#I AM.... JUST... BITING AT MY HANDS.

[xitsensunmoon]

My first ever comic con! And first cosplay too. Of course it's gonna be my boy :] Ramblings about the process are under the cut(Let me know if?? You would want me to elaborate with process images for any of the steps?)

The costume took me forever to make, as I've never done any machine sewing, sculpting, fabric dying or spray painting before but learning all of these was so fucking fun!! I never realised just how many different skills go into making a cosplay but it was so worth it!!!

Almost all of the clothes(except the hat) were purchased first as bases, but all of the detailing was added by me. All of the fabric used was originally just scraps that I was given for free so I needed to learn how to dye and dye all of the stars, they were originally white.

The sewing machine was its own beast that brought me tons of frustration from the lack of skill and knowledge (it was devastating to find out that 95% of fuck ups were my fault and not the machine's lmao). But as a result, a hat sewn from scratch, all of the fur trims, embroidery on the corset, stars and the collar(which is very hard to see on the pictures unfortunately) was all added manually. The stars and the stripes(on the back of the cape) were attached using heat-and-bond adhesive (I WISH I knew about such thing just when I started working on this. It would save me so much time and nerves.)

Then I found out about polymorph(mouldable plastic) and it has become the next thing I wanted to learn, to sculpt the claws and the fangs(yes, they're handmade jfksjs). The claws I then primed and painted in trillion coats because I wasn't satisfied with the colour of the spray paint. The fangs I moulded to my own teeth and then stained with tea to match the colour of my teeth :)c

As for makeup, I used Mehron Paradise water activated paints. At first I wanted to try to save money and bought myself Snazaroo instead, which unfortunately turned out to be a waste. Snazaroo didn't hold on my face for longer than 2 hours, cracking and peeling awfully. Mehron on the other hand survived 11 hours of me smiling, talking, emoting and such and didn't even crease at the smile lines(I'm actually shocked about that). It obviously works like any other makeup which means your skin texture and wrinkles won't go anywhere but Mehron's elasticity pleasantly surprised me. It did obviously smear from sweat and saliva(if you're eating and licking your lips) but if you don't touch the skin it just dries again, self setting. But if it's dry it's fully smear-proof. Highly recommend!

And last but not least, I've decided against painting my hands as it was very risky that I will stain everything I touch at the smallest hint of sweat. So instead I got myself gloves-tights(? Not sure how they're called but it's made from the same fabric as tights) and painted them with normal acrylic paint(did you know you could dye fabric with acrylic paint? I personally didn't), then heat set with an iron and voilà, they're reusable, my hands are not stained after an exhausting day and I don't stain everything I touch. It worked wonderfully which honestly was a surprise as I was really sceptical that acrylic paint will somehow stay in place.

I think this whole thing took me minimum of 6 months with big-big breaks for my school and life in general. But I'm really proud! This project taught me so many new skills and I couldn't have been happier about learning new knowledge, even if it sucked to fail in the meantime.

Everyone at the con was really nice and gave me a large confidence boost even tho it was my first time and I had no idea what I was doing. Taking photos with other people was really awkward/new for me as I hate cameras so I really had no idea how to pose/behave in front of one. But that's okay I think. This whole experience definitely made me want to do this again, so I think that will come with experience. Thank you for reading this far, hope you enjoyed this little summary :)

[lucydoodlessometimes]

soooooo. shes addicting

concept credit still goes to @pisoprano @blur0se and @asukiess, i just yap onto a page

[ahollowgrave]

lays on the ground

[haniebnie]

// bite the hand

or my try at making a short comic of what solas might've felt getting flemythal's power and then finding and cleaning the dagger. the memories rushing through

[pzyii]

My favourite gays hands

[marclef]

Day 24, ACTUALLY a week until Halloween now, spooky 👀

(aaaahhhhh been busy with stuff today so i'm a little late! it's STILL the 24th for me though so this counts!!)

