#there was something so effective about the angles

[egophiliac]

Hi there! I really love your comics and how expressive they are. How do you go about making the characters in your comic so expressive?

thank you! 💚💜💚 I am REALLY bad at explaining things, so my apologies if this doesn't make a lot of sense, but maybe there's something helpful in here somewhere. :')

1. warm up! drawing is a physical activity, after all! so if I'm planning on sitting down and drawing for a while, I usually start off by taking a couple of minutes to doodle a bunch of circles and lines and random shapes, just to get my drawing arm goin' again and get back into the physical groove. just stuff like this:

and just do that for however long you feel like! you can kind of feel when your arm starts to loosen up and your strokes get more confident. it makes it a lot easier to get those swoopy big lines and gestures!

2. play around with how you use your lines! paying attention to the shapes that they're making will change a lot about how much force and life your drawing feels like it has. (no way is better than another, it just depends on what effect you're going for and how it looks as part of the larger whole.)

and you can also use lines against each other to get different vibes:

it's not really a matter of "you need to make sure all your lines are always doing this all the time", it's more like...being aware of it, and getting that into the general thrust of a pose, if that makes sense? like a lot of smaller lines of action, beyond the big one that goes through the spine.

(just gonna use my own art as examples, apologies)

if you have a good foundation of tension, then all of the little bumps and contours of a character's details won't get in the way of it, and it'll still come through.

and don't forget about negative space either! the spaces between things have their own interesting shapes too!

I don't mean this to come off as, like, all these extra things that you need to be constantly thinking about and stressing over. more like...just try different stuff and then see how it works and how it changes the feeling! if you find a good shape, see if you can exaggerate it and make it more interesting, and how that affects things! angles and shapes are a LOT of fun to experiment and mess around with, especially when you're going more cartoony. :D

3. acting!

just...spending a little time to think about what the characters are actually doing! (aka the "figuring out what everyone is doing with their hands" bit.) this is more a personal preference, but especially in multi-panel comics, I like to have them be in the middle of doing stuff. not just big actions, but smaller things -- like even just how they're sitting or standing -- so that it feels like we're looking in on the middle of a scene, instead of a couple of characters just standing around neutrally and staring straight ahead while talking at each other.

this probably sounds really obvious, but it is one of the most fun parts for me! I love trying to find some little action or something that they can be involved in, especially if it's relevant to their character or adds an extra joke. (for some reason this usually involves me being mean to Sebek) (I'm sorry)

it doesn't need to be everyone Always! Doing! Something! all the time, especially if starts becoming distracting (sometimes they do actually need to just be standing around neutrally and staring straight ahead, especially if there's a bigger action going on that you want the audience to focus on instead). but even just figuring out some kind of non-neutral pose for them to be in can add a lot and make it feel less generic!

3. thumbnailing!

this is, again, very much a personal preference; unfortunately, every artist really is different, and we all have different processes that work better for us. so I can only speak to my personal experience! but I find what helps is to start REALLY rough -- not so much as in messy, as in not trying to start right into actually drawing everything out. like, literally just starting with stick figures and :O faces.

it probably doesn't sound relevant when talking about Drawing Expressively, but I find it's really, really helpful to have already figured out what everyone should be doing (acting!) and what the overall general layout and flow of things should be, before getting into the actual meat of drawing the characters. like having a sketch for the sketch!

(good compositional flow is something I struggle with, and text layout especially, so this stage also helps a LOT with making sure things are fitting where I want them and staying consistent/not breaking screen direction/etc.)

then after that, I can go ahead and focus on getting those Shapes and Lines and Angles and all that, without having to think too much about the layout or where things should go!

(of course, the downside of that is that my thumbnails are usually way better than my actual drawings, alas alas.)

4. this is more philosophical, but...give yourself some slack. the stress of Making Things Look Good is, ironically, often the biggest problem. (see: thumbnails looking better than the actual drawings.) so...let yourself draw shittier and without regards to accuracy. make things just for yourself without thinking about posting or showing them to anyone else. draw stupid faces and wrong proportions because they feel better that way. focus on what's fun and not on getting a perfect end result. "draw expressively, not well", as they say -- you can always tighten up things like proportions and details later, if you really want to.

that's all WAY easier said than done -- god knows I haven't really managed it -- but even just aiming for that attitude really, REALLY helps. if your lines are confident, they'll look a lot more alive and expressive than lines that are exactly technically precise but have no rhythm in them. (this is why tracing photographs tends to look so weirdly stiff and unrealistic, by the way -- even if you're drawing realistically, you usually need to exaggerate and stylize a little bit so it doesn't look lifeless.) it's a balance between caring about what you draw, but also being willing to let things go a little bit.

↑ I hope some of this helps! I don't know if any of this was actually what you had in mind, let alone much of it actually made sense outside of my head. :') but hopefully you (or other people) will be able to get something out of it!

[levmada]

sequel to this post

[@dressycobra7 :3]

➥ c/w: gn!reader, some angst, oral (m!receiving), praise, subby Levi canonverse, established relationship, handjob, finger sucking?, turned into smut somehow

➥ wc: 1.8k

The boy appeared to you and Levi later to apologize profusely like that was the reason he'd been born. You didn't have the heart to turn him away, and filed inside the small recovery room behind him, with its half-exposed brick walls. The curtains were shut, but enough light penetrated. Levi looked too tired to stop him, and it took an arduous amount of time to get through, but his answer was short, to the effect of, If you're not court-marshaled, don't do it again. A slightly upper angle and I would've bled out. Then where would we be?

You're still thinking about that as you stock the closet with some of his clothes. Mandatory bedrest for at least a week, and after that, take it slow. Levi practically shriveled up when someone said 'wheelchair', and he preferred if hospital germs didn't get into his quarters.

You'll have his squad up there every day doing routine cleaning, "trouble" which Levi didn't need to exert his mind over. He's busy being stubborn.

