#how do heroforges count?

[magpiecrust]

Artistic limitations, but her hairstyle is supposed to be a simple chignon. Regardless, this looks more like my mental image of her than my attempts to picrew her (also artistic limitations). Though i might change my mind and make her eyes brown.

[wizblr-blue-moon-ball]

After over a month of waiting, it's finally time.

Welcome to the Blue Moon Ball~☆

Welcome one and all! Wizards, Witches, Liches and more!

This has been a long time in the coming and in the making— and I am thrilled and honored to be your host. It's been a long road but it's finally here!!

For people who are new to the event, the Blue Moon Ball is an event hosted by yours truly (@the-necrobotanist). It's a series of prompts over a week (May 19-25) that participants can make posts for. You're not obligated to post for all seven days, just do whatever you'd like or can!

☆

There are four categories for people to partake in for the prompts: Art, Writing, Roleplay, and Photography. I'll explain a bit more in detail about them below...

ART [#Blue Moon Ball Art]

Draw your character according to the prompts, and perhaps other people's characters!

Use of picrews/heroforge is allowed as long as you credit where you made the image from

Use of AI to make art is strictly prohibited and will not be included in the event.

No NSFW

WRITING [#Blue Moon Ball Writing]

Write a story, drabble, or fic of your character!

There is no base word count or word limit, do whatever you wish!

Poems and the like are totally welcome and allowed!

No AI generated writing is allowed.

No NSFW

ROLEPLAY [#Blue Moon Ball Roleplay]

Roleplay at the event! I'll make a few starters for people to post and add to :)

Keep everything SFW, and if a RP situation makes you uncomfortable please remember that it is okay to back out

No NSFW

PHOTOGRAPHY [#Blue Moon Ball Photogtaphy]

Take a photo! Whether it be an outfit, food, or a pet!

No revealing personal information. This includes your face, address, full name, etc. Please practice internet safety.

No NSFW

☆

Speaking of prompts, here's the first one!

You arrive to the ball at dusk and are whisked away into the party after greeting the host.~☆

What is your experience meeting him? How do you feel about being invited? What are you wearing and what are you excited about the most?

☆

We also have a discord! Feel free to join :)

☆

And uh.. that's it!! The ball has begun and I hope everyone has a blast! If you make a post, please ping me so I can reblog your entries!

Also if you'd like to RP with Lurien (the host)— send me an RP ask on my main!!! I'll do as much as I can but my finals begin this week o7

That being said...

Enjoy~☆

PINGLIST SET A

@scuttling-comfuddlement @the-gnomest-bastard @kobold-sanctuary-buss-island @satyrs-apothecary @irving-the-pirate-wizard @morbingtime @justagingerwithredhair @chaos-familiar @these-detestable-hands @regina-the-sorceress @combustion-witch @yourlocalbreadenthusiast @selldemapplez @agentldiddy @fractalkitty @wizard-island-trading-co @good-wizard @the-illegal-wizard-council @ash-the-tiefling @mysticminion @blobbiedaykeeppcaway @blaster-fagot @life-is-okay-rn2 @skyethebisexualwolfwizard @thequeerwizardcouncil @dread-the-eldritch-wizard @profeshinul-wizurd @a-squirrel-wizard @the-mighty-dalob @amateur-wizard @chaos-wizard-nyehehe @bertskullhaver @transgender-wizard @flowers-the-sun-witch @thebookshelflord @ceeceelemons @the-silliest-sorcerer @wizard-ghost @a-goose-in-a-trenchcoat @flirtyambiguouswizard @paltering-peculiarity @parkyrtheelvishbard

[auxiliarydetective]

And now... the second big event! My drawing program says this took me only 12 hours instead of 17 but that's not counting the whole day I spent researching and the hour-long rambles in the Discord server that got me to place 6 on the leaderboard.

Introducing...

Sanctitas Livia! Former Crown Princess of the Bellona Empire!

