#*falls exhausted on the bed*

[your-spider-bro]

about robot hands and human bones

Everybody has seen the picture, right? ↑ It's by AstroMonster312 from twitter btw

First I thought: "Why in the world does Sun have such hands..? Giant thumb and pinky, elongated bottom phalanges?". I thought it was an odd design decision.

Yesterday I wanted to draw DCA with a certain hand pose, made the pose with my own hand and went: "wait a minute... human hands are squishy"

excellent job, Sherlock

Plenty things that we can do are tied to our thumbs that change their positions under the skin and are parts of our palms, all while the attendant has metal and plastic nonflexible palms.

Was he given biblically accurate human hand proportions, his fine motor skills wouldn't be so, ehm... fine.

He wouldn't be able to connect his thumb and pinky, barely would be able to connect ring finger and thumb.

Thumb movements in general would be very restricted and you know how much of a loss that would be.

Our hand looks like this:

well, approximately

to keep fine motor skills (which are crucial for for someone who's assigned to daycare) designers did this:

what exactly did they do?

Well, imagine your thumb was cut off (bottom segment that is a part of your palm included) and placed where it originally started (aka the second segment joint)

What does it give? It saves the opposed finger function (still think they could place some hinges inside his palm and it would work beautifully) as now the thumb has wider range of rotation

Made the pinky longer

Probably as a part of solving the inability to connect thumb with pinky problem. Or maybe they decided that short fingers are useless. Or accidentally made another ring fingers instead of pinkies and just installed them (I don't understand if they're the same length or pinkie is slightly shorter)

Made the top segments longer than ours (comparing by proportions. And for further when I say "bigger/shorter than humans' I mean the proportion). DCA's top segments are bigger than middle ones

For, uhm, reasons..?

Overall this makes an odd compromise between trying to keep the design human accurate and failing and making decisions that would just serve their function

More thoughts under the cut because the post is getting inexcusably long (and also a version of DCA hand but it's just broken human hand skeleton with a floating thumb, for it looks so dumb that it's even a bit funny)

^ the broken hand

Funfact: our thumbs (with the bottom segment taken in account) are slightly longer than our middle fingers.

DCA's fingers came to the same ratio but they got there the hard way:

Thumb was made bigger than humans' and the tips of fingers were also made bigger as I've mentioned before and thus the ratio was achieved (huzzah)

↑ yet another attempt to stick to human image

edit: I lied, his thumbs are slightly shorter than middle fingers (alas)

While as I said the bottom phalange of thumb is a part of our palm, DCA still has the "original" shape of palm and the giant external thumb (this one actually makes sense, because it would be inconvenient if he had a concave)

He has smaller palm than we do.

the top tips of what would be metacarpal bones (the lowest long bones) are given for hinges. That makes the palm smaller.

Plus, with how his thumbs are generally bigger and his other fingers are made longer at tips (and pinkies made longer in everything), that makes his palm smaller too.

Also the bottom joint of our proximal phalanges (the base of fingers) is a part of our palm if you look at from inner side but attendant has them separately from palm (for obvious reasons - he wouldn't be able to move them under the casing)

I mentioned (on the picture) how the positions of fingers are a bit jambled for the attendant. Let me clarify more: the most inaccurate finger would be index one (since it's on the peak of the "ladder") and the most accurate are middle (except the tip needs to be a tiny bit longer but I've reached the border of my canvas), thumb and probably pinkie.

so the position of index finger is off but in otherwise the proportion more or less works for the attendant.

Yes, I might had edited it so it would be more ideal but I thought about it too late, plus my main focus was on the opposed finger problem

The conclusion? Yeah, they have solved the problem with hand movement. Given that the hinges, I assume, rotate at all angles, attendants have more than fine motor skills.

[leciraofthewilderness]

So, despite some faults, I really enjoyed totk, and on its anniversary I want to say something about it. Other people have said similar things before but it’s really important to me and actually a big part of why the story of totk was meaningful to me, so I want to also say it:

Zelda needed to come back from draconification. The story needed that. It wasn’t lazy and just ignoring “consequences” because (imo) that was the *point*

The point is to feel like there are going to be terrible consequences and then say actually, no. You can come back from this, with the help of other people.

To me at least, that was the theme of the whole story.

If botw was about how the world goes on past loss and grief and starts to heal (how flowers grow in the ruins and the world can be beautiful again, be worth saving, even if it has changed)…then totk was about a more personal kind of healing.

The weight of the world should not be on your shoulders alone…you, alone, should not have to fix everything…you should not have to sacrifice yourself, but when you do, someone will be there to save you from it.

