#(that specific kind I mean. I find nature really difficult to draw in general and that was the easier I could come up with)

[arttsuka]

spock but frog. ribbit

Spog. Frock?

[literaticat]

Hello. I know an older person (a relative) who is a very good illustrator (as a hobby). They do have an email address but don't have a website (yet anyway). I'm encouraging them to draw maybe half a dozen or a dozen illustrations so I could submit them to some publishers on their behalf (those who are looking for or open to illustration submissions). Some of these sites mention having a website, others don't. Would the person have to be a professional illustrator or would this be okay? And would it be better for me to see if I can teach them to draw on an iPad or could I just scan on their handdrawn illustrations and email them for them? They're open to the idea but don't think they're good enough. I think they have a lot of natural raw talent, just wondering would publishers be open to illustrations from an older person who is very green to this and has no experience. What do you think? And could you give me/them any other advice? Thank you so much. Happy New Year!

I'd strongly suggest you not do this. I know you have the very best of intentions, and it's lovely that you're such a cheerleader for your relative. I'm sure they are very talented. BUT. Start by finding out what their goals really are. There are plenty of other ways for them to get their work out there. Maybe there are local art classes, where they can explore different mediums and just have fun and meet other artists and potential mentors. Art contests, or local magazines or journals that might publish work from local artists. If they really want to start a little cottage artwork business from home maybe they can create beautiful cards or prints that can be stocked at a local shop or something like that, and you can help them print them out and be their 'sales rep' if you like. Investigate these types of outlets for your relative's creativity, there's no need for their fun and pleasant hobby to become a difficult, demanding career, unless that is something they are TRULY passionate about.

(Not everything needs to be monetized. Normalize just doing things because you like them!)

Because yeah - - you can't really "dabble" in professional book illustration. Either you are a professional illustrator, which means publishers might hire you -- or you aren't, which means they definitely will not. Now, you can be a NEW professional illustrator, that's a thing, people aren't born as professionals -- so, again, if that's really something that your relative WANTS TO DO, truly wants it, OK -- but they are gonna have to do the legwork. You can't be submitting work on their behalf or holding their hand the whole time. Age is not a factor, but professional illustrator is a real job, not a fun-time hobby, and they do have to be willing and able to do the work themselves.

So if becoming a professional children's book illustrator is truly of interest to them, I'd suggest they start by:

-- Taking some picture book illustration classes, whether online or in-person -- specifically those, not just general "art" or whatever. The rules and goals of book illustration are just different from other kinds of art! This is not, strictly speaking, necessary, some artists are indeed entirely self-taught -- but it would probably be QUITE helpful to make them feel more confident (or alternatively, help them realize that this is not where their talent wants to take them!). COST VARIES.

-- They should also read a lot (A LOT) of modern children's books to see what the level of work is that they'd need to be doing, and different ways to tell a story through art. Because it's not just about having pretty images -- that's great, but they have to be able to *tell a story* through the pictures, also, otherwise they have just created random images, not a book. Start with the books that have been Caldecott medalist and honor winners for the past 5 years, they should all be available at your local library. FREE FROM LIBRARY.

-- I'd strongly recommend getting and studying a used or library copy of WRITING WITH PICTURES by Uri Shulevitz. While there is one section that is quite dated (because PB illus are typically delivered digitally now, and this book is from before the digital days) -- the majority of the book, about the actual craft of telling a story through pictures, is super-informative and brilliant. FREE FROM LIBRARY OR UNDER $10. USD

-- Consider joining the SCBWI; it does cost money to be a full member, but if they are serious, it may be worth it -- there are loads of resources online and in person, conferences, local meetups, workshops, etc, where they can connect with other creators and professionals to research and learn the ropes of children's book publishing; there's also a forum where they can ask questions, etc. $99. USD

-- Alternatively (or in addition), there are also kids-book oriented Facebook groups for this kind of thing that have seasoned pros answering newbie questions -- KIDLIT411 would be a smart one to join, if your relative is on Facebook. (Kidlit411 also has a website with resources!) FREE.

Once they have done all these things, they will need a professional-looking digital portfolio -- these can be physical works that are scanned in, or works created digitally (or a combo -- physical works that the artist tweaks layers in photoshop, etc). There are other posts here about what should be included in such a portfolio, look in the FAQ. This way they aren't just sending publishers random images all loosey-goosey, they'll be presenting themselves as somebody that might actually get hired. But I really wouldn't bother with this part until/unless they've done most or all of the previous suggestions.

[gladstones-corner]

On the Ritual Dagger and Other Tools

Originally this was a very targeted, well-researched post. However, as I started writing, I realized the real point of this article: my difficulty using iron in magic, and what that means for my selection of tools as a general rule. And in all honesty, that's probably more interesting than a scholarly history of the athame. 

The magical community at large tends to accept the position that iron is disruptive to entities of the Otherworld, though the reasons why have been debated for centuries. Theories range from "ferrous metal disrupts subtle bodies" to "iron is symbolic of human industrialization". 

I'm less interested in a mystical reason than a practical one—in other words, I accept that iron disrupts Otherworld denizens, but am more concerned with why it disrupts me. I find it very difficult to channel energy through iron tools of any kind. 

The good news is that I'm not alone. Some practitioners work closely with the Otherworld, and iron tools hinder their work. Others prefer to use more natural material to reflect their connection with the web of life. Still others are just like me—they just find iron hard to use. 

Are these alternatives standard to the Western Esoteric Tradition? No, absolutely not. There are reasons why iron is used for the athame—not the least of which is because of the disruption towards unwanted spirits. Of course, wanted spirits also experience the disruption, so there is that to consider. 

Of these alternatives, bone and stone are the most common materials. Wood is much less common, as the material tends to be associated with Fire more than with Air (the standard elemental correspondence for the ritual dagger). But, if your tradition swaps the elemental correspondence so that the Wand is for Air and the Dagger is for Fire, there's nothing stopping you from obtaining a wooden ritual dagger. 

Other materials that are nonmetallic, like resin, should be avoided on environmental and practical principles. Not only are many synthetics bad for the environment—which can hinder your connection with the living universe—they are usually very poor conductors of energy. That isn't to say you can't use them—I've seen plenty of people use resin wands—but I really don't recommend it. 

So, what did I choose? I'll be honest, I didn't go out of my way to purchase new tools; I examined what I had on hand. And thankfully, what I found were two obsidian knives from a family trip to Cancun years ago. 

Before I could use them, I had to cleanse and bless them. To do so, I decided to use the Druid method of Land, Sea, Sky. So I started by letting them sit in the sunlight for a few hours to cleanse and bless them by the Sky. After that, I waited for a storm and set them outside to be cleansed and blessed by the "Sea" (water). Finally, I wiped them clean and drove them into the soil to cleanse and bless them by the Land. Finally, they were ready for use. 

First thing I did was cast alchemical glyphs in the air before me: invoking pentacle, banishing pentacle, fire, water, air, earth, spirit, etc.  

My initial thought: the knives are very well balanced. One is about 7", the other about 4". I prefer the larger, if only because the smaller one is more fragile. However, they both have solid heft without being unwieldy. They're great for flourishing with. 

My second thought was that the knives hold and channel energy with ease. That was a pleasant surprise—now I know it's the iron in the dagger, not the dagger itself, that gives me trouble (though to really confirm, I'd need to try other iron athames). 

But here's the thing: these obsidian ritual daggers are not athames. Athames are specifically the black-handled, usually double-edged blade. So that raises a new question: where do we draw the line on swapping out tools? 

Let's examine that in some detail. If we are to believe the four tools of the Western Esoteric Tradition are based in ancient sources, then what are those sources and how did they evolve into their current forms? 

In the broadest strokes, the elemental tools of the Western Esoteric Tradition are the Wand, Dagger, Cup, and Disk. 

Some sources speculate they originate from the Four Treasures of the Tuatha de Danaan: the Spear of Lugh, Sword of Nuada, Cauldron of The Dagda, and Stone of Fal. But if that were wholly the case, we would still be left with questions around how the Spear and Stone became Wand and Disk. 

Let's keep digging and examine each tool individually, rather than as a set: 

Wand: traced back to prehistory, but came into the forefront with Egyptian, Zoroastrian, and Greek priests. 

Dagger: traced back to the Key of Solomon as one of several goetic tools. 

Cup: traced back to prehistory as a tool for holding sacred and mundane liquids. 

Pentacle: traced back to the Key of Solomon as a method of summoning entities. 

Okay, so we can now see that these tools came from a few different places and have slowly grown together. Let me fill in some gaps: the wand is relatively the same as it was in ancient times; the dagger used to be several daggers but has since been standardized; the cup is still widely variable and can be a chalice, cauldron, or any other vessel; the pentacle is still widely variable based on tradition. 

So that brings us back to our question: when do we substitute tools out? The "real" answer is whatever your tradition requires. But for those of us without a set tradition, the question becomes more complicated. 

I've implied throughout this article that the tools are directly correlated to the four lower elements. So, it stands to reason that you would have a representation of each element on the altar. 

Let's take the case of the Four Treasures of the Tuatha de Danaan: 

Sword: Fire 

Spear: Air 

Cauldron: Water 

Stone: Earth 

For a more eclectic take, we can try: 

Sage Bundle: Fire 

Large Feather: Air 

Bowl: Water 

Plate: Earth 

You're also not limited to "tools", either. In my Druidic practice, I place four vessels on the altar that contain: 

Fire: Candle 

Air: Incense 

Water: Water 

Earth: Soil 

So really, the answer to the question "when do we substitute" is really "whenever feels most appropriate to you". The important things are that the items on the altar represent the four lower elements, and can be used for energy channeling. That's what makes it a tool, that you can use it to channel energy, not the fact that it's inherently a tool of some kind. 

Thank you for reading. As always, stay safe and stay tuned. 

Blessed be~ 

[shimmershy]

Heya! I'm a big fan of how you draw your characters! Do you have tips for drawing people and finding your style? I suck at it

Hi! Hmmm...trying to think of advice to give is difficult because for me, it kind of just developed over time and I never did anything specific to find my style, necessarily. I know that like, everyone says this when giving art advice, but I think this is genuinely one of those times when giving it a lot of time and practice is the best thing you can do. It's really cool to see your style develop into something more recognizable over time, because at this point it kind of just comes naturally to me? I don't know if it happens like that for everyone but it makes sense that the more you get a feel for drawing, the more you get comfortable drawing a certain way, I guess.

So I mean, another thing you could do is try drawing in a lot of different ways! That may seem counter-intuitive, but if you do that, you get better at noticing all the different factors that makes an art style distinctive, and you can figure out what you like drawing the most because you're trying a bunch of different things. Sometimes I like trying to imitate other people's art styles in my sketchbook. You could try taking parts of other people's styles that you like and incorporating it into your own art. Like, say, you like the way someone draws eyes or hands or something. You could try focusing on getting really good at that specifically. Just, of course, don't trace other people's art and post it or anything, ha ha.

In terms of drawing people and characters in general, though, using references and practicing anatomy helps a lot. I don't do it a lot honestly because I get bored of it really quickly lol, but usually I grab some photos of complex poses and sketch them in my sketchbook to get a feel for how the poses work. If you're struggling with anatomy, it might also help to trace over the image and break it down to simple shapes beforehand (I do that sometimes, too).

But that's about all the advice I have. Practice, try using anatomy references, and take inspiration from the art you like.

[northwest-cryptid]

I often think about the fact that magic systems in games never evolved very well to encompass the true dedication of the craft, mostly because doing so wouldn't be a fun gameplay mechanic.

From the perspective of the player; the idea of actually dedicating time and effort to understanding various spells, and the natural flow of magic power through the world; and figuring out how to harness all of that just isn't enjoyable outside of a few specific instances.

Like sure you have Elder Scrolls Alchemy which keeps it all fairly simple but with a lot of depth for those who want to explore it. However it is a very shallow mechanic in the grander scope of the game and doesn't tie into the use of magic as a weapon or tool; which is often still just point and click fireball.

Then you have some games which center themselves around the idea of mixing elements to create magic but again we don't have to worry about where those elements come from or how to use them properly. Even games like Magicka which ironically enough are one of the best examples of understanding the properties of magic you wish to use, and mixing them to achieve that goal; falls short.

This is because they still don't let you go in depth into where that magic comes from, where are you harnessing that fire from? Where are you getting that magic power? Where is the source of that element? Well simply put, if we had to worry about these things the game would become tiresome.

There's a reason that games like Mabinogi explain it as a sort of "there's just mana in the air and the moons give off mana and we can harness that power to create various magic spells." That's great, but it's still just flavor text.

Something I actually saw recently and thought was really cool is that in the game Soulframe you had 3 distinct magic attacks, those being based on the colors blue, red, and green. With each getting power from fire, water, or earth; and once charged fully you were able to use that attribute magic. This was removed in favor of a cooldown system because it's more fun and just works better.

Despite Soulframe being a game about like, fantasy fae shit; they still decided to go the route of cooldowns. Which by the way is silly only because now I use those magic attacks as my basic attacks, given the cooldowns are so short and you can still rip people's souls of their bodies to replenish your cooldowns. This all means that your "cooldown" is almost non-existent outside of not being able to literally spam the ability. The game is still in early Alpha so I don't doubt they'll find some kind of balance there, but it's sad to see the otherwise cool gameplay mechanic changed to something so generic so fast.

However the truth is that games simply struggle with balancing, if you have a character who can use a bow or a sword and can just go to town on a guy. Only for your mage to constantly be consuming various ingredients for magic; or having long cast times to do various spell rituals; or even just having to have something in the area to draw that power from. Well then the magic they cast with it needs to be relatively as powerful as the drawbacks are a negative. This means you end up with players mainly either:

Just not playing the wizard and not engaging with the clunky and troublesome magic system in the first place because it's not worth all the hassle.

Or exclusively playing the wizard because it's the meta and deals the most damage and playing any other way is arguably a waste of time; and they'll just game the system anyways to figure out that if you just spend 5 hours reloading this part of the map you can collect enough water, manaberry seeds, and hardbark root to cast Magic Druid Death Blast throughout the entire game rendering your entire system null and void.

So understandably it's very difficult to make an actual magic system for a game that isn't able to simply be cheesed, is somehow balanced; and is actually fun to engage with. While also being a deep and complex system that requires the understanding of magic as a natural force of the world being harnessed by dedication and understanding of the natural world and the forces at play within it.

What's unfortunate about that is that I personally think you could do a lot with that system. For example, rather than even having to have a class of Wizard vs Sorcerer. Simply have magic react differently depending on the methods used. Is the wizard dedicated to earning the respect of the world around them, harnessing the power of their magic through a mutual understanding of the way things work and ensuring the natural order of what they take is in balance with what they give? Or are they simply demanding the flow of magic to do their bidding, forcing unnatural and twisted magics from an unyielding and rebellious force that struggles against the power of it's wielder.

To put it really simply, a lot of this relies on the game being complex and deep enough to give the player the understanding of this whole system, while also having the programming to basically be a sandbox for the player to manipulate. On top of all of that, it needs to be balanced with the other classes and combat options. Which means sure it's really cool that you have a wizard class who can use magic in a bunch of different ways from casting offensive spells to unlocking doors or shifting gravity to let them access new areas or move objects from a distance... so then why would I ever pick the other classes? Bandit can't do that, the knight just gets a sword and shield; who the hell is going to pick archer. Okay okay let's make it so the archer can attach a rope to their arrows, and the knight can throw a grapple hook, and the bandit can- wait a second hold on. So now the wizard just uses more resources, takes longer to cast the magic; and needs a deeper understanding of the lore and methods used to cast the spell... to do the same thing an archer can do with 1 reusable rope and an arrow? In fact, the Knight can do the same thing with the reusable grapple hook and they have way higher HP than the Archer or the Wizard; and their shield gives them more defense; and they can still deal considerable damage. Remind me why I'd play anything other than the knight again?

And here in-lies the dilemma so many devs run into with magic systems that go beyond just "I cast fireball because that's my basic attack."

[saturnrevolution]

☆Stellium through the houses☆

please credit my instagram page with the same name if you repost outside of tumblr!!

I got a lot of stellium related messages, so here it is. I have a 6 planets 1st house stellium, so I have a lot to say.

☆ Stelliums are a very controversial topic, as each astrologer has their own way of interpreting it. However, essentially a stellium is a focus on a certain sign or house in a chart. Some astrologers believe that 3 or more planets makes a stellium, whilst some believe 4 or more planets. I tend to go with the 3 or more planets stellium interpretation. However, I personally do not interpret asteroids or angles (asc,dc,mc,ic) as being part of a stellium and mostly focus on planets, but it really does depend on the dynamic of each chart.

☆ A stellium is much stronger if it happens between personal planets (sun-mars) or if it's a combination of personal planets and generational planets (saturn-pluto) and if the planets are in strong conjunctions. The closer to each other and the more planets, the more focused and rare the chart is.

