#i did edit the original template quite a bit

[corpocyborg]

| Arasaka Database | | Employee ID# NC770416 | | Director of Counter Intel | | Valerie "V" Locke | Name: Valerie Locke Alias: V Sex: Female Height: 170 cm / 5'7" Place of Birth: Charter Hill, Westbrook, NC Date of Birth: Nov 12, 2050 Position: Director of Counter Intel Former Positions: Assistant Director, Field Agent (Counter Intel); Field Agent (Spec Ops) Primary Personality Traits 95% Energetic 73% Diligent 62% Suspicious 38% Rude 65% Ruthless 97% Optimistic Vehicle: Rayfield Excalibur Cyberdeck: Arasaka Mk. 4 Weapons: Cyberdeck, Silenced Pistol, Gorilla Arms (w/ Realskinn) Combat Style: Stealth Takedowns, Quickhacking, Crowd Control Hair: Dark Red (Dyed), Black (Natural) Eyes: Gray, Kiroshi "Sentry" Optics Skills Body 3/7 Intelligence 7/7 Reflexes 4/7 Technical 5/7 Stealth 6/7 Survival 2/7 Background: Born to Arasaka employees Daniel Locke (technical and security specialist, deceased as of 2063) and Charlotte Locke (diplomatic representative, deceased as of 2063). Attended Arasaka Academy (2064 - 2068), paid for via fund set up by parents. Started career at Arasaka in 2069 in Spec Ops as a field agent. Excelled at building large networks of contacts and informants. Transferred to Counter Intel in 2072. Promoted to Director after termination of former director Arthur Jenkins. Involvement in leaking information leading to former superior’s termination (as well as that of Susan Abernathy, Director of Spec Ops) suspected but never proven. [original template by @fiangrey]

[citrus-cactus]

Howdy, all! I can't post my art summary quite yet because it contains part of someone's Secret Santa gift, so I thought I would fill out the fic summary template created by @reliablejoukido (see her original post here!). Even though I didn't publish (or finish!) much, I did start writing again this year, and that feels like a huge accomplishment, so it seemed like it would be fun to look back and talk a little bit about what I have in the works.

First, the finished fic!

My er... grand return to writing (I wouldn't call it that, but I did have a lot of fun writing and drawing for it, even if it took 6+ months from start to finish ^^;). I love these three characters as a trio so much. It was really hard to pull out a quote I liked and have it make sense in context, so I put the summary in there... but since I brought it up in another post, I thought I'd share what one of my editing drafts looks like:

(ok, so maybe not the tiniest font imaginable, but sometimes there are cross-outs to the cross-outs and sometimes I DO run out of room near troublesome paragraphs and in the margins!)

Now, onto WIPs!

Hmm, well! That sure is a title, isn't it? ;) I wanted to write Junzumi and came up with this idea late last year, and finally started trying to figure it out. It's meant to be fun and flirty and a bit awkward, but the ultimate goal is to be kind to JP, because he (and his body) are given so little love overall. And even though JP and Zoe are not actually hooking up in this fic, it is meant to show the relationship between the two of them in college, and how they could start going from friendship to dating. There IS nudity, but it's meant to be tasteful and respectful, I promise!

Oof. I haven't forgotten this fic, I swear (even though I published Chapter 4 three years ago!). I got really excited to work on it earlier this year (flush with success from actually publishing something, rotfl!) and then let it continue to languish (orz). Upon reflection, the reason it's been stalled is I was having a hard time figuring out the flow of action, but after re-outlining it in September I think I know now what Maki needs to be doing in order to experience the emotions I always meant her to be feeling in this chapter. And yes, she and Meiko meet (yay!).

Chapter 6 has been done for YEARS, and Chapter 7's probably pretty close to done as well, so it really is just this chapter being the hold-up.

AKA, Garg Fic #1. Been mulling over ideas for fic for this fandom all summer, and finally decided to write one based on some minor characters from the SLG comics (that I didn't even read, and can't read now because they're out of print). But I AM reading the new Dark Ages comics, and I'm proving to be a really good guesser about certain details, so actually, I feel INCREDIBLY validated about my original vision and characterization, ahaha.

As you may be able to tell from the quote selection, this is not a happy story. But I believe it's a story worth telling. It's about preserving customs in the face of tragedy, and mourning, and extinction, and love.

AKA, the thing that pulled me away from writing Garg Fic #1. I was possessed. I was writing something in my head about Macbeth's relationship with Demona this summer, and suddenly (VERY suddenly) it morphed into this. Dang, but they're fun to think about. This fic is weird, it will contain one MAJOR narrative trope/cliche, and it's definitely going to be NSFW if I end up getting that far. But I reeeeeeally like this paragraph I wrote for it XD

Thanks for the template Zuz, and thanks to everyone else for letting me ramble about writing! See you again for the art roundup!

[blackered]

my journey in DST modding: days 3+4

i am writing this in day 4, but i actually got a little bit done yesterday so i decided to add both of them in a single post. . last post i showed what i had so far and mentioned that we were lacking hands, tail, braids and face. i drew almost everything. . but this, my friends, is just the start... let's call this text, "A Tale of Tails". .

i thought i was fine and things were looking up. i almost got excited, but when i opened spriter... the tail was completely broken. another mistake of mine: thinking that spriter can solve any of my problems. . post will be EXTRA LONG, proceed at your own risk.

i added everything and tried to fix it in spriter, but i forgot that IT DOESNT CHANGE ANYTHING IN GAME. i added her into the game for testing and naturally, this is what happened. . it broke once, then i managed to fix the base's placement, but it broke again. and again. and i gave up for the day.

. now im back, messed with the pivot points in spriter and she looks VERY CUTE currently, but the placements in-game are still off. that includes the base of the tail rendering on top of the torso in the back view.

to be honest, i have no idea what to do anymore, but i have the rest of the day to figure it out. . but fuck that for now, let's move to the face. her featureless stare is irritating me. . im not gonna put all 32 facial expressions in this file for show, i ended up editing them directly on the png templates. so yeah here she is, in all her broken mod glory:

looking great! but that was just me avoiding the actual problem. i tweaked spriter a little bit more, so let's go back to the game:

almost! part of me just wants to make the middle part longer and get it over with. but theres another problem: she's too small! . people in the forums did complain about the size of the template, but i didnt know it was THIS small. originally, Zakaria is 1.70m tall, which isnt short at all for a woman. there goes something else i have to fix... . well, my conclusion is: i might have to backtrack a little and redo the tail, redo the braids and see what happens. . the "Tale of Tails" continues, but im ready to quit for the day.

[k00297230]

Hello you effervescent emus!

today I was stressed.

I would be giving birth to my mini me!

I spent the morning finishing up on some of the work I had done yesterday to complete what I could of my sculpture. This was what it looked like before.

Yeah, looking rough.

going off my original base i just went with layering a bunch of paper to create the face shape because I thought it would be easier. I was wrong. I used toilet paper to build up a base for the hair and forehead, which I then layered with paper. I used a scissors to curl paper strips for some extra layers of hair. I must've been colour blind when painting it because I did not mean for it to turn out so orange but here we are. It looks like my mini me was involved in a tragic fire within their family home and got hit by a car after running out onto the road, trying to escape it. ;(

The nose base started off pretty proportionate but somewhere along the way it clearly slipped down a bit and left little room for my mouth. The chin is practically non existent. The body I was using my thread idea to create clothes with a elevated layer for the collar. I had a bit of work done but need to do a lot more before I wanted to take photos of it but I knew I hade limited time so I settled with getting half of it done.

Because my nose was so big and there was little room for my mouth I decided to use the default phenome templates on our Moodle as they were small and thin. I would've liked to have considered other styles for the mouth that may have gone with my illustrators style better but to be honest the mouth was an after thought for me.

I cut these out and brought them to be photographed with Deborah along with my head.

We placed them on a green page flat and shone a light down on all of them to try and get no shadows. I layed out all of them which will then be edited individually out piece by piece which can be used as an asset on top of my head photo. This was a much simpler idea than photographing the head with blue tacked mouths on them multiple times as the head would probably move with every mouth replaced.

I also forgot one of my mouths so I did it myself back in the room. I did it on a flat red background hoping to get enough light that there wouldn't be shadows.

Then we photographed the final mini me piece. against a green background. I angled the camera slightly lower, looking up to hopefully obscure some of the obvious and ugly work behind it.

The final mini me, I was quite happy with. I completed the threaded top and added buttons with loose threads hanging out them as well as using coloured paper as a substitute halfway through.

I then had to attach the head onto the neck and base. This was difficult as the head was heavy behind it so it kept leaning back and needed support. I just stuffed and taped some brown paper to hold it up haphazardly. I somehow did it although you can kind of see the tape behind the neck more obviously.

I'll have to edit that out tomorrow if I can. I also need to individually cut out these pieces digitally and assemble them onto my background which I'll need to photograph tomorrow morning.

I'm a father now!!

[pbandjesse]

I just took a shower but this is the first time I have sat down since I've gotten home. Today was a really long day and it did not help that it started with an hour commute to camp. That was not fun. And I'm going to try to wake up a little earlier and try to avoid that traffic because the extra 15 minutes sleep is not worth the extra half an hour of a drive.

I did sleep pretty well last night. I woke up at one point and I didn't startle awake this time. I woke up saw that was before my alarm and was like I could sleep until 7:15. This was a mistake. I got dressed and didn't like the original outfit so I switched took a couple extra minutes to get ready. Gave James a hug and kiss goodbye and headed out.

