#like most things I think getting a design down would help that's usually the main barrier with a lot of the underdeveloped kids

[froggybogwitch]

Well then. Buckle up, folks, I went down a design rabbit hole. Somewhat inspired by the eternal question of "How do illyrian's wear shirts?" Which, honestly, has a much easier answer that what I came up with. Like a couple extra buttons would have done the trick, but where's the fun in that? I decided to add some flair on it, and by that, i mean a good chunk of a cultural fashion system. Everybody say thank you to Cassian for modelling.

So, starting off with the base layers and underwear, we've got a loincloth and a contraption that I've been calling the under harness, which was my answer to their funky double shoulders. Most other things I could think of ran into the problem that wind is a little thieving bastard and bc of the shape of their wings, form fitting garments like flying leathers can't easily pass under them, so they needed additional attachment points, hence the harness. Basically every single upper body garment I've created connects to this harness, keeping everything completely secure during flight. The only other thing to really note here are the two piercings around the wing's main knuckle. This shouldn't actually impede flying, according to the damage that real bats can fly with. These are both achor points for light weight armor, and also decoration. In the next image, we got the basic fabric base layer. Not much to say about the pants, they're pants. The shirt is more interesting. So it comes in two pieces, the front and back are entirely seperate pieces of fabric, both suspended from the under harness. The edges of the front piece are stiffened with steel boning or hardened leather, to help the garment keep it's form fitted shape. The back piece is a long strip of red fabric which I imagined to hold some sort of meaning as a highly stylized "bloodline." They could have been highly embroided with sigils, or family trees or something. Cassian's is blank for obvious reasons.

Next up, flying leathers and armor. I don't honestly have much to say about these, they're pretty well described in the books and the only thing i had to add was the armor around the knuckle claw. It seems crazy to me that these people wouldn't have figured out how to use their wings as deadly weapons so, a bit of hardened leather, some metal spikes if ur feeing extra spicy, and there, two extra striking weapons.

And now my favorite part, warmer clothes. I think this is where we'd really get to see illyrian fibercraft shine. Ombre dying, tassles, lace netting, embroidery, all of that. This is where they get to peacock about and be all bright and colourful. The cloak is made up of five long sections of fabric, two fall down the chest, two behind the shoulders but in front of the wings, and on wide one down the back. It can be worn loose or with the front most pieces of fabring tied underneath the wings for extra security during flight.

The mantle is the last bit I've developped, and it's just as decorated and fancy as the cloak, and sometimes even more so. It's a short cloak like garment that's worn over the shoulder and has open sleeves for both arms and wings. It's often fur linned and could be quilted for exra warmth. It could be worn with or without a cloak but usually they're worn together.

anyway, I have so many thoughts about the illyrian culture, bc what Sarah gave us ... doesn't really make much sense, and also makes me feel extremely icky. I'd much rather close my eyes and imagine a world where they aren't treated as a one dimentional culture that has done nothing but make it's members lives miserable.

[wisps-writes-fic]

For the beautiful, wonderful, and so very talented @roriannesmoon

Ship: Michael “Robby” Robinovitch x Jack Abbot x Fem OC

Read on AO3 | Main Masterlist | Fic Masterlist

Summary: After making it through life as a beta for twenty-five years, her late presentation was the last thing she expected to upend her life. Thankfully there are two alphas willing to help with such an adjustment.

AN: Every fandom needs omegaverse, so here we are.

CW: Polyamory, smut, praise kink, age gap, soft dom robby, shenanigans typical of omegaverse fic (knotting and the like), dub-con in the sense most heat fics are dub-con

Chapter I

Hailey

Hailey knew something was wrong deep down. Or at least changing. It started with the clinginess, in a hurry to help with tasks when Robby got home and curling up in his lap the moment he settled for the night. He didn’t seem to hold it against her. Never showed annoyance, despite clearly being exhausted after each shift. But he’d always taken good care of her.

Still, being needy was easy for her to ultimately ignore—for him to find amusement in. It was days later, noticing the steady gathering of blankets and pillows in her apartment and the fact his “borrowed” sweatshirts were never washed and returned as per usual, that Robby began to suspect the reason for her behavior and finally called out what she hadn’t been willing to consider.

“I am not an omega." One hard look and she was scrambling to deny it further. "I'm twenty-five, Robby,” she protested, suddenly tempted to shrug out of what might have been the last hoodie her boyfriend owned. “I would have presented almost a decade ago.”

“Delayed presentation is rare, but not impossible. I suspect a few more days and you’ll go into your first heat.” She blanched at that, turning away before he could see her flush at the thought. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, sweetheart. Perfectly natural and no one will think less of you for it.”

“None of your colleagues, maybe. There are plenty of people beyond that with something shitty to say. It’s hard enough making it as an artist without designation bias.”

He huffed, pulling her into his lap so she couldn’t hide. “Eyes here,” he ordered, raising her chin. “You’ve built yourself considerably over the last few years. Whatever changes this might bring will be brief. I don’t want you stressing over it.” 

And with him keeping that reminder on repeat when they were together, she didn’t. ~~~~~

“Good evening.”

Dana, as usual was the first to greet Hailey upon arrival. There were only a few minutes left for the day shift, but she liked chatting with the staff she could. Driving to pick up take out some nights when her boyfriend wrapped things up. “Robby told me not to let you back here if you tried to show up these past couple days. Care to tell me why?” She rolled her eyes, hoping the charge nurse didn’t see right through her lie. “You know Robby. Assumes the worst over a little cough. It’s not a big deal.”

“Right, now try again. Might not be able to put my finger on it, but something’s up with you.” She began to argue, but the instant shift stole her breath. There was no steady build, no warning signs. Just a shock of heat flooding her very veins.  Aside from the obsessive nesting and new need for physical contact, nothing else had surfaced to show her heat cycle was coming on. She figured the hour she’d be out of the house was no problem. “Shit, kid. Come on. Staff lounge,” Dana ordered. “Before some asshole alpha clocks you. Princess, page Robby.”

“On it.”

“No. He’s busy, I’m fine,” she tried to lie. “Please don’t.” 

A horrid cramping set in and she nearly doubled over. “Yeah, sure thing,” a new voice groused. Of course Jack had to come in early and seen her acting a fool. “I’ll get her over there, Dana. Just track down Robby. Night shift can handle whatever he’s wrapping up.” Hailey leaned into him the second he took her from the charge nurse and for once she didn’t care how it looked—didn’t care if they were seen like this, should someone come down the short hallway. God, his scent was going to drive her crazy. “How long have you known this was coming, Hails?”

“Uh, few days, I guess.”

“And you weren’t waiting it out at home?” He shook his head, resuming the walk down to the staff lounge. “Sweetheart, you have got to take care of yourself. Do you know how many alphas are on the staff?” She blinked back at him, waiting for his words to sink in. “Too many. And half of them don’t have enough restraint to walk away from an omega in their first heat.” 

Hailey could only imagine how she looked, flushed with the sudden fever, pupils blown. Even mid-scolding it was a struggle not to lean over and bury her nose against his scent gland. “Shit. C’mere, baby.” She scrambled to obey, straddling his thigh in her hurry to nuzzle close. “What I should do is put you over my knee. Certainly earned it,” he grumbled, gripping her by the waist before she could so much as think to grind down on him. Locked in place she could feel the slick already coating her panties. “But I think I’ll leave that to Robby this time.”

“Mean,” she panted, not entirely opposed to either one of them taking her in hand. “Jack, I’m scared. I always keep control of myself. I won’t be able to.”

“Oh, sweet girl. Hailey, you know he’ll take care of you.”

The door swung open before she could respond to his attempt at consolation. And there Robby stood, brow pinched, arms crossed, clearly caught between worry and frustration. It was no surprise when he cracked, crossing the space in a few steps to take her from Jack’s hold. There would likely be another lecture at some point, but for the moment her comfort seemed to be his priority.

She had her arms and legs locked around him in an instant, once again seeking out that newly addictive scent her alpha carried. “Purr?” she whispered as he sat on the edge of the table. Everything happening, each urge and change and pain was unfamiliar territory, but instincts were developing just as quickly as the rest of it. He’d never purred for her before, but she already knew it would mellow the overwhelming sensations coursing through her.

He kissed her hair, granting her request even if it was broken by clipped conversation.

“Fuck. I never requested the rest of the week. I’ll put it in the system now and—”

“Don’t. I’ll be fine.” Hailey had no illusions the rest of his coworkers wouldn’t eventually put two and two together, but she really didn’t want them coming to that conclusion while she was out of it,  or giving Robby any shit for taking extra time in the unlikely event the staff who hadn’t seen her didn’t end up putting things together. “By then I’ll be fine.”

“You won’t. Especially not during your first heat,” Jack said from his place in the chair. “But the extra time on such short notice might not be approved, explanation or none. My long break is right after yours.” He paused. “Wouldn’t be the first time I filled in regarding your girl. What do you say, Hails?”

He was right about it being a familiar arrangement. Jack had joined them in bed before—most often with Robby present, but that wasn’t to say he never had his fill of her after his shift when Robby had already left. There really was no question when it came to his place in their dynamic. Still, while neither of them intimidated her, there was an undeniable vulnerability when it came to an omega’s heat. But this was Jack they were talking about. And after the way she’d reacted to his scent and touch mere moments ago… “I’d—Yes, I’d appreciate that.” However they were keeping from being awkward about this, she was eternally grateful.

He rose from the chair with a nod, stooping down to press a kiss to her temple. “Get her home and settled in her nest, Robby. I’ll pick up the slack here.” 

“Thank you.” Pushing off the table, Robby followed him out, splitting away to take an exit that wouldn’t require them to pass the nurses’ station. At least she was spared that mortification. “Where’d you park, sweet girl?” he asked, fishing the keys out of her crossbody.

“Next lot, I think. West entrance.”

Quickly spotting the vehicle in question, he made short work of getting her buckled in and adjusting the driver’s seat to suit his height. “Couple minutes, Hailey,” he soothed, resting a hand over her thigh to keep a point of contact through the short drive to their complex. Trusting him to get them where they needed to be, she stopped fighting the crawling heat, focus on breathing through the throbbing ache low in her belly. “Almost there, sweetheart,” he said a moment later. “Just parking.”