You turn around when you hear porcelain clink. He's leaned over the dresser next to the bed, trying to take the tea.

"Levi," you scold.

"We don't need Hange to tell me my arms are in fine working condition," he grumbles, leaning back as you come over.

He's right, though. No one would even notice any arm wound because the bandages and plaster wrapping around his lower leg are bordering-on gaudy. It's propped up on a fat pillow, also white, the same as his soft-looking boxers and collared shirt (of which many buttons hang loose). In the glowing late afternoon, he looks ethereal, not quite of-this-world. A dove which is angry and stubborn and trapped.

"Still," you say quietly.

"I'm fine... I don't need anything."

Mikasa and Sasha had picked flowers, which you set in a watered glass jar atop the dresser. White again.

You watch him sip, and go over when he's done, laid propped up against pillows. A wooden bench at the side; you sat for hours while he slept through the day (the whole incident happened this morning). You sit on it now.

"I know... But why not want?" you repeat, quietly looking down at your hands.

"Who are we to want anything?"

You sharply look. "Why are you talking like this?"

He just watches you, shrewdly, but with a weakness not indicative of him. It might be exhaustion talking...

"We could always die. Titans could get in—"

"I'd kill them."

"Not like this..."

You said the wrong thing—the wrongest thing. His lips press into a thin line, barely-concealed contempt and clean daggers for eyes. The way he looks, like he believes if he tensed up enough, then he'd turn invisible and leave this argument in the dust.

You gesture slightly. "Because I would protect you. Even if I wasn't one of your comrades, or a soldier."

His lip twists in a unique disgust, which is the most you can see, his head turned towards the wall. Over his stomach, his hand tightens into a fist. "If you weren't, you'd die. Then I'd be dead anyway."

You swallow. You want to yell, and cry.

"I don't want that, either way. You didn't deserve to... see me like that. That seems to be why I'm talking like this."

The anger has left him. Delicately, you stand and seat yourself on the edge of the bed by his waist. "I've seen you be lots of things. 'Weak' is okay too. And I'm okay with seeing you like that as many time as I must, which is once so far."

He scoffs softly through his nose.

You lean forward more, and walk your fingers through his hair. Blacker than night, soft. There's a little piece you tuck behind his ear. His eyes flutter, letting out a deep breath. You can almost see the goosebumps.

"I know we'll die, and I know we belong to something much bigger, but can't I love you anyway?"

His breathing hitches a little, and his eyes open. It's a wonder what he's thinking, if he's even thinking about it, his adam's apple bobbing.

"Do whatever you want. I'm fine, if it's possible I can be with you."

It's your heart's turn to flutter, and just as soon, lean over awkwardly, your head resting on his chest and your arms around him (at least as much as they can be). You hear his heartbeat. The slowing, smooth rhythm of his choppy breathing carrying your upper half. His arm slips around your waist, content to rest his lips in your hair. As the time passes, he's more and more comfortable to hold you to tame the fear his anger betrayed. By that time, your arm's fallen asleep; you rub his side.

As tempting as it is to go down to the mess crowded for dinner, and contend with questions, you stay, just appreciating existing next to him.

"Your back," he mutters. You've been bent over a while.

"Mm." He's officially being ignored.

His hand slips over yours on his side, stopping you. His face doesn't give anything away, maybe purposefully so, and so you smile.

Leaning up, a fond kiss to his cheek. "You're cute when you make that face. Is your leg feeling okay?"

He clicks his tongue mildly with his head turned out, just showing you his cheek and one blue-grey eye. "'m fine," he says quietly.

Curious eyes search. Maybe he's downplaying something, but not lying. With nothing you'd rather do, you kiss down his jaw now, to the tender, pale column of his neck. His chest lifts suddenly against yours.

His question sounds like an afterthought. "What're you doing?"

"'m loving you," you lift your lips to say. (A little embarrassing to say out loud.)

"Yeah." His lips are still in your hair, but are stirring.

You remember he has your hand when he starts bringing them down. All across your upper half, you feel him breathing, and it's a little deeper.

You switch sides, putting you at an awkward angle to kiss him. He starts to move over towards the wall, but you stop him with a firm hum fast enough, and sit up. No walking, Moblit had told him firmly. What you kind of wish he'd said now is no moving his legs. For now you ignore it pushing snugly against the front of his boxers, but there's a wisp of a giggle in your chest.

You shift the pillow carefully, and he follows, until there's enough room for you there beside him. The mattress is only half-decent, but it's warm from his body.

He looks annoyed that you're smirking, if only he could come off the slightest bit intimidating blushing so hard like this. Pink warmth creeps down his neck and disappears beneath his open, rumpled collar.

"Tch." He just captures the nape of your neck and pulls your lips against his—a little slowly that comes with tiredness, but that much more passionately.

While you play with his lips, giving him away to you, your palm roams between his thighs. You pause there. Right as he shivers with his lip trapped between your teeth, you pull away and leer over him. "Don't move, baby. Move and I'll stop."

His eyes narrow in a bratty display.

"I mean it." You smile. "Even a touch" You stroke through his clothes slow and firm, immediately bringing a dreaming-like quality to his eyes. He almost can't look at you, especially as he huffs and it throbs under you.

"Baby?" You lick your thumb.

"I won't move." He huffs again, harsher this time. "Ugh, I won't fucking move, but you can't just—"

Your free hand, your thumb, falls against his jaw and stops his soft lips from flapping, so now a whole new quality of lust emerges in his expression. You're freeing his cock from his shorts as he instantly takes you in, so soft and sweet and giving. The heat that immediately consumes your thumb is melting, almost too intense to handle.

"Good boy, letting me."

His eyes flutter as you find where wetness has drooled from the tip of his stiff cock, spreading it around in your palm. It's easy to hold him, how he was made for you, and even easier to touch him to attract his hips, and the beginning of whispered whines he always always tries to suppress.