☆ Any planet or sign that is part of this stellium will be a significant one in this person's journey. So if someone has a 2nd house stellium involving the sun, moon and mercury - then houses in which they have leo, cancer and gemini/virgo will have a focus for them as well.

☆ If not cared for enough, a stellium can turn into an obsession of a person on that particular sign's energy or house energy. That is why, it's important to find ways in which you balance the energy of your stellium and this usually works through implementing more of the opposite house's and sign's energy into your life.

Each house ⬇⬇⬇⬇⬇

☆ 1st house stellium

A first house stellium means that there is a focus on self expression and developing this person's identity, as well as outwardly expressing their personality. These people might have strong personalities and really take pride in it, especially if the sun is involved. I find that 1st house stellium people have multiple layers to their personality. This is not to say that they are two faced, but when it comes to their identity, there is never a moment when you get bored of getting to know them as there are endless new things you can find out about them. First house stelliums embody the energy of all the planets that are found in there. The more planets, the more blend out the energy is and it might be harder to pinpoint exactly the ways in which a certain planet is coming off as. These people might have the ability to adapt to the environment they are in and portray a certain personality depending on the situation, while still appearing as their ascendant. The ascendant is the one that dictates the flavors of those energies in the house. The downside of having a first house stellium is that they can be rather individualistic to the point where they do focus way too much on themselves and live in a bubble. Also, there might be a lack of cooperation and they might find it difficult to work in a team or ask for help (not really if you have 7th house planets as well). It's always a great idea to balance with the opposite house, so spending time with your loved ones or investing in your romantic relationships or engaging in teamwork activities will help. In terms of appearance, these people are rather going to turn heads with their aura and have a sort of intriguing vibe to them. These people are straightforward and really shine whenever they are in their confidence and have so much of themselves to share with the world, they are meant to put it all out there and be appreciated for it.

☆ 2nd house stellium

Having a second house stellium means that there is a focus on the material world and possessions and depending on the sign the planets are in, you can tell a lot about what possessions actually mean for this person - this can mean that they either value money or they value spirituality and life experiences over the material. However it may be, these people have a lot of inner strength. Whenever they feel down, they do get back up and they always fight to make it on their own. There might be an issue here with wanting to keep things for themselves too much or with putting too much pressure on themselves to the point where it affects their self worth and they get insecure. They need to be careful to not rely too much on the idea that there is just one clear path for them to go on and that if they do not reach a certain status, things won't work out for them. Career is also quite important for these people, but more as a way to reach security, they are always prioritizing comfort and are quite consistent with their decisions. They might have strong values and really continuously work on their self worth. For these people, it's important to balance the energy with the 8th house, so engaging in things that have to do with shared experiences, shared finances, opening up, being vulnerable and building deep connections where they can let their guard down and relax. Also, there might be a tendency to be a bit stuck in their comfort zone and fear change, so leaning towards the 8th house and finding ways in which they can embrace change and dive deeper into the darker side of things will be really beneficial. They might own a lot of things that represent their personality - even if this means a car or a collection of stickers with spiritual meaning, they have few things that they own that have sentimental value. They are very practical and calculated people and their consistency is usually what gets them to be successful eventually and be appreciated for their integrity.

☆ 3rd house stellium

A third house stellium shows that there is an emphasis on communication or things of the mind for this person. As the 3rd house also rules the years when we are in school or our hometown, it's likely that these people either got a lot of attention in school or had some traumatic experience when they were younger, depending on the planets or signs involved. However, the purpose of a 3rd house stellium is to use their voice in order to express the things that maybe were once repressed or that they feel a deep need to talk about. These people have a lot to say and they have powerful opinions, without necessarily judging others. They can, however, get in heated arguments and sometimes get stuck into their ideas or their thoughts. 3rd house stellium people have a great eye for details and a way with words - they might be good at writing or singing or anything that involves communication, even small talk. They need to be careful not to be too keen on the details that they forget the bigger picture and should balance their 3rd house energy with the 9th house - so engage in more spiritual activities or find metaphor in their daily life and not always seek to analyze and understand the things around them, including emotions. These people can be prone to mental health issues and need to snap out of this by simply taking action. Their country of origin or their immediate and familiar surroundings will likely be an area where they will thrive and they might become well known in a very specific field or niche that they are so good at cause they are great at assimilating information and research. One of their purposes is to use their unique voice and point of view in order to speak up for those that are not able to do it themselves and so make them feel seen and understood, while they also share their potential with the world and often do that through their amazing storytelling gifts - they could even write a book or have a start-up!

☆ 4th house stellium

A fourth house stellium means that there is an emphasis on feeling secure in this life. These people might have went through an impactful childhood - either in a good way or a negative way and they usually base their decisions on the things they learned in the past. They might have a numerous family or some trouble in this area, however there is a focus on family for them. Their motivation comes from feeling safe and knowing that those around them are well. Also, they are likely to learn a lot from building a family on their own, weather this means getting married or simply owning a pet. These people are warm and caring and have this innate mother instinct that shines through. They are also quite intuitive and empathetic, however this is mostly a private area for them which they keep to themselves. The place they live in can influence their mood so much. The trouble here comes when they focus too much on being in a safe and comfortable environment or being surrounded by people they care about that they do not prioritize their growth or they tend to be a bit codependent. They need to balance the energy with the 10th house, so focus on their career and their future goals and use these really beautiful qualities they inherited from their family as an asset into putting themselves out there. Depending on the planets or sign they have here, they might not have moved a lot and when they do, it likely feels like they are out of their comfort zone, they need to build a space that encourages their growth and that's rather luxurious even. They might own a beautiful home later on in life and build their own kind of world there. These people are likely here to break family patterns that were felt for lots of generations before them and share their stories with the world or use the wisdom they gain to inspire and heal others in very profound ways.

☆ 5th house stellium

A fifth house stellium shows a person that is naturally talented or gifted. This can mean that they were basically born with a talent for drawing, singing, being really good at multiple things that enhances their personality and puts them in the spotlight. They came here to showcase these talents and they need to be careful to not to take them for granted and instead use them as a way to find meaning and pleasure in life. They can sometimes lean too much onto the idea of finding pleasure and adopt this careless attitude that focuses on prioritizing themselves before their friends - which can be both good or bad depending on the situation. These people are likely naturally good with children or they are meant to have children of their own and so keep their talents alive, they are also likely to have artists in their family or people that have, again, some really natural skill. Creativity might shine through for these people, depending on the sign and they can also be quite lucky romance wise or be natural flirts. They should be careful not to get too emerged or too obsessed with their pursuits that they forget about the world, so balancing this energy with the 11th house - with being with friends, finding a community that has the same interests as them or involving themselves in fighting for a bigger cause through their skills would help, even building an online persona. If more difficult planets are involved in this stellium, they might have difficulty with their self worth or went through some experience which made them lack the confidence they need to show their talents. Once they find that fire inside, these people are the bright stars that have a lot of admirers of their work and can be amazing leaders if they follow their passion and do not let fear lead the way, as well as really good teachers that people talk about for generations to come.

☆ 6th house stellium

A six house stellium shows someone whose focus in this lifetime is in perfecting their daily tasks in such a way that they match their future goals and get them closer to their aim. These people are action oriented perfectionists, this is why sometimes their wish to do everything in a perfect manner can stand in their way of their action-taking. It's great for these people to find balance in their life by investing in their opposing house, so engaging in spirituality, journaling, going to therapy in order to understand their subconscious mind, invest in their art, write or focus on healing their mind before their body from time to time. A six house stellium is going to be concerned with their body - the way they show up into the world, but also the way they care for their body, the things they eat, how much exercise they make, their skincare routine and how present they are with these tasks. They can sometimes get so stuck into daily things that they forget the bigger picture and they are prone to being workaholics or to burnout. It's important to take things as they come and reduce the expectations they have on themselves. Another trait of a 6th house stellium is their ability to be of service to others - depending on the sign they have in this house, they know how to be of help and really hate feeling useless, they are great at giving advice and observing the details. They are most likely to see something you are not seeing and they have a sharp mind and critical thinking. Also, having coworkers that match their values is a very important trait to them and if they cannot find that, they'd rather work alone or open their own business. As long as they do not overly engage with their daily routine and know that their discipline does not define them, that's when they can achieve the most perfectly imperfect things in life by showcasing their daily tasks that got them to the success they achieved.

☆ 7th house stellium

Having a seventh house stellium shows a lot of emphasis on relationships, socializing and discovering oneself through interactions to the other. These people are likely social, they love discovering and getting to know others and they feed on conversation. They are rational, but also extremely sensitive and can feel very deeply for those that they love, sometimes even in a psychic way. As there is a focus on the other, the problem here arrives when these people overidentify with their partner, their best friend, their family - they rely their whole being on them and they forget about their own needs and wants, they ask everyone about what they should do and they do not make decisions that are in tune with their own authenticity, they might be people pleasers during their darkest times and completely get lost in making people like them. This is why, they need to get themselves out of their comfort zone once in a while and focus on first house themes - take decisions on impulse and trust their intuition, speak up on what is bothering them and even spend time alone to self reflect or invest in some personal activity. This will help them find balance and the harmony that they are always looking for in relationships. These people could even become known for their successful love story. Their potential won't be the same without someone being there to watch them as well, so they are the perfect example of harmonized work, relationships and personal life in time, great multitaskers and storytellers too! Just need to tap into their shadow side, not be afraid to ask around and explore what they are capable of. They came into this life in order to search for people that match their values and to learn to set boundaries and say no to those that don't, they came here to inspire others and lead them with their soft skills, they came here to make others feel loved and in turn, get to know their own potential, which is huge.

☆ 8th house stellium

Having an eight house stellium shows that this person's emphasis is on things that are rather taboo, dark or private. This person is likely to be someone that does not enjoy being in the spotlight (especially if they have personal planets here), but they are amazing when it comes to behind the scenes. What this means is that these people have the ability to read and understand others in a really deep way, so much so that they do not need things explained in words, as they just feel the vibe. This is why, they would be really great in jobs that require them to use their intuition or jobs that require them to do the secret, insider type of behind-the-scenes work, no matter the industry they work in. However, they would do perfect psychologists, psychics or even undercover workers of some sort. These people are passionate and can dive really deep into the subject they are interested in an completely get immersed into that. The problem here is that stellium energy is very obsessive and 8th house energy is the same, so putting these together can get a person to become obsessed with a subject, a situation, another person even to the point where they might stalk this area or to the point where they do not care for their basic needs, such as food, just to spend time observing and investigating this subject. Another challenge for an 8th house stellium is the fact that they are able to feel so much what others are feeling makes them really sensitive and can get easily hurt if they do not separate the bad things that happen into the world from them. It's important for them to balance this energy with the 2nd house energy, so to spend time focusing on the material, on making sure they spend time showcasing their skills through work, but also searching for stability and going away from change and chaos from time to time. These people can also have a sexual energy to them and are likely always in an ongoing personal transformation, even due to the things they had to go through in the past. These people are meant to help others heal, as they are open to the dark like no one else and they have the potential to discover hidden truths, while also discovering themselves.

☆ 9th house stellium

Having a 9th house stellium means that there is a focus on wisdom, beliefs and constantly looking for meaning. These people hold a lot of inner wisdom that just seems to come out of nowhere, as if they were born with it. They are the ones that are not afraid to make mistakes and that take every experience as one to be learned from. You see these people chasing their impulses and the fire within. It's likely that they will move a lot in this lifetime or travel - these are things that help them see the world differently and fuels their wisdom. They might have a culturally diverse background or they might be interested in foreign cultures or foreign languages. If this is not them, then they are the readers, the mind travelers, the spiritualists or religious people that search for eternal questions of the mind. They usually find themselves asking how the world was created and what's wrong or what is right, what's moral and what's not and they have really well thought beliefs. The problem with a 9th house stellium comes when they need to go a bit deeper than life philosophies, when they need to not base all their decision on experience, but rather on facts or on emotions. These people might feel as if darker things in life make them want to run away, in their endless search for spirit, they might shy away from anything that involves emotion or face to face communication, as they do not like getting caught by and being stuck in details. This is why, an advice for them is to invest more time in the 3rd house - to try to listen to what people actually have to say and not what they believe in, to try to see a person besides their spiritual beliefs and music taste - but instead to look at their life struggles and their emotions. What's challenging for a 9th house stellium is to have confrontational conversations that make them feel uncomfortable. As a paradox, the 9th house is all about getting out of their comfort zone, but for them getting out of their comfort zone is staying in their immediate comfort and not trying to escape, they might be surprised how good it feels. The purpose of these people is to go forward with ideas and belief systems that have been studied and felt for generations and to ask the right questions at the right time, so much so that they change people's lives with their positive way of living.

☆ 10th house stellium

A 10th house stellium person is likely going to have an amazing work ethic and find pleasure through investing time in their career. These people are likely to achieve great success in their career and even be recognized as a public persona. The place where they most shine is the moment when they spend their time being productive, organized and working on their goals. The sign can influence the energy a lot, so you don't have to be a super organized person if you have this placement, but you likely have your own personalized way of organization that works for you. They are motivated and sometimes overly critical of themselves, as they always want to reach and do more than they can even take on honestly. This is why they push themselves beyond their limit every time and it's important to stop and asses their process and praise themselves before they move on, they often don't know how much they have done. A good way to do this is for them to focus on the opposite house energy, which is their 4th house - take time to rest, spend time with family, be lazy and allow people around them to slow them down. It's all right to be behind with schedule and it's all right to be human and not feel like a robot 24/7. The problem can come when they have some personal issue that interferes with their daily work. Usually, if they find themselves being more productive than usual, it's a sign that there is something in their personal life that they are trying to avoid by diving deep into their most safe space - work. These people could sometimes get sick because of overworking, so please listen to your body and slow down if you do not feel very good. Overall, they are the ones that help everyone else organize, but the ones that can also do the small tasks - so they would be amazing managers or most likely find success in any area they are going for, as they actually do the work, put in the effort and get so much pay off in time.

☆ 11th house stellium

An eleventh house stellium person will have their focus on matters of the future, groups of people and environments. These people are the ones that are great when it comes to coming up with innovative ideas in order to revolutionize a generation. In today's world, an 11th house stellium can be seen either vouching for a good cause at a protest or creating their own non-governmental organization or being an internet star. People that have more planets in this house are likely naturally good at technology or at least the internet or they are very skilled when it comes to some unique niche interest of their and they often lead people onto the right direction with their minds. These people are selfless and unfortunately can sometimes care too much about their environment and not enough about their own needs, so it's important for them to balance this energy with the 5th house energy and try engage into creative, artistic outlets or simply just do any activity such as going out or even watching movies just for their own pleasure - without needing to share it with anyone and without needing to make a purpose or a cause out of it. However, they do not necessarily have to be internet stars to be seen, they could even go the other route of being against social media and engaging in a very hippie, healthy way of living or simply choose a traditional route when everyone goes for the modern - anything that makes them stand out. They can also feel misunderstood sometimes because of this and alone, but finding the right community that shares the same interests as them or just the right small group of friends with the same values will do wonders. These people can also be rather controversial, as they are most likely the first ones to start a trend, a movement or be bold enough to take a chance to think and express themselves differently compared to the environment they grew up in.

☆ 12th house stellium

A 12th house stellium has their focus on the outer reality, but not necessarily a material one. These people are extremely selfless and would give a lot just to simply help someone. As the 12th house can also represent karma, these people might have had some lessons in their early life and even later on that felt karmic - it made them feel as if they did not do anything to deserve such experience and since they have been there, they have such a deep ability to be compassionate and understand where everyone is coming from. However, their past experiences made them feel small and helpless and this is the reason why they believe that making themselves small in the first place and being there for others more than their own is going to bring them good karma in return (this belief is at a subconscious level). When in reality, their ultimate purpose in this lifetime is to find themselves. Unless they stop giving their all to everyone in hopes to get something in return and actually take the matter in their own hands and fight for themselves, they will likely feel lost. These people have such artistic and intuitive souls, they absorb the energy around them and are very strong as they can endure things for long, but the real challenge is to go onto the journey of discovering themselves and find out how amazingly it feels to put yourself first and feel happy through balancing with the opposite 6th house and focus on the present moment, learn to prioritize their needs and focus on moving their body and taking the days step by step. These people came here to show us a lesson of how much you can heal the world by healing yourself - just do that and let the magic unfold.

[mimicofmodes]

“The Ladies Waldegrave” by Joshua Reynolds, 1780 (NGS NG2171)

I’ve complained before about two very big pet peeves of mine - corset stuff and Regency women being dressed in 1770s-1780s clothes - but one that may dwarf them because of how frequently it comes up in historical and fantasy fiction is the oppression of embroidery.

