#hoo boy 2020

[haifischkivenchy]

shameless self promo but i need people to be fully aware that i also draw The Robots and not in fact just yap!!!! i don't actually properly upload my art here though and I don't think it's necessary to reup them on my art blog

[zu-is-here]

Еду в Москву! (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)☆

Приезжаю 13 августа погулять на Индиконе, буду рада встретиться, поболтать и обняться╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

[lucabyte]

I 100% agree with your tags on that post, the best shipping gets fucking WEIRD with it.

i like fluff as much as the next guy but what good is a ship if it doesnt also have the range to make you go ?????????????????????

like "oh so you think these characters are dating?" not necessarily. something is happening though.

which is why i dont usually call myself a shipper in any capacity because i rarely get invested in a relationship in an "i want that to happen/im going to look at fancontent for this" way. i just kind of diagnose things like a malpracticing doctor. then sit back and speculate.

[happi-tree]

📓

Hihihi, lovebird!!! Hope you had a beautiful day 💗💗💗

I did end up scrolling through my personal archives for this and going back to my bnha roots just for you <3 This concept was a fave of mine, and while I didn't write an actual fic for it, I did write a plot summary-type thing along with some bullet points. Hope you enjoy a little Momojirou!

It’s a rite of passage for the Yaoyorozu family once a child turns fifteen to head a successful infiltration mission - the higher the stakes, the more respect the young Yaoyorozu will earn from their future subordinates. Knowing this, Yaoyorozu Momo sets her sights on infiltrating Yuuei High School - one of the most revered and protected institutions in Japan - for the duration of three full years. Momo’s quite literally been preparing for this for her entire life. 

But what happens when Momo realizes she could be more than just a means to an end, the latest blossom of a tree watered in blood? What about when she’s surrounded by loving people her own age for the first time in her life, and it clicks that she’s allowed to want things for herself? That maybe, just maybe, she can save lives rather than take them? Rule with love and not fear?

As their first year goes on, both Momo and Kyoka grow to love their place within their class and genuinely care for their classmates. Feelings like these are dangerous, they know. But at least it can help make their act more convincing. 

Kyoka notices that Momo’s acting less and less every day. They know each other’s tells, they have since childhood, and Momo isn’t just pretending to play Hero anymore. 

[cantdance]

This joke is excellent, also this is the first time loki actually self identified as being bi rather than stepping around it. The art, however

[thegoddesswater]

WIP Summaries

Because I don't really have anywhere that folks can just see what the heck my current writing projects are about - currently I'm sticking to the six WIPs from my previous 'bad summary' poll; there are other works I have but they're in deeper hibernation than these ones. I'll toss it under a cut so uninterested parties may continue about their days with minimal interruption. :P

Tagging @tc-doherty - because I know you've said you're interested in this!

I've these split between Original Works and Fanfictions. The three original come first, because I want showcase them more. And they won the poll, so it's only fair. Also, I'm more comfortable talking about them and will probably skimp a bit on describing the fanfics. As always, there will be extra rambles in the tags.

404 - Youth labourer wipes own memory then realizes "shit, I needed that"

Glenn works as a “Deezee” - one of the poor souls whose job it is to brave the waste and radiation of the Dead Zone to track down whatever resources can still be found there - it’s hard work, and the hazard pay isn’t nearly what it should be, but he can’t afford to be picky. Ever since his father disappeared, along with all the money, the survival of the rest of his family has been Glenn’s only goal. It’s not easy to disappear in a world of digital trails and citizen tracing, but he’s learned well enough to hide his tracks, scrambling codes and tweaking his implanted ID chip into a last-resort failsafe to erase everything. Evadne has an internship studying the Dead Zone and effects it has on those who work there. She’s introduced to Glenn by his fellow Deezees, who point him out as someone who might be of particular interest for her work. The research project leads to friendship between Evadne and Glenn, which eventually includes Evadne’s socialite boyfriend Cal, who much prefers their company to the 'high society' types he's supposed to be rubbing elbows with. When Glenn trips his failsafe, destroying his own memory in the process, it falls to Evadne and Cal to follow what few clues remain to try to help their friend remember who he is, even as they begin to uncover secrets which make them question whether they ever really knew him at all.

Miadhachain Legacy - "i am not a cyborg" insists man with USB charging ports in his spine

As the daughter of Senator Miadhachain, Zaria’s life has never really been her own, having been used as little more than a pawn in her father’s political machinations over the years. In her teens, she was publicly handed over to the care and keeping of Chancellor Bardrick as false collateral to give the appearance of the Chancellor attempting to rein her father in. Years on, Zaria has positioned herself in government intelligence where she deals in secrets, leveraging the aggressive reputation associated with the Miadhachain family name to coerce information out of dissenters while quietly carving herself out the slivers of power that she’s sure the world owes her. Amid the rising protests against Chancellor Bardrick, security measures for all those near him are ramped up, resulting in Zaria being assigned a personal bodyguard. In a move that reeks of even more political posturing than her own movement into the care of the Chancellor, Zaria’s new guard is the military’s current poster-boy, the slum-born Adair Rios, much to her annoyance. With Adair acting as her second shadow, progress on Zaria’s personal ambitions stalls as she’s sure he’s recording and reporting every single thing she does back to his superiors. Adair, for his part, doesn’t care overmuch what Zaria is doing as long as she doesn't make his job harder. He’s suffering a case of rapid disillusionment with life and being told to watch over Senator Miadhachain’s daughter is just another entry into his list of grievances against the hand he’s been dealt. At the top of that list are the painful and invasive procedures that have been forced upon him after his cybernetic augmentation, procedures which seem to show no sign of stopping anytime soon, despite how much they seem to be deviating from the original ‘limb replacement’ he signed up for. After a colleague makes a passing comment about how the Chancellor finally seems to have a plan to ‘eliminate the whole Miadhachain problem,’ Adair begins to suspect that he - and Zaria - might be caught in a much bigger scheme than they realized. The two of them will have to figure out how to trust each other and work together to make sure that they make it out the other side.

Talentless/Wild Card - Despite impending war, the king is really just concerned with his flower garden The above description is not only a bad summary, it's a bad summary of the B Plot.

