#it’s like easy to copy the patterns and stuff

[sodacowboy]

y’all are telling me there are people who do g*nshin fan art for free

[itsalwaysdark]

i wish i had an exact copy of myself. sigh

[narsh-poptarts]

my dark link thoughts coalesced into wonderful headcanons and crazy amounts of forced perspectives and dutch angles

also sorry HW i would have included your dark link(s) but i do not have passion for your game <3 maybe next time

Some thoughts below

I have thoughts about dark link that boil down to basically two things: 1. it's always the same dark link, and 2. dark link has a very difficult time changing.

No matter how many times dark link is brought into existence, he is formed from the shadow of link usually to test link's will. that shadow can be duplicated (as seen in HW) but generally speaking it's the same guy, sharing the thought space, you know how it is. In terms of sentience/thinking for himself, I don't think there's all that much of it. He is a dark reflection/shadow of link, so shares his abilities and thought patterns (for combat) with added aggression and. evil. i guess.

As said by navi, "conquer yourself", and all that. He's a challenge to the inner will power.

That being said!!! he can have a little bit of individuality, as a treat. Just in the form of being mean and sadistic <3 he's got thoughts, he's not just a combat doll (tho in times of low power, or a greater power having the reins, he reverts to that), so he can be frustrated, vindicated, happy, etc etc. though when your thoughts are mainly "evilevilevilevilevil" your idea of these emotions are a bit skewed.

When he's summoned for each different link, i hc that it's all the same magic, so the same dark link every time. he "remembers" in an abstract sense of his role in the same way a link or zelda "remembers" their own reincarnation. tho his is less of a reincarnation and more being used over and over again. a persistence.

The iteration that's summoned reflects the current link at the time, the part of link that needs testing/defeating, so it's not an existence that he himself can change to match the present. he's locked to that first copy/shadow only. So if he were to have a second encounter with an older link, he'd look like the first time they fought, unless he was specifically re-summoned. i hc he's got limited magic, so this is not something he can do himself.

in a links-meet scenario, his form would be limited to those specific forms of the links, and it would always be the points in time in which he first encountered them, unless there's other magic either he or someone else has access to to allow him to change forms to match.

now you might be saying at this point "wouldn't he be a weaker match if he was put up against an older link?" yeah probably lol. but also!!! i like the idea that with the limited magic he has, he's able to change juuuust enough to stay relatively evenly matched. being able to play to different strengths and all that. but the base stuff is still the same, so he is decently easy enough to read if link remembers the kind of stuff he was pulling back when he originally fought dark link.

dark link also knows about all this so while limited to the particular skillset, is able to adapt slightly.

but yeah been thinking a lot about a links-meet au where dark link is there choosing a different link to be every time he appears to the party.

though there are a couple links that he never impersonates in their games!!! so can't change into those guys unless he gets a new round of copycat magic.

Anyways goodbye guy standing there with standard camera angle, i have dutch angles and forced perspective

[theneptuneflytrap]

Since new people are joining the Transformers fandom I thought I'd make a couple post's about different characters that can be seen in the background of TF: One. Specifically, I wanted to repost their original toy tech specs and their Marvel Bios. Firstly, Jazz:

Left: Jazz in Tf: One, Right: Jazz from the 1984 Marvel comics

His original toy tech spec reads: "Jazz loves Earth culture. Always looking to learn more. His knowledge of Earth makes him the indispensable right-hand man to Optimus Prime. Takes most dangerous missions. Very cool, very stylish, very competent. Equipped with photon rifle, flamethrower, full-spectrum beacon, 180db stereo speakers. Creates dazzling, disorienting sound and light shows. Versatile, clever, daring, but prone to be distracted".

His quote (most Western tf toys came with a quote): "Do it with style or don't bother doing it."

The following information is from Marvel's "Transformers Universe"

Function: Special Operations, Saboteur

Profile: "Jazz would be cruising down Bourbon Street in New Orleans or be double-parked outside a cellar club in Greenwich Village soaking up the local sounds if he weren't in the middle of a war. He's a confirmed Earthen culture junkie-he can talk fluently about ballet or break-dancing (although he prefers the latter), and he's always on the lookout for more stuff to turn on to. His knowledge of Earthen ways and his easy adaptability to Earthen environments make him the indispensable right-hand man of his commander, Optimus Prime. He's often given the most dangerous assignments, and, with characteristic coolness, usually pulls them off using something out of his seemingly bottomless bag of tricks. He'd rather dazzle you with style than accomplish a mission the easy way".

The abilities section is a near copy of the tech spec but it adds: "His biggest asset is the versatility and cleverness he possesses in using the resources at his disposal".

Finally, Weaknesses: "Although Jazz's fire-power and strength are weak relatives to that of some of the other Autobots, he more than compensates with his daring and skill. He's prone to be distracted from his primary assignment by Earthen behavior pattern that he finds interesting. this sometimes leads to disastrous consequences".

And there you go! I hope this gives any new fans a good idea about what he's like!

[ihhfhonao3]

Hey y'all just a little bot psa!

Obviously we all know that Tumblr is shit with managing bots. but this is a bit of a bigger issue. Cuz this isn't just a robot posting naked people in the fandom tags, now they're outright stealing posts.

Two examples are below, but I saw another a couple days ago of another bot stealing fanart. once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, but three times is a pattern.

Take a look at the posts and tags, then their posters and times posted. In case it wasn't obvious, @/leggalese and @/aceattorneygamesfan are the original posters of both posts, with these bots copying them word-for-word, tag-for-tag a little bit later. What makes it worse is that leggalese's post was their own fanart. like, they MADE that. with their own hands. and then some bot swooped in and took it.

So I guess this is just a PSA to double check the poster of the fanart you're reblogging, and also for artists to watermark their stuff when possible so nobody can truly "take" it. It helps that @/leggalese is pretty popular in this fandom, so I recognized their artstyle, but it isn't always easy to tell with smaller artists.

afaik, this has only happened with image posts, but look out for bots copying textposts too.

[riverbutghost]

hello !!! I love your writing and all your prompts, I was just wondering if you’d be willing to do an extreme angst one where Everyone especially Simon notices The readers mental health go downhill , and on one of the missions reader goes berserk, or purposely tries getting themselves killed , thinking they’re doing a good thing ?

Try for me

yea yes yes. omg. thank you so much i love your support !!

Pairing: Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x Fem!Reader (I didn’t know what to use so I used female pronouns<3)

Warnings: military stuff,, angst but happy ending! Also, the reader’s call sign is Crow.

Also this is phenomenal.

Gripping your gun tighter, you stumbled into the room. You quickly looked through the room and got out.

“If any of you find something, inform me so I can send help.”

Price’s voice came through the comms, and you sighed. If it was a month ago, you would have said something like ‘yes sir’ or anything. But now, you just wanted to deal with every single soldier by yourself.

It wasn’t a healthy thought for sure. But you just felt like you couldn’t do it anymore. You tried, so fucking hard but to no avail.

-

“I’ll pass on that.”

You smiled politely at your friends, who looked a bit skeptical. You saw from the corner of your eye that Soap and Ghost shared a knowing look. You didn’t care. All you cared was to sleep the day off.

“C’mere now, you love to play darts.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat and turned to look at them.

“I’m just tired, see you tomorrow.”

They knew something was wrong, but didn’t press on it.

-

“Crow, you copy?”

You shook your head to clear your mind, but still your vision was blurred with tears. You didn’t know why, but it happened all the time. Your throat would wobble and your eyes would water, but you didn’t cry. You couldn’t. Because you were never alone by yourself. Not when you were on a long mission.

“Yeah?”

You answered Price, sighing softly.

“I told you to-“

The line was cut off immediately, and you furrowed your eyebrows.

“Captain?”

You gulped after hearing no sign from him. You took a good look around you, but couldn’t comprehend anything.

“Fuck, not now.”

You mumbled to yourself as you harshly kicked a rock. Your chest started tightening, your headache got worse. All you needed was to cry, but you couldn’t.

-

Pursing your lips tighter, you held back a sob after the door opened. You gripped the blanket over your head, pretending to sleep on the couch.

The footsteps stopped right in front of you, and you tried to even your breathing.

“Crow..?”

You cursed your body for shaking slightly. You peeked your head through the blanket.

“Hey, uhm..”

Simon’s eyes scanned your face and he sat down.

“What’s wrong?”

His voice was abnormally soft, and you felt your eyes watering again. Getting softness from a guy who was intimidating and wore masks and kill people was what made the situation worse for you.

“Hey, hey..easy. S’fine, just wanted t’know because you don’t seem okay.”

You sniffed and pulled the blanket over you again, not wanting to ugly cry in front of your lieutenant.

“Is it about the mission..? Are you.. stressed? Sure, it is a hard one, but you have us. And we have you..”

You sobbed quietly as his hand traced patterns on your knees, touch soft as ever.

It wasn’t about the mission.