That’s probably putting it a bit too strongly. It’s more like ... the annoyance of embroidery. Every character worth reading about knows instinctively that sewing is a) boring, b) difficult, c) mindless, and d) pointless. The author doesn’t have to say anything more than “Belinda threw down her needlework and looked out the window, sighing,” to signal that this is an independent woman whose values align with the modern reader, who’s probably not really understood by her mother or mother figure, and who probably will find an extraordinary man to “match” her rather than settling for someone ordinary. To look at an example from fantasy, GRRM uses embroidery in the very beginning of A Game of Thrones to show that the Stark sister who dislikes it is sympathetic and interesting, while the Stark sister who is competent at it is boring and conventional and obviously not deserving of a PoV (until later books, when her attention gets turned to higher matters); further into the book, of course, the pro-needlework sister proves to be weak-willed and naïve.

Rozsika Parker, in the groundbreaking 1996 work The Subversive Stitch, noted that “embroidery has become indelibly associated with stereotypes of femininity,” which is the core of the issue. "Instead embroidery and a stereotype of femininity have become collapsed into one another, characterised as mindless, decorative and delicate; like the icing on the cake, good to look at, adding taste and status, but devoid of significant content.” 

Parker also points out that the stereotype isn’t just one that was invented in the present day by feminists who hated the idea of being forced to do a certain craft. “The association between women and embroidery, craft and femininity, has meant that writers concerned with the status of women have often turned their attention towards this tangled, puzzling relationship. Feminists who have scorned embroidery tend to blame it for whatever constraint on women's lives they are committed to combat. Thus, for example, eighteenth-century critical commentators held embroidery responsible for the ill health which was claimed as evidence of women's natural weakness and inferiority.”

There are two basic problems I have with the trope, beyond the issue of it being incredibly cliché:

First: needlework was not just busywork

A big part of what drives the stereotype is the impression that what women were embroidering was either a sampler:

sampler embroidered by Jane Wilson, 14, in 1791 (MMA 2010.47)

or a picture:

unfinished embroidery of David and Abigail, British, 1640s-50s (MMA 64.101.1325)

That is, something meant to hang on the wall for no real purpose.

These are forms of schoolwork, basically. Samplers were made by young girls up to their early teens, and needlework pictures were usually something done while at school or under a governess as a showpiece of what was being learned - not just the stitching itself, but also often watercolors (which could be worked into the design), artistic sensibility, and the literature, history, or art that might be alluded to. And many needlework pictures made in schools were also done as mourning pieces, sometimes blank, for future use, and sometimes to commemorate a recent death in the family. A lot of them are awkward, clearly just done to pass the class, but others are really artwork.

Many schools for middle- and upper-class girls taught the making of these objects (and other “ornamental” subjects) alongside a more rigorous curriculum - geography, Latin, chemistry, etc. At some, sewing was also always accompanied by serious reading and discussion. (And it would often be done while someone read aloud or made conversation later in life, too.)

Once done with their education, women generally didn’t bother with purely decorative work. Some things that fabric could be embroidered for included:

Jackets 

Bed coverings and bedcurtains

Collars and undersleeves 

Pelerines 

Neck handkerchiefs and sleeve ruffles 

Screens

Upholstery

Handkerchiefs

Purses, wallets, and reticules

Boxes

Book covers

Plus other articles of clothing like waistcoats, caps, slippers, gown hems, chemises, etc. Women’s magazines of the nineteenth century often gave patterns and alphabets for personal use.

(Not to mention late nineteenth century female artists who worked in embroidery, but that’s something else.)

You could purchase all of these pre-embroidered, but many, many women chose to do it themselves. There are a number of reasons why: maybe they wanted something to do, maybe they felt like they should be doing needlework for moral/gender reasons, maybe they couldn’t afford to buy anything - and maybe they enjoyed it or wanted to give something they made to a person they loved. That firescreen above was embroidered by Marie Antoinette, someone who had any number of other activities to choose from. It’s no different than people today who like to knit their own hats and gloves or bake their own bread, except that it was way more mainstream.

embroidery patterns from Ackermann’s Repository in 1827 - they could be used on dresses, collars, handkerchiefs, etc.

Second: needlework wasn’t the only “useless” thing women were expected to do

Ignoring the bulk of point one for now and the value of embroidery - I mentioned “ornamental subjects” above. As many people know, young women of the upper and middle classes were expected to be “accomplished” in order to be seen as marriageable. This could include skills like embroidery, drawing, painting, singing, playing the piano (as well as other instruments, like the harp or the mandolin), speaking French (if not also Italian and/or German), as well as broader knowledge and abilities like being well-versed in music, literature, and poetry, dancing and walking gracefully, writing good letters in an elegant hand, and being able to read out loud expressively and smoothly.

This wasn’t a checklist. As the famous discussion in Pride and Prejudice shows, individuals could have different views on what actually made a woman accomplished:

“How I long to see her again! I never met with anybody who delighted me so much. Such a countenance, such manners! And so extremely accomplished for her age! Her performance on the pianoforte is exquisite.”

“It is amazing to me,” said Bingley, “how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are.”

“All young ladies accomplished! My dear Charles, what do you mean?”

“Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses. I scarcely know anyone who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she was very accomplished.”

“Your list of the common extent of accomplishments,” said Darcy, “has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half-a-dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished.”

“Nor I, I am sure,” said Miss Bingley.

“Then,” observed Elizabeth, “you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman.”

“Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it.”

“Oh! certainly,” cried his faithful assistant, “no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved.”

“All this she must possess,” added Darcy, “and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”

Mr. Bingley feels that a woman is accomplished if she has the ability to do a number of different arts and crafts. Miss Bingley feels (or says she feels) that it goes beyond specific skills and into branches of artistic attainment, plus broader personal qualities that could be imparted by well-bred governesses or mothers. And Mr. Darcy, of course, agrees with that but adds an academic angle as well.

But what ties all of these accomplishments together is their lack of value on the labor market. A woman could earn a living with any one accomplishment, if she worked hard enough at it to become a professional, but young ladies weren’t supposed to be professional-level good because they by definition weren’t going to earn a living. All together, they trained a woman for the social and domestic role of a married woman of the upper middle or upper class, or, if she couldn’t get married, a governess or teacher who would share her accomplishments with the next generation.

(To be fair, almost none of the trappings of an upper-middle/upper class male education had anything to do with the kind of career training that college frequently is today, either. Men were educated to know the cultural touchpoints of their class and fit in with their peers.)

There are reasons that an individual person/character might specifically object to embroidery, but it was far from the only “useless” thing that an unconventional heroine would be required to do against her inclination by her conventional mother/grandmother/aunt/chaperone. Embroidery stands out to modern audiences because most of the other accomplishments are now valued as gender-neutral arts and skills.

“The Embroidery Frame”, by Mathilde Weil, ca. 1900 (LOC 98501309)

So, some thoughts for writers of historical fiction (or fantasy that’s supposed to be just like the 19th/18th/17th/etc century):

- If your heroine doesn’t like embroidery, she probably doesn’t like a number of other things she’s expected to do. Don’t pull out embroidery as either more expected or more onerous than them. Does she hate to sit still? I’d imagine she also dislikes drawing and practicing the piano. Would she prefer to do academic subjects? She probably also resents learning French instead of Latin, and music and dancing. Does she hate enforced femininity? Then she’d most likely have a problem with all of the accomplishments.

- If your heroine just and specifically doesn’t like embroidery, try to show in the narrative that that’s not because it’s objectively bad, and only able to be liked by the boring. Have another sympathetic character do it while talking to the heroine. Note that the hero carries a flame-stitched wallet that’s his sister’s work. Emphasize the heroine’s emotional connection to her deceased or absent mother through her affection for clothing or upholstery that her mother embroidered - or through a mourning picture commemorating her. There are all kinds of things you can do to show that it’s a personal preference rather than a stupid craft that doesn’t take talent and skill!

mourning picture for Daniel Goodman, probably embroidered by a Miss Goodman, 1803 (MMA 56.66)

[transdemigod]

Cutting Yourself Off from the Entities: A Comprehensive Guide

I am once again overanalyzing the Magnus Archives for fun. This topic is super interesting to me, and I haven’t seen it explored as much as other theories, so here we go.

So, you’ve pledged yourself to one of the Dread Powers, but decided that you’ve had enough of terrorizing others. Not to worry, there is a way out. Melanie King did it and lived all the way to the end of the series!

Here is the summary, though I’m sure a full explanation will be more satisfying:

To escape the Buried, lose yourself to the emptiness. To escape the Corruption, kill what loves you. To escape the Dark, give yourself to the sunlight. To escape the Desolation, choose kindness. To escape the End, cut yourself off from dreams. To escape the Eye, blind yourself. To escape the Flesh, give up control of your body. To escape the Hunt, tear out your teeth and claws. To escape the Lonely, bind yourself to others. To escape the Slaughter, remove your emotions. To escape the Spiral, destroy your voice. To escape the Stranger, make yourself known. To escape the Vast, trap yourself in a small place. To escape the Web, give up your autonomy.

The rest is under the cut. Let me know if you have any ideas that you think I missed, I would love to discuss theories.

We know for sure that the way to escape the Eye is to gouge your own eyes out. The other entities have less information, but we get a few clues here and there. In the season 4 Q&A, Jonny and Alex joke about leaving the service of the Stranger by running naked through the streets. They also mention that the Desolation can be left by an act of true altruism. With these details, as well as other details in the rest of the canon, we can make a list of criteria that must be satisfied for an act that will cut someone off from each of the 14 Entities.

Firstly, it isn’t enough to just stop feeding your god. Daisy and Jon both tried to abstain and ended up wasting away, and it is implied that they would have died if they had continued. Dying is certainly one possible way to escape the service of a Fear, but we’re going for living out the rest of your natural life here.

Secondly, there has to be some sacrifice made that relates to the specific power. This is where the Desolation’s explanation kind of falls apart; doing one good act doesn’t stop you from just continuing to be destructive, so the act must also include giving up the thing that ties you to your Entity. In the Stranger’s case, one could argue that exposing yourself does count as giving up your anonymity, and there are several Stranger avatars that seem to thrive on being unknown. My theory is that each Entity has a draw of some kind, a power that it gives its followers, which you would have to completely give up if you are to leave it for good. Jon mentioned that the blinding has to be permanent, so I’m assuming this applies to the others as well. Basically, the avatar who wishes to leave must give up something that one who does not wish to leave would never want to.

Third, the change can be physical or symbolic. Obviously blinding yourself is a very physical change, while committing acts of altruism or making yourself known are less so. Some of the Entities will have pretty clear parts of the body that connect you to the power, others will need a bit more of an explanation. In special cases where a person gets their power from an artifact or a Leitner, destroying the thing would probably be enough to cut them off from that power. And of course, if you are as lucky as Georgie Barker and manage to completely get rid of your fear, that would probably be enough to cut you off from them as well.

So, here are my explanations for what you would have to do to cut yourself off from each of the 14. I’m basing it on examples we get in the series, the few rules I have decided to set, and what would seem thematically or symbolically appropriate. Realistically, each individual would have their own personal journey and each avatar is different, but it’s more fun this way.

The Buried- The draw of the Buried is a little difficult to narrow down, we’ve heard about restfulness, the comfort of enclosed spaces, the desire to be a part of the earth, etc. The thing Buried avatars seem to dislike the most is wide open spaces, though I don’t know how that would translate to something you can change about yourself. How would a person cut themselves off from the earth? You could move to a place that is very open, but you could also just leave. I’m not sure if there is a way a person could give up the concept of space, so I’m probably going to have this same problem when I get to the Vast. Probably the only thing you could give up that makes sense is the type of space the Buried is tied to, so you’d have to keep away from enclosed spaces. However you’re supposed to do that, I have no idea. This one is just going to have to be a less satisfying answer, unless I find another idea later.

To escape the Buried, lose yourself to the emptiness.

The Corruption- Most people who get into the Corruption get filled with bugs, and we know from Jane that it is appealing because you have a sense of belonging and purpose. The Corruption focuses a lot on toxic love, and I think communities specifically because the things we think of as infections are multitudinous: insect hives, bacteria, fungal colonies, etc. Even in the case of that one guy with the beetle wife, it was implied that there would soon be many more beetles. So, I think to stop being fed by the Corruption, you have to get rid of the infection in whatever form it takes. The one woman in the statement about the cult ended up leaving, but she wasn’t a full avatar, so I think that would require a bit more drastic action. If Jane had wanted to leave, she would probably have had to kill every worm inside of her. Knowing what we know about her, she would never want to do that, but she also had no regrets about becoming the Hive. Someone like John Amherst would have to get rid of all the diseases inside of him, so it might be as simple as a hospital visit and getting pumped full of antibiotics. If you got hollowed out by bugs, you might have to fill in the space somehow to be able to move, but I’m sure you could find a way. Maybe some help from the Flesh? It does seems to be in opposition to the Corruption in many ways, so that would work thematically.

To escape the Corruption, kill what loves you.

The Dark- Another abstract one. What’s the opposite of blinding yourself? The Dark, aside from the literal definition, includes things like weird science and unknowable things that lurk in the dark. Seeking knowledge would be a good opposite to darkness, but that’s not making a sacrifice or a permanent change. It’s not very clear what avatars of the Dark would hate to lose. Manuela Dominguez describes hating the light, how traditional divinity and knowledge are unnatural as opposed to the dark state of the world. This might be another location based one. Apparently, the sunniest places in the world are in northern Africa and the southwest parts of America, so moving there might do it. There isn’t an easy permanent change to make, but committing yourself to being in the sunlight as much as possible would probably work. Change your sleep schedule, move somewhere sunny, just avoid the dark in general. Maybe even start worshipping the sun; that would be in opposition to the cult following the Dark has.

To escape the Dark, give yourself to the sunlight.

The Desolation- We know it’s an act of altruism. I think it might need some adjusting, though, to make it more of a sacrifice by the person who serves the Desolation. This fear is all about sacrifice and loss, so it’s a bit tricky to think of something a Desolation avatar could give up when they’ve already committed to giving up everything. Well, everything except themselves. Many avatars, like Jude Perry, have shown themselves to be selfish, but I don’t think even they would be opposed to going out in a blaze of glory. No, the hardest thing for them would be to settle down and live a prosperous life. This one probably would have to be continuous effort instead of one grand sacrifice. It doesn’t fit with the others, but it does fit the theme of the Desolation. Yeah, I’ve just gone in a big circle. Altruism does make the most sense. Just make sure that selfless gesture counts. It’s not a real choice if you don’t mean it. I guess that would be really difficult if you’re used to burning everything around you, so maybe it’s more of a sacrifice than I thought.

To escape the Desolation, choose kindness.

The End- We actually already have a canon answer for this one: lobotomize yourself. Adelard Dekker found an End avatar that was killing people with carbon monoxide through their dreams, and he stopped him by cutting through his pre-frontal cortex- the part of the brain that lets you dream. It’s implied that this didn’t completely work, but I think the reason for that is that the avatar was not the one to make the choice. It’s emphasized again and again that serving the fears is all about personal choice, so it makes sense that any attempt to cut someone off wouldn’t take if the person hasn’t decided to give up their connection. The End is associated with dreams in most appearances, so I believe that a person who chooses not to dream would no longer be bound to it. Oliver Banks could see those whose deaths were coming in his dreams, which directly led to him becoming an avatar, so if he had decided to stop dreaming, that would be it. This procedure might be a bit difficult, I can’t imagine performing your own lobotomy would go very well, but I’m sure getting someone else to do it would count if you were the one to make the decision. Of course, Terminus would still have you in the end, but that will happen no matter what you do.

To escape the End, cut yourself off from dreams.

The Eye- This one is already answered. The draw of the Eye is the power to watch, so you have to give that ability up. Simple, straightforward, and definitely fits the theme.

To escape the Eye, blind yourself.

The Flesh- Oh boy, this is a weird one. We have dysphoria, consumption, body horror, I can’t say this one sounds very appealing. But it must be, or else it wouldn’t have people serving it. A lot of the draw to serve the fears could be interpreted as dishing out what you can’t take. You don’t have to be afraid of being watched if you do the watching, you don’t have to fear harm if you harm them first. Maybe the appeal of Flesh is making others share that fear that you are nothing but meat. I don’t think it’s really possible for people to give up their corporeal form, unless it’s metaphorical but I have no idea what that could mean. I think those who serve the Flesh thrive on being “more” than others. More body parts, more mass in general. You could go on a diet or become a vegetarian, which I think the writers may have joked about once? I want a more concrete solution, though. Diets are easy to break. You can’t fully give up food without dying, so I guess you could give up the control of food. Giving up your sense of taste would be interesting, but I’m going to keep it more general. No easy answer for this one either.

To escape the Flesh, give up control of your body.

