#the style switch abysmal

[dailykugisaki]

Day 275 | id in alt

Kept repeating "this food is so fucking good lois." While making this on accident. Am I cooked chat?

[wiickedsources]

『 PROMPT ⟶ HAIR 』

Send in a number to see how my muse reacts to your muse interacting with their hair.

[ add on "+ reverse" to switch their roles ]

— sender grazes the receiver's hair with their fingertips. [01] — sender tucks the receiver's hair behind their ear. [02] — sender slides their fingers through the receiver's hair. [03] — sender slides their fingers through the receiver's hair and snags a knot. [04] — sender attempts and fails at being discreet as they sniff the receiver's hair. [05] — sender does not attempt to be discreet at all as they sniff the receiver's hair. [06] — sender gently brushes / combs the receiver's hair. [07] — sender roughly brushes / combs the receiver's hair. [08] — sender presses a kiss to the receiver's hair. [09] — sender nudges their nose into the receiver's hair. [10] — sender rubs their face in the receiver's hair. [11] — sender accidentally gets a mouthful of the receiver's hair. [12] — sender chews on a lock of the receiver's hair. [13] — sender rolls over onto the receiver's hair. [14] — sender braids the receiver's hair. [15] — sender wraps the receiver's hair around their fist. [16] — sender aids in bleaching / coloring the receiver's hair. [17] — sender expertly trims / cuts / shaves / styles the receiver's hair. [18] — sender abysmally trims / cuts / shaves / styles the receiver's hair. [19] — sender lovingly fists the receiver's hair. [20] — sender violently fists the receiver's hair. [21] — sender shampoos / conditions the receiver's hair. [22] — sender accidentally sets the receiver's hair on fire. [23] — sender playfully tugs on the receiver's hair. [24] — sender tauntingly flicks the receiver's hair. [25] — sender smacks the receiver in the face with their hair. [26] — sender rubs the receiver's shaved / bald head. [27] — sender pats the receiver's shaved / bald head. [28] — sender presses a kiss to the receiver's shaved / bald head. [29] — sender fits the receiver's shaved / bald head with a wig / hairpiece. [30]

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Rangi Feelings Theory

Batshit fucking idea I had (man, what way to start this off).

Do I believe it? Not really. Do I think it works/is plausible and is kinda funny? Yeah.

Ok so we can tell Rangi is like super down bad for Kyoshi at the start of the novel, right? We also know Kyoshi seems to be down bad, but doesn't actually realize what she feeling THAT IS until she's running from the cops with Rangi, right?

Cause like, Kyoshi mentions her heart feels like it's falling to pieces when she holds Rangi on the iceberg, but she doesn't realize that's because she's in love with Rangi until like chapters later.

Basically what I'm saying is..... What if Rangi was the same way? TT0TT But the beloved idiot like....didn't realize SHE was in love with KYOSHI until say...... Kyoshi kisses her at the lake?

Like what if Rangi was like "oh yeah this is totally normal, running away with my bff! The same bff that makes my heart feel like it's being ripped from my chest Alien Style! <3" up until the lake scene....and then she gets kissed and is like "OH SO THAT'S WHAT THAT WAS!" jkfldsajfl; TT0TT

Cause like, no, this would explain her absolutely, abysmal level shit flirting with Kyoshi those past two years. jsalkfjd She's not running around to impress Kyoshi because she thinks that's the way to her heart. She's running around to impress Kyoshi because she doesn't understand what's she's feeling and is just trying to look cool. klajsf *sobs*

And it would explain how she flips the switch so fucking fast when it comes to flirting. Girl goes from Z--- tier to SSS+++ tier in like a millisecond. TT0TT And doesn't lose momentum like AT ALL!

Basically the theory is "What if Rangi was as oblivious as Kyoshi, if not more so, for her feelings towards Kyoshi this entire time?"

[acebytaemin]

ooooo personally I would love to know which songs you think are skz's best songs 👀 (if you want to share of course 💕)

HI raf first of all MWAH💖 you’re always thee sweetest tysm for asking & sorry it’s taken me a little bit of time but im here and READY. now this could take me as much time as i allow myself to type as i am quite the enjoyer of skz music (idk if you’ve noticed 🙈) so i decided to go for a reasonable number of 10 random faves (with commentary because well. it’s me) in signature ana proust style novel form with no real order bc that would be agony and they have TOO many damn songs. under the cut because well. you’ll see why.

any (balkan KINGS that song is on my blog at least 20 times i wish i was joking. GOES STEWPIDDDD. the rest of the songs aren’t really in order but any and ttath share number one FIRMLY)

ttath (experimental skzies is skzies at their best and i will always stand by that. when lino jokingly called this his fav skzies song i was both delighted and ready to fight (making mockery out of MY girl.. preposterous))

cover me (had NO idea hyunjin (producer) had ALL THAT in him. it’s ostensibly hard to make me love a ballad but this one’s in my top 5 skz songs it goes absolutely STUPID. the bridge/last chorus seungmin -> chan -> lino run is earth shattering)

FNF (imagine me leaving the ‘im crying in the club’ comment that had kibum going ‘you’re in the club?’ bangchan give me another club banger im holding you at gunpoint.)

on that note. GOING DUMBBBBBB i need your successor right now. i want you i love you. you’re my girl forever. gunpoint point stands.

DLMLU (SO many people weren’t that impressed and that makes me lose my mind. this is my favorite genre of song. makes me feel something incrementally similar to the emotions become undone by shinee invokes which speaks for itself more than any words i could ever say)

i hate to admit (IF IT HAS ONE MILLION FANS I AM ONE OF THEM IF IT HAS ONE HUNDRED FANS I AM ONE OF THEM IF ITS ONE FAN ITS ME IF THERE’S NO ONE I AM DEAD‼️ im telling you i NEED a mashup of chan’s current solos x this to produce the silk shirt rnb desperate begging hey lover by boyz II men & ll cool j chan track of my dreams. or at LEAST give me rehab by rihanna. SOMETHING anything.)

every 3racha song but let’s talk about ZONE right now (monumental. abysmal. han opens it all politely cutely then changes the flow to more dark then gets rude with it (switching up his flow is his specialty to me he’s so good at it and this song is a perfect showcase of that) and the chorus is good fun and all but when SEO CHANGBIN goes IN. that dude is out of his mind that’s all im saying lest we stay here all night)

phobia (IM STUCK WITH A PHOBIA !!! same genre as dlmlu in my sick and twisted mind bc they’re both absolutely desperate with it. different styles but same raw emotion. Obsessed. headbanging as we speak.)

