#you have no idea how much I love designs with that sort of skull

[astra-ravana]

Creating Servitors

What is a Servitor?

A servitor is a thought form, an energy, an idea, a spirit, or a living being that exists to perform a certain function. Their process of creation is comparable to making a sigil that activates as a result of magick or ritual. Perhaps a servitor is best defined as a mystical servant, formed of your own thoughts and will, to carry out your wishes. Beyond this, however, they can also make great companions. These creatures can adopt any idea or purpose and be designed accordingly.

Servitor Functions

Servitors can be created to execute certain tasks or work with a specific energy. However, each individual servitor can typically be designated only one function. Some examples of these are as follows:

• To protect you/guard your home

• To manifest things you want/need

• To help produce a desirable feeling (ie: happiness, peace, love, etc.)

• To transform one energy into another

• To act as a spiritual gatekeeper

• To inspire you or act as a creative muse

• To serve as a totem or toulpa

The Creation Process

Step 1- Cleanse yourself and clear your mind: You can't expect your work to amount to a powerful servitor if you're a muddled mess throughout the process. Do a cleansing ritual to remove stray energy and take some time to meditate and orient your mind to the task.

Step 2- Envision your servitor: Before doing anything, form an idea of what you're servitor will be like. Things to consider:

• Are they tied to a physical object or vessel, or are they purely spiritual?

• What is their function?

• What is the rough outline of their contract?

• What is their disposition?

• Do they have any correspondences?

• How will you activate them?

• What is their shut off or "kill switch"?

Having a concept in your mind already makes the actual creation process much smoother.

Step 3- Draw up a contract: Take a piece of paper and carefully pen your energetic agreement with your servitor. You can include as much detail as you like. Be sure to cover their name, function, duties, feeding/maintenance, and a shut off. You may also choose to create a sigil or symbol for your servitor. Be sure to sign your contract and seal it with your blood.

Step 4- Choosing their form: Now it's time to give your servitor a body. If you wish for them to be tied to the physical world you could simply attach them to something like a doll, stuffed animal, figurine, poppet, clay figure, skull, et,. Or you could draw your servitor to give them a body in a spiritual sense. If you cant draw, you can even select an image you feel embodies your servitor and print it up. To summarize, you need some sort of token, figure, or vessel to represent your servitor to make interaction easy.

Step 5- Charging: Charge your servitor by placing it upon your altar or work space. You may light candles of colors that correspond to the servitor's energy, incorporate relevant crystals and herbs, or include anything that you feel empowers your creation. Read the contract aloud, clearly and address your servitor by name, following something to the effect of "I give you life", "awaken", or "I give a piece of my energy so that you may live".

Step 6- Breath of life: When ready, align your mouth with the "mouth" of your servitor and expell a deep breath of air, effectively "breathing life" into your creation.

Step 7- Taking up residence: It's time to give your servitor a proper place in your home. You may choose to keep it on your altar, move it to a secret place, or display it up high. You can even carry it with you, just keep the contract somewhere safe if not with/within the servitor itself. Your servitor is now complete.

Maintenance

Servitors need to be fed, but the good news is you get to decide what they eat. This could be magick oil or herbs, a spoken spell, or a certain type of energy, the possibilities are vast. Feeding your servitor ensures it keeps functioning at full power. This should be done every month or so.

Kill Switches

Including a kill switch or shut off for your servitor is wise in case they become too much of a drain on your energy or you want to redesignate that energy elsewhere. This could be done by sucking the breath out of them, saying some specific words, or physically dismantling the servitor. The choice is your's.

Note: Avoid creating too many servitors. Each one you create borrows a piece of your energy. If you have too many it will drain you and may cause supernatural upset. Limit your work to a few powerful servitors for the best results.

[felassan]

Thoughts on the updated companions screenshots:

Lucanis: in a few screenshots now it's looked to me that Lucanis has a slightly 'crooked' nose and I love that feature! in this shot you can see that at the bottom of the 5 little vial things there's a small spike. the design of the opposite side has the impression of a ring pull. here the purple bit almost looks like fluid held in a sort of glassware. vials of poison for enemies (the Crows make use of poison), or something Lucanis needs to take regularly himself, with a sort of injection delivery system? or simply vials of something with a decorate spike at the base, and the part with the ring-pull looking bit is simply the lid/screw off top? in this shot you can also really appreciate the bird-like inspirations in Lucanis' whole character design. like he has an aquiline quality, the way his hair fluffs out a lil bit at the sides reminds of wings, etc.

Davrin: this shot is a more complete crop of one of the ones of Davrin from yesterday. ^^ in this widened crop, we can see that the person he's leaning in and leaning down to talk to is Assan (with Manfred and Rook appearing in other shots in this collection below, it means the gang's all here). 🥺 the expression on his face is so lovely and if you zoom in you can see that Assan has the impression of lil furry/feathery eyelashes. 🥺 the design of Davrin's jacket buttons reminds me of wheels. could this be a reference to aravel wheels? I hope that Davrin's relationship with his Dalish culture and clan is portrayed respectfully, that he's connected to them etc.

Bellara: this shot is a more complete crop of the ones of Bellara from yeserday. ^^ the wisps of hair around her ears.. 🥺

Harding: another shot of Harding injured 😭 aaah why 😭.. I count at least 5 now. (3 in that post, 1 from yesterday, and this one from today). again in this image she's clearly had her injuries for a while, she has stitches and the bruising is in fading mode. she's seated in her casual clothes - I think this shot was taken in the Lighthouse. it's a different seat, but the vibe is very much like Harding here. omg in her casual attire Harding's braid is down ♡ like still braided but not tied up. I feel like in the field it's more like tucked up or wound round her head? in this shot we also have a lovely and detailed look at the adorable flower pattern she has stitched on her shirt. Harding is never defeating the adorable allegations.

Neve: in the background is an eluvian, the way we've seen them look in this game when they have just been used or are just about to be used. I wonder if this is the eluvian that leads from the Lighthouse out into the world of Thedas, and if this shot is from an early point in the game. every time I see Neve I wanna drop to me knees lmao and even though we've seen it before, every time I see her I'm stunned by the care and detail by the devs that went into creating her outfit, every aspect of it. :') in the center at the bottom, just behind Neve near one side of the eluvian's frame is a purpley glow. I think that might be one of these (circled in yellow), from this scene in the release date reveal trailer.

these things presumably have something to do with how to work and use the ancient elven magic-tech of the eluvian. with her Veil Jumper experience and interest in ancient elven artifacts, Bellara presumably knows how to use it, or has an idea of how to do so. in the reveal trailer, it looks like she's demonstrating this, or 'opening' the eluvian, to show Rook and the party.

Emmrich: it looks like he's talking to the lady elven warrior Rook that we've seen a few times now in the promotional material (like in the recent warrior gameplay video). Emmrich has impeccable style. I love all the detailing on his clothes. like the skull pin at his collar, he also has two skull pins lower down on either side of his waist. (this is a fashion flair shared with Lucanis; he also has a pin at his collar and then two more, one on either side, elsewhere on his coat; only his are crow skulls of course). parts of the material of his clothes have that crushed velvet look. Emmrich has big "I tell the time by a beautiful antique pocketwatch I keep on a chain" vibes. :D on his shoulder pads there are arrow patterns. the background location looks Nevarran and/or Necropolis-y to me. it looks like there are candles which burn with green flame (I'm really curious about that. is it Veilfire?) and you can also see a hexagon. I wondered here based on prior screenshots if hexagons are an aspect of Nevarran art/design/tileset.

Taash: I would like to see a new screenshot of Taash beloved 👉👈

Manfred: he looks so cute and happy, this is a really detailed shot of him and I'm really curious about the material that composes the lenses of his goggles. they look like they could be cut gems. if you look closely at the detailing on them, there's a pattern like an eight-pointed star or something etched on each lens. it gives his expression a permanent "🤩"-type impression hhh. and I'm really curious again about the purpose of his goggles. depictions of them like in Emmrich's tarot-style card art make it look like they have something to do with the necromancy. he is very helpfully handing us a lantern. the glow of the light in it looks green, like the lighting fixtures we've seen in the Necropolis.

Bonus Neve shot: what are these lights in the background I wonder? ^^ this shot is a good reference for the handle of her wand-cane thing. I think the blue-lustre finish on the gold parts is pretty. btw, do you think the orb held in Neve's wand-cane functions the same way for Neve the way the orb in dagger-and-orb style does for dagger-and-orb/Spellblade mages?

