#particularly on the ones with yellow or blue backgrounds

[squid-eevee]

all the klonoa portraits i made for @raysee1999's Klonoa Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Dreams rom hack!

[batbabydamian]

The Boy Wonder #1 by Juni Ba rambling about why every time i open this book, i stare in wonder...HAHA and ofc!! how cute Damian is!!

Juni Ba’s style is so absurdly effective in telling a fairy tale for the ages. It’s a stunning blend of simplicity and complexity I'M GRIPPING THE PAGES AGAINST MY EYES…

Before getting into the interiors, THE COVER!! It associates autumn leaves to Damian's Robin title through the iconic cape shape/color; and on top of that, for a Robin going through a big transition in his life...a season of change one might say...Juni Ba your brain...

Damian and the leaves being the only colored parts of this cover is nice in focusing on those elements, but i also like to think by not coloring the background it prepares you to expect impressive inkwork in this book.

On that note, the interiors!! Starting off with Ba's backgrounds of Gotham as it establishes the strange new world that our young hero has been thrust into:

We get a neat tracking shot following a champagne glass that gives us a glimpse of Gotham from the upper echelons to the downtrodden in "Underwell"

This opening sequence quickly lays out the environment Damian will be traveling through in this series! It also sets the tone for some silliness with the cute zoom on the champagne glass before it BOKs the robber lol. Along with Ba's inks, O'Halloran's colors makes every part of Gotham pop - especially love the golds of the higher society shifting into the blues of the underbelly!!

Besides Damian’s personal conflict, Gotham feels like its own entity that he has to contend with. The dialogue speaks for itself, but within the art as well!!

"This city of ours swallows and crushes everything it can" -> a gargoyle's beak over Damian, crowds of people, and walls of advertising

"You've seen it too...the way it coils around one's mind from below." -> bridges and a passing train on a rail viaduct towering over a civilian

"A dark voice calling as if to say..." -> literally, "FEED ME"

LOVELY SHOT OF MOVEMENT... and i love how Damian's venture into Gotham opens with him passing a tree - its branches and leaves are the most organic element on the page before getting into the gritty details of the city! Some yammering because the inks are. so cool: the delicate lines of the leaves in the tree to the thicker/bigger lined ones closer to the camera on the right; the background inks allowing space around Damian's form + the fine line of his grapple!! More O'Halloran praise - PRETTY, and love his coloring over Ba's bg lines, particularly here, keeping the leaves darker on the right.

It's not only a pretty page it's just a really clean layout!! Ba exhibits this throughout the book but i really enjoy it here - from Damian nyooming, we head into these last 3 panels. his cute lil "Robin" shape easily draws the eye to the tops of the panels as we take in Gotham's liveliness alongside the lettering/narration

and the "Robin" shape?? SO CUTE. it's instantly familiar to us as Robin!! bold outline and filled with yellow...it's a Robin in movement!!...AN AUTUMN LEAF IN THE WIND... yeah, still not over that 😭

Damian's inciting incident is introduced in the former panel with a gorgeous backdrop of Gotham in the distance (plus itty bitty Trinity cameo haha). The shot parallels!! beautifully!! in the final page!! Damian is now in the depths of Gotham, his objective out of reach. The colors are of note too, where the familiar yellows of Gotham are suddenly a startling green after the demon makes its appearance. The Gotham land looks even more unfamiliar, which prompts Damian to seek help.

Some speculation, but the green could also be associated with the more mythical side of demons and such (like the ghost?? of the thief), but it could even imply there's a connection to the Al Ghuls themselves as it's the only other time green is so prominently used.

Now that the land of Gotham is established, popping in other fav bgs!

More lovely mix of Ba's inks and O'Halloran's colors!! especially allowing some of the brush/marker strokes to show faintly as part of the twinkling sky...STUNNING!! 😭 i love this whole page but this panel gets me weepy, SMALL DAMIAN IN THE VAST UNIVERSE COMBINED WITH THIS LINE "He knew he could be great. How unfair of the world to make him feel so small." KICKS MY ASS... i need to lie down

YAPPING AT MORE WONDERFUL INKING: the suggestion of windows offscreen from the frames casting these thick lines over the walls and stairwell; the minute shadow details over the railing; the hatching on the suits in the portrait; the framed portrait being its own panel!! cute hooded Damian in the gutter space looking in on the portrait/panel!! CUTE HOODED DAMIANS!!

SPEAKING OF PANELS, along with general effectiveness and efficiency, there's more whimsy in others!! like this kickass page of Nightwing whipping his escrima from first panel -> afterimage lines going POWPOWPOW hitting demons from a distance to ones closer to the camera -> and back into his hand!! IT'S SO GOOD AND SO FUN!!

Ba's action employs more diagonal panels, and characters are less restrained within boxes - there's more energy and freedom across the page!

not necessarily focusing on the action for this one, but THE WHIMSY!! the border itself is goop!! Also gotta point out that looming hammer shape!!

Nightwing's critical hit spans the entire page!! from silhouettes of a flip -> flashy stomping pose/Clayface -> to a distant shot of Dick landing

and a smooth finisher page!! love the motion lines on Dick's arms and waist + his head and arc effects popping outside of the borders; then the smaller panels for quick activity, and the final WOOB WOOB WOOB LOL i can hear this sound effect just as much as i can see it

Along with O'Halloran on colors, Aditya Bidikar on lettering works seamlessly with Ba's vision!! The text boxes for the fairy tale narration are like strips of yellowing pages from an old storybook!! Had to look up the term for this lol, but also reminiscent of those storybooks, there's even a use of "drop caps" - the big fancy capital letter!

Smaller things of note, but the bit of "Weakness" text from Ra's has a kind of. grandiose feel to it. Then the cute B< Damian behind the window!! Love how the bubble and text are faded behind the glass too! The end of the bubble tail is a nice touch as it matches well with Ba's bg inking :0

Otherwise, it seems Ba has done a majority of the lettering - dropping a couple of my favs below!!

also just this whole page: the very loud AAAH! text draws both Damian's and the reader's attention to the panel below!! it's a cool transition to a new shot where you can see Damian's silhouette on the building! The final panel is cartoony violence off-page through the bold POW BOOM SLAM haha + DAMIAN'S LIL FIST!!🥺 and the guy's tooth RIP

Pure speculation - Juni Ba's concept art included Carrie Kelley, so i'm wondering if the hostage in the beginning could be her and we'll be returning to this moment in time by the end. The worn Robin colors are similar to the design + their head is conveniently covered.

In terms of story, I'm obviously heavily biased, but the initial read got me rolling in emotions with how it has you caring for Damian. Damian as a character is so fantastical in essence - it’s part of his individual charm in the batfam cast! an heir of two kingdoms, born and raised with great expectations suddenly thrust into an unfamiliar land. he has a sword. he has a dragon bat for a companion. he is haunted by the sins he has committed. he is two apples tall. he's truly fairytale material!!

LIKE...past the panels of only his silhouettes, this is our introductory appearances of Damian. It's laid out clearly in the narration, but this parallel is SO GOOD: from the powerful and ornate visuals of Damian and the Al Ghuls -> to a simple panel of Batman's shadow behind a boy littered in scars, stripped of his home and status

Damian is out of his element and proves himself in the way he knows how!!

just kick me down a flight of stairs why don't you. i don't know which messes me up more, the top 3 or bottom 3 panels. His facial expressions!! his expectations for approval dashed!! Damian's hand reaching for his father!! only to be left alone with the body. The page after this is the final nail in the coffin in feeling just how lost he is in the world before he acts on it. And you root for him the entire way!!😭

Despite Damian's fanciful background there's so much heart to be shown in his struggles and discoveries - and this classic form of a fairy tale lays it out so brilliantly!! It's shaping up to be an amazing balance of heavier elements and whimsy based on this first issue, and it leaves you wanting more!!

Besides being a thoroughly enjoyable read, it's inspiring work!! i've ordered Juni Ba's other books to consume more of his storytelling, and here's the ones i've found so far if you're interested in checking them out as well!!

Mobilis: My Life with Captain Nemo

Monkey Meat

Djeliya: A West African Fantasy Epic

The Unlikely Story of Felix and Macabber

okay shockingly, i didn't blab about how cute Damian is as much as i thought i would, but i think the collage at the top speaks for itself lol

this is all you need to know how cute Damian is in this!! his cheeks are so pinchable, it was done on page!! 🥺 these panels obliterate me

[djarin]

hi i'm sorry to bother you but do you have any tips on giffing dark indoor scenes? yours always look so good!

hi there! not a bother at all :) i can definitely try to explain the steps i usually take under the cut!

this tutorial will assume that you already know the basic steps of gif-making — if you don't, there are lots of great tutorials floating around on this site that can help you out! :)

here's the gif i'll work with to explain my steps, the bottom being the original and the top being the coloured/brightened version.

before we start, a general tip i recommend keeping in mind: if you want to brighten a dark scene, you'll want to get your hands on the highest quality download you can find. 1080p is decent, but if your laptop can handle 2160p 4k hdr files* without sounding like it's about to explode, that'll get you even better results!