He hasn't forgotten, though. At the moment you send him a warning look, he relaxes, and his eyes are closed. You didn't notice him take hold of your wrist, holding just to hold, and gripping the front of his shirt with the other hand, since you're not close enough.

"Good boy," you murmur again. A moan vibrates round your thumb, his cock straining in your fist. "That's my good boy..."

It seems all the squirming he doesn't do has to go towards suckling and nipping your thumb instead. You watch his brows furrowed in deep focus as you build up your firm strokes. It's getting just as wet. He can't last.

You smile to yourself as your pumps rise to his tip, firm but quick flicks of your wrist. His back bows against the bed, the moan in his throat breaking apart into a whine. That aside, he stays perfectly still, so you let it slide.

"Does it feel that good when I touch you? Going to come, sweetheart?"

"Mm," his voice comes firm and tightly-wound. His eyes open into slight slits, see you watching shamelessly, and shut again. "Mm!"

Just as he throbs and tenses up. You bend over gripping down low, abruptly tearing your hand away from his mouth to sink his cock inside yours; pinning his hips, rubbing his heavy balls in your grasp.

"F-Fuck, fuckfuck!" He takes sudden, almost too-tight hold of your hair, gasping, and tearing the sheet, and shuddering. He moans all through it, broken whispers of your name, almost hummed at the top of his throat at the quietest, and always eagerly throbbing in the hot suction of your mouth. You take everything in deep swallows.

When finally, his hips are threatening to squirm to shy away and his cock softening, you pull off. You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand as he melts into the sheets. He has half of his bright red face hiding under his arm, catching his breath.

"Fuck, I don't know how you expected me to stay still. Come here." He lowers his arm.

"For the mess." You smile sweetly.

"Come here."

"You're not doing anything." But you do, and let him give you a kiss. He looks extremely unhappy about that, but for once, it looks like he'll listen when you say.

Levi masterlist | main masterlist

[shinobicyrus]

I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the Empire’s assault on the Path in Obi-Wan, harping about everything from how inaccurate the stormtroopers were, how stupid their formation was, how “hysterical” (🙄)Third Sister sounded yelling at them to keep moving forward. You know, the kind of insightful criticism one expects from a Youtube comment section.

Because all those comments completely miss the entire point of this scene.

Maybe I’m just weird, but was anyone else as shook watching this as I was? When a stormtrooper went down, the camera focused on that stormtrooper, just for a second or two. That’s never happened before. One of a dozen identical troopers is shot, falls hard the the ground, and we get a close-up on the blank Imperial mask while his comrades just walk over him without even slowing.

I actually pitied the stormtroopers, watching this.

Because that‘s the Empire. No clever tactics, no military strategy beyond brute force. Just a wall of white armor and red blasters steadily advancing, slowly overwhelming the desperate, outnumbered, terrified people trying and failing to hold back the tide.

Why waste time with subtlety when you can just crush everything in your path? Why bother trying to minimize casualties when you can easily replace your losses? It’s such an effective terror tactic, because if you shoot one, there’s another half-dozen identical, disposable soldiers to take their place. And the stormtroopers are just as unaffected by one of their own going down, because in the chaos of battle they’d have no idea who just got blasted in front of them; they’re as faceless and anonymous to each other as they are to the rebels.

With just a few clever cuts and camera angles, Obi-Wan made me terrified of the Empire.

[canisalbus]

I love the shapes you use to draw machete, or really any character!! The way you draw noses, ears, bodies, fur, it looks like of I were to reach my hand out I could actually feel it, the bumps in the skin the squish of the flesh the softness of the hair. Not to mention the colors you use are very pleasing to the eye. So lovely... keep up the phenomenal work!!!

Ah, thank you so much!

[allthethoughtsandstuff]

rereading the ballad of songbirds and snakes and I stg any time this man is considering doing anything he’s gotta be like,, wait,, let me consider the ✨optics✨

[sciderman]

What are some things cable likes about peter?

nathan's type:

red mask ✅ tight suit ✅ kind of stupid ✅ filters sadness through the prism of humour ✅

bonuses peter parker has to offer

cute hair ✅ cute butt ✅ cute everything ✅

[peapod20001]

I actually do have very complex thoughts about many different things, it’s just a bit challenging to connect the inner voice to the outer voice sometimes </3

[scientia-rex]

When I was in ninth grade I wanted to challenge what I saw as a very stupid dress code policy (not being allowed to wear spikes regardless of the size or sharpness of the spikes). My dad said to me, “What is your objective?”

He said it over and over. I contemplated that. I wanted to change an unfair dress code. What did I stand to gain? What did I stand to lose? If what I really wanted was to change the dress code, what would be my most effective potential approach? (He also gave me Discourses on the Fall of Rome by Titus Livius, Machiavelli’s magnum opus. Of course he’d already given me The Prince, Five Rings, and The Art of War.)

I ultimately printed out that phrase, coated it in Mod Podge, and clipped it to my bathroom mirror so I would look at it and think about it every day.

What is your objective?

Forget about how you feel. Ask yourself, what do you want to see happen? And then ask, how can you make it happen? Who needs to agree with you? Who has the power to implement this change? What are the points where you have leverage over them? If you use that leverage now, will you impair your ability to use it in the future? Getting what you want is about effectiveness. It is not about being an alpha or a sigma or whatever other bullshit the men’s right whiners are on about now. You won’t find any MRA talking points in Musashi, because they are not relevant.

I had no clear leverage on the dress code issue. My parents were not on the PTA; neither were any of my friend’s parents who liked me. The teachers did not care about this. Ultimately I just wore what I wanted, my patent leather collar from Hot Topic with large but flattened spikes, and I had guessed correctly—the teachers also did not care enough to discipline me.

