#But I'm mostly functional so back to sticker posting!!!

[stick-by-me]

Metallic super chicks!

[visualtaehyun]

Hey, I just wanna know from where did you start learning thai? Also, what advice do you give to those who wanna start learning it

Hiya anon ✨

I'm not sure how much help I can be, considering I'm not doing a course or following an app or anything people usually do for language learning 🥴 I've been learning mostly by immersion tbh - I've been almost exclusively watching Thai series for over a year now, plus interviews, variety shows, youtube content, songs, so many songs lol, tweets, etc.

My personal learning approach is pretty loose and chaotic lmao but here goes:

1) The biggest hurdle for me was the script. Apart from already having started to notice recurring words being said in the Thai BLs I was watching at the time, I also wanted to be able to read people's tweets! In the end, it was a combination of 1) an app I happened to find (Pocket Thai Master for Android, it's free on the Play store!) and 2) the Wikipedia article on the Thai script that both helped me to understand and start reading and writing. Coming from a non-tonal mother tongue, learning the script early on really helps to understand the tones in Thai so it's something I would for sure recommend!

2) I started keeping a lil vocabulary notebook (you know those two-column ones?) shortly before my Bangkok vacation earlier this year. It not only helped with new vocabulary but also kept me practicing writing! Anytime I encounter a new word, I look it up on either or all of the following online dictionaries: thai-language.com, thai2english, Longdo Dictionary (which I literally just now realized can be set to English in the upper right corner, I've just been using it in Thai ever since I found it djsjdh), Wiktionary in Thai, or if all else fails I google it and might find an old forum entry or maybe an article if it's a slang word or idiom. I recall having dinner in a Bonchon in Bangkok and brokenly asking the waitress for chopsticks so, while waiting, I looked up and took down the word's spelling and pronunciation and when she came back and saw me copying all the info into my little notebook liKE A NERD she laughed and complimented me for the effort haha

3) If I hear a Thai word I'm unfamiliar with that I can't look up because I don't know the spelling, there's a few approaches. If I have context for its meaning, for example subtitles, then I look up the translation instead and hope I find it. If I don't, then there's the option of using thai-language.com's Reverse Phonemic Transcription function (this site in general is my holy grail tbh, it's why I mostly stick to its romanization style for any of my #local woman harps on about linguistics posts). Another option is using the papago app's speech-to-text function. Yes, you read that right. A Korean translation app, that I previously used when I was learning Korean and thus still had on my phone, proved to be useful for me to make sense of the spelling or pronunciation of Thai words. At the beginning, I only used it to read me homonyms out loud so I could parse the difference in tones lol but then I realized it wasn't half bad at rendering an accurate transcription! Sometimes I use that feature to check my own pronunciation or remind myself of the spelling of a word.

4) I always like to recommend @lurkingteapot's comprehensive Thai language learning resources post (it's far more coherent than my post here lol). And shoutout to @recentadultburnout for posting about Thai language and culture as a native speaker (both on tumblr and on ao3)! 🙏

5) This might be minor or self-evident but ya know- install the Thai keyboard for your devices! You're gonna need it sooner or later anyway if you wanna actually use the language. And if you're a keycap and keyboard nerd like me and happen to fall in love with a keyboard in a Siam Discovery store ehem then I do recommend getting a Thai layout keyboard (or keyboard stickers!) because that has proven to help me a lot in terms of ease of learning on desktop and familiarizing myself with letters I don't often encounter. Throwback to that one time I was on the train, revising consonants and their tone classes, and indignantly texted a very confused yet amused family member a photo of my hand-written copy of the Thai consonant table, asking how I'm ever supposed to differentiate between ฎ and ฏ!! Even now, I have to lean in and squint like an old lady to see the difference on desktop. 😭

I hope at least some of this proves to be helpful in your quest to learn Thai! In any case, you're not alone on tumblr or in our little BL/GL/QL fandom bubble - I know of several users who are learning Thai, like @airenyah and @philologique and the aforementioned @lurkingteapot, just to name a few I personally follow and who I'm sure all have their own advice to give if you shoot them an ask~

สู้ ๆ นะ :) /suu suu na/

[imflyingfish]

Hi fish hi fish!! :] hope you're doing swell- wanted to ask for some advice

I've been trying to learn how to draw wheelchairs for a while now, hardest part has been finding refs with people in em, do you know what terms to search up to find stuff like that? All good if not, just know you're pretty well acquainted with drawing em so figured I'd ask

First off I'm going to state that I'm not a wheelchair user. I have researched them in the past and have asked a family member who uses one for advice, but still don't take my word as absoultely reliable. The majority of my knowlege/observations comes from watching family members with chairs so it may be biased. I'm going to be mostly talking about manual chairs but the same suggestions should apply to powered.

