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caffichai · 7 days

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Food Bank Fundraiser

Hi everyone!

First of all, I want to say thanks to everyone who's been leaving such nice tags/comments on stuff I've posted! It's been really encouraging (o^▽^o)

Anyway, I think we all know it's very dark days on the economic front for many of us. So as such, I'd like to help raise some funds for Food Banks Canada! In exchange for you making a donation to the food bank, I will draw a character suggestion!

I know this is not really the sort of thing I normally do or post here but... many folks are struggling to put food on the table right now, and the food bank is a source of support for many and provides an absolute necessity. I've seen many people struggling in my own city, and food security has become an even bigger issue than it already was in the last couple of years with the food bank struggling to keep up with demand. Of course, food security is an issue across the whole country that's putting a huge strain on food banks, with nearly 5% of the entire population making use of food banks monthly, and 23% of the population reporting food insecurity (CBC, 2024; Global News, 2024). Unsurprisingly, those who are already most disadvantaged suffer the effects of food scarcity even more (Statistics Canada, 2023). To make matters more desperate, Canada's food bank system is on the brink of collapse (CTV News, 2024).

I know this isn't going to something big enough to change the world or anything, but being able to make even a small impact for individual people is important too!

✨Incentives✨

Of course, I'm sure people aren't just in it for a reward, but rewards make things all the sweeter, right?

For those who want to contribute, I'll take a character suggestion and add it to a poll (depending on the number of contributors, it may be split up into multiple polls), and then I'll draw as many as I can from top to bottom ranking! If you contribute, please send me a DM with your donation receipt and your character idea! They won't necessarily all be drawn in the same style, and they'll be done according to how much time I've got. (I know that commissions are probably the biggest incentive, but realistically, I struggle to get them done quickly and they're probably not that affordable to everyone)

If you prefer SFW or NSFW, you can let me know (But NSFW will be posted to Cohost). If you make a bigger contribution, I'll reach out to you and ask if you wanna see more specifics/details in your piece. How's that for sweetening the pie? :3

For those who can't make a donation (which is completely understandable), simply spreading the post is also helpful, and I appreciate that greatly as well!

Don't forget that giving a donation allows you to get a tax break based on the amount donated as well!

Alternatives?

If you'd rather donate to your own local food bank, that's great too! You can DM me and send me a pic of your receipt and I'll still add your suggestion to the poll.

If you REALLY want a commission, you can also DM me and I'll do my best to fulfil it! I won't be taking commissions for this till/if there's at least a couple of items on the poll though. The proceeds will go to my own local food bank. The commission will be done later though, and may take some time to fulfil. I take payment only after starting.

When do we start??

I guess once there's a good number of poll options? I have no idea how long that will be, but rest assured I'll keep you updated!

Where do we contribute?

You can make your donation to Food Banks Canada! They really need it!

Alternatively, you can make a donation to your local food bank or equivalent charity.

Other Questions?

Feel free to send me a message or an ask! I'll get back to you ASAP. If I need to include more details or clarify something, let me know! It's my first time doing this!

TL;DR

I want to help raise money for food banks! Anyone who contributes to Food Banks Canada (or donates to their own local food bank or equivalent charity) can DM me with their receipt and give a character to add to the poll. Poll characters will be drawn in order of their ranking, as many as I can manage, over as long a period of time as I can manage!

No pressure to donate of course, I just figured this would be a fun way of raising a bit of money to help out, and allow us to donate more than what I personally can

Current Contributor Count: 10

Suggested Characters:

Imagine your beloved, obscure or popular character here on this poll list! Oooooooh, how lucrative :3

Total funds raised:

580.94$!!

#I bet Amiya would encourage donations to the food bank too right??#I know it's unorthodox to run it like this!#But boy is it dire days #food bank #donation #Art #fundraising #Arknights #Amiya #pixel art #pixel #art #poll #digital art #artists on tumblr