I often see people on tumblr, mostly the very young, flail around in discourse. They don’t have an objective. They don’t know what they want to achieve, and they have never thought about strategizing and interpersonal effectiveness. No one can get everything they want by being an asshole. You must be able to work with other people, and that includes smiling when you hate them.

Read Machiavelli. Start with The Prince, but then move on to Discourses. Read Musashi’s Five Rings. Read The Art of War. They’re classics for a reason. They can’t cover all situations, but they can do more for how you think about strategizing than anything you’re getting in middle school and high school curricula.

Don’t vote third party unless you can tell me not only what your objective is but also why this action stands a meaningful chance of accomplishing it. Otherwise, back up and approach your strategy from a new angle. I don’t care how angry you are with Biden right now. He knows about it, and he is both trying to do something and not doing enough. I care about what will happen to millions of people if we have another Trump presidency. Look up Ross Perot, and learn from our past. Find your objective. If it is to stop the genocide in Palestine now, call your elected representatives now. They don’t care about emails; they care about phone calls, because they live in the past. I know this because I shadowed a lobbyist, because knowing how power works is critical to using it.

How do you think I have gotten two clinics to start including gender care in their planning?

Start small. Chip away. Keep working. Find your leverage; figure out how and when to effectively use it. Choose your battles, so that you can concentrate on the battle at hand instead of wasting your resources in many directions. Learn from the accumulated wisdom of people who spent their lives learning by doing, by making mistakes, by watching the mistakes of their enemies.

Don’t be a dickhead. Be smarter than I was at 14. Ask yourself: what is your objective?

[swampjawn]

Time to talk an unnecessary amount about floors!

Episode 6 of Dungeon Meshi was produced in collaboration with a smaller studio, Enishiya - and it went way harder than I expected, for being made up of two relatively simple and self contained stories focusing on one character each.

And you can really see how those extra resources meant the animators could give full focus to both halves of the episode. Let's take a look at one piece that stole the show.

The first half was handled primarily by episode director/storyboard artist Keita Nagahara and co-animation director Hirotoshi (or Hiroaki? [1]) Arai. It's actually kinda insane how much of this section can be attributed to these two.

But the real star of the show is the second half, Chilchuck vs the mimic, led by co-animation director Toya Ooshima in his first animation director role for TV anime!

And the biggest aspect that knocked my dang boots off was something that's very consistent with Ooshima's style: background animation!

By animating the backgrounds rather than using painted still images, Ooshima and the team of other similarly skilled animators are able to create these beautiful dynamic camera movements that wouldn't be possible otherwise. Like these cuts by Takeshi Maenami where the camera becomes an expressive part of the scene, zipping forward and backward, and tilting to emphasize the speed of this murderous hermit crab. (Maenami's style is also very recognizable here - snappy timing and quick camera movements)

Or this cut by the incredible Kaito Tomioka which cleverly combines a traditional background for the walls with a fully animated floor. The level of detail in these tiles is just completely insane, and used to great effect with this wide, diagonal angle, and the way the camera tentatively drifts forward before reversing direction, and the tiles blur out as it speeds up.

I don't think I'm the only one caught off guard by how much they full-assed this little side story, but it was a pleasant surprise!

I broke down the entire episode in this video here. A lot of research went into this one, and I think it's the best one of these videos I've made so far, so if you're at all interested in more of this type of analysis in video form, I would really appreciate it if you checked it out, or re-blogged this post! Thanks

[1] It's listed as Hirotoshi on Anime News Network, but Hiroaki on a key frame that Studio Trigger shared on Twitter, so I'm not sure which one is wrong.

[chromatophorium]

Just played some VR for about 2 and a half hours. I played the game 'I expect you to die 3', I had to stop because the third mission had you in a moving car and it made me motion sick.

Now I keep having these like moments where it still feels like I am in VR or something. Like, I expect my hands to touch stuff before they actually do.

I find myself expecting invisible boundaries, like when I bump my hand into stuff in the real world while there is nothing there in the game world. Like, in those moments I subconsciously expect my hand to bump into something I can't see if I reach out too far or too low.

My head and hand feels too light in those moments too, I don't like that it feels that way it.

And last time I played I had a moment where I was imputing the code to my apartment (I had gone out with the trash after playing) where my instinct was to input the code without touching it with my hand, like the game mechanic in the game, telepathy, where you can reach stuff far away.

And at some point during writing this I had another one of those moments where I fully expected my hand to feel no resistance to the keyboard and go through it, like when you push buttons during the game.

And the moments all like make me feel disconnected from reality, a bit like it's not real and a game. I don't like that. I think that's called dissociation, but I am not sure.

NoMy god. I hate how like easily my brain adapted to the rules of reality in VR and won't let go of them now. It has gotten better as I'm writing this though. But I think I'll be avoiding VR for a while. I don't like how it breaks my sense of reality.

[s0dium]

Dont stop!

Geto x F!Reader

A/n: This is how I imagine fucking geto for the first time would be like Warnings: 18+ Rough fucking, literal porn, sub space, squirting, breeding kink, mating press, unprotected sex.

~

Geto. Geto. Geto. Geto

He was consuming you, you couldn't think of anything else at this point. His smell was intoxicating, you wanted to bury your nose into it again and again, and you needed to say something. Something about how good you felt right now, something about how delicious he looks, but your brain was fuzzy from the pleasure and all that came out of your mouth was incoherent babbles. 

“Shit, Look at you. You aren’t even making any Goddamn sense.” Geto  avowed. “You like it when I fuck you stupid, huh? Knew we’d have so much fun together when I met you.” He pressed your thighs down so they are flushed against your chest, effectively folding you in half into a brutal mating press. The new angle has you squirming against his hold due to the new tickling feeling it created in your stomach. 