Searching up "wheelchair drawing reference" can help, but I discourage using google images. Often the images will be unrealistic due to them being stock images, or of the wrong type of wheelchair for what youre drawing. (One that comes up a lot are foldable wheelchairs which are more associated with hospitals than practical life).

Instead, try to use reference collections made by wheelchair users. This is a really good collection by Criptid Cosplayer in both manual and powered wheelchairs. They also have a small guide to designing fantasy wheelchairs which was interesting.

I also reccomend learning what the different parts of a wheelchair are and do. This will make it easier to understand how the user uses the chair, the shape of the chair and make it easier to remember the different parts while drawing. I don't have a specific source for this using photo reference since I looked at real wheelchairs for this. However @/calvin-arium has a good guide to drawing chracters with wheelchairs with drawn diagrams here.

Also ensure you observe how real people use wheelchairs. I find that tutorials for using wheelchairs are a good source for this since they break down how each movement works. This will make it easier to draw Wheelchairs in montion/natural posing. Wheels2walking has a good video explaining rolling and one here for wheelies.

Other tips:

Give your characters wheelchair gloves, especially if they're going to be going longer distances than just being inside. Not all users use gloves but they do help protect the hands.

Consider if the character needs additional support/what type of chair they're needing. E.G. Seatbelts, cushions, cupholders, additional storage space, hight of handles/if they have handles, back height ect.

Check what type of wheelchair your character needs. One of my OC's needed to always hold a megaphone as her main weapon, so I gave her a powered wheelchair with a headrest to ensure that I could still have her move around the battlefield without taking away her disability. Other times you will need to consider the type of chair around their disability rather than design/character function. Make sure you research the type of chair for the disability and adjust if needed.

Wheelchairs have different functions. Sports wheelchairs and off-road wheelchairs look very different to regular wheelchairs so keep that in mind. Always research the right wheelchair

Also consider if your character can move their legs or not while posing.

To draw the wheelchair start with a circle with the figure to get an idea of the pose. Treat the chair as an extension of the character while drawing. Don't worry about the anatomical accuracy of the chair before you have a good idea of the pose/a basic sketch or thumbnail

Remember to draw the wheelchair using perspective. or dont.

Wheelchairs are even cooler decorated. Some people use stickers, covers, lights, fabrics, spikes.

It's okay to draw wheelchairs badly. I see a lot of people avoid drawing them for fear of getting them wrong but thats just. counterintuative. Make sure you research (even further than this post links to) and stop avoiding them.

Okay yeah, thats all I can think of for now. Keep in mind that I'm not disabled and so not everything I say is guarenteed to be accurate. But this should be enough to help you out I think.

If anybody else wants to add on to this feel free

[pilot-posting]

🔞Asynchrosis Pt.1

(MECHAFUCKER SHORT STORY LETS GO)

Incident Report with Mechanized Infantry Pilot, "Emerson" (MIP-80.A).

nsft!!

heyo! i'm emerson, i got kinda swept up in the mech posting thing which is a really small section of nsft tumblr but the concept fascinated me and i love it i love it i love it

so without further ado

Incident Report 14-C

Mechanized Infantry Pilot

Misconduct.

Mechanized Infantry Pilot 80.A was caught activating her mechanized infantry suit outside of regulatory hours. Her mech is a Class-X Haratora-Zed suit, a relatively easy to use maintenance suit with a large number of automated functions.

More beneath the cut.

Class-X suits however are rare on recent expeditions. Class-X suits power themselves through siphoning recyclable organic material from the pilot directly through the application of various "dopamine inducing stimuli" to cause involuntary release at regular intervals. This process is proven not only to be efficient at extending operations length for Class-X suits, but it also deepens the neural-link between a pilot and their mech which provides for significant improvements in reaction times, information processing, awareness, and overall cognitive function.

Emersons mech suit is named the "Nagarrond", when asked to explain the name she started stuttering about a video game, further questioning was halted. The Nagarrond is adorned with a number of non-regulation decorations such as stickers and drawings, ship command has instructed us to overlook them, as they improve her morale.