[mesmir-ized]

also apparently forgot to post p2ponies 😞… sorry !! orz

(cutie mark rambles below~)

i always think crazy hard about cutie marks they are like my #1 stressor when it comes to ponies……. so here’s why i chose certain cutie mark designs !!

also i tried really hard to make sure they all shared some colours , especially making sure to include each others’ colours !! i wanted to have the original masked circle all have a star somewhere (BC.astrology or something…) LOL , maya sort of stands out both in colours and cutie mark , but that was on purpose !!

tatsuya: his was 100% the easiest to come up with . it’s gotta be his lighter !!! not only is it like His Thing but also very much representative of the bonds with his friends , as well as everything that got them into the events of IS … both in the game and here , the lighter is a symbol of both destruction/power and connection/creation !! which really fits tatsuya :] you can also think of it being like he “lights the way” !! the little teal star is in lieu of the little prince quote , and it’s kinda clear who this star is meant to represent ;U

jun: THIS ONE TOOK FOREVER TO DRAW . my issue was i had an idea , but couldn’t figure out how to make it work !! i wanted to include both flowers and a shooting star and fought 1 million battles trying to figure it out….

i wanted to include a shooting star for many reasons !! stars obviously for jun’s love of stars , but also because the shooting star is a symbol of something to follow (like Jun making himself a leader/savior as joker) as well as being representative of wishes and dreams (which is joker’s whole thing !!) !!! i wanted to add 4 forget-me-nots for both the obvious meaning of memory and his love of flowers , but also to mimic other stars and represent both masked circles he was involved in ! i love jun if you can’t tell

lisa: though this one looks simple it actually was pretty thought-out !! i wanted to figure out a way to both have her love of kung fu and role as an idol represented , which led me to these sort of boom-flash symbols ! these symbols are meant to be representative of her personality (feisty and explosive, but also fascinating and even lovely !) as well as what i said earlier , both of her paths~ they can be read as punch SFX , as well as the flash of cameras/lights on stage !! they’re pretty simple , but i feel like they pack a lot of punch (LOL)~!!

maya: the standout girlie of the whole bunch !! i immediately had the sort of idea for an intersection of heart/moon , and came up with this ! the heart is for ahh.. reasons most people know , but also she’s just associated with hearts in general (think mr bunbun) !! they obviously are related to her compassion and big heart , and if we want to have a sort of more darker and serious inspection of it.. how she’s the heart of her friend group and the loss of that heart (literal and figurative , in many instances) makes everything fall apart .. i also wanted to include the moon for her association with the moon (and Artemis !) , which also serve to show her duality and antithesis to the heat and light of the tatsuyas ! i like to think the EP cast’s colours would be more based around her cutie mark colours , like how IS were all based around each others’ !!

eikichi: i struggled with this one the most & i think it’s obvious.. U~U; .. i wanted to , again , make a symbol that’s not too complex , but is able to encapsulate so many different elements of a character ?! i ended up coming up with this skull (for his association with death/self proclaimed title as the “death boss”) and rocker/vkei/darker alternative aesthetics in general~ the starry eyes are BC welll…! star ! and also because it’s like he’s “starry-eyed” and looking towards the future :] the little glowy shine thing is meant tp be a spotlight , like he’s in the spotlight ! maybe one day I’ll come up with soemthing better , sorry eikichi , i love you ! 😞💦

Okies that’s all !! hope you like my cutie mark rambles , i love explaining my thoughts !!! ^7^

[chaifootsteps]

I have so many conflicting ideas about Hazbin/Helluva, where I can't ever join the hate watching crowd because I still, to an extent, enjoy the show if only for its potential. The most recent music video kind of cemented this for me, because... I really liked it. I don't want to feel bad for liking it, because that's silly and separating art from the artist is indeed a thing, but knowing what goes on behind the scenes... it's a bit tricky to reconcile with.

Stolas' songs (You'll be Okay, Owl in a Cage, Look my Way - even though that last one wasn't written by Sam Haft) have always been my favourites, and if I'm being frank, the only ones I've liked. I really like his character design too. Even now I'm uncertain about admitting that because so many people who send in asks to you rag on about how ugly Viv's character designs are, and while I do think they're confusing and impractical I have never considered them "ugly". Maybe I'm writing this so if anyone else feels this way they don't feel so alone? Not being a part of any sort of crowd is a bit of a terrifying place, even if it is ultimately a good thing.

I have ideas for possible Helluva and Hazbin fanworks but I'm scared to do anything about them because, with the creepy adolesent mob mentality the fandom seems to have, I'm afraid I would look as though I'm promoting the show, when I really just got inspired by, again, the potential. I don't want to write out a whole long explanation (that no-one will read) detailing my thoughts on the series and Viv because I might get taken the wrong way, and saying zilch and staying silent seems like the best option and yet also just as poor of a choice.

On a final note, and this is just whishful thinking of a better universe, but I think Hazbin and Helluva would have been a lot more successful and potentially less controversial if it had done the same thing as Daria Cohen, where each "episode" was a music video (because I honestly got more whole enjoyment out of the Look My Way animation than I have out of like, the whole of Season 2), and the whole entire thing could have been told through song (allowing for the more abstract imagery that Viv seems to have a better grasp of while also keeping the projects possibly more manageable). Obviously this would demote it purely to a passion project because she wouldn't be making nearly as much money off of it... which, when you think about it, is probably a good thing anyway.

Sorry for the length!

You don't have to apologize for a thing, Anon! As long as you're not giving her money or making weird excuses for Vivzie herself or named DaniDraws, there's no wrong way to love HH/HB. It's why for every ask I get trashing the designs, two more want to hug these characters close and steal them. We've got people here who hate it all and think it's always been a port-o-toilet fire full of ugly characters, but plenty who genuinely love it -- and I think as more of the fandom sadly hang their heads and come over to the critical side, that number's only going to increase.

Seconding the Daria Cohen bit. I don't know that it would have saved the show in the long run from its biggest problem, which is Viv's cruelty and ego, but a more Vampair or Mystery Skulls Animated-esque setup where each episode is a music video would have played to Viv's strengths and masked her weaknesses.

[cocomuffy]

I watched Teen Titans: The Judas Contract (2017) because The Batman (2022) was too long.

7/10

spoilers, obviously. here are my live thoughts:

I THINK ITS A DICKORY MOVIE AND IF IT IS I WILL BE SO HAPPY YOU HAVE NO IDEA

Kory kissed him to learn English- I'm laughing so hard right now this is hilarious.

if i had watched this movie in 2020 i would have realized i was bi a lot sooner

The coloration of the "Five Years Ago" and "Now" text is messing with my designer heart rn

it's the red nightwing outfit!!!!!! i havent got to see that much. i much prefer the blue bc there's already like seven red batfam members but like i do think it looks stylish because its dick and dick pulls off everything

"Nightwing." "Nightwing." "Dick..!" "oh, yeah?"

OH THEY'RE SO CUTEEEEEEEE

"they're different..." trails off. "like kory will tell you." "noo, you go aheaddd..." "I've been studying them for years--"

I ALREADY LOVE THEM "robin stop complimenting the bad guys"

no they did not just got there (at 9:40)

damian is just such a brat i love him

kicking my feet, squealing, giggling, throwing up BECAUSE SHE HAS HIS NINE AND HE HAS HER SIX--

i took a fifteen minute break to do the math on how old dick and kory are and got 36?!??!?!?!

garfield has no rizz

i just got like... punched in the gut seven times??? "i just miss my son"

it's the fact that damian is like "i approve of your gf" and nightwing's like "okay???"

"You don't have to move a mountain to help people, Terra." - Probably the theme of this movie

i was not ready for the sexual jokes

oh no raven is on the groundddd

how stupid is damain?!?!??!?!?!?!! especially after the part that slade says about lazarus pits?! he has to know that there is no way he can feasibly win this! and terra isn't helping! which means that terra is probably working with slade!!! GUESS WHO CALLED IT!!!!!!!!!!!

oh god this slade and terra stuff is no good

please tell me that we were not about to get a dick and kory makeout scene

oh thank god for damian

oh my god imagine going into your surpise party thinking people are about to kill you :skull:

ugh i dont like this garfield selfie timeskip whatever

and hasn't anyone noticed robin isn't here???

im doing os much calculations rn for no reason at all

AWWWWWWWWWWWWW STARFIRE'S GOT SOMETHING TO SAYYYYYYYYYY THEY LOVE EACH OTHER AND THEY JUST WANT THE BEST FOR EACH OTHER I LOVE THEM

aw. beastboy being supportive

"Do you know why I'm an orphan?" "uhhh... your parents died?"

nooo terra and beast boy kissed absolutely not they are not for each other terra doesn't need any relationships periodddd

aww but bb is really cute after so ig it makes it a lil better

slade shut up this is supposed to be a nice moment

i will never get over dick calling kory babe its too precious i love them so much

i dont trust that gift. i dont trust that.

they're making their moveeeeee- they're taking all the titansss oh noooo

i think that leaves nightwing as the last survivor which is really nerve wracking because i love dick grayson so much??

gar youre so stupid

oh no kory i love you kory please be okayyy

dick just got shot in the chest oh my god, oh my god. screaming crying hyperventilating oh my god oh my god oh my god.

oh i shouldve known he'd be just fine htis is why i love him hes so dependable

OH MY GOD HE JUST RE-SET HIS SHOULDER ON A SUPPORT BEAM HOLY MOLY

"What did you do to Robin?" "I beat the crap out of him for being mouthy."

i have the stupidest sense of humor.

guys i love dick grayson so much and he's the only one left and mmmmm im so ready for this i love dick grayson hes my favorite

ohhh huh terra's getting betrayeeddddd (i never liked terra even though she makes sense she just gives me ickies)

eugh i hate slade he just likes to make sexual references to people that he should not be making those references to i know hes like a predator but it just doesnt make me happy

what is this machine even doing? is it draining their blood? you would need some sort of needle or something? ik that brother blood said something about life? is it draining their life force like some kind of dark crystal jim henson type stuff? what's going on with it? their powers? like... if they wanted nightwing then they weren't going for powers, and they did regular humans first anyway? i dont understand.

woah its the titans against a villian with similar powers!!!!!!!! /j

i like this first pairing of kori and jaime and gar and raven against brother blood and damian and dick against slade bc it feels really personal and also fair.

terra was obivously going to save them all there was no doubt in my mind.

and then teamwork and then they win because of course they do

woah she just shot him like three times that was excessive

oh noooo terraaaaa ( im not sad )

DAMIAN GOT A PUPPY EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD IS RIGHT WEONFOIEWFOIBEWOINFOWNEONFEW

"Terra Markov was like a diamond, the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen."

no beast boy dont make me feel for her

i just realized that i think i called "jaime" "hime" for some godforsaken reason i swear to god my ears are stupid.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

final thoughts:

this movie was a bit much for me on sexual innuendos and references, but most of it was plot relevant. i love to see dickory so im good with that. animation was good. characters were good. had to warm up to gar but that's okay.