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linnienin · 11 months

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🌛A s t e r o i d ⁕ S a l o m è🌜 ( 5 6 2 ) and the Dance of the Seven Veils

~~~~~~~~~~~ Y o u r ⁕ e n c h a n t i n g ⁕ e n e r g y ~~~~~~~~~~~

An astro walkthrough post following Salomè's steps in the Dance of the Seven Veils through the lens of the Seven Deadly Sins.

⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕⁓⁕

The gifs in this post (excluded the last one) were created by me and are from the movie "Salomè" (1953) with Rita Hayworth

"Look at the moon! How strange the moon seems! She is like a woman rising from the tomb. She is like a dead woman. You would fancy she was looking for dead things."

"Salomè", Oscar Wilde

W h o ⁕ i s ⁕ S a l o m è (quick summary of her story):

⁕ Salomè, the princess of Judaea, falls in love with the prophet John The Baptist (i'll refer to him as 'the prophet' to avoid repeating his name too much) and orders to free him from the prison he was held in (for condemning the marriage of Salome's parents, King Herod and his wife Herodias as unlawful)

⁕ The prophet rejects her, but she assures him she will kiss his mouth sooner or later, no matter what.

⁕ Salome's mother in the meantime convinces her daughter to view the prophet as an evil person that deserves to die (alimenting her fresh feeling from the rejection)

⁕ When Salomè is asked by her stepfather king Herod (who lusts over her) to dance she agrees only if she can asks anything in return.

⁕ Once the dance's over, Salomè requests the decapitated head of John the Baptist on a silver plate.

⁕ To the horror of all the partecipants, she finally kisses the mouth of the prophet consumed by her lustful desires.

⁕ King Herod, sickened and shocked, orders her execution.

(this is the William Shakespeare opera version based on the biblical one)

M y ⁕ i n t e r p r e t a t i o n :

In a birth chart Asteroid Salomè represents:

⁕ Your enchanting power

⁕ How people target your naivety to use your talent

⁕ The extremes you're ready to face in order to get what you want.

⁕ What you want but can't have

⁕ What desires consumes you

I also want to make a quick clarification between asteroid Salomè and Sirene because both are seducing and mesmerizing energies, but imo: Sirene : conscious type of seduction, aim for what they want, in control of their actions , calculated Salomè: unconscious type of seduction, influenced by others in their choices, controlled by their desires, not in control of themselves

P o s t ⁕ g u i d e:

I'll go through the steps of the whole Dance and make them into little sections:

⁕ Every section is about one of the Seven Deadly Sins ⁕ Within every section there will be interpretations of different Salomè signs/degrees, depending on which Sins they fall into (in my personal opinion)

Disclaimer: every single sign could fall into every single sin since they're all part of human nature, but one would always prevail on others imo, and this is just my personal take on them.

Enjoy ✨

1 s t ⁕ v e i l ⁕ o f f : P R I D E

⁕ Leo Salomè/Salomè at 5°-17°-29° : You enchant with your confidence and talent. Your creativity allows you to shine from within and make a strong impression on people.

⁕ You draw attention to yourself easily, and others envy this, so they target your individuality to trigger the worst out of you. They want to robb you of your 'Main character' type of energy, using your exposition and will to take up space, to their own interest. They feed your ego only to break your mirror into several pieces later, leaving you not recognizing yourself anymore. You'll find yourself becoming riddiculous just to gain that attention again, blending with the masses for validation, but feeling extremely guilty and shameful about it. This is how they trigger your pride. ⁕ You have a great desire to be able to show yourself without getting judged. You want to dive deep into your creative mind and feel accepted and appreciated for your dramatic and showy persona. When people don't understand your needs, you can get arrogant, narcissistic and selfish .

⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓⁓

⁕ Aquarius Salomè/Salomè at 11°-23°: You enchant with your uniqueness and innovation. Your mindblowing perspectives draws people in and out of curiosity, and you release them with more confusion and even more questions, to trap them in getting back to you.

⁕ You know this is your strategy to create multiple connections and dodge your way to the top, but envious people want to stop you from climbing up that ladder. They'll use you and your network for their own interests, but turning their back to you once they get what they want. This is how they trigger your pride. ⁕ When no one truly deeply understand you, your different view and quirky personality, you start to doubt your identity, facing the negative effects of feeling like the black sheep. You lose the courage to stand up for yourself as you isolate from the world with no track of time and completely dissociating from reality. You become inexistent, cause you won't merge with the masses. A great desire to instill change and put reality in discussion burns in you, but if people keep overlooking your ideas, you just explode and can become rebellious, distant and unpredictable.

2 n d ⁕ v e i l ⁕ o f f : G R E E D

⁕ Capricorn Salomè/Salomè at 10°-22° : You enchant with your loyalty and perseverance. Your disciplined and committed persona inspire people, but they also get envious of all the accomplishments you've achieved with such resiliency.

⁕ You view life simply and clearly, this is what allows you to be so precise with no hesitation when making important choices. And because this is such a rare quality, people want to robb you of it and use it for themselves and their interests. However, you base your self worth on materialism and achievements and when people don't validate them, you only want to get more to prove yourself. This is how others target your weeknesses and trigger your greed. ⁕ They show you the best of everything to make you feel inferior and in consequence wanting it all. But the truth is you don't need it all to feel complete within. You have a great desire to feel the best and most powerful of all, but because you attach your emotions to the outside and not accept them inside of you out of fear of showing your vulnerabilities, you are therefore not in tune with yourself and you are controlled by the world. You want to become the best version of yourself, but if you don't truly accept your imperfections, you can get dissatisfied, demanding and cold with no way of enjoying life like you envisioned you'd have.

3 r d ⁕ v e i l ⁕ o f f : L U S T

⁕ Scorpio Salomè/Salomè at 8°-20° : You enchant with your mystery and intensity. Your enigmatic and independent spirit makes you an extremely interesting character everyone wants to get to know.

⁕ You attract unwanted attention, and you are the center topic of everyone's gossipy chitchat. You are people's dream, and everyone envy your subtle popularity, they all want to get a little sip of you. People view you as a prize they want to conquer to make themselves appear bigger. You have a great desire to form deep and meaningful connections, so you give a chance to others in exploring your hidden and vulnerable side, but all they do is take advantage of your thoughtfulness to feed their curiosity and ego, and once they get what they want, they only come back to you when they need a little refresh. This is how they trigger your lust. ⁕ You hide your emotional side because of past wounds, but your intense feelings still need an outlet or else they'd consume you. You need someone that cherish and care for your complexity and is willing to explore the dark without judgements otherwise you'll become insatiable, unfulfilled and uncontrollable, confusing the real profund emotional depth with a toxic emotionless bond based on superficial desires.

4 t h ⁕ v e i l ⁕ o f f : E N V Y

⁕ Virgo Salomè/Salomè at 6°-18° : You enchant with your skills and intelligence. Your analytical mind and organized approach give you the ability to grasp details and process them in an incredible clear and systematic way.

⁕ People envy your critical thinking and your kind, hardworking nature, so they take advantage of your modesty to use your talents for their interests. You take pride in giving yourself to others to help them out, but when this gets to an extreme and hinders you from developing your own identity, you get stuck in a limbo of constant crave for validation and endless comparisons. This is how your envy gets triggered. ⁕ You look at others' freedom and accomplishments, and you feel guilty you haven't reached that level yet, so you blame yourself for your inability and incompetence, believing you'll never get better and so remain stuck in your delusions. You have a great desire to master your talents and get genuine recognition from yourself and others, but when you don't take on this path, you become fussy, critical and judgemental.

⁕ Gemini Salomè/Salomè at 3°-15°-27°: You enchant with your wit and sarcasm. Your exceptionally curious mind make you jump on every kind of topic with no shame, letting you explore anything and expanding your horizons making you very clever and articulated.

⁕ You excel in debates and are such a social butterfly, you know how to grasp people's attentions with your words. And well, who wouldn't be envious of such a skill? People use your talents by making you feel like you're guiding them and you have the control over the situation, but then you focus too much on the details that you forget the bigger picture, and this includes you forging your own path and understanding what you truly want from life. Those distractions that people throws at you trigger your envy. ⁕ You look up at the people that make decisions and have a clear idea of what they want to do and you feel jealous of their resolution in walking only one path. You overthink so much you'd love to know how to find peace even for just a second, but you get absorbed in the envy, and at your worst you get gossipy, superficial and inconsistent. You have a great desire of knowing yourself fully, being flexible while also find stability within your flexibility. But if you can't look within and stop comparing with others, you'll never know your truth.

5 t h ⁕ v e i l ⁕ o f f : G L U T T O N Y

⁕ Libra Salomè/Salomè 7°-19° : You enchant with your charisma and tactfulness. Your cooperative nature and romantic aura enhance your already stunning natural beauty, and people envy this hard core because it appears as you have been blessed with everything by life.

⁕ They take advantage of your agreeable temperament to use you for their interests. So you live your life as a secondary character, always trying to please others but never taking into account your own will. People use this indecisiveness of yours to trigger your gluttony. ⁕ You never feel satisfied because you don't even know what you want. So you only "eat" more because you crave that instant moment of pleasure constantly. As you base your worth from outside sources, you feel empty inside, hence why you keep feeling the need to put things inside you to fill that void. You have a great desire to make the world fair for everyone and form genuine connections between people, but if you can't complete this purpose, you become unbalanced, overly-indulgent and insecure.

⁕ Taurus Salomè/Salomè at 2°-14°-26° : You enchant with your steadiness and sensuality. Your driven and kind hearted nature allows you to always put your best in everything you focus on, and you're not one to lose your focus easily.

⁕ People envy how firm and determined you are, despite looking very gracious outwardly, you never give up, and this beautiful combo of extremes make you look like a person that possess everything. Others are gonna want to break your peaceful and unshakable nature, taking advantage of your kindness, they're gonna try to use your resiliency for their interests and letting you see how much there is of the world by shifting your focus on the pleasures of life. Soon you're gonna enter the sensual world and you'd never want to go back. This is how they trigger your gluttony. ⁕ Your body craves intimacy and contact, but you've been living in your head, only focusing on possessions denying your sensual side. Now after realizing how food can fill you and make you enjoy the experience, you become addicted to it. The idea of something that doesn't take up space like everything in materialism, but can instead grow you to take up space (eating) makes you feel important and not tie your self worth to outward successes. But it's still making up for your lack of love coming from within, and if you can't feel it you can get stubborn, possessive and self-absorbed.

6 t h ⁕ v e i l ⁕ o f f : W R A T H

⁕ Aries Salomè/Salomè at 1°-13°-25° : You enchant with your assertivity and bravery. Your optimistic and dynamic spirit combined with your dominant demeanor allow you to be a great leader.

⁕ You fearlessness and ease in overcoming challenges make people envious of the power you hold. They use your spontaneous and competitive nature to their interests, trying to make fun of you, to slowly make you lose the confidence in yourself and step down the throne you deserve, but you can't stand the view of this injustice (both if made to you or to others).This is how they trigger your wrath. ⁕ You are not afraid to speak up, but after you lose your confidence, your words are spilled out with impulsiveness and aggressiveness, making people afraid of how quick you can lose your temper. You have a great desire to help others realize their potential, and you want to guide them on the tortuous path of life, but if people ignore you and make you feel small, then you become impatient, insensitive and reckless.