If you know me, you know I love Antiquity so much that I go to university for it, so eventually, I had to create an OC that was very Roman. Aurelia was the warmup, but Livia is really the most Roman OC I have ever created. And of course she's also a One Piece OC.

Look at that glorious lorica segmentata! The shin guards, the caligae, the lorica manica, the layers beneath that you can't even see!

Join me below the cut for a journey through the drawing progress and into artistic madness.

Alrighty, here we go.

Time for rambles

But we're doing it a little differently this time. Instead of me just telling you my thoughts, I'll take you on the journey I went on to finish this piece and explain my thoughts along the way.

Day 1 - The Research

I really don't have a lot to say here, I just did a lot of research. One of the sources that helped the most for this was this YouTube video here which explains the lorica segmentata (aka your stereotypical legionary armor) in detail and this one where a historian (I believe) messes with talks to a bunch of re-enactors.

At the end of the day, I ended up with this:

The reference images on the left are ones I googled and sadly didn't keep the sources for. The base is this one by Bases-Xs (that I would later edit and slightly frankendoll) and the images on the right are made with HeroForge and the Tiefling Maker, my most beloved picrew.

You can see that, on the left, I've got references for a centurion helmet - yes, centurions had those kinds of headdresses, the ones you usually see are incorrect - the lorica segmentata, various versions of the lorica manica (aka that arm brace thingy) and the complete legionary fit.

With this as a base to work with, I went to bed. The next day would be my birthday and I had invited a fellow historian and artist over to bounce ideas off of because I was dreading how to make the lorica segmentata, which is very square in shape, work on a female body with curves.

But that was an issue for another day.

Day 2 - Fortuna Minervaque me adiuvent.

That Latin sentence means "May Fortuna and Minerva help me" and it's exactly what this day's motto would turn out to be. My historian friend got sick and couldn't come, so I was left to face the armor issue on my own.

And so it begins.

As you can see, I started the drawing process with my sanity fully intact. I didn't just want wings glued to the head, I wanted feathered ears! Kinda like elf ears, pointing upwards, but like if elf ears if they grew feathers, y'know. Eventually, I figured it out.

So, I had one ear. The second one took some experimenting, but I did it. Then, I needed to capture Livia's essence.

Perfect.

A little snack for dinner later...

That little braid was more complicated to draw than you would think. You see, the feathered ears and braid - and face markings that you'll see later - are very important to Livia's species, an original species that I put into the world of One Piece. They don't have a name yet but I'm having a blast with them. Maybe I'll make a post about them one day.

One little crisis and about an hour later, we had a tunic and our first deviation from historical accuracy.

Well, technically, the first deviation would've been the feathered ears and giving this armor to a woman but... y'know.

The thing about the Roman tunica is that it was very wide, in fact it was almost as wide as it was long. All that excess fabric would pile up under the armor and at the armpits - and I didn't want that for Livia. So I decided to give her more tailored sleeves and to tie the tunica beneath the bust and at the waist instead of at the hip and give it less volume in general to avoid the fabric piling up.

You can also see a sneaky new reference at the bottom right there. It's a screenshot from the first video I linked above and would be vital for helping me figure out the armor issue.

What you can see here is a thick scarf around the neck to avoid the armor plates cutting into your throat as well as some generous padding. Like they say in the video, this padding is more experimental history since none of this sort of padding has been preserved. Logically, since organic materials don't usually last as long as, for example, metal does. But padding would be really practical if you're wearing armor since armor is heavy and you don't really want it cutting into you. Your tunic won't do much to protect you there. Also, it smooths out the curves, which is very practical for this very specific situation we're dealing with there.

However, I was still ecstatic about having to figure out the armor.

See, the lorica segmentata is a genius piece of equipment, but it's really only genius for men since it's optimal for a square body type. I had to figure out a way to make it work for Livia without creating critical weak spots and without inviting people to stab her in the boobs.

