves more problems" leverage moment. somehow they pull that off successfully though.

i think the live monkey was released into the wild or returned to a sanctuary, cause i don’t think they’d harm an animal. i believe there’s a snow monkey animal park in japan, maybe it was released there? as for the monkey statue, it seems like it’s too dangerous to keep or even give to someone. like, eliot’s been attacked over it a couple times, you couldn’t give it to anyone who isn’t prepared to get into fights and be hunted down for it. maybe they placed it somewhere hidden in the animal park with the real monkeys.

um so yes this is ridiculously long now and i realise that it’s weird to like, cite sources on this fandom ask lol. but there you go! thanks so much for the question, i had a lot of fun trying to draw connections and figure it out!!

[sinkingquail]

an analysis of taliesin through the lens of astrology

DISCLAIMER: i don't claim to know everything about taliesin (i haven't beaten the game with him yet, oops). or astrology. nor is astrology for everyone. please take everything with a heaping spoonful of salt, thank you /gen. tl;dr at the end.

when you first meet taliesin, he's a cornered animal. he's surrounded by people he killed, about to bleed to death (and is hallucinating lol). then, a stranger comes up and sees a thalmor agent next to a ton of corpses. and what does he do?

he very matter-of-factly states that he did, indeed kill all the people around him and laughs about it. he insults your outfit when you call him a "monster". he tells you that he "carved out the heart" of a man because he insulted his dagger. what the heck, bro??

(this is of course not the most normal of circumstances)

holy fuck, if that doesn't scream deflection i don't know what does. this is a guy that is doing everything in his power to not show weakness, especially in such a dire situation.

for this reason, i believe taliesin is a scorpio rising. scorpio is what we call a "fixed water sign" which is essentially ice, so think cold, calculating, takes a while to warm up. scorpio risings are known for giving off stand-offish, dark, yet magnetic vibes. they're also known for putting up tons of walls when they're feeling vulnerable.

as you travel alongside tally, he opens up. he's still his sarcastic, incredibly straight-forward self (if you're playing an argonian, he will ask you if you're related to... smaller lizards lol). but he'll also make comments on how beautiful the night sky is, he'll tell you about how he wants to visit raven rock and elsweyr after exploring skyrim, he'll likely leave if you weren't adventuring, this mer wants to GO PLACES after being stuck doing lord knows what with the thalmor for who knows how long. i'm not quite sure if this guy has ever had the chance to just be his own person for once. ANYWAYS

i think a sagittarius sun best describes taliesin. they're what we call a "mutable fire sign" which combines the passion of the fire element with the fluidity of the mutable modality (this is basically a fancy way of saying "going with the flow"). these natives are known as "truth-seekers" for their inexplicable desire to understand and do not give a fuck if challenging the status quo is frowned upon (ok, with the thalmor it's a bit harder to do that). they're really philosophical, adventurous, and absolutely detest being tied down.

okay, now we're gonna move to the moon sign which is arguably the side of taliesin we see last: his emotions. i'm going to start byanalyzing this quote from him:

"Ah, a fellow insomniac. Seems you and I might have more in common than anticipated. My nights will be less lonely now."

what a roundabout way of saying "i can't sleep and i'm alone with my thoughts, i would really appreciate companionship". he's blunt about other things (this man does NOT pull punches... especially when it comes to your clothes lol) but when it comes to opening up further about his loneliness? nope nope not happening lol. it's like he's hinting at his emotions instead of flat out saying them. this sort of detachment also comes up in the next quote:

"To think, I could be bleeding to death peacefully in a pristine forest"

except this time, it's less about being emotionally vulnerable and more about thinking about his own death, but like, he's prodding the idea with a six-foot-long pole. regardless, he leaves the "wow, i would have died without you" part unsaid. he's using humor to neatly skirt around the part where without the player's intervention and random luck, he would've died. (he also has a quote about haunting you if he dies, which is a lovely example of his dark humor)

to me, this is indicative of a capricorn moon.

these guys are compartmentalizers. they want to push all their emotions into little boxes and hide them in the attic but forget that everything will break down eventually from the sheer weight. they are PRACTICAL, and they don't really believe that there's room for emotions when it comes to getting shit done. and they do indeed get shit done. they also tend to have incredibly high expectations for themselves and kinda just assume the worst in others? this makes a pretty weird dynamic with his sagittarius sun, which absolutely does want to be optimistic and open-minded. there's (probably) a lot of conflict there on his world outlook.

