#but is it weird i can kind of see that this style

[adobe-outdesign]

Have you reviewed the Elderly color yet?

Elderly kind of felt inevitable as a colour, seeing as baby was already a thing for years. I'd say that its pretty justified too, seeing as it's not very similar to any other colours. It couldn't just be clothing either, seeing as the base colour has specific details to it like wrinkles.

However, despite the inevitability, a lot of users don't really like Elderly. I think it's in part due to the color palettes used—it's all very muted colors, and a lot of pets lack any sort of palette consistency or balancing. It also doesn't have inherent appeal to it (like baby, which is fundamentally cute).

In terms of execution, I think there are three things that make this colour work the best:

Clothes are fine, but also lean into animal-like attributes when it comes to aging instead of only human ones. See examples like the Hissi and Wocky below.

Clothes need to look age-appropriate, but they can still be decently trendy and fashionable. Alternatively, go for very "cute" outfits like oversized sweaters.

Base colours can be muted, but should still look appealing. A few wrinkles are fine, but try not to go too overboard so the base can be used for other things.

Keep the "male" and "female" counterparts equal both in concept and design. Both should look like they belong together.

I feel like pet styles would also really add something to this colour; just giving the pets unique anatomy and making them anthro (think like royal) would help things tremendously.

Elderly came out after customization, so there's no per-cusomization versions to compared.

Favorite Species:

Hissi: Elderly Hissi are by far the best elderly pets. The shed skin was already great as a concept (reptiles can have trouble shedding their skin properly as they age), but the way it forms a hat on the elderly boy? Fantastic. I also really like the outfits, which seem very age-appropriate but also look fashionable as well. Finally, the base colors are nice and not too wrinkled, so you can use them for other customizations as well.

Wocky: Converted Wockies are usually pretty weird looking, but the elderly ones are honestly pretty adorable. I like how the base colours are based on actual cats, and things like the messy fur capture the elderly look well without being too overwhelming. I also think the outfits are super cozy, and both the elderly girl and elderly boy versions feel equal to each other. Only minor quibble is that the female's hair curlers don't fit the palette and clip over the eyebrows in a weird way, but those can be removed so it's not that big of a deal.

Lenny: Following the trend set by the Hissi and Wocky, the elderly Lennies have a very pleasant set of base colors with realistic markings and palettes—and even better, they're both based on birds with long lifespans (pink cockatoo and albatross, birds which have been known to live to 70 or 80 years old). Also, the retirement ski/hiking outfits work surprisingly well on the bodies considering their unusual shape. Only minor quibble (outside of the base lacking head feathers, which I think wasn't possible to fix) is that it's weird that their beaks are wrinkled of all things.

Least Favorite Species:

Tonu: It's not that these look terrible, per say, it's more just that... like, why are they knights? Nothing about these reads as elderly. The base colours are also alarmingly zombie-esq with unpleasant palettes, and the swords just floating their is weird. On the plus side, the gold detailing looks nice and the outfits work well as crosspaints, so there's that at least.

[velvetvexations]

god help me I'll throw my hat into the omegaverse discourse ring as a transmasc; I can understand a lot of other trans men/masc's complaints about it (and honestly, there's been certain fandoms/common character interpretations of "omega" characters that really did just feel like transmasc futa. no shade to anyone who did this with love but for an example, I saw a lot of art/headcanons/fic of modern tristamp Vash that made me....raise my eyebrows, let's say), but I will say that as a transmasc person who has written a lot of omegaverse, I actually specifically enjoy it because I feel like it's a rare opportunity to normalize non-cis bodies in an in-universe, literal sense- creating a world where your biology is not tied to your gender presentation and your gender presentation has multiple unique layers is really fun for me.

Mind, I prefer writing "queer utopia" style worlds, so I could see how this could get real weird real fast if you're trying to do An Oppression Metaphor. I think the real problem, if there is one, kind of goes back to the fact that this has basically become transmasc futa, but without a lot of recognizing that this is the case in the wider fanbase/cis readership. So you'll have people blithely consuming this stuff and not really thinking about it as Trans Fiction, so there's less pressure to like. Think about what's being depicted and why and how. And saying things like "omegaverse has the potential to perpetuate transandrophobic stereotypes about trans male/masc bodies because there's a huge chunk of the readerbase who knows very little about the reality of actual trans bodies and so they're going to absorb some of this and not recognize how that might fuck with their perception of real trans people" is both unwieldy as hell and feels like it'd be subject to like...the sort of "oh that's just transemasculation lol" kind of shit where no one except other trans mascs are taking it seriously. But at the same time, I can't give up on omegaverse as a genre with a lot of potential for trans experiences being depicted in new ways!

