#if I could i would draw this out but i cannot draw real life stuff

[volturiprincess]

Have you ever seen a beauty of a man out in real world and then days later as you open tumblr or any social media app you witness fanart of your favorite fictional man dressed just like mentioned man? Yes this happened to me 😌

[transformers-spike]

Heyy I noticed that you put TFO among the stuff you might write for. Pls pls, if it's alright w/ u, Megatron x reader angry sex? Like, you might be a human he found after being banished and kept with him, and he trusts you bc u are nice, pose no real threat and ur good to blow off some steam :))))))))) but ofc he cares abt u, so it's more like angry sex + tender aftercare thank uuuuuuu i love my big metallic man with anger issues

My brain decided to do its own thing and for the sake of not writing a full length novel about it, I had to cut it short (and of course I made it sad because the boy is just dripping with angst - so I'm going to give him more.) So here:

He was advised to abandon you. Found in the deepest recesses of a Quintesson ship they’d shot down, you were still shaking from the crash. Not Cybertronian. Nor Quintessonian. A completely different being, with soft mesh, warm extremities and strands of something falling from your helm. An animal perhaps? Much like the strange quadrupeds traveling the surface? No, your optics move with intention, taking in your surroundings and wrinkling your optical ridge in clear contemplation. You are incredibly tiny, even next to a cogless miner. He wondered, briefly, when he first saw you, if you were another casualty of Sentinel’s tyranny, a forgotten being he sold off to the Quintessons without a second thought. He does not understand your language, nor can you speak his, but you observe the context and carefully come to associate certain words with objects, actions and designations. You cannot reproduce the subtle tones of Cybertronian with an organic vocalizer, much like the Quintessons – but you do not reject it. You learn to live despite your muteness. Many times he’s watched you draw figures in the sand with a twig the size of your arm, depicting what he could only assume to be a spaceship flying away from a distant planet as the Quintessons surround it. Sometimes you draw more of your kind, together in an embrace. You would stand over your creation, watching wistfully as the wind erased the fine traces of sand. A memory of your people. He wishes he could tell you about him and Orion, the pain of losing him, the crater in his chassis that will never mend – but guilt keeps him at bay. Soon enough, your provisions will run out. What they found on the Quintesson ship were rations made for your specific type of biology, with no guide to recreate them from, not even Shockwave could reverse-engineer the process. It’s simply too late. One orbital cycle, your life will come to an end, but he will give you the dignity of dying at his hands, painlessly. He is no stranger to starvation, but unlike him, you must refuel at various intervals during an orbital cycle, else he senses how you grow restless on his shoulder, fiddling with your servos, mesh growing pale and optics sluggish, growls emanating from your inner mechanism. You are not made for suffering Your life will come to an end, and you know this better than any other Decepticon; as though reading his thoughts behind the permanent scowl scratched into his face. Perhaps this is why he indulges in you even if he’s been advised against it. You’re eager despite your size, pressing yourself against his frame, ignoring your discomfort. He’s still getting used to his new body, including his strength for better or for worse. Yet you do not fault him when he leaves bruises. You kiss him and rub up against his spike, transfluid trickling down to his valve even before he comes undone. You squirm and laugh and pull him into a hug, helm to helm, a moment so perfect he’s ready to rip the cog from his chassis if it means staying like this forever, servos clenched into fists as he curses at Primus for the happiness he will shatter.

[paper-mario-wiki]

hi, i'm not the person who asked you about the life update, but could you elaborate on how being a creator means to live in a world of ideas instead of the real world? i'm just really curious about your reasons for quitting, specially because i want to create things in the future (not necessarily streaming, but anyways), hope you have a good day!

i'll be talking mostly about streaming for the sake of this answer, but this is similarly applicable across a wide range of platforms:

the job of the streamer is, effectively, to be the life of the party every single day. your goal is to be the person that has something interesting to talk about, and is quick with a joke, and has nuanced understandings of certain things, without actually obtaining any sort of "expertise" in anything lest you alienate viewers. short of having a stated goal for a stream, the only goal of the streamer is to let people relax with a voice they enjoy, saying things they like hearing. you can become very strong in different aspects of streaming, like in the production, or as someone who focuses more on a skill they've honed like art or speedrunning, but the demographic of streamers which pulls, by far, the most significant viewership, is personality based streamers.

this becomes more complicated when, for example, you are very interactive with chat, or you stream with multiple people at once. now, to maintain this charismatic sway you have (the one that got you the job in the first place), you must be able to adapt to and bounce off of other people, as you are now no longer performing alone. naturally, there's a need to not only manage your own flow of consciousness, but also to be at least partially in sync with someone else's.

beyond these complications, you must also consider drawing in new viewership. when i was a streamer, i was quite successful, relatively speaking. pulling 300 viewers consistently is something a very slim amount of streamers can actually do, and even then i was still making under 50k a year, which is not bad, but also not good. in paying for my apartment, my insurance, my travel fare, and all the other stuff that living independently draws money out of you with, i was more often in the red than i was in the green. hence, the need to draw in new viewers, which cannot be done without something eye-catching.

think about this: there are, at any given time, TENS OF THOUSANDS of streamers live in your native language on twitch, and they are all FREE TO WATCH. the attention market is sparse because the streamer market is oversaturated. and considering all of THEM want new viewers too, everyone is constantly refining and improving their craft, which requires everyone to move creatively in tandem with each other lest they get left behind.

if you are a streamer making ass-dollars and ass-cents, it becomes easy to begin resenting people like jerma, solely because everything he touches seems to turn to gold. i personally found it easy to feel very disappointed in myself when peoples projects that seemed so simple would take off. it was a constant "why didn't i think of that!" situation, at least for me. and when you don't have the energy to keep that up, or the social stamina necessary to figure that all out while also being upbeat and happy in front of people near daily, it can become very draining.

what i mean specifically when i say the "world of ideas", is like. there would be times where i could schedule out my failures weeks in advance. i'd be so in my own head about the process, i could see the exact path i could see myself taking that would lead me directly to ruin. how playing games i actually enjoyed would steadily drop viewership, or how focusing on my studies would make people forget about me. and of course this is augmented by my anxiety, i know this is absolutely not the case for every streamer, but that overwhelming feeling of needing to find a new game to play, or a new gimmick to use, or a new ploy to get money that doesn't make you feel guilty even though your source of income is mostly queer and mostly poor young adults and your rent is coming up and you're $200 short but you also just had a fundraiser last month about a DIFFERENT emergency but you cant make it a bummer or else people wont want to tune in so you have to make it something fun like "you laugh you lose!" or "$1 art request streams!" while feeling nothing but anxiety while youre trying to sound like youre enjoying yourself even when youre asking 250 people to donate every 30 minutes or so and nobody seems to want to and chat is moving slowly and. and and.

well, it starts to eat away at you.

[b-r-a-i-n-v-o-m-i-t]

A highly concerning problem

(massive tw for 18+ content etc, if you are sensitive to such topics please click away)

I would appreciate if you could all hear me out to the end on this one, as I unfortunately feel the feathers this will ruffle are the ones who need to hear it most. (There is a TLDR at the bottom if you would like)

I’m afraid this fandom has a growing problem with sexually explicit content regarding minors. The main cast of this story are all children, save Chris, and yet I have seen posts, art, and fanfics about these MINORS having kinky sex and illustrations of them engaging in bdsm-related content. This is disgusting and illegal. There has also been a lot of labelling of these characters as ‘whores’ and ‘sluts’ which is not illegal, but in my opinion is very very strange.

“Why do you care, just click away”

“It’s just internet fan content, it’s not a big deal”

I would hope morals alone would deter people from doing something so obviously creepy, but here are some other reasons this is dangerous:

This fandom is full of minors, and when they see this glorification of sex and drugs while under age, it normalises it for them. This could potentially lead to them ending up in dangerous situations because they have become blind to the reality of their situation. They could end up scarred for life, and if you think I’m overreacting, this process has probably already happened to you.

Minors are not the only ones who will see this type of art. Posting this is providing a certain demographic with content that they should not have access to. It also draws them to, again, a fandom filled with Minors. 

Some people (myself included) do not want to see this content and exposure to it may cause adverse effects. I came to this fandom because I wanted to talk about silly teenagers with superpowers based off a skeleton from a 2015 video game. I did not want to see to creeps discussing kinky sex fantasies with minors. 

“Lots of TV shows have this kind of content, why don’t you complain about that?”

I do. The key difference here is that this fandom glamourises child porn and inappropriate relations between children and also minors and adults. Most shows that grapple with this topic point out how bad this is and it’s very real adverse effects on people, and if they don’t they’re usually called out for it. As an additional point, most shows that tackle this are usually 18+.

“I’m a teenager, and I have these feelings.”

Again, you’re not the only person seeing this content. Non-teens with questionable motives will see it too. Also yes, I get it, most teens will want to explore the topic of sexuality. However if you must be rampantly horny, please channel it through adult characters and share it in communities of people who have volunteered to see such topics. 

As an aside, and I feel that this may offend some people but I do want to highlight it, I would like to point out that Chris is an adult and Nevin is a minor. I have heard some say that ‘Nevin is almost 16’, but I would like to refute that with two points:

16 is still a minor.

Nevin is not real, he doesn’t age on a day-by-day basis like we do. He cannot be ‘almost’ 16, it doesn’t work like that. He is a child until the author says otherwise.

Sure, a relationship with Chris wouldn’t be illegal, but the maturity gap between those age groups is dangerous if normalised in real life. I don’t know any 18 year olds without alterior motives who would date a 15 year old. 

I would like to say that I have nothing against shipping the characters, just posting explicit material of them. 