7/10

[katyspersonal]

2, 15, and 25 for Logarius!!

(Asks from this ( x ) meme)

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

The bitter irony of him being glorified and admired as a martyr that "holds back the evil" with statue and fanatics like Alfred, whereas poor Ludwig got accursed and then forgotten, although Ludwig started the Church Hunters thing and Logarius just reposted it (credit to the original artist) 🤦‍♂️ MFer strategically fought the right enemies for the right amount of time and left the scene at the right moment.... What an asshole.

15. What is your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn't matter if it's canon or not.)

Hmmmm... I actually have been considering him and Ludwig for quite a while! They are both 💫radiant🌛 warriors of the Church! Logarius quite feels like "evil Ludwig" for me, too x) I think Logarius would be one of the very few people Ludwig could show the true form of his Moonlight Sword, whereas Logarius might reveal the true meaning of the vision that led to discovery of Radiance Rune. They might be a bit too "holy" to act openly horny and their bonding would be almost exclusively discussion about how much they love the Healing Church and Laurence, but they share that intimate trust. I also enjoy the idea that they could have compensated for each other's "flaws": Logarius could have helped Ludwig to stay more grounded and remember with mind and not simply faith who is good and who is evil, whereas Ludwig could help Logarius to connect more with his intuition and heart to break from dogmas (seeing that Maria is a good gal, for example). Logarius is too trapped in his own ideas, Ludwig is too trapped in the ideas of someone else (Moon Presence)...

What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

Ohoh boy... I first saw him when my friend was streaming Bloodborne for me to get acquainted to (didn't have PS4 yet), and I was surprised by how he felt a bit...... not fitting in? What some average warlock-coded guy forgot in the setting about beasts and aliens in Victorian Czechia? I thought it had to be some sort of obligatory reference to other games from the studio xD

Well, now I am aware that his Pthumerian ass fits in the setting just fine! And apparently he had quite a history with Church and all... As cool as concept design of the King was, I think it was a way more interesting decision to replace the King boss battle with the religious fanatic that murdered him. And I sure think that Logarius using the "cursed" magic like skull wrathful spirits or canceling out blood vial healing was something he desperately wanted to avoid, but killing the King made him inherit his Blood Echoes, so... well, if anything, being perceived as a "martyr" has its merit, save for irony that blood rituals of Vilebloods and blood communion of Clerics are both risky garbage 🤦‍♂️

Thank you for an ask!

[creaturefeaster]

new day new morning post

Currently 06:55 PST as I begin this post.

Does anyone else listen to The Cure? They're touring this year overseas, the last time they did was 8 years ago. I'm going in June to see them live, and I'm very excited. When buying tickets with my husband, I remarked that a The Cure concert is probably one of the only places I could be where people wouldn't stare at me (my fashion is what I'd call dark and loud)-- something I found funny.

On top of this, I was asked if I wanted to get a tattoo for my birthday. I have been considering a tattoo for a while now, though I've been on the fence because the idea of putting something permanent on my body is a hard hurdle to get over in my brain. Or moreso, I'd just want to make sure it isn't something I would regret down the line. I'm considering imagery of things I've always loved; Cow skulls, roses & thorns, eyes, a few things that cross my mind that are also pretty safe and hard to get wrong on a tattoo.

Maybe I'll find someone to help design a tattoo for me. That'd be fun. But also perhaps difficult when there's only a couple of weeks left until my birthday. Much to think about.

Speaking of much to think about, I succumbed to one of my usual dreams of dire last night. I have always been a nightmare dreamer, usually about zombie invasions, or an indescribable entity that kills the population in swathes. Tonight though, it was a dream about someone who was considered to be so perfect (for reasons I don't know. the guy was kind of a dick imo), that there was a mad chase to both capture this guy, and also keep him safe from harm.

My dream ended sort of abruptly near the end. I don't remember much about the details of the dream, other than that it was a lot of sneaking around in the dark. One of the ending scenes though was someone attacking this 'perfect guy,' completely severing his hand and pulling his arm so harshly you could see it hanging from the ligaments that attached it to his shoulder.

People in my group, that I was apparently in, flipped the fuck out and decided the only way to balance justice in this situation was to axe the attacker right in the forehead. The gore was excessive!

I'm not sure why this dream was so brutal and graphic. But I have awoken quickly because of it, meaning I can start my day early and more awake. I'll take it.

...

RE: To follow up with my little grumbles in my last morning post, nobody is harassing me. That hasn't happened in years. It's moreso an influx of people either messaging me and begging me to come back, or people messaging me asking if they can have my ask blogs. Both insensitive considering that I feel I've been pretty clear on my stances with the blog & fandom. But also everyone gives the fandom too much credit for making me pull away from the show. One of the biggest things for me was some of the more recent stuff they had in the show that made me feel so sickened, I just couldn't enjoy it anymore.

I've considered recently just unfollowing people who post about the show on the regular, or even blocking some, because tumblr reallllly likes to recommend me blogs just loaded with SP content still, and it's starting to get on my nerves. That, and the more I think on what happened in the show, the more it makes me uncomfortable to be around people who just pretend it never happened/ignore it.

...

Anyways, this is more than I wanted to say on the subject already. I'm over it for now.

P.S. By the way, I loved reading from you guys how you've all been doing. Some left replies, some sent me asks, some DMed. It's nice to know what people around me have going on :3.

Here's this morning's question: What's the latest dream you can remember having?

[adarkrainbow]

Among all the Disney animated movies, who do you think is the most beautiful in terms of visuals, background, and art style?

Honestly among the classics, I will say my favorite in visual style always was since I was a child Sleeping Beauty. I love this movie. Snow-White was my first Disney animated movie, so it comes second, but the visual efforts and techniques of Sleeping Beauty are so cool. It isn't like, for example... The Little Mermaid. I do admit the designs are interesting, the movements are cool, the animation is great quality BUT I do not really like the style itself because there's something to... too much roundness and curves in a sort of "child toys" "plushy" "girl dolls" feeling. One of my favorite parts of the movie is precisely Ursula's lair because it has more crooked, broken and sharp lines - in fact, given Sleeping Beauty also uses a lot of sharp, neat, lines and pointy shapes, it might just be something I like.

But I do find a difference between the "roundness" and curves of Snow-White for example, which do work in terms of ambiance and echoes the whole architectural style of these old-fashioned fairytales illustrations and German furnitures and idealistic little houses in the woods, as shown with the dwarves' interior, while also evoking the more sinister "roudness" of the evil queen's castle (roundness of the mirror, of the skull, of the queen's face covered by her headcap). And it feels different from the curves and roudness of "The Little Mermaid" which, with its bright colors, is a bit too much... you know, "child toy" feeling. One is truly a more elegant movie, and the other is more meant to be an entertaining movie... if it makes sense?

That said, I do have a love for the animation and visuals of "The Princess and the Frog". Maybe because the colors are led vivid and psychedelici than in the Little Mermaid, and it keeps a sort of same animation style and flow but by adding "sharpness" to it all?

As you can see I am NOT at all a student of the arts, and I have no idea how to describe my impressions when it comes to visual styles X) I'm a literary student, I know barely anything about drawing. But if you ask me... Yeah, I do think "Sleeping Beauty", "Snow-White" and "The Princess and the Frog" embody for me the Disney animation I do like and enjoy.

Among the other classics, I would say that the two movies that don't really... it's not that they don't work its rather that they don't impress me as much or the style doesn't mark me so much, are "Cinderella" and "The Little Mermaid". I remember these movies for the characters, for specific designs, for the songs. But not for the animation.

[drtrashgames]

Instead of trying to promote a board game I made, I wanna do something fun and explain the process of play-testing and designing my game!

The Initial Concept

I like D&D as a concept. I love the idea of exploring dungeons, collecting treasure, and being a hero in a fantasy setting. But I have severe ADHD, I’m terrible at math, and don’t have many friends I can reliably play D&D with.