but, today's is some silly little Fakelings, strange little goopy blobs that are extremely curious about the world and will shove just about anything into their mouths... so, not very different from normal babies, huh? 😅

(we've seen 4 out of the 5 of these little ones grown up and out in the world now though.... i wonder which one of these is the last? maybe you'll find out, very soon.... 👀)

[natasha-in-space]

So I'm replaying Ray's After ending rn, and it got me thinking that what I adore so much about Rika as an antagonist is just how damn scary she can be. I always found those who cause harm with good intentions (at least in their point of view) much scarier than those who hurt you with pure intention on hurting you. I think the best example of it is this CG in particular:

Look at that. Such a loving, gentle expression on her face. Probably kissing his forehead. Because she loves him. Heck, without any context, this CG looks even sweet, if you think about it. And yet, all that is while Saeyoung is forcefully sedated on a powerful concoction of drugs even a trained agent like him can't do anything about (and Saeyoung WAS definitely trained to deal with this sort of thing, hence it's mentioned that this is a 'special' kind of drugs). He looks miserable. Bags under his eyes, his expression pained and troubled, even his hair is paler than usual. All that as a direct result of her actions. But she's utterly blind to it. What's scarier, is that she knowingly shuts off her understanding of what's really happening. She's not oblivious to it at all. She just chooses not to see it that way. Simply because she doesn't want to.

Rika is the type of antagonist that will cup your cheek into her warm hand with the most loving of smiles on her face, all while you are getting elixir poured down your throat. Even whispering to you that you're doing great, that the pain will soon pass, and that she can't wait to see you reach the happiness she knows you deserve. I won't be surprised if she even cried genuine tears of compassion during some ceremonies for her believers. All while being the sole reason behind their suffering.

And that's... God, that's terrifying to me. I love that about her.

Rika Kim, they could never make me hate you

[angeart]

L2 with you know exactly who 🥺❤️ give us the baby Aviiii

did you know i love them? 🥺💕

[trio art meme]

[moralcandy]

take a bite! 🩸(close-up under the cut ↓)

[lovesickeros]

lord its so dark in here the sahara desert of tsaritsa content you are like a shining oasis. your characterisation of her compels me & mihoyo would be hard pressed to top it imo.!! caaaaan i humbly request yr thoughts on her first meeting w a reader of any kind, or maybe even multiple kinds (sagau, sagau god au, isekai, etc) if you so desire...

it really is like a desert here. being the fan of a character we aren't getting until the last damn nation is driving me up a wall but i will persevere bc if nothing else i support morally bankrupt women in media. we r in a severe drought over here but i do my best. unfortunately nothing i say is ever coherent so pull out your translation notes its abt 2 be messy

also this got out of hand but thats bc first meetings w the tsaritsa are tricky to write + a LOT of her characterization lies in deeper exploration then just surface level yknow...NOT A DIG AT YOU this is just my excuse for rambling. gently pats the tsaritsa she can hold so much complexity i do not have the word count to delve into it completely :]

gonna talk cult au for a bit here though because that's 99% of my content. and honestly? she thrives in sub au's of the cult au like villain au + imposter au. it's basically made for her. i mean, early days, the imposter au had been going around for a little while but one of the first few ideas was the Fatui taking reader in so like. it kinda technically actually was. pretty sure cult au Tsaritsa popped up because of the imposter au. a lot of it's writers kinda left though which. man am i getting old or.

anyway.

there isn't much of a chance her first impression is all that positive. at best it's usually neutral, imo, but rarely if ever positive. specifically because i view the Tsaritsa as someone who isn't as fanatical as most of the acolytes typically are towards the creator. she's not exactly going to worship the ground you walk on unlike a certain geo lizard. which is partially why i think she thrives in the sub au's i mentioned.