Robby didn’t let her protest being carried up. Thankfully they were only on the second floor. Two minutes later he had her stripped down to her underwear and got her settled in her nest, taking the place beside her without moving anything out of place, scrubs tossed aside in his rush to help her. “Dropping by a hospital packed with alphas was not your best idea,” he grumbled, shifting to sink down in the cradle of her thighs. She whimpered, feeling the hard line of his cock up against her. “But sitting here alone and refusing to call me to help before I was due home would have been a worse one, so I’ll forgive it.”

She didn’t deny the accusation. He and Jack took care of her, but that didn’t mean putting herself first wasn’t still a work in progress. 

“Ugh. Lecture later. Need—” She choked, a full shudder working through her the moment those two fingers slipped beneath her panties. Feeling him press up against her slick gland, coherency was a forgotten thing. “Please.”

What exactly she was begging for wasn’t much of a mystery. He could touch and tease her a dozen different ways to dull the need coursing through her, but only one thing would fully satisfy it. “Soon,” he promised, but seemed in no hurry to deliver even as he removed the soaked crap of cotton. “Breathe, honey. I’ll give you what you need when you’re ready for it.”

His hand reclaimed its place between her legs, those same two slowly curling until she trembled beneath him while he moved down the bed, finally stopping when he could brace her thighs over his shoulders. “Robby—”

Even with his intentions so clearly presented, the wet heat of his mouth over her clit was a shock through her system. “Fuck,” she hissed, gripping the fabric beneath her until her knuckles paled. She could already feel the increase in slick, wetting  the sheets, surely soaking Robby’s beard—not that he seemed to mind it. “More.” 

The word was barely more than groan, but her hand shifting to the back of his head must’ve gotten the demand across. Gripping her thighs a little tighter, he dragged his tongue up her center, a man entirely devoted to his task. A few strokes of his thumb over her clit and she was riding the edge in half the time it would have taken without the heat affecting her body. “That’s it, baby.” The slightest scrape of his nail was the hair trigger. Habit alone had her biting her lip to keep from crying out. Never did she hate living in a complex more than that moment. 

That first orgasm left her reeling. Enough that she didn’t register Robby discarding the last scraps of clothing between them. Wasn’t fully present until she felt his mouth on hers, the taste of slick lingering—and not entirely unpleasant. “With me again?”

She nodded. “Achy, Alpha.”

“I know. I know, sweet girl. Doing so well for me. Just need filled up, don’t you?” He tilted his head, nipping her earlobe before skimming his teeth across her neck. “Need a knot.”

“Please, Robby.” He slid a hand down between them, thumbing one nipple along his way, a different kind of heat running through her with that brief contact. A second longer and he was sliding into place, pushing deep enough for his knot to graze. “Oh, God. More. Need more.” 

Eyes fluttering shut, she could only feel the slight shift in his weight before his hand was in her hair and his mouth was on hers again, muting the whimper brought on by the next roll of his hips. “Such a good girl,” he groaned when they parted. His hands fell again, bending her legs just enough to sink a little further. The first true taste of his knot since the start of all this. She’d taken before. Though it had certainly taken more preparation before she could produce true slick. She’d enjoyed it. But she’d never needed it. She couldn’t hold back the growl of frustration. “Hailey—”

“Stop teasing.” 

He chuckled, though it sounded strained like he was just as close to the edge. “Alright, sweet girl,” he agreed, each thrust of his hips building in pace. Finally, his knot locked inside of her. She came with a sharp cry, the mounting heat and pressure melting into what she knew would be an all-too-brief satisfaction, feeling him spill inside of her. “Christ,” he groaned, face tucked into her neck for a long moment before he pressed a soft kiss there and rolled them so he wouldn’t have to worry about keeping his weight off of her. “Alright, sweetheart?”

She grumbled something only half-coherent and he chuckled fondly. “I’ve got you.”

She didn’t realize she’d started to doze until Robby tried to slip out from beneath her. “No.”

“Just going to grab a few things. I’ll only be a minute,” he promised. 

Kissing the back of her hand, he slipped out of her hold only to return a moment later with a wet cloth and water bottle. “Fuck,” she hissed, clear headed enough to finally register just how much of a mess she looked—and how much of the bedding was soaked with her slick.

“Nothing that can’t be fixed, Hailey,” Robby soothed. “Take it easy.” Gentle, but efficient, he cleaned the worst of the mess and adjusted things so she was sitting at a partial incline to drink the water he offered. Her half-hearted pout was the first thing he acknowledged. “You can fix your nest in a few minutes, little one. Right now you need fluids. I doubt I’ll be able to get much in you when the worst of it comes on.”

She huffed at that. “A doctor before all else, aren’t you?”

“Doctor, alpha. You can blame it on what you’d like, as long as you’re drinking.” Too tired to argue, she did as she was told. “Good girl,” he offered when she handed back the empty glass. As always, the words were a balm to any tension or worry she held. “Get settled back in and rest while you can. I’ll be right here with you.”

[aphidclan-clangen]

Do you have any tips on how to design a sparklecat, Like any inspiration or ideas for it.

Oh man, hm. I usually just freestyle it so let me think

The thing is, AphidClan designs are like. My least professional designs that I have lol, so I can’t really give you classic Actual Professional Character Design Technique Advice because if you followed the professional advice, you would probably not be producing anything that looks like Aphidclan designs lmao, you’d be making much better shit. But you guys want Aphidclan specifically, you guys want how I do it! So I’m gonna try to give you guys,,,whatever advice I can scrounge up from the shit that I do specifically! And like break down what my thought process is into tips?? Anyway

My biggest tip has gotta be Pick An Aesthetic. You don’t have to do this, but it’ll help narrow things down significantly. An aesthetic, a theme, etc. All my best designs for the comic that I get the most compliments on have specific theming, and all the character designs of mine I personally grew to…strongly dislike, were characters WITHOUT any theming, like Gravel’s old design for example. It was all just purple and more dark purple but slightly desaturated, and there wasn’t any direction to it at all, because that’s what happens sometimes when you make shit up on the spot and go with your first draft lmao. Blisswhistle’s theme is rainbow, Pearlstar had a sort of cotton candy unicorncore vibe, Gravel’s new look has a punk aesthetic, Shadebreak and Goldshine are famously emo, etc. Pick a theme! It’ll help!

Right now I’m trying to create Toyhouse profiles for everyone in Aphidclan, and it is a bit of a nightmare trying to figure out what to do for the members of the cast that don’t have a theme. I really really need to give Firebeetle a theme and redesign him with it in mind to give him a design that actually looks good because it’s driving me BATSHIT how directionless he is rn it’s really pissing me off. I’m thinking vaporwave neon cyberpunk shit…

DETOUR TIP FOR GENERAL COMIC-MAKING: Don’t always stick with just your first draft before jumping into comic production! A character may look real nice, but you don’t know what it’s gonna be like to have to draw that same design over and over and over and over and over and over and over again forever! A good way to test this is to take a sketch sheet and, as quickly as you can, draw that character as many times as you can! Draw them like 20 times, 30 times, just 5 or 10 can be pretty dang enlightening on its own. You’ll find yourself dropping certain details, agonizing over the more complicated markings, wishing to get rid of certain accessories, adding new features that come more naturally to you, and more! Take note of those natural changes and make edits accordingly 👍 ((psst: have you noticed that Gravel’s concept art shows her depicted with golden earrings? when was the last time I drew those motherfuckers. it happens🤷‍♂️))

Narrowing down your aesthetic will also help with picking accessories or pivotal details that are related to the theme you chose. If your character has a strawberry theme, you now can give them like a strawberry marking on their chest, or narrow it down to be based on Strawberry Shortcake specifically for nostalgia points, so you can give them the strawberry hat and green-and-white striped leg markings, or leggings. If they’re scenecore, you can give them scenemo hair, or kandi bracelets—have you noticed that Shadebreak has markings that look like fishnet gloves? This is because I wore those bad bitches all the time throughout my emo era in highschool. It’ll make it easier to decide what your markings will be, basically

~~ peruse my collection of my best designs below ((none of these are Aphidclan characters though sadly)) ~~

(Virus, the third one, is directly based on the You Are An Idiot computer virus!)

I may not be a professional over here, but I still believe one of the main things that’s always super important about character design is intention. Intention makes the best character designs. Ideally, you want to be completely clear about what exactly you want to convey to the audience about a character. The audience should know exactly what to expect from your character at first glance. Their base personality, whether or not you want them to think they’re a villain, or a good guy, or a background character, or somewhere morally gray and conflicted. Their style, their themes, their age, their goal, their hobbies and passions, what they do for a living, what they’ve been through, why they’re here, their culture, the time period they live in, their status in society, anything and everything that is relevant to their character. Are they tough and rugged and been through some real shit? Are they dainty and flowery and feminine? Are they a princess, or are they a peasant? Are they a thief, a rogue, or an enforcer of the law? Could a stranger tell any of this just by looking at them?

Warrior cats isn’t a series where a lot of intention can be utilized, since we’re only working with cats. I have seen some warriors artists really master visual storytelling in their warriors designs alone, but usually you have to get really fuckin cool with dynamic shape language in order to do that, and I’m nowhere near that level yet with my own shape language lol. Instead, I try to utilize intention in other ways.

Berrykit has very round fur tufts. This is to show that she’s soft, she’s approachable, she’s cute and harmless (presently. …mostly.) But Nimblekit’s fur is jagged and sharp, he’s COVERED in sharp angles all the time, to communicate that he’s edgy!! He’s snippy and snarky and reckless and chaotic!! He’ll getcha!! ((Berrykit’s curly fur is also to make her look more similar to Blisswhistle as her half-sister!)) I also use these fur tufts to make heart shapes in her fur, like her heart-shaped ear tufts, to further drive home her lovecore theming! Stormwhisper has round fur tufts to look more like a cloud, Icesheep has sharp tufts to make him look more like an icicle, etc etc list goes on

Virus has devilish horns and tail to communicate he’s impish and gonna get ya, Lemon Wash has scale markings to communicate the sharky oceanic theming, be intentional!! That’s the fun of sparklecats, there’s more room to play with! You can give your strawberry shortcake cat strawberry markings ! You can give your care bear based sparklecat a funny symbol on their big squishy belly! You can still tell a purpose with their markings and accessories! Intention intention intention, drill it in!!

uhh that’s all I have today. tired now. Good luck! and have fun and all that

[cripplecharacters]

Hello! I'm working on a story that is, fundamentally, a revenge story. A young woman loses her beloved older sister in a car accident, and becomes obsessed with hunting down everyone she perceives as responsible for or complicit in her sister's death.