How did you even get here? You had no idea that your crush on your raven-haired classmate would turn into.... this. Sure you dreamed about it, but no amount of fucking yourself with a dildo could ever prepare you for the real thing, this was, euphoric.

“Come on, talk to me y/n, tell me how good you feel, how good im fucking you”

Geto groaned, keeping up his brutal pace, his breathing becoming jagged and irregular. He was close, and you were as well. You could practically taste your orgasm on the tip of your tongue and your hips bucked up to meet Geto in a weak attempt to match his pace.

God he was beautiful; sweat making strands of his black hair stick to his forehead, muscles in his stomach flexing with every thrust, tongue wetting his bottom lip. 

“S’good,” you slur out, “m’so happy..huuh…”It was as if you were made for each other, your cunt sucking him in with each push and shove that hit at just the right spots. With every brush of the tip of his dick against your cervix, black spots filled your vision and pushed you closer to your high. With a choke gasp, you felt the pleasure come to a crescendo and warm liquid spray out of you and onto the Geto's abdomen.

"Oh shit!" He gasps as your cunt clamps around him. He buries himself deep into your creamy pussy, relishing in the warm feeling of your pussy gripping him, before pumping a heavy load of warm cum into you.

Your body trembled from the overwhelming hotness and he smoothed a hand over your bloating stomach.

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

A Workshop for Creating Magical/ Fictional Crystals: A Guide from a Geologist

Hi folks, its me, here to talk about fictional writing again! Today I'm just tackling the idea of magical stones/mana stones by looking at existing minerals today and some neat properties that they have, and how you can apply these things to a fictional world. The goal is mainly to help you if you are stuck trying to come up with a unique magic system, or a unique identification/characteristic of your mineral.

First Things First: Mineral Shapes

I am exhausted, petered out, down-right fatigued by seeing every mineral depicted with having the crystal structure of calcite and quartz. There are soooooo many cooler, more interesting crystal structures, don't you think you would stop and take a look at a perfect cube in nature? It is completely unsettling.

Second: Color

Color within minerals can either be really important, or not important at all! It is your choice to decide if color is going to be something that means something to your mineral. But what are some times when the color is important? Well.... there are some elements that are called chromophores, this classification just indicates that these elements, when present, will determine the color of whatever they are in. So, if you wanted to treat mana like a chromophore, you could say, "Oh everything that contains mana turns green!" This could mean that regardless of the mineral, if that mineral is a specific color, it means it contains mana. This concept is exciting because you can just stop here and use minerals that already exist! You can also use it as an indicator for a magical ore! Chromophores are typically metals, so if you are making a new metal weapon, making the ore of that metal a unique color would make a lot of sense!

However, your mineral can also just be every color of the rainbow like quartz and perhaps that's what makes identifying your mana stones elusive and create an illusion of scarcity that your character can solve.

There are other things that can change the colors of minerals, like radiation damage, and electron exchange, but I think that is beyond what would be helpful! So lets talk about some unique color properties that happen in nature that seem magical in the first place! Maybe you don't need to design a mana stone, but you want a unique gemstone that only the royal family passes down or something (IDK).

The first one is the alexandrite effect! This is where a mineral can change color in natural light vs. incandescent light. (the mineral itself is not changing, but the lights contain different amounts of different colors that then get absorbed by the stone). Even if you don't use electricity in your fictional world, you could have the colors change in the presence of light magic. This could create fun misunderstandings about what the mineral is reacting to!

Pleochroism

Pleochroism is something that most minerals have, it is frequently used to help identify minerals in thin sections, however minerals are usually not pleochroic enough for it to be visible to the naked eye! Pleochroism is just a fancy name to describe the change in how light is absorbed based on the angle of the mineral! So if you scroll up to the first image where I showed a lot of crystal shapes, most of them have angles where they are longer and shorter! This will effect the way light travels in the crystal. Tanzanite is a popular mineral that does this.

Photochromism

This is when a mineral will change color (in a reversible way) when exposed to UV light (or sunlight), I am not going to go too into the details of why this is happening because it would require me to read some research papers and I just don't feel like it. The mineral that is best known for this is Hackmanite!

Alright! These are all the really cool color effects that might inspire you or maybe not, but now I am going to talk about how you might find your minerals within a rock!

When I see a lot of magical caves/mines, typically I see them with some variation of a geode honestly, but most minerals are not found like that! Now I am sure most of you guys have seen a geode, so I will not really talk about those, but I will talk briefly about porphyroblasts which is when the mineral grows larger than the minerals around it, this happens in metamorphic minerals!

sorry random stranger, but this is an image of garnets inside a finer-grained rock at gore mountain in New York!

Another way you might find minerals is in a pegmatite! This is when all minerals are really large! This is a formed from really slow crystalizing magma!

But something else to think about is that your mineral might just be massive, it doesn't have to have distinct crystals, it may be similar to jadeite where small grains grow together which leaves it looking smooth and seamless! A note about all of these is that you would have to mine into the rock to find these, there would not be any natural caves in these rocks! Caves are only ever really formed in limestones and maybe marbles (rocks that react with acid).

How can your characters identify these minerals?

Typically when you are out in the field you will look to see what type of rocks the minerals are found in (The overall texture of the rock will tell you how it formed). If you know how the rock formed, it will narrow down the amount of minerals you need to think about by quite a bit! Next, you are going to look closely at it and observe its crystal structure, does it have an obvious crystal? if so what is the general shape? If it is broken, how did it break? Did it fracture like glass or did it break along uniform planes. Some minerals have a thing called cleavage (breaks along planes of weakness). If a mineral exhibits this habit, it will again help narrow this down. Next we can look at color. Color can be misleading, because minerals like quartz can be any color imaginable, but minerals like olivine will always be green! The next thing your character can do is test for hardness, minerals all have a specific hardness that can help identify it as well.