STOP/road not taken (MMMOOOOREEEEEE of this. i do have a bit of a bone to pick w most of their earlier stuff in view of production but when they got it they GOTTTT ITTTTT)

and this is track 11 actually but who’s counting. can i talk about hanji for a second? let me talk about hanji for a second. VOLCANO i had no idea about that song until like a month ago LMAO and it’s been on my mind all the time. the lyrics bring me to my knees and i absolutely love his flow i think he’s my fav skz rapper actually. he has such a special way of expressing emotion and i know he loves to play w autotune but i just can’t help but wish there were less effects on his voice just to Feel it more but we’ll get there someday. absolutely gorgeous is my point.

[dobson-from-joja-pr]

Mod Post

Firstly, I want to apologize for the abysmal time between answers, from having to switch and relearn a whole new art program to school and other things, I made a few changes and I'm grateful for everyone's patience with these discrepancies.

Secondly, on that note- apologies for the slight change in art styling. As I learn and grow as an artist, some minor changes may occur over time. I hope my content continues to entertain those who view it.

Hope your night/day/[insert time here] is going well!

[rapidmorph3]

Wanted to let you know that very largely thanks to you, I convinced a group of my friends to regularly play Rise together and now I'm finally experiencing MH! Having so much fun and eagerly looking forward to meeting Galleus. Thank you for convincing me to pursue this with your art! I'd like to ask: are you excited for Wilds? Do you have any opinions regarding the fact that it's been tagged with "dating sim" on the Steam Store (yes, really)?

AH WOW!! That makes me unbelievably happy to hear I'm honoured... Thank you! 🥹 I hope you and your friends enjoy rise and sunbreak a lot! It's a game I hold very dear and close to my heart hahaha.

I'm really excited for wilds! I've been keeping up with the daily weapon trailers and looking forward to how they change it up with switch axe, especially after seeing the awesome animations and new moves for insect glaive and hunting horn. It looks like they're adding so much style and personality to the weapons, and they're blending the grounded style and heft of world's combat with some of the speed, moves and flashiness of rise's, which I am a big big fan of!

I think about that dating sim thing all the time HAHAHA. I think it's a steam community thing, but it's still hilarious to me. It also makes me want to see the follower system from sunbreak come back.

Sometimes I think about galleus coming back along with the follower system... The chance is abysmally low because we just had risebreak and it looks like the returning characters in wilds are 4U characters (which I honestly think is so awesome) plus I imagine they might wanna separate mainline from portable, but capcom let me give admiral galleus a warm hug in-game and my life is yours.

[justforbooks]

Kate Hepburn

Designer and artist who worked for Spare Rib, the Monty Python team and Pink Floyd

In a career that spanned half a century, the graphic designer Kate Hepburn, who has died aged 77 of multiple system atrophy, displayed great versatility. While an artist aims to develop a distinctive and recognisable style, a designer must be able to alter their approach and technique according to the situation. Hepburn was adept at this, working in fields including leftwing causes, music, comedy and publishing.

In 1970, during Kate’s first year of study at Royal College of Art, London, her sister Alison married Terry Jones of the Monty Python team. This led to Kate working with Terry Gilliam on the animations that punctuated the television comedy series Monty Python’s Flying Circus; in particular he recalled her skill in drawing medieval figures. For The Brand New Monty Python Bok (1973), with its misspelled title, she designed a dust jacket smeared with fingerprints. Those who believed the jacket to be genuinely dirty could discard it – revealing the explicit mock-cover of Tits ’n Bums, “a Weekly Look at Church Architecture”.

The Python books co-designed by Hepburn show her brilliance at recreating anything, from the photo-love stories of girls’ comics, complete with deliberately abysmal picture quality, to classifieds to children’s books to Victorian play manuscripts. She would switch typesetting methods – Linotype for one pastiche, rub-down lettering for another – to achieve the authentic flavour.

In 1972, Hepburn joined the staff of the new feminist magazine Spare Rib. Its format and grid were worked out by Sally Doust, a co-designer. Hepburn’s first contribution was its logo, which the magazine’s co-founder Marsha Rowe said was made “with a mix of typeface and free hand. She designed ‘Spare’ in smaller type, jutting up against the ‘Rib’, the ‘ib’ sloping forward, with a jagged force, resonant of bone.” This reassured Rowe that her choice of title, initially a joke, was the right one. Rowe wanted to attract “women readers who were still nervous of Women’s Liberation”, and Hepburn understood that some camouflage was needed, believing that “the magazine’s design and choice of photos should look like other women’s magazines, only with different content”.

Hepburn left the magazine in January 1973, later telling Rowe that she had “begun to feel the strain of the contradiction in working for Monty Python, which still had an element of sexism, and for Spare Rib”.

In 1974, Hepburn began her occasional work for Pink Floyd. Before a tour of Japan, the drummer Nick Mason asked Hepburn to adapt Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa for his drumkit. “I had the idea, but she picked it up and took it into a 3D world.” Of her oeuvre in general, Hepburn told me that there was a lot of pastiche. But pastiche is a craft in itself, and artworks such as Mason’s drumkit, which Hepburn painted by hand, went beyond pastiche – here, by reinventing a two-dimensional graphic as a sequence of three-dimensional cylinders sitting adjacent in space.

From 1975, Hepburn contributed cover and book designs to the leftwing publisher Pluto Press, often working through the night to meet deadlines. Her designs for editions of Pluto’s themed Big Red Diary show her skill in collaging images from disparate sources to create a dynamic, coherent whole.

In the 1980s, Hepburn’s work branched out into stage design, in collaboration with her then partner Mark Fisher. Her work for Jean-Michel Jarre’s 1981 tour of China featured banners printed using rudimentary Chinese printing, airbrushed posters on canvas and the cover of the consequent live album. This work earned her two D&AD awards.

Born in Blackheath, London, Kate was the daughter of Margaret (nee Hope) and James Telfer. After her parents separated, she lived with her mother in Hampstead. Margaret later married James Hepburn, whose RAF job required the family to move frequently. In 1960 they finally settled in Parliament Hill, London, where Kate attended Camden school for girls. There she adopted Hepburn’s name, thinking it a better one for an artist.