This girl was also in the car when the accident happened, and while she survived, she did lose her leg (below the knee).

My question is, is it okay to have a disabled character seeking revenge for the event that disabled them if the disability isn't the driving force behind that revenge? My protagonist did lose her leg in that accident, but the thing she's bitter and vengeful about is the death of her sister, and she makes that very clear throughout the story. Is that enough to detach her from the trope of "character wants vengeance for becoming disabled," or is it still too close for comfort?

Also, I'm planning to make this girl fat; we need more badass fat characters in the world. Will that affect her experience with having a prosthetic? Especially considering it's a leg, so it'll be bearing her weight. Very few of the medical resources out there account for fat people, unfortunately.

Hey!

Standard disclaimer that we don't have amputee mods, please keep this in mind.

I think that this is a cool alternative to the usual "revenge for making someone disabled" plot line. Her being incredibly emotional because she lost a loved one is a natural reaction, and the desire for revenge is well, natural for the genre. It's just nice to see a disabled character being involved without disability being the main factor. In my view it's realistic too, I feel like most people would care about the death of a beloved sibling more than a new disability (not to imply that they wouldn't at all, of course). Disability is better than death, even if it makes life harder. I believe the concept for the story is fine.

For the second part of the ask, I 100% agree that we need more badass fat characters, especially women. These are some factors that could affect her as an amputee, and they are things that fat amputees deal with more often - but obviously no group is a monolith, so I doubt every single one will apply to her specifically. Skinny amputees can deal with these issues as well. Not an exhaustive list of course.

Prosthetic weight limit. These are different for different models, but they do exist. The most ranges I've seen go up to 136kg, so the process of getting one might be more costly and/or time-consuming if she's above it. The higher the weight the higher the risk of needing custom-made parts. That's expensive.

Actually being able to put it on. If she can't reach the end of her residual limb, she might either need another person's help or get an assistive device to help her both take care of the stump and put her prosthesis on.

Prosthetic fit. This one can already be difficult if the person is skinny, but it's a more time-consuming experience for people with more fat and skin on their residual limb. This is partially due to shrinkage and tissue remodeling, which is a progressive process, and more tissue means that there is more to remodel. She might have to go through a lot of refitting before landing on one that will be appropriate for the long-term. Keep in mind that basically everyone gains weight after becoming an amputee, so this is a process that can go on for a long time just for this reason, not even including the other reasons like the wear and tear.

Sockets. Like most things, they were designed with skinny people in mind, and it kinda shows. A socket gives stability through hugging firm tissue, so the more soft tissue is present in between them, the less stability and control it offers. Mobility aids can help with this - whether that'd be crutches, a rollator/walker, or a cane, depends on her personal preference and needs.

Fatigue levels. Using a prosthetic is really tiring already, but it gets more tiring if you are physically heavier, same for more pain due to the increase in pressure between the skin and the prosthetic. Again, a mobility aid can be helpful - she'd probably own a wheelchair, even if that's not the aid she'd use most often. She could opt to use a wheelchair at home to preserve energy, and walk outside with prosthetic and crutches.

As you can see, a lot of this has to do with increased costs, so you have to take in your character's financial situation in mind. And of course she's not gonna just put on a prosthetic the day after the accident. It's a process that takes a long time, physical therapy, and patience, even if she starts using a preparatory prosthetic early (before getting a permanent one) it still takes time to relearn how to first stand, then walk, then run... It's a process.

I hope this helps,

mod Sasza

[ihavetoomanyocsdealwithit]

Stone Heart AU: Scar pt I

As much as Yuu tried, she still ended up in trouble in trouble sometimes. Be it with Ace and Deuce, or just running late from acting as Crowley’s unofficial gopher, it was something. The punishments usually weren't that bad though, sometimes even relaxing.  

Like right now, it was a little bit of a trip down memory lane as she scrubbed the statues down on Main Street. It was odd, having the dreams that she did that painted the Great 7 in shadows instead of light, but it felt...right. Balanced.  

A story about a maid who would be going to a ball was the current dream cycle, though she didn’t get the feeling this one was going to relate to any upcoming overblots. While they didn’t happen as often, she occasionally just dreamt of things like this. While there was a lot to ruminate over, like the stepmother and Professor Trien, right now it was just a catchy little song sung by the fairy stuck in her head.  

“Put it together-” The King of Beasts statue wasn’t in bad shape at least, “and what do you got-” Just had to get the moss out of his eye, “Bippity Boppity Boo!” 

The eye blazed green, cracking open with a clap of thunder!  

Yuu fell, catching herself with her hands. Shit! Did she break it? Damnit, she couldn’t afford- 

Wait. It looked fine. Just a wet statue.  

“Maybe I just need to finish this up.” She muttered. “Lack of sleep must be getting to me.”  

The atmosphere had changed, the tension of a storm about to break open. As she finished the King of Beasts, she clocked her progress and ran, feeling like eyes followed her until she turned the corner.  

Malleus must be in a mood, she thinks, watching the dark clouds forming and the green smoke that seems to be spilling out the fence of Ramshackle. It isn’t the right shade of green though, more muted and not as...saturated? The gate creeks ominously and it doesn’t take her long to notice the figure sitting on the porch of Ramshackle.  

He is hunched over, a shawl tossed over his head that was once bright with color and design, now faded to grays, browns and darker reds like blood. His left eye is as green as the Diasomnia mage crystals, clear and unclouded, and the right faded as the green smoke around him. A gnarled staff is gripped in his hands, a gourd tied to the top with a handful of what might be rib bones along with some sort of dried fruit she thinks.  

This isn’t a harmless man, her instincts can say that much, but...he doesn’t feel like a threat. He could be. He’s choosing not to.  

“How can I help you?” Yuu asks, getting a bit closer. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Are you a teacher here?”  

He chuckles, making the pointed beard shake, but it’s not cruel. “I suppose that depends on you. I think you are in need of a teacher. And I am in need of a place to stay.” 

“What do I need to learn?”  

“Magic.”  

“Ha!” Yuu can’t help it, barking a laugh. “You are mistaken. I have no magic of my own.” 

“No, cub, you have magic, just not Wonderland magic. You have the Old magic, older even than General Lilia, the same as I. These teachers cannot help you, but I can.”  

He removes the shawl’s hood from his face, revealing a pair of brown lion ears and a mane that puts Yuu’s hair to shame. Even braided in parts to keep it out of his face, the long black hair stretches all the way down to his curved spine. A tail thumps against the dusty steps,  

“Afterall, you freed me, didn’t you?”  

It takes some explaining, a quick meal shared on her dining room table that feels even more rundown than usual with actual royalty sitting down. Thank the Seven that Grim was asleep beforehand, his new Spelldrive practices tiring him out in the evenings.  

“So, are the others...the same? Petrified?”  

“Yes, though you aren’t ready to free us all just yet. I was an accident, correct?” 

She flinches, nodding. “I mean, I guess? Sometimes I have dreams. Alternate tellings of the stories around here it feels like, or added details? Most of the time they follow an Overblot, but this one just felt like a non-threatening one. I don’t have these as often.”  

“Precognition is a dangerous magic, especially with no guiding tools.” 

“I dont know if-” 

“You dreamt of mine, did you not? Leona Kingscholar? The Phantom still was a part of me, drawn from my form and magic.”  

Yuu blinked, shrugging. “I mean, it didn’t stop it.” 

“No, but you were more prepared. You were willing and ready to accept Leona’s trauma and show compassion because you witnessed me make the exact follies and look at how that ended.” he huffed, taking a sip from his water. 

She hadn’t considered that really. It just felt natural, to show them kindness after all of it. But they were alike. Really alike. And the actions Leona had taken paralleled his perfectly.  

“Do you think if somebody had done so with you, you would have listened?” 

“Oh cub!” He laughed, and this one felt harsher. “I would not have. I was far too hardened. But Leona...he will be better.”  

“Well, I better try and at least get a bed ready for you.” She said, taking both of their dishes. “What do I call you though? King of Beasts is a bit of a mouthful.”  

He tilts his head, as if considering. She gets the dishes loaded and leftovers put away before he finally answers.  

“Taka. My Mother’s Son.” he says. “That’s who I wish to be now.”  

Yuu smiles, sticking out her hand.  

“Nice to meet you, Professor Taka! I look forward to learning from you.”  

For just a moment, he sees Simba, and Nuka and Kovu and Vitani. He sees Shenzi, Banzai and Ed. He sees naive and friendly and believes in him, for as little he has to offer, and still finds him worthy.  

He shakes her hand and hangs his stone heart to air out.  

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

As per usual, info under the cut <3

IM BACK BITCHES!!!

Alright, here's the design stuff:

I wanted to go for kind of a Lois Lane vibe, including the way she gets all the way up in business she should not be up in. At the same time I wanted to bring the super cutesy gothic lolita style in at least a little. So I ended up going with a poofy short jumpsuit with bows and teddy bears. I would love to make a specific thank you to @themooncallsyou for suggesting I look at the Moschino 2022 spring line for inspiration, it ended up having a very heavy impact on the final design.

I tried to lean into the investigative part of investigative reporter, so that's what the heavy coat is about. I thought adding that classic detective silhouette would be a nice final touch. Plus, I think Blondie likes the drama of the coat flying behind her as she's chasing down a lead. It makes her feel very cool.

Alright, so her original pet is a bear cub named Grizz but I have. Several problems with that. The main one is that it's not clear what the difference between Grizz and the actual sentient bears and her story is. There is never any differentiation between them. It's a Goofy-Pluto situation. Like it doesn't need to be explained, but the minute you start thinking about it too hard it gets weird real fast.

