#and very tangentially

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

In other news, I finally found a nice nerdy motif that includes eyes to paint on my mask. I wanted a simple, reasonably beginner-friendly design that would read well on the mesh and that'd be easy to fix when it inevitably gets too badly scratched up by, you know, being repeatedly hit with a steel sword. (And in the meantime it's gonna get cool appropriately silvery details as the paint gets scraped off.)

Progress pics under the cut for those interested.

First, redrawing the symbol from a very low-res old rulebook scan, printing it out, and cutting out a stencil. There is a very nice high-res transparent png of this holy symbol available in the BG3 game files, but sadly it's a very detailed, fancy, redesigned version with way too many complicated thin lines to work for this.

The first step is just black and white primer, airbrushed on, kinda messy and blurry, as expected.

Then, freehanding in both black and white to sharpen it up and bring out all the details. Moonmaiden, guide my hand! etc etc etc.

And there you have it.

[regicidal-defenestration]

A bus is basically the classic thing to wait in the rain for

[elodieunderglass]

Felt i needed to explain some characteristics of a very common character found in an admittedly narrow (ha) corridor of the known world

[royalarchivist]

Fit: Did I steal anything else before I have to go to work? Did I steal anything else from you?

Phil: Just my heart.

Fit:

Phil: Anyway—

Fit: Phil, Phil, Phil, Phil. Calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down. You need to calm down, you- I don't know what they're putting in the— Alright, I'LL SEE YOU LATER PHIL! YEP. I'll see you later! See you later.

Phil: [Cackling] I was like, "What's the thing I can say that would absolutely try and fluster Fit?" [Laughs] That's the first thing that came- [Laughs too much to finish his sentence] Yes. [Fist pumps] Yes. Just testing him. Just testing him. I wanted to see if Pac got brought up in the conversation, I wanted to see if he'd be like, "Hey, I'm- I'm sworn- I'm- I am taken—" I wanted to see if he'd say it, but he didn't. He didn't.That's interesting, Fit. That's interesting. Roommates, right? How far does the rabbit hole go on this one? Just roommates? Just roommates?

[literallyjustanerd]

i think they should be allowed to make fashion choices, i just don't think all of those choices would be wise

or: how social media came to be blocked within The Resolute's airspace

(kix can be a little goth. as a treat.)

[mellosdrawings]

Hey~ Welcome to "Mello thinks too much about Jamil at 5am coz they can't sleep!"

Today's subject: Pride!

I've just been obsessing over it for a while and had a random enlightening last night.

So NRC is a school full of prideful students who know they're hot stuff, right? Aside from maybe Trey and Cater who are more mild mannered and don't boast much like others, and maybe Rook who is more interested in others than himself, Pride is the one sin that is common amongst all the characters.

Jamil's case is pretty singular though, especially amongst the overblotted gang. Because while others' pride usually comes from knowing they're hot shit, Jamil's is a defense mechanism against the fact that he's nothing.

Yes I'll be especially harsh against Jamil, but that's kind of the truth.

Riddle is one of the greatest mages of his generation because of all the work he's done since he was basically born, he knows he's hot stuff.

Leona is just... OP. Canonically the cleverest in all NRC, OP powers, the one guy even Idia doesn't understand why he overblotted in the first place, he's even royalty. Like, if it weren't for his bro he'd have everything. Leona might be self depreciating a bunch, he still knows he's hot stuff and his pride comes from that.

Vil is both powerful and one of the biggest stars worldwide. He's the same as Leona, while he has his moments of self hatred his pride does stem from just being that bitch.

Will it surprise you if I also call Idia prideful? Sure, he's meek and introverted and has too much anxiety for his own good, but he did get his Housewarden position because he thought he was better at the job than others. He knows he's a technomancy genius and one hell of a gamer. What little pride he shows comes from those talents.

And Malleus, well, he's just the devs darling so he's even more OP than Leona.

I purposefully skipped Azul because I think his case is more similar to Jamil's than to the others.

Azul and Jamil's pride are artificial. It's here as a defense mechanism, either to be perceived as better than he thinks he is (for Azul), or to convince himself than he is more than what he actually is (for Jamil).