Generally, having boobs isn't very optimal for armor. You have to find a way to make the armor fit around them, still leave a bit of breathing room, and for goodness' sake don't make boob plates because those are horrible in case of an impact. You generally want a shape that deflects blows and, additionally, I had to deal with the layering of the lorica segmentata without creating a gap where someone could stab her in the tits.

Eventually, I came up with this:

This design is based off the Corbridge A type lorica segmentata, the same one shown in the video that I got the screenshots from. Generally, this type of armor consists of four parts - the two shoulder parts and the two torso parts. You wouldn't usually be able to take it apart like this since those top two plates here would belong to the shoulder parts and would actually be the ones where you link the shoulders to the torso. You can see the hook and eyes just above the bust.

Once you have your two halves - the shoulder and torso pieced together for both left and right - you'd lace them together and buckle them up at the top - which I also drew in here. As you can see, I stopped the armor above the belly button so that Livia would still be able to bend. The two bottom plates also aren't laced, which is something that I copied directly from the authentic historical armor and I assume is for ease of movement while bending and turning.

And this was where I left it for the day. I was exhausted, I had lost all of my braincells on the way, but damn was I proud.

Day 3 - Perserverance is a virtue, right?

Clearly, the events of the last day were still affecting me since I forgot to have breakfast that morning. So, I "fixed it" with an early lunch and got right back to it.

As you can see, I had lots of fun, or rather my drawing program did. The reason why I kept adding more reference images is because the shoulder pieces are actually a lot more complicated than just "Haha lace iron halfpipes together". I had to really get a feel for how they worked before I could get around to drawing them, and the ever-important video came in clutch.

As you can see, there's hinges on the two inner shoulder pieces. There are also hinges at the back, so the two innermost shoulder pieces are actually three plates each. This is for maximum ease of movement. You'd think that this kind of armor would be restrictive, but you can actually raise your arms pretty high with this. Makes sense since the legionaries still had to throw their pila/javelins and fight. You can also see a weak point of the armor here - look at how open those shoulders are! You're not stabbing into flesh when you stab in there, but it's definitely a weak point because you could easily slide between the plates here.

Next in line was the lorica manica aka the arm brace.

This one wasn't really difficult in construction, it just took a lot of perserverance and energy to draw all those little plates. If you remember, I had two references for the lorica manica, one where the foremost plates were on the bottom and one where they were on top. I decided to go for the latter version because the former is just stupid. Go back to look at that reference and tell me you couldn't jsut easily shove a sword in there! So, lower plates on top to leave no room for the sword to go in-between. Also smaller plates for better bending and coverage, and of course they're laced.

You can hardly see it but there's also lacing at the top. The way I imagine it, though I don't know for sure, is that the arm piece would probably be attached to the leather straps holding the shoulder pieces together. That way it stays in place and won't fall off.

And if you're wondering why she only wears one arm brace - the other arm gets a big-ass shield.

Then I got myself some references for the sandals aka caligae, cooked up some shin guards (which would only be worn by officers), added the belt, and...

Yeah, the lineart was done. Here's the bigger image so you can see the insane state of my references:

At this point, I was tired and everything hurt. So, I decided to call it quits for the day.

I wish I could say that this is day 4 but then this happened:

Yeah, I got back to my tablet, fixed some wonky lines and...

I actually finished it. So yeah. Time for some design details.

I forgot her piercings in the lineart so I added them in

Fancy face markings <3

Whether Roman soldiers' tunics were red is actually something I put a lot of research into. It's a common myth and it has some footing but in the end it's not really likely that they were that uniform. Still, I kept the red because Livia is a (former) crown princess and the crown prince/princess's signature color is red

The armor would historically been made of iron but Livia's would most likely be a special kind of steel. The hinges, decorations on her belt, and shin guards are made of brass.

The laurel wreath is part of Livia's personal emblem as well as her empire's crest.

