#less basic and boring like all my designs

[sea-jello]

Day 23/October 23: Crawl || Burn || "I am not touching that."

say it with me guys it is still the 23rd somewhere

uhh something something what if morro met lloyd as a kid when he was still training with wu idk how to draw children

bonus

don’t worry about the hands it’s 5am

[icewindandboringhorror]

"We can get through this by working together, reach out to your friends, community is all we have, a social network will be your security in the world, now is the time to lean on others!"

I do agree, and it's scientifically sound (pretty sure there is data about how people with better social networks live longer and etc) but also....augh..... what about the severe social issues, difficulty to leave the house, physical issues which lead to like zero socialization energy a majority of the time, etc. etc. Social support can be a replacement for structural support, but.. I guess I just wish it didn't have to be. Community is extremely difficult to build, even moreso if you're someone who has issues with social cues or group conversations or even just being around others in the first place. And blah, nuance, of course I'm just complaining or maybe being too negative or maybe misunderstanding, but, I hardly have the energy to brush my hair once every 2 months.. how am I supposed to maintain a wide social network and be active in a Community and Join Groups lol... sometimes it kind of feels like "er.. well if thats my only option then...... ruh roh". It's overwhelming

[bonestrouslingbones]

btw one of the things i want to do when i really rap up atbb for real is spontaneously get the energy at will to do actual updated fullbodies of the main 4 since now i actually have the ability to draw them the way they look in my head & have the skills to put some more variety in their shapes. basically i wanna

[freebooter4ever]

one of the biggest ironies of my life that i was thinking about yesterday - i know that drag and drop / node-based 'coding' helps a wider (usually more visual) variety of brain types learn to program. this was the entire basis of the research group i was on for seven years in the burgh, and i completely agree with and support it. but im not that way at ALL. im that stereotype who likes pure code, and finds it easier to read the language and find patterns in the words/numbers/formatted lines than in nodes. i HATE nodes, and sometimes even fellow programmers look at me like im crazy for it.

Like dont give me that pretty but controlled interface, i want to know whats underneath.

[arolesbianism]

I need 2 get back on the fanart grind stat I need to draw orbo blorbos

[gyusrose]

OMGG yk that one trend on tik tok where the girl shows her nails the caption being “look at my new nails” and she’s rubbing it on the bfs bulge can u do that with enhypen legal line?? Sorry if this doesn’t make sense😭

love this req !!!!! i tried my best though hope you like it !

⚠︎ very suggestive ;) semi- smut?

✎ what the req. says

(enhypen legal line x fem. reader)

Heeseung -> you were seeing this trend going on in TikTok and you couldn’t help but want to try it out on your boyfriend. you just had your nails done yesterday as well so it was the perfect timing. you explained to heeseung what you wanted to do earning a howl from him.

“ you’re so horny i swear. “

you smacked your lips pushing his shoulder lightly.

“not true! i just want to try this trend !”

“mhm yea sure, as if you don’t know that this will end up in fucking. “

nevertheless he agreed to it.

he laid down on his back while you positioned your hand on top of his clothed dick before pressing play.

as your other hand was filming you slightly squeezed him through his sweatpants. heeseung groaned and hissed as you kept on rubbing slightly on him while you pretended to show your nails. he was an impatient man, the video that was barely 15 seconds long felt like 15 minutes, all he wanted was to bend you over the bed and fuck you like the tease you are.

“shit are you almost done?” he desperately asked.

“wait, just like 5 more seconds..” heeseung threw his head back, annoyed. he knew you were deleting some clips and redoing them.

“alrighty it’s done.” as soon as the video ended he pulled your waist towards him and grabbed your jaw.

“you’re gonna learn to not tease me like that ever again.”

Sunghoon -> “look babe i just got my nails done.” you said showing him your pink and white flower designs on them.

to be completely honest, you only did it to do that funny trend you saw a few days ago. it’s just something dumb and humorous you wanted to do sunghoon wouldn’t mind it.

sunghoon thought about it for a minute. he wanted to act as if nothing but holy fuck, he was already getting hard at the thought of it. the whole idea of being recorded turns him on too much for his liking. eventually he agreed to it and laid down in bed.

you on the other hand had no idea how turned on he is, even though you’re touching him sexually, it was just a joke to you, just a TikTok. that would explain how surprised you were when you rubbed his visible bulge and felt him hard as a rock. 

“holy shit..” you whispered to yourself, you tried to keep your composure as you were filming but how could you when your man was literally yearning for your touch.

sunghoon tried to hold back his moans but failed miserably. he wanted your mouth so bad. your soft touches that come and go did so much to him.

“fuck stop the video.” he said giving up, grabbing his pants and pulling them down along with his boxers.

“suck it like you know how to.”

Jay -> “so you just want to touch my dick is basically what you’re saying?” jay had such a way with words. of course that’s what you meant but you can’t just agree like that.

