#the common thread of time

[dkniade]

🌌💫🌒

Fan art of @kianamaiart’s characters from I Don’t Want To Be A Magical Girl! (with glasses, ft misc glasses characters & two IDWTBAMG universe fan characters)

I’ve been following this project from the start so it’s been great seeing interactions between the characters and how the fandom is so excited for it. ^^

I tried to draw the cast from memory and, while Miss seems a little different from canon, at least I got the dark hair roots and strands sticking out lol. But details aside they’re all recognizable! Which means they’re lovely designs that are unique from one another✨

Eclipse’s shades are a combination of his usual eye mask and the shades from this artwork, and Hoshi’s glasses are inspired by this one!🌒⭐️

Designs… (I don’t have a name for her yet but) the pigtails girl’s shapes are a combination of curves pointing downwards and curves pointing upwards. The idea ended up being that she’s on Eclipse and Lady DeVoid’s side so (after reading this post by Kiana about how most of the characters had Aika’s design as the springboard and are designed to complement eachother) I wanted her design to complement those two’s, with some influence from Zira. I like that the strands of hair on her forehead and the shape around them mirror both Zira’s hair and DeVoid’s horns haha. Plus, I was trying to figure out how to design her glasses and they ended up being kind of the inverse of Eclipse’s eye mask, which is very nice. Eclipse and DeVoid seem to be associated with sharp curves and circle shapes; maybe her outfit could be a lot fancier…

As for what her role might be in the story… I dunno, if she works with Eclipse and DeVoid, and Eclipse is all ~theatric and grand~ then maybe she could be like… his assistant… or something? Who knows. Or, I say “observer from afar” so perhaps she actually gets along with Zira well and they’d watch on the sidelines while Aika and Eclipse duke it out…?

Eclipse… Moon… Umbra… man what if I just name the pigtails girl Yueshi (月食, lunar eclipse)(for both the moon motif that Zira and Eclipse have, and the darkness motif that Eclipse and DeVoid have haha)

Shooting star and telescope don’t feel quite right, but with the circular shapes and the lunar eclipse, I could kind of see her having some star trail motifs with her sweater…

I guess Umbra would be the same type of elf (? darkness/concept personified?) as Lady DeVoid but I’m not sure haha. We don’t have much information on DeVoid other than the fact that she is darkness itself and that she lost most of her powers which she can’t remember how to use. Banished by a Star Guardian, revenge, recruiting Eclipse to help spread the darkness particles to destroy the Star Guardian… If she has a similar backstory to MLP:FIM’s Princess Luna then does that mean she was originally Aika’s teammate or something? haha

About Umbra’s hair… (Feel free to correct me for any inaccuracies.) I think from the reference photos I was trying to draw box braids but got so focused on also making the braids look like moon phases that I’m not sure if it’d still be box braids in the end? They seem more like cornrows now, at least for the side ones?

Here are some earlier versions of the OCs! and more rambling about designs

Well, initially I scribbled down Yueshi so I could experiment with values because I was thinking about how light-coloured pants draw the eye too much if the outfit or the top half of the character is darker. (Half way through she ended up looking like a IDWTBAMG character so I tried to match the proportions with Aika’s turnaround.) But I suppose if there’s enough contrast for the upper half (and IDWTBAMG’s stark black design style gives a lot of contrast) then it works out better. I think the combination of making Yueshi’s hair and the top half of her sweater black and the circle shape white worked out okay. Initially she had large round eyes so I tried giving her round glasses too but since she ended up being a fan character in the universe, it was too similar to Aika and Zira.

Umbra’s design kind of popped into my mind today so I tried to scribble it down and experimented with hairstyles. But green and purple are already associated with Zira, and that shade of lavender is more like Eclipse so I guess I’ll fiddle around with her colour scheme more. Maybe there’s not enough of the signature black there, and both could use some more details to match the level of details in the canon designs… (If Yueshi works under DeVoid then she’d probably get a fancy outfit too.) Then again, Umbra is more like Miss in terms of detail so it seems she’d be a background/supporting character or something…🤔

(I can’t seem to escape the puffy sleeves/cone shape silhouette🤔 Gotta diversify. Also, not sure if it’s ‘cause of the project’s style or if I just really love circles in character design haha)

[opera-ghost]

phantom of the opera + twitter

[sukugo]

ship wrapped 2021 → 2024

[mewkwota]

A Somewhat Venn-Diagram I Made of My Favorite Characters to Pick at My Brain and Understand Why I Like Them So Much

Something I think of often (but can't stand to hear from others for some reason) is the phrase "Of course. (You would like that.)". It's a bit of a read when you notice a pattern in the characters people like, depending on how it's said o'course. But rather than wait for someone to psychoanalyze me without my asking, I'm gonna do it myself.

And of course I picked my top 4 faves to make this easier: MegaMan.EXE, Chrom, Simon Belmont, and MegaMan Juno.

I especially wanted to do this after becoming very fond of Juno. Previously I can't say I really had anyone I could pick as a 4th fave, despite having several other characters I like too. Plus it's interesting how Juno really sticks out compared to the others: he's a villain, he's not popular, and profoundly insignificant. So why I do I feel like he clicked so well for me? There has to be a common thread somewhere.

