#riccin answers

[activatingaggro]

what’s your typical process for these huge art pieces? your posing is so nice and weighty and casual w such lovely interaction and I struggle to imagine how to even begin putting that together. ur ball pieces this year are epic

Aw! That's very sweet of you, and I appreciate that they look nice to people outside of my niche, haha. :] I stopped posting fantroll art for a bit, because it seemed a touch silly to post them on tumblr when.. I haven't even updated profiles here in literally years! But I'm glad that it still has some appeal even without larger context, lol.

My process is pretty straightforward! Part of it is just - take pictures, get references, get up and do the shit that you're about to draw! I would share pictures for examples here, but they're all vastly unflattering and I'm pretty sure I would be rightfully slaughtered by my helpful volunteers if I did that. But basically, I take pictures for everything if I can't find a good reference, and I'll frequently set up my phone to record myself when I'm doing an action pose!

This is because a lot of the weightiness of a picture, for me, is just.. how a person adjusts their weight and holds their body while in motion! The art I make where I'm referencing myself is generally pretty obvious, for example, because I use a cane, and keep 90% of my weight on my right leg. But different heights, different weight, different fat and muscle distribution also all play a big part in how people hold themselves, and videos and photos are fantastic for actually seeing that. When it's something too complex to do myself, or to get some unfortunate volunteer to do it for me, I like looking at Youtube videos on slow motion.

So, for example: Riccin fights with a meteor hammer. There's a decent amount of footage of people using meteor hammers on Youtube!

So, I put this on slow motion! 0.25 speed, find a shot that I like at 1:00. With something like this, there's not much point to trying to act it out IRL and film it to get new angles - we have a much easier, and more viable route, in just using fucking 3D posers. There's a lot of them out there today! A lot of people like using the one built into Clip Studio, but I just found a random one on google that's free called PoseMy.Art to demonstrate the basic idea.

The goal for this is not to make an exact replica (because I am lazy and am not entirely sure how this poser works, lol). The goal is mostly to let you explore angles, and to get a better idea of what looks dynamic or interesting enough to work with! Because the main lure of these, for me, is to look at different angles, and then use those angles as a basis to make the pose more interesting. (Neon reds on the first are where I shrank/adjusted/moved the model to create a very lazy foreshortening!)

But what about for more casual or chill poses?

The answer is mostly the same, except with added social shit in, in that - first off, I make my friends help me find poses. I have a channel in one of my discord servers that's just there for reference, and I'll ask, say, @rebatrolls if she can find me a good pose for so-and-so picture. "I want something cozy!" She will then go off into the mines of pinterest like my faithful canary ready to be strangled by cave gas or something, and emerge with pictures. Sometimes these are great pictures! Each individual entity in our godsforsaken world has their own individual preferences, which shows in the sort of pictures that they pick.

Sometimes it's helpful! sometimes it is not. An example: I asked for obnoxious cheesecake photos for Liable! Reba brought out boudoir photos. Cal brought out NSFW anime figurines. There are two weebs inside of all of us, and one of those weebs is marginally less terrible than the other. uwu

But references, finding pictures you like, and then recreating them and changing up the angle helps a lot! Because there's a lot of gorgeous, very casual, very affectionate photoshoots out there:

And my last bit is just. Looking at all of these photoshoots and candids, and looking at my own personal preferences, as well as my friends'! I am a nosy fuck and I like to ask people, like: what gestures stand out to you? what things feel the most affectionate to you? when you're close to someone, what is your body language? when you want to be an asshole, what do you do?

That gives me an easy little mental library to build off of to add in intimacy when I'm making poses. I am a grade A lemur when it comes to being physically affectionate, so I rely on that a lot in my poses - people have looped arms, people just casually finding a way to make physical contact through an arm or a foot or leaning, there's a lot of people sprawling out on top of their friends / otherwise being in close contact, because I know how that looks, basically. All the little squidgy details, like "how do people curl their fingers when they're holding hands and their arms are looped together" are already in my brain from years of experience, haha.