-

Loosening your grip on your gun, you sighed and threw it away. You could practically hear Price’s disappointed screams, harsh words that would go in one ear and out the other. But you were alone now.

Maybe if you just went to the soldiers and ask them to kill you, it would be easier.

You stared at the enemy, talking with each other about their daily lives. Not giving a single shit about killing people, torturing their kids and families.

You sighed and sat down behind a tree, holding your knees in a tight hug.

Closing your eyes, your lips wobbled a little but you sighed.

-

“Aye, Lt. What’s wrong with her?”

Soap muttered under his breath to Ghost, and he looked at you.

You were sitting down next to another rookie. Everyone was chatting around the camp fire, relaxing their minds for the upcoming mission.

That was Gaz’ idea. The camp fire.

Everyone was laughing, having a good time. You were sitting there, smiling at your teammate as he was making impressions of your other teammates.

You weren’t there, though. Anyone who knew your ups and downs would know that. You were pretending, something you did pretty good. But Soap knew, Ghost knew.

God, even Price could see it.

Ghost was the only one who saw you crying. It was the day before. You cried while he patted your knee.

It was something that affected him. Seeing you cry did so many things to his already broken heart, but he would get through it.

His main concern was you.

He dismissed Soap, and went over to sit next to you. You turned to look at the person who sat next to you, only to find him. Your smile faltered a bit, but you smiled again.

“When are you gonna stop this?”

You swallowed and tried not to break your smile.

“What, Simon?”

You called him by his real name, which was a warning. But Ghost wasn’t a guy that would consider a warning.

“Bullshit. I know you’re not here mentally. Talk to me.”

His voice dropped an octave and he gripped his gloves, ripping them off from his hands. Your sharp eyes met his as you opened your mouth for harsh words.

“Just because we made a mistake by fucking doesn’t give you the option to talk to me like you’re my psychologist.”

You hissed through clenched teeth, and got up.

You stormed out of the area, bumping your shoulder to Soap’s in the process.

“Hey-“

Ghost’s eyes never left you as he came next to Soap.

“Leave it Johnny.” He mumbled with raging eyes.

-

“Crow, where are you?!”

You gasped quietly as you shot up from the ground. You were looking at the sky, almost hypnotized.

You looked at the time on your clock, and you were there for an hour.

You looked around, finding the soldiers still talking and waiting.

You got up, walked towards them with slow and unsteady steps.

The soldiers saw you and got their guns ready. You didn’t even surrender.

“It’s for the best.” You mumbled to yourself as you took another step.

“Stop right there, lady!”

Someone yelled, but other hushed him.

“She’s one of them!”

You waited for the guns to start firing. You sighed deeply as you thought about the hurt you caused your loved ones. It was going to be better for everyone.

You held your breath and closed your eyes as the fires started, only to realize that you were flying.

Opening your eyes, you looked behind you to see your lieutenant’s chin.

“Sim-“

“Shut it.”

He put you into the truck, and locked the doors after he got out.

A pained sob left your throat after he left, and you held your face in your hands.

What was wrong with you? What the hell were you thinking? No, it would be better if you died. You’re a pussy.

The door of the truck opened harshly, and Simon got in.

“What the fuck was that?!” He yelled, hand slamming down in anger.

You just sobbed after that, but he shook his head.

“Fuckin’ hell.. I told you to talk to me, didn’t I?! You were going to die!”

Hi clenched his hands, fisting them. He punched the metal door and you flinched.

“Fuck..”

He mumbled again, and looked up at you. His eyes were red, angry.

“What’s wrong with you?” He asked after minutes of silence other than your broken sobs.

“It would be better-“

“No!”

He yelled again, body tense with so much anger.

“I hurt you all the time! Why, because of my fucking mental health? I promise you wouldn’t miss me if I died.”

Simon’s eye twitched as he punched his thigh. He pointed his finger at you accusingly. He took a deep breath before talking.

“You listen to me. I don’t want anything to happen to you. Nor do Soap or anyone want it. You hear me? I’ll take care of you, you’ll be better. Therapy, whatever the hell you want or need. I’ll fuckin’ do it. But you will not do..that again, yeah?”

Your face was scrunched up and Simon moved towards you, to hold you in his arms while you ugly cry. A big pained sob left you, making Simon’s heart clench.

“I’m sorry, M’such a wreck.”

Simon just held you tighter, brain fogged with the shit you tried to pull just minutes ago.

“Never, you hear me? Never do that again. Or I swear, I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”

You knew what he meant. He was scared. So were you.

“Tell me.” He mumbled into your hair, after minutes passed. You were now breaking deeply.

“I’ll try.”

“That’s it.”

You sniffled one last time.

“Let’s go, yeah? Wanna take a long bath. Gonna wash you up, sweet girl.”

Your heart was pounding in your chest as you thought about the man who was holding you.

You would try, just for him.

[liu-anhuaming]

all my mandarin dictionaries (and dictionary-adjacent books)

Through chatting with @don-dake and @cherrymintvampyyri, I've come to realize that I might own a less than normal number of Mandarin dictionaries. So, here's a post about all of them.

I do have two basic bilingual dictionaries (Mandarin/English): the Langenscheidt pocket dictionary and the DK visual dictionary. These are quite easy to buy and not that interesting imo, so I'm not gonna talk further about them.

I'm also going to include a couple books that aren't technically dictionaries, but are rather about etymology of characters, and that's close enough to count for me.

Okay, let's get on to the interesting stuff!

1. What Character is That? An Easy-Access Dictionary of 5,000 Chinese Characters by Ping-gam Go (second edition, 1995)

bilingual

This strange little dictionary was gifted to me by a nun who went to high school with my grandma and later lived in China as a missionary. It's organized alphabetically based on the English translation of each radical?

I have not used this dictionary for actual reference ever, because I flipped through it once and realized that it was absolutely whack. But it's cool to have I guess.

2. 新华字典 第11版

monolingual

This little guy was gifted to me by a Chinese classmate back when I was in college. It's a 字典, so it's just focused on defining individual characters and providing some words featuring that character. Despite being a mainland dictionary, it also has 注音 next to each character for some reason.

It's got some neat stuff towards the back, like the periodic table and a chart of all the 節氣 solar terms.

3. 小学生全笔顺 同义词 近义词 反义词 组词 造句 成语 多音多义字 词典

monolingual

Whew, that's a mouthful. This is an actual 词典, so it defines full words. It also provides example sentences, synonyms, antonyms, and close equivalents. Then there's a section for idioms, and another section for 多音多义字.

There's also this nifty little insert with examples of words/phrases that follow common patterns of repetition.

4. 新现代汉语词典

monolingual

I picked up this chunky guy from a used bookstore down the street from me (the owner of the store passed last year, and the store is no longer there unfortunately). This is a fairly normal dictionary, it's just bigger than my others and has more words listed in it.

One thing I also noticed is that this chart towards the end of the dictionary apparently had a strip of paper pasted on the bottom. It doesn't seem like something I can peel up without damaging the paper under it, and when I shine a flashlight through the page I can't make out any major differences between what's on the sticker and what might be on the page under it. So my best guess is there might have been some damage to the text on the page?

5. 商务馆学汉语近义词词典 The Commercial Press Guide to Chinese Synonyms

monolingual

This book is easily the one I reference the most. As the name suggests, the book is all about synonyms. It takes sets of 2+ similar words and thoroughly explains the similarities and differences between them all. There's plenty example sentences, with notes about whether the synonyms can be used interchangeably in certain contexts.

It's a great resource, but I had a bit of trouble getting my hands on a copy. It's possible that in the years since I bought it there have been more copies made available for sale though.

these next two are books I haven't explored too much since they are old and the binding is incredibly fragile and starting to fall apart. just opening them is stressful.

6. 漢字分解 Chinese Characters Explained by F.X. Keelan (aka 康愛玲修女) (1967?)

bilingual

This book was also gifted to me by the nun who went to school with my grandma, and appears to also have been written by a nun! Based on what I've found from Google, this book was published in 1967.

Rather than a dictionary, this book is "a compilation intended as an aid in grouping and remembering [Chinese characters] with a view in acquiring a reading knowledge of Chinese"(p. iii). It aims to break down characters into radicals and giving similar/related characters. It's apparently the final installment in a 4 part Mandarin Course.

This book uses traditional characters. According to Google Books, the publisher is 光啓出版社, which is a Taiwanese organization. The book includes a very long table that has Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese, Hakka, Japanese, and Korean pronunciations for (what seems to be) every character mentioned in the book. The intro mentions that this is so the course is more "accessible" for speakers of other East Asian languages.

Also, look at that printing error in the third photo! The text got cut off at the bottom of the page.

7. The Structure of Chinese Characters by John Chalmers (second edition, 1911)

bilingual

This final book is the oldest of the bunch, and was gifted to me by my boss's boss for some reason? She found it in a used bookstore apparently.

This book also uses traditional characters, because simplified characters just weren't a thing yet in 1911. This book is falling apart, and opening it stresses me out. It creaks whenever I open it.