This turned into a really long ramble so:

You (Link) gained so much and now it’s gone. It feels like you’re back to where you started and yet you know you have to do it all again…you were weak and you failed and you’re weaker now…but

You go down to the surface. Monsters swarm across it once again. Other people are fighting them too though. You help, but it’s not just you…

You go to the Rito, the Gorons, the Zora, the Gerudo…just like with the divine beasts, there are friends who help you save each region. But this time, part of them comes along with you when you leave. It’s nice, you realize, the first time one of them protects you from a monster you weren’t prepared for. You’re still weaker than you were before, but someone has your back…

When you go up to the sky you see a strange new dragon there. There’s something about them that feels familiar. You try not to think about it.

You go down to the depths too. It’s terrifying at first. You hate it. You only want to get what you came for and get out of the dark….but slowly, the light grows. You get stronger. The dark feels like a challenge you can face (and someone has your back).

There are spirits down there. You don’t know when they’re from, but some part of you wonders…are these all the people you let die in the Calamity? (You help them find rest from their wandering. The weight on your shoulders feels a little less heavy).

There’s so much gloom. The first few times the sky turns red and hands chase you (a reminder of what you’ve lost, how you failed) you just run. Eventually though, you have to fight. It feels like the (second) worst day of your life again. But you manage to get free of the grasping gloom and stand and fight, as wild and desperate as it is. Beneath the manifestation of your worst fears, there’s another thing to fight, but this time it has a face (a voice in the back of your head says…you know this isn’t all on you and your failure…it’s really Ganon’s fault right?). You get through it.

At every turn in your travels, it seems like something reminds you of Zelda. Her passion, her curiosity, her kindness. You miss her.

At first, the tears you find reassure you. She may be in the past, but she’s safe. She’ll come back somehow…but then you hear the word draconification for the first time. You want to believe she wouldn’t do it but you know her and the fear sits cold inside you. (Zelda is a lot of things. She’s been allowed to be more of them, since she was freed from her hundred year battle, without her father holding her back. But deep down inside her, there’s a vein of self-sacrifice that still runs strong. It’s what saved the world before, after all).

She did it. She really did it. She’s gone from you (from Hyrule) forever, and it’s all your fault. If only you hadn’t failed so utterly in the battle (you can hardly even call it that) under the castle. If only you’d caught her. If only you hadn’t let the sword break. You should have protected her you should have been better it’s all your fault and now she has to live with the consequences, forever. Everything really is on you, you should have been better.

(Zelda POV: you couldn’t call upon Hylia’s power in time, you were too content to let it wither and fade away from you, ready to be free of it. You shouldn’t have. He got hurt, the sword got hurt, it’s your fault…Sonia and Rauru help you channel it again, Sonia helps you learn how to turn back time…but you don’t save her. She dies because you couldn’t save her. Rauru dies not long after. There is no one left to guide you, once again. You could spend years trying to figure it out on your own. But you did that last time. It didn’t work. Self-sacrifice, stepping in front of someone you love, that worked. (You do what you can, to call upon the sages, to help Link in the future, first). And then you swallow the stone. You’ve come a long way, in the past five years, allowing yourself to exist. But in the end, self-sacrifice worked last time. It’ll work this time too.)

You (Link) go down beneath the castle. You were supposed to bring the sages but you didn’t. It’s nice, for someone to have your back. But no one else should get hurt to fix your mistakes.

They follow you anyway. They fight with you, against the hordes, against the greatest enemies you defeated together, along the way. They’ll have your back, even if you don’t think you deserve it.

You fight Ganondorf, and then the demon king, in the hardest battle of your life. You think it’s over and then the demon king decides it’s better to lose himself completely than let you win. You’re exhausted and afraid of yet another battle, but up there in the sky, when you’re falling, the Light Dragon catches you (you wonder why she changed her path to catch you, you wonder if there’s still something of Zelda left in there to save). With her help, you win.

And then you’re in some other realm. The spirits of Sonia and Rauru are there. You remember how the two of them and Zelda channeled such incredible power together. You think about Recall. Turning something back to the memory of what it was before, like Sonia said. You stand with them and you allow yourself to hope. Maybe the Light Dragon can remember the form she took so long ago, the person that she was.

And then you’re falling, and Zelda is falling, but this time you catch her. You catch her. She’s back home with you, finally, finally.

And maybe, one mistake doesn’t have to be the end of the world. You don’t have to be perfect. Sometimes, someone else can stand with you, and it’ll all turn out alright. (You can put the weight of the world on your shoulders, you can sacrifice yourself, but someone will be there to catch you, someone will be there to pull you back to yourself, when all is said and done).

[batshikns]

what should i drawwww

[itsjaywalkers]

making ghosts, ch 9

[skunkes]

^_^

[writerfae]

Actually some of us don’t have the time or energy to write thousands (or hundreds or whatever) of words a day and that’s okay and that’s fine. Don’t beat yourself up about it. There will be better times. Save your energy for those instead of beating yourself up about not writing recently. In your heart you’re still a writer.