“i see so many people doing it and i’m bored.” jay raised an eyebrow at your response. he knew you like the back of his hand. you were horny duh.

“sure go ahead and do your ‘tiktok’ “ he chuckled as he laid in bed, waiting for you to start the video.

he smirked down at you as you innocently rubbed on his dick while you stroked up and down on it. showing your red nails to the camera yet the last thing on both of y’all’s minds was the nails.

jay wanted to also tease you. he lifted up his shirt slightly, showing his v-line. your panties were damp. in less than 30 seconds, jay has managed to almost make you cum on yourself.

jay kept calm throughout the whole video ( even though he was dying to fuck your mouth ) and just chuckled at how the simple outline of his cock made you go crazy.

“fuck it.”

you threw your phone somewhere and unbuckled his belt pulling his jeans down. left in his boxers he grabbed you chin, forcing you to look at him.

“i fucking knew it.”

Jake -> you were just sitting down in your living room at peace, when all of a sudden you hear footsteps coming from upstairs, jake came up to you while showing his phone screen with a huge grin on his face. oh god, you knew that look.

“look at this trend going on right now, it’s so hot.” he was always up to date with all the trends and stuff so you weren’t surprised, but when you saw the video, your eyes almost popped out. you were expecting a silly little dance he wanted to do with you but no. this man wanted you to grope him for a TikTok video. you couldn’t help but laugh at his request, you weren’t complaining though.

“jake seriously?”

“yes seriously, come on it’ll be fun, plus my face won’t be showing, just my dick. also you just got your nails done as well, don’t you want to show them off?” in other words, he was horny.

so there you were, rubbing on him as you squeezed his already aroused cock. you tried to go at it softly (since that was the whole point of the TikTok ) but jake didn’t want that as he bucked his hips cowards wanting to feel more, moaning from the lack of movement.

“i thought this was just got a TikTok, why are you getting so worked up jakey?” you teased. fuck how much he loved that.

from his white shirt which was almost transparent, you could see his glistening abs tighten from his heavy breaths. now you were the one getting worked up.

“just save the video and come here.” he said pulling you into a kiss.

Sunoo -> “you want to r-record it?” you nodded eagerly. you adored seeing sunoo hot and bothered, so what a great idea was this ? plus the nails you had on were actually expensive so what better way to show them off than next to your boyfriend’s dick?

sunoo blushed at your words. the action itself turned him on so bad but now that you want to make a video with it did something to him. he was nervous for sure but excited as well? there was nothing in the world he loved more than your hands, especially since they look so cute right now, so why not?

sunoo was already breathing heavily before you even pressed start. your hand simply being on top of his crotch already drove him crazy.

as you started rubbing him and squeezing him through his pants, he became a whiny mess. he stopped himself from moving his hips too much for the video but at that moment he wanted to fuck into your hand like he always does.

“aww is my precious little baby frustrated ? be patient i’m almost done.” the video was clearly longer than it should’ve been but you just loved seeing him trying to hold back seeing his dick twitch.

“please just- just touch me please ..”

Jungwon -> he was waiting for you to come up to him and ask him if you could do the infamous trend going around. obviously just as an excuse to have you on your knees.

“can we try it? pretty please? look my nails are even cute.” clearly you were very eager.

jungwon pretended to think for a moment as if he wasn’t dying to do it as well. “whatever you want princess.”

you took that literally. groping him from his base to the tip slowly then rubbing him while showing the camera your pretty nails .

“fuck those hands of yours.” he breathed out. you smirked loving how much power you have right now.

he was a quietly moaning into the pillow, on top of that, he was wearing grey sweatpants making it the scene even more sensual.

“ keep it together, just a few more seconds.” jungwon couldn’t even hide his desperation at this point. the way your small hands take him so good even soft touches and strokes like these drove him insane.

the sound of the video ending brought him back to reality. “and..done.”

“good, now finish what you’ve started.”



[deadbeat-motel]

ᐯᗩGGIE ᗩᑎᗪ ᑕᕼᗩᖇᒪIE ᖇEᗪEᔕIGᑎ

These two are simpler than the angel dust design I did since I didn't have a lot to go off of. Posted on Valentine's Day because yes I can.

I don't think Charlie is significantly different from her Pilot design because I genuinely think it was the best design from the cast (before the redesign).

Thoughts below, though TW for the creepy charlie image at the end:

My issues with their Original designs:

Vaggie:

The giant "X" over her eye is really distracting and even world-breaking because

1. Why had no one put 2 and 2 together that the only character in Hell who has a visible 'X' mark on her face might be related to the angels who also sport that X mark on their faces.

2. Why is it shaped like an X? Her eye was taken out via a single slash.

3. If the hair's purpose was to cover it, why would it show through it? What's the point of the hair then?

The hair that was supposed to cover that wounded eye looked so ugly and confused as to what it should be doing. I mean every shot that showed that thing in a sideview shot of Vaggie felt like the animators had to make their own guesses as to how that was supposed to look like. It was distracting for me personally and I hated it so much.