For years Prylea has managed to keep the tenuous peace between its neighbouring countries of Jerendalia and Casica, but with tensions rising again and the threat of war closer than ever, the Prylean Queen vanishes, shaking Prylea’s once stable foundation. With the loss of Queen Fraise, it falls to King Xalvadore to hold Prylea together as best he can, despite his deteriorating health. Recognizing the dangers of getting caught up between Casica and Jerendalia, King Xalvadore sends his only magic-less knight afield to find the missing Maggie Blackwill: a mage who may have the power to - if not to stop the coming war - at least help bolster Prylea once more. Armed with his wits, kindness, and an enchanted sword in case those first two don’t work out, Sir James ventures across Prylea, towards the keep suspected of housing Maggie, in the hopes of bringing her back to King Xalvadore before Casica and Jerendalia can mobilize against each other, with the weakened Prylea caught in the crossfire.

Run, Runaway - Displaced teenager accidentally reignites decades dormant gang war Fanfic for Jak and Daxter series

Atin, frustrated and rebellious, runs away from home just to get away from everything in Haven. He figures he can just lay low in the crime City of Kras for a while, and intends to do just that. Unfortunately for him, he's recognized as the offspring of folks who really shook up the status quo last time they were in town. With the two big rival gangs each reading way too much into Atin's presence and trying to figure out what the other side brought him in for, Atin's plans of 'lying low' are very quickly destroyed.

Hilarious (to me) fact about this one - this is a 2nd gen fanfic and at some point during the years that this fic has been hibernating, I realized that the two canon characters I created Atin to be the child of would probably never willingly have children. (Also this one was very much a 'just for me' fic, and I was always a little baffled that it had readers when I was actively posting it.)

[Untitled] - Depressed, unkillable immortal decides destroying the world might help Fanfic for Fire Emblem 9 and 10

After the war, Lehran swore that he would always be there to keep the Goddess of Chaos company, but when he loses the ability to hear her along with the abilities of his people, he flees. No longer what he once was, and unable to die, he watches as fear and hatred rise again over the centuries and can only watch from the side as those who were once his people are slaughtered. Deciding that people will never overcome their differences, he decides that annihilation is the only answer. And maybe, maybe if the world dies, it can finally take him with it.

The Heart of a Warrior - Hero with PTSD struggles to run errands while followed by insufferable child Fanfic for Jak and Daxter series

After saving the world three times before even reaching the age of majority, Jak has seen a lot of shit. Too much, really. He's learned that there's no rest for heroes and has learned to be suspicious of what looks like peace. To avoid too much time spent inside his own head, Jak tries to keep himself moving. It would probably be more effective if one of the local children hadn't decided that he was the coolest person in the history of ever and keeps trying to tag along. While Jak somewhat tolerates the hero worship, he's pretty sure this whole situation is going to wrong. He wasn't looking for the universe to prove him right.

This is still a bad summary, but the kid I was when I started this story had no idea what she was doing. Adult me is sure I wrangle it back into something coherent. (This is the fic that I often allude to in the tags as having been un-updated for seventeen years and am currently reworking so I can finish the dang thing.)

[sanchoyo]

literally cannot tell if I’m having a manic episode or actually genuinely just hyper+happy bc it’s finally getting warm and pretty outside and perhaps that’s Doing Away With my bad 3 month long seasonal depression for the time being 🤔 I mean it’s ….nice? To have so much sudden energy the past like, week or so, but also vaguely accompanied with feelings of Dread bc 1. Why 2. How long will it last 3. Can I stop any Impulses and avoid doing anything Regrettable while I am Like This. Bc the track record historically has not been GREAT

[tacoma-narrows]

Gleaming in the Starlight

Last trade of my current batch! This is of Moon-Jelly [she/they] for @clear-valley! Hoo boy did this take me a hot minute to get nailed down aha. I’ve drawn a horse-adjacent character like, once, ever I think, and that was back in early 2020, so like actually almost all my other trades in this batch, this was something fairly new for me haha

Anyways, I’m pretty happy with how this came out ^^ Hope u like it Clare! Thank u for trading with me as always! :D

Now I can do some personal art that I’ve had in mind for awhile, but ngl I may just take a break for a bit and enjoy not having any owed art aha

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I just read through the Wish Upon A Star event for the first time and it's a nice heartfelt story! But hoo BOY do some things about this event feel unexpectedly heavier now with the context of Book 6 and what's currently out for Book 7, particularly with the Diasomnia boys ...

Wish Upon a Star was really nice for the Shroud brothers' story in hindsight! I wouldn't say the event has anything "essential" (you can still understand book 6 without seeing any of Wish Upon a Star), but it definitely adds extra context (like sprinkles on top of an ice-cream sundae!) and some vague foreshadowing to the upcoming main story happenings. (It helped a lot that both brothers were featured cards for this event; they could share the spotlight!) We learn some new information that is fundamentally rooted in what we already know of the Shroud brothers (ie Idia is into video games, Ortho is supportive of his brother) and how it all plays together in a grander narrative. Star Rogue was actually first introduced in this event as something important to Idia and Ortho's childhoods, which later becomes a recurring motif in book 6. The book even closes on Idia playing it with all of his new NRC friends (?). The legend of the Starsending itself, of course, refers to the story of Pinocchio, where a puppet turned into a real boy--a theme which eventually carries over to Ortho, the robot that gains humanity. Additionally, we get a more in-depth exploration of Ortho and Idia's relationship in Wish Upon a Star. We see that Ortho, despite being a robot who would easily be able to look up anything he doesn't understand, still has a child-like wonder about wishes coming true and even dedicates his own wish to hoping that his older brother's wish comes true. It's Idia who expresses a deep cynicism for the Starsending and acts like a buzzkill (pointing out that the stars most likely react to people's body temperature rather than light up in response to being whispered a wish). This reflects their behavior in book 6 too: Idia is the one who has given up hope, and Ortho is the one who seeks to help his brother's dreams come true.