After a year at Bath Academy of Art, she enrolled in 1966 as a graphic design student at the Central School of Arts and Crafts (now part of the University of Arts London), where she received rigorous training in drawing layouts and type by hand: “You had to hand-rule the text with your Rapidograph pen, and trace 7-point type. It was a very lengthy process, devoted at times.” Making thumbnails and sketches had remained important throughout her career, as “a way of letting the client know that you hadn’t taken expensive decisions using actual materials. You were still drawing, still discussing with them.”

At Central, Hepburn began a relationship with fellow student Pearce Marchbank, whose pioneering work for underground magazines applied radical graphic techniques to politically radical content. Early in their careers both Hepburn and Marchbank had to find ways to achieve maximum visual impact with rudimentary means, for clients who had little money. After the couple separated, Marchbank’s technical knowhow remained a valuable resource. In 1987 they collaborated with Roger Waters on his album Radio K.A.O.S., a cover that converts Waters’ name and track titles to morse code. This needed only two inks and no images, contrasting with the extravagantly staged imagery used by other stadium acts at the time.

In later years Hepburn continued with her watercolour paintings, and screenprints of abstract designs conceived during her student days. Despite periods in which she worked in-house – notably at Wolff Olins brand consultancy – her calling was that of a freelance designer and artist whose vocabulary allows them to switch style to fit the circumstances.

She is survived by her daughter, Usha, her grandchildren, Maya and Manu, and her sisters, Alison and Harriet.

🔔 Kate Hepburn, graphic designer and artist, born 11 June 1947; died 26 July 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[ladyirisreviews]

Final Fantasy 3 3D Remake - Review

Final Fantasy 3D is the only version of the game I've played so far, this is the second time I've played it, in fact. But as a remake, I wish it would offer more than what it does.

I remember liking this game a lot when I first played it, like a breath of fresh air after my first playthrough of Final Fantasy 2, which was abysmal, but with this replay, I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would, maybe because I wound up enjoying Final Fantasy 2 this time around.

The plot is quite simple, you control a party of 4 orphans who were chosen by the elemental crystals to return the light to them, but this version of the game adds a little bit to it, instead of the 4 main characters being blank slates, they gave them names and unique designs, though they didn't do much as far as their personalities go.

There's Luneth, the first one to come across a crystal, who doesn't have any more major characteristics to talk about, Arc, a meek boy who lives in the same Village as Luneth, Refia, the only girl of the group, daughter of a blacksmith, and who I think has the most going on, but even still it isn't much, and finally Ingus, who I renamed as Bald, a knight who is in love with a princess.

While I appreciate the fact they added characters to the game, I am mostly disappointed because they missed a big chance of giving them more dialogue and character, they have the most dialogue and interactions at the start of the game, but the further you go, they start only giving one-liners every couple of hours.

The same feeling goes for the cutscenes. I like the 3D aesthetic, but they completely fumbled it by not doing anything special for them. They are as basic as they can get, even in moments that are supposed to be tense or action-packed. It's just the models in neutral poses not interacting with anything. It's not a huge deal, but the missed potential really gets to me.

Before I move on to another point, I want to reiterate that I really like the 3D look and how they chose to go for a cartoony 3D style. The original monster designs and the jobs translated really well into this 3D look.

Now for the gameplay, it completely abandoned everything that Final Fantasy 2 tried to do, thank goodness, and instead of completely going back to what the first game did, they created an entirely new system.

You can freely change the character's jobs, and these jobs level up, on top of the characters also having levels, jobs level up like every 5 actions you take in combat, while character level increases with exp.

Each job has unique abilities, on top of changing the stat spread of the character, with the exception of HP.

A job's stat spread will tend to favor either physical skills or magical skills, if a job has high physical attack, even if it can use magic it will most likely not have that much MP or magic power to take proper advantage of them.

I also really like the visual details of every class, they all have unique details for every character.

I like this system, even if I have some problems with it. I like the option of being able to freely change jobs, but jobs that you haven't leveled up first perform very poorly in combat, on top of you getting a stat penalty whenever you change them, which goes away after some encounters.

It is fun to experiment with the unique commands each job has, but I just ended up sticking to the best available jobs at the time, I really didn't feel the need for constant job switches, but whenever I replay the game, I really want to experiment with a different job combination for my party.

I would be more daring with job switching if the penalty for switching didn't exist, it forces you to go out of your way and fight weaker monsters for a while before being able to properly tackle monster from the current part in the game.

I think the penalty comes from how HP increases when you level up, all the jobs change every stat except for HP, it goes up depending on your vitality, so having an active job with high vitality would make you get more HP, and honestly I would just prefer if HP also changed around with jobs, instead of adding a layer of min-maxing that just increases grind.

The dungeon design also felt lackluster. Except for the last dungeon, they are all pretty short and simple, way more so than they were in the previous game. They are serviceable but I wish they had more meat to them.

The game added a zoom-in mechanic I feel is bothersome most of the time, you can find hidden items or buttons by zooming in, but its addition just makes me want to stay zoomed in so I don't miss anything, but at the same time being zoomed in makes exploring very awkward, which is a good way to describe it, it's an awkward mechanic.

Something else I felt ticked off by was that the encounters had a small number of enemies per encounter, at most 3 enemies at the same time, it's not a problem in isolation, but considering the job leveling system, it makes getting job levels slower than it would be with more enemies, it also made the game feel very easy, the last dungeon encounters are the only ones that I felt posed a challenge, and the very start of the game can be a bit rough too.

Something I really like is being able to change who your lead character is, letting you walk around with whoever you think looks the best at the moment, which in my case will always be Refia, there's also a system that makes use of this mechanic.

Mognet consists of a Mog that will deliver letters to you from characters you have met before, they are mostly flavor text with no big significance, but after you get a certain number of them for every character you unlock a short sidequest that rewards you with unique equipment. But it is a bit lame that you have to manually change your lead character to check every time, as all characters have only 1 of the playable characters that will make the letters appear.

It might sound like I am being rough on the game, but it comes from a place of love, I feel frustrated by the lost potential of some of its elements.

This is also a good game to grind while watching something, to get the most out of it, you need to pretty much master every job to get the best equipment for it, and to be capable of beating the superboss of the game (Which I skipped this time around).

