#I wanted to make this design a collaborative process originally

[calocreek]

OK here it is, a ton of 'production' stuff for the Hot Guy Comic Zine! I've never been part of a project like this. Even though I was working on my comic mostly solo (shout-out to my editor Violet!), the world-building and story arc planning was completely collaborative. For example:

We started out on the world-building by voting on character's superpowers! Plenty of powers were almost unanimously agreed on, but Cuteguy was a HUGE campaign. We were pretty much 50/50 split between can fly/can't fly. Propaganda was exchanged LOL, like this piece where I campaigned for limited flying capabilities 😂 And thats what we ended up settling on!

From there we worked on a ton of brainstorming/world-building that I mostly spectated with an occasional doodle like these haha. I'm new to such elaborate AUs!

Pitch time!! I had pitches for each era and they were all pretty light and banter-y, so my year 1 pitch ended up fitting the vibe the best. My original pitch was 'HG + CG learn some key things about each other and plan to set up a base they can use together.' But when I started my script, I got really caught up in how they were navigating a partnership without knowing each others identities. The more I wrote through that, the more I wanted my story to be ABOUT that! So thats where my script started coming together.

Designs! I'm definitely not a confident costume designer. I was trying to go for low-tech + practical since it was early in their careers, and of course, easy to draw 😂

Process went more or less like this! Full color comics take a LONG TIME but it was a total labor of love. I had the graffiti bgs in mind from the very start since I knew it was dialogue heavy, I wanted to make sure the art was interesting and worth spending time looking at. Oh lord did I get carried away. I'm OBSESSED with the symbolism the fandom has put to the life series and so I tried to sneak in as much meaningful symbolism as possible. AND THE RESULT:

Guess I did pretty well! 😂😂😂

Anyway, I can't overstate how proud I feel to have gotten to work on this project. My whole goal as a hobbyist is to get to work with other artists I look up to and respect so this was a dream come true! Thank you everyone for reading, for 15k downloads (!!!), and for just being an awesomely creative fandom space to make art in! I hope to do more stuff like this again some day 💕

[purplealmonds]

Currently, Sky: Children of the Light and Mononoke are my two favorite things and I so very badly want to will this collaboration into existence. 🕯⚖️

Process GIF & artist commentary below the cut!

This began as a self-indulgent costume design project: aMononoke-inspired Sky cosmetic. It was supposed to be a quick-and-dirty mockup that would not be shared outside of private Discord servers, but I got...carried away.

It came out a lot nicer than anticipated. A bit rough around the edges, but when zoomed out clean enough to look like a legit Sky cosmetic. I extracted the high-res Sky and Mononoke logos from their respective websites. I custom-made the handhold collaboration icon. Then I slapped it on top of the costume design. It looked neat!

But then I started having second thoughts. The outfit was quite complex, and it didn't feel right to have it sit in a sterile, empty space like that. It looked half-baked, incomplete. So I used the Mononoke movie poster as inspiration for set dressing and color palette:

There are vestiges of the project's origins scattered throughout this piece - namely that a lot of the visuals were built upon screenshots from Sky. Since it was a costume design project, I didn't feel the need to draw from scratch. They were completely painted over in the final product, but using this technique sped up my process quite significantly!

I went to the Sky Wiki for references. I cobbled together some Season of Revival's kimono cosmetic as a starting point for the outfit. The eyeliner detail Days of Style mask looked similar to the Medicine Seller's face markings, so did a quick photoshoot in the Office to match the camera angle of the previous image.

For the lantern, I made a shared memory in the green room to get the ideal camera angles for each of them:

The grave markers I referenced from a photoshoot in the Hidden Forest's hub:

And the bridge I took from the Sunny Forest:

The butterflies were a last-minute addition - I wanted something to make the composition more sparkly! Then I remembered the end credits of Mononoke had a butterfly too! I figured since I went with the Medicine Seller's new design, this would be a nice homage to his classic look.

[kisseobie]

Hello🫣🫣, can you do a piwon reaction to you asking them to pick out your nail design? Maybe with inspo pics too?🥺🥺

p1harmony picks your nail set!

pairings: p1harmony x reader

warnings: suggestive (just jiung)

a/n: hii!! i hope u enjoy!! my imessage is being weird so i was originally gonna do fake texts but .. that didn’t work so this is plan b! enjoy!!

° . ❀ keeho

he adores the fact that you are never without a new nail set, and is always secretly hoping that one day you’ll ask him what your next set should be, so when you do, he’s super excited! definitely turns it into a very serious task, pulls up pinterest and makes an entire collaborative board with you so you two can look through different options. he’s really into airbrushed aura nails he saw, and you two settle on those! likes the minimalistic design with the almond shape, and takes you to your appointment (and pays too!!) just because he’s so excited that his input mattered to you. def posts a picture of your hands interlocked on his insta story right after your nails are complete :3

° . ❀ theo

i think theo would be a little lost on what exactly you would like, so he would ask you to show him a few examples of what you’re looking for! but it definitely boosts his ego that you asked him for his opinion, even if he doesn’t know much about nail trends. prefers shorter nails with cute designs, so he really pushes for little strawberry nails! thinks you’ll look so cute with them, asks you to send him pictures as soon as they are done <3 shows off the photos to the rest of the boys, bragging that your design was his choice (they literally could not care less). when he sees them in person, he definitely examines them and kisses each one of your fingers! wants to be the only person choosing your sets from now on!!

° . ❀ jiung

a self-proclaimed nail expert himself, jiung is very excited for the opportunity to choose your new nail design! he’s so cute, he already has a bunch of ideas that he didn’t even need to search up… i think he would love seeing you in baby pink though, so baby pink sparkly french tips with a glitter outline is what he chooses! you are a bit hesitant about the size and square shape, but he sheepishly tells you he likes when you scratch his back and it inflates his ego when the marks stay etched on his skin for the remainder of the week :p since ji loves nail polish, i think he would match with you!! picks out some baby pink nail polish and glitter that matches your nails and is so so excited to surprise you with them :DD in the future, he continues to coordinate his nail colors with your sets

° . ❀ intak

he 100% would get so cheesed if you asked him to help you, makes him feel like you want to carry a piece of him wherever you go. i think he would love cool designs with stars and silver accents, and since his main killin’ it outfit is red, he asks if you could pretty please get red stars with silver french tips. like kyo, he clears his schedule to go with you. i can totally see him sitting in the empty chair next to you and asking a bunch of questions during the process which would no doubt annoy your nail tech lol.. but it’s cute that he’s so invested!! definitely takes selfies in his killin’ it promo outfit with your hands all over his face and neck :p

° . ❀ soul

lovessss cute little characters, so i think he would give you a lot of free reign on the design and shape itself, but would just want little characters on them. when you show him a bunch of ideas with characters from domo to korilakkuma, he gets very indecisive and keeps changing his mind, but he eventually decides on pastel rilakkuma nails!! is so giggly when you show him, spends forever looking them over and commenting on how cute they are :( from now on, you always surprise him with sets that are always adorned with a silly character he adores <3

° . ❀ jongseob

i think seob would really like beachy nails! think yamanba gyaru but more minimal, with bright colors and silly little plumeria flowers. tells you he doesn’t mind anything but would love if you tried longer almond nails, because he always loves when you scratch his head at night hehe .. he’s another member that would take you to the salon himself and pay for you (just like in my fic jasmine!!) and wouldn’t let you argue with him. is just honestly very happy to spend any time with you at all so he’s so excited to take you to get your nails done, and even more excited that he’ll be getting those head scratches he loves so much !!

inspo in order: keeho, theo, jiung, intak, soul, jongseob

tags: @woozixo @hearts4chanhee @kyokopi @astro-doll-the-star @soobiary @kyaaramello @t3ssamoodboard @angelcbf @idontknow-1s-world @vivienne-sim @elissasimp @imjustayapper @ihatewreckingballmains @sosaverse @seobing @www90kitsch @khfviq @barbiekh86t @bbyjjunie @taeyangi @fullsunstrawberry @jihnyah @intheemptymirror @watamotee33 @dreamer1299 @jixnnsie @wonootnoot @yukx-x047

© kisseobie, please do not repost my writing!

❤︎ ིུ͠*:·

[thr0wnawayy]

A few weeks ago someone in my inbox asked me what I thought of AFO and of I ever thought he was a proper villain.

My answer is simple: he was.

At first AFO was a mentor. where All Might struggled to teach, AFO excelled.

Always finding a way to turn every play into a learning opportunity.