yeah like the education that this can affect transmascs is the main thing not that Omegaverse is in and of itself bad

[cinnamon-flame]

Starting off the new year with I think the most background heavy piece I've ever made! I think Rainwings and Nightwings would celebrate their traditional holidays together after the events of The brightest night. So this drawing is meant to show their cultures kind of blending together during a very joyful time. I remember talking about this concept with someone on tumblr a year ago but when I went back through my posts I couldn't for the life of me find it - so if your reading this, I remember you and this drawing stems from that conversation so thank you!

Close-ups:

[fyllophobia]

[wisteriasymphony]

have I ever talked about the dumb ghost hunting au. given how much i love gothic themes i feel like this was inevitable

[jovialturtleface]

Oh! Hi ^_^

[icewindandboringhorror]

One of the interesting bits of trying to resume working on the game after so long is looking back at my ancient Draft Placeholder versions of an image from 4 yrs ago trying to remember what the hell I meant back then, to hopefully interpret it into some more final (ish..) form of the same thing .. making slow progress lol

[caravanlurker]

shout out to that one time I watched the PRISMCorps Magical Girl lore video and the first few episodes of TGAMM in veeery close proximity. too much time on this xP loong ramble in the tags

[spotaus]

Boys, hold me to this one, I'm gonna make a Papyrus oc.

Not exactly a new idea, but I've been sleeping on Papyri since I joined this Fandom and I refuse to keep going. We (I) need more Papyruses with the dramatic Sans backstories without directly swapping a sans, and I shall provide at least One.

[violetren]

Fantasy High Junior Year is the first installment of D20 based in the world of Spyre in which I have known with the sudden and complete knowledge of who I'd like to play as a character in some kind of unreal scenario where I got to play in that playground. Literally the only thing that hasn't come to me has been the name.

Full character concept under the cut

She's a half elf and ideally in the unreal scenario of playing her in Spyre she'd be in her sophomore year getting shunted onto some pre-established party by Aguefort after her previous party got decimated during a school adventure that should have been freshman safe but just wasn't. Most of her old party is fully dead and unable or unwilling to come back, one might be comatose, and at least one other one just dropped out and the fact that they left while she stayed is almost a bigger strain on their friendship than the death of their friends but they aren't acknowledging that because neither of them wants to feel like they are being the unsupportive friend when they are all each other has left of their party.

In her original party she was the rogue and just barely settled into the mastermind subclass, always watching other peoples moods and figuring out what words would get them to behave in certain ways. This is all very forgone conclusion based on her particular flavour of edgy rogue backstory in which she had a pretty solid start to her childhood, with hard working parents and a cute younger sibling, until one day her parents died, but instead of the classic "oh the rogue became an urchin" she and her sibling were taken in by her grandfather, a man her parents had put concentrated effort into never letting near their kids. Grandad is The Deadbeat Dad twice over, mostly just neglecting them meaning she had to step up early to keep her sibling cared for, but making them both wish he'd ONLY neglect them whenever he came back home drunk and in debt and wanting to blame someone else about it. She spent a lot of time learning how to redirect his focus before he could blow up, and how to get the focus on her instead of her sibling when she couldn't prevent it from happening.

Starting her new year with a new party who weren't missing anyone but were instead just a small enough group that adding a new member just helped round out the paperwork, she is now also an oath of ancients paladin for Cassandra, goddess of doubt and mystery.

The unreal scenario ideally takes place after FHJY so like Ankarna has finally got through to Cassandra that "no babe, the cat wasn't just grumpy with people who weren't you, she was evil to everyone including you" and Cassandra is still like "but I love a grumpy cat."

My gal ended up on Cassandra's radar either in the immediate aftermath of the battle or while lying in a hospital bed a couple of days later just in full existential tailspin of "how could we have ever thought adventuring was fun? what kind of fucked up world lets kids put themselves in that kind of danger? why do so many people i love die, or leave? why is continuing to adventure still more feasible a life path than trying to find an adult that will actually help? how could anything about my life so far be called fair?" And Cassandra is the first authority figure type being who ever looks her in the eye and goes "hey, you're right its not fair, and I don't know how to help with all your problems, but I can maybe help with some of them, and will stay by your side for the ones I can't fix."