Emerson entered The Nagarrond during a sleeping cycle, and powered up it's main reactor, she is suspected to have spent roughly 20 minutes inside the carapace before a crew member who had been permitted to work overtime to repair his Class-I combat mech, spotted the activated mech, lying on it's back inside a Falcon Class equipment transport ship, the bay doors of which were mostly closed.

When approached she did not respond to verbal cues. She was poked by the pilot, causing her to twitch a little, and curl up slightly, the mech emulated her actions perfectly, suggesting significant mental suspension within the carapace. It should be impossible for a pilot to reach this state with only 20-30 minutes of immersion.

This incident report suspects malpractice and misuse of Galligos property, however it's primary purpose is to inform High Command that Pilot Emerson 80.A will be on medial leave in the lower deck until her neural link synapse response is within regular mediated levels.

Part 1 of many.

[crymeariveronceagain]

23 and 25 my friend

23. Describe the physical environment in which you write. Be as detailed as possible. Tell me what’s around you as you work. Paint me a picture.

Ohhhh gosh. Okay, well. I usually write in my dorm room, sitting on my bed. The curtains are usually open, because while my roommate will leave them shut constantly, I need sunlight to function as a human being. So the curtains are pulled back, and the light is streaming in. Outside the window, there are a dusting of trees and hills that I've never climbed, primarily because it seems like a long walk, and I've just never worked up the courage and resilience. The school president's house is over there, somewhere, hidden behind a grove of trees. I went there once, and it was one of the coolest houses I've ever seen. He also was holding a party. That may have been part of the reason that it was so cool.

Anyways, in my dorm room, I have a ton of posters on the walls, and a tiny calendar. Almost all the posters are of impressionist paintings. They make me a little sad to look at, because I've never seen any of the real paintings. I'm surrounded by cheap reproductions of art that no man could ever buy, anymore. There's a watercolor painting on the back of my heavy wooden door. I did it myself, at a painting night. It's a post-apocalyptic picture of a sunset, with the wreck of a city in a valley, and nature slowly reclaiming what belongs to it. From the ruin, a tiny wisp of smoke floats up, and that's the only way you know that someone survived the horrors that came before. Then again, this was all painted by me, and I, my friends, am not a very good artist.

There are stacks of books on the desk next to my bed. I rarely sit there. It operates like a large shelf, coated in stacks of books and paper and art supplies, filled with pencils and notebooks and my first aid kid and stickers. It's a cute set up, for sure, and I would sit there much more often, if it weren't for a few things. The chair is the wrong height and the desk is an even worse height, so when you sit on the chair at the desk, your legs are stuck, slightly smashed, in between the desk and the chair. It's dreadfully annoying, so I sit on my bed.

My bed is covered in blankets, one from each of my grandmothers, and an ombre blue comforter. It's got pillows and my stuffed animals, who I always feel slightly self conscious about having, except in my head I know that every female college student has at least one stuffed animal, they just be better or worse at hiding them. I situate myself directly in the middle of my bed, and I will say, it's a very comfy place to be. I've got a lap desk my brother gave me for my birthday a while back, and it's cracked and chipped and beat up, covered in pencil dust and nail polish drippings, but I love it and love using it. I'll use it fairly often, if I remember, because it's a lot more comfortable for my back and head and posture. It also says "You're doing amazing!" at the top. I think it was made for a little kid. I don't care.

I've got a light on the edge of my desk, and once the sun starts to set, I have to turn it on. My roommate and I don't talk at all, for no reason except that we never tried, so she'll come in and out of the room. Her side of our room is cluttered. There's chaos everywhere on her side, overflowing bags of food and paper and stacks of books slowly cascading to meet their untimely end at the floor. Mine is mostly put together, except for the sloping stacks of books. Usually I put in earbuds and listen to music while I work, and some days I try to multitask and get two birds out of the way with one stone and listen to a podcast or youtube video at the same time as I write(not a good choice, either the writing will be garbage or I won't get anything out of the video).

The night wears on, and if I'm lucky I'll type out enough of a story to satisfy me. Around eleven, I'll feel my brain start to click off, and wind up watching something on Youtube for real, this time. I'll snap my laptop shut a little bit later than I wanted, originally, and then go get ready for bed, my head filled with a sort of static that usually only happens once you run out of words to say. If I take a shower, I'll have a mental breakthrough and probably write for another twenty minutes after i get out, simply because I know if I don't write down my idea, it will be lost to the sands of time.

Anyways. Yeah. that's what it looks like where I write my stories. :D

25. What is a weird, hyper-specific detail you know about one of your characters that is completely irrelevant to the story?