He allows for the USJ to heppen so he can Tomura "show" that collaboration is important, he uses Stain's rejection to teach Tomura that he has to use tact. He uses the Training Camp to prove that there is strength in numbers

AFO always thinks ahead, he learns from his mistakes and that makes him deadlier than the HPSC could ever hope to be.

The Nomu are a great example of this, the USJ Nomu was a great start, although I suspect it was designed to fail. It served as an excellent display of what a Nomu could be.

The Hosu Nomu failed because of a lack of armour and variety, so AFO made the Forest Nomu better.

The Forest Camp Nomu is seen wearing a helmet and has multiple quirks to account for it's blindspots.

The Forest Nomu failed due to a lack of awareness and intelligence, so Hood was designed specifically for his intelligence and his strength as to not be caught of guard.

(I suspect AFO left some notes for the doctor)

The Nomu came back stronger each time, the data collected was building up towards an optimized specimen( which we were supposed to see with the Finalized High Ends)

Each and every time AFO let Shigaraki use the Nomu, he was killing two birds with one stone.

Additionally, he supports Tomura while not smothering gum

Letting Tomura learn from his own experience (be it successes or failures) and forcing Tomura to learn restraint.

He prevents him from lashing out at any one individual (like he did w Kurogiri) by forcing him to actually work with his teammates.

AFO makes Tomura reflect on why he failed, he encourages Tomura's ventures constantly and gives him advice.

These are hallmarks of someone who wants to see their student succeed.

If that's not enough then there are two lines that solidify AFO'S original character:

The line that really settles me however, is this:

"Just When Tomura had begun to think for himself "

If Shigaraki really were just a puppet from the start, why would AFO go to all the trouble of guiding for him, teaching and training him. Letting him build a legacy of his own and support him.

Why would he hire Giran, after all it will all be for naught, so why waste resources?.

The simple answer is to blame Hori and inability to stay consistent in anything. (In the business we call this, having no fucking spine)

His Character

AFO's terror lay in his simplicity. Like AM, AFO is a man with a goal and he has the means to achive it, something he had worked for decades to achieve.

This is best demonstrated in his early mannerisms.

AFO never lies, he uses metaphors and technicalities to his advantage.

In the prison scene, he never lies about his goal, which was simple. Take out All Might with as a symbol and threat, while also getting Tomura to leave the nest.

He is also a show man, holding out on Tomura's history and turning his retirement into a spectacle to land a critical flow on his nemesis.

He's a master strategist, being able to predict the current state of society within his cell. He took everything AM loved, even going as far as to turn Tenko's tragedy into a triumph and spat on hero society in the process.

In short, AFO was the villain and when All Might walked out those doors, AFO was as good as dead.

The Downfall

Later, everything I mentioned was stripped and what we are left with is a gutted out husk, a shambling mockery of the genius we once knew.

After season 3, AFO might as well be dead because the leech that takes his place was probably the final nail in MHA's rapidly flooding coffin.

AFO goes from being a legitimate threat, a true symbol of evil. Someone so fearsome, that his mere presence causes visions of one's own death.

To a LARPer who's got as much depth as a kiddie pool, evil for the sake of evil.

From Symbol of Evil to (ugh) 'Demon Lord'.

This character is so far removed that I've taken to calling it 'The Husk'. As to me, AFO is canonically dead*.

This emptiness is even displayed in his musical themes

Where 'The Power of AFO' only needs a few simple instruments and hooks to instill dread, 'All For One Prime' falls flat.

The Power of AFO is dread inducing and it knows it. The song itself feels alive, like an unfathomable evil making it's presence known.

It reflects it's "master" with ease. It is dark, sophisticated and unlike any other piece heard in the series, it is quiet.

True power doesnt need to say it is powerful, it shows it through it's actions. Real power stays in the shadows

Meanwhile AFO Prime is lacking.

It's grandeous and "lighter" but that's it, beyond that it is hollow. Ironically representing what Hori did to MHA.

The theme is nice but ultimately uninspired, causing it to ring hallow when coupled with a failing plot that is speeding towards it's quiet demise.

Few more thing's before I check out.

Why the fuck did they change AFO's eyes.

It completely ruined the parallels between AFO, Tomura and Eri, while also the unspoken lore of:

Quirks that deviate from both their parents often share the group traits of (red eyes, white hair).

You know what fuck it, Red Eyed AFO is Canon, Hori can suck it.

Secondly I have a theory for why AFO had such a stark shift in personality (outside of Hori's bullshit)

From My Notes:

When AFO was defeated and saved by the Doctor, he remained in a coma for 2 years, regenerating the missing tissue and brain matter.

This stopped the brain damage and deterioration from getting worse (sort of putting it in stasis), however upon being defeated by AM again at Kamino, the brain damage was aggravated and began to slowly break down his metal state, causing him to become increasingly delirious overtime.

Due to Tartarus' less then ethical treatment and safety protocols, as well as the brainwave scanner not being designed to detect which issues. The issue went untreated, by the time Shigaraki broke into Tartarus, AFO was long lost to mania. So much so he failed to remember his own background and the orgins of those around him.

(Hence the change from Symbol (Pre Kamino, Menacing, Intelligent) of Evil to Demon Lord,)

[explaining why he didn't take Overhaul and why he changed from passing the torch to parasite in "canon" and why he was so out of character (idiotic)] Also explaing the lore inconsistencies throught the later chapters.

Just some food for thought.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Any games with a lot of collaborative world building?

THEME: Collaborative Worldbuilding

Hello friend! I have so many games for you. At the end of this recommendation post is a list of other posts I've made that are directly related to this theme!

Data, Nerves + Acquisition, by Ben Newbon

Based on the Beak, Feather & Bone SRD, this game gives you a way to build out your world and develop communities within it organically, all the while creating your own stories and lore to fill in the gaps.

Built on another critically-acclaimed city builder, DNA uses a deck of cards to generate a city and the factions that live within it. Players will generate Data, which corresponds to a person or faction; Nerves, which corresponds to the faction the characters interact with; and Acquisition, which represents what each new faction’s goals are. At the end of the game you should have a city that is criss-crossed with territory, relationships, and threats that give the city a unique feel.

Data, Nerves + Acquisition is designed to create a cyberpunk or futuristic city, although the creator states that the setting is still rather flexible.

In This World, by Ben Robbins

Nations have borders. Police have badges. Dragons breathe fire. You work for money. That's the world we've come to expect. But in this world—the world we create together—we can question those assumptions and imagine alternatives. And instead of just making one world, we'll make a whole string, each exploring a different slice of what could be… all in a few hours.

In This World is a fast game of big creativity, by Ben Robbins, the creator of Microscope and Kingdom. It is designed from the ground up so that anyone can play it, even someone who has never played any kind of story game before, and have no problem just jumping right in.

It overcomes the usual challenge of inventing ideas out of the blue by starting with a framework of real world facts, things we already know, and then inviting players to stand those ideas on their head and imagine how the world could be different.

In This World is designed for making more than one world at once, using a series of speculative questions - a number of what-if’s. What if vacations were much more common? What if everyone in this world travelled by train? What if this world had libraries for more than just books?

In This World is also designed to be no-prep and GM-less, which gives everyone equal control over the creativity of the world, and doesn’t require a lot of work or set-up beforehand.

Gathering Storm: Origins, by David Blandy

This is the time of feeding, A steady glut, Of fruit and labour That has made them drowsy and complacent. The store grows, Of their alien fruit While the others, Hear whispers Of a reckoning. A different time is coming. But how will the Authority fall?

By placing your characters on a faraway planet, Gathering Storm: Origins hopes to tell a story that has parallels to a real series of events that happened in Geneva, Switzerland in ours. It uses a deck of cards and an oracle to create characters as well as events that these characters will have to navigate to determine how the people of your planet will react to the actions of an Authority that demands the production of their Alien fruit, even though that production is to the planet’s detriment. If you want a futuristic metaphor for political actions that have had a very real effect on our world, you might want to check out Gathering Storm.

Planetes, by Cambilla Zamboni

Welcome to Planétes, a language-learning tabletop role-playing game in which you will create cities and communities, and you will become Dwellers and Wanderers. While shaping and exploring your communities, you will discuss and compare your values, and decide whether to stay in your city or explore new ones. Throughout this process, you will use the target language to interact with other communities, enriching your perspective and reflecting on your experience without relying on familiar structures. 