Sure, Jamil is clever and pretty strong and has lots of qualities. But 1. He's far from the genius he thinks he is. And 2. As soon as people point out he's a fake he immediately goes into depression mode.

Book 6 was a very insightful moment for both Jamil and Azul. They both get paired with people who (not so) accidentally chip away at their pride until they have to face the fact that they are just not as great as they think.

And that's where Azul and Jamil differ.

Because Azul knows he's "not that great". Or at least, he thinks he's inferior to others. That's why people he considers above him punching down on him hurts so much (plus the obvious bullying trauma he's got).

Jamil genuinely thought he was better than everybody else until Book 6, where Leona knocked him down a peg. He convinced himself through inflated and artifical pride that he was more competent than his peers. And the second he realized that wasn't the case, he started flipping back and forth between self depreciating and trying to inflate his own pride again. As a defense mechanism.

Because for someone who's always been pushed down to take the least amount of space possible, for someone who's always known he had the possibility to be/do better but was never given the occasion to shine, admitting that he's mid hurts.

He needs to make himself useful and show off to Leona, not just because it's a reflex ingrained in him since forever or because of the repercussions that could befall him should he let royalty get hurt under his watch, but also because he needs to reassure himself that he is something.

Because he's been nothing his whole life.

And that hurts.

That's why it was so hard for Leona to get through to him, while Riddle and Azul managed to work together midway through their descent into Tartarus. Because for Jamil to accept criticism and help, he'd first need to drop his pride. And he just can't do that.

Even by the end of their descent, Jamil still found a way to twist Leona's preaching in his favor. Even then he still managed to put his pride up to reassure himself. He has more potential to grow than others, sure. That's a first step in accepting his mediocrity, but that's also very validating for his pride. He might not be the best now, but just you wait-

And that's why Jamil was all talk and no show before that point. Because unlike the others, his pride is artificial. He has nothing to back it up.

I'm sorry if I repeated myself a lot or didn't make much sense. I'm afraid me trying to explain my thought process tends to be stunted by the fact I don't have enough vocabulary to back it up :'D (And the fact that I'm writing all that while sleep deprived doesn't really help lol)

I usually tend to obsess over the 'sin' of Envy for Leona, Vil, and Jamil, coz it's one hell of a sin, the only that brings no pleasure whatsoever. And I just love watching characters make their own lives miserable over the pettiest things.

But damn is the subject of Pride interesting. I see most people, myself included, tend to tone down the Pride aspect of NRC when writing fanfics or drawing fanarts, even though it's one of the core points of the story.

And as said earlier, it's hard to make a character change and develop when Pride is in the way, so I totally understand why people downplay it for the sake of narrative.

Coz otherwise we'd only get tragedies.

And I love tragedies~

[snipdoodle]

Aaaaaah I love drawing my fursona!!! I love them!!! She's like me!!! But not really but in spirit I suppose!! I wish I was a vaguely feminine but overall ambiguously gendered feline creature!!!

[literallyjusttoa]

The idea of a multi-page comic about Apollo checking on a young exiled Paris because Hecuba asked him too was beamed directly into my mind like a message from the lord. Sadly, I am but a humble neurodivergent cringfail loser, so the good lord will just have to deal with this probably staying in my head forever. Amen.

[glitter-stained]

Okay you know what fuck this shit I'm tired, screw nuance actually. I think murder is okay now.

[rednightmare18]

I think ultimately what I'm getting at here is that most of the KCD duology is built upon and around the core truth that Henry is just a guy.

He's just some guy who the world happened to. He doesn't wind up in his unique situation because he is inherently remarkable but because of his own violent cocktail of the highs, lows, and randoms of life -- luck, personality, grit, tragedy, nepotism. So are we all, mostly.

He isn't pulled into these semi-grand events because a high skill level and natural sense loyalty have made him into the perfect candidate to serve as Hans's squire, and Hans is not drawn to him for any of these reasons either. On the contrary, he has developed his skills and has become loyal (to Hans himself, critically, not some general intangible ideal of loyalty) because he is Hans's squire -- because Hans likes him, Henry, for no other reason than because of the person he happens to be.