TLDR; Posting sexually explicit content of minors is illegal, normalises dangerous activities in the impressionable young minds of other teens, provides Pedos with free content and draws them to this fandom. Also most people didn’t ask to see that type of stuff, we just want to look at fanart of our favourite characters, so please keep it to specific communities. 

[sevi007]

@fortythealien

Oh that one was fantastic. Let me put that under read more because of spoilers AND it got long:

I mean, the "reveal" of the illusion really hit me like a slap to the face. This was both extremely beautiful as well as cruel, and it hits you all at once that this might ACTUALLY work on one, or both, of them.

Because, I very much doubt that it was Grausam who thought out the details of this particular illusion. As we learned very indepth by now, demons cannot understand human emotions. I don't see how Grausam could look into Himmel and / or Frieren and understand that this - a wedding - could be a good way to trick them.

So, imo, Grausam's ability rather reaches into the subconsciousness of the victim and draws out what the victim itself secretly wishes for, and then paints that world for them. For this, Grausam does not have to understand emotions or relationships - he lets the victims create their own illusions.

Meaning, this is something Himmel or Frieren or both wanted, deep down.

There was actually a moment where I was worried they would fall for it and maybe Heiter will have to wake them but of course I underestimated them:

Like, how. How are you HUMAN Himmel. Grausam himself stated that there is no way to tell the illusion from reality, but Himmel just goes and does it anyway. I feel like Heiter when his friend keeps going above and beyone here.

But still, look at his face before he stops Frieren. There is this hint of sadness again - we have seen that one before,for example in the flashback with the mirror lotus ring. I think it's the face he makes when he really briefly gets close to having this with Frieren - a life, love, relationship, whatever you want to call it - before he catches himself again because he knows it's not quite possible. He lets this illusion play out for just one beat longer before going back to the matter at hand.

Also, how gently he stops her nearly made me cry. No grabbing her, no holding her at arm's length, and he does not even ask if she realizes this is not real. His trust in her is implicit! He knows she knows, and will get them out somehow.

Also also, Frieren was into this too, you can't tell me otherwise. This was a trap for both of them, and it WORKED on both of them for a beat.

And to really put emphasis on how impossible it should be for Himmel to see through this all, Frieren confirms this once again:

(But in a way, maybe this shouldn't surprise us. It is a great callback to the illusion the beast "Einsam" created early on in the story, where Himmel appears in front of Frieren. Frieren recalls that before meeting Himmel, Flamme had appeared to her instead, and THAT apparation had begged for mercy / help. Himmel's apparation, though? Told her to "shoot me, Frieren". Not even an illusion OF Himmel was going to hurt Frieren, Himmel INSIDE an illusion obviously can break free.)

And when I said before that Himmel's trust in Frieren is implicit, I would like to point out that this goes both ways:

I mean, look at this stuff. Not only does Frieren not even TRY to break out of Grausam's spell (she knows she can't) but she instead trusts Himmel to fight despite it. She is entirely helpless in this situation, but instead of fighting or panicking (which, fair, is not her usual behavior) she instead asks exactly one question, and then quite literally puts her life in his hands. She gives no orders, no pointers, she just says "you can move right? Then move (like you always do)".

This trust, man. This (literally, hah) blind trust just gets me.

Also. When I say I forget that Himmel and party are terrifying, THIS is what I mean:

Himmel never woke up. He is still inside the illusion, eyes closed, and fighting a Great Demon (one and a half, since Solitär is giving half-assed support) blindly right then and there. Not only that, but he is putting Grausam on the backfoot even.

Now, of course, Grausam's illusion magic is probably what he relies on the most, so you could argue that he is not much of a fighter otherwise. But I don't think one becomes a Great Demon without some serious skills beyond one spell, especially considering that such an illusion which relies on the victim being intrigued by it probably does not work well on demons without feelings. To be acknowledged by his kin, he has to have SOME fighting skills beyond that of a normal demon. So this is still a seriously cool (and terrifying) feat right there!

(Also, even eyes closed, Himmel is protecting his friends - look how he destroys Solitär's sword as it goes for Frieren!)

See, now you made me teary-eyed again guys. Himmel even acknowledges - in front of Frieren! - that this was an "euphoric dream" for him. He wants / wanted this, with her. He never pushed for it, maybe because he knew it was not what Frieren wanted, or because of their differing lifespans, or whatever, but he wanted this so badly, it even pops up in Grausam's illusion. He should have fallen for this. That he did not is a testament to his skill, iron will, and his trust in and how well he knows Frieren.

Also, Frieren is really just imprinting this moment into her memory before going.

And:

The one thing Solitär - who is a master at manipulation with words, as Frieren has acknowledged - has to threaten Himmel is not "I will kill you", but instead "I will destroy Frieren's future". That's far more likely to get Himmel to let them go than anything else.

All in alll, after hitting you with such an outburst: I think this is the very best take of "protags get put under an illusion spell" I have ever seen. Once again, this manga does very well in subverting the classical tropes, because here, there is only a minimal moment of doubt, the protagnosits don't fall for it nor do they despair over being trapped, and they don't need a push from inside or outside the illusion to break free. They know basically from the start what is going on, and I quite like that they don't really break out before the fight can resume, but really just keep fighting while still being under the spell. It was a fantastic way of showing several things at once in a short span of time like:

* once more affirming Himmel's feeling for Frieren, and vice versa

* The utter trust they have in each other in this party but especially these two have in each other * How competent and strong Himmel and Co actually are

Easy to say, I was an emotional wreck after this because it was beautiful but also so painful to know they never really had this. Where's that Sein pic going "when will they get together already?!" because I need it.

Bonus in case you also need to cry a little:

Fifty years have changed absolutely NOTHING about their trust and love for each other. Okay Peace out.

[martyryo]

Okay

I don't do..anons. so yes, just gonna ask this as me‼️ Hello‼️‼️

When

Right okay, I saw your art like the yellow red one right and I saw you talking about your tulpa in that and it took me a second cause at first I thought you were doing a Collab with someone and I was looking for a tagged account or something 😭😭 and then I was like hang on it's not been tagged so it can't be that. And then I saw the hashtag about the tulpa thing and my brain was like, I've heard that term before. And I had, but it was cause of Supernatural. Think the episode was Hell House, either way in that course some kids draw a sigil and don't know what they're doing, spread a rumour and enough people see the sigil and believe the made up story for it to become real. I'm gonna hazard a guess that this isn't what's happening here. Cause 1. No axe murderers are present and 2...idk. suppose it wasn't on accident lol

But basically, what I'm asking is, what's gone on? Like please could you define what a tulpa is cause I'm a tad bit confuseled. I've got a grasp. A jist if you will. But yeh, that, and how it works for you and how long all this has been about for because yeh, the original post confused me a lot and I had no context to understand what was going on lol

Hiii!!!!!

Ok so, never watched supernatural cause I lack media culture, but I looked at the fandom wiki and I assure you it's NOTHING like that 😭

Ik the practice of creating a tulpa comes from buddhism and is related to religion and stuff, but like I found out about it through an online friend back in 2017ish cause they developed one. Needles to say, in these cases we're talking about the western interpretation of the phenomenon that is mainly psychological and not spiritual.

With a tulpa you bascially create a sentient being on a subconscious level that shares the body with you. Please note that this is not in any way related to conditions such as DID, as you do not have the splitting of a subconscious, you actually add more of them into a body. And an important aspect that separates tulpae from alters is that with a tulpa you're fully aware and consensual with having a second person inside the body, you will never accidentally develop a tulpa out of the blue.

To make an example also, imagine there's a wheel with a hamster inside, they represent respectively the body and the subconscious mind that inhabits it. Now imagine there are more hamsters but they're in the same wheel. That's a body with more subconsciouses (I might be butchering this word I'm so sorry).

Needless to say, doing this requires a long trail of meditation, as one needs to focus on everything they perceive out of a person normally (the way they look, talk, move, smell. you get it, everything) and obviously their personality. These things do change with time once the tulpa settles as a stable part of the host's (the one who creates them) life, but at least sketching down the idea of the person that you're creating helps in the overall process.

Ok so. The most important part. A tulpa is NOT evil, and cannot be evil. That's something I found out in the guides I followed at the start of my journey with my first tulpa. They have no reason to turn over their creator cause they are meant to be companions. I'm not super informed on the theory thing now cause I got into it two years ago and since then we've just been living, but there articles online who talk about this so feiughirgh

Now, in my experience Jack came to be part of my life around two years ago, on july 9th. I was going through a weird depressive period where I would not talk to anybody and felt like shit over nothing. During that time I also used to watch fight club a lot, like three times a week, and grew obsessively attached to the characters to the point all I thought about was fc (this feels so weird to remember omg). Anyways, remembered about my friend with the tulpa, and decided to do the same thing. So I got informed on the procedure and gradually managed to develop Jack over time :3

On the 27th of Trevor also started developing, in his case it was Jack that went throughout the major part of the creation process cause I was busy with school, but yeah since then it's been the three of us living life yk.

Also, I obviously got better since that summer, them being with me helped me out a lot and obviously I didn't create them with the intent of getting. Free experimental therapy or some shit. They are part of me and I love them ver very much, knowing that they're always with me brings a sense of sheer comfort in my life. I just love my bros man. Then again, I suck at communication so there are days when we talk less. nonetheless we still interact via concepts or through the headspace (mental landscape where they pretty much live when not fronting).

Oh, also lately we've been aware of the fact that Jack is kinda always fronting (fronting is having control of the body btw kewnkfkgb) during the day when we are in silence at a school or on the bus, while I am the one that keeps the conversations with people (ironic ik). Trevor instead has no interest in the outside world, he just stays in the headspace and works as a mechanic apparently (he doesn't tell me where his workplace is also??? like for no reason at all also, I can't find that fucking place no matter how much I roam around).