The auto-battle option they included really helps make the grinding go faster, but I would still recommend watching something while doing all that grinding, I am happy at least grinding is not required at all to beat the normal final boss, the game is pretty well balanced in that regard.

I definitely want to give this game yet another go in the near future, along with the pixel remaster version to really confirm whether more enemies per encounter enhances the experience for me or not.

I can see myself enjoying this game even more on my next playthrough now that I know how to properly approach its mechanics, and I think it's a safe starting point for anyone trying to get into Final Fantasy, just don't expect a deep plot out of it.

[beevean]

Want a really unpopular opinion?

Circle of the Moon is grossly overrated, it feels extremely amateurish in terms of design and the fact that many consider it the perfect blend of the series' classic and SOTN styles confuses me more than most things in life

I once saw someone say that the game's penchant for grinding shouldn't be criticized because Aria of Sorrow also has it, forgetting that Aria is easy enough that you can absolutely get by without souls anyway, since they're more like a cool extra to spice up combat encounters and help a bit against the occasional tricky boss, unlike Circle where you pretty much need Cards and good combinations of them so you have little choice but to spend a truck load of time grinding just to have a decent time in this hard as fuck game that doesn't even have a shop for healing items thus forcing you to grind for those as well :).

Agreed.

Most of the time, when people love a game I don't, I can at the very least understand what they like about it. I don't care about Sonic Adventure 2, but that doesn't mean it's a bad game: it simply does things, like streamlining the level design, changing the gameplay style in the middle of a story instead of having six storylines, incentivizing replay value through the ranking system, that appeal to others but not to me. It's fine.

But I genuinely can't understand the appeal of CoTM. Nothing it does seems to me remotely likeable.

Yes, it's hard, for the joy of Classic fans. But why is it hard? Because it cheats.

The movement is ass. You either walk at the speed of snail or you double tap to run. This was annoying in Richter Mode in SoTN, but even more so when it's the default state of the game. Guys, it's one thing to move slowly in a Classic game, because all you have to do is to follow a set path and dodge the obstacles, but in a Metroidvania, where you need to backtrack, I'd like more agility. What literally is the point of giving you the run powerup in the fourth room of the game? Why can't I start with it?

There is no shop, forcing you to grind for something as basic as healing potions, necessary for this kind of genre. This is mean.

There is no healing orb at the end of a boss, literally the only game in the whole series that does this, which forces you to run to the nearest save room to heal - fine most of the time, but after the grueling fight against Hugh, you need to dodge the strong and aggressive Dark Armors before you can get to safety. Oh, you died and have to fight that bastard again? Oh no, sorry, guess you can just go fuck yourself :) this is even meaner.

The castle is not well designed, aside from the excessive platforming. The rooms are copypasted without any significant landmark, and there are too many obstacles of the same kind, meaning that once you get a new powerup, you're going to fumble for a while before you stop finding Heart Max Ups and actually find your way through. Say what you want about HoD, but the sections are so visually distinct that you are going to at the very least orient yourself better.

As you said, the main gimmick of the game, the DSS cards, have an abysmal drop rate, meaning that you pretty much have to glitch in order to use the spells. I was very lucky during my playthrough that the first Ice Armor dropped the card necessary to become immune to ice: without it, the Underground Waterway would have been an awful experience. (with it, it was only extremely annoying due to the constant 5-second stop every time you hit a switch)

and that is not even mentioning the problem most gba games had, especially the earliest ones: screen crunch.

tl;dr: order of ecclesia is not my kind of game either, but i recognize that it's fairly hard, at least.

[valemya]

𝟐𝟓 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐅𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐒. ❆ ⋆⁺₊❅ .

⌗ 𝟐. gingerbread houses ; What does your house look like in your dr? Who do you live with? What is your favorite aspect of your house?

Alrighty so technically I don’t have a house in my dr. But I go between two living spaces, one in the jedi temple on Coruscant, and the other in my General’s quarters on the Venator ship.

I don’t really have a solid visual of how my dorm in the temple looks, but it’s a pretty squished shoebox-style room with an attached fresher. I have room for a loft bed and a desk opposite each other, and a built in closet by the entrance. Because I’m a jedi and all, there is a small space for meditation, which is separated from the rest of the room by a step. It it’s a little wooden alcove attached to a giant floor to ceiling window with a nice view of the upper levels of Coruscant above the clouds. I’ve got a little cushion/pillow on the ground to sit on up there too. My favourite part of the dorm is how I’ve decorated and made it more of my own space. As the Jedi think they’re prestigious, their architecture reflects it. The walls in this dorm are a strange material, think something with visual similarity to beige marble yet more of the integrity and sensation of steel. Dunno what it is, but it doesn’t matter because I’ve covered 80% of it in various posters and pictures during my more rebellious padawan years.

I don’t live with anyone here, not in the room anyway. The hallway outside is filled with other jedi dorms but there is no expectation to share space, everyone has their own individual dorm and fresher. That being said my Padawan Ezra will sometimes set up camp underneath my loft bed with his sleeping bag and pillows and his stuffed loth cat plushie, which doesn’t bother me too much cause I’m a heavy sleeper anyway. I don’t often get the opportunity to bring the boyfriend around either.. yknow jedi rules around attachment and stuff. But some rules are made to be broken

The other place of residence I have, which I find myself staying at considerably more frequently than the temple, is my quarters on the venator star destroyer. This I do have a picture of, though I imagine the space to be a little more efficiently utilised than what we’ve got here. That empty space in front of the kitchen/cabinetry area would usually hold either a lounge of some sort, or a fold out table to have dinners on. This place is more utilitarian than my temple dorm, so I’ve got an abysmal lack of decor and personal flare in it. A few holo pictures are scattered around, but there isn’t much going on besides that. My favourite part of this living space is the lighting however, it can be switched to any colour but I do usually keep it at a romantic pinky colour 😏

That leads into the last part which is who lives with me there. This room being on my personal(ish) Star destroyer allows a lot more freedom with who I can invite to stay. This is the primary room where I get to spend time with Tech, so whenever I’m graced by his and the batch’s presence for missions or whatever, this is where we will both sleep. The rest of tbb take the marauder sorry

credit to @solstices-dreams for the shiftmas prompts 🎄

[imaginepostingonsideblogs]

THE OFFICIAL (WELL, UNTIL I NO DOUBT ALTER ALL OF THIS COMPLETELY) GUIDE TO WRITING CASTIEL TOWNSEND BOFA TOWNSEND(????)

