#Just some relatively minor tweaks

[bonefall]

I’ve only seen glances of it but Tigerheartstar being so terrible to people this book neither surprises me yet shocks me at the same time. I can see him being a rude leader, but getting mad at his mom for helping encourage his kid to do something he and Dovewing did? Talking about how Birchfeather and Tawnypelt are being disloyal to their clan?? Hello? Did the Erins forget what he was up to in OOTS? That he thought clan loyalty was stupid?

I'm a bit torn on it.

For full context, I finished the book but im still writing chapter summaries over on my sideblog since ppl seem to appreciate them. So lemmie real quick catch up everyone on what happened;

SkyClan is in crisis again due to a poisoned river. They ask for the borders to be a bit more lenient, just so that any prey they chase over the line can still be theirs.

Tigerheartstar AND Squilfstar say no. Bruh :/

Tiger also decides to tighten security to make SURE they don't.

(I am choosing to interpret this as partially being his longstanding grudge against SkyClan, and partially being petty payback for how Leafstar responded to him trying to hold RiverClan together in the last arc)

Birchfeather admits his love for Ridgeglow to Tawnypelt, after her scent is picked up at the border and is causing tensions.

Tawny encourages Birchfeather to share his feelings.

This backfires and Birchfeather announces to his parents that he's leaving. Everyone involved is completely shocked and caught off-guard by this. Tawny absolutely did not anticipate this going down this way.

All of ShadowClan is upset when they gather to say goodbye. Everyone. Dovewing and Tigerheartstar are the only two who don't show up.

Tawnypelt goes to drag them out to say goodbye; they are huddled in the den, Dovewing is very upset.

Narration emphasises that they are being unreasonable because of Rowankit's death and that their son is leaving now.

Still, Tawnypelt points out the hypocrisy since they were cross-clan lovers themselves.

Dove and Tiger come to say goodbye but in a very overly formal way which is clearly cold.

Tawny walks her grandson to the border and continues to meet up with him when she has a chance. She even offers to relay messages.

Tigerheartstar decides (even interrupting and speaking over Dovewing) that they are practicing "tough love" and will not acknowledge him until he returns.

Tawnypelt fights with her son several times, culminating in her gently helping Birchfeather pass a trial and feed SkyClan by chasing a rabbit over the border. For this, Tiger calls her disloyal.

Tigerheartstar admits that his plan is to give Birchfeather the cold shoulder until he either fails his trials or decides to come home, and accuses Tawnypelt of overstepping her boundaries as a grandparent.

He's being an extremely unsupportive parent, here. Clearly. The narrative keeps emphasising that his behavior is fuelled by losing his child in the last arc, and that he had become particularly overprotective of the surviving son.

So, part of me enjoys the family drama here. I like Tigerheartstar because he is messy and biased. His position on Clan Loyalty has shifted in the past (oots speeches vs avos loyalty punishments for example) and he's possessive enough of his family for him to act very unreasonably when faced with a situation where he might be separated from another kid.

That said-- WOW he's acting gross in the later chapters. The way he cuts off Dovewing when she tries to speak especially makes my blood boil. He straightup admitted to Tawnypelt that he hopes to manipulate his kid into returning home with the same kind of emotional abuse Bramblestar does when he's having a temper tantrum.

Now, I don't think it would be in-character of him to just happily support Birchfeather shifting Clans, especially to a group ShadowClan has had beef with for several arcs. But, something feels off.

It's hard to accept he's not making a big scene about this, explaining exactly why he doesn't want to see Birchfeather go to his son's face. I guess it's not that I don't expect Tiggy to act manipulative, but he should be a different type of manipulative imo. The guilt tripper, the "you're breaking your mother's heart" guy.

I also would have preferred better buildup towards how nasty he's being towards his mother-- or at least a little hint towards which previous incidents were fuelling this.

The writers are notorious for forgetting events and details from previous books. Is this resentment coming from how outspoken Tawnypelt was against him in the last arc? Her comparing him to his grandfather, a cat she named him after? Her failure to protect any of his siblings? Are ANY of these situations contributing at all, or are they just flying by the seat of their pants again

In a nutshell, there could be interesting reasons for him to be acting like this. Still, it can be hard to read, and something feels a little wonky. The writing has my attention, but not a fully formed opinion from me as of yet.

[knight-a3]

Hazbin Sketchbook Tour part 3

Masterpost

I started some preliminary sketches of Charlie to get a feel for her. I wasn't exactly happy with them. I did like how Alastor turned out in the dancing one, just...not the rest of it.

Before going back to Charlie, I had a couple ideas for a Vaggie redesign I wanted to sketch out. She'll go through a few minor tweaks over time, but overall not bad for a first pass. (There's also a stray Emily)

This is when I started seriously redesigning everyone. I would search up other people's redesigns for inspiration, then move on from there.

More design notes under the cut, and a couple fun Bible facts!

Vaggie: First, I doubled down on the moth theming. I wanted it to be more obvious than it is in canon. It also serves to show that Hell is corrupted, and it makes everyone more inhuman. All the angels will look more human, because "Biblically accurate angels" is not actually all that accurate. After she Falls, she becomes more moth-like, and is not truly an angel anymore.

[I've got this whole idea concerning the blood colors of the various groups. Maybe I should make a dedicated post to explain, but here's the rundown: There are three main groups: Hellborn, Earthborn, and Heavenborn. Hellborn have black blood, and Heavenborn have a glowing white. Earthborn have 3 subgroups: Living, Sinner, and Saint(aka winner). While alive, Earthborn have red. After death, the color depends on if they Fall or Ascend. Fallen Earthborn become Sinners and the blood darkens to purple. Ascended Earthborn become Saints and it lightens into golden yellow. When a Saint Falls, it darkens to purple. When a Heavenborn falls, it darkens to orange. Ascended Sinners will gradually lighten to yellow(albeit it won't ever be quite as bright as the other Saints). Hellborn cannot Ascend.]

All that to say that Vaggie does not have pure angel blood anymore. And I'm trying to decide if the Exorcists are Heavenborn or Earthborn. I'm honestly favoring Earthborn right now, since that's what Adam qualifies as.

Even when she gets her wings back, Vaggie's form is still corrupted and they come back as moth wings, to fit her theming. I wanted to get her long hair out of the way of her wings, and figured that since her hair is sorta moth themed anyway, why not make them the same thing. It works cuz...magic. I also really do not like the floating X over her eye, so I made it a broken eye spot instead.

Charlie: I knew I wanted more goat themes. So the ears were an obvious place to start. I also made her ponytail to look like a goat tail. But I saw a few designs that gave her snake hair and I thought it was great. But I didn't want to draw so many and decided to just give her one. Then named him Hugh. Short for Hubris aka Pride. I designed the Morningstar family around the goat and snake themes, where Charlie gets the goat traits from Lucifer, and the Snake traits from Lilith.

Lucifer: Canon Lucifer has way too many different design motifs. The Biblical Devil is associated with snakes and goats, so I wanted to narrow down on those rather than the forbidden fruit(which is never confirmed to be an actual apple, by the way) or ducks. He can still likes duck, but it doesn't go further than that. Since canon Lucifer is not exactly evil like the Biblical version, I decided it would be thematically appropriate to have his Fall turn him into a scapegoat, of sorts. Which would also mean that Lucifer is not the True Devil. The real Evil is the darkness trapped in the abyss(should I call it Abyss?). Lucifer, as a Fallen Angel, actually created Hell to prevent souls from getting lost in the abyss. So as bad as Hell is, it's actually a relatively good thing. Oh, and he lost his wings during his Fall. (Fun facts: the Devil isn't actually called Lucifer in the Bible, that was a translation quirk basically referring to the fall of the Babylonian king. Similarly, the number 666 probably refers to Roman Emperor Nero)

Lilith: Because I committed to Lucifer as a goat, but still wanted to implement the snake theme, I gave it to Lilith. I wanted to give her snake hair, but also maintain the flow of her long hair. So I decided to give her 7 snakes, each to represent one of the deadly sins. The top one represents pride. They're all named, like Charlie's.

Pride=Vani(Vanity), Greed=Ava(Avarice), Lust=Libby(Libido), Envy=Desi(Desire), Gluttony=Tony(Gluttony), Wrath=Irene(Ire), and Sloth=Sloth(...)

Overall, I haven't fully decided what I want to do with Lilith. It would probably help if we had more canon info on her. Is she secretly an antagonist? Or is there something else going on? Regardless, I enjoyed designing her.