Ough ok I know I sound a bit insane saying those things, but that's how it is 💨

With tulpamacy there are so many aspects one can discuss, but again, there are guides online where everything you need to know is explained, and they are explained better than whatever ramble I'm putting down here. I'm not an expert of the field, I just happen to be living it yk.

Sorry for the long and I guess confusing post, there is much more stuff I could tell you about but like. I think this manages to get the overall idea of how we work out 😸

[dinogirl123]

Anyone smart in medical stuff? I can’t stop thinking about CX-2 surviving that electro staff and all the injuries he would have to deal with from it. Honestly he should be dead, but this is Star Wars with the advanced treatment of cybernetics and bacta. And CX-2 is Tech (in my opinion) and Tech cannot be dead. I will live in denial for the rest of my days.

Here’s my thoughts on it…

It looks like the spear hit him right in the center around the liver area going by how it aligns with his biceps. From what I read, this injury is called a thoracic impalement.

Similar real-life injuries from impalement in this region are survivable, but most recoveries are from being struck in the right side of the body, sometimes the left. (Not counting getting electrocuted as well.) Impalement’s in the center are always fatal. Unfortunately, it looks like Hunter hit CX-2 right in the center and straight through his abdomen and back, pinning him against the wall behind him.

However, I don’t believe the spear hit his heart since it was so far down (though the electric current had to have passed through it). There’s a high chance that it did go through some major vessels though as the spear went through his liver like the hepatic vein.

Also, where did the electro staff hit around his spine and did it go through any ribs as it exited through his body? I’m not sure. Possibly the Thoracic region, specifically T8-T12, is where the electro staff went through.

What injuries would this cause? I’m not sure. Maybe become paralyzed? I read through an article where a man was treated for an impalement similar to CX-2 minus the electric shocks. He survived and made a full recovery, but there wasn’t any electrocution like with CX-2. The electric current had to have passed through the heart? Which would cause cardiac arrest.

Without immediate help, I’m not sure how CX-2 could survive that. Perhaps doctor Scalder when Tarkin had her search around the Tantiss base after Hemlock’s death could have found him and sent him medical help.

If you made it this far, thanks for listening to my rant and suffering through my grammar mistakes. Until about thirty minutes ago, I couldn’t tell you what a liver even looked like or where it was in the body. I’ve been staring at my phone screen reading articles and staring at anatomy drawings, trying to figure this out.

I’m working on a fic with CX-2/Tech surviving and want to make his survival and recovery as accurate as possible. Please, if you see any inaccuracies in this, tell me. And if you’ve got something to add please do! I’ve been thinking about how CX-2 could have survived this and it just won’t leave my mind lol. Hence, this messy rant.

[madfantasy]

To fan art and fiction enjoyers:

Please excuse my rage slipping if it happened over having to address this literal mediocrity of a subject in comparison to endless things that actually matters in real life. Because this would be at the scrapping bottom of it, but since the occasion presented itself, here we are:

Do you know there are some, let's say, manners, being in fandoms, and/or in using social media in general? NOOO? 8U

Well, Lets start somewhere!

Like it or not, YOU NEED TO ACTUALLY READ STUFF PEOPLE WRITE. Before you follow, before you comment, before you interact, because if you come across something you don't like, or you started to assume things— that's a you problem and not the fault of the poster.

If you DO NOT enjoy a character, a pair of ship, or a certain head cannon, filter the tag it's used for, Google has free tutorials on how. Most social media have these settings and most decent posters tag their posts correctly. If you keep seeing that pair, you can block the people who create it. You are free to do so ofc but WHY WOULD U come on main and air that out? Personally I find it so bizarre and it could show the type of person you are to other people — a toxic company over fictional substance — and I'd say that is not a flex, more like showing your dirty nappy in public. Those characters you love are not real and so not effected by your high ground stance, but actual humans that share you that love notice and get that impression, and it's a weird one. You SHOULD, of course, set your boundaries, and usually where that is be in your profile, on your bio or a pinned post.

Loving bizarre, villainous, creepy concepts DOES NOT EQUAL morality, nor loving good sunshine and flowers does. It's what a person does in real life what counts, not what they consume in entertainment. In fact, it is not a sign of a good person those who be shaming humans who like different fictional concepts. Or when someone keeps using ai generators knowing full well it's based on constant data theft of all sort of human creators across generations and can not exist without the continuance of this theft. Or those supporting creators that they know did irl crimes. Or those who are Policing what's can and cannot go into fiction as if the fickleness of preference have never let alot of things survive its judgement. And I can go on with the miniature examples. You are forgiven if you did not know before, some people learn through experience, but not anymore when you continue this behaviour. And maybe if you can't differentiate between reality and fiction, and what's more important than what, maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't be consuming fiction.

DO NOT POST WHAT YOU DID NOT CREATE. Do you like it when people keep posting your selfies that you only ment to share for funsies and what not? Isn't worse if you did not post that selfie in the first place or never wanted it to be used like that? It's the SAME FOR ART. This is the artists work just as much as your face is yours. Social media at the baseline is about who ever the poster is, their posts are theirs. So you posting an artist's drawing, with no permission, no credit to them, no nothing, is not allowed and people can report that. Don't be an ignorant thick fig and play the victim when schooled like this precious dear\s .Reposters disconnect so many content from their creators and this is how alot of beautiful things in life die, by simply not knowing they are loved, shoved into the over consumption machine..

And lastly, You don't have anything nice to say to OP? Don't say anything! It's not your misguided duty to educate people on how embarrassingly self centered you are, it's okay to be a basic #&★— I promise. It okay to feel out of place in a niche that doesn't concern you. It's okay to realise other people have different perspectives of the fiction work you enjoy. You can sit down.

And I'd like to add, Mani is a safe space for au and ships even if I don't like em, cuz they are only FICTION and will remain FICTION no matter how much I loved them or hated them.

Good day, dears🍀

[gemini-magic17]

Entanglement Chapter Five

*Just a disclaimer the gifs I used for the reader are not a representation of what she is meant to look like it is mainly for her expressions.

As we were shown to our rooms I couldn't get Kit out of my head. I could tell she had reservations about this whole thing and I mean who wouldn't, especially when you have no idea who this person is. She portrayed confidence and strength which is something I can't help but admire about her. Maybe this marriage won't be so bad it may even be blissful.

Arriving at their chambers my family began to settle in and started to prepare for tonight's celebration. My room was the last stop and the Queen decided to place mine and Kit's room across from each other. Entering the room there were silk sheets on the bed and books that were spread around the room.

"I hope the room is to your liking. Your father told me how much you love to read", Queen Sorsha said.

"It is great thank you so much."

"I know that this betrothal must have been a surprise but I really think that you and Kit will be happy together", she smiled sincerely.

"I hope that is true. Kit seems like a wonderful person and I can tell how independent as well as intelligent she is."

"If I didn't know better I would say that you already have feelings for my daughter", she smirked.

"I definitely do feel something for her I just don't know what that is just yet", I said shyly.

"Well if I know my daughter it may take time for her to warm up to this but I know she will grow to love the wise, beautiful, smart young lady in front of me", she said smiling.

"You are too kind Queen Sorsha."

"I mean every word Y/n. I will let you get settled and will see you later on at my birthday celebration."

I watched as she gracefully walked out of my chambers leaving to attend to tonight's celebration details I assumed. Having no clue where to start I decided to look back at the book with the dragon lore. Opening the page marked with the prophecy I kept thinking it over trying to figure out if there was something actually behind this. Not noticing the page before I see a full-page drawing of a girl with wings sprouting from her back. I don't know if I was being crazy but I could see some resemblance between myself and it. The h/c hair and s/c portrayed in the drawing is uncanny to how I look. I think I am starting to imagine this stuff because this cannot possibly be real. However, if dragons were real once like my father had said then this prophecy must have some truth in it, right?

Putting the book away I begin to unpack my clothes and find something to wear for tonight. You would think being a Princess with an unlimited supply of dresses there would be no problem choosing what to wear. Yet, for the life of me, I can't make a decision. I don't know if it is because I am nervous or that I'm just indecisive. After what seemed to be a long time I finally picked what I could only think to be the perfect dress.

*Skip to tonight

The night seemed to be in full swing with a room full of guests there to celebrate the Queen's birthday. Dancing and laughter filled the halls as though they never had before. However, not everyone was enjoying the party and by everyone I meant me.

"I would say this party is to celebrate my mother's birthday but knowing her she just planned this so she could announce the betrothal like she said."

"I would say that doesn't sound like something your mother would do but that would be a lie", Jade said laughing.

"I can't wait for this stupid ass affair to be over. I much rather be alone with you", I smiled insinuating we should go somewhere later.

Jade smiled agreeing with what I was saying. About to continue our conversation the sound of the hall's doors opening got everyone's attention. Oh great here we go. The guard at the door announced the arrival of the royals.

"Presenting King Aiden and Queen Raina Ravaryn of Zemira", they made their way down the hall next to my mother.

"Presenting Prince James Ravaryn of Zemira", the prince seemed to have some arrogance shown across his face which made me want to strike him.

"Presenting Princess Y/n Ravaryn of Zemira", slowly making her way everyone's eyes were on her.

"So, that's the Princess huh", Jade questioned.

"Yep, that's her. Not much to her though. When I met her she seemed rather dull and boring. My mother fawned over her though but that was no surprise seeing as she picked her to be my wife", I rolled my eyes.

"I wouldn't say she is dull it seems when she walks into a room everyone stops and stares. Plus she has captured everyone's attention with her beauty."

"That's all about what she has going for her", I said shaking my head.