⁕ Sagittarius Salomè/Salomè at 9°-21° : You enchant with your wisdom and open-mindedness. Your free spirit allows you to experience life humbly giving you the ability to transform your mistakes in insightful life lessons.

⁕ You change people's perspectives by elaborating a wide range of informations and putting them in a clear view thanks to your capability of grasping patterns, and others envy this. They want to robb your wisdom, to feel like wise Gods themselves, so they use your knowledge to shut your voice down, triggering your wrath. ⁕ Once you raise your voice and let everyone see this impulsive side of yourself, you can witness people losing interest and trust in you, making you insecure and small, full of existential crisis. You have a great desire to change the world for the best, and to let people see different point of view with your philosophy, but when you are not understood you can turn into a close-minded, highly opinionated and skeptical person.

7 t h ⁕ v e i l ⁕ r e v e a l : S L O T H

⁕ Pisces Salomè/Salomè at 12°-24° : You enchant with your vulnerability and spirituality. Your imagination allows you to put yourself in other people's shoes and understand their point of view in an empathetic way.

⁕ Your easygoing and adaptable nature make others envious of you. They take advantage of your compassion by treating you as their personal punching bag, their shoulder to cry on, their victim to sacrifce. They suck all your energy into their personal interests, leaving you completely numb and not giving you space to display your creativity. This is how they trigger your sloth. ⁕ You have a great desire to feel emotions and share them with people that truly understand you, but if people neglect this aspect of yourself, you become lazy, unmotivated and hopeless. The world holds no meaning to you and you'd rather spend time feeling delusional than open up in fear of not being accepted.

⁕ Cancer Salomè/Salomè at 4°-16°-28° : You enchant with your softness and compassion. Your nurturing and maternal energy makes others feel at home and safe.

⁕ Your incredible intuition knows everyone's needs and your affectionate nature make you want to help everyone just to see a smile on their faces. Unfortunately others can misuse this gift of yours to their interest since they're envious of how perfectly in tune you are with your emotions. When you can sense that all you see are fake smiles, you start to question your ability to heal others and your sensitive side is hightened. This is the perfect moment for those people to strike some offensive words that will make you insecure and want to just disappear from the world. This is how they trigger your sloth. ⁕ You isolate and close yourself in your shell to protect you from further damage. You feel you are unworthy and that you don't bring any value to the world, so you dwell in your sense of guilt and fear, unable to do anything. You have a great desire to make the world a better place, to share your love and emotions with others, to protect those in needs, but if you can't express this side of youself you become pessimistic, moody and manipulative.

And you've reached the end! Congrats! And thanks for staying with me ✨

I hope you enjoyed this post and find it helpful in understanding your own Salomè placement 😊

Hope the dance steps were easy to follow too 💃

It took me some time to make cause i wanted to truly dive deep in the meaning of it and not only talk about the magnetizing part, but remember, this is only my interpretation, i'd love to peacefully discuss with you if you disagree with me 👍

I'm kinda tempted to make a post on Salomè through the houses, let me know if you'd love to know more on this asteroid

as always,

I wish you a wonderful day ahead (or night) 😘 and i'll see you in the next post! Yours Linnie 🌛

#astro notes #astro observations #asteroid salomè #salomè through the signs #salomè astrology #asteroid astrology #astro community

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mooncello · 2 months

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What a fun Sunday so far. ⚡ thank you for the tags @bookish-bogwitch (LOVE seeing some of your writing process), @shrekgogurt (still haven't recovered from ch 13 of ikabikam in the best way possible), @emeryhall (happy anniversary!) & @you-remind-me-of-the-babe (anguished Baz is such a vibe fr).

For today's update:

Enter Niall & Dev.

Truly one of the most unexpected delights of writing this fic has been the insistence of Niall and Dev to show up and take a prominent role in the story. I adore them. I adore them as individual characters, and I love who they are for Baz.

Here's a little from chapter 2 of lost boys. This chapter will publish next week! I'm traveling this week, so I'll post once I'm back.

Under the cut because of length. It's a 30+ sentence Sunday, y'all.

Baz POV, 16 yo, year 12 (school).

Towards the end of lunch, I hear a familiar booming laugh across the canteen. I figure I have two minutes until impact. I tuck my sketchbook and pencils away and twist the lid back onto my thermos of tea. “Just a head’s up,” I say to Niall, who is still contently working away, “we’re about to be interrupted by the demon of chaos hims—” “Bazza!” There’s the solid thump of a hand against my shoulder and the dramatic collapse of tall, muscular limbs into the seat beside me. “My favourite nerd. How’s it going, cuz?” Dev flashes his white, perfect teeth at me before snatching my remaining bourbon biscuit. His fingernails are painted turquoise today, his dark hair is swept away from his face, and he’s wearing eyeliner. The bastard looks amazing. Despite being cousins, we never really hung out as kids. Always kept to different social circles. Which is to say Dev constantly had a roving pack of friends, and I had nobody (save for the lost boys in my dreams). But when I got outed this past spring, Dev decided to take a more active presence in my life. He even convinced me to join the football team with him. He’s charismatic and popular in his own way, and so unabashedly and loudly himself that even the nastiest bullies don’t bother him. It's been nice, having Dev in my life. Even though it means I now deal with his chaotic, abrasive personality all the goddamn time. “Dev, this is Niall.” I make a small sweeping motion to the boy across from us. Dev raises his chin in greeting. “New kid. Hey.” Niall smiles faintly. He looks rather disoriented. Possibly awestruck. I don’t blame him. Dev tends to have that effect on people. I’m almost envious of it. Another smack hits my upper arm. “Did’ya hear about practice this afternoon? Thirty minutes later than usual.” “Yes, I received the same team-wide notification, Dev, thank you.” Dev is now peering at Niall’s drawing tablet without shame, while continuing to talk to me. “A bunch of us are getting ice cream after the match on Friday. Wanna join?” “That’s a very solid maybe,” I tell him in a tone that communicates I’d rather eat grass laced with slug poison. I like playing on the pitch, but I’m not about to huff dairy with a bunch of footballer lads. “Great.” Dev stands, all six feet of him, and squeezes my top knot. I sigh and bat his hand away. Clearly I need to have another conversation with him about acceptable physical contact. “See you at practice then. Nice meeting you, Niall.” He’s off in a swirl of flair and overpriced body spray. “Sorry about him,” I murmur to Niall. I really hope he’s not scared off.

hellos & tags! xoxo

@thewholelemon, @best--dress, @facewithoutheart, @cutestkilla, @whatevertheweather, @artsyunderstudy, @ivelovedhimthroughworse, @fatalfangirl, @youarenevertooold, @raenestee, @orange-peony, @ileadacharmedlife, @nightimedreamersworld, @rimeswithpurple, @iamamythologicalcreature, @shemakesmeforget & @arthurkko (your merwolves ... still thinking about your merwolves)

#niall and dev #my beloveds #dev is wearing tom ford's oud wood body spray #it is EXPENSIVE #total flex on his part #dev is so extra #I love him #30+ sentence sunday #lost boys #snowbaz fanfic #my writing

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creatingblackcharacters · 4 hours

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So first things first: I absolutely love Black braids, the styles are tremendous and you can absolutely tell how much effort went into making them like that. They’re really fucking beautiful. As such, I really want to try giving my Black characters braids, but that’s where my ideas and my artistic talent misalign.

I can pretty readily draw a white girl’s english braid because that’s got very large hair sections, but the smaller the pieces, the worse my rendition gets until they almost look like a racist caricature. I know Black hair doesn’t actually end up sticking out at sharp angles like that, but my attempts consistently (and mortifyingly) get to that place if the hair sections are thin. Is there a good way to shorthand braids rather than individually drawing in all the strands? Such that the concept and style of braids are conveyed but the intricacies aren’t all drawn in (at least not initially). If not, I’ll stick to hairstyles that I can draw acceptably, I just wanted to check if there’s an easier way that I’m missing before I give up for now and come back later.

-Miriam

Please be kind, I know it turns out looking really horrifically racist which is why I don’t share it, and I legitimately just want a new technique for drawing them that our mediocre-at-best fine motor control can handle with the proper respect

I myself cannot really suggest anything other than the practice you're already doing. One thing that I do with hair- because I struggle to draw thinner textures- is study other artists. I obviously don't POST these pictures and call them my own, but I'll trace over how they shaped the hair. Train my hand to how they actually physically drew it, and then try to replicate that shape before adding my own style to it.

So if you're following artists who post braided styles on their Black characters, you could try that until you're comfortable enough to attempt it on your own. Again, don't just trace and post someone else's work! I assume you're already using references too.

Also, something that might help (at least from how I'm understanding your question) is to draw the sections larger and then minimize them. Like if you draw one braid very large on the screen, then copy paste, then minimize the size until it fits on the head and modify it from there to fit a natural shape on the head. You don't have to draw it as tiny as it is on the model, that's what the tools of the program are for.

If you're doing paintings or line art, you can buy brushes that have premade braids! Vegalia sells them on Etsy. Some are filled in, others are just the outline of the braids themselves that can be filled with any color.

#creatingblackcharacters

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lunar-serpentinite · 2 months

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Draco and Harry, Dragon and Phoenix: A Drarry Yapperist's Take, Pt. 1

Harry as the Phoenix

hi, this will probably a long-ish one so uhh sit tight

so the dragon and the phoenix are spiritual and cultural symbols commonly seen in the east asian cultural sphere. as far as i know, theyre pretty much depicted as perfect complements to each other. the phoenix is the fire, the dragon is the water, that sort of thing. the dragon and the phoenix appear together in idioms that complement and contrast their individual symbolisms. i think you can start to see how I'll connect the dots between harry, draco, the phoenix, and the dragon later on.

paired together, the dragon and the phoenix represent a harmonious and auspicious pairing. an everlasting marital bliss, if you will. it's why they're used as motifs for the bride and groom in

additionally, the dragon and the phoenix also serve as symbols of the imperial family, specifically of the emperor and empress. a powerful married couple. you see where im getting here ?

for the most part of this entire thing, i will mostly be referencing the east asian symbolism of the phoenix and the dragon. however, i will also draw on the western symbolism of these two for full oomph :D

i was planning on putting the entire thing in one post but harry's section just kept on getting longer that i said eh, fuck it. multiple parts !

and thus i present to you: harry as the phoenix

so, harry and phoenixes.

in the east asian cultural sphere, the phoenix (fenghuang) represents high virtue and grace. it is considered the ruler of all other birds. its rare appearances herald the hope of a new dawn, a new era of peace and prosperity.

harry, as the boy-who-lived and the prophesised one to defeat voldemort, pretty much represents a new dawn for the wizarding world. he is the symbol of their hope against the threat of voldy and many powerful people sought to have him under their thumb for his influence as the chosen one. as the chosen one and the symbol of the light, he is expected to be morally excellent, at least by the standards of the people. they expect him to act a certain way and when he does something that isnt aligned with their image of him, he is condemned harshly. he is also expected to have the grace to easily forgive and forget. to be the bigger person, basically.

onto the other symbolisms of the phoenix ! in the chinese classic text classic of mountains and seas, each part of the phoenix's body also represents a word. the head is virtue, the wing represents duty, the back represents propriety, the abdomen represents credibility, and the tail represents mercy. now all of these terms are intended to be understood in the context of chinese philosophy, but ill likely cover both the western meaning and the chinese philosophical meanings to the best of my understanding.