(*colouring hdr 4k files requires a different set of steps — the scene will appear washed-out on photoshop, so you need to make sure that you don't end up whitewashing anyone if you do choose to work with this type of file.)

since most of my downloads are 1080p, i'll use this type of file in this tutorial.

the first step of my gifmaking process with 1080p files is almost always the same no matter what scene i'm giffing. i make a brightness/contrast layer and set the blending mode to screen:

now my gif looks like this:

depending on the scene and how washed out it looks after this layer, i'll play around with the opacity. for this gif, i didn't touch the opacity at all. use your best judgement for this, because every scene is different!

i find that dark indoor scenes are usually tinted in yellow or green. one of my first goals is to try to fix the undertone of this scene before focusing on brightening it any further. i go to colour balance for this, and play around with the midtones, shadows, and highlights.

again, every scene is different, so the amount to which you use colour balance will differ, but for this specific scene, my goal was to neutralize the yellow. i focused particularly on the midtones and shadows of the colour balance layer, moving the scales to the opposite of the reds.

doing so will help with neutralizing the yellow. the only reason i moved the scales towards magenta and blue (therefore making it a bit more red than less) rather than green and yellow in shadows was because i wanted a darker contrast in the blacks. moving them to green and yellow made the overall scene more yellow since there were so many dark spots that shadows affected. (you'll see what i mean when you start experimenting with your own gif — this part of the process really just depends on your preferences!)

our gif might not look that much better yet, but it will soon! our best friend channel mixer is gonna help us out. for an in-depth post about how to use this adjustment layer, i recommend checking out this tutorial.

i'm someone who prefers to make more than one layer for the same adjustment layer for a reason i can't even explain (i just find that it helps me stay more organized). so don't think of this process like i can only use this layer once so i MUST fix it NOW. you can create multiple layers of the same adjustment layer, because every layer on top will affect the ones underneath it.

since my priority is getting rid of the yellow tint, i went to the Blue section of the channel mixer and increased it in all of the scales:

this step alone has helped us out so much, because look at our gif now!

not only does the background look less yellow, but so does izzy's skintone.

now i'm going to focus on trying to brighten the scene even more without destroying the quality. the levels layer can actually help out a lot with this.

the amount to which i move each toggle differs per scene, and i think experimenting depending on your gif works best for this layer.

side note: i prefer not to use the ink droppers on the side because the contrast in the result usually ends up feeling too strong for my preferences, but if you find that this works better for you, then go for it! basically, the first dropper with the black ink should be clicked before you select the darkest part of the scene that you can find, and vice versa for the third dropper with the white ink — click it, and then select the brightest part of your scene.

curves is the next layer that does fantastic work! unlike the levels layer, i do actually use the ink droppers for this. it's the same concept, with the first dropper being used on the darkest part of the scene, and the third dropper on the brightest.

try to think of curves as something that not only further brightens your scene, but also helps with the colour neutralizing process.

i grab the first dropper, then click the darkest parts of the gif that i can see. depending on the undertone of the blacks that you're clicking on, the tint of your gif might actually change significantly. this is why i prefer to click once, then undo the action if i don't like what it gives me. izzy's leather jacket was the sweet spot for this gif.

when i'm satisfied, i make another curves layer and use the third dropper to click the bright/white parts of the scene. for this gif in particular, the lights in the background were a good fit because they carried a yellow undertone — this meant that my curves layer actually helped to further neutralize the yellows in the scene as a whole!

(i manually dragged the curves graph upwards for the third dropper to make it brighter. i don't need to do this if the dropper does this for me automatically, but since the lights were pretty bright, it only changed the tone of the scene and didn't increase the brightness — hence the manual step.)

pat yourself on the back, because this is what our gif looks like now!

this is good, but it's not great — there's still just a bit too much yellow in the scene for my liking (sorry, i'm picky! :P)

i created another channel mixer layer and played with the toggles until i was satisfied:

ta-da! the gif as a whole is much less red/yellow now:

this is when i start fixing the colouring now — namely, his skin tone. selective colour will be your best friend here. i wanted to make his face just a tad brighter and less of a yellow-ish magenta shade, so i focused on the reds and yellows.

then, out of habit, i created another selective colour layer and took out more of the "yellow" in the whites to make them whiter, and increased the black (just by +1, since the contrast is pretty good enough already).

note: i switched to "absolute" for these two colours. basically, relative = less vibrant colour manipulation, and absolute = more vibrant/stronger colour manipulation. i prefer to stick to "relative" for fixing skin-tone since "absolute" can be a bit too strong for that.

our gif looks like this now!

his face looks brighter and much less yellow, so i'm satisfied!

this next step is not mandatory at all — again, i'm just picky and despise yellow-tinted scenes. i personally believe that indoor scenes that are yellow/green tinted make them look more dark than they actually are, so i do my best to get rid of these colours.

i also don't always do this, but for this gif, i just simply went to hue/saturation, selected the yellows from the drop-down menu and decreased its saturation.

be careful not to do this too much. depending on the quality of your download, this can significantly decrease your gif quality. i tend to worry less about this when i'm working with 2160p files, but again, those files require an entirely different set of steps when it comes to brightening/colouring.

since this was a 1080p file download (and one that was actually less than 1GB, oops, don't do that), i played it safe and decreased it by -39 only.

note: you also want to be cautious of colour-washing skintone when it comes to this step. i find that another selective colour layer can help perfect the skintone in case the yellow drains out of it too much, but skip the hue/saturation step if it's too difficult to work with — better to be safe than sorry.

anyway, this is the final gif!

that's usually what i do when it comes to colouring dark indoor scenes! i hope this tutorial makes sense, and if you have any further questions, don't hesitate to reach out! :)

[follows-the-bees]

Filmmaking analysis time!

How cinematography, blocking, and camerawork in S2 eps 6&7 show Ed's and Stede's emotions.

Since season one, red has been used to show the love for each other: the red of the silk and Stede's new red shirt in both moon scenes. We also know that purple comes out more as Ed falls in love with Stede.

So let's talk about Calypso's Birthday and Man on Fire.

The lighting during this scene is full of color, the reds, purples, and blues. Besides being classic bi lighting, it incorporates the red and purple that we know represents Ed's and Stede's love.

They are swimming in it. Yet, they aren't the same blockingwise, they aren't as close as last season, there is still stuff between them that needs to be spoken. They are standing by each other, their bodies turned inward, and a giant red flower sits bright and center between them, showing how large and full the love they have for each other is.

These purples and reds diminish when Ned Lowe crashes the party. His presence brings a screeching halt to the healing and good times the crew and particularly Ed and Stede are having. He not only crashes the party but right before Ed and Stede were about to dance. This giant wrecking ball that symbolizes Ed's pirate past brings in the harsh blue and green lighting and ups the trauma for both men. Green lighting is used to show that things are off, it is off-putting and fills the scene and audience with unease.

Gif credit

The purple lighting stays very subtle during this whole scene, but as Ned insults everyone, and brings up all of the still unspoken insecurities of the men, the blue shines more, especially on Stede as he makes his choice to have Ned walk the plank. We see immediately how that affects Stede, his trauma comes roaring back, he's shaking, and has tears in his eyes. He retreats back to his cabin.

Ed on the other hand is also experiencing trauma here. While helping out and being around Stede, he has been treading water, trying to figure out what he actually wants in life. And the embodiment of that, when he was at his lowest after S1, when he was trying to break the record has come back to taunt him and the man he loves. He chooses to check in on Stede.

This is when the lighting and camerawork change. We are now inside and the lighting is warm, glowing from candlelight. Ed has a yellow glow behind him when Stede opens the door, like he is the beacon of light in this storm of emotion and trauma that Stede is experiencing from his decision to kill Ned. To cross that boundary when with the rest of the crew he used his usual positive people management style.

Pay attention to their positions here, cause this upcoming choice makes this scene feel off. The pull into the room and the subsequently slam into the wall and kiss are flipped. Along with the quick movements in each shot, this triggers a little part of our brain that realizes something is off even if we don't know why. Read more about the mirror shot in this meta analysis.

When Ed and Stede decide to be together for the first time, to numb the traumatic pain in their desperation and love for each other the lighting is different. It turns a warming orange/yellow glow, showing the softness of the situation.

These men desperately love each other and want to be together. They both agree to this night, Stede pauses before kissing Ed, waits until Ed nods his head and gives consent then pulls Stede in.

