#unique in a sense

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

The Autism Urge to be Helpful

The Autistic Teacher

[glumspell]

My biggest hope for the Mighty Nein animated series is that they capture the tone correctly and don't use the same tone for TMN that they used for TLOVM.

I thought the tone in TLOVM was great for Vox Machina, it was littered with Scanlan style adult humor that suited the adult-style comedy/drama very well but I dont think that exact same tone would work well for the Mighty Nein.

Even though TMN had dirty humor, I think it's style of humor was different than TLOVM. Sex scene cut-aways and projectile vomiting, over the top gore and poop humor throwaway gags I don't think would hit the way for TMN as it does in TLOVM even though it exists in TMN.

I think that in the way that TLOVM is framed around Scanlan style humor, I think TMN is framed around Jester humor- which is still dirty, but sillier and a bit more naive and familiar that fits the mature tone of TMN much better than the throwaway humor of TLOVM.

And i'm sure TMN will be gore-y too but sometimes the gore in TLOVM was over the top in a way that detracted from some of the major villain deaths and made them less impactful when compared to some disposable npc whose skull gets exploded in a few scenes prior. What I mean is that I hope it's gore-y where it counts. Like Caleb crushing the guards while storming the sanitarium in rage and vengeance is not as impactful if everyone dies in a similar fashion all the time, if you know what I mean?

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: death mention / family death mention / ]

Mhmm I sure love thinking of the reality where we did get more time to really know Karai and her dynamics with the bros. Losing her hit hard in the finale, but it would’ve hit much, much harder had we known Karai longer and really saw her relationships develop with everyone.

I especially would have been interested in her dynamic with Leo, as past iterations often have the two of them clash in ideals and the like while still sharing many characteristics. Two sides of the same coin, and all that. Her specifically being the bros’ Gram-Gram also adds a whole new dynamic as well.

Imagine how interesting it would be, to have Karai start off on Leo’s side for once, showing wholly just how alike the two are at their cores and bonding as family without the worry of betrayal or animosity that other iterations suffer through, only to have Karai die anyway. Their parting hug and the desperate look of horror Leo wears later on would have hit that much harder, I feel.

[gobstoppr]

Tetris Fanart.

I've been playing tetris while listening to horror podcasts. and yeah

[ink-the-artist]

Dude some of those popular so-bad-its-good movies are unironically outsider art and I don’t think they get enough appreciation for that

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Making Humanoids Less Human

I did make a small post on this, but now I've got the art for a much bigger and more detailed post! so here we go.

I had several anonymous asks that all came in quick succession weeks ago. Every single one of them was basically just a variation on "how would you take (typically humanoid) fantasy being, and make them look less human?"

This blog does not exist for me to just give people original designs for free, my goal is to show off my own personal thoughts about fantasy design and help people figure out how to adjust their own designs to fit their vision better. That means when people ask me questions about how to do something, I want to give them things to think about so they can come to their own conclusion. I don't mind making original designs to illustrate concepts, but a whole flood of "show me how to make this specific thing look different" all at once like that was too much. I'm not answering them all individually, it's just not what I want to do.

But what I can do is show my own thoughts and ideas about how to take any fantasy design and push it further away from "human", and you all can look at my ideas and figure out your own way to do things!

So here are the main 4 methods I've come up with to make humanoids look less human.

(image description: a simplified drawing of a humanoid face surrounded by four altered versions of the same face. clockwise starting from the top left, they are:

Speculative, drawn as a cat person. Additive, drawn with horns, pointy ears, sharp teeth, and a second pair of eyes. Subtractive, drawn with blank eyes, no nose, and no eyebrows. Exaggerative, drawn with a long face and huge eyes, as well as a wide mouth, narrow nose, and big ears.

end description)

I am personally a fan of the speculative route, which means exploring an alternate root of evolution to create a new design. Through this method, I've created monkey elves, frog goblins, and pig orcs.

the additive option is the most common, I think. adding new feature or doubled features to a humanoid form is a very intuitive way to change the design and make it look less human. you see this in most fantasy and scifi designs, like star trek aliens and the dnd player races.

subtractive and evaggerative are the most common options for people that like the uncanny valley. it's really easy to make uncomfortable designs by removing or exaggerating recognizable features, and they're often used together. Slenderman, for example, removes all facial features and skin color but also exaggerates the limbs and body.

Combining the four methods will give you a really interesting design as well! So for practice I decided to explore an alternate design for Tieflings, the part-demon player race in dnd.