I arranged everyone so whoever had greater overlap stayed near each other, and because it's not really possible to make a nice-looking four-way Venn-Diagram. So while I can find common threads in groups of three, I'm not gonna bother adding that to the visual. (And honestly I think you can figure that pretty easily.)

So what's the conclusion? That's for me to know and for you to ??? I guess I wanted to talk about my favorite guys. Even if it's to myself.

[death-and-his-maiden]

my best friend snuck up behind me with this lead pipe of a meme made specifically to call me out and the accuracy caved my skull in

[raspberry-gloaming]

I think the visuals (colours, outfits, sets, everything) of Wish World demonstrate a particular thing that I dislike about the new RTD era. I'm aware that for Wish World and also Dot and Bubble this aesthetic and bright cleanless is used to demonstrate the like supposed 'utopia' that something is intended to be but isnt/is only like that for the few, but I can still see quite a level of this in the rest of the RTD2 era.

I think this visual is one of the reasons for the criticism of the era as 'Americanised'. Now, this vibe of course is not limited to purely American tv, however I've seen personally irl and online an association of Brits of it to American tv, particularly American sitcoms.

I'll use Ghosts as an example - BBC Ghosts and CBS Ghosts visually look very different - from a British perspective, CBS Ghosts can look artificial, fake, slightly uncanny vally almost. It's very different to the dusty, lived in look of BBC Ghosts. I feel this is pretty common, especially looking at the visuals of other 21st century British sitcoms, especially in the late 2000s/early 2010s. Take Gavin and Stacy, or Outnumbered, for example. A key part of British sitcoms is the relatableness, that they're people who you can see in the people around you or easily imagine knowing someone like that as a rule. While American sitcoms have a more focus on idealism and upward motion and the American dream - a core difference I think between British and American humour as reflected in the sitcoms. I know there are video essays out there explaining this further and better than me so feel free to look them up if you want to understand this more.

I want to preface because this is the misinterpretation website that I am not saying one is automatically/always for everybody better than the other, but I, and other Brits, prefer the British style, as it works better with our culture and understanding of humour, and for us the American style can seem very off, 'fake', and immersion breaking. The resemblance of the new dw to this style I feel links in my brain subconsciously to this and breaks my immersion and can feel an unexplainable 'off-ness'

[nellievances]

the wednesday/tyler galpin fandom: oh no it looks like donovan is gonna die in the new season that’s so sad :(

me: RIP BOZO 🎉🎊 SEE YOU NEVER 🎊🎉

[rohirric-hunter]

I also want to make a post appreciating the culling in Umbar. It's an extremely big, extremely ambitious city, and although it is kinda laggy, it functions really well. While playing normally I've had moments where I would whip my camera around fast enough to just barely see something load in, so I knew they were doing a lot of culling to make it work, but it wasn't until I saw the city from above that I realized just how extensive it is and how well the illusion works. I wish I had taken some screenshots to show just how much of the city is not loaded in at any given time to demonstrate it. But it's overall really effective use of the tool to build the illusion of a really big city.

[junewild]

if you decide to nurture one skill in the new year, i hope it’s your curiosity. learn to ask questions like a child again. and then seek out the answers! more than anything else, being actively curious about the world will make you more competent, grounded, insightful, and interesting

[54625]

So a while ago I made this post

TLDR: Which popular MCYT fanon things do you dislike?

And I've been wanting to do a follow up ever since because it was so fun to read through everyone's opinions; it's great to see people speak their minds in a little space where they can do so without hurting anyone directly. So since it has been a good few months and things about content creators and servers have changed since, there are probably new things people want to get off their chests.

So I'm pretty much just asking the exact same question again. What MCYT fanons and headcanons wind you up?

[allthepandasintheworld]

just so yall know: the more people change the arcane wiki notes on vander and silco's relationship the more im laughing and shipping them

also, guys. the wiki isn't always correct. what the wiki says doesn't equate what canon says. at the end of the day, fandom wikis are deeply subjective to the people who contribute to them

[ghostlycod]

“I have this scene in my head for my fic that I really love but i don’t feel like writing all of the other stuff to get to it.”

I see this comment like 5 times a day in fic writing spaces lol

a scene that you don’t want to write is a scene you don’t want to read. don’t write stuff you don’t want to read.

me, personally: wait until the scenes that get you to that first initial scene you were excited about are just as interesting as that scene too. it won’t be the first, second, or third thing you think of. if u have a scene you really want to write, write that, and keep writing only those exciting scenes that come to you. eventually you have a million interesting scenes for your fic and they become puzzle pieces for you to arrange and then eventually the strings come together and you realize you really do have an interesting way to get to that original scene, and you’re just as excited to write it, if you haven’t already written it when you were brainstorming other scenes earlier in the writing process that you didn’t even realize could carry your story like that.

[finerafin]

19 for blorbo game?

*looks at Cody*

*looks at Vau*

*looks at Tech*

*looks at my RVB blorbos that are currently on the back burner*

... People in armor?