now you might be thinking "wait only half of those can describe harry" and you're right ! im not going to be looking at them as traits of harry, but as things harry has struggled with during the course of the series.

first we have virtue. now harry isnt the most virtuous person in the story, if at all. his moral compass is kind of whack in a sense that he bases it off his own judgment and rarely on societal expectations, which is kind of what youll expect when youre raised with such golden examples of morality like the dursleys. he is driven by his own definition of justice and regularly has beef with wizarding society. hes judgmental, vindictive, and downright cruel to those he thinks have wronged him in one way or another. he's prideful, he's independent, he doesnt want to be the bigger person. people want him to embody their virtues. he simply doesnt want to. he has his own virtues and he'd pretty much defend them with his life.

and then we have duty. oh boy, duty. duty has been shoved on his person the moment voldy marked harry as his equal. not once has he fully enjoyed the duty of being the boy-who-lived, the chosen one. he hates the fame and the glory and the expectations the title brings. despite this, he still pushes himself to step up to the responsibilities once the adults have proven to be incapable of, well, acting like adults. "if no one will do it, i will" type of thing. he is, however, a compassionate and loyal friend and most of the actions he took to fulfil his responsibilities as the chosen one are fueled by the need to keep his loved ones safe. he wants to do good by them because he cares for them. this tendency of his to do what is good and just based on his own moral compass can actually fit the concept of yi (義) in chinese philosophy if we stretch it just a tad, since hes not working with a predetermined definition of justice.

moving on to propriety. now the propriety mentioned in the classic of mountains and seas is the concept of li (禮) in chinese philosphy and i admit i dont quite understand it yet but its definion is the concrete guide to human action. to my understanding, this would refer to following the structure of society; having proper manners, behaving in the way that you are expected to based on your societal station, deferring to those with higher authority, generally following the established hierarchy. now that is anything but harry. harry does not give a single shit about conforming to social hierarchy. he told draco, who is arguably at the top of the social hierarchy in their year, to fuck off and befriended ron, who is considerably lower in the social ladder, instead. he has no qualms with biting back at authority figures if he feels that they are abusing their power or targeting him. he's damn well a menace to the properly ordered social hierarchy of the wizarding world.

and now we have credibility. "i must not tell lies", anyone ? now harry rarely ever lies. in fact, he tells and defends his truth to the best of his ability. most of the time, he's fighting tooth and nail to prove that he's telling the truth but rarely does anyone believe him right off the bat. this tendency of people viewing him as a liar and attention seeker has driven wedges in his relationships with other people. i think this definitely fuels his tendency to just go and do things by himself since he wld feel that he cant fully trust anyone around him, not even his best friends ron and hermione.

finally, mercy. the translation of ren (仁) to mercy is misleading, in my opinion. ren is more of like working towards an altruistic goal, while also recognising that you are not alone in this goal and that you have people to fall back and depend on in life. now harry is a highly compassionate and kind person. he gravitates towards the underdogs and those who have been dealt with the shorter end of the stick in life. in fact, one of his greatest strengths is how deeply he loves his people. however, he does struggle with sharing his burdens and problems with other people. again, he is the type to do things by himself and has to be reminded that he doesn't need to do everything by himself. he's not used to having people to rely on. he basically raised himself at the dursleys' and then year after year he had to face challenges and solve problems with minimal help from the adults in his life.

facing all of these challenges in life shaped harry into who he is. theyre like painful little puzzle pieces that slowly clicked together until we ended up with a man who is as loving as he is vindictive, who helps his loved ones in any way he can while also refusing help for himself. he never wanted the crown of responsibilities, but he bore the burden nonetheless out of love and compassion.

moving on, while the phoenix (fenghuang) had originally had separate male yang aspect (feng) and female yin aspect (huang), post-qin dynasty saw the fenghuang slowly go through a feminisation process as the dragon (long) became more of a symbol for masculinity. when applying the phoenix's present representation as a feminine entity to harry, this does not mean that i view harry as a stereotypical "female half" of a MLM couple (ew heteronormativity). for me, this represents the overarching positive influence on him: a mother's love.

while harry looks a lot like his father james, for me a lot of him as a person comes from lily. he has lily's eyes, lily's fire, lily's compassion. he is his mother's son. it was his mother's love that spared him from death when he was a baby, and it was another mother's love (narcissa's love for draco) that spared him in the forbidden forest. lily's sacrifice started his story as the boy who lived, narcissa's lie saw it finished. quite nice bookends, dont you think ?

the phoenix is also attributed to fire, death and rebirth. besides the obvious of fire being gryffindor's associated element, fire can also be attributed to harry's determination and courage shown throughout all seven books. he had tragedy upon tragedy, death after death thrown at him and yet none of those ever succeeded in putting out his fire within. not even death itself could keep him down and his revival in the forbidden forest is pretty much like a phoenix's rebirth.

there's also other obvious connections between harry and phoenixes, namely his wand core and his relationship with fawkes, dumbledore's phoenix.

so yeah, harry as the phoenix. most of the connections i made were between harry as a character and the concepts/virtues that have been attributed to the chinese phoenix. harry is like a phoenix where his character is developed through several trials by fire, almost all of which can be connected to a specific concept connected to the chinese phoenix, and he is protected from certain death not once but twice by the love of a mother, a strong feminine force.

thus ends part 1 :3 i hope this all made sense in a way ! feedback and additional thoughts are welcome ;v;b

#harry potter #harry james potter #harry potter meta #character analysis #harry potter is a phoenix #lol

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kafkaoftherubble · 4 months

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做工前肯定要讲几句有关249的事: 憂太的领域展开

// I Must Talk About c249 Before I Work: On Yuta's Domain Expansion

This post contains spoilers for Chapter 249 of Jujutsu Kaisen.

If I don't dump it here, these thoughts will distract me later! I'm already very distracted lately! Too distracted for my own good! Ahhhhh!

First off, I was eating so good. Yuta fans, simps, appreciators, and Rika (good taste, y'all)—rejoice, for this chapter is basically 95% Yuta! That's right; the next 5% was Yuta's Eyebags!

Look at this! He's so cute! So handsome!

Oh, I have to learn to exorcise spirits now. Then I can kick that fake Rika away and become his Rika!

Also, some people are somehow even more handsome just by being shown slow breathing. Is it just me who thinks that? Or is this what "rizz" truly means? I mean, look at that slight frown! Look at those eyebags! Look at him breathing!

... I'm sorry. I'm usually not one to write something with such trifling, substanceless content.

It's just... Yuta, man.

Anyway, the main point. Please, look at Yuta's

Domain Expansion

Shit is so magnificent. The many swords are obviously the first thing one would notice (and all that joke about Unlimited Blade Works and that Bleach... thing), but it's the abundance of crosses and the knots behind them that attracted my attention.

I'll get the easy out of the way first.

The Crosses

I would suspect these are meant to be "gravestones." Not too hard to think of "till death do us part," right? Though, to be fair, death didn't do Yuta and Rika part. In fact, it strengthened Yuta's split-moment craving for Rika and cursed her—in true dukkha fashion—into something quite macabre.

If one's Domain is the extension of their mental-scape, then it makes sense that Yuta's would incorporate gravestones, since his genesis as a cursed energy user effectively began on the day Rika died.

----

The Knots

Now this is the part that attracted the most of my attention!

Japanese knot-tying traditions are largely influenced by Chinese knotting (中国结) [1]. The word for knots in Chinese, 结, means "to bind," which then comes to represent all kinds of "union." Marriage, for example, is 结婚 (hanzi) /結婚 (kanji) [2][3]. Given Yuta's "love" motif, you can already see why the knots are part of his Domain.

There are plenty of meanings for the word 结, inter alia, it's a pun on 吉 (blessed) [2][3]. The fact that these knots are intertwined also comes to represent "interdependence," "connection," and "bonds." [2]

It's a bit of a stretch, admittedly, but I suppose one could probably draw this to that time Yuta described himself as "blessed." He is blessed because he was loved—he is enriched by connections and bonds with other people.

What is the knot type in Yuta's domain, then?

There are two candidates I could find.

I always rank each possibility from the highest confidence level to the lowest, so here goes. Note that I'm using the Chinese name (I would love it if someone added a more Japanese-focused viewpoint in this post on a reblog. I'm much more familiar with Chinese and cannot read Japanese, so...):

(1) 双钱结, The Double Coin Knot, 淡路結び [1]

It's shaped like two copper coins that are intertwined, hence its blessing is largely related to fortune and money [2][4].

However, the pronunciation of 钱 ("money") is similar to 全, "whole." Meanwhile, there is a pair of coins in this knot. This gives 双钱 an alternative reading—双全, "a pair that makes the whole." It also means 好事成双, "good things come in pairs." [4][5]

Yuta, as a jujutsu sorcerer, is more of a pair than an individual—he fights with Rika and is connected to her. These two together make a whole. A force of good that comes in a pair.

Due to sturdy enough sources corroborating the meaning of this knot, the similarity in appearance to Yuta's Knot, as well as the very fitting "pair + whole" symbolism, I have a higher confidence in this knot being the one in Yuta's Domain.

(2) 八字结, The “Figure 8” Knot

It's a pretty dime-a-dozen knot where the number 8 is formed. It has pragmatic purposes (eg. rock climbing), but here, because these two loops are intertwined, it apparently means "honest love" and "unchanging friendship." [6]

I rank this knot as lower in confidence level. It does at least pertain to the motif of love, according to one source, but it doesn't resemble Yuta's knot quite as well as the Double Coin Knot.

A bit of a caveat, in the spirit of intellectual honesty and rigor: The meaning of this knot has been found in only one source (see Citation #6), and it doesn't actually pass my internal rigor test. I've tried to search for corroboration from Chinese sources, but no dice. The only site in Chinese that corroborates the meaning of "eternal love" has busted web certificates and links.

----

The Name of Yuta's Domain Expansion

The translated name by OP Scan is terrible. It certainly pays homage to Yuta's fame (infamy?) as "The War God of Pure Love," but the actual kanji is 真贋相愛。

真 - Truth or real

贋 - False or fake

相愛 - mutual love, or reciprocal love, or "in love."

真贋 literally means "truth and false. Together it usually means "veracity." Here though? I'd interpret it as "The (Mutual) Love Between The Real and The False."

Isn't this shit metal as fuck? I mean, it's also fucking poetry. Truly the kind of magnificence only one with premium quality eyebags could provide!

It's worth nothing that 真贋 itself makes a contrasting pair, which again, links back to the Double Coin Knot's meaning.

I'm sure yall can make your own interpretation of what 真贋相愛 could symbolize vis-a-vis Yuta and Rika. Let's go, people!

----

Tangents to My Research - Side Dish

Knots have come to be a very important symbol of relationships, especially love, since the Tang and Song Dynasty [1]. To draw to the Japanese side of the practice, Chinese knotting practice reaches Japan during the Tang Dynasty as well [1]. It's not too surprising that this love connotation could also have been passed to Japan.

The entangling property of knots also comes to mind the term "连理（枝）", which means "interlocking (tree branches)." Here are two poems referring to the word:

(1) 同心结缕带，连理织成衣. —By Luo Binwang (骆宾王)

We tie this ribbon into a concentric knot, and we turn our interlocking branches (of love)into our clothes. Translation mine.

(2) 在天愿作比翼鸟，在地愿为连理枝 —By Bai Juyi (白居易）

In heaven, I want to become a Biyi Bird (with you). On earth, I want to be (a mesh of) interlocking branches (with you). Translation mine.

The Biyi Bird is a mythological bird recorded in the purely fantastical geographical treatise, The Classics of the Mountain and Seas (《山海经》). The bird is born with only one eye and one wing on one side. To fly, it needs a partner with the other eye and wing of the other side—and the two will fly together as a complement. [7]