The Hunt- People are drawn to the Hunt by that deep, primal desire to chase and attack. Humans have both predator and prey instincts inside of us, so you would have to completely leave the predator behind to escape the Hunt. I think a good way to do this would be the get rid of your teeth, or nails, whichever you use to cause harm. Daisy was able to temporarily leave behind her power in the Buried, but as soon as she got out, she started starving. I think this is a good argument that you could partially cut off your power by using a power that opposes it in some way, but you would have to give up a part of yourself to make it stick. As soon as she had the freedom and ability to hunt again, that was when the urge came back, and she eventually succumbed to it. Getting rid of the parts of your body that do harm wouldn’t completely stop you if you were dedicated enough, but it’s the choice to do so that matters. This one is a bit more of a symbolic choice, and you could probably do something else to your body that would prevent it from hunting, but I am going with the cooler option.

To escape the Hunt, tear out your teeth and claws.

The Lonely- Probably all you have to do to escape the Lonely is just…be around other people. I’m sure this is easier said than done, but there are lots of ways to commit to other humans. Get married, join a club, make a blood pact and permanently bind yourself to another human. The possibilities are endless! This one, I think more than the others, would require a bit more of a continued effort. I know that the whole point is to make one drastic, permanent change, but the Lonely feels like something that’s easy to relapse into. Maybe it’s the depression metaphor, I don’t know, but I don’t think this one has as easy a solution as the others. It’s hard work forcing yourself to stay connected to others, and it’s something most people in real life struggle with. Giving up any of these powers is a difficult choice, which is the whole point. Life is hard, and we have to make tough decisions. Anyway, I’m okay letting this one be a bit more abstract.

To escape the Lonely, bind yourself to others.

The Slaughter- This one is very similar to the Hunt in terms of actions, so I think the solution might be similar as well. Destroying your weapon would fit well, but it is just way too easy to pick up something else and continue hacking and slashing away. To give up violence entirely, you might have to destroy a significant part of your body. For the Slaughter, I think we should go with a less physical act. The opposite of violence is healing, so maybe become a doctor? You would have to really commit to helping others instead of hurting them, and that is too easy to go back on. I think the sacrifice made here would have to be emotion. Anger and the desire to hurt would go away if you couldn’t feel anymore. I don’t know how you would do this, except through drugs, but that isn’t permanent. There is probably a part of the brain you could destroy that causes emotion. It’s not the same as the prefrontal cortex, which we destroyed back in the End section, so at least it’s not the same solution twice. Honestly, the drugs could work if you did them long term, it’s about the choice anyway. However you do it:

To escape the Slaughter, remove your emotions.

The Spiral- The draw of the Spiral is the power to lie and deceive. There are many ways to do this, and there are probably just as many ways to stop yourself from doing it. However, there is one way that I think fits very well and is absolutely a permanent change: destroy your voice. This is actually the first one I thought of because even though it’s not technically the only way to stop yourself from lying, it fits very well thematically. Michael as the Distortion calls itself the Throat of Delusion Incarnate, so what better way to break yourself off from the same power then by tearing out your throat? It’s not perfect, but I like it so much that I’m going to pick it. I don’t know how one would go about destroying one’s voice, except with very careful surgery. Or screaming for a very long time.

To escape the Spiral, destroy your voice.

The Stranger- We got our answer to this one in the Q&A. Run naked through the streets, and make sure to engage with everyone who talks to you so that you can’t hide. Utterly terrifying. It makes perfect sense though; we heard from the Not!Them that beings of the Stranger hate losing their anonymity. Whether by switching skins, tricking the mind, or looking so generic that no one can remember your face, being known is antithetical to the Stranger. There are probably other ways to go about losing your anonymity then running around naked. You could get up on a stage somewhere and pour your heart out, or publish an autobiography. Basically anything the Eye would like. As long as you are putting yourself out there in a way that you can’t take back, you should be able to successfully cut yourself off from that uncanny fear.

To escape the Stranger, make yourself known.

The Vast- This one might actually be easier than the Buried, because it’s not purely spatial. It includes things like longevity, our insignificance in the face of a massive universe, and large scary things in general. A Vast avatar would hate to be enclosed, but they would also hate to be made responsible. They enjoy making others afraid of their insignificance, but what if they were important to the universe? What if the world was actually very small, and they fit neatly into it instead of being lost? There’s a lot of different ways to go here, so narrowing down one sacrifice might not be the best answer. I can’t really think of any one action that makes a person feel as though the world is small and trapping them. Giving themselves to the Buried would, probably. A direct contrast is the easiest answer.

To escape the Vast, trap yourself in a small place.

The Web- Avatars of the Web are manipulators, through and through. There are so many ways to manipulate a person that no one action could prevent you from doing that, so this one would likely vary a lot between individuals. That movie director who had people puppet him in his own house comes to mind, I think giving up your freedom like that is a good way to do it. Being paralyzed wouldn’t stop you if you used your voice to control others, and giving up both would suck, but if that’s what you need to do, then I guess it’s your choice to make. Maybe all you would need to do is let someone else tell you what to do, and fully trust them. That would be difficult, coming from the Web where everything is tied together and you know how easy it is to manipulate you.

To escape the Web, give up your autonomy.

[studiothetics]

Drawing People 2

Expecto patronum, my dude. It’s me, Evan! I am but a humble visitor in your land of tumbling, so I do not mean to presume, but perhaps the “long post” tag applied to my last missive means verbosity hath claimed my tongue, once again. Let me see if I can make the second act of this drama a little snappier.

these folks got basic, boring poses so I could use them as simple mannequins. Drawing like this out of my head is fun, but kind of time consuming. Doing a thorough job of the figure before clothing it shortens the time a good bit, and keeping the pose pretty simple removes any demand of the fabric to do difficult things.

Who this? Can’t tell you. Why this? Experimentation! These drawings were great test beds to answer questions about rendering: what kinda stuff works with characters in this idiom, what kind of linework, what level of detail, etc. But on the other side of the arbitrary distinction I’ve just decided to conjure are compositional questions. God I love that word. Composition — The sum of a picture.

Art history, and particular commercial art history has so many good answers to compositional questions, and a lot of their answers make a lot of sense for visual novels, what with commercial art often needing to wrangle decoration and flatness with representational stuff. I’m partial to the solutions of your Muchas Alphonse and kin, but that sort of density and curation of parts is only possible when you’re working with a single picture at a time. Duh, you say and I concur. We have to do more modular stuff, especially if we're going for a high level of detail, and we’re splitting up character and background duties. We needed to find ways of simplifying, modularizing and keeping things unified.

Western commerical art in the late 1800s is really a zenith of single-picture making in my books. It seems to me that there was an endless variety of exciting design exploration supported by real chops.

Luckily commercial art has some answers to this as well. Ya’ll heard of the Weiner Werkstatte? How about John Austen? Oh you’re a connoisseur are you? You’re a quite hip individual? Well then, you heard of Carl Otto Czeschka? (I dunno if that’s actually a deep cut.) Here are some common themes between them. Flatten space, use only a few distinct values and colors and use heavy blacks to unify the picture. 

Aside from these general ideas, we were specifically interested in Austen’s use of orthogonal perspective. It seemed like a really natural fit — centering the picture on the characters with the world as framing, it’s flatness generating less friction with textual and decorative elements and giving us a pretty consistent format to interface foreground and background elements. Hypothetically it gave us a tremendous amount and demanded less work… Hypothetically.

Pyrga didn’t wind up actually featuring in the prototype but I still love the big weirdo. A compositional feature you might not notice unless you a comp dweeb is that they're not fully balanced pictorially. They very much need an answer to their left, preferably above their shoulder. I tried to carry this compositional incompleteness forward with every asset so they would mesh well with one another and even if they were solo, there would be a visual relation with the background.

So bam. heavy blacks, less variety in the linework, very few colors and orthogonal perspective. There are things that work well here: being attentive to the turning edge of the shadows gives it a flavor I don’t see many places, and aiming for more naturalism gets it out of the Hades/Hellboy sorta cartoony zone that it was trending toward initially.

There are problems, too. I’m not good enough to get that level of naturalism out of my head with any kind of speed so I needed reference. With this character, that’s sort of ok. They're kindof an amorphous blob of fabric and that’s just fine for kit bashing different references and imagined bits and whatnot, but other characters have much more, let’s say definite garments. Secondly the spot blacks pose a real issue for decoration, they wind up needing to override any kind of patterning, and the linework on turning edges winds up noising up and cluttering things. The lack of line opacity and overall brush size is also making some detail work challenging, but I wasn’t quite sure how else to get the linework readable with the asset scaled at different sizes.

Now all this stuff shoulda given me pause, but there were a lot of plates to keep spinning. We were in the thick of writing, I was bouncing between finishing up other designs and trying to get the UI on track, yada yada. Petra was on the mind, as well. We were missing some key things for her — A mask and a cloak.

Designing this mask coincided with a push for more overtly greek looking stuff, so I was thinking of how to style a sort of blank face after typical greek statue face forms.

What good is a mask to a very overpowered warrior? Our answer was threat display, what with Petra often fighting enemies that wouldn’t be repelled by armor. This was something to stop hapless goons from running into the three toothed meatgrinder. So the question is what’s scary, then? What’s badass enough you don’t wanna fuck with the person wearing it?

It’s nice to do a little painting every now and then. 90% of this project h linework and flat color. Here the painting was particularly useful to communicate the form to future me who’d have to draw it from a lot of angles.

Turns out neither of us wanna fuck with the Hydratic's eponymous Hydra. It’s a pretty obvious subject in retrospect, what with Petra being a state zealot, but the thought of making that her mask didn’t come up till quite late, likely because in my head the Hydratics were a fundamentally 2d people — wouldn’t you know, turning a 2d idea 3d gave it a lot of personality.

A sasha sketch page. They had a lot of really fascinating ideas about Hydratic garments that made so much sense for their history.

The mask design was pretty straightforward all things considered. But the cloak… Sasha and I had been trading sketches of just what to do with that fuckin thing for like months. It was a complex problem because there were a lot of bases to hit. The Hydratics are modern, sporty, military, brand heavy, decorative, flat, uninterested in veneration. Petra is workmanlike, zealous, uncharmed by culture, physical, and at a pinnacle of hydratic military service. We need some indications of greek-ness no matter what, but we shouldn’t be too greek cause reasons. Getting these competing elements to all work together became a very interesting puzzle. How would you solve this?

For us the answer actually came outta watching 1917 a while back. Both Petra and Io are supposed to have a couple cues that liken them to ww1 soldiers, their experience in the apocalyptic conflict sharing some character with 1917’s hellish proceedings. This got me thinking about more dedicated military gear, and a slightly different character to Hyrdratic warriors. What of instead of hoplites, they were more like riflemen?

This almost looks like concept art!

In research, I’d found a genre of eastern european military poncho/cape thingies that really worked. They got armholes so the soldier can handle their firearms while still wearing it, it doubles as a tent, it’s rugged, it’s got kind of a rigid silhouette but it can be worn in interesting ways to break up the figure, and importantly, it’s got a whole lot of real estate what you could jam Hydratic Icons on. It’s a perfect fit for Petra who’s traveled Greece fighting monsters and champions. Her spears even work as tentpoles!

I can’t say I’m 100% happy with the final design (pictured at the front of part 1) but good golly it’s a hellofalot closer to the goal than what we were cooking up before. So I think we can call this a draw. Some problems on the style front, some solutions on the character design front. But the damoclesian sword of asset-completion hangs large above our heads, dear reader. Oh dam I think that means there gonna be a part 3! Good golly! Check back in soon for the laborious conclusion to this junk where I do a full process breakdown of an asset.

[pumpkinpaix]

Hello! Feel free not to answer this question if it is in any way too much, but I've been wondering about something concerning the "western" mdzs fandom. Lately, i have seen multiple pieces of fanart that use what is clearly Christian symbolism and sometimes downright iconography in depicting the characters. I'm a european fan, but it still makes me vaguely uneasy. I know that these things are rarely easy to judge. I'm definitely not qualified to do so and was wondering if you have an opinion

Hi there! thank you for your patience and for the interesting question! I’ve been thinking about this since i received this ask because it?? idk, it’s difficult to answer, but it also touches on a a few things that I find really interesting.

the short answer: it’s complicated, and I also don’t know what I feel!

the longer answer:

i think that this question is particularly difficult to answer because of how deeply christianity is tied to the western art and literary canon. so much of what is considered great european art is christian art! If you just take a quick glance at wiki’s page on european art, you can see how inextricable christianity is, and how integral christian iconography has been in the history of european art. If you study western art history, you must study christian imagery and christian canon because it’s just impossible to engage with a lot of the work in a meaningful way without it. that’s just the reality of it.

Christianity, of course, also has a strong presence in european colonial and imperialist history and has been used as a tool of oppression against many peoples and nations, including China. I would be lying if I said I had a good relationship with Christianity--I have always faced it with a deep suspicion because I think it did some very, very real damage, not just to chinese people, but to many cultures and peoples around the world, and that’s not a trauma that can be easily brushed aside or reconciled with.

here is what is also true: my maternal grandmother was devoutly christian. my aunt is devoutly christian. my uncle’s family is devoutly christian. my favorite cousin is devoutly christian. when I attended my cousin’s wedding, he had both a traditional chinese ceremony (tea-serving, bride-fetching, ABSURDLY long reception), and also a christian ceremony in a church. christianity is a really important part of his life, just as it’s important to my uncle’s family, and as it was important to my grandmother. I don’t think it’s my right or place to label them as simply victims of a colonialist past--they’re real people with real agency and choice and beliefs. I think it would be disrespectful to act otherwise.

that doesn’t negate the harm that christianity has done--but it does complicate things. is it inherently a bad thing that they’re christian, due to the political history of the religion and their heritage? that’s... not a question I’m really interested in debating. the fact remains that they are christian, that they are chinese, and that they chose their religion.

so! now here we are with mdzs, a chinese piece of media that is clearly Not christian, but is quickly gaining popularity in euroamerican spaces. people are making fanart! people are making A LOT of fanart! and art is, by nature, intertextual. a lot of the most interesting art (imo) makes deliberate use of that! for example (cyan art nerdery time let’s go), Nikolai Ge’s What is Truth?

I love this painting! it’s notable for its unusual depiction of christ: shabby, unkempt, slouched, in shadow. if you look for other paintings of this scene, christ is usually dignified, elegant, beautiful, melancholy -- there’s something very humanizing and humbling about this depiction, specifically because of the way it contrasts the standard. it’s powerful because we as the audience are expected to be familiar with the iconography of this scene, the story behind it, and its place in the christian canon.

you can make similar comments about Gentileschi’s Judith vs Caravaggio’s, or Manet’s Olympia vs Ingres’ Grande Odalisque -- all of these paintings exist in relation to one another and also to the larger canon (i’m simplifying: you can’t just compare one to another directly in isolation etc etc.) Gauguin’s Jacob Wrestling the Angel is also especially interesting because of how its portrayal of its content contrasts to its predecessors!

or! because i’m really In It now, one of my favorite paintings in the world, Joan of Arc by Bastien-Lepage:

I just!!! gosh, idk, what’s most interesting to me in this painting is the way it seems to hover between movements: the hyperrealistic, neoclassical-esque take on the figure, but the impressionistic brushstrokes of the background AAA gosh i love it so much. it’s really beautiful if you ever get a chance to see it in person at the Met. i’m putting this here both because i personally just really like it and also as an example of how intertextuality isn’t just about content, but also about visual elements.

anyways, sorry most of this is 19thc, that was what i studied the most lol.

(a final note: if you want to read about a really interesting painting that sits in the midst of just a Lot of different works, check out the wiki page on Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, specifically under “Interpretation and Legacy”)

this is all a really long-winded way of getting to this point: if you want to make allusory fanart of mdzs with regards to western art canon, you kind of have to go out of your way to avoid christian imagery/iconography, especially when that’s the lens through which a lot of really intensely emotional art was created. many of my favorite paintings are christian: Vrubel’s Demon, Seated, Perov’s Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, Ge’s Conscience, Judas, Bastien-Lepage’s Joan of Arc, as shown above. that’s not to say there ISN’T plenty of non-christian art -- but christian art is very prominent and impossible to ignore.

so here are a few pieces of fanwork that I’ve seen that are very clearly making allusions to christian imagery:

1. this beautiful pietà nielan by tinynarwhals on twitter

2. a lovely jiang yanli as our lady of tears by @satuwilhelmiina

3. my second gif in this set here, which I will also show below:

i’m only going to talk about mine in depth because well, i know exactly what i was thinking when I put this gif together while I can’t speak for anyone else.

first: the two lines of the song that I wanted to use for lan xichen were “baby, I’m a fighter//in the robes of a saint” because i felt that they fit him very well. of course, just the word “saint” evokes catholicism, even if it’s become so entwined in the english language that it’s taken on a secular meaning as well.

second: when I saw this scene, my immediate thought was just “PIETÀ!!” because LOOK at that composition! lan xichen’s lap! nie mingjue lying perpendicular to it! the light blue/white/silver of lan xichen in contrast to the darker robes of both nie mingjue and meng yao! not just that, but the very cool triangular structure of the image is intensely striking, and Yes, i Do love that it simultaneously ALSO evokes deposition of christ vibes. (baxia as the cross.... god..... is that not the Tightest Shit) does this make meng yao joseph of arimathea? does it make him john the evangelist? both options are equally interesting, I think when viewed in relation to his roles in the story: as a spy in qishan and as nmj’s deputy. maybe he’s both.

anyways, did I do this intentionally? yes, though a lot of it is happy accident/discovered after the fact since I’m relying on CQL to have provided the image. i wanted to draw attention to all of that by superimposing that line over that image! (to be clear: I didn’t expect it to all come through because like. that’s ridiculous. the layers you’d have to go through to get from “pretty lxc gifset” --> “if we cast nie mingjue as a christ figure, what is the interesting commentary we could do on meng yao by casting him as either joseph of arimathea or john the evangelist” are like. ok ur gonna need to work a little harder than slapping a song lyric over an image to achieve an effect like that.)

the point of this is: yes, it’s intentionally christian, yes I did this, yes I am casting these very much non-christian characters into christian roles for this specific visual work -- is this okay?