When I got in the car I saw that my commute was going to be 42 minutes. Which is just a little bit longer than I would like it to be but it's fine. But then I was like at closer to 83 it's tickling up. And I go from 8:11 eta 2 and 8:20 and then 8:25 and it says there's a crash coming up and I see not far away that there are two cars stopped on the side of the road so I was like oh that's where it is we'll get past no big deal. Nope.

That was just accident number one. Because on my drive I saw three separate accidents. The one that the GPS was telling me about was the one where two cars literally had their entire fronts smashed in. If there was ambulances or anything they had already moved on by the time I passed it. But it took me 30 minutes to move 4 mi. It was horrible. And then after I get past the beltway and back on to 83 I see a car is flipped over! Thankfully it looks like everyone was just standing around but the cops in the ambulance weren't even there yet. So that was quite a sight. And by the time I got to work it was 8:35. I had left 1 hour before that. I was not thrilled.

Once I got inside everything was fine. I had eaten my bagel while I was driving because I had been sitting still for so long and just crawling along. But when I got to camp I was really excited to see that the dead possum from yesterday had attracted 10 turkey vultures. I don't know if you know this but turkey vultures mate for life and it was so neat to see all of them. Especially later in the morning when they all opened up their wings and were sending themselves. It's a really interesting thing to see especially cuz they're such a large bird.

I would be alone for a while though. Nobody seemed like they were in a rush to come in. I worked on some stuff on the computer. Things we had worked on yesterday. I did not feel like going for a walk or anything so I just waited and did what I could do.

I did look through the emails and I saw that we had someone asking about applying for a job but they had clearly used like a template or chat GPT because they had left in brackets where they were supposed to put their special skills and it just said [insert special skills here] And we all had a good laugh over that. Not saying we still won't reach out to the kid but you should read your things before you send them for sure. It already had pretty strong chat GBT language. So we all know when you use it. I use it all the time now but I still only use it as a base and edit off of it so it doesn't sound so robotic. And it makes sense for what I actually need it for.

Started coming in it was nice to just chat. Me and Sarah talked about how bad the commute was today. Elizabeth said that her GPS just had her avoid the highway completely. I don't know what it was about today but everybody was driving so bad. I forgot to say this but after the car that flipped over someone tailgated me so bad scared the hell out of me. Coming up so fast behind me and then tailgating me and then getting around me and break checking me immediately. Was very upsetting. So I was telling Sarah about that and we were just hanging out until there was something else to do.

I did some work on the schedule and some research and answered some emails and reached out to some people for Alexi. But I also decided that I was going to do something today. I was going to start something today. That I said for a very long time I would never do. And that is read the supernatural fanfiction " twist and shout". Seeing that in the wild has given me chills before. Because all I know about it is that is the saddest fanfiction in the phantom. And I have been avoiding it since it was published in 2012. But I decided that it is finally time that I read this 265 page story.

And so far it's great. I can see why it's popular. Even though it's very very lemony at least in the beginning. I'm assuming for the rest of it as well but we'll see how it goes. And I read that over my break and ate my nachos and then in the afternoon I would work on some stuff for Heather and do a bunch of research into portable cabins and rentals for those. Which was very difficult because when you try to Google that it's just you going somewhere to rent a cabin not the cabin coming to you. And the afternoon actually went pretty quickly. I went up to the arts and crafts building at one point and late in the hammock for a few minutes. I scheduled a call with Parker to discuss my workshop tomorrow and some other things. And I decided that since James was doing extend hours tonight I would go to Five guys for dinner and then go to the thrift store.

So around 3:45 I got up chatted with Alexei about tomorrow with the consultant. Gave Elizabeth one of my last chocolate covered pretzels because she said she was so hungry. And then I left.

I went to the Five guys about 20 minutes from camp. And I was the only one in that shopping center. It was very weird. I guess it's just a funny time of day but I was very alone. And the staff was nice and my food was good. I did forget my headphones in the car so I just scrolled on my phone while I ate. And enjoyed the sun on my back. And then I went down the road to go to the Goodwill.

I am trying not to buy too much stuff before all of the stuff that we already own is put away. But I wanted to look around. I ended up getting a book and a new shower caddy because ours is very small. And this one is much better. And because I had some reward dollars the whole thing was $3. Book and shower caddy. And I just enjoyed walking around. I always do.

I was very much ready to go home. The traffic was still bad and it would still take a half an hour when it should have taken 20 minutes but it was fine. And I got back here right before 5:30.

And I spent the evening working on hanging stuff. I had decided last night that the daybed cannot be in the studio. I wanted it to work but it doesn't. So we're going to move it up to the little room and have that be like a library sitting room guest room situation. And so I cleared off the top of that and I took two of the drawers out and I obviously cannot move the entire bed up the stairs myself. So I just got it ready for one we would try to move that later. And then I worked on sorting all of our art and choosing some pieces for different rooms and hanging stuff. And then I started tackling the studio putting stuff away trying to decide where some stuff is going. I still have a whole another shelf coming so it's not like I don't have more space but it was nice to get some stuff put away. And then I started hanging some of my shelves on the wall and I'm not entirely sure what's going to go where yet so I didn't put a lot of things on the shelves. But I started laying out a lot of my stuff. Kind of recreating the studio at the apartment a little bit on that wall. And I'm really happy with it so far. I will be very pleased when I can actually work in that space.

I seriously was just go go for hours though and around 8:30 I finally got to a point where I couldn't do much more. I had watched a couple true crime docs in that time and just hung out with sweet pea and texted James and Jess. And eventually I was just like it's time for me to take a shower.

So I washed my hair. It is still tough to acclimate to how cold that water can be. It does get to a reasonable warmth but it takes a minute. And I hate to waste the water so I'm not waiting for it to get warm necessarily. But at least I am clean. And James will be home soon. So I am going to say good night. I hope that you all sleep great tonight and have a lovely day tomorrow. I have a workshop tomorrow and it's going to be small but I'm still looking forward to it. I had spoken to Parker on my drive home and I am excited to continue to work with them even if my classes don't always sell out at this one. That's okay. I hope you guys all sleep great tonight and have a wonderful day tomorrow. Until next time.

[criminal-sen]

Tagged by @bleachbleachbleach and @mayuris-basement-dweller; took me a while but I finally did it! Also I made it a rainbow cuz I am extra af (solid line is definite YES, dotted line has stipulations)

Yah I was on ff.net but before that, my first fic account was adultfanfiction.net. Think early 2000s lol

I love AO3 so much and am so glad I have an account; it is vastly superior to the other sites I've used and I think a lot of ppl take it for granted

smut/dark fic is all I write:)

Yes I've beta-read quite a bit! If you ever want me to beta-read a fic, just hit me up, I love doing it

That being said, absolutely ZERO of my fics have been beta-read. I am obsessive with my editing (still make mistakes) plus I don't wanna plot spoil for ppl

Fool's Gold was the most overtly self-indulgent but they all are to some degree. I'm not out here posting smut that I don't personally enjoy lmao

Yessss I rarely write fluff so it's refreshing to read sometimes

All my fic is gay because I'm gay

EEEEEE THAT IS A LOADED QUESTION, yes I think ff is just as valid as original fic! Genre is usually defined by the tone and actual content of a story though??? Like okay it contains blorbo but is it drama? romance? horror? See what I mean?

Yes but I usually just do one fandom at a time

dotted line bc I research during the fic, not before

another dotted; technically yes, I love having an outline with chapter summaries! That being said, I'm not using one right now

Yes:)

@seeveekat made me a wonderful art for Imperfect and I love it so so much<3<3<3 (also. not a fanart but @thefearfulheart gifted me a fic of my AFK blorbos which I frequently reread and cherish<3)

Girl (gender neutral) they are ALL unfinished. Aiming to correct that with Imperfect though and I am working SO hard on it

I get ideas at all hours of the day, night included

Any fic written before Sept 7th 2019 was written drunk and/or high:)

COFFEE

Kinda wish Fool's Gold (18 plus plz!!!!!) got more attention here on tumblr but I get it, we're not all trans masc Mayuri fans:/

Okay cool, phew I'm done now. Blank template below if anyone else wants to do it:3

EDIT OMG I FORGOT. TO PUT THE TEMPLATE. here u go jfc

[trixybobbitt]

AI generated art is theft, do you have to have an AI Art Profile picture?? It really bums me out ):

Yes, I was using an AI profile portrait. It was one of those early photo style edits from before the AI art stuff really blew up. The photo it was based on was of me and taken by me. Still, I recognize that it is inexcusable laziness and complicit in theft almost certainly committed when the AI was trained. It was a placeholder which is overdue for replacement. This new vaguely heart shaped icon is one I created myself with a freeware vector art program called Inkscape for use in my book. It is based on a heart shape which I think is old enough that no one is quite sure where it's use started. It's also meant to resemble a pen nib. Pen nib shapes are largely functional and whether you would judge their origin in Roman ruled Britain in the 40s AD, or Egyptian reed pens far before then, those are both a bit past the copyright cutoff Mickey is staring down. I don't think I can get any more theft-free than that and still use a standardized web image format. I could be wrong. Posting publicly on the internet is an efficient way to be corrected and learn. I think I'll add some genderqueer colors to it after I'm done writing this. While the genderqueer flag was designed by Marilyn Roxie, it's covered by Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License so I think I can use it without taking food from the mouths of creators. I also own commissioned cover art, which I did not draw, but I own the reproduction and modification rights. If I wanted to use that for a bit more color, do I credit Angrboda in my profile, or a pinned post? Do I post the artist's legal name to avoid confusion with the norse goddess? Is it enough that tineye will reveal its origin? I haven't seen anyone else posting citations for their avatars, so I do not know the appropriate convention. I'm not sure what is enough. I also love the art of simz, but I have not commissioned a piece from them. Is there a way to use their art in an avatar without bumming you or other folks out? Is it enough if I'm a contributor to their patreon?