Walking into this room made me self-conscious. All the whispers and stares from everyone had me questioning whether or not they already knew about my union with Kit. As I got to where the Queen and my family were the whispers just got worse. As if Queen Sorsha could tell how uncomfortable I was she held the attention of the hall.

"To my esteemed guests, I have invited you here tonight not just for my birthday but to make an announcement", she beckoned Kit to come up. I could see that Kit was reluctant to do what she said. Once Kit was by her side she continued.

"I am happy to announce that my daughter Kit and Princess Y/n will be married in three months' time. Their union will bring prosperity and happiness between our two kingdoms", she smiled and the crowd cheered.

In the corner of my eye, I could see Kit looking at a girl seated in the middle of the hall. I began questioning who she was and how did she know Kit. After the cheering settled down I made my way toward Ser Easton seeing as the rest of my family was busy and Kit was spending her time with that girl. Before I could reach him I was stopped by a few people who kept asking how I felt about my soon-to-be marriage. I tried my best to give an answer that didn't sound like I was uncertain.

"It's great, I am honored to be marrying a wonderful person. She is strong, kind, and incredibly smart", I smiled.

Ending the conversation I made my way back to where Ser Easton was only he was nowhere in sight.

As the night went on my eyes lingered on Kit and the girl she was with. Throughout the night I heard her brother Airk say her name was Jade. I could tell they were close, especially since they were huddled up in a corner together not talking to anyone else. I even tried to talk to her but to no avail she just avoided me as if I had the plague.

"Hello, princess", I heard Ser Easton say from right beside me.

"Hi, I was looking for you earlier but you disappeared."

"I'm sorry I was discussing something with your father", he said.

"May I ask what it was"?

"Your father thinks it would be best for me to stay by your side in Tir Asleen since you will not have the comforts of home", he said smiling.

"Really", I say with hope.

"Your father does not want you to be alone in a place that is not home", I couldn't stop smiling then that smile slowly started to fade from the scene that had unfolded in front of me.

There was a genuine smile on her face when dancing with Jade and whenever I tried to talk to her the only look I get is hate. Even though I don't really know her my heart started to break and my eyes started to water.

"Princess, are you alright", Ser Easton asked.

I pry my eyes away from the scene I looked at him saying, "I'm fine there is just something in my eyes."

Ser Easton looked at what I couldn't take my eyes off a moment ago. He said, "Y/n crying over her is not worth it. What have I always told you"?

"That someone who makes you cry is someone that is not worth your tears or time", I said remembering what he did when he told me this as a child.

"That's right. You are a strong, fierce, and independent woman who does not need anyone who make you feel less than."

"Thank you, Ser Easton", looking back at the scene I couldn't be here anymore.

"If you excuse me I need to go get some fresh air", I said only to hear Ser Easton saying that he would accompany me just to tell him that I wanted to be alone. As I left I could feel his eyes boring into my back knowing that he was concerned and worried about what just happened.

Not knowing where to go I just kept walking with the thoughts of Kit and Jade overtaking my mind. Before I know it I am not in the castle I'm making my way towards the woods. Out of nowhere, the tears start to flow and I can't breathe. I was insane thinking that I could just come here and have a happy life. Instead, I will have one filled with nothing but sadness and loneliness. I tried to get to know her but how can you do that when she avoided me or that she just pretended that I didn't exist.

As the tears continued streaming down my face I heard a loud noise. It almost resembled the sound of a tree falling. Again came the noise but it was followed by the sounds of a roar. Next thing I knew a gust of wind came out of nowhere blowing dirt and leaves all around me. Suddenly I heard the roar again only it was followed by what was behind the sound. I looked up at the sky and couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was a dragon, before my very eyes alive and soaring across the night sky.

As I followed it with my eyes I could tell it was just circling the area not really knowing why it was doing it. Then all of a sudden it made a beeline for where I was standing. I ran the opposite way from where I came from standing in an open field thinking I had lost it landed right behind. Slowly turning around to meet the dragon's eyes I am amazed as to what I see. It was Calyx.

Standing right in front of me I should be afraid of him but I wasn't. I reached out my hand slowly to touch the side of his face so as not to scare him. I could tell he was cautious of me as though I was going to hurt him. I looked into his eyes and felt this instant connection with him almost like I could call him my home and me his. He relaxed into my touch and warmed up to me. As if something had startled him he flew off. Watching him fly off into the distance I questioned if I would ever see him again but in my heart, I knew I would.

[awwyeah107]

How It (Was) Made: Star Jacket

So, some of y’all have seen the star coat I gave @thegreenleavesofspring for Christmas. I wanted to make a post to show the process of painting the star on the back, because I was excited about & really enjoyed doing it, I haven’t gotten to share the process of making it with anyone yet (and wanted to!), and I thought this post might be helpful for anyone else looking to do a similar project.

If you’ve read the Sons of the Star series and/or the spin-off Annaáuchiwee, you probably know that the Ways, along with anyone under their protection, each have a leather jacket with an eight-point star on the back: their family symbol. So, my idea was to give Bri her own jacket with the star :)

Now, I hadn't done anything like this before. I’ve painted before, but not frequently or on fabric, let alone any kind of leather. However, I was confident I could do it with a bit of planning and research. It came down to the following steps: 1) acquire jacket 2) acquire other necessary materials (paint, finisher, etc.) 3) figure out what size to make the star 4) prep, paint, and finish the jacket.

Actually, let me back up a little: the real step 1, or pre-step 1, was surreptitiously finding out as much information about the jackets from Bri as possible. Fortunately, this was largely achieved by simply sending her an ask about the Ways' jackets. Quite easy and not suspicious at all XD It served a double purpose: learn more Sons of the Star lore *and* learn what I’d need to do for the jacket.

Step 1: Acquire jacket. This step involved a lot of online window shopping, lol. I am SO glad I had this idea right before Thanksgiving week, which meant there were lots of Black Friday sales on jackets. I had been hoping to find a genuine leather jacket, but a) even with sales they were all really expensive, and b) there was a plethora of faux leather jackets that were more within my price range. I decided, alright, faux leather it is. After ordering one in hopes of proper sizing and discovering it was way too big, I went to a few stores and found one that seemed appropriate: cool but not too stylish (the Ways are pretty badass but don't attempt to be the trendiest, flashiest guys on the block XD), slightly rugged, and comfortable.

Step 2: Acquire other materials. As I said earlier, I don’t paint much, and I’ve never painted leather before. So, I did a bunch of research on painting leather jackets (specifically faux leather jackets) to make sure I knew the best types of paint and what to do, at least in theory. I learned that Angelus brand paint is highly recommended for painting leather (whether real or faux), and I found I would also need to prep the leather (which means to rub off the manufactured finish from the leather, so that paint will stick better) with acetone before painting and then finish it (which means to apply a transparent finisher that seals the leather for durability and protection) once I was done painting. So I got 100% acetone nail polish remover, Angelus white leather paint, and Angelus standard gloss finisher. I also discovered my craft store had some small packs of leather scraps, so I decided to get a pack in order to test out prepping and painting before doing so on the actual jacket.

Here is the plain jacket (though with cutout stars resting on the back; I realized later that I didn’t end up getting a photo of it all by itself, lol) along with lots of materials on my bedroom floor, on top of a plastic tablecloth I use for potentially messy art projects.

(Okay, yes, this was slightly staged. The papers were covering up most of the other stuff, and for the photo I wanted all the materials to be visible, so I rearranged a little XD)

Step 3: Figure out proper sizing for the star. There was absolutely no way that I was going to risk painting the star on the back of the jacket freeform. I know from simply drawing stars on paper that I cannot for the life of me get proportions of the points right on my own. I figured that the best way to get a nice-looking star on the back would be to make and use a stencil. Thankfully when Bri answered the ask I sent her, she said that the design for the star is the one she put in her moodboard for Max, so I just had to figure out the best size for it on the back of the jacket. (To print it, I inverted the color so I didn’t have to print out a whole pageful of black ink; only the star was black, lol.) I printed and cut out multiple stars (as you can see in the photo) to figure out good sizing for the back of the jacket. I wanted the star to be big, because it is big! The star is supposed to stand out so that people—specifically, Wolfriders or other opposing gang members—can see it. I ended up printing the star slightly too big (intentionally) on a piece of 8x11 paper, tracing it onto a large piece of stock paper, and then cutting out the star from it so I would have a stencil.

Step 4: Prep, paint, and finish! I knew I would need to attach the stencil to the jacket to keep it from sliding around, so I used some bag clips to clip it on and pull any loose material back. I also used some tape to stick the stencil down (which wasn't terribly successful; it didn't stick well to the faux leather). As mentioned earlier, the first thing I needed to do was prep the leather. I didn't really like that I had to do that because when I prepped part of a leather scrap, I saw that it radically changed the color of the leather, and I was terrified I'd get the acetone on too much of the jacket. However, I did have the stencil, so I simply applied the acetone as carefully as possible to not go outside the lines. Here's a photo of the prepped section of the jacket with the stencil clipped on:

Then, once I had prepped the leather, it was time for the most exciting part: painting! I listened to the Sons of the Star playlist while painting, as well as a few songs I associate with Annaáuchiwee. It was so enjoyable, and I was so excited to see how it would turn out. After painting the first layer using the stencil and letting it dry, I pulled off the stencil. All 3 photos below are of the first layer of paint on the jacket.

Something to know about me is that I am all about being as precise and neat as possible with art projects; I will use rulers to make sure I have straight lines and that everything is even. So naturally, when I pulled off the stencil and saw bit of roughness around the edges of the star, I was like "noooo, I was trying to avoid that!!" Then I realized that a) it really doesn't look bad from even fairly close-up and b) the slightly imperfect/scuffed lines actually fit the rugged style of the jacket more than if they were perfectly straight. I also found that once the paint was dry, I could scratch off tiny bits as needed, and that helped too. So, I ended up being pretty dang pleased with it, even with the slight roughness around the edges. I recalled from other art projects I’ve done that the first time doing a new type of art (or new anything, really) is usually not the smoothest, and I hadn’t had the chance to practice fully before this, so all things considered, I was doing fairly well.