I guess something similar applies for the Diasomnia boys? 🤔 Although to be fair, this event came out in summer of 2020 (when the game itself first launched in March 2020), so we didn't know a ton about the Diasomnia boys back then. A lot of what they said for their wishes would have easily been dismissed as just normal characterization, but it definitely comes off as more ominous knowing what we now know of book 7:

Sebek’s wish: “I wish for the whole world to kneel before our king.” WELL. You definitely got that wish granted, Sebek 😭 cuz all of Twisted Wonderland is about to kneel over in a deep sleep once Malleus’s UM spreads far enough… Sebek is pretty much always going on about how powerful Malleus is, but in book 7 it’s not so fun having to deal with that magic now turned against us and set on consuming the world.

Silver’s wish: “I wish… for my father to have a long life.” When we first heard of this, the assumption was that Lilia would outlive Silver?? Especially with how spry Lilia is portrayed to be… BUT THEN IT TURNS OUT 700 YEAR OLD LILIA’S MAGIC IS ON THE DECLINE AND HE WANTS TO GO DIE ALONE IN A FOREIGN LAND 😩 Silver also mentions during his wish segment that he owes a lot to his father and isn’t close to repaying him for everything he has done. This is a sentiment Silver shares again in book 7… in which he then proceeds to break down and cry in front of Malleus about those insecurities 😭

Lilia’s wish: “My wish is… for humans, fae, and all other species to live in harmony.” This one hits super different because right now we’re witnessing Lilia’s past self as a general actively fighting against humans and being suspicious of them. His present self is much more peace and harmony loving, even instilling in Silver a respect for all creatures and lecturing Malleus and Sebek for their sometimes ignorant behavior towards other races. He acknowledges the challenges that come with bringing together those from all walks of life, but he’s also the first to preach about how the importance of it. People may be weak alone, but they can come together like the threads on a spindle to become something stronger together. This is a testament to how much Lilia’s feelings and him as an individual have evolved over time. What’s even sadder is that when you read Lilia’s words, it definitely sounds like he’s reflecting on his unsavory past, and wishing for a better world for the future: “You've learned about […] all the countless tales of our failure to compromise, and the resulting conflicts? I have no desire to see such history repeated.” So he makes the same wish every year…

Malleus’s wish: “I wish for Roaring Drago (Gao-Gao Dragon-kun) to make a friend.” Gao-Gao makes his first appearance in Malleus’s Labwear vignettes, but becomes a more integral part of Malleus’s story in other materials, then culminates as a motif in book 7. The importance of this virtual pet cannot be understated in regards to its connection with Malleus’s understanding of human lives and change. Prior to book 7, we see Gao-Gao as something “like Malleus”—it’s alone, a dragon hatched from an egg. (One can say that wishing for Gao-Gao to have friends is a metaphor for how Malleus himself wants friends.) During book 7, the perception of Gao-Gao changes; now it is likened to Malleus’s loved ones. He fears them leaving, just like Gao-Gao does when he’s all grown up—and so Malleus justifies his extreme actions with the excuse of, “I want them to live a happy fantasy forever and ever, just as though Gao-Gao were with me for all of time”. It’s how Malleus rationalizes his actions and comes to understand others. What makes Gao-Gao and even more prominent symbol in book 7 is its ties with Lilia; as Malleus notes in his Starsending segment, Gao-Gao was a gift from Lilia’s travels… and Gao-Gao set to leave once it has fully matured, so, too, comes the painful reminder that Lilia set to leave soon. It puts more pressure on Malleus to act, to come up with some kind of solution for a “happily ever after”. It’s his way of keeping his friends with him… whether they want it or not.

[minetteskvareninova]

How Would I Put This For My Non-Slovak Mutuals

Slovakia is going to have elections (premature, I should note, because Matovič is an idiot, see bellow) and by God I am stressed. Our options are as follows:

Progresívne Slovensko (Progressive Slovakia) - They are the, well, progressive party of the Slovak political spectrum. Which means they are the only fucking party that supports the LGBT movement with any consistency. Most of their other proposals are also relatively reasonable; they are interested in protecting the environment, want to improve the sorry state of Slovak healthcare, fight the corruption and so on. Their only two issues are the fact that their leader, Martin Šimečka, is a fucking nerd with the charisma of a wet noodle, and the fact that everyone, and I mean absolutely everyone, even people who theoretically should be on their side on account of not being bigoted Putin-loving dipshits, hates them for absolutely no reason. Well, except for their large preferences, probably. They are the most successful party, or second most successful (depends on how the elections pan out) after...

SMER - Sociálna demokracia (DIRECTION - Social Democracy; yes I know SMER is also short for something but I'm too lazy to look it up right now) - Hoo boy. These guys. How would I even start to explain the sheer amount of baggage these guys carry...? SMER has been in power in 2008-2012 and 2012-2020. And it was a fucking shitshow. Between massive corruption and widespread mismanagement of public resources, you can't help but wonder how the fuck did these people last one term, let alone three?! Don't let the Social Democracy thing in their name fool you, these people aren't really social democrats, they have no ideology beyond getting more votes and avoiding jail. Their leader is Róbert Fico, a literal antichrist whose corruption scandals would make for an exceptionally thick encyclopedia. This man is able to sell his soul to the devil for money and power, but since the devil seems kinda unavailable, he figured Putin is the next best (worst?) thing. His latest strategy for gaining more support is leaning into the fanatical Putin-loving, EU and human rights hating crowd, which in our country is depressingly large. Another memorable personality is Ľuboš Blaha, a tankie extraordinaire whose favourite meal is the sole of Volodya's boot and a steady diet of bathit conspiracies. Remember when Blaha engaged in casual atrocity denial around Bucha, because Pepperidge Farm and Minette's blog remember. https://www.tumblr.com/minetteskvareninova/680859499810177024/this-war-is-horrible-and-itself-would-be-enough

Hlas-SD (Voice-SD) - Most progressives in Slovakia have high hopes for these people. I don't. They are an offshoot of SMER, whose leader Peter Pellegrini has mostly held the line with Fico, but at least seems spineless enough to betray him if it happens to be advantageous enough. They don't really have any kind of concrete politics (most of their program is a vague "we'll make things better" kind of stuff), but at least they don't actively spread hate, so in that way they are able to climb over the low bar that is their mother party. Still, how are these people in the third place of every pre-election survey I will never know. I guess Pelle is just that sexy or whatever.

