#Wow I went on a bit there

[logicpng]

characterization hc notes

also an excuse to shade sketches more. i don't yet totally comprehend cell shading, as opposed to blending colors until they look right, but never too late to try i suppose

[Image description in ALT, text transcribed under cut]

Text from the image as putting them in alt seems like murder for screenreaders (with some typos corrected):

Off the clock:

Facial expressions more natural

Verbally less strained but can still be a bit dramatic/morbid

Casual but not outright impolite

Can be much more of a troll

In-game / On the clock:

Professional

Speaks relatively tersely, can be somewhat dramatic

More or less calm/collected, but can come off as trollish

Does their best to appear relatively nonthreatening but just appears scarier for it

bonus point: seems to care for humans/players but it's unclear if it's simply pity for their inevitable mortality/fragility or genuine empathy for the position they put themselves in for the cash. one way or another their death in the game's context is simply business

[bearfacedcheek]

it's interesting how without murder bot ever being physically described most people draw it as male looking. (I love the art and pictured it that way too, I'm not throwing shade, and of course no sex parts means no boobies so it does make sense from a body shape pov)

In one of the books it says a character's skin is the 'mid brown that's most common to humans''. It seems likely The Company™ would try and match that common skin colour. (I confess I pictured white, I think we all see versions of ourselves in anything that goes undescribed which is obvious but interesting and possibly deliberate on the authors part. Or perhaps media™ is so packed with white action heroes we're programmed to view it that way)

So I'm going to try and reimagine my mental version of MB to be brown skinned and flat chested and feminine looking. Just in time for the TV show to give us a viking.

also in terms of the murderbot show i wish they’d picked someone a different idk. actually more specifically maybe not a white middle aged man. but whatever. like a katy o’brien, rami malek, sonoya mizuno, or even like lakeith stanfield without his beard could all pull off the strong/stoic vibes while also infusing dry humor

[fairweathermyth]

Hey, Helen, um, have you been getting people making comments about us at work?

THE NEWSREADER 1.02 Once in a Lifetime

[foldingfittedsheets]

Wanted to post a WIP of my beloved and I's characters having a little dragon cuddle. Not so many commissions to keep me busy so I make nerdy art just for me.

So here’s Orion and Kahriq cuddling before bed.

[atmospheral]

Distantly, he hears Sanji say it. "You know that's not Ace." And he knows this. The wavy hair, the freckles, the slight furrow of his brow even in unconsciousness. How could he not?  Even now, white-haired and black-winged and strung up in green fluid, he is Luffy's brother. And he hears himself reply. "I know. But I'm still taking him with us." - if i could see your face once more

seraphim ace AU inspired by @lunisoular's amazing art (1, 2) and also by the fact that ace was offered a position as a shichibukai (which he turned down)

black-haired seraphim!ace under the cut:

[ghost-bxrd]

I’ve been getting really into magical stuff recently and also DC so I’m just gonna drop this here:

Fae Dick Grayson

F A E

okay so fae stories are special to me because I grew up on hearing pagan folklore and fairytales about fae and fae adjacent creatures as good night stories so hooo boy yes I adore that trope! (I mean, I made Dick a Banshee in my fic Shuck so… hehe)

Anyway, Fae Dick Grayson! There’s just so many things you can do with it ✨

Robin appears from one day to the next, following in Batman’s shadow like a mischievous sprite, so honestly rumors have been going wild about him since day one. Robin actually being something non-human doesn’t really come as a surprise!

The fae folk are known for being awfully good at blending in with regular humans when they put their mind to it, the only thing that puts them apart (in most stories) is their otherworldly beauty, and Dick Grayson? Well, he’s definitely got that in abundance.

Just sometimes, when the light reflects off a surface in just the right way, when someone pours a glass of water and you happen to look right through the spray, or when you think you catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of your eye and you spin around— but there’s only Dick Grayson, even if a second ago you could have sworn you saw eyes where there weren’t supposed to be any; colors that aren’t supposed to exist; feathers where only skin has any right to be.