After you go through all of this, your mineral might have some special property! This could be magnetism, fluorescence, reactions to acid, or any of the color changing effects I mentioned above! Other than that, your character can take it back to a lab and do a number of things to identify it, but the most typical thing would be for them to make a thin section (very thin piece of the rock) and observe it under a cross polarized microscope!

On that note folks! I hope this helped in some way in thinking of new magic mineral properties! I have other guides that explore some different fictional worldbuilding issues you might run into, but if you have any topics you would like me to cover please that I haven't mentioned already, let me know!

[callsign-datura]

BREEDING KINK 141.

Ghost's breeding kink manifests after you express interest in having a kid.

He pistons in and out of you at a slow pace, his cock reaching impossibly deep with each thrust as you arch your back and put your ass up higher. You grip the sheets of the bed, whimpering quietly into the pillow you lay your head on as he leans over you and wraps an arm around your midsection, lifting your upper half up so he can whisper into your ear and hold you flush against him.

"You wanna be a mama? M'gonna make you a fuckin' mama."

He grunts, nipping at your earlobe as he angles his thrusts a little to reach deeper, the head of his cock knocking against your cervix with every other thrust.

"Gonna fuck you 'till it takes. Gonna fuck you every night and every mornin' to make sure it takes. Yeah, y'want that, sweetheart? Say you want it, love."

Soap's breeding kink has always been there, but he's never quite registered that he has one. It's not until you get baby fever that he starts thinking about having kids. You're getting baby products advertised to you online, and they start having the same effect on him.

"Oh, fuck, gimme a baby," you whimper, your face burying into his neck as your hips grind down into his. His head is tilted forward and he's watching your hips move, though his grip on your hips tightens when you utter the words. "Y'want a baby?" He mumbles, his grip on your hips tightening to the point where you whimper and stop. He releases it and looks up at you with those baby blues, and within a second he's got you on your back and your legs together, hanging over his shoulders as his thrusts pick up in speed.

"I'll give ye a baby, lass… give ye as many as ye want. Just say the word, sweet girl."

His thrusts get harder, and you're whining and mewling and you have your eyes shut tight as your orgasm takes over. He's cumming not long after, his cock twitching inside you as he pushes into you one final time.

"Mmm. Yeah, sweet girl, gonna give ye a kid… Can't tell me our kids won't be adorable."

Oh, Price? You don't have to tell him. He has a breeding kink, and it's obvious.

That man has FANTASIES about getting you pregnant. His breeding kink shows sometimes, like tonight.

He has you bent over the counter of your kitchen, your hair tangled up in his fist and his hand around your wrist, pulling on it gently and making you arch your back as he pounds into you.

Quick and rough thrusts as he grunts into your ear. "Imagine how you'd look, waddlin' 'round all swollen with my kid… can't wait till the day my cum finally takes, eh? I'll cherish you. Fuckin' cherish you." He whispers. His words are as rough as his thrusts, but they carry a gentleness. Especially when he's cumming. Wrapping an arm around your torso and letting you fall forward, picking up one of your legs by the underside of your knee and lifting it up and to the side so he can fuck you harder, he slams into you one final time before he's cumming buckets. The moment he notices his cum dripping out, he's pulling out and using two fingers to push hit back into you. mumbling something about not wasting a drop as he kisses your back.

Gaz's breeding kink is subtle. He only fucks you in positions where he can see your face. The day you start asking him to cum inside, he's thinking of you getting pregnant with his kid. Arms laced under your knees, hands on the plush of your ass and your back against the wall as he leans back and thrusts up into you. He's been fucking you slow like this for the past hour and you're getting needy. Squirming in his grip, pawing at your husband's chest and mewling about needing him to fuck you harder. He flashes that grin he wears whenever you've amused him and his movements suddenly ramp up in force as he pushes you further against the wall.

"Such a needy girl. Needin' me to fuck ya so hard you can't walk, huh? You've already came twice, what, d'ya want me to fill you up?"

Your cunt convulses around him.

"Yeah, that's it," he trills. "Needin' me to fill ya up so you can go to bed stuffed with my cum. Mm, maybe it'll take,"

He thrusts a bit harder into you and his grip on your ass tightens. He's thinking about filling you up even more now, and he can barely focus on anything but filling you up. So that's what he does. His thrusts stutter, and he throws his head back and groans out while you mewl.

"Oh, fuck. Mmm. Yeah, it'll take. Gonna give you a fuckin' baby, sweetheart."

[eddie4bat-president]

Saw a drawing of Steve and now I'm suddenly thinking about artist Eddie who designed the Hellfire shirts and Corroded Coffin fliers and who draws the villains of his D&D campaigns to slap onto his DM screen for visual aid and doodles in class and-

And i'm thinking about Steve, in a relationship with Nancy, trying to ignore that things are rocky but knowing it all the same. He finds a notebook left behind in school and he only takes it because he forgot his own. He plans to use it for the day and then figure out whose it is and get it back to them in exchange, that's probably more than fair, right? And the person is really gonna want this back - it looks like half their life is contained in this thing; there is... a shit ton of loose paper stuffed between the pages and notes on all kinds of subjects and drawings and.... he doesn't even know what that is. Who is Vecna and what the hell is a... lich?

Anyway as he leafs through it he finds that some of the drawings are... actually really good. Like, absurdly good for being in a lined notebook that looks like it has taken a trip into a dumpster and picked up some debris on the way out.