(image description: four examples of differnt tiefling designs using the previously described methods. the additive example is just offical dnd art of a tiefling woman with purple skin, horns, and a long tail.

the subtractive sketch looks very alien, with a bald head, empty eyes, and no other facial featuers aside from a small mouth. it has three fingers per hand and two toe per foot.

the exaggerative sketch shows a hunched humanoid figure with huge eyes and big ears. the neck, limbs, and digits are all long with claws at the ends of the fingers and toes, and the limbs are also quite muscular.

the speculative sketch shows a bipedal figure with features similar to a giraffe, including a long neck, ossicones, and hooves.

end description)

now, because tielflings have such a distinct look to them, obviously my new sketches don't really look like tieflings, do they? the only one that comes close is the giraffe. relying only on one type of alteration to the human form has left the designs rather empty and lacking in the more iconic traits of the original concept. so i tried a sketch that combined my ideas! it came out looking like a completely different creature lol, like it could be a kobold or something, still not really a tiefling.

(image description: a sketch of a creature with a giraffe-like head, long tongue, and sharp teeth. it appears to be roaring at something and stands in a half-crouch. it has long limbs with hoof feet and clawed hands, as well as a long tufted tail curled behind it. end description.)

didn't work out. too far into the animal side of the speculative evolution, I think. so I tried again and got a design I liked much better!

(image description: a digital painting of a tiefling leaping back and casting a glowing orange spell. she is wearing a tunic with a corset and detached sleeves, as well as several pieces of jewelry. Her skin is purple with dark patches like a giraffe's spots, and she has a giraffe's ossicones as well as hoof-like hands and two-toed hoof feet. Her tail is long with a tuft at the end. She has glowing eyes and a flat nose, and there is a single sharp tooth visible poking out of the side of her mouth. end description.)

Brought the face back into slightly more human proportions and that helped a lot. Sometimes designs just take a few tries! that's normal.

and hopefully this is helpful to all of you! there are so many ways to alter humanoid designs to come up with something original and unique to you!

[ever-go-on]

seeing traces of what might be another child part

[incesthemes]

something i enjoy about wincest is that i can just take it for granted. like yeah those brothers are fucking, they've always been fucking, and they'll keep fucking until god himself cuts off their dicks

there's a lot of ships in the world that require subtext and imagination but samdean is definitely not one of them

[windsroad]

People keep asking things like “why are they Russian if it’s set in Italy” “why is it set in Italy if they are all Russian” ALL these questions would be answered if you’d just look at the shoe

[echoes-of-courage]

Magic Sensitivity

Archive

[ganondoodle]

(wip- rough concepts for the map layers etc for the totk rewritten/botw 2 project)

i hope its confusing enough with all three map layers plus some rough info all in one ngvfdjknvfdkjnvgkd

ultimately i want to take into consideration where towers and shrines where in botw to make use of that more directly, but this is a rough idea layout for all layers

(purple is underground, dark is sky islands, then theres the main map with the changes i got so far, main dungeons roughly marked- though they are varied in which layer they are- the settlements and the dragon paths- since i want all three dragons to fly in one map layer that matches their part of the trio)

not as interesting as the other concepts so far but it takes even more work than those to make this even if in a rough version so far

[foursaints]

saints what are your opinions on rosekiller's (very) unusual ways of showing affection?

i mean like evan biting barty when theyre laying together, barty pulling strands of evan's hair hard enough for it to hurt but not hard enough to rip it out, evan tapping barty's skin (like tapping tapping, like how asmr-tists (?) tap on things) just because it feels nice, etc.

?

I'M GONNA SAY SOMETHING CONTROVERSIAL 🙌 i don't see them as a couple with a lot of PDA. yes, barty is obsessively slavering all over evan in public, but it's like... one-sided and perhaps a touch performative? the most affection evan will publicly show is maybe quietly holding onto barty's sleeve <- he is always doing this

but i think they're perceptive characters who are both highly Aware of each other's bodies at any given moment, and their real pda is just how seamlessly they move around each other. it's how they always end up sitting next to one another, or anticipating each other's movements and needs. they're not touching, but you can almost palpably feel them pinging each other like satellites.

fanon barty is super touchy in private too. and i agree that in public/with friends he 100% is (he likes to use physicality to Instigate Reactions). but i try to remind myself that ESPECIALLY with an intimate partner, he is someone with deep issues surrounding bodily autonomy/his own embodiment, who is unused to being touched in a nonviolent way. there's a difference between barty initiating sexual contact and the more casual intimacy you describe. EVAN is the one who grew up cuddling a sibling, and he most likely initiates those little shows of affection....