Going by the title page, the full title of this book is An Account of the Structure of Chinese Characters Under 300 Primary Forms; After the Shwo-Wan, 100 A.D., and the Phonetic Shwoh-Wan, 1833. It was published by Kelly & Walsh, which was a Shanghai-based publisher.

Someone very kindly penciled in the years the author was alive: 1825-1899. John Chalmers was apparently a Scottish missionary (bc of course he was) who apparently popularized the term "Cantonese". This book that I own in particular was originally published in 1882.

It is, as the very long title suggests, an analysis and etymology of 300 common components

It also has a nifty fold-out of all 300 "primary forms" in seal script.

[aldisobey]

The Veilguard's Gift

AO3 link for you all

Set some months after the epilogue. Rook is feeling rested and visiting Neve at the Cobbled Swan for some easy work. Unfortunately the conversation doesn't get a chance to stay light.

------

A muse fairy visited me tonight and put this in my hands. Normally spend way longer with stuff before putting it out there but I know this'll be in wips way too long if I don't offer it up now and I think it's fun enough to share (or not we'll see how the morning hits haha). Full story below because it's shy of 2k, guess I wanted to practice Neve for the future.

“Rook. It’s good to see you.”

“Neve!” It’d only been a few months but he couldn’t help it. Rook took off dashing and engulfed her in a hug. Nearly sent them both tumbling into the muddied street at the violent joy of it.

“Whoa,” she responded with a dry laugh and a smirk, “must be doing well.”

Rook released her, still beaming and laughed in reply, the sound deep, and for once, maybe in all his years, rested. “My head’s finally quiet, I think I slept four weeks straight.” He hadn’t. Emmrich had made sure to wake him as much as need required, but those had been blissfully quiet moments, soft remembrances lost in fade of melding dreams.

“Aw, you’re thinking of him aren’t you?” She still smirked, dug an elbow into his side. The touch was grounding, made Rook blink and snap his head to the side where she walked with him. Their feet led them up the steps into the Swan as he gave a characteristic shake of his head.

“What?!” But he smiled, others might guess what subject his mind had retreated to when he spaced out, but Neve had a knack for knowing just what each glazed look was. Or…did she always guess Emmrich? Was it always him? Rook screwed his face in thought, and Neve chuckled low again, seemingly aware that she’d lost his attention to the lich once more.

“You’re still with him right? Where is he?”

The smile returned, but Rook kept the memories and distracting thoughts free from his mind as he and Neve made way to the preferred spot for the day in the Cobbled Swan. It shifted after all, and today the mood suited here. Sometimes intuition was the thing to follow.

“Of course! Neve we’re soulmates.” Said with his full chest, he cleared his throat, covered the sincerity with a chuckle. That was too loud, oh lord don’t think him too serious. Maker help him. It felt that and more.

“He’s back in Nevarra dealing with…” he nearly said lich business out loud. In the middle of Docktown's most prominent bar while accompanying someone that always drew eyes. He took a seat opposite the detective. Naturally Neve would meet him somewhere safe from enemies and their gossip. But it wouldn’t be uncommon for friendlier eyes to have an eye on her, for protection at the very least. Best not spread that ��secret’ further than needed. “...Mourn Watch business.”

Rook muttered as he settled into his chair and folded his hands in front of him on the table. Nodded. Pleased with the answer and seeming importance of his partner. “You know classes and stuff maybe start…”

Neve copied his movements, leaned onto the table in much the same way, perhaps stoking a conspiratorial spirit as she made direct eye contact. It broke off his thoughts, paused his words. Rook felt a shiver on his neck, something in her eyes was dire, insistent, and he couldn’t turn his gaze from it as she spoke even, slow. “Soulmates or not, you should think about breaking it off.”

She wasted no time. Rook confirmed it. Emmrich wasn’t here. Lucanis had checked, double checked. The Warden was here alone. And she didn’t know when that would happen again. If ever? Didn’t feel like bringing up the subject around the professor. Oh he would understand of course, give them space, but could he listen? Would he still hear every word? Friend or not, the foundations of the patterns taking form were troubling, best nip this early if possible. If it wasn’t dealt with…

Rook was in shock, jaw dropped, folded fingers coming loose as he drew back. His breath escaped hushed, surprised, and without any thought, “Neve…what…I’m…life is perfect?” Pained. It was like he’d been slapped.

He figured they would be swapping stories of their work. Well, his tales were mostly rest, but he could share such things after some of those dreams. And this meeting was supposed to be his first foray into some relaxingly safe work. Like building a park or something. And surely she wanted to talk about Lucanis, the Threads, detective work…anything other than whatever this was? It started with pain, to confusion, and was simmering into irritation, why would she say that?

“Listen, Rook. I love Emmrich, we all do, sincerely. We’re happy for both of you. And we know he’s obsessed with you.” Rook wanted to mutter obsessed with each other thank you, but her flat tone was as sincere as ever, and the gravity of the moment kept him silent. But for once, the hint of a tremble entered her words, “Where do you think that’s going to lead as you age? If you ever choose to put yourself in real danger again?” she paused, something had caught her eye, a flit of magic or some thinning of the Fade.

Thankfully a Thread mage outside the Swan had seen the same and dealt with whatever it was, but for the briefest moment her eyes widened in rare shock, and her voice dropped to a whisper, “It might take you a while to realize, that’s fine…” this was taking too long, too painful to say aloud and to make real, she groaned, “...just, if you ever need to disappear, I specialize in that work, know people that do. And I’ll always be here to help you. Okay? I’ll leave someone in my place if I’m too old for all this, so know that it’s always. Even if you’re in Nevarra.” With that said she pulled something from her pocket.

“You know how to use some magic items right?”

Rook nodded. Steeped in silence at the ‘attack’ or whatever this was.

Neve revealed a ring, pressed it into Rook’s slack hands before he could protest. He picked it up from his palm. It had a thick gold band, set with a large deep purple sapphire, and within it glowing soft, without shedding light, was the elven rune for rebellion. But when it caught light just so it threw soft purple in the room. Rook didn’t have the keenest eye for such things, but even he could tell this was a princely gift.

“Lucanis paid for this.” Rook muttered as he turned it in close examination, at times searching for that spot where it threw the light. Neve laughed light at that, eager to soften the conversation as well.

“Oh? Looking to take my job are you?” Rook looked up from the ring to Neve’s winking face, and found that he could smile again.

“Consider it a gift from your Veilguard. Wear it at all times. Never take it off. Grave gold is a thing for you now right? If you're buried...well...it needs to be with you.” She spoke halting, slow, firm. Many things left unsaid.

But the Warden heard them, and the warmth of sentiment over receiving such a grand gift faded, replaced with a feeling tight in his throat, a shiver that ran from head to toe. He closed a fist around the ring, he didn’t dare wear it until this picture came into focus. “Why? Neve. It’s magic?”

She sighed, looked ready to reach for a pipe as she leaned back in her chair. Content enough that Rook held it for the moment. She took a deep breath and briefly held up two fingers, “It’s got two uses I need you to learn. And its magic nature shouldn’t be detectable. Dorian helped with that.”

Rook blinked, “Why’s that…but…is this a secret?” His heart beat fast. The ring suddenly felt cold where it sat digging into his palm.

“First use. Tilt it just so, it doesn’t need light just the right angle for that rune, then whisper ‘whatever it takes’. We’ll try to get to you as fast as we can. A safety precaution. It’s likely Emmrich already gave you something of the sort.” She nodded to an expensive new piece of gold on Rook’s right index finger that he’d started rolling with the thumb of the same hand. The Warden gulped, brain rebelling against fitting the pieces to the pattern Neve could see so clearly.

“A beacon.” he muttered.

Neve nodded once, “Mhm. And when you activate it, it should be undetectable, that light is attuned to you, I can’t see a thing. Dorian struggled with that but seemed satisfied by the result. It won’t alert Emmrich. It…” She refused to voice any doubt. Shrugged, a brow furrowed, sighed before a firm, “It won’t.” Silence came between them as drinks were delivered.

Rook stared down at his fist, the ring hidden from sight. Mind reeling at the implications of it all. So much thought that had gone into this. All that work. And from the best people he knew? Why? Why go through all this trouble? Spend all this money? On magic that was hidden from…Rook bit his tongue, nearly bled, but once they were alone, servers absent, he spoke, his voice flat, a certain irritability building, “The second use?” his knuckles were white, clenched hand nearly shaking.

“Instant conflagration. For the wearer.”

“What…” a whisper of horror, a burn of bile in his throat, Rook coughed, settled it, but his face fell. He could feel a roiling in his gut, wanted to throw the damned thing as far as he could, but something caught, he couldn’t. He grasped it tight, went pale, sweat beading his brow. “...why…what…Neve…” pleading for her to spell it out, at the same time he seemed likely to bolt, his eyes wild, round, looking for some way out of this conversation. Out of all this.