Anyways say hello to Honey the magpie!! Magpies are great mimics and lovers of shiny things, so I thought one would be a perfect fit for Blondie. She repeats bits of gossip and steals little trinkets and clues to help Blondie with whatever case she's on. Honey is where Blondie gets her infinite supply of bobby pins. Her scale is a little off, I don't think magpies are actually that big, but I still think she's cute so I'm not changing it now lol.

Now for character stuff:

Honestly I'm not really changing anything as much as I am exploring what's already there. I think Blondie has the potential to be really interesting, because she's unique within the class system of the school. She's kind of the inverse of Raven status-wise. Raven was born to royalty, but because her mom is the Evil Queen she's actually considered a commoner by society. Blondie was born to a wealthy commoner family, but her fear of rejection leads her to exaggerate the prestige of her lineage. Everyone sort of knows that she's not a Princess but she's so desperate to keep up the image of royalty that no one knows where she actually lands. Most of the royals assume her parents are Lord and Lady or Duke and Duchess or something. In reality they don't have any noble title, and Blondie is very insecure about that.

Blondie isn't so much ashamed of her family as she is terrified of exclusion and rejection. Her standing in society is the one major thing that makes her different from all the other royals, but she has major anxieties that she's always on thin ice. In her mind she's permanently one wrong step from total ostracization.

On a happier note, she does have a genuine passion for journalism! She considers her news blog/podcast practice for her future career. She starts out discussing school drama and gossip, but tries to stay a neutral third party. That's why her hair is so big. It's full of secrets. As the story goes on she starts reporting on more political and social topics beyond the boundaries of the school (and therefore becomes one of Milton Grimms worst nightmares). She is really, really, really good at getting into shit people do not want her to get into. She's got her eyes on prize and good luck stopping her

[lilyblackdrawside]

Operator self-sufficiency and player favouritism

1. what do i mean

Attacker operators can either function perfectly fine by themselves or may require some help from supporting operators to bring out most of their potential. Generally, modern operators are self-sufficient enough and 6 star operators especially are.

You can gauge an operators self-sufficiency by how much they’re hyped by „the community“. Wiš’adel? Her S3 needs no support to do its thing and actually scales pretty badly with the usual attacker support options. Młynar? Yup, use his S3 and watch him go. Logos? Whitewolflter? Texalter? Yep x3 combo. Zuo Le? Yeah, he does it. People don’t care much for him (for some reason (he’s not a cute waifu and debuted with someone who is)), but he does do it.

Basically any operator you can put down and let, em rip, they‘re self sufficient.

2. what does it mean

So what’s this for? Am I trying to tell you to stop using those operators? No, not at all. It’s obvious that people would enjoy easy to use operators that put on an enjoyable performance and that’s totes okay. But I like to look at these kinds of things and see what the potential of a less-used operator is.

Past this the post gets long. There'll be indulgences (non-religious). There'll be math. There'll be spreadsheets. But now you're already invested, so expand the post please and read on.

3. who is self-sufficient

Arts attackers are always self-sufficient. That doesn’t mean they can’t be supported, but due to the linear relationship of arts damage and res, compared to the erratic one that physical damage and defense have, arts attackers will always be able to perform adequately.

If we have two operators, one doing arts damage and one physical, that have 1000 ATK and make them attack an enemy with 50 RES and 500 DEF respectively, they will both be doing 500 damage, which is 50%. Now we double their ATK. The arts attacker now deals 1000 damage, which is twice the damage compared to when they had 1000 ATK but also still 50% because the enemy has 50 RES. Doubling their ATK doubled their damage. The physical attacker now deals 1500 damage, which is thrice the damage compared to when they had 1000 ATK and now 75% thanks to the enemy’s 500 DEF.

I will now be self-indulgent and present an operator concept I created a while ago to entertain myself with mockery of certain design points of recent operators that annoyed me, but ended up being a pretty cool design that, while hilariously overpowered, has many features that make them absolute trash without the support of other operators:

So this is Evil Plume, say hi to her.

The main point I was making fun of is the low % crit chance talent with an incredibly high multiplier that gets the crit guaranteed by the operator’s skills. If you want to crit, be honest about it. But for the purpose of this exercise, that part isn’t particularly important. I think another aspect I wanted to riff on was how easy to use the operators that annoyed me are and/or how they break their branch’s limitations. This is why all three of her skills are a huge pain to use.

S1 is Offensive Recovery and Auto Activation and has a side effect of doubling its damage whenever it’s used in succession. This isn’t possible without outside help. She can’t use the skill and then do it again immediately, because she has to autoattack to charge it, which resets the multiplier. So you have to give her SP support and regulate when she gets to attack by using blockers (the second part she will also mess with by gaining increased range after the second use) but the skill has no damage limit. It’ll keep doubling, so if you’re good about it you can prime it until she oneshots the local Leader enemy.

S2 hits behind her (it’s called Backstab after all) so you have to face her away from where you want her to hit, but it has functionally infinite range that way. It also takes 300 SP and has 300 initial SP, so it’s practically a manually activated passive skill. The raw damage is stupidly high, but that’s not important because you can have her deal True damage with the skill by supporting her. If she strikes enemies that are suffering from at least 3 debuffs, at least one of which has to be an elemental burst effect, she does True damage. Halfway through the skill she applies two debuffs by herself, so you just have to supply the elemental burst to get at least that much. But beyond that, if you want to keep using it you also have to support her with a lot of DP.

Her first talent reduces her redeployment time by 20 seconds (she gets a total of -45s with ModX) but „doubles her cost increment“, which means that instead of her cost increasing by 50% after the first retreat and doubling after that, it triples after the first retreat and... sextuples after that. So she goes from 23 DP (22 with max pot. I didn’t decide her Potentials, but only one of them reduces cost) to 46 (44) and then 99 (99), so while you can deploy her every 25 seconds (15 with potentials?) to bang out 28k full aoe True damage with her S2, you’re going to be paying out your ass for it each time.

S3 just needs someone else to levitate enemies for her to do its full damage, but beyond that it’s still kinda ass because it misses enemies in her attack range. Beyond that it’s like, reasonable.

Oh right I just remembered another joke in her kit. Her Crit talent is worded just in the worst way, because the devs simply can’t be consistent about their wording with those things so she has just about every wording.

All in all, Evil Plume is an incredibly user-hostile operator when I just kinda wanted to joke about recent operators being too easy to use for how powerful they are (and stupid low odds crits getting guaranteed by their skills).

She’s NOT self-sufficient.

4. math

Here I will use Wiš’adel and Exusiai as examples of an operator who is self-sufficient and not and an operator who isn’t self-sufficient and what their true potential is like.

When I mention Wiš’adel, you will be thinking of her S3 that’s a big nuke of some kind. I’ve seen it like once or so. It’s pretty strong, but doesn’t excite me. I have raised her, because I enjoyed her in the story so much, but I’m only using her for her S2. Which is her strongest skill by a mile. And also the one that’s least self-sufficient.

When I mention Exusiai, you’ll be thinking of how she shoots really fast and many bullets and does no damage. If you played since the start, you’ll be thinking of how well she works with Warfarin and maybe even Shamare or Pramanix.

In this spreadsheet that I made a while ago to check out Wiš’adel’s numbers, because I could kinda tell that her S2 holds incredible potential, I have now also added Exusiai.

Stats are max level, Wiš with ModX, Exusiai with with ModExusiY (That’s ModY, it’s wordplay).

The important part here is in the coloured boxes, which depict each skill’s/operator’s raw DPS, Total damage dealt over the course of the skill, hit count per attack and a damage comparison from Wiš’adel’s S2 to her S3 at the top and to Exusiai’s S3 at the bottom.

This shows that Wiš’adel’s S3 looks kinda trashy compared to the other two, being less than half of both Wiš S2 and Exu’s S3. Total damage is a bit higher than Wiš S2, but lower than Exu’s S3. Wiš’ S2 narrowly wins on raw DPS, but Exu wins on total damage due to her S3 having a longer effective duration. I only took Wiš’adel’s Overdrive time for her S2, because outside of that it’s quite different. So what gives? I thought S3 is the bomb! Destroys everything! Yeah, it does. It’s convenient by being an ammo-based skill, hits flyers (undeservedly), has a huge splash radius and huge damage per hit.

And that last part is the sticking point. The way the damage is delivered. Wiš’ S2 and Exu’s S3 both have pretty low damage per hit. Exu just shoots 1100 damage shots (This is raw damage so against a 0 def target, but I accounted for Exu’s 250 def bypass don’t worry) while Wiš’adel hits for 1137 damage with the main hit of her attack, 568 with the shockwaves and 2486 with her crits with S2, totaling up to 11630 damage per attack after her massive hit count per attack is tallied up, and with S3 for 6483 main attack, 3242 shockwaves and 5157 crits, which are guaranteed. So against enemies with 1100 DEF, Wiš’adel’s S2 won’t be putting a meaningful dent in the enemy anymore, short of just critting with every strike (but even then it’ll be limp) and Exusiai is in an even worse position, just shooting for the guaranteed 5% minimum damage everytime. Meanwhile Wiš’adel’s S3 is still kicking, barely feeling the 1.1k DEF. That’s its strength. That’s how it’s self-sufficient. So we have to put some effort into bringing out that incredible raw dps, don’t we?

There are two avenues here: Debuffing the enemy, be that with Def debuffs from operators like Elysium or Pramanix or with Frailty debuffs like from Gnosis or also Pramanix. Frailty increases the damage the enemy takes before DEF is taken into account, so Gnosis’ 64% frailty debuff would up Exusiai’s raw dph enough to deal meaningful damage to that 1.1k DEF enemy. The former wouldn’t do much for Wiš’ S3, but she does work perfectly fine with Frailty cause that’s just another damage multiplier.

The other option is to buff our own operators.

For that, I set up the %buff and Inspiration lines in the spreadsheet, which are already integrated into the formulae making up each column. So let’s say I bring Warfarin and Skalter with S2.

With this, Wiš’adel’s S2 is now pulling further ahead of her own S3 with regards to DPS and has also passed its raw damage output, now having a 1.31 advantage in that category compared to its 0.98 disadvantage without buffs.