It's been said over and over again, but her clothes look like she works at McDonalds. I get needing to change her outfit so that she looks like she works at the hotel, but it's just been poorly designed.

Why change her clothes' colors from white to red? the white helped her stand out from Hell and the Hotel's majority red background. (In the finale, she at least has a non-red attire)

She's also one of the very few women in HH and she falls under the skinny stick side of it despite being an angel exterminator.

Her hair is kind of hard to visualize looking at in any way other than what it is when it's static. However, when it changed into a ponytail or a bob, it's actually really nice to look at.

Unsure of what that bow's purpose is for the design.

Charlie:

Charlie is a simple but very confused design. The pilot design was a lot more coherent than the current show design

It's disappointing to see the bouncy Pilot hair go and be replaced by that boring bubble braid of all things.

Her undershirt peaks out of her tuxedo.... why???? to separate the top jacket and the pants? You wouldn't need to do that if her pants were a different color like the pilot design.

Thought about it and was confused, as a demon with an angelic father, why didn't she have wings as well? She didn't need the 6 wings like Lucifer but maybe a pair of one would appear?

Out of all the characters for the show's redesign, Her's was by far the MOST infuriating to me. Her pilot design wasn't perfect but it was good, they had to downgrade her for some reason.

I didn't have much to say about Charlie. it basically sums up to "the Pilot design was better".

On to the thought process for these two:

Valerie the fallen:

Yes, she got a rename. Sue me.

I had to remove the moth aspect of her design because it doesn't seem like it makes sense for a heaven-born to follow the sinner's rule of "gaining features based on the life you lived" since she basically never lived right?

In this redesign (and eventual rewrite), Valerie is not ashamed of her exterminator background. In fact, she was known as the most recent "fallen" in hell. her short stature doesn't make her less of a threat to the demons.

She's also visually thick with muscle because why not let one of the show's women have a body type that isn't stick-thin?

She's using the wings that were torn off of her as both an interesting article of clothing and as a way to remind others and her that she is (or more accurately 'was') an angel who could kill them if she wanted to.

Her clothes are pure black underneath the pale feathers to show that while she is an "angel", deep down, she is far from a good person.

She's also getting an actual skin color because from what I gathered myself from the show's heaven. Most of the souls there still retain a human appearance (Adam, Lute, St. Peter, and the other random human angels up there still look human..... but just don't mind the fact that most of them are white.)

Her hair is that ponytail she had in the finale because as much as I didn't like that episode, some designs looked actually decent.

Also, her hair actually covers the eye scar properly.

I wanted to keep her ribbon as a splash of brightness on her design but the OG ribbon looks a little out of place on a warrior so It became that (Plus it pays homage to her OG moth influence with its shape looking like the fluffy antennas of the moth)

Gave the spearhead a little bit of detail on it plus a chipped side so that it has a bit of charm as an old weapon she still decides to keep around.

A note about Valerie's design is that I haven't tackled the armor of angels yet so I was unsure of what pieces of the undesigned armor to give Valerie as of now.

Charlie:

I honestly actually enjoyed her Pilot hair, so I tried to put it back and also simplify it a bit so there are not a lot of strands for me to keep track of. Plus it was a genuinely cute design for her. (There's a reason that version was used in the Verbalase video.) <- I'M JOKING

Replaced her button nose with a goat's because a friend has commented how it looked like the noses of the women in a Goofy Movie and I will never be able to unsee that.

Her hair is also a lot brighter compared to her washed-out blonde color.

She has the same design thought process as Valerie, Covering the darkness of her true nature with white fluffy fur which is stylized like feathers at its ends. She has pitch-black skin underneath and looks like a proper nightmarish demon like the image below.

I ditched the tuxedo look, since almost all the cast has a similar outfit already, and gave her a jumpersuit instead. (Idk what it's really called but that's what I think it is). It's a light grey because she's a mix of bad and good (though a bright grey because she prefers to be on the good side)

Her horns are there and visible because yeah it's cute but also helps her read as the half-angel/half-demon character she is.

Tiny goat tail because can you imagine every time Valerie holds the rare angel smile of approval, her tail is visibly wagging in glee and excitement???? My heart would die. I love these lesbians with my life.

Has wings from her father.

Anyways, those are my thoughts and redesigns... I wanted to add more details to them but I didn't really know what to add that didn't feel unnecessary.

Also bonus! Concept art of Charlie's true form:

[ohnoitstbskyen]

They turned him into an anime boy haha https://twitter.com/spideraxe30/status/1676427863992463362?s=46&t=iPiW6_AcyhGzA3TEHU2-mg

... hhhhhuh. Yeah okay, that's definitely An Update. Does he actually look any different in-game? Did he get new animation?

Either way, that sure is... a way to approach him. A rather boring way, I feel.