In addition, I've probably used one or two Felix Argyles in my few 'original' content posts which were not illustrated by Shin'ichirō Ōtsuka, and some backgrounds which may not have been either stock, meme template, or from recognizable intellectual properties. (I made a few of them while drunk-posting on a friend's couch, and probably didn't click through my google image search to check.) I'm not sure if they represent fair use, but I don't think you were raising a legal complaint, just feeling bummed about art friends struggling to commoditize their creativity in a capitalist society that is predatory toward small business, so I'm not sure what to do to cheer you up. ☺

[tehuti88-art]

5/12/23: r/SketchDaily theme, "Wednesday/Free Draw Friday." (I did Free Draw Friday.)

This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Helena Urbach. She isn't a main character but ends up playing more of a role late in the story, helping the good guys. There'll be more about her later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se.

Regarding her design, she's supposed to be taller and a little bigger and not quite as feminine as most of the female characters. Like a farm woman, I guess. For this reason I followed the male template when drawing her--longer nose, thicker neck, etc.

TUMBLR EDIT: Hm, I haven't much to share on Helena's earlier life, she hasn't shared it yet and as I'm typing this up (early June) we're going through a major medical emergency so I'm not in much state of mind to brainstorm. Maybe she's just not ready to share. Part of her story, including the circa-2000 reboot version of how she first comes into contact with the Trench Rats (under her original, since-discarded name Kurtzer), is HERE, in Mahogany Rat's entry. Obviously, by this point she's already been through far more than she should have.

In the original version, Helena had a little girl. In the newer version I last outlined, she had a husband. Most recently I'm leaning toward her having a husband and a child, for reasons that will become clear soon. I'm unsure of their life before the Nazis, though I wonder if perhaps they were farmers, based on Helena's physical build--tall, not exactly stout but not slender or especially feminine, well built and strong. I'm not sure though--she seems a bit educated and worldly to be a farm wife, especially compared to, say, the Klempers, who are pretty simple and ignorant of a lot of things (for example, Klemper can read, but can barely write)--so I can't commit to her specific background yet. Maybe they're just financially better off than the dirt-poor Klempers and so they could afford to be more educated. *shrugs*

The Urbachs are Jewish, in 1930s Germany--and so the inevitable happens. They're rounded up and transported to a camp, where they're separated--Helena's husband is sent one way, then her child is taken away from her. She goes through the stripping, the delousing, the head shaving, the tattooing. (Tattoos are more ubiquitous in my story than IRL, where they were an Auschwitz thing.) By the time she ends up in a women's camp, in stripes, with a yellow star, assigned to hard labor, her spirits are almost completely crushed; it's only the thought of being reunited with her family that keeps her going. At the end of every exhausting, back-breaking day, and again when they're all rousted from their bunks to line up outside before the sun has even risen, it's the tiny burning feverish ember in her heart, keeping her trudging through the mud and blood and squalor and working until she's near ready to collapse and then the day ends again.

Helena is thin, haggard, hollow eyed by the time the camp is liberated and its inmates are brought to the Trench Rats to shelter, sort out, and attempt to reunite with their families and move them out of the country. The entire process is too eerily reminiscent of what she went through with the Nazis: Everyone is put in lines, they show their tattoos, they give their info, all in a very brisk, clinical manner. The Rat Helena goes before is especially brusque, taking down her name and number without even looking her in the face, waving her on with a terse, "Next." It takes all the courage she can summon to address him directly, and when she does, he finally looks up at her and blinks, as if to say, what sort of nerve this person has to speak to me? The numbers aren't supposed to speak.

Helena haltingly asks if he knows anything about anyone else named Urbach. He tells her he isn't equipped to provide such info, he's just there to process the newcomers. Dispirited, Helena thanks him anyway, and heads off to the next line.

The rest of the process isn't quite as stressful. They're sheltered in a large room with multiple bunks, but are provided with sheets to hang for a bit of privacy. There are warm clean blankets and pillows. A doctor and his team make the rounds of the entire room, giving everyone a perfunctory checkup, sending those who need further attention to the medical ward. He's terse, rather aloof, but nothing like the doctors in the camp; he actually asks Helena if anything is bothering her. She wants to again ask about her family, but this is just a doctor, surely he wouldn't know anything; she says merely that she's thirsty, and wishes she could wash up. He says food and drink will be provided shortly, along with the chance to clean up, and goes on to the next person. As promised, other Rats arrive with food carts, and Helena is mildly surprised that the food is kosher. Some of the refugees eat while others go to wash off and receive a fresh change of clothes; by the time she's done with both, Helena can barely think of anything other than sleep, she's so exhausted. She dozes off immediately in her little bunk and dreams she's back in the camp. It'll be a while before those dreams go away.

She snaps awake before dawn--because if you wake late in camp, you get a beating. Quite a few of the others have awakened as well, or been unable to sleep at all. There's a Rat stationed at the door nearby, light peeking in from the next room, and she wraps her blanket around herself and approaches him. He's polite when she addresses him, and explains that they're allowed to sleep later; there'll be no beatings here, no hard labor, no punishment. Helena returns to her bunk, but just lies awake as dawn gradually arrives and light filters in the high windows. By the time everyone awakes, they're all pretty confused; it's a much different atmosphere from the one in the camps, and no one's sure what to expect. Helena's had a lot of time to think, though. She again approaches the Rats, and volunteers her services as a go-between. She speaks German, she speaks Yiddish, she speaks passing-well English, her health is moderately decent compared to a lot of the others, and she's good at keeping a level head and calming people down. She can't bear the thought of sitting and doing nothing; if she can help at all, she wants to. The Trench Rats agree, and Helena, along with various other refugees who are in better physical and mental condition, or have particular skills that are needed, assist them in handling the less fortunate among them. A few times she even helps the doctor, Burgundy, with medical issues the others experience; blood and injuries don't make her queasy, and she's good at helping to keep refugees calm as they're tended to, even if she doesn't speak the same language.

One day, a familiar Rat comes to meet her--the same one who'd taken down her information when she'd first been brought in. His name is Mahogany, and along with him is Copper, another Rat who often checks in on the refugees. He excitedly informs Helena that he's been digging through numerous records and he believes he's found what became of the other people named Urbach, the ones she'd asked about. Helena's heart leaps into her throat--when Mahogany tells her that both of them were reported by the Nazis as having been killed in the camps.

In an instant, that burning little ember of hope, that's kept her going for so long, is snuffed out. Helena feels her lungs contract, her heart shrink in on itself. Her family is gone. She won't ever see them again, hug her husband, hold her child--by now they're surely nothing more but ash and smoke. She dimly sees the looks on the Trench Rats' faces--Copper looks aghast, while Mahogany starts to look uncertain--before her vision blurs and then darkens around the edges. Still...she'd asked, and he answered. "Danke," she makes herself mumble, before turning and heading back to her bunk. She slips into her bed, lets the sheet fall closed, curls up on her side and stares. It's too much at first and she's too numb with disbelief to even cry. After a while though, reality settles in, and the clenching in her heart grows into a dreadful, soul-crushing ache. She tries not to cry out loud, but can't help the whimpers that escape her. Throughout the day and night, now and then another of the refugees stops by her bunk to sit with her and hold her hand and stroke her hair, murmuring their sympathy; she'd comforted them once, now they attempt to return her kindness. It doesn't break through to her, though; she's too swallowed up in her own void to notice them much. She slips in and out of sleep and waking, dream and reality, and time has no meaning anymore, because nothing does.

Finally, after what might be either moments or years, someone places their hand on her arm. A hazy shadow leans close and murmurs in German, "Frau Urbach, Sie müssen essen." You have to eat. She blinks a few times, her vision clears; for some reason she'd almost thought it was her husband, although he wouldn't call her Frau Urbach. She sees it's the Trench Rat doctor. He looks concerned. She suddenly feels it--the clenching in her empty stomach as well--she feels that she shouldn't be hungry, not when she has nothing left to live for, yet she is. She slowly pushes herself up, noticing the other refugees standing around peering in at her; Burgundy asks for privacy and they let the sheet drop and depart. He hands her a small bowl of fruit which she holds but does nothing else with; "Just one piece," he says, so she slowly eats one. "Now another," he says, and she does so, until the little bowl is empty, and he gives her a cup of water: "One drink," he says, and she sips until the cup is empty. He touches her hand when he reaches for the cup and it hits her again and her eyes well up and she sucks in a breath. "What do I do?" she asks, to which he replies, "Don't think too far ahead. Just one little step. Then another."