imposter au, for example. she meets you at your lowest. there's no gaudy extravagance or pampering from the acolytes waiting for you because your own acolytes have turned on you. for all intents and purposes you aren't a "god" at all. which is why i don't think she meshes well with normal cult au reader. the Fatui are made up of outcasts, basically, and imposter au slots right in just perfectly. you're weak, at your lowest, when you meet the Fatui in the imposter au. and the Fatui can help you, too.

a mutual exchange, really. the Tsaritsa sees a tool she can use to one up the rest of the nations and especially Archons, and she has no qualms about you using her and the Fatui in turn. you both want something out of it, after all. whether you just want to be safe from the rest of the acolytes, or you want revenge, or whatever else..she'll give you the power to fulfill it, and she gains the strongest piece on the chessboard when all is said and done.

the best way i can describe the first meeting is "practical", i suppose. she sees an opportunity in you. the ultimate gamble. because if she "saves" you, and you dont trust anyone else because they tried to kill you, well..she holds all the cards, doesn't she?

but the Tsaritsa, imo, is just as capable of being just as fanatical towards you as anyone else. she just won't worship you as the creator. but as yourself? clawing your way back to your divine power and taking back what belongs to you? the Tsaritsa is, to me, a character who's character flourishes in long-term fics more because she changes a LOT between "just met reader" and after having been with reader for some time. she's practically apathetic at the beginning but a lot of her character, in my characterization, shines through LONG after the first meeting.

[fisheito]

Wind: howls Garu: howls back

[recitedemise]

It isn't in him to doubt a woman so gravely. He's a man that loves, loves so eagerly and trusts so wholly. He would dare into the shadows, nestle in penumbras like a babe to cradle, and despite the chitter of the monsters and the whispers of the ghosts, he would lay there cherishing, treasuring the stars. But she denies his habits. Titters at his faith. Yennefer of Vengerberg is but viper in the fields, and Gale's spirit, Gale's dogma, feels entirely tested. She grins, eyes cutting, and he feels her fangs.

Yes. She, the relentless creature. She, the fury. Gale, with care, lets a breath patiently and fully settle in his lungs. Be wary, his heart quietly instructs. She appears to stand demure, unbothered by the doubt he would cast her way, offering them plainly like a pelting of stones. Deceitful though she stands, she's yet her pride to tend to, and though he's every reason on earth to question her intentions, she yet nurses this injury like a lioness would. Gale knows this woman, can hear her brain tick like a gear or clock. She is selfishness in flesh, cunning and ploy in some ravishing glamour, and there is always, always a reason for her actions. An aim in her smiles. A goal in her eyes. Gale looks to them now, their devastating violets like lightning in the ocean of the sky. She is draped with shadow, a color of the nighttime he adores with his soul, and there, secretive, huddled in his heartbeat, it desires to trust her like the night he favors. Gods, what if she's starlight and moons in her?

Never. Gale's brow furrows as he looms like a whisper. She smells of lilacs with berries grown tart with season. He doesn't buy the sweet of it. He smells like ozone.

"Forgive me for my doubt," he begins, in much a way that implies he's little sorry at all, "though I've a rather reasonable explanation, I assure you. You've a generous interpretation as to what 'us' would entail. History would tell me it's entirely self-serving." Tut. With the line in his jaw alone, Gale burns like embers where she nips like frost. He's a child of Waterdeep, born to salt-full oceans and sun-kissed shores, and with all the power he's left in his ill-blighted bones, he'll never again freeze to her selfish intentions. He wonders what she's after, that knife flipped over to grant him its handle. She doesn't want gold, but perhaps she desires his body. That netherese magic sat aglow in his chest... she, like him, craves strength and power. "Pardon me?" --or perhaps he has erred. This, well, the weight of this gesture upends him, Gale shifting until his back nearly goes ramrod. That dagger glimmers at him, silver, twinkling as it yearns to fall in his grip. He sees the run of her arm, a river of a vein that would bleed delicious, indeed, perfect to fuel a powerful spell. With but one drop, he could discern her intentions. He could delve in her mind and perhaps her heart. Gale brings out his hand, palm pressed against the cool of its hilt before his voice now softer than it's any right to be, leaves his mouth in pitch that's tried. This is momentous. She'll never just show her soul. Somehow, this feels--intimate, more naked than Gale thinks it's any right to be. "I'm not seeking some... opportunity to delve your mind," he starts sternly. Like! Like some interloper! "It shouldn't come to this. What a spell could do, I truthfully would have sooner preferred more some exchanging of words. You carry yourself as though I would ever betray what trust you'd ferry my way, but let me remind you, that's been an entirely one-sided affair."

