#to do more fiddly detailed mechanical work

[ghost-toe]

rescued this baby from the curb today 🥰😊 yet another restoration project!

here she was before i cleaned up the lacquer. it rained last night and seeped into the old lacquer. i'll see if there's anything more i can do to restore that damage, but i think some of it is straight-up the paint running off and exposing the metal

[garbinge]

JUICE + SHY GN!READER HEADCANON

First ever headcanon, and this really pushed me out of my comfort zone! Juice is a character that I'm still learning and shy characters are always a little tough for me in these universes. Honestly would love anyone else to drop in any additional thoughts because this one really got me thinking through so many scenarios on how things would play out with these two :) Headcanon is under the cut!

FIRST MEETING: 

Juice isn’t exactly the most outspoken or outgoing either, so the process from meeting you to dating you takes time. Slow burn for suuuuuure. 

I think it’d start out with Juice being more shy than the reader for sure but your shyness is what draws him to you. You’re also not exactly jumping out of your seat to talk to him either, but to you, you’re just ignoring him while Juice is being shy to you. 

You’re the opposite of his life right now. The club is rowdy and chaotic and you were calm and observant. 

There’s tons of stolen glances whenever he gets the chance when you’re around. His eyes jump away in seconds the minute you catch him looking at you. Whether it’s peeking over his laptop, or fully staring at you when he catches you downtown. 

Those glances would eventually turn to awkward smiles, the occasional wave or head nod.

When he gets the nerve to actually come and talk to you, there’s a lot of fumbling on his words until he realizes you’re just as nervous as him and it somehow makes him feel a little less nervous.

Just enough that in some fiddly way he manages to ask you out and you agree. 

The first date is a lot of him asking you questions because you’re still very reserved. A lot of what are your favorite things; food, movies, places to go, where  do you work, do you like it. Just trying to learn more about you.

He goes off on a lot of tangents about tech, it’s what he knows and loves so it just comes easy to him. You take it all in, every word, picking up on the details in what he’s saying and what he’s not. 

You definitely bring things up that he’s said earlier and it drives him mad. Someone who pays attention to the things he’s saying? That’s new. 

Somewhere along the conversation you mentioned something about your car and he eagerly offered to fix it for you at TM which ultimately solidified your second date. 

It’s obvious you’re a fish out of water at Teller-Morrow. Your voice is comparable to a mouse in comparison to all the guys, club and mechanics combined. 

While trying to explain to Chucky and then Piney that one of the guys said they could help you out, Juice appears with the biggest grin on his face when he sees you and offers you an energetic “hey” and it completely melts you. 

You sit next to him while he tinkers with your car, him mostly taking up a lot of the conversation but you’re chiming in here or there a little bit more than on the first date. Everything around you kind of fades away in those moments, you’re just enjoying the time passing with Juice. 

When you get home that night, you break something else on your car, purposely, so you can bring it back the next day. Too nervous to just ask him to hang out on your own. 

After he catches on, you’ve brought your car in 3 times in one week,  he decides to blurt it out. Do you wanna be my girlfriend? And he’s immediately mortified by the prepubescent way of asking you to be his but in your eyes it's perfect. It’s direct and leaves no room for misinterpretation. BEGINNING OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP: 

Then, things are a bit different once your relationship is a bit more established. You both geek out together, and you feel a bit more comfortable coming out of your shell around him. 

He definitely becomes protective over you, knowing how fragile he can be because of his sensitive side and how people are eager to take advantage of that, the thought that someone could be like that with you makes him want to follow you around like a guard dog. 

He's constantly stare at you, lovingly + adoring but also curiously, just picking up on the things you do and why. But now, instead of looking away when you catch his eyes, he just smiles, maybe lightly touches your face, places a soft kiss on your lips, still smiling through each interaction.

But the real kicker is when he tells you he wants you to come hang out at the clubhouse and meet the guys. 

Now, he’s not an idiot, he knows that they can be a lot and you aren’t a very extroverted person, but he reassures you a lot that they’ll love you and you’ll have a good time. He also lets you know he’d never let anything happen to you. And once the guys meet you, neither will they.

When you show up, you’re feeling exactly how you felt when you first met Juice. Flighty eyes, absorbing the environment, taking in everything. 

The commotion of the group by the pool table and then the group by the bar was starting to make your stomach turn. 

Juice spots you immediately and is by your side within seconds and never leaves it. One, because he wants to keep his word of being there and two, he feels so happy just to have you here with his family. 

The guys tease Juice more than they tease you, and when anyone gets a little too pushy before you’re able to even feel uncomfortable Juice is handling it. 

OVER TIME: 

I think he’d be able to anticipate your needs and vice versa. 

When he comes home from a rough day, you’re there to pick up the pieces and he lets you. 

There’s toons of physical affection behind closed doors. Cuddling, all types of kisses, very sweet and passionate love. 

In public and in front of the club, it’s not as prominent but there’s definitely arms wrapped around you, sitting in between his legs, casual pecks on the cheek and fingers intertwined. 

He’d also trust your opinion on things because when you are at the clubhouse you’re not looking to fuck-around. You’re taking in everything and it gives you a really unique perspective on situations. 

He’d take you on so many long rides and road trips because he knows the quiet of the rides are your favorite.

He’d leave breakfast for you when he had early mornings and you’d leave dinner for him on those late night runs. 

Juice would use his skills to make your life easier, just like when you first met. Fixing your car, your computer, making sure you were upgrading all your software, getting you things that you didn’t even realized existed that just made every aspect of your life easier. 

Ultimately, I think a shy partner is exactly what Juice needs, someone who understands him, and is patient with him. They both would be able to respect and love each other because they see each other. There's so much understanding because they get one another, their quirks, their preferences, their mannerisms.

Dividers by @cafekitsune ❤ // Requested by anon ❤ 💀SOA Taglist: @drabbles-mc @justreblogginfics @kmc1989  (Let me know if you’d like to be added!)

[wirewitchviolet]

How a Computer Works - Part 3 (Miniaturization and Standardization)

For anyone just joining in, I'm writing a series of posts explaining perhaps haphazardly all there is to know about how a computer works, from the most basic fundamental circuitry components to whatever level of higher functionality I eventually get to. As explained in the first post on this subject, I am doing this just in pure text, so that if you are inclined you can straight up print these posts out or narrate them onto some audio tape or whatever and have full access to them should every computer in the world suddenly collapse into a pile of dust or something. Part 1 mainly covered the basic mechanical principles of circuitry and how to physically construct a logic gate. Part 2 covered logic gates in detail and how to use them to create a basic working architecture for a general purpose computer. Today we're going to be talking more about what you're looking at when you crack a machine open so you can make sense of all the important fiddly bits and have maybe a starting point on how to troubleshoot things with a multimeter or something.

Before getting into it though, I do have to shake my little donation can again and remind you that I do not know how I am going to get through the winter without becoming homeless, so if this is valuable to you, I'd appreciate some help.

Boards of Bread and Printed Circuits

With the things I've explained so far, you could totally build a computer right now, but it'd be a bit messy. You can totally buy resistors, transistors, capacitors, and diodes by the bagful for basically nothing, and cheap rolls of insulated wire, but there's all these long exposed pins to cut short and soldering things in mid-air is a messy nightmare and you'd just have this big tangle of wires in a bag or something that would almost certainly short out on you. So let's look into ways to organize stuff a little.

If you start playing around with electronics on your own, one of the first things you want to hook yourself up with besides raw components and wires is a breadboard or 12. And if you're watching people explain these things with visual aids, you'll also see a lot of them, so it's good to know exactly what they are and how they work. Your standard breadboard is a brick of plastic with a bunch of little holes in it. Incidentally, the name comes from how the first ones were literally just named after the wooden cutting boards for slicing bread people recycled to make them. Inside these holes there's some pinching bits of conductive metal which connect to each other in a particular way (pretty sure you can just see the strips that connect one if you pry the bottom off), so you can just jam a thing wire or prong into a hole, have it held in place, and make a connection to every other hole its connected to on the other side.

There is a ton of standardization to all of this. The holes should always be 0.1 inches apart () and split into two big grids. Everyone I've ever seen has 63 rows, each with 5 holes labeled A-E, a shallow channel through the middle of the board, and then another 5, F-J, and we generally have numbers printed every 5 rows. Down underneath, for any given row, the set of 5 pins on each side of the channel are connected. So, holes 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, and 1E are all connected to each other, and nothing else. Holes 1F, 1G, 1H, 1I, and 1J are also connected to each other. There's no connection though between 1E and 1F, or 1A and 2A.

Most breadboards will also have a couple of "power rails" along the sides. These are just going to be labeled with a long red line and +, and a long blue or black line and -, and have holes in 2x5 blocks staggered out. With these, all 25 or 50 or whatever holes near the red + line connect with each other, and all the ones near the black line connect with each other. The gaps every 5 holes don't serve any purpose beyond looking different enough from the big grid so you hopefully don't mix it up and forget that these ones all connect down the length, and not in in little clumps across the width like everything else. The idea, for the sake of convention, is you plug a wire connected directly to the positive side of your battery or DC adapter or whatever into any red line hole, the negative side to any blue/black hole, and then tada, you can make a circuit just by plugging a wire in from red to a normal grid line, whatever bits you want span from that grid line to another, and eventually you connect the far end back anywhere on the black/blue line.

With a nice circuit board, there's also little snap-together pegs along the sides, and the power rails are just snapped on with those. So you can just kinda cut through the backing with a knife or some scissors, snap those off, connect multiple boards together without redundant power rails in the middle, and then just have these nice spare long lines of linked sockets. In the computer I'm building on these, I'm just using spare power rails for the bus. Oh and the big grooved channel down the middle also has a purpose. Bigger electronic components, like our good good friend the integrated circuit, are generally designed to be exactly wide enough (or more, but by a multiple of 0.1 inches) to straddle that groove as you plug their legs into the wires on either side, so they nicely fit into a breadboard, and there's a handy gap to slide something under and pry them off later on.

Typically though, you don't see breadboards inside a computer, or anything else. They're super handy for tinkering around and designing stuff, but for final builds, you want something more permanent. Usually, that's a printed circuit board, or PCB. This is pretty much what everyone's going to picture when they think about the guts of a computer. A big hard (usually) green board with a bunch of intricate lines, or "traces" running all over made of (usually) copper. And maybe with some metal ringed holes punched all the way through (they call those vias). These tend to look really complicated and maybe even a little magical, but they're honestly they're just pre-placed wires with a sense of style.

Most of the material of the board is insulated. The copper traces conduct real well, and manufacturers have done the math on just how close together they can be run without connecting to each other in places you don't want. The holes that go all the way through are for either plugging other bits in that tend to come with long legs you maybe want to keep intact, or just ways to run a trace through to the other side, where we often have traces on the back too to maximize our space. Most of what makes them look all cool and magical is how the traces run as close packed as possible to conserve space, and tend to only turn at 45 degree angles, which is just an artifact of how the machinery used to etch them out sued to be iffy about anything else.