And the good part of plumbing my friends' brains for their own references is - some people are very fond of, like, people resting their chins on their heads, and they can say exactly how arms usually rest in that pose. Someone might have grown up with bumping noses with people as a kiss, or kissing everyone's cheeks. Some people might say: oh, I've always had taller people walk between the sidewalk and I, or else they've always sat with their shoulders parallel to their friends knees from years of braiding hair, or or or --

It makes it useful to pull off the little affectionate details! I used to struggle more with just.. casual, fond poses between characters, until I realised: oh, wait, just draw it from life. Because even if you don't have friends that are comfortable sharing that sort of info, or else you don't personally pay attention to it much in your own life - because some people don't, and that's fine! - I've also just occasionally sat down at some busy locale, brought a notebook, and wrote down the gestures, and movements, and little actions of the couples, or families, or friends that wander by. It's all about building up a library, essentially, and once you have, you'll find you'll just start plugging it into pictures automatically.

[cloudbattrolls]

Writing Chiloa again as I finally work on his reply and I think the answer to my problem of his church being technically beholden under the canon of someone I no longer rp with is to keep the name and its general concept, but slot in my own NPCs.

I think I’ll stick Ria back there instead of with Plaske, it’s perfectly possible they came back to nab Ria after Ria got taken the first time by Riccin and then got their shit kicked in by Chiloa when he came for them. It would’ve been worth it to him after how Plaske fucked with Riccin, and because Ria is also a powerful telekinetic and therefore valuable.

For my own purposes I can just say Riccin is gone now (lord knows they might as well be from Gliese’s perspective as well)

It also gives me something to do with Plaske besides them just being a bored rich asshole clown, because they absolutely would want revenge on Chiloa and the IEP itself.

[obstructedantiquity]

DVD meme, from Dump Kit: '“Your fault, huh?” Can a proctor mistreat his charge? That’s one hell of a question, and not one you’re especially keen to consider - but it’s hard not to, when Kit’s sprawled out right there, blue blossoming across his jaw like mold creeping clear, peeking around the edges of the icepack. What a proctor does is for the best of the charge. You know this. But that doesn’t mean they’re supposed to go damaging them'

Riccin’s entire context for adults is their relationship with the Shepherd, and the rest of the IEP students relationships with their individual proctors: they don’t really understand that Kit’s relationship with Leoffe is different, and they don’t fully comprehend that, say, Vadaya wasn’t under the personal command of some highblood from a very young age. And the thing about the proctor relationship is that it’s a very authoritarian one.

You don’t question your proctor! You don’t work against them. The IEP works off of almost Beforan ideals that everyone below violet needs to be taken under the hand of highbloods, which is manifest in the will of the Shepherd. The way that she treats Riccin is rough, but also fairly indicative of Riccin’s overall perception of how pre-Ascension trolls are treated:

“Incisors may continue growth. Make note to keep track of future length. Removal may be necessary.” She’s got the naval accent, nasal and so soft, it’s like she ain’t talking about removing parts of you. “What is the current height?”

“7'2, ma'am.”

“Foutredieu. What’re you people feeding them, straight protein? Get leg measurements before they leave, Kazumi.”

Your breath catches.

“Yes, ma'am.”

If you were a proper helm by now, you could be halfway out of your pan and into the net. It ain’t like there’s a reason they’ve held off. ID had that put in when he was seven sweeps, along with the nanny, and Proper.. well, you don’t know when they plugged that shit in, but you’re half certain they’ve got it, too.

But you’re not. You don’t get a single thing put in your pan, or in your body, without the Shepherd’s say so, and all she wants to do is work on your psionics until you’re in the rig. It’s fucking absurd to think that it’s bullshit. Your proctor is older than your entire bloodline: she pulled you out of the slurry like thread on the loom, and without her, you would’ve been lost. Anything short of acquisal is nothing but the most vile kind of treachery, the sort of worthless ingratitude that they try to beat out.

You’re not fucking ungrateful. Ain’t even a doubt in your mind that every instant of her attention is a blessing upon you. But..

You just wish you could at least pull out your phone.

So Riccin thinks Leoffe’s treatment of Kit is fine, technically. They’re allowed to discipline Kit however they want, and like with the dehumanisation they face from Shepherd, it’s ultimately going to be in Kit’s best interests in the end. This is a viewpoint that Riccin can’t afford to back away from, or else it’ll fuck them over - they’re stuck in this situation, so viewing it as anything less than normal, and that it’s potentially something they should leave, is terrifying.