Neve reached across the table, placed her hands over Rook’s quaking fist, over that princely magic ring meant to protect him. Protect him from? The Warden's nails were digging deep into his palm, nearly cut into flesh before the Tevene stilled him. He expected cold hands from an ice mage, the warmth surprised him, but calmed the uncontrolled movements. A shudder ran his skin, a warm touch. He closed his eyes, calming, breathing, and then looked back at Neve.

“Rook. I’m sorry." He could hear the pain there, the true grief. Perhaps even disbelief that she had followed through, had made this happen. But then she cleared her throat, and Rook could see determination take hold. A confident resilience that knew this might seem extra, but precautions always did seem silly when the storm you prepared for had never been witnessed. At least not of the specific type, she had seen…other varieties.

"I need to be quick, I want you to know it’s perfectly safe to wear.” Neve squeezed his hand, gentle, reassuring as best she could, “Like I said, Dorian helped. It’ll only happen in very specific steps. It'll be instant. Leave nothing behind. I need to know that you’ve learned the steps.”

The Warden swallowed. Blinked back the heat threatening again. Neve withdrew her hands as she felt him still. Rook choked down the rising anger towards her, at this, and looked down again. Opened his hand, once bruised and cut, twisted, calloused. Now, he noticed with a soft smile and shining eyes. Scarred, but soft, still rough, but not so harshly calloused. He hadn’t had to fight in months. Was that so bad? The ring looked blurry in his vision.

He blinked at the loving gift, the cursed thing. Picked it up. Turned it again in the light, noted that hue of the sapphire, they'd captured a favorite, and that rune what it meant for them all, that weight, and there that cast of light. And he felt warmth again. Love radiating from the rest of that family he finally found. They were warning him. He didn’t believe them. Almost hated Neve for this.

He slid the ring onto his left index finger.

“What are they?”

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

Hiii, do you have any tips for drafting out embroidery patterns? I've got one in mind, but drafting it out and color picking is so nerve-wracking!!

[Hi!!!! this got kinda really long so I'm gonna crop it under a read more. And I honestly don't have any real training/instruction in fiber arts so this is just how I do things, and probably others do them very differently!]

Haha so my fandom embroideries are VERY different from my non-fandom personal pieces in this respect. For non-fandom things i just kind of throw myself in like WAHOO FREEFORM LETS GO and go for a kind of messy colorful approach that ends up as things like this:

Versus my fandom stuff is way more structured and designed to fill space, be very precise, etc. So for those I do go in with a digital mock up of the design I make in photoshop, that I then color in, and then as my last step translate to thread colors.

For my Dragon Age series. this has been because I'm specifically trying to mimic the stained-glass style of art you see in parts of the game like the dialogue wheels, some icons, windows, etc. The icons in particular were really easy to copy into embroidery because they already come in handy circles:

This is mostly because I have desperately wanted to pick up stained glass work as a hobby for like 6 years now. As in once every 3-6 months I put everything I'd need to start doing it into an online shopping cart and look at the price total and then sadly close the window because I just don't actually have any space I could do it in (I live in a 2bed apartment so i have no garage or yard or anywhere it wouldn't make everything else a mess or be a hazard). The day after one of those events I impulse bought and completed a floral embroidery kit from the craft store and kinda was like... ok, well, I did this once how hard can it be to use this medium to mimic the hobby I wish I could be doing? Plus, it's only like 60 cents per color! I can afford that! So I took the first design I wanted to do, the romance icon, and basically redrew it sloppily in photoshop, then freehand-copied the design onto fabric and stitched it the next day:

I learned a lot from this piece and changed my approach a little. Here you can see I tried shading in the parallel direction to my thread, which looked messy and added texture, so now I shade horizontally to my thread direction instead.

But it gave me a basic approach for turning the Tarot cards or DA Keep tiles (or any other art!) into embroidery patterns, which I couldn't copy as directly into this really smooth stained-glass style. There's a basic process I follow when doing these conversions that generally follows the same order, which I'll go through below.

STEP 1: SHAPES

The first thing I do is pick the shape of my display frame which is usually a circle, but could be an oval or rectangle too, since I hang the finished pieces on my wall to have nice way to show them off. I like to fill the whole space so knowing the size and shape of what I want the finished project to look like is a good goal for me. Since I am doing fandom pieces I want to be recognizable, I do stick pretty close to the "original" character design/art, but you can absolutely change as much as you want and freehand draw your own interpretation instead. If you're doing original art just substitute the below composition notes with "sketch out roughly what you want it to look like". I personally do my pattern drafting digitally as I find it easier, but you can do this part by hand too.

First, I keep the reference image I'm working off of open next to me while I work, and draw in the shape of my frame (here, a circle). If I'm adding in the little border to be fancy, I add a second inner circle. I keep these as their own top layer so I always know I'm working within the final "frame" and don't spend time designing any section that will fall outside it. Then I will take copies of the reference image and knock the layers down to 25-50% opacity, and start moving them around underneath the 'frame' layer until I like the way their positioning looks as a composition. Sometimes elements of a card I want to include don't all fit in, so I'll chop the section out and add an additional layer to throw in (like the background circle things in the Hermit design below). Or I'll just freehand things like adding much bigger diamonds behind Solas in my Hierophant design because I did NOT want to do 1000 tiny ones. Then once I'm satisfied with the general composition, I'll use the plain ol circular brush tool to trace out the major shapes of each element. I try to keep in mind that I can't go too small, and curvy lines are more difficult to fill in than straight ones. I usually do a rough messy version first, make it mostly transparent, and then a cleaner and more precise one over that.

(you can see parts of the rough one on the left and the fully 'cleaned up' on the right for the Hierophant design)

Now: depending on what you are doing next with the pattern, this might be where you stop and start coloring. If you are planning to freehand your design or just trace it onto fabric (or even print it onto fabric here), there's no need to do more than this kind of lineart! However, if you are working digitally and want to create a scalable vector so you can print it at different sizes, you can use the pen tool in photoshop to trace your design and make a "work path" of the lineart. However, another note: THIS PART IS VERY FRUSTRATING AND TEDIOUS BECAUSE THE PEN TOOL WAS CREATED BY THE DEVIL TO TORMENT US. It is so so so easy to accidentally delete a line or even the whole path and not notice later on. Ask me how I know 😭 Anyway I'm not going to include a pen tool tutorial because I don't even know how to use it well and have to google or watch videos every other time I try to use it. But if you can muddle through it gets you some really clean lines that eventually look like this:

With the work path selected, you can select the brush tool/size/color and use the "stroke path" option to create lineart of the vector. Then you can save this as a transparent png file for use at different sizes and for printing and it looks so nice and clean! one of the big benefits to this is that you get really fine lines that are easier to be precise with stitching on. This is extra perfect if you are printing the design directly onto your fabric (which you can do with an at-home inkjet printer for designs under 8inches wide, as long as you stick a piece of stabilizer on the back of your fabric and cut it down to printer sheet size--this is what I do and can make another post about that process if people want haha), or if you are printing onto transfer paper like you can buy at craft stores.

This is where I end the lineart for my designs. After I have this, I move on to the next phase, which is...

STEP 2: COLOR

For interpreting my designs into thread, I start by thinking of it as flat colors first. You can't "shade" as easily with threads as you can with things like paint or brushes in digital art (though you can A Little, which I will get into), so to start color planning I pick the "main" color each section will be in the piece.

For the existing icons this was simple--I kept the same sections as the original designs, so for each I just color picked or eyeballed the color in photoshop and colored it in (but you could do this on paper with pencils, markers, whatever as well--they don't need to match your threads exactly and usually won't, it's just to give you an easy reference to follow as you go). For the tarot cards which were more complicated in coloration, I just did my best and went with what looked good next to each other, even if it was a little off the original art. It will be off more later anyway when you have to pick threads so don't stress it too much honestly. I will often make layers with different color options and turn them on/off for direct comparison to try to determine what I think looks best as well, like below where I was debating between more blue/desaturated for the background or brighter colors.

I do wanna note I have regrets about the color selection, shapes, or shading in EVERY SINGLE ONE of my finished pieces. But no one else ever comments or probably even notices! One aspect of this hobby is just learning to be satisfied with what you've made and using what you learned to get closer to your preferences next time. I'm only going back and redoing some of my designs' colors because I want to make it easier for others to choose on the patterns I sell, more than I care for just for myself. Also since I'm doing this lineart/stained glass looking approach where I go over the distinct shapes with black thread at the end, it means I get these clear delineations between sections you might not necessarily have in your own pieces, and that's ok.

Ok right. Now while shading/coloring in detail is hard with thread, you CAN make whats essentially dithered gradients. "Dithering" in the concept of art means using 2 (or more) colors to give the impression of a third color, or to gently scale between the existing binary rather than a hard line. Think of it like blocky pixel art or gameboy game images. If you're doing needlepainting, you use really small stitches close together to get this effect, which translates to "smaller pixes"--if you look at the jellyfish in my first photos that's a very messy casual version of that. If you want a better example, I recommend looking at @ammocharis 's pieces like these in her pinned post, which are truly amazing! I simply do not have the patience myself 😂 For my stained glass style, I work only in very long straight stitches, so I can only shade in one direction and have to be a little more precise with it.