So the initial idea I had was to make a single player board game, that has customizable pieces, randomly generated dungeons, and a simplified attack system. I’d also like to publish this through The Game Crafter so I need to find ways to try and keep the cost down and keep it relatively small.

The First Prototype

The first step was to make the randomly generated dungeon tiles. This was going to be the primary way you’d interact with the rest of the game, and it’s most exciting feature in my opinion. I settled on puzzle pieces because they’re small but would still connect together in satisfying ways.

But this left me with the first of many problems. How do you move through the dungeon? You can’t roll a dice, because you’d quickly either run out of room or spend a lot of time wasted backtracking. We’ll come back to this later. For now I just needed something that fit together.

I came up with the idea of having some dungeon tiles contain treasure chests on them, and some with skulls. Treasure would mean you’d get loot, and skulls would mean you’d fight monsters. This way as you traverse the randomly generated dungeons you would have randomly generated encounters too.

When attacking enemies I wanted the system to be simple. A sort of Hero’s Quest style of attack where rolling dice and reading their outcomes would be how you’d determine how powerful your attack or damage would be. At this stage I settled on 3 wooden dice with skulls on some sides. To keep track of the enemy’s health I settled on using small 8mm cubes that you could move down the card as they took damage.

Probably the most ambitious thing I wanted to make was a modular character tracker. The goal of which would be that you can swap out the health, attack, and player character as you grow and gain experience. This would provide you with more attack power, more health, etc.

I settled on 4 interchangeable characters with the vague idea that down the road I would like them to have special powers, making each one unique and helping the player pick a character that fit their play style.

To round things out I added some domino mats to keep the layout of all the gameplay elements in check, and some play money to keep track of treasure.

The First Playthrough

The first impressions I had was that I was on the right track. The puzzle pieces worked beautifully. Likewise encountering enemies and treasure was easy too. The game mats were a bit cumbersome, but I loved the tactile feel of moving the HP down when attacked, and swapping out modular parts as you leveled up your character.

However, one of the immediately apparent issues was movement. How do you move through this randomly generated dungeon? You can’t do it through dice rolls, and if you just move by yourself on your turn it makes backtracking boring. Once a dungeon was explored there was no danger anymore, and it was trivially easy to escape if you were in a pinch.

Additionally the domino mats I added were helpful… but cumbersome. I included an XP tracker, but the problem was that keeping track of your XP level required a LOT of space. If you only level up at level 20 or 40, you need 20-40 empty squares in between to keep you place as you gain XP. That meant an entire domino mat was dedicated entirely to tracking the XP, and it looked like a spreadsheet.

Simplifying Solutions

Ideally you’d want a way to keep track of your movement, but I did not have much space on my character tracker to do that. One of the play testers I had try my game suggested I keep track of movement with a D6. You would rotate the dice as you moved and gradually spent movement points down.

This was an AMAZINGLY helpful solution! Now movement was restricted, you couldn’t just exit a dungeon whenever you wanted, it offered gameplay challenges and potential to upgrade your movement slots as you leveled up!

This one change suddenly opened up the game and created a risk/reward system that made finding treasure and leveling up through defeating enemies super important!

To solve the XP tracking I reduced the giant domino mat of 100 boxes into a simple abacus. Two rows. Top row are 1’s, bottom row 10’s. Now you could track your progress from 0-99 XP while freeing up the mat to include other information instead.

Then there was the problem with rolling attacks. With the 3 dice setup, it was easy to get stuck in a loop of constantly rolling blank sides (missed attacks) for both player and enemies alike. While browsing around the Game Crafter website I stumbled across a dice that has 3 outcomes. 0, 1, 2. It’s called a betrayal dice and it was just what I needed!

With this one dice I could now make the attacks scale depending on the outcome! If you rolled a 0 as a level 1 character you’d miss, but if you rolled a 0 as a level 6 character you’d do 2 damage! All I needed was a chart that showed what the outcomes were and this could be a part of the character tracker that you’d swap out as you leveled up!

The Second Playthrough!

After another round of play testing I was finding myself enjoying playing the game quite a bit. It had a nice feedback loop that appealed to my ADHD brain. But there were still a few little things that were bugging me.

For starters, rotating the D6 every time you moved was cumbersome and annoying, especially since the numbers on the sides weren’t placed in intuitive ways. I found myself struggling to find the right number to move down from, and after doing that 100 times over through multiple sessions it was getting tedious.

The obvious solution was to have a tracker you could put a 8mm cube in like I had with HP. It would reduce the stress and allow for the movement to upgrade along with XP. The problem was space. With all of these laser cut component I was running out of room to fit everything. The Game Crafter charges by the sheet, and I only had one sheet of chipboard to fit everything on.

The other issue was I kept encountering situations where nothing would happen for long stretches of exploration. There were blank dungeon tiles mixed in between the treasure and enemies, and that resulted in some quests having no treasure OR enemies and quickly running out of your movement points before you could find anything. This was especially noticeable during the early portion of the game.

Enemies too could just be straight up brutal. Randomizing the deck kept things interesting, but it could be extremely easy to get wiped out by a high level enemy when you were low level. If you didn’t have the foresight to stock up on powerful weapons and health potions at the shop before hand, you could be in for a rough time.

And finally I had no real reason to swap out the characters. I had initially included 4 different player avatars you could pick from, with the idea that each had a special power to help you out. But I was finding that I often forgot I had powers at all and would frequently venture through quests never even using them.

I was having fun with the game, but it was becoming increasingly clear that I needed to tweak things again to fix these problems.

Choices!

While doing some research into game design I came across a post that talked about the importance of player choice. The theory was that at no point should a player be doing nothing on their turn. Randomization is fun and all, but the player should still always be making a choice of some kind to keep them engaged.

With that in mind I went back to work retooling my game with an emphasis on choice.

For movement I got rid of empty tiles except for T-section dungeon tiles. Now whenever you encountered a blank T-Tile, you would draw 2 additional dungeon tiles, place them on either side of the T-section, and then you’d have a choice of which direction you wanted to go and engage with.

This worked wonderfully! If you were on a quest to collect treasure, now the player would have a choice to chose the treasure option instead of an enemy, and vice versa! This also greatly reduced the number of tiles on the chipboard that needed to be cut, freeing up more room for other pieces.

With that extra space no, I decided to commit to the modular movement tracker instead of using a D6 to track how many movement points you had left. Now just like your HP, you’d keep track with a small 8mm cube that you’d move (far less cumbersome) and the modular nature meant that it could be upgraded easily as you earned XP!

This focus on choice extended into the treasure too. I began adding locked treasure cards that you’d need to open. You could roll a dice and depending on the outcome you’d either open it or fail to open it. OR the player could spend one movement point for a guaranteed open! This introduced a risk/reward choice for the player. If money was tight they could spend precious movement points to unlock it, or they could take a gamble and roll the dice in the hopes that they’ll be lucky!

I had introduced a shop that sold items, but now I added an on sale item. If you could complete a quest successfully not only would you get a little bonus money, but one item at the shop would go on sale for 1/2 off! This offered incentive to complete quests and not just run away when things got hard.

Kill your darlings!

There was one last issue I had to contend with. The special attacks. They were still useless. Up until this point I had had 4 interchangeable characters each with their own special attack. One regained HP, one did an extra point of attack damage, one regained your movement points, and one was able to unlock locked treasures.

For some reason these 4 options felt lopsided. I wasn’t sure why until I re-examined the specials and their function. I realized that my character tracker had 3 main areas that upgraded as you earned XP. Your HP, Attack, and Movement. But I had 4 characters you could swap out, which meant I needed one extra special that didn’t easily conform to what the tracker tracked.

And this is when I made a tough decision. I cut out one of the 4 heroes. Suddenly everything fell into place. Your sword wielder would do one extra damage, your wizard would regain HP, and your rogue could refill your movement. 3 characters, 3 powers, 3 modules that upgraded as you became stronger.

It was sad to see one of the heroes go, especially since art for them had already been made. But unfortunately cutting them was the right decision. And the additional space allowed me to fit in more movement modules.

Final Touches!

I was still struggling with specials though. I needed a way to keep the player aware of them. I needed… to track them.

This was a scary realization so late into development. I had little room on the chipboard to create more modular pieces, but I needed something to ensure players would remember they had specials at all.

That’s when I had the idea to tie specials to the enemies you collected in dungeons. I could very easily add a little dot on an enemy card that would indicate how many special points you’d gain from them if you traded them in for a special cube you could put on your tracker.

Now again there was a player choice. To get a Special Point you now has to weigh your situation and decide if it was worth giving up potential XP in order to use your specials. And when some of those specials include refilling your HP or movement points, that could become a crucial decision to make if you’re in a tight spot!

The final thing I did was make enemies color coded and have 2 different attacks depending on what level your XP was at. Low level enemies are green, mid level enemies are orange, and high level enemies are red. And since there were 6 times you’d level up during the course of a full game, that meant enemies scaled up as you scaled up. I even wrote a rule to shuffle in the high level enemies as you progressed so you weren’t always encountering dangerous enemies when you were still too low to defend yourself.

Treasure by Torchlight!