[roses-and-elixir]

.

[rapidhighway]

also picking raspberries turned out to be.. really fucking hard

[elenadoeslife]

💀

[mothric]

I think I need to start living my life asking myself "what do hot bisexuals do" and then doing whatever that is so here's a starting list of things hot bisexuals do:

have muscles

have cool hair ✅️

know how to cook ✅️ (working on it)

know how cars work or at least how to change their own oil

be full of puns ✅️

own several snazzy jackets ✅️

get themselves to bed at reasonable hours instead of falling asleep on the floor

own a sword???

visit the public library more than twice a year

have a decent support system that fosters healthy communication ✅️

as you can see I am already halfway there

[wa3jetisbestpony]

FUCK MY STUPID BAKA LIFEEEEEE

[melancholyfleurs]

im just a girl why are they making me work 10 hours a day !!!!! during pride month at that.

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

💌 just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who’s left such lovely feedback on my latest chapter of four walls. it’s been a weird and emotionally draining week for me, and getting to come back after a long day and read all your kind words has been such a solace. it’s truly hard to put into words how much it means when people connect with something you’ve created (and i’m far too exhausted to even attempt it tonight), but trust me when i say nothing grounds me and keeps me writing through all the difficult stuff more than knowing that what i’m creating means something to people other than just me. thank you so much for your generosity in sharing that with me via your lovely comments and feedback 💌

[s0fter-sin]

it really is going to be like this forever isn’t it. i’m just going to be exhausted for the rest of my life

[tendercherie]

You being too tired to do anything but take it would be so hot, stretched out and used while you enjoy anal.

mhmmm now i’m thinkin abt s*mno anal😵‍💫😵‍💫

[softquietsteadylove]

I’m here to say I’m happy you’re back and hopefully feeling better! I have a little prompt, nothing extensive but I’m missing TMTL au lately and would love to see some sweet family time 🥹

"Happy Valentine Mum!"

"Thank you, Darling," Thena laughed, receiving her ever-growing-six-year-old in her arms and accepting his loving embrace. She nuzzled his temple, kissing as he laughed. "How was your valentine's day?"

"We made cards!" Druig exclaimed far too loudly for the front hall of their little house. He held out a red heart, cut with jagged edged scissors to give it a pointy edge.

"That's," Thena paused, examining the glittery glue dripping from it, "lovely."

"This is all the blood," Druig pointed out. "'Cuz yer heart's beatin' in your body, so it'd be gross when you pull it out."

Thena smiled at the cute and grotesque gesture. Unfortunately, it was very 'Druig' of him to think of something like that. "That's very thoughtful of you, Darling. Did you exchange cards with your friends?"

Druig nodded dutifully, although the only friend he really held any fondness for was Makkari. "Everyone gave out cards. Some of 'em had candy!"

Thena was very aware that the tradition was to attach a cheap piece of sweet confection to each equally cheap card. She hadn't particularly wanted to participate in that tradition, and when she asked Druig if that was okay his only response was that he just wanted the candy for himself anyway.

"Did you eat it all already?"

"No, Mum," her sweet little angel replied, shining his big blue eyes at her. Thena just stared at him. He sighed, "I ate half of 'em. But I shared with Kari!"

She supposed she could be thankful that he had been honest with her. He relaxed his posture as she smoothed down his hair, "that's very nice that you shared with her, Darling. Did you make her a card?"

Druig nodded again. He had indeed made a card just for his best - and in many ways only - friend, unlike the garbage he had given everyone else out of obligation (his mother's words, not his!). "I drew a cheetah, and it said 'you're even faster than this!' on it!"

Thena pressed a kiss to the top of Druig's head before standing again, "that's lovely, Darling."

"I made one for Miss Ajak too," he continued as she helped him out of his laced up boots. "But I didn't know what to say so I just wrote 'Valentine' on it."

"I'm sure she'll think that's very sweet," Thena assured him.

"Kari made you one too!"

Thena blinked as the card was shoved in her face. Luckily it wasn't as sharply pointed as her son's. It was also a violent shade of red, but at least it wasn't dripping with viscera.

Her student had drawn some butterflies around the edges, and then a picture of a little ballerina with dark braids, and a taller ballerina with yellow hair. A charming couple of arrows pointed out who was whom, in case Thena needed help identifying them. Her eyes watered.

"You like it?"

Thena sniffled, kissing Druig's forehead, "tell her I absolutely love it, Darling. I'll put it right up next to yours above my desk, hm?"

"'Kay," Druig shrugged, no longer concerned with it. "Mister Dad has something for you too."

And with that, Druig was more interested with the promise of the living room and probably turning on the tv before he was told not to.