Like, Vladimir is a dandy. Ignoring his terrible, terrible presentation in League of Legends, to me he always felt like he was supposed to be this over-the-top Dorian Grey hyper-hedonistic maximalist pleasure seeker, fully reveling in wearing outrageous fashion and being The Most Extra at all times

Wild Rift Vladimir certainly looks less silly, and a lot prettier (which is, in its way, an improvement, Vladimir SHOULD be an impossibly beautiful pretty boy I think), but this just feels aesthetically way too basic for him.

It's reduced his colors down to just the Noxus Base Palette, and completely removed the decorativism and ornamentation from his outfit. It seems like a design that's going for Sleek™ and I feel like he should look more like covered himself in glue and rolled through Howl Pendragon's bedroom

Like, he should look like he has a taste for the exotic and expensive, someone who hoards trinkets and jewelry and fashion items like a magpie, someone who wants to show you such delights, my dear, oh truly, someone who dazzles and overwhelms with sheer magnitude of decoration.

Someone who disarms his victims by seeming like a harmless, foppish pretty boy, right up until the blade of his claw rises up your neck and he asks you if you won't please stay for a drink.

Which, by the way, if you wanted to tie him more deeply into Noxus as a region, having him be someone ostentatiously displaying the looted aesthetics of regions and cultures that the empire is actively conquering would be a great way to do that. He's basically a vampire, you won't find a more pitch-perfect metaphorical avatar of imperialism than that.

All my criticisms aside, mind you, anything is better than how horrid he looks in League of Legends right now, so call it a step down aesthetically and a big step up in production value.

[chriskotiesen]

How do you think of your wonderful beasts?

Usually I start with really vague ideas for shapes or colour schemes and just make the creatures up as I go along. Most of the time I'm aiming to make something that has personality but isn't too easy to compare to any existing animal. If it's too boring then I'll weird it up a bit by rearranging parts or throwing on extra shapes. If it's too abstract then I'll swap in some more realistic animal features.

I saved some in-progress pics of yesterday's creature to step through the process:

I started by giving myself the very open-ended task of drawing a creature with a mouth in an unusual place. When sketching digitally I often like to forgo lineart and just play with blocks of colour.

Why is it crescent shaped? Why is it orange? I dunno. But I think that I can turn this into a body with the mouth at the centre of the mass. There are certainly weirder and more interesting places to put a mouth then in the belly, but I don't really know how this sketch is going to go from here. Maybe I'll put more mouths on the feet or something. Finding out is part of the fun.

Let's start simple. I figure that it should have arms to pick up food, as well as eyes and a nose to clearly define a 'head' somewhere away from the mouth. Okay now it looks like a creature, but not one that I particularly like. Also there's nothing between the nose and the mouth so it looks less like it has a mouth in its stomach and more like it just has a really big, weirdly-shaped head. I can fix that if I move the arms above the mouth. And I'll give it a tail and another bend in the torso to balance it out and make it less front-heavy.

Now we're getting somewhere. I'm starting to like this for reasons entirely unrelated to the mouth, so I'll just remove it completely. It's getting in the way of the rest of the anatomy. There's no client or art director dictating what I need to make here. The initial premise is just a jumping-off point and I can ditch it entirely if the design works better without it. I like this bug-eyed, cobra-hooded aardvark-centaur-dragon-thing. That seems like enough of a creature without throwing on extra features.

I try to keep my palette organized and only add more colours when they feel necessary. The countershading here helps to define the creature's shape a bit better and break up all of that orange, as well as just making it a little more realistic. I made the tail bigger just because I like what that does for the 2d composition of the picture.

Cleaning up the shadows also helps to make the volume read a bit better. The stripes help too, but I mostly added them to break up the orange some more and make the creature more interesting. I also started laying in some blobs of colour for a background. Now that all of the basics are in place it's just a matter of adjusting colours and polishing out details until I'm either happy with it or just sick of looking at it!

Done!

[slimeology]

Well this is likely outdated of me by now buut my own interpretation of a certain computer yes... The notes on this vary to more of facts and like design notes for myself, with a boring white background cause UH readability,, yep! I'm shoving all my ideas below along with bonus image B]

Riiight, allow me to simply lay out my ideas and go against what i have seen this guy been characterised as for years YEA?? THough i wanna touch on how he functions first, so i think out of all possible designs i may make for more characters [at least one more i will make!!! maybe two!! maybe... more?] he is most biologically human. like he probably was just a guy once. but now computerised through means!

Underneath the metal / synthetic components is actual person, though most of it is very not nice to percieve. the only untouched part of him is the midsection, basically the vitals. Other than that, it ranges from a little less skin, to probably not even indentifiable as what it was before.

The image shows it somewhat!! The gloves are removeable and instead of angry wires simply take skinless hand! [ALSO LEMME KNOW IF I SHOULD TAG PLEASE - it is very hard for me to judge yes or not!! i do not mind doing it! also i have no idea what to put if so.] It's my general explaination of why he can touch you, but you touch him and it does not end well. Cause it probably hurts honestly! and he's seensitive....