So for shading, I think about in each section which direction my threads might go. Then perpendicular to that direction I pick which side will be the light one and which the darker one. Sometimes I color this in on my pattern mockup, but sometimes I don't! Or I'll only do it for certain sections to make sure I don't forget. Like for my Tower design I only colored it as flats, and waited until I selected threads to decide how the shading would go. I am currently working on a smaller, simplified version of my Hierophant design and I did add shading digitally for that one just for fun. But it's not as important as having the flat color version you can use to quick-reference how you want your design to go while you're stitching. You might also notice I don't actually color my gold--I just throw in a stock image of gold foil for that layer so I can't confuse it with any of my yellow thread sections.

Here's a close up where you can kind of see what I mean by the "dithered" effect between colors--some are more obvious (like the red on the far left or middle orange) and others pretty subtle (dark grey to dark red on the wolf face):

Now, while I use single layers of satin stitches for this, and just alternate thread colors increasing/decreasing as I go, you can accomplish the same thing with short overlapping stitches like with needlepainting, or with clusters of french knots, or whatever else. But in GENERAL you are going to be able to trick people into seeing gradients out of dithering best when you are using the same type of stitch for that whole area. So if I was using multiple stitch types like having french knots, daisy chains, ladder stitching or whatever else for some sections, I would keep those to contrasting areas/colors. A fantastic example of using different layered types of stitching to create more intricate color/texture in an embroidery would be these incredible tarot card depictions by @hattedhedgehog, which I like even better than my own embroideries. Here's his take on the Tower card as well for comparison to mine (I'm so in love with it!!!).

But anyway, at this phase, your design is actually still digital--the above is just to explain how it translates later in the process. The next step is...

STEP 3: THREAD SELECTION

I will admit here I am not great at this part. I am constantly second guessing my thread colors, and can spend over an entire hour in the thread aisle at the craft store agonizing over choices. Really, I think this is just one of those things that takes practice and you get better at it over time. What I have had the best luck with is actually printing out a reference photo of my design/the original artwork and taking it with me. If you already have threads you can do this part at home too, but DMC alone has over 500 colors and I definitely don't even own half that so I like to torture myself by looking at them all together on the thread racks. Plus Anchor and Artiste and whatever other brands there are out there. One approach is to just sit there and pick out what you want for each section and line it all up together on top of your printout. Or in the case of my Tower I laid a bunch of options out on top of my template in the hoop to guess how they'd look in the frame.

For me since I am also doing this dither shading thing, I also need 2-3 colors per sections depending on its size. Sometimes it's easy and the threads have a color just a little darker or lighter right next to them in the numerical lineup! Other times, there is no good match, or it looks too far away to shade nicely, or I want one to be a warmer or cooler tone than the other... which means a lot of standing and fretting to myself over it. I actually take a lot of photos at this stage because it can be easier to see how they will look in the end from a photo than in person to me? Idk why. Plus then after they get scrambled in my bag I remember wtf order I meant for them to go in later. But as long as you're not preventing other customers from shopping themselves, you can spend as long as you want staring at thread in the embroidery aisle and they won't kick you out unless it's closing time, so take your time.

Now, IN THEORY, you can sort of combine steps 2 and 3 by color-selecting from your threads and using that to color in the design. However I have tried this and it led to mixed success because the photoshop eyedropper brush simply isn't actually that exact (in my experience, it desaturates compared to what we actually see). And because then you have to have the threads on hand while you're coloring... which means you might buy ones you don't end up using if you don't like them. So I prefer to just use this as a refinement step where I pick threads based on the design colors, then will re-color the design a second time to match those threads more closely to be sure I like the effect.

I've even used this as a tool when I needed to adjust my color choices mid-project, by digitally coloring over over my WIP:

Or here's a design (but I haven't posted the finished piece yet bc it's a gift so shhh) I made with certain color tones initially, but after buying thread I re-did the color mockup to be more vibrant, because I liked those threads better in the store:

Once you have your thread, you can make yourself a little reference chart with the colors you intend noted on the sections you want them, like below:

(note: i didn't end up sticking to these colors because I ended up dying my own thread for several sections. And then forgot I made this entirely and picked new ones because I put the project down for a year between design and stitching. Sigh).

Or for my Solas pattern I did this in a really detailed way, which i am sorry but i have redacted because... i have it for sale now and don't wanna just give that away haha. But if you buy the pattern from my shop this is one of the files you'd get with it, for ease of reference. I do also include a text-only list of them as well.

Now I don't go to this much trouble for all my designs, just the ones I put up for sale (or plan to). You can also just make a text list of your color plans if you want. Though for fun I also have been using my scrap thread to make these little "color palette" keyrings for my finished pieces, so if I ever remake them or update their patterns I will know what the original colors were, plus I can compare what i used to other threads if I wanna change part of the design up. This step is absolutely not necessary and I'm just doing it because I'm selling the patterns now, but they are kinda fun to look at.

And don't forget.. if you start a section in a certain color and decide you don't like it, you can just cut the threads and pull them out! I did that with my original hierophant piece actually. I had an entirely different color for one row of diamonds i thought just clashed way too much with the others, so I used photoshop to paint over it with some alternate options until I found one I liked better. Then I cut away all the old threads and put in the new color. It can be a little harder to fill a piece the second time since the fabric will have stretched out a little, but as long as you're using a good stabilizer it usually doesn't move too much.

You can also just make test swatches on spare fabric to test before you add them to your real piece. I wish I'd done this for some color transitions that didn't end up looking the way I wanted, but I am simply too lazy most of the time. My exception is usually for metallic, satin, or sparkly threads, because I want to know how they feel while embroidering. But if you're really worried about a certain color or shade it's a good thing to remember you can just do.

SO yep, that's my general process for drafting patterns. I start with the shapes/design, then do my flat color version, then I pick my threads. Makes it sound easy and short when phrased like that :) But I can honestly spend 8-10 hours just on making the lineart and coloring it in. If I was better at art, probably this would be less, but I'm working with what I've got (not much) 😂 I think all aspects of this are also something that gets easier over time, but it will probably never look as bad as you worry when you start out. I think all my pieces look awkward and rough right up until I do the finishing steps and move them to the display frame sometimes.

I hope this was helpful and answered your questions!! Feel free to post/share your WIPs to ask for feedback or advice ever too :) I've only ever had people in the embroidery community on tumblr be encouraging and helpful to me, and I'm happy to answer any questions myself when I can or if parts of this were confusing

[gallaghersgal]

DAY THIRTEEN → hot coco / baking, sydney adamu

TAGS & WARNINGS → all fluff! fem!reader, idiots to lovers lowkey, also neighbors to lovers. (slightly) late entry for bearblr promptober!

WC → 872

you knock on your neighbor’s door, prepared for your… girls night. you’d hoped it was a date, but for some reason you’d blurted out, ‘oh, like a girls night in!’ when syd proposed the idea. you’ve been kicking yourself since.  you’d suggested the two of you use tonight as an excuse to put on a nice outfit, go out of your way to make that kind of effort when your busy schedules barely allow it. 

she opens the door with a grin, her lips lined in deep brown and accentuated by a soft pink gloss. she wears a dark patterned sweater with a black skirt and tights, paired with shiny black boots, a silk scarf over her hair, and small gold hoops in her ears. 

“ugh, you look amazing!” you say, stepping inside and setting your share of ingredients down on her counter. when your hands are free you turn around to hug her, a polite embrace you wish would last longer. when you hold each other at arm’s length you point out, “i can’t believe you’re copying me!”

sydney’s gaze drifts over your red turtleneck, black skirt and tights. you wear white mary janes to match your white eyeliner and large daisy earrings. “please, you look so good like- stop! get out of my kitchen,” she teases, shoving you lightly before an awkward look washes over her. “fuck, sorry that was-“

you shake your head and laugh it off. sydney’s awkward bits and idiosyncrasies made her special to you. they made her the girl you were falling wholly, hopelessly, head over heels for. 

you fall into easy conversation, browsing the pages of sydney’s recipe books. she preps the dough for croissants, the perfect pairing for the french hot chocolate sydney overheard you raving about. she’d offered to make it for you, and after the whole date vs. girls night fiasco—which neither of you had discussed, but both seemed to notice the error—you felt bad, offering to bring ingredients for croissants to pair with the drink. 

after prepping the dough, sydney passes it to you to roll out while she gets to work on the hot chocolate. you roll it out, then fold it over just like sydney’s shown you before. with careful hands you roll the dough into two large croissants, situating them on the pan and placing them in the hot oven.

turning towards the living room, your eyes take in the space for the first time tonight. the coffee table is cleared off, a fall centerpiece is in the middle, and small candles light the area. despite being an electric replica, seeing as the mantle was decorative and had no chimney, her fireplace brings a glow and warmth into the room. 