alright :) so.

first of all, i refer to him quite frequently as ��cas’ in this. technically, its not a good move on my part, that, considering every iteration of castiel technically has a name that shortens to ‘cas’, and so if i go around taking about ‘cas’, i could mean, basically, uh… anyone. but through this guide alone, every reference to an entity called ‘cas’ is the one and only ‘castiel townsend(???)’ from the title of the text. that’s the guy in question. got that? great!

this focuses primarily on his dialogue and actions during said dialogue, in five sections ive labelled 'vocabulary', 'amount said', 'accompaniment', 'style', and 'tone', but that's just because he talks a whole bunch. anything additional about how he thinks and acts is in a last section called 'additional' (self explanatory name, innit) but i will probably add to that bit as we go!

so. without further ado, because this is already long enough:

VOCABULARY

cas's vocabulary is... like i've said, a weird mix between normal, comprehensible, though millennial-esque slang and more archaic or nonstandard terms and words. he's a big fan of 'remiss' and 'brogue', but will in exactly the same breath, call someone a boomer. the archaic side of his vocabulary leans more to the shakesperian, but anything poe-esque is absolutely not off the table. just go ham. sprinkle the longest and most complicated words you know into his vocabulary, and you'll be set. don't even worry about using them correctly.

he also uses lines like 'the jig's up' and then immediately gets bullied for it. as he should honestly.

he is also...frequent with his amount of pop culture references. basically, anything you know, you're absolutely entitled to make him know too. go wild. bonus points if it's a shit piece of media. books, films, tv shows-- whatever! go for it.

oh that's another thing. frequent user of 'whatever'. 'whatever' traditionally means 'this thing is impacting me but i can shrug it off enough to ignore it'. he's 'whatever'd murders. and the existence of the compound. basically, unless it causes him to break down on the spot, it's 'whatever'.

you can never use it too much. go wild.

he also uses a LOT of british terms. he's not a 'luv' kind of a man- he's not reached that far- but 'lawks' (exclamation of surprise? ish? somewhere between surprise and oh god) and 'git' and 'goit' and 'wanker' (all insults. we brits are an contentious bunch.) are very much on the table lmaoo

honestly anything goes! he is actively abusing these terms, so don't worry abt getting anything wrong you got this!

AMOUNT SAID

a lot. all of the time.

cas talks like its an olympic sport and he's going for gold. if you're ever sitting there thinking 'is this enough castiel dialogue??' the answer is no. write more. he rambles, he elaborates, he doubles back, he goes off on tangents- and it's ten times worse whenever he's nervous, which is more than he usually lets on. nervous? him? he'd never be nervous. not at all. honestly, it's ridiculous you'd think that. why would he be nervous? what would that possibly be about? don't be silly. he's never been scared a day in his life. except for that one time. with the crocodile. and that had really just been a log, so that one didn't count. <- like that. but ten times more.

oh, that's the other thing! he frequently trails into random stories about his past that have just. never come up before and never will again. make those up as you will. be wild! his backstory up to the age of 18 will never be fully ironed out i think, so you have total free rein.

cas will and does abruptly switch to very...clipped dialogue- like, 1-2 words max. this is a powerful tool, because its an indication that something is Very Very Horrifically Terribly Wrong. this is when he's terrified out his mind, or exhausted beyond reason, or has been through something absolutely abysmal. it is traditionally very rare, and a Very Bad Sign. unless you're trying to get him to do what you want, in which case this is the ultimate way of indicating that you're well on the way there.

this is the reason why fully docile compound cases will maybe say 1-2 words a year if they're feeling particularly chatty-- and the reason why that's a very big thing.

ACCOMPANIMENT

castiel is a man who cannot and will not stay still for long, particularly when talking. sometimes he paces, sometimes he gestures, sometimes he unscrews things or tries flipping items (books, knives, pens- anything in reach really) with varying levels of success. sometimes (if hes behaving or acting more nonchalant) he'll just go 'okay whatever' and go on tumblr mid-conversation. point is, even if you tied him to a chair, he's not staying still, particularly with his hands. go for it. make him do whatever. i will cheer you for it.

STYLE

when I said that 'he elaborates, he doubles back, he goes off on tangents', i meant he often does so m- i mean- thaaaat he often stops himself partway through a word or an idea just to start a new one. or he'll stop mid sentence just to-- just to reconsider the sentence and then continue going with it.

his mouth moves faster than his brain, and so often he'll say something like a lie or a comment or an analogy and have to decide whether or not to try and go back on it or stick with it to the end.

as i described it once to my good friend @heshemikey, 'if he's in a situation where he needs to not joke or not lie he'll often joke or lie and then immediately double back on it he can't ?? not say things? if you get what i mean??'

which is basically. just. cas in his purest form tbh.

TONE

i left this one til last because its the most(??) variable of the lot?

there is constantly a nonchalance, a lack of caring, a projection of being in control to what he says. he's not scared, he knows what he's doing, he's in charge. those kind of vibes. even though its highly unlikely any of the three are true, especially all at once. but depending on where he is in the timeline- where he is in his life, even- the actual terms of that can differ quite a bit. early cas- pre wbg cas-- honestly, pre OVER cas-- does this by acting like a little bit of an arsehole. he's not exactly a touchy-feely guy, he's not exactly open with his affections (though he does have them, and does show them. in his own ways.) and tends to act anywhere from a manipulative asshole to just a dude who Does Not Give A Shit Abt What You're Saying.

as my dearly beloved friend @felixcosm (expert of the early stages of cas) points out, when i say hes 'acting like a little bit of an arsehole', what i mean to say is that he is an extremely bratty, petulant kind of guy. he is…very frustrated, at w.bg, at his husband, at himself, and everything he says mirrors that. the manipulation he exerts is his own attempts to grasp some kind of control over his situation. though when that is inevitably not enough, or it slips through his fingers, he's prone to being a pissy little bastard about it <3

he argues frequently with a wide variety of people (particularly his husband, though anyone who opposes him is probably going to get an earful)- a little hot-headed, a little overconfident, and a lot in denial about it all.

i can feel him in the back of my brain denying it right now. that's how in denial he is. he's constantly in denial and he never stops– at any point in his life, really. if in doubt: make him in denial. great trick. works every time.