Ankarna is kinda there watching her wife work and seeing how angry my gal is at the world and is having kind of the same reaction as a straight laced suburbanite might have when they take their kid to get a puppy at the pet store and the kid instantly becomes obsessed with the snake on display. It's a very "Sweetie are you sure you want that one, it doesn't look very cuddly, why not one of the ones over here?" while Cassandra is like "but look at that cute widdle face." (the face is a jaded thousand yard glare). (Ankarna is clinging to her new dawn philosophy by her fucking fingers and trying not to be like, this brat is giving me Kalina vibes.)

As a paladin of doubt and mystery with a background roguish masterminding, my gal's new approach to socialising and adventuring (which is her primary mode of socialisation now) is an aggressively bitchy gaslight, gate-keep, girl-boss campaign that makes people think she's constantly trying to cast vicious mockery without ever having learned the spell. It's all mean girl "Oh, you actually thought that quip sounded cool?" while dealing with anyone she doesn't immediately see a reason to play nice with. Cause like she's gotta spread some doubt, no one said what kind. For her new party she's smart enough to reign it in but that mostly just means she keeps conversations as short and on rails as possible. In a very weird way she is like a hairs breath away from becoming a cleric of Ankarna just for like the "we keep moving forward" energy she pushes out, but girl doesn't have the level of introspection (wisdom) required for cleric hood.

However as bitchy as she has forged herself into becoming she is still a big sister first and foremost, so at home she just tries to model the same acceptance and stability she remembers from her parents for her sibling. You see hints of that whenever she interacts with anyone who is already earnestly feeling doubt, because for as worrisome as her general attitude is for Ankarna, she does actually get Cassandra's "you don't have to walk in the dark alone" message. That message saved her when she was at her lowest point, so she fully confuses the shit out of her new party whenever any of them are feeling vulnerable and she's genuinely compassionate and steadfast she is with them. Also in how her whole way of holding herself changes is they have to interact with someone younger than they are.

Also she definitely has some kind of amulet or talisman of some kind that connects her with her sibling so if her grandad comes home while she's off adventuring and presents a threat she can teleport immediately to her sibling and rock that old mans shit. Fuck him, she has smites now. Technically its for any situation in which her sibling feels unsafe but it was brought with grandad in mind and he's the only reason either sibling has ever thought it would be needed. She would absolutely leave the party hanging mid combat no hesitation and barely any warning if signalled whether they had gotten close enough for her to explain what the signal meant or not.

She doesn't really talk with Kristen that much (Kristen's first impression is also probably "oh no, are you the new cat") but she does sometimes text with Craig about all this new church stuff.

[maliro-t]

some game design thinky thoughts.

[relevant-url-incoming]

I think the funniest thing I ever did to Nalyan was put him in this outfit like.

Oh you don't like being around Jedi? and your excuse is that you don't care about or trust the Force and you think Jedi are so stupid and you dislike their aesthetics and insert another petty grumpy argument here? what the fuck are you wearing buddy because that looks suspiciously like half the clothes that got dropped on my consular. you've got a dopey little ponytail that's totally not a little piece of eight-year-old you still desperately hoping to become someone's padawan and your formal outfit is just bootleg jedi clothes. it's funny because if i don't laugh at it i feel really really sad for him. my guy. you need so much therapy for all the shit i put you through.

anyway he will wear this and tell people with a straight face that he's never spoken to a single jedi in his life. these people include risha and corso, who were in fact there the last time he talked to a jedi, and guss, who takes this as an insult and not nalyan being a fucking weirdo (because if anyone other than guss asks nalyan is the first to say he should totally count as a jedi. only if guss isn't there though). this man has Problems.

[jovialturtleface]

[keeps-ache]

i should learn to make hash browns

[rainbowresurrection]

I ended up reading The Price of the Phoenix and while it didn't make me want to bleach my eyes like Killing Time, I still didn't like it as much as I hoped I would. Don't get me wrong, the homoeroticism was intriguing to me, but the actual writing and storyline itself left me with a headache. I think I get my hopes up with these books, given all of the possibilities that the written word has for Trek, and it inevitably sets me up for disappointment lol

[vamptastic]

i think when i read the picture of dorian grey i got way too into trying to understand and form a defensible argument for the philosophy in it because i was very much in my debate team reads the stanford encyclopedia of psychology for fun phase. i mean obviously hedonism is an interesting ideology and the book does talk about it a lot, but i think the prime appeal of the book and why it's a classic is not the philosophy whatsoever it's definitely the drama and the art discussion, and i was so caught up on keeping notes on hedonism that i kind of neglected to pay attention to the characters in the literal and not subtextual sense until the tail end of the novel.