This is not just a roleplaying game - it’s also a language learning exercise meant to be used in a room of language learners, and it’s designed to work with very large groups. Multiple tables create their cities and their characters, and then each city sends one Wanderer to another city to visit and learn about the culture. Wanderers will ask the new cities questions, and the city members will do their best to answer. The Wanderers return to their home cities with the new information, coloured by their character’s worldview and values. At the end of the game, each character will have to decide to either stay in their city of origin, or move to another city - and the migration that happens will change core elements of the city.

Planétes exists on a single brochure, making it easy to print and hand out to a large group of people. If you want a game that works for large groups and can double as a learning exercise, I recommend this game.

The First Epoch, by Tib Winterfield.

Work with your players to build out the pantheons of your world, give them the gift of creation and allow them to put their own mark on the world. 

Completely system agnostic, a light-weight and simple game to help you build a co-operatively build your campaign world. 

The First Epoch is a world-creation game from the perspective of the gods, creating a mythology alongside a series of truths that will exist in the world that you create. Each player embodies a god and chooses specific domains. Every turn, one player will establish truths about how their domains work, and then roll Fate dice (dice with + and - on them instead of numbers) to determine the impact these truths have on the world. At the end of the game, there is a twist that will challenge all of the gods, and leave you with an end-state that you cannot predict.

If you really like mythology and want to re-write physics, magic, or how death works in your game, this is probably the game for you.

City Upon A Hill, by Hunter J Allen

City Upon A Hill is a table top collaborative city building game for any number of players. It requires a full deck of playing cards and note taking tools.

This is a game about building up a city and watching it fall. Work with your friends to populate a city full of life, commerce, legends, traditions, and secrets, and then bring the city to its knees through death, conflict, deficit, and crumbling infrastructure. Bring the city to a peak during its Boom era, and guide the city down to ruin in its Bust era, creating a setting rich in history and tragedy. Draw cards to decide the city's fate, working together to weave a tapestry that tells the story of your City Upon A Hill.

City Upon A Hill is divided into two phases: Boom & Bust. Boom follows events and details that define the city’s success, and reflects a heyday of some kind. Bust marks the decline of the city, through a series of unfortunate events and changes that affect the citizens’ well being. The game is played using a deck of cards, with the first Joker draw sparking the transition to the Bust, and the second Joker draw ending the game. I think this game is a really interesting way to create the history of a once-great city, baking in information about industry, tourism, infrastructure, and economic changes that affect the city and likely also the world around it. If you want a game that has somewhat of a melancholy ending, I recommend City Upon A Hill.

Our New Neighbours, by Whimsy Machine

In this small village, at least a few hours’ drive from any city of note, a small community has grown a bizarre polyp. As spring turns to summer, the roiling heat hatches the eggs of a startling development. New neighbours scuttle and squirm and gallop from the bushes and dirt and into unlocked sheds, messy mudrooms, and stinky attics of the village. Mutants are here, they’re weird, and they’re not sure what to bring to the potluck.

This is a collaborative storytelling, community-building, and map-making game, telling the unraveling tale of a village beset by oddities. The players take on non-specific roles, occasionally dipping into the voice of individuals, to weave something larger together.

Our New Neighours uses both a deck of cards and polyhedral dice to flesh out your map. The dice are first rolled onto a piece of paper to determine where on the map specific locations can be found, and the numbers rolled will determine how various places feel about the new arrival of Mutants. The cards are used to both generate mutations for your characters, as well as their needs. Once you have these defined, the cards will be used to generate events that may help or hinder the mutants - and prompt you as the players to respond.

Other Recommendation Posts To Check Out…

Two-Player Worldbuilders

World-Building & Roleplaying

Town-Builders

Map-Making Games

[dukku-of-catempty]

Linking my translation of Red Candle's interview yesterday here, also typed out below. I didn't translate everything, but hopefully it's enough for fans to get a glimpse of their game dev process. Interview vod here.

Ninesols was delayed twice. As their first try at a metroidvania, they found out there's a lot more to be done. Their first game play video was actually an accident. Someone clicked the wrong button on the obs and it became a live stream.

For the interview today, we have 2 of the 6 co-founders of redcandlegames, Henry and Vincent/4wei, plus the game play designer Lighty and Art designer Pege/XiaoHe.

Game Dev Process

Back then Yi was a head shorter, pretty close to Hollow Knight. Devs call it the "Hollow Cat era". It took them 1-2 years to progress from Hollow Cat to 2D Sekiro.

Q: You've already set such a high bar for game play (hollow knight, sekiro), why did you have the same high standard for art and story as well?

Henry:(points at Vincent) this is all him. I said, just focus on the game play! Then he decided to throw in the story

Vincent: I didn't set it out to be so dialogue heavy. But simple gameplay doesn't keep gamers playing, they have to be invested in the world to want to play more.

Vincent: I wanted to save budget so I thought, comics, they're simple enough. Turned out they were costly too. Pege got the other end of that. She drew all the in-game comics.

Pege: Comic works in that you can get up close to the characters and see the details, their expressions.

Their initial inspo for the artstyle was Akira... really reaching for the heights of everything

On the designing process:

Vincent: pacing comes first, whether it's story, combat, or the gaming experience

About 35mins in: Lighty explains the initial concept of TaoPunk

Vincent come up with keywords and Pege designs the character. For example, Goumang was "princess, tsundere", Lady Ethereal was based on "Zhuangzi and the butterfly dream".

40min, Pege explains the character designing process

Pege had the hardest time designing JieQuan. Girls are easier.

Vincent: he's the typical straight macho dude

MCs: what do you mean straight? All I see is 🌈

Vincent wanted there to be a low point for the gamer, since the first 3 bosses were relatively easy. He drew inspiration from Bloodborne and MGS, and JieQuan was born as Yi's tormentor.

Pege's favorite character is Ji, based on his character design and gender.

Vincent: I said Ji can be a they, but Pege insisted on him being male.

MC: So we can actually see stuff under his skirt

Henry: Yi had to struggle to not get flashed during the fight

Lighty also likes Ji best, because of his character. He likes his views as an immortal.

Henry also likes Ji best, because of his combat pattern. Out of all the bosses, his combat pattern is the only one thats entirely original. He wanted to make a 3rd stage.

Since all the characters came from Vincent, he doesn't have a favorite, but is impressed by how popular some of them are. Lady Ethereal's fight was actually the least costly. The platforming was a budget choice. Including the jumpscare, Ethereal was the easiest stage to make.

Vincent: Even the bgm. For Lady Ethereal, I didn't need to tell the composer what I want, they finished it perfectly.

Henry: This is a collaboration where everyone provides their expertise, and Lady Ethereal is an example of us working extremely in sync.

They ran out of time and funds at the research center, and were not entirely satisfied with it even when the game launched.

Solarian was based on Middle Chinese. Old Chinese sounds close to Vietnamese and is too hard for the VAs to pronounce. Vincent thinks since the game is sci-fi in ancient times, a new language is needed for immersion.

Everyone's stressed at the end of the project: it's been five years, and the game hadn't been tested by the mass public, so they weren't sure how it'd be received

Solarian language and Voiceover

Vincent: in Taiwanese we have checked tones, libiodentals, we digged deeper into these traits and referenced Taiwanese/Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese and Middle Chinese for the Solarian language. Our Solarian expert, Sheng-Han Lin worked on it for 3 months. He even wrote a program where it converts a word into Solarian automatically, complete with KK phonetic symbols.

Basic Solarian words/phrases:

(Making these up, tone numbers are mandarin)

Bi³ Suen² = big brother

Shuai² In³ = Hello Friend

Why⁴ Song⁴ = Stop right there

Uen Zai² Chok = got it (I think?)

Ket Do³ = thank you

Vincent: first thing I said to the VAs was "sorry". Even after the recording process they still weren't sure what they were saying 😂

Many thanks to our voice director Neven Chang. It's the VAs performance that convinced me that Solarian is an actual language.

The Solarian characters came out of the need for there to be inscriptions on the background architectures, but modern Chinese characters breaks the immersion, so the art team came up with the idea to use the CangJie input method.

Vincent: initially we wanted to use the oracle bone script, but it's too time consuming, we needed something systemized. We do have our own Solarian font tho.

Solarian font has been dicephered here

Fan made font

Q&A section!

First question: are there plans for future nine sols DLCs?

Vincent: we still have a lot of work, like console ports and adding more languages, plus the crowndfund reawards... so currently we're looking to finish these first.

Vincent: as you know, we are a bunch of overachievers, so if there is a DLC, there's no telling how long we'll work on it... but atleast for me, I do hope to tell more stories in this world. That's all I'll say for now.