Obyčajní ľudia a nezávislé osobnosti (Ordinary People And Independent Personalities) - They have been the ruling party since 2020 and much like with SMER, it was kind of a shitshow, just in a different way. Their leader Igor Matovič is less corrupt (mind you, not NOT corrupt) than Fico, but more than makes up for it by being kinda stupid and also a horrendous drama queen whose antics prematurely ended two cabinets, his and Heger's. Tenderly nicknamed "Matelko", he became known for his "atom bombs" of ideas, such as giving out prizes in a lottery that people join by getting vaccinated. Y'know, to increase vaccination rates during the height of COVID-19 pandemic. That's why this whole thing had to be televised, complete with "call to collect your prize" type of deal. For what it's worth, he at least made attempts to fight the corruption of the previous regime; he did it badly, as is his way, but nonetheless. "Independent personalities" here means a bunch of small parties that joined them in this election, because they would have no chance otherwise. They are a pretty diverse bunch, meaning their ranks include, among others, an infamous bigot and fanatical anti-abortion activist Anna Záborská, but they also made my bae Jaroslav Naď a defence minister, so that kinda balances it out. I wouldn't hate it if they managed to get into parliament, I'll tell you that much.

Slododa a Solidarita (Freedom and Solidarity) - Considering Matelko profiles himself as an anti-corruption crusader, you'd think Róbert Fico is his nemesis. You'd be wrong. Fico unfortunately loses that prestigious title to one Richard Sulík, leader of SaS, who is... Eh? Like, he's competent in the questions of economy and in general not in the worst tier of Slovak politicians, but also, he's as much of a libertarian as is possible in our part of the world (which si to say, he's not as bad as an average American libertarian, but still engages in, for example, casual climate change denial) and constantly feuds with Matelko. Again, I don't hate him, but we could do a lot better.

Kresťanskodemokratické hnutie (Christian-Democratic Movement) - They are surprisingly not as bigoted as their name would suggest, but that's because here in Slovakia we are used to levels of homophobia and transphobia that would boggle the mind of an average non-fundie American. They come off as relatively reasonable, but only because one can't help but compare them to Putin kissasses like SMER, SNS and Republika. Which brings us to...

Slovenská národná strana (Slovak National Party) - You know, Stupidest Slovak Politician is a tough contest, so my respect to anyone who is able to win it as decisively as Andrej Danko. This man is like Róbert Fico, if his spirit animal was a sheep instead of a fox (and I say it as someone who has experience with sheep, those motherfuckers are ungodly stupid). He simped for Putin before it was cool, when that particular fanclub was just him and Blaha. He doesn't seem to be able to speak his mother tongue and his constant malaproper speech is the source of many a meme. Which, yes, means that him getting into parliament would be pretty funny. On the other hand, all that fun would probably be somewhat spoiled by the fact that he's ALSO super corrupt, not to mention, y'know, conspiracy-spreading Putin simp and bigot. He also cites Viktor Orbán as his actual, honest-to-God role model. So, an all-around cool dude that I am very happy might be in the next parliament (if Fico wins the election, because naturally these two get on like a house on fire). /s

Republika (The Republic) - I can't believe SMER legit isn't the worst mainstream Slovak party, but I mean, at least they aren't actual neonazis? I mean, Republika does its best to hide their affiliations, but because their leader, Milan Uhrík, is in competition for the second stupidest Slovak politician (the first place, as stated, firmly belonging to Danko), they don't do a particularly good job of that. I mean, Republika is the product of a schism within ĽSNS, who were already infamous for their idiocy (besides, you know, barely disguised fascism), so figures. Milan Uhrík in particular is the man whose most important contributions to Slovak culture were sitting in the European Parliament doing fuck all (did I mention that like most bigots, he also shits on EU constantly?) and the "I am not a historian" meme. Basically, because of the blatant fascist sympathies of his party, including worshipping Jozef Tiso, he was asked to condemn the crimes of the First Slovak Republic (which was basically a Nazi puppet - yeah, Ukrainians aren't the only nation in this region with a shady past, go figure; not that it prevents some people, including Uhrík himself, from spreading the "denazification" bullshit). Uhrík's answer? "I am not a historian". Since then, he has been given several options to revise this opinion. He never took any of them. His agenda is also truly something to behold, like I've never read something as profoundly dumb as the pamphlets where they present it. They don't seem to be as successful as ĽSNS, but that's unfortunately because their schtick was stolen by SMER with the good chunk of their electorate. Still, SMER might actually take them into their coalition, because like goes with the like even if the "like" is bigotry, and lest we forget, there is no God.

Sme rodina (We Are Family) - *sigh* Do I have to? Okay. Sme rodina is yet another conservative party, completely unlike EVERY OTHER PARTY THAT EVER GAINED ANY TRACTION IN THIS COUNTRY PLEASE GET ME OUT OF HERE. Ahem. Its leader Boris Kollár is a businessman who gained something of a memetic status in Slovak showbusiness by being a massive whore and having a fuckton of illegitimate children (the current count is I think 12?). Something of a Slovak Herschel Walker. And just like Herschel Walker, he, the avowed conservative that he is, has been accused of paying for abortions of one of his ex-girlfriends. Which is just a reflection of this guy's general moral consistency. To put it simply, Boris is the biggest Slovak whore. If Fico asked him to join his coalition, you bet your ass he would. He also has associated with people involved in organized crime (just like Fico) and sexted a fifteen year old drug addict. Because, as their billboards state, Sme rodina "protects children". Needless to say, I can't fucking stand this dude just as a person; since he seems to want to be an Isekai hero, I hope he gets hit by a truck.

Demokrati (The Democrats) - They're fine. Their leader is our former short-term prime minister Eduard Heger, whose only flaws were being hopelessly naive and letting Matelko get away with shit he should not have gotten away with. Any people that might be OK with them already vote for Progresívne Slovensko, but maybe they will get enough votes to be eligible for parliament? Maybe??? Their chances aren't high to be honest, but what do you know, miracles do happen.