I obviously thought it was because I made it. but would I feel the same about a work that was written doing something similar? probably not. I think that would make me quite uncomfortable in most situations. but there’s something about visual art that makes it slightly different that I have trouble articulating -- something about how the visual often seeks to illustrate parallels or ideas, whereas writing characters as a different religion can fundamentally change who those characters are, the world they inhabit, etc. in a more... invasive?? way. that’s still not quite right, but I genuinely am not sure how to explain what i mean! I hope the general idea comes across. ><

something else to think about is like, what are pieces I find acceptable and why?

what makes the pieces above that reference christian imagery different than this stunning nieyao piece by @cyandemise after klimt’s kiss? (warnings for like, dead bodies and vague body horror) like i ADORE this piece (PLEASE click for fullview it’s worth it for the quality). it’s incredibly beautiful and evocative and very obviously references a piece of european art. I have no problem with it. why? because it isn’t explicitly christian? it’s still deeply entrenched in western canon. klimt certainly made other pieces that were explicit christian references.

another piece I’d like to invite you all to consider is this incredible naruto fanart of sakura and ino beheading sasuke after caravaggio’s judith. (warnings for beheading, blood, etc. you know.) i also adore this piece! i think it’s very good both technically and conceptually. the reference that it makes has a real power when viewed in relation to the roles of the characters in their original story -- seeing the women that sasuke fucked over and treated so disrespectfully collaborating in his demise Says Something. this is also!! an explicitly christian reference made with non-christian japanese characters. is this okay? does it evoke the same discomfort as seeing mdzs characters being drawn with christian iconography? why or why not?

the point is, I don’t think there’s a neat answer, but I do think there are a lot of interesting issues surrounding cultural erasure/hegemony that are raised by this question. i don’t think there are easy resolutions to any of them either, but I think that it’s a good opportunity to reexamine our own discomfort and try and see where it comes from. all emotions are valid but not all are justified etc. so I try to ask, is it fair? do i apply my criticisms and standards equally? why or why not? does it do real harm, or do i just not like it? what makes one work okay and another not?

i’ve felt that there’s a real danger with the kind of like, deep moral scrutiny of recent years in quashing interesting work in the name of fear. this morality tends to be expressed in black and white, good and bad dichotomies that i really do think stymies meaningful conversation and progress. you’ll often see angry takes that boil down to things like, “POC good, queer people good, white people bad, christianity bad” etc. without a serious critical examination of the actual issues at hand. I feel that these are extraordinarily harmful simplifications that can lead to an increased insularity that isn’t necessarily good for anyone. there’s a fine line between asking people to stay in their lane and cultural gatekeeping sometimes, and I think that it’s something we should be mindful of when we’re engaging in conversations about cultural erasure, appropriation etc.

PERHAPS IT IS OBVIOUS that I have no idea where that line falls LMAO since after all that rambling I have given you basically nothing. but! I hope that you found it interesting at least, and that it gives you a bit more material to think on while you figure out where you stand ahaha.

was this just an excuse to show off cool (fan)art i like? maybe ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(ko-fi)

[an-aro-made-of-aspen]

Is aplatonic like a spectrum? And what is platonic love exactly?

This is a long one, I'm so sorry

I'm trying to figure myself out and I've realized I don't know how to define platonic love. I've had friends and I love seeing friendships. But I realized that I'm bad at keeping friends and I don't know if it's a mental illness thing or trauma or something entirely different I need to figure out. But it's rare for me to like people I've considered friends and when I did it's mostly because I looked up to them or I ended up seeing them as family. Sometimes I'd strike up a conversation just to fit in or because I feel like I needed to say something out of boredom or even guilt. Sometimes it's just to gush about something I'm passionate about.

I've cared about and respected people I consider friends, but I don't know if you can label how I feel as platonic or just something on the spectrum of platonic, if there even is one. I feel weird for not thinking about it until now.

I know I don't always need to label how I feel, but I need to see if I even fit under a label. Does that make sense?

Again sorry for how long this one is and if you don't answer it's okay, I'm just terribly confused.

No worries!

Aplatonicism is a spectrum, like aromanticism and asexuality. So, you get gray, demi, lith, etc. A whole slew of different identities under the apl label! :D

I can't really speak for the whole community (or tell you how to label your feelings, per se), but, for me, platonic love is about as nebulous as romance, or love in general. I care for the people around me. I appreciate their presence in my life. But I can't say I feel a "pull" to any of them, so to speak.

This may be different from person to person. Some people use the label, because they have trouble keeping friendships. Some, like myself, use it to describe a lack of attraction (whether due to trauma, illness, or just a general feeling). And some just don't see the point in the label or feel that friendship isn't a term that works for them.

Personally, I feel familial attraction much stronger than platonic. If I get close to someone and see them often enough, I'm more likely to see them as some sort of family member than I am to see them as a friend (which doesn't happen much, ngl).

I think platonic love is kinda like romantic, in a sense. Like, you hear about feeling that "pull" of attraction and you care for them and hang out a lot without necessarily doing everything together. Ngl, there's a lot of overlap between different kinds of attraction, so it's difficult to draw a hard line between any specific experience. Like, for me, kissing is more sexual in nature, but for a lot of people it's very romantic or even just for family (like giving your parent a kiss on the cheek? Not really sure, I'm not super big on kisses in general). And, as a different example, some see hand-holding as romantic while others see it as platonic. So, there's a lot of overlap and room to play with what you're comfortable with in those regards. What labels you may put to different actions, I mean.

It's good you're looking into different labels and finding what works for you (no matter your age) and I hope that this helps to some degree (I'm still questioning myself, tbh!) If you find that a label on the apl-spec works for, then welcome to the group! If not, then I hope you can find something that fits. (And, if apl fits for a while, then it doesn't one day, then that's fine, too. Identity is a journey and there's no shame in going through multiple labels.)

I hope you have a great day and that your journey goes well!! ^u^

[azazelsconfessional]

((so i was gonna open up my askbox again but I got distracted doing this and watching streams i think idr what i did the past few hours, buuut there's something I need to cover first, especially since there are so many new people around! Hello! Especially since so many of you are playing OCs/MCs.

Don't worry, it's a tip to hopefully help you along! It may get a little long, especially as I try and provide examples. . .but hopefully it'll help.

I'm gonna talk a lot about OCs but this applies to canon characters too a bit. It certainly helps.

Tl;dr, you should have a character profile page.

(also remember that tumblr mobile doesn't really have direct access to Pages made with the Pages function on desktop, so you'll have to link them manually in your pinned or description or host them on another site(I used Google Docs in the apst) or in a regular post(this makes it very easy to lose as a forewarning) for maximum accessibility!)

(rules pages are also really really handy if you have alot of resteictions.)

So, in general, OCs have a bit of a lower reception rate in rp. Idk if that'll be the case here with MCs because they're, well, the main character. Housamo is also a series that lends itself well to OCs pretty well, especially non-human ones, but I figured I'd warn for that.

BUT. That doesn't mean you shouldn't play an OC! It just means there are things you need to keep in mind!

Think of all of the OCs you've seen--you all seem to be fun and wonderful people, and your characters are surely interesting. But. . .if you don't tell anybody about them, nobody will know what's going on or where to start, which makes asking questions a little hard, right? That's easier to work around with MC characters--we've played the game, we know the story, we know the characters, so we can figure out questions fairly easily based on that alone and go from there.

But with other OCs, especially those that don't represent charactera from mythology or fiction like many other characters in housamo do, there's like. Nowhere to start. We may see a face or some dialogue, but otherwise we don't have a frame of reference.

That's where a profile comes in!

Azazel-mun, I don't want to share all of the info about my character at once!

What if I don't know everything about my OC yet and want to figure it out along thw way?

The profile doesn't have to be super detailed! At most it shoule include things like the character's name and age and probably things like their location, profession, grade in school or place of work, etc., and anything you'd notice on the surface like their apperance. It's never a bad thing to include a description of their personality too, or a small section about their history/background. Little things that even you should probably know, too.

You can also section your profile off a bit into things like "surface info," "meta info," "things you could easily figure out about them," etc. That way, no one can spoil themself. Making lists like this can help you think these things through if you haven't already as well.

Let's use Azazel, a character that you probably know already, as an example here. I don't have a profile set

Name: Azazel

Species: Fallen Angel; Capra Therian - an anthropomorphic Goat (?)

Gender(pronouns): Male(he/him)

Age: difficult to calculate; several thousand years old?

Apperance age: hard to say, he's not human. Adult.

Origins: banished from his home world of Eden, has been in the human world for several thousand years

Profession: Priest of dubious denomination, most likely Catholic or Protestant; teacher at Daikanyama Academy; de facto head of the Missionaries Non-Profit charity Organization; supervisor of the Aoyama Missionaries

Role & Rule: Watcher; Revelation - allows him to see anything within the territory of the Aoyama Missionaries and anywhere the pages of his Artifact see

Apperance: Azazel is a 5'10"(180cm) tall, anthropomorphic goat of ambiguous breed, with fawn fur all over his body and lighter fur on his head and around his neck. He has brown, riged horns which curve out and back. Though his eyes are often closed, when opened they're red. He always carried around a leather bound bible with an eye on the cover, and is never seen without several chains on his person, although only the one(s) around his neck can be seen unless he's undressed.

He wears a black priest's cassock with a maroon sash and a capelet of the same color, with the same eye as on his bible on the shoulders of the cape, and brown dress shoes. The front of the robe is always open to expose his bare chest and the chains beneath.

Personality: Azazel is kind and doting, very fitting of both a teacher and priest, although his openly flirtatious, lustful, and secretive nature causes others to distrust him. He doesn't mind this at all. He has a strong adoration for humans, and values love in all of its forms more than anything. He's a bit of a passive person, often being unmotivated but working hard regardless, and seems to prefer to watch others and the world go by, although he won't decline most invitations to take part in it. He is always aware of anything that happens within the extensive territory of the Missionaries, and seems to know and see just about everything about anyone he meets, from their surface to their soul. . . .

If you know Azazel, or take note of some of the wording or question marks, you'll note I didn't explain everything(although I may have shared more than you want to.) This is just a bare bones exampe of how I do my profiles--but it can get even more bare!

I'll do two this time, a more vague version of Azazel's, and another that obscures information all together, using the same or a similar format to the above.

Name: Azazel

Species: anthropomorphic goat

Gender(pronouns): male (he/him)

Age: unquestionably an adult

Origins: Eden

Profession: Priest; teacher; head of a charity NPO; member of the Missionaries

Apperance: Horned goatman of slightly above average human height. Light brown fur, blond fur-hair, red eyes. Wears priest robes and a gold chain around his neck and chest. Carries around a bible with an eye on it?

Personality: Kind of eerie, but friendly and affectionate. A little flirtatious, especially towards humans. Seems to know everything about people for some reason?

Compare it to the one before--see how I've left even more things off or left things ambiguous while still sharing what's necessary or surface level? However, it's also not as engaging or as informative as the other one where I gave more information.

As someone who plays him, profiles like this aren't as helpful for me lol since he knows so much about everyone and everything, having a lot of details helps me play my character!

Now, as helpful as this is, this is also a character you probably know. So how about I do this with an OC? Normally I'm extremely detailed in my profiles and such, especially for OCs, sharing headcanons and ideas for relationships between characters. But, again, I'll try and show how you can show some info while leaving some up to people to ask about to later be filled in.

Name: Kezia

Faceclaim/Art Source: [this is where you would put where you get the art for any icons you use--if you draw it yourself, say so; if you use official art from a series, credit the name of the character and the series; if you use picrews, link the specific picrews. DO NOT USE ART YOU HAVE NOT BEEN PERMITTED TO USE. DO NOT STEAL ART. IF YOU CAN'T FIND THE CREDIT, ASK SOMEONE TO HELP YOU, DO NOT JUST SAY THAT IT ISN'T YOURS. DO NOT USE ART YOU HAVE NOT BEEN GIVEN PERMISSION TO USE OR THAT ISN'T FROM A SERIES OF SOME SORT.]

Species: Human

Gender(pronouns): Female (she/her)

Age: mid 20's~early 30's?

Apperance age: older than she looks?

Origins: Tokyo?

Profession: Professor; Witch

Apperance: A fidgety woman who looks older than she is. She looks anxious and confused as often as she looks curious and confident. Wavy light brown hair. Often carries around schoolbooks and is never alone, always with a Rattus Therian and often with a Nyarlathotep.

Personality: seemingly anxious, but curious and exploratative nonetheless. On the awkward side, but can still keep up with the Nyarls that accompany her. Gets into trouble when she gets ahead of herself in exploring and learning about the arcane, but her Rule allows her to disappear easily.

History: Has always been curious about magic and attempted to run through a Gate when they began to open up. Performed a summon and brought a certain transients to Tokyo and recieved her familiar and the magic to use her Rule as a result. Currently teaches at a college. She stumbled into a certain someone while attempting to explore time, and became a fan ever since.

That tells you a fair amount, doesn't it? Even for someone you don't know? It may even raise some questions that you could ask. At the same time, it doesn't tell you that much, and that can be as much of a hindrance for coming up with questions as saying too much can. It's really up to you what's too much and too little. Here's a more detailed version! Some things have been left vague or confusing in such a way that they could be filled in after being revealed through asks and play. That way, people are encouraged to/given ideas of what to ask--and you can still share things in the long run.

Name: Kezia

Faceclaim/Art Source: [N/A]

Species: Human

Gender(pronouns): Female (she/her)

Age: mid 20's~early 30's?

Apperance age: somewhere in her 30's, maybe even a little older

Origins: Tokyo, with some sort of connection to at least one other world

Profession: Professor of [?] at [?] Academy; Witch

Role & Rule: [?] & [?]

Artifact, Summon, Familiar?: Always accompanied by at least one Nyarlathotep and some sort of man-rat? She also carries around a book that's labeled as a Grimoire, but it's rare for someone to be both a summon-user and an Artifact-user. . . .

Apperance: A fidgety older woman wearing a labcoat and a witch's hat. She looks quite stressed and has trouble sitting still. Her ashy brown hair is thin and a little wavy, with some strands of gray. Although she often squints, she doesn't wear glasses. She carries around a lot of books relating to maths and sciences and one labeled 'Grimoire' decorated with arcane symbols from Gehenna and Old Ones. She's always accompanied by at least one Nyarlathotep and a very short, bearded man who can best be described as a brown rat therian with a human-like face. Sometimes there's a normal rat on her person or in her pockets.

Personality: Kezia is a fidgety and anxious magic practitioner. She's very curious about other worlds and has been since the Gates appeared in this Tokyo since she was a child, however she has been pursuing magic before then. She often appears somewhat confused about or fascenated by even her usual surroundings, but, at other times moves through the world with confidence even in unfamiliar territory. She also likes rats and other rodents, and as such will often avoid felines and birds of prey. She has a tendency to disappear, seeming to walk through walls despite assuredly being alive.

She's a little bit awkward with people, but somehow keeps up with Nyarlathoteps nonetheless. She's a good teacher, once she figures out how to explain things in ways others can understand easily, but can be a bit difficult to follow and flighty up until then. Aware of this, she's rather patient, if a little down on herself at times. However, she most often simply has her mind elsewhere. Despite this and the company she keeps, she's relatively sane. . .most of the time.

She shares a name with a witch from the world of Old Ones who made a pact with Nyarlathotep, believing him to be the Devil. . .and the ratman always at her side uses the same name as that witch's familiar as well. It's. . .probably just a coincidence. . .who would rightfully make a pact with Nyarlathotep?