He is not successful and courageous (in fact he has to work very hard at courage, consciously, over time) because he is Radzig's son and somehow imbued with these traits through the quality of his blood; being Radzig's son drags him into an unexpected position of favoritism that forces him to either develop or flounder, building out his character this way or that.

This is one of the huge statements about worth and class and social stigmata that KCD is trying to make. 90/100 times, they do a superb job. But there are gameified moments, especially in KCD2, where the script deprioritizes that narrative truth in order to fulfill the average gamer's expectations of how an RPG is supposed to work. And those moments really stick out like a sore thumb to folks who came to KCD2 having played KCD1, precisely because of how well the narrative is otherwise crafted -- and how well Henry is developed, body and mind -- over the course of two games.

Above all else, this, I think, is why it is necessary to play KCD1 to fully appreciate Kingdom Come as a work of art and to understand what it is attempting to say about the world and about people, through history and in any present moment.

[hoofpeet]

Re: archeops imitating voices: what if it learned to say cute things like “hello”, “wanna treat?” And “I love you”

Ough.. I feel like having a large & dumb bird be able to talk could backfire in some ways

[nymdraws]

more of these guys ( + one deanna)

[egophiliac]

Tl;Dr - I stopped playing the game but I like the characters and I wanna draw them but idk if the wiki I use is up to date for cards

Do u know any wikis that have up to date cards for all the twst characters-

Asking specifically bc of Malleus cause I can't tell anymore if he has any more new cards bc HE DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A 100 DISNEY ANIVERSARY CARD IN THE WIKI I USE 😭

Like compared to everyone else in Disanomia, he has 12 cards (in the wiki I use) and then Lilia has 17 cards 💀

Cause I think Malleus has a Bean's Day card as well, but that could just be a fanmade one, I don't have JP twst nor ENG twst anymore so I can't confirm it myself urhghrhevw 🫠

Malleus doesn't have a Beans Day card, so that would've been fanmade! and the 100 anniversary cards are actually the new round of birthday cards, so most of the characters don't have 'em yet -- Malleus should be getting his in a couple of days, when his birthday event starts! oh god my keeeeeys

I think the wiki.gg stays pretty up to date? it looks to me like they have everything that's currently up through JP, at least. :O I did go through and do a quick count just because I couldn't believe Malleus only had 12 cards, but. he really does have the least...defeated only by Silver with 13...astonishing. we need his gargoyle club wear immediately.

[elodieunderglass]

The post about the informal shanty-choir earlier has reminded me of an anecdote of my dad's

He used to work in a pub, run by a landlord with an astonishing bass speaking voice. They had a few live music acts who'd pass through the pub on a regular basis, including a Welsh male voice choir who every single year would try to pressgang the landlord despite his protestations that he couldn't sing ("We can teach you to sing, we can't teach that pitch!").

Accordingly I'm imagining Charlie and Ken enthusiastically chatting up the deepest voices that come down the Kennet and Avon, and probably even managing to recruit them (I bet they've got an amazing chill-cop/un-chill-cop routine)

(In reference to OC Charlie and his boater friend Ken, who sing in pubs if you can’t get away fast enough)

POV you go to the wrong pub (any boater pub is the wrong pub but this isn’t your fault) in the middle in the southwest of England in the mid-2010s and gradually become aware of a sixth sense of being watched…. No……. Not watched….. overheard??

You answer a phone call, and when you hang up

it’s

suddenly

No listen the bass just has to go “aaaaaaah” - you don’t even have to say ANY words

[royalarchivist]

Fit: Oh god, ok– so listen... You're gonna kill me.

Pac: Oh my god, why? 😰

Fit: I once had the Minecraft username 'Pac,' P-A-C.

Pac: Wh– For real?!? 😲

Fit: But I changed it to a different 3 letter name, N-E-S, because I wanted to make a joke that my two Minecraft accounts were 'Fit' and 'Nes.' So 'fitness.'

Pac: Fit, you had, at one point, the BEST nickname of all time!!! But like, 'Fit' is also a good nickname, so you fine.

[amphibianaday]

day 1478