And when Stede closes the curtains, the lighting is back to red and purple. The two colors symbolizing the love these two have for each other.

In the morning, the bright yellow lighting is back. The beautiful morning sky in the background looks serene and idyllic, but it also puts our characters in a shadowy haze in the foreground.

They are still in the warmth, the afterglow of being together. Ed gets nervous and brings Stede breakfast in bed. (A parallel to Doug and Mary). They have an intimate conversation where Ed opens up about seeing mermaid Stede while in Purgatory. They have now been intimate in all forms of the word.

But there is still something off, just like with the mirrored images. Stede is shirtless, open, feeling safe. Ed has ditched his leather clothing, his Blackbeard persona, and is now in fine clothing. And I can't confirm but the inside of the robe looks purple. But his robe is closed, which can be read as still hesitant, even if it's subconscious. And they have the same body language of all of the last episode. They are sitting apart, not touching, but still comfortable facing and leaning into each other.

And this bliss continues outside where they open up more. The lighting is bright, pretty, they are surrounded by greens and tans, glowing still. Stede tells him about the multiple letters in bottles he has written. They are opening up about things but they are still avoiding what needs to be talked about - the trauma, their different paths that seem to be emerging.

And then finally, when the fight happens, all of the uneasiness from the mirrored shot, the close but not yet close enough body language, all of these choices come crashing down just like the relationship.

The light is muted. They have spent part if not all of the day apart. So the lighting indicates that it is approaching sunset not only in time but in their relationship, the foreshadowing of Ed breaking up with Stede and leaving.

Ed has already made up his mind. He is leaving to be a fisherman. He thinks what happened the night before - and by that - the moving too fast part was a mistake. While they both love and want each other, Ed is self sabotaging - in a direct parallel of last season - thinks he has ruined Stede, spiralling and choosing like he's done in the past to completely run away from the darkness. He needs to learn that he can embrace both (all) sides of himself without losing himself.

Stede tries to save it. Responds to Ed saying "this can be whatever we want it to be." But then things escalate, things aren't explained. Stede doesn't realize what the fish means to Ed, and saying he lied about the quality of the fish is Ed's view of them, "they are the fish."

They need to talk, about what they want, their diverting paths, finding common ground, and learn how to be in this relationship.

They believe the exact opposite of the truth. Ed thinks he's ruined Stede and that Stede won't love him if he's not Blackbeard (the chin convo!) And Stede thinks he isn't good enough for Ed (and everyone, that is why he goes a little crazy when people recognize him - in a direct parallel to Ed during the dinner party in 1x5.) And Ed doesn't love his softness.

All the lighting reaffirms just how much these two love each other, but the blocking, mirrored camerawork, and fast movements show the underlying unresolved tension that has been building up and ultimately leads to this rift.

[lover-of-mine]

Blue and yellow coding of Eddie's arc this half of the season just because I feel like making this post.

As usual, the theory is that Eddie will work his way to his yellow in the same way that Buck worked his way to his blue, his blue being the coming out scene blue. (Overview and links to all the posts I made on that here).

Also please remember that in the search for yellow, yellow means gold/honey/sunlight, orangy/yellow type tones.

First of all, no place like home (I made a detailed post on the episode that you can read here), but all the scenes about Eddie include blue and yellow elements and we got out first sandy yellow color when he was talking to Bobby.

His 2 part confession in confessions is also yellow and blue. How warm the actual confessional is, is also an interesting point when you add in the amount of blue elements in the juice shop.

Something that I keep talking about Buck's arc is that he does not match the background during his discovery, but he matches when it's about Eddie (aka the right choice), so the fact that Eddie already matches is worth noting. That's also true for when he's in the 804 yellow, bathenas apartment is very warm and he matches the background pretty well.

That yellow shirt also happens to be the shirt Eddie is wearing during the 601 dinner which happens to be 1 of 2 explicitly blue and yellow buddie scenes. When I say explicitly I mean that's part of the color of their shirt/jacket because that's usually the focus of an outfit.

The other one is the will reveal.

And we have all the blue and yellow elements during the conversation he has with Brad during wannabes.

Something worth noting here is the way everyone is wearing gloves while cleaning. The hose and rags are usually yellow but the addition of the gloves for the blue is intentional, take buzzkill for example, no gloves while cleaning.

Something I think it's particularly interesting is the way that he works as a divider almost, behind him to the left there is no yellow, just blue, but to the right we have all the yellow equipment and the people behind him with the rags. Also because the shelf of white hose highlights the way that the one behind Brad is supposed to be noticed.

There's also that rope behind him hanging in the dining room that weirdly looks like caution tape. That and the little yellow elements in the fridge.

Honorable mentions include: yellow organic fruit leader.

And the blue and yellow coding of the well callback in 806. I put this down here because technically this call is about Chim's plotline but it is an eddie begins callback that is very blue and yellow, so...

But something else I wanna point out is the way that in my post explaining the Eddie finding his color theory (that post can be found here), I mentioned the way that Chris is red. His crutches are red, his glasses are red, he's in yellow and red when he leaves.

And the scenes tend to have all 3 primary colors, most of the scenes also have a lot of red elements, so if we have Chris as the red, Buck as the blue, and Eddie as the yellow and the red keeps being included in the conversation, it's almost as if they are keeping Chris involved because Eddie can't make the discovery without Chris.

That is interesting with the buddie's parenting crisis maroon.

And the red and blue for parenting as a whole that was solidified once again with madney's pregnancy (meta on that applied to buddie and 710 here).

So if we consider the possibility that they are doing some really elaborate color theory game here to make sure Eddie finds all his colors, they are basically making the Buckley-Diaz family its own little group of primary colors so Eddie can make all of them. And considering that my base statement is that they are trying to show that Eddie can't live his life as a secondary color, especially since a lot of us associate green with Eddie, or earthy tones in general, this is a fun theory to think about.

He can't figure it all out without Christoper, but the addition of the blue means he also can't figure it all out without Buck. So the idea that he's stuck right now because he doesn't have one-third of the equation and if he does move to Texas he would also be missing a piece, but choosing to go get Chris and stay in LA will give him all the elements.

Anyway, this got way longer than I expected when I started typing aoksasaok, as usual, if you read this I love you 💜

taglist (interact with this post if you wanna get tagged)

@sparkedblaze @caw-salem @dreamofsomepiphany @100ceruleaneyes @chaosqueery @gina-spike @chimchiminie98 @elvensorceress @singitforthegirls @dangerpronebuddie @182daysofimagines @steadfastsaturnsrings @sparklespiff @inell @miles--to--go @jesuisici33 @wolfdeans @lunarsolar1 @joshwritesfics @glasscities @kejfeblintz @stagefoureddiediaz @mosaicstardust @eddiedisasterdiaz @hermioneindisguise @queerprincesseddiediaz @lookforanewangle @becausebuckley @lemotmo @thenainitaldisaster @epiaphany @trudayss @shelfthe-reader @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove @buckgettingstruck @scoupsahoy @the-whispers-of-death @iced-coffee-jesus @izzysbeans @starkytower @thegeekcompanion @sunflower-eddiediaz @bucks-daddy-issues @linus-lucy

@dingdongfries @angelcamael

[gilverrwrites]

Some unprompted headcanons for Babs, Jason, and Tim just because I felt like it.

You know most computers now let you have multiple personalisation settings. Barbara has a different pre-set for each member of the family, and she changes them each day depending on who she’s Oracle-ing for. Very generic grey and black theme for Batman. Blue for Nightwing with a picture of him as her background. Red Robin and Red Hood are both, well, red, but her keyboard lights up yellow for Red Robin. All yellow for Signal, lots of purple for Spoiler. Black and yellow for Batgirl. Robin doesn’t have his own yet, since he doesn’t work alone much, however, she does have a bunch of his drawings pinned on the walls.

Jason is a book worm, yes, BUT he does not treat books well .With the exception special editions or books that are particularly meaningful to him, he carries pocket paperbacks around with him and they get battered; torn covers, singed edges, dented corners. That’s on top of his dog earring the pages and annotating them in whatever pen he can find. If he reads an extract or a poem that reminds him of somebody he will straight up rip it out and keep it in his pocket for days, weeks, months until he remembers to give it to the person.

Tim collects bottle caps. No wait, that’s not quite true, people collect soda caps for him. It started when he was a kid and Zesti Cola released a special edition glass bottle for on of their big anniversaries. He just thought it was cool, so he kept it. Years later while he’s out photographing Robin he steps on a funky looking Soder Cola cap and decides to keep it. When he moves into the mansion Bruce finds those two old and beaten-up caps when he’s helping Tim unpack and latches onto it as a bonding thing, starts seeking out glass bottles whenever he’s somewhere new and tells Alfred to do the same. When Steph finds a trinket tray full of bottle caps in Tim’s room she assumes he's a collector and starts doing the same until one day it’s just an unspoken things that everyone in the family does. When you find a bottle cap you give it to Tim. Tim has never questioned it, but he is running out of space.