Its relation to Exu’s S3 hasn’t meaningfully changed.

Overall, Wiš’adel’s S2 gained a 93% increase to DPS and Total, her S3 gained a 44.7% increase to both and Exusiai’s S3 gained a 94% increase.

Why is this? Why is Wiš’adel’s S3 not growing as much? That’s because it already gives her +180% ATK, while her S2 only gives +35% and Exusiai is only gaining a +8% ATK buff from her talent, nothing else. This means that S3 Wiš is sitting at 280% ATK, S2 at 135% and Exu at 108%, which increases to 370%, 225% and 198% with Warfarin’s S2 adding another +90%. This is an effective raw damage buff of +32%, +67% and +83%. +ATK buffs just don’t stack that well, so for an operator to be receptive to outside support, their skills needs to increase their damage in other ways, like inflicting multiple hits, „dealing %ATK damage“ or reducing Attack Interval. ASPD buffs are also good for this, as those are harder to get from outside sources than ATK buffs. Of course, Wiš’adel’s S3 is a marvel of modern engineering and double dips into both categories, giving her a huge +ATK buff AND dealing large %ATK damage - +180% and 220% respectively. This comes out to an effective +ATK buff of +516%. It would read pretty absurdly if her S3 said „ATK +516%“ but not counting outside buffs, that is what it does. Another reason her S3 isn’t converting this ATK buff as well as the other two skills is that it attacks more slowly, increasing her Wiš’adel’s Attack Interval by a lot while her S2 not only reduces it by a third, it also greatly increases her hit count so she attacks faster and hits more times per attack, making use of her buffed ATK stat more frequently. The same goes for Exusiai. Now if we also look at the Inspiration buff giving a flat +295 ATK, the same pretty much goes here. It’s just added after all the other ATK buffs are applied, so with S3 Wiš’adel has 2358 ATK, with S2 she has 1137 and Exusiai has 756. With Warfarin’s S2 on top that’s 3115, 1895 and 1386 so adding the Inspiration brings us to 2653/3410, 1432/2190 and 1051/1681 or +12.5%/+9.5%, +25.9%/+15.6% and +39%/+21.2% relative increase given by Skalter’s +295 ATK Inspiration over their personal ATK / ATK increased by Warfarin.

For Wiš’adel’s S3 that’s a drop in the bucket, but for her S2 and especially for Exusiai it’s another huge increase. Exusiai in particular actually prefers the flat ATK buff from Inspiration over Warfarin’s S2. If I scale up that kind of +x% ATK buff, then Wiš’adel’s S2 and Exusiai’s S3 damage output stay relatively even. See here with a ridiculous +400% ATK from outside sources:

With the damage buff being entirely a +x% ATK type and no flat Inspiration, Wiš’adel’s S2 grows ever so slightly faster in damage than Exusiai, thanks to her having a higher base atk to get increased by this buff. Wiš’adel gains 3368 ATK from a +400% ATK buff, while Exusiai „only“ gets 2800.

Now if I flip it to be a ridiculously large amount of flat ATK from Inspiration it looks like this:

Now Exusiai’s DPS is higher (Wiš’adel’s previously positive 1.04 has tipped into a negative 0.95 and of course her total damage has pulled further ahead as well. The difference in preference here is quite small, as both do their damage in pretty much the same way: Hitting very quickly for small instances of damage, so both appreciate flat ATK the same and Wiš’adel’s base ATK isn’t that much higher that a +x% ATK buff would bring her that much more than what Exu gets out of it. It’s not like we’re looking at the difference between a Fighter with like 650 ATK and a Crusher with 1600.

And of course in either case, Wiš’ S3 is just left in the dust, beyond it having a large splash area. Though its damage per hit is getting pretty obscene too, but outside of The Last Knight and its 4000 Defense, hitting for over 3k and 6.5k was already enough to not care much about enemy DEF.

For the record, Exusiai overcomes Wiš’adel’s S2 DPS with at 423 ATK Inspiration. My Skalter gives 542 with her S3 and Sora does 416 with her S2,which is just short but that’s good enough, so this is a very reasonable amount. Craft Essence does 437 and Heidi like 450 +9% ATK, but her S1 only lasts 10 seconds, which doesn’t even cover Wiš’adel’s S2‘s Overload period so it’s not practical.

I’m comparing physical attackers here, but with regards to raw damage it works all the same for Casters. Though they tend to function better with debuff support, because of how Res works. A Caster will get a lot more out of having an enemy’s Res being reduced from 80 to 60 than getting +295 ATK from Skalter, because the former represents them doing double damage right there. The best thing you can do for a Caster is pray that the target is Freezable and set Gnosis and Robert on them to inflict both Freeze and Burn, for a total of -25 Res and 64% Frailty. There are Casters like Ebenholz and Marcille who have huge %ATK damage multipliers so they work wonderfully with ATK buffs as well, but overall you’ll want to look for those kinds of means to support them as needed. And this doesn’t even go into Elemental damage, which currently is entirely a thing that Arts damage dealers dabble in. Because for that you want to go back to ATK and ASPD buffs again. Use Rose Salt or Shining so Ebenholz can survive getting drugged by Aak and watch him go lol.

5. conclusion

What I want to illustrate with this is that the easiest to use and most self-sufficient operators (or skills) won’t necessarily have the highest potential. If people show off a new operator and you see them ripping the opposition apart, then it's not like the footage is lying. Modern operators are generally good at doing their thing and generally deserve the hype. (Where "the community" goes wrong is usually in undervaluing operators who fall under the radar in some way.) And for the most part, you’ll be fine with that and that's okay. It’s not like you get this support for free. Skalter is easy to slot in because she’s great at sustaining the team and her S2 is very easy to use, especially thanks to her Oomfie, so is Elysium because he’s a Vanguard, but Warfarin is another squad slot for the ATK buff, Pramanix another for her 60% Def debuff and so on and so forth. Instead of bringing Warfarin and Pramanix you could just bring Młynar and Logos and blast more damage directly onto the target. But I think it’s interesting to see how you can make certain operators work. Deploying GreyThroat, Archetto and/or Exusiai with Skalter and activating Pramanix’ S2 and their own dps skills to see them rip through a boss has always been a lot of joy for me. Seeing how if Pramanix ends up getting shot down their damage just stops, even though they’re still firing, but now the enemy suddenly has 2000 DEF again instead of 800 and they’re not suffering the 33% Frailty debuff. It feels good to see these things come together, just like how it’s fun to see someone go toe to toe with a Leader enemy on their own.

Oh also isn't it great how even after all this time, Exu is still the queen of raw single target damage? I think that's great. She deserves it.

[venomous-qwille]

hi qwille!!! I got questions for u! you have lots of characters planned out, and that’s super cool! but how do u usually go about that process? like all your characters are very unique, and I wonder about the design process, as well as how you make their personality distinct! how do you make character dynamics/relationships? because all the scenes I’ve read so far make the characters feel really organic, and mesh really well together! (sorry for all the questions! I’m super curious ^w^)

Hiya! Here is an answer I wrote for this question on discord recently ^^

I will try answer this as thoroughly as possible!

There was a LOT of kill your darlings involved in making characters for gitm. Originally I had a very long list of character ideas that I cut down and down based on the kind of things and themes they would give me the opportunity to write about. I love long ensemble cast stories, thinking back to ones I particularly enjoyed and the ways those characters gelled together helped me a lot. The most important thing when selecting characters was making sure they would give me something interesting to write about! I was also very keen on ones that let me explore the fics main theme of Family from a different angle. I'm not sure how helpful this all is! But yeah, I try to be pretty strict with myself about what I include. The only reason I would include two characters who were very very similar would be to emphasize a difference/divergence between them later on. Characters have to justify themselves by bringing something unique to the table, even if that thing is just a 'very different outlook on life' to the rest of the cast. Over time a lot of those character ideas became more fleshed out in my brain, and characters that were cut from the original shortlist made their way back in. They still have to be able to narratively justify themselves in order to earn a channel in the discord though!

For the gitm guys, while I dont have a literal sheet I fill out I do make sure to answer a couple of basic character work questions: What lie do they believe about themselves/the world? How does it impact the way they interact with others? What central theme do they embody most? What do they want more than anything else? How do they feel about humans? Who are they at their best and who are they at their worst? I found that by answering these sort of questions it helped me discover more about them, which creates more questions- rinse and repeat. The more questions I answered the further away they would get from each other in terms of similarities. The thing that really helped with the gitm boys, especially because their origins are so similar, was leaning in to how different their experiences were post-fazco. They are different people because the world has made them that way. Messing around with foils has been useful too! Characters are no fun in a vacuum, it's how they interact with others that makes them interesting. I like to create ones that will bring out the best and the worst in each other. I think about opposites a lot and I really like narrative symmetry- what lessons can the characters learn from each other? I find that stuff super exciting to read so I really wanted to include it. Some examples of character foils in gitm: Fool & Noon, Sombra & Sunspot, Misuta & Sol

When it comes to finding character voice, I do a lot of test drabbles (a couple of them are on this server), which I use to just fuck around until I find something that feels right. For instance- Sol was very very easy to find the voice of, where as Misuta took weeks of rewrites. Sometimes things take time. Spending this time figuring out their voices at the start really helps fic consistence in the long run, I think. Because of all that prep, I don't really have to do anything to 'get into character' when writing their dialogue (it's fairly second nature now).

In regards to coming up with a character's arc, I look at them and their themes and ask 'what the fuck happened to you, dude?' and then 'how has that entrenched a faulty world view on you?' 'what could you be driven to do because of that world view/misunderstanding?' 'what would it take to fix this world view/misunderstanding?' (the last question is the most important one!). Then voila, you have a very loose framework of a (hopepunk) character arc.

In regards to the actual planning of the fic/character arcs, I have a very big miro board (pic attached) that I use for all this! Most of the major character beats are marked out separately to plot beats etc etc. There are still a bunch of bits that only reside in my brain, but I do try to add them to my plan as soon as they become any kind of concrete. All of the characters also have a background chapter (or rather, a series of chapters that form a short story) attached to their arc, that will recontextualise everything you have learned about them so far! I am so deeply looking forward to dropping these (I already have quite a lot written).