but mostly i think they show affection via that quiet mutual (somewhat stalker-ish) awareness. it's a careful peeling back of their respective shells

[sleepyseals]

[Image Description: A digital painting of a Lego Bionicle Rahkshi facing left and stooped over as if tracking its prey along the ground. The background is black with a bright green vertical shape to contrast the character in front. The Rahkshi is holding its spear in its right limb, propping its body up with it as it holds its face close to the ground. It is rendered as a black metallic material with red eyes. Its hunched shape and angular spines stand out harshly against the green background. End Image Description.]

I got a rahkshi recently and wanted to draw it so here's this - kind of an experiment with studying a real life object and how to pose it into a interesting composition and then replicating the lighting I got tired of rendering this partway through however :P

[uncanny-tranny]

Something I realized (which was obvious to me subconsciously) is that... The family that vehemently didn't accept me when I first came out but now do accept me are still the same family that I am most unwilling to be open about things I feel protective over.

I remember that my dad reacted so poorly, not to my coming out, but to my transition specifically that my therapist was the one to ask if I wanted to put it on my file that I wanted nothing to ever be shared with him about my health after I broke down multiple times due to my anxiety that I would never transition. While there are and were protections for me, I was incredibly fearful at the time because I was a minor, and I was so worried that he would have prevented my transition that I couldn't have said for certain what (if any) lengths he would have gone to to prevent that.

He's grown a lot as a person, and made some commendable strides. But he didn't find out from me when I medically transitioned the second I turned eighteen, and I think that's among the things that truly made him realize the scope of the issue.

I'm not here to guilt trip parents, guardians, or other members responsible for the care of the children or teens or young adults in their care.... but this is a cautionary tale. You aren't saving the people in your care when you do this, you simply reinforce an idea that you will never care for them, never want them as they are, would rather them be shoved away.

When you give people reasons to be secretive, they will behave secretively. When you give people reasons to doubt their safety around you, they will become sneaky, defensive, and withdrawn. When you give people reasons to doubt that you value their life, they will believe that you don't care if they live or not.

[finelythreadedsky]

thinking about how hecate is iconographically associated with keys and often portrayed in art holding a set of them. lesbian goddess.

[fromxxthexxashes]

Buck and Eddie have always felt like they were disappointments. For Buck, he’s always been “too much”, and Eddie has always been “not enough”. both of them have torn themselves up to try to be worthy. Buck puts himself in dangerous situations with little to no regard for his own life, because he grew up knowing he was only worthy of his parent’s attention when he was bleeding. As he got older, he took what he learned as a child, and decided his life was only worth the effort it takes to save someone else’s. Eddie tears himself apart in an attempt to fit into this perfect mold of who he’s expected to be, and when he doesn’t get it just right, he breaks. He self-destructs because he feels the need to punish himself for failing at being who he’s expected to be.

Then Buck and Eddie meet and bond, and they don’t look at each other and see failures or disappointments. They looked into each other’s eyes and decided there was nobody in the world they would rather have their backs than each other.

Help was always offered to Eddie under the pretense that he was a failure for needing it. Buck stepped in with Eddie and Chris, and he offered his help and his presence with no judgment and no strings attached. He wanted to make things easier, and maybe he wanted to belong somewhere, with people as amazing and loving as Eddie and Christopher Diaz.

Buck viewed his presence in other people’s lives as fleeting because at some point everyone gets tired of him. Eddie welcomed Buck with open arms and a smile on his face. People looked at Buck and saw someone who was “too irresponsible” and “too immature”, but Eddie looked at Buck and saw someone who he trusted, more than anyone, to protect and love Chris, his child, and the most precious thing in Eddie’s life. Eddie looked at Buck, saw his self-sacrificial tendencies, and told him, right to his face “You think you’re expendable, but you’re wrong”.

No one will ever understand Buck and Eddie the way Buck and Eddie do. They have seen each other at their absolute worst, helped each other through it, and came out stronger than before. The love they have for each other is so strong. It’s built into their very foundations - and it didn’t just happen by accident, they built it themselves. It’s unbreakable. They might tear themselves down, but they could never break what they built with each other. And it all started because they looked at each other and just saw each other for who they were, who they truly were, and they loved each other anyway.