Q: will there be merch?

A: Yes, all the crowdfund rewards will also be sold as merch, like the art book and physical game pack, but at a higher price. Not the figure though, they're already finished, to make more we'll go bankrupt.

Unless, there's a really high demand for it 👀

Q: were there any additional plot you had to cut due to lack of resources?

.

*SPOILERS

.

.

.

.

A: Chien's boss fight, Ji's 3rd phase, Yi fighting himself in Eigong's soul sanctum, a TianHuo last boss, Abacus was supposed to be Yi from the past, Kanghui, the dragon... we cut a lot

Vincent: There are two plotlines I stood my ground on: the revenge plot, and the relationship between Yi and Heng.

We actually changed Shuanshuan's story a lot. Initially he was supposed to be super energetic and run around all of New Kunlun.

Q: there are a lot of ways the player can fight in #ninesols, were you worried about it being too hard?

A: Yes. It's very parry focused, so if you can't parry, you're dead. The Story Mode was made out of this fear. But from the response we've got so far, it seems to be ok.

Vincent: the real problem is gamers having false expectations. Souls fans get frustrated with the parrying and combat fans get frustrated with the dialouges. So we have to let the gamers know, this isn't hollow knight, isn't Sekiro, this is Nine Sols.

Q: what do the lyrics in the bgm mean?

A: they are all really simple. Like "heroes are forged in agony". For Fuxi and Nuwa, their keyword was "Peony Pavilion", opera related, so the composer incorporated 牧虎關 into their battle bgm.

All #ninesols boss music was composed by @/FFXX_sound. 4-5 of the songs were recomposed after betaing. The boss fight in plumblossom village wasn't supposed to be this hard, but the bgm was too fire, so the team adjusted it.

Vincent: the composer could choose whether to use Solarian or Mandarin lyrics. I was there during recording. We got a talented Taiwanese men's choir to sing for us. Four professional singers singing "Huh! Hah! Heroes are forged in agony!" It looked ridiculous.

For the ending song, redcandle wanted to connect to the international audience, and Collage fit that perfectly. Plus our fans kept recommending them to us. Communication was smooth, apparently Natsuko is a gamer and really liked us.

Taopunk was a mix of Eastern and Western cultures, so it was decided early on that there would be English lyrics in the ED.

There was an ARG on discord where fans can uncover the ED bit by bit.

There are also plans for future interactive games like that

Q: what are some challenges for the EN locoalizatuon?

A: It was pretty smooth, we had a lot of help from our discrod server, including JP proofreading. Both EN and JP TL was actually done in a month before release. We just posted our beta dialougues and everyone came to help us.

Lady Ethereal used to be FuDie, but it sounds terrible in English, so she was renamed.

KangHui used to be GongGong, but it's too confusing to non mandarin speakers.

Eigong too, she used to be Yigong, Yi as in change, but players may mistake her to be related to Yi.

Solarian society trivia:

-they are a matriarchal society

-the average age of death is 140

-cats are evolved from Solarians

They are working on more languages, all of them EU ones. MC asked if there are plans for SEA languages. They say that'll require ppl fluent in these languages, since the other TL are mostly done by community members/fans.

2-3days after release, their text file was hacked. It's a Google doc, Lighty went on there and found someone typing Italian text there, all correct dialougues. They kicked them out then emailed the Italian.

The Italian : I'm just a player, I just want to help.

They translated pages of text, the team was terrified. Security breach!

the Italian said thank you to the team for being patient with them, cause they did the same thing with other games and got severe responses.

RedCandle: thanks but please don't ever do it again.

Q: are you satisfied with the response from non CN speaking players?

A: Yes. Most of the reviews we got were English. It's our goal anyway, to break the culture barrier.

There are of course some surprises.

MC: you mean the furries?

A: the amount of fanart was unexpected

Vincent: I was also surprised by the response we got on reddit. We actually realized our goal, so I was pretty happy with that.

Q: any plans for a new game?

they've worked on nine sols for 5 years already, pretty drained right now, so (as a team) theres no new content planned yet

And here comes the funniest part lol (clip)

Q: any plans for a new game?

Vincent: Having ideas for a new game is one thing, but we still--

(Thunder claps)

Vincent: 😱 Did I say the wrong thing? I'm sorry! OK? We'll start working on it!

Discussing the ending...

Devs consider the true ending a good ending. Its ok if life has no meaning, having lived is enough and all that.

And ED is Collage's take on the ending.

I'll end the thread here, though there are 30mins more to go. Many thank to Wenlobong for hosting the interview, and Red Candle for making the game! Really hope #ninesols will get more recognition

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

David and Michael interview with Caitlin Tyrrell for Screenrant, 10.7.2023

Screen Rant: I love the show and this season is incredible! And you both are just fantastic in it!

David Tennant: Oh, thank you. Michael Sheen: On, let's end there. David Tennant: That's fine. Michael Sheen: Let's quit whilst we're ahead. Davie Tennant: You've said it. We're done.

Screen Rant: What was it like collaborating with Neil Gaiman on a new original story this season versus last season's adaptation?

Michael Sheen: Well, we'd always known from the beginning of season one, that there was more story that Neil and Terry Pratchett had worked out. They just hadn't written it down, but they had sort of developed the storylines and the possibilities for the characters quite far. In fact, some of that got put into season one. So for instance, the angel Gabriel isn't in the book. So that and the angels were added to it. So we were always aware that there was more story to come, but we just thought that it was going to be the episodes of series one, and that will be it. So the idea of going further, was always a possibility because we knew that there was more, but the reality of doing another season sort of developed really. Didn't it? It sort of crept up on us. David Tennant: Yeah. But working with Neil is a joy because he's genuinely collaborative. The story is his and the scripts are his, but he enjoys kind of discussing ideas and he gets a thrill out of what everybody else brings to it in terms of design and costume and makeup. He is a sort of natural collaborator and it's such a pleasure to have him around as a resource. And also just as a fan, because he's so sort of enthusiastic about the whole experience. Michael Sheen: So I guess within the parameters of what he and Terry had already discussed and thought about, I think he very much enjoyed watching how this relationship and these characters sort of developed through series one. And was able to then marry what what he and Terry had worked out with what we were sort of bringing to the characters, I guess. So it felt very collaborative, even though it's Neal who wrote it.

Screen Rant: It's fantastic. And then how was your understanding of Crowley and Aziraphale evolved from when you first read the script, or even the book to now?

David Tennant: Well I suppose it keeps developing, doesn't it? This series gives us lots of new insights into how their relationship came to be what it is, and how they have sort of coaxed and teased each other along the millennia. So I suppose it keeps developing, but there are things that happen at the end of this season, which definitely change their relationship. And if we ever get to revisit it, again, it will be in a different place. And there will be all sorts of reckonings to be dealt with. So it's an evolving process. Michael Sheen: It's definitely deepened, I think. Thinking back to when I first read the book, when I was I think about 20 or something in the early 90s, I guess. My understanding of the book then was based on how old I was, and my understanding of life, and that has obviously changed as time has gone on. But I think as we've played the characters more and as it's gone on into the series two the complexity of what's going on with them and between them, just seems to grow and grow in a way that I find really exciting and interesting to explore and to play. And so, I hope that, that can continue, because who knows where it'll go? I think there's so much possibility with these characters.

Screen Rant: I agree. I really hope we get to season 3, because I just want so much more.

David Tennant: Thank you.

Screen Rant: And then David, you're returning to another very beloved character of yours soon. What was it like jumping back into Doctor Who after all this time?

David Tennant: It'd been a while. 15 years or so. Yeah, but I just wanted to make sure I could still run as fast, and I seem to have got away with it.

[kellystar321]

THE MAP IS OUT!! Here's my individual part for it, along with my credit image! I'm so happy to have been able to work with such cool collaborators on this project, this was so fun! :D <33

WIP and fun facts below the cut!

First pass of my part!