As for personality, he's not that kind. Kind of more, passive agression most of the time really, unless you're wanting to know about the wonders of the internet he couldn't really care what you're on about. But even then, he will act like he knows all of the things ever [because it is on the internet.] Some of his facts may not entirely be true but why fact check?? the internet is not wrong! but also he will be deliberately wrong, if it's funny. aaaand you might believe it.

Computer day is simply the one day a year he agrees to actually 'be nice' and 'cooperative'. Any other day is free game.

The digital world still exists too, it's essentially his sleep state, he simply plugs himself into the wall and while outwardly he is unconsious, he is there instead! He can get other people there by uhh jamming a plug into your brain! don't worry he got a medical lisence from the internet, and has adequately accounted for your skull being in the way :]

Anyways these are somehow all the ideas i had before i even designed the guy??? UH... i will stop throwing so many words out there now. i guess one final fun fact is he probbaly just only eats oatmeal and nothing else. and mmayybe i shoved the 'tism onto him bit. sbhhhh shhhhh you heard nothing,,,

[s-che]

Monsterhearts 2: Plotting Anti-Plot

Last week I had the fortune to MC (and play) Monsterhearts 2 for the first time as the Dream Library begins a unit on monsters, monstrosity, and monsterfucking which will carry us through November, and boy howdy am I glad we managed to do it. 

For those who (somehow) don’t know, Monsterhearts is a game that bills itself as being about “the messy lives of teenage monsters.” It cites Twilight, Buffy, Ginger Snaps, The Vampire Diaries, and The Craft as media touchstones, it’s not joking when it says that these monsters are 1. messy and 2. teenagers. Monsterhearts is angsty, horny, frightening and, above all else, extremely fun to play. On top of that, Monsterhearts is also one of those games that, if you’re in a certain sector of the indie RPG scene, people will remind you is extremely fun to play all the fucking time. It feels sometimes like every designer I know has a good Monsterhearts story, and as much as Avery Alder’s reputation on a larger stage has been defined by The Quiet Year, I get the sense that for people who like what Monsterhearts is doing it’s an extremely hard game to beat. 

So to be totally honest, I was more than a little anxious MCing for my first time actually playing the game. There’s a sense in which hosting a game which you know is great can be way harder than hosting games you think might be bad — after all, if the session goes poorly, there’s nobody to blame but yourself. On top of that, Monsterhearts moves through some tricky territory: underage sex is a core element of the game, and the eight “Small Towns” (short, pre-prepped settings for quick starting the game) all deal more or less explicitly with histories of racism and colonialism in communities across North America. While these are interesting places to go in play, the idea of taking them on myself as host made me shy away a little bit (and I’m excited in the next session to look at things from a player’s perspective). 

All in all, though, I think the session was a resounding success. I went in with basically no prep and as much familiarity with the book as I could get (not enough to realize the quick reference sheet we were using for the first half of the session was from Monsterhearts 1, but so it goes), relying on the game itself — which leans away from strictly organized plots and encourages you, in true PBTA fashion, to let characters and their needs bounce off each other until the conversation goes somewhere interesting — to get us smoothly into play. I would call my efforts there a mixed success: while Avery has a real skill for writing pedagogically, giving you the explicit frameworks you need to get into play (if you’ve never begun a session of The Quiet Year by reading the rules book aloud to each other, you should go fix that now), the session was hampered a little by some awkward pacing and uncertainty: partially driven by my chronic tendency to waste time on slowly establishing things in one-shots rather than swinging as hard as I can in the first five minutes and letting the players lead from there and partially by player character relationships that lead to clear, decisive actions... which left one of our players bored at work while the other two went off adventuring. We ended up taking a moment, after returning from the normal mid-session bio-break, to chat and refocus ourselves, figuring out where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see in the last hour or so of the session, and then jumping back in and — thankfully — playing hard to reach a strong conclusion. In the end, I’m not interested in tracking down exactly where the first half of our session lost its footing (although I have some ideas for how I could have hit harder as an MC). I’m more interested in celebrating the way the table was able to come together, talk explicitly about what we wanted, and get the game somewhere satisfying for everyone involved. We closed on, among other things: an underwater fight between the Fairy (Mermaid?) Queen and a Kraken-Leviathan-Hellmonster, a throuple sneaking off from a beach party to hook up, and the messy end of a South Jersey summer (complete with a tsunami and a beached whale front of the boardwalk). It was a good time. 

Most striking to me in this moment, however, is the way thinking about Monsterhearts as a plotless game positions both me as MC and the other players. It really speaks to the way that capital-T The capital-C Conversation works in Powered by the Apocalypse games (good ones, anyway) to let play flow not according to the rules of a paced narrative, but along lines of player interest and highly-charged emotional incident. It is, I think, part of what makes all the PBTA games we’ve played in the Dream Library sing (in no small part because we pruned the last unit and didn’t play any PBTA games I think are bad, but that’s a different conversation) and it suits this game — with it’s emphasis on sex and messy desire — extremely well. It also fits in nicely with a point I’ve heard a couple of people make recently: that thinking of RPGs as first and foremost collective narrative engines is, at the very least, a narrow view. 