[aerequets]

Do you have any tips on how to draw different poses? Any kind of movement just fucks me up so bad 😭😭

hoo boy poses! an eternally difficult frustrating teeth clenching jaw aching part of drawing 🤩 JK but i def get where you are coming from. i was trying to think of the best way to reply to this and just ended up making a whole step by step of my process LOL

BEFORE WE BEGIN THOUGH i should mention that i am NOT a professional, nor have i learned these techniques anywhere other than the internet and so there's obviously room for improvement and this is not the end-all-be-all, just how i personally draw poses ATM.

now with that out of the way! keep reading for my tutorial on posing :D

i figured the best way to show this would be to take one of my old drawings and repurpose it. so:

rayla. january 11 2020 rayla. she looks a lil smug maybe? a lil confident? her arms are crossed and her head is kinda tilted and her expression seems that way, but all in all it's kinda grey. this is the first thing you should do when making a pose for your character:

what is your character feeling?

define it clearly. are they angry? close their pose up, cross their arms. happy? open it up, give them big gestures. lazy or tired? slouching, etc. posing is pretty much just body language so figure out what you want your character to say when they aren't speaking.

now i'll just show what the base sketch for this drawing looks like:

that's fine and all, the building blocks are there, but now i'm gonna redraw it and show what i would do differently now:

what's different about this sketch from the first one? three main things which i will break down!

The Lines

when i say "the lines", i mean the horizontal lines of the body if that makes sense? i'm sure there's an actual term or something, but basically, the parts of your body that can tilt. don't make these parallel! that can end up making the character look unbalanced and unnatural, or stiff if the lines are just flat. in the 2020 sketch, they aren't parallel, but they aren't exaggerated either. the more you exaggerate the differences in your posing, the more dynamic it will look. so in this sketch, i've exaggerated them more. gotta make rayla look real cocky yk

The Blobs

when i used to sketch bases for my characters, it would be a bunch of boxes and rectangles connected by sticks. i stopped doing that and it helped. human bodies are soft and squishy and curvy, we aren't robots with metal edges. drawing the base shapes as blobs personally helps me with getting rid of stiffness in the pose. lots of ppl make the boxy method work though, so if that's what you wanna do, by all means.

another thing i noted is "forget about the limbs". limbs are basically just branches, so if you get caught up in drawing them before their foundation (torso + lower half) is down, it could look wonky. get the basis down first, and then go on with the joints and limbs.

The Line (Singular)

AKA the line of action, which is a very popular term + method for posing. this is basically a line that runs down the spine, and the more bendy/curvy it is, the more dynamic your pose will look. tbh in the sketch i did right now it's not very action-y, but rayla is also just standing there, so if you want to do a fighting pose or something similar make sure the line of action is hella curved. even for stationary poses though, a little curve is helpful.

so! with these things in mind, i redid (extremely very roughly lol) the drawing. let's see the difference:

eyy hows that? she looks a helluva lot more arrogant! lol jk. but we can definitely get a better grasp of her character from the first image than the second. ofc there are other factors at play here like line weight and expression, but nevertheless, a few small tweaks go a long way.

anyways this got kinda long but i hope i could be of help!

[marsbarshifting]

Hello!! I’ve been into shifting since around 2020, I found it on tiktok and have mostly stuck to that community until now. I have yet to shift but here are some of the places I want to go to!

- Riordanverse (I have several drs for this! Mainly for pjo/hoo but I also have a magnus chase dr)

- stranger things

- lockwood and co

- dead boy detectives

- grishaverse

- one piece (live action)

- descendants

- the owl house

- dimension 20 (fantasy high, Starstruck odyssey, Misfits and magic)

- Hogwarts (marauders and golden era)

- my hero academia

I would love any shifting friends <3

[anomalocuntis]

Welcome to Marine cutie of the week, where every single week I draw a cute Marine animal and tell you about it! Today we have the Mediterranean monk seal!

The Medi monk seal is in the Family "Phocidae" (earless seals) and in the Genus "Monachus" (Pronounced Mo-NA- hoos "Ho are in horror" ) They are native to the Mediterranean sea and mostly vibe in my home land Greece! These fat fucks are 80cm (2.6ft) 15-18kg (25-40lbs) as babies and 2.4 meters (7.9ft) 200-400kg (530-880lbs) as grown adults! Very little is known about these bad boys sense they aren't many of them (A 2020 study shows that there are roughly 500 pairs of monk seals world wide) Like most seals they are polygynous and carnivores feasting on local fish like cod, squid and eels (They ate 3kg of food per day) the babies drink very fat dense milk until they reach maturity, most pups are born between September and January and have a 71% survival rate They breed ALL year round. They dive at at depths up to 250 meters, with an average depth varying between seal! They are very shy and tend to avoid humans at all costs Sadly these chubby kings are endangered due to habitat loss if you want to help here is a link to learn more!

Source

some irl pic of the bastards

[almostarchaeology]

The Brooch of the Dragon

By Adrián Maldonado

The gift and the curse of being a medievalist is that watching fantasy fiction adaptations can feel a bit like taking your job home with you. You’re still able to be a fan, but you’re also hyper-aware of the real-world inspirations for settings, props and storylines. You’re at an elevated risk of taking to social media and posting about it. 

Despite being set in the ancient past of Westeros, I never really get the sense of HBO’s House of the Dragon series as a particularly archaeological story. Sure, there’s occasional ruins like Harrenhal, and some ancient artefacts, but otherwise there’s very little of that sense of the past irrupting into the present that we associate with archaeology.  

But then in Season 2, right from the first episode, one aspect of HotD jumped out to me, and it seems like it was just me. There was a real, shocking intrusion of real-world archaeology into this fictional past.

A shocking intrusion (source)

Episode 1 opens up north at the Wall, where two of the realm’s young lords, Cregan Stark and Jacaerys Velaryon, inspect the Night’s Watch. Cregan’s costume and accent ring all sorts of nostalgia bells for fans of the antecedent Game of Thrones series. Jacaerys (or Jace for short) is less awesomely attired, but his woolly black cloak is pinned across his chest with a striking ring-shaped brooch.  

And I thought, hey, I know you.  