I would say that- for your question on character relationships- the answer does come down to being really specific about what you include. Make sure characters are meaningfully different from eachother, give them goals and experiences that clash and then force them to live/work together in the same space. If you have put time into building your characters before that, then you just need to create opportunities for them to get into conflict and bring out the best/worst in eachother. I really do believe that characters are quite boring in a vacuum- which is why I put so much emphasis on including narrative foils ^^ Tyvm for the ask <3

[metalljellyphish]

Any cool headcanons of your DID butters au??

-lipgloss anon

OK YOU KNOW I was hanging on to this one to draw some ideas but it’s a rainy night and I need to talk about something, SO!

Leopold

The OG Butters we’ll say; when most people refer to “Butters” they’re talking about Leo. He’s still the sweet kid everyone knows, your sunshine on a rainy day and all that. Technically the oldest brother, but more or less gets put into the youngest category by everyone (Vic and Marji included)

The artistic one; by that I mean literal arts and crafts. He leans a lot into sewing and isn’t half bad at fashion gestures, but has the tendency to lean on androgynous to fem designs. That said, he’s really good at costuming of course.

Also the one who mostly cooks, he learns a lot of baking and barista things working with Tweek at the coffee shop, and Leo legitimately likes working there

You would think it’s Marji who has the main love for Sanrio characters but nope it’s Leo. He’s not obsessive but he’ll collect little things, especially in the stationary department. His favorite is Hello Kitty but also likes My Melody (usually for Marji) and Pompompurin (who he weirdly picked for Vic, but he didn’t seem to mind)

He’s usually the one to panic the most, constantly worrying about getting in trouble with his parents and the sole reason they still live in that house even after turning 18.

Marjorine

She began appearing around 4th-5th grade; not wholly due to the sleepover incident but it was one of the triggers. The middle sibling, but she has huge sweet big sister energy.

She’s the musical one; she loves singing in general and was the one on board for Stan’s band adventure, even learning guitar. Leo learned enough coords that he could pass when Marji was out. She’s also very much a pop girly.

Considering she has to share a body with two others that lean on the masculine side of looks, it does give her a great deal of body dysmorphia. Though she tries to not show it, the other two know it’s an issue for her, so they try to be very considerate of this fact. She doesn’t get to dress up much outside of their room (at least up until the running away incident) but she does have a few of her own outfits, wigs and makeup.

Do not let this woman cook. Somehow disaster always happened. Good thing she prefers cleaning, she tends to handle more than the other two.

She has the hardest time acting like “Butters”, mostly due to a tendency of airheadedness mixed with an inability to keep her mouth shut. She speaks her mind a lot more, being spared most of the guilt and awful rhetoric Leo had to grow up with, so her options are a lot more openminded.

Victor

He’s always been around in snippets, but never fully manifested until freshman year of high school. Jokingly referred to as the youngest despite easily being the most responsible.

The business minded one; yeah he does like to think he’s a cool wolf of Wall Street type, but honestly he’s kind of nerdy about it. Like he gets excited about numbers. He could explain how the stock market works but it really does come off like another random Butters ramble.

He is in fact the reason they have any sort of financial freedom. He helps with the books at Tweek’s pro-bono since his income comes from elsewhere, where? Stocks probably? (The Dikinbaus venture was a nest egg)

Arguable the most traumatized, as he’s usually the ones that have to respond when Leo shuts down, the pieces picker-upper essentially. This does in fact make him rather jaded, though definitely not uncaring, but he does have ‘we come first’ mentality.

It’s not that Vic doesn’t do chores, but Leo and Marji made an agreement since he’s the breadwinner that it was the least they could do.

Overall he’s good at pretending to be “Butters” but it’s obvious he’s not. He’s a lot harsher dealing with the others, often coming off brutally honest at best or a complete asshole at worst. Also the one to say the most heinous shit, which can come off as funny to most when Leo hardly swears without reason, Marji somewhat in the same boat, but she speaks with a lot less shame.

This was kind of a ramble, but there’s some of the building blocks anyway.

[sonicjustbecause]

Shadow incarnations

My three favourites

Maekawa's (especially SA2)

Original Shadow, unlike the others, was just cool. He didn't try. He was aware of this but he didn't try to be cool. Being cool came natural from him. Probably the only incarnation who was able to lie (I don't remember him lying outside SA2), despite this, the most genuine Shadow of all, because he just acted the way he felt like at the moment, like the kid he was, and just like Sonic does. Sulking? Having fun? Sending death treat? Celebrate his victories? Fist bumping? He just did all.

Is also true that his fleshed out personality was all compressed in a tiny space of 9 hours, because he was meant to die, so you had to slowly know him, and is beautiful how it gets unfolded. First you judged him wrongly (through hero story), then play with him, learning about his past and getting to love him (This Shadow is shown to be friendly in the latest part of the game when he finally opens up and actually not much an introvert. In all games written by Maekawa, he is always hanging on with somebody, usually Rouge but also Knuckles and Blaze in Sonic and the Black Knight, and Maria in Sonic Adventure 2. He is just quiet and reserved), then, when happiness is finally handy, he dies. Is tragic.

If Sonic is like the wind, Shadow is like water. In Italy, subtle personality like his are compared to water. Water is calming and serene on surface, but it hides dangers in the depths, is dark and it can suddenly become dangerous. That's Shadow. He is subdued and never gets angry, the dangers are always below the surface. He is dangerous because he is insane due to his traumatic past, his loneliness, his intense sadness and his suicidal tendencies. Unfortunately he doesn't want to die alone, he wants to bring the whole world with him. All of this can be spiced up by his stubborn and melancholy nature that makes the whole thing more explosive. He's very dark and scary (In current -edgelord - characterization, where he is presented as always angry, he is less intimidating. Simply because too much is too much, for the same reason Sonic's glares are way more effective than Shadow's because unusual).

Original Shadow is calm, intelligent, he might be a bit of a science fanatic. In his description of the Eclipse cannon, he resemble the most classic of the mad scientist villain, including some Mr.Burns postures with his hands, his voice was lively.

He's not an actual villain. Before the tragedies of his past he had a gentle and caring nature. But then his family was destroyed and he survived, he was feared, betrayed, brainwashed, captured, sealed. He became mistrustful, cynical, apparently cold, showing his qualities only to his closest friends.

And an interesting detail there, he never opened up to Rouge in SA2. He opened up to Sonic and Amy.

Unlike many future incarnation, the original Shadow was not particularly violent. He greatly favored brain power, leaving brute force for emergencies. Thinking about the games of that period, he virtually spared all his foes, or at least the very same foes Sonic would have spared and took down foes that Sonic also would have take down.

He is soft spoken and quiet. I especially love his VA of that time, David Humphrey, smoother juvenile and engaging, even cute voice. He shows a large range of emotions and attitude on Shadow. Jason was not bad either.

Archie (Universe)

The most expressive Shadow. (I should talk about the problems in Sonic's expressions and where I think they come from) more gruff compared to the original Shadow, aloof and more violent, but also very soft with his friends. I think is based on Adventure Shadow.

Enemies such as Eclipse and Metal Sonic help to reveal many aspect of his personality that Shadow himself might not be fully aware about.

Eclipse, bad design yet compelling and great personality, is his main foe. He shows how dangerous and ruthless Shadow can be when he gets serious/focused. Despite being a villain Eclipse cares sincerely for his friends and family and tries the diplomatic way with Shadow, similar to what an hero would do, with no success.

Metal Sonic instead helped to show Shadow's lack of free will. Yes, Shadow can still be compared with water there too. Unlike the wind that is boundless (and Sonic with his total freedom), water is always contained in some way (dams, bottles etc), controlled and follows a fixed path. When not following the path it can get destructive. If Shadow is not contained, he can cause mass destruction (everything about him is controlled, his path, the rings he wears to control his power, even his will). He is like an organic android, made in flesh instead of metal, his intelligence is AI, programmed twice by a human. But he has a heart, for this he suffers. A lot.

I think Shadow's peculiar speech pattern also shows his artificial nature.

Prime

Is one of the less gloomy versions of Shadow. I would say in Sonic Prime, Shadow is healing. He is mentally strong and more self confident. He still doesn't trust people but he is hopeful for the future. His strenght also helps Sonic to not sink (metaphorically).

Like Sonic, he has a lot of flaws and he is well aware of them. Unlike Sonic, he has a better attention span and has a better control on himself (he sighs a lot when upset or uneasy and this helps him to calm down).

He is outspoken with Sonic as well as he is awkward and shy toward strangers and extremely introverted. He is also so elusive at the point of feeling like some sort of mystical creature. Half of the times is not his fault.

He can be playful, mischievous and knows how to have fun.

The VA is Ian Hanlin. His voice is deeper than David's but is still youthful and soft.

[aioliravioli-69]

Detective Noir AU

Alright, this au has been sitting around, waiting for me to finish it but chances are, I never will :((

So instead, I'll just post what I have so far

This was inspired by that one comment on the au post the author made(at this point you could consider me a stalker for the amount of hours I've scrolled through her feed💀)

First things first, none other than our main character himself, Detective Hollow!

I made him the detective in this one mainly because I was basing it off of the theory that if there was no heroine the keyholder would simply become the hero instead(don't remember where I read this but I'm guessing it was the webtoon comment section).

I also my have just really wanted to draw him in an overcoat

gonna be honest, I did little to no research going into this AU, the thing I most tried to learn about was the femme fatale so I could get a good view on how to design Buddy

Speaking of the femme fatale:

Seems like someone got caught in the spotlight!

And before you ask, yes, those are pants. Weird ones, but pants nonetheless. I swear, I hate lighting when it's from the front. Frontal lighting can go fuck itself. Please ignore the little help lines I put in

Honestly, Buddy's outfit was probably the hardest part of this one. I wanted him to look slutty, but I didn't want to make it TOO slutty, but I feel like I may have added WAYY too many folds in his pantsuit and I kinda messed up on the overcoat lol. The diamond on his chest was inspired by the diamond on the villainess key more than anything and I tried to incorporate that into his gloves too.