General Notes: - All of us had a cut-off frame so Sammy (our MAP host!) had space to transition shots! the stick in my cut-off is my oc Lixy <3 - As always, I don't have an actual animation program. Each frame of this was individually drawn in Clip Studio, saved as PNGs, and meticulously arranged in a video editing software. it took a while and a headache. the software crashed 4 times hdkjh </3 - The process was sketching, lining, then compiling it all together! Line art took the most time (because i don't like lineart hkjdh) - Fun fact, all of the sketches (seen in the wip above) were all drawn on my first plane ride ever :> <3 - The background is Alan's animation program that I took from a screenshot from AVA 6 :> I didn't want to do anything too complex for it ;w; <3 - All of the slide transitions were done manually! It may look like tweening, but I don't have a program that can do tweening lmao :'> <3 Each of the slidings was individually 3-6 frames of moving them across the frame, a single frame of stretch for movement, then a settling frame before the next stick slid in. - Green is doing air guitar as they slide in :3 <3 - My Blue design has a hat that can magically change into a Witch hat (when potion making), Chef hat (when cooking) or Sunhat (when gardening <33 - Purple looks nervous after he crashes into everyone, like they're expecting to be in trouble, but smiles and laughs when everyone else does. You can see Blue with their hands up, reassuring Purple. - Originally Yellow didn't move as much in the final laugh scene, but I saw the first frame of the person after me (@/sleptonce!) which had Yellow in a little crouch :> i adjusted Yellow to match the next frame a little better! - Also Yellow's hair is flipped from the way I usually draw it because I felt it worked better this way hgkjh <3 - (I totally didn't forget my Second's design has green eyes and had to edit those frames very quickly hfkjh <33) - The only colors that aren't the stick's original colors are when Blue's hat falls on Purple, and Red's yellow bandana <3 (These are also the only movement animation in the blinking sequence!) - Adding Alan's cursor was a literal last minute decision, he was never in any of the sketches, I literally added him in 15 minutes before submitting my part hgkjh <33 I think after my shot, Alan helps gently pick them up <3 - My suit in the credits is mostly red and orange, because my favorite sticks are Red and Second! <3 The rainbow cape reflects how I enjoy the color gang the most though hkjdh <33

Thanks for reading!! :D <33

[aghastro]

Two characters I developed for a wizard-themed OCT years ago. That's an "Original Character Tournament" For the uninformed! A collaborative comic-making game where you have your characters fight and advance a story. (there are non-battle versions, but that's besides the point)

I never finished my audition comic, but these two remain. I ran into them in my old notes a few days ago and thought I'd share them somewhere, finally

This is all their old concept art, and some stuff about em. I'm too lazy to fix the signatures on these to my modern username so don't worry about that.

Whellik is an Odd girl and only child of a wicked enchantress. (Whether by adoption or by birth, it's unclear.)

They are both deeply paranoid people. They live together in a floating fortress, their only companions being sentinels made with the enchantress' own magic.

The enchantress is obsessed with gaining eternal life- Or rather, she's obsessed with getting one over on hypothetical enemies that may want her dead. She refuses to be killed, because being killed means losing, being lesser, and has tasked her meek, obedient daughter with an important mission to harvest the magic necessary to become unkillable.

Whellik is not a strong person, mentally or physically. Should the tournament have gone forward with her in it, my idea was that her first "win" would've been by complete chance; an environmental accident, the other wizard's spell backfiring, etc. Once a sorcerer was effectively "fallen" the lantern would be used to remove all of their power-- a very painful and deeply unnatural process for both parties.

She really doesn't like doing this. But what choice does she have?

Let Mother down?

Despite having zero contact with her mother once leaving the fortress, she continues to criticize Whellik's every decision. Each cruel, self-depreciating feeling in her mind is narrated in her mother's voice. She begins to see distorted apparitions with her mothers face, but mistakes them for long-distance, magical communications of some sort.

They would've become more aggressive and tangible to her as the tournament- and her violent magical theft- progressed.

I wish I went thru with the competition! It would've been fun to adapt to what powers Whellik would've gotten with each traumatic victory. It would've also been.... interesting...... to ask people if I could permanently remove their oc's magic forever. (It's commonly a rule in these things to ask your opponent first if you can kill their character- I feel like Magic Death would be similarly grave)

I had some ideas in my mind about the true nature of the lantern that I have tucked away on the chance I end up finding a new OCT that she could be reworked into. Who knows! "Why not a standalone story?" She's narratively designed to be a springboard for other characters- Most of the fun for me was going to be working with what my opponents had going for them! It's not impossible though.

Here's more pictures of her shithead mother

Woman Who Sucks. Incredibly fun to draw, though.

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Building a Better Ashe

About a year ago I took a pass at redesigning Ashe the Frost Archer from League of Legends with the help of Ainsworth "Apple_Cork" Lin (https://www.instagram.com/apple_cork/ || https://linktr.ee/apple_cork) who I commissioned for the artwork.

We took Ashe through a number of ideations and various approaches to her character design, which you'll find below the Read More cutoff.

If you want to watch the video version of our design process (it's pretty good!) you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fi5fuv1nLs

Goals:

The goal was to create a version of Ashe that puts less priority of simply making her "appealing" or look pretty, and more on doing storytelling for the kind of role she plays in the story of the Freljord.

Ashe as she exists now is basically a riff on the Drow Ranger from Dota, complete with WarCraft 3 style Hot Elven Ranger getup. She's a queen of the frozen north, but she runs around in a miniskirt, thigh-highs and a paper-thin cloak because

this design was originally put together to be running around sunny Elven forests on Azeroth, and got interpolated through Dota into League of Legends without ever really reconsidering the concept

it was designed for League of Legends at a time when worldbuilding and character storytelling simply were not priorities in their character design - characters were broad recognizable fantasy archetypes being thrown together Smash Bros style for a fighting tournament

Late 2000s high fantasy character design in gaming had a default preference for Sexy Cleavage Babes for female character design that permeated the entire design space, especially at Blizzard, whose influence formed the basis for League of Legends

Over a decade later, Ashe has been fleshed out as much more of a real character, with a place and role in the world and cosmology of the Freljord far beyond her original archetype. Now she is specifically constructed as a counterpart to Lissandra's imperious, manipulative, sovereign mysticism and to Sejuani's martial brutality. The Avarosa are the only faction in the Freljord (and one of the very few in Runeterra) who argue explicitly for a softer life with less violence and struggle as the ideal. Ashe wants to reform and abolish the blood-soaked warrior culture of the Freljord and replace it with communal mutual aid and sharing, with tribes pooling their collective resources rather than relying on constant raiding and warfare. She's also a notable champion of the Hearthbound, the "normal" people of the Freljord who are not blessed with Iceborn blood or noble lineages.

The Avarosa have successfully recruited a huge swath of tribes to their cause, and through collaboration and a focus on agriculture and mutual protection have become the breadbasket of the Freljord, able to extend their political reach simply by offering new tribes access to reliable sources of food.

The power and rhetoric of the Avarosa thus rests on

A rejection of martial warrior culture in favor of a culture of nurturing and mutual care

Embrace of vulnerability and "weakness"

The promise of plenty, of full food stores and protection from failed harvests and the bitter winter cold

So, the design goals are:

Contrast Ashe visually with both Lissandra and especially with Sejuani, who is her most direct opposite.

Tell the story not only of Ashe herself, but of the faction she represents, and represent its values in her design.

Make her unique and recognizable against the lineup of other League of Legends characters in a way that currently she simply isn't.

Early ideation:

Here we start by identifying silhouettes and the basic ideas of costuming that we want to run with. Since League of Legends women also generally have a bad case of Chronic Sameface Syndrome, we also explore a bunch of different face shapes and ideas for distinguishing Ashe physically outside of costuming and body shape.

Refinement:

We pick out a smaller number of variations to play with, and Apple_Cork explores various options for the costuming.

At this point we've settled on two main ideas: a "Warrior" Ashe, who is characterized by the hard life she's had to lead. Her struggles and suffering, especially the loss of her mother and the betrayal of Sejuani, are the emotional impetus that leads to her reaching the ideals of the Avarosans as an antidote to and rebellion against the Freljord's bloody history. We decide to use the A2 and A3 variation as a base for this, with addition of details like scarring and a somewhat bulkier musculature. This runs the risk of making her physically quite similar to Sejuani, which is a trade-off that might be worth it since the two of them are repeatedly positioned as sisters (even if not by blood) in their stories, and are very alike in their experiences and traumas, even if they've reached opposite conclusions from it.

The other idea is "Warmother Ashe." The Freljord is organized around matrilineal tribal leadership, with a significant emphasis on the social role of motherhood, with the leader of the tribe conceptualized as its primary mother figure. Most Warmothers we've known are hard-bitten, violent and domineering matriarchs, emphasizing the war bit of the name, and since Ashe represents a decisive break with that tradition, we want to create a design that puts emphasis on the mother part of the idea.