through OVER (which is where he's actually quite awkward, especially around people who're nice to him, like hunter) and experiences with the compound, and the flinchites- this begins to transition into the other end of the scale. which is a part of his life i call the pw era. pw era cas is... completely opposing. he's smug, he's amused, he's constantly finding things that Are Not Funny to be funny. he doesn't take anything- or anyone- very seriously.

he's also very, very touchy. he frequently puts his arm around people's shoulders, or pats them on the back, or offers to keep them warm at night, or basically anything that could border on being annoying or discomforting. that's the other thing- he- pw era, especially- delights in causing people discomfort. not horrific amounts, but anywhere from annoyance to pure upset is somewhere he's willing to stoop to. if he thinks something is going to hurt someone's feelings, he'll say it. there's a possibility, depending on their reaction, that he might double back and apologise, but first and foremost he's going to come out with the smugly snide comment in question

i think he's constantly trying to get under people's skin? if he causes them to have a flat-out breakdown, then he'll tune his annoyance levels down quite a bit, but his main goal is still always to get under the skin of the person he's addressing, and he'll stop at nothing to succeed.

ADDITIONAL (yayyy!)

so. this is a little about how he behaves, a little how he thinks and acts. ive been reading through how i write him and realising i really? do not dwell on those much? but let's see what we can do here :)

okay. so.

one of the first things you're ever going to know about cas is that he has a crap marriage. this is never not true, and he will never not bring it up if he finds an opening- honestly, no matter what point in his life he's at.

it gets to the point where he will follow various comments- 'they were not exactly being punctual', and 'the fact he might have been lying didn't once occur to me' are the two i can think off the top of my head, but it's a frequent occurrence- with 'story of my marriage', or something of the sort. sorry. that was dialogue again. point is, he's never not really thinking abt his marriage and how crap it was. you can ALWAYS make it abt his marriage. yippee. no matter how wild the line previous is, chances are he'll compare anything to his husband. he's like a character from a boomer comic but slightly less divorced. not by want of trying, though.

certain details of said marriage are things i still need to iron out but uhh. come to me for more on that baby. or ask felix. whatever you will.

in the same vein, he regularly fidgets with his wedding ring. never takes it off, no matter what- no, he'd sooner lose the whole hand than the ring itself- but he's a constant fidgeter. all of the time. he probably does it in his sleep to be honest.

that being said: VERY deep sleeper. usually goes to bed at a stupid hour of the morning and can't actually be woken until. noonish?

and i mean, like. deep. deeeppp. capable of sleeping through an entire tornado kinda deep.

he also drools :). funfact. probably snores too. loser.

OH! also. pw era cas especially has…weird levels of what he considers a friend (or, for that matter, a romantic partner). like. if you converse with him civilly for about three seconds, you're his best friend and he'd die for you. if you're someone who's skin he wants to get under (whether he succeeds or not), its about on the same level as a marriage proposal. that, and a few other factors. he's once offered to marry enigma simply because he didn't murder castiel in his sleep- the bar is like On The Floor Here.

he also defines marriage as a platonic ideal too. like he's fully capable of having a platonic relationship with someone and being like hey we're married now actually <3

basically? you have free rein on that one too. i don't know the exact standards of how he develops this relationship or why or what the difference is between who he considers a friend and who he considers a Possible Spouse. uh.

go nuts. show nuts. whatever. don't show nuts, actually. put your nuts away.

thank you. now, continuing.

has a knife on him. at all times. always.

okay, he doesn't have a knife on him at certain points, but we don't count those. just presume he has a knife on him. amazing. i keep presuming he has a knife on him and then realising he probably doesn't and having to hope nobody notices my mistake. so really you should be all good.

does not frequently shower. sorry. he's a bit of a greasy mess at any given moment. somewhere between it not being his top priority and not having enough money to pay for the water bill involved. SAD!

actually i will bribe you; whoevers reading this? please god make a fic in which he gets forced to shower. he won't listen to me and someone needs to get his ass in line here.

please. i'll give you my lifes savings. a whole twenty pence.

on that note (there's been a LOT of notes, hasn't there? sozzles.) he will do pretty much anything for money. if you can pay him a living wage, he'll stick with you. whether that involves the risk of bear attacks or, like, human experimentation or whatever, just offer him a couple of quid an hour and he'll probably go along with it.

there's rent to pay, man. you gotta.

sorely lacking in the moral compass department. freaks out about killing people, freaks out while killing people, but acts like he's totally fine with and good at murder- almost well enough for it to be convincing. the freakouts are more about the act of having to watch someone die over the implications it has on his moral standing, anyway.

okay, hes not sorely lacking. he's actually kind of a morally upright guy, if you ignore the murder and the being an asshole.

he doesn't steal, he doesn't, like– what's another crime? he doesn't do a lot of crime. that's the point.

he doesn't care, he's not morally impacted by any choice he makes, but he doesn't do illegal shit without a real, actual, genuine reason about it.

likes kids. unironically. he's a little awkward around them, but he's kind of a little awkward around everyone. definitely the kind of guy who speaks to and treats kids like they're just adult human beings, and honestly doesn't do too bad a job of it either.

he's actually never interacted with a child in canon yet. goddamn. right, another twenty pence for whoevers willing to do that. oo and it's a lovely shiny twenty pence too ooooooooo

he's canonically good at sleight of hand! mostly it's just stupid little tricks he's taught himself when bored- like vanishing coins, or cards, or anything small enough to realistically do that with- but he's proud of himself for getting so good at it, and honestly? so am i. maybe someday he'll learn how to do a whole magic trick. we can only imagine.