But everything that the proctors do is supposed to be in the betterment of the individual.

And beating Kit, leaving bruises on her, is not something that’s accepted in the IEP. That’s something that Riccin objectively views as wrong! But proctors would never damage their students. But this is objectively wrong.

“Can a proctor mistreat his charge?” is an alarming question because it challenges Riccin’s views in a way they can’t deal with! It’s also one that they acknowledge they can’t emotionally deal with, so they veer away from that promptly and force themselves to move past it. Can a proctor mistreat his charge? Maybe, but that’s not something they’re even going to try to answer.

Just ignore it, and move on.

[mirkstrolls]

♫Weeds/Pheres, or Weeds/Riccin!

The terrible bardic duo have always been associated with Hearts Like Ours by The Naked and Famous for me!

Leave this place behind, in silenceAnd the weight we find inside usLead me to the edge of night‘Till the dawnThe end of time‘Till the fire blazing lightShines again within our eyesHalf awake and almost deadKeeping empty beds elsewhereWe’re yet to bleedWe’re yet to bleedAll the time and energy

Weeds and Riccin feed off each others’ bad decisions and exhilaration. It makes for a lot of fun adventures, but they’re both a little too flighty to be left unsupervised for long.

[skegulium]

📱riccin and ori!

1) MH: You’re such a dumb fuck.MH: I think I know how you got recruited by the clowns and turned into a batteryMH:MH: I think I’ll miss you though if you left.2) MH: If you were going to cull me, how would you do it?3) MH: I found a cute shirt. What do you think?MH: I’ve got nothing else under it.4) MH: Do you want to hear a song? I was thinking back to some that I learned from when I was younger. I know you like them.MH: I wouldn’t mind singing to you.5) MH: Why do you keep coming back to message me? What do you want?MH: What am I asking that for? I know the answer to that. You’re just looking for someone to sleep with.Sent Text:MH: Riokekk ruins? That’s pretty far south.MH: We’re only going to have to squeeze because you’re so damned tall. I think though if I get up real close and personal we could make it work. Clothes might get in the way.MH: Are we travelling there together or are we meeting up there?

[harriedherodotus]

⚠ for Liyiji (even tho you've answered recently)

You’ve never been able to handle Riccin crying. But in the past, they’ve always stopped, if you’d waited long enough; you could turn your back and plug your ears, and eventually the sobs would turn to sniffles, and the sniffles would fade into something else entirely. This time, you can’t ignore them.

The sobs have just turned into something fucking awful instead, choking, wheezing breathes that seem like they’ll break their ribs with every passing moment. “Riccin,” you plead. “Please.”

But their shoulders shake, and the sounds only get worse.

You wet your lips. You take a step forward, placing a hand on their back. Their skin feels like Myrrha’s. It feels like yours. It always has, ever since you hit old enough to ever notice. It makes it easy to forget things.

But when they look up at you, the liquid streaming from their eyes is still gold.

“Tell me that I’m not going to die,” they manage, desperate, and their skin under your palm is suddenly hot enough to burn. They twist around, scrambling at your wrist - at your arms - and under their fingers, your skin twists and puckers. “Promise me, Li, I ain’t gonna die -”

“Riccin -”

“Promise me!”

[runictrolls]

So the ask I was SUPPOSED to answer was about @activatingaggro and honestly

HONESTLY

what is a guy to do? They have THREE (at least) trolls and, like @mirkstrolls, they’re all so well fleshed out that it makes me BITTER THAT I HAVE 24 OF THESE ASSHOLES instead of, like, a more reasonable number that I could actually devote time and attention to.

So picking one is gonna be tough! I’ll go with Sipara, probably mostly because I’ve dealt with her the most (though I’d like to have some more CR with Pheres and Riccin if you’re up for it). Also, everything about her is great? I mean, she’s awful, but in that good awful way. She has a really great attitude (read: a terrible attitude but one that I like), and her personality comes across clear as a bell in all of the interactions I’ve seen with her--whether they’re chat logs, paragraph RPs, or drabbles. She’s some ungodly combination of peppy, sarcastic, casual, mean, sharp, and intelligent, all of which somehow work really well together and I’m envious of your ability to pull it off with aplomb every time. 