It's very lovey-dovey and romantic and shit.

...Damn, Yuta is really all about love and connection, isn't he?

----

Wow, I didn't work on my actual job at all. Because I deadass spend hours just on this. Seriously?

But then again, there has been a precedence to me breaking my lackadaisical attitude toward writing JJK-related things—and that is when it concerns my favorite character. You don't need to click on the link to know who that other one is; it was Gojo Satoru.

Yuta, bless his rizz, deserves all of my time. If he dies (NO FUCKING WAY, GEGE!!!), then at least I have made something of worth about him.

Thank you for reading my ramble!

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

Citations:

"Chinese knotting" from Wikipedia

"中国结的历史来历和寓意" ("The history and meaning of the Chinese knotting") from 妍妍旅行记 on Sohu.com (in Chinese)

"Chinese Knots, Winding the Best Wishes with Cords" by Beijing Tourism

"双钱结寓意和象征，双钱结编法" ("The meaning and symbolism of the Double Coin Knot; How to Make a Double Coin Knot") on 结艺网 www.zhongguojie.org (in Chinese)

双色绳的编法有哪些？("Whast are the ways to make knots using two different colors?") on Zhihu (in Chinese)

"19 Popular Types of Chinese Knots and Their Meanings" on AnyofChina

"比翼鸟" from Wikipedia (in Chinese; English page not created)

There are also other links embedded in the ramble; these are references for that one specific instance and so do not warrant their inclusion under this section.

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk meta #yuta okkotsu #jujutsu kaisen manga #jujutsu kaisen meta #jjk 249 #jjk yuta #domain expansion

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frauleinandry · 2 months

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a persona 3 reload review

uuuuuuh so i was meant to post this like... two weeks ago, but then real life hit me in the head like a frying pan. now that i've had the time to edit this though, here are my thoughts on p3re! this is also a minato route review, as i played kotone's in P3P (i know it's not his canon name, but i don't want to use makoto due to P5 confusion).

on the whole, reload is a fantastic game. the gameplay easily rivals P5R, and surpasses it in some aspects. the new content is typically great. i also enjoyed minato as a character (well, as much of a character as persona protagonists are anyway), though that leads me to the main gripe i had with reload...

... and that's the lack of kotone's social links. to be precise, two of her social links, the absence of which greatly hurts the overall story.

don't get me wrong, i'd still rank reload a solid 8/10, but it could have been a 10/10 with the addition of those two links (plus one other spoiler thing), and I think that's a shame.

my in depth analysis is under the cut - note, it's very much not spoiler free.

okay, so, i'm gonna split this into 3.5 segments - the good, the mixed, and the bad (you'll find out what the 0.5 is later).

1. the good:

minato - while i'm still a kotone girlie at heart, he's not a bad protagonist at all! his dialogue options have a very distinct personality to them unlike joker and yu, and his character arc is one of the best of all of the persona main leads. an aloof, apathetic boy who learns to love the world/his friends so much he's willing to die for them... it's good!

koromaru - minor, but worth mentioning. you can pat him, and it's so cute. in fact, everything about him is perfect. from his all-out attack screen, to his animations, to... well, everything. no joke, if I needed to sell this game to a non-persona fan, i'd use him as the main draw.

hangout events - while I think being able to chat to everyone in the dorm already made SEES one of the more developed casts, having additional scenes really helped flesh out the party members who are less prominent in the plot (fuuka, pre-january aigis, ken). more things to do at night is also great, given there was nothing to do in the evening after maxing your social stats in the older versions. the perks they give you are great too, but i'll talk about that more later.

voice acting - not gonna lie, i generally don't like the persona dubs, and normally always play with the JP audio. given reload features some of my favourite voice actors though and was basically fully voiced, i decided to give it a chance this time. and i don't regret it! while some actors are definitely stronger than others, none of them were actively jarring, and quite frankly, they hard carried a lot of the social links. kudos to the cast!

strega - while they could have gone a bit further with it (jin needed a linked episode for sure), takaya finally got the development he sorely needed, and his and jin's final battles were actually interesting, instead of being annoying distractions from nyx. in fact, i'd say takaya's new content is easily the best of the new reload exclusive material. in portable, he made no impression on me whatsoever, but now, he finally gets to be the anti!minato he deserves to be.

1.5. the tartarus (aka good part 2, electric boogaloo):

i have so many things to gush about in terms of the new combat/exploration system, i decided it needed its own section! the glow-up tartarus got was massive. i was pretty disappointed when i heard they were keeping it randomly generated, but somehow, atlus pulled it off! i'll talk about individual things below.

collectables/monad doors - one issue with OG tartarus is that it's monotonous. breakable collectables make it much more entertaining to romp through though, as smashing things is Fun. the monad doors interspersed throughout are another good addition - if you want a break from roaming, you can challenge them, but if not, that's fine!

floor layout - another thing that makes tartatus more fresh to explore is that the HD graphics really make the differences between the blocks pop out. the generally smaller floors with more unique layouts really helps too.

shifting - it's baton pass, though without the ridiculous power/sp bonuses that made baton pass a little bit too gamebreaking in persona 5. in other words, perfect!

theurgy - out of all the battle-specific improvements, theurgy and the personality traits have got to be my favourites. showtimes were fun, but too random/gimmicky to be that useful, and ultimate skills tended to fluctuate between being absolutely gamebreaking or too SP intensive to be worth using. blending them into one feature with a content-specific gauge fixes all the problems with them while keeping everything that made showtimes/ultimate skills good.

ambush mechanics - this was one of the things i was most worried about before playing reload. ambushing in P5 is fun, but ambushing in the other persona games...? not so much. reload manages to fix this though by making the shadows less sensitive, which makes the early game a lot better, and but introducing dash-ambushes once the floors get bigger. if the persona 6 ambush system works like this, i'll be happy.

navigator skills - fuuka being retooled to work more like a playable character was an A+++ decision. making her skills player-activated but with an SP cost is so much more immersive than randomly getting a stat boost/enemy info.

unfortunately, while i think most of the tartarus additions were great, there were a few new mechanics which weren't... dreadful, per say, but could have been implemented better.

great clocks - they're better than nothing, but quite frankly, i would have preferred it if benched units got 50% exp instead. they incentivise you to drop two units for a period of time, which is annoying, given i want to use everyone on my first playthrough. late game, great clocks are also a pain to summon, for reasons i'll talk about below.

twilight fragments - i think they're a neat idea in theory, but they need to be easier/more reliable to farm. once you finish off the bulk of your social links/elizabeth's requests, replenishing them becomes a nightmare, which is annoying because you need them for great clocks.

2. the mixed:

while reload did a lot of things right, as per above, there were some things that didn't quite hit the mark.

linked episodes - i'm gonna be blunt. anyone who thinks these are better than social links is smoking something. one thing i like about party member social links is that it gives them a subplot outside of the main story, focusing more on their mundane struggles as opposed to their supernatural ones. half of the linked episodes just develop the main plot more though (and really should have just been included in it), meaning the linked episode exclusive subplots are underbaked.

another problem is that some of the linked episodes are just... kinda badly written. ryoji's completely lacks his existential dread, akihiko's comes off as a poor attempt to make his arena behaviour less OOC, while shinjiro's... it feels like persona 5 writing, in the worst way possible. it's like atlus completely forgot that subtext is a thing that's Good, actually.

while I have been fairly critical of them so far though, there are a couple of linked episodes i liked. koromaru's actually worked with the format, given he's a dog, but the real winner here was takaya. i loved all of his. if linked episodes appear again, i'd rather they be locked to antagonists like him.

art direction- i'll say right now - the UI is fabulous, the model shaders are great, and tartarus looks fantastic. the environmental design on the whole though is a bit iffy - a lot of the environments didn't translate to the super HD very well, and the lighting sucks in general. i needed to turn down the brightness it was so eye-searing. the animation of the 2D cutscenes is also pretty mediocre, and while the 3D cutscenes tend to look better, they're held back by some of the character models looking a bit goofy (mitsuru's is probably the biggest offender). i also think they were too scared of making the sprites 'ugly', and therefore on the whole they're slightly less emotive than the ones in the older versions of the game, which is a pity.

3. the bad:

minato's social links - the vast majority of the minato-exclusive social links are just flat-out not great. serious props to the voice actors here, since they hard carried them. quite frankly, they're just... bland, except for maya's and suemitsu's, which. uh. have problems. on the topic of social links, while i'm happy the romance isn't mandatory anymore, i don't like how half the girls explicitly confess to you. i much prefer the more subtle vibes of the P5/P4 romantic options, as yeah, most of them can lead naturally into romance, but they don't make the MC feel like a harem anime protagonist (derogatory). it kinda brings to mind this twitter post; sometimes, subtlety is simply better.

the absence of shinji and ryoji's social links - i can live without saori, rio, and most of the new and improved SEES member social links, but this is where i draw the line. while shinji dying is better storytelling, just like with chidori, having the option to save him is also important. lock it behind new game plus, yes... but keep it. also, him priming kotone to support akihiko one he's gone is far better than him just flat-out telling minato that he's dying. ryoji's missing social link though is infinitely worse. where is his slowly mounting horror as he starts poking holes in his backstory? his desperation to validate that he's actually real? that he exists?! like yeah, it's nice that the linked episode doubled down on his bisexuality, but i'd rather keep the psychological breakdown aspects of it, y'know?

the difficulty - i started playing reload normal - the level i'd typically use for a blind run of a persona game - aaaaand swapped to hard the second i unlocked theurgy. even then though, the game was a cakewalk until january hit. while i love theurgy, the game is absolutely not scaled around it, especially since you can charge/concentrate them. doing that, you can easily rack up thousands of damage without even going ham with fusion. unfortunately, reload is just... really easy.

the plot's too faithful to the original - while reload added new content, it pretty much left the story untouched outside of the beach scene. that's... not good, as persona 3's narrative had some pretty big problems. the biggest issue is the unchanged pacing - the strega storyline really needed to start a month earlier, and ryoji needed an extra month to integrate with the characters due to his lack of social link. this is one of the things i'm explicitly docking a point for - reload still doesn't kick off until the yakushima arc, which is well over a third into the game.

despite my criticisms, i do want to note that my experience with reload was predominately positive. it's (extremely) sad that you still need to play portable to experience the full persona 3 story, but p3re is still a fantastic game, and has a lot of gameplay features i'd be delighted to see in persona 6.

that's all i've got to say for now - until next time!

#persona 3 #persona 3 reload #p3re #p3 reload #review tag

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blissents · 5 months

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Devlog #1

Hi hi! ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ I don't really post often, but I told myself that starting in 2024, I wanted to share what I've been working on! I'm a solo game dev who has been developing a game called Visionaries. It's a romance visual novel that explores grief and loss.

༺✧ STORY ✧༻

"Visionaries": Special individuals with the ability to look into the past. There are a select handful of Visionaries who can also see into the future.

"What happens after we die?" The age-old question with no definitive answer. Many have constructed their own complex theories and stories to try and explain this mystery.

