#give her cool armor that would actually protect her vital organs

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Having erza wear her eyepatch again was a missed opportunity

[rose-wine-selfships]

i was curious, you said ur oc's power was goblin market and i looked it up (it's such a cool story with great symbolism nice choice). since it has so many different undertones, what exactly does rossetti's power do?

Well, I’ve been brainstorming her ability for quite a few months now. Since I read the actual poem, I agree with you that it’s quite amazing to read and an experience! Even though the original work consisted of undertones of drug addiction and abuse, money, sexual themes, and a lot more, I wanted my OC’s ability to deviate a bit away from the original work. I wanted her ability to be related to the poetry theme a bit, yet still retain aspects of her original personality. 

Originally, I wanted her to basically absorb everyone’s abilities through touch and copy their powers for a short amount of time. As cool as that sounded, it seemed my character would be WAY TOO overpowering (and Mary Sue-ish tbh). Plus, someone would have already made a Bungou Stray Dogs OC with that EXACT same power eventually. So I wanted to deviate away from that and create her ability through the theme of money and greed, while also maintaining her kind and generous nature too.

And then I thought,” You know how at a market you buy things with money? What if it’s related to it? ” Then I asked my older brother to help me with creating her ability. He mentioned, “Maybe she has a literal heart of gold and she can make money from her fingertips.” 

Then it hit me. Like a ton of f****ing (gold) bricks. What if Christina Rossetti can mold and shape her body like actual metal? Then I just kept going and going until I brainstormed all the things she can and cannot do with her body from her ability. 

Now my OC has a fully shaped ability and I’m VERY happy that I fleshed out every bit of her power. 

You know how Osamu Dazai’s ability “No Longer Human” works right? Dazai’s ability helps him nullify other abilities. He doesn’t exactly turn into a goblin, demon, or animal because of the ability name right? That would be silly. That’s why I head canon that a lot of the characters abilities in Bungou Stray Dogs are basically slightly deviated from the original work. You just work around that in your own creative way. That’s exactly what I did with Christina Rossetti’s ability! 

So I’ll give you all the pros and cons of her ability, Goblin Market, and what she can and can’t do with that ability right down below.

She can:

- Shape shift her body into any precious metal she wants such as: gold, silver, platinum, copper, etc...

- Make partial or entire precious metal armor constructs out of her body to protect her vital organs during battles. This is especially helpful when she’s in the heat of an intense battle, and she can shield others with her bulletproof metal body.

- Take ahold of any inanimate metal weapon and enhance it by making it sharper, conduct electricity, or create intense fire-like heat at the tip of the weapon.

- Melt herself into a literal puddle of hot liquid metal and potentially melt her opponents body parts off.

- Create and mold precious metals (coins, bricks, sculptures, etc...)   from her hands. Although the procedure is uncomfortable for her, and feels like a physical pinch every time she does it. 

She is immune to metal, fire, or electric based attacks due to her body being used to engulfing and consuming it like nothing. It is canon that she can eat metal nuts and bolts like a snack, even though it provides no nutritional value to her body. She still does it so she can sharpen her body’s abilities (and maybe freak out the ADA for joke value sometimes). It is also canon that she does have a literal,”Heart of Gold” both inside and out, and that heart is the epicenter of her ability’s powers. If it is ripped out, she will definitely die, but her heart will have a life of its own and still keep pumping liquid gold eternally. Hence why if someone kidnaps her and kills her properly, they will become the richest ability user in the world.

She cannot:

- Fight against water and ice since it makes her rust super easily, and she will physically freeze up in battle unless an ally pulls her away from the opponent user. 

- Wind makes her rust just like water and it will corrode away her body in a painful manner. Almost like having pieces of your body getting chopped off.

- Fight against magnets and will easily stick to any surface the opponent user forces her on, making her completely helpless and stuck in battle.

Hope this is a useful guide for her ability, and I genuinely thank you for asking about my self insert/OC’s entirely! 

-The Pink Prophet 🌹✨

[chardesignbyacosplayer-blog]

Movement & Comfort

As you have read before, a lot of character designs don’t really think about how restricting some outfits can be, what types of fabric do to someone’s body and how much some things HURT. So let’s get some misconceptions out of the way.