How he would long to trust her... "Enough. Please. Speak plainly."

Gale said ❛ i trust you have an explanation for this. a very good one. ❜

The obsidian star hung about her slim throat flamed with reflections of the sun beaming through the windows. Her mouth, wonderfully lovely and narrow, crimson with lipstick, twitched and drew to one side, deigning to contort into a faint, cold smile.

The sorceress purposely did not lower her gaze from him. There was a cruel taunt latent in the words flung at her, but Yennefer kept her hand soft around the dagger held between her fingers, nervously fiddling with it, her expression blank and dispassionate, smooth as night. A curious amalgam of something dark and bitter, and flaming, fierce pride dictated that she would swiftly smother any emotion summoned forth by the shadows in his voice, shutting it away within an icy heart.  No— she had neither room for regret nor time to waste away upon such meaningless, useless talk that meant nothing to her. She was Yennefer of Vengerberg, more storm than woman, made of such nerve and flare and pride and swallowed secrets. It was not within her nature to allow for emotion to burst forth and take control of her. Yes, thought the enchantress furiously; she was cruel and unforgiving, ruthless and pitiless, a raging, wild storm hungered for the world entire with a fervor that could never be slaked— she could simply not allow herself to dwell on what her choices would mayhaps mean for the world around her and everyone in it; not even for him. Not now when that which she had too long a time now longed for with such feral, vicious desire was well within her grasp; she could truly not afford to care.  And yet, there she stood, face twitching in a furious attempt to keep calm.  The tempestuous, drowning mixture of anger and pride struck her, anyway, despite her best efforts to keep her perfectly crafted self-composure from shattering.

Before she could think overmuch on it, she turned the knife over in her hand, and held it out to him, hilt-first.

❛ you would question my intentions? Truly? Now— after everything I've done to get us here? You do me a grave injustice, if so, Dekarios. ❜ — a sharp, haughty toss of her head, and there fell a profusion of wild, dark tresses elaborately curled, spilling like spun silk down her back. ❛ Very well. This growing, dramatic suspense is too banal for me...❜ her voice dripped in breathless, seething disbelief, bitter and cold, yet still, collected, calm, almost, smooth and dark like river water rushing trough the woods. Violet eyes flashed, glowed with a burning, wild loveliness, strangely bright and malefic. ❛ —Here. Take the knife. Cut a vein open, find out yourself if I've been somehow deceiving you if it would please you. ❜ she urged calmly, held out her hand for him to take like an offering to a God, to an altar of unflinching devotion (dark, dangerous, brimming with promise), a horrible pity oozing in a cold, melodious voice, made strange and menacing with contemptuous amusement. Yennefer ought to have bristled, too, made furious with the accusation hung in the air between the two of them, but she felt nothing but a hollow pang—she could not be shaken, there was nothing in her to tremble and feel shame or regret. Only impatience to be done with the melodramatics.

@waterdepths

[norrisgrl]

IM SORRY BUT I NEVER SAW THIS UNTIL NOW?!!!?