Since last I wrote on these pages, I have become a museum nerd, and have written a book on Viking Age artefacts in Scotland. This involved poring over museum catalogues and excavation reports to become fluent in the visual language of early medieval Europe. There’s lots of ways to be an archaeologist, as covered in nerdy detail on these pages, but dammit, nothing beats the thrill of studying an artefact made, worn and loved a thousand years ago.  

And every once in a great while, you get artefacts that reach out from beyond their museum cases and sneak into the zeitgeist. The Lewis Chessmen pop up in Hogwarts; the Sutton Hoo helmet gets everywhere. But I’m declaring the 2020s the age of the pop culture penannular brooch.  

Introducing the penannular brooch 

Aldclune, Perthshire penannular brooch, National Museums Scotland

Back in the first millennium AD, in the lands which would become Scotland, Ireland and Wales, anyone who was anyone wore a brooch in the shape of an open ring, fitted with a loose pin which speared through the cloth. Twist the hoop, and the pin anchors the fabric in place: a simple but ingenious way of fastening a cloak.  

I often see these described as ‘Celtic’ brooches, but in the world of costume jewellery, it seems you can call anything ‘Celtic’ as long as you throw some interlace or knotwork decoration on it. We’re better off calling them by their name: penannular brooches, defined by hoops with a gap, hence pen-, or almost, annular. 

In Roman and Iron Age Britain, these were mainly small and utilitarian [Editor's note: after this was posted, I spotted a Roman penannular brooch as worn by General Acacius, as played by Pedro Pascal, in Gladiator II], but by the early medieval period (c AD 400-1100), penannular brooches had grown into big silver jobs with enlarged and ornate terminals. A cloak pinned with one these bad boys was the business suit of its day, with the slight difference that instead of just buying one, you had to earn it, and only a restricted few had access to the best craftspeople. The moulds for casting these metal brooches are found almost exclusively at royal fortresses. 

These brooches remained fashionable for centuries, evolving all along the way. One of the most dramatic left-turns in the penannular brooch journey came at the start of the Viking Age. In Scandinavia, the most elaborate brooches had mainly been for women. But when Scandinavians came raiding to the Insular world of Britain and Ireland, they saw both men and women wearing these distinctive ring-shaped brooches, and they wanted them. Bad.  

Ball-type silver brooch from the Skaill Hoard, Orkney, National Museums Scotland

The result is that the archaeological record for these centuries is suddenly awash with brooches: looted brooches found in viking graves, as well as hoards of brooches stashed away so vikings wouldn’t get them. By the end of the ninth century, new kinds of penannular brooches began to be made in Scandinavia. This new generation of Insular-Scandinavian brooches grew larger, sometimes to ludicrous sizes, to suit the lavish taste of these new-money overlords.  

And then, a thousand years later, after a long day of not finishing papers about brooches that I’m terribly late on, I sit down on the couch to chill with some HotD, and out pops Jacaerys, wearing my homework across his chest. 

Casting fantasy jewellery 

Superman Targaryen (source)

It was a few years ago I started noticing the return of penannular brooches to a wider consciousness mainly through the fantasy genre. My nerdier friends were chatting about the Netflix adaptation of The Witcher. I didn’t know anything about the books, I just knew the lead guy was the actor then playing Superman in films which I also didn’t care for, but now with a long platinum wig that made him look like the Vampire Lestat on a high-protein diet.  

Despite having no knowledge or interest in the series, my eye caught on a weird feature of Lead Guy’s sword. Why did Superman Targaryen have what looked for all the world like the 9th-century Snåsa brooch glued to his sword hilt?  

Insular brooch from Snåsa, Nord-Trøndelag, Oslo Kulturhistorisk Museum

Apparently, the script called for Medieval Point Break to carry the brooch of someone he kills in the first episode (I couldn’t be bothered getting into it, but I think there’s answers here). The prop department chose a real archaeological artefact, a ‘Celtic’ brooch from a Viking woman’s grave in Norway, to play the part of a medieval-ish fantasy-looking jewel. Which is odd because the big, yellow brooch makes it look like he’s got a big smiley emoji following him around. But hey, it made me look. 

The thing about fantasy adaptations is that they have to feel ‘right’, and that usually entails feeling vaguely medieval. So you tell your costume designer to scout for something a bit different – something that will feel medieval but less familiar, even a bit strange. They go to museums and ‘audition’ all sorts of ancient accessories, and it's often the early medieval period that gets the part. Torturing this metaphor then allows me to make a genius pun about ‘casting’ penannular brooches in prestige fantasy adaptations, for which YOU ARE WELCOME. 

The Northman: authenticity Olympics (source)

2022 was basically the penannular brooch singularity. The Viking-age historical fiction film The Northman came out that year, and the press around it was that this was basically the authenticity Olympics, with a tidal wave of interviews on all the research and experts they used to build their period-specific costumes and sets. To my delight, there were tons of penannular brooches to ogle in the film (which is all good until you get to Iceland where they mainly used pins instead of brooches, but I’ll let it go this time).  

Our guy Arondir

Then the streaming wars escalated to the level of Rings of Power on Amazon Prime. In season 1, they introduced us to both Baby Elrond and my guy Arondir wearing ‘Celtic’-inspired penannular brooches, recognizable in form but pleasingly Tolkienesque in design. 

And so we come to HotD. For season 2, new costume designer Caroline McCall dutifully searched for archaeological inspiration.  

“I like costumes to feel like clothes and not costumes that the actors have to wear when they become the characters. So I started looking at ancient civilizations, medieval dress and how the clothes could be constructed so that everything felt real in the time period.” - Caroline McCall

To do so, she visited the British Museum, and came up with objects which combined early medieval “Celtic”, Roman and Viking styles, but still fit in with the kinds of jewellery used in season 1, and the visual world of Westeros as established across 8 seasons of Game of Thrones. Brooches fit the bill, and specifically, penannular ones. One of the first we see in the first episode of season 2 was Jacaerys’s brooch.  

If it was just that one thing, it would hardly be enough to write home about, much less come back and revive this blog for. But then I spotted another, and another. The whole rest of the season, I went all Leo DiCaprio pointing meme as they kept popping up (it’s a sickness). Season 2 of HotD was a brooch bonanza. So to share my trauma with you, here’s my guide to the real-world artefacts they seem to be inspired by. Fair warning – I’m so late in actually writing this that I feel no compunction in sharing spoilers for HotD seasons 1 and 2. 

