sparkyarmadillo

[sparkyarmadillo]

A Sheep poll perhaps?

As usual, I will treat the results as character creation sliders.

[sparkyarmadillo]

For me its cause i know all the details of my stuff (for fanfic at least) so it's more difficult for me to realise the more generalized concepts (like useful ao3 tags).

Same for the actual products i make, difficult to make descriptions with useful searchable tags cause i know i made a [thing], but i don't really know the associated terms other people would use to find that, or things like it. (Like sketch book vs art pad vs blank page notebook vs ornamental book. All appropriate terms, but since i have the preconception of its intendeduse as a sketch book, those others wouldn't necessarily occurre to me. Or think to decribe other feature of it that i might think unimportant (and thus why i added this thought last) like being hand sewn or traditional binding or having a bookmark ribbon)

My biggest writing weakness is I have no clue how to describe my own work

[sparkyarmadillo]

The folks of the gg fandom discord were discussing the ways that Jägers have changed in appearance since the first page. And one person was mourning the disappearance of the Volume One Jäger needle teeth. (So valid, it was an excellent feature)

So I agreed and suggested "Draw the needle teeth you want to see in the world, I guess?" unfortunately Jägers are not included in their art skillset. And so I figured "I suppose I must draw the needle teeth you wish to see in the world". And thus my fate was sealed. A "quick sketch" (ha! I should know better than that by now) turned into a colored shaded drawing with carefully colored lineart. I do believe something like 5-6 hours were passed in this manner of painstaking lineart and unnecessary (albeit loose) rendering.

The moral of this story, as with any attempt at quick digital sketches, is that I cannot be trusted with the art app. Inevitably a casual affair turns into a several-hour-long details fest. Such are the hazards of having your cell phone be your digital drawing device.

Does this mean I will stop? No, of course not. As with every mishap of this variety I learned so much about my drawing abilities and the features of my long-beloved art app.

Gradually I am acquiring new skills and abilities. Someday I will be able to create things that used to be well outside my capabilities. Through the power of Autistic Hyperfixation and ADHD Hyperfocus Fugue-State we can accomplish anything!

[sparkyarmadillo]

I find myself difitng in this void. Trillion specks of dust blow past as I am pulled by the gravity of these celestial bodies. I would have froze, I think, were it not that I simply haven't. My shell is metal, reflecting light and I glint like a star to distant ships that pass me. I seek one thing in this endless journey.

Delicious, nutritious, nuclear pasta. Could you give me directions? My gps has failed me.

Hmm. I can't in good conscience recommend that humans, or anyone even close to a human, eat nuclear pasta. Nuclear pasta is not pasta, it is atomic nuclei pressed so close together by the gravity of a neutron star that they form shapes vaguely like pasta. Proximity to a neutron star can kill a human or other living, corporeal thing incredibly quickly, so don't approach unless you have some way of not getting instantly pancaked by its gravity.

But based on your descriptions, it doesn't sound like you are human? In that case, coordinates probably won't help you since your navigation doesn't work, but you could try to find pulsars (rotating neutron stars that emit beams of radiation) by detecting pulses of electromagnetic radiation at regular intervals, and then travel in that direction until you reach the neutron star.

Good luck, and please be careful.

[sparkyarmadillo]

Agatha Heterodyne, Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, and Tarvek Sturmvoraus (Girl Genius)

[sparkyarmadillo]

big day today

[sparkyarmadillo]

This is exactly why i ended up getting into playing the bodhrán (irish drum). Cuase it started way back, my new friend said she like celtic mythology, so i looked into that which led me to drinking songs which later led to shanties and irish traditional music which led to bodhrán.

But it also led me learning more about paganism and modern witchcraft, which ive found very neat.

It definitely a thing thats happened more than once across people, but Im still glad for having found things i end up liking from these little explorations.

I don't know why i do this. Mirroring? Trying to blend in better, socially? Masking via forcibly finding common interests so i have topics to talk about? No idea, but at least I've enjoyed it.