Like! Those hands! Steve has no artistic bone in his body but he's heard people whine about drawing hands and - he looks at the hand not holding the book and back again - yeah, that's exactly what hands look like! And here - a few pages further (it's one of the most empty pages of the whole thing, mostly because this one seems to have started as a drawing and not as a page of notes that turned into a drawing) there are only a few lines on the page but it's still very clearly the back of someone's neck, the collar, one shoulder.... Then there's another one that is almost all lines, but they were all carefully placed to give the effect of perfectly windswept hair. Then there's one that he actually can't make sense of at first (he almost pages past it because it is just a few lines and dots taking up a quarter of a page of very annoyed... history notes? Maybe English.) It's just a jawline with some moles but... only the day before he had cut himself shaving a finger's width underneath those exact moles. And that's when it clicks. He goes back to the hair... yeah that- that could be him too. Maybe. He flips back to that one very detailed drawing of hands and... putting down the book he tries to get his hands into the same position - the angle is off but. Yeah. That's why they looked so perfectly...! Uhhhh... Handsy! Because they're his fucking hands!

Anyway Steve realizes that about a third of the drawings are or could be him. He realizes that he actually can't go through with giving it back because - what would he even say? "Hey found your notebook, nice shrine to me?" Yeah no. But he's... also reluctant to take it to the Lost and Found. There's something in the handwriting.... He has a feeling that it might not be a girl secretly drawing him. What if someone else connects the dots? What if they confront the mystery artist about it? Flashbacks to his fight with Jonathan, the line he crossed and immediately regretted. He doesn't want to be the cause for someone else getting called that. And unrelated to that, things with Nancy aren't great right now and it's... it's just nice to think someone is paying attention, alright?

Then Halloween happens a few days after. The Break-up(?), the demodogs, Billy and the tunnels- and afterwards it's nice to have the notebook to distract him from the pain. The mundane mystery of a schoolmate maybe having a crush on him. He might not even have to confront them - he can just figure out a way to slip it into their locker; it looks like at least half their schoolwork is crammed into this thing, no matter how half-heartedly done. They definitely want this back.

Man, I wish I could actually write this thing. Damn. Maybe I could even do a scene where Steve tries to Sherlock Holmes his way to Mystery Artist and confronts a (hatefully seething) Robin, because she sits behind him in that one class, only to find his own Watson in her instead. But alas. It cannot be.

[katsumiiii]

hobie x fem! reader

thinking of hobie brown rn…!

hobie who knows you love the height difference between you two and uses it to his advantage. is constantly angling his head upwards, which causes him to purposely peer down at you through his thick eyelashes. you always get flustered each time he narrows his eyes and tilts his chin, and him being the ever so perceptive spider he is, takes notice of your heated cheeks and continues to do so.

whenever he’s near a doorway or a thick frame he lovesss to lay a palm on the top of it, trapping your body beneath his as you ramble on about whatever it is you’re rambling about. he makes sure to nod along while effectively moving a hand towards your plush waist, bringing your figure flush against his own. he plays with the seam of your shirt, and urges you to keep going when you stutter from the sudden change in position.

hobie who loves to annoy you with his British slang. it’s not necessarily because he uses it often that irks you, it’s the fact that you have no idea what he’s saying and he never makes an effort to help you understand. (he actually finds it amusing each time you attempt to guess what he means and is completely off base every single time).

“babe, I’d love ta get ya that shirt you’ve been beggin’ for, but I’m skint right now. try me next week, yeah?” he hummed, kicking his feet up on the railing next to your bed.

“skint? I feel like you’ve used that one before..” you muttered, huffing in irritation by the smug look on hobie’s face, his lips quirked in amusement.

“told ya what it meant last week. thought ya said you could ‘se context clues?”

“whatever bee, maybe you should speak english.”

“‘aint that what ‘m doin’?”

hobie who always has a blunt neatly rolled on his dresser, his ash tray placed gently to the left of it. he often smoked before running off to whatever it is he did when he wasn’t home (he was very unpredictable as he switched it up weekly to “fuck up consistency” whatever the hell that meant).

hobie inhaled gingerly before tilting his head towards his peeling painted ceiling, his fingers lingered tightly on the wood before lifting it to your lips, “want a go?”

you shook your head, nuzzling further into his shoulder, “mhm no, too tired.” hobie chuckled before greedily puffing the joint, shuttering at the burning feeling it left.

“suit yourself love, more for me.”

hobie who you introduce differently to your friends each time you bring him up. one day he’s your boyfriend, the next he’s your significant other, and the next he’s your ‘close friend’. they always question the constant switch ups, but you don’t ever seem to mind. you know where you stand with the man, and to him that’s all that matters.

“so what’s up with you and…..” your friend trailed off, stirring the ice in her drink.

“hobie?” you questioned.

“yeah him, so is he your boyfriend or what?”

“it’s complicated, he hates labels, makes him feel confined.” you replied, shrugging your shoulders as you lay your head on your palm.

“that doesn’t bother you? is he like scared of commitment or something?”

you scoff, lightly shaking your head, “no, he just doesn’t want to contribute to the system.” you answered bluntly, taking another sip of your lemonade.

“the system?” your friend asked, eyebrow raised at the quip.

“nevermind, don’t worry about it.”

hobie who subtly brags about you to his people. loves to show you off, and has no problem admitting he does.

“yeah bruv, my girl jus’ got into her dream fuckin’ college. been workin’ hard for that shit all year, man.” hobie boasted, pushing his hands out in order to bounce off the wall next to him.

“oh my goodness how wonderful! when do we get to meet this companion of yours?” pavitr questioned, flinging his body upwards to keep up with the male to his right.

“eh, don’t know yet, when I feel like it, yeah?”

all in all hobie is so cute and I literally am in love with him!!

[angelltheninth]

Saw your inbox opened and I have never touched the ask button so fast in my life lol!

May I request smut scenario for Dick x fem!reader x Jason where the boys got hit by Ivy's sex pollen and fem!reader (also a hero) being a good friend *helped* them with their problems *cough* pls? And then, at the end, maybe confession of romantic feelings between them UwU? Your choice in choosing kinks!

Srroy if my English sounds weird. It's not my native language.

This reminded of of the Harley Quinn episode but more kinky.