[kosmicdream]

while not some STRICT 100% ACCURATE GUIDE i have been developing a sort of.. eye color chart association w/ inner demons for NRD and felt like sharing it. while each person comes with usually 8 inner demons (7 red, 1 blue) they are usually not specifically representative of ~one specific~ "sin" and more of a collection of aspects of a person.. but they can have a specific leaning towards one, which is why they'll end up getting classified as.. it is funny because in some pages, Gaueko's eyes might look more yellow than orange which is why i made Greed yellow, as i do think he does lean into that as well.. for inner!welt he is always at conflict with himself due to his ability to see into his outside self, which is why his eyes look like that on the inside. Outside!welt is much more simple and straightforward haha. Currently, Kamila has fused with the demon most associated with his desires, which is why he's been particularly umm.. impulsive i suppose. Blue demons often have orange eyes because they are usually quite prideful in the sense of their own unique status as a demon, but also prideful in the fact that they are the hardest to "soothe." Inner demons are in every person and are essential to them, but its generally not a good idea to let them take too much control of you.. bad things will happen..

Anyway this is just a little snippit. I used to share a lot of various FFAK worldbuilding stuff but I don't do that as much with NRD.. but it still happens in the background LOL..

[kuradex]

I wanna know about your art style. How you draw like that??

i tried putting down considerations as well as a (very) general step by step of what i do; if there's anything more specific you want me to explain lmk i guess?

first off, general (self imposed) constraints / purpose of project -- this informs what i draw & how i draw it

i.e. "kuradex" is pretty different from my normal art (my 5 latest rough illustrations):

or my monster hunter charms:

or my pokemon tcg contest illustrations that im not allowed to show until june (😉):

although i've said its for merch purposes, ive started drawing these because i wanted to practice conveying "liveliness" and noticing key features / nuances of a given design, but i didn't want to spend a large amount of time on each one.

so what i came up with is

i want to draw things on-model in terms of proportions ( + take note of weight / tapering of shapes / etc )

no backgrounds & minimal "props"

experiment with / practice line/texture/color/flow/rhythm/etc

spend <1 hr on each pokemon on average (this is a bit more difficult for me to track, but for example, the cyndaquil line took me less than 42min to color, combined, and means at some point in time instead of focusing on cleaning up the art as much as i can, i stop after cleaning up most of it)

that said, the pose & the rhythm/flow of lines are key in conveying liveliness, and if i have a concept in mind i usually end up going with it, but i may go thru a few if i dont.

i consider pokemon origin / lore or a key point in its design, and if i'm particularly stuck, i try looking up pokemon card illustrations for inspiration. (i noticed the research i do is essentially a truncated version of how Atsushi Furusawa does research before doing an illustration.

(& even despite all this i do get stuck sometimes and don't exactly understand a pokemon and just opt for "as cute or cool as i can make it i guess?", but i think it's part of the process...?) (theoretically things that are A Shape should be really easy to draw but with what i want to practice in perspective i find them difficult...)

this is from my latest paid req but these are my first sketches of chesnaught -- i was thinking of how one of its inspirations is a warrior / tanker from RPGs, so i drew a pose where it's shielding its face.

i do another pass and take note of details.

in general i draw overlapping shapes and erase (it's a bit visible on one of the spikes)

because i opt for quickness i start coloring at this point -- i just use a colored "color burn" sketch layer for the "lineart" & colorpick official art & lay down messy flats & set the color layer to 60%

60% multiply layer for shadows. i tend to use both hard and soft brushes

for bigger projects i would use 2-3 shadow layers to create more "layered" shadows

here i use overlay layer (60%). this is just throwing colors at it and seeing what works and doesn't work. i personally prefer to throw red under the eye and a yellow or blue near the top of the head. this is mostly done with a soft brush

before this point, everything is under the rough lines, but now i start drawing/painting over it

i just color pick the colors that have been laid down from the previous steps and clean up / render textures (making the green on its arms look fuzzy) / fixing anything that i forgot or looks too off (i.e. the spike on its shoulder and the way the tail curves)

I could potentially keep cleaning this up, but this is where i usually stop 🫡

[blasteffect]

James Webb Telescope's stunning image of Jupiter !

NASA scientists have also released new shots of the solar system's biggest planet, describing the results as "quite incredible".

The James Webb Telescope took the photos back in July, capturing unprecedented views of Jupiter’s northern and southern lights, and swirling polar haze. Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a storm big enough to swallow Earth, stands out brightly alongside countless smaller storms.

One wide-field picture is particularly dramatic, showing the faint rings around the planet, as well as two tiny moons against a glittering background of galaxies.

"We’ve never seen Jupiter like this. It’s all quite incredible," said planetary astronomer Imke de Pater, of the University of California, Berkeley, who helped lead the observations.

"We hadn’t really expected it to be this good, to be honest," she added in a statement.

The infrared images were artificially coloured in blue, white, green, yellow, and orange, according to the US-French research team, to make the features stand out.

AP/NASA

[cdroloisms]

Sixteenth Day Event Prompt:

Anticipation & Survival

woo :D was able to participate this time with a little fic, hopefully this means i'll have the time to try and write more consistently again :') hope you guys enjoy 2.8k words of c!Dream being Normal and Fine and c!Sam being absolutely miserable.

---

The prison is working out well. 

Dream spins the clock. The background is mostly a sunny blue sky, with the slightest creep of dark blue rotating in along the right. The sun is a bright dandelion yellow. It’s afternoon. Maybe two, three o’clock. He’s been tracking the days by sunset, when the clock is split in equal halves of blue and navy. Ranboo visits too, to corroborate the time, but it’s a good habit to keep track while he can. It’s been seven days. A whole week. 

Besides Ranboo, there’s been one visit. Tommy. He’s seen three people, since being put in here. Tommy, Ranboo, and Sam. He’s eaten twenty potatoes. Counting is mundane, but so is everything now. There isn’t much to do in prison. Just sweat, and stare at lava, and stare at obsidian when that makes his eyes hurt, and wait for Sam to come in and check that he’s not been doing anything stupid, and wait for visitors, and eat and drink and sleep. It’s not a big room. He wouldn’t say it’s a particularly small one, either. The ceiling’s a little low, and there’s not anywhere to run, of course, but there’s plenty of room to pace and sit and lie down straight and he can sit down on the chest fine without hitting his head on stone. It’s not like he’ll need much space to carry out any plans in the foreseeable future. The cell is absent of certain comforts—a cot, for one, for obvious reasons—but once you get used to that, and the food, and the heat, it’s really not that bad. It’s not like he’s any stranger to roughing it. 

From a certain point of view, it’s almost relaxing. Sam is predictable. Almost more of a clock than the clock he’s given him, which is half the reason Dream throws it in the lava at all; Sam is reliable. His reactions are reliable. He gets food delivered twice a day, once in the morning, once at night. The nightly visit is accompanied by questioning, and occasionally Sam comes into the cell around midday to interrogate him too. Dream cooperates. Why shouldn’t he? He’s already spilled his whole plan to everyone on the mountain, gloated to Tommy, who has surely run his mouth to everyone within earshot by now. There’s no point to him being cagey at this point; no, better to rave and rant about Tommy and exile and his plan in the mountain, better to let Sam get all the information he wants and watch his eyebrows knit in disgust. Sam raises his voice, Dream answers his questions, Sam storms off. He’s even started watching the clock, just out of curiosity, and Sam leaves his cell pretty much the same time every day. Clockwork. 

There was one day when Sam didn’t come at all and Dream had—a moment, admittedly, embarrassing enough, just a string of disconnected thoughts about what would happen if the Warden of the prison suddenly dropped dead and died—but Sam had been right there the next day, looking more miserable than Dream has ever seen him. He made a quip about skipping work that made Sam snap at him; Dream takes it as a good sign, that the man guarding him seems to be more pained about the fact that he left him alone for a day than Dream was bothered about the disappearance of the single person responsible for every aspect of his life for the foreseeable future. That’s Sam, though. Dependable. Dedicated. Never one to not take his job seriously. If Dream put Sapnap in charge of the prison, he’d probably starve to death before the first month was up, but Sam looks like he’d rather fall on his own sword than leave Dream alone for a full twenty-four hours again; Dream has it in him to feel bad that he’s putting the guy to work for the sake of his own vacation. Just, a little bit. 