I had this whole tangent about the mythological origins of Lilith, and how she's not actually a biblical character at all. It got too long winded so I cut it. But basically, liliths were a type of demon in Middle East/Mesopotamian cultures. Then a satirical Jewish story written in the medieval era made Lilith Adam's first wife, then she ran off with the Great Demon and started having 100 demon babies a day. She had to promise three angels that she wouldn't hurt any human newborns if they had a special amulet. She was associated with seduction and child-killing. She wasn't a feminist figure until the 1970s. She was just evil before that. Read HERE if you want more info about it.

[the-face-in-the-mirror]

Behold, everyone, my most beloved creation… Gowther’s redesign.

Genuinely been tweaking while making with this, ecstatic to show you guys, and he’s finally here!

You mean to tell me that man was a doll the whole time and that never factored into his character design at all? Not in this fuckin’ house, we go full borderline uncanny valley or not at all, because it’s what our boy deserves. Thus, as a doll, Gowther gets to function a bit differently from the others — there had to be a reason he was in that armour for all that time, and I’ve decided that it’s the thing that best protected him from literally breaking because he has porcelain skin and no bones. And, as you can see, there are some Gold Seams from where he’s been broken and put back together before, which I like to imagine the armour has been enchanted to help with.

One of the more glaringly obvious changes, aside from the ball joints, is that Gowther’s hair is now blue. The bright hot pink always felt like a little much to me, especially with his primary colour scheme already being purple, and having a bunch of other bright colours in the cast already. Plus, blue is, surprisingly, the colour that is most associated with Lust.

As for the outfit, I have a friend irl who legit said to “let Gowther be a slut,” being the Sin of Lust and all. So, naturally, I have delivered. I took some partial inspiration from designs I’ve seen for Medieval prostitutes and wenches. With all of these redesigns, I try to have the Sins’ brands showing, and the off the shoulder shirt fit the best both for Gowther’s Sin and the placement of his brand.

As for his brand and the gold seams around it… well, placing a hot brand against anything like porcelain doesn’t mix too well.

My plan for Gowther is to have him be a bit more expressive and lively than he is in canon, in the sense that he’s clearly overcompensating most of the time to appear more normal around others. He’s still got his plot line with figuring out emotions, with some tweaks that I’m still working out, since I always really liked that plot but just not where they went with it, exactly. With strangers, or someone like Elizabeth, he comes off as almost overbearingly friendly; meanwhile, he will roast the rest of Sins into oblivion—largely inspired by his characterization in the Abridged Series, believe it or not.

But that’s enough minor spoilerly stuff for now. Here is Gowther, bask in his glory, let me know what you think, and I will be back relatively soon with another redesign! I think you can guess who the next one will be… ;)

[yin-shimo]

RATING CC SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO

KLUBB "'Nepo Baby' Collection" ed.

RATE LIST:

poly count

mesh visuals

weights

UV texture

universability

1. POLY COUNT

Today's collection comes with 7 CAS meshes (a total of 11 including 2 BB objects that I won't cover) . Get ready lmao,

Boots with Legwarmers: 109,802

Flannel Shirt: 36,504

Nails: 21,120

Necklaces: 19,300

Rings Left: 17,664

Rings Right: 17,664

Skirt: 64,227

Sunglasses: 8478

Tank Top: 42,238

How does this compare to Maxis clothes?

Alright, for the boots with legwarmers, the highest poly count i saw for boots was 1,478. If we round up 109.8k to 110k and use the average of 900 for maxis boots we have a ratio of 110: 1.

Flannel Shirt: I'll be using yesterday's top reference (of 4.2k) and rounding the shirt to 37k. This gives us a ratio of 185: 21 or 8.81~: 1 if you want smaller numbers.

Nails: the highest was 1040, so if we round 21.1k to 21.2k and the nails to 1.0k, we get a ratio of 106: 5

Necklaces: highest I saw was 3688 (no scarf or chokers included) so well round that to 3.7k and keep the other at 19.3k giving us a ratio of 193: 37 or 5.22~: 1 if you want smaller numbers.

Rings: we'll round them to 17.7k and the highest maxis ones I found were 364 (we'll round to 360). This gives us a ratio of 295: 6 or 49.1˙66: 1 in smaller numbers.

Skirt: We will round down to 64k and the highest (short) skirt I found was 1674 which we'll round down to 1600 giving us a ratio of 40: 1.

Sunglasses: we'll round it to 8.4k the maxis sunglasses that look closest to it are 804 (so we round to 800). This will give us a ratio of 21: 2 or 10.5: 1.

Tank: lets round to 42.2k. Most similar maxis tank was 3.2k. This is a ratio of 211: 16 or 13.2~: 1 for smaller numbers

Rating: 0/10 [honestly can I give it a negative 5?]

2. MESH VISUALS

Covers questions like "Does this CC look as it does in its AD?" and "Is there any clipping?"

Problems 1 & 2:

surprisingly, the clipping issues were minor, for problem two maybe weight tweak needed and the first lower poly would suffice as the lovely @saruin informed me could happen with high poly clothes.

Next... is the textures themselves.

(klubb to the left | AxA to the right) Need I say more? the texture is abysmal.

(klubb left | saruin right) Yeah, nails are small but theres better detailed ones for waaay less poly. The only reason i won't complain too hard is because nails lack an actual UV spot.

Lastly, (no pics) the tank top itself I actually enjoy texture wise. Same for the necklace and shoes, but the skirt and flannel top are definitely not the greatest. The colors themselves are relatively pleasant to the eyes.

Rating: 6/10

3. WEIGHTS

Again, this pretty much overlaps with the previous section (maybe ill merge them lmao) and aside from the flannel shirt already addressed the rest of the cc didn't have any issues.

Rating: 9/10

4. UV TEXTURE (mapping)

This section is meant to answer the question,

"Will any conflict with other parts such as shoes, hats, etc?"

No conflict: flannel shirt, tank top, glasses, rings (you just cant use others from the same hand).

Minor conflict: shoes may conflict with certain bottoms, skirt may conflict with certain tops, necklace may conflict with nose rings, and whatever biceps cover lmao.

Major conflicts: nails, high chance of conflicting with tops.

Rating: 4/10

reason: it's annoying af to know their OWN skirt and shoes somewhat overlap each other and would have easily avoided it if they simply moved the textures a little lower/higher into their proper sections.

5. UNIVERSABILITY

This section covers questions like:

"Does this work for large muscular and/or fat sims?" "Does it work if my sims are the lowest body mass?"

The necklace does not properly morph with max fat/muscle, but the tank, shoes, skirt, flannel do.

BUT i have come to realize there are bigger weight issues at the armpit area of the flannel upon checking the outfits on multiple sims. Ying's stupid ass hair blocked some of the clipping lmao. So weights is now 5/10 instead of 9/10

Rating: 8/10

and lastly:

Questionnaire:

Would you recommend to a friend: NO. Would you use this item yourself: Maybe if the poly count was lower. Paywall Status: PERMA-PAYWALLED. Additional Info: $5 USD for current month (collections not included [??]), $10 collections + 2months prior, $25 access to lifetime cc. Additional Info #2: They have a free sample of the tank top...(yay more SL behavior [sarcasm])

OVERALL RATING: 10%

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Why do some fans of a French historical figure who died in 1793 hate Napoleon? Napoleon had great respect for him.

I thiiiiink you mean Robespierre? Though he died in '94.

(Or do you mean Marat? He was assassinated in '93... For the sake of the ask, I'm going assume Robespierre.)

If you are talking about Robespierre, well, I couldn't answer that as I am not them and I'm sure each person has their own reasons. I presume it has to do with seeing Napoleon as a figure who undid the Republic, rolled France back to monarchy, and whose actions resulted in the reinstatement of the Bourbons? But again, I can't be certain.

Another thought is that Napoleon is a deeply flawed man. Not that Robespierre wasn't, because of course he was, being that he was human like us all, but their foibles and flaws run in rather different directions so the people drawn to Robespierre are, not always but sometimes, different from those drawn to Napoleon.

Fundamentally, I'm not the person to ask as I find both figures, and the times they lived in, interesting!

--

Napoleon's views on Robespierre were nuanced. Which is natural, considering he lived through the revolution and his political leanings varied during that time.