A while ago I was talking to my therapist and I told her I was worried that I was creepy and invasive with relationships. She asked me what I meant.

I told her, "Well, when I'm interested in someone, I try and find out what they like, and if it's something I don't like, then I do a bunch of research and write notes and stuff and explore the topic until I find something I *do* like. And I'm worried that that's weird or stalker-y. But like... I've found a bunch of stuff I still enjoy after the interest in them has faded. So is that okay, or is it creepy?"

And she stared at me for a minute before saying, "That sounds very sweet of you, actually"

And so yeah

Self-perception and shit

[sparkyarmadillo]

So to add on some of my thoughts, cause yeah, very interesting to consider (i do love pedantic minutiae).

Id honestly never considered Sturmhalten having sparks, I've no idea why. Being asked now my first thought of response was to think 'but theu don't have civilian spark?' which, well there's no reason they shouldn't? Though it is a spark-ruled town yhats been under the Other's control at least the past 20+ years, i actually wouldn't be surprised if they decided that sparks were too much to handle (given the inability to be wasped), and since sparks are rare enough that small outskirt towns don't really have any (source? Uhhh, maybe gil's fake parentahe story, im actuallynot sure where this thought comes from.), then just shooing out or just killing (or Lucrezia Summoning Engine-ing) any sparks in sturmhalten wouldn't be too much an operation.

Since wasps are intended to make someone into a mind controlled slave thing, and since a toddler with the fine motor skills of raw potatoe chopsticks isn't particularly useful for carrying out evil orders, then i wouldn't be surprised if wasps simply didn't affect children of a certain age and under. Or at least they wouldn't if there were limited wasps. But could, and then the child would still grow up. I don't remember if suspected-prior-children revenants were mentioned during the bridge scene at Passholdt or not. Like beyond the 'if you knew they'd become monsters' bit. In the comic im pretty sure not, but might’ve in the novel? (I could just be remembering fic.)

Combining the previous two points, yeah, id say a as-yet-to-breakthdough spark wouldn't get infectable, maybe? But i have multiple ideas, depending on how sparkiness works. Like if its a from-birth type of thing with additional traits that simply present/develop under certain circumstances, like puberty or maybe neurochemicals being high in stress (since most do seem to breakthrough during stress). In which case id say no, can't be wasped. Versus if they're predisposed to developing sparkiness, but the breakthrough itself triggers a start of changes in the brain, and previously it would've been within non-sparky brain expectations. In which case, id say theu can be wasped pre-breakthrough and now being wasped will prevent any future breakthrough. There'd be too much brain chemistry being controlled by the wasp to even allow breakthrough circumstances to arise.

The fact Agatha's locket slowed down her breakthrough development changes after she'd partially started breakingthrough, id say the second options seems more likely, that wasps could prevent a breakthrough in someone predisposed to that. Her case was slightly different, but it did still deal with Lucrezia's brain messing nonsense, and id suspect some similar components to the method of mind copy/transfer vs control. And this thought made more sense when i started it, but now i don't know why. It still feels like there's logic to it somewhere, but i don't know where. Maybe that the locket would respond to breakthrough similarly to suppressing mind control, it is equally reasonable that wasps which also deal with brain activity would supress it? The locket at least shows that breakthrough is very much a neurological thing, so wasps being able to prevent changes in the brain seems reasonable to me. But once those chanhes exist, the wasp has no blue print on how to connect to the brain, or gets confused by something already being there. Or something.

A bit of short term memory loss, or like just lapse in memory kinda makes sense? Like it might explain the lack of panic people had about being wasped. But we know that revenants can't actually talk about being wasped or give themselves away or anything, just physically can't. And that Klaus managed to at all (via the storm king wolf story that Tarvek deciphered) was an outlier. And even then, he was really vague about it (frankly, im still unsure the logic behind Tarvek's deciphering), and the fact that self-insert-phil-foglio wouldn't have known the true meaning might've been the only reason Klaus could tell him the story. Ergo, i wouldn't be surprised, either, if the wasps also controlled other aspects of behavior which allowed the host to stay relatively calm and normal acting. They can panic after they're de-wasped, if a cure is ever found.