After I took the stencil off, I simply painted over what I had already done. I think I ended up doing 6 or maybe 7 layers of paint in total, letting the jacket dry in between each layer. Close-up of the star, one layer of paint and finisher away from completion:

(This was about how close I was to the star while painting it, lol.)

Around the 5th layer, the main brush I'd been using to paint started shedding its fibers, and I panicked a bit about fibers getting stuck in the paint. Fortunately, I had a few different brushes (I'd gotten some for another painting project a while back), so I was able to use another smaller one to do the last layer or two. Then, I put finisher on; when I had been looking at finishers, there were a few different Angelus ones to pick from. I had chosen the standard type, which is glossy (but not super glossy), because I wanted the star to shine :) The finisher isn't just for the look, though; it sealed the star for protection, so the paint won't wear off (at least not easily or for a long time).

Here is the finished jacket, star shiny and complete:

I was quite happy with how it came out! The star is bright and easily visible against the black jacket, and I think I made the star a good size.

Here's a photo I found online of a model wearing the jacket as sold in the store, and then a photo of the finished, painted jacket hung on my closet door:

I definitely think it looks cooler with the star :)

(Also, when I had been looking for a good jacket at the start of this whole thing, I discovered a faux leather that I liked for myself, and since it was on sale, decided to get it with the possibility of returning it if needed. I’ve pretty much decided to keep it; the return-by date has quite possibly passed by now anyway, lol.

If/when I end up painting the eight-point star on the back of the jacket I got for myself, I have two things to try/do differently:

Use tape to outline the star on the jacket—if it will stick—instead of a stencil. This should provide very neat lines without the risk of the stencil moving at all.

Paint the jacket on a table instead of on the floor, so that I don't have to shift positions every couple of minutes to be more comfortable XD)

Anyway, I was so happy that I succeeded in making a star jacket, and that Bri has it now! It was so fun to figure out and then execute each step of the process, and I'm really glad I did it :D

[proxythe]

can i get your top glee headcanons??

or any glee stuff you just CANNOT stop thinking about

infodump pls king

i yapped so bad omg i’m serious … anyways here you go!!

i don’t have many specific hcs just kind of general stuff but let me get into this…

- bpd quinn fabray and bpd blaine anderson will always be famous to me

- bisexual finn & sam just real as hell… dare i even add bi4bi hudevans…?

- finntana bffs is literally my favorite thing of all time i fear </3 technically not completely hc since they’re actually friends but in my head they r Best Friends… its a need

- fuinn endgame 🙌 yall gotta stay w me on this ship fr hold on wait-!!!

- also technically canon friends but needed more quinncedes bffism ?? i still picture theyre very close. theyre occasionally lovers in my head as well

- i imagine college finn when i draw him but i love teacher finn bc i would die without the unique & finn dynamic in my head. hes her number 2 fan (kurt and mercedes are number 1). she is his favorite student TO ME!!!

- finn actually being protective and a good brother and friend is technically somewhat of an hc to me. they love acting like he’s an awesome friend but i always feel like it was never properly shown (aside from a few times, to my memory). needed him to whoop some ass protecting kurt at least once i fear!

- artana bffs… artie my beloved lowkey! i know him and santanas convos & texts are Crazy as hell… they love to talk shit it’s true it’s true…

- tina staying emo style wise is huge for me… i loved it so much on her… let her queen out idk.

- same w rachel lowk. her early season looks and outfits were soo cute, i always picture a similar style on her even when she’s older 😭 (honestly a lot of the characters s4-on i thought had kinda basic outfits ?? maybe it’s just me but idk. felt like they had more individual&unique styles in s1-3)

- honestly i mostly have so many friendship thoughts with no further elaboration. blaine/finn, britt/rachel, more mike/finn, more kurt/quinn, artie/mercedes, quinn/blaine ?!?!? def more but my mind is blanking…

- anything furt related i inject directly into my head and heart … siblings hit me in my chest like a bullet every time

- a more unserious one but kurt and quinn are literally sues gay son and thot daughter. her favorites i know this to be true

as for stuff i just can’t stop thinking about… oh you already know the first thing i’ll be bringing up…

- “can i show you something?… it’s my girlfriend. i used to have another photo but i like this one better” “why? she looks terrible” “cuz i think it’s the first one where you can really see her” TURN IT UP!!!😭😭😭

- “you’re the most beautiful girl i’ve ever seen in my life” …yall could never make me hate fuinn im sorry like look at the material

- finntana hugs, fuinn s4 hug specifically, furt hugs … its simple… finn hug = cinema

- quinn wanting mercedes there when she delivered her baby. this was serious for me

- “you’re gonna dance it with me dude” + him singing to kurt will forever live in my heart. mhm mhm lemme not forget my furt

- marley jake & unique. just pure bffism. theyre unique defenders 4L & i think thats beautiful as fuck

- “sam just tweeted that i smell good” “i wont stop til its trending” SAMCEDES!!! 😭😭😭

- sam’s “bring it” & finn’s “brung”

- samcedes, fuinn, brittana, klaine … my ultimate beloveds really. + jarley :-)

- and, lastly: “there’s only one person in this world who can tell you what you are” “me” “no, me. sue sylvester.”

[bakurapika]

Mistä on hyvät videopelit tehty? (What are good video games made of?)

I'm searching for Finnish Sam Lake stuff and haven't been able to find much, but there is one article online published in Kulttuurivihkot. I'm sharing with some friends and wanted somewhere that let me post it under a readmore - the Google translation is extremely readable, but disclaimer that it is in fact just Google translate of the article linked above. Someone else has posted it online before, but as a translation by Chatgpt (????).

The article is mostly about creating their own game engine for the storytelling experience.

I'm tweaking a couple words if the sentence doesn't make sense in English, and just by checking for alternate translation options.

Written by Mikko Rautalahti in 2010.

Everyone knows what a director, cinematographer or editor does in film production, but who can name the five most essential creative workers in video game production? Mikko Rautalahti, who wrote the Finnish game Alan Wake, explains how a video game is created.

Alan Wake is about a burnt out crime writer who has lost his ability to write, who tries to get some fresh air in his life by venturing into the small town of Bright Falls. Soon after arriving, his wife disappears, a week-long gap appears in his memory, and pages of a novel manuscript start to be found everywhere. Wake doesn't remember writing them - but the events on the pages start to come true.

So it's a psychological action thriller. How does a work like this come about? Although video games are increasingly spectacular and often more cinematic as technology develops, the technology used to make them, and especially the stages of work, differ greatly from films.

I work as a screenwriter at Remedy Entertainment, the game studio that made Alan Wake. Remedy is a significant domestic game company, but by international standards we are actually quite a small company: we currently only have around 45 permanent employees, while most game studios working on the same scale have at least double that number of people on the payroll. So it is very important to us that work is carried out as smoothly as possible – we cannot compete on men's working hours, so instead we invest in high-quality content and technical implementation.

Every centimeter costs memory

Often when making games, you start from the very basics. That's what we did too: the whole project started with a programming assignment, the purpose of which was to create the tools that make the game work. Even though the concept of the game was already known, this stage didn't really have much to do with what the game was about or what it would do. It was more fundamental work.

In film terms, this is a bit like someone building a camera and all the other tools involved in filming, editing, and other technical processes from scratch before even shooting the first frame.

This is not done for all games, as there are several ready-made solutions available. However, Alan Wake's so-called game engine, the massive program that actually runs the entire game, was programmed entirely by ourselves. It was a laborious process that took a long time. Still, it was worth it, because this way we were able to ensure that the engine would be capable of the desired performance.

One good example of performance requirements is the draw distance: since Alan Wake is set primarily outdoors, it was important that the game could also display areas that were far away on the horizon. This would give the player a believable impression of a real environment. However, this was easier said than done, as everything visible on the screen consumes limited memory, and the further the player's "gaze" reaches, the more massive the program becomes.

500 pages - out of hand

Most games have some kind of script – very few games these days are based solely on reflexes or game mechanics. Pac-Man may be a well-known gaming classic, but such a product can hardly hope to succeed these days: games are much more complex, both technically and in terms of content.

In a story-driven game like Alan Wake, the script is naturally a particularly important part. At first glance, a game script may not be much different from a film script. However, the length alone speaks for itself. A rule of thumb is that a page of script is roughly one minute of film, so a two-hour film usually has around 120 pages of script.

However, Alan Wake's script is well over 500 pages long. The length is naturally due to the length of the experience alone, but interactivity also plays a big part: the player can often approach situations in different ways, or the content may be something that not all players will encounter.

In practice, you often have to write slightly different versions of scenes to make the game seem to react believably to the player's actions. This is quite a bit of work, especially since the dialogue has to be constantly edited or written more as the actual game design progresses and is refined. So there were two of us as scriptwriters: Sami Järvi, who created the original basic layout of the game and the character of Alan Wake, and myself.

All written dialogue must of course be voiced, and since the gaming market is international – considering the production costs, Finland is too small a language area to be a target audience – everything is written in English and sent abroad for actors to perform. When the voice material arrives back, it is incorporated into the game.

[Image: An overview shot of a road from the game.] With Remedy's own WorldEditor, game designers can easily build different game environments and situations for Alan Wake.

Writing a game script is challenging. In a movie, a scene where two men sit on a terrace chatting, playing cards, drinking beer, and smoking cigarettes is about the easiest and cheapest thing imaginable, while massive gas explosions and crumbling houses are expensive and difficult to make.