I kinda love how the circular engraving under the first decorative piece on the middle of the shin guard looks like a bird staring at you. It was an accident but I kept it <3

Very important! Foot wraps under the sandals so you don't get blisters.

So yeah, that's it <3

Stay tuned for a special little treat tomorrow

Taglist: @starcrossedjedis @oneirataxia-girl @daughter-of-melpomene @bravelittleflower @box-of-bats - let me know if you’d like to be added or removed!

One Piece Taglist: @supermarine-silvally

[baskingsol]

Meet Chibana Yami (知花闇) aka Yokai (妖怪)

Photos below are visual references as drawing is not my forte. Picrew photo is the best reference for face while the heroforge is best for outfit/body.

24 years old (at current time in story)

170 centimeters tall

Long red hair mostly kept in a braid for practical purposes

Golden eyes

Tanned skin with red undertones

Dual beauty marks under her eyes (one on each side)

Red/White/Black wooden Oni mask covering bottom part of her face

Fun Fact: Her outfit down below counts as her 'uniform' (adjustments for seasons obv) through the school, similar to how several other characters in the show do not follow traditional uniform rules.

[fierceawakening]

There are digital tools that help people, disabled and not (I am also physically disabled, fwiw), to make things that I think should count as art. I've been having fun designing miniatures with HeroForge, and I honestly have started to think maybe I have more artistic talent than I thought, now that the big hurdle of getting the body proportions right is handled for me by the model. Dunno how far I'll pursue it, but I'm very thankful to a silly little tool for helping me see I'm better at something than I thought I was.

I do not see this as the same as AI.

Why not?

Because the only input a human gives AI is an initial prompt. It is ONLY as creative as the handful of words fed into it.

Is that creative? A little! Thinking of good prompts is a thing, and people will work to get good at it, I think.

But the difference between that and me using HF to pose a figure is that I'm looking over every step. It's limited in what it can do, and this helps me because it makes it harder to accidentally get it wildly wrong, but I still am the one who has something in mind, and give the thing instructions based on that thing I have in mind, and evaluate it based on whether it gets across what I want (including maybe going "that's not what I had in mind but I like it better" and going off in whole other directions.)

It's not ableist to say that AI doesn't have much in it that makes art art, and other digital tools aren't similarly lacking.

Using AI is like being the patron who commissions the artist. The one who says "I want an image of ~this.~" Using digital tools to make the image is being the artist who makes ~this.~

"ai is making it so everyone can make art" Everyone can make art dipshit it came free with your fucking humanity

[chaoticpanenergy]

hello welcome to me rambling about what is currently occupying my thoughts <3 tumblr is a diary with glittery accents on the cover actually <3

okay so in the dnd campaign im in, my character (kaede, part of a wealthy family of assassins) got arrested and sent to jail bc she did murder (she has issues). and due to the specific circumstances of the murder, it counted as kaede declaring a war between faer family and the kingdom. so now while ze is in jail i am playing faer big brother kester, who has arrived to try and do some diplomacy and help convince the leaders of the kingdom to Not have the whole entire rest of the kingdom go to war with this one family of 20 people (6 of whom are small children) actually please and thank you.

anyway. that's not important. (i mean it is, but not to this post.) what's important is that kester is 28 years old, and while prior to playing him i had of course come up with his traumatic childhood backstory, i had neglected to write any backstory for his adulthood so far. and then i started playing him in the campaign and i was like "yknow probably this guy has like a life given that he is almost 30 lol" and so i finally fleshed that out.

anyways. kester has 4 partners and 3 of them are hot and cool and have interesting personalities and 1 of them is a funny gag that i am way too pleased with myself about. kester himself is a tiefling; he's 6'8", has teal skin, fully black eyes with no irises or anything, polished black horns, shoulder-length straight black hair that he usually does in elaborate half-up styles, a lil goatee, and he's Super super buff and also always super well-groomed. he dresses exclusively in skintight black leather with gold accents and is always covered in weapons of various sizes. he is Very Hot and a total sweetheart except for when he is murdering people.