Bodysuits and other tight clothing: bodysuits are used for (mostly female) ‘badass’ characters EVERYWHERE. The idea is that bodysuits make sure you can move as freely as possible. Which is far from true. Bodysuits, especially fake leather ones, restrict one’s movement if the fabric is not stretchy enough. A good example in recent movies is Hela. Her costume looks great, but in a talk the director gave at Playgrounds Festival, he told the audience the actress could barely move and acted in a green suit so the actual suit could be cgi’d on top of it in scenes where she had to move. You literally cannot move up your legs or arms if a bodysuit is so tight you can see every outline of your body. Plus, what a lot of artists forget: you need seams to have fabric fall a certain way, especially if you want to see bood outlines. This also counts for skinny jeans or any other piece of super tight garment. Tight clothing also does not have any space for your skin to breathe, so prepare to get sweaty. Not recommended to wear in hot places.

If you want a character to be able to move freely, look at free runners, monks or ninjas for example. They wear loose jogging pants and shirts with sturdy shoes, so they have all the space to freely move and a good grip.

Metal armor: It’s amazing to wear in combat, but it’s hot, heavy and tiring as well. Normal guards wouldn’t wear a full metal amour for example, as it is way too tiring. Also, anywhere where it’s about 25 degrees or higher, you don’t want to wear anything metal, which is why in African countries, they won’t be wearing much metal, but thick cloth instead. After watching a few videos on medieval armor (including the one mentioned in the last chapter), I learned that armor is only used, or only thick in places you need it. Think around the heart for example. This way, it stays as protective as possible and as light as possible at the same time. Look at the guards in Assassin’s Creed II: they mostly wear just a chest plate, as much more would be too heavy. The heavier guards have more, and thus more heavy, armor. 

For female breastplates, which often have breasts shaped into them: this will literally kill you. An armor is created to deflect blows. If that piece of metal is literally laying on your chest bone when it gets hit, your bone will break and it will lead to your death. So yeah, even though I love Skyrim, the armor below here will most definitely kill you. 

And same for tight clothing: tight armor is dreadful. My Athena leg armor is so tight, it rips when I bend my knee and my calf muscles ‘grow’. Cannot be nice having that armor on in actual steel version, think of chest armor that is so tight you can barely breath. Yeesh.

If you want a character to wear metal armor, think of the temperature, how long they have to travel and what pieces need protection the most in the type of battle they are facing. Make sure there is enough movement space and padding as well, so it does not hurt to wear.

Shoes: Does your character have to stand in heels all day? They better wear heels all day every day, because otherwise their feet will hurt lots. But if you wear heels every day, your leg muscles in the back get shorter and it will hurt wearing flat shoes after that, as your muscles suddenly have to stretch back to their normal length. Thinner heels also get stuck in things, break easily and let your feet slip at the tiniest misstep.

Does your character run in tombs, climb a lot or walk a lot in general? Leave those thin heels behind, please. They need some sturdy shoes.

Types of fabrics and sewing: Next to the fit, the fabric will definitely make your outfit more comfortable depending on what it is made for. Cottons and other more natural fabrics breathe more and can be cooling when worn in hot climates. While leather is heavy, synthetic and coated fabrics make you sweat insanely. Wools are warm but can get itchy, but so are fabrics like velour. It is great to have an example of what type of fabric you want to use for your character design. You can get references on how it moves, stretches and what it is used for in real life.

I highly recommend every artist to try sewing a garment and visiting a fabric shop to see and feel the fabric yourself. It gets you a little bit of insight on how clothing is constructed, where stitches would be, how many panels you’d need, how much effort goes into creating a garment. When creating a character’s clothing, you can try looking up patterns for similar clothing pieces to see how it works. A whole jacket cannot exist without any seams, for example.  