For a given fanfic character, probably that the Dizznees have a TV. It's irrelevant and I never use that scrap of information, primarily because I fantasize about living in a world without screens to haunt all of our interactions and free time. I don't want people to watch TV mindlessly. I want them to sit around a fire and enjoy each other's company. It's my fanfic writing, I'll do what I want.

For an original character.... uhm. Amy and Tessa met in third grade, after Tessa switched from private school to public school. *shrugs* It means nothing to you, and it's also completely irrelevant to the story about them. It's so focused on their current happening that the past happenings don't matter. Y'all don't even know what story they're from lol. I should post that sometime.

Thanks for the asks! From this ask game.

[karltface]

This beast is actually too big for the backdrop.

'twas lurking upon my doorstep after work. The paper cutouts may give a sense of scale if you know your Beistle.

My dude had to take a month off, so this is actually a twofer. Along with a special order that won't be in this particular post.

Starting off strong with some random animals. Jigglers include a classic gator, gorgeous longhorn beetle, and a seriously kickass brick red whale. The swollen frog charm is fun, and tinysaurs are always welcome. The caterpillar's a rare single; they usually travel in groups.

Things that are Also Other Things (and trust me, the color isn't any stronger in decent lighting) are mostly Munch Bunch, a series of vegetal charms/pencil toppers in hats that always seemed to find their way into our lives back then whether we actively bought them or not. The Tool Birds are going to have to be bagged with the rest of the flock until I can find a proper tree to put them in.

For a late dose of Halloween, here's a Keshi Surprise Dracula riding a carpet bat perched atop a bleeding skull. Also a few Hong Kong scorpions (both types) and a pocket skeleton, but those are less noteworthy. Also, dig those stickers. Bloody skeleton posing like a frog skeleton. I dig it.

From the Island of Misfit Inclusions, we have a couple more stacking tiki heads and a lone clown in blood red plastic. Probably works for a children's hospital. There were more bootleg keshis when I unboxed this, but a friend of mine collects them, so I threw him the three M.U.S.C.L.E. ones and the third Kitaro piece. Glow necklace is charming, and Tiny Baking Soda Submarine is surely at least somewhat functional.

Arts are oddly bright this time: pretty much everyone is blacklight reactive neon, which requires a more experienced hand to light properly. And possibly a lightbox. Anyway, it's four Dumpties and Cousin Itt, all looking cute as hell, along with the Saucerman's Shadow. Day-Glo E.T. feels like a repop or bootleg, but may have once dangled from some manner of official merchandise. I dunno, it's cool. The button is, well, a button, but it has come days after mine fell off The Bag someplace, so that worked out well.

I still can't figure out what I'm doing wrong with links, but know that these are the high end of the Patreon goodies (even the basic level membership gives a truly fascinating look into the process of keeping the old ways of toys alive), and also available on Storeenvy along with piles and piles of singles. Just look for that Greasy Creeps logo!

[niuttuc]

Niuttuc.... save me niuttuc.....

I'm trying so hard to make a tatsunari sticker deck function. Do you have any insights or off the wall recomendations? Literally anything helps

Mmmmh. My first insight would be that I think the crux of the issue is that Tatsunari seems to do very little with Stickers. Zero out of all the cards granting tickets or stickers are enchantments, and Tatsunari doesn't even play into Stickers' main advantage of staying around when things leave the battlefield.

I guess the idea is to Voltron up Tatsunari with Stickers and then make him unblockable with his ability to benefit it? Or to sticker some of the less creature-focused stickers on enchantments that don't leave the battlefield as easily?

I'll go through with the rest of this post assuming Tatsunari is staying, but I will make a note to take a look at any of these two for a bit more sticker synergy if Tatsunari isn't the reason to build the deck.

(If you go with Brokkos, I will warn you that stickers and mutate have one weird interaction or two, as would be expected)

Now, I'll assume you have most if not all the available sticker and ticket cards in your colors, there aren't that many, so you probably want the rest to be as enchantment-y as possible.

First of all, enchantment creatures can keep everything running smoothly. Duskmourn gave us some really good ones, though they end up costing a bit. For your deck and how I imagine it, I'd mostly look at these two.

Curiosity is a coastal piracy that comes with a body to trigger itself, and will draw you extra cards with Tatsunari and Keimi both when they're unblockable. Balemurk allows you to get back creatures, both ones with Stickers on them to take advantage of that part of stickers, and your creatures that allow you to put stickers on things, which you'll have to dig a bit to find.