Back to his point. The prison is relaxing. Really. It’s boring, sure, but obviously he expected that; he’s never had so little to do before. He wakes up at night (he’s been attempting to sleep at nighttime, just because the light apparently is supposed to mess with you, but his sleep schedule has been shot for months so it’s not like it really matters to him all that much) with his brain racing, grasping for a list of tasks to do, only to come up empty. It’s a bit of a marvel. He thinks it’s funny. Yeah, brain, he’s in his—vacation arc. They’re doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just like they planned. Nobody’s getting into this place to kill him, not without smacking face-first into, like, a billion security protocols, not without dealing with Sam’s workaholic Warden schtick on their ass. He’s even getting food hand-delivered to him. Full service! Or something. 

He spins the clock again. Tommy gave him books to write. Sam flipped through them, asked questions, Dream answered. He’s not writing answers for them. He might throw them in the lava, if Sam doesn’t just confiscate the damn things; Dream knows he wants Tommy nowhere near him. Fair enough. Maybe he can write some long-ass manifesto about how much he wanted Tommy’s discs for Sam to chew on, if he gets bored enough. He laughs a little at the thought as he thinks it—okay, yeah, nah. He’s not at that point yet. 

He lies down. Horizontal. The ground is hot, but everything’s hot, and he’s getting used to it at this point; better hot than cold, honestly. He’d rather sleep here than out in the snow. The ceiling is a plane of unbroken black stone. Dream raises his hand, splays out his fingers. His nails are starting to get long. Nothing to file them down with in here…teeth it is. Whatever. He lets his hand fall back to the ground, sighing. His eyes glance over at the clock. 

Barely any time has passed. Still hours before Sam comes back. Dream bites back a low groan. Fine, fine, the boredom is getting to him. A little bit. He’s not surprised—it’s not like he’s ever done well with sitting still—but it’s still, annoying. He waves his arms and legs like he’s making a snow angel in the obsidian. Or doing jumping jacks. He should do jumping jacks, maybe. He’s got a basic workout routine to do daily—or several times a day, when there’s nothing else to do (there’s always nothing else to do, but whatever), but he’s not in the mood for it right now. 

He clicks his tongue, just to hear himself. He talks to himself, sometimes, but he has to be careful what he says. Not that it’s not a good thing to keep up, though, for the madman routine. It’s much better to talk to himself when he knows he has an audience, muttering Tommy, Tommy, Tommy in those minutes before Sam enters his cell. Fun, even. Sometimes he writes out evil speeches to give in his notebooks, burning the pages in the lava before Sam arrives. He shouldn’t get reckless with it or anything, pushing the things too far past the point of absurdity, but at this point he could probably get away with saying—just about anything. He could blather on about how he wanted to keep Tommy in a cage and play his dumb little discs to him all day until he goes insane, and Sam would write all of that down in his—book with his face twisted up under his helm while Dream tries not to break down laughing and give away the whole ruse. Not that laughing doesn’t work out for him either, to be fair. He’s gotten pretty good at the villain laugh. 

Dream stands up. He looks at the clock mounted in the item frame; the sliver of night sky on the right side has grown just slightly wider, enough to expose the slightest edge of one white-dotted star. Still hours before sunset. He pulls it off the wall, watching the background tick ever slowly forward. The gold gleams, polished to a mirror finish. 

Sam’s craftsmanship is unmistakable, even with something as small as this. He almost feels bad for what he’s about to do. 

He holds the clock up to the lava, keeping it in his hand for as long as he can handle it before the heat against his palm makes him shove it entirely under the flow, watching it disappear through strings of smoke. The crackling noise fades back into the normal hisses and pops after a few seconds; the smoke will linger for longer. Dream stands there, the lava’s heat at his face. It hurts his eyes to look at.

…whatever. 

He backs away. Then claps, brushing his palms against each other. Clock’s been burned. Another item of his daily itinerary handled—not that he does this daily. Has to keep Sam on his toes, right? The crazy prisoner isn’t supposed to be the predictable one, not like the ever-punctual Warden. This is—important, he’s decided, for his image. Well, not important, maybe, but it’s calculated. Beneficial. Nobody sane takes the one thing they have in their cell and destroys it repeatedly for literally no reason. Sam’s prisoner, the crazy guy that was trying to take over the server, isn’t sane. No one questions why an insane guy tries to control everyone with a bunch of shit he doesn’t even have, why he thinks he can keep someone locked up in a two-by-one box with a couple of iron bars, why he listens to a guy threatening to kill himself when he can literally raise the dead. It’s all set dressing. Method acting. One or the other, or both; it’s not like he’s ever watched a real play in his life. All that matters is that everyone thinks he’s crazy because no one asks a crazy guy why he’s acting crazy, and crazy people do stuff like obsess over stupid pieces of vinyl and talk to themselves and destroy their own shit for no reason. 

(Which probably makes Tommyinnit a crazy person, ha.) 

Sam will come back. Soon. He will bring potatoes with him, and investigate the cell, and see the missing clock. He will complain. He will threaten Dream, rave about the destruction of prison property, telling him that he won’t replace it. He will question him about Tommy. And tomorrow morning, a new clock will be put in its place. Honestly, Sam would probably give himself an aneurysm if he had to look at the cell with one of its components missing. It seems like the kind of thing to bother him too much not to set straight. And tomorrow, maybe Dream will throw the clock into the lava again, and maybe he won’t. He’ll see. 

He’s the one that decides, in the end.

— 

Sam checks his comm again as he waits for the lava to fall, head already pounding. He’s had an on-and-off migraine ever since his night with the Egg, and the current wave shows no sign of abating any time soon. If he could have it his way, he’d be back in his bed, Fran curled up beside him, where it’s dark and quiet and comfortably cool instead of sweating half to death in a suffocating suit of full armor. Instead, he’s nursing a headache that only gets worse with every notification he reads off the log pulled up on his screen; he doesn’t even bother counting the string of [Dream tried to swm in lava] that appears under today’s date. The fact that it’s a seemingly longer list than the days previous does little to help his already bad mood. 

He still has no idea what Dream hopes to achieve by doing this, besides attention. Not that Sam has even been trying to give him that, these days; he visits twice a day, once at 9 the morning and once at 6 in the afternoon, and then leaves the prisoner to himself. Sam doesn’t answer to him. He’s not going to get the same reaction he got the first time he pulled this stunt, when Sam had rushed into the cell in the middle of the night, heart in his throat after running halfway across the server, only to find Dream waiting for him in the middle of his cell with his mask smiling back mockingly. If he’s hoping to stir Sam into a panic again, he’s sorely mistaken. But still Dream continues. He’s probably just doing it to get a reaction out of him. He probably thinks that’s funny. 

Dream is standing, waiting for him. Muttering to himself, he thinks he can hear. Sam pulls the lever for the bridge and steps on it, his sword in hand, wanting to get this visit over and done with as quickly as possible. He might sleep in the Warden’s quarters here, tonight, just to avoid the commute back to his base. Yeah, that sounds good. All he has to do is survive one conversation with Dream. 

The prisoner has stopped talking to himself by the time Sam steps into the cell, lifting his chin as he looks at him. 

“Hi, Sam.” 

Sam makes a vague noise of acknowledgement, not more than a low grunt. His eyes scan the room from left to right, stopped prematurely by the sight of the empty item frame mounted on the wall. His headache grows exponentially worse in an instant, a stabbing pain hammering itself into the back of his skull. He grits his teeth. 

He should’ve expected this. He knows he should’ve expected this. 

“Prisoner.” 

“Sam,” Dream replies, his smile audible in his voice. Sam closes his eyes, a prayer flitting across his overtaxed mind. God help him.

“Where’s your clock.” What’s the point of asking, even. Dream sways from foot to foot. 

“I burned it?”

“Why did you do it. Again.” Dream shrugs. Sam steps forward, shoves him back. “Don’t be so dumb, Dream.” 

The prisoner barely seems to react, his back hitting the wall. His voice is nearly sing-song. “Ohhh. I got you though.” 

Sam wishes, not for the first time, that he didn’t have the work ethic that keeps him from coming into the cell drunk. Surely the prisoner cannot be any more infuriating to handle with the help of some alcohol. He holds the prisoner by his jaw and knocks his head back against the wall, gauntlet digging into the pale skin under the bottom edge of his mask. 

“What is wrong with you!” Dream struggles, slightly. Sam kicks at his legs. “Don’t move. Answer my question.” 

“Let go.” 

“How many times have I told you not to burn the clock, Dream!” He knocks the back of his head against the wall, harder this time. The struggling stops. “Do you think it’s funny? I don’t have to replace your clock!” 

Dream sounds a little dazed when he replies, arms crossed at his chest. “I just wanted to burn it. So I did.” 