So tada, you have all your wires pre-stuck to a nice sturdy board, and maybe even have labels printed right on there for where you solder all the various components to finish the thing. Oh and when you hear people talk about like, motherboards and daughterboards? The big main board you have for everything is a motherboard. Sometimes you need more than that, so you make smaller ones, and connect them up ether with some soldering or cartridge style with end-pins sliding snugly into sockets, and those we call daughterboards.

Integrated Circuits, or as they're also known, "chips"

The last thing you're likely to find if you crack open a computer, or just about any other electronic device that isn't super old or super super simple, are integrated circuits. Generally these are think black plastic bars that look like you'd maybe try to awkardly use them to spread cheese or peanutbutter on crackers in a prepacked snack or something, with rows of tiny little legs that running along either side. Kinda makes them look like little toy bugs or something. Sometimes they're square with pins along every edge, because sometimes you need a lot of pins. These are integrated circuits, or microchips, or just chips, and wow are they handy.

Sometime back in the 60s when people were really getting their heads around just how ridiculously small they could make electronic components and still have them work, we started to quite rapidly move towards a point where the big concern was no longer "can we shrink all this stuff down to a manageable size" and more "we are shrinking everything down to such an absurdly tiny size that we need to pack it all up in some kind of basically indestructible package, while still being able to interact with it."

So, yeah, we worked out a really solid standard there. I kinda wish I could find more on how it was set or what sort of plastic was used, but you take your absurdly shrunken down complex circuit for doing whatever. You run the teensiest tiniest wires you can out from it that thicken up at the ends into standard toothy prongs you can sink into a breadboard or a PCB with that standardized pin spacing, and you coat it all in this black plastic so firmly enveloping it that nothing can move around inside or get broken, hopefully.

And honestly, in my opinion, this is all TOO standardized. The only real visible difference between any two given integrated circuits is how many legs they have, and even those tend to come to some pretty standard numbers. They're always the same size shape and color, they all have the same convention of having a little indented notch on one side so you know which end is which, and they all seem to use just the worst ink in the world to print a block of numbers on the back with their manufacturer, date of assembly, a catalog number, and some other random stuff.

For real if there's any real comprehensive standard for what's printing on these, I can't for the life of me find it. All I know is, SOMEWHERE, you've got a 2 or 3 letter code for every manufacturer, a number for the chip, and a 4 digit date code with the last 2 digits of the year, and which week of that year it was. These three things can be in any order, other things can also be on there, probably with zero spacing, and usually printed in ink that wipes away like immediately or at least is only readable under really direct light, it sucks.

Once you know what a chip is though and look up the datasheet for it, you should have all sorts of handy info on what's inside, and just need to know what every leg is for. For that, you find which end has a notch in it, that's the left side, sometimes there's also a little dot in the lower left corner, and hopefully the label is printed in alignment with that. From there, the bottom left leg is pin 1, and then you count counterclockwise around the whole chip. You're basically always going to have positive and negative power pins, past that anything goes. You can cram a whole computer into a single chip, yo can have someone just put like 4 NAND gates on a chip for convenience, whatever.

OK, but how do they make them so small?

OK, so, mostly a circuit we're going to want to shrink down and put on a chip is just gonna be a big pile of logic gates, we can make our logic gates just using transistors, and we can make transistors just by chemically treating some silicon. So we just need SUPER flat sheets of treated silicon, along with some little strands of capacitive/resistive/insulating material here and there, and a few vertically oriented bits of conductive metal to pass signals up and down as we layer these together. Then we just need to etch them out, real real small and tight.

And we can do that etching at like, basically infinite resolution it turns out. It just so happens we have access to special acids that eat through the materials we need them to eat through, but that only work when they're being directly hit with fairly intense UV light. And a thing about light is when you have say, a big cut out pattern that you hold between a light and a surface, it casts a shadow on it... and the scaling of that shadow depends entirely on the distances between the light, the pattern, and the surface. So if you're super careful calibrating everything, you can etch a pattern into something at a scale where the main limiting factors become stuff like how many molecules thick things have to be to hold their shape. Seriously, they use electron microscopes to inspect builds because that's the level of tininess we have achieved.

So yeah, you etch your layers of various materials out with shadow masks and UV acid, you stack them up, you somehow align microscopic pins to hold them together and then you coat the whole mess in plastic forever. Tada. Anything you want in a little chip.

ROMs, maybe with various letters in front

So there's a bunch of standard generally useful things people put into ICs, but also with a computer you generally want some real bespoke stored values with a lookup table where you'll keep, say, a program to be run by feeding whatever's inside out to the bus line by line. For that we use a chip we call Read Only Memory, or ROM. Nothing super special there, just... hard wire in the values you need when you manufacture it. Manufacturing these chips though is kind of a lot, with the exacting calibrations and the acid and the clean rooms and all. Can't we have some sort of Programmable ROM? Well sure, just like build it so that all the values are 1, and build a special little thing that feeds more voltage through than it can handle and physically destroy the fuse for everything you don't want to be a 1.

OK that's still kind of a serious commitment. What if I want to reuse this later? Oh, so you want some sort of Erasable PROM? OK someone came up with a funky setting where you overload and blow out the fuses but then if you expose the guts of the chip to direct UV light through this little window, everything should reform back to 1. Just like, throw a sticker on there when you don't want to erase it. Well great, but can we maybe not have me desolder it and take it out to put under a lamp? Oh la de da! You need Electronically Erasable PROMs? EEPROMs? I guess we can make THAT work, somehow. They're still gonna be slow to write to though, can't have anything. I mean, not unless we invented like, flash memory. Which somehow does all this at speeds where you can use it for long term storage without it being a pain. So that's just kinda the thing we have now. Sorry I don't quite get the principles behind it enough to summarize. Something about floating components and needing less voltage or whatever. Apparently you sacrifice some read speed next to older options but hey, usable rewritable long term storage you just plug in, no jumping through extra hoops.

So OK. I think that's everything I can explain without biting the bullet and explaining ALUs and such. Well, there's keyboards (they're just buttons connecting input lines), monitors (these days, LEDs wired up in big grids), and mice (there's spokes in wheels that click X times or cameras checking the offset values of dust on your desk or whatnot).

Maybe throw me some money before we move on ?

CONTINUED IN PART 4

[lorcblog]

The hard work theory of RPGs

My big RPG theory is that the purpose of an RPG book is to do the hard work for you.

RPGs are a creative endeavour and most of the fun what the players contribute. But a good RPG makes sure that the decisions the players have to make are the most interesting ones. A bad RPG offloads the work of understanding or interpreting the system on to the players and becomes burdensome to play.

A good game is helpful. It does the hard work for you and leaves the fun decisions for you and your group.

There's plenty of talk over what makes an RPG system good, but I'm going further and asserting that this principle is true for every aspect of a game.

Any of us can come up with the bones of a good setting idea in a few minutes. But if you've ever sat down and tried to write it up in a usable fashion you'll know there's so more to it than that. A good RPG has also done those not-fun bits for you. Where fiddly details matter, they've done the homework and compiled them for you. The author has made the whole thing thematically coherent, with enough detail to inspire but not so much as to feel constricting. And the author has done the hard work of identifying the most important bits, and expressing them succinctly enough to ensure that all prospective players are on the same page about it.

Because another big part of "the hard work" is finding the right game for your group and getting them to play it. A good game uses words and art to demonstrate what will be fun about it. And it presents itself honestly so that you can make an informed decision whether to play it or not.

And that's where I'll distinguish between games that are good and games I enjoy. There's plenty of good games out there I will never play because they did a good job communicating what they are about so that I know I will not enjoy them. Likewise games that present themselves as one thing, but it turns out are most fun when played a different way, are flawed (and often end up with players angry at each other for playing "wrong").

A good game shows you at the most fun way to play it, makes that as easy as possible and then delivers on the promise.

There's certain popular games (that I'm not brave enough to name), which are very unexciting by traditional metrics. Their mechanical systems are generic, repurposed (or absent!), doing little if anything in service of their premise.

But what they do do is effectively communicate a novel way to play. They do a fantastic job communicating that, how to do it and why it will be fun. They make people excited to play them, even if they'll be rolling the same familiar dice the same familiar way.

By the hard work theory, what makes them "good" RPGs is that the game book made it easy for the players play a fun game that they wouldn't have played otherwise.

This is already too many words. Suffice to say I also have strong feelings about other ways this applies to rules, settings and more.

[mr-crawleigh]

As a member of a Cosmic Construction Team, your job is to help build a universe that doesn’t fall apart in two days. Should you be so lucky to be on the planning board or even create your own, you’ll need a solid Cosmic Development Model. These models apply largely to software, or the information placed into a Universal Seed in order to program it for expansion and execution, but it can be used for virtually any type of creative or constructive project.

Many traditional Universal Creators have used a sequential model of development, whereby a whole universe is created step by step until it’s ready to be deployed. This is an excellent model for a Deist creator, who intends to simply set the clockwork of the Universe in motion and then stand back and watch.

However, many Creator Deities prefer to have a more personal and active hand in the progress of their world as it develops, fixing bugs, adding patches and updates, and often responding to client or user feedback on an individual level. This is called an Iterative Model, in which different early models of the world are pushed out, and then updated either in beta-testing or in a slimmed-down launch product which promises later development.

Many also prefer to engage a development team rather than doing all the work themselves by hand, which lends itself well to an Incremental Model of development. This is when individual components of a Cosmos are developed by teams or individuals, and the pieces are then slowly put together through the stages of development.

There is another option for Creator Deities, and that is the Restorative Model of development. This is when a God or Pantheon is able to either reappropriate or assimilate an older model of the Cosmos into their own personal vision and image. This is similar to what happens when humans make Open Source software and allow other humans to use it – the old website is likely to be there, unless something happens to it (or the users flee because the website is developed into something they don’t like) – but the new website is similar, with different updates and customizations for a different use.

Do You want to create Your own customized Universe from scratch, or do You already have a material area under control that You would like to develop into a spiritual system? Is there a spiritual system in place which only needs a few tweaks to suit the needs of You and Your pantheon?

Do You want to stand back and watch while Matter, Life, and Consciousness create themselves from Your perfected Divine Plan, without Your apparent input?

Do You have or want a team of skilled experts to help You plan out and execute the little details of Your world so that You don’t have to worry about the little fiddly details like the constant of lightspeed or the mechanics of RNA sequencing?

Do You want to set Yourself up to conquer and expand, or would You prefer Your own creative sandbox with no competition mode?

Your Cosmic Development Model will depend on what kind of God you intend to be.

[cavegirlpoems]

Okay so there's a few factors that come together to mean that indie games tend towards being rules-light.

Firstly: the Market. The elephant in the room, and most of the big publishers that aren't hasbro but are still proper companies, all make big crunchy games with lots of options and details. The market already has plenty of maximalist games to try, from the mediocre (5e) to the sublime (vtm) to the ridiculous (dark heresy) to the utterly terrifying (pathfinder). If you want a crunchy maximalist game with tactical combat, the chances are one exists.

Why is this the case? Business strategy. A ttrpg publisher wants the audience to keep buying books, and keep buying their books loyally. How do they achieve this? Splatbooks. Extend a game from a single book to a gameline with potentially dozens of volumes, and if your audience are invested, you make garunteed money with each new expansion. A game that's on the splatbook treadmill will end up big and crunchy, even in the fringe cases where they didn't begin that way to get the treadmill going.

So, an indie develloper finds that the market is full of highly visible crunchy maximalist games, with few easily visible streamlined minimalist games. (Those rules-light games do exist, but they're indie projects, so they don't have the visibility and awareness that the big games have).

And they also aren't beholden to shareholders; they don't have an obligation to keep putting out an endless treadmill of splatbooks. If they want to make a small, self-contained game, they can, and they don't need to worry about their marketing director telling them to make more Player's Companions that'll reliably bank.

Each new game is a risk; an indie studio can take that risk where a big dev can't.

Secondly. Now, I know I'm going to sound like a snob here, but its probably true so fuckit. Indie devs tend to be more invested in the craft of design, and better at it, than a lot of the people working for big companies, who have been churning out largely the same stuff on the aforementioned treadmill for potentially decades, with active financial incentives not to innovate. Likewise, indie devs tend to be writing for people with, frankly, more discerning taste in games than the big studios, who don't need to write good rules when they can lean on brand recognition and marketing.

A good rule of thumb in any type of design (not just games) is that a simpler, more elegent solution is the better solution. Indie devs and their audiences tend to prize skillful, elegent design. This lends itself to streamlined games.

Likewise, a given game probably has an optimal size, beyond which it becomes cluttered and unwieldy, with too much Stuff for players to reliably keep track of if they're going to play the game properly. This ideal size is, imho, for a lot of projects a single book, on the medium-to-smaller end of the ttrpg-book bell curve. Again, an indie dev isn't beholden to keeping on churning out more of the same game indefinately, so they can make the game the size they want, no the size the investors want.

And similarly, there's a general understanding among most people who take ttrpg design seriously that the specifics of your dice-roll-mechanics are the least important bit of your design. In this instance, a less skilled designer can make the process of a single dice check incredibly complex with lots of moving parts and fiddly options and decision making, and when they have a page count to meet, they'll keep that complication in. But, to the "the dice roll is the least interesting bit of design" mindset, a very simple roll (maybe even 'roll 1-2 on a d6) does the same job much more simply, so the simple version it is. Because an indie designer is more likely to appreciate that more complicated mechanics aren't necessarily better, and have the creative freedom to act on that.

Thirdly: man hours. Most indie studios have pretty small teams. Some are one person. (like me). Designing and perfecting a complicated system takes exponetially more man-hours than a simpler one. Not linearly more, exponentially more, because every mechanic has potential interactions with every other mechanic, so you need to make sure they all line up with each other, and the scale of the project goes up as a result.

A one-man team simply does not have enough hours in the day to produce the entirety of Pathfinder and have it done this decade.

Fourth, there's the indie audience. The indie scene tends to be people who like elegent, streamlined games, because they're the people who kept looking after finding the mainstream big crunchy games didn't do it for them. They also tend to be more diverse in the pool of games they play. A D&D-guy might only play 5e and be able to read all of the dozens of interminable 5e splats, but a typical indie fan is reading and playing a lot of games. These players tend to be dabblers who like going from game to game; these people are, therefore, better served by smaller games that are quick to finish reading, and are suited to one-shots and short campaigns.

And then lastly, there's material costs. An indie studio is probably Quite Poor. Giant hardbacks, decks of cards, custom dice, boxes of multiple books, etc all cost money. A poorer studio might only be able to afford smaller, simpler books - particularly historically, before the rise of print on demand - so that's what the scene has tended to make.

+ + +

Anyway. None of this means that making a streamlined game is easier, per se. Indeed, arguably, a very streamlined game has very little wiggle-room or margin of error, or room to ignore sections. Every bit of design needs to function perfectly and pull its weight. (Analogy: any cook can make a nice dish with plenty of seasoning and dressings: it takes a really good cook and really good ingredients to make a single-ingredient dish sing). There are lazy rules-light indie games, but they exist on the same bell curve as the rest of the industry. Hell, I'd argue there's a lot more churned-out-low-effort filler content for the 5e scene.

The point is that - much like how 'indie rock' tends towards a stripped-back garage sound rather than lush orchestral prog rock - there are practical, material reasons why indie ttrpgs tend towards more minimalist design.

any idea why (from a culture-history perspective) rules-light artsy stuff and osr-y dungeoncrawl stuff takes up so much discursive space in indie ttrpg talk? excepting LANCER there does not seem to be room for fans of high-power crunchy tactical combat in the indie space

This is not entirely true because there are a couple of other beloved crunchy tactical combat indie RPGs, like Gubat Banwa, Beacon, ICON, Dawn, etc. But that is besides the point: you are of course right on the money that there are certain types of indie games that tend to overwhelm in these spaces.

But the simple answer, at least from where I'm standing, is: rules-light stuff is easier to make, and to be fair, the market is kind of saturated with lots of low-effort and uninspired rules-light indie games, but that saturation also means that the ones that do get talked about are also often the cream of the crop. Of course in terms of market saturation it's good to keep some perspective: even at their worst, indie RPG marketplaces are never so full of unnecessary cruft as marketplaces that cater exclusively to the 5e-compatible crowd.

Same with OSR-y dungeon crawl stuff: making OSR products isn't exactly difficult because the template already exists out there, and once again there's quite a lot of simply uninspired and forgettable stuff out there. It's easy to make an OSR product; it's difficult to make a good and inspired OSR product. (Obligatory plug: @cavegirlpoems makes some good and inspired OSR stuff.)

Games with high complexity tactical combat are much more difficult to make in the first place, so there are fewer to begin with already. Of the ones mentioned I think only Gubat Banwa has really taken any discursive space in indie RPG spaces to a similar degree to Lancer.

And I think it's also that to an extent I think indie spaces are still kind of afraid of high-complexity games, because even among the coolest people there still unfortunately are people in indie spaces who believe that the wrong kind of combat in a TTRPG means that it's less roleplaying. I've even run into those people on this very site. So yeah, even in indie spaces there is room for an unfortunate "roleplaying not rollplaying" type of discourse, which is stupid and dumb and bad.

But anyway, there are of course other types of games made in indie spaces: Blades in the Dark is modeled after Powered by the Apocalypse games but is much more crunchy and has a lot of texture; Ironsworn is similarly modeled after PbtA but is not a game I would call rules-light; Eureka by the good folks of @anim-ttrpgs is undeniably an indie production, but mechanically is very trad and crunchy; and finally, Flying Circus by @open-sketchbook is another PbtA game that is the furthest from rules-light. All of the aforementioned games own.

[ultimatetrashyfanfic]

Wooow, first time writing a fic for this fandom. I’m stupidly nervous. Also I only just finished SDR2 so I’m just gonna make this a Non-Despair AU in case there’s any big events in the next canon games I don’t know about yet. Plus i want everybody to be alive and well (chapter four hurt). This is also the first time in years I’ve written any fanfiction, so forgive me if I’m rusty. I do love this pairing. Can be taken romantically or platonic in this one (as this isn’t my only ship for Hajime so I tried to keep it ambiguous). - Circle

Also posted to AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/33332596

Warning: sickfic, descriptions of vomiting (I don’t go into much detail), nightmares/general anxiety.

Kazuichi was the only person Hajime knew with a worse sleep schedule than his own. For months he hadn’t realised - everybody had their own space on the island and Hajime was occupied enough with his own fatigue - but as Fuyuhiko saw how much Kazuichi grew to trust and confide in Hajime, he reported the issue.

“He’s like a fucking baby,” Fuyuhiko muttered bitterly. “If he gets tinkering on something he’ll be at it for days without sleeping. You gotta make sure he doesn’t overdo it. I can’t babysit that dumbass by myself.”

Hajime nodded, letting the insults sail over his head. Fuyuhiko may swear and yell and tell everyone over and over that Kazuichi and Hajime and Akane were the bane of his existence, but he was really the closest thing their group had to a mum friend.

“I’ll keep an eye out,” Hajime promised. It was an easy enough job. At least it gave him something to do. Whenever Hajime found himself unable to sleep now, he’d go hunting for Kazuichi. More often than not he’d be at the airport, dismantling or building things as the mood struck him, and all Hajime had to do was hook his collar and ignore the whining as he dragged his friend away to bed.

But that night was different. Hajime could sense it the second he walked into the airport. Since the other students rarely went in there, Kazuichi had taken over the space, scattering bits of parts and machines in various stages of completion. But he wasn’t hunched over with a fiddly screwdriver or hidden underneath some big contraption with only his legs visible. He was sitting against a large machine, resting his head against the cool metal, his thumb rubbing at the motor oil embedded under his bitten fingernails.

That was concerning. Kazuichi was never still. He was forever biting his fingernails or twirling his wrench idly in his hands or messing with the pockets on his jumpsuit, dragging the zips up and down over and over. It used to drive Hajime mad, but after knowing Kazuichi for so long Hajime could recognise it as a nervous response and he knew not to complain about it.

Because kazuichi was fragile. Not physically - he could easily haul heavy engine parts around and didn’t buckle when Akane jumped on his back - but it was pretty easy to upset him. When Fuyuhiko had started mocking Kazuichi over his obsession with Sonia - “you gotta bully the shitty behaviours out of people, Hajime.” - it had led to Kazuichi knocking at Hajime’s cottage in the middle of the night, tearfully asking him why Fuyuhiko hated him.

Sometimes Hajime really wished they had an Ultimate Therapist on the island.

So now, looking across the abandoned airport to Kazuichi behaving in a very not-Kazuichi way, Hajime proceeded with caution. He made sure to step purposefully, his footsteps loud on the linoleum floor; he’d once surprised Kazuichi from behind and almost received a wrench to his temple… as well as a burst eardrum from the screaming.

Kazuichi looked up, hastily fumbling with his glasses and shoving them into his pocket. He hated anyone seeing him wear them, so Hajime knew not to comment.

Usually Kazuichi’s face brightened when he saw any of his friends, but now his smile was wary, reserved. “Hey, Hajime,” he said, his voice thick with fatigue.

“When was the last time you slept?” Hajime asked bluntly. “Or ate?”

Kazuichi turned back to face the hunk of metal beside him (unidentifiable to Hajime), though he still didn’t start tinkering. “Not hungry.”

“That doesn’t answer my question at all.”

“I slept yesterday. I think… It’s Monday, right?”

Hajime sighed heavily and hooked the collar of Kazuichi’s jumpsuit with his fingers. “Come on, get up. Bedtime. You’re not even doing anything.”

“Mmn. Can’t seem to focus tonight.”

“That’s because you’re exhausted. Go to bed.”

“Okay! Jeez, man, you’re acting like my mother,” Kazuichi whined, sounding more like himself.

The pair walked out into the cool night air together, Hajime taking hold of Kazuichi’s sleeve when he stumbled. Just how long had he been awake? He was acting like a zombie.

“Fuyuhiko said you weren’t sleeping,” Hajime grumbled. “You should take better care of yourself.”

“Fuyuhiko said it? So why did he make you come get me? Are you sure he doesn’t hate me?” Souda pressed.

“Yes, I’m sure. I told you, he was only harsh because he wanted you to leave poor Sonia alone.”

“Well. I have been, haven’t I?” he muttered.

Hajime assumed that was meant to be a rhetorical question, but it came out like Kazuichi was looking for reassurance. It hadn’t occurred to him how often Souda seemed to do that, as if he was worried anything he said would elicit a bad reaction.

“I’ve even been nice to Gundham,” Kazuichi said, much more irritably. “Though that’s a damn uphill battle, Hajime, I’m telling you. I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about half the time.”

Hajime snorted. Watching Souda trying to interact with Gundham was becoming a running joke between the other students now. There was always a five second pause when Gundham finished talking before Kazuichi could reply, his face contorted as he hastily tried to translate.

“You’ll get used to Gundham. I didn’t understand him much at first either.” Hajime frowned as Kazuichi wrapped his arms around himself, shivering. “Are you cold?”

“I’m freezing. Maybe I do need to sleep better. I’m not feeling so good…” He stumbled again as they went across the uneven boardwalk to the cabins, bumping Hajime’s shoulder.

Hajime caught hold of him instinctively - then paused for a second. He quickly cupped both hands over Kazuichi’s cheeks.

“H-Hajime?!” Souda reeled back so fast he almost toppled right off the platform. “What the hell are you doing?”

“You have a fever, Kazuichi,” Hajime groaned. “You’re burning up. That’s why you don’t feel good.”

“I do?” Souda cupped his own cheeks contemplatively. “Huh. That makes sense. I couldn’t focus properly all evening.”

Hajime sighed heavily. Souda could be so oblivious at times it was hard to believe he was so talented with his machines. He seemed so much more confident when he spoke about that stuff. When he’d started getting closer to Kazuichi, Hajime once asked about some little mechanical toy Souda was making - and Souda’s face had just lit up. He talked Hajime’s ear off for a good fifteen minutes about every little piece of the toy and how it worked. Hajime didn’t understand the majority of it, but he always made sure to ask Kazuichi about his various projects after that. Souda was delighted every time, his words tripping over each other with excitement and his eyes shining like beacons. For a second Hajime wondered if that was how it felt to be Sonia.

“Well, you’d better come with me for now,” Hajime said. “I know you don’t have any first aid supplies in your cabin, and we don’t need Mikan to tell us you have some standard virus. I’ve got painkillers and fever reducers.” Hajime held onto Kazuichi by the elbow, guiding him along to the correct cabin. He seemed beyond argument. He flopped onto Hajime’s bed as soon as they went inside, curling onto his side and closing his eyes.

Hajime hovered over him, feeling a pang of anxiety. He wasn’t used to caring for any sick people except Nagito, and caring for Nagito was a wholly bizarre experience all around. Hajime had never seen anybody swing so wildly between self-deprecating, passive aggressive and strangely clingy when he was forced to babysit a sick Nagito. Hajime figured Kazuichi might fall into the clingy category.

Hajime grabbed fever reducers from the bathroom cabinet and went to crouch beside his bed, shaking Kazuichi’s shoulder. Maybe it was the fever or the several days without sleep, but Kazuichi already seemed to be breathing deeper. There was a red flush across both his cheekbones, garishly bright against his pink hair. Hajime checked his forehead again; it was burning.

“Hey, dude, wake up. You’ve gotta take some medicine and go back to your own cabin,” Hajime said, shaking Kazuichi’s shoulder harder. Kazuichi whined irritably, reaching out a clumsy hand without opening his eyes. He managed to find Hajime’s face and tried to shove him away weakly.

“Kazuichi!” Hajime caught hold of his wrist, sighing. “You have motor oil on your hands. Look, I don’t care if you don’t want to take medicine, but go sleep in your own cabin. This happens to be my bed.”

Kazuichi didn’t move, breathing deeply. Hajime wasn’t sure if he was actually sleeping or just ignoring him.

“I kissed Sonia,” Hajime lied.

No response. Hm. Maybe Kazuichi really was asleep.

Well, what was Hajime meant to do now? He didn’t feel mean enough to boot his sick friend off the bed. He supposed he could go stay in Souda’s room, but he didn’t know where his key was, and he didn’t want to go rifling through Kazuichi’s pockets for it while he was sleeping - and maybe Souda needed somebody with him in case his fever got worse. Fevers could turn nasty, right? Not that Hajime would be any use, but he could go get Mikan.

Sighing resignedly, Hajime went to the unoccupied side of his bed, lying back to back with Kazuichi. Most of the bedsheets were trapped under his sick companion no matter now Hajime yanked them, but Souda was so hot Hajime was soon uncomfortably warm. The sleeping boy was taking up a lot of the bed too; he had Kazuichi’s hair in his face and elbows jabbing his ribs no matter what sleeping position Hajime tried. He sighed again. “You’re an utter pain to deal with, Kazuichi,” he mumbled into his pillow. “You need to take care of yourself before you get really sick.”

Hajime, though sure he’d never be able to even doze in this situation, must have slept at some point, because he woke with a start to find the bed shaking so violently he almost toppled off it. In his drowsy state Hajime wondered for a second if the island had any seismic activity, but the earthquake seemed confined to the bed alone. He sat up and fumbled to turn on the bedside lamp, rubbed the sleep from his eyes and turned to his sleeping friend.

Kazuichi was shaking violently, curled into a foetal position. His face had bleached several shades whiter and his fists were clenched tight, crumpling the bedsheets. His brow was furrowed and he made intermittent whines in the back of his throat, barely audible. Whatever dream was playing in his feverish head, it clearly wasn’t a pleasant one.

“Kazuichi,” Hajime called, shaking the sleeping man’s shoulder. Hajime could feel the heat radiating through Kazuichi’s clothes. “Come on, man, wake up.”

When he received no response, he shook harder, momentarily panicked. It was a mistake. Kazuichi jolted awake with a scream, the momentum sending him tumbling right off the bed onto the floor. He banged his head hard on the skirting board.

“Shit! Fuck, Souda, are you okay?” Hajime cried, hurrying over to Kazuichi. Souda scrambled backwards in a panic, clonking his head all over again when he hit the wall. His eyes hadn’t focused yet and he was breathing far too quickly. Hajime was starting to think he really should fetch Mikan.

“Kazuichi, it’s just me. Hajime. You know, your…” He paused, cringing. Only Kazuichi ever called them by that dumb name. “Your soul friend.”

Kazuichi looked up, locking eyes with Hajime. He didn’t stop shaking, but his breathing calmed slightly. For what felt like several minutes, both boys stared helplessly at each, unsure what to do or say. Souda swallowed thickly and finally whispered in a hoarse, rasping voice, “I’m gonna puke.”

“What?” That certainly broke Hajime out of the awkward staring contest. He grabbed hold of Souda by the wrist and yanked him across the bedroom to the bathroom, shoving him firmly towards the toilet. He turned to leave - he didn’t want to witness any of that - when something snagged onto the back of his shirt.

“Are you serious?” Hajime groaned. Souda felt too nauseated to dare opening his mouth, but he tugged insistently at Hajime’s shirt.

Hajime paused. Part of him - maybe even most of him - really wanted to brush Kazuichi’s hand away and flee the room before anything gross started happening. But Souda looked so… pathetic, sitting there trying not to vomit, still shaky and tearful from the nightmare, his hair tangled across his sweaty face.

Damn it. Hajime shouldn’t have looked at him.

“Fine, fine,” he sighed, kneeling beside Souda on the bathroom floor. He hastily gathered Kazuichi’s messy hair away from his face as the sick boy leaned further over the toilet. “You owe me big time for this. Especially when I end up catching this from you.”

Grumbling aside, Hajime stayed, managing not to complain or pull too many faces when Kazuichi was vomiting. He focused on holding Souda’s hair out of the way, glad he had one job he could manage. This comforting thing was way out of his depth. Souda kept one hand reaching backwards to clasp Hajime’s shirt, as if he didn’t quite trust him not to run away.

When the retching finally tapered off, Hajime released Souda’s hair and reached up to flush the toilet, grimacing. “Better?”

Kazuichi made a noise between a whine and a sob, head resting on the toilet seat.

“Well, at least it’s over. I’m gonna go grab you some water, okay?”

He stood up, but Kazuichi hastily lifted his head, looking outraged. “You’re leaving me? I could be dying here!”

“You’re not dying, Souda. Honestly, sometimes I think you should’ve been Ultimate Drama Queen.”

“Stay with me.” Kazuichi shuffled away from the toilet and latched onto Hajime leg.

“Souda, it will take me literally thirty seconds to grab a bottle of water. Now get off.” Hajime tried to yank his leg free, but Souda had a strong grip, even when ill.

“Nope. Don’t leave.”

Hajime sighed heavily. “Then get up and come back to the bed.”

Souda slumped down onto the cool linoleum floor, making sure to keep his arms around Hajime’s ankle. “Don’t wanna move. Everything hurts.”

“Oh, for fuck sake!” Hajime tried to pull Souda up himself, but Souda let his body go limp, sprawling across the bathroom floor, and Hajime couldn’t lift him up when he was dead weight like that.

“You know that’s exactly what toddlers do when they don’t want you picking them up,” Hajime snapped. Honestly, this was almost as bad as Nagito. Why did everybody mess with him when they were sick?

“I can see why. It’s very effective,” Kazuichi muttered.

“I could just leave, you know. Just say fuck it and let you lie there on your own.”

“Don’t.” The jesting tone had disappeared from Souda’s voice. He looked close to tears again, flat on his back and staring up at Hajime pleadingly.

Hajime tried to hold onto his frustration, but he couldn’t. Not with Kazuichi looking at him like that. He sighed and sat on the floor beside Souda, putting a hand on his forehead. “You’re burning up.”

“Keep your hand there,” Kazuichi mumbled. “It’s cold.”

“Fine. But if you let me leave I could get you a cold cloth for your head.”

“Noooo…”

“Okay, okay.” Hajime paused. Souda’s eyelids were drooping again. If he wanted to ask, Hajime had to do it quickly. “Hey, Kazuichi..?”

“Mn?”

“What happened? Earlier, I mean.”

“I puked.”

“No, you dope. Earlier than that. When you woke up. You seemed really terrified. Were you dreaming?” Hajime was already regretting asking. Kazuichi was sick and over-emotional. They were sitting on the bathroom floor, for God’s sake. Nothing good could come of emotional conversations on a bathroom floor.

There was another silence, so long Hajime checked to see if Kazuichi had dozed off. His eyes were wide open now, staring at the ceiling. “It was just a dream. That’s all.”

“Do you remember what it was about?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kazuichi mumbled.

Hajime sighed. “Look, it’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it. But it clearly freaked you out really bad. If there’s something you’re worried about or something that’s scaring you, I can-“ Hajime stopped as Kazuichi sat up abruptly. He kept his face turned to the wall, but Hajime heard the sniffles, saw his shoulders start shaking.

“Fuck,” Hajime muttered helplessly. “Kazuichi, I’m sorry. I’ll just be quiet. You don’t have to tell me anything. I’m messing this all up, I’m such a fucking idiot sometimes.”

“I’m a fucking idiot,” Kazuichi sobbed. “So stupid I still dream about him! Why can’t he just go away!” He went on talking, but he was howling too hard for Hajime to understand. He’d seen Souda cry countless times before, but this was different somehow. This wasn’t just wailing because some girl he liked had turned him down. This was raw, painful terror.

“Hey hey, calm down! You’re gonna make yourself sick again,” Hajime said, trying hard to keep the panic out of his own voice. He took hold of Kazuichi’s wrists, pulling him gently away from the wall. He’d meant to lay Souda down in the same position as before, but Souda instantly fell against Hajime’s chest, practically knocking him over.

“Right. Um. You’re okay. You’re safe here,” Hajime mumbled, patting his sobbing friend awkwardly. He wasn’t used to embracing people. It felt strange and unnatural but not unpleasant - and Souda clearly needed a hug more than anything else right now. “Souda, breathe. It’s okay. You’re safe. The fever is probably making it worse. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked about the nightmare.”

“Home,” Kazuichi gasped.

“Huh?”

“I was dreaming about being back at home.”

Oh God. Where was that Ultimate Therapist again? Hajime didn’t know how to handle this. He couldn’t sort his own problems, let alone anyone else’s. “Oooh. Okay. Shit. Your dad..? You mentioned him once before.”

“Don’t. Don’t talk about it.”

“Okay. Sorry. So your dream was a memory? When he… hurt you?” Hajime guessed.

The sobbing, which had been gradually calming, quickly returned to near-hyperventilating.

“Sorry, sorry. Breathe, okay?” Hajime’s own heart was thumping hard. This was way more than he could handle. “Look… You’re away from there. He’s literally across an ocean. It’s just me and you here. Because you usurped my bed tonight.”

Kazuichi gave a snort that could’ve been a laugh. “It’s not… not usually this bad,” he said, his voice still jerky with sobs. “I-I can handle it on my own. The nightmares.”

“Fevers make nightmares worse. I think. I’d have to check with Mikan,” Hajime said. “But at least you were here this time.” He was surprised to find he really meant that. He couldn’t bear to think of Souda dealing with all that on his own.

They sat in silence for a long time, until Souda’s sobs died down to sniffles, his head still resting on Hajime’s chest. The front of Hajime’s shirt was now damp with tears and snot, and Souda’s feverish body was like a furnace, but he didn’t suggest they move. After a long time he found he’d wound his arms around Kazuichi’s shoulders.

“Are you still awake?” Hajime whispered eventually.

“Mn. Barely…”

“Listen, this is important. If you have dreams like that any other night, you can come over here. If you want. Just knock hard so I wake up.”

Kazuichi shifted in his arms to look at Hajime’s face. “You don’t have to do that. Don’t feel like you’re stuck with me.”

“Maybe I don’t mind being stuck with you,” Hajime retorted.

A ghost of a smile flickered across Kazuichi’s face, though he was still red and tear-stained. “Then you’re fucking crazy.”

“It’s not crazy to want to be your friend, Souda. So will you ask me for help next time you dream something like that? Please?”

Kazuichi wound his arms around Hajime’s middle and squeezed so hard it made Hajime gasp. “Okay. I’ll come get you.” He paused. “Thanks, Hajime.”

Kazuichi fell asleep soon after, still pinning Hajime to the bathroom floor with his weight. And though Hajime would moan about how sore and stiff he was the next morning, he was still glad Souda came to him for help. Just about.

[duskroads]

Angie build update for the Donna cosplay Part 2

Part 1 Part 3

Ok so I probably should have updated this some time last week considering how much got done on this last week but I just did not have time til now.

This is probably gonna get long because of that so here’s a readmore

So last week I was visiting my family and it ended up being me and my dad working on this in his workshop for the most part (there’s other parts than just the above picture that didn’t take the whole week).

The picture above is the frame that I built, Dad has a ton of coat hangers that I stole both for this and for the arms and legs. 

The ones he has are this yellowy brassy colour from the drycleaners and I was like, perfect I can just use those they’d work really well colour wise for her joints. But dad pointed out that the colour was just a coating and he was worried that it wouldn’t do well in the oven, one heat test involving a meat thermometer and a very large heat gun he has for lighting his barbeque we found that while it looks fine in the heat, it get soft so it rubs right off afterwards. Cue me sanding a whole lot of coat hangers down.

The main thing that we were working on while I was there was the mechanisms for puppetting the head.

(See when Dad takes a photo he bothers to clear the space before hand lol)

The handle sits inside the bottom of the frame with the aluminum pipe we’ve been calling her spine goes up to just under the head, the fiddly bits beside it slot into the front of the pipe and go up the tube (they’re flipped over so it’s easier to see the moving parts).

The sideways Y shaped thing controls the up down movements of the head with my middle and ring fingers, it’s attached to the thick wire behind it with some springs you can’t see from this angle so the head’s resting position is more neutral. 

The piece above it opens and closes the mouth using the piece of fishing line it’s tied to.

I can turn her head back and froth by just rotating the entire spine.

We also got started on the bits that live inside the head.

Sadly we did not get a chance to finish either the controls or the head pieces before I had to leave, partially because the mechanisms were having more hiccups than we expected, and partially cause we just ran out of time. Dad thinks that the wire he was using is bending inside of the tube which might be what’s causing our issues. He’s going to finish it on his own and mail me the parts when he is done.

This means I can’t work on the head until I get those parts but I can start sculpting the rest of the body.

Before I left I also made hair for her. @cinnacorn taught me how to do this (she learned it from a number of doll repainters but hextian in particular, she says that his custom ursula doll video details it best) 

But you take Yarn, unravel it, put in around something in a larks head knot, brush it with a wire brush to really break it apart (if you’ve got a really heavy duty wire brush you can get away without unraveling it first, but if you’re blending colours it’s easier to space things out better if you unravel it), hit it with a straightening iron, trim off the knot, lay it flat on a silicone mat, put some hot glue at the top, while still hot use the edge of the mat to wipe away the excess glue, when it's dry trim away the excess,

Then do it 80+ times over the course of 6 and a half hours with two people working on it (thank you again Ele) to get enough for your giant doll head.

I’m using a light sage green and a grey brown to get that ‘this maybe was blonde once’ look, where it’s more streaky is going to be layered over so it blends better.

It looks super great and if you used colours that were closer together and actually styled it, it totally would look like a person’s hair. However this is a technique that clearly was meant for smaller doll’s heads, not ones as large as I’m making. As it is I ended up needing a bandaid halfway through cause the wire brush was eating the skin on my thumb from pushing the yarn through.

I also got fabric for both Donna and Angie, some from a shopping trip and some from my mother’s stash. (Some of that lace trim is in a Zellers container, which for those of you who aren’t Canadian, Zellers was a chain that closed in 2013 so that was a fun find)

Mom also has a stash of nail polish she uses as a craft supply. Me: Hey mom do you have any dark purple nail polish I can steal Mom: yeah it’s on the bookshelf in the guest room Me: Oh.

(90% of it is drug store stuff so not as expensive as you would think but still, that’s just the purple)

Mom also gave me a crackle paint that I need to experiment with so that’s going to be exciting.

I got home Sunday night and I spent most of the yesterday wrapping the frame in chicken wire.

I now hate chicken wire.

Today I managed to get two coats of the clay on the front and one on the back (need to do them half at a time cause it doesn’t fit standing up in my oven)

Still a few more layers to go, I need to bulid up her upper torso a bit and her shoulders need a lot more on top of them, I should have put more chicken wire there but I was worried about interfering with the spine. I have a piece of the tube to use as a mock up to make sure I don’t do that, but it’s a lot easier to break away the clay when it doesn’t have the wire in it.

I know her hips go really wide here but most of that’s going to be under her dress and I need that space to put my hand, and also so she can have a wide enough base to sit when I put her down.

I might close up her back a little bit more but the farther I go the less I can turn her head. It’s a trade off cause the fabric’s going to be tight on the body and then have just empty space there so it might be more noticeable if I leave it open. Still thinking on that one.

I’ve also cut to length and bent the coat hangers that will go inside her limbs but haven’t got any clay on them yet. A few of them I can get one loop on right now but the rest are going to have to wait until I’m putting it all together.

I did this by wrapping it around a giant nail that my dad and I found in his workshop that we cut down so I could put it in my suitcase, and then put it into a block of wood so I could clamp it to my table.

Then you use some pliers to bend the longer end of the wire so the circle is more aligned with it then wrap the shorter end around it a few times and trim it. I also filed down the sharp point where I cut it cause I’m worried about them catching on her clothing.

This is all fairly easy to do now, we will see how it is when I’m trying to do it with the rest of the limbs already on the wires.

Anyways that’s where I am for tonight, I have the rest of the week off so hopefully I’ll get most of the sculpting done and maybe (maybe) start sanding and varnishing it as well.

[itsbenedict]

Star Seeker

Datasouls

TFJ recap logs

AWS Certified Solutions Architect

Ergonomics

Light fixture repair

The Sekimeiya

Disco Elysium

TFTBN character portraits

Beatrice

TPIVW

Storage unit

See a doctor

7 WaniKani levels

April wasn't bad! Got a lot done at work, was the main thing. Three of the four big projects are resolved- there's still one that's giving me headaches, but I can balance it with other stuff. I finished reading the study guide for the exam, and I've taken some practice exams (though I'm gonna keep doing those until I start batting better than a 65-70 on average- there's a lot of fiddly details to be wrong about), and now I just need to actually schedule and take the test.

I also got a fancy new standing desk! It goes up! It goes down! I can have my arms rest at a comfortable position, and I can stretch my legs without breaking flow! Good stuff.

I also just got done with Ludum Dare, which was pretty intense. I'm happy with how it came out, on a technical level- and on the other levels, though I can't take as much credit for those since the art and writing were mostly Zero's show. You can play it here without audio or use this Dropbox link because the LD site's file hosting seems to be shitting the bed right now.

What else, in April? Played some video games. Touhou Lost Branch of Legend is a Slay the Spire clone but has a colored mana system and some QoL improvements (and is Touhou-themed, ofc), and is pretty fun overall. Wildfrost is another roguelike deckbuilder thing but oof real hard. Lotta ways to die out of nowhere. Not as fun. There's a Fire Emblem 8 mod called Vision Quest that I got through part 3 of- writing's nothing to write home about but it's good classic GBA FE stuff with some interesting mechanical tweaks.

Speaking of Fire Emblem, I'm working on a game engine and content tools for a FE-alike game, which, okay, was not on the list but I gotta chase certain opportunities. Which I can't talk about yet. Also did a couple art telephone games, per usual, which turned out pretty okay. And finally got a vacuum cleaner, which means less sweeping and fewer unreachable corners full of dust! And a midi keyboard, so I can practice music. Lot of little things going on.

-

For May... new Zelda's coming out, so I shouldn't get too ambitious with how much time I'll be spending productively. I'm going to try and force the issue and find a primary care provider that won't just put me on an infinite waitlist, and finally get a damn doctor's appointment for the first time in like four years. That plus scheduling and taking that certification exam, and getting back on the horse with WK (two levels to go!). Plus more work on that FE engine, probably.

in lieu of a new years' resolution, i'm just going to go ahead and make a checklist for everything i want to get done in 2023:

get star seeker sequel adventure thing up and running and through the first case

get datasouls combat toy complete up to the first miniboss combat

catch up on TFJ recap logs

become an accredited AWS Certified Solutions Architect and get that raise my boss has been talking about for ages

get an adjustable standing desk and under-desk elliptical thingy, and otherwise get an ergonomic workstation set up

fix the light situation in the bathroom

get through The Sekimeiya and really go to town on that mystery until it's solved

also finally play Disco Elysium

finish TFTBN character portraits

get a beatrice portrait for my poster wall

run some TPIVW games

badger the condo association landlady until she does something about the junk clogging up that basement storage room i'm supposed to own, and clean unused bulky stuff out of my house

clearly this waitlist thing isn't working out so take some steps to see an actual doctor for the first time in like three years (and maybe get a cancer screening, or do something about that closed sinus)

get through the remaining 7 WaniKani levels

[formulatrash]

Hey Hazel I value your opinion regarding formula e highly, that why I'm coming with a question that raised a heated discussion at our Dinner table today:Do you think that Vettel could hypothetical have a chance in formula e ? Not like if it is possible, more like performance wise? Thanks in advance, have great weekend and stay safe💞

I don’t think that Vettel would enjoy Formula E. Which isn’t a failing on his part, just a difference of driving style.

Formula E cars are very difficult to setup to any highly configured degree; it’s the nature of the series, they’re unstable to drive, they have very little grip and the few things you can meaningfully change in terms of mechanical setup you sort of have to roll the dice on at the start of a day where conditions will change continuously between every session.

It’s one of the things drivers really like about it; it’s scrappy and very raw and you’re often physically fighting your own car, as well as having to follow the cerebral elements of power and temperature management. 

One of Vettel’s several great strengths, as an F1 driver, is setup. He likes to have a car that’s working perfectly for him and can extract unbelievable things from it when he does have that, is able to give very detailed technical feedback and work closely with mechanics and engineers and even aerodynamicists and designers to be able to do that. 

There’s just no window for that in Formula E. And although some elements of the racing, like strategy being very much in the drivers’ hands, might suit the fact he has very developed race craft I think the other elements of the series would annoy him - the single-day race format, the lack of ability to work on and reflect and analyse things so much as breathlessly just do stuff. 

The close-rubbing racing would frustrate him and I think the fiddliness of the power management would really wind him up - Vettel has never really lionised the full powertrain era and FE is nothing but that. Seb is a driver of the aerodynamics age and FE just can’t offer much in that respect. 

I think all the older ones in F1, bar Hamilton, would really find it annoying and disheartening. Lewis likes scrappy action so would probably adapt quite fast - conversely, I think basically all the recent rookies would probably adapt just fine and indeed potentially have a really great time. 

I might be wrong, of course. Maybe Vettel would find a complete new lease on life clashing front wing-to-diffuser and trying to eke the last bits of regen out while Lucas di Grassi’s looming in his rear view mirrors but instinctively, I don’t think it would be his sort of thing.

[lightkrets312]

2, 5, 6 off the character list for ur three fools? :0 (and 4 off the player list for u if you'd like--)

*breaks fingers* *r2d2 scream*

2C: As a crewmate, how would you best summarize their role/job? (Electrician, Medic, etc.) 

Tinker’s the easiest to nail for this one, he’s the ship mechanic/electrician! O2, Electrical, jobs like that are typically what he works well at, and he’s strong enough that manual labor’s not a huge issue. He’s not adept with technology (re: medbay) but he’s got enough know-how to use a tablet.

Mimm works well at Comms and Navigation tasks, and they’re REAL good with technology, so unofficially they’re the ship’s pilot. They’ve got the right eye for those sorts of details and fiddly parts.

Cherrie does some of the more dangerous tasks, like Engines and Reactor. They can do Nav and Comms, though Mimm’s taken that well over, and currently they’re attempting to teach themselves more about how Medbay works, but those aren’t exactly their specialty.

5C and 6C: Favorite and least favorite tasks?

Tinker: He’s good at wires and calibration! As for least favorite, he absolutely dreads dealing with Medbay. He’s heard stories about scientists and doctors, and he’d rather not give them anything to work with. It’s a hot topic of conversation between them and Cherrie.

Cherrie: Card swipe’s an absolute breeze, but they’re genuinely considering rigging up a gas can transport system at this point. If they have to make two fuel trips another goddamn time...

Mimm: Favorite task would probably be between meteors, course correction, and course charting. And ironically, they hate download-based tasks the most. Having to sit for ages on something so hideously inefficient... horrible. Let the others handle it.

4P: What’s worse, scanning alone in Medbay, filling the Engine tanks, doing Simon Says in Reactor, or having Electrical tasks? 

Medbay feels like a disaster waiting to happen, but it takes a solid 4th place.

Electrical is a live-wire task (ironic) - am I going to get assassinated while doing my chores or will I leave with my head intact? Hard to say!

I’ve gotten killed a fair few times in Reactor, which, for me, gives it the silver medal for Top Tier Skeld Death Trap. (Mira also has Simon Says but the reactor sabotage is infinitely more lethal than simon is.) Not the worst.

The engine task, however? Can go to hell. I swear to god if I have to make another hideously inefficient double-trip to fuel the engines... (first place, only for how long and tedious the task is; i welcome the impostors with open arms)

[prof-bramble]

You said in a previous ask your family made pokeballs how does one make a pokeball

Hmmm, I suppose it’s not too hard an ask in theory, but really, it takes a few years to learn to make one. Mostly because you have to create the mechanism for catching the Pokemon each time; there’s no mass producer of them.

Or, rather, there is one... But at that point, you may as well just buy Pokeballs, I’ve found. Plus there’s no customization on a pre-made Mechanism!

Anyway, that’s not quite what you asked, so I’ll try and write down the step by step.

1. You choose your Apricorn. This can take as much or as little time as you like, but it is rather important. An Apricorn with rot, holes, or other blemishes, is far more likely to fall apart, after all! Plus, the color does affect a bit of the inner properties; Density, hardness, weight, etc. are all indicated by color!

2. Once you’re sure your Apricorn will work, you need to decide what you want out of it. Do you want a light, fast, Quick ball? Or do you want a custom Luxury ball? Or perhaps you’re after a specific Pokemon, and need one for the job? Whatever Pokeball type you need is the one you’ve got to make, and you need to decide this now before you progress.

3. After you decide what you’re doing, you carve the Apricorn to your specifications! Wander’s Apricorn Ball is a custom one just for him, so I carved it to match his build and personality. Its light, as I carved more of the Apricorn out than usual, and softer, because of the fruit I used. It also has designs carved and dyed in its outer shell, which both help reduce weight, and are decorative! All of this is something I did at this stage, by cutting it in half, hollowing it out, and adding as much detail as I wished.

4. You create the Mechanism. Now, these are fiddly and can be a bit overprecise; if you’re off on your calculations even a little, it will spit your Pokemon back out and not tag them! I won’t go into the specifics, but you can also customize the Mechanism on these to suit your Apricorn Ball best! Wander’s for example is a gentle tug, rather than a forcible pull into the Pokeball. It doesn’t work with all Pokemon, but he’s rather sensitive to it, so it works fantastically for him.

5. You carve out where the Mechanism goes, and insert it. Since Mechanisms change each time, you want to carve the slot for them last, to make sure the fit is perfect! Can’t have things like that wobbling or falling out. A perfectly carved Apricorn Ball should hold the Mechanism in place without even requiring an adhesive of any kind, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t add some, just to be on the safe side!

6. Add a tracker! Trackers aren’t done with modern Pokeballs, because its expected you will be using quite a few of them, but they’re good to have in these specialty ones, so you don’t lose the ball if your attempt to catch the Pokemon fails! Once that’s installed, you can activate that and the Mechanism, and...

7. You’re done! That’s the process for making Apricorn Balls!

This was something most people knew how to do back in the day, but since Silph Co. and others started mass producing Pokeballs, the demand has gone down. Don’t get me wrong, I love how available Pokeballs are! It makes it really easy for new Trainers to get into, and with how Apricorns have a hard time growing if you’re not actively taking care of them, its no shock that Apricorn Balls became less popular.

I really only do it because its calming for me. I was taught how to do it by my family, and it became a habit. Even when I was a Trainer and used Silph Co. products, I still ended up carving wood and fruit stones in much the same way I carve Apricorns. It takes a few years to learn, but once you get the hang of it, the knowledge never really goes away!

[locksmithadvice-blog1]

How To Be A Locksmith Professional

Locksmiths hold all the keys nowadays. No, they do not really contain the secrets of different doorways within an establishment, but they're those who built them into. They you can get in when you have locked yourself too much, and folks out who wish to enter. If you wish to improve your locks, require a knob or door re-keyed, or didn't remember the mixture for your safe, you'll need a locksmith professional. Locksmiths frequently make the work they do appear easy, but performing well requires lots of skill, training, and persistence. An excellent locksmith professional surprises their customers using their efficiency and Cerrajero Madrid.

Before security engineering grew to become a training program, locksmiths functioned as fundamental security consultants, because they possess the specialized understanding to inform if your building or facility is safe by trying to pressure, pick, or outwit various locks. If you wish to be a locksmith professional, below are great tips that can help:

Condition yourself. As was pointed out earlier, locksmithing may be more difficult because it appears. So prior to deciding to take the next phase (that is signing up for an exercise program) you need to make certain that you're physically and psychologically ready to get it done so that you can have the ability to finish this program. One method to prepare would be to approach a practicing locksmith professional in your town and find out if they are willing to inform you the ropes. Many go like a surprise locksmiths need to go through a lot professional training.

Gather all of the necessary data. Including general details about locksmiths in addition to the best way to sign up for courses and be an authorized locksmith professional. You might find classes in a local college or adult education center, or perhaps have the ability to complete a web-based training for certification. Before you sign up for a particular school, check first if it's accredited through the Connected Locksmiths of the usa to be able to be confident that you're in a good training center. Some states even require this certification of practicing locksmiths.

Persistence, persistence, persistence. As being a locksmith professional means coping with many small, fiddly, moving parts - in creating keys as well as in maintaining various locking tumblers and mechanisms. This is not great work for individuals who're easily annoyed by repetitive tasks or quick to anger. Assess yourself how to determine if you are as much as doing fine, difficult work, sometimes while being viewed by perfect other people - your customers - who might be in a rush themselves.

Decide what sort of locksmith professional you need to become. Unlike what many people think, you will find really different types of locksmith professional. The typical ones that you might encounter are individuals specializing in houses (doorknobs) and locks in cars but there are more fields available for example master key specialist, safe specialist, as well as forensic locksmith professional. If you wish to learn to be a locksmith professional for entertainment it's wise to coach in vehicle and house locks - not just might these skills prove useful to suit your needs, but they're probably the most commercially in-demand, providing you with an art-set rich in value. Don't allow the regularity with this particular you have to behave as a locksmith professional surprise you!

[frillyfacefics]

A New Purpose (Ronan/Yon-Rogg) - Chapter 3

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Yon-Rogg put all of the diligence he would have given his own armour into cleaning Ronan’s boots, and more. It wasn’t an unpleasant task, sitting on his bed and polishing those heavy, tall boots. After a while, he even felt a strange, almost meditative calm coming over him. This was something that had staid the same. This was a skill his former life had given him, and that he still could use in his new life.

He could do this, he thought as he finished up the second boot. He could grow into his position. He could be useful to Ronan. And who knew, if Ronan thought highly enough of his service, maybe he’d put in a word for him. Maybe there was yet a chance that his life would be more than this. Maybe there was a path back to his old life, even.

It was dangerous to hope, but what else was he supposed to do? He had always been a fighter; otherwise he would never have earned his rank as a commander. He had never been one for just accepting what seemed on the first glance to be unchangeable. Maybe if he worked hard enough, even the impossible could happen.

The next days went on in a monotonous repetition of the same tasks. During the day he cleaned Ronan’s quarters, made his ridiculously large bed, decked his table and cleaned it off after Ronan had eaten; in the evening he cleaned his boots. After about four days, though, at least a little bit of the monotony was broken when Ronan brought him other parts of his armour to clean, additionally to his boots. By the end of his first two weeks, Ronan spent about two hours in the evening cleaning Ronan’s boots, his vambraces, his shoulder plates, his body armour and finally even the finely meshed metal tunic he wore beneath it (which, as Yon-Rogg knew, was a completely useless but still much-loved part of an armouring tradition among the Accusers that went back several millennia). It was hard work, but when Ronan’s valet came to him on the night of his fifteenth day with Ronan’s helmet in his arms and the orders to polish it, Yon-Rogg felt as if it had been worth it. He knew that an Accuser would never give his helmet to just anybody. It was a strange feeling to know that he had earned Ronan’s trust in such an intimate way - because what could be more intimate and important to a warrior than his armour?

He slowly started to feel more comfortable in his role. It was odd to feel useful as a servant - his successes as a soldier had been easily measured and painstakingly recorded, but the greatest pride the people he was working with here knew was to know that they did their work like it was expected of them, in such a way that nobody ever really noticed that they were there at all. This was really something Yon-Rogg couldn’t empathise with. If he hadn’t known by the continually growing pile of armour he was taking care of that Ronan very much noticed him, he wasn’t sure if he would feel as content as he did. There were still moments, especially when his knees were hurting and his shoulder was burning because he had been on all fours for hours scouring the floor, when he wished he could just burn the entire ship to the ground, but they became fewer and fewer as the days went on. He even started to use the communal shower - and after he made the very pleasant discovery that both one of the female servants and the younger male servant would wait for him to use the shower before they went in so they could ogle his battle-hardened body, he made sure to have at least a quick rinse every evening.

He also took up his old confined-space training regime again, after he had woken up one night in a cold sweat realising that if he didn’t do anything to keep the bulk and definition of his muscles, he would sooner or later lose them.

It was a month after he had started his new role, nearly on the day, when the old valet came into his room carrying the armour he was supposed to clean. This wasn’t unusual at all, since it happened every night; what did make this night different from any of the others was that the valet stayed after he had put the armour down, instead of just turning his back and walking out.

“The master wants you to assist him tomorrow when he dons his armour,” he said in his flat, disinterested voice.

Yon-Rogg had just been reaching for his cleaning kit, and those words took him so much by surprise that he missed the kit and grasped at nothing.

“Are you serious?” he asked.

The valet shrugged. “I have no idea what exactly he is thinking,” he said, “but yes, that was his command. So you will bring his armour to his rooms tomorrow after he had breakfast.”

The Accuser’s morning rituals had always been something that happened between him and his valet, the same as his night rituals. Yon-Rogg hadn’t even seen Ronan out of his armour yet. It felt as if he was being invited to conduct a sacred ceremony, but he didn’t even know the sacred words he would be required to recite.

“I have never done more with an Accuser’s uniform than clean it,” he said, still perplexed.

The valet held out a data tablet. “You have an entire night to learn how to put it on, then.”

Yon-Rogg took the tablet, which was showing an interactive schematic of an Accuser’s armour. The valet turned around without another word and closed the door behind him.

So that night, after he had spent nearly two hours cleaning the Accuser’s armour, he spent another two hours experimenting with the various closing mechanisms until he was positive that he would not make a complete fool of himself the next day. He didn’t get much sleep, but there had been missions during which he had slept maybe two hours in forty-eight. He was sure that he would still be alert and ready in the morning.

*******

He waited in front of Ronan’s door a quarter of an hour before he knew Ronan would end his breakfast. In one arm he was holding the armour, which he had suspended on a special portable rack, with the helmet on top, in the other he was holding Ronan’s boots.

The valet opened the door at the exact time he had told him earlier, holding a covered tray that held the remnants of Ronan’s morning meal. He looked at him for only a moment before he stepped out, leaving the door open so Yon-Rogg could step inside.

Ronan was still sitting at his breakfast table. He was wearing black under-armour, including a black veil of a similar shape as his helmet. For a second, Yon-Rogg was disappointed that he wasn’t going to get a glimpse of Ronan’s bare head - he had heard that the Accusers shaved off every hair on their body, and while that was obviously true for his eyebrows, he would have liked to see whether it was true for his head also.

As it was, it was also interesting to see him outside of his armour. He was still tall and muscular, but not as broad, not as massive as he looked with the armour on. There was an odd grace to him as he stood up, pushing the chair away, and walked towards one corner of the room where two mirrors were installed in the walls. He stood there for a moment, looking in the mirror, before he turned his head towards Yon-Rogg.

“Do you need an invitation?” he asked.

Yon-Rogg startled at that; he had been far too preoccupied with staring at the taut muscles that were visible under the black under-armour.

“Of course not, Master,” he said, then he carried the armour over to Ronan. With a small motion of his hand, Ronan pointed him to a hook where he could hang the rack; then he watched him as he put the boots down below the rest of the armour.

Yon-Rogg took a deep breath while he undid the mesh shirt from the rack. This part was the easiest; he simply handed Ronan the shirt and Ronan slipped into it. The only thing Yon-Rogg had to do was to gently tug it into place. With how close his hands came, he could feel the warmth of Ronan’s body, and he definitely took a little longer to make sure every part of the mesh shirt was in place than was strictly necessary. Only when he caught Ronan’s look in the mirror, the tiny, knowing smile in his eyes, did he turn away, his face flushed, to take the first part of his upper body armour off the rack.

Ronan raised his arms to let Yon-Rogg fit the piece around his torso. The clasps on this one were rather complex, but Yon-Rogg had spent enough time practicing yesterday that he ended up only closing one of them in the wrong way; it was an easy mistake to correct. A more experienced valet might have gotten it on faster, but he thought he wasn’t doing too bad for his first time.

Unlike the Starforce uniform Yon-Rogg had been used to, the Accuser’s armour was largely ceremonial, and so it was rather par for the course that it was inordinately detailed. The side guard came in two pieces, both of which had to be attached to hidden clasps in the basic upper body armour. It was highly fiddly work, especially since the heavy guard had to be held up while the closing mechanism was connected to the lower layer. Yon-Rogg was nearly positive that this had been designed with two valets in mind, but he still managed to get it on somehow. He fixed the additional clasps at the front, then he did the second side guard.

His work wasn’t made any easier by the fact that he needed to stand quite a bit closer to Ronan to get the side pieces on, and that Ronan had to hold his arm up during the entire feat. So not only did he literally have to duck under his arm when he was behind him but needed to adjust something in the front, but he was also getting to become quite familiar with the smell of Ronan’s body. He had obviously showered before breakfast; he smelled like standard issue soap, and it gave Yon-Rogg a little thrill to know that even those at the topmost end of the food chain were given the same hygiene articles as mere foot soldiers. But there was something beneath that scent of soap that distracted Yon-Rogg from his task twice; a musky, earthy smell that made a decidedly inappropriate warmth run through Yon-Rogg’s body. He caught himself again quickly both times, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that Ronan had noticed. There was nothing as obvious as that look he had had in his eyes earlier, but still…

The back guard and the shoulder plates were far easier to fasten than the side guards, and so where the arm guards, which were still a bit of a bother though, since they came in two parts per arm. The right vanguard gave him a few problems, since he fixed the clasps in the wrong order, but Ronan didn’t make any remark when he opened them again and started from the beginning.

Only the boots and the helmet remained now. Yon-Rogg couldn’t help the flush that rose in his cheeks as he went down to his knees before the Accuser. Ronan was still not making any comments, and Yon-Rogg was extremely glad for that. It was only a small consolation that the first man he ever knelt before was somebody of the status and power of Ronan.

Ronan lifted his foot so that Yon-Rogg could slip the base part of his boots over it; then he held up the individual plates so that he could fasten the highest clasp. When he inadvertently touched the back of the Accuser’s knee, a ripple went through the muscles before his face. Was that… He hesitated for a moment, then he cast a quick glance up at Ronan. The Accuser was pointedly staring into the mirror; there was an expression of displeasure on his face that immediately confirmed Yon-Rogg’s suspicion. Ronan the Accuser, Commander of the Dark Aster, scion of one of the highest noble houses of Halla - was ticklish.

Yon-Rogg lowered his eyes to the toe of his boots to hide the grin on his face. Now that was interesting. Quite useless, but still interesting.

He fastened the rest of the straps of his boots, then he did the same with the other boot, though this time he was careful not to touch the backside of Ronan’s knee again. Once he was done, he stood up and walked over to the rack, where the last piece of Ronan’s armour, his helmet, was waiting.

Yon-Rogg would have to put the helmet on Ronan’s head from the back, slotting the neck guards perfectly into the corresponding groves in his shoulder guards. Asking Ronan to bend down to make it easier for him would be a breach of protocol, as the notes about the helmet in the valet’s tablet had told him. And since he couldn’t stand behind Ronan and see the mirrors at the same time, he had to do this blindly.

He tried to tell himself that he had done far more difficult things in his time; that the consequences for failure here would be merely mild annoyance on Ronan’s part. Yet he was still nervous when he took the helmet and stepped behind Ronan, so nervous that for a moment he was afraid his hands would start to sweat. He lifted the helmet so far above Ronan’s head that he could intuit where the edges of the neck guards would go, then he carefully eased it down.

There was a little clicking noise when the neck guards slotted into the shoulder guards. Yon-Rogg walked around Ronan to correct the fit of the helmet. It was already nearly perfect, but after Yon-Rogg had given it a last little nudge, it sat completely straight.

Ronan looked himself over in the mirrors, then he glanced down at Yon-Rogg.

“Quite well done,” he said, then he turned around and walked towards the exit of his room. “From now on, I want you to be here every morning at the same time as today.”

Yon-Rogg stood up a little straighter. “As you wish, master.”

[mijimonn-blog]

Will COLOSSAL ORDER'S AMBITIOUS CITY BUILDER FILL A SIMCITY-SHAPED HOLE?

The implosion of the SimCity establishment a year ago punctured all the way open in the city-building recreation sort, however in spite of some respectable endeavors no studio has truly stopped the hole left by Maxis' falling behemoth. Six-man group Colossal Order is planning to do only that with its aspiring title Cities: Skylines, which hopes to give players back a portion of the control they lost in SimCity 2013.

The sun ascends city skylines infinite money over your sprouting city. It's very little from the outset, only a couple of parkways and streets, possibly a few private regions. More Smallville than Metropolis. Luckily it doesn't take long to begin molding it into something more amazing. Associating up streets and parkways is simple, with a customisable street apparatus that can be utilized to draw either tight, American-style network cities in straight lines, or the cluttered up chaos of sweat-soaked workers and confounding bends that is Central London.

Plonking down new structures is as straightforward as picking the fitting brush – private, mechanical, etc – and covering up the region you need to expand on. Houses will begin as humble ghettos, and gradually develop after some time into sweet midtown cushions. Modern locale will develop into oil and smoke regurgitating behemoths, and an ever increasing number of residents will immerse your city to search for work. Everything's kept moderately basic as far as structuring the fundamental outline of your town, however once everything is set up there's a lot of chance to delve into the mechanics of civil arranging.

Each house can be analyzed in detail, and tapping on one raises a tooltip with the proprietor's present state of mind, wishes and grievances. Clearly you'll require better than average administrations to keep your regular folks glad; a proficient and prudent power supply, sufficient sewage and utilities, not too bad instruction and open administrations. Individuals are so grisly penniless, right? In like manner, expenses can be balanced for every individual segment. Poor, low-expertise laborers may acknowledge low expense groups, while beneficial business segments can be saddled for huge money rewards – yet perhaps disturbing business people and partnerships into sodding off to enlist their organizations in Monaco.

Fortunately the procedure for managing all these conceivably fiddly frameworks appears to downplay the busywork. Electrical cables, for instance, can be plonked down beside a hydro-control station, and associated back to the important private area – no micromanagement expected to ensure each house is set up, as long as the lines arrive at the local you have all the juice you need. Conceivably troublesome and unappealing buildings like coal power stations have a noticeable sweep when you place them, indicating the distance away they should be to stop everybody in your city gagging to death on coal dust.

Another Policy framework assists modify your city's foundation. You can cut up your city into different locale, every one of which you can name and place separately. You could, for instance, mark out a minor yet unfathomably princely tax-exempt locale in the focal point of town, acting like a gated network for your most extravagant residents. Each region has its very own arrangement of Policies, laws and deciding that you can set up to change productivity, money yield or assurance in that zone. In the event that you have an industrial segment of town loaded up with loud and hazardous processing plants, for instance, you may see your regular citizens start to feel progressively perilous. To facilitate their worries, you may present an obligatory fire wellbeing drill Policy, which will reduce the opportunity of your affectionately set structures being scorched to an ash.

Just according to area choices, Colossal Order additionally has a couple of city-wide Policies that impact each and every occupant. Heaps of degree for intruding with each segment of your city like some crazed tyrant. In the event that you need to manufacture a clamoring business focus loaded up with coffeehouses and high rises, proceed. In the event that you'd preferably regulate a rambling ghetto city you can boycott tall structures in everything except the most well-to-do locale. Player control is the name of the game, and by the appearance of things the engineers have given us a lot of instruments that make it simple to tinker with each part of our manifestations.

That stretches to beneficial instruments, as well. Cities: Skylines will transport with a benefit proofreader, letting the skilled modding network think of their own models and substance, just as a guide supervisor. Maps can stretch to an incredible 36 by 36 kilometers, and once you've redesigned your city to the most elevated levels it's extremely a sight to see. Right now you can just form in an enigmatically North European style, yet Colossal Order is thinking about including the alternative for various building styles post-dispatch. Transcending high rises command the horizon, while tiny laborers potter to and from work at the production line. Zoom in to road level, and you can beware of every regular citizen's present mind-set. They'll even tweet supportive remarks at you through a Twitter-esque internet based life administration.

[dahtwitchi]

@alaricathecat sent an ask

You’re such an amazing artist! I’m sorry if you got this question 100x times already, but what media do you use to paint your pictures? I’ve been looking for a new media type, and it looks absolutely fun (and perhaps really difficult?) to use, but I’m nothing but stubborn if I do say so myself. Lmfao. Anyway, your art is stunning, I wish I could have art class with you, because I believe I could learn a lot from you

First of all: Thank you

I’m guessing you are talking about the most common style I’m using right now?Easiest way is to show, I guess, so I documented the process of my last drawing ^^ I’ll go into detail under the cut! (there should alsobe miscellanious things under the tag #how I art)

Basically, it’s bottled ink with a few touch ups. Everything but the glass of water is in the first image (coffee, very important, and KEEP IT ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF YOUR WATER to minimise risks of inking up your coffee!!), including the sketches I did of orcas in preparation for this piece. Always find ways to nag yourself into some sketch studies whenever you manage! I hadn’t drawn orcas before, so I just set a timer to 40 minutes and drew a few of the first images that came up when googling.

I use mechanical pencil for the sketch, a 2B 0.7 lead, which I get excess lead off of with a kneaded eraser. This help not to clog the tips of pens or brushes with all that excess, and the ink go on the paper not on top of the graphite. I rough line it with a thin waterproof ink pen (today that ended up being a 02 micron) and then use the kneaded eraser to remove the rest of the sketch. The kneaded eraser is worth gold! Get a good brand one, though, because there are some really crappy out there, and the brand ones I find don’t generally cost more in any case. They are supposed to be really soft and possible to drag out loooong very easily and quite fast. You might get stuck stretching it over and over and over and over- yeah.

Then I move on to the ink, and watercolours or gouache depending on what’s closest when I’m about to sit down. The brushes are the only thing I’ve bothered to get hold of high quality ones. I splurged with birthday money, and I’m weak they were so good! A single decent one that hold liquid well and don’t let go of it in great blobs was fine for quite a while, though.

Here come the trouble with my technique though, because what I use for paper is printer paper x’D Not the cheapest one, but step above, xerox big pack for colour print. The surface hold up surprisingly well, and I have also used it for markers as it doesn’t bleed through very fast. If can’t handle liquids well at all, though x’D Bubbling, people! The trick is, as little water as possible and let layers dry inbetween. A bit fiddly, but lower the cost a lot for these not high class artwork pieces. (also a lot of the low cost, but still far more expensive, watercolour papers actually handle water worse than these printer papers, sooo

The ink is thinned out with water, a can lid work excellently as colour cups! A dip into the ink, put it in the lid and add a some droplets of water. I use a clean moist brush, but let excess water bleed out from the brush onto toilet paper, then bring in the amount of watered down ink I want and apply. My different brushes need different ratios of water and ink in them to let go of the same amount of liquid and colour, so learn your brushes! The more expensive brushes are able to let go of practically all ink and practically none is wasted in the water glass, while the cheap brushes always have quite a bit of ink left in them despite not really letting go of more to the paper.

Then it’s layering time. But not too heavy layering, as the ink I use reactivate again. Making sure not to work the surface much, as it too easily crumbles. Oh. And getting distracted by how pretty ink in water is. Maybe dip the brush an extra time just to see the pretty swirls~

First few layers are all over, not that much confined to inside the lines. Help to create more depth and movement in the end. I try to shade the lighter areas first, as the darker colours will bleed when layering over them. The very darkest clear edges last, on perfectly dry paper, to ensure clean contrast lines. 

The shading from dark to light, I make sure to have a dipping of water sucked up high up in the brush, then relatively dark ink. When you then go from dark to light, you’ll get less and less colour. The smoother a shade you want, the more important it is to work wet and not risk the paper suck up colour and end up with sharp edges where you don’t want them. Usually with liquids, you apply water first, then add in the colour in the wet area, but you can only do that with good (expeeeeensive) watercolour paper. So, here you have to work fast and confidently.

Or. You know. Get shades in ways you hadn’t planned, and either just make it all lots darker, or pretend it’s all fine. That’s a skill to learn, too! Very important one x’D

I use maybe… 2-5 dips into the ink in total for these pieces, so a bottle of ink really isn’t very expensive compared to what I get out of it. 

When I’m happy with the ink, I add in touches of colour. Still with little water, and it will mix in with the ink. Gouache you can layer on top better, but I’m just accenting a bit, so solstice blue it was x3

Then we have the white el tip pen. That I have to stop myself from overusing completely x’D Outlining things like the weapon and dividing line between body and furthest fin to stand out more, added in on the eyes that was a tad bit too dark and adding shinies to body and such.

Lastly I go over with a ink pen again, or possible my smallest brush if I can be bothered, to just touch everything up.

And that’s it. With disturbances and cats and kiddo and all, it took about 1.5 h, preparations and digital after work (adjusting what the scanner killed, and tiny adjustments here and there, made his right pupil smaller as it was too big, for example) excluded. 

I really like working the ink and the brushes. It got such life and soul, the medium give it’s own twist on what you try to make. I did get a grip on the ink thanks to inktober, where I at least 2/3 worked with the bottled ink to prompts, so that the point became making something with ink rather than forgetting your medium in favour for motif. Sketching and exercises and time limits, those are what have made me take the biggest steps in art. Making truly elaborate pieces have been about having a bit fun with the skills you have, but the journey of growing as an artist isn’t about those anymore for me. It’s surprisingly freeing, and the day you discover hard work on sketch exercises make you suddenly able to sketch a wide variety of things just like that? It’s complete awe ^^