Nowhere near as expensive, Fear of Infinity is a prime candidate to be stickered. You should have enough enchantments to keep it on the battlefield, a power/toughness sticker combined with flying and lifelink does wonders, and adding abilities ensures you can keep them around a while.

While logistically annoying to represent, stickers remain on permanents as they transform. That means you can give a look to the options for stuff like Disturb (that are cast as enchantments on the back, triggering Keimi/Tatsunari). The auras these become would retain the sticker abilities, though the creature-specific ones wouldn't do much.

Don't have much more in mind right now, it's a weird one for sure. If you're planning on voltroning, there are more auras you can look into or classics of that area.

[sinnabee]

FAQ

Are you accepting commissions?

No, I'm not right now. tbh commissions stress me out a lot lol, and i kind of function on a "i can only get myself to work on this if i am personally invested in it" type basis, and people like to commission for fandoms that i'm not always in - which makes it super hard for me to work on! AHH. if i ever do open them up though, you'll see a post about it! :D

Update: I am! Currently they’re closed to the larger public, as I’m doing limited comms for some friends in discord servers first as a bit of a test run. (You might have seen me post a few things!!) But it’s been going well! I think once I’m through with these, I’ll open up comms for realsies. ^^ Keep an eye out for the post!

Can I repost your art on Instagram/Pinterest/Tiktok/Wherever?

Nope! (: Don’t even bother asking lol! Idk why you’d want to repost it at all tbh, i am not that popular, most of my art is sketches bUT IF you feel the need to, just know that I’m not cool with it! I don’t really want my art on platforms that I’m not also on, and even if I’ve got an account there, well. My brother in christ, if I wanted it there, I would have posted it!!! I don’t care if you give credit, or even link back to my blog. Just…don’t do it, pal. thanks.

Do you do drawing requests?

Yep! Not all the time - only every now and then, and I usually only allow for about 3 requests. I make a post every time I open them up, and it's usually updated (all the slots filled) within a few hours or so. If you don't see a recent post about requests being open, or see it on the pinned post announcements, then they aren't open atm. :)

Do you draw NSFW?

This is a new development - but lmao yeah I do! However, you almost certainly won’t be seeing it show up on my art blog here. For the most part, I try to limit myself to “suggestive” rather than straight up nsfw when I post art. That means I won’t really be taking requests (or comms) for NSFW, either, not to mention I’m only just getting a handle on drawing it.

That being said - PLEASE don't send me messages about NSFW things, or with NSFW content or images. I’m talking asks, mostly. That shit gets deleted fam. >:T That would include like, something super gore-y or needlessly gross, btw. I'd rather just avoid people trying to show me that stuff all together.

Please also don’t send me unsolicited NSFW, either. I love my followers! But receiving like - explicit excerpts or images from someone I don’t know, but that follows me, is very jarring.

Again, that being said - if you want to write or draw something based off of one of my more suggestive doodles, just let me know!!! I’d LOVE to know!!!Asking for permission and then writing and posting something to Ao3 or what have you is a totally different ball game than dm-ing me something unprompted/un-solicited.

Do you reblog NSFW?

Like I’ve said before - I have zero problem with NSFW. I’m not going to reblog explicit NSFW content here - if I ever had a need to, I guess I’d make a side blog for it? BUT

Every now and then I might reblog some suggestive content or something with some partial nudity. Whenever that happens, I’ll tag the post for people who want to avoid that content - typically with these tags!

#cw partial nudity

#cw nudity

#cw suggestive

#cw slightly NSFW

If you don’t want to see them, please go ahead and blacklist these tags! I know most of my followers are here for Sun and Moon content, so I’m giving y’all a way to avoid this stuff. ^^

Do you have a twitter?

yeah i have a twitter, and it's the same username as here, but i uuuuuh barely use it? lol. it doesn't really get updated much;;;; i MIGHT start using it more for sticker stuff tho, so we'll see. i won't STOP you from finding it (it ain't hard) but like, idk why you'd want to atm

Why do you love bees so much?

okay like have you. have you LOOKED at them??? they're just fat little boys. bumbling little lads. they buzz and they collect pollen and make honey and are just wonderful all around. how could i NOT love them. also at this point it's like, My Brand™ lol. I prefer to go by Sinna but you can't forget the bee. LOVE bees. :D

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

Goddamn it Kyra I wasn't even interested in the Lego Lokis before, but now that you've so rudely posted pics of the options I'm probably going to have to buy some. So, couple questions: I'm not familiar with the website you linked to (it doesn't help that I'm on my phone lol) - do you get them from that site or just Aliexpress? I've kind of poked around there but I don't think I've ever actually bought anything - do you have links to those ones you bought or any tips for finding them on the site? (or like. using the site in general without getting scammed or something? Idk much about it other than stuff being low priced lol).