I answered this previously, but I'll just copy/paste my answer from that old ask (a few minor tweaks made):

Napoleon as a young man admired Robespierre. He was friendly with Robiespierre’s younger brother Augustine and was, for a time, a Jacobin. Napoleon’s views of Robespierre shifted over time. As a young man he saw him as a moderate in the Revolution who was doing his best to end the rampant factionalism that plagued the early French Republic. He believed that Robespierre was the man best suited to controlling the Revolution and preventing its dissolution into extremism or royalist retribution. 

Napoleon as an older man had a slightly different take, although he still judged Robespierre more kindly than others who were big players in the 1790s. The nutshell is that Napoleon felt Robespierre was more moderate than the other revolutionaries at the time, but his fanatic dedication to the revolution and the Republic made him go too far.

I think Napoleon, like many (though certainly not all) who lived through major world-shattering events, developed a nuanced and complicated relationship to the players who he had known in person, or knew a great deal about/was contemporary to. Especially a player who he once admired, and to a certain degree still did. 

Napoleon’s takes on the Revolution are one of my favourite things to read so here, have a few. 

From an account from Napoleon in Exile, or a Voice from St. Helena volume I: 

Heard him express some opinions afterwards relative to a few of the characters who had figured in the revolution.  “Robespierre,” said he “though a blood thirsty monster was not so bad as Collot, d’Herbois, Billaud de Varennes, Hebert, Fouquier, Tinville and many others. Latterly Robespierre wished to be more moderate; and actually some time before his death said that he was tired of executions and suggested moderation. When Hebert accused the queen de contrarier la nature, Robespierre proposed that he should be denounced as having made such an improbable accusation purposely to excite a sympathy amongst the people, that they might rise and rescue her.  From the beginning of the revolution Louis had constantly the life of Charles the First before his eyes. The example of Charles who had come to extremities with the parliament and lost his head prevented Louis on many occasions from making the defence which he ought to have done against the revolutionists. When brought to trial he ought merely to have said that by the laws he could do no wrong and that his person was sacred. The queen ought to have done the same. It would have had no effect in saving their lives but they would have died with more dignity.  Robespierre was of opinion that the king ought to have been dispatched privately. ‘What is the use,’ said Robespierre, ‘of this mockery of forms when you go to the trial prepared to condemn him to death whether he deserves it or not.’  The queen went to the scaffold with some sensations of joy and truly it must have been a relief to her to depart from a life in which she was treated with such execrable barbarity. Had I been four or five years older I have no doubt that I should have been guillotined along with numbers of others.” 

and from Volume II: 

I [Barry O’Meara] asked his [Napoleon’s] opinion about Robespierre.  “Robespierre,” replied Napoleon “was by no means the worst character who figured in the revolution. He opposed trying the queen. He was not an Atheist; on the contrary he had publicly maintained the existence of a Supreme Being in opposition to many of his colleagues. Neither was he of opinion that it was necessary to exterminate all priests and nobles like many others. Marat, for example, maintained that to ensure the liberties of France it was necessary that six hundred thousand heads should fall. Robespierre wanted to proclaim the king hors de la roy and not to go through the ridiculous mockery of trying him. Robespierre was a fanatic, a monster, but he was incorruptible and incapable of robbing or of causing the deaths of others either from personal enmity or a desire of enriching himself.  “He was an enthusiast but one who really believed that he was acting right and died not worth a sous. In some respects Robespierre may be said to have been an honest man. All the crimes committed by Hebert, Chaumett,. Collot d’Herbois and others were imputed to him. Marat, Billaud de Varennes, Fouche, Hebert and several others were infinitely worse than Robespierre.  “It was truly astonishing to see those fanatics, who, bathed up to the elbows in blood, would not for the world have taken a piece of money, or a watch, belonging to the victims they were butchering. There was not an instance in which they had not brought the property of their victims to the Committee of Public Safety. Wading in blood at every step, they believed they were doing right and scrupled to commit the smallest act bordering upon dishonesty. Such was the power of fanaticism, that they conceived they were acting uprightly, at a time when a man’s life was no more regarded by them than that of a fly.  “At the very time that Marat and Robespierre were committing those massacres, if Pitt had offered them two hundred million, they would have refused it with indignation. They even tried and guillotined some of their own number, (such as Fabre d’Eglantine) who were guilty of plundering. Not so Talleyrand, Danton, Barras, Fouche: they were figurantes and would have espoused any side for money.”

---

Quick aside, I forgot about Napoleon's scathing assessment of how Louis and Antoinette comported themselves during the trial.

"It would have had no effect in saving their lives but they would have died with more dignity."

Napoleon "Look, your death is inevitable but at least have some goddamn personal pride and dignity" Bonaparte.

[emeraldhazeidentity]

This is just me having a go at (slightly) redesigning the Dreamtale twins.

These outfits aren't canon. I just wanted to see if I could tweak them a bit based on my interpretation of the two brothers.

Separate pics and thoughts below the cut.

Lots of really minor changes for Dream.

His Cape is a bit more of a standard piece of cloth. The sun emblem is still on the back, but I've removed those long ribbon things, as they seem exactly like the kind of thing that can get grabbed or caught while in battle. Dream relies on his agility - he needs to be able to duck and dive freely.

His clasp is now a simple gold star to match his circlet, and I've taken the 'DS' off his belt, since he isn't technically a 'Sans', so it never felt right to me.

His boots have added cuffs and soles to match the colour scheme on his Cape. The soles are flat again to give him more manoeuvrability on the battlefield.

His bodysuit is now dark brown instead of black. This is partially so that his whole colour scheme is inspired by sunflowers, and partially because the black feels a little too harsh to me. Brown is more warm and down-to-earth, while black tends to be associated with darkness and emptiness.

Nightmare's outfit is the biggest change of the two. I just don't see someone as commanding and theatrical as him wearing a hoodie and slippers!

Instead, I've given him a suit, a turtleneck and some dress shoes. I originally tried to give him a shirt, waistcoat and tie, but it felt a little too "mafia", so I toned it back with the sweater. I was going for more of a "business casual" vibe for him.

Also, Nightmare gets a more modern outfit, because he's been out in the Multiverse for 500+ years, so he's adapted to the trends. Dream, on the other hand, is relatively much newer to the Multiverse, so he's more comfortable sticking closer to what he remembers from his time.

References used for the poses.

[joewintergreen]

I just released a video game! It's a fancy-graphics remake of my 2013 marble-rolling puzzle game InFlux, and you can buy it on Steam or Epic right now, and I'd love it if you did, particularly if you left a positive review to reduce the likelihood of Steam never surfacing it to anybody and it not making any money.

Some years back I started making a remaster of InFlux on UE4 in my spare time. I just thought it would be a nice straightforward thing to do to keep InFlux playable and supportable into the future by moving it to a better engine, and I wasn't wrong, but I didn't consider how long it would take me to do it while also working. Now it's on UE5, and it's done, and you can play it. It's the same game, but with way better graphics and way less jank, having been remade basically from scratch in a new engine, sharing zero code with the original.

Initially, I had planned to do a relatively straightforward remaster, where the game would look, feel and perform a lot better just by being in UE4, but the art itself would be the same. Since I was only ever working on Redux in snatches of spare time and had to rewrite and redo everything, this took a couple years.

I had that version of the game ready to ship, with a trailer and everything, but got distracted, and coming back a year later, thought "this isn't remastered enough". I spent another couple years remastering it better, with nicer shaders, a more detailed world, etc, and had that ready to go, but got distracted again. Coming back a year later, I thought "this isn't remastered enough" and reworked most of the assets with higher polycounts, re-lit everything, added new photogrammetry-based assets, and had something really nice looking, and got distracted. By the time I came back to it again, UE5 was solid, so I reworked things again to take advantage of Nanite, Nanite tessellation, Lumen, virtual shadowmaps, and other new tech. So it's a remaster of a remaster of a remaster at this point.

The content is mostly the same, but there are some new things: some streamlined level designs and additional traversal puzzles in the overworld, some added interactions to give you more to do there than roll around, and a number of tweaks to existing puzzles. There's also an entire extra puzzle room that wasn't in InFlux that I think I must have just forgotten to put in, and a lot of minor quality of life improvements to smooth away a lot of the original's jank. Also, there are now hidden fireflies to find that unlock concept you can view in a gallery.

What kept me committed to doing this at the many times when I did not want to was the fans, who are not many, but are lovely and earnest, and also the realisation that a lot of folks played this when they were kids and would be excited to see it again. It's surreal to have an adult tell you that they loved your game when they were 9, but it's a big motivator too. Kids enjoy games on a better, less critical level than adults can; I really like knowing InFlux was that special thing for somebody. Thanks for the support, folks, and I hope you enjoy this thing.