EXAMPLES:

i lied.

extra section, boys and girls. extra section. let’s goo!

basically, i'm realizing i've written an imposing amount of stuff to remember- none of which is really necessary, mostly just small details!- and it’s kind of going to feel like a right task now to put it all together.

not to fear though, because my most amazing companion tumblr user @heshemikey (who I constructed this guide at the behest of, though they know how to write castiel technically better than myself and do an amazing job of it (and are generally just a wonderfully cool dude!)) has been so kind as to provide me with examples of their depictions of pw era cas, which i’ve been able to annotate with comments about how much i love their ocs- er, i mean, pull apart to show some of these qualities i’ve been discussing and how it all fits together.

note the colour coding :). now. i am a lil colourblind, so you might have to correct me if i get any of these wrong, but let’s see…

orange is a quality i didn’t bring up yet, which is his tendency to place emphasis on more words than technically necessary– to make his words sound a little more dramatic, or flourishing, or emotional.

or, particuarly in the early days, to get a point across (fig 1. & 2.)

astounding. shut up, castiel.

moving on! light?? blue???? you’d call that a light blue, right?

that’s actions specifically to do with body and limbs– because castiel is very expressive with those, frequently when speaking- usually, almost more notably than he actually is facially. he isn’t a man to do anything by halves, yknow? he doesn’t stay still often, and he makes a point of the fact.

green is his weird, nonstandard terminology, or extended vernacular. like heshemikey says, he’s the kind of dude who ‘knows a lot of super obscure fancy words that he uses in normal conversation’, which is honestly so true. look up a list of fancy words and just sprinkle em in and you’re set.

PINK! pink is blatant denial of emotions. it’s not a pw cas fic without it! basically, every time he feels an emotion that isn’t ‘being a smug bastard’, he’s actually never felt that feeling before, never will again, and frankly, is not feeling right now. emotions? he doesn’t do emotions, babeyy.

teal is for his ramblings, his tangents, his going off-on-a-little-spree-iness. if you’re not sitting there writing his dialogue and going oh my GOD castiel shut the HELL UP!! then you’re probably missing a tangent or two down the line. they’re fun to write! they’re just also A Lot.

gray-bluey-purple is ‘whatever’. if someone ever writes castiel dialogue and uses the word ‘whatever’ i let out a little whoop whenever i read it! like YEAH thats his thing!! its a very important word x3

red is also something i haven’t brought up before, which is his habit? occasional frequent practice? of asking questions- whether that’s at the other person, himself, or the universe in general. he’s, uh, basically a big fan!

i WOULD pull apart a piece of text from his pre-wbg, pre-pw days, but alas i don’t have a snippet quite big enough or right enough to do this with– trust me, i’ve checked x(

i plan to keep this document up to date though so if i do get anything adequate enough ill give it its own little section and colour-coded notes and everything too! mUAHAHAHA. anyway. gnight. sleep well. good luck.

[1moreoffkeyanthem]

I've been listening to my old playlists on spotify thinking about how south park fandom used to do amvs set to pop songs using deviantart fanart of the ships in the fandom this was years back I don't think they do this any more

anyway they had a bunch of style amvs set to you belong with me but they were all from nerd kyle's pov with jock stan and wendy was painted to be a villain which to all of that: omg corny lame boo tomato 🍅 tomato 🍅 tomato 🍅 I'm throwing tomatoes 🍅!

I think a better pov for that song is stan he's the one that I could easily see pining for kyle in 10th grade or something relating to the song as a boy in love with his best friend

My guy I am RIGHT THERE WITH YOU!!! Tomato indeed that trope is TIRED AS HELL!!! The amount of Jock Stan Nerd Kyle Villain Wendy out there is ABYSMAL! Like to each their own or whatever but CMON give the homies some personality! One of my biggest pet peeves is fic writers or artists sticking the SP kids into a box and one-noting them; there is so much potential to explore and y’all out here writing tired angsty high school aus? At least switch it up! (Worth noting that I’ve read some incredible fics set with the kids in high school I’m not shading ALL hs AU’s I swear, y’all know I’ll read pretty much anything I got a super open mind w fic)

ALSO!!! Stanley Down Bad Marsh INVENTED pining!!! I will never stop saying it that boy is a SIMP!!! I love both Stan and Kyle being secretly down horrendous for each other but Stan has been in love with his sbf since he knew what beauty was! He’s a huge loverboy boyfailure in all relationships and he absolutely overthinks every interaction with Kyle because he is!!! hopelessly in love!!! And (personally) I feel like that’s the difference between Stan and Kyle; Kyle can (sort of) articulate what he feels, and Stan just fully is *heart eyes* lmfao. Neither of them communicate it bc they’re loser teenagers plagued by self doubt but once they do it’s all “wait you like me too?!” “dude was it not obvious?” Dumbasses I would die for them

Also on the note of animatics/art videos I may not be an enjoyer of stankylewendy angst but I could lowkey get down to one set to Mr Brightside

[candyn-gutz]

Giiiirl I have been looking at Diabolik lovers for so long (I don't know how I watched the whole anime I hated it) but the games looked so tasty with the switch port and with how I know the games are just waaaay better from what I've seen people say but man I do not have the money and last time I bought an otome was this summer and it was not that one <- gets an otome like once every 4 years or so

GAH ME TOO I WANT TO PLAY THE GAME SOOO BAD THE ANIME WAS ABYSMAL.

i agree the art style is so. i want to eat it. people are right though.. i watched some snippets from the game and everyone is soo much more tolerable and it feels more natural, the flow is so so much better.

mmm sameeeeee i have barely anything and i'm trying to save up for uni just. augh. just let me be a silly little guy.

[thecandlelightsociety]

Haven't gotten around to the coining posts just yet. We've been busy with irl stuff and our syscourse sideblog (luckily this time around more healthily) and have also slipped back into Minecraft binging on our Switch.

The world started as Astra's but has kind of evolved into more of a system world with Astra as the lead. It's a bit roleplay heavy for a single player world with our own custom made story based on Minecraft's quasi lore. There is something extremely off with our world though, almost like the beginning parts of a creepypasta. Maybe it's all the From the Fog letsplays we've been watching but some of the stuff on it is quite unnerving.

The main highlights are an underwater ruined portal with still liquid lava surrounding it, Endermen who can just casually stroll through the rain like it's nothing, and a massive chunk of dry land and air under the ocean with grass blocks and everything that just immediately cuts off into the ocean at the edges. At the higher parts of it you can jump and end up swimming, then sink right back into the air pocket. Drowned that swim into it continue to swim through the dry air occasionally, but most just get confused on the land. When looked at closer this big cube of surface at the bottom of the sea also happens to be an entrance to a massive mineshaft with a bunch of dungeon spawners inside, and the caves in the mine connect it to a small hole next to the village nearby we decided to name Innsmouth. We dubbed the mineshaft and connected caves the Sunken Mines and it's a really creepy location.