“That’s ridiculous. What is your problem.” He shakes his head by his jaw, once, then lets go, giving himself enough distance to swing a fist into Dream’s side, making him double over. He scoffs at the sight, anger white-hot. He knows he shouldn’t be letting the prisoner get to him. Knows that Dream is only doing this to mess with him, mess with him the same way he messes with everyone, trying to get into his head. His skull feels like it’s being split apart. 

Dream stands up straight again. All Sam can see is the flat, smooth plane of his mask, that smile, unchanged. His hands, knotted into tight fists at his sides, shake. The heat pulsing behind his eyes feels like rage, and also almost feels like he’s going to cry.

He can’t do this. The realization is abrupt, but sure. Not tonight, not with this headache, not with Dream. He can’t go through the same song and dance, can’t sit here and examine the cell and give the prisoner his potatoes and go through questioning for an hour, can’t spend the rest of his night going over his words with a fine-toothed comb looking for the nuggets of truth hidden in the midst of the prisoner’s crazed ramblings. Hasn’t he done enough? For the whole server, for everyone, day after day he stands and faces the monster before him and day after day he stands strong; retreating now feels like weakness, but he can’t. He honestly, truly, can’t. He ignores the weight of the potatoes in his inventory and turns. 

“Sam?” Dream speaks again when he’s reached the edge of the cell, sounding slightly winded. “What are you—?” 

Sam pearls across the gap, slamming the lever to lower the lava wall as soon as his vision clears. Tomorrow, he will be the Warden of Pandora’s Vault. Tomorrow, he will stand toe-to-toe against the one he has been entrusted to keep and stand firm. Tomorrow, he will do as he must, as the one responsible for the survival of everyone and everything he holds dear. 

Today, it’s just too much. He looks back to a wall of unbroken lava, only able to stare at it for a few seconds before turning away. 

[a-bit-too-silly]

Would you maybe do a drabble about regressed Logan being fussy about having to take a bath, maybe with CG Wade?

of course! I decided to have a bit of an inconsistent narrator cus Wade talks right to the reader sometimes. Hope this is alright! :]

🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧

If there's one thing Logan *isn't* known for, it's his cleanliness. He takes care of himself most of the time. He's half good at that don't get this twisted, dear reader. But.. well, he's not particularly neat. We'll put it that way.

When he's big he's always getting covered in sweat, grime, blood, ash, he's really the type to roll around in mud like a dog if he thinks it'll make him feel better. 'Feral' is a good word to describe him, even when he's not gone into one of his berserker rages. But when he's little, it's.. yeah, it's the same story. Maybe a bit less blood and no ash since I wouldn't- ehh... *nobody* would let that little guy smoke anything. Not even his beloved cigars. Thankfully he's found some other ways to satiate that oral fixation of his, even if it does mean the occasional bite on the arm every now and then.

Regardless of what he decides to sink those little chompers into, he still manages to get himself coated in just about everything he comes across.

Mud? Oh-ho, definitely. No use in putting him in his raincoat and boots since he'd prefer to stomp around in every puddle barefoot anyway.

Food? You know it. You could be feeding him as neatly as possible only to turn your back for a moment and find some mashed avocado in his eyebrow.

Dust from the floor? Yep. Paint? Sure. Crayons? Somehow, yeah. Blue fur from Kurt? Mhm. Don't get me started on the jam incident. That sweet honey badger found his way into the cabinets.. the evidence of that massacre still stains those poor porous countertops.

I'll hand it to him, he's talented.

Unfortunately... bath time is his worst enemy. Maybe it has something to do with the experimentation, that'd make the most sense. Maybe it's his tendency to sink. Maybe he just prefers to be a stinky little gremlin. It's not exactly my place to ask. He's often too little or too tired to stay standing long enough for a shower, and sponge baths aren't really an option.

With background info out of the way, let's get back to the problem at hand.

-

"Cmon peanut, I made sure to put in the bubbles you like! They're yellow!" Wade says with a small gesture towards the tub. "Al! Tell him they're yellow!"

"You really think I'd be more convincing than you?" She calls from the other room almost incredulously. - oh, right. *Blind* Al.. yeah.. maybe not the best at identifying colors. - Wade looks out the door of the bathroom in the general direction of where Al is seated, minding her business.

"See? Al likes how yellow they are." He says in spite of everything, "Do you want to get in the tub now, munchkin?"

"no. No bat-time." Logan, as little as he is right now, scowls. It doesn't have the intended effect, but Wade lets out a dramatic groan anyway. Toddlers.. can't be reasoned with.

"Unfortunately not how this works, kiddo." Wade says, crouching down next to the tub where Logan has firmly planted himself against the tile. He's no longer wearing his top, seeing as it was an unfortunate bystander to some sticky pancakes and cubed meats. All chopped up nice and small so Logan wouldn't choke but big enough that he could chew on em a decent bit.

"Don' need ta." The adamantium boned toddler huffs in response, "'m not dirty."

"no, but you are sticky, kiddo. And you were playing outside with Storm earlier so I bet you got a bit icky there too." This only makes Logan's scowl firmer. The once little pout growing in such a way that makes Wade's heart ache. If it weren't for the fact that Al would definitely nag him about Logan's sticky fingers, face, chest, shoulders... Logan's general *stickiness*, he doubts he'd ever manage to get the rascal to ever bathe.

"Papa get in first." He said firmly, pointing to the tub like he's the one calling the shots. Which he is. Wade is a weak weak man for his grumpy little guy. "'n no dunking."

'Dunking' in this case stands for dipping the little guy's head under water. Wade would never, but it gets mentioned at least once per bath time. Upon hearing the statement, Wade throws up his hand in a solemn oath.

"Scouts honor." Now, Wade has never been a boy scout, but he's also never been one for hurting kids so the promise still stands. With that, he slips out of his slippers and rolls his sweatpants up to his knees so he hopefully won't get too soaked, and he sits down on the edge of the tub. The water in the tub isn't too deep, only reaching up to around the middle of Wade's calf, with another few inches on top of thick yellowy foam from the bath bomb Logan relished in watching dissolve.

Still reluctant, Logan watches as Wade sits on the edge of the tub for a while. And Wade lets him. It's a slow process, always is, but after a few minutes of pouty glaring Logan tugs off the last of his clothes then clambers up into the tub with a bit of help from Wade. Just to ensure he doesn't slip. The water is still nicely warm despite the slow process, maintained by frequent touchups of hot water and lifting up the plug to let out the cold.

"Good job, peanut." Wade says softly as he grabs an old cup, bright red in color and decorated with a variety of stickers, and starts to ladle water over Logan's shoulders. He's learned the hard way that Logan has the 'if my head gets wet in a dry room I will shake until it's dry' reflex, so hair washing stays until the end.

Logan is quiet and stiff, letting out the occasional whine despite himself. Seems he's on the silent treatment side of the spectrum rather than the 'giving a cat a bath' side. It's almost worse, but Wade knows he'll perk back up once things are done.

So he starts to gently scrub the sticky syrup and dirt from Logan's hands, meeting his eye as best he can. His little one is sulking, lip still pouted out, eyes downcast and sad.

"Bath time is no fun, I know, my sour faced friend." Wade sighs, "anything that could make it better, bubbie?"

Logan stays quiet for a while, only moving when Wade needs to reach somewhere to clean. "No."

"mmm." Wade mumbles, taking the removable showerhead off of its holder so he can quickly rinse off Logan, getting his hair and rinsing off the soap. "Just a moment.."

"done?"

"Yep. All done, honeybun." He says as he stands up to grab a towel from the shelf, that earns him some grabby hands and a desperate search for 'uppies'. Which he gladly satisfies after bundling him up in a towel. Yeah, I can pick him up. Adamantium skeletoned 300+ pound toddler? No biggie. "Let's get you in some jammies and maybe you can convince Nana Al to let you put on a movie. That sound good, bubsicle?"

Logan nestles his head into the crook of Wade's neck and nods a little, his limbs clinging to Wade like a koala clings to a tree. He's really not used to being picked up, regardless of how much he asks for it.

"And then Papa pool is gonna make some chicken nuggets and fries and we're gonna forget all about that icky horrible bath." Wade continues as he carries Logan to the bedroom, patting his back occasionally.

"Dino shapes?" Logan asks quietly.

"Oh, definitely. That makes em more nutritious." Wade scoffs, pulling out a pair of comfortable flannel pants and a T-shirt that still manages to be baggy even on Logan's broad frame. The faded pattern still clearly reads 'Bambi' with the titular character looking up at a butterfly while sitting in a bed of flowers. It's a favorite of his, and maybe Wade has been messing with continuity to make sure it never wears out. Maybe. Come on, every one needs their recognizable outfits!

Logan dresses himself with only a touch of help with the socks. Then he does that silly toddler walk, the one where its more stomps than normal footfalls, off towards Al with Wade following close behind.