Pairing: Dick Grayson x Fem!Reader x Jason Todd

Tags: nsfw, smut, friends to lovers, confession, threesome, sex pollen, double creampie, friendly competition, degradation, praise, dirty talk, neediness, grinding, clit stimulation

Word count: 1.1k

A/N: Definitely not something I would ever want to happen. Nope.

All three of you have been warned about the pheromones and their effects. This mission should have been over and done with quickly, but your recklessness made it a bit more... hard. For Dick and Jason in particular. They took the hit for you, they were the ones who were keeping you sandwiched between their hard bodies and hard cocks, Dick kissing your lips, Jason behind you, both of them grinding their hard cocks against you.

"Careless." Dick mumbled against your lips, his hand shoved down your pants and rubbing your pussy over your panties. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not." Jason laughed behind you, his gloved hands on your hips, his hips unapologetically grinding against you, "You're too sweet for this. Helping us out and all. But fuck... I can't say that I'm sorry. Just keep between us. I don't wanna see Dick's dick."

"Go fuck yourself." You sucked on his middle finger as soon as he put it up to Jason.

"Nah. She's doing a great of job of that. Aren't you sweetheart?" You groaned when Jason slapped your ass playfully. "Fuck. That was a nice sound. Sorry but I'm not waiting anymore. Unlike rule boy over there, I ain't gonna pretend I don't wanna fuck you." Jason's hands pushed his pants and your leggings down, his cock rubbing, gathering wetness between your pussy lips and smearing it across his cock. "Wet little pussy, all ready for me."

You were looking forward, into Dick's beautiful blue eyes but your hips bucked down against Jason. You were conflicted between the two men, you always were. Being with them felt good, having their attention felt good, now it was your turn to make them feel just as good.

"I can help you both." You whimpered as you pressed your lips against Dick's. "I can take both your cocks." You weren't so sure, just Jason's felt so thick, but you'd make them fit. They were the ones suffering.

"You're welcome to try." Jason was always so cocky when talking to you. He wanted to fuck you way before this. Dick on the other hand was more reserved.

His face was pink with blush, his eyes almost guilty as they looked at you. He wanted you too, but was afraid to say anything.

"It's okay. You- ah!" Before you could tell him anything Jason decided to be a jerk and push his cock inside you. "Jason, you fucking idiot." He laughed at your insult. You could call him any name under the sun as long as you kept taking his cock like you did. The fast slapping noises made it hard to focus but you forced yourself to.

You grabbed Dick's cheeks and pulled him in for a rough kiss. "I-"

"Don't apologize. If... if Jason gets to fuck me, then you should too." You tried to convey to him how much you wanted him too.

"Yeah, Dick. Come on, are you really gonna make a lady beg? Look at her!" Jason's barking laughter echoed loudly in your ears as you felt his hands grab your thighs and pull you up, your back leaning against his chest. You almost screamed at how deep his cock was hitting at this changed angle, his balls slapping against you with every thrust. "Bet you anything she's thought about this. She's squeezing so much, like a fucking slut. But if you don't want her then I'll use her up all on my own."

His words definitely got under his frienemy's skin. Dick pressed to your front, his cock pulsing over your clit, his hands slipping to your ass. "I can't. Not unless I say this." He leaned forward and ghosted his lips against yours. "I love you. I've always loved you, ever since I first saw you I wanted you."

"I love you too." His blush spread further as he rolled the tip of his cock over your clit and then pushed it against your already full pussy. "It's okay. It's okay, I'm gonna be okay." You were reassuring the two of them as much as yourself.

Jason's lips found your neck, leaving hard little kiss marks on it. Suppose you shouldn't neglect the man who was currently making your mind go blank. He sighed into your kiss, tongue pushing into your mouth with clamming force. Those kisses weren't nearly as forgiving as Dick's, Jason demanded you pay attention to him.

"You should hear it too. Jason, I- oh my god, oh fuuuu-!" You couldn't get a word in when Dick started fucking you too, two hard cock filling you at once, fighting for your attention, the pulsing, clenching wetness of your cunt. So Dick could be petty too. "Love you."

"The feeling is mutual." Of course Jason wasn't the best with words, with feelings. But he claimed to be the best at this. "Are two cock's enough for you? Or are you greedy for more? I wonder how many you could take? One. In. Every. Hole."

"Stop talking to her like that. She's not just some bitch you get to fuck." Dick growled at him and pulled you more towards him. "Come on baby. Tell him."

You wished you could deny what Jason said. Because you didn't want any cocks that weren't theirs. That was the truth. But you couldn't catch enough of a break between one cock and the other fucking your pussy. So you couldn't deny it. Jason laughed while Dick started you wide eyed and with his mouth parted in shock. His cock twitched inside you, his hold getting more and more possessive.

"I won't let them. No one else will fuck you. No one." You rarely saw him snap like this.

"Seems like she likes it. Maybe we need to make her see who she belongs to." And naturally Jason was encouraging this. Both men started fucking you faster, harder, your pussy filled to the limit and more. Your arms wrapped around Dick's shoulders to keep yourself grounded but Jason's arms still held your legs open. "We can do it inside right pretty girl? You want our cum in your pussy?"

"Y... Yes. Yes! Anything for you." You moaned, your hips moving on their own, no control or care, your mind swimming with pleasure. "I want your cum."

"Both our cum. At once." Dick repeated against your lips as he pushed in one final time, Jason giving it a few more good pumps, in and out, Dick's cum dripping down and soon joined by his, a torrent of warmth flooding your abused hole. Your vision went white, body boneless against Dick's, legs limp in Jason's hands as you shook and twitched. "Shit. Are you okay?"

"Holy..." Jason chuckled, "She came so hard she passed out." You groaned weakly, not enough strength in you to tell him to shut the hell up. "You did good." His lips pressed one side of your neck, the action soon mirrored on the other side by Dick. They kept kissing you until you were strong enough to move, to talk, to tell them you loved them both so much.