Anyway, have some potential outfit sketches I made:

the two I thought might come off as too slutty and

the ultimate winner of the outfit ideas

As you can see the diamond chest window and fur coat were a mut in this outfit and I'm pretty happy with the end result

Y'all know how the femme fatale usually has to seduce the main character a.k.a. the detective?

Well, y'all know me so have an extra just for you <33

But I'm not done just yet!

Remember how I said that I made Chase the hero because of the lack of a heroine in the story? Well...

I did some more surface level research(and I mean very surface level) and decided to adapt the trope of the girl-next-door archetype for him!!

Don't think it suits him, since they usually just sit pretty and wait for the detective to notice them, but they do have badass roles once in a while and I live for those!!!

The one Chase has taken on doesn't though sadly :')

I decided to go with Charlie Hollow for this one because it sounded more like something the timid and 'pure'(yuck I know, but sadly film noir movies often prop up comparisons between the femme fatale and the girl-next-door, this being one of them) girl next door would have

Overall I tried to make this one as cutesy as possible because, why not lol

Lastly(I apologise, I made this in a rush because I was running out of motivation)

The distance between Buddy and the detective sure did close QUICK-

Originally I was planning on adding Deacon as a police officer and now that I think about it I could technically fit Prunella in here as well, but I just don't have any willpower left to keep this thing alive

My art blocks been acting up recently and I can't even pick up the pencil without immediately wanting to put it down :((

I wish I could have continued this and maybe I will someday, but until then this'll just stay in my drafts

[xialite]

Making a pin post why not(THIS IS NOT A MATURE CONTENT I DON’T KNOW WHY TUMBLR THINKS IT IS)

Hello! I see you’re stopping by my place, welcome!

This is a blog made by Xialite(me) dedicated to my own works about personification of many sorts, mainly countries and non-country landmasses, organisations, and I guess governmental bodies as well lol

A little summary of my personification AU

Its official name is MNUN(My Neighbour United Nations(yes, sounds a little corny I know, this AU was originally made with UN as the central focus)).

This is a personal project, it is not that serious and I’m merely doing this as a hobby.

Personifications are called “Representatives”(Repts for short); they are divided into two main categories:

Territorial Representatives(T-Repts), used to refer to countries and all non-country landmasses(ex. provinces, counties, states, etc).

Non-Territorial Representatives(NT-Repts), used to refer to organisations, corporations, companies, and other bodies that are not considered “territorial”.

T-Repts are made by “Nature”(not a deity nor extraterrestrial entity, but an omnipresent body circulating around Earth, ‘It’ has the ability to manifest entities to represent a certain territory), they’re semi immortal and can only be killed by their own kind.

T-Repts also have their own document describing all about how they work!

NT-Repts on the other hand, are created artificially, with the help of science and life magic, and also a bit of blood willingly given by T-Repts to inherit their semi-immortality. It is still unknown how Nature would feel about their existence.

This AU doesn’t just have personifications, it’s a complete world building project as a whole, as there are presence of magic system, mythical creatures, and generally just wonky stuffs.

There are aliens!! Big feathery aliens!!! They’re called Stellars, They’re looming around the cosmos but don’t seem to cause *direct* harm to Earth just yet, They have been recorded to broken camera lens and orbiting telescopes though. Folks on Earth have such an over exaggerated fear of those creatures.

Each of the Representatives have their own backstories, many are linked to one another, and certain NT-Repts have their own “family” that they belong to.

Common factors of my designs

Territorial Representatives

Most obvious factor is that they look just like normal humans, but plus the fact that they have some features inherited from other animals(usually based on national animals), the said other animals must have the following criteria:

Must be native to the respective regions

Must not be a domesticated animal

The extent of their animal features starts from a bit on their faces, arms, and back, and go full all the way down once it gets to their legs, so to speak, their legs are fully that of their respective animals

Another factor is that they have plants/flowers growing out of their body, those plants have to be native to the respective regions as well. And also, those plants grow roots into their body, and it’s not the most painless thing.

Nails!! Their nail colours usually follow the colour of their flags or colours not on their flags but are commonly associated with the regions themselves.

Non-Territorial Representatives

Overall they have less prominent animal features, or they may not have any animal traits at all.

Their anatomy is, ironically, stranger than Territorial Representatives, they may have additional factors added onto their body, some may not even be biologically possible at all.

Body marks! Those are a signature thing of this type of Representatives. Sure, T-Repts do have a bit of body marks, too, but NT-Repts have taken it to the next level. Those marks typically represent their preferences, aesthetics, and their purposes, some may come in gradients on parts of their body, some may look like tattoos. Oh and they’re also animated.

Certain NT-Repts have shared traits that show which “family” they belong to, for example, NT-Repts that are UN organisations typically has black tattoo-like body marks(unless the Representative is dark-skinned, then it’s white), have halos, and most importantly, all wearing SDGs bracelets.

NT-Repts also have fancy-coloured nails, but the colours are usually based purely on the aesthetic of those folks.

Both types of Representatives

Modified internal organs systems, they do not have proper digestive or respiratory systems, and they do not have reproductive systems at all.

Their eyes can glow!! So can their body marks(sometimes)

Yes, yes, folks, that is all about my blogs of now, I hope you’ll enjoy current and future contents that will be put out.

Btw you guys can shoot me a question about specific Representatives, if I do have their designs I can ramble about their headcanons lolol

[kippermint]

so I've finalized the overall design of my vanitas build, mainly based off victorian cutting/patterning books and extent examples of clothing from around vanitas' period. the manga takes place specifically during 1889 but given the steampunk and ofc vampires, i allowed my time range to be 1860 to 1900. i allowed further back than foward bc i don't see that vanitas is rich and fittingly, i think he probably isn't plussed about wearing the most in vogue looks and just modifies older, secondhand, pieces

Going from the inside out, his shirt. i started with "Mrs. Beeton's book of household management" from 1879 for cutting and construction advice and i plan on following the described pattern in "A manual of plain needlework and cutting-out" from 1886

This extent example is my main guide for looks, tho i will be doing a small bit of smocking on the sleeve head for added volume and also bc i can lol also ill make the collar and cuffs removable as per period tendencies, so i can keep them clean/starched

for his pants, im going with cycling breeches with the modified foldover waistband true to vanitas' design. i may or may not add some decoration to the sides as ive seen in (childrens lol) breeches but ill def use some fun ribbon layering for the cuffs

nothing too crazy with the spats, im hoping to get vintage buttons to put on them and use a buckle for the under the heel strap like these ones show. i read in one primary source that breeches and spats had buttons to connect each other which i believe will aide in holding them up

for his vest, ill follow a period pattern and keep the construction pretty accurate, just removing the collar. considering using vintage titanium mesh for the stripes but will for sure include the 3 eyelet corset at the back to adjust size and also moving the shoulder seam way up like he does???

weird look but ok king.

the coat will be the hardest part by far. rn the plan is to go on a hoop skirt method.

extent examples often have this thinner wire and LOTS of hoops which i think will work best for getting that jellyfish shape of his coat. im going to try thick millinary wire and covering the shape with a gathered tulle "petticoat" that will all exist inside the coat. thoughts rn on getting the open front are having a removable piece shapes like a an upside down U that would allow the coat to open. also considering hiding ties and having the lining be openable to access/change the shape. aesthetically, im covering the whole thing in soutache. as his sleeves are kimono or furisode shaped accoridn got mochijun, i will continue this theme by bringing the design from one sleeves, down across the back, and to the lower opposite front as houmongi usually are patterned

this alexander mcqueen design for the collar is my main inspiration as i want a LOT of swirls and tiny details. theres also a few period examples of coats that will help me. i plan on making vanitas themed dead head thread buttons for the entire coat and potentially the vest

misc items: gloves i hope to make out of leather and gussetted; bows are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and the belt will maybe be leather or maybe eva foam and i will include the book and dagger holders, which i will 3d print. for the book, i hope to use that flexible plastic and leds inside to make it have "pages" and light up when i open it. dream goal would be the forge the earring myself but uhhhhh we'll see about that lmao

i anticipate this build to take me the next year to make and itll be fun to look at this og design info dump later and see what i actually did

[rohirric-hunter]

Oh this should be fun

Part of the design choice for Léonys was me very intentionally picking out all of the "weakness of Men" themes in LotR and just. Building a lot of her personality around that. It was kind of fascinating because the last time I made an OC of this nature after I designed the character I had to sit down and figure out some character flaws to give her (which was very popular -- and bad -- writing advice upon a time). With Léonys, as the personality began to develop, it was mostly flaws, and I actually had to sit down and make a physical list of her strengths. Which was kind of an ordeal, if I'm honest. I made one of them, "physically strong."

But that's sort of the point. Her strengths are not really the sort of strengths that are necessary for the story she's in. The things that make characters succeed in LotR are just not attributes that she has. Girl talks and dreams and makes plans around shit she knows nothing about. By the end of her story a Nazgul looks at her and she just fucking. falls over. If she'd had a second conversation with Saruman she would have absolutely fallen for his bullshit hook line and sinker. If you handed her the One Ring I would give her ~18 minutes before she was trying to murder someone with it. There's no digging deep down and finding untapped wells of resilience. Will is her lowest stat, both in-game and in-universe. She's the walking, talking reason why someone who understands the stakes of the world she lives in would conclude that humans can't be trusted with shit. And I designed her that way on purpose.

The comfort of the story, for me, is that sometimes you are weak. Sometimes your strengths are not what a situation needs. Sometimes everything comes out alright in spite of you. Sometimes, the things you're good at are only helpful in one tiny part of a situation. And sometimes that's enough. I think this is why the Wind Will Set Me Racing 'Verse also turned into a Boromir Lives AU. I wanted a story where the characters had the opportunity to sit with their failures, and then also to move on. To have a happy ending despite the fact that they, personally, failed. That their failure -- objective, genuine inability to handle the situation they put themselves in -- does not make them less of a person or less worthy of good things. There's not a lot of stories that celebrate that sort of thing.

(Yes, I am aware of the irony of the fact that by giving her strengths that are less useful than usual in LotR I have given her strengths that would serve her very well in most other fantasy universes. Making her strong, fast, and good at killing stuff would have her kicking ass in most stories. What luck that she lives in one where it's just kinda okay.)