Since so much of the movement in the game revolves around movement points being spent, I decided to call these points Torch Points and focus the game around the concept of going into dungeons and fighting monsters while trying to keep your torch lit. Once it goes out you can still move, but monsters attack more frequently and so there’s always incentive to keep your torch light lit!

You now got to pick your character, use their specials to your advantage, explore random dungeons, fight monsters, collect XP and loot which could be converted into special attacks, and buy items from a shop that rewarded you for successful quests!

I made an entire D&D style single player game that requires no math, has lots of replay-ability, and is relatively compact! There’s enough randomness in the cards and tiles to keep things interesting and different every time, while also providing the player with lots of ways to make decisions and have an active choice in their gameplay experience.

I think ultimately I was successful in my mission, and I am very happy with the results! It tickles the ADHD parts of my brain that loves exploring maps and planning for my next adventure without being overwhelming.

If you’ve made it this far then THANK YOU for listening! I hope you found this exploration of gameplay design interesting and if you’re curious about checking out the game it can be found here:

https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/treasure-by-torchlight

[toseeclearly]

i deleted everything by accident

I deleted everything by accident, and now I am grieving.

It's not that these things were important, technically. I deleted a tumblr I barely used or looked at; a place where I would start to write a post, get cold feet, and then leave it in the drafts until I no longer wanted to do anything with it. That's all it was, a graveyard to things I was never going to complete, ideas I'd given up on, plans I never followed through with.

But still, the day they rip the memorial down is still sad, and you'll forever walk by that lamp post and remember that, at one point, there were flowers here.

So I guess I just... use this how I used to use the internet: like a diary. I was once a dedicated blogger, back in the days when being a "blogger" had some sort of caché (I think if you said that now, someone would assume you were using some sort of throwback term, like asking aloud if anyone knew of a video store they could check out. Are there any video stores left? I don't know, and I don't feel like googling right now). I wanted to be a writer, a blogger, I wanted to be like all the cool teens I followed who had custom webpages with sections where they'd post about their thoughts and other sections for cool things they did with their friends. I wanted to be their friend and be posted on their cool blog! But this was the early 2000s, where the only way to contact these people was to either stalk a forum they might be on, or email them directly, and both of those always felt unappealing. So instead, I wrote about my life and my friends, read my friends blogs, hoped to be cool enough to be included. Hundreds of posts, stories and essays and quiz results and absolutely atrocious poetry, we wrote so much, I wrote so much. And all of it is gone, now. Blogs long deleted, websites no longer active, everything lost to digital decay. Or, if you're me, you delete your tumblr by accident while massively tired and only realise too late what you've done. More decay, more insignificant pieces of the web burned away. I'm the only one who cares, but that's fine. I can... rebuild. Or just use this space for my own terrible navel gazing.

I write a lot. I have a fair amount of published work, but I also write a lot that never sees the light of day (and probably never should, mostly for quality control issues). I spent a lot of nights writing Parkdale Haunt, a lot of very late evenings hammering out page after page after page until my eyes hurt and my brain was trying to escape my skull, but it felt good. It was a good time. There's several episodes where I wrote the first draft in a complete haze, like when you're running a marathon (NOTE: I have never run a marathon, but like, stick with me here, I'm just extrapolating from my time as a long distance runner) (SECOND NOTE: I hated long distance running and quit to focus on sprinting and hurdling, which I loved, because sprinting is designed for people who want all their endorphins RIGHT NOW and hurdling is designed for masochists, and the 400m hurdles is the perfect race if you just want to punish yourself for any feeling of hubris that you've ever had in your entire curséd life) and you're just zoning out and pushing through any thought you might have that says hey man, what if you just - oh, I don't know - lied down on that patch of grass over there? Yeah, that would be sick as fuck. Writing feels like that for me sometimes, like hey, wouldn't it be nice to just go to bed? Yeah, bed is good. But then I would look down and there'd be 15 pages in front of me, and I'd feel... great. And also exhausted and vaguely headachy, but great. Then I would just spam Emily and/or Ian with screenshots of scenes at random times. Being in my vicinity means you're getting unhinged screenshots at some point.

So I've been writing again. I've got two scripts going for a new show, here's to hoping it works out. And I guess I can write here when I need/want to procrastinate. I don't have much of a footprint left after I threw my fucking shoes in the ocean.

All this has done is made me miss hurdling.

[recordsofelysia]

Dragon design HCs and details

Fool, you thought I would just talk about random world lore, but instead I will rant about creature design and palaeontology!

So, games called Dungeons and Dragons huh, and I’m quite pleased with how many Dragons I’ve been able to integrate into the world, far more than I have dungeons tbh. So, with said dragons I sort of get ideas on what they look like, and how this image fits in with the canon 5e designs, so I wanted to go on a tangent about it.

I’ve got 3 dragons that I have major ideas for, the details of which I obviously won’t divulge, but I’m only gonna talk about those 3 dragons so it’d be pretty obvious which ones I’ve got ideas for anyways.

Up first: Red Dragons

The only one that the players are actually super aware of, our good ol’ “definitely not Smaug”, Ranculos.

In their 5e design, red dragons are purposefully very devilish, with their red colouring and especially horns denoting them as greedy and vile. The horns are absolutely the most distinctive and recognisable feature of them, and one I really like (I’m a sucker for eyebrow ridges that become horns on dragons).

When it comes to personal reptilian influences, when I look at/draw a red dragon I always think of monitor lizards and mosasaurs, literally Komodo Dragons. Being the biggest lizards, and close relatives of snakes, it fits the slimy (metaphorically), cold, and cruel nature of red dragons. The skull shape of Komodo Dragons in particular has this really neat ‘blunt’ look to its front that I think suits a Red Dragon. That squared-off look also brings Tyrannosaurs to mind, though their skulls are much taller relative to length than I tend to imagine for red dragons.

Next: Silver Dragons

One of the more under-utilised types of dragon imo, I really like the deal of silver dragons, and am really looking forward to incorporating one into Elysia.

The skull shape of silver dragons is very boxy, and round, and alongside their crest I’d say the boxy head is their most defining feature. This design is very friendly, and approachable, and absolutely a conscious design choice. Silver Dragons are notable for being incredibly friendly, and most importantly, curious about humans and other short-lived creatures. The “horde” of a silver dragon mostly consists of relics and artifacts they have collected out of interest and love for human cultures and society. They’re just like, nerds for humanoid cultures, and love learning about other races, and I love that for them.

So, naturally, with a boxy head and friendly demeanour I can only imagine Silver Dragons as being very similar to sauropod dinosaurs, like Camarasaurus (pictured) and tortoises. I really really love thinking of silver dragons like sauropods, like imagine if littefoots grandpa had wings and could breathe ice, he’d wreck any sharpteeth.

Last but not least: Green Dragons

Maybe my favourite design wise, I’ve got ideas for a green dragon that probably won’t be realised for a while, but I’ve certainly thought about their design.

So, the 5e design of green dragons is very clearly influenced by their abilities and habitat: they live in swampy environments and breathe poison. The most important and distinct feature of green dragons is those fin-like crests that they have, but a point is also made about their long snouts, very clearly drawn from crocodilians. Personality wise, green dragons are notably for being manipulative, scheming, and downright toxic lmao (pun intended). Their “horde” is defined by people who they have tricked, bargained with, or frightened into obedience, and they take pride in making slaves of powerful heroes or rulers. They’re so cunning, and evil, they feel very much like classic Disney villains to me, so I can’t wait to try and run one.

In terms of design, I don’t have much new material to add, but specifically I love to draw inspiration from Spinosaur dinosaurs (like Suchomimus, pictured), which really adds a menacing layer considering their size and crocodilian features. I also think that Caimans are a great reference for green dragons, since they’re not as bulky as alligators, but they’re a bit squatter than crocodiles, which is a good middle ground.

I just really like crocodiles and Spinosaurs, so yeah Green Dragons have my favourite dragon design.

This post has gotten so long that typing is making my phone lag, so I’ll call it there, glad I could go on a rant about dragon design and dinosaurs, if I decide to play around with or draw any other dragons I might make follow-ups

[ghoulfr13nd]

(about your ocs) OH HELL YES! your playlists are great and absolutely convey the right vibes if my guesses are any indication! :D i actually have questions about them though! when u make playlists for ur ocs do you put songs in a specific order? like for example, trying to tell a story with songs or dependent on genres or something else? and are those songs purely songs describing their chracters and their vibes or do these playlists also show music taste of these ocs? 👀

and i meant bipolar! i mainly said that because i myself have bpd and i just- yeah i felt these playlists fdgjsdf

you know, i actually didn't consider them being supernatural (pun not intended fsdjk)! for some reason i imagined them in like- crime thriller setting xd but i love that, angel and demon aesthetic is my jam! especially when it turns out it's not just simple "good guys (angels) vs bad guys (demons)" and things are actually more complicated! love the idea of an angel designated to kill in god's name but grappling with her morals it's chef's kiss also I KNEW THEY WERE GAY FOR EACH OTHER YESSSS I LOVE when someone gets ordered to kill the other but it turns into a complicated gay mess! :D it's like- one of my favorite tropes! hell yes! and then you add a troubled kid for them to take care of and that's an instant win for me! is Linsey also supernatural or nah? i love premise of this story!

also omg this art is beautiful! ves looks so cool her style is so in my type fgsdj (also i love the 3rd character they look so cute 🥺) and I would be interested in seeing more of their art! :O (but only if it'd be not too much trouble i wouldn't want to make you dig too much!)

are you kidding i love them all! i think especially Mac because she just seems like the type of character that i naturally gravitate towards lately fgsdjkf (and ah yes, "problematic characters", or as i like to call them: characters that aren't bland and have some actual flavor fsdgafj though i get the fear of showing them, people can get wild with the discorse and accusations 😭)

and aaaaa it's really ok! im doing well thank you! :D hope u doing good too! it was so much fun! ✨

music anon 🎶

LOVE LOVE LOVE THESE QUESTIONS, ANON I WAS SO GIDDY READING THIS ASK THE FIRST TIME THAT I LITERALLY NOT EVEN JOKING, CLAPPED MY HANDS TOGETHER AND SWUNG MY LEGS AROUND. I’ve been SO excited to answer you!