he has a tiefling boyfriend named axel, short for axeliforth, who is extremely transgender and extremely gay and so annoying but also he's hot so it's fine and i love him. kester also has an air genasi girlfriend named selestia with lightning powers who is tall and is emotionally well-adjusted and has a kind of spiritual relationship with the concept of weather. and he also has a leonin partner (they/star pronouns) named thesta who is super into crafts and handiwork and unfortunately is like "i can fix him" about kester and his assassin-ness (they are wrong).

those are the hot partners. the funny gag partner is this like bug/alien looking dude. like he's mostly humanoid but with 6 arms and antenna. his name is Steven Business. his alignment is lawful evil. he has overenthusiastic youth pastor energy. he dresses on the formal end of business casual and always wears bow ties. he's come up with the idea of late-stage capitalism, is convinced he's a genius for it, and is desperately trying to make it a reality, but every single person he tries to explain it to is like "that's the worst idea i've ever heard lmao" so he's not making much headway. he carries props with him to help explain his pitch. they do not help. he also maybe technically qualifies as a sugar baby since he keeps talking kester into giving him large amounts of money to start up small businesses running on his conceptual model. these all universally fail within weeks of opening bc it's a bad model. kester also thinks that steven's capitalism idea is ridiculous and will never work, but he's like nice about it bc he thinks it's cute how passionate steven is about it. this character is the most hilarious concept i've come up with in my life (hyperbolic).

this mostly concludes the post, i just wanted to talk about steven business and how hilarious i am for coming up with him and that necessitated explaining a bunch of other things first lol.

images of all the characters below the cut bc they are so beloved to me and also they are hot (made with heroforge):

here is kester:

and here are his partners, in the order i put them in earlier, so, axel, selestia, thesta, steven:

(image descriptions in alt text)

also here is kaede even though they're not really relevant to this post just because they are also hot lol:

im having so much fun i love this campaign so much i love creating elaborate backstories for all my Terrible People characters and zillions of extra characters who will probably not even show up in the actual campaign but it's okay bc i know about them and love them and can write little stories about them <3 okay this concludes my ramble <3

[gir-posting]

tell me about your oc julian? 👀

:D!!!!!!!!!!!!!

im so excited u dont even get it

so full disclosure i only kind of consider him an oc bc for some reason in my mind tabletop/dnd characters count Less for some reason. but i made him for a curse of strahd game i did with some of my very good friends and it so far has been one of the most satisfying and fun campaigns ive ever been in

(also warning for some mentions of body horror/gore and violence it was in fact a horror game. shocking that i really enjoyed the horror game ik! also some spoilers for curse of strahd HEHE)

to start with here are some visuals, i drew all of these but the heroforged pic

^^pidlwick more properly to scale here. + some doodles of the other party members hehe

so to start with curse of strahd is a very dracula flavored campaign; the land of barovia is cut off from the rest of the world by a thick suffocating mist by a powerful vampire lord, strahd von zeravich. he has also cursed barovia with eternal night so that he can thrive without having to worry about the sun. he is also a huge bitch. here is a funko pop i bought of him at a convention because i am not immune to capitalism

julian (or his serial code JL-9) is a warforged created by a mad scientist named molostroi. molostroi was worryingly adept in making flesh homonculis. so he murdered a looooot of people to make his creations. that includes julian, who contains the organs and brain of a person that molostroi murdered For Science. he was also created specifically to murder people, with a built in weapon and everything (that shield you see him wearing in the pics earlier is mostly there because he was hiding the armblade embedded in him. he did NOT take it or his armor off willingly ever.) the goal was eventually to replicate julian in many many many more murder machine robots so that molostroi could execute a siege on strahd's castle

however, unfortunately for everyone, due to the fact that julian has a once human brain, he is sentient! and has been picking up some very clear lessons on morality by reading children's books about a divine hero and how to Act Heroically like him. (this sets up in his mind a pretty clear dichotomy between Heroes and Monsters. heroes protect innocent people while monsters attack them without any real care.) so when eventually he gains enough of a conscience to realize he is fully murdering people and that is very very bad, he lets someone that he was assigned to attack leave unscathed. this does NOT go over well with molostroi and he's almost immediately set to be dismantled and reworked over this.