Thena tilted her head as Gil finally came through the front door as well, shuffling in with a bundle of something behind his back. "Oh, he does, does he?"

"I told him to come in first, help warm you up," he chuckled, letting her lean against his chest as she got up on her toes to kiss him. "Hey."

"Hey," she greeted, although it came out as more of a sigh. She stepped back, letting him in away from the door. "How were classes?"

"Well, valentine's isn't really a day when you get things done," he chuckled, fidgeting and kicking off his shoes. "Too much chocolate, too many questions. You mostly make crafts, and cards, and try to discourage asking where babies come from."

"I see," Thena pressed her lips together to try and resist laughing. She kept trying to see what was behind him, but he was holding it up high enough to that his broad shoulders did quite a fine job of keeping it from her. "Gil?"

"Okay, okay," he chuckled, leaning in for one more kiss before pulling out a full bouquet of roses, varying in colour from sheer white to pink to deep red. "Uh, I didn't know if you would really want to do anything, but-"

Thena swiped the flowers from him, burying her nose in their scent. It wasn't that she was a huge flowers lover, nor did she dislike them. But she couldn't remember a time when she received a bouquet that wasn't for work purposes.

"Okay, good to know," Gil smiled, putting his hand on her shoulder as she admired them. "Happy valentine's, Angel."

Thena happily leaned in to let him kiss her cheek, still starry eyed from receiving her gift. "Gil, they're beautiful!"

"Second only to you," the charmer corrected as he pried one of her hands away from them.

"Don't tell me you had these with you all day," she blinked at the idea of him trying to navigate the teacher's lounge with them.

"No, I scheduled a pickup for them this afternoon, but I ordered them basically at the start of february," he laughed, pulling her down the front hall and out of the view of the living room. "In case you did want to do something...I wanted it to be special."

Thena melted into the kiss as he held both her cheeks to tip her head just so. She held the flowers out, unwilling to let them get squished as Gil held her waist against him. She moaned quietly, savouring the real, proper kiss stolen even while Druig was in the house.

"So?" Gil pulled away with eager eyes, "how'd I do?"

"It's by far the best gift I've gotten for this particular occasion," she stated factually before burying her nose in her roses again.

"Sorry hon, but that's not a very high bar," Gil snorted, moving back to his work satchel. "And there's more where those came from, but that'll be for, uh, tonight."

Thena buried her blushing in the flowers as well. "I could have asked Ajak to have the kids over."

"Hey, don't worry about it," Gil whispered, "it's a school night anyway. We'll keep it lowkey."

Thena nodded, accepting another little kiss.

"Besides," he winked at her, "I got you another present. I don't know what you were thinking of."

"Hush," she attempted to chide her very jovial partner as he moved into the living room. She followed immediately scooping the tv remote out of Druig's hands.

"Hey!" he whined.

"One hour, and if it's now then it's not before bed," she dictated firmly.

"Yes, Mum," Druig grumbled obediently, although he made himself completely dead weight in Gil's grasp as he was moved from off the floor - as close to the tv as he could get - to the couch with them.

"Come on, buddy, don't you wanna tell Mum about what we did today?" Gil attempted to encourage the boy to sociallise just a little.

"You're gonna tell her anyway," Druig shrugged, in both a humorous and precocious statement. He looked down at his outstretched feet, with his socks with sharks on the bottoms. "Did you give Mum the butterflies?"

"Butterflies?" Thena asked with a faint frown.

Gil shook his head, assuring her that no winged insects would be part of her gift. "Uh, what butterflies, kiddo?"

"You said you were gettin' something for Mum. I thought it'd be butterflies," Druig elaborated, but not to the betterment of either adult's understanding. He looked up at Gil. "Mum once told Miss Ajak that you gave her butterflies--I thought you were gonna get s'more."

Gil looked up at Thena, who closed her eyes and looked up at the ceiling as the embarrassment washed over her. Not that Gil didn't know that in a general sense, but she didn't need such a clear example to be given.

Gil just chuckled, "not this time, buddy. I was getting flowers for Mum."

"Okay," Druig shrugged, looking at his mother now. "What's for dinner?"

She smiled down at her son, preferring that over looking her lover in the eye after that particular fact was revealed. "Delivery."

"Pizza?!"

Thena just sighed and nodded, Druig already holding out a grabby little paw for her phone to select what he liked. She looked up at Gil sheepishly, "my gift to you was that I wouldn't do the cooking, but you wouldn't have to either."

"Sounds good to me," he grinned, leaning over to kiss her above Druig's head. Although when he pulled away, he stayed closely hovering, "I give you butterflies, huh?"

Thena huffed, looking away as her embarrassment worsened.

"For what it's worth," he scooched closer, jostling Druig slightly between them just so he could wrap his arm around her shoulders, "you give me butterflies, too."