[rainderthesomeone]

Hii! I am a huge fan of your stories!

hmmm... Maybe some more EngiSpy?

Spy gets hurt by the Blue Team, and is suffering from PTSD after what happened, and cries every night to sleep, suffering also from his backstory, which he was a transgender girl and his mother was very abusive to him, and hated him so much that he had PTSD. His father and his older brother are very nice. Spy had so much trauma from that, that he keeps crying every night about it, and he can't get rid of it, because he won't forget what his mum did.

Engineer tries his best to cheer his husband up by bandaging his body and cuddling him on his lap.

Make it a comic plz! :D

(I'm not rushing you, just do like, 3 to 4 pages since I'm being nice :3)

Heya :D I’m really happy to hear that you like my stuff :) means a lot 👍 but I’m not entirely comfortable with doing this request, my comic series is supposed to stick really close to tf2s characters, and portraying them to how they would actually behave in the official valve game and comics, sure there’s some minor character tweaking and development that happens, also Engie and Spy aren’t really that close yet, Engineer is still working on how to handle relationships, and Spy I’m trying to keep as mysterious as possible since his entire character is mysterious and we know relatively little about which adds to his intriguing character, again I appreciate that you like my work :D sorry again, I’m not entirely comfortable with writing extreme angst since it dose end up effecting my mental health sometimes, hope it’s alright, and I hope you have a great day or night :>

Sorry again it’s a great story idea and plot line but I don’t think it would fit to well in my story

[satur9-if]

Chapter III Update

Major Update to Saturnine was just released, as a birthday gift from me to everyone else. Chapter 3 is out, bringing the game to the total of 96K words excluding code and stat screen. Some features:

Five new side characters introduced.

Extended conversation scenes for every Saturn Nine character who didn’t have one already.

Octopus romance scene.

150% more chances for the MC to be a petulant asshole nobody likes.

Optional riddle section.

Sex change surgery.

Minor tweaks to the first two chapters.

Chapter 4 is currently in production and, due to its relatively short length, is likely to come out somewhere in the following month. Do not treat that as a promise though. I’m not currently in any state to make those.

[freshkillpile]

Been thinking about Nightheart and how much more palatable his motivation would have been with some minor tweaks.

Have him actually be orange

Name him Firekit

Then you get rid of the "I'm not even orange" aspect of it (which is unbelievably stupid), and he's actually named after Firestar and not just some fire-adjacent word that is just as much of a legacy name as Sparkpelt.

Then you could have cats who remember Firestar say things like "wow, you look just like him. You're going to be a great warrior just like Firestar" etc. stuff that would actually make him feel immense pressure to live up to his name, and it wouldn't necessarily be out of character nonsense on his female relatives' part.

This also gives the writers an opportunity to give characters like Hollytuft, Honeyfur, and Sorrelstripe some room for development. How do they feel about having legacy names? Does Hollytuft feel like Lionblaze sees a ghost every time he looks at her? Even if they're all chill about it and FireNightheart isn't, at least then it would be addressed.

You would probably have to name him something else (give him the prefix Snake or something if you still want something vaguely edgy), though keeping his name Nightheart would be hilarious, but I think if they had written it like this it would make him a lot more believable.

Cuz instead we have a guy running around going "this is so stupid my name doesn't even makes sense I'm not orange and my mom sucks" and it only seems like Sparkpelt sucks because the writers are desperately trying to justify the bad choices they've made in conceptualizing Nightheart.

[fanartbyherd]

Alright plowing onward.

To Magic

The Magic of Onward

I had a bit of a hard time with this one, in large parts with me trying to quell the urge to fix a broken magic system. I just needed to let things like the sort of ridiculously powerful Growth spell be…

I unfortunately could not resist the urge to tweak the system a bit more to my likening.

Magic,

Magic may be obsolete in the modern era, though there are still a few eccentric practitioners: weirdos, nerds, enthusiast, and superstitious folk. Some are drawn to it as a hobby, others have thrust into their lives.

one dedicated group of historians, nerds, and hobby wizards created a game.dedicated to their hobby, not able to go on adventures like in the Age of yore. They instead took all their knowledge and created a game to go on adventures in their minds. With as much historical accuracy as they could.

Like those historical reenactors , but instead of LARPing it’s role-play…

Magic is complicated, there are things with magic naturally in them, there are things that acquire magic through manipulation or by accident, and there are things that have magic for only a little while.

The ability to cast magic requires a heart spire. Not everyone has one and not all heart spiers are the same. Meaning that though while around ~75.38% of the population has a heart spire not everyone can use it for casting wizard spells. Many people have heart spiers that can’t do magic.

1.08% can perform wizard spells

.3% have psychic abilities

~ 21% have the ability to use elements to craft potions or draw power from them (aka witches)

10% can create jinxes or other specific magic

45% can use and create spell arrays (aka Warlocks)

— the magic of different individuals take on different colors combinations. For wizards usually one primary shade with two secondary shades. It’s believed that these colors reflect the Heart’s spire color. relatives tend to have the same color combinations. people with psychics, or minor abilities.( Jinxed, witches, and warlocks and etc..) usually have two colors people with no magic have one color.

- head dresses and hats of many kinds have long been used as a status symbol or identifier of a spell caster.

Wizards: are a bit self-explanatory. They are what we saw within the movie itself of onward. The staff wielding spellcasting track, making people whose job has long sense been made obsolete due to the rise of technologies that made things much simpler.

They have a list of things that they need to accomplish when performing magic

• at minimum they require a Heart spire capable of casting spells. (Heart spires are like knotted up bits of energy with in the body, everyone has this energy, but it’s not always knitted into a heart spire)

• all spells are temporary unless they have some mechanisms to renew them or a curse, curses can last for centuries, otherwise spells need to be actively maintained or have limited durations.

• spell contracts. Aka spell decrees, Conditions that need to be met in order for a spell to remain active or to be activated in the first place. a spell decree is essentially a trade, though an invisible one.

• spell posture, posture as a strange one, but essentially what is happening is that by adopting the correct posture it forms as a sort of spell contract, along with adopting certain movements allows for the heart spire of a person to flow into the magic with More ease ,so with proper posture, it allows for more complex spells to take the energy that they need to be performed. Without completely draining the wilder.

• spell elements. Few spells require elements, elements are objects containing their own innate magical qualities. They are striped and drained of their power in exchange for the magic. Sometimes spell elements are used to substitute skill or a lack of energy.

They use their heart spire in order to cast spells. After that the more complex spells they use a spell contract or a magic decree spells that require a certain condition that are met when they’re casted, and when they are being concentrated on or meant to be kept up. magic as mentioned faded away due to the difficulty to learn, but there are a few other reasons that magic is not practiced in the modern day as much as it was in the past. it was rare to begin with it’s for professional wizards, and then there was a change of taste, but also importantly, a scarcity of resources. the wood used to make staffs comes from a now endangered tree, but due to its overharvesting, can now only be found within the swamps of despair. other resources, such a spell elements, things like the Phoenix gym, have also been over harvested. Leaving very few in the modern age. Magic did not only go extinct due to lack of interest, but also due to scarcity of the supplies necessary. Certain more useful spells can no longer be performed due to the elements necessary to perform the spell have gone extinct and do not have any reliable or powerful enough substitute.

This can be seen within the movie itself having to go on such a long quest just to find a phoenix gem.

Some spell elements that had been on the brink of extinction in the past have recovered others are still rare.

Psychics: rare, unless the relegated to a similar fate, ask magic. Though not as badly most psychics find out that they are psychic within their teenage years. Some learn a little bit earlier some learn a bit later, because unlike magic abilities, we have to test the attitude for it so he can. Bility‘s tend to just kind of manifest more of the psychic severity is due to people, not desiring to train with it, and just letting it pass on as a face of their teenage years

Some psychics do, in fact, use their abilities for work, and become quite skilled in their own ways

There are five kinds of psychics

Movers- telekinesis they can move push float, manipulate objects with her mind

Knowers- telepathy can see feel sense emotions and thoughts of others. Sometimes they can turn the power around and then if you’re late such things, on the rare occasions, knowers and seers power can overlap.

Seers- clairvoyance is quite rare and hardly ever powerful. Can see experience things that will happen have happened or is happening in a different place can see intent as well.

Shapers- can change the form of things such as moving water from ice to liquid or other such things rarely powerful those some shapers are able to shape shift

Finders-dowsing can find hidden things lost. Things can find pass strengths and weaknesses. Also of water sources..