Anyway, this week I’m fortunate enough to be joined by a new host (hi @jdragsky) so I can check out MH as a player, then we’ve got a couple of two-shots planned for the end of the month before we move on to our next monstrously intimate game: Bluebeard’s Bride. You want in on an upcoming game? Have a link. You want to hear more about Monsterhearts? One of my players wrote up some of her thoughts as well.

Otherwise, well, get out of here. Scram.

[splendidunboyfriendable]

miscellaneous brian quinn hc's

can you tell what my new obsession is?

q is such an old soul. he's the type of guy who never stopped listening to his parent's music. he has hours and hours of 60's and 70's classic rock hits on his spotify all the way back to his broken mp3 players. don't get me wrong, he loves some good indie music. i feel like he'd have a soft spot for midwest because of the sick guitar riffs. he kept his cd collection from the aughties that he plays for you in the car. if you look through his junk drawer there's definitely one of his broken childhood cassetes in there.

segwaying from that last point, he is an extremely sentimental guy. he cherishes every single gift you give him. every birthday card he's ever received is kept in a special box at the back of his closet for safekeeping. he loves hoarding knick knacks and it's easier to defend things that have emotional value.

he has a thing for graphic tshirts. anything he outgrows he either gives to you to sleep in or donates it to an op shop. he doesn't like being a basic bitch but also doesn't have a very good sense of style. so any plain old shirt with a slogan or design on it makes him feel less like a boring old man.

he really enjoys the feeling of you running your fingers through his hair. he has a sensitive scalp so he doesn't really like people touching his hair because they can pull too hard. when you first touch his scalp, he doesn't register what you're doing because he's so used to the guys yanking on his hair. he immediately melts at your touch. every now and then, when he needs a little pick me up, he rests his head in your lap and asks you to play with his hair.

his cats are very attached to you. he jokingly calls you his 'pussy magnet'. you're always his first pick when it comes to a catsitter because they just can't get enoug of you. he sends you so many videos of them meowing for you as an excuse for you to come over.

[icewindandboringhorror]

Various recent pictures of things

[theminecraftbee]

so, first, accountability statement: I plan on trying to finish the “zedaph steals a baby” fic by the end of the month and god is that one-line summary no longer accurate but we’re sticking to it, said here publicly so now I have to do it. obviously I also have recursive exchange and the writing I have for hotguy comics zine, but I am not SUPER worried about either of those time/inspiration-wise at the moment and also for Reasons I know it won’t be long until I have more free writing time after that, SO.

various items that are on my potential writing docket, I am curious which of these appeal most:

I dust off the supervillain support group au. two ways this could go: I chip away at the second arc of my original outline and acknowledge this will be like a 300k fic I’m not ready to feel “done” with or “ready to post” with for ages, or I re-work it into something a little more doable and less ambitious keeping the same premise (ren runs a support group for supervillains, doc pov as he starts to heal and redeem himself). this MAY honestly be a target for “if I don’t hate the first 50k on re-reading it and I can actually make my brain write the second arc, do a slower release schedule and then start releasing chapters before I’m done writing”? but this ALSO runs the risk of “I stopped writing it, which is often a sign I was having trouble writing it”.

pearl monster au, which has been cooking in my head for a long while. the basic premise is “one day, pearl, with no memory of how or why this happened, wakes up in a facility as a monster and must try to figure out how she got there, escape, and find her way home, even knowing she may be irrevocably changed”. now with bonus season 10 fish flavor to add to this creature design I’ve been iterating on in my head for forever! this one is ALSO an experiment for me in “can I write a fic where I can’t write dialogue for basically the entire first act”, which would be interesting to see from me, you know?

the related “bigb folklore au”, where after secret life bigb is woken up by Cat and Dog by the tracks of the King Snake, which bigb can recognize as the railroad track, and decides to journey down the railroad to see if he can figure out what the fuck is going on. I need to do video review of life series bigb for this one. this is my excuse to get Weird and Metaphorical and also assign everyone to various animals for no reason, along with using some very specific aesthetic I have wanted to use for some worldbuilding but hadn’t gotten around to yet in any of my stuff. man walks through the desert with animal, confronts train that might be the watchers, might be death, and might just be a train. also, realizes that “confront” is the operative word there and has to deal with that. you know how it is.

““office au””, in air quotes because it’s not REALLY what anyone going to an office au is looking for so much as an excuse to write weird horror. iskall, normal-ish software developer man in a boring office job who does game jams in his free time, goes to work one day to work in his boring downtown office on a payment system for a client. and then things, uh, Take A Turn. this would be a LITTLE me going “what if I wrote an au with a guy who works in tech but like, the boring side of tech I’m in. like, banks and consulting and manufacturing and shit. where you sit in meetings all day and tweak java 8 code even though that language is ten years out of date. but THEN. something exciting happens in the worst way possible.” I’m doing to iskall what I did to mumbo stuffed bird is what I’m saying. it’d be fun.