History: Kezia is an adult human from this Tokyo before the apperance of the Gates and construction of the Walls. She's explored various witchcraft pursuits since she was a child, with what was originally a mere imaginative curiosity and fascination. After the arrival of the Gates when she was still young, she snuck over the fences built around one and attempted to go inside the massive pillar of light, which she attributes to the reason she often seems to struggle with her vision. Several years later, she performed a successful summon and she recieved her familiar, Brown Jenkin, transformed into a somewhat therian form from one of her pet rats, and was given some powers from Nyarlathotep. She has no discernable control over any of the chaotic creatures, however they seem to spend time around her regardless.

At present she's a professor of a subject that interests her at a certain college. She's had other dangerous run-ins due to her excitement over the arcane and "darker" arts, but doesn't seem to show any signs of stopping. However, after an incident in an attempt to explore time itself, she encountered a certain guardian of time and feels reluctant for once to explore it further. . .although she's become quite a big fan of his.

. . .i ran out of steam amd kinda lost track of where i was going. idk if that helped at all really. But maybe it did! I hope it did. You don't need to use any of those things exactly by any means, but that's the kind of thing you usually see in profile pages. Basics like someone's name and birthday and age and apperance and a little about their personality, maybe some history. Oftentimes things like powers and weapons and the like. Interests, hobbies, ways they could be intereacted with, etc. Just stuff that'd help you know the character.

I write everything in paragraph form, but everyone is more than welcome to use a more script format. I love making profiles, myself--it really helps to think about the character and details about them. Normally I make really, really detailed profiles, but maybe I'll try and be more simple about it this time around. depends on how i'm feeling.

I know this seems weirdly hypocritical given I don't have one but when I first made this blog there were like four of us including myself. I didn't see the need for a rules or profile page because I didn't anticipate that there'd be so many of us or, like, people from other fandoms or who aren't familiar with certain characters. I'll rectify that soon hopefully. But I figured I'd pass along this idea/knowledge to others.

. . .I'm gonna go reopen my askbox now. Feel free to send asks again, ask about this, etc! You can send me an IM too if you want. I'll properly close up the guest event tomorrow. I'm real tired rn lol so idk how much i'll get done, but i usually do things super late at night my time, so i have some time to pull my shit together haha))

[muffinrecord]

One Hundred Evils and You: Stall Teams (for the F2P Player)

Introduction:

Here is a guide on how to defeat the Hundred Evils/Hundred Calamities with easy-to-acquire units and easy-to-aquire memoria! 

Please note that this is not the only approach to the Hundred Evils, and it might not even be the best approach for you personally. However, it is the most generic approach that is made with Free-to-Play Players in mind. Stall teams are easier and more accessible to make than most Charge or Magia teams. Blast teams can work in the Hundred Evils (I’ve done them before) but it’s tricky and they’re not always applicable, depending greatly on who you fight. In the end a Stall team might be your best option!

This is an extremely long guide. I wanted to be thorough, but I might have overdone it. Still, I hope this is helpful! Some of these hints might be a little obvious, but I wanted to make sure that even new players could get some practical advice.

What is the Hundred Evils? 

The Hundred Evils is located on the far right tab where you have three different battles to fight that only cost a reasonable 1AP each. Inside, you’ll battle against several different waves of Magical Girls (and only Magical Girls-- no Witches, Uwasa, Kimochi, or other kinds of minions will be found inside).

What is a Stall Team?

A Stall team is a team that 

Uses Magia to protect its team + deal out damage

Uses memoria to protect its team and debuff enemy

Uses specific characters for buffing, debuffing, healing, ect

This is not a team that will kill fast, but is one that can take some serious hits and stick around.

Preparing Your Team

Like many strategies, most of the difficulty is in the planning. But before we talk about the characters themselves, let’s take a quick moment to talk about the preparation needed to make them excel at their work. Unfortunately this will require investment in both their Spirit Enhancement and in their Magia (you’ll want several of them to have Doppels).

More importantly, you’ll also want these characters to have multiple slots-- the worse your memoria are, the more slots you’ll want. Essentially, you really need each character to have four of them.

For more established players, it’s very possible that you’ll have several of these girls kitted out already with their required slots, but for very new players, it might take a few events to finally get them fully slotted. Luckily you can do this easily with Magia Chips and Destiny Bottles, unlike with natural four-stars, but this still might take time to build up.

As for Spirit Enhancement, it depends-- some characters you’ll really want that Active (for example, Kako’s party-wide HP Regen heal) and some characters... eh. It’s not as important.

But it’s still a good idea to grab as much as you can. Some characters, like Kako again, have SE that gives them more MP at the start of the battle or HP Regen. This is inconsequential for high-end content, but vital for a FTP Magia Stall strategy team. You want everything that will make a character live longer, heal themselves on their own, get them to Magia faster, ect. You don’t need to get them to 60/60 SE, but it’d be good to aim for them to have all their Passives and Active.

Who to Use:

Let me introduce you to a F2P’s saviors:

Let’s go through them and analyze why these girls in particular are so good for Stall teams. 

Oriko Mikuni: Oriko is the team leader of this bunch. Why is that? She’s your go-to Magia damage dealer. She’s a Magia type, she deals a decent amount of damage for an uncapped girl, her Magia is an AOE, and her typing (Light) means that she should be able to deal decent damage against anything you throw at her. Her Spirit Enhancement is full of increased Magia Damage Up, and she also has the passive 15% chance to inflict Skill Seal on her enemies-- it’s not enough to be reliable, but I find that it’s still really useful when it pops off unexpectedly. The focus on Evade can be useful in some circumstances-- she’s fragile, and it’s an easy way to protect her. Lastly, her connect gives Accele MP Gain Up, which lets her help your team gain more MP.

Kako Natsume: The GOAT for F2P, Kako Natsume is pretty mighty. Her Accele Draw personal memoria is great for getting things set up, she offers good heals through her connect, her Magia/Doppel, and even through her Active SE, and her SE is also pretty decent with giving her lots of stuff that helps her survive. Her damage isn’t the best as a Healer, but her single-target Magia/Doppel can kill troublesome Aqua-types when needed. Her Magia/Doppel/Connect also gives “Remove Status Ailments” which can be extremely helpful. Lastly, her Doppel will provide “Remove Buffs” towards the target which can help with increasing damage potential.

Emiri Kisaki: Don’t let Emiri fool you into thinking she’s all giggles-- she's fearsome! She’s excellent as a Debuffer and will protect your team through inflicting Dazzle onto the enemies. Not only does Dazzle make them more liable to miss, but it also means the enemy takes increased damage from their weak element, so she can also help increase damage done. Additionally, her Magia/Doppel gives all enemies Damage Down for three turns, making her Magia even more protective. Lastly, she has Skill Quicken as part of her Spirit Enhancement, meaning it’s an excellent idea to equip memoria on her that you want to use more often than the cooldown let’s you.

Manaka Kurumi: Manaka is fucking incredible. Like Kako she’s a heal-type, but don’t be tricked into thinking that’s all she can do. She has one of the highest Attack Up connects in the game and her Magia/Doppel offers an excellent amount of Attack Up to all allies for three turns. This gives her the role of being the buffer-- if you’re facing a tough enemy, use Manaka’s Magia/Doppel first and then use the other Magia after. She has two Accele MP Gain Up passive nodes and an active that gives her more Accele MP Gain Up, so don’t be afraid to use her Magia/Doppel often.

Other Good F2P-Friendly Units

Now, you’ll probably notice that I only included four up there, but that you can use five in total for your team. If you need to use a Magia Stall Team, then I recommend using all five spaces so that you have more room for potential Magia/Doppels. The fifth slot can be swapped for anyone in particular, but if you’re looking for a F2P-friendly character then I’d recommend one of these girls.

Umika Misaki: Personally this would be my most recommended option. Umika is another healer, which makes your team even more protective than before, and she can fill a very protective role. First, her connect won’t just heal someone but it’ll also give them Damage Cut and almost 100% Defense Up-- making her excellent at protecting someone. Her Magia/Doppel act similarly to Kako’s, restoring health to all allies and also removing Status Ailments. Her SE is similarly useful-- like Emiri, she has passive 15% Skill Quicken, so she’s a good choice to equip active memoria you want to use often on. Like Oriko, she has a chance to Skill Seal on attack-- not enough to be reliable, but enough that it should still be good. Her SE active is MP Damage for 30MP-- situational, but it can be extremely helpful if you’re not able to kill an enemy before they can Magia you. Her DEF and HP make her solid, not as much as a proper tank, but as someone who can stand in for one. 

Hotaru Yura: A bit of a bold choice, but Hotaru can be good. She’s another healer, but she has some excellent supportive capabilities. First, you don’t need to worry about her dying, unless she can’t Regen HP-- her SE Active gives her 100% HP Restore (with the cost of Attack down on self, but no one is using Hotaru for damage). She has passive HP Regen, Defense Up, and Status Ailment Resistance so she can take a bit of punishment. Her connect is a generic heal, and her Magia has a generic HP Regen, but what makes her really shine is the MP Regen from her Magia-- this means you can use her to keep your party having topped off MP gauges. 

Haruka Kanade: If you have Haruka, she can be a good choice as a tank. Despite being a Support, she has a ton of tanking capabilities, and she can protect your team through a variety of methods. She has passive Provoke chance, meaning she can draw aggro away, Skill Quicken (you want to probably use her active slots for taunt memoria and for defense up/damage cut memoria though), and HP Regen. Her active lets her taunt the enemies while also inflicting a 52% chance of Charm onto them-- it’s a long cooldown, but can serve as a panic button when things are going wrong. Her connect gives Charm as well, meaning you can protect the party from hits. Her Magia/Doppel is also a good defensive panic button of sorts-- the target will deal less damage, Haruka gains Provoke and Damage Cut (and hp regen), and she can protect your team for that turn.

Sana Futaba: Sana has decent DEF and HP stats, so she will do well as a tank. She has a passive Provoke and a passive Endure-- meaning that she can draw hits and also stay alive past one potentially fatal one. Her SE gives her Accele MP Gain Up and MP Gain Up nodes, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to get her to Magia/Doppel. Her Anti-Debuff SE active is situationally useful. Her connect gives 100% Damage Cut, making it a good way to protect the user, and her Magia gives Damage Cut/Defense Up to all allies, again making her a good way to defend her team. Her Doppel has a chance of being very defensive or of inflicting Status Ailments (Burn, Darkness, Bind). This does make her more tricky to use if she gets to 150 MP as opposed to 100-- you can’t guarantee if she’ll protect your team or inflict ailments on the enemy.

Good Four-Star Units to Use

There are too many good units to list here-- believe me, I tried to actually do that and after the first twenty characters I realized I’d have to tackle this in a different way. However, here are some extremely notable characters, who you should bring even if they only have one slot:

Madoka & Iroha

Madoka Kaname

Mikage Yakumo

Outside of that, if you have someone with a few slots and you’re wondering if they’re good to bring, ask yourself these questions:

Do they have good disks? Characters with two or more Accele disks are better than ones with only one. 

Do they help with MP generation in any sort of form? It’s not a must-have, but it’s a plus.

What do they provide to the party-- do they have a protective role, a defensive one, an offensive one? For example, you can swap out Emiri for a slotted Mifuyu since they share similar roles, or a Sayuki for a Manaka.

Last Notes on Choosing Characters

Here are a few last things to consider when choosing some characters.

First off, you don’t always fight every element. You might not know who you’re fighting, but you can know what element they’ll be-- you can then use your characters accordingly. For example, it might not be worth it to bring an Aqua-element if you could use another Forest type here. Just make sure that you don’t miss important team roles!

You can always try to use memoria to fill in missing character gaps. For example, some fights might have you face teams that build up MP to use on deadly Magia. You could try to get your one-slot Touka to work... or you could just use Magia Damage Down or MP Gain Down memoria instead.

Tanks can be really helpful here but also sometimes not. A tank really needs 3+ slots to work properly so that they can have enough defensive passives plus an active that grabs aggro. However, you don’t need to choose a proper tank-- any character with a passive Provoke or Guardian can work if they have the right memoria for it. Just make sure you keep them alive. 

Three healers on a team might seem excessive, but personally I find it to help cover bases. This way you don’t run into a situation where your healer needs help but no one can help them, and you also are able to use Magia more strategically-- Manaka can heal, sure, but you don’t need to waste her Magia on someone when you don’t need the Attack Buff right then as long as Kako has her Magia up still. This is also really helpful if you don’t have any tanks on your team.

When it comes to filling in the fifth member of the F2P team (Oriko, Manaka, Kako, Emiri), I prefer aqua types so that you can fill in all elemental slots. Again though, make sure you check what elements you’re fighting first!

The formation you use can be important too. This one for example gives increased Status Ailment Resistance and HP Regen. Additionally, make sure you place your characters with consideration. Characters closer to the front will be targeted more than characters towards the behind. If you have a tank with Provoke memoria, then make sure whoever is horizontal and vertical with them can also take some hits when the enemy uses a blast attack.

Equipping Your Team: What Memoria to Choose?

Okay, so you’ve chosen your characters. What about memoria? Do you need top of the line stuff here? 

Nah. You can do this with event rewards easily!

Going through a list of everything that could potentially be helpful would be extremely long, so the above provides some examples. Let’s go over some notes:

For passive memoria, I prefer to do one Accele MP Gain Up/MP Gain Up memoria paired with one Attack Up/Damage Up/Damage Increase memoria. That way your units can get to Magia easily and still deal decent damage when they get there. If your characters are fragile, then using memoria with Defense Up/Damage Cut are good ideas too. Memoria with passive HP Regen aren’t a bad idea-- you probably have a lot of good healers on your team, but a character who can passively heal themselves means you can use those Magia for more offensive purposes.

As for Actives, your choices are expanded. I mentioned above that memoria can fill in missing gaps that you couldn’t fit characters in for. Actives are part of that. Accele Draw memoria are always a must, and memoria that help increase your MP Gain is always a plus. The biggest key though will be Attack Down / Damage Down memoria. Memoria like Mito Rain are the best thing possible for a F2P-- it has a low cooldown, effects everyone, gives a ton of its percentage, ect. You’re actually better off keeping five separate copies of Mito Rain instead of max awakening it to one, because then you can give each character one copy-- this means you can use a Mito Rain on every turn. This will protect your units and keep them safe in addition to all the healing you can do, and it also will help you deal increased damage thanks to its Defense Down.

One memoria that can inflict MP Gain Down is generally a good idea. 

Characters with passive Skill Quicken should be given memoria that you want to use more often-- Mito Rain is a good idea on them of course, but so are other debuffers. 

Tailor your memoria to your needs. If you find that all your characters are constantly at 150 MP but you’re never in a good place to use it, try decreasing the amount of MP Regen memoria you’ve got going on and replace them with more damaging effects.

DON’T OVERLOOK THREE STAR MEMORIA. They can be extremely helpful and even better than some four-star ones! For example, Leila Rain is an overlooked hero and definitely worth considering! Three-star memoria are easier to max awaken too, so in some cases, a max awakened three-star memoria is going to be better than a single copy of a four-star one!

If you’re a newer player, then chances are you’ll struggle with having good memoria along with having good units. Memoria can be just as much an investment as characters can be-- so make sure you’re getting 3* Over Limiters from your events and spend them wisely. 

Don’t forget you can negate Evade through Status Ailments-- memoria can be extremely helpful with that.

Actually Fighting

So now you’re fighting. Cool! What now?

First you want to build up your MP for everyone. If you have an Accele combo without needing to use an Accele draw memoria, take it!

For your first wave, try to build up MP slowly across everyone. Use your Accele Draw(s) here and prioritize Accele combos-- even if it means using an Accele disc for someone who already has max MP. For example, if I got an acele disc option from Umika, Manka, and Oriko, I’d still use Umika’s to get all of that MP.

Remember that the order the Accele disc goes in determines how much MP they get! The first character gets the least amount of MP with the last one getting the most. Using the previous example, I’d use Umika’s disc, Oriko’s disc, and then Manaka’s disc. Don’t forget that the characters get a flat +20 MP boost too.

Choose your target enemy wisely. For example, you can generally count on Touka featuring some sort of anti-MP gain/MP Gain on self, and Nemu to inflict a status ailment onto your team. Here, the Rena hits harder than her Rena-chan self. You can’t always predict who is going to use what, but general familiarity with the characters helps.

Some enemies are better for generating MP against than others. You can’t always predict who you’ll get and what they’ll do, but if you come across easy enemies, take advantage of the situation to farm some MP. 

There are lots of tricks to getting more MP out of situations. For example, all characters will gain more MP after they hit 100MP than before they do-- so using an Accele disc before a Magia is an easy way of regaining your losses.

Using an Accele disc before any others will increase the MP gained by each subsequent disc, even for Blast. If your disc selection is bad, try to make the most of it with squeezing out what you can.

Additionally, if you’re confident a Magia will kill a target, use the Magia last. You can put two potential accele discs in front of it to get even more MP out of the thing. 

This line of thinking can go with charging up connects. You don’t actually need to use the disc (if the enemy dies) to get the + for it, so if you’re confident a Magia will kill a target, pick discs that will give you a connect on your next turn.