“can i put on some music? i’ve always wanted to use your record player!” you ask, gesturing into the room. truthfully you want a better look at her decor.

“yeah of course,” she tells you. “my record basket’s under the desk.” 

you kneel by the wicker basket, glancing over at sydney’s concentrated face as she slowly heats chocolate over the stove. she’s so beautiful, you think.

you thumb through rows of old school soul records until a stevie wonder greatest hits collection sticks out. you place the record down and drop the needle with a grin.

sydney looks up at you, the two braids she pulled in front of her silk scarf now hang in front of her eyes, but she’s smiling nonetheless. she nods your way as the first notes of for once in my life play. “great choice!”

you return to her side, “you have great taste. seriously, sam cooke? aretha franklin? that’s a little before our time.”

sydney’s eyes never leave the chocolate, stirring it into thickness after adding the ingredients. “uh- yeah! it’s just all, like, stuff my dad listens to. we’re pretty close, so.” she moves the pot off the stove, pouring the dark chocolate mixture over a bit of milk in two white teacups. “pretty sure if you look a little further though, theres a vinyl for uh… the ratatouille soundtrack?”

you laugh, watching her make an embarrassed face as she grabs something from the fridge. “you’re serious,” you ask.

“yeah, i was like fifteen and just got my first record player,” sydney tells you as she grabs two spoons from her drawer and pries the top off the container. homemade whipped cream. 

“syd, this is-” you whisper, cutting yourself off. you dip your spoon into the whipped cream, then turn it upside down over your cup. it falls into the dark liquid, melting at the sides from the heat. you take a sip immediately, not minding the warmth that spreads through your chest. “oh my god. this is amazing.”

she takes a sip for herself, whipped cream getting stuck on her upper lip. “you have a little-“ you gesture toward her face, and her eyes go a little wide. nervously, she looks around for a napkin, but your hands on her cheeks stop her. “i’m going to kiss you,” you tell her quietly.

sydney only nods, then your lips are on hers. she tastes like chocolate and peppermint, with a hint of the whipped cream you’ve cleaned off with your kiss.

© gallaghersgal, 2024. inbox. masterlist.

div. © saradika (x).

[wishjacked]

Happy #WebcomicDay!! :D

This year we're celebrating the process of making pages... so below the cut I've got a bunch of pictures sharing how I go about making pages of my evil post-apocalyptic workplace sitcom, Cargo!! :D

So! My process!!

Writing-> I think sometimes there's pressure to "write" your comic a certain way, I see people talking about script format and stuff a lot. That really doesn't work for me, though! I write my "first draft" script in short scenes on scrap paper, in whatever order they come to me. Sometimes a scene will just be one or two lines, and then a little description of what I want to happen in the rest of the scene.

Later I type the scene up, and write the "connective tissue" that fits between the disjointed scenes so they all flow together like they ought. I don't do page breaks or even character tag or action notes hahahaha I like it to be as BASIC as POSSIBLE so it's easy to edit. And since I'm the person drawing it I can almost always remember who's supposed to be saying what lmao

I edit a lot, but the most major editing is also probably the last bit... when I letter my pages usually I realize "they would never say that" and so I end up rephrasing everything. My art brain is sometimes waaaaay better at phrasing hahaha. Like you can see in the finished page for this script I rewrote like basically all of it, and actually went back to the original "sketch" script in a lot of places.

Thumbnailing-> my thumbs are really big, I draw them with markers on printer paper and keep them in a binder!! I like to thumb scenes in batches and I also usually write my dialogue on them, just so I can read through them before (and while) I draw to get a feel for how the pacing works. :)

Sketching-> OH sketching is also really hard for me! I don't have a good visual imagination so it's really important for me to make sure I have good references. Last year I was especially focusing on setting.

My comic is set in Florida. I'm lucky in that I used to live there and still go back to visit sometimes, so sometimes I can gather my own reference images! But more often I start on Google Maps or Zillow, trying to find buildings that have interesting features or the right kind of "look" for what I want. I'll also look up other interesting elements, my comic is set in a post-apocalypse and I'll research home gardening and things like that which people would probably have.

For example, in this set in chapter 7, I used Google Maps images, photo references of indoor hydroponic gardening, and like, 90's-00's hacker computer setups haha. Also my BFF Roomstyler.com, where you can make 3d house interiors haha!!

Lineart-> I LOVE lineart it is my favorite!!!! I sketch and ink two pages at a time, and it usually takes somewhere between 10-12 hours to do both steps.

I actually think my art looks best when it's just lineart... but I think my STORY is better with color, like it makes it clearer and easier to read and it has a better atmosphere HAHA.

Colors-> I think it usually takes me 4-6 hours to do 2 pages (I haven't timed myself as consistently as I time my lineart and sketching). I have a big file with small copies of my previous pages that I color drop from, and my characters are all flats only. The limited palette that I use is also really handy, it streamlines coloring a LOT.

Finishing Touches-> aka I steal mercilessly from my one true love, my internet home, the beautiful and blessed Wikimedia Commons

I put lots of overlay layers on my art! I like textures so having some strange little textures or pictures on things makes my art feel a lot more finished to me.

And finally my very most favorite ✨finishing touch✨ is the bright colored/patterned gutters that I use. Here are some of my favorites that I've made and used in the past!

And that's all!! I hope you guys have a very happy Webcomics Day and find lots and lots of wonderful new things to read!!!

[color-craz]

AF MidWeek Round-up!

This is just a simple post compiling all of my attacks so far along with some artists notes! Mostly because I found myself much more active this year than last year (Minus these few couple days due to some appointments). I'll be tagging everyone and linking to other socials so you can see these lovely folks. Of course if you want to attack me, I'm ready to fight! Without further ado, here's all the attacks so far :>

@cosmicdenro @stellarknightz - Weekend Date The name of the game for these first few attacks was to get everyone who I was supposed to last year but ran out of time ^^;;. I decided upon Jesse's Zircon over Jesse the character (one in my bookmarks) b/c it seemed like Turquoise Zircon was less drawn this year but was his icon on AF. So easy pick from me :> (Btw doing Sodalite's stripes and copying Zircon's shape language was really fun!!)

@/clawothy (Twitter) - Chill Cat Another attack from last years bookmarks! It was definitely a soft but enjoyable opening into drawing furries since Claw's so human shaped. It was fun drawing his tail and patterns :>. This is just a nice character design all around.

@twidaisi - Speedy Service Twi was also one from my bookmarks, but also a doorway down an ArtFight rabbit hole. Which will become apparent in the next two pieces. For this one, I had a pretty clear pose in mind so I placed it onto O.R.B.I and went from there!! His design is so neat and he seems so cool! The pose was also pretty fun to do as well, just an overall fun art piece (Also this one got a revenge!!! I still really really love thank you so much!!!!!)

@scratchgeist - Escapism Ho! This was a doozy! Twi had Scratch's profile linked so I ended up hitting him with an attack too. Drawing Scratch's mane turned out to be a pleasant experience despite me originally fearing it. This scene idea also came from a prompt of Scratch going outside. I ended up putting Polish on this because all those scratchy "ink like" lines I actually did manually (take a fuzzy brush and then go over it using a sketchbook eraser). It was nice dipping my toes into BatIM again and trying out more animal feature.

@/stylin.art Instagram @/crypticc0rpse Instagram - Pirates in arms One of those two people were linked on Scratch's profile and the person linked also linked to the other person. But I realized that both Stylin and Crypt had some shared characters. So this ended my little rabbit hole of people by attacking these two lovely fellows at the same time. This little crossing swords idea took me a nice minute to come up with but I liked how it ended up anyway. I really did like drawing James together like this (probably helps that I really like pirates in general). Also yes I know her hand is fucked up I noticed way to late to fix it.

@smoresthehalloweenqueen - Listen to the waves Once I finished up with that I moved onto the next bookmark, which was Smores! Originally I was gonna draw Brutus but then I was like "I like his sona it looks like fun!" So I drew them listening to music because why not :>. I struggled on the arms initially but it came out real clean and nice. Honestly might be my best work so far! (Fun fact, I color picked the waves + background from Seafoam's icon.)

@skittisketch - I got it! Mr. Sascachawean himself! I referenced this pose form the classic Objection point because I thought it would fit his personality. This was also a little bit of a test with a style I had only done in sketches (Basically my human style but omitting a neck which somehow shaves off a lot of time). This was a super fun pose to do with a pretty nice background! (Once again, fucked up hand I know I noticed too late again)

@justpainterrobot - Rare Nightly Sight I had this really really clear picture of what I thought up for this attack and I'm happy that I was able to make it a reality. I put the polish tag on this one because I almost got super super detailed of what the junk was below her (Stuff coming down from Elysium n all that) but due to a lack of references I just went with typical metal and wood. Fun fact, the night sky in the background is based on the one from Deponia itself (The first game's scenes with the professor at night). I think this rewrite of Toni was really cool from what I could find about her. Overall a labor of love type of attack.