Witches; or people who are able to use raw spell elements to create elixirs, salves and concoctions called potions.

Potions are sort of notorious for haveing strange side effects and if not being outright poisons. They have somewhat weaker effects compared to wizard spells, but they are still potent magic.

Potions made by non witches will have no effect or be poisonous. Potions have a shelf life and should not be used if expired as the affects may be… strange.

Many witches made large books that collected the different potion recipes they learned throughout their lives and then gifted those to their apprentices

Particularly skilled witches can replicate what wizards do in mini. They require a wand and will draw from the magic of the element to preform spells that a wizard can do with their heart spire alone. Potions are much more useful in their regard.

Jinxes: are very short term and weak. They have to be constantly maintained in order to work.

Jinxes have mostly fallen out of use, though those that are still in circulation are those that are passed around in school yards and such, moving and existing in a similar way to nursery rhymes and folk songs, often having the meaning and intent behind them lost, and in so loosening their power. (Things like: rain rain how away come again another day, or rhymes to make pain go away) a lot of jinxes have been lost to history.

Jinxes need to have the intention put into it, it needs to take an active use of a persons heart spire. Most of the time when someone performs temporary feats of magic for someone without a regular heart spire it is a jinx. Sometimes the magic within people with no heart super gets knotted up temporarily forming a heart spier that is unwound soon after. It’s not unheard of for those who do have a natural hearts spier that is weak to become unwound leaving the individual who once had the capability of magic to no longer be capable. Though heart spier are a bit like a muscle if it is in use it’s going to get stronger and is unlikely to unwind. And if it is unwound in someone who regularly uses it, it will be so temporarily.

It’s not uncommon for witches and warlocks to sometimes be able to perform a jinx even if they normally are not capable of it

-hexes: sympathetic magic. It’s quiet and not noticeable until it is working it is used for production, just as much as it is used for harm.

Able to keep jinxes at bay or to return the magic to sender. Most hexes require a container or physical object to attach them too and store them. Needing regular upkeep. They last longer than jinxes that are more immediate in casting and effect.

It’s difficult to express just how weak and mild most jinxes and hexes are, though small things that build up over time can bring devastating results.

Curses: can be cast by Jinxes and Wizards, and not by witches, or warlocks who don’t do jinxes, despite popular belief.

Warlocks: Spell arrays the most widely available form of magic that can be learned, it’s like a mathematical equation. In terms of the magic itself it is a magical decree in a written form.

Early forms of technology used spell stays too power them, but they where replaced by circuit boards that can be made by anyone and can do more things at once.

Magic tools and items often used spell arrays to make them function, sometimes combined with innately magical things like magic woods or magic crystals. Most magic items can be reactivated from remaining dormant with just a little bit of magic from someone’s with a heart spire. Magic items can not be reactivated but those without a heart spire, and many magic items can not be used by those without a heart spire (or a weak one)

Spells

Spells have a range (5 ft [1.5 m],15 ft [1.4m],20 ft [6 m] 25ft [7.6m], 50 ft [15. 24m])

Some spells have weight limits.

Spells tend to have a color.

The film makers mentioned that they made over 100 spells for the film, unfortunately the only spells they shared are the ones that appeared in the movie, the ones that appear in deleted scenes seem to be for the most part the same spells, though some things are different like the spell that plowed snow.

Also I can’t figure out what their naming scheme for spells was, like it looks vaguely Latin-based, vaguely Spanish- based and vaguely foreign sounding, but judging by the fact that the film is American, vague foreign sounds can be a lot of things. All that to say is I attempted to give some of the spells spell sounding names, but man I couldn’t figure it out. If you have suggestions for what some of the spells could be named and I’ll probably call them that, also feel free to suggest potential spells as well, because I made a handful but no where near a hundred.

Following are spells:

-Heart spire-

Aloft elavor (levitate)

Bombastia (fire works) [use of different elements change the colors]

Blaze ( fire starter)

Push

Heat

Acid splash

Alarm

Sympathy

• instills a temporary sympathy in the target

Apathy

• stills, a sense of apathy in the target

Thaumathurgy

• mostly just spectacle, causes lights to flicker shadows to move a small gusts of air to twirl around, possibly some ominous sounds thrown in there for good measure

Dancing broom

•. A rather useful spell as it can both be used to make brooms sweep floors by themselves, but also is the smell used to make brooms fly also by wizards tends to be used on their staffs to make those fly

Dancing light

Aqulflow (move water)

Pull

Fling

Sculpt stone

Move earth

Exelin (invisible trip wire)

Upa (double jump)

Visitastail (seal wound)

• seal, superficial wounds, and dampens bruising

Iluminas

• essentially a flashlight.

Ice knife

Snow ball

Bubble blow

Ribbon dance

• summons, a magical ribbon that can be used to wrap around things or just flow freely as a distraction or to tie things up.

Rainbow

• temporary changes the colors of things as well as cast beautiful rainbows in places.

Jolt

• a small electrical current, unless aided with an element can only shock and not stun, live getting zapped on a door nob after rubbing your feet on carpet. Can still cause plenty of trouble, if an element is provided could probably act more like a taser.

Poison

• cover something in a poisonous surface

-Spell contract-

Magmora gartugan (growth)

• requires less posture than what barley believed, posture is just helpful. To magnify an object you need to magnifying your attention on it.

Exelior (invisible bridge)

Desguise spell

• changes the caster’s appearance and voice to bee that of someone or something else. To be a lie

Animate object

• causes the object to move on it’s own and can be issued commands. Range of 25 ft

Animal friendship

• causes animals to calm down and not feel threatened by the caster, though only the caster. Will often view the caster with more trust. If this trust is betrayed the spell will break.

Bridgrar invisia

• an invisible bridge that to use has to be believed in to exist

Sever

• a spell that cuts things and breaks things, not only dose it require an true intent to harm or cut (can after all be used to cut rope, vegetables or even stones) but also requires one to feel the pain it inflicts when cast onto other living creatures

Illumina

• illuminates veins and writing. Allows for the caster to read spells that are hidden, or read in the dark, the spell requires a person to close thier eyes, allowing them to still see what is illuminated but nothing else. It’s a spell that was used medically as it allowed the caster to see poisons in a person and invisible writing.

Stering (web)

• creates sticky magical thread. Either able to come out in the form of a strong thin string or in a web or net form. To create a web or string and keep it up the caster needs to perform a repetitive action. The webs disintegrate two to five minutes after the action is stoped.

Exelinalk (alarm)

• an invisible or near invisible alarm wire, it can be set up on an object of a perimeter of 30ft. When the spell has been cast the caster can not speak (asl counts though other hand jesters or shaking your head doesn’t) while the spell remains active

Grow spurt

• makes seeds sprout and plants grow, has a radious of 15 ft, while spell is cast the caster needs to “pull and push” the seed out of its shell and make it grow. (If you have ever seen my neighbor Totoro and they scene where they make the acorns sprout, that’s essentially it.) grow spurt is not a spell that ends in a same way as most spells , but it is noticeable that plants who’s growth is accelerated, by growth spurt tend to die quickly after.

Minimaro inctusan (shrink spell)

• to make something shrink you have to minimize your ideals of it

Calming aura

• to come others you have to block out that which distracts you another words you need to close your eyes entire time you do the spell.

Heal

• to heal one thing you need to put the damage onto another thing.

Illusion

•in order to create a believable lie, you have to buy into that lie as well. If truth is introduced to that lie to spell break.

Zone of quiet

• creates a place of dampened sound. But requires the caster to chew leaves

Zone of truth

• to gain the truth, you need to give the truth.

Magic writing

• writing messages and things on surface they don’t belong, or in the air, or have a message appear only to those it is meant for.

Remove water

• needs the person to move with the flow. Will pull droplets of water off things and gather them to a single place, can be used with other spells and is essentially a glorified stain remover

Prevent rot

• deprive yourself of taste

Poison breath

• for some strange reason, requires the user to hold their arms and staff above their head to the entire time.

Color change

• permentaly alters the color of something. unless the spell is interrupted or a remark on the fact that the color has change the spell will remain in effect and the color will remain that the new color.

-Posture-

Flame infurnar

Aid

• is a spell that makes movements fast and blurry. small superficial cuts and scrapes will heal from this spell, or a spectral animal will create a distraction, depending on what the situstion calls for.