Funnily enough, in video games it works the other way around: animating small things in a believable way is difficult and demanding, while big, rumbling things are easy to do. The game itself usually already has some kind of tools for implementing such effects – modeling the forces associated with explosions is handled almost automatically, and the impact of explosions can be adjusted almost by turning a knob.

This naturally has a big impact on the writing process: since explosions cannot replace a good story, storytelling often has to be done in ways other than traditional dialogue.

The closest you get to a traditional movie is when you put non-interactive animation segments on the screen. Their number depends a lot on the game, but in Alan Wake there are over an hour of them together. They are typically shown when you want to move the player character from one place to another, do something that wouldn't make sense to play, or tell something in a particularly dramatic way.

Cutscenes have their own director, who approaches them in the manner of a traditional film director. However, it is challenging compared to traditional film, as the possibilities are often limited by both technical aspects and the events of the actual playable segments. Cutscenes must feel like part of the whole, otherwise the atmosphere will not hold.

In Alan Wake, these parts were directed by Stobe Harju, who worked closely with virtually everyone involved in making the game.

The art of the gaming experience

Unlike film, a video game is not a static and passive experience, but is based on interaction. The player's own performance and decisions significantly affect the gaming experience. This is perhaps the most demanding area of ​​game development, and so game designers are very important in games in terms of the end result. In this article, "game designer" is a general term that can include several different job descriptions.

Animating small things believably is a difficult and demanding craft, while big, complex things are easy to do.

Some game designers work solely on game mechanics. They define all the things the player character can do. For example, Alan Wake can move around the game world by walking or running, jumping, climbing, pointing at things with his flashlight, shooting at the player's pointed target with various weapons, dodging incoming attacks, and so on.

Wake can also converse with characters found in the game world. This is done by directing the player character next to another character, at which point the dialogue starts to flow automatically. The solution aims to make the conversation happen naturally and as if by itself. However, it requires a lot of planning work from both the scriptwriters and the game designers: if you play and manage to get carried away with the situation mid-sentence, the whole thing should still seem reasonable.

Other game designers work on the game environment. They build all the landscapes that appear in the game. So it is not actual programming work – for example, building a city with our tools does not require deep programming skills. It is more important to understand what looks good, and above all, what kind of environment makes playing smooth and fun.

Some game designers, on the other hand, work on the actual game situations. When something happens in the game world, they decide when, how, and why, and what the consequences will be. This is often particularly challenging, as they have to try to anticipate the players’ movements and decisions and make sure the game reacts to them sensibly.

In the case of Alan Wake, a big part of their work is creating atmosphere: since it's a thriller, atmosphere is everything. For example, they can decide when the game world will be covered in fog and a rustling sound will be heard from the forest, or when shadowy figures will attack Wake. They also add all the dialogue to the game according to the script. If the characters need to move or otherwise act in a certain way during a scene, they will implement that as well.

[Image: A mid-combat scene with Alan and an attacker.] Alan Wake's character consists of the face and gestures of a Finnish actor and the voice of an American actor.

The system also includes a lot of automation. For example, the game designer does not need to adjust each situation individually, but can simply decide that enemies will emerge from the shadows. The game engine simulates the situation automatically, and survival depends on the player's own actions and skills.

Doorways and flower beds

Video games also require a lot of pure creative artistic work. In these promised times of high-definition graphics, creating graphic content in particular is becoming increasingly laborious. In modern large-scale projects, a significant portion of the budget is spent on it.

Every object you see in the world – whether it’s a game character, a car or a tree – is of course designed by someone. Often, artists build individual elements, such as doorways, stairs, windows, walls or even flower beds, which can be used to build larger wholes if necessary.

Certain scenes require very carefully thought-out composition. In such cases, one person might build, for example, a character's apartment. Such compositions are very important because, for example, the interior and style of a room tell a lot about the characters' nature, financial situation, and other circumstances.

Games also need a lot of so-called technical artists, who don't necessarily work on the objects or other concrete things you see in the game. Their job is to create effects that are critical to realism and atmosphere. These jobs require more advanced programming skills: for example, when the goal is to make sunlight filter through the cracks in a dilapidated tin roof and dust particles dance lazily indoors, it requires a lot of understanding of both the program code and the real-life conditions that are being modeled.

The player gets the idea to get out of the situation in the middle of a sentence.

The soundscape can also be put at the top of the creative work. A well-made soundscape really creates an atmosphere, whether it's a spooky humming forest or music playing in the background. In Alan Wake, Petri Alango's soundtrack is a crucial part of the whole. It makes the game feel epic or touching at just the right moments. The game also has a huge number of sound effects. For example, the list of different footsteps in Wake alone seems endless - if there's a metal bridge below, hills covered in needles, a cliff or a wooden porch, it must also affect the sounds made by walking.

A man made of puzzle pieces

Games also require a lot of animation work, especially for characters. It's not that difficult to make a character's legs and arms swing while running, but the challenge is greater when you want the movement to look natural. Animation work is also important because it's one way to reveal the characters' personalities to the player. For example, Alan Wake himself is an urban writer who is not at home in the woods, and especially not in dangerous combat situations. So Wake's evasive movements were meant to look clumsy and haphazard. Instead of elegantly rolling on the ground or doing an acrobatic somersault to dodge, Wake throws himself to the side when an attack comes and barely stays on his feet.

Nowadays, a significant portion of animation is done with motion capture technology, where actors perform movements in front of special cameras that can be used to transfer the movement to game characters. The process is not simple, and the raw data produced by motion capture often requires a lot of editing before the final movement is smooth and looks believable – especially when the different movements have to be linked together into a single whole.

It can be said that the character of Alan Wake himself consists of four different parts: the script, the face and body language of Finnish actor Ilkka Villi, the voice of his American colleague Matthew Porretta, and the game situations created by the game designers.

The entire game-making process actually culminates in the character of Wake: none of these areas produces the desired end result, which rather requires long-term and well-coordinated collaboration.

[Image: A hazy silhouette of the cabin on the lake.] The World Editor allows you to change, for example, the time of day, lighting, and weather conditions of the game area as needed, so the atmosphere of each scene can be adjusted to suit your character.

Diplomacy and bureaucracy

It is usually assumed that everyone working in the gaming industry is some kind of computer guru. However, actual programmers are a minority in the staff of a modern game studio. The majority of people usually work on the actual content and creative work of the game. It is above all teamwork, where everyone has to constantly work together. Everything affects everything: no one can afford to go solo, and even if a project has its own managers responsible for some of its areas, you won't get anywhere by just commanding them.

Such a project requires separate producers who do not actually work on the game itself, but rather try to create conditions that allow the game to be completed as smoothly as possible. Their main tools are emails, Excel spreadsheets, and conference calls.

Large game projects cannot be completed without a publisher, which is typically a large international corporation like Microsoft or Sony. Dealing with such parties requires diplomacy, an understanding of bureaucracy, precision, patience, and the ability to take responsibility for a large and often challenging project.

Most often, producers try to protect the actual team of game developers from all the business side of things so that they can focus on what matters, which is making the game. The rule of thumb is that when a producer does their job well, no one notices.

Games are always ultimately about the player experiencing something for themselves, rather than just being a passive spectator. If the whole thing doesn't work, the gaming experience will suffer. Technical expertise alone is not enough for top-notch games, but you need to be able to invest in a shared creative vision.

[dailycass-cain]

Balancing real-life stuff so I couldn't do this over the weekend. So tonight here are my thoughts on Detective Comics #1087 (all of it, main story and side).

Cass's appearance in the main story is brief but still has a great weight around it. There's just something I love of Ram V where every small moment still has overtones to everything that's gone on in his run.

Every side character on this quest Batman has been through gets to shine. It hits me with utter 😄seeing the payoffs occurring in this run that have been built here or throughout other stories. These payoffs are just SOOO good and these aren't even the "end" ones.

For Cass, it's being her and just not giving up. STILL fighting, still honoring the bat symbol, and the legacy of the Batman. Aka reasons why we love this character 101.

ust the way she's introduced in the issue? chef's kiss

That extra added, "Oh they boned and know it." just by the added panel of Cass's eyes narrowing. SOOOOOO good I was little squeeing in gittiness at it. Something that's consistently happening since 2020. 😊

Likewise, you can feel that "ending" coming as Batman readies his schemes, the Orghams entering their's, Gotham too, and of course the twist we all saw coming given last issue with one other party throwing their hand too.

I'm really curious to where this all goes from here on out, and honestly I feel like a broken record but I cannot wait to see the payoffs. Like I know and feel these are all gonna be earned.

Oh sure, we might get a reset on some (Two-Face and Mr. Freeze), but man; Ram V's characterizations of both are leaving an impression on me. Something for me to continue spouting top of my lungs, "This is kino and enjoy the ride." to anyone who hasn't picked it up.

The art by Christian Duce and Stefano Raffaele is just 🔥 with the coloring by Luis Guerrero just stunning too. DC since 2020 has been killing it with the colorists they've got sprinkled throughout their books. Just makes everything the artists draw pop more.

What else can I say of the main story? Other than it just keeps delivering every month. But hey we're getting more kino with Ram V with the New Gods. That's gonna be great and curious to see where he goes with that.

The secondary story is something I've been hoping to see since the character showed up in this run, and that was some Jean-Paul Valley goodness, and not only do we get this here.

We get Dan Watters back on writing him. Oh sure, he couldn't get Nikola back, but hey Francesco Francavilla on it? Oooooh sign me up! Seeing his Cass was a delight at long last.

The story itself is just rooted in SOOO much back lore with Dick and Jean-Paul. You can take it as the perfect case to their history with one another (and it isn't pretty). I'm kind of glad we got this in the story to show this wasn't forgotten.