So an Ashe who is visually soft, associated with typical traits of nurturing motherhood and who visibly rejects struggle, deprivation and violence as part of her identity. The C1 and C2 variations form the basis for this character.

Both designs are intended to provide a strong visual contrast to the stark black-and-blue statuesque angularity of Lissandra, as well as the armored, hard-shelled, segmented look of Sejuani

A note on body politics and character design

It is generally Problematic™ to equate any one body type with any one set of personality traits, whether positively or negatively. A lot of common character design associations and shorthand is based on body stereotypes, and on a systemic scale, they can reinforce existing social bigotries.

The most common example: character design often employ the idea that good people tend to be beautiful and evil people tend to be ugly, and that a person's inner moral character can be read in their physical traits.

This is a trope with an extremely bad history, especially when it intersects with the politics of beauty, with eugenics and with racial caricature. Whiteness and the constructed features of whiteness are often used as the basis of beauty ideals, while traits and features associated with non-whiteness are considered ugly or undesirable, and thus in visual storytelling these traits can become markers of moral degeneracy or evil. Disney villains do this all the time, to various degrees of Problematicness.

I bring this up here because we decided to use a fat body-type on one of our Ashe designs specifically to code the design to be associated with softness, kindness, motherly nurturing and so on. These are positive traits, and it is meant to establish her as a contrast with Sejuani who is hard-edged, muscled and brutal. But also, yeah, fat bodies being associated with those traits is a reductive stereotype, just the same as associating highly trained, skinny and fit bodies with emotional coldness, lack of kindness and violence is reductive.

Character design is a tightrope walk between using available associations and stereotypes to create coding and shorthand so the audience can easily read the design on the one hand, and trying to redefine and re-associate traits in creative ways to create better storytelling on the other hand. League of Legends is a game that relies very, very heavily on existing and known archetypes, and we redesigned Ashe on those terms as well. It is fair to criticize our redesign for those trade-offs, within reason, and within the context of the problems of the design it is intended to improve upon. League of Legends as a franchise is generally unwilling to allow fat bodies to exist in ANY positive context, and especially not in women, whose visual priority 9 times out of 10 is to be conventionally beautiful and skinny above all else.

Final designs:

Warrior Ashe This design hews closer to her original design, employing the skirt, waist-wrap and thigh-high boots, albeit updated to look more appropriate for the fashion culture and environment of the Freljord.

The emphasis here is on Ashe as a war-leader and fighter, and we've added facial scars and her design generally features more hard and sharp lines and metallic accents to give her a more hard-bitten and warlike look. This is an Ashe who has led a heard and difficult life, marked by fighting and struggle.

Warmother Ashe This design pulls away hard from the original design, with only really the hood and cloak and white hair as identifying feature of the old version. She wears a lot of fabrics and furs, and is generally designed around stoutness and visual softness, and does not share the hardness or angular facial features of Warrior Ashe. Her clothes are finely embroidered with her tribe's iconography and she has pendants and trinkets associated with the various tribes that have been integrated into the Avarosa, or perhaps gifted to her by allies or friends.

She still has leather chest armor, albeit covered up by her cloak, and a shoulder pauldron, but it's ringed by fine feathers making it more of a showpiece. Same with the archery bracer, which is ostentatious and the bright brass makes it contrast with the rest of the design, which is meant to give the vibe of "this is a thing she puts on when necessary" but not a natural, integrated part of her fashion. Compare and contrast with the bracers on Warrior Ashe above.

---

Please follow Apple_Cork on Instagram: http://instagram.com/apple_cork

[b-skarsgard]

According to graphic designer Nikola Prijic, Bill Skarsgård himself submitted an excerpt from an H.P. Lovecraft poem titled “Despair” — a fitting match in all sorts of ways for 2024’s “The Crow” — as something his character Eric might have tattooed on his body. Prijic took the stanza from the poem that begins with “Evil wings in ether beating” and ends “in a cloud of madness,” laid it out in Procreate, and designed a custom stencil version that could be applied to Skarsgård’s back while shooting the Rupert Sanders film.

Rupert wanted his version of Eric to be a more modern version so he can resonate with the audience, with the kids today, so that’s why he looks like all these rappers that were really popular a few years ago,” Prijic told IndieWire. “He wanted to portray this guy who has been through a lot, who had this troublesome childhood, drug problems, alcohol abuse problems.”

“The Crow” wants to create that impression in a couple of different ways. Prijic cited Lil Wayne specifically as a visual reference for Eric’s more ornate tattoos, but he also wanted the number of tattoos to have a quality all their own. “He has a lot of shitty homemade, you know, ‘me and my friends are high and drunk’ tattoos,” Prijic said. “Some tattoos are really nicely done, but you have layers upon layers, this scratcher-style, homemade, I’m just doodling with a needle on my arms tattoos, and he’s probably letting his friends do the same.”

“The Crow” certainly doesn’t suffer from a lack of bleeding, and the graphic design team and makeup team worked together to make one particular tattoo application look as painful physically as the impulse is emotional. “I always have to stick [my design] on a model in Photoshop and it helps me a lot. You get the opinion of the makeup artists and the director and then of course the actor, because if he doesn’t like it, you have to change it,” Prijic said.

The process was very collaborative with Skarsgård, who, in addition to the H.P. Lovecraft quote, asked for a zip code for a neighborhood in Sweden as a tattoo. It has nothing to do with Eric (who likely goes to the Afterlife before he leaves the United States), but it is this tiny bit of meaning encoded in a movie tattoo.

read the full article at the link

[dptarotproject]

Phantom’s Fate & Fortune: A Danny Phantom Tarot Project

Interested in Danny Phantom and tarot cards? We think you might wanna check out what we’ve got brewing.

💚 What is the project?

This is a collaborative project designed to show off all the incredible art and talented artists of the phandom. The ultimate goal is to build a complete tarot deck with unique and original artwork centered around everything Danny Phantom.

More info can be found here in our INFO DOC

Check out where we are in our project on the SCHEDULE

💚 Where can I get a deck?

Pre-Orders for the physical deck will be available from October 31st 2024 through January 15th 2025. Shipments of decks will be made after Pre-Orders have closed. Here's a link to the PRE-ORDER WEBSITE!

💚 How to join?

Sign-ups are now closed! We want to thank everyone who signed-up to join the project and worked for the last few months to help bring this project together!

💚 Who you can contacted

Our ask box is open or reach out directly to the following mods

@jaytriesstuff who is the head of this project!

@gremlin-bot who is the communications mod!

💚Where can you keep up with this project

You can follow it here on the tumblr or in our discord!! it is open to the public and you don't need to be a contributor to be in it!!

Here is the DISCORD LINK

💚 Have a question? We might have answered it!

We have a FAQ listed in our info doc but are in the process of making a tumblr version! Come back soon to see that!

💚 TLDR links INFO DOC | DISCORD

Remember Phazer loves you!

[thefollow-spot]

A Leap of Faith by Misery_C_Epicaricacy & Ynnéalay

Merlin confesses his magic, upending the trust between him and Arthur; when he goes missing from Camelot, a conflicted Arthur must reckon with his fears and prejudices as Merlin’s life is put at stake.

Fandom: Merlin (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Category: Gen Relationship: Merlin & Arthur Pendragon, Minor Gwaine & Arthur Pendragon, Minor Gwaine & Merlin Words: 40,475

Fanbinding of A Leap of Faith. Process, commentary, and additional pictures under the cut ♥

First of all, thank you to all the lovely folks from the @renegadepublishing discord for enthusiastically encouraging me to fanbind my own work, though this is not entirely just-mine. This fic was co-written with the awe-inspiring @whoawhataconcept (Misery_C_Epicaricacy on AO3) and this binding is as much a love letter to her writing, her mind, and our creative collaboration as it is to my own contributions.

On: Textblock & Typesetting

I've bound a couple fics at this point, but was saving Garamond for this one because I fell in love with how these particular words look set in Garamond. The headings are done in a simplistic all-caps Calibri with expanded spacing to pay homage to how many hours editing this damn thing were spent looking at the font in question. I've also used font 'Merlin' for the front title page—which I got linked out of the @merlinbingo discord server—and Felix Titling for the interior title page.

The body is printed on EarthChoice colour cream paper, and stitched with red crochet thread.

On: Endpapers

The endpapers were a tricky one for me! They are prints of my own fanart which was not the correct aspect ratio to use as endpapers for a book printed on letter paper. This was also the first large map I created, and if I could go back, there are things I would do differently. But in the end, I decided to use it as-is because I'm proud of it. To fix the sizing issue, I up-sized the map so the width was correct for a letter-sized print, which left a border on the top and bottom of the image—this I filled in with black and red checkerboard pattern to match the banners and standards of Camelot.