Arcane eye

• allows the casters eye to see all sorts of magical things, such as the path and flow of magic, smells and sounds, or even the desires of others depending on what spell elements are used with the spell, the basic spell without elements allows the user to simply see in darkness as well as create a magical eye that can see around corners.

Wake

• wakes up a sleeping being, even if under a sleep spell, has some nasty side effects and can also be used to stay a wake when your body wants to sleep, like. magical energy drink., it can not wake those under a curse of sleeper a coma. though may wake them momentarily depending on circumstances.

Aurora lights

• projects a beautiful trail of lights, these lights can be benign and bright and colorful or if desired can burn like fire that reveals the location of invisible things

See dream

• projects the haze contents of a dream on a surface (prefibalbly a flat surface) this is a do at your own risk, because you never know what a person is dreaming of or if it will suddenly become a nightmare.

Breathe bubble

• creates a pocket of air that allows for breathing under water for up to three hours.

Stitch

• stitches and mends things together with a magical thread, once stitched together the stitchings last as if they where nonmagical.

Magic shield

• shields are weak and break easily 

Voice amplification

Cary

similar to the levitate spell but can be seeped up for longer and can hold more objects at once

Bounce

Stiffen muscles

• stiffens the muscles of a target freezing them in place for a short while

ShareVision

• shares what the caster is seeing with a few other chosen recipients, alternetively can be used to see through the eyes of an animal enchanted with the spell.

Share thoughts

• this creates a small orb of light that follows around those who are the recipients of the spell, the spell will say all surface thoughts of the caster and the recipients out loud, can be a bit embvericing but it practical for communication.

Plug leak

Gather

•a 15 ft radius, it gathers small loose objects together in a sphere that can be levitated. this spell is based on one seen in the deleted scenes

Heat metal

Cool metal

Part fog

Guiding light

-all of the above-

Voltor thunderseir (arcane Lightning)

Sleep

Awaken

Thorn wip

Arcane lock

Blight

• causes sickness and weakness and rot.

Phantom wing

•A spell that allows those with wings to regain flight they have lost or if thier wings are in working condition allows them to fly faster, the wings do not strictly speaking need to be flesh and bone. Early hang gliders and flying machines used magic wood and these spells to take flight, though when magical woods became rarer the mechanisms where switched over to something that is similar to modern day airplanes.

Fairy wing

• makes magical wings for the use of flight for those who do not have them, these wings are temporary and last only for a day, but can become permanent through use of phantom wings

Binding threads

• laso of truth, it’s a rather strange and useful spell, as depending on what spell elements are used in the spell in combination with spider silk, the spell will have different affects.

Dampen pain

• dampens pain felt by damage and pain used to keep going even when your body just want to give up. Not exactly the healthiest thing to do. 

Dampen emotion

• quiets emotions, has been used as an unhealthy coping mechanism for wizards and witches in the past but has also been used to calm individuals down to deal with a stressful situation

Dampen thoughts

• quiets thought, is designed as a way to hide from telepaths and monsters who read minds, but in the past has also been used as a way to "treat" mental illness and to keep people in a hazy mind set.

Spectral illusion

• a grand illusions that is found over a large space.

Summon guardian

• creates a spectral guardian or shield that protects a person

Grow mushrooms

• caused decomposition and mushrooms to grow, this spell can have spell elements added to it to create magic mushrooms of different kinds, like giant house sized mushrooms or ones who’s caps you can bounce on like a trampoline

Bloom

• a stronger version of the sprout smell, that causes flowers and other such plants to bloom, and grow greatly in a 50 foot area

Dancing star path

• if a castor wants to find an object or a person, and they know that person or object they can cast the spell in order to have a small trail of some thing. Usually starlight or little shining globes -Willow wisp style- light up a path to in order to find what they are looking for

Void Leeper

• allow a caster to move between shadows

Reflect

• reflects spells and attacks back at the attacker.

Reveal spiral

• a spell that reveals the color and shape of a persons heart spire. it has been used both for medical reasons to find blockages in the flow of magic as well as for wizards to reveal other wizards to take up as apprentices. the spell is not well known.

-Spell Elemental-

Visitation (phoenix gem)

• a spell that brings a dead loved one back for 24 hours and once cast can not be cast again

Telepathy (moon boom)

• copies the powers of knowers, but is temporary

Telekinesis (unicorn hair)

• essentially copies, the psychic ability of movers, but at a stronger and more powerful form than that of a normal psychic.

Tree stride (Blackbark or bog beast scales)

• allows a caster and others to walk through trees and use thier roots and branches to travel

Wall of fire (dragon scale)

Wall of ice ( red ice, berries)

• a 25 ft long 15 ft tall wall of ice. Can be made larger or smaller depending on desire and the availability of water in the area

Wall of thorns (glow, Moss)

• I guess if you’re trying to protect yourself, you can have a giant wall of thorns that keep people out of your way it’s usually about 25 ft long and 15 ft tall

Waterwalk (leviathan fin)

• walk on the water I guess it allows the person to walk or skate across water for a while. The spell tends to not work as well on rough water as it does on still water, but it is still usable.

Summon spectro beast (bone, and a bit of slime)

• summons a animal creature that is an a spectral form, that Acts as a companion, and can do tasks for the summoner

Bestow curse (any number of things depending on curse)

• really strange and uncontrollable spell.changes depending on what elements are used, but these are your typical curses do you think of in fairytales things like talking and having snails fall out of your mouth or having your ears turned into donkey, ears, or any other such kind of superficial minor thing, these courses are not permanent, unlike other court courses, and usually will only last until a certain action that cost the curse to be cast in the first place is rectified. For example, if you had a cursed cast on you because you stole someone’s apples, and the curse you would be talking backwards. You can undo the curse yourself by returning those apples that you stole or paying for them, and some other means that is satisfactory to those who controlled the curse.

Dream (Mare fur)

• targets a sleeping victim, and makes them have very pleasant dreams. These dreams can be manipulated by the caster, and can also be entered and shared by the caster.

Druid craft (blueberries)

• basically make someone really in tune with nature like I feel the ants, crawling a mile away, and I am aware of all the little things of raindrop listen, such like that. It is a spell not recommended to do if you have any kind of issue with bugs.

Elemental weapon (hell hound horn)

• temporary Lee makes a weapon bristle with elemental energy, such as a sword who’s cuts bloom with ice or a fire touched sword that burns.

Elemental weather

• changes the weather to be that of fire, ice, wind, or other such thing a weather phenomenon like a rain. Storm has to be occurring at the time for the spell to work. One wizard with a strange sense of humor is famous for constantly causing it to rain frogs.

Find Path ( Griffin talon)

• a very useful spell, for when you are lost, it will create a guiding compass of sorts, allowing you to find paths that you are familiar with. It cannot find Paths that you are unfamiliar with. Can also be used to allow others to follow your path or to find paths the others have taken for tracking.

Crown of madness (golden leaves)

• a very damaging spell it grinds an haunts the mind of those affected by it.

Dragons breath (dragon toung or fire Beatles or flame bloom)

Arcane transformation (dragon, scales, and

• A physical transformation from one creature to another.

Golem

• creates a non living protective creature made of bone, clay, stone, wood or other material.

Stink cloud (mushrooms from a shroom hog or other smelly things)

• as it says on the package, a 15 foot cloud that smells strongly

Mend broken bones

• a spell that detects broken bones and can then help the setting and healing process

Featherfall (feather)

• makes the target float and fly around. if prevents the target from falling over.

Skeleton soldiers (dragon tooth)

• essentially creates an army of undead, puppeteered soldiers, usually out of bones in skeletons quite a difficult spell to maintain and depending on the caster the they can only control anywhere from 5 to 500 skeletons does not stay consistent.

Nightmare (mare blood)

• inflicts nightmares on a sleeping target. The nightmares can either be a reoccurring ideals, and her that would fight in the person from their own mind or they can be manipulated specifically by the caster, the caster needs to smear, mayors blood on the victim, and also needs to be in a trance the entire time the nightmare is going on. also causes sleep paralysis

Ghost walk (slime)

• allow the caster to walk through walls and other solid surfaces. Temporarily, they are not able to walk through metal walls such as lead line or surfaces that are more than a few feet thick you spell is both a spell that requires a baseball contract as well as spell elemental, that’s no contract being holding your breath while the smell is active.

Transformation (dark crystal or light crystal)

• transformation that works on objects

Smokescreen.

