Category: Uncategorized

dorkery:

tanuki-kimono:

Gothic outfit, featuring a creepy kimono with moonlit skulls and bats (design by Rumi Rock, who offers custom colors)

Rumi Rock calls those obi “Gira heko” (dazzling soft obi), from the onomatopoeia giragira (blazzle/dazzle) which is a variation of kirakira (sparkle/glitter)

@nothingbutthedreams

genericblog:

writing-prompt-s:

Humans are one of the most feared species in the galaxy. Not due to superior strength,speed,skill or strategy. In fact, it’s because in comparison to the other species, humans are just batshit crazy enough to try any half-assed plan they come up with.

Ejoc cracked her knuckles in nervousness. Ever since the human crew members had begun to integrate into the system, things had been… interesting to say the least.

The humans had begun integrating with her people first, because biologically they were the most similar. Similar vocal abilities, similar eating patterns, kind of similar coloration even. They needed slightly less oxygen than the Stam people, so could survive just fine on their ships. Perhaps the biggest difference was the human’s short stature and ability to eat meat. And, of course, what appeared to be a near suicidal “survival” instinct.

Her first mate stumbled into the control room, bleary eyed and almost spilling his coffee more than once. Ejoc rubbed the back of her right hand nervously.

“Um, hello Marcus.” She said

Marcus looked up, his green eyes slightly creeping her out. “Oh. G’mornin ma’m. Sorry I’m late. I just got up.”

She stiffened. “You JUST got up? That is incredibly reckless. You are not nearly awake enough to…”

“Captain. Please. I know what I’m doing. I got through military school on coffee and lost dreams.”

Ejoc didn’t know how to respond to that. She stared at him as he took his place behind her seat. Two weeks and she still wasn’t used to this. He constantly made decisions that were reckless at best. Even with simple things such as amount of sleep. Why, in the goddesses’ name did she have to be assigned a human?

A few hours later they were flying through the Buelfe system when came an uncharted asteroid belt.

“We cannot make it, captain!” Cried one of the interns running a control panel. “We need to go another way!”

Hesitantly, the captain turned as her first mate coughed, in an extremely unsanitary and human way to get attention.

“Yes, Marcus Jackson?”

“Well, captain, I’m not sure I’d classify this particular asteroid belt as an obstacle.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well captain, with all due respect, the asteroid belt in the Sol system is much denser than this. Cadets at the Mars academy fly through it as a training exercise.”

Every eye in the room was now on the small pudgy human. A couple of people even let their mouths hang open.

Ejoc looked at him with some fear. “A training exercise, Jackson?”

Marcus looked confused. “Well, yes. It’s really not that difficult. If we don’t reroute, we can still get to Arthenia within the scheduled time frame. However, if we don’t, we’ll be late. And you and I both know how much Arthenians love tardy ambassadors.”

A million thoughts flooded through Ejoc’s brain in a fraction of a second. Humans. Reckless. Horrifying. Yet, they had evolved and built civilization from scratch in the time it took most species to invent tools. Three million years. That’s all it had taken. Three million years. An infant species, already exploring the stars.

A million more thoughts buzzed in the next fraction of a second. She remembered the admiral that had given her the “honor” of being the first Stam captain to see a partially human crew. “Trust them.” He had said. “They look unsettling. They are more reckless than children. But trust them. They know very well what limitations are.”

Ejoc looked forward with determination and gripped her seat as tightly as she dared.

“Do as he says. Find a suitable path.”

Marcus calmly stood as the ship weaved in between asteroids. Most of the other people were either furiously working at their stations or visibly holding back a scream.

He shared a look with the one other human crew member in the control room. An electrical maintenance engineer named Keisha. They both seemed to be thinking the same thing.

“What is up with these aliens and being afraid of everything?”

They made it through the asteroid field “obviously” according to every human anyone asked about it later. Afterwards, the captain was slightly more open to human crew member’s suggestions. Although she drew the line at alcohol. Why humans voluntarily ingested something that made their brain less functional she would never know.

writeblr-references:

I think the best piece of character design advice I ever received was actually from a band leadership camp I attended in june of 2017. 

the speaker there gave lots of advice for leaders—obviously, it was a leadership camp—but his saying about personality flaws struck me as useful for writers too. 

he said to us all “your curses are your blessings and your blessings are your curses” and went on to explain how because he was such a great speaker, it made him a terrible listener. he could give speeches for hours on end and inspire thousands of people, but as soon as someone wanted to talk to him one on one or vent to him, he struggled with it. 

he had us write down our greatest weakness and relate it to our biggest strength (mine being that I am far too emotional, but I’m gentle with others because I can understand their emotions), and the whole time people are sharing theirs, my mind was running wild with all my characters and their flaws.

previously, I had added flaws as an after thought, as in “this character seems too perfect. how can I make them not-like-that?” but that’s not how people or personalities work. for every human alive, their flaws and their strengths are directly related to each other. you can’t have one without the other.

is your character strong-willed? that can easily turn into stubbornness. is your character compassionate? maybe they give too many chances. are they loyal? then they’ll destroy the world for the people they love.

it works the other way around too: maybe your villain only hates the protagonist’s people because they love their own and just have a twisted sense of how to protect them. maybe your antagonist is arrogant, but they’ll be confident in everything they do.

tl;dr “your curses are your blessings, and your blessings are your curses” there is no such thing as a character flaw, just a strength that has been stretched too far.

cha-lii:

Okay, Zuko is undeniably the most developed and in depth character in Avatar but honestly I fucking love Sokka’s character development just as much if not more.