He sits with her while she cries, this time letting out the sounds. It feels like hours, like the grief is bottomless, but eventually she just grows too tired to keep crying, and they just sit. She must doze off, for she wakes and he's gone, though the Rats with the food carts are making the rounds, and she accepts a little food although she doesn't feel like eating. She still breaks down crying a few times, yet also continues going through the motions of living. When one of the Rats stops by to ask if she'll accompany him to the medical ward--Burgundy says they could use an extra pair of hands--she goes with him. She spends the day helping out with a few new arrivals who are frightened, ill, and traumatized; it doesn't take away her own pain, but it distracts her a little, and helps the time pass. During a lull, she asks Burgundy, "Who did you lose...?" He stares at her a moment, seeming surprised that she would ask, before quietly replying, "Everyone." He doesn't need to say anything else, and neither does she. She resumes her previous activity with the refugees, at first just to keep herself going, then to fill in the time, then to fill in the void. The pain doesn't go away and she doesn't expect it to. She keeps living, though, and as long as she's alive, she figures, she may as well keep going, helping others even if they can't help her.

It isn't long after (though it feels like it's been ages) when Mahogany returns. She's never seen such miserable guilt on anyone's face before, and it gives her pause. He haltingly attempts to explain himself and apologize for his previous actions: Her initial request for information had niggled at him in a way things rarely did, so after his shift was over, he'd gone digging through not just the Trench Rats' files, but German documents they'd confiscated as well. It was in these that he'd discovered the fate of Helena's husband and child. He'd been so excited to be able to give her the information she'd asked for that it hadn't even occurred to him he was delivering the news that her family was dead, until he'd seen the look on her face, and Copper had rebuked him for it. He hadn't even been thinking of that possibility--he'd just been thinking of their ID numbers, not the people behind them."You realize, this is the same way the Nazis think," Helena says, which makes him physically flinch; she can tell the comment stings. He acknowledges this:

Mahogany: "It's just, it's easier for me to figure out numbers, names, facts...I'm not so good with faces, people, feelings. I know there are people behind the numbers. They're just..."

Helena: "Complicated?"

Mahogany: (nods)

Helena: "And you don't know how to deal with complicated."

Mahogany: (nods) "You see how well I already did."

Helena: "I believe I understand."

Mahogany: "I meant no offense. I really should've thought before I spoke, and I'm sorry."

Helena: "It's all right. I see you were only trying to help. You know, though...if you want to better know a person behind a number, it's all right for you to ask."

Mahogany: (nods) "I understand now."

Helena: "Helena. Urbach." (holds out hand) "So I'm not just a number on a page."

Mahogany: (grasps her hand) "Mahogany."

Helena: "And I mean it. Danke, for the trouble you went to, to find out what happened to my family." (voice breaks a little)

Mahogany: (pause, waiting for her to compose herself) "Since you mentioned it...does it make it hurt less…? Now that you know?"

Helena: (pause) "Nein...it hurts the same. But it helps."

Helena remains with the Rats for a time as she has no family to be reunited with. She helps a good number of the newer refugees navigate their new lives after Nazi captivity. She meets a rescuee named Jakob Wolfstein when he's brought into the medical ward; Burgundy, who's usually skilled at concealing his feelings about such things, seems especially unsettled by this patient, and asks Helena to speak with him. She expects someone severely traumatized; yet Wolfstein appears in rather better spirits than most newcomers she's met, and once she introduces herself, he seems excited to meet another Jew. He actually clasps her hands in his and smiles from ear to ear, a reaction she's unused to. She asks him about himself and learns that he recently escaped Nazi custody with the help of a Trench Rat named Silver, who's also recuperating in the medical ward; Helena has heard of this incident already, Silver ending up captured by the Nazis and briefly going missing, as it was pretty big news. She peers at him dozing several beds away, black and blue all over; "He had it much, much worse than I," Wolfstein murmurs. Most of the escape, in fact, was orchestrated by Wolfstein, as Silver wasn't in good shape once the Nazis were done with him; they fled to the protection of a group of partisans, and have only just returned to Trench Rat Headquarters following negotiations between the partisans and the Rats for a supplies trade. The two chat for a while, and Helena promises to come talk with him again after he gets some rest. He again clasps her hands and wishes her goodbye. Helena reports back to Burgundy, who wants to know her impressions of Wolfstein's mental state; "He seems fine to me," she admits, "more than fine, actually," and she describes their interaction, Wolfstein's buoyant spirits on meeting her, his emphasis on Silver being the one who truly needs attention. Burgundy seems nonplussed; "Herr Wolfstein didn't go through nothing," he says; "those Nazi 'doctors' experimented on him. Did you see his scar?" Helena says it looks like he had a scar on his chest, partly hidden by his clothes; in response Burgundy traces a finger along his own chest, across and then down, a rough Y shape. Helena's face goes pale; "They vivisected him," Burgundy says, and she can hear just a twinge of it in his voice--fury. Wolfstein had given no sign, said no word of such a thing; his concerns lay solely with Silver's welfare.

Helena and Wolfstein continue to meet and get to know each other. Both of them are comforted to find a similar soul to chat with. Helena learns that Wolfstein has a sister, Johanna, and several extended-family members he hopes were not captured and wishes to get back in touch with soon. Wolfstein learns that Helena has no family left. Pain pinches his face and he cups her hands in his. "I'm sorry," he says, and seeing the tattoo on his arm, she knows that he perfectly understands where she's coming from. She has to swallow and blink a few times to not be overwhelmed again.

One day when she visits, Wolfstein is a bit quieter than usual, as if trying to figure out how to tell her something; when she finally asks what's on his mind, he explains the reason he believes his sister and cousins are still alive: He'd caught wind, while in captivity, that they'd eluded capture and joined a resistance effort known as the Diamond Network. "When I leave here, if I can find them," he says, "I hope to help them with their cause. Whatever little bit I can offer. Even if only my last breath. I wanted to ask you, if you would like to do the same? You have such a large soul, and there are so very many you can help. Even more than here. I know that you worry you can't do enough. This isn't true. But you can do more, if you wish."

Helena hesitates. While it's true that she worries she doesn't do enough among the Trench Rats, still, it's all she knows she can do. They've also been incredibly kind to her, and she hates the thought of leaving them. Still...Wolfstein explains a bit more how she could assist from within the Diamond Network, and it does sound like there is so much more she can do, people she can help at the most urgent moments, rather than just in the aftermath. Given her own experiences and knowledge, she'd be invaluable. Helena says she needs to mull it over a little bit; Wolfstein replies that it may be a while yet before he can locate his sister (incidentally, Mahogany is one of the parties digging into it), so she can take her time to decide.

The first person Helena asks for input from is Burgundy. Despite his widely known sour, standoffish attitude, he's only ever been kind to her, and she values his opinion. He says he's sure she could do very well for the Network, as she's done so well for the Rats: "Of course, we'll miss you here." He advises her to do that which her intuition tells her to do. Mahogany offers similar thoughts. Helena makes up her mind; she goes to Wolfstein and tells him that whenever he finds his sister, she'd like to come and help them. She'll remain with the Rats until then. Wolfstein tells her she won't regret her decision. Some time later, Mahogany finally helps track down Johanna and Wolfstein's cousin Noah, and Wolfstein returns to his family. A little bit after that, he sends Helena a message back at Trench Rat Headquarters: He's settled back in with his family, and is ready to help out the Diamond Network--he invites Helena to join them. She says her goodbyes to Burgundy and the others, and departs.

Helena doesn't show up again in the series until late, by which point the first Trench Rat sergeant, Camo, has dropped his own solitary resistance disguise and re-joined the Rats, becoming co-commander along with the former corporal Gold. Following the war, the handful of Trench Rats remaining in Germany, including Burgundy, Mahogany, and Camo, investigate reports of continued Nazi activity occurring in the Alps. Helena appears at the newly repurposed Project Doomsday headquarters where the Rats have taken up operations and offers her services; Mahogany gratefully accepts her help going through records, and she helps both with keeping HQ in touch with the group who go to the mountains, and with the ongoing efforts to reunite separated families and property. Through this role, she comes into contact with Camo.

Helena doesn't take much notice of the Trench Rat sergeant at first, and he takes no notice of her. It's only after the Alps business is settled and Camo joins in with reunification efforts that they officially meet. Camo doesn't make a great first impression; he's aloof, standoffish, curt, and rather cold. He isn't RUDE, but he definitely isn't friendly, either. Helena tries to chat with him now and then but although he acknowledges her, he makes no real effort to reciprocate. She knows he's not an antisemite, as his corporal, Drake, is Jewish, and the two get along very well. She actually considers asking Drake what's going on with Camo, but he returns to France shortly after the Alpine Fortress affair, to continue recovering from the torture he himself suffered at the hands of the Nazis. There IS one other party in an odd position to know quite a bit about Camo's life, someone who actively participated in typing up many of the files the Rats now find themselves sifting through, and who tipped them off to this goldmine of information as part of a deal following his capture by the Rats near the end of the war. He escaped serious punishment by a military tribunal, and still stops by headquarters on occasion to help the Rats locate particular files. This vast reservoir of information, private personal records on literally tens of thousands of people, was kept by the Allgemeine-SS, and one of the numerous secretarial workers who participated in putting together and archiving the information was SS-Captain Otto Himmel.