First off, let me say I am so flattered by your interest in my guys???? Like, these are my little dolls that I fling around in my skull sometimes, but barely make it out into the world. It makes me so happy to share them!

ANYWAY. down to business.

when u make playlists for ur ocs do you put songs in a specific order?

I DO NOT, these bad boys are made to be thrown on shuffle! especially Mac’s, because it’s important to me that you don’t know when the somber piano music is gonna hit!

are those songs purely songs describing their chracters and their vibes or do these playlists also show music taste of these ocs?

THEY ARE BOTH!! Mac likes club music, but her sense of time is sort of skewed, so she listens to a blend of pop from several eras. I do think she really likes Billie, she vibes with the edginess of that one album. She’s polished, though, and keeps her doubts buried underneath pretty clothes and lip gloss and several layers of self-importance. The somber songs represent moments where her true feelings rear their heads — they’re abrupt and painful and stop her in her tracks.

Ves, on the otherhand, is possessed by her doubts. Her songs are more of a reflection of this internal struggle to figure out what she wants, how she feels, who she is. My initial concept for her includes more of a club-vibe for what she listens to, too, but I really think she enjoys rock. However isn’t the type to sit around feeling sorry for herself. She prefers to suppress that, by finding trouble to get into. So songs like Two Beers In and the songs by girl in red are there to describe her.

Linsey is mostlyyyy narrative-driven stuff. I don’t know she cares much for music. But she’s got a thick accent and has spent more time with her granny than she has her parents, so her songs are more focused on that aspect of her, as well as her struggles as she learns how to be a kid. Linsey isn’t supernatural, but you’ve got me rethinking that a bit. I might change that.

Finn is the one without a playlist. He’s just trying to keep it together. His dad was a fisherman and he followed the family business, and pretty much only owns clothes that are good for being outdoors. Finn is also human, and his humanity is important to me, so he’ll probably stay that way. I don’t have much lore for him other than that though. 😔

Thank you for listening!! I don’t share them very often so it means a lot to me. I’ve dug up some old art (drawing isn’t my strong suit so please take them with a grain of salt). I’ll attach it in a reblog.

But what about you?? What are your OCs like? I would love to hear about yours!!

[emdotcom]

I've been quietly cooking summat that I've not mentioned to another soul. I have no plans to do much of anything with it, other than stew, so, here goes:

Tw for themes of ableism, lobotomy, child cruelty.

If you could have all the difficulties & strifes in life just snipped away, & get everything you've ever wanted for free, delivered on a silver platter, would you want that? If I told you that with a few simple operations, I could take everything you don't like about yourself -- your bad habits, disorders, the things that makes other people shun you, anything like that -- & just take it away, wouldn't you want that? No matter how much it costs?

The idea is that, in this little world I've set up, humanity has been able to nail down exact portions of the brain that cause all those foul, undesirable traits that make like harder for everybody, down to being able to just pluck them out. &, Better yet, we've been able to find the exact parts of the brain that give us those good traits that make you valued & desired & loved, enough that they could just... Stitch those in, in the place of all those nasty things they just cut out.

We know these things, down to an exact science. But we don't know how to replicate them.

No matter what you do, no matter how perfectly you recreate & integrate, there is some intangible spark that prevents artificial brain matter from working as intended. So, of course, you'd need a brave volunteer for those shiny new good traits -- a donor.

For the amount of money you get for more desirable traits, there's always going to be somebody willing to sell these things away. Of course, wouldn't it be more efficient to just cultivate it?

Did you know children pick up new information far faster than adults do? There's theories on why, a sort of necessity that demands you pick things up quickly, so you can survive. Here, though, it serves our purposes just fine. They've very malleable -- you can mold kids into honor students, then just clip that knowledge out of their head & into the skull of the highest bidder. What happens to the kid? Well, they've just lost a considerable amount of brain matter that you're certainly not replacing, so you just... Send them back to school again, have them develop a new skill you can take, again & again, until there's nothing left to steal away.

That's the setting. A sort of boarding school used to cultivate young minds, marketed as a home for troubled & abandoned kids to be turned out into proper adults, but really just a slaughter house full of spare parts.

I've got ideas, yeah, mostly about a teacher -- a machine designed to turn out as many excellent students as fast as possible, but one that's cottoned on to the fact that they're slowly sending these kids to their doom. They work hard to teach & parent these kids & make them as good as can be, & then the kids disappear for a little while. When they come back, they're missing a few pieces, & all the work they & that child just put in has been robbed away, leaving a broken & upset child behind. &, Still, they have to teach -- you can't go against your basic programming. If you teach too many too well, you'll lose them, & if you teach too few you go in for a recalibration, & then you'll lose pieces of yourself. You're trying to work around your limitations, all the fail-safes etched into every line of code to just remember what is happening & try to help as much as you can without being noticed, but it's never going to be enough. You have a limited memory, when it comes to your students -- when you meet a new one, the oldest entry gets deleted. You're etching down faces & names onto scraps of paper, what their favorite colors were, how fussy they were when it was time to sleep, anything you can remember so that this little bit can't be taken away, too, but you come back to this paper & you don't know any of these kids. Even though it's all your hand writing, you've never seen any of them before.

I have idea about a student, a new one, one that notices how often their classmates have "episodes" & come back different. One that notices their teacher acting strangely.

No idea what I'll do with this, though.

[cintax3rror]

You Need to Know About Urbano

I wanna start this by saying it’s in its demo phase right now but from the demo alone I can tell this game is going to be so much fun. I also wanna say stop looking if you want 100% total surprise for the game since this post will include screenshots and gameplay. As well as characters and traits and yadda yadda. But I won’t be spoiling major points in the plot.

If you're looking for a new game to play and you like rhythm games with cool art, story and characters then this is literally it. You're gonna have to bear with me bc I sound like an advertisement but hear me out please.

Alright, I first found Urbano on TikTok, they posted about their game and updates on it. Right away the art blew me away, it’s so unique in it’s style! Here are some example's I've got:

——————————————————————————

I adore the art, but it's not only strong in presentation. The gameplay is extremely fun here's some of me going through the gameplay and here's the controls since I skipped past some of them on accident since I played this beforehand. U - hit W - Jump S - Crouch D - Advance towards the goal (this can be an enemy or a destination) (you can also use a to backtrack/dodge if you have to)

The game explains it but that's the short of it.

I am no expert at rhythm games but even then I'm starting to get the hang of it and the gameplay is extremely fun along with the visuals. I remember when playing I got reminded of Skull Girls. The gameplay is something I've never seen before and it has it's own formula on how you press buttons. The RPG aspect along with being a rhythm game is something that really stands out about this game. I love RPGs and I love music, this game is a love letter to video game lovers who love a good RPG and music. Even if you aren't skilled at rhythm games you get the hang of it, I did and I honestly can't wait to play more.

——————————————————————————

Now, characters. I wanna start with HOW MUCH I LOVE RETALIATOR’S DESIGN. I love all the designs but his is just SO GOOD!!

HIS MASK IS SO COOL!! I also really want to applaud the unique weapon he has. He uses a belt, you don’t usually see belts as the weapon your RPG character uses but it’s a awesome idea when put into practice. He stands out among the rest of RPG main characters and that’s something I think a lot of people, including me, appreciate. Small spoiler ahead but you learn this fact about Retaliator almost immediately: his actual identity is a guy named Vailo, you play as him and with that you take on Retaliator’s job of hunting urban legends. It’s a really distinct concept with a character as witty, tired and sarcastic as Vailo. He’s definitely my favorite character. (Full body ref of him).

——————————————————————————

Lofi is really fun too, she works at a store called Kittie’s Kit. She’s energetic, smug and likes spilling tea. Her dynamic with Vailo is really fun since they contrast in a lot of ways. She also has a really cute design.

LOOK AT HER!!! Anyways, yeah she’s neat, I would explain more on her but it would be spoilersssssss.