This is a little overkill, but personally I like to go into the last wave with as many Doppels and Memoria up as possible. Don’t stay on any character too long-- you can only use three doppel a turn after all, and using one of your five to finish someone off isn’t a bad idea-- but also don’t be afraid to sit for a bit either. Just make sure you’re under the 40 turn time limit. It’s possible that whatever you face in the final wave will need more than three doppels to die.

It’s time. It’s the final, toughest wave. You’re here! You’ve got all the Doppels ready and a bunch of memoria ready too. So what order do you do this in?

In general a safe bet is to go Manaka > Emiri > Oriko. This is so that Manaka will buff the entire team, making each Doppel hit harder, Emiri can inflict Bewitch (possibly making Oriko hit harder if she counters the element, though it doesn’t work in this scenario) and use your main damage dealer (Oriko) last.

If your characters have some lingering status ailments, or if the enemy has an annoying buff, Kako’s doppel might be a good idea to go first instead. It’s not a bad idea to save your defensive doppels/healing doppels for a potential second round though.

And that’s it! You did it! Congratulations!

Other Advice that I Don’t Have Screenshots For

You’ve got at least two healers who can heal through connects, magia/doppel, and one through her SE Active. Don’t blow a Doppel when a connect will do just as well.

If you don’t have enough debuff memoria to “blanket” the enemy every turn, then use Emiri’s connect to try and blanket them with Bewitch instead. 

Connects in general are a tricky thing to use. You want to save them for times when their effects are needed, but sometimes you also want to give someone an Accele disk to get their MP up. Don’t get too greedy, but conversely don’t hoard them.

If you mess up and want to redo a wave, forcefully exit the game. When you bring it back up, you’ll have an option to go right back to the beginning of that wave (the answer “yes” is the right button). 

Try not to overcap on effects. For example, don’t use two active Attack Up effects Oriko, have Manaka use her Doppel, then have Manaka connect to Oriko. Attack Up has a cap of 100%, and anything over that is completely wasted. Space stuff out over turns, or use a variety of different memoria to provide different buffs.

Conclusion

I hope this helps! I think I covered everything...? You might notice that some of these screenshots come from different events because I was lazy because this took a little while to write.

There are lots of strategies you can use for this challenge. But this one is for new players/F2P players who don’t have a lot of good units/memoria yet. Eventually you’ll outgrow this team and have better characters to use. There are all sorts of cool strategies one can employ with the right characters; lots of people will try to finish the Hundred Evil fights with as few turns as possible using Charge strategies for example. 

But, if you need a tried-and-true method of defeating the Hundred Evils with easy-to-aquire characters, then the above method is for you. Good luck out there, you can do it!

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “Exotic Lifeforms.”

Had some fun writing this one. Give you more of that alien perspective everyone likes so much, so I hope you like it 

“It has been a pleasure doing work with you as always.”

“Your end of the deal?”

“Already upheld…. Where do you even find these creatures. I can’t say we have ever seen anything like it.”

“We found these ones on a stroke of luck. We do not think they are native to the panet, though where they came from is still very much a mystery.”

“Then what a stroke of luck for us indeed, I can’t imagine having your job.”

“You should try sometime, the exotic lifeforms business is very lucrative. If it hadn’t been you, I would have sold it to a wealthy owner.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because, you paid more.” 

The Vitan turned ponderously on its five trunk-like legs and left through the open wall which spilled a beam of light through the room before going dark once more. 

The doors all around the circular room closed, the collector turned back to their work. The room itself was large and dark, shaped in that of a large black circle, the floors rising up with a steady curve into the ceiling than above. They stood at the center of this circle, and when commanded great projections of blue light appeared around the circle each disclosing a different image from a different one of the pens.

They turned their attention to the newest addition, watching the creature where it prowled back and forth around the perimeter of the yard.

Another beam of light cut through the room, though they did not turn to see who it might be.

The sound that followed was a sort of scuttling noise, slimy and wet against the open floor.

The Mandicar approached from behind and paused just to the right and behind their left side, a lead scientist by trade, she was one of the most important life forms on his staff.

They turned to address her.

Four thick stumpy tentacles undulated and wriggled, pulling her heavy body across the floor. The sacules on the side of her torso wobbled with her movement, and thousands of tiny breathing holes across her skin expanded and contracted with the movement of airflow. 

“What have you discovered?” They wondered, though-- nothing the tint of blue on the tips of her tentacles, the could see that she was very excited.

“A glorious discovery! Very exciting and like nothing we have ever seen before. Each creature better than the last. I have four new species to report about, and add to our collected knowledge on exoctic lifeforms.”

“Go on.”

“The names are decided Duopedus Secandi, Volantes Planita, and Magnum Turpis, Though the children have taken to calling the first a Duos because they cannot pronounce the proper scientific name. It is a very popular creature with our guests, very active. IT has even been seen to interact with some of the guests.”

“Tell me, what have you learned about this creature.”

She adjusted herself clearly excited to be giving a presentation. That is why they had hired her. While they were not particularly interested about the welfare and maintenance of these creatures, studies had shown that a happy creature that was well taken care of was more likely to live a long time, and therefore draw more of a profit. Not to mention that the sentient species tended to react best when there was someone around to boost enthusiasm, and he had to admit she was very good at that.

“Oh it's a lovely little creature, quite adorable really, the way it scampers around on its little feet.”

“Focus.”

“Oh, sorry.” The sacules at her sides flushed purple, “Well we know the basic so far. Obviously it is a bipedal carbon-based consumer lieform. Its primary needs are Oxygen and water. An analysis of its structures, including teeth, eyes and other notable features seem to suggest that it is an omnivorous predator. Early studies seem to suggest it has a relatively high IQ, maybe that of a small child though it does not seem capable of language, at least not that we understand. It’s range of speech are in extremely high pitches, and it barely seems to be able to hear us much less us hear it.”

“How very interesting.”

“Isn’t it! Anyway, I took the liberty of analysing it, so that we might better accommodate its needs. And so far what I have determined is,... well the creature is very cute, but it is a complete  biohazard risk.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean all of its byproducts are completely volatile and hazardous to health. We have tested and analysed some of it by products and determined it to have some sort of symbiotic relationship with bacteria that live in its innards. These bacteria help the creature digest in exchange for maintained life, but due to this many of these bacterial lifeforms are expelled and cause great hazard. This process begins in the mouth meaning if this creature were to bite, it could lead to a likely lethal infection.” “We will have to put barriers in front  of the enclosure than.”

“Precisely.”

“ Now  as to more health related topics. The creature is capable of consuming a very versatile diet though its resistance to infection is a little less than one might have hoped, so it’s food will need to be properly cleaned. The diet itself should contain a wide variety of complex structures as it cannot produce by itself some of the chemicals required to feed it. That should not be hard, I would suggest injecting supplements into the food we are already rationing to it. This should include meat as I have said before. As a consumer based lifeform it both requires and expends a great deal of energy. I imagine it will be one of the viewers favorites due to the increased activity level. Furthermore -- as related to my earlier discussion -- its pen should be cleaned weekly if not biweekly. A clean water source should be provided, one that has likely been sterilized as it seems the water on its native planet was not prone to bacterial interference.”

“Seems strangely needy for a creature that has a symbiotic relationship with bacteria.”

“A very specific kind of bacteria.”

“Alright then, what else do we know?”

“The creature is bipedal as you are aware, though its feet and skin are relatively soft. It will require sand in its enclosure for maximum comfort, not to mention that it will need a shaded place to rest in order to stay out of the direct rays of the sun. Its skin has no natural defences against UV light making me think that it is likely a creature meant for the shade, though I cannot be certain. That is merely a guess based on the very light color of its dermal layer.” 

They nodded, “That can definitely be arranged.”

“Now, analysis also demonstrates a high production of oil in the skin and the hair. We see this as some kind of over-production, so it might be best to add a second kind of water source for it to bathe itself. The skin is water-proof but also requires moisture, and I think that a slow running river through the habitat would be a nice touch for the creature. Since it does not have fur, and the body has to work to thermoregulate, I would suggest temperatures around 75-80 degrees with 45-55% humidity index. Furthermore analysis of the bone structure might suggest that the creature originally evolved from an animal that walked on all fours, for this reason the feet, the knees and the lower back are especially prone to issue. IT will need somewhere comfortable to lay down, likely in that same shaded area I mentioned before. Something with enough padding to support the spine and allow for the bones of its hips and shoulders not to become soar.”

They were working to type this up in a report and send it out to the lieforms who built the habitats.

“What else do we know?”

“Since the creature has an increased intelligence quotient, I would suggest stimulating the environment. Add in some kind of activities or puzzles for it to solve, so that it will not be bored, otherwise it could become destructive. OUr analysis suggests that it was likely supposed to be a social creature, so Maybe adding a ground level window for it to interact with guests. We can see if maybe we can tame the creature so that the keepers might be able to provide it with some socialization. I hesitate to do that though because it still is a wild animal.”

They shifted turning to look at the camera feed, where the Duos was still wandering the perimeter of its enclosure.

“I thought you said it was docile.”

“It was injured when we found it, which was a likely reason, but I have done some tests on its chemical structure, and it seems to me that the creature produces some kind of hormone that stimulates the aggression centers of its brain. If this creature were to get out of its cage and be in a bad mood, it has a bite force of 162 pounds per square inch which is capable of tearing flesh and even amputating small lims on some of our guests, not to mention that the claws on the tips of its fingers can break skin. There is also evidence that it can turn its saliva into a projectile, which means that it can spread its biohazard up to around 32 feet, though that is on the extreme end of the spectrum.”

“This creature is really than dangerous?””

She sighed loudly through her entire body, the sacks at her sides quivering with the movement, “You see, that is the difficult part to determine because…. I would have to say no. It is not as dangerous generally as most of the creatures we keep here, but it is just dangerous enough in a variety of ways that the aggregate makes it especially concerning. Take the fact that the creature is not venomous, but it's just enough of a biohazard to behave like it is. Its bite isn’t that strong and its teeth aren’t that sharp, but still enough to rip flesh. Its not as strong as some animals, but strong enough to know someone over and hurt them badly. It isn’t very fast, but faster than some. IT isn’t the smartest we have seen -- that goes to the Volontes Planita-- but it is smart enough that we have to be careful. It isn’t aggressive, but it has the potentiality to be.” She ran her tentacles over the ground, “I think what I am trying to say is that the creature isn’t particularly impressive in any one aspect, but its abilities are so diverse than it aggregates into something greater than the sum of its parts.”

They nodded in great interest, “Go on.”

“It can run, it can jump, it can bite, it can spit, it can throw, it can crawl, oh and it can climb, that is probably something important you are going to have to look out for. An analysis of its feet and hands suggest great dexterity of a four legged creature that once spent most of its timb climbing, and while this creature spends most of its time walking on land there are still structures in there that make it an excellent climber as it can grip very well with the hands and partially with the feet. The hands in particular are an important structure to keep an eye on as the creature has an amazing dexterity with them.”

“How so?”

“IF could probably perform complex medical procedures if we asked it to, not that that would really be possible.”

“Good, good. I will get this down to the workers immediately, and they will make an enclosure for it.”

“Ah…. but there is one more thing.”

“What is that?”

“It seems as if we are not the first one to have captured this creature?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” They demanded, turning around to look at the scientist with great interest and agitation.

“The body is not completely organic. The skeletal structure on its outer layer that we once thought of as some kind of exoskeleton is not organic.”

“Not organic!”

“No sir, it seems to be made out of titanium and steel. Not to mention that one of its legs has been replaced, along with one of its eyes.”

They stood there in shock not entirely sure what to think about that, “It survived without one of its limbs.”

“Yes whatever happened to this creature, one of the legs and the eyes was removed and replaced with analogues. As for the creature itself, it is very durable, and has overactive scar tissue meaning that it heals quickly and from extreme injuries. That is another reason that I express my concern to you as it seems this creature may not be taken down by normal means especially if some other life form has been tampering with it.”

“That is…. horrible .”

Another long sigh, “I know…. Its horrible what they did to it. I can’t believe someone would be so callous. How it must have suffered.”

“Well, get it moved into a new enclosure, and see that its needs are taken care of. I want to send some of my people back to see if we can learn anything about the species that has been tampering with it.”

“Of course.” 

She turned and headed towards the door.

They called after her and she turned, “Be careful, if that creature is half as dangerous as you say it is, we will want to be cautious.” ***

I was not going with them.

I sat at the center of my ‘pen’ arms crossed and looking at the open cage door at the other side of the enclosure.

These asshole bastards had put me in a fucking zoo,and now they expected me to cooperate for a measly piece of fruit. Despite popular opinion from my brothers I am not a fucking monkey and will not be bribed to go with out.

I had already done a preliminary examination of the enclosure. It was nothing to write home about  -- aside form the fact that I was it’s occupant which bothered me greatly, and made me feel some serious feelings for the lions at the zoo who must have been just as pissed off as I was.

The walls were too high and too smooth to climb, and at their top I could see a thousand eyes staring down at me. Now its not like there were a thousand people to look on, but some of these freaky aliens had like ten ees which greatly skewed the eye count.

They gestured with tentacles and limbs and and any other appendages towards me as I sat arms crossed glowering towards the door.

A part of me greatly wanted to flip all of them off or moon them or something, but just because I was being treated like a monkey didn’t mean I had to act like one.

I could see the handlers moving just outside the cages trying to coax me in by tossing in more fruit. In a way watching them struggle was kind of funny. Based on their behavior, I would wager to say they had no idea that I was sentient. If they ever found out this was going to ook really stupid for them.

Now if they have a plate of my mom’s Pumpkin Pie in there, than MAYBE that would work, number one because pie is great and number two because that would imply they were keeping my mother captive to make pies, which was something I could hardly stand for.

Let them do what they want.

I needed to find a way out because this was DEFINITELY not ok.

This is not how I was going to spend the rest of my days.

For sure.

I had to be smart about this. Sitting there in the sand I began to devise a plan. The important part obviously was not to let on about how intelligent I really was. Unfortunately a lot of that might already have been undone, but maybe if I acted enough like an animal, than it would lower their guard and they would make somes sort of mistake.

Remember, I still had the Iron eye armor on my side, and an advanced prosthetic leg. Not to mention a knife and two spearheads which had been concealed under my leaves, so I was not completely helpless.

Although, you know what, retract my earlier statement. Maybe acting like a monkey is exactly what I needed to do to get out of this place. Make myself look docile and harmless, lower security and get my ass out of here.

Man I wish I was smarter, for sure, but I guess flying by the seat of my pants was going to have to do.

I cracked my knuckles and then my neck.

Time to go back to my animal roots.

Yeah, laugh all you want but it is much easier to behave like an animal when you are actually behaving like an animal.  I couldn’t convince them i wasn't bipedal already, but I made sure to behave all the other ways like an animal, slowly and nervously approaching the opening, stepping half in and then backing out, quickly grabbing some fruit and then running off with it. Eating pieces of it messily and with both hands. Using my teeth as much as possible.

Yeah yeah, I felt pretty dumb, but this was my first idea so I might as well roll with it.

Once that piece of fruit was done, I wandered over and nervously crawled in on all fours testing the ground with my hands.

OF course I could already see the hatch way that was going to come slamming down as soon as I crawled inside. I may be an idiot but I am a sentient idiot, and just as I thought it would, as soon as I crawled in far enough, the door slammed shut. I made a big show of getting spooked and racing around the sindie of the cage jumping up against the walls until finally curling up piteously in a corner. All the while I am watching carefully how they contain me, and it seems as if their transfer method is pretty solid. I had more likelihood of breaking out in the pen.

I wait quietly in my corner as the box is moved, and suddenly the door slides open again. 

I do my best to look hesitant and scared as I poke my head out into the sun.

A waft of pleasantly warm air hits me.

Crawling out, I crawl out onto nice warm sand. A stream trickles past my feet not a few feet away, and just to my right a little shaded nest has been made up below a tall covering. There are branches and steel bars lined around the enclosure, meaning I guess they figured out that humans can climb. 

Overhead I can see a steel cage cutting off my escape from the top.

Or so they thought.

It was a pleasant little place all told, almost like a beachfront island paradise with the perfect temperature and humidity.

I crawled up over to the next and took a seat hidden behind the leaves.

Well fuck their beachfront property and comfortable captivity.

I would rather be a free man suffering than a well groomed pet in a cage.

I was going to escape.

[dandylion240]

All of the story asks please :) (Character specific ones I'd say up to you, but would love to have them be Jonah/Cecil or my usual favorites ;) )

what’s the last screenshot you’ve taken for your story?

2. describe your story in three words or less

Family, Angst, Drama

3. describe (insert character here) in three words or less

Jonah - unassuming, brave sensitive

Cecil - insightful, supportive, caring

Evan - self-sacrificing, helpful, innocent

Jayden - protective, stubborn, active

4. how did you choose the name of your story?