deep breath

okay, so for taliesin we have sun in sagittarius, moon in capricorn, and scorpio rising. the moon in capricorn + scorpio rising both contribute a lot to his seemingly cold and detached exterior, especially in the beginning. it's hard for him to open up ("well this has been fun, making myself emotionally vulnerable") but at the same time, makes his emotions run deep. once he opens up it's a whole new story.

he also has a self-proclaimed "lust for life", which i believe is the influence of his sagittarius sun. i think that taliesin really does want to go out there, explore the world, ponder life's questions, and grow, which of course he couldn't do with the thalmor.

okay, last one i swear:

we're gonna talk about my favorite, which is the asteroid chiron. it symbolizes what we call the "wounded healer" in astrology, and gives insight on where your "life wounds" are and how to heal from them.

his… less than kind childhood thanks to a shitty father points to chiron in the fourth house, which is essentially indicating some sort of wound that is related to his home life (the fourth house concerns home, family, and security).

but how does this manifest in him?

aside from struggling to find a "true home" or place where he's accepted for who he is, i think taliesin also (especially as an older sibling) feels the need to take responsibility (aka: stop the ldb from doing stupid shit), probably struggles with feelings of inadequacy, and is fiercely protective of the dragonborn ("You want them? You'll have to get through me first!", he also says something along the lines of "don't go too far ahead, i don't want to lose you in the fog". he also latches onto them very quickly which i'd love to talk about, but alas)

as a result of this, i believe his chiron is also in capricorn. people with their capricorn in chiron feel a constant need to prove themselves - when you combine this with chiron in the 4th house, it basically says:

taliesin grew up in an authoritative household that placed incredibly high expectations on him. as a result of this pressure, he struggles with deep-rooted self-esteem issues (i have the feeling his aura of self-confidence is a way to convince himself of his positive traits, fake it til you make it ig) and perhaps, a need for control in his environment. the ldb is so so so important to him. they bring a sense of stability, purpose, companionship, and genuine acceptance of him, which are all things that he hasn't really experienced. brb, crying

i might just be pulling all of this out of my ass, so again, don't take this too seriously lol i barely know what i'm talking about

TL;DR taliesin's scorpio rising gives him a somewhat cooler exterior that hides his emotional vulnerabilities (cough chiron in capricorn) that is further swept aside by his capricorn moon. however, there's a deep passion for adventure and a quest for truth from his sagittarius sun, which helps balance out the more cynical sides of him, especially when you take into account all the trauma this mer has. this has to be the weirdest crossover of my interests i've seen. i know not everyone cares for astrology, but i find it to be a really interesting way to analyze characters and is an excellent tool for introspection. taliesin is doing a great job. he's really respectful about boundaries, i like to think he's gone to therapy at least a little. keep it up, tally <3

[midnight-mourning]

Good morning, mourning! is it possible for you to show us how you make an outline for writing a chapter sometime in the future? like what does your first rough rough draft look like?🤔

also whats your favorite vine/meme at the moment?���

Hi pip!!

I can actually show you RIGHT NOW as I keep all my outlines (for the most part) saved in their respective chapters

*added a read more post-answering bc this got LONG lol*

So, it's sometimes a bit dependent on the fic, what I'm writing at the time, and where I'm at in the process. I usually have two different methods I stick to and typically combine in some manner:

bulleted list of important scenes/ideas to expand out upon from there (typically how I start out ideas for oneshots)

big blurb paragraph of a flow of ideas from start to finish (typically how I start out chapter-based fics, and what I do for Confused Spirit)

From there, I'll then combine the two methods in some way if it's a oneshot, and if I'm struggling to get the words flowing for a chapter-based fic, I'll use the list to expand out upon things I wrote originally. For example, this was ch. 34's outline (spoilers for those who haven't read it yet):

and then the list I added once I got started properly, which I crosssed out as I went along. Fun fact, you can see where I hit a moment of greatness in that last bullet and the chapter came together as a whole from there:

the blacked out is things I've pushed back for later (or just general spoiler stuff), so you can see that inital plans and even those I make WHILE writing the chapter are still subject to change as I go into actually writing it. Another good example would be from ch. 32:

in this case, I went back and added to the original outline (I think you can tell where lmao) and didn't utilize a list

I'd love to find chekov's gun, bc that one was REALLY good if I'm remembering correctly but I think it's buried somewhere in the Dialogue Dump unfortunately 😔

Adding on to that, I write a lot of scene ideas/mainly dialogue for things that happen in the future as the ideas don't typically come to me in chronological order. the party from 33? like a month into writing the story. the team meeting Michael? mid-arc 2. Chekov's gun? the start to midway point in the first couple days of writing and then basically finished within by the middle of august (started in July for those that don't know)