Originally, I wanted it printed on this textured, pearl-finish linen paper, but then the print shop I use didn't have it in a large enough size to do endpapers on and I was heartbroken. I ended up using topkote gloss paper by Oji.

On: Endbands

Hand-sewn in red and gold crochet thread. I redid these like three times to find a core I liked, and ended up doing them over tightly rolled paper.

The Dust Jacket

I'm not a graphic designer, so the jacket design is simplistic. It includes a cover, back cover (with a 'praise for' section), and two inside flaps (which contain the fic summary and author bios). I took some cues from this dust jacket post. It's printed on a thicker weight of topkote paper by Oji, this time with a dull finish.

Closing Thoughts

I'm so proud of how this turned out! It's my best work yet in terms of straight-ness of the spine/cover paper, and I learned a lot about printing. Lots of firsts for me here, and I feel that every time I make a book, I improve. I've gifted this copy to my co-author, Misery. Seeing her flip through it, and seeing it on our shelf, is giving me a lot of joy today!

[starwarsmum]

Espresso is today's prompt!

@maribat-calendar-events

https://archiveofourown.org/works/61868353/chapters/158514352

Marinette paced the lobby floor of the Wayne Enterprises’ building, sketchbook clamped in her hands. She was trying not to approach the desk too early but she had arrived at the building with twenty minutes to spare.

When ten minutes had passed she decided that it was early enough to be considered professionally eager and not like she had no concept of time management. The receptionist smiled blandly at her but worked up when she was there to see Tim. She wondered what his position in the company was to make the other staff more polite - not that they were rude before, but the man had practically jumped to offer her a beverage as soon as Tim's name left her mouth.

She was led to an elevator and her eyebrows raised when he hit the top floor button. She didn't know a lot about large corporations but she was fairly sure that the top floor was reserved for people with power. They had the luxury of taking extra time to get to their offices, and being above everyone else offered a privacy that didn't come with being close to the ground.

Perhaps he was using an unused office to seem more important when meeting with what he perceived to be an impressive - not to mention elusive - potential collaborator. But the timid way the secretary that sat outside the office tapped on the door and apologised for interrupting made her wonder.

“Miss Dupain-Cheng! Come on in,” Tim said, grinning at her before turning back to the receptionist. “Thanks Jake, I'll let you know if we need anything.”

“Oh, um, call me Marinette,” she said, sitting down in the chair opposite his own. The office was furnished in a comfortable style, the chairs worn but still chic. “I guess I didn't realise you were quite so high up in the company - I didn't really get your surname the other day.”

“You didn't…oh, wow, I guess I'm so used to people recognising B that it didn't occur to me to use them,” Tim said with a slight grimace. “Tim Drake, adoptee of Bruce Wayne and Co-CEO of Wayne Enterprises.”

“Huh,” was all she said, but her mind was blue-screening pretty hard as she gave him another once over. He was dressed casually, jeans and a loose tee with a hoodie thrown over it. She would rather die than admit it just then but he was unfairly attractive like that - relaxed but confident. “Well, it's nice to meet you officially. You mentioned wanting an original…”

As she got swept up in a discussion about fashion choices and artistic licence, she lost track of time. By the time their scheduled hour was over, he had moved to sit on the desk to the side of her as she sketched her preliminary thoughts out.

“Wow, I knew you were talented because anyone who can design for Jagged Stone is amazing but…it's totally different getting to see your design process up close. I'm sorry to cut this short but I actually have another meeting now. Maybe we could meet again?”

“Sure, I should probably get back to the old job hunt,” she said, her smile dimming slightly. 

“How on earth do you need to get a day job? Isn't designing for Jagged Stone enough?”

“I mean, yeah, it is, but I'm saving as much as I can to buy my own place so having a job with a reliable income would be better.”

“Surely someone wants to hire MDC though, right? I mean, you're a pretty big name in the fashion world.”

“But if I use my alias to get the job, most fashion houses will take the credit for the work I do as MDC. And as much as I want to open my own brand, I kind of like the anonymity. And only designing for Jagged means it's not an overwhelming amount of work.”

Tim seemed to be thinking hard for a minute and Marinette almost reminded him that he had a meeting before he snapped his fingers and pointed at her.

“What if Wayne Enterprises hires you as a designer? Like, low level, hardly an important cog in the machine but still gives you a stable job? Wayne Fashion is a pretty relaxed environment, we have a decent benefit package and you'll get the chance to work with other designers.”

“That sounds kind of…perfect,” Marinette admitted, eyes wide and face flushed. “And given I did all my commissions as a side gig to my schooling anyway, it won't get in the way too much. The only thing is I have pretty bad anxiety, it means I have to duck out occasionally to handle it. It's part of the reason I haven't been able to get a job yet - America is much more cut throat than Paris about that sort of thing.”

“Totally understand, I'll get someone to draw you up a contract and then we can go over it together as soon as we're both free. If you have a lawyer, feel free to ask them to come along and they can make sure you're not signing anything that doesn't work for you.”

Marinette left the building, stunned. She had gone in expecting to do a one-off commission piece for a fan and walked out with a potential job offer. Only time would tell if he was serious, but she had hoped that the tedious search for work was finally at an end.

_ _ _

When Tim set the date for the contract review he wasn't sure what to expect on the day of. His search into her background hadn't pulled anything additional, although there was one file that said she had been approached by the Miraculous Team once to help out. He wondered why she hadn't been kept as a holder but didn't know when he could casually bring it up with the team.

For today, though, he was waiting for the young designer to arrive. She had confirmed that she was bringing a lawyer/friend and he fully expected it to be a friend of hers. She knew an impressive amount of people in different fields to herself. 

What he hadn't expected was Jagged Stone's personal assistant to accompany Marinette. Not many people would know who she was without Jagged next to her but Dick had gone on and on about him and everything to do with him so Tim would have known her anywhere. Dick's love of Jagged Stone is part of what inspired Tim's, and Tim didn't often do things by halves.

“Hi, nice to meet you Mr Drake, I'm Miss Dupain-Cheng’s legal counsel today. My name's-”

“Penny Rolling,” Tim blurted out, launching forward to shake her hand. She seemed amused as she shook back, glancing to Marinette for an explanation. When she didn't provide one he flushed slightly before doing so himself. “I'm, uh, a huge fan of your other client, as is my brother.”

“Well it's unusual to meet someone who recognises me on sight. And you're giving me very Marinette-on-espresso vibes right now, so we'll try to make this quick for you.”

By the end of the meeting, Penny had agreed that the contract was more than fair and Marinette signed with a flourish. 

[thedragonagebigbang]

Bang Creator Interview: Tumblr: @blarrghe  |  [AO3: blarghe

The Collaboration period has begun! In these quiet months before works are due, we want to foster a sense of excitement, camaraderie, and celebration among our participants. To that end, all participants were given the option of a formal interview by our mod, Dema, or an informal “ask-game” survey. We hope you enjoy getting to know our phenomenal creators as much as we have!

Tortured Man More Tortured by Having To Endure the Best Week of His Life

Blarghe and Dema talk art imitating life writing, romantic foils, and the Platonic Ideal Dorianmance 

Dema: I'd love to begin in OC land with you. As someone who is both an artist and a writer, do you find that making art of your OCs informs your process? Or are those pretty separate for you?

Blarghe: Hmm. That's a good question.

Dema: Why, thank you!

Blarghe: My feeling has always been that I'm a better writer than I am an artist, so maybe the writing informs the art, more. I am always getting very visual ideas, like maybe some comic-panel type storyboards in the brain, and I can't really illustrate that to the degree that I want, so it can be like it is in my head. But I can more easily make words do that.

I'd very much like to do some illustrations for my own stuff, and I love drawing my OC and some things have helped in the other way, like designing his vallaslin on paper did give me something better to describe from in writing. I'd really love to reach the point of being able to do a few comics. There are a few scenes I really see that way. I try to be quite visual in my writing in the meantime I guess, haha.

Dema: That makes sense! I have the same dream. Comics are very intimidating. So it sounds like you write your OCs before you draw them?

Blarghe: Yeah, generally. I think since we're going from a video game and I already have seen the characters that way, there's that. Though I have OCs I have not made in the character creator. I haven't invented a ton of non-canon side characters but there are a few. I think I can picture them pretty well. I wind up drawing them after falling in love with them through writing them, rather than like, designing a character visually/on paper/in the cc before putting them in a story. Honestly, I put down DA:I for a looong time while still writing da:i-inspired fic with my OC and other canon characters. So I guess I don't have to look at him that often.