Some examples of spell elements

- magic stones: Phoenix gem, blood stone, dragon heart stone, heart stone, gem of darkness, gem of light, prism gem, clear seer crystal, night stone, dawn crystal, sea gem, heart of the sea, fire ruby, sea sapphire, chaos emerald, smoke stone, snow flake stone, rainbow stone, rose shard stone, rain stone, sun-ray stone, moonlight stone, etc…

- magic wood: these woods are also used in creating magic staves. The best wood for this is Elmery trees who’s wood “pulses with magic in every grain.” no several kinds of trees can’t function to make usable magic staff none is as powerful or reliable as that of the Elmery tree. Wood from other is where are used in magical, contractions and objects like self playing harp and boxes with the magic falls bottom or flying self sweeping brooms. With poor quality words, some spells that require no element normally would require elements with this stuff other staff get out less power than others were not able to perform stronger spells.

Other kinds of magic wood: AlderOak (good), Resmereds (good quality), Fairy hawthorn (fair), rainbow willow (fair), Enchantment tree ( ok), Ozit wood (ok), “liveing/talking” tree wood (poor), Cloverwood (poor quality)

- creature bits: bone, dragon scales, dragons teeth, feathers, Griffon claws, eyes of newts, warts of flying hogs or mushroom hogs, hellhounds fur, unicorn mane, unicorns horn, mummified toads, frogs or salamanders, frog slime, hydra venom, dragon fly wings, spider silk, jelly from an ooze, huckpuck butter, bog beast spines, bog beast scales, sea serpents scales, sea serpent eyes, sea serpent blood, shed skin of a rainbow serpent, Beetles etc.

- plant and stuff: mushrooms, acorns, stinging nettle threads, glow berries, frost berries, fire blooms, luminous moss, blood poppy, forgetfulness flowers, moonlight Lillies, weeping willow switches, gnome chuckle mushrooms, howler mushrooms, ipper twig, golden fern, four leaf clover, five leaf clover, six leaf clover, dew pitcher plant, harpies tear mushroom, rainbow buds,(extinct) laughter dew blooms(extinct), etc.

Some examples of spell contracts (decrees)

- keeping eye contact

- belief or trust

- not telling a lie

- only telling lies or speaking nonsense

- holding breath

- chewing leaves

- balancing on one foot or balancing an object

- not speaking

- depriving oneself of a sense.

- walking backwards

- concentration or complete focus

- repetitive actions

Previous works:

Why I’m making this:

Continents, oceans and countries:

[the-face-in-the-mirror]

Been awhile since I've done one of these, and I have returned with Vivian! I debated on whether or not to do a redesign page for her, but since she's fairly relevant to Elizabeth in the rewrite I decided it was necessary.

As you'll notice, I got rid of Vivian's absolutely abysmal hairdo, and gave her actual bangs. I still let her keep the general shape of her hair since it suits her but with the goal of making her look a bit older than she does in canon. Considering she's supposed to be a grown ass woman lusting after Gil, Ifound it a little strange how young she looks in comparison to him (i.e. the baby face syndrome this show suffers from). Now she kind of looks more like a Karen, which... honestly suits her, all things considered.

Her new mage outfit is essentially just one of her Grand Cross designs with some minor tweaks, since I liked the armor with the bold red, black, and yellow. Vivian always seemed to wear very big, poofy dresses with poofy sleeves, as if to make herself appear bigger and more intimidating in comparison to how minuscule she actually looks with her helmet off. The helmet is relatively the same, with the exception of the added horns in mimicry of the Demon Clan, and the little Goddess Ambers hanging off of them. I do love me some irony.

In comparison to canon, Vivian now has a slightly more prominent role in Liones. Considering she was Merlin's student and arguably the best magic user they have, she's now the Royal Mage. Initially, she probably started as a Lady in Waiting for Queen Caroline, given that she was, at the very least, in her late teens 10 years ago when everything went down. Nowadays, she's still a Lady in Waiting, but holds a much higher position than the other Ladies in Waiting, partially because of seniority but also because she's the Royal Mage. In the first chapter, it will be established that she primarily attends to Elizabeth, managing her schedule and whatnot. This, in turn, makes Elizabeth trust her more and makes it a bit easier for Vivian to kidnap her rather than just appearing out of nowhere like she does in canon.

Vivian may be the worst, but she still knows how to serve when it counts.

That's all for now! I'm now going back to schoolwork and working on the comic, so I'll see you all later! And don't be afraid to ask any questions ;)

[glitchy-anime-fan]

Miraculous and (maybe) BSD BEAST Spoilers

Idk what to actually name this, it’s just me ranting while comparing BSD Beast to Shadybug and Claw Noir 😅

So the other day I saw a video on tiktok where someone was complaining about the fact that the new miraculous world special is supposed to have a “reverse world” situation with are main characters and yet Chloe is still a bully in both. For a little context; in the special we learn that Shadybug/Other world Marinette became depressed due to Chloe’s constant bullying of Marinette and Mari didn’t have a close friend group to support her through it.

Now I can see where this person is coming from when you think of this other world strictly as a reverse world; Gabriel is good in this world while Mari and Adrien are bad. But when you think about the few characters we are introduced to/learn about in this world, I feel like it’s closer to the concept of the Bungo Stray Dogs BEAST light novel/manga spinoff.

For those who don’t know about BSD or this spinoff/AU; BEAST is a light novel turned manga series where a select few characters from BSD have switched places. Our protagonist Atsushi is a member of the port mafia and is an antagonist for most of the novel. Dazai is still in the mafia and becomes their boss rather than leaving and joining the Armed Detective Agency. Akutagawa, Atsushi’s mafia rival in the main series, is instead a member of the ADA alongside Odasaku.

Other then these characters, most of the minor characters stay relatively the same as their main universe counterparts with a few exceptions. Kyouka is still with the mafia and works alongside Atsushi (her job is mostly the same just with a slightly different backstory and design). Gin, Akutagawa’s sister, is still with the mafia but works as a secretary and has a strained relationship with her brother (again she also has an altered design). But other than that, Chuuya’s position is the same (Mafia executive, loyal to Dazai, etc), and most of the ADA members are the same other than tweaked designs or minor personality changes.

Now my character comparisons are far from 1:1 BUT for the sake of the argument this is how I’m separating the characters:

Akutagawa is Gabriel/Hawkmoth/Hesperia

Atsushi is Shadybug/Ladybug

Chuuya is Chloe

The ADA members are Alya and Nino

Note: I didn’t add Chat Noir/Claw Noir because I’m talking specifically about Chloe’s role in comparison to Chuuya’s role in their respective worlds. Claw/Chat is not affected by Chloe in EXACTLY the same way as Shady/Lady (claw noir as a completely different “villain origin story”, chat/Adrien is not as heavily bullied by Chloe)

In this argument think of the characters above as being in the same place:

In the main stories/universe

Akutagawa/Gabriel are seen as “villains” or antagonists to our main characters for the most part.

Atsushi/LB are considered our “hero’s” or protagonist for the majority of the series.

The ADA/Nino and Alya are secondary characters who aid/help/support our protagonist in some way.

Chuuya and Chloe are secondary characters that typically cause some sort of conflict in one way or another to the protagonist and their allies.

In the alternate universe (BEAST/SB&CN)

Akutagawa/Gabriel have switched and taken on the “hero” or protagonist role

Atsushi/Shadybug have switched and taken over the “villain” or antagonist role

The ADA/Alya and Nino, while having changes in character designs, are still seen aiding our protagonist as allies (the ADA to Aku, Alya & Nino to Gabriel)

Chuuya/Chloe retain their roles as secondary antagonists is some aspect; Chuuya is still an executive of the port mafia and is loyal to Dazai (the leader of the mafia who also controls Atsushi). Chloe is still her bully self (as far as we know) who has pushed Shadybug/Marinette to become a villain

Pretty much what I’m getting at is that, when put in comparison to a series like BEAST, the SB & CN universe IS NOT a direct reverse world when you really look at it. It’s more of an “our main characters are reversed while the secondary characters are the same give or take”. I can see why people are confused or maybe frustrated given that it seems the alternate world in the special was framed as a reverse world, but when you look at what we’re given it really isn’t.

Like I said, Shadybug’s universe seems to align more closely to the BEAST universe where only certain characters are reversed. Of course we don’t have much to go one, but this is how I think about it from the tidbits we are given in the special. I mean at the end of both series, Shadybug and BEAST!Atsushi are no longer seen as villains. BEAST!Astushi is freed from the port mafia and Dazai’s control, instead taking up residence with BEAST!Mori at the orphanage. Shadybug is given a new sense of hope by Ladybug leading to the start of Shady’s redemption. So it truly isn’t a total reverse world AU in my opinion.