Lol I honestly don't know know, they all seem so different? I can't think of anything, I don't even know how it happens, my brain just goes THIS ONE at some point, no matter if I hated them at first or not.

Tell ke if I'm wrong tho and someone notices a pattern between them lol

[rozyrne]

　✱ .　𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧　/　drabble

after the jana danced, there usually wasn't much left over.

in the stories that would get told by the elders while the spinning wheels spun, the jana danced for all kinds of reasons. celebration, tragedy, vengeance, love——it wasn't anything ritual, and wasn't any sort of big deal either. at least, not to jana who were dancing themselves.

when the jana danced, the rest of the world buckled and heaved, as the lifeblood that ran through all the ground would slosh and churn. quiet shores would turn violent, and the richest rapids would dry up. whole village wells would be caved in, buried with dirt so packed that there was no hope of rescue ; towns would be swallowed by the sea overnight ; and whole maps would have to be redrawn as floods toppled forests, carved new mountains, and buried plains under a new lakebed. as little kids, they'd giggle and clap at the stories because, obviously, all that was being done out there and felt magical. nobody thought twice about it.

naturally, when the first people of the village were blessed by the jana's protection and changed by them, they learned their dances too. rivers overflowed their banks, and streams turned to deep gorge valleys.

eventually, after the people of the village danced, there wasn't much left over either. but because they didn't have the jana's powers, honey became their water, and milk their frothing foam. it flowed freely in the streets, braiding its own creeks and tributaries in heady sweetness that drugged the senses, never running out, always overturning——with the barrels, with the troughs ; and the villagers' flowing hair tossed like the manes of wild horses, crashing wavetips onto the cliffs ; and the drums and the cackle of castanets beating their hearts into a storm. tempest, higher, higher——gold, and white, and the red, red wine.

most of the time, they'd come down off the frenzy by morning, sipping dewdrops from the first dawn off the leaves as they counted the casualties of any animal unfortunate enough to get in the way and talked about release. it was out of them for now, a surfeiting satisfied. sometimes, it builds up and up and up in the body, in the soul, and there's no other way for it to go but out. sallu, they called it, which meant ' health ' or could also be ' spirit ' or ' energy ' but which had no matching word in the language spoken outside of the village.

sallu, as in——look at him today, he's full of sallu, when someone was going crazy, weaving ten whole baskets in a day ;

sallu, as in——when someone from outside finds the village in the mountains, professing their love, and when they don't take ' no ' well because their costs are too sunk to give up, so if they can't get what they want, then they'll take and take and an indescribable feeling builds up and the people watching it happen can't be said to be their normal selves anymore ; sallu——

as in when you hear that your best friend, the one who matters more than anything, is the princess of the nation and is being called away to war, and her life, your life, here is over.

sallu.

he's tried explaining it once, maybe twice since leaving the village. but like most things about how he is and what he knows, it was met with strange looks and cold, uncomfortable silences. the nicer people just didn't say anything and put a distance between them. others felt the need to speak their minds. "that's messed up.", "i don't think i can get it."

it's what i know. it's just my culture. but there's no beauty in their understanding ; it's full of claws and sharp stones. "that's not an excuse to go out of control, and hurt other things or people."

they tell him, not out loud but in the silent way that impression works itself under the skin over time, to unlearn. but already it's something dying ; already it's something colonized by the way people believe ; and by those invisible hands, it's taken apart and buried, a bloodless violence that begins with the lack of a word for it, with not being understood when he speaks. it doesn't belong here like it does in the mountains of elusia's far, far north, where the snow and the melt smell different. sallu. a feeling that doesn't exist. a collective emotion, intensely contagious, owned by everyone and known by everyone in a society where every experience is shared.

already, he knows that he feels it less these days, like everything else about the village that's gone out of touch. is this what it means to forget who you were, bit by bit?

and if so, does that mean he's more likeable by everyone else, bit by bit?

trading one dance for something else. just like the jana did a long time ago, too, to survive——trading the self for something more human.

rosado masters dancer.

[benevolent-blackhole]

I get why there’s backlash against the obsession with not giving your kid a popular/trendy name - you literally do not have to worry about your kid’s name being ubiquitous if you avoid the like, top 5 and names that have a million spellings because there’s more of a spread now than in the 90s.

But I also think people are overly dismissive about how much it sucks to have a truly “trendy” and ubiquitous name vs. just common and traditional (including resurgence names). Not only are you one of a bunch everywhere, but also people think quite negatively about trendy names…It’s not like Elizabeth, Katherine, Amelia, Charlotte where there’s history and diverse depictions in literature, and a general sense of “this name sounds nice [and neutral]”.

Trendy names tend to be seen as simultaneously kinda trashy but ALSO as a rich girl, mean girl, privileged names, too. A lot of the trendy 90s names were used in shows and books exclusively as mean girls or dumb girls. It sucks!

I saw a Reddit post where someone was like “what would you assume about this group of kids?” And then a bunch of trendy-ish names like Ellis and Parker, and people were absolutely vitriolic in the comments.

[rhysie]

a hard pill to swallow ... rhys not telling feyre during her pregnancy is not as ooc as u think it is