Dema: I have asked several of our writers if they make all their OCs in the CC, and if that's step 1. I'm curious, too, at what point you knew you were going to make fan content of your OC and participate in fandom. Did you finish the game first? Did you come in with a foot already in the fandom?

Blarghe: Ok long answer: I was into the games first. I started playing in maybe 2015, shortly after Inquisition came out. My partner already liked the games and was excited to play it, so I wound up watching some of that and being intrigued. But I started with Origins, loved it, and wound up loving and playing all three, all of them with more than one OC, to varying degrees of completion. When it comes to writing fic, I had ideas, like, little comics and some additional fill-in-the-gaps scenes written into notebooks and stuff for all three games. Mostly expanding on the personal relationships and romances, as you do. I'd done that kind of thing for other media I liked, but never really been in "fandom" about it for anything. I've always done creative writing and original fiction as a hobby and it was just a way of getting back into that on a personal level. I wrote the most after finishing DA:I for the second time... I kind of did a playthrough I wasn't super happy with, then made a new character specifically for a romance (Dorian's) then... wasn't super happy with that character either, THEN made Taren who is my current OC obsession, and wrote like 30K words of canon-divergence fic with a whole other OC companion inserted and just had fun with it. I forgot about that until 2020, when I found it in my docs and re-read it and decided it was actually pretty good and that I could maybe try to post online, find community, etc. I've since completely scrapped and deleted that fic from AO3, but getting out there got me into doing writing prompts and writing other stories, and now here I am. (I still haven't actually finished my Taren playthrough. I will before Veilguard lol) I was definitely motivated by COVID, thought I might go insane without community, so I picked a couple things I was already into (writing and dragon age) and went looking.

Dema: I'm guessing most of the art and writing you've done for DA has been DA:I?

Blarghe: Most, yeah. If only because my long fic is a DA:I inspired modern-au. Honestly it's fairly divorced from canon lol. Most of my canon writing is for DA:O actually. And I'm obsessed with Taren, I've drawn him more than anyone ever. He is very pretty, you see.

Dema: He is very, very pretty. Is DA:O your favorite game in the franchise? Everyone hates this question but I GOTTA KNOW hahaha!

Blarghe: Yeah it is! I love them all for different aspects, but it's got that first-game start of the obsession nostalgia. I also love a finicky, strategy-heavy RPG so to me the usual combat complaints aren't really a thing. I like the pause-every-two-seconds combat hahaha. I do really love running around through the scenery in Inquisition though, and I like the characters, and the fun flashy rogue stabbing too. But I have a soft spot for Origins for really gripping you into that story and world. It's a great balance of silly and funny and dark and difficult choices.

Dema: I haven't asked anyone else this yet, but are you finding the Veilguard announcements and previews are refreshing the inspiration? Or are you avoiding all spoilers and pretending it does not exist until the release? Or some secret, third thing…

Blarghe: Somewhere in between. I've been here the whole time lol, I don't know that it hyped me up any more, but it's nice to finally have news. And I'm excited that it will mean new people in the fandom and a resurgence that way. I am not totally avoiding spoilers but still kinda keeping my distance for my own sanity. I'll definitely lock down the spoiler tags once it's actually out.

Dema: So valid. I am feeling very inspired, myself, but I think it may be more the energy of the fandom around me reaching such a fever pitch. We're like a flock of ducks getting a whole loaf of bread after years of crumbs. 

Blarghe: So true haha. I am really excited about how it looks. Can't wait to play it!

Dema: Same! Returning to Taren a bit because, well, he's pretty: you said you went through a few iterations of OCs for a Dorian romance before him, and then were hooked. What is it about Taren that makes him a favorite? Was there a particular inspiration for him?

Blarghe: Oh boy. Not a specific inspiration. I played DA:I three times, counting the Taren one that I'm not technically finished, and the first I completely missed any romance (thought I could get Harding until it was too late) but I loved Dorian's character and his personal arc hit so hard that I immediately made a new character just for him. He was like a sassy Trevelyan who didn't really wanna be there, trying to pull kind of a rogueish charming sarcastic irresponsible pretty boy to hang with Dorian but I really didn't like how that clicked. I know it's a pretty common character archetype esp in a Dorian romance to do sassy x sassy so no hate but I found the Inquisition storyline and dialogue options just wouldn't let me be that irresponsible and funny, which makes sense. I really liked the themes of how the game pushes you into this impossible role where the only thing you can do is become a big responsible hero figure. I'm sure there's a compelling story there for the kind of character I'm talking about, but since mine fell so flat to me I decided to lean the complete opposite way. And Dorian inspired it too. The more I played and considered it the more I felt like I wanted him to have kind of a counterweight romance, you know. Opposites attract kind of thing. So Taren started as this very responsible, serious character who has always been prepared for leadership, being a First, and takes all that really seriously. He's also very Dalish and has reason to distrust and argue with him, which is great for Drama, but very very sweet and genuine and wholesome, which is so fun to contrast with all Dorian's trust issues. Dorian's quite emotional and idealistic, really, so they match in that way and it's very romantic. Taren's also a bit aspirational. Part of why I like Dorian so much is that I relate to him a lot, and I was struggling with trying to become less arrogant and more genuine, so Taren embodies a lot of that for me. Part of what makes him my favourite is probably the blank-slate of it all, too. Not having the Origin and getting to make stuff up. The whole romance plot is really compelling. I stuck him in some AUs and got carried away by worldbuilding, too. And after so much time spent with him he's just the fave now. But yeah, he's not my usual archetype. I think I've made a lot more sarcastic rogues than genuine sweethearts. He has like, anxiety and trust issues and I keep throwing him in situations to give him Trauma, but that sort of, happy, sweet, genuine, and healer-class character was all new ground to me and I wound up just loving the different-ness and challenge of it.

Dema: I did want to tell you that your "This is a story about trauma and relationships and socioeconomics and questioning belief and searching for balance. It's also about finding your soulmate on grindr" summary absolutely sent me.

Blarghe: Thank you, I'm very proud of that.

Dema: Speaking of which, can you come up with a clickbait title for your bang fic?

Blarghe: Something like Tortured Man More Tortured by Having To Endure the Best Week of His Life [[REDACTED]] you can cut that last part because it does make it obvious.

Dema: A+. Thank you for the lovely interview, it's been a treat chatting!

Blarghe: Thanks! It was very fun.

[moderator-monnie]

AAAAAAAHHH MONNIE! THE NEW AU IS SO COOL!!!

What's your favourite part of it? (Obviously without going in too deep into spoiler territory lol)

What was your favorite part of the design process for Zepp? Are there any concepts that got scrapped while you and Junkary were designing them?

Can you give us a cryptic poem of where the story could be going? /nf

That short story you made, The First Days, was so good! I'm so excited to see more!!

What's your favourite part of it? (Obviously without going in too deep into spoiler territory lol)

Question 1:

I would say my favorite part of it, is getting to work with my friend weirdoz, one of my favorite things when it comes to creating content is getting to work with people, and the best content is when it's collaborating with other people, I would love to make more aus in the future where it's my idea's combined with someone else's to make something truly great!

So this au is a great vessel for that, weirdoz is an extremely creative man who I look up to and consider a great friend!

I'd say another favorite part of this au is just getting the chance to write again properly! I love writing stories! and haven't really gotten many chances in the past few years so with this au, I'm able to again and that is alot of fun!

What was your favorite part of the design process for Zepp? Are there any concepts that got scrapped while you and Junkary were designing them?

Question 2:

I'd say my most enjoyed part of the design process for Zepperaith was trying to figure out what worked and what didn't trying to make his design was a little tricky, but I think what me and weirdoz did ended up being perfect!

And no not that many honestly! We figured out what we wanted pretty quick though originally he was gonna have more rings on his arms, we decided it made the design look too cluttered, his Halo also changed a bit too!

Can you give us a cryptic poem of where the story could be going? /nf

Question 3:

"The night grows ever darker, the world grows quiet, the sleeping out number the ones who are awake, most are in pure bliss, one never wants to leave, others want to find a way out..."

"Does the beast hunger for death? Or does it genuinely want to help us? Does it show sorrow? Or is it pleased by it's own actions?"

all I must say is... as Neil Gaiman would say

W A I T AND S E E.