~~~~~

Explore the world of Visionaries as you wake up in an unfamiliar room, unable to speak and move. You're faced with unusual people (who tend to bicker any opportunity they get) only to later discover that they are your assigned Visionaries. These Visionaries have only one task; they intend on looking into your memories.

What is the purpose of Visionaries existing, and why do they insist on looking into your mind?

If you want to read more about the progress I've made on Visionaries, please continue reading below the cut! ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ

༺✧ ART ✧༻

Most of my time has been spent working on the art! (I can't feel my hand) My main focus is to finish drawing all of the character sprites as well as finish rendering the backgrounds. I've already come up with all the designs and expressions for the characters, they just need to be rendered :,)

I still need to create their little character info sheets (I have no idea what the word is, haha), where you'll learn their names, ages, and all of that fun stuff ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ

Below are some of the sprites :-)

The first two are fully rendered, while the other three need to be finished :,)

As for backgrounds, I have 1 that is fully rendered and 3 that still need to be finished! I'll only be sharing 3/4 today since I'm unsure if I'll be including the one background in the demo.

To be honest, I struggled quite a bit when drawing the backgrounds D: There were a lot of things I envisioned, but unfortunately, I didn't know how to fully portray them. I had some trial and error while coming up with the original designs. That being said, I'm glad I was able to come up with something I felt satisfied with! I'm planning for the rest of the backgrounds to follow the red/brown colored theme as seen in the first photo ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ

Of course, there will be more backgrounds than the ones I'm currently showing! I already have some ideas/drafts for those, but they might change depending on the way the story plays out.

༺✧ WRITING ✧༻

So far, I've planned for the demo to have a little less than 9k words. I'm unsure if I'll keep it at 9k words, or if I'll expand it some more so that there will be more content in the demo :-) We'll see!

As for the overall game, there will be at least 2 routes. There will also be 2 romanceable options (one being he/him, the other being she/they). I'm still figuring out how I want to script all of this, so these aspects may change in the future!

The game will also have options where you can choose your pronouns and name!

Here's a small snippet of the script!

I wanted to show the dynamic between two of the characters :-)

༺✧ OTHER ✧༻

Besides writing and coding, I've been coming up with some ideas for the GUI! I don't have any current drafts of that to share, but I'll hopefully include them in a future devlog ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ I also have plans on creating the cover art for the game, cgs, more backgrounds, and possibly some promotional art (rip my hand, there's so much I need to draw (╥_╥))

I was thinking about composing the music for the game, but I realized I know absolutely nothing about music and wouldn't even know where to start if I had tried :,) So instead, I've compiled a list of some soundtracks and sound effects I might use! Hopefully, I can share that in the future once I've narrowed down which soundtracks I know I'll be using.

༺✧ CONCLUSION ✧༻

My overall goal is to release the demo sometime during this year! Because I'm doing everything myself (art, script, writing, etc.), it might take me a bit longer to get everything done. My apologies for that! (╥_╥)

Besides that, I really just want to start creating and sharing more of my art. Getting over the mental hurdle of being afraid to show my work is honestly pretty terrifying for me. I normally only share the things I create with close friends, but I think it's time to get over this fear of mine! ᕦ(ò_ó)ᕤ

I was able to make significant progress within these past few weeks since I'm currently on my winter break. Classes start back up soon, though, and I'm going to be internship-hunting as well as planning on a big move. I'm still going to try my best to juggle everything so that I can make even more progress on the game! ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ

At the end of the day, all of this is a fun little project I've always wanted to do. As a little kid, I absolutely loved playing VNs (and I still do!). Creating my own game felt like an unreachable goal, but with enough effort, I think it's something obtainable ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ I really just want to create something that others can enjoy!

As a side note, I have some plans to create a little blog (not even sure if it's considered a blog, haha) about the games I've played/want to play! That will be coming very soon!

Thank you to anyone who read this far! You have my eternal gratitude <3

~ bliss ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ

#VisionariesVN #devlog #visual novel #gamedev #game development #indie dev #developer #indie games #otome #amare #otome game #amare game #wip

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lunarwintyr · 6 months

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Chapter Summary;

Wednesday made her amends to Enid. But Enid wasn't the only person Wednesday hurt.

Second chapter of Don't Touch Me posted! This one is far more T rated but still just as angsty as the first one so I hope you enjoy. This chapter fully focuses on the complicated and very intense feelings between Yoko and Wednesday.

Author ramblings under the cut.

Love is special. And as someone who has lived through and experienced a huge variety of its permutations, I think one of my favorites is the kind of platonic love that's so intense it's basically another flavor of romance. Very much love in the queerplatonic sense.

That's what I wanted to draw on for Wednesday and Yoko here. They're two people who individually have a lot of issues, one moreso than the other maybe, but I also think they're somewhat uniquely suited to care for each other.

There's a quote a lot of tumblr loves that I kept in mind when writing this.

“Pylades: I’ll take care of you. Orestes: It’s rotten work. Pylades: Not to me. Not if it’s you.”

I think Wednesday and Yoko are great for this. Wednesday and Enid can take on that sort of energy, but I always feel like those two are more suited to pushing each other above and beyond and aren't quite -as- suited to helping each other through the slog.

Yoko and Wednesday though would be. And at first with this story, it's Yoko who first extends that hand, who first says "If the world does not want you, I will. I will walk with you."

but then later, once you get to the point in the timeline post-chapter one, the roles flip. Suddenly Yoko is the one holding onto anger and bitterness and isn't well, and it's Wednesday who weathers the storm and waits for her. It's Wednesday who says "Even if you won't let me I will do the hard work of loving you. I will let you bite me and drain your anger so you do not drown, because I love you."

maybe not so much in actual words but in their actions

anyway I love friendships like this, a relationship doesn't have to be romantic to be powerful, compelling, and beautiful, and so so so full of love. I hope you enjoy.

#fanfiction #wednesday #wenclair #technically #this chapter doesn't actually have a LOT of Wenclair #it is there and it's very obvious but the primary focus of this chapter #is Yoko and Wednesday's friendship

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megidoreyn · 5 months

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Hihi! For the ask meme, perhaps 4, 8 and 14?

Hey there! Aw, thank you for the questions! It's super rare to get asks like these, so it really made my day! 😇🙏

⭐️4. What defines your artistic style?

That's a good question!🤔 (Especially since I don't know how others might perceive my art!) Due to my own visual agnosia as well, it skews my perception of my own works... So I actually end up disliking the grand majority of the things I create tbh🤣 It's hard for me to become cognizant of any strengths due to the weaknesses being highlighted (in my skewed POV) sometimes! But from the comments I have kindly received before, I would say that my art is defined by: clean/polished lineart, round/"squishy" chibis, warm colors, and "an aura of softness/tenderness"! Truthfully, I would love to be known for having a well-rounded and versatile style! As in: switching from a dynamic + appealing full-body style to a charming chibi style with precision and confidence!💪 And in general: I'd like to be known for drawing handsome faces on full-body characters instead of only having a "cute" style tbh LOL

⭐️8. What is your favourite piece that you have done?

Oh man…For a self-critic, this is a tough yet great question too!!😂--There's usually elements of a picture I enjoy working on VS how the overall picture eventually turns out! But looking back at everything I've posted publicly so far on twitter from 2022-2023…I think it'd have to be these! ↓

And a special shout out to this Walter-Lucifer pseudo-fiend character turnaround sheet that started off as a "haha just messing around :^)" sketch but then quickly turned serious 2 days later LOL. I did like incorporating SMT4 Lucifer's Phase 2 wings on him, since the in-game design includes this gradient on the wings too. 😇🙏

⭐️14.What do you like drawing the most?

As a surprise to no one, my favorite thing to draw would be WalterJonathan---both the pairing and the individual characters LOL. There's actually a personal reason for this, but maybe that'll be a story for another time! Whether or not the majority of these (finished/ polished) sketches will ever see the light of day is also to be determined in the future...😂 Despite these canon Satan Husbands going through the many unspeakable horrors they suffer within base SMT4 + SMT4 Apoc's canon (and even the duology of the SMT4 manga's canon too!), I'll always prefer to draw them being sweet with each other...🥺 To at least give them a single soft moment of reprieve that they deserve...!😭🙏

↑ I also enjoy drawing the details of the SMT4 samurai coat/uniform! As well as other things and details like: 💙the SMT protags' COMPs + SMT4 Gauntlet 💙Clothing folds 💙Side profiles 💙Backside angles 💙Painting hair 💙Drawing hands 💙Dynamic chibis + dynamic body language in general (that convey a character's personality)

…and probably some more things I'm forgetting LOL.

💙↑ edit: I forgot how much I like sketching out Pokemon as quick warm-ups + other critters like the MOTHER/Earthbound Mr.Saturns too! It's good practice in understanding different shapes.