So as a general question to the Girl Genius fandom: has there ever been any confirmation on what happens if a slaver wasp infests a child Spark before their breakthrough?

(Most) wasps don't affect Sparks, but at the same time you are not really a Spark at birth. Although the kids do seem to be unusually brilliant, so clearly there is some indication from early on. Maybe you are immune from birth.

For that matter, do we know how old you have to be to get wasped? Could an infant be caught when they were born, or would we say they need to have an understanding of language? An infant won't be able to understand any orders, but if they're already inclined to obey it might be easier than doing it on their fifth birthday or something.

(Mostly I'm wondering how Sturmhalten handled new Sparks. They're rare enough there might not have been any born into the town at large... but it's equally possible there was a teenage boy working in a tavern who one day built a robot to collect and clean dirty plates. What happened to him? Did he throw up the remains of a wasp embedded in him for over a decade and assume that's a usual part of breakthrough? Did that wasp never manage to enter at all? Did the town perhaps notice when a small child was immune to the wasping, or were his parents - ordered to present him for it but no one thought to be more specific - just not questioning it, because they were too glad their son would be free.)

[sparkyarmadillo]

First of Jägers Wearing Jäger Style Pride Hats. Hopefully, more to come. Starting off sedtae with this one. Jäger is curtosy of this page in the comic (because goodness, i do not need an excuse to design more OCs. Plus, this way i can practice a more Foglio looking style, maybe get better at a less realistic look. Cause oh boy, some jägers are heckin Creatures.)

[sparkyarmadillo]

I Have Found A Solution!

So, obviously classic wizard robes aren’t wheelchair friendly. (Alright, admittedly this isn’t common knowledge and also this definitely isn’t a problem for most but listen, this is a problem for me and I’m pleased to present a solution for it nonetheless.)

The issue is in the sleeves and the length of the robes. The traditional trumpet style allows them to get snagged, dirty, and caught in the wheels.

This is distinctly not an issue with other mobility aids such as canes and crutches, these wizards are fine to carry on with their trumpet sleeves simply rolled up if needed.

Now, one solution might simply to shorten the sleeves and hem to be out of the way, but that looks rather silly so I won’t do that. Instead I propose the more elegant design of a hanging sleeve to maintain that flowy magical feel while allowing for better range of motion.

Honestly I just love the look of hanging sleeves in general and think more people should appreciate them, wheelchair user or not.

In conclusion…

[sparkyarmadillo]

At least we know Higgs is a definitive outlier. But its curious, seeing some of the background jägers (especially from the page with the jäger who couldnt read a map) are way more Peak Creatureness than any named jägers. Well, excepting some Generals. Could be that Da Boyz were partially chosen cause more human-shaped jägers are biasedly feared less, even marginally, and so wont as likely be killed on sight (just hung from a galley).

Agatha wise, well with the death rate as it is, im not sure she'd quite be willing to even try making jägers, at least not for a long while.

Ive also enjoyed the idea of the jägerdraught recipe changing over time! Like it had to have been made through some sheer heckery to evennmake it, so tweaking some variables through the generations (or even within in one generation) seems very likely. One result of this ive considered is the death rate changing. Course with a one time application, itd be a bit hard to say if it wa sthe recipe or the high barometric preassure of that day, but maybe with enough prior generations of notes, they could eventually determine that some things (like barometric preassure that day) have no effect on outcome. But that would require keeping notes, though the Heterodynes hav eplentry secrets as is so that's not too far fetched. More curious would be the development of the notes as new things to take readings on even get discovered. But anyways, i could see the extent of jäger-changes being variable to draught recipe, though i think age will still cause more regardless.