Aside from ‘kind of a jerk’ (a fave archetype), Sipara ALSO fulfills the ‘uncharacteristically smart’ archetype that I love. I fall into this trap, personally, where my ‘smarter’ characters tend to use elevated diction and perfect grammar--Sipara uses chatspeak and fistfights in a cage but is still a genius with grubtech and witty as hell. She reminds me of characters I used to play, and ones that I obviously need to bring back in some way. Her interactions with my trolls have always been surprising and really fun, and I’ll always be a big fan of ‘shitty science girls make steroids for bugs.’

[trollplanet-blog1]

☺♪♩♫ツ!

☺ What's a character that you desperately want your muse to play with? Why?  

answered here, but also: if you’d asked me before Down the Clown started, I would have said Riccin! But now I’m living that dream so :D

♪♩♫ Does music inspire your muse? What's one song on your playlist that reminds you of your muse?

Syffus has no use for music. Some of the atonal stuff might suit her? But dealing with noises mostly makes it hard for her to concentrate on what she’s doing.

Sawyir is a “sounds of nature” kind of person, but anything with heavy bass and/or a lot of drums is guaranteed to catch her ear. Berell has similar tastes, with the addition of every shitty pop song, ICP (naturally), horror circus stuff in general, and sousaphones (he has no taste at all, is what I’m saying). When I need to get in to Berell’s head, I play the Mack by Beat Circus.

Bassil listens to classical and a lot of the softer indie stuff. Just, anything that’s introspective and a little navel-gazey... Jeopardy by Dan Mangan reminds me of him.

The two leaves of TRFACT  are constantly at war over what to listen to, and their goals are constantly shifting to try and irritate each other and their auspistice. It’s awful, and somebody needs to stop them.

ツ Who has been your favorite muse to play so far? Why?                    

answered here!

[plaguetrolls]

Bel tagged me and it’s been 083259874534 years but HERE IT IS

nickname: Sammy, Clyde, Alis star sign: Scorpio! height: 5'3″ time right now: 4:25pm last thing googled: "boiled rib recipe" favorite music artists: Jeez, uh Led Zeppelin, Fall Out Boy, Weezer song stuck in your head: “Dare" By Gorillaz last movie watched: The Last Unicorn last tv show watched: Steven Universe? what are you wearing right now: A floral-rib-cage shirt, maroon sweater, captain america pj pants, and ugly yellow socks when did you create your blog: November 2015 for this blog. Wow. what kind of stuff do you post: Fantrolls mostly, askmemes, minor interest blogging. do you have any other blogs: @plaguesurvivor, @plaguerambleson is my worldbuilding/blatherblog, I mod over at (the half-dead) @fanhelp, I have an aesthetic blog (mostly dead). why did you choose your URL: I WAS using my main troll's handle for a URL, but then decided I liked the [name]trolls format better since I was adding more trolls to the blog and plaguesurvivor is my main, so plaguetrolls it is! hogwarts house: Slytherin :v pokemon team: Fuck, I dunno. Haunter, Growlithe, Rapidash, Litwick, Drifloon, Braxien? moral alignment: True or chaotic neutral? I couldn't get a consistent answer! favorite color: Pastel pink, cerulean, and maroon average hours of sleep: 5-7. Oops lucky number: 6 favorite character(s): Going with fantroll faves here. Taz, Jerath, Mandra, Sipara, Riccin, Bonnie, Kingfisher, Quanin how many blankets do you sleep with: Two. A comforter and then an extra, heavier blanket. dream job: A concept artist, or stoaryboard artist. following: 77 blogs. Wow

[activatingaggro]

hubbery replied to your post: Riccin is someone who always seems fairly...

:’( I’m really shedding tears over Riccin smh

They’re just a woobie in need of a hug, RCL.

HUG THEM. Ignore, like, idk, all the murder stains, the clown paint, the creepy missionary work and all the liquids of mysterious origin, I guess.