Sokka started out a sexist, cocky, weak, immature character–he constantly mocked Katara, wouldn’t accept the fact that the Kyoshi warriors were women far stronger than him, was constantly skeptical and pessimistic, couldn’t hold his own in a fight for a lot of the first season… He was honestly just quite a weak person.

But even as early as the Kyoshi episodes you begin to see how he’s not afraid to learn and change his perspective on things. Suki shows him that he’s not superior just because he’s male, and he comes to understand and accept that. He constantly praises and admires Toph, and never once calls her weak. He learns to stop being so protective over Suki, because he knows that she can take care of herself. He doesn’t once underestimate Azula, even though she’s a girl who’s two years younger than him.

He learns patience and strategy. His invasion plan was genius, his inventions are genius, he was able to tell when Azula was messing with him, Aang and Toph to buy time. He managed to orchestrate the first ever jail break out of the highest security prison in the fire nation. He’s really, really intelligent, and we got to see him learn to let go of his cockiness and ego so that he could utilise his intelligence and develop it.

And then there’s the fact that he’s just so caring underneath all the sarcasm and pessimism. He cared deeply for Yue, even though he only knew her for a matter of days, and her death haunted him to the point where he’s constantly afraid of losing the other people he loves- you can see the terror and guilt he feels when he finds out Azula captured Suki, and that he failed yet another woman he loves. He’s so kind and supportive to Aang, reassuring him when he begins to lose confidence and telling him how strong he is. And he’s so tender with Toph as well. Like when he was talking about Katara and his mother, and he was so open and honest and unashamed in telling Toph such personal truths. And in the entire finale you can see his protectiveness over her (still while not treating her as if she’s weak, just knowing he needs to look out for her because she’s at a disadvantage on the airships) when he’s constantly shielding her and catching her and holding her hand to make sure she doesn’t wander off. Also, there’s so many scenes throughout the show with him leading Toph and letting her hold onto him and I love these wee details so much. Also, one thing that stuck out to me in a recent rewatch was when he and Katara find out about their father’s location, and he immediately volunteers to stay behind and allow Katara to go find him instead. Even though he’s desperately missed his father, and everything that he’s done since they last saw each other was arguably to become strong enough to make his father proud – this just shows how selfless Sokka can actually be when it comes down to serious situations.

He was so quick to accommodate Zuko, and accept him into the group, maybe because he understands that people can change, and can become better. I wish we could’ve gotten more scenes with the two of them because their friendship is bloody great.

Sokka’s training with Master Piandao is one of my favourite episodes, because we see how Sokka has learned to balance his goofiness with his intelligence, we see how he’s learned to discipline himself, and how he really does want to become stronger. He takes this seriously, even if it doesn’t always seem like it.

Honestly I think Sokka is one of the most powerful members of the group, and he and Zuko are definitely the most developed characters in the show. Azula has always been one of my faves because of how her character turned out, but most of her development happened within the last 7 episodes, unlike Sokka and Zuko who have been changing and growing since episode 1.

Zuko is great, but so is Sokka.

batmanisagatewaydrug:

lemony-lilly-2:

batmanisagatewaydrug:

batmanisagatewaydrug:

batmanisagatewaydrug:

oh my god….. bioluminescent dwarfs 

okay so

dwarfs evolved in deep subterranean societies, and it shows. their eyesight is shit; their skin is intensely sensitive to the sun. the first human diplomats to come in contact with them mistakenly labeled the dwarfs a war-like people because they were so seldom seen without layers of protective clothing; it was a while before anyone realized that dwarven skin just burns easily and needs to be kept safe under layers.

due to their tendency to stay covered up when aboveground, it was longer much longer before anyone found out that dwarfs also glow.

they’ve since developed much fancier ways of keeping track of each other down in the tunnels, of course, but there’s this fun little holdover, stripes of faint blue or green (think of the way veins look on pale humans) swirling over their entire bodies, each dwarf boasting a pattern that’s entirely unique.

topside they look like nothing more than interesting or possibly puzzling tattoos – why did you need that stripe crossing right over your eye like that? – but get them down in a cavern, let them shed their protective suits, and marvel. they live and work down in the deepest levels, where humans can’t see their own hands in front of themselves but can sure as hell see the familiar lines of their dwarf buddies, shining to show them the way.

or, okay, if we do want to get into fighty dwarfs

nighttime is fine; as soon as the sun goes down they’re free to remove their heavy protective suits (dwarfs going sleeveless to let their skin glow)

and, thus unencumbered, surround their enemies’ little campsite

and the last thing anyone sees before everything goes to hell are ghostly blue and green swirls floating through the night

jesus crust makenzie this is horrifying and i love it

good