😇😇😇

putting the rest behind a cut because oops this got long

OKAY SO the cool thing about knockoff Lego figures is that a) there are a ton of them, so you can probably find multiple versions of most characters, and b) they're super cheap, so if you do end up getting ripped off, you're probably only out a few bucks. plus if you don't get ripped off, you feel like a genius, because authentic Lego minifigs tend to cost way more than they should (and if you get them online, you probably don't have a good way to know that they're authentic) and here you are getting something just as good or better for way less.

the site I was getting pictures from is HeroBloks, which I only just discovered myself a couple days ago; it looks like mostly it's good for tracking your collection (and learning more about bootleg Lego minifigs in general, maybe--I didn't really realize until now how many different companies there are making Lego-like minifigs) rather than buying, with individual pages including sale links that are only mildly useful. like, the extremely sad TVA Loki has an AliExpress search link that apparently just searches for "blocks," which is the least helpful search term imaginable; the eBay link uses "xinh+xh1745+loki (tva)" as the search term and that's definitely better, although it doesn't actually turn up anything. maybe that one's too new to be widely available yet, I don't know. (I hope that's the case. I need him and his sad little face to come and live with me.)

anyway--eBay is a possible source. searching for "loki minifigure" gets me results for several of the new ones I’ve been seeing, and they all seem to be shipping from Japan or South Korea. the problem is they're all selling for $4.99 plus $7.49 shipping each, which is...more than I want to spend on something I know is a knockoff of some kind when I don't know anything about the quality control and I'm not guaranteed to get what's in the picture. (here's another listing asking $40 total for all 8 figures I bought yesterday, which is actually a better price, and I'd probably end up doing that if I hadn't found them elsewhere, but that's because I have a problem.)

this is why I like AliExpress, because the risks are slightly higher but the prices tend to be much lower, even with shipping prices having gone up a bit over the last couple years. as I understand it, the site is basically just a huge marketplace for tons of different sellers in Asia, like if eBay only allowed fixed-price listings and it was based in China. the vast majority of the site reads like it went through Google Translate, because it probably did. you can find...basically anything there. I have no idea if any of it's authentic. (I also don't know anything about how or where any of the knockoff stuff is made, so...there is that.) I would not, for instance, drop $300 on a Hot Toys Loki from here, even though I absolutely would have the option to do so, for the obvious reason that I'm not going to risk that much money on an item that might be a cheap knockoff or could arrive broken. there is, in general, a solid possibility of breakable things arriving broken, because decent packaging costs more. cheap shipping will be slow (by which I mean like...up to 90 days), and most purchases either won't have tracking at all or won't have accurate tracking, so this is absolutely not a place to buy anything you want to get quickly. you also don't want to just buy something and forget about it, because there are (variable but generous) time limits past which you can't get a refund if you don't receive your items. the site's UI is...mostly functional. you often have to get a little creative with your search terms to find what you want (and sometimes you won’t find what you want through searching, but through looking at related items on the pages of things that aren’t quite what you want or are what you want but aren’t a good price). you will, absolutely, come across a lot of stolen art on things like pins, t-shirts, stickers, and phone cases, which you might not realize until you see something you recognize from a fanartist you like, and obviously that sucks. listing photos are nearly always stock photos, so in many cases they won't tell you anything about the item you're actually getting. you know the Wish app, and all the crazy things people get from that? you can find all the same stuff on AliExpress, at similar levels of quality.

however, if you approach it keeping all that in mind, it can be a great resource. I can't make any guarantees about the site's safety, but to the best of my knowledge it's secure and I've never had any weird charges show up after buying something. it's also my understanding that Alibaba, the parent company, is more or less the Chinese equivalent of Amazon in terms of the amount of business it does, which would probably be pretty tough if customer data were routinely being exposed to thieves, you know? I've also successfully gotten several refunds for items that never arrived, which actually hasn't happened all that often--but knowing that it can happen and that the return period expires, I’ll check back on the site if it seems like it’s been an unusually long time and I’ll make a reminder for myself of the deadline so I can contact the seller in time if necessary.