Again, thank you so much for the questions!🙏 It was fun to answer these!

⭐️⭐️⭐️It's still 12/31 here in my neck of the woods, so I wish you and everyone reading this a Happy New Year as well!

#askbox #shin megami tensei #megaten #walterjonathan #ワルヨナ #happy new year's everyone!!! I wish good luck and good health for everyone here! may all of your goals be accomplished as well!#I am forever a long-winded individual either for better or for worse LOL... despite this I hope it was an interesting read!#reposted some older pictures from 2022 here too...it's been a while since looking at them again LOL

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cjcraziness · 8 months

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Fe OC Week - Day 2 - Relationships and Friendships @fe-oc-week

Name: Regulus

Basic Info here and picture:

Regulus has Supports with ten individuals that are part of the Divine Dragon's Army (as well as with the Divine One), he has particularly close friendships with Boucheron and Lindon. He has 6 paired-endings (both romantic and platonic).

His two main relationships are with Boucheron or Ivy. (I prefer him with Boucheron the most)

Due to Regulus often seeming big-headed, brash and sometimes hyper-fixated on planning, strategy and his hobbies when people first meet him, he does struggle when making friends. Yet, as people get to know him they will see he does these things to help others, he is passionate about improving the lives of the people around him and in the future those of his Hometown and Country.

Boucheron

Boucheron and Regulus share a love of reading and the outdoors (although Regulus likes cold places). The Mage has a soft spot for romance and rom-com novels, which he usually hides under the covers of magic texts and has told no one, but Boucheron knows of this secret.

While Regulus isn't the biggest fan of hiking (not much for exercise) he does enjoy it with Boucheron and always ensures they have the area well-mapped out and the route is planned to a tee.

The two start a weekly Book Club where they spend time reading a (usually romance) novel in the Orchard together, it is just the two of them most of the time, though occasionally others will join them.

The two have unique mealtime dialogue mentioning this.

Dining with Boucheron:

Regulus - “Remember we have Book Club later, in the orchard. Do you want me to draw a map for you to get there again?”

Boucheron - "Oh, I'm pretty sure I can make it there on my own this time. But I'll remember to bring the book this time..."

Regulus also has unique dialogue if Boucheron died in battle.

If Boucheron died – “A gentle giant with a love of books... I’ll miss our reading sessions. But maybe not the tears. Goodbye, Boucheron.”

They have a romantic pair-ending together.

Ivy

Regulus bonds with Ivy over their shared views of Elusia, the want to rebuild and better their Country, problematic family and being against the Sombron doctrine. Regulus is rather amazed that the Crown Princess of the Country he holds dear regards him as someone with important opinions and not a simple Commoner.

Ivy is a bit exasperated by the fellow Mage at first, but they open up to one another and become close confidents. Regulus swears his loyalty to the Crown Princess and that he will do everything he his power to help his Country after the War.

In their spare time, they are both found wandering the Somniel gardens together with Regulus fussing how Ivy is not cold in her (definitely not winter) dresses.

Dining with Ivy:

Regulus - “I’m dining with the Crown Princess of Elusia! Is everything to your liking? Do you need anything, your Highness?”

Ivy - "Oh... Please calm down, Regulus... You should be more excited about the Divine One than myself."

Post Battle Exploration for Chapter 11 -

Regulus – “I am happy a member of Elusian Royalty has joined us. I hear Princess Ivy is a powerful Mage and will aid us well.”

They have a romantic pair-ending together.

Lindon

Regulus and the elthunder-obsessed Sage, Lindon, have much in common when it comes to a shared interest in magic and using it to do new things. The two do some experiments together, though Regulus is more theoretical and focussed on magic that could assist people, than the randomness Lindon usually causes.

Some of the others on the Somniel mention that the two should not be left alone together. Regulus sees the older Mage as a sort of mentor/ parent-like figure, one that encourages his magical abilities that he never got while at home.

The two have unique mealtime dialogue.

Dining with Lindon:

Regulus - “Please don't use elthunder on this meal, Lindon. I do not want a repeat of last time!”

Lindon - "But what about the effects it could cause? Where is your sense of magical adventure young Mage?"

Regulus also has unique dialogue if Lindon died in battle.

If Lindon died – “For all his magical prowess, it was not enough... But at least he will be reunited with his dear wife. I'm sorry, Lindon. I'll miss you.”

They have a platonic pair-ending together.

Other Close Friendships and Relationships

Regulus has close friendships with Alcryst and Zelkov (and the Divine One), and paired-ending with them both. Alcryst's is platonic while Zelkov's can be seen as romantic (not specified).

#fire emblem #fire emblem engage #fe engage #fe oc week #fe-oc-week #fe oc #fe engage oc #my oc #fe boucheron #fe lindon #fe ivy

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tallsc · 10 months

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Alright, I'm probably going to watch this multiple times and focus on each character individually at some point but for my first watchthrough I pulled up this post while watching and will send my thoughts/reactions, warning this will be very long

They just chilling on the couch this is so nice, Orange getting snacks :D

Wait I wonder how the time skip during Blue's walk with the piglins is gonna work? (Also Orange are you supposed to eat the melon I mean ig nothing's wrong with that)

AWW THEY WATCHING YELLOW DO HIS THING AWW Orange wants his drink tho let them refill the drink

RED'S HERE I WONDERED WHAT HE WAS DOING wait were those zombie spawn eggs did i remember that right

Yes yes they were okay welp, they got golems to help at least

Oh I forgot to pay attention to Blue's screen neat they didn't timeskip the walk they just walked through some smallish sections of biome

I love the fact that this whole time Red's just been causing chaos in the background and we never saw in the main thing, they're spawning rabbits now

GREEN LOOKED UP AT THE SAME TIME BLUE STARTED GETTING ATTACKED PFFFT they just looked at Yellow's computer tho, where's Orange and Red gone off to?

Oh Orange just got another drink and Red's playing with their rabbit

RED GOT TO SIT DOWN FOR A BIT YAY hang out with Yellow yes they friends this is nice

Oh we merged with canon now, Orange found the portal :D They timed Orange running through well with the music

BLUE'S SO SAD ABOUT THE NETHERWART NOOO but ah yes we get to see two Oranges on screen at once this is even more suspicious than the actual episode

Okay I have reached The Witch and can you just? Put a person/block in your inventory??? Is that how this works? Blue just runnin tho

Yellow why did you just start?? Eating grass??? Also Green's freaking out atm

Oh now Green's experimenting and Yellow's just vibing with his friends and Red's going on a swim and Blue has now gotten incredibly bored

I'm getting the sense Green's probably doing the same thing Blue is rn and is just taking a break after finishing his experimenting

Oh ig the witch is still carrying Blue cause Blue got startled when the witch jumped and started making zombie noises, they just went back to chilling tho

They started fighting and Blue started freaking out rip, they tripped and just stopped moving oh no

Oh hey wait Pig sorta noticed Green ALSO PFFT BLUE GOT FLIPPED UPSIDE DOWN

Just watching Blue trying so hard to get the Netherwart also Pig gets their own POV :D

Someone's gotta keep track of what Blue used to make all these potions at some point

PFFT THE MAIN FIGHT'S HAPPENING AND PIG'S JUST IN THE CORNER WITH THEIR OWN POV I WILL NOT GET OVER THIS also there was a scene I'm looking forward to seeing if they do an extra POV I'll get to that in a minute

They did not POV it :( I will forever be wondering why the other four took so long to get Red back into themselves and why Yellow was trying to feed Red a splash potion during the Blue/Witch 1-on-1, on the plus side we get Pig stealing all the potions

The CG are just watching and cheering as dyes XDD

OH PURPLE POV oh no the blue orchids :(

This is not something I originally thought of how it would be POVed but it would be incredibly funny if they had a side screen with the entire group just standing there while Orange goes through their nether flashback, they did not do that however

I have reached Parkour, seems pretty much like the regular episode for a while so imma skip ahead hopefully I don't miss anything, skipped to about the end of the splitting paths

Alright I am going to need to rewatch this bit a few times later, also I need to check if they actually all did get the times it said they got and if not who won

NOO ORANGE DROPPED THE TROPHY OFF THE EDGE I THINK also Yellow got strangled for a second there

Mango was tryna draw and told Purple to go away I feel ya I don't like people watching me draw either, yooo they do have a security camera station - huh Purple told them to rewind Yellow's footage I think

OH THAT POV TRANSITION WAS COOL

Aww that one piglin's just tired I'm gonna get attached to them and then they're gonna die :( Oh and I look to the side and Yellow's just hanging off a wall, I'm very much gonna have to rewatch these segments individually

NOO THE PIGLINS ARE SCARED and yellow's still hanging off the side of a wall okay finally he stopped

BLUE'S ON THE WALL NOW NOOO y'know i always did like thinking of them and yellow as twins

I keep catching glimpses of what's going on and I really need to see more of this NO ORANGE IS ON THE WALL TOO that was such a sarcastic wave you did there

Nooo the piglins :C they were sweet and now one of them is dead :C

Oh looks like Orange has found out his tactic everyone else is still going tho OH RED ALMOST GOT KILLED THERE THAT WAS A MURDER ATTEMPT

Yellow found out his thing too neat also another neat transition with Orange's and Red's frames

Green just suffering off to the side while everyone's all happy and meeting each other

HMMM DO I SENSE MORE LUSH CAVES CONTENT CAUSE THIS SEEMS LIKE I'LL BE ABLE TO USE THIS also how let's see how this Green POV goes

Oh wait it's Purple? No wait it's still Green

Ofc the cobwebs at the end of their inventories, also they're trying so hard with the beacons

Green's tryin their best, they look mad, but also that's gotta hurt

Purple what are you looking for??? You keep showing up???