That this isn't just a united heirs to Bruce working together. There's still some stuff there from past that causes spite and mistrust (aka KnightsEnd).

In that regard, Dick is right to be this way. He's given Jean-Paul multiple passes and well every time Jean-Paul fell back to the conditioning he went through.

But again, Cass being Cass. Her coda is stone. "You can change. You can." Even when she was at the brunt of it too, she still that beacon holding for that hope this is the time Jean-Paul defeats his inner demons for good.

Again, it's a nice balance between the three characters. An actual reason Dick would be no trusting, and Cass being, "TRUST HIM." Given all she's been with Jean-Paul due to No Man's Land. I wasn't expecting this to be remembered on my 2024 comic bingo card.

That's something I wish someone would dig further into. That Cass could be that rock for Jean-Paul, kind of like how Steph is for Jason currently. Or Oynx was for Cass (kind of hoping that this is revisited on when she arrives in BoP) or currently Cass bonding hard with Barda.

Again, layers upon layers here. Why I enjoy this run currently for all of this.

Detective Comics #1087 continues the ride and makes me appreciate this run even more. Like, again this feels different to me. To have Cass entwined to a modern Batman epic?

Oh sure she has sprinkles in Batman runs or past Tec runs. But here? Not just the fan service appearance but characterization and history.

All the reasons why people love this character are all here. Leaving me ☺️🥺every single time I read an issue of this run. I can't wait to have the whole thing collected and just read it all.

Gonna be great.

[catbountry]

Does anybody else remember Pandora? Not the box, or the fictional planet where James Cameron's blue alien cat people live where there's a literal mineral called "unobtanium" that can only be harvested from that particular planet. My man literally called that shit "unobtanium," fucking portmanteau of "unobtainable" and the "-ium" suffix for newer elements. No. That has absolutely nothing to do with anything else I'm writing beyond this point. This is a post about music.

This is a post about the customizable internet radio station Pandora. And also it's going to briefly cover ClickRadio, it's going to talk about my experiences with YouTube Music, Spotify, my own iPod and how I find and listen to music, and how it's a core part of my creative process and I put a bunch of music references in pretty much all of my creative work. None of it being musical, by the way. I can barely carry a tune and I can't play any instruments more complicated than a kazoo.

It also got really long and rambly, look, I'm high, I'm sorry. You've been warned.

It's 2001. I'm in high school. My life looks like this drawing I made a few weeks ago.

Music is a big part of my life. The internet was a lot slower. It would take several minutes to download an .mp3 file of a song that was only about three and a half minutes long, so I would listen to the radio a lot. But the thing about listening tuning into radio is that it's not the internet. You can't pick which song to listen to whenever you want. If you want that, your best bet is to own the songs you want on their physical CD releases, or risk exposing your mom's computer to a million viruses. But in order to skip a song, you have to press a physical button to skip a song. And of course, if you're listening to the radio where you can discover new songs, you can't skip the latest Limp Bizkit or Disturbed track with the vain hope that maybe they'll play "One-Armed Scissor" by At The Drive-In or "Go With the Flow" by Queens of the Stone Age, or any single off of Kid A. Everything you hated the most, hated more than Britney Spears or the Backstreet Boys, was all lumped together under the formless "alternative rock" label, which weirdly included hip-hop artists like Eminem, House of Pain, Beastie Boys, Cypress Hill, Gorillaz and Outkast; all stuff that I guess radio stations looked at and thought "yeah, this can appeal to white people."

You know I heard Dynamite Hack's version of "Boyz N The Hood" before I ever heard Eazy-E's? That should be a crime. That should be considered a human right's violation. Fuck you, Dynamite Hack for introducing the entire world to the concept of ironic hipster covers hip-hop songs which led to the fucking white people with ukeleles versions of Tupac songs. I am so glad that we, as a society, have all come together against these dynamite hacks and decided this was cringe and something that belongs in the past.

But this isn't an essay on awful YouTube music trends of the early 2010's, this is listening to music in the internet age in the early 2000's.

In 2001, ClickRadio launched. It was a desktop application that allowed you to listen to radio stations via the internet, but it had something real radio stations did not; if a song like, say, Dynamite Hack's cover of "Boys N The Hood" came on, you could click a thumbs down button and it would let out this cartoonishly loud "thud" and then that station would never play that song for you again. And if they played a song you really liked? You could click a thumb's up button and it would play that song more often.

I cannot understate how fucking mindblowing an idea this was in the early 2000's. Yes, ClickRadio would slow down your computer as the Neopets Flash games you would play gringing for Neopoints to get a Halloween brush for your Lupe that you named after a member of your favorite band. Anybody else do that?

No? Just me? Okay then.

ClickRadio would quickly get enshittificated, within only about a year or two being filled with more and more unskippable ads. I went back to just loading up MP3s in Winamp and playing music that way by the time I was in college, but it was a pain having to listen to whatever song I had physically on my hard drive, or a few years later, going to YouTube to see if somebody uploaded a crusty version of a NoMeansNo song with a Spanish-speaking DJ speaking in the opening bits of the video. Not ideal.

But then Pandora showed up.

I don't remember where I first heard about Pandora, but after Napster, there were a bunch of music start-ups hoping to be legitimate in the eyes of artists and record labels. Clickradio was just a radio station. But Pandora... was an experiment of The Algorithm.

You see, Pandora started what is known as the Music Genome Project, a way of organizing music into hundreds of different subgenres across five large umbrella genres; Pop/Rock, Hip Hop/Electronica, Jazz, World Music and Classical. What Pandora did was use this as a way to allow users to craft their own custom radio stations. And not only would it play the stuff you liked, but it would be tailored to a seed artist or song; you put in Nirvana, you get a lot of 90's alt rock radio faire, but then maybe it plays Mudhoney. Maybe it plays Sonic Youth. Maybe it plays Melvins, and you like it. And when you give a thumbs up, you hear more and more artists in similar subgenres. And let's say you've been looking into obscure or underground music for years before you start using Pandora, and suddenly you're introduced to artists you never would have come across more organically. And buddy, you'd bet my Pandora station was a fucking hodgepodge of hundreds of seeds, which allowed me to discover highly influential /mu/ core bands like Swans, Animal Collective and Neutral Milk Hotel, but also bands that are so obscure that their Spotify listens are in the lower four digits at maximum and maybe a couple tens of thousands of views on YouTube. So many songs I found through Pandora are from bands that I very rarely hear a lot of people talk about, but they've made songs that have just lived in my brain for decades.

And for a couple years, I'd be listening to Pandora radio while writing up new TF2 fanfiction to terrorize TF2chan with. Certain songs would come up so often because I specifically bookmarked them. I didn't really know a lot about shoegaze before Pandora, but now I own a physical copy of all three of Slowdive's albums, and you fucking bet "When the Sun Hits" was in heavy rotation while I was writing Respawn of the Dead.

Yes, this was playing while I was writing out Respawn of the Dead, chapter by chapter. And so was "Beautiful Plateau" by Sonic Youth, "The Sound" by Swans, "Dead Flag Blues" by Godspeed You! Black Emperor and "End of the Line" by Murder By Death. And also this song by a band called The Clock Work Army, which split up and reformed into another band called Calico Horses, and I know this because I found this out while trying to track down a song that would play constantly on my Pandora station and it has, as of writing this sentence, 2,588 listens. And it might have more by the time you read this because I might just put it on loop because oh my god, I love this song so much, it hits so perfect for me, why don't more people know about this song?

It's not on YouTube, where I usually tend to listen to music, since I'll go through a rotation of songs that I call "work songs." I put on music while I write, and some songs are just so perfect that I can listen to them on loop with a very select number of songs that just never, ever get old for me. My neurons in my brain light up as though I was hearing it again for the first time.

Swans, Sigur Ros and The Dillinger Escape Plan are all artists who I found through Pandora that I've had the privilege to see live. By the time I was just discovering bands because I had a bunch of friends and mutuals with similar taste in music to mine, Pandora was slowly getting more and more ads. It was getting to the point where the free service would, if you were lucky, play only three or four songs before playing an ad. And when the length of those songs can span anywhere from less than three minutes for much of my beloved 80's and early 90's punk, to up to a half an hour for post-rock, noise, or ambient music. And the number of ads that played between songs had increased. What was just one every half an hour or so was now two to three for what could potentially be only after seven minutes of music. Pandora really doesn't like it if the music you like includes a lot of songs that are longer than an episode of The Simpsons.

I never hear anybody talk about Pandora anymore. Spotify is THE name in internet music streaming, and it favors listens of entire albums and other people's playlists. I don't like Spotify; sometimes I just want a specific song from a specific album. I could make a playlist of these "work songs," but I like when YouTube notices that I'm listening to music, and in the recommendeds, there's another song that I've listened to on repeat. Why yes, I would like you to play "Classical Homicide" by Dälek for me again. What's that? An hour loop of Deadmau5's "Professional Griefers" featuring Gerard Way? Yes please. I apologize for nothing. That dude's way better than Skrillex.

God, do you guys remember the Deadmau5/Skrillex shipping that was all over Tumblr in the early 2010's. I remember it. I remember it so hard. Everybody shipping them and the members of Daft Punk, posting Steam Powered Giraffe (blech) and Die Antwoord (lol) on my dashboard. In Die Antwoord's defense, they had some pretty funny music videos.

I got AdBlocker for YouTube, so the ads aren't a problem there. I mean, I could make a playlist for Spotify of my go-to songs, but I'd have to deal with ads. And there's something nice about YouTube's robots that sell my precious data to faceless corporations at least having the courtesy to be like "You look like you could use another stream of 'Anything (Viva!)' by Foetus. Or Scraping Foetus off the Wheel. Or... whatever, fuck it, it's J.G. Thirwell's band, okay? It's the guy that does the music for Venture Brothers."