Helena has also heard of Himmel: He took part in the former Allies' efforts in the Alps, and provided directions to all the files formerly in SS custody, though he spends most of his time in the country with his son. Dour, brooding, and reclusive, he mainly keeps to himself, but is always polite when addressed directly. Most of the others leave him alone aside from when they're seeking particular files, and he doesn't seem inclined to make friends. Helena, of course, expects a virulent antisemite who is unlikely to cooperate with her, though when she introduces herself to him directly one day, she's surprised when he merely says, "Ja, I remember you." He recalls her being involved, on the ground, in the Alpine Fortress affair, which rather perplexes her, since she kept mostly in the background. Himmel remembers everyone who was involved, though, and not only that, he remembers her personal file. He doesn't say anything about her being a Jew, however, so instead of dwelling on that, she asks about Camo, if she has any reason to believe he'll be difficult to work with. Himmel replies that he has no idea what Camo may think of her, but "He fully has every reason to despise me." Without elaborating on that at first, he expresses puzzlement, why she thinks Camo will have a problem with her; when she describes his attitude Himmel replies he's been that way for a long time, and he's decent at working even with people he doesn't agree with. "You've seen his file, ja...?" he asks; when Helena says no, she wasn't aware he had one, he hesitates.

Himmel: "We keep...kept...files on everyone, especially the American soldiers, when we could find information on them. Herr Camo was no different. We wanted to know ways to best...ways to best take advantage of his weaknesses. This is the way the SS worked. (pause) Your file, for example. It says you lost your husband and child in the camps...I'm sorry."

Helena: "Danke."

Himmel: "You and Herr Camo actually have things in common, though he has no way to know. He lost his wife and child before the war."

Helena: "He--he had a family?"

Himmel: "Ja, a wife and a young daughter. He lost them in an accident and was badly hurt himself. (pause) The SS took advantage of this fact when they...we...found out. There was another American soldier, a young woman, whom the Waffen-SS turned as a spy. They sent her along to catch his eye and try to get information. He's a loyal American, he never gave her secrets, but she did get access to Headquarters. You know what happened next."

Helena: (nods)

Himmel: (pause) "You've read her file...?"

Helena: "Nein."

Himmel: (long pause) "I won't go into all the particulars. But I had good reason to believe she was a threat to my son and to others. When we caught Herr Camo and Herr Drake and her, I shot her. In front of him. He would have killed me if he'd gotten the chance."

Helena: "You killed her...?"

Himmel: "I murdered her, ja. And if I had it to do again I would do the same, for my son. And not a night has gone by since then without me having a nightmare about it. My mind knows I did the only possible thing, yet my heart still hurts over it, and always will. This is why he hates me, though. He was convinced this woman, this spy, she loved him. She didn't. I'm certain some part of him knows this. But mind and heart are two different things, ja? His mind knows I killed a spy but his heart feels I killed the person who loved him and whom he loved. I'm not sure he'll ever forgive me and that's all right. It may explain some things, though. Like why he keeps everyone at a distance. It's easier for some people to be alone than to hurt again. I highly doubt he has anything against you."

Helena returns to the documents and while she refrains from digging up Camo's--it seems like it would be a breach of trust--she does look up Himmel's, as he outright tells her before departing that he welcomes her doing so, he's an open book. She finds that he shares similarities with them, too--his wife died giving birth to their son, who not long after he was forced to relinquish to the state for much of his early life--he lost his spouse and, in a way, his child, himself. When she and Camo start working together on the files she makes a bit more of an effort to talk to him, keeping in mind his likely reasons for maintaining a distance. On an occasion when Drake visits from France, she chats with him and finds him much more personable and open despite his obvious trauma (Papillon, a former partisan he'd grown close to, accompanies him everywhere and is never far away, and Drake has developed a slight permanent tremor from the torture he went through--he shivers as if cold the entire time Helena talks with him), and the two of them hit it off rather well. Seeing how they get along seems to thaw Camo out a little--it's obvious, despite their personality differences, that he values Drake's friendship highly--and after Drake and Papillon depart again, he actually approaches Helena first, offering a stilted apology for his aloofness. Helena accepts it, and their conversations as they search and sort through the files become a little less one sided. Helena tells him a bit about her old life and her family; he seems surprised, so she can tell he never paid close attention to her file, if he ever read it. It takes quite a while for him to mention his own family, and when he does, he can barely get out any words, appearing ready to just not bother talking about them at all; Helena tries something different, asking him about his daughter. As she'd expected--she'd seen the same reaction when Himmel switched from talking about his wife to his son--his spirits buoy slightly as he shares a few details about what she was like. Helena tells him about her own child. For a few moments it's almost a normal conversation, when Helena suddenly catches herself using the present tense--she sees the pained flicker in Camo's eyes a split second before she feels it herself, then her eyes blur and she has to take a breath. Then, something completely unexpected--she feels Camo clasp her hand, and she clasps his back. She takes a moment or so to compose herself and rubs at her eyes before looking at him again. "It never quite goes away, does it?" she murmurs, and Camo shakes his head. The ice breaks.

Helena and Camo grow close, though Camo is still cautious and hesitant at first, not just because of his deceased wife, but also because of Corporal Anna Julian, the American who had spied for the SS. Their relationship hadn't had the chance to get very far, one reason he's reluctant to get involved with Helena; still, the experience wounded him badly. He avoids interacting with Himmel, and Helena can see the way his muscles tense and his eyes harden whenever the former SS officer is around. He refuses to talk about his feelings regarding the matter, though eventually (for reasons I haven't entirely figured out yet, though I imagine that again, Drake may have a hand in it--maybe he tells Camo how Himmel diligently wrote letters to his deceased wife all throughout the war, to "stay sane") he starts to try to let go of some of the hostility, and Helena accompanies him to Himmel's home, a big country mansion abandoned by its previous owners, to meet with him and his partner Johanna Wolfstein (yep--same Johanna), his adult son Kolten, and the various children they adopted following the war. He learns that Himmel still struggles with guilt over what he did so long ago, yet also sees how much he cares for his own family. Despite the intense hatred Camo's felt for him all these years, Himmel harbors no bad feelings in return, and even welcomes Camo and Helena to his home.

After they leave, Camo confides in Helena that he's still angry about what Himmel did, he isn't sure if he can ever entirely let go of the feeling...yet for the first time, this realization bothers him. He feels like he SHOULD be able to let go, by now. "How do you not still hate them all?" he asks Helena, "After what they did to you and your family?" Helena has to think for a while. "Just because I do not hate doesn't mean the bad feelings are gone," she finally says. "I still hurt every day. It never goes away. But understanding it helps." She grasps his hand and squeezes. "It's all right if you can never let go of the anger. As long as you don't get stuck in it and let it eat you up. Some hurts never leave you. It isn't a flaw. It reminds you you're human."

Camo doesn't seem to entirely believe or understand her, but he doesn't argue. He clasps her hand back.

[Helena Urbach 2023 [‎Friday, ‎May ‎12, ‎2023, ‏‎3:00:21 AM]]

[clonewarsarchives]

ATTACK OF THE CLONE (#116, APR 2010)

One of Los Angeles’ most versatile voice actors, Dee Bradley Baker faced an all-new challenge when he was enlisted to voice the Republic’s clone warriors. James Burns meets the man who articulates an army!

Star Wars Insider: How did you get into the voice-over business?

Dee Bradley Baker: Through bribery, trickery and scandal; it’s a crooked path! In reality, I’ve been a performer ever since second grade, doing all kinds of things including plays, operas, singing telegrams, children’s theatre, corporate shows, theme parks, stand-up comedy, and improvisation. It all slowly narrowed, in my thirties, to doing voice-overs. I finally moved out to Los Angeles and it’s worked out.

It seems like you’ve done everything. Was Star Wars something you were keen to add to your resume?

Star Wars was something I never dreamed I’d be able to be associated with. I’d worked previously with Dave Filoni on Avatar: The Last Airbender doing creatures and monsters, which I specialize in, and a lot of other stuff that you’d call utility work—some wackier and comedic stuff. This is very straight ahead, but I really love Star Wars. I think I know the tone of it well. They brought me in and had me read for the voice of the clones and I apparently hit it right!

How governed were you by what Temuera Morrison had done onscreen in Episodes II and III?

The original performances in the feature films are the templates and reference points for where we began, but the writers have really fleshed out the clones in a big way, making them much more interesting and adding a lot of depth to them. I’m merging both aspects—from what little is expressed vocally in the movies to all the cool dialogue in the scripts—so I mix the two.

How do you ensure that all the clones sound distinctive?

When it becomes more of a challenge, like in the episode “Rookies,” we record the voices separately. I go straight through the script and that makes it a little bit easier to maintain the subtle distinctions that we apply to every single clone, so that they all seem like they’re individuals.

Were you surprised at just how varied all the clones are in the show?

Coming into the project I had no idea it would take that route. As far as I knew they were all going to sound the same. When we did “Rookies” it became clear at that moment that we really needed to make these guys different. Since then we’ve set out to make that real, and I think it’s working! Fortunately the writing is clear and Dave Filoni knows what he wants and knows the spin on each of the characters. I’m in good hands with Dave; he helps me get through this and ensures that I keep these guys unique.

In “Ambush” we saw the relationship between Yoda and the clones.

A wonderful moment is when Yoda gives each of the clones his own “fortune-telling” reading and you see that each is a different person with different challenges and paths ahead, that these guys are individuals. It is a revelatory moment—and how nice to open up the series with that, too!

What makes a good voice actor?

A good voice actor is first and foremost a good actor! There’s nowhere to hide behind a microphone; you’ve got to be good to work with and not just talented. You must have enthusiasm and enjoy what you’re doing. It all comes down to being a good actor, though.

What was your favorite episode in Season One?