They tried making entire beacons but that doesn't look the same as the other beam and they can't move it XDD

PURPLE'S BACK WHAT ARE YOU DOING

Pffft sideways/upside down beacon, also they had so much iron but no food welp

Green's POV is just sad

Orange looks so mad while they're walking

Oh Red looks tired now :( Orange still goin, I'm assuming it's gonna swap to the original episode soon now - yep here goes

Ah yes I do love the dramatic music notes as the camera pans to a pumpkin/melon farm

Did Green and Pig just like fall asleep? I haven't noticed any movement over there for a while

Ohhh the slow mo on the Lush Caves side when it slow mo-ed for Titan Ravager was interesting

GREEN'S AWAKE and suffering still STOP PUNCHING THE THING WITH YOUR FIST

OH PURPLE POV whatcha doin thereee ohhh the piglins to find the CG's nether portal

Neat we get to see a bit more of the castle through Green's perspective

Ohhh we're gonna get full fights for both of these imma have to watch this twice later

WAIT THE SYNCRONIZATION OF PURPLE AND GREEN'S LANDING THOUGH?? THAT WAS COOL

Huh it took a minute for the effect of the block being removed to reach the bastion

That is a speedy hoglin they goin

That is a speedier Orange

THE ANIMATION ON MANGO'S STAFF THOUGH

WAIT PURPLE'S SO UPSET AWWWWW also Blue's collecting so many arrows good on you Blue

Will definitely have to watch this part multiple times to focus on things individually

The animation on the icon block fight though is wonderful and how Mango legitimately does just go right back into battle after leaving Purple hurts me

They are just ignoring the note block animals to let the epic music finish XD Also this is gonna be so hard to watch oh nooooo another thing I'm gonna have to rewatch a ton

Okay they're letting the note block animals take over the sound for the most part now fair at least they let the epic music finish

Oh here comes the raid music I think OH NO THEY SPLIT UP AGAIN I FORGOT YELLOW SPLIT UP TOO THIS IS SO HARD TO WATCH

Wait are we gonna get full versions of all of Red's classes? Also Blue's just here building

WAIT ORANGE IS OVER LAVA ONE SEC LEMME REWIND A BIT HOW DID THEY GET THERE okay guess that didn't go straight to the ancient city

Yellow's just here working on the staff this might take a second - oh we swapped to Monster School and Warden music that's an interesting mix

Oh gosh the note blocks in the background too and neat we do get to see all classes

Yellow's outside now ig? Dunno how or when that happened they just doing a lot of stealth stuff

Villager training arc now and Green climbing up a mountain WAIT THEY ADDED ANOTHER POV FOR HEROBRINE AND MONSTERS SO MANY POVS

Alright they joined POVs again and enchanting looks cool as ever WAIT MORE WARDEN BACKSTORY I'm rewinding again to watch the warden flashback although the music does not fit with this

Yellow went on a whole stealth mission though like wow, Blue's just crafting still tho

MANGO POV MANGO POV WAIT WAIT THIS IS WHERE THE FLASHBACK HAPPENS???

Oh it's a speedy flashback tho

I just speedran watching Gold's death what the heck

Purple having a quiet dramatic story moment while I hear Red just being murdered in the background

How many slow-mo shots did they just align there??? I swear at least two of them were actually supposed to slow motion right there and a third fit pretty easily as a slow motion too

They didn't slow motion Skeleton being smug though XD

Wait Blue's POV vanished a bit ago when did that happen idk but too long ago for me to rewind

Whatever's going on at least there are less POVs and the Purple music mixed with the other soundtracks occasionally is still cool, weird seeing multiple of some characters at times tho

Blue's back and now Yellow's gone, also they aligned two of the slow motion shots again, neat

Alright Blue and Yellow are together again so there's no one person missing nice, AND THEY'RE ABOUT TO JOIN THE MAIN GROUP

Alright we're at two POVs now and Green's gonna join soon, curious how POVs are gonna work in this upcoming fight

Even with these extra POVs I still don't know where Red went after Yellow force staffed them away

ALRIGHT THE KING TIME

Scanning forward this actually looks relatively single-perspective so imma skip to the portions where there are multiple perspectives for ease of wanting to write this out

Hey wait in seeing all the destruction and stuff side by side, why didn't the village rift start in the sky? Everything else did

POVs merged again so gonna skip to where everyone is dying :DDDD

I do have to watch this whole thing as a whole at some point though bc it's so dramatic aaaAA

Nooo Purple and Mango just walking in their respective voids this is so sad wait

PURPLE'S SO SAD NOOO AND THE PETALS KEEP JUST SLOWLY FALLING

Purple looked up for a moment when Mango broke through but just went back to hiding noooo T-T

For some reason Green trying to catch themselves but their fishing rod breaking before they can always hits me that wasn't a new thing but it's always hit hard for some reason

Purple just getting to hug Mango by the time Orange gets to the portal awwwwww

Okay wait the overworld/nether shot of the beam of light is actually very cool

Only one music note for replacing the blocks heheheheh

That's pretty much it, whether I use this for theory or not this was fun and there are definitely parts I'm gonna rewatch later XD For anyone who read through all this uhhhh hope you enjoyed my rambling ig XD It was a lot but if you did read it all ty

#alan becker #animator vs animation #avm real time #reaction

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tomiyeee · 1 year

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how long does it take you to draw and colour? since you post everyday which is great for me :D any tips for colouring cause Im still tryna figure all that out

hmm welllll, i don't exactly time how long it takes to draw but my partner said that sometimes i'll be working on a piece when they go to sleep and i'll still be working on it when they wake up 7 hours later so...my guess is anywhere from 3-8 hours each depending on complexity? at least for the art that i normally post, most of which is relatively simple.

not entirely sure what kind of tips you were looking for, but i'll just throw out some of my thought processes and stuff i try to keep in mind whenever i color. i'm gonna try and keep these relatively to the point so i won't go into much detail on art terms n whatnot, BUT i am also pretty terrible at explaining things so if you need clarification on anything, feel free to ask!

(sorry it's so longggg, i got carried away. i am...very wordy when it comes to art lol)

i like to block in the colors during the sketching stage before i do the lineart, especially for pieces where i know i want to do something funky with the color palette. you can see this in a lot of my process shots. doing colors in the planning stage just gives me a lot more freedom to focus purely on the colors and shading and how they work with the composition, without having to worry about the minute details like making sure the colors are inside the lines.

in order to save time while coloring, i'll usually just select the negative space (after making sure all the lineart is closed) > expand selection by 1 pixel (to make sure the edges are hidden within the liineart) > invert selection > fill bucket, then use clipping layers above that to color individual areas.

layer modes are your friend! i use multiply, overlay, and glow dodge (this one may be specific to mangastudio?) in almost every one of my drawings, but it's definitely worth playing around with all of the modes just to familiarize yourself with them if you haven't already.

color is honestly SO subjective. i'm never a fan of color picking (from source material or my own refs or whatever) bc while it may have its uses when it comes to consistency, imo it's much more fun to make them up as i go. you get a lot more variety from piece to piece while also familiarizing yourself with the character's palette that way. usually i'll start by deciding on the overall mood/palette (cool/warm, de-saturated, neon, pastel, etc), filling in the background color, then picking the characters' colors based on that. like with this venti pic, i started with a purple background and based my colors around that purple so they all fit the specific look i was going for. i could maybe get a similar effect by starting with the normal colors and using filters, shading, layer modes, etc to get the funky colors, but it will be much harder/more work and doesn't get as drastic of an effect imo.

on that note, don't be afraid to use shades/colors that may seem odd! you'd be surprised how many times i've used gray in place of blue, orange, purple..basically any color. in the above example, you can see just how different the colors ended up being from the original. after i decide on my palette + bg color, i'll just throw down the color i think will work and then (bc that first guess is usually wrong and meant only as a ballpark estimate) see if it needs to be warmer or cooler/darker or lighter/more or less saturated/etc and adjust accordingly. it's like mixing paint or tuning an instrument! it takes a little bit of practice, but after a while you start to get the hang of what colors will look like in which color palettes. white is usually the easiest to start with bc it will always just be tinted whatever color your palette is (like how the "white" in the above example is just a light purple).

this and the next point are more about shading but i include it as part of the coloring process: the easiest way i've learned to do shading is to darken the entire image/character/part you want to shade (usually with a solid color multiply layer) then add in the lighting either by erasing parts of the multiply layer or by using a separate layer set to overlay or glow dodge (or a similar lightening layer mode). it works a lot better than drawing the shadows imo because it kind of mimics how light works in real life; things are dark by default until you let light in and it hits what it can while leaving the rest still dark.

if you want to blend shadows, i usually still use the above method, but just blur certain areas of it and when i'm deciding which parts to blur (bc i don't just do so indiscriminately) i'll mentally sort all of the shadows into 2 categories:

shadows created by light being blocked by an object: like putting your hand in front of a flashlight. these shadows will retain their sharp edge, but can transition into the 2nd category if they are far enough from the obstruction, like how your hand's shadow will become blurrier the further you move it from the flashlight. the more distance between a light source and the surface it's projecting onto, the more chances for the light to scatter = softer edges

shadows created by light "rolling" off the surface: like the shadows on a ball or rounded surface. these will get blurred and i usually like to put a little bit of color along the blurred edge (a different and usually brighter/more saturated color than the rest of the shadows) just to add some life to the shadows.

here's an annotated version of this mikey pic with just the shadows so it's a lot easier to see :) sorry im bad at annotating..

aaaand this post has probably gotten way longer than you were hoping for so i'll cut it off here 😭 hope this has been at least somewhat useful, and good luck with your art!

#ask #anon #tutorial

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