except, uh-ohhhh, julian was made to kill people, so he turns right back around and murders him instead in a fit of panic. whiiiiich immediately makes him break down because he knows that murdering people is very wrong, and he just did it again, and he must really be a monster if he's still capable of doing such a horrible thing while knowing it's wrong. all of this makes him cry out for forgiveness and help (something he picked up from one of his stories about the Divine Hero) and shockingly someone answers.

the morninglord/god/the sun (whose forced absence is what created the endless night across barovia) answers his prayers and knights him as a paladin, because he can sense his passion for good and doing right by others. it's not very clear in those drawings aside from the second-to-last i suppose but his armor is branded with this symbol as proof of his devotion:

after this happens and he leaves the lab he develops some reactions to his trauma, if something happens that reminds him of the things he's done he'll just. go insane for a minute. his head starts spinning around and he sounds like an exceedingly loud tea kettle. (the first time this happened (other player dumped blood on him because they are weird and insane) i asked the dm to play this song on the music bot because i am a giant predictable geek)

also, in case there was any doubts about how horrible molostroi is here's some journals we found when we eventually had to go back and find something in his laboratory (lovingly and expertly written by the dm. ily hal i can't wait to play with u again when you're ready)

so on the academy: molostroi had a colleague named blinksy, who we meet at his toy shop some time after leaving strahd's castle for the first time (it went very poorly we lost three party members. two of them were only gone temporarily but oh baby. rip *sneeze* we miss you you funky little kenku.) while we were there we found a weird little clown robot dude who liked to follow us around, named pidlwick (shown above. he's very different in the source material but plllbbbbtttttt we have our own version and we like him.) we had to very quickly find some manner of engineer because while we were there he got injured and there was. blood! coming out of him. we got blinsky to take a look at him and he veeeerrry quickly recognized molostroi's work. then he took a closer look at julian and was able to recognize that him and pidlwick were made in the same horrible way.

all this to say blinsky became kind of a father figure to julian and pidlwick. after all was said and done and we defeated strahd, allowing the sun to come back, the scene we leave julian on is him fishing with blinsky on the lake.

that's kind of a rough and dirty description of him especially near the end there lol but god its very hard to summarize dnd characters when there's soooo much to cover in entire campaigns. but either way my boy i love my traumatized robot boy so so much

[druidx]

writer questions!! Ask Game

I decided to answer a few questions from this ask game, because of encouragement from that one post that said, "don't just wait for people to ask if you want to answer"

I used a Dice chose the questions for me.

8. if you had to write an entire story without either action or dialogue, which would you choose and how would it go?

I reckon I could turn my hand to either, but all action would probably go better than all dialogue - I find it easier to show communication via action, than action via speech.

11. do you believe in the old advice to “kill your darlings?” are you a ruthless darling assassin? what happens to the darlings you murder? do you have a darling graveyard? do you grieve?

I am pretty ruthless when it comes to removing characters from the story where it makes most sense (usually to spurr the other characters into the next part of the plot). I used to get sad about it, but now I'm less bothered. I'm not sure what a "darling graveyard" is, so no XD

22. how organized are you with your writing? describe to me your organization method, if it exists. what tools do you use? notebooks? binders? apps?

About 6, on a scale of 1 (bad) to 10 (amazing). I mostly use Wikidot wikis to organise my notes, especially across series, and imgur to organise the related images. All stories have their own folder, which may be nested inside a Universe folder. I try to ensure that each revision of a story is in a new file with the version number appended. Unfortunately, this is a more recent structure and some of my older stuff is a mess.