I try to use titles that is kind of thematic of the story I'm writing. It takes me forever to come up with a name and sometimes the name changes multiple times before it gets posted.

5. how do you choose your characters’ names?

It depends upon the story. For my Reagan family stories (TS4) I use the parents names. It's kind of a family tradition. For instance Jonah/Ethan. All boys will start with E and the girls will start with J. In my TS3 stories I sometimes choose a theme for names and use that. Like next gen of NSQL the theme is nature.

6. how long have you been working on your story for?

Well it depends on the story. With my Reagans I started writing for them in the summer of 2019. For my TS3 legacies I started in 2014 I think.

7. whats the biggest risk you’ve taken with your story? did it pay off?

I think my biggest risk is my current story Into the Depths of Darkness. I wasn't sure I could pull it off and the story has changed from what I thought it would be and the hero of the story has changed from first conception. I'm happy that Jonah is the hero of his own story and it's given him so much character growth and he's becoming more of what I always invisioned him being. I owe a lot to @mahvaladara to how the story has progressed and the ideas she has contributed. It wouldn't be what it is without her.

8. what about your story are you proud of?

There are many things I'm proud. Mostly that I continue writing even though sometimes it feels like I'm ripping my heart out to write some of things I write about and also that I don't quit even when it's hard.

9. what about your story are you looking to improve on?

There's always things that can be improved. Writing is a process that the more you do it the more you learn and get better. I could say pictures but I'll admit the storytelling will always come first over pretty pics and sometimes I just can't find the right pose to fit. Maybe one day I'll be able to make my own poses but I'm not there yet.

10. is your story fully planned or are you still working things out? is there a definitive end?

It's a work in progress. I start writing from an outline of how I think the story should go but it's loose enough for me to rearrange things or remove/add things to it as the story evolves.

11. why have you decided to tell this story? are there any messages or meanings within it?

I just like to write. If there's any message in my stories it's that family is important and no matter awful things you might face in life if you have people who love and care for you that you can endure it. But mostly that you can rise above your circumstances and still be a healthy, functioning person despite everything even if you have a mental or health problems, you can still be happy, loved.

12. do you actually play the game or do you just use it as a storytelling medium?

It's mostly a storytelling medium for me. I do play it sometimes but tbh though TS4 lacks so much depth and gameplay I find it boring after a while. I've gotten into playing TS3 again now that I have a better computer that it doesn't lag as much.

13. from basic planning to a finished post, how long does that take you?

I don't honestly know. I've never stopped to consider how long it takes.

14. do you have any regrets about your story so far? if you could go back in time, how would you fix these?

No I don't think I have any real regrets. Sure I go back and think I could have written that better or edited that picture more but for the most part I'm happy with my stories.

15. what have been the highlights of creating your story?

The highlights have always been the people who become involved in my characters lives.

16. what about the process do you enjoy?

Seeing my stories come to life. How my characters change as the story progresses.

17. what about the process do you hate?

When I struggle to write a scene and it doesn't flow the way it should. It's generally because I'm coming at it wrong. Once I figure that out than it flows. Sometimes the seeming lack of interest in what I write from the readers is hard to overcome and I feel like quitting. But the few who comment I thank because that always revs up my motivation to continue.

18. choose a song that reminds you of your story

Just one song....that's really difficult say. There are so many songs out that fit my current story. This song fits Into the Depths of Darkness because where there's a lot of darkness there's still hope to be found.

19. choose a song that reminds you of (insert character here)

Ok I'll do this for Jonah - Fight Song

20. choose your favourite shot from your story so far

21. choose your least favourite shot so far

22. choose a favourite character from your story so far

Jonah is my baby. It may not show it by I love him.

23. choose your least favourite character so far

Hmm this is difficult because there were characters I created purely to be hated. Currently my least favorite is Ethan but it's not because I don't love him but it's because of his roll in the story.

24. are there any characters who remind you of yourself?

Not really. There are certain aspects of me in all my characters or people I know in them but none are an incert of myself.

25. what inspirations have you drawn on for your story?

There are so many. I draw inspiration from people around me. From movies and TV shows I watch. The books I read. Sometimes from the people I interact with on here mainly @izayoichan @mahvaladara @jenpants and @legendofsim They've let me bounce ideas off of them and their input helps me in my stories.

26. have other sim stories inspired you?

Yes they have. See above. All their stories have inspired me.

27. what genres would you describe your story as?

Modern fantasy drama??? I have no idea if that's a thing but it best describes what I write.

28. if you could reproduce your story in another medium (movie, novel, comic, etc.) what would you choose and why?

Hmm I'd say novel or maybe series. A movie would be cool too.

29. what would your story’s rating be? (G, PG, M etc.)

Hmm interesting I'd like to say its somewhere between PG-13 and mature just because of some of the topics.

30. if you were leaving simblr and had to choose another creator to continue the story for you, who would you ask?

I think either @izayoichan or @mahvaladara for my TS4 stories since they've helped me write some of them and they would keep true to the characters as they love them as much as I do.

For my TS3 stories I would say @legendofsim since for a long time our stories had been intertwined.

31. drop some random trivia about your story

Ethan was supposed to die trying to save Jonah

Caiden was supposed to have played the part of the hero instead of Jonah

Cory was going to heal Jonah's broken heart over the of Ethan.

But as they say the story changed...

32. give a light spoiler

Someone will be heartbroken at the end of the story.

33. recommend another creator’s story!

There are so many: @izayoichan @mahvaladara @nikatyler @justkeeponsimming @amuhav @legendofsim @simlit @lilyshadowwriter @wannabecatwriter

Please don't be upset if you weren't listed on here. I love everyone I follow but these are my favorites. I have others but some aren't active anymore and stuck with the ones I'm always waiting for the next installment, even if I'm behind on a few of them.

Thank you for asking!

[kindofwriter]

Can I offer you some: ‘Ep 25, The Gang Meets Wilde’

Pt. 2

I guess I swung wildly between ‘brandy’ and ‘whiskey’ when writing this and didn’t notice, oof.

Transcript under the cut:

HAMID: I don't, I, I don't think so... Um, hello?

HAMID presses his finger tips to the door, swinging it gently inwards but not fully opening it. SASHA instantly flattens herself against the wall, drawing a dagger and clutching it to her chest.

VOICE (O.S.): Oh, hello?

VOICE (O.S.): Oh, hello?

VOICE (O.S.): Oh, hello?

VOICE (O.S.): Oh, hello?

BERTIE: Oh! Hello!

SASHA and ZOLF both give BERTIE a glare. HAMID reaches out to push the door further, but stops before he does.

VOICE (LANGUISHLY): Oh, hello!

BERTIE (OVERLAPPING): Hello!

HAMID (OVERLAPPING): Hello?

VOICE (O.S.) (OVERLAPPING): Hello!

BERTIE: Hello! Hello!

ZOLF elbows BERTIE in the waist.

ZOLF: Who on Earth are ya?

VOICE (O.S.): I could ask you the same question, I suppose!

HAMID steps into the apartment, pushing the door wide open as he does so. ZOLF and BERTIE step in behind him.

OSCAR WILDE is lounging by the hearth, looking only slightly uncomfortable in a halfling-sized chair. He's human, average height and average build, with plump, youthful features. His hair falls the nape of his neck in glossy, brown waves that shimmer every time he turns his head; he's clearly wearing an illusion.

WILDE is dressed in a manner that's almost garish: peacock patterned waistcoat, scarlet, French-style suit, red shoes, and yellow socks, but between his good-looks and his charisma he completely pulls it off. In one hand he holds a glass of HAMID's whiskey, and in the other a note pad.

WILDE: So sorry I, uh, got here a little early, thought I'd just wait it out.

WILDE smiles winningly at the party. BERTIE reaches up to lift the grate of his armour. HAMID looks confused. ZOLF frowns, then grabs hold of his symbol. A low sound, part way between a hum and a growl, emits from his throat, reminiscent of wind battering across the top of a lake. For just a moment his eyes glow, then WILDE's notebook bursts into flames.

WILDE: Ooh, ah!

WILDE drops the pad, shaking his hand. It's burnt to a crisp before it hits the ground. Looking at its smoldering remains, a faint smile twitches at WILDE's lips.

WILDE: Fantastic, that'd be you... Zolf? Yes?

ZOLF (PLAYING DUMB AS A ROCK): Who, sorry?

WILDE (SMIRKING): Hmm.

CUT TO SASHASASHA is still pressed against the wall, head turned to the side so she can listen in. Her face is stony, but she looks poised for a fight.

CUT BACK TO INT.

WILDE: So, that must be Zolf.

ZOLF scowls and looks away from WILDE.

WILDE: And Hamid, and Sir Bertrand, yes.

BERTIE: Hello.

BERTIE steps forward, obscuring WILDE's view of everyone else. Between his height and his breadth he towers over WILDE, who immediately starts to look a little flushed.

WILDE (ALMOST COY): Hello.

WILDE looks BERTIE up and down in a meaningful fashion. He then glances away for a moment to meet ZOLF's eye, just to make sure he's catching what WILDE is doing. BERTIE looks a little affronted at the loss of attention.

BERTIE: Mm.

WILDE turns and begins to pour another glass of whiskey from HAMID's decanter, then offers it to BERTIE.

HAMID: Um, who might you be?

WILDE (WITHOUT BREAKING EYE CONTACT WITH BERTIE): Wilde. Good to meet you.

BERTIE: Pleasure.

BERTIE takes the drink.

ZOLF: Is there a compelling reason why, um, I shouldn't shove this trident up your bum?

Now WILDE does turn away from BERTIE, looking right at ZOLF. It's difficult to tell whether he's red with annoyance, heat, or still recovering from his intense eye contact with BERTIE.

WILDE: Oh, that's not very- You wouldn't want that getting out, would you now? Honestly!

BERTIE (CLEARLY TRYING TO WIN WILDE'S ATTENTION BACK): Well, you haven't been formally introduced, which I think is part of the reason.

ZOLF (MUTTERING): Well, also, you'd be dead, so it wouldn't be going anywhere.

BERTIE has clearly failed to hold WILDE's attention, as he watches ZOLF with a quirked eyebrow. There's no hint of the 'bedroom eyes' he'd tried on with BERTIE, but there's definitely some kind of passion in that gaze. However it seems, more than anything, like the passion to argue.

HAMID: You, you, you appear to be in my apartment uninvited.

WILDE: I do apologise.

WILDE actually looks at HAMID for the first time.

WILDE: I was just hoping to get hold of you, and, well, I thought this was the best place. I mean, you have been staying here most nights, haven't you?

HAMID: Yes.

WILDE: Well, there we go then, I, uh, I thought you might enjoy the company.

WILDE once again makes eyes at BERTIE.

HAMID: Next, next time it might be nice of you to wait for an invitation.

WILDE: I, I do apologise, I, I did knock!

HAMID sighs deeply.

HAMID: Not quite the same thing, is it?

WILDE (EVASIVELY): I suppose not. So! This is all very exciting; I'm noticing you're all looking a little worse for wear-

HAMID smooths a hand over his waistcoat.

HAMID: I, uh, I would dispute that, thank you.

WILDE: Well, let me re-phrase: not all of you. I'm, I'm noticing, um-

WILDE glances at ZOLF, who seems to be the only one in the room not trying to capture his attention.

ZOLF (GRUMPILY): No, I always look like this.

WILDE: One of, one of your party's missing?

ZOLF (PLAYING DUMBER THAN A ROCK): Who? Nope.

WILDE: Oh, I'm fairly certain that the girl-

ZOLF (INTERRUPTING): No, nope, who? What?

WILDE: The girl is. Hmm, yes. Quite. So, where have you been? How was today? I'm quite fascinated, actually.

HAMID (FIRMLY): Why don't you tell us why it is you're here?

WILDE: Well, I just thought it might be a good idea for you to sit down and, y'know, really, really share, y'know? Really explain things by yourselves, because people want to know. You know?

WILDE gives HAMID a very smug look.

HAMID: Are you a reporter of some kind?

WILDE: Mm, yeah, of a, of a kind. I, I, I sell my stories to whoever's interested, really. And a lot of people are very interested-

WILDE turns away from HAMID and begins to pour more glasses of whiskey. HAMID seems unfazed by this.

WILDE: I just, a lot of people are very interested-

BERTIE: Well, you know-

BERTIE shoves his glass between the decanter and the glass WILDE was filling, effectively giving himself a top-up.

BERTIE: I, I have been looking- I very much have an opening for a biographer.

BERTIE raises an eyebrow at WILDE, still leant across him from filling his glass. WILDE smirks.

WILDE: Well, we would have to closet ourselves away for a significant amount of time to really go over, go over the details. The nitty gritty, as it were.

Behind them, ZOLF scowls, clearly picking up on their queer-coded language, but immediately looking down on anyone who would willingly flirt with BERTIE. HAMID shuffles his feet, waiting innocently for the pair to finish talking.

BERTIE: I, I assure you, I have some extremely fine details to share with the appropriate young scholar.

WILDE turns, two new glasses of whiskey balanced in one hand.

WILDE (WITH A CHUCKLE): Presumably you mean of quality, not diminutive.

BERTIE joins in with his chuckle, but it quickly becomes mean, eventually devolving into a deep growl. Suddenly looking a little uncomfortable, WILDE moves away from BERTIE and offers a glass of whiskey to ZOLF. His face is soft; clearly he's looking for a little sympathy.

ZOLF refuses to take the whiskey, and scowls again at WILDE.

HAMID takes the glass offered to him, so WILDE drains ZOLF's.

BERTIE: My details are distinguished by their quality and their quantity.

WILDE (LESS SURE, BUT STILL PLAYING HIS PART): Indeed, I mean, that, that's a lot of the reason that I'm here. I've been hearing so much interesting- I mean, your deeds with Other London? And especially, I mean- Did you, did you manage to catch whoever it was with the antiques store?

CUT TO SASHA IN THE HALLWAY

SAHSA grimaces; tightens her grip on the dagger.

CUT BACK

WILDE: I heard that was, heard that was a bit of a problem, no?

An awkward silence hangs over the room for a moment as ZOLF and HAMID give WILDE a look that tells him that was in poor taste. BERTIE enjoys his whiskey.

HAMID: Uh, l-look, Mister Wilde, I don't-

WILDE: Sorry that was, that was, that was rude of me. Clearly I was treading on  a nerve. I'm so sorry.

BERTIE raises an eyebrow, seemingly losing some respect for WILDE as he apologises.

HAMID: I don't, I don't mind telling you about, uh, what we've been up to. As I'm sure you've seen in the press and will see again soon, we are not averse to sharing our story. But I really must insist that you tell me what it is you do, and why it is you are here specifically.

WILDE (JUMPING IN): It is so generous of you to donate so much to the natural history museum, as well-

Suddenly WILDE is knocked off his feet, backwards into HAMID's chair, dropping his glass as he does so. SASHA looms over him, the tip of a dagger pressed lightly to his throat. WILDE is surprised, but not afraid.

SASHA: What do you know about the antique store?

WILDE smiles, just slightly.

WILDE: Well, I was hoping you'd be able to tell me, all I know is that you were there.

SASHA (UPSET, BUT IN HER OWN WAY): What, what do you know?

BERTIE steps forward, placing a hand on SASHA's shoulder.

BERTIE: Now, now, Sasha. If there's any blade to be held to this young man's throat I feel it should be mine-

SASHA shrugs BERTIE off with such force he actually has to remove his hand.

SASHA (CLEARLY AGITATED): He, he knows something about what happened to Gusset. He, he knows who trashed Gusset's store!

WILDE (WRIGGLING BENEATH THE DAGGER): No, no, that's not what I said.

SASHA: Oh, really? So, you know-

WILDE: I was curious-

SASHA: So how did you know about that? Because we didn't go to the press about that.

SASHA pressed slightly with the dagger. WILDE leans further into the chair to avoid getting nicked.

WILDE: Well, y'know, some people are observant, and some people, y'know- I mean, where do the press find these things out?

SASHA: Well, but- Usually, Hamid tells them!

For just a moment SASHA alleviates some pressure from WILDE, and it seems as if she might wheel around to threaten HAMID. Then she looks down at WILDE and re-applies the pressure; she trusts HAMID.

WILDE: Well, usually doesn't always cut it-

SASHA: That's how journalism works!

WILDE takes a moment to allow his eyes to drift back to BERTIE.

WILDE: Some deeds will just speak of their own accord.

SASHA: Oi! 

SASHA begins to press the tip of the blade to WILDE's throat. Once ZOLF realises what she's doing he steps forward slightly, poised to pull her off.

SASHA: What do you know about who trashed Gusset's store?

WILDE: I don't know what to say. I know that you went in there, and you, uh, had a bit of a conversation. It looked very amicable, and then you headed on your way.

WILDE catches sight of ZOLF, stood behind SASHA with an arm outstretched. He visibly relaxes, allowing a huge grin to spread across his face.