DO ANY OF THESE PARTICULARLY INTEREST ANYONE. your input will be valued. like 50% chance i get hit with a strong bolt of inspiration then IGNORE that input but it’ll be valued all the same,

[willicebattlecatsblog]

First post on this whole new blog ! I decided to redesign Lionblaze for my Lionblaze is Scourge AU so that he is less "simple" !

For those who might be new : Lionblaze is Scourge AU is about Lionblaze being a "reincarnation" of Scourge, just like Cinderheart is a reincarnation of Cinderpelt. In this AU, Scourge started believing in Starclan after seeing Tigerstar die nine times; he would be sur Starclan does exist when Firestar comes back to life. Starclan would then give Scourge a "new chance" at entering Thunderclan, as Tiny was hurt by Tigerpaw who had the time disrespected the warrior code. That's the backstory !

Now for the actual story, Lionblaze doesn't know he is a reincarnation of Scourge. He is cheerful and kind most of the time. However, he is very scared of the current deputy, Brambleclaw, for reasons he can't explain (Brambleclaw isn't his adoptive father in this story, Shrewpaw/tail is and does know that the Three aren't his kits !). He sometimes feels uneasy around his grand-father Firestar. Since he is a kit, when he sleeps, Lionblaze often goes in a strange place he doesn't know, where the ground is granite, where monsters and twolegs are everywhere and where cats eat from big metalic boxes and cylinders. Lionblaze somehow feels home in this strange place, like he was used to it, and he does now a lot of the streets.

Sometimes, he feels like something is missing around his neck, but it feels great to not have it anymore.

Basically, the goal of this AU is mainly to give Lionblaze a story line that can go through all the books in Power of Three ! Lionblaze was one of my favorite characters because he had some great potential, but I feel like he never was exploited correctly by the Erins. He was just really boring in most of his chapters...

Oh, also for Lionblaze's design : Lionblaze isn't a calico, he is just a chimera :) He "absorbed" his twin in the womb and the only part left of said twin is the black and white paw !

If you have any ideas or input for this AU, don't hesitate to tell me !!

[clairaworlds]

SIFFREN CLOAK POST TIME BBY.

Tl;dr: In my opinion the backstiching on Siffrin's cloak is used to reinforce the seams, the cloak likely has a lining flatlined into the cloak, and if you'll allow me to offer a headcannon, hand sewn.

More in depth analysis and examples below

Ok to start, let's go over Isabeau's dialog about the cloak. I'll put it in full here, other characters comments are cut out.

So right here, right, that's super interesting stitching. It's backstitching, right, which is a very solid kind of stitching, and it's used in a lot of different places... But Vaugardian clothing in general is moving away from backstitching, because, well, we think it's boring. Like here, my clothing here has something called chainstitching, and also it's in a zigzag shape, because it looks cuter I guess. But backstitching is just more durable. Now that I look at it, your hat has the same stitching too... I wonder if they were a set? And, um, look at the way the cloak is weaved, too! It's wool, and it goes one thread up, one thread down, et cetera... But, again, Vaugardian clothing likes to be more interesting visually, so if you look at Mira's cloak--

...

No, no, I'm not saying it's boring!!!!! I'm just saying it's like... It's clothing that's less like Vaugarde, or even Ka Bue's artistic clothing... It's less clothing that's to make you look pretty, or make you stand out, and more clothing that's here to keep you comfy and warm. Function over form, you know?

…

So, um, what I'm SAYING is... Considering the Craft that came into it... The temperature regulation and how it grows with you... Whoever gave you this cloak wanted to make sure you're gonna be nice and comfy for a long time, Sif!

Note: I'm not a tailor, I've made a few garments and I embroder but that's about it. Take everything with a grain of salt.

Alright, first what is he even talking about? Here's a quick example of the two stitches Isabeau mentioned and a running stich which is probably the most basic stich

Please ignore my inability to sew in a straight line. Also my horrid chain stich. I did not do it justice there so here's a better example of how it looks

we can ignore Isabeau's incorrect opinions on what qualifies as an interesting stich bc he's probably talking more about the cultural differences between Siffrin's cloak and Vaugardian clothing. Which I'll admit IS intresting. But what stuck out to me is the fact that Isabeau can see the stitching at all. Most garments hide the majority of their stitching. You can see the seams sure, but the atual stichwork is typically on the inside.

As you can see here, now that IS a cloak, and the seem hides the stichwork, the next option is that isabeau is looking at either the hem or the collar, i dout it's the collar just bc that's really close to Sif's neck/face and also bc it might not have any visible stitching either. The hem line is a possibility but if Siffrin's cloak has a lineing it might not show any visible stitching either.