33. do you practice any other art besides writing? does that art ever tie into your writing, or is it entirely separate?

I like making moodboards/ digital collages tied into my characters or story, and using Heroforge to bring my characters to life.

I also build things in Starbound - sometimes I write based on the build, and sometimes I build based on what I write (IDK if that strictly counts as "art" tho).

[sunwisecircle]

Hwaet

It’s apparently another morning in which I have Thoughts.

I did my daily tarot this morning like I always do -- it’s getting a bit more chaotic, as I don’t usually do it with breakfast anymore but rather after I finish my breakfast and second cup of coffee and feel like I’m at least half-way awake. Some days I don’t actually get around to doing it until 0900 or 1000 (oops). Anyway, I was talking to Dionysos and out jumped Temperance (/Balance because I was using my other deck). The illustration for this card in this particular deck is two snakes/dragons twining around a tree and each other.

As I was thinking about this card and looking at the different websites I do when looking at meaning, I thought about how one of my almost-epithets for Dionysos is Temperance or Lord of Temperance considering his dual nature and how balance is really something I feel like He’s been pushing me towards: balance between work and leisure, formality and informality (with Him in particular), physical and spiritual, etc. etc. etc. I feel like if there’s a God of Liminal Spaces, it’s Dionysos. And then with the illustration of this card I was reminded about that one epithet of his: Dionysos Perikionios. I wish I could find more context of it other than just the one hymn. Twined around the pillars. I wish I could understand it a bit more, but the illustration of the card, especially since there are snake-dragons, made me think of that epithet and him and balance so I feel like maybe this is His card, as well. The KoP is His card, too, so maybe this one is an aspect of His.

So that was my Thought. I also cleaned up his plate where I keep his candles and did a little revamping. The shelf above it had a little bottle of wine I gave him, as well as some other things that were unrelated. I took the unrelated things and put them on the shelf with Husband and my wedding pictures, cleaned the area off, and added some extra gifting space! Quite a while ago husband got this little hor d’oeuvres serving set in a raffle or something; it consists of a stone-looking rectangular plate with three little square bowls. We haven’t been using it for anything and the other day it occurred to me that it would be perfect for leaving offerings in, with space for three different offerings (!). So I took the bit of leopard print cloth I found and moved it to that shelf, shifted the bottle of wine to the right, the incense cone burner to the left, and set the set on the cloth. It fits perfectly! I also cleaned up Dionysos’ plate, getting rid of the melted candle wax that had gathered and all that good noise. I like to give him flowers, and I always feel bad about throwing them away when they dry out, but I have to make space for new flowers so I grabbed an empty jar I had, cleaned it out, and started using it as a container for the dried flowers. It fits nicely behind the plate so I don’t have to feel bad about throwing away the flowers I give Dionysos. After cleaning the plate off I put the pinecones and cinnamon stick and whatot back on it, and cut some sprigs of ivy from my ivy plant to put on there as well. It looks pretty nice; I’m pleased with it and hope Dionysos likes it as well. I guess the entire area sort of counts as an altar at this point, even if it isn’t grand and I don’t have any depictions of Him (though I’d like to; thus the minis I made / got from HeroForge which still need to be painted but I need to practice painting minis on some other minis first [thanks to Husband for giving me some extra Warhammer minis he has lying around to practice on] ). It’s where I have his candles and burn incense for him and give him offerings and do little things for the other Theoi as well. Hermes’ candle is over there (as well as a coin I gave him); Apollo’s candle is in the kitchen on the table that I study at but I give Apollo peach tea candles over by the plate. Dionysos gets apple tea candles; Hermes gets vanilla; Apollo gets peach; Hestia gets unscented.

At any rate. We need a bigger apartment. Husband said that once plague is over we’re going to look for a bigger one because this one just isn’t enough for our needs anymore (I’d like to have a desk that isn’t just me taking over the kitchen table), and maybe when we do I can actually set up a real altar that’s not just a bit of space carved out of the corner.