@coelpts @swan-swanno - Boss Battle I thought to myself "Hm, I see Coelpts around a lot, lets hit him with an attack." and it turns out Ciel's gay married to Swanno's charater Mikhail, who was the last one in my bookmarks from last year. So another double attack for this one! It was a struggle starting this one mostly because I was debating whether or not to draw Ciel's Lord outfit but I ended up doing so because why not :>. It was a fun experience copying Swanno's more angular style, which is a stark departure from my more rounded shapes (As you can see here). Has a nice venture doing the lighting as well, overall a good experience.

@tailsylennon - Sweet Treats Mitchell showed off Tasily's proflie one day and I saw their sona and was I was like "Lemme draw it!" and did! I ended up following another prompt by her because it was their birthday! (By the time I started on this it was 8 pm and I freaked tf out and got to work). Her sona was really cool and I really loved drawing them. Fun fact, each of the set pieces references the Hallows Souls trio. The chair is decorated after Terra, Markus is the table, and Whistle pallet is used for the tea set :>. It was just a pleasant and cozy attack to make overall.

@ceaseless-enemy - Congratulations!!!! I've actually known about Voila for quite awhile now and thought his design n theaming is quite neat! I actually based the pose off of Ai from Oshi No Ko (I think one of her key arts before the anime released, ifykyk). But I skillfully cut out the legs because I can't draw digitigrade legs... Hooray... Otherwise it was quite nice to work on this attack in particular, especially the eyes and the hair :>.

@killbent - Getting Ready This is another one I had a real clear idea of prior to doing this, specifically because Killbent gave a prompt to give Mr Fairchime pink hair, so i thought a "pre-show" set up would look nice :>. The lighting was another new venture for me, because I usually do cool/night time like lighting but I think it turned out nicely for Fairchime. It was also fun doing the accessories and stuff on the vanity as well. Fun Fact, it's a bit hard to see through the watermark + lighting but the face paint and pallet both have the colors of his make up! Overall a pleasant and warm attack for this year.

And that's all of them so far! I picked up some new bookmarks + I gotta get Twi back for drawing Compact!! So those will probably be compiled by the end of AF so about, early August-ish if I keep up the pace. Anyway, thank you so much for reading and gracing me with the opportunity to draw all of these amazing characters!

Until next time!

-Gappy, Witch of the Stars

[niuttuc]

My Favorite Cards of 2024: Outlaws of Thunder Junction

The year is pretty close to over, so let's go back over the sets released this year (with new cards at least), and go through a few of my favorite cards from that release. I'll group together stuff released together, in this case it'll be Outlaws of Thunder Junction, its commander cards, and the Big Score. I'll probably go through one set a day for the next week, though I might skip some days for personal reasons.

Let's start with these! The Spree mechanic offered us plenty of versatile cards to play with, and I enjoy having options in my game of magic. I'll single out these three because they're solid and can fit in more decks than one would think!

Lavaspur Boots are Boots number 3! Better than Swiftfoot for haste, worse for protection, but much better by being tutorable via Urza's Saga. If you want things (like Karnstructs) to attack or activate immediately, grab a pair of boots!

Seeing more stack interaction in White is nice, and Aven Interrupter being able to completely blank enemy counterspells is even nicer. The card isn't too oppressive, but it's very solid and I like it!

Any black deck with enough creatures to cast Hollow Marauder for even 3 or 4 mana in commander should consider it. It's just a big flying body that often draws two or three cards while making the opponents go down some precious resources. Basically a better mulldrifter that sticks around!

Plenty of powerful artifacts in the Big Score, but Legion Extruder is I think the most underrated of them. 2 Damage immediately removes a utility thing, but the ability to sac any artifact, including tokens, at instant speed to get a 3/3 blocker, or to replace a chump blocker, or to sac ITS OWN TOKENS to have "unkillable" blockers, or.... Just a lot of utility in this one.

Criming is easy. Ramping for free for every crime is incredibly good, and Freestrider Lookout has shown up in plenty of environments already. Just double check whether your deck (or just your commander) can commit crimes trivially!

Didn't end up as big a player in the long run than Yuta Takahashi's, but Nathan Steuer's World Championship card is still nice and worth a mention. This is an incredibly cool prize for Worlds and I want to see it keep going for many years.

Commanders that do something entirely new in relatively little text are incredibly rare these days, and Obeka's new card executes on it very very cleanly. And Obeka herself is neat!

Knight of the White Orchid is the best white card to ramp in Commander, and Sand Scout is toeing its spot. Somehow, people underrate it enough you can still grab copies for about 20 cents. You do not need to be a Desert deck to run this card, just about any white non-green deck probably should... And some green white decks if they expect lands in graveyard.

The typical play pattern is a 2 mana 2/2 that searches up a bounceland, Arid Archway, ramping you while maintaining your land count the same. This is extremely important in white because this means it's catch-up ramp that breaks the symmetry, and keeps your other catch-up ramp enabled by itself. With that said, in a pinch it can fetch a ping desert for mana fixing or a Scavenger Grounds for graveyard hate, and that's extra utility that's nice on an already powerful ramp card. Furthermore, if you're playing fetchlands, you'll randomly get some extra 1/1s for no effort.

I wouldn't fill a manabase with deserts for this, it's already an excellent card with three of them in the entire deck. If you blink it three times already or get enough lands on the field that it turns off because you're out of deserts, you probably have enough lands it's not ramping anyway and it's late in the game.

Is Simulacrum Synthesizer a good design? The jury is still out on that. But it's certainly an impressive one! The larger the format and the more affinity cards in it, the stupider it becomes, but it's still an incredibly flashy card and it hasn't broken anything yet.

Taii Wakeen is a really nice top down design of a sniper, in an area that hasn't been explored much in the game. I wish the activated ability wasn't so open as to make that first part almost irrelevant in commander, since they just end up being a way to cheese face damage instead of something that takes down creatures precisely.

Another artifact from the Big Score I enjoy the design of, Collector's Cage has had moments of fame since it was released... But for the most part it's still sleeping and waiting for its time. Instant-speed +1/+1 counters on anything are easy to underestimate, but threat of activation on that makes blocking the Collector's Cage player VERY annoying... And then they might even have any spells hidden away down there!

Finally, Slickshot Show-Off technically shouldn't be on this list, but I wanted to add it because it's one of very few cards released this year that actively made me enjoy magic less, an anti-favorite if you will. They just pushed it slightly too far, we've already seen half decent Kiln Fiend decks in the past WITHOUT evasion AND without Haste. Adding BOTH plus a way to cast it with all your mana open for spells just ends up in cheesy wins that are deeply unsatisfying, and forces everyone involved in matches with these to constantly be sitting on instant speed removal the entire game or praying they don't just die out of nowhere.

You could have removed any one ability from this (except the pump) and still had a good card. But everything together makes for an obnoxious package.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

as an artist who just wants to get to drawing the pretty clothes and is terrible at posing i am forever enamoured by your poses..... they have so much energy and movement!!!

was this via art study, a general knack for anatomy or do you just enjoy posing specifically? and do you have any tips?

(i was just wondering bc your pose work is always so dynamic :D (your lighting also slaps /pos))

this is one case where it's a secret fourth thing lol. I have never successfully studied a single thing in my life, I am not at all a naturally "gifted" artist (and as well I reject the idea altogether), and posing has never jumped out to me as its own task in drawing at all! the way I do anything art-related, and posing specifically, is a lot more mechanistic than how it's perceived I think; I've just assumed this came as a function of how narrative-forward I see art, and how much I focus on comic work.

what folks talk about as "posing" I usually think of in two terms: composition and character acting. composition is how the figures fit into the intended frame, and character acting is the actual motion that'll be portrayed. you can see how that logically works itself out! there are more words than stars in the sky written about composition already, I honestly don't think there's anything I can say that'd be more useful than words from artists like thomas romain. character acting is itself more a matter of writing than visual art to me; you've got a guy and they probably do things, you draw them do those things, that's really it. the rest of it is just, figuring out weights and accenting in a scene, shape language, line flow, discipline-specific stuff like that; since no matter what I'm drawing I always mentally think of it as a comic thing, I usually try to insist on the strong points of that medium, one of which is colloquializing shapes to imply the entirety of a movement through a single panel. I don't always succeed at this! I hope to do better in the future. but it's how I approach this matter.