[cloudbattrolls]

Maidel’s crushes have had the wildest fucking range, it’s so funny. A baker, a secret horrorterror cultist, a clown harpist, an adrenaline junkie, a biotechnician, an information broker, and a clown librarian

And Maidel fucking hates clowns usually because Trauma(TM) but he had an ash crush on Riccin and still has a minor flushcrush on Pietri and is good friends with her. While also trying to ignore his mixed pitch/flush feelings for Dismas.

At least his moirallegiance with Dosime is steady and stable, lmfao. They’re good for each other.

It’s not even that Maidel falls for anyone who’s nice to him either. He has several friends he’s never had crushes on. But he does fall for people easily in every quad, he just tends to keep it to himself.

He’s admitted he has feelings to Dismas, but Dismas basically knew anyway and it was only to assure him that he respected that they weren’t reciprocated and that he enjoyed being friends.

She’s a romantic, but uses her belief that she’s unattractive and not exciting enough personality-wise as a shield to assume no interest from other people in flush and pitch. It’s a way of protecting herself from disappointment and feeling self-conscious.

She’s tired of feeling self-conscious, still will at times but is like yeah I’m done with this I just want to relax and not care about if I look good. There’s more to me than my looks, sure I don’t look like any of the dating game options, but whatever.

If my freckles, big nose, hair, plain face, floppy ears and fat body make me ugly then who cares!! She says. I don’t have to worry if I already know what the answer is. I’m sick of worrying and I just want to exist.

[mirkstrolls]

✉ツ✆RiccinVide

Send “✉” for a text that WASN’T SENT. 

XA: There’s this girL-L who reads paL-Lms down Derevenya way and she keeps getting in my face and bothering me, can you heL-Lp

Send “ツ” for an EXCITED text. XA: Come onnn, come moonbathing with me!XA: What’s that thing you aL-Lways say?XA: MoonL-Light, guns in sight! =>;-D

Send “✆” for a MORNING text. 

XA: Good evening! I hope you had a good time L-Last day!XA: If you don’t check in by ten, I am sending Mister Orpheo to your date’s house to get you. =:-)XA: He is not gonna be poL-Lite about it. =;-P

[anontrolls]

👽👎👨‍❤️‍👨

👽 - What things do you want to see in more trolls?

Answered this here! ^_^

👎 - What do you think is an overrated character trait?

Hypercompetence! Or, well - I think it can be very interesting, especially if balanced with lack of competence in other arenas of life, but, honestly, I feel like the most fun RPs that I tend to have are with characters that are just awkward, or screw up a lot, or frequently don’t know what they’re doing - especially if they think they ARE competent!

👨‍❤️‍👨 - Which other fantroll blogs ship do you love? 

God, I’m absolute garbage at remembering ships, so I’ll just go with general interactions/CR?

@iconicdisquiet / @rebatrolls: ID , which I think everybody must have known I would list - but it’s such a ridiculous mess, and so much fun to read that there’s no way I couldn’t. >:D

@glowtrolls / @cloudbattrolls: Every time Siluri and Egret are in the same room together, I prepare to horror-laugh.

@mirkstrolls / @obstructedantiquity: Vide c3

There are definitely more, but my brain is kinda melting rn and I Cannot, sorry. OTL

[activatingaggro]

For the meta thing: how do your psions feel about their powers? Or about the psionic powers of others? Do they feel any jealousy about it? And, as a bonus, does Sipara ever want psionics?

Sipara aggressively wants psionics - as a kid, she was fixated on the idea, so as an adult, her bug prosthetics are specifically there to 1) force her nerve-dead arm to work, and 2) simulate super-strength through concentrated telekinesis. She is always, always, always very much aware that she’s a flatscan, and the only saving grace to it, as far as she’s concerned, is that it means she won’t ever be at risk of helming, or programs, or the Empire particularly giving a shit about her. She’s just a brownblood!

She hates it.

ID is very fixated on psionics! He is one of those assholes that gets incredibly weird about people with leg injuries, or less-than-perfect gaits, because he projects: he can’t help but imagine how he would deal with it (badly), and he can’t stand the thought. Psionics are the exact same way for him. People who lack psionic abilities both manage to viscerally gross him the fuck out, and they’re.. not people worth paying attention to. There’s a very clear reason why the flatscans in his life (Steamy, Sipara, Bonnie) have all been flush/pale - if you don’t have a spark, he has issues caring enough to even respect you, and it’s a great deal easier to slide that disinterest towards pity (oh, how great would they be if they had psi?) than it is towards anything else.