And, gods, all the talking. Dick is terrifyingly good at talking to people without actually saying anything, to the point where you walk away from the conversation feeling utterly drained after spilling your entire life story but when you think back on it— you can’t remember him ever telling you anything about himself. You know there were the usual pleasantries of “hi” and “nice to meet you” and “how are you doing?” but anything beyond that just kinda… seemed to spill out of you? It’s very strange. It’s very unnerving. By the end of the evening you other convince yourself you’re overreacting or you simply push the incident out of your mind altogether.

And there’s another thing about Dick. His name.

He only ever introduces himself as Dick Grayson/Robin. Never Richard. Never. Especially not Richard John. Names are sacred for the fae folk, names have power, so while Richard John Grayson may not be Dick’s true name, he treats it as such to honor his parents. None are allowed to use it. None except Bruce or Alfred on special occasion.

Of course, Dick’s “true” name isn’t exactly a secret so when someone does happen to use it… well, Dick may be… other… but he’s still intrinsically good in a way many of his kind don’t have the patience to be. Dick judges on a case by case basis, just like his parents and Bruce taught him. And usually people do not mean it maliciously when they use his name so he kindly corrects them and that’s that. But oh man, if they still insist on calling him “Richard”? Well..

“Oh no, it seems your credit card is being declined, sir!”

“Sheesh, you tripped over a root? In Gotham?!”

“What do you mean ten birds flew into your window last night? You live on floor level!”

“Dude I’m telling you that rash doesn’t look normal.”

“I… don’t think crows are supposed to follow you like that.”

It’s little things (most of the time, unless you really pissed Dick off) but they keep piling up, slowly driving you insane. You feel like you’re being watched, but it’s just a bird sitting on the window sill again. You feel like someone moved all your furniture just slightly to the right even tho you checked all the cameras.

The fae are kind, but they are also vindictive when crossed.

(Thanks to Bruce, however, I think Dick’s bouts of “vengeance” rarely go much farther than that though.)

Dang ok that ended up being an entire rant… wow. Anyway, yeah. Fae.

[oneluckydragon]

We'd both been so excited for it-- to change, to grow stronger, to pass another life-changing milestone on our adventure together. But after I evolved, it took weeks before Sora could even bring herself to look me in the eyes. It went unsaid between us, poisoning our hearts like a cold, bitter curse and haunting every intake of breath. Although, the worst of it all... was that even without words, we both knew why it hurt so much.

Like some sick joke, I had become the spitting image of him.

Ya'll know that feeling when you [Hero] try to evolve into a Leafeon to be closer in spirit to the best friend you lost [Grovyle] because you miss him so much it physically aches, but instead you end up looking like the guy you trusted/adored that betrayed/tried to kill you and your girlfriend? Cause damn it hurts.

Anyways ever since I replayed EOS and evolved at Luminous Spring I've had thoughts about what Sora's reaction would be to Echo's evolution into Umbreon. And lemme tell you that it's an emotional roller coaster. To say that Sora has complicated feelings about Dusknoir is an understatement, and Echo isn't so happy about it either since she had put her faith in him. They've got a lot of trauma to heal.

But to add to that, I like to write about my girls in my spare time when I'm not drawing cause it's fun, so maybe I'll post some little blurbs sometime if anyone is interested?? Hm. Yeah might do that eventually, we'll have to see.

[hballegro]

i have more conspiracies about MASH that may or may not be true, but ive decided they are. they also just might have been explained, but im dumb, and cant remember. heres your sequel.

in 7x3 where hawkeye tackles bj, bj goes "AAH!' and hawkeye says 'WRONG! THAT STARTS WITH AN H!'. this is because mike farrell's line was 'hey!' but due to the force and drama of the scene, just Yelped instead.