My point being that there's a lot of things that I have saved for certain arcs/plot points that I then insert into their proper place in the story once I find where that is. For arc 3 in particular I took the approach of gathering all the dialogue i KNOW was going to be in the arc, wrote my lil blurbs for all the chapters, and then started placing them accordingly. stuff has (and probably will continue to) gotten shuffled around, but for the most part has stayed in their original places.

a rough rough draft beyond that is basically adding to those base scene ideas (sometimes in order, sometimes not) typically writing dialogue and then filling in the blanks from there! sometimes if I'm lucky I can write a chapter from (mostly) start to finish in a span of four hours or so but that's only when i'm REALLY cookin'

Sorry for the super long winded response, didn't realize how much I wrote until I did it 😅

TL;DR, blurb of ideas, organize those ideas/add to them or adjust, full send it from there (with the potential help of some dialogue along the way)

As for my fav vine/meme currently? Probably the lump fish guy, everytime someone says 'very mindful, very demure' (I am not on tiktok so I do NOT understand this one) I instantly think 'very beautiful, very powerful'

thanks so much for the lovely ask!!! <3 <3 <3

[sanctus-ingenium]

answering your asks vol 3

Full context for the Inprnt issue can be found here on this post , tl;dr my shop is closed until I receive my payments from inprnt in a timely manner and essentially won't reopen unless they clean up their act. Regarding the money they owe me outlined in that post, I still have not received it and on Friday I sent a support ticket in to inprnt demanding they send it soon. Haven't heard back since. I think where Inprnt is concerned, it's worth mentioning that they no longer send promotional emails (which used to be a regular occurrence) and there seems to be a complete lack of communication and the only thing about the site that regularly updates is the sale banner (ending soon!!! 🙄)

So honestly I'm of the opinion that the print on demand bubble has burst and that this method of selling art was a very short-lived feature of an internet that doesn't exist anymore. Think about it - I make money on a sale after having spent nothing on promotion, on materials, on postage fees, etc. It's so easy to game the system using bots or stolen art to essentially print free money that I'm shocked it even lasted as long as it did. Maybe I'm wrong but I won't tie myself to another print on demand service that's just going to pull the same old shit redbubble and inprnt have done this year, or one that requires me to constantly promo it like some kind of influencer on instagram or tiktok or whatever.

Will prints come back? I hope so. I am looking into local printing shops and considering the feasibility of handling the process myself but you must understand that if I do that, the price will rise. I won't have the ability to run constant discounts or eat a loss if I order 20 prints and only 7 sell. It is what it is.

And the actual worldbuilding asks below the cut lol:

(referring to this post)

Only if you want to! I've had a few people send me cool sketches and stuff via dms and it's always nice to see but you really shouldn't feel pressured to. After all it's not like I post my rough practice here lol (that goes on patreon ;)

-

I'm going to be SO real with you right now - I did not consider that at all. However I do know that tinting flames with various chemical compounds was a huge part of alchemy, part of the whole flashy show of it to impress the layperson. So sure, I bet they do throw in copper sulfate or various other chemicals to produce the coloured flames - these make a huge impression on witnesses who might not even have imagined such a thing possible, and also help identify a holy beast at a distance on a battlefield choked with smoke and dive-bombing serpents.

Fun fact, the flames come from the furnace wells, right. Each well is connected to specific systems, where it can most efficiently deliver fuel to the heart and onwards. So it is possible to 'read' the pattern of flame bursts from the furnace slits - they are not constant, but there'll be one every few seconds based on when the furnace tenders excite each well. You can tell at a distance, for example, that Leun is readying an acid spray, or rerouting power to the rear legs for a leap, or even what direction he's turning. It all runs at a slight delay, which is why the crew inside has to be SO closely coordinated.

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@absolutely-flabbergasted Knights are allowed to reproduce but not marry, because it's sort of accepted theory that blood relatives of a knight will be 'accepted' by the knight's beast when the time comes. This is not true but it means that sometimes the knight's apprentices are their own children. The other parent is mostly another member of the church and usually not identified or considered important (unless they're a smith...). There are usually a decent number of known knight bastards running about.

Smiths are not allowed to have families or marry, because their first devotion should be to their art or their beast if they are assigned to one. If one tries, the kids are taken away, anonymised with new names, and put into the pool of potential novices in some other stable. Now, in reality some stables or churches are just not that strict and have a slightly different culture, so there's often an Open Secret about some master smith's illegitimate family or a priest's secret mistress. This is tolerated by the authorities to a certain degree but if it becomes too rampant there'll usually be a change of management and some sort of crackdown.