——————————————————————————

Ok last character I’m going to talk about is Honor, if I don’t cut it here, we’ll be here forever. Honor is an entity in the Karma District which is where all of this is located. From my understanding entities seem to be ‘the higher-ups’ or just beings of a higher status. Also from my understanding, entities seem to embody a trait of some sort Honor is just what she seems like, honorable. She doesn’t get socializing at first but you can sure help her out a bit if you choose to hang out with her.

Her design is super cool and very fitting to what she embodies. She talks with confidence but gets flustered when she slips up and others notice.

——————————————————————————

All of this but on your screen!!! The demo was such a fun experience and I’m eagerly waiting for the full release. I highly recommend this game, the project deserves so much more recognition! Here is some links if you want to keep up to date with it all!

Official Discord!

Official Kickstarter!

Official TikTok!

Official YouTube!

https://twitter.com/bar0sa

Official Twitter!

And finally…

WISHLIST/DOWNLOAD THE DEMO!!!

[cogentranting]

Rating Non-Disney Animated Horse Designs

I’m back by popular demand/well not really but my optimism’s grand

A sequel to my Disney horse Rating post for all the other random non-Disney horses. Dreamworks, Bluesky, random cartoons, anything I could find. Featuring: Altivo, Spirit, some Barbie horses, and a few abominations.

Horse (Sing)

6/10 I don’t hate it and I feel like I should because it’s really hard to anthropomorphize horses that much without making them into the stuff of nightmares.

Shadowfax (The Lord of the Rings) 

5/10 There’s nothing WRONG with him per se, but it’s SHADOWFAX. Lord of all horses. He should wow me, and he doesn’t. Check out Gandalf’s weird sock-boots though. 

Hervé (Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper) 

-6/10 Horses' mouths don’t look like that. Horses’ mouths should not look like that. This thing wants to eat human flesh but can’t because it has two solid curved huge teeth with no physical  relationship with its jaw. Also this horse has the beginnings of male-pattern baldness. 

Princess Brietta (Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus)

1/10 Her eyes are flat like they’ve been painted onto her socketless skull. And there’s something very off-putting about this shade of pink. 

Beauty, Merry Legs, Ginger (Black Beauty) 

4/10 Ginger isn’t ginger. That is not a sorrel horse. There’s ONE requirement. Beauty’s the best of the three which is I guess what counts. 

Hans, Klaus and Greta (Ferdinand) 

2/10 I hate them so much. The core design isn’t that bad but the way they move and pose is. No horse should make that face. The one on the left is stretched putty.

The Grand Chawhee (All Dogs Go to Heaven)

I know what you’re thinking-- “isn’t that a mule or a donkey of some sort?” No. He’s a racehorse. Maybe a thoroughbred. And it’s his birthday so the other horses let him win. 

9/10

Stella (All Dogs Go to Heaven)

1/10 She gets one point for being nice to Chawhee. But she’s clearly some sort of alien giraffe hybrid. 

Odette’s horse (Swan Princess) 

7/10 Just a nice little palomino design.  

That little shaggy pony (The Quest for Camelot)

12/10 Amazing. Look at the determination.

Buck (Barnyard) 

2/10 See this is what that horse from Sing COULD have looked like. 

The Horse in the Back, Not Klaus But I Couldn’t FInd a Better Picture (Klaus)

9/10 He matches his owner and I respect that

Leah (The Star) 

4/10 This is horse is voiced by Kelly Clarkson. That has nothing to do with her rating, I just thought you should know. 

(Starchaser: The Legend of Orin) 

8/10 for both. I have questions but I do not want answers. It’s better this way. 

Fred (Over the Garden Wall)

7/10 don’t love that his head is a different color than his body in a weird way but he looks neurotic and fun. 

The Chariot Horses (Prince of Egypt)

8/10 I’ve just always liked these guys with their square faces and fun hats. 

Altivo (The Road to El Dorado)

7/10 Look at the little curl in his mane. Good personality. A little too much “Dreamworks Face” 

Donkey in Horse Form (Shrek 2? one of the Shreks) 

3/10 Look at his face. I DREAD what he might have to say. 

Esmeralda, Esperanza, Ernestina (Madgascar 3)

2/10 They’re coming for you. Coming to drag you into the Abyss. 

Police Horse (Madagascar)

7/10 I like his face shape. Compare him to the Madgascar 3 horses-- look how much more identifiable as a horse he is. 

Melvin (The Lorax)

10/10 He’s not a horse, but he’s so fluffy I love him. 

Babieca (Puss in Boots)

4/10 This horse has dead eyes. 

Onyx (Rise of the Guardians) 

13/10 She’s the leader of the nightmares and I would fully support her terrorizing the dreams of children. I’m pretty sure she and her mares ate the boogie man. A true Girlboss.

Yi Min (Kung Fu Panda but I think just an online game) 

-20/10 Just from a design perspective there’s far too much going on so it’s hard to even make it all out. Also I would have zero idea that this was a horse if the wiki page didn’t tell me it was. It has split hooves? 

Spirit Jr. (Spirit: Riding Free) 

8/10 Objectively I know the design is good  but my heart rebels against this show’s existence. 

Boomerang Thomas Stone (Spirit: Riding Free) 

8/10 I’m not doing all the horses from this show but I had to throw him in because he’s cute and he has a middle and last name for some reason.

Horse (Centaurworld) 

Why are there two distinctly different designs for her? This one gets a 9/10. The round one is like... a 5. All the other creatures in this show are eldritch abominations that will haunt me in my sleep now. 

Esperanza and all the other horses from this movie (Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron) 

10/10 No notes. Perfect horses. 

Rain (Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron) 

15/10 I don’t have a joke here I just really like the way they differentiated her and made her pretty without too much anthropomorphizing. I like that she has a roman nose.  I like her feather. 

Spirit (Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron)

100/10 He’s everything. He shaped me as a person. No other animated horse can compare. 

[cinnaminyoons]

( ECHOES. )

ミ☆  sometimes all your boyfriend needs is a little extra love.

⤷ PAIRING pjm x m!reader

⤷ WORD COUNT 2.6k

⤷ TAGS jealousy, insecurity, choreographer!reader, exes!reader/lisa

⤷ REQUESTED

Hey! I really love ur writinggg I was wondering if u cld do a jimin x male reader idol! Au where the male reader is a choreographer and is appointed to choreograph a dance for lisa ( I think it was chocolate mushroom?) . Lisa and male reader has some sort of history tgt and that's why jimin accompanys male reader to yg and watches him teach lisa the dance. Then jimin gets jealous and u cld continue however u want from there!!! I'm sorry if I'm being tooooo specific HAHAHAHHA

Today is a rare day off for Jimin. He had made plans – stunningly, wonderfully, planned-out plans – to spend time with the love of his life. They shared ideas over dinner, over movies, and even the ones about staying in bed until noon and wearing pyjamas all day made him giddy with excitement. It is going to be a memory for the scrapbooks.

At least, it was supposed to be.

"Hyung, I'll drive you there."

You pull on your shoes – simple sneakers, comfortable and disinclined to slipping on smooth polished floors. "You're supposed to keep driving to a minimum, baby. Besides, you're all comfortable – it’s too much a hassle. I’ll come home quick for you."

Jimin huffs and cuddles his grey dog plush closer, his sweater sleeves pulled over his knuckles. "I'll just stay in the car. Nobody will see me."

A glance up. "I thought you wanted to watch?"

"People change their minds."

You stand up, reaching for the stack of items on the buffet table next to the front door. Your hand pauses. The stack is gone.

Jimin lifts the car keys. In his other hand are your leather wallet and phone.

"Stay here." He leans up and presses a soft kiss to your cheek. "I'll put on jeans. Don't move."

He disappears down the hallway before you can ask for your belongings. You've always loved his clingy affection, always wanting to follow you around, but you can't help but think that this situation has him accompanying you to watch you like a hawk. You sigh, chest tight with trepidation, and push your ball cap further down over your eyes.

—

The building is sharp, modern, and intimidating. You know you shouldn't be afraid of it – it is, after all, only a variation of a big cube – and you've signed in more times than you can count on two hands, but something about the sleek luxury of its perfectly-maintained glass walls makes nervousness crawl at the back of your skull. The work contract you signed gave you practically free reign over the new dance, and it is really only your reputation on the line. You'll get paid anyway.

The worry crawling about in your head stems from the fact that you are romantically involved with an idol from a different company. You say 'romantically involved' rather than 'dating' because the former suggests a baseline of impersonal professionalism that acts as a shock absorber. Your relationship, added to the fact that you've worked for a rival more often than not, could become a conflict of interest if someone at the top cared enough to point it out.

Perhaps Jimin feels this too because he grips your hand tight and keeps his head down, face mask on and steps quick. Though he wears a cap similar to yours, the cotton-candy pink strands poking out from under it immediately mark him an idol. All the workers around you are black-haired.

As soon as you find the designated studio, you breathe a silent sigh of relief, closing the door on the watchful eyes of strangers.

You turn to Jimin and murmur, "Just keep quiet and to the sides, please. I don't want you to get kicked out."

He blinks, rather offended. Have you forgotten his whole thing is dancing? "I know how to act in a studio."

"Good."