The Blackwoods and the Brackens 

In HotD season 2, episode three, we are introduced to some new faces who, we quickly gather from context, are members of the feuding houses of Blackwood and Bracken. They wear different colour clothing to help us tell them apart, but, as if to communicate how they are more alike than they are different, the leaders of both parties wear very similar penannular brooches.  

This guy, who the google machine tells me is named Davos Blackwood, wears a silver penannular with elaborate circular terminals, and weirdly, what looks like a bronze pin. I don’t know of any brooches which mix metal components in this way, but silver brooches with disc-shaped terminals are fairly common down to the ninth century. They were particularly popular among the Picts, the real-life ‘kings in the north’ in what would become Scotland. 

Carronbridge, Dumfriesshire penannular brooch, Dumfries Museum

At first glance, it looked like the brooch terminals were perforated, which seemed peculiar, but on closer inspection, it looks like they have empty settings. Well, lots of these brooches in museums also have empty settings, but it’s not on purpose – it’s because they are quite old and the glass, amber or garnet insets have fallen out! 

The Blackwoods’ rivals in this scene are the Brackens, led here by a guy called [checks google] Aeron Bracken, who also wears a penannular brooch. His looks a bit different, though. It appears to be made from a copper-alloy rather than silver, suggesting the Brackens are maybe a rung lower down the social ladder. He wears it slightly differently as well, with the terminals facing in toward his chest rather than straight up. More likely to impale yourself, I might add, which may have historically affected their family’s standing, but I digress. 

Brooch from the St Ninian's Isle, Shetland hoard, National Museums Scotland

Now, this brooch looks rather like some of my absolute favourite Pictish brooches, with confronted animals. Most of these were also made of bronze, but often with an outer layer of gold, silver or even tin to mask their true colour. These were never terribly common, but they were, however, a type that vikings took a shine to, and so from Ireland to Sweden, we start to see lots of pretty awesome takes on penannular brooches with beast heads. 

But for all that, I think the artefacts that the Bracken brooch remind me of most is these ancient Greek ram’s head armlets. They do have examples in the British Museum, too, where we know the inspo came, so for all my digression, this may have been the ultimate inspiration.  

Jace and Baela 

The other most prominent ring-brooches in HotD season 2 are the ones worn by the putative future royal couple, the heirs apparent of Team Black (if they survive the next season), Jacaerys Velaryon and Baela Targaryen. These get a lot of screen time from various angles, so we have a better idea of what these look like (and for the keen-eyed, how they play against different lighting and fabric).  

We have already seen Jace’s brooch, somewhat lost in the black gloom of his northern cloak in episode 1. As the season goes on, we see his outfit and demeanour change from princeling to general, with his brooch becoming ever more prominent, announcing his station almost like a miniature crown.  

Brooch from Høm, Zealand, Copenhagen Nationalmuseet

As Jace’s brooch becomes clearer, we see the hoop is of twisted silver, with what look like dragon-head terminals and a mask at the head of the pin. It’s a mashup of lots of things, but is essentially again a Viking-age take on a penannular brooch. Like the Brackens’ brooch, the hoop ends with confronted heads, but adding a mask at the head of the pin seems to be a Scandinavian Borre-style development. The twisted hoop is drawn from Gotlandic brooches of a similar vintage. All the faceted surfaces allow the light to play across it more dynamically, making it seem to almost move or come alive.  

But then turning to Baela we get a rather different take. She wears a matching padded surcoat to Jace’s but her brooch is clearly different. To start off with, it’s not penannular but annular – a full ring. That means it looks great, but can’t work as a fastener in the same way, as it can’t anchor the cloth with its hoop. This is perhaps why Baela’s is worn with an awesome silver retaining chain, fastened to her belt. 

Tara Brooch, National Museum of Ireland

There are early medieval parallels to the use of a retaining chain. In eighth-century Ireland, there was a fashion for brooches that looked like penannulars, but with such elaborate ornament across the terminals that they were no longer terribly functional without a bit of help; the Tara Brooch is the best example.  

There’s good reasons why Baela’s brooch is different. It expresses continuity with the existing Game of Thrones adaptation's visual language, as her ring brooch with dragons recalls the brooches worn by Danaerys Targaryen and her retinue, Missandei and Grey Worm, towards the end of the series. As arguably the only legitimate heir to the throne between her and cousin Jace, it is fitting to draw a line from Baela to the future queen.  

But all this brings us back to Jace’s brooch which, while functional, actually seems to become less and less practical and more symbolic as the season goes on. Once he acquires his forever outfit of a studded surcoat with fetching red capelet, the brooch worn at the shoulder is no longer actually doing anything. It is pinned onto the cape with its pin pointing down the gap in the terminals, worryingly aimed at his heart. As one Reddit user pointed out, his brooch becomes something rather like the Hand of the King pin (for which, see more below). His brooch, now part of his uniform, is acting like a general’s medals.  

One final interesting point on the brooches of Team Black. By the end of the season, we have recruited a few new team members. At least one of them gains a dragon-brooch, and it is a doozy. It’s an annular dragon similar to Baela’s, but supercharged. New converts are the biggest zealots, and Ulf may be compensating for quite a lot – I guess we’ll find out next season.  

Penannular power: the Hand of the King 

Gathering all of the observations above, then, it seems that Westeros is currently in a historical phase akin to Scotland and Ireland in the Viking Age. Penannular brooches seem to have been widely used, but are now becoming the preserve of regional lords. At the same time, in the halls of power, there are exaggerated versions of penannular brooches being made, but they are less and less functional, and more totemic, retaining the traditional symbolism of power, but worn as medals and badges.  

Hand of the King pin as used in House of the Dragon (source)

There is one last example that convinces me that the use of penannular brooches in HotD is more than just eye candy. It takes a real sickness to even notice this, but there was a subtle change to the design of the iconic pin that the Hand of the King wears in House of the Dragon. In the Game of Thrones series, the pin was a simple hoop and hand, but the subtle redesign for HotD made me do a spit-take.  