In terms of this particular quest, it's one of those times when I'm compelled to make a quest dialogue work with my particular character decisions. What are the strengths that the Huntsman sees in her when in some ways she can be more a liability than a help? What does, "valour," mean in the context of someone who is actively getting worse at dealing with attacks on her psyche? IDK, I'm thinking something something the person who is willing to try something and be respectful and do it the right way being better than someone who is more likely to succeed, but less willing, or less willing to listen. LotRO often has quests where the player character asks for something from a group who is hesitant to trust, and that group sets them to some kind of task to prove that they're trustworthy and mean well -- often contrasted with some enemy ignoring those people and their wishes and trying to get what they want by force. (Vol. I Book 13 Chapter 4) I'd say it's kind of one of the game's main themes.

[purpdrawsthings]

What’s up with those static eyes? And what jobs do each of you do for the most part?

Also, to Mr. Puzzles, why have them work like this instead of as brainwashed actors?

WARNING : THIS IS NOT FINISHED! This is merely a wip I posted on accident. So some stuff may come off as weird.

My apologies ^^'

SMG4 : We uh...

SMG3 : We don't really know.

SMG4 : It just appeared right after we signed the contract I think?... Maybe it's a side effect? A mark? Who knows...

SMG4 : Now about that job part, I usually take lead in script writing cuz... I'm just the lead script writer. Other than that, my other main job is just being an actor. Other than those, I help 3 in taking care of the pets, I'm basically the mascot of the studio [ besides Mr. Puzzles ] and just an assistant.

SMG3 : looks off to him, still concerned on why tf he still has that many jobs Uuuuuuh, anyways, I help 4 with the scripts, I'm basically the person who mostly takes care of the pets, I'm also the cameraman and... Just an actor. But mostly the taking care of the pets thing and cameraman.

SMG4 : I think Meggy is a choreography teacher or something... Tari is a bug finder because of her abilities... Boopkins is is just a postman guy... Bob just guards the weapons room. Mario... Doesn't even do anything, besides acting.

SMG3 : Makes sense.

Mr. Puzzles : Why? Well... Why should I tell you folks that? Just because you all get to ask me questions doesn't mean you can sometimes pry into some secretive and personal stuff. So don't bother asking!

[ ok, time for context part!

Yeah so, everytime an ask gets answered, I'll leave a context part if necessary for those who don't understand or need more info.

So for the first one, the eyes were just some design choice at first but I decided to add some stuff about it. These static like eyes were some sign that "hey, these guys are owned =D". Maybe some sort of trademark, well, that's the thought I had to mind. Tho, other characters besides 4 and 3 have different ways of showing this. Tari from example, hides her left eye cuz it was dripping a lot and also, she just didn't really like showing it. Other than that, it was a coolio design choice.

For the second one, I'll just put it in some format here. Oh and btw, I'm not afraid to change these if necessary.

SMG4 : Puzzles assistant/Lead Script Writer/Main mascot/Part time-pet caretaker/actor

SMG3 : Assistant script writer/Lead pet caretaker/cameraman/actor

Meggy : Choreography teacher/law assistant [ incase of legal action ofc ]/Prop setup helper/actor

Tari : Bug finder/Assistant for visuals/actor

Boopkins : Prop setup helper/sender [ aka postman or something ]/Guard assistant/actor

Bob : Lead guard for the weapons room [ yes that exists lmao ]/Part time cameraman/Actor

Mario : Actor

Mario doesn't even get to do much considering with Puzzles giving him some freedom over his actions, he can do some random ass shit. Mario just spends his time in his room, memorizing scripts and probably just eating spaghetti so that he would calm down. [ this is subjected to change... ]

Puzzles just felt a lil lonely. Imagine you control everyone but all of them are just mindless and emotionless people? Yeah, that's gonna be boring sooner or later.

Fun fact : Puzzles actually has some empathy for them after a few months of working with them. But to maintain his image, he never told anyone about this. ]

[actualbird]

have you noticed that time’s antiques has a CRAZY amount of ceiling lights? and whenever luke is there every light is on? his electricity bill must be absolutely crazy. not to mention he has a literal DARTBOARD in his detective office. this has led me to realise that not only is his taste in clothing questionable but his interior design skills are also bizarre

omfg yes YES luke's interior design tastes are BIZARRE and hes a WEIRDO (affectionate)

i now feel possessed to screencap everything in his building that i am either baffled by or want to point out because i found it cool. buckle up, i (as always) have a lot to say

so let's go on a tour of luke's home

FIRST FLOOR: THE ONE FREE OF MOST SIN BY VIRTUE OF BEING AN ANTIQUE SHOP

a lot of my confusion here can be waived since it's an antique shop and those are meant to be crowded and kitschy and maximalist, thats their whole Thing and i love that. like, the lights, which uve already commented on, there are SO MANY but theyre charming to me here because it fits, this disparate chaos but still emanating warmth

tho that being said ive noted down some bits that do still pique my interest

EXHIBIT A: antique cash register. given its placement on the counter/main table, i assume it's used for actual business and not an item for sale. of course, it could just be for display, but im jarred because it's right next to the High Tech Touch Screen. do people in stellis even pay with cash anymore? they seem to be hugely digital even in currency. it'd be funny if this thing WERE used for actual business and it's filled with all of luke's loose change and coins that he has trouble getting rid of so he instead foists them off to unwitting customers

EXHIBIT B: my only real complaint for this portion because how can any customer get to those drawers, theyre BLOCKED BY OTHER STUFF

EXHIBIT C: alright antique TV but i cant tell if it's just showing a random VHS tape or if it's doubling as luke's CCTV camera display. cuz it kinda looks like CCTV display of a road. which, honestly, is pretty cool!! it's a fun marriage between old tech and new. this is something im less confused by and more just something i wanted to point out cuz it delighted me to think about

SECOND FLOOR: NOT NECESSARILY CONFUSING BUT GOD IT IS SO MESSY IN HERE LUKE LET ME IN HERE I NEED TO CLEAN THIS ROOM

EXHIBIT A: certificates!! this is cool, i wish we could see them clearer. i guess these could be luke's PI certification though maybe one of them could also be his master's degree? which would be odd to have displayed in a detective agency given his degree is in bioengineering but itd be funny to match vyn who has his Two Doctorates on display in his office HAHA

EXHIBIT B: luke, please tidy up

EXHIBIT C: door with 221 B on it which i think is super cute. hes such a nerd hes just got that blatant sherlock reference in his literal detective agency office, so everyone who walks in will know that he is not only a detective, but also a fanboy. im not sure if this door is what leads to his third floor home but itd be SO LOVELY if yes!!

EXHIBIT D: luke, please tidy up

EXHIBIT E: peanut's bird perch!!!! this is endearing to me because it looks like such a....such a Gym Flavored Bird Perch kjhJHVSDFH LIKE it's made of metal and chains and not at all like most bird perches u'd find that are usually a wooden or more natural design. this is a bird perch for birds that work out. maybe luke made this for peanut himself to get peanut to exercise. peanut is offended by this. peanut perches on it regardless

EXHIBIT F: luke, please tidy up and god if u keep missing throwing trash into the trash can just moVE THE TRASH CAN CLOSER TO UR DESK

EXHIBIT G: luke, please tidy up

EXHIBIT H: luke, please tidy up

EXHIBIT I: luke, please tidy up

EXHIBIT J: luke, please tidy up

EXHIBIT K: dartboard!!! which u mentioned. i like that it's here in the detective agency office floor because i get to imagine luke stumped on a case and then playing some darts to help himself refocus <3

THIRD FLOOR: LUKE PEARCE, I HAVE A LOT OF QUESTIONS

EXHIBIT A AND EXHIBIT B: okay my question here was gonna be "hoop lights?? tiny ladder????" but i answer it myself in a post wayyy wayyyyyy back where i talk abt how i think these interesting furnitures are there for Peanut Pearce Enrichment. it simply makes no sense if i dont assume this, but that aside, it's endlessly endearing to me to think that luke has fashioned a bunch of his living space to give joy to his emotional support birdson. imagine peanut hopping up that tiny ladder! or flying thru one hoop light and perching on another! avian paradise :D

EXHIBIT C: luke's palette bedframe....god this thing drives me nuts. it's not BAD but what gets me about is that it seems like such a stub-ur-toe hazard, a bruise-ur-lower-shin hazard, and a tripping-over-this-corner-that-sticks-out-and-is-on-the-path-of-foot-traffic-otw-to-the-kitchen hazard. the clumsy will be HARMED!!!!! LUKE, WHY WONT U GET A PROPER BEDFRAME!!! OR AT LEAST FIX THIS BEDFRAME TO BE THE EXACT SIZE OF UR BED SO IT ISNT THAT MUCH OF AN INJURY MAGNET JKAFVAJHFVA im on my knees....

EXHIBIT D: why on earth does he have a whole cupboard filled JUST with camera lenses. wait brb //asks a friend who is has a professional photographer dad............ok nvm hes off the hook for this one, apparently this is normal for photographers. im simply diagnosing luke with dedicated nerdery once again then. i love him dearly.

EXHIBIT E: HE WAS A GAMER BOI, SHE SAID SEE YA L8ER BOI!!!!! man peep all them games!!!! and his consoles next to them!!! i hope luke plays matches against other ppl and that hes Fucking Terrifying to other players. i know we've seen him game with mc and hes mostly adorable, but when hes gaming against non-mc individuals......i hope luke pearce is accidentally going Raven Mode against some random 13 year olds in apex legends or something. just because itd be so damn funny.

EXHIBIT WE'RE SAVING THIS FOR LAST: this is the most baffling to me among all the things in this whole building. it's a....trash can? but Not. it's a large trash can shaped container used for containing things, which, okay, that could work. but luke is using it to contain MAGAZINES????? AND ROLLED UP PAPERS?? im speechless. that is simply the most non-intuitive container to go for when thinking "hm, where should i put these objects made of paper, a material famously known for their flatness" aND HIS CHOICE OF CONTAINER IS A CYLINDER ?¿¿?¿??¿????LUKE!!!!!.

luke is a strange little guy. hes also the epitome of cluttercore. im obsessed with everything about him.