Example: So for this example I am using my own character, called ‘the princess’. She lives in a warm climate and rules a country that has some similarities with a place in Africa. She has ceremonial garments, but these are garments I designed for travel, training and fighting. For training, she wears loose dress like pants, that give lots of space for movement and protection to the legs. On her top she wears a crocodile leather chest plate with neck protection. For battle, she wears thick padded cloth, with some metal plates on the top for extra protection around the vital organs and a helmet. Her shoes are flat and sturdy, with a good sole. Below is a mood board I used for these designs.

[dailycharacteroption]

Third-Partystravaganza 5: Severist (Base Class; Gungnir Gamedev)

There’s no end to the strange abilities that might awaken in a would-be hero in a fantasy saying, everything from sorcerous power to being followed around by a dead ancestor to the ability to shapeshift into a powerful battle form, and so on.

Oftentimes great trauma is the catalyst that brings out these powers, and even when it doesn’t, their sudden awakening can often cause tragedy until they are brought under control.

Few are more literally tied to severance and tragedy, however, than today’s entry. Severists, thanks to their keen understanding of loss and isolation, are able to see the threads that bind all things, and even cut them.

Now if that doesn’t sound like a classic comic book or anime powerset, I don’t know what does. The ability to cut anything, especially things typically considered impossible to literally sever due to their metaphysical or even metaphorical nature? That’s the sort of gimmick that you see expanded into a full on superhero or protagonist, and I love that.

 The catalyst that creates a severist varies, but defines them greatly to the point of granting them abilities and penalties. The loss of memories, compatriots, a secure home, and even a country are all possible catalysts.

Though they cannot truly detect magic itself, these warriors can see the connection between a caster and their magical effects, whether they be stand-alone effects or directly affecting something else.

As one might imagine, severists specialize in destroying objects with weapons, proving masterful at doing so.

However, they also study an array of techniques to cut away at the metaphysical, such as dispelling magic by cutting the connection to the caster who created the effect, temporarily cutting the connection between familiar or animal companion and their masters, slicing through force effects, the barriers between dimensions, the threads of fate, and even cut the pull of death on a soul, forcing it back into the body to be potentially healed and revived, all of which they pick and choose to learn the secrets of.

By seeing the threads, they can see area effects coming and potentially evade harmlessly.

Additionally, they eventually learn to read the effects of a spell by their thread alone.

Shredding the lines of magical sight, a canny severist can ward themselves against detection by most any method other than ordinary mundane senses.

The blades of these warriors are particularly implacable, slicing and sundering even when failure seems certain, and even causing grievous wounds to foes normally thought immune to such things.

More powerful severists draw strength from failure, pushing themselves to do better in following attacks.

At the height of their power, these blademasters regain a bit of what they have lost, such a memories, standing with past organizations, and so on, removing the problems, while gaining new boons from them.

Interested in a sunder-based character that takes the gimmick of “cut anything” to its logical extreme? This may be what you’re looking for. Naturally anything related to sundering is a must, including the cut from the air feat line, vital strike, cleave, and so on. Feats that gear them towards facing down mages are also good.

 Some of the abilities stretch the boundaries of the plausible with this archetype. (The organization that dislikes you turning the other cheek just because you hit 20th level?) However, it’s exactly that sort of borderline implausibility that give it that anime/comic book feel, so I’m cool with that. Pathfinder has been no stranger to such ridiculousness from day one, so it’s actually a decent fit for system. Whether your character is a brooding loner because of their past loss, however, is your call as a player.

  Kasskara is a legend in the arena, masterfully cleaving apart the weapons and armor, as well as magical protections of her foes, leaving them forced to concede or be destroyed. Supposing her power over magic is derived from her signature greatsword, some of her disgraced foes have plotted to steal it.

 Lost without any memory in a land foreign to lizardfolk like himself, Yemec the cleaver puts his skymetal ax to good use in mercenary work as a means to get by and occupy himself. However, when a mission leads him to a lead on his past, shadowy forces are set in motion, ready to stop his self-discovery if need be.

One of the vampire lord’s greatest allies is no undead, but a cursed soul nonetheless. This armor-clad figure supposedly is a fallen paladin, but his abilities seem to have no chaos or unholy power in them. Nevertheless, they have an unseen power all their own.