so the way I shop there is, I don't buy expensive or fragile things in general, because I recognize there's a nonzero chance I'll get a cheap knockoff, or something that was broken in transit because the seller tossed it in a box with no padding and called it good, or sometimes nothing at all. but like eBay, the sellers and items have ratings and reviews from customers, so that helps avoid some risk. items with lots of reviews tend to include at least a few customer photos, which are great for getting a better idea of what the thing you're buying actually looks like. I took a bit of a risk last year buying a Hot Toys (or the equivalent, I actually have no idea) Steve Rogers head for about $20, for instance, but I wasn't super worried about it because the customer photos looked good, the seller I used had a lot of sales and a lot of good ratings, and it was still a lot less than I would've paid for an authentic Hot Toys Steve Rogers head--and in fact he got here just fine and he looked fantastic. I also spent about $20 for a knockoff Iron Studios Loki statue, because in that case it was like...yep I’d love the real thing, nope I’m not willing to spend hundreds of dollars on it, yep I am willing to spend $20 on something that doesn’t look quite as nice but still looks good enough for me in the customer photos. well, and I’ve also bought knockoffs I knew would look bad, because they were cheap and I want all the Lokis and I have enough of an addiction that all the Lokis does in fact sometimes mean “even ones that look really bad��� to me.

anyway, uh, Lego-type minifigs. this is an especially good area to go knockoff, because--okay, apparently I can’t link to a page of HeroBloks search results for some reason, but it’s the best resource I’ve found for this type of thing that isn’t just authentic Lego figures. but if you go there and do a search for “loki” you’ll get a bunch of results and you’ll see that they come from like...9 or 10 different brands. Lego specifically has only four Loki options: Avengers Loki in black, Avengers Loki in gray for some reason (which, frankly, looks like a cheap knockoff but isn’t), movie-inaccurate Ragnarok Loki with the blue outfit and the full helmet, an ugly Classic Loki, and a mostly green Loki from I guess the first Thor movie (and then I think they’re going to release a TVA Loki, a Sylvie, and a Throg). all those other results--all those different outfits from every single Loki appearance, and different variations on those outfits, nearly all of them more screen-accurate and/or detailed than the Lego versions--are technically knockoffs. they’re better and you can buy them for way less. (I mean, a lot of them are new so I don’t have them yet, but I do have frost giant Loki, better Ragnarok Loki, better Avengers Loki, opera Loki who actually has another face that’s half-Jotun, and at least one chrome-helmet option, and they all look basically like the photos. so I think I can reasonably expect most of the new ones to look basically like their photos too.) 

for reasons that I don’t understand aside from a vague guess that it’s copyright-related, AliExpress pretty much no longer shows full pictures of Lego-type figures in their listings--instead, you have to pick just based on the heads. this is a problem when lots of heads look very similar to each other! luckily, the listings also typically have the actual serial numbers for each figure, as do the HeroBloks listings, so you can cross-reference them to see what you’re really getting. for instance let’s take this listing because it’s cheap and it offers most of the Loki figures that are currently available. say you’re interested in one of the horn-less Lokis. there are...let’s see, five of them, but you have no idea what they actually look like aside from slightly different facial expressions and maybe weapons. however, the first one listed says XH1359 for its color...and what do you know, 1359 is the serial number for this Loki by a company called Xinh. okay cool, how about the last one? the “color” is listed as WM2182--and yes, HeroBloks has a listing for a Ragnarok Loki from World Minifigures with the serial number 2182. (I just ordered all 8 of the new World Minifigures ones yesterday, so again, I can’t personally guarantee yet that they’ll look as good in person as in the pictures--but I think they probably will, and more importantly they cost a whole dollar each.) and if HeroBloks doesn’t have a particular figure, you can probably find something useful just by googling the serial number.

I specifically bought from this listing yesterday because they currently have a bit of a sale going and a deal for free shipping if you buy 10 figures, and I wanted a couple duplicates, so it worked out to be the cheapest option. the same store has another listing for a bunch more Marvel characters, including a couple more Lokis I already had, so it should be pretty easy to get the free shipping so the figures are less than a dollar each and you’re only risking about $10. if you’d rather try one or two and see how it goes, it looks like this listing is probably the cheapest, with figures currently going for a little over a dollar each once you add shipping (although it’s totally possible shipping is more for me because Alaska).

that’s...probably already way more information than you really wanted, but I hope at least some of it makes sense. feel free to ask other specific questions if they come up--I might not be able to give answers exactly, but I can probably tell you what my experience has been, which is better than nothing.