Penannular brooch from Ireland, Walters Art Museum

The design is obvious to anyone who has spent too long looking at museum catalogues: the hand is now encircled by the early Irish bronze penannular brooch from the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.

If we assume that penannular brooches ‘evolved’ in a similar way in Westeros as they did in Britain and Ireland, the kind of brooch used on the Hand pin would be an antique – the Walters Museum brooch is a classic Kilbride-Jones “group C” of the sixth or seventh century, or some 200-300 years older than the Pictish examples highlighted above.

I love the HotD Hand of the King pin as the apotheosis of the penannular brooch in Westeros. While there still are apparently lots of them out there among the petty kingdoms of the Riverlands, among the halls of power we see that big silver brooches were already on their way to becoming symbolic, keeping their ring shape only as a nod to the antiquity of the brooch as a badge of power. From the annular brooches of Team Black to the antique brooch depicted on the Hand of the King pin, Season 2 of HotD is a great example of how early medieval material culture actually worked, and continues to work on us now, however imperceptibly, more than a thousand years later.

AlmostArch is no longer on Twitter. Follow us instead at AlmostArch.bsky.social.

Featured image by siilverlady

[wrongcaitlyn]

what do you think the order is for the most popular celebrities in tyt?? like for me i always imagined apollo to be the most famous (this is kinda given), followed by percy who i thought was the most famous out of the kids (followed by nico, annabeth, and jason). what order do you think they fall into?

OOH THIS IS A TOUGH ONE

i agree that apollo is the most famous (duh) maybe he's not known by everyone in like gen z but he's legendary. like that short career he had was undefeatable.

aside from that, going by what i've written in the fic, i honestly think annabeth may be more famous than percy? just because i imagine that she's also done a lot of shows and movies outside of hoo, whereas that's the main thing that percy does, he's kinda one of those actors that has *become* the character. like he's synonymous with peter

i also think i made reyna very famous, like, movie star famous, so i'd have to put her up there on that list too. as for jason, i think he had a really big hype craze for a while (white boy of the month for sure) and then it sorta died down a bit, even though he's still acting in stuff! but he's been taking less projects since starting college, which, good for him!!

as for nico, he's famous in the way that i think everyone's heard one of his songs, but not many actually know who *he* is. like he does remain quite a bit on the down low especially when it comes to tabloids and magazine covers and headlines and whatnot

so i think my ranking (from most famous to least famous) (at this current moment of the timeline, 2020) is:

apollo

annabeth

reyna

percy

jason

nico

piper

alex

sadie

i think those are the main celebs i've included, and if you wanna know how i think this'll change in the upcoming years: sadie will skyrocket soon enough, and jason will steadily be going down the ranking. i think nico will definitely be going up a few soon, with percy eventually falling a bit lower when hoo ends (though i think he'll still be featuring in acting gigs and whatnot, he'd also like a bit of the quiet life! fame would get to him eventually i feel, so he'd be happy helping to promote his mom's books and annabeth's movies and start to settle down)

if there are any other characters i should include let me know!

[fantasyfantasygames]

Several Donated Games

I recently had the good fortune to meet Lily Vers at ProseAndCon, a semi-yearly interactive fiction convention in the backwoods of Maine. I mentioned that I write reviews, the next thing I know she hands me a pile of books and offers to buy me a drink if I promise to never give them back. I think she just wanted them out of the house because she's moving. They're not that bad. Well, most of them.

These are short games (well, most of them), so here are some short reviews!

Edge: Blades in the Kill (Hurtful Press, 2021) Long-time followers of the blog will remember HellBlaster and whether I wasn't really sure whether the game was in on its own joke. E:BitK is absolutely in on the joke. The game's aesthetic is part emo, part Hannibal fanfic, part Black Adder. You are a group of serial killer assassins murdering for fun and profit, then getting stiffed on the profit part by your clueless employers who seem not to realize what's going to happen after they stiff a bunch of murderers. Cool stuff: Manages to boil down systems stolen from Blades in the Dark and Kill Edge to their very essence, accomplishing 90% of what they do in 20% of the combined space.

D.E.S.P.O.N.D.E.N.C.Y., A Friendship-Ending Role-Playing Experience (Delta Elf, 2020) Have you ever played Diplomacy? This is Diplomacy in RPG form. One-player RPG form, thankfully. You write the stories of a group of (initially) friends playing a diceless RPG that slowly escalates into a series of alliances and betrayals that eventually leave the entire group and hostile. It reminds me of an Amber game I ran once where people got a little too into the intrigue and backstabbing. Cool stuff: The prompts really get you into the heads of all the characters you make. All your decisions on their part have to come from part of the short backstories you write for them.

Unexamined Fantasy Racism (anonymous, 2018) Hoo boy this one sets you up right from the title and doesn't let up. The book is a 64-page clone of OD&D that provides an absolutely scathing commentary on exactly what the tin says. Anyone who goes on to play a standard D&D (or related) game after playing or reading this one is going to feel real uncomfortable, and for good reasons. I don't think the game is going to get much play, but it's designed more for reading. (See "queerweird" below for another "you might never actually play it" game.) Cool stuff: Never becomes its own target. It's easy to write something like UFR and fall into the "actually doing what you're trying to satirize" trap. UFR instead sets up extremely standard FRPG situations and then slams you right into the exact problem with them.

Hackerface 1999: Don't Roll A Hacker (Crack the Hacker, 2000) I'm not sure who the audience for Hackerface is. It's a parody of Cyberpunk 2020 with references to 1990s floppy game hacking, so you would normally be able to perfectly zero in on the target audience. The game does not treat that audience with any sort of love, affection, or respect, so you come away either not getting a lot of what it's trying to say or feeling uncomfortable. And not a productive UFR-type uncomfortable, just the kind of uncomfortable you get from bullies. Even the hacking rules aren't worth stealing. The book reads like it was written by the kind of person who stuffs nerds into lockers, and how in the hell does that person end up writing RPGs? Cool stuff: The art is pretty great, especially for an indie game in the year 2000. It's done in an extremely stylized approach, with plenty of black ink, chiaroscuro, and anatomy that looks like it belongs on an actual human.

This turned into a longer post than I thought, so I'm going to split it in half. Tune in next time.