[sheriiam]

Since today marks the 53rd year since the first Pride parade took place, let's dive into the history of the "progress" of our Pride flag.

This new flag is called the Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag, created by Valentino Vecchietti of Intersex Equality Rights UK in 2021. It is an update to the previous Progress Pride Flag created in 2018 by Daniel Quasar.

The original pride flag was created in the 1970s by gay activist Gilbert Baker, friend of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. The flag made its debut at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade celebration on June 25, 1978. Baker used eight colors―

― hot pink for sexuality, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for the sun, green for nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony, and violet for spirit.

Why Was Pink Removed From the Pride Flag?

The original hot pink color was removed from the pride flag because the fabric was difficult to find.

The Progress Pride Flag was created with the inspiration of other pride flags—specifically, the Philadelphia Pride Flag from 2017 and the trans flag.

The Philadelphia Pride Flag had black and brown vertical stripes added. The trans flag, created in 1999, is pink, baby blue, and white. Both of these flags inspired the design of the new pride flag.

Black and Brown Represents People of Color

The Philadelphia Pride Flag was designed by the Philadelphia Office of LGBT Affairs and was done in partnership with advertising agency Tierney. It was introduced at a City Hall ceremony in June of 2017. The flag showed the traditional six rainbow colors in horizontal stripes, with a black and a brown stripe atop them.

The colors black and brown were added to the Progress Pride Flag to represent people of color (POC). This was an important addition because people of color have often been left out of the queer narrative despite being the driving force behind the movement.

With the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, culture at large began to shift in a much-needed way towards acknowledging the vital roles that people of color have had in our society. The pride movement background is one of many areas where POC, particularly Black people, did not receive the recognition they deserved historically. Adding colors to represent them on the flag is one way to change that.

Additionally, the black and brown stripes are meant to represent people living with HIV/AIDS, those who have died from it, and the stigma around the virus that is still present in our society now.

Pink, Baby Blue, and White Represent Trans People

Transwoman Monica Helms created the trans pride flag, which first flew in a pride parade in Phoenix, Arizona back in 2000. Monica Helms is a transgender activist, author, and U.S. Navy veteran.

Traditionally, the colors pink and baby blue have been used to represent whether a baby is a boy or a girl. Here, the colors denote those genders. The color white represents people who are transitioning, intersex, or identify outside of the gender binary.

The word "progress" in the new flag isn't only about adding the new colors to it. It's also because of the shape, which differs from the original design of horizontal stripes only. The Progress Pride Flag shows the white, pink, baby blue, black, and brown stripes in a triangle shape, with the old six-color rainbow stacked next to them.

This was done intentionally to convey the separation in meaning and shift focus to how important the issues represented on the left are.

The placement of the new colors in an arrow shape is meant to convey the progress still needed. Quasar spoke publicly about how work is still needed in terms of POC and trans rights. This arrow design is meant to highlight that.

Although the Pride flag continues to evolve, the most recent update includes a yellow triangle with a purple circle inside it to represent the intersex community. It now serves as the most up-to-date LGBTQIA+ flag.

[aux-squiggle]

I've made radfem centric pride flags everyone! Some are radfem only and some are for more than just rf's but will likely be used by mainly rf's.

Here's my favourite one I've made today:

Optimistic communist/socialist radical feminist flag. This flag is for any radfem post-capitalist (e.g socialist, syndicalist, communist etc) who has faith in a brighter future for women and the working class. Someone who believes the total destruction of the patriarchy is possible, and who believes the destruction of capitalism is likely/guaranteed.

The blue stripe is for disabled people and solidarity with same (particularly disabled women/female people). The colour blue represents wisdom, health, and medical affairs.

The purple stripe is small because it's a transitional shade for visual appeal. It stands for homosexual/same-sex attracted females.

The pink represents women, and is a striking/distinct colour to represent the distinctness of radical feminism from mainstream feminism. It also is one of the colours of the sunset and shows that women's possibilities are as high as the sky.

The yellow background is mainly for visual appeal, however it also represents the happiness and energizement of optimistic radical feminists. It also represents wealth and the redistribution of resources.

The sun itself represents clarity, paths to progress, "light at the end of the tunnel" and optimism in general. The sun also represents life and vitality. The "childishness" of the sun's corona represents safety for children.

The reddish-gold is goldish because of the sun shining on it. The reddishness represents anti-capitalism, and the struggle/will of the proletariat.

The golden-brown stripe is thin for visual appeal. It represents land/earth/soil and is a symbol of anti-imperialism, landback, and solidarity with the people (especially women) who live on colonized or ex-colonized land.

The brown stripe represents women of colour, especially black and brown women of colour. It is at the bottom because women of colour are at the foundation of radical feminism.

The hammer and sickle represents socialism/communism, and the female fist represents the undying thirst for liberation by female people. It's a widely accepted feminist symbol.

This one is the optimistic radical feminist flag. The red stripe still means anti-capitalism but this flag may be more suitable for optimistic radical feminists who are optimistic about culture change and significant destruction of patriarchy but not necessarily a total socialist revolution.

Here's the standard radfem flag I made. Brown means WOC, blue is disabled women, pink is women/distinctness from mainstream feminism, and red means anti-capitalism.

The land stripe and the homosexual female stripe unfortunately looked ugly on this flag and in terms of aesthetics this flag is mid. I think the meaning is powerful but I don't want to make it uglier 😭

Optimists, pessimists, neutrals and really any form of radfem may enjoy this flag.

This is the socialist/communist radfem flag, essentially a radfem who has more emphasis on post-capitalism. Neo-marxfem radfems may enjoy this flag.

This is another version of the above but it's a lil ugly 💀

Ok onto some sexuality flags! These are all febfem (female exclusive bisexual female) flags because I'm febfem and I wanted to focus on these. I'll def make more SSA and gnc women flags but I got tired today.

Standard febfem flag (made my own bc the ones online are strangely low quality).

I personally don't know what the individual stripes mean but it conjours thoughts of both the bisexual and lesbian flags because febfems are ofc, bisexual women. But also strongly decenter men like lesbians do. Being febfem is a distinct experience, thus the distinct colour pallette.

This is an asexual febfem flag! So female exclusive biromantic females who are on the asexual spectrum may enjoy this flag.

This is an aromantic febfem flag, so for febfems who are on the aromantic spectrum.

This is specifically a demisexual febfem flag.

This is specifically a demiromantic febfem flag.

Enjoy!

[thesupernaturalhouse]

Are you ready!!! I have finally FINALLY finished the hellverse worldbuilding/rewrite project and I've added a lot mroe stuff then just info on thr rings :³

Please read and tell me what you think because I spent *checks time* 12-14 hours making all this and I'd relaly appreciate it if you guys read or asked questions about it I'm very proud of the backgrounds :³

First off!!! Is of course the rings, I'll have to reblog with the bonus content since only 10 pictures are allowed per post lol

A smart for each ring, theor ruler and native species as well as a small description background is the color that represents their ring more or less

Pride purplish red, wrath red, gluttony yellow, greed yellowish green, lust purple, envy dark teal, sloth, blue

Pride!! Short summary fo the text: prides hellborn species are ethe cannibals, they stay in route due to the infinite food glitch and look the most human out of the hellborn, whoch can be their downfall as some exorcists can mistake them for sinners. They've also adopted human behavior, such as having an overlord, and particularly have taken a liking to the 1900s style

And here's imp city as a bonus!

Next is Wrath!! And the one I spent the most time on lol

Wrath summary is thst their hellborn species are Imps, which adapt to theor surrounds actually. So while Wrath born imps are much stronger, greed and gluttony imps are faster, sloth ring I'm are faster and more adapted to the cold, pride ring imps have more normal feet to help them walk faster, etc

Wrath imps are also very heat resistant, their hot springs being lava instead, imps fork other rings have less heat resistant then wrath ones

And here's gluttony!!

Hellhoudns are gluttonys native species, and because thier the most populated species there are orphanages fudged by beelzabub, though quality varies....pride has the worse due to sinners(which while they can't damage the orphanage due to a barrier its still not the best- even greens are better) while gluttony has the best

Beelzabub juice is made and affected by the general mood of the population/citizens via their energy, which is how it gets made. It doesn't negatively affect the citizens

And next is greed!

Greed by far as the most variety of species, crocodiles, snakes, alligators, lizards, sharks, etc

On one side greed is crowded and packed full of factories and mines and crime, on the other though its liek your average city, to much info to summarize so you'll have to read it yourselves

Next up is lust!!

Lust is basically hells version of ls Vagas, like greed one side if filled with sex shops and clubs and casinos, while the other is a relatively tame and normal city

Greed produces the gems while lust enchants them due to lit demons being the only hellborn species to have enough magic to enchant stuff

Next up!! Envy!!