Foetus was introduced to me through a friend but it was Pandora serving me up more of their music that made their albums "nail" and "Flow" ones that got the honor of Being Downloaded onto my iPod so I can Listen to This in my Car. I still use my iPod and even if there's albums that I haven't gone back to in years on there, I like having them there. I haven't listened to the soundtrack for Panty and Stocking in ages but having access to it so that I can FLY AWAY NOW, FLY AWAY NOW, FLY AWAAAYYYY on a long drive? I like having that option.

I still buy CDs so I can burn albums onto my iPod. My iPod doesn't have ads and switching between artists doesn't mean I have to flip through a CD binder. I also try to buy albums off of Bandcamp. Especially for smaller artists, or artists whose work I love enough to want to give them my money. I don't want to listen to ads. It throws off my workflow, shakes me out of the trance-like state that is pure, focused creativity. Whether it's working on comics or thinking about things I want to do in those comics, I'm usually listening to music. Sometimes the same album, hundreds of times over. I admit I haven't listened to that much King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, but I've listened to Nonagon Infinity front to back more times than I can count.

Nowadays it feels like I don't have a lot of friends who share my taste in music. I've so fully entrenched myself in fandom circles that I've been exposed to the average person's taste in music and I'm like "oh yeah, most people aren't as big of a fucking nerd about this as you are." You know how hard it is to get people who aren't music nerds to get into The Residents? Everybody I know that likes them already knew about them before we met, and people who had never heard of them before they met me usually find them deeply weird and never get fucking obsessed with them like I have. I own a physical copy of, not their original version of their album The King and Eye, which is an entire album of them covering Elvis that sounds like this, but the fucking remix of that album that does shit like this to their covers of Elvis songs. And you know what? I love both versions, but that remix of their cover of "Surrender" is a work song.

Listening to music is the only way I can guarantee that I'm actually working on something and not playing with my phone. I guess what I'm saying is... it sure would be nice if Pandora existed like it did back then right now.

Especially because I stopped cleaning up a page of my horrible Deltarune fan comic (MASSIVE Dead Dove warning, not even kidding, the entire story hinges on some very upsetting topics) just to write all this down and make sure there were links to every song in this essay. And like... I've even used the comic as a not-so-clandestine way into tricking them into listening to my music before. Whether it be directly namedropping bands and songs, writing about a specific character's taste in music and using that in the story somehow, or literally just making the title of one of my comic installments... this.

It is really good. 686 listens on YouTube. Absolutely criminal. And the example above? That's me not putting in hundreds of references into the comic and wondering if anybody else has noticed them.

I guess what I'm saying is that I am a huge music nerd, even though I always feel like I'm getting into artists super late (unless they're like Death Grips, but that was only after The Money Store had come out), but I fucking hate Spotify. I want more physical releases that can be preserved digitally, and I don't have the money to get into collecting vinyls as a hobby. All the vinyl I own is toys, and uh... I own a lot of those.

Thank you for reading through pure, uncut music autism mixed in with nostalgia and griping about capitalism because that's apparently where my head is at all the time when I'm not daydreaming my little stories or making up video essays in my head that will never be made. That's why I do stream of consciousness Tumblr essays full of minute details that absolutely are not necessary, but this is how my goddamn ADHD brain works. Now you know what it's like to be in my Discord server.

That post is, of course, pinned in the music channel.

As it should be.

... Fuck Pandora, I don't even fuck with it no more, I miss Grooveshark, weh, my playlist on that site was eight hours long before they shut it down in 2014. Devastated. I was in the middle of using it when it went offline.

Okay now I'm done for real, sorry.

[slaaverin]

I might be naive but how on earth can tarot predict someone’s sexuality?

Because there is no way on Gods green earth that Jimin and Jungkook are not in some way queer, they have both literally pointed to this time over. The way they are with each other, no way there isn’t something there I’m sorry, but no.

Previous anon seems to be clutching at straws

Your view is so balanced and real.

Also love your videos !!

Hey anon,

Thank you so much for your ask!

There are many layers to this question and I have several thoughts.

Usually with tarot cards, you ask a question and draw one (or several) cards that brings you the answer. Then it is up to the reader to interpret those cards based on their knowledge or intuition.

That's usually what would happen when you do tarot for yourself, or someone you know.

When you do it for someone you know, usually you have the person's consent to read their energy, they are a willing participant.

Usually you wouldn't draw cards for people you don't know, without their consent. I mean you can, if someone asks about their relationship with someone, you would also read the other person from that relationship, even if they are not aware.

You can get - some energy - I guess from any situation. I'll come back to that.

This is my point of view only, but even asking "what is their sexuality" already proves the reader is absolutely shady.

Because there are ethics you need to have as a spiritualist, as a reader, and this is plain invasion of privacy.

A spiritualist would never invade someone's personal energy without any consent, or at least would try to the maximum to have the consent of the person involved.

When you cannot have the consent, the energy you would read is the energy only the person's soul, higher self, would allow you to see.

So there are two things. First asking such personal question is a sign the reader as no ethic as a spiritualist, so prying into personal stuff like this (Even if this is BTS and all, they are celebrities), is a lack of savoir de vivre.

They will mostly get karma for doing such things.

Secondly, since the members of BTS did not consent, the energy people will read will be only what their soul want to show. So it can be veiled, even false if they don't want to reveal it.

Their soul would see the question being asked -> is it a selfish invading personal self-serving question? Or does it have a higher purpose? I guess if it passes "the vibe check" the reader will be able to answer their question.

If the question is not good the answer could practically be anything, even completely wrong, simply because the members don't want people to meddle into their personal stuff! It's as simple as that.

That's why I was saying to watch or read readings only from people you trust, what I mean is that you trust their character, their ethics as readers, their values&morals.

If a reader say that him and him are in a relationship, this is the wrong reader! If they imply anyone's sexuality, this is the wrong reader!

Would you like people reading cards about you and revealing things about your personal life to the world? No! This is the same for the members of BTS.

They may be not conscious of it, but their soul/higher self is aware of everything, and they simply won't give personal information so easily.

Ahhh that would be too simple otherwise, everyone would indulge into the most lowest of themselves with toxic curiosity, learn everything and go home.

This is not how it works.

With the work they are doing these boys have all sorts of protection.

They are doing a huge thing on earth, and there are simply so many etherical influences around them. Their higher self is extremely powerful and would absolutely know that karen who's been doing tarot for 5 minutes asked a terrible question and their energy would simply tell this person to go fuck themselves. So any card would come out but it will be as ridiculous as the question they asked.

They might reveal some personal things to a reader *who's not a jerk* but they would know this person WOULD NOT REVEAL ANYTHING. Otherwise they would not share.

That's why all these readings are bullshit.

I hope I am somewhat clear in my explanation?

I hope it might get people to think on the people they listen to or go to for readings about BTS.

Ohh and thank you so much for loving my videos 🥰💜

Take care 🫂

[endergirlplayz]

Tf2 "pokemon teams"

pokemon teams is in big air quotes because theese aren't full teams amd ass I made theese I thought about more potential pokemon options so I'll make a note of what pokemon they have and what pokemon I'm thinking about adding to fill out there teams

Scout

Scout has a scorbunny and jolteon because those were the only pokemon I could think of for him (I think theese cod be added to tho!) As far as alternatives I saw someone mentioned exelgore which could work. I did at one point have an intrusive thought of giving him one of the sus pokemon (specifically, lopunny or vaporeon) but decided against it :Di was also just now thinking about it, maybe he could have a cyclizard

Medic :

Up front i should mention that Medic's pokemon were partially chosen based on how messed up there pokedex was or also vibes

Pokemon drifloon(loose nurse joy assosciation + steals children) , essspur ,pidove (arcimedis), yamask (let's be real here if medic could keep a human soul as a pet he probably would), and litwick (later chadellure ) (again messed up pokedex, kidnaps children and drags them to the afterlife, feeds of life force of humans).

Other options were wigglytuff (most messed up main nurse joy pokemon to me, once you start petting it you physically cannot stop, it can also expand to over 20× its soze whichis terifying ) or mimikyu (only not here bc he was givin to pyro)

Speaking of which

Pyro

Pyro has a rapidash, sylveon, fuecoco and mimikyu (idk if I gotta justify any of theese other than masked eldrich horror is mimikyu's whole thing and also fits pyros vibes good)

Other options were centiscoch, cyndiquill , magmortar, galarian rapidash

Spy

Spy and medic have the most fleshed out teams

Spy has a intellion, ditto, zoroark ,leopard, and indede

Some suggestions for spy other pokemon were froufrou and ... idk I forgot whelst writing this

soldier

Soldier has a braviary and a zigzagoon

other idea are bibbarel/ bidoof and staraptor

Demoman

Demoman gas some of the fewwest pokemon but the most ideas

He has a roggenrolla( or either evolution) and an electrode

Other ideas are aegislash, herdier/ stoutland, exploud , and maybe foretress

Heavy

Heavy has a blissy machamp and hariyama

I dont have any specific other pokemon he should have but I'm gonna be looking into ones that are bulky like him :3 (also was looking at beware, maybe that would work, or ursarang)

Sniper

sniper has a nictowland a Sandler ( it was supposed to be a krokorok but I couldn't get the intended effect of the image with that one.

Im also thinking sniperhas some silly/cute lil guys as poekemon, like munchlax, slow poke, spoink, or pinchirchin (snom? Maybe?)

Engineer

Engi has a magnazone and a rottom.

the only orher pokemon I've thought about giving him is tinkatuff

he's probbaly the merc I've put the least thought into the team of

anyway that's my lil surprise for yall, I'll try to draw more pokemom x tf2 stuff soon