Atually let's talk about lineings real quick. I imagen Siffrin's cloak has one, for several reasons, I think it'd be cool, I think it'd work with the idea that the cloak is designed to survive a LONG time becuase it reinforces and protects the garment, and it works with some fun headcannons i have. Here's an example of a lined cloak, the outside is the shiny later, the inside has the hand-embroidered stars. I'm focusing on the seems in thease pictures but a lined cloak might hide ALL its stiches including the hems.

Although that's IF the cloak is bag lined, which is a process that leaves the lineing and the outside as mostly separate layers. You basically sew two garments then stich them together at the edges. But i have a feeling Siffrin's cloak is flat lined, not bag lined, so you basically attach the lineing to the outside and sew it together like it's one peice of fabric, the lineing dosnt move as much and honestly it comes out a little nicer. So that means the stichwork would still be visible on the inside of the cloak AND the hem, but I have a feeling Isa wasn't just holding Siffrin's cloak inside out to show off the stitching, and i don't think he was talking about the hem because it's not really a load bearing structure if that makes sense and it seems to me like Isa is talking about something that would benefit from being reinforced. So what's he talking about.

Well look at this

There we go! Visable stitching on the outside of a garment!!! So what's the difference here? A couple of things but the best summary I have is: the seem is reinforced by being stiched down. Here's an example on a different garment.

To test this, I grabbed some scrap fabric and tried it out i also did a quick hem with a backstich just to see how it'd look. I used contrasting thread to make it visable

I also think Siffrin's cloak is a full circle cloak constructed with two halves sewn together like the bottom example here

This is generally eaiser to construct than a four piece version and atually HAS seems unlike a single pice verdhion. Admittedly it may be a challenge depending on the width of the fabric, although if it was made when Sif was a kid and Crafted to grow with him that's much less of an issue

So! That's my two cents on the stitching on Siffrin's cloak. Honestly I would LOVE to make a Siffrin cloud but fabric is expensive and I can't really afford it, i also don't have the time. For now I should focous on finishing the star cloak I showed earlier, incase anyones curious here's the full inside of that cloak as of now

Here's some other headcannons related to fabric and sewing.

First sewing macheens and other textile production macheens exist. I know isat is a veaugly fantasy historical style setting but I'll die on the hill that there's some sort of quicker way to produce textiles, primarily because fabric, fiber and clothing has historically been massively important and I have a hard time imaging that craft isn't capable of making fabric quicker.

Related to that, I think part of the reason Crafted clothing (like Sif's stuff) is more rare is becuase it has to be hand made. Maybe not hand spun and woven and sewn but in my head the more steps you do by hand the more it's Crafted.

In that veign I think Siffrin's contry has a tendency twards hand-made stuff. There are reasons for this but it's mostly vibes. Honestly I think all of isat puts a higher emphasis on arts and crafts than the real world but I like the idea that Sif's contry espechally focuses on the hand made, it makes sense with the whole ritual thing, there are plenty of rituals and superstitions arround hand-made goods.

In contrast Vaugarde trends twards evolution of techniques and technology, where someone from Siffrin's contry may be a master at an ancient technique that's been passed down for generations, a Vaugardian crafter will have developed their own unique style and often prioritizes astetics above convince, not to the point of it being low quality (like fast fashion) but more like "I decided to use two diffrent fabrics to make stripes insted of just one solid color fabric even though it's more work becuase it looks cool" Ka Bue has a heavy focous on tradition but also artistic vision, i kinda imagen it as the ballance between the two ends of the spectrum, but in a totally different way.

Next i think Siffrin's contry likes incorporating subtle decorations, like the hat with the stars on the lineing, or useing visable stitching on seams both to reinforce it and bc it's prity--sewing in a straight line is HARD, doing a backstich with consistent stichlenghts is harder, doing both by hand is impressive, having the stitching appear on the outside of the cloak would be a deliberate choice becuase you CAN just reinforce a seem on the inside of a garment. Admittedly that might be what's going on if we assume Isabeau is looking at the internal construction insted of any vidable stichwork. So yeah, function over form but with some subtle detailing.

Is this just an excuse for me to pretend that the lineing of Siffrin's cloak is hand embroidered with stars? Yes! But you can pry this headcanon out of my cold, dead hands! I love hand embroidered stars on the inside of a cloak, i literally own a cloak that i made that's like that!! (I'll finish it one day I swair! I just made a mistake and attached the lineing b4 I did the embrodery, like an idiot, and it's really annoying to work on!!)

One last thing I think is interesting is the use of the word "cloak" cloaks typically go over the shoulders and CAN close in the frount, but are still open. I'd describe Sif's cloak more as a poncho, and Mira's cloak as a shawl, but there really arnt any perfict words for every garment, so cloak is a good enough word. It'd also make sense if "cloak" is just the word for "outer layer garment that goes over the shoulders like that" in the world of isat.