Towards the other end of the studio is a slight figure, dressed in grey joggers and a pale yellow hoodie. Straight dark hair is pulled neatly up, swaying as her weight shifts from one leg to the other.

Lisa meets your eyes through the mirror and smiles, standing straight. "Afternoon, oppa."

Her voice bounces off the walls. These rooms have a tendency to do that, the faint echoes of squeaking shoes and crunching water bottles amplified by the emptiness.

"Hey, Lisa. Were you waiting long?"

"Not at all. I've stretched, so if you're ready, we can jump straight into it."

You unzip your jacket and shrug it off, dumping it unceremoniously in a corner. A pink-and-black water bottle rests there already. Gotta keep the name loyalty going.

"I watched the video," she says, taking a place in the centre of the room. A half-smile flashes across her features. "You looked great."

Something runs beneath the face-value innocence of her words. You lift your eyes to hers and both of you understand that whatever is between you hasn't truly accepted its death.

You loved her – you still do. Just not in the way you used to.

This is on company time, now. Emotions are meant to be left at the door.

You give her an acknowledging nod, but that is all. "Ahead as ever. Do you have any questions before you start?"

"Oh, one." She lifts a perfectly-manicured finger. "Halfway through, you do this..." She illustrates with the top half of her body, though without as much finesse as a performance would require. "And something else, but it's difficult to see."

"You mean this part?" You lower yourself to the floor – as much of the choreography is based on it – and demonstrate. There is a subtle difference between your version and hers, and you repeat it a few times as she nods and commits it to memory. The music begins.

Jimin thought coming with you would have assuaged his green-eyed monster. He is right there, he had assumed. He could assure himself that you loved him fully and without hesitation.

Yet, as he sits against the cold mirrored walls, your black backpack tucked under his chin, the insidious illness digs into the soft flesh of his heart. She looks so good with you. The height difference between you and Jimin is noticeable, but with her, it is the first thing he sees. On her face is a look of pleased professionalism, and she puts a smooth edge to the dance, adding a seductive and eye-catching aspect to it that goes unrivalled.

You watch from in front of her, as that is where they have decided the camera will be. Your arms are crossed, and none of her movements goes unscrutinised.

She's beautiful, anyone with eyes would agree, and insecurity whispers in Jimin's ear, curling cold bony hands over his shoulders. He shakes them away as best he can but they hang on tight, and he lacks the strength to fend them off.

He grows cold, inside, and even hugging your backpack does little to warm him. It should – holding things that belong to you have always done so. The sweater he wears? Not his. Yours. He loves it so much you've never worn it since you began dating, and it has a comfortable and steady place of pride in the middle of his closet. The low drop of the shoulder lines, the too-long sleeves, the soft and heavy weave – it all reminds him of you.

He wonders why you are the one in charge of not only coming up with the dance, but teaching it to her, too. Surely Lisa must have had a personal say in it at the table. It isn't like you market your abilities towards girl groups, and Jimin would have thought that being alone with a woman in the studio would have been a preference. The only logical explanation he can come up with is that she asked for you by name, and that she had plans in place banking on you coming alone.

A twisted sort of pride and smugness fills him. Just by being there, he had thwarted unsavoury intentions. It would explain why she had not greeted him.

Still, Jimin fears taking his eyes off of you, and he doesn't blink, not even when his eyes begin to water. He has to eventually.

It's all about you, all about her. You're the earth to Lisa's sun. Lisa dances, you watch her, and Jimin, the moon, sits off to the side, forgotten and cold and alone, with not even another moon to confide in.

He knows your... history with her. You had shut down a contract on choreographing the group’s new title track and Jimin, curious and having stumbled across your email declining it, asked you why. You'd waved it off, citing a timetable clash, but Jimin knows your timetable like the back of his hand. You share a calendar and Jimin is always acutely aware of time and how it passes, counting down the days until he can snuggle into your open arms and forget everything but the soft rise and fall of your chest.

Eventually you admitted that you and Lisa had been closer than was strictly allowed. You had been reluctant to disclose more than that, but Jimin wanted to know out of simple curiosity, and you've always had a hard time refusing him.

On and off, you'd described it. Casual, you said.

He had accepted this and did not think about it again for months. You were his, and that was all he needed.

Now it is all he can think about.

What if you decide you actually prefer her company? What if you decide to leave him and come out to the public as Lisa's boyfriend, not Jimin's?

It weighs heavily on him. He notices how your hands wrap over her shoulders, how your feet nudge hers into place, how your lowered head and murmured words don't quite reach his ears.

The end of the session doesn't end quickly enough. When it does, at long last, Jimin is the first at the door, holding the backpack by the loop on top rather than swinging it over a shoulder. His visitor pass hangs around his neck, white lettering on a black card denoting how he does not belong there. You do not have a visitor pass, and neither does Lisa.

You compliment her while you toss your jacket over your shoulder. Her smile is wide and sweet, her thanks-and-see-you-later genuine. She tucks her hair over her ear, and her fringe sways back into place. Jimin stares at his feet as you hold the door open – she leaves first, waving and smiling, and you split off the opposite way down the corridor. Jimin trails behind.

"Jimin, baby? You were upset earlier. What's wrong?" You wait for him to catch up and try to link your hands together. He pulls away, soft fingers slipping out of your grasp, and you frown.

He only walks faster. It wouldn't be hard to catch up to him – each of your strides are basically two of his – but you let him go. When you head down into the car-park underground, you unlock the car before he gets there, letting him slide in and sit quietly until you arrive and claim the driver's seat.

The car ride is heavy. The air is heavy. Jimin's heart is heavy.

Absorbed in his own thoughts, he doesn't notice the things he usually does. He loves car rides with you, normally. The simple black sedan – an automatic with chrome wheels and seat warming options – is safe and comfortable and reminds Jimin of first dates and awkward kisses. Today he doesn't point out the pretty sunset, pale pink and orange with wispy chick-yellow clouds struck across the sky.

You've had this car for a while. He wonders if Lisa's ever been sitting where he is now, or in the back seat, where the windows are tinted black for privacy. He knows he's used the backseat for wandering hands and hungry mouths, and he's likely not the first.

A sliver of doubt creeps into his mind, crawling low to avoid the searching floodlights. Has he ever had you, truly? Do you look at him and see something temporary, a placeholder, something to place in the back of a drawer and never touch again?

Maybe this is why you are so hesitant to come out as a couple. Doing so would chain yourself to him, and any breakup would be more trouble than not.

Jimin shifts the backpack on his lap. He whispers, "Do you still want her?"

He fidgets with the sleeves of his sweater and fixes his mask. He is sitting in the front seat where windows cannot be tinted and must act as if a camera is right outside the car, its lens searching for a familiar celebrity face.

You glance at him before returning your eyes to the road. "No."

Jimin waits for the but, the although. It never comes.

"You are the only one I want to kiss. You are the only one I drive home faster for." You turn left and wait in a slip lane, using the time to gaze at him. You try his hand again, and this time, he allows your fingers to thread between his.

He stares at your entwined hands, turning them over silently to trace the lines of your palm. He likes how they fit perfectly together, how his hand looks soft and delicate and rests comfortably in your warm palm.

The car rolls forward, engine rumbling softly. You stroke his fingers with your thumb, brushing over his knuckles and the soft skin between them.

"Don't speed," he lectures, though his voice is quiet and muffled.

"I know. I can't get caught, or how else can I come home and kiss you?" You squeeze his fingers, driving with one hand. You shouldn't – ten and two always, you know the rule – but Jimin's small hand tightens on yours when it starts to slip away, and he holds it tenderly in his lap as if it is a precious artefact made of pure gold. He cups both hands around it, protecting it from the elements.

You have to keep your eyes on the road, following the white lines that flash by. Jimin's gaze on the side of your face is nervous and you can feel it boring into your temple.

"Hyung, are you upset with me?" he asks quietly. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not upset," you reassure, "why would I be?"

He shrugs, keeping his eyes low on your hand. He plays with your fingers. "I ruined the mood by being there, right? I should've just let you go alone."

"Jimin..."

He clutches your hand a little closer at your sigh.

"That's what you used to do," you say. "You used to bottle it all up and never told me anything. We both felt awful." You glance at him. "As long as you're not keeping quiet about what's bothering you, you could never make me upset."

The silence you leave after your words is intentional. He knows this, and it comforts him. Gives him a space to talk about what's troubling him.

"I was jealous," he finally admits in a small voice. "I didn't trust you to not do anything if it was only you and her. I don't know why – you haven't given me any reason to worry about that."

"Do you still worry about it?"

He shakes his head. Nods. Shakes his head again. Settles on a sigh.

"It's okay, baby. Do you think a movie would make you feel better?"

"How many am I allowed?"

"As many as you want."

 "Lord of the Rings marathon?" he asks, hopefully.

You smile, all the edges soft, and nod. "When we get home, get changed and get ready with a blanket. I'll order take-out and we can cuddle all night long. Does that sound good?"

He pulls down his mask and brings your hand up to his face, soft lips brushing your knuckles. The glimmer returns to his eyes and warmth blooms in his chest, scalding the dark creatures that chitter around his heart.

He smiles. "I think that sounds amazing."