#used a different color combo than i normally do

[achingly-shy]

i was tagged by @daisyjohnsn to make myself using this picrew. thank you!!!

(no pressure) tags: @prrcyjacksons @percyjacksonss @swearphil @placeinthisworld @sparklezfallsinlovewithbooks

[donelywell]

October 5 2023

I changed things up because it's got Frontiers Final Horizons Spoilers. I know the updates been out for like 2 months now but I'm being really cautious.

Super Sonic was really fun to play in the base game, having the auto combo thing on and just seeing so much bombastic energy and over the top moves being thrown at giant titans was so much fun.

I did however, not read the instructions where they tell you to hold the parry, I thought it was a perfect timing thing like a normal parry. So fighting Giganto and Wyvern for the first time was a nightmare for me until I actually read the instructions. =v='

For the design, I didn't change much, Super Sonic is really cool. I basically just changed the green parts of his shoes to red to reflect his new eye color.

Super Sonic² was so cool! The casual backhand slap, the sass, the move where he basically does the idw move, the finger point when he gets back in the game!

The only issue I had is that I didn't understand at all how to fight the final boss. I didn't 100% complete the map so I didn't get the hints. (I am still stuck on the stupid ball hoop map puzzle thing, I swear there is no way to do it) So unfortunately, I had to look up a guide. That kinda dampened the experience, but there was no way I was fighting Supreme over again, getting to the same glitch because I killed him too fast, and then fail the final boss fight again because I didn't know I was supposed to press r2.

I made his quills seem like they are turning into flames at the tips, I made his torso kinda have a sun symbol on it, I made his secondary fur white and his base fur/ quills bright yellow to kinda give it more sun imagery. His arm patterns are a little more detailed, his gloves have kinda formed into the body, making the cuffs look like they're on fire too. His socks turned into bandages and blue rings floating on him with the soles of his shoes kinda smoking on the back. It was a lot of fun interpreting this design differently, giving it a more ancient vibe with a modern twist. The original design is still really cool too!

Cyber Super Sonic... one of the coolest forms in my opinion and yet we see him for less than a minute in only a cutscene. I'm not complaining, the cutscene was so cool! Me and my sibling were star struck when we saw it!

I love the Fleetway elements! The sharp teeth, the crazy eyes, the chaotic behavior that almost made it seem like if Cyber Super Sonic wasn't being literally shot out to his enemy, he'd not be able to tell between friend or foe! God, it was so cool!! Even if it was just limited to a cutscene where you can barely see the entire design in a single image!

I did actually have a static version of this image too, but I'm not including it because it gave me eye strain, and I don't want to hurt you.

For the form I actually decreased the amount of polygons on Sonic. If you look, he's more angular & simplistic and his legs and arms are rectangles! I thought it'd help give him more of a Cyber Computer vibe. I used the blue static and made it kinda an accent color so you can see where things are. I don't really know why, but I also made some parts of him detached? The inside parts have the white spirals that Cyber Super Sonic's eyes were.

The update was a lot of fun to play when it came out, even if it was EXTREMELY challenging for a casual player like myself. Almost made me quit a few times and a couple guides were begrudgingly looked up. Playing as Tails and Amy were definitely the highlights of the update for me though. I hope it was as much fun for you as it was for me. :)

[sycamorality]

@ceruleanstarbreak okay SO

making this a post bc i love yelling about scavengers.

quick note bc im not sure where else i'd put it: eyes are either really dark, really light, bordering on white or a solid inbetween vibrant color, at least from all the scavengers i've seen and can remember.

the most common colors are grays, whites, blacks, browns and oranges - colors you'd usually see in animals irl like cats or dogs. the rarest are yellow (actual yellow and not an orange that looks yellow) and cyan. accent colors (this is just a term i use - but i use it to refer to the color that sometimes appears on frills/spines and as eartler deco, and on occasion the belly) of these two are much more common than body/head.

i have a folder of the first 11k scavengers (+ a few extra above 11k if they had colors like blue/etc so the numbers are a Little inaccurate but i think they work just fine), and the color commonality (is that a word?) goes as follows: orange - 142* pink - 100* blue - 70 red - 42* ** green - 33 purple - 32 yellow - 0 cyan - 0 *there may be more/less, this is my own view on colors. **there might be more, i'm not sure if i organized all of them yet, i wouldn't be surprised

not counting gray/brown/etc because those are extremely common

all scavengers have heads that are darker than their body, however, there is something called bodyblack that makes the body darker, and sometimes this causes the head to be lighter than the body, because techncially the head is still lighter than the body. 973 is a VERY good example of this!

scavengers also have arm blend - it is always the head color, but can sometimes look like it isn't because the blend doesn't go all the way. (their legs and tail never have a gradient) and we can't forget eartler deco! to my knowledge (i don't exactly know everything about scavenger code but i do know at least a decent bit from observing a whole bunch), eartler deco can be the same color as the eyes, or be a completely different color. eartler deco color can also be used for spine blend (which means the spine blend can also match the eyes or not), even if the eartler deco isn't visible on the scavenger. 6194, 7491 and 4572 are good examples of this!

their head color tends to not stray too far from their body, but sometimes, they do stray pretty far from it! i've noticed some combos are much more common together while others just don't exist at all (to my knowledge of course - i don't know every scavenger but i've seen a whole bunch of them). here's some examples!

whole bunch of interesting combos, yeah? the ones that are more wild like the last three are usually much rarer than the ones you see reoccuring (like the pink/orange + blue and pink/orange + green). sometimes the belly can also get an unusual color (and i'm not exactly sure how that works, it tends to seem like it has a color of its own and tends to be lighter than the body, and on occasion seemingly match the head but not exactly).

now i can really mostly only comment on 0 through 11k, but other combos i've seen (listed [body color] + [head color]) are:

white/gray + green

white + pretty much any* color

cream + pretty much any* color

yelloworange + purple or blue

red or orange + dark brown

gray + purple or blue (most commonly, but any* color is possible)

any pale color + its brighter/more vibrant variant (like pale purple + bright purple)

...and probably more, but they usually tend to match together well, unlike mr no scavnificant harassment (51620372) over here.

now, usually scavenger frills are rather. well, normal looking, and sometimes they just get SUPER frilly, but other times... they can get a little weird!

these are the best examples i have on hand right now, but i think they suffice well enough. 3222 looks like a hunchback, and 1646 has frills that do quite literally float off its body, as does 8804 (while also just having an interesting shape to them). of course there's also the frill colors that can theoretically be practically anything, and those also get wild pretty often

now these aren't the wildest i know of, but they're the ones i have images on hand of.

the rest i can't really comment on at length is the eartlers, 'teeth' (weird little shapes by their mouth) and head shape. sometimes eartlers are really thick and tall, really thin and small, or somewhere inbetween. sometimes scavengers have eartlers on the bottom of their face and sometimes they don't. sometimes two points on the eartlers visually 'merge' together, which is mostly visible if a scavenger has eartler deco, because it still applies to the separate points.

that should be all! unless i forgot something... in that case, oops, my shitty memory strikes again.

[lemonjestercoffee]

so i said something about alicorns being funky in my last mlp redesign post yeah? well before i get into that-

the beautiful bride and the ugly ass groom

okay okay jokes aside here's Shining's real sheets and Cadance on her own

starting off with design choice notes

Shining Armor - his was like- really hard to figure out and i didn't really know what i was doing, but i did like the concept of him having lost a leg in some sorts of battle. one thing i did know what i was doing with tho was his armor, i never really liked the canon armor so i decided to take my own stab at it. decided to make it cover the more important areas better, added gambeson underneath, put a royal crest on it, and gave them a head weapon. yes the metal horns are on all species armor, it's there not only to protect real horns from oncoming attacks but also give all soldiers an emergency weapon if they get disarmed. the tassels would be colored differently depending on rank

Cadance - the only through i really had going into her design was i wanted her to have a cloud and heart motif, but i'm unsure if the way i handled it is the best. her cutiemark is meant to resemble a Mexican sacred heart because deity of love- like come on. i also wanna kinda change the color of the carnation in her hair to stand out more, but white carnations have a different meaning so it's fiiiinee

okay now what we really wanna hear about, what the fuck did i do to the alicorns?

i decided to tamper with their lore quite a bit, as i was inspired to by the Skyscraper Gods Au by Shirecorn. now mine is no were near as drastic as that au, obviously, but it did inspire me to come up with my own quirks for them.

i went more "alicorns are more like the elves of ponies but because they can only be made by some unexplained rare mystical intervention and live for fuck off long, normal ponies see them as demigods of sorts". i've even given them things like groups or locations that they act as patrons of and prioritize above other things, but that stuff gets a little rambley so imma not do that on this post

for the anatomy tho, i can talk. i'll be using Twilight as a visual example because she's the one i've drawn in all stages

so basically the concept here is pretty similar to the canon, but with some funky add-ons.

first up- when an alicorn ascends, not only do they gain the wings/horn combo and grow an inch, they also gain some other unique anatomy from the other species.