Pheres doesn’t really have firm opinions. He forgets, frequently, everyone can’t teleport out of danger at will, and he forgets, frequently, that he will burn the fuck out and die if he uses his teleportation too much. He relies on the “radar” part of his psionics 24/7, so he feels half-blind when he’s dampened as a result - but he also just forgets. Other people don’t have that going on! TL;DR: Pheres doesn’t really have psionic opinions, one way or another, because it’s so integrated into his perception of the world. He’s never tried to figure out what life must be like if you don’t have psi! He’s never figured out maybe he should.

Riccin thinks their psionics are great, and it’s fucked up when trolls don’t have psi. They’re not as bad as ID, by any means, because ID is the devil. But they’re pretty bad: their psionics are their use, and without it, where does a troll derive their worth? Flatscans have to work harder and work better. Part of the reason Riccin swung pitch with Sipara was because of admiration over her dedication to simulating psionics, and proving that she didn’t need them - and that’s part of why Riccin isn’t as much of a dick as ID. Flatscans have to make a purpose! It’s sad, but it’s amazing when they actually do.

Melete has been steadily fucked over by her powers, and in an ideal world, the IPC would’ve kept a permanent nullifier on her all throughout her childhood, instead of just capping her at “one hour incorporeal, and then a five minute cooldown”. She does not, however, see it that way. She adores her powers, and she only cares about others in that - she hates being corporeal, she resents the fact she has to be, and she thinks it must really fucking suck to be stuck as a meatsack 24/7, which is part of why she swings a lot easier towards pity in her relationships than hate.

Nanako thinks flatscans are GREAT, and ingenious, and tends to just be really pleased by their existence, especially in maroon/brown/yellow trolls. Because, like: everyone’s got psi in the IPC. It’s the cheatcode for success. It’s great, but she thinks it ruins trolls, sometimes - Vadaya would’ve been happier if he was hatched without psi, and so would she have, and she thinks he’d probably have been in a position he’s much, much happier with if he didn’t have it. She thinks most trolls would be, honestly.

Liyiji hates his foresight, and wishes it would go away entirely. At least he’s not a retrocog, though. Only bonus.

[activatingaggro]

Who would you say is your most faithful/loyal character overall? What has shaped them to be that way?

Riccin! Riccin grew up in what is functionally a cult that prizes community over everything else, and prior to that, they lived 24/7 with Myrrha, in which they prized each other over everything else. They’ve never been honestly, sincerely alone at any point in their life. Every part of their life has always reinforced the fact they have a social network to save and help them if they ever stumble, and it was a natural extension on their part to be equally reliable. That’s how the net works.

Alternatively:

Pheres! It’d be easy to say “Kua”, but Kua will sell you out for the greater community with only moderate regrets. He prizes his Rickshaw and city as a whole over literally anything else, including him or Oglian, so while he’s loyal to his city, he’s not loyal to individuals to the same extent. There is always an axe of “what if” hanging over people’s necks.

Pheres will burn down the entire fucking world over his loved ones. He is loyal to an incredibly awful fault, as seen by the fact he’s just now getting over Rmeros, and he is probably the only character that would deliberately, undeterred, without hesitation start off revenge cycles that fuck over entire cities for the sake of One Troll(tm). He’s figured out that people don’t deserve his loyalty indefinitely, and definitely not if they fuck him over, but - until that point, he’s the most ride-or-die character I have.

[obstructedantiquity]

💭 vide and riccin (sleep)

“Girl is so tiny. How the fuck is anyone gonna look at that and wax pitch? Motherfuckers cana’t even see her without getting a crick in their neck. Am I gonna have to go robbing the schoolcreches to find some pitch fool to match? Am I gonna have to cut some legs off at the knees? Buy her a chair?”

“Should’ve gone with Dysseu, if I was gonna start picking up shortstacks.”

“.. shit, I wonder if they’d work, pitch.”