For some reason the villagers in Innsmouth are super buggy too. Most of them keep being kicked from their job blocks then reconnected or connected to another one. Their pathfinding is abysmal and they keep walking into walls without my help redesigning buildings. To add to the creepy factor they keep having kids and they all end up joining the Clerics even though there is only two potion stands in the town. While Astra had some RP of them secretly worshipping and making deals with the Drowned Lovecraft style the more we interact with the town the more it feels like it's eerily playing into it.

Oh and our first Librarian we introduced to the town got struck by lightning and turned into a witch like the day after we bought silk touch from them. We nametagged and imprisoned them and made up a fun side story of a witch Cult infiltrating the town. This then took a life of it's own like with the drowned clergy thing as witches keep spawning on the outskirts of the town every night, especially near the Mangrove tree we bought from a Wandering Trader. Maybe that's a feature because swamp=witches but we dunno.

Overall very spooky world. We're sure you can see why we've slaked on Tumblr with a world like that to explore. We'll get it done soon though.

[striveattemptfail]

so i took this screencap after i read the latest ep and—

hn. (=_=)

idt i'll liveblog this week but i'll put my Thoughts under the cut

(tl;dr jason's Moobs and artemis' arms are the only thing getting me through this webtoon and unfortunately i am near hitting the point where that can no longer sustain me 😔😔)

(also pls heed the tags on this post bc there is a lot of Wank And Bitching. if you don't wanna read the meandering negativity, pls move along ᕕ(ಠ_ಠ)ᕗ)

okay so Thoughts™️:

i said i'd stick around to make sure lobo was done well but considering he folded and fucked off in <5 panels i can't even judge that

and idr if i mentioned it on my blog but i told some friends i'd stick around for the first season of rho and likely drop it after that

but idek if i can keep to that anymore

i've read a lot of really crappy comics, superhero issues and webcomics alike. i've had my fair share of whiplash pacing and wildly ooc canon

i'm not saying i'm an expert at judging comics, but i'll give myself enough credit to say at the very least that this webtoon is Just Not Good

while i'm personally not bothered by changing the art style—

(actually, it's one of the few things i appreciate in traditional publishing for superhero comics, so introducing it to the webcomic medium has been really interesting to me)

(but that's a whole other post lol)

—they're not using the change to its full potential, or even for its intended purpose

i get that the webtoon weekly schedule is brutal and borderline inhumane for a lot of asian artists, so it's probably hell on earth for western artists having to switch to that kind of scheduling

nico offloading all the inking to another artist so he can get a break makes sense

but if that's the case, the art should be more polished—and it just isn't

it's still abundantly clear to me that corners were cut to get eps out on time with the same kind of length

i'm not an illustrator, and my eye for perspective is already pretty awful with my glasses on, but i think it still says something that my half-blind ass can still see errors

if the art has to change to give the regular artist a break, why isn't any of the art (both from the original artist and the fill-in artist) not up to par?

and this isn't even considering that the art just changes in the middle of an arc, which makes everything hella confusing for a reader who can seamlessly read episode after episode due to the nature of the webtoons platform and the webcomic medium in general

at least if there's an art switch in most traditional comics, it's introducing a new arc or volume to that series, and it's physically broken up into multiple comic books/issues

the changes in rho thus far have just been ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ at best, and (to me) without any thought about how the style could affect the overall story

to be clear: wayne family adventures also does this. but at least toby succeeds in emulating starbite's art style enough not to break immersion. and because it's been toby every time, the changes in art style is usually only noticeable when scrutinized

unlike with rho thus far, who's had different artists with similar but still distinctly different styles

so the abrupt art change is not only impacting the immersion of a reader but the effectiveness of the storytelling

and i don't even wanna get into patrick young's abysmal writing thus far. i know better than to yell on the internet about comic writers after namedropping them lol

i love jason. i genuinely like his rebirth outlaws team. for all the flack i give lobdell for rhato (2011) and in general, he did some actually decent things for all three outlaws during their 2016 run onwards

(some things. i'm still not forgiving him for rhato (2016) #25, or the fact that willis todd was apparently gd wingman, or for a lot of other things, but that is a discussion for yet another post lol)

i honestly cannot say the same for patrick young's writing

aside from the (fucked up) storyline happening to bizarro, i stand by my point that the highlight of every arc thus far has been the villains

which would be a compliment if it weren't for the fact that the series is supposed to be about the titular (anti) heroes of the story, or if the heroes were just written half as well

and yet?? i've been disappointed by every development for jason, and the mostly lack thereof for artemis, much less the downright disrespectful treatment for all the other characters introduced thus far

bizz really is the best boy, not only for his kind nature but for being the only decently written character out of the three

i get that superhero comics allows for different characterizations and the webtoon is continuing that tradition

doesn't mean i like what's happened to most of the characters

it's just........it's been really disappointing reading this webtoon

and i honestly feel bad for those who've spent hard earned coins unlocking any of this webtoon's fastpass eps

verdict: am i gonna drop this sooner than i thought? likely so

unfortunately for me i am a stubborn masochist of a stan so i'll be testing how long i can hold on just out of love for these characters 🥴🥴🥴

[neciebee]

We are so alike! Other than switching Cassian and Azriel, I agree with you whole heartedly.

Now here’s my next question. Many authors use song lyrics or lines of poetry to title their fics. Others find titles in lines of canon, or lines of the fic itself.

Now I haven’t written the entire story yet, and a good title could still present itself BUT I want to hear your thoughts.

So you can;

Give me a specific medium, artist, or work where you’d like me to search

OR

You can use your code breaking skills, and hopes for the story, and give me a title that I have to rise to…

Either way, I’ll learn something about you and what you want… 😉

-🧑🏻‍🎄

I know authors usually put a lot of thought into their titles, but I normally just put together a bunch of words that seem to fit in with the gist of the story. I'm not too fussed over titles as long as it gives an insight into what I'll be reading. Long fics tend to be a Thing of That and the Other - to match with Sarah's style - but I'm not expecting 200k words for Christmas. If my gift is gonna be a little bit of crack, I love a funny or punny title. I fall over myself for memes or zeitgeist-related titles. I'm a ho for in-jokes and poking in serious fun at Sarah. For a more serious piece of writing, I like the dark and the ominous titles, no matter the cringe. Be as emo as you want. My tastes tend toward the sad, so if that's what you're writing for me, you can go ham with titles from goth lyrics and black moods.

My code breaking skills have already been established as abysmal. Hit me with your best shot, and hurt me or make me giggle!