I love “Rookies” to death. I’ll put that at the top; my second favorite would be “Innocents of Ryloth” because I’m a dad and that one really touched me a lot. I really thought those two episodes were quite remarkable. There’s some jaw-dropping stuff in Season Two, especially the episodes on Geonosis, and you see a tot more clones this season.

DEE BRADLEY BAKER CAN ALSO BE HEARD AS

Boba Fett Star Wars The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition

Dark Helmet Spacebalis: The Animated Series

Gollum The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II (video game) Nightcrawler X-M en Legends, X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (Video games)

Dogmatix Asterix and the Vikings

Daffy Duck, Tasmanian Devil and The Bull Space Jam Captain

Jack Sparrow’s talking parrot Pirates of the Caribbean ( Disneyland and Magic Kingdom rides).

[virunathestarbaby]

༶•┈┈⛧┈♛OTOHA KOTOBUKI♛┈⛧┈┈•༶

Template made by Epel edited a tad to add a few things by Grand.

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"I'm not afraid if Kira knows my name. Cause in the chance that he did, it means Kira's one of you."

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Basic Information

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Name: Otoha Kotobuki

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Date Of Birth: December 31, 1985 (original, however, she forgot her birthday due to never really celebrating it), December 14, 1985 (new. Ever since Matsuda found out she forgot when her birthday was and there's no way of knowing when it actually is since the date on her birth certificate is also fake, he offered that they share a birthday together.)

Profession: Professional Hacker, Undercover agent

Age: 22 (when Otoha and Matsuda first met), 22+

Species: Sexiest human alive

Hobbies: She likes playing games, making clothes, and shopping and sometimes modelling in the shop's dressing room.

Zodiac: Capricorn

Personality: Otoha is a very cheerful and extroverted lady. She tends to be very optimistic and will always find a way to light a dark room up. She's also very playful, mischievous, and childish and would often play pranks on the taskforce but as she grew older...she's still childish and still plays pranks but not as often as when she was young. She's also quite the flirt, and would constantly make dirty jokes and flirt with everyone. Despite her flirtatious personality, she's actually very loyal and faithful to her partner, Matsuda. She's also very confident.

Flaws: Though her childishness may come off as endearing to others, it also sometimes gets on other's nerves. She's also a bit unintelligent at times and tends to listen to her heart more than her brain, and she is oftentimes quite reckless with her decisions. She's also very lazy and quite untrustworthy with house chores and most especially cooking.

Phobias: Entomophobia (fear of insects), Thanatophobia (fear of losing a loved one), and Autophobia (fear of abandonment)

Nationality: British

Love Interest: Matsuda Touta

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"I'm too sexy to die"

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Looks

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Hair Length: Long and curly that lands on her mid-back

Hair Color: chocolate brown

Eye Color: Honey amber eyes

Height: 163 cm

Skin Tone: fair

Weight: 45kg

Tattoos: none

Bandages: none

Scars: she used to have scars from stab wounds but they faded away.

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"I'm not an idiot, but I do admit having an attention span of a gold fish"

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Techniques/Info

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Sexiness

10000000/10

Hacking

1000/10

Stamina:

9/10

Jumping:

6/10

Strength:

3/10

Wisdom:

4/10

Charisma:

100/10

Wealth:

10000/10

Intelligence:

2/10

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"I might be wearing heels but that doesn't mean I can't run"

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Clothing

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Normal Clothing: She wears different clothes everyday but she mostly sports a white crop top underneath a red hoodie with either pants or denim shorts for bottoms along with some brown sandals with 2 inch heels.

Formal Clothing: Anything sexy looking dress. She doesn't repeat her dresses unless she's feeling lazy.

Future normal clothing: A tan turtleneck sweater with a window on the front and either a skirt or pants for the bottom with some black heels.

Pajamas: A black sexy nightgown, usually also wearing lingerie underneath

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"Weee! Cake! "

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Health

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Sickness: Sweet drunkness (She has a type similar to ABS or Auto Brewery Syndrome where every carbs and sugar you intake, turns into alcohol due to a bacteria in the intestine. Otoha has a type of it cause she can still eat carbs and sweets however there is a limit to it before she gets drunk)

Cancer: none

Diseases: none

Weakness: she's a weak fighter.

Allergies: none

Asthma: none

Disability: none

Fears: phobias mentioned above

Addiction: sweets

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"HURRY THE FUCK UP—"

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Personality aspects

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Normal Moods: Happy

Patient/Impatient: Impatient

Anger Management?: slight

Three good things about personality:

° She's very cheerful and supportive about everything.

° She's quick to defend her loved ones.

° She's a very approachable person.

Three bad things of personality:

° Due to her recklessness, she oftentimes end up getting in trouble more while doing something someone specifically told her not to do.

° She's very lazy and mostly procrastinates with her work and is often late to meetings.

° She listens to her heart more than her brain

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"Tou-kun is the best! I love him so so much~"

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Relationships

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While Otoha does have parents, she refuses to acknowledge that she does have them nor use their last name, simply because they also chose to abandon and neglect and abuse her as a child. Until after the great Davies Manor fire and Watari came to get her and take her to Wammies, where she treated everyone there as family.

Imagine Otoha almost being called "Alice Davies" if she wasn't Abandoned and abused and neglected. Yes, they didn't name her. She's nameless. Otoha Kotobuki is just an alias she uses so she has some sort of identity to use. Only did she fully see her name "Otoha" as hers when she married Matsuda and became "Otoha Matsuda"

Mother: Winry Davies (erased)

Father: Robert Davies (erased)

Husband: Matsuda Touta

Daughters: Touka Matsuda, Melody Matsuda

Sons: Mello Matsuda, Aito Matsuda

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"I'm scared....what if I can't be helped anymore?"

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Extra

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Backstory: Otoha was abused and neglected by her parents as a child for reasons unfathomable to a 4 year old and after her home burned down along with her parents and some of the house staff, Watari took her to Wammies where she met A and B and everyone else.

Home: 17th Universe Matsutoha house + squad house + beach house

Popularity: Otoha is very popular, especially to the men with how she dresses and carries herself. She's also sometimes popular with the ladies as well. Sadly, she's straight and she's madly in love with Matsuda.

Dislikes: Bugs, veggies, getting dirty, cheating, dishonest people, people who hurt and don't take care of their children, lying.

Likes: Sweets, Matsuda, her family, sweets, Matsuda, se— nonos with Matsuda, shopping, sales, eating out, ramen, tea, stuffed animals, games, pokemon, dressing up

Voice claim: Amalee/ LeeandLie (English), Ayane Sakure (Japanese)

Theme Song: Power by Little Mix

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"Keep the change. It's all you ever get to keep from me anyway"

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Art Credits

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Me

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"I'm hungry, I want oreos now"

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[milkplusvn]

Soundless FV: Rebuilding the Screens

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Today, I’ll show you the nitty-gritty of rebuilding the screens for the port!

What's in a Ren'Py project?

The code of Soundless is old. Very, very old. I have been working with Ren'Py for a decade now, ever since I was in middle school. I created Soundless’s Ren'Py project way back in 2016 according to some of the files. Maybe even before that—the oldest “last modified” date on an ancient type of Ren'Py file in the directory had 2016 as the year. That’s all I have to go off of, because moving data from PC to PC changed the creation date.

Before the new GUI template was launched with Ren'Py 7 in 2018, you were greeted with a selection of themes when you created a new project. They all had generally the same layout with tweaks to borders and elements like bars, such as a theme that looked digital and another theme that looked like it was drawn with marker. The ideal way to customize your screens back then, if you were an amateur, was to completely trash the whole default theme and create imagemaps.

For those unaware, an imagemap is a type of displayable that requires at least three different variations to work: the “ground state” version, the “idle state” version, and the “hover state” version. You would essentially create your entire screen in one image editor file, text and buttons and all, and save these different variations, then feed Ren'Py some numbers that corresponded to a bunch of rectangular spaces on the map. You would then tell Ren'Py that these rectangles are buttons/sliders from there.

That is how Soundless’s old menus were created. Just me, Photoshop 7 (yes, in 2016+), and painstakingly measured-out rectangle numbers.

This method is painful, even with Ren'Py’s built-in rectangle picker. But if I really wanted to, I could have just upscaled the old imagemaps and copied and pasted my code…except I did not want to do that.

I Needed To Change and Add Things Jesse

The old way just wasn’t viable anymore.

For one, Ren'Py’s modern screen code is just much less painful to use. You can add and manipulate elements on the fly if you just take the time to create and style various types of buttons and frames. It’s also much easier and faster to make any changes if your element isn’t hard-implemented into images. That screenshot up there doesn’t have a single bit of text that’s a part of a picture. Those are all typed out in the code file and rendered by the engine. This method allowed me to make tweaks to make the menus a little more player friendly, like making it very obvious that page 2 of the options screen is selected through better colors.

Another issue is the fact that I don’t have the .PSDs for the original imagemaps anymore! I have no idea where they went. And even if I did find them, I use the latest edition of Photoshop, so I’m not sure what would happen to the text’s appearance. I needed to add things like the accessibility options screen, and without those .PSDs there was no hope of doing it the old way.

There were, of course, slight downsides to this. I had to recreate the background images (mostly because of the missing .PSD issue), and they didn’t look quite the same because new Photoshop versions means a different way of processing the effects I once used. Since I also committed to reducing images as buttons as much as possible, the main menu buttons are slightly different as well.