This is getting kind of long and Idk how else to frame my thoughts so imma leave it here. Sorry if it’s kinda ranty and I hope it makes sense. I can try to clarify stuff if anyone has questions, but it’s been a hot minute since I’ve read the BEAST light novel so hopefully I’m not too off.

[necarion]

An annoying thing about the affirmative action questions is that, in part because so many options have been proscribed by the courts, we end up jamming together a bunch of distinct goals into just a few remediation measures. The biggest goals include:

Years of systemic discrimination has made it harder for certain people to attend college/form businesses/get jobs, and so we as a society should help balance this on a society-wide scale.

Some candidates have faced enough disadvantages that their potential is better than their records/scores/resumes indicate. We should take a chance and pick someone who might seem "less qualified" but will make a bigger impact later.

There is value individuals and to society at-large that people spend time interacting with a diversity of people and a diversity of viewpoints.

These can all be addressed, and can even be addressed simultaneously. But unless you have ways of addressing them differently, you end up with some pretty systematic dysfunction, such as the ones we've been seeing for years.

Some examples of this might be:

Improving diversity purely tweaking racial/gender levels by definition fucks over some ethnic groups.

If you try to correct for systemic racial discrimination by tweaking diversity levels, you end up making it so that a Saudi prince might receive preferential college admissions a poor, rural white kid would not.

If you try to do diversity and individual disadvantage correction at the same time, you end up with games of "who is the most disadvantaged group".

I feel like the most honest way (not debating the ethics, per se) of dealing with these problems are something like:

For correcting systemic discrimination: quotas. You set aside some number of positions for different groups. This is flat-out protectionism -you're trying to build a societal base that doesn't need this anymore. As a society, you can tinker with this around the edges and debate the relative levels.

For correcting individual disadvantages: preferential hiring. Once you have your quotas, within each block you can take a look at people and see if you can get a sense for who might have a higher potential than their records indicate. This one is the hardest to do and strays into the other areas. But you can at least partially correct here by forming some policies around resume reviews and so-forth.

For improving diversity: aggressive recruiting of minority groups. People who want to attend your school/company will still be able to apply, but the talent pool will be larger to begin with.

Obviously, there can and will be the incentive for some of these things to cross over. Anyone who isn't happy with the amount of quotas will try to smuggle over preferences. Note that there turn out to be a lot of people upset that the amount of quotas is zero, but I think there would be qualitative difference in the objections if there were some, but lower than wished for. I think if there were quota systems as an option, "there should be no more than 20% Asians" would not be taken seriously, and when it lost overwhelmingly in a vote, people would back off somewhat.

There are a lot of legal and constitutional arguments against these points. I'm only arguing that if we had three different regimes for dealing with three different problems, you'd have a lot fewer mottes-and-baileys littering the countryside.

[tc-doherty]

WIP Round-up

We are in the 2nd half of 2023 so I figured I would do something like this because I haven’t actually compiled information for a while.

Status updates, priorities, and which projects I’m dropping.

Backwards Tales:

 I’ve written Beauty and the Beast and I’m satisfied with that, I’ve written two pages of Cinderella and I’m relatively satisfied so far. I’m just going to see where time takes me with this one. I don’t currently have any specific fairy tales picked out for other ones but that won’t be an issue.

Celestials:

The Ghost is finished, but it will be getting some tweaks and a couple brand-new illustrations before it’s republished under Fabler :3

The Fairy, I’m about halfway through this draft, I think, but it has a whole new ending so it will still need another draft or two at least.

The Scholar, I’m more or less settled onto the idea of this but I haven’t written it yet.

The Knight, still in baby planning stages.

Coyote Song:

This is so stupid but I do love it and I still intend to rewrite it. I have to at least see if it has any value.

The Deadlands:

I do like the story but I’m slightly worried that it might get me sued unless I make some major changes so…status, unknown. I don’t know if I like it enough to put major structural repairs at a high priority at the moment.

The Desert of Claw and Fang:

I’m dropping this one.

Dragon’s Daughter:

Dragon’s Daughter is done except for the illustrations.

Dragon’s Choice, the first half is basically done, the whole second half is new so it’s sparse and needs plumping up.

The Gryphon of Sirray:

I’m still intending to write this one.

The Hildspel of Athelhyrst:

The publishability of this is 0% but I do intend to continue writing it whenever I have a free moment, which is not right now.

Hoofbeats:

This one has promise and I do intend to write a new draft of it once I get some other projects out of the way. I would say this is medium priority.

The Huntress of Anihwen:

I may be dropping this one.

Into the Witch’s Wood:

I’m almost certainly dropping this. I don’t know what it is about the story but I can never keep my interest up about it no matter how I change it, even though I like some of the cast members. Maybe I will just steal them and do something else with them.

Laero:

While this story may or may not actually ever work out, I fully intend to at least try to write a new draft since I’m much older and wiser now.

Magic Black as Knight:

I think I’ve written about a quarter of the plot. I do intend to finish it and see if it works out but it’s lower priority right now.

Miracles:

I just need to write the last couple of chapters, maybe 10 chapters or so. And then it will need a little bit more editing and filling out but it’s also basically ready for alpha-reading as soon as I write those last couple chapters.

Northbound:

I love these characters but I need to spend some serious time working out the politics before I go back to it so that I can make sure everything is intriguing enough but still makes sense. I would consider it medium priority at the moment.

The Race of the Midday Moon:

I 100% intend to write this one.

The Rose and the Egret:

I think I’ve written the first two fairy tales from this? I am going to finish it.

Second Chances:

This is in a weird place because it’s basically done except for minor tweaks and a little bit more fluffing (ready for beta-reading at least) but the idea of publishing it is strange to me due to Reasons(TM) so I don’t know what to do with it.

The Swan Husband:

This idea is still funny to me and I want to try it.

Temitope:

This is essentially still a novella and I’m having a little bit of time making it long enough but it’s still pretty far along in the process and I’m going to keep working on it.

The Thief Queen:

I will probably be dropping this one.

Untitled 1:

This may end up being one of the things that I just write for myself because it’s already extremely self-indulgent, we’ll see. I may also take the characters and do something completely different with them.

Untitled 2:

I pretty much have the whole plot line worked out in my head from what I’ve done so far, I just need to expand on some things and learn more about scriptwriting so I can do it properly. I love the story and this will be happening.

Untitled 3:

Absolutely, 100%, I’m writing this. Even if it turns out bad, I’m going to write it. I would like to write it soon actually, it’s relatively high priority for me.

Untitled 4:

I still intend to try this but because it’s a totally different genre and I don’t know if I’m suited for it it’s still fairly low priority at the moment.

Untitled 5:

This is still only a short story at the moment, I do have ideas for what I want to do with it but I would like to finish Temitope first given that they are set in the same universe. Not that they’re connected in any way, it just seems like I should finish the first one first and the second one second.

Untitled 7:

I’m dropping this.

[mouseratz]

things I want from the persona series that we already have:

1. the wonderful mash-up of social sim and dungeon crawling

2. progressive mysteries and side stories alike

things I want from the persona series in an ideal world:

1. gay that isn't homophobic as all hell. (I ❤️ existing or heavily implied gay characters but they deserved better).

2. can we stop being weird about the girls. having them be dateable is fine but the amount of unavoidable pervy moments in these games is crazyyyy......actually

3. on 2, if we can't change that, just make them an adult cast. I'm so tired of playing these games and enjoying myself and having to stop and go "what kind of person wrote this about a sixteen year old. this is fucked"

4. more minor but in general more diversity would be nice. and also can we stop making fat characters just to be evil as fuck or the butt of every joke. I dare the next persona game to have a fat character whose entire personality isn't "likes to eat but stupid and bad style unlike our protagonists who eat normally but it's not weird because they're skinny. but the fat characters eat way too much and are food obsessed. and are also probably mean spirited and hateful for no identifiable reason". and more than one or two brown characters, or at least having those one or two be more plot-significant/fleshed out.

basically I think persona needs some writing fixes. the base formula and gameplay loop is already excellent and needs little more than tweaking depending on context imo. that's the part they don't need to change much (and frankly, really haven't, only adjusting relatively minor things as they go), and their visual style is very identifiable and attractive, too. I just wish the stories felt less closed-minded despite the kind of story they clearly want to be (ie, talking about themes of identity and acceptance in much of their primary plots, yet writing their characters seemingly without this in mind)