Ive no idea where barry would even get the dyne water for that. If he does show up, i don't think he'll have jägers with him (though i have mixed feelings about the potential of him showing up at all). I rather enjoy my headcanon that Bill and Barry weren't informed of other secrets, in addition to the Castle' spower source. Like how to make jägers. Especially the headcanon that Saturnus very specifically decided not to tell them some things because he was untrusting that they'd properly keep them secret. As oppsoed to destroying the notes and records so the knowledg eis lost, or sharing how something works so other people can make defenses or such.

Goodness, i really ouggt to write thatnice fic which is basically just my making-jägers theories all dumped in one pile.

A question from me, now: any thoughts on what the death rate is? I see 10% the most common, which makes sense, but there's some variation up too 16% ive seen. Which, not much but im still curious, especially since im not sure where it came from other than, maybe, 1 of 10 is a good 'most die' number.

And second question: how many jägers are there? I had an idea of a number some years ago, but its since changed as new comic has come out.

I keep wondering about Jager ageing. Clearly the mutations are slow, once they’re past the initial burst when they drink the Jägerdraught. And it takes hundreds of years to get General level mutations. But are the mutations themselves tree-growth slow or puberty slow? If, at some point, you start growing a tail are you looking at five years or a hundred before you have a full length tail?

And is there a sort of pre-programmed (from when you took the draught) final form that your body is gradually working towards, or does it just start growing stuff at random?

[sparkyarmadillo]

Oo, like an adaptive evolutiton response, even if the 'evolved' traits aren't necessarily directly helpful to the stressor/instigating factors.

I kinda also go witht he concept that any traits a jäger does get are kinda preselected at the start? Like the draught unlocked some weird evolutionary genetic history or some such, but itll take time/inciting factors to trigger it. Course thats not much something thatd be useful for anything cause traits are still gonna be variable.

Itd be more helpful if perhaps pre-draught conditions affected what traits showed up. Like if exposure to snake venom a safe amount of time beforehand had higher chance in developing venomous teeth.

I keep wondering about Jager ageing. Clearly the mutations are slow, once they’re past the initial burst when they drink the Jägerdraught. And it takes hundreds of years to get General level mutations. But are the mutations themselves tree-growth slow or puberty slow? If, at some point, you start growing a tail are you looking at five years or a hundred before you have a full length tail?

And is there a sort of pre-programmed (from when you took the draught) final form that your body is gradually working towards, or does it just start growing stuff at random?

[sparkyarmadillo]

Writing advice from my uni teachers:

If your dialog feels flat, rewrite the scene pretending the characters cannot at any cost say exactly what they mean. No one says “I’m mad” but they can say it in 100 other ways.

Wrote a chapter but you dislike it? Rewrite it again from memory. That way you’re only remembering the main parts and can fill in extra details. My teacher who was a playwright literally writes every single script twice because of this.

Don’t overuse metaphors, or they lose their potency. Limit yourself.

Before you write your novel, write a page of anything from your characters POV so you can get their voice right. Do this for every main character introduced.

[sparkyarmadillo]

I figured that changes are variable (like all of jägerness, i suppose). Some stuff could happen immediately (definitely teeth, skin, claws, from what we've seen in flashbacks) and other stuff can vome in later. Like, a new jäger could immediately develop horns, and then later get a tail over whatever period. Or more horns. And that more stuff coming in later is very likely (be that fur, weird bone structure/height/proportions, tusks, whatever).

I keep wondering about Jager ageing. Clearly the mutations are slow, once they’re past the initial burst when they drink the Jägerdraught. And it takes hundreds of years to get General level mutations. But are the mutations themselves tree-growth slow or puberty slow? If, at some point, you start growing a tail are you looking at five years or a hundred before you have a full length tail?

And is there a sort of pre-programmed (from when you took the draught) final form that your body is gradually working towards, or does it just start growing stuff at random?

[sparkyarmadillo]

[sparkyarmadillo]

Demons and monsters that torture people because they feed on human suffering are so dumb. People are suffering everywhere my guy go literally any place and take a deep whiff.

[sparkyarmadillo]

meirl