A Special Mention Goes to the Save Menu

Like I said, the code for the original Soundless is really old and sad. The method used to make the save slot screenshots appear elsewhere on hover was long deprecated. I had to figure out a new way to do it all by myself, and it took me almost an hour, but I managed. I actually had the correct solution at one point, but because of what I can only assume was something being slightly off, it didn’t work at first…I nearly tore my hair out LOL. I’ll put up the solution I came up with on my personal blog (link) at a later time so that everyone can use it for themselves if you’d like to also have the save screenshot appear elsewhere on hover.

Though, to be fair to myself, if you gave this problem to the me of 5 years ago, they’d just go “I can’t do that, are you crazy?” and walk away.

That concludes this issue. Next issue, I’ll be talking about the new way Ren'Py parses the NVL text in Soundless, the differences from the old way, and how I got it to look (almost) just how it did before.

[canmom]

Animation Night 51 - Kizumonogatari

Look, we’ve gone several weeks without anything deeply weebish, I have a reputation to maintain here!

Hey friends, I have somehow avoided getting kicked off this website. I have backed up the Animation Night posts locally, though it’s going to take a bit of work to publish the archive on my giþub site!

So, what’s this week about? Studio SHAFT were in their heyday known for two things: the rightly legendary Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which we watched back on Animation Night 10, and is apparently soon to receive a new film... but mostly, the much longer Monogatari series. Starting with Bakemonogatari (2009), this stood out a great deal (and did a lot to establish the SHAFT style): a distinctive blend formal experimentation, dense literary allusions, tight blink-and-you’ll miss it editing with creative use of text, and a wry, discomforting sense of humour.

Monogatari entered the world as a series of light novels by the startlingly prolific Nisio Isin (or NisiOisiN as he prefers it!), centred on a boy named Koyomi Araragi who falls into the orbit of a long succession of supernaturally-afflicted girls. Though that premise probably makes it sound sorta harem-adjacent, and Araragi does get together with one of said girls by the end of Bake-, what I’ve seen of it primarily treats this premise more as a framing device for quite varied supernatural stories; some more horror-oriented, some more comedic. Each entry in the series is titled a pun in the template of [something]monogatari, after a traditional literary form that connotes similarly to ‘tale’. Typically these pormanteau with the kanji 物 (mono, roughly just ‘thing’), so...

化物語 Bakemonogatari (after 化物 bakemono meaning monster)

偽物語 Nisemonogatari (after 偽物 nisemono meaning counterfit)

猫物語 Nekomonogatari (not really a pun, just 猫 neko meaning cat lol)

傾物語 Kabukimonogatari (傾 meaning slope, with afaict a very unusual reading presumably to bring to mind kabuki theatre? or the flamboyant kabukimono samurai gangs? i don’t get this one)

and so on...

I can’t say too much about the light novel series, or how it compares with others of the genre, beyond that it’s reputed to be very wordy! I do know the task of adapting this fell into the hands of directors Akiyuki Shinbo and Tatsuya Oishi at SHAFT, and they evidently wanted to make something rather avant-garde!

Some of their ideas included things like attempting to capture the interiority of a character by blacking out the screen as if for blinking with ‘black’ or ‘red’ scenes:

...which along with the editing gives the whole production a distinctive rhythm. Other tricks involve extensive use of typography (e.g. flashing up a definition for a few frames), editing to kabuki sounds (each episode beginning with the an accelerating series of beats with passages from the original novel alongside them), and heavy use of geometric patterns and digital effects in the photography: gradients, stark silhouettes, a very stylised modern world yet strangely sterile and empty of people beyond the MCs. They would moreover do unusual things like using real photographs in backgrounds to create constant variation.

And while the drawing count wasn’t unusually large or anything like that - quite the opposite, often there would be almost entirely static, lingering scenes - even those static talking heads scenes would be shot with an unusual pose or composition to make it interesting. Then at key moments, they would drop some really innovative, heavily impactful key animation, such as this legendary fight scene [continued, cw gore, incredible sequence ^^] by Hironori Tanaka, Genki Matsumoto, Gen’ichiro Abe and Ryo Imamura, which made full use of the protagonist’s healing factor.

This approach proved a hit, and they were set to make many, many more adaptations of Monogatari. For a detailed retrospective on the series and its influences, kVin has you covered. (Literally I would be totally at sea without this guy lol.)

Starting in 2011, Oishi went to work on the film series, 傷物語 Kizumonogatari (which we could translate as 'Would Tale’), which was released from 2016-17, telling the first part of the story as a prequel to Bakemonogatari. Although the production was delayed years thanks to Oishi’s ambition, leaving the main series in the hands of an at first much less experienced Tomoyuki Itamura, the final result seems to have paid off, at least going by kVin’s enthusiasm...

The biggest fan of NisiOisiN’s prose is NisiOisiN himself, and so the Monogatari series is renowned for being verbose by both fans and critics. Kizumonogatari is written as the chaotic stream of consciousness of Koyomi Araragi, but Oishi decided to do away with narration and monologues entirely; he took a book that exists inside the mind of a character and tried to make all his feelings explicit and yet portrayed in an unobtrusive way. Not dropping any relevant details without outright stating anything was by all means a crazy idea. And what’s even more outrageous is that he succeeded with his elegant but thoroughly insane solution – eventually at least, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had to redraw his storyboards countless times to achieve it. The Show, Don’t Tell principle has become a bit of a poisonous idea on the internet thanks to reductive fans interpreting it as a rule rather than a powerful approach, but this film pulls it off to an extreme that shouldn’t even be possible.

For a very detailed blow by blow of the various creative things being done, you can read more here.

Unlike the more static TV series, these films are carried throughout by some frankly incredible kagenashi (unshaded) character animation, full of intense expression and inventive touches. These lively animation designs consciously contrast with the (apparently somewhat controversial) decision to set everything in realistic CGI backdrops - which do not attempt to look cel shaded or painted at all, but it seems to fit a production like this much better than the overly-shiny cars in Psycho-Pass, and fits the studio’s habit of being ahead of the curve in adopting digital tech.

So what’s all this in service of telling? In Kizu-, Araragi gets his first encounter with a supernatural girl in the form of (deep breath) the vampire Kiss-shot Acerola-orion Heart-under-blade. Moved to offer his blood up to save her from vampire hunters, he finds himself made a vampire thrall tasked with retrieving her lost limbs.

As far as content: some gore is p much a given in this scenario, but heads up that Monogatari is also known for its improbable fanservice shots. In terms of artistic intent, this is perhaps another element in drawing us into the subjectivity of a teenage boy. And in terms of what to expect, it definitely sounds like these are sometimes used, as in here, in a way designed to discomfort rather than gratify the audience.

My impetus for picking this one out is a fascinating series of staff interviews that were translated on Sakuga Blog over the past month. Something that got this much attention, and kVin’s obvious immense enthusiasm - not to mention the clips picked out! - definitely got my interest. I’m looking forward to seeing it all together.

With the density of allusions and complex typography, this series is quite a challenge to subtitle - but luckily various groups have risen to the challenge over the years. In this case we have a kind of improbably sophisticated sub by Commie, who went to the trouble of not just matching all the fonts and such but even animating the colour changes to match the typography in the series...

Luckily for Animation Night scheduling, most of these movies are pretty short - just over an hour typically - so we should easily be able to get through all of them in one night. Animation Night 51 will begin at 7pm UK time, 3 hours from this post, at the usual spot - twitch.tv/canmom!

[leo5323864]

Week 9-Mesh modelling your own concept

This week we are creating models of our Olay bottle concept with 3ds Max. With exercise from last week, demonstration in class, and videos from Autodesk, I start to understand how every tool works.  The tutor demonstrates how to create templates for the bottle, and I found it very useful. With the reference image maps from Moodle, I start making the original Olay bottle by changing a box into editable poly. 

By matching up the edge of the box with the reference map, it becomes the shape of a bottle. Because it still looks very boxy, I use NURMS to make it look smoother, and it did. 

For the lid part, I first made it with multiple cylinders and the bevel tool, but it still looks a bit sharp with the edge, so I made another one with the lines and the lathe modifier, this time the circle on top looks rounder and smoother. 

A good thing with the template is that once I finish one lid, it also applies to other body designs. Therefore, my other 2 bottle designs are using the same lid. Even though I am using the sample template, I still found it useful: the border tells me where is the edge of my model (I got the measurement of my physical model of W7 ). My model was done with the polygon modeling tool, one of them is finished with the NURMS tool. Because of my own mistake, I forgot to fold the edge for my design, so I edited it. After the main shape, I use the chamfer tool to create a smooth edge.  For further modeling, I can understand more with the software, I believe I still got a lot of tools for design, which can make my design looks better and easier to process. Also, I can work with the rendering tool to give it some texture.

Pre-class activity: The use of models in Andrew’s cup project is pretty similar to the designing of our Olay bottle: we do a physical model to feel it size and shape, then we make our final models. But the materials he use is different with ours: Because we are making our models at home, we didn’t have chance to access complicate machines to make our model, so the accuracy is quite different. 

[royalsofeloda]

Hi! Sorry if this has been asked before, but how did you create the royal coat of arms/emblem? It looks so great!

hi anon! thank you soso much!! i don’t think i’ve ever answered this before so don’t worry :) and sorry it took me so long to answer, i wanted to take the time to explain it!

i basically used to photoshop to layer/erase real life coat of arms and then i made my own blazon from this website for the middle to make it more personal to eloda. i’ll go into more detail below the cut so here we go:

1. i started off by googling “<random country> coat of arms” and downloading any images that i liked into a folder (as you can see above)! i ended up going with the coat of arms from the french empire :D but i also looked into the belgian, spanish, and swedish coat of arms, there’s a loooooot of options for inspiration!!  