Envy on the surface is simply an island surrounded by water, but that's simply for the non natives becauseudeewtaer is where the realy envy city is she their hellborn species can breath underwater and are also the only ones able to touch salt without getting burnt

Due to envy just being one giant ocean, they have a lot of resources, fish, coral, sand, rocks, etc, that only they can access, making it the most wealthy ring. Which also affects its citizens and makes them more introverted as their better than even else in their minds

Here's a little capital/under the water Pic as a bonus!

Next up is sloth, which I finished today at like, 1 am lol

Sloths native species consists of bovidae, specifically sheep, antelope, rams, giats, etc. They tend to stay on the softer color scale, but here they are born, which can affect what colors they are(paradise was born in gluttony and is half succubus due to the wings)

They actually eat dreams, or, not really, dreams but more the energy that demons produce whilst dreaming. It doesn't harm them and, in some cases, actually helps them if they have a nightmare.

That's all for now, the slides go into far more details than I did in these short summaries so please read them, I worked really hard on them and would appreciate the support and any questions are also welcome!

Again I'll reblog with the bonus content, or jsut make a nether post caus ei can't add anymore pics to this post🥲

[kingstarkingslay]

WOLFSTAR MUSEUM CONFESSION

The sun dipped low over the horizon, casting a warm golden glow across the halls of the London Museum of History. Inside, the air was filled with the soft hum of chatter and the occasional clinking of glasses as the annual charity gala unfolded. Among the mingling crowd, two figures stood out.

Sirius leaned against a marble column, his dark hair tousled and his blue eyes sparkling with mischief. He surveyed the room, a cheeky grin playing on his lips. He was here for the art, of course, but mostly for the company.Remus strolled in just a moment later, his tie slightly askew and a faint blush dusting his cheeks. He was clearly nervous, but there was a warmth to his smile that melted Sirius’s heart. “Sorry I’m late,” Remus said, brushing a hand through his sandy hair. “Lost track of time in the library.”

“Books over art?” Sirius teased, stepping closer. “You wound me.”

Remus chuckled softly, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Not at all. I just needed some last-minute research on the Van Gogh exhibit. You know, for a little extra knowledge to impress you.”

“Oh, is that your plan? To dazzle me with facts about sunflowers?” Sirius leaned in, lowering his voice playfully. “Because I can’t imagine anything more romantic.”

Remus rolled his eyes, though he was clearly fighting a smile. “You’d be surprised how passionate I can get about art.”

“Prove it,” Sirius challenged, gesturing toward the exhibit room. “Let’s go see what all the fuss is about.”

As they wandered into the gallery, the walls adorned with vibrant paintings, Sirius felt a flutter of excitement. They paused in front of a particularly striking piece—a swirling night sky, rich with blues and yellows.

“Starry Night,” Remus said, his voice soft. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Sirius nodded, though his gaze was fixed more on Remus than the painting. “Almost as beautiful as you.”

Remus turned to him, surprise and warmth flooding his features. “Sirius…”

Before he could respond, Sirius’s hand found Remus’s, fingers intertwining in a gentle, yet electric touch. “What? You think I’m not serious? This is art, after all,” he added, his voice teasing. “And I’m clearly a connoisseur of beauty.”

Remus laughed, his heart racing. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Only for you,” Sirius replied, his tone suddenly sincere. “You know that, right?”

Their eyes locked for a moment, the world around them fading into the background. Remus took a step closer, his heart pounding. “I do. I just—”

“Hey, look at this one!” Sirius interrupted, steering them toward another painting. It was a colorful landscape, wildflowers bursting against a blue sky. “This is more like it! It has vibe.”

Remus shook his head, laughing again. “You really can’t resist, can you?”

“I’m just trying to get your mind off that ‘talk’ we’re having,” Sirius said, winking. “But if you want to discuss my feelings about you among the flowers, I’m all for it.”

The air crackled between them, teasing and warm. Remus turned serious for a moment, his expression softening. “I do want to, Sirius. I just—”

“Remus, come here,” Sirius interrupted again, this time pulling him closer to a painting of a moonlit forest. “Look at how the light falls through the trees. Isn’t it magical?”

“Magical, yes,” Remus said, heart fluttering. “But not nearly as enchanting as this moment.”

Sirius glanced sideways, caught off guard. “Oh? You think so?”

“I do.” Remus took a deep breath, gathering courage. “Maybe we could create our own kind of art together?”

“Are we talking about painting?” Sirius teased, his heart racing.

“Maybe something more… personal,” Remus said, a hint of shyness in his voice.

Sirius’s breath caught. “You mean—”

Before he could finish, Remus leaned in, closing the gap between them, and pressed a soft kiss to Sirius’s lips. It was tentative at first, but then Sirius responded, melting into it, wrapping his arms around Remus’s waist.

When they finally pulled away, both were breathless, faces flushed. “Wow,” Sirius said, a grin spreading across his face. “I’m definitely going to need to update my notes on art appreciation.”

Remus chuckled, relief washing over him. “So, is this what they mean by ‘art in motion’?”

“Something like that,” Sirius replied, his eyes sparkling. “And I think I’d like to create a lot more art with you.”

With that, they stepped back into the gallery, hands intertwined, ready to explore both the masterpieces around them and the adventure unfolding between them.

[watercolorsam-arts]

Why the Minecraft Movie looks so bad

Okay, let’s see if I can make this work

Hi, I’m Watercolor, currently a student learning animation and visual effects. I’ve got some more technical explanations for why exactly the trailer looks god awful

I’m gonna do my best to explain this in simple terms, but if I don’t explain something very good, let me know and I’ll explain more. Alright, this is gonna be a long post

Starting off with the obsession with backlighting. See how it doesn’t really match the environmental lighting? That’s one of the major things that makes it look so weird to a lot of people. It could have been done to better distinguish the actors from the background, but it does that a little too well and makes them look way too out of place. The environment has a very nice constant (most likely singular) light source, which is most likely an HDRI.

An HDRI (or high dynamic range image) informs the animation software on how the scene should be lit, and is often a weird panoramic image of whatever physical area you want to replicate.

In a reverse case, adding a CG character into a real set, you could take an HDRI of the physical set, and use it to apply similar lighting. Adjustment will most likely have to be hand adjusted by the lighting team (and tbh they add a lot of extra lights in anyway. It just needs to look right) but it’s a fantastic starting point for the compositing and lighting teams.

However, the McM’s live set has way different lights set up then what is seen in the environment.

Here, for example, the live set is most likely being lit by standard 3 point lighting, which are not only the wrong color (the lighting on the environment is much more yellow) but also washes out any shadows that would help define the actors. If this movie wasn’t obsessed with backlighting, you could fix that by lighting the actors and environment from the front, but because the sun is in the back, they have to make the front of the actors unnaturally brighter to see them more properly. I have a slight idea on why the kid in red looks especially “photoshopped” in, and it’s mostly because his hoodie doesn’t have a similar reflectiveness to everyone else’s outfit, and his hair is a more neutral color, causing the highlight to be even more washed out. Also, while we’re here, the cube is a physical prop, but it was not lit up during filming, and all the light output was tossed on after. And it’s really inconsistent and honestly, lazy. For the most part they just hit it with a blue blur effect in post, it doesn’t actually cast any light.

Another major issue is the color difference between the actors and the environment. The color balancing on the actors is particularly garbage, they’re somehow desaturated while also being too saturated, I don’t know how they managed that. But the technical issue on why it looks odd, is because the physical camera cannot physically pick up the same vibrancy as the “camera” in the CG world. You might have seen an example of this when trying to take a photo with your phone, especially of a very colorful event like the sunset. It’s also why “ugly sonic” looked particularly out of place, he was 10x more saturated than anything else around him.

Having the actors on a very low effort green screen stage also completely ruins any chance of getting the proper ambient light or ambient occlusion.

Ambient occlusion is basically the bounce light from other objects in your scene, gamers might know this as a form of ray tracing (ray tracing is live changes in ambient occlusion, games without ray tracing bake in ambient occlusion to get a similar result)

When everything is CG, (again art style aside) looks pretty darn good actually!

I attempted some edits to see if anything could make it look better (left is original, right is mine), and I don’t think proper lighting or anything could actually fix what this movie has wrong with it. They should have made the whole thing animated, I don’t think any amount of bullying would fix this, the studio basically has to scrap the actors, and make new CG characters from scratch in the same style as the rest of the world.

All of this is not the fault f the animators, or any of the vfx team, they did their absolute best with what they had, this is 100% the fault of the higher ups on this project. I have no idea how this good this far into production without ANYONE saying that it was a bad idea (Either that, or a lot of people got fired, which is unfortunately a likely possibility)