All the dogs that turned up that never appeared again [like the one bj and hawk "ate" when they were trying to scare a visitor, dogs seen in 1 shot, etc] were just dogs that the production crew/cast owned and wanted to bring to work/volunteered their animal for acting duty

in the handful if scenes where hawkeye is actually knitting [and not using the red yarn, for the reason given in the previous edition], hes making a blankie for erin. [co-credit my sibling]

klinger got his ears pierced during the course of the show, starting with clearly just clip-ons and then later declares he doesnt want his ears to close up. some say continuity error, I say commitment (and also it would probably be easier to find real earrings instead of clip-ons)

in s7e2 Peace on Us, no one told bill christopher to tie that red streamer around his neck, he just thought it would be silly

in s7e2 Peace on Us, again, no one told alan alda to drive the jeep back to camp with his leg up like that. he just knows the character well enough to make that call. which he's correct about

the scar on hawkeye's lip was caused by a fishhook in his youth. got called Troutboy a long time afterward because of it.

bj is a vaseline girlie and takes good care of his hair as well.

hawkeye sniffs food because, having grown up partly during the depression, eating spoiled food was a real risk, so giving it a good ol' sniff-test was a given

fr mulcahy cares deeply about his appearance and engages in more grooming activities than any other guy in camp [the shower cap, always looking perfect, owning gardening gloves, manicured hands and feet, etc]. he even irons his stole on a bi-weekly basis and launders his clerical collars

hawkeye's issues with people leaving and not saying goodbye began with his mother after she passed, since his father didnt want him to worry

on nights where charles goes to bed after the other two, he will occasionally clean up a little bit. this contributes to why he's so pissed in 'Pressure Points'- he's been doing his own cleaning and some of theirs without them noticing or caring.

once again these are all just things that came to mind while watching, i didnt think too hard on them. the only one 'researched' on was the food sniffing, solely because i needed to do Year Math lol

[alongtidesoflight]

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

[xbraveheartx]

Suddenly smacked in the face by the implication of Romeo's message where he says "I remember you, so there's no reason for us to fight. I suppose."

I always thought the wording was weird, but didn't think too much on it... Until recently after we discussed some datamined stuff in the Carmeo/Promeo server. There's a scrapped line (where P was supposed to speak) that says "I may not remember, but I'm still your son" during the NP fight, and while the scrapped lines are their own can of worms, let's focus on the memory parts.

I had always thought that once a puppet woke up, they would just get their memories back. But the fact seems to be this: There are select memories that come back to give bits and pieces of their past that "wake" them up-- cause them to change, as we see with P and the necklace; As we see from the spliced memories at the Black Seaside. However, it might not be all one's memories that come back. Whether those spaces stay blank or come back over time, who knows.

What I'm trying to get at here is...

Romeo's memories might only consist of Carlo at the time of waking. Carlo was what woke Romeo-- "I remember you"-- He had the necklace, he knew from who it was; He recognized the face P was modeled after. "So there's no reason for us to fight, I suppose"-- there's a lack of confidence in the wording here. Friends aren't supposed to fight, right? That's what his memory tells him, at least.

And the only memories P tends to get in regards to his past? Those in relation to Romeo, his aspirations, and of his own death. Seemingly, these are the things most important to him.

They were the most important people to each other; They remembered each other, just one too late than the other.

[disposal-blueeee]

doodles

edgar vargas and squee by johnen vasquez

scriabin by zarla-s

[imperatorrrrr]

Nico Hischier at the IHVW Development Camp Meet and Greet

(there’s also a video)

[hulloitsdani]

And they were roommates!

Funny little modern au doodles for the soul. Individuals below:

[auguste-marmonts-only-fan]

POV: me, scheming about how much Marmont content I will release upon the unsuspecting Napoleonic community

[napstabl00k]

Cheap wine, Cheaper praise. Cheap ways to fill my faith.

[lilybug-02]

Fanart for the upcoming anniversary of the webcomic Looking Glasses by @ferronickel. This wonderfully detailed Deltarune Fancomic is set a few years after the events of the game. With endearing characters and a truly intriguing plot, this story serves as a great read!