I think sitting down with your art to think about like, how you're approaching it and what you're in it for would help with troubleshooting a lot of the times. it's helped me before! I'm a completely hedonistic artist, I don't draw what I don't want to draw. what is it exactly about posing that's giving you a hard time? is it something you can do without? usually it is. if it's the thinking up a pose part, you can copy poses from high fashion magazines and sewing pattern models and just photos you find. if it's the fitting a pose into a nice looking complete picture part, don't make it a nice looking complete picture, do it sketchbook style, collage a buncha stuff together. if you never want to think about posing ever again, that's what stock bases are for! make urself some or get some from an artist and just draw the nice clothes.

if ur committed to figuring out posing and wanna ease urself into it, I find prompt lists are pretty good for giving ur brain a ground to build on top of and start asking questions. it's also a good exercise to sit down before drawing a thing to ask urself what u want it to be like, genre-wise: is it gonna be a comic cover, or a family photo, or a professional photoshoot, etc. these things have their own visual languages, and keeping that in mind will direct u on how to frame and choose the movements for ur piece. or, if that's overwhelming, drawing characters running is always good! there's plenty of character acting involved in there, it shows off the physicality of the clothes nicely, and it's decently easy to frame.

(I am similarly mechanistic about pretty much every other aspect of drawing lol, lighting/shading included. fully a case of "if it looks alright I put it in, if it doesn't I don't do it". I still struggle with it every time I do colors, but what can ya do. if the piece asks for it that's what it'll get. thank you very much for the nice ask!)

[ganondoodle]

i have never played or seen anything of outer wilds (game) and im just now watching someone play it and i keep thinking like .. man .. the sonau could have been something like that in totk, like even the architecture of the nomai in OW looks similar - very angular and mostly off-white green and gold, the name nomai is similar to the english translation for the sonau (zonai), the only(?) somewhat living one of the old and gone people is called solanum which reminds me of sonau and the ore sonanium (engl. zonaite), heck the nomai are goat like looking people with three eyes and use a highly advanced but little understood tech that you need to discover!!! they got swirly patterns alot! they even fuck up some time stuff!!

and im not saying nintendo copied them or something, the general idea isnt something all too unique (as no ideas are) but some of the similarities (like highly advanced in tech three eyed goat people that have a white and green/gold color scheme) do just make me sad bc i keep thinking about thats how the sonau could have been (minus the space stuff but moreso the VIBES and theme, game design aorund them!!), the way its done in OW is so neat, also i love that you cant understand them without a tool and you cant really communicate with them in turn like either! like the fact that there is not even a hint of a language barrier to the sonau in totk is like??? especially given the time span that is supposed to be between the past and the present in totk, not being able to clearly communicate would have been a really good and rather easy way to make the sonau more mysterious! even if you gave them subtitles that translated their language later on it would still make them feel a little more ancient

... actually ..its even worse .. in totks present theres only few people that can translate the text of the sonau, so the idea is there .. but how is zelda able to talk to them no problem? and rauru with you also mineru you could argue its bc they spent a long time as ghosts on the islands or in the shiek- purah pad but neither of them had any contact to the surface so that doesnt work, zelda teaching it to them also doesnt work bc that would take time she doesnt have and she literally talks to them all normally the literal first time they even meet ... it just being bc the hylian language never changed somehow so rauru and mineru just talk hylian is ...... the most boring answer tbh, not even slightly different manner of speech? over all that time? not some sort of accent?? even some of the old zora got one in botw (at least in german .. then again they also removed dumsda (engl. hudson) quirky way to talk ..... ), nothing? no??

it kinda plays into the whole lot that is a big problem with totk imo, the idea is there or even mentioned but its either not acted upon, never adressed or answered the most boring way

[beah388love]

Hawk Fluff Alphabet

18+ Minors DNI!!!

Full Masterlist

Cobra Kai Masterlist

A ctivities - What do they like to do with their s/o? How do they spend their free time with them?

He loves Play fighting with you and going on dates to arcades and golf n stuff but he Loves Playing video games with you and going against eachother.

B eauty - What do they admire about their s/o? What do they think is beautiful about them?

He loves your eyes , he loves looking at you and seeing your eyes light up when you happy or laughing.

C omfort - How would they help their s/o when they feel down/have a panic attack etc.?

He knows you hate being In crowded places or big crowds so he would take you somewhere alone and quiet. And he would make you copy his breathing pattern to help you calm down.

D reams - How do they picture their future with their s/o?

He pictures you guys with a small family and a dog , living in your dream home together.

E qual - Are they the dominant one in the relationship, or rather passive?

He would listen to you and care for you but he would make it equal so both of you were both dominant and passive at different times and in different situations.

F ight - Would they be easy to forgive their s/o? How are they fighting?

He would give you the silent treatment but he would always crack before you did. He would always end up apologising and you would too and talk about both of your feelings and try to sort things out.

G ratitude - How grateful are they in general? Are they aware of what their s/o is doing for them?

He is so grateful for you , especially since you was there with him before he turned into 'hawk' which lets him know how much you really love him.

H onesty - Do they have secrets they hide from their s/o? Or do they share everything?

He will try to hide things from you like karate stuff so you don't panic or get worried but he always ends up telling you Anyway.

I nspiration - Did their s/o change them somehow, or the other way around? Like trying out new things or helped them overcome personal problems?

You guys already knew a lot about eachother before dating because you was already best friends beforehand.

J ealousy - Do they get jealous easily? How do they deal with it?

He is very overprotective of you since he's insecure and thinks you deserve better or that he's not good enough for you. But you always tell him he's wrong and you love him , but yes he's very jealous but he tries to remember that your with him and you love him.

K iss - Are they a good kisser?

What was the first kiss like?

Your first kiss was at the arcade , he took you on a date there and as you left you gave him a kiss and he was speechless. He walked you back home and he held your hand the entire way back and before you went in your house he gave you another kiss.

L ove Confession - How would they confess to their s/o?

He took you on a walk and he took you to a bridge where you both sat and watched the sunset. "I love you" he said and you couldn't help but blush "I love you too" you said before leaning your head on his shoulder.

M arriage - Do they want to get married? How do they propose? What would the marriage be like?

He took you to a Beach and you guys had fun by splashing eachother in the sea and Making sandcastles together , you Was about to show him a sandcastle you made until you turned round and he was on one knee with a ring "Y/N , will you marry me?" He said and you couldn't help but cry "YES" You said repeatedly and hugged him making him fall.

N icknames - What do they call their s/o?

He loves calling you Babe and baby but he will randomly call you Queen as a joke. "Here you are my Queen" he said handing you a Piece of chocolate and kneeling down , you laughed and took the chocolate "thank you peasant" you said jokingly.

O n Cloud Nine - What are they like when they are in love? Is it obvious for others? How do they express their feelings?

It's quite obvious because sometimes Demetri or Sam will tell you how much he's attached to you "He's like a lost puppy without you" Demetri said pointing to hawk who was looking for you in the cafeteria. When he saw you his eyes lit up and he walked over to the table , giving you his chocolate pudding since he knew you loved it and he didn't like it at all.

P DA - Are they upfront about their relationship? Do they brag with their s/o in front of others? Or are they rather shy to kiss etc. when others are watching?

He always tells girls who flirt with him he's got a girlfriend and he loves telling people about how amazing you are. And he has no second thoughts about kissing you in public , he would make out with you and not care if someone's next to you both.

Q uirk - Some random ability they

have that's beneficial in a relationship.

He remembers everything about you and what you say. "Babe can you get me (Y/F/Book) tomorrow"you said to hawk and he nodded. The next morning he went to the library and got it for you remembering which one and another one you asked for last week.

R omance - How romantic are they? What would they do to make their s/o happy? Cliché or rather creative?

He would always plan you guys a movie night every month. He would set up blankets and films in his livingroom and would make popcorn and Get chocolate and sweet along with snacks and everything. It would be amazing and you guys would binge al your favourite movies together until you fell asleep.

S upport - Are they helping their s/o achieve their goals? Do they believe in them?

He always believed In you and he always helps you with whatever homework your struggling with. He loves helping you but he never admits it.

T hrill - Do they need to try out new things to spice out your relationship? Or do they prefer a certain routine?

He likes trying new things but sometimes he likes to just stick to some things especially the things he loves like Dates at golf n stuff and other things.

U nderstanding - How good do they know their partner? Are they empathetic?

He knows everything about you Inside and out and he always shows empathy for you especially because you've had family issues growing up , he tries to help you and Let you talk your emotions out all the time.

V alue - How important is the relationship to them? What is it's worth in comparison to other things in their life?

Your relationship is Super important too him he would give up anything for your relationship karate , yup. Electronics , yup. Anything besides his own family then yes.

W ild Card - A random Fluff Headcanon.

He always says goodnight or I love you to you before going to sleep and if he doesn't he says sorry the next morning and does it that night.

X OXO - Are they very affectionate? Do they love to kiss and cuddle?

He is very affectionate his love language is touch and he will always cuddle you and kiss you whenever he can.

Y earning - How will they cope when they're missing their partner?

He will go through a memory book of your relationship he made and he will text you all day , but if your busy he will go out with demetri to get his mind off of the thought of your not with him.

Z eal - Are they willing to go to great lenghts for the relationship? If so, what kind of?

He would go to great lengths for your relationship and he would sacrifice a lot for you but only if you would too.