2. i went into photoshop and started editing out things i didn’t like: i used the “paint brush” to go over the bird and the N at the bottom. I put an E for Eloda in a similar font and color :D

3. then i went to this amazing website to make the blazon in the middle !! it's a bit confusing at first but after a couple tries you'll get the hang of it !! i made like 10 different versions before finally putting one together that felt ~perfect~ i brought it into photoshop and did some quick recoloring because twas quite Bright and i wanted darker colors

4. so then i simply lined up the new blazon on top of the coat of arms in photoshop just by resizing and erasing a bit on the tassles/fringe part and so yeah this is what it looked like at that point but then i decided i didn't like the two poles with the hand and the statue thingy so i edited them out !! that part is a bit more photoshop intensive so feel free to stop here but i'll try to continue to explain

5. so i found this blank curtain, canopy thing by googling stuff like "coat of arms template" and "french empire coat of arms blank" and i also got lucky enough to find the original without the poles !! they almost perfectly matched the other so i did a lot of resizing and cutting and manipulating to get them lined up and make it cover the poles

6. i also used the "spot healing brush" to get rid of all the pattern because they didn't match. if you look closely you can definitely see some of the parts i couldn't get just right !!

so yeah that's all ! i think i made it sound easy but it took me HOURs to finish !! i am happy with how it came out and it was fun to do so i suppose it was worth it :D good luck if you try making your own!

[hoedameron]

typically i don’t talk about the gifs that i make for myself but i am in a chatty mood so we’re have a socratic seminar right now.

also, before i get started, you can use these headers if you’d like! literally everything you see on this blog are freebies tbh. just a forewarning that the cas one is not the standard 640 px width because i was experimenting with something so just...be mindful of that <3 no need to credit unless you feel inclined to! just know i spent...quite awhile on them xx

i get most of my ideas for spn gif headers by seeings gifs on the tl that make me go “you know what? this would make for a great header” and run with that. i do pray that the op put the season and episode in the tags and if they don’t...SHH don’t laugh but if i’m desperate enough, i actually go through the tags to see if any hardcore stan knows the exact szn/ep. other times, i write some scenes down in my journal that i think would be great but again, those written down are definitely from scenes i saw in gifsets. call me unoriginal idc i’m just making things that make me happy and i know would be hella sexy.

let’s talk about how fucking LONG it takes to down/load an episode of supernatural like....i deadass spent five hours downloading plucky pennywhistle’s magical menagerie and around three hours to download the man who would be king....is it just best to t/orrent the whole ass season or WHAT like i’m deadass about to do that for any spn gifs i wanna make because that ajsdajksldjksla RIDICULOUSLY FUNNY. i’m not even that mad like it humbles me and it shows how dedicated i am to the craft. if anybody has tips for t/orrenting old spn episodes, please hmu because i would like to make more content in the future but this is a big hurdle on why i hesitate to create content for this show (among other things BUT this is one of the biggest reasons). you could have the fastest wifi speed the world has to offer pero if that bitch has no seeds...

for the castiel header: i had three different colorings for him. i really wanted to bring out his eyes because that is what drew me to make the header in the first place. y’all know that as a gifmaker, i really like making my gifs warmer and using pale/aesthetic coloring is so out of my wheelhouse and not my forte...but i do try to branch out of my comfort zone. back to the eyes, i went through a lot of psds, tinkering with their settings, and came out with three of them: the warm one that i did end up using and two pale-ish ones. the other third one isn’t here because i ultimately determined that it’s basically this one here but a lot lighter. the coloring made cas almost a ghost so i’m like...we still need to keep SOME of his skin tone even if it’s a lack thereof...okay, the reason why that this one doesn’t have the typical 640 px dimension is because i wanted to keep...how do i say this...i wanted to keep some of his facial structure? because the scene is really focused on cas’ face so it’s the entire frame. because tumblr is the way it is, it cuts at a weird spot where he looks like that bitch from doctor who all stretched out. so in an attempt to prevent that, i made it in this dimension where it’s basically me free handing the crop but ultimately it didn’t do anything lol. so i basically went back and made an entirely new gif with one of the colorings i saved and ta-da!

for the sam header: going in, i knew it was going to be a dark lit scene. i knew i had specific spn colorings that have been useful for shows outside of supernatural so i was like...i mean, tried and true, eh? i went through about six colorings until i finally settled on like...four. the first two of the six, though colorful, really made sam’s skin a bit...washed out. the next two were...basic. one of those basic coloring was the dark spn coloring and though it looked okay, there wasn’t any flavor to it. if i can be colorful in a gif, i will definitely climb up that tree. i love and admire vibrant gifs so if i can do that, oh man, it’s such a fun feeling because it’s like WOW i actually did that! then there were two colorings that were really, REALLY good because one of them was vibrant but it also had a subtlety to the gif. the other one was vibrant and brought out the blue in the background. it was a hard decision but i did save both of them and was like well, this is a problem for future me. i was actually surprised that the glitter on sam’s jacket and shirt didn’t up the mb because it definitely had me worried there. i also thought about making this gif header as another scene but realized it was a little too short for my liking (it was when he was surrounded by clowns but they magically disappear into thin air, leaving glitter in their wake). really love how this gif turned out :)

and yeah, that’s all i got to say about them. everything went smoothly with the sharpening, no problems on that front...i thought about opening up my inbox for suggestions of what scenes i should gif pero i’m afraid that 1) nobody will respond, 2) i will get some strange requests, or 3) i will get a lot of them. i would love to create more but i am like..creatively stuck. i don’t typically make those fancy edits with templates, i am more of a practical gifmaker aka i just stick to the original material. who knows...maybe i’ll be pushed and motivated...thanks for taking the time to read this !!

[dmsden]

Monster of the Month - Shadow Dragon

Hullo, Gentle Readers. Our Year of the Dragon continues...but not, perhaps, as you expected! Maybe you thought you'd be seeing the last chromatic or metallic dragon here? Well, guess again! Instead, we turn to another dragon to be found in the Monster Manual, the elusive and fearsome Shadow Dragon! Thanks, as always, go to Scott "Art_Mutt" Fabianek for the awesome original art.

The Shadow Dragon first popped up in Monster Manual II for 1st Edition D&D. It's been lurking in the dark corners of the game ever since, and I was excited to see them in the core Monster Manual when 5E came out. I've always found them super creepy and fun to run.

Shadow Dragons in 5E are really interesting and a bit different than the ones from earlier versions. Instead of unique dragons that are a naturally (or not so naturally) occurring race, they are actually metallic or chromatic dragons that either are somehow born in the Shadowfell or have become transformed over time by living in the darkness of the Shadowfell. Instead of being a normal stat block, they are given a template that can be applied to any dragon in order to represent the transformation they undergo. An example stat block is also given, based on a young red dragon, which gives us a chance to look them over and compare the two.

The Shadow Dragon is basically the same stat block as before, so all the normal advice about running the dragon in combat applies, with a few key exceptions. Necrotic damage becomes tightly tied to the dragon's nature. They gain resistance to it, and, if their bite did an elemental damage like fire before, it begins to deal necrotic instead. Their breath weapon becomes necrotic as well, although it still maintains its size and area of effect.

The two things I really like about shadow dragons are related to their shadowy nature. First, they become very stealthy, gaining essentially Expertise in stealth, and they can Hide as a bonus action if they're in dim light or darkness. It makes me want to give a Shadow Dragon a few rogue levels! Their other signature trait is their Living Shadow trait. If they're in dim light or darkness, they have resistance to most damage types. And you'd better believe they're going to work to be in dim light or darkness! A few levels of spellcaster could let them create darkness, and then, given their blindsight and high Perception, anyone's going to have some problems with them.

As awesome as these abilities are in the dark, you can believe that PCs are going to try and negate them. If they manage to get a Shadow Dragon into sunlight, it's going to be an unhappy puppy, given that its most powerful effects are negated, and its sunlight sensitivity will be hitting it. The Shadow Dragon will ideally take its foes by surprise so that they don't have time to prepare spells to protect them from necrotic damage. 

It's important not to forget their legendary and lair actions, if they have them. An Ancient Shadow Dragon should be quite terrifying when encountered in their lair. I would even consider customizing their lair abilities, depending on what kind of dragon they started out as. Maybe something more befitting their shadowy and stealthy nature, like extinguishing light sources or creating darkness.

Storywise, I think shadow dragons plots should be about corruption and fear. Maybe the Shadow Dragon creates a cult around itself, corrupting villagers from near its new lair until the whole town is an eerie secret society seeking to destroy the sun or have the Shadowfell swallow the whole area. PCs might stop in a town for the night and find themselves embroiled in quite a story. It could be a whole campaign surrounding darkness, necrotic creatures, and the Shadowfell, with the Ancient Shadow Dragon at the end as the main villain...the one pulling all the strings behind the scenes.

In my own campaign, I had two Shadow Dragons, Umbrazalanoth and Skyalokanara, who had dragged a Dragonborn city into the Shadowfell with them centuries ago. The PCs had to go there to seek out an artifact they were looking for, and it ultimately led to the sacrifice of one of the PCs to end their reign of terror. 

I hope this has you thinking how to use Shadow Dragons in your own campaign. Give them a chance, and their darkness will sneak into your hearts.