[christiangeistdorfer]

MIKE HAWTHORN, JUAN MANUEL FANGIO, WOLFGANG VON TRIPS & HARRY SCHELL mucking around during the 1957 FORMULA ONE SEASON

[greenerteacups]

What do you think as Hermione's career would be post battle of Hogwarts? To me her being minister for magic really doesn't make sense. She does not have patience or tact to wade through murky waters of politics 😭😭

So hard to say! The Trio are so, so young when we leave them, I find it almost impossible to project their futures farther than a few years out. The job that suited me at 17 would be radically unsuited to me now. That's why of all the Trio, Ron's ending strikes me as the most realistic — he jumps straight into the save-the-world business again, burns out, realizes he's actually Done The Fuck Enough, Thanks, and pivots into a low-stress career where he gets to see his family a lot. Feels accurate! The others are weirder to me because they do seem to just... pick a lane and stay there.

With Hermione, you could spin her a couple ways. You could say that she leans into her bookish side and does research or teaching, which is not my preference for a couple reasons (namely, I don't think Hermione would like academia as a profession; she finds her classwork interesting and enjoys intellectual validation, but she'd be stifled and wasted in a DPhil program, and she'd be infuriated by the administrative politicking of your average higher-ed faculty). You could say that she gets disaffected with politics and ends up as a barrister or a lobbyist of some kind, but if anything that requires more political finesse, because you don't actually have institutional power, you're just handling the people who make decisions and trying to persuade them of your goals. This is not Hermione's preferred method of influence. She's not even particularly good at persuasion, she just happens to be smart enough (and right often enough) that people take her ideas seriously.

Or you could say her brashness fades with the years into a softened flavor of tell-you-like-it-is honesty, which some politicians actually do successfully trade on; as we see in British politics today, you don't have to be all that charming or clever to get ahead, you just need to be really driven and well-connected (which Hermione completely is; she fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the first postwar Minister and her bestie, the Literal Messiah, runs the Auror Office.) But I don't know if Hermione especially wants to be Minister, after the war. She's just watched years of horrendous bureaucratic incompetence plunge the country into a violent civil conflict. She's had not one, but two Ministers of Magic try to bully or shame her friends into complicity with fascism. Her view of government is... likely extremely dark.

But Hermione also isn't the kind of person who sees her life as a quest for happiness. Babygirl has a savior complex that makes Harry look selfish. (She basically kills her parents — yeah, obliviating is a form of murder, #changemymind — "for their own good," and justifies every batshit, vindictive, mean-spirited move she ever pulls on the grounds that it "helps" one of her friends.) She is a mean, lean, dragon-slaying machine, and she needs a dragon. After Voldemort, the Ministry is the no. 1 threat to muggle-borns and non-wizarding Beings. As a war heroine with basically infinite political capital, I'd be surprised if she didn't try to do something there. That said, Hermione is so vivacious and dynamic that she could potentially grow in a hundred different directions; it's possible that all of this, while true of her at 18, becomes completely inaccurate by 22. That's why I'm not too fussed about any particular fanon interpretation.

[non-plutonian-druid]

[ID: Two similar images of Viktor in the Paranatural au in a grocery store, pushing a cart and looking behind himself worriedly. He is surrounded by people going about their business, unable to see anything strange, including his mother. In the first image, the background is a photo of a grocery store aisle and Viktor's eyes are glowing, indicating that he is talking to his spirit. In the second, the landscape is white and gray and the architecture has turned into violin shapes. A giant spirit, the White Violin (based on Vanya post-surgery in the comics) reaches out towards Viktor, who is the only point of color in the scene. End ID.]

tfw you astrally project while grocery shopping and find a giant woman who really, really wants to kill you

(for those not in the know: in paranatural, when spectrals talk to their spirit, they go into a bullet time trance and the spirit changes what the world around them looks like. The White Violin makes the world black and white (mostly white), empty, and exclusively made up of melty and/or violin shapes. Also, the white violin is a wight and so "talking" doesn't really come into it very much)

(oh also, i based the background drawing off a screenshot i took of a supermarket 3d model made by richcontent on sketchfab, this appears to be their website: http://dougricho.com/. the actual photo i used is from an advertisement for shelving units)