Families who give up their second born cannot stay in contact, but if the child becomes successful in some way (say, if the child becomes a knight) the families are sent tokens symbolising this which can be placed in the family/village shrine. This can be a huge point of pride, with some people faking the tokens just so that they can show off about their successful kids that are totally knight apprentices.

The reason they don't get to stay in touch with their children is due to the secretive nature of the church and its arts. The church has been at war with the neighbouring nations for a long time and only its mastery of engine work has kept it afloat, and nobody wants these secrets to fall into enemy hands. Particularly if your kid goes on to become a scribe, which is if anything an even more closely guarded profession than that of a knight (those engine diagrams don't draw themselves). The laity are usually quite devout and understanding of this. If they aren't, they might attempt to find their child, often without success.

If you want your church kid back: it depends. If you can prove to the church authorities that you need your child's labour to stay afloat or to carry on the family line, they might take that into consideration. Of course, the only children that return are the likes of sweepers, cleaners, altar boys, pages, etc. Nobody who might have witnessed any Secrets. The church is best understood as being in the middle of a cold war for the past few centuries (and sometimes just regular war) so it's far more closely guarded.

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@kicks-tiktaalik-back-into-water

It's not likely. Even if the ventilation system worked perfectly, he is still from an older generation of holy beasts and no longer represents the pinnacle of the technology. Leun might have a less sophisticated ventilation system but everything else about him is head and shoulders more advanced - including the crew number he can take on. Leun only requires a single enginesmith in the heart, for example. This is because there's more automation of his systems, and he can actually manage to walk home from battle without anybody inside at all, just based on the knight's input (because the throne chamber is open to the air the knights are technically not inside the beasts). It's not preferable (it can damage the systems) but it is a huge bonus.

Think about how in the early days of commercial aviation, there could be as many as eight people working on the flight deck. In the 60s, a 3-person crew was standard; captain, first officer, and flight engineer. Today there are only two pilots needed. This is down to increased automation, and it means that it is cheaper to fly the plane - the airline has to hire fewer pilots, 'flight engineer' is a nonexistent role these days, and that means you need to train fewer people, have fewer people on call, feed fewer people etc etc. It is cheaper for the church to run Leun than it is to run Krokodilos and even though the church is wealthy, the money and resources are not infinite. Especially now, in times of plague. Leun, for all everybody sings his praises, is basically a reskinned Pantera with better systems - again, cutting costs, because now we can get all of Pantera's old enginesmiths to work on him instead of having to train up new ones on a brand new and wholly unique platform. It's as much a matter of logistics as it is innovation and technology.

[gootube]

table of incidents - dissecting julie

text transcript + notes below :3

text reads:

A TABLE OF INCIDENTS

"a recurring dream,

the surrounding universe

a theater scene,

on every text page

Two secret lovers

died in a mutual embrace."

"The phone rang.

He's not in at the moment.

Can you tell him to call me back?

Yes. Sure.

Also, please tell him

I'm not mad at him anymore."

"the Kafkaesque hero

kills his double.

It's not a violent death.

on stage

He approaches his confused pal

informed them about killing himself

in his dream.

That does not work, that's clear.

God will not allow it."

play's script."

"The officers are putting a c offin into a

through an open drawer

Do you understand?

the actor's freedom

as it is shown

on the

end transcript

"Everything is different.

The world itself has no logic whatsoever.

un dessin parfait."

ok so i started this just drawing julie autopsy then i went insane -- i cut up a viewer's guide and another info booklet i got from a franz kafka inspired art museum/installation i visited in prague that freaked my bean. i thought it was pretty cool and it hurt cutting it up for the first time but then i realized im not really ever gonna re-read it so might as well. im happy with how it turned out and it was really fun having sentences click together in my head like lego bricks and immediately going to cut them out

i also remembered how hellish it is to work with liquid glue- hopefully you can't see it in the pictures but a lot of the papers are so lumpy because of the glue. eventually i remembered how i used to properly use the glue (get a small puddle of it on paper and wipe the backs of paper on it THEN paste it down) and it was really fun

i started this before eating breakfast but then i got carried away and...never ate breakfast and ended up having to eat dinner KALKLADKLKJFA this is bad. dont be like me. this was bad. but i could NOT stop or i would not go back to it

the fucking flower stickers would NOT stick probably because i used oil pastel on his insides. i used prismacolor pencils for the rest of him. ummmm the map behind him is a map of munich i got when i went there on my school trip. i liked getting an art use out of my old keepsakes, because usually theyd just collect dust and never be looked at again lol

tl;dr i had fun hope you like