[abhorrenttheorizer]

Waaah more late replies!!! Sorry I haven't been on in a while

Paraphrasing your reply to the best of my abilities because Tumblr is... "functionally incompetent" and won't let me copy any replies.

"I feel like most of the kingdom is geologically incompatible for farming. Perhaps they farmed in other areas we can't see, or there was bartering and trade rather than mass production."

I agree with this, because I forgot to mention that it might be possible to grow certain foods in the Sky kingdom. Foraging/gathering may also have been a thing, due to how primitive certain aspects of their technological understanding is. Also, if you watched the Switch trailer, there's actually some lore that Isle used to have a lot of grass and possibly fertile soil. Same could apply to other open areas like Wasteland. However, in the "modern" age of Sky's kingdom, there's only certain parts of prairie and forest that can cultivate anything, leaving much fewer options.

"Personally, I'm not sure skids need to eat."

Another piece of information that I agree with, and forgot to mention was that yea, skids and spirits more likely than not wouldn't eat often (there's no bathrooms in Sky, there's not much of a food culture, and eating a lot seems to count as a luxury more than a need ex. Days of Feast). I should have specified that better in my original post.

"They don't have much of a mouth, and even in that sticker they are only holding the utensils. I think they do eat, but not out of any necessity. I'm not sure if they would count as an obligate anything if there isn't a need."

(sorry if this reply comes off as a bit blunt, I am just a zoology nut 😔)

Firstly, I think that skid fingers and mouths aren't modeled due to style cloice or modelling convenience, but that is only a speculation, so take that comment with a grain of salt haha.

Secondly I would also like to add that you wouldn't necessarily hold utensils while staring at a boiling crab in a pot when neither you nor your kin have any intention of eating it. The fact that they even have utensils and can cook and prepare food to begin with implies that they eat, and have a need to do so, even if it's sparingly.

Not needing to eat often also doesn't negate the fact that when an animal does eat, it prefers to eat certain things that will provide nutrients said animal needs. Many animals (mostly carnivorous in nature but there are some herbivores and omnivores) can go days, months, even decades without eating, but when they do eat, they eat what their body is able to process. Crocodiles and snakes for example are obligate carnivores. The fact that they can go weeks, sometimes months without eating doesn't mean that they are no longer obligated to eat meat.

"I'm not sure the crab roasting example would count, because that's an ancestor spirit doing that, and one without much choice. Do you see anything else to eat there?"

Looking back on my original post, I included both skids and spirits together in my theory, so it counts. Now I could be wrong in my assumption, but this is because I believe that skids and spirits are the same species, with most spirits being just what teen and adult skids look like.

I excitedly included the crab roasting as an example that they eat. There are instances where spirits gathered mushrooms, farmed, and drank liquor, however they don't really show then eating anything, only drinking booze "dark water". The crab example is one of very few instances of them obviously cooking something with intent to eat it. Again I was vague with this, my bad.

Hopefully these clarifications were able to fix up some of the holes in my theory. I'll expand more on skid carnivory in later posts, and with more carefulness in how I portray info. Again, hope these touch-ups help haha

Friendly reminder that there are almost no plant-based farms or agricultural areas in Sky.

Which leads me to believe that most, if not all of their dietary needs (both skids and spirits alike) are met by hunting, rather than growing anything.

There's the "farm" in the Forgotten Ark area, but that's the only recorded agricultural phenomenon, which may or may not imply that they have very poor, or developing skills in growing food. There's also no proof that the spirits will even eat whatever's been planted.

Besides the farm found in the Golden Wasteland, there's zero evidence of farming anything that isn't animals (butterflies and other light creatures), or plants used for utility (although due to a lack of trees in much of Sky's kingdom, most tools and furniture are made of stone, rather than branches), and fashion (tangerines?? Nah m8 that's a hat).

Now in my own little headcanons, I do think these guys occasionally eat fruits and other sweet things, because they enjoy sweets. However, in "canon", we only have two pieces of evidence that skids and spirits even eat, and it's not the birthday cakes, the moon cake bunnies or the tangerines...

Firstly, this area

I don't see any onions or peppers on that crab kebab...

Also take a look at these OFFICIAL MERCH??????????? chat stickers:

N'aww, look how cute. Look at these tiny baby children doing tiny baby children things. And look, they eat!

There's a ruthless and bloodthirsty apex predator lurking inside that tiny little baby scrunkly

So in conclusion...

The spirits of Sky,

And the children of Sky,

Are primarily, if not obligate carnivores.

This is your only warning.