Unicorn- along with the horn, they also receive the ear tip tufts i gave unicorns. these actually have a purpose, they're sensitive to magic energy and allow unicorns to tell where magic is coming from. depending on the unicorn they vary in sensitivity but alicorns are by far the most sensitive Pegasus- along with the wings, the get some of the extra feathers pegasai have on their bodies, namely the ones on their ankles that are used for finer trajectory adjustments in flight. they also receive the sensitivity of their hooves that's used to pick up changes in cloud texture and sense their stability Earth Pony- earth ponies may seem like they don't add shit, but they actually give two very important things. the first thing is a strength boost, as they're stronger than the other two pony species by nature. the other thing is dense as fuck hooves. that sounds kinda lame but they have rock hard hooves that allow for them to dig into dense materials and have a kick with some real bite in it that the others just can't replicate and might tear their own hooves up trying. they also add the visible fluff in the ear canal. but that's just a dust filter and if isn't cleaned properly might actually be more of hindrance

it's worth noting- if you look at Cadance and Twilight side by side- that despite being given extra anatomical traits from the other species they will always look more like the species they were before ascension. this is mostly visible in the ears, tails, and hoof shapes -unicorns have long tails with hair only growing from the underside, basic ears, narrower hooves, and usually have long fetlocks as part of their culture. -pegasai have short tails that are completely covered with hair and have rudder feathers at the base, pinned back feathery ears with restricted movement, and really shallow hooves with no fur around them -earth ponies have medium tails with even hair growth around a third of the way down, basic ears, and slightly taller hooves with varying fetlock sizes.

second up- the only uniquely alicorn physical traits that they really have (aside from height) are their hair and beards. unlike normal pony beards that are made of the same hair as their manes, alicorn beards are made of coat fur and will grow a specific length each year that marks how old they are kinda like tree rings. due to this the alicorns don't try to cut them. the manes are kinda funky cause they start out at the roots as normal hair, but then become more "ethereal" after a few inches or so. they tend to start to become ethereal roughly 10 years after ascension

they do have one more weird trait but it's less noticeable and that's the thing with the patterns. when an alicorn is first ascended they gain an extra pattern on their legs, and that pattern gains a second layer around the time they start to get their ethereal manes. you can see it happening on Twilight's lineup.

there's also a bonus thing here that has nothing to do with alicorns as much as it does unicorns- but i like the idea of Unicorn tails (flesh/bone, not hair) getting longer with age. it's usually not too noticeable because they don't normally live long enough for it to be really noticeable compared to younger unicorns, but alicorns do- so former unicorns can end up with some long ass tails in their 1000's

that's all i really got now- if i added in magic and social stuff this would have been way longer. i'm done with my rambles

[snek-panini]

Happy Halloween! Have a book:

This is Siren's Song by @kedreeva (Hi! I asked to bind your fic months ago, sorry it took so long XD). It's an incredible Good Omens siren AU, which needs no introduction from me but it gets one anyway. It's one of the most in-character fics I've ever read, tackles a lot of the most resonant themes of the original (love in the context of aromanticism and asexuality, human labels in the context of non-human perspective), and has incredible world-building. Later parts of the fic always make me cry but they're good tears. You'll see. When I first learned that fanbinding was a thing and started looking into how to do it, this was one of the first fics I thought of. It just took me a while to learn the skills I needed before I could do it.

More pics and process talk under the cut!

So the cover up there is black faux leather and momi paper that I bought...about two years ago? And just kept on hand till I was ready to do this project. This is the first time I've worked with it and it was fairly nice, though harder to get a nice crease into than lokta or chiyogami. It felt very fragile when I was handling it but I didn't have any issues with tearing or glue bleed-through like I thought I might. It did bleed some color when I got it damp with the glue, and it took way longer to dry than normal, but once that was done it's been fine. Which is nice because I have a lot left over, so it'll probably be making many future appearances in my binds.

Look! It's rounded! I got a backing setup recently and this is my first time using it. It was Very Hard and I am not very good at it yet. But I think it looks pretty good for a first attempt, and there was really no other way to mitigate the spine swell on this one. I used a thick paper so I've got a thick book. I also tried something new with the case, though it isn't visible. Usually I make the text block and the case separately and then attach them as the last step, but for this one I actually built the case around the text. Like, boards attached to mull/tapes (sandwiched between thinner boards, with grooves cut for them so there are no bulges), then covered with momi, then leather corners and spine, then paste down the endpaper. It's got an oxford hollow, too! The tapes and mull actually wrap around the outside of the boards instead of the inside like I've done before. Endpapers are my favorite feather chiyogami. Combined with the marbled momi they make for a very opulent look, and I had just barely enough to do this. Like, down to the millimeter. I had to trim the edges and then glue the endpapers after to be sure they were right. I'm glad they were, because I didn't have a backup plan. Handmade endbands, colors picked to match the cover. Also, last note, I got the corner bits right for the first time. Measured properly, with no weird pointy bits that come out at funny angles. Very proud.

Title page and bookmark/interior shot. Did you know that some basic fonts in MS Word look different when you use a huge font size? Because I didn't until I made this title page. That's Parchment for the title, and it only gets those swirly bits around the capital letters if you take it to 26pt or higher (I used 72 here). Now I wonder if any of the other fonts have easter eggs in them like that. The ribbon is very fancy, to go along with the rich endpaper/cover combo. I think it's pretty appropriate for a mythological golden age of piracy story, as are the text ornaments:

Chapter header image, chapter end image, and section break image. It was a very image-heavy typeset. I was originally planning to only have a header and a section break, but I couldn't decide whether I liked the ships or the book/shell/feather better, and they both suited the story so well that I just went with both. Again, opulent, but I think it fits. All the images came from rawpixel, all I did was resize them.

There was a small error in the trimming process. Comes of having to calculate so closely the exact amount you can trim off, that you have to trim off so your slightly-too-small endpapers fit. I think something got misaligned when I poked the sewing holes because only the first signature is like this. The rest of the book has a more appropriately-sized margin between the page number and the edge. I got very lucky here, and I know it, and I'm never cutting it this close (lol) again. Next time we just order another sheet of chiyogami.

And that's it! I have one author's copy and one new bind in progress right now (that's taking a while because I'm learning more new stuff for it), and then I have two Christmas gift books to do, so it might be a bit before I have another book to share.

[w1f1n1ghtm4r3]

so i like the april fools shuffle units a normal amount. i have done redesigns for almost all of them and i draw them A Lot.

rambling additional notes on all of the redesigns below

a couple notes if you ever want to draw any of these redesigns for yourself at any point: i'd appreciate being credited for these redesigns (obviously anyone not redesigned i don't need credit for lol) and you don't need to follow my specific skin tone + hair/eye color schemes i have laid out. those are how i personally like to draw the characters and i've included them for anyone who might want to stay completely accurate to my redesigns, but you're welcome to use your own preferred color schemes for the cast when drawing them with these outfits!

now onto the fun(?) stuff

aoharu is pretty straightforward with redesigns, its basically just leoni but with a sun theme instead of stars. adding the image for the color palettes for the unchanged designs just because it has the notes for ichisaki too (their changes were too minor to completely redraw them, in my opinion).

ichika remains entirely unchanged design-wise other than adding a sun pin to her suspenders. saki stays mostly the same too, other than changing the design on her armband and switching her pigtails for a ponytail (in an attempt to seem a little more mature/imitate airi's hairstyle/move on from her childhood self since she's started to believe that honami and shiho want nothing to do with her and ichika anymore).

not too much to say about airi and ena's outfits either, i wanted to go a little more cute with airi and cool with ena, but there's minor changes with both of their hairstyles, with airi switching her pigtails for a ponytail as well (moving on from her idol days but still maintaining her usual sort of style) and ena's hair being a bit longer/messier.

yyj is definitely the most drastic, they're the only unit where i changed every single character... i have a lot of trouble drawing the mmj outfits, but also the lighter color scheme and clover theme just didn't really make sense for yyj to me? so instead i went with a mainly black and character color combo for their color schemes, alongside gold and white to accent it and a more spacey/dreamlike theme. everyone's black and white are slightly tinted with their character colors too!

they're split into pairs for matching accessories, but it doesn't mean much otherwise. kanade and an both have the dangling star charms and a single larger wristband (with those being on opposite sides from each other) as well as no buttons on the front of their outfits, while both hinomoris have the large bows on the backs of their outfits, smaller wristbands on both arms, a legband, and star shaped clips (like the other pair, the clips and legbands are on opposite sides from each other) and they do have buttons. they're split differently for the same style outfits though, with kanade/shizuku and shiho/an being the matching pairs this way.

kanade has the most obvious design changes. i swapped her character color to a medium-light blue rather than red, because tbh she kind of stood out too much if she was still red. she's not meant to be the leader of the unit, she doesn't want to stand out. her hair is a lot shorter than canon and she usually keeps it braided for practice and performances (and leaves it loose otherwise) (both the haircut and style were initially suggestions from shizuku). shes the only member of the unit to wear tights and to lack any star shaped hair accessories.

shizuku i don't have that much to say about, i had designed kanade first and then shizuku to match. its pretty straight forward i think? she's got the tallest socks not counting kanade's tights though.

for both an and shiho i wanted to go a slightly cooler/less feminine direction, while still sticking to the general theme i had going. which lead to the shorts and vest combo! otherwise the only notable change with either of them is that an's changed her clips to two regular gold ones and she's got a ponytail now when they practice/perform, much like kanade's braid.

fts was both very fun and an absolute pain to redesign because on one hand, i can do whatever i want, on the other hand, it's like vbs there's really no consistent theme to carry through everything. except a lot of layers i guess. so my goal was to kind of merge their casual aesthetics with something more vbs-like.

tsukasa wearing his jacket incorrectly was inspired by my own tendency to do so whenever i get too warm. i think he just does it because he thinks it looks cool though (its a little silly and a pain to keep it on but he's committed to the look). also leaving his middle layer as his fish jacket from his casual sprite was a funny little thing i thought worked for him.

with rui my goal was just pockets. lots of pockets. they're probably hiding little robots and tools in those pockets. i should have put more pockets on their pants too but oh well. combine that with wanting some obnoxious bright greens and blues and at least one item that kind of clashed color-wise with the rest (their pants in this case) and this is the result. the sketch doesn't convey it well but their black jacket and pants are both kind of loose, while the green hoodie and tshirt underneath fit okay. also their hair is kind of long if they ever untied it, but no one ever sees that.

hapisen for the most part sticks to their canon sprites, just simplified slightly for my sanity. mafuyu's costume still drives me insane to draw though, that's so many layers to think about.

other than questioning my sanity every time i draw mafuyu, there's only one change from her sprite, which is making her hairtie one decorated with pompoms much like a lot of other parts of her costume. i just thought it tied things together a little more.

the upper half of haruka's outfit is more or less completely unchanged (other than making it fit in a way that looks slightly more masculine), but then i replaced his skirt with pants and gave him boots (wxs meiko, who is the sprite haruka's outfit is originally just a recolor of, wears heels). i figured if i was going for a more princely sort of design for haruka then changing those felt fitting. beyond that he's obviously got shorter hair (a choice he makes after seeing kohane decide to change herself, wanting to embrace the genuine person he wants to be beyond the idol people knew him as) and that's about it. hits this guy with the transgender beam.

kohane's outfit is really just a bit simplified from the original with sizing/proportions of elements adjusted to (in my opinion) suit her better. the ribbons in her hair felt like a cute addition (and i like to give kohane ribbons in general), while her hair length is an in between of her two standard canon ones, longer than the usual one we see but shorter than pre-canon/early mainstory. her glasses are optional, she changes between them and contacts with how she's feeling for the day and what kind of shows hapisen is planning. the more intense the show, the less likely she is to wear her glasses.

kyushumi was kind of intended as niigo but without one member in a mostly white outfit since they don't have someone like kanade who is intentionally trying to save people. although they're also a little happier off anyway, so they don't need someone like that. they're my most drawn shuffle unit, so also probably my most thought-through redesigns.

each design takes slight inspiration from a member of niigo (nene/kanade, minori/ena, honami/mafuyu), but that was just kind of as a personal guide for what kind of vibes to go with for the outfits. they've all got personal touches to them.

nene's hoodie is very loose on her body and arms, but a normal fit in the length, and her shorts are actually long enough to be seen. she just wants to be comfy, she's tired a lot, very low energy girl. glasses because i think nene should wear glasses anyway, so as opposed to canon nene who i like to believe just favors contacts, this nene does not.

minori is pretty obviously similar to ena's outfit, but there's a few nods to mmj in here. she's got clover shaped earrings, the pattern along the bottom of her dress is meant to resemble the tips of the clover leaves from mmj's symbol, and her shoes are just the mmj unit outfit shoes in different colors.

the goal with honami's outfit was simply "how little skin can she have exposed" because i imagine her being more worried about that than usual here. so long sleeves, long skirt, high collar, etc. her hair is longer (for no particular reason tbh, i simply liked how it looks) but still styled the same, and she's got a solid red scrunchie now. the four buttons on her outfit are all meant to look like the moon, two full moons and two opposite facing crescents. also i will never stop joking about the fact that she's naturally the second tallest girl in the cast (not counting vs, then she's third tallest) and i gave her tall heels on top of that. she is towering over all of her unitmates here.

while you're welcome to use these designs for any (non-incest) ships you'd like, i do have a personal list of ships that are canon to my own au with the shuffle units, which is what i originally designed these for. the "canon" ships are

ichika/saki

ena/airi

honami/kanade

akito/touya

mafuyu/rui (qpr)

haruka/kohane

mizuki/nene

however you are not by any means required to follow these specific ships! i have no desire to enforce the ships that go with these, so draw whatever ships you might prefer with these designs. i'm happy to see anything!

anyway if you made it this far congrats on surviving i know this is a lot of text o7 i hope you've enjoy my silly little character design insanities ^^;

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

Fulgrim's toga

Ok I need to share this with y'all.

So during the war council about the war on Laeran, we get this description:

"The primarch wore a long flowing toga of pale cream, and the dark iron hilt of his sword, Fireblade, was visible at his hip, the blade itself sheathed in a scabbard of gleaming purple leather. The flaring wings of an eagle were embroidered in gold thread across his chest and a slender band of lapis lazuli kept his silver hair from his face."

So far so good. For those keeping track, Fulgrim probably looks something like this:

But as the council is wrapping up, this happens:

"'Then the word is given, Captain Kaesoron,' said Fulgrim, casting off his robes to reveal his magnificently polished battle plate."

There's a lot to unpack here. First of all, the usage of the word "reveal" implies that his armor was completely hidden. A toga very notably leaves half the chest uncovered. So Fulgrim isn't just wearing his armor beneath his toga, he's wearing it beneath his tunic. And remember...power armor is full plate. It covers more than a classical tunic-toga combination. Let's fix that image:

But even this image isn't enough. As @lolipop1920 points out, this is what Fulgrim's armor looks like:

I don't have the art skills to edit this properly, so I want you to pause for a moment and try to picture how a toga-tunic combo would look draped on top of all that. You can leave off the cape.

Yeah.

And remember, the text says describes this moment as a REVEAL. Apparently Fulgrim walked into a room with a tunic/toga pulled on over his POWER ARMOR, and nobody noticed.

But it gets better! Fulgrim casts off the whole ensemble to reveal his power armor! Again, this is what a toga looks like!

So either he unwound his toga and then pulled his tunic over his head...OR he just ripped the whole thing off his body.

Normally at this point I'd say, "Graham McNeill just doesn't know how this garment works." But check out this bit from a little earlier in the book:

"First Captain Julius Kaesoron was a man not used to conflicting emotions, which made his current situation deeply uncomfortable. Dressed in the triumphal purple of his toga picta and the martial red of his lacerna clock, he cut an imposing figure as he marched swiftly to the Heliopolis...A pendant of fiery amber hung around his neck and nestled between the carved pectorals of his golden breastplate."

Someone's been doing their research! I'd argue that most Westerners have some idea of what a toga looks like, it's a pretty iconic garment, but the different varieties of togas? The Latin name for the cloaks/capes that the Romans wore? Hell no.

(Also note that Kaesoron is also somehow wearing a breastplate with his toga. A toga picta is just a purple-colored toga with gold embroidery. It involves just as much complicated drapery as a regular toga--possibly more, since it's a very formal garment. I guess he could wear the breastplate over his tunic and under the toga, but that still seems like a weird combo).

So yeah, McNeill definitely knows what a toga looks like, and he still wrote this scene. And of all people it's Fulgrim who pulls off this fashion atrocity! FULGRIM! The primarch most famous for his style, elegance, and class. The peacock of 30k. That's the guy who just walked into a room with a tunic and toga pulled on over his goddamn power armor. This is at the war council for Laeran! He hasn't even set foot on the snake orgy planet! You can't blame this on Slaanesh!

[theskeletongames]

You said on Deviantart that you use clip studio paint EX for your drawings, do you have a specific brush set you always use, or at least a few brushes you like the best?

I have two types of brushes I mainly use for lines and sketching. It's only been in the last two years I've gotten into texture brushes/custom settings and making my own variants on them. Generally, you'll get use to whatever you're drawing with if you spend any amount of time with the brush, so it's not that important to have specific brushes unless you are texturing.

My sketching brush is the default Design Pencil with the texture mode changed to normal. This keeps it darker and prevents the weird greying that happens at the tails. This is the one you see for lines on my less cleaned up images. I like it cause it has a bit of texture and does get darker but not too dark when you pass over previously drawn lines. Many people prefer to sketch with stabilization turned down, but I like to keep it just as high as when I'm lining. My lining brush use to be the G-pen standard, but I've recently started trying out the Real G-Pen for it's slight texture. Real G-pen works better at smaller line sizes so keep that in mind. I've turned off the pressure on the Real G-Pen which means the brush will always draw at the selected size and has no trailing tail. I'm thinking it gives a cleaner effect than changeable size brushes, but I'm still working with it before I decide.

For filling in color, I use a combo of the fill tool and cleanup with the regular G-pen. G-Pen has a nice hard smooth edge and is flat and can change shape well depending on pressure. It's easy to work with for coloring, and I don't have to constantly change it's size to get a different stroke width.

Last one is airbrush. I only ever use it for lighting effects where I'm creating a gradient or smooth transition effect. I don't use it for drawing, and would suggest to avoid using it or any smeary brushes for color or shadows. When in doubt, always go hard edge. I'm still learning texture brushes, but would love to release some when I make my own.

[is-the-battlemech-cool-or-not]

Blood Asp

I very much like the Blood Asp. It is well-armed, has appealing aesthetics, and has weapons suited to long and short range engagements. A sibko of mine claimed one as isorla after a battle against Hell's Horses, and used it extremely effectively in battle. Plus, it looks exceptionally gold in Falcon green-and-gold; with those colors, it reminds me of certain Terran snake species.

(OOC: I love the Blood Asp. First time I laid eyes on it was in MechAssault 2, and boy did it leave an impression. The wicked looking twin Plasma PPCs, four Machine Gun Arrays in the arms (at least that's probably what they would be if translated to actual BT stats), and Long Range Missiles for plinking.)

(I admit though that I liked the "Star Adder" variant more, with its quad Autocannons, Flamethrower, and Plasma PPCs, though it should've had Short Range Missiles - they reused the Blood Asp model in a different paint scheme, and didn't bother covering over the missile tubes, which to my kid brain meant, "well, this must have missiles, then, even if they aren't usable". Maybe some combo of SRM-2 and 4s, to account for the twenty tubes.)

(They really ought to add the Plasma PPCs into BattleTech, they're super cool. I've no idea how they'd be statted out, though. They do less damage, create less heat, and charge a lot faster than the normal PPCs in the game. They seem smaller well, though they'd probably take up less space and weight, but idk.)

[campbyler]

alright to you lovely people who sent us asks about the party's eras tour outfits, i present to you:

The Eras Tour (Party Version)

el - el is a speak now girly through and through!!! i mean come on, the purple aesthetic of it all, plus the fun, whimsical vibe you can go with to dress up on the tour! and you know she has 13 painted on her hand and song lyrics written on her arm.

max - reputation EASILY. let’s be serious, max is such a reputation girly, so you know she’s going all out with her black outfits and the snake jewelery and some killer makeup (think smokey eye and dark lipstick).

lucas - LOVER!!!! we are firm believers that lucas is a lover fan, and it’s a fun opportunity for him to do something different and wear some sequined or more colorful outfits. plus max as rep and lucas as lover is absolutely iconic.

dustin - i think dustin decided to go to the tour because all his friends are going, so he’s not really going all out for a costume! but he did snag a shirt like one of these which was simply iconic of him

mike - mike also doesn't really strike any of us as a flashy guy, so he's probably not going to wear anything too fancy or out there. mike goes with rep and wears some leather pants with a button down top plus some slightly heeled boots. (he did, in fact, enjoy being even taller than will than he normally is, but that's besides the point.)

will - will decided to go full debut. i’m talking country overalls but paired with a mesh t-shirt underneath. he mostly does it just to fuck with everyone but also maybe mike especially. no noah schnapp hat though, thank goodness. (also apparently mesh shirt + overalls combo is impossible to find so use your imagination)

[domripley]

Giver II

Pairings: Yelena Belova/Reader; Natasha Romanoff/Wanda Maximoff

Warnings/Tags: Light Dom/Sub, Daddy Kink, Semi Public Sex, Begging, Fingering

You had texted Yelena that you had the whole house to yourself, and that if she wanted to come over when she wasn’t so busy. You were surprised when she texted back almost immediately with “Send the address. I’ll be there in ten.” Why you were suddenly nervous, you had no clue, but you hoped it would go away soon.

When the doorbell rang, you jumped up off the couch. You had set up the table for dinner you planned to order out for the two of you. As soon as you opened the door to find her in a black suit, your nervousness went away.

“You look…so good,” you said, hoping that you weren’t being too awkward. You were completely under dressed, with a green shirt on, and white sweatpants. You almost wanted to go get changed into something much better.

“Thank you, (Your Name). You look lovely, green is a great color on you.” she smiled, following your eyes to see what you were looking at. When she figured out what it was, she continued once again. “Oh, I do plan on changing when - if you want to watch a movie. I brought a change of clothes.”

“Good, especially since being in a suit isn’t very comfy, I can imagine.” you laugh as you take her suit jacket from her.

“Going to be honest, they’re nice on the eyes, but I hate wearing them.” she laughed, sitting down at the table. You had noticed she wasn’t wearing dress shoes, instead she had biker boots ones. You had never seen anyone wear the two together, but you didn’t bother to question her fashion sense. You guessed that once you own a club you can dress in any strange combo (hell you’d wear some questionable choices either way).

“I can’t really cook, so I thought I could order something for us?” you offered, but she shook her head.

“No, grab a coat. I’m taking you somewhere, my treat.” she insisted, and you bit your lip. “What do you want to eat?”

“I could go for some french fries, and spaghetti to be honest…” you trailed off, which wasn’t a lie. You had been craving them since getting there.

“I’ll get you some french fries and spaghetti then.”

—

Yelena took you an hour and a half away from Wanda’s house, but you weren’t complaining. Not when Yelena kept a conversation with you, which you really liked. Even as it fell silent, it wasn’t awkward at all.

“You’re pretty too, Yelena.” you smiled as she continued to drive. Biting her lip, she placed a hand on your thigh. “And, I’ve been thinking.” You took a deep breath as the two of you reached the restaurant. Pulling into a parking spot, and turning the car off, Yelena turned to you so she could give you her full attention.

“I would like to try things out with you, but the thing is I just met you yesterday, and if we do this I have a few things.”

“Of course. I respect that.” she said, and you swallowed. The words were forming, but you had figured out how to say what you wanted.

“I’m not really looking for someone to date, as in keeping my time with just one person, if that makes any sense. I would like to spend time with you though.” you admitted.

“And that’s more than okay with me. I don’t really do romance, however, I would love to spoil you in two different ways if you let me,”

“What are those two ways?” you asked, turning your body fully so you were facing her.

“The first way: I would love to spoil you. Buy you things that you want, take you on trips. Hell, even fly you out here one to four times a month if you wanted. The second way, which is optional and you can say no to this and I’ll respect that. If the second part isn’t for you, I still want to spoil you.”

“Normally, I would probably say no, but I like talking to you, and the fact that when we text we actually talk. I want to do both, but maybe just the second way for awhile. If that’s okay?”

“Of course, that’s perfect,” she smiled softly, pulling you into a hug. When her phone went off, she looked a bit annoyed - but as she sent a fast text and put her phone away, she smiled at you.

—

As the two of you ate dinner, you asked about her club. Telling you that she inherited it from her father, she said she enjoys running it herself instead of having help. Aside from Natasha, of course. When it was quiet, it was actually a relaxing type of quiet, and you were thankful for it. Yelena’s phone went off once the waiter took your plates from the table. You could tell she was trying to ignore it.

“You know you can answer it if you want to, it won’t bother me.” you smiled.

“Thank you,” she said, reaching for your hand. As she held it, her free hand reached into her phone. Looking at her phone, her smile turned to a frown. “I’ve gotta go to the bank to get some money for the club, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be! We’re done eating, and I don’t mind going with you!” you assured her, rubbing your thumb over her knuckles.

“You’re too sweet.”

She flagged down the waiter, and handed her the card. “Thank you for understanding, I really appreciate it.” she smiled, getting up as soon as the waiter brought her card back with the receipt.

The ride to the bank was comforting, but as you began to think more of what Yelena had told you. You wanted to do it much more, and you planned on letting her know after she was done with what she needed to do.

You closed your eyes, listening to whatever song was on the radio. You were brought out of your thoughts by Yelena. “We’re here, love.” she said, rubbing your thigh. You let out a whimper loud enough that you knew she heard you. But thankfully, she chose to ignore it. Getting out of the car, she led you into the bank.

After getting the money she needed, the two of you made your way back into the car. Once inside, Yelena asked, “Before we leave to go, I’ve gotta ask: why did you whimper when I touched your thigh?” You figured Yelena was going to let it go, since she didn’t bring it up when you first happened.

“I, um, I was thinking about something when you touched my thigh. I’m sorry,” you admit, turning your head so Yelena couldn’t see your face.

Taking a hold of your chin, she turned your head so you could face her. “What were you thinking about malyshka?” she asked, smirk spreading as you bit your lip.

“Thought about you fucking me in your club…but it’s not empty so we can’t do that.” you whispered as Yelena traced your bottom lip with her thumb.

“Yeah? You want me to fuck you in my club? Knowing anyone could catch us?” she asked, pulling her hand away. You nodded, letting out a breathy “yeah” before turning the car on. Driving to the club, you couldn’t stop tapping your fingers against your thigh. You watched the road, trying to keep your mind off of things until you got to her club.

—

“Go to the back room, baby. I’ll be back there once I get what I have done.” Yelena said, kissing your cheek as the two of you made your way into the front entrance. The place was beginning to fill, and you watched as Yelena made her way near the bar where a man with blonde hair was working at. Instead of going with her, you made your way into the very back. The section was covered with a thick curtain on every side, and you were hoping the two of you weren’t going to get caught. Although, since Yelena owned the club, the two of you wouldn’t be kicked out, you would just die of embarrassment.

What seemed like forever, was only a half an hour as Yelena came through the curtains. “Hey, baby girl. Thank you for being patient with me, it’s much appreciated.” she smiled, sitting down next to you on the couch. She didn’t say anything, just kept her hand on your thigh as if to see if you’d tell her to move her hand. When you didn’t, Yelena began rubbing it as she casually checked her phone.

“Natalia and Wanda are having a great time,” she smiled, texting something to who you assumed was Nat.

“I’m g-glad, Wanda deserves to be happy.” you bit back a moan as she rubbed at your clothed inner thigh.

“What’s wrong, baby?” You both knew the answer, but that didn’t stop her from asking you anyway.

“You know.”

“I do,” she smirked, pulling you into a kiss. “But we start we have to go over rules, and such.”

Pulling her hand away, she smirked at the way your whine left your lips. She leaned back, waiting for you to turn and face her. “I have rules, and questions. I’m also sure you have a few questions at the very least, yes?”

“I do.”

“Want me to go first, or you?”

“You can, ‘Lena.” she smiled at the nickname before turning to completely face you.

“You’ve heard of safewords, correct?” When you nodded, she continued. “I need you to think of one to use, because we will need one. If at any time - whether it’s tonight or a month from now or whenever you need to use it, use it. I won’t be upset, or disappointed in you.”

“Pineapples is my safeword.” you said, biting your lip as you waited for her to continue.

“That was fast, but I’m glad you have one. The next thing is, I like when someone listens, I’m dominant - well, technically a switch, but I’ve only subbed to one person. I like whoever I’m doming to be obedient, however I also love brats. I usually prefer to be called 'Daddy’, but, if you’re not comfortable, that’s fine with me.” she assured you.

“Alright, and would it be okay if I tell you my limits?”

“Of course, I was about to ask that next.”

“I don’t like bodily fluids, needles, or anything involving blood. Everything else I’m willing to try once, but I really enjoy orgasm denial, overstimulation, verbal humiliation, face slapping. Things like that. I do also really enjoy anal.”

“Those are things I don’t like either, so I’m glad we have that in common! Also, the stuff you just listed off are some of my favorite things. Is there anything you’d like to try out? You don’t have to answer this one right at this very moment, we won’t be doing too much tonight.”

You nodded in understanding, jumping into her lap as you saw shoes on the other side of the curtain. “Yelena, we’re gonna get caught!” you whispered, earning a chuckle from the blonde.

“Not if we stay quiet, baby. Do you think you can do that? Or do you need Daddy’s help?” she smirked, pulling you into a kiss. Moaning against her lips as her hand went into your sweats.

“Please…” you whimpered, hoping that she would give in easy to your pleading.

Moving her hand from your clothed pussy to your thigh, she asked, “What would you like, hm? You want me to remove my hand from your sweats? I can-”

“No, Daddy. Want you to take them off, please,” you cut her off, thankful that she let it go. Pulling down the sweats, along with your underwear, Yelena was quick to bring her hand back between your thighs. She didn’t want to waste anymore time. “Spread your legs, wanna see that pussy.”

You did as you were told, opening your legs slowly as her eyes were glued on your center. “You have such a pretty pussy, baby. I can’t wait to taste you. But, that will be somewhere much nicer than this.”

Yelena’s two fingers ran through your slick folds teasingly as her phone went off. You bit your lip, nodding to let her know it was okay to answer it. “Oh, hey Natalia. I’m at the club right now, doing what I need to before your shift starts. Yes, (Your Name) is with me. She’s having a great time. Wanda wants to talk to her? Yeah, that’s more than okay. Here you go.” she handed you the phone, and your eyes went wide. Taking a deep breath, you tried your best to focus on Wanda’s voice.

As Wanda talked to you about something you couldn’t exactly focus on, Yelena slipped her middle finger all the way to the knuckle into your pussy. You bit your lip to suppress a moan, saying your goodbyes to Wanda, you tossed her phone on the couch next to both of you.

“You were so quiet, baby, Why’re you so quiet?” she teased, pulling her finger out just to add another. Fucking her fingers in and out at a fast pace as she attempted to pull your shirt completely off. Realizing that it wasn’t going to work, she pulled her fingers out before grabbing your shirt with both her hands before pulling it off of you.

“D-don’t want to get caught!” you gasped as she pulled your bra down, wrapping her lips around your right nipple. Pushing two of her fingers back into your core, she fucked you at a rough pace.

“You’re going to be a good girl and be quiet for me? You’re gonna make me so proud, detka.” she praised, you couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

As Yelena slowed her fingers down to add a third, you let out a whine, “Please don’t stop, Daddy.” you wanted more, but she slowed down her movements.

“Beg me to keep going pretty girl, beg Daddy to keep giving what you what your pretty cunt wants.” she moaned, and you knew she was going to make you work for what you wanted.

“Please, Yel-Daddy! Please fuck me, it’s your pussy, want you to make me come, make me come all over your fingers like a good girl. Please, please!” you begged, gripping onto her wrist in hopes that she’d keep going.

“Yeah? You want me to make my pussy come? You’re such a good girl, how can I deny you anything?” she hummed, moving your hand off hers. You kept eye contact with her as best as you could, giving her the best pouting face you could make.

Adding a third finger, Yelena fucked you at pace that gave you what you needed. Leaning in closer so she could fuck you faster, Yelena wrapped her other around you to keep you in place. “You’re making a mess on the couch, baby girl. It’s okay, though. Really. I love that you’re making a mess.” You cried out as she curled her fingers, bringing you closer to the edge.

“I can feel you squeezing my fingers, baby. Are you close? You can come when you’re ready, sweet girl.” she moaned, pushing your face towards you for a kiss. You pulled away, coming with a muffled moan as you bit at her clothed shoulder. She fucked you through your high, only stopping when you pulled her fingers out by her wrist.

Yelena took her fingers into her mouth, humming at the taste of you. “Taste so good, (Your Name).” she smirked, pulling you into a hug. “You did so good, baby. So proud of you, you wanna cuddle?”

You nodded as the two of you laid down on the couch, thankful that it was comfortable. When you woke up, you found Yelena sitting up on the couch looking through her phone as your head rested on her thigh. “Good morning,” she teased, and you jumped up.

“Did I actually sleep for that long?” you yawned, and Yelena shook her head.

“No, just an hour and a half. Get your clothes on and we can go back to Wanda’s place.”

[yettofindaname]

Playing Prince of Persia 2008

So last week i got COVID, and was out of work for a few days. I use a dual-booted computer with windows/linux at home - with linux as my main but Windows to use a few windows exclusive programs and to play games on steam. With a lot of time on my hands, but little willpower to do anything challenging, i booted the old copy of PoP 2008 on the steam library, created a new game and got into the hidden valley with the worst walking infrastructure the gaming world has to offer.

A bridge salesman would really clean up in this place. -The prince

Now everyone who played this game already talked gameplay: How the moving-around-part is cool and the single combat with combos is meh. So let's say something else.

In a review from 2021, the reviewer talks about how the game's stylized graphics keep it timeless, and there is a care on the design of every level such that it feels like looking at a painting someone carefully crafted. This is a hard agree. The stylized looks+ the no death mechanic feel very modern, in a way. In the 2008 market, there was this flow towards more realistic games, and also a expectation that Prince of Persia was meant to be challenging, and this game subverted both. In this aspect, the game would be more successful if it was released today than in it's original climate.

Nolan North is here as the Prince. This game came the year after Uncharted 1 came out and was a huge success, and Nolan is here to bring that sweet uncharted rizz to the game. And bring it he does! Does it fit well with the game? Well, I liked it - but it's more of Nolan redoing a wisecracking adventurer in a magic antiquity setting. This is maybe not just ubisoft copying naughty dog's homework, but a trend of the 2000s to have these very, well, very 2000s people around having adventures in other epochs. Reminds me of this post about how everyone in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is a 2000s hero except James Norrington (who suffers dearly for it), so while the game style and gameplay were ahead of it's time, this part really feels right were it belongs.

Elika - chosen one of the god Ormazd and last of the Ahura people, tasked to the keeping of the evil god Ahriman in his tree prision - plays more of an straight man role to the prince's joking and lamp-shading shenanigans. Her design is a very 2000's design: Where most video games hot girls are more about boobs-and-ass design-wise, she is all about that impossibly thin waist line. Overall a great character, and the banter with the prince is funny and fresh, she makes for a great part of the fun in the game.

Every creative endeavor is, for the lack of a better word, an aborted process. Animators would polish their animations forever if not for the cruel team leads to rip the file from their hands to give to the next guy on the pipeline. Planned features get scraped as the deadlines tighten, and so turns the world. PoP 2008 is no different.

- A central gameplay feature is the power plates: When the prince and Elika jump on them, the game's movement mechanics change, and a kind of minigame starts, based on the magic of the plates: The Green plates give the Breath of Ormazd, where the prince can run up, down and around walls like they are the floor, while avoiding bumps and obstacles on them. The Yellow plates give Elika a long term flight ability (Wings of Ormazd), the prince rides on her back and you use the arrow keys to avoid obstacles mid-air. The Red plates catapult you both to a next destination, and the true obstacles are the chain of conventional moves between the red plates. Aaaand the blue plates are the same as the red plates, but blue. We can see that the inspiration died after the red plates, if not with them. Every level has 45 light seeds (game 'currency', to trade for more plates), where 40 are accessible by normal routes, and 5 are accessible using a set of plates of a specific color hidden on the level. Many of these hidden plates are red (easy to place after the level was done) but almost none are blue, the most uninspired plate.

- The game has 4 main areas split into 4 sub-areas, each main area assigned to a boss. Each main area needs two power plates to complete - The Citadel, for example, needs the red and yellow plates. We can imagine there was space (there are literally unused closed gates in the corner of the areas) for 4 more areas, each for the unused combination of 2 of the plates, with 4 more associated bosses, that were removed from the scope pretty early in the project.

Speaking of bosses, the five bosses of the game incidentally make for a near perfect dark version of the heroic Five Man band. Its kind of sad they never interact or even acknowledge each other, but it's one of the limitations of the game onset from it's original design.

- The Mourning King is the Hero, a noble ruler who sold his soul for the somewhat noble - if selfish - motive of resurrecting his daughter.

- As his foil and Lancer, both in combat style and motivations, we have the Hunter, also a noble ruler who sold his soul for the cruel prize of hunting men .

- The Alchemist -> Brains, all mad scientist like.

- The Warrior -> Brawn, he literally cannot be damaged in combat.

- The Concubine -> The Chick, the Only Other Girl in the story. Does illusion magic stuff.

In the finale, Elika sacrifices herself to seal Ahriman back to the tree - and the ending is centered around you - the prince - redoing a bargain her father previously made and breaking the seals in exchange for Elika's life - undoing all your progress in the process. This is weird to me: While we see a growing relationship between Elika and the Prince - Story-wise they know each other for like, 8 hours tops. And there are few lines of dialogue that feel like a true romantic relationship developing. And it's also disrespectful of Elika's final wishes. But everyone bashes this ending, so I will do a first in gaming history: I will defend the ending of Prince of Persia 2008.

Why the Ending of PoP 2008 is Okay, actually:

First, the romance thing - two things come to mind: First - though there is little romance dialogue, there is much romance touching and physicality. Elika and the Prince are maybe one of video games more intimate couple in terms of physical interaction in gameplay. They move together, depend on one another. When they climb vines, Elika grabs herself onto the Prince's back, when they drop of a ledge onto the floor, the prince catches Elika and places her on the ground. They do a cute little spin together when changing places atop a wooden beam. This relationship is not mainly on the story, but is a core feature of the play of the game itself. Second: This is an 1001 nights themed story, where this kind of spontaneous, love at first-sight thing is a theme - this is echoed in the finale, where if you got every light seed in the map, the final seed that resurrects Elika is the 1001st light seed.

But outside of the romance, there are reasons grounded in friendship, and those hit harder for me: The Prince is a well traveled guy, and many of the dialogue lines with Elika revolve around this growing notion that Elika has spent her whole life trapped in this dwindling secret valley, desiring the amazing things of the outside world, but bound by her sense of duty even when all the other members of the kingdom shirked this duty and went away to the outside world. That the reward for her selflessness, her hard and unwavering faith in the god of light - that left her fighting for all of creation alone - was death. That would piss off our guy, damn - it pisses ME off. Elika fucking deserved to see the world, to enjoy herself! Damn this absent god that let her fight for the right to kill herself. I would want my friend to be free, and also we have the final point...

Ahriman's current prison (at the end of the game) is absolute dogshit - held together by strings, sticks, spit and a prayer. And the last magical maintenance staff is dead in your arms. Minutes later Ahriman is already fucking with your mind, and while you could get out and move on, the next wanderer to fall in the valley can be persuaded to cut the five flimsy-ass trees for as little as a bag of free candy. While a more cowardly person would want to get the fuck out and never come back you on the other hand want to see a chance of this business having a clear end to it. So you go back, get the magic power from the tree and resurrect the last of the Ahura, hoping to get her stronger, or to get a lead to finding more of the Ahura who went away, or even Ormazd himself.

The game would have everything lined up for a sequel along these lines (and it kinda has, in the DS spin-off game) but the whole franchise was cancelled and left for dead. It's so delusional to hope for a sequel even Nolan North himself said to a fan to go write some fanfic to scratch that itch.

And that's it for Prince of Persia 2008 for me. One thing that made me happy was that when I had just finished the game, and had the PoP 2008 content itch, i found the page @fuckyeahpop2008, that let me see some cool memes and content fans made of the game. The last big burst of activity in the page was 2014, so I'm indulging in the vintages, the 10 year old PoP memes. Thank you @fuckyeahpop2008 - your page, and your love for the game means a lot for me - and is really nice to indulge is this love, kept fresh in tumblrs servers for 10 years. Cheers for anyone playing the game, now or in the future.

[hoardlikegoldenirises]

This is a NSFW parksborn puppy play doodle dump, ft. both concepts for gear and also just plain old horny drawings.

I wrote that puppy play fic and now I am ill, I think—with puppy peter fever,

(there's a separate post for the safe-for-work drawings on that second page of doodles: link)

This is all slapped together so some closeups after the readmore, focusing on the less-than-safe-for-work images:

I'll start off with some of the sillier drawings:

this ⬇️ is a little doodle-comic of what probably happened immediately after they finished their little uh, play session in the fic.

not really a puppy related drawing other than addressing the fact that Peter "Daddy Dom" Parker is extremely embarrassed by what he just did... I will be honest, I kind of approach all instances of Peter subbing as involving inevitable sub drop. He just doesn't deal well with submission, after-the-fact, even when it's cathartic for him.

Goofy x Horny double combo—

also more sub drop. i was just having fun with little doodles. if i actually write anything about Peter's aftercare needs in this context it will be, like in other contexts I have written it, much less silly.

HORNY:

hi 🥴

and some uh. dog bone gags 😳 don't judge me.

one, an actual gag made for humans, and the other, me looking at a chew toy and thinking to myself, they could probably fit that in Peter's big mouth. for when he won't shut the fuck up.

all you need is a spring lock and suddenly it's adjustable, amiright?

he's still topping here btw. not that i drew the rest of what's happening. but. probably topping. or getting a bj idk.

Harness and collar concepts ahoy:

Peter's day collar. It's heavily based off of this collar (sfw link btw it's just petco LOL) by Le Dog Company, but I wanted to make it more padded under the buckle. I do like that the strap just says "Le dog" though like. Yeah. And you can see his little name tags and stuff.

probably the inside is like a nice caramel color, rather than black or anything, but i didn't color that part.

and I decided that they'll never go beyond "training" or other non-ownership collars. i don't think he'd be okay with extending even pretend ownership outside of actively having sex tbh. they're extremely not following "old guard traditions" here. peter owns himself and all of his gear, no exceptions

concept for harness to match, courtesy of Felicia, and just. photos of one of the leashes. i didn't feel like drawing it. not pictured: 9 footer (another petco link lol) — I think I like the way the 4 foot leash looks better, esp since it matches the collar better imo, but I figured. maybe sometimes they would want a 9 foot leash. I mean. Is Harry taking Peter on walks, No, but, you know, could be useful.

Harness is the same color as the collar, I just made it lighter in this pic so you can see the actual details. It's loosely based on some leather harness I saw but slightly different.

...

I also wanted to add some bonus sets which are probably gifts from Felicia, though I'm sure Harry could afford more, but *waves my hand* Felicia likes to tease Peter—

*loudly clears my throat* It's uhh, you know, I just like pink. yeah. I mean normally I put Flash in pink for gender-y reasons I think most people are aware of at this point, but I just. Happened to see a picture of a cute pink mesh dog harness while looking for inspiration, and, well, it got away from me a little bit,

not for gender reasons, particularly, mostly just for horny reasons 😂

this one is obviously stealing I mean taking heavy inspo from the irl dog harness but also from some other stuff, like safety vests and what have you. And I decided I wanted it to have nylon straps with a cinch instead of a normal buckle because............ conceptually, I find that sexy, for some reason LOL idk it's the physicality or something. the combo of industrial hardware with girly aesthetics. just really strapping him into this thing.

also yeah i designed this one to not be easily removed (or put on) by the wearer themself, also for horny reasons. requires a helper to put on and take off, though Peter is probably flexible enough he could take it off by himself if he needed to get out in a pinch.

........does this qualify as sissification? probably. who can say,

anyway the collar is based on those thousand different kinds of customizable rhinestone collars where you can get your pet's name, or "cum slut" or whatever, spelled out in bejeweled charms. but made with like, slightly higher quality materials. like suede, heavy duty hardware, cubic zirconia or something, etc... I came VERY close to putting something vulgar but settled on just Peter's name and the hearts instead.

In my head, Felicia thinks she's very, very funny for giving this pink set to Peter.

don't be such a wet blanket Peter.

no, i do have a scenario in my notes involving him trying this on and enjoying it a little bit more than he intended to... not because of him having a secretly girlish nature so much as uh the opposite, so. you know, like i said, it might qualify as sissification/force femme, but idk. i just like it...

harry would also be cute in this... also flash... really any of the gang. full CBG matching bubblegum pink kink wear, now there's a thought 😂 mj would probably get a kick out of that

swarovski crystal... i wanted a D-ring on both the front and the back (for versatility) and it happened to also be a useful place to hang a cute little charm.

And now for something on the complete opposite end of the aesthetic spectrum, and probably more Felicia's style than anything else in this post.

Anyway, the other bonus from Fel (or possibly just Peter and Harry buying it). Sometimes Peter is naughty... or, you know, combining his top and dom instincts with submission and bdsm—a bad dog who bites. muzzle optional. tbh idk how hardcore Harry is but Peter likes this stuff (in my mind) so I figure it would make sense. More BDSM looking than doggy at this point but, you know, the spiked collar and a very short (like a foot or two at most) chain leash. plus muzzles.

went for two different muzzles—the medical padded style that is on its own pretty intense, with a little snap so it can attach to the O-ring on the front of the collar instead of having its own attached collar (see, O-ring not just aesthetic lol) and the other one is a more dog-like muzzle, with the metal basket. Both would probably be custom, esp if they're from Felicia, though i guess with the right needle and stuff Peter could probably modify a stock padded muzzle on his own... so maybe only the metal one is custom. who knows.

Obv the leather padded one is way more of a muzzle that makes it so you can't speak easily, or bite or eat or anything else, plus it has its own D-ring for extra bondage lol— vs the basket muzzle which is mostly aesthetic and to prevent biting. lol.

there are 500 harnesses that look almost exactly like this on etsy. can't beat the classics i guess. didn't bother drawing seams but this is definitely reinforced, though none of it's padded except where it needs to be for durability.

butt. all of the harnesses like this i saw also have that kind of rubber handle on the back. it's not like Harry can really tug Peter around that much even if Peter didn't have super strength, but, i have to include nice handles on all of these for the aesthetic/sex appeal. it's about the implication.

my real motivation for making this one unpadded (aside from, I guess, being less gentle) was cause I wanted all the spike rivets and other hardware to be skin-contact. aka: put the collar in the fridge for some temperature play LOL 🥶❄️ obv it would warm up fast but, appealing mental image,

i also thought it would be fun if it had some warning patches they could put on it, so I sketched a couple of those. I think Peter could make or modify something like this very easily lol. these could probably be put on the other harnesses too. or like on the shoulder straps. full kit w/ muzzle + spiked collar + harness + chain leash + caution patches is definitely... a thought...

[marquisegallery]

Also made these sketches, trying to figure out an alt outfit for Rise! or rather, a "casual" outfit sorta? I just imagine that the outfits most of the characters in game wear, are more like. Disguises kinda? When they're out doing writer stuff. Or maybe it's all what they normally wear anyways besides the boostpacks I guess, lol

Anyways, I'm set on the overall outfit, just wondering about what colors and boot style to use.

Plus, I went over ideas of different ways to style her dreadlocks, based off a bunch of examples I looked up. Admittedly at this point I'm kinda partial to hairstyle C and the high boots, but other than that, still kinda flipflopping on the earrings and shirt/shorts colors.

Maybe shirt B with shorts 2 or 4, or shirt C with shorts 1 or 3. Augh, indecision!! :u

What do you all think? I don't mind feedback on this, feel free to let me know what combos you think look good on Rise! \o/

[novelistash]

Rosette embodies the cordial smile of customer service. Her smile and stance is polished. Her attire, professional but colorful in the way a watercolor for children helps to soothe the senses. Behind her soft eyewear is the look of a fighter. Rosette may have retired from battling, but she's kept that edge.

She greets me with a firm handshake, no doubt anticipating a show of machismo that I never deliver. We're not alone at the outside diner, but Spiral isn't here. Standing at Rosette's side is a woman with noticeably tan makeup contrasting her graying blue hair. The woman is putting on a little weight, especially around the hips, but she has the same height as every Officer Jenny I've ever encountered. Rosette introduces her as, "Kicho. She helps me organize a lot of coordinator events here in Slateport.”

“Oh, I see. Thank you for meeting with me on such short notice. I didn't expect you to come so prepared.”

Rosette shakes her head. “We're going to a meeting right after this so it's really more of a coincidence rather than something we planned. Feel free to order anything. You're not working, right?”

Blushing, I tell her, “I have a nest egg.”

Rosette ignores me, putting her attention into food selections from her Roto-phone.

“Do I have to order from that?” I ask. “I only carry around a Poketech X.”

“You should switch over,” says Kicho. Her voice is a smoker's variation on the familiar whistle sounding voice of the Officer Jennys. “The League has already announced that they're going to phase out Poketech support with the launch of Paldea.”

“He likes to try to do things differently. ASH was a Normal trainer back in the Indigo League, and originated the Slaking-Shuckle combo in doubles,” Rosette explains with a veneer of praise.

The detail unsettles me. She knows a lot more about me then I know about her.

My scowling only makes her smile transition into worried sympathy. “Isn't that right?” She offers her Roto-phone so I can order.

Nodding, I order a hamburger steak with gravy.

“So.” Rosette folds her hands on the table. “Who is this coordinator you're looking for?”

“Esther Flowne. She used to use a Beldum, but I don't know what her specialty was.”

Kicho knows who I'm talking about right away. “Esther Flowne, she was a tough coordinator who fell into it because of her latent psychic powers. It came as a big surprise. She was training to be a triathlete like her mother until some tragedy happened. I can't remember the details, but she would always compete with this boy. I think they're married now.”

“Do you know where I can find her?”

“Lemme check our records,” Kicho says. She pulls out a Roto-phone with the back dressed to look like an Arcanine's face.

“Spiral says that you ran into her at Mauville,” says Rosette.

I nod. “She must've told you about how I forced an apology on her. You don't need to chide me for overstepping my bounds, alright? I didn't plan on making her cry. I am genuinely sorry. If you have any advice on how I should apologize, I'm open to it.”

There's this strange look on her face. I glance over at Kicho, sure that I've committed another mistake. “Sorry, I guess I shouldn't be talking about this.”

“No, maybe not,” Rosette mutters, her hand going up to adjust her glasses.

“So, um, what is it that you do, now that you've retired from battling?”

“I do battle from time to time. It's good exercise for my Pokémon.” She continues while I bite my tongue. “I work for the League to assist in civil planning.”

“Sorry. I'm sure working for the League isn't great.”

“It's actually a fulfilling job. I get to see communities at their best and bring Pokemon and people together. Most of my job is a lot of hard work, but it really is worth it when all that planning comes to fruition. A lot of people are being critical of all the big changes going on, but the League is doing things that no other organization has done before. We're bringing the world together.”

I bite back my comments about how the goals of the League mirror the ambitions of Team Plasma. “Well, it isn't easy having to rework strategies with every acquisition. I spent close to half a million pen on items that cause mega-evolutions and now I'd be lucky to get a tenth of that back on the open market. It's even worse with Z-moves. You tell me this, are they going to allow Dynamaxing once Paldea is added to the League?”

Rosette stays composed. “I can't talk about changes before the announcement.”

“Figures.”

“You know, the League actually does a lot of good for the regions they adopt. Hoenn was something of a warzone before they showed up. Team Aqua and Team Magma rose up from corrupt criminal institutions that were completely uncontested before the League's involvement. Critics accuse the League of taking from the culture and discarding what doesn't sell, but we've been keeping coordinator events going even though it's costing the League money.”

“Yeah, and they were thrilled to have that activity relegated to Lilycove in one building.”

“That was an attempt to revitalize interest by keeping everything centralized. The League actually does care about the longevity of the places they occupy. This is more than gym battles and badges.”

I sit up straight and let out a calming sigh. There's no point in taking out my frustration with the League on Rosette. She's doing her best with the job she has, it's not her fault that the League is expanding like an empire of old. “No, you're right. Hoenn is a lot safer now than it used to be. I'm sure you're doing good work. I'm sorry if I came off as ultra critical. The League wasn't supportive when I lost my main fighting team and maybe I've never forgiven them for that.”

“I've sent Esther a message and she got back to me,” says Kicho.

“What, now?!”

“We've been here for a few minutes,” Rosette says with perfect composure. She's acting like I never wronged her.

Kicho continues, “Esther says she doesn't know you.”

“Of course she doesn't know me.” With an exaggerated wave of my hands, I express my annoyance. “I'm getting in touch with her because I want to talk to her.”

“Well you haven't told us what this is about.” Rosette's tone is clear, or at least I think it is. She wants me to stop attacking the League and her friend and get to my goal.

“I'm helping Fenominal Labs research the growth rate of a Beldum. She was involved in the same study years earlier and I'd like to ask her questions about her training methods.”

“Did you get that?” asks Kicho into her phone.

Esther from the other line speaks up, “Yeah, loud and clear. Tell him that I can meet him at the museum.”

I glare at Kicho, but instead of being paralyzed she lifts her self assured chin. “Thanks, Esther. I look forward to meeting you.”

“You too,” she says before ending the call.

“What was that?” I ask Kicho. “You can't wait for me to explain things and then relay it?”

“Life is too short to waste time running back and forth. Honestly!” Kicho stands up and excuses herself.

I'm starring daggers at her until I pick up on Rosette watching me. “What?”

“She's a clone. She doesn't have as much time as we do.”

“Okay, but that shouldn't mean that she ignores social protocol.” I pause to take in the lack of a smirk on her face. “What did I say this time?”

“You know, people have to change their behavior a lot to deal with you. I would've thought that you'd be more patient about accommodating the needs of others.”

“Well, unlike you, I'm not perfect.”

“I'm not,” she snaps and it is a stoned edge comeback. “I have to work hard to be presentable too. This doesn't come easy to anyone. It's another skill, just like everything else.”

For some reason her hard composure and talk of social training reminds me of the first video I'd ever seen of her. Rosette and Spiral were fighting while they were making their rounds through the Hoenn League. Spiral humiliated her with using a Shedinja's Wonderguard. Everyone was talking about it. That was how I'd come to learn about Spiral. It was why I was prepared for my first major fight against her.

“You know, you were a good trainer back in the day,” I say. “If you'd kept with it you probably could've been a Gym Leader or better.”

“I know,” she says without shame or pride. “But I enjoy doing this more. Life isn't always about doing the big things and winning fame. There's a lot you can do when you let go of pride and enjoy life for what it is.”

I poke the bottom of my cup with a straw. “I've been trying to do that, but it never seems to fit me.”

“Maybe that's because you think you have to fit in right away. Pokemon taught me how to evolve, what have they taught you?”

Looking down at the bare plate, I see the stylistic design of Kyogre along the edge. I've never seen a Legendary and I don't know anyone who has, but we have pictures of them all over the world. Maybe being a Champion is kind of like that. Maybe I'm missing the point entirely. “Pokemon taught me to fight for what I want, but the problem is I don't know what I want anymore.”

“You do,” she says with confidence, but annoyingly she doesn't elaborate.

The server comes back with our meals and by the time Kicho and Rosette are finished eating, they get up to leave.

I shake their hands. “Thanks again for setting up the meeting.”

Kicho shrugs. “It was pretty easy. You can find people's numbers if you had a Roto-phone.”

Rosette smiles at her comment, like she's trying to give me a secret message or something and I don't get the joke. “Take care of that Beldum you're studying and be nice to Esther Flowne. I won't be around to smooth things over.”

I chuckle. “Yeah, thanks. Oh, and tell Spiral thanks for arranging this meeting. You were a big help.”

Rosette smiles, but doesn't respond. It creates a lingering effect, some rippling tension that tickles at my undeveloped foresight. I'm experiencing some kind of omen but I don't know why. Rosette and Kicho leave and I wait around for the server. It takes him ten minutes to come over and explain that Rosette already paid for everything.

[ivoryminitower]

FFXIV Write 2024 prompt 29: Defiance

The BOB recipe is defying me.

When I first saw the Body Opponent Bag in Flying Tigers Dojo, I understood how useful it was for practice.  It could be carried easily, rather than the striking dummies that mount into the ground.  It moved as I hit it, like a real opponent might.  And it looked a bit like a male hyur, with the head and body shape and the rough skin color.  I have heard some people use them by imagining they are particular enemies; it is probably easy to see the face of someone one does not like on it, or to simply put their picture on it.

But it is a more complicated recipe than I expected.  Striking dummies are simply made of wood, with some decoration, while a BOB is some combination of hard plastic and soft plastic and I think metal and Husband thinks sand.  When Husband wrote a recipe for a bicycle, he took an old one apart first to see how it was made.  We do not have an old BOB, and a new one costs a lot of money to simply break it.

We have iron and wood aplenty, but neither of those are good for the BOB…it would not move the same way.  Perhaps steel for the "skeleton," but much of the rest should be plastic.  We make plastic from corn oil, which needs corn.  A lot of corn.  A lot of harvesting.  Especially since we have a lot of other projects that may need plastic too.

The soft plastic "skin" on the outside of the BOB is easy, at least…I can simply use leather.  But the rest means trying different materials, different designs.  Different recipes.  It is not working as what Husband calls "immediate gratification."  I think it counts as irony that this makes me want to hit something.

So, since we have wood aplenty, we can easily make wooden striking dummies and set them up outside the workshop.  After tiring of working on the BOB recipe I set up a dummy to unleash wrath upon.  I kept to my Earth normal gear to try not to break the dummy too quickly.

We do not make the dummies of the finest wood, since we have not yet found the finest wood, so it was not too long a time of using punching and kicking combos on the dummy before it broke.  I was very focused, or perhaps lost in my annoyance, and therefore did not see Sam standing by the workshop before I had smashed the dummy.

"Yes…?"

"...Uh…Amazon delivery for you at the bar."

"Thank you.  I will be there shortly."

He stayed and watched as I carried the broken dummy into the workshop and returned with a new one.  I did not feel like performing any more for him, so I went with him to get the box of books I had ordered.

So now I have other distractions.  And I conquered a striking dummy.  But the BOB recipe still refuses